Dictatorships: Just Do It

Essentially, the concept of nation branding functions as a (normally privatized) form of propaganda. Because suppressing dissent, torturing protest organizers and using excessive force on unarmed demonstrators generally requires all hands on deck, autocratic regimes are occasionally forced outsource the management of their foreign propaganda to smaller public relations firms abroad.

In September, just a month after the biggest massacre of civilians in Egypt’s history, it was announced that the country's military bosses overseeing the mass killing were looking to hire professional apologists and advocates in Washington. I know what you’re thinking, “You mean that just one month after nearly 600 civilians were killed and nearly 4,000 people were injured in a pretty one-sided battle between state security forces and supporters of a democratically-elected president who those security forces had forced out, the state began shopping around the contract to advocate on its behalf in Washington? Why, golly, who want such a contract?”

Dear reader, let me tell you: The Glover Park Group! And think for a second. How much money would it take for you to sell your soul and go to the hill every day to convince legislators that a bunch murderous oligarchs are in fact worthy of taxpayer-funded military aid? How’s $250,000 a month sound? Some people would have serious problems with this arrangement. These are what I like to call “decent, reasonable human beings.” On the other hand there are people who would jump at the chance. In the immortal words of Willard Romney, “Corporations are people, my friend.” Unfortunately, as far as people go, corporations are sociopaths.

Take Bell Pottinger for instance. They have a reputation as being the definitive global advocates of the earth’s most powerful scum. From Belarus to Bahrain, Bell Pottinger seems to have no qualms about defending the most terrible opponents of human freedom and dignity around the world. In 2011, undercover reporters from the Bureau of Investigative Journalism went in to Bell Pottinger’s office posing as representatives of the Government of Uzbekistan and of said country’s cotton industry. Topic of the day: how best can Uzbekistan polish its awful record on the use of child labor in its cotton fields. During the interview Bell Pottinger representatives bragged to undercover journalist about their influence with the UK’s government and their ability to use “dark arts” to scrub their reputation on the internet. It was an embarrassing scandal for the firm, but fear not, corporations don’t have feels, and Bell Pottinger’s dark arts continue to be practiced. The firm is currently in the hunt for Bahrain’s new public relations contract.

“Nation branding.” The phrase itself should make you feel dirty. Really dirty. Like a Hosni-Mubarak-giving-you-a-foot-massage kind of dirty. The reason being: I work full-time at unpaid internship that pushes the US government and international actors to put more pressure on the government of Bahrain. It can be difficult working for no pay, sure, but I really love the work I do and the projects I get to work on, like drafting letters to congressmen, documenting human rights abuses, etc.

What really screws me up though, is that somewhere out there is a ‘Mirror, Mirror’ version of me interning at some soulless PR firm drafting press releases selling Bahrain as a great place for an international sporting event—if you consider driving a car really, really fast a sport. Don’t let political prisoners wasting away due to lack of treatment bum you out; never mind persistent allegations of torture; ignore the largely foreign police force imported from abroad to bludgeon the locals: This spring break it’s “Destination Bahrain: A nation on a Journey!”

Somewhere there are people as passionate about subverting natural inclinations of human solidarity (aka “dark arts”) as I am about undermining the efforts of despots. 

On Striking Syria

The use of chemical weapons in the Syrian civil war has triggered a new wave of international outcry, this time perhaps leading to an American intervention of some kind. However, there is not—as there has never been—any clear achievable objectives within the grasp of the American military in Syria.

President Obama’s foreign policy has consistently been marked by caution rather than boldness. He began his first term with little foreign policy vision beyond extricating America from Iraq and Afghanistan and returning American foreign policy to the pre-9/11 status quo. The President’s efforts have consistently been more devoted to domestic and economic agendas, perhaps understandably so. However, when the advent of the Arab Spring impressed a historic opportunity for transformation, Obama preferred a wait-and-see approach.

The time for caution in Syria however has apparently come to an end. Lebanon, never known as a paragon of stability, is becoming more and more drawn into the Syrian tragedy as refugees continue pouring in. Jordan is facing similar strains with refugees, while King Abdullah fends off his own domestic demands for reform. It’s clear that with the conflict in Syria threatening to pull its neighbors into the storm, that there are American interests at stake here, but the question remains: Can an American-led intervention stymie the carnage in Syria?

It is patently obvious that after the blunders in Iraq and Afghanistan, that there is little will for a full-scale invasion and long-term mission of nation building and regime change seen in during the previous decade. After the chemical attack US officials indicated that there would be an immediate strike, most assumed this would mean guided missiles. While the attacks have since been delayed as Obama seeks congressional approval, such a strike would do little to abate the conflict.

