World Socialism and Erosion of Sovereignty

“I began to watch the overseas press with a morbid fascination punctuated by bursts of outrage. The things that were being said about America and Americans were marked by an off-the-charts level of venom, a scandalous parade of mistaken assumptions, an endless font of suspicion, mistrust, and the promulgation of outright, willful lies. The viciousness of commentary on America was breathtaking.”
-John Gibson, in his 2004 book Hating America : The New World Sport

“I believe that our Great Maker is preparing the world, in His own good time, to become one nation, speaking one language, and when armies and navies will be no longer required.”
-Ulysses S. Grant, 1873-Mar-4, second inaugural address

“The fact is, subpoena power does not reach into foreign countries, or into international institutions.”
-Paul Volcker, 2005-Feb-3, UN Oil for Food investigation report presentation

“Everyone has the right to a standard of living adequate for the health and well-being of himself and of his family, including food, clothing, housing and medical care and necessary social services, and the right to security in the event of unemployment, sickness, disability, widowhood, old age or other lack of livelihood in circumstances beyond his control.”
-Article 25 of the United Nations 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights

“These rights and freedoms may in no case be exercised contrary to the purposes and principles of the United Nations.”
-Article 29 of the United Nations 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights

Who pays for this? In socialism/communism, those who have more, are robbed, so that those who have less, can have more. From each as he can, to each as he needs. Marxism has nothing to do with the justice envisioned by America's founding fathers. It is theologized gangsterism.

"If reforms are to succeed we must convince the middle class that supporting new powers for the UN is a patriotic duty, to save his country from natural disasters [...] We must promote a 'Lincolnesque' view [...] the world cannot long endure half-poor and half rich [...] hunger in Africa and poverty in Russia are as important a problem for America and other industrial nations as highways and bridges."
-attributed to a speaker at Bilderberg 1996

"[I]f the communist dynamic were greatly abated, the West might well lose whatever incentive it had for world government."
-MIT Professor (now emeritus) Lincoln P. Bloomfield (CFR) (linc37@AOL.COM), from "A World Effectively Controlled by the United Nations" under a contract (No. SCC 28270) with the U.S. State Department.

Whether Bloomfield meant the communist dynamic to be understood as an external enemy prompting consolidation of non-communist nations in the West for the purpose of defense, or as a trend internal to Western nations consistent with the drive toward world government, is not clear from the above quote. In either case, the inevitable conclusion (if one accepts Bloomfield's thesis) is that world government proponents are also proponents of communism, either at home, or the world over.

Read The Saddam Oil Vouchers Affair, 2004-Feb-20, Middle East Media Research Institute Inquiry and Analysis Series No. 164, for the grubby details of who was in bed with Saddam Hussein's regime. This has mushroomed into the “Oil for Food scandal”, and appears to be the biggest scandal in human history.

from Fox News, 2009-Nov-30, by George Russell:

Document Reveals U.N.'s Goal of Becoming Rule-Maker in Global Environmental Talks

Environmentalism should be regarded on the same level with religion "as the only compelling, value-based narrative available to humanity," according to a paper written two years ago to influence the future strategy of the United Nations Environmental Program (UNEP), the world's would-be environmental watchdog.

The purpose of the paper, put together after an unpublicized day-long session in Switzerland by some of the world's top environmental bureaucrats: to argue for a new and unprecedented effort to move environmental concerns to "the center of political and economic decision-making" around the world — and perhaps not coincidentally, expand the influence and reach of UNEP at the tables of world power, as a rule-maker and potential supervisor of the New Environmental Order.

The positions argued in that paper now appear to be much closer at hand; many of them are embedded in a four-year strategy document for UNEP taking effect next year, in the immediate wake of the much-touted, 11-day Copenhagen conference on "climate change," which starts on Dec. 7, and which is intended to push environmental concerns to a new crescendo.

The major difference is that the four-year UNEP plan expresses its aims in the carefully soporific language that U.N. organizations customarily use to swaddle their objectives. The Swiss document makes its case passionately — and more important, plainly — than any U.N. official document ever would.

The ambitious paper, entitled "The UNEP That We Want," was the product of a select group of 20 top environmental bureaucrats and thinkers, including UNEP's current No. 2 official, Angela Cropper. The document was later delivered to UNEP Executive Director Achim Steiner.

Other participants included Janos Pasztor, currently head of the team pushing U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon's unprecedented Seal the Deal lobbying campaign to pressure U.N. member governments into signing a new environmental agreement at Copenhagen; Julia Marton-Lefevre, head of the World Conservation Union; Dominic Waughray, currently head of environmental initiatives at the World Economic Forum; and Maria Ivanova, a Bulgarian academic who is director of the Global Economic Governance Project at the Yale Center for Environmental Law and Policy.

Another important attendee was John Scanlon, listed on UNEP's website as principal advisor to UNEP's Steiner. Among other things, Scanlon is credited in his UNEP biography with being the leader in developing UNEP's new medium-term strategy, "Environment for Development," covering the period from 2010 to 2013. The draft version of the strategy was presented to a UNEP's Governing Council and a meeting of the world's environmental minister's in February 2008, and subsequently approved.

The Swiss paper was written not by Scanlon but by Mark Halle, the Europe-based director of trade and investment for an influential environmental think-tank, the International Institute for Sustainable Development (IISD), which originated in Canada and now operates in some 30 countries. IISD, which still has heavy Canadian government support, bills itself as a research institute promoting policies that are "simultaneously beneficial to the global economy, the global environment and to social well-being."

Even though all of the Swiss participants took part in the brainstorming, the responsibility for the ideas in the paper are his own, Halle emphasized to Fox News, after he was contacted last week about the document. The paper itself says it offers "elements," not a "complete offering," of what UNEP should consider for its role in the years ahead.

Despite those limitations, the report was "very well received" by UNEP's hierarchy, according to Halle, and "it has had a great impact internally." He added, "I have participated in several discussions and presentations of the ideas."

Click here to read Halle's document.

In fact, there is a high degree of overlap between the ideas pulled together at the small Swiss meeting of experts and the ideas that also appear in the new strategic plan for UNEP, a copy of which has been obtained by Fox News.

Click here to read the UNEP four-year strategy.

Those ideas are being espoused at a highly charged time. Both environmentalists and the entire United Nations, led by Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, are still fervently pressuring governments around the world to sign a legally binding and more global successor to the Kyoto Protocol on greenhouse gas suppression, which expires in 2012. At the moment, that deal appears likely to be delayed, at least until next spring, as some wealthy countries, including the U.S., balk at the high cost and potentially crippling economic impact of targets to reduce carbon emissions into the earth's atmosphere, even though President Barack Obama supports an ambitious Copenhagen deal.

But UNEP's strategic plan, as well as the IISD document that grew out of the Swiss gathering, look well beyond the horizon of Copenhagen in suggesting the outlines of the world's environment-centered future, to what the strategic plan calls "the next phase in the evolution of UNEP."

Among other things, both documents argue for:

—a "new and central position for environmentalism in the world's thinking," as the Swiss paper puts it. "The current environmental challenges and opportunities will cause the environment to move from often being considered as a marginal issue at the intergovernmental and national levels to the centre of political and economic decision-making," says the medium-term plan.

—a new position in the international power game for UNEP, reaching far beyond the member governments that currently finance its core budget and make up its normal supervisors. "It will have to make itself relevant well beyond the world of those already concerned with the environment, including very prominently its own formal constituency," as the Swiss paper puts it.

UNEP will "actively reach out to Governments, other United Nations entities, international institutions, multilateral environmental agreement secretariats, civil society, the private sector and other relevant partners to implement the Medium-term Strategy," says the UNEP document.

—a major restructuring of international institutions to merge environmental issues with economics as the central priority. "We require an Environmental Bretton Woods for the 21st Century," Halle argues — a reference to the meeting that laid the foundations of Western international finance and economic regulation after World War II. "The linkages between environmental sustainability and the economy will emerge as a key focus for public policymaking and a determinant of future markets opportunities," according to the UNEP strategic plan.

—new environmental rules, regulations and standards, and the linking of existing environmental agreements, in a stronger global lattice-work of environmental law, with stronger authority to command national governments. The Swiss paper calls it a series of "ambitious yet incremental adjustments" to international environmental governance. Indeed, the document says, UNEP's "role is to 'tee up' the next generation of such rules."

The UNEP four-year strategy puts it more obliquely, and only in a footnote on page 7 of the document: "UNEP will actively participate in the continuing international environmental governance discussions both within and outside the United Nations system, noting the repeated calls to strengthen UNEP, including its financial base, and the 'evolutionary nature of strengthening international environmental governance.'"

—an extensive propagandizing role for UNEP that reaches beyond its member governments and traditional environmental institutions to "children and youth" as well as business and political groups, to support UNEP strategic objectives.

As the Swiss paper puts it, UNEP "should pioneer a new style of work. This requires going beyond a narrow interpretation of UNEP's stakeholders as comprising its member states — or even the world's governments — and recruiting a far wider community of support, in civil society, the academic world and the private sector." At the same time the paper warns that these groups need to be "harnessed to the UNEP mission without appearing to make an end-run around the member governments."

The official four-year plan uses more restrained language in declaring that "civil society, including children and youth, and the private sector will be reached through tailor-made outreach products and campaigns.... Civil society will also be engaged to assist with UNEP outreach efforts." (The term "civil society," as used by the U.N., usually refers to organizations and associations that have received formal recognition from one branch or another of the sprawling world organization.)

—along with increased political leverage for UNEP, bringing increased financial leverage to its cause, once again by reaching beyond the national environmental ministries that traditionally are the organization's financial base to more powerful sectors of government as well as business and other interest groups that will see profit and advantage in the new, environment centered approach.

Says the Swiss paper: "UNEP must focus on priorities that meet two characteristics: they should appeal to the more powerful [government] ministers responsible for economic policy; and they should empower environmental ministers at the cabinet table. UNEP's message is not for environment ministers — the already converted.... It must aim higher."

As UNEP's four-year strategy more circumspectly puts it: "Mobilizing sufficient finance to meet environmental challenges, including climate change, extends well beyond global mechanisms negotiated under conventions. It will require efforts at local, national and global levels to engage with Governments and the private sector to achieve the necessary additional investment and financial flows."

As far as UNEP itself is concerned, the document says, the organization "will raise contributions from the private sector, foundations and non-environmental funding windows…Funds will also be drawn from humanitarian, crisis and peacebuilding instruments, where appropriate."

—Perhaps the most important function both documents see for the newly enhanced UNEP is to seek influence as the world's guiding arbiter of a new measurement of human development. "We believe the environmental argument should be recast in terms of its importance for and potential contribution to prosperity, stability and equity," the Swiss paper argues.

Or, more discreetly, as the strategy document puts it: "Integrated environmental assessments that highlight the state of the environment and trends will be used to inform decision-makers and ensure UNEP plays its lead environmental role in the United Nations system and strengthens its capacity to respond better to the global, regional and national needs of Governments."

According to Halle, however, in an e-mail exchange with Fox News, there are signs that the hugely ambitious role he and his fellow-thinkers sketched for UNEP as religion's main competitor are "beginning to happen." Halle pointed to UNEP's espousal this year of a so-called Green Economy Initiative, a proposal to radically redesign the global economy and transfer trillions of dollars in investment to the world's poorest developing countries, but one that is couched in terms of providing new green jobs, an end to old, unfair carbon-based energy subsidies, and greater global fairness and opportunity. Halle called the development "quite exciting."

The Green Economy Initiative, also called the Global Green New Deal, is a major counterpart to the new treaty on greenhouse gas suppression that all branches of the United Nations, and a horde of environmental organizations, are lobbying loudly to bring to agreement at the environmental summit in Copenhagen.

It is certain to remain a UNEP rallying cry long after the Copenhagen meeting is over — and while the other brainstorming ideas that went into the new four-year strategy, not to mention the strategy itself, go into effect.

George Russell is executive editor of Fox News.

from the Washington Post, 2009-Dec-11, by letters@charleskrauthammer.comCharles Krauthammer:

The new socialism

In the 1970s and early '80s, having seized control of the U.N. apparatus (by power of numbers), Third World countries decided to cash in. OPEC was pulling off the greatest wealth transfer from rich to poor in history. Why not them? So in grand U.N. declarations and conferences, they began calling for a "New International Economic Order." The NIEO's essential demand was simple: to transfer fantastic chunks of wealth from the industrialized West to the Third World.

On what grounds? In the name of equality -- wealth redistribution via global socialism -- with a dose of post-colonial reparations thrown in.

The idea of essentially taxing hardworking citizens of the democracies to fill the treasuries of Third World kleptocracies went nowhere, thanks mainly to Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher (and the debt crisis of the early '80s). They put a stake through the enterprise.

But such dreams never die. The raid on the Western treasuries is on again, but today with a new rationale to fit current ideological fashion. With socialism dead, the gigantic heist is now proposed as a sacred service of the newest religion: environmentalism.

One of the major goals of the Copenhagen climate summit is another NIEO shakedown: the transfer of hundreds of billions from the industrial West to the Third World to save the planet by, for example, planting green industries in the tristes tropiques.

Politically it's an idea of genius, engaging at once every left-wing erogenous zone: rich man's guilt, post-colonial guilt, environmental guilt. But the idea of shaking down the industrial democracies in the name of the environment thrives not just in the refined internationalist precincts of Copenhagen. It thrives on the national scale, too.

On the day Copenhagen opened, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency claimed jurisdiction over the regulation of carbon emissions by declaring them an "endangerment" to human health.

Since we operate an overwhelmingly carbon-based economy, the EPA will be regulating practically everything. No institution that emits more than 250 tons of CO2 a year will fall outside EPA control. This means more than a million building complexes, hospitals, plants, schools, businesses and similar enterprises. (The EPA proposes regulating emissions only above 25,000 tons, but it has no such authority.) Not since the creation of the Internal Revenue Service has a federal agency been given more intrusive power over every aspect of economic life.

This naked assertion of vast executive power in the name of the environment is the perfect fulfillment of the prediction of Czech President (and economist) Vaclav Klaus that environmentalism is becoming the new socialism, i.e., the totemic ideal in the name of which government seizes the commanding heights of the economy and society.

Socialism having failed so spectacularly, the left was adrift until it struck upon a brilliant gambit: metamorphosis from red to green. The cultural elites went straight from the memorial service for socialism to the altar of the environment. The objective is the same: highly centralized power given to the best and the brightest, the new class of experts, managers and technocrats. This time, however, the alleged justification is not abolishing oppression and inequality but saving the planet.

Not everyone is pleased with the coming New Carbon-Free International Order. When the Obama administration signaled (in a gesture to Copenhagen) a U.S. commitment to major cuts in carbon emissions, Democratic Sen. Jim Webb wrote the president protesting that he lacks the authority to do so unilaterally. That requires congressional concurrence by legislation or treaty.

With the Senate blocking President Obama's cap-and-trade carbon legislation, the EPA coup d'etat served as the administration's loud response to Webb: The hell we can't. With this EPA "endangerment" finding, we can do as we wish with carbon. Either the Senate passes cap-and-trade, or the EPA will impose even more draconian measures: all cap, no trade.

Forget for a moment the economic effects of severe carbon chastity. There's the matter of constitutional decency. If you want to revolutionize society -- as will drastic carbon regulation and taxation in an energy economy that is 85 percent carbon-based -- you do it through Congress reflecting popular will. Not by administrative fiat of EPA bureaucrats.

Congress should not just resist this executive overreaching, but trump it: Amend clean-air laws and restore their original intent by excluding CO2 from EPA control and reserving that power for Congress and future legislation.

Do it now. Do it soon. Because Big Brother isn't lurking in CIA cloak. He's knocking on your door, smiling under an EPA cap.

from the Wall Street Journal, 2009-Dec-16:

The Copenhagen Shakedown
Developing countries understand the real costs of climate change.

The U.N. climate-change conference in Copenhagen was supposed to be the moment when the world came together to save us from an excess of carbon dioxide. Like all such confabs, it's coming down instead to cold, hard cash.

On Monday, the so-called G-77—in effect, the Third World—walked out of the talks for several hours in protest of the unwillingness, as they saw it, of rich countries to foot the bill for averting or mitigating climate catastrophe in the developing world. The negotiations have since resumed, but with the most difficult questions set aside and expectations lower than ever.

More than anything else, Monday's walkout revealed the real reason that the developing world is in Copenhagen in the first place: They see climate change as a potential foreign-aid bonanza, and they are at the table to leverage the West's environmental angst into massive transfers of wealth.

In theory, the money is supposed to help poor countries pay for their transition to a carbon-neutral future. But the developed world has been pouring trillions of dollars into development aid in various forms for decades, with little to show for it. The reasons are well-known: Corruption, political oppression, government control of the economy and the absence of rule of law combine to keep poor countries poor. And those factors also ensure that most aid is squandered or skimmed off the top.Recasting foreign aid as "climate mitigation" won't change any of that.

Still, Copenhagen's fixation on who pays for these huge wealth transfers is instructive because it lays bare the myth that greening the global economy is a cost-free exercise. The G-77 scoffed at a European offer of €7.2 billion ($10 billion) over three years. Instead, the Sudanese chairman of the group, Lumumba Stanislaus Di-Aping, suggested in an interview with Mother Jones magazine that something on the order of a trillion dollars, or more, would be appropriate.

"The world's scientists and policy decision makers have publicly stated that this is the greatest risk humanity has ever faced," says Mr. Di-Aping. "Now if that's the case, it's very strange that $10 billion is considered adequate financing." Mr. Di-Aping deserves credit for taking the climate alarmists on their own terms and drawing consistent conclusions.

Dennis Meadows, one of the authors of the Malthusian 1972 classic "The Limits to Growth," also served up some climate honesty in a recent interview with Der Spiegel. "I lived long enough in a country like Afghanistan to know that I don't want us to have to live like that in the future. But we have to learn to live a life that allows for fulfillment and development, with the CO2 emissions of Afghanistan." Mr. Meadows's chilling corollary: "If you want everyone to have the full potential of mobility, adequate food and self-development, then . . . one or two billion" people is about all the population the planet can sustain.

Given that the world's population is now about 6.8 billion people, that's not likely to happen. Nor is the developed world about to reinvent itself as a greener version of Afghanistan, much less fork over trillions of dollars to avert the supposed catastrophe it has done so much to trumpet. If the summit at Copenhagen achieves nothing else but to expose the disconnect between climate alarm and climate "solutions," it may even be worth it.

from Commentary Magazine's Contentions blog, 2010-Feb-14, by Evelyn Gordon:

The Voiceless Victims

In Friday's post, I noted that due to their warped focus, Israeli human-rights organizations are increasingly leaving real victims voiceless. But the damage is incomparably greater when major international organizations do the same. To appreciate just how badly groups such as Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch have betrayed those who need them most, everyone should read Nicholas Kristof's devastating recent articles on Congo in the New York Times (see, for instance, here and here).

The civil war in Congo, Kristof writes, has claimed almost seven million lives over the last dozen years. It has also created a whole new vocabulary to describe the other horrific abuses it has generated – such as “autocannibalism,” which is when militiamen cut flesh from living victims and force the victims to eat it, or “re-rape,” which applies to women and girls who are raped anew every time militiamen visit their town.

Yet the world rarely hears about Congo — because groups such as Amnesty and HRW have left the victims largely voiceless, preferring instead to focus on far less serious abuses in developed countries, where gathering information is easier.

Neither Amnesty nor HRW has issued a single press release or report on Congo so far this year, according to their web sites. Yet HRW found time to issue two statements criticizing Israel and 12 criticizing the U.S.; Amnesty issued 11 on Israel and 15 on the U.S. To its credit, HRW did cover Congo fairly extensively in 2009. But Amnesty's imbalance was egregious: For all of 2009, its web site lists exactly one statement on Congo — even as the group found time and energy to issue 62 statements critical of Israel.

By any objective standard, of course, there is no comparison in the scope of the violations. Even if you accept all the Goldstone Report's worst slanders against Israel as gospel truth, none of them remotely compares to the kind of atrocities Congo's victims describe – such as experienced by the young woman who told Kristof that after Hutu militiamen tied up her uncle, “they cut off his hands, gouged out his eyes, cut off his feet, cut off his sex organs and left him like that.” Nor is this exceptional: such stories are routine.

The same holds for the death toll. The highest estimate of Palestinian fatalities in last year's Gaza war is just over 1,400; for the rest of the year combined, Palestinian fatalities numbered around 115, according to the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian affairs. By contrast, the death toll in Congo is around 45,000 a month — every month.

Human-rights organizations clearly should not ignore genuine violations in developed countries, but they do need to maintain a sense of proportion. Instead, the relative frequency of their press releases paints countries such as Israel and the U.S. as the world's worst human rights violators. The result is that the real worst abuses, like those in Congo, remain largely below the public's radar. And so the victims continue to suffer in unheard agony.

from Ha'aretz, 2010-Mar-16, by Moshe Arens:

Israel doesn't need to grovel for U.S. forgiveness

So sorry! Very sorry! Very, very sorry! We apologize! This will never happen again! The prime minister, cabinet members and senior bureaucrats repeated this over and over again last week in an attempt to set right what seemed to them to have been a major blunder, one they thought had spoiled what should have been a dramatic goodwill visit by the vice president of the United States, Joe Biden. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu might have been humming "I'm just a soul whose intentions are good, Oh Lord, please don't let me be misunderstood," while he sat waiting for the arrival of Biden, who vented his anger over what he considered an insult by being deliberately late for dinner.

The government's critics in the media had a field day. According to them the decision by the Jerusalem District Planning and Building Committee to approve plans for putting up additional houses in the Ramat Shlomo neighborhood, just as Biden was arriving in the country, was ruining relations between the United States and Israel and causing irreparable damage to strategic cooperation between the two countries. Listening to them, one might have thought that if some years from now historians try to determine why the U.S. administration did not take any effective action to prevent the Iranians from acquiring nuclear weapons, they will find that the responsibility lay on the shoulders of a minor Israeli civil servant who set the agenda of a local planning committee for that fateful day.

Since it was well known in Washington that the Netanyahu government had not frozen building activity in Jerusalem, and that therefore not only construction there was continuing but also the routine planning activities that precede construction, the blame was now being put on the "timing." Presumably, if the planning committee had held its session a few days before Biden's arrival there would not have been a problem. Or, had it met a few days after Biden's departure and he left here under the impression that planning activities had been suspended in Jerusalem, only to find out differently on his arrival in Washington, there would have been nothing to get excited about.

"Timing" is important when investing in the stock market, but it is of little relevance here. There is no substitute for the truth when dealing with friends and allies. And the truth in this case is that while the Israeli government has frozen construction in Judea and Samaria for 10 months, there has been no such freeze in any part of Jerusalem, and certainly no holdup of planning procedures. There was no need for all this groveling by Israeli spokesmen. On the subject of Jerusalem, the government of Israel and the administration in Washington simply disagree.

Throughout the U.S.-Israeli relationship there have been disagreements on certain issues. They are inevitable, even among the best of friends. But generally, the disagreements have not been taken public, but have been discussed in confidential exchanges between representatives of the two governments. U.S. President Barack Obama, however, has taken a new approach, which he signaled at his speech last June in Cairo, where he publicly called on Israel to stop settlement activity.

The rationale of this approach was presumably to accelerate the negotiations between Israel and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas. But what the Americans must be finding out to their chagrin is that this approach is actually making it more difficult, if not impossible, for Abbas to come to the negotiating table. Whereas in the past he negotiated with Israel while settlement activity continued, without setting prior conditions, Obama's Cairo speech left Abbas no choice but to demand the cessation of settlement activity in Judea and Samaria as a condition for entering negotiations. After all, he cannot be less Palestinian than Obama.

Now, after the statements made by Biden in Israel, followed by Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's public rebuke of Netanyahu, he will demand the cessation of construction in Jerusalem, and possibly even the freezing of all planning activity regarding future construction as a condition for beginning negotiations with Israel. As the saying goes, "why make it difficult, when with a little effort you can make it impossible?" This is hardly the way to advance the peace process.

from Commentary Magazine's Contentions blog, 2010-Feb-26, by Evelyn Gordon:

Targeting Israel, Hitting Palestinians

A ruling by the European Union's highest court yesterday is a perfect example of the law of unintended consequences. The court ruled that the EU's free trade agreement with Israel does not apply to the West Bank, and therefore, goods made by Israeli firms in the West Bank are subject to EU import taxes.

Legally speaking, it's hard to quarrel with the ruling: even Israeli law doesn't view the West Bank as Israeli, as it does East Jerusalem and the Golan Heights. But for years, European countries ignored this detail and exempted Israeli firms in the territories from import duties. What has changed is not the law but the politics: seeking to persuade Israelis that “the occupation” doesn't pay, EU countries recently began taxing such imports. A German importer then sued his country's tax authorities, prompting yesterday's verdict.

But as the Associated Press noted, the biggest victims may well be not Israelis but Palestinians. Many Israeli firms moved to the West Bank because they could export to the EU duty-free while also benefiting from cheaper Palestinian labor. Thus, if the new import taxes lower these firms' profits, hundreds of Palestinians could lose their jobs. And because “Palestinians are largely barred from working in Israel and have few job opportunities in the Palestinian-controlled areas of the West Bank, jobs in settlement factories are sought after.”

Moreover, European efforts to tax these companies have already persuaded some to move back to Israel, and yesterday's ruling is likely to accelerate the trend. That would throw thousands of Palestinians out of work — while benefiting the unemployed Israelis such firms would have to hire instead.

Europeans are obviously entitled to put principle above the consequences for Palestinian employment; countries make such decisions all the time. But the fact remains that once again, the biggest victims of efforts to advance the “peace process” will be ordinary Palestinians.

Thousands of Gazans, for instance, used to work for Israeli firms in the Erez industrial zone on the Israel-Gaza border. Today, Erez is a ghost town with no prospect of ever reopening: having withdrawn from Gaza, Israel could no longer protect these firms, and the Palestinians would not.

Moreover, tens of thousands of Palestinians used to work inside Israel; today, almost none do. The second intifada made a massive flow of Palestinians into Israel too risky, and Israelis felt no obligation to employ residents of a state-in-the-making that was waging nonstop physical and diplomatic warfare against them. The Palestinians, after all, cannot simultaneously demand independence from Israel and jobs inside Israel. The result is unemployment that now totals 18 percent in the West Bank and 39 percent in Gaza.

Israel is the region's strongest economy; it will be years before the Palestinian Authority can match its employment capacity. So unless those who favor Palestinian statehood think that massive unemployment somehow contributes to this goal, they ought to be encouraging Israeli firms to hire Palestinians. Instead, Palestinian terror and international pressure have steadily combined to do the opposite.

If that sounds counterproductive, it is. Unfortunately, the EU clearly doesn't get it.

from Commentary Magazine's Contentions blog, 2010-Jan-18, by Jennifer Rubin:

Humility Isn't in the Obami Repertoire

Elliott Abrams sums up the mess that is the result of a year of the Obami's “smart” Mideast policy:

So the Obama administration's Middle East adventures in 2009 came to a close with Netanyahu, whom the administration has never much liked or treated well, stronger politically; and Abbas, whom the administration wished to strengthen, weaker and talking of retirement. In Arab capitals the failure of the United States to stop Iran's nuclear program is understood as American weakness in the struggle for dominance in the Middle East, making additional cooperation from Arab leaders on Israeli-Palestinian issues even less likely. A strongly pro-American former Israeli official shook his head as he evaluated the Obama record in 2009: “This is what happens when -arrogance and clumsiness come together.”

While George Mitchell prattles on about a time limit on peace negotiations that have no starting point, no attendees, and no hope of success, Abrams suggests there is another way: forget the “peace process,” the endless churning of diplomats in European capitals with the same impediments to meaningful progress (not the least of which is a viable Palestinian negotiating partner for Israel), and instead create “a Palestinian state from the bottom up, institution by institution, and ending with Israeli withdrawal and negotiation of a state only when Palestinian political life is truly able to sustain self-government, maintain law and order, and prevent terrorism against Israel.” Despite the inescapable logic of the idea and the presence of Palestinian Authority Prime Minister Salam Fayyad, who is devoted to such an approach, the Obami seem insistent on trotting out Mitchell to rehash what has been tried not for only a year but for a couple decades.

It's worth asking why the Obama team has yet to see the light, and why Mitchell digs in, ever insistent on spinning a fantasy world in which he imagines that, in just the right setting (what, Vienna instead of Oslo or Annapolis?), and with just the right mumbo-jumbo rhetoric, and with enough sanctimonious condescension about past administrations' failed efforts, there will be a breakthrough. We have to ask: doesn't he realize how ridiculous he sounds?

Well, neither Obama nor his minions appear to have much self-awareness, whether about the Middle East or any other aspect of their not-very-smart diplomacy. They pat themselves on the back as they slip the trap they have set for themselves (be it in Honduras in backing, and then abandoning, Manuel Zelaya, or imposing and then dropping the precondition of Israel's agreement on an absolute settlement freeze), but they never advance past their initial starting point.

One gets the sense that the Obami regard their own earnestness and the number of frequent-flier miles accumulated by Mitchell as ends unto themselves. Look how hard they're trying! It's a pattern of self-congratulation not uncommon to the Obama team, which is long on meetings and short on results.

But there's also something else at play here: if the Obami were to follow Abrams's advice, where would be the glory in it for them? As Abrams describes it, institution-building by definition is a process undertaken by Palestinians for Palestinians. Abrams quotes Fayyed: “This is our agenda, and we want to pursue it doggedly” (emphasis added). Indeed there is nothing much for Mitchell to go on Charlie Rose to crow about. It's not about them. There is an art and a certain humility required to step back, to allow the Palestinians to earn their own statehood. And humility is something in very short supply in the Obama administration. So let's not get our hopes up that the Obami will see the light and try a different approach with some chance of success.

from the Wall Street Journal Europe, 2010-Jan-28, by Tom Gross:

Obama Misjudges His Misjudgment
Too much Middle East peace processing.

Last week, in an "exclusive" interview granted to Time magazine, U.S. President Barack Obama admitted he erred during his first year in office by raising unrealistically high expectations of solving the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

"I'll be honest with you, this is just really hard," Mr. Obama said when asked about the Middle East.

"This is as intractable a problem as you get," he went on, noting that while Israel had showed a willingness "after a lot of time" to make "some modifications" in policy, it "still found it very hard to move with any bold gestures."

"I think it is absolutely true that what we did this year didn't produce the kind of breakthrough that we wanted, and if we had anticipated some of these political problems on both sides earlier, we might not have raised expectations as high," Mr. Obama added.

Judging from these remarks, the American President appears almost as lost on this issue as he is on how to counter the Iranian nuclear threat. He has gone from one extreme to the other—from being ridiculously optimistic about the prospects for swiftly resolving the Palestinian-Israeli conflict (did he think he could just wave a magic wand and solve a 100-year-old-dispute?), to becoming overly pessimistic now.

In fact, Mr. Obama's first year in office, from late January 2009 until the present, turned out to be one of the most encouraging for Israelis and Palestinians in over 15 years—not that Mr. Obama seems to grasp this, probably because it had little to do with him. Indeed his initial policies were unhelpful to both Israeli and Palestinian moderates, but luckily both groups generally ignored him.

There were several factors that made the first 12 months of Obama's presidency better for peace prospects (for those of us who want a two-state solution) than previous years.

Firstly, there was less violence, both between Israelis and Palestinians, and between Palestinians and Palestinians, than there had been for years. Among other landmarks, 2009 was the first year in a long time without any successful suicide bombings against Israel.

In addition, the Palestinian security forces in the West Bank have finally started to behave like a security force rather than like a terrorist group. For example, last week they rescued an Israeli settler who was trapped under her overturned car near Qalqilya in the northern West Bank. They used special equipment to extricate the seriously injured woman, and provided her with initial emergency treatment until Israeli medics could arrive. In previous years (and especially when Yasser Arafat lorded it over the Palestinians), they would probably have shot her instead.

Then, there was the strong economic growth in both Israel and the Palestinian territories relative to most of the rest of the world, for which 2009 was a bleak year. (While Gaza is not undergoing the same kind of economic growth enjoyed by the West Bank, the standard of living there is nonetheless considerably better than you would suppose from the distorted picture provided by certain partisan journalists and NGO workers, and much better than in many other areas of the world.)

And most importantly, 2009 was the year that a Likud Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, not only recognized the principle of an independent Palestinian state, but also made the most sweeping freeze on Israeli settlement-building in the West Bank since 1967.

Yet barely any of this seems to have registered with Mr. Obama. Instead, in his remarks to Time, even when he acknowledged there had been mistakes, he implied that the responsibility for the mistakes always rested with others, not with him.

Try telling that to Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas. Hardly a day goes by without Mr. Abbas privately pointing the finger of blame at Mr. Obama for his clumsy approach.

Occasionally, Mr. Abbas airs his exasperation in public. For example, in an interview published on Dec. 22 in the London-based Arabic daily Asharq al-Awsat, he explained that he could not afford a situation in which Mr. Obama appears more Palestinian than the Palestinians.

"[Mr.] Obama laid down the condition of halting the settlements completely," he noted, even in areas which Palestinian negotiators have already agreed in principle will form part of Israel. "What was I supposed to say to him? Should I say this is too much?"

Every informed observer knows that for a realistic two-state solution to be achieved, Israel cannot return to what Abba Eban famously referred to as Israel's "Auschwitz borders" (i.e., borders that were indefensible), and that there will be land swaps between Israelis and Palestinians so final borders will more closely reflect demographic and security considerations. Indeed as long ago as 1967, the international diplomats who carefully crafted U.N. Resolution 242 acknowledged that the 1967 borders would not and should not necessarily constitute Israel's final boundaries. They made clear in the wording of their text that they believed that not all of the land previously occupied by Jordan (land that has come to be known as the West Bank) should necessarily be relinquished by Israel.

And yet Mr. Obama stepped in and tried to insist on just that, much to the consternation not only of Israelis, but of Mr. Abbas.

What has been happening on the ground in the past year—brought about by both Israeli and Palestinian Authority leaders effectively ignoring Mr. Obama and the other so-called "peace processers"—is that the Palestinian government in Ramallah, with quiet assistance from Israel (assistance which I outlined in some detail in a piece on these pages last month), is finally doing some state-building instead of engaging in endless hollow "processing" involving talks about talks with foreign leaders. For a Palestinian state to be viable it is not just a question of what Israel might give the Palestinians, but of the Palestinians getting their own house in order.

And even if Mr. Obama isn't quite aware of this accomplishment, those of us who want to see a viable, independent and peaceful Palestinian state can only welcome it.

Mr. Gross is the former Middle East correspondent of the Sunday Telegraph.

from Commentary Magazine's Contentions blog, 2010-Jan-15, by Evelyn Gordon:

Honest Broker, Anyone?

Nothing in George Mitchell's interview with PBS last week received more attention than the envoy's implied threat to revoke American loan guarantees to Israel. That's a pity — because far more worrisome is the goal he set for the negotiations, as highlighted by Aluf Benn in today's Haaretz. “We think the way forward … is full implementation of the Arab peace initiative,” Mitchell declared. “That's the comprehensive peace in the region that is the objective set forth by the president.”

The Arab initiative mandates a full Israeli withdrawal to the 1967 lines — every last inch of the West Bank, East Jerusalem, and the Golan Heights. It also demands a solution to the refugee problem “in accordance with UN General Assembly Resolution 194,” which Arabs interpret as allowing the refugees to “return” to Israel.

Later in the interview, Mitchell says this initiative requires “a negotiation and a discussion,” and that you can't negotiate by telling “one side you have to agree in advance to what the other side wants.” Yet by saying his goal is “full implementation” of this initiative, he's effectively saying, “You can have your negotiation and discussion, but Washington has no intention of being an honest broker: it fully backs the Arab position on borders, Jerusalem, and even (to some extent) the refugees.”

This is the administration's clearest statement yet that it's abandoning the position held by every previous U.S. administration: that Israel needs “defensible borders” — which everyone agrees the 1967 lines are not. Mitchell also thereby abandoned the position, held by every previous administration, that any deal must acknowledge Israel's historic ties to the Temple Mount via some Israeli role there, even if only symbolic (see Bill Clinton's idea of “sovereignty under the Mount”). The Arab initiative requires Israel to just get out.

And Mitchell effectively took Syria's side on that border dispute: no Israeli government ever agreed to withdraw farther than the international border, whereas the Arab initiative mandates the 1967 lines — i.e., including the territory Syria illegally annexed pre-1967.

Even worse, the Arab initiative addresses none of Israel's concerns, such as recognition as a Jewish state or security arrangements. That means Mitchell just announced support for all Arab demands without obtaining any parallel concession to Israel. Under those circumstances, why would the Arabs bother making any?

And his repeated demand that Israeli-Palestinian talks deal with borders first indicates that this was no slip of the tongue. After all, the only thing Israel has to give is territory; having once ceded that via an agreement on borders, it has nothing left to trade for, say, security arrangements — which, as a veteran Israeli negotiator told Benn, has actually proved one of the hardest issues to resolve in previous rounds of talks. Borders first, an Israeli minister summed up, is “a trap. We only give, we don’t get anything.”

George Bush's Road Map viewed the Arab initiative as merely one of many “foundations” for talks. Mitchell's adoption of its “full implementation” as a goal thus represents a deterioration in U.S. positions that ought to worry all Israel supporters.

from the Wall Street Journal, 2010-Jan-18, by Bret Stephens:

To Help Haiti, End Foreign Aid
For Haitians, just about every conceivable aid scheme beyond immediate humanitarian relief will lead to more poverty, more corruption and less institutional capacity.

It's been a week since Port-au-Prince was destroyed by an earthquake. In the days ahead, Haitians will undergo another trauma as rescue efforts struggle, and often fail, to keep pace with unfolding emergencies. After that—and most disastrously of all—will be the arrival of the soldiers of do-goodness, each with his brilliant plan to save Haitians from themselves.

"Haiti needs a new version of the Marshall Plan—now," writes Andres Oppenheimer in the Miami Herald, by way of complaining that the hundreds of millions currently being pledged are miserly. Economist Jeffrey Sachs proposes to spend between $10 and $15 billion dollars on a five-year development program. "The obvious way for Washington to cover this new funding," he writes, "is by introducing special taxes on Wall Street bonuses." In a New York Times op-ed, former presidents Bill Clinton and George W. Bush profess to want to help Haiti "become its best." Some job they did of that when they were actually in office.

All this works to salve the consciences of people whose dimly benign intention is to "do something." It's a potential bonanza for the misery professionals of aid agencies and NGOs, never mind that their livelihoods depend on the very poverty whose end they claim to seek. And it allows the Jeff Sachses of the world to preen as latter-day saints.

For actual Haitians, however, just about every conceivable aid scheme beyond immediate humanitarian relief will lead to more poverty, more corruption and less institutional capacity. It will benefit the well-connected at the expense of the truly needy, divert resources from where they are needed most, and crowd out local enterprise. And it will foster the very culture of dependence the country so desperately needs to break.

How do I know this? It helps to read a 2006 report from the National Academy of Public Administration, usefully titled "Why Foreign Aid to Haiti Failed." The report summarizes a mass of documents from various aid agencies describing their lengthy records of non-accomplishment in the country.

Here, for example, is the World Bank—now about to throw another $100 million at Haiti—on what it achieved in the country between 1986 and 2002: "The outcome of World Bank assistance programs is rated unsatisfactory (if not highly so), the institutional development impact, negligible, and the sustainability of the few benefits that have accrued, unlikely."

Why was that? The Bank noted that "Haiti has dysfunctional budgetary, financial or procurement systems, making financial and aid management impossible." It observed that "the government did not exhibit ownership by taking the initiative for formulating and implementing [its] assistance program." Tellingly, it also acknowledged the "total mismatch between levels of foreign aid and government capacity to absorb it," another way of saying that the more foreign donors spent on Haiti, the more the funds went astray.

But this still fails to get at the real problem of aid to Haiti, which has less to do with Haiti than it does with the effects of aid itself. "The countries that have collected the most development aid are also the ones that are in the worst shape," James Shikwati, a Kenyan economist, told Der Spiegel in 2005. "For God's sake, please just stop."

Take something as seemingly straightforward as food aid. "At some point," Mr. Shikwati explains, "this corn ends up in the harbor of Mombasa. A portion of the corn often goes directly into the hands of unscrupulous politicians who then pass it on to their own tribe to boost their next election campaign. Another portion of the shipment ends up on the black market where the corn is dumped at extremely low prices. Local farmers may as well put down their hoes right away; no one can compete with the U.N.'s World Food Program."

Mr. Sachs has blasted these arguments as "shockingly misguided." Then again, Mr. Shikwati and others like Kenya's John Githongo and Zambia's Dambisa Moyo have had the benefit of seeing first hand how the aid industry wrecked their countries. That the industry typically does so in connivance with the same local governments that have led their people to ruin only serves to help keep those elites in power, perpetuating the toxic circle of dependence and misrule that's been the bane of countries like Haiti for generations.

A better approach recognizes the real humanity of Haitians by treating them—once the immediate and essential tasks of rescue are over—as people capable of making responsible choices. Haiti has some of the weakest property protections in the world, as well as some of the most burdensome business regulations. In 2007, it received 10 times as much in aid ($701 million) as it did in foreign investment.

Reversing those figures is a task for Haitians alone, which the outside world can help by desisting from trying to kill them with kindness. Anything short of that and the hell that has now been visited on this sad country will come to seem like merely its first circle.

from the Wall Street Journal, 2010-Jan-24, by Mary Anastasia O'Grady:

Clinton for Haiti Czar?
If the country is ever to develop it will need less cronyism and more transparency.

In the news from Haiti over the past two weeks, images of a grieving Bill Clinton have been almost as constant as the pictures of the earthquake victims themselves. Everywhere you look, the former president seems to appear—expressing his sorrow and pledging to make his foundation the cornerstone of a vast rebuilding effort.

When Mr. Clinton toured the devastation last week, the Miami Herald described him as "teary eyed." But teary eyed is a more apt description of how Haitians could end up if Mr. Clinton takes charge of Haiti's recovery, as it now appears he would like to do.

According to sources familiar with the issue, word has already gone out that Mr. Clinton has been unofficially designated by the multilateral aid community as the conduit through which anyone who wants to participate in the country's reconstruction will have to go. "That means," one individual told me, "if you don't have Clinton connections, you won't be in the game."

A person entrusted with this much power should have an impeccable track record. Mr. Clinton's record doesn't come close. Indeed, the last time he offered to "help" the country, he propped up a corrupt despot who proceeded to go into business with key Democrats and left the country poorer, institutionally bereft and riddled with political violence.

In 1991, eight months after he took office, Jean Bertrand Aristide was removed from power in a military coup. The action was precipitated by Mr. Aristide's disregard for Haiti's fragile rule of law—including the use of mob violence to intimidate and kill his political opponents.

After his ouster, Mr. Aristide needed money. He got it when President George H.W. Bush released to him Haitian assets held in the U.S. on the grounds that he was the government in exile.

The main source of those funds were the payments that U.S. telecom companies were making to the state telephone monopoly, Teleco, to terminate calls to Haiti. From his exile perch in Georgetown, Mr. Aristide proceeded to draw on those government revenues—by some estimates $50 million—to lobby for his return to power. Among his most important contacts was Michael Barnes, a former Democratic congressman whose law firm at one point was raking in $55,000 a month from his Haitian client.

A couple of years of spreading Haitian money around Washington did the trick: In 1994 Mr. Clinton called up the U.S. military to restore Mr. Aristide to the presidency. When his term was up in 1996 and René Préval took over as president, Mr. Aristide remained the power behind the throne.

Haitians complained bitterly for years about his human rights abuses and corruption, and many of his educated supporters broke with him as his tactics became clearer. But the Clinton administration never did anything to bring him to heel.

In February 2001 Mr. Aristide claimed to have been re-elected in a process that international observers cited for pervasive fraud, and that the Organization of American States refused to certify. Haitians were angry, but it took three more years for that discontent to bubble over. Finally, in February 2004, he was run out of the country.

Hoping to retrieve stolen assets, the interim government that took over filed a 2005 civil action in a southern Florida federal court against Mr. Aristide. It alleged that he had rifled the treasury and set up schemes with "certain" U.S. telecommunications carriers, "granting them significantly reduced rates for services provided by Teleco in exchange for kickbacks, which further reduced those rates." It alleged that one of the companies that made payments "to certain off-shore companies" was Fusion Telecommunications.

Fusion's contract should have been public, but the company tried to block its release from the Federal Communications Commission when I asked for it. No wonder. It revealed that Fusion had a sweetheart deal with Teleco of 12 cents a minute when the official rate was 50 cents.

The Fusion deal is interesting because the company was run by Marvin Rosen, the former finance chair of the Democratic Party. Board members included Joseph P. Kennedy II and Mr. Clinton's former chief of staff, Mack McLarty.

The U.S.-Haiti telecom route is one of the busiest in the Western Hemisphere, and this contract that undercut the competition was remarkably lucrative. It also deprived the Haitian treasury of important resources. As the lawsuit states: "Teleco revenues were the principal source of urgently needed foreign currency for Haiti."

The upshot here is that clintonista activity in Haiti was not the work of foreigners deeply committed to the well-being of a long-suffering people. Instead, it capitalized on the chance to make money using government power.

Now is time to break that habit. As one Haitian told me, if the country is ever to develop it needs "to rely less on cronyism and more on transparency and the vast resources of the Haitian expat community." That would disqualify Bill Clinton.

from the Wall Street Journal's Political Diary, 2009-Dec-18, by Mary Anastasia O'Grady:

Unfinished Haiti Business

The allegations didn't get much media attention outside of Haiti, but the U.S. Department of Justice is finally moving on a long-running investigation of corruption at Haiti's government-owned telecom monopoly after the Clinton administration sent U.S. troops to restore controversial Haitian President Jean-Bertrand Aristide to power.

Indicted last week were two executives of a Florida telecommunications company and two former high-ranking officials of Haiti Teleco. One of the Haitians was extradited on Saturday and is being held on $1 million bail. The Haitian Diaspora in the U.S. is legendary for calling home, generating plenty of phone traffic. The indictment claims that the Florida company "executed contracts with Haiti Teleco" whereby it enjoyed "preferential telecommunications rates" for connecting those calls and in return paid bribes to Haitian officials.

Now we're getting somewhere. Haiti's own post-Aristide interim government filed a lawsuit accusing Mr. Aristide and several Teleco employees of "looting the public treasury" through such schemes. Previous disclosures have revealed that another company, Fusion Telecommunications, whose board included Mr. Aristide's close friend Joseph P. Kennedy II and Bill Clinton's chum Mack McLarty, received a 1999 Haiti Teleco contract with a rate well below the FCC's mandated official settlement rate. Ditto New-Jersey based IDT: According to a lawsuit by a former IDT employee, IDT signed a preferential deal with Teleco in 2003 that allegedly included an agreement to make payments to an offshore account for the benefit of Mr. Aristide.

Revenues paid by U.S. carriers terminating traffic in Haiti are one of the few sources of hard currency for the impoverished country. What exactly was going on between Haiti Teleco and politically-connected Americans in the wake of a U.S. military operation to put Mr. Aristide back in power after a domestic coup? Those questions have never been answered.

from WorldNetDaily, 2009-Dec-26, by Tom Tancredo:

U.N. poised for a gun grab

If you think the Obama administration doesn't need help in dreaming up new schemes to reinterpret the Constitution and add new restrictions on our freedom, think again.

Arms-control bureaucrats at the United Nations and dozens of allied NGOs (that's non-governmental organizations in non-bureaucratic lingo) have been busy for two decades talking and negotiating among themselves to produce an international treaty regulating the sale of small arms. A U.N. resolution adopted in October calls upon member nations to negotiate the matter and finish writing a treaty by 2012. The United States voted for the resolution, which was adopted almost unanimously.

President Bush, for all his mistakes and miscalculations, never allowed his U.N. representatives to participate in such negotiations. But Obama and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton reversed course and agreed to join the negotiations.

Secretary of State Clinton announced in October that the U.S. would join the negotiations "if they are based on consensus," implying that the U.S. could exercise a veto if negotiations went off course. That implies that the U.S. would reject any treaty that violates our Second Amendment rights to keep and bear arms. The problem is she can't make that promise or guarantee that outcome.

The truth is it is very dangerous for the U.S. to go down this road no matter how many assurances are given by Obama and his minions. Once committed to the "process of negotiations," it is hard to reject a product based on "international consensus."

There are good reasons why the U.S. ought to stay out of such negotiations, and many good reasons to be wary of any international treaty on the subject.

To put this whole matter in perspective, ask yourself how well existing arms-control agreements are working and how well international agencies are enforcing those agreements.

There is an existing conventional arms-control treaty among nations in Latin America. How well is that working? Does it prevent the Mexican drug cartels from buying advanced weapons on the black market in Asia and Europe? Hardly. Does it prevent Hugo Chavez from buying arms from Iran, North Korea and Russia and providing them to rebel groups in Colombia and Central America? No.

Has the U.N. and the International Atomic Energy Agency stopped Iran from developing a nuclear-weapons program? Shouldn't we expect some semblance of success from such existing agreements before launching new ones?

What conventional arms treaties do is constrain the actions of law-abiding nations and law-abiding citizens while allowing outlaw nations and leftist guerrilla groups to build their arsenals.

If you think such international treaties apply only to sales and exchanges among nations and not to individuals, you have not been paying attention to the Obama administration's agenda and to what activist judges have been doing in American courts.

What is especially galling is to hear gun-control advocates use the Mexican drug cartel violence as an excuse to further restrict gun sales among private citizens inside the United States. This is exactly what the Obama Justice Department and its sister agencies have been doing lately.

The federal bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms has been claiming that 90 percent of the guns used by Mexican drug cartels come from the United States, and have added new manpower to north-to-south border inspections on the U.S.-Mexico border. Curtailing illegal arms smuggling is a good idea, but to claim that the U.S. is the main supplier of the Mexican cartels is deliberately misleading and dishonest.

That much-used 90 percent statistic is based on only the guns that are turned over to the U.S. for tracing. The truth is over 80 percent of the guns seized from the cartels and from crime scenes are not traceable to the U.S. The Mexican government will not admit that huge quantities of guns and vehicles and body armor used by the cartels come from – are you ready? – the Mexican government itself.

This example of outright distortion and dishonesty by the Obama administration is important because it reveals the hidden agenda. If the U.S. Department of Justice will conspire with the Mexican government against the interests of American gun owners, what can we expect when federal agencies can cite "standards" and "obligations" under an international treaty? The drug cartels are laughing, but American gun owners are not.

It is reasonable to assume that any international treaty on "small-arms trafficking" will be used by domestic gun-control advocates and liberal judges to further restrict the ownership, use and exchange of firearms by individual citizens.

This past month we saw a new demonstration of U.N. arrogance and hypocrisy at the Copenhagen conference on Climate Change. The Third World nations that now dominate the U.N. are eager to impose obligations of hundreds of billions of dollars on the U.S. and Europe to pay for their compliance with carbon-emissions targets.

But we need not speculate about future U.N. actions. We have the record of its malfeasance in following existing mandates. Does anyone want to trust the U.N.'s Human Rights Council to tell Americans how to shape civil-rights laws?

Public officials and political leaders in the U.S. have an obligation to oppose further erosion of American sovereignty in the face of U.N. designs and ambitions.

Tom Tancredo is a former five-term congressman from Colorado and 2008 candidate for the Republican presidential nomination. He currently serves as chairman of the Rocky Mountain Foundation and co-chairman of TeamAmericaPac. Tancredo is the author of "In Mortal Danger: The Battle for America's Border and Security."

from the American Spectator, 2009-Oct-30, by J. Christian Adams:

The Precedented Peace Prize

The Nobel Prize Committee has been faulted for awarding the 2009 Peace Prize to someone short on concrete accomplishments. Critics, however, should realize that President Barack Obama's Peace prize is not unprecedented. Another Peace Prize recipient, Sir Norman Angell, won the prize primarily for his ideas, philosophy, and aspirations for the world. And the philosophy that earned Angell his Nobel had a profound influence on world history.

President Obama's received his Peace Prize, according to the Nobel Committee, for his "efforts to strengthen international diplomacy and cooperation between nations." Norman Angell's Nobel was awarded for similar reasons.

Neither a diplomat nor great statesman, Angell was primarily a writer, an author of books and leader of academic discourse. When awarding Angell his Peace Prize, the Nobel Committee stated "in the work of international peace, there must be a division of labor between technicians and educators." Angell, they noted, was "an educator, one of those who instruct public opinion, who pave the way for reforms."

Angell authored numerous books constructing his model for international relations. These included Patriotism Under Three Flags, and his most popular, The Great Illusion. The latter's central thesis, according the Nobel Committee, is "war is an inadequate method for solving international disputes." The Great Illusion advocated for a system of international interdependence and a world where large powerful nations did not have greater international relevance than smaller weak nations. Obama's address to the United Nations tracked Angell's philosophy so closely it would be surprising if the similarities were accidental.

Angell wistfully advocated for "relinquishing the principle of isolated national defence…and erecting an international authority" to replace "the self interest of individual nations." The Nobel Committee described Angell as "cool and clear," and that he "spoke to the intellect." Most notably, Angell argued, "you cannot kill ideas with bullets." He believed that an enlightened citizenry, once someone or something enlightened them, would render war obsolete.

Norman Angell won the Nobel in 1933, a most dangerous year for his ideas to gain currency. In January 1933, Adolf Hitler became the Chancellor of Germany. And in the following years, Norman Angell's ideas flourished and were adopted as policy by a British Government unwilling to acknowledge the Gathering Storm. Winston Churchill, however, regularly and vociferously opposed Angell and his allies. It took Churchill's courage to stand against this national naïveté throughout the 1930s, usually alone, and always jeered in the House of Commons. The British government followed Angell's model for international relations and ignored Churchill, adopting timid diplomatic and defense policies.

The 1933 Peace Prize winner profoundly influenced British policy in ways that led directly to German tanks rolling into Poland in September 1939. War did not break out because nations ignored Angell's advice; instead, the ensuing carnage in Europe happened because European democracies made Angell's ideas government policy. Europe gambled that Angell's model would ensure peace, and by the time everyone saw that the gamble had failed, it was too late. Winston Churchill rose to greatness precisely because he opposed, from the beginning, the philosophy of a Nobel Peace Prize winner whose name few now recognize.

Ultimately, the idea of Nazism was killed with millions of bullets and bombs, and millions more brave men and women. Confronting bloodthirsty evil demands more than dialog.

Angell's arguments were comfortable in 1933 for the same reasons many today find comfort in the primacy of negotiation as the best tool to confront militant Islam, Iranian nukes or a belligerent Russia: prosperous nations are deluded into thinking talk is always the best way to preserve prosperity. Your familiar comfort and daily routine simply cannot be inconvenienced by wars or rumors of wars. The lessons of an entire century, both Neville Chamberlain's errors, and Ronald Reagan's successes, aren't enough to shake awake a populace blessed with comfort and material satisfaction.

Churchill, responding directly to Angell, asked "who is the man vain enough to suppose that the long antagonisms of history and of time can in all circumstances be adjusted by the smooth and superficial conventions of politicians and ambassadors?" The Nobel Committee may have answered Sir Winston's query for the 21st century.

from the Wall Street Journal, 2009-Oct-12, by Bret Stephens:

A Perfect Nobel Pick
The committee didn't recognize Truman, after all.

Pop quiz: What do Bertha von Suttner, Henri La Fontaine, Ludwig Quidde, Norman Angell, Arthur Henderson, Eisaku Sato, Alva Myrdal and Joseph Rotblat have in common?

Answer: Barack Obama.

If you're drawing blanks on most of these names, don't be hard on yourself: They're just some of the worthies of yesteryear who were favored with a Nobel Peace Prize before disappearing into the footnotes of history.

On the other hand, if you're among those who think Mr. Obama's Nobel was misjudged and premature, not to say absurd, then you really know nothing about the values and thinking that have informed a century of prize giving. Far from being an aberrant choice, President Obama was the ideal one, Scandinavianally speaking.

The peace Nobel is a much misunderstood prize. With the exception of a few really grotesque picks (Le Duc Tho, Rigoberta Menchú, Yasser Arafat), a few inspired ones (Carl von Ossietzky, Norman Borlaug, Andrei Sakharov, Mother Teresa, Lech Walesa, Aung San Suu Kyi) and some worthy if obvious ones (Martin Luther King, Anwar Sadat and Menachem Begin, Mikhail Gorbachev, Nelson Mandela and F.W. de Klerk), most of the prize winners draw from the obscure ranks of the sorts of people the late Oriana Fallaci liked to call "the Goodists."

Who are the Goodists? They are the people who believe all conflict stems from avoidable misunderstanding. Who think that the world's evils spring from technologies, systems, complexes (as in "military-industrial") and everything else except from the hearts of men, where love abides. Who mistake wishes for possibilities. Who put a higher premium on their own moral intentions than on the efficacy of their actions. Who champion education as the solution, whatever the problem. Above all, the Goodists are the people who like to be seen to be good.

Columbia University President Nicholas Murray Butler, who won the Peace Prize in 1931, was a Goodist. In 1910 he wrote that "to suppose that men and women into whose intellectual and moral instruction and upbuilding have gone the glories of the world's philosophy and art and poetry and religion . . . are to fly at each others' throats to ravage, to kill, in the hope of somehow establishing thereby truth and right and justice is to suppose the universe to be stood upon its apex."

The First World War, which began four years later, rendered a less charitable judgment on the benefits of moral and intellectual instruction. Yet Butler later became a leading campaigner for the 1928 Kellogg-Briand Pact outlawing war as "an instrument of national policy." This monument to hope, which won U.S. Secretary of State Frank Kellogg a Nobel in 1929 (France's Aristide Briand had already won it in 1926 for the equally feckless Locarno Pact), was immediately ratified by dozens of countries, including Japan—which invaded Manchuria in 1931; and Italy—which invaded Abyssinia in 1935; and Germany—which invaded Poland in 1939.

Characteristically, the Nobel Committee awarded no Peace Prizes for most of the Second World War: not to Franklin Roosevelt for turning America into an arsenal for democracy; not to Winston Churchill for rallying Britain against the Nazi onslaught; not to Charles de Gaulle for keeping the flame of a free France alive; not to the U.S. Army Rangers for scaling the heights of Pointe du Hoc on a June morning in 1944; not to Douglas MacArthur for turning Japan into a country at peace with itself and its neighbors.

These were the soldiers and statesmen who did more than anyone else to assure the survival of freedom in the 20th century. Being Goodists, however, the Nobel Committee chose instead to lavish its honors on people like the wan New England pacifist Emily Greene Balch (in 1946), the tedious British disarmament obsessive Philip Noel-Baker (1959) and the Irish antinuclear campaigner and Lenin Prize Winner Seán MacBride (1974).

These names don't exactly spring to mind as having made a lasting and genuine contribution to world peace. Nor, one suspects, will history lavish its highest honors on Kofi Annan, Jimmy Carter, Wangari Maathai, Mohamed ElBaradei, Al Gore or Martti Ahtisaari, to name some of this decade's winners. They are merely the Frank Kelloggs and Seán MacBrides of the future.

Which brings us, at last, to this year's prize winner.

Typical of the laments about Mr. Obama's Nobel is that he's done nothing yet to deserve it. But what, really, did most of the other Goodists do before they won their prizes? Mr. Obama, at least, got himself elected president, the first man to do so on explicitly Goodist terms: hope, change, diplomacy, disarmament, internationalism. He is, so to speak, the son Alfred Nobel never had (minus the dynamite fortune), the best and most significant spokesman for everything the Peace Prize has stood for these 108 years.

So let there be no doubt that the Nobel Committee did well in choosing Mr. Obama. What this portends for the kind of peace and security that has been bequeathed to us by the exertions of such non-Nobelists as Harry Truman, Dwight Eisenhower, Margaret Thatcher and Ronald Reagan is another question.

from the Wall Street Journal, 2009-Nov-7, by Laurence Norman and Joe Parkinson:

Brown Calls for Global Transaction Tax

ST ANDREWS, Scotland -- The Group of 20 leading economies should consider applying a global financial transactions tax to pay for the cost of future banking crises, Prime Minister Gordon Brown said Saturday.

Mr. Brown said G-20 members should discuss whether they need some kind of "insurance fee to reflect systemic risk or a resolution fund or contingent capital arrangements or a global financial transactions levy."

However he conditioned his proposal with warnings that agreeing a levy would be difficult.

Indeed, U.S. Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner said his government wouldn't support that approach.

"A day-by-day financial transaction tax is not something we're prepared to support," he said in an interview with Sky News.

The U.S. isn't alone, finding an ally in the Russian government.

"I'm quite skeptical about such taxes," Russian Finance Minister Alexei Kudrin said. "Gordon Brown is well known as the person who has been raising taxes all the time."

Canadian Finance Minister James Flaherty said a transactions tax was "not particularly attractive."

In the past, the U.K. has leaned against the idea of a what is known as a Tobin tax, which would use the proceeds of a financial-transactions tax to provide funds to developing nations.

However, Mr. Brown's proposal more closely resembles a deposit-insurance plan, in that the fees gathered from the levy would be placed in a fund that would be drawn on should banks once again need state support to survive. The G-20 governments said at a summit in Pittsburgh in September they would look at this area, tasking the International Monetary Fund with preparing a report for options on "how the financial sector could make a fair and substantial contribution toward paying for any burdens associated with government interventions to repair the banking system."

Mr. Brown said that report would come in April and that any action on a possible tax was unlikely to come for some time after that, U.K. officials signaled. Mr. Brown himself faces a tough battle for re-election by June 2010.

Mr. Brown said there needs to be a "better social contract" between banks and the rest of society.

"It cannot be acceptable that the benefits of success are reaped by the few, while the costs of failure are borne by all of us," Mr. Brown told finance ministers and central-bank heads from the G-20. "We need to consider if we need to go further in terms of mitigating costs to the rest of society."

Mr. Brown said Britain wouldn't adopt such a plan "unless others move with us together."

He also said the tax would have to be "non-distortionary to avoid damaging reductions in liquidity, inefficient allocation of capital and the temptation of avoidance."

And any tax must not undermine efforts to stabilize the financial system and that the contribution from the financial sector must be "fair" and "measured."

"I do not in any way underestimate the enormous and difficult practical and technical issues that will need to be overcome," Mr. Brown said.

The Bank of England estimates that in the U.S., the U.K. and the euro zone, state support for the banking systems has totaled $14 trillion, or a quarter of global economic output.

France has been among the most prominent supporters of a financial-transactions tax, with French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner recently proposing a levy of 0.005% on transactions. He said such a tax could raise around 30 billion euros ($44.5 billion).

French Finance Minister Christine Lagarde Saturday repeated her government's support for a tax on transactions.

Over the last century, bank failures have become increasingly expensive for taxpayers, and short of war pose the greatest threat to the solvency of governments.

If it could be enforced, a levy on transactions would help build up resources to pay for future crises, the cost of which could threaten to bankrupt some governments.

"A global .. tax could make a useful contribution to reducing the risk of future financial crises, and sharing the costs more fairly," said Julian Jessop, an economist at Capital Economics.

But bankers said a transaction tax wouldn't be enforceable.

"You would have to get every country in the world to agree to it," said Angela Knight, chief executive of the British Bankers Association. "It assumes that financial transactions will stay the same, that there will be no innovations or changes. Practically, it wouldn't operate."

And the U.K.'s main opposition party accused Mr. Brown of "chasing headlines."

"Instead of empty headline grabbing announcements, Gordon Brown should focus on the crisis we are living through now which he helped to create, which means businesses are folding and insolvencies rising at record rates," said a spokesman for the Conservative Party.

from the Wall Street Journal, 2009-Oct-22, by Rob Long:

The Real Terrorist Threat?

It's the old story: You're in the airport security line, switch-backing your way through a shuffling, short-tempered line. A size XXXL security person in size M pants bellows monotonously every three minutes—"Shoes, coats, belts, off! Keep your boarding passes with your person at all times! Laptops only in the bins! Liquids must be three ounces or less in clear plastic containers!"

Sweating and irritated, you struggle through the procedure, surrender your shampoo (it's in a 125ml bottle, not the regulation 100ml), get pushed and eyed and barked at until you're standing on the other side of the machine, shoeless and beltless and bedraggled, clutching your things to your side like some kind of Victorian heroine after the evil landlord has ravaged her.

And of course your first thought is: "I know all of these security measures are hard for me, but they're probably worse for the transgendered."

Well, maybe not your first thought. But it probably is if you're Martin Sheinin, who works at the United Nations as something called, with deliriously perfect pomposity, a Special Rapporteur. He's just delivered a report titled "Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms While Countering Terrorism," which sounds like a pretty interesting topic until you realize that he is not talking about seized shampoo or no place to sit and put your shoes back on. He's talking mostly about how zealous counterterrorism activities often trample on the rights of "women and lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and intersex individuals."

He's worried, for instance, about interrogations in Nepal. It is in that country that "the counter-insurgency campaign that was defined with reference to terrorism was characterized by attacks on meti (effeminate males or transgendered persons) by both sides, with reports that the Maoists were abducting meti and the police were taking advantage of the counter-terrorism environment to attack meti as part of a 'cleansing' on Nepali society."

It's tough to be meti in Nepal, I guess. It's tough to be meti anywhere, really, except in the major Western urban areas and the Bravo TV network. And the meti in Nepal and everywhere else deserve a fair shake, and if the Special Rapporteur at the U.N. wants to move that up on the agenda, up past Darfur and Iranian nukes and Afghanistan and Iraq's new democracy and Israel and Honduras and the current stalemate between Armenia and Azerbaijan, well, um, OK, let's get into it.

But he doesn't want to do that, of course. He wants to obfuscate. "Gender," he writes with surprising authority, "is not static; it is changeable over time and across contexts. Understanding gender as a social and shifting construct rather than as a biological and fixed category is important because it helps to identify the complex and inter-related gender-based human rights violations caused by counter- terrorism measures."

I've heard this somewhere before. Must have been in my college comp-lit class, back in the 1980s. Because back then, when we weren't talking about apartheid or nuclear Armageddon, we talked a lot about gender. We talked a lot about "texts" and "intertextuality" and "social constructs" and "contextualized responses."

We talked about these things because we couldn't talk about the actual book, because we hadn't read it. And since then, whenever I encounter such language—and believe me, when something is written by someone with the title "Special Rapporteur," that's what you're going to get—I instantly wonder what it is that's been left unread, undone, unaccomplished.

In the case of the U.N., the answer to that is easy: everything. A feckless and irrelevant group of dithering bureaucrats—either in a tower along the East River or in the comp-lit office above the Quad—eventually retreats into gibberish.

The size XXXL guy in the size M shirt barking at you as you straggle through airport security makes more sense. Though, come to think of it, sometimes I'm not sure it's a guy. These things, I'm told, aren't static.

—Mr. Long is a Hollywood writer and producer.

from Commentary Magazine's Contentions blog, 2010-Feb-22, by Jonathan Tobin:

UN “Peace” Coordinator: Jewish Heritage an Invalid Concept

Earlier today I wrote about the implications of an important new archeological discovery that highlights the 3,000-year-old Jewish heritage in East Jerusalem. Such finds have political significance specifically because the whole focus of Palestinian nationalism has been to deny Jewish ties to the land and to attempt to rewrite history in such a way as to expunge the historicity and continuity of the Jewish presence.

But the reason why this issue is so important was brought home again today by a statement coming from Robert Serry, the United Nations Special Coordinator for the Middle East Peace Process. In it, Serry went out of his way to condemn the recently announced National Heritage Plan announced by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu because two ancient Jewish religious shrines were included in the list of sites to be preserved and protected. Serry objected to the inclusion of Rachel's Tomb outside Bethlehem and the Cave of the Patriarchs in Hebron in the list of essential places in Jewish history, because the two are in the West Bank and thus, in his view, “occupied Palestinian territory.” The fact that they are located on land that is subject to dispute between the two parties is of no interest to the UN official who, despite his status as a peace mediator, is ready to dictate where the borders of a putative Palestinian state must be. But Serry's argument is not merely one of borders, because in the same statement he claimed that the sites “are of historical and religious significance not only to Judaism but also to Islam, and to Christianity as well.”

It is true that Christians and Muslims have an intrinsic interest in any biblical site. And since Muslims, like Jews, consider Abraham to be one of their patriarchs, they have a religious stake in the Cave of the Patriarchs. But Muslims have never been willing to share this most ancient of Jewish shrines with other faiths. Throughout the history of Muslim control of the land of Israel, through the Ottoman era and even during the time of British rule, Jews were forbidden to enter the cave and were, instead, constrained to ascend no higher than the seventh step of the entrance to the sacred place. Jewish prayer inside the cave only resumed in June 1967, after the Israeli conquest of Hebron, after which the two religions have shared the place despite the history of tension and bloodshed in the Hebron area.

As for Rachel's Tomb, it is simply a lie to consider it anything but a Jewish synagogue. No faith but Judaism has ever held worship services in the place or considered it a shrine. Palestinian propaganda that has attempted to portray it as some sort of a Muslim site are of recent vintage and utterly false.

But much like the history of the Western Wall in Jerusalem, where Jews were forbidden even to visit while it was under Muslim sovereignty from 1949 to 1967 during Jordan's illegal occupation of East Jerusalem, the only thing that has guaranteed Jewish access to both the Hebron and Bethlehem sites has been Israel's control of these areas. Moreover, and this is a crucial point, the only time in the history of Jerusalem or Bethlehem or Hebron that these religious sites have been kept free and open to all visitors of all faiths has been the 42 years since the Six-Day War. Netanyahu's Heritage Plan is no threat to other faiths, because only Israel is committed to religious freedom and the protection of all religious shrines.

Should the UN coordinator have his way and Rachel's Tomb or the Cave of the Patriarchs ever fall under the control of the Palestinian Authority, let alone Hamas, we know very well what would happen. Joseph's Tomb in Nablus, a longtime site of Jewish worship and study, was sacked and burned by a Palestinian mob aided and abetted by PA policemen in 2000 at the outset of the second intifada. The PA has prevented the reconstruction of the site. An ancient synagogue in Jericho, also under PA control, met the same fate.

By opposing the Jewish Heritage Plan, the UN isn't merely sniping at Netanyahu. It is signaling its backing of a Palestinian and Muslim approach to the history of the land in which Judaism is systematically erased. If indeed Serry and the UN are actually interested in preserving these sites for members of all faiths to visit, rather than in merely chasing the Jews out of them, the only formula for their preservation lies in continued Israeli control.

from Ha'aretz, 2009-Dec-16, by Barak Ravid:

Britain apologizes to Livni over arrest warrant

British Foreign Secretary David Milliband yesterday apologized to MK Tzipi Livni and Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman for the arrest warrant issued against Livni in London earlier this week. He also promised Lieberman to begin working immediately to change the UK laws that enable the issue of arrest warrants against Israeli officials accused of war crimes.

Britain's ambassador to Israel, Tom Phillips, was summoned to the Foreign Ministry in Jerusalem for a reprimand over the matter. He also received a phone call from an infuriated Uzi Arad, Israel's national security adviser, sources in Jerusalem said. In London, Israeli ambassador Ron Prosor met with Milliband and demanded a change to the laws.

The Foreign Ministry's Deputy Director General for Western Europe, Naor Gilon, told Phillips that Israel demands an unequivocal solution to the problem. "If there is no honorable solution to the problem, our officials will stop visiting Britain," Gilon said. Arad told Phillips that the arrest warrant was "an immoral act aimed against Israel's right to self-defense."

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's office also released a statement. "We will not agree to a situation in which [former prime minister] Ehud Olmert, [Defense Minister] Ehud Barak and [opposition leader and former foreign minister] Tzipi Livni will be summoned to the bench," the statement read. "We utterly reject the absurdity that is happening in Britain."

British officials also appeared taken aback by the arrest warrant as well as by the Israeli response. Milliband received the Israeli ambassador without delay. During their meeting, which continued for more than an hour, Milliband called the warrant intolerable and said he had spoken to Prime Minister Gordon Brown and Justice Minister Jack Straw to find an urgent solution.

Prosor chastised the British secretary saying it was time the British government took action.

"There was a total meltdown of the entire British system here. No on knew what was going on, who filed the demand for charges, when and for what," Prosor claimed. Milliband embarrassedly replied that "we too were surprised by the warrant."

After the meeting, Milliband himself called Lieberman and Livni to make his apologies. We must find a solution to ensure this kind of thing doesn't repeat itself, he told Lieberman, adding that the relationship between Britain and Israel is very important and that the dialogue between the countries must continue. Milliband also told Livni he was appalled by the warrant.

"It's not personal, it's about the entire State of Israel and our ability to go on working together against common threats," Livni told Milliband.

Speaking at a conference at Tel Aviv's Institute for Security Studies Aviv yesterday, Livni said that Operation Cast Lead was "right" and that it achieved its goals. "Jurisdiction or no jurisdiction, arrest warrants or no arrest warrants, I would today take the same decisions, each and every one," she said. Livni's fellow Kadima MK Shaul Mofaz called on the government to recall Prosor to Israel for consultations.

Previous incidents between Israel and Britain have included the issue of arrest warrants against Maj.-Gen. Doron Almog and Barak. Former Shin Bet security services head Avi Dichter and minister Moshe Yaalon cancelled visits to London after they were advised arrest warrants might be served against them.

The British government opposes Israeli settlement in the West Bank and recently issued a directive to British supermarkets to clearly mark produce from the settlement.

The United Kingdom also refused to support Israel against the Goldstone Report, and supported the Swedish initiative to have the European Union declare East Jerusalem as the capital of Palestine.

from the Jerusalem Post, 2009-Dec-16, by E. B. Solomont:

Israeli officials at risk for civil lawsuits in US

Four American Jewish groups are urging the US Supreme Court to reverse a lower court decision that could lead to Israeli officials being slammed with civil lawsuits in the United States.

Coinciding with a British judge's decision to sign an arrest warrant for Kadima leader Tzipi Livni for alleged "war crimes" during Operation Cast Lead, the brief seeks to overturn a Fourth Circuit decision to strip foreign government officials from immunity in American civil lawsuits.

Written by Washington attorney Nathan Lewin on behalf of the Zionist Organization of America, the American Association of Jewish Lawyers and Jurists, Agudath Israel of America and the Union of Orthodox Jewish Congregations of America, the "friend of court" brief warns against a "torrent of unfounded lawsuits against Israeli government officials" in the absence of absolute immunity.

"Public officials should have the same immunity as their governments have under federal law in order to enable them to act in accordance with their best judgment in their roles," Lewin said.

In the US, only prosecutors can pursue criminal charges against an individual, unlike in Britain, where a private party can initiate such proceedings.

Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu on Tuesday blasted the UK judge's decision to issue an arrest warrant against Livni, who at a Tuesday conference in Tel Aviv called the operation a "necessary option" to defend Israeli citizens.

"We will not agree to a situation in which [former prime minister] Ehud Olmert, [Defense Minister] Ehud Barak and Tzipi Livni are sitting on the defendants' bench," Netanyahu said.

"We will not allow for IDF soldiers and commanders, who heroically and morally defended our citizens from a cruel and criminal enemy, to be condemned as war criminals," he added. "We outright reject this absurdity."

The American Jewish groups' brief argues that immunity is necessary for foreign officials to make decisions without fear of being punished later on. Without legal protection, Israeli officials will not visit the US and American Jews will be deprived of a First Amendment right to hear free speech and receive information.

"Israel's adversaries are ready to pursue all possible means to hinder measures that duly elected Israeli leaders feel are necessary for Israel's self-defense," the brief argues.

The case in question, Samantar vs. Yousuf, which is on the docket for March 3, concerns a former minister of defense and prime minister of Somalia, Mohamed Ali Samantar, who was in power between 1980 and 1990 when opponents of the Supreme Revolutionary Council were allegedly tortured and killed. Federal law protects present and former government officials, but a Fourth Circuit judge said immunity should not be extended to Samantar personally.

Alyza Lewin, whose father wrote the brief, said foreign officials have been targeted "with increasing frequency all over the world."

"The decision of the court in the case will have a very significant impact on Israel and on Jews," she said. "There are immediate consequences."

The brief cites at least 15 present and former Israeli officials who could face civil or criminal legal actions.

"We'd be rather shocked to see that happen in the US, but nonetheless because of a potential concern of a situation arising, that's what motivated us to file this brief with the Supreme Court," said Nathan Diament, director of the OU's Institute for Public Affairs, when asked about the British warrant for Livni's arrest. He said it was hard to imagine a US prosecutor filing charges against an Israeli official, but an individual filing a civil lawsuit against an Israeli official is possible.

"In fact, it's happened," said Susan Tuchman, director of the ZOA's Center for Law and Justice. Likud MK and former IDF chief of staff Moshe Ya'alon was sued in the Second Circuit, but the case was dismissed in 2008 when a judge concluded the Foreign Sovereignty Immunity Act applied not only to foreign governments, but also to officials carrying out the government's policies. A case against Kadima MK Avraham Dichter was dismissed on the same basis.

Tuchman said she did not know the details of the case against Livni in Britain. But, she said, "certainly in Europe, arrest warrants have been issued for foreign officials and that's exactly the kind of situation we're looking to avoid here in the United States."

Civil lawsuits against Israeli officials could have a "chilling effect," she said, impacting diplomatic relations between Israeli and American government officials.

from BBC News, 2009-Nov-6, by Barbara Plett:

Legal row over Gaza report intensifies

The United Nations-backed report on the Gaza war has triggered major controversy since it was released nearly two months ago.

The lengthy document - named after its main author, the respected international jurist Richard Goldstone - details what it says is evidence of war crimes committed by Israeli soldiers and Palestinian fighters.

It calls on the UN to trigger a process of accountability that could end up in international criminal tribunals.

But the chances of concrete UN action are slim. A resolution that endorses the report, adopted this week by the General Assembly, is non-binding.

And diplomats from all parts of the political spectrum are expecting little if anything from the Security Council - the only UN body with powers of enforcement - as all five of the permanent representatives that wield a veto oppose council involvement.

Unconventional warfare

So why the fuss? Israel especially has launched an intense lobbying campaign against the report, which was most critical about the Israeli military.

Palestinians and human rights groups say 1,400 Gazans were killed in the conflict, although Israel puts the figure at 1,166. Thirteen Israelis, including three civilians, died.

The Israelis argue they were acting in self-defence against years of rocket attacks by the militant Islamist movement Hamas, and took as much care for civilians as possible while fighting a non-conventional force embedded in the population.

They are particularly outraged with the assertion that Israel's offensive was a "deliberately disproportionate attack designed to punish, humiliate and terrorise a civilian population", a conclusion Israeli officials have denounced as completely "removed from reality".

That Mr Goldstone has authored the report amplifies their concern.

"It's given a new credibility to what we call the Israel-bashing movement in the UN," says Lt Col David Benjamin, who served as a legal adviser to the Israeli military during the Gaza war.

"He is one of the major figures in international criminal justice today, and the fact that he has put his signature to the report is very significant."

"I don't think this report is going to go away even if it doesn't go through the Security Council.

"I'm positive that there will be all sorts of efforts to get this into the international criminal court or encourage various individual states to exercise universal jurisdiction against Israelis."

Universal jurisdiction

That is the heart of the matter. Mr Goldstone recommends that the Security Council refer both parties to the International Criminal Court if they fail to conduct credible and independent investigations of the war-crimes charges.

In doing so he invokes a growing body of international law that has the Israelis worried.

The past two decades have seen the emergence of UN-backed war-crimes tribunals and the International Criminal Court.

Parallel to that has been the development of "universal jurisdiction", where individual governments take it upon themselves to look into charges of war crimes or crimes against humanity committed elsewhere.

"I think all these changes have been very important, and they send signals which simply didn't exist even a decade ago, that if you commit these kinds of crimes, there can be consequences," says Steve Crawshaw of Human Rights Watch.

The Palestinians, although ordered by the report and the UN resolution to conduct their own investigations into charges of war crimes, are determined to use this system to hold Israel to account.

"The process started some time ago and is intensifying now with the Goldstone Report over the question of accountability and fighting against impunity," says the Palestinian representative to the UN, Riyad Mansour.

"If the Security Council continues to drag its feet and refuses to shoulder its responsibility, we have options, many options, and there is no limit to where we can go on this quest of accountability."

Already there have been attempts to arrest Israeli military officers visiting Britain, leading to what Israel's David Benjamin calls a "de facto travel ban".

Impact

Lt Col Benjamin insists this is part of a political struggle with no legal merit, what he calls "law-fare" rather than warfare, but does not dismiss the potential impact.

"To adopt the Goldstone report would have very dramatic consequences," he says, "not only for us, but also for any democratic country fighting… a terrorist army with substantial military force but hiding in a civilian population."

Lt Col Benjamin says the same problem could arise in Iraq, Afghanistan and other places.

That may have been a consideration for the US and some Nato countries which either voted against the UN resolution or abstained.

Publicly they expressed concerns that the report was unfairly weighted against Israel, although many supported its call for independent investigations on both sides.

That may be the most important result of the process so far, says Mr Crawshaw.

"The very mention of the fact that this could end up in the international court at the end of the road… creates that extra pressure for domestic investigation."

Either way, human rights groups say, the report and its international profile have reinforced growing efforts to tackle the issues of impunity and lack of accountability for war crimes.

from the Wall Street Journal, 2009-Oct-18, by John Bolton:

Israel, the U.S. and the Goldstone Report
Joining the U.N. Human Rights Council was a mistake Obama should correct.

The U.N.'s Human Rights Council (HRC) voted overwhelmingly on Friday to endorse the recommendations of the lopsidedly anti-Israel Goldstone Report. The report, named for former South African judge Richard Goldstone, who chaired the underlying investigation, concluded that Israel's 2008-2009 military campaign against the terrorist group Hamas was actually aimed against Gaza's residents as a whole. Thus it was an illegitimate exercise of "collective punishment," an extraordinarily amorphous legal concept.

The report alleges numerous specific human rights violations by both Israel and Hamas. But by attempting to criminalize Israel's strategy of crippling Hamas, the report in effect declared the entire antiterrorism campaign to be a war crime. Mr. Goldstone recommended that Israel and the Palestinians should each conduct their own investigations, failing which the Security Council should refer the entire matter to the International Criminal Court for possible prosecution.

In the month since the report's release, it has roiled the Middle East peace process. An Israeli spokesman said "it will make it impossible for us to take any risks for the sake of peace," perhaps foreshadowing Israeli withdrawal from negotiations while the report remains under active U.N. consideration.

The HRC resolution endorsing the report's recommendations repeatedly lacerated Israel, leading Mr. Goldstone himself to cringe, saying he was "saddened" the resolution contained "not a single phrase condemning Hamas as we have done in the report." A U.S. State Department spokesman conceded that the adopted text "went beyond even the scope of the Goldstone Report itself."

The U.N. General Assembly created the HRC on March 15, 2006, to replace the discredited Human Rights Commission, which had spent much of its final years concentrating on Israel and the U.S. rather than the world's real human rights violators. The Bush administration voted against establishing this body and declined to join it, believing, correctly, that it would not be an improvement over its predecessor. President Barack Obama changed course, and the U.S. won election to the HRC in May. Mr. Obama argued that engagement would be more effective than shunning the HRC and attempting to delegitimize it.

The Goldstone Report thus provides a stark test of Mr. Obama's analysis. Predictably, the administration blamed the report's underlying mandate and its stridently anti-Israel tilt on America's earlier absence from the HRC when the investigation was authorized and launched. Yet the new administration's diplomacy had no discernible impact on the HRC's disgraceful resolution.

Twenty-five of the Security Council's 47 members voted for the resolution (including Russia and China), six voted against (Hungary, Italy, Netherlands, Slovakia, Ukraine and the U.S.), and 11 abstained (Japan, South Korea and several European governments among them).

Five didn't vote at all, including Great Britain and France. Press reports indicated that London saw its inaction as a "favor" to Israel, a position simultaneously inexplicable and gutless. It is hard to know just how much real politicking the Obama administration did before this vote, but the loss of key allies is telling.

The Goldstone Report has important implications for America. In the U.N., Israel frequently serves as a surrogate target in lieu of the U.S., particularly concerning the use of military force pre-emptively or in self-defense. Accordingly, U.N. decisions on ostensibly Israel-specific issues can lay a predicate for subsequent action against, or efforts to constrain, the U.S. Mr. Goldstone's recommendation to convoke the International Criminal Court is like putting a loaded pistol to Israel's head—or, in the future, to America's.

Mr. Obama has now met the new HRC, same as the old HRC, thus producing a "teachable moment," a phrase he often uses. Quasi-religious faith in "engagement" and the U.N. has run into empirical reality. When the administration picks itself up off the ground, it should become more cognizant of that organization's moral and political limitations.

Although it will be hard for Mr. Obama to swallow, the logical response to Friday's debacle is to withdraw from and defund the HRC. Otherwise the Goldstone Report will merely be the beginning, next time perhaps with Washington as its unmistakable target.

Mr. Bolton, a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, is the author of "Surrender Is Not an Option: Defending America at the United Nations and Abroad" (Simon & Schuster, 2007).

from Reuters, 2009-Nov-5, by Patrick Worsnip, with additional reporting by Jim Finkle in Waltham, Massachusetts, and editing by Eric Walsh:

UN assembly votes for probes of Gaza war charges

UNITED NATIONS, Nov 5 - In a move that angered Israel, the U.N. General Assembly voted on Thursday to urge the Jewish state and Palestinians to investigate war crimes charges leveled in a controversial U.N. report on the Gaza war.

The Arab-drafted resolution is nonbinding and unlikely to lead to inquiries by either Israel or the militant Palestinian Hamas movement that rules Gaza into their conduct during the December-January conflict.

But the outcome was seen by Arab states as a public relations coup and a public discomfiture for Israel, which has reacted with outrage to the findings of the U.N. report, as have American Jewish groups.

Following a two-day debate, 114 countries voted for the resolution with 18 opposed -- including Israel and its ally the United States -- and 44 abstaining. No country has veto power in the assembly.

The resolution responded to a 575-page report on the Gaza war commissioned by the Geneva-based U.N. Human Rights Council, written by a panel led by South African jurist Richard Goldstone and published in September.

The report blasted both sides in the conflict, which killed over 1,300 Palestinians and 13 Israelis, but was harsher toward Israel, which refused to cooperate with Goldstone.

The resolution follows Goldstone in calling on Israel and "the Palestinian side" to undertake within three months credible investigations into the report's charges.

At a forum at Brandeis University in Waltham, Massachusetts, on Thursday, Goldstone criticized Israel for refusing to cooperate, adding that Israel responded to Palestinian attacks with disproportionate force.

As an example, he said that Israeli forces bombed a mosque during a worship ceremony, resulting in a large number of casualties. "If a government becomes a lawbreaker, it breeds contempt for the law," Goldstone said.

At the same forum, former Israeli U.N. Ambassador Dore Gold defended his country's decision to boycott the investigation and sparred verbally with Goldstone.

"This was a fixed fact-finding mission. It wasn't looking for the truth," Gold said.

The resolution asks U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon to transmit the report to the Security Council and to report back to the assembly in three months on implementation of the resolution "with a view to considering further action" by U.N. bodies.

SECURITY COUNCIL ACTION UNLIKELY

Diplomats said all five veto-wielding permanent Security Council members opposed council involvement, so it was unlikely the 15-nation body -- the only U.N. entity with powers of enforcement -- would take action.

Despite European Union aspirations to a common foreign policy, the 27-nation bloc was badly split over the assembly resolution. Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Poland, Hungary, the Czech Republic and Slovakia voted against it.

Ireland, Portugal, Malta, Slovenia and Cyprus voted in favor while others, including Britain and France, abstained.

Most developing countries voted in favor, reflecting sympathy for the Palestinian cause. Muslim states backed the Goldstone report during the assembly debate and called for an end to what they termed Israel's impunity in the Middle East.

Israeli Deputy Ambassador Daniel Carmon told the assembly the resolution "endorses and legitimizes a deeply flawed, one-sided and prejudiced report of the discredited Human Rights Council and its politicized work that bends both fact and law."

Earlier, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said in Israel that what the United Nations should be investigating was an Iranian arms shipment to Lebanese Hezbollah guerrillas that Israel said Wednesday it had intercepted. Israel formally complained to the world body Thursday over the shipment.

U.S. Deputy U.N. Ambassador Alejandro Wolff said the assembly resolution was unbalanced in several respects, including its failure to name Hamas. He also said a demand for international supervision of any Israeli and Palestinian investigations was "unhelpful."

In a clear warning to the Obama administration Tuesday, the House of Representatives by an overwhelming majority urged President Barack Obama to oppose U.N. endorsement of the Goldstone findings.

from Ha'aretz, 2010-Feb-7, by Shlomo Shamir, Barak Ravid and Avi Issacharoff, and Agencies:

UN likely to refer Goldstone findings to The Hague
Arab states set to force debate that would bring Gaza war crimes claims before international court.

The United Nations is likely to refer the findings of the Goldstone report to the International Court of Justice in The Hague, diplomatic sources in New York said on Saturday.

A decision to bring the report on last year's Gaza war before the court would follow a debate in the UN General Assembly over Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon's response to the document last week.

Assembly president Ali Abdussalam Treki announced on Saturday that member states were drawing up a plan of action over Ban's answer to the report, in which retired South African Judge Richard Goldstone accused both Israel and Hamas of war crimes.

Treki, a senior Libyan diplomat, did not give a target date for a debate by the assembly - but the tone of his press release implied that he would push for a full discussion of the issue, diplomats said.

Ban himself is thought not to support a general session, fearing that further criticism of Israel would only delay the renewal of Israeli-Palestinian peace talks.

Most UN-watchers believe that Arab member states will demand a plenary session on the report, however.

Senior UN diplomats note, meanwhile, that one consequence of the Goldstone inquiry is that Hamas, which along with Israel issued a formal response, has become a quasi-official actor in the UN arena.

In his report, Ban wrote that Israel had responded to all the accusations against it. But he added that it was too early to say whether recommendations had yet been implemented by Israel and Hamas, as the parties were still conducting investigations.

The Foreign Ministry in Jerusalem said on Friday that Israel was satisfied with Ban's statement, which was an "accurate representation" of the Israeli submission.

Hamas on Saturday appeared to backtrack on last week's apology for harming Israeli civilians in rocket attacks. The Goldstone report accused Hamas of firing rockets indiscriminately at civilians.

The militant group, which controls the Gaza strip, had said previously that its rockets were meant to defend Gazans against Israeli military strikes: "We apologize for any harm that might have come to Israeli civilians," the Hamas government wrote in an intial reponse to the Goldstone report.

But on Saturday Hamas said in statement that its response the UN had been misinterpreted and contained no apologies. Hamas officials declined to give any further comment.

"Hamas is a terror organization whose main purpose is to attack civilians, so it's not surprising that they would retract their apology," Israeli Foreign Ministry spokesman Andy David told the Associated Press on Saturday.

"For years Hamas has boasted about deliberately targeting civilians, either through suicide bombings, by gunfire or by rockets," Palmor said Saturday. "Who are they trying to fool now?"

from the New York Times, 2009-Oct-20, p.A31, by Robert L. Bernstein:

Rights Watchdog, Lost in the Mideast

AS the founder of Human Rights Watch, its active chairman for 20 years and now founding chairman emeritus, I must do something that I never anticipated: I must publicly join the group's critics. Human Rights Watch had as its original mission to pry open closed societies, advocate basic freedoms and support dissenters. But recently it has been issuing reports on the Israeli-Arab conflict that are helping those who wish to turn Israel into a pariah state.

At Human Rights Watch, we always recognized that open, democratic societies have faults and commit abuses. But we saw that they have the ability to correct them — through vigorous public debate, an adversarial press and many other mechanisms that encourage reform.

That is why we sought to draw a sharp line between the democratic and nondemocratic worlds, in an effort to create clarity in human rights. We wanted to prevent the Soviet Union and its followers from playing a moral equivalence game with the West and to encourage liberalization by drawing attention to dissidents like Andrei Sakharov, Natan Sharansky and those in the Soviet gulag — and the millions in China's laogai, or labor camps.

When I stepped aside in 1998, Human Rights Watch was active in 70 countries, most of them closed societies. Now the organization, with increasing frequency, casts aside its important distinction between open and closed societies.

Nowhere is this more evident than in its work in the Middle East. The region is populated by authoritarian regimes with appalling human rights records. Yet in recent years Human Rights Watch has written far more condemnations of Israel for violations of international law than of any other country in the region.

Israel, with a population of 7.4 million, is home to at least 80 human rights organizations, a vibrant free press, a democratically elected government, a judiciary that frequently rules against the government, a politically active academia, multiple political parties and, judging by the amount of news coverage, probably more journalists per capita than any other country in the world — many of whom are there expressly to cover the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

Meanwhile, the Arab and Iranian regimes rule over some 350 million people, and most remain brutal, closed and autocratic, permitting little or no internal dissent. The plight of their citizens who would most benefit from the kind of attention a large and well-financed international human rights organization can provide is being ignored as Human Rights Watch's Middle East division prepares report after report on Israel.

Human Rights Watch has lost critical perspective on a conflict in which Israel has been repeatedly attacked by Hamas and Hezbollah, organizations that go after Israeli citizens and use their own people as human shields. These groups are supported by the government of Iran, which has openly declared its intention not just to destroy Israel but to murder Jews everywhere. This incitement to genocide is a violation of the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide.

Leaders of Human Rights Watch know that Hamas and Hezbollah chose to wage war from densely populated areas, deliberately transforming neighborhoods into battlefields. They know that more and better arms are flowing into both Gaza and Lebanon and are poised to strike again. And they know that this militancy continues to deprive Palestinians of any chance for the peaceful and productive life they deserve. Yet Israel, the repeated victim of aggression, faces the brunt of Human Rights Watch's criticism.

The organization is expressly concerned mainly with how wars are fought, not with motivations. To be sure, even victims of aggression are bound by the laws of war and must do their utmost to minimize civilian casualties. Nevertheless, there is a difference between wrongs committed in self-defense and those perpetrated intentionally.

But how does Human Rights Watch know that these laws have been violated? In Gaza and elsewhere where there is no access to the battlefield or to the military and political leaders who make strategic decisions, it is extremely difficult to make definitive judgments about war crimes. Reporting often relies on witnesses whose stories cannot be verified and who may testify for political advantage or because they fear retaliation from their own rulers. Significantly, Col. Richard Kemp, the former commander of British forces in Afghanistan and an expert on warfare, has said that the Israel Defense Forces in Gaza “did more to safeguard the rights of civilians in a combat zone than any other army in the history of warfare.”

Only by returning to its founding mission and the spirit of humility that animated it can Human Rights Watch resurrect itself as a moral force in the Middle East and throughout the world. If it fails to do that, its credibility will be seriously undermined and its important role in the world significantly diminished.

Robert L. Bernstein, the former president and chief executive of Random House, was the chairman of Human Rights Watch from 1978 to 1998.

from the Wall Street Journal Asia, 2009-Oct-25:

Asean's 'Human-Rights' Council
Not off to a great start.

The Association of Southeast Asian Nations inaugurated its human-rights commission Friday. Like its United Nations equivalent, it's a toothless body, but it can still do damage to the cause it's supposed to serve.

Asean members aspire for the council to be "a vehicle for progressive social development and justice, the full realization of human dignity and the attainment of a higher quality life for Asean peoples," according to their inaugural declaration. These are worthy goals.

But Asean is a broad church that includes countries like Burma and Laos that want to rubber-stamp their authoritarian regimes, not submit to real scrutiny. All 10 commissioners who will serve on the council for three year terms were chosen by their respective Asean member nations, in most cases through opaque selection processes that involved little or no public consultation. Commissioners include Kyaw Tint Swe, the Burmese ambassador to the U.N. who has long defended the junta's rights record there, and Brunei's Abdul Hamid Bakal, a Shariah court judge. The commission operates by consensus and its mandate focuses on promoting human rights, not protecting them.

The initial signals aren't encouraging. At the weekend Asean summit in Hua Hin, Thailand, delegates discussed regional integration, climate change and removing trade barriers. No less than five Asean nations—Burma, Cambodia, Laos, the Philippines and Singapore—refused to meet with civil society representatives during a scheduled "interface meeting" Friday meant to act as a forum for discussion between heads of state and civil society representatives.

This was nothing if not predictable, given the composition of the council. It's also a shame, given the need for an effective human-rights watchdog in the region. Burma, for instance, will be holding elections next year. If the human-rights council meant what it said about upholding "human dignity," it could mention the plight of Aung San Suu Kyi, the jailed opposition leader who is still under house arrest. Or it could examine the status of the Rohingya refugees who routinely wash up on the shores of Thailand and Malaysia as they flee from Burma.

