Dear Friends and Family,
This project is near and dear to my heart because of
the recent events unfolding in Iran.
The goal is to keep Iran in the news and the
world aware of the the millions of Iranians'
quest for freedom.
Please give a listen to the song and forward to as
many people as possible!
http://www.freedomgloryproject.com/
Enjoy!
Ahmad
Monday, July 6, 2009
Cashing In On America’s Wars: Waste, Fraud, and a Cast of Thousands
Cashing In On America’s Wars: Waste, Fraud, and a Cast of Thousands
Jul 1, 2009
By: Stephen Glain
Ah, for the Victorian era of empire, when a Western power could subdue an entire country with little more than a regiment of grenadiers armed with breach-loaders and a sherpa or two to carry Colonel Blimp's brandy. Back then, "post-conflict resolution" meant jobs for the freshly occupied at rubber plantations and in tin mines. Roads, ports, and railways were laid down by the engineering corps to graft the conquered territory onto the mother stem and provide the illusion of modernity for its great unwashed.
Today, empire building is a different proposition entirely. It is not enough to account for more than half the world's defense spending, as does the United States. Invading foreign countries and transforming them into viable proxy states requires an overhaul or replacement of existing infrastructure. And because the private sector is considered more efficient than the public one - or so it seemed before it collapsed under the weight of its own gluttony about eighteen months ago - you must create a hierarchy of contractors. Mandates are doled out to the KBRs, the Bechtels, Dyncorps and Fluors, which in turn whelp a litter of squealing sub-contractors that could elude even the most Leviathan of oversight regimes. And that's when empire building becomes the highest expression of the free market: an untrammeled frenzy of corruption and greed.
It's all there in an interim report of the Commission on Wartime Contracting in Iraq and Afghanistan, which was launched by Congress in 2008 to investigate abundant cases of fraud associated with war-related contracts. The 110-page expose, titled "At What Cost?" illustrates how much of the $830 billion Congress has appropriated to meet America's wartime commitments in Iraq and Afghanistan has simply disappeared. More than $13 billion in spending on post-war "stability operations" - everything from food preparation to laundry services and base security - is under scrutiny by lawmakers due to lax oversight, shoddy accounting and outright theft. For Americans old enough to remember the Pentagon's "$5,000 ashtrays" of the Reagan era, the Commissions findings offer a tinge of nostalgia. During a field trip to Kabul in April, Commission members toured the new US forces headquarters in Afghanistan. "We observed cracks, improper plumbing (and thus unusable bathrooms), an incorrectly sized sewage system, broken and leaking pipes, sinking sidewalks, and other construction defects," according to the report. In Iraq, meanwhile, the government approved millions of dollars to build a mess hall that was no longer needed after US troops began to withdraw from the country.
Some $3 billion to $5 billion of the king's ransom Washington distributed among the big contractors for Iraqi reconstruction is unaccounted for and much of the work they were hired to do - largely through those notorious "no-bid" contracts - have been dogged by delays and cost over-runs. The Baghdad electricity grid, for example, has yet to achieve pre-war levels of service.
Oversight has been lacking or non-existent. It was not until April 2007, for example, that agencies began identifying detailed costs from two mandates totaling $600 million awarded to Research Triangle Institute between 2003 and 2005 to develop local governance in Iraq. And that was for a general contractor. Sub-contractors - a quarter million of them now support the Pentagon in America's two Middle East wars and most are run by foreign nationals - operate with no oversight at all.
The report dresses down the Department of Defense for allocating too much of its resources for the war-fighting end of its campaigns - overkill, if you will - while neglecting the need for oversight of the rebuilding phase. Even now, according to the study, "the Department of Defense cannot provide a complete accounting of all the contracted support it relies upon....Inadequate oversight, poorly written statements of work, lack of competition, and contractor inefficiencies have contributed to billions of dollars in wasteful spending." Despite an abundance of various civilian and Pentagon agencies, in addition to private firms and non-governmental organizations, converging for reconstruction work, the report notes, "there is no locus of planning, coordination, and information [and] the government still lacks clear standards and policy on inherently governmental functions."
