Archive | July, 2024

Revised Open Letter to Kamala Harris

26 Jul

[Prefatory Note: An earlier version of thiss Open Letter to Kamala Harris was published by CounterPunch on July 23, 2024;  so many developments have occurred in recent days as to make this longer version seem justifiable.]

An Open Letter to Kamala Harris and the Democratic Party, July 2024

These is every reason to be glad that Joe Biden finally acted responsibly by withdrawing his candidacy for a second term. It should have happened weeks earlier. To consider this overdue act ‘brave’ and ‘courageous’ is to rob those precious words of their proper meaning. Withdrawal was a pragmatic move forced upon Biden by mounting pressures from the leadership of the Democratic Party and the insistence of a large majority of potential voters.

It is certainly true that Trump and his Republican base repeatedly lie about their achievements and the failings of their opponents, yet it is time to admit that the exaggerations and selective self-congratulations of the Democratic Party are only a degree less deceptive from the perspective of meaningful political communication in self-respecting democracies. Exaggerations are best understood as ‘soft lies’ and are integral to the style of post-truth political discourse.  They should not be excused by such phrases as ‘that’s the way of politics.’

Biden, and so far, Kamala Harris, neither defend nor apologize for a foreign policy that has repudiated diplomacy in the Ukraine context and made no secret of its complicity in supporting Israel’s violent assault on the entire civilian population of Gaza that much of the rest of the world views as a transparent and severe instance of the crime of crimes, genocide. And this seems also reflects the implicit views of the International Court of Justice, including the American judge, in its preliminary and interim responses to the well-presented legal arguments of the South African team in The Hague on why Israel is violating the Genocide Convention and needs to be stopped.

Against this background, should not Democrats, and Americans generally reasonably expect more forthrightness from Harris before heeding unity pleas tied tightly to urgent pleas for yet more campaign donations? What Biden and Harris said in their comments on Biden’s decision to withdraw and call for support of the current VP is worth reflecting upon. This is especially so in view of the foregrounding of controversy during Netanyahu’s speech to a Joint Session of Congress, which were highlighted by bipartisan standing ovations with the hallowed halls, while on the streets near the Capital large hostile demonstrations led by Jewish Voices for Peace were seeking Netanyahu’s arrest for crimes rather than for applause for the world to witness.

At least, Harris absented herself from the Congressional appearance of Netanyahu, and limited herself to a private courtesy meeting in the White House entire separated from Biden’s welcoming of Netanyahu.

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Biden’s words in his official letter announcing his withdrawal are best reflected upon in this wider political framing:

“My fellow Democrats, I have decided not to accept the nomination and to focus all my energies on my duties as President for the remainder of my term. My very first decision as the party nominee in 2020 was to pick Kamala Harris as my Vice President. And it’s been the best decision I’ve made. Today I want to offer my full support and endorsement for Kamala to be the nominee of our party this year. Democrats—it’s time to come together and beat Trump. Let’s do this.”

This statement is pretty much boiler plate for such occasions, although it would have been better appreciated if it had included some affirmation of Kamala Harris as having a bold independent, intelligent, compassionate voice that made her counsel so valuable during these past four years. Instead, Biden leaves a dominant impression that Harris performed so admirably because she did such a good job in implementing his policy agenda. Now all Americans will have an opportunity to listen to what Kamala Harris has to say on her own behalf. She is unquestionably an outstanding experienced public servant but to earn broad support beyond her appeal as not being ‘not Trump’ (or Vance) depends on expressing her vison of what presidential leadership should aspire to be at this critical stage in the country’s evolution. The Harris/Trump epic contest this November is shaping up to be one of the most vitally important presidential elections in the country’s 248 years of existence.

In accepting Biden’s endorsement and committing herself to seeking the presidency Kamala Harris’s words are for my taste too much in the spirit of presenting herself to the voting public as Biden 2.0: Of course, this is what a vice president is supposed to do while in service, but at this stage, Harris is uniquely challenged to be simultaneously Biden Vice President until his term ends in January 2025 and to make a distinct case for herself as the next leader of the country. In effect, this amounts to asking Harris to give strong hints as to her views on foreign policy, especially if they significantly different from those of Biden is to be in an impossible position. It is not to be expected that Harris makes explicit note of such differences as that would be divisive given

the circumstances associated with having been Biden’s loyal junior partner during these four years of his presidency.

Her words on accepting Biden’s endorsement of her candidacy are probably neither better nor worse than could be expected given such he sensitive situation.

“I am running to be President of the United States. 

