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| August 08, 2007 | Wednesday | Rajab 23, 1428 |
Intra-party accountability
Growing nuclear concern
Deadly battery-powered deputy
Immigrants are ‘persons’ too
THE joint Pakistan-Afghanistan grand jirga to be convened in Kabul on August 9-11 could well prove to be an exercise in futility. Since many tribal elders who were expected to attend the grand assembly have refused to do so, it will not be as representative as it was expected to be. Thus, the spokesmen of some of the affected areas will not participate in the meeting which is to work out a strategy to bring peace to Afghanistan and the border regions of Pakistan. It is a pity that the absentees happen to be the ones who are playing a key role in the war that has devastated the tribal areas such as North and South Waziristan. Similarly, the JUI which is in power in the NWFP will also stay away. This in effect means that the decisions that are taken in Kabul will be difficult to enforce in the sensitive areas where the action is taking place. This may well defeat the very purpose of the jirga which was first conceived in Washington at the tripartite summit between Presidents Bush, Musharraf and Karzai in September 2006.
The absence of many of the parties is understandable, though one wishes their presence had been ensured through wise diplomacy and long-term planning. Given the threats to their security from the militants in their region who have a past record of assassinating local elders believed to be ‘collaborators’, there are leaders who prefer to stay away. There are others whose sympathies lie with the Taliban and who could never have been expected to sit in a jirga convened at the behest of the Americans to consider policies and strategies directed against the extremists. They expressed regrets saying that their own house was on fire, so how could they be expected to solve the conflict in Afghanistan? Some others who are attending, such as the leaders of the ANP and other nationalist parties, are sympathetic to Kabul and wish to use this opportunity to voice their views on the situation in the region. All this points to Islamabad’s failure to do its homework properly. While it was prevaricating, Kabul proceeded to appoint a Mujahideen leader, Syed Ahmad Gailani, to choose the delegates and interact with them: he has held 60 consultative meetings in the past few months. Pakistan assigned the preparatory work to the interior minister, Aftab Ahmad Khan Sherpao, who did not prove to be as effective. Moreover, the war in Waziristan and the Lal Masjid operation have weakened rather than advanced the cause of peacemaking.
Can the jirga be made meaningful in any way? On account of its unrepresentative character, it is unlikely to succeed in ending the conflict in Afghanistan and restoring peace in Pakistan. But if the jirga is to be made the beginning of a continuing peace process, it could prove to be a forum readily available for peacemaking efforts in the future when the climate is more conducive for negotiations. At some stage, it might even be possible to enlist the cooperation of the Taliban who, in any case, have to be treated with a firm hand in the present circumstances. Besides, once they are militarily cornered, a political process would be needed to work out a peace framework. When that need arises the membership of the jirga could be expanded to include those Taliban who lay down their arms and renounce violence.
ALL political parties were reminded last week by the Chief Election Commissioner that they would not be allocated election symbols if they failed to submit audited accounts by August 29. According to Article 13 of the Political Parties Order 2002, political parties must provide a consolidated statement of annual income and expenses, sources of funding, and assets and liabilities within 60 days of the end of the fiscal year. It further stipulates that the statement should contain “an accurate financial position of the party”. If the declaration of assets filed by parliamentarians is anything to go by, the level of scrutiny post-submission perhaps needs to be upgraded. Nothing should be accepted at face value, for trifling with the truth is a common trait. Honesty and candour are seen as a weakness, while respect is equated with the ability to flout the law at will. Unlike declarations of individual wealth, there is of course far less at stake in furnishing an honest account of party finances. The main motivation here is not tax evasion but possibly the desire to do as little work as possible. If a hastily put together, even concocted, statement of finances will do, why bother about the real thing? This should not be acceptable.
The PPO also specifies that the “party leader and other office-bearers of every political party at the federal, provincial and local levels” must be elected periodically “through secret ballot based on a democratic and transparent system”. Under the law, such elections have to be conducted at least once every four years. While some parties have fulfilled this requirement — rival camps hurled chairs at each other during the PML-Q’s internal elections in August last year — the transparency of these polls and strict adherence to the secret ballot condition are open to question. Again, as with the clause pertaining to audited accounts, the PPO’s regulations are rendered ineffective if not followed in letter and spirit. Personality cults and dynastic dominance characterise most political parties in the country, with the chairpersons taking decisions and cutting ‘deals’ that may not meet with the approval of even senior members, let alone workers. Democracy must begin at home.
IT appears that the lessons of the devastating 1945 atomic attack on the city of Hiroshima in Japan have not been heeded by the global community. Sixty-two years on, and there is no sign yet of efforts to reduce the size of existing nuclear stockpiles, and the world was not able to stop North Korea from conducting an atomic test last October. What is more, instead of roundly condemning nuclear proliferation, the West has been selective in its approach. This is evident in the case of the US that has not given up the option of striking at nuclear targets in Iran while signing a civilian nuclear accord with India. Obviously, there are differences in perception with one being considered a rogue state seeking atomic weapons and the other a responsible nuclear ally. However, the message to the rest of the world is that while some countries (including Israel), will not be taken to task for possessing or developing the deadly weapons, others doing so will face grave consequences.