None of this should surprise anyone who witnessed first hand, as this columnist did, the chaos and incompetence that subverted the US occupation of Baghdad in those seminal first few months after US tanks rolled into the city. The circle of complicity is huge, with civilian leaders like then-Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and his neocon hangers-on at its center. The current Secretary, Robert Gates, has worked heroically to clean up the mess Rumsfeld left behind. In addition to promoting larger budgets for civilian agencies like the United States Agency for International Development, which has been allowed to slip into near-oblivion while Pentagon outlays have achieved elephantine proportions, Gates has also set aside funds to hire 20,000 procurement officers to bring order to the anarchy of post-war spending in Iraq and Afghanistan. In effect, Gates is reversing the trend, which began under the Clinton administration and intensified in the Bush White House, to outsource core US government obligations and commitments to private firms such as Halliburton and the dreaded Blackwater.
Now, all Gates has to do is acknowledge what is by now obvious to everyone outside the Washington biosphere: the best way to reduce the costs of unnecessary wars like the one Washington waged so disastrously on Iraq is to make sure they don't happen again.
Jul 1, 2009
By: Stephen Glain
Ah, for the Victorian era of empire, when a Western power could subdue an entire country with little more than a regiment of grenadiers armed with breach-loaders and a sherpa or two to carry Colonel Blimp's brandy. Back then, "post-conflict resolution" meant jobs for the freshly occupied at rubber plantations and in tin mines. Roads, ports, and railways were laid down by the engineering corps to graft the conquered territory onto the mother stem and provide the illusion of modernity for its great unwashed.
Today, empire building is a different proposition entirely. It is not enough to account for more than half the world's defense spending, as does the United States. Invading foreign countries and transforming them into viable proxy states requires an overhaul or replacement of existing infrastructure. And because the private sector is considered more efficient than the public one - or so it seemed before it collapsed under the weight of its own gluttony about eighteen months ago - you must create a hierarchy of contractors. Mandates are doled out to the KBRs, the Bechtels, Dyncorps and Fluors, which in turn whelp a litter of squealing sub-contractors that could elude even the most Leviathan of oversight regimes. And that's when empire building becomes the highest expression of the free market: an untrammeled frenzy of corruption and greed.
It's all there in an interim report of the Commission on Wartime Contracting in Iraq and Afghanistan, which was launched by Congress in 2008 to investigate abundant cases of fraud associated with war-related contracts. The 110-page expose, titled "At What Cost?" illustrates how much of the $830 billion Congress has appropriated to meet America's wartime commitments in Iraq and Afghanistan has simply disappeared. More than $13 billion in spending on post-war "stability operations" - everything from food preparation to laundry services and base security - is under scrutiny by lawmakers due to lax oversight, shoddy accounting and outright theft. For Americans old enough to remember the Pentagon's "$5,000 ashtrays" of the Reagan era, the Commissions findings offer a tinge of nostalgia. During a field trip to Kabul in April, Commission members toured the new US forces headquarters in Afghanistan. "We observed cracks, improper plumbing (and thus unusable bathrooms), an incorrectly sized sewage system, broken and leaking pipes, sinking sidewalks, and other construction defects," according to the report. In Iraq, meanwhile, the government approved millions of dollars to build a mess hall that was no longer needed after US troops began to withdraw from the country.
Some $3 billion to $5 billion of the king's ransom Washington distributed among the big contractors for Iraqi reconstruction is unaccounted for and much of the work they were hired to do - largely through those notorious "no-bid" contracts - have been dogged by delays and cost over-runs. The Baghdad electricity grid, for example, has yet to achieve pre-war levels of service.
Oversight has been lacking or non-existent. It was not until April 2007, for example, that agencies began identifying detailed costs from two mandates totaling $600 million awarded to Research Triangle Institute between 2003 and 2005 to develop local governance in Iraq. And that was for a general contractor. Sub-contractors - a quarter million of them now support the Pentagon in America's two Middle East wars and most are run by foreign nationals - operate with no oversight at all.