“It has been the honor of a lifetime to serve alongside our Commander-in-Chief, my friend, President Joe Biden – one of the finest public servants we will ever know. And I am honored to have his support and endorsement. [emphasis in original]

“And I am eager to run on the record of what Joe and I have accomplished together. We built our country back after our predecessor left it in shambles – making historic progress in upgrading our nation’s infrastructure, fighting climate change, and more. We are stronger today because we took action – together – to invest in America’s future.”

The language is a gracious expression of her experience while serving as VP, but also again it manages nothing revealing about Harris’ worldview beyond her embedded commitment to carry on the work as VP during the remainder of the Biden presidency, which is to be judged as compiling a record to be assessed by its positive impacts on the lives of Americans, conveying an image of US foreign policy being so bipartisan that is not worth talking about, or more truthfully because both its defense and critique would be divisive. The Democratic Party is badly split with regard to its attitude toward complicity with the Israeli perpetrators of criminal policies and practices in Gaza, including those that are parallel yet apart from the genocide issue, On July 19 the ICJ pronounced by a near unanimous majority of the 15 judges who issued a decision on Israel’s multiply wrongful occupation of Gaza and drew the legal conclusion that Israel should be required to depart from Gaza, the West Bank, and East Jerusalem as quickly as possible. Although the decision is within the ICJ category of ‘Advisory Opinions’ it sets forth an authoritative determination of the international law issues and their consequences, including the ICJ insistence that Israel, all States, and the UN itself implements its extremely far reaching rulings. [“Legal Consequences Arising from the Policies and Practices of Isael in the Occupied Palestinian Territory Including East Jerusalem,” 19 July 2024].

It is possible that Kamala Harris, who admirably acknowledged in declaring her candidacy that she must earn the nomination not merely inherit it as a Biden final bequest, will give a forthright speech to the American people that exhibits some measure of independence, and abandons the incredible stance of Democratic Party nominees to be silent this year about the world out there beyond American borders at a time when the US role has never been more controversially intrusive. Surely, Biden’s frequent claims that America is in the best position of any country to provide global leadership, a view widely contested outside the West, deserve either a reasoned reaffirmation or, more appropriately, a prudent modification that is sensitive to criticisms and failures as it is boastful about achievements.

Aside from her double identity as VP and presidential candidate, Harris has a great opportunity to speak in her own voice, and not just channel the Biden record, but will she seize it? Looking back at her autobiography, The Truths We Hold: An American Journey, I was encouraged by the pride she took in being part of an activist family of color dedicated to progressive causes while growing into adulthood, including activist opposition to the Vietnam War and almost daily engagement in the civil rights movement. And even during her semi-obligatory downplayed meeting in the White House with Netanyahu, she seemed to distance herself from the mindless immorality of Israel’s behavior in Gaza since October 7. Since March she has been more forthright that Biden in supporting a war-ending ceasefire.

Also, encouraging are her rumored intention to replace the foreign policy team of Antony Blinken and Jake Sullivan that have served as such mediocre Biden international ideologues, especially Blinken whose startling ignorance of international affairs and excessive embrace of Israel have not served well the country or the Democratic Party. Perhaps, Democratic Party incredible silence amid engagement in two controversial and dangerous wars was after all a clever tactical diversion of attention from the world scene to domestic realities.

Harris can bring enthusiasm to her candidacy by talking about reinvigorating US commitments peace and justice in the world. Her choice of a running mate, promised by August 7 will be one opportunity for a fresh start, particularly is she has the political and moral wisdom to pass over Josh Shapiro who has been in the Biden camp on Israel, and hostile to pro-Palestinian campus activism.

In closing, I should acknowledge that despite the deplorable prospect of a second Trump term made worse by an awareness that JD Vance would then be a heartbeat away from presidential leadership, I had substantive reservations about supporting Biden/Harris, despite appreciating much of their domestic record, because of their foreign policy. It posed for me, to put it bluntly, an unwelcome choice between a warmonger and a mentally unstable incipient fascist. I confess to nightmares that this is still my choice, or and not yet sure whether Harris will make the fundamental adjustments in governance that might at least restore US credentials as first among the world’s ‘liberal democracies.’

I should also add that I was disappointed by the domestic failure of the Biden/Harrris presidency to do more to protect the academic freedom of pro-Palestinian protests on college campuses and elsewhere. and by the related refusal to take responsibility for protecting all its students, and not just Jewish students as beneficiaries of donor interferences with the integrity of America’s once proud centers of higher education. One result has been to lead such institutions to take punitive action against foreign, especially Muslim, students who dare express their pro-Palestinian sentiments by way of civic activism.

