Disaster militarism

Disaster militarism

Vron Ware 3 March 2014

 

Subjects:

• Up in Arms

   

The country’s military institutions must not be seen as deserving of special consideration. Once the ethos of public service has been smashed and discredited by neoliberal restructuring, the danger is that it will take more than an army to bring it back.

For some time now, Up in Arms has been drawing attention to the process of militarisation taking place in the UK. This has meant tracking the changing profile of the armed forces in civil society, ears pricked for anything that suggests that military norms and values are inherently superior and therefore worthy of unquestioning support. It can be hard to distinguish the long term shifts from the immediate gear changes, and to know how seriously to take some of the ‘information’ that makes it into the public domain – particularly if it emanates from unnamed ‘senior’ officials in defence departments or cranky media pundits with an interest in military welfare.

Take the use of soldiers in Britain’s recent flood disasters. Following their successful deployment as security guards for the London Olympics, the MoD could be more confident that the public would accept their role as a reserve body of odd-job men who by their physical strength and numbers alone could be put to work in a civil emergency. But after all those years in Iraq and Afghanistan, how does this latest form of unarmed yard work change public perceptions of the jobs that soldiers are actually trained to do, at great expense to the taxpayer?

 
The army securing properties in Surrey following torrential rain in Feb 2014. Demotix/Maja Smiejkowska. All rights reserved.


We might have got used to seeing uniformed soldiers in public spaces. But it’s still slightly jarring to watch troops of marines wading through floodwaters on the Somerset Levels, or to read BBC headlines like: ‘Military on the streets in Berkshire’. It’s not just sandbags at dawn either either - the MoD has offered the expertise of army engineers to rebuild train track in the South West. And while people are starting to wonder what soldiers will actually do when they are not dispatched to far-off wars, a recent Guardian editorial asked the question: ‘do we need to start thinking about our military establishment less in terms of firepower and more in terms of a fire brigade, with war somewhere in the middle, rather than right at the top, of the list of duties?’

Blurring the lines

It is important to demystify the conditions under which military labour is performed and to be reminded that it belongs to the wider realm of public service, along with other tasks such as policing, fire-fighting, teaching and nursing. But there is also a danger in blurring the lines between what is military and what is civilian, a development that is becoming increasingly common in the UK.

The armed forces sit uneasily in the public sector, estranged from other public service organisations not least because their workers are trained to kill people and to smash things up. I’m not being funny – this is the basis of British Army doctrine as it has been defined in the late twentieth century. A key document issued by the army secretariat in 1996, entitled ‘The Extent to which the Army has a Right to be Different’, explains that:

‘The fundamental and perhaps only difference of significance between military service and other legitimate professions and occupations is that servicemen and women must be prepared, at any time and in the service of others rather than themselves, to participate in protracted and sometimes wholesale destruction and violence, to kill and be killed for benign and politically justifiable purposes.’

This unchanging characteristic of warfare and the ‘profession of arms’ can be distinguished from other professions, such as the police and fire services – who also face death and injury – because ‘none face the potentially devastating experience of taking life as a normal part of their roles’.

However, in the UK, as in many other countries they also occupy a disproportionate amount of space as a unique institution that symbolises the essence of the nation as a historical entity. As we are bound to be reminded in this World War 1 anniversary year, military service is often cast as a form of sacrifice that is drenched in the blood of those who have fallen in previous wars in defence of the nation.

But nowadays working in military organisations is also a job like many others, even though it might require a particular mindset and aptitude. It involves training, career development, promotion paths and other mundane issues such as pension schemes and work-related perks and benefits. Of course, this does not include the right to belong to a trade union. But for a lot of people, joining the army is regarded as an opportunity to gain qualifications, prestige, experience and physical prowess. For many officer types, a spell in the forces is a stepping stone to a lucrative career in the corporate world. However, the process of attracting new recruits can be a fraught process for military employers with their insatiable demand for mouldable minds and young, fit bodies.

Blocked pipelines

One of the biggest problems faced by the armed forces in almost any country that has abolished conscription is keeping the pipeline of suitable young entrants flowing. While recruitment provides a focal point for examining public attitudes to military work, there is surprisingly little discussion about the factors that might entice or deter young people from applying. These are issues that can become more intriguing by comparison between national contexts.

In Taiwan, for example, where conscription is being replaced by an all-volunteer army, problems of recruitment have arisen because of the army’s reputation for brutalising new recruits. As a result, the government has been forced to reduce numbers of military personnel from 215,000 to 170,000 over the next five years. Up in Arms has reported before how some European countries have opted to keep conscription and, in the case of Norway, even make it gender neutral, rather than follow the trend to an all-volunteer professional army.

Consider this list of reasons why Europe’s armed forces have struggled with recruitment over the last few decades. Kings War Studies professor Christopher Dandeker and his colleague David Mason recently summarised the problem of ‘how to secure an appropriate, consistent and sustained level of voluntary enlistment’:

profound cultural changes, such as the decline of deference and the rise of individualism; shifts in relationships between social classes arising from the decline of the traditional working class and the rise of an aspiring middle class; the emergence of new economic sectors in the second half of the twentieth century, such as those based on knowledge, marketing and service provision; increasing levels of participation in higher education among members of the military recruitment age group; and social changes relating to population profiles and acceptable gender roles.

Add to this the more immediate issue of mass redundancies after an extended period of wasteful, unpopular and exorbitant warfare, and the problems can only increase.

The army is now given space in job centres to set up their own recruitment ‘clinics’ in an attempt to attract potential employees, both full time and reserves. Although the mechanics of the recruitment process have been handed over to Capita, in line with teachers and many other professions, catastrophic IT failures have meant that soldiers have been pulled back into ‘front line’ roles, appearing at jobs fairs all over the country. The crisis in recruitment, appearing at a time of substantial redundancies and cutbacks to the armed forces – the army in particular – has received massive coverage, particularly from supporters in high places.

One of the most recent and widely reported was former US defence secretary Robert Gates who promoted his new book in the UK with the argument that Britain would no long be able to be a full partner to the US because of the drastic cuts to its defence budget.

What he didn’t say was that the Department of Defense in his own country was also being forced to make stringent cuts and that comparable arguments about the feasibility of a large standing military continue to make headlines over there too. US Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel has recently outlined plans to shrink the United States Army to its smallest force since 1940. The new spending proposal was described by ‘officials’ as the first Pentagon budget aggressively to push the military off the war footing that was adopted after September 2001. This has been met by a predictably angry response, not just from certain Congress members who oppose substantial cuts to numbers as well as hardware but also from groups like the National Guard Association, an advocacy group for reservists, which fears that their members will be affected.

Flood fighters

Elsewhere the Telegraph has been waging a vociferous campaign against the MoD plan to supplement full time soldiers with part-time ones. A recent article highlighted the fact that Simon Weston, survivor of the Falklands War, explains why he wouldn’t join the army now if he was young. ‘Honestly, I wouldn’t sign up now. There have just been cuts after cuts after cuts, and the Army has been left a shadow of its former self.’