The report dresses down the Department of Defense for allocating too much of its resources for the war-fighting end of its campaigns - overkill, if you will - while neglecting the need for oversight of the rebuilding phase. Even now, according to the study, "the Department of Defense cannot provide a complete accounting of all the contracted support it relies upon....Inadequate oversight, poorly written statements of work, lack of competition, and contractor inefficiencies have contributed to billions of dollars in wasteful spending." Despite an abundance of various civilian and Pentagon agencies, in addition to private firms and non-governmental organizations, converging for reconstruction work, the report notes, "there is no locus of planning, coordination, and information [and] the government still lacks clear standards and policy on inherently governmental functions."
None of this should surprise anyone who witnessed first hand, as this columnist did, the chaos and incompetence that subverted the US occupation of Baghdad in those seminal first few months after US tanks rolled into the city. The circle of complicity is huge, with civilian leaders like then-Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and his neocon hangers-on at its center. The current Secretary, Robert Gates, has worked heroically to clean up the mess Rumsfeld left behind. In addition to promoting larger budgets for civilian agencies like the United States Agency for International Development, which has been allowed to slip into near-oblivion while Pentagon outlays have achieved elephantine proportions, Gates has also set aside funds to hire 20,000 procurement officers to bring order to the anarchy of post-war spending in Iraq and Afghanistan. In effect, Gates is reversing the trend, which began under the Clinton administration and intensified in the Bush White House, to outsource core US government obligations and commitments to private firms such as Halliburton and the dreaded Blackwater.
Now, all Gates has to do is acknowledge what is by now obvious to everyone outside the Washington biosphere: the best way to reduce the costs of unnecessary wars like the one Washington waged so disastrously on Iraq is to make sure they don't happen again.
The Cost of the Global U.S. Military Presence by Anita Dancs
The Cost of the Global U.S. Military Presence
Anita Dancs
Jul 6, 2009
http://www.fpif.org/fpiftxt/6231
Anita Dancs
Jul 6, 2009
http://www.fpif.org/fpiftxt/6231
No cover up - The government takes on a "walking prison"
No cover up
Jun 25th 2009 | PARIS
From The Economist print edition
http://www.economist.com/world/europe/displayStory.cfm?story_id=13925890&source=most_commented
The government takes on a "walking prison"
WHEN the French government decided in 2004 to ban the Muslim headscarf in state schools and other public buildings, it set off a heated debate over religious expression and women's rights in a secular state. Now Nicolas Sarkozy has sparked another by calling the burqa, a head-to-toe Islamic garment, "a sign of subjugation…of debasement" that is "not welcome on French territory".
Mr Sarkozy's comments came after a group of deputies, led by André Gerin, a Communist, had called for a parliamentary inquiry into the wearing of the burqa, with a view to a possible ban. This would mean in all public places, since it is already banned in state institutions under the 2004 law. The deputies called burqas "veritable walking prisons".
France's strict secularism, entrenched by law since 1905, keeps religion firmly out of the state sphere. There are no religious studies (let alone nativity plays) in state schools, nor may public workers sport the headscarf. The government denies that such policies constrain religious freedom or are especially aimed at Islam. France welcomes private Muslim schools. Mosque-building is widespread. The 2004 headscarf ban outlawed "conspicuous" religious symbols of all faiths. Yet there are growing worries about the spread of hard-line Islamism in the heavily Muslim banlieues.
Rex Features Not welcome in France
Now that Mr Sarkozy has publicly condemned the burqa, the chances of a ban have risen sharply. Parliament has launched a cross-party mission to report back in six months. In fact, few women wear the full garment in France. But mayors of cities with big Muslim populations report a steady increase in numbers, due not to immigration but to its adoption by French-born women—often from North African countries where the burqa is not traditionally worn.
Mohammed Moussaoui, head of the official French Council of the Muslim Faith, has suggested that the inquiry would itself stigmatise Islam. A ban might be misunderstood abroad, and not only in the Muslim world. In his recent speech in Cairo, Barack Obama said that "it is important for Western countries to avoid impeding Muslim citizens from practising religion as they see fit—for instance, by dictating what clothes a Muslim woman should wear."
