Posts Tagged ‘Secretary of State’
Tuesday, May 7th, 2013
Introduction to the REPRISE (May 7, 2013)
So, Obama’s “red line” on the use of chemical weapons in Syria turns out to be a red line that leads directly to the Kremlin.
What American diplomacy has failed to achieve, spectacularly, Obama and Secretary of State John Kerry now think they can achieve by talking to Putin and Lavrov.
Well, maybe. But hardly likely. Lavrov and Putin now achieve their goal of holding the conference Kofi Annan conjured up as one of his last “castles in the sky” at the conference held at Geneva on June 30, 2012.
How this will stop the killing in Syria is anyone’s guess.
It is just words, words to get Obama off the hook for his “red line” comment, which have come back to haunt him now that al-Assad has used chemical weapons in Syria.
Now that Obama is once again seeking a solution by going to the Russians, who have steadfastly supported al-Assad in his commission of war crimes and crimes against humanity, we can all breathe a sigh of relief. See the following Reprise from the Trenchant Observer to understand just how pitiful this last move by Obama and “the gang who couldn’t shoot straight” is.
Sadly, our hopes in John Kerry seem to have been misplaced. He appears now to have joined “the gang who couldn’t shoot straight”. His role will be to do Obama’s bidding. Obama will continue to control foreign policy from the White House, guided by assistants such as Ben Rhodes.
If this course is not corrected, the disasters of Obama’s first term are likely to be repeated, on a much grander scale with much graver consequences.
REPRISE: “Looney Toons” at the White House: New York Times article details Obama’s thinking on Syria—Obama’s Debacle in Syria — Update #45 (May 27)
Originally published May 27, 2012
looney-tunes
adj.
[after Looney Tunes, trademark for a series of animated cartoons] [Slang] crazy; demented: also loon’ y-tunes
***
loony
[Slang]
adj.
loon’i-er, looní-est [LUNATIC] crazy; demented
n.,
pl. loon’-ies a loony person Also loon” ey, pl. -eys
***
–Webster’s New Worl Dictionary
**************************************************
In a front-page article in today’s New York Times, Helen Cooper and Mark Landler describe the thinking behind President Obama’s policy towards Syria. They report,
WASHINGTON — In a new effort to halt more than a year of bloodshed in Syria, President Obama will push for the departure of President Bashar al-Assad under a proposal modeled on the transition in another strife-torn Arab country, Yemen.
The plan calls for a negotiated political settlement that would satisfy Syrian opposition groups but that could leave remnants of Mr. Assad’s government in place. Its goal is the kind of transition under way in Yemen, where after months of violent unrest, President Ali Abdullah Saleh agreed to step down and hand control to his vice president, Abdu Rabbu Mansour Hadi, in a deal arranged by Yemen’s Arab neighbors. Mr. Hadi, though later elected in an uncontested vote, is viewed as a transitional leader.
The success of the plan hinges on Russia, one of Mr. Assad’s staunchest allies, which has strongly opposed his removal.
–Helen Cooper and Mark Landler, “U.S. Hopes Assad Can Be Eased Out With Russia’s Aid,” New York Times, May 27, 2012.
President Obama, administration officials said,
will press the proposal with President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia next month at their first meeting since Mr. Putin returned to his old post on May 7. Thomas E. Donilon, Mr. Obama’s national security adviser, raised the plan with Mr. Putin in Moscow three weeks ago.
Donilon, who is not a seasoned diplomat, apparently did not impress Putin, judging by the latter’s cancellation of his participation in the G-8 summit at Camp David on May 18-19.
The biggest problem with the Yemen model, several experts said, is that Yemen and Syria are starkly different countries. In Yemen, Mr. Saleh kept his grip on power for three decades by reconciling competing interests through a complex system of patronage. When his authority collapsed, there was a vice president, Mr. Hadi, who was able to assert enough control over Yemen’s splintered security forces to make him a credible transitional leader.
In Syria, by contrast, Mr. Assad oversees a security state in which his minority Alawite sect fears that if his family is ousted, it will face annihilation at the hands of the Sunni majority. That has kept the government remarkably cohesive, cut down on military defections and left Mr. Assad in a less vulnerable position than Mr. Saleh. Even if he leaves, American officials conceded, there is no obvious candidate to replace him.
The sheer incompetence of this White House on foreign policy matters is stunning.
Paradoxically, among a number of news commentators within the Washington bubble, Obama is viewed as doing pretty well on foreign policy, particularly since taking out Osama Bin Laden. None of these commentators are foreign policy experts with any experience, however. Further, Democratic foreign policy experts have largely held their silence, probably out of concern that criticism could help the Republicans in the November elections. Moreover, Obama has since his first days in office charmed the press, and many reporters and commentators are simply unwilling to criticize the administration on foreign policy issues in any fundamental way.
Significantly, the Washington Post, which is the one newspaper read by most government officials in Washington, has simply failed to cover Syria with a reporter, usually being content to just run the AP wire story. What contributions they do make are limited in the main to stories providing information by administration officials, named and unnamed.
The Editorial Board, on the other hand, has written some clear-minded editorials on Syria. The disconnect betwee the Editorial Board and the reporting side of the newspaper is hard to understand, especially in view of the Post’s illustrious history.
Despite the reputed “successfulness” of the administration’s foreign policy leadership–which analytically does not stretch beyond the fact that it has not become an issue which hurts the Obama in the presidential race, the utter lack of serousness of Preident Obama and the White House on Syria is exposed for all to see in today’s New York Times article by Cooper and Landler.
Washington’s response to Moscow’s callous support of al-Assad as he killed thousands of people through war crimes and crimes against humanity is on a par with Éduoard Daladier’s and Neville Chamberlain’s betrayal of Czechoslovakia in October, 1938, when they signed “the Munich Pact”.
One of the first betrayals on Syria was with Turkey:
Secretary Clinton caught her Turkish counterpart off guard during their meeting in Washington last month. Clinton reportedly told Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu that the Obama Administration “preferred going through the Russians” in an attempt to achieve a political solution being shopped by the UN/Arab League’s Special Syrian Envoy Kofi Annan.
–Amb. Marc Ginsberg, “Syria Is Obama’s Srebrenica,” Huffington Post (The Blog), March 28, 2012 .
On the U.S. decision to sell out its regional allies and to work through Russia instead, see
The Trenchant Observer, “The emperor has no clothes”: Foreign policy without a moral core—Obama’s Debacle in Syria — Update #19 (March 29), March 29, 2012.
The Trenchant Observer, “Into the Abyss: Washington’s Fecklessness, Syria’s Fate—Obama’s Debacle in Syria — Update #20 (March 30), March 30, 2012.
The reader is invited to read the Observer’s recent articles on Syria, and to draw his or her own conclusions as to whether Obama, Donilon, Clinton and the rest of the administration’s foreign policy team are conducting a competent foreign policy, first of all in Syria, but also everywhere else.
In the Observer’s opinion, this team is “the gang who couldn’t shoot straight”. For example, the Sixth Summit of the Americas, held in Cartagena, Colombia on April 14-15, was totally overshadowed by the prostitution scandal involving members of the Secret Serivce and the U.S. military. Little press attention was given to the substance of the meeting, the most important of the year with the leaders of the Latin American countries.
See Brian Ellsworth (Cartagena, Colombia), “Despite Obama charm, Americas summit boosts U.S. isolation,” April 16, 1012.
