Republican Dave Brat galvanized conservative
support in the days leading up to Tuesday night’s
stunning primary upset of House Majority Leader
Eric Cantor by labeling the incumbent as weak on
fiscal discipline, immigration and Obamacare.
Brat, a relatively unknown economics professor at
Randolph-Macon College in Ashland, Va., garnered
56 percent of the vote despite being vastly
outspent by Cantor by more than a 10-to-1 ratio
on advertising and direct mail. So thorough was
the victory that Brat won 53 percent of vote in
Henrico County -- Cantor’s home and an area
that has had a Republican represent it either in
state legislature or Congress since 1992.
Brat will face Democrat Jack Trammell, a
sociology professor who also teaches at
Randolph-Macon, this fall.
PolitiFact Virginia looked at number of claims
made during the primary. Here’s what we found:
Cantor: Brat "worked on Democrat Gov. Tim
Kaine’s Council of Economic Advisors while Kaine
tried to raise our taxes by over $1 billion."
A hallmark attack from Cantor is that Brat is a
liberal professor. While we can’t evaluate that, we
do know that Brat was a member of the Joint
Advisory Board of Economists, which helps the
state refine its predictions for the state’s economy
as part of the annual budget process. Board
members are not compensated and the panel does
not weigh in on revenue or policy.
Kaine unsuccessfully proposed about $4 billion in
tax increases during his administration. The ad
creates the impression that Brat was involved in
the policy proposals, but there is no evidence to
support that. The claim needs clarification, so we
rated it Mostly True.
Brat: Eric Cantor "voted to fully fund Obamacare
in October."
Brat, in a TV ad, was referring to a temporary
appropriations bill that Cantor supported and
Congress passed last fall to end a 16-day
government shutdown. The measure guaranteed
continued funding for discretionary programs that
rely on annual congressional appropriations,
including defense and education.
But Obamacare was only marginally affected by
the shutdown and the bill Cantor backed. That’s
because only about 10 percent of its costs are
subject to appropriations by Congress. The bill
Cantor supported to end the shutdown, among
many other things, topped off the ACA’s funding
tank. What Brat omitted is that 90 percent of
Obamacare remained funded throughout the shutdown
and was unaffected by the bill Cantor backed. Cantor
opposed the original bill that established Obamacare in
2010.
We rated Brat’s claim Mostly False.
Cantor: "A liberal, pro-amnesty group" endorsed Brat.
Cantor wrote in an email that Casa de Virginia, a group
supporting immigration reform, backed Brat during a
May 28 rally in Richmond. Seeking to shore up his
conservative support, Cantor cited the action as proof
that that he is "standing up to Obama on illegal
immigration."
But no speaker at the rally issued an endorsement of
Dave Brat, Cantor’s opponent. To the contrary, the
keynoter stressed that the group was not taking sides in
the primary. A flier telling people to vote for "Anybody
But Cantor" was passed out by a man attending the
rally, but not in packets distributed by the organizers.
We rated Cantor’s claim False .
Laura Ingraham, Brat supporter: Cantor and Rep. Luis
Gutierrez were "touring the country last year … joined at
the hip, working together in a bipartisan fashion indeed
for the goal of immigration reform."
Ingraham, a conservative radio talk show host,
campaigned for Brat and said that Cantor was working
with Democrats to ease immigration laws. She backed
her "tour" charge by noting Cantor and Gutierrez, D-
Cal., attended a "Becoming America Pilgrimage" held a
year ago in New York City to recognize the historic
contribution of immigrants to the nation. They were
among 100 political, academic and faith leaders from
Washington who attended the event.
Aides for the two congressmen this is the only
immigration event both happened to attend and that
Cantor and Gutierrez have never met to discuss the
issue. Ingraham couldn’t point to another immigration
event the two had attended. One gig does not make a
national tour and we rated Ingraham’s statement Pants
on Fire .
Cantor: Senate immigration legislation is the "Obama-
Reid plan to give illegal immigrants amnesty."
Cantor was referring to legislation the Senate passed
last year that would add billions for border security and
open a pathway to citizenship for 11.5 million
undocumented immigrants in the U.S. This is amnesty,
of a sort, because the illegal entry would eventually be
forgiven after significant hurdles. The hurdles include at
least $2,000 in fines plus back taxes and 5 to 10 years
of waiting for a green card.
While President Barack Obama and Senate Majority
Leader Harry Reid back the bill, the legislation was
largely the idea of four Democrat and four Republican
senators. Cantor’s description of the bill as a
Democratic plan is misleading and PolitiFact National
rated the statement Mostly False .
15 Jun 2014
NUCLEAR DUMMIES
What do you think of when you see the name “MAD”? If
you're a baby boomer, you may come up with a mental
image of the offbeat magazine whose banner child,
Afred E. Neuman, typically flashes his “What, me
worry?” grin from the cover.
The 1950s spawned another MAD, however, and it lends
a certain irony to Alfred E. Neuman's perennial
question. As the back cover of one issue of the
magazine showed, even the imperturbable Neuman
worried about what would happen if nuclear power were
allowed to run amok. Indeed, thanks to a military
strategy known as Mutual Assured Destruction—the
MAD doctrine—the whole world had plenty to worry
about.
Originally touted as a means to deter the Soviet Union
from advancing on Europe, MAD designers believed a
systematic plan to counter the USSR's superior
conventional forces with nuclear force would prevent an
invasion. Military experts at the time theorized that the
scenario of all-out nuclear war between the United
States and the Soviets would lead to a stalemate and
thus deterrence. And as history played out over the next
30 years, fear of mutual destruction did produce military
stalemate.
In that sense, MAD worked. But as MAD magazine
back-page fold-ins demonstrated, a pleasant
neighborhood scene could be converted to a wasteland
under a mushroom cloud in an instant. Nuclear
annihilation was for decades a mere 30-minute ICBM
flight away. This naturally took its psychological toll.
The MAD plan also took a physical toll, however, and it
affects us still today. Incidents of devastating nuclear
pollution are only now being revealed, and the resulting
loss of life has been as staggering as in many wars.
MUSHROOMING CRISIS
In the past few years, reports have begun to emerge
from Kazakhstan about the plight of millions of people
who have been contaminated by soviet nuclear testing
over the past 50 years. The medical crisis that the
region is experiencing amounts to nothing short of a
catastrophe.
Kazakhstan occupies a vast territory between Russia
and China and is a former soviet republic. In 1949, one
of the largest nuclear test sites in the world was
established in its Semipalatinsk region. Since then, close
to 500 nuclear tests have been conducted. The
consequences of these explosions are no less
devastating than those of Chernobyl (see “Chernobyl:
The Fallout Continues”)— or Hiroshima and Nagasaki—
with perhaps as many as 1.6 million people becoming
victims.
Boris Gusev of the Institute of Radioactive Medicine told
a BBC reporter: “The contamination spread over
thousands of kilometers. There’s nowhere else like this
in the world. Japan? Nevada? Forget it! It’s equivalent
to 1,000 times the impact of the Hiroshima bomb.” The
doctor added, “This is a unique situation and we need
help.”
More than 100 of the early tests were conducted above
ground, but the local population was not warned of the
danger of exposure; in fact, the authorities often ordered
them to stand outside and watch the mushroom clouds
ascend into the sky. The people didn’t know that
because of the need for data on the effects of radiation
on humans, they were actually part of the experiment.
The enormity of the story is only now unfolding because
of the time it takes for radiation exposure to develop
into various cancers. An epidemic proportion of old
people are currently dying of that disease, and the local
hospitals are stretched to take care of them. Some of
the doctors have not been paid for months, and
supplies, medicine and equipment to deal with the
tragedy are scarce.
Doctors are very troubled by the lasting effects of the
contamination. Deformities among newborn children are
increasingly common. From every village in the region
come reports of babies and children with terrible
disfigurements, stunted growth, extra fingers and toes,
blindness or hideous tumors. Many distraught parents
are simply abandoning their newborn offspring, bringing
even more stress on the medical infrastructure.
The soviet nuclear program is gone from Kazakhstan
now, as is the statue of Lenin that used to stand in the
Semipalatinsk town center. But the people will
remember for a long time that the soviet regime was
there.
LIGHTHOUSE OF DEATH
Semipalatinsk isn’t alone. Fifty miles north of
Chelyabinsk, Russia, on the western edge of Siberia, lies
an industrial complex. It was the Soviet Union’s primary
nuclear weapons production facility from 1946 until
1990. Its name, Mayak, means “lighthouse”—ironic,
considering that officially it did not exist.
Three nuclear disasters took place at Mayak. Taken
together, they were 100 times worse than the disaster
at Chernobyl, say some reports. According to
investigative reporter Mark Hertsgaard, author of Earth
Odyssey (1999), both the KGB and the CIA kept these
events secret from the world, and even from the Russian
people.
Thomas Cochran, a nuclear physicist at the Natural
Resources Defense Council in Washington, D.C., called
Mayak “the most polluted spot on earth.” And a report
commissioned by Mikhail Gorbachev called Chelyabinsk
the cancer capital of the entire Soviet Union. Nuclear
contamination was only the latest pollution to poison an
area already heavily polluted by outmoded industrial
facilities.
The first of the three disasters was a result of deliberate
policy. From 1949 to 1956, 76 million cubic meters of
liquid radioactive waste was systematically dumped into
the nearby Techa River. People in the 24 villages that
lined the river were not told of the dangers of drinking
its water until four years after contamination began. As
a result, tens of thousands received doses of radiation
four times greater than those that were subsequently
received at Chernobyl. Average individual doses for the
28,000 people most acutely exposed were 57 times
greater, wrote Hertsgaard.
The next tragedy took place in 1957 when a nuclear
waste storage tank at Mayak exploded, spewing about
80 metric tons of waste into the sky and irradiating
more than a quarter of a million people. Ninety percent
of the radioactive debris fell straight back to earth, but
the remainder severely contaminated the air, water and
soil in the entire Chelyabinsk region.
In 1967 a third disaster occurred, but its cause goes
back to 1951 when Mayak officials, realizing they should
no longer use the Techa River to dump waste, started
pouring it into Lake Karachay. Drought had severely
reduced the water level in the lake by 1967, leaving a
layer of radioactive silt on the exposed lakebed. When
unusually heavy winds blew through the area, the
contaminated dust was dispersed over thousands of
square miles, exposing nearly half a million people to
high levels of radiation.
Until 1989, officials continued to deny that these
disasters had taken place, and it will never be known
how many people have died as a direct result. As with
Chernobyl, the aftereffects of radiation sickness will
blight and kill successive generations for years after
exposure to the pollution.
WHAT HAVE WE DONE?
The 20th century was unique for its nuclear
development. Incredible technological progress of all
kinds brought unparalleled benefits to the human race.
But throughout the developed world the dark side of our
technological advances brought on horrors that previous
generations could never have imagined. The 21st
century has inherited a legacy of intractable problems
that largely defy solutions—such as those at
Semipalatinsk and Mayak. How is all that nuclear
pollution ever going to be cleaned up?
Former soviet president Gorbachev in 1993 created
Green Cross International, in part to address such
problems as nuclear waste and contaminated
landscapes. Nevertheless, nations will long suffer the
radioactive legacy that was created in the name of
peace. In an effort to preclude war, governments have
killed their own citizens. And since radioisotopes travel
the planet within its atmosphere, they have
contaminated, to one degree or another, all life on
Earth.
Global economic success over the past few years may
have given the world a false sense of security. In this
new millennium, science could well create technologies
that would dwarf the destructive aspects of nuclear
development.