The NPT clearly requires nuclear disarmament, with the big powers expected to set a precedent. This is not only for reasons of inspiring trust and confidence among nations but also for helping countries like India and Pakistan lessen their grim poverty that is partly a corollary of excessive defence spending. Hindered by the US, the NPT review conference in 2005 failed to achieve an agreement on eliminating nuclear weapons. As the war on terrorism rages on, it is clear that countries targeted by religious militancy would not want to relinquish their hold on the ultimate weapon. But it is also in these trying times that the message of denuclearisation needs to be strengthened. One way of doing so would be to intensify efforts towards global nuclear disarmament and to make no exceptions when it comes to condemning proliferation.
WAY back in the days of the Cold War, it was common for derision to be heaped on the Soviet Union and its satellites whenever the concerned authorities sought to explain away a leader’s prolonged absence from public view by tersely blaming it on a bout of flu.
Every now and then, the affliction proved to be fatal. The aversion to even vaguely credible medical reports seemed not just unnecessary but also counterproductive.
There are times, however, when one is compelled to wonder whether, on occasion, obfuscation may be the lesser evil. That thought crossed the mind when it was reported last month that doctors removed five potentially cancerous polyps from President George W. Bush’s colon (not to be confused with Powell, the former secretary of state).
Did anyone outside the presidential medical team really need to know that each of the polyps was less than a centimetre in diameter? For once, wouldn’t a cover-up have been prudent in the interests of good taste?But, come to think of it, perhaps all was not revealed. There was, after all, no official word on whether the doctors designated the growths as miniature weapons of mass destruction. And there was neither confirmation nor denial of the possibly malicious rumour that, when examined under a microscope, one of the polyps bore an uncanny resemblance to Tony Blair.
Be that as it may, one of the reasons the colonoscopy needed to be publicised was that it required sedation. As a consequence, for two hours or so on the morning of July 21, Dick Cheney was king of America. Perhaps the world should consider itself fortunate that he did not choose to unleash a first strike against Iran during that particular opportunity.
If truth be told, however, being on top of the world couldn’t have struck the vice-president as a particularly novel sensation. And not only because he was called upon to play exactly the same role five years earlier for exactly the same reason: an intrusive examination of the presidential insides.
Exactly a week after the Bush procedure (and no, there seems to be no evidence that his colonial misfortunes are related in any way to recurrent problems with his colon), Cheney underwent a bit of surgery of his own. His battery, it seems, was running low. Quite literally. Barely six months after he had taken oath as vice-president in 2001, cardiovascular specialists deemed it necessary to fit him with a defibrillator: a device that delivers a shock to the heart whenever it detects an abnormality in its rhythm.From a clinical – as opposed to a political – point of view, the precaution was probably well-advised, given that Cheney’s medical record is as convoluted as his ideological proclivities: it includes four heart attacks, a quadruple bypass and two angioplasties.
It seems remarkable that someone with such a rich history of emergencies should even have been considered for a post that puts him a heartbeat away from the Oval Office, but that’s another story. The point is that during a routine check-up last month, doctors found cause for concern about the state of the battery and determined that the defibrillator be replaced.
Hence the operation, which must have put Cheney out of action for a few hours. The vital question that no one appears to have asked is: who exactly was running the US during that time?
Dick Cheney’s precise role in the executive branch has been the subject of much conjecture and comment dating back to well before the “war on terror” in the wake of 9/11. Quite a few analysts – not to mention satirists – were inclined to see him as something more than an eminence grise. Mounting evidence of George W’s intellectual shortcomings made it easier to picture Cheney as the brains behind the throne.
It was never quite as simple as that, but a 20,000-word investigation of the Cheney phenomenon by Barton Gellman and Jo Becker, serialised by The Washington Post over four days in the last week of June, suggests that the impression of the vice-president calling the shots was anything but illusory.
Crucially, the Gellman-Becker treatise fills in the blanks about precisely how Cheney went about the task of pushing his agenda on a variety of fronts, ranging from tax cuts for the very rich and Supreme Court appointments to the invasion of Iraq and the torture of prisoners. It suggests that the president isn’t knowingly dabbling in falsehood when he describes himself as “the decider”.
Cheney’s deviousness lies in sustaining that delusion, while ensuring that the decisions made do not radically deviate from whatever he deems to be the ideal course in the circumstances.
A 100 per cent success rate would be uncanny. It doesn’t happen that way. But he succeeds often enough for it to safely be said that no vice-president before him has played a remotely comparable role in crystallising an administration’s policies.
An evidently frustrated John Adams, the first vice-president of the US, described his post as “the most insignificant office that ever the invention of man contrived.” And thus it remained for the better part of 200 years. Constitutionally, the vice-president serves only two purposes: to step into the president’s shoes if the latter is debilitated or dies, and to cast the deciding vote if the Senate is split down the middle on some matter. In picking a running mate, presidential candidates don’t try to choose someone they can work with: rather, the tendency is to find someone whose personal standing will bring in more votes from a particular part of the country.