Now, on the Syrian question, by following a path of “working through the Russians”, the Obama administration has given up its last shred of moral legitimacy in the Middle East. Between al-Assad, Russia, China, and Iran, on the one hand, and the people of Syria, Turkey, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and other Arab countries, on the other, and in the face of immense human suffering and the ongoing commission of war crimes and crimes against humanity by the al-Assad regime, the United States is pursuing a strategy of “working through the Russians.”
Obama is incompetent as a foreign policy leader. Former Ambassador Marc Ginsberg is to be congratulated for his moral courage in speaking out on the question of Syria, in a clear voice.
What the United States needs, desperately, is for other foreign policy experts–and national leaders–to speak out with equal clarity, be they aligned with the Democratic Party in the United States, with the Republicans, or from other countries that are friends of the United States.
In the meantime, the international community would do well to look elsewhere than to the United States for leadership on the Syrian question.
See The Trenchant Observer, “At least 70 killed nationwide; massacre of 50 in Houla; U.N. International Commission on Syria Update—Obama’s Debacle in Syria — Update # 43 (May 25),” May 25, 2012.
The Trenchant Observer, “Chief of UN Observers confirms massacre at Houla; NGOs report 35 children and total of 110 killed—Obama’s Debacle in Syria — Update #44 (May 26),” May 26, 2012.
The Trenchant Observer
Tags: 1933, Alawite, Barack Obama, Bashar al-Assad, Brian Ellsworth, Camp David, Cartagena, China, Democratic Party, Democrats, dimitri medvedev, doing well on foreign policy, editorial board, Éduoard Daladier, foreign policy experts, foreign policy experts from other countries, Franklin D. Roosevelt, Hadi, Helen Cooper, Iran, John Kerry, last shred of moral legitimacy in the Middle East, Lebanon, looney, Looney Tunes, loony, LOooney Tunes at the White House, marc ginsberg, Mark Landler, Munich Pact, Neville Chamberlain, Obama's Srebrenice, Osama Bin Laden, Qatar, Republicans, Russia, Saleh, Saudi Arabia, Secretary of State, sheer incompetence of the White House, struggle for democracy in syria, Syria is Obama's Srebrenice, the emperor has no clothes, the most imcompetent president on foreign policy since World War II, the Yemen model, Thomas E. Donilon, Turkey, vladimir putin, Washington Post, with Russia's aid, working through the Russians, worst president on foreign policy since WW II, Yemen
Posted in Barack Obama, China, CIA, Crimes Against Humanity, History, human rights, International Law, Iran, Israel, Lebanon, Russia, State Department, State Department Legal Adviser, U.N. Charter, U.S Foreign Relations, U.S. Congress, U.S. Intervention, United Kingdom, United States, use of force, war crimes, Yemen | No Comments »
Wednesday, April 17th, 2013
U.S. law requires that the annual State Department Country Reports on Human Rights be published by February 25 of each year.
The seriousness with which the State Department views human rights is reflected by its compliance with this statutory deadline.
The reports are not supposed to be massaged in order to further the foreign policy interests of the United States. The delay in the date of their publication, which has become egregious under President Barack Obama and Secretary of State Hilary Clinton, fosters perceptions that that is exactly what the foreign policy leaders of the United States are doing.
The fact that the reports are to be delivered to the Congress does not diminish the force of the law, even when Congress does not complain about the delay. The law is not for the benefit of interested Congressmen, but rather for the benefit of the people of the United States.
In the case of the new Secretary of State, John Kerry, the delay is an indication of the importance he gives to compliance with U.S. law, as well as the subject of human rights. Put differently, the delay suggests the extent to which the U.S. stands–in deeds and not just in words–for the rule of law.
To what extent do U.S. officials seek to comply with U.S. law?
Finally, a state characterized by the rule of law is one in which the government takes the requirements of law seriously. Given the history of extended delays in the publication of the country reports on human rights, in this regard at least the United States does not appear to meet this standard.
The Trenchant Observer
Tags: Hillary Clinton, John Kerry, Obama administration, Original Congressional intent, rule of law, rule of law state, Secretary of State, state department annual country reports on human rights, State department humam rights reports, Where are the state department annual country reports on human rights
Posted in "that spark of the divine", foreign news coverage, freedom of speech, human rights, human rights reports, International Law, State Department, State Department Human Rights Country Reports, State Department Legal Adviser, U.S. Congress, U.S. news coverage, United States | No Comments »
Monday, December 17th, 2012
The Bermuda Triangle is a well-known area where ships have been known to vanish without a trace, and without any cogent explanation. It seems that since September 11, 2012, there is also some kind of “Benghazi Triangle”–where careers and reputations vanish without a trace.
After steadfastly maneuvering to avoid “The Benghazi Triangle”, it now appears that Secretary of State Hillary Clinton risks ultimately being caught up in its vortex.
Clinton certainly did not want to be involved with Benghazi, where one of her ambassadors and three other Americans were killed by heavily-armed militants on the evening of September 11, 2012.
After a grueling week, she “declined” to appear on the Sunday talk shows on September 16, leaving the White House to delegate that task to Susan Rice, the U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations. Rice, once a leading candidate to become secretary of state in Barack Obama’s second term, was ultimately forced to withdraw herself from consideration for that post, in part due to the firestorms which erupted following her September 16 talk show appearances.
She had entered “The Benghazi Triangle” which, perhaps due to the fierce energies unleashed by the CIA “black operations” there, has been a zone where careers, ambitions, and reputations vanish without a trace.
Preceding Rice’s withdrawal from consideration for the secretary of state position, David Petraeus, the most celebrated general in recent times, had seen his career go up in smoke after entering into “The Benghazi Triangle”. Petraeus had had the temerity to insist on publishing the CIA version of what happened at Benghazi, on November 2, incurring the displeasure of other intelligence chiefs and government officials whose roles in the affair now came more fully into view. Days later, on November 6, 2012, the FBI called James Clapper, the head of the Directorate of National Intelligence (DNI), to inform him that Petraeus had had an affair with Paula Broadwell–which had ended four months earlier.
Clapper, without missing a beat, called Petraeus and urged him to resign. Petraeus offered his resignation to Obama in a meeting on Thursday, November 8. The president thought about it overnight, and accepted it on Friday, November 9.
Petraeus, in subsequent testimony before Congress on November 16, made clear that the CIA had not altered “the Benghazi talking points” it had originally prepared, which made specific reference to al-Qaeda affiliates’ participation in the Benghazi attacks on September 11. This is an interesting point, since Michael Morrell, now Acting Director of the CIA, gave different accounts when meeting with Senators on November 27, 2012.
(An example of the misleading information being supplied to Congress and to the public is provided by the following excerpt from the Christian Sciene Monitor regarding meetings on November 27 of Susan Rice and CIA Acting Director Michael Morell with Republican Senators.)
…Republican senators said the meeting with Rice and Morell left them with more concerns than before. In a statement McCain, Graham and Ayotte said there was now more confusion about who had made changes in the talking points before they were given to Rice.
Morell told the senators during the meeting that the FBI had removed references to al Qaeda from the talking points “and did so to prevent compromising an ongoing criminal investigation” of the attack on the U.S. mission, the statement by McCain, Graham and Ayotte said.