Alfred E. Neuman is probably resting easier now that
the Cold War has ended, and with it the MAD doctrine of
nuclear stalemate. But nuclear accidents remain a
distinct possibility; and nuclear proliferation, along with
the growing prospect of nuclear terrorism, still casts a
pall over human consciousness. Remembering what
happened in places like Kazakhstan and Chelyabinsk
should give us pause for thought. What have we done
to ourselves?
“What, me worry?” Actually, a bit of angst may motivate
people to make wiser decisions with regard to such
powerful technologies. But will it be enough?
you're a baby boomer, you may come up with a mental
image of the offbeat magazine whose banner child,
Afred E. Neuman, typically flashes his “What, me
worry?” grin from the cover.
The 1950s spawned another MAD, however, and it lends
a certain irony to Alfred E. Neuman's perennial
question. As the back cover of one issue of the
magazine showed, even the imperturbable Neuman
worried about what would happen if nuclear power were
allowed to run amok. Indeed, thanks to a military
strategy known as Mutual Assured Destruction—the
MAD doctrine—the whole world had plenty to worry
about.
Originally touted as a means to deter the Soviet Union
from advancing on Europe, MAD designers believed a
systematic plan to counter the USSR's superior
conventional forces with nuclear force would prevent an
invasion. Military experts at the time theorized that the
scenario of all-out nuclear war between the United
States and the Soviets would lead to a stalemate and
thus deterrence. And as history played out over the next
30 years, fear of mutual destruction did produce military
stalemate.
In that sense, MAD worked. But as MAD magazine
back-page fold-ins demonstrated, a pleasant
neighborhood scene could be converted to a wasteland
under a mushroom cloud in an instant. Nuclear
annihilation was for decades a mere 30-minute ICBM
flight away. This naturally took its psychological toll.
The MAD plan also took a physical toll, however, and it
affects us still today. Incidents of devastating nuclear
pollution are only now being revealed, and the resulting
loss of life has been as staggering as in many wars.
MUSHROOMING CRISIS
In the past few years, reports have begun to emerge
from Kazakhstan about the plight of millions of people
who have been contaminated by soviet nuclear testing
over the past 50 years. The medical crisis that the
region is experiencing amounts to nothing short of a
catastrophe.
Kazakhstan occupies a vast territory between Russia
and China and is a former soviet republic. In 1949, one
of the largest nuclear test sites in the world was
established in its Semipalatinsk region. Since then, close
to 500 nuclear tests have been conducted. The
consequences of these explosions are no less
devastating than those of Chernobyl (see “Chernobyl:
The Fallout Continues”)— or Hiroshima and Nagasaki—
with perhaps as many as 1.6 million people becoming
victims.
Boris Gusev of the Institute of Radioactive Medicine told
a BBC reporter: “The contamination spread over
thousands of kilometers. There’s nowhere else like this
in the world. Japan? Nevada? Forget it! It’s equivalent
to 1,000 times the impact of the Hiroshima bomb.” The
doctor added, “This is a unique situation and we need
help.”
More than 100 of the early tests were conducted above
ground, but the local population was not warned of the
danger of exposure; in fact, the authorities often ordered
them to stand outside and watch the mushroom clouds
ascend into the sky. The people didn’t know that
because of the need for data on the effects of radiation
on humans, they were actually part of the experiment.
The enormity of the story is only now unfolding because
of the time it takes for radiation exposure to develop
into various cancers. An epidemic proportion of old
people are currently dying of that disease, and the local
hospitals are stretched to take care of them. Some of
the doctors have not been paid for months, and
supplies, medicine and equipment to deal with the
tragedy are scarce.
Doctors are very troubled by the lasting effects of the
contamination. Deformities among newborn children are
increasingly common. From every village in the region
come reports of babies and children with terrible
disfigurements, stunted growth, extra fingers and toes,
blindness or hideous tumors. Many distraught parents
are simply abandoning their newborn offspring, bringing
even more stress on the medical infrastructure.
The soviet nuclear program is gone from Kazakhstan
now, as is the statue of Lenin that used to stand in the
Semipalatinsk town center. But the people will
remember for a long time that the soviet regime was
there.
LIGHTHOUSE OF DEATH
Semipalatinsk isn’t alone. Fifty miles north of
Chelyabinsk, Russia, on the western edge of Siberia, lies
an industrial complex. It was the Soviet Union’s primary
nuclear weapons production facility from 1946 until
1990. Its name, Mayak, means “lighthouse”—ironic,
considering that officially it did not exist.
Three nuclear disasters took place at Mayak. Taken
together, they were 100 times worse than the disaster
at Chernobyl, say some reports. According to
investigative reporter Mark Hertsgaard, author of Earth
Odyssey (1999), both the KGB and the CIA kept these
events secret from the world, and even from the Russian
people.
Thomas Cochran, a nuclear physicist at the Natural
Resources Defense Council in Washington, D.C., called
Mayak “the most polluted spot on earth.” And a report
commissioned by Mikhail Gorbachev called Chelyabinsk
the cancer capital of the entire Soviet Union. Nuclear
contamination was only the latest pollution to poison an
area already heavily polluted by outmoded industrial
facilities.
The first of the three disasters was a result of deliberate
policy. From 1949 to 1956, 76 million cubic meters of
liquid radioactive waste was systematically dumped into
the nearby Techa River. People in the 24 villages that
lined the river were not told of the dangers of drinking
its water until four years after contamination began. As
a result, tens of thousands received doses of radiation
four times greater than those that were subsequently
received at Chernobyl. Average individual doses for the
28,000 people most acutely exposed were 57 times
greater, wrote Hertsgaard.
The next tragedy took place in 1957 when a nuclear
waste storage tank at Mayak exploded, spewing about
80 metric tons of waste into the sky and irradiating
more than a quarter of a million people. Ninety percent
of the radioactive debris fell straight back to earth, but
the remainder severely contaminated the air, water and
soil in the entire Chelyabinsk region.
In 1967 a third disaster occurred, but its cause goes
back to 1951 when Mayak officials, realizing they should
no longer use the Techa River to dump waste, started
pouring it into Lake Karachay. Drought had severely
reduced the water level in the lake by 1967, leaving a
layer of radioactive silt on the exposed lakebed. When
unusually heavy winds blew through the area, the
contaminated dust was dispersed over thousands of
square miles, exposing nearly half a million people to
high levels of radiation.
Until 1989, officials continued to deny that these
disasters had taken place, and it will never be known
how many people have died as a direct result. As with
Chernobyl, the aftereffects of radiation sickness will
blight and kill successive generations for years after
exposure to the pollution.
WHAT HAVE WE DONE?
The 20th century was unique for its nuclear
development. Incredible technological progress of all
kinds brought unparalleled benefits to the human race.
But throughout the developed world the dark side of our
technological advances brought on horrors that previous
generations could never have imagined. The 21st
century has inherited a legacy of intractable problems
that largely defy solutions—such as those at
Semipalatinsk and Mayak. How is all that nuclear
pollution ever going to be cleaned up?
Former soviet president Gorbachev in 1993 created
Green Cross International, in part to address such
problems as nuclear waste and contaminated
landscapes. Nevertheless, nations will long suffer the
radioactive legacy that was created in the name of
peace. In an effort to preclude war, governments have
killed their own citizens. And since radioisotopes travel
the planet within its atmosphere, they have
contaminated, to one degree or another, all life on
Earth.
Global economic success over the past few years may
have given the world a false sense of security. In this
new millennium, science could well create technologies
that would dwarf the destructive aspects of nuclear
development.
Alfred E. Neuman is probably resting easier now that
the Cold War has ended, and with it the MAD doctrine of
nuclear stalemate. But nuclear accidents remain a
distinct possibility; and nuclear proliferation, along with
the growing prospect of nuclear terrorism, still casts a
pall over human consciousness. Remembering what
happened in places like Kazakhstan and Chelyabinsk
should give us pause for thought. What have we done
to ourselves?
“What, me worry?” Actually, a bit of angst may motivate
people to make wiser decisions with regard to such
powerful technologies. But will it be enough?
HILLARY CLINTON BOOK.
Will she? Won’t she?
For more than a decade, Hillary Clinton’s
presidential aspirations have lingered around the
political rumor mill. Would she take on President
George W. Bush in 2004? Would 2008 be her
year? Would she dare leave the State Department
to mount a primary challenge to President Barack
Obama in 2012? Is she ready to run again in
2016?
Publication of Hard Choices, Clinton’s memoir of
her time as Secretary of State, will only feed the
speculation about her 2016 plans. In it, she
portrays herself as a shrewd but pragmatic
diplomat, and she responds sharply to Republican
criticisms of her time at the State Department.
Mostly, though, it’s a long-winded resume of
someone who at least wants to appear ready for
another run at the White House.
Clinton’s book begins in 2008 as she bowed out
of the presidential contest and eventually — and,
she writes, reluctantly — joins Obama’s cabinet as
Secretary of State.
From there, she meticulously goes through dozens
of crises, region by region, depicting a complex
world of difficult decisions and a United States
with diminished international standing after the
Bush years. She recounts the decision-making
behind Obama’s troop surge in Afghanistan,
explains the "reset" with Russia, and describes the
tense moments in the Situation Room watching
SEAL Team Six take out Osama bin Laden.
Clinton also takes on two issues where her critics
continue to pound her: supporting the Iraq War
and the 2012 attacks on the U.S. compound in
Benghazi.
On Iraq, she is apologetic. "I still got it wrong,"
she says. "Plain and simple." And while she takes
blame for the death of Ambassador Chris Stevens
in Libya, she strikes back at those who continue
to question the administration’s response.
Still, it’s largely a politically risk-averse account
that plays up her role in dozens of international
conflicts without ruffling too many feathers. In
that sense, it is starkly different than Duty , the
memoir by Robert Gates, who served as Defense
Secretary under both Republican and Democratic
presidents. While both authors pull back the
curtain on the inner workings of the current
administration, Gates is highly critical of many
Washington players, including Vice President Joe
Biden, and of the Beltway culture. By contrast,
Clinton takes few shots — and even has nice
things to say about Bush and his paintings.
Ultimately, it’s a somewhat pedantic read — so
cautiously written, and so free of politically
charged rhetoric, that it proved difficult for
PolitiFact to find too many factual faults with it.
Indeed, the most inaccurate comment we explored
came from Clinton’s book tour, not the book itself.
When Clinton appeared on ABC with Diane Sawyer, the
former first lady was pressed on the $5 million she
reportedly earned in speaking fees.
"You have no reason to remember, but we came out of
the White House not only dead broke, but in debt,"
Clinton said. "We had no money when we got there, and
we struggled to piece together the resources for
mortgages for houses, for Chelsea's education. It was
not easy."
Clinton’s "dead broke" comment elicited eye-rolls from
Republicans, and we found it to be dubious as well.
While incomplete earnings reports perhaps showed more
debt than assets, a balance sheet does not tell the full
story. The experts we reached said the Clintons’ earning
potential had a real economic value that the financial
sector traditionally acknowledges and is willing to bank
on. We rated her statement Mostly False .
The handful of checkable facts we looked at from the
656-page book itself were largely accurate, we found.
For instance, Clinton discusses how her relationship
with Gates was one of collaboration, atypical of the
inter-cabinet turf wars of past administrations. When
Gates’ Pentagon pushed for more troops in Afghanistan,
the two also worked together to get more State
Department personnel in the country to focus on local
and diplomatic issues.
Clinton boasts the positive results from the dual efforts,
noting that "by the time I left State, the Afghans had
made progress. Economic growth was up and opium
production was down. Infant mortality declined by 22
percent. Under the Taliban only 900,000 boys and no
girls had been enrolled in schools. By 2010, 7.1 million
students were enrolled, and nearly 40 percent of them
were girls."
We found her claims about school enrollment, infant
mortality, and economic growth to be basically
accurate, but her take on opium production is
somewhat exaggerated. We rated the statement Mostly
True.