Asean aspires to be a regional organization with bigger global clout. Embracing a human-rights council like this is detrimental to that goal.

from the Wall Street Journal, 2009-Sep-22, p.A25, by Paul H. Robinson:

Israel and the Trouble With International Law
Many restrictions on the use of force against aggressors make no moral sense.

Last week the United Nations issued a report painting the Israelis as major violators of international law in the three-week Gaza war that began in December 2008. While many find the conclusion a bit unsettling or even bizarre, the report's conclusion may be largely correct.

This says more about international law, however, than it does about the propriety of Israel's conduct. The rules of international law governing the use of force by victims of aggression are embarrassingly unjust and would never be tolerated by any domestic criminal law system. They give the advantage to unlawful aggressors and thereby undermine international justice, security and stability.

Article 51 of the U.N. Charter forbids all use of force except that for "self-defense if an armed attack occurs." Thus the United Kingdom's 1946 removal of sea mines that struck ships in the Strait of Corfu was held to be an illegal use of force by the International Court of Justice, even though Albania had refused to remove its mines from this much used international waterway. Israel's raid on Uganda's Entebbe Airport in 1976—to rescue the victims of an airplane hijacking by Palestinian terrorists—was also illegal under Article 51.

Domestic criminal law restricts the use of defensive force in large part because the law prefers that police be called, when possible, to do the defending. Force is authorized primarily to keep defenders safe until law enforcement officers arrive. Since there are no international police to call, the rules of international law should allow broader use of force by victims of aggression. But the rules are actually narrower.

Imagine that a local drug gang plans to rob your store and kill your security guards. There are no police, so the gang openly prepares its attack in the parking lot across the street, waiting only for the cover of darkness to increase its tactical advantage. If its intentions are clear, must you wait until the time the gang picks as being most advantageous to it?

American criminal law does not require that you wait. It allows force if it is "immediately necessary" (as stated in the American Law Institute's Model Penal Code, on which all states model their own codes), even if the attack is not yet imminent. Yet international law does require that you wait. Thus, in the 1967 Six Day War, Israel's use of force against Egypt, Syria and Jordan—neighbors that were preparing an attack to destroy it—was illegal under the U.N. Charter's Article 51, which forbids any use of force until the attack actually "occurs."

Now imagine that your next-door neighbor allows his house to be used by thugs who regularly attack your family. In the absence of a police force able or willing to intervene, it would be quite odd to forbid you to use force against the thugs in their sanctuary or against the sanctuary-giving neighbor.

Yet that is what international law does. From 1979-1981 the Sandinista government of Nicaragua unlawfully supplied arms and safe haven to insurgents seeking to overthrow the government of El Salvador. Yet El Salvador had no right under international law to use any force to end Nicaragua's violations of its sovereignty. The U.S. removal of the Taliban from Afghanistan in 2001 was similarly illegal under the U.N. Charter (although it earned broad international support).

An aggressor pressing a series of attacks is protected by international law in between attacks, and it can take comfort that the law allows force only against its raiders, not their support elements. In 1987, beginning with a missile strike on a Kuwaiti tanker, the Iranians launched attacks on shipping that were staged from their offshore oil platforms in the Persian Gulf. While it was difficult to catch the raiding parties in the act (note the current difficulty in defending shipping against the Somali pirates), the oil platforms used to stage the attacks could be and were attacked by the U.S. Yet these strikes were held illegal by the International Court of Justice.

Social science has increasingly shown that law's ability to gain compliance is in large measure a product of its credibility and legitimacy with its public. A law seen as unjust promotes resistance, undermines compliance, and loses its power to harness the powerful forces of social influence, stigmatization and condemnation.

Because international law has no enforcement mechanism, it is almost wholly dependent upon moral authority to gain compliance. Yet the reputation international law will increasingly earn from its rules on the use of defensive force is one of moral deafness.

True, it will not always be the best course for a victim of unlawful aggression to use force to defend or deter. Sometimes the smart course is no response or a merely symbolic one. But every state ought to have the lawful choice to do what is necessary to protect itself from aggression.

Rational people must share the dream of a world at peace. Thus the U.N. Charter's severe restrictions on use of force might be understandable—if only one could stop all use of force by creating a rule against it. Since that's not possible, the U.N. rule is dangerously naive. By creating what amount to "aggressors' rights," the restrictions on self-defense undermine justice and promote unlawful aggression. This erodes the moral authority of international law and makes less likely a future in which nations will turn to it, rather than to force.

Mr. Robinson, a professor of law at the University of Pennsylvania, is the co-author of "Law Without Justice: Why Criminal Law Does Not Give People What They Deserve" (Oxford, 2006).

from BBC News, 2009-Oct-16:

UN votes to endorse Gaza report

The UN human rights body has endorsed a report into Israel's offensive in Gaza which accuses both Israel and Palestinian militants of war crimes.

The report by Richard Goldstone calls for credible investigations by Israel and Hamas, and international war crimes prosecutions if they fail to do that.

Both Israel and the US opposed endorsement of the report, saying it would set back Middle East peace hopes.

The vote was 25 to six for the resolution. Eleven countries abstained.

The Palestinian Authority initially backed deferring a vote, but changed its position after domestic criticism.

The US has dubbed the report "flawed", but has still urged - along with the UK and France - both sides to launch independent investigations.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is reported to have urged UK Prime Minister Gordon Brown to vote against the report in a 30-minute telephone conversation on Thursday night.

from the Telegraph of London, 2009-Oct-16, by Adrian Blomfield in Jerusalem and David Blair, Diplomatic Editor:

Peace talks crisis as Israel urges UN to reject Gaza 'war crimes' report

Israel has threatened to withdraw an offer of territorial concessions in the West Bank if a controversial report accusing it of war crimes in Gaza is adopted by the United Nations.

This threat, which would effectively end America's efforts to restart peace talks with the Palestinian leadership, came after the United Nation's Human Rights Council formally endorsed a report that was deeply critical of Israel's conduct during the Gaza offensive in January.

The study, compiled by Richard Goldstone, a retired South African judge, was approved by 25 votes to six and will now go before the UN General Assembly, which may refer it to the security council. Britain and France chose not to participate in the vote, despite America and Israel asking them to reject the report.

The Human Rights Council's decision pitched the Middle East peace process into renewed crisis. Israel threatened to rule out any concessions in future talks with Mahmoud Abbas, the Palestinian leader.

If the Security Council were to endorse the Goldstone Report, Israeli officials could be indicted by the International Criminal Court. Such a decision would also, say Israeli officials, deny their country its right to self defence. Israel fought the Gaza war to stop Hamas fighters from using the Palestinian territory to fire rockets at its southern cities.

“If we are denied the right of self defence, no Israeli government can take any risks,” said Yigal Palmor, the Israeli foreign ministry's spokesman. “In that case, the peace process will be stalled.”

Mr Palmor said that Israel would not withdraw from peace talks, but insisted that any further territorial concessions, along the lines of Israel's withdrawal from Gaza in 2005, would become impossible.

“We have seen what happened in Gaza and how it was transformed into an Islamic statelet run by a dissident terrorist group and was used as a platform to attack civilians,” he said. “If the principle [of self defence] is not legitimate, we will not be inclined to withdraw from territory.”

America's veto will almost certainly prevent the Security Council from adopting the Goldstone Report - even if the General Assembly chooses to endorse it.

Even so, Israel's hardline government has further toughenened its negotiating position towards the Palestinians, making the prospect of any territorial concessions in the West Bank still more remote.

In the 24 hours before Friday's vote, the Israeli government lobbied its allies, particularly Britain and France, to reject the Goldstone Report.

Benjamin Netanyahu, the Israeli prime minister, telephoned Gordon Brown. Meanwhile, Ehud Barak, the Israeli defence minister, rang David Miliband, the Foreign Secretary.

Normally such a call would have been made by Mr Miliband's opposite number, Avigdor Lieberman, the Israeli foreign minister who also leads the Right-wing Yisrael Beitenu party. But Mr Barak, the leader of the Israeli Labour party, was clearly judged to have a better chance of swaying Mr Miliband. The Foreign Office confirmed that Mr Miliband also received a call from Hillary Clinton, the US secretary of state.

These efforts yielded one small British concession with London persuaded not to vote at all, rather than formally register an abstention. “We did not participate in the vote,” said a Foreign Office spokesman. “We were involved in intensive discussions with Israel and the Palestinians about potential substantive improvements in the situation on the ground.”

Britain is deeply concerned about the political future of Mr Abbas, who has faced a storm of fury from ordinary Palestinians. When the Goldstone Report first emerged, the moderate Palestinian leader bowed to American and Israeli pressure and agreed to postpone any UN debate for six months. This caused such anger that he was forced to reverse his decision and press the Human Rights Council to endorse the judge's findings. Britain fears that Hamas will be the only beneficiary of Mr Abbas's political woes.

from the Wall Street Journal, 2009-Oct-16, p.A18:

Britain's Terror Double Take
Help on Afghanistan, a moral disgrace on Gaza.

British Prime Minister Gordon Brown this week made the politically hard call, no more than eight months before a national election, to send another contingent of 500 British troops to Afghanistan. Perhaps President Obama, playing Hamlet over whether to boost American forces, can take inspiration from Mr. Brown's commitment. The British are concerned about American wavering and the mounting weeks of uncertainty, and they want to see Mr. Obama sign himself back up to his original Afghan war strategy.

So it's especially unfortunate to see Mr. Brown's government take a different side in another front of this global war on terror. Today at the U.N. Human Rights Council in Geneva, the U.K. plans to abstain in a vote on a 575-page account of a "fact finding mission" into the January war in the Gaza Strip. Among Western allies, Britain will likely be alone in not trying to stop the so-called Goldstone report from reaching the Security Council, from where it could go on to the International Criminal Court.

This latest U.N. product—no need to pause for suspense—slams Israel. According to South African jurist Richard Goldstone's report, Israel engaged in "a deliberately disproportionate attack designed to punish, humiliate and terrorize a civilian population." Israeli solders could be held liable for prosecution in international courts. Little is said about Hamas's months of rocket strikes that indiscriminately killed civilians and prompted Israel's decision to invade Gaza.

The U.K. says the report "raised serious issues" and "is perfectly valid," though it allows that the report fails to give a full account of Hamas's behavior or properly acknowledge Israel's right to self defense. Otherwise Britain may have voted in favor. Bringing Goldstone to the Security Council serves Hamas's purposes to a tee and damages the ability of Western democracies to defend themselves against all such terrorist groups that don't fight by accepted rules of war.

By declaring Israel's war against Hamas possibly a "crime against humanity," the Goldstone report could make any other country think twice before engaging a terror group. By its reasoning, Winston Churchill may have been charged with ordering bombing raids on Germany that took civilian lives. For that matter, the current Prime Minister might find himself in the dock for civilians harmed in Britain's fight against the Taliban in Afghanistan's Helmand province. That's what's on the line in Geneva today.

from the Wall Street Journal, 2009-Sep-24, p.A20:

The U.N.'s Anti-Antiterror Report
A biased 'finding' on Gaza could also apply to Afghanistan.

When it comes to the U.N. and Israel, our thoughts often turn to those East German Olympic judges during the Cold War: Their bias was so transparent it could almost pass without notice. But a new report from a U.N. "fact finding mission" about January's war in the Gaza Strip marks a new low, employing logic and arguments that will be felt wherever the West confronts terrorism.

The Goldstone report—named after principal author, South African jurist Richard Goldstone—is a creature of the U.N.'s Human Rights Council, which in its three short years has condemned Israel more often than the U.N.'s other 191 member states combined, according to Hudson Institute scholar Anne Bayefsky. Mr. Goldstone's report devotes the bulk of its 575 pages to denouncing Israel for what it calls "a deliberately disproportionate attack designed to punish, humiliate and terrorize a civilian population." For this, it adds, Israeli soldiers could be individually liable for criminal prosecution in international courts, while Israel itself is held guilty of "a crime against humanity."

To arrive at these conclusions, Mr. Goldstone and his fellow panelists were forced to make some astonishing claims of fact. For example, they assert that the Gaza police force was a "civilian" agency, though it merged with Hamas's own paramilitary "Executive Force" after Hamas took over Gaza in 2007. The report also says it could not "establish the use of mosques for military purposes or to shield military activity," despite widely available real-time video evidence to the contrary.

The argument seems to be that Hamas can surround its combatants with civilians, and for Israel to strike back is a war crime. The report holds Israel culpable for pursuing a strategy essential in war, which is to break the enemy's will to fight. By this logic, FDR and Churchill could have been charged because the bombing of German industries and cities killed civilians in World War II.

The U.N. also holds Israel accountable as Gaza's "occupying power," never mind that former Prime Minister Ariel Sharon uprooted all of Gaza's Jewish settlements in 2005. As for the "blockade" it accuses Israel of inflicting on the Strip, one wonders why Egypt, which has also sealed its border with Gaza, doesn't come in for similar condemnation.

The report treats Israel as the aggressor in the conflict, though the Israeli government sat still for more than three years as Hamas transformed Gaza into a terrorist enclave while firing rockets at Israeli towns and cities. At exactly what point, if any, does Mr. Goldstone believe Israel is entitled to self defense? His co-panelist, international law professor Christine Chinkin, offered a clue in January when she wrote that Hamas's rocket attacks on Israeli civilians did not "amount to an armed attack entitling Israel to rely on self defense."

The Goldstone report includes some pro forma condemnation of Hamas's behavior, but Hamas leaders quickly endorsed the findings because they know they have nothing to fear from the International Criminal Court or any other special tribunal. Hamas violates the laws of war as a matter of daily routine, not least in the murder of Palestinian dissenters. The U.N. report can only hurt a Western nation like Israel that cares about world, or at least American, opinion.

If it is taken seriously, the Goldstone logic could (and eventually will) be applied to NATO tactics in Afghanistan, where civilians are also sometimes killed in the course of anti-Taliban operations. This may well be a U.N. goal—the preamble in a process that could lead to, say, Director Leon Panetta in the dock at the Hague.

As for the Obama Administration, it has rightly made it clear that it will not allow the report to reach the level of the Security Council, much less the International Criminal Court. But having now joined the Human Rights Council—a point the President underscored, to applause, in his speech yesterday at the U.N.—it now has an obligation to police that body and call it out on its charades, lest it become complicit.

from the Washington Times, 2009-Sep-25, by Benjamin Netanyahu:

Transcript: Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's remarks at the U.N. General Assembly

CQ Transcripts

ISRAELI PRIME MINISTER BENJAMIN NETANYAHU DELIVERS REMARKS AT THE U.N. GENERAL ASSEMBLY, NEW YORK CITY

SEPTEMBER 24, 2009

SPEAKER: ISRAELI PRIME MINISTER BENJAMIN NETANYAHU

(JOINED IN PROGRESS)

BENJAMIN NETANYAHU, PRIME MINISTER OF ISRAEL: The United Nations recognized the rights of the Jews, an ancient people 3,500 years old, to a state of their own in their ancestral homeland. I stand here today as the prime minister of Israel, the Jewish state. And I speak to you on behalf of my country and my people.

The United Nations was founded after the carnage of World War II, after the horrors of the holocaust. It was charged with preventing the reoccurrence of such horrendous events. Nothing has undermined that mission, nothing has impeded it more, than the systematic assault on the truth.

Yesterday, the president of Iran stood at this very podium, spewing his latest anti-Semitic rants. Just a few days earlier, he, again, claimed that the Holocaust is a lie.

Last month, I went to a villa in a suburb of Berlin called Wannsee. There, on January 20th, 1942, after a hearty meal, senior Nazi officials met and decided to exterminate my people. They left detailed meetings -- or minutes of that meeting, and these minutes have been preserved for posterity by successive German governments.

Here is a copy of the minutes of the meeting of senior Nazi officials instructing the Nazi government exactly how to carry out the extermination of the Jewish people. Is this protocol a lie? Is the German government, all German governments, lying?

The day before I was Wannsee, I was given in Berlin the original construction plans for the Auschwitz Buchenwald concentration camp. These plans -- these plans of the Auschwitz Buchenwald concentration plans, I now hold in my hand. They contain a signature by Heinrich Himmler, Hitler's deputy himself. Are these plans of the Auschwitz Buchenwald concentration camp, where one million Jews were murdered, are they a lie, too?

This June, President Obama visited another concentration camp, one of many. The Buchenwald Concentration Camp. Did President Obama pay tribute to a lie? And what of the Auschwitz survivors whose arms still bear the tattooed numbers branded on them by the Nazis? Are those tattoos a lie, too?

One-third of all Jews perished in the great conflagration of the Holocaust. Nearly every Jewish family was affected, including my own. My wife's grandparents, her father's two sisters and his three brothers and all the aunts and uncles and cousins, all murdered by the Nazis.

Is this a lie?

Yesterday, the man who calls the Holocaust a lie spoke from this podium. To those who refused to come and to those who left in protest, I commend you. You stood up for moral clarity, and you brought honor to your countries. But to those who gave this holocaust denier a hearing, I say on behalf of my people, the Jewish people, and decent people everywhere, have you no shame? Have you no decency?

A mere six decades after the Holocaust, you give legitimacy to a man who denies the murder of 6 million Jews? While promising to wipe out the state of Israel, the state of the Jews? What a disgrace. What a mockery of the charter of the United Nations.

Now, perhaps - perhaps some of you think that this man and his odious regime, perhaps they threaten only the Jews. Well, if you think that, you're wrong - dead wrong. History has shown us time and time again that what starts with attacks on the Jews eventually ends up engulfing many, many others, for this Iranian regime is fueled by an extreme fundamentalism that burst on to the world scene three decades ago after lying dormant for centuries.

In the past 30 years, this fanaticism has swept across the globe with a murderous violence that knows no bounds and with a cold-blooded impartiality in the choice of its victims. It has callously slaughtered Muslims and Christians, Jews and Hindus, and many others. Though it is comprised of different offshoots, the adherence of this unforgiving creed seek to return humanity to medieval times. Wherever they can, they impose a backward, regimented society where women, minorities, gays, or anyone else deemed not to be a true believer, is brutally subjugated.

The struggle against this fanaticism does not pit faith against faith nor civilization against civilization. It pits civilization against barbarism, the 21st Century against the 9th Century, those who sanctify life against those who glorify death.

Now, the primitivism of the 9th Century are to be no match for the progress of the 21st Century. The allure of freedom, the power of technology, the reach of communications should surely win the day. Ultimately, the past cannot triumph over the future, and our future offers all nations magnificent bounties of hope, because the pace of progress is growing, and it is growing exponentially.

It took us centuries to get from the printing press to the telephone, decades to get from the telephone to the personal computer, and only a few years to get from the personal computer to the Internet. What seemed impossible a few years ago is already outdated, and we can scarcely fathom the changes that are yet to come. We will crack the genetic code, we will cure the incurable, we will lengthen our lives, we will find a cheap alternative to fossil fuel and, yes, we will clean up the planet.

I'm proud that my country, Israel, is at the forefront of many of these advances, in science and technology, in medicine and biology, in agriculture and water, in energy and the environment. These innovations, in my country and many of your countries, offer humanity a sunlit future of unimagined promise. But if the most primitive fanaticism can acquire the most deadly weapons, the march of history could be reversed for a time. And like the belated victory over the Nazis, the forces of progress and freedom, they will prevail only after a horrific toll of blood and fortune has been exacted from mankind.

This is why the greatest threat facing the world today is the marriage between religious fundamentalism and the weapons of mass destruction. The most urgent challenge facing this body today is to prevent the tyrants of Tehran from acquiring nuclear weapons. Are the members of the United Nations up to that challenge? Will the international community confront a despotism that terrorizes its own people as they bravely stand up for freedom? Will it take action against the dictators who stole an election in broad daylight and then gunned down Iranian protesters who died in the sidewalks, on the street, choking on their own blood? Will the international community thwart the world's most pernicious sponsor and practitioner of terrorism? Above all, will the international community stop the terrorist regime of Iran from developing atomic weapons, thereby endangering the peace of the entire world?

The people of Iran are courageously standing up to this regime. People of goodwill around the world stand with them, as do thousands of people who have been protesting and demonstrating outside this hall all of this week. Will the United Nations stand by their side?

Well, ladies and gentlemen, the jury's still out on the United Nations. And recent signs - recent signs are not encouraging. Rather than condemning the terrorists and their Iranian patrons, some here in the United Nations have condemned their victims.

This is exactly what a recent UN report on Gaza did, falsely equating terrorists with those they targeted. For eight long years Hamas fired rockets - fired those rockets from Gaza on nearby Israeli citizens - and citizens, thousands of missiles, mortars, hurling down from the sky on schools, on homes, shopping centers, bus stops - Years after - year after year as these missiles were deliberately fired on our civilians, not a single - not one UN resolution was passed condemning those criminal attacks. We heard nothing, absolutely nothing, from the UN Human Rights Council - a misnamed institution if there ever was one.

In 2005, hoping to advance peace, Israel unilaterally withdrew from every inch of Gaza. It was very painful. We dismantled 21 settlements, really, bedroom communities, and farms. We uprooted over 8,000 Israelis. We just yanked them out from their homes. We did this because many in Israel believed that this would get peace.

Well, we didn't get peace. Instead, we got an Iranian-backed terror base 50 miles from Tel Aviv. But life in the Israeli towns and cities immediately next to Gaza became nothing less than a nightmare. You see, the Hamas rocket launchers and the rocket attacks not only continued after we left, they actually increased dramatically. They increased tenfold. And, again, the UN was silent - absolutely silent.

Well, finally, after eight years of this unremitting assault, Israel was forced to respond - but how should we have responded? Well, there's only one example in history of thousands of rockets being fired on a country's civilian population. This happened when the Nazis rocketed British cities during World War II. During that war, the Allies leveled German cities, causing hundreds of thousands of casualties. I'm not passing judgment. I'm stating a fact, a fact that is the product of the decision of great and honorable men - the leaders of Britain and the United States, fighting an evil force in World War II. It is also a fact that Israel chose to respond differently. Faced with an enemy committing a double war crime, of firing on civilians while hiding behind civilians, Israel sought to conduct surgical strikes directed against the rocket launchers themselves. Now, mind you, that was no easy task because the terrorists were fighting missiles - firing their missiles from homes and from schools. They were using mosques as weapons depots, as missile caches, and they were ferreting explosives in ambulances.

Israel, by contrast, tried to minimize casualties by urging Palestinian civilians to vacate the targeted areas. We dropped countless flyers - they cannot be counted, there were so many, obviously - countless flyers over their homes. We sent thousands and thousands of text messages to the Palestinian residents. We made thousands and thousands of cellular phone calls, urging them to vacate, to leave. Never has a country gone to such extraordinary lengths to remove the enemy's civilian population from harm's way, yet faced with an absolutely clear-cut case of aggressor and victim, who do you think the United Nations Human Rights Council decided to condemn? Israel.

A democracy legitimately defending itself against terror is morally hanged, drawn, and quartered and given an unfair trial to boot. By these twisted standards, the UN Human Rights Council would have dragged Roosevelt and Churchill to the dock as war criminals. What a perversion of truth. What a perversion of justice.

Now, delegates of the United Nations, and the governments whom you represent, you have a decision to make. Will you accept this farce? Because if you do, the United Nations would revert to its darkest days, when the worst violators of human rights sat in judgment against the law-abiding democracies, when Zionism was equated with racism, and when an automatic majority could be mustered to declare that the earth is flat.

If you had to choose a date when the United Nations began its descent, almost a freefall, and lost the respect of many thoughtful people in the international community, it was that decision in 1975 to equate Zionism with racism.

Now this body has a choice to make. If it does not reject this biased report, it would vitiate itself, it would begin - or re-begin the process of vitiating itself from its own relevance and importance. But it would do something else. It would send a message to the terrorists everywhere saying terrorism pays. All you have to do is launch your attacks from densely populated areas, and you will win immunity.

And then a third thing, in condemning Israel this body would also deal a mortal blow to peace. Let me explain why. When Israel left Gaza, many hoped that the missile attacks would stop. Others believed that even if they don't stop, at the very least Israel would have made this gesture - extraordinary gesture - for peace. But it would have international legitimacy to exercise its right of self defense if peace failed. What legitimacy? What self-defense? The same U.N. that cheered Israel as we left Gaza, the same U.N. that promised to back our right of self-defense now accuses us, my people, my country, of being war criminals. And for what? For acting responsibly in self-defense? For acting in a way that any country would act with a restraint unmatched by many.

What a travesty. Ladies and gentlemen, Israel justly defended itself against terror. This biased and unjust report provides a clear-cut test for all governments. Will you stand with Israel? Or will you stand with the terrorists? We must know the answer to that question now. Now, not later.

Because if Israel is again asked to take more risk for peace, we must know today that you will stand with us tomorrow. Only if we have the confidence that we can defend ourselves can we take further risks for peace. And make no mistake about it, all of Israel wants peace. Anytime an Arab leader genuinely wanted peace with us, we made peace. We made peace with Egypt led by Anwar Sadat. We made peace with Jordan led by King Hussein.

And if the Palestinians truly want peace, I and my government and my people will make peace. But we want a genuine peace, a defensible peace, a permanent peace.

In 1947 this body voted to establish two states for two peoples, a Jewish state and an Arab state. The Jews accepted this resolution. The Arabs rejected it and invaded the embryonic Jewish state with the hopes of annihilating it. We asked the Palestinians to finally do what they refused to do for 62 years, say yes to a Jewish state. As simple, as clear, as elementary as that. Just as we are asked to recognize a nation-state for the Palestinian people, the Palestinians must be asked to recognize the nation-state of the Jewish people.

The Jewish people are not foreign conquerers in the land of Israel. It is the land of our forefathers. Inscribed on the walls outside this building is the great biblical vision of peace: Nation shall not lift up sword against nation. They shall learn war no more. These words were spoken by the great Jewish prophet Isaiah 2,800 years ago as he walked in my country, in my city, in the hills of Judea and in the streets of Jerusalem.

We are not strangers to this land. This is our homeland. But as deeply connected as we are to our homeland, we also recognize that the Palestinians also live there. And they want a home of their own. We want to live side by side with them, two free peoples living in peace, living in prosperity, living in dignity.

(APPLAUSE)

NETANYAHU: Peace, prosperity and dignity require one other element. We must have security. The Palestinians should have all the powers to govern themselves, except a handful of powers that could endanger Israel, and this is why the Palestinian state must be effectively demilitarized. I say effectively because we don't want another Gaza or another south Lebanon, another Iranian-backed terror base abutting Jerusalem and perched on the hills a few kilometers from Tel Aviv.

We want peace. And I believe that with good will and with hard work, such a peace can be achieved. But it requires, from all of us, to roll back the forces of terror led by Iran that seek to destroy peace, that seek to eliminate Israel and to overthrow the world order. The question facing the international community is whether it is prepared to confront those forces or to accommodate them.

Over 70 years ago, Winston Churchill amended what he called -- he called it the confirmed unteachability of mankind. And by that, he meant the unfortunate habit of civilized societies to sleep and to slumber until danger nearly overtakes them. Churchill bemoaned what he called -- I'm reading -- the want of foresight, the unwillingness to act when action will be simple and effective, the lack of clear thinking, the confusion of counsel until the emergency comes, until self-preservation strikes its jarring gong.

Ladies and gentlemen, I speak here today in the hope that Churchill's assessment of the unteachability of mankind is for once proven wrong. I speak here today in the hope that we can learn from history, that we can prevent danger in time. In the spirit of the timeless words spoken to Joshua over 3,000 years ago, let us be strong and of good courage. Let us confront this peril, secure our future, and, God willing, forge an enduring peace for generations to come.

(SPEAKING FOREIGN LANGUAGE)

Thank you very much.

END

from the Jerusalem Post, 2009-Oct-1:

Netanyahu: UN may become irrelevant

Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu had some harsh words for the world during the government meeting on Thursday, saying that if the international community endorses the Goldstone Report on Israel's Operation Cast Lead in the Gaza Strip last winter, the peace process with the Palestinians, as well as the global war on terror, would be dealt a fatal blow.

"In the next 24 hours a vote will be cast in Geneva within the UN Human Rights Council," Netanyahu told the ministers.

"I remind you that this very council has adopted more resolutions targeting Israel than resolutions targeting all other 180 countries in the world put together," he said.

"If the council decides to endorse the Goldstone report it will deal a fatal blow to three major issues: Firstly, it will harm the war on terror, because it will legitimize terrorists who hide behind civilians and fire from their midst." Netanyahu stressed that in such cases, the one who ultimately takes the blame is "generally the victim, acting in legitimate self defense."

"The second devastating blow will be to the UN's status and its prestige. It will take it back to its darkest days when absurd decisions were passed within its assembly and empty it of all meaning," Netanyahu added, referring to the 1970s, when the UN adopted a resolution comparing Zionism with racism. He warned that the UN will become irrelevant if it adopts the conclusions of the report.

The Prime Minister stated that the third and most pressing issue was the Goldstone Report's potentially "devastating effect on the peace process," and warned the world that "Israel will not be willing to take risks for peace if stripped of its right to self-defense."

During the meeting, held on Thursday and not on Sunday due to Yom Kippur, Defense Minister Ehud Barak updated the government on his meetings with US Secretary of Defense Robert Gates and US point-man on the Iran dossier Dennis Ross, as well as other officials in the US intelligence community.

Barak's discussion with US officials revolved around the importance of maintaining Israel's qualitative edge over its enemies in the region, and included Iran's nuclear program, which Israel believes is meant for the production of nuclear weapons.

"I certainly detect in the US administration a better understanding of Israel's position on the matter," Barak said.

Barak also addressed the Godlstone Report, saying, "We should act with confidence and not try to apologize [to the world]. There is a dangerous attempt here to compare terror groups with those trying to defend themselves; it is a prize for terrorism. This attitude harms the world's ability to fight terrorism, and will eventually harm the United States, Russia and member states of NATO."

Barak said he also met with Alan Dershowitz, a Harvard law professor, stalwart defender of Israel and JPost.com blogger. Barak told the ministers regarding his meeting with Dershowitz that "there is readiness by many to act against the Goldstone Report. We will need serious thinking and acting, and the basis of our actions should be real self confidence."

"The IDF conducted many serious internal investigations. I told leaders from the United States and Europe that the norms of the IDF are among the world's most ethical and I say with confidence that the IDF is one of the most punctilious armies when it comes to the purity of arms and serious, in-depth investigations of untoward conduct," Barak said.

from the Wall Street Journal, 2009-Oct-11, by R. James Woolsey:

The Ugly Premise of 'Settlement' Opponents
About 20% of Israel is Arab. Would it be a tragedy if 10% of future Palestine is Jewish?

At the Aspen Institute's Ideas Festival this past July, Salam Fayyad, acting prime minister of the Palestinian Authority, spoke enthusiastically about the rule of law in a future Palestine. I asked him whether the same rights would be available to Jewish citizens of a Palestinian state that are available to the over one million Arab citizens of Israel. Could they enjoy freedom of religion and speech, and be able to vote for real representatives in a real legislature? Most importantly, would they be able to sleep at night without worrying that someone might kick down the door and kill them?

Mr. Fayyad responded: "I'm not someone who will say that they would or should be treated differently than Israeli Arabs are treated in Israel. In fact, the kind of state that we want to have, that we aspire to have, is one that would definitely espouse high values of tolerance, coexistence, mutual respect and deference to all cultures, religions. No discrimination whatsoever, on any basis whatsoever. Jews, to the extent they choose to stay and live in the state of Palestine, will enjoy those rights and certainly will not enjoy any less rights than Israeli Arabs enjoy now in the state of Israel."

Such a policy would mark a substantial change from the Palestinian Authority's first law adopted in 1994: the death penalty for any Palestinian who sells land to Jews. Over 100 Palestinians have died, under sentence or extrajudicially, for such sales in the last 15 years, including one last May. The Fatah (Mr. Fayyad's party) charter foresees a Palestine that is free of Jews. And recently Fatah demanded that Israel give up all of Jerusalem before it would begin negotiations on a two-state solution.

But suppose Mr. Fayyad's statement marks a tentative turn away from these positions?

The Obama administration seems determined to discourage any such shift. It remains committed to stopping growth of any kind in all Jewish settlements in the West Bank. This policy implies acquiescence in the banning of Jews from a future Palestinian state.

Why? The administration's fixation on preventing even minor construction internal to a settlement assumes that Jewish settlers are on the verge of taking over the entire West Bank. This is fanciful: There are about 200,000 Jewish settlers in the West Bank, and 2.5 million Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza. The settlers live on about 1.5% of the West Bank, and the very substantial majority are in four major settlement blocs around Jerusalem.

In the two previous administrations, the U.S. had accepted that in any reasonable peace agreement these four blocs would remain under Israeli control, and that some Israeli land would be transferred to the new Palestinian state. This was the assumption in the parameters that President Clinton proposed to Ehud Barak and Yasser Arafat in January 2001.

The Obama administration, on the other hand, seems quite opposed to any such small land adjustments. The president said on Sept. 23 at the U.N. that "America does not accept the legitimacy of continued Israeli settlements" and that our goal was to end "the occupation that began in 1967."

It's still unclear why the administration has a problem with Jews living in the West Bank. Even if every settlement and its residents were transferred to Palestinian sovereignty, Jews would still comprise under 10% of the population of the new Palestinian state. Arabs, overwhelmingly Muslim, would continue to comprise nearly 20% of Israel's population. Why should such a Jewish minority be forbidden in Mr. Fayyad's Palestine?

It would of course take some time for his hopes to become reality. It is also clear that without American support for religious and political freedom in Palestine, there is no chance that Palestinian leaders will decide to make their country one in which Jews can feel safe. Yet rather than promoting the rule of law in a future Palestine, the Obama administration essentially urges us to accept that, because Palestinians will kill unprotected Jews, Jews cannot be permitted in a Palestinian state.

This is what the late New York Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan called "defining deviancy down." Will it provide the basis for peace in the Middle East for us to define deviancy for Palestinians in such a way that essentially accepts Fatah's goal of a Jew-free Palestine? As Mr. Moynihan once wryly understated it, such a move would simply be our deciding to "get used to a lot of behavior that is not good for us"—let alone for Israelis and Palestinians.

Mr. Woolsey, a former director of Central Intelligence under President Clinton, is a visiting fellow at Stanford University's Hoover Institution.

from the Wall Street Journal's Political Diary, 2009-Oct-9, by John Fund:

What Are They Smoking In Oslo?

This year's awarding of the Nobel Peace Prize to President Obama can only hasten the decline in prestige of an award that has already gone to people like Yasser Arafat, UN General Secretary Kofi Annan (who presided over the Iraqi oil-for-food scam) and the fabulist Guatemalan activist Rigoberta Menchu. For this year's Nobel, the deadline was February 1, barely ten days after Mr. Obama had assumed the presidency. Though the Nobel committee of five Norwegian politicians presumably considered the evidence over the summer, it's fair to say their award represents little more than wishful thinking that Mr. Obama's diplomatic efforts will ultimately bear fruit.

Other U.S. Presidents have won Nobels, but for actual accomplishments. Teddy Roosevelt helped broker a peace treaty between Russia and Japan. Woodrow Wilson worked to build a lasting peace after the end of World War I, however unsuccessful that effort later proved. Even Jimmy Carter won the Peace Prize in 2002 after more than two decades of humanitarian efforts as a former president.

The Nobel Committee is said often to make its final decision at its last meeting just before the announcement. If so, President Obama has gotten a consolation prize for the failure of the U.S. to secure the 2016 Olympics. But that won't take away the sense that his award has more to do with political correctness than the realities of peace. Reading the Nobel Committee's explanation of its decision, President Obama appears to have won this year's prize because he's not his predecessor, George W. Bush.

from the Wall Street Journal, 2009-Oct-19, p.A11, by Paul Sonne and Guy Chazan:

Nobel Committee Chairman Draws Fire Over Pick

Thorbjørn Jagland helped shepherd the Nobel Peace Prize to U.S. President Barack Obama, setting off a war over whether the award was deserved -- and landing himself squarely in the crosshairs.

Mr. Jagland is the stoic Norwegian chairman of the five-member Nobel Peace Prize committee, which stunned the world when it honored Mr. Obama with this year's award just months into his presidency. The announcement ignited a Nordic whodunit to determine what went on behind the committee's closed doors.

In pursuit of an explanation, most roads track to Mr. Jagland's door. Norwegian political experts say the 58-year-old, a first-time member of the committee who once served as prime minister and now heads the Council of Europe, which promotes democracy and human rights on the Continent, pressed Mr. Obama's candidacy and played a crucial role in crowning him this year's honoree.

Despite the outcry surrounding this year's award, Mr. Jagland has weathered the storm with reserve. He says accusations that he personally pushed the choice reflect Norwegian domestic political intrigue, and maintains that while he had an impact, the decision was taken unanimously and hardly his alone.

At the same time, he fiercely defends this year's prize. "If you are not able to make a courageous decision, you cannot help move the world in the right direction," Mr. Jagland said in an interview Thursday from the Council of Europe in Strasbourg. "If you are afraid of criticism or debate, then you shouldn't have that kind of position or be in politics at all."

The Obama prize has generated debate and become an instant punch line around the world. When David Beckham was named "man of the match" in England's World Cup qualifying soccer game this week despite playing for just 30 minutes, his coach, Fabio Capello, mocked the honor as being "like Obama getting the Nobel Prize."

The five members of the Nobel Committee represent parties from across the political spectrum and are elected by the Norwegian Parliament. Each recipient of a peace prize receives a cash award of about $1.4 million from a fund endowed by Swedish industrialist Alfred Nobel. (The White House said Mr. Obama will give the money to charity.) Though the fund lost 19% of its value last year amid the global recession, it has fared better than some other major endowments.

Coming from a committee headed by Mr. Jagland, the award makes sense. He is often described as a risk taker who thinks on a grand scale -- an intellectual who, at times, has faced trouble translating his vision into practical policies.

The son of a shipyard welder and a cook, Mr. Jagland rose to prominence in the Norwegian Labor Party. In a 1990 book called "My European Dream," he articulated his vision for a united Europe in the wake of the Berlin Wall's collapse. Like Mr. Obama, he preaches a politics of acceptance, which most recently came to the fore when he warned of growing Islamophobia and anti-Islamic fear-mongering in Europe.

"It's easy to see why a great visionary like Obama appeals to Jagland," said Lars Halvor Mageroy, commentary editor at Norwegian tabloid Verdens Gang. "People say that vision is all that Obama has to show at this point, but Jagland is a politician who finds that aspect of politics to be of great significance."

Asked about his political values, Mr. Jagland cited a respect for human rights, plus the Scandinavian belief in fair distribution of incomes and the right to free health care that every Norwegian enjoys. He classifies himself in the social-democratic tradition of European leaders whose outlook combines faith in international cooperation and diplomacy with trust in social welfare at home.

Such clues prompted Gerhard Helskog to become one of the few journalists in Norway to predict this year's Peace Prize winner correctly. "He likes to talk about big moments in history," Mr. Helskog said. "I think he went to the committee and said, 'Let's think big…let's start a discussion.'" In a television interview before the announcement, Mr. Jagland said he wanted this year's prize to prompt people from around the world to nod in approval -- which Mr. Helskog took as a sign that this year's recipient would be a recognizable international figure.

A recent poll found that about 43% of Norwegians think Mr. Obama deserved the award. Siv Jensen, leader of the opposition Progress Party, nonetheless has called for Mr. Jagland to step down from the Nobel committee chairmanship. She says it is a conflict of interest for him to run the Council of Europe and also choose the Peace Prize winner. If a human-rights advocate from a given country came up for the prize, he might not want to choose that person because it would endanger the Council's dealings with that country, she says. She also credited him with pushing Mr. Obama's candidacy. "It was his decision," she says. "Jagland was seeking publicity for himself."

Mr. Jagland says the prize doesn't need more publicity, and that a member of Ms. Jensen's party on the Nobel committee agreed on choosing Mr. Obama.

Detractors claim Mr. Jagland advocated for Mr. Obama because he wanted to bring the president to Norway. Others say he and the committee slighted more worthy candidates, such as imprisoned Chinese activist Hu Jia and Zimbabwean Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai and Afghan human-rights worker Sima Samar, all of whom could use the protection and support a Nobel Peace Prize would bring.

Under the leadership of the previous chairman, Ole Danbolt Mjos, the committee selected relatively low-profile laureates -- Iranian human-rights advocate Shirin Ebadi, Kenyan environmentalist Wangari Maathai, Bangladeshi microfinance banker Muhammad Yunus and Finnish diplomat Martti Ahtisaari -- with the exception of the 2007 winner, former Vice President Al Gore.

The Obama award comes as the president is weighing sending more U.S. troops to Afghanistan. Mr. Jagland counters that Afghanistan didn't begin with the U.S., but rather with a joint United Nations Security Council resolution.

"I don't share the view that this is something Barack Obama should have to resolve on his own, and that is something he is also saying -- that everyone has to take their share, not only there, but in all other conflicts we have globally," Mr. Jagland says.

from the New York Times, 2009-Oct-30, by James Kanter and Stephen Castle:

E.U. Reaches Funding Deal on Climate Change

European Union leaders on Friday offered to contribute money to a global fund to help developing countries tackle global warming hoping kick-start stalled talks on a new agreement on climate change.

But E.U. leaders disappointed climate campaigners by making the offer conditional on donations from other parts of the world and by failing to decide how much Europe would contribute to a global pot of up to 50 billion euros by 2020.

Swedish Prime Minister Fredrik Reinfeldt insisted the E.U. now had "a very strong negotiating position" to press for a global deal at United Nations talks in Copenhagen in December that are aimed at agreeing a successor accord to the Kyoto Protocol.

Angela Merkel, the German chancellor, also stressed that Europe was leading the way.

"There is no-one else among the industrialized nations" to have made as concrete an offer of climate finance, Ms. Merkel told a press conference in Brussels.

But environmental groups took a mostly negative view of the results of the two-day summit, saying E.U. leaders had chosen vague, global figures and thereby diminished chances of unblocking climate negotiations ahead of the meeting in Copenhagen.

"Europe has failed once again to say how much it is prepared to contribute for climate finance," said Sonja Meister, a climate campaign coordinator for Friends of the Earth Europe. "In every way the EU is shirking its historical responsibilities and blocking progress towards the just and fair agreement the world needs in Copenhagen," she said.

The European Commission had called on E.U. leaders to make an offer of up to 15 billion euros annually by 2020.

Mr. Reinfeldt, the Swedish prime minister, said leaders had instead agreed that developing nations needed about 100 billion euros annually by 2020 and that, of that sum, between 22 billion euros and 50 billion euros would have to come from public funds, as opposed to private sources like investments in carbon-reduction projects.

Mr. Reinfeldt also said that E.U. nations could make a voluntary decision to contribute to a so-called fast-track mechanism that would make funds available immediately to developing countries.

Jose Manuel Barroso, the president of the European Commission, put a brave face on the result, underlining that the trade bloc should not be "naive" going into the negotiations in Copenhagen that are set to begin in fewer than six weeks.

"Our offer is not a blank check," said Mr. Barroso. "We are ready to act, if our partners deliver," he said.

E.U. officials said that Ms. Merkel, the German chancellor, who had been reticent over making any European commitment, had been persuaded that the figures were only conditional on steps being taken by other nations.

from the New York Times, 2009-Oct-23, by Mike Reicher:

Affordable? U.N. Puts a Questioning Eye on New York’s Housing

Everybody knows New York City is an expensive place to live. But the United Nations wants to know if affordable housing is so tough to come by that it actually violates human rights.

The United Nations has assigned an official, “a special rapporteur on the right to adequate housing,” to check the city's affordable housing. The rapporteur, Raquel Rolnik, is to tour the city for the next three days with housing advocates and city officials to “hear the voices of those who are suffering on the ground,” she said.

The United Nations Human Rights Council appoints a rapporteur, or independent experts, to investigate human rights conditions around the world. In the case of Ms. Rolnik, a professor of urban planning at the University of Sao Paulo in Brazil, her “mission” is to tour New York City and six other places in the United States and to report back to the United Nations General Assembly about housing rights violations and advances.

After that, “We send off letters to governments to ask, `Is this true? What's going on?’ and to please intervene,” she said.

Housing advocates will be taking Ms. Rolnik to the Atlantic Yards site in Brooklyn to see the results of the government’s use of eminent domain to seize property; to the New York City Housing Authority’s Grant Houses in Harlem to see how public housing residents live; and to the Bronx to meet residents whose landlords are in foreclosure.

At a town hall meeting last night in Morningside Heights, residents wept and shouted at Ms. Rolnik. They complained about deteriorating public housing, the lack of housing subsidies for AIDS patients, landlord harassment and many other issues, large and small.

She told them: “I am representing the right of adequate housing as a human right.”

One advocate and resident of public housing, Agnes Rivera, wept after telling Ms. Rolnik that Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg “doesn't care about the poor.” Rob Robinson from Picture the Homeless, a local advocacy group, embraced Ms. Rivera and gazed toward the special rapporteur. Later, Ms. Rolnik hugged a resident herself.

“Affordable housing here is not that affordable,” said Ms. Rolnik, who studied urban history as a New York University doctoral student in the 1980s. Her eyes lit up when talking about inclusionary zoning and other city housing policies. New York is unusual, she pointed out, because it has a city-level obligation to ensure that homeless people have shelter. Now it should make affordable housing a priority, she said.

Ms. Rolnik was appointed as special rapporteur by the United Nations Human Rights Council in May 2008. This is her first official mission.

After her tour of New York City, she will survey the housing situations in Chicago, New Orleans, Los Angeles, Washington, a South Dakota Indian reservation, and Wilkes-Barre, Pa. Her report to the General Assembly is planned for March.

Across the United States, residents may tell her the same stories as those of New Yorkers — of mortgage scams, too many luxury condos and the stigma associated with public housing.

“We have no one to help us,” said Delores Earley, 73, who said her landlord has been trying to push her out of her Harlem rent-stabilized apartment for 20 years. “Somebody has got to know.”

from the Wall Street Journal, 2009-Oct-20, by Jon Kyl:

Why We Need to Test Nuclear Weapons
The credibility of our nuclear deterrent depends on the reliability of the arsenal.

President Barack Obama made history last month when he presided over the nuclear nonproliferation summit at the United Nations Security Council. Since nuclear proliferation is among the most pressing threats facing the world, one would have thought that the president would use the Sept. 24 summit to condemn the newly discovered uranium enrichment facility in Qom, Iran.

He did not. Instead he asked the Security Council to pass a nonbinding resolution stressing the urgency of global disarmament and arms-control treaties among the five permanent Security Council members. The resolution never mentioned Iran or North Korea.

Mr. Obama also said, on behalf of the U.S., that "We will move forward with the ratification of the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty" (CTBT). This is a profound mistake, as a ban on testing nuclear weapons would jeopardize American national security. Ten years ago this month the U.S. Senate rejected the treaty, and the reasons for doing so are even stronger today.

The CTBT then, as now, does not define what it purports to ban, which is nuclear-weapons testing. This ambiguity leaves countries free to interpret the treaty (and act) as they see fit. Thus, if the U.S. ratified the treaty, it would be held to a different standard than other nations.

Another concern in 1999 was that clandestine nuclear tests could not be verified. That, too, is still the case. While the treaty has not entered into force, the world still uses the treaty's monitoring system (the CTBT Organizations International Monitoring System) to detect nuclear-weapons tests. But even when Pyongyang declared that it would conduct a nuclear-weapons test and announced where and when it would occur, this monitoring system failed to collect necessary radioactive gases and particulates to prove that a test had occurred.

The CTBT relies on 30 of 51 nations on its executive council—most of whom are not friendly to the U.S.—to agree that an illegal test has been conducted, and then to agree to inspect the facilities of the offending country (which can still be declared off-limits by that country). This enforcement mechanism is obviously unworkable.

But there's another defect in the CTBT. There were concerns a decade ago that the U.S. might be unable to safely and reliably maintain its own nuclear deterrent—and the nuclear umbrella that protects our allies such as Japan, Australia and South Korea —if it forever surrendered the right to test its weapons. Those concerns over aging and reliability have only grown. Last year, Paul Robinson, chairman emeritus of Sandia National Laboratory, testified before Congress that the reliability of U.S. nuclear weapons still cannot be guaranteed without testing them, despite more than a decade of investments in technological advancements.

Treaty proponents, nevertheless, believe the prospective benefit of ratification outweigh its risks and problems. And what, exactly, is the benefit of ratification?

Mr. Obama has said that if the U.S. ratifies the test ban treaty the world would finally get serious about the problem of proliferation, in other words, the nuclear-weapons programs of Iran and North Korea. As Secretary of State Hillary Clinton put it at the Sept. 24 nuclear nonproliferation summit at the U.N., "CTBT ratification would also encourage the international community to move forward with other essential nonproliferation steps."

There is some evidence to test that claim. Iran and North Korea are already in violation of the Nonproliferation Treaty (NPT), which requires that they do not develop nuclear weapons. Yet for years the world has been unable to agree that these nations' NPT obligations must be enforced. If the world can't or won't enforce the NPT there is no reason to believe it would be any more effective in enforcing the CTBT.

Our allies have the same incentive to prevent Iran from going nuclear today as they would if the U.S. ratified the CTBT. There is nothing in the test ban treaty that enhances their incentive to stop Iran.

There's a related theory, which is that the U.S. has to ratify the CTBT if it wants to have any credibility or leadership on nonproliferation. Assistant Secretary of State Rose Gottemoeller spoke for many in the arms-control community when she said at a nonproliferation conference in Virginia in August, "There is no step that we could take that would more effectively restore our moral leadership."

Aside from the fact that countries will act in their best interest whether or not the U.S. "leads" them, no one can legitimately question U.S. commitment on proliferation issues. No nation has worked harder than the U.S. to pressure North Korea and Iran, and there is no evidence that Russia and China would suddenly help us if we ratified the test-ban treaty.

Moreover, unlike other nations, the U.S. has not conducted a nuclear-weapons test since 1992; it has not designed a new warhead since the 1980s or built one since the 1990s. It has reduced its nuclear-weapons stockpile by 75% since the end of the Cold War and 90% since the height of the Cold War. Meanwhile, the U.S. has spent more than $7 billion on the Nunn-Lugar program, which deals with the "loose nukes" threat, and it will spend more than $2 billion on nonproliferation measures such as securing loose nuclear material this year alone. There is again no evidence one more symbolic gesture is going to change anything.

The immediate challenge we face is the threat posed by nuclear proliferation in the hands of rogue regimes. That, and not a flawed, irrelevant test ban treaty, is what the administration should focus on.

Mr. Kyl, a Republican, is a U.S. senator from Arizona.

from the Guardian of London, 2009-Oct-5, by Kathryn Hopkins:

IMF policies deepened financial crisis, says CEPR
Thinktank report argues that fund's over-optimistic assumptions on economic growth exacerbated global downturn

Policies implemented by the International Monetary Fund (IMF) during the global downturn further exacerbated the crisis in many countries, a leading thinktank said today.

In a paper analysing the IMF's agreements with 41 borrowing countries during the crisis, the Washington-based Centre for Economic and Policy Research (CEPR) found that 31 of the agreements contained so-called "pro-cyclical" macroeconomic policies, which – in the face of a significant slowdown in growth or in a recession – would be expected to exacerbate the downturn.

"In many cases the fund's pro-cyclical policies were based on over-optimistic assumptions about economic growth," said the thinktank. This means the measures proposed were too restrictive for the countries involved and did not produce the longer-lasting economic growth predicted.

In nearly half of the countries that have had at least one review, the IMF's analysts had to lower their previous forecasts of real GDP growth by at least three percentage points, and in a few cases they had to correct forecasts that were at least seven percentage points overestimated. "Most likely there will be more downward revisions to come," the CEPR said.

"The fund might respond that it could not be expected to anticipate the depth of the world recession and its impact on developing countries through exports, capital inflows, remittances, access to trade credits and other channels.

"But the fund should have been more careful in its projections and should have anticipated a severe downturn that would have serious effects on low- and middle-income countries."

The CEPR suggested the IMF had learned few lessons from the past. For example, in Latvia the fund had encouraged the government to preserve a pegged exchange rate. This is similar to the IMF-supported policy in Argentina during its steep recession of 1998-2002, "where a fixed, overvalued exchange rate was supported with tens of billions of dollars of loans until it inevitably collapsed".

"In cases such as Argentina and Latvia, maintaining the peg means that adjustment must take place through shrinking the economy and real wage declines. Latvia's GDP is projected to shrink by 18% this year," the thinktank reports.

The CEPR also criticised the IMF for failing to foresee the cause of the US recession, which officially began in December 2007.

"Some economists began writing about the housing bubble in 2002, and while no one could anticipate exactly when it would burst, [co-director of the CEPR, Dean] Baker continuously tracked the magnitude of the bubble; and well before it peaked in 2006, it was clear that this would have a huge impact on both the US and world economy."

The CEPR said that all of this data and analysis was available to the fund, which has one of the largest economic research departments in the world. "The fund publishes the World Economic Outlook every six months, the purpose of which is to analyse current trends; the WEO missed this enormous bubble and its likely consequences."

The CEPR says it is now time for the IMF to re-examine the criteria, assumptions and economic analysis that it uses to prescribe macroeconomic policies in developing countries.

In response to the findings, the IMF said: "The CEPR reaches seriously misleading conclusions about the pro-cyclicality of policies in IMF-supported programmes, relying on faulty analysis and often inaccurate information.

"The main point of this report is that growth forecasts were too optimistic when programs were designed, leading to excessively tight fiscal and monetary policies. Reality is quite the opposite.

"In virtually all programmes, fiscal targets were quickly and substantially relaxed once the extent of the crisis became apparent. Monetary and fiscal policies have deliberately sought to offset the fall in global demand."

from the Wall Street Journal, 2009-Oct-25:

Debtors to the Front
A plan to cede U.S. influence at the IMF.

Banks around the world have been battered in the past year, but most have not responded by turning over control of their businesses to their borrowers. Yet this is what creditors at the International Monetary Fund moved closer to doing at the G-20 meeting in Pittsburgh last month. We understand why fund borrowers want more power, but why would creditor nations, especially Uncle Sam, cede it?

The terms "debtor" and "creditor" may seem foreign to anyone who reads IMF press releases for the first time. The fund prefers the terms "emerging and developing markets" to describe countries that traditionally borrow hard currency, and "advanced countries" to describe those that provide it. But there's no getting around the reality that only a fraction of the IMF's 186 members are long-term creditors.

That became clear earlier this year when the G-20 passed the hat to collect $500 billion for a lending facility known as "new arrangements to borrow." Major emerging countries led by Brazil quickly made clear they would only contribute if the fund issued short-term bonds that could be traded in the secondary market. In other words, no long-term commitments from them.

Creditor countries have always enjoyed more voting power at the fund because without them there would be no reliable pool of money. But several years ago borrower nations, led by members from Asia and Latin America, began clamoring for a greater voice in fund decisions. They argued that since their economies have grown and now represent a larger share of total global GDP, a "democratic" IMF ought to give them a greater share of voting rights.

Creditors might have replied that the fund is not a democracy and that anyone who wants more votes can get them by ponying up more real money. Instead, in 2008 the board approved a 5% shift in voting rights from what it called "over-represented" creditors to "under-represented" countries. Among the biggest beneficiaries of the 2008 change, once it is ratified, will be China, Korea, India, Brazil, Mexico, Spain, Singapore and Turkey. The eight biggest losers will be the U.K., France, Saudi Arabia, Canada, Russia, Netherlands, Belgium and Switzerland.

Now the debtors want still more power, and the creditors, led by the U.S. Treasury, are ready to yield. The Pittsburgh G-20 communique states that there will be another "shift in quota share to dynamic emerging market and developing countries of at least five percent from over-represented to under-represented countries." Why "at least?" Because the likes of Brazil and China are lobbying for a 7% shift in votes. Europe, which has the most to lose, opposes this change.

A spokesman for the fund tells us that the March 2008 voting shift increased the vote share held by emerging and developing countries to 42.1%. That means that if the new 7% solution prevails, emerging countries will have close to a majority. So politicians in Beijing and Brasilia would have more sway over how U.S. taxpayer contributions are spent.

Perhaps only Barney Frank has benefitted more from the financial crisis than the IMF has. Searching for revenue and without a mission in 2008, it has tripled its resources since the panic began and is now bidding to police the world's economic policies. Given its record of recommending tax increases and currency devaluation, this is not a road to prosperity.

At least the IMF of yore could be counted on to support Western geopolitical interests. If the IMF is going to turn into something like a bank for the United Nations, with the debtors running the joint, U.S. taxpayers should stop being asked to pay for it.

from the Guardian of London, 2009-Sep-30, by Bobbie Johnson:

US relinquishes control of the internet

• Icann ends agreement with the US government
• Move will give other countries a prominent internet role

San Francisco — After complaints about American dominance of the internet and growing disquiet in some parts of the world, Washington has said it will relinquish some control over the way the network is run and allow foreign governments more of a say in the future of the system.

Icann – the official body that ultimately controls the development of the internet thanks to its oversight of web addresses such as .com, .net and .org – said today that it was ending its agreement with the US government.

The deal, part of a contract negotiated with the US department of commerce, effectively pushes California-based Icann towards a new status as an international body with greater representation from companies and governments around the globe.

Icann had previously been operating under the auspices of the American government, which had control of the net thanks to its initial role in developing the underlying technologies used for connecting computers together.

But the fresh focus will give other countries a more prominent role in determining what takes place online, and even the way in which it happens – opening the door for a virtual United Nations, where many officials gather to discuss potential changes to the internet.

Icann chief Rod Beckstrom, a former Silicon Valley entrepreneur and Washington insider who took over running the organisation in July, said there had been legitimate concerns that some countries were developing alternative internets as a way of routing around American control.

"It's rumoured that there are multiple experiments going on with countries forking the internet, various countries have discussed this," he said. "This is a very significant shift because it takes the wind out of our opponents."

He added that the changes would prove powerful when combined with upcoming plans to allow web users to use addresses with names in Chinese, Arabic or other alphabets other than Latin. Many countries have lobbied for the shift in recent years, as the expansion of the web reaches out deeper into society and business.

While the issue reached critical mass in emerging economies such as China, it is not the only country that has lobbied for a change. Earlier this year European officials said that they did not think it was proper for America to retain so much control over the global computer network.

Viviane Reding, the EU's commissioner for information society and media, said she was pleased that Washington chose to make the shift.

"I welcome the US administration's decision to adapt Icann's key role in internet governance to the reality of the 21st century," she said. "If effectively and transparently implemented, this reform can find broad acceptance among civil society, businesses and governments alike."

Meanwhile Nominet - the British organisation that handles the day-to-day running of .uk domain names - said that Icann had started a trend for companies with internet influence to appear more open and accountable.

"Putting public interest first will also be a focus for the UK internet community over the coming months as there is growing support for Nominet to develop more of a public interest role," said Nominet's chief executive, Lesley Cowley.

The new agreement comes into force immediately. It replaces the old version which had been in place since 1998 and was scheduled to expire today.

Beckstrom suggested that bringing more countries to the table was the best way of ensuring the long term future of the internet.

"We're more global, period. The chances of the internet holding together just went up, the cohesion just went up," he said. "We expect more active involvement from governments, a higher level of participation from many governments and we're already hearing about more governments joining the team… This was, ironically, a power move from the US."

from the Wall Street Journal, 2009-Sep-21, p.A17, by Mary Anastasia O'Grady:

Hillary's Honduras Obsession
The U.S. is trying to force the country to violate its constitution.

"The Supreme Court of Honduras has constitutional and statutory authority to hear cases against the President of the Republic and many other high officers of the State, to adjudicate and enforce judgments, and to request the assistance of the public forces to enforce its rulings."

—Congressional Research Service, August 2009

Ever since Manuel Zelaya was removed from the Honduran presidency by that country's Supreme Court and Congress on June 28 for violations of the constitution, the Obama administration has insisted, without any legal basis, that the incident amounts to a "coup d'état" and must be reversed. President Obama has dealt harshly with Honduras, and Americans have been asked to trust their president's proclamations.

Now a report filed at the Library of Congress by the Congressional Research Service (CRS) provides what the administration has not offered, a serious legal review of the facts. "Available sources indicate that the judicial and legislative branches applied constitutional and statutory law in the case against President Zelaya in a manner that was judged by the Honduran authorities from both branches of the government to be in accordance with the Honduran legal system," writes CRS senior foreign law specialist Norma C. Gutierrez in her report.

Do the facts matter? Fat chance. The administration is standing by its "coup" charge and 10 days ago, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton went so far as to sanction the country's independent judiciary. The U.S. won't say why, but its clear the court's sin is rejecting a U.S.-backed proposal to restore Mr. Zelaya to power.

The upshot is that the U.S. is trying to force Honduras to violate its own constitution and is also using its international political heft to try to interfere with the country's independent judiciary.

Hondurans are worried about what this pressure is doing to their country. Mr. Zelaya's violent supporters are emboldened by the U.S. position. They deface some homes and shops with graffiti and throw stones and home-made bombs into others, and whenever the police try to stop them, they howl about their "human rights."

But it may be that Americans should be even more concerned about the heavy-handedness, without legal justification, emanating from the executive branch in Washington. What does it say about Mr. Obama's respect for the separation of powers that he would instruct Mrs. Clinton to punish an independent court because it did not issue the ruling he wanted?

Since June 28, the U.S. has been pressuring Honduras to put Mr. Zelaya back in the presidency. But neither Mrs. Clinton's spurious "rule of law" claims or the tire iron handed her by Mr. Obama to use against this little country have been effective in convincing the Honduran judiciary that it ought to abandon its constitution.

It seems that Mrs. Clinton is peeved with the court because it ruled that restoring Mr. Zelaya to power under a proposal drafted by Costa Rican President Oscar Arias is unconstitutional. Thus, the State Department decided that in defense of the rule of law it would penalize the members of the Supreme Court for their interpretation of their constitution. Fourteen justices had their U.S. visas pulled.

Since the U.S. already had yanked the visa of the 15th member of the court, the one who signed the arrest warrant for Mr. Zelaya, this action completed Mrs. Clinton's assault on the independence of a foreign democracy's highest court. The lesson, presumably, is that judges in small foreign nations are required to accept America's interpretation of their own laws.

Thousands of readers have written to me asking how all this can happen in the U.S., where democratic principles have been recognized since the nation's founding. Many readers have written that they are "ashamed" of the U.S. and have asked, in effect, "How can I help Honduras?" A more pertinent question may turn out to be, how can they help their own country?

In its actions toward Honduras, the Obama administration is demonstrating contempt for the fundamentals of democracy. Legal scholars are clear on this. "Judicial independence is a central component of any democracy and is crucial to separation of powers, the rule of law and human rights," writes Ahron Barak, the former president of the Supreme Court of Israel and a prominent legal scholar, in his compelling 2006 book, "The Judge in a Democracy."

"The purpose of the separation of powers is to strengthen freedom and prevent the concentration of power in the hands of one government actor in a manner likely to harm the freedom of the individual," Mr. Barak explains—almost as if he is writing about Honduras.

He also warns prophetically about the Chávez style of democracy that has destroyed Venezuela and that Hondurans say they were trying to avoid in their own country. "Democracy is entitled to defend itself from those who seek to use it in order to destroy its very existence," he writes. Americans ought to ask themselves why the Obama administration doesn't seem to agree.

from the Telegraph of London online, 2009-Sep-19, by Nile Gardiner:

UN plan to replace the dollar is driven by anti-Americanism

I've been drawn into a vigorous and important debate originally sparked by a Telegraph story that revealed the United Nations wants a new global reserve currency to replace the dollar. As the Telegraph’s Economics Editor Edmund Conway wrote, the UN's proposals if enacted would represent “the biggest overhaul of the world's monetary system since the Second World War.”

Earlier this week I did an interview with Fox News where I called the proposal a “direct assault by the UN on American global power” from an organization with a “long track record of anti-Americanism.” My views have now been branded as “ridiculous” by Herr Heiner Flassbeck, the stern-faced German Chief Economist of the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD), the official wing of the UN that deals with economic issues. Flassbeck is the lead author of UNCTAD's controversial 2009 report which calls for the ousting of the dollar as the world’s reserve currency. David Lee Miller at Fox quotes Flassbeck as saying:

(According to Flassbeck) demand for the US dollar is “irrational.” He argues the creation of an alternative financial instrument would provide more stability during times of economic upheaval. The new financial instrument proposed in his report would be pegged to a basket of different currencies to minimize what he called any “huge monetary shock.”

Flassbeck's words about “irrational” demand for the dollar illustrate exactly the point I made earlier – the United Nations is obsessed with challenging America's position as the world's dominant power, and frankly its policies are all too often driven by a deep-seated anti-Americanism. I very much doubt that UNCTAD's recommendations have much to do with sound economics, much like the Euro is a political project designed to advance European integration. They are political proposals with an overwhelmingly political agenda.

Fortunately there is little prospect of UNCTAD's call to revolutionize the global financial system becoming a reality in the near term. Wall Street is bouncing back nicely and the dollar hasn't collapsed as doomsayers in Europe had predicted.

It is rather farcical when the United Nations, an emperor with no clothes, comes up with some grand new scheme to end climate change, free the world of poverty, or liberate the world of nuclear weapons. The UN is an organization that can barely maintain its own dilapidated headquarters in New York, let alone oversee the launch of a new global currency. It is the worst managed multinational in the world, with staggering levels of incompetence, mismanagement, fraud and corruption, whose standing could hardly be lower. Any Fortune 500 or FTSE 100 company run like the United Nations would collapse in a week.

Still, the UN's proposals pose a long-term threat to US interests, and will likely gain ground in the coming years with support from the likes of Russia, China and France. The United States may be the largest contributor to the United Nations, pumping more than $5 billion a year into the organization, but that doesn't stop it from being its biggest target. Envy and often hatred of Uncle Sam runs deep within the UN, and UNCTAD's dangerous ideas could well gain common currency among America's strategic competitors.

from Human Events, 2009-May-9, by John Gizzi:

House 'Sovereignty Caucus' Aimed at Koh

Stopping the President's controversial appointment of Harold Koh as legal advisor to the State Department is the first major mission of a newly-formed caucus of House Members devoted to issues of American sovereignty.

“[Koh] believes in trans-national organization having sway over U.S. domestic policy,” said Rep. Scott Garrett (R.-N.J.), one of three co-founders of the House Sovereignty Caucus, “and that's unacceptable.”

Garrett and co-founders and Republican Reps. Doug Lamborn (Col) and Thad McCotter (Mich.) spoke to me about their new caucus and its causes -- not only stopping the Koh (pronounced “Coe”) nomination but also a possible U.S. move to join the International Criminal Court and President Obama's recent call on Congress to appropriate $100 billion for the International Monetary Fund over the next decade.

All of these are the kinds of issues that motivated the three lawmakers to form the House Sovereignty Caucus, which is dedicated to fighting any legislation (or any appointee) that would seek to weaken U.S. sovereignty. Although outside groups had suggested the idea of such a caucus to House Members who care about these ideas, it took the three conservative Republicans -- Garrett, Lamborn, and McCotter -- to make it happen. Within two weeks of its birth, the Sovereignty Caucus had signed up 25 House Members and circulated a letter opposing the nomination of former Yale Law School Dean Koh.

Much of Koh's writings support the idea that regulations of the United Nations and other international organizations should trump U.S. law. In an address at Fordham University Law School entitled “A World Drowning in Guns” (April 2, 2002), Koh called for a UN-governed regime to force the U.S. to submit information about American companies small arms production.” The nominee to the State Department believes that the UN should be granted the power “to standardize national laws and procedures with member states of regional organizations.”

“And the nomination of Mr. Koh appears to be the beginning of a very troubling pattern,” Lamborn told me, citing Justice Department nominees Dawn Johnsen ( assistant attorney general for legal counsel) and David Ogden (deputy attorney general) as cases of high-level Obama appointees who have histories of praising international law over U.S.-made law.

Given this “troubling pattern,” Michigan's McCotter warned, “are we too far out of line to be concerned that this kind of ideology will be shared by the next Supreme Court nominee?”

Another major concern of the Sovereignty Caucus is that the Obama Administration will take a 180-degree turn from that of the Bush Administration and call for U.S. participation in the International Criminal Court (ICC). All of the lawmakers vowed a fight if and when the current Administration decides to ask the Senate to ratify American participation in and acceptance of the legitimacy of the ICC, which, they warned, could open the way to ICC indictments of former U.S. officials charged with alleged torture of detainees in the war on terror.

The ICC, unlike US courts, is not bound by US law or our constitution. Because our courts are, they are accountable under our law and bound as part of the democratic process. The ICC is not required to protect constitutional rights and -- boiled down to its most basic level – is a political court that renders political judgments. To subject any Americans to its jurisdiction would be a major surrender of our sovereignty.

One issue that the Sovereignty Caucus has already drawn the line in the sand over with the White House is Obama's recent letter to Congress calling for appropriation of $100 billion in additional funds to the International Monetary Fund (IMF) over the next ten years. The figure would be part of the $1.1 trillion pledged to the IMF by the G-20 nations at their summit last month.

Speaking of the anticipated influx of new money as well as the new relaxed rules with which his groups can now make loans to needy nations, IMF Managing Director Dominique Strasse-Kahn told reporters recently: “We're really in new times. I like this.”

The Sovereignty Caucus does not. McGarrett dismissed Obama's call for greater IMF funding as “beyond the pale -- the wrong time to take on additional debt for us.” McCotter went on to say it was “ridiculous in these times for the U.S. taxpayers to help out a global Tammany Hall.”

The three House Members readily conceded that, while they could indeed make an impact on funding of international organizations because of the “power of the purse” the House has, the most they could do with nominees such as Koh (whom the Senate confirms) is to bring attention to them. But through press conferences, the “special orders” portion of the House, radio-TV talk shows, and other public forums, that is precisely what the House Sovereignty Caucus will do. In the process, its founders intend to fully underscore what they consider to be a noble cause.

John Gizzi is Political Editor of HUMAN EVENTS.

from FoxNews.com, 2009-May-15, by Oliver North:

Alarm Bells Ringing Over Harold Koh

It is said that there are two kinds of lawyers: Those who know the law and those who know the judge. And then there is Harold Koh, the man who is likely to be the next legal adviser to the State Department.

Koh most recently served as dean of the Yale Law School and before that as assistant secretary of state for Democracy, Labor and Human Rights in the Clinton administration. He is a prolific author and a legal activist of the left. Earlier this week, his nomination to be Foggy Bottom's barrister was voted out of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, 12-5; his pending appointment has received scant attention from the media or the Senators who will decide his fate.

It deserves a closer look.

The State Department legal adviser is unique. The person holding the position helps formulate and implement U.S. foreign policy; advises the Justice Department on cases with international implications; influences U.S. positions on issues considered by international bodies; represents the U.S. at treaty negotiations and international conferences; has input into the drafting of Security Council resolutions and the interpretation of treaties.

Koh's record deserves more scrutiny because he is not just an attorney who knows the law — he is an activist lawyer who knows what he wants the law to be. From all he has said and written, it is apparent that Koh wants U.S. jurisprudence to be shaped by international law, European courts, foreign governments and international organizations like the United Nations. Koh puts himself in the “transnationalist” camp of legal practitioners, which he describes as those who “believe in and promote the blending of international and domestic law.” He has written that “transnationalists believe that U.S. courts can and should use their interpretive powers to promote the development of a global legal system.”

Though I have never been a supporter of the death penalty, I also believe that American citizens ought to be the ones who decide whether it is appropriate in this country. It certainly is not a matter to be decided by those in other countries. Koh, however, sides with foreigners. In a 2002 essay arguing against the death penalty he wrote, “We do not currently pay decent respect to the opinions of humankind in our administration of the death penalty. For that reason, the death penalty should, in time, be declared in violation of the Eighth Amendment.” According to Koh, the only the opinions in “humankind” that matter are those of non-Americans in the enlightened states where the death penalty is no longer considered an appropriate application of justice for those who commit heinous crimes. In the Koh universe, if the Europeans are opposed to it, we should render it unconstitutional.

This kind of thinking is also evident in his opinion of the Second Amendment. “What kind of global gun control regime could we and should we try to build?” Koh asked in an essay entitled A World Drowning in Guns. He urged “a global regulatory” scheme prohibiting the ownership of firearms could be achieved through a “process whereby rules negotiated among governments at a horizontal, intergovernmental level and interpreted through the interaction of transnational actors in these law-declaring fora are brought down vertically into the domestic law of each participating country — `brought home' if you will — and internalized into the domestic statutes, executive practice, and judicial systems of those participating nations.”

In short, this means that U.S. law — constitutional or otherwise — must be amended or revised to comport with “international standards.” Presumably this same concept would apply not only to our Second Amendment, but to U.S. federal and state laws pertaining to abortion, same-sex marriage, pornography, drug use, private property rights or presumably, child molesting. In the Koh legal universe, these issues should be debated in the United Nations' numerous institutions and commissions. Then, non-governmental organizations from around the globe will opine, a U.N. body will issue a report and the U.S. Congress and state legislatures will be given a deadline within which to pass conforming legislation. The will of the American people will no longer matter if it is contrary to that of the “world community.”

The Koh perspective on national security is equally alarming. In October, 2002 after Congress had already authorized the use of force against Iraq, he wrote in the Hartford Courant: “I believe… that it would be a mistake for our country to attack Iraq without explicit United Nations authorization,” because, “such an attack would violate international law.” Since the U.S. did not seek or obtain U.N. “permission” before liberating Iraq, Koh included the United States, Iraq and North Korea in what he described as an “Axis of Disobedience.”

In another time, this kind of record would disqualify any aspirant for an office requiring confirmation by the U.S. Senate. But these are indeed different times. Perhaps the senators who vote to affirm Koh's appointment can also waive the requirement that he “solemnly swear to support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic and to bear full faith and allegiance to same.”

Oliver North is a nationally syndicated columnist, the host of “War Stories” on FOX News Channel and the author of “American Heroes.”

from the Washington Post, 2009-Apr-22, by Craig Whitlock:

European Nations May Investigate Bush Officials Over Prisoner Treatment

BERLIN, April 21 -- European prosecutors are likely to investigate CIA and Bush administration officials on suspicion of violating an international ban on torture if they are not held legally accountable at home, according to U.N. officials and human rights lawyers.

Many European officials and civil liberties groups said they were disappointed by President Obama's opposition to trials of CIA interrogators who subjected terrorism suspects to waterboarding and other harsh tactics. They said the release last week of secret U.S. Justice Department memos authorizing the techniques will make it easier for foreign prosecutors to open probes if U.S. officials do not.

Some European countries, under a legal principle known as universal jurisdiction, have adopted laws giving themselves the authority to investigate torture, genocide and other human rights crimes anywhere in the world, even if their citizens are not involved. While it is rare for prosecutors to win such cases, those targeted can face arrest if they travel abroad.

Martin Scheinin, the U.N. special investigator for human rights and counterterrorism, said the interrogation techniques approved by the Bush administration clearly violated international law. He said the lawyers who wrote the Justice Department memos, as well as senior figures such as former vice president Richard B. Cheney, will probably face legal trouble overseas if they avoid prosecution in the United States.

"Torture is an international crime irrespective of the place where it is committed. Other countries have an obligation to investigate," Scheinin said in a telephone interview from Cairo. "This may be something that will be haunting CIA officials, or Justice Department officials, or the vice president, for the rest of their lives."

Manfred Nowak, another senior U.N. official who investigates torture claims, said the Obama administration is violating terms of the U.N. Convention Against Torture by effectively granting amnesty to CIA interrogators. He said the United States, as a signatory to the treaty, is legally obligated to investigate suspected cases of torture. He also said Washington must provide compensation to torture victims, including al-Qaeda leaders who were waterboarded.

"One cannot buy the argument anymore that this does not amount to torture," he said. "These memos are nothing but an attempt to circumvent the absolute prohibition on torture."

Nowak, an Austrian law professor based in Vienna, acknowledged that there is no mechanism in the anti-torture treaty to punish governments that ignore its provisions. From a political standpoint, he said, it is more important for the White House or Congress to authorize an independent commission to conduct a public examination of how terrorism suspects were treated after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.

"I still have full trust in the Obama administration to do the right thing," he said in a telephone interview from Bangkok. "It is more important for the United States to overcome a dark chapter in its history."

On Tuesday, Obama for the first time raised the possibility of creating a bipartisan commission to examine the Bush administration's handling of terrorism suspects. He also said he would leave it up to Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. to determine whether to prosecute senior officials who approved waterboarding and other tactics.

Several CIA and Bush administration officials have already been targeted for prosecution in Europe, though the cases have generally not progressed very far.

In Spain, a human rights group is pushing prosecutors to investigative six senior Bush administration officials for allegedly sanctioning the torture of prisoners at Guantanamo Bay. Last week, Spanish prosecutors recommended dropping the case after Attorney General Cándido Conde-Pumpido called it a politicized attempt to turn Spanish courts "into a plaything." A Spanish judge will make the final decision.

In Germany, human rights groups have tried to bring charges against former U.S. defense secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld over the abuse of Iraqi prisoners at Abu Ghraib. Germany's federal prosecutor has twice rejected the case, but supporters have appealed in court.

Wolfgang Kaleck, a Berlin lawyer who helped file the complaint against Rumsfeld, said that such cases have failed largely because European courts have ruled that they should be handled in U.S. courts instead. That could change, he said.

"Everybody prefers that prosecutions take place in the U.S.," he said. "But if nothing happens there, then that's the end of the legal argument to dismiss these cases in Europe."

John B. Bellinger III, who was legal adviser to Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, said European governments will face a worsening legal and political dilemma if human rights groups redouble their efforts to pursue criminal investigations of U.S. officials.

"They realize this will put them in a very difficult position," said Bellinger, now a partner at the law firm Arnold & Porter in Washington. "They will be under pressure from civil liberties groups and some European parliamentarians not to oppose these cases. But if they allow them to go forward, they know it could strain their relationship with the Obama administration, which says it wants to look forward, not back."

Additionally, European governments are unlikely to favor the prosecution of U.S. officials under universal-jurisdiction statutes for practical reasons, he said. For instance, U.S. officials facing charges or indictment could no longer travel to Europe without facing the risk of arrest, a situation that could spiral out of control diplomatically.

"It just sets a bad precedent," he said. "Current and former government officials have to be able to travel. Once you allow one or two of these cases, it could really open the floodgates to actions against officials of many countries."

from the Wall Street Journal Europe, 2009-Jun-23, by Ronald A. Cass:

The EU's 'Nationalization by Regulation'
Europe's approach to regulation is really stealthy nationalization.

Say what you will about President Obama's effective nationalization of General Motors, Chrysler, and AIG, at least his industrial policy is more open than the European Union's. While Washington is taking over failing companies by pouring billions of taxpayer dollars into them, Brussels -- pushed by competing businesses -- is slowly but surely nationalizing successful companies merely by regulating them.

The latest example of this "stealth nationalization" comes courtesy of the European Commission's long-running feud with Microsoft over Internet browser software. Competitors like Mozilla Firefox and Opera have long complained that Microsoft's ability to pre-load its own Internet Explorer as part of the Windows operating system gave Explorer an unfair advantage.

With regulatory proceedings on these charges still pending before the European Commission, Microsoft announced earlier this month it would release its new version of Windows in Europe without a browser.

A browserless Windows once was the Nirvana of Microsoft foes. But instead of throwing a party, competing browser makers now demand that Microsoft redesign its operating system in yet another way. They want a "ballot screen" that requires consumers to select from a set of browsers -- their browsers -- when a new computer first boots up. In other words, they are urging the EU to impose its judgment on the fundamental design of Windows itself.

If the EU accedes to this demand and forces Microsoft to redesign Windows yet again, it will be entering into truly novel -- and dangerous -- territory.

Brussels bases its thinking in this case on the competition-law concept of "contractual tying," such as a dominant manufacturer telling consumers "if you buy my printer, you also must buy my printer paper." Regulators on both sides of the Atlantic consider this sort of business practice under certain conditions an abuse of dominant market power.

But this model doesn't translate well to something as complex as operating-system design, or more broadly the practice of bundling multiple functions and software programs in a single package. Product design isn't an either-or proposition. It's a multi-faceted task, with every choice presenting different possible paths, and every decision altering the way consumers perceive the product.

The bundling of functions in software and other products is ubiquitous because consumers want bundled products. They prefer a mobile phone, say, that does many things, as opposed to lugging around separate phones, email devices, clocks, calculators, cameras and music players. Many consumers undoubtedly appreciate the convenience that comes from being able to surf the Web on a new computer without having first to sort through competing browsers.

The fact that a leading firm like Microsoft also wants to offer consumers this level of convenience is not a problem needing attention -- especially given recent market developments.

Competing browsers are readily available, easily downloadable, and successful. Mozilla's Firefox accounts for roughly one third of Europe's browser market and together with Opera's browser, Apple's Safari and Google's Chrome takes between 40% and half the European market, according to Applied Technologies Internet of France. That's a big change from the 85%-90% share Microsoft's Internet Explorer commanded five to six years ago.

Once an agency like the EU's competition directorate asserts authority over the features included in a dominant firm's products, there is no easy stopping point short of complete control of all significant business decisions. Once government opens this door, rival businesses (which don't want the leading firm's bundle competing with their products) learn that complaining to government can be a less costly way to gain market share than investing in better products, packaging or marketing.

Microsoft's competitors already have made a cottage industry of complaining to regulators about the design of Windows. In the 1990s, with their market shares declining, competing browser makers asked U.S. competition authorities to make Microsoft remove browsing features from Windows. After failing in the U.S., they renewed their complaint in Europe. In 2004, the Commission sided with software makers for media players to force Microsoft to redesign Windows in ways rivals thought would boost sales of their products. That encouraged more demands from Microsoft foes.

Each time the Commission wades in, it sets a precedent that makes it harder to avoid intervening the next time, and each time it becomes more involved in product design. It's like General Motors and AIG, where the Obama administration is dictating business decisions such as who runs the company and how much they make -- but without any EU investment in the regulated company.

This will be bad for consumers, as the browser case suggests. Governments historically have proven singularly inept at making design decisions, as any number of jokes and real-life stories about Soviet-style economies make clear.

With U.S. competition authorities now leaning toward a more European approach to regulating conduct of dominant firms and competition authorities elsewhere showing greater willingness to protect competitors and impose constraints on leading businesses, Europe's decisions on bundling take on global importance. The EU can lead the way back from the quagmire of government control or lead governments further in.

Anyone who favors increased investment in innovation over investment in lobbying and litigation should hope that the Commission hands product design back to businesses -- to the people whose skills and stakes make it far more likely that consumers, not competitors, will get what they want.

Mr. Cass, chairman of the Center for the Rule of Law and former commissioner and vice chairman of the U.S. International Trade Commission, teaches competition law and intellectual property law in Europe.

from Reuters, 2009-Jul-24, by Mia Shanley and Ilona Wissenbach, with additional reporting by Johan Ahlander and Julien Toyer and editing by Mark Trevelyan:

Germany calls carbon tariffs "eco-imperialism"

ARE, Sweden - Germany called a French idea to slap "carbon tariffs" on products from countries that are not trying to cut greenhouse gases a form of "eco-imperialism" and a direct violation of WTO rules.

The issue of greenhouse tariffs has met bitter opposition from developing countries such as China and India, who count on the developed world to buy their exports as they build their economies in the face of the worst financial crisis in decades.

Matthias Machnig, Germany's State Secretary for the Environment, told a news briefing on Friday that a French push for Europe to impose carbon tariffs on imports from countries that flout rules on carbon emissions would send the wrong signal to the international community.

"There are two problems -- the WTO (World Trade Organization), and the signal would be that this is a new form of eco-imperialism," Machnig said.

"We are closing our markets for their products, and I don't think this is a very helpful signal for the international negotiations."

European environment and energy ministers are meeting in Sweden to try to come up with a single vision of how the 27-member bloc will fight global warming, ahead of a major environment summit in Copenhagen.

The first phase of the 1997 Kyoto Protocol on cutting greenhouse gas emissions is set to expire in 2012. Final negotiations on a successor climate change pact will take place in the Danish capital at the end of the year.

U.S. LEGISLATION

The U.S. House of Representatives has already passed legislation that contains carbon tariffs. It would allow the United States to impose duties on imports of carbon-intensive goods such as steel, cement, paper and glass from countries that have not taken steps to reduce their own emissions.

Some say such tariffs could be a backup plan for Europe, should United Nations members fail to reach a deal in Copenhagen.

But Swedish Environment Minister Andreas Carlgren, whose country holds the rotating European Union presidency, said member states currently had no "plan B" beyond landing a deal in Copenhagen. He said there was as yet no official proposal on the table from the French regarding carbon tariffs. "We are absolutely against each try to make use of green protectionism," Carlgren told Reuters. "There should be no threat of borders, of walls or barriers for imports from developing countries."

French President Nicolas Sarkozy's office said last month such taxes could help create a "level playing field" for European companies competing with international firms from countries that have not put a price on carbon emissions.

EU Energy Commissioner Andris Piebalgs has said member states should keep the French proposal in mind, but also worries how such tariffs could be viewed by other countries.

China said earlier this month carbon tariffs would violate the rules of the WTO and the spirit of the Kyoto Protocol.

Such tariffs would represent a radical shift for the WTO, whose goal is reducing barriers to trade. However, the WTO says it is possible to impose import tariffs if such taxes are also imposed on a country's own industry to ensure a level playing field.

However, Europe could see some progress on domestic carbon taxes on a national level within the 27-member bloc. Sweden's finance minister, Anders Borg, plans to raise the issue at the next finance ministers' meeting, Industry Minister Maud Olofsson told a press briefing.

from the Wall Street Journal, 2009-Jul-28:

Resisting Green Tariffs
Germany and the U.K. resist France and the U.S. on green tariffs.

One of the most dangerous but least reported undercurrents of the global-warming movement is trade protectionism. Now some politicians in Europe are beginning to push back, and we're delighted to see it.

A carbon tariff has been popular on the intellectual left for some time, as a way to sell heavy new energy taxes to Western voters worried that their jobs will get shipped to countries that don't also punish carbon use. The U.S. House of Representatives wrote a tariff provision into its recent cap-and-tax bill, rolling over the muted objections of President Obama. Coming from the world's largest economy and ostensible free-trade leader, the bill is an invitation to the world's protectionists to camouflage their self-interest in claims of green virtue.

French President Nicolas Sarkozy—a mercantalist in the best of times—escalated the threat last month by suggesting import duties to “level the playing field” with countries that oppose binding greenhouse-gas targets at December's United Nations climate talks in Copenhagen. Just what a world trying to rebound from recession needs: beggar-thy-neighbor environmentalism.

Now other leaders are beginning to recognize and speak up about the peril. With typical British understatement, U.K. Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change Ed Miliband said Saturday his government was “skeptical” about the French proposal for carbon tariffs. Germany's Deputy Environment Minister Matthias Machnig was even more forthright on Friday, branding the exercise as “eco-imperialism” for attempting to punish countries that don't follow these green dictates. “We are closing our markets for their products, and I don't think this is a very helpful signal for the international negotiations,” he added. Both statements are notable coming as they do from parties on the political left.

Berlin's criticism is especially important. Germany has been at the forefront of Europe's eco-movement from the start, enriching the French language with such words as “le Waldsterben,” a German compound meaning “forest death.” The idea of the man-made destruction of Europe's trees was the great green scare of the 1970s and 1980s. The forests are still with us, and scientists now believe that the tree decline was as much due to natural phenomena as to “acid rain.” That episode is a lesson in the need for skepticism about proposals that would do tangible economic harm in the heat of environmental manias.

A climate tariff would be damaging even on its own green terms. To the extent it reduced global trade, carbon protectionism would slow the rise in income that we know from the last half century has been crucial to antipollution progress. The richer people are, the more of their income they are willing to devote to cleaner air and water. Several hundred million people have risen from poverty in the last generation thanks to expanding trade, and the world doesn't need a reversal thanks to old-fashioned protectionism dressed in green drag.

from the American, 2009-Apr-17, by Kenneth P. Green:

Who Should `Go First' on Greenhouse Gas Control?

The argument that the developed world should be the first to cut greenhouse gas emissions is illogical when viewing climate change as the long-term challenge it is purported to be.

It is commonly and uncritically stated that the developed countries should be those to act first to reduce emissions of greenhouse gases because they were first to put such gases into the atmosphere. This principle was embedded in the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change and the Kyoto Protocol, and it has been a frequent refrain ever since. As the Pew Campaign on Global Warming explains, “Fairness decreed that developed countries—responsible for the vast majority of historic emissions—should have the responsibility for developing the technological solutions needed to reduce them.”

That is still the official position of the United States. Todd Stern, the U.S. negotiator at the recent U.N. climate change talks in Bonn, Germany, drew massive applause when he said, “the United States recognizes our unique responsibility… as the largest historic emitter of greenhouse gases.” 

And this is a principle that the Chinese can really get behind. Xinhua News reports that China’s top negotiator in Bonn, Su Wei, said, “during the past two centuries, developed countries have made unbridled emissions of greenhouse gas, a major cause of global climate change, and developing countries are major victims of climate change. Hence, developed countries have the duties and responsibilities to cut emissions and offer help to developing countries.”

Alas, “who goes first” in controlling greenhouse gases (or paying others to do so) was the key issue that torpedoed recent climate negotiations in Bonn, which were part of the process to establish a successor to the Kyoto Protocol by the end of this year. Developing countries wanted the developed countries to pledge to meet specific reduction targets and to make immediate wealth transfers, but they would accept no binding targets themselves, nor would they act in a serious way until they had seen action by the developed world and could see its funds flowing into their coffers.

The developed countries were indeed the first emitters of greenhouse gases (GHGs) as a by-product of development. And we do indeed have a responsibility to make amends if those emissions caused harm to others. But this other “axiomatic” responsibility—that we must go first in reducing GHGs—does not stand up to scrutiny.

That’s because climate change is, according to the scientists of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), not a short-term problem. It is, they tell us, a problem that will run its course over many hundreds of years due to the extremely long persistence of certain GHGs in the atmosphere. Taking the long view seriously damages the “who goes first” argument.

While it is true that the developed countries were first in putting GHGs into the air, the way they did so, the speed they did it with, and the population they pulled through development must be taken into account. Developed countries embraced democratic capitalism and ripped through development in about 100 years, while their populations were comparatively quite small. That difficult choice—erecting democratic-capitalist institutions—led to the rapid development of more efficient technologies and surplus wealth to devote to environmental protection. Indeed, in the last 40 years, developed countries have eliminated most significant environmental threats in their spheres of influence.

Developed countries also went first in another critical way—creating social welfare programs funded by surpluses generated by capitalism, rather than relying on large families as a social safety net. This, in turn, triggered lower population growth in the developed countries.

Great sacrifices were made defending democratic capitalism against fascism and communism. Many died defending democratic capitalism, the only proven institution of rapid development that inherently rewards efficiency. Democratic capitalism also generates wealth surpluses that enable environmental protection to emerge as a social value. Indeed, this is another area where developed countries went first—environmentalism itself is a developed-country concept.

Developing countries, by contrast, were not willing or able to muster the political will to adopt democratic-capitalist institutions. The leaders of developing countries, chose, with the tacit or overt agreement of their populations, communitarian, fascist, dictatorial, or other social institutions that perpetuated a reliance on large, extended families and thus rapid population growth, while retarding economic growth and suppressing people’s desires for environmental protection.

Thus, in the thousand-year scheme of things that is climate change, the developing countries, by deferring development until their populations were vastly larger than those of the developed world, will have a vastly larger impact on the world’s ecology and (if man-made GHGs really have a potent and deleterious ecological influence) the world’s climate.

Looking back 300 years from now, the initial pulse of GHGs from the developed world will pale in comparison to the titanic flux of GHGs (and other conventional and water pollutants) that the developing world will emit as it develops. And, unlike the developed world, which largely completed development before there was even a small understanding of the risk of climate change or air pollution, the developing world is polluting with the full knowledge that their emissions can cause environmental damage, harm existing populations, and burden future generations.

The argument that the developed world should be the first to cut emissions is not only illogical when viewing climate change as the long-term challenge it is purported to be, but it is also a dangerous smokescreen hiding the reality that developing countries will cause vastly more environmental degradation than the developed world has or will. Indeed, what logic there is suggests that the most dramatic actions should start first in the developing world, as, in the fullness of time, that is from where the majority of the damage will come.

Kenneth P. Green is a resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute.

FURTHER READING: Green has written on the Obama administration’s plans for “green jobs” and a trading market for greenhouse gas control. He is also the author of a Q&A on climate change.

from the Wall Street Journal, 2009-Aug-4, by Bret Stephens:

Global Warming and the Poor
Why India and China don't care much about climate change.

A funny thing happened on the way to saving the world's poor from the ravages of global warming. The poor told the warming alarmists to get lost.

This spring, the Geneva-based Global Humanitarian Forum, led by former U.N. General Secretary Kofi Annan, issued a report warning that “mass starvation, mass migration, and mass sickness” would ensue if the world did not agree to “the most ambitious international agreement ever negotiated” on global warming at a forthcoming conference in Copenhagen.

According to Mr. Annan's report, climate change-induced disasters now account for 315,000 deaths each year and $125 billion in damages, numbers set to rise to 500,000 deaths and $340 billion in damages by 2030. The numbers are hotly contested by University of Colorado disaster-trends expert Roger Pielke Jr., who calls them a “poster child for how to lie with statistics.”

But never mind about that. The more interesting kiss-off took place in New Delhi late last month, when Indian Environment Minister Jairam Ramesh told visiting Secretary of State Hillary Clinton that there was no way India would sign on to any global scheme to cap carbon emissions.

“There is simply no case for the pressure that we, who have among the lowest emissions per capita, face to actually reduce emissions,” Mr. Ramesh told Mrs. Clinton. “And as if this pressure was not enough, we also face the threat of carbon tariffs on our exports to countries such as yours.” The Chinese—the world's largest emitter of CO2—have told the Obama administration essentially the same thing.

Roughly 75% of Indians—some 800 million people—live on $2 a day or less, adjusted for purchasing power parity. In China, it's about 36%, or about 480 million. That means the two governments alone are responsible for one in every two people living at that income level.

If climate change is the threat Mr. Annan claims it is, India and China ought to be eagerly beating the path to Copenhagen. So why aren't they?

To listen to the climate alarmists, it's all America's fault. “What the Chinese are chiefly guilty of is emulating the American economic model,” wrote environmental writer Jacques Leslie last year in the Christian Science Monitor. “The United States passed up the opportunity it had at the beginning of China's economic transformation to guide it toward sustainability, and the loss is already incalculable.”

Facts tell a different story. When Deng Xiaoping began introducing elements of a market economy in 1980, Chinese life expectancy at birth was 65.3 years. Today it is about 73 years. The numbers are probably a bit inflated, as most numbers are in the People's Republic, but the trend line is undeniable. In India, life expectancy rose from 52.5 years in 1980 to about 67 years today. If this is the consequence of following the “American economic model” then poor countries need more of it.

But what about all the pollution in India and particularly China? In Mr. Leslie's telling, CO2 emissions are part-and-parcel with common pollutants such as particulate matter, toxic waste, and everything else typically associated with a degraded environment. They're not. The U.S. and China produce equivalent quantities of carbon dioxide. But try naming a U.S. city whose air quality is even remotely as bad as Beijing's, or an American river as polluted as the Han: You can't. America, the richer and more industrialized country, is also by far the cleaner one.

People who live in Third-World countries—like Mexico, where I grew up—tend to understand this, even if First-World environmentalists do not. People who live in oppressive Third World countries, like China, also understand that it isn't just greater wealth that leads to a better environment, but greater freedom, too.

To return to Mr. Leslie, his complaint with China is that it has become too much of a consumer society, again in the American mold. Again he is ridiculous: China has one of the world's highest personal savings rates—50% versus the U.S.'s 2.7%. The real source of China's pollution problem is a state-led industrial policy geared toward production, and state-owned enterprises (especially in “dirty” sectors like coal and steel) that strive to meet production quotas, and state-appointed managers who don't mind cutting corners in matters of safety or environmental responsibility, and typically have the political clout to insulate themselves from any public fallout.

In other words, China's pollution problems are not a function of laissez-faire policies and rampant consumerism, but of the regime's excessive lingering control of the economy. A freer China means a cleaner China.