“However, at approximately 4:00 this afternoon, CIA officials contacted us and indicated that Acting Director Morell misspoke in our earlier meeting. The CIA now says that it deleted the al-Qaeda references, not the FBI. They were unable to give a reason as to why,” the statement said (emphasis added).
–Tabassum Zakaria and Susan Cornwell (Reuters),”Controversy over Susan Rice’s Benghazi comments continues,” Christian Science Monitor, November 27, 2012.
See also The Trenchant Observer, “Lies, Spies and Politics: The Incredible Evolution of the Benghazi “Talking Points” Narrative–Part II,” November 27, 2012.
Morrell is reported to be a leading candidate to lead the CIA in Obama’s second term. Whether he can avoid “The Benghazi Triangle” remains to be seen. Certainly, if he is nominated, he will face some sharp questioning at his confirmation hearings.
Secretary of State Clinton avoided testifying about Benghazi in the first round of hearings, in November, due to her travel schedule which placed her out of the country. That schedule, apparently, was more important to her than testifying before Congress about what was arguably the worst foreign policy disaster during her term of office.
Now Clinton, the one key witness who could testify about what she–and President Obama–knew and when they knew it, has fallen and hit her head, suffering a concussion. Consequently, she will be unavailable for this week’s hearings, though she apparently will be working from home.
Everyone hopes she has a speedy recovery. As soon as she is well, the congressional hearings should resume, and she should be called again–for the third time–to provide critical information about what happened in and in relation to Benghazi, and what she and the president knew, and when they knew it.
If these questions are not promptly and satisfactorily answered, they may serve as an epitaph on her term as Secretary of State and all the diligence and hard work she has unquestionably brought to the job. Such an epitaph would undoubtedly affect judgments over the next four years regarding the viability of a Clinton candidacy for president in 2016.
In any event, her career and her reputation are at high risk, as she has ventured into “The Benghazi Triangle”–where careers and reputations vanish without a trace.
The Trenchant Observer
Tags: Barack Obama, CIA, Clinton, Clinton concussion, David Petraeus, Hillary Clinton, James Clapper, leading candidate to be CIA director, Libia, Libya, Libye, Libyen, lies spies and politics, lybie, Michael Morrell, Paula Broadwell, President Obama, Secretary of State, testimony on Benghazi, The benghazi zone, The bermuda triangle, the incredible evolution of the Benghazi talking points narrative, what clinton knew and when she knew it, what obama knew and when did he know it, where careers and reputations vanish without a trace
Posted in Barack Obama, CIA, elections, Intelligence, Justice Department, Libya, Middle East, State Department, State Department Legal Adviser, syria, United States | No Comments »
Thursday, May 24th, 2012
Today, May 24, 2012, three months after the statutory deadline of February 25, the State Department finally released its annual report on the human rights situations in the countries of the world.
The U.S. Department of State “Country Reports on Human Rights Practices for 2011″ are found here.
Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s remarks at the presentation of the reports are found here.
A video of Secretary Clinton’s remarks and the following briefing and question and answer session with Assistant Secretary for the Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights and Labor, Michael H. Posner, is found on C-Span here.
In her written preface to the reports, Secretary Clinton stated the following:
Secretary’s Preface
The world changed immeasurably over the course of 2011. Across the Middle East, North Africa, and far beyond, citizens stood up to demand respect for human dignity, more promising economic opportunities, greater political liberties, and a say in their own future. Often they faced tremendous odds and endured violent responses from their governments. The resulting upheavals are still unfolding today in places like Syria, where the regime has brutalized its own people. In Burma, after years of repression, the government has taken preliminary steps to allow reforms to begin. This year’s Country Reports on Human Rights Practices chronicle these dramatic changes and the stories of the people defending human rights in almost 200 countries around the world.
Congress mandated these country reports more than three decades ago to help guide lawmakers’ decisions on foreign military and economic aid, but they have evolved into something more. Today, governments, intergovernmental organizations, scholars, journalists, activists, and others around the world rely on these reports as an essential update on human rights conditions around the world – where we have seen progress, where progress has come too slowly or at great cost, and all too often, where it has been rolled back.
Our reports are founded on the simple truth at the heart of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights – that all people are born free and equal in dignity and rights. Respect for human rights is not a western construct or a uniquely American ideal; it is the foundation for peace and stability everywhere. Universal human rights include the right of citizens to assemble peacefully and to seek to reform or change their governments, a central theme around the world in 2011. As President Obama has said, “History offers a clear verdict: Governments that respect the will of their own people, that govern by consent and not coercion, are more prosperous, they are more stable, and more successful than governments that do not.”
In my travels around the world as Secretary of State, I have met many individuals who put their lives on the line to advance the cause of human rights and justice. In ways small and large, they hold their governments accountable for upholding universal human rights. Their courage and commitment to peaceful reform are an inspiration. This report recognizes their bravery and should serve as a reminder: The United States stands with all those who seek to advance human dignity, and we will continue to shine the light of international attention on their efforts.
These reports are part of our broad commitment to promote human rights. Every day, officials from the State Department, the U.S. Agency for International Development, and many other government agencies devote themselves to advancing human rights as a priority of U.S. foreign policy. They champion our values in every country of the world and stand up for the inherent rights and freedoms of all people. I am honored to work alongside them, and I thank them for their contributions to this report.
On behalf of all of them, and everyone around the world working to protect human rights, I hereby transmit the Department of State’s Country Reports on Human Rights Practices for 2011 to the United States Congress.
Hillary Rodham Clinton
Secretary of State
Following her remarks, Secretary Clinton introduced Michael H. Posner, Assistant Secretary, Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor, who then conducted a special briefing on the reports prepared under the supervision of his office. His remarks, and the transcript of the question and answer session which followed them, are found here.
A video containing Secretary Clinton’s remarks, Assistant Secretary Michael H. Posner remarks and his question and answer session is found on C-SPAN here.
The individual country reports are available on the State Department website.
The report covers 199 countries and territories, according to Assistant Secretary Posner.
The Trenchant Observer
observer@trenchantobserver.com
www.twitter.com/trenchantobserv
For links to other articles by The Trenchant Observer, click on the title at the top of this page to go to the home page, and then consult the information in the bottom right hand corner of the home page. The Articles on Syria page can also be found here.
Tags: Afghan women, Afghanistan, Assistant Secretary, Assistant Secretary Posner's remarks, Bahrein, Bureau of Democracy Human Rights and Labor, Burma, C-SPAN video, Chen Guangcheng, China, Colombia, Egypt, encouraging developments, Eritrea, Hillary Clinton, human rights, human rights country reports, human rights trends, human rights trends in 2011, Iran, Libya, Mexico, Michael H. Posner, Ms Nuland, Muammar Qadaffi, North Korea, Pakistan, Posner briefing and question and answer, religious freedom, reports on human rights practices for 2011, rusia, Russia, Secretary Clinton's remarks, Secretary of State, Secretary's Preface, State Department human rights reports, Sudan, syria, Tibet, Tibetans, Tunisia, Turkmenistan, United States, Uzbekistan, video link, Zambia
Posted in Afghanistan, Bahrain, Burma, China, Egypt, Eritrea, human rights, human rights reports, International Law, North Korea, Pakistan, Russia, State Department, State Department Human Rights Country Reports, State Department Legal Adviser, Sudan, Tunisia, Turkmenistan, U.N. Charter, United States, Uzbekistan, Zambia | No Comments »
Monday, April 30th, 2012
Section 116(d) of the Foreign Assistance Act of 1961, as amended, provides that “(T)he Secretary of State shall transmit to the Speaker of the House of Representatives and the Committee on Foreign Relations of the Senate, by February 25 of each year, a full and complete report regarding the status of internationally recognized human rights, within the meaning of subsection (A) in countries that receive assistance under this part, and (B) in all other foreign countries which are members of the United Nations and which are not otherwise the subject of a human rights report under this Act emphasis added).”