Assuming that such a campaign could completely eradicate Syria’s cache of chemical weapons—a dubious assumption at best—it has been made abundantly clear by the 100,000 dead that the Assad regime excels at slaughter by more conventional means. So should the mission entail strikes on all Syrian military installations? Such a campaign would no doubt have the capacity to topple Bashar Assad and allow the rebels to takeover, but the aftermath is wholly unknown. The rebels remain a fractious bunch; while there are elements of a moderate opposition, there are Qatari and Saudi proxies that likely want only to see Assad’s regime replaced with a more amenable Sunni autocracy and al-Qaeda affiliates like Jabhat al-Nusra that prefer a more religious brand of the same oppression.

Moreover the consequences of an American strike are similarly unknown. It’s unlikely that Assad and his allies would not launch their own assault on American targets or on America’s allies. It may end in yet another conflagration between Hezbollah and Israel or retaliatory attacks on American targets elsewhere in the region. While Assad’s response is unknown, it is clear that the refugee crisis would only be exacerbated. Even the mere threat of an American strike has increased the traffic of refugees fleeing Syria, adding to the existing strains in Lebanon and Jordan. In any event, the scenario only suggests escalation, not resolution.

That is not to say that America is powerless, but rather that its military might represents the wrong type of power. Diplomatic channels are still available to the White House.

•  Restore relations with Russia. There has been too much distance placed between Moscow and Washington over little more than the Edward Snowden embarrassment. Meanwhile lives are at stake in Syria, where American-Russian cooperation is still possible.
  
• Work with Assad’s allies. To isolate Assad, America must reach out to all who are supporting him including Russia, China, and even Iran. If America is truly motivated by humanitarian concerns it will be humble enough to work with allies, competitors and enemies alike to find a solution.
  
• Work with the America’s allies. The United States wields considerable influence with the countries in the Gulf like Qatar and Saudi Arabia who are the primary patrons of Syria’s rebel groups, some of which function as proxies on behalf of their financiers rather than the Syrian people. Condemn such actions and support those that facilitate a ceasefire rather than escalation.
  
• Assist with neighboring countries with aid and relief efforts. The key to containing the chaos will be assisting the host countries with coping with the added strain of refugees. This is particularly important in Lebanon and Jordan, where political instability is already an issue.
  
• If possible, work with Assad too. If Assad will talk, then talk to him. The idea has been floated that perhaps Assad is working to carve out a smaller enclave for his Alawite minority, allowing for a separate state to be formed elsewhere. It’s a highly problematic and morally bankrupt proposal, but if it ends the immediate bloodshed, giving the idea consideration may assist an effort toward a ceasefire. Allowing for Assad’s truncated political survival may provide a short term solution to the conflict, while allowing Russia, China and Iran to maintain one of their favored strategic partners. It’s not an idea that has a pleasant taste, nor is does it please foreign policy realists or idealists, but it may be one way of saving lives and stabilizing the situation so as create potential for further progress.

America has many advanced missiles but none of them nor all of them function as a magic bullet. A military effort will neither end the suffering of the Syrian population nor realize any aspirations for democratic change.

Democracy in Egypt: There is no military solution

Muhammad Morsi is a bad president. Let us allow a brief re-cap for the uninitiated: Morsi has failed to protect Egypt’s minorities, including Shiites and Christians; under his administration, the economy has continued to crumble with inflation rates ever out of control; crime is a persistent problem as police and the interior ministry remain unsolvable Gordian knots beyond the reach of reform; Morsi oversaw the ham-fisted imposition of a grossly inadequate constitution; and who could forget in late 2012 when he infamously, albeit temporarily, made himself pharaoh, placing himself beyond the reach of judicial oversight. The tamarod (rebel) campaign, a grassroots initiative circulating a petition of no confidence in Morsi and his administration, had collected over 22 million signatures before mass protests erupted on June 30.  This is devastating for his Freedom and Justice Party (the Muslim Brotherhood's political party) considering that Morsi was only elected with about 13 million votes.

On July 1 the Egyptian military issued an ultimatum to Morsi in a televised statement, General Abdel-Fattah al-Sisi, Egypt's Defense Minister, threatening that if Morsi fails to solve the crisis the military will “be obliged by its patriotic and historic responsibilities and by its respect for the demands of the great Egyptian people to announce a roadmap for the future and the steps for overseeing its implementation, with participation of all patriotic and sincere parties and movements.” The announcement was met by raucous excitement, and military helicopters trailing Egyptian flags flying over Tahrir square were met cheers.   Many activists have greeted the military’s threat with approval, including Mahmoud Badr, a spokesman associated with the tamarod campaign, saying that the ultimatum “crowns our movement.”