There's a lesson in this for those who believe that the world's environmental problems call for a new era of dirigisme. And there ought to be a lesson for those who claim to understand the problems of the poor better than the poor themselves. If global warming really is the catastrophe the alarmists claim, the least they can do for its victims is not to patronize them while impoverishing them in the bargain.

from the Age of Australia, 2009-May-16, by Adam Morton:

China slams Rudd's climate 'U-turn'

CHINA'S top climate change official has accused the Australian Government of backtracking on international commitments by demanding action from China and India before it signs a new treaty to cut greenhouse emissions.

Su Wei said Australia was going against the spirit of earlier agreements — including the Kyoto Protocol and the "Bali roadmap" signed in December 2007 — by expecting major developing nations to take on binding emissions targets.

He was responding to Prime Minister Kevin Rudd last week opening up the possibility of Australia cutting emissions by 25 per cent below 2000 levels by 2020 under a global agreement.

Australia's previous target range was 5-15 per cent. The more ambitious target is conditional on major economies that are still pulling themselves out of poverty — principally China and India — slowing emissions growth dramatically over the next decade. Mr Su told The Age that Australia's shift was a welcome "step forward", but not enough.

He said action by developing countries was dependent on the rich making deep cuts and sharing low-carbon technology.

"Now they are attaching some conditions for their own efforts," he said.

"Given developed countries' historic responsibility for the accumulation of greenhouse gas emissions and high per capita emissions, I think — as required by the (United Nations) convention and the Kyoto Protocol — they should undertake large cuts in their emissions."

Though consistent with his reputation as a hardline negotiator, Mr Su's comments are at odds with what sources say has been a generally positive international reception to Australia's shift. They also say that, behind the bluster, China has softened its negotiating position.

Developing countries have long demanded the rich sign up to emissions cuts 25-40 per cent below 1990 levels by 2020 as part of a new treaty to avoid catastrophic climate change. The treaty is due to be signed in Copenhagen in December.

Few countries have offered targets in this range. Japan has left open the possibility of a 4 per cent emissions rise.

British climate change secretary Ed Miliband recently returned from a trip to China — now the world's biggest emitter — saying he was convinced it was ready to place a limit on its emissions.

A senior Chinese financial official was quoted as saying it was ready to introduce a carbon tax, though Mr Su denied this was an official position.

Climate Institute policy and research director Erwin Jackson said China must accept that a strong climate deal would require it to take the kind of commitment demanded by Australia — slowing emissions growth by 20 per cent. The European Union has made a similar demand.

EU Environment Commissioner Stavros Dimas said last week Australia's new position was "very encouraging".

Much of the momentum for a new deal will need to come from the US. President Barack Obama this week said the US was making "extraordinary progress" on legislation that would cut emissions by 17 per cent by 2020.

Climate Change Minister Penny Wong said an ambitious deal needed "all major economies, including China, to play their part".

The Federal Government's emissions trading legislation, needed to meet its greenhouse targets, was introduced to Parliament this week.

from National Review's The Corner blog, 2009-May-15, by Jim Manzi:

I Believe Professor Krugman Is Wrong About Climate Change and China

In my experience, any human being — no matter how brilliant — is sometimes wrong. I think that Paul Krugman has demonstrated this with his recent column on climate change and China.

Early on he says that:

The scientific consensus on prospects for global warming has become much more pessimistic over the last few years. Indeed, the latest projections from reputable climate scientists border on the apocalyptic. Why? Because the rate at which greenhouse gas emissions are rising is matching or exceeding the worst-case scenarios.

Is his statement that “the rate at which greenhouse gas emissions are rising is matching or exceeding the worst-case scenarios” correct? Helpfully, the Congressional Research Service (that noted hotbed of anti-environmental zealotry) did a detailed study about seven months ago titled “Are Carbon Dioxide Emissions Rising More Rapidly Than Expected?” The conclusion of this report is unambiguous: “Recent emissions are below the A1B illustrative scenario and the top of the range IPCC found in published research literature.” Scenario A1B is important, because it is an emissions scenario that is often used as an informal reference case, and the one I typically use for this purpose in my writing on the topic. This report goes on to debunk the interest-group analysis that was widely cited in the media as supporting Professor Krugman’s claim, and makes the further point that there are lots of short-term fluctuations in any such trend that should not be over-interpreted. It’s ironic, of course, that Professor Krugman’s claim is an almost exact mirror image of the claim by many climate change skeptics that the recent ten year run of very little temperature increase falsifies the predictions of warming.

Professor Krugman then goes on to cite severe Chinese resistance to any attempts to restrain their climb out of terrible poverty in the here-and-now in return for a reduction in risk of economic damages many decades from now:

In January, China announced that it plans to continue its reliance on coal as its main energy source and that to feed its economic growth it will increase coal production 30 percent by 2015. That’s a decision that, all by itself, will swamp any emission reductions elsewhere.

And:

Each time I raised the issue during my visit, I was met with outraged declarations that it was unfair to expect China to limit its use of fossil fuels.

So what does Professor Krugman think we should do about this? First he tries to guilt us:

After all, [the Chinese] declared, the West faced no similar constraints during its development; while China may be the world’s largest source of carbon-dioxide emissions, its per-capita emissions are still far below American levels; and anyway, the great bulk of the global warming that has already happened is due not to China but to the past carbon emissions of today’s wealthy nations.

And they’re right. It is unfair to expect China to live within constraints that we didn’t have to face when our own economy was on its way up.

But this ignores the point that the reason the West historically emitted carbon dioxide is that it invented the modern economy. Along with all that carbon dioxide the West put in the air, it also invented polio vaccine, the limited-liability corporation, the high-efficiency power turbine and so on. While the West made a ton of money selling these things to what we now call developing countries, there were and are huge externalities because inevitably a lot of this knowledge leaks. The West invented the basic tools for increasing wealth that the successful parts of the developing world are now using to escape poverty, and incidentally emit more carbon dioxide. It is less than obvious why we would select only one of these items, and determine that we have a moral duty to make reparations for it, without considering that the net global effect of the overall system that created these emissions has been extremely positive. Ask yourself this question: Would you rather be born at the median income level in Bangladesh today, or at the median income level in Bangladesh in the alternative world where the entire Northern Hemisphere had never escaped life at the subsistence level? That is, to live in a world of lower carbon emissions, but no Western science, none of the economic development inside Bangladesh that would not have occurred had the West not developed, no hospitals, no foreign aid, and no meaningful chance of ever changing the material conditions of your life?

Professor Krugman goes on to say that the self-sacrifice of a unilateral reduction in our standard of living for the good of the future world climate will give us moral authority:

As the United States and other advanced countries finally move to confront climate change, they will also be morally empowered to confront those nations that refuse to act.

But he is, if anything, no dreamy-eyed naïf. Professor Krugman is too hard-headed to imagine that the somewhat . . . idiosyncratic negotiating strategy of giving up our leverage, and expecting that this will somehow guilt China into acting will work. So what does he propose?

First this:

Historical injustice aside, the Chinese also insisted that they should not be held responsible for the greenhouse gases they emit when producing goods for foreign consumers. But they refused to accept the logical implication of this view — that the burden should fall on those foreign consumers instead, that shoppers who buy Chinese products should pay a “carbon tariff” that reflects the emissions associated with those goods’ production. That, said the Chinese, would violate the principles of free trade.

Sorry, but the climate-change consequences of Chinese production have to be taken into account somewhere.

And then this:

Sooner than most people think, countries that refuse to limit their greenhouse gas emissions will face sanctions, probably in the form of taxes on their exports. They will complain bitterly that this is protectionism, but so what? Globalization doesn’t do much good if the globe itself becomes unlivable.

It’s time to save the planet. And like it or not, China will have to do its part.

In other words, we should start a trade war with China (and India, Brazil, and the entire rest of the developing world) to force their compliance with an economically destructive program of global emissions mitigation. Excellent.

from the Wall Street Journal, 2009-Apr-28, by Judy Shelton:

The IMF's Gold Gambit
The fund's misuse of bullion reserves is crucial to its plan to use the financial crisis to expand its power.

The International Monetary Fund (IMF) deserves credit, figuratively speaking, for cleverly manipulating the financial troubles of emerging and low-income nations to procure a fresh infusion of capital for itself. But its tactics at this month's G-20 summit in London -- where President Barack Obama signed off on tripling the IMF's lending resources -- should not hoodwink anyone, least of all American taxpayers who pay the largest share of IMF expenses.

Lost in the lofty talk about putting the IMF in the center of world economic recovery is the fact that the organization has been quietly attempting to ensure its own survival by seeking permission to engage in gold sales. While IMF officials insinuate the receipts would be used to help poor countries, the real goal is to set up a permanent endowment fund for the IMF.

The U.S. should not replenish the coffers of a multilateral bureaucracy that quite literally lost its reason for being on Aug. 15, 1971 -- the day President Richard Nixon "closed the gold window" and brought an end to the Bretton Woods agreement, which allowed countries to convert their dollar holdings, via the IMF, into gold at a fixed price. Instead, Congress should call for the IMF's dismantlement and restitution of its assets.

The most solid asset owned by the IMF, purely as a legacy of its original incarnation, is gold. The IMF holds 3,217 metric tons (103.4 million ounces) of gold, which makes it the world's third largest official holder. Actually, it's a misnomer to say the IMF "owns" the gold since the bullion belongs, according to the IMF articles of agreement adopted at Bretton Woods in 1944, to its member nations.

Nevertheless, the IMF is now seeking to sell a considerable chunk of those gold holdings -- some 12.9 million ounces -- which it insists are exempt from restitution to members in the event of IMF liquidation. Its reason? Between December 1999 and April 2000, to fund its Heavily Indebted Poor Countries (HIPC) initiative, the IMF arranged to sell gold which it held on its books at a price of roughly $50 to two member countries, Brazil and Mexico, at the market price of $355. It put the profits of close to $4 billion in a special HIPC account; simultaneously, the IMF accepted back the gold sold to Brazil and Mexico in settlement of their financial obligations of that amount.

Bottom line: The balance of IMF holdings of physical gold was left unchanged, although it raked in the substantial difference between the gold's market price and its book value. The IMF asserts a propriety claim over the 12.9 million ounces it "acquired" through these transactions.

Unfortunately, artful accounting -- from the deceptive practice of carrying gold at its former official price (about $52) rather than its current market value (about $914), to the arcane usage of an intangible monetary unit called a Special Drawing Right (SDR) -- has become the IMF's defining characteristic.

The IMF once served as administrator for the gold-anchored Bretton Woods system of fixed exchange rates among currencies. It now stands for laxity, for endless government fixes, for ineptitude and political compromise. The IMF preaches budgetary discipline one moment, only to abandon it under pressure from the current crop of presidents, prime ministers and potentates who authorize its spending.

Now the IMF is attempting an end-run around the U.S. Congress, as it quietly moves toward selling gold, most likely to China. Why does the IMF need the money? Just three years ago, the bloated organization (half of its 2,600 staff are economists) was nearly defunct; headquartered in Washington, D.C., the IMF was desperate to create an endowment fund to provide for its continued existence.

But in 2007, a specially convened committee of "eminent persons" helpfully suggested that if the IMF could sell those 12.9 million ounces of gold and set up a trust fund with the windfall profits, the investment returns could plug the gap between its administrative expenditures and the amount it earns as an intermediary that channels funds from rich countries to poor countries.

Sound familiar? Only one problem: IMF gold sales must be approved by an 85% voting majority of its members. The U.S. has a 17% vote; thus, the IMF cannot sell gold without the explicit consent of Congress. But Rep. Barney Frank (D., Mass.), who chairs the House Financial Services Committee, has indicated his openness to approving IMF gold sales -- conditional that some of the receipts be used to "help finance debt relief for poor countries."

Ah yes, it is always about helping the poor. Which is why the IMF emphasized its willingness to assist "poor countries" in its carefully calibrated request for additional resources from G-20 nations. Not surprisingly, the London stratagem proved successful. It was readily embraced by G-20 leaders eager to demonstrate how much they care about the human consequences of economic meltdown. Ironically, the IMF has been widely blamed by recipient nations in Africa and Latin America for perpetuating poverty. Excessive transfers to less-developed countries have the perverse effect of suppressing the entrepreneurial reserves of citizens. It is only when nations manage to get off the global dole that they are taken seriously by global capital markets and can start to achieve bankable growth.

The IMF has shown an uncanny ability to transmogrify into whatever politically acceptable form necessary to ensure its survival. Throughout the intervening decades since the end of Bretton Woods, the IMF has scrambled to redefine itself as (in rough chronological order): a global debt-collection agency, an economic-research organization, a referee for financial disputes among the Group of Seven leading industrialized nations, and a front to permit Western nations to avoid being blamed for problems arising in the transition to democratic capitalism for formerly communist nations.

In its latest manifestation as global financial surveillance monitor and G-20 sidekick, the IMF has taken to delivering somber pronouncements about the world economic outlook, concluding in mid-April: "The current recessions are likely to be unusually severe, and the forthcoming recoveries sluggish." And what does the IMF recommend? "Aggressive monetary and, particularly, fiscal policies could strengthen and bring forward recoveries."

This sage advice conveniently dovetails with the agenda of Mr. Obama, who, as mentioned earlier, agreed to tripling the IMF's lending resources at the London summit. And to remain au courant with British Prime Minister Gordon Brown, IMF chief Dominique Strauss-Kahn has also called for expanding "the regulatory perimeter to encompass all activities that pose economy-wide risks."

Zhou Xiaochuan, China's powerful central banker, has authored a proposal for international monetary reform that would replace the dollar with "a super-sovereign reserve currency managed by a global institution." Citing "the inherent deficiencies caused by using credit-based national currencies," he suggests the SDR could assume this role. In the view of Mr. Zhou, the way to enhance international monetary and financial stability is to have member countries gradually entrust their reserves "to the centralized management of the IMF."

Before anyone gives any credence to the notion of having the IMF take on the task of issuing a new global currency, however, we need to remember that the original Bretton Woods system worked precisely because the dollar was convertible into gold at a fixed price. And gold is real money.

Congress should just say no.

Ms. Shelton, an economist, is author of "Money Meltdown: Restoring Order to the Global Currency System" (Free Press, 1994).

from the Wall Street Journal, 2009-Apr-14:

Presto: Another $750 Billion
How Treasury will conjure that new money for the IMF.

The U.S. and Europe were widely expected to clash at the G-20 summit in London last month over how to address the global financial crisis. Voila, in just two days the problem was solved with a joint promise to increase International Monetary Fund resources by $750 billion to a total of $1 trillion.

The U.S. portion of this new commitment is more than $140 billion. Yet Congress has debated neither the amount nor the proposed use of the funds. Instead, President Obama and his fellow leaders simply waved their hands, like a Star Trek captain, and said make it so.

Recall that the IMF was founded in 1944 when the world monetary system operated on a gold standard. The fund's job was to act as a lender of last resort when countries encountered balance-of-payments shortfalls. When the world went to a fiat-currency system, the fund's original role became obsolete. It is possible to argue that a modified version of the lender-of-last-resort remains important for the global financial system. But over the past 30 years the fund has increasingly strayed from that limited mission to become a vehicle for transferring wealth to poor-country governments. The London agreement further advances these foreign aid ambitions with no oversight from Congress.

Exhibit A is a $250 billion increase in "special drawing rights," or SDRs -- one third of the new resources. SDRs are homemade credit allocations printed by the fund and handed out to all members. They are redeemable for subsidized loans from hard-currency fund countries. Prior to last week, there were about $32 billion in SDRs. The fund's board had lobbied for 12 years to double that number. But because the loans cost taxpayers more than $300 million a year and because there are no minimum governance standards that must be met by borrowers, Congress refused to approve the expansion.

Now Mr. Obama has overruled Congress and blessed an SDR increase -- not twice the existing number, but eight times. As Juergen Stark, a member of the European Central Bank Executive Board, told the German daily Handelsblatt, "It was never examined whether there indeed is a global need for additional liquidity," adding that "one used to take a lot of time to check something like this." He also called it "helicopter money for the globe." If Mr. Stark keeps this up, his G-20 dining privileges will be revoked.

As to the other $500 billion, here is the G-20 communique: "We have agreed to increase the resources available to the IMF through immediate financing from members of $250 billion, subsequently incorporated into an expanded and more flexible New Arrangements to Borrow [NAB], increased by up to $500 billion, and to consider market borrowing if necessary."

Keep your eye on that "expanded and more flexible" lingo. Fund rules state clearly that money under NAB can only be used "to forestall or cope with an impairment of the international monetary system or to deal with an exceptional situation that poses a threat to the stability of that system." In other words, to draw on the NAB the IMF has to argue convincingly that there is systemic risk. Moreover, there is a clear view that the money should be repaid as the crisis passes.

But now the NAB will be "expanded and more flexible." This implies an intention to alter the restrictive nature of NAB lending so that the London commitments can be used at the discretion of the fund, without approval of the contributors. A fund spokesman told us that the idea of increasing flexibility is that "the NAB money becomes part of the general resources of the fund and if the managing director decides that the fund needs to step in somewhere, it can."

That would be nirvana to IMF employees who have been running low on money to lend but love to roam the world signing up new "clients." Borrowers would like it too, since they take the general resources of the fund at rock-bottom rates with no implied obligation ever to retire the loan.

You may wonder why the IMF simply doesn't ask for a quota increase to expand its resources. Probably because that requires 85% of member votes and can take years. By using the NAB, Treasury can simply attach the request to any spending bill, and that is apparently what we can expect. A U.S. Treasury official told us last week that "the current U.S. share of the NAB is about 20%, so consistent with that, our share of a NAB increase of $500 billion could be up to $100 billion."

The upshot for U.S. taxpayers is that neither the $40 billion-plus in new SDRs nor the $100 billion for the NAB will get much democratic scrutiny. Yet they amount to a massive expansion in U.S. foreign aid. We can see why the G-20 applauded. But this is the opposite of the "transparency" this Administration has promised, and someone on Capitol Hill should blow the whistle.

from the Wall Street Journal, 2009-May-18, p.A16:

What's Another $108 Billion?
Your latest donation to the IMF.

Ah, transparency. Perhaps you've read that the new era of candor in government spending has arrived. Except, apparently, when it comes to the $750 billion that the Obama Administration and other nations have agreed to provide the International Monetary Fund. In this case, it's all opacity all the time.

At the G-20 meeting in April, the world's big shots promised to provide $500 billion under credit lines to the IMF known as "new arrangements to borrow." The U.S. share was said to be $100 billion, which last week we learned is actually $108 billion. The Obama Administration is now asking Congress to appropriate the cash, except that the Congressional Budget Office is only scoring the cost at $5 billion. How so? Because the transaction is being called an "exchange of assets," which means the U.S. gives the IMF the $108 billion and the IMF gives the U.S. a promissory note. Which raises a question: If it costs so little, why not make it $200 billion. Or a trillion? It's free!

Of course it is not. The loan carries risk and that risk may be higher than in the past. IMF rules have long been clear that the IMF's "new arrangement" funds can only be used in an emergency that threatens the stability of the "international monetary system." There has also been an understanding that the money will be repaid in short order.

But in April the G-20 announced that the credit line is to be "expanded and more flexible." An IMF spokesman says the idea of increasing flexibility is that the "money becomes part of the general resources of the fund and if the managing director decides that the fund needs to step in somewhere, it can." This makes it less like an emergency credit line and more like a general contribution to the IMF's overall money pot.

But look on the bright side: At least there's a chance this money will be repaid. Not so with the other big commitment President Obama made in London. We refer to the U.S. portion of the eight-fold increase in the IMF's special drawing rights, or SDRs. SDRs are IMF credit allocations redeemable for subsidized loans from hard-currency fund countries. These loans are almost never repaid.

Prior to last week, there were about $32 billion in SDRs, the U.S. portion of which costs American taxpayers more than $300 million a year. For 12 years Congress has refused to go along with an IMF request to double the SDR account, but Mr. Obama swept all that debate under the carpet in London and agreed to take the total to $250 billion. The U.S. exposure? A cool $40 billion. And since all IMF members are eligible, Iran, Zimbabwe, Sudan, Venezuela and Burma are all candidates for Mr. Obama's generosity.

Speaking of inmates running the asylum, certain "emerging-market" members -- such as China, Brazil, Russia and India -- announced they would not join the U.S. in providing more IMF resources via credit lines for countries in crisis. Instead, they want the fund to issue short-term notes to finance their "contribution," which they could later oh-so-conveniently off-load in the secondary market. These notes will have the implicit guarantee of the U.S., adding one more liability to Washington's balance sheet.

The wheels are greased in Congress to pass this before the public notices, but South Carolina Republican Jim DeMint is trying to force a Senate floor vote on the $108 billion. He'll lose, but at least he's honoring Mr. Obama's pledge of transparency.

from Commentary Magazine, 2009-March, by John Bolton:

The Coming War on Sovereignty

Barack Obama’s nascent presidency has brought forth the customary flood of policy proposals from the great and good, all hoping to influence his administration. One noteworthy offering is a short report with a distinguished provenance entitled A Plan for Action,¹ which features a revealingly immodest subtitle: A New Era of International Cooperation for a Changed World: 2009, 2010, and Beyond.

In presentation and tone, A Plan for Action is determinedly uncontroversial; indeed, it looks and reads more like a corporate brochure than a foreign-policy paper. The text is the work of three academics—Bruce Jones of NYU, Carlos Pascual of the Brookings Institution, and Stephen John Stedman of Stanford. Its findings and recommendations, they claim, rose from a series of meetings with foreign-policy eminences here and abroad, including former Secretaries of State of both parties as well as defense officials from the Clinton and first Bush administrations. The participation of these notables is what gives A Plan for Action its bona fides, though one should doubt how much the document actually reflects their ideas. There is no question, however, that the ideas advanced in A Plan for Action have become mainstays in the liberal vision of the future of American foreign policy.

That is what makes A Plan for Action especially interesting, and especially worrisome. If it is what it appears to be—a blueprint for the Obama administration’s effort to construct a foreign policy different from George W. Bush’s—then the nation’s governing elite is in the process of taking a sharp, indeed radical, turn away from the principles and practices of representative self-government that have been at the core of the American experiment since the nation’s founding. The pivot point is a shifting understanding of American sovereignty.

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While the term “sovereignty” has acquired many, often inconsistent, definitions, Americans have historically understood it to mean our collective right to govern ourselves within our Constitutional framework. Today’s liberal elite, by contrast, sees sovereignty as something much more abstract and less tangible, and thus a prize of less value to individual citizens than it once might have been. They argue that the model accepted by European countries in the Peace of Westphalia in 1648, which assigned to individual nation-states the right and responsibility to manage their own affairs within their own borders, is in the process of being superseded by new structures more appropriate to the 21st century.

In this regard, they usually cite the European Union (EU) as the new model, with its 27 member nations falling under the aegis of a centralized financial system administered in Brussels. On issue after issue, from climate change to trade, American liberals increasingly look to Europe’s example of transnational consensus as the proper model for the United States. That is particularly true when it comes to national security, as John Kerry revealed when, during his presidential bid in 2004, he said that American policy had to pass a “global test” in order to secure its legitimacy.

This is not a view with which the broader American population has shown much comfort. Traditionally, Americans have resisted the notion that their government’s actions had to pass muster with other governments, often with widely differing values and interests. It is the foreign-policy establishment’s unease with this long-held American conviction that is the motivating factor behind A Plan for Action, which represents a bold attempt to argue that any such set of beliefs has simply been overtaken by events.

To this end, the authors provide a brief for what they call “responsible sovereignty.” They define it as “the notion that sovereignty entails obligations and duties toward other states as well as to one’s own citizens,” and they believe that its application can form the basis for a “cooperative international order.” At first glance, the phrase “responsible sovereignty” may seem unremarkable, given the paucity of advocates for “irresponsible sovereignty.” But despite the Plan’s mainstream provenance, the conception is a dramatic overhaul of sovereignty itself.

“Global leaders,” the Plan insists, “increasingly recognize that alone they are unable to protect their interests and their citizens—national security has become interdependent with global security.” The United States must therefore commit to “a rule-based international system that rejects unilateralism and looks beyond military might,” or else “resign [our]selves to an ad-hoc international system.” Mere “traditional sovereignty” is insufficient in the new era we have entered, an era in which we must contend with “the realities of a now transnational world.” This “rule-based international system” will create the conditions for “global governance.”

The Plan suggests that the transition to this new system must begin immediately because of the terrible damage done by the Bush administration. In the Plan’s narrative, Bush disdained diplomacy, uniformly preferring the use of force, regime change, preemptive attacks, and general swagger in its conduct of foreign affairs. The Plan, by contrast, “rejects unilateralism and looks beyond military might.” Its implementation will lead to the successful resolution of dispute after dispute and usher in a new and unprecedented period of worldwide comity.

_____________

 

As the Obama years begin, we certainly do need a lively debate on the utility of diplomacy, but it would be better if that debate were not conducted on the false premise offered by A Plan for Action. In reality, in the overwhelming majority of cases, foreign-policy thinkers on both sides of the ideological divide believe diplomacy is the solution to the difficulties that arise in the international system. That is how the Bush administration conducted itself as well.

The difference arises in the consideration of a tiny number of cases—cases that prove entirely resistant to diplomatic efforts, in which divergent national interests prove implacably resistant to reconciliation. If diplomacy does not and cannot work, the continued application of it to a problematic situation is akin to subjecting a cancer patient to a regimen of chemotherapy that shows no results whatever. The result may look like treatment, but it is, in fact, only making the patient sicker and offering no possibility of improvement.

Diplomacy is like all other human activity. It has costs and it has benefits. Whether to engage in diplomacy on a given matter requires a judicious assessment of both costs and benefits. This is an exercise about which reasonable people can disagree. If diplomacy is to work, it must be preceded by an effort to determine its parameters—when it might be best to begin, how to achieve one’s aims, and what the purpose of the process might be. At the cold war’s outset, for example, Harry Truman’s Secretary of State, Dean Acheson, frequently observed that he was prepared to negotiate with the Soviets only when America could do so from a position of strength.

Time is one of the most important variables in a diplomatic dance, because it often imposes a cost on one side and a benefit to its adversary. Nations can use the time granted by a diplomatic process to obscure their objectives, build alliances, prepare operationally for war, and, especially today, accelerate their efforts to build weapons of mass destruction and the ballistic missiles that might carry them. There are concrete economic factors that must be considered as well in the act of seeking to engage an adversary in the diplomatic realm—the act of providing humanitarian assistance as an act of good will, for example, the suspension of economic sanctions, or even resuming normal trade relations during negotiations.

Obviously, the United States and, indeed, all rational nations are entirely comfortable paying substantial costs when they appear to be wise investments that will lead to the achievement of a larger objective. Alas, such happy conclusions are far from inevitable, and failing to understand the truth of this uncomfortable and inarguable reality has led nations to prolong negotiations long after the last glimmer of progress has been snuffed out. For too many diplomats, there is no off switch for diplomacy, no moment at which the only sensible thing to do is rise from the table and go home.

Has one ever heard of a diplomat working to fashion an “exit strategy” from a failed negotiation? One hasn’t. One should.

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Diplomacy is a tool, not a policy. It is a technique, not an end in itself. Urging, however earnestly, that we “engage” with our enemies tells us nothing about what happens after concluding the initial pleasantries at the negotiating table. Just opening the conversation is often significant, especially for those who are legitimized merely by being present. But without more, the meaning and potency of the photo op will quickly fade.

That is why effective diplomacy must be one aspect of a larger strategic spectrum that includes ugly and public confrontations. Without the threat of painful sanctions, harsh condemnations, and even the use of force, diplomacy risks becoming a sucker’s game, in which one side will sit forever in naïve hope of reaching a settlement while the other side acts at will.

Diplomacy is an end in itself in A Plan for Action. So, too, is multilateralism. The multilateralism the Plan celebrates and advocates is, of course, set in sharp contrast to the portrait it draws of a Bush administration flush with unilateralist cowboys intent on overturning existing international treaties and institutions just for the sport of it. Defining unilateralism is straightforward: the word refers to a state acting on its own in international affairs.² It is a critical conceptual mistake, however, to pose “multilateralism” simply as its opposite.

Consider, for example, the various roles of the United Nations, the North American [err, Atlantic -AMPP Ed.] Treaty Organization, and the Proliferation Security Initiative. The UN, the Holy Grail of multilateralism, is an organization of 192 members with responsibility for the maintenance of international peace and security lodged in its Security Council. NATO is a defense alliance of 26 states, all of which are Western democracies. The Proliferation Security Initiative (PSI), created in 2003 by the Bush administration, now includes 90-plus diverse countries dedicated to stopping international trafficking in weapons of mass destruction.

Each organization is clearly “multilateral,” but their roles are so wildly different that the word ceases to have any meaning. For example, if the United States confronted a serious threat, it would be acting multilaterally if it took the matter either to NATO or the UN. Both options would be “multilateral,” but widely divergent in diplomatic and political content, and quite likely in military significance as well. They would be comparable related in the same way a steak knife is comparable to a plastic butter knife.

The PSI offers an even starker contrast, for unlike either the UN or NATO, it has no secretary general, no Secretariat, no headquarters, and no regularly scheduled meetings. One British diplomat described the initiative as “an activity, not an organization.” In fact, the model of the Proliferation Security Initiative is the ideal one for multilateral activity in the future, precisely because it transcends the traditional structures of international organizations, which have, time and again, proved inefficient and ineffective.

“Multilateralism” is, in other words, merely a word that describes international action taken by a group of nations acting in concert. For the authors of A Plan for Action, however, multilateralism has an almost spiritual aspect, representing a harmony that transcends barriers and oceans.

Harmony is designed to stifle any discordant notes, and so is the multilateralism envisioned by an American foreign policy guided by “responsible sovereignty.” It is one in which the group of nations, of which the United States is but a single player among many, initiates policies and activities that would likely be designed to constrain the freedom of action of the United States in pursuit of that harmony—not only in its activities abroad, but also in its activities within the 50 states.

There is a precedent for this in the conduct of the European Union, whose 27 nations now possess a common currency in the form of the euro and an immensely complex series of trade and labor policies intended to cut across sovereign lines. The EU is the model A Plan for Action proffers for the “responsible sovereignty” regime its authors wish to import to the United States. EU bureaucrats based in Brussels have been reshaping the priorities and needs of EU member states for a decade now, and proposing a system based on the design of the EU suggests a desire to subject the United States to a kind of international oversight not only when it comes to foreign policy but also on matters properly understood as U.S. domestic policy.

That very approach has been on display at the United Nations for years in an effort to standardize international conduct that has come to be known as “norming.” In theory, there is good reason to create international standards—for measurement, for example, or for conduct on the high seas. But “norming” goes far beyond such prosaic concerns. The UN has, for example, repeatedly voted in different committees to condemn the death penalty, in a clear effort to put pressure on the United States to follow suit. Similar votes have been taken on abortion rights and restricting the private ownership of firearms.

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Such issues have been, and likely will again be, the subjects of intense democratic debate within the United States, and properly so. There is no need to internationalize them to make the debate more fruitful. What is common to these and many other issues is that the losers in our domestic debate are often the proponents of internationalizing the controversies. They think that if they can change the political actors, they can change the political outcome. Unsuccessful in our domestic political arena, they seek to redefine the arena in which these matters will be adjudicated—moving, in effect, from unilateral, democratic U.S. decision-making to a multilateral, bureaucratic, and elitist environment. For almost any domestic issue one can imagine, there are likely to be nongovernmental organizations roaming the international arena desperately trying to turn their priorities into “norming” issues.

This is what “responsible sovereignty” would look like. For the authors and signatories of A Plan of Action, sovereignty is simply an abstraction, a historical concept about as important today as the “sovereigns” from whose absolute rights the term originally derived. That is not the understanding of the U.S. Constitution, which locates the basis of its legitimacy in “we the people,” who constitute the sovereign authority of the nation.

“Sharing” sovereignty with someone or something else is thus not abstract for Americans. Doing so by definition will diminish the sovereign power of the American people over their government and their own lives, the very purpose for which the Constitution was written. This is something Americans have been reluctant to do. Now their reluctance may have to take the form of more concerted action against “responsible sovereignty” if its onward march is to be halted or reversed. Our Founders would clearly understand the need.

John Bolton, a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, served as the United States Permanent Representative to the United Nations (2005-2006) and as Under Secretary of State for Arms Control and International Security (2001-2005). He is the author of Surrender Is Not an Option.

Footnotes

¹ The report can be downloaded free of charge at http://www.brookings.edu/reports/2008/11_action_plan_mgi.aspx.

² An important subtext is the continuing confusion between unilateralism and isolationism, confusion especially evident in Europe in the late 1990's. Even before the Bush administration, I tried to explain the distinction in “Unilateralism Is Not Isolationism” in Gwyn Prins, ed., Understanding Unilateralism in American Foreign Relations, Chatham House, 2000. More recently, Mackubin Thomas Owens makes a similar point in “The Bush Doctrine: The Foreign Policy of Republican Empire,” Orbis, Winter, 2009.

from the Wall Street Journal, 2009-Feb-24, by Bret Stephens:

Post-Post-9/11 Looks Just Like Pre-World War II
Democracies are averting their eyes from the threats we face.

After 9/11, historians and pundits rushed to give a new era a suitable name. My favorite was Norman Podhoretz's, who called it "World War IV." In doing so, he recast the Cold War as World War III while putting the attacks in a century-long context of the global struggle between democratic and totalitarian forces.

But the election of Barack Obama and the financial crisis have now ushered us into the post-post-9/11 world, and this era, too, needs a name. Let's call it "the Locarno Restoration."

Locarno, a picturesque Swiss town on the shores of Lake Maggiore, was the site of a series of treaties signed in 1925 between France, Germany, Britain, Italy and Belgium. They ostensibly guaranteed the post-World War I borders on Germany's western frontier with France and Belgium, but agreed that Germany's eastern frontiers could be subject to revision. They also paved the way for Germany's membership in the League of Nations.

Though now mostly forgotten, the Locarno Treaties were, as Henry Kissinger once wrote, "greeted with exuberant relief as the dawning of a new world order." For the rest of the 1920s, people spoke of "the spirit of Locarno," which meant, in effect, that personal good will begat good political results, whatever the underlying facts. The foreign ministers of Germany, France and Britain each won a Nobel Peace Prize for their efforts -- proving, if nothing else, that the Nobel committee was in the grip of fools long before the prize went to Jimmy Carter.

Of course Locarno failed. It failed in part because it implicitly acknowledged that Germany would not have to honor the terms (however invidious) of the Versailles Treaty, in part because it exposed the limits of how far Britain and France were willing to go to guarantee the peace in Europe, and in part because it betrayed smaller powers, particularly Poland, whose parliamentary democracy was soon overthrown in a coup d'état.

Above all, Locarno failed because it combined wishful thinking with political weakness in a way that was bound to be tested and exploited by the fascist powers. If the 1930s were, per W.H. Auden's line, a "low, dishonest decade," it was mainly because the 1920s were so high-mindedly self-deceived.

We are in a similar state today.

As in the 1920s, we have emerged (if only partially), from several years of war -- scarcely anticipated, earnestly begun, bravely fought, often badly waged and, at least in the case of Iraq, ambiguously won. It was an emotionally exhausting war justified first on grounds of national survival, then for spreading democracy. The moral clarity and political unity that went with the war's beginning collapsed into political division and disillusion.

From this there has emerged under the Obama administration a new kind of moral clarity. It is founded on conciliatory tendencies, a preference for multilateral solutions, a powerful desire to be on the right side of global public opinion, and an instinct for looking away from that which we'd rather not to see. This has put some political stress on our residual post-9/11 commitments, particularly in the case of Afghanistan, while creating an overwhelming aversion to possible confrontations, particularly against revanchist Russia and millenarian Iran.

The Locarno generation felt similarly about standing in the way of Japan's invasion of Manchuria, Italy's of Abyssinia and Germany's of Czechoslovakia. In their case, as increasingly in ours, a weak foreign policy was a function of severe economic distress. But economic considerations were as often an alibi for inaction as they were a reason for it. Folklore aside, the German economy was in considerably worse shape than Britain's for most of the '30s. But while the British were timid, Hitler was willful.

Today, Russia and Iran are in a parlous economic state, but they are also keen to seek their advantage through calculated acts of provocation and aggression. They sense that the commitments the Bush administration made to the security of our allies aren't ones the Obama administration is especially eager to honor. That goes for missile defense in Poland and the Czech Republic; for the independence of Georgia, Ukraine and other former Soviet republics; for the status of forces agreement with Iraq; perhaps also for the security of Israel if it opts for air strikes against Iran's nuclear facilities.

We know how this movie ends. So here's a suggestion: If we're going to squander trillions in "stimulus," let's spend more on defense. An F-22 assembly line adds just as much to employment as a few thousand more "green" workers, with the added bonus of deterring our enemies. That's a lesson the democracies learned almost too late in the dismal post-Locarno years. Why make the same mistake twice?

from Reuters, 2009-Apr-18, by Mark Heinrich with editing by Robert Woodward:

Obama reprieve for CIA illegal: U.N. rapporteur

VIENNA - President Barack Obama's decision not to prosecute CIA interrogators who used waterboarding on terrorism suspects amounts to a breach of international law, the U.N. rapporteur on torture said.

"The United States, like all other states that are part of the U.N. convention against torture, is committed to conducting criminal investigations of torture and to bringing all persons against whom there is sound evidence to court," U.N. special rapporteur Manfred Nowak told the Austrian daily Der Standard.

Nowak did not think Obama would go as far as to seek an amnesty law for affected CIA personnel and therefore U.S. courts could still try torture suspects, he said on Saturday.

Obama has affirmed his unwillingness to prosecute under anti-torture laws CIA personnel who relied in good faith on Bush administration legal opinions issued after the September 11 attacks.

Obama said he had ended harrowing techniques used against detainees by Bush-era CIA personnel, but that U.S. intelligence agents still operated in a dangerous world and had to be confident they could perform their jobs.

Nowak, an Austrian, suggested an investigation by an independent commission before suspects were tried and said it would be important for all victims to receive compensation.

Human rights advocates have attacked Obama's decision, saying charges were necessary to prevent future abuses and hold people accountable. Some U.S. lawmakers have called for public investigations.

The four memos Obama released approved techniques including waterboarding, week-long sleep deprivation, forced nudity and putting insects in with a tightly confined prisoner.

His administration also said it would try to shield CIA employees from "any international or foreign tribunal" -- an immediate challenge to Spain where a judge has threatened to investigate Bush administration officials.

from the Wall Street Journal, 2009-Apr-2:

A Tale of Two Farces
Sudan's dictator roams free, but Bush officials are in jeopardy.

Here's the match-up. In the right corner we have Omar al-Bashir, for 20 years the Islamist dictator of Sudan and the man most responsible for the death of hundreds of thousands of Darfuris. In the left corner we have six former Bush Administration officials who were given the task after September 11 of formulating America's response to the atrocities. Who do you think is in the greatest legal jeopardy?

This should be easy: Mr. Bashir was recently issued with an arrest warrant by the International Criminal Court for "crimes of genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes in Darfur." More specifically, the court's prosecutor alleges that Mr. Bashir "masterminded and implemented a plan to destroy in substantial part the Fur, Masalit and Zaghawa groups, on account of their ethnicity."

Yet thanks to the concept of "universal jurisdiction" (or "universal competence") the six Americans, including former Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, former under Undersecretary of Defense for Policy Douglas Feith and former vice presidential Chief of Staff David Addington, are the ones who may soon have to watch their back -- at least when they travel abroad.

That's because a hyperactive Spanish judge named Baltasar Garzón has begun the process of opening a criminal case against the six, following a complaint from a Spanish human rights group arguing they helped establish the legal framework that created the detention facilities at Guantanamo and the "torture" they allege took place there. According to the New York Times, an unnamed official said it "was 'highly probable' that the case would go forward and that it could lead to arrest warrants." In 1998, a similar warrant from Judge Garzón led to the house arrest in Britain of former Chilean strongman Augusto Pinochet, a stunt that did nothing except create a diplomatic headache for the government of Tony Blair.

This case would be absurd were the consequences less pernicious, and not merely to the former officials now in legal jeopardy. The idea that any magistrate, anywhere, is entitled to judge the legality of decisions -- or even merely the advice -- of foreign officials acting in good faith under the laws of their own elected governments makes a nonsense of centuries-old concepts of sovereign jurisdiction and democratic accountability. It also sends a chilling signal to any official, including those now in the Obama Administration, who must weigh the counsel they provide the President against the personal legal risks they may run once they are out of office because of that counsel.

Put simply, Mr. Garzón's intercession is a recipe for legal anarchy, compromised executive decision-making, and the diminution of American sovereignty. Nor does it help that the names of the would-be defendants seem to have been chosen pretty much at random: As Mr. Feith told the Times, "I didn't even argue for the thing I understand they're objecting to."

One reason Mr. Garzón may have chosen Mr. Feith is because he has been a special target of Senator Carl Levin (D., Mich.), who has all but encouraged foreign prosecutors to bring such charges against Bush officials. The goal of Mr. Levin, Senator Pat Leahy and Congressman John Conyers has been to promote the "torture" smears against Republican officials without having to take responsibility for any potential damage to U.S. security. If a foreign prosecutor or an allegedly independent "commission" does their dirty work, so much the better.

Now turn to Mr. Bashir, who on Sunday was given a warm reception by fellow leaders of the Arab League at their summit in Doha, Qatar. This is at least the second time Mr. Bashir has ventured out of Sudan since the ICC issued its arrest warrant, and it's clear he has nothing to fear from his fellow Arab potentates, none of whom have signed on to the ICC. But that only illustrates the fundamental problem of a court that has no jurisdiction in the places where the massive human rights violations it was created to punish typically take place. As for the countries that are signatories, the courts of Norway or New Zealand are more than adequate for dealing with whatever genocidaires may be in their midst.

These columns have long argued that it would be dangerous for the U.S. to become a party to the ICC. As a Senate candidate in 2004, Barack Obama offered merely that the U.S. should "cooperate" with the ICC "in a way that reflects American sovereignty and promotes our national security interests."

Now that he is President, he has larger obligations. One is to stand against foreign grandstanding that intrudes on America's rule of law. Another is to oppose Members of his own party, such as Mr. Levin, who are running political vendettas against former U.S. officials. We hope Mr. Obama will value the frank opinions of his own advisers enough to publicly condemn Judge Garzón's legal assault on honorable public servants who did their best to protect the U.S. from harm.

from the Wall Street Journal, 2009-Apr-5, by Ronan Farrow:

Beware of the U.N. Human Rights Council
Obama should be careful about lending legitimacy to bad actors.

Last week the Obama administration announced its intention to seek membership in a body America has for years shunned: the United Nations Human Rights Council. It is perhaps the starkest illustration yet of what officials have billed as a "new era of engagement," and it was breathlessly hailed as a toppling of Bush-era isolationist tactics.

But the Human Rights Council is far from the symbol of positive engagement proponents of the decision would like it to be. Joining plunges the U.S. headlong into one of the most notorious quagmires in international politics. American officials will have to walk a razor's edge between instigating reform and legitimizing the Council's colorful, often sinister, history.

The Council's most recent session saw the body voting to end its mandate to investigate the Democratic Republic of the Congo, even as that nation lurches into ethnic bloodshed. A Pakistani resolution against "defamation of religions" passed with ease despite being universally decried by human rights groups as a thinly veiled effort to curtail freedom of expression and suppress minority sects.

The news was unsurprising for anyone familiar with the Council. The body has declined to issue a single condemnation of Sudan for its ethnic cleansing in Darfur. As fresh violence convulsed Darfur last year, the Council responded by dismissing the team of experts tasked with monitoring the region, then disregarding reports from a fact-finding mission that implicated the Sudanese government in torture, rape and mass murder.

According to Human Rights Watch, at least 26 other countries -- including China, Egypt, Saudi Arabia and Zimbabwe -- have been ignored by the Council. It has instead diverted an implausible portion of its resources to the constant, fevered condemnation of Israel: 26 of its 32 condemnations have been against that country. During its most recent session, the Council issued no fewer than five resolutions condemning Israel -- more than all its resolutions concerning other countries combined.

The recent addition of "Universal Periodic Reviews" -- compelling the Council to examine all U.N. states, not just a narrow selection of their choosing -- sparked hopes for improvement. But periodic reviews of China, Cuba and other systematic rights abusers have been farcical displays of politicized whitewashing. The Council, even U.N. Secretary-General Ban-ki Moon conceded, "has clearly not justified all the hopes that so many of us placed on it."

The Bush administration took a hard line on the Council, subjecting it to withering invectives. It even withheld America's share of the body's budget last year. That served to reinforce perceptions of American isolationism and left the Council's few reform-minded members, such as Canada, stranded.

The Obama administration's shift is a welcome step; the U.S. is overdue to apply its diplomatic weight to improve the behavior of Council members. But the merits of formal membership are less obvious. America's bid to join may represent too hasty an embrace of a body that still needs fundamental restructuring, not incremental improvements.

The U.S. is already able to flex its diplomatic muscle both behind the scenes and via a right for nonmembers to testify before the Council at will. Formally wielding a vote is unlikely to increase American influence. Because the Council is structured according to geographic bloc, America's seat will simply supplant another member of the "Western Europe and Other States" group, which already votes along almost uniformly progressive lines.

What's needed is an immediate call for serious reform. Susan Rice, the U.S. ambassador to the U.N., should urge that the review of Council policies by the General Assembly -- currently slated for April 2011 -- be undertaken as soon as possible. She should work to ensure that the Universal Periodic Review system, still in its infancy, be strengthened and made less politically manipulable. She should fight for expanded scrutiny of countries beyond Israel, and for specific condemnations of regimes responsible for mass atrocities, starting with Sudan.

How diligently the Obama administration pursues these goals will determine whether America will act as a catalyst for change -- or lend its imprimatur to the world's most discredited international body as it spirals destructively out of control.

Mr. Farrow, currently writing a book on America's use of proxy armies, has worked on human rights issues at the House Foreign Affairs Committee and the U.N. He is a student at Yale Law School.

from the New York Times, 2009-May-13, p.A5, web-posted 2009-May-12, by Neil MacFarquhar:

U.S. Joins Rights Panel After a Vote at the U.N.

UNITED NATIONS — The United States won a seat on the United Nations Human Rights Council on Tuesday, joining a group that the Bush administration had pilloried.

The controversy surrounding the 47-member body, which assesses the rights records of United Nations member states, was underscored by the General Assembly's re-electing other nations condemned by human rights organizations for abusing their own citizens. They include Cuba, China, Saudi Arabia, Russia and Cameroon.

“We have not been perfect ourselves,” said Susan E. Rice, the American ambassador, after the United States got 167 votes out of 192. “But we intend to lead based on the strong principled vision that the American people have about respecting human rights, supporting democracy.”

The Bush administration considered the Human Rights Council beyond redemption because of the group's repeated focus on Israel's treatment of the Palestinians under occupation while playing down significant human rights failings among its members.

But the Obama administration decided that it could be more effective in changing the council's behavior if it joined the organization.

“While we recognize that the Human Rights Council has been a flawed body that has not lived up to its potential,” Ms. Rice said, “we are looking forward to working from within with a broad cross section of member states to strengthen and reform the council.”

Navanethem Pillay, the United Nations high commissioner for human rights, said that the body should not be considered “the club of the virtuous.” Ms. Pillay, who works in conjunction with the council but does not oversee it, said that having a strong American voice in meetings would make the group more useful.

Nations with poor human rights records are a problem, but they are a minority on the council, said Neil Hicks, international policy director for Human Rights First, adding that the task of the United States and its allies is to overcome those “ideologically opposed to human rights.”

The United States was one of three countries seeking three seats in the bloc that represents Western Europe and a scattering of other states. Belgium and Norway were also elected from the bloc.

Even running uncontested, American diplomats had been nervous about the outcome, wondering if a backlash against the Bush administration's policies might prevent the United States from garnering the 50 percent of the vote needed to win. The voting was done by secret ballot.

Human rights organizations have been highly critical of regional blocs deciding beforehand which of their nations will run for election. When given a choice, nations tend to vote for countries with the better record, said Steve Crawshaw of Human Rights Watch.

In the contest in Eastern Europe among Russia, Hungary and Azerbaijan for two seats, for example, Hungary trounced Azerbaijan with 131 votes to 89. Azerbaijan has a lengthy record of repression, human rights groups said. Superpowers like Russia generally attract large majorities, and it got 146 votes.

Others elected to the council on Tuesday were Bangladesh, Djibouti, Jordan, Kyrgyzstan, Mauritius, Mexico, Nigeria, Senegal and Uruguay.

from BBC News, 2009-Apr-18:

US boycotts UN racism conference

Washington has confirmed it will boycott a UN forum on racism in Geneva next week because of differences over Israel and the right to free speech.

The state department said the proposed text of the conference's guiding document remained unacceptable despite having been amended significantly.

The US and Israel quit a similar forum in Durban in 2001 when its draft document likened Zionism to racism.

Current language about "incitement to religious hatred" also alarms the US.

The five-day Durban Review Conference is due to open on Monday.

EU diplomats were still consulting on Saturday on whether to attend the conference. Canada and Israel said earlier that they would not attend.

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who has stirred outrage by repeatedly calling the Holocaust of the Jews a "myth", is the only prominent head of state so far scheduled to attend.

'Serious concerns'

The state department said it was "with regret" that the US had decided to boycott the conference.

"The text still contains language that reaffirms in toto the Durban Declaration and Programme of Action [DDPA] from 2001, which the United States has long said it is unable to support," it said in a statement.

"Its inclusion in the review conference document has the same effect as inserting that original text into the current document and re-adopting it.

"The DDPA singles out one particular conflict and prejudges key issues that can only be resolved in negotiations between the Israelis and Palestinians.

"The United States also has serious concerns with relatively new additions to the text regarding 'incitement', that run counter to the US commitment to unfettered free speech."

Internal debate has raged in the US for weeks on whether to attend, the Associated Press news agency reports from Washington.

Pro-Israel groups vehemently opposed participation while human rights advocates and organisations like TransAfrica and members of the Congressional Black Caucus thought it was important to attend.

Immediately after the announcement, Democratic Congresswoman Barbara Lee, who heads the black caucus in Congress, said the group was "deeply dismayed" by the boycott.

"This decision is inconsistent with the administration's policy of engaging with those we agree with and those we disagree with..." she said.

"The US is making it more difficult for it to play a leadership role on UN Human Rights Council as it states it plans to do. This is a missed opportunity, plain and simple."

from the Jerusalem Post, 2009-Apr-21, by Gerald Steinberg:

Analysis: Ahmadinejad buries the Durban process

GENEVA -- The corridor discussions in the United Nations building before Iranian President Ahmadinejad's arrival focused on two questions: Would he tone down his usual Holocaust denial and threats against Israel in order to appear reasonable? And if not, would diplomats from countries like Britain, France and Norway - those that decided to participate in contrast to Canada, the US, Italy and Germany - fulfill their pledge to walkout if the "red lines" of Holocaust denial and racism were crossed.

We did not have long to wait - the speech was as bad as or worse than the usual Iranian diatribes, and the European diplomats left, being embraced and cheered by Jewish students, NGO leaders and human rights mentors Elie Wiesel and Alan Dershowitz.

These momentous events took place on the eve of Holocaust Remembrance Day. Citing the theme "never again," participants agreed that this should also mark the end of the Durban process that began at the infamous UN anti-racism conference in that city in 2001. Instead of focusing on real examples of discrimination and mass murder, that event had been hijacked to attack Israel using terms such as apartheid, war crimes and racism. In the official NGO forum, participants that included Human Rights Watch and Amnesty adopted a boycott strategy.

Israel and Jews around the world recognized that this demonization and delegitimation was as dangerous as the physical war and terror campaigns, and in some ways more sinister. For the past eight years, a strategy was developed to combat and defeat the threat. In Geneva, this approach proved successful.

Ahmadinejad's appearance was not a scenario in this strategy - his visit had been announced just one week before the opening session, by which time most of the counterattack mechanism was already in place. The first stage was to prevent another poisonous NGO Forum by "naming and shaming" the funders of the 2001 version, including the Ford Foundation and the Canadian government. UN officials agreed not to grant official sponsorship despite demands from vitriolic NGOs such as Badil (the Palestinian "right of return" lobby funded by European governments) and the Libyan-linked North-South 21 organization. These events were still held, but with very limited participation or impact.

In parallel, during the long negotiations over the draft text for the government conference, Jewish community leaders and Israelis repeatedly held intensive meetings with Western democratic delegations to highlight the destructive impact of singling out Israel for condemnation in the Durban process. Canada, which had been a major supporter of Durban 2001, was the first to recognize the damage, and the US, Italy and others followed.

Thus, when the first session began, the point had been made and the chairs of many delegations were empty, even before Ahmadinejad's arrival. In addition, the language of the draft declaration that required months of detailed negotiations was largely toned down. The main problem, as President Obama eloquently stated on the evening before the grand opening, was that the entire process had been built on the failed foundations of the 2001 Durban catastrophe. In that case, what had been advertised as an anti-racism conference became a source of racism directed at Israel. To restore the moral foundation of universal human rights, an entirely new structure would be necessary.

In this sense, the Iranian president's latest hate speech confirmed to all that the Durban process must be totally repudiated before a new foundation for human rights can emerge. This conference has only begun - it is due to continue through Thursday - but Ahmadinejad has already demonstrated that there is no sense in holding any more diplomatic negotiations to find language that involves singling out Israel in any way. Instead, the focus should shift to developing an entirely new approach that prevents further abuses of moral principles by regimes or NGOs that exploit human rights. The sooner the Durban process is dead and buried, the faster a replacement will be developed.

Prof. Gerald Steinberg is executive director of NGO Monitor and chair of the Political Science Department at Bar Ilan University.

Here Barak Obama informs us that Americans must stop driving, eating, and air conditioning their houses and offices, because there are people outside America who don't drive or eat or air condition their homes and offices. And he envisions Americans inventing technologies that make machines more efficient, then imposing licensing fees on poor third worlders who want to use the technology. Obama's sword cuts every way it swings apparently.

from CNN.com, 2008-May-17:

Aired May 17, 2008 - 15:00 ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

[...]

BARACK OBAMA, (D) PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: Is a huge opportunity but we've got have leadership from Washington, the same way we had leadership when Kennedy said we're going to the moon, we want to invest what we need to make it happen and there are all sorts of spin offs benefits from that. So that's what we want to do on global warming here in the United States.

We are also, though, going have to negotiate with other countries. China, India, in particular Brazil. They are growing so fast that they are consuming more and more energy, and pretty soon, if their carpet footprint even approaches ours, we're goners. That's part of the reason why we've got to make the investment; we've got to lead by example. If we lead by example -- if we lead by example, then we can actually export and license technology that have been invented here to help them deal with their growth pain. But keep in mind, you're right. We can't tell them, don't grow. We can't -- drive our SUVs and you know, eat as much as we want and keep our homes on you know, 72 degrees at all times, and whether we're living in the desert or we're living in the tundra, and then just expect that every other country's going say OK.

You guys go ahead and keep on using 25 percent of the world's energy. Even though you only account for 3 percent of the population, and we'll be fine. Don't worry about us. That's not -- that's not leadership. That's not going to happen. And that's, by the way, why, for example, I had this big argument with Senator Clinton and McCain about the gas tax, holiday. Which was an example. That's how Washington works. It's not thinking long term. It's thinking, how do we get through the next election?

And, you know, John McCain, for him to come to Oregon as an environmental president, but his big strategy is to do more drilling and to have a gas tax holiday for three months, that's a phony solution. You know, you can't -- John McCain has consistently been opposed to fuel efficiency standards, raising fuel efficiency standards on cars. How is he going to meet any of these targets? Maybe he's imagining it the way he did imaging getting out of the war in Iraq. You know? We -- we need somebody with a plan. And who is willing to talk to the American people about these difficulties and how we're going to get through these challenges together. All right? OK. All right. OK. Over here.

[...]

from the Wall Street Journal Europe, 2009-Apr-22, by Gerald M. Steinberg:

The U.N.'s Anti-Antiracism Conference
Geneva shows that the best hope for restoring human rights is to deny these corrupt events the veneer of legitimacy.

GENEVA -- Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's tirade Monday to the United Nations' "antiracism" conference should not have surprised anyone. The Iranian president denounced Israel, or the "Zionist entity" as he calls it, which, according to his version of history, was created by Europe and the U.S. on the "pretext of Jewish suffering" in World War II. He spoke of a world-wide Zionist conspiracy, referring to Israelis as "those racist perpetrators of genocide."

Many people walked out, including those European diplomats whose governments had ignored the warning signs and chosen to participate in this conference. They were cheered by Jewish NGO members and students who had come to ensure that this conference would not take the anti-Semitic path of the 2001 Durban catastrophe.

In a packed unofficial session on anti-Semitism the next day, Holocaust survivor and memorializer Elie Wiesel demanded an apology from the U.N. for even inviting Mr. Ahmadinejad, who has long been infamous for his Holocaust denial and calls for the destruction of the Jewish state.

Harvard law professor Alan Dershowitz spoke of the Iran-Hamas link and attacks against Israel in the Arab world and by the left in the West. And ex-gulag resident Natan Sharansky condemned the Orwellian spectacle of an antiracism conference run by some of the world's worst human-rights violators, an absurdity that reminded him of Soviet show trials.

Consider that Libya and Iran were the leading organizers of this conference and thus responsible for drafting declarations that single out Israel among the nations for condemnation -- the modern form of anti-Semitism.

After Mr. Ahmadinejad's address, the conference got down to business: The Syrian, Qatari and Palestinian representatives spoke of Israel's "racism," though the status of minorities and women in their own jurisdictions was off-limits, of course. Other Arab speakers focused on what they consider to be the worst form of racism: insults to Islam and the prophet Muhammad. Muslim countries have long been pushing for international laws to criminalize such "insults." Draft declarations of the Geneva conference called for limits to freedom of speech with respect to religion, i.e. Islam. Little wonder then that 10 democratic countries -- first Canada, followed by Israel, the United States, Italy, Australia, New Zealand, the Netherlands, Germany, Poland, and the Czech Republic -- chose to stay away from this farce.

The Geneva conference has so far not seen the type of anti-Semitic excesses as witnessed in Durban, where Jews were physically attacked and Hitler's "Mein Kampf" was handed out.

But the radical agendas of many powerful NGOs is at display at numerous "side events." A London-based group called "Islamic Human Rights Commission" brought three Hasidic Jews to hold signs proclaiming "Zionism is racism." The organization "North-South 21," which is closely linked to the Libyan regime, organized a session on "Occupation and Discrimination," featuring Ramsey Clark, a former U.S. attorney general and now left-wing activist who accuses Israel of "genocide." Radical pro-Palestinian groups such as Badil and Ittajah held an "Israel Review Conference," which discussed how to press war-crime charges against Israelis in Western courts and cut off Western arms sales to the Jewish state. Unlike in 2001, the more prominent NGOs such as Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International did not take part at these sessions, even though they are playing a central role in international campaigns to delegitimize Israel.

Once again, the obsessive focus on the Jewish state meant that the real problems of racism and genocide were largely ignored at this U.N. conference. Only outside the official U.N. antiracism conference, at well-attended "counterconferences" organized by NGOs such as U.N. Watch, did the real victims of racism and mass murder get the attention they deserved.

Only at those counterconferences could one witness moving presentations by victims of Iranian oppression, survivors of the Rwandan genocide and the continuing slaughter in Darfur. And on Monday night, when Jews marked Holocaust Memorial Day, a large gathering stood quietly honoring the victims while the language of human rights was being abused in the U.N. building.

Human Rights Watch, which played an active role in the 2001 fiasco, had tried hard to pressure the Obama administration to abandon core moral principles and participate in the review conference. President Obama rejected this advice, and in a tacit rebuke to the NGO lobby explained that the foundations of the Durban process are fundamentally incompatible with universal human-rights norms. A new structure is necessary if these values are to be given serious attention.

At the same time, though, President Obama has sought to placate the NGO lobby by agreeing to rejoin the failed U.N. Human Rights Council. The main lesson from this week's events is that the best hope for restoring human rights is to deny such corrupt organizations the veneer of legitimacy.

Mr. Steinberg is executive director of NGO Monitor and chair of the Political Science Department at Bar Ilan University.

from the Wall Street Journal, 2009-Apr-1:

The G-20's Funny Money
The IMF has a plan to create cash and pass it all over the world.

If the G-20 leaders meeting in London this week have one goal, it is to find a way to reflate the global economy with the least political cost. As bad luck would have it, the International Monetary Fund is standing by to help.

A hint of what's in store came from Japanese Prime Minister Taro Aso earlier this week when he said that he will propose an increase in "special drawing rights," or SDRs, at the IMF. If the term "SDR" sounds vaguely familiar, perhaps that's because it was the subject of a short-lived proposal last week from the head of the People's Bank of China to create a new global reserve currency that could replace the U.S. dollar. Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner may have been caught off guard when he said that he would entertain the idea. When his comment sent the dollar plummeting, Mr. Geithner quickly backtracked.

But Mr. Aso's reference to SDRs is something altogether different. He is proposing a massive expansion in foreign aid, which we will explain below. What is important to understand is that the plan means hundreds of billions of dollars in handouts going to emerging market countries with no strings attached: All governments qualify, including those that lock political dissidents in dungeons and steal from their own people. Treasury is widely believed to support the SDR expansion, despite the fact that it will increase, yet again, costs for American taxpayers and the debt burden of future generations and will reward dictators the world over.

SDRs are nothing more than a fancy term for allocated credits divvied out by the IMF to member countries. The SDR pool at the fund traces its roots back to the gold standard when it was used as a liquidity tool for balance-of-payments shortfalls. These "international reserves" would continually circulate from deficit to surplus countries.

Today, under fiat currencies, SDRs are like bits of paper printed by IMF officials in the basement. They have no value but can be exchanged for subsidized loans to nonreserve currency countries. As the fund explains, "The SDR is neither a currency, nor a claim on the IMF. Rather, it is a potential claim on the freely usable currencies of IMF members." The current exchange rate per SDR is about $1.50.

When a country decides it wants to spend an SDR, it alerts the fund, which then takes the bits of paper it created to the country that has the real money and exchanges them. For example, if Bananalandia wants dollars, its SDR account is debited, and America's SDR account is credited. The U.S. then issues debt to raise the dollars to give to Bananalandia. The rate at which countries borrow is a weighted average of the lowest rates in the dollar, euro, yen and pound sterling. In practice, the "loans" are almost never retired.

Since 1970, the Fund has allocated 21.4 billion SDRs (almost $32 billion at the current dollar rate). But in 1997 the IMF board passed a resolution to double the number of SDRs. In 12 years it has failed to get the 85% of total votes at the Fund to approve that resolution.

The reason was easy to understand: The U.S. has 16.8% of the votes and the cost to U.S. taxpayers of SDRs is already substantial. In a 2004 paper for Congress's Joint Economic Committee, Carnegie Mellon economist Adam Lerrick explained that SDRs cost U.S. taxpayers $330 million per year. With the U.S. "contribution" to the 1997 resolution total U.S. exposure would be about $12 billion. Mr. Lerrick estimated that the total cost of this proposed expansion to U.S. taxpayers could reach $750 million annually. With this in mind and given the lack of conditionality for what amounts to foreign aid, Congress refused to approve the IMF proposal.

Mr. Aso of Japan didn't specify amounts he will endorse in London. But Ted Truman, a former assistant secretary of the Treasury under Bill Clinton who is now advising Mr. Geithner, is calling for "an immediate, one-time allocation of $250 billion" in SDRs. He says his goal is to put into action the "many well-intentioned pledges to adopt expansionary policies, avoid protectionism, stabilize and reform the financial system, mobilize the IMF and multilateral development banks to help the weakest countries, and combat poverty" that will come out of the London meeting. Wow, free money can certainly do magical things.

As for getting this through Congress, Mr. Truman adds that the Treasury Secretary "can vote for an SDR allocation of up to $250 billion, or somewhat larger, as long as he consults with key members of the U.S. Congress 90 days before he casts his vote. Thus, the actual allocation could occur by mid-summer, much sooner than most other crisis-mitigation measures would begin to take effect." We're told by others that this is, at best, an "unusual interpretation" of U.S. law.

Since IMF financing is "off-budget," meaning that it doesn't show up as an annual U.S. expenditure, all this is an off-the-books future liability. But no one should mistake this as charity for the deserving poor. As we wrote in an editorial in 2004, a doubling of SDR credits would make Iran eligible for a total of $465 million, Syria $90 million, Robert Mugabe's Zimbabwe $115 million, Sudan $100 million, Venezuela $840 million and Burma $80 million.

If Americans decide they want to give more to the neediest, there are honest ways to do it. But to simply blanket the world with conjured dollars and ask already-stretched American taxpayers to pay for it is bad economic policy and even worse governance.

from the Wall Street Journal, 2009-Mar-17, by Richard W. Rahn:

In Defense of Tax Havens

If the government suddenly said you would incur more onerous and expensive tax regulations and reporting requirements if you moved your business to a low-tax state such as Texas or Florida from a high-tax state such as New York or California, you would be justifiably outraged. Now substitute Switzerland and Bermuda for Texas and Florida, and France and Germany for New York and California, and you'll understand a new form of "tax protectionism" that is infecting Washington.

Several serious proposals are being floated in the nation's capital that would penalize Americans for investing in low-tax rather than high-tax jurisdictions. Proponents say the measures are needed to catch tax cheats -- but ignore the fact that most of the low-tax jurisdictions such as the Cayman Islands, Switzerland, etc., already have tax information exchange (for cases of probable cause), or tax withholding, agreements with the U.S. and other countries such as the U.K. and France.

Nevertheless, Sens. Carl Levin (D., Mich.), Bryon Dorgan (D., N.D.), and Max Baucus (D., Mont.), as well as officials of the Obama Treasury, want to make it more onerous and costly for American companies to do business around the world and for Americans to invest elsewhere. They would even make it more difficult for non-Americans to invest in the U.S.

Mr. Levin's bill is a hodgepodge of tax increases, more regulations and penalties on American taxpayers doing business in targeted low-tax jurisdictions. Mr. Dorgan's bill would prevent certain American companies that operate and are incorporated outside the U.S. from being treated as nondomestic corporations, thus denying them the right of tax deferral until their income is brought back to the U.S. Mr. Baucus, chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, is circulating a draft bill that, among other things, would extend the statute of limitations from three to six years for tax returns reporting international transactions. The Treasury Department is proposing expanded regulations on foreign financial institutions that bring needed investment funds into the U.S.

In addition to charges of tax evasion, some members of Congress -- echoing European politicians including France's President Nicolas Sarkozy and British Prime Minister Gordon Brown -- have even tried to scapegoat the low-tax jurisdictions as somehow being responsible for the global recession. They are demanding that the G-20 countries come up with action proposals against them at their meeting next month.

This is nonsense. The so-called tax havens are for the most part no more than way-stations to temporarily collect savings from around the world until they are invested in productive projects, such as building a new shopping center or semi-conductor plant in the U.S. This enables a better allocation of world capital, leading to higher, not lower, global growth rates.

Indeed, to the extent tax competition between jurisdictions holds down the increase in the growth of governments, citizens of all countries experience more job opportunities and higher standards of living. And to the extent that businesses and individuals are discouraged by taxes or regulations from investing outside their own jurisdictions, they may simply choose to work and save less, period.

Those who demand increased taxes on global capital often rail against financial privacy and bank secrecy -- forgetting they are necessary for civil society. It is true that not all people are saintly. But it is also true that not all governments are free from tyranny and corruption, and not all people are fully protected against criminal elements, even within their own governments. Without some jurisdictions in the world enforcing reasonable rights of financial privacy, those living in un-free and corrupt jurisdictions would have no place to protect their financial assets from kidnappers, extortionists, blackmailers and assorted government and nongovernment thugs.

It is a fool's errand to pass ever more laws against things that are already illegal, or to pass laws against people trying to protect themselves from rapacious and corrupt governments. Despite the hundreds of local, state and federal laws against financial fraud, and financial regulatory authorities like the SEC, Bernie Madoff was able to conduct the biggest ever Ponzi scheme for decades.

The chief tax writer in Congress, House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Charles Rangel, Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner, and former Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle apparently did not report all of their foreign-source income. Their actions tell us that either the tax law is too complex, or they thought the tax burden was excessive. Would their behavior and that of millions of others improve by making the tax law more complex and punitive?

U.S. companies are being forced to move elsewhere to remain internationally competitive because we have one of the world's highest corporate tax rates. And many economists, including Nobel Laureate Robert Lucas, have argued that the single best thing we can do to improve economic performance and job creation is to eliminate multiple taxes on capital gains, interest and dividends. Income is already taxed once, before it is invested, whether here or abroad; taxing it a second time as a capital gain only discourages investment and growth.

In fact, the U.S. does not tax most of the dividend, interest and capital gains' earnings of foreign investors in the U.S. -- which means, ironically, that the U.S. is the world's largest "tax haven" for non-U.S. citizens, and that we benefit from hundreds of billions of dollars of needed capital invested here. If the U.S. did not treat foreign investors better than its own citizens (who are double-taxed on most capital income), most of the "tax avoidance" problems critics complain about would disappear.

The proposals by Messrs. Dorgan, Levin, Baucus and the Treasury will almost certainly have the unintended consequences of driving more U.S. businesses elsewhere, discouraging foreign investment in the U.S., and actually encouraging more U.S. investors to move their funds (either legally or illegally) not only out of the country, but to places in Asia or the Mideast that tend to be less cooperative with U.S. tax authorities than are the European and British low-tax jurisdictions.

The correct policy for the United States to follow is to reduce its corporate tax rate to make it internationally competitive, and to move toward a tax system that does not punish savings and productive investment so severely. We know from the experiences of many countries that reducing tax rates and simplifying the tax code improve both tax compliance and economic growth. Tax protectionism should be rejected because it is at least as destructive to economic growth and job creation as are tariffs on goods and services.

Mr. Rahn is a senior fellow at the Cato Institute, and a former board member of the Cayman Islands Monetary Authority, which regulates the world's largest offshore financial center.

from the Associated Press, 2009-Feb-22, by Patrick Mcgroarty, with Melissa Eddy and Michael Fischer in Berlin and Martin Crutsinger in Washington contributing:

EU leaders back sweeping financial regulations

BERLIN — European leaders mounted a united front against the global financial crisis Sunday, proposing sweeping new market regulations, but it remained unclear whether economic giants like the United States and China would go along.

Heads of government and finance ministers from Europe's largest economies joined German Chancellor Angela Merkel in Berlin to lay the groundwork for a common European position on economic reforms before an April 2 summit of the Group of 20 nations in London.

"Europe will own up to its responsibility in the world," Merkel told reporters following the talks.

Leaders from Britain, France, Germany, Italy, Luxembourg, Spain, the Netherlands and the Czech Republic agreed to press for sanctions on tax havens, caps for managers' bonus payments and a stronger role and increased funding for the International Monetary Fund.

While the plans were based on an agenda adopted by the G-20 in November, the measures announced Sunday were more far-reaching and concrete, particularly on long-disputed issues such as hedge fund regulation.

However, analysts say other G-20 members, including the U.S., China, Japan and developing nations like India and Brazil, might not share Europe's zeal for blanket global regulations.

During Germany's turn at the presidency of the Group of Eight two years ago, Merkel pushed hard for more transparency on global financial markets and, especially, hedge fund regulation. But her efforts ran into against stiff resistance from Washington and London.

Even the global crisis and a change of administration may not be enough to convince the U.S. to hand over its autonomy.

"I see the U.S. as wary of giving away powers of oversight and regulation," said Robert Brusca of New York-based Fact And Opinion Economics.

Financial industry leaders, on the other hand, may have lost too much credibility in the current crisis to fight off heavy restrictions on their practices.

"What the industry thinks is irrelevant," Brusca said." It has squandered any good will it had by being given a leash of self regulation — then running amok."

French President Nicolas Sarkozy said that "Europe wants the system to be refounded," and stressed the importance of the April meeting.

"We all want London to be a success and we are all aware that it's (our) last chance," Sarkozy said. "We cannot afford a failure in London."

European leaders also backed Merkel's call for a "charter of sustainable economic activity" that would subject all financial market activities around the globe to regulation, including credit rating agencies.

Merkel's proposal envisions giving increased powers to the IMF, which the leaders agreed needed to receive double its current funding in order to help members respond "swiftly and flexibly" to a crisis.

British Prime Minister Gordon Brown called for a "global New Deal" to be adopted to help right the world economy, saying international financial institutions need some $500 billion to do the job.

That could prove complicated unless the U.S. agrees to cede the needed authority to the IMF to make it effective, analysts say.

"The IMF is a policeman without a whistle, let alone a gun," Brusca said. "I see more international cooperation as essential but still difficult."

Other key points agreed to Sunday included adopting a "sanctions mechanism" to penalize tax havens and urging banks to keep larger reserves of capital.

"A new system of regulation without sanctions would not have any meaning," said Sarkozy.

He said European countries should jointly draw up a list of tax havens, as well as sanctions they might face for continuing reckless financial activity.

Merkel also warned the United States to avoid protectionism in its automobile market.

"When I look at the restructuring plans of some American companies, there are a lot of state funds flowing into them," Merkel said, swiftly adding that "this is not an accusation."

She said the European Commission would be asked to examine whether the U.S. was violating global trade laws.

In Washington, the Obama administration did not comment specifically on the measures being advanced by Europe but said the United States was ready to work with other countries to improve financial market regulation.

"We look forward to continuing to work through the G-20 process with our colleagues in Europe and the world to put in place sound regulatory regimes so such a financial crisis does not occur again," said U.S. Treasury Department spokeswoman Heather Wong.

She said that the administration had worked "at unprecedented speed" to gain congressional passage of a $787 billion economic stimulus plan as well as unveiling new programs to stabilize the U.S. financial system and stem the housing foreclosure crisis.

Officials said a final copy of the summit agreement would not be circulated Sunday, in order to allow European Union members not present to view it first. All 27 EU members are to debate the document next week, and it is to be taken up by the European Council on March 19-20, then presented to the G-20.

That summit will be President Barack Obama's first and a test of just how much regulation the U.S., and other world leaders, is willing to accept in an effort to prevent another meltdown.

from the Associated Press, 2009-Feb-20, by Eileen AJ Connelly:

Volcker sees crisis leading to global regulation

NEW YORK — "Even the experts don't quite know what's going on."

Speaking to a number of those experts Friday, Paul Volcker, a top economic adviser to President Barack Obama, cited not only the lack of understanding of the global financial meltdown but the "shocking" speed with which it had spread across the world.

"One year ago, we would have said things were tough in the United States, but the rest of the world was holding up," Volcker told a conference featuring Nobel laureates, economists and investors at Columbia University in New York. "The rest of the world has not held up."

In fact, the 81-year-old former chairman of the Federal Reserve said, "I don't remember any time, maybe even the Great Depression, when things went down quite so fast."

He noted that industrial production is falling in countries across the globe faster than in the U.S., one result of the decline caused by the breakdown of unbridled financial markets that operated on a global scale.

"It's broken down in the face of almost all expectation and prediction," he noted.

Volcker didn't offer specifics on how long he thinks the recession will last or what will help start a recovery. But he predicted there will be some lasting lessons from the experience.

"I don't believe it will be forgotten ... and we will revert to the kind of financial system we had before the crisis," he said.

While he assured his audience of his confidence that capitalism will survive, Volcker said stronger regulations are needed to protect the world economy from such future shocks.

And he said he is concerned about the amount of power central banks, treasuries and regulatory agencies have acquired while trying to contain the meltdown.

"It is evident in the United States, and not just in the United States, the central bank is taking on a role that is way beyond what a central bank should be taking," he said.

Volcker stressed the importance of international cooperation in creating a new regulatory framework, particularly for major banks that operate across national boundaries — the reverse of what's happened in recent years.

"The more international agreement we have on where we want to get to, the better off we'll be," Volcker said.

And while major banks should be more tightly controlled and less able to make the sort of risky bets that led to their current debacle, Volcker said there should also be more oversight of some kind for hedge funds, equity funds and the remaining investment banks.

He scoffed at the notion that those entities must be free to innovate — stating that financial "innovations" like asset backed securities and credit default swaps have brought few benefits. The most important "innovation" in banking for most people in the last 20 or 30 years, he maintained, is the automatic teller machine.

from the New York Times, 2009-Mar-23, by David Barboza, with Keith Bradsher contributing reporting from Beijing:

China Urges New Money Reserve to Replace Dollar

SHANGHAI — In another indication that China is growing increasingly concerned about holding huge dollar reserves, the head of its central bank has called for the eventual creation of a new international currency reserve to replace the dollar.

In a paper released Monday, Zhou Xiaochuan, governor of the People's Bank of China, said a new currency reserve system controlled by the International Monetary Fund could prove more stable and economically viable.

A new system is necessary, he said, because the global economic crisis has revealed the “inherent vulnerabilities and systemic risks in the existing international monetary system.”

While few analysts believe that the dollar will be replaced as the world's dominant foreign exchange reserve anytime soon, the proposal suggests that China is preparing to assume a more influential role in the world. Russia recently made a similar proposal.

China's bold idea, released more than a week before world leaders are to gather in London for an economic summit meeting, also indicates that Beijing is worried that its huge dollar-denominated foreign reserves could lose significant value in coming years.

China has the world's largest foreign exchange reserves, valued at nearly $2 trillion, with more than half of those holdings estimated to be made up of United States Treasuries and other dollar-denominated bonds.

On March 13, China's prime minister, Wen Jiabao, said he was concerned about the safety of those assets, particularly because huge economic stimulus plans could lead to soaring deficits in the United States, which could sink the dollar's value.

Should China lose its appetite for Treasuries, the United States' borrowing costs could rise, making it more costly for Washington to carry out economic stimulus packages and for Americans to pay off their mortgages.

Nicholas Lardy, an economist and China specialist at the Peterson Institute in Washington, said that through its proposal, China was indicating that the dollar's long dominance was unfair, allowing the United States to run huge deficits by borrowing from abroad, and that the risks to holders of Treasuries were growing.

“Chinese are quite concerned that the large U.S. government deficits will eventually lead to inflation, which will erode the purchasing power of the dollar-denominated financial assets which they hold,” Mr. Lardy said. “It is a legitimate concern.”

The timing of the Chinese announcement, analysts said, could also be aimed at giving Beijing more leverage to negotiate with the United States and other nations in London on trade and on proposals about how to stabilize the global economy.

But China is cautious when it discusses buying or selling Treasuries, for fear of sending a signal that could significantly affect currency markets. So in a separate announcement on Monday, China said it would continue to buy Treasuries, something the United States has encouraged.

In Mr. Zhou's essay, published in English and Chinese on the central bank's Web site, he said the international community should consider expanding the International Monetary Fund's Special Drawing Rights.

Such a proposal has been suggested before by developing countries. But the United States has always been wary that this could be inflationary and affect the central role of the dollar.

Special Drawing Rights are based on the value of the dollar, euro, pound and yen, but have been little used except as an accounting entry by international organizations.

Mr. Zhou said the goal of reforming the international monetary system was to “create an international reserve currency that is disconnected from individual nations and is able to remain stable in the long run.”

from the Wall Street Journal, 2009-Mar-24, by Andrew Batson, with Terence Poon in Beijing, James T. Areddy in Shanghai, and Bob Davis and Michael M. Phillips in Washington contributing:

China Takes Aim at Dollar

BEIJING -- China called for the creation of a new currency to eventually replace the dollar as the world's standard, proposing a sweeping overhaul of global finance that reflects developing nations' growing unhappiness with the U.S. role in the world economy.

The unusual proposal, made by central bank governor Zhou Xiaochuan in an essay released Monday in Beijing, is part of China's increasingly assertive approach to shaping the global response to the financial crisis.

Mr. Zhou's proposal comes amid preparations for a summit of the world's industrial and developing nations, the Group of 20, in London next week. At past such meetings, developed nations have criticized China's economic and currency policies.

This time, China is on the offensive, backed by other emerging economies such as Russia in making clear they want a global economic order less dominated by the U.S. and other wealthy nations.

However, the technical and political hurdles to implementing China's recommendation are enormous, so even if backed by other nations, the proposal is unlikely to change the dollar's role in the short term. Central banks around the world hold more U.S. dollars and dollar securities than they do assets denominated in any other individual foreign currency. Such reserves can be used to stabilize the value of the central banks' domestic currencies.

Monday's proposal follows a similar one Russia made this month during preparations for the G20 meeting. Like China, Russia recommended that the International Monetary Fund might issue the currency, and emphasized the need to update "the obsolescent unipolar world economic order."

Chinese officials are frustrated at their financial dependence on the U.S., with Premier Wen Jiabao this month publicly expressing "worries" over China's significant holdings of U.S. government bonds. The size of those holdings means the value of the national rainy-day fund is mainly driven by factors China has little control over, such as fluctuations in the value of the dollar and changes in U.S. economic policies. While Chinese banks have weathered the global downturn and continue to lend, the collapse in demand for the nation's exports has shuttered factories and left millions jobless.

In his paper, published in Chinese and English on the central bank's Web site, Mr. Zhou argued for reducing the dominance of a few individual currencies, such as the dollar, euro and yen, in international trade and finance. Most nations concentrate their assets in those reserve currencies, which exaggerates the size of flows and makes financial systems overall more volatile, Mr. Zhou said.

Moving to a reserve currency that belongs to no individual nation would make it easier for all nations to manage their economies better, he argued, because it would give the reserve-currency nations more freedom to shift monetary policy and exchange rates. It could also be the basis for a more equitable way of financing the IMF, Mr. Zhou added. China is among several nations under pressure to pony up extra cash to help the IMF.

John Lipsky, the IMF's deputy managing director, said the Chinese proposal should be treated seriously. "It reflects officials' concerns about improving the stability of the financial system," he said. "It's interesting because of China's unique position, and because the governor put it in a measured and considered way."

China's proposal is likely to have significant implications, said Eswar Prasad, a professor of trade policy at Cornell University and former IMF official. "Nobody believes that this is the perfect solution, but by putting this on the table the Chinese have redefined the debate," he said. "It represents a very strong pushback by China on a number of fronts where they feel themselves being pushed around by the advanced countries," such as currency policy and funding for the IMF.

A spokeswoman for the U.S. Treasury Department declined to comment on Mr. Zhou's views. In recent weeks, senior Obama administration officials have sought to reassure Beijing that the current U.S. spending spree is a short-term effort to restart the stalled American economy, not evidence of long-term U.S. profligacy.

"The re-establishment of a new and widely accepted reserve currency with a stable valuation benchmark may take a long time," Mr. Zhou said. In remarks earlier Monday, one of his deputies, Hu Xiaolian, also said the dollar's dominant position in international trade and investment is unlikely to change soon. Ms. Hu is in charge of reserve management as the head of China's State Administration of Foreign Exchange.

Mr. Zhou's comments -- coming on the heels of Mr. Wen's musing about the safety of China's dollar holdings -- appear to be a warning to the U.S. that it can't expect China to finance its spending indefinitely.

The central banker's proposal reflects both China's desire to hold its $1.95 trillion in reserves in something other than U.S. dollars and the fact that Beijing has few alternatives. With more U.S. dollars continuing to pour into China from trade and investment, Beijing has no realistic option other than storing them in U.S. debt.

Mr. Zhou argued, without mentioning the dollar by name, that the loss of the dollar's de facto reserve status would benefit the U.S. by avoiding future crises. Because other nations continued to park their money in U.S. dollars, the argument goes, the Federal Reserve was able to pursue an irresponsible policy in recent years, keeping interest rates too low for too long and thereby helping to inflate a bubble in the housing market.

"The outbreak of the crisis and its spillover to the entire world reflected the inherent vulnerabilities and systemic risks in the existing international monetary system," Mr. Zhou said. The increasing number and intensity of financial crises suggests "the costs of such a system to the world may have exceeded its benefits."

Mr. Zhou isn't the first to make that argument. "The dollar reserve system is part of the problem," Joseph Stiglitz, the Columbia University economist, said in a speech in Shanghai last week, because it meant so much of the world's cash was funneled into the U.S. "We need a global reserve system," he said in the speech.

Mr. Zhou's idea is to expand the use of "special drawing rights," or SDRs -- a kind of synthetic currency created by the IMF in the 1960s. Its value is determined by a basket of major currencies. Originally, the SDR was intended to serve as a shared currency for international reserves, though that aspect never really got off the ground.

These days, the SDR is mainly used in the IMF's accounting for its transactions with member nations. Mr. Zhou suggested countries could increase their contributions to the IMF in exchange for greater access to a pool of reserves in SDRs.

Holding more international reserves in SDRs would increase the role and powers of the IMF. That indicates China and other developing nations aren't hostile to international financial institutions -- they just want to have more say in running them. China has resisted the U.S. push to make an immediate loan to the IMF because that wouldn't give China a bigger vote. Ms. Hu said Monday that China, which encourages the IMF to explore other fund-raising options, would consider buying into a bond issue.

The IMF has been working on a proposal to issue bonds, probably only to central banks. Bond purchases are one way for the organization to raise money and meet its goal of at least doubling its lending war chest to $500 billion from $250 billion. Japan has loaned the IMF $100 billion and the European Union has pledged another $100 billion.

from the Washington Post, 2008-Nov-17, p.A19, by Robert Hutchings:

A Global Grand Bargain

The world is on the cusp of the most profound shift in global power and influence in a century. Managing this quiet revolution calls for nothing short of a new international system, with a radical revision of existing institutions and patterns of doing business. It is a time for thinking big.

Over the weekend, leaders of the Group of 20 world economic powers gathered in Washington to consider a "Bretton Woods II" world financial architecture. The institutions created at Bretton Woods, N.H., two generations ago -- the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund -- served their purposes over the years, but they are woefully inadequate for meeting the global financial challenges of the 21st century.

The G-20 summit was a long-overdue initiative, but it did not go far enough. The summit made modest progress in addressing the immediate crisis, but it hardly touched the harder challenges of institutional reform. The "action plan" announced on Saturday was mostly and predictably a vague set of broad goals.

The summit failed for two principal reasons. First, the mechanisms do not exist, at the IMF or elsewhere, to regulate governmental financial institutions, much less non- or quasi-governmental institutions such as China's sovereign wealth funds. Second, leaders of influential countries such as China and India made clear their disinterest in participating in global institutions that are dominated by the Western powers. Why should China and India pay attention to an IMF in which their combined voting weight is just over 5 percent and which is always led by a European (with the World Bank always led by an American)? The immediate challenge of creating a "Bretton Woods II" might begin with the Europeans and Americans voluntarily relinquishing their cozy agreement to reserve the top IMF and World Bank jobs for themselves and proposing a revision of the voting weights at both institutions to give the rising economic powers a greater stake and role (and to oblige them to pay higher dues as well).

This would clear the way for a strengthening of IMF roles in gathering and disseminating financial information, developing enforceable standards and codes for banks and sovereign wealth funds, and enhancing surveillance of financial systems -- internationally and in individual countries -- in conjunction with central banks. To give this new system more political clout, the G-20 itself should be given a stronger mandate and role to complement this enhanced IMF.

This does not go far enough, though. It is not just the global financial mechanisms but also the institutions governing trade, energy, the environment, development assistance and security that need to be overhauled.

When he takes office, President Obama and his new administration should seize the "Bretton Woods moment" -- the growing recognition around the world that a new global order needs to be fashioned -- to articulate and develop a larger vision around which others can rally.

How to begin? As Dwight Eisenhower advised, if a problem cannot be solved, enlarge it. Tackling these problems piecemeal or in isolation won't do it. The solution lies in a "global grand bargain" -- a set of loosely linked trade-offs whereby the United States and Europe give a bit on the Doha trade round and induce Brazil and India to follow suit, China takes economically difficult steps to reduce carbon emissions because it sees progress in other areas, and Russia sees its international role strengthened and therefore undertakes to act as a reliable energy provider and promoter of nuclear nonproliferation.

Early breakthroughs may be possible in some areas, such as a deal on climate change that brings in China and India and creation of a global fund to begin weaning us from fossil fuels. But this new system is not the work of a few months. It is not a single negotiated settlement, a single treaty or a single institution but, rather, a flexible set of reciprocal concessions among a dozen or so key countries that would evolve step by step. Just as the post-World War II order took the better part of a decade to put in place, so too will the new order evolve over the course of years.

Many of the foreign policy problems the Obama administration will inherit -- Iraq, Afghanistan, Iran, Pakistan, North Korea -- carry more risks than opportunities. They do not lend themselves to grand new initiatives or foreign policy successes. The best (if uninspiring) counsel is to proceed with caution and prudence.

It is precisely in the area of creating a new international order that the administration should show boldness and imagination. The time to act is at the beginning, when the president's power and support is at its high point. Obama should articulate a vision that can cut through entrenched positions, internationally as well as domestically, and allow him to take initiatives that would come to fruition later in his term.

In their meeting Saturday, G-20 leaders agreed to gather again no later than the end of April. This offers the Obama administration an ideal opportunity to begin refashioning the G-20 as a flexible forum for working out and monitoring this grand bargain -- not to replace existing institutions such as the United Nations but to serve as a kind of global steering group of the world's more powerful countries.

Robert Hutchings is diplomat in residence at Princeton University's Woodrow Wilson School. He was chairman of the U.S. National Intelligence Council from 2003 to 2005. The Agenda is an occasional series on policy issues facing the Obama administration.

from the Associated Press, 2009-Apr-14, by Hope Yen:

Report: Illegal immigrants having more kids in US

WASHINGTON — Growing numbers of children of illegal immigrants are being born in this country, and they are nearly twice as likely to live in poverty than those with American-born parents, a report says.

The study released Tuesday by the Pew Hispanic Center highlights a growing dilemma in the immigration debate: Illegal immigrants' children born in the United States are American citizens, yet they struggle in poverty and uncertainty along with parents who fear deportation, toil largely in low-wage jobs and face layoffs in an ailing economy.

The analysis by Pew, a nonpartisan research organization, estimated that 11.9 million illegal immigrants lived in the U.S. Of those, 8.3 million were in the labor force as of March 2008, making up 5.4 percent of the U.S. work force, primarily in lower-paying farming, construction or janitorial work.

Roughly three out of four of their children — or 4 million — were born in the U.S. In 2003, 2.7 million children of illegal immigrants, or 63 percent, were born in this country.

Overall, illegal immigrants' children account for one of every 15 students in kindergarten through 12th grade.

Illegal immigrants also have become more geographically dispersed, increasingly passing up typical destinations like California in favor of jobs in newly emerging Hispanic areas in Southeastern states like Georgia and North Carolina.

In 2008, California had the most illegal immigrants at 2.7 million, double its 1990 number, followed by Texas, Florida, New York and New Jersey. Still, California's 22 percent share of the nation's illegal immigrant population was a marked drop-off from its 42 percent share in 1990.

The latest demographic snapshot comes as President Barack Obama is preparing to address the politically sensitive issue of immigration reform later this year, including a proposal to give illegal immigrants a path to citizenship.

Though their numbers have soared over the past two decades, the total number of illegal immigrants in the U.S. has declined or remained flat in the last few years. Demographers attribute that to slower rates of migration into the U.S. caused in part by the recession, as well as to deportations and stepped-up immigration enforcement during the Bush administration.

Among the findings:

• One-third of the children of illegal immigrants live in poverty, nearly double the rate for children of U.S.-born parents.

• Illegal immigrants' share of low-wage jobs has grown in recent years, from 10 percent of construction jobs in 2003 to 17 percent in 2008. They also make up 25 percent of workers in farming and 19 percent in building maintenance.

• The 2007 median household income of illegal immigrants was $36,000, compared with $50,000 for U.S.-born residents. In contrast to other immigrants, illegal immigrants do not earn markedly higher incomes the longer they live in the United States.

• About 47 percent of illegal immigrant households have children, compared with 21 percent for U.S.-born residents and 35 percent for legal immigrants.

• About three-quarters, or 76 percent, of illegal immigrants in the U.S. are Hispanic. The majority came from Mexico (59 percent), numbering 7 million. Other regions included Asia (11 percent), Central America (11 percent), South America (7 percent), the Caribbean (4 percent) and the Middle East (2 percent).

Children of illegal immigrants hold a delicate place in the U.S. On the one hand, the Supreme Court ruled in 1982 that these children — whether they were U.S. citizens or not — were entitled to a public school education. California and a few other states also provide some college tuition breaks to illegal immigrants.

At the same time, the immigrants and their families are among the poorest people in the U.S., easily exploited by employers and subject to arrest at any time. Children who are U.S. citizens cannot petition for their parents to become legal U.S. residents until they are at least 21.

Earlier this year, the Homeland Security Department's inspector general found that more than 100,000 parents of U.S. citizens were deported over the decade ending in 2007, prompting the department to say it would gather more information about families before deporting immigrants.

The Pew analysis is based on census data through March 2008. Because the Census Bureau does not ask people about their immigration status, the estimate on illegal immigrants is derived largely by subtracting the estimated legal immigrant population from the total foreign-born population.

from Reuters, 2009-Apr-24, by Lesley Wroughton with editing by Chizu Nomiyama:

Poor countries pushed into "danger zone": World Bank

WASHINGTON - A triple jeopardy of food, fuel and financial crises is pushing many countries into a danger zone, a joint World Bank and International Monetary Fund report warned on Friday.

The report called for strong and urgent actions to address a deepening human and development crisis in the world's poor countries, including more aid to help countries shore up their economies and protect the poor.

"The development emergency that now confronts many poor countries calls for commitment to a set of actions that signal a clear resolve to avert the potentially large human costs of the crisis and assist these countries," the report said.

"The challenge ahead is to ensure that the actions are commensurate with the scale and depth of the crisis and are appropriately coordinated internationally," it said.

It said the deepening recession, rising unemployment and volatile commodity prices since last year are seriously affecting countries' ability to reduce poverty levels.

Poor countries were hard hit last year with record high global prices for food and oil, while a global economic slowdown are likely to throw more people deeper into poverty, the global institutions said.

The report called for a global fiscal stimulus to halt the downward spiral in the world economy and more aid to support growth in poor countries.

The report said there was also a role for the private sector to cushion the impact of the crisis on the poor. For example, one-half of health spending in developing countries comes from private sources.

More than half of all low-income countries could see a decline in revenue to gross domestic product in 2009, but most won't make up the shortfall in their budgets by borrowing domestically or internationally due to a global credit crunch.

The IMF estimates that about a quarter of poor countries will face a drop in revenue of more than 2 percentage points of GDP in 2009.

Meanwhile, preliminary findings by the World Bank show that only 13 percent of poor countries for which data is available will be able to run a budget surplus in 2009, compared with 28 percent in 2008 and 34 percent in 2007.

It said additional aid is vital to soften the economic blow on poor countries, but prospects for more aid are uncertain given the deepening recession in rich donor nations.

"Without additional external assistance, the impact on poor countries could be severe," the report said, adding: "However, concerns are growing that aid could be cut precisely when an increase is sorely needed."

The report said making aid more effective is vital.

The institutions said prospects for reaching aid targets in 2010 have become uncertain. Even before the crisis unravelled, the gap between aid commitments and aid delivery was large.

It said the impact of the current global crisis on aid will depend on how deep and how long the crisis is.

The impact of falling aid on poor countries is devastating since aid makes up a large portion of their fiscal revenues, for example, aid accounts for around 40 percent of budgets revenues in Ghana and Mali in 2006.

from the Wall Street Journal, 2009-Apr-6, by Mary Anastasia O'Grady:

Aid Keeps Latin America Poor
For real progress, they need the means to accumulate wealth.

We have sunk to such a depth that the restatement of the obvious has become the first duty of intelligent men.

-- George Orwell, 1939

U.S. Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner has a lot on his plate these days with the banking system on life-support, the economy in recession, and his office in charge of running the master plan to patch up the whole mess.

Still, President Barack Obama's top fix-it man managed to jet down to Medellin, Colombia, a week ago for the Inter-American Development Bank's (IDB) general assembly. His big contribution was to get behind a proposal to nearly triple the development bank's capital.

By supporting the bureaucratic status quo in Latin America, Mr. Geithner strengthens himself politically. All hail the Obama administration's first-string hurler, a man who never meets a problem that can't be solved by throwing more money around. But back in the real world, the expansion of the already menacing IDB is grim news for the serfs who toil in the feudal Latin American systems that the bank calls its "clients."

Drawing on the wisdom of Orwell, this is a good time to repeat what is already manifest: Latin America remains poor and backward not despite multilateral "assistance" but, in a large part, because of it. The IDB has been going at the problem of poverty in Latin America since 1959, but it hasn't acted alone. In the postwar period the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund and untold bilateral agencies have blanketed the region with aid. World-wide foreign aid has boomed. According to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, "in 2008, total net official development assistance (ODA) from members of the OECD's Development Assistance Committee (DAC) rose by 10.2% in real terms to USD 119.8 billion. This is the highest dollar figure ever recorded."