–as quoted by Pete Winn, cnsnews.com, full cite below.
The State Department is required by law to submit annual reports describing in detail the situation concerning human rights in the different countries of the world by February 25 of each year. During George W. Bush’s administration, these reports were submitted no later than March 11, with one exception (March 31, 2003 for the 2002 reports), and usually earlier.
See Pete Winn, “State Department Misses Statutory Deadline for Delivering Human Rights Report,” CNSnews.com, April 10, 2012.
Last year the Obama administration did not submit the human rights country reports for 2010 until April 8, 2011. Even by that standard, the reports for 2011 are very seriously overdue.
The State Department has offered the following excuse for failing to comply with the statutary deadline in 2012:
A State Department spokesman said …the country reports on human rights had not been released in either February or March and that the department was waiting to release them at a time when Secretary of State Hillary Clinton can personally do so.
“They’ve been postponed a couple of times, the roll-out, because of scheduling issues, and because the Secretary wants to personally roll out the reports due to the importance she places on human rights,” Anthony Pahigian, spokesman for the Bureau of Democracy, (Human) Rights and Labor at the State Department, told CNSNews.com.
“But we’ve been–we’re keeping Congress informed, and we hope to find an opportunity,” he said. “It’s obviously a very busy season for everybody. There’s a lot going on.”
–Pete Winn, cnsnews.com, April 20, 2012.
The law requires that the reports be released by February 25, not when the Secretary of State finds time to do so or when it fits her political agenda.
This reporting process is supposed to be totally free of political considerations.
Diplomatic Context: Clinton and Geithner’s visits to Beijing; the Bo-Xilai and Chen Guangcheng Affaires
One would hope that the visit of Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, Secretary of the Treasury Timothy Geithner, and other U.S. officials to Beijing has not played a role in the delay of the issuance of the report.
.
The recent escape of Chen Guangcheng, a blind human rights lawyer who has been under house arrest, has been treated as a “problem” for the United States and its visiting delegation. He is reported to have sought and found refuge in the U.S. Embassy in Beijing.
See David Elmer (Beijing), “Dissident Chen Guangcheng ‘chased by undercover Chinese agents’ as he fled to US Embassy; Astonishing details of how a blind lawyer escaped house arrest in China emerged as fellow dissidents said he had arrived safely at the American embassy in Beijing,” The Telegraph, April 28, 2012.
To be sure it is a sensitive moment in the generational change of leadership underway this year, greatly unsettled by the fall of Bo Xilai from power in Chongquin and the continuing criminal investigations into the death of a British businessman, Neil Heywood, in November, 2011. Bo’s wife, Gu Kailai, is currently in custody accused of poisoning Heywood. There are also allegations that Bo Xilai was spying on high party leaders in the country.
But, in any year, whatever the situation, the United States makes a huge mistake when its acts bashfully about its deepest values. If Chen Guangcheng seeks diplomatic asylum, the United States should focus on the human rights violations to which he was subjected and which led him to seek refuge. It may take some time to negotiate an end to his residence in the embassy, whether that be a return to life in China or a departure in accordance with a grant of diplomatic asylum.
Secretary Clinton and other U.S. officials need to address the issue, without acting ashamed of or bashful about our nation’s fundamental values, and then move on to conduct the other important business at hand.
That business should include a very serious engagement with China regarding their continued support for the Syrian regime, and the need for their cooperation in devising a real solution for a transition to a post-al-Assad government in a democratic Syria.
Why are the country reports late, and when will they be released?
Whether or not the visits to China had anything to do with the delay in issuing the human rights reports, Secretary Clinton needs to explain immediately to the American people why the country reports on the human rights situation in countries around the world have been delayed for more than two months, in violation of the statutory deadline of February 25, and when they will be released.
The report, including the individual country reports, should be released at the earliest possible date–as required by U.S. law.
The Trenchant Observer
observer@trenchantobserver.com
www.twitter.com/trenchantobserv
For links to other articles by The Trenchant Observer, click on the title at the top of this page to go to the home page, and then consult the information in the bottom right hand corner of the home page. The Articles on Syria page can also be found here.
Tags: al-Assad, Anthony Pahigan, ashamed of deepest moral values, Barack Obama, blind human rights lawyer, Bo-Xilai, Bo-Xilai affaire, Bueau of Democracy Rights and Laor, Bush administration, Chen Guangcheng, Chen Guangcheng affaire, China, Chongquin, Clinton, Country Reports, delay, democratic syria, escape from house arrest, free of political influence, Geithner, generational change of leadership, Gu Kailai, Hillary Clinton, human rights reports, Neil Heywood, Obama administration, post al-assad, Secretary of State, Secretary of the Treasury, State Department, syria, Timothy Geithner, visit to Beijing, wife of Bo Xilai, Xilai spying on party officials
Posted in "that spark of the divine", Barack Obama, China, corruption, Crimes Against Humanity, Dictatorship, human rights, human rights reports, internal supporters of human rights, International Law, Russia, State Department, State Department Human Rights Country Reports, State Department Legal Adviser, syria, U.N. Charter, U.N. Security Council, U.S. Congress, United States, use of force, war crimes | 1 Comment »
Friday, March 30th, 2012
Latest News Reports and Opinion
Reuters reports from Beirut,
(Reuters) – Syrian artillery hit parts of Homs city and at least 37 people were killed in clashes around Syria on Friday, opposition activists said, as peace envoy Kofi Annan told President Bashar al-Assad his forces must be first to cease fire and withdraw.
–Erika Solomon and Douglas Hamilton (Beirut), “Syrian army must pull back first under Annan plan, Reuters, March 30, 2012 (2:15pm EDT).
The Syria conflict and the United States’ failure to develop and execute an effective policy to deal with the atrocities in Syria is likely to spill over into international efforts to halt the development of a nuclear weapons capability in Iran, as suggested by Turkish Prime Minister’s reported statements to Khamanei in Tehran.
See Elad Benari. “Khamenei: Syria’s Anti-Israel, So We’ll Defend It; Ayatollah Ali Khamenei tells Turkish PM Erdogan: Iran will defend the Syrian regime due to its anti-Israeli stance, Arutz Sheva (7), March 30, 2012 (www.israelinationalnews.com).
The Telegraph provides an overview of the situation at the end of the day in London:
Ruth Sherlock (Beirut), “Syria activists lose hope that they will unseat Bashar al-Assad; Syrian activists were losing hope of unseating President Bashar al-Assad from power as regime troops continued to attack dwindling rebel strongholds, ignoring international demands for a ceasefire,” The Telegraph, March 30, 2012 (7:39PM BST).
