With the September 19 agreement, the negotiators at least temporarily trumped the hardliners by using ambiguity as a method of achieving common ground. In November, they’ll have to risk both clarity and confrontation in order to get a real deal.
As the king, politicians, and Maoists fiddle, Nepal is rapidly becoming a failed state. An even-bloodier phase looms ahead in the conflict, which has claimed more than 12,000 lives to date. Prospects for peace in Nepal’s ten-year-old Maoist insurgency look as bleak as ever. Even so, Nepal needs to be prepared for post-conflict reconstruction.
The July 18 joint statement by U.S. President George Bush and Prime Minister Manmohan Singh has attracted a great deal of comment. The focus has been on the possible consequences of U.S. promises to support IndiaÂs nuclear energy program in exchange for India clearly separating its military and civilian nuclear facilities and programs and opening the latter to international inspection.
The United States has supposedly created new “democracies” in Afghanistan and Iraq, but these endeavors give democracy a bad name. Sure, the two countries have some ingredients of representative democracy, such as elected officials and a constitution. But both countries are still beset by grinding poverty, insurgencies, and entrenched militia forces that make the exercise of democracy either impractical or dangerous. Both countries have high numbers of foreign troops occupying their land and terrorizing the population while hunting “terrorists.” And both countries’ governments answer to their respective U.S. ambassador on most issues. In the midst of such a violent and coercive environment, Afghans are pressing ahead with the latest in a series of “democratic” exercises imposed by the United States: the first Afghan parliamentary elections in four decades will take place this Sunday, September 18. Even though many Afghans hope that the elections will empower them to end their troubles, the fear is that the elections will probably be as undemocratic in practice as every other U.S.-inflicted Afghan institution.
Despite increased U.S. military operations and the stepped-up training of Iraqis, the Iraq insurgency continues to be deadly—nearly 3 U.S. soldiers died per day in August. Dwarfing that number are Iraqi deaths as a result of the fighting which average 34 every day.
Some elements of the American left have committed a grievous error, both morally and strategically, in their failure to enthusiastically support the momentous pro-democracy movement in the Ukraine.
As it begins to appear that the death toll in southeastern Louisiana and southern Mississippi from Hurricane Katrina may surpass that of 9/11, questions are once again being raised regarding the Bush administration’s distorted views as to what constitutes national security.
Article 25: “The state shall guarantee the reforming of the Iraqi economy according to modern economic bases, in a way that ensures complete investment of its resources, diversifying its sources and encouraging and developing the private sector.”
We believe that our plan to bring the troops home and internationalize the peace offers the best chance of ending the war and helping to repay our huge debt to the people of Iraq and to our returning soldiers, themselves made victims of this war. But we also understand that whatever the plan, it must be based on knowledge.
Knowledge of the staggering costs in lives, in money, in human rights, and so much more of this illegal war. Knowledge that this war has made all of us—the U.S., Iraqis, and the rest of the world—less safe. It is time to share the information, to open the debate and to work towards the common ground that will be required to bring the troops home and internationalize the peace.
Between Monday, September 17 and Thursday, September 20, FPIF circulated the following sign-on letter via the Internet. Over 1,800 people, mainly academics and foreign policy experts signed the letter–a remarkable response over a short period of time. We sent out a press release Thursday afternoon, just prior to President Bush’s speech to Congress and the country, and distributed the statement to all congressional members. Those who signed included professors from 83 different colleges and universities, students from 40 academic institutions, and people from 18 different countries, ranging from Cameroon to Pakistan to Ukraine. A number of the signers also sent notes and comments.