Trevor's Summer Reading List

This summer reading list is brought to us by faithful blogger and PPDC intern, Trevor.

Summer Reading List 7: Trevor Keck, Legislative Associate for Peaceful Prevention of Deadly Conflict

Three Cups of Tea: One Man's Mission to Promote Peace...One School at a Time
By Greg Mortenson and David Oliver Relin
I am highly skeptical of books on the New York Times Best Seller List. Yet, my conservative mother told me this book made her see U.S. foreign policy in a new light. Intrigued, I picked up this highly accessible story of a climber turned schoolbuilder in South Asia. Humbled by the hospitality of a Pakistani village after failing to climb K2, Greg Mortenson takes it upon himself to raise funds to build schools in Pakistan and Afghanistan. This quick read provides a good example of the types of projects the U.S. governement could be funding to reduce support for terrorism and build bridges of understanding between the U.S. and the Middle East.

Good Muslim, Bad Muslim: America, The Cold War and The Roots of Terror
By Mahmood Mamdani
This book is an excellent history lesson in U.S. foreign policy during the end of the cold war. Mamdani provides numerous examples of how U.S. policies supported groups committing acts of terror when it suited U.S. goals: rolling back the Soviet Union's influence and power. Now that terrorist groups have turned their sights on the U.S., Mamdani says rather than military confrontation with terrorist groups, U.S. foreign policy should devote resources and attention to strategies that erode support for terrorism and recognize legitimate political grievances many have with U.S foreign policy.

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lazy summer days

In case you hadn't noticed by all of the summer reading lists, DC gets pretty empty around August. When I moved here last year, one of the things that surprised me the most was how quiet everything became in the summer. I always knew that Congress took August off, but I had no idea how much that would affect the rest of the city. Offices take shorter hours and study/volunteer groups all go on hiatus. My usually vibrant church seemed particularly empty yesterday with the gospel choir on break and about half of the parishioners gone. I don't remember summers being so quiet for non-students anywhere else that I've lived. For the rest of my life, 'adult summer vacations' will be magical, strange things that I'll associate with Washington, DC.

Because I'm the field intern instead of a lobbying intern, I'm probably not feeling the summer lag quite as much as some of my FCNL colleagues, but the days are still a little quiet. I've been enjoying having more time to work on long term projects, clean off my desk (!) and of course, post on the intern blog. I have to admit, though, that having extra time on our hands can sometimes lead to some mischief for the FCNL interns. This morning, Jr. Intern, Kamala and I had a little too much fun playing with a globe beach ball that we found in the storage room.

However, our office mischief is nothing compared to what our colleagues and friends at the UUA Washington Office Of Advocacy pulled last night. To welcome their new Acting Director (and former intern) Adam to his new position, the interns stayed up all night filling his office with balloons. 580 balloons, to be precise. While certain FCNL interns and former interns have been known pranksters (Sharon, Dan and Nick come to mind) I'm afraid this beats anything I've seen at my time at FCNL. So, FCNL interns, former interns and staff, what's been the best prank that you've seen pulled in the office? Non-FCNL staffers: what's the summer work culture like wherever you are? I hope it's as fun as it is here!

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Peaceful Toilets

When we here at FCNL think about promoting peace instead of war, we tend to think of the big ways to do it – decreasing military spending, sending more diplomats out to American embassies, and promoting dialogue between countries.

But as the Foreign Policy blog points out today, sometimes we need to look at the details to help foster peaceful communities and countries.

Their post focuses on countries that have the lowest accessibility to sanitation facilities, starting off with an anecdote about how complaints from foreigners forced the organizers of the Beijing Olympics to install more sit toilets. This may seem a little whiny – it’s not that hard to use a squat toilet once you have the practice – but I can understand where the athletes, and to a much greater extent, average people in Eritrea and Haiti, are coming from.

When I went to China in 2004, one of the unexpected excursions that were part of my travels with the students was to climb the Fan Jin mountain (it took me about 3 hours). Because I was (or felt that I was) a lazy, out-of-shape American, after climbing the mountain (and coming down, which was possibly harder) my legs were pretty sore. So sore in fact, that it made using squat toilets nearly impossible. The inability to find a toilet that I could use with ease put me in a foul mood, and made me act out in odd and irrational ways. Finding a place to use the facilities became an obsession, and when I was finally in a hotel room with a sit toilet for a few days I used the bathroom (hung out in there really) at least once an hour – just because I could.

Now, this confession of mine is borderline too much information, and possibly proves that I am a sheltered whiny American, but I think that my reaction is proof that depriving people of relatively easy ways to satisfy their basic needs (hunger, disposing of waste matter, thirst) can lead to unrest and irrational behavior.