Der Spiegel, which has consistently provided up-to-date and comprehensive reporting on events on the ground in Syria, describes the impact of “Annan’s deadly peace plan” including its fatal flaws and its effects on the ground:
See Ulrike Putz (Beirut), “Annans tödlicher Friedensplan; Syriens Rebellen toben, Experten sind entsetzt: Der Uno-Friedensplan von Kofi Annan bringt dem Assad-Regime vor allem jede Menge Zeit, um im Land weiter zu morden und zu foltern. Am Ende könnte der Diktator sogar im Amt bleiben – die Opposition will das mit Gewalt verhindern, ” 30 März 2012.
Regarding Obama’s posture toward Russia as revealed in Seoul, see Charles Krauthammer, “The ‘flexibility’ doctrine,” The Washington Post, March 29, 2012. Krauthammer quotes the audio picked up at the open microphone incident, as follows:
“On all these issues, but particularly missile defense, this can be solved, but it’s important for him [Vladimir Putin] to give me space. . . . This is my last election. After my election, I have more flexibility.”
— Barack Obama to Dmitry Medvedev, open mike, March 26
Analysis
What can be added to what has been written before? See the Articles on Syria page.
Obama is determined not to get involved in Syria in an election year, “regardless of the consequences”.
He is not moved, not moved to action, by seeing thousands of Syrians killed by al-Assad’s forces, with dozens and sometimes hundreds of new victims added to the list each day.
He supported the Kofi Annan plan, which in effect prevented potential pressures on the ground against al-Assad, while providing a smokescreen behind which the United States could hide its feckless failure to act to halt the killing. Worse than that, the Annan plan thwarted the efforts of others–Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, in particular–from providing arms to Syrian citizens with which they could defend themselves against the onslaught of a modern army and state security apparatus, and from establishing a safety zone inside Syria to which they could retreat to escape the killing.
The response of the U.S. and others to events in Syria is worse than Srebrenice, because the events have unfolded in slow motion and the United States has had plenty of time to think, to react, and to act to stop the killing.
Now the world can draw its own conclusions about the current leadership of the United States, which as we have pointed out has a foreign policy without a moral core.
The saddest thing is that we can now also draw our conclusions about Barack Obama, and the kind of foreign policy “leader” he really is.
He has bungled our exit from Iraq, and further embroiled us in a hopeless war to uphold a corrupt dictator and political elite in Afghanistan, a narco-state.
He has also thrown international law to the wind as he pursues the defense of the United States by enhancing and using the capabilities of drones and special operations forces to simply kill our perceived enemies, throughout many countries in the world.
In doing so, with no vision of peace and no credibility in appealing for the support of the populations of allied countries to undertake joint endeavors based on shared moral values and principles, including those embodied in international law, he has given the world a prospect of endless war–without the moderating force of law.
He is who he is.
And we are who we are. In the United States, we have a vote in the upcoming presidential elections. For some of us, who find the domestic programs of the Democrats far more sensible than those put forward by Republican candidates in the presidential primaries, and who are gravely concerned about the future composition of the Supreme Court, the presidential elections in November, 2012 are shaping up to present a wrenching choice.
In the meantime, we–and the Syrians demonstrating and fighting for a democratic government which guarantees the protection of their fundamental human rights–must look elsewhere for leadership to halt the commission of crimes against humanity, war crimes, and other grave violations of human rights in Syria.
The Trenchant Observer
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For links to other articles by The Trenchant Observer on this topic, and others, click on the title at the top of this page to go to the home page, and then consult the information in the bottom right hand corner of the home page. The Articles on Syria page can also be found here.
Tags: 6-Punkte Friedensinitiative, a wrenching choice, adrian blomfeld, Ahmet Davutoğlu, al-Assad, Ambassador, ambassador to morocco, arab spring, articles on syria page, avoids confrontation like the plague, Bill Clinbton, bill clinton, bosnia-style policy vacuum, chances for re-election, charles krauthammer, China, Christoph Sydow, circa 1995, close if unofficial advisor, composition of supreme court, crimenes de guerra, crimens contra a humanidade, Crimes Against Humanity, crimes contre l'humanité, crimes de guerre, crimines contra la humanidad, Democrats, der spiegel, dimitri medvedev, domestic programs, Douglas Hamilton, elad benari arutz sheva, electoral politics, erdogan, Erika Solomon, events drive policy, feckless failure, foreign policy, fundamental human rights, hans christian andersen, Hillary Clinton, Hu Jintao, husband, into the abyss, Iran, israelinationalnews.com, khamanei, kofi annan, Kofi Annan's Friedensinitiative, Kriegsverbrechen, kryptonite, marc ginsberg, Mededev, medvedev, microphone incident, missile defense, no moral core, november 2012, nowlebanon.com, nuclear conference, Obama, obama's foreign policy has no moral core, presidential elections, Qatar, re-election in 2012, regardless of the consequences, Republicans, reset, Reuters, Russia, Ruth Sherlock, Saudi Arabia, Secretary of State, seoul, Siria, Srebreice, State Department, State Department Legal Adviser, syria, syria's fate, Syrie, Syrien, Telegraph, the emperor has no clothes, the emperor's new clothes, the flexibility doctrine, tHE tELEGRAPH, Tony Badran, Turkey, Turkish Foreign Minister, U.S. relations with Russia, Ulrike Putz, un peace plan, Verbrechen gegen di Menschlichkeit, war crimes, Washington Post, Washington's fecklessness, worse than srebrenice
Posted in Barack Obama, China, corruption, Crimes Against Humanity, Dictatorship, elections, extrajudicial execution, History, human rights, Intelligence, internal supporters of human rights, International Law, Iran, Iraq, Israel, Lebanon, Middle East, NATO, Nuclear Proliferation, Qatar, Russia, Saudi Arabia, self-defense, State Department, State Department Human Rights Country Reports, State Department Legal Adviser, syria, targeted assassinations, targeted killings, Torture, Turkey, U.N. Charter, U.N. Security Council, U.S Foreign Relations, U.S. Intervention, U.S. Military, united arab emirates, United States, vision of peace, war crimes | 1 Comment »
Thursday, March 29th, 2012
Latest News and Opinion on Syria
Dominic Evans (Beirut), “Assad says foreign aid to rebels must stop under peace plan,” Reuters, March 29, 2012 (8:54 pm BST).
Adrian Blomfeld, “Syria: Bashar al-Assad raises questions over commitment to peace deal; President Bashar al-Assad has raised questions over his commitment to a UN-backed initiative he agreed to just days ago by demanding that Syria’s rebels disarm before a peace deal can be reached, The Telegraph, March 29, 2012 (8:01 pm BST).
Der Spiegel reports that 29 people were killed on Thursday, mostly in Homs, Idlib and in the suburbs of Damaskus.
–Christoph Sydow, “Assad ignoriert Annans Friedensplan; Mit sechs Punkten zum Frieden: Uno und Arabische Liga setzen auf Kofi Annans Lösungsplan, der den Machtkampf in Syrien befrieden soll. Doch das Regime in Damaskus setzt bislang keine der Forderungen um. Assad spielt auf Zeit – und hofft weiter auf die fehlende Entschlossenheit des Westens,” Der Spiegel, den 31. März 2012. This article also contains a summary of the six-point U.N. peace plan of Kofi Annan, in German.
Tony Badran, “Passivity and incoherence on Syria,” NOW Lebanon (blog), March 29, 2012.
Tony Badran, “US tells Turkey to back off Syria,” NOW Lebanon (blog), March 22, 2012.