One of the most controversial passages in the book
politically was Clinton’s strong endorsement of
Obama’s policy of using drones to kill terrorists
overseas. Clinton defended Obama’s heavy reliance on
armed, unmanned aircraft to take out top al-Qaida
officials, even as foreign leaders made clear to her their
opposition to the policy and concerned Middle East
citizens voiced their concerns directly to her.
Clinton argued that drones were a critical tool in
fighting terrorism without risking American lives. By
2009, she said, "it was widely known that dozens of
senior terrorists had been taken off the battlefield by
drones, and we later learned that bin Laden himself
worried about the heavy losses that drones were
inflicting."
There’s no public headcount, but we were able to
confirm the number of senior terrorists killed through
2009 was at least a couple dozen. We rated this
statement True.
Clinton’s take on the Sept. 11, 2012 Benghazi attack
was the most anticipated chapter in the book. In it, she
laments the loss of Stevens, whom she knew personally,
and outlines the events that led to his death as well as
the U.S. response to the attack on the Benghazi
compound.
What hampered the American response to the attack?
Clinton said one reason is the U.S. military footprint in
Africa is "nearly nonexistent."
The United States has only had an African Command
since 2008, and it is largely focused on working with
African countries to train troops. There is very little
military infrastructure, combat troops, or heavy
firepower. There is just one military base — 2,000 miles
from Benghazi in Djibouti — and the headquarters is
actually in Germany.
While other military assets were located closer in
Europe, on this narrow question, several African and
international military experts said Clinton had a point.
We rated the claim True.
Just because the book included some accurate facts
doesn’t mean her views will stand up to scrutiny in the
presidential campaign. But her carefully vetted book
mirrors the tightly-crafted image she has publicly
maintained throughout her political career.
On the larger question of whether she will run for
president, Clinton gave no direct hints. "The answer is, I
haven’t decided yet," she wrote.
For more than a decade, Hillary Clinton’s
presidential aspirations have lingered around the
political rumor mill. Would she take on President
George W. Bush in 2004? Would 2008 be her
year? Would she dare leave the State Department
to mount a primary challenge to President Barack
Obama in 2012? Is she ready to run again in
2016?
Publication of Hard Choices, Clinton’s memoir of
her time as Secretary of State, will only feed the
speculation about her 2016 plans. In it, she
portrays herself as a shrewd but pragmatic
diplomat, and she responds sharply to Republican
criticisms of her time at the State Department.
Mostly, though, it’s a long-winded resume of
someone who at least wants to appear ready for
another run at the White House.
Clinton’s book begins in 2008 as she bowed out
of the presidential contest and eventually — and,
she writes, reluctantly — joins Obama’s cabinet as
Secretary of State.
From there, she meticulously goes through dozens
of crises, region by region, depicting a complex
world of difficult decisions and a United States
with diminished international standing after the
Bush years. She recounts the decision-making
behind Obama’s troop surge in Afghanistan,
explains the "reset" with Russia, and describes the
tense moments in the Situation Room watching
SEAL Team Six take out Osama bin Laden.
Clinton also takes on two issues where her critics
continue to pound her: supporting the Iraq War
and the 2012 attacks on the U.S. compound in
Benghazi.
On Iraq, she is apologetic. "I still got it wrong,"
she says. "Plain and simple." And while she takes
blame for the death of Ambassador Chris Stevens
in Libya, she strikes back at those who continue
to question the administration’s response.
Still, it’s largely a politically risk-averse account
that plays up her role in dozens of international
conflicts without ruffling too many feathers. In
that sense, it is starkly different than Duty , the
memoir by Robert Gates, who served as Defense
Secretary under both Republican and Democratic
presidents. While both authors pull back the
curtain on the inner workings of the current
administration, Gates is highly critical of many
Washington players, including Vice President Joe
Biden, and of the Beltway culture. By contrast,
Clinton takes few shots — and even has nice
things to say about Bush and his paintings.
Ultimately, it’s a somewhat pedantic read — so
cautiously written, and so free of politically
charged rhetoric, that it proved difficult for
PolitiFact to find too many factual faults with it.
Indeed, the most inaccurate comment we explored
came from Clinton’s book tour, not the book itself.
When Clinton appeared on ABC with Diane Sawyer, the
former first lady was pressed on the $5 million she
reportedly earned in speaking fees.
"You have no reason to remember, but we came out of
the White House not only dead broke, but in debt,"
Clinton said. "We had no money when we got there, and
we struggled to piece together the resources for
mortgages for houses, for Chelsea's education. It was
not easy."
Clinton’s "dead broke" comment elicited eye-rolls from
Republicans, and we found it to be dubious as well.
While incomplete earnings reports perhaps showed more
debt than assets, a balance sheet does not tell the full
story. The experts we reached said the Clintons’ earning
potential had a real economic value that the financial
sector traditionally acknowledges and is willing to bank
on. We rated her statement Mostly False .
The handful of checkable facts we looked at from the
656-page book itself were largely accurate, we found.
For instance, Clinton discusses how her relationship
with Gates was one of collaboration, atypical of the
inter-cabinet turf wars of past administrations. When
Gates’ Pentagon pushed for more troops in Afghanistan,
the two also worked together to get more State
Department personnel in the country to focus on local
and diplomatic issues.
Clinton boasts the positive results from the dual efforts,
noting that "by the time I left State, the Afghans had
made progress. Economic growth was up and opium
production was down. Infant mortality declined by 22
percent. Under the Taliban only 900,000 boys and no
girls had been enrolled in schools. By 2010, 7.1 million
students were enrolled, and nearly 40 percent of them
were girls."
We found her claims about school enrollment, infant
mortality, and economic growth to be basically
accurate, but her take on opium production is
somewhat exaggerated. We rated the statement Mostly
True.
One of the most controversial passages in the book
politically was Clinton’s strong endorsement of
Obama’s policy of using drones to kill terrorists
overseas. Clinton defended Obama’s heavy reliance on
armed, unmanned aircraft to take out top al-Qaida
officials, even as foreign leaders made clear to her their
opposition to the policy and concerned Middle East
citizens voiced their concerns directly to her.
Clinton argued that drones were a critical tool in
fighting terrorism without risking American lives. By
2009, she said, "it was widely known that dozens of
senior terrorists had been taken off the battlefield by
drones, and we later learned that bin Laden himself
worried about the heavy losses that drones were
inflicting."
There’s no public headcount, but we were able to
confirm the number of senior terrorists killed through
2009 was at least a couple dozen. We rated this
statement True.
Clinton’s take on the Sept. 11, 2012 Benghazi attack
was the most anticipated chapter in the book. In it, she
laments the loss of Stevens, whom she knew personally,
and outlines the events that led to his death as well as
the U.S. response to the attack on the Benghazi
compound.
What hampered the American response to the attack?
Clinton said one reason is the U.S. military footprint in
Africa is "nearly nonexistent."
The United States has only had an African Command
since 2008, and it is largely focused on working with
African countries to train troops. There is very little
military infrastructure, combat troops, or heavy
firepower. There is just one military base — 2,000 miles
from Benghazi in Djibouti — and the headquarters is
actually in Germany.
While other military assets were located closer in
Europe, on this narrow question, several African and
international military experts said Clinton had a point.
We rated the claim True.
Just because the book included some accurate facts
doesn’t mean her views will stand up to scrutiny in the
presidential campaign. But her carefully vetted book
mirrors the tightly-crafted image she has publicly
maintained throughout her political career.
On the larger question of whether she will run for
president, Clinton gave no direct hints. "The answer is, I
haven’t decided yet," she wrote.
PROBLEMS WITH MEDICALIZATION OF MARIJUANA
“Medical” marijuana is approved in 21 states and the
District of Columbia for numerous conditions, including
glaucoma, Crohn disease, posttraumatic stress disorder,
epilepsy, Alzheimer disease, and chemotherapy-induced
nausea and vomiting. Both the number of states and
the number of approved indications for medical
marijuana are expected to increase. Physicians will
bear the responsibility of prescribing marijuana and
thus have an obligation to understand the issues
involved in its “medicalization.”
Medical marijuana differs significantly from other
prescription medications. Evidence supporting its
efficacy varies substantially and in general falls short of
the standards required for approval of other drugs by
the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA). Some
evidence suggests that marijuana may have efficacy in
chemotherapy-induced vomiting, cachexia in HIV/AIDS
patients, spasticity associated with multiple sclerosis,
and neuropathic pain. However, the evidence for use in
other conditions—including posttraumatic stress
disorder, glaucoma, Crohn disease, and Alzheimer
disease—relies largely on testimonials instead of
adequately powered, double-blind, placebo-controlled
randomized clinical trials. For most of these conditions,
medications that have been subjected to the rigorous
approval process of the FDA already exist. Furthermore,
the many conditions for which medical marijuana is
approved have no common etiology, pathophysiology,
or phenomenology, raising skepticism about a common
mechanism of action.
There is no clear optimal dose of marijuana for its
various approved conditions. The concentration of Δ -
tetrahydrocannabinol (THC) and other cannabinoids in
each marijuana cigarette, the size of cigarettes, and the
quantity of smoke inhaled by users can vary
considerably. The relative lack of controlled clinical trial
data makes finding the appropriate dose even more
challenging. Furthermore, given that medical marijuana
is approved for mostly chronic conditions that require
long-term dosing, physicians must be aware of the
development of tolerance and dependence (as
evidenced by downregulation of the brain cannabinoid
receptors), as well as withdrawal on discontinuation.
Prescription drugs are produced according to exacting
standards to ensure uniformity and purity of active
constituents and excipients. Because regulatory
standards of the production process vary by state, the
composition, purity, and concentration of the active
constituents of marijuana are also likely to vary. This is
especially problematic because unlike most other
prescription medications that are single active
compounds, marijuana contains more than 100
cannabinoids, terpenoids, and flavonoids that produce
individual, interactive, and entourage effects. Although
THC is believed to be the principal psychoactive
constituent of marijuana, other cannabinoids present in
marijuana may have important effects that may offset
THC’s negative effects. For instance, cannabidiol has
been shown to have anxiolytic and antipsychotic effects
that might offset the anxiogenic and psychotogenic
potential of THC. Yet cannabidiol is sometimes bred
out to increase the THC potency of some medical
marijuana strains.
Benefits notwithstanding, the potential harms
associated with medical marijuana need to be carefully
considered. No other prescription medication is
smoked; concerns remain about the long-term risks of
respiratory problems associated with smoking
marijuana, which are a subject of active investigation.
THC is already available in a pill approved by the FDA,
yet this form seems to be less desirable to those
seeking medical marijuana; this may in part be because
its euphoric effects are not immediate and cannot be
reliably controlled, unlike smoked marijuana.
Furthermore, there is evidence that marijuana exposure
is associated with an increased risk of psychotic
disorders in vulnerable individuals. Clearly, some but
not all individuals are at risk of psychosis with
exposure to marijuana, but it is not possible to identify
at-risk individuals. In individuals with established
psychotic disorders, marijuana use has a negative effect
on the course and expression of the illness.
Furthermore, recent findings suggest that long-term
marijuana exposure is associated with structural brain
changes as well as a decline in IQ.
The current system of dispensing marijuana does not
safeguard adequately against the potential for diversion
and abuse. Many states, for instance, allow patients to
grow their own marijuana. Furthermore, marijuana may
be contaminated with pesticides, herbicides, or fungi,
the latter being especially dangerous to
immunocompromised individuals such as patients with
HIV/AIDS or cancer. Central regulatory oversight by
the FDA makes possible the recall of harmful drugs or
contaminated batches and the dissemination of new
information about drug safety. Is there sufficient
oversight to monitor potential contamination of
marijuana, especially when patients are permitted to
grow it themselves?