This coverage is in stark contrast with the fate of other public sector organizations undergoing cuts and restructuring. Firefighters, for example, perform a dangerous job which entails risking their own lives to protect and save members of the public. Yet their services are being cut back and their facilities sold off like there’s no tomorrow. January saw 10 fire stations closed in London, including the UK’s oldest station in Clerkenwell. A total of 552 jobs are also being slashed and the number of fire engines is being reduced by 14. In the north, the Tyne and Wear Fire Authority voted to close three fire stations, cut 131 firefighter jobs and axe six fire appliances (with two more being ‘stood down’ at night). Meanwhile members of the Fire Brigades Union have been staging strikes in protest at government proposals to increase pension contributions.

The absence of a public outcry over these cuts and closures reflects the relatively low profile of firefighters as a particular category of public servants. Guardian columnist Suzanne Moore was one of the few to spell out what these cuts mean, pouring scorn on ‘this brave new world where we can somehow have more health and safety with fewer people taking care of us.’ She pointed out that the ‘savings’ were all the more reckless since firefighters were also proving indispensible in current flooding emergencies. In such extreme and unpredictable weather it seemed utterly bizarre to reduce the services that are trained to respond.

 
The army outside a house in Surrey following the flooding. Demotix/Maja Smiejkowska. All rights reserved.


When the flood waters started to rise back in January, few expected that the regular emergency workers would be replaced or augmented by Marines and army engineers trained to build bridges in hostile environments. Perhaps the Guardian editorial was correct in predicting that soldiers would adopt the role of fire-fighters as their war duties appeared to diminish. That scenario is entirely in keeping with their extraordinary claim that Britain is about to enjoy ‘peace’ after 100 years of constant conflict. If only it was that simple. As Seumas Milne pointed out in response, ‘For the political and commercial elite, British warmaking under the wing of Washington is about state prestige, corporate profits and the protection of a system of global economic privilege’.

Defending public service

A few weeks ago, armed forces chief General Nick Houghton publicly voiced his unease about the organisation being severely affected in the interests of saving money. He warned that Britain’s military would become a ‘hollow force’ with state-of-the-art equipment but no one to operate it unless manpower budgets increased:

‘Unattended our current course leads to a strategically incoherent force structure: exquisite equipment, but insufficient resources to man that equipment or train on it.’ 

Yet there’s a version of this ‘hollowing out’ that has been gradually destroying all the UK’s national institutions, whether they deal with education, healthcare, public safety or even broadcasting. It’s part of the process of gradual privatization which entails replacing the ideal of public service with a string of corporate values and vacuous mission statements, and reinforcing the associations between public, cheap but inferior, and private, costly but invariably better.

One argument repeatedly used in connection with the armed forces is that, once an organization so steeped in tradition has been dismantled, it is impossible to grow it back. In the case of the army, the chipping away of the regimental system with its strong geographical and historical roots began decades ago. Countering Houghton’s lament, the same Guardian editorial asked: Is the twenty-first century, in general, so unpredictably dangerous that we need to maintain state of the art militaries on the basis that if we let the skills, traditions and supporting industries die it will be impossible to revive them?

One response to this line of reasoning is that the country’s military institutions must not be seen as exceptional or deserving of special consideration. This is a logic that must be applied to all public institutions, not least the ones that deal with health, education and social welfare. Once the ethos of public service has been smashed and discredited by neoliberal restructuring, the danger is that it will take more than an army to bring it back.

About the author

 

Vron Ware is a research fellow at the Centre for Citizenship, Identities and Governance (CCIG) and the ESRC Centre for research in socio-cultural change (CRESC) based at the Open University. Her book Military Migrants: Fighting for YOUR country was published in 2013. Her openDemocracy column is called Up in Arms.

 

 

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Benghazi: Another Tool for Hegemony

 

 

 

Benghazi: Cover-up By Both Parties?

By Russ Baker on Jan 15, 2014 

The continued finger-pointing between the GOP and the Obama Administration over “what really happened in Benghazi” may be obscuring a much more disturbing narrative—a story in neither party’s interest.

WhoWhatWhy’s discussion of that new possibility comes below, but first, here’s the background:

On September 11, 2012, a heavily armed group of more than 100 gunmen destroyed the US consulate compound and a nearby CIA facility in the Eastern Libyan city; ambassador Chris Stevens and three other Americans died. The attack has been characterized as “the most significant attack on United States property…since Sept. 11, 2001.”

Shortly after the incident, Susan Rice, then Obama’s UN ambassador, claimed publicly that the uprising was spontaneous—a reaction to an anti-Islam YouTube video that had just aired. She, then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and others soon came under severe attack for purportedly making a false claim to deflect attention from administration security failures, and the blogosphere has continued to resound with the issue ever since.

The GOP—along with its allies at Fox News and elsewhere—insistently drummed allegations that the Obama Administration was responsible for the tragedy. The charges have ranged from a failure to address Al Qaeda’s purported presence in Benghazi to not properly controlling weaponry in the hands of local militias.

These critics also decry what they say is a long-running cover-up.  According to one count, nearly 80 percent of House Republicans now say they want a Watergate-style inquiry convened. Liberals have charged the Republicans with being recklessly partisan and exhibiting “lunacy.”

Recently, the controversy’s simmer went back to boil when The New York Times published an investigative report on Benghazi. Some of its conclusions vindicated the Obama Administration. It concluded that there was no Al Qaeda role, and that indeed the inflammatory video may have played some role. However, while finding that the crowd attack was partially spontaneous, the paper’s reporter suggested that some intelligence lapses might have contributed. Specifically, he laid out superficial evidence that a local, non-Al Qaeda militia leader played some possible role as an inciter and sympathizer with the attack—and that the man should have already been drawing scrutiny from American spies. In other words, a kind of draw, with neither the GOP nor the Obama administration fully vindicated.

When the Times piece came out, the GOP and its echo chamber, including Donald Trump, raced to accuse the paper of covering up the role of Al Qaeda in the attacks. By most accounts, though, that critique is dependent on perpetuating a still-popular though overly simplified notion of Al Qaeda as a unified, globe-girdling command, ignoring the local origins of so much Islamist activity. The perpetuation of the “Al Qaeda threat” has worked well because it continues as an easy sell for those stoking the fear machine.

On a scorecard comparing the traditional news outlets, the Times would, not surprisingly, score higher on the credibility and integrity meter with the Benghazi story than, say Fox News. But that’s not saying a lot. Because very few establishment news entities of any stripe are willing to look deeper at the true causes of convulsive events, to wade into the shadowy world of larger interests duking it out through surrogates and deception.

Sometimes, to be sure, such events as the Benghazi “uprising” are as they appear: spontaneous acts of anger and passion. But often enough, there is more to the story.

That appears to be the case here. Delve deep into the particulars and you will uncover clues that, when carefully juxtaposed, suggest a more coherent design.

Here are some of those pieces:

-The date of the assault: anniversary of the September 11, 2001, attacks

-The evidence of advance planning and preparation

-The timing, content, provenance, and beneficiaries of the inciting video

-The nature of the uprising itself and its similarity to other supposedly spontaneous or locally-ignited debacles with international implications and hints of a guiding hand.

Cui Bono?