As many Americans are assessing the highly objectionable Netanyahu visit to Washington during this past week, it is a time to elevate the electoral dialogue not only at the presidential level but also in relation to the many important Congressional contests. This unfortunate display of perverse diplomacy will also test Harris’ composure in her role as Vice President, whether to exhibit politeness but refrain from an ideological embrace of a foreign leader with a scandalous record, and from early accounts she seems to have handled the political delicacies of the situation in an encouragingly skillful manner.  

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Will the ICC Act? The Netanyahu/Gallant Arrest Warrants are a Truth or Dare Moment?

17 Jul

A Shaky Start for the ICC

Since its establishment in 2002 the International Criminal Court has struggled tofind a path to legitimacy. Its establishment was a triumph for the Global South and civic activism in extending the potential reach of international criminal law to the countries of the Global North. ICC prospects were limited from the outset by its organizational identity being situated outside the formal UN framework and even more so, by the failure of the geopolitical ‘big three’ of the US, China, and Russia to join, and in relation to present concerns, by Israel’s refusal. The ICC has 124 members including the liberal democracies in Western Europe, all states in South America, most in Africa, and  many in Asia. Despite this wide representation it has struggled throughout its existence for credibility, influence, respect, and legitimacy.

In its early years the ICC was deservedly blamed for concentrating its activities on the alleged wrongdoing of sub-Saharan African leaders, suggesting a racialist bias. Then later on, in relation to US and Israel’s alleged crimes in Afghanistan and Occupied Palestine, the ICC prosecutor sat on the files containing abundant evidence justifying at the very least, diligent investigations to determine whether indictments and prosecution were legally warranted, and by doing nothing, an impression was formed that the ICC was so weak and insecure that it could not hope to resist geopolitical, Western backdoor manipulations. ICC inaction in this instance was partly attributed to the radical ultra-nationalism of the Trump presidency that had the temerity to impose personalized sanctions on the prosecutor of the ICC should the tribunal open a case against either the US or Israel. Such sanctions were abandoned when Biden became president but the underlying hostility to ICC accountability.

The story goes on, but with new twists. When Russia attacked Ukraine in early 2022, the ICJ was called upon by the NATO West to act decisively with unaccustomed haste. The ICC obliged by expediting its procedures to move forward on an emergency basis to make a determination as to whether Putin and others should be immediately indicted for war crimes and arrest warrants issued. This unusual request for haste appeared to serve the geopolitical interests of the West, again somewhat racialized by the fact that ICC activism was on behalf of Ukraine a majority white, Christian victim of alleged war crimes. Such haste and pressures from the West had never before in the brief existence of the ICC been so enlisted. The ICC obliged, further compromising its credibility, by issuing arrest warrants for Putin and a close assistant, confirming the suspicion that it could be bullied even by non-parties to the Rome Statute that states adhered to if seeking status as parties, active in the work of the ICC.

Such haste with respect to Russia was not at all evident in relation to Gaza, despite the far greater urgency, considering the magnitude and severity of the unfolding humanitarian catastrophe facing the Palestinian people. To date it has withheld a meaningful response to the legal effort of Chile and Mexico to have the ICC investigate allegations against Israel. These two governments were seeking an ICC investigation and appropriate responses to the violations of the Genocide Convention by Israel in the course of carrying out its retaliatory attack on Gaza after October 7 that seemed designed to ignore the civilian innocence of the Palestinian people in Gaza in a prolonged process of imposing collective punishment on an occupied people, itself a violation of Article 33 of the 4th Geneva Convention.  This difference in ICC responses to these two initiatives reinforced an impression of double standards in the tribunal’s treatment of allegations of international crimes. In this instance the behavior of the ICC contrasted unfavorably with the laudable efforts of ICJ to do what it could do by way of declaring the relevant international law. The effectiveness of the ICJ Interim Orders was hampered by its inability to induce compliance by Israel or enforcement by the UN. These unfortunate frustrations were also attributable in part to the complicity of the liberal democracies in aiding and justifying Israel’s response to the Hamas attack.

Is the ICC Escaping from its Bad Reputation Thanks to Israel?

Against this background, it was inevitable that the ICC would be widely viewed as a weak institution, above all by not initially obtaining participation or cooperation of such important states as the US, Russia, China, and of course, Israel. In this regard, the ICC was most unfavorably compared to the International Court of Justice (ICJ) to which all members of the UN were automatically parties. The ICJ was widely respect for maintaining a high degree of professionalism and juridical dignity in the course of assessing the merits of legal disputes referred to the tribunal for adjudication even when geopolitical strategic interests were present. This positive reputation of the ICJ was greatly enhanced by its near unanimous Interim Orders of January and March 2024 granting several Provisional Measures requested by South Africa to impede Israel’s behavior that seemed to lay a plausible basis for concluding that Israel was guilty of ‘genocide’ in Gaza, although no such conclusion was reached, and the substantive legal status of the genocide allegation deferred until the ICJ rendered its decision on the merits.