A significant but largely overlooked problem with the
medical marijuana movement is the message the public
infers from its legalization and increasing prevalence.
There is an increasing perception, paralleling trends in
legalization, that marijuana is not associated with
significant or lasting harm; data from 3 decades
indicate that among adolescents, risk perception is
inversely proportional to prevalence of cannabis use.
As legalization has spread for medical or recreational
purposes, it is possible that the perception of risk by
adolescents will continue to decrease, with a
subsequent increase in use. This is especially
problematic given that many of the negative effects of
marijuana are most pronounced in adolescents.
Projections of substantial revenue rather than evidence-
based medicine may explain the eagerness of many
states to legalize medical marijuana. Physicians have
been invited to participate in the development of
medical marijuana programs late in the process. In
some instances (eg, Connecticut), legislators approved
medical marijuana but consulted physicians with
relevant expertise only afterward.
An unmet need remains for treatments of a number of
debilitating medical conditions. Specific constituents of
marijuana may have therapeutic promise for specific
symptoms associated with these disorders. However, if
marijuana is to be used for medical purposes, it should
be subjected to the same evidence-based review and
regulatory oversight as other medications prescribed by
physicians. Potentially therapeutic compounds of
marijuana should be purified and tested in randomized,
double-blind, placebo- and active-controlled clinical
trials. Toward this end, the federal government should
actively support research examining marijuana’s
potentially therapeutic compounds. These compounds
should be approved by the FDA (not by popular vote or
state legislature), produced according to good
manufacturing practice standards, distributed by
regulated pharmacies, and dispensed via a conventional
and safe route of administration (such as oral pills or
inhaled vaporization). Otherwise, states are essentially
legalizing recreational marijuana but forcing physicians
to act as gatekeepers for those who wish to obtain it.
District of Columbia for numerous conditions, including
glaucoma, Crohn disease, posttraumatic stress disorder,
epilepsy, Alzheimer disease, and chemotherapy-induced
nausea and vomiting. Both the number of states and
the number of approved indications for medical
marijuana are expected to increase. Physicians will
bear the responsibility of prescribing marijuana and
thus have an obligation to understand the issues
involved in its “medicalization.”
Medical marijuana differs significantly from other
prescription medications. Evidence supporting its
efficacy varies substantially and in general falls short of
the standards required for approval of other drugs by
the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA). Some
evidence suggests that marijuana may have efficacy in
chemotherapy-induced vomiting, cachexia in HIV/AIDS
patients, spasticity associated with multiple sclerosis,
and neuropathic pain. However, the evidence for use in
other conditions—including posttraumatic stress
disorder, glaucoma, Crohn disease, and Alzheimer
disease—relies largely on testimonials instead of
adequately powered, double-blind, placebo-controlled
randomized clinical trials. For most of these conditions,
medications that have been subjected to the rigorous
approval process of the FDA already exist. Furthermore,
the many conditions for which medical marijuana is
approved have no common etiology, pathophysiology,
or phenomenology, raising skepticism about a common
mechanism of action.
There is no clear optimal dose of marijuana for its
various approved conditions. The concentration of Δ -
tetrahydrocannabinol (THC) and other cannabinoids in
each marijuana cigarette, the size of cigarettes, and the
quantity of smoke inhaled by users can vary
considerably. The relative lack of controlled clinical trial
data makes finding the appropriate dose even more
challenging. Furthermore, given that medical marijuana
is approved for mostly chronic conditions that require
long-term dosing, physicians must be aware of the
development of tolerance and dependence (as
evidenced by downregulation of the brain cannabinoid
receptors), as well as withdrawal on discontinuation.
Prescription drugs are produced according to exacting
standards to ensure uniformity and purity of active
constituents and excipients. Because regulatory
standards of the production process vary by state, the
composition, purity, and concentration of the active
constituents of marijuana are also likely to vary. This is
especially problematic because unlike most other
prescription medications that are single active
compounds, marijuana contains more than 100
cannabinoids, terpenoids, and flavonoids that produce
individual, interactive, and entourage effects. Although
THC is believed to be the principal psychoactive
constituent of marijuana, other cannabinoids present in
marijuana may have important effects that may offset
THC’s negative effects. For instance, cannabidiol has
been shown to have anxiolytic and antipsychotic effects
that might offset the anxiogenic and psychotogenic
potential of THC. Yet cannabidiol is sometimes bred
out to increase the THC potency of some medical
marijuana strains.
Benefits notwithstanding, the potential harms
associated with medical marijuana need to be carefully
considered. No other prescription medication is
smoked; concerns remain about the long-term risks of
respiratory problems associated with smoking
marijuana, which are a subject of active investigation.
THC is already available in a pill approved by the FDA,
yet this form seems to be less desirable to those
seeking medical marijuana; this may in part be because
its euphoric effects are not immediate and cannot be
reliably controlled, unlike smoked marijuana.
Furthermore, there is evidence that marijuana exposure
is associated with an increased risk of psychotic
disorders in vulnerable individuals. Clearly, some but
not all individuals are at risk of psychosis with
exposure to marijuana, but it is not possible to identify
at-risk individuals. In individuals with established
psychotic disorders, marijuana use has a negative effect
on the course and expression of the illness.
Furthermore, recent findings suggest that long-term
marijuana exposure is associated with structural brain
changes as well as a decline in IQ.
The current system of dispensing marijuana does not
safeguard adequately against the potential for diversion
and abuse. Many states, for instance, allow patients to
grow their own marijuana. Furthermore, marijuana may
be contaminated with pesticides, herbicides, or fungi,
the latter being especially dangerous to
immunocompromised individuals such as patients with
HIV/AIDS or cancer. Central regulatory oversight by
the FDA makes possible the recall of harmful drugs or
contaminated batches and the dissemination of new
information about drug safety. Is there sufficient
oversight to monitor potential contamination of
marijuana, especially when patients are permitted to
grow it themselves?
A significant but largely overlooked problem with the
medical marijuana movement is the message the public
infers from its legalization and increasing prevalence.
There is an increasing perception, paralleling trends in
legalization, that marijuana is not associated with
significant or lasting harm; data from 3 decades
indicate that among adolescents, risk perception is
inversely proportional to prevalence of cannabis use.
As legalization has spread for medical or recreational
purposes, it is possible that the perception of risk by
adolescents will continue to decrease, with a
subsequent increase in use. This is especially
problematic given that many of the negative effects of
marijuana are most pronounced in adolescents.
Projections of substantial revenue rather than evidence-
based medicine may explain the eagerness of many
states to legalize medical marijuana. Physicians have
been invited to participate in the development of
medical marijuana programs late in the process. In
some instances (eg, Connecticut), legislators approved
medical marijuana but consulted physicians with
relevant expertise only afterward.
An unmet need remains for treatments of a number of
debilitating medical conditions. Specific constituents of
marijuana may have therapeutic promise for specific
symptoms associated with these disorders. However, if
marijuana is to be used for medical purposes, it should
be subjected to the same evidence-based review and
regulatory oversight as other medications prescribed by
physicians. Potentially therapeutic compounds of
marijuana should be purified and tested in randomized,
double-blind, placebo- and active-controlled clinical
trials. Toward this end, the federal government should
actively support research examining marijuana’s
potentially therapeutic compounds. These compounds
should be approved by the FDA (not by popular vote or
state legislature), produced according to good
manufacturing practice standards, distributed by
regulated pharmacies, and dispensed via a conventional
and safe route of administration (such as oral pills or
inhaled vaporization). Otherwise, states are essentially
legalizing recreational marijuana but forcing physicians
to act as gatekeepers for those who wish to obtain it.
SEX EDUCATION IN THE 21ST CENTURY
Controversies about the proper content of school-based
sex education continue, but in some fundamental sense
they have been matched by—perhaps even overtaken
by—other pressing realities. For example, there are
increasing demands that school resources be dedicated
to teaching the basics of reading, writing, and math
and to upgrading the attention given to science
education. Many communities find that meeting these
legitimate demands places substantial pressure on
school hours and budgets, often at the expense of such
areas as art and physical education as well as health
education, which often includes sex education.
Moreover, limited budgets can also decrease the
amount of training made available to sex education
teachers.
This situation is particularly distressing because during
the last decade, increasing numbers of programs have
become available that can help teens delay having sex,
increase their use of contraception when they do have
sex, and potentially help reduce the incidence of teen
pregnancy. Some of these programs are based in
schools, some are in community settings, and some
span both. The US Department of Health and
Human Services’ Office of Adolescent Health lists 31
such programs that have evidence of effect, and the
list has played a major role in shaping the funding
priorities of the Teen Pregnancy Prevention Program
administered by that office.
Numerous schools and communities welcome these
evidence-based programs, and funding through the
Office of Adolescent Health and the Family and Youth
Services Bureau has supported many such programs
nationwide and also has increased the amount of
attention given to using and replicating effective
programs. Even so, many sexually experienced teens
(46% of males and 33% of females) report that they
had not received any instruction about contraception
before they began having sex, and states like
Oklahoma and Alabama—with 2 of the highest rates of
teen pregnancy in the country—do not require any sex
education in school at all. Moreover, in some
communities the “sex ed wars” (ie, the intense and
vocal controversy over sex education in schools) persist
as they have for decades.
Such developments suggest a need to rethink the way
in which sex education is offered to young people. In
the age of smartphones, texting, Twitter, Instagram,
and Facebook, sex education should evolve to fit the
21st century and the media-saturated lives of young
people today. A strong case can be made that in the
United States, the media are already the de facto sex
educators (the average teenager sees 15 000 sexual
references on television alone each year). Perhaps it is
time to fully embrace the power of 21st-century
communication and direct it toward public health goals
more deliberately. Online material and social media
could help to fill the gaps in sex education and support
for many young people.
Sex education materials and conversations provided
through digital and social media could be useful
adjuncts to classes and programs that may be offered
in a community or school system; in areas where no
such programs exist, they may help to fill serious gaps.
Two increasingly popular sites sponsored by The
National Campaign to Prevent Teen and Unplanned
Pregnancy, StayTeen.org and Bedsider.org , and other
engaging sites such as Go Ask Alice! and Scarleteen,
are expanding understanding of how digital media can
help. These sites provide information in an accurate
and appealing way. An amusing video on Bedsider.org ,
for example, shows a young adult woman explaining
her initial reluctance to use a contraceptive vaginal ring
and how she mastered the method, and funny “Fact or
Fiction” cartoons that include physician commentaries
debunk common myths in a relaxed but accurate way.
In addition, some community groups and local health
departments around the country (in California, New
Mexico, and North Carolina, for example) have
established digital services to which teens can text their
sex-related questions. These emerging sites and
systems may appeal in particular to teens who are
more comfortable obtaining sexual information
anonymously than they are in a coed sex education
class or asking their parents for information. Unlike
many community or school-based sex education
classes, Internet-based sex information can be
available throughout a teenager’s adolescence.
Questions may change, new situations arise, and new
treatments or scientific information sometimes develop;
the Internet can be a good repository for updated,
ongoing sex information that any teenager can access
anytime. In a recent survey of more than 1200
Australian teenagers, for example, the most common
source of information about sex actually was the
Internet (85%). Misinformation on the Internet does
exist, but professional oversight may help direct teens
to reputable, accurate sites. In addition, “good” sexual
content may help to drown out “bad” sexual content
(Gresham’s corollary). In any event, sex education
should not miss out on the worldwide move to use
online systems to improve health.
Sex education in the 21st century merits time, attention,
innovation, and, in particular, research to assess
possible benefit. For example, 4 issues might be
addressed. First, can online sex education systems help
young people learn some of the key skills increasingly
seen as central to risk reduction, such as negotiating
skills and a strong sense of agency and self-efficacy?