Does it follow that poverty persists because the amounts have been just too measly to do the job? It does for Mr. Geithner and the foreign-aid brigades. But rather than rely on those with vested interests, it's more useful to look at the empirical evidence. A 2006 paper titled "Foreign Aid, Income Inequality and Poverty," from the research department of the IDB itself, looked at the period 1971-2002 and found "some weak evidence that foreign aid is conducive to the improvement of the distribution of income [sic]. When the quality of institutions is taken into account, however, this result is not robust. This finding is consistent with recent empirical research on aid ineffectiveness in achieving economic growth or promoting democratic institutions."

So now that we know it doesn't work, Mr. Geithner wants more of it. This is what the late, great development economist Peter Lord Bauer called "the disregard of reality." In a 1987 essay in the Cato Journal, he called the claim that poverty is a trap that cannot be escaped without external aid an "obvious conflict with simple reality." "All developed countries began as underdeveloped," Bauer wrote. "If the notion of the vicious circle were valid, mankind would still be in the Stone Age at best."

Bauer spent a lifetime studying development. In 1972 he published "Dissent on Development" sharply criticizing aid for its focus on "symptoms and effects" of poverty while "divert[ing] attention from the determinants of development." For Bauer, foreign aid was not just a waste of money; it worked against getting things right in those areas that really matter to progress. Those "determinants" are now widely acknowledged, even by researchers at the World Bank. They produce an annual "Doing Business" survey that looks at the regulatory burden in 181 countries and points out the critical link between economically free people and prosperity.

In a recent book titled "Lessons From the Poor" about successful entrepreneurs in the developing world, researcher Alvaro Vargas Llosa echoes these insights. "The decisive element" in bringing a society out of poverty is "the development of the entrepreneurial reserves that exist in its men and women," Mr. Vargas Llosa writes. "The institutions that grant more freedom to their citizens and more security to their citizens' possessions are those that best facilitate the accumulation of wealth."

It is obvious that economic liberty and property rights are the key drivers of development, and that there is no correlation between the volume of foreign aid a country receives and its respect for these values. Yet what is more troubling is the IDB's reputation for working against liberalization in the region, most notoriously, against the flat tax. With its institutional checkbook it easily overpowers civic groups that try to limit the power of government. In doing so it promotes neither development nor just societies.

from the Wall Street Journal, 2009-Mar-17, p.A13, by Matthew Rees:

When Help Does Harm

It is one of the great conundrums of the modern age: More than 300 million people living across the continent of Africa are still mired in poverty after decades of effort -- by the World Bank, foreign governments and charitable organizations -- to lift them out if it. While a few African countries have achieved notable rates of economic growth in recent years, per-capita income in Africa as a whole has inched up only slightly since 1960. In that year, the region's gross domestic product was about equal to that of East Asia. By 2005, East Asia's GDP was five times higher. The total aid package to Africa, over the past 50 years, exceeds $1 trillion. There is far too little to show for it.

Dead Aid By Dambisa Moyo (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 188 pages, $24)

Dambisa Moyo, a native of Zambia and a former World Bank consultant, believes that it is time to end the charade -- to stop proceeding as if foreign aid does the good that it is supposed to do. The problem, she says in "Dead Aid," is not that foreign money is poorly spent (though much of it is) or that development programs are badly managed (though many of them are). No, the problem is more fundamental: Aid, she writes, is "no longer part of the potential solution, it's part of the problem -- in fact, aid is the problem."

In a tightly argued brief, Ms. Moyo spells out how attempts to help Africa actually hurt it. The aid money pouring into Africa, she says, underwrites brutal and corrupt regimes; it stifles investment; and it leads to higher rates of poverty -- all of which, in turn, creates a demand for yet more aid. Africa, Ms. Moyo notes, seems hopelessly trapped in this spiral, and she wants to see it break free. Over the past 30 years, she says, the most aid-dependent countries in Africa have experienced economic contraction averaging 0.2% a year.

America's policy toward postwar Europe is often cited as the model for African assistance, but Ms. Moyo reminds us that the vaunted Marshall Plan was limited to five years and was focused on reconstructing societies ravaged by war. In Africa, she says, the aid spigot never stops flowing. "There is no incentive for long-term financial planning," she observes, "no reason to seek alternatives to fund development, when all you have to do is sit back and bank the cheques."

Inevitably, "Dead Aid" will offend the pieties of the World Bank and the foreign-aid sectors of the U.S. government. But Ms. Moyo is not alone in asking tough questions about good intentions gone awry. Rwanda's president, Paul Kagame, has said of the $300 billion in aid given to Africa since the 1970s that "there is little to show for it in terms of economic growth and human development." Senegal's president, Abdoulaye Wade, has expressed similar sentiments.

Given that aid has been, in Ms. Moyo's words, "an unmitigated political, economic, and humanitarian disaster," why has it continued? One reason, she says, is that there about 500,000 people "in the business of aid," and their livelihoods are dictated more by the size of their lending portfolios than the effectiveness of their programs. There is also the Bono effect. Along with other celebrities, the U2 frontman has become a powerful voice calling for still more aid to Africa, not less. The result is a kind of moral bullying. "Honest, critical, and serious dialogue and debate on the merits and demerits of aid," Ms. Moyo writes, "have atrophied."

Much of "Dead Aid" outlines an agenda for Africa's economic development, such as expanding its trade and developing its banking sector -- that is, creating a reliable system of credit that will allow individuals to earn interest on their savings and businesses to receive the loans they need to grow. Ms. Moyo argues for African countries to create bond markets -- a reminder that her instincts are closer to Goldman Sachs (where she worked for eight years) than to Jeffrey Sachs (the Columbia professor who wants Western governments to pour more money into Africa). She notes that, in the past 10 years, 43 developing nations have issued international bonds but that only three -- South Africa, Ghana and Gabon -- were from Africa.

While criticizing outsiders for their misguided ideas, Ms. Moyo does not ignore Africa's self-inflicted wounds. There are, she notes, steep obstacles to doing business there. According to the World Bank, nine of the world's 10 most hostile business environments are in Africa.

Unlike many experts in international affairs, Ms. Moyo does not believe that democracy is a key to solving Africa's problems. What poor countries need, she writes, is a "decisive benevolent dictator to push through the reforms required to get the economy moving." Economic growth, she says, is a prerequisite for democracy. She cites a study showing that democratic governments survive longer as per-capita income increases.

It is too bad that Ms. Moyo did not stop now and then to draw directly on her personal experience -- not only on her work as an investment banker but on her early life in Zambia. (Her mother is chairman of a Zambian bank; her father runs an anticorruption organization.) First-person accounts might have made her argument even more vivid.

Even so, it is vivid enough. She closes her book with a fascinating question: What would happen if African countries were told that in five years all financial aid would end? She doesn't try to answer the question in any detail, other than to dismiss the notion that living conditions in Africa would grow worse. She points to Botswana and South Africa as examples of countries that have prospered precisely because they haven't allowed themselves to become heavily dependent on aid.

Some of us remember Live Aid, the music festival held in 1985 to provide relief to Ethiopia. It was a noble effort and perhaps did some good, but "Dead Aid" reminds us that noble efforts are not enough -- that "help" can often do harm.

Mr. Rees is the founder of Geonomica, a consulting firm, and a former speechwriter at the Securities and Exchange Commission.

from Der Spiegel, 2005-Jul-4:

"For God's Sake, Please Stop the Aid!"

The Kenyan economics expert James Shikwati, 35, says that aid to Africa does more harm than good. The avid proponent of globalization spoke with SPIEGEL about the disastrous effects of Western development policy in Africa, corrupt rulers, and the tendency to overstate the AIDS problem.

SPIEGEL: Mr. Shikwati, the G8 summit at Gleneagles is about to beef up the development aid for Africa...

Shikwati: ... for God's sake, please just stop.

SPIEGEL: Stop? The industrialized nations of the West want to eliminate hunger and poverty.

Shikwati: Such intentions have been damaging our continent for the past 40 years. If the industrial nations really want to help the Africans, they should finally terminate this awful aid. The countries that have collected the most development aid are also the ones that are in the worst shape. Despite the billions that have poured in to Africa, the continent remains poor.

SPIEGEL: Do you have an explanation for this paradox?

Shikwati: Huge bureaucracies are financed (with the aid money), corruption and complacency are promoted, Africans are taught to be beggars and not to be independent. In addition, development aid weakens the local markets everywhere and dampens the spirit of entrepreneurship that we so desperately need. As absurd as it may sound: Development aid is one of the reasons for Africa's problems. If the West were to cancel these payments, normal Africans wouldn't even notice. Only the functionaries would be hard hit. Which is why they maintain that the world would stop turning without this development aid.

SPIEGEL: Even in a country like Kenya, people are starving to death each year. Someone has got to help them.

Shikwati: But it has to be the Kenyans themselves who help these people. When there's a drought in a region of Kenya, our corrupt politicians reflexively cry out for more help. This call then reaches the United Nations World Food Program -- which is a massive agency of apparatchiks who are in the absurd situation of, on the one hand, being dedicated to the fight against hunger while, on the other hand, being faced with unemployment were hunger actually eliminated. It's only natural that they willingly accept the plea for more help. And it's not uncommon that they demand a little more money than the respective African government originally requested. They then forward that request to their headquarters, and before long, several thousands tons of corn are shipped to Africa ...

SPIEGEL: ... corn that predominantly comes from highly-subsidized European and American farmers ...

Shikwati: ... and at some point, this corn ends up in the harbor of Mombasa. A portion of the corn often goes directly into the hands of unsrupulous politicians who then pass it on to their own tribe to boost their next election campaign. Another portion of the shipment ends up on the black market where the corn is dumped at extremely low prices. Local farmers may as well put down their hoes right away; no one can compete with the UN's World Food Program. And because the farmers go under in the face of this pressure, Kenya would have no reserves to draw on if there actually were a famine next year. It's a simple but fatal cycle.

SPIEGEL: If the World Food Program didn't do anything, the people would starve.

Shikwati: I don't think so. In such a case, the Kenyans, for a change, would be forced to initiate trade relations with Uganda or Tanzania, and buy their food there. This type of trade is vital for Africa. It would force us to improve our own infrastructure, while making national borders -- drawn by the Europeans by the way -- more permeable. It would also force us to establish laws favoring market economy.

SPIEGEL: Would Africa actually be able to solve these problems on its own?

Shikwati: Of course. Hunger should not be a problem in most of the countries south of the Sahara. In addition, there are vast natural resources: oil, gold, diamonds. Africa is always only portrayed as a continent of suffering, but most figures are vastly exaggerated. In the industrial nations, there's a sense that Africa would go under without development aid. But believe me, Africa existed before you Europeans came along. And we didn't do all that poorly either.

SPIEGEL: But AIDS didn't exist at that time.

Shikwati: If one were to believe all the horrorifying reports, then all Kenyans should actually be dead by now. But now, tests are being carried out everywhere, and it turns out that the figures were vastly exaggerated. It's not three million Kenyans that are infected. All of the sudden, it's only about one million. Malaria is just as much of a problem, but people rarely talk about that.

SPIEGEL: And why's that?

Shikwati: AIDS is big business, maybe Africa's biggest business. There's nothing else that can generate as much aid money as shocking figures on AIDS. AIDS is a political disease here, and we should be very skeptical.

SPIEGEL: The Americans and Europeans have frozen funds previously pledged to Kenya. The country is too corrupt, they say.

Shikwati: I am afraid, though, that the money will still be transfered before long. After all, it has to go somewhere. Unfortunately, the Europeans' devastating urge to do good can no longer be countered with reason. It makes no sense whatsoever that directly after the new Kenyan government was elected -- a leadership change that ended the dictatorship of Daniel arap Mois -- the faucets were suddenly opened and streams of money poured into the country.

SPIEGEL: Such aid is usually earmarked for a specific objective, though.

Shikwati: That doesn't change anything. Millions of dollars earmarked for the fight against AIDS are still stashed away in Kenyan bank accounts and have not been spent. Our politicians were overwhelmed with money, and they try to siphon off as much as possible. The late tyrant of the Central African Republic, Jean Bedel Bokassa, cynically summed it up by saying: "The French government pays for everything in our country. We ask the French for money. We get it, and then we waste it."

SPIEGEL: In the West, there are many compassionate citizens wanting to help Africa. Each year, they donate money and pack their old clothes into collection bags ...

Shikwati: ... and they flood our markets with that stuff. We can buy these donated clothes cheaply at our so-called Mitumba markets. There are Germans who spend a few dollars to get used Bayern Munich or Werder Bremen jerseys, in other words, clothes that that some German kids sent to Africa for a good cause. After buying these jerseys, they auction them off at Ebay and send them back to Germany -- for three times the price. That's insanity ...

SPIEGEL: ... and hopefully an exception.

Shikwati: Why do we get these mountains of clothes? No one is freezing here. Instead, our tailors lose their livlihoods. They're in the same position as our farmers. No one in the low-wage world of Africa can be cost-efficient enough to keep pace with donated products. In 1997, 137,000 workers were employed in Nigeria's textile industry. By 2003, the figure had dropped to 57,000. The results are the same in all other areas where overwhelming helpfulness and fragile African markets collide.

SPIEGEL: Following World War II, Germany only managed to get back on its feet because the Americans poured money into the country through the Marshall Plan. Wouldn't that qualify as successful development aid?

Shikwati: In Germany's case, only the destroyed infrastructure had to be repaired. Despite the economic crisis of the Weimar Republic, Germany was a highly- industrialized country before the war. The damages created by the tsunami in Thailand can also be fixed with a little money and some reconstruction aid. Africa, however, must take the first steps into modernity on its own. There must be a change in mentality. We have to stop perceiving ourselves as beggars. These days, Africans only perceive themselves as victims. On the other hand, no one can really picture an African as a businessman. In order to change the current situation, it would be helpful if the aid organizations were to pull out.

SPIEGEL: If they did that, many jobs would be immediately lost ...

Shikwati: ... jobs that were created artificially in the first place and that distort reality. Jobs with foreign aid organizations are, of course, quite popular, and they can be very selective in choosing the best people. When an aid organization needs a driver, dozens apply for the job. And because it's unacceptable that the aid worker's chauffeur only speaks his own tribal language, an applicant is needed who also speaks English fluently -- and, ideally, one who is also well mannered. So you end up with some African biochemist driving an aid worker around, distributing European food, and forcing local farmers out of their jobs. That's just crazy!

SPIEGEL: The German government takes pride in precisely monitoring the recipients of its funds.

Shikwati: And what's the result? A disaster. The German government threw money right at Rwanda's president Paul Kagame. This is a man who has the deaths of a million people on his conscience -- people that his army killed in the neighboring country of Congo.

SPIEGEL: What are the Germans supposed to do?

Shikwati: If they really want to fight poverty, they should completely halt development aid and give Africa the opportunity to ensure its own survival. Currently, Africa is like a child that immediately cries for its babysitter when something goes wrong. Africa should stand on its own two feet.

Interview conducted by Thilo Thielke

Translated from the German by Patrick Kessler

from the Guardian of London, 2009-Apr-23, by Heather Stewart:

Bob Geldof urges IMF to divert cash to Africa from sale of gold reserves
Washington-based lender should set aside $5bn from windfall and 'not be greedy', says Oxfam

Washington -- The International Monetary Fund is facing intense pressure from a coalition led by Bob Geldof to set aside more of the proceeds of a planned sale of its gold reserves to help Africa.

Speaking at a press confidence inside the IMF's headquarters in Washington, Geldof said Africa had been left out of the G20 agreement at the London summit this month, and urged the IMF to find ways of devoting more resources to protecting the poor from the credit crunch.

"All those arguments the activists and the politicians had for many years about aid, or debt cancellation, we can lay them to rest, because we're all begging for aid," he said. "We just call it fiscal stimulus – and we're all begging for debt relief; we just call it disposing of toxic assets."

He contrasted the $5bn (£3.4bn) campaigners are asking the IMF to devote to low-income countries with the trillions of dollars of government spending in the developed world.

Plans to sell off part of the IMF's gold reserves were first proposed in 2007, as a way of improving the finances of the Washington-based lender, with the proceeds going to paying for administration. Since then, the price of gold has risen sharply, and campaigners say the IMF will be left with a windfall of at least $5bn. At the G20 summit, leaders promised to set aside $1bn from gold sales to help fund cheap loans for the poorest countries, but Geldof, together with Oxfam and US charities, is calling on the IMF to set aside at least $5bn.

"This is a win-win," said Hetty Kovach, of Oxfam. "The fund will get what it needed, but it should not be greedy, and ask for more." Finance ministers from the IMF's member countries will discuss the gold sales proposals this weekend.

African countries have become concerned about the impact of the credit crunch on their economies. Mustafa Mkulo, the finance minister of Tanzania, warned that his economy was facing a downturn in exports and foreign investment and plunging tourism revenues as developed countries use their resources to prop up their own financial systems.

Donald Kaberuka, the head of the African Development Bank, said that despite not being directly affected by the sub-prime crisis, Africa has begun to suffer badly from the credit crunch.

"For us, this is not a financial crisis: we're not having a banking crisis, we're having an economic crisis. It's affecting countries through exports, through remittances and through neighbourhood effects," he said.

The US congressman Gregory Meeks, who chairs the house subcommittee on international monetary policy and trade, said decades of progress on the continent risked being wiped out by a crisis not of Africa's making: "Allowing the poorest nations, with burgeoning democracies, to bear the brunt of the economic crisis is putting at risk all the progress that was made in the last 10 to 15 years."

As a major shareholder of the IMF, Congress will have to approve the plans for gold sales.

from BBC News, 2010-Mar-4, by Martin Plaut:

On the trail of Ethiopia aid and guns

Images of the famine in Ethiopia moved millions of people around the world to reach in to their pockets and donate to international aid efforts. But as Martin Plaut has been discovering, there is a disturbing allegation few would choose to confront.

It was the early 1980s. The famine, which would soon devastate much of northern Ethiopia, was already evident.

I had gone on the long, difficult journey through Sudan and into Eritrea with rebels who had been fighting the government for more than 20 years.

My wife, Gill, had come with me.

As a nurse she was fascinated by the way the rebels were treating their injured, carrying out difficult operations in makeshift wards dug into the mountains.

But now it was time for me to go up to the frontline and for her to go home.

It was late at night, and I remember wondering to myself what I would say to her mother if anything went wrong as Gill got into one of the aid lorries rumbling their way back to Sudan.

Sitting in a bunker, I had no idea where we were in this vast, arid landscape. I was entirely reliant on the rebels who had brought us in.

Live Aid

For years the rains had failed and by 1984 millions were starving.

Thanks in no small part to the help of Bob Geldof and Live Aid, people responded as never before.

Millions of dollars were raised. Food was brought in. Many died, but the worst was averted - or so I thought.

But a year ago, I began hearing a different take.

I was contacted by Ethiopians who said we had all missed the real story of how money given with such worthy objectives had ended up being used to buy weapons.

I began making enquiries.

Gun money

Aregawi Berhe is the former army commander of the rebel movement that operated in the Ethiopian province of Tigray.

He now lives in a modest flat in the back streets of a Dutch town. He insisted on making me coffee.

Then he told me his version of what took place all those years ago - how the lightly-armed rebels he led took on the mighty Ethiopian army which had all the latest Soviet weaponry.

He told me that as the money began flowing in to feed the starving, a bitter debate had taken place inside the rebel movement.

There were divisions over how the cash should be spent.

He also explained how the aid money was diverted not just to buy weapons his troops needed, but also to build a hardline, Stalinist party - the Marxist Leninist League of Tigray.

This initiative, he said, was led by a young ideologue, Meles Zenawi.

In the bitter infighting, Aregawi and his allies lost out.

Money that was being channelled through the rebel side went to the party and to buy guns.

In 1985, Aregawi told me, just 5% of $100m (£65m) they received went to the starving.

It was an extraordinary tale, but perhaps Aregawi and his associates were just embittered men, trying to blacken the names of their former comrades?

After all, Meles Zenawi went on to become Ethiopia's prime minister and served with distinction on the Commission for Africa set up by former British prime minister Tony Blair.

Secret CIA reports

So over the next months I spoke to people from Alaska to Australia, from Scandinavia to Palestine.

I accumulated evidence from secret CIA reports. Former ambassadors supported the story Aregawi had told me.

Facts were found in the dusty back issues of obscure newsletters.

Even former Ethiopian government officials, who had been on the government side of the conflict said they believed it was true.

Was it significant that so many people refused to speak about these events, including civil servants, academics and politicians like Meles Zenawi?

Even Bob Geldof, who is not usually reluctant to talk, turned me down.

It became clear that 25 years on, this was still a subject too sensitive to be discussed openly.

Money trail

One person who did talk to me was Max Peberdy.

He is an aid consultant, who had carried nearly $500,000 (£331,00) worth in local currency into Tigray to buy surplus grain to feed the starving.

Despite telling him the evidence I had collected, he insists the money did not go astray.

I pointed out that he had been entirely reliant on the rebels to take him in, and that their Marxist-Leninist ideology ran counter to every notion of an independent aid operation.

I also explained that he had been unable to monitor the distribution of aid in the Ethiopian highlands that were the scenes of the most intense fighting.

As I left his London home I thought back to when I waved goodbye to Gill with an Eritrean fighter by my side.

I thought about just how isolated I had been - entirely dependent on the rebels who had taken me in. And how I had failed to ask the right questions at the time.

Although I was now finally following the trail of the money and the rebel guns, I am only too aware that I was making these enquiries 20 years too late.

The aid workers who did so much to help those suffering back then had not asked those questions either. But perhaps they would not have saved so many lives if they had.

from the Wall Street Journal, 2009-Jul-24, by Mackubin Thomas Owens:

The President Takes a Hard Line on Israel
Yet he doesn't want to be seen as `meddling' in Iran.

In foreign policy, President Barack Obama has demonstrated a disturbing propensity to curry favor with our adversaries at the expense of our friends.

The Czechs and Poles are rightly concerned that they will be sacrificed on the altar of better U.S. relations with Russia. And the Israelis fear that the Obama administration's desired opening to the Muslim world will be achieved at their expense. Mr. Obama's attempted bullying of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is a case in point.

Mr. Netanyahu was sworn in as Israel's prime minister on March 31. Shortly thereafter, the Obama administration confronted Israel's new leader in a very public way regarding Israeli settlements in the West Bank, an area partially controlled by the Palestinian National Authority. This was an extremely unusual way for an American president to greet the new leader of a liberal democracy that's a close ally of the U.S.

The Obama administration was not satisfied with a series of understandings crafted by the Bush administration that, while not freezing settlements, had nonetheless achieved a significant reduction in settlement construction. During a May press conference with the Egyptian foreign minister, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton announced that Mr. Obama “wants to see a stop to settlements—not some settlements, not outposts, not natural-growth exceptions.”

Subsequently, Mr. Obama demanded that Israel freeze construction in east Jerusalem. Of course, Mr. Netanyahu rejected Mr. Obama's demand. He declared that Jerusalem is an open, undivided city “that has no separation according to religion or national affiliation.” Mr. Netanyahu added that “we cannot accept the idea that Jews will not have the right to live and purchase in all parts of Jerusalem.”

If Jews were prohibited from buying property in New York, London, Paris or Rome, there would be an international outcry. Why, Mr. Netanyahu wondered, should the standard be different for Jerusalem?

Mr. Obama is woefully wrong if he believes that his confrontational style will provide an incentive for the Palestinians and the members of the Arab League to resolve the Arab-Israeli dispute. It will simply reinforce the long-standing Arab belief that the U.S. can “deliver” Israel if it only has the will to do so, thereby reducing Arab incentives to make concessions in direct negotiations with Israel.

As if on cue, Mahmoud Abbas, the leader of the Palestinian National Authority, announced that he would not negotiate on any issue with the new Israeli government until Mr. Obama's settlement conditions are met.

In addition to the building freeze in Jerusalem and the West Bank, Mr. Abbas insisted on four other unilateral, non-negotiable concessions: First, an independent Palestinian state; second, that Israel pulls back to its pre-June 1967 borders, minus a Palestinian land bridge between the West Bank and the Gaza Strip; third, a Palestinian “right of return” to Israel; and fourth, resolution of all permanent status issues on the basis of the 2002 Abdullah plan calling on Arabs to normalize relations with Israel in return for Israel's withdrawal to its pre-1967 borders. The “right of return,” in particular, is a non-starter.

If Mr. Obama seeks a Palestinian Arab state, he is going about it the wrong way. The fact is that Mr. Netanyahu has endorsed a two-state solution and an end to the expansion of settlements in the West Bank—as long as the Palestinians accept Israel as a legitimate Jewish state and cannot militarily threaten it. Israel has been willing to accept a two-state solution since the United Nations partition resolution for Palestine in 1947, but the Arabs have refused. They are not interested in creating a separate Palestinian Arab state but in destroying Israel as a Jewish state.

The Obama approach in the Middle East is predicated on what might be called the Arab “grievance narrative,” which holds that Israel was created as a result of Western guilt about the Holocaust. It is also based on the idea that, as the president suggested in his Cairo speech, there is moral equivalence between the Holocaust and Palestinian “dislocation.”

Such language illustrates an inability to make distinctions. Arabs launched a war against Jewish self-determination and the state of Israel long before any Israeli “occupation” of their lands. When Israel seized land in a defensive war, it was the Arabs, not the Israelis, who kept Palestinian “refugees” in limbo for three generations to await Israel's destruction.

As Mr. Netanyahu reminded Mr. Obama after the latter's Cairo speech, the Arab claim that Israel was a land grab by the great powers to salve the collective conscience of the West after the Holocaust is a slander. On the contrary, he observed, Israel's right to its homeland rests on the longstanding historical connection of the Jewish people to the land of Israel. This right was ratified by the unanimous and legitimizing votes of the League of Nations and the U.N. Security Council's permanent members, and validated by over 60 years of Israel's successful, democratic statehood.

Israel's “right to exist” was expressed best by Israeli diplomat Abba Eban in 1981. He wrote, “Israel's right to exist, like that of the United States, Saudi Arabia, and 152 other states, is axiomatic and unreserved. Israel's legitimacy is not suspended in midair, awaiting acknowledgment. . . . There is certainly no other state, big or small, young or old, that would consider mere recognition of its `right to exist' a favor, or a negotiable concession.”

Mr. Netanyahu might also have added that Israel's control of the West Bank (territory that should properly be called “disputed” rather than “occupied”), was the result of defeating the Arab powers who initiated the Six Day War of 1967. The status of aggressors and defenders is not interchangeable. Neither is the status of victorious powers and defeated ones.

Nonetheless, Israel has taken unilateral steps toward peace, steps not reciprocated by the Palestinians. When Israel unilaterally disengaged from the Gaza Strip, dismantling 21 settlements and displacing over 9,000 residents, it conducted the most comprehensive test of the “land for peace” concept in the history of Israeli-Palestinian relations. Yet Israel was rewarded with the creation of a terrorist enclave governed by Hamas, rather than the peaceful, responsible neighbor Israel would need in order to accept a Palestinian Arab state.

Unlike Hamas, the corrupt Palestinian National Authority that holds sway in the West Bank has nominally accepted Israel's right to exist but has never given up the “right of return” for Palestinian “refugees.” That right, if implemented, would mean the end of Israel's existence.

Peace between the Israelis and the Palestinians requires compromises on both sides. U.S. pressure on Israel, without any on the Palestinians, will not achieve the desired outcome.

Earlier this summer, the president justified his decision to downplay even rhetorical support for the Iranian protesters who rose up against their government and its fraudulent election. He did not wish the U.S. to appear to be “meddling” in Iranian affairs. He apparently feels no similar constraint when it comes to Israel.

Mr. Owens is editor of Orbis, the quarterly journal of the Foreign Policy Research Institute.

from the Wall Street Journal, 2009-Jan-5, by Natan Sharansky:

How the U.N. Perpetuates the 'Refugee' Problem
Nowhere on earth do terrorists get so much help from the Free World.

Israel's assault on Hamas is just the latest in a long chain of military clashes, the scripts of which are always the same. On one side, there is the Israeli army. Technologically and militarily superior, its soldiers are motivated by a powerful commitment to their country's security. On the other, there are Palestinian terrorists whose aim is to kill as many innocent Israelis as possible by unleashing missiles and suicide bombers on civilian centers. Then, when Israel retaliates, they appeal to the world with gruesome images of Palestinian suffering as part of a global campaign to prevent Israel from defending itself.

Sooner or later, the tactics of the Palestinian terrorists work. The voices of protest in response to Palestinian suffering grow louder until international pressure stays Israel's hand.

Inevitably, some of these protests come from Israelis. Last week, before the tanks had begun rolling into Gaza, the journalist Tom Segev put it bluntly in a column he wrote in Ha'aretz. "A child in Sderot is the same as a child in Gaza," he wrote, "and anyone who harms either is evil."

Mr. Segev is correct when he says that the suffering of children on either side is intolerable -- this is why the pictures from Gaza make us shudder. But he is wrong to draw a moral equivalence between the two sides. In this, he lends a hand to the Palestinians' most shameful military tactic: pimping the suffering of their civilians as a weapon of war.

Palestinian children are dying today not because of Israeli brutality, but because their own leaders have chosen to use their children as human shields, and their pain as a battering ram against Western sensibilities.

Of course, it is easy to blame Hamas. It is they, after all, who deliberately put their weapons caches in mosques, their rocket launchers in schoolyards, and their command centers in hospitals -- all with the explicit goal of maximizing the tragedy of an Israeli response.

Yet Hamas is not the only Palestinian group at fault. In 2005, shortly after the Israeli withdrawal from the Gaza Strip, I met with the chief of staff to the chairman of the Palestinian Authority, Mahmoud Abbas. My question to him: Now that we have uprooted thousands of Jews and empowered Gazans to be masters of their own fate, can we hope that within a year's time there will be fewer refugees in the camps? "Absolutely not," he said. "The refugees will be relocated only in the context of the final status [agreement]. How can we move them if we do not know where they will live? Maybe they will live in Israel."

In withdrawing from Gaza, Israel made painful concessions for peace by forcibly removing Jews from their homes. And yet even the Palestinian Authority, the most moderate among Palestinian political groups, would not consider easing their own people's plight in the wake of Israel's compromise. This is because the suffering of the refugees is essential to their broader political struggle.

How does the West respond to the obvious exploitation of Palestinian refugees? Soon after my meeting with Mr. Abbas's chief of staff, I met with the ambassador of one of the West's most enlightened countries. I asked: Why are the Palestinians not willing to help their own refugees? "I can understand them," he answered. "After all, they don't want the refugee problem to be taken off the agenda."

This reflexive "understanding" for the Palestinian leaders' abuse of their own people is the heart of the problem. For decades, the international community has actively assisted in building the terrorists' unique system of control -- over where Palestinians live and in what conditions, and over what they think -- by allowing terrorists to turn the refugee camps into the center of the Palestinian war machine. Instead of working to relieve the refugees' misery, the United Nations has dedicated an entire agency, UNRWA, to perpetuating it. For the rest of the world's refugees, the U.N. works tirelessly to improve their conditions, to relocate them, and to help them rebuild their lives as quickly as possible. With the Palestinians, the U.N. does exactly the opposite, granting refugee status to the great-grandchildren of people displaced in 1948, doing nothing to dismantle the camps, and acting as facilitators for the terrorists' goal of grinding an entire civilian population under their thumb. Nowhere on earth do terrorists get so much help from the Free World.

It is not only the refugee camps that the West has helped sustain. For years, Hamas in Gaza -- like Hezbollah in Lebanon, and like the Palestinian Authority under Yasser Arafat -- has been amassing huge stockpiles of weaponry, most of it under the noses of Western observers who are meant to prevent the import of such weapons. It's as if we are telling the terrorists: Go on, build your armies, prepare for war. We understand.

The same can be said about the use of children as human shields. Where was the West when Palestinian leaders were actively transforming their children's classrooms into indoctrination centers for martyrdom?

And so, invariably, the script is played out: Hamas fires its missiles, Israel responds with military force in Gaza, children are killed, their pictures are played countless times on televisions in the West, articles are published saying both sides are evil, and Israel is pressured to stop.

Whether this war will bring about lasting change, or just provide another breather before the next battle, depends to a very large degree on the Free World. A successful Israeli campaign -- in which Hamas is eliminated as the controlling force in Gaza -- will bring an unprecedented opportunity for Western leaders to change the rules of the game when it comes to Palestinian civilians. It's time for the West to recognize the human rights of Palestinians -- not only when they are suffering in war.

Mr. Sharansky, former deputy prime minister of Israel, is chairman of the Adelson Institute for Strategic Studies at the Shalem Center and the author, most recently, of "Defending Identity" (PublicAffairs, 2008).

from the Wall Street Journal Europe, 2009-Jan-12, by Gunnar Heinsohn:

Ending the West's Proxy War Against Israel
Stop funding a Palestinian youth bulge, and the fighting will stop too.

As the world decries Israel's attempt to defend itself from the rocket attacks coming from Gaza, consider this: When Hamas routed Fatah in Gaza in 2007, it cost nearly 350 lives and 1,000 wounded. Fatah's surrender brought only a temporary stop to the type of violence and bloodshed that are commonly seen in lands where at least 30% of the male population is in the 15-to-29 age bracket.

In such "youth bulge" countries, young men tend to eliminate each other or get killed in aggressive wars until a balance is reached between their ambitions and the number of acceptable positions available in their society. In Arab nations such as Lebanon (150,000 dead in the civil war between 1975 and 1990) or Algeria (200,000 dead in the Islamists' war against their own people between 1999 and 2006), the slaughter abated only when the fertility rates in these countries fell from seven children per woman to fewer than two. The warring stopped because no more warriors were being born.

In Gaza, however, there has been no demographic disarmament. The average woman still bears six babies. For every 1,000 men aged 40-44, there are 4,300 boys aged 0-4 years. In the U.S. the latter figure is 1,000, and in the U.K. it's only 670.

And so the killing continues. In 2005, when Israel was still an occupying force, Gaza lost more young men to gang fights and crime than in its war against the "Zionist enemy." Despite the media's obsession with the Mideast conflict, it has cost many fewer lives than the youth bulges in West Africa, Lebanon or Algeria. In the six decades since Israel's founding, "only" some 62,000 people (40,000 Arabs, 22,000 Jews) have been killed in all the Israeli-Arab wars and Palestinian terror attacks. During that same time, some 11 million Muslims have been killed in wars and terror attacks -- mostly at the hands of other Muslims.

What accounts for the Mideast conflict's relatively low body count? Hamas and their ilk certainly aim to kill as many Israelis as possible. To their indignation, the Israelis are quite good at protecting themselves. On the other hand, Israel, despite all the talk about its "disproportionate" use of force, is doing its utmost to spare civilian deaths. Even Hamas acknowledges that most of the Palestinians killed by Israeli air raids are from their own ranks. But about 10%-15% of Gaza's casualties are women and minors -- a tragedy impossible to prevent in a densely settled area in which nearly half the people are under 15 and the terrorists hide among them.

The reason for Gaza's endless youth bulge is that a large majority of its population does not have to provide for its offspring. Most babies are fed, clothed, vaccinated and educated by UNRWA, the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East. Unlike the U.N. High Commission for Refugees, which deals with the rest of the world's refugees and aims to settle them in their respective host countries, UNRWA perpetuates the Palestinian problem by classifying as refugees not only those who originally fled their homes, but all of their descendents as well.

UNRWA is benevolently funded by the U.S. (31%) and the European Union (nearly 50%) -- only 7% of the funds come from Muslim sources. Thanks to the West's largesse, nearly the entire population of Gaza lives in a kind of lowly but regularly paid dependence. One result of this unlimited welfare is an endless population boom. Between 1950 and 2008, Gaza's population has grown from 240,000 to 1.5 million. The West basically created a new Near Eastern people in Gaza that at current trends will reach three million in 2040. Within that period, Gazans may alter the justifications and directions of their aggression but are unlikely to stop the aggression itself.

The Hamas-Fatah truce of June 2007 allowed the Islamists again to direct all their energy on attacking Israel. The West pays for food, schools, medicine and housing, while Muslim nations help out with the military hardware. Unrestrained by such necessities as having to earn a living, the young have plenty of time on their hands for digging tunnels, smuggling, assembling missiles and firing 4,500 of them at Israel since 2006. While this gruesome activity has slowed the Palestinian internecine slaughter, it forced some 250,000 Israelis into bomb shelters.

The current situation can only get worse. Israel is being pushed into a corner. Gazan teenagers have no future other than war. One rocket master killed is immediately replaced by three young men for whom a martyr's death is no less honorable than victory. Some 230,000 Gazan males, aged 15 to 29, who are available for the battlefield now, will be succeeded by 360,000 boys under 15 (45% of all Gazan males) who could be taking up arms within the coming 15 years.

As long as we continue to subsidize Gaza's extreme demographic armament, young Palestinians will likely continue killing their brothers or neighbors. And yet, despite claiming that it wants to bring peace to the region, the West continues to make the population explosion in Gaza worse every year. By generously supporting UNRWA's budget, the West assists a rate of population increase that is 10 times higher than in their own countries. Much is being said about Iran waging a proxy war against Israel by supporting Hezbollah and Hamas. One may argue that by fueling Gaza's untenable population explosion, the West unintentionally finances a war by proxy against the Jews of Israel.

If we seriously want to avoid another generation of war in Gaza, we must have the courage to tell the Gazans that they will have to start looking after their children themselves, without UNRWA's help. This would force Palestinians to focus on building an economy instead of freeing them up to wage war. Of course, every baby lured into the world by our money up to now would still have our assistance.

If we make this urgently needed reform, then by at least 2025 many boys in Gaza -- like in Algeria -- would enter puberty as only sons. They would be able to look forward to a more secure future in a less violent society.

If the West prefers calm around Gaza even before 2025, it may consider offering immigration to those young Palestinians only born because of the West's well-meant but cruelly misguided aid. In the decades to come, North America and Europe will have to take in tens of millions of immigrants anyway to slow the aging of their populations. If, say, 200,000 of them are taken from the 360,000 boys coming of age in Gaza in the next 15 years, that would be a negligible move for the big democracies but a quantum leap for peace in the Near East.

Many of Gaza's young -- like in much of the Muslim world -- dream of leaving anyway. Who would not want to get out of that strip of land but the international NGOs and social workers whose careers depend on perpetuating Gaza's misery?

Mr. Heinsohn heads the Raphael Lemkin Institute at the University of Bremen, Europe's first institute devoted to comparative genocide research.

from the Associated Press, 2009-Feb-24, by Matti Friedman, with Robert Burns in Washington contributing:

Official: US aid to Gaza to top $900 million

JERUSALEM — The United States will likely donate more than $900 million for the reconstruction of Gaza, a U.S. official said Monday, as U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton prepared to attend a donors conference for the war-ravaged territory next week.

Israeli and Palestinian officials said earlier Monday that Clinton will visit Israel and the West Bank during the first week of March for her first trip to the region as America's top diplomat.

Clinton said during her Asia trip this month that she would attend an international donors conference in Egypt on March 2 to discuss reconstruction in Gaza.

She provided no other details, but a U.S. official in the United States said Monday that the Obama administration's donation will likely top $900 million in humanitarian and rebuilding aid to the Palestinian Authority to help Gaza recover from Israel's offensive against Hamas last month.

The official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because the donation had not received final approval, said the exact amount was still to be determined.

The official added that the aid would not go to Hamas. The U.S. recognizes the West Bank-based government of Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas and has no formal contacts with the Islamic militant group Hamas, which runs a separate Palestinian administration in the Gaza Strip.

The Israeli officials, meanwhile, said Clinton will arrive in Israel on March 2 for meetings with the country's top leaders. Israel is currently ruled by a caretaker government as Likud Party leader Benjamin Netanyahu cobbles together a new coalition.

The Israeli officials spoke on condition of anonymity because the visit had not been announced by the State Department, which has not released Clinton's schedule for next week.

Yasser Abed Rabbo, a senior aide to Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, said Clinton also would visit the West Bank during her stay.

from the Jerusalem Post, 2009-Jul-20, by Khaled Abu Toameh:

Amman begins stripping state's Palestinians of citizenship

Jordanian authorities have started revoking the citizenship of thousands of Palestinians living in Jordan to avoid a situation in which they would be "resettled" permanently in the kingdom, Jordanian and Palestinian officials revealed on Monday.

The new measure has increased tensions between Jordanians and Palestinians, who make up around 70 percent of the kingdom's population.

The tensions reached their peak over the weekend when tens of thousands of fans of Jordan's Al-Faisali soccer team chanted slogans condemning Palestinians as traitors and collaborators with Israel. Al-Faisali was playing the rival Wihdat soccer team, made up of Jordanian-Palestinians, in the Jordanian town of Zarqa.

Anti-riot policemen had to interfere to stop the Jordanian fans from lynching the Wihdat team members and their fans, eyewitnesses reported. They said the Jordanian fans of Al-Faisali hurled empty bottles and fireworks at the Palestinian players and their supporters.

Reports in a number of Jordanian newspapers said that the Jordanian fans also chanted anti-Palestinian slogans and cursed Palestine, the PLO, Jerusalem and the Aksa Mosque.

Prince Ali bin Hussein, chairman of Jordan's National Football Association, strongly condemned the racist slurs chanted by the Jordanian fans, saying those responsible would be severely punished.

Baker al-Udwan, director of Al-Faisali team, also condemned the behavior of his team's supporters. He said that a minority of "outcasts" and "corrupt" elements were behind the embarrassing verbal and physical assault on the Palestinian soccer players and their fans.

"We condemn this uncivilized demeanor and welcome any step that would result in the elimination of this tiny group of parasites," he said.

Tarek Khoury, chairman of the Wihdat team, instructed his players to abandon the field as soon as the Jordanian fans started hurling abuse against Palestinians and the Aksa Mosque.

Palestinians said that the confrontation with the Jordanians was yet another indication of increased tensions between the two sides.

"Many Palestinians living in Jordan are convinced that the Jordanian authorities are trying to squeeze them out," said Ismail Jaber, a West Bank lawyer who has been living in the kingdom for nearly 20 years. "There is growing discontent and uncertainty among Palestinians here."

He and other Palestinians said that Jordanians' "hostile" attitude toward them had escalated after the rise to power of Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu earlier this year.

Several Jordanian government officials, they said, are convinced that Netanyahu and Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman are secretly working toward turning Jordan into a Palestinian state.

As a preemptive measure, the Jordanian authorities recently began revoking the citizenship of thousands of Palestinians, leaving many of them in a state of panic and uncertainty regarding the future.

The Jordanians have justified the latest measure by arguing that it's aimed at avoiding a situation in which the Palestinians would ever be prevented from returning to their original homes inside Israel.

Since 1988, when the late King Hussein cut off his country's administrative and legal ties with the West Bank, the Jordanian authorities have been working toward "disengaging" from the Palestinians under the pretext of preserving their national identity.

That decision, said Jordan's Interior Minister Nayef al-Kadi, was taken at the request of the PLO and the Arab world to consolidate the status of the PLO as the sole and legitimate representative of the Palestinian people.

"Our goal is to prevent Israel from emptying the Palestinian territories of their original inhabitants," the minister explained, confirming that the kingdom had begun revoking the citizenship of Palestinians.

"We should be thanked for taking this measure," he said. "We are fulfilling our national duty because Israel wants to expel the Palestinians from their homeland."

Kadi said that, despite the new policy, Palestinians would be permitted to retain their status as residents of the kingdom by holding "yellow ID cards" that are issued to those who have families and homes in the West Bank.

He said that Palestinians working for the Palestinian Authority or the PLO were among those who have had their Jordanian passports taken from them, in addition to anyone who did not serve in the Jordanian army.

The Jordanian minister said that the Palestinian leadership in the West Bank had been notified of the decision to revoke the Jordanian citizenship of Palestinians.

A PA official in Ramallah expressed deep concern over Jordan's latest move and said that it would only worsen the conditions of Palestinians living in the kingdom. The official said that PA President Mahmoud Abbas raised the issue with King Abdullah II on a number of occasions, but the Jordanians have refused to retract.

Asked by the London-based Al-Hayat daily where the Palestinians should go after they lose their Jordanian passports, the minister replied: "We're not expelling anyone, nor are we revoking the citizenship of Jordanian nationals. We are only correcting the mistake that was created after Jordan's disengagement from the West Bank [in 1988]. We want to highlight the true identity and nationality of every person."

Kadi claimed that the kingdom was seeking, through the new measure, to thwart an Israeli "plot" to transfer more Palestinians to Jordan with the hope of replacing it with a Palestinian state.

"We insist that Jordan is not Palestine, just as Palestine is not Jordan," he stressed. "We will continue to help the Palestinians hold on to their Palestinian identity by pursuing the implementation of the 1988 disengagement plan from the West Bank."

from the Washington Post, 2008-Dec-14, p.A8, by Juliet Eilperin:

Next Climate Summit May Turn on Rich Nations' Approach to Poor Ones

POZNAN, Poland, Dec. 13 -- The acrimonious end to the United Nations talks here early Saturday morning highlights the challenge rich and poor countries will face as they seek a global climate pact in the coming year, as well as a possible path toward compromise.

Much of the debate this year focused on how to structure the year-old adaptation fund, which devotes a small portion of the money industrial nations pay on clean-energy projects in developing nations to helping those same countries cope with global warming [which hasn't happened in years.. -AMPP Ed.].

Poor nations had hoped to strike a deal in which some of the money raised by auctioning international pollution allowances in the next few years would go toward this effort, but industrialized countries resisted. While this sparked a slew of impassioned speeches in the closing hours of the two-week conference, it also underscored that a future global warming agreement will depend in large part on the extent to which developed nations address the needs of vulnerable countries and emerging nations that have become a growing source of the greenhouse gases responsible for human-induced climate change.

David Waskow, climate change program director for Oxfam America, said delegates hoping to finalize an agreement next December in Copenhagen recognize that they need a better way to fund poor nations' adaptation needs, which could run between $50 billion and $80 billion a year, according to independent and U.N. estimates. The current fund -- which became operational after negotiators reached an accord this week -- collects between $200 million and $300 million annually from a 2 percent levy on the clean development mechanism, which allows nations to meet their Kyoto Protocol commitments by reducing emissions in developing countries.

"The current funding is a small fraction of the progress that is needed to help vulnerable communities adapt to climate change and to ensure that we can reach an ambitious climate change agreement," Waskow said. "It became clear at the end of the talks here that hard-hit countries won't agree to a deal in Copenhagen next year unless these concerns are addressed in a serious way."

After negotiators decided to put off this question until next year, half a dozen delegates expressed their disappointment publicly. Indian delegate Prodipto Ghosh said that out of the 12 annual U.N. climate meetings he had attended, "this is one of the saddest moments in all these years."

Christiana Figueres Olsen, Costa Rica's special adviser for climate change, said: "Given the content of this issue, we should have been discussing in one of the most vulnerable countries, where we would have been faced with the reality of adaptation every day. . . . Adaptation, Mr. President, is the human tragedy of climate change." ["Won't somebody think of the chiiiildren!!!" -AMPP Ed.]

In a news conference afterward, Yvo de Boer -- executive secretary of the U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change, which hosted the talks -- said "this conference caused some bitterness" because of its failure to resolve the adaptation question.

"Let's be honest, doing a deal in Copenhagen is to an important extent about engaging developing countries. And an important part of engaging developing countries is mobilizing financial resources," de Boer said. Rich countries, he said, held off making a commitment because they see it "as part of a financial package to deliver a much broader agreement."

Ned Helme, president of the Center for Clean Air Policy, said the fact that developing countries were putting concrete emissions-reduction plans on the table and emphasizing what they need to cope with global warming shows how the impetus for action has become stronger in the past year.

"The tenor has changed," Helme said, noting that officials from these countries are more committed to act now that they have witnessed what is at stake for their citizens. "We've really seen a shift."

White House Council on Environmental Quality Chairman James L. Connaughton, one of the members of the U.S. delegation to Poznan, said the United States has already funded infrastructure and other projects in developing countries that can address climatic effects. "All of these steps are going to help with adaptation," he said.

De Boer noted that adaptation funding was "part of the challenge in Copenhagen, not the challenge in Copenhagen," since a final deal needs to include firm emissions commitments from industrial countries and outline what major emerging economies will do to curb their own carbon outputs. In meetings with foreign ministers here, Connaughton cautioned that it will be difficult for the United States to reach President-elect Barack Obama's target of bringing emissions to 1990 levels by 2020.

In an interview Friday, Connaughton said he based that assessment on the political climate in Congress as well as the lengthy analysis the administration conducted in recent years. "I don't see that," he said of Obama's projections. "It does not appear supportable."

But most participants here predicted an Obama administration would be able to deliver on its promises, which in turn could help forge a global agreement. "Obviously, we are all hoping that there will be greater support for the post-Kyoto framework for the world" from Obama, said Nobel laureate Wangari Maathai.

Paula J. Dobriansky, undersecretary of state for democracy and global affairs and head of the U.S. delegation, said this month's talks laid the groundwork for such a global pact.

"What's being advanced here is going to be important for the United States," she said in an interview. "We want the United States to be part of a new international agreement."

from Commentary Magazine's Contentions blog, 2009-Mar-19, by Ted R. Bromund:

When Good Organizations Go Bad: The Case of the Inter-Parliamentary Union

You've probably never heard of the Inter-Parliamentary Union (IPU). That's not necessarily a bad thing, because it's a bad organization. But it didn't start off that way. Its career sums up the fate of liberal internationalism, and the organizations that now-faded ideology created.

My recently-published paper from the Heritage Foundation on the IPU lacked the space to set the full historical stage. The Inter-Parliamentary Union (IPU) was founded in 1888 by Frédéric Passy of France and William Randal Cremer of Great Britain, both of whom later received the Nobel Peace Prize for their efforts. Passy and Cremer were liberals and members of their respective parliaments. They were part of the much broader array of peace activists and supporters of international arbitration that flourished before World War I, and whose achievements included the Hague Peace Conferences of 1899 and 1907, which began to codify the modern laws of war. Inspired by the rise of liberalism in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, they in turn encouraged later leaders such as President Woodrow Wilson to propose institutions such as the League of Nations, which eventually provided the impetus for the creation of the United Nations.

This pre-1914 liberalism was not free from illusions. But there was much to admire in it. Passy, for example, wanted to promote international peace by advancing the cause of free trade, which like most liberals of his day, he believed was essential to reducing the power of autocratic and war-prone states. He also supported the international arbitration of disputes, but he did so in the belief that the states involved would be responsible for requesting arbitration, and would remain subject to the sovereign wills of their people. Passy sought a world in which inter-state relations would look like they do today between Britain and the U.S., a world in which war would be unthinkable and disagreements would be settled peaceably. Fittingly, the IPU started off as a gathering place for a small group of democracies.

How times change! The U.S. got itself kicked out of the IPU in 2003, for persistent non-payment of dues (the IPU's dues structure is the same as the UN's). The only pity is that it didn't leave on principle. That's because the IPU now has no principles. It has no standards at all for membership: North Korea, Zimbabwe, Libya, and Iran, to name only a few, are members. It's relentlessly biased against Israel, it betrays the beliefs of its founders by agitating against free trade, it supports a relentlessly socialist, intrusive, globalist, and illiberal economic agenda, and it's a regular sounding board for calls to restrict free speech on the grounds that it offends Muslims. The IPU let the bad guys in, and gave them all votes: now, just like in the UN, they run the joint.

Why does this matter to the U.S.? Simple. The rumor going around Capitol Hill is that the U.S. is on the verge of rejoining — or re-activating its entirely dormant membership by mailing in a check for the back dues. There are all sorts of things that could be said about this, and I say most of them in my paper. But I left one thing unsaid: the idea that any representative of the U.S. would sit down and discuss the definition of democracy with Zimbabwe, or women's rights with Saudi Arabia, isn't just a bad one. It's a disgusting one.

from the Heritage Foundation, 2009-Mar-18, by Ted R. Bromund:

Why the United States Should Not Join the Inter-Parliamentary Union

WebMemo #2348

The Inter-Parliamentary Union (IPU), founded in 1888 by Frédéric Passy of France and William Randal Cremer of Great Britain, originally sought to promote peace by encouraging regular contacts between parliamentarians from established democracies. The IPU also supported free trade and arbitration, on the basis of respect for national sovereignty, between nation states. In short, the IPU was a manifestation of late 19th-century liberal internationalism.

The IPU of today bears no resemblance to the organization founded by Passy and Cremer. It is an unhappy reminder of how institutions that were devised by liberal internationalists have been captured and perverted by autocracies and anti-sovereignty activists. The IPU now:

• has no standards for membership and is therefore dominated by repressive and illiberal regimes;
• serves no serious purpose but by providing these regimes with a recognized forum enhances the perception that they are legitimate and responsible;
• is an active proponent of measures that would limit the sovereignty of democracies and restrict their freedom of speech.

The United States is not now, and should not become, a member of the IPU.

The IPU as It Was Founded

The IPU originally sought to increase cooperation between sovereign democracies—nations that would not wish to fight their fellow democracies and would therefore desire to settle disputes through diplomacy and arbitration. There was no place in this vision for dictatorships: At the second meeting of the IPU, in 1889, the only states represented were Britain, France, Italy, Spain, Denmark, Hungary, the U.S., and Liberia.[1] The founders of the IPU sought a world in which inter-state relations would look like they do today between Britain and the U.S., a world in which war would be unthinkable and disagreements would be settled peaceably.

The Modern IPU

Sadly, the IPU of today bears no relation to the organization founded in 1888: It has no standards for membership and, as such, provides token legitimacy to many of the world's worst dictatorships. The widely respected Freedom House annually ranks the political and economic freedom of all the world's nations. Of its "Worst of the Worst," four—Libya, North Korea, Somalia, and Sudan—are members of the IPU.[2] So are dictatorships or autocracies such as Belarus, Cuba, Iran, Laos, Oman, Saudi Arabia, Syria, Tunisia, Vietnam, and Zimbabwe. Other deeply illiberal IPU members include Angola, Burundi, the Congo, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Sierra Leone, Togo, Ukraine, and Venezuela.[3]

The mere fact that North Korea, Venezuela, and Zimbabwe are members in good standing of an organization supposedly dedicated to "the firm establishment of representative democracy" is enough to condemn the IPU.[4] But the broader membership of the IPU is also suspect. The organization does contain states—such as all 26 of America's allies in NATO—that are democratic and respectable. But these are the old members, the ones present at the IPU's creation. The original members are now completely outnumbered by the newer members, such as the 88 members of the Non-Aligned Movement, and by the 49 members of the Organization of Islamic Countries. Between these two organizations, states with weak or no commitment to liberal and democratic values control 94 of the 154 seats in the IPU.[5]

Illiberal Policies

The policies the IPU endorses reflect the illiberalism of its members. The IPU no longer mentions free trade, as it once did. Instead, the organization is in favor of "fair" trade—by which it means systematic discrimination in trade that favors the developing world—and the creation of global institutions that would reduce the sovereignty of democratic states. It no longer argues that free trade reduces the power of autocratic states. Instead, the IPU urges states to regulate and structure every aspect of economic life, a call that gives unlimited license to its dictatorial members to justify their intrusive tyranny.[6]

Instead of recognizing that arbitration requires two willing partners, the IPU makes token representations against Palestinian terrorism while condemning Israel at great length for exercising its right of self-defense.[7] Instead of defending the international state system on which it was founded by decisively condemning terrorism, the organization emphasizes "the need to distinguish between terrorism and the struggles of peoples to liberate their land and regain their legitimate rights."[8] And instead of defending the great liberal principle of free speech, IPU delegates refer to the need to control "defamation of religions," a code word for censorship of speech that is critical of Islamic radicalism.[9]

IPU Hypocrisy

The hypocrisy of many of the IPU's delegates, and of the IPU itself, is breathtaking. In October 2008, during a discussion of "freedom of expression and the right to information," the Chinese delegate claimed that "all Chinese citizens had the right to express themselves freely and could communicate their criticisms to State authorities and public officials." In reality, and in the words of the executive director of Freedom House, Jennifer Windsor, China operates "an intricate system of restrictions on the free circulation of ideas."[10]

In December 2008, the IPU held a "Conference of Women Parliamentarians and Women in Political Decision-making Positions of the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) States." The GCC states include Saudi Arabia, where, as the IPU admits, women are allowed neither to vote nor to hold public office.[11] In the eyes of the IPU, that did not disqualify Saudi Arabia from participating in the conference.

The hypocrisy of the IPU does not simply make nonsense of its idealistic words; it tarnishes the honor and impugns the seriousness of the democratic states participating in this farce. Seeking to achieve a consensus through multilateral negotiation about women's rights with Saudi Arabia, the freedom of the press with China, or the definition of democracy with North Korea is both foolish and dangerous. By pursuing such a consensus, the good states grant legitimacy to the bad ones and imply that they are worthy of being listened to when human liberty is at stake. The autocracies use the process only to confuse and sow self-doubt among the democracies, and they pervert a forum supposedly dedicated to liberty to gain international recognition of their tyrannical regimes. The way to promote the values of freedom is not to negotiate them on the basis of multilateral consensus with their enemies; it is to demonstrate that the free states esteem these values so highly that they feel no need to lend the dignity of negotiation to dictators.

A Friend of Dictatorships

The fate of the IPU, like the fate of other international organizations that grew out of the liberal internationalism of the late 19th century, is genuinely tragic. From expressing a sincere hope for a better world founded in free trade, democracy, and cooperation on the basis of the sovereign will of the people, they have been led into backing precisely the opposite values.

By admitting states that did not share their founding values as full and equal members, these organizations gave away their birthright. They are now so dominated by these enemies within that they cannot be reformed, because the autocracies can simply vote down any measure that threatens their stranglehold. This is precisely the problem that led the Obama Administration to withdraw from the Durban Review Conference: The IPU is now simply a continuous Durban.[12]

This reality is regrettable, but it must be recognized for what it is. Therefore, the United States should not join the IPU. To do so would imply the IPU is a respectable international organization, not the friend of dictatorships and the enemy of liberal values and democratic sovereignty it has sadly become.

Ted R. Bromund, Ph.D., is Senior Research Fellow in the Margaret Thatcher Center for Freedom, a division of the Kathryn and Shelby Cullom Davis Institute for International Studies, at The Heritage Foundation.

---

[1]Inter-Parliamentary Union, "Historical Focus: 1888–89," at http://www.ipu.org/strct-e/1889.htm (March 18, 2009).

[2]Freedom House, "Worst of the Worst: The World's Most Repressive Societies, 2009," p. 1, at http://www.freedomhouse.org/uploads/WoW09
/WOW%202009.pdf (March 18, 2009).

[3]"Illiberal" as defined by the nation's ranking in the Index of Economic Freedom. See, Terry Miller and Kim R. Holmes, 2009 Index of Economic Freedom: The Link Between Economic Opportunity and Prosperity (Washington, D.C.: The Heritage Foundation and The Wall Street Journal, 2009), at http://www.heritage.org/Index/Ranking.aspx; Inter-Parliamentary Union, "Members of the Union," at http://www.ipu.org/english/membshp.htm (March 18, 2009).

[4]Inter-Parliamentary Union, "What Is the IPU?," at http://www.ipu.org/english/whatipu.htm (March 18, 2009).

[5]Inter-Parliamentary Union, "Members of the Union."

[6]Inter-Parliamentary Union, "Job Creation and Employment Security in the Era of Globalization," resolution adopted unanimously by the 116th Assembly, May 4, 2007, athttp://www.ipu.org/conf-e/116/116-2.htm (March 18, 2009).

[7]Inter-Parliamentary Union, "The Role of Parliaments and the Inter-Parliamentary Union in Ensuring an Immediate Halt to the Rapidly Deteriorating Humanitarian Situation in Conflict Areas and Its Environmental Dimension, in Facilitating the Palestinians' Right to Self-Determination—Particularly by Ending the Blockade in Gaza—and in Accelerating the Creation of a Palestinian State Through Viable Peace Processes," resolution adopted unanimously by the 118th Assembly, April 18, 2008, at http://www.ipu.org/conf-
e/118/118emrg.htm (March 18, 2009).

[8]Inter-Parliamentary Union, "The Role of Parliaments in Striking a Balance Between National Security, Human Security and Individual Freedoms, and in Averting the Threat to Democracy," resolution adopted unanimously by the 118th Assembly, April 18, 2008, at http://www.ipu.org/conf-e/118/118-1.htm (March 18, 2009).

[9]Inter-Parliamentary Union, "Summary Records of the Panel Discussion Held During the 119th Assembly in Geneva (October 2008) on the Subject Item ‘Freedom of Expression and the Right to Information,'" October 14, 2008, p. 10, athttp://www.ipu.org/conf-e/119/sr3.pdf (March 18, 2009); Steven Groves, "Why the U.S. Should Oppose ‘Defamation of Religions' Resolutions at the United Nations," Heritage Foundation Backgrounder No. 2206, November 10, 2008, at http://www.heritage.org/Research/LegalIssues/bg2206.cfm.

[10]Press release, "Freedom House: New Report Details China Censorship Mechanisms," Freedom House, March 9, 2006, at http://www.freedomh
ouse.org/template.cfm?page=70&release=329 (March 18, 2009).

[11]Press release, "Building Bridges Between Women MPs, The Media, and NGOs in the GCC States," Inter-Parliamentary Union, December 16, 2008, at http://www.ipu.org/press-e/gen318.htm (March 18, 2009); Inter-Parliamentary Union, "Women's Suffrage," at http://www.ipu.org/wmn-e/suffrage.htm (March 18, 2009).

[12]Brett D. Schaefer and Steven Groves, "U.S. Boycott of U.N. Durban II Conference on Racism: The Right Decision by the Obama Administration," Heritage Foundation WebMemo No. 2326, March 4, 2009, at http://www.herit
age.org/Research/InternationalOrganizations/wm2326.cfm.

from the Wall Street Journal, 2009-Jan-10, by David B. Rivkin Jr. and Bruce D. Brown:

'Libel Tourism' Threatens Free Speech
How to stop lawsuits against Americans in British courts.

The farce of foreigners suing Americans for defamation in overseas forums, where the law does not sufficiently protect free speech, is so well-known that it has a fitting nickname: libel tourism. And London is its hot destination. Particularly since 9/11, foreign nationals have cynically exploited British courts in an attempt to stifle any discussion by American journalists about the dangers of jihadist ideology and terrorist supporters.

At long last, U.S. politicians are waking up to the dangers posed by libel tourism, which threatens both the First Amendment and American national security. The trouble is that their efforts, though well-intentioned, are relatively toothless and constitutionally problematic.

Early last year, New York State passed the nation's first anti-libel tourism law. The law allows state courts to assert authority over foreign citizens based solely on a libel judgment they have obtained abroad against a New Yorker.

The statute's passage was prompted by libel tourism's most frequent flier, Saudi bigwig Khalid bin Mahfouz. He brought a claim in England against author Rachel Ehrenfeld, who alleged in a 2003 book that the international moneyman also financed terrorism. Although "Funding Evil" was published in the U.S., Mr. Mahfouz relied upon (and the British court accepted) the fact that the book was purchased by a small number of British readers on the Internet as sufficient grounds to sue Ms. Ehrenfeld in England.

Under the New York law, the target of a foreign libel suit does not even have to defend himself overseas. If a judgment is entered against him, he can seek a declaration that the foreign tribunal did not live up to First Amendment standards and therefore its ruling cannot be enforced against his U.S. assets. While emotionally satisfying, it does not protect a libel tourism victim's assets outside the U.S.

Moreover, the New York law takes a constitutionally dubious approach to the acquisition of personal jurisdiction over libel tourists. U.S courts have never before claimed jurisdiction over individuals who have no ties whatsoever to the U.S., other than suing an American in a foreign court.

Rep. Peter King (D., N.Y.) and Sens. Arlen Specter (R., Pa.) and Joe Lieberman (I., Conn.) have been advancing federal libel tourism bills. Unfortunately these bills, which are modeled on New York's, carry the same constitutional risks.

It is a mistake to respond to libel tourism by seeking to catch foreign plaintiffs with no U.S. contacts in our jurisdictional net. This smacks of the same legal one-upmanship that makes libel tourism itself so odious.

It is high time for a strategy that would stop libel tourists dead in their tracks, without sacrificing constitutional values. The answer lies not in stretching claims of personal jurisdiction, but in federal legislation that would enable American publishers to sue for damages, including punitive damages, for the harms they have suffered. A proper federal libel tourism bill would punish conduct that takes place overseas -- in this case, the commencement of sham libel actions in foreign courts -- by utilizing the well-recognized congressional authority to apply U.S. laws extraterritorially when compelling interests demand it. The Alien Tort Statute, for example, gives U.S. courts subject matter jurisdiction over brutal acts that violate the "law of nations" wherever they may occur. More recently, Congress has created civil remedies to enable victims of international terrorism and human trafficking to sue in our courts for money damages.

But in devising a robust, substantive cause of action for damages -- a bludgeon that Messrs. King, Specter and Lieberman appropriately include in their bills -- Congress should not change normal personal jurisdiction rules. In order to sue foreigners under the federal libel tourism bill and remain consistent with due process, these individuals would have to visit or transact business in the U.S. in order for the U.S. courts to acquire jurisdiction over them. (Radovan Karadzic, the Bosnian Serb leader charged with genocide, was famously served with an Alien Tort complaint while leaving a Manhattan hotel restaurant.)

Under such a law, U.S. courts would be asked to evaluate, at the beginning stages of a foreign lawsuit, whether the plaintiffs are seeking to punish speech protected under the First Amendment. This type of early intervention by judges has worked very well in the 26 states that have passed laws to discourage frivolous libel suits here in the U.S.

To give this approach sufficiently sharp teeth, the damages awarded in libel tourism cases would have to be very substantial. While it is somewhat unusual in tort law to set statutory damages, it presents no constitutional problems. Accordingly, an effective federal bill should give courts the authority to impose damages that amount to double any foreign judgment, plus court costs and attorneys' fees (in both proceedings) for good measure. Habitual libel tourists who obviously seek to impair Americans' First Amendment freedoms should face even stiffer fines. Such a robust response would make foreign libel adventures fiscally disadvantageous, and should deter most overseas suits from ever being filed.

For libel tourists our courts can't fairly touch, it is better to leave them alone than to overreach and tread into unconstitutional territory. But they may yet pay a price. Availing themselves the pleasures of American life could one day be costly. As Karadzic learned, if you violate U.S. law, don't dine out in Manhattan.

Messrs. Rivkin and Brown are partners in the Washington, D.C., office of Baker Hostetler LLP.

from the Wall Street Journal, 2008-Dec-3:

Fighting Racism, U.N.-Style
Durban II mixes the same old Israel-bashing with new attacks on free speech.

One of Colin Powell's best moves as Secretary of State was to pull out of the 2001 United Nations Durban confab against racism once it became an anti-Semitic rant. One of the best moves the new U.S. administration and Europe could make is to stay away from the follow-up meeting altogether.

"Durban II," planned for April in Geneva, promises to be an encore of the same old Israel-bashing. The draft declaration says Israel's policy toward the Palestinians amounts to no less than "a new kind of apartheid, a crime against humanity, a form of genocide and a serious threat to international peace and security." We'll spare you the rest of the diatribe.

Israel will be the conference's main object of obsession, but it's not the only target. The draft declaration also goes after the West's freedom of speech and antiterror laws under the guise of protecting religion -- read: Islam -- from "defamation."

The entire West will be in the dock for allegedly persecuting Muslims. "The most serious manifestations of defamation of religions are the increase in Islamophobia and the worsening of the situation of Muslim minorities around the world," the draft reads.

"Islamophobia" is a vague term used to brand any criticism of Islam as a hate crime. The real Islamophobes, though, Islamic terrorists who have killed hundreds of thousands of their co-religionists, get a free pass.

Instead, the draft calls for a media code of conduct and "internationally binding normative standards...that can provide adequate guarantees against defamation of religions." If this sounds like censorship, that's because it is.

The conference is being organized by the U.N. Human Rights Council, which, like its discredited predecessor, the Human Rights Commission, has been taken over by several of the world's main abusers of human rights. The Organization of Islamic Countries, the most powerful voting bloc at the U.N., managed to put Libya in charge of preparing Durban II. Tripoli is being assisted by such other pillars of the international community as Iran and Cuba. Last week a key U.N. General Assembly committee passed a draft resolution, sponsored by Islamic states, that calls for national laws against the "defamation of religions."

If the Durban II drafters have their way, any challenge of Islamic teachings, including teachings used to justify violence, would be taboo. Reprinting the Danish Muhammad cartoons, exploited by Muslim agitators in 2006 to incite riots around the world, would be a criminal offense. Even gross human-rights violations in Islamic countries -- such as the stoning of adulterers in Iran -- could be immune from criticism as these practices are rooted in religion.

Although couched in the language of religious rights, the draft isn't concerned with the right to practice one's religion. If so, it would have focused on the plight of religious minorities in many Muslim states. In Saudi Arabia, for instance, the public worship of any religion other than Islam is forbidden.

The drafters further demand that the fight against terrorism must not "discriminate" against any religion. They specifically complain about the "monitoring and surveillance of places of worship, culture and teaching of Islam." Since these are exactly the places where Islamic terrorists tend to recruit new followers, stopping such common-sense policing would render the West defenseless.

Israel said last month it will stay away from Geneva. Canada's Prime Minister Stephen Harper deserves kudos for having made that call already back in January. "We will not be party to an anti-Semitic and anti-Western hate fest dressed up as antiracism," he said.

The decision about whether to send a delegation to Durban II will be an early test of Secretary of State-designate Hillary Clinton and the new Obama Administration. Western states would best serve the antiracism cause by joining Ottawa and Jerusalem in a boycott of this hate fest.

from the Wall Street Journal Europe, 2008-Nov-6, by Kyle Wingfield:

And the Winner Is . . . Europe?
Firms on the Continent may gain the most under Obama

Amid all the celebrations in Europe of Barack Obama's election as the American president, one wonders how many glasses were clinking in boardrooms across the Continent. The early guess: a lot.

Many U.S. companies will be apprehensive about what an Obama administration coupled with a strongly Democratic Congress will mean for them: higher tax rates, or certainly not lower ones; greater power for trade unions after a decades-long pendulum swing toward management; stricter environmental regulations and possibly a cap-and-trade system; less inclination to negotiate meaningful free-trade agreements; a spate of new federal judges who are hostile to business interests. European firms can view these developments as a leveling of the playing field -- or even a tilting of the field in their favor.

New regulations will play a large role in this leveling exercise. For instance, trade unions are licking their chops at the prospect of Democrats running both the executive and legislative branches. One of the items on their wish list is "card check," which would eliminate secret ballots among employees deciding whether to join a union.

Should card check help unions to boost their membership substantially from its current trough, American companies will be forced to make some of the same concessions that European firms have been making all along. Part of the trans-Atlantic competitiveness gap would be erased.

Environmental laws are another area where American competitiveness could fall toward European levels. Businesses in the EU already have to deal with a cap-and-trade system to curb carbon emissions. It's a good bet that the same will be true in America within the next four years, and the U.S. will probably work closely with Europe to create a successor to the Kyoto Protocol.

While the faulty construction of the first phase of the European Union's Emissions Trading Scheme limited the impact on businesses, the screws are being tightened in the second phase and more industries (e.g., airlines) are being sucked in. Any hit to European industry's global competitiveness, though, will be greatly softened if the U.S. introduces its own cap-and-trade system.

And as we've already seen in the automotive industry, a Washington that's determined to subsidize companies' transition to the low-carbon economy will only encourage European capitals to do the same. Thus the $25 billion in public loans that have already been granted to Detroit, with another $25 billion possibly on the way once Mr. Obama takes office, have spurred Europe to consider a €40 billion loan program for its own car makers. The manufacturers will gladly take this taxpayer money.

Both environmental laws and labor regulations are ways in which European firms wouldn't necessarily improve themselves, only see their American rivals become less competitive. A more positive benefit for Europe could come in the trade arena.

Those who hope Mr. Obama will breathe new life into a multilateral trade deal like the Doha Round are likely to be disappointed. There are trade experts who believe the president-elect and his advisers have more free-trade instincts than they've let on -- witness the brouhaha earlier this year over whether talk about a President Obama unilaterally rewriting the North American Free Trade Agreement was just a way of winning over protectionist-minded Democrats during the primary campaign.

The problem with that optimistic view is that Mr. Obama will face a Congress that views trade liberalization as anathema. Democrats on Capitol Hill haven't blocked bilateral trade deals with the like of Colombia and South Korea because George W. Bush wanted them, but because their trade-union supporters did not want them.

Democrats' refusal to approve those deals, alongside America's inability to push through a Doha deal, has opened the door for the EU to take the lead in bilateral free-trade agreements. Since lifting its self-imposed moratorium on bilaterals once it became clear that Doha was going nowhere, Brussels has been aggressive on this front. It has courted Canada, India, South Korea, the Association of Southeast Asian Nations and others.

Bilateral trade deals can mean administrative headaches for companies that do business in a number of countries. But however imperfectly, they do open markets. In just about anywhere outside U.S. borders, European industry could gain from American protectionism.

None of these gains will materialize, though, if European governments take the Obama era of "change" as an excuse to halt their slow crawl toward economic reform. Other countries or regions outside Europe could also choose to take advantage of a fall in U.S. competitiveness. It would make no sense to react to an upswing in American trade-union power, for instance, by freezing the liberalization of Europe's still-rigid labor markets. This is one time it might not pay to follow America's lead.

Mr. Wingfield edits the Business Europe column.

from the Wall Street Journal, 2008-Nov-25, by Jack Goldsmith and Eric Posner:

Does Europe Believe in International Law?
Based on the record, it has no grounds to criticize the U.S.

Many of President-elect Barack Obama's supporters hope he will scrap the Bush administration's skeptical attitude toward international law and take a more European approach. This is presumably to bring us in line with what these supporters regard as more enlightened practices abroad.

In fact, Europe's commitment to international law is largely rhetorical. Like the Bush administration, Europeans obey international law when it advances their interests and discard it when it does not.

Consider the case of Yassin Abdullah Kadi and the al Barakaat International Foundation. A United Nations Security Council resolution has ordered nations to freeze the assets of Mr. Kadi, a resident of Saudi Arabia, and the foundation, and to take other sanctions against those suspected of financing al Qaeda and related organizations.

On Sept. 3, the European Court of Justice ruled that the Security Council resolution was invalid. The duty to comply with the U.N. Charter, it declared, "cannot have the effect of prejudicing [regional] constitutional principles." In doing so, the ECJ followed its advocate general's argument that "international law can permeate [the European Community] legal order only under the conditions set by the constitutional principles of the Community."

In other words, European countries must disregard the U.N. Charter -- the most fundamental treaty in our modern international legal system -- when it conflicts with European constitutional order.

This is the third time in a decade that Europe has defied the U.N. Charter. In 1999, for example, European nations participated in NATO's bombing of Kosovo without Security Council authorization. There was much hand-wringing in Europe at the time, but in the end other concerns trumped legal niceties. Similarly, when nations led by Europe created the International Criminal Court (ICC), they purported to limit the Security Council's power to delay or halt ICC trials, also in disregard of the U.N. Charter, which states that Charter obligations trump the requirements of any other treaty.

It is not just the U.N. Charter that European nations and institutions brush aside when convenient. The most fundamental human-rights treaty is the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights. European governments, like the U.S. government, have declined to give effect to provisions of that treaty with which they disagree on matters ranging from immigration to hate speech, emergency powers, criminal procedure and more. European courts, too, have ignored provisions and interpretations of this treaty that deviate from European law.

Europeans have also shown a less than robust commitment to the ICC. Earlier this fall, the world witnessed the strange spectacle of the U.S., long an ICC skeptic, successfully resisting a British- and French-led attempt to corral the U.N. Security Council into delaying ICC indictments of the perpetrators of atrocities in Darfur.

Europe also has violated international trade laws when public sentiment gets riled up -- for example, in resisting importation of genetically modified foods, or beef from cattle raised with growth hormones. European countries defied adverse World Trade Organization (WTO) rulings in both cases.

European countries have violated WTO law by granting trade preferences to certain banana-exporting nations with which they have strategic relationships; they've also reportedly cooperated with the U.S. in extraordinary renditions of terrorist suspects (sending suspects to other countries), a practice that many believe violates international law. Climate change? With every passing year, it has become increasingly clear that many European countries will violate their obligations to reduce greenhouse gas emissions under the Kyoto protocol.

There is a simple explanation for all this. Europeans hold their values and interests dear, just as Americans do, and will not subordinate them to the requirements of international law. When a conflict arises, international law must yield.

International law has long suffered this fate, and not just at the hands of dictatorships. In liberal democratic societies where leaders are constitutionally beholden to constituents -- and thus compelled to serve their changing interests -- international law gives way to domestic politics.

Why, then, do so many people believe the U.S. and Europe have different attitudes toward international law? Partially this is because American politicians frequently express their skepticism about international law, while European politicians loudly proclaim its central role in their value systems, even when they are defying it. This difference, in turn, is grounded in differing historical experiences.

America sees itself as an exceptional nation, not bound by the rules that bind others. On the other hand, the enormously successful, decades-long process of treaty-based European integration has led Europeans to identify peace and prosperity with a commitment to international law. What is overlooked is that the treaties that established the European Union created institutions that jealously guard the interests of Europeans when these interests conflict with an international law that reflects global aspirations.

European nations today are like the American states agreeing to form a federal union in the 18th century, or the German states forming a German union in the 19th. Their devotion to their union is real. Their devotion to international law -- even the U.N. Charter -- is less pronounced.

Specific treaties that have served their purposes are honored, and it may be that the success of particular regional treaties endows treaty-making with special glamour. But international law as such has no special importance. Here, as in other settings, Americans and Europeans have more in common than meets the eye.

Mr. Goldsmith teaches at Harvard Law School. Mr. Posner teaches at the University of Chicago Law School. They are the authors of "The Limits of International Law" (Oxford University Press, 2006).

from the Jewish Telegraphic Agency, 2008-Nov-11:

U.N. official boosts 9/11 conspiracy theorists

Washington (JTA)—The U.N. official who investigates Israeli human rights abuses said 9/11 conspiracy theorists deserved greater consideration.

“It is not paranoid under such circumstances to assume that the established elites of the American governmental structure have something to hide and much to explain,” Richard Falk, the U.N. Human Rights Council official who monitors allegations of Israeli abuse, wrote in the Nov. 9 edition of The Journal, a student publication in Edinburgh. “What has not been established by the `9/11 Truth Movement' is a convincing counter-narrative – that is, an alternate version of the events that clears up to what degree, if at all, the attacks resulted from incompetence, deliberate inaction, and outright complicity.”

U.N. Watch, a Geneva-based watchdog that monitors extremism in the organization, called on U.N. leaders to condemn Falk, a retired Princeton University law professor who is the only investigator assigned to a single country by the Human Rights Council.

"The very credibility of the U.N. mission to preserve international peace and security is at stake," U.N. Watch said in a statement. “The U.N. can't claim to oppose al-Qaida terrorists while its officials seek to deny their most ghastly crimes."

"Truth movement" theorists blame the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks in whole or in part on the Bush administration; some extend the blame to Israel.

The United States has boycotted the U.N. council, a body dominated by non-democracies, in part because most of its focus has been on Israel.

from the Washington Post, 2008-Oct-18, by Harold Meyerson:

Going Global

The era of small government is over. Regulation is back. Governments now control finance.

Amid all the mind-boggling developments of the past two weeks, however, perhaps the greatest is this: government is going global.

Initially, the financial crisis that followed the bankruptcy of Lehman Brothers appeared confined to the United States. Within days, however, it had spread to Europe. Haltingly, governments on both sides of the Atlantic began to develop national plans to shore up their banks and unfreeze their lending. Ten years ago, such national solutions would probably have sufficed. But when they were rolled out ten days ago, they fizzled almost instantly, partly because they failed to inject enough capital into a tottering financial system, but also because their scope was merely national, while the economy they sought to save had grown so global that national solutions no longer sufficed.

In Europe, a continental economy had emerged, but there was no truly effective continental government to set its rules. When the crisis hit, some nations guaranteed all their bank deposits while others did not -- creating the prospect that depositors could take their euros and put them in the nation next-door. At the same time, some banks whose operations were spread over several nations were failing, and it wasn't clear which European nations where such banks had branches should bail them out, and to what extent, and under whose authority.

But even before the crisis hit, the mismatch between global corporations and national governments was undermining the stability of the system. Consider, for instance, the failure and de facto nationalization of AIG -- a corporation of by-the-book U.S.-based insurance companies undone by all the credit default swaps engineered by its London-based financial products unit. Congress had decided in 2000 to exempt those swaps from regulation, but that's only part of the story, since some of the unit's activities were subject to governmental oversight. Though the unit was based in London, however, it was regulated by the U.S. Office of Thrift Supervision, since AIG owned a savings and loan back in the states, and by French banking regulators, since AIG owned a bank in France.

If that sounds both Byzantine and ineffectual -- well, it was. It's also emblematic, however, of the growing disjuncture between national jurisdictions and a world economy. China now provides much of the world with food, medical and industrial products, though its product safety record doesn't inspire much confidence. U.S.-based airlines perform maintenance work on their planes in Central America, where labor is cheaper and safety inspections from U.S officials are infrequent.

But it took the collapse of finance to force governments to confront the limits of national power. Last weekend, the nations of Europe realized that they all had to embrace the identical recapitalization and deposit-insurance plan (devised by British Prime Minister Gordon Brown) to restore confidence in the financial sector. By so doing, they set a safety standard that the U.S., despite the ideological reluctance of the Bush Administration, was compelled to adopt as well.

This epochal transition should come as no surprise to Americans, because it echoes this nation's experience in the 1930s. Before the New Deal, government in America was handled chiefly at the level of the individual states, which chartered and oversaw banks and corporations. In the banking crisis of 1932-33, a number of governors ordered their states' banks to close to prevent bank runs, but these closures did nothing to restore the public's confidence. Only when FDR became president and ordered a national bank "holiday" and inspection did the bank runs cease. The New Deal not only subjected what had been a laissez faire economy to governmental regulation, but it shifted the functions of government from the states, which had been unable to manage an economy that had morphed from local to national over the preceding 70 years, to Washington.

Now, emboldened by the provisional success of their cross-border coordination, Brown, French President Nicholas Sarkozy and other European leaders are calling for the convening of a global conference to create some global rules of the road -- a Bretton Woods 2.0. Prompted by the continuing financial instability, the Europeans want to get started next month -- though if they want the American people to buy into a new planetary level of governance, they need to wait until the United States can be represented by an administration with more popular support and legitimacy than Bush's.

More fundamentally, though, the authors of the new global compacts must do more than write the rules and establish the transnational institutions to regulate 21st-century finance. They need to put rules and regulators in place to ensure the safety of the products the global economy creates, and the safety and living standards of the workers who produce them. It's time to globalize the New Deal.

from the Telegraph of London, 2008-Oct-13, by Janet Daley:

If the Left has its way the bad times will be even worse

The Left is on a roll. Just when you thought it was safe to go back into the political debate - free forever from time-wasting ideological arguments about why the state rather than the individual was the source of moral good - back it all comes. And this time it is rampant with sanctimonious self-satisfaction.

In all the chaos and the confusion, the Big State merchants are managing to sell two contradictory propositions: the first is that democracy as we have known it will have to be suspended for the duration and the second, that elected political leaders must have more power than ever over the economy because only they have the mandated authority to defend the interests of the population.

Democracy in its proper sense - the principle that the legitimacy of government derives from the consent of the governed - has been getting pretty short shrift from the outset. In the United States imminent congressional elections succeeded in keeping it in the game but in the rest of the world it has been cast to the winds.

This is a "global crisis" which requires a "global solution", intoned Gordon Brown, who is riding a wave of triumphal recovery as he attends to a crisis that was created under his stewardship of the economy. This is a "global crisis" which requires a "global solution" chorused all those solemn leaders of the G7 as they met in Washington. Now at least some EU governments are planning to emulate Britain's bail-out plan, even though it showed precious little sign of working here last week.

So the consensus is that we must achieve a consensus: we must not show ourselves to be divided by adopting individual national remedies that might damage another country's interests. "We are in this together," said George Bush, and added: "We will come through it together."

Short of launching into a chorus of Kumbayah, they could scarcely have presented a more heart-warming tableau of togetherness. But hang on a minute. I don't recall having had a hand in electing the President of France or the Chancellor of Germany, let alone the leaders of Canada and Japan. They have no mandate from me. They are not accountable to me. Quite suddenly, we find that we are being governed by an international club that is vowing to take decisions (or, more likely on their past record, failing to take decisions) not necessarily in our interests but in what it sees as the world's interests.

But what is the world other than a collection of individual nations with quite separate and differing needs and imperatives? And if all those nations agree to take no step that might damage the others, isn't that a recipe for paralysis and platitude - which have been the chief by-products of all these grand international summits?

But the banking and finance systems are now global, it is said: they transcend national boundaries and therefore the remedies for this debacle must also transcend them. Ergo this is a crisis not just for the world economy but for the very concept of nationally sovereign democracies. (Whoopie, say the Euro federalists who can see their moment coming at last.)

How very dangerous - and familiar - this talk is. It sounds like another rendition of the apologia for totalitarianism that underpinned the infamous criminal ideologies of the last century, this time in the internationalist rather than the nationalist form.

But so paralysed and platitudinous are the consensual arrangements on which all of these diverse governmental leaders can agree that they serve only to draw attention to the gravity of the problems and the helplessness of governments, thus letting everybody down and leading the markets to believe that running for the exit is the only rational course.

The real revelation of this past week has been the impotence and irrelevance of government policies and packages. The politicians and their accomplices have, in fact, managed to produce the worst possible concatenation of effects: they exacerbated the hysteria by shrieking "doom" (the head of the IMF, Dominique Strauss-Kahn, described the global financial system as being on the "brink of systemic meltdown") and then looked nonplussed when their belated remedies failed to stem the panic that they had helped to engender. But, by the laws of perverse outcomes and political hubris, the ineffectualness of government intervention has created a justification for even more government intervention.

Now there is an outright threat of take-over to the private banks that are simply refusing to regain confidence in their own system: if offering to put in capital and guarantee debt doesn't do it for you, well then, we'll just seize control of you through nationalisation. Or something. It is all terribly unclear.

Alistair Darling hinted at a move to wholesale nationalising of the banks last week, but Yvette Cooper carefully pulled it back in a television interview on Sunday: there might be a case for placing politicians on the boards in the short-term, but we would not want "governments running banks".

There would have to be "strings attached" to the money that the Government would provide, and these might involve such matters as regulating remuneration and bonuses to bankers - but, on the other hand, government would not "set down conditions" for every detailed decision. So what exactly does it all amount to? Pretty much what we announced last week. Which didn't work.

But however useless the political remedies may be, it does not stop politicians from going on a self-aggrandising free ride. America may be about to elect to the presidency the most inexperienced man who has ever run for that office on the grounds that he sounds reassuring, even though his party promotes higher business taxes which would destroy what remains of the chance for economic recovery.

In Britain, the man who presided over the economy during the "decade of irresponsibility" has been brought back from a near-death experience because he, too, manages to sound reassuring. What they have in common is that they are both politicians of the Left, and Left-wing parties always prosper in economic bad times because they are thought to be more compassionate and concerned for ordinary people, while the Right is associated with the ruthlessness of the free market.

This economic crisis will come to an end because it must - because people will eventually decide that they must start doing business again. We may find out today whether that process has begun. But when it ends, we may find that it has brought with it a new, and dangerous, political settlement that threatens the most fundamental principles of political and economic freedom.

from CNN, 2008-Oct-14:

WHO slams global health care, calls for universal coverage

In a Nairobi slum, more than one in four children under 5 will die, but in a wealthier part of the Kenyan capital, the mortality rate is one in almost 67, according to a World Health Organization report released Tuesday.

The World Health Report 2008 aims to spotlight disparities in health care across the globe, and as the Nairobi example illustrates, the differences exist not only between the First and Third Worlds -- they can occur just across town.

WHO roundly criticizes the organization, finance and delivery of health care and calls advances in the field "deeply and unacceptably unequal, with many disadvantaged populations increasingly lagging behind or even losing ground."

The report says that a citizen of a wealthy nation can live up to 40 years longer than someone in a poor country, and of the 136 million women who will give birth this year, about 58 million (43 percent) will receive no medical assistance during childbirth or the postpartum period.

UNICEF Executive Director Ann Veneman said the sharp inequities in the cost and access to health care often speak to larger societal ills.

"High maternal, infant and under-five mortality often indicates lack of access to basic services such as clean water and sanitation, immunizations and proper nutrition," she said in a statement.

WHO Director-General Margaret Chan insists the dilemma is not just a matter of haves versus have-nots.

"A world that is greatly out of balance in matters of health is neither stable nor secure," she said in a statement from Almaty, Kazakhstan, where the report was released.

The difference in annual government expenditures on health care is more canyon than gap, according to the report. While the wealthiest nations dole out as much as $6,000 per person each year, some countries are unable or unwilling to spend more than $20 per person.

However, while calling for wide-ranging reforms in the delivery of primary health care, the report notes that it isn't always a matter of government expenditures.

Tajikistan and Sierra Leone both spend less than $100 per person on health care. But while the health-adjusted life expectancy in Sierra Leone is under 30 years of age, Tajikistan's is almost 70 -- a figure comparable to the United States, which spends more than $2,500 a person on health care.

"When countries at the same level of economic development are compared, those where health care is organized around the tenets of primary health care produce a higher level of health for the same investment," the report says.

WHO defines primary health care as being "universally accessible to individuals and families in the community by means acceptable to them, through their full participation and at a cost that the community and country can afford."

The organization's report -- titled "Primary Health Care -- Now More Than Ever" -- calls for a move toward universal coverage to reverse a trend over the last 30 years in which disparities in the levels of health care have actually widened.

Universal coverage, the report says, would lower the risks of disease outbreaks for everyone, not just the impoverished.

Currently, the most common means of paying for health care is out of pocket, which WHO says is the "most inequitable method for financing health care services." The report says more than 100 million people fall into poverty in a given year because of health care bills.

Another problem, the report says, is that doctors tend not to focus on prevention.

"Rather than improving their response capacity and anticipating new challenges, health systems seem to be drifting from one short-term priority to another, increasingly fragmented and without a clear sense of direction," according to the report.

But the report also handed out accolades, most notably to Iran and Cuba.

WHO applauded the Islamic Republic's 17,000 "health houses," which serve about 1,500 people each. The report credited the centers with boosting Iranians' life expectancy from 63 to 71 years between 1990 and 2006.

And in Cuba, the nation's "polyclinics" have yielded one of the longest life expectancies (78 years) of any developing country, the report says.

The report called for all sectors of society to help determine how health care is allocated, and it singled out the United States for spending just 0.1 percent of its health budget on health systems research -- the kind of research that policymakers use to decide how money is spent.

The report also points to the pharmaceutical industry's impact on health care in the United States, where the average expenditure on prescription drugs in 2005 was $1,141 per person -- twice the average in Canada, Germany and Britain, and 10 times the average in Mexico.

To combat the problems facing global health care, WHO says in its report that nations must improve coverage and delivery, as well as policy and leadership. It acknowledges that primary health care isn't cheap, but asserts that the "investment provides better value for money than its alternatives."

"The legitimacy of health authorities increasingly depends on how well they assume responsibility to develop and reform the health sector according to what people value -- in terms of health and of what is expected of health systems in society," the report says.

from the Times of London, 2008-Aug-15, by Gerard Baker:

Georgia: Europe wins a gold medal for defeatism
Sarkozy's `peace in our time' deal is a reminder of what could happen if the EU wins more clout

To some, China's muscular domination of the Olympic medal table is a powerful allegory of the shifting balance of global power. A far better and more literal testimony to the collapse of the West may be seen in the distinctly weak-kneed response to Russian aggression in Georgia by what is still amusingly called the transatlantic alliance.

Once again, the Europeans, and their friends in the pusillanimous wing of the US Left, have demonstrated that, when it come to those postmodern Olympian sports of synchronized self-loathing, team hand-wringing and lightweight posturing, they know how to sweep gold, silver and bronze.

There's a routine now whenever some unspeakable act of aggression is visited upon us or our allies by murderous fanatics or authoritarian regimes. While the enemy takes a victory lap, we compete in a shameful medley relay of apologetics, defeatism and surrender.

The initial reaction is almost always self-blame and an expression of sympathetic explanation for the aggressor's actions. In the Russian case this week, the conventional wisdom is that Moscow was provoked by the hot-headed President Saakashvili of Georgia. It was really all his fault, we are told.

What's more, the argument goes, the US and Europe had already laid the moral framework for Russia's invasion by our own acts of aggression in the past decade. Vladimir Putin was simply following the example of illegal intervention by the US and its allies in Kosovo and Iraq.

It ought not to be necessary to point out the differences between Saddam Hussein's Iraq and Mr Saakashvili's Georgia, but for those blinded by moral relativism, here goes - Georgia did not invade its neighbours or use chemical weapons on their people. Georgia did not torture and murder hundreds of thousands of its own citizens. Georgia did not defy international demands for a decade and ignore 18 UN Security Council resolutions to come clean about its weapons programmes.

And unlike Iraq under Saddam, Georgia is led by a democratically elected president who has pushed this once dank backwater of the Soviet Union, birthplace of Stalin and Beria, towards liberal democracy and international engagement.

The Kosovo analogy has a more resonant ring of plausibility to it and has been heavily exploited by the Russians in defence of their actions. But it too is specious. It is true that South Ossetia and Abkhazia, like Kosovo within Serbia, are ethnic-minority-majority regions within a state that they dislike. But that's where the parallel ends.

Unlike Serbia, Georgia has not been conducting a campaign of “ethnic cleansing” against the people of these provinces. In the 1990s Serbia had firmly established its aggressive intentions towards its minorities with ugly genocidal wars against Croatia and Bosnia. And in any case the two Georgian enclaves have been patrolled by Russian “peacekeepers” for the past 15 years.

We need to be morally clear about what is going on in Georgia. Perhaps Mr Saakashvili was a little reckless in seeking to stamp out the separatist guerrillas. But to suggest that he somehow got what he deserved is tantamount to saying that a woman who dresses in a miniskirt and high heels and gets drunk in a bar one night is asking to be raped.

If shifting moral blame won't relieve us of our responsibilities then surely defeatism will. Whoever is right or wrong, the critics say, we can't do anything about it. In the past week, the familiar parade of clichés has been rolled out to explain why it is all hopeless. The Russian bear, pumped up by all that oil wealth, is reasserting power in its own backyard. The US and Europe, their energy sapped by endless wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, can only stand by and watch.

There's something odd about listening to European governments speak about the futility of diplomacy. They are the ones who usually insist that military force alone can achieve little and who say that diplomacy must be given a chance. But now they seem to say that, since we can't stop Russia militarily, there is nothing else we can do.

But we can make life very uncomfortable for Mr Putin. Russia is not the Soviet Union. Its recent (relative) prosperity depends on its continuing integration into the global economy. It sets great store by the recognition that it gains from a seat at the high table with the great powers in the G8. It wants to elevate that status farther by joining the World Trade Organisation and the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development.

Punitive measures will hurt us too, of course: Russia could cause trouble over Iran and holds an alarmingly large quantity of US official debt. It could play havoc with the West's energy supplies.

The Europeans don't much like the idea of any of this. So this week they demonstrated the same sort of resolve that they showed in the Balkans in the early 1990s, when they stood by as genocide unfolded on their own continent.

Nicolas Sarkozy, the French President, in his capacity as head pro tempore of the EU, came back from a trip to Moscow and Tbilisi, waving a piece of paper and acclaiming peace in our time.

But the one-sided ceasefire that he negotiated was more or less dictated to him by Mr Putin. It not only left the Russian military in place in the disputed enclaves. It allowed them free rein to continue operations inside the rest of Georgia.

That disastrous piece of European diplomacy finally seems to have stirred the US into tougher action. Goaded by John McCain, who has been brilliantly resolute in his measure of Russian intentions over the past few years, the Bush Administration at last dropped its credulous embrace of Mr Putin and upped the ante with direct military assistance to Georgia and threats of tougher diplomatic action.

But we should never forget what Mr Sarkozy and his EU officials got up to this week. There can be no clearer indication of the perils that threaten the West if the EU gets its way and wins more clout in the world.

This, remember, is the same EU that wants to take over foreign and security policy from member states, an institution that is always eager to pump itself up at the expense of democratic institutions in those member states, but which crumbles into puny submission when faced with authoritarian bullying overseas.

It was a great Frenchman, Baron Pierre de Coubertin, who founded the modern Olympic movement on the famous principle that “the important thing is not winning but taking part”.