Let’s start with the last point.

At least 12 hours before the attack, guards at the US compound had noticed evidence that the complex was under some kind of surveillance. They’d seen a man taking cell phone photos from the second floor of an unfinished building across the street, and when they approached, the man fled in a police car with others—all of whom were wearing the uniform of a quasi-official militia. So if the crowd was whipped up over the video, and spontaneous, then the crowd was phase two of a far less spontaneous, and carefully planned, operation.

If those so obviously “staking out” the building chose to wear uniforms of a Libyan-government-connected militia and to “escape” in a police car, most likely they were neither government nor police.

All investigators know to ask: Cui Bono? It’s Latin, which loosely translates as “who benefits?”  Who benefited from the destruction of the consulate and the deaths of the Americans, and the subsequent US-prompted heat placed on the militias by deeply embarrassed Libyan authorities? Not the militias. Not the Libyan government or the local police. And certainly not the Obama administration.

The net effect of the attack—and the outsized attention devoted to it at the time and over the course of the 16 months since it unfolded—was to revive concerns about global Islamic fundamentalism.

In the long stretches of quiet, public sentiment tends to move toward cutting aggressive foreign military action and the tremendous costs, as well as the domestic equivalent, in the form of the post-9/11 government and highly profitable private enterprises all grouped under “homeland security.” When Obama has tried at various points to rein in military operations and to promote diplomatic initiatives over armed intervention, especially in his second term, he has faced staunch opposition, including in Congress, where those benefiting most from war and discord spend heavily to influence members.

It was no surprise, really, that the Benghazi attack was quickly followed by claims that the Obama administration is not doing enough to protect American lives and property. And the result almost certainly has not been further restraint in spending or implementation of security measures. Indeed, with the emphasis on Benghazi as “the most significant attack on United States property…since Sept. 11, 2001,”  the US compound attack became the far bookend on a period of actual substantive safety and calm for Americans, lasting eleven years since the Twin Towers came under attack.

The GOP and its allies have, remarkably, even sought to create some kind of equivalency between Benghazi and 9/11—but on the Democrats’ watch, instead of George W. Bush’s. However, given that four people died in Benghazi, compared to nearly three thousand deaths from 9/11, the alacrity with which the Republicans, their partners at Fox and the like have pummeled Obama tells you something about their cynicism.

Practically, though, the Benghazi attack sends the message that the US must continue to be aggressive abroad, and that it expects the same from “friendly” regimes in the Middle East.

And no friendly regime was watching developments more closely than the one right next door—in Egypt.

For Answers, Look Next Door

For decades, dictators ruled Egypt with the full support of European powers and the US government. With the Arab Spring uprising—which was viewed with consternation by US authorities—the country finally embraced democracy. But it brought new perils, as Egyptian voters elected Islamists.

On June 30, 2012, Mohamed Morsi of the Islamic Brotherhood was sworn in as president of Egypt. He won 51.73 percent of the vote in that country’s first free election, becoming its first civilian president.
The Brotherhood, however, did not last long. A year later, the army overthrew Morsi.

At the time, US authorities predictably issued restrained condemnations of the army and its overtly anti-democratic action. In the ensuing months, however, the criticism became more and more muted as the mandarins of American foreign policy argued that military dictators were preferable to elected Islamists.

While the Egyptian military could be expected to serve the interests of the wealthy and of transnational corporations, as it had in the past, its supporters abroad cited humanitarian concerns as justification.
Among these concerns was the instability and intolerance that Islamist control heralded, particularly in the form of retribution against Egypt’s religious minorities. Most notably, these included the affluent Coptic Christian community, traditionally protected by the Egyptian government just as minorities in Syria have   been protected by President Assad. Assad himself is a member of a minority Muslim sect, the Alawites.

With this background, consider the role of that briefly infamous viral video in the Benghazi attack. The video was a strikingly crude production characterized by the secrecy of the sponsors and the seeming intention to antagonize Muslims—and perhaps direct the antagonism against Christians.

The video, with its Egyptian roots, appeared barely two months after Morsi and the Muslim Brotherhood took power. It was publicized heavily by Egyptian television stations closely allied with the country’s military–stations whose audience includes Libyans, and specifically  much of the population of Benghazi. We learned that the odd figures behind it were….Coptic Christians.

The details of the production of this amateurish film remain hazy; no serious investigation has yet established who was ultimately behind it. But the multiple deceptions involved in tricking the actors and others who worked on the film, the subsequent overdubbing of dialogue highly offensive to Muslims, the criminal past of the Coptic Egyptian purportedly responsible for the film, all these cry out for further investigation. They also send up flares that we’re looking at a classic, multilayered disinformation operation orchestrated by someone with lots of skin in the game.

That it appeared on television channels closely associated with the Egyptian military just as the anniversary of 9/11 rolled around, and that it allegedly became the match that set off the Benghazi mini-conflagration cannot be ignored.

When Susan Rice, Hillary Clinton and others were noting the role of the video in the tragedy, they may well have been right. But we heard no more from the administration on who they believed was responsible for the video or the timing of its release.

Given the strong Egyptian connection, it’s hard to imagine that no one put two and two together and wondered if the attack on the American mission, with its apparent advance planning and sophisticated deception, were not the work of some disciplined entity with substantial interests and resources.

So far, the evidence pointing to Egypt is purely circumstantial. But the net effect, and the message, is clear: North Africa is a tinderbox, and we’d be well to leave the Egyptian military alone while it pursues its brutal and bloody campaign to eradicate the Muslim Brotherhood. (The latest of a constant series of moves to quash the Islamists was the announcement by the Egyptian minister of education that the government had taken over more than 150 Brotherhood-run schools.)
 
Hence, our question: Were Egyptian intelligence services responsible for the inciting video, for stirring up the crowd, and essentially stage managing the attack on their “friend’s” consulate, with the goal of firming US support for their “get tough” policy? The net effect, more than a year later, has certainly been favorable to the military government. The dictatorship is firmly ensconced in power, and the US government has made little effort to get the military to withdraw to its barracks which would allow for democracy, however messy, to prevail in Egypt.

For the US military-industrial complex that has profited mightily from Egyptian military purchases, much of which is subsidized by US taxpayers, the benefits of a continued justification are apparent. Although the US has periodically announced modest and highly temporary freezes on military assistance to Egypt to symbolically protest aggression, these moves do nothing to seriously restrain aid that has typically run up to $1.5 billion dollars a year. And Secretary of Defense Hagel and Secretary of State Kerry have been supportive of the military regime; Kerry has been public in his praise of purportedly democratic moves by the generals in charge.

Whipping up unwitting crowds is nothing new. It’s been done in Iran, Chile, and in other places—including, as WhoWhatWhy has reported, a covert French role in the initiatory incident for the Libyan “Arab Spring” itself in 2011. It is a classic trick of the covert operations trade. It would not have been hard to light the match that turned into the Benghazi conflagration. Many of the veterans in “friendly” foreign intelligence services were trained by masters of public opinion manipulation from the West, spiritual heirs of familiar old intriguers such as David Atlee Phillips and E. Howard Hunt.