Or is the main value of these online sites more likely to
be in the somewhat less difficult task of providing
information? The research base here is weak at best,
although one study of sexual health promotion on
Facebook has demonstrated that young people will at
least access this information. In addition, methods of
assessing the effect of online interventions on behavior
are currently an emerging topic in research design.
Second, is there a way for online sex education to be
presented in the voice and tone of teens to reflect their
concerns yet also provide accurate and credible
information? Adults and professionals could lead the
way, but a site that feels like it is the product of a
lecturing, authoritarian, adult group may well be
unpopular. Involvement of teens in the development of
sites will likely be needed for success, and teen-
appropriate humor and perspective could be especially
attractive. One site currently has been developed and is
administered solely by teens; its motto is “by teens, for
teens.”
Third, might there be a way for professional groups like
the American Academy of Pediatrics, the Society for
Adolescent Health and Medicine, the American Academy
of Family Physicians, and the National PTA to create a
standardized but fully teen-centric core set of materials,
lessons, and interactive components that could then be
“localized” by community groups? Detailed information
on adolescent-centered services and where to go for
what types of help, including information on
confidentiality, cost issues, and privacy, would be
particularly useful for teens. Fourth, how can online
systems support and amplify evidence-based programs
already in use? Are there some instances in which the
online platform is preferable?
Given the controversies about sex education that have
limited the full use of well-designed, evidence-based
programs, the acceptance and use of online sex
education and support remain to be determined.
However, because the Internet is essentially
unregulated, there is no need to secure anyone’s
particular approval for any site or its content, improving
access of teens to sex information without school board
approval. In addition, although not all teens are in
school, odds are that they are online. The Internet is
already a major source of sex information, some of it
inaccurate, so why not encourage development of
responsible, relevant sex information that would appeal
to teens and be easy to use? It may be an idea for
which the time has come.
sex education continue, but in some fundamental sense
they have been matched by—perhaps even overtaken
by—other pressing realities. For example, there are
increasing demands that school resources be dedicated
to teaching the basics of reading, writing, and math
and to upgrading the attention given to science
education. Many communities find that meeting these
legitimate demands places substantial pressure on
school hours and budgets, often at the expense of such
areas as art and physical education as well as health
education, which often includes sex education.
Moreover, limited budgets can also decrease the
amount of training made available to sex education
teachers.
This situation is particularly distressing because during
the last decade, increasing numbers of programs have
become available that can help teens delay having sex,
increase their use of contraception when they do have
sex, and potentially help reduce the incidence of teen
pregnancy. Some of these programs are based in
schools, some are in community settings, and some
span both. The US Department of Health and
Human Services’ Office of Adolescent Health lists 31
such programs that have evidence of effect, and the
list has played a major role in shaping the funding
priorities of the Teen Pregnancy Prevention Program
administered by that office.
Numerous schools and communities welcome these
evidence-based programs, and funding through the
Office of Adolescent Health and the Family and Youth
Services Bureau has supported many such programs
nationwide and also has increased the amount of
attention given to using and replicating effective
programs. Even so, many sexually experienced teens
(46% of males and 33% of females) report that they
had not received any instruction about contraception
before they began having sex, and states like
Oklahoma and Alabama—with 2 of the highest rates of
teen pregnancy in the country—do not require any sex
education in school at all. Moreover, in some
communities the “sex ed wars” (ie, the intense and
vocal controversy over sex education in schools) persist
as they have for decades.
Such developments suggest a need to rethink the way
in which sex education is offered to young people. In
the age of smartphones, texting, Twitter, Instagram,
and Facebook, sex education should evolve to fit the
21st century and the media-saturated lives of young
people today. A strong case can be made that in the
United States, the media are already the de facto sex
educators (the average teenager sees 15 000 sexual
references on television alone each year). Perhaps it is
time to fully embrace the power of 21st-century
communication and direct it toward public health goals
more deliberately. Online material and social media
could help to fill the gaps in sex education and support
for many young people.
Sex education materials and conversations provided
through digital and social media could be useful
adjuncts to classes and programs that may be offered
in a community or school system; in areas where no
such programs exist, they may help to fill serious gaps.
Two increasingly popular sites sponsored by The
National Campaign to Prevent Teen and Unplanned
Pregnancy, StayTeen.org and Bedsider.org , and other
engaging sites such as Go Ask Alice! and Scarleteen,
are expanding understanding of how digital media can
help. These sites provide information in an accurate
and appealing way. An amusing video on Bedsider.org ,
for example, shows a young adult woman explaining
her initial reluctance to use a contraceptive vaginal ring
and how she mastered the method, and funny “Fact or
Fiction” cartoons that include physician commentaries
debunk common myths in a relaxed but accurate way.
In addition, some community groups and local health
departments around the country (in California, New
Mexico, and North Carolina, for example) have
established digital services to which teens can text their
sex-related questions. These emerging sites and
systems may appeal in particular to teens who are
more comfortable obtaining sexual information
anonymously than they are in a coed sex education
class or asking their parents for information. Unlike
many community or school-based sex education
classes, Internet-based sex information can be
available throughout a teenager’s adolescence.
Questions may change, new situations arise, and new
treatments or scientific information sometimes develop;
the Internet can be a good repository for updated,
ongoing sex information that any teenager can access
anytime. In a recent survey of more than 1200
Australian teenagers, for example, the most common
source of information about sex actually was the
Internet (85%). Misinformation on the Internet does
exist, but professional oversight may help direct teens
to reputable, accurate sites. In addition, “good” sexual
content may help to drown out “bad” sexual content
(Gresham’s corollary). In any event, sex education
should not miss out on the worldwide move to use
online systems to improve health.
Sex education in the 21st century merits time, attention,
innovation, and, in particular, research to assess
possible benefit. For example, 4 issues might be
addressed. First, can online sex education systems help
young people learn some of the key skills increasingly
seen as central to risk reduction, such as negotiating
skills and a strong sense of agency and self-efficacy?
Or is the main value of these online sites more likely to
be in the somewhat less difficult task of providing
information? The research base here is weak at best,
although one study of sexual health promotion on
Facebook has demonstrated that young people will at
least access this information. In addition, methods of
assessing the effect of online interventions on behavior
are currently an emerging topic in research design.
Second, is there a way for online sex education to be
presented in the voice and tone of teens to reflect their
concerns yet also provide accurate and credible
information? Adults and professionals could lead the
way, but a site that feels like it is the product of a
lecturing, authoritarian, adult group may well be
unpopular. Involvement of teens in the development of
sites will likely be needed for success, and teen-
appropriate humor and perspective could be especially
attractive. One site currently has been developed and is
administered solely by teens; its motto is “by teens, for
teens.”
Third, might there be a way for professional groups like
the American Academy of Pediatrics, the Society for
Adolescent Health and Medicine, the American Academy
of Family Physicians, and the National PTA to create a
standardized but fully teen-centric core set of materials,
lessons, and interactive components that could then be
“localized” by community groups? Detailed information
on adolescent-centered services and where to go for
what types of help, including information on
confidentiality, cost issues, and privacy, would be
particularly useful for teens. Fourth, how can online
systems support and amplify evidence-based programs
already in use? Are there some instances in which the
online platform is preferable?
Given the controversies about sex education that have
limited the full use of well-designed, evidence-based
programs, the acceptance and use of online sex
education and support remain to be determined.
However, because the Internet is essentially
unregulated, there is no need to secure anyone’s
particular approval for any site or its content, improving
access of teens to sex information without school board
approval. In addition, although not all teens are in
school, odds are that they are online. The Internet is
already a major source of sex information, some of it
inaccurate, so why not encourage development of
responsible, relevant sex information that would appeal
to teens and be easy to use? It may be an idea for
which the time has come.
13 Jun 2014
CHINA, JAPAN, KOREA AND THE US: REGION AT CROSSROADS
Japanese Prime Minister Shinjo Abe visited Yasukuni
shrine on 26 December last year and the visit invited
usual condemnations from China and South Korea. The
US also reacted by saying it ‘disappointing’ and would
lead to ‘exacerbate tensions’ in the region. However,
Japanese posturing has been relentless and on the New
Year day, Japanese Internal Affairs Minister Yoshitaka
Shindo had another visit to the shrine. The tension and
mistrust in East Asia has been escalating in recent years
and Japan, China and North Korea have shown
uncompromising intent to compete rather than concede
and cooperate on the issues of mutual disagreements.
China has recently declared its Air Defense Identification
Zone (ADIZ) unilaterally, which goes beyond its contest
in East China Sea with Japan over Senkaku/Diaoyu
islands. North Korea is also going through domestic
power struggle and restructuring of equations with its
closest ally China. In this problematic interstate
relations in the region, the Japanese right-wing
assertions in domestic politics and its impact on foreign
policy has further complicated the security calculus of
the region.
The East Asian region is closely connected in economic,
educational and cultural spheres but there is a huge
trust deficit in security arena and it poses a grave
challenge for further economic exchanges and
integration of the region. There are assurances that the
tension among these countries would not move beyond
a certain limit as economic interdependent would bring
in moderation in their behaviours. However, the
argument may not sustainable beyond a point. If the
escalation of tension among these countries could not
be checked, it may derail and disrupt their cooperation
in every field.
The role of the US is considered to be important as it
has leverage to pacify Japan and constructively engage
China to make the region more stable. The US could
also convey China to contain North Korean provocative
behaviour as well as sock-observe any instability in
North Korea. Washington has been trying to reach out
Beijing through its diplomatic channel but there is no
indication that it has been equally keen in pacifying
Japan. The Japanese aggressive posturing, even if not
openly appreciated by the US, has been granted silent
consent by the US and it is quite unsettling for not only
China but also South Korea. Japan has been cleverly
silenced Washington by remaining fully committed to
the US alliance and its interests in the regional politics.
For example, the day after the Prime Minister Abe’s visit
to Yasukuni, Okinawa governor agreed to relocate the
US military base at Futenma to near by Henoko. It was
characterised as ‘critical milestone’ by the US Secretary
of Defense Chuck Hagel. It appears that the US is more
interested in its narrow national interests in the region
and it does not have any serious objection with
Japanese aggressive posturing. Probably, the US thinks
that an assertive Japan would be a buffer against the
rise of Chinese influence in the region. Many scholars
relate American concession to Japan with its strategy of
‘Asian pivot’. There are also speculations that probably
the US does not have enough diplomatic leverage over
Japan to stop its aggressive posturing and so it has
decided to go along with Japanese plan of things rather
than dictating its own terms.
Whatever be the reason, the complacency on the part of
the US would definitely make it difficult for Washington
have any credible and consequential engagement with
China. China would not be satisfied by the use of words
like ‘disappointment’ and it would definitely chart out its
own course of actions, which might be detrimental for
the regional security environment. The Chinese
announcement to have its own ADIZ could be better
understood in the light of above dynamics. Furthermore,
the US conceding and accommodative behaviour vis-Ã -
vis Japan poses a difficult question to South Korea,
which is equally close ally of the US in the region. Even
though, South Korea enjoys security guarantee from the
US, it has to rethink about its own security equations in
the neighbourhood. South Korea is challenged by a
belligerent and ‘unpredictable’ North Korea as well as
an aggressive and uncompromising Japan. Seoul tried
to forge a cooperative relationship with China in variety
of areas when South Korean President Park Geun-hye
visited Beijing in mid-2013. Although, it does not mean
that South Korea would abandon its old ally- the US, in
near future but continuous Japanese aggressive
posturing and insufficient American attempt to prohibit
it, may force it to review its relations with the US.