The EU today seems to have adapted that slogan to fit its own desired global role - the important thing is taking part and not winning.

from the American Spectator, 2005-Nov, by John O'Sullivan:

A Throne in Brussels: Britain, the Saxe-Coburgs and the Belgianization of Europe
by Paul Belien
(Imprint Academic, 384 pages, $49)

IN THE LAST FEW YEARS Belgian politicians have passed a law empowering them to arrest anyone for crimes committed anywhere, threatened to put Israel's prime minister, Ariel Sharon, under its provisions, generously amended the legislation slightly when Donald Rumsfeld said that NATO would have to move from Brussels if it remained on the books, and in general thrown about the weight of a much larger nation. Exactly how did the home of moules-frites and child rape acquire notions of such undeserved grandeur? Will this extraordinary non-nation prove to be the model for a united Europe? And how should the U.S. and its closest allies react to this possibility?

Paul Belien answers these questions in a consistently shocking book that begins with a shocking little historical curiosity. It reveals that Prince Albert, the consort of Queen Victoria, is now thought to be the illegitimate son of his supposed uncle, Leopold of Saxe-Coburg, later King of the Belgians. Prince Albert is known to history as the man who achieved a perfect family life with Queen Victoria, brought a German seriousness to the court at Windsor, and all but invented British respectability. Yet his biological father, Leopold, was a practiced roué who, while in the service of Napoleon, serviced the Empress Josephine (and her daughter) among others, writing home with happy surprise to his sister: "Here if you ask a lady to be seated, she goes to bed. That is the habit here."

How different, how very, very different, from the home life of his own dear daughter-in-law.

Despite their temperamental differences the father did right by Albert -- and by his other bastards, and even by his legitimate children too. Leopold helped to put Albert next to a throne, if not on it, by his intrigues to match him with Victoria. By the end of the 19th century, other descendants of Leopold occupied the thrones of Belgium, Bulgaria, and Portugal. Today Saxe-Coburgs occupy two royal thrones in Britain and Belgium and one prime ministerial limousine in post-communist Bulgaria. Not a bad record for a penniless princeling from a small German province. How did Leopold do it?

He was a marital entrepreneur. Good-looking, aristocratic, greedy, shrewd, and a second son, Leopold saw that the quickest way to wealth and position would be to marry both. So, after a brief career of social soldiering, first on Napoleon's side and then serving the Russian Tsar, Leopold set out to find "a suitable gel" in postwar London. With the covert assistance of another high-placed mistress (this time the Russian Tsar's sister), he outmaneuvered other suitors to win Princess Charlotte, daughter of Britain's George IV.

Charlotte was very suitable indeed. Their marriage gave Leopold British nationality, the rank of Field-Marshal, a lifetime annual stipend of 50,000 pounds ($6.25 million in today's money), and various grand houses in London and Europe. There was a bonus too -- Leopold liked Charlotte. They were happy. He was in line to exercise the power of the boudoir over the world's dominant power. All was set fair.

Then he suffered one of the few blows in a charmed life. Charlotte died giving birth to a still-born child. Leopold was briefly sad but permanently rich. He had the lifetime British pension which he had invested well. Money, however, was not enough. He wanted to own a country too -- thus outranking his brother, Duke Ernst, as well as cuckolding him. With the help of British ministers who hoped to offload this financial liability onto some other polity, he contrived to be offered the Kingdom of Greece. Then he had second thoughts -- Greece was far away and unstable -- and turned it down.

He had taken a right royal risk. One year later, however, events justified him. French-speaking Catholic rebels in the southern Netherlands rose up against the Protestant House of Orange in an attempt to unite their provinces with France. London could not allow Paris to extend its territory so far up the English Channel. The diplomatic compromise eventually reached was to create a new country, Belgium; to give it to Leopold; and to guarantee its borders by an international treaty.

That treaty ultimately dragged Britain into the First World War and thus ensured its genocidal longevity. For the moment, however, it solved the crisis. Leopold entrenched the diplomatic compromise by marrying the daughter of the French king. This marriage, contracted before his second (and abandoned) wife's suicide, was probably bigamous. But kings are rarely convicted of small crimes. So, at the age of 40, Leopold had achieved all he desired -- "King, Cawdor, Glamis, and all!"

AS SO OFTEN, THOUGH, there was a drawback. Leopold was king of a territory rather than a nation. Belgium was an artificial construction built for the convenience of greater powers. It was divided between French-speakers in the south and Flemish-speakers in the north. Neither group was loyal to Belgium or to Leopold. As Mr. Belien puts it, "Some loved France, some loved the Netherlands, others loved their local Flemish or Walloon communities, but no one loved Belgium. Those who defended Belgium did so because it was their gravy train. One of these was Leopold."

Members of his family accounted for a very high proportion of the rest.

If there is a scalier royal family than the Belgian branch of the Saxe-Coburgs, the news has yet to reach Debretts. They make the Borgias look like pickpockets and Richard III like a philanthropist. Leopold started the trend. He bribed leading politicians to keep them loyal. He dealt with opposition supporters of the House of Orange by having the military attack them and burn their homes. He made the Catholic Church into a virtual agent of his monarchy by affecting to be its protector. He was the secret owner of two newspapers (one conservative, one liberal) whose editorial line followed his direct instructions. He amassed a vast fortune by misusing government funds for his private interests.

Leopold II achieved the remarkable feat of being even worse than his father. Dissatisfied with the relative modesty of his kingdom, he set out to build an empire by stealth. Telling the other European powers that he wanted to end slavery in the Congo, he seized an area of central Africa equal to one-third of the continental U.S., gave it to a private commercial company controlled by himself, and set about making all of the natives there his slaves. This personal empire recognized no limits in its ruthless exploitation of people and resources. The Congolese were forced to labor for the Crown without pay. Draconian taxes were imposed on them. Failure to pay led to such punishments as the lopping-off of hands, the rape of wives, the incarceration of children, and of course execution. By such methods Leopold halved the population of the Congolese Free State (CFS) over a period in which the value of a share in his company rose from Francs 500 to Francs 22,500.

His brutalities were eventually uncovered by the campaigning journalist, E.D. Morel, and the British civil servant (and later Irish Nationalist gun-runner), Sir Roger Casement. Morel, as a young shipping clerk, had noticed that ships coming from the Congo were loaded with ivory and rubber while those going there contained little more than guns and ammunition. Morel and Casement were even better at PR than Leopold. Between them they made his rule an international scandal. Under strong pressure, the Belgian government took over the colony -- not, however, before Leopold had destroyed all its accounts.

Only one piece of documentation survived: an official report into the CFS that had been quietly shelved by the Belgian government. As late as the 1980s, it was withheld from researchers because it might damage Belgium's reputation. It has since provided the evidence of Leopold's extraordinary cruelties for Mr. Belien and earlier historians.

Albert I has enjoyed a rather better historical reputation than his two successors. He is remembered as the brave king who led gallant little Belgium in its resistance to the Kaiser in 1914. This reputation is seriously undermined by Mr. Belien, however, who cites chapter and verse to show that Albert secretly sought a separate peace with the Germans on several occasions. Only when the tide definitely turned in July 1918 did Albert allow Belgian troops to take part in an Allied offensive -- the first time they had done so in a war in which the Allies had come to Belgium's assistance.

But this wavering was less treacherous than the behavior of Albert's son, Leopold III, who stayed in Belgium in 1940 rather than leaving for Britain like the Dutch and Norwegian monarchs. Nor did Leopold help the Belgian resistance covertly. He collaborated with the Occupation, seeking Hitler's guarantee for the continuation of the Saxe-Coburg dynasty, living a pleasant life under German protection, and occasionally asking the Nazis to make it seem that he was acting under duress! These maneuvers deceived few people. After the war, he returned and risked civil war by trying to keep his throne. But he was forced to abdicate in 1950 in favor of his son.

Baudoin I proved more pious than his red-hot and blue-blooded relatives but no more successful at making Belgium a less divided nation or one more popular with its own citizens. His extraordinary folly in praising Leopold II to an audience of native Congolese provoked the long Congo crisis of the 1960s, in which thousands perished. And he seems to have been complicit in the plot to murder the Congolese leader Patrice Lumumba -- less from concern for Belgium's vast assets in Africa than from priggish indignation at Lumumba's contradicting his encomium to Leopold publicly.

Mr. Belien tells the story of this slimy dynasty with great gusto. There is a wealth of hilarious anecdotes about the sex life of the male Saxe-Coburgs who spend more time with call girls than with prime ministers (though Leopold II's tours of Parisian brothels were partly a cover for more sinister political dealings). Only Baudoin was a faithful husband to his fellow-Catholic mystic, Queen Fabiola -- suggesting that a Prince Albert crops up about every 150 years in the family. And even the would-be-saintly Baudoin at the age of 22 shared a sleeping compartment with his louche but glamorous stepmother, Liliane, then estranged from Leopold III, though more, it seems, from repressed family affection than for sex. The female Saxe-Coburgs retaliated by dying prematurely or going mad in different ways. Queen Elizabeth, who lived on for years as a dowager, went mad politically, switching effortlessly from Hitler to Stalin but always rejecting "the Americans" and capitalism, always "progressive."

HILARIOUS FOR THE READER, all this is a sad story for Belgium. For these anecdotes are dotted throughout a serious political history of the country. And Mr. Belien establishes convincingly that the scandals, betrayals, and failures of the Saxe-Coburgs are not accidents of heredity but arise directly from the nature of the country created for and by Leopold I. Not only is Belgium not a nation, it is a country founded upon the rejection of nationality -- indeed, the first multi-ethnic, multicultural polity. Multi-ethnic polities can prosper by developing a common culture and common national identity. But Leopold and his successors did not want to reconcile Fleming and Walloon in a common culture since they might then make common cause against the family state. So they had to keep them divided and inside Belgium by whatever discreditable means were necessary.

They created an entire corrupt political establishment that had a vested interest in the continuation of the Belgian state that was the source of their wealth and titles. In place of a common reconciling patriotism, they invented a state ideology, "Belgicism," an early version of multiculturalism, which presents Belgium as the antidote to "selfish" or "racist" nationalism to uphold the Belgicist establishment. They employed extra-legal repression to crush or frustrate resistance from either Walloon or Flemish national movements. As the 20th century wore on, they increasingly sought covert political alliances with the socialist left and labor unions to create welfare arrangements that would corrupt entire communities rather than just individual politicians into their clients. They invented a whole series of undemocratic institutions -- notably a "Social Partnership" of corporations and labor unions -- that overrode democratic parliamentary governments whenever they threatened these economic, constitutional, or political arrangements. In the 1970s they pushed through a form of federalism that was consciously designed to entrench existing "Belgicist" political parties in power more or less permanently and to prevent even very large democratic majorities from dismantling the present multicultural state. And in pursuit of these aims and their family interests, they repeatedly intervened in secret (following the first Leopold's shrewd example) to ensure that the taxpayer paid the bribes necessary to keep enough Belgians loyal to the Saxe-Coburg family state.

The end-result, as Mr. Belien documents in a depressing final chapter, is the most corrupt, highly taxed, economically inefficient, and constitutionally undemocratic country in Europe. The economic statistics are bad enough. Belgium has the highest percentage of social beneficiaries in the world -- more people live on social benefits than work for a living. But the scandals are worse. Leading Belgian politicians, mostly in the socialist party, have been slapped lightly on the wrist after pleading guilty to serious charges of corruption. Yet while indulging establishment politicians caught committing serious crimes, the courts have outlawed the largest political party in Flanders on spurious charges but in reality because, as everyone knows, it threatens the oligopolistic control of government by the Belgicist establishment.

Mr. Belien lays out this bill of indictment very powerfully. He writes from a certain perspective -- that of a moderate Flemish nationalist. At times he overstates that case by always seeing mitigating circumstances whenever Flemish nationalists behave wrongly or foolishly as when they sought the Kaiser's support for their cause late in the war. But the facts are massively on his side. He presents them clearly and readably. And his tale has a moral for the wider world.

He points out that Belgian leaders, including the Saxe-Coburgs, far from reconsidering the country's constitutional and political arrangements in the light of recent troubles, are in a missionary mood. They believe that Belgium -- with its multiculturalism, welfarism, cross-subsidization, and undemocratic political structures -- is and should be the model for a future united Europe. Many of these constitutional features already exist in the European Union, albeit in embryonic form. And now some of the same results are beginning to appear. Corruption in Brussels is both pervasive and glossed over. And the attitude of Eurocrats to inconvenient referendum results -- namely, keep voting until you get it right -- belongs firmly to the Saxe-Coburg school of political science. Like their teachers, the bureaucratic rulers of the EU intend to create a new polity irrespective of the wishes of the nations inside it.

It can't work. As the history of Belgium since 1831 shows, however, it can do a great deal of damage in the course of failing.

John O'Sullivan is editor at large of National Review and a columnist for the Chicago Sun-Times. This review ran in the November 2005 issue of The American Spectator. To subscribe, please click here.

from the Economist, 2008-Jul-17:

The return of Mr Nyet

An abrasive Russian veto is prompting fears at the UN of a new diplomatic logjam that recalls the bad old days

MOSCOW AND NEW YORK -- IN THE corridors of the blue-tinted building on the East River, the shock is still palpable. Despite the recent insistence of Ban Ki-moon, the United Nations secretary-general, that human rights and security are intertwined, Russia and China have blocked an effort to isolate and punish the despots of Zimbabwe, in a move that seems to bode ill for action by the Security Council in other places.

Especially disappointing for many Westerners was the abrupt way in which Russia vetoed sanctions against President Robert Mugabe—only a day after Dmitry Medvedev, Russia's new head of state, had joined his partners in the Group of Eight, a rich-country club, in deploring Zimbabwe's rigged and violent elections. The G8 statement had included a warning of “financial and other measures against those individuals responsible for violence”.

As many UN-watchers noted, Western governments were calculating that China—despite its substantial economic interests in Africa—would not want to exercise a sole veto. But Russia's apparent U-turn spared China the awkwardness of standing alone. “I have never seen so much frustration,” said Warren Hoge of the International Peace Institute, a think-tank. “The Americans and British… thought the [Zimbabwe] resolution would at the most get abstentions from the Russians and Chinese.” By the time the vote took place on July 11th, Western governments had realised (at least for a few hours) that a Sino-Russian block was unavoidable; but they let the vote proceed, if only to test the nay-sayers' resolve.

For Western governments that now face the prospect of working with Mr Medvedev over global hot spots from Iran to North Korea, the Zimbabwe veto raised several hard questions. Was there a failure of judgment by the new Russian leader? Was he overruled by other people, such as his predecessor, Vladimir Putin, who is now prime minister and was given formal responsibility this week for implementing foreign policy? Did Russia's sour mood reflect other gripes, say over America's vocal support for Georgia, or its missile-defence deal with the Czech Republic?

Other questions: was Russia boosting its own interests in southern Africa, or just acting up? And is the UN heading for a rerun of the cold war, when Soviet leaders like Nikita Khrushchev and his envoy Andrei Gromyko (pictured above) sparred with the West over almost everything?

The Kremlin, for its part, reacted peevishly to the West's dismay. Russian officials said there had been no change in their policy, and that the West was once again distorting their position maliciously. The G8 statement had indeed carried Russia's signature, but it made no mention of UN sanctions. The main point, they added, was that Zimbabwe's travails posed no threat to regional or global stability; they were outside the Security Council's remit.

Such talk is consistent with a foreign-policy style that has altered little since Mr Medvedev took power. He may avoid Mr Putin's belligerent tone, but there is no sign of the Kremlin becoming friendlier to the West. Just to quash any doubts, Mr Putin has stressed that Mr Medvedev is “just as much a Russian nationalist, in a positive sense, as I am.” Mr Medvedev has done his best to prove that point, repeating Mr Putin's warnings about American unilateralism. And even if Mr Medvedev wants to repair Russia's relations with the West, it seems unlikely that he has carved out any real power to make independent decisions, at least so far. This week, he told diplomats to be “more aggressive”.

But none of this quite explains why Russia picked a fight with the West for the sake of a country in which it has no obvious interest. One reason, say Russia-watchers, is that punishing Mr Mugabe for stealing the elections and suppressing human rights sounded a bit close to the bone.

Indeed Russia's foreign ministry hinted at this when it said that punishing Mr Mugabe would “set a dangerous precedent, opening a way to the Security Council interfering in countries' internal affairs over various political events, including elections.” Given the dictatorial nature of many of Russia's friends—like Belarus—and its own spotty record on human rights and elections, it is hardly surprising that Russia was unhappy about punitive sanctions against Zimbabwe.

In this climate, Western illusions that Russia might side with America against the regime in Zimbabwe betray a basic lack of understanding of what makes Russia tick, says Dmitri Trenin of the Carnegie Moscow Centre, a think-tank. These days, Russian thinking divides the world into America and its docile friends on one hand, and “sovereign” countries, like China, India and South Africa on the other. Given Russia's aim to speak for the second camp, its veto was logical—and as Russian officials stressed, it reflected the African Union line.

But Russia's move doesn't indicate that it has any constructive aim in southern Africa—other than exploiting whatever vestigial ties may linger from the era when Soviet arms (like the Kalashnikov, a national symbol in Mozambique) helped to overthrow white rule.

Ties that don't bind

Igor Sechin, one of Mr Putin's toughest aides, was once a Soviet “interpreter” in Mozambique, when it was in the grip of Marxist fervour. But even in those days, the Soviet attitude to Africa was ambivalent; as they dished out the rifles, its envoys used to mutter racist predictions about the likely effects of black rule.

And at the height of its involvement in southern Africa, the Soviet Union was often frustrated that its largesse did not translate into influence, says Georgi Derluguian, a professor at America's Northwestern University who worked as a Soviet adviser in Mozambique. But much more recently, a semi-official Russian foreign-policy report said Africa was still a zone of competition with the West. Western countries wanted “control over natural resources, dominance in consumer markets and decisive influence in [the region's] economic and political evolution,” it thundered.

Compared with China, Russia's efforts to counter the West in Africa have so far been feeble; China's trade with Zimbabwe is ten times that of Russia. Although (or possibly, because) it has more interests at stake, China has seemed somewhat more amenable than Russia to arguments about the need to behave responsibly in Africa.

To many observers, it seems that the Kremlin's determination to play geopolitical games on every front could end up benefiting China, which is happy to let Russia take the blame for coddling dictators. But if Russia overplays the role of spoiler-in-chief, that could easily backfire. Mainly because of their veto rights, Russians are deeply attached to the UN as the only legitimate forum for solving geopolitical problems. Anatoly Gromyko (son of Andrei and a former head of the Soviet Union's Africa Institute) still speaks of the Security Council as the world's “greatest organ for maintaining stability”.

But if Russia makes a habit of saying nyet to everything, in the churlish way that was a hallmark of the older Mr Gromyko, then the Security Council itself will lose effectiveness and prestige. And all its permanent members (especially the weaker ones) would then lose out too.

from Forbes.com, 2008-Oct-13, by William L. Anderson:

Krugman In Wonderland

Today's announcement that Paul Krugman won the Nobel Prize in economics, although not earth shattering, indicates that outright political partisanship is not a deterrent to winning. This is not as tragic a moment in western civilization as the sacking of Constantinople in 1453 or the Bolshevik Revolution of 1917, but it suffices as one of those sad moments we will regret over time.

The committee that chose Krugman cited his "trade" theories that once made him famous for actually doing economics. (Krugman contends that nations can create comparative advantages by subsidizing certain industries, something the ancients once called Mercantilism.) However, Krugman has become a well-known public intellectual not because of his work on trade, but because of his twice-weekly op-ed column in The New York Times, where outright partisanship is substituted for economic analysis.

Paul Krugman is an unabashed liberal, and there is no crime in an economist having such persuasions. For that matter, many economists have a bit of that streak, too. Furthermore, many of us are in agreement that some of the economic policies of the Bush administration have been bad, if not downright disastrous.

However, the agreements end where Krugman begins to view U.S. economic history from a distorted lens, one in which all administrations run by Democrats are Good and Virtuous, and all Republican administrations are governed by Beelzebub himself. For example, Krugman has laid literally all of the recent financial meltdowns on free markets and deregulation, which he claims were the products of right-wing ideology and compliant Republican administrations.

This is a curious view of history. Until reading Krugman, I had no idea that Jimmy Carter and his economic guru, Alfred Kahn, were conservative Republicans. Carter and Kahn allegedly thought of themselves as liberal Democrats, and I even remember seeing Carter running for president on the Democratic ticket.

Yes, many of the major deregulation efforts came through the Carter administration, although Krugman apparently denies all of that. Carter's administration deregulated airlines and pushed through huge banking reforms as the highly regulated New Deal financial cartel imploded amidst inflation and the inability of that system to be able to finance many of the upcoming high-tech industries.

The Carter administration also began the deregulation of the price control system for oil and gasoline and set into motion the deregulation apparatus for trucking, railroads and telecommunications. In fact, Ronald Reagan received the endorsement of the Teamsters Union only after he promised to delay trucking deregulation. I also remember hearing Lester Thurow at a lecture in 1984 calling for massive deregulation of financial services and the end to anti-trust law and an end to the Glass-Steagall Act. Thurow, Kahn and Carter were not ideological conservatives, and they certainly were not Republicans, but Krugman simply airbrushes that fact to give us his own wonderland.

In Krugman's world, ideological right-wingers took a meat axe to the carefully planned, stable New Deal economic structures of finance, telecommunications, transportation and manufacturing and created an unstable mess in which greed overruled good sense. Going even farther, Krugman has called for a reinstatement of the New Deal or at least another set of legislative initiatives like the New Deal.

Given that the first New Deal ensured double-digit unemployment until the end of 1941, one would think competent economists would not support laws that restrict output, criminalize entrepreneurship, and keep unemployment levels in the stratosphere. It would seem that an economic recovery would require increasing output and employment, but who are we economists on the outside of the Nobel circle to question the wisdom of a Nobel laureate?

As for the current economic turmoil in financial markets, Krugman offers outright socialism as the cure but also continues to peddle the snake oil that the Bush administration is beholden to free-market ideology. Praising the near-nationalization of British banks by the government, Krugman writes:

"It's hard to avoid the sense that Mr. Paulson's initial response was distorted by ideology. Remember, he works for an administration whose philosophy of government can be summed up as 'private good, public bad,' which must have made it hard to face up to the need for partial government ownership of the financial sector."

Remember, Krugman is describing a government that is looking to take equity positions in banks and businesses, and whose central bank, the Federal Reserve System, pretty much owns AIG. And there is that little $700 billion bond issue to buy worthless securities (something Krugman endorsed).

Thus, Krugman believes the problem is that the Bush administration is not socialist enough, which makes it ideologically "free market." If Obama is elected and Krugman receives a high position in his administration, we shall see if Krugman becomes the first commissar who makes socialism work. I'll be betting against him.

William L. Anderson is associate professor in the Department of Economics at Frostburg State University in Frostburg, Md.

from the Associated Press, 2008-Oct-3, by Karl Ritter and Matt Moore:

Columnist Paul Krugman wins Nobel economics prize

STOCKHOLM, Sweden — Paul Krugman, the Princeton University scholar, New York Times columnist and unabashed liberal, won the Nobel prize in economics Monday for his analysis of how economies of scale can affect international trade patterns.

Krugman has been a harsh critic of the Bush administration and the Republican Party in The New York Times, where he writes a regular column and has a blog called "Conscience of a Liberal."

He has also taken the Bush administration to task over the current financial meltdown, blaming its pursuit of deregulation and unencumbered fiscal policies for the financial crisis that has threatened the global economy with recession.

Perhaps better known as a columnist than an economist to the public, Krugman has also come out forcefully against John McCain during the economic meltdown, saying the Republican presidential candidate is "more frightening now than he was a few weeks ago." Krugman (pronounced KROOG-man) also has derided the Republicans as becoming "the party of stupid."

Tore Ellingsen, a member of the prize committee, acknowledged that Krugman was an "opinion maker" but added that he was honored on the merits of his economic research, not his political commentary.

"We disregard everything except for the scientific merits," Ellingsen told The Associated Press.

The 55-year-old American economist was the lone winner of the 10 million kronor ($1.4 million) award and the latest in a string of American researchers to be honored. It was only the second time since 2000 that a single laureate won the prize, which is typically shared by two or three researchers.

Not one to tone down his opinions, Krugman has compared the current financial crisis to the devastation of the 1930s.

"We are now witnessing a crisis that is as severe as the crisis that hit Asia in the 90's. This crisis bears some resemblance to the Great Depression," Krugman told reporters Monday.

But he was optimistic that a global effort aimed at stemming the financial blood loss had taken root.

"I'm slightly less terrified today than I was on Friday," he said, referring to the weekend crisis talks among European leaders that led to the nationalization of British banks, unlimited access to U.S. dollars to banks worldwide and efforts to stave off a global recession.

In contrast to his treatment of U.S. officials, Krugman has praised Britain's financial leaders for their nimble response to the credit crisis.

In a column Monday in the New York Times, Krugman wrote that British Prime Minister Gordon Brown and Chancellor Alistair Darling "defined the character of the worldwide rescue effort, with other wealthy nations playing catch-up."

Whereas U.S. Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson at first rejected giving financial institutions more money in return for a share of ownership, the British government "went straight to the heart of the problem ... with stunning speed," he wrote.

"And whaddya know," Krugman continued, "Mr. Paulson — after arguably wasting several precious weeks — has also reversed course, and now plans to buy equity stakes rather than bad mortgage securities."

The Bush administration would not comment Monday on whether Krugman would be invited to the White House as is custom with American Nobel laureates.

The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences praised Krugman for formulating a new theory to answer questions about free trade and said his theory had inspired an enormous field of research.

"What are the effects of free trade and globalization? What are the driving forces behind worldwide urbanization? Paul Krugman has formulated a new theory to answer these questions," the academy said in its citation.

"He has thereby integrated the previously disparate research fields of international trade and economic geography," it said.

The award, known as the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences, is the last of the six Nobel prizes announced this year and is not one of the original Nobels. It was created in 1968 by the Swedish central bank in Alfred Nobel's memory.

In addition to his work as an economist at Princeton University in New Jersey, where he has been since 2000, Krugman has written for Foreign Affairs, the Harvard Business Review and Scientific American, among other publications.

He graduated with a bachelor's degree from Yale in 1974 and received a Ph.D. from MIT in 1977. Besides teaching at Yale and MIT, he also taught at Stanford.

Krugman said winning the Nobel award won't change his approach to research and writing.

"I'm a great believer in continuing to do work," he told reporters. "I hope that two weeks from now I'm back to being pretty much the same person I was before."

Krugman's work on new trade theory also garnered him the John Bates Clark medal from the American Economic Association in 1991. That prize is given every two years to an economist under the age of 40.

The Nobel citation said Krugman's approach is based on the premise that many goods and services can be produced at less cost in a long series, a concept known as economies of scale. His research showed the effects of that on trade patterns.

"Trade theory, like much of economics, used to be discussed in the context of perfect competition: thousands of farmers and thousands of customers meeting in a market," with supply and demand governing prices, said Avinash Dixit, a Princeton professor and economist who specializes in trade theory.

Gradually, people began to realize that conditions in the market were less than perfect, and the small number of companies in some industries had economies of scale that changed the trade equation.

"Krugman was the main person who brought all the theory together, recognized its importance to the real world (and) produced a large expansion of international trade theory," Dixit said.

Krugman introduced his trade theory in 1979 in a 10-page article in the Journal of International Economics.

It posited that because consumers want a diversity of products, and because economies of scale make production cheaper, multiple countries can build a product such as cars. A nation like Sweden can build its own car brands for both export and sale at home, while also importing cars from other countries.

The article also outlined a new theory of economic geography. Krugman's idea was that if two countries were alike but one had a larger population, real wages would be somewhat higher in the more populous country because companies there could make better use of economies of scale, creating a greater diversity of goods, lower prices, or both.

Because this enhances the welfare of consumers in that country, its population would increase as more people moved there, which would lead to additional increases in real wages.

Krugman is not the first Nobel economics winner to be a familiar name.

Paul Samuelson, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology professor who won the prize in 1970, and the late Milton Friedman, longtime University of Chicago professor who won in 1976, were both columnists for Newsweek magazine for many years.

Friedman, who died in 2006, also was known for his PBS TV series "Free to Choose" in the United States, while Samuelson, 98, wrote an economics textbook used by millions of college students.

The Nobel Prizes in medicine, chemistry, physics, literature and economics will be handed out in Stockholm by Sweden's King Carl XVI on Dec. 10, the anniversary of prize founder Alfred Nobel's death in 1896. The Nobel Peace Prize is handed out in Oslo, Norway, on the same date.

Associated Press writers Malin Rising in Stockholm, Geoff Mulvihill in Mount Laurel, New Jersey, Polly Anderson in New York and AP Business Writer Ellen Simon in New York contributed to this report.

from the Wall Street Journal, 2008-Oct-11, by Claudia Rosett:

Maurice Strong: The U.N.'s Man of Mystery
Is the godfather of the Kyoto treaty a public servant or a profiteer?

Beijing

"I don't trust you, and I also question your integrity." Thus did Maurice Strong offer me a seat on his living room sofa.

Often described as an "international man of mystery," Mr. Strong during his long, globe-trotting career has been one of the most influential architects of the opaque cross-border bureaucracy that is today's United Nations. He is probably best known as godfather of the U.N.'s 1997 Kyoto treaty, and as a former U.N. top adviser who in that same year received a check for almost $1 million, bankrolled by the U.N.-sanctioned regime of Saddam Hussein. (Mr. Strong told me that at the time he did not know the money came from Baghdad.)

In his most recent stint at the U.N., from 1997-2005, Mr. Strong served as an Under-Secretary-General and special adviser to former Secretary-General Kofi Annan. He was point man on matters ranging from U.N. reform to environmentalism to North Korea. By some accounts, including his own, he has been a benevolent toiler in the multilateral trenches, a friend of Mikhail Gorbachev and Al Gore, networking to save the planet.

By other accounts, he's a self-dealing and self-declared socialist who has parlayed his talents into a push for collectivist global government. These days he is living in China, where he says his ties go back "40 years."

The apple-faced Mr. Strong was born in 1929 in rural Canada. He grew up with a hankering to see the world. His travels took him to New York, where he spent a few months working in 1947 as a junior security officer at the U.N. He went on to tour Africa, and returned home to climb the corporate and public-sector ladders in Canada. In 1970 he returned to the U.N. for the first in a series of high-level incarnations that included organizing the 1972 Stockholm Conference on the environment, founding and becoming the first head of the U.N. Environment Program, and chairing the 1992 Rio summit on the environment.

Over the decades, Mr. Strong has had close ties to at least five former U.N. leaders, from U Thant to Mr. Annan, and he implies that even now, in Beijing, he is informally in touch on occasion with Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon: "I do get the odd message now and then." (Asked to confirm this, Mr. Ban's office did not respond). Along with his labors at the U.N., Mr. Strong has been engaged for years with a kaleidoscope of nongovernmental organizations and private business ventures. A collection of his papers donated to the Harvard Library, spanning the years 1948-2000 runs to 685 boxes. A theme throughout, he says, is that "I've spent my life trying to help the U.N."

Mr. Strong no longer has any official ties to the U.N., however. In 2005, at the height of the investigations into the U.N.'s corrupt Oil-for-Food relief program for Iraq, news emerged of the six-figure check from Iraq. Evidence procured by federal investigators and the U.N.-authorized inquiry of Paul Volcker showed that Mr. Strong in 1997, while working for Mr. Annan, had endorsed a check for $988,885, made out to "Mr. M. Strong," issued by a Jordanian bank. This check was hand-delivered to Mr. Strong by a South Korean businessman, Tongsun Park, who in 2006 was convicted in New York federal court of conspiring to bribe U.N. officials to rig Oil-for-Food in favor of Saddam.

Mr. Strong was never accused of any wrongdoing. Asked by investigators about the check, he initially denied he'd ever handled it. When they showed it to him with his own signature on the back, he acknowledged that he must have endorsed it, but said the money was meant to cover an investment Mr. Park wished to make in a Strong family company, Cordex, run by one of his sons. (Cordex soon afterward went bankrupt.) Mr. Volcker, in his final report, said that the U.N. might want to "address the need for a more rigorous disclosure process for conflicts of interest."

During the inquiry, Mr. Strong stepped aside from his U.N. post, saying he would sideline himself until the cloud was removed. But instead of returning to his native Canada, he decamped from New York to Beijing, where he appears to have settled in. He has given few interviews from China, and for the past three years has refused my periodic requests to answer questions by phone or email.

Mr. Strong may have left the U.N. behind, but his current office is a penthouse suite in a building that houses at least three U.N. agencies (UNIDO, UNFPA and UNHCR), plus such diplomatic tenants as the embassies of Mozambique, Cyprus, and the Bahamas, as well as the Venezuelan defense attaché. He received me at his nearby apartment wearing a striped blue polo shirt, dark slacks and in his stocking feet. There were photos of Mr. Strong posing amid a multitude of world leaders at the Rio summit, and a close-up of Mr. Strong gazing into the camera beside a smiling Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice. The latter photo was taken in her office a few years ago, when "I went to brief her on a couple of things."

A soft-spoken man with a Canadian accent, Mr. Strong starts by giving me a piece of his mind. Not only does he not trust me, but he's still incensed by an article I co-authored in February, 2007, with George Russell of Fox News. In it, we suggested that if Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon wanted to clean up the U.N.'s "tangled nest of personal relationships, public-private partnerships, murky trust funds, unaudited funding conduits, and inter-woven enterprises," he might start by investigating the trail of Maurice Strong. Flourishing a printout of the piece, Mr. Strong protests that "everything I did, I checked it out carefully with the U.S." He also charges that we made "no mention of what I did in putting the environmental agenda on the map." (Actually, we gave him full credit for that, but questioned the extent to which -- as an unelected official -- he had manipulated the U.N. system to support his own agenda).

"You called for an investigation," says Mr. Strong, "Actually, I wouldn't mind." He hands me a draft report by a former Swedish diplomat, saying it has not yet been released, but "you can have it." The document, subtitled "A Study in Leadership," describes in flattering terms Mr. Strong's maneuvers over many years to shape a U.N. agenda in which public conferences became largely a façade for decisions already brokered behind the scenes by Mr. Strong.

"I've made mistakes here and there, yes," says Mr. Strong, but they've been "honest mistakes."

Talk skips around. He says that when he left New York in 2005, "I didn't just run away to China, I already had an apartment here." He adds that his departure from the U.N. was motivated not by the Oil-for-Food investigations, but by his sense at the time, as Mr. Annan's special adviser on North Korea, that the U.N. had reached an impasse. "It just happened to coincide with the publicity surrounding my so-called nefarious activities." He insists: "I had no involvement at all in Oil-for-Food . . . I just stayed out of it."

U.N. records show that he chaired Mr. Annan's 1997 U.N. reform panel, which among other items reorganized the initially ad hoc and scattered Oil-for-Food administrative apparatus into one big Office of the Iraq Program. That allowed Mr. Annan to appoint one man to directly manage the operation, the now-fugitive Benon Sevan, indicted in New York last year on charges of taking Oil-for-Food bribes. (Mr. Sevan has said he's innocent). Doesn't that early reshaping of the program qualify as involvement with Oil-for-Food?

"I chaired the process," says Mr. Strong, but "I got inputs from a whole series of people." On the creation of the office run by Mr. Sevan, "I didn't realize it had been done until someone pointed it out."

I have been waiting a long time to ask a further question, prompted by evidence that emerged in the Tongsun Park trial, showing that three years after delivering that Baghdad-funded check to Mr. Strong, Park was transferring money directly into Mr. Strong's personal bank account to pay the rent for a private office maintained by Mr. Strong in midtown Manhattan. Why was Mr. Park paying Mr. Strong's office rent? "He was paying his own rent," replies Mr. Strong, adding that the arrangement was a "sublet." "I had the U.N. office, so I didn't really need all that space . . . he wanted an address in New York."

But there were signs that the same premises were also used at some point as a New York office by the U.N.-chartered University for Peace (a small school headquartered in Costa Rica, which with Mr. Strong chairing its board from 1999-2006 developed an outsized interest in proposing U.N.-funded development projects for North Korea, and used U.N. facilities to arrange trips for North Korean officials to Europe). What was that about? "It was only interim," says Mr. Strong. "It was a motley office."

He grows irritable that I am "resurrecting all this." He talks much more cheerfully about his current projects. He says he is still Canadian, keeps a home in Canada, and pays taxes there. But most of his work right now is in China. His erratic health leaves him less interested in global travel. He says he suffers from diabetes, and has had five heart bypasses: "I have a cow's valve in my heart."

That hasn't slowed him down much inside China, where he holds appointments at three universities and serves as an adviser to the government. "My advice gets to the highest levels." he says. He has also been involved in setting up the Tianjin Climate Exchange for trading carbon credits: "the first climate exchange in China." It's a joint venture with several entities, including the Chicago Climate Exchange, where he holds a seat on the board.

At one point in our conversation, his cell phone rings, and while leaning back to chat with the caller about an environmental conclave he has just attended in the port city of Tianjin, he drops the name of China's prime minister: "I think the meeting with Wen Jiabao made a good impression."

Does Mr. Strong see any conflict in the fact that his signature U.N. product, the Kyoto treaty, grants big, profitable concessions to developing nations such as China -- and now here he is, involved in China's carbon trading and working as an adviser to the Chinese government? He replies that China when it signed on to Kyoto was not "the cause of the problem." He also says that his work for the Chinese government and universities is "all pro bono."

Asked whether he's involved in any private ventures these days, he says he was involved with the Chinese Chery Automobile Company, but as an adviser, not an investor, and he is now out of that. He says he's chairman of a company that's helping China earn emissions credits, the China Carbon Corporation. He's on the board of a U.S.-based engineering and construction firm CH2M Hill.

And what about the company listed on the business card his office assistant gave me: Cosmos International? He says it's a private firm, operating out of Beijing and Ottawa: "Just my little vehicle, it's just me and my son." He explains that he has two sons. Fred, who "does his own thing," and Ken, his youngest son, who is his business partner.

Mr. Strong has long been rumored to be a billionaire. I seize the chance to ask him how much he is really worth. He ducks: "Rumors of my wealth are greatly exaggerated. I have never been interested in money." OK, but how about a ballpark figure -- millions? Tens of millions? "Maybe a few millions, yes. I don't complain."

Is he planning to visit his old stomping grounds in New York City anytime soon? He hasn't been back in a couple of years, he says, "I'm just too busy." Speaking of which, another visitor has arrived at his apartment, and they have a lunch appointment. As we head down to the lobby, I ask if the building is new. Not really, he says, but he likes the place -- "It has its own internal air cleaning system." Donning his trademark trilby -- "white for summer, black for winter" -- he heads off into the haze of Beijing.

Ms. Rosett heads the Investigative Reporting Project at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, and writes a weekly column on foreign affairs for Forbes.com.

from the Wall Street Journal, 2008-Jul-29, p.A17, by Michael Soussan:

Don't Hold the Olympics Without Iraq

The decision last week by the International Olympic Committee to ban Iraq from participating in the 2008 Olympic Games in Beijing reflects far more negatively on the committee itself than on Iraq.

The country's sin, as described by the IOC, is to have changed the members of its national Olympic committee, awarding posts based on local political loyalties. This is an interesting accusation -- given that the previous chief of Iraq's Olympic effort was Uday Hussein, the son of Iraq's former dictator.

If Uday Hussein was acceptable to the IOC, why is the committee up in arms about the Iraqi government's decision to reshuffle its Olympic management team? The answer is that Iraq's new Olympic managers have not yet been accredited by the IOC. What will it take to get them accredited? Will they have to start torturing their athletes the way Uday used to do, when they failed to perform to his liking?

There is a lot more at stake here than the bruised egos of IOC bureaucrats -- who for the most part, owe their own appointments to political connections within their national governments. The mission of the International Olympic Committee is to provide support and coordination for an event that aims to bring nations together through sports. And Iraqi athletes have, in recent years, overcome overwhelming odds for a chance to join in the Games.

Many have come under attack from al Qaeda terrorists. In May 2006, for example, an Iraqi tennis coach and two players were shot to death for wearing shorts. Meanwhile, most Iraqi athletes have had to train for the upcoming games in a country where daily chaos and a dire lack of financial support and equipment made their efforts to qualify for some of the upcoming events all the more heroic.

While the athletes persevered in pursuit of the Olympic dream, a group of miffed bureaucrats have taken it upon themselves to dash their hopes, and issue a ruling that is bound to insult, and further depress, a nation that is struggling to emerge from years of war and deprivation to rekindle its rightful rank among nations.

When Dana Hussein, a female Iraqi sprinter, heard of the news that she would no longer be admitted as a participant in the games she wept for hours on end. Many Iraqis from all walks of life shared in her sadness.

While the Iraqi government should clearly have refrained from plugging political allies to lead their Olympic team, its behavior pales in comparison to scandals that have plagued the IOC itself over the years. Juan Antonio Samaranch -- who served under Franco's dictatorship in Spain before being appointed to head the IOC from 1980 to 2001 -- was widely accused of turning a blind eye to rampant corrupt practices. He was cleared of wrongdoing by an internal probe (though no independent inquiry was ever allowed); but the fact that so many of his staff were shown to have accepted bribes reflects poorly on his leadership.

In 2004, IOC Vice President Kim Un-Yong was sentenced to two-and-a-half years in jail on corruption charges. He was found guilty by a South Korean court of embezzling more than $3 million from sports organizations he controlled and accepting $700,000 in bribes. The IOC itself includes dozens of members related to, or having worked for, corrupt dictators, and who had little if any experience in the realm of sports to begin with. And past investigations uncovered how, with every round of bids to host the next Olympic Games, large sums of money have flowed, illegally, to committee members.

Case in point: The Salt Lake City bid for the 2002 Winter Olympics, which blew the lid off systematic malpractice within the IOC. An internal inquiry, launched after revelations from long-serving IOC member Marc Hodler, found clear evidence that up to 20 of the 110 committee members had been bribed to vote for Salt Lake. According to a BBC report, some members had allowed the Salt Lake organizers to pay for their family holidays. First-class travel was paid for and lavish gifts were spread around generously, in violation of the IOC's own rules. One member's wife was provided with free cosmetic surgery.

The suspension of Iraq from the 2008 Olympic Games is more than wrongheaded and poorly justified. It is petty, morally inconsistent, and unnecessarily harmful to a nation that yearns for normalcy and acceptance. If the IOC were to apply the same standard to far more meddlesome regimes whose teams will be welcome in Beijing, there is no telling how many other countries might be banned.

Governments who care about helping Iraq reintegrate into the international community must not allow this harmful decision to stand. A minimum level of goodwill, both from the IOC and the Iraqi government, can easily resolve this unfortunate bureaucratic impasse.

Iraq did blunder by appointing politically connected individuals to take over its national Olympic effort. But the IOC's claim to the moral high ground in this affair is absurd. If it is truly concerned about corruption and political meddling, it should start by sweeping at its own doorstep rather than punishing the one nation that most needs its help.

Mr. Soussan, a journalist and a former program coordinator for the United Nations humanitarian operation in Iraq, teaches at New York University's Center for Global Affairs.

from the Associated Press, 2008-Aug-11:

IOC accepts explanation on Iranian swimmer

BEIJING: The International Olympic Committee has accepted the explanation of an Iranian swimmer who pulled out of an event that included an Israeli competitor.

Mohammad Alirezaei withdrew from the heats of the men's 100-meter breaststroke on Saturday just before he was due to compete against a field that included Israel's Tom Beeri. He cited illness as the reason.

Iran could have faced sanctions from the IOC if Alirezaei pulled out deliberately because an Israeli was also racing, but IOC spokeswoman Giselle Davies said Monday that no violation had been found.

"The athlete has withdrawn because of sickness," she said. "He confirmed this in writing to the swimming federation. We've also spoken with the national Olympic committee and they have underlined to us that all their athletes compete here in the right spirit against athletes from any nationality.

"We take both the athlete and the national Olympic committee at their word on this," she said.

Iran does not recognize Israel and bans any contact with the Jewish state.

At the 2004 Athens Olympics, an Iranian judo athlete did not compete against an Israeli opponent, and Iranian government officials were quoted in state media as congratulating him for doing so.

from Investor's Business Daily, 2008-Apr-2:

Home Court Victory

Jurisprudence: The Supreme Court has ruled that the U.S. criminal justice system is not subservient to an international court. The Supreme Court of the United States, in other words, is just that — our Supreme Court.

Fifteen years ago, two teenage girls in Houston were raped and murdered by six gang members who were caught, tried by a jury of their peers in a Texas court and sentenced to death. One of the gang members was Jose Medellin, whose case has made it all the way to the World Court and twice to the Supreme Court.

This is more than a murder case. It is also a fight against those who would rely on foreign law and precedent in U.S. court decisions, and those who would make the U.S. subservient to the World Court (formerly known as the International Court of Justice).

In 1993 Medellin confessed to participating in the rape and murder of Jennifer Ertman, 14, and Elizabeth Pena, 16, who were sodomized and strangled with their own shoelaces. Medellin bragged about keeping one girl's Mickey Mouse watch as a souvenir of the crime. He and four others were convicted of capital murder and sentenced to death. (The sixth was too young to be eligible for capital punishment.)

Medellin sat on Texas' death row until in 2003, when Mexico sued the U.S. before the ICJ, which is the judicial arm of the United Nations. On March 31, 2004, the ICJ ruled in Mexico's favor, agreeing that Medellin's rights were violated because he was not told he could contact the Mexican consulate for legal assistance under a 1963 treaty known as the Vienna Convention.

The ICJ ruled that U.S. courts should review the convictions of Medellin and 50 other Mexican-born prisoners on death row because of this alleged treaty violation. It also ordered — yes, ordered — the U.S. to "provide, by means of its own choosing, review and reconsideration of the conviction and sentence of Medellin and the others."

President Bush said the U.S. would comply and ordered courts in Texas and elsewhere to review the Medellin case. "I have determined," Bush wrote to the attorney general, "that the United States will discharge its international obligations under the decision of the International Court of Justice . . . by having state courts give effect to the decision."

The Supreme Court, which had agreed to hear Medellin's case, dismissed it in 2005 to indeed let the case play out in Texas courts. But in November 2006, the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals refused Bush's order, saying the president had overstepped his authority.

The Texas appeals court said the judicial branch, not the White House, should resolve the cases and that, in any event, Medellin hadn't complained of any violation of his consular rights under the treaty, and therefore had waved them.

Medellin, continuing to argue that the World Court had agreed his rights were violated, that his death sentence could not stand and that U.S. courts must obey, found himself once again before the Supreme Court, which agreed to rehear the case.

In its decision last week, the Supreme Court essentially said, "Enough of this nonsense." Writing for the 6-3 majority, Chief Justice John Roberts said a Texas court, or any American court, is under no obligation to obey and be subservient to any foreign court.

"(N)ot all international law obligations automatically constitute binding federal law enforceable in the United State courts," Roberts wrote. Giving "the judgments of an international tribunal a higher status than that enjoyed by many of our most fundamental constitutional protections," was never a consideration of those who wrote the U.S. Constitution, he noted.

Ted Cruz, solicitor general of Texas, applauded the decision: "The United States Constitution vests sovereignty in the Congress, the U.S. Supreme Court, the president, the 50 states and ultimately in we the people," he said. "Had Medellin prevailed, American sovereignty and independence would have been gravely undermined."

This is a victory for American law and American sovereignty. Don't tread on us — and don't mess with Texas.

from Reuters, 2008-Jun-4, by Patrick Worsnip:

Nicaraguan U.S. critic made UN assembly president

UNITED NATIONS - A former Nicaraguan leftist foreign minister who has been a sharp critic of U.S. governments was elected on Wednesday as the next president of the U.N. General Assembly.

But within hours of his election, Miguel D'Escoto Brockmann said he wanted to turn a page on his past comments and work with the United States and other countries. Washington's U.N. envoy said he had similar assurances and would wait and see.

D'Escoto was elected by acclamation by the 192-member assembly after standing unopposed as candidate of Latin American and Caribbean countries, whose turn it is to hold the post. He will assume the year-long job in mid-September.

The assembly president has little power but chairs an annual gathering of world leaders in late September. He or she also presides over regular assembly debates, many on development issues, and oversees a long-running drive to expand membership of the powerful U.N. Security Council.

D'Escoto, 75, was foreign minister in the left-wing Sandinista administration that ruled Nicaragua from 1979-90, during which time it fought against an insurgency by U.S.-backed Contra rebels.

He succeeds Srgjan Kerim of Macedonia in the U.N. post.

In an acceptance speech, D'Escoto made no direct criticisms of the United States but made a barbed reference to "acts of aggression" in Iraq and Afghanistan, where U.S. forces are fighting insurgents.

"The behavior of some member states has caused the United Nations to lose credibility as an organization capable of putting an end to war and eradicating extreme poverty from our planet," he said without elaborating.

But he also said he was not trying to retaliate against any country for past actions, warned against "sterile recriminations" and urged reconciliation "to prevent memories of the past from becoming obstacles to our unity from now on."

CATHOLIC PRIEST

The son of a diplomat, D'Escoto was born in Los Angeles and ordained as a Roman Catholic priest. He espoused the left-wing liberation theology movement within the Catholic Church and backed the Sandinistas in the late 1970s, earning a reprimand from Pope John Paul II for involvement in politics.

He has been a long-time supporter of Sandinista leader Daniel Ortega, who returned to Nicaragua's presidency in 2006. Ortega harshly attacked the United States and expressed support for Iran at last year's General Assembly gathering.

In a 2004 interview, D'Escoto called Ronald Reagan, who was U.S. president in the 1980s, an "international outlaw" and "the butcher of my people."

"Because of Reagan and his spiritual heir George W. Bush, the world today is far less safe and secure than it has ever been," he was quoted as saying.

At a news conference on Wednesday, D'Escoto stood by those comments but said he now wished to move on.

"I do not want to turn this (General Assembly) presidency into a place to take it out on the United States," he said, adding that he loved the United States as a country.

U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Zalmay Khalilzad told reporters D'Escoto's past comments were unacceptable, but added: "We have been assured that a page has been turned and that he understands his new responsibilities ... We will wait and see."

Among D'Escoto's expected tasks will be to invite Bush to the podium during this year's General Assembly summit.

Latin American diplomats said that under a routine practice in which some U.N. posts rotate among members of the regional groups, this year's assembly president could have come from Nicaragua, Bolivia or Paraguay. But Bolivia and Paraguay had offered no candidate, they said. (Editing by David Wiessler -- Adds quotes by D'Escoto, U.S. envoy)

from the Wall Street Journal, 2007-Jul-6, by Christopher Walker:

Democratic Deficit

A leadership fight within a key trans-Atlantic institution is shaping up as a test for the defense of basic democratic standards. Little of this battle at the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe is taking place in public view. But its result will have big implications both for the OSCE and for the broader challenge of preventing nondemocratic countries from tearing the fabric of international rules-based institutions.

The challenge has arisen because for the first time a nondemocratic country, Kazakhstan, has promoted itself as a candidate for the OSCE leadership. The OSCE chairmanship rotates annually and selection is made by consensus. In recent years Belgium and Bulgaria have held the post. Spain is the current chair. Finland takes over in 2008.

The foreign minister of the country holding the chairmanship represents the organization and coordinates all OSCE activities. With 56 participating states from Europe, Central Asia and North America, the OSCE forms the largest regional security organization and has on its agenda a wide range of issues, including human rights and democratization.

Kazakhstan is seeking the chairmanship for 2009. The OSCE calendar and custom dictate that chairmanship selection for 2009 should have already been settled. The Kazakh candidacy was on the table in December 2006 at the year-end OSCE ministers' meeting in Brussels. Consensus could not be achieved and a final decision was punted to the Madrid ministers' conclave in November 2007. However, horse trading among the member states is already under way and could advance during this weekend's annual meeting in Kiev. As a practical matter a deal will likely be cut well before November.

Kazakhstan's supporters argue that Astana's taking on this responsibility will strengthen its democratic bona fides and engage strategically important Central Asia. Russia, a key proponent of Kazakhstan's bid, and Germany subscribe to this reasoning.

However, scant evidence exists to suggest that rewarding an autocratic state with special leadership responsibility in such an organization propels it toward more democratic behavior. Russia is a case in point.

Last year, Russia held the presidency of the G-8 and the chairmanship of the Council of Europe, whose mandate is to promote human rights, democracy and uphold the rule of law in Europe. If anything, the Kremlin's abuse of political opposition, independent media and civil society has intensified since its leadership of those rules-based institutions.

The prospect of nondemocratic Kazakhstan's holding the OSCE chair raises uncomfortable questions. For instance, when a journalist is killed or a demonstration brutally dispersed, would Astana raise its voice, as the chair should do?

Likewise, when a country contests OSCE election findings, the chair's response needs to be clear. This subject is of particular relevance because the body's well-regarded election monitoring efforts are under increasing pressure from Russia and other authoritarian states that have crushed independent election monitoring at home and now apparently want to limit international scrutiny.

Kazakhstan has an abysmal record on human rights and has never held an election that met international standards. President Nursultan Nazarbayev, already in office for 17 years, just signed legislation that paves the way for him to remain in power for life. How can such a country be a credible voice on these issues?

Given the country's clear democratic shortcomings, there have been diplomatic efforts to postpone a possible Kazakh chairmanship. Under one scenario, it would be delayed until 2011, with certain conditions attached to ensure that the Kazakh authorities advance needed democratic reforms.

Yet Kazakhstan, with Russia's backing, has kept its eye on 2009. The reasons for Kazakhstan's persistence are the election calendar in some key states and the structure of the OSCE chairmanship, in which the outgoing and incoming chairmen assist the current chair. Therefore, Kazakhstan would play an influential OSCE role in 2008, 2009 and 2010, including monitoring of elections. Not coincidentally, during this time elections are anticipated in Kazakhstan itself, as well as Belarus, Russia and Ukraine.

Giving the OSCE chairmanship to Kazakhstan now would be the path of least resistance but come at a high price. The outcome of this contest will signal whether the democratic states within the OSCE membership will defend or surrender its democratic standards.

Mr. Walker is director of studies at Freedom House.

from the Telegraph, 2007-Jul-19:

Nelson Mandela launches Elders to save world

Greeted by a 30-strong choir and hailed by a line-up of fellow elder statesmen eager to embrace him, Nelson Mandela celebrated his 89th birthday yesterday with a new initiative demonstrating the moral authority he still carries deep into his retirement. Global Elders [from left]: Peter Gabriel, Muhammad Yunus, Mary Robinson, Kofi Annan, Nelson Mandela, Jimmy Carter, Archbishop Desmond Tutu and Sir Richard Branson

The former South African president will be the leading figure in the "Global Elders", a group of "12 wise men and women" who will address global problems by offering expertise and guidance.

A frail yet still magnetic figure, Mr Mandela was greeted in Johannesburg at South Africa's Constitutional Court - where he was once held prisoner - by a choir that sang his praises before he outlined the Elders' objectives.

"The Elders can become a fiercely independent and robust force for good, tackling conflicts and intractable issues, especially those that are not popular," said Mr Mandela.

The group will "speak freely and boldly, working both publicly and behind the scenes, working wherever our help is needed".

He added: "This group derives its strength not from military, political or economic power, but from the independence and integrity of those who are here."

The club's members will comprise former presidents, elder statesmen, leaders and activists and probably five Nobel laureates.

There will eventually be 12 Global Elders - but the exact make-up of the group was in flux right up until yesterday's announcement.

As well as Mr Mandela and his wife, Graca Machel, the group comprises Desmond Tutu, the Anglican Archbishop Emeritus of Cape Town; Jimmy Carter, the former American president; Mary Robinson, the former Irish president; Kofi Annan, the former secretary general of the United Nations; and Muhammad Yunus, the Nobel laureate economist and founder of the Green Bank in Bangladesh, where he is known as "banker to the poor". All were at the launch in Johannesburg yesterday.

Li Zhaoxing, until two months ago the foreign minister of China, has also been invited to join, along with Ela Bhatt, the Indian activist and founder of a women's association. Gro Harlen Bruntland, formerly prime minister of Norway and director of the World Health Organisation, may also become a member.

An empty chair was set on stage yesterday and will be reserved at all Elders meetings for the Burmese opposition leader, Aung San Suu Kyi, who is now the prisoner of the military junta despite her victory in a democratic election in 1990.

The initiative was the brainchild of Sir Richard Branson and the musician Peter Gabriel. As long ago as 2001, they approached Mr Mandela to ask if he and his wife would lead the project.

Sir Richard, Gabriel, the United Nations Foundation and a number of private benefactors are funding the initiative. The Elders should meet twice a year and maintain regular contact via video conferencing.

Archbishop Tutu emphasised that much of their work is likely to take place behind closed doors. "There may be things we can accomplish because people have been able to use their persuasive abilities in confidence. One of the ways to be effective is that no one gets to know precisely what we have done," he said.

But if their work is in private, it will be hard to gauge the Elders' success or failure.

Sceptics ask whether a group of 12 ageing and largely retired figures can possibly exert real influence over the world's most intractable conflicts. Mr Mandela himself rarely leaves Johannesburg and has ceased giving regular speeches.

Instead, much will rest on his moral authority, as well as his ability to generate enthusiasm for tackling injustice and hardship.

"Together we will work to support courage where there is fear, foster agreement where there is conflict and inspire hope where there is despair," he said.

Mr Mandela also emphasised that he is now "trying to take my retirement seriously", and his role is likely to be symbolic and inspirational rather than practical.

Certainly there was little doubt yesterday just how inspiring a figure he remains. His colleagues among the Global Elders paid a series of warm, if sentimental, tributes to him.

Muhammad Yunus spoke of how being on the same platform as Mr Mandela was "the proudest day of my life", while Li Zhaoxing demonstrated a surprisingly poetic sensibility by turning to Mr Mandela and reciting the first verse of Shakespeare's 18th sonnet: "Shall I compare thee to a summer's day..."

But the last word went to Archbishop Tutu who, visibly moved as the frail figure of Mr Mandela was helped offstage, murmured rapturously into the microphone: "Isn't goodness beautiful?"

from the Wall Street Journal via OpinionJournal.com, 2007-Jul-20:

U.N. High Tech for Kim
Add Burma to the list of scandals.

The United Nations' Cash for Kim Jong Il scandal is now six months old, so it's a good time to assess progress, if that's the right word. The evidence of misdeeds at the U.N. Development Program in North Korea continues to mount, but there's still no "urgent" and "external" inquiry, as ordered by Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon in January.

Now the U.S. has uncovered evidence that in addition to transferring millions of dollars in cash that may have gone to help prop up Kim's grotesque regime, the UNDP also transferred dual-use technology. It did so without bothering to secure a U.S. export license and despite the fact that the Commerce Department had denied an earlier application for a license for technology for the same project. Our Melanie Kirkpatrick lays out the details nearby.

One of the striking features of Cash for Kim has been the response of the UNDP, which has obfuscated, denied and dissembled its way through the past half year. When the U.N. Board of Auditors issued a report confirming violations of U.N. rules at the UNDP's operations in North Korea, the agency brushed it off with an "everyone-does-it" defense. The technology transfers have been variously denied, minimized or deflected to others' shoulders.

The same modus operandi was on display in response to U.S. inquiries about the UNDP's operations in another Asian dictatorship--Burma, where the agency appears to be following the same practices that got it into trouble in North Korea. Inspection of projects is limited by the government and a percentage of U.N. outlays is required to be in foreign currency. Given what we've learned about North Korea, the U.S. is right to worry that UNDP aid--$107 million from 2002 to 2006--may have been diverted to the regime.

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The UNDP has responded with its usual transparency. While deigning to release the information that it has conducted two internal audits of the Burma program in the past decade, it won't give the U.S. access to the audits or let it review the line-by-line details of the budgets. This is the equivalent of a CEO refusing to let a member of his board of directors see the company's financials--and is hardly the way to treat the country that has donated $1.2 billion to the agency over the past decade. In addition, there has been no external audit of the Burma program for more than 10 years.

Meanwhile, the Board of Auditors' examination of the UNDP's North Korea operations is about to enter a new phase. Deputy Secretary-General Asha-Rose Migiro wrote to the General Assembly's budget committee on June 19, announcing that "it is the wish of the Secretary-General" for the Board of Auditors to undertake "the necessary visit to" North Korea.

Good luck. Pyongyang has already refused once to let in the auditors, so it'll be interesting to see how it welcomes any new request. In any event, Philippe Seguin, the French chairman of the Board of Auditors, says the board "cannot serve in an investigatory capacity," as he put it in a June 29 letter to the budget committee.

As we learned from the multibillion-dollar Oil for Food scandal, the U.N. is not good at policing itself. The only way to get to the bottom of Cash for Kim is through an independent investigatory panel along the lines of the one run by former Federal Reserve Chairman Paul Volcker that opened up Oil for Food. The U.S. has been pressing for this for months. It's past time.

from the Washington Post, 2007-Aug-21, p.A12, by Colum Lynch:

Reprisal Indicated In a U.N. Program
Agency Rebuffs Whistle-Blower Inquiry

UNITED NATIONS, Aug. 20 -- The top U.N. ethics official has found preliminary evidence that the U.N. Development Program retaliated against an employee who exposed abuse and rules violations in the agency's programs in North Korea.

But the UNDP has refused a request from the ethics chief, Robert Benson, to submit to a formal investigation, saying it would appoint its own independent investigator. Benson's findings, detailed in a confidential letter obtained by The Washington Post, dealt a blow to the United Nations' top development agency, which has long said that the subject of Benson's inquiry, Albanian national Artjon Shkurtaj, is not a whistle-blower.

Shkurtaj, who previously served in North Korea, said that he had worked for the United Nations since 1994 and that he was forced out after raising concerns about UNDP violations of its rules prohibiting the payment of local workers in foreign currency and the existence of $3,500 in counterfeit U.S. currency in a UNDP safe. The UNDP says that Shkurtaj is a U.N. consultant, not a staff employee, and that the agency declined to renew his contract after it expired in March.

"I noticed significant problems with how UNDP worked in that country," Shkurtaj said Monday. "I alerted my chain of command of violations of U.N. rules, but they did nothing. I used the provisions of the U.N. whistle-blower protection policy and went to the outside to report these problems. UNDP retaliated against me for being a whistle-blower."

Shkurtaj said he took his concerns to U.S. officials and the news media after the UNDP did not act. But UNDP officials have questioned his credibility in discussions with U.S. government officials and with the media. They have denied that he alerted his bosses to the presence of counterfeit cash.

But he has received strong backing from the Bush administration and congressional Republicans, who have called on U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki Moon to shield Shkurtaj from retaliation.

The creation of a whistle-blower protection policy in the U.N. secretariat nearly two years ago was hailed as a landmark in international accountability. But the Washington-based Government Accountability Project -- which once praised the U.N. policy -- said the UNDP's action exposed a flaw in the policy: It applies only to employees directly under the secretary general, so several U.N. programs can opt out.

"It really doesn't look good," said Beatrice Edwards, GAP's international program director. "The simplest good faith thing to do is to apply the policy across the board."

The UNDP's stance, meanwhile, dealt a setback to Ban's efforts to extend whistle-blower protections to all U.N. employees. It also underscored the limits of the U.N. chief's power to impose changes in a system made up of several quasi-independent relief and development agencies, including the UNDP.

Benson conceded that his office has no formal jurisdiction over various U.N. funds and agencies, including the UNDP. But he appealed to the UNDP administrator, Kemal Dervis, to allow the investigation to go forward because the UNDP has inadequate whistle-blower protections. "I believe it would be in the best interests of the United Nations and UNDP to do so," Benson wrote in a confidential Aug. 17 letter to Dervis.

But the UNDP said that the U.N. Board of Auditors is already examining its North Korea program and that it is seeking to appoint an independent team or individual to look into Shkurtaj's allegations. "Having multiple processes reviewing related or identical issues would not be the most effective way to achieve closure of this matter," said Christina LoNigro, a spokeswoman for the UNDP.

from the Washington Times, 2007-Jun-19, by Jerry Seper:

Illegals light border fires to sidetrack U.S. agents

U.S. Border Patrol agents seeking to secure the nation's border in some of the country's most pristine national forests are being targeted by illegal aliens, who are using intentionally set fires to burn agents out of observation posts and patrol routes.

The wildfires have destroyed valuable natural and cultural resources in the National Forest System and pose an ongoing threat to visitors, residents and responding firefighters, according to federal law-enforcement authorities and others.

In the Coronado National Forest in Arizona, with 60 miles of land along the U.S.-Mexico border, U.S. Forest Service firefighters sent in to battle fires or clear wild-land fire areas are required to be escorted by armed law-enforcement officers.

Armed smugglers of aliens and drugs have walked through the middle of active firefighting operations, the authorities said.

The Border Patrol"s Tucson, Ariz., sector, which encompasses most of the Coronado National Forest, has the highest incidence of cross-border violators in the nation. Nearly 500,000 illegal aliens were apprehended last year — more than 30,000 a month. In addition, nearly 100,000 pounds of marijuana, with a street value of $200 million, was seized as it was hauled through the Coronado National Forest.

Last month, the Border Patrol — in a single operation targeting illegal aliens causing what Forest Service officials called "significant damage" to the Coronado National Forest — apprehended more than 300 illegals along just a three-mile section of U.S.-Mexico border in Arizona and confiscated 600 pounds of marijuana in a 10-day period.

At least five fires were set below a Border Patrol observation post during the operation in an effort to burn the agents out, according to a Forest Service report. The fires were extinguished, and no one was arrested.

Wildfires are being set by alien and drug smugglers, authorities said, to create a diversion in an attempt to gain undetected access across the border. The fires correspond to a dramatic rise in assaults against Border Patrol agents — up more than 100 percent over last year.

"Criminal activity by both illegal immigrants and citizens in forests near the border is a threat to members of the public trying to use their public lands and to our employees trying to manage these lands," Tina J. Terrell, a Forest Service supervisor told a House Appropriations subcommittee last month.

She said law-enforcement personnel have been assaulted, threatened with weapons and shot at, and their vehicles have been rammed by cross-border violators. Because of the remoteness of the area, she said, timely assistance from other law-enforcement agencies is not always possible, and communications limitations and active interference with radio frequencies in Mexico create additional safety risks.

"Even normal enforcement duties bring our officers in regular contact with cross-border violators," she said. "Our officers risk their lives every day to enforce the law in these remote federally managed lands."

The Coronado National Forest is not the only area along the border being targeted for wildfires. Other blazes also have been set, including two this month near the San Luis, Ariz., port of entry as the result of Molotov cocktails — one of which barely missed a Border Patrol agent.

Authorities said agents are being targeted by illegal aliens and their smugglers for rock attacks — including grapefruit-size rocks wrapped in rags, dipped in gasoline and set on fire.

"As larger areas of the border come under operational control, we can expect violence to increase as smuggling operations can no longer operate with impunity and do not have unfettered access to the border for their criminal activities," Border Patrol Chief David V. Aguilar told a Homeland Security subcommittee this year.

"This explosion of aggression is an indicator how desperate and angry drug and human traffickers are at the increasing disruption of their smuggling routes," he said.

from the Wall Street Journal via OpinionJournal.com, 2007-May-9:

Axis of Soros
The men and motives behind the World Bank coup attempt.

Mark Malloch Brown spoke Monday to a crowded auditorium at the World Bank's headquarters, warning that the bank's mission was "hugely at risk" as long as Paul Wolfowitz remained its president. Only hours earlier, news leaked that a special committee investigating Mr. Wolfowitz had accused him of violating conflict-of-interest rules. A coincidence? We doubt it.

Mr. Malloch Brown, remember, was until last year Kofi Annan's deputy at the United Nations. In that position, he distinguished himself by spinning away the $100 billion Oil for Food scandal as little more than a blip in the U.N.'s good work, and one that had little to do with Mr. Annan himself. Last week, Mr. Malloch Brown was named vice president of the Quantum Fund, the hedge fund run by his billionaire friend George Soros. A former World Bank official himself and ally of soon-to-be British Prime Minister Gordon Brown, Mr. Malloch Brown would almost surely be a leading candidate to replace Mr. Wolfowitz should he step down. Not surprisingly, Gordon Brown cold-shouldered Mr. Wolfowitz at a recent meeting in Brussels.

The bank presidency would be a neat coup for Sir Mark, and not just because the post has heretofore gone to an American. He also stands for everything Mr. Wolfowitz opposes, beginning with the issue of corruption. Consider Mr. Malloch Brown's defense of the U.N.'s procurement practices.

"Not a penny was lost from the organization," he insisted last year, following an audit of the U.N.'s peacekeeping procurement by its Office of Internal Oversight Services. In fact, the office found that $7 million had been lost from overpayment; $50 million worth of contracts showed indications of bid rigging; $61 million had bypassed U.N. rules; $82 million had been lost to mismanagement; and $110 million had "insufficient" justification. That's $310 million out of a budget of $1.6 billion, and who knows what the auditors missed.

Mr. Malloch Brown also made curious use of English by insisting that Paul Volcker's investigation into Oil for Food had "fully exonerated" Mr. Annan. In fact, Mr. Volcker's report made an "adverse finding" against the then-Secretary-General. Among other details, the final report noted that Mr. Annan was "aware of [Saddam's] kickback scheme at least as early as February 2001," yet never reported it to the U.N. Security Council, much less the public, a clear breach of his fiduciary responsibilities as the U.N.'s chief administrative officer. Mr. Malloch Brown described the idea that Mr. Annan might resign as "inappropriate political assassination"--a standard he apparently doesn't apply to political enemies like Mr. Wolfowitz.

Mr. Malloch Brown never made any serious attempt to reform the U.N. beyond the cosmetic, while doing everything he could to block the real reforms proposed by Americans Christopher Burnham and former Ambassador John Bolton. He was, however, energetic when it came to lecturing Americans about what they owed the U.N., such as joining the "reformed" Human Rights Council (whose only achievement to date has been to castigate Israel), pursuing a "new multilateral national security," and otherwise empowering the likes of Mr. Malloch Brown, his multilateral mates and their tax-free salaries.

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Views like these help explain why Mr. Malloch Brown is in such favor with Mr. Soros, who has publicly suggested the U.S. will need a "de-Nazification" program to erase the taint of the Bush Administration. So close are the two that Mr. Malloch Brown lives in a suburban New York home owned by Mr. Soros. Mr. Malloch Brown says he pays market rent, though reporting by the New York Sun's Benny Avni disputes that. In any case, it's safe to assume that Mr. Soros's widely published views are close to Mr. Malloch Brown's somewhat more guarded ones.

So it's not surprising that many on the World Bank staff would cheer Mr. Malloch Brown: He's perfect for an institutional culture in which "progressive" thinking goes hand-in-glove with a tolerance for corruption. That culture has been on vivid display in the Euro-coup against Mr. Wolfowitz. This weekend the committee investigating the claims dropped 600 pages in the president's lap and told him he had 48 hours to respond--in direct violation of World Bank staff rule 8.01, 4.09, which states that "the amount of time allowed a staff member to comment [on an investigative report] . . . will not be less than 5 business days." Following protests from Mr. Wolfowitz's lawyer, the committee gave him 72 hours.

This is the same kangaroo court that last month leaked its guilty verdict to the Washington Post before Mr. Wolfowitz even had a chance to plead his case. Our sources who have seen the committee's report tell us it is especially critical of Mr. Wolfowitz for daring to object publicly to the committee's methods and thereby bringing the bank's name into disrepute. The Europeans running this Red Queen proceeding prefer that they be able to smear with selective leaks without rebuttal.

Mr. Malloch Brown warned on Monday that, if Mr. Wolfowitz stayed as president, European countries might withhold funding from the next financing round for the bank's International Development Association. We hope he's right, though we know few European finance ministers who aren't eager to throw good money after bad. Still, it's a remarkable bit of chutzpah for the man who downplayed corruption at the U.N. to seek the ouster of the man who has fought to reduce corruption at the World Bank.

If the Bush Administration now abandons Mr. Wolfowitz as he faces a decision from the bank's board of governors, it will not only betray a friend but hand the biggest victory yet to its audacious enemies in the George Soros axis.

from the Wall Street Journal via OpinionJournal.com, 2007-Apr-30:

Dutch Rub-Out
Wolfowitz and the World Bank's Euro-cabal.

World Bank President Paul Wolfowitz faces an "ad hoc committee" investigating his alleged ethics violations today, but it seems the committee has reached its conclusions even before he has a chance to defend himself. This fits the pattern of what is ever more clearly a Euro-railroad job.

On Saturday, the Washington Post cited "three senior bank officials" as saying that the committee has "nearly completed a report" concluding that Mr. Wolfowitz "breached ethics rules when he engineered a pay raise for his girlfriend." The Post also reported that, "According to bank officials, the timing of the committee's report and its conclusions have been choreographed for maximum impact in what has become a full-blown campaign to persuade Wolfowitz to go." So there it is from the plotters themselves: Verdict first, trial later.

None of this is surprising when you consider that the "ad hoc committee" is dominated by Europeans who have been leading the campaign to oust Mr. Wolfowitz. Four of the committee's seven members are European, including its Dutch chairman, a Frenchman, Norwegian and Russian. The others hail from Ethiopia, Mexico and China, but the Europeans have the majority and are running this railroad.

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The "ad hoc" chairman is Herman Wijffels, a Dutch politician who has his own blatant conflict of interest in the case. One of the main "witnesses" against Mr. Wolfowitz is Ad Melkert, another Dutch politician who had previously run the bank board's ethics committee that advised Mr. Wolfowitz to give the raise to his girlfriend that is now the basis for the accusations against him. Whom do you think Mr. Wijfells is going to side with: His fellow countryman, or an American reviled in Europe for wanting to depose Saddam Hussein?

Mr. Melkert has played an especially craven role by running from his own responsibility in the case. As head of the ethics committee in 2005, he refused to let Mr. Wolfowitz recuse himself from dealings with Shaha Riza, who had been long employed at the bank. Then Mr. Melkert advised him to ensure that Ms. Riza got a new job that included some kind of raise or promotion to compensate for the disruption to her career. Now, however, Mr. Melkert claims he was an innocent bystander who knew nothing about Ms. Riza's raise.

How very European. This is the same Ad Melkert, who on October 24, 2005, after Ms. Riza had been told of her new job and salary, wrote in a letter to Mr. Wolfowitz that "Because the outcome is consistent with the [Ethics] Committee's findings and advice above, the Committee concurs with your view that this matter can be treated as closed."

And it is the same Ad Melkert who absolved Mr. Wolfowitz after inspecting two whistleblower emails from an anonymous "John Smith" that circulated around the bank in early 2006 and charged malfeasance. A January 21 whistleblower email included a reference to Ms. Riza's "salary increase of around US$50,000" and was sent to the entire bank board.

On February 28, 2006, Mr. Melkert wrote to Mr. Wolfowitz, saying that he and the ethics committee had "reviewed two emails from 'John Smith'" as well as relevant "background documents." He went on to write that "On the basis of a careful review of the above-mentioned documents . . . the allegations relating to a matter which had been previously considered by the Committee did not contain new information warranting any further review by the Committee."

Either Mr. Melkert is lying now, or he was negligent when he wrote that letter. But there's no excuse for his current Sgt. Schultz routine from "Hogan's Heroes" that "I know nothing. Nothing!" Mr. Wijffels succeeded Mr. Melkert as the Dutch representative on the bank board, so he has a clear conflict of interest in judging his countryman's abdication. He also has a conflict because he's in a position to protect fellow board members who were also alerted to Ms. Riza's salary by the whistleblower email. Mr. Wijffels should resign from the ad hoc committee and be replaced by someone from outside the bank's Euro-cabal.

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By the way, today's "ad hoc" bank meeting is designed to coincide with President Bush's summit with European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso and German Chancellor Angela Merkel, whose bank representative is among the anti-Wolfowitz ringleaders. The hope among the Euro-plotters is that Mr. Bush will bow to the European leaders on Mr. Wolfowitz in return for some other policy concession, and thus encourage him to resign. That would spare the Europeans a difficult bank vote. But it would only make Mr. Bush look even weaker than he already is if another of his appointees can be run out of town on a phony scandal.

Ms. Riza will also get her first hearing today in this kangaroo court, and she ought to blast them for the way the bank has violated its own rules in leaking details of her salary and damaged her career--all in the name of preventing a "conflict" that was no fault of her own. The real disgrace here isn't Mr. Wolfowitz or Ms. Riza but the bank itself and its self-protecting staff and European directors. Their only "ethic" is to oust an American reformer so they can get back to running the foreign aid status quo.

from the Wall Street Journal via OpinionJournal.com, 2007-Apr-15:

World Bank Power Play
The bureaucracy bites back at Paul Wolfowitz.

When Paul Wolfowitz became President of the World Bank in 2005, our private prediction was that it would take about a year before the bureaucratic interests at the bank and in the global "development" industry made a play to oust him. We were off by a few months.

The forces of the World Bank status quo are now making their power play, demanding that the bank's board ask him to resign over an ethics flap involving his girlfriend. The dispute is so trivial that it betrays that this fracas has little to do with Mr. Wolfowitz's ethics. The real fight here is over his attempt to make the bank and its borrowers more accountable for results, especially by exposing and punishing corruption.

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Given his role in the Bush Administration, Mr. Wolfowitz was never going to have an easy time of it at an "international" institution as hide-bound as the World Bank. Its employees make tax-free salaries far larger than most would make at home, or in the private sector. For decades they have been measured not by how much poverty they alleviate, but by how much "lending" they shovel out the door.

Mr. Wolfowitz has tried to institute more accountability, especially on corruption. Who could be against fighting corruption? Well, for starters, a global poverty industry that thinks "governance" is a distraction from the only real measure of development, which is how much money "rich" nations choose to redistribute to poor ones. Never mind that many of these countries stay poor year after year precisely because they squander or steal foreign aid. "Governance" ought to be a crucial lending criterion, but in trying to make it so Mr. Wolfowitz is bucking decades of old thinking.

His opponents tried to rein in his corruption initiative by demanding a probe of the integrity department that was formed under previous bank President James Wolfensohn. But that effort failed when Mr. Wolfowitz won a fight in the board and put Paul Volcker, the former Federal Reserve Chairman, in charge of the probe. Mr. Volcker is if anything more of an anti-corruption crusader than Mr. Wolfowitz.

So now his enemies have turned to "ethics," specifically Mr. Wolfowitz's allegedly improper assistance to his girlfriend, Shaha Riza, who already worked at the bank when he became President. The notion of any "cover-up" here is preposterous since Mr. Wolfowitz disclosed his relationship with Ms. Riza while negotiating his employment contract.

He offered to recuse himself from any decision involving her career, and the matter was taken up by a three-person ethics committee of the 24-member bank board. That ethics committee concluded that the relationship constituted a de facto conflict of interest, and so Ms. Riza would have to leave the bank.

Keep in mind that Ms. Riza's job at the time was acting manager for external affairs in the Middle East department of the bank. She reported to a deputy vice president, who reported to a vice president, who reported to a managing director, who in turn reported to Mr. Wolfowitz. That's one very long chain of command for a "conflict of interest," especially in the modern workplace where romantic relationships are common.

But the ethics committee advised Mr. Wolfowitz that Ms. Riza had to find some other job, and that he had to be the one to see that it got done. The allegation is that Mr. Wolfowitz proceeded to get her a job affiliated with the State Department and pad her pay. But the reality is that the "conflict of interest" judgment by the board effectively ended her World Bank career, and as such she would likely have been entitled to a substantial lump sum payment as a settlement. She might very well have had cause to sue the bank, because the "conflict of interest" was hardly her creation.

The raise in pay was intended as an alternative to compensate Ms. Riza for her lost future earnings and prospects at the bank, and to do so without giving her cause for suing the bank for wrongful dismissal. And, by the way, her current job is not some make-work exercise but is a serious project promoting democracy in the Middle East.

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In retrospect, Mr. Wolfowitz should have insisted to the board that he have nothing to do with any of this. He should have known that his enemies would find some way to use it against him.

But the calls that he resign because he can no longer credibly speak out about "governance" are being made by the same people who wink at corruption-as-usual in World Bank lending. Others hoping he'll be forced out include Europeans who'd like nothing better than to finally get one of their own into a post that has traditionally gone to an American. (Europe typically gets the top IMF job.) It's also no accident that all of this leaked to the media shortly before the World Bank-IMF meetings in Washington this weekend. The point is to subject Mr. Wolfowitz and Ms. Riza to a public trial by innuendo.

Mr. Wolfowitz issued a statement last week apologizing for his "mistake" in judgment and saying he'll live by any decision by the board. Our view is that if Mr. Wolfowitz is forced to resign, then the entire World Bank board should also resign for its role in this mini-flap--and for letting such ethical minutiae interfere with the serious cause of reducing corruption so the World Bank can do some good for a change.

from the Wall Street Journal via OpinionJournal.com, 2007-Apr-27:

Africans for Wolfowitz
Third World reformers resist a coup by rich Europeans.

One of the most revealing subplots in the European coup attempt against World Bank President Paul Wolfowitz is who is coming to the American's defense. The rich European donor countries want him to resign, while the Africans who are the bank's major clients are encouraging him to stay.

You wouldn't know this from the press coverage, which continues to report selective leaks from the bank staff and European sources who started this political putsch. The latest "news" is that the European Parliament has asked Mr. Wolfowitz to resign, thus sustaining that body's reputation for irrelevant but politically correct gestures. If Mr. Wolfowitz leaves, no doubt some of the europols will angle for the job.

The more telling story is the support for the bank president from reform-minded Africans. At a press conference during this month's World Bank-IMF meetings in Washington, four of the more progressive African finance ministers were asked about the Wolfowitz flap. Here's how Antoinette Sayeh, Liberia's finance minister, responded:

"I would say that Wolfowitz's performance over the last several years and his leadership on African issues should certainly feature prominently in the discussions . . . . In the Liberian case and the case of many forgotten post-conflict fragile countries, he has been a visionary. He has been absolutely supportive, responsive, there for us . . . . We think that he has done a lot to bring Africa in general . . . into the limelight and has certainly championed our cause over the last two years of his leadership, and we look forward to it continuing."

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The deputy prime minister for Mauritius, Rama Krishna Sithanen, then piped in that "he has been supportive of reforms in our country . . . . We think that he has done a good job. More specifically, he has apologized for what has happened."

Sub-Saharan Africa is the world's poorest region, and Mr. Wolfowitz has appropriately made it his top priority. On his first day on the job, he met with a large group of African ambassadors and advocates. His first trip as bank president was a swing through Burkina Faso, Nigeria, Rwanda and South Africa. He also recruited two African-born women vice presidents, a rarity at the bank.

If you're surprised by that last fact, then you don't appreciate that the World Bank has always been a sinecure for developed-world politicians. They get handsome salaries, tax free, and their performance is measured not by how much poverty they cure but by how much money they disperse.

Mr. Wolfowitz has upset this sweetheart status quo by focusing more on results, and especially on the corruption that undermines development and squanders foreign aid. Yet many of the poor countries themselves welcome such intervention. At the same April 14 press conference, Zambian Finance Minister N'Gandu Peter Magande endorsed the anticorruption agenda:

"We should keep positive that whatever happens to the president, if, for example, he was to leave, I think whoever comes, we insist that he continues where we have been left, in particular on this issue of anticorruption. That is a cancer that has seen quite a lot of our countries lose development and has seen the poverty continuing in our countries. And therefore . . . we want to live up to what [Wolfowitz] made us believe" that "it is important for ourselves to keep to those high standards."

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The real World Bank scandal is that Mr. Wolfowitz's enemies don't care much about Africa. The French and Brits who want him ousted have never entirely shaken the paternalism they developed during the colonial era. Their real priority is controlling the bank purse-strings and perquisites.

As for the coup attempt, Mr. Wolfowitz's fate now rests with the 24-member bank board. Europeans dominate, while we saw only two Africans listed on the bank's Web site. These profiles in buck-passing have asked Mr. Wolfowitz to meet with them on Monday; his lawyer can join him but won't be allowed to speak.

The noisy leaking and staff protests are aimed at getting Mr. Wolfowitz to make their life easy by resigning. But that would only validate their campaign to oust him for giving his girlfriend a raise that the bank's own ethics committee advised him to deliver after he had tried to recuse himself. Since our editorial reported on all of these "ethics" details two weeks ago, no one has even tried to dispute our facts. The critics have shifted to a new line that, because his "credibility" has been damaged by these selective smears, Mr. Wolfowitz must now resign "for the good of the bank."

Let's hope the White House doesn't fall for this rot, and, by the way, it's about time Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson spent some of his political capital and defended Mr. Wolfowitz. He'd be in good company among Africa's progressive leaders.

from the Wall Street Journal via OpinionJournal.com, 2007-Apr-24, by Bret Stephens:

A Tale of Two Scandals
"Full confidence" for an EU official despite a romp on a nude beach with an employee.

Imagine that a top civil servant at a major multinational institution arranges a job for a fortysomething female colleague that comes with a $45,000 raise and brings her yearly salary to about $190,000, tax free. Now imagine that the couple has been photographed at a nudist beach--him wearing nothing but a baseball cap.

The latest sordid twist in l'affaire Wolfowitz? Not at all. This is the story of Günter Verheugen, first vice president of the European Commission in Brussels. In its contrasts and similarities with the "scandal" now absorbing the World Bank and its president, it offers timely instruction on the nature and power of modern bureaucracies.

In April, Mr. Verheugen, a former German parliamentarian for the Social Democrats, appointed economist Petra Erler as his chief of staff. In August, the couple was spotted au naturel on a Baltic shore. Mr. Verheugen--who also has a wife--has dismissed allegations of impropriety as "pure slander" and asked the German newsweekly Der Spiegel whether "two adults [can't] do as they wish in their private lives?"

In fact, they can't: The EU Commission's Code of Conduct, which he helped draft, observes that "in their official and private lives Commissioners should behave in a manner that is in keeping with the dignity of their office. Ruling out all risks of a conflict of interest helps guarantee their independence."

Don't think, however, that the commissioner is out on his ear: German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier defends him as "an irreplaceable Brussels heavyweight," while Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso says Mr. Verheugen has his "full confidence." That's more support than Mr. Wolfowitz will ever get from his European friends, who are clucking noisily about the need for the World Bank to preserve its "credibility" and for its president to be "beyond reproach." (It's also more than he's getting from the Bush administration, which is offering token words of support while quietly shopping former Afghan Finance Minister Ashraf Ghani as a potential successor.)

---

But this isn't just a story of European hypocrisy (an old story). Like Mr. Wolfowitz, Mr. Verheugen is a man of major prior accomplishments--in his case, engineering the enlargement of the European Union to 25 from 15 member states. Also like Mr. Wolfowitz, Mr. Verheugen came to his current job pledging to make war on the methods of his own bureaucracy. "The idea is that the role of the commission is to keep the machinery running and the machinery is producing laws," he said last October. "And that's exactly what I want to change."

The machinery had a different idea. Mr. Verheugen announced plans in 2005 to do away with scores of economically burdensome and antiquated regulations, which he thought could help lift economic growth. When his efforts went nowhere, he gave an interview to the press blaming the failure on the opposition he'd encountered within the Brussels bureaucracy. The Commission's staff union reacted predictably, by calling on him to apologize and suggesting he resign. Not coincidentally, it was around the same time that stories of his special relationship with Ms. Erler, and of her new job, came to the attention of the press and the public.

Now consider the Wolfowitz saga. Superficially, the similarities with Mr. Verheugen rest with the details of their respective scandals: a close lady friend on staff, a suspiciously generous pay raise, allegations of nepotism and conflicts of interest.

But aside from the facts that Mr. Wolfowitz is unmarried and prefers his clothes on, the substance of the cases could not be more different. Mr. Verheugen seems to have obscured the nature of his relationship with Ms. Erler; Mr. Wolfowitz acknowledged his relationship with Shaha Riza before he took the job as Bank president. Mr. Verheugen sought to use the power of his office to bring Ms. Erler nearer to him; Mr. Wolfowitz sought to use the power of his to move Ms. Riza away. Ms. Erler moved into a better job; Ms. Riza was forced into a lesser one. Mr. Verheugen ignored his own code of conduct; Mr. Wolfowitz followed the instructions of his ethics committee, whose chairman later praised him for acting in a "constructive spirit."

What the Wolfowitz scandal comes down to, then, is that he gave Ms. Riza a fat raise after the Bank's board agreed that she deserved compensation for losing her job. This is where the bureaucracy comes in and the real similarities with the Verheugen case begin.

When Mr. Wolfowitz arrived at the World Bank in 2005, it was to an institution ideologically committed to seeing him fail. When he announced that he would make the fight against corruption his signature issue, the ideological opposition became institutional as well. As development economist William Easterly observes, for the World Bank "priority No. 1 is to get the money out the door. When you introduce a wild card like cutting off corrupt governments, you threaten the loan-pushing culture."

Since then, it's been a steady dribble of leaks about Mr. Wolfowitz's every misstep and perceived wrongdoing, most of them to the suggestible Financial Times. The operative theory here, says former Bush administration diplomat Otto Reich, is that if you throw enough mud at a man "the stain will remain even if none of the mud sticks." That's just what has happened in the campaign at the World Bank: Having doused Mr. Wolfowitz in skunk juices, the critics can now say, with justice, that he stinks.

---

This isn't to say that Mr. Wolfowitz's tenure at the World Bank has been without disappointments: Mr. Easterly faults him for indulging utopian ambitions for what the Bank can do to alleviate poverty and promote democracy.

But that can't possibly justify the furies that have now descended on Mr. Wolfowitz. Like Mr. Verheugen, he sought to use his office to change an organization he thought--mistakenly, as it turns out--that he ran. Unlike Mr. Verheugen, he never really did anything improper. That he is now on the firing line while Mr. Verheugen is not is a point worth noting. That both men, despite the great differences between them, have been thwarted by their bureaucracies should be a reminder to everyone that the government of mandarins is more than just a danger to interloping neocons.

Mr. Stephens is a member of The Wall Street Journal's editorial board. His column appears in the Journal Tuesdays.

from the Washington Times, 2007-Apr-5, by S.A. Miller with Stephen Dinan contributing:

Low-skilled aliens exact a burden

Immigration reforms that increase the number of low-skilled workers entering the United States threaten to impose a high cost on taxpayers, says a study being released today.

The Heritage Foundation report calculates that for every $1 unskilled workers pay in taxes they receive about $3 in government benefits, including Medicaid, food stamps, public housing and other welfare programs.

It should serve as a warning to President Bush and lawmakers proposing to give illegal aliens a so-called path to citizenship or what critics call amnesty, said Rep. Lamar Smith of Texas, ranking Republican on the Judiciary Committee, which handles immigration bills.

"We need to make sure any legislation does not further strain government services and taxpayers' wallets," said Mr. Smith, who will make public the report for the conservative Washington think tank today.

The report on low-skilled workers, who are defined as those without a high school diploma, did not focus on immigrants, but its authors say 25 percent of legal immigrants and 50 percent of illegal aliens fall into the category. About 9 percent of native-born Americans lack a high school diploma.

Using data from 2004, the report shows the average household headed by a low-skilled worker paid $9,689 in taxes but received $32,138 in benefits a year. The more than $22,000 difference is the "tax burden" which rises to $1.1 million over the worker's lifetime.

Mr. Bush has called for legalizing the estimated 12 million to 20 million illegal aliens in the United States, and for a new program to allow more foreign workers in the future.

He faces opposition from many congressional Republicans who say allowing illegal aliens to remain amounts to amnesty. They also want Mr. Bush to focus on better immigration enforcement before beginning a new guest-worker program.

Chief among the critics is Rep. Brian P. Bilbray, chairman of the Immigration Reform Caucus, who hailed the study.

"The Heritage Foundation report proves what we already know, that illegal immigration is a drain to the American people," the California Republican said. "At more than $22,000 a year, it's like having the American taxpayers buy everyone who doesn't have a high school diploma a brand new Ford Mustang convertible."

Eric Rodriguez, deputy vice president of the National Council of La Raza, the country's largest Hispanic civil rights organization, said studies frequently overlook significant contributions immigrants make to the economy.

"A lot of the more recent studies we've seen show that more undocumented workers are contributing to Social Security and they will never be eligible for Social Security benefits," Mr. Rodriguez said. "A lot of that tends not to be captured by these types of studies."

In 2004, according to the Heritage Foundation report, the country had 17.7 million low-skilled households that together cost taxpayers $397 billion that year. Those households, without an influx of new unskilled workers, will cost at least $3.9 trillion over the next 10 years.

The Heritage Foundation plans to release a separate analysis focused solely on low-skilled immigrant households in the next few weeks.

from the Los Angeles Times, 2007-Feb-14, by E. Scott Reckard, David Streitfeld and Adrian G. Uribarri:

Banking on illegal immigrants
A move to issue credit cards to people without Social Security numbers draws anger and praise.

Bank of America said Tuesday that it was issuing credit cards to Spanish-speaking immigrants who may not have Social Security numbers, triggering complaints that the nation's largest retail bank is tacitly endorsing illegal immigration.

The bank described the program as a pilot, limited for now to 51 branches in Los Angeles County, and said it could go national this year.

The credit cards are not aimed specifically at illegal immigrants, a bank spokeswoman said, but instead people who lack solid credit histories. Even so, the bank was bombarded with angry phone calls.

On Capitol Hill, Rep. Tom Tancredo (R-Colo.) accused the lender of aiding terrorists, while the Department of Homeland Security worried that the program could be exploited by criminals.

"At face value the program seems to be problematic," said Russ Knocke, a department spokesman. "It seems to be lending itself to possibilities of perpetrating identity theft or creating more risk for money laundering."

The bank's program may be controversial, but it also vividly demonstrates that businesses view the country's estimated 12 million illegal immigrants not as lawbreakers but as customers.

Other major banks including Wells Fargo & Co. and Citibank have launched similar initiatives to gain customers in the burgeoning Latino community.

Wells Fargo began a pilot program last year in Los Angeles and Orange counties to offer home mortgages to immigrants who have lived in the United States for at least two years. The customers are allowed to identify themselves using taxpayer numbers issued by the Internal Revenue Service instead of Social Security numbers. That's the same type of identification number an immigrant can use to obtain a credit card under Bank of America's pilot program.

Wells Fargo may follow Bank of America's lead on credit cards.

"We are also looking at the possibility of offering unsecured credit cards to customers who may not have Social Security numbers," Wells Fargo spokeswoman Mary Trigg said.

Although important for all major banks, the immigrant market is especially key for Bank of America. Though now based in North Carolina, the bank, once headquartered in San Francisco, still has its largest retail operation in California, home to a huge Latino population.

"Bank of America is the biggest bank for Hispanics in the country, and it made a decision a couple of years ago to keep pushing that market," including buying a 25% stake in a Mexican bank, said Richard Bove, a banking analyst for investment firm Punk, Ziegel & Co.

The emphasis may pay off, but "the political backlash is going to be substantial," he said.

That prediction seemed to be borne out Tuesday, after the program was reported in the Wall Street Journal.

"It helps to further embed illegal immigrants into American society," said Steven Camarota, research director for the Center for Immigration Studies in Washington, which backs stricter enforcement of immigration laws. "It makes amnesty a fait accompli."

Tancredo said he sent a letter to U.S. Atty. Gen. Alberto R. Gonzales and Department of Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff asking them to look into the program.

"I hope the administration will shut down this reckless and illegal program before Bank of America extends a line of credit to a potential terrorist," said Tancredo, a hard- line foe of illegal immigration.

A Justice Department official declined to comment on the legality of the program.

Bank of America spokeswoman Alexandra C. Trower said the company complied fully with all banking and anti-terrorism laws governing customer identification, which she said permitted the use of taxpayer ID numbers instead of Social Security numbers.

Bank executives said participants needed another form of identification, such as ID cards issued by foreign consulates. Applicants must also have had a Bank of America checking account for at least three months.

William P. Cook, former general counsel of the U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service, said the bank's program was neither illegal nor problematic.

"It's sad that such a forward-thinking move is being mischaracterized as if it were an improper activity," said Cook, who is now in private practice.

There's a serious issue behind the flap, said Gordon H. Hanson, an economist and immigration expert at UC San Diego. The federal government has been stalemated on the immigration issue for years, abdicating its role in defining rights for 12 million people, and Bank of America moved into the breach, he said. It couldn't make immigrants citizens, but it could make them customers.

"Are we undermining civil society?" Hanson asked. "That's an entirely valid question."

Robert Gnaizda of the Greenlining Institute, which lobbies for improved financial services in low-income neighborhoods, called the program "excellent news."