Opinion: Marc Ginsberg
Marc Ginsberg, former U.S. Ambassador to Morocco has condemned recent U.S. policy on Syria, highlighting similarities with the Clinton White House’s handling of atrocities in the Balkans up until the massacre of 7,000 men and boys at Srebrenice in July, 1995.
Flash forward 17 years later, and in this second year of Syria’s so-called Arab Spring bloodbath it’s déjà vu all over again at 1600 Penn. While Syria is not Srebrenica, there are eerie similarities in how this Obama team is hopelessly caught up in a Bosnian-style policy vacuum circa 1995, characterized by an excessively domineering election campaign apparatus that inexorably trumps national security considerations. That is a dangerous recipe when coupled with the absence of any long-term strategy in Syria.
Why is the White House on such a slippery slope that it claims it is determined to avoid?
Tracing the policy of the White House over the last year, Ginsburg notes that Obama and his team reacted to Syrian atrocities like “kryptonite”, stressed unsubstantiated fears about what would come after Assad as a reason for inaction, and coupled repeated calls for Assad to go with a failure to impose consequences on al-Assad. Consistently, the White House political operation’s desire to keep Syria out of the election trumped national security considerations.
Shockingly, Ginsberg relates how the U.S. enlisted Turkish support for certain options, and then cut the ground out from under the Turks by telling them that Obama “preferred going through the Russians” to secure peace by supporting the U.N. peace initiative led by Kofi Annan.
(A)s more reports of atrocities trickled out of Syria last summer, the U.S. began subcontracting U.S. policy to Turkey in the expectation that greater coordination with Ankara would create more multilateral support against the regime. At the time, this made eminent sense. Ankara, faced with a growing humanitarian refugee crisis on its Syrian border, and furious with its failed investment in the Assad regime, picked up the mantle. There were bilateral talks of buffer zones and humanitarian corridors and, perhaps non-lethal support to the nascent Free Syrian Army.
But as my able colleague Tony Badran reported in his blog in www.nowlebanon.com (confirming what I picked up during my recent visit to Turkey a few days ago), Secretary Clinton caught her Turkish counterpart off guard during their meeting in Washington last month. Clinton reportedly told Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu that the Obama Administration “preferred going through the Russians” in an attempt to achieve a political solution being shopped by the UN/Arab League’s Special Syrian Envoy Kofi Annan.
By unexpectedly dismissing Turkish/Arab League plans to create a buffer zone/or humanitarian corridor as well as organizing and providing non-lethal support to the Free Syrian Army, everything that Turkey thought was on the table with Washington appeared to fall off of it. It seemed to matter to no one in the White House that it had just pushed our Turkish colleagues over the cliff after we had jumped on their bandwagon.
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(I)f the U.S. refuses to accede to new ideas from its “Syrian Friends” then, to coin its own phrase with respect to Assad, “it should get out of the way.”
–Amb. Marc Ginsberg, “Syria Is Obama’s Srebrenica,” Huffington Post (The Blog), March 28, 2012 .
Tony Badran’s March 22 article, listed above and cited by Ginsberg, provides further details on the change in U.S. position on Syria with regard to options under consideration by Turkey and the Gulf countries. Badran also explains Obama’s aversion to getting invoved, as follows:
The Obama administration’s reasoning is simple. It calculates, rather correctly, that such regional efforts will likely end up drawing the US in down the road, one way or another. President Obama wishes to nip in the bud any possibility of this happening in an election year. And so, such regional moves were opposed in order for the president not to be forced to take action he’s adamantly intent on avoiding, regardless of the consequences.
As a result, the administration has found itself in the surreal position of siding closer with Assad’s Russian ally and at cross-purposes with its own regional allies – and, most significantly, in contradiction with its own stated policy of regime change in Syria.
–Tony Badran, “US tells Turkey to back off Syria,” NOW Lebanon, March 22, 2012.
So, Obama seems to have pulled the rug out from under our allies, and decided to pursue peace in Syria instead by working with the Russians and supporting Kofi Annan’s ill-starred six-point peace program.
A Foreign Policy without a Moral Core
Obama’s actions toward Turkey and the Gulf countries in relation to Syria suggest that there is no moral core at the heart of Obama’s foreign policy.
It should also be noted that a close if unofficial advisor to Hillary Clinton–her husband, Bill Clinton–was himself the author of the U.S. policy that led to Srebrenice.
On Syria, the pattern of U.S. actions toward Iran in 2009, Tunisia, Egypt, and Libya has been repeated. Absent Security Council authorization, Obama has been unwilling to act or to lead. Obama avoids confrontation like the plague.
Events drive policy, not the reverse.
The Obama administration has shown no moral outrage at Russia’s and China’s support of al-Assad and their working to provide him with more time to commit war crimes and crimes against humanity against the Syrian population to solidify his hold on power. Rather, it’s business as ususal.
With Russia actively supporting al-Assad through the provision of weapons, amunition and training by Russian advisors on the ground in Syria, President Obama had the callous temerity to sit down with Russian President Medvedev at the Seoul nuclear conference last week, in a most cordial manner, and to beseech him to understand that he, Obama, would be able to be more flexible on nuclear arms control negotiations after the November elections.
What was most revealing about the “open microphone” episode in Seoul was that Obama was pleading with the Russians to be understanding and to give him some space on the arms control issue. In short, he was proceeding from a psychological position of weakness, when he should have been insisting publicly that Russia stop its morally indefensible support of al-Assad’s commission of war crimes and crimes against humanity in Syria.
Obama seems to be laboring under the illusion that his “reset” of relations with Russia, particularly thorugh his personal relationship with Mededev, has been successful when, quite obviously, the contrary has been the case.
These developments can be understood only by recognizing that Obama when dealing with foreign policy issues thinks primarily in terms of electoral politics and his re-election in November. He delegates foreign policy to others. In fact, he appears much more animated and engaged emotionally on domestic issues. This is consistent with his lack of international interests prior to entering the White House.
For whatever reasons, in the foreign policy area there appear to be no moral values for which he will fight.
When you step back from the daily news and take a broad look at what Obama has done by supporting Kofi Annan’s U.N. peace initiative, and “preferring going through the Russians”, you can see the utter cynicism and lack of morality of the administration’s policy and actions.
What Obama has done, in a word, is to sell the Syrian opposition down the river. He has abandoned them. The highly probable result of pursuing the Annan plan is that great delay will follow before the fighting stops, if it does, and then probably only after thousands of additional lives have been lost.
The U.N. plan is nothing more than a shameless facade behind which the United States can try to hide, while it obstructs those who would otherwise act to halt the commission of crimes against humanity and war crimes in Syria.
The logical outcome of the U.N. plan is that al-Assad will remain in power, with all the instruments of state terror at his command, to be used if and when and to the extent needed to maintain himself in power. Keeping him in power will ensure the Russians the continued operation of their naval base at Tartus, their listening post for the Middle East, and their arms contracts and other business relationships with the al-Assad regime.
One is reminded of the children’s story by Hans Christian Andersen entitled, “The Emperor’s New Clothes”. See the translation of Hans Christian Andersen’s “Keiserens nye Klæder” by Jean Hersholt.
The Emperor in this case is President Barack Obama. The Emperor has no clothes.
Obama’s foreign policy has no moral core.
The Trenchant Observer
observer@trenchantobserver.com
www.twitter.com/trenchantobserv
For links to other articles by The Trenchant Observer on this topic, and others, click on the title at the top of this page to go to the home page, and then consult the information in the bottom right hand corner of the home page.