Not so, say many French politicians—including such prominent Muslims as Fadela Amara, the cities minister. The founder of a women's-rights group, Ms Amara has called the burqa "a coffin that kills individual liberties", and a sign of the "political exploitation of Islam".
Jun 25th 2009 | PARIS
From The Economist print edition
http://www.economist.com/world/europe/displayStory.cfm?story_id=13925890&source=most_commented
The government takes on a "walking prison"
WHEN the French government decided in 2004 to ban the Muslim headscarf in state schools and other public buildings, it set off a heated debate over religious expression and women's rights in a secular state. Now Nicolas Sarkozy has sparked another by calling the burqa, a head-to-toe Islamic garment, "a sign of subjugation…of debasement" that is "not welcome on French territory".
Mr Sarkozy's comments came after a group of deputies, led by André Gerin, a Communist, had called for a parliamentary inquiry into the wearing of the burqa, with a view to a possible ban. This would mean in all public places, since it is already banned in state institutions under the 2004 law. The deputies called burqas "veritable walking prisons".
France's strict secularism, entrenched by law since 1905, keeps religion firmly out of the state sphere. There are no religious studies (let alone nativity plays) in state schools, nor may public workers sport the headscarf. The government denies that such policies constrain religious freedom or are especially aimed at Islam. France welcomes private Muslim schools. Mosque-building is widespread. The 2004 headscarf ban outlawed "conspicuous" religious symbols of all faiths. Yet there are growing worries about the spread of hard-line Islamism in the heavily Muslim banlieues.
Rex Features Not welcome in France
Now that Mr Sarkozy has publicly condemned the burqa, the chances of a ban have risen sharply. Parliament has launched a cross-party mission to report back in six months. In fact, few women wear the full garment in France. But mayors of cities with big Muslim populations report a steady increase in numbers, due not to immigration but to its adoption by French-born women—often from North African countries where the burqa is not traditionally worn.
Mohammed Moussaoui, head of the official French Council of the Muslim Faith, has suggested that the inquiry would itself stigmatise Islam. A ban might be misunderstood abroad, and not only in the Muslim world. In his recent speech in Cairo, Barack Obama said that "it is important for Western countries to avoid impeding Muslim citizens from practising religion as they see fit—for instance, by dictating what clothes a Muslim woman should wear."
Not so, say many French politicians—including such prominent Muslims as Fadela Amara, the cities minister. The founder of a women's-rights group, Ms Amara has called the burqa "a coffin that kills individual liberties", and a sign of the "political exploitation of Islam".
The Ruse of a Palestinian State on Offer by Saree Makdisi
The Ruse of a Palestinian State on Offer
by Saree Makdisi / July 6th, 2009 (0)
To judge by the next day’s headlines, Benjamin Netanyahu’s policy speech last month was a great success. “Israeli Premier Backs State for Palestinians,” declared the New York Times. “Israel Endorses Two-State Goal,” said the Washington Post. “Netanyahu Backs Palestinian State,” announced The Guardian.
He did no such thing, of course, unless by “state” one understands an amorphous entity lacking a definite territory, not allowed to control its own borders or airspace, shorn of any vestige of sovereignty (other than a flag and perhaps a national anthem), not allowed to enter into treaties with other states—and permanently disarmed …
http://dissidentvoice.org/2009/07/the-ruse-of-a-palestinian-state-on-offer/
by Saree Makdisi / July 6th, 2009 (0)
To judge by the next day’s headlines, Benjamin Netanyahu’s policy speech last month was a great success. “Israeli Premier Backs State for Palestinians,” declared the New York Times. “Israel Endorses Two-State Goal,” said the Washington Post. “Netanyahu Backs Palestinian State,” announced The Guardian.
