Trafficking in Toxic Waste

Transnational criminal organizations (TCOs) make money both by trading in illegal commodities (e.g., drugs and endangered species) and by violating regulations related to legal forms of commerce (e.g., weapons sales using false end-user certificates). According to an informant, the Mafia is now making money by contracting for the disposal of toxic waste and illegally scuttling the ships that transport it.

Eighteen miles off the coast of Calabria in southwestern Italy, a robotic camera has photographed a sunken ship that appears to be loaded with toxic waste containers. The information told an Italian judge that the ship was one of three that he blew up as part of a Mafia scheme to profit from lucractive toxic waste disposal business.

If the waste aboard the ship proves to be radioactive, the Italian government has promised to search for up to 30 additional ships that may have been sunk by the Mafia in recent years. Greenpeace maintains a list of ships with suspect cargoes that says have disappeared off the coasts of Italy and Greece.

Another Torture Report

A 2004 report by the CIA's inspector general detailing interrogation methods used against suspected terrorists will be released next week under a court order. Newsweek has been briefed by two sources familiar with its contents and reports that one individual, Adb al-Rahim al-Nashiri, was threatened with a gun and a power drill and was exposed to a mock execution in the room next to where he was being interrogated. (The Torture Victim Protection Act of 1991 prohibits threatening any person under U.S. custody, whether in the U.S. or abroad, with death.)

CIA director Porter Goss and Gen. Michael Hayden reportedly argued against the release of the report on the grounds that doing so would damage the reputation of the United States abroad. Yes . . . well. That is precisely why Adm. Stansfield Turner, who directed the CIA during the Carter administration, argued that the question of whether a particular covert operation ought to be undertaken should include consideration of the consequences of its revelation to the public.

First and Third

We tend to do a lot of aggregating in international relations. While this is largely unavoidable, it's worth reminding ourselves from time to time that ascribing particular characteristics to the entities we study may cause us to overlook significant variations within them. States, which are still the entities we study most intensively, are commonly labeled "free" or "unfree," "democratic" or "authoritarian," "developed" or "developing," and so on. But a "free" state may have pockets of oppression (think of the period of racial segregation in the United States) and a "democratic" state may have subunits that fail to respect democratic norms (think of machine politics in Chicago or in South Texas a generation ago). Likewise, a "developing" state may have elites who control enormous wealth (think Equatorial Guinea) and a "developed" state may have pockets of poverty that mirror conditions in the developing world.

This point has been brought home by the visit of the Remote Area Medical Foundation to Los Angeles. For one week--August 11-18--an organization that began in 1985 with the objective of bringing medical care to distant parts of the developing world is offering free services to people in Los Angeles who, because they are uninsured or underinsured, have no way to pay for the care they need. Thousands of people have lined up each day at the Forum, the former home of the Lakers, to wait for tooth extractions, eye exams, diagnoses of illnesses, and treatments for chronic conditions.

Los Angeles Times columnist (and author of The Soloist) Steve Lopez has been spending some time at the Forum. In a column today, he reports that a number of the doctors who are volunteering at the Forum have noted parallels between their volunteer experiences in the Third World and what they are seeing at the Forum. One of them, Dr. Greg Pearl, when asked to note the differences between what he has seen in the developing world and what he is seeing at the Forum said, "Here, the patients speak English."

The United States is among the "rich fat few" rather than the "skinny poor many" (to use expressions I recall from a lecture by Inis Claude), but it has its pockets of Third World conditions. One of these pockets is populated by close to 50 million people without access to routine health care. Lopez's column--which is well worth reading--is aptly titled: "At free clinic, scenes from the Third World."

Thirty Years of Misrule

It was thirty years ago today that Teodoro Obiang Nguema Mbasogo overthrew his uncle, Francisco Macías Nguema, and took control of the government of Equatorial Guinea. Macías, Equatorial Guinea's first ruler after independence, was a brutal dictator responsible for the death or exile of roughly one-third of the country's population and the complete ruin of its economy. (Those who paid any attention at all to Equatorial Guinea at the time referred to Macías as "Africa's Caligula.") His fall from power seemed to offer a better future, particularly given his successor's promises to institute democracy, but for most Equatoguineans little has changed.

In spite of the adoption of a new constitution drafted in 1982 with the assistance of the United Nations Commission on Human Rights and presidential elections held in 1989, 1996, and 2002, Obiang has never relinquished power. The elections of 1996 and 2002, which were widely criticized by opposition parties and international observers, produced 97 and 98 percent majorities for Obiang. (Another election is scheduled for December of this year. Obiang has announced his intention to seek yet another seven-year term.)

The discovery of oil in Equatoguinean territorial waters in the 1990s, together with major investments by foreign oil and gas companies, have produced dramatic economic growth (an increase in real GDP averaging 14.9 percent annually from 2003 to 2008), but little of the wealth has benefited the general population. Instead, Equatorial Guinea has become one of the world's worst kleptocracies. Transparency International's most recent Corruption Perceptions Index (for 2008) ranks Equatorial Guinea among the most corrupt countries in the world (171st of 180 states ranked). Furthermore, the most recent (2009) survey of freedom in the world by Freedom House puts Equatorial Guinea among the "worst of the worst," the eight countries deemed to have the world's worst human rights conditions. Furthermore, a special report released by Human Rights Watch last month concludes that the government of Equatorial Guinea "is setting new low standards of political and economic malfeasance."

In spite of President Obiang's poor health (he reportedly has prostate cancer), prospects for change in Equatorial Guinea appear poor. Obiang's profligate oldest son is poised to assume power (as the late Omar Bongo's son, Ali-Ben Bongo, seems certain to do in the Gabonese presidential election scheduled for August 30). The country's importance as an oil and gas producer--with a production rate of roughly 400,000 barrels of oil equivalent per day--deters most governments from exerting pressure on Obiang. And if the United States and the European Union were to decide to try to punish the Equatoguinean government for its crimes, the People's Republic of China would be eager to step in with no scruples.

For what might be the worst country in the world, there is no obvious path to democracy and development.

What IR Theory Can Teach Us about Parenting

Just in time for Father's Day, Stephen M. Walt offers "The IR Guide to Parenting."

My favorite insight is this one that Walt draws from the theory of asymmetric conflict:

The whole field of asymmetric conflict can prepare you for another aspect of child-rearing: your superior education, physical strength, and total command of financial resources will not translate into anything remotely resembling "control." A two-year old who is barely talking can destroy a dinner party or a family outing just by being stubborn, and a smart, loving, strong and wealthy parent can be damn near helpless in the face of a sufficiently willful son or daughter.

Walt's piece reminds me of my own essay on this subject, one written several years ago but never published (perhaps because there is no journal called Parenting and International Politics). I offer it here in an effort to further the discussion of what IR theory can tell us about parenting (and vice versa).

Testing the Limits of the Domestic Analogy

Daniel, my oldest son, recently turned eighteen, which means that the time has finally come for me to write up the results of a long study involving him and his younger brother, Stephen. For those who might be wondering, I've checked: No institutional oversight of experimentation involving human subjects is necessary if those subjects are one’s own children. My parents ought to be relieved about that.

The experimental design was developed in the summer of 1987 when I returned to Charlottesville to defend my dissertation. My wife was six months pregnant at the time. Inis L. Claude, Jr., who doubled as my dissertation advisor and my special consultant on fatherhood, recommended that I read the work of Dr. T. Berry Brazelton, pediatrician to the Claude family some years earlier and author of What Every Baby Knows. I also had in mind the work of Dr. Benjamin Spock whom I had heard lecture at the University of Virginia a few months earlier (albeit on the subject of nuclear disarmament). Nonetheless, it seemed to me that there was a great opportunity at hand to test some of the major theories of international politics.

For the first couple of years after Daniel was born, not much happened, to be perfectly honest. Other parents suggested (often with a note of concern in their voices) that the situation needed to be analyzed in terms of some development model. I insisted that the experiment had to deal with IR rather than economics (no IPE in my family, thank you very much) and so we compromised in that early period on dependency theory. But, as IR theory goes, it was boring. Clearly it was time to introduce a new variable.