Israel was also legally ordered by the ICJ to allow humanitarian aid to reach Palestinian civilians without interference, at least until the final judgment on the merits of the genocide contention could be rendered.  This was expected to happen in years hence after the ICJ had an opportunity to respond to further elaborate oral and written pleadings by the parties and those actors given leave to intervene. This process was expected to last for several years, quite likely reducing the existential relevance of the ICJ judgment as the killing would have hopefully have stopped long before the Court had time to rule. The decision would still have jurisprudential value as an authoritative interpretation of the crime of genocide, and might give rise to the establishment  of preventive and early response mechanisms in anticipation of future genocides. It is possible that the passage of time would reduce the intensity of partisan geopolitics, creating a better atmosphere for cooperative moves to strengthen the global normative order against futue outbreaks of genocidal violence.

Despite the cautious legal professionalism of the ICJ a nearly unanimous panel of the seventeen judges found Israel sufficiently responsible for ‘plausible genocide’ to grant Provisional Measures in response to South Africa’s request. [Application of the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide in the Gaza Strip (South Africa v. Israel, ICJ Orders, 192, 20240126 & 192 20240328, ProvMesures)]; [see also systematic assessment of Special Rapporteur on Occupied Palestine for the UN Human Rights Council, Francesca Albanese, ‘Anatomy of a Genocide,’ A/HRC/55/73, 25 March 2024].

These orders legally require Israel to take a variety of steps to stop engaging in genocidal behavior including interference with efforts to deliver food and medicine to starving and desperate Palestinians huddled together in dangerously crowded collective misery in the small city of Rafah on the Egyptian border. The prospect of bloody extensions of genocide are daily proposed by Israeli leaders in their murderous attacks on Rafah, much overcrowded condition resulting from sheltering large numbers of Palestinian civilians. Israel also issued a series of evacuation orders purporting to shift Palestinians to ‘safe zones,’ but in practice subjecting even these areas in Central Gaza to devastating attacks. This pattern of evacuation orders and continuous attack has  put the finishing touches on Israel’s actions that are more and more widely perceived as repudiations of the minimal moral sensibilities of a common humanity as well as carrying out mortal threats to the life prospects of Palestinians now estimated at over 186,000 by the highly respected medical journal, Lancet. This higher figure than the death statistcs compiled and verified by Gaza Public Health sources the direct Israeli violence, results from counting as deaths attributable to the attacks, Palestinians missing as presumably buried beneath piles of rubble, as well as the deaths caused by starvation, malnutrition, inadequate sanitation.  Using the Lancet estimate of the proportionate loss of life in Gaza (without taking account of injuries, physical and mental) if occurred in US society would amount to 2,900,000 fataities, which is a figure greater than the total loss of American loss of lives in all the wars of the entire 20th century.

A Redemptive Moment for the ICC?

If asked even a week ago, I would have said that Bibi Netanyahu would have been the very last person on the planet to come to the institutional rescue of the ICC, although he did so in a backhanded way. Netanyahu leaped to respond after leaked rumors suggested that the ICC was on the verge of issuing arrest warrants naming Netanyahu, the Defense Minister, Yoav Gallant, and Army Chief of Staff Herzl Halevi. Somehow this prospect so agitated Netanyahu that he chose to go on the offensive in advance of any formal action. His five-minute video tirade against the ICC is worth watching by everyone—

 https://x.com/netanyahu/status/1785362914519519597?s  1-–if only to get a sense of just how potentially formidable the ICC might become if it performs in conformity with its statute. On balance, if it takes Netanyahu’s misplaced sense of outrage to shame the ICC into finally doing its job, so be it.

At the same time Netanyahu’s gross distortions of what was happening in Gaza were extreme enough to provide valuable material to late night TV humorists. The obvious purpose of Netanyahu’s tirade was to whitewash over six months of an unprecedented humanitarian catastrophe imperiling the individual and collective survival of the long abused civilian population of Gaza.  Israeli behavior is so macabre as to be beyond the realm of good-natured, apolitical comedy, providing more of an occasion for weeping and mourning the lost and ravaged lives, and devasted cities, hospitals, places of worship, schools, and UN facilities.