He did no such thing, of course, unless by “state” one understands an amorphous entity lacking a definite territory, not allowed to control its own borders or airspace, shorn of any vestige of sovereignty (other than a flag and perhaps a national anthem), not allowed to enter into treaties with other states—and permanently disarmed …
http://dissidentvoice.org/2009/07/the-ruse-of-a-palestinian-state-on-offer/
Why Jerusalem? Israel’s Hidden Agenda by Dan Lieberman
Why Jerusalem?
Israel’s Hidden Agenda
by Dan Lieberman / July 6th, 2009 (1)
Three huge granite stones rest comfortably on the top of Midbar Sinai Street, in Givat Havatzim, Jerusalem’s northernmost district. Cut to specification, the imposing stones represent one of several preparations by the Temple Mount and Land of Israel Faithful Movement to erect a Third Temple on the Haram al-Sharif/Temple Mount. Since the Islamic Wafq owns and controls all the property on the Haram al-Sharif, these stones cannot be legally transferred to the Temple Mount nor can a Temple be constructed there? The provocation, represented by the stones, which the Israel government refuses to curtail, lead to a belief that an …
(Full article …)
http://dissidentvoice.org/2009/07/why-jerusalem/
Israel’s Hidden Agenda
by Dan Lieberman / July 6th, 2009 (1)
Three huge granite stones rest comfortably on the top of Midbar Sinai Street, in Givat Havatzim, Jerusalem’s northernmost district. Cut to specification, the imposing stones represent one of several preparations by the Temple Mount and Land of Israel Faithful Movement to erect a Third Temple on the Haram al-Sharif/Temple Mount. Since the Islamic Wafq owns and controls all the property on the Haram al-Sharif, these stones cannot be legally transferred to the Temple Mount nor can a Temple be constructed there? The provocation, represented by the stones, which the Israel government refuses to curtail, lead to a belief that an …
(Full article …)
http://dissidentvoice.org/2009/07/why-jerusalem/
Honduras and the Bolivarian Revolution By Douglas Farah
Honduras and the Bolivarian Revolution
By Douglas Farah
Once again an outside power is meddling in the internal affairs of a small, poor Central American country and threatening military action if its preferred candidate is not restored to office. The irony is that it is not Uncle Sam interfering in Honduras-which has happened often enough-but Venezuela's Hugo Chávez, who has made a career of railing against foreign intervention. Chávez's belligerent threats of military action to restore his ally, ousted president Manuel Zelaya, to power are supported by Nicaragua's Daniel Ortega, Bolivia's Evo Morales and the Castro brothers in Cuba.
The leaders, as part of Chávez's oil-fueled regional "Bolivarian revolution," have twisted their constitutions like pretzels, run roughshod over due process, worked to silence the press, concentrated power in their own hands, and fomented violence against the legal political opposition. In addition to their current autocratic and anti-democratic governing styles, Ortega led a violent, successful revolution and Chávez led an unsuccessful military coup attempt, making their outrage over a constitutional maneuver, no matter how questionable, ring hollow.
What is more disturbing is the growing ties between the Bolivarian revolutionary states and armed groups in Latin America and across the world, their open embrace of Iran, and the teaching of terrorist methodologies pioneered by radical Islamists as official military doctrine. The sole point of convergence between the Iranian theocracy and the secular Bolivarian populists is a deep hatred for the United States and liberal democracy. Zelaya, hooked on subsidized Venezuelan oil, was following the same autocratic and anti-democratic path pioneered by Chávez and joining an alliance that has strangled democratic development wherever the Bolivarian revolution has taken root.
Zelaya's ouster is the first clear sign that there will be a reaction against the abuses and excesses of the Bolivarian model of radical populism, megalomania and violence, often called "popular democracy" and described as 21st Century socialism. The concern of Chávez and his allies have for Zelaya has much more to do with a fear that the reaction against them will grow than it does with any commitment to democracy. A successful removal of Zelaya could be a model for their own demise.
Make no mistake. Giving the military a leading role in a political drama in Honduras may be akin to giving a pyromaniac matches and can of kerosene. It can end badly. I covered Honduras for 20 years and reported extensively both on the military's egregious human rights abuses and voracious economic appetite that sucked the national coffers dry, although the troops have stayed in the barracks for more than two decades.