In addition to focusing on large-scale prevention of war, we should also remember that helping people to live with dignity, self-sufficiency, and actualization can go a long way to achieving peace. After all, unemployed young people are awfully easy to transform into soldiers.

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Update on the Crisis in Darfur

I have posted an update for the "crisis in Darfur" page previously kept up former FCNL legislative assistant Laura Weis, and will continue to provide updates every couple weeks here if anyone is interested. The first update is posted below:

In June, President Bush signed a huge $186.5 billion war spending bill for Iraq that also included funds for the peacekeeping mission in Darfur as well as money for humanitarian, development, and diplomatic efforts in Darfur and South Sudan. In July, the House and Senate Appropriations Foreign Operations subcommittees’ marked up their version of the State and Foreign Operations spending bill, which included more funding for U.N. peacekeeping, law enforcement, humanitarian, development and transition assistance for Sudan. However, the foreign operations spending bill will likely not be signed by the President this year. Congressional leaders have said they will not bring any spending bills to the House or Senate floor until the next President takes office in January.

In June, International Criminal Court (ICC) Prosecutor Luis Moreno Ocampo filed 10 charges of war crimes against Sudanese President Bashir, which put Darfur back—front and center—in the press. Anticipating a spike in violence, the U.N. and humanitarian agencies scaled back their operations. The U.N.-AU hybrid peacekeeping mission prepared for the worst, yet no large retributive attacks against U.N. personnel or peacekeepers have occurred since the indictment. However, humanitarian groups report, the Sudanese government has tightened its grip, creating further restrictions on travel and obstacles for humanitarian groups. Meanwhile, Sudanese President Bashir went on a “charm offensive” in Darfur. In an attempt to show goodwill, he traveled to Darfur’s historic capital El-Fasher, where he was jeered at by spectators.

On July 31, 2008 the U.N. Security Council voted (14-0) to renew the mandate of the U.N.-AU hybrid peacekeeping mission. In an eleventh hour decision, the U.S. abstained from the vote in protest of language in the resolution, which accepted the possibility of future council debate on suspending the ICC indictment against Sudanese President Bashir. Diplomats from South Africa, Libya and the African Union as well as Africa expert Alex de Waal and former U.S. special envoy to Sudan, Andrew Natsios claim the charges pose a threat to the peace process. In a Washington Post op-ed in July, De Waal questioned the judicial integrity of the charges, and argued Ocampo risked politicizing the court. Meanwhile, high profile activists like John Prendergast argue the indictments are integral to justice and peace efforts.

ICC judges are expected to decide whether to act on Ocampo’s request for an arrest warrant for Sudanese President Bashir in October or November. Many believe this creates a vital window of opportunity for the international community to conduct diplomacy and bolster the U.N. force in Darfur. If the ICC issues a warrant for Bashir, many expect the situation to get much worse, as the ICC is said to operate on a system much like the Napoleonic code. For instance, once a warrant is issued, it supposedly cannot be dropped as a concession in peace negotiations. If the ICC retreats and doesn’t issue a warrant for Bashir, the Sudanese President may feel emboldened, and free to continue launching attacks against innocent civilians. While the debate has been colored by those for and against an ICC arrest warrant outside of Sudan, lacking from the debate, has been the voices of Sudanese political parties other than the governing National Congress Party (NCP) in Khartoum.

Yet, this “window of opportunity” certainly creates a lot of pressure for the new U.N. joint chief mediator Djibril Bassole, who began the uphill challenge of reigniting a stalled peace process several weeks ago. “This will be a difficult mission but it’s not impossible,” Bassole told reporters after meeting with Sudan’s foreign minister in late July. Sudanese on all sides of the conflict are reportedly optimistic about having a full-time mediator in Sudan, rather than two part-time mediators who were criticized for jetting into the country for short diplomatic visits every few months.

On August 12, the force Commander of UNAMID, General Agwai, told reporters in New York that unification of the rebel groups is a key pre-requisite to a meaningful peace process. Rebel groups reportedly number around thirty, and the negotiating positions of the various factions were a key obstacle to the peace process in Sirte, Libya last fall. A key goal for the UN mediator, Djibril Bassole, will be coalescing all the rebel groups behind a common platform in a future round of negotiations with the Sudanese government.

Yet, as reported in the Washington Post several months ago, we need to change how we think about the conflict in Darfur. For instance, as the Post reports “While the government and militia attacks on straw-hut villages that defined the earlier years of the conflict continue, Darfur is now home to semi-organized crime and warlordism, with marijuana-smoking rebels, disaffected government militias and anyone else with an AK-47 taking part, according to U.N. officials.”

The solutions to the conflict aren’t that different. A robust peacekeeping mission is needed. Humanitarian aid is needed. A diplomatic process that provides the people of the Darfur region security, autonomy and a large chunk of Sudan’s wealth to rebuild its war-torn society is also still needed. Yet given the localized nature of the conflict today (as well as prior to the beginning of the rebel offensive in 2003), there should be a renewed stress on local reconciliation and management of scare land in any future peace process.