Stephen was born in 1990. We had, at last, a system. Within months, it became apparent that it would be a system characterized by conflict. In fact, I probably didn’t need to mix passages from Hans Morgenthau's Politics Among Nations into bedtime stories like The Cat in the Hat (Dr. Seuss’s gloss on The Prince) and Curious George (H.A. and Margaret Rey’s eerily prophetic description of U.S. foreign policy). Nonetheless, my wife and I soon had in our nursery–my laboratory–a "war of each against all," or at least brother on brother.

Taking a page from Professor Claude’s analysis of international organizations in Swords Into Plowshares, I determined that, as parents, my wife and I should play the role of the United Nations Security Council in our household. To keep things simple–-her degree was in English literature-–we decided to confine our options in maintaining fraternal peace and security to collective security and peacekeeping. The rules were simple: unprovoked aggression by either boy would be met, if the facts could be accurately determined, with the collective punishment of the parents against the aggressor. However, in those circumstances-–and they were numerous-–in which the truth of charges and counter-charges was impossible to establish, we the parents operated as peacekeepers, separating the combatants, avoiding judgments concerning culpability, and seeking, through various measures of preventive diplomacy, to prevent subsequent outbreaks of violence.

One might suppose, given the power imbalance existing between two brothers almost three years apart in age, that acts of aggression, when they occurred (like clockwork) would invariably consist of attacks by the older and stronger brother, Daniel, against Stephen. Such attacks, while not unusual, were accompanied by a surprising number of preemptive attacks by Stephen. In fact, it came to appear that the institutional constraints keeping large-scale violence in check (i.e., parents) actually made Daniel and Stephen's relationship safe for limited war.

In a remarkable vindication of realists' most fervent hopes, the level of violence in the household dropped dramatically when Stephen experienced a sustained growth spurt at age eleven that allowed him to match Daniel's hard power capabilities. With a balance of power established, war became much less common, although far more destructive when it did occur.[1] Diplomacy, in fact, became the norm. This was fortuitous as the boys' mother and I divorced (an episode I refer to as the collapse of the Evil Empire[2]), leaving me with my own "unipolar moment" and a concomitant unwillingness to play the U.N. Security Council game any longer.

Notes

1. Guys, I'm still not happy about that lamp.

2. Lighten up, Anne. It's a joke.

Bongo: The Obituary

The Independent provides an excellent overview of Omar Bongo's life that opens with this trenchant observation: "Omar Bongo was so successful at the art of holding on to power that by the end of his life there was no one left in his country with enough authority to pronounce him dead."

The complete obituary is here.

The Death of Omar Bongo

It was an unusual announcement. This morning, the government of Gabon stated that "the President of the Republic, the Head of State, His Excellency Omar Bongo is not dead." The official statement, like the off-the-cuff comment of Prime Minister Jean Eyeghe Ndong who had declared that Bongo was "alive and well," was wrong. Bongo, 73, died of cardiac arrest in a hospital in Barcelona, Spain.

Bongo's death ended a run of almost forty-two years at the head of the Gabonese government. In fact, he and his mentor, Leon Mba, are the only two men to have ruled Gabon since the West African state gained its independence from France in 1960.

At the time of his death, Bongo was under investigation for corruption in France where Transparency International and Association Sherpa had recently succeeded in convincing an investigating judge to examine whether he and two other West African leaders, Teodoro Obiang Nguema of Equatorial Guinea and Denis Sassou-Nguesso of the Congo, had acquired their vast wealth by embezzling public funds. Bongo's wealth, which included fifteen luxury properties in Paris and seventy bank accounts in France, appears largely to have been produced by his corrupt handling of Gabon's oil wealth.

Unfortunately, there is no guarantee that Bongo's demise will lead to greater democracy and development in Gabon. Many expect the current defense minister of Gabon, Bongo's son Ali, to seize power.

A Place at the Table

Charity depends on the vicissitudes of whim and personal wealth; justice depends on commitment instead of circumstance. Faith-based charity provides crumbs from the table; faith-based justice offers a place at the table.

--Bill Moyers

Justice for Torturers

"To read the four newly released memos on prisoner interrogation written by George W. Bush’s Justice Department is to take a journey into depravity." Thus begins the lead editorial in today's New York Times.

The Times points out that the memos "were written to provide legal immunity for acts that are clearly illegal, immoral and a violation of this country’s most basic values." If the values they violate are to be vindicated, those who wrote the memos--including one attorney appointed to the federal bench by Bush--must be punished. Thus the Times calls--appropriately--for the impeachment of Jay Bybee.

On Thursday, Amnesty International executive director Larry Cox said, "The president said today that this is 'a time for reflection not retribution.' The United States has had plenty of time for reflection--there is very little information in the newly released material that hadn't leaked out long before. He also said that the United States is a nation of laws. But laws only have meaning if they are enforced."

The United States has often called for justice for torturers in other countries. An important test of our integrity as a nation is now upon us as we determine whether we are willing to pursue justice for torturers at home.

Don't Forget to Read the Reviews

The toy alone is funny, but some of the reviews are hilarious. Take a look here. (Thank you, David.)

The Right Tone

"Our security emanates from the justness of our cause; the force of our example; the tempering qualities of humility and restraint."

--President Barack Obama, Inaugural Address

The Press and African Dictators

Ken Silverstein, who refuses to let Teodoro Obiang operate below the radar in Equatorial Guinea, today points out some of the problems with American press coverage of dictatorships. As he puts it, "If the U.S. government deems a country to be a hostile state, the American media will devote significant time and energy reporting on that country's political and economic problems. But if you're on our side, and especially in you're providing us with oil, you can get away with murder (literally)."

What, exactly, is the problem? Equatorial Guinea, which hosts significant investments by American oil companies and is the third-largest oil producer in sub-Saharan Africa, is absent from both the news and editorial pages of America's leading newspapers in spite of its appalling human rights record. Zimbabwe, on the other hand, which is regularly condemned by the United States Government, is covered (and criticized) regularly by the American media.

Silverstein notes that a piece in today's Washington Post "decried China's support for Zimbabwe." Furthermore, Silverstein says,

It called Beijing a "Mugabe enabler," and said it was about time that China began practicing "mature diplomacy" and halted its "hands-of"” policy that has "allowed Mugabe to stay in power." Just change the relevant words so that we're talking about the United States and Equatorial Guinea, and you'd have a very sensible editorial about a situation over which the United States actually has some control, given its great influence over the regime of Major General Teodoro Obiang.

Change Begins--A Day Early

On Tuesday--fittingly, the Feast of the Epiphany celebrating the visit of the Magi to the infant Jesus--the USAservice.org web site was launched. The site is designed to facilitate a national day of service affiliated with President-elect Barack Obama's Renew America Together initiative.

Community groups and service organizations all over the United States have posted information about events taking place on January 19, which is Martin Luther King, Jr. Day as well as the day before Obama's inauguration.

Barack and Michelle Obama and Joe and Jill Biden will be engaged in service activities in Washington, D.C. on the 19th. USAservice.org can help you find useful service projects in your own community.

How Bush Saved Saakashvili

From today's Guardian:

In a reminder of tensions over Georgia yesterday, an adviser to French president Nicolas Sarkozy revealed details of a conversation between his boss and the Russian prime minister, Vladimir Putin. The two met in Moscow on August 12, just days after war had erupted between Russia and Georgia over breakaway South Ossetia. "I am going to hang Saakashvili by the balls," Putin said of the Georgian leader, Mikheil Saakashvili. Sarkozy responded: "Hang him?" Putin responded: "Why not? The Americans hanged Saddam." Sarkozy replied: "Yes, but do you want to end up like Bush?" Putin said: "You have scored a point there."

More on the ICC and Darfur

Nicholas Kristof, while noting that China's response will be crucial, sees in the decision of Luis Moreno-Ocampo to go after Sudanese president Omar Hassan al-Bashir "a hint of historical progress."