If our hunch on Benghazi is correct—and despite the indications, it is only a hunch—this pattern might mirror what happened with 9/11. In that situation, an attack bearing evidentiary signs of Saudi sponsorship paradoxically resulted not in investigations but in a strengthening of the US relationship with the dictatorial Saudi royal family. (For more on that, see this, this, and this.) In the case of 9/11, the US government has consistently blocked disclosure of relevant documents, apparently on the grounds of undefined “national security” interests. Is the Obama administration in the same self-imposed “bind” regarding Benghazi?

And here we see another convergence. Besides the Egyptians, another power that made sure everyone heard about that inflammatory video was Egypt’s traditional ally, Saudi Arabia. In a confidential memo from Clinton family confidant Sid Blumenthal to then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, later obtained by a hacker and released, a “sensitive” source cites information from the French intelligence services which

“indicates that the funding (for the Benghazi attack) originated with wealthy Sunni Islamists in Saudi Arabia.”

Our Media, Unhelpful As Always

Did you hear any of this in the conventional media? Doubtful. From the Times to Fox News, we’ve seen little more than perpetuation of the Democratic-versus-Republican slugfest. This makes easy-to-follow coverage, but it obscures deeper patterns of behavior benefiting institutions and individuals that transcend party.

Fox and the GOP, however, ought to be singled out for the extent of their cynicism, whipping up their typically uninformed and perpetually choleric base. By hammering away relentlessly at the Obama administration for its purported “failures” and alleged “cover-up” of Benghazi, and by not looking at the likelihood of what really happened, they have only heaped manure on any original cover-up.

As always, the only hope for getting to the bottom of things is to turn to non-traditional “muckrakers” and whistleblowers.

Privatizing Human Rights: Can Multi-Nationals Excel Where Governments Fail?

Privatizing Human Rights: Can Multi-Nationals Excel Where Governments Fail?

J. Oliver Williams

Professor of Political Science

North Carolina State University, USA

I. Introduction

Recognition of the link between business and human rights has increased significantly in recent years placing a greater emphasis on social and economic rights. Although human rights are principally the responsibility of governments, this has become increasingly an important issue for business. Responsibilities of businesses, especially multi-national corporations, in fields of labor rights [child labor, freely chosen employment, wages and working conditions inhuman treatment] are contained in national and international law and are recognized my responsible multinational corporations. Now, social, cultural and even civil rights are being privatized as expectations of companies regarding human rights emerge among governments and non-governmental organizations [NGOs].

An important question is the prospects of promoting human rights standards beyond traditional areas of labor law into the realms of political and civil rights. 

Can business succeed, where government has failed, in spanning the cultural gap between countries and regions in human rights that are regarded as universal in western societies but culturally relevant in Asian countries?

Although the commitment of business in human rights are voluntary, unless backed  by national and international law, public opinion, shareholders, and international organizations can bring support and pressure to incorporate human rights standards in international commerce.  

Can the reach of business across national borders play an effective role in promoting human rights?  If so, will businesses that engage in global commerce help to create harmonious environments among countries that promote international trade but differ on cultural principles of rights of individuals?

II. Business and Human Rights

Recognition of the role of business in advancing human rights has increased significantly in recent years. As a result evidence indicates that discourse on human rights is increasing in corporations that span national borders, expectations regarding human rights have increased among the largest companies, and that businesses operating in global commerce are under greater pressure from the public, from government and from human rights [NGOs] to avoid business practices that violate human rights. Likewise, increasingly, there is evidence that more of the largest companies are following business practices that are consistent with legal principles embodied in national and international laws.

The social responsibility movement is relatively new in the history of capitalism.   In 1800, Adam Smith wrote, in Wealth of Nations:

“By pursuing his own interest [an individual] frequently promotes that of the society more effectually than when he really intends to promote it. I have never known much good done by those who affected to trade for the public good.”

As late as 1970, Milton Friedman, modern day proponent of free market economy, wrote:

“There is one and only one social responsibility of business—to use its resources and engage in activities designed to increase its profits so long as it stays within the rules of the game, which is to say, engages in open and free competition without deception or fraud.” 

“That’s the orthodox view among free market economists: that the only social responsibility a law-abiding business has is to maximize profits for the shareholders.”

Today, in both the European Union and North America, codes of social conduct are prevalent in a wide variety of international corporate sectors. Business for Social Responsibility lists 98 corporations in North America with a human rights policy in its business codes of conduct, along with economic and social rights and environmental protection. BSP for over a decade has helped companies to achieve success in ways that demonstrate respect for ethical values, people, communities and the environment. BSR connects members to a global network of business and industry peers, partners, stakeholder groups and thought leaders. BSR also convenes and facilitates cross-sector dialogue and collaboration and includes human rights among its other concerns which include business ethics, responsibility to communities and the environment.  In 2005, the UN Commission on Human Rights requested the UN Secretary-General to appoint a special commission on the issue of human rights and transnational corporations and other business enterprises. The SRC, while recognizing that human rights principles were intended to limit state actions towards individuals or groups, has taken the stance that human rights principles relate directly to private sector actions.

The SCR categorizes human rights into economic, social. cultural, political and civil Most notably, the SRC takes the positions that corporate responsibility includes protecting civil rights, as well as economic and social. At the same time, it refutes the contention that human rights are a western or northern concept that do not apply universally. Noting that economic and social rights, including the avoidance of forced prison labor and child labor, has been a longer and more publicized area of corporate responsibility, the SRC recognizes that the United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights is the most widely recognized human rights benchmark and holds that corporate concerns must preclude activities that that deprive citizens of basic civil liberties.

Recognition of the link between business and human rights, the SRC points to two recent trends which include [1] inclusion of human rights and civil rights corporate codes of conduct; [2] inclusion of human rights into global business principles that include trade sanctions on nations  that broadly disregard international human rights standards. The attention paid to human rights by consumers and investors as well as shareholder resolutions calling upon corporations to ensure that business is conducted consistent with human rights standards, is cited by the SRC as the stimulus for the embodiment of civil rights standards in business practice. 

Apart from corporate response to consumes, NGOs and shareholders, human rights embodied in national and international law has been a major factor.  In the U.S. and Europe, courts have accepted lawsuits alleging that multinational companies have contributed to human rights violations, particularly in third world countries. To avoid legal responsibility, the SRC states that both business practice and corporate codes of conduct needs to be consistent with local and international laws to avoid challenges to their global operations.

The most comprehensive data on business practices in the field of human rights is a recently released survey undertaken by the UN Secretary-General’s Special Representative for Business and Human Rights. Respondents to the survey, released in September, 2006, were a “global Fortune 500”, included the world’s largest firms defined by revenue.  Some 450 of these firms were located in the United States [176], Europe [195] and Japan [80].

Among these large multinational corporations, nine out of ten reports having an explicit set of human rights principles or management practices in place.  Significantly fewer, about half, reported to have had a significant human rights issue.  At the same time, corporate leaders stated that embarrassing relegations created an immediate necessity to drive an uptake of human rights concerns.

Of significant interest, corporations include in their concerns issues that span the spectrum of human rights included in the UN’s declaration on universal rights and the social and economic rights embodied in other UN covenants. 