It is within this setting that the ICC seems to have been given an opportunity to act finally in accordance with its mandate, to redeem its reputation for spinelessness, and strike a symbolic blow in the increasingly worldwide struggle to stop Israel’s genocide in Gaza. It is technically possible and undoubtedly politically tempting for the prosecutor to disappoint these expectations by limiting ICC action against Israeli and Hamas leaders to their alleged  pre-October 7 crimes. Such an evasion would be within scope of the 2015 initiative of Palestine, a party to the Rome Statute, which was initiated in such a manner that any crime after 2014 was potentially indictable. Such an evasion would be a double disappointment for those seeking to increase pressure on Israel to accept a ceasefire followed by a series of restorative acts that could include redress, reparations, accountability, and reconstruction punitive directives.

We are left with the puzzle of why Israel’s reaction to the ICC, in view of its low institutional esteem, was seen as so much more threatening to Israel than the more authoitative directives of the far more established ICJ. Could it be that the criminal character of the ICC and the personal nature of arrest warrants are more of an emotional pushback than  mere legal rulings? Or was the ICC perceived as low hanging fruit, which even Israel took respectful account of the ICJ legal proceeding, and participated both in appointing a prominent Israeli jurist as an ad hoc judge and by taking part in the proceedings by offering a defense of their actions in Gaza.

Netanyahu phrased his key argument against the arrest warrants as posing a mortal threat to the right of democracies to defend themselves against their evil enemies, singling out Iran.  Such a view, reverses the perceptions of peoples throughout the world excepting those governments and right-wing elements that support  Israel in the Global West and the hardest core Zionist ideologues. Increasingly, even in the strongholds of Zionist influence, softer versions of Zionism and more independent Jewish voices are siding with the pro-Palestine protesters, reacting against the stark reality of genocide.

A Concluding Remark

We should all know by now that Israel has no intention of complying with international law no matter what the source of authority. In this sense, the importance of the ICJ and potentially, the ICC, is to strengthen the growing tide of pro-Palestinian sentiment around the world, and an emerging consensus to escalate civic solidarity initiatives of the sort that contributed to the American defeat in Vietnam despite total battlefield military superiority and that doomed the South African apartheid regime. In this regard, the utterances of the most influential international institutions entrusted with interpreting international law have more impact in high profile political situations such as exist in Gaza, than does do either the ICJ or ICC, and for that matter, than even the UNSC. Once again if the Palestine people do finally realize their basic rights, it will be thanks to the resistance of those victimized as reinforced by the transnational activism of people everywhere.  It may be in launching his vitriolic attack on the ICC, Netanyahu was subconsciously delivering his\ mendacious sermon to the aroused peoples of the world. 

We now know that the Prosecutor of the ICC did recommend to a sub-commission in the form of a panel of judges the issuance of arrest warrants for Israeli and Hamas leaders, and so far no decision has been forthcoming. Notable, also, was the omission of genocide from the crimes charged to the Israeli leadership. The US reacted with anger, as exhibited by President Biden, that the ICC Prosecutor seemed to create a moral equivalence between Israel and the terrorist organization, Hamas. Critics of Israel and complicit states in contrast objected to the equivalency but from an opposite position—making an attack justified by Hamas’ right of resistance within the limits of international humanitarian law equivalent to Israel’s 9+ months of genocide.

Perhaps needless to observe, the ICC has yet to deliver its judgment.

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Biden’s Escapist Vision & Democratic Party’s Evasive Electoral Campaign

10 Jul

[Prefatory Note: With trivial variations, this essay was published in CounterPunchon July 9, 2024. It expresses my dissatisfaction with Biden’s stubborn resolve to challenge Trump despite his impaired capabilities (and I would add his woeful foreign policy toward the Ukraine War and Gaza Genocide) and wooly-headed optimism about the future of America and his ill-conceived optimism about its ability to lead the world. The Democratic Party is faulted for its head-in-the-sand approach to foreign policy, limiting its electoral campaign strategy to the deserved demonization of Trump and Trumpism, but despite these two controversial ‘wars,’ refusing to defend or distance their campaign from these central features of the Biden presidency.]

Critiquing Biden’s Worldview, Democratic Party Tactics, and America’s Destiny

The Democratic Party is waging its 2024 electoral campaign by focusing on two

themes: first, a denunciation of all that Trump proposes to bring to the presidency  centering on  the destruction of American democracy, if elected, and secondly, a celebratory spin on the domestic record of the Biden years with several notable benefits for the American people  including jobs and wages, climate, energy policy, social protection, gun control, and a stock market at record highs. What is missing from this rosy picture of America and even more so from Democratic Party feckless advocacy is neither claims nor explanations of foreign policy, only a deafening silence. It is as if the leadership of the Democratic Party wants the voting public to forget that there is a world out there, beyond national boundaries. While it has pragmatic reasons to adopt this evasive approach, especially in an election year, it is irresponsible about its partial description of America’s role in the world at a critical historical juncture.

