The blue flag blues

It's been a tough time for the United Nations. The UN has never been very popular among American conservatives but sustained attacks on the organization has usually been limited to loose cannons like the infamous former Sen. Jesse Helms. But ever since the Iraq invasion, the right has turned up the heat massively on the UN.

Fundamentally, the right is furious that the UN didn't bend to the Bush administration's will on Iraq. The Security Council refused to explicitly approve the excursion. Secretary-general Kofi Annan condemned the aggression as illegal. Even then, UN inspectors found no evidence of a serious weapons of mass destruction program in Saddam's Iraq. The Bush administration needed the WMD argument as its fundamental justification to the American people, so it portrayed UN inspectors as either liars or incompetent. After two years of American control, surprise surprise, no serious WMDs have been found. They shamelessly smeared people like Hans Blix and Marine veteran Scott Ritter because they said what the Bush administration didn't want to hear. Of course, those people who turned out to be absolutely right. No apology has been offered to Blix and Ritter.

But this is how the administration and its supporters deal with opposition: smears, innuendo. Whatever they think they can get away with. They did it to Blix. They did it to Ritter. They did it to John Kerry (who they might've canonized as a 'war hero' if he'd not dared speak out). So it's no surprise that the UN, never a darling of conservatives anyway, would find itself in the line of fire.

The main scandal that's dogged the UN is apparently widespread corruption in the oil-for-food program that the UN was mandated to operate for Saddam's Iraq. (Corruption and oil together? Shocking!)

The oil-for-food [OFF] program was the first and only time the UN was given the responsibility of essentially managing an economy.

In early 2004, an Iraqi newspaper published a list of about 270 people including UN officials, politicians and companies it alleged may have profited from the illicit sale of Iraqi oil during the OFF programme.

Neo-conservatives seized on this to attack the UN yet again, though none have noted that billions of dollars are unaccounted for in the Iraq reconstruction fund set up to replace the OFF programme - which was under the stewardship of the US-led coalition in Iraq.

An independent investigation concluded that the UN had inadequate internal controls on the OFF program and conducted an 'inadequate' inquiry into the problems but cleared Annan of unethical conduct. It's worth wondering why no conservatives have called for even an inquiry into how Iraq reconstruction has been spent, misspent or not spent.

Annan hit back, alleging that the US and Britain turned a blind eye to oil smuggling (the heart of the oil-for-for scandal).

"The bulk of the money that Saddam [Hussein] made came out of smuggling outside the oil-for-food programme, and it was on the American and British watch," Annan said. "Possibly they were the ones who knew exactly what was going on, and that the countries themselves decided to close their eyes to smuggling to Turkey and Jordan because they were allies."

The US and British governments denied Annan's charge.

Though former UN weapons inspector claims that the oil-for-food scandal is a 'cynical smokescreen.' (Read his essay as it deserves better than a curt summary)

There was also an atrocious sex scandal in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Troops from South Africa, Uruguay, Pakistan, Morocco and Nepal serving under the UN flag in the DRC were implicated in systematic sexual abuse of minors. There have been allegations against troops in peacekeeping missions in other countries. Annan has denounced the abusers and the UN is going to re-structure its rules for peacekeeping operations to make soldiers and their governments more accountable.

This is absolutely essential. Just as Abu Ghraib seriously damaged international perception of 'American values,' the peacekeeper sex scandal has just as much potential to destroy international confidence in the UN's ideals. Outside the United States, the UN generally has a good and well-deserved reputation for its work in activities like feeding the hungry, housing refugees and mediating in conflicts. If not properly dealt with, the peacekeeper sex scandal may overshadow the many good things the UN does. Feeding the hungry isn't quite so honorable if you're demanding sex in exchange.

There are, of course, legitimate criticisms of the UN and its structure. These have been made by human rights groups for a long time. These criticisms were long ignored by conservatives, who've never held much fondness for the human rights crowd. But now that such criticisms happen to coincide with the right wing agenda of UN demonization, conservatives suddenly pretend to care about human rights... except they oppose the very solutions that might address human rights abuses.