The U.N. peacekeeping mission still has only about 10,000 military and civilian personnel, and hopes to achieve 80% deployment by the end of the year. Yet, the U.N. Department of Peacekeeping Operations is still unable to get member countries to commit the personnel and equipment it needs for a robust civilian protection force. To highlight the fact that no country has contributed a single helicopter, the Save Darfur Coalition presented the U.N. security council with a helicopter on the day of the renewal of UNAMID’s mandate.

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Project Minerva

A couple of months ago, foreign policy analyst Frida Berrigan argued "the Pentagon's expansion will be Bush's lasting legacy." What does this mean? During the Bush Administration's tenure, the Pentagon's authorities and funding have been grossly expanded. For instance, the U.S. now boasts a military budget greater than all the world's militaries' combined, and a Pentagon which controls roughly 25% of U.S. development and humanitarian assistance.

Stewart Patrick, an expert at the Center for Global Development, recently quipped that what the Pentagon calls "phase zero" (pre-conflict foreign assistance), the State Department and US Agency for International Development calls foreign policy. The Pentagon's expansion of authorities and funds are part of a trend towards the militarization of foreign assistance, and in fact U.S. foreign policy. There are many reasons for the Pentagon not too be involved in providing development and humanitarian assistance. It's extremely costly, and the Pentagon is not trained for providing sustainable development assistance. They are trained to fight and win wars.

Given this backdrop, I read about "Project Minerva" -- a new Pentagon proposal -- with skepticism. Secretary of Defense Robert Gates has announced that the Pentagon will allocate $50 million for academics to study: the connections between religion and terrorism; Chinese military doctrine; and proposals for new paradigms for 21st century challenges and conflicts (i.e. like Game theory during the Cold War) among other important issues.

This is not an inherently bad idea. We need sociologists, evolutionary biologists and anthropologists to consider questions posited by anthropologist Hugh Gusteron:

"Is Middle Eastern terrorism somehow inherent to Islamic theology? Is it an inevitable Islamic response to globalization and Westernization? Is it, instead, really a response to poverty and underdevelopment that happens to draw on the language of religion? Or, as Osama bin Laden himself has suggested, is it a response to U.S. military intervention in the region? If the United States draws down its interventionist presence in the Middle East, will al Qaeda leave Americans alone, or will it be emboldened to pursue them to their own shores? Are Middle Eastern countries readily capable of Western democracy, or is this a dangerously ethnocentric neoconservative fantasy?"

Yet, why is the Pentagon funding this research. The answer boils down to four words which goes back to Frida Berrigan's article: the Pentagon has the money. This is not a sufficient reason. Pentagon funding for such research will inevitably taint the findings. For instance, as Gusteron notes "The Pentagon will have the false comfort of believing that it has harnessed the best and the brightest minds, when in fact it will have only received a very limited slice of what the ivory tower has to offer—academics who have no problem taking Pentagon funds. Social scientists call this “selection bias,” and it can lead to dangerous analytical errors."

In short, yes to funding for social science research. No to Pentagon control over such funding.

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Former FCNL intern right on (Iran)

As a second year program assistant, I've already begun thinking about what to do next year: I've been seriously considering graduate school in communications theory, but also might want to stay working for a couple of years. I'm betting it's going to be an anxious year - I don't much care for uncertainty.

Examples like this Op-ed in the Washington Post, however, remind me that my two years in FCNL will hold me in good stead when exploring options for the future. Reza Aslan, an alum of FCNL, and his co-author Bernard Avishai make excellent points about the situation in Iran. (He's also written a book I've been meaning to read: No god but God: The Origins, Evolution, and Future of Islam.) In the piece I see that hallmark FCNL careful consideration: using common sense to cut through some of the nonsense that can prevail on national and international stages.

I especially liked the response to Benny Morris' Op-ed in the New York Times, which Kate sent around with the subject line "the only alternative to a "nuclear holocaust" is bombing Iran (one of scariest op-eds in US history it seems)." I was glad to have an expert's take on such an inflammatory piece of writing, because, try as I might to keep up with all of FCNL's issues, I am really better versed in best practices for communications than I am on the situation in the Middle East. Thank goodness FCNL helps foster people like Aslan, so I can read some sensible journalism once in a while.

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Some laughter (and tears) for the August recess

One FCNL staff person was so excited (or depressed) about this clip from the Colbert Report that he sent it to me twice to get up on the blog. So take some time from your busy August schedule of relaxing with lemonade next to a lake to enjoy this video. I wonder how Congressman Westmoreland would respond to FCNL's Questions for Candidates?

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