Obama on Iraq

Senator Obama has a statement on Iraq in the op-ed pages of today's New York Times. It's available here.

Genocide Charges at the ICC

For the first time, the International Criminal Court's prosecutor, Luis Moreno-Ocampo, has brought genocide charges before the Court's investigating judges. The target is Sudanese president Omar Hassan al-Bashir. Moreno-Ocampo's action today also marks the first time a head of state has been charged at the Court.

The situation in Darfur was referred to the ICC by the United Nations Security Council in March 2005 under Resolution 1593 [.pdf]. The ICC was directed to investigate with a view to bringing charges such as those that were filed today, charges that include crimes against humanity and war crimes in addition to the genocide.

In the Summary of the Case [.pdf], Moreno-Ocampo asserts al-Bashir's personal responsibility in the following terms:

AL BASHIR controls and directs the perpetrators. The commission of those crimes on such a scale, and for such a long period of time, the targeting of civilians and in particular the Fur, Masalit and Zaghawa, the impunity enjoyed by the perpetrators, and the systematic cover-up of the crimes through public official statements, are evidence of a plan based on the mobilization of the state apparatus, including the armed forces, the intelligence services, the diplomatic and public information bureaucracies, and the justice system.

. . .

AL BASHIR controls the implementation of such a plan through his formal role at the apex of all state structures and as Commander in Chief and by ensuring that the heads of relevant institutions involved report directly to him through formal or informal lines. His control is absolute.

The ICC issued arrest warrants last year for two other individuals wanted in connection with crimes in Darfur: Sudan's former interior minister Ahmad Muhammad Harun and militia leader Ali Muhammad Ali Abd-al-Rahman.

Repairing the Damage

Thomas Friedman writes in today's New York Times:

It would not be an exaggeration to say that the Democrats’ nomination of Obama as their candidate for president has done more to improve America’s image abroad--an image dented by the Iraq war, President Bush’s invocation of a post-9/11 "crusade," Abu Ghraib, Guantánamo Bay and the xenophobic opposition to Dubai Ports World managing U.S. harbors--than the entire Bush public diplomacy effort for seven years.

China's Military Strategy

The German news magazine Der Spiegel has an interesting interview with Chen Zhou, a PRC naval officer who teaches at the Academy of Military Sciences in Beijing. In it, Chen discusses the rationale for Chinese efforts to narrow the military gap between the PRC and the United States.

Here's an excerpt:

SPIEGEL: Why does China spend so much money on its military?

Chen Zhou: We understand very well that many countries are concerned when China grows not just in economic terms but also in military terms. But these fears are unfounded. We are not seeking a position of supremacy. We are in favor of peaceful development.

SPIEGEL: Then why the pronounced military buildup?

Chen: If we grow economically, we must also strengthen our military. We must protect our sovereignty, our unity and the country's security. Historically our military consisted primarily of land-based forces that were meant to protect our homeland. Since 1980, we have also been arming ourselves for other local conflicts and wars. Please do not forget the activities of the separatists in Taiwan ...

The complete interview is available here.

Bush, McCain, and Torture

Today Senator John McCain goes to the White House to pick up the endorsement of President George W. Bush. He will almost certainly go out of his way to avoid President Bush for the remainder of the campaign.

But given the timing of this brief meeting, it is worth thinking about where Senator McCain and President Bush have been in the "torture debate." James Carroll provides a helpful entry into the subject.

Carroll's column in the Boston Globe on Monday notes that President Bush is poised to veto the Intelligence Authorization Act of 2008 because it seeks to tie CIA interrogation methods to the standards articulated in the US Army Field Manual. This would prohibit "acts of violence or intimidation, including physical or mental torture, or exposure to inhumane treatment."

Senator John McCain (as noted here) voted against this provision, apparently sacrificing his principles to the demands of the Republican presidential primary process, which effectively ended last night as McCain secured enough delegates to win the Republican nomination and his one remaining challenger, Mike Huckabee, bowed out. As Carroll notes, Senator McCain explained his vote against the provision this way: "What we need is not to tie the CIA to the Army Field Manual, but rather to have a good faith interpretation of the statutes that guide what is permissible in the CIA program."

The former director of the Defense Intelligence Agency, Lieutenant General Harry Soyster is not impressed by Senator McCain's reasoning: "As Senator McCain well knows, the Bush administration has never provided a good faith interpretation of laws prohibiting torture; instead it has produced--and continues to produce--legal opinions that downgrade the definition of torture to the point where the term becomes virtually meaningless and any conduct at all is permissible."

Carroll concludes:

That torture is even a subject of debate in this country is a flabbergasting development. That dozens of America's most admired military leaders find themselves openly opposing the commander in chief on such a question is equally surprising. Another astonishment is that McCain, avatar of military honor, finds it necessary, according to his perceptions of what politics requires, to trim his opposition to torture. It may be just that unthinkable now that Bush will sign the bill before him. But who knows? On torture, the shocks abound.

What's a Lover to Do?

This comes too late to provide any Valentine's Day relief, but, as a public service, I nonetheless want to recommend an article in the February 2008 issue of Human Rights Quarterly (vol. 30, no. 1): "Flowers, Diamonds, and Gold: The Destructive Public Health, Human Rights, and Environmental Consequences of Symbols of Love," by Martin Donohoe.

Donohoe writes:

On Valentine's Day, anniversaries, and throughout the year, suitors and lovers buy cut flowers and diamond and gold jewelry for the objects of their affection. Their purchases are in part a consequence of timely traditions maintained by aggressive marketing. Most buyers are unaware that in gifting their lovers with these aesthetically beautiful symbols, they are supporting industries which damage the environment, utilize forced labor, cause serious acute and chronic health problems, and contribute to violent conflicts.

Cutting to the recommendations, Donohoe touts http://www.organicbouquet.com/ and the Veriflora certification system for flowers, certified conflict-free diamonds (with that status ascertained through aggressive questioning of the jeweler selling the diamonds), and gold purchases consistent with the "No Dirty Gold" campaign. Of course, there are also alternatives to flowers, diamonds, and gold:

Substitute gifts include cards (ideally printed on recycled paper), poems, photos, collages, videos, art, home improvement projects, homemade meals, and donations to charities. Consider alternatives to the traditional diamond engagement and gold wedding rings, such as recycled or vintage gold: old gold can be melted down and made into new jewelry. Other options include eco-jewelry made from recycled or homemade glass and coconut beads. Purchasing handicrafts constructed by indigenous peoples from outlets that return the profits to the artisans and their communities provides wide-ranging social and economic benefits. Such tokens of affection will be rendered more meaningful through their lack of association with death and destruction and because they symbolize justice and hope for the future.

That's the advice, ladies and gentlemen. Good luck implementing it.

Darfur Update

This article by Lydia Polgreen in yesterday's New York Times warns that recent three-pronged attacks on villages in Darfur--attacks involving the janjaweed, aerial bombardment, and the Sudanese army--represent "a return to the tactics that terrorized Darfur in the early, bloodiest stages of the conflict."

Polgreen continues:

Aid workers, diplomats and analysts say the return of such attacks is an ominous sign that the fighting in Darfur, which has grown more complex and confusing as it has stretched on for five years, is entering a new and deadly phase--one in which the government is planning a scorched-earth campaign against the rebel groups fighting here as efforts to find a negotiated peace founder.

The NYT article includes recent photos from Darfur, as does this BBC News web page.

Meanwhile, Nat Hentoff, writing in today's Washington Times, chides President Bush for planning to attend the Beijing Olympics:

Last month, during his legacy tour showing how his compassionate conservatism has indeed benefited a number of countries in Africa, President Bush did not include Sudan, let alone Darfur, in his schedule.

And, in response to Mr. Spielberg's refusal to help glorify the amoral nation that buys two-thirds of genocidal Sudan's oil and provides much of its arms that kill thousands of black Africans in Darfur, Mr. Bush said firmly: "I'm going to the Olympics. I view the Olympics as a sporting event." This was the same person who then said in Rwanda that the genocide there "is a reminder that evil in the world must be confronted." He called on all nations to stop the killing in Darfur.