Immigrants with scant credit histories can buy houses only with high-interest loans. Getting a bank card helps them establish their credit and qualify for better mortgage rates, he said.

Potential customers also liked the idea.

Lionel Archila, 51, is a Guatemala native who arrived in Los Angeles after a dozen years in Canada. A former accountant, he works odd jobs as a handyman and construction worker. He sometimes goes days without pay.

"It's magnificent from a financial point of view," Archila, waiting for a bus in downtown L.A., said about the prospect for getting a credit card. "But I would use it for my basic needs. I wouldn't get caught in the trap of buying the latest TV."

Roberto Flores, a 55-year-old Angeleno who moved to the United States from Michoacan, Mexico, in 1975, long ago got comfortable with credit accounts. He has at least two: one at La Curacao, a department store catering to Latinos, and another at Home Depot.

He said life without credit could be difficult for struggling immigrants.

"Anything helps," he said.

Despite Bank of America's compelling interest in Latino markets, it was arch-rival Wells Fargo that kicked off the competition in 2001, when it became the first U.S. bank to accept identification cards from Mexican consulates to open an account.

Since then, Wells has opened more than 1 million accounts for Mexicans using the consular card. It also accepts Guatemalan, Argentine and Colombian identity cards. The assumption is that most immigrants using the cards to identify themselves are here illegally, Wells Fargo spokeswoman Trigg said, but the bank doesn't ask.

Citibank already issues credit cards to some immigrants without Social Security numbers if they have taxpayer identification numbers, spokeswoman Janis Tarter said. The bank issues such cards under its own brand and the brand of its subsidiary, Banamex USA.

Citibank began issuing the cards nearly three years ago. Tarter said she couldn't recall anyone complaining.

from Bank of America, from http://www.bankofamerica.com/community/index.cfm?template=cdb_laraza :

National Council of La Raza

This alliance works to reduce poverty and discrimination and improve opportunities for Hispanic Americans.

Background

The National Council of La Raza (NCLR) was created in 1968 to reduce poverty and discrimination and improve opportunities for Hispanic Americans. The largest constituency-based Hispanic organization, NCLR has more than 270 affiliates in 40 states, Puerto Rico and the District of Columbia. This broad network of more than 30,000 groups and individuals nationwide reaches more than three and a half million Hispanics annually.

Our commitment to the Hope Fund

In 1999, Bank of America announced a 10-year, $20 million commitment to the National Council of La Raza Hope Fund, which includes

• A $7 million low-interest loan
• A $3 million equity investment
• $10 million in grants over ten years. The grant money will go to affiliates for development, research and counseling

Purpose

Our investment in the Hope Fund is a unique way for Bank of America to reach low- and moderate-income customers. Because these funds are distributed at the local level through NCLR's many affiliates, we know our investment supports projects that create the most impact in a community.

Results

Our participation in the Hope Fund provides Bank of America with strategic business opportunities to improve the neighborhoods where we live and work. As of mid-year 2002, 51 Hope Fund Loans have been approved.

from Bank of America, from http://phx.corporate-ir.net/phoenix.zhtml?c=71595&p=irol-govboard :

[...]

Directors

[...]

Monica C Lozano, (49)
Publisher and Chief Executive Officer of La Opinion

[...]

from La Opinión, from http://www.laopinion.com/corporate/company_information/management_bios/index.php?lang=en&x=1 :

Management

Publisher

Mónica C. Lozano

[... Lozano] serves on numerous non-profit boards including the National Council of La Raza and other local non-profit organizations.

from FrontPageMag.com, 2003-Sep-22, by David Orland (of Boundless.org):

The Road to Aztlan

Radical politics have been part of the game on American campuses since at least the mid-1960s but have recently taken a new and disturbing turn. At colleges and universities across the country, the Movimiento Estudiantil de Chicanos de Aztlan (The Student Movement of Aztlan Chicanos) — better known by its acronym, MEChA — is calling for the surrender of wide swaths of American territory to Mexico. Worse yet, in doing so, it has the support of university administrators, elected officials, and — thanks to the mandatory student activity fees on which the organization depends — tuition-paying students. ¹

Founded in the late 1960s, MEChA has spent the last three decades indoctrinating Latino students on American campuses in the ideology of reconquista (reconquest). According to MEChA propaganda, the Southwestern United States — including California, Arizona, Texas, New Mexico, as well as parts of Nevada, Utah, and Colorado — sits on the territory of the ancient (and mythical) “Nation of Aztlan.” Supposedly the cradle of Aztec civilization, MEChA charges that Aztlan was unjustly seized by the United States following the Mexican-American War. Now MEChA wants this territory given back to its alleged rightful owners: the people and government of Mexico.

As a matter of fact, the American Southwest was not, as MEChA claims, “stolen” from Mexico. Following the Mexican-American War, the government of Mexico legally ceded this territory to the United States (by the Treaty of Guadalupe de Hidalgo, 1848). Nor has there ever been any place called “Aztlan” on American soil, much less a “Nation of Aztlan.” Invented 30 years ago by radical Latino activists, the Nation of Atzlan has more in common with Atlantis than with Israel.

But MEChA is not a group to let facts get in the way. There are today more than 300 MEChA unions in existence, with more than 100 in California alone. While the group is concentrated in the Southwest and along the West Coast, it can also be found farther East: It's got chapters at MIT, Yale, Cornell, George Washington University, and Brown, among other East Coast universities. On the West Coast, where MEChA is to be found in nearly every institution of higher education, the movement is spreading so quickly that it has set its sights on the public school system, establishing high school chapters and encouraging its young supporters to participate in its numerous (and sometimes violent) protests and marches.

The revolution that MEChA plans for the American Southwest is to be a peaceful one — at least for the time being. By supporting continued high levels of Mexican immigration to the United States, MEChA hopes to achieve by sheer weight of numbers what the U.S. government long ago achieved by force of arms: the re-partition of the American Southwest. To this end, MEChA endorses a cocktail of pro-immigration policies. These include open borders, government benefits (including the right to vote and obtain drivers licenses) for non-citizens, amnesty for illegal aliens, dual citizenship, state recognition of Spanish as an official language, and racial set-asides in education and corporate hiring.

MEChA is hardly alone in promoting these policies. The National Council of La Raza and the Mexican-American Legal Defense and Education Fund (MALDEF), two of the better known Latino advocacy groups, also support them (as does Mexican President Vicente Fox). What distinguishes MEChA from its more mainstream counterparts, however, is its explicit and virulent calls for reconquest. While organizations like La Raza and MALDEF may harbor irredentist dreams, MEChA has made the reconquest of the American Southwest the central platform of its program.

As one of MEChA's founding documents, El Plan Espiritual de Aztlan (The Spiritual Plan of Atzlan) puts it: “In the spirit of a new people that is conscious not only of its proud historical heritage but also of the brutal `gringo' invasion of our territories, we, the Chicano inhabitants and civilizers of the northern land of Aztlan from whence came our forefathers, reclaiming the land of their birth and consecrating the determination of our people of the sun, declare that the call of our blood is our power, our responsibility, and our inevitable destiny.”

El Plan Espiritual is typical, not just for its atrocious prose, but also for its violent racial overtones. Indeed, to judge by the numerous Web sites and student publications sponsored by MEChA, life after the reconquest is going to be a pretty dreary affair. Just beneath the surface of the Marxist-inspired “union of free pueblos” imagined by MEChA visionaries runs a rich vein of race hatred and conspiratorial anti-Semitism. As an editorial addressed to “capitalist whites” in the University of California Irvine's La Voz Mestiza (The Mestiza Voice) concludes, “You've spilled enough of our blood, now it's your turn to bleed you [expletive] sub-human beasts.” Or, as one of MEChA's many charming slogans has it, “por la Raza todo; fuera la Raza nada”: for those of our race, everything; for those outside of it, nothing.

Such statements don't leave much to the imagination. In calling for the re-partition of the American Southwest, MEChA is not just seeking the overthrow of the American government but the overthrow of its people as well. Only in this way will it achieve “the bronze continent for the bronze people” of which it dreams. This is strong beer, indeed. As a number of recent cases indicated, however, MEChA is not just tolerated on our supposedly multicultural campuses. It is encouraged:

1) In 1995, the Voz Fronteriza, the University of California San Diego's (UCSD) official MEChA publication, ran an editorial on the death of a Latino INS agent. Describing him as a traitor to his race who deserved to die, the editors of the Voz concluded that “all the migra [a pejorative term for the Immigration and Naturalization Service] pigs should be killed, every single one.” In the controversy that followed, UCSD Vice Chancellor Joseph W. Watson defended the publication's right to free expression. Watson also refused to officially condemn the sentiments expressed in the Voz Fronteriza article, arguing that “the university is legally prohibited from censuring the contents of student publications.”

2) Late last year, two student reporters from the UCSD satiric publication, The Koala, attended and attempted to photograph an open meeting of MEChA. In response to complaints from MEChA, the UCSD administration charged them with violating the student code's catch-all prohibition on “obstruction or disruption of teaching, research, administration, disciplinary procedures, or other UCSD or University activities.” Watson — the same man who, six years earlier, had defended the Voz Fronteriza's “right to free expression” and refused to condemn the contents of the publication — issued a statement to “condemn Koala's abuse of the constitutional guarantees of free expression and disfavor their unconscionable behavior”.

 Watson then brought the staff of The Koala before an administrative court. When it appeared the court was likely to find in The Koala's favor, the administration annulled the proceedings and ordered that the trial be re-held, this time in secret. The Koala was saved from Watson's kangaroo court only after the Foundation of Individual Rights in Education (FIRE) stepped in, reminding the UCSD administration of the constitutional protections of due process and freedom of expression and calling media attention to the case.

3) In February of this year, The California Patriot, a publication of the University of California Berkeley College Republicans, ran an article critical of MEChA. Before the journal could be distributed, a number of people — apparently MEChA activists — broke into the Patriot's campus offices and stole the entire print run, valued at $2000. When Patriot staff members lodged a complaint with the university police department, they received death threats. The university, meanwhile, quietly dropped the case. It continues to supply Berkeley MEChA with $20,000 in yearly student activity fees.

Something is clearly wrong with this picture. While MEChA has as much right to free expression as the next hate group, one would like to think that, left to its own devices, “el Movimiento” would wither and die. The problem is, it hasn't been left to its own devices. In each of the cases mentioned above, MEChA has not only not been discouraged — it has in fact been accorded special protection denied other student groups. What's more, MEChA chapters often benefit, as at Berkeley, from lavish grants of student activity fees. If MEChA has successfully spread through the American university system, it is only because university administrators and faculty — the guardians of the system — have opened all the doors.

In doing so, they no doubt comfort themselves with the idea that it is all for the greater good of “diversity.” After all, in contrast to the “gringos” against whom the organization spends most of its time railing, MEChA can claim to represent a recognized ethnic minority. In the hyper-simplified, two-tone world of contemporary academia, that's all it takes to count as a victim. MEChA advocates the overthrow of the U.S. government, the seizure of large swaths of U.S. territory, and the expulsion (or worse) of those presently living there. For this generation of college administrators and left-wing faculty, however, MEChA is a victim group deserving protection. Such is the logic of diversity. The road to Aztlan, at any rate, will be paved with good intentions.

ENDNOTES:

¹ California politicians who have never renounced their membership in the organization include Lieutenant Governor and current ex-officio UC Regent Cruz Bustamente, former State Assembly Speaker and Los Angeles mayoral candidate Antonio Villaraigosa, State Assemblyman Gil Cadillo and State Sen. Joe Baca.

from ABC News, 2007-Feb-13, by Justin Rood:

NFL Refuses to Run Ad to Recruit Border Agents

The National Football League refused to include a print ad recruiting U.S. Border Patrol agents in its 2007 official Super Bowl program because they were uncomfortable with "the sensitive political nature" of the spot, according to a league spokesman.

The Department of Homeland Security (DHS), which oversees the Border Patrol, had offered to pay for the advertisment, which was part of a campaign to boost the number of agents by 18,000. But money wasn't the issue, NFL spokesman Greg Aiello told ABC News.

The ad "was specific to border patrol and mentioned terro rists," he said. "The game was in Miami, where [immigration] is a sensitive political issue...[it] made us a little bit uncomfortable."

Aiello said the league's discomfort stemmed from the ad's mention of terrorism in a program for the high-profile event as well as how it intertwined terrorism and immigration.

The league told DHS it would be willing to run a more generic recruiting ad but never received a response to the offer. "We take recruiting ads from the military that are generic," said Aiello. "We were willing to take one from DHS."

The issue came to the attention of Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff, who raised it before Congress last week. "We tried to put an ad in the...Super Bowl program this year, and it was rejected, much to my chagrin," he told a panel of lawmakers.

DHS spokesman Mike Friel said he could not confirm the NFL had offered to take a "more generic" ad. He said that other organizations had accepted the same ad the NFL rejected, including the NBA, which ran the advertisement in its official program for its annual All-Star Game, the NCAA, which will publish it in programs for its Final Four championship tournament and "Pro BullRider" magazine.

Below is the full text of the ad rejected by the NFL.

from the US Border Patrol, 2006-Nov-8:

Don't Just Walk the Line. Protect It.

Take charge of your career.

The U.S. Border Patrol is looking for the right men and women to help protect America's southwest borders. As Border Patrol Agents, it'll be your responsibility to prevent the entry of terrorists and their weapons into the United States. You'll help detect and prevent the unlawful entry of undocumented aliens into the U.S., and apprehend violators of our immigration laws. In addition to these important duties, you'll play a primary role in stopping drug smuggling along our borders. Your initial job assignment could be anywhere along the southwestern U.S. border.

Beyond the satisfaction of helping to protect America, Border Patrol Agents get excellent pay and an unparalleled federal benefits package.

To qualify, you must be a U.S. citizen under the age of 40 with a valid state driver's license. You also must be able to successfully complete fitness and drug tests, a thorough background investigation and a medical exam.

Come work in an exciting environment with wide-open spaces and opportunities to match — consider becoming a Border Patrol Agent with U.S. Customs and Border Protection.

Are you up to the challenge?

Learn more and apply online at:
www.CBPriders.com

CBP strives to have a workforce that reflects our nation's diversity.

from the Washington Times, 2007-Mar-9, by Jerry Seper:

Officers outgunned on U.S. border

Violence along the U.S.-Mexico border is undergoing what U.S. law-enforcement authorities call "an unprecedented surge," some of it fueled by weapons and ammunition purchased or stolen in the United States.

Federal, state and local law-enforcement officials from Texas to California, concerned about the impact of illegally imported weapons into Mexico, say they already are outmanned and outgunned by ruthless gangs that collect millions of dollars in profits by smuggling aliens and drugs into this country.

"These gangs have the weapons and the will to protect their lucrative cargoes," said Sigifredo Gonzalez Jr., the sheriff of Zapata County, Texas, who founded and served as the first president of the Texas Border Sheriff's Coalition. "With automatic weapons, grenades and grenade launchers, they pose a significant danger."

Last month, Mexican military officials in Matamoros, just south of Brownsville, Texas, stopped a tractor-trailer containing weapons and ammunition, along with a pickup truck fitted with armor and bulletproof glass.

The weapons included 18 M-16 assault rifles, one equipped with an M-203 40mm grenade launcher. Also seized were several M-4 carbines, 17 handguns of various calibers, 200 magazines for different weapons, 8,000 rounds of ammunition, assault vests and other military accessories.

While Mexican authorities have not determined the source of the weapons, the truck was registered in Texas and authorities think the weapons were being smuggled across the border from the United States. U.S. and Mexican law-enforcement authorities have long described Matamoros as a key shipping center for drugs, weapons and illegal aliens.

The U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) also ended a 20-month investigation last month into a Mexican drug-trafficking organization and its U.S.-based distribution cells, which resulted in the arrest of 400 persons nationwide and the seizure of $45 million in cash and 100 weapons.

Operation Imperial Emperor targeted the Victor Emilio Cazares-Gastellum drug cartel, which supplied multiton quantities of cocaine, methamphetamine and marijuana monthly to distribution cells throughout the United States.

A task force led by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) also seized two completed improvised explosive devices, materials for making 33 more, 300 primers, 1,280 rounds of ammunition, five grenades, nine pipes with end caps, 26 grenade triggers, 31 grenade spoons, 40 grenade pins, 19 black powder casings, a silencer and cash during raids in Laredo, Texas, last month.

"Keeping explosives and other high-powered weaponry out of the hands of violent criminal organizations is a central focus of the new Border Enforcement Security Task Force in Laredo," said Homeland Security Assistant Secretary Julie L. Myers, who heads ICE. "ICE is working day and night with its task force partners to stem the tide of violence that has been ravaging border communities in south Texas."

Task force members in Laredo have seized more than three dozen assault rifles bound for Mexico in the past year, along with kits to modify them for automatic fire. In Arizona, more than two dozen assault weapons have been seized in the past year.

Mexican President Felipe Calderon sent 3,300 military troops to the region after taking office in December. The troops have focused, in part, on the border towns of Nuevo Laredo and Matamoros, where hundreds of killings have been attributed to brutal turf battles between rival gangs.

Numerous Mexican police officers have been killed by drug gangs armed with automatic weapons, explosives and bazookas.

In a recent report, ICE noted that border gangs were becoming increasingly ruthless -- targeting rivals, along with federal, state and local police, including the U.S. Border Patrol agents, who have faced an increase in assaults as the agency seeks to bring operational control to the border.

T.J. Bonner, president of the National Border Patrol Council, which represents all 11,000 of the agency's non-supervisory agents, said violence by gangs battling to control smuggling routes into this country has increased dramatically and is spilling into some U.S. communities.

Mr. Bonner said that while much of the violence is directed at rival gang members, there is an "inevitable spillover that touches innocent civilians and law-enforcement officials on both sides of the border."

He said assaults against Border Patrol agents have more than doubled over the past two years, mainly by drug cartels "far more inclined to utilize violence as a means of achieving their goal of successfully smuggling contraband and people."

from the Arizona Republic, 2007-Jan-6, by Matthew Benson:

Guard soldiers back off from armed men out of Mexico

A Border Patrol official says National Guard troops acted appropriately this week when they abandoned their post near the border southwest of Tucson as four gunmen approached from Mexico.

It is the nearest that Guard members have come to an armed conflict on the border since spring when President Bush pledged up to 6,000 soldiers to help slow illegal immigration along the nation's 1,950-mile southern border.

No shots were fired in the incident, and no one was injured. Border Patrol spokesman Mario Martinez stressed that "there was no attack."

But he added, "It's a serious situation. We're not trying to say it wasn't a serious situation. We've never had an incident where there were gunmen this close to a post."

It also raises questions in the eyes of critics who say the border mission has placed Guard troops in an awkward position. Guardsmen are strictly in a backup role along the border. That means performing administrative functions, building roads and fences, even conducting surveillance in some cases, such as with the team near Tucson.

But they're never to confront or attempt to apprehend border crossers.

"What are we paying our National Guard to do (along the border)? That is the question," said Don Goldwater, who led a failed campaign for governor last year on his promise to crack down on illegal immigration.

"We're putting the National Guard down in harm's way along the border with no intention to allow them to protect themselves."

Goldwater is the nephew of the late Arizona Sen. Barry Goldwater, a former presidential candidate.

The armed confrontation took place about 11 p.m. Wednesday near Sasabe about a quarter-mile north of the border. A team of four or five Guard members, armed with M-16s, were watching for border crossers at an observation post when they spotted four men carrying what appeared to be rifles, Martinez said.

As the men came closer, the soldiers left their post and called for the Border Patrol.

"In order to not be detected, they moved to a safer location," Martinez said. "That's exactly what we want them to do.

"They're armed for their protection. Once they are afraid for their lives, they can defend themselves.

"That was not the case."

Border Patrol agents responded within minutes and scoured the area by helicopter and on the ground, but the gunmen could not be located. Their tracks showed that they had arrived near the observation post after crossing into the United States from Mexico.

Armed individuals crossing remote areas of the border typically are smuggling drugs, Martinez said, though it is unknown who the gunmen were in this incident. It's also uncertain whether the men were scouting the observation post, testing National Guard response or merely stumbled upon the soldiers.

Martinez wouldn't say whether troops have since returned to the observation post, but he noted that "we're still monitoring the area; we'll probably be monitoring the area closely for a while."

Gov. Janet Napolitano's staff was briefed about the incident by the Arizona National Guard, but it deferred comment to the U.S. Department of Homeland Security. A spokesman from that office did not respond to a phone message left by The Arizona Republic.

Barrett Marson, spokesman for state House Speaker Jim Weiers, said "legislative leaders have not been briefed on the situation but would like some information."

State Sen. Chuck Gray, a Republican and retired Mesa police officer, was surprised that Guard members would run in the face of an armed threat, unless they were seeking protective cover.

"I can tell you, as a police officer of 10 years, there was never a policy to flee," he said. "If they're running for cover, that's different than running away."

Illegal immigration moved to the forefront of American politics in the past few years. Polls consistently have said it is one of the top issues in the minds of Arizonans, and Napolitano and New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson declared border emergencies for their respective states in August 2005.

Nearly one year ago to the day, Napolitano used her State of the State address to call for the federal government to pay for the deployment of the National Guard to the border. In the spring, she got her wish with Bush's announcement of Operation Jump Start, a plan to use thousands of Guard members to tighten the border until new Border Patrol agents could be hired and trained.

Roughly 5,700 Guard members are stationed along the border, more than a quarter of whom are in Arizona. It is hoped that they can be pulled back by 2008.

Initial reports indicate the program has reduced illegal crossings. Apprehensions were down 11.4 percent in Arizona from 2005 to 2006, and down 8.5 percent for the four border states.

from the Memphis Commercial Appeal, 2006-May-26, by Tom Bailey Jr.:

Illegal aliens held in derail threat

MEMPHIS, Tenn. -- An act of vandalism spotted by a rail inspector in Collierville this month would have derailed one of the 28 trains that rumble through town daily, a Norfolk Southern spokesman said Thursday.

Within a few days of the May 15 incident, authorities identified two illegal aliens from Mexico as the vandals, said Robin Chapman, the railroad spokesman.

"I do not believe this was an attempt to commit a terrorist act," FBI spokesman George Bolds said Thursday. "I don't be believe these people attempted to derail a train. I think they were just being stupid."

The incident happened at a rail switch behind the AutoZone store at 995 W. Poplar. Chapman said the two men were "on lunch break, hanging around our tracks. They pried a metal object into a track switch, opened it 3 or 4 inches."

A train traveling in either direction would have derailed, he said.

"It was caught by one of our employees before any train came through," Chapman said. "Working with local police and federal authorities, we tracked the culprits down. They were turned over to Immigration and Naturalization Service for deportation."

Neither Chapman nor the FBI's Bolds identified the two men, referring questions about them to Citizenship and Immigration Services. The federal agency did not return a reporter's telephone call Thursday afternoon.

The vandalism occurred during the daylight hours, Chapman said.

He said he did not know how far away any approaching train was when the rail employee spotted the gap.

The line was closed for 90 minutes while authorities investigated, he said.

"We do patrol the tracks. We have security police who patrol on a regular basis, and inspectors, which is how it was caught," Chapman said.

The freight hauled by the trains includes a "long list" of hazardous cargo, he said. "Industrial chemicals of various types. Varying degrees of hazardousness."

Danny Box, who owns the Sun Porch hair-styling salon within yards of the rail switch, said he arrived to work May 16 to see 20-25 FBI agents "all over the place."

The agents asked him if he had any surveillance-camera tape they could see, but he did not.

from the Associated Press via the Houston Chronicle, 2007-Jan-4, by Istra Pacheco:

Mexico migrants may get emergency GPS locators

MEXICO CITY — Two state government institutions are studying the possibility of giving Mexican migrants GPS locators that could be used to call the U.S. Border Patrol for help.

The locators would be given to migrants who are thinking of crossing the border, and would give U.S. Border Patrol agents the location of those in trouble. The U.S. government has yet to sign off on the project, which is still in the planning stages.

Hundreds of Mexicans are killed each year trying to sneak illegally into the United States. Many are lost or succumb to heat exhaustion in the desert, while others are killed trying to swim across the Rio Grande or hide in vehicles.

Supporters of the initiative argue that it could save hundreds of lives. Among those looking at the possibility is Jesus Torreblanca, who works for Puebla state's Commission for the Attention of Migrants.

"This won't guarantee that they won't be detained by the Border Patrol or face deportation, and it won't keep them from facing risks in the desert," he said today. "It is simply an effort at rescuing people while they are still alive."

He denied that the locators would encourage illegal migration.

"Our main purpose is to show people the enormous dangers they risk in crossing rivers, canals and deserts ... but the phenomenon of immigration is something that can't be stopped overnight," he said.

Mexico's Monterrey Tech University is developing the locators, which would be cheap and easy to carry and activate. They would be handed out for free to migrants.

Torreblanca said the locators might be ready by March.

It was unclear whether the U.S. government would approve such a project. In the past, similar campaigns to help migrants in distress have been criticized by U.S. anti-immigration groups as condoning illegal migration.

"The U.S. government has every right to protect its borders anyway it sees necessary," Torreblanca said. "The only thing that we ask is that they respect human rights."

from WorldNetDaily.com, 2006-May-9:

U.S. alerting Mexico to Minuteman patrols
'Unbelievable that our own government ... is sending intelligence to another country'

The U.S. Border Patrol is tipping off Mexican authorities on the positions of members of the Minuteman civilian patrols.

U.S. officials have agreed to the notification process to reassure the Mexican government that the illegal immigrants' rights are being observed, the Inland Valley Daily Bulletin of Ontario, Calif., reports.

When the Minuteman and other civilian border patrol groups help apprehend illegal immigrants, the Mexican government must be notified, according to three documents on the Mexican Secretary of Foreign Relations website.

A U.S. Customs and Border Protection spokesman confirmed to the Daily Bulletin the notification process, describing it as a standard procedure.

"It's not a secret where the Minuteman volunteers are going to be," Mario Martinez said.

"This ... simply makes two basic statements – that we will not allow any lawlessness of any type, and that if an alien is encountered by a Minuteman or arrested by the Minuteman, then we will allow that government to interview the person."

But angered Minuteman members say the reporting virtually nullifies their effectiveness and could endanger lives.

"Now we know why it seemed like Mexican officials knew where we were all the time," Chris Simcox, founder of the Minuteman Civil Defense Corps, told the Ontario paper.

"It's unbelievable that our own government agency is sending intelligence to another country," he said. "They are sending intelligence to a nation where corruption runs rampant, and that could be getting into the hands of criminal cartels.

"They just basically endangered the lives of American people."

Martinez said any illegal alien apprehended has the right to request counsel.

"We have to give their counsel the information about their apprehension, and that includes where they are apprehended, whether a Minuteman volunteer spotted them or a citizen," he said.

The spokesman said by entering into the cooperative agreement, the Border Patrol hoped to change Mexico's perception of the group as vigilantes.

One of the documents on the website, "Actions of the Mexican Government in Relation to the Activities of Vigilante Groups," describes a meeting with San Diego Border Patrol sector chief Darryl Griffen.

According to the document, Griffen "said that the Border Patrol will not permit any violence or any actions contrary to the law by the groups, and he is continuously aware of (the volunteer organizations') operations."

The document continues: "Mr. Griffen reiterated to the undersecretary his promise to notify the General Consul right away when the vigilantes detain or participate in the detention of any undocumented Mexicans."

The documents name the Minuteman Civil Defense Corps and the Chino, Calif.-based Friends of the Border Patrol.

TJ Bonner, president of the 10,000-member union National Border Patrol Council, told the Daily Bulletin his member agents have complained for years about the Mexican government "unduly influencing our enforcement policies."

"That's not a legitimate role for any foreign nation," he said.

Border agents interviewed by the paper said they have been asked to report the location of all civilian patrols to sector headquarters. But they are not to file the groups' names in reports if they spot illegal immigrants.

"Last year an internal memo notified all agents not to give credit to Minuteman volunteers or others who call in sightings of illegal aliens," said an agent who spoke to the Daily Bulletin on condition he not be identified. "We were told to list it as a citizen call and leave it at that. Many times, we were told not to go out to Minuteman calls."

from the Associated Press, 2006-May-19, by Jason Lange, with Mark Stevenson in Nogales and Ioan Grillo in Mexico City:

Mexico Condemns U.S Border Fence Plan

MEXICO CITY -- Mexico and four Central American nations condemned the U.S plan to build hundreds of miles of triple-layered fencing on its southern border, saying it would not stop illegal immigration.

In a joint news conference in Mexico City late Thursday, the foreign ministers of Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua, Costa Rica and Mexico said that building barriers was not the way to solve problems between neighboring nations.

"The position of Mexico and the other countries is that walls will not make a difference in terms of the solution to the migration problem," said Mexican Foreign Secretary Luis Ernesto Derbez.

On Wednesday, the U.S. Senate approved a proposal to build 370 miles of triple-layer fencing along parts of the 2,000-mile border separating the U.S. and Mexico. The Senate also agreed to give many illegal immigrants a shot at U.S. citizenship.

Guatemalan Foreign Minister Jorge Briz said major immigration reform in the United States was the only way to stop the wave of people heading northward.

"All of us are looking for a comprehensive migratory regulation so that millions of Latin Americans can continue working in and supporting the United States economy," Briz said.

Earlier Thursday, Mexico's Foreign Relations Department sent a note to the U.S. State Department outlining the nation's concerns about the proposed barrier.

Honduran Foreign Minister Milton Jimenez said he expected several South American and Caribbean countries to join Mexico and the Central Americans in issuing a joint declaration on the matter soon.

In December, the U.S. House approved a bill to build a fence about twice as long as the one approved by the Senate. The House plan sparked a wave of criticism from Latin American leaders, with Mexican President Vicente Fox comparing such a barrier to the Berlin Wall.

Fox reiterated his criticisms on Thursday.

"Building walls, constructing barriers on the border does not offer an efficient solution in a relationship of friends, neighbors and partners," Fox said in the border city of Tijuana. "We will go on defending the rights of our countrymen without rest or respite. With passion we will demand the full respect of their human rights."

On the border with Arizona, bedraggled migrants who had been turned back by the border patrol said that more fences would not keep them from crossing but only make smugglers charge more money for the trip.

"I had to leave my three children, walk for three days in the desert, and now I'm here with more debts than ever," said Edith Martinez, a 40-year-old from Oaxaca who walked back over the border bridge to the Mexican town of Nogales. "Now I have to work in the United States to pay my debts from the trip."

from CNSNews.com, 2006-Apr-17, by Julie Stahl:

Iran Elected to UN Disarmament Commission

Jerusalem - Under threat of United Nations Security Council sanctions for its own nuclear program, Iran has been elected to a vice-chair position on the U.N. Disarmament Commission, whose mission includes deliberations on preventing the spread of nuclear weapons.

The commission's deliberations began last Monday and are scheduled to continue until April 28. On the first day of the commission meeting, Iran along with Uruguay and Chile was elected as one of eight vice-chairs, elected to serve for one year.

It happened on the same day that Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad promised his people "good news" about the country's nuclear program.

The following day, Iran announced that it had managed to enrich uranium, a key ingredient in the production of a nuclear bomb.

On Monday, former Iranian President Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani said that his country would continue to enrich uranium, and dismissed the idea that the U.S. might attack nuclear facilities in Iran.

"We are certain that Americans will not attack Iran because the consequences would be too dangerous," Rafasanjani was quoted as telling the Kuwaiti parliament.

Dr. Dore Gold, former Israeli Ambassador to the U.N. said that electing Iran to a leadership position on the UN Disarmament Commission was like asking the "cat to guard the milk."

"Clearly the Iranians have an interest in establishing disarmament rules that protect their clandestine nuclear weapons program," said Gold, author of Tower of Babble: How the United Nations Has Fueled Global Chaos.

"For the last decade and a half, Iran has appointed a very large diplomatic mission to the U.N. and has sought to obtain appointments to as many U.N. bodies as possible," said Gold in a telephone interview.

It is not a surprise, therefore, that Iran would find a place at the table of even the most sensitive committees, he said.

According to Gold, the various commissions at the U.N. establish the "background noise" and "international norms" that are adopted for dealing with problems worldwide.

"They have a way of penetrating the judgments of the U.N. secretariat and other U.N. bodies," he said.

The Disarmament Commission's new chairman, Joon Oh from South Korea, said prior to the group's meeting that it was not intended to be an isolated event but should be considered an integral part of worldwide disarmament efforts.

According to a release on the Disarmament Commission's website, the agenda items include recommendations for achieving nuclear disarmament and non-proliferation and "practical confidence-building measures in the field of conventional weapons."

The commission was established by a U.N. General Assembly resolution in 1978 to, among other things, pursue "effective international control of atomic energy" and make sure that atomic energy was used only for peaceful purposes.

While Iran's election to the commission is not a "decisive development," Gold said, it is "one link" in the chain that helps Iran use multi-lateral organizations to serve its interests.

Prof. Anne Bayefsky, who edits the Eye on the U.N. website, quoted U.N. Undersecretary-General for Disarmament Affairs, Nobuaki Tanaka, as saying that the commission "played a unique role" with "the advantage of being a fully universal deliberative body."

"This is the U.N. fiction, which brings us close to nuclear war with each passing day," Bayefsky said. "The allusion is to universal democracy, though the majority of voters is non-democratic and include thugs, racists and war-mongers."

As tensions grow over the situation in Iran, Washington has not ruled out the idea of a military option in dealing with Iran, though it has downplayed the idea.

The U.N.'s nuclear watchdog, the International Atomic Energy Agency, recently referred Iran to the Security Council, where the U.S. is pushing for sanctions to be leveled against the Islamic Republic.

But Gold said that if the U.N.'s dealings with Iraq set a precedent for its dealings elsewhere in the world, then it is not likely that the U.N. would be an effective body in dealing with Iran.

"The U.N. has long ago forfeited its role as an international body safeguarding international peace and security and this is just the latest proof of why the U.N. doesn't work," Gold said of Iran's election to vice chair the Disarmament Commission.

Iran says its nuclear development is for a civilian energy program but the U.S., Israel and other Western nations believe Iran is really developing nuclear weapons.

The Institute for Science and International Security, a U.S. think tank, released satellite images on Sunday showing that Iran had expanded its uranium enrichment site at Isfahan and has reinforced its underground site at Natanz.

London's Sunday Times quoted unnamed Iranian officials as saying that Iran had recruited and trained 40,000 suicide bombers, who were ready to attack American and British targets.

"We are ready to attack American and British sensitive points if they attack Iran's nuclear facilities," said Dr. Hassan Abbasi, head of the Center for Doctrinal Strategic Studies in the Revolutionary Guards.

from the Wall Street Journal via OpinionJournal.com, 2006-Feb-21:

Sins of Commission
Human rights lose at the U.N. again.

So the U.N.'s Human Rights Commission publishes a study denouncing U.S. detention practices at Guantanamo, and world opinion is supposed to be outraged. Well, count us in: Once again, the Commission has amply demonstrated why even Secretary General Kofi Annan wants to replace it with something better. This being the U.N., however, the reform effort is now being bungled.

We won't waste your time on the study itself, which largely rehashes factual and legal allegations we've seen and rebutted before, and whose authors never actually visited Guantanamo. One of the authors, Algerian jurist Leila Zerrougui, was last heard denouncing Israel's security fence, which has helped reduce suicide bombings by 90%.

A more interesting question is why this report was produced in the first place: We are still waiting for the Commission's reports on the human-rights picture in, say, Syria. But there's no mystery here, since the only purpose the Commission actually serves is to deflect criticism of actual human-rights abusers by heaping invective on the U.S. and Israel.

---

It is for this reason that we were initially prepared to support Mr. Annan's call last year to abolish the Commission in favor of a Human Rights Council. Part of what recommended the proposal was Mr. Annan's call for the size of the Council to be reduced and for Council members to be elected by two-thirds of the General Assembly. That way, it was reasoned, a country such as Sudan (a current member of the Commission, along with fellow paragons Cuba, Saudi Arabia and Zimbabwe) would be less likely to stand for a seat, and more likely to be defeated if it did.

Fast forward a few months, and here's what the sages of the U.N. actually propose. Instead of a Commission composed of 53 member states, the Council would consist of 45. Now there's a bold step. The U.N. also appears ready to drop the two-thirds majority requirement in favor of a simple majority, lowering the bar to membership. And a modest proposal to exclude countries under legally binding "Chapter VII" U.N. sanctions (as Iraq was before its liberation) has been excluded, presumably because it's too tough on the world's worst regimes.

Instead, the U.N. proposes distributing seats according to what it calls "equitable geographic distribution": 12 seats to Africa; 13 to Asia (including the Middle East); eight to Latin America; five to East Europe and seven to the so-called West European and Others Group, which includes the U.S., Canada, Australia, New Zealand and Israel.

Thus the two groups that contain the greatest proportion of liberal democracies are allotted the smallest number of seats. By contrast, in 2005 only nine countries in the whole of Africa were rated "free," according to Freedom House. In Asia and the Middle East, only about a dozen of 54 countries are free, and that's if you're counting Tuvalu, Palau, Nauru and Kiribati.

Put simply, this structure not only fails to exclude abusive regimes from membership in the Council, it actually guarantees them their seats. And it is rigged against the very countries whose opinions about human rights might be other than blatantly hypocritical. As to the potential merit of those opinions, we'll leave it to posterity to decide whether what the world really needed in this decade was another platform for Scandinavian highmindedness.

---

U.S. Ambassador John Bolton has made it clear to his U.N. colleagues that the current proposal is not something the Bush Administration can endorse. That's a stand that will surely burnish his reputation in certain liberal circles as an "obstructionist." But fake reform is worse than no reform at all, and whatever else might be said of the current system, it at least has the virtue of being discredited.

The world can certainly wait a few months more to get the human-rights agency that genuine human-rights victims deserve. The fact that the U.N. is incapable of providing one is yet another reminder of what ails the organization, especially under its current management.

from USA Today, 2006-Nov-19, by Thomas Frank:

Union wants to organize airport screeners

WASHINGTON — The nation's largest federal labor union will push to organize airport security screeners after a finding by a United Nations agency that the screeners should have union representation.

The 600,000-member American Federation of Government Employees says it could improve workplace conditions. The Transportation Security Administration has one of the highest attrition and injury rates in the federal government, which aggravates staffing shortages that make airport security lines longer. The AFGE plans to lobby Congress' new Democratic leaders to let TSA screeners unionize.

The TSA says unionization could hinder managers from quickly moving screeners to new assignments as security threats arise.

The nation's 45,000 screeners have been barred from collective bargaining since the TSA was formed after the 9/11 attacks to safeguard aviation.

The U.N. International Labor Organization's finding says that policy "may impede unduly upon the rights of these federal employees" and urges the TSA to "engage in collective bargaining" with screeners. The Geneva-based agency released its finding this month in response to a complaint filed in 2003 by the AFGE. The union lost a lawsuit seeking to represent TSA screeners.

The finding carries no legal obligation but reflects that the TSA is not following the United Nations' "core labor standards," says Hans von Rohland, an International Labor Organization spokesman.

"Now we have the rationale that this is not just a union whining," AFGE lawyer Mark Roth says. "This is a formal finding of a violation."

The finding will encourage Congress to let screeners unionize, he says.

When Democrats take control of the House of Representatives and Senate in January, "we certainly have a much more receptive Congress," union lobbyist Charity Wilson says.

Rep. Nita Lowey, D-N.Y., says union representation would provide "basic worker protections that will ensure screeners are treated like professionals." Lowey proposed in July to let screeners unionize, but her measure was defeated on a 14-15 vote in her House Homeland Security Committee.

Lowey hopes to add the measure to a broad legislative effort to strengthen domestic security that Democrats will push in January.

"I feel good about it for next year," Lowey says.

TSA spokeswoman Ellen Howe says unionization "would limit our ability to make decisions rapidly in the interests of national security and in response to risk."

Most federal labor unions are barred from negotiating wages and benefits, which are set by Congress. They can help set workplace conditions and file grievances heard by neutral parties.

"We will bargain safety conditions, health conditions, fair rotations of work and assignments, so people have a job they want to stay in and are not treated arbitrarily," Roth says.

from the Associated Press via the Boston Globe, 2006-Jul-29, by Alexander G. Higgins:

UN rights panel raps US on range of issues

GENEVA -- A United Nations rights panel demanded yesterday the immediate closure of any secret US detention facilities and criticized Washington on other issues, calling for a moratorium on capital punishment and improved treatment of poor and black citizens after Hurricane Katrina.

Officials in Washington said the UN Human Rights Committee was out of bounds in examining US practices outside the United States, but said they would consider its recommendations.

``The committee is concerned by credible and uncontested information that the state party has seen fit to engage in the practice of detaining people secretly and in secret places for months and years on end," according to the 12-page report by the committee, which held a two-day hearing last week on US compliance to a major human rights treaty.

``Our initial reaction is disappointment," said State Department official Matthew Waxman, who led a US delegation to the hearing. He said the panel appeared to ignore much of the American testimony.

The report said the United States should detain persons only in places in which they can have the full protection of the law. ``It should also grant prompt access by the International Committee of the Red Cross to any person detained in connection with an armed conflict," it said.

In a conference call from Washington, US officials refused to confirm or deny reports that there have been secret detention centers in Europe and elsewhere.

The International Committee of the Red Cross is supposed to have access to all prisoners of war under the Geneva Conventions. It says it knows of people detained by the United States whom they have not found in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, or prisons in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Sandra Hodgkinson, another State Department official, said the Red Cross ``does have access to various battlefield locations, not just in Guantanamo Bay, to meet with prisoners and detainees."

On US domestic issues, the committee said:

The United States should adopt a moratorium on executions on grounds that capital punishment appears to be disproportionately imposed on minority groups and poor people.

``In the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, [the United States] should increase its efforts to ensure that the rights of poor people and in particular African-Americans are fully taken into consideration in the reconstruction plans with regard to access to housing, education and health care."

The United States should give residents of Washington, D.C., the same voting rights as other Americans, allowing them to elect representatives with full voting powers to the Senate and House .

from the Wall Street Journal Europe via www.cei.org, 2002-Oct-11, by Hugo Gurdon:

The U.S. Should Unsign Kyoto

Perhaps U.S. President George W. Bush believes it when he says the United States is free of the Kyoto climate change treaty. But if he does, he is paying insufficient attention to his anti-capitalist foes. And he is not doing what it takes to shield the U.S. economy from their predations.

Friends of the Earth (Europe), the environmentalist pressure group, called on Pascal Lamy, the European Union's trade commissioner, last week to impose sanctions on energy-intensive imported American goods. FoE's legal argument amounts to this: Because Washington refuses to cut American C02 emissions to 7% below 1990 levels, as Kyoto requires, corporate America will not bear the same costs as companies in signatory nations -- ergo, U.S. exporters are engaged in "environmental dumping." Greens insist that the true cost of production includes the expense of complying with Kyoto.

"The U.S. rejection of the Kyoto Protocol is unfair," said FoE in a statement, "and puts European business at a disadvantage. With Bush's increasing rejection of international agreements that are essential to protect the environment, Europe should have the right to penalize U.S. goods for the pollution they cause."

Mr. Lamy is unlikely to do what the Friends want -- yet -- because it would be too provocative. But EU officials are looking into the concept of environmental dumping as they ponder ways to shoehorn Mr. Bush into Kyoto. It's an odds-on bet that litigation pursued under a grossly expanded definition of dumping will be in vogue soon among Eurocrats and corporations that want to make life difficult for anyone defiantly beyond the Kyoto pale.

This is familiar ground for the EU. In the mid-1990s, Brussels accused Britain of "social dumping" after the Tory government in London sensibly opted out of the Maastricht Treaty's "social chapter" -- a mechanism to impose worker benefits uniformly across the EU. Legal challenges from Brussels were headed off only by the Tories' electoral implosion in 1997. Tony Blair abandoned the opt-out the instant he took office.

Brussels sees Kyoto, as it saw the social chapter, as a steamroller with which to level the playing field against the more efficient U.S. economy. When global warming science was crumbling last year, Margot Wallstrom, the EU's environment commissioner, retreated to more honest -- some would say, brazen -- ground by admitting that Kyoto was "about international relations, this is about the economy, about trying to create a level playing field for big businesses throughout the world."

The EU thus will almost certainly test U.S. defenses against environmental dumping charges. And here we come to the nub of the issue -- the U.S. case is made immeasurably weaker by Mr. Bush's refusal to remove Washington's signature from Kyoto.

Article 18 of the Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties says a state is "obliged to refrain from acts which would defeat the object and purpose of a treaty when ... it has signed the treaty or has exchanged instruments constituting the treaty subject to ratification."

So it is no good withdrawing from a treaty only rhetorically, as the president did last year. The White House announced U.S. withdrawal in March and the President took press questions, but these were news events not legal defenses. They will have little standing in a trade court. True, the U.S. Senate has not ratified the treaty, but that does not end all argument, and the Bush Administration knows it.

Why else did the U.S. government unsign the Rome Treaty that established the International Criminal Court? Because if it had not, Washington probably could not have blocked the extradition of, for example, a U.S. general facing trumped-up and politically motivated war crimes charges at the ICC.

Failing to unsign Kyoto could be calamitous. When European plaintiffs go to the WTO, Washington will be barred from attempting to "defeat the object and purpose of the treaty." What will the U.S. defense be? It cannot say Kyoto's emissions standards should not exist because the U.S. signature is there on the dotted line confirming the opposite.

Nor is the WTO the only forum in which the extant signature could have malign consequences. It is also likely to facilitate suits in U.S. Courts under the Alien Tort Statute, which can be brought if the tort -- such as an unfair trade practice -- violates the "law of nations." It will be difficult to argue that the treaty is not generally accepted when there are 84 signatures, including that of the U.S., there to confirm it.

The fact that "environmental dumping" is an inherently ridiculous notion, and that Kyoto is an ideologically driven document that will inflict great economic damage without any compensating benefits, cannot be relied on to win the argument. If, as seems likely, Mr. Bush understands that the treaty is not merely worthless but malignant, he needs to kill it rather than wait for it to metastasize. That means, before anything else, removing the signature that is giving aid, comfort and weaponry to those whose purpose is to inflict damage on the U.S. economy.

from the Wall Street Journal via OpinionJournal.com, 2005-Nov-16, by Claudia Rosett:

'Divide' and Conquer?
Why dictators are cheering the U.N. Internet turf grab.

If Paul Revere were alive today, he'd have his midnight work cut out for him. Most likely he'd be spreading the alarm not on horseback, but by Internet: The U.N. is coming! The U.N. is coming!

The United Nations' so-called World Summit on the Information Society opens today in Tunis, Tunisia, proposing to set up U.N. sway over the Internet under the slogan of bridging the "digital divide." But that's the wrong metaphor. This three-day jamboree is a U.N. turf grab: the latest case of the U.N. misinterpreting its noble mandate to promote peace as a license to take a piece of anything it can get.

For anyone who cares about the vast freedoms and opportunities afforded by the Internet--for pajama-clad bloggers, for journalists, for businessmen and especially for people in the poorest countries--it is time for a call to arms. Sen. Norm Coleman, whose investigations into U.N. corruption have provided him with more insight than most into the cracks and chasms of that aging institution, has already warned in The Wall Street Journal against the possibility of Tunis becoming a "digital Munich." Whether America retains control over the root directory or some other setup ultimately evolves, the clear bottom line right now is that allowing the U.N. to involve itself in these questions is the wrong answer. A U.N. unable even to audit its own accounts or police its own peacekeepers has no business making even a twitch toward control of the Internet.

Worse, the corruption and incompetence at U.N. headquarters, however disturbing, are the least of the problems linked to the U.N.'s bid to control interconnectivity. The deeper trouble is that the U.N. has embraced the same tyrants who in the name of helping the downtrodden are now seeking via Internet control to tread them down some more.

That is hardly the kind of information, however, that U.N. organizers of this Tunis turf grab are about to share. The U.N. Web site for this event goes heavy on high-tech doo-dads, and very light on the highly relevant big picture. For instance, the site includes two scroll bars. One shows select news coverage of the summit. The other shows funding contributions from various quarters, including the governments of Syria, Libya and Saudi Arabia, all distinguished as perennial members of Freedom House's list of the world most repressive regimes. Except the U.N. site doesn't make mention of the censorship and brutal internal repression of these regimes--only of their participation, and their money.

---

As usual, the U.N. for reasons sadly unrelated to actual performance, is styling itself as the champion of the poorest people, in the poorest countries. (This is the same U.N. that still hasn't repaid or even apologized to the people of Iraq for the billions worth of their national assets that were grafted, stolen and wasted under U.N. supervision in the Oil for Food program). In the face of mounting public concern over the Tunis summit, Secretary-General Kofi Annan betook himself recently to the pages of the Washington Post to argue that the main aim is "to ensure that poor countries get the full benefits that new information and communication technologies--including the Internet--can bring to economic and social development." Mr. Annan concluded with what I suppose was meant to be a clarion call: "I urge all stakeholders to come to Tunis ready to bridge the digital divide," etc., etc.

What Mr. Annan evidently does not care to understand, and after his zillion-year career at the U.N. probably never will, is that for purposes of helping the poor, the problem is not a digital divide. It is not the bytes, gigs, blogs and digital wing-dings that define that terrible line between the haves and the have-nots. These are symptoms of the real difference, which we would do better to call the dictatorial divide.

In free societies, all sorts of good things flourish, including technology and highly productive uses of the Internet. In despotic systems, human potential withers and dies, strangled by censorship, starved by central controls, and rotted by the corruption that inevitably accompanies such arrangements. That poisonous mix is what prevents the spread of prosperity in Africa, and blocks peace in the Middle East, and access to computers, or for that matter, food, in North Korea (which is of course sending a delegate to Tunis).

But never mind the realities, as long as Mr. Annan and his entourage see an opportunity for more U.N. turf, job patronage, global clout and funding (including the prospect of a "ka-ching" for the U.N. cash register every time someone logs on). Leading the charge, with policy documents posted on the U.N. information summit site, are such terrorist-breeding blogger-jailing regimes as those of Iran and Saudi Arabia, and such millennial pioneers of backward motion on free speech as Belarus and Russia. China's rulers, who have recently been availing themselves of modern technology to censor the Chinese word for "democracy" out of Internet traffic, and to track down and punish its users, have been toiling away to add their two cents to this summit. Sudan, better known for genocide than free speech, has registered to set up a pavilion. Were Saddam Hussein still in power in Iraq, as Mr. Annan tried to arrange, the odds are good that a front company for his regime, with U.N. blessing, would be setting up a booth in Tunis as well.

---

From the same U.N. that in 2003 brought us Libya chairing the Human Rights Commission, there is of course the usual U.N. tragicomic touch of holding this summit in a dictatorship such as Tunisia, a country highlighted by Human Rights Watch this week as a place that "continues to jail individuals for expressing their opinions on the Internet and suppress Web sites critical of the government." That's from the press release accompanying a far more ample 144-page report entitled "False Freedom: Online Censorship in the Middle East and North Africa," which details obstacles placed in the way of Internet access, and penalties doled out to those who defy them, in places such as Iran, Syria, Egypt and Tunisia itself.

Somewhere among the crowd now aiming to rewire the world out of Tunis are no doubt a fair number of genuinely well-intentioned people. Somewhere down the line, if the U.N. Internet grab goes ahead, they, like the rest of us, will end trying to exercise their rights to get online--and asking themselves what went so wrong.

Ms. Rosett is a journalist-in-residence with the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies. Her column appears here and in The Wall Street Journal Europe on alternate Wednesdays.

from the Financial Post of Canada, 2005-Nov-16, by Peter Foster:

ICANN, they can't

The first question one feels compelled to ask about this week's World Summit on the Information Society in Tunis is why the 14,000-plus delegates couldn't have got together online.

Silly question, of course. If there's one thing UN bureaucrats like even more than hypocritical posturing on behalf of the poor and dispossessed, it's racking up frequent flier points.

The summit was originally intended to address the "digital divide," a bogus concept based on the unavoidable fact that every time a new technology is developed not everybody immediately has it. Thus the wonders of the Internet suddenly become a cause for fretting on behalf of the "information have-nots."

Such hand-wringing tends to go hand in hand with bashing the biggest "have," and sure enough the United States has come under assault for efficiently overseeing the running of the system. How dare they!

A California-based organization called the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) was created by the U.S. Commerce Department in 1998 to administer the master list of Web addresses, which are assigned by ICANN-accredited companies. ICANN manages top-level domains such as .com and .org, as well as country-specific domains, such as .ca. Countries already have control over what goes on in their national Internet space, but apparently some are after something a little more Orwellian.

A group of the world's most repressive regimes, including China, Iran, Saudi Arabia and Cuba, wants the UN to take over from ICANN. Disgracefully, the EU recently threw its weight behind this initiative. Canada appears -- thank heavens -- firmly, or at least provisionally, behind the current arrangement.

The United States has been utterly opposed to this attempted power grab. The notion that the Internet would be more safely administered by the kind of guys who hijacked the UN Human Rights Commission is little less than ludicrous. Just how ludicrous has become obvious from the actions of the summit's host.

Tunisia is reckoned to be one of the more "enlightened" North African regimes, but it severely restricts media freedom, spies on cyber-cafes and blocks Web sites. This week in Tunis a French journalist who had been reporting on Tunisian government repression was beaten up and stabbed, allegedly by state goons. Although one must sympathize with his plight, there is a certain rich irony in his nationality. When French President Jacques Chirac visited Tunis two years ago, he congratulated the country's astonishingly popular President Zine al-Abedine Ben Ali (who regularly pulls in 99% of the vote) and declared, "The most important human rights are to eat, receive medical care and education and have a place to live." Fidel couldn't have said it better: You're being gagged for your own good!

A couple of weeks ago, UN Secretary-General Kofi "oil-for-food" Annan declared in an op-ed piece in the Washington Post that there had been "misinformation" about UN designs on the Internet. He claimed that the UN only wanted to "ensure the Internet's global reach." But has any technology ever spread faster and with more dramatic impact? Mr. Annan noted how important the Internet had been "for people trapped under repressive governments." But then how could he support any attempt by China, Cuba and Iran to control it?

from the Associated Press via the San Diego Tribune, 2005-Nov-16, by Matt Moore:

U.S. claims victory in Internet fight, but others not so sure

TUNIS, Tunisia -- Despite a late-night agreement averting a global showdown over continued U.S. control of the Internet's addressing system, many delegates to a U.N. technology summit did not believe the Americans emerged victorious.

Representatives of a number of countries remained adamant that U.S. control must be tempered if the Internet is to fully reach its potential. And even traditional allies of Washington considered it to have opened the door to the possibility of more shared governance.

President Robert Mugabe of Zimbabwe spoke for the more radical opposition to U.S. control, saying Washington and its allies cannot continue to "insist on being world policemen on the management of the Internet."

"Why should our diverse world be beholden to an American company?," he told more than 10,000 government, business and other delegates as the three-day U.N. World Summit on the Information Society opened Wednesday.

A quasi-independent group, the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers, or ICANN, manages the worldwide network's main addressing computers on the U.S. government's behalf.

Mugabe's remarks signaled that, despite the U.S. success in winning over a broad group of nations including the European Union bloc, underlying complaints about American hegemony in Internet control still linger.

In an extreme case, complaints left unchecked could prompt dissatisfied countries to create their own addressing system, splintering the Internet such that two people typing in the same Web address may reach different sites, depending on where they live.

Questions about the Internet's plumbing have overshadowed the summit's original intent: to address ways to expand communications technologies to poorer parts of the world.

Delegates from more than 100 countries wrapped up nearly three days of heavy talks late Tuesday by agreeing to leave the United States with oversight of the computers that act as the Internet's master directories so Web browsers and e-mail programs can find other computers.

David Gross, the U.S. State Department's top official on Internet policy, said he was thrilled by the last-minute deal, saying it "reaffirmed the role of technology to the world and preserved the unique role of the U.S."

Publicly, officials were positive on the agreement, noting that it brought together government, business and civil leaders to work out issues surrounding Internet governance.

Privately, many delegates fumed, noting that the secretive talks, which had been expected, seemed to take away from the focus of the summit. Many complained that the United States was grandstanding.

Martin Selmayr, an EU spokesman, said the 25-nation European bloc was the one celebrating after the deal was reached.

The EU had stepped up pressure for more international participation after the United States declared in June that it would not cede control over the Internet, as many had been led to believe.

"What we see here is a clear indication that what they (the U.S.) said in June is not the last word and that we are back on track towards internationalization," he said. "We are back on track to what has been agreed with the Clinton administration already some years ago. We are back to cooperation."

Although Pakistan and other countries sought a takeover of that system by an international body such as the United Nations, negotiators ultimately agreed, as time ran out, to a create an open-ended international forum for raising important Internet issues. The forum, however, would have no binding authority.

"The U.S. has done a good job making the Internet safe for robust political discussion and commerce, but will gradually need to start recognizing international norms," said Frank Pasquale, a law school professor at Seton Hall University in New Jersey.

Regardless of who claimed victory, delegates and officials involved in the talks said the new forum would give nations a stronger say in how the Internet works, including perhaps spurring the availability of domain suffixes in Chinese, Urdu and other languages.

"They want a seat at the table and they have a forum at which to have a seat," said Paul Kane, chairman of an organization for European country-code domain suffixes.

Currently, though names partially in another language are possible, the suffix ? the ".com" part ? remains in English.

The new group, the Internet Governance Forum, could also address any issue, such as spam or cybercrime, not currently covered by ICANN.

U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan, who would open the forum's first meeting perhaps early next year in Athens, denied the United Nations wanted to assume ICANN's day-to-day duties.

"Let me be absolutely clear: the United Nations does not want to take over, police or otherwise control the Internet," he said. "Day-to-day running of the Internet must be left to technical institutions, not least to shield it from the heat of day-to-day politics."

from the Wall Street Journal via OpinionJournal.com, 2005-Sep-17, by Bret Stephens:

Our Man in the Twilight Zone
An interview with Ambassador John Bolton.

NEW YORK--It is Tuesday morning, Sept. 6, the day before Paul Volcker is to present his full report on the U.N.'s Oil for Food scandal. It's an 847-page catalog of U.N. malfeasance, incompetence, corruption and arrogance. Among other unflattering disclosures: Kofi Annan knew about, but did not report, Iraqi violations of the sanctions regime, a clear breach of his fiduciary duties as secretary-general. But none of this seems to especially distress him or his staff.

Instead, their main worry seems to be how to stage-manage the event to keep John Bolton from reaching for the microphone. The secretary-general's office lets it be known that it expects only Mr. Annan and Mr. Volcker to speak. A behind-the-scenes effort is launched to dissuade other Security Council members from making statements, thereby isolating the U.S. Mr. Volcker's press conference is arranged in the middle of the Security Council's public session as a way of distracting the media's attention.

The scheme almost goes according to plan--until the U.S. delegation gets wind of it. "We called the Secretariat and said, 'You're damn right we're speaking,' " recounts a U.S. diplomatic source. Indeed, if Mr. Bolton's shop at the U.N. has a motto, "We're Speaking" is surely it.

---

In the seven weeks since Mr. Bolton arrived in New York, he has denounced the United Nations Development Program for its "unacceptable" funding of Palestinian propaganda and publicly fingered "dozens of countries who are in a state of denial" about the need for U.N. reform. Working at the U.N., he tells me as we chat over coffee in his nondescript midtown Manhattan office, "feels a little like Rod Serling has suddenly appeared and we're writing episodes from 'The Twilight Zone.' " Does he feel even a little bruised by his five-month confirmation saga, in which hostile witnesses described him as a "kiss-up, kick-down sort of guy" and which ended, after a Democratic filibuster, in a recess appointment? "No way," he answers flatly.

In person, the 56-year-old diplomat does not come across as the pit bull of leftist caricature. He is neither brash nor pompous and not remotely oily, though it would be a stretch to describe him as charming.

What comes across, instead, is a kind of relentlessness. He talks about "going 24-7" in negotiations and actually means it: Our interview was initially planned for 7:30 a.m. on Labor Day. (Mercifully, it was pushed back a few hours.) He has a lawyerly regard for fine print, but his basic idea of diplomacy is advocacy. "It's not just a question of stability and relations and calming troubled waters," he says about the role of an ambassador. "I'd like to advance American interests and ideals at the United Nations." In doing so, he's fighting battles on several fronts.

First front: the permanent U.N. bureaucracy headed by Mr. Annan. "The Oil for Food program is, for many Americans, a tangible symbol of what's wrong with management at the United Nations," Mr. Bolton says. "And I think the most troubling lesson is that that kind of activity didn't spring up overnight. It comes from a culture that already exists here at the U.N."

For illustration, Mr. Bolton points to the career of Vladimir Kuznetsov. Until his arrest by the FBI earlier this month, the Russian national was chairman of the U.N.'s Advisory Committee on Administrative and Budgetary Questions, which sounds obscure but is the U.N. equivalent of the White House's Office of Management and Budget. During the course of Mr. Volcker's investigation, it was discovered that another Russian national, a procurement officer named Alexander Yakovlev, had traded secret bidding information for bribes, netting $950,000 from $79 million worth of U.N. business. Mr. Yakovlev's arrest in August led U.S. investigators to Mr. Kuznetsov, who allegedly set up an offshore company to handle his cut of Mr. Yakovlev's spoils.

"Within the U.N. world, arresting Kuznetsov is just an absolute thermonuclear explosion," says a U.S. diplomatic source, speaking on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the case. "When you have the guy responsible for the good governance of the U.N. system doing this, what does that tell you about the rest of what's going on?"

So what does Mr. Bolton intend to do about the bureaucracy? He wants to rationalize the way it works, eliminate duplication, insist on better oversight, apply some American muscle to make that happen: "We can't be shy when we're giving 22% of the base budget of the United Nations from making clear we have strong feelings about this."

His other way of dealing with the bureaucracy is to talk right past it. Prior to his arrival in New York on Aug. 1, the U.S. had been struggling to make its views known on the so-called Outcome Document--a statement of U.N. goals, methods and principles envisioned as a kind of new U.N. charter. The U.N. had arranged an opaque "facilitation" process to get just the document it wanted.

"We had been consistently making very detailed comments to the facilitators," explains Mr. Bolton, waving a marked-up document predating his arrival. "The problem was the facilitators were not taking our changes. So what I did was write a 'Dear Colleague' letter to all 190 missions. I laid out our general principles, took them through the changes we were proposing, and then showed them the kind of line-by-line changes we were going to make."

All in all, Mr. Bolton's changes numbered in the hundreds. "That's what diplomats do," he says. "When you have disagreements you sit down and negotiate. That's not what we were doing in the facilitator process."

---

This brings Mr. Bolton to his second front in the struggle for U.N. reform. "A lot of what we have in mind when we talk about U.N. reform is not just better management practices; we're also talking about the conduct of member governments. . . . The U.N. is an international organization and its member governments need to hold the Secretariat accountable."

There are two difficulties here, however. First, member governments have shown little or no interest in a well-functioning U.N. bureaucracy--and not a little interest in one that remains dysfunctional and corrupt. Indeed, the main reason the Oil for Food scam grew so vast and lucrative is that countries such as China, France and Russia tacitly conspired with U.N. bureaucrats to turn a blind eye to Saddam Hussein's abuses and avail themselves of his favors.

The second difficulty is ideological. Throughout our interview, Mr. Bolton speaks repeatedly of "old thinking," "age-old controversies" and "decades-old concepts." One such concept is the U.N.'s goal of getting rich countries to spend 0.7% of their GDP on official development assistance. "The levels of ODA assistance don't necessarily tell you anything about the effectiveness of the development policies of the recipient country," he says. "The main thing they need is sound economic policy domestically, not hostile to foreign investment, open to foreign trade and open to international markets."

Mr. Bolton's logic is compelling, especially given how much of past Western largesse to the Third World ended up in numbered Geneva bank accounts. But there's a hiccup: The rest of the world is besotted by 0.7%. The nonaligned movement insists on 0.7% as the price of agreeing to "reform," for reasons that are well-comprehended. The Europeans also like it, in part because some of the smaller countries actually approach the target, in part because it is a handy way of scoring the U.S. (ODA: 0.16%) for its alleged stinginess. Mr. Bolton says it's "fantasy" to think countries are going to agree to what they do not agree with, as the U.S. does not agree with 0.7%. Yet when a fantasy takes place in fantasyland--that is, when the U.N. talks about 0.7%--it acquires a kind of plausibility and even the force of necessity, like a magic broom in a Harry Potter novel.

---

In other words, it remains to be seen whether it isn't Mr. Bolton who turns out to be the fantasy here, while the U.N. perdures as it has for 60 years and through countless "reform" bids. That's certainly one conclusion to draw from the results of this week's U.N. summit. The Outcome Document to which the administration eventually acquiesced crosses no American red lines: "The main thing about this document is that it's not as bad as it could have been," says a senior administration official. But it's easy to imagine Mr. Bolton gagging over much of it. On management reform, for instance, the document "commends the Secretary General's previous and ongoing efforts to enhance the effective management of the United Nations." Apparently, the Volcker report has already been forgotten.

In our interview, Mr. Bolton insists that the current document is just the beginning: "Reform is not a one-night stand," he says. "Reform is forever." It's a good line, and there can be no doubt that while John Bolton remains U.S. ambassador--he has 17 months to go--he'll continue to roll the reform rock up the U.N. mountain. There's a myth about that. It inspires admiration for the hero. It does not inspire hopefulness about the outcome.

John Bolton is Sisyphus in the Twilight Zone.

from the Jerusalem Post, 2005-Nov-23, by Herb Keinon:

US pressures UN to condemn Hizbullah

Following intense US pressure, the United Nations Security Council on Wednesday issued an unprecedented condemnation of Monday's Hizbullah attacks on northern Israel.

This condemnation - slamming Hizbullah by name for "acts of hatred" - marked the first time the Security Council has ever reprimanded Hizbullah for cross-border attacks on Israel. The condemnation followed by two days a failed attempt to get a condemnation issued on Monday, the day of the attack, when Algeria came out against any mention of Hizbullah in the statement.

When asked what changed from Monday to Wednesday, one diplomatic official replied: "John Bolton," a reference to the US ambassador to the UN. Bolton lobbied vigorously for the passage of the statement.

The condemnation expressed "deep concern" over the attack, and called on Lebanon to exercise its sovereignty and authority in the south according to relevant Security Council resolutions.

Security Council Resolution 1559, which led to the withdrawal earlier this year of Syrian troops from Lebanon, also calls for the dismantling of the militias in the country, as well as a call to the Lebanese government to extend its control over the entire country, including the Hizbullah dominated south.

Israeli officials expressed satisfaction that the statement did not include any attempt to "balance it," referring to Israel's response to the Hizbullah attack, and that for the first time ever it placed full responsibility for the violence on Hizbullah's shoulders.

Roni Leshno Ya'ar, the Foreign Ministry's deputy director- general who heads its UN and international organizations division, termed the condemnation a "Security Council warning to Hizbullah to stop its provocations on the northern border."

Leshno Ya'ar said this type of condemnation was significant because Hizbullah was "very sensitive" to public opinion, both in Lebanon and abroad. He said the condemnation sent a strong signal that the Security Council was demonstrating "no tolerance toward terrorism."

The statement against Hizbullah came just a few weeks after the Security Council condemned Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad for his call to wipe Israel off the map. That was also a precedent-setting condemnation, marking the first time the UN body ever condemned an Islamic state for statements against Israel.

from the Washington Post, 2005-Oct-13, p.D5, by Jonathan Krim:

U.S. May Face World at Internet Governance Summit

Next month, world diplomats will travel to Tunisia to tackle a topic so dense that it normally clears a room in seconds: how the Internet is governed.

But the United Nations-sponsored World Summit on the Information Society could be the scene of an international brawl, with some claiming that the core freedoms and integrity of the global network are at risk.

The battle centers on how much control the United States will continue to have in overseeing the Internet's plumbing.

This sounds like geeky stuff, but it matters for everyday users. The technical rules for how networks and computers find and recognize each other can determine how freely and securely information moves around.

These matters are the province of the nonprofit Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers, under a contract with the Commerce Department that expires next year.

The Commerce Department exercises its contractual oversight lightly, adopting the position that government should be involved with Internet governance as little as possible. To date, it has not overruled any ICANN decisions.

Several other countries, particularly many in the developing world, object to continuing U.S. supremacy. As the Internet penetrates deeper into societies around the globe, many nations want the international community to supplant the United States as primary overseer.

The United States suspects that some of these governments want to try to control the Internet to stifle free expression and preserve dictatorial control.

The argument has been simmering for some time, and several proposals have been put forth by a U.N. working group for more international oversight, through the United Nations or other entities.

Countries such as Iran, China, Saudi Arabia and Brazil have been especially vocal, mirroring other splits in the United Nations over a variety of issues, including the war in Iraq.

But things turned red hot late last month when the European Union infuriated the United States by endorsing the idea of international authority.

Attempting to strike a pose between the United States and countries that want a new Internet governing body, the E.U. said an international "forum" should be created to set policy principles for ICANN and adjudicate complaints.

Martin Selmayr, spokesman for the E.U. directorate on Information Society and Media, insisted yesterday that there is no major split with the United States on the issue.

"We believe in freedom of speech and the freedom of the Internet," he said. "No new organizations need to be set up. . . . We're not asking for enhancing government's role" in the operations of the Internet.

But, he said, "the E.U. is proposing moving from unilateralism to multilateralism in Internet governance. Public policy principles . . . issued in the future should be discussed internationally."

The United States is having none of it.

"When the E.U.'s proposal was read, it was interesting how quickly it was endorsed in large part by countries such as Cuba, Iran, Saudi Arabia and others who have been very clear that they do not believe" in principles of free expression, said David A. Gross, coordinator of International Communications and Information Policy for the State Department.

Gross said the United States would not accept any other entity taking on oversight of ICANN, no matter what may happen at the conference in Tunisia.

"We are firm in our position," he said. "This is not a negotiation."

Gross said that while that might sound jingoistic, the U.S. goal is to keep all governments and politics out of the Internet's evolution and preserve free-market development.

Theresa Swinehart, ICANN's general manager for global partnerships, said she, too, could not envision an entity composed of numerous countries that would be able to remain hands-off and apolitical.

The United States did not help matters, however, when it announced in June that it would keep oversight of the Internet's addressing system beyond the expiration of the current contract with ICANN, citing a need to keep the Internet secure.

The intent of the Clinton administration when ICANN was formed was to phase out U.S. oversight.

The United States argues that that ICANN already operates as a largely international body, with directors from numerous countries and a governmental advisory committee.

David McGuire, spokesman for the Center for Democracy and Technology, a digital advocacy group that has often criticized ICANN, said U.S. government oversight was never ideal.

"But replacing one government with 200 is not something that will make this process faster or better," he said.

from United Press International, 2005-Oct-12, by Gene J. Koprowski:

The Web: Industry dismisses U.N. control

CHICAGO -- Legal experts say that despite much caterwauling, the United Nations is unlikely to emerge as the next power broker of the Internet, and U.S. companies, which created cyberspace, are likely to retain their dominant role there.

"The Internet is a private network of private networks," Bill Semich, president and CEO of .NU Domain Ltd (nunames.nu), a domain registry service, told UPI's The Web.

Earlier this month the United Nations and the International Telecommunications Union, a multinational body, began arguing that the United States unfairly "monopolized" cyberspace, especially for domain name service, the registration of Internet site names. These organizations -- joined by the European Union -- called for the United Nations to seize control over Internet registration.

Experts doubt this will work, because the U.S. government, as alleged, does not control the Net. Private businesses, working cooperatively, do.

"The United Nations and the ITU are fighting to control something that is, in fact, (composed) of private business, and those private businesses voluntarily choose to use the U.S. Department of Commerce root servers," Semich said. "There is no technical requirement or national or international law that they do so -- they just do it so it will work universally."

The U.S. government did play a role in establishing the Internet a generation ago. Compelled by the desire to catch up with Russian space exploration in the aftermath of the 1957 launch of the Sputnik satellite, the federal government provided the original funding for what would become the Internet.

The Pentagon provided the money in 1962 for the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and other universities to start a computer-research network, called the Advanced Research Projects Agency NETwork, or ARPANET.

"While it is well-documented that ARPANET led to the modern Internet that we know, what permitted the Internet's growth were the widespread proliferation of the personal computer, the graphic user interface and the mouse, the advent of the browser, and high-speed access," said Peter Vogel, an attorney with the Dallas office of Gardere Wynne Sewell. "Since the modern browser came about in 1995, the Internet's growth has really blossomed."

Despite these facts, China's ambassador to the United Nations recently lashed out against what he called the U.S. "monopolization" of the Internet and urged the international body to employ what he called a "more rational and just" governance system.

This call to transfer Internet management away from the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers -- ICANN, which is run by a U.S. government contractor -- and into U.N. jurisdiction has grown louder, with a number of countries complaining ICANN operates with something of an American bias.

Many of these countries want to see Internet governance handled by the ITU. The United Nations, seeking to spur the migration, recently established a new Internet governance group dedicated to dealing with spam, cybersecurity and other Internet-related issues, according to information provided by the office of Stephen Ryan, partner at Manatt, Phelps & Phillips, a leading law firm in Washington, D.C.

Despite the moves, companies remain free to host their URLs anywhere they want to online.

"Any system manager who wished to do so could, instead, choose to use a U.N.-based or ITU-based root server in their DNS cache," Semich said, adding that in many ways the argument by the United Nations and its allies is "academic."

Experts think if the United Nations somehow would be able to finagle a deal to seize bureaucratic command of the Internet, it would be a disaster for e-commerce and online communities in general.

"Do we really want a worldwide organization that cannot agree on the color of its uniforms to control the Internet?" Vogel asked. "Or, which countries are 'good' or 'bad'? I doubt it, and as a result I suspect that the United States will continue to assert as much control as possible."

from the Cato Institute, 2005-Oct-13, by Doug Bandow:

Don't Resurrect the Law of the Sea Treaty

Executive Summary

For more than 20 years, the United States has refused to become a party to the Law of the Sea Treaty. Advocates of the treaty, a comprehensive measure governing navigational rights on the sea and mineral rights on the seabed, claimed that U.S. failure to join the convention would result in chaos on the high seas. It has not. Very few Americans know anything about the treaty, and even advocates are hard-pressed to explain how the United States would benefit from its adoption.

A round of changes to the document won the support of the Clinton administration, which signed the treaty in 1994, but those changes failed to attract sufficient support from the Senate. The LOST has languished unratified for more than 10 years.

The logjam appears to have broken, with prominent Republicans, and the president himself, signaling support for ratification. But the changes made to the LOST over the years have not altered its fundamental principles, which are collectivist in nature and inimical to U.S. interests. Most objectionable is Section XI, that portion of the treaty governing seabed mining. The provisions of Section XI may have the effect of forever discouraging such operations, even where there might be huge benefits. Regulations are to be administered through a complicated system of committees and agencies within the International Seabed Authority, a creation of the United Nations that has ultimate jurisdiction over the agreement.

Funding for the ISA, and for enforcement of the LOST, would flow disproportionately from the United States. The ISA's current budget is modest, but the revised agreement changed none of the underlying institutional incentives that bias virtually every international organization, most obviously the UN itself, toward extravagance.

Some supporters of the treaty insist that the LOST is essential to establishing the rule of law on the high seas and will, therefore, aid in the fight against global terrorism. If the stakes are that high, it is crucial that the treaty be a good one. America's interests will be best served if the Senate rejects the LOST.

Full Text of Policy Analysis no. 552 (PDF, 1 MB)

from Reuters, 2005-Mar-21, by Irwin Arieff:

Annan urges UN members to 'make poverty history'

UNITED NATIONS - World governments must embrace a broad strategy ranging from trade and debt forgiveness to handing out mosquito netting to "make poverty history," U.N. chief Kofi Annan said on Sunday.

More than a billion people still live on less than $1 a day, and while this has been viewed as a sad but inescapable fact of life, "Today, that view is intellectually and morally indefensible," Annan said as part of a report to the 191-nation General Assembly on U.N. reform.

"This is a poverty that kills. A single bite from a malaria-bearing mosquito is enough to end a child's life for want of a bed net or $1 treatment," said the report, based largely on the work of Jeffrey Sachs, a Columbia University professor and Annan's top anti-poverty adviser.

Intensive and coordinated international, national and local actions -- and a special focus on Africa -- are required to meet a U.N. goal of halving the number of people living in extreme poverty by 2015, said Annan's report.

The document strongly linked global security and human rights to development.

It calls on poor nations to adopt national plans for obtaining and putting to work the necessary domestic resources, public investments and outside aid.

Governments also must adopt growth-oriented economic policies to generate jobs, income and taxes, the report said.

"Small and medium-sized firms require a favourable legal and regulatory environment, including effective commercial laws that define and protect contracts and property rights, a rational public administration that limits and combats corruption, and expanded access to financial capital, including micro-finance," the report said.

Wealthy nations must forgive all debt the world's poorest nations owe outside lenders and eliminate barriers to exports from the developing world, it said.

Annan urged rich nations to earmark 0.7 percent of their gross domestic product for development aid, a longtime U.N. goal widely endorsed in Europe that Washington rejects.

While the United States is the world's biggest donor of aid, it also has the world's largest economy and annually donates just 0.13 percent of its GDP to development aid, excluding gifts of food and aid to Iraq and Afghanistan.

from the New York Times, 2005-Jun-12, by Alan Cowell:

Finance Chiefs Cancel Debt of 18 Nations

LONDON, June 11 - The world's wealthiest nations formally agreed Saturday to cancel at least $40 billion of debt owed to international agencies by the world's poorest lands, most of them in Africa.

After late-night talks in London, the finance ministers of the Group of 8 industrialized nations announced that the deal, long in negotiation, had been intended to avoid damaging the ability of international lenders like the World Bank, the African Development Bank and the International Monetary Fund to continue helping other poor countries.

"This is a historic moment," said John W. Snow, the United States Treasury secretary, one of the participants. "A real milestone has been reached."

The deal on Saturday was expected to ease the 18 poorest countries' annual debt burden by $1.5 billion. They are Benin, Bolivia, Burkina Faso, Ethiopia, Ghana, Guyana, Honduras, Madagascar, Mali, Mauritania, Mozambique, Nicaragua, Niger, Rwanda, Senegal, Tanzania, Uganda and Zambia. All must take anticorruption measures.

Gordon Brown, the British chancellor of the Exchequer, asked at the news conference whether debt relief was also conditional on good government practices by the recipients, said part of the deal was for poor countries to use the money they saved on debt servicing for health, education or the relief of poverty.

The agreement came after months of negotiations in which the United States had been pressing the other Group of 8 countries - Britain, Germany, France, Italy, Canada, Japan and Russia - to agree that the solution to poor countries' indebtedness was to cancel their debt burden completely rather than seek simply to ease it by taking over interest repayments.

"It is my hope today that this reform will conclusively end the destabilizing lend-and-forgive approach to development assistance in low-income countries," Mr. Snow said. In the future, he said, "grants would be used to ensure that countries do not quickly reaccumulate unsustainable debts."

The agreement, which followed talks in Washington this week between President Bush and Prime Minister Tony Blair of Britain, was struck less than four weeks before the Group of 8 leaders hold a summit meeting at Gleneagles, Scotland. Mr. Blair is the current chairman of the Group of 8 and has placed the relief of African poverty along with global warming at the head of an ambitious agenda.

Advocacy groups and charities have pressed for a deal on debt relief for years and some welcomed the agreement on Saturday, saying it cleared the way for a broader announcement on combating African poverty at Gleneagles.

"We want a comprehensive breakthrough on more, better development assistance as well as trade reform at Gleneagles and with debt mostly taken care of we can keep up the pressure for a large package," said Seth Amgott, a spokesman for a coalition of American charities and advocacy groups called ONE.

Some other groups noted that 44 more countries were still burdened by debt to international lenders. Britain is also pressing for a doubling of international aid to Africa, but it is not clear whether that goal will be reached before the Gleneagles summit meeting.

Significantly, a statement by the Group of 8 finance ministers did not formally exclude other initiatives to fight poverty, including a tax on airline tickets proposed by France and Germany and a British proposal to raise money for poverty relief on international financial markets.

Both of those ideas are opposed by the United States, but their inclusion seemed to be part of a trade-off to secure agreement on the cancellation of debt. Asked about American opposition to an aviation tax on Saturday, Mr. Snow said, "Our position is the same."

Mr. Brown said Group of 8 countries had agreed to compensate the World Bank and the African Development Bank in particular for forfeiting interest payments on poor countries' debt, so those groups would have the income to make new loans to other countries. "We could not contemplate a situation," he said, where debt cancellation for some poor countries was made at the expense of other poor countries.

The United States agreed to pay up to $1.75 billion in compensation to international lenders over the next 10 years, while Britain agreed to pay up to $960 million. Other Group of 8 countries made their own, undisclosed pledges; more pledges are expected from other members of the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund this year.

Mr. Brown said the agreement on Saturday would immediately affect some $40 billion in debt, including servicing costs. But the amount it will actually cost the Group of 8 to compensate the international lenders is $16.7 billion - a calculation based on the payments the international lenders would have expected to receive from 18 debt countries between now and 2015, the officials said.

Over all, international lenders are owed some $55.6 billion, Mr. Brown said. The finance ministers said Group of 8 members would compensate the World Bank and the African Development Bank for their losses. But the International Monetary Fund would be able to use "existing resources" of its own to cancel the $6 billion it is owed by poor countries. Mr. Snow said this would require "no use of gold" - rebutting proposals by Mr. Brown for the I.M.F. to sell or revalue gold reserves to finance debt cancellation.

from the Boston Globe, 2005-Jul-3, by Joan Anderman with Charles Sennott of the Globe staff and correspondent Sarah Liebowitz contributing:

A day to rock the world
At global concert, bands and fans urge aid for Africa

LONDON -- In what was trumpeted as the largest concert event ever produced, more than 160 artists took to 10 stages around the globe yesterday for Live 8, a series of musical extravaganzas organized to draw attention to the plight of the world's poorest nations.

Hundreds of thousands of people turned out for the free shows -- from Tokyo to Johannesburg to Philadelphia -- and organizers said the combined audience exceeded 1 billion people via television, radio, and the Internet.

At the Philadelphia show, Grammy winner Kanye West enthralled fans with his hit “Jesus Walks," and Destiny's Child, clad like many of the artists all in white, dominated the stage. Rome welcomed Duran Duran and Faith Hill. And in Johannesburg, Nelson Mandela received a 5-minute standing ovation.

London's Live 8 opened to a roaring crowd as Sir Paul McCartney and Irish rockers U2, accompanied by a brass band in Beefeater hats and red officers' regalia, performed the Beatles' “Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band." The song's first line, “It was 20 years ago today," doubled as a reference to 1985's Live Aid concerts, also organized by Live 8 mastermind Bob Geldof.

An estimated 200,000 fans chimed in, more than a few choked with tears.

It was a potent, star-studded kickoff to what Geldof said would be “the greatest concert ever." The electronically linked concerts were held in London; Cornwall, England; Paris; Rome; Berlin; Moscow; Tokyo; Johannesburg; Philadelphia; and Barrie, Ontario.

In Philadelphia, where hundreds of thousands of people massed outside the Philadelphia Museum of Art, the US concert became the Will Smith Show, as the Fresh Prince returned to his former hometown.

“Circus Maximus in Rome, can you say hello to the Brandenburg Gate in Berlin!" shouted Smith, who orchestrated video greetings among the 10 cities as he was beamed around the world by satellite.

Pleading for leaders of the G-8 summit to “end this daily tragedy" of African poverty, Smith led the global audience in snapping their fingers every three seconds, signifying the child death rate in Africa.

Geldof, who 20 years ago raised $200 million for Ethiopian famine victims, was optimistic that the worldwide event would amount to more than a day of entertainment.

“Everything that rock 'n' roll had promised was made new at that moment," he said backstage during the Hyde Park concert. “We've excited a huge constituency, and even if we fail it will be a glorious failure."

Fans waved flags from more than a score of countries -- British, Irish, Swedish, Macedonian, Polish. Many danced with strangers and their kept spirits high through a 10-hour show that -- despite initial criticism for booking too many white, male rock dinosaurs and too few African artists -- traversed a wildly diverse musical terrain that found Snoop Dogg, Madonna, and Snow Patrol filling the same half-hour block.

Even the cynics who might doubt the power of a pop song were hard-pressed yesterday to deny that the event offered an unprecedented opportunity to reach a huge global music community.

The hope was that the rallied masses would bring populist pressure to bear on the leaders of the richest nations -- who meet later this week at the Group of Eight summit in Gleneagles, Scotland -- to heed the message spanning the stage in Hyde Park: “Trade Justice. Drop the Debt. More and Better Aid."

Besides a lineup of high-powered musicians that included Coldplay, R.E.M., Mariah Carey, and a reunited Pink Floyd, other supporters of Geldof's agenda appeared on the London stage. Microsoft's Bill Gates, actor Brad Pitt, and UN Secretary General Kofi Annan were as warmly received as the galvanizing musical moments -- among them elder statesman Elton John and newcomer Pete Doherty's duet on Marc Bolan's “Children of the Revolution," Annie Lennox's stinging performance of “Why" accompanied by images of HIV-positive children, and hero-of-the-day Geldof's humble turn on the old Boomtown Rats hit “I Don't Like Mondays."

President Bush's commitment last week to double aid to Africa by 2010 is seen as evidence that what's being called the “Long Walk to Justice," which winds up at the G-8 summit, is making headway.

More than a million Americans have signed the ONE declaration (at www.one.org) and the Live 8 list (www.live8list.org) as part of the buildup to this weekend's events. The petitions will be delivered to the G-8 summit by Geldof, who has been invited to address the gathering of leaders.

Geldof, a former New Wave musician, was knighted after Live Aid's success. But the difference between then and now was spelled out in another stage-spanning message: “We don't want your money -- We want you."

Considering the $25 billion price tag to cover the struggling nations' debt, Geldof set his sights on a massive awareness-raising effort. His ambitious plan, while derided by some as overly idealistic, has earned the support of Gates, who followed Elton John's gregarious set with a few brief, nervous comments.

“I believe that if you show people the problem and show them the solution, they will act," said Gates, who has donated $5 billion of his fortune to the cause of poverty relief. “We can do this, and when we do it will be the best thing humanity has ever done."

The same message of hope was conveyed in somewhat more poetic terms by U2, which released a flock of white doves into the sky during the galvanizing anthem “Beautiful Day."

In Cornwall, England, musician Peter Gabriel organized an all-African line-up.

MTV and VH1 broadcast the events live, and AOL and XM satellite radio carried live streams of the concerts to what one perhaps overly enthusiastic spokesperson described as “85 percent of the world's population."

Geldof didn't reprise the profanity-strewn plea for money that finally got the phones ringing during Live Aid. He did pop in and out of the proceedings, perhaps most poignantly to introduce one of the starving babies featured in a Live Aid montage who had grown -- thanks to the efforts of 20 years ago -- into a beautiful young woman. Madonna then appeared, African chorus in tow, to serenade her with “Like a Prayer."

Annan thanked the global audience for coming together on behalf of the poor and declaring Live 8 “the real United Nations."

The links between generations were readily apparent at the London concert, where Amanda Goldman, 59, was surrounded by her daughter, Jane, 35, and three grandchildren. Goldman told her grandchildren about seeing the Who and the Beatles “a lot longer than 20 years ago today" -- a Sergeant Pepper reference that the grandchildren didn't seem to get.

“Back then rock 'n' roll was . . . a way to step away from our parents and say our generation is different. Now rock 'n' roll is about stepping in, being part of a much wider circle and we can do that as a family here," she said.

from the Press Trust of India via The Financial Express, 2005-Mar-8:

India, Brazil, others must jointly fight poverty: Jeffrey Sachs

NEW YORK, MARCH 7: Calling upon democracies in the third world, including India, to join together and give a call for action to the world community for wiping out poverty, a leading economist claims that more spending by the US on defence is unlikely to make it safer if it did not “help” other nations.

"In a world of plenty, more than eight million people die each year due to poverty", says Jeffrey Sachs in his forthcoming book, even as he asks India, Brazil, Nigeria, Senegal and South Africa among others to give a joint call of action.

"Mahatma Gandhi and Martin Luther King Jr did not wait for the rich and the powerful to come to their rescue. They asserted their call to justice and made their stand in the face of official arrogance and neglect," he says in his book — “The end of poverty”.

The book, excerpts of which is being published in the upcoming issue of Time magazine, alleges that the nearly $500 billion that the United States will spend this year on military will never “buy peace” if it continues to spend only one-thirtieth of that amount - around $16 billion - to address the plight of the poor whose societies are destabilized by extreme poverty.

"The $16 billion represents 0.15% of US income, or just 15 cents for every $100 of income. The share devoted to helping the poor has declined for decades and is a tiny fraction of what the US has repeatedly promised, and failed, to give," he writes. Commending the millenium development goals which call for halving world poverty by 2015, he says the US, is barely participating in global efforts to end poverty and protect the environment, thus undermining its own security.

"It's time to honor the commitment to give 0.7% of our national income to these crucial goals," he says.

He rejects the "myth" that politicians are punished by their constituents for supporting actions to help the poor. There is plenty of experience, Sachs says, to show that the broad public will accept such measures, especially if they see that the rich within their own societies are asked to meet their fair share of the burden.

The poor, he says, "die in hospital wards that lack drugs, villages that lack anti-malarial nets, in houses that lack safe drinking water. They die nameless, without public comment."

Sach also says that development economics needs an “overhaul” in order to be much more like "modern medicine, a profession of rigour, insight and practicality".

"The sources of poverty are multidimensional. So are the solutions. In my view, clean water, productive soils and a functioning health-care system are just as relevant to development as foreign exchange rates."

Sachs, 50, has been in the forefront of promoting the UN's mdgs, of raising annual aid to 0.7% of GNP of the donor countries (starting with an extra $70 billion per year as of 2006), to halve poverty by 2015. He is a special adviser to United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan and head of Columbia University's Earth Institute.

from the Wall Street Journal, 2005-Oct-28, p.A12:

Volcker 5.0

The publication yesterday of Paul Volcker's fifth and final report on the U.N.'s Oil for Food program tells us little we didn't know about the broad outlines of the $100 billion scandal. But, oh, are the details ever instructive.

The Volcker report confirms that Saddam Hussein demanded, and got, some $1.8 billion in illegal surcharges, kickbacks and bribes from companies doing business in Iraq. It confirms that he steered billions in oil and humanitarian contracts to his politically preferred clients, particularly Russia and France, and smaller sums to agents of influence (or their associates) such as British MP George Galloway, French Senator Charles Pasqua, and Oil for Food director Benon Sevan. It confirms that Saddam did so under the noses, and frequently with the connivance, of the U.N. agencies entrusted to monitor the program.

All this is useful, but where this doorstop of a report really adds public value is its precise, comprehensive and well-substantiated details of the individuals and companies involved in the kickback schemes, and of the methods used to accomplish them. This should keep assorted attorneys general, state prosecutors and investigative magistrates in 60-odd countries busy for the next decade or so.

The scale here is breathtaking. Under Oil for Food, Iraq sold $64.2 billion in oil and purchased $34.5 billion in humanitarian goods. Of the oil purchasers, the Volcker report finds that 139 out of 248 companies paid illicit oil surcharges, which ranged from 10 to 50 cents a barrel. Among the 3,614 companies that provided humanitarian goods, 2,253 -- that's two thousand two hundred fifty-three -- companies paid some kind of kickback, or "after-sales service," as the Iraqis dubbed it.

Many of these companies are little known, and some are probably fronts. But others are giants: The construction equipment division of Sweden's Volvo is alleged to have "knowingly" paid $535,000 in kickbacks to push $11.8 million in construction equipment, while various subsidiaries of Germany's Siemens paid a total of $1.6 million out of $124.3 million in sales of electrical equipment. (For the record, Volvo denies the allegation and Siemens "cannot confirm" it.) Other major companies named in the report for paying kickbacks include Daewoo, Australian food exporter AWB and Scottish engineering giant Weir.

The report also provides a list, which runs to 60 pages, of influential individuals or groups awarded lucrative oil allocations by Iraq because they "espoused pro-Iraq views or organized anti-sanctions activities." Here again, the range is astonishing. In addition to Messrs. Galloway and Pasqua (each of whom was given oil allocations of 11 million barrels), one finds the names of a pro-Iraq Vatican priest (2.5 million), the Palestinian Liberation Front (nine million), the French-Iraqi Amity society (11.8 million), Burma's forestry minister (27 million), the Orthodox Church of Russia (two million), and the Presidential Office of Russia (21.3 million).

Among the handful of Americans named by Mr. Volcker is Shakir Al-Khafaji (12 million barrels), a well-connected Detroit-area businessman who led a delegation of anti-war Congressional Democrats to Baghdad in September 2002 and who funded an anti-sanctions documentary produced by former weapons inspector Scott Ritter. Mr. Al-Khafaji's financial involvement with Saddam was first documented in these pages by our Robert Pollock in March 2004.

Mr. Volcker's report also provides useful insight into the role of BNP-Paribas, the French bank selected by the U.N. to handle the escrow account through which Oil for Food monies were processed, and from which the bank earned an estimated $173 million in fees. Due to the way in which the program was set up, BNP was allowed to confirm letters of credit from other banks. Yet it was not forbidden from issuing letters of credit of its own, thereby creating a conflict between its disclosure obligations to the U.N. and its secrecy duties to its private customers. The result, writes Mr. Volcker, is that "BNP itself became an instrument for the payment of millions of dollars in illegal surcharges while doing little to detect or prevent such payments."

All of which reminds us again that the sanctions regime was corrupted to its roots, and that this corruption ultimately tainted nearly every branch and every leaf connected to it, including all the assorted "peace activists" and champions of internationalism who were in the pay of a despot. Of the Iraq war's many benefits to the international system, exposing that corruption, and stopping it, must be counted among the most significant.

from FoxNews.com, 2005-Nov-3, by Jonathan Hunt and Per Carlson:

Conflict of Interest Seen in Oil-for-Food Investigation

NEW YORK -- A conflict of interest involving Oil-for-Food investigator Paul Volcker may be the reason why an oil company involved in paying illegal surcharges to Saddam Hussein received no punishment.

FOX News obtained copies of interviews in which two senior employees of the French oil company Total tell an investigating Paris judge they used two Swiss companies -- Genmar and Mero -- to illegally funnel bribes to Saddam Hussein for oil contracts.

One of the executives told the judge: "Through companies like Genmar and others, Total retained the possibility of buying second hand Iraqi crude.The Iraqis did not care who the buyers were as long as the surcharges were paid."

The other Total executive said: "These two companies [Genmar and Mero] carried out successive contracts from which they extracted a profit of two cents a barrel."

France's former interior minister Charles Pasqua, named by Paul Volcker as an alleged recipient of Iraqi oil vouchers, believes Total and Genmar used his name to legitimize their dealings.

"Total used Genmar" Pasqua told FOX News. "If Genmar used my name, Total took advantage of it the same way. Since I was not involved, I want to know who used my name."

FOX News discovered that Volcker, who spent 18 months investigating the oil for food scandal, was aware of the admissions by the Total executives, yet failed to issue an adverse finding against the company, as he did against many others accused of the same thing.

Earlier this year FOX News reported that Volcker is a friend of, and has been a paid advisor to Canadian businessman Paul Desmarais, whose Power Corporation is one of the largest shareholders in Total oil. Volcker has not responded to repeated requests for an interview on this subject.

from the Associated Press via FoxNews.com, 2005-Nov-15, by Nick Wadhams:

U.N. Official Reinstated in Oil-for-Food Scandal

UNITED NATIONS — The United Nations reinstated the only U.N. official who was fired over the Iraq Oil-for-Food scandal, after an internal appeals body ruled that he had done nothing wrong, according to a letter made public Tuesday.

The decision was made Monday and Joseph Stephanides, fired May 31, received the letter Tuesday maintaining that he violated staff rules by showing preference to one bidder for an Oil-for-Food contract but essentially acknowledging the punishment was too harsh.

Stephanides, a 60-year-old Cypriot national, had been scheduled to retire in September and the move gives him his pay up to that point. Deputy spokeswoman Marie Okabe confirmed that Stephanides' firing had been overturned and said Undersecretary-General for Management Christopher Burnham signed the letter on behalf of U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan, who is at a conference in Tunisia.

The letter, dated Monday, said "the sanction that was imposed on you has been reconsidered in light of all the circumstances in the case and the principle of proportionality."

The Joint Disciplinary Committee, an internal U.N. appeals board, had ruled last month that Stephanides should be reinstated, issued a written apology and paid about $200,000 — about two years' back pay — for the emotional suffering and damage to his reputation caused by Annan's handling of his case.