The UN Human Rights Commission has long been a joke. It has 53 members. They are chosen by geography not merit. This year's commission includes such sterling judges of human rights as Cuba, Egypt, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Pakistan, Zimbabwe and, arguably the most repressive state in the world, Saudi Arabia. In recent years, the commission has included countries such as China, Sudan, Algeria, Libya and Syria. With so many human rights abusers on the commission, it's no surprise that the align to protect each other. Sudan was on the commission last year as it was committing genocide in its eastern province of Darfur. The commission investigated and concluded... you guessed it... that Sudan was not committing genocide in Darfur. The considered opinion of nearly every human rights group begged to differ. Maybe that's because Human Rights Watch doesn't have envoys of genocidal regimes on its board.

Recognizing this absurdity, Secretary-General Annan wisely proposed scrapping the existing commission and replacing it with a smaller body that was more accountable and more representative. Some suggested that anyone on the new council must be willing to allow UN human rights officials into their own countries instantly at any time.

"The main intergovernmental body concerned with human rights should have a status, authority and capability," Annan said.

This quote gets to the crux of the hypocrisy. Right wing critics yammer on about the UN's ineffectiveness but refuse to give it or any other international body the authority to act... under the fear of [insert menacing music] ONE WORLD GOVERNMENT.

You can not simultaneously criticize the UN for being ineffective and refuse it the very authority it needs to be effective.

Conservatives point to the 'UN's incompetence' during the Rwandan genocide. In fact, the UN peacekeeping mission on the ground wanted to act. In fact, it was the US and other major powers that actively obstructed effective UN action... even though it would've involved non-American troops.

To its credit, the Bush administration has been the only major government to speak out voiciferously against the genocide in Darfur. Yet for months, they obstructed efforts to bring those committing that genocide before the International Criminal Court. Even though the trials wouldn't involve US citizens (the main right wing objection to the court), the administration was so afraid of legitimizing the ICC that it was prepared to oppose efforts to bring genociders to justice. After much delay, the US finally allowed the prosecutions to go ahead after assurances that no US members of any peacekeeping operation in Sudan would be prosecuted. (Why? Does the administration fear that US peacekeepers will commit war crimes in Sudan?)

No one, not even conservative critics of so-called 'UN inefficency,' have called for aggressive military intervention in Darfur.

But this underlines the difficulty faced by international institutions, when they're given a hard time even in implementing the most obvious solutions to the most urgent problems.

Some have called for an end to veto power by the five permanent members of the Security Council. This would certainly make the Council more efficient, but obviously the Big Five don't want that. Even conservative critics of 'UN inefficiency' don't want that... because it would dillute American dominance in the organization.

The reality is that these critics don't want the UN to be more efficient in how it serves humanity. They want it to be more efficient in how it serves the administration in Washington.

Some Americans want the US to withdraw from the United Nations. I do not agree with point of view, but at least these people have the intellectual integrity to make an honest argument.

Those of us who want UN reform because they want the organization's goals to be better implemented need to speak up. The voices of the disingenuous need to be countered.

"The presumption ought to be that citizens ought to know as much as possible about decision making"

In my last entry, I praised Attorney General Alberto Gonzales for taking the revolutionary step of meeting with his critics. I also noted, as I have quite often, that secrecy is the enemy of democracy. Supporters of the president will be relieved to know that Gonzales' subversive gesture is apparently an anomaly.

In The Washington Post, there was a news article on how United Nations ambassador-designate John Bolton allegedly withheld crucial information on Iran's nuclear program. He withheld this critical information not from ordinary citizens but from Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice and her predecessor Colin Powell. Bolton was undersecretary of state for arms control. The secretary of state was his boss.

Then in the same Washington Post, I read this editorial which quoted President Bush as saying, "The presumption ought to be that citizens ought to know as much as possible about decision making." Apparently, he said this with a straight face.

If the president really believes that ordinary citizens ought to be properly informed, then surely his own cabinet secretaries ought to be as well. Why is he nominating someone like Bolton as the country's number two diplomat? Even aside from his well-documented gratuitous UN-bashing, if he won't even properly inform his bosses, how will anyone at the UN believe anything he says?

Tiny seed of openness?