Among the 450 responding companies:

•     Recruitment and promotion based on merit, not race, gender or religion or other factors, and workplace health and safety were cited by all of the 450 respondents.

•     Freedom of association and collective bargaining were included by 87 percent.

•     Forced, bonded or compulsory labor and child labor was cited by 80 percent of the companies.

•     Three out of four companies indicate that they recognize a right to privacy.

Some variation occurred among countries in various regions of the global and across corporate sectors.  Apart from non-discrimination and workplace safety, which were virtually universal concerns, extractive industries more frequently that European, listed freedom of association and collective bargaining.  Forced labor and child labor were mentioned more frequently by European firms, and European firms were more likely to recognize right to life, liberty and security of the person.  Right to privacy showed little regional variation and is supported across sectors.

The overall clear and strong levels of support do show some slight regional differences, at least in rankings. U.S. companies rank employees and suppliers higher in their concerns but place lower emphasis on community and country of operation than do European firms. Japanese companies are least likely to include countries of operation in their human rights concerns.

When asked what if any human rights instruments influence policies and practices, not surprisingly international business organizations were cited. However, outside of business groups, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights was the most cited. A fourth of the companies cited no international instruments, but notably all extractive industries cited the universal declaration and nearly half of Japanese firms indicated that no outside international agreements affected human rights practices.

III. Assessing the Impact Business Human Rights Initiatives

Non-governmental participation in human rights is receiving considerable emphasis.  However, the premise that capitalist markets will necessarily foster human rights improvements is far from being realized. Still the growth of international trade, and the increasing influence of international trade organizations, and the willingness of multinational corporations to articulate a human rights commitments hold promise that the privatization of human rights will become an important strategy of attaining human rights globally. Not only are corporations and international business groups assuming greater roles in formulating and advancing human rights concerns; businesses have begun to establish code of conduct and monitoring business practices. 

The growing number of non-state actors, among multinational corporations, international leading institution as well as insurgency groups and even terrorists are part of the growing privatization movement. Non-governmental organizations [NGOs], including Amnesty International and  Human Rights Watch that serve monitoring and advocacy roles have taken the stance that private sector action is important but must be accompanied by legislation and continued governmental leadership.

Nevertheless, important questions are raised by the privatization movement. While bringing greater emphasis to economic rights, will privatization lead, on the other hand, to less emphasis on non-economic, civil rights embodied in the Universal Declaration? Will the power of citizens’ groups hold corporate human rights abusers accountable through information campaigns and even product boycotts? Will good citizen corporations set standards that third-party suppliers and companies that violate human rights will be compelled to follow?

Of great importance is what effect wills commercial human rights practices have on countries with serious violations of universal rights?

On several of these questions, the record does not allow an assessment yet of the effectiveness of the privatization movement.

1.  Has the privatization movement embraced non-economic rights?

Concern for political and civil rights of citizens in countries where they operate has been expressed widely in the codes of conduct of the largest multinationals. Business for Social Responsibility on its web site lists the codes of human rights practices of 21 top companies with human rights reports.

Cisco is among the corporations that affirm support of the United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights and Global Compact, Cisco's codes of conduct, employee policies and guidelines substantially incorporate laws and ethical principles including those pertaining to freedom of association, non-discrimination, privacy, collective bargaining, compulsory and child labor, immigration and wages and hours.

Cisco’s approach is to have codes, policies and guidelines are reviewed by a corporate citizenship council consisting of an executive committee and a broad-based global membership of Cisco management.

Hewlett-Packard, another international corporation that cites human rights in its code of conduct, states:

“We also engage globally with various stakeholder communities to address issues related to the environment, economic development, digital divide, privacy, labor and human rights.”

HP has a policy of encouraging employees to apply time and effort to help solve problems in their communities.

In reference to human rights, the HP code of business conduct “upholds and respects human rights as reflected in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.”

HP is also states a commitment to fair labor practices and the respectful treatment of all employees, including the protection of workplace health and safety and data-privacy protections.

Publishing reports on social concerns and adopting codes of conduct do not guarantee respect for human rights in corporative practices any more than human rights are practiced in countries that a signature nations in United Nations covenants.

Amnesty International, on of the most respected non-governmental organizations in the field of human rights, believes that the business community also has a wider responsibility -- moral and legal -- to use its influence to promote respect for human rights and advocates national and international legal instruments that promote greater corporate responsibility for human rights, including those that assure the risk of legal accountability if a company commits or is complicit in human rights abuses in their operations.

II. Status of Universal Rights in Government and Business

It is in the area of individual rights embodied in the basic United Nations’ Universal Declaration of Human Rights, where governments have so widely diverged in the support and the practice of human rights principles. It is in coming to an agreement on the principles of this declaration that nation’s having failed so basically in human rights practices. Throughout Europe and North America and some areas of South and Central America and Africa these principles are considered universal rights that all individuals want and deserve. In most of Asia, however, governments consider these rights to be based on western values that do not reflect the values of Asians who culturally have greater regard for social harmony and stability.

Until there is agreement on these principles there is likely to be little harmony on human rights among the major countries of the world. 

Despite the Bangkok Declaration that states a commitment to principles contained in the Charter of the United Nations and the Universal Declaration on Human Rights,  leaders in most Asian nations continue to advocate a cultural relevance in universal rights, act on the principle that individual rights conflict with social harmony and stability, and cite Asian values as contradicting the western ideal of universality.  In fact, it was from the Bangkok meetings that Asian leaders began to promote a cultural relevance approach to universal rights, although the principle had been argued before then.

International NGOs which are largely prohibited from monitoring and reporting human rights violations in these countries, through contact they maintain with human rights advocates in Asia, conclude that non-democratic rulers are a bigger impediment to human rights than the cultural and social value system of the region. Some Asian scholars, as well, believe that the Asian values, historically from the time of Confucius, have philosophical roots in individual freedoms and rights.

II.   Has there been an increase in the concerns for economic rights and the rights of women and children? 

The damaging exposure of the Nike Corporation, and later as many of ten more multinational companies, in the treatment of women workers and use of child labor shifted the debate over corporate social responsibility for human rights. It created a watershed in the past decade by developing a positive role in business and trade in enhancing respect for human rights in countries with widespread violations. Revelations of child labor and abysmal working conditions led corporations to express respect for essential human and labor rights, such as freedoms of association and expression, as well as an end to cruelty and discrimination and inequality on the basis of ethnicity or gender. Advocacy by human rights groups, repeated media exposure, and legislative interest in banning products made by child labor from import in the United States has made child labor and women’s working conditions a foremost human rights issue in the global economy. The extensiveness of child labor, estimated at over 250 million children working around the world, has indicated a major social problem of condemning children to a life of poverty by putting them to work in lieu of education. 

Whether the attention has improved significantly, or even marginally, women’s working rights or reversed a trend in child labor has not been documented. Journalist reports indicate that poor working conditions of women China is less a problem with joint venture companies in Special Economic Zones [SEZs] than small scale manufacturers surrounding these zones. 