But look at the alternatives. Zelaya was illegally attempting the same political move successfully executed by Chávez and Morales-a constitutional change that would allow him to stay in power indefinitely-always among the first actions of the Bolivarian leaders. The nation's supreme court ruled that his attempted referendum was unconstitutional. His party broke with him, his attorney general said it was illegal and the army refused to cooperate in light of the court ruling. Yet Zelaya proceeded, after leading a crowd to burn an army installation in protest of the institution's failure to defy the supreme court decision. He was flown into exile at gunpoint and replaced by Roberto Micheletti, of his own party and head of the National Assembly. Micheletti promises to hold scheduled presidential elections this year and not be a candidate. Time will tell.
The Honduras situation leaves the United States with difficult options. How the Obama administration handles this challenge against a government that was in the process of breaching the constitutional order will have powerful repercussions across Latin America. Similar challenges could appear in Bolivia, Nicaragua, Venezuela and Ecuador as the Bolivarian governments move to consolidate their hold on power and meet resistance.
It is tempting to see the restoration of Zelaya as the democratic imperative, and most of the international community is pressing for this outcome, while not endorsing Chávez's threats of violence. The Organization of American States is set to impose a series of crippling economic sanctions if Zelaya is not allowed to return in some form. But it is worth looking further at the implications of the Boliviarian revolution writ large.
It has been almost two decades since the democratic processes began in Central America, and a few years more since South America moved from military dictatorships and coups to liberal democracies with imperfect but improving institutional processes, transparency and freedoms. I lived in Latin America during civil wars and the difficult transition from decades of brutal authoritarian regimes to the fragile democratic structures, built through sweat and blood.
These still-fragile democracies are now in danger of being choked by the new radical populism, fueled by oil money, deep disillusionment with the corruption and mismanagement of the traditional political classes and exclusion based on race and class. The need for deep reform certainly exists. But Chávez's model is not the solution.
Reasons for deep concern about the spread of the Bolivarian revolution are far deeper than simple ideological disputes, and Zelaya's actions are only one piece of a wider pattern. The threat of Chávez and his allies goes to the heart of the region's democratic processes and institutionality. While the moves against civil society and institutions have been amply documented, the contours of the broader threat of the Bolivarian alliance and its ties to radical Islamist regimes, particularly Iran, are now clearer.
Venezuela has adopted an official military doctrine that is based on strategies Hezbollah and other radical Islamist groups are already practicing, and one embraced to a significant degree by Iran, the primary state sponsor of those groups. The embrace of this doctrine provides an important link in understanding the ties of Venezuela and its allies to Iran.
Since 2005 Chávez has rewritten Venezuela's security doctrine, replacing "imperialist" influences with a doctrine centered on asymmetrical warfare, in the belief that the primary threat to Venezuelan and Latin American security is a U.S. invasion. This doctrine is being taught by Venezuelan instructors to the militaries of Bolivia, Ecuador, Nicaragua and Honduras.
One of the main books Chávez has adopted is Peripheral Warfare and Revolutionary Islam: Origins, Rules and Ethics of Asymmetrical Warfare by the Spanish politician Jorge Verstrynge. Although he is not a Muslim Verstrynge's book lauds radical Islam (as well as past terrorists like Ilich Ramírez Sánchez, better known as Carlos the Jackal) for expanding the parameters of what irregular warfare can encompass, including the use of biological and nuclear weapons. He is particularly taken with suicide bombers, whom he praises for their willingness to die for the cause. Verstrynge has lauded Osama bin Laden and al Qaeda for creating a new type of warfare that is "de-territorialized, de-stateized and de-nationalized," a war where suicide bombers act as "atomic bombs for the poor."
Chávez invited Verstrynge to give keynote address to military leaders in a 2005 conference and ordered a special pocket size edition of the book to be printed up and distributed throughout the officer corps, to be studied cover to cover.