I was interested to read this piece from the Associated Press on Attorney General Alberto Gonzales.

Many supporters of the administration hold the childish attitude that if the American Civil Liberties Union [ACLU] advocates something, it must be wrong. Gonzales did something that must've shocked them. He met with the ACLU, one of the foremost critics of the Patriot Act and other aspects of the Bush administration's war on civil liberties.

Engaging critics, or even listening to them, is revolutionary for any member of the closed-minded Bush administration. And Gonzales' willingness to at least go through the formality of listening to critics is a welcome change from his predecessor, John Ashcroft, who stridently refused to do so.

Critics of the Bush Justice Department haven't disappeared. Even Sen. Arlen Specter, the Republican head of the Judiciary Committee, complained that Gonzales' department had not provided, even in a classified setting, detailed information about the use of surveillance provisions of the anti-terrorism Patriot Act... secrecy being the enemy of democracy.

But, in a departure from Ashcroft, he [Gonzales] repeated his call for debate on the law and defended his decision to meet with critics.

It's quite telling that there are elements of the country that object to debate and dialogue so much that Gonzales felt the need to defend his decision to do both.

While the Bush administration in general and the present Justice Department in particular have many, MANY excesses that need to be curbed, Gonzales' apparent willingness at least to listen to critics is a baby step in the right direction. One can only hope this tiny seed of openness spreads to other parts of the administration... though I won't hold my breath.

The fruits of the White Man's Burden

A British former yap show host, Robert Kilroy-Silk, started his own far right party not long ago. In launching his Veritas Party's manifesto (campaign program), Kilroy-Silk railed against a popular demon: multiculturalism. According to him, multiculutralism was imposed on Britain by "liberal fascists in London."

"We do not and we will not, and we will say that openly so that people will have the confidence to know that all cultures are not equal - they are not," fumed Kilroy-Silk. "There are some that are reprehensible are not entitled to respect and we should say so."

Our culture is the be all and end all. Everything about every other culture is totally worthless, if not downright abominable.

Ironically, if imperial Britain had never conquered huge swathes of land in the four corners of the Earth, then little England might not have become a destination for so many people of oddly colored skin, strange accents and heathenous religions. Kilroy-Silk's White Man's Burden is precisely the cause of the multiculturalism he so denounces.

Normally, I wouldn't bother writing about this as it's pretty standard fare for the self-styled anti-'political correctness' crowd. Except for this passage: However, Mr Kilroy-Silk stressed that he believed firmly in the equality of all people of whatever race, creed or sex and that he had campaigned on this as an MP.

So all cultures aren't equal but all people are? Even people who are part of 'reprehensible' cultures? What exactly is culture, if not a manifestation of the beliefs and tastes of... people?

Foxes guarding the henhouse

On my most recent entry on soccer violence in Europe (Italy in particular), I noted with amazement: When I go to games at Gillette Stadium near Boston, I can't bring in a bottle of soda with me from the outside. Even seat cushions can only be brought in after they're checked by security. But Italians, with a history of crowd trouble, can bring flares into stadia without any problem.

The BBC's Phil Gordos sheds some light on this puzzle.

The authorities have an increasingly hard time keeping them [extremist 'Ultras' groups] in check, so much so that the police refuse to enter the "curvas", the areas in a ground where the ultras congregate. There is even evidence the ultras control entry to their part of the stadium, hence the reason so many flares and fireworks end up in the ground. [emphasis mine].

Gordos is not the only one to note the excessive influence of the ultras, some of whom are unabashed fascists (such as the guy who left disparaging notes to me in this entry)

Matt Williams of the BBC gives a chilling account of a game spent among the Juventus ultras.

James Richardson of The Guardian said he once asked an Italian policeman regularly assigned to stadium duty what the story was. He admitted that the police avoid entering Ultra territory for fear of provoking a riot. If they ever do go in (say, if English fans are present) then it's with full body armour and truncheons to crack some heads, but this is rare. Many in Italy feel the "English model" - numbered seats and club stewards backed by officers quietly identifying and removing troublemakers - is the solution; but to introduce it would mean ending the power of the Ultra groups, and that won't be easy.