Stephanides' lawyer, George Irving, said he was not satisfied with Annan's move and would take the case to the next step up the internal U.N. appeals ladder, the Administrative Tribunal. Unlike the disciplinary committee, its decisions are binding.

"They just maintain their decision that he did something wrong," Irving said.

The committee's ruling, disclosed to The Associated Press last week, concluded that Stephanides was fired mostly because of the public scrutiny from an investigation that found the $64 billion Oil-for-Food program was poorly managed and corrupt.

The committee "sympathized with the applicant's argument that he was being made the 'sacrificial lamb' in this matter so as to give the impression to the world that concrete and decisive action was being taken," the ruling said.

The decision to reverse Stephanides' firing, which required Annan's approval, could be embarrassing to the secretary-general and the U.N. as they try to move on from the Oil-for-Food scandal and other problems that have made this year one of the worst chapters in the world body's 60-year history.

Annan was not required to heed the decision.

Stephanides was fired for divulging bidding information related to an Oil-for-Food contract to Britain. He argued he was acting under the instructions of a U.N. Security Council sanctions committee.

In February, a U.N.-backed probe of the program led by former Federal Reserve Chairman Paul Volcker, accused him of tainting the bidding process over a contract to inspect goods going into Iraq.

On Stephanides' request, Volcker reopened his investigation into Stephanides over the summer. But Volcker's team reaffirmed its findings in a final report in late October, saying that he had shown a clear preference for one bidder over another, a technical violation.

Stephanides was the only U.N. employee to be punished over the scandal. Benon Sevan, the program's former chief, is being investigated by the Manhattan District Attorney's office for allegedly accepting kickbacks. Alexander Yakovlev, who worked in the U.N. contract office, resigned and pleaded guilty in August to soliciting a bribe from a company seeking a contract.

The Oil-for-Food program, which ran from 1996-2003, allowed Saddam Hussein to sell limited and then unlimited quantities of oil provided most of the money went to buy humanitarian goods such as food and medicine. It was meant to alleviate the suffering of ordinary Iraqis caused by U.N. sanctions imposed after Saddam's 1990 invasion of Kuwait.

from the Washington Post, 2005-Nov-2, p.A20, by an anonymous member of the editorial staff:

Oil for Fraud

SO WIDE-RANGING, and so comprehensive, is the Volcker commission's final report on the U.N. oil-for-food program in Iraq that -- paradoxically -- there is a danger that its significance will be ignored: If thousands of companies are implicated in bribery and currying favor, then the sense that "everybody was doing it" might drown out the role of particular individuals and companies, and the consequences for the United Nations. At the same time, by focusing on oil-for-food corruption, the report necessarily ignores the fact that much of the sanctions-busting took place outside the U.N. program and was tolerated by the United States and its allies.

What the report does best is make clear that, from the Iraqi government's point of view, the purposes of the oil-for-food program were twofold: to collect money -- some $1.8 billion -- for Saddam Hussein's regime and to reward regime supporters. The report, presented by former Federal Reserve chairman Paul A. Volcker, names for the record several American-run oil companies that it says were apparently involved in the former activity, among them Bayoil, Taurus and Coastal Corp. Oscar S. Wyatt Jr., the former chairman of Coastal, was indicted last month for paying bribes to the Iraqi government. Marc Rich, the oil trader pardoned by President Bill Clinton in 2000, is described as a middleman, as is Ben Pollner, the chief executive of Taurus.

But most of those allegedly receiving rewards were not Americans. The preponderance of lucrative contracts went to French and Russian companies, on the grounds that their governments opposed the sanctions regime and favored Iraq in the U.N. Security Council. Individuals who campaigned on behalf of Saddam Hussein in the West are also said to have been rewarded. Prominent among them is George Galloway, the British politician who has made a career out of support for Baathist dictatorship, anti-Americanism and opposition to the war in Iraq. The Senate subcommittee on investigations, which Mr. Galloway treated with mocking disdain earlier this year, separately prepared a report on the British parliamentarian, alleging that both his personal "charity" and his wife apparently received payments from a Jordanian middleman doing business in Iraq on Mr. Galloway's behalf. Among the other pro-Saddam Hussein, anti-sanctions campaigners who allegedly received allocations of oil were a Syrian journalist, a French priest, the Russian communist party and a U.N. official who resigned his post to "protest" the sanctions regime. Despite the pile of documentary evidence, most of the accused deny the charges; the Russian government has dismissed the report, alleging it to be based on false documents. Because the United Nations itself is not able to prosecute or sanction them, their assertions of innocence may not be tested.

The conclusion of this exercise has to be that the United Nations should not, in the future, be allowed to run anything involving large financial transactions without better checks to prevent corruption; the oil-for-food program was badly designed from the start, with unclear lines of responsibility between the United States and other members of the Security Council on the one hand and U.N. officials on the other. The United Nations' recent management of its $1 billion tsunami relief appeal, with the help of the auditing firm PriceWaterhouseCoopers, shows that the organization is capable of doing better.

But the Volcker report also underlines the urgency of reforms to strengthen the competence of the U.N. secretariat, particularly of its internal overseers. U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan has secured agreement in principle from the member states to get this done, but the reforms are being held up by countries that regard management renewal as a sinister plot devised by the supposedly unilateralist Bush administration. These obstructionists have their argument backward. Not reforming the United Nations is the best way to ensure that American policy will bypass it.

from the Associated Press, 2005-Oct-27, by Nick Wadhams and Edith M. Lederer:

U.N.: 2,200 Cos. Gave Iraq Illicit Funds
U.N. Investigation Finds 2,200 Companies Made Illicit Payments to Iraq's Oil-For-Food Program

UNITED NATIONS -- In a scathing final report documenting massive corruption in the U.N. oil-for-food program, investigators Thursday accused more than 2,200 companies, and prominent politicians, of colluding with Saddam Hussein's regime to bilk the humanitarian operation of $1.8 billion.

The 623-page document exposed the global scope of a scam that allegedly involved such name-brand companies as DaimlerChrysler and Siemens AG, as well as a former French U.N. ambassador, a firebrand British politician and the president of Italy's Lombardi region.

It meticulously detailed how the $64 billion program became a cash cow for Saddam and more than half the companies participating in oil-for-food at the expense of Iraqis suffering under U.N. sanctions. It blamed shoddy U.N. management and the world's most powerful nations for allowing the corruption to go on for years.

"What I do want to emphasize is that the corruption of the program by Saddam -- could not have been nearly so pervasive had there been more disciplined management by the U.N. and its agencies," said Paul Volcker, a former Federal Reserve chairman who led the investigation.

Volcker and many nations said the report underscored the urgent need to reform the United Nations. Earlier reports in his investigation have already led to criminal inquiries and indictments in the United States, France, and Switzerland. Volcker said his team would cooperate with legal authorities following up on the report.

The investigators found that companies and individuals from 66 countries paid illegal kickbacks using a variety of methods, and those paying illegal oil surcharges came from, or were registered in, 40 countries.

The companies came from Thailand, Malaysia, Russia, Belarus, Syria, Canada and many other places. Many businesses in the developing world made large payments to get humanitarian contracts.

Vietnam Northern Food Corp. purportedly paid $37.5 million in kickbacks, while Egypt's Holding Company for Food Industries allegedly paid $30.5 million.

from the Associated Press, 2005-Oct-11, by Pierre-Antoine Souchard:

Ex-French U.N. Diplomat Taken Into Custody

PARIS - France's former U.N. ambassador has been taken into custody as part of an investigation into allegations of wrongdoing in the Iraq oil-for-food program, judicial officials said Tuesday.

Jean-Bernard Merimee, 68, who also was ambassador to Italy from 1995-98 and to Australia in the 1980s, is suspected of having received kickbacks in the form of oil allocations from the regime of Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein. He was also a special adviser to U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan from 1999 to 2002.

Merimee was taken into custody on Monday, and is expected to be presented Wednesday to the judge leading the probe, the officials said on condition of anonymity because French law does not allow disclosure of information from judicial investigations.

Merimee was France's permanent representative to the U.N. from 1991-95. He was one of the world body's most prominent diplomats, in part because France occupies one of five permanent seats on the powerful U.N. Security Council.

The oil-for-food program was established in 1996 to provide food, medical supplies and other humanitarian goods for millions of Iraqis trying to cope with U.N. sanctions imposed after Iraq's 1990 invasion of Kuwait. The program ended with the U.S. invasion of Iraq in 2003.

Merimee worked as a special adviser to Annan from 1999 to 2002, helping to create a system by which the European Commission disbursed payments to the United Nations. Annan spokesman Stephane Dujarric said the U.N. would not comment on the specifics of the case.

“We have made it clear that we support the efforts of national authorities who wish to pursue proceedings into activities of their own nationals who may or may not have been involved in the oil-for-food program,” Dujarric said.

The French mission to the United Nations promised to cooperate with the investigation into Merimee. A spokesman said the mission's papers from Merimee's time at the U.N. had long since been sent back to the national archives in Paris and that there had been no request so far to meet with staff in New York.

Saddam manipulated the program under a scheme by which he essentially sold oil at a reduced rate to favored buyers, who could then turn around and sell the oil at a hefty profit.

Ten French officials and business leaders - including a former adviser to former Interior Minister Charles Pasqua - are suspected of having received oil allocations as kickbacks from Saddam's regime.

from the Wall Street Journal, 2005-Aug-16, p.A16:

U.N. Family Ties

The multiple Oil for Food investigations continue apace, and keeping track of them is never easy. But here's one way of making sense of the scandal: It's a friends-and-family package, and, who knows, maybe the international dialing is free.

Oil for Food was established in 1995, when Egyptian diplomat Boutros Boutros-Ghali was U.N. Secretary General. Earlier this year, we learned that one of the companies that profited corruptly from Oil for Food was a Geneva-based oil trading firm called AMEP, which is run by a man named Fakhry Abdelnour, who happens to be Mr. Boutros-Ghali's cousin. Also on the board of AMEP is Efraim Nadler, who is Mr. Boutros-Ghali's brother-in-law. Small world, right?

It gets smaller. Mr. Nadler's close friend is Benon Sevan, the former executive director of the Oil for Food program appointed by current Secretary General Kofi Annan. Last week, Paul Volcker's inquiry accused Mr. Sevan of steering oil allocations to AMEP and secretly partaking of the profits. Mr. Sevan, who protests his innocence, has beseeched Mr. Annan to come to his aid based on their many years of friendship.

Mr. Annan may have his own friends-and-family plan. On Sunday, the Times of London reported that Kobina Annan, Ghana's ambassador to Morocco and the Secretary General's brother, is being investigated by Mr. Volcker in connection with business dealings he had with Michael Wilson. Mr. Wilson is an Annan-family friend and former executive at the Geneva-based company Cotecna, which in December 1998 was improperly awarded a lucrative Oil for Food contract. At the time, Cotecna employed Mr. Annan's son Kojo, whom it eventually paid as much as $484,000, largely in disguised deposits after he had left the company.

Also close to Mr. Annan is Maurice Strong, a Canadian businessman who resigned as a U.N. undersecretary general last month when it emerged that he'd given his stepdaughter a U.N. job. And while we're talking nepotism, let's not forget Alexander Yakovlev. The former U.N. procurement officer, arrested last week for taking $1 million in bribes, had already been dismissed for arranging a job for his son with a U.N. contractor.

The pattern of rampant family favors here is certainly startling, even by political standards, and deserves to be probed as one possible reason that the U.N. failed to stop Saddam Hussein from rigging Oil for Food to serve his own purposes. Mr. Annan came to office promising to do away with this kind of behavior. Instead, he seems to be an emblem of it.

from the Wall Street Journal via OpinionJournal.com, 2005-Sep-9:

Oil for Food as Usual
The U.N.'s worst critics couldn't invent what the Volcker report shows.

"The scandal, quote, unquote, is, in my view, nonsense." Thus did Denis Halliday, a former United Nations Assistant Secretary General, opine in November 2004 on the U.N.'s Oil for Food program. With the release Wednesday of Paul Volcker's fourth report on Oil for Food, we have the clearest account yet of what this quote-unquote scandal is really about.

Let's begin with what this scandal is not about, at least not fundamentally. It is not about the dubious business practices of the Swiss Inspections company Cotecna, which was improperly awarded a multimillion-dollar Oil for Food contract while employing Secretary-General Kofi Annan's son Kojo, although this taught us something about the nepotism that typifies U.N. dealings. Nor is it about Kofi Annan's personal probity, which had been called into question by evidence that he was aware of, and tried to influence, the Cotecna bid. Mr. Volcker has found no conclusive proof on this score.

In other words, Oil for Food is not about some isolated incidents of perceived or actual wrongdoing during the course of a seven-year effort to maintain sanctions on Iraq, monitor its oil flows and feed its people. Oil for Food is a story about what the U.N. is. And our conclusion from reading the 847-page report is that the U.N. is Oil for Food.

---

To better understand the scandal, it helps to distinguish its political and managerial components. Responsibility for administering the program fell primarily to the U.N. Secretariat, which established the Office of Iraq Program (OIP) under the direction of Benon Sevan.

But the program itself was designed by members of the U.N. Security Council following protracted negotiations with the government of Saddam Hussein. It was the Security Council, for example, that approved Saddam's right to choose the companies, contractors and middlemen with whom Iraq would do business, and through which the entire program was corrupted. The Security Council also ran its own supervisory "661 Committee," named after the 1990 Security Council resolution that imposed sanctions on Iraq following its invasion of Kuwait.

The result of this bifurcated structure was that real responsibility for overseeing Oil for Food fell between two stools--and into the lap of Mr. Sevan and his staff. Mr. Volcker's previous reports tell us that Mr. Sevan was in the pay of the Iraqi government.

The current report adds to our knowledge of what the Iraqis got for their money. For example, Mr. Sevan and his staff failed to inform the Secretariat and the 661 Committee of the extent of Iraq's various kickback schemes--involving as many as 2,500 companies--and dismissed media reports about them as "groundless allegations, provocative suggestions and factual mistakes." Mr. Sevan also fought tooth-and-nail the Bush Administration's successful attempt to impose retroactive pricing standards on the sale of Iraqi oil, which helped curb some of Saddam's abuses.

However, part of the reason Mr. Sevan was able to get away with his malfeasance was that neither the Secretariat nor the 661 Committee showed any appetite to exercise their fiduciary obligations. Mr. Annan testified to the Committee that Mr. Sevan worked directly for the 661 Committee. Yet as the report acidly notes, "the difficulty with the Secretary-General's view is that he appointed Mr. Sevan and he created OIP in the first place." Maybe former Enron CEO Kenneth Lay should call Mr. Annan to testify as an expert witness at his trial.

This is an excerpt from the latest report of Paul Volcker's Independent Inquiry Committee on the United Nations' Oil for Food program. Benon Sevan, the former director of the Office of Iraq Program (OIP) that oversaw Oil for Food, has been accused by the Committee of taking nearly $150,000 in bribes from Iraq. "The 38th Floor" refers to Secretary General Kofi Annan's offices at U.N. headquarters. The "661 Committee" was a U.N. Security Council body, outside of Mr. Annan's Secretariat, which helped oversee the Oil for Food program. "When interviewed by the Committee, the Secretary General, the Deputy Secretary-General [Louise Frechette] and [Chief of Staff Iqbal] Riza each struggled to rationalize the role of the 38th Floor in overseeing OIP. Instead, they offered conflicting views of their own responsibilities as well the functions of Mr. Sevan vis-a-vis the program. These inconsistencies demonstrate a basic confusion within the highest offices of the Secretariat. . . . "When interviewed by the Committee, the Secretary General insisted that the program was "a very transparent operation"-"one of the most transparent programs [he has] seen" in terms of the process it required for reports to be made by the Secretariat to the Security Council. However, significant information was routinely withheld from the 661 Committee. Despite mounting evidence of a widespread kickback scheme, the Secretary General's quarterly reports never mentioned the emerging problem. . . . "To be sure, the Secretary General and Deputy Secretary General were apparently not aware of the full scope of evidence that OIP had accumulated and, clearly, Mr. Sevan bears responsibility for withholding information. . . . But the Secretary-General and Deputy Secretary-General (and Mr. Riza) were aware of the kickback scheme at least as early as February 2001. The Secretary General discussed the kickback allegations and other sanctions violations with Mr. Sevan on numerous occasions. . . . "In the final analysis, Mr. Sevan ran a $100 billion program with very little oversight from the supervisory authority that created his position and OIP. Through a combination of an unclear reporting structure, a lack of supervision by the 38th Floor, and a general unwillingness to recognize and address significant issues on the part of the Secretary General and Deputy Secretary General, Mr. Sevan had substantial autonomy to shape the program's direction. He failed to resist and challenge the Iraqi regime's rampant sanctions violations through which the regime diverted billions of dollars away from the humanitarian effort."

Mr. Annan is also on record telling the Committee he viewed Oil for Food as "a very transparent operation." Yet as the report shows, Mr. Annan was himself complicit in covering up Iraqi violations of the sanctions regime. Specifically, Mr. Annan was aware of the kickback issue from at least February 2001, yet "the Secretary General's quarterly reports never mentioned the emerging problem." (See the report excerpt nearby.)

Why Mr. Annan chose to see no evil on Iraqi sanctions violations, much less use his bully pulpit to denounce it (as he later denounced the Iraq war as "illegal"), is an interesting question. Our sense is that the U.N. Secretariat as a whole took the view that the sanctions regime was immoral and that Saddam was within his rights to break free of it.

Whatever the case, the Secretariat had a more than willing partner in the 661 Committee, and for reasons that are more easily comprehended. Iraq regularly steered contracts to Security Council members it believed were friendly to its political interests. Russian companies, for instance, did $19 billion in oil deals with Iraq, and French companies sold Saddam $3 billion in humanitarian assistance (much of which, the report notes, was diverted for Iraqi military purposes).

It's no coincidence, comrade, that France and Russia, as well as China (which did its own thriving business with Saddam) consistently downplayed the kickback allegations and pushed to have the sanctions regime eased. Only the U.S. and Britain made any effort to monitor Oil for Food for fraud, although even these efforts were lackluster until the Bush Administration came to office. We should also note the U.S. was itself guilty of looking the other way when it came to Iraq's oil smuggling through allies Jordan and Turkey.

---

So it was that the largest fraud ever recorded in history came about. Press reports often cite the overall size of Oil for Food at $60 billion, but Mr. Volcker's report makes clear that the real figure was in excess of $100 billion. From this, Saddam was able to derive $10.2 billion from illicit transactions. But the important point is that he was able to steer 10 times that sum toward his preferred clients in the service of his political aims.

None of this happened by accident. Mr. Volcker's report is replete with examples of incompetent U.N. oversight and tales of political wrangling among the permanent members of the Security Council. But the abiding fact is that it was the Western powers, not Saddam, who wanted Oil for Food at virtually any cost, because it offered the appearance of a meaningful policy in the absence of a real one, namely regime change. And it was the political convenience of this chimera that led the U.S. and the U.K. to tolerate, and the rest of the Security Council to feast on, the opportunities for corruption that were inscribed in the very nature of the program.

As for the U.N., it proved its worth to Saddam as the one hall of mirrors in which such shenanigans could take place. Yet even now we are told that "at least" Oil for Food fed the Iraqi people when they were on the edge of starvation, and this is accounted a U.N. success. That is false. Oil for Food offered a lifeline of cash and influence to a regime that was starving its people. The program did not corrupt the U.N. so much as exploit its essential nature. Now Mr. Annan wants to use this report as an endorsement of his "reform" proposals. Only at the U.N. could he dare to think he could get away with this.

from the New York Times, 2005-Sep-7, by Warren Hoge:

Oil-for-Food Report Says U.N. Needs Total Overhaul

UNITED NATIONS - Secretary General Kofi Annan and the members of the Security Council received an 860-page report today excoriating their management of the oil-for-food program and saying the United Nations must be extensively overhauled if it is to earn global credibility and meet its 21st-century obligations.

"The organization requires stronger executive leadership, thoroughgoing administrative reform and more reliable controls and auditing," the report, compiled by a committee led by Paul A. Volcker, a former chairman of the Federal Reserve Bank, said.

"At stake is the United Nations' ability to respond promptly and effectively to the responsibilities thrust upon it by the realities of a turbulent, and often violent, world," said the report, the result of a yearlong, $34 million investigation.

"In the last analysis, that ability rests upon the organization's credibility - on maintaining a widely held perception among member states and their populations of its competence, honesty and accountability."

Addressing the Security Council today in a special session at which Mr. Volcker presented the report, Mr. Annan said that while it was "painful for all of us," he accepted the personal criticism of him and would act urgently on the need for reforming the world organization.

"The findings in today's report must be deeply embarrassing to us all," he said. "The inquiry committee has ripped away the curtain, and shone a harsh light into them most unsightly corners of our organization.

He asked, "Who among us can now claim that U. N. management is not a problem, or is not in need of reform?"

The four-volume report examined in detail the history, conduct and unraveling of the $64 billion oil-for- food program in Iraq and said that the faults found were representative of the United Nations as a whole. It made hundreds of recommendations for tightening up financial and management practices to make the United Nations accountable, transparent and efficient.

It faulted Mr. Annan for not curbing the corruption and mismanagement in the program, but said it had found no evidence to support charges that he influenced a contract awarded to Cotecna Inspection Services, the Swiss company for which his son, Kojo, had worked.

It rejected claims in a memo that surfaced this June by an executive of the company that he had had conversations with the secretary general in Paris in 1998 at which the contract was discussed. The committee said it investigated the claim and interviewed all the principals and ended up believing that the executive, Michael Wilson, was "bluffing" to make himself seem important. The extent of their meeting, the committee said, was a shouted hello across a hotel corridor.

It said that the secretary general should have been more diligent in investigating the activities of his son and the possibilities of conflict of interest that it posed.

The committee said it found no evidence that Kofi Annan knew about the contract, but did find instances where Kojo Annan tried to influence it with calls to the United Nations procurement office. It also said that Kojo Annan exploited his father's name without his father knowing it.

In one incident, the report reveals, Kojo Annan bought a Mercedes limousine using his father's name, which yielded him a 15 percent diplomatic discount and enabled him to import the vehicle to Ghana without paying import duty. In all, he saved $20,644, the committee said.

The oil-for-food program scandal has deeply undermined the reputation of Mr. Annan, once thought of as the most outstanding secretary general since Dag Hammarskjold, and brought calls from Republican lawmakers in Washington for his resignation. Mr. Annan's spokesman, Stephane Dujarric, said Tuesday that the secretary general intended to fill out his term, which runs until the end of 2006.

The committee credited the program with "important successes" despite the abuses and corruption it generated. The report noted that the program helped keep the sanctions in place that it said deprived Saddam Hussein of the ability to acquire or develop weapons of mass destruction and that, thanks to the food and medicine that got to the 27 million Iraqis, "minimal standards of nutrition and health were maintained in the face of potential crisis."

It said these successes were achieved "despite uncertain, wavering direction from the Security Council, pressures from competing political forces in Iraq and endemic corruption on the ground."

However, it said, the structuring of the program gave too much leeway to the Iraqi regime and dangerously divided power between the Security Council and the Secretariat, which shared responsibilities for running it.

"That turned out to be a recipe for the dilution of Secretariat authority and evasion of personal responsibility at all levels," the report said.

It said that the program's instances of corruption, its easy exploitation by Mr. Hussein and its cutthroat national rivalries ended up discrediting the United Nations.

"As a result, serious questions have emerged about the United Nations' ability to live up to its ideals," it said.

The report also blamed the Security Council and its sanctions committee for tolerating smuggling that went on outside the oil-for-food program and that benefited countries like Turkey, Jordan and Syria. "Turning a blind eye to smuggling surely undercut a sense of discipline in conducting the program," the report said.

The report blamed the permanent council members, Britain, China, France, Russia and the United States - for bullying the other countries on the sanctions committee.

It estimated that Mr. Hussein skimmed $1.8 billion in kickbacks and surcharges from the United Nations-run program but that Mr. Hussein made $10.99 billion in illicit profits from smuggling outside the program.

Recognizing that the United Nations was not up to handling the incremental nature of the program's unanticipated growth, the hiring of thousands of people, the exchange of large amounts of money, the unaccustomed responsibilities for monitoring activities and the need to build infrastructure, the committee said it had asked itself if the world organization should "simply put their collective feet down and refuse to take on such costly and complicated operational programs for which it is ill-prepared?"

The committee said it reasoned that, whatever the United Nations' problems, no other international organization existed to take on such tasks.

"Most notable among the United Nations' structural faults is a grievous absence of effective auditing and management controls," it said.

It recommended four principal management reforms:

Clarifying the purpose and criteria of programs at the outset and establishing clear lines of responsibility.

Creating the new post of chief operating officer, part of whose job would be to guarantee personnel practices that would "emphasize professional and administrative talent over political convenience."

Establishing a new independent auditing board with wide ranging powers.

Coordinating programs that extend over many United Nations agencies with memoranda of understanding and common accounting standards.

The report was made public a week before more than 170 presidents and prime ministers take up the issue of reforming the United Nations at a summit meeting to update the principles and goals of the millennium declaration of 2000.

Saying the United Nations charter did not equip a secretary general with the powers needed to meet modern-day expectations of the job, it urged strengthening the office and broadening its authority.

That is a recommendation that has been opposed by many developing nations in the current crisis talks over what shape next week's reform proposals should take. They believe that ceding additional power to the Secretariat and the Security Council dilutes the authority of the 191-member General Assembly, where their voices can be heard.

from The Economist, 2005-Aug-9:

Corruption at the heart of the United Nations

An investigation has concluded that the former head of the United Nations' oil-for-food programme in Iraq took kickbacks to help an oil company win contracts. Another senior UN official is accused of soliciting bribes. The report is a severe blow to the organisation at a crucial time

FOR over a year, investigators have pored over questions of mismanagement and corruption at the United Nations. On Monday August 8th, they produced their firmest—and most painful—conclusions to date. An independent commission has found that Benon Sevan, the former head of the UN's oil-for-food programme in Iraq, “corruptly benefited” from kickbacks while he was in charge. Another UN official, from the procurement office, is accused of soliciting bribes. The UN's biggest-ever humanitarian undertaking seems to have become its biggest-ever scandal.

A harsh light began to shine on Mr Sevan after his name appeared on documents found in Iraq after the American-led invasion of 2003. Under the programme he ran, Iraq, though shackled by trade sanctions, could sell oil to buy food and medicine for its people. But the Iraqis negotiated the right to choose buyers and sellers in the programme. This gave Saddam Hussein's government the ability to use oil concessions as a way to buy friends and influence. Among those alleged to have been bribed with oil vouchers are several European politicians.

But the charge that corruption may have tainted the top of the UN bureaucracy itself shook the organisation deeply. Mr Sevan denied any wrongdoing when his name hit the headlines. But the UN called for an independent inquiry, headed by Paul Volcker, a former head of America's Federal Reserve. Mr Volcker's first report, in February, showed that Mr Sevan had had repeated—and oft-denied—contact with the president of an oil company, AMEP, that received oil vouchers from Saddam. Mr Sevan also had around $160,000 in unusual bank deposits. He insisted that the money had come from an aunt.

This week's report gives details of repeated meetings not only with AMEP's president but also with Fred Nadler, a close friend of Mr Sevan's revealed by the new report to be a director of AMEP as well. Mr Nadler controlled a Swiss bank account in a shell company's name. Pennies off each barrel of oil sold by AMEP under the oil-for-food scheme went to the Swiss account, says the report, and money was withdrawn from it when Mr Sevan and/or Mr Nadler were in Geneva. Soon after, large sums of cash—mostly $100 bills—were paid into Mr Sevan's American accounts. The Volcker committee thus claims a “reasonable sufficiency” of evidence that Mr Sevan was on the take. An American criminal investigation may now see if it can indict him. The Volcker committee has asked UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan to strip Mr Sevan of his diplomatic immunity, which he has said he will do. Mr Sevan resigned from his UN post on Sunday but continues to protest his innocence, saying that Mr Annan has 'sacrificed' him under political pressure.

Another long section of Monday's report examines the adventures of Alexander Yakovlev, an officer in the UN's procurement department. The report charges that Mr Yakovlev solicited a bribe from Société Générale de Surveillance, an inspection contractor, in exchange for confidential bidding information. (There is no evidence that SGS paid any such bribe.) The Volcker committee also says it has evidence that Mr Yakovlev took hundreds of thousands of dollars from other UN contractors. He and Mr Sevan are now the first two UN officials to be directly accused of personally benefiting from corrupt activity.

Rotten timing

The report makes only passing references to Mr Annan, but he is personally connected to another affair still under investigation. The Volcker committee is looking into whether Mr Annan's son Kojo, who worked for a Swiss inspection-services firm called Cotecna, used his UN connections to help Cotecna win a bid.

The committee's last report, in March, accused Kojo of concealing the length and depth of his involvement with Cotecna. But the committee had no conclusive evidence that Mr Annan senior knew his son was currently being paid by a company bidding for a UN contract. Since then, in an e-mail that has appeared in press reports, a Cotecna vice-president at the time, Michael Wilson, tells of a useful meeting with the secretary-general “and his entourage” shortly before Cotecna won its bid. Mr Wilson denies that the e-mail is genuine. The Volcker committee promises a “definitive” report on the affair in September.

If direct links are drawn between the UN's head and the oil-for-food scandal, Mr Sevan's fall would seem comparatively trifling in its consequences for the world body. But even if Mr Annan is cleared of wrongdoing, the Volcker team has already highlighted extensive management failures that let so many things go wrong with oil-for-food on his watch. And all of this comes at a crucial time for the UN, as it begins to consider how to reform itself.

America has just sent John Bolton, a fiery critic of the UN in the past, to be its ambassador there. Those Americans backing the hard-charging Mr Bolton say that he is the ideal man right now, as the UN needs a good shake-up. Only someone not afraid to slaughter sacred cows, they say, can get the job done.

But the UN, rightly, turns some of the criticism over oil-for-food back to America (and its ally, Britain). First, while quite a bit of money went missing in the kickbacks and bribes detailed in Mr Volcker's reports, much more misdirected cash went elsewhere. Saddam supported himself by selling oil illegally to neighbours including Jordan and Turkey. UN defenders say America turned a blind eye to this, since these two countries were its allies. And UN backers remind America that the UN Security Council, through its sanctions committee, approved every contract awarded under oil-for-food. That means that America and Britain could have vetoed any of the dodgy deals involving Mr Sevan and the others accused. But they appear to have been more concerned with potentially weapons-related “dual use” Iraqi imports than they were about corruption. A later Volcker committee report will look into the Security Council's oversight failures.

So Mr Bolton's arrival and the mutual acrimony over oil-for-food mean tense times between the UN and its most powerful member—all the more so given that this comes just before the world body is set to consider proposals to keep it relevant after the war in Iraq. These include adding new permanent members to the Security Council, defining terrorism more clearly, helping the UN to react more robustly to humanitarian disasters, and more. A high-level summit in September is meant to tackle these questions.

The big reforms require a two-thirds majority in the UN's general assembly, and no veto by any of the five permanent members of the Security Council (America, Britain, China, France and Russia). But not even the claimants to new Security Council seats—including Japan, Brazil and India—can agree among themselves who, exactly, should get a place at the table. They now seem unlikely to convince America, grouchier than ever about the UN, to take their side. Some of the other worthy goals of September's reform conference could also be caught in the crossfire. The exploits of Messrs Sevan, Yakovlev and others may have done more than just a terrible disservice to the wretched people of Iraq they were paid to help.

from the Financial Times, 2005-Mar-21, by Mark Turner at the United Nations and Bertrand Benoit in Berlin:

Annan warns over UN reform package

Kofi Annan, United Nations secretary-general, on Monday proposed the most wide-reaching reforms ever in the UN's 60-year history, but warned they would work only if countries accepted his ideas as a comprehensive package.

“In any such list, there are items which seem more important to some than others, while others consider them essential. The temptation is to treat the list as an à la carte menu,” he told the UN General Assembly.

He added that cherry-picking of individual proposals would not work. “If you need the help of other states to achieve your objectives, you must also be willing to help them achieve their objectives,” he said.

His proposals range from an attempt to define terrorism, an endeavour which has so far eluded the 191 member states, to revising rules on when the international community should use military force.

Mr Annan's officials say the package basically proposes a bargain whereby rich countries help the poor to develop, by promoting the Millennium Development Goals, while poor countries help alleviate rich countries' security concerns. In both cases, Mr Annan says, action must be underpinned by respect for human rights.

But almost every proposal faces opposition from some quarter: whether Arab concern at Mr Annan's stance on terrorism, US objections to the International Criminal Court or Chinese reluctance to allow the Security Council to intervene in countries such as Sudan, which is accused of genocide.

Expansion of the 15-member Security Council into one comprising 24 countries may prove one of the toughest nuts to crack. Mr Annan offers two options: one that would create six new permanent seats and three new elected rotating seats. The other would create eight “semi-permanent” seats, and one additional elected seat.

Japan, Germany, Brazil and India have launched a joint bid for permanent seats; but each faces opposition from regional rivals.

In Tokyo on Saturday, Condoleezza Rice, US secretary of state, offered support for Japan's seat but not for the others. That left Germany puzzling over the implications for its own bid, although Karsten Voigt, co-ordinator for transatlantic relations in the German Foreign Ministry, said: “At the very least, the comment means the US is principally in favour of an enlargement [of the Security Council].”

Although he recognised that consensus over enlargement of the Security Council might not be possible, Mr Annan urged countries to act anyway. Enlargement of the Security Council would have to be ratified by two-thirds of the General Assembly including the five permanent members of the Security Council.

Here is a full explanation of why world government is inconsistent with the US constitution:

1. the fundamental legislative, executive, and judicial empowerments:

Article I Section 1:

“All legislative powers herein granted shall be vested in a Congress of the United States, which shall consist of a Senate and House of Representatives.”

Article II Section 1:

“The executive power shall be vested in a President of the United States of America. [...]”

Article III Section 1:

“The judicial power of the United States, shall be vested in one Supreme Court, and in such inferior courts as the Congress may from time to time ordain and establish. [...]”

2. the supremacy and fidelity clauses of Article VI:

“This Constitution, and the laws of the United States which shall be made in pursuance thereof; and all treaties made, or which shall be made, under the authority of the United States, shall be the supreme law of the land; and the judges in every state shall be bound thereby, anything in the Constitution or laws of any State to the contrary notwithstanding.

The Senators and Representatives before mentioned, and the members of the several state legislatures, and all executive and judicial officers, both of the United States and of the several states, shall be bound by oath or affirmation, to support this Constitution [...]”

3. the description of the treaty process:

Article II Section 2:

“He shall have power, by and with the advice and consent of the Senate, to make treaties, provided two thirds of the Senators present concur [...]”

4. a prohibition on direct relations between states and foreign entities:

Article I Section 9:

“No state shall, without the consent of Congress, lay any duty of tonnage, keep troops, or ships of war in time of peace, enter into any agreement or compact with another state, or with a foreign power [...]”

5. the non-resident suit exemption amendment:

Amendment XI (ratified February 7, 1798)

“The judicial power of the United States shall not be construed to extend to any suit in law or equity, commenced or prosecuted against one of the United States by citizens of another state, or by citizens or subjects of any foreign state.”

Nothing more is needed. Article VI commands that the constitution of which it is a part is the supreme law of the land, and that all legislators and state officers in all three branches must support the constitution, thereby legally prohibiting enactment of a law, or entry into a treaty, that infringes the constitution. Article I/II/III Section 1 grant exclusive legislative, executive, and judicial power to officers bound by the constitution. Article I Section 9 prohibits a state from supporting a suit brought in a court not inferior to the US Supreme Court, and Amendment XI guarantees that the corporate United States will not support or involve itself in any suit brought in a court not inferior to the US Supreme Court.

As a consequence of the above, there is no avenue legally consistent with the US constitution whereby a foreign power (for example, the International Criminal Court) could bring suit against a US citizen while he is in the US, or against a state or portion thereof.

If a world government body cannot enforce judicial accountability, it cannot enforce anything, so it is meaningless and void. Either the US constitution goes, or there is no real world government.

from the Washington Post, 2005-Mar-25, p.A18, by a staff editorialist:

Outsourcing Rights

THE CASE OF Gary Sherwood Small didn't get much attention when the Supreme Court considered it last fall. It raised what may have seemed a trivial question of whether the words "any court" in a federal criminal law mean any court in this country or include foreign courts as well. Yet the recent public debate between Justices Antonin Scalia and Stephen G. Breyer and the high court's opinion striking down the death penalty for juveniles have together pushed into the public arena the once academic question of how U.S. courts should regard foreign legal decisions. In that context, Mr. Small's disturbing and illuminating case deserves a second look.

The debate over foreign law has grown in importance as the court has heard more cases involving America's role in the world. Should U.S. courts consult foreign practice when assessing whether a punishment is "cruel and unusual" for purposes of the Eighth Amendment? Should international court judgments made under treaties this country has signed bind U.S. courts? Should the judiciary apply international humanitarian law to detainees in the war on terrorism in the absence of explicit congressional direction?

This panoply of questions has triggered a depressingly ideological response, with many conservatives decrying the use of foreign court judgments to inform U.S. adjudication in all circumstances and many liberals and human rights activists keen to have U.S. courts consult foreign sources as a matter of course. In recent years, the centrist faction on the Supreme Court has embraced the transnational approach as well.

In a global economy, some integration of national and global legal systems is inevitable. But the transnationalist approach has dangers, too -- dangers that should concern liberals as much as they do the court's right flank.

Mr. Small's case is a good example. He was convicted under a federal law prohibiting those with prior criminal convictions in "any court" from owning firearms. But Mr. Small's prior conviction took place in Japan, where defendants have fewer rights than here. He was not entitled to a jury trial. Witnesses against him testified by remote deposition, and he could not cross-examine them. The panel of judges hearing his case changed a few weeks into the trial. The prosecutor forced him to take the stand and testify -- and then used his silence against him. After his arrest, he was interrogated for 25 days without access to counsel. He was not allowed an appeal. And in part on the strength of the conviction thus obtained, he now faces prison in this country.

U.S. lower courts signed off on this. "Any court," after all, is not limited on its face to any court in the United States. The procedure was fundamentally fair, the trial court ruled; the evidence against Mr. Small was overwhelming, and there is consequently no indication that he was prejudiced by Japanese criminal procedure. Yet if the high court buys this reasoning, the result will be that a man can be imprisoned in the United States based on serial violations of constitutional rights this country's courts are supposed to hold sacrosanct. Should U.S. courts give similar deference to judgments from Iranian or Burmese courts?

Cases like Mr. Small's show the risks of incorporating into U.S. law the legal systems of nations, even democratic ones, that don't share America's legal values. One doesn't have to be Justice Scalia to worry about the implications for liberty and the democratic rights of the American people if the courts outsource America's constitutional tradition.

What about an in absentia conviction, particularly when the convicted party has never even been to the foreign country at issue, and has committed no act involving that country that would be a crime in this country? These are not idle questions; various countries, notably Belgium, have experimented with "universal jurisdiction". This whole idea of allowing foreign convictions to handicap domestic constitutional rights is legally impossible.

from the Associated Press, 2005-Mar-29, by Anne Gearan:

Supreme Court to hear case about gun convictions in foreign courts

WASHINGTON - The Supreme Court agreed Monday to decide whether people convicted of crime overseas can be barred from owning a gun in the United States.

U.S. law forbids felons from owning guns, with a few exceptions for antitrust and trade violations. The government has contended that the law covers felons convicted overseas.

Lower federal courts have disagreed over the issue, and the Supreme Court took a case involving a Pennsylvania man to resolve the conflict.

Gary Sherwood Small answered "no" to the felony conviction question on a federal form when he bought a handgun in 1998, a few days after he was paroled from a Japanese prison for violating weapons laws in that country.

Small was indicted in 2000 for lying on the form and for illegally owning two pistols and 335 rounds of ammunition. He later entered a conditional guilty plea pending the outcome of this case.

Small's lawyer argued that Congress did not intend to include foreign convictions when it wrote the gun law. Why else would Congress have included those exceptions for business-related crimes in the United States, Small's lawyer asked the high court.

"It would make no sense that Congress intended to give someone less protection when his conviction was obtained in Iraq, Afghanistan or some foreign jurisdiction as opposed to a court in the United States," Small's appeal said.

To read the law otherwise would mean someone convicted of an unfair trade practice overseas "perhaps selling a Bible in Afghanistan and convicted by a Taliban court," could not own a gun in the United States, but an unfair trade practice conviction in a U.S. court would not count, Small's lawyer wrote.

Furthermore, the split among federal appeals courts means that someone with a foreign conviction cannot buy a gun in one state but could legally do so in another, setting a New Yorker up for arrest when "he and his buddies cross the border into Pennsylvania to go deer hunting," Small argued.

"One million deer hunters are in the woods in Pennsylvania on the opening day of deer season," Small's appeal said, "and a like number are in the woods in New York."

Solicitor General Theodore Olson, the government's top Supreme Court lawyer, told the high court that the issue does not come up often, but he agreed with Small that the division among lower federal courts is a problem.

Olson told the court the government did not object to having the issue resolved at the Supreme Court. The Bush administration's short legal filing in the case contains no defense of the gun law, but noted that the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms needs to be able to enforce federal gun law uniformly.

The case is Small v. United States, 03-750.

Also Monday, the court agreed to hear appeals filed by the Bush administration over taxes on trial lawyers' fees. Trial lawyers already pay taxes on the contingency fee they collect when clients get a damage award or settlement in court. The Supreme Court will now consider whether, as the government argues, clients must also pay taxes on the contingency fee money.

The cases are Cir v. Banks, 03-892 and Cir v. Banaitis, 03-907.

from the Associated Press, 2004-Nov-4:

Absent Rehnquist Plays Role in Gun Case Hearing

The Supreme Court yesterday considered whether people convicted of a crime overseas can be barred from owning a gun in the United States, with the argument at times centering on how the absent Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist might rule.

On a day when Democratic Sen. John F. Kerry's concession to President Bush ended the presidential campaign without legal challenges to the outcome, the eight justices went about their business of hearing arguments and bantered at times. Rehnquist missed a third day of arguments; he disclosed Monday that he is undergoing radiation and chemotherapy for thyroid cancer, news that has prompted intense speculation about whether he will retire.

U.S. law forbids felons from owning guns, with a few exceptions for antitrust and trade violations. At issue is whether Congress meant to include foreign convictions when it criminalized firearm possession by anyone convicted in "any court."

"I'm going to ask a question the chief justice would ask if he were here, because he always asked it," Justice Antonin Scalia said. "If you had to pick your best case in interpreting the word 'any,' what would it be?"

Government attorney Patricia Millett responded that the Supreme Court had always given the word "any" a broad meaning to help promote gun safety, before Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg jumped in, citing a decision Rehnquist wrote that she said suggested otherwise.

"When Congress legislates, it usually is thinking only about the United States," she said, contending that lawmakers never contemplated foreign convictions. "The chief made the point."

Rehnquist has reserved the right to rule on cases heard this week based on the written briefs and transcripts of the oral argument. Some Supreme Court observers have said Bush's reelection might speed the conservative chief justice's decision to retire after 32 years on the court.

The case heard yesterday involves Gary Sherwood Small of Pennsylvania, who answered "no" to a felony conviction question on a federal form when he bought a handgun in 1998, though he had been convicted of violating weapons laws in Japan.

Small was indicted in 2000 on charges of lying on the form and illegally owning two pistols and 335 rounds of ammunition. He later entered a conditional guilty plea pending the outcome of the Supreme Court ruling.

Small's attorney, Paul D. Boas, argued yesterday that the gun law should not apply to foreign crimes, noting that other sections in the statute referred only to U.S. convictions when it created the exceptions for antitrust and trade violations.

"We can't ignore the entire statutory scheme here, which time and time again refers to domestic matters," Boas said.

To Scalia's question what the best case would be that Rehnquist would want to know about, Boas said he would have to think. "He asked a good question," Boas commented jokingly.

The case is Small v. United States, 03-750. A ruling is expected by July.

from the Washington Post, 2005-Apr-27, p.A2, by Charles Lane:

2 Rulings Reveal Views on Effects Of Overseas Law
High Court Debates Whether Foreign Rulings Apply Here

The Supreme Court ruled yesterday that the government may not deny a U.S. citizen gun ownership because of a criminal conviction abroad -- but may prosecute one for plotting to cheat a foreign government out of tax revenue.

The twin rulings shed indirect but revealing light on justices' views of a hot topic: the interaction between U.S. and foreign law.

In Small v. U.S. , No. 03-750, a five-justice majority said Gary Sherwood Small was wrongly prosecuted by the Justice Department for buying a pistol after having been found guilty of gun-smuggling in Japan.

Federal law bars gun possession by those convicted of a serious offense "in any court." But the court, in an opinion by Justice Stephen G. Breyer, said the phrase does not include foreign courts.

In Pasquantino v. U.S. , No. 03-725, five justices ruled that the Justice Department properly prosecuted three men for wire fraud after they used U.S. phone lines to plan to smuggle liquor into Canada, avoiding hefty Canadian excise taxes.

A common-law rule bars using U.S. courts to enforce a foreign government's tax laws, but in an opinion by Justice Clarence Thomas, the court said the real issue in the case was not collecting Canada's taxes, but preventing Americans from defrauding Canada.

The court is embroiled in internal debate over the applicability of foreign court rulings and other international legal authorities to interpretation of the Constitution.

Several justices, most prominently Breyer and Ruth Bader Ginsburg, favor drawing on such sources for nonbinding input, arguing that it improves the court's decisions and helps foreign courts establish their own legitimacy. Thomas and Justice Antonin Scalia oppose the use of foreign law, arguing that the Supreme Court is competent only to rule on the U.S. Constitution and statutes.

The debate has spilled over into Congress, with conservative Republicans condemning the court's use of international law in its recent ruling abolishing the death penalty for 16- and 17-year-old juvenile offenders.

Yesterday's cases were statutory, not constitutional, turning in large part on the word "any."

In Small v. U.S. , Breyer interpreted "any court" to exclude foreign courts, because there is an assumption that Congress intends to legislate with respect to domestic concerns and the rest of "the statute's language does not suggest any intent to reach beyond domestic convictions."

Dissenting in that case, Thomas replied, in essence, that "any" means "any" -- a point he stressed writing for the majority in Pasquantino v. U.S., where he argued that U.S. laws against wire fraud prohibit "any scheme" to cheat someone out of money. That includes a scheme to cheat a government out of revenue, he wrote.

But Breyer's reluctance to ban gun ownership based on foreign convictions also reflected his view that such convictions are less reliable indicators of a gun purchaser's dangerousness.

He noted that dictatorships use their courts to punish dissent and other offenses that would not be recognized as such in the United States. This showed that Breyer's willingness to accept and apply the legal determinations of courts abroad is not unlimited.

It was Thomas, arguing for a strict reading of "any," who insisted that "foreign convictions indicate dangerousness just as reliably as domestic convictions" and should be recognized.

In Pasquantino v. U.S. , Ginsburg, joined by Breyer as well as Scalia and Justice David H. Souter, faulted the majority for approving the use of U.S. wire fraud law "essentially to enforce foreign tax law."

from the Associated Press via the San Francisco Chronicle, 2005-Apr-21, by Hope Yen:

O'Connor Dismisses Ado Over Int'l Law

Justice Sandra Day O'Connor on Thursday dismissed growing criticism about the Supreme Court's use of international law in its opinions, saying it makes sense for justices to look at foreign sources when a point of law is unclear.

O'Connor, a Reagan appointee, participated in a lively one-hour discussion at the National Archives with Justices Antonin Scalia and Stephen G. Breyer. She said if there is no controlling U.S. precedent or the viewpoint of states is unsettled, "of course we look at foreign law."

"This is much ado about nothing," she said in response to a question by moderator Tim Russert of NBC. "Our Constitution is one that evolves. What's the best way to know? State legislatures — but it doesn't hurt to know what other countries are doing."

O'Connor's comments come amid a growing divide on the court over the citation of international opinion to support decisions interpreting the Constitution. Last month, justices ruled 5-4 to outlaw the death penalty for juvenile killers, citing in part international sentiment against it.

O'Connor, who dissented in that ruling, wrote in a separate opinion that international law was relevant but in that case wasn't strong enough to justify striking down the practice since many state legislatures still allowed it.

Earlier this week, House Majority Leader Tom DeLay singled out Justice Anthony Kennedy's work as "incredibly outrageous" and "activist," citing his majority opinion in the death penalty case in particular because the Reagan appointee uses international law and "does his own research on the Internet."

Three of the justices — Scalia, Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist and Clarence Thomas — have said foreign law has no relevance. Scalia has been increasingly critical of the practice in recent months, pointing to decisions in recent years to decriminalize gay sex and ban the execution of the mentally retarded.

"I don't agree it's much ado about nothing," Scalia said in response to O'Connor. Regarding the death penalty case, he said the majority led by Kennedy "contradicted the view of the majority of the states."

"I don't see how international law is relevant. I don't know what a South Africa court will tell you about American law," he said.

Breyer countered: "It's appropriate in some instances to look at other places. It's not binding by any means. But if they have a way of working out a problem that's relevant to us, it's worth reading."

During the panel discussion, the three justices also said their typical work day consists mostly of reading — "on average 1,500 pages a day," according to O'Connor — and some writing.

In response to questions, the justices said they never horse-trade for votes, although at times they might seek a unanimous vote if possible in a particularly controversial case.

O'Connor, Scalia and Breyer also said they opposed live television coverage of their oral arguments, which are open to the public and available on audiotape several days afterward. They said sound bites could misrepresent the proceedings.

"For every one person who watches gavel to gavel to understand what's going on, 10,000 will see takeouts on network news I guarantee will be misinterpreted," Scalia said.

Breyer said the court prefers to avoid making a dramatic change that might prove to have unintended consequences, such as a distortion of the court's work.

"First go with the audio, and be very cautious. I think that would be my point of view," he said.

from the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, 2003-Oct-29, by Bill Rankin:

U.S. justice is honored
O'Connor says court has its ear to the world

The U.S. judiciary should pay more attention to international court decisions to help enrich our nation's standing abroad, U.S. Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O'Connor said Tuesday.

"The impressions we create in this world are important and they can leave their mark," O'Connor said.

On the whole, the U.S. judicial system leaves a favorable impression around the world, she said "but when it comes to the impression created by the treatment of foreign and international law and the United States court, the jury is still out."

The 73-year-old justice, considered by many to be the most influential member of the nation's highest court, made her remarks to a dinner sponsored by the Southern Center for International Studies.

O'Connor received the Atlanta center's World Justice Award at the dinner at the Marriott hotel in Buckhead.

Former Georgia Court of Appeals Judge Dorothy Toth Beasley presented O'Connor with the award.

For decades, O'Connor said, U.S. courts declined to consider international law when reaching important decisions.

But in recent years, she said, the U.S. Supreme Court began acknowledging the thoughts of the global community.

The first such case was decided in 2002 when the Supreme Court found it unconstitutional to execute the mentally retarded, she said. In arriving at that decision, O'Connor said, the high court noted that the world community overwhelmingly disapproved of the practice.

Also influential was a court brief filed by American diplomats who discussed the difficulties confronted in their foreign missions because of U.S. death penalty practices, she said.

The second ruling cited by O'Connor was, as she called it, "the famous or perhaps infamous case," in which the Supreme Court overturned the Texas anti-sodomy law.

In that decision, the Supreme Court majority relied partly on a series of decisions by European courts on the same issue, O'Connor said.

"I suspect," O'Connor said, "that over time we will rely increasingly, or take notice at least increasingly, on international and foreign courts in examining domestic issues."

Doing so, she added, "may not only enrich our own country's decisions, I think it may create that all important good impression."

from the Associated Press, 2005-Oct-18, by Mark Sherman:

Gonzales Weighs in on International Law

WASHINGTON -- Attorney General Alberto Gonzales on Tuesday joined critics of the use of foreign law in Supreme Court opinions, calling it anti-democratic and unworkable.

"Foreign judges and legislators are not accountable to the American people. If our courts rely on a foreign judge's opinion or a foreign legislature's enactment, then that foreign judge or legislature binds us on key constitutional issues," Gonzales said in a speech at George Mason University Law School in Arlington, Va.

Gonzales included a passage about citations of foreign opinion in court rulings as part of a lengthy defense of Supreme Court nominee Harriet Miers and judicial restraint.

He called Miers, like Chief Justice John Roberts before her, "an extraordinary candidate" and cited Roberts' views on the matter.

"If an American judge wants to find a law consistent with his or her personal opinion, it can be found. Chief Justice Roberts in his confirmation hearing compared this to looking over the crowd and picking out one's friends. As a practical matter, it may be impossible for even the most conscientious judge to avoid being arbitrarily selective in the use of foreign law," Gonzales said.

There has been a growing divide on the high court over references to foreign laws to support decisions interpreting the Constitution. Earlier this year, justices ruled 5-4 to outlaw the death penalty for juvenile killers, citing in part foreign sentiment against it.

Rep. Tom DeLay, R-Texas, singled out Justice Anthony Kennedy's work as "incredibly outrageous" and "activist" after Kennedy wrote the majority opinion in the death penalty case.

While Roberts criticized the practice during his confirmation hearings, he did not go as far as some conservatives who say judges who look to foreign laws are violating their oaths.

Justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Stephen G. Breyer and Sandra Day O'Connor have defended looking at foreign sources when a point of law is unclear.

Ginsburg said using foreign sources does not mean giving them superior status in deciding cases.

"I will take enlightenment wherever I can get it," she said last month. "I don't want to stop at a national boundary."

More detailed treatment of the International Criminal Court, from Freedom Alliance (Lt. Col. Oliver L. North USCM (Ret.), founder and honorary chairman), 2001-Jan-22, by Thomas Jacobson, senior policy analyst for Freedom Alliance, from http://www.freedomalliance.org/programs/un/ib/2001/2001-01.pdf :

Issue Brief 2001-01

10 Reasons to Reject the International Criminal Court

On New Year's Eve, December 31, 2000, then President William Jefferson Clinton signed the Rome Statute for the International Criminal Court (ICC), formally obligating the United States to "uphold the principles and purposes" of the ICC. Doing so was unwise, contrary to the rule of law and constitutional safeguards cherished by Americans for centuries, and dangerous to the lives of every American citizen and serviceman. Here are 10 reasons why Americans should say "NO" to the International Criminal Court.

Provision in ICC Statute	Constitutional/Other Violations
The ICC would:
1. Claim jurisdiction over every person in the world, whether or not their nation has ratified the treaty, thus putting every American at risk who travels, works or is on military duty abroad: Individuals (Art. 1; 4; 25.1-2); Heads of Nations, legislators, parliamentarians and other officials (Art. 27.1-2). Military commanders & superiors, holding them accountable for alleged actions by subordinates about which they knew or "should have known" (Art. 28.a, b).	Violates 4th & 5th Amendment protections from unlawful searches, seizures, arrests; and from deprivation of "life, liberty, or property, without due process of law." Violates inalienable rights. No consent of the governed - the people. Congress, not the ICC, has the duty to impeach and try U.S. officials (Art. I, Sec. 2 & Art. III, Sec. 3, U.S. Const.). For U.S. citizens, the U.S. Government, courts, military and military courts have jurisdiction-not the UN or the ICC (Art. III; I, Sec. 3, 6, 8; II, Sec. 2, 4; IV, Sec. 2; 10th Amd.; 14th Amd., Sec. 3, U.S. Const.). "(S)hould have known" is not a sound or just legal standard. Violates historic American legal principle that a person can only be prosecuted for his own actions, including orders issued that caused harm to others when carried out.
2. Violate U. S. sovereignty by: Claiming jurisdiction over nations: "A State which becomes a Party to this Statute thereby accepts the jurisdiction of the Court" (Art. 12). Judging whether actions by nations are "crimes of aggression," though the Statute does not define such crimes because of strong disagreements between nations as to how to define them (Art. 5.1). Requiring ratifying nations to have laws mandating full cooperation with ICC (Art. 88). Requiring Party Nations to administer "fines or forfeitures ordered by the Court" (Art. 109.1). Requiring ratifying nations to allow the ICC to transport prisoners through their land (Art. 89.3.a). Claiming superior right to arrest a U.S. citizen in a foreign land when both the U.S. and ICC are seeking to arrest the same person (Art. 90.2). Requiring nations to arrest accused persons and surrender them to the ICC (Art. 89.1). Claiming "complementary" jurisdiction over nations who ratify the treaty, but if a nation does not act first, or fast enough (1 month), or in a way that satisfies the ICC, the ICC can issue a warrant and claim jurisdiction over anyone accused of an "international crime" (Articles 1, 4, 11, 12, 18). Prohibiting U.S. prosecutions of persons tried by ICC and convicted or acquitted (Art. 19.2). Reviewing decisions of U.S. courts, and trying any person again if they think our courts did not act responsibly, independently or impartially (Art. 19.3).	Violates national sovereignty by claiming authority over nations. Ceding sovereignty is beyond the authority of national leaders. Would subject any act of national self-defense, including a pre-emptive strike to avert an attack, to the scrutiny of the ICC and UN. Would compromise a basic purpose of civil government to "provide for the common defense" and protect the nation (Preamble, U.S. Const.). Violates our national sovereignty, including legislative, regulatory and police powers. Violates our sovereignty by turning American officials into ICC tax collectors and enforcers. Compromises our ability to control our own borders, putting Americans at risk. Violates our national sovereignty and all the constitutional protections and principles stated above. Violates the 4th, 5th and 6th Amendments. Article VI of the U.S. Constitution states that it, not the ICC Statute, is "the supreme Law of the land." It is an abuse of the treaty power to make international agreements that allow foreign governments or courts to claim jurisdiction over U.S. citizens. Article IV, Sec. 4 guarantees to us "a Republican Form of Government," which is a government of specific and limited powers granted by the consent of the people; and protection "against Invasion," including by the ICC Prosecutor or Court. Violates the duty of local, state and national governments to prosecute crimes within their jurisdiction. No quid pro quo: ICC can prosecute persons tried in the U.S., but U.S. would be forbidden from prosecuting persons tried by the ICC. ICC review of our courts violates our sovereignty.
3. Lack the vital legal safeguards that the U.S. Constitution guarantees to American citizens. In the ICC Statute, there is: No guarantee of due process; No jury; No right to a public and speedy trial by an impartial jury; No right to confront one's accusers; No protection from double jeopardy; No protection from cruel & unusual punishments.	In the 4th, 5th, 6th, 7th and 8th Amendments, Americans are guaranteed all of these legal protections that would be denied to them by the ICC.
4. Grant the ICC Prosecutor unprecedented and extraordinary global powers to: Investigate, charge and arrest any person, anywhere in the world (Art. 15, 42, 53, 54); Demand the full cooperation of ratifying nations or nations with ICC agreements (Art. 86, 87); Keep results of investigation secret, including from the accused person and his or her nation (Art. 18); Repeatedly appeal to the ICC's Pre-Trial Chamber for permission to prosecute as long as there is additional evidence of alleged guilt (Art. 61.8).	Violates the national sovereignty of every nation, and places every person at risk of arrest if a complaint, true or false, is filed against them. This reprehensible granting of nearly unlimited power is contrary to the foundations and purposes of government as stated in the U.S. Declaration of Independence. Any cooperation with the ICC will necessarily violate national sovereignty. Since the ICC would not recognize the right of an accused to confront and cross-examine his or her accusers, or the right to review all the evidence, the life of an accused would be in constant jeopardy.
5. Be a foreign Court in a foreign land, with foreign judges (Arts. 36.1, 4, 7; 39.1): The ICC would be located at the Hague in the Netherlands (Art. 3). The ICC would have 18 judges serving in the Pre- Trial, Trial or Appeals Chambers (Art. 36). Not allow the U.S. to nominate even one judge, unless we ratify the Statute (Art. 36.4.a-b). Not allow more than one U.S. judge even if we did ratify the Statute (Art. 36.7).	Violates 6th Amendment: "In all criminal prosecutions, the accused shall enjoy the right to a speedy and public trial, by an impartial jury of the State or district [in the U.S.] wherein the crime shall have been committed." There would be no U.S. judge on the Court unless nominated and approved by Party Nations.
6. Claim jurisdiction over vaguely defined or undefined crimes, whether viewed as national or so-called "international crimes": ICC claims jurisdiction over crimes of genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes, but defines such crimes so broadly that it is difficult to distinguish between common crimes and so-called "international crimes" (Art. 5-8). ICC will prosecute for the "crime of aggression," but has not defined the crime (Art. 5). Prosecute people for "Persecution against any identifiable group" as a "crime against humanity," yet without clearly defining the crime, which could turn the ICC into a persecutor and prosecutor of persons and groups with contrary views (Art. 7).	Violates 10th Amendment and jurisdiction of local state and national governments over crimes committed within their territories. Could cause crimes such as murder, rape or "serious injury" to be "international crimes." A crime can only be a crime if the law says it is a crime, and the law is lawful. (See 2.a above.) Could be used to punish people for exercising inalienable rights that are, for Americans, protected by the 1st Amendment - such as freedom of religion, speech, press, peaceable assembly and the right to express grievances to the government.
7. Allow nations and accused persons only one opportunity to challenge the admissibility of a case, which can only be appealed to the ICC's own Appeals Chamber (Art. 19).	The Prosecutor, Pre-Trial Chamber and Appeals Chamber will all be comprised of ICC personnel, placing in question its ability to impartially judge any challenge to the admissibility of cases.
8. Give the ICC officials access to every nation and lifetime immunity: ICC judges, Prosecutor, Deputy Prosecutor and Registrar shall "enjoy the same privileges and immunities as ... heads of diplomatic missions"; and after their term, lifetime immunity for anything they did "in their official capacity" (Art. 48).	The ICC Prosecutor, judges and personnel would be able to go anywhere and do anything without accountability if acting "in their official capacity." By contrast, U.S. presidents and officials can be held accountable for their actions during and after leaving office (Art. I, Sec. 2, 3, U.S. Constitution).
9. Prohibit changes to Statute, make it difficult to withdraw; and have fluid basis for law: Not allow ratifying nations to submit any reservations to the Statute (Art. 120). Prohibit any changes to the Statute for 7 years, and then allow only Party Nations to submit amendments, which would require a 2/3 majority to go into effect (Art. 121). Make Party Nations wait 1 year to withdraw from the Statute, and require continued cooperation with ongoing investigations and prosecutions (Art. 121.6; 127.1-2). Have no fixed basis for law, but have an evolutionary basis which allows the Prosecutor to propose and Party Nations to approve changes to the definitions of crimes (Art. 9, 10).	The U.S. cannot exempt itself from any, nor change any, of the provisions of the Statute for at least 7 years. Thus, by design, the Statute does not allow the U.S. Government to exercise its treaty-making powers. Would hold the U.S. Government and military, and American taxpayers and citizens, hostage to the ICC for at least 1 year after we decided it was unwise and unsafe to be a Party to the ICC. Law, to be law, should be fixed (unchanging), uniform (impartial and consistent), and universal (justly applicable to all persons). The ICC Statute does not meet this standard.
10. Cost U.S. taxpayers millions of dollars: The ICC will assess Party Nations based on the scale used for UN budget assessments, by which the U.S. would be assessed for 22% of all costs of the global Court (Art. 117).	U.S. taxpayers already spend $30 million on just 3 UN tribunals for atrocities and war crimes in 3 nations. The ICC would be a global court replacing the temporary tribunals. Costs to fund a global Court would be enormous. The American taxpayers have never authorized such use of their tax dollars.

from the Wall Street Journal via OpinionJournal.com, 2005-Apr-1, by Eric Gibson:

Culture as a Commodity
How the U.N. tries to save civilization.

Almost 20 years ago, the U.S. withdrew from Unesco, the United Nations' humanitarian wing, citing mismanagement and political tendentiousness. Two years ago, the U.S. decided to rejoin. Laura Bush even traveled to Paris to lead the American delegation in its official rapprochement.

Was this rejoining such a good idea? Perhaps not. Unesco has still not learned to devote itself merely to long and tedious conferences. It wants to do more. And so it is now proposing an international treaty called "The Convention on the Protection of the Diversity of Cultural Contents and Artistic Expressions." The U.S. inevitably finds itself drawn into the negotiations, required yet again to resist nonsense.

The origins of this curious document are not far to seek. In the wake of Sept. 11, 2001, Unesco adopted the Universal Declaration of Cultural Diversity in order to "reaffirm [the] conviction that intercultural dialogue is the best guarantee of peace," as the organization's director-general, Koichiro Matsuura put it at the time.

The first article of this declaration stated--in the prose style one has come to associate with these bureaucracies--that cultural diversity "is embodied in the uniqueness and plurality of the identities of the groups and societies making up humankind." Such diversity is a vital "source of exchange, innovation and creativity"--as vital "as biodiversity is for nature." As such, cultural diversity is "the common heritage of humanity and should be recognized and affirmed for the benefit of present and future generations." The current treaty is an attempt to give these sentiments the form of international law.

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It all sounds innocent enough--along the lines of Unesco's celebrated 1970 convention recognizing the importance of the world's cultural heritage and calling on all nations to preserve their cultural treasures. Only the treaty now being debated is trying to do something more vague: to recognize the multiplicity of cultural voices world-wide, including "indigenous" voices, and to guarantee their survival. Perhaps the vagueness is one reason that the treaty is shifting its emphasis as Unesco tries to codify such a grand design: The thing looks more and more like a mandate for economic protectionism.

Take the term "cultural diversity." It has almost disappeared from the discussion, even from the title of the document. Now the debate centers on "cultural goods and services"--culture has become a commodity. At the insistence of France and Canada, the draft treaty calls for import restrictions on certain types of cultural production, particularly movies and music. "Protecting culture" seems to be more about holding onto market share than about "intercultural dialogue."

The French minister of culture, Renaud Donnedieur de Vabres, has expressed the matter candidly. He wants to make sure "that each country can maintain its cultural and artistic expression, that these are not threatened either by a marketplace that is too uniform and too constricting or by the behaviour of individuals."

In short, keep foreign stuff out. Canada, for instance, is concerned about its film industry being overwhelmed by Hollywood. It wants to establish limits on the number of American imports, enlarging the protections it already enjoys under World Trade Organization agreements. There is a precedent for this. At the last WTO round, France had asked for a "cultural exception" that would have allowed its own film industry to bypass free-trade agreements and limit the number of Hollywood imports. It was turned down. So what it couldn't get in one forum it is now seeking in another, with Canada joining the effort.

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And the U.S. response? "Our perspective," says Robert S. Martin, a member of the American negotiating team, "is that there are ways to do that without limiting the free flow of ideas and culture. The proper approach is to find ways to nurture indigenous art and culture. It boils down to promote vs. protect."

If this all sounds a bit technocratic, it is. But it is not without legal force. The convention's Article 19 allows the treaty's provisions to trump all other international agreements--in effect vacating WTO free-trade requirements and allowing France and other countries to indulge their protectionist impulses.

An argument can be made that the U.S. does itself no favors when it opts out of organizations like Unesco. Trouble builds unchecked, and countries like Canada and France assume inordinate power. Says Dana Gioia, the chairman of the National Endowment for the Arts and another member of the American team: "I don't think the resulting convention would have been anywhere as bad if America had been involved from the first." Maybe Laura Bush arrived just in time.

Mr. Gibson is editor of the Leisure & Arts page of The Wall Street Journal.

from the Washington Post, 2005-Mar-21, p.A1, by Emily Wax:

Congo's Desperate 'One-Dollar U.N. Girls'
Shunned Teens, Many Raped by Militiamen, Sell Sex to Peacekeepers

BUNIA, Congo -- She's known in the community as a "one-dollar U.N. girl." At night, she sleeps on the cracked pavement outside a storefront. In the mornings, she sashays through the dusty streets, clutching a frayed parasol against the blinding sun.

Yvette and her friends are also called kidogo usharatis, Swahili for small prostitutes. They loiter outside the camps of U.N. peacekeepers, hoping to sell their bodies for a mug of milk, a cold soda or -- best of all -- a single dollar.

"I'm sad about it. But I needed the dollars. I can't go farm because of the militias. Who will feed me?" asked Yvette. At 14, she has a round face with wide eyes beneath a cap of neatly shorn hair, and her hands rest on her hips in an older girl's pose.

When Yvette was 10, a militiaman raped her, leaving her without clothes, she recalled. She cried a lot, wrapped her body in rags and then got up. She sought counseling at a women's organization, where she was told that she had done nothing wrong but that the theft of her virginity made her worthless as a bride. She should understand, the counselors said, that now no man would marry her.

"From time to time, I still do it. I am obligated," Yvette said. She and the other teenage girls interviewed for this article agreed to be identified provided only their first names were used. "Sometimes it happens in U.N. cars, other times at the camp. But at least they paid us. I was worthless anyhow. My honor was lost."

Yvette's story is not uncommon. The United Nations is investigating 150 instances in which 50 peacekeeping troops or civilians in the Congo mission are suspected of having sexually abused or exploited women and girls, some as young as 12.

Often, the victims were vulnerable, poverty-stricken girls engaged in what Congolese call "obligation" or "survival" sex. In this war-shattered society, aid workers and counselors said, a breakdown of cultural norms, combined with extreme poverty, has driven hundreds of kidogo usharatis to the soldiers' doorsteps.

Similar charges have been made about U.N. missions in Sierra Leone and Liberia, as well as Kosovo and Bosnia in Europe.

The United Nations is also investigating reports of rape or sexual assault in Congo, including one case in which a French logistics employee was found with hundreds of videotapes that showed him torturing and sexually abusing naked girls. Last week, U.N. officials announced they had fired one employee and suspended six others from among 17 civilian staff members being investigated in the Congo abuses.

Secretary General Kofi Annan on Sunday unveiled new rules for the United Nations that, in part, address the reports of sexual misconduct by its personnel.

But the problem of sex for money is more widespread, officials and health experts said. The U.N. scandal, they added, highlights a far larger problem in lawless societies such as Congo where young girls, some the victims of previous sexual attacks by militia fighters, sell their bodies for cash or food.

In Congo, moreover, the widespread incidence of sexual violence by roving militias during the civil war that raged from 1997 to 2003 has created a crisis in many families where long-standing marriage and sexual customs are revered.

In much of rural Africa, as in many other traditional societies, a girl's virginity has high monetary value. If a prospective bride is proved not to be a virgin, she cannot fetch a traditional bride price. Even if virginity has been lost through rape, the price can no longer be demanded by her family and the girl is considered unworthy of marriage.

According to health experts, the sale of sexual services by girls and women who may have lost their chance for a marriage payment has become common across the region.

"There are cases of rape by the U.N. But much more than that, there are many cases where girls negotiated obligation sex. In war, it is only soldiers who have money," said Petronila Vaweka, the district administrator of Ituri. "These girls have absolutely no way to make a living. This is their reality, and in some cases, the parents even push it."

Vaweka said she has considered starting a U.N. victims' association for young girls left with children, and in some cases venereal diseases or HIV/AIDS. U.N. officials expressed concern that poor, desperate girls would make up stories to claim cash. But so far, few have come forward at all because of the deep scorn involved.

"We can try the compensation idea," Vaweka said. "But I want to know, can you have compensation for a wound in the heart?"

'So Much Abject Poverty'

Five years ago, more than 10,000 U.N. peacekeeping troops came to Congo to help end a six-nation war that had left over 3 million people dead. Contingents from Morocco, South Africa, India, Nepal and Bangladesh erected camps that looked quite posh to the Congolese. They had shiny trailers and roomy tents, satellite dishes, and kitchens and bathrooms with electricity and running water -- amenities rarely seen in the impoverished bush.

To Congolese girls living in squalid camps or squatting in abandoned buildings, the peacekeepers were wealthy men they wanted to know.

Even though the war officially ended in 2003, life in Congo remains violent and precarious, especially in the volatile Ituri region where seven militia groups are still fighting. In Bunia, the regional capital, people grab at any opportunity to survive. Orphaned boys sleep in filthy gutters. A medical student peddles dried meat to pay his school fees. Girls and women beg foreign workers to let them perform any chore -- washing laundry, polishing shoes, hauling water or providing sex -- for a few coins.

"Abuse always stems from an unbalanced power relationship. There is so much abject poverty here, and people come in with economic leverage. That's a recipe for this to happen if we don't have a specific policy," said Kemal Saiki, a spokesman for the U.N. mission, who was visiting Bunia from his base in the capital, Kinshasa.

But even after the United Nations established a curfew for its troops and a strict policy of non-fraternization with the local population, the girls have continued to linger outside the U.N. camps.

Chantal, 17, stood sullenly outside a Moroccan troop camp one recent evening, clutching a tray of bananas. She was hawking the fruit -- and her body -- to soldiers perched inside a lookout post. Her high heels sank into the dusty street; her skirt clung to her thin legs.

"To us they are the town's best employer," she said with a shrug. "I know everyone is saying it's bad. But why don't they come and give us jobs? Tell me, who will feed me?"

Earlier in the day, Moroccan soldiers inside the camp said any illicit behavior that might have taken place is now over. Moroccan officials recently fired two unit commanders and said they sent six soldiers home to be prosecuted after finding allegations against them to be credible.

There also have been tensions between the small group of soldiers who buy sex and the majority who don't, the peacekeepers said.

"As a human being, I feel there is too much poverty here, and maybe some people took advantage of that," said Lt. Charaf Arsalane, 23. "But I feel really affected by this. We are out here working hard, and a few people ruin the reputations of all. It has to stop completely, and that means turning away from some of the girls even if it's an innocent interaction."

Even so, Chantal and Yvette said that if they ran out of food, they would head back to the U.N. camps.

Most people in rural Congo are farmers, but they can no longer tend their fields because militiamen roam the countryside. As a result, food shortages are rampant. A study by the humanitarian group Doctors Without Borders found that clean water and food rations from international aid agencies were insufficient to meet the people's needs.

But Congo's suffering, the group said, has fallen low on the world's priority list. Last year, according to the International Rescue Committee, $188 million was spent on humanitarian aid in Congo. That amounted to just over $3 per person, compared to $89 per person in Sudan and $138 per person in Iraq the previous year.

"The ugly fact is, many girls engaged in obligation sex when the war got really bad in 2003, and it was mainly with U.N. soldiers because they have the money," said Antoine Tambwe, a Congolese pediatrician at the International Red Cross hospital here.

Many girls told Tambwe they were "really sorry they did it, some even in U.N. cars, but they were too hungry," he said. "Sometimes they said many peacekeepers would have sex with one girl in the same night, and she would get one dollar from each. It's not rape, but it's close, because it's exploitation of children. This is really sad, but this is the truth."

'No Other Choice'

On a recent night, Yvette and her friend Francine, 16, sat side by side, giggling, on the veranda of an abandoned business. Swinging their legs back and forth and singing a Congolese song, they seemed like young girls anywhere.

But once they stopped singing, Francine seemed troubled.

She looks much younger than her age and speaks in a shy voice. When she sleeps, she said, she has a recurring nightmare. In the dream, she has been raped and finds herself in a graveyard where her uncle is buried.

"I am just standing there," Francine said. "I don't know why."

Francine's father died in the war, and she had to leave school after the fourth grade. After that her uncle protected her. One day in 2003, she went into the fields to collect food and was raped by a militiaman. Like Yvette, she was told she had been spoiled for marriage, but her uncle still treated her kindly.

Then the uncle was killed in an attack, and the nightmares started. Many families fled the region; Francine lost her mother in the confusion. After a time she came to Bunia because she heard that U.N. troops were guarding the town and that it was safe. At first she collected cassava roots and tried to sell them, but she made very little money.

Meanwhile she met and became friends with Yvette, whose mother was sick with typhoid and had run out of food. Yvette, she said, told her about another way to earn money. After that, she began having sex with peacekeepers.

"There was no other choice," Francine said, as Yvette laughed uncomfortably beside her.

One recent evening, Francine recounted, a deal was negotiated and she went into the Moroccan camp. There, she said, she had sex with one man, but the situation got out of control. Five more lined up and began to take her by force, she said.

"I feel bad about what I did. I don't want to go through that again," Francine said quietly.

After the incident, Yvette and Francine went to an aid group that works with the victims of sexual violence, but they did not reveal the full story.

"I was afraid of trouble, so I just told them about the rapes by militias. We never said anything about the U.N.," Yvette said.

The counseling helped a little. The girls liked being with others, and they learned a song that they found soothing to sing. In it, a boy asks for his inheritance and receives it. He goes abroad, has an affair with a girl and spends all the money. Then he returns home to face his father.

"Please, father," Francine and Yvette sang sweetly into the hot night air. "Please forgive me. I have undergone poverty, and I have lost my worth. Please accept me back."

from the Wall Street Journal, 2005-Jan-31, p.A19, by Bret Stephens:

A Jolie Good Time at Davos

DAVOS, Switzerland -- The theme for this year's meeting of the World Economic Forum is "Taking Responsibility for Tough Choices," and on Thursday afternoon the choice before me is this: Do I sign up for the session on Arab Reform with Gamal Mubarak, heir apparent to Egypt's throne? Or do I plump for the "Reinvent Yourself" workshop with Angelina Jolie?

I must say, the Mubarak meeting is awfully tempting to this Middle East policy junkie. Also on offer Thursday night are discussions about the weak dollar, the blogosphere, dangerous ideas, European leadership, cubicle design, public universities, brand USA and the economics of populism. Overall, the Forum hosts 189 meetings over five days, not to mention press conferences, coffees, nightcaps, and plenary addresses by Bill Clinton, Tony Blair, Gerhard Schroeder, Jacques Chirac and Victor Yushchenko, among others. It's all so exciting.

But something is amiss. The Forum takes place on the eve of Iraq's elections. Yet there's just one session on Iraq and just one on terrorism, and neither gets top billing. Instead, the conference is dominated by the themes of climate change and the plight of Africa, which seems to reflect the attitudes of the conferees. At a town-hall style meeting Wednesday, 700 Forum participants are asked to choose what they think is the topmost global priority from a list of 12. Poverty comes in first at 64%, followed closely by "equitable globalization" and climate change. By contrast, only 24% pick the global economy, and only 19% pick trade.

What gives? The Forum, remember, is often held to be the world's premier gathering for rapacious plutocrats, neoliberal globalizers and assorted hangers-on. And it is: Of the 2,250 participants, 50% are classed as "business leaders," including 500 chairmen and CEOs, while only 9% hail from nongovernmental organizations. Yet Forum-think leans sharply leftward -- so much so that Democratic Sen. Joe Biden and Congressman Barney Frank fall well to the right side of the Davos spectrum.

Part of this has to do with the geographic composition of the Forum. There is a disproportionately large contingent here from the Arab world, whose ideas about Israel and the war on terror are miles outside the American mainstream. Many of the Chinese in attendance like to talk about the virtues of "non-Western values." Among Europeans, it's not just that their views of the Bush administration are pervasively hostile; they also tend to see the world through the lens of depersonalized "challenges" like hunger and disease, not tyrants and terrorists. That leaves the Americans, a good many of whom -- George Soros, Ted Turner, Al Gore -- are in sympathy with the Europeans.

A second factor is etiquette. Many of the sessions are devoted to managerial, technical and scientific topics, and these are dealt with straightforwardly enough. But when it comes to politics, the Forum reflects a "Davos Consensus" -- that is, the clichés, nostrums, banalities, elisions, evasions, upstanding sentiments and lowest common denominators generated when people of differing views are at their most polite. Everyone gets along splendidly at Davos, but platitude is frequently the glue that holds them together.

Then there are the weird attitudes of the business community, which seems besotted by something called Corporate Social Responsibility. Late Friday evening I am accosted by a prominent American CEO who apparently feels the need to set the record straight with The Wall Street Journal. He takes his CSR very, very seriously, he says, and then rattles on about his record. Indeed, CSR, like climate change, is a Davos Verity: One session here is titled "Is Responsible Investment About To Pay Off?" Another one is, "How Responsible Is Responsible Enough?" No prize for guessing where such discussions drift.

What is hard to guess, however, is why business leaders embrace this stuff. No doubt, many captains of industry really do believe in CSR. But it also seems to be the case that CEOs think of CSR as just another cost of doing business in a legal and political climate in which corporations are suspect, American ones especially. Might as well get used to it, then.

Not that it does them a lot of good. At an Internet café late Thursday night, I am set upon by two Swiss undergrads who earlier in the day had participated in an antiglobalization rally. How, they would like to know, do I justify my presence at this malign gathering of the Capitalist Internationale? O that it were the Capitalist Internationale, I reply. I explain that this year's Davos is purpose-built to satisfy all of their grievances. They think the Forum's concern for the poor and the environment is a meaningless gesture at best and probably a devious trick. I think: "The capitalists will sell the rope from which they will hang."

Strangely, it's the politicians at Davos who come to the rescue of the capitalists. Following Mr. Blair's plenary speech on Wednesday, Forum Chairman Klaus Schwab asks the prime minister what business can do to improve the state of the world. "The business community can make sure its businesses work well," Mr. Blair replies " -- and make a profit." At a luncheon Saturday, Mr. Yushchenko tells investors that in their "business plan for 2005, make another entry: 'Saved expenses on bribes to Ukrainian officials.'" Nice to know someone here is out to attract business, not prettify it.

So has the Forum become a platform for misplaced priorities and foolish causes, an intellectual exhaust pipe sans the catalytic converter? Insofar as the Davos Consensus is becoming the arbiter of good global citizenship, it poses real risks to clear-sighted corporate, national and global governance. Even so, the Forum does bring thousands of interesting people together, some of whom have useful things to say. It's also huge fun: for the people you meet, for the people you watch, for the flattery of being a part of it, for all that is revealed by what is said and done, and by all that is revealed by what isn't.

As for my Thursday afternoon dilemma: Of course I went to Ms. Jolie's event. And, of course, she didn't show. I guess that's what's really meant by "taking responsibility for tough choices."

Mr. Stephens is a member of The Wall Street Journal's editorial board.

from the Financial Times of London, 2005-Feb-21, by Frances Williams in Geneva, Mark Turner in New York and Ian Bickerton in Amsterdam:

Lubbers quits UN refugee agency

Ruud Lubbers, the former Dutch prime minister, yesterday resigned as head of the United Nations refugee agency, firing an angry salvo at the way in which Kofi Annan, UN secretary-general, had handled allegations of sexual harassment against him.

As recently as Friday, Mr Lubbers had emerged from a meeting with Mr Annan in New York to vow that he would not quit over the claims, which he denies.

When the allegations first surfaced last year, Mr Annan decided after taking legal advice that he was unable to take action against Mr Lubbers, although he issued a strong warning about his conduct.

But three days ago, Mr Annan appeared to think again after a British newspaper, the Independent, published details of the confidential investigation conducted by the UN's internal watchdog service which concluded that the allegations "indicated a pattern of sexual harassment" by Mr Lubbers.

The inquiry also accused him of abuse of authority by way of his "pervasive and intimidating attempts" to influence the outcome of the investigation.

In a bitterly worded resignation letter, Mr Lubbers suggested the UN secretary-general had bowed to media pressure amid a number of scandals including the alleged mismanagement of the oil-for-food programme in Iraq.

"Now, in the middle of a series of problems and with ongoing media pressure, you apparently view this [matter] differently", he wrote. "Despite all my loyalty, insult has now been added to injury and therefore I resign as high commissioner."

Ron Redmond, spokesman for the refugee agency, said last night: "The high commissioner has devoted all his time and energy to refugees over the past four years. It is a sad end to a brilliant career."

from FoxNews.com, 2005-Mar-30:

Former U.N. Official's Shredding Probed

NEW YORK -- One of Kofi Annan's closest friends and colleagues is now in the crosshairs of Oil-for-Food investigators.

Members of Paul Volcker's Independent Inquiry Committee on Tuesday revealed that Iqbal Riza, the former chief of staff, shredded thousands of documents that might have shed light on Annan's involvement in the Oil-for-Food scandal and that Riza acted in contravention of one of his own directives.

Tuesday's report said Annan did not improperly use his influence to help the Swiss-based Cotecna contracting firm win an Iraq Oil-for-Food contract, even though his son, Kojo Annan, worked for the company. The report did say, however, that Annan didn't do enough to investigate the connections between his son, Cotecna and Oil-for-Food, and that the lack of further oversight could have prevented some of the gross mismanagement of the program.

Read the full report by clicking here (pdf).

The IIC found that Riza allowed documents of potential relevance to the Volcker investigation to be shredded by his staff, even though he was aware of the ongoing probe.

On April 12, 2004, as the Oil-for-Food scandal gathered steam, Riza sent letters to the heads of the nine U.N.-related agencies that administered Oil-for-Food in northern Iraq, suggesting they cooperate with the investigation and "take all necessary steps to collect, preserve and secure all files, records and documents" relating to the program.

Then, on April 21, the U.N. Security Council approved a full investigation of the program. The next day, Riza ordered the shredding of three year's worth of documents in his office. According to the IIC, the shredding continued until the week of Dec. 7 -- more than seven months after Annan, on June 1, ordered all U.N. employees and staff members "not to destroy or remove any documents related to the Oil-for-Food programme that are in their possession or under their control, and to not instruct or allow anyone else to destroy or remove such documents."

According to the Volcker report, Riza's assistant who personally shredded the documents told the IIC that after getting the thumbs-up from Riza to do the deed in April 2004, the two never talked about the matter again and she didn't update him on the status of the ongoing shredding until it was finished in December.

The report says Riza didn't tell the IIC that he approved the destruction of three years of his documents when first interviewed in the investigation on Dec. 20, 2004.

Two days later, Riza called the IIC to say that some documents couldn't be located because they had been destroyed. He then produced a copy of his memorandum authorizing the shredding. Riza claimed he was aware of the investigation when he OK'd the shredding, but that he "did not connect" those files to those that may be relevant to the Oil-for-Food investigation. He thought the files in question were simply copies of records already stored in a central U.N. system.

But Volcker's committee found evidence that proved otherwise.

For example, a "confidential note" from Riza to Joseph Connor -- the undersecretary-general in charge of the Office of Internal Oversight Services who also was fingered in the report -- requesting his review of the Cotecna matter was on Riza's computer and presumably should have been in his now-destroyed files from 1999. But despite Riza's claims that the destroyed chronological records, known as "chron" files, were just duplicates, that specific note to Connor hasn't been found in the U.N. central records unit.

"The committee does not find persuasive Mr. Riza's suggestion that his 'chron' files were only duplicates of files maintained elsewhere at the United Nations," the IIC report states.

Investigators say, therefore, that the shredding incidents are deeply suspicious.

"My own reaction was one of deep concern and I think that's what any reasonable person would feel," Justice Richard Goldstone of the IIC told FOX News.

Asked if the evidence -- whether or not it did point more of a finger at Annan in the controversy -- was lost forever, Goldstone replied: "Yes, that's correct."

When asked what, if any, action he would take against those U.N. officials accused of various actions in the report, Annan said Tuesday: "These findings raise different and complex issues in each case, which I need to study carefully before deciding what steps need to be taken."

FOX News called Riza at his home and asked how he intends to respond to the report.

"I would like to clear my name. I will be deciding in the next week how I go about doing that," Riza said.

Riza was asked by FOX News if he was concerned that Annan seemed happy to let others, including Riza and Annan's son Kojo, take the blame for any wrongdoing in the scandal.

"I do not want to enter that discussion right now," Riza responded.

Another item that interests investigators is why, after Riza resigned as chief of staff earlier this year, Annan gave him a $1-a-year contract keeping him as a U.N. employee, thereby ensuring he had diplomatic immunity.

Volcker's panel was commissioned by Annan to investigate the $64 billion program, which aimed at relieving Iraqi civilians from some effects of the sanctions imposed on Iraq after Saddam Hussein's invasion of Kuwait. Saddam allegedly gave former government officials, activists, journalists and U.N. officials vouchers for Iraqi oil that could be resold. Investigators claim the former Iraqi regime may have illegally made more than $21 billion by cheating the program and through other sanctions-busting schemes.

FOXNews.com's Liza Porteus contributed to this report.

from the Dallas Morning News, 2005-Feb-15:

The U.N.'s Broken Vow: Member nations must prosecute abuses

Gang rapes. Forced prostitution. Pedophilia. A French mechanic bribing starving pre-teen girls into having sex in exchange for food or a few dollars to feed their families.

There's nothing ambiguous about these repugnant crimes, the latter of which was reported in a recent ABC News' 20/20 program that revealed computer-stored pictures of Didier Bourguet, a senior U.N. official there having sex with hundreds of young girls in the Democratic Republic of Congo. Mr. Bourguet's lawyer says his client's Internet pedophile ring involved other U.N. officials.

In the past year, about 50 peacekeeping soldiers and civilians have been implicated in at least 150 instances of sexual exploitation of women and girls in Congo. Similar charges have dogged the U.N. operations in East Timor and Kosovo.

Where is the international indignation that met the Abu Ghraib scandal? Is the world's conscience pricked only when Americans are abusing the powerless?

Though South Africa, France and Morocco have all begun legal proceedings against their own peacekeepers, several other U.N. workers implicated in the abuses are safely home in Uruguay, Pakistan, Nepal and Tunisia with no signs that they will face criminal charges – this despite the United Nations' contention that more than 20 cases against military personnel were substantiated.

The United Nations has no authority to prosecute foreign troops who serve as peacekeepers. In fact, the most the group can do is to send a soldier home and hope prosecutors pursue a case. U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan has ordered several reforms in the wake of these atrocities, but they do not go far enough.

The United Nations must stop at nothing to make these abominable crimes cease, and to use every recourse to see that personnel are punished for their deeds. And so must all U.N.-member nations, whose relative silence is inexcusable.ON THE WEB: Learn more about the 20/20 report at abcnews.go.com/2020/UnitedNations/story?id=489306.

from the Associated Press, 2005-Feb-15:

U.N. arrests 6 peacekeepers in sex-abuse probe

UNITED NATIONS -- The Moroccan mission to the United Nations has announced it arrested six U.N. peacekeeping soldiers in Congo accused of sexually abusing local girls and discharged the contingent's commander.

Fred Eckhard, the U.N. secretary-general's spokesman, on Monday said the announcement over the weekend showed "the Morrocan authorities attach as much importance to eradicating sexual abuse within U.N. peacekeeping missions as does the U.N."

"The mission hopes that the vigorous and public reaction of Morocco will serve as an example and that other troop contributing countries will follow," he added.

There have been more than 150 allegations of sexual exploitation of girls as young as 13 by U.N. peacekeepers in Congo.

Annan last Wednesday urged the Security Council to add at least 100 military police to the peacekeeping mission in Congo to help prevent sex abuse by the U.N. forces.

Eckhard said other measures had been taken, including improved surveillance around U.N. military camps, a curfew and the shuttering of local stores where soldiers interacted with locals.

Allegations of abuse first surfaced in 2004 and the U.N. Office of Internal Oversight Services said abuse by peacekeepers was ongoing.

According to last month's report by the U.N. watchdog agency, peacekeepers regularly had sex with Congolese women and girls, usually in exchange for food or small sums of money.

Sexual activities continued even while the investigation was continuing in the eastern town of Bunia between May and September 2004, the report said.

The United Nations currently has about 11,500 soldiers, 150 civilian police and 700 international staff in Congo trying to support the country's fragile peace process and help it move toward free elections later this year. In October, the council authorized an increase in the U.N. mission to 16,700.

from WorldNetDaily, 1998-May-12, by Joseph Farah:

The New World Odor

There's an Evil Empire emerging on the world scene much more insidious than the old Soviet Union.

Back in the good old days of the Cold War, most freedom-loving people understood what they were up against. Communism killed. Americans had national security interests to protect. The threat of nuclear war and conventional superpower clashes kept us on our toes.

When Moscow's hopeless command-and-control totalitarian system imploded, some capitalists and their useful idiots in government realized the whole world was suddenly up for grabs.

Today, international bankers and venture capitalists are calling the shots -- maximizing profits and creating a brave new world of "stability" and "interdependence."

One of these masters of the universe is William H. Draper III. He made his fortune as a founding partner of Sutter Hill Ventures in the Silicon Valley. President George Bush named him chairman of the Export/Import Bank in Washington. Later, George Shultz recommended him to become president of the U.N.'s Development Bank, where, according to one recent interviewer, "he spent his days passing out billions of dollars in assistance to help developing nations build their industrial infrastructure."

Now he has a new fund, Draper International, which invests in entrepreneurs in India and the subcontinent.

Writes Tony Perkins in a recent issue of Red Herring, a journal about investment: "I'll never forget how his son Tim, who started his own VC fund in the mid-1980s, responded when his dad hung out his new shingle: 'OK, Dad, you can have the rest of the world; I just want Silicon Valley.'"

The senior Draper has friends in high places helping him achieve his ambitious goals of world conquest through selective capital investment. During U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan's recent swing through the West, Draper helped set up his Northern California agenda. including an interview with Perkins.

Why would a venture capitalist like Draper be selected to establish Annan's itinerary? The figurehead of the New World Odor explains it best in his own words.

"Today, one has to accept that capitalism is not a bad thing, including those in the former Eastern Bloc," explains Annan. "Capitalism has no competition. But I have often maintained that the seed for the destruction of capitalism is within itself. It is a system that has to be developed with equity."

And what exactly does that mean?

"We need to broaden our definition of human security," he continues. "We used to think of security as absence of war. Now we must define it to include economic well-being. Leaders must focus on this idea, because market forces alone can not deliver parity."

So how will the New World Odor accomplish this end?

"We do quite a lot of infrastructure building," he explains. "We try to work with governments to introduce them to and assist them with technology development. That's the role Bill Draper used to play when he ran the Development Bank. The World Bank is also playing an increasingly important role in encouraging Third World governments to build out their networks, and invest in technology."

To translate this international bureaucratic jargon into plain English, the big plan involves the transfer of wealth from the productive sectors of the world to the unproductive. It's a grand wealth redistribution scheme -- much bigger and ultimately more dangerous than anything ever conceived of by Karl Marx.

It's welfare on a grand new universal plateau.

The managers of it are people we seldom hear about or read about -- people like Bill Draper. They work in and around agencies like the World Bank, the U.N., the International Monetary Fund, etc., etc. They're taking the failed policies of national socialism and applying them to a new international order -- all in the name of "capitalism."

Kofi Annan is right about one thing. The seeds of capitalism's destruction are found within. But the balance to be struck has nothing to do with "equity" or "parity." It has to do with personal morality and individual freedom. And those are two words we seldom hear from the New World Odor crowd. I wonder why?

There's a more accurate term than "capitalism" for this onerous trend. What's the word for a system in which special favors are doled out to businesses by government authorities? What's the word that means private economic enterprise under centralized control? What do you call it when a small, arrogant, all-knowing elite override the popular will? What's the system under which stability supersedes freedom and morality? The word is "fascism."

from the Washington Post, 2004-Dec-1, p.A25, by Anne Applebaum:

The Freedom Haters

Just in case anyone actually thought that all of those people waving flags on the streets of Kiev represent authentic Ukrainian sentiments, the London Guardian informed its readers otherwise last week. In an article titled "US campaign behind the turmoil in Kiev," the newspaper described the events of the past 10 days as "an American creation, a sophisticated and brilliantly conceived exercise in western branding and mass marketing." In a separate article, the same paper described the whole episode as a "postmodern coup d'etat" and a "CIA-sponsored third world uprising of cold war days, adapted to post-Soviet conditions."

Neither author was a fringe journalist, and the Guardian is not a fringe newspaper. Nor have their views been ignored: In the international echo chamber that the Internet has become, these ideas have resonance. Both articles were liberally quoted, for example, in a Web log written by the editor of the Nation, who, while writing that she admired "citizens fighting corrupt regimes," just as in the United States, she also noted darkly that the wife of the Ukrainian opposition leader, a U.S. citizen of Ukrainian descent, "worked in the Reagan White House."

Versions of this argument -- that pro-democracy movements are in fact insidious neocon plots designed to spread American military influence -- have been around for some time. Sometimes they cite George Soros -- in this context, a right-wing capitalist -- as the source of the funding and "slick marketing." Sometimes they cite the evil triumvirate of the National Democratic Institute, the International Republican Institute and Freedom House, all organizations that have indeed been diligently training judges, helping election monitors and funding human rights groups around the world for decades, much of the time without getting much attention for it.

They seem a little odd in the Ukrainian context, given that President Bush has bent over backward to sound conciliatory and anything but anti-Russian (in notable contrast to his blunter but soon-to-be-retired secretary of state, Colin Powell). In fact, the United States has historically backed "stability" in Ukraine, which is another way of saying Russian influence. The current president's father once made a speech in Kiev calling on Ukraine to remain in the Soviet Union, mere weeks before the Soviet Union disintegrated. Nevertheless, these ideas have traction. Last weekend an Irish radio journalist angrily asked me why the United States is so keen to expand NATO into Ukraine: Didn't Russia have a right to be frightened? Yesterday a colleague forwarded to me an e-mail from a Dutch writer condemning the campaign that the "CIA and other U.S. secret services" have conducted across the former U.S.S.R.

