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The challenge of restoring US credibility
CLAUDE ROBINSON
Sunday, January 11, 2009
FROST-NIXON, one of several wonderful movies showing in New York City when I was there over the Christmas and New Year holidays, has a great line which could serve to introduce discussion in the US media around President-elect Barack Obama's pick to head the US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA).
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| CLAUDE ROBINSON |
The movie is based on the celebrated interview of President Richard Nixon by the British journalist and broadcaster David Frost about crimes committed by Nixon and some of his top aides in the Watergate burglary and executive cover-up leading to Nixon's fall in the 1970s.
In one memorable sequence Frost quizzed Nixon as to whether he was suggesting that it was OK for the president to break the law. The reply was swift, if somewhat incredible: "What I am saying is that when the president does it, it is not illegal".
The exchange was a chilling reminder of assertions by the outgoing Bush-Cheney-Rumsfeld administration that denial of the protections of the Geneva Conventions to detainees at Guantanamo was justified because they were not prisoners of war, as decreed by the Conventions and US law, but 'enemy combatants' as decreed by President Bush.
The well-documented abuse of detainees and unlawful detentions at the US camp and detention centre at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba ranks high on the list of unacceptable and illegal conduct by US intelligence agencies - in the name of the 'war on terror' declared by President George W Bush following the deadly and outrageous terrorist attacks on New York and Washington on September 11, 2001.
There are others. Iraqi prisoners at Abu Ghraib prison in Baghdad have been subject to inhumane treatment which was clearly authorised by figures at levels higher than the serving men and women held accountable; some detainees have been subjected to 'water boarding' which has been almost universally described as torture; some have been treated to 'extreme rendition', that is, being sent to secret torture sessions in undisclosed locations in the Middle East and Europe.
These and other atrocities, including giving Israel a free hand, to use whatever force Tel Aviv thinks is appropriate, have served to undermine United States' image, credibility and leadership in a world desperately in need of new approaches to resolving thorny security, political, economic and development challenges.
Enter Barack Obama. Speaking to reporters Tuesday, he made it clear that his administration would break with the controversial and sometimes illegal practices of the CIA and other intelligence agencies as part of the war on terror.
Obama says he's putting together an intelligence and security team "that is committed to breaking with the past practices and concerns that have tarnished the image of the agencies, both intelligence as well as US foreign policy".
That approach seems to explain his expected choice of Leon Panetta as the new head of the CIA. The name has been making the rounds but the president-elect has not formally announced the choice up to late Thursday (the time of writing). The president-elect was also expected to announce his nomination of retired Adm Dennis C Blair to be director of national intelligence.
In an interview Wednesday with CNBC, the president-elect stopped short of confirming his choice for the new CIA chief, "All I can say is Leon Panetta is an outstanding public servant with impeccable integrity, somebody who's worked on national security at the highest levels, and if I were to select him, I think he would do an outstanding job."
Panetta who is a veteran of the Bill Clinton administration does not come with the baggage associated with some of the professionals who served under Bush and who were responsible for the abuses that have been so widely criticised.
As an outsider, though one with considerable experience in Washington, Panetta might bring a more appropriate political oversight to the agency and may be able to take positive actions to restore the US image and credibility. These would include shutting down Guantanamo, as Obama had indicated in the campaign and ending torture and other abuses as tools for gathering information from suspected terrorists.
But there are risks as Obama must know. Inside the agency an outsider may alienate the professional spies.
As the Panetta name made the media circles, some critics - including Democrats in the Senate - are dismayed at the selection of someone with no experience or background as a spy or spy master.
However, by Thursday it seemed that initial opposition to the choice of Panetta had all but disappeared as The New York Times reports that the "dustup" over the proposed selection "appeared to cool Wednesday" after Senator Dianne Feinstein, incoming chairwoman of the Select Committee on Intelligence, "dropped her criticism", saying, "I believe all systems are go."
For me, the choice of Panetta would be a good signal for those of us who believe that restoring US credibility in the world is vital to addressing other key global issues including climate change, AIDS and other trans-border pandemics, persistent economic underdevelopment in Africa, reshaping the global financial and economic architecture and rebalancing the political management of international relations.
It is clear from the current global economic crisis that, over the medium term, it will be necessary to restructure and refocus international financial institutions like the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) as well as the World Trade Organisation.
The old boys' club has too much power and influence over choices made by poor countries like Jamaica. We remember only too well the dictates of the IMF and the pressure they placed on both Michael Manley in the 1970s and Edward Seaga in the 1980s.
A new world order must also recognise the shift in power away from the victors of the Second World War.
Among other things, this means remaking the UN Security Council to give permanent seats to emerging powerhouses like India, Brazil and South Africa as well as the former 'enemy' states of war, Germany and Japan (the second and third largest economies in the world).
Meanwhile, Obama, in a speech from George Mason University in Fairfax, Virginia, on Thursday, called on Congress to act quickly on his economic package which, among other things, calls for investment in energy, education, health care, new infrastructure and giving tax breaks to working families and firms hiring new workers.
Implementing what he has called the American Recovery and Reinvestment Plan may not be easy as some worry about the cost and the effectiveness, though everyone agrees that Obama has to do something bold right after taking office January 20. This is important not only for America but the world.
Equally, breaking with the past on security and foreign policy will not be easy. But the way the rest of the world views America will depend, in large measure, on how soon the disturbing images of Guantanamo, Abu Ghraib and Gaza become distant memories.
kcr@cwjamaica.com
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