Soccer violence used to be fairly common in England. But the twin tragedies of English soccer at Heysel and Hillsborough provoked a revolution in the way British authorities dealt with crowd control (even though Hillsborough was caused by overcrowding not violence).

Now, attending a match in England is much safer than in much of continental Europe. But that was because both the government and the governing body of soccer had the will to deal with the problem.

Only a day after the shameful debacle in Milan, there were also problems in Turin at the Juventus-Liverpool match. Two European home matches of Roma (the club I support) were marred by problems: one by a brawl involving players, officials and even fans. Another was abandonned when a fan threw a coin that badly cut the referee.

All English clubs were banned from European competition for five years after Heysel. MLSNet's Tino Palace wonders when anyone will deal with this disaster waiting to happen. At what point is it time for a hard-line punishment for Italian clubs? Do we have to wait for a higher body count? I say no, it's time to ban the Italians for one year. Give the country's governing body (and government) a year to get its house in order. This is getting ridiculous.

I concur. But this won't happen. The European governing body UEFA treats some countries differently than others. The Italian League is reputed as one of the top two in Europe. England, on the other hand, is treated patronizingly as the red neck cousin that no one wants to acknowledge. They don't play 'real' soccer and their fans are 'savages.' That's the stereotype, anyway, even though most neutrals would rather watch an English Premiership game over a Serie A game in a heartbeat.

But soccer is like that. Countries like Guinea and Kenya have been suspended by the world governing body FIFA for political interference in the affairs of soccer. Yet such meddling goes on in Brazil as well but FIFA would never dare do anything to Brazil than offer empty threats.

Sadly, UEFA won't do anything until the next Heysel.

The Crusade against judges

Right wing conservatives control the presidency and the Congress. But they don't control the judiciary, at least not as much as they want. They don't feel like waiting for four more years of Bush to complete the job. So, judges have become their next target. Given that several judges have been physically targeted, you'd think responsible conservatives might want to tone down the rhetoric just a tad. You'd think they would fear that being associated even indirectly with violence would hurt what they see as an intellectually sound cause.

Conservatives are targetting so called activist judges. The label 'activist judge' is applied to any judge who insists that legislators respect the federal and state constitutions. For example, some 'activist judges' insist that constitutional provisions concerning equal protection of the law for all citizens actually apply to all citizens. No exceptions.

To some conservatives, this is tantamount to the sky falling.

Fundamentally, the right wing claims that legislators can do whatever they want regardless of what any constitution says. In other words, constitutions are meaningless.

This situation is ironic since this is precisely what conservatives had been complaining about for decades when they were largely out of power, at least federally. When programs like the New Deal and Great Society were implemented, conservatives complained bitterly that they were unconstitutional.

According to their present logic, such programs were fine and dandy because they were passed by elected legislators and shouldn't have been overturned by unelected 'activist judges.'

In reality, 'activist' is a transparent code word for liberal.

Why? Opponents of 'judicial activism' usually define this as a willingness by unelected judges to strike down laws passed by elected legislators, By this definition, two of the three most 'activist' judges on the Supreme Court are the far right justices Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas... the two justices most admired by the states' rights and always-defer-to-legislators crowds. [For more on activist conservative judges, click here]

At the end of the day, it's no surprise that the far right is targetting judges that do outrageous things like saying constitutional protections also apply to fags and non-Christians... just like others revolted when such protections were to be applied to niggers. As a populist movement based on alleged victimhood and martyrdom, the far right need oppressors to demonize in order to keep the faithful in a siege mentality. They control the presidency. They control the Congress. They've cowed the news media into eunichs. Going after judges is the next logical step.



Update: This piece in the Christian Science Monitor suggests that the judiciary is far less liberal than the chicken littles of the far right would have you believe.

Republican appointees now constitute a majority of judges on 10 of the nation's 13 federal appeals courts. As few as three more lifetime appointments on key courts would tip the balance in favor of GOP appointees on all but one appeals court - the Ninth US Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco.

While not all Republicans are far right conservatives, I can't imagine recent Republican presidents would've chosen many Ted Kennedy-style liberals for the bench.