Thus, the East Asian region is at a crossroad and a
vicious cycle of threatening and uncompromising
behaviours have been posing huge risk of conflict. No
single country could be blamed for present escalations
and there have been chains of actions and reactions. It
would be pertinent to see how soon all the stakeholders
realise that the process must be stopped collectively or
it may lead to a point of no return
shrine on 26 December last year and the visit invited
usual condemnations from China and South Korea. The
US also reacted by saying it ‘disappointing’ and would
lead to ‘exacerbate tensions’ in the region. However,
Japanese posturing has been relentless and on the New
Year day, Japanese Internal Affairs Minister Yoshitaka
Shindo had another visit to the shrine. The tension and
mistrust in East Asia has been escalating in recent years
and Japan, China and North Korea have shown
uncompromising intent to compete rather than concede
and cooperate on the issues of mutual disagreements.
China has recently declared its Air Defense Identification
Zone (ADIZ) unilaterally, which goes beyond its contest
in East China Sea with Japan over Senkaku/Diaoyu
islands. North Korea is also going through domestic
power struggle and restructuring of equations with its
closest ally China. In this problematic interstate
relations in the region, the Japanese right-wing
assertions in domestic politics and its impact on foreign
policy has further complicated the security calculus of
the region.
The East Asian region is closely connected in economic,
educational and cultural spheres but there is a huge
trust deficit in security arena and it poses a grave
challenge for further economic exchanges and
integration of the region. There are assurances that the
tension among these countries would not move beyond
a certain limit as economic interdependent would bring
in moderation in their behaviours. However, the
argument may not sustainable beyond a point. If the
escalation of tension among these countries could not
be checked, it may derail and disrupt their cooperation
in every field.
The role of the US is considered to be important as it
has leverage to pacify Japan and constructively engage
China to make the region more stable. The US could
also convey China to contain North Korean provocative
behaviour as well as sock-observe any instability in
North Korea. Washington has been trying to reach out
Beijing through its diplomatic channel but there is no
indication that it has been equally keen in pacifying
Japan. The Japanese aggressive posturing, even if not
openly appreciated by the US, has been granted silent
consent by the US and it is quite unsettling for not only
China but also South Korea. Japan has been cleverly
silenced Washington by remaining fully committed to
the US alliance and its interests in the regional politics.
For example, the day after the Prime Minister Abe’s visit
to Yasukuni, Okinawa governor agreed to relocate the
US military base at Futenma to near by Henoko. It was
characterised as ‘critical milestone’ by the US Secretary
of Defense Chuck Hagel. It appears that the US is more
interested in its narrow national interests in the region
and it does not have any serious objection with
Japanese aggressive posturing. Probably, the US thinks
that an assertive Japan would be a buffer against the
rise of Chinese influence in the region. Many scholars
relate American concession to Japan with its strategy of
‘Asian pivot’. There are also speculations that probably
the US does not have enough diplomatic leverage over
Japan to stop its aggressive posturing and so it has
decided to go along with Japanese plan of things rather
than dictating its own terms.
Whatever be the reason, the complacency on the part of
the US would definitely make it difficult for Washington
have any credible and consequential engagement with
China. China would not be satisfied by the use of words
like ‘disappointment’ and it would definitely chart out its
own course of actions, which might be detrimental for
the regional security environment. The Chinese
announcement to have its own ADIZ could be better
understood in the light of above dynamics. Furthermore,
the US conceding and accommodative behaviour vis-Ã -
vis Japan poses a difficult question to South Korea,
which is equally close ally of the US in the region. Even
though, South Korea enjoys security guarantee from the
US, it has to rethink about its own security equations in
the neighbourhood. South Korea is challenged by a
belligerent and ‘unpredictable’ North Korea as well as
an aggressive and uncompromising Japan. Seoul tried
to forge a cooperative relationship with China in variety
of areas when South Korean President Park Geun-hye
visited Beijing in mid-2013. Although, it does not mean
that South Korea would abandon its old ally- the US, in
near future but continuous Japanese aggressive
posturing and insufficient American attempt to prohibit
it, may force it to review its relations with the US.
Thus, the East Asian region is at a crossroad and a
vicious cycle of threatening and uncompromising
behaviours have been posing huge risk of conflict. No
single country could be blamed for present escalations
and there have been chains of actions and reactions. It
would be pertinent to see how soon all the stakeholders
realise that the process must be stopped collectively or
it may lead to a point of no return
BANGLADESH POST ELECTION 2014: REDEFINING DOMESTIC POLITICS?
The 10th Parliamentary elections were held in
Bangladesh on 5 January 2014 against the backdrop of
the opposition alliance’s boycott and blockade
programme, amidst a whirl of apprehensions, tension
and violence. The boycott of the major opposition party,
Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) and its allies,
particularly Jamaat-e-Islami, has emerged as the key
determinant of election outcomes and its aftermath.
Three views are particularly discernible about this
boycott. According to one view, this boycott was self-
imposed and was part of a larger strategic move by the
opposition parties. Riding on popular support and
ascendancy of hard-line leadership in parties, they took
an unyielding stance on elections. Another view is that
it was inevitable due to the lack of a conducive
environment for participation since the caretaker
government (CTG) system was scrapped by the 15th
amendment of the Constitution of Bangladesh. They
believe that no elections could be acceptable to them
without CTG. The third view is focused on the process
of holding elections under the current system, but with a
new poll-time administration and a bigger and more
substantive role of the Election Commission. Of course,
this has to be based on political settlement by the two
major political parties – the Awami League (AL) and
BNP. The United Nations-brokered initiative led by
Oscar Fernandez Taranco emphasised the third view to
resolve the impasse. Ironically, no political settlement
was reached. Both the ruling and opposition alliances
opted for absolute gains.
Having no option as per the constitutional provision as
well as political ‘common sense’, the government and
the Election Commission organised the elections. In
fact, the unique political environment in the country has
produced an unprecedented election both in its process
and outcome. A total number of 153 members of
Parliament were elected uncontested and the remaining
147 were up for voting. With a poor voter turnout (40
per cent by the Election Commission) by Bangladesh
standards (87 per cent in the December 2008 elections),
the ruling Awami League bagged 232 seats. The Jatiya
Party, made up of former military dictator Ershad, won
33 seats, becoming the second largest party in
Parliament. Members of Parliament have already sworn
in and a new Cabinet has been formed with Sheikh
Hasina as the Prime Minister of Bangladesh. Despite
some reservations, the international community has
recognised the government. The US and EU are
continuing their diplomatic parleys to bring all political
parties to a dialogue, and are working on the possibility
of a mid-term election.
Although the elections have been questioned by various
quarters in Bangladesh and beyond due to non-
participation of the main opposition parties, a critical
aspect of this election is the unleashing of widespread
violence before, during, and after the polls. Since the
early 1990s Bangladesh witnessed four general elections
held under a caretaker (CTG) system. Interestingly, all
defeated political parties and alliances seriously
questioned the credibility of these elections too. A
short-lived election was held in February 1996 under the
party-run administration which lasted for about forty
five days. In 2014, for the second time, an election was
held under a non-caretaker government (officially known
as an all-party government) in the post-mass upsurge
era. Unlike the past, the main opposition party was
invited to join the poll-time government, but it was
rejected. It became clear at the end of 2011 that politics
in Bangladesh was turning into a ‘zero-sum-game’
primarily on the question of ‘election administration’,
which was changed by the ruling alliance with their
brute majority in the national Parliament.
While the quality of the 10th Parliamentary elections has
been questioned in terms of credibility, inclusivity and
participation, domestic politics demands special mention
to understand the elections and its outcome. Domestic
politics in Bangladesh started to transform into a new
and difficult shape when the ruling alliance announced
the trial of war criminals. The International Crimes
Tribunal (ICT) was set up in 2009 as a war crimes
tribunal in Bangladesh to investigate and prosecute
suspects for the genocide and crimes against humanity
committed in 1971 by the Pakistani Army and their local
collaborators, Razakars , Al-Badr and Al-Shams . The
formation of ICT jolted the opposition camp. The second
largest party in the opposition camp, Jamaat-e-Islam is
directly linked with war crimes during the Liberation War
in 1971. Top leaders of Jamaat have been charged with
war crimes over the past four decades. The triggering
incident was the verdict against a central leader of
Jamaat, Moulana Delwar Hossain Sayedee. Following
the verdict in February 2013, the Party unleashed
massive violence throughout the country especially in
their strongholds – mainly border districts.
Violence has become a political weapon of opposition
politics, spearheaded by the war crimes-charged party.
The subsequent Hefazat phenomenon has added
impetus to this rising spree of political violence. The
intermingling of extremist violence and the political
movement led by the opposition alliance has emerged
as the body blow to Bangladesh’s nascent democracy.
With capital punishment being awarded to to one of the
leading war criminals – Abdul Kader Mollah - politics in
Bangladesh needs to be redefined and re-
conceptualised. The 10th Parliamentary elections were
held in the evolving parameters of Bangladeshi politics,
where political stability and democratic governance have
been traded with violence and extremism for absolute
political gains.
Bangladesh on 5 January 2014 against the backdrop of
the opposition alliance’s boycott and blockade
programme, amidst a whirl of apprehensions, tension
and violence. The boycott of the major opposition party,
Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) and its allies,
particularly Jamaat-e-Islami, has emerged as the key
determinant of election outcomes and its aftermath.
Three views are particularly discernible about this
boycott. According to one view, this boycott was self-
imposed and was part of a larger strategic move by the
opposition parties. Riding on popular support and
ascendancy of hard-line leadership in parties, they took
an unyielding stance on elections. Another view is that
it was inevitable due to the lack of a conducive
environment for participation since the caretaker
government (CTG) system was scrapped by the 15th
amendment of the Constitution of Bangladesh. They
believe that no elections could be acceptable to them
without CTG. The third view is focused on the process
of holding elections under the current system, but with a
new poll-time administration and a bigger and more
substantive role of the Election Commission. Of course,
this has to be based on political settlement by the two
major political parties – the Awami League (AL) and
BNP. The United Nations-brokered initiative led by
Oscar Fernandez Taranco emphasised the third view to
resolve the impasse. Ironically, no political settlement
was reached. Both the ruling and opposition alliances
opted for absolute gains.
Having no option as per the constitutional provision as
well as political ‘common sense’, the government and
the Election Commission organised the elections. In
fact, the unique political environment in the country has
produced an unprecedented election both in its process
and outcome. A total number of 153 members of
Parliament were elected uncontested and the remaining
147 were up for voting. With a poor voter turnout (40
per cent by the Election Commission) by Bangladesh
standards (87 per cent in the December 2008 elections),
the ruling Awami League bagged 232 seats. The Jatiya
Party, made up of former military dictator Ershad, won
33 seats, becoming the second largest party in
Parliament. Members of Parliament have already sworn
in and a new Cabinet has been formed with Sheikh
Hasina as the Prime Minister of Bangladesh. Despite
some reservations, the international community has
recognised the government. The US and EU are
continuing their diplomatic parleys to bring all political
parties to a dialogue, and are working on the possibility
of a mid-term election.
Although the elections have been questioned by various
quarters in Bangladesh and beyond due to non-
participation of the main opposition parties, a critical
aspect of this election is the unleashing of widespread
violence before, during, and after the polls. Since the
early 1990s Bangladesh witnessed four general elections
held under a caretaker (CTG) system. Interestingly, all
defeated political parties and alliances seriously
questioned the credibility of these elections too. A
short-lived election was held in February 1996 under the
party-run administration which lasted for about forty
five days. In 2014, for the second time, an election was
held under a non-caretaker government (officially known
as an all-party government) in the post-mass upsurge
era. Unlike the past, the main opposition party was
invited to join the poll-time government, but it was
rejected. It became clear at the end of 2011 that politics
in Bangladesh was turning into a ‘zero-sum-game’
primarily on the question of ‘election administration’,
which was changed by the ruling alliance with their
brute majority in the national Parliament.