Needless to say, a symbolic gesture is not what the victims of the Sudanese government's scorched-earth policy need most at this point. It may be, however, the most they can expect from President Bush--and the least he can do.

Water Tortures, Then and Now

Karen J. Greenberg, the executive director of the NYU School of Law's Center on Law and Security and the editor of three books on torture and the war on terror, looks at the history of waterboarding as it is depicted in Prague's Torture Museum and finds that neither the practices nor the rationalizations have changed much from medieval Europe to modern America.

"Baseball Brings Smiles to Their Faces"

Today's Los Angeles Times brings the story of a Cambodian genocide survivor who is working to ensure that baseball will take root in his homeland.

Joe Cook, who was born Joeurt Puk in Cambodia just five years before the Khmer Rouge came to power in 1975, has raised over $300,000--much of it his own money--to take a sport he came to love as a young refugee in the United States back to his home. The Times' Kevin Baxter writes:

Cook . . . has spent the last five years trying to turn the former killing fields of his homeland into fields of dreams for a generation that has known little more than war, poverty and despair.

Along the way he's lost his life savings, his car and nearly his marriage. And, Cook insists, some people in Cambodia would like to see him dead.

"I want to walk away from this. I do. But these kids," he said, pointing to a photo of three shoeless children in torn clothes toting bats and gloves through a rice paddy, "baseball brings smiles to their faces."

In December, thanks to Cook, Cambodia fielded a national baseball team for the first time in the Southeast Asian Games in Thailand. It was a milestone as inauspicious as it was historic: Cambodia's first four hitters struck out without even touching the ball, and it took four games for the team to get its first hit.

But, as Cook noted, "winning is nothing. The biggest deal is we showed up."

Read the whole story here.

Backtracking on Torture

John McCain squandered his reputation as a principled opponent of torture with his vote earlier today on the Intelligence Authorization bill. Kevin Drum tells us why he had to do it.

Waterboarding the Mentally Ill

Michael Hayden, director of the CIA, testified before Congress today that the United States waterboarded three terrorism suspects in 2002 and 2003: Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the alleged mastermind of the 9/11 attacks; Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri, the Al Qaeda operative who allegedly planned the bombing of the USS Cole in 2000, and Abu Zubaydah.

Who is Abu Zubaydah? On April 9, 2002, speaking to the Connecticut Republican Committee, President Bush had this to say about him:

The other day we hauled in a guy named Abu Zubaydah. He's one of the top operatives plotting and planning death and destruction on the United States. He's not plotting and planning anymore. He's where he belongs. (Applause.)

Journalist Ron Suskind, however, found a different assessment of Abu Zubaydah among the experts. According to Suskind (in The One Percent Doctrine), the FBI's principal Al Qaeda expert, Dan Coleman, told one of his superiors, "This guy is insane, certifiable, split personality." And yet he was tortured--or waterboarded, for those who, unlike Director of National Intelligence Michael McConnell, don't mind a little water up their noses--and his coerced testimony was thought to be trustworthy. In fact, Director Hayden told reporters today that Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and Abu Zubaydah provided a quarter of the CIA's information on Al Qaeda derived from human sources.

FBI Director Robert Mueller was also present at today's hearing of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence. Someone should have asked him if his agency concurred with the CIA in its assessment of the utility of waterboarding the mentally ill.

Modern Genocides and Global Responsibility

Cal State University-Long Beach is hosting a conference February 11-13, on "Modern Genocides and Global Responsibility." Speakers will include Ishmael Beah, author of A Long Way Gone: Memoirs of a Child Soldier; Dr. Francis Deng, Special Representative of the UN Secretary-General on the Prevention of Genocide and Mass Atrocities; Immaculee Ilibagiza, a Rwandan genocide survivor; filmmaker Socheata Poeuv; and film director (Screamers) Carla Garapedian. The conference will also include panel discussions, music performances, and film screenings. All event are free and open to the public.

For a complete schedule and other details, see the conference web site here.

Mann in Malabo

As expected, Simon Mann was extradited to Equatorial Guinea early Thursday morning shortly before his attorney filed a final appeal with Zimbabwe's Supreme Court. Mann is believed to be in the notorious Black Beach Prison in the capital city of Malabo.

Mann once told his attorney that if he were to be extradited to Equatorial Guinea, "I will be a dead man."

Missing Mann

A day after losing an appeal in his effort to avoid extradition to Equatorial Guinea, Simon Mann has disappeared from the maximum security prison in Zimbabwe where he was being held. There is concern that authorities in Zimbabwe may have flown Mann to Equatorial Guinea overnight without notifying his family or his attorney.

Bush-Clinton-Bush-Clinton

Nicholas Kristof writes in today's New York Times about an issue ("The Dynastic Question") that has troubled me. Here's his comparative politics angle on Hillary Clinton's presidential candidacy:

We Americans snicker patronizingly as "democratic" Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, Pakistan, Singapore, India and Argentina hand over power to a wife or child of a former leader. Yet I can’t find any example of even the most rinky-dink "democracy" confining power continuously for seven terms over 28 years to four people from two families. (And that's not counting George H.W. Bush's eight years as vice president.)

On the other hand, at least the countries Kristof mentions--except for Singapore--have had female presidents or prime ministers. The United States lags behind much of the world in this respect.

Mann in Zimbabwe

Simon Mann, the leader of a failed 2004 plot to use mercenaries to overthrow the corrupt government of Equatorial Guinea, has had his latest effort to avoid extradition to Equatorial Guinea denied by the High Court of Zimbabwe where he is being held. Mann, who will now appeal to Zimbabwe's Supreme Court, has claimed that he will likely be tortured if sent to Equatorial Guinea. His fear is very reasonable given the documented human rights abuses in Equatorial Guinea, but Zimbabwe's judiciary seems unlikely to place human rights considerations above politics.

The story of Mann's coup attempt was detailed in The Wonga Coup: Guns, Thugs and a Ruthless Determination to Create Mayhem in an Oil-Rich Corner of Africa by Adam Roberts.

Responding (or Not) to Genocide

Eric Reeves, the author of A Long Day's Dying: Critical Moments in the Darfur Genocide, has a passionate commentary in today's Christian Science Monitor on the international community's failure to act in the face of genocide. He argues that the United Nations "desperately requires a substantial, robust standing force, prepared to deploy urgently to protect civilian populations facing genocide, war crimes, or crimes against humanity."

Unfortunately, even if the will to create such a force existed among the UN Security Council members needed to make it a reality, it seems unlikely that the will to authorize its use in Darfur and elsewhere could be mustered when the time comes. The inaction of states--including the United States--in the face of genocide and other serious human rights abuses is rooted in much more fundamental problems, one of which is the failure of democratic polities to hold governments accountable for moral failures in foreign policy.

If I seem overly pessimistic, it may be a result of having read Samantha Power's "A Problem from Hell:" America and the Age of Genocide, a work that details the many ways the United States has evaded its moral and legal responsibilities to prevent and punish genocide. I wish various UN reform proposals could, if implemented, solve the problems that have crippled the world's response to Darfur, Rwanda, Bosnia, Cambodia, and other modern crimes, but I fear that focusing on those reforms diverts too much of the responsibility from those of us living in democracies who ought to be doing more to ensure that our own governments do not get away with indifference to human suffering wherever it occurs.

Africa's Oil Boom

Today's Financial Times reports on the growing importance of oil production in Africa. Between 2002 and 2006, publicly-traded oil companies tripled their investment in Africa. By 2012, total production on the continent is expected to reach 16 million barrels per day.

As FT points out, however, this massive investment has not helped the development picture in Africa as much as might be expected. High oil prices, a key factor in the investment boom, have seriously damaged the economies of the thirteen African states with no oil resources to develop. In some states with significant production, an absence of refining capacity has meant high fuel import bills have cut into the economic gains from oil exports. Furthermore, government corruption and mismanagement of oil revenues have resulted in many states' failure to achieve export-led economic development.