Embracing this national posture seems strange as the US has so heavily invested in military capabilities to secure its global dominance in the decades after the collapse of the Soviet Union over 30 years ago.  And as a consequence, finds itself currently engaged controversially in these wars raging in Ukraine and Gaza. It appears that even Biden is reluctant to claim political credit when addressing national audience for US support of Israel and Ukraine, and prefers to speak in generalities about the greatness of America as a country whose future is bright except to the extent dimmed by the threatened advent of Trump and Trumpism. This tendency to ignore the world should be more troubling to American voters than even Biden’s refusal to leave the presidential stage in light of his thinly deniable disabilities of age and mental health that have put his 2024 candidacy in such public peril as to make more likely a Trump victory in November. Such an evasive pattern gives seems to lend itself in Biden’s campaign rhetoric to absurdly boastful, yet distorting and unconvincing, assessments of the present broad political outlook for the country and the world.

Biden’s speech on the 3rd Anniversary of the January 6th Insurrectionary attack on Congress is a typical example. After a lengthy, persuasive recital of warnings about the Trump menace, Biden offers some unhinged general remarks, starting with his oft repeated startling expression of personal confidence in the glorious future of America: “I have never been more optimistic about the future of our country.”  No explanation is given for why this is so, and there could not be one even if Orwellian tropes were relied upon. Biden makes no mention of the dubious wars, of massive homelessness, of dangerously large economic inequalities, of an epidemic of mass shootings, of growing migrant tensions, of backsliding on carbon emissions and the related rise of extreme weather events, of numerous signs of rising risks of future major wars with China and Russia, quite possibly prompting the use of nuclear weapons, of deeply disturbing erosions of academic freedom recently accompanied by punitive encroachments on dissent and freedom of expression, as well as the emergence bitterest and most divisive societal polarization since the American Civil War. I confess that I have never in my life felt more pessimistic about the future of the country. At least the citizenry was entitled expected a self-professed liberal such as Biden to be forthright about addressing the unmet illiberal challenges that have been rampant during his years in the White House, and a program to do so in the increasingly unlikely event that Democrats are given the mandate to govern in November.

Biden also was immaturely boastful on the same occasion. “We’re the greatest nation on the face of the earth.” And possibly betraying his uncertainty about the outlandish claim immediately added reassuring words but no specifics, “We really are.’ Then he proceeded to display the kind of hubris long associated with the twilight of past declining empires. Counter-historically Biden observed that “We know America is winning. That’s American patriotism.’ It underpins the broader claim that evokes doubt and opposition outside the West: “there’s no country in the world better positioned to lead the world than America..Just remember who we are..We are the United States of America, for God’s sake.’ Remembering who we are, or have become, is the ideological leader of the (il)liberal democracies of the West who mostly lent a helping hand to Israel while in recent months it carried out a genocidal assault on the helplessly vulnerable 2.3 million civilian population of the tiny Gaza Strip. This American led complicity in what much of the world’s peoples perceived as a transparent genocide, even proclaimed as such in the rationales articulated and policies pursued by Israel’s political leaders and put into deadly practice by its armed forces. While claiming to be “defending the sacred cause of democracy” Biden doesn’t respect his own citizenry sufficiently to acknowledge Israel’s policies face unprecedented challenges at the International Court of Justice (ICJ) and the International Criminal Court (ICC), offering neither an explanation nor an apology. We must ask ourselves whether such a failure to include the citizenry in evaluating foreign policy that much of the public dissents from is in keeping with an existential commitment to democratic styles of governance. Or for that matter, whether cooperative security arrangements and friendly relations touted by Biden with the governments of India, Saudi Arabia, Egypt and others can be reconciled with his personal commitment to the promotion of a democratizing world as the only acceptable alternative to its autocratic adversaries.

US democracy from the founding of the republic almost 250 years ago has been associated with a constitutional arrangement that stresses the division of and balance between the three principal branches of government as supplemented by the guiding idea that even the acts of the president are not above the restraints and accountability procedures of law. Currently, both pf these vital pillars of a functioning democracy are crumbling, and near collapse. The US Supreme Court has never been so out of touch with the values of American traditions and the defense of its democratic character, not only by its denial of women’s reproductive rights but in relation to upholding the rule of law in relation to the behavior of the president and the regulation of corporate wrongdoing. Congress, in many vital sectors of public policy, has become captive to well-funded lobbying pressures and the interests of the wealthiest American leading commentators to argue that plutocracy has become a more accurate description of the form of government than democracy, To be optimistic in the face of such developments has all the appearances of playing the role of the fool.