Lack of skepticism and its consequences

No one likes an I told you so... but sometimes, it needs to be said anyway.

Two weeks ago, the "Commission on the Intelligence Capabilities of the United States Regarding Weapons of Mass Destruction" issued what may be the last in a series of in-depth reports by U.S. government on the "intelligence failures" surrounding the invasion of Iraq. Wade through the close to 3,000 pages of these reports and one conclusion is inescapable: those of us who opposed the invasion of Iraq were right on every count, notes this piece on AlterNet.

In the lead up to the war, Bush administration officials constantly insinuated a connection between Saddam Hussein and al Qaeda, and even the 9/11 attacks. Vice President Cheney, over and again, referred to a cock-and-bull story about a Prague meeting between Mohammed Atta and the Iraqi intelligence. The Atta story was debunked in The New York Times as early as October 2002 – more than four months before the invasion.

Why does it matter? The warnings of the 'long-haired freaky people' were correct but ignored. We're there now and we have to make the best of it, right? Why look backward instead of forward?

Here's why.

If the administration is rife with incompetence (however well-meaning you may think them), then it matters. If the intelligence system is broken, it matters. If the administration has zero credibility, it matters.

If there ever actually IS a serious, imminent threat to the United States during the next four years, who's going to believe the Bush administration? How can anyone trust their next doomsday warnings?

That's why it matters, regardless of your opinion on deposing Saddam.

This analysis in The International Herald Tribune notes that the commission's report found no evidence that intelligence had been politically twisted to suit preconceptions about Iraq's unconventional weapons programs, and made no formal judgments about how top policy makers had used that intelligence to justify war.

This is perhaps true. Though as War Secretary Donald Rumsfeld so famously stated: the absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.

Even so, one of the commission's other conclusions caught my eye:

It is hard to deny the conclusion that intelligence analysts worked in an environment that did not encourage skepticism about the conventional wisdom.

So the administration was merely incompetent, not lying outright? I'm sorry if that doesn't reassure me greatly.

But this conclusion gets to the heart of what I've long said is the Bush administration's single greatest weakness: self-righteousness.

There's a fine line between confidence and arrogance. Good leaders need a great deal of self-confidence. However, great leaders are confident enough to encourage skepticism. They create an environment where debate can thrive. They realize that the presence of vigorous 'devil's advocates' strengthens their arguments by exposing the arguments' flaws and thus helping the flaws get dealt with before it's too late. And sometimes, just sometimes, they realize that they are wrong.

Skeptical analysis makes both for good politics and for good policy.

It's clear that the Bush administration does not encourage such internal skepticism... because they don't believe they can possibly be wrong. They clearly view such dissent as personally disloyal to the president. (Never mind that public officials swear oaths to be loyal to the country and the Constitution, not to the person of the president)

Given that the administration views internal dissent as treachery, it's little surprise that dissenters from the outside (ie: ordinary citizens) are treated with similiar contempt.

The administration is so certain of its rightness that it doesn't broker the possibility that it might only be 99% right. To contemplate a plan B is a sign of a weakness, of disloyalty, of disbelief in The Cause. That's why the occupation has been so badly managed. No one considered the possibility that ordinary Iraqis (not just Saddam loyalists) might not be ecstatic about living under foreign domination. This makes for weak leadership and flawed policy making.

It's also worth noting a parallel. The fundamentalist religious beliefs of the president and many in his administration make them distrust science, which is based on skepticism. So it's little surprise that they reject skepticism and adopt an uncritical, Crusading approach to other areas.

Pride goeth before the fall. And the administration's rejection of debate has led to the debacle in Iraq... and ultimately to a more vulnerable America.

Huzzah for openness!

I've often criticized President Bush for the suffocating secrecy that's been the foundation of his administration's conduct. Secrecy is the enemy of democracy and this administration has been more secretive than even that of the disgraced Richard Nixon.

So when the administration does show signs of openness, it's only fair that I tip my cap to them.

The usually tight-lipped White House has revealed the musical playlist on President Bush's iPod.

Sure, law prevents us from knowing how and when the Patriot Act is used but at least we can sleep at night knowing the president listens to John Fogarty!