While the quality of the 10th Parliamentary elections has
been questioned in terms of credibility, inclusivity and
participation, domestic politics demands special mention
to understand the elections and its outcome. Domestic
politics in Bangladesh started to transform into a new
and difficult shape when the ruling alliance announced
the trial of war criminals. The International Crimes
Tribunal (ICT) was set up in 2009 as a war crimes
tribunal in Bangladesh to investigate and prosecute
suspects for the genocide and crimes against humanity
committed in 1971 by the Pakistani Army and their local
collaborators, Razakars , Al-Badr and Al-Shams . The
formation of ICT jolted the opposition camp. The second
largest party in the opposition camp, Jamaat-e-Islam is
directly linked with war crimes during the Liberation War
in 1971. Top leaders of Jamaat have been charged with
war crimes over the past four decades. The triggering
incident was the verdict against a central leader of
Jamaat, Moulana Delwar Hossain Sayedee. Following
the verdict in February 2013, the Party unleashed
massive violence throughout the country especially in
their strongholds – mainly border districts.
Violence has become a political weapon of opposition
politics, spearheaded by the war crimes-charged party.
The subsequent Hefazat phenomenon has added
impetus to this rising spree of political violence. The
intermingling of extremist violence and the political
movement led by the opposition alliance has emerged
as the body blow to Bangladesh’s nascent democracy.
With capital punishment being awarded to to one of the
leading war criminals – Abdul Kader Mollah - politics in
Bangladesh needs to be redefined and re-
conceptualised. The 10th Parliamentary elections were
held in the evolving parameters of Bangladeshi politics,
where political stability and democratic governance have
been traded with violence and extremism for absolute
political gains.
STRATEGIC NON-NUCLEAR WEAPONS
Politico-Military thought often harbours a puzzling
phenomenon when it organises concepts and
institutions in a mosaic of sometimes antithetical
notions. Contrary ideas are indeed intrinsic to the art of
political sagacity, but when form is defined by a belief,
in apparent conflict with content, then there appear
distortions more illusory than what logic would suggest.
So it is with the emergence of strategic nuclear
weapons. They are destructive to the extent that the
purpose of warfare is itself obliterated, underscoring a
compelling theory of war avoidance. By its side are
strategic non-nuclear weapons whose intent is to target
nuclear weapons that, ironically, seek a (precarious)
stability.
Conventional savvy will first suggest that non-nuclear
weapons can neither deliver the requisite high explosive
payload to assume a counter-force role against silo-
based or caverned nuclear systems; nor do they come
with the probability of kill that is demanded with such a
role. But just around the technological corner lurks high
impact penetration and shaped charges that make a
mockery of hitherto simple overpressure reckoning.
Second, nuclear pundits will insinuate that a partially
successful counter-force strike may in point of fact
catalyse escalation to a full blown nuclear exchange;
both contain candour of their own.
But strange is our circumstance when on the one hand
Pakistan presents us with a nuclear nightmare which
when articulated is a hair-trigger, opaque deterrent
conventionalised under military control, steered by a
doctrine obscure in form, seeped in ambiguity, and
guided by a military strategy that carouses and finds
unity with non-state actors. The introduction of tactical
nuclear weapons into the battle area further exacerbates
credibility of their control. It does not take a great deal
of intellectual exertions to declare that this nightmare is
upon us. However, the very nature of the power
equation on the subcontinent and the extent to which it
is tilted in India’s favour will imply that any attempt at
bringing about conflict resolution through means other
than peaceful is destined to fail. In this context it is
amply clear that the threat of use of nuclear weapons
promotes only one case and that is the Pakistani
military establishment’s hold on the nation. On the other
hand is a Janus-faced China which, in collusion with
Pakistan’s nuclear weapon programme, has not just
entrenched proliferatory links, but also doctrinal union
that permits a duplicitous approach to the latter’s
declared No First Use (NFU) posture and an option to
keep the South Asian nuclear cauldron on the boil. Also
significant is the alliance bucks the existing global non-
proliferation structure.
What may be derived from the current state of affairs,
with any conviction, is the political and military
unpredictability that prevails. This denies hope for
stability and the expectation of fitting conditions into a
convenient model, let alone providing for security
guarantees. Governments faced with such a conundrum
more readily prepare for a worst case scenario than try
and reconcile the true dimensions that uncertainty
introduces. It is preparedness, therefore, that endows
the only tool that can deter possible confrontation of a
nature that has earlier been designated as nightmarish.
India today is in a position to impress upon its
adversaries a deterrent relationship based on nuclear
war avoidance, with the proviso that the rationale of
nuclear weapons as a political tool and a means to
preclude a nuclear exchange are recognised and adhered
to. China’s galloping entwinement with the rest of the
world makes this proposition a real probability;
contingent upon our resolve and policies of seeking
mutuality with like-minded nations to rally around the
single point of preventing reactionary overturning of the
status quo. This despite the unilateral tensions that
China has precipitated in the East and South China Sea
over sovereignty, air defence identification zones and the
right to control fishing.
Pakistan is, however, a different cup of tea for it
portrays a perilous uncertainty, as would any nation
under military control that perceives in nuclear weapons
the ultimate Brahmastra. As with that weapon of mass
destruction, answers lay not just in the promise of
disproportionate retaliation but also in the credible
ability to prempt and counter its use. India has in place
nuclear weapons driven by a doctrine of NFU and
massive retaliation. What its strategic forces must now
equip itself with is select conventional hardware that
tracks and targets nuclear forces (all under political
control). This would provide the pre-emptive teeth to a
deterrent relationship that leans so heavily on NFU.
phenomenon when it organises concepts and
institutions in a mosaic of sometimes antithetical
notions. Contrary ideas are indeed intrinsic to the art of
political sagacity, but when form is defined by a belief,
in apparent conflict with content, then there appear
distortions more illusory than what logic would suggest.
So it is with the emergence of strategic nuclear
weapons. They are destructive to the extent that the
purpose of warfare is itself obliterated, underscoring a
compelling theory of war avoidance. By its side are
strategic non-nuclear weapons whose intent is to target
nuclear weapons that, ironically, seek a (precarious)
stability.
Conventional savvy will first suggest that non-nuclear
weapons can neither deliver the requisite high explosive
payload to assume a counter-force role against silo-
based or caverned nuclear systems; nor do they come
with the probability of kill that is demanded with such a
role. But just around the technological corner lurks high
impact penetration and shaped charges that make a
mockery of hitherto simple overpressure reckoning.
Second, nuclear pundits will insinuate that a partially
successful counter-force strike may in point of fact
catalyse escalation to a full blown nuclear exchange;
both contain candour of their own.
But strange is our circumstance when on the one hand
Pakistan presents us with a nuclear nightmare which
when articulated is a hair-trigger, opaque deterrent
conventionalised under military control, steered by a
doctrine obscure in form, seeped in ambiguity, and
guided by a military strategy that carouses and finds
unity with non-state actors. The introduction of tactical
nuclear weapons into the battle area further exacerbates
credibility of their control. It does not take a great deal
of intellectual exertions to declare that this nightmare is
upon us. However, the very nature of the power
equation on the subcontinent and the extent to which it
is tilted in India’s favour will imply that any attempt at
bringing about conflict resolution through means other
than peaceful is destined to fail. In this context it is
amply clear that the threat of use of nuclear weapons
promotes only one case and that is the Pakistani
military establishment’s hold on the nation. On the other
hand is a Janus-faced China which, in collusion with
Pakistan’s nuclear weapon programme, has not just
entrenched proliferatory links, but also doctrinal union
that permits a duplicitous approach to the latter’s
declared No First Use (NFU) posture and an option to
keep the South Asian nuclear cauldron on the boil. Also
significant is the alliance bucks the existing global non-
proliferation structure.
What may be derived from the current state of affairs,
with any conviction, is the political and military
unpredictability that prevails. This denies hope for
stability and the expectation of fitting conditions into a
convenient model, let alone providing for security
guarantees. Governments faced with such a conundrum
more readily prepare for a worst case scenario than try
and reconcile the true dimensions that uncertainty
introduces. It is preparedness, therefore, that endows
the only tool that can deter possible confrontation of a
nature that has earlier been designated as nightmarish.
India today is in a position to impress upon its
adversaries a deterrent relationship based on nuclear
war avoidance, with the proviso that the rationale of
nuclear weapons as a political tool and a means to
preclude a nuclear exchange are recognised and adhered
to. China’s galloping entwinement with the rest of the
world makes this proposition a real probability;
contingent upon our resolve and policies of seeking
mutuality with like-minded nations to rally around the
single point of preventing reactionary overturning of the
status quo. This despite the unilateral tensions that
China has precipitated in the East and South China Sea
over sovereignty, air defence identification zones and the
right to control fishing.
Pakistan is, however, a different cup of tea for it
portrays a perilous uncertainty, as would any nation
under military control that perceives in nuclear weapons
the ultimate Brahmastra. As with that weapon of mass
destruction, answers lay not just in the promise of
disproportionate retaliation but also in the credible
ability to prempt and counter its use. India has in place
nuclear weapons driven by a doctrine of NFU and
massive retaliation. What its strategic forces must now
equip itself with is select conventional hardware that
tracks and targets nuclear forces (all under political
control). This would provide the pre-emptive teeth to a
deterrent relationship that leans so heavily on NFU.
ARAB WORLD: TRYING TIMES AHEAD
Though the spotlight on West Asia is understandably
focused currently on the unquestionably exciting
prospect of a welcome and desirable reconciliation
between the US and Iran, which is more than likely to
happen, contemporary ground realities and trends in
large sections of the Arab World increasingly suggest
that Islamic extremism, personified by al Qaeda and its
affiliates in West Asia, is potentially an even greater
destabilising factor than the standoff vis-Ã -vis Iran had
been.
Egypt, Libya, Tunisia and Yemen
Though four dictators were overthrown as a result of
the revolutionary turmoil in the Arab World, except in
tiny Tunisia which is the only success story, the current
situation in Egypt, Libya and Yemen is far more unstable
than when the dictators were ruling. In Libya, a large
number of armed militias have carved out fiefdoms
which they control, with the central government
becoming a nominal entity with its writ being virtually
non-existent in vast swathes of the country. Libya is a
Somalia in the making.
The Muslim Brotherhood has been Egypt’s and the Arab
world’s pre-eminent Islamic entity known for its
outstanding social and welfare services to the poor and
rural populations in particular. It was elected to form
the government which, after only one year in power, was
overthrown by the army, albeit demanded by a very
large number of protestors against ‘Islamic’ rule. Since
then, every week dozens of its supporters and many
Egyptian army and police personnel have been killed in
clashes between them.
The Brotherhood has been banned once again - dubbed
a terrorist organisation; this does not augur well for the
prospects of political Islam which is natural and
fundamental to the success of democracy in the
overwhelmingly Muslim Arab countries. It is very likely
that Gen Sisi, the present Army Chief and architect of
the hard line against the Brotherhood, is elected the
next President. All this will encourage support for
extremist groups as the only alternative to dictatorial
and Army rule.
Iraq and Syria
Syria is engulfed by a particularly devastating and
destructive civil war. More than 1,20,000 people have
been killed. Almost four million Syrians are refugees in
neighboring countries and five million have been
internally displaced. The dismantling of the Saddam
regime led to the border between Syria and Iraq
becoming porous; in the last year it has become
nonexistent for all practical purposes – huge spaces
between Baghdad and Damascus are controlled by
many different groups of Islamist fighters of various
hues, pre-eminent among them being the Iraq-based
Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL), an al Qaeda
outfit.