III.  Has privatization affected country human rights policies?

The ascension of China to the World Trade Organization, which facilitated dropping annual assessments of China’s human rights under Most Favored Nation trading status, has moved human rights from a central place in U.S. foreign policy to in most cases subordinate to trade policy.  From a high point in the Carter administration, when human rights were prominent in foreign policy debate, human rights concerns now are raised in conjunction with trading issues. While trade policies mandate that the U.S. advance human rights through its voting in multinational trade groups and its security assistance to other countries, the subordination of human rights to trade and security concerns has not led to consistency in current U.S. policy. Countries important to U.S. economic and political interests are not subjected to the same degree of human rights scrutiny as nations deemed less vital to U.S. interests. Recognizing that human rights are not central in U.S. foreign policy, and inconsistent as well, NGOs that watch human rights compliance have pushed for sanctions against nations committing gross human rights violations.

The internet restrictions agreed to in China by American internet providers illustrates two sides of a problem with international corporations violating principles in the Universal Declaration. The actions by the large information providers were viewed as corporate complicity in restricting rights of freedom of speech and information. The enormous outcry from western NGOs and citizens in western countries indicate the scrutiny the corporations receive in social and human rights issues. Although public opinion has not led to any reversal of agreements made by Google

Actions by Yahoo, Google and Microsoft are viewed in the West as corporate complicity in restricting freedom of speech and information. The enormous public outcry has not reversed agreements made by Google. However, these corporations are likely to be more reluctant in making further restrictions and will be especially guarded in the types of information that they filter.

The issue also acerbates China’s problem of human rights in international business. Private markets thrive on information and to remain a hub in international trade and manufacture, China confronts a conflict between information flow that is vital to business and the government’s ability to control, or even appear to control, speech and information. The expectations of multinational corporations in upholding human rights are likely to reverberate inside China as much as outside, with as much scrutiny as social and economic rights have previously received.

 IV. Conclusions

In the past decade, there has been considerable advancement in the trend toward injecting human rights issues in global trade. In the business world, public opinion, non-governmental organizations, and trade organizations that have become a leading source for business throughout the world have worked to raise the expectations of companies in social and civil rights. This has led to the adoption of business codes of conduct in many of the world’s largest companies.  Significantly, western businesses have included many of the rights considered as universal rights in the United Nations declaration. Harmony on human rights has been impeded by conflicting value systems toward universal rights between western nations and the economically advancing nations of Asia. It remains to be seen if global trade will become a vehicle for bridging the gap this basic human rights divide.

(China.org.cn)

The Iran Accord: What Really Happened Was Not Much of Anything - But Less IS More

The Iran Accord: Profoundly, and Primarily, Symbolic

by William O. Beeman / November 24th, 2013

The principal benefit of the negotiations between Iran and the P5+1 nations on November 23 is that Iran and the United States were able to down to talk and reach an agreement on something. Given 33 years of estrangement and non-communication, this is an extraordinarily important development — nearly equivalent to the U.S. breakthrough to China — perhaps the signal achievement of the Nixon administration.

The profound symbolism of the moment more than outweighs the lighter substantive elements of the temporary agreement. The United States and its partners appeared tough and got very little. Iran appeared tough and gave up very little. Both sides saved face. This is the essence of a successful agreement. No one “won” and no one “lost.”

Iranians have been both sincere and clever in the negotiations. They played up to the insubstantial straw-man accusations promulgated by the U.S. and its partners, making them seem weightier than they were in reality. By yielding to the P5+1 demands, in essence Iran has allowed itself to be persuaded to stop temporarily doing what it never intended to do — make a nuclear weapon. The bottom line is that Iran did not give up very much in the negotiations, (but it didn’t gain very much either).

Reviewing the terms of the agreement in conjunction with the reality on the ground in Iran, one can see how easy it was for Iran’s negotiators to agree to these terms.

Low Enriched Uranium

Iran’s enrichment of uranium was the crux of the matter. The United States and its allies had fetishized Iran’s uranium enrichment program. They had made the improbable leap that having enriched uranium would immediately lead to a nuclear weapon. This is an immense mistake — so large that one must suspect that it is essentially hyped for public consumption. The public has certainly been convinced of this.

However, Iran’s low-enriched uranium stockpile cannot be used for any military purpose, short of the rather improbable construction of a “dirty bomb” — a conventional warhead containing radioactive material, not to explode, but to pollute. Such a primitive weapon has no practical use. Under the agreement, Iran would cease adding to this stockpile.

Under the agreement, Iran will be allowed to continue to enrich uranium at less than 5 percent purity — a concession that preserves Iran’s rights under the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty to peaceful nuclear development — its fundamental demand going into the talks.

High Enriched Uranium

Iran’s stockpile of 20 percent enriched uranium would be eliminated through conversion to fuel plates for use in a research reactor or oxidized. It could then not be further enriched or weaponized in any way. This seems like a major concession, but when one understands why Iran was enriching to the 20 percent level to begin with, it is less so.

Iran had a research reactor, the Tehran Research Reactor (TRR) that produced medical isotopes for the treatment of cancer. The reactor had been supplied by the United States in 1967. The United States at that time provided weapons grade fuel for running the reactor. Iran was running out of 20 percent fuel, and was expected to deplete the supply entirely by 2011. Iran tried to broker a deal for more 20 percent fuel with the United States. A preliminary agreement was reached on October 1, 2010. The United States reneged on the agreement. Iran then began enriching its own uranium to the 19.75% level — technically below the high-enriched uranium threshold of 20%. After converting part of this this indigenously produced fuel into non-weaponizeable reactor plates, it was introduced into the TRR in February, 2012. The November 23 agreement will allow Iran to do what it was going to do anyway, and finish converting the rest of its 19.75 percent fuel into non-weaponizable reactor plates.

Arak Heavy Water Research Reactor

The agreement requires Iran not to activate its new small heavy water research reactor in Arak. This small reactor was known to nuclear inspectors for some time, but because it contained no fissile material, it was not required to be monitored. The reactor was suddenly seized upon by Israel and later by French Prime Minister François Hollande as a “path to plutonium” — a massive over-reaction. This was quickly echoed and exaggerated in the press. The Christian Science Monitor suggested that this facility was in truth a “red herring” in the negotiations.

The reactor has faced considerable delays in construction and is not scheduled to open until 2016. It will produce a small amount of electricity, but it is designed to eventually supplement then replace the TRR, producing medical isotopes. Plutonium can be extracted from spent fuel rods, but only if there is a completely new facility constructed to so this. Iran has no such facility. If Iran were to decide to make a weapon from this extracted plutonium, it would then need a third facility. Additionally, as former IAEA nuclear inspector Robert Kelley points out: ”the reactor doesn’t do anything without fuel, and so if you don’t have fuel, the reactor doesn’t run. If the reactor doesn’t run, it doesn’t make plutonium.”

All of this time, the International Atomic Energy Agency would be monitoring the use of the fissile material. Parallels with India, Pakistan and Israel , who did use heavy-water reactors to extract plutonium and build bombs are inaccurate, because as non-signatories to the NPT, the actions of these nations were not monitored.

 

Building a Bomb?