When one adds to these problems the aggressive positions being taken in Africa by state-run oil companies from China and other Asian states, "one has the recipe for a new scramble for Africa," according to FT.

Taylor on Trial

The war crimes trial of former Liberian president Charles Taylor began in the Hague on Monday. Taylor is accused of a variety of crimes associated with his support for the rebels in the bloody civil war in neighboring Sierra Leone, crimes that include enslavement and the use of child soldiers.

For live-blogging of the trial and links to trial documents (including a report on the role of the diamond trade in Sierra Leone's civil war [.pdf] submitted into evidence by the prosecution), see this site sponsored by the Open Society Institute. The BBC is providing some of the best coverage of the trial, including this background story posted on Monday and this summary of Charles Taylor's career here.

Iraq: Casualties in 2007

Today's New York Times provides an interesting graphic representation of deaths among security forces in Iraq during 2007. The conclusion: "For those in uniform [both Iraqis and Americans], 2007 was the deadliest year since the invasion."

A Portrait of Guantánamo

Earlier this week, David Bowker and David Kaye published an excellent summary of what's been happening at Guantánamo over the course of the past six years. You can find their New York Times op-ed here.

The New Litmus Test

Rosa Brooks makes the point today in her Los Angeles Times column that, as a political litmus test, torture is the new abortion. You can read her argument here.

Updating a Classic

Yesterday, Maureen Dowd provided the revised version of George W. Bush's Second Inaugural Address--one that takes into account the new view of freedom and democracy necessitated by recent developments in Pakistan.

Here's a brief sample:

Original version:

In the long run, there is no justice without freedom, and there can be no human rights without human liberty.

Revised version:

In the long run, there is justice without freedom, and there can be human rights once the human rights activists have been thrown in the pokey.

The best line in the revised version:

Police tear-gassing lawyers is really just a foreign version of tort reform, which I support.

You can read the whole thing here.

"Elected" Leaders

"The List," a regular feature of Foreign Policy's excellent web site, this month includes six world leaders--five presidents and a prime minister--who have, on average, been in office over thirty years. Teodoro Obiang Nguema Mbasogo of Equatorial Guinea is fifth on the list at twenty-eight years in power. Foreign Policy notes that Obiang is Africa's richest ruler with a net worth estimated at $600 million.

Corruption keeps Obiang in power. Oil makes him wealthy.

The Deadliest Year

More American troops have died in Iraq thus far in 2007 than in any previous year of the war. Since the beginning of Operation Iraqi Freedom, 3,857 Americans have died in Iraq. Of that number, 854 military fatalities have occurred this year.

For details, see the Iraq Coalition Casualty Count.

Ideological Exclusion

In the early years of the Cold War, the United States adopted a policy of denying entry visas to foreign nationals on the basis of their political beliefs, a policy now known as ideological exclusion. As the nation recovered from the self-inflicted wounds associated with McCarthyism and the "Red Scare," the policy of ideological exclusion was abandoned.

Now, however, ideological exclusion is back. Indeed, to borrow a phrase, the United States seems to have transformed the war of ideas into a war against ideas. Using authority granted by the USA PATRIOT Act, the Department of Homeland Security has been denying entry to scholars whose views don't match those espoused by the Bush Administration. Tariq Ramadan, a distinguished Swiss scholar who was offered a tenured appointment at Notre Dame in 2004, has been barred from the U.S. Adam Habib, a South African scholar and critic of the war in Iraq, was denied entry when he got off the plane at JFK International Airport in October 2006 en route to meetings at Columbia University and the Social Science Research Council. Ramadan and Habib are not the only foreign nationals who have been affected by the policy of ideological exclusion, but they have become particularly prominent as a consequence of lawsuits filed by professional organizations (the American Academy of Religion on behalf of Ramadan and the American Sociological Association on behalf of Habib) against the Department of Homeland Security.

For more on ideological exclusion, see the information provided by the American Civil Liberties Union here. For information on some of those who have been kept from teaching or addressing professional audiences in the United States since 9/11, see this article in Academe, a publication of the American Association of University Professors.

Humiliations

I suffer more from the humiliations inflicted by my country than from those inflicted on her.

--Simone Weil

Mukasey and Waterboarding

It's almost as if Alberto Gonzales had never left.

Michael Mukasey, President Bush's nominee to head the Department of Justice in the aftermath of the Gonzales disaster, has told members of the Senate Judiciary Committee considering his nomination that he's not sure if waterboarding violates laws prohibiting torture.

In a four-page letter [.pdf] to the Democratic members of the Judiciary Committee, Mukasey stated:

I was asked at the hearing and in your letter questions about the hypothetical use of certain coercive interrogation techniques. As described in your letter, these techniques seem over the line or, on a personal basis, repugnant to me, and would probably seem the same to many Americans. But hypotheticals are different from real life, and in any legal opinion the actual facts and circumstances are critical.

Senator Richard Durbin (D-IL) pinpointed the problem with Mukasey's letter:

We asked Judge Mukasey a simple and straightforward question: Is waterboarding illegal? While this question has been answered clearly by many others . . . Judge Mukasey spent four pages responding and still didn't provide an answer.

Let's spell this out for Judge Mukasey: Waterboarding is a type of torture. As such, it violates both domestic and international law.

Period.

More Protests in Burma

On the sixth day of anti-government marches in Burma, an estimated 100,000 protestors took to the streets of the capital, Yangon. The government's religious affairs minister today warned of a possible crackdown against the Buddhist monks leading the protests.

In 1988, as many as 3,000 students were killed in the crackdown on th anti-government protests that led to the house arrest of Aung San Suu Kyi. However, some observers believe that international attention combined with restraints imposed by China will make a repeat of the 1988 crackdown unlikely.

The Dictator's Checkup

Equatorial Guinea's president, Teodoro Obiang Nguema Mbasogo, visited the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota earlier this week for a checkup according to officials at the clinic. The 65-year-old dictator is reportedly suffering from prostate cancer and heart problems.

Why is one of the world's worst dictators free to enter the United States at will? In a word, it's oil. That alone seems to have been enough to prompt Secretary of State Rice to introduce Obiang as "a good friend" last year.

The March of the Monks

On August 26, 1988, Aung San Suu Kyi assumed the leadership of Burma's fledgling movement for democracy at a rally at Yangon's Shwedagon pagoda. The Burmese military crushed the movement and since then has kept Burma's only Nobel laureate under house arrest with only intermittent periods of freedom.

Today in Yangon, 500 Buddhist monks marched past Suu Kyi's home while another 1,000 monks assembled at Shwedagon pagoda and an estimated 10,000 people (including 4,000 monks) marched in the city of Mandalay to protest Burma's repressive military dictatorship. It was the fifth consecutive day of protests by monks against the regime.

Earlier this week, in a move designed to shame the government, monks began refusing the alms that are distributed by the military. Monks have reportedly been marching with their begging bowls held upside down to demonstrate their rejection of the regime.

Meanwhile, the Burmese military has responded by arresting pro-democracy leaders and using hired thugs to beat up marchers. While the monks involved in the protests are clearly supported by the populace (90 percent of which is Buddhist), thus far only a few non-clergy have been willing to march with them. The government clearly is capable of bringing great force to bear against the protests, although killing monks would risk enraging their silent supporters.

The recent protests were prompted by a fuel price hike imposed by the government in August. Bus fares have doubled in the cities creating great hardship in a country with a per capita income of $175 per year.

China Attacks

President Bush has told reporters in Sydney that he may confront Chinese president Hu Jintao over Chinese efforts to hack into Pentagon computers. Recent cyber-attacks on government systems in Washington, London, and Berlin have reportedly been traced to China's military. The PRC says, of course, that such claims are "groundless."

For more on the story, see this brief article in the Economist.

Off the Reservation

It doesn't bother me that five Advanced Cruise Missiles armed with nuclear weapons were flown on a B-52 from Minot AFB in North Dakota to Barksdale AFB in Lousiana on August 30, but I am somewhat concerned that the Air Force didn't know it.