For me an unmistakable indicator of the alienation of the governing process from the citizenry is the extension of a bipartisan invitation to the embattled Israeli Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu to address a joint session of Congress later in July. This bestowal of such a signal honor on a foreign leader for whom ‘arrest warrants’ has been recommended by the habitually cautious ICC, will be further enhanced by a meeting with the President at the White House undoubtedly accompanied by a TV moment exhibiting harmony between these two leaders that includes unconditional support and a profession of shared values. Such an inappropriate gesture of approval is a slap in the faces of those many American opponents of Israel’s policies in Gaza over the course of recent months, especially a show of disrespect toward young Americans who protested on university campuses across the country, and for their expressions of belief and conscience experienced police brutality and professionally harmful punishments imposed educational administrators, themselves under pressure from donors and politicians. The Netanyahu invitation is an edifying metaphor that helps justify the dark foreboding of skeptics critical of the US global role since the end of the Cold War and deeply pessimistic about the future of the country. From such an angle, Biden’s off-the-wall optimism and the tactics of the Democratic Party establishment are the opposite of reassuring. Rather I find these patterns as strong evidence of dangerous forms of escapism from the uncomfortable realities of national and global circumstances and a stubborn display of a failing leader’s resilient vanity.      

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ASSESSING THE PUNITIVE ‘RELEASE’ OF JULIAN ASSANGE

9 Jul

[Prefatory Note: This is a modified text of responses to questions posed by a Washington-based AlJazeera journalist, Mohamed Elmenshawy, about the plea bargain release of Julian Assange (6/25/24)]

ASSESSING THE PUNITIVE ‘RELEASE’ OF JULIAN ASSANGE

1-What do you make of the plea deal reached between the US Government and Assange?

The release of Julian Assange is long overdue, although it would have been more widely welcomed at this time if it had not been achieved within the framework of a plea bargain. More appropriate, and far less ambivalent, would have been a presidential pardon that kept the door open for future investigative journalists with the courage to reveal and comment upon inconvenient truths.

As it was, Assange after being released from prison was obliged to stop in the small city of Saipan in an Northern   Marianas Island in the Western Pacific, which is actually US territory, and face espionage charges in a criminal court. To gain his freedom after 14 years on the run and in various types of confinement, Assange’s guilty plea bargain required him to plead guilty on one of a series charges against him. The US Government seemed content with Assange’s acceptance of the charge of conspiring unlawfully to obtain and disseminate classified materials.

Despite securing this guilty plea, the prosecution had agreed that it would not seek to have Assange made subject to any further punishment. His time in the UK maximum security prison at Belmarsh Prison for the past five years was apparently treated as sufficient jail time, allowing the government to claim that US espionage laws were being enforced in response to Assange’s unlawful behavior. Assange’s long confinement in the Ecuador Embassy in London for the nine years preceding confinement in Belmarsh during the long extradition legal process amounted also to a punishment for the dubious contention that Wikileaks rather than being dissident journalism was espionage, despite Assange’s diligent redaction of any material that might endanger the safety of persons named in the released classified documents. Assange was also imprisoned for 50 weeks in the UK after jumping bail to avoid being extradited to Sweden to face some alleged criminal  charges  of an ambiguous sexual assault.

While there exist humanitarian and principled political reasons to celebrate Assange’s freedom there are also grounds for concern and criticism. To begin with there were rather well-sourced reports that the CIA considered kidnapping or even assassinating Assange during his prolonged stay in Ecuador’s Embassy. These concerns were aggravated by insinuations that the US had helped engineer a change of government in Ecuador that resulted in the withdrawal of its grant of asylum to Assange in London. The most damaging materials that was disclosed by Wikileaks came to Assange by way of a US Army Intelligence Officer, Chelsea Manning (previously known as Bradley Manning), who transmitted 750,000 classified and diplomatic documents to Assange relating to various incidents in the Iraq and Afghanistan wars that confirmed and documented US reliance on criminal tactics that amounted to international war crimes. Manning was court-martialed for violating the Espionage Laws and was imprisoned from 2010-1017 for leaking classified materials to Assange. Her prison sentence was commuted by Obama in 2017, releasing Manning from serving out her sentence.

By treating such disclosures as espionage, as is the effect of Assange’s guilty plea, is to send all dissident journalists an intimidating signal that they could be subject to a criminal prosecution in the future. Mainstream journalists frequently address pro-government issues that are shaped by privileged access to classified government documents without facing such threats. The difference in treatment of dissident journalists whose views rarely are represented on influential establishment media platforms in the West arises from their political slant rather than from their classified character. In this instance the media performs, especially in relation to foreign policy and national security, operate as an instrument of state propaganda. In contrast, Wikileaks is primarily motivated by a radical anti-state, left populist orientation supportive of greater transparency with respect to government policy in the conduct of foreign policy.