This phenomenon is interesting on a number of accounts. The first is that it rather dramatically overrates the influence that American money, or American "democracy-promoters," can have in a place such as Ukraine. After all, about the same, relatively small amount of U.S. money has been spent on promoting democracy in Belarus, to no great effect. More to the point, rather larger amounts of money were spent in Ukraine by Russia, whose president visited the country twice to campaign for "his" candidate. If the ideas that Americans and Europeans promoted had greater traction in Ukraine than those of President Putin, that says more about Ukraine than about the United States. To believe otherwise is, if you think about it, deeply offensive to Ukrainians.

The larger point, though, is that the "it's-all-an-American-plot" arguments circulating in cyberspace again demonstrate something that the writer Christopher Hitchens, himself a former Trotskyite, has been talking about for a long time: At least a part of the Western left -- or rather the Western far left -- is now so anti-American, or so anti-Bush, that it actually prefers authoritarian or totalitarian leaders to any government that would be friendly to the United States. Many of the same people who found it hard to say anything bad about Saddam Hussein find it equally difficult to say anything nice about pro-democracy demonstrators in Ukraine. Many of the same people who would refuse to condemn a dictator who is anti-American cannot bring themselves to admire democrats who admire, or at least don't hate, the United States. I certainly don't believe, as President Bush sometimes simplistically says, that everyone who disagrees with American policies in Iraq or elsewhere "hates freedom." That's why it's so shocking to discover that some of them do.

from the Wall Street Journal Europe, 2004-Dec-17, by Donald Kirk:

The U.N.'s Double Standard in Korea

SEOUL -- The director-general of the United Nation's International Atomic Energy Agency, Mohammed ElBaradei, has adopted what his advocates might see as an even-handed approach in investigating nuclear developments from the Korean peninsula to the Middle East. He has said "the jury is still out" on the degree to which the mullahs of Iran have dabbled in nuclear fission, and he has scrupulously ordered investigations of illicit nuclear experiments conducted by South Korean scientists in 1982 and 2000.

The approach, to put it diplomatically, has not earned Mr. ElBaradei plaudits in Washington, where officials cite his overt weakness on Iran as good reason to remove him from office next year at the end of his second term. But if the administration has been right in making an issue of Mr. ElBaradei's vacillation, if not duplicity, when it comes to Iran, it has overlooked another good reason for him to step down. The ElBaradei approach to the nuclear standoff on the Korean peninsula has been nothing short of outrageous.

Under the guise of fairness and objectivity, Mr. ElBaradei has ordered not one but four missions to South Korea to conduct investigations that IAEA officials have acknowledged had the full cooperation of South Korean authorities. The South Korean government, according to the IAEA as well as South Korean officials, has turned over all the details it has on the goings-on at a science complex at Taejon.

At issue are experiments with plutonium that took place in 1982, and with enriched uranium 18 years later. The latter case, potentially more serious, involved production of "milligram quantities" of uranium, according to the IAEA. South Korean officials have not only said they knew nothing of what was going on at the time but promise such activities won't happen again.

But word is that the IAEA is still not done with the inquest. The agency is planning yet another mission, this time to see if South Korean officials came clean while professing their prior ignorance of the experiments. At least one IAEA official, it's said here, wants to see if South Korean bureaucrats connived with scientists in a manner that may have had the tacit blessing of the Blue House, the center of presidential power.

What's going on? Why, on a divided peninsula in which there is no doubt of the existence of nuclear warheads north of the demilitarized zone, is the IAEA devoting such resources to South Korea? The answer reflects the warped logic that threatens to derail talks on North Korea's nuclear program while bringing the Korean nuclear standoff to crisis level yet again.

Mr. ElBaradei's IAEA, behind sanctimonious appearances, clearly wants to make a show of dispensing blame equally. The thinking goes like this: North Korea may be threatening the peace and security of northeast Asia, if not the rest of the world, by building nuclear warheads. But if we're going to go after the North according to this logic, then we have to get equally tough on the South.

Never mind that their transgressions are completely asymmetrical. North Korea is guilty of building nuclear bombs today, and threatening to use them, not of experimenting with negligible amounts decades ago. The Stalinist regime is, moreover, refusing to return to the negotiating table in discussions hosted by its ally China.

You'd imagine that the South Korean government would be strongly protesting this double standard masquerading as even-handedness. But no. In their anxiety to reconcile with North Korea, the last thing South Korean leaders want to do is upset Pyongyang by making nasty statements about the North's nukes. That type of response is seen in high places here as just what the Americans want, and no self-respecting South Korean official nowadays wants to appear to play into the hands of the policy-makers from Washington.

So where does Washington stand in this miasma of no-talk and double-talk? The U.S. has not backed down on its insistence that North Korea give up its nukes, but is clearly anxious not to offend South Korean sensitivities.

As a result, Joseph DeTrani, the U.S. envoy on North Korean problems, said during a recent visit to Seoul not a public word about the IAEA's excessive focus on South Korea. While Washington has no qualms about criticizing the IAEA's soft line on Iran, to defend the South against the IAEA would be to upset Seoul. And Washington places the highest priority on the South's full cooperation in talks with the North.

The result of the IAEA's actions, however, has been to feed the North Korean propaganda mill and give that regime a pretext to keep putting off the talks or, if finally drawn back to the table, to make certain they go nowhere. The North Korean machine puts out almost daily commentaries saying any talks will be "useless" until the South discloses its own "criminal activities."

It was to show the triviality of the South Korea experiments, in comparison to those of North Korea, that the United States wanted the IAEA to send the South Korean case to the United Nations Security Council. Both the IAEA and South Korea opposed the idea. Seoul opposed it, again, for the sake of its northern policy. Debate in the Security Council would have forced a much larger debate on the North Korean program, and the embarrassment caused to the North's regime would have further impeded North-South reconciliation.

Nearly two years ago, North Korea expelled IAEA inspectors from its nuclear complex at Yongbyon, where they had been posted since the signing of the discredited Agreed Framework agreement more than a decade ago. The North since then has scrupulously rejected demands for IAEA inspections of the Yongbyon complex, while building as many as half a dozen warheads fashioned from plutonium. That record, as Mr. ElBaradei himself has said, is well known.

He is less forthcoming, though, when it comes to the North's elaborate program for building warheads with highly enriched uranium. It was, of course, the North Korean revelation of that program, during an October 2002 mission to Pyongyang by James Kelly, U.S. assistant secretary of state for East Asia and the Pacific, that precipitated the breakdown of the agreement and the end of the IAEA role.

Till then the IAEA knew nothing of the North's uranium program, and has done little since then to try to get to the bottom of what's going on. That failure alone reveals the IAEA's ineffectiveness when confronted by a threat of cataclysmic proportions. The irony is inescapable. The IAEA prefers to sift and re-sift the "evidence" of laboratory experiments in South Korea while refusing to dig up all it can about the threat from the North.

For that reason alone, quite aside from his lack of resolve on Iran, Mr. ElBaradei should be out of his job.

Mr. Kirk has covered Korea since 1965.

from the Wall Street Journal via OpinionJournal.com, 2004-Dec-2:

Red Double-Crossed Again
The ICRC betrays America--and the Geneva Conventions.

Once upon a time, the International Committee of the Red Cross was a humanitarian outfit doing the Lord's work to reduce the horrors of war. So it is a special tragedy to see that it has increasingly become an ideological organization unable to distinguish between good guys and bad.

That's the unfortunate conclusion suggested by three years of open ICRC hostility toward U.S. conduct in the war on terror. The latest salvo was Tuesday's front page story in the New York Times quoting from an ICRC report complaining about the detention conditions and interrogation practices used on Taliban and al Qaeda prisoners at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

For decades, the very core of Red Cross methodology has been strict confidentiality agreements with cooperating governments. The practice has obvious drawbacks. But it has helped the Red Cross get access to--and help--prisoners of genuinely repressive regimes like Nazi Germany and Saddam Hussein's Iraq and ensured that the organization's recommendations are not regarded as political in any partisan sense.

But now the ICRC has thrown confidentiality aside to attack the U.S., of all countries. And it matters little that the original leaker in this case might have been in the U.S. government. Officials at ICRC headquarters were only too happy to confirm the document's authenticity, and they quickly issued a statement complaining that "significant problems regarding conditions and treatment at Guantanamo Bay have not yet been adequately addressed."

This follows a similar leak in May regarding the Abu Ghraib prison, as well as the ICRC's unprecedented decision to publicly challenge the Bush Administration's original designation of the Gitmo detainees as unlawful combatants rather than prisoners of war. What's more, the leaked ICRC documents themselves reveal interpretations of the laws of war so contrary to what the Geneva Conventions actually say that it's hard to read them as other than products of anti-American animus.

In this latest case, the ICRC is alleging that the psychological conditions faced by Guantanamo detainees are "tantamount to torture." Why? Because--we kid you not--prisoners are being held for indefinite periods, and the uncertainty is stressful. And because some prisoners are subjected to psychological pressure techniques during interrogations aimed at thwarting further terrorist attacks.

---

To unpack the absurdities here, it helps to understand what the Geneva Conventions say about legitimate prisoners of war. The basic idea behind granting POW status is that soldiers who surrender or are captured are not to be punished so long as they have behaved according to certain rules--such as fighting in uniform and doing their best to direct their own attacks at enemy soldiers rather than civilians. Part of their protection from punishment is that they not be subject to coercive interrogation; they are required only to give name, rank and serial number. They may, however, be held for the duration of the conflict so that they do not return to the battlefield.

The POW concept is certainly a great humanitarian advance, since the slaughter of captured enemies used to be routine and since it provides some incentive to fair battlefield conduct. But it is a concept in jeopardy thanks to its ostensible guardians at the ICRC. By demanding POW status for un-uniformed combatants who target civilians--in contravention of the plain language of the Geneva Conventions--the ICRC started the fight over Guantanamo by attempting to remove one of the few carrots we have to encourage humane behavior in war.

Now it goes further and demands that these combatants get even more privileges than legitimate POWs. Has it occurred to no one in Geneva that indefinite detention can't possibly be "tantamount to torture" for illegal combatants if it is the expected course of events for real POWs? The prospect of Guantanamo detainees returning to the battlefield is real, and more than two dozen of those already released have done so.

The ICRC also objects to interrogation pressure that is typically no more abusive than the good cop-bad cop routines common in American police stations. And where the interrogation techniques go further, they include nothing worse than loud music, temperature extremes, and uncomfortable positions. To call such discomforts "a form of torture" is to rob the word of all meaning and implicitly elevate the behavior of truly odious regimes.

Finally, from the damned-if-you-do file, we have the ICRC complaining that U.S. doctors took the care to examine the detainees' health to determine if particular stress techniques might be too much for a given individual. This is alleged somehow to be a violation of "medical ethics" rather than the example of American humanity that it actually is.

---

Readers who doubt the ICRC's moral drift might want to consult the recent report from the panel on the Abu Ghraib controversy headed by former Defense Secretary Jim Schlesinger. It contains an excellent section on the ICRC's recent attempts to pass off as settled international law a radical document that is in fact aimed at assisting terrorists and so-called "national liberation" movements (see page 85 of the report, which is available here in PDF). That Red Cross document, known as Protocol 1, has always been rejected by the U.S. and other major governments, and the ICRC's attempt to pretend otherwise with its media spin is also a serious abuse of trust.

No longer careful, scrupulous and neutral, the ICRC has become just another politicized pressure group like Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch. ICRC President Jakob Kellenberger is reportedly planning to visit Washington soon to press the U.S. government on Guantanamo and other issues. We hope he is told that he is leading his organization toward the loss of its $100 million-plus annual subsidy from U.S. taxpayers, as well as its special status come future revisions of the Geneva Conventions.

from United Nations Watch via The Jewish Virtual Library:

International Red Cross Discriminates Against Israeli “Red Cross”

Despite its valorous track record, the Magen David Adom Society is not recognized by the International Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement. This is because it is unwilling to adopt the Red Cross or Red Crescent as its emblem, choosing rather to use the Red Shield of David, whose use in the field of humanitarian relief dates to 1930.

The symbol of the Red Cross, the inverted flag of Switzerland, does not have an inherent religious significance. However, when in 1929, Islamic states insisted on the inclusion of the emblem of the Red Crescent, the juxtaposed emblems of the Red Cross and the Red Crescent came to have a religious implication.

As a result, short of adopting either emblem, the Magen David Adom is excluded from membership to the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies.

Since 1993, UN Watch has systematically lobbied the International Committee of the Red Cross and the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies at their Geneva headquarters, as well as the American Red Cross, to urge them to admit the Magen David Adom to the international fraternity. Furthermore, the Chairman of UN Watch, Ambassador Morris Abram, is one of eighteen experts appointed by the International Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement and charged with finding a favorable resolution to the emblem issue.

In times of conflict, the Red Shield of David has "customary" recognition as the emblem used by the medical services of the armed forces. Under international humanitarian law it must be respected in the same way as the Red Cross or the Red Crescent.

The humanitarian work carried out by the Magen David Adom and other National Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies is too important to be enmeshed in politics. The Magen David Adom is an organization whose effectiveness, honor and integrity are globally recognized. The fact that its choice of emblem bans it from membership in the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies is untenable.

The ethical cornerstone of the International Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement is a shared desire to ensure that civilization operates morally and compassionately, particularly during times of war. Israel, as much as any country, deserves to be included within that circle of civilization.

from FrontPageMagazine.com, 2006-Mar-31, by William R. Hawkins:

Mexico's Weapon

Prominent on display at demonstrations around the country supporting illegal immigration has been the flag of Mexico. The last time demonstrators waved the flag of a foreign government in American streets on such a scale was during the Vietnam War when New Leftists were championing the cause of North Vietnam against the United States. Those street people were mainly mush-brained college students whose ignorance of world affairs allowed them to be manipulated by their Marxist professors. This time is different. The protesters are not just advocating a foreign cause, they are part of it. Most of the Latino students boycotting classes in California and elsewhere should not be in those classes to begin with, since they have no legal right to even be in the United States. Indeed, their enrollment has generated a financial drain on state and local budgets across the country.

When the demonstrations started, I was in England. Media coverage there combined the marches in the U.S. with the student protests in France over labor reform. Again, the symbolism harkened back to the chaos of May 1968 when student and labor union violence almost collapsed the government of Charles DeGaulle. Aging radicals on both sides of the Atlantic wish to recapture the dark chaos of the 1960s.

The United Kingdom has its own illegal immigration problems. On March 25, a Chinese gang leader was found guilty of the manslaughter of 21 Chinese illegal immigrants who drowned in Morecambe Bay two years ago while harvesting shellfish at night. I watched with a mixture of amusement and outrage as a self-styled spokesman for the Chinese community claimed that the British Home Secretary should have been the one indicted because immigration laws "forced" illegals to work under hazardous condition because they cannot work in the open. A dapper British businessman then argued for dropping the term "illegal" in favor of "economic immigrant" so that firms could have a ready supply of cheap labor.

These arguments are heard here too. But what may be "cheap" for a company can be very expensive for the larger society. Some 40 percent of the inmates in California prisons are illegal aliens, who saw America as the land of opportunity for criminal pursuits. Our de facto "open borders" policy cannot discriminate between those whose ambitions are honest or dishonest. And no new system can solve this problem if it is still possible to get into America and survive outside the parameters of the law. Truly effective border security is the pre-requisite for any system of legal immigration.

It is the prevention of border security that motivates both the street protests and the Mexican government which is helping to orchestrate them. The timing of the protests is not just connected with legislation in the U.S. Congress, whose deliberations are long and convoluted. The more direct link is to the summit between President George W. Bush, Mexican President Vincente Fox and Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper in Cancun March 30-31. Mr. Fox has activated his fifth column in America as a diplomatic weapon. He has been aided by a network of Spanish-language radio stations and newspapers, elements in the Catholic Church and the usual variety of left-wing "civil rights" groups like the National Lawyers Guild and the ACLU. This movement poses a threat to U.S. security and sovereignty that makes even the risk of terrorist infiltration across the southern border pale in significance.

Mexican Foreign Secretary Luis Ernesto Derbez said March 27 that border security could not be the only topic at Cancun. He said all "must share responsibility so that those forced to migrate be regulated by plans that include respecting their dignity." But what has "forced" Mexicans to become illegal immigrants? The answer is the sad fact that Mexico has become a failed state, which hopes to push costs onto its northern neighbor so its corrupt elites can continue in power without having to risk domestic reform.

In a series of newspaper ads in U.S. papers, the Mexican government claimed it could do more to control its side of the border, but would only do so if the U.S. adopts "a far-reaching guest workers scheme" and that "Mexico should participate in its design, management, supervision and evaluation." In other words, Mexico wants a role in writing American laws for its benefit, and will use the pressure of mass migration and fifth column political warfare to pressure Washington into accepting its demands.

The proper response is to tell Mexico that if it is purposely refusing to act as a responsible neighbor along the border, then it will be held accountable for its actions and sanctions will be imposed. In the aftermath of 9/11, the Bush administration declared in its 2002 National Security Strategy a policy of "convincing or compelling states to accept their sovereign responsibilities." This is particularly applicable to Mexico, as it is a restatement of the Roosevelt Corollary to the Monroe Doctrine as applied to Latin America. "'Chronic wrong doing, or an impotence which results in a general loosening of the ties of civilized society, may in America, as elsewhere, ultimately require intervention by some civilized nation" is how Teddy Roosevelt put it. The Fox regime cannot be allowed to intervene in the U.S. political process or send its agents into American streets with impunity.

At a March 27 naturalization ceremony for new American citizens who attained their coveted status through the lawful process, President Bush said "The first element is securing our border. Our immigration system cannot function if we cannot control the border. Illegal immigration puts a strain on law enforcement and public resources, especially in our border communities. Our nation is also fighting a war on terror, and terrorists crossing the border could create destruction on a massive scale. The responsibility of government is clear: We must enforce the border." It remains to be seen if he adheres to this position at the Cancun summit.

William R. Hawkins is Senior Fellow for National Security Studies at the U.S. Business and Industrial Council in Washington, D.C.

from the Associated Press, 2006-Apr-18, by Mark Stevenson:

Mexico Harsh to Undocumented Migrants

TULTITLAN, Mexico -- Considered felons by the government, these migrants fear detention, rape and robbery. Police and soldiers hunt them down at railroads, bus stations and fleabag hotels. Sometimes they are deported; more often officers simply take their money.

While migrants in the United States have held huge demonstrations in recent weeks, the hundreds of thousands of undocumented Central Americans in Mexico suffer mostly in silence.

And though Mexico demands humane treatment for its citizens who migrate to the U.S., regardless of their legal status, Mexico provides few protections for migrants on its own soil. The issue simply isn't on the country's political agenda, perhaps because migrants make up only 0.5 percent of the population, or about 500,000 people - compared with 12 percent in the United States.

The level of brutality Central American migrants face in Mexico was apparent Monday, when police conducting a raid for undocumented migrants near a rail yard outside Mexico City shot to death a local man, apparently because his dark skin and work clothes made officers think he was a migrant.

Virginia Sanchez, who lives near the railroad tracks that carry Central Americans north to the U.S. border, said such shootings in Tultitlan are common.

"At night, you hear the gunshots, and it's the judiciales (state police) chasing the migrants," she said. "It's not fair to kill these people. It's not fair in the United States and it's not fair here."

Undocumented Central American migrants complain much more about how they are treated by Mexican officials than about authorities on the U.S. side of the border, where migrants may resent being caught but often praise the professionalism of the agents scouring the desert for their trail.

"If you're carrying any money, they take it from you - federal, state, local police, all of them," said Carlos Lopez, a 28-year-old farmhand from Guatemala crouching in a field near the tracks in Tultitlan, waiting to climb onto a northbound freight train.

Lopez said he had been shaken down repeatedly in 15 days of traveling through Mexico.

"The soldiers were there as soon as we crossed the river," he said. "They said, 'You can't cross ... unless you leave something for us.'"

Jose Ramos, 18, of El Salvador, said the extortion occurs at every stop in Mexico, until migrants are left penniless and begging for food.

"If you're on a bus, they pull you off and search your pockets and if you have any money, they keep it and say, 'Get out of here,'" Ramos said.

Maria Elena Gonzalez, who lives near the tracks, said female migrants often complain about abusive police.

"They force them to strip, supposedly to search them, but the purpose is to sexually abuse them," she said.

Others said they had seen migrants beaten to death by police, their bodies left near the railway tracks to make it look as if they had fallen from a train.

The Mexican government acknowledges that many federal, state and local officials are on the take from the people-smugglers who move hundreds of thousands of Central Americans north, and that migrants are particularly vulnerable to abuse by corrupt police.

The National Human Rights Commission, a government-funded agency, documented the abuses south of the U.S. border in a December report.

"One of the saddest national failings on immigration issues is the contradiction in demanding that the North respect migrants' rights, which we are not capable of guaranteeing in the South," commission president Jose Luis Soberanes said.

In the United States, mostly Mexican immigrants have staged rallies pressuring Congress to grant amnesty to millions of illegal immigrants rather than making them felons and deputizing police to deport them. The Mexican government has spoken out in support of the immigrants' cause.

While Interior Secretary Carlos Abascal said Monday that "Mexico is a country with a clear, defined and generous policy toward migrants," the nation of 105 million has legalized only 15,000 immigrants in the past five years, and many undocumented migrants who are detained are deported.

Although Mexico objects to U.S. authorities detaining Mexican immigrants, police and soldiers usually cause the most trouble for migrants in Mexico, even though they aren't technically authorized to enforce immigration laws.

And while Mexicans denounce the criminalization of their citizens living without papers in the United States, Mexican law classifies undocumented immigration as a felony punishable by up to two years in prison, although deportation is more common.

The number of undocumented migrants detained in Mexico almost doubled from 138,061 in 2002 to 240,269 last year. Forty-two percent were Guatemalan, 33 percent Honduran and most of the rest Salvadoran.

Like the United States, Mexico is becoming reliant on immigrant labor. Last year, then-director of Mexico's immigration agency, Magdalena Carral, said an increasing number of Central Americans were staying in Mexico, rather than just passing through on their way to the U.S.

She said sectors of the Mexican economy facing labor shortages often use undocumented workers because the legal process for work visas is inefficient.

from the Washington Times, 2006-Jan-17, by Jerry Seper:

Mexican military incursions reported

The U.S. Border Patrol has warned agents in Arizona of incursions into the United States by Mexican soldiers "trained to escape, evade and counterambush" if detected -- a scenario Mexico denied yesterday.

The warning to Border Patrol agents in Tucson, Ariz., comes after increased sightings of what authorities described as heavily armed Mexican military units on the U.S. side of the border. The warning asks the agents to report the size, activity, location, time and equipment of any units observed.

It also cautions agents to keep "a low profile," to use "cover and concealment" in approaching the Mexican units, to employ "shadows and camouflage" to conceal themselves and to "stay as quiet as possible."

Border Patrol spokesman Salvador Zamora confirmed that a "military incursion" warning was given to Tucson agents, but said it was designed to inform them how to react to any sightings of military and foreign police in this country and how to properly document any incursion.

Mr. Zamora added that although incursions by the Mexican military do occur, they usually have taken place in areas of the border "not marked by monuments or signs." He said U.S. military units also have crossed mistakenly into Mexico.

But Rafael Laveaga, spokesman for the Mexican Embassy in Washington, denied that Mexican military personnel are crossing into the United States.

"I strongly deny any incursions by the Mexican military as inaccurate allegations," Mr. Laveaga said. "The Mexican military is a well-respected institution with strict rules on how to control Northern Mexico. It maintains a protocol of not going within a mile of the border, and those who would trespass would be severely punished."

Mr. Laveaga said some drug smugglers headed "both north and south" wear uniforms and drive military-type vehicles, and might have "confused" U.S. authorities.

"Give me a break," said T.J. Bonner, a 27-year Border Patrol veteran who heads the National Border Patrol Council. "Intrusions by the Mexican military to protect drug loads happen all the time and represent a significant threat to the agents.

"Why else would they be in the area, firing at federal agents in the United States? There is no other explanation," said Mr. Bonner, whose organization represents all 10,000 of the nonsupervisory Border Patrol agents.

He also challenged reports that Mexican military units had crossed mistakenly into the United States, saying, "Every country's military has a [global positioning system] nowadays, including the Mexicans.

"If the border is so poorly marked, why don't the thousands of Border Patrol agents working 24/7 along it ever seem to get lost, and none of us have been issued a GPS," he said.

A Pentagon spokeswoman said yesterday that she had no information on the reported incursions.

A total of 216 incursions by suspected Mexican military units have been documented since 1996 -- 75 in California, 63 in Arizona and 78 in Texas, according to a Department of Homeland Security report.

Attacks on Border Patrol agents in the past few years have been attributed to current or former Mexican military personnel. U.S. law-enforcement officials have long thought that current and former Mexican soldiers are being paid to protect drug shipments bound for the United States.

Several agents said the attacks have escalated in the past two years as U.S. security efforts on the border have increased -- including the July shooting of two agents in an ambush near Nogales, Ariz., by assailants in black commando-type clothing, who fired more than 50 rounds. Authorities said the gunmen used military-style cover-and-concealment tactics to escape back into Mexico. No one has been arrested.

Santa Cruz County, Ariz., Sheriff Tony Estrada said that at least four shooters were involved and that his deputies found commando clothing, food, water and other "sophisticated equipment" at the site.

Several former Mexican soldiers trained in the U.S. as anti-drug commandos are now part of a well-armed gang known as the "Zetas," which has been linked to hundreds of killings and kidnappings on both sides of the U.S.-Mexico border in southeastern Texas.

Many of the gang members have been identified as ex-members of an elite, anti-drug paratroop and intelligence battalion called the Special Air Mobile Force Group, who deserted in 1991.

from TPDL 2004-Dec-3, from Mens News Daily, by Jim Kouri:

The Border War
The War Few Discuss in Washington

When veteran newsman Bob Schieffer questioned President George W. Bush and Senator John F. Kerry about immigration and border security during the third presidential debate, he was responding to an overwhelming number of e-mail from citizens demanding answers to this most pressing issue. In fact, according to Schieffer, he received more e-mail on this subject than all the other issues combined. Yet Americans got few answers during the heated debate. What many heard were abstractions about tightening border security with no mention of how either candidate would achieve it.

As Americans remember the horror of the terrorist attacks in New York and Washington more than three years ago, the US borders are practically as porous as ever.

According to testimony given to the US House of Representatives Armed Services Committee by General Peter Pace, the Vice Chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff, Hamas has joined Hezbullah and Al-Qaida in the Triple Frontier Zone in Latin America where the borders of Argentina, Brazil and Paraguay converge. There the Islamic terror groups train recruits, gather intelligence on targets, launder money and sell drugs. There is evidence that these terrorists and narco-terrorists will soon migrate north into the United States. He cited terrorism reports indicating terrorist groups are active in Canada and Central-South America.

ATTACKS ON US SOVEREIGNTY

Border Patrol and Immigration Service agents began to voice what many believed were legitimate concerns about "armed incursions" into the United States from Mexico-based assailants. They reported that heavily armed Mexican army units and federal police, called federales, had infiltrated US territory and fired upon them, in some cases because - federal agents would later discover - Mexican drug lords had put prices on the heads of American law-enforcement agents strung out along the border. Where was the outrage by our political leaders and the mainstream media over this blatant violation of our national sovereignty?

Many of our political leaders and most in the news media ignore these violent attacks on our national sovereignty while more and more Americans are saying, "This has got to stop!"

Some security experts had high hopes that President Bush would bring up the border security problem during his meeting with Mexican President Vincente Fox. It never happened. Quite the opposite occurred. The two leaders discussed ways of relaxing immigration restrictions including a de facto amnesty program. Even a provision in the controversial intelligence bill, resulting from the 9-11 Commission Report, that would ban the issuance of motor vehicle licenses to illegal aliens met with stiff resistance from many members both political parties in congress.

Putting aside terrorism, the lack of border security contributes to crime. In Los Angeles, a look at outstanding arrest warrants for homicide reveals that over 90% are for illegal aliens. Examination of all LA felony arrest warrants (murder, rape, armed robbery, etc.) shows that 65% are for illegal aliens. The Manhattan Institute estimates that 350 killers managed to escape back into Mexico and the Mexican government refuses to extradite to the US to stand trial. There exists a correlation between lax border security and human trafficking and bondage, as well.

And our northern border with Canada has many law-enforcement leaders even more concerned. Canadian security experts concede that there are several radical Islamist groups active in their country. In fact, Hezbullah's largest headquarters is located not in the Middle East but in Toronto. One Canadian intelligence officer claims that his country's immigration policy is more lax than US policy and their politicos more liberal when it comes to failure to restrict illegal aliens from entering=20 Canada.

If these killers aren't afraid to target or kill cops, then who in America is really safe from terrorists, murderers, rapists and other offenders; and anyone wishing to address the problem is labeled a racist or xenophobe. Americans can probably count on one hand the number of congressional leaders who will even debate the issues of illegal immigration or border security. What sense does it make to inspect shipping containers in New York seaports while ignoring the vulnerabilities existing at our nation's borders?

from the Associated Press via the San Jose Mercury News, 2005-Aug-5, by Elliot Spagat:

Border Patrol agent charged with smuggling, faking citizenship

SAN DIEGO - A Border Patrol agent was charged Friday with smuggling illegal immigrants and forging a birth certificate to get hired.

Oscar Antonio Ortiz, a Mexican citizen who was born in Tijuana, allegedly secured his job with the Border Patrol in 2001 by using a fake birth certificate that stated he was born in Chicago.

Authorities say the number on his birth certificate corresponds to that of another person who was born one month before him.

Ortiz, 28, pleaded not guilty to charges of migrant smuggling and making a false citizenship claim. U.S. Magistrate Judge Anthony Battaglia scheduled a hearing Wednesday to consider bail.

"There is no place in the Border Patrol for behavior that tarnishes and discredits the badge that we proudly wear," said Border Patrol Chief David Aguilar.

Ortiz, who worked at the agency's El Cajon station east of San Diego, was arrested Thursday and has been placed on administrative leave. Agency officials declined to elaborate on the charges or his employment history, and Ortiz' attorney, Stephen White, declined to discuss the case.

Wire intercepts show that Ortiz spoke on "many occasions" with another unnamed agent about smuggling people into the United States from Mexico through a mountainous area that he patrolled near Tecate, according to the complaint. Tecate is about 35 miles east of San Diego.

The other agent allegedly told a family member May 20 that he and Ortiz were smuggling groups of several dozen people and getting paid up to $2,000 a person.

"We have just started to work over here," the agent said, according to the complaint. "It's 30, 40, 50 and up ... We don't do anything, just clear the way and we get 300 per head. But if we put in, then it's 2,000 or 1,800."

Ortiz and the other agent allegedly talked May 3 about how much to charge an immigrant smuggler.

"I don't know how the guy wants to work, but I'll talk to him," Ortiz is quoted saying.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Alana Wong declined to comment on the unnamed agent.

T.J. Bonner, who heads a labor union of Border Patrol agents, said the FBI used to perform background checks on prospective employees but turned that work over to the U.S. Office of Personnel Management.

"It's a two-minute phone call to verify whether the number (on the birth certificate) matches the name," said Bonner, president of the National Border Patrol Council. "Any rookie who is trained in immigration law could have figured that out."

Stephen Benowitz, OPM's associate director for human resources products and services, confirmed that his office screens applicants based on criteria established by the Border Patrol. He said he was unfamiliar with Ortiz's case.

Border Patrol agents must be U.S. citizens.

from NewsMax.com, 2005-Aug-17, by Jim Meyers:

Half of Mexico Wants to Move to the U.S.

Nearly half of Mexican adults would move to the U.S. if they could — and one in five say they would do so illegally, new surveys reveal.

These same surveys suggest that America's problem with illegals will only get worse in the years to come.

Waves of illegals continue to wreak havoc on America's southern border, and this past weekend New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson ordered a state of emergency in four of his state's counties that border Mexico "because of the urgency of the situation and, unfortunately, because of the total inaction and lack of resources from the federal government and Congress."

Arizona followed suit and declared a state of emergency on Monday.

Whether Mexico Gets Better or Not

The surveys of Mexican citizens by the Pew Hispanic Center also found that increased education and an improved standard of living won't dampen the stampede of illegals coming across the border.

The two surveys conducted in Mexico asked: "If at this moment you had the means and opportunity to go to live in the USA, would you go?" Almost half - 46 percent - said yes.

When asked if they would be inclined to work and live in the USA "without authorization," meaning illegally, 21 percent said they would.

Showing that interest in emigrating isn't confined to the poor, more than one-third of Mexican college graduates said they would move to the U.S. if they could, and more than one in eight said they'd be willing to migrate even if they had to enter the country illegally.

"People with college degrees believe they have greater economic opportunities by migration to the U.S. — even illegally — than they would staying at home," Roberto Suro, director of the Pew Hispanic Center, a research group in Washington, told USA Today.

Mexicans wishing to come to the U.S. are "distributed across the whole breadth of Mexican society," he added.

A Difference of Perspective

Six in 10 Hispanics born in the U.S. favor requirements that people show proof of citizenship or legal residency before they can get a driver's license, but only 29 percent of foreign-born Hispanics agree.

An estimated 10 million Mexicans now live in the U.S., more than half of them illegally, according to Suro.

The unfettered movement of illegals across our southern border is costing American taxpayers dearly:

• Americans pay an estimated $8 billion annually for educating the children of illegal aliens.
• The Center for Immigration Studies in Washington has estimated that illegal aliens have cost U.S. workers $133 billion in job loses.
• Food stamps and medical benefits for undocumented immigrants cost Americans some $65 billion annually. Illegals have been running up a tab of $2.5 billion annually for Medicaid alone.
• The American Hospital Association has said the cost of uncompensated care for patients, many of them illegal aliens, amounted to more than $21 billion in a recent year.
• More than 75 percent of the illegal drugs in the U.S. come across our porous borders, according to experts.
• More than one-quarter of the inmates in federal prisons are illegals — costing taxpayers $900 million a year to feed and house them.

"Millions of people are going to keep coming every decade unless we restrict it," said Steven Camarota, director of research at the Washington-based Center for Immigration Studies, which favors strict enforcement of immigration laws.

"That's the bottom line."

from OfficialWire, 2005-Jul-13, by Frosty Wooldridge:

Illegal Immigration Tuberculosis Crisis

LOUISVILLE, COLORADO -- The American Lung Association makes the claim it “wiped out” tuberculosis in the United States. That esteemed public health organization celebrated its 101th birthday in June.

However, last fall, at the Air Force Academy in Colorado a cadet tested positive for tuberculosis. He is not alone. In Michigan, Florida, Virginia, Georgia, Colorado, Texas and dozens of states around the country, tuberculosis pops up daily at health clinics.

It's a growing crisis suffered by parents of kids in classrooms, work places and food retail outlets. How and why is this disease that was “extinguished” in the United States by the mid 1990's back?

According to the Center for Disease Control, 14,871 new cases of active TB in the United States

“…occurred among people born abroad to non-U.S. born parents.” What do they have in common? They immigrated to America. Tuberculosis rears its ugly head with the advance of illegal immigrants massing across the United States.

How did they get past health officials at the borders? According to U.S. Border Patrol officials, over 4,000 illegal aliens make successful bids to cross America's borders nightly in Arizona alone. Once inside the U.S., they move into the general population where they spread tuberculosis to American citizens. How many infected illegal aliens breached America's borders in the past five years? According to a report by Dr. Kevin Patterson in the March issue of Mother Jones News, “Patient Predator,” an estimated 16,000 cases of MDR mycobacterium tuberculosis traveled over U.S. borders from Mexico in the past five years. This new “multi-drug resistant” TB, at this point, is incurable. Worldwide, tuberculosis kills two million people annually.

Let's connect the dots. On April 24, 2004, “Anatomy of an Outbreak,” the Santa Barbara Press-News carried a story on an illegal alien migrant who infected 56 people. He had to be arrested and confined to stop his spreading the disease. On June 30, 2004, a Chesterfield County, Virginia teen at James River High School tested positive for TB. Another 100 of his classmates had to be tested. On July 2, 2004, a Bradenton, Florida homeless man who had visited homeless shelters may have spread the disease to an unknown number of people. Five cases of TB surfaced at the state prison in Hardeman County, Whiteville, Tennessee. On June 22, 2004, a nursing student tested positive for tuberculosis. In Norwich, Connecticut, a worker from Plas Pak Industries tested positive for TB on June 1, 2004. In Chesapeake, VA, 17 people died from TB in 2003. Last fall, north of Detroit, Michigan, 30 students and four teachers tested positive for TB.

Del Ray Beach, Florida suffered two cases.

Quite simply, it's spreading like a dandelion dropping seeds into the wind.

Why should Americans be concerned? First, over one million illegal alien children attend K-12 schools across the United States. They are the sons and daughters of parents who escaped disease testing at our nation's borders. Anyone of them could be among the 16,000 new cases of TB within our borders. What do all illegal aliens have in common? They do not want to be deported so they avoid checking into health clinics.

According to Dr. Lee Reichman in his book “TIMEBOMB: GLOBAL EPIDEMIC OF MULTI DRUG RESISTANT DISEASES,” each infected person may infect 10 to 50 other persons depending on his/her presence in public. Where do illegal aliens find work? Take a guess! It means any healthy American could eat at a fast food restaurant, go to a movie, stand in line at a grocery store or attend school—and contract tuberculosis. You're a cough or sneeze away from infection by someone standing in line with you.

Adding to the calamity, America's porous borders allow a million illegal and untested migrants into the United States annually. It portends a growing, silent and pervasive epidemic that will take years before fully realized as “live” and latent carriers may pass the disease to anyone near them when they cough, sneeze or touch foods Americans eat.

What can you as an American citizen do? Not much singularly. You're pretty much a victim of this tuberculosis crisis. However, by joining forces with like-minded citizens, you can force Congress to uphold immigration laws, put troops on the borders to stop illegal migration and reduce legal immigration to manageable levels that mandate strict health testing before any immigrant arrives into this country.

If you don't do anything, which has been the case in the past 14 years since 1990 when tuberculosis was as rare as a blue moon, someone you know or you will contract TB. If it's the MDR incurable form of TB, you may be among the two million annually who don't enjoy the next New Year's party. It's only a matter time.

from the Associated Press, 2005-Aug-3:

Report: Mexico world's kidnapping king

MEXICO CITY, Mexico -- Mexico has overtaken Colombia and Brazil to become the world leader in reported kidnappings, a leading, private anti-crime group said Wednesday.

Investigators across the country reported 194 kidnappings from January through June, compared to 172 abductions registered during the same period by Colombian Defense Secretary officials and 169 reported kidnappings in Brazil, according to Jose Antonio Ortega, president of the Citizen Council for Public Safety.

"This is nothing to be proud of, it's an embarrassment," Ortega said at a news conference. "It's an embarrassment for authorities who have tried to convince us crime statistics are falling."

The vast majority of kidnappings in Mexico go unreported because of fears about police corruption and incompetence, and the possible involvement of authorities in many abductions. Often, family members of kidnapping victims fail to ask even presumably more-trustworthy federal authorities to investigate because of worries their loved ones could be killed during botched rescue attempts.

The reported number of kidnappings likely do not reflect the actual number of abductions in Colombia or Brazil either, as both countries have long struggled with corruption and mistrust of authorities similar to those in Mexico.

In a case so brazen that it shocked many in this crime-wary nation, a group of gunmen last month forced Argentina-born Ruben Omar Romano, the coach of the Mexican League's Cruz Azul soccer squad, from his BMW as he left the team's practice facility in southern Mexico City.

Romano's abduction has become indicative of how most kidnappings here go, however, with authorities in the capital pledging not to become directly involved because the coach's family has not sought their help.

Ortega's group obtained the tallies it released Wednesday by searching databases for kidnappings reported by police in Mexico City and each of the country's 31 states. To a total of 155 cases nationwide, officials added an extra 39 kidnappings that federal agents have said they were investigating.

Contacted Wednesday, Mexico's attorney general's office, which investigates kidnappings involving organized crime, offered no immediate comment on the independent report.

So far this year, federal prosecutors have received reports of 87 kidnappings, arrested 72 alleged kidnappers and fully dismantled 11 kidnapping organizations.

The Citizen Council for Public Safety, which organized a massive "march of silence" through the streets of Mexico City last summer to call attention to skyrocketing crime rates, said 76 reported kidnappings so far this year in the nation's capital mean that abductions per capita here outranked those reported in Bogota, Colombia, or Sao Paulo, Brazil.

It reported that 10 kidnap victims have died after being abducted in Mexico City since January, compared to 24 over the same period in Bogota, according to available statistics.

"To me it seems that Colombia has begun to get a handle on the situation because, in Colombia, crime is going down, kidnappings are going down, violence is going down, despite the fact they are at war," Ortega said.

A civil war pitting large guerrilla groups -- some financed by the cocaine trade -- against government forces has raged for 40 years in Colombia.

Ortega said that instead of working to put kidnappers behind bars and weed out the corrupt police officers and officials who protect them, Mexican officials preferred to point to incomplete statistics and insist that the crime rate has gone down.

"Things are very grave," he said. "The country is breaking down and there's no one in charge."

from the Washington Times, 2005-Apr-15, by Stephen Dinan:

Authorities free 1 million aliens amid proceedings

One million people facing immigration proceedings have been released into the general population, the government's chief of detention and removal told the Senate yesterday , prompting some Republicans to say the Bush administration is "not serious" about the problem.

"We have a million individuals who are in some phase of immigration proceedings released," said Victor X. Cerda, the acting director of detention and removal operations for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).

He said of those people, 465,000 are fugitive aliens who have been ordered deported. About 80,000 of those are criminal aliens who have committed an offense in addition to immigration violations, but he couldn't provide an exact number.

His comments came as an immigration debate in the Senate blocked most progress on the emergency war-spending bill. Pending amendments include cracking down on illegal immigrants' use of driver's licenses, increasing visas for seasonal nonimmigrant workers and legalizing up to 1 million illegal aliens who work in agriculture and their families.

Yesterday's hearing, before two subcommittees of the Judiciary Committee, is supposed to lay the groundwork for a comprehensive immigration bill, said Sen. John Cornyn, Texas Republican and chairman of the immigration subcommittee, which held the hearing along with Sen. Jon Kyl of Arizona, chairman of the terrorism subcommittee.

"No serious discussion of comprehensive immigration reform is possible without a review of our nation's ability to effectively secure its borders and enforce its immigration laws," Mr. Cornyn said.

Sen. Jeff Sessions, Alabama Republican, and Sen. Tom Coburn, Oklahoma Republican, demanded to know why Mr. Cerda was not doing more to have illegal aliens removed.

Mr. Sessions said ICE is far behind in entering the names of the 465,000 alien fugitives into law-enforcement databases, which means that if those people are picked up in another arrest, they would not be turned over to immigration authorities.

Jonathan Cohn, a deputy assistant attorney general, told the panel that court decisions over the years will result in the government having to release dangerous criminal aliens as well.

"The aliens that are being released include murderers, rapists and child molesters," Mr. Cohn said.

Members of the subcommittees also ended up taking sides on whether the Minutemen patrolling the Arizona border are "vigilantes," as President Bush called them.

Sen. Edward M. Kennedy, Massachusetts Democrat, said he agreed with Mr. Bush's characterization, and told Mr. Cerda to let him know what the Department of Homeland Security's policy was on dealing with vigilantes.

from the Associated Press, 2005-Jan-27:

Mexico May Ask International Courts to Block Arizona Law

MEXICO CITY -- Mexico may turn to international courts in an effort to block Arizona's new anti-immigration law.

The law, passed by Arizona voters in November as Proposition 200, limits government services to illegal immigrants. It also requires proof of citizenship when registering to vote.

Mexico Foreign Secretary Luis Ernesto Derbez says Mexico may turn to international courts after it's exhausted all possibilities under U.S. law to block 200.

Derbez says his government already has made a verbal protest to the United States. Now, he says, it will file a written protest at the request of Mexican lawmakers.

from The Arizona Republic, 2005-Jan-27, by Chris Hawley:

Mexico threatens to take Prop 200 to court

MEXICO CITY - Mexican officials said Thursday they may complain to an international human rights tribunal if U.S. courts fail to overturn Arizona's Proposition 200.

A human rights expert said such a complaint could have little impact, since such courts have limited power over the United States.

A foreign ministry spokesman on Thursday confirmed comments about the case made by Luis Ernesto Derbez, Mexico's top diplomat, during a radio show earlier this week.

"We are looking at all legal means in the United States, and if that fails, we could look to an international body - that was the context," said spokesman Edgar Trujillo. Derbez did not specify which international court, Trujillo said.

The comments came as activists in Arizona are challenging Proposition 200 in court, and as opposition politicians accuse Mexican President Vicente Fox's government of doing too little to stop the law.

The Mexican government has provided "moral support" but has not contributed any money to the legal challenge filed by the Mexican-American Legal Defense and Education Fund, said Danny Ortega, a Phoenix attorney who is helping the group with the lawsuit.

Proposition 200 requires Arizonans to prove their U.S. citizenship when registering to vote, and to provide proof they are legal residents when applying for certain state benefits. State employees who fail to report undocumented immigrants face a possible $750 fine and four months in jail.

Derbez says the law could encourage racial discrimination. In recent weeks, he has said repeatedly that the Mexican government is helping activists challenge the law.

"We are seeking all the legal opportunities that exist, first using the legal capacities of the United States itself and {ellipsis}if that does not work, bringing it to international tribunals," The Associated Press quoted Derbez as saying in the radio interview.

It is unclear whether a ruling by an international tribunal would have any impact.

There are only a few international courts, and their jurisdiction and power over countries is limited, said James Ross, senior legal adviser for New York-based Human Rights Watch.

"There are international bodies out there, but if they're serious they'll press it in a U.S. court," he said.

The United Nations' International Court of Justice in The Hague, Netherlands handles border disputes and other serious conflicts between countries.

It recently ruled on the "security barrier" that Israel is building between itself and the Palestinians, and handled complaints over U.S. involvement in Nicaragua during the 1980s.

The Inter American Commission on Human Rights is part of the Organization of American States. It is only an advisory body, but the United States frequently responds to its findings. The commission has handled complaints regarding treatment of prisoners at the U.S. naval base in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

The Inter American Court of Human Rights, based in San Jose, Costa Rica; and the International Criminal Court, based in The Hague; have no authority in U.S. cases because the United States never signed the agreements that created them.

from the Wall Street Journal via OpinionJournal.com, 2005-Jan-31, by John Fund:

Rush for the Border
Limbaugh issues a warning to President Bush.

ORLANDO, Fla.--In the aftermath of 9/11, conservatives bottled up their frustrations over some of President Bush's policies. Then they muted their criticism during the presidential campaign. But now it is spilling out in all directions--and the White House had better pay attention.

On Friday Rush Limbaugh, a staunch Bush supporter, took two separate opportunities to warn the president that he faced conservative opposition on some key issues that could hurt his chances of passing the rest of his second-term agenda. First was federal spending, which "is surging out of control," according to the Heritage Foundation's new "Mandate for Leadership." The other was immigration, which, Mr. Limbaugh told his listeners, "could break up the Republican-conservative coalition" à la Ross Perot. "We cannot maintain our sovereignty without securing and protecting our borders in an era where terrorists around the world seek entry to this country," he said.

Later that day, I spoke with Mr. Limbaugh backstage before he discussed immigration at a private meeting of 400 leading conservatives here. He told me his comments had been prompted in part by a wire story he had read that morning quoting Mexico's Foreign Secretary Luis Ernesto Derbez as saying his country might turn to international courts to block an Arizona law, passed by voters in November and taking effect this week, that bars illegal aliens from welfare benefits and requires proof of citizenship and a photo ID to vote. Mr. Derbez said the measure could lead to "discrimination based on [an] ethnic profile," and expressed sadness that exit polls found two-fifths of Arizona voters of Mexican descent had backed the measure (which passed with 56% statewide).

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Rush has 20 million listeners a week, so if he decides to attack President Bush's plan to regularize immigration flows through a guest-worker program, he could help kill the idea. The president told reporters last week that he plans to make a guest worker plan a "priority," so last Friday he was peppered with questions about it at a private retreat for GOP congressmen at the Greenbrier resort in West Virginia. "Family values do not end at the Rio Grande river," Mr. Bush told the lawmakers, while assuring them his plan was not a backdoor amnesty program. He promised them more details in his State of the Union address on Wednesday.

He will have to engage critics in his own party more fully--especially since many Democrats will likely vote against his plan just to spite him. Many Republicans are steaming about what they see as White House obtuseness on immigration. Last month, Rep. Jim Sensenbrenner of Wisconsin, the House Judiciary Committee chairman, held up passage of the bill revamping the nation's intelligence services until he got a promise that his colleagues would fast-track a bill that would make it harder for a foreigner to claim political asylum in the United States, impose strict national standards for driver licenses and strengthen border enforcement this year.

Now Mr. Sensenbrenner is furious over a USA Today story that quoted outgoing Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge as saying that a part of the intelligence reform bill that did pass doubling the size of the Border Patrol was "fool's gold" that wouldn't be included in the president's budget. "It's nice to say you're going to have 10,000 more Border Patrol agents in five years, but what other part of Homeland Security do you want to take money from?" Mr. Ridge asked.

Soon the five GOP House conferees who negotiated the intelligence bill sent a letter to President Bush demanding that he fully fund the Border Patrol provisions. Speaker Dennis Hastert's office told Human Events that he too favored inclusion of the funds in the president's budget.

One of the five signers of the letter to President Bush was Rep. David Dreier, chairman of the House Rules Committee. He is undergoing a swift political course correction on immigration. Last year, two radio talk show hosts in Los Angeles named John Kobylt and Ken Chiampou spent weeks urging listeners to defeat Mr. Dreier, who they claimed was only paying "lip service" to efforts to halt illegal immigration.

Mr. Dreier spent the last two weeks of the campaign promising a renewed focus on immigration, even running ads featuring his friend Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger calling him "tough as nails" on immigration. Mr. Dreier won, but his 54% showing against a woefully underfinanced Democrat was the lowest of his career. Only weeks after the election, Mr. Dreier announced he would introduce legislation to require creation of a photo-embedded Social Security card, which employers would be required to check with a national database to determine the immigration status of a job applicant.

Mr. Kobylt says talk radio has tasted blood on the immigration issue and he expects other hosts around the country to now pick up on the issue. "Republicans are in bed with businesses who like low labor costs, and Democrats have this socialist bent," he says. "But the taxpayers in this country cannot be responsible for a corrupt, bankrupt country like Mexico. We should start throwing employers in jail, a few fat rich white guys in prison."

Approaches like that, or Pat Buchanan's idea of a reverse Berlin Wall, are neither desirable or politically possible to implement (barring another major terrorist attack that is the work of illegal aliens). But the pressure to "do something" on immigration is mounting. While no incumbent is likely to lose his seat on the issue, three pro-guest-worker incumbents from Arizona and Utah faced primary challenges last year. As a result, many congressmen don't even want to hear about Mr. Bush's plan.

A clear-eyed analysis would tell them the political clout of anti-immigration activists is limited. The best showing by any of the anti-immigrant primary challengers was by state Rep. Randy Graf in Arizona, who won 43% against Rep. Jim Kolbe, a gay Republican who has always had difficulties with social conservatives. And more than 44% of Arizonans voted against Proposition 200, the initiative denying public services to illegal aliens, even though the state's border with Mexico has become the crossing point of choice for smugglers.

The illegal alien problem is a serious one in Arizona, one that my brother in Tucson observed during a 30-year career in law enforcement. Erin Anderson, whose family settled in Cochise County on the Arizona-Mexico border in the 1880s, says the tide of illegal immigration has led to increased crime and made the property of many ranchers effectively worthless. Over 230,000 illegals were arrested last year in Cochise County alone (population 122,000), a fifth of the whole country's total. Even so, Proposition 200, a relatively mild anti-immigration measure, won only 58% in Cochise County, a showing that was two points below President Bush's.

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Even though the political impact of anti-immigration sentiment can be exaggerated, Mr. Bush would be wise to take steps to ensure that immigration doesn't become what crime and abortion became for the Democrats: wedge issues that drove many voters to the other party. He will not come close to passing a guest-worker program until he proves his bona fides in areas of legitimate concern on immigration.

He should start with recognizing that border security is now inextricably tied up in the public's mind with homeland security. Mr. Bush signed off on increases in the Border Patrol's budget. He owes it to Congress to keep his end of the bargain, override Mr. Ridge, and make clear in his State of the Union address the money will be appropriated.

Mr. Bush could then propose limits on election fraud, which was an indisputably popular part of Proposition 200 in Arizona. Federal immigration officials have falsely told election officials in Maryland and other states who want to weed illegal aliens from their voter rolls that it is against privacy laws for them to share such information. Mr. Bush could stop such stonewalling.

The 1993 federal motor-voter law imposed onerous restrictions on the ability of states to purge voters who are ineligible or noncitizens. It should be amended to make purge procedures easier. Federal funds for election reform could also be made contingent on states requiring that voters show proper identification if they vote in person or sending copies of such identification when submitting an absentee ballot.

Mr. Bush also needs to crack down on scofflaw officials who are thumbing their nose at federal immigration policy, including some in his own party. In September 2003, for example, Mayor Michael Bloomberg of New York signed an executive order forbidding New York policemen to share information on immigration offenses with the Immigration Service, except if the illegal immigrant breaks some other law or is suspected of terrorist activity.

Immigration is certainly more complex than many border-control advocates would have you believe. But supporters of rational reform that would regularize the flow of immigrant labor should recognize that it must be accompanied by measures to address the legitimate concerns of Americans who worry the federal government has completely lost control of the borders. Many voters don't trust any plan coming out of Washington, whether it's by Mr. Bush or anyone else. It's that concern that is driving Rush Limbaugh and other supporters of the president to send up political warning flares.

from The Arizona Republic, 2005-Jan-1, by Chris Hawley with Daniel Gonzalez contributing:

Mexico publishes guide to assist border crossers

MEXICO CITY - The Mexican government is giving out a colorful new comic book with advice for migrants, but immigration-control advocates worry that some of the tips may encourage illegal border crossers.

The 32-page book, The Guide for the Mexican Migrant, was published in December by Mexico's Foreign Ministry. Using simple language, the book offers safety information for border crossers, a primer on their legal rights and advice on living unobtrusively in the United States.

Dramatic drawings show undocumented immigrants wading into a river, running from the U.S. Border Patrol and crouching near a hole in a border fence. On other pages, they hike through a desert with rock formations reminiscent of Arizona and are caught by a stern-faced Border Patrol agent.

"This guide is intended to give you some practical advice that could be of use if you have made the difficult decision to seek new work opportunities outside your country," the book says.

But immigration-control groups questioned some of the guide's advice.

"This is more than just a wink and a nod," said Rick Oltman, Western field director for the Federation for American Immigration Reform. "This is so transparent, this is the Mexican government trying to protect its most valuable export, which is illegal migrants."

Book distribution

The book is being distributed as a free supplement to El Libro Vaquero, a popular cowboy comic book, in five Mexican states that send many migrants to the United States: Zacatecas, Michoacán, Puebla, Oaxaca and Jalisco. The government plans to print 1.5 million copies.

The book comes with a yellow disclaimer saying it does not promote undocumented immigration, and it repeatedly warns against crossing illegally. But it gives no information about the steps for seeking a U.S. visa.

Instead, it offers frank safety tips. In the section on crossing rivers, it notes, "Thick clothing increases your weight when wet, and this makes it difficult to swim or float."

On crossing the desert, it says, "Try to walk during times when the heat is not as intense" and says migrants should follow power lines or train tracks if they get lost.

The book warns migrants that they may have to walk for days to reach towns or roads in the desert and that they will not be able to carry enough water or food.

But it also shows a woman adding salt to a water bottle and advises, "Salt water helps you retain your body's liquids. Although you'll feel thirstier, if you drink water with salt the risk of dehydration is much lower."

Mexican authorities say they're just trying to keep migrants safe.

"We are not inviting them to cross, but we're doing everything we can to save lives," said Elizabeth García Mejía, chief coordinator for the Nogales, Sonora, section of Mexico's Grupo Beta migrant protection service.

Carlos Flores Vizcarra, Mexican consul general of Phoenix, said he had not seen the guide until a reporter showed it to him.

He said the guide appeared to be only the latest attempt by the Mexican government to warn migrants about the dangers of crossing the border without proper documentation.

The reality, however, is that many migrants will try to do so anyway, he said.

"This is nothing new. It's a way to put it in very simple terms so people will understand the risks," Flores Vizcarra said. "The intention is out of concern for human rights. People are doing it anyway. We cannot ignore that there is a very big migration between our two countries, and people who are coming to work need to understand the risks."

Mixed messages

Some migrants from Mexico who have crossed the border illegally in the past said the guide seems to send a mixed message.

"On the one hand they seem to be saying, 'Don't cross,' but on the other hand they are saying, 'Cross,' " Humberto Morales, 22, an undocumented immigrant from Oaxaca working as a day laborer in Phoenix, said after looking at a copy.

He doubts the guide will keep many people in Mexico from crossing illegally, but he said it could help save lives.

"We have lots of programs like this in Mexico, but people keep crossing," Morales said.

No official at the Foreign Ministry headquarters in Mexico City would agree to an interview about the comic book, despite repeated requests through the ministry's media relations office.

The book's pictures are drawn to match the style of El Libro Vaquero. They portray the migrants as strong and healthy men and women, wading into a river or walking through the desert.

One section of the book urges caution when dealing with immigrant smugglers, known as coyotes or polleros. It shows migrants climbing into the back of a tractor-trailer, a possible reference to the 19 migrants who died in Texas after being sealed in a tractor-trailer in May 2003.

On getting caught

Another section warns migrants not to lie to U.S. authorities or use false identification, and it gives instructions on what to do if caught by the Border Patrol.

"Don't throw stones or objects at the officer or patrol vehicles because this is considered a provocation," it says. "Raise your hands slowly so they see you are unarmed."

A picture shows a group of migrants running from a Border Patrol sport utility vehicle, though the text urges them not to flee.

"It's better to be detained a few hours and repatriated to Mexico than to get lost in the desert," it says.

Seven pages are devoted to migrants' legal rights after they are detained and another four to living peacefully in the United States.

"Avoid attracting attention, at least while you are arranging your stay or documents to live in the United States," it says. "The best formula is to not alter your routine of going from work to home."

The Arizona Republic faxed copies of the guide to the U.S. Border Patrol, FAIR and two groups that support stronger controls on immigration.

A Border Patrol spokesman said he does not think the book encourages illegal crossers.

"If they've already gone ahead and made that decision to cross illegally . . . then anything that helps protect lives is worth it," said Andy Adame, spokesman for the Border Patrol's Tucson sector.

Beyond protection

But the immigration-control groups said some of the advice goes beyond protecting migrants and, instead, encourages them.

"A lot of it is disclaimers, but then there's this part about if you're going to cross the desert, do it when the sun isn't so hot," said Mark Krikorian, executive director of the Washington-based Center for Immigration Studies. "It's a mixed message."

Said John Vincent, editor of a newsletter published by Virginia-based Americans for Immigration Control: "It really looks like the Mexican government is encouraging illegal immigration. It shows the contempt that the Mexican government has for our laws."

The Mexican government produces a similar book aimed at Central American immigrants who try to enter Mexico illegally. The book covers much of the same information about legal rights and repeats many of the warnings. It even shows a group of migrants struggling to breathe inside a truck.

But that book doesn't give the same kind of safety tips on crossing the border or advise immigrants on how to live peacefully in Mexico.

from EscapingJustice.com, 2004-Feb-23, by Steve Cooley, LA County DA, and Jan Maurizi, director, LA County DA:

KILLERS SLIPPING AWAY TO MEXICO

A little known decision of the Mexican Supreme Court has rocked the world of international extradition and created a safe haven for murderers in Mexico.

Under the terms of the Extradition Treaty between the United States of America and the United Mexican States, either country may extradite fugitives if the crime is proscribed in both countries, the fugitive is located in the requested country, and the fugitive has not previously been convicted or acquitted of the crime for which extradition is sought. Either country may refuse to extradite if the fugitive is a "national" or if the death penalty is sought. It is interesting to note that while the United States has never invoked either of these provisions, Mexico rarely extradites "nationals" and has never extradited on a capital offense without a waiver of the death penalty.

On October 2, 2001, the Mexican Supreme Court ruled that "life imprisonment" is inconsistent with Mexico's policy to rehabilitate their defendants and reincorporate them back into society. Therefore, it constitutes "cruel and unusual punishment" in violation of the Mexican Constitution. In what was then a unilateral evisceration of the Treaty, and an egregious interference with the sovereignty of the United States, and the individual sovereign States, the Mexican Supreme Court extended its decision to the Treaty and began to refuse to extradite anyone facing either the death penalty or life imprisonment even with the possibility of parole. California and many other states have no discretion to seek a determinate sentence with a guarantee of parole. Those states are faced with the untenable choice of waiting for the fugitive to return voluntarily, "down-charging" to a crime which carries a determinate term, or relying on Mexico to prosecute under their laws. Since October, 2001, extradition on "life-top" crimes has come to a screeching halt with dozens, perhaps hundreds of criminals slipping away to the safety of Mexico and freedom from prosecution.

Lost in the legal quagmire are the stories of the victims and the families left behind to pick up the pieces. Among them are:

[see the PDF original for stories and photos -AMPP Ed.]

Conclusion

These stories represent only a few of the hundreds of families who today suffer the double injustice of watching their loved ones murdered and then are forced to sit idly by while the killers are allowed safe haven in Mexico or are tried under Mexican law and acquitted or sentenced to minimal terms or allowed to "purchase" their freedom from a corrupt public official.

The sovereignty of the United States and its 50 states is at stake here. For the last three years, the Los Angeles County District Attorney's Office has been at the forefront of this fray, demanding that at a minimum, Mexico be required to comply with the extradition treaty or face withdrawal, renegotiation or sanctions for non- compliance. As a result of our efforts, resolutions have been introduced in the House of Representatives, California State Legislature, Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors, National League of Cities, International Association of Chiefs of Police, National Latino Peace Officers Association, National Narcotics Association Coalition, and countless other police agencies, municipalities and organizations. The House Governmental Reform Subcommittee on Criminal Justice, Drug Policy and Human Resources has undertaken an investigation. Senator Dianne Feinstein is spearheading an effort in the United States Senate by the introduction of S. Con. Res 79.

California and five other states currently have legislation which gives full faith and credit to actions by a foreign country and prohibits further prosecution under the double jeopardy clause. AB 1432, sponsored by the Los Angeles County District Attorney's Office, is currently pending in the California Legislature. This bill would remove the bar to re-prosecution after a foreign conviction or acquittal and render California laws consistent with those of 44 other states..

The Federal government is not doing its job to enforce the Treaty and demand justice for its citizens. However, it is not enough to say that this is a Federal problem. Every day, law enforcement officer and civilian lives are endangered by fugitives who know they're home free if they kill their victims and make it to Mexico. They can steal a car and Mexico will send them back but if they kill the driver, Mexico protects them!

We need to act now to demand that President Bush, Secretary Powell, Attorney General Ashcroft and our legislators take action so that not one more life is lost to those allowed to escape justice for the price of a bus ticket across the border.

The Los Angeles County District Attorney's office will be launching "Escaping Justice. Com", a victim based website, in Spring, 2004..

from Reuters, 2005-Jan-26, by Ben Hirschler with additional reporting by Paul Taylor:

Chirac Calls for Global Tax to Fight AIDS

DAVOS, Switzerland - French President Jacques Chirac called for a tax to fund the global fight against AIDS on Wednesday, as new figures showed a modest rise in the number of patients receiving life-saving drugs in poor nations.

The experimental levy, which could be raised on international financial transactions, could generate $10 billion a year, Chirac told the World Economic Forum.

His appeal for a radical rethink of AIDS funding comes at a time when the roll-out of antiretroviral therapy (ARV) in the developing world is finally gathering momentum.

The number of people receiving treatment in poor countries has jumped 75 percent in the past year, U.N. agencies said. ARVs are now getting to 700,000 patients, up from 440,000 six months ago, meeting the World Health Organization's interim target.

But the figure only amounts to 12 percent of the 5.8 million people who officials estimate will die in developing countries if they do not receive medicine within two years.

A further $2 billion is needed in 2005 alone to hit the target of getting medicines to 3 million by the end of the year.

"I propose today moving forward through the creation, in an experimental way, of a levy to finance the fight against AIDS," Chirac told delegates in Davos in a speech delivered by video link-up.

Chirac said the levy could be imposed on a fraction of all financial transactions without hampering markets, but it could also be raised by taxing fuel for air and sea transport, or by levying $1 on every airline ticket sold in the world.

His ideas are likely to meet strong opposition from the United States and most other rich nations, as well as financial markets and airlines, but will be popular with anti-globalization campaigners and AIDS awareness groups.

HUMANKIND'S BIGGEST CHALLENGE

Chirac said the money raised would be used not only to make medicines available to far more sufferers but also to finance research into a vaccine and develop prevention campaigns.

Richard Feachem, executive director of the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, TB and Malaria, welcomed his idea which he said could help move the treatment of AIDS in the developing world to a new level after a "strong but modest start."

"It is by far the biggest challenge humankind has ever taken on," he told reporters.

Four years ago, the idea of treating people in the developing world with sophisticated ARVs costing $10,000 a year -- which must be taken for life under close medical supervision -- was widely viewed as impossible.

Since then, however, the cost has tumbled by more than 90 percent, as Western pharmaceutical companies, responding to intense pressure, have slashed prices, while Indian, Brazilian and Thai generic firms introduced cheap copycats versions.

Peter Piot, head of UNAIDS, the United Nations lead agency on HIV/AIDS, said the global response to AIDS was entering a new era of action rather than talking.

Enormous barriers remain, however. Aside from the extra cash needed, the "Progress Report" on the U.N. initiative known as "Three by Five" highlighted other key bottlenecks.

These include the high cost of second-line ARV treatment, which is needed when patients develop drug resistance, and the price of diagnostic tests. There is also a lack of affordable formulations of ARVs for children.

Overall, the price of ARVs averages at least $300 per person per year, according to U.N. agencies, which are seeking a price of $50-200 by end-2005.

About 38 million people worldwide, including 25 million in sub-Saharan Africa, are living with HIV/AIDS.

Lee Jong-Wook, director-general of the World Health Organization, said the number of people receiving treatment in Africa had doubled in the past six months and Uganda, Botswana and Namibia now have 25 percent coverage.

The biggest laggards were South Africa, India and Nigeria, he added. The three countries account for 41 percent of the overall "unmet need" of 5.1 million adults

Patients receive drugs through national programs, aid agencies, the private sector, the Global Fund, the U.S. President's Emergency Plan for AIDS relief, the World Bank and other partners.

from FrontPageMagazine.com, 2004-Dec-2, by Stephen Brown:

The Center for Constitutional Rights Has Germany Investigate America

In a blatant attempt to undermine the American war effort in Iraq and to damage and embarrass the United States in the eyes of the world, a leftist American legal organization filed a criminal complaint yesterday in a German court to have ten, high-ranking American military and political leaders put on trial in Germany for crimes against humanity and human rights violations committed at Baghdad's Abu Ghraib prison.

The Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR), which FrontPage writer John Perazzo has described as a “Fifth Column Law factory” whose lawyers “align themselves with anti-American ideologies and totalitarian sympathies,” filed the 170 page comprehensive complaint with the German Federal Prosecutor's office in Karlsruhe. Included as defendants in the complaint are Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, former CIA Director George Tenet, Lt. General Ricardo S. Sanchez and Undersecretary of Defense for Intelligence Stephen Cambone.

The plaintiffs are four Iraqis who allegedly were subjected to torture and maltreatment at the hands of American soldiers at Abu Ghraib in a scandal that has already been well documented.

CCR President Michael Ratner, who has a long affiliation with radical causes, said at a news conference in Berlin yesterday that American military and political leaders from Donald Rumsfeld on down must be investigated and held accountable, since the United States has refused to investigate those at the top in connection with the case.

However, this isn't Ratner's first attempt to smear America in the War on Terror. During the American invasion of Afghanistan, he lamented the fact that Afghan children would die because of the bombing and falsely accused the United States of refusing to stop its air strikes to allow emergency food deliveries. However, Ratner's greatest success came last summer when he got the Supreme Court to grant the terrorists held at Guantanamo Bay the right to contest their internment before U.S. courts.

The German law code contains a statute regarding crimes against humanity and human rights violations that allows German courts to try the perpetrators no matter where the alleged misdeeds were committed in the world. For this reason, the CCR chose Germany to file its complaint, since this country is required to investigate any such charge under this law.

But there is also a more sinister reason for the CCR's transparent attempt to undermine America in time of war. The CCR knows that three of the American military personnel named as defendants, Lt. General Ricardo Sanchez, Major General Walter Wodjakoski and Colonel Thomas Pappas are stationed in Germany. Lt. General Sanchez is the commander of U.S. Army Corps V, while Major General Wodjakoski is the Deputy Commander of both the V Corp and of Combined Task Force Seven, whose troops include those in Iraq. The radical lawyers' organization realizes any investigation of the U.S. Army in Germany would hurt the military's position there, as these officers would probably be sent home before they would ever be allowed to appear before a German court.

But since this particular German law, called the “Voelkerstrafgesetzbuch” in German, has never seen any of the 26 complaints filed under it reach even the preliminary proceedings stage since its introduction in 2002, what the CCR is probably hoping for is to strengthen the already rampant anti-Americanism in Western Europe and keep alive the Left's portrayal of the Abu Ghraib scandal as a modern My Lai.

The truth be told, the CCR and others of its ilk do not care any more about the Abu Ghraib victims than the Left cared about the South Vietnamese people during the Vietnam War. Thirty thousand people were murdered in that notorious Iraqi prison during Saddam Hussein's time and yet the CCR and other anti-American bodies were nowhere to be seen, let alone heard. The same goes for the more than 200,000 bodies discovered in Iraqi mass graves, the children's prisons and the rape rooms that existed for 24 years in that country; the silence of the blame-America-first crowd was deafening. If the CCR is such a compassionate human rights organization, it must be asked why it hasn't filed any complaints in German courts against one of the many mass murderers from Saddam Hussein's rule, or against torturers and killers living comfortably in many other countries, who have never had to answer for their crimes. The answer is that the CCR can't score any anti-American points, its true purpose, pursuing such worthy causes.

In their heartless, hate-America campaign, the CCR is simply exploiting the Abu Ghraib incident, and others like it, as a phoney humanitarian cover for their hatred of America. In time of peace this would be despicable and unconscionable; but in time of war the CCR's actions fall under a far more troubling and morbid label.

Note that the head of the UN's “independent” commission investigating corruption in the Iraq Oil-for-Food program is Paul Volcker, who sits on the board of directors of the United Nations Association of the USA. The 2003 UNA-USA annual report, wherein governance and donor information is published, opens by explaining that “The United Nations Association of the United States of America (UNA-USA) is a not-for-profit, nonpartisan organization that supports the work of the United Nations and encourages active civic participation in the most important social and economic issues facing the world today.” It is thus explicitly an advocacy group for the United Nations. In the 2002-2003 cycle, UNA-USA donors include Volcker, in the $5k-$10k category, and BNP Paribas NA, in the $100k-$200k category. BNP Paribas was the manager of the Oil-for-Food program escrow fund that is the central to the Oil-for-Food investigation. Much of the foregoing was noted by Jonathan Hunt of the Fox News Channel in a report first airing at 2005-Jan-19 ~12:40EST.

from FoxNews.com, 2005-Feb-1, by Jonathan Hunt and Per Carlson:

U.N. Didn't Ask Volcker to Disclose Finances

NEW YORK -- U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan did not ask Paul Volcker for a financial disclosure statement before appointing him to investigate the Oil-for-Food scandal, U.N. officials admitted.

The admission comes in the wake of a FOX News investigation that revealed several potential conflicts of interest for Volcker, former chairman of the U.S. Federal Reserve.

It also comes as Volcker prepares to release the first part of his investigation into the troubled Oil-for-Food program, which is expected to focus on U.N. management and administration. The report from the Independent Inquiry Committee is scheduled to be released Thursday.

The attention to Volcker and his potential conflicts of interest focuses on the following:

-- Volcker has a longtime membership in the UNA-USA Business Council, a pro-United Nations organization partly funded by BNP Paribas, the bank that handled all Oil-for-Food transactions.

-- There are questions about Volcker's position as an adviser to the Power Corporation of Canada, a company with close ties to BNP and also to Total, the French oil giant that did nearly $2 billion of Oil-for-Food business.

U.N. staff regulations specifically state that "all staff members at the assistant secretary-general level and above shall be required to file financial disclosure statements upon appointment."

Another document titled “status, basic rights and duties of U.N. staff members” says "they should also voluntarily disclose in advance possible conflicts of interest that arise in the course of carrying out their duties."

Volcker apparently did not volunteer information about his possible conflicts of interest before he was appointed. But under U.N. regulations, which were signed by Annan, the secretary-general can ask an appointee such as Volcker to file a financial disclosure statement.

Asked why Annan didn't do that in Volcker's case, U.N. spokesman Fred Eckhard said, “I don't think the secretary-general had any reason and still today has no reason to question Mr. Volcker's integrity.”

Eckhard said he believed Annan had “every reason” to trust Volcker. “And he still does have that trust,” the U.N. spokesman said.

Volcker is still refusing to make public all his financial interests. If he had been taking on a similar position for the U.S. government, he would have had to fill in a financial disclosure report drawn up by the Office of Government Ethics declaring all consultant, advisory or board positions and all compensation over $5,000.

from the New York Times, 2005-Jan-10, by Judith Miller:

Report From Panel Shows Lapses in U.N.'s Oil-for-Food Program

An independent commission investigating the United Nations oil-for-food program in Iraq said last night that the organization's auditors did not monitor the giant aid effort adequately and that its officials in some cases ignored recommendations that United Nations auditors deemed crucial to the program's success.

The commission led by Paul A. Volcker, appointed under pressure by Secretary General Kofi Annan to investigate the more than $60 billion oil-for-food program, issued what it described as a "provisional" assessment of the auditor performance in a 36-page paper that accompanied the public release of 58 internal audits of the program written from 1999 to 2004.

The release of the confidential documents shows with new depth the loose financial controls over the sprawling program, which has become a major scandal at the United Nations.

While neither the audits nor the accompanying briefing paper from the commission contain allegations of bribery or corruption by United Nations officials, the audits make clear that many of the deficiencies were known in the late 1990's, at a time when indications of corruption of the program by Saddam Hussein and others were also reaching the United Nations. Yesterday, Jan Egeland, who is coordinating the United Nation's tsunami recovery effort in Asia, said in an interview that he was taking steps for ongoing public disclosure of financial information to allay any concerns about United Nations administration of that relief operation.

The New York Times reported yesterday that a review of 10 of the internal oil-for-food program audits showed significant problems in how the United Nations Office of the Iraq Program administered the program, and specifically a failure to adequately supervise the contractors hired to inspect the oil moving out of Iraq and goods going in under the multibillion-dollar effort.

The briefing paper released last night chronicles numerous shortcomings in the auditors' activities. The paper cites, among other lapses, the auditors' failure to monitor in depth the New York headquarters of the office that administered the program, where nearly 40 percent of the $1 billion of the program's administrative costs were spent.

In addition, the commission noted, the auditors failed to monitor contracts for the oil sales that provided revenue for the program or those for the purchase of relief and other goods that were supposed to ease the effect of sanctions on Iraqis. Nor did the auditors examine letters of credit issued by the program's major banker, the commission said.

The program, the commission said, suffered from a "chronic shortage" of auditors assigned to monitor the program - the United Nations' largest aid program - which was financed through 2.2 percent of Iraq's oil revenue.

"Though the auditors tried their best, we now know there were significant problems with their work, such as the lack of in depth monitoring of the New York oil-for food program office," said Reid Morden, the executive director of the Independent Inquiry Committee, as the commission is formally known.

The commission led by Mr. Volcker, the former Federal Reserve chairman, surprised United Nations officials and Congressional investigators who were reading the more than 400 pages of internal audit reports by releasing them and its briefing paper a day ahead of schedule. "We decided to release the material because it had started to leak and we wanted to level the playing field," Mr. Morden said.

Asked about the audits and the commission's briefing paper, Stephane Dujarric, a spokesman for the United Nations, said: "What you're seeing here is just one part of the story. This is not a final verdict on the program." He said the audits reflected "a normal back and forth between auditors and auditees," and that the "United Nations' supervision was at work."

He also noted that of the auditors' 179 key recommendations, only 22 were not put into effect.

But the internal audits show repeated frustration at the resistance of several key United Nations offices to auditor recommendations.

A particularly scathing assessment of the United Nations performance is an audit of the U.N.-Habitat Settlement Rehabilitation Program, which was providing assistance in northern Iraq. The review of U.N.-Habitat's activities in November and December of 2002, shortly before the American-led invasion of Iraq, chided the office for what it called "a situation of mismanagement which requires urgent attention." The audit cites "the blatant neglect of U.N.-Habitat to implement previous audit recommendations." Noting that only "11 out of 45 previous audit recommendations had been implemented," the auditing office "notes with distress that senior management reported 12 recommendations as implemented, while this, in fact, was not the case."

It estimated that the office's "neglect" had already "resulted in the loss of funds in excess of $2 million and could result in additional financial losses in excess of $10 million." It said that the handling of bidding for construction contracts showed "serious weaknesses," and that high turnover in the settlement rehabilitation program's staff had led to a "lack of direction, ad hoc management practices and procedures, and a lack of coordination."

The internal auditors were similarly critical of suspected overpayments by the United Nations Compensation Commission, a group set up to pay countries or companies for losses as a result of Iraq's invasion of Kuwait in 1990. Those payments were made from Iraq oil revenue, and the audits found numerous problems with how the money was spent.

One March 2004 audit, for example, reviewed claims of $4.9 billion filed by the Kuwaiti Defense Ministry and found that the United Nations overcompensated the Kuwaiti military by about $419 million.

from Reuters, 2005-Jan-10, by Stephanie Nebehay:

Audits show U.N. overpaid

GENEVA -- The United Nations overpaid by as much as $5 billion from Iraqi oil revenues to individuals, companies and Persian Gulf states for losses from Iraq's 1990 invasion and occupation of Kuwait, auditors' documents showed yesterday.

The 19 internal audits of the U.N. Compensation Commission (UNCC) were posted on its Web site a day before 56 audits were to be made public by an independent panel led by former U.S. Federal Reserve Chairman Paul Volcker.

Senior UNCC officials denied any overpayment and said the auditors had exceeded their mandate by delving into legal issues.

Mr. Volcker's panel is investigating the oil-for-food program that the United Nations operated for dictator Saddam Hussein's Iraq when the country was under international sanctions. The U.S. Congress is probing suspected corruption in the program.

The 19 audits of the Geneva-based UNCC, carried out by the U.N. Office of Internal Oversight Services (OIOS) from July 1997 to December 2004, did not identify any corruption.

But the audits raised questions, mainly about evidence in approving awards for damages, and concluded overpayments had been made. Along with exchange rate and other issues, the audits pointed to a total overpayment of about $5 billion, officials said.

The UNCC said it had issued the audits after receiving a tip that the Volcker panel was going to make them public without including the UNCC's responses to each audit's findings.

"Our goal is to show that the Office of Internal Oversight Services' audits have been easily rebutted," said UNCC deputy executive secretary Mike Raboin.

"Since we are not part of oil-for-food, we are at a loss as to why these documents were given to the Volcker committee."

The UNCC also posted a confidential decision by U.N. legal counsel Hans Corell, who ruled in November 2002 that the U.N. auditors had gone "beyond the proper scope of audit" by trying to reopen legal issues.

The UNCC was set up by the U.N. Security Council in 1991 to compensate individuals, companies and governments for losses from Iraq's invasion and seven-month occupation of Kuwait.

It has received claims totaling $350 billion and to date has approved $51.8 billion in compensation, taken from Iraqi oil revenues.

Compensation is awarded after neutral panels of experts examine claims and make recommendations on payment. These amounts must be endorsed by the UNCC's Governing Council, comprising the same 15 member states as the Security Council.

"The Governing Council has consistently taken the position that substantive decisions are not within the purview of the OIOS auditors," said UNCC spokesman Joe Sills.

A diplomatic source who closely follows the UNCC said: "This is a most unfortunate development. ... It would be a shame if the UNCC were unfairly tainted and becomes an innocent collateral victim of the real scandal -- what happened at oil-for-food."

The UNCC was never part of the oil-for-food program, set up in 1996 to ease the impact of U.N. sanctions by allowing Baghdad to sell limited amounts of oil and buy relief items.

But Iraqi oil revenues were used to fund both the UNCC and the oil-for-food program.

Mr. Volcker said in an interview published in the New York Times on Friday that the internal audits, while professionally done and very detailed, "don't prove anything."

Staff of the Senate Governmental Affairs Committee's permanent subcommittee on investigations estimate that Saddam pocketed $21 billion by cheating the oil-for-food deal.

Mr. Volcker has rejected the figure, saying most of the money came from oil smuggling outside the U.N. program.

from the Washington Post, 2005-Jan-10, p.A14, by Colum Lynch:

Volcker Probe Faults U.N. Auditors on Iraq

NEW YORK, Jan. 9 -- Internal auditors at the United Nations failed to investigate allegations that Iraq siphoned billions of dollars in illicit profits through kickbacks from companies that bought more than $64 billion in oil and humanitarian goods, depriving the organization of a "potentially powerful agent in helping to ensure accountability," a U.N.-appointed investigator said Sunday night.

Paul A. Volcker, the former chairman of the Federal Reserve Bank, said U.N. auditors "capably reviewed" many aspects of the organization's largest humanitarian program, uncovering evidence of mismanagement that led to the loss of at least $5 million. The U.N. commission established to compensate for losses from the Iraq invasion of Kuwait in 1990 may have wasted billions more, according to audits cited by Volcker.

But he said the audits did not monitor several elements of the oil-for-food program, including activities of a French bank that disbursed payments and U.N. leaders' management of Iraqi funds.

Volcker's report accompanied release of 55 internal audits and other documents by the Internal Audit Division of the U.N. Office of International Oversight Services. Several congressional committees also are investigating the U.N.-Iraq program and have demanded that the United Nations make the audits available.

"There was no examination of the oil and humanitarian contracts by the IAD during the oil for food program," the Volcker commission said in a briefing paper. "The potential use of oil and humanitarian contracts by the former regime to gather illicit payments was a major concern" through the life of the program.

The Volcker commission focused on activities of companies hired to monitor and manage different parts of the program. Its initial findings are expected by the end of the month.

The United Nations' internal audits were posted on the Volcker commission's Web site Sunday night. Volcker's office had announced last week that the audits would be released Monday.

The audits "shouldn't be seen as the final conclusions," said U.N. spokesman Stephane Dujarric. "What they do show is that these were U.N. auditors looking at what was going on in the program."

The oil-for-food program was established in 1996 to allow Iraq, which was placed under a comprehensive trade embargo after its invasion of Kuwait, to sell oil to buy food and other humanitarian goods under strict U.N. supervision. Saddam Hussein's regime effectively siphoned $2 billion to $4 billion through illegal kickbacks from companies that did business with the regime.

U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan appointed Volcker last year to probe allegations that U.N. officials -- particularly the program's director, Benon Sevan -- received payoffs from Iraq. A report by a senior CIA adviser, Charles Duelfer, alleges that Sevan received a voucher to buy millions of barrels of Iraqi oil on extremely favorable terms. Sevan denies this.

The Volcker commission also intends to investigate charges concerning other programs, including the Geneva-based U.N. Compensation Committee, which oversaw the payment of billions of dollars in Iraqi compensation to governments and companies.

The commission cited a Nov. 27, 2002, letter from the former U.N. legal adviser, Hans Corell of Sweden, saying auditors had no legal basis to probe many of the compensation committee activities. The auditing agency challenged the finding and pressed ahead with its audits.

The audit division charged that the U.N. commission routinely overpaid claims and may have wasted as much as $2 billion by using a different method for currency conversion. It also drew attention to claimants "who file grossly inflated fraudulent or unsubstantiated claims."

A spokesman for the compensation commission, which published its rebuttals on its Web site, denied the charges to Reuters.

The auditors cited several cases in which countries made huge, undocumented claims. Iran claimed $2.7 billion in costs for providing humanitarian assistance to waves of refugees crossing its border. It received $7.87 million.

Jordan put in a claim for more than $6.5 billion for providing relief to people fleeing Kuwait and Iraq, but received $72 million. Israel, which sought $1.06 billion in damages for Iraq's Scud missile attacks, got $74.6 million.

from the Wall Street Journal via OpinionJournal.com, 2004-Dec-1, by Norm Coleman:

Kofi Annan Must Go
It's time for the secretary-general to resign.

It's time for U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan to resign.

Over the past seven months, the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, which I chair, has conducted an exhaustive, bipartisan investigation into the scandal surrounding the U.N. Oil-for-Food program. That noble program was established by the U.N. to ease the suffering of the Iraqi people, then languishing under Saddam Hussein's ironfisted rule, as well as the economic sanctions imposed on Iraq by the U.N. after the first Gulf War. While sanctions were designed to instigate the removal of Saddam from power, or at least render him impotent, the Oil-for-Food program was designed to support the Iraqi people with food and other humanitarian aid under the watchful eye of the U.N.

Our Investigative Subcommittee has gathered overwhelming evidence that Saddam turned this program on its head. Rather than erode his grip on power, the program was manipulated by Saddam to line his own pockets and actually strengthen his position at the expense of the Iraqi people. At our hearing on Nov. 15, we presented evidence that Saddam accumulated more than $21 billion through abuses of the Oil-for-Food program and U.N. sanctions. We continue to amass evidence that he used the overt support of prominent members of the U.N., such as France and Russia, along with numerous foreign officials, companies and possibly even senior U.N. officials, to exploit the program to his advantage. We have obtained evidence that indicates that Saddam doled out lucrative oil allotments to foreign officials, sympathetic journalists and even one senior U.N. official, in order to undermine international support for sanctions. In addition, we are gathering evidence that Saddam gave hundreds of thousands--maybe even millions--of Oil-for-Food dollars to terrorists and terrorist organizations. All of this occurred under the supposedly vigilant eye of the U.N.

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While many questions concerning Oil-for-Food remain unanswered, one conclusion has become abundantly clear: Kofi Annan should resign. The decision to call for his resignation does not come easily, but I have arrived at this conclusion because the most extensive fraud in the history of the U.N. occurred on his watch. In addition, and perhaps more importantly, as long as Mr. Annan remains in charge, the world will never be able to learn the full extent of the bribes, kickbacks and under-the-table payments that took place under the U.N.'s collective nose.

Mr. Annan was at the helm of the U.N. for all but a few days of the Oil-for-Food program, and he must, therefore, be held accountable for the U.N.'s utter failure to detect or stop Saddam's abuses. The consequences of the U.N.'s ineptitude cannot be overstated: Saddam was empowered to withstand the sanctions regime, remain in power, and even rebuild his military. Needless to say, he made the Iraqi people suffer even more by importing substandard food and medicine under the Oil-for-Food program and pawning it off as first-rate humanitarian aid.

Since it was never likely that the U.N. Security Council, some of whose permanent members were awash in Saddam's favors, would ever call for Saddam's removal, the U.S. and its coalition partners were forced to put troops in harm's way to oust him by force. Today, money swindled from Oil-for-Food may be funding the insurgency against coalition troops in Iraq and other terrorist activities against U.S. interests. Simply put, the troops would probably not have been placed in such danger if the U.N. had done its job in administering sanctions and Oil-for-Food.

This systemic failure of the U.N. and Oil-for-Food is exacerbated by evidence that at least one senior U.N. official--Benon Sevan, Mr. Annan's hand-picked director of the U.N.'s Oil-for-Food oversight agency--reportedly received bribes from Saddam. According to documents from the Iraqi oil ministry that were obtained by us, Mr. Sevan received several allotments of oil under Oil-for-Food, each of which was worth hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of dollars.

To make matters worse, the actions of Mr. Annan's own son have been called into question. Specifically, the U.N. recently admitted that Kojo Annan received more money than previously disclosed from a Swiss company named Cotecna, which was hired by the U.N. to monitor Iraq's imports under Oil-for-Food. Recently, there are growing, albeit unproven, allegations that Kofi Annan himself not only understands his son's role in this scandal--but that he has been less than forthcoming in what he knew, and when he knew it.

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As a former prosecutor, I believe in the presumption of innocence. Such revelations, however, cast a dark cloud over Mr. Annan's ability to address the U.N.'s quagmire. Mr. Annan has named the esteemed Paul Volcker to investigate Oil-for-Food-related allegations, but the latter's team is severely hamstrung in its efforts. His panel has no authority to compel the production of documents or testimony from anyone outside the U.N. Nor does it possess the power to punish those who fabricate information, alter evidence or omit material facts. It must rely entirely on the goodwill of the very people and entities it is investigating. We must also recognize that Mr. Volcker's effort is wholly funded by the U.N., at Mr. Annan's control. Moreover, Mr. Volcker must issue his final report directly to the secretary general, who will then decide what, if anything, is released to the public.

Therefore, while I have faith in Mr. Volcker's integrity and abilities, it is clear the U.N. simply cannot root out its own corruption while Mr. Annan is in charge: To get to the bottom of the murk, it's clear that there needs to be a change at the top. In addition, a scandal of this magnitude requires a truly independent examination to ensure complete transparency, and to restore the credibility of the U.N. To that end, I reiterate our request for access to internal U.N. documents, and for access to U.N. personnel who were involved in the Oil-for-Food program.

All of this adds up to one conclusion: It's time for Kofi Annan to step down. The massive scope of this debacle demands nothing less. If this widespread corruption had occurred in any legitimate organization around the world, its CEO would have been ousted long ago, in disgrace. Why is the U.N. different?

Sen. Coleman is chairman of the U.S. Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, and a member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.

from the Washington Times, 2004-Nov-17, by Bill Gertz:

U.N. deserted leads in oil-for-food investigation

A private intelligence firm hired by the United Nations to look into corruption in the oil-for-food program provided valuable leads to U.N. investigators, but they were ignored, the company's director says.

"We found it extremely frustrating to be in a position where we could do something significant to dramatically assist the investigation into the oil-for-food fraud and not be allowed to proceed," said Derek Baldwin, director of operations for IBIS Risk Management Services Inc.

Meanwhile, a U.N. panel investigating the humanitarian program yesterday refused to release documents to two U.S. senators, who last week accused U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan in a letter of blocking their subcommittee's probe into the matter.

In his reply to the letter sent by Sens. Norm Coleman, Minnesota Republican, and Carl Levin, Michigan Democrat, obtained by Agence France-Presse, U.N. panel chief Paul Volcker pledged to release "all evidence" bearing on its reports and findings but insisted that now was not the time to do so.

Mr. Baldwin said Mr. Volcker's panel, the Independent Inquiry Committee (IIC), tasked his company in June to use its intelligence sources in the Middle East and Europe to assist the probe of the $64 billion program.

In a report produced for the IIC, the company uncovered new information and people with knowledge about the oil-for-food activities in Iraq, Cyprus, Jordan, Kuwait, Iran, Dubai, Egypt, Switzerland and France. U.N. investigators asked IBIS to reveal its sources for the data and then said they wanted to limit the scope of the company's work to Jordan, Kuwait and Cyprus, Mr. Baldwin said.

"We don't reveal our sources and methods," he said, noting that the company has had agents in Iraq since the early 1990s, including former Iraqi intelligence and oil ministry officials.

Three of the company's sources were killed recently in terrorist violence, he said.

Mr. Baldwin said new information related to the U.N. oil-for-food program uncovered by the company includes:

• A network of Iranians who were involved in smuggling oil under the U.N. program.

• Connections between the U.N. program and a French organized crime figure who U.S. officials said was a conduit for oil-for-food-related payments to French President Jacques Chirac.

• Information on the Swiss-based company Cotecna, which was involved in border inspections of oil-for-food goods. Cotecna at one point during the oil-for-food program hired Mr. Annan's son as a consultant.

• Data on the activities of an Egyptian oil broker who took part in illegal activities related to the oil-for-food program.

"As an experienced investigator, it became clear to me that the U.N. is failing to act on the leads and intel streams developed by us in specific areas where we were asked to develop leads and intel streams," said Mr. Baldwin, a fraud investigator and former intelligence official. "That is inexplicable."

A spokesman for the IIC did not return telephone calls seeking comment on Mr. Baldwin's statements.

Mr. Baldwin said he could only guess why the U.N. investigation panel did not pursue the leads. He said it was either the result of incompetence or because the U.N. wants to ignore information that could pose problems for the world body.

He said his company pulled out of its agreement to work with the U.N. panel after the IIC kept asking the company to reveal its sources.

"They kept telling us they were going to hire us. We had some very, very good sources and directions to go in, and they just kept stalling," Mr. Baldwin said. "It's the strangest investigation we've ever been involved in, and we withdrew in order to preserve our own credibility with our own sources and our people."

He said it was clear from his experience that the IIC is not aggressively pursuing the investigation of corruption in the humanitarian program.

from the Associated Press via the Minneapolis Star-Tribune, 2004-Nov-16, by AP/Edith M. Lederer:

Oil-for-food money went to families of suicide bombers, investigators say

NEW YORK -- Saddam Hussein diverted money from the U.N. oil-for-food program to pay millions of dollars to families of Palestinian suicide bombers who carried out attacks on Israel, say congressional investigators who uncovered evidence of the money trail.

The former Iraqi president tapped secret bank accounts in Jordan - where he collected bribes from foreign companies and individuals doing illicit business under the humanitarian program - to reward the families up to $25,000 each, investigators told The Associated Press.

Documents prepared for a Wednesday hearing by the House International Relations Committee outline the new findings about how Saddam funneled money to the Palestinian families.

Investigators examining the oil-for-food program felt it was “important for us to determine whether the profits from his corruption were put toward terrorist purposes,” committee chairman Henry Hyde, R-Ill., said of Saddam's well-known financial support of suicide bombers.

Wednesday's hearing, however, will focus on a French bank that handled most of the money for the program. An audit by a U.S. regulatory agency of a small sample of transactions out of the $60 billion U.N. escrow account managed by BNP-Paribas has raised serious questions concerning the bank's compliance with U.S. money laundering laws, investigators said.

“There are indications that the bank may have been noncompliant in administering the oil-for-food program,” Hyde said in his statement to AP. “If, true these possible banking lapses may have facilitated Saddam Hussein's manipulation and corruption of the program.”

While acknowledging that U.S. regulators have raised routine issues with BNP on compliance with banking laws, a lawyer for BNP said Hyde's statement was unfair.

“No departure from any standard caused or contributed in any way to the abuse at the oil-for-food program,” the bank's lead counsel Robert S. Bennett said. “There are simply no connections.”

The humanitarian program that let Iraq trade oil for goods was set up in 1996 to help Iraqis get food, medicine and other items that had been scarce under strict U.N. economic sanctions imposed after the Gulf War. But investigators say Saddam made more than $21.3 billion in illegal revenue under the program as well as by evading the sanctions for more than a decade.

Iraq had thousands of secret bank accounts throughout the world, including over 1,500 in Jordan. Money from kickbacks on oil-for-food deals, illegal oil payments from the Jordanian government and other illicit funds were paid into accounts held by a Jordanian branch of the Iraqi government-owned Rafidain Bank, investigators said.

According to employees of the Iraqi Central Bank and the Rafidain Bank, the former Iraqi ambassador to Jordan, Sabah Yassen, withdrew money from the accounts to make payments ranging from $15,000 to $25,000 to the families of Palestinian suicide bombers, Hyde said.

Palestinians have said Saddam paid more than $35 million to families of Palestinians killed or wounded in the conflict with Israel that began in September 2000. Since then, Palestinians have carried out 117 suicide bombings, killing 494 Israelis and others.

Five congressional panels, including Hyde's, have been pressing a U.N.-appointed independent inquiry to hand over internal U.N. documents for their own oil-for-food probes.

On Tuesday, former Fed chairman Paul Volcker reiterated his independent inquiry's refusal to share documents in a letter to Sen. Norm Coleman, R-Minn. and Carl Levin, D-Mich.,

In the current highly charged atmosphere, Volcke