There is a strange irony in President Obama’s announcement of the temporary agreement. He mentioned the term “nuclear weapon” multiple times in his announcement, implying that Iran was on a path to develop such a weapon. One wonders if he actually believes this or if his repeated implied accusation was a rhetorical device designed to placate his hard-line critics.

The president must know by this time that there is no evidence that Iran has or ever had a nuclear weapons program. Every relevant intelligence agency in the world has verified this fact for more than a decade. Two U.S. National Intelligence Estimates that were made public in 2007 and 2011 underscored this. The International Atomic Energy Agency has also consistently asserted that Iran has not diverted any nuclear material for any military purpose.

Even Israeli intelligence analysts agree that Iran is “not a danger” to Israel. Typical is ex-Mossad chief Efraim Halevy who said on March 16 this year that Iran “will not make it to the bomb,” and that Israel’s existence “is not in danger and shouldn’t be questioned.”

What Iran Gets in Return

Though Iran is not giving up very much in the November 23 agreement, it is also not receiving a great deal in return. It will receive 6 to 7 billion dollars’ worth of sanctions relief, more than 4 billion of which is money already owed to Iran in oil revenues, but frozen. In addition, Iran has saved face; it did not give up on its inalienable right to enrich uranium as guaranteed in the NPT. This may be enough to placate hardliners in the Islamic Republic who have objected to dealings with the United States and its allies in the past.

There will be some good feelings both in Washington and Tehran that this astonishingly long impasse has finally been broken. Could either side have gotten more from these talks? Probably not. In fact the limited gains for both sides may well be a sign of the success of the negotiations.

The vitriolic nay-sayers trying to torpedo these talks in both capitals and elsewhere have been thwarted for the moment, but they will certainly begin condemning this process immediately. However, leaders in both nations should flatly ignore them. The world can only hope that this small accord will lead to more substantive rapprochement in the near future.

William O. Beeman is a Professor, Department of Anthropology at the University of Minnesota. During 2013-2014 he will be a Visiting Scholar at the Department of Anthropology, Stanford University. Read other articles by William, or visit William's website.

This article was posted on Sunday, November 24th, 2013 at 9:28pm and is filed under Iran, Nuclear, Nuclear Proliferation, Security.

If Obama strikes Syria, what will Putin do?

If Obama strikes Syria, what will Putin do?

by Mark N. Katz

September 8, 2013 6:00AM ET

 

Commentary: Despite its show of strength, Russia has no appetite for military confrontation beyond its immediate borders

Russia's President Vladimir Putin and Syrian President Bashar al-Assad shake hands as they meet in Moscow's Kremlin in 2006.

Sergei Karpukhin/AFP/Getty

Even after Iran appeared to distance itself from Damascus in response to reports that the Bashar al-Assad regime used chemical weapons on its opponents last month, Russia has remained a vociferous supporter of its Syrian ally. The Kremlin has also unflinchingly opposed President Barack Obama's call for a military strike to punish the Assad regime over to its suspected use of chemical weapons, even beefing up Russia's naval presence in the waters off Syria.

Why does Putin have Assad's back? And what will the Russian leader do if the Obama administration does launch a military strike against Syria?

Russia believes that as bad as Assad is (and Russian statements indicate Moscow understands that Assad is bad), what will follow him is likely to be far worse. Russian officials and analysts are adamant that Sunni Arab fighters linked to al-Qaeda will be in the strongest position to take power if Assad is overthrown, and that they will then move to establish Taliban-like rule in Syria.

That scenario would imperil not only Syria itself, but also its immediate neighbors and Russia's restive North Caucasus, where predominantly Muslim ethnic groups have long chafed under Moscow's rule.

Some might argue that the rise of separatist insurgencies the North Caucasus and elsewhere in Russia is a result of Moscow's own misguided policies, and that the fate of the Assad regime is irrelevant to that dynamic. The Kremlin, however, believes that it knows better. From the 1990s through the early 2000s, Moscow had accused Saudi Arabia and other Gulf states of supporting the separatist rebellion in Chechnya. But as Moscow's harsh military tactics subdued that insurgency, a Saudi-Russian rapprochement began in 2003.

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The Kremlin maintains its starkly negative view of Saudi and Qatari intentions.

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Even before the Arab uprisings began in early 2011, Riyadh-Moscow ties had begun to fray. Russia believed Saudi Arabia and Qatar were somehow responsible for renewed anti-Moscow agitation throughout the North Caucasus. And when Saudi Arabia and Qatar supported rebels seeking the downfall of long-standing Russian allies in Libya and then in Syria, the Kremlin imagined a larger, Gulf-backed plot aimed at Russia.

This Russian view of Saudi and Qatari aims, in my view, is mistaken. Neither Riyadh nor Doha wishes to see the rise of Islamist militancy, which potentially threatens their own well-being. They're more motivated by fear of Iran. Syria's minority Alawite regime has been closely allied to Tehran, and the rise of opposition to it on the part of the Sunni majority was seen in Riyadh and Doha as an opportunity to weaken Iran.

Even though many Russian specialists understand that Iran is their main concern, the Kremlin maintains its starkly negative view of Saudi and Qatari intentions. Indeed, Moscow imagines itself more at odds with these two Arab monarchies than it is with the United States over Syria.

Before the widely reported use of chemical weapons on the outskirts of Damascus last month, Moscow may even have believed it had a tacit understanding with Washington on Syria. While the Obama administration criticized the regime and even called for Assad to stand down, unlike Saudi Arabia and Qatar it has not offered much practical help to the Syrian rebellion. And since Moscow's experience will have taught the Kremlin that it is unable to prevent U.S. interventions once Washington's mind is made up, Putin may even have convinced himself that Obama really did not want to see the downfall of Assad -- thus giving Moscow a freer hand to support him.

But Obama's response to the chemical weapons reports will have disabused Putin of the idea that Washington's opposition to Assad is simply rhetorical. Moscow now fears that if President Obama carries out his threat to launch a military strike against Syria, the balance of forces there will shift in favor of the opposition and potentially bring down the Assad regime.

 As much as Putin does not want this to happen, though, Moscow will not intervene in Syria to defend Assad. Russian officials, including Putin himself, have stated this repeatedly. And passivity would be consistent with how they have acted in response to other post-Cold War American military interventions, such as those in Kosovo, Afghanistan, Iraq and Libya. Moscow is no longer willing or able to get directly involved in conflicts beyond the boundaries of the former Soviet Union.

Until the Obama administration does launch a military strike on Syria, though, Putin still hopes to prevent it. But if he can't prevent it, then he hopes to limit it. And if he can't limit it to his satisfaction, then he hopes to discredit it.
And, of course, the Kremlin is not alone in seeking to do this. Most of the allies that Obama had sought to rally in favor of a strike on Syria have so far proven reluctant to support him. And Obama is facing stiff opposition domestically both in Congress and in the polls.

These other parties, of course, do not oppose Obama on Syria out of any desire to curry favor with Moscow. Nor can Moscow do much to sway the decisions of those Obama is courting to support an attack on Syria. Moscow's ability to get what it wants in Syria, then, depends on decisions made by others -- not least Obama -- over whom Putin has very little control or even influence.