Tags: 6-Punkte Friedensinitiative, adrian blomfeld, Ahmet Davutoğlu, al-Assad, Ambassador, ambassador to morocco, arab spring, avoids confrontation like the plague, Bill Clinbton, bill clinton, bosnia-style policy vacuum, chances for re-election, China, Christoph Sydow, circa 1995, close if unofficial advisor, Crimes Against Humanity, der spiegel, dimitri medvedev, electoral politics, events drive policy, foreign policy, hans christian andersen, Hillary Clinton, Hu Jintao, husband, kofi annan, Kofi Annan's Friedensinitiative, kryptonite, marc ginsberg, medvedev, no moral core, nowlebanon.com, nuclear conference, obama's foreign policy has no moral core, re-election in 2012, reset, Russia, Secretary of State, seoul, Srebreice, State Department, State Department Legal Adviser, the emperor has no clothes, the emperor's new clothes, tHE tELEGRAPH, Tony Badran, Turkey, Turkish Foreign Minister, U.S. relations with Russia, un peace plan, war crimes
Posted in Barack Obama, China, Crimes Against Humanity, elections, History, human rights, International Law, Lebanon, Russia, State Department, State Department Legal Adviser, syria, targeted assassinations, Torture, Turkey, U.N. Charter, U.S. Intervention, U.S. Military, United States, use of force, war crimes | 2 Comments »
Thursday, August 19th, 2010
Senator John Kerry (D-MA) traveled to Kabul on August 17 to deliver the Obama administration’s warning to Hamid Karzai that he must clean up corruption in his government if he wants the United States to continue sending its treasure and troops to Afghanistan.
News reports recall that Kerry traveled to Kabul in November, 2009 to urge him to respect the findings of the Electoral Complaints Commission that Karzai had not won a majority of the votes in the first-round elections for president on August 20, and that consequently a second-round election should be held.
Karzai acceded to this immediate request. However he refused to respond to the demand of his rival in the presidential runoff, Abdullah Abdullah, that the Independent Electoral Commission’s members be replaced in order for there to be a real chance for a fair second-round election. The Independent Electoral Commission had been deeply involved in the massive fraud in Karzai’s favor in the first-round elections, and had officially sanctioned that fraud. Only the Electoral Complaints Commission, which at that time had a majority of “international” members, prevented that fraud from being directly consummated, by ruling that Karzai had not achieved a majority of the votes.
In view of Karzai’s failure to replace members of the Independent Electoral Commission who had sanctioned the fraud, Abdullah withdrew from the second-round elections before they could be scheduled to be held. Under the electoral law, the candidate who finished third should have advanced to the second-round runoff. This did not occur.
From these facts, news organizations began to repeat the canard that Senator Kerry had, through his personal “rapport” with Karzai, succeeded in persuading the Afghan president to honor the official results of the first-round election, accepting that a second round would have to be held.
In an apparent bow to the demands of Pakistan’s military and as part of the price of a deal for their help in negotiating with the Taliban, the U.S. stopped pressuring Karzai to enter a national unity government in talks with Abdullah, effectively pulling the rug out from under the latter.
Given Karzai’s failure to respond to his demands and the likelihood of massive fraud in the second-round elections, Abdullah withdrew from the elections. The United States immediately accepted this outcome, and began trumpeting to the world that Karzai was the legitimate and democratically-elected president of Afghanistan.
Senator Kerry’s Fundamental Conflict of Interest
Senator Kerry, as Chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, has a duty to oversee the actions of the executive branch in conducting the foreign policy of the United States. He and his Committee are responsible for advising the Senate as to the wisdom and coherence of that foreign policy, and whether to approve legislation to finance its implementation.
Yet by acting in an executive branch capacity to directly assist the President in his achievement of foreign policy objectives, Kerry has entered—perhaps unintentionally and with the best of motives—into a realm where his efforts on behalf of the executive involve a direct conflict of interest with his responsibilities as Chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. For he cannot be expected to exercise the independent judgment required in conducting Senate oversight responsibilities of foreign policy actions in which he himself has directly taken part.
Senator Kerry may indeed have important diplomatic skills that might be employed in service to the nation. If Hillary Clinton were to resign, he would certainly be a strong candidate to become Secretary of State.
But he cannot undertake executive functions and responsibilities without entering into a fundamental conflict of interest with his legislative mandate and duties as Chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.
Only the Executive, under our constitution, can conduct the foreign policy of the United States. Statements by Senator Kerry that he is in Kabul in his capacity as chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee should be dismissed as the fig leaf that they are. It appears beyond doubt that, as a result of Karzai’s interference with the work of anti-corruption bodies established in Afghanistan, the Obama administration found itself in an impasse with Karzai and called upon Kerry to help break it.
This is implementing foreign policy, not gathering information that might be useful in making legislative judgments. However well-intentioned such conduct may be, it is constitutionally inappropriate.
We need Senator Kerry in his constitutional role as Senator and Chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, delivering absolutely independent, objective, and critical judgments on the wisdom and conduct of U.S. foreign policy in Afghanistan.
Given the importance of the position he holds in the Senate, his judgment must at all times avoid even the appearance of impropriety. In the ninth year of the war in Afghanistan, we need his independent and critical judgment more than ever.
The Trenchant Observer
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Tags: 2009, Abdullah, Abdullah Abdullah, Afghan, Afghanistan, anti-corruption body, August 20 elections, Barack Obama, bodies, chairman, conflict of interest, constitutional duty, corruption, David Petraeus, Dion Nissenbaum, Electoral Complaints Comission, electoral law, first-round elections, Hamid Karzai, Hillary Clinton, impasse, Independent Electoral Commission, international members, internationals, John Kerry, Joshua Partlow, Karl Eikenberry, Karzai, McClatchey Newspapers, presidential elections, rapport with Karzai, second round elections, Secretary of State, senate foreign relations committee, Senator, Washington Post
Posted in Abdoulah, Abdullah, Afghanistan, elections, Hamid Karzai, Pakistan, Pakistan military, State Department, U.S. news coverage, United States | Comments Off
Thursday, March 25th, 2010
In a sign of growing opposition by U.S. internet companies in China to assisting the Chinese government in imposing censorship on Chinese computer users, GoDaddy has announced it is curtailing its activities in China and will no longer host new sites with “cn” domain names. Silicon Valley’s leading newspaper, the San Jose Mercury News reports:
A second prominent Internet company has joined Google in rejecting Chinese surveillance and censorship rules, as Google’s move to stop filtering its Chinese search results draws more attention to Internet freedom in Washington.
Saying it hosts many individual Web sites considered politically sensitive by the Chinese government, the Go Daddy Group said Wednesday it would stop hosting new sites with “.cn” domain names, rather than comply with government requirements to provide increasingly detailed information about its Chinese customers.
The world’s largest Internet domain name registrar told a congressional panel that its China operations had come under increasingly stringent surveillance rules since December. Chinese authorities demanded in February that Go Daddy, which hosts Web sites tied to Tibet and the Tiananmen Square uprising of 1989, provide color photographs and signed registration forms for all Chinese owners of its 27,000 .cn domain sites, said Go Daddy general counsel Christine Jones.