The fascination with asymmetrical warfare may explain why Chávez and other members of the Bolivarian axis maintain close ties to the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), a designated terrorist and drug trafficking organization by both the United States and the European Union. Chávez personally requested that the FARC train Venezuelan military and militias in guerrilla warfare in case of a U.S. invasion.
These actions are part of why many who viewed the Bolivarian revolutions in Venezuela, Bolivia, Ecuador, Nicaragua and Honduras with hope are now turning away in disillusionment. With more and more avenues of legitimate protest, dissent and political change cut off, there few options to return to the values so many fought for in decades past-freedom of speech, the rule of law, unfettered media, a separation of powers and chance to replace poor governments with better ones in regularly scheduled elections. Zelaya's removal was evokes old school methods and appears to be ill-considered. But the Obama administration needs to weigh the bigger picture before handing Chávez and his allies an easy victory by backing Zelaya under the illusion that such a move will bring advance democracy in Honduras or Latin America.
July 3, 2009 09:17 AM Link http://counterterrorismblog.org/
By Douglas Farah
Once again an outside power is meddling in the internal affairs of a small, poor Central American country and threatening military action if its preferred candidate is not restored to office. The irony is that it is not Uncle Sam interfering in Honduras-which has happened often enough-but Venezuela's Hugo Chávez, who has made a career of railing against foreign intervention. Chávez's belligerent threats of military action to restore his ally, ousted president Manuel Zelaya, to power are supported by Nicaragua's Daniel Ortega, Bolivia's Evo Morales and the Castro brothers in Cuba.
The leaders, as part of Chávez's oil-fueled regional "Bolivarian revolution," have twisted their constitutions like pretzels, run roughshod over due process, worked to silence the press, concentrated power in their own hands, and fomented violence against the legal political opposition. In addition to their current autocratic and anti-democratic governing styles, Ortega led a violent, successful revolution and Chávez led an unsuccessful military coup attempt, making their outrage over a constitutional maneuver, no matter how questionable, ring hollow.
What is more disturbing is the growing ties between the Bolivarian revolutionary states and armed groups in Latin America and across the world, their open embrace of Iran, and the teaching of terrorist methodologies pioneered by radical Islamists as official military doctrine. The sole point of convergence between the Iranian theocracy and the secular Bolivarian populists is a deep hatred for the United States and liberal democracy. Zelaya, hooked on subsidized Venezuelan oil, was following the same autocratic and anti-democratic path pioneered by Chávez and joining an alliance that has strangled democratic development wherever the Bolivarian revolution has taken root.
Zelaya's ouster is the first clear sign that there will be a reaction against the abuses and excesses of the Bolivarian model of radical populism, megalomania and violence, often called "popular democracy" and described as 21st Century socialism. The concern of Chávez and his allies have for Zelaya has much more to do with a fear that the reaction against them will grow than it does with any commitment to democracy. A successful removal of Zelaya could be a model for their own demise.
Make no mistake. Giving the military a leading role in a political drama in Honduras may be akin to giving a pyromaniac matches and can of kerosene. It can end badly. I covered Honduras for 20 years and reported extensively both on the military's egregious human rights abuses and voracious economic appetite that sucked the national coffers dry, although the troops have stayed in the barracks for more than two decades.
But look at the alternatives. Zelaya was illegally attempting the same political move successfully executed by Chávez and Morales-a constitutional change that would allow him to stay in power indefinitely-always among the first actions of the Bolivarian leaders. The nation's supreme court ruled that his attempted referendum was unconstitutional. His party broke with him, his attorney general said it was illegal and the army refused to cooperate in light of the court ruling. Yet Zelaya proceeded, after leading a crowd to burn an army installation in protest of the institution's failure to defy the supreme court decision. He was flown into exile at gunpoint and replaced by Roberto Micheletti, of his own party and head of the National Assembly. Micheletti promises to hold scheduled presidential elections this year and not be a candidate. Time will tell.
The Honduras situation leaves the United States with difficult options. How the Obama administration handles this challenge against a government that was in the process of breaching the constitutional order will have powerful repercussions across Latin America. Similar challenges could appear in Bolivia, Nicaragua, Venezuela and Ecuador as the Bolivarian governments move to consolidate their hold on power and meet resistance.