Top 10 Unproven Claims for War Against Syria

  World  

AlterNet / By Dennis Kucinich

Top 10 Unproven Claims for War Against Syria

Here are some key questions which President Obama has yet to answer in the call for congressional approval for war against Syria.

 

 

 

Photo Credit: Shutterstock.com/PromesaArtStudio

September 7, 2013  |  

 

 

In the lead-up to the Iraq War, I researched, wrote and circulated a document to members of Congress which explored unanswered questions and refuted President Bush's claim for a cause for war. The document detailed how there was no proof Iraq was connected to 9/11 or tied to al Qaeda's role in 9/11, that Iraq neither had WMDs nor was it a threat to the U.S., lacking intention and capability to attack. Unfortunately, not enough members of Congress performed due diligence before they approved the war.

Here are some key questions which President Obama has yet to answer in the call for congressional approval for war against Syria. This article is a call for independent thinking and congressional oversight, which rises above partisan considerations.

The questions the Obama administration needs to answer before Congress can even consider voting on Syria:

Claim #1. The administration claims a chemical weapon was used.

The UN inspectors are still completing their independent evaluation.

Who provided the physiological samples of sarin gas on which your evaluation is based? Were any other non-weaponized chemical agents discovered or sampled?

Who from the United States was responsible for the chain of custody?
Where was the laboratory analysis conducted?

Were U.S. officials present during the analysis of the samples? Does your sample show military grade or lower grade sarin gas?

Can you verify that your sample matches the exact composition of the alleged Syrian government composition?

Further reading: Brown Moses blog; McClatchy News report; Global Research report.

Claim #2: The administration claims the opposition has not used chemical weapons.

Which opposition?

Are you speaking of a specific group, or all groups working in Syria to overthrow President Assad and his government?

Has your administration independently and categorically dismissed the reports of rebel use of chemical weapons which have come from such disparate sources as Russia, the United Nations, and the Turkish state newspaper?

Have you investigated the rumors that the Saudis may have supplied the rebels with chemicals that could be weaponized?

Has the administration considered the ramifications of inadvertently supporting al Qaeda-affiliated Syrian rebels?

Was any intelligence received in the last year by the U.S. government indicating that sarin gas was brought into Syria by rebel factions, with or without the help of a foreign government or intelligence agents?

Further reading: Global Research report; Wall Street Journal article; Reuters story; Zaman story (in Turkish -- see Google translate from Turkish to English); Atlantic Sentinelstory; AP story

Claim #3: The administration claims chemical weapons were used because the regime's conventional weapons were insufficient

Who is responsible for the conjecture that the reason chemical weapons were used against the Damascus suburbs is that Assad's conventional weapons were insufficient to secure "large portions of Damascus"?

Claim #4: The administration claims to have intelligence relating to the mixing of chemical weapons by regime elements

Who saw the chemical weapons being mixed from August 18th on?

Was any warning afforded to the Syria opposition and if not, why not?

If, on August 21st a "regime element" was preparing for a chemical weapons attack, has an assessment been made which could definitively determine whether such preparation (using gas masks) was for purpose of defense, and not offense?

Further reading: McClatchy report; Brown Moses blog

Claim #5: The administration claims intelligence that Assad's brother ordered the attack

What is the type of and source of intelligence which alleges that Assad's brother personally ordered the attack?

Who made the determination that Assad's brother ordered the attack, based on which intelligence, from what source?

Further reading: here

Claim #6: The administration claims poison gas was released in a rocket attack

Who was tracking the rocket and the artillery attack which preceded the poison gas release?

Did these events occur simultaneously or consecutively?

Could these events, the rocket launches and the release of poison gas, have been conflated?

Based upon the evidence, is it possible that a rocket attack by the Syrian government was aimed at rebels stationed among civilians and a chemical weapons attack was launched by rebels against the civilian population an hour and a half later?

Is it possible that chemical weapons were released by the rebels -- unintentionally?

Explain the 90-minute time interval between the rocket launch and chemical weapon attacks.

Has forensic evidence been gathered at the scene of the attack which would confirm the use of rockets to deliver the gas?

If there was a rocket launch would you supply evidence of wounds from the rockets impact and explosion?

What is the source of the government's analysis?

If the rockets were being tracked via "geospatial intelligence," what were the geospatial coordinates of the launching sites and termination locations?
Further reading: FAIR.org report

 

Claim #7: The administration claims 1,429 people died in the attack

Secretary Kerry claimed 1,429 deaths, including 426 children. From whom did that number first originate?

Further reading: McClatchy report

Claim #8: The administration has made repeated references to videos and photos of the attack as a basis for military action against Syria
When and where were the videos taken of the aftermath of the poison gas attack?

Further reading: FAIR.org report

Claim #9: The administration claims a key intercept proves the Assad regime's complicity in the chemical weapons attack

Will you release the original transcripts in the language in which it was recorded as well as the translations relied upon to determine the nature of the conversation allegedly intercepted?

What is the source of this transcript? What was the exact time of the intercept? Was it a U.S. intercept or supplied from a non-U.S. source?

Have you determined the transcripts' authenticity? Have you considered that the transcripts could have been doctored or fake?

Was the "senior official," whose communications were intercepted, a member of Assad's government?

How was he "familiar" with the offensive? Through a surprised acknowledgement that such an attack had taken place? Or through actual coordination of said attack? Release the transcripts!

Was he an intelligence asset of the U.S., or our allies? In what manner had he "confirmed" chemical weapons were used by the regime?

Who made the assessment that his intercepted communications were a confirmation of the use of chemical weapons by the regime on August 21st?
What is the source of information that the Syrian chemical weapons personnel were "directed to cease operations"?

Is this the same source who witnessed regime officials mixing the chemicals?
Does the transcript indicate whether the operations they were "directed to cease" were related to ceasing conventional or chemical attacks?

Will you release the transcripts and identify sources of this claim?

Do you have transcripts, eyewitness accounts or electronic intercepts of communications between Syrian commanders or other regime officials which link the CW attack directly to President Assad?

Who are the intelligence officials who made the assessment -- are they U.S. intelligence officials or did the initial analysis come from a non-U.S. source?
Further reading: FAIR.org report and AP story; Washington Post editorial

Claim #10: The administration claims that sustained shelling occurred after the chemical weapons attack in order to cover up the traces of the attack

Please release all intelligence and military assessments as to the reason for the sustained shelling, which is reported to have occurred after the chemical weapons attack.

Who made the determination that was this intended to cover up a chemical weapon attack? Or was it to counterattack those who released chemicals?
How does shelling make the residue of sarin gas disappear?
Further reading: here

The American people have a right to a full release and vetting of all facts before their elected representatives are asked to make a decision of great consequence for America, Syria and the world. Congress must be provided answers prior to the vote, in open hearings, not in closed sessions where information can be manipulated in the service of war. We've been there before. It's called Iraq.

Dennis Kucinich is a former U.S. Representative, serving from 1997 to 2013. He was also a candidate for the Democratic nomination for President of the United States in the 2004 and 2008 presidential elections. Visit his website at www.KucinichAction.com.