The appropriate military authorities are also concerned and have launched--check that--begun an investigation.

"Push and Push and Push"

According to The Terror Presidency, a new book by former head of the Justice Department's Office of Legal Counsel (and current Harvard Law professor) Jack Goldsmith, attorneys within the Bush Administration pressed hard using faulty legal arguments to expand executive power at the expense of Congress and the courts. David Addington, Vice President Cheney's legal counsel at the time, said, "We're going to push and push and push until some larger force makes us stop."

The New York Times Magazine will publish a lengthy piece on Sunday (available here) about Goldsmith and the challenges he faced trying to resist the Bush Administration's legal maneuverings. According to Goldsmith, the president's lawyers adopted a "go-it-alone" perspective on the presidency "because they wanted to leave the presidency stronger than when they assumed office, but the approach they took achieved exactly the opposite effect. The central irony is that people whose explicit goal was to expand presidential power have diminished it."

Needless to say, similar ironies can be found in most of the Bush Administration's counter-terrorism policies.

Mistakes

The Bush Administration's mistakes in Iraq--too numerous to count--have been the subjects of scores of books already. Many of the mistakes are also recounted in No End in Sight, an excellent documentary currently in theaters. Perhaps none of the many mistakes, however, was more significant than the decision to disband Iraqi security forces.

We now know, based on letters released by L. Paul Bremer, that President Bush did not object to the plan, developed in the Defense Department, to "make it clear to everyone that we mean business"--Bremer's words--by dismantling Iraq's military. In fact, based on his reply to Bremer, the President seems to have shown very little interest in the issue.

The picture that emerges from more and more documentary evidence related to the Iraq War is one that should come as no surprise to anyone who has been paying attention to the events of the last six years: The United States is governed by a clueless president surrounded by arrogant and venal advisors. This is hardly an original observation, but it is one that is well worth remembering as the Bush Administration tries to make the case for staying in Iraq.

(For more on Bremer-Bush correspondence, see this post by George Packer.)

Briefly Noted

Jane Mayer, who has written about torture for the New Yorker on a number of occasions, has a story in the current issue on the CIA's "black sites" and Khalid Sheikh Mohammed's numerous confessions. It's available here.

Wednesday's New York Times carried an op-ed by Gen. Wesley Clark and Kal Raustiala on the distinction between terrorists and combatants ("unlawful" or otherwise). It's an important distinction that the United States has been getting wrong since the beginning of the so-called "war on terror."

The First ECCC Indictment

In Phnom Penh on Tuesday, Khang Khek Ieu--"Comrade Duch"--was indicted by the Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia. The former commandant of the infamous Tuol Sleng prison, where 14,000 people were tortured before being sent to their deaths in the killing fields near Phnom Penh between 1975 and 1979, was charged with crimes against humanity.

Duch's indictment was the first of five expected to come from the Introductory Submission presented by the Co-Prosecutors on July 18. Of the five who are believed to have been named in the Introductory Submission, Duch is the only one in custody and the only one to have confessed to crimes. His indictment, consequently, is less likely to present political problems or enforcement challenges for the tribunal than those yet to come.

For the ECCC's press release concerning the indicment, go here (.pdf). And for an excellent commentary in the Independent, see this brief essay.

UN Makeover

The United Nations Headquarters in New York City is about to undergo a major renovation, its first since the complex was begun in 1949. The project will include asbestos removal, extensive structural repairs, and implementation of energy-efficient design features. In all, the project is expected to cost approximately $1 billion.

For a virtual tour of the UN Headquarters, go here. Its history is described in this fact sheet.

Pogge on Obiang

Thomas Pogge, a political philosopher noted for his writings on global justice, also has a problem with the Obiang family's corruption and young Teodoro's purchase of a mansion in Malibu.

Who Blinked?

Why did Russia's foreign minister pull an article accepted for publication in the September/October 2007 issue of Foreign Affairs? We have, on the one hand, an explanation from Russia's Foreign Ministry and, on the other hand, a statement from the editors of Foreign Affairs.

Curiously, the article as edited by Foreign Affairs, not as submitted by Foreign Minister Lavrov, has been posted on the Russian Foreign Ministry website.

Hе понимаю.

War Isn't Real

A brief commentary, well worth reading: George Packer, making the point that "war isn’t real until it’s happening to you," describes George Orwell's reaction to an inconsequential play performed in London in 1940 and compares it to an American soldier's feelings of disgust at Disneyland after his return from Iraq. Packer writes, "There's something infuriating, though probably unavoidable, about the fact that life goes on in all its waste and indifference while Americans eight thousand miles away are being killed on our behalf."

Cambodia's Deadly Legacy

Cambodia, considered by some Americans at the time to be a sideshow of the Vietnam War, experienced almost uninterrupted warfare for over three decades beginning in the late 1960s. As a consequence, Cambodia today has one of the highest concentrations of explosive remnants of war (ERW)--land mines and unexploded ordnance (UXO)--of any country in the world.

In spite of the Cambodian government's desire to hide the problem in order to avoid negatively affecting tourism, the consequences of the ERW problem are visible everywhere. At roughly 1 in 250, Cambodia is believed to have more amputees per capita than any country in the world. According to the 2006 Landmine Monitor Report published by the International Campaign to Ban Landmines, in 2005 there were 875 casualties (resulting in 168 deaths and 173 amputations) from landmines and UXO in Cambodia. Among those killed were 22 people involved in demining operations.

Musicians--all victims of landmines--near Angkor Wat (June 28, 2007).

In spite of persistent efforts by a variety of NGOs, there are believed to be 4 to 6 million landmines and other explosive remnants of war still to be cleared in Cambodia, most in areas near the Thai border. Tourists are safe in Cambodia, but many impoverished Cambodians, who must farm what little land they have available to them or starve, are not.

Marking a Milestone

Yesterday's post--Town and Country in Vietnam--appears to have been the 1,000th post on Swords Into Plowshares.

Please stop what you're doing and celebrate. (But make sure you celebrate responsibly.)

Entrance Exams

On July 2, in the Thai Hoc Courtyard of the Temple of Literature (Van Mieu) in Hanoi, I witnessed an interesting ritual. A small but persistent stream of Vietnamese teenagers filed past the 82 tablets mounted on the backs of carved tortoises. Most touched each tortoise on the head; some left small offerings of money. The stone tablets (or steles) honor scholars who earned doctorates between the 15th and 18th centuries at Vietnam's oldest university, which was established by the emperor Ly Nhan Tong in 1076. Today's students were there to seek inspiration--or at least good luck--from the students of earlier generations in advance of Vietnam's highly competitive university entrance exams. Looking for an additional edge, many students (and some of their parents as well) moved from the tortoise stelae to the nearby Temple of Confucius to offer prayers for good exam results.

This year, 1.8 million Vietnamese students sat for the exams that determine who will get the 300,000 spots in the entering classes of Vietnam's 300 universities. In Hanoi, commercial traffic was restricted on roads near the examination sites in order to relieve the congestion created by students appearing for their exams.

According to a recent story in Time, Vietnam's impressive economic growth is already being imperiled by a shortage of skilled workers. There is, quite simply, not enough educational opportunity to meet the demands of the many young people who are eager to improve their ability to compete in the global economy. Nor is the system of higher education in Vietnam adequate to meet the demands of the nation's rapidly developing economy.

One foreign university--the Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology--has established a presence in Vietnam. If Vietnamese authorities can be convinced that such arrangements do not unduly threaten the communist orthodoxy that prevails in their universities, there may be room for many more foreign universities to help Vietnam bridge the gap between higher education needs and opportunities. And unless something is done to increase Vietnamese teenagers' odds of getting into a university, the venerable tortoises in Hanoi's Temple of Literature will be in danger of being rubbed into dust.

Town and Country in Vietnam

Most of my brief stay in Vietnam was spent in Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City (formerly Saigon), although one day included a trip by car about 90 kilometers beyond Ho Chi Minh City. In both cities, I was impressed by the level of development and the amount of foreign investment.