This dissident identity leads some commentators on the political right to consider Assange to be an ‘anarchist hacker’ rather than a true journalist, and as such, deserving of punishment to the full extent of the law. They even object to the current arrangement governing his release as endangering future national security interests and the safety of those citizens who might be exposed by public disclosure, as well as those with whom US intelligence, diplomatic, and military personnel collaborate in foreign countries.

Other notable commentators argue that there exists an inevitable fuzzy line separating journalism from espionage, ‘a gray zone’ that exhibits overlapping tensions between guarding legitimate state secrets and protecting free expression. Noah Feldman of Harvard Law School has described this as a tension between ‘national security hawks’ and ‘First Amendment absolutists,’ implying that those sensible moderates who allegedly determine policy must make contextual judgments based on the character of information disclosed, the sincerity and prudence of the actor charged with release, and the effects on US credibility and security of the disclosures.

Such reasonableness, in my judgment, undermines the importance of safeguarding those that take risks to inform the citizenry about the wrongdoings of government, which contributes to the democratic quality of state/society relations. There are limits to permissible disclosure, but they should be administered with a due regard for restoring democratic vitality in an era where most of what governments hide is to keep these inconvenient truths from being known by the national citizenry and to avoid accountability procedures by what social forces ensure that government policy is respectful of applicable law. In this sense, the whistleblowing rationale challenges government claims that state secrets are integral to national security. Statist apologists purport to be concerned about sensitive information being accessed by foreign enemy governments in ways that hamper the discretion of the state to adopt pragmatically justified policies and practices.

The balancing of relevant opposing interpretations would be more persuasive if it took account of the specific identity of the state whose secrets were being revealed and the purposes of the disclosure. In this instance, the United States was acting extraterritorially in ways that harmed the people and public interests of a variety of foreign states. This is quite different from the effort of vulnerable countries, such as Iran, to view breaches of its national security plans and capabilities as crimes that deserved punishment. Such distinctions lend support to views that regard violations of constraints on disclosure as being in a grey zone that depends on interpretation and analysis of specific cases.   

2-And what do you make of its timing?

It is impossible to separate the timing of this plea bargain from the presidential elections in the US. Releasing Assange relieves Biden of the burden of answering questions about a seemingly vindictive pursuit of a public spirited individual who as Australian citizen acting outside was arguably not even subject to US espionage laws, and has been forced to live a fugitive existence for the past 14 years. It is helpful to appreciate that Assange was a non-citizen acting outside the United States whose behavior and alleged criminal acts that would normally be treated as beyond the proper reach of US espionage laws, especially as the classified documents were voluntarily transmitted to him rather than stolen.

A final point powerfully made by Chris Hedges is that Assange owes his freedom, belated and grudging as it is, to the sustained support of people demonstrating on his behalf throughout the world. Without this display of people power exercised on behalf of the global public interest Hedges argues that there is every reason to suppose that if US prosecutors had earlier succeeded with their extradition efforts, Assange would be prosecuted and sent to jail for the rest of his life (he could potentially have been sentenced to 175 years in prison if found guilty by a court of all charges brought against him), or at best made to hide shamefully from American law enforcement efforts virtually forever. As important as it is to acknowledge the role of people in the streets demonstrating to demand Assange’s  freedom is a recognition of the degree to which the demonstrators were affirming the acts of Assange as well as the individual. Assange was disclosing to the world what citizens of a genuine democratic world order were entitled to know and act upon.

The Assange case, following the example of Daniel Ellsberg in relation to the publication of the Pentagon Papers, shows us above all, how important it is to have brave individuals dedicated to transparent governance that is respectful of international law. It also reveals the strong support ordinary people lend to those truth-tellers and whistleblowers like Assange and Chelsea Manning.  A viable democracy, more than ever in this digital age of robotics and AI, depends on governmental truthfulness and maximum transparency, this depends on protecting the role of dissident journalism and engaged citizenries. A frightening dimension of danger in these days are  growing credible fears of stumbling into World War III. This is becoming a major public concern in the US and elsewhere as war mongers in Washington seem to be pushing tension toward military confrontations in a whole series of flashpoints around the world. The UN Secretary General, Antonio Guterres, has repeatedly warned of such dangers, suggesting the world is but one calculation away from a war fought with nuclear weapons.

Especially, in relation to geopolitical actors, formally freed from a legal duty to act within the framework of the UN Charter, we the people need to lend populist forms of support to the Assanges and Ellsbergs among us.


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