But if the year of Egypt’s rule under the Supreme Council of Armed Forces (SCAF) should have taught Egyptians anything it is this: Beware of Egyptian generals bearing gifts.

Now making a comeback, the popular slogan “the people and the army are one hand” was wildly popular after Hosni Mubarak’s departure on February 11, 2011. Indeed it was the military’s refusal to participate in Mubarak’s oppression that led to his eventual ouster. But it is tragically short-sighted to view the army as purely expressing solidarity. The military has been the ultimate power in Egypt since the 1952 officer’s rebellion, and after sixty years of rule they have gotten use to their position of power, notoriously associated with corruption funded in large part by US foreign aid.

Activists in Egypt need to understand that the ultimate political power in Egypt is and has always been the military. Mubarak was the face of this power and the military supported him until continued support became impossible. A year of SCAF rule made it clear that the military powers did not have much interest in governing so much as they did in finding ways of maintaining their power and privilege.

Under SCAF's leadership, Egypt’s activists witnessed numerous violent encounters with the state, including the Battle of Muhammad Mahmoud Street, and the Maspero massacre, to name but a few. Moreover, Morsi’s economic perils, though they certainly accelerated during his administration, were nevertheless crises continued from the period of SCAF rule. Moreover, while Morsi and the military bosses did not see eye to eye on many issues, it is apparent that they had a modus vivendi not the least of which included special provisions in Morsi’s constitution that safeguarded that privileged status, including military trials for civilians.

It is obvious that Egyptians have had enough of Morsi, and it would be mad to demand Egyptians to put up with his ineptitude for another three years. However, arguing that Morsi must step down and that civilian rule must, even temporarily, be swept away by the military and for the military is no solution at all. The premise that the military is a sufficient institution for the transition to democracy is evidentially false. The SCAF model readily demonstrated this absurdity. The military is not the answer to the problem; the military is the underlying, ultimate problem, the key obstacle to be overcome if Egypt is to ever find stability and its citizens find the freedom and dignity that they currently demand.

The solution in the short term is obviously Morsi’s resignation followed by elections, but the long term goal for Egyptians must be the reigning in of military privilege and power that has gone too long unchecked.

The Limits of Ethnocracy: Racism, Zionism, and the Future of Israel

My piece on the effects of prescribing a racial character upon the state of Israel was published in Muftah.

"Last week, Yariv Levin, a Likud Party lawmaker, proposed a new Israeli Basic Law to the Knesset that would make “the right to realize national self-definition in the State of Israel… unique to the Jewish people.” Previous incarnations of the basic law imbued the state with a Jewish identity, but never before had this been wielded explicitly to affirm the exceptionalism of Jews.

"The apparent uniqueness of this right to “self-definition” for Jewish citizens—and therefore its denial for non-Jews—has led critics to accuse Levin and the Likud of attempting to prioritize Israel’s “Jewish character” over its democratic commitments."

Read the full article.

An atheist's (I guess) response to Rizvi

What follows is a response to Ali A. Rizvi's article published in the Huffington Post May 3rd, 2013.

I’m an atheist, and while I don’t consider it an integral part of my identity, I do get a little irritated by the people that speak for us unaffiliated types. Ali A. Rizvi’s article regarding the “root causes” of Islamic extremism was well-received by noted veterans of the so-called “new atheist” movement. That’s to be expected, because he dutifully reproduced their most treasured errors.

Rizvi begins by linking the Barbary pirates and privateers of over two centuries ago to contemporary extremists in that the ultimate motivation of both peoples is their religious faith, Islam. Later in the article Rizvi is much more explicit: “To us [the new atheists], the "root causes" of jihadist terrorism are the same today as they were” in 1786. It’s a pretty stunning admission of ignorance. Such a monolithic approach to both Islam and sectarian violence can only be described as such.

Same as the old new atheists, Rizvi overemphasizes the religious heritage of his cast of characters rather than their broader circumstances. With the Barbary pirates, the motivations are clear for Rizvi: Islam did it.

The new atheists are always decrying the label of “Islamophobia,” but they’re conflated with Pamela Gellar and Daniel Pipes because they too view the actions of Muslims with a completely different standard than they view the actions of others. The Muslim-ness of an individual is the essential feature for understanding their actions.