Suspending new .cn Web sites “was a decision we made in our own right, based on our experience of having to contact Chinese nationals, collect their personal information and return that information to the government,” Jones told the Congressional-Executive Commission on China. “We made a decision we didn’t want to act as an agent for the Chinese government.”
–Mike Swift, “Joining Google, GoDaddy.com will halt some services in China,” San Jose Mercury News, March 25, 2010
GoDaddy.com officials testfied before a Congressional Committee on Wednesday. The Washington Post provides additional details:
GoDaddy.com, the world’s largest domain name registration company, told lawmakers Wednesday that it will cease registering Web sites in China in response to intrusive new government rules that require applicants to provide extensive personal data, including photographs of themselves.
The rules, the company said, are an effort by China to increase monitoring and surveillance of Web site content and could put individuals who register their sites with the firm at risk. The company also said the rules will have a “chilling effect” on new domain name registrations.
GoDaddy’s move follows Google’s announcement Monday that it will no longer censor search results on its site in China….
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In December, China began to enforce a new policy that required any registrant of a new .cn domain name to provide a color, head-and-shoulders photograph and other business identification, including a Chinese business registration number and physical, signed registration forms. That data was to be forwarded to the China Internet Network Information Center (CNNIC), a quasi-governmental agency. Most domain name registries require only a name, address, telephone number and e-mail address.
“We were immediately concerned about the motives behind the increased level of registrant verification being required,” Christine N. Jones, general counsel of the Go Daddy Group, told the Congressional-Executive Commission on China on Wednesday. “The intent of the procedures appeared, to us, to be based on a desire by the Chinese authorities to exercise increased control over the subject matter of domain name registrations by Chinese nationals.”
GoDaddy has been registering domain names since 2000 and has more than 40 million under management.
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Jones said GoDaddy’s decision to stop registering new domains was unrelated to Google’s recent decision….”We decided we didn’t want to be agents of China,” she said.
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–John Pomfret, Ellen Nakashima and Cecilia Kang, “China censors searches on Google’s Hong Kong-based search engine,” Washington Post, March 23, 2010
On Monday, March 22, Google ceased filtering search results within mainland China, redirecting searches to its Hong Kong site which had operated under fewer restrictions. By Tuesday, China was blocking access to “sensitive” sites on Google in Hong Kong as well.
China’s new restrictions on GoDaddy.com and Google reflect a worsening climate for U.S. businesses operating in China. But their signficance and importance go far beyond that. They are likely to become a source of growing friction between the United States and China, as the Obama administration has increasingly embraced a policy of support for the free flow of information over the internet.
Hillary Clinton’s Speech on Internet Freedom
In an important speech on internet freedom on January 21, 2010, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton addressed what she termed “the freedom to connect”. She expressed the new policy forthrightly, saying in part:
Franklin Roosevelt built on these ideas when he delivered his Four Freedoms speech in 1941. Now, at the time, Americans faced a cavalcade of crises and a crisis of confidence. But the vision of a world in which all people enjoyed freedom of expression, freedom of worship, freedom from want, and freedom from fear transcended the troubles of his day. And years later, one of my heroes, Eleanor Roosevelt, worked to have these principles adopted as a cornerstone of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. They have provided a lodestar to every succeeding generation, guiding us, galvanizing us, and enabling us to move forward in the face of uncertainty.
So as technology hurtles forward, we must think back to that legacy. We need to synchronize our technological progress with our principles. In accepting the Nobel Prize, President Obama spoke about the need to build a world in which peace rests on the inherent rights and dignities of every individual. And in my speech on human rights at Georgetown a few days later, I talked about how we must find ways to make human rights a reality. Today, we find an urgent need to protect these freedoms on the digital frontiers of the 21st century.
There are many other networks in the world. Some aid in the movement of people or resources, and some facilitate exchanges between individuals with the same work or interests. But the internet is a network that magnifies the power and potential of all others. And that’s why we believe it’s critical that its users are assured certain basic freedoms. Freedom of expression is first among them. This freedom is no longer defined solely by whether citizens can go into the town square and criticize their government without fear of retribution. Blogs, emails, social networks, and text messages have opened up new forums for exchanging ideas, and created new targets for censorship.
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Some countries have erected electronic barriers that prevent their people from accessing portions of the world’s networks. They’ve expunged words, names, and phrases from search engine results. They have violated the privacy of citizens who engage in non-violent political speech. These actions contravene the Universal Declaration on Human Rights, which tells us that all people have the right “to seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers.” With the spread of these restrictive practices, a new information curtain is descending across much of the world….
As in the dictatorships of the past, governments are targeting independent thinkers who use these tools. In the demonstrations that followed Iran’s presidential elections, grainy cell phone footage of a young woman’s bloody murder provided a digital indictment of the government’s brutality. We’ve seen reports that when Iranians living overseas posted online criticism of their nation’s leaders, their family members in Iran were singled out for retribution. And despite an intense campaign of government intimidation, brave citizen journalists in Iran continue using technology to show the world and their fellow citizens what is happening inside their country. In speaking out on behalf of their own human rights, the Iranian people have inspired the world. And their courage is redefining how technology is used to spread truth and expose injustice.
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A connection to global information networks is like an on-ramp to modernity. In the early years of these technologies, many believed that they would divide the world between haves and have-nots. But that hasn’t happened. There are 4 billion cell phones in use today. Many of them are in the hands of market vendors, rickshaw drivers, and others who’ve historically lacked access to education and opportunity. Information networks have become a great leveler, and we should use them together to help lift people out of poverty and give them a freedom from want.
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The final freedom, one that was probably inherent in what both President and Mrs. Roosevelt thought about and wrote about all those years ago, is one that flows from the four I’ve already mentioned: the freedom to connect – the idea that governments should not prevent people from connecting to the internet, to websites, or to each other. The freedom to connect is like the freedom of assembly, only in cyberspace. It allows individuals to get online, come together, and hopefully cooperate. Once you’re on the internet, you don’t need to be a tycoon or a rock star to have a huge impact on society.
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Increasingly, U.S. companies are making the issue of internet and information freedom a greater consideration in their business decisions. I hope that their competitors and foreign governments will pay close attention to this trend. The most recent situation involving Google has attracted a great deal of interest. And we look to the Chinese authorities to conduct a thorough review of the cyber intrusions that led Google to make its announcement. And we also look for that investigation and its results to be transparent.
The internet has already been a source of tremendous progress in China, and it is fabulous. There are so many people in China now online. But countries that restrict free access to information or violate the basic rights of internet users risk walling themselves off from the progress of the next century. Now, the United States and China have different views on this issue, and we intend to address those differences candidly and consistently in the context of our positive, cooperative, and comprehensive relationship.
Now, ultimately, this issue isn’t just about information freedom; it is about what kind of world we want and what kind of world we will inhabit. It’s about whether we live on a planet with one internet, one global community, and a common body of knowledge that benefits and unites us all, or a fragmented planet in which access to information and opportunity is dependent on where you live and the whims of censors.
–Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, “Remarks on Internet Freedom,” (The Newseum, Washington, D.C.), January 21, 2010.
Transcripts of Clinton’s remarks are available in Arabic, Chinese, French, Persian, Russian, Spanish, and Urdu, on the State Department website (at the link above).
The Trenchant Observer
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Posted in China, Dictatorship, human rights, International Law, State Department Human Rights Country Reports | 4 Comments »