It’s hardly surprising, then, that Richard Nixon wasn’t particularly popular with Dwight Eisenhower and the Kennedy brothers loathed Lyndon Johnson. Spiro Agnew was a non-entity. Gerald Ford got lucky, but couldn’t translate it into electoral success. Walter Mondale and Bush the Elder were marginally more influential within the administrations they served, but Dan Quayle became a byword for idiocy (until George W appeared on the scene).
When Quayle warned Cheney in 2001 that his duties would entail little more than attending meaningless inaugurations and state funerals, Cheney offered his trademark sinister smile and said: ‘No, I have a different understanding with the president.’
This involved, while the fiasco in Florida was as yet unresolved, putting together a team that included Donald Rumsfeld, Paul Wolfowitz, John Bolton and Lewis “Scooter” Libby. All of them are now gone, and Cheney’s malign influence may not be quite as strong as it once was, but it decidedly lingers on. It wouldn’t, in the event, be unreasonable to presume that his candidacy as running mate was part of a power-snatching plot by right-wing extremists, a consequence of unfulfilled aspirations left over from the Reagan era. And, from the point of view of its protagonists, the plot worked well for a while before it began to fall apart.
Cheney’s role was to keep the White House on side. He did so by surreptitiously initiating policy advice without leaving any fingerprints, and then making sure that his opinion was the last one “the decider” heard before making his decision. In some cases he went even further: for instance, the decision to strip prisoners in the “war on terror” of all rights was based on a Dick-initiated memo that took Powell and Rice by surprise when it was leaked to the press two years later.
Iraq had been something of an obsession with Cheney since his stint as defence secretary under Bush Sr, and he was determined to get rid of Saddam Hussein well before the “war on terror” provided a highly dubious context for naked aggression.
Small wonder, then, that much of the impetus for dodgy intelligence on Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction, as well as some of the rosiest descriptions of post-invasion prospects, emanated from the office of the vice-president.
Furthermore, whenever any risk has arisen of congressional or judicial initiatives aimed at curbing particularly outrageous behaviour on the part of the administration — such as the maltreatment of detainees, for instance, or blanket surveillance of US citizens — Cheney has invariably been instrumental in discovering, or creating, loopholes.
The vice-president’s fascistic tendencies are underscored by his penchant for secrecy. Even scribbled notes about media talking points are designated as classified, as are visitor logs: Cheney doggedly resists all attempts to determine whom he has been talking to, and it took six years to clarify the identity of the men he consulted as the head of an energy task force back in 2001.
The latter was anyhow a highly inappropriate assignment in view of his immersion in the petroleum industry, most notably as chief of Halliburton – on whose payroll he informally remained until 2005, long after it had become a leading beneficiary of the Iraqi occupation. Nor is it a coincidence that Cheney is the preferred emissary whenever anything needs to be conveyed to the Saudi ruling family.
Oil is thicker than water, and Bush’s own (rather less successful) background in petroleum ought not to be overlooked. The deadliest double-act in US history — one of them freshly cleansed from behind, the other empowered with a brand new battery — will be around for nearly another 18 months and, despite significant setbacks, its capacity to wreak further havoc should not be underestimated.
Chances are it will take a lot longer to undo the harm these two have caused in tandem both internationally and domestically, if their successors are at all up to the task. Given the power structure in the US, that’s a pretty big task.
mahir.worldview@gmail.com
ADVOCATES of humane immigration reform cheered, and rightly so, when a federal judge last month told a Pennsylvania city that it couldn't punish employers who hired illegal immigrants or landlords who rented to them. But members of Congress are drawing the wrong lesson from the decision.
In a lengthy opinion striking down anti-immigrant ordinances in Hazelton, US District Judge James Munley has given the whole country a refresher course on the Constitution. "We cannot say clearly enough that persons who enter this country without legal authorization are not stripped immediately of all their rights," Munley wrote, citing Supreme Court decisions holding that the 14th Amendment guarantees equal protection of the laws to "persons," not just citizens.
But that was only one of the legal pillars of Munley's decision. The other was his finding that Hazelton had usurped Congress' authority. "Immigration is a national issue," he wrote. "Congress has provided complete and thorough regulations with regard to the employment of unauthorized aliens, including anti-immigration discrimination provisions."
The problem, of course, is that both supporters and opponents of the comprehensive immigration reform bill that died in the Senate agree that the federal government's enforcement of immigration laws has been lacking. Munley was right to tell Hazelton that it was minding Washington's business; but in doing so, he also reminded the country that Washington has done a poor job.
The ideal reaction to that reality would be the revival of comprehensive reform: legislation that would improve border security, legalise the 12 million illegal immigrants already living and working here and make it easier for employers to hire both skilled and non-skilled workers from other countries. But even onetime supporters of this approach, such as Sen. John McCain, are now channelling the "enforcement first" mantra.
Last month, the Senate voted 89 to 4 for a homeland security bill that would spend $3 billion on border fences, camera and radar towers and more immigration agents. Last week, McCain (whose support for comprehensive reform has hobbled his presidential campaign) joined other Republicans in sponsoring legislation that would make being in the country illegally a criminal misdemeanour and mandate an electronic system for employers to check workers' citizenship status.
––Los Angeles Times