When anyone speaks about the pirates that marauded around the Caribbean during that same time period there’s no discussion about their religious background because it’s absolutely irrelevant. It’s obvious that pirates are motivated by greed, but when the participants are Muslims they’re automatons of their faith, completely different from other life forms.

When people look back at the Spanish conquest of the “new world” it’s possible to blame the whole mess—the rapes, the pillage, the exterminations of numerous peoples and cultures—on Christianity. After all, the Spanish empire was incestuously linked to the Catholic Church. Christopher Columbus said of the enslaved Arawak people, “Let us in the name of the Holy Trinity go on sending all the slaves that can be sold.” So is the Holy Trinity the “root cause” here? Nonsense! Columbus and the conquistadors were motivated by gold, silver, and slaves. The presence of Christianity is purely coincidental.

Rizvi ridicules those who would probe past his simplistic answer seeking a “root cause.” It’s a bizarre question for Rizvi for whom the answer is so obvious, so uncomplicated. Of course Rizvi doesn’t immediately address why the majority of Muslims are not mujahideen or pirates. Though Rizvi makes the qualification that “most Muslims are good, peaceful people,” the conclusion is unavoidable: If Islam is the “root cause” of Islamic extremism, then it must follow that every Muslim has a shard of Osama bin-Laden within them, and that is simply a bridge too far.

So what are the root causes? They’re not the caricature of “American imperialism…, U.S. foreign policy, globalization, AIPAC [and] Islamophobia” that Rizvi suggests. Pakistan is a good example if we’re searching for root causes, but we must to go beyond religious identity: only 52% of the population completes grade five; 62% of the adult population is literate; 60% of the country is below the poverty line. The Pakistani state is a grossly illiberal, unfree state, not to mention a tumultuous conflict zone. The situation may seem unimaginable, but on top of all this we must add the daily terror experienced by people in North Waziristan and elsewhere who live under threat of American drone strikes. Naturally, most Pakistanis focus on survival, improving their own immediate conditions, and are perfectly rational, hospitable people, but it hardly needs pointing out that these are not conditions that produce a culture of progressive, liberal-minded progressives.

It’s a terrible mixture: abysmal education standards, widespread poverty, a scarcity of human freedom, and an obvious cord of fear to tie them all together. Now imagine that tomorrow Islam is completely removed from Pakistan. Does the state turn into an inclusionary, liberal democracy? Are economic hardships ameliorated, the people educated? To my fellow atheists: I’m sorry, but religion isn’t the problem and its eradication is no silver bullet.

Rizvi calls into question the religiosity of the “good, peaceful” Muslims by saying that they cherry-pick their religion. The question of cherry-picking is an important one, but again the new atheists enter the debate having already found their villain and thus avoid investigating further. From the majority of Muslims and Christians that lead peaceful lives to the Barbary pirates and Spanish conquistadors, all people compose their religious beliefs a la carte to suit their pre-existing aesthetics. Though these are formed by one’s environment and religion is a component, it’s not a “chicken or the egg” debate.

As atheists, we ought to be able to start out with the principle that religions were created by humans, and hence humans are responsible, but it has become a required characteristic of atheists that we also take up the mantle of “anti-theist.” It is not enough to simply remove oneself from religious practice.  The orthodoxy propagated by atheism’s celebrities suggests that we must also be polemicists. Religion is made into Satan, the boogeyman, the root of all evil that we must condemn as the unmistakable source of misery and cruelty. Religion is seemingly the first cause of “patriarchy, misogyny, slavery, tribalism, xenophobia, totalitarianism and homophobia” in spite of the fact that most of these terrible things were a part of human society long before the invention of religion.

No religion today is the same as it was two-hundred years ago. Religion is practiced by people, and as people vary and change so does religious practice. I’m perfectly comfortable with criticizing religion and debunking superstition, but let’s be serious: religions don’t kill or enslave or maim people; people do. Human society is a deeply complex organism and it has many tangible problems far more malignant—and more assailable—than religion.

The Pro-Israel Lobby: Narratives, Not Money

My article on the Pro-Israel lobby was published in The Daily Beast.

"The nature of the pro-Israel lobby’s influence on the American political system has been raised again this year by senatorial confirmation hearings, policy conferences, sequestration, and White House initiatives. This influence is typically attributed to campaign contributions, but this view is unsophisticated. The power of the pro-Israel lobby is, in fact, defined by the dominance of various pro-Israel narratives in American culture.