Gross domestic product continues to grow at an impressive rate (8.6 percent in 2006), fed in part by Vietnam's membership in the ASEAN Free Trade Area and, since January 2007, the World Trade Organization. While Asian trading partners including Singapore, South Korea, China, Japan, Malaysia, and Taiwan provide most of the the direct foreign investment, American businesses are moving in as well. Some of the high-rise hotels that have sprouted up in Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City bear familiar names. Today the term "Hanoi Hilton" can refer either to the Hoa Lo Prison Museum or to an actual Hilton hotel located near the Opera House. And KFC, complete with the smiling figure of Colonel Sanders (who, as Adrian Cronauer--played by Robin Williams--noted in Good Morning, Vietnam, looks a lot like Ho Chi Minh), now has several locations in both Ho Chi Minh City and Hanoi. Even more exciting to at least one American I know who lives in Vietnam is the recent arrival of Pizza Hut.

As with most other countries that have experienced rapid economic development, costs and benefits are not being evenly distributed. The traditional mainstay of the Vietnamese economy, the agricultural sector, is rapidly declining in importance. Farmers are being squeezed economically; in fact, signs of Vietnam's modernization largely disappear once one leaves the cities behind. To make the situation even worse for those in the agricultural sector, corrupt officials in provincial governments have reportedly conspired with developers to force farmers to sell land at a fraction of its value.

Over the course of the past month, peaceful protests by farmers upset by land seizures and government corruption in the provinces have been taking place in Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City. Last Wednesday, police in Ho Chi Minh City reportedly moved in to break up the protest involving 800 to 1,000 people there. Human Rights Watch weighed in with a statement on Friday.

Vietnamese authorities are aware that violations of international human rights are not good for business. The initial impulse is to hide human rights violations by keeping reporters at bay when protests occur, but if that fails perhaps the next impulse will be to correct the human rights violations themselves. At least we can hope so.

President Cheney

All it takes is a little Twenty-fifth Amendment action.

[Via Talking Points Memo.]

Bush and Torture: "Trust Us"

President Bush today signed a long-awaited Executive Order that seeks to clarify which methods of interrogation are banned by Common Article 3 of the Geneva Conventions. Here is the key section of the new guidance:

I hereby determine that a program of detention and interrogation approved by the Director of the Central Intelligence Agency fully complies with the obligations of the United States under Common Article 3 [of the Geneva Conventions], provided that:

(i) the conditions of confinement and interrogation practices of the program do not include:

(A) torture, as defined in section 2340 of title 18, United States Code;

(B) any of the acts prohibited by section 2441(d) of title 18, United States Code, including murder, torture, cruel or inhuman treatment, mutilation or maiming, intentionally causing serious bodily injury, rape, sexual assault or abuse, taking of hostages, or performing of biological experiments;

(C) other acts of violence serious enough to be considered comparable to murder, torture, mutilation, and cruel or inhuman treatment, as defined in section 2441(d) of title 18, United States Code;

(D) any other acts of cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment or punishment prohibited by the Military Commissions Act (subsection 6(c) of Public Law 109 §366) and the Detainee Treatment Act of 2005 (section 1003 of Public Law 109 §148 and section 1403 of Public Law 109 §163);

(E) willful and outrageous acts of personal abuse done for the purpose of humiliating or degrading the individual in a manner so serious that any reasonable person, considering the circumstances, would deem the acts to be beyond the bounds of human decency, such as sexual or sexually indecent acts undertaken for the purpose of humiliation, forcing the individual to perform sexual acts or to pose sexually, threatening the individual with sexual mutilation, or using the individual as a human shield; or

(F) acts intended to denigrate the religion, religious practices, or religious objects of the individual.

While the prohibitions listed are important, especially in light of the fact that many of them have not been observed in the past, it is worth noting that the Executive Order defines the exclusions of Common Article 3 in terms of other legal guidance that also has not been observed in the past by the Bush Administration. President Bush is, in other words, continuing to kickthe can down the road.

So what is now off-limits? Practices banned by the Convention Against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman, or Degrading Treatment or Punishment and the statute implementing the Convention (Section 2340 of Title 18) are banned by this Executive Order. So are practices that were banned by the Detainee Treatment Act of 2005. And practices that were prohibited by the Military Commissions Act. And so on. But we knew this already. And we also knew already that America's torture problem was the way the Bush Administration was interpreting--or simply ignoring--these rules.

After all the bureaucratic warfare that allegedly occurred over this Executive Order, the only significant guidance that has emerged from it is this: "The Director of the Central Intelligence Agency shall issue written policies to govern the program" of interrogation.

Those written policies will, of course, be secret.

The Devil Came on Horseback

Beginning in January 2004, Brian Steidle served as a military observer monitoring the ceasefire in Darfur on behalf of the African Union. He left that post in September 2004 and returned to the United States to try to raise awareness about what was happening in the Sudan. Through public lectures and displays of his photographs, Steidle has provided eyewitness testimony to the genocide. In March, his book entitled The Devil Came on Horseback: Bearing Witness to the Genocide in Darfur, was released by PublicAffairs Books.

Now, a documentary based on Steidle's experience in Darfur (and bearing the same title as his book) is coming out. The film will be in limited release beginning on July 25. For more information, including the trailer and a list of scheduled screenings, go here.

Developments in the ECCC

The Co-Prosecutors for the Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia (ECCC) have recommended the indictment of five Khmer Rouge leaders for their role in the Cambodian genocide between April 17, 1975, and January 6, 1979. This recommendation (called the "Introductory Submission"), together with over 1,000 documents (including 350 witness statements) supporting the charges, will now be considered by the Co-Investigating Judges in the mixed United Nations-Cambodian court established by an agreement reached between the UN and Cambodia in June 2003.

While the Co-Prosecutors are prohibited from releasing the names of those against whom indictments are being sought or the details of the charges, the statement released in Phnom Penh yesterday [.pdf] indicates the nature of the crimes being alleged:

Pursuant to their preliminary investigations, the Co-Prosecutors have identified and submitted for investigation twenty-five distinct factual situations of murder, torture, forcible transfer, unlawful detention, forced labor and religious, political and ethnic persecution as evidence of the crimes committed in the execution of this common criminal plan.

The factual allegations in this Introductory Submission constitute crimes against humanity, genocide, grave breaches of the Geneva Conventions, homicide, torture and religious persecution. The Co-Prosecutors, therefore, have requested the Co-Investigating Judges to charge those responsible for these crimes.

The top leader of the Khmer Rouge, Pol Pot, died in 1998 having never been indicted or imprisoned for his role in the genocide that is estimated to have resulted in the deaths of approximately two million people. The military leader of the Khmer Rouge, Ta Mok, died last year, also without ever having faced charges.

Khieu Samphan, who served as head of state for Democratic Kampuchea and was one of the leading intellectuals in the Khmer Rouge (he earned a doctorate in economics from the University of Paris in 1959), is among those expected to be indicted. Khieu is 76 years old.

Nuon Chea, known has "Brother Number Two" during the brief reign of the Khmer Rouge, has stated that he expects to be indicted, but he also has maintained his innocence. Nuon Chea is now 82 and living in northwest Cambodia, the region to which many members of the Khmer Rouge retreated after being driven out of Phnom Penh by the Vietnamese military in January 1979.

Ieng Sary, another Khmer Rouge leader facing a possible indictment, served as foreign minister in the government of Democratic Kampuchea. He was related by marriage to Pol Pot and was third in the Khmer Rouge hierarchy when the government of Democratic Kampuchea was established. Ieng Sary is in his late seventies and was reportedly hospitalized in Bangkok for heart problmems late last year.

The only person among those expected to be indicted who has admitted responsibility for his actions in the Khmer Rouge regime is the former commandant of S-21 (the infamous Tuol Sleng prison) Khang Khek Ieu (better known as Brother Duch). Duch is also the only major suspect who is currently in custody, although not as a consequence of charges brought by the ECCC.