It is tempting to see the restoration of Zelaya as the democratic imperative, and most of the international community is pressing for this outcome, while not endorsing Chávez's threats of violence. The Organization of American States is set to impose a series of crippling economic sanctions if Zelaya is not allowed to return in some form. But it is worth looking further at the implications of the Boliviarian revolution writ large.
It has been almost two decades since the democratic processes began in Central America, and a few years more since South America moved from military dictatorships and coups to liberal democracies with imperfect but improving institutional processes, transparency and freedoms. I lived in Latin America during civil wars and the difficult transition from decades of brutal authoritarian regimes to the fragile democratic structures, built through sweat and blood.
These still-fragile democracies are now in danger of being choked by the new radical populism, fueled by oil money, deep disillusionment with the corruption and mismanagement of the traditional political classes and exclusion based on race and class. The need for deep reform certainly exists. But Chávez's model is not the solution.
Reasons for deep concern about the spread of the Bolivarian revolution are far deeper than simple ideological disputes, and Zelaya's actions are only one piece of a wider pattern. The threat of Chávez and his allies goes to the heart of the region's democratic processes and institutionality. While the moves against civil society and institutions have been amply documented, the contours of the broader threat of the Bolivarian alliance and its ties to radical Islamist regimes, particularly Iran, are now clearer.
Venezuela has adopted an official military doctrine that is based on strategies Hezbollah and other radical Islamist groups are already practicing, and one embraced to a significant degree by Iran, the primary state sponsor of those groups. The embrace of this doctrine provides an important link in understanding the ties of Venezuela and its allies to Iran.
Since 2005 Chávez has rewritten Venezuela's security doctrine, replacing "imperialist" influences with a doctrine centered on asymmetrical warfare, in the belief that the primary threat to Venezuelan and Latin American security is a U.S. invasion. This doctrine is being taught by Venezuelan instructors to the militaries of Bolivia, Ecuador, Nicaragua and Honduras.
One of the main books Chávez has adopted is Peripheral Warfare and Revolutionary Islam: Origins, Rules and Ethics of Asymmetrical Warfare by the Spanish politician Jorge Verstrynge. Although he is not a Muslim Verstrynge's book lauds radical Islam (as well as past terrorists like Ilich Ramírez Sánchez, better known as Carlos the Jackal) for expanding the parameters of what irregular warfare can encompass, including the use of biological and nuclear weapons. He is particularly taken with suicide bombers, whom he praises for their willingness to die for the cause. Verstrynge has lauded Osama bin Laden and al Qaeda for creating a new type of warfare that is "de-territorialized, de-stateized and de-nationalized," a war where suicide bombers act as "atomic bombs for the poor."
Chávez invited Verstrynge to give keynote address to military leaders in a 2005 conference and ordered a special pocket size edition of the book to be printed up and distributed throughout the officer corps, to be studied cover to cover.
The fascination with asymmetrical warfare may explain why Chávez and other members of the Bolivarian axis maintain close ties to the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), a designated terrorist and drug trafficking organization by both the United States and the European Union. Chávez personally requested that the FARC train Venezuelan military and militias in guerrilla warfare in case of a U.S. invasion.
These actions are part of why many who viewed the Bolivarian revolutions in Venezuela, Bolivia, Ecuador, Nicaragua and Honduras with hope are now turning away in disillusionment. With more and more avenues of legitimate protest, dissent and political change cut off, there few options to return to the values so many fought for in decades past-freedom of speech, the rule of law, unfettered media, a separation of powers and chance to replace poor governments with better ones in regularly scheduled elections. Zelaya's removal was evokes old school methods and appears to be ill-considered. But the Obama administration needs to weigh the bigger picture before handing Chávez and his allies an easy victory by backing Zelaya under the illusion that such a move will bring advance democracy in Honduras or Latin America.
July 3, 2009 09:17 AM Link http://counterterrorismblog.org/
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