"The standard line that pro-Israel sentiment is defined by dollar signs is easily refuted. The two largest pro-Israel contributors—the America Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) and J-Street—together approximated $3.25 million in lobbying in 2012. While this sounds substantial, it’s a meager .09 percent of the total $3.28 billion spent on overall political lobbying that year."

Read the full article.

Interest > Values Part 2: WHY America’s Foreign Policy Continues to Fail its People and its Victims

See Part 1 here

The following was written on April 18, 2013. Some of the details discussed below may be incorrect as news is still unfolding.

On April 15, 2013 there was a wave of bombings in Iraq—20 carbombs and a handful of roadside explosives—that claimed that lives of 31 people and injured more than 200. On the other side of the world that same day two small IEDs (improvised explosive devices) exploded at the finish line of the Boston Marathon; three people were killed and over 100 were injured.

Innately, the survivors of these tragedies are more concerned with their own victims than they are of the other’s. This is the inevitable shortcoming of a state’s foreign policy: the often insular and arbitrary nature of tribalism that exists in human societies today is the primary obstacle to what we might hope to call a just foreign policy. Most often this tribalism realized by competing forms of nationalism, but other such tribes are recognized as sectarian, ethnic, and economic groups.

How does a tribe formulate a policy of interaction with another based on mutual respect and interest? Why would any tribe be interested in the just treatment and wellbeing of another? The ethical consistently yields to the advantageous. A tribe of any kind is an inherently exclusive outfit prone to the binary classification of humanity into “us” and “them.” In modernity tribes are empowered to abhorrent extremes with bomber aircrafts, tank squadrons, and weapons of mass destruction. It is long past time that these tribal affiliations be recalculated if not entirely obliterated.

Most models of societal organization require some sort of arbitrary underpinning of identity and often entail the mediation and marshalling of intra-societal relations, often for the purpose of resource management. This is directly contrasted with the monopoly on the inter-societal relations that the political elite tend to wield. In some societies this power may be diffused over a group; in others it may boil down to a single individual. However—especially in state structures—foreign relations are typically not the concern of the people, that is, until it is a matter of security.

State structures, in fact, have a vested interest in keeping their constituents focused inward, unable to see over the walls of localism. This empowers the political elite with the ability to easily manipulate the public into war, more often than not packaged within a framework of threats to security. In order to determine the truth value of claims of communist influence in Vietnam, weapons of destruction in Iraq, or Israel’s utility as a strategic asset, Americans often do not have a frame of reference beyond immediate events reported by the media and state or corporate propaganda. This vacuum of knowledge—combined with the existential imperative of production imposed by capitalism—assists the state in conducting a foreign policy unimpeded by such notions as “values” championed by naïve masses or radical fringe opposition. It takes only a glance at polls of voter priorities to see that even at the height of the Bush administration’s “War on Terror,” only 40% of the electorate prioritized foreign policy when calculating their choice of representative in 2007; in 2012—a more typical year—this number had shrunk to 9%.

It is a natural phenomenon that people are drawn to concern themselves only with their immediate surroundings, and it is difficult indeed to contemplate the importance of an earthquake a million miles away, particularly when you are told that the victims of said calamity are your enemies. But is ambivalence toward suffering so different from the exploitation thereof? America’s tawdry relationship with Saudi Arabia—perhaps the most odious regime of our time, save North Korea—is evidence enough that we are perfectly comfortable enjoining our so-called national interest to alliances that compromise our most basic values of liberty, justice, and equality.

However, I do not think this is a choice, and if it is, it is certainly not one made consciously. Americans who go to their local gas stations do not think of the geopolitical maneuvering, underhanded politics, and economic exploitation that go into delivering their fuel. Even if they did, in most cases it would be difficult to make an alternative choice. The one million Americans that are employed in the American defense sector cannot be assumed to support every terrible regime that utilizes their products or every military operation the United States executes. So long as the majority of Americans remain disinterested in these events, the power of influence will remain in the hands of those few whose profit margins are built on structures of human despair. It is the political and economic elite that created this system and continue to desperately maintain it. An informed populace legitimizes the failures of American foreign policy by reproducing popular conceptions of American moral superiority and purity of arms that still manage to survive in spite of the catastrophic war in Iraq, the inexcusable support for the crushing of popular, nonviolent resistance in Bahrain, and the steadfast championing of conquest and occupation in Palestine.

The enormity of American power is too vast to be trusted to the elite few, while the many remain concerned with their local world to serve as a democratic check on how that power is used. It is this shortcoming that prevents America from attaining a foreign policy prioritizing the best of American values over the hungry cannibalism of imperial power and economic greed.