Of approximately 14,000 prisoners who passed through Tuol Sleng between 1975 and 1979, only twelve are known to have survived. Most were tortured and later executed at the most notorious of Cambodia's "killing fields," Choeung Ek.

Like other Khmer Rouge leaders, Duch disappeared into the countryside after the Vietnamese invasion in 1975-1976. In 1998, journalist Nic Dunlop discovered Duch working in a refugee camp on the Thai-Cambodian border. Duch had been converted to Christianity in 1996 by a Khmer-American missionary and had begun doing humanitarian work along the border. After his identity was discovered, Duch turned himself in to authorities and has been imprisoned awaiting trial in a Cambodian national court in Phnom Penh ever since.

Unlike Khieu Samphan, Nuon Chea, and Ieng Sary, who were granted pardons in the late 1990s by the government of Cambodian prime minister Hun Sen (himself a former member of the Khmer Rouge), Duch was never pardoned. (Although the ECCC may have to consider arguments related to the pardons if Khieu Samphan, Nuon Chea, or Ieng Sary is indicted, it is expected that pardons granted by Cambodia's government will not be considered binding on the ECCC given its emphasis on internationally defined crimes.)

Who might the fifth person named in the Introductory Submission be? Some speculation has focused on Meas Muth, son-in-law of the late Ta Mok and himself a military commander in the Khmer Rouge. Meas Muth, however, joined the Cambodian military after his defection from the Khmer Rouge, which means his prosecution might present significant political problems.

For more on this story, see Seth Mydans' report in the New York Times or Ker Munthit's report for the Associated Press.

The Law of the Sea Convention

Admiral Vern Clark, a former chief of naval operations, and Ambassador Thomas R. Pickering, a former U.N. representative, weigh in today in the New York Times in favor of U.S. ratification of the Convention on the Law of the Sea. "Our nation will be in a much stronger position to advance its military and economic interests if we ratify the treaty," Clark and Pickering write. "We can guide and influence the interpretation of rules, protecting our interests and deflecting inconsistent interpretations. The agreement is being interpreted, applied and developed right now and we need to be part of it to protect our vital interests in the area of security and beyond."

It might be a good time for the United States to be a part of the International Seabed Authority, which the Convention created, now that Russia is beginning to advance an ownership claim to thousands of square miles of oil- and gas-rich seabed near the North Pole.

Tuol Sleng

Vietnam and Cambodia

I have been back from a trip to Vietnam and Cambodia for almost a week now. Jet lag is no longer a reasonable excuse for not blogging; now I have to face up to the fact that it has simply been difficult to know exactly where to dive into the effort to describe and interpret what I saw.

Perhaps the best place to begin would be simply to note that the trip took me and a friend--I traveled with the Vietnam country director for the English Language Institute, a non-profit that provides English teachers for schools and universities throughout Asia--to Ho Chi Minh City (Saigon), Phnom Penh, Siem Reap, and Hanoi, in that order. While in Ho Chi Minh City, we spent a day with a car and driver going to the Cu Chi tunnels and the Cao Dai temple in Tay Ninh. We had an opportunity to see some of the Cambodian countryside on the five-hour drive from Phnom Penh to Siem Reap and on excursions from Siem Reap to the ancient temples of Angkor and to Lake Tonle Sap.

Before commenting on what we observed on the trip, I want to begin by showing some of what we saw. Below is a brief slide show (Flash required) depicting Choeung Ek, one of Cambodia's "killing fields."

Please check back for additional slide shows and, when the muse finally permits, some comments on Vietnam and Cambodia.

Choeung Ek

The Prosecutor Speaks

In this brief interview on the Foreign Policy website, Carla del Ponte, chief prosecutor for the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia, discusses the prospects for bringing five of Serbia's most wanted fugitives, including Ratko Mladić and Radovan Karadžić, to justice before the tribunal is phased out.

TIP 2007

The U.S. State Department released the 2007 Trafficking in Persons Report yesterday. Sixteen states were placed in Tier 3, which is reserved for the worst of the worst--those states that "do not fully comply with the minimum standards [to fight trafficking] and are not making significant efforts to do so."

Among the states making their first appearance in Tier 3 are Qatar, which has been the subject of recent scrutiny in the United States as a result of an ATS suit on behalf of camel jockeys and their parents, and Equatorial Guinea. Of the latter, the Report states,

Equatorial Guinea is primarily a destination country for children trafficked for the purposes of forced labor and possibly for commercial sexual exploitation, though some children may also be trafficked within the country from rural areas to Malabo and Bata for these same purposes. Children are trafficked from Nigeria, Benin, Cameroon, and Gabon for domestic, farm and commercial labor to Malabo and Bata, where demand is high due to a thriving oil industry and a growing expatriate business community. Reports indicate that there are girls in prostitution in Equatorial Guinea from Cameroon, Benin, Togo, other neighboring countries, and the People's Republic of China, who may be victims of trafficking.

The "thriving oil industry" noted by the report has been a catalyst for many forms of corruption in Equatorial Guinea and elsewhere.

For a brief report on the TIP Report, see this Washington Post story.

Visa Advice

In preparation for an upcoming trip to Vietnam (about which I plan to write more later), I came across this bit of advice: "If you think that getting arrested may be a part of your itinerary, try to get your visa issued on a separate piece of paper from your passport."

It was intended to be a joke . . . I think.

Another General Speaks Out

According to The Onion, another military expert has decided to express his views on the Iraq War:

Breaking a 211-year media silence, retired Army Gen. George Washington appeared on NBC's Meet the Press Sunday to speak out against many aspects of the way the Iraq war has been waged.

Washington, whose appearance marked the first time the military leader and statesman had spoken publicly since his 1796 farewell address in Philadelphia, is the latest in a string of retired generals stepping forward to criticize the Iraq war.

The Onion really nails the Bush administration's response to expert critics:

White House response to the former general's criticism was swift and sharp. Spokesman Tony Fratto dismissed Washington as "increasingly irrelevant" and "a relic" who "made some embarrassing gaffes" during his own military career, such as the Continental Army's near destruction in the Battle of Long Island in 1776.

Read the whole thing here.

[Via Opinio Juris.]

The Beginning of the End

From the Washingon Post:

A federal appeals court today ruled that President Bush cannot indefinitely imprison a U.S. resident on suspicion alone, and ordered the government to either charge Ali Saleh Kahlah al-Marri with his alleged terrorist crimes in a civilian court or release him.

The opinion is a major blow to the Bush administration's assertion that as the president seeks to combat terrorism, he has exceptionally broad powers to detain without charges both foreign citizens abroad and those living legally in the United States. The government is expected to appeal the 2-1 decision handed down by a three-judge panel of the conservative U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit, which is in Richmond, Va.

Former Secretary of State Colin Powell, yesterday, on Meet the Press:

Guantanamo has become a major, major problem . . . in the way the world perceives America and if it were up to me I would close Guantanamo not tomorrow but this afternoon . . . and I would not let any of those people go. I would simply move them to the United States and put them into our federal legal system.

Camel Jockeys and the ATS

I don't have time to comment on this right now, but please note this article by Adam Liptak in Sunday's New York Times concerning a class-action lawsuit filed in Florida last September against a number of wealthy individuals in the United Arab Emirates. Asserting the federal court's jurisdiction under the 1789 Alien Tort Statute, attorneys for the plaintiffs--young camel jockeys who worked in the UAE, and their parents--allege that the owners of racing camels in the UAE abducted children from their homes in various South Asian countries and kept them in conditions of slavery, both violations of the law of nations as required by the Alien Tort Statute.

[Via Opinio Juris.]

The Gators

Washington Post writer Laura Blumenfeld, whose book Revenge: A Story of Hope recounts her effort to find the terrorist who shot her father in Jerusalem in 1986, has an interesting story in today's paper about three interrogators (or "gators," as they're called in the U.S. military)--one who worked in Iraq, one who worked in Northern Ireland, and one who worked in Israel.