Amongst Islamist groups fighting the Assad regime, the
ISIL is the best armed and most effective. Some weeks
ago it had established control over most of Aleppo
which is Syria’s largest city and in the process routed
not only government forces but also of other rebel
groups, and of the Western and Gulf countries’ backed
Syrian National Coalition and Syrian National Army. The
ISIL consists only of foreigners, mainly Iraqis, and its
brutality and single-minded commitment to the
establishment of an Islamic Emirate has now caused
other rebel groups, in particular the recently formed
Islamic Front, and the Syrian affiliate of the al Qaeda,
the al Nusra Front, to treat the ISIL as the major enemy
rather than the Assad regime. It is ironical that after so
much bloodshed Assad is likely to remain in power, but
of an anarchic and shattered Syria. Iraq is rapidly
slipping back into the anarchy that prevailed during
2005 to 2008.
After Arab Spring: Is the Situation Better or Worse
Today?
Politics within all these countries is increasingly
determined by the gun. Thus, the singularly
inappropriately termed ‘Arab Spring’, hailed as the
belated ‘Enlightenment Moment’ for the Arab World, has
left it in a far worse situation than before. Islam in the
Arab World and West Asia is at war with itself -
between moderates and extremists; between Shias and
Sunnis; between pro-West Muslim countries (Saudi
Arabia, Qatar, UAE) and anti-West Muslim countries
(Iran, Syria, Lebanon).
Today, several countries of the Arab world have become
a blood soaked cauldron of bigotry and hate torn by
sectarian violence. If this fratricidal conflict continues,
significant portions of Iraq, Libya, Syria and Yemen
could become like the Afghanistan of the 1980s and
early 1990s – a safe-haven and breeding ground for
terrorists.
Should South Asia, Especially India, be Worried?
Though the Arab countries themselves are the worst
affected, adverse consequences for the US, Europe and
the Indian subcontinent in particular, would also be very
much on the cards. This is particularly so in the context
of rising uncertainties as to what could happen in
Afghanistan after the withdrawal of US troops. Pakistan
has become a dangerous hotbed of extremism also.
India needs to be particularly wary.
The world needs to proactively address the current
mayhem in West Asia with a sense of urgency. The
imperative need of the hour is that the United Nations
takes the initiative to convene a conference of concerned
countries and major powers to take on extremism in the
Arab World and West Asia, including confronting the al
Qaeda outfits headlong, militarily if need be.
focused currently on the unquestionably exciting
prospect of a welcome and desirable reconciliation
between the US and Iran, which is more than likely to
happen, contemporary ground realities and trends in
large sections of the Arab World increasingly suggest
that Islamic extremism, personified by al Qaeda and its
affiliates in West Asia, is potentially an even greater
destabilising factor than the standoff vis-Ã -vis Iran had
been.
Egypt, Libya, Tunisia and Yemen
Though four dictators were overthrown as a result of
the revolutionary turmoil in the Arab World, except in
tiny Tunisia which is the only success story, the current
situation in Egypt, Libya and Yemen is far more unstable
than when the dictators were ruling. In Libya, a large
number of armed militias have carved out fiefdoms
which they control, with the central government
becoming a nominal entity with its writ being virtually
non-existent in vast swathes of the country. Libya is a
Somalia in the making.
The Muslim Brotherhood has been Egypt’s and the Arab
world’s pre-eminent Islamic entity known for its
outstanding social and welfare services to the poor and
rural populations in particular. It was elected to form
the government which, after only one year in power, was
overthrown by the army, albeit demanded by a very
large number of protestors against ‘Islamic’ rule. Since
then, every week dozens of its supporters and many
Egyptian army and police personnel have been killed in
clashes between them.
The Brotherhood has been banned once again - dubbed
a terrorist organisation; this does not augur well for the
prospects of political Islam which is natural and
fundamental to the success of democracy in the
overwhelmingly Muslim Arab countries. It is very likely
that Gen Sisi, the present Army Chief and architect of
the hard line against the Brotherhood, is elected the
next President. All this will encourage support for
extremist groups as the only alternative to dictatorial
and Army rule.
Iraq and Syria
Syria is engulfed by a particularly devastating and
destructive civil war. More than 1,20,000 people have
been killed. Almost four million Syrians are refugees in
neighboring countries and five million have been
internally displaced. The dismantling of the Saddam
regime led to the border between Syria and Iraq
becoming porous; in the last year it has become
nonexistent for all practical purposes – huge spaces
between Baghdad and Damascus are controlled by
many different groups of Islamist fighters of various
hues, pre-eminent among them being the Iraq-based
Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL), an al Qaeda
outfit.
Amongst Islamist groups fighting the Assad regime, the
ISIL is the best armed and most effective. Some weeks
ago it had established control over most of Aleppo
which is Syria’s largest city and in the process routed
not only government forces but also of other rebel
groups, and of the Western and Gulf countries’ backed
Syrian National Coalition and Syrian National Army. The
ISIL consists only of foreigners, mainly Iraqis, and its
brutality and single-minded commitment to the
establishment of an Islamic Emirate has now caused
other rebel groups, in particular the recently formed
Islamic Front, and the Syrian affiliate of the al Qaeda,
the al Nusra Front, to treat the ISIL as the major enemy
rather than the Assad regime. It is ironical that after so
much bloodshed Assad is likely to remain in power, but
of an anarchic and shattered Syria. Iraq is rapidly
slipping back into the anarchy that prevailed during
2005 to 2008.
After Arab Spring: Is the Situation Better or Worse
Today?
Politics within all these countries is increasingly
determined by the gun. Thus, the singularly
inappropriately termed ‘Arab Spring’, hailed as the
belated ‘Enlightenment Moment’ for the Arab World, has
left it in a far worse situation than before. Islam in the
Arab World and West Asia is at war with itself -
between moderates and extremists; between Shias and
Sunnis; between pro-West Muslim countries (Saudi
Arabia, Qatar, UAE) and anti-West Muslim countries
(Iran, Syria, Lebanon).
Today, several countries of the Arab world have become
a blood soaked cauldron of bigotry and hate torn by
sectarian violence. If this fratricidal conflict continues,
significant portions of Iraq, Libya, Syria and Yemen
could become like the Afghanistan of the 1980s and
early 1990s – a safe-haven and breeding ground for
terrorists.
Should South Asia, Especially India, be Worried?
Though the Arab countries themselves are the worst
affected, adverse consequences for the US, Europe and
the Indian subcontinent in particular, would also be very
much on the cards. This is particularly so in the context
of rising uncertainties as to what could happen in
Afghanistan after the withdrawal of US troops. Pakistan
has become a dangerous hotbed of extremism also.
India needs to be particularly wary.
The world needs to proactively address the current
mayhem in West Asia with a sense of urgency. The
imperative need of the hour is that the United Nations
takes the initiative to convene a conference of concerned
countries and major powers to take on extremism in the
Arab World and West Asia, including confronting the al
Qaeda outfits headlong, militarily if need be.
TALIBAN TALKS AND THE FOUR HORSEMEN: BETWEEN PEACE AND APOCALYPSE
The previous article in this column discussed the talks
about talks with the Pakistani Taliban, and Sami-ul-Haq
being projected as the interlocutor between the State
and the Teherik-e-Taliban (TTP).
Since the previous column was written in early January
2014, three major developments have taken place. First
was a short military campaign against the militants in
Waziristan. Second was appointment of a 'four member
committee' by the government to negotiate with the
Taliban. Third was the acceptance of the TTP to
negotiate with the State, along with nomination of a
team from the Pakistani Taliban.
While the decision to negotiate with the TTP and the
latter’s response was itself a substantial achievement,
the harsh reality is that the problems for the State have
just begun. Given the issues and questions, this process
is likely to be anything but easy.
From Sami-ul-Haq to the Four Horsemen: A Changed
Strategy by the Government
During the last week of January 2014, the government
appointed a four member committee to negotiate with
the TTP, comprising of Rahimullah Yusufzai, Irfan
Siddiqui, Rustam Shah and Major (Retd) Amir.
Rahimullah Yusufzai is a well-known and independent
senior journalist. His writings in mainstream
newspapers have been balanced and he his insights are
respected. Irfan Siddiqui is also a senior journalist, but
today he is known more as a pro-Nawaz person; he is
also a Special Assistant to the Prime Minister. Major
Amir has been reported as a former ISI officer who is
close to Nawaz Sharif. According to Amir Mir, "Major
(retd) Amir... has a murky past being the alleged
architect of the infamous ' Operation Midnight Jackal ' to
topple the first government of Prime Minister Benazir
Bhutto in 1989." ( The News , 30 January 2014). Rustam
Shah is a former diplomat who has served in
Afghanistan and is known to be sympathetic to the
Taliban.
In terms of the composition, it could be generally agreed
that two of them (Irfan Siddiqui and Major Amir) are
seen as closer to Nawaz Sharif. There is nothing wrong
in Sharif choosing his confidantes, in fact, given the
intricacies it is always useful for the Prime Miniester to
choose a team he has confidence in. However, as Fazlur
Rehman has already criticised, they were not chosen on
a consensus, nor they have a political background. The
four horsemen are all professionals in one field or the
other, but have never been politicians.
Will the four horsemen be able to deliver? Except for
Fazlur Rehman, the rest of the political leadership,
cutting across political lines at the national and regional
levels, seems to have faith in the new initiative.
From Suicide Attacks to a Ten Member Committee:
Understanding the Change in TTP
What has changed for the TTP in the last month that it
has agreed to negotiate with the government?
Was it because of the military strikes in Waziristan?
Given the nature of the attacks and the short duration,
it appears that the military strikes were aimed more at
convincing the US, where Sartaj Aziz was attempting to
revive the strategic dialogue between the two countries,
rather than at bringing the Taliban down. Had the latter
been the case, the strikes would have continued until
the TTP begged for a dialogue. However, this was not
the case.
Why did then the TTP agree to negotiate? Does it really
believe in negotiating with the government? Or is the
negotiation a strategy of its ongoing war with the
State?
What would the TTP Demand?
Will this negotiation between the TTP and the
government be without any preconditions? Unlikely. The
TTP is likely to emphasise that there should be no
military strikes in the first place. As a logical extension
of that, it is likely to pressurise the State to tell US that
the latter completely stop its drone programme. In fact,
the TTP leadership should be more worried about the
drone strikes than the military strikes. However
indiscriminate the military strikes are likely to be, they
can never be as precise as a drone attack. The TTP is
also likely to demand the release of its top leadership,
who have been arrested by the State and kept in
different jails.
Politically, the TTP is likely to pressurise the
government to sever ties with the US and ensure that
the Durand Line becomes irrelevant for the Afghan
militants.
Will the TTP also demand the imposition of shariah
elsewhere in Pakistan, as it demanded in Swat? It may
place that demand but is unlikely to carry it forward,
given that the time is not ripe. Such a demand may
perhaps be acceptable for the State in remote FATA or
the Swat valley, but not acceptable in the rest of
Pakistan. Not yet.
How Far will the State Go in Yielding to the TTP?
Clearly, the State is not keen in pursuing a military
option vis-Ã -vis the militants. The TTP would not
be satisfied with the status quo.
The primary question is not what the TTP wants.
Rather, it is how far the State is willing to go to
accommodate the TTP.
about talks with the Pakistani Taliban, and Sami-ul-Haq
being projected as the interlocutor between the State
and the Teherik-e-Taliban (TTP).
Since the previous column was written in early January
2014, three major developments have taken place. First
was a short military campaign against the militants in
Waziristan. Second was appointment of a 'four member
committee' by the government to negotiate with the
Taliban. Third was the acceptance of the TTP to
negotiate with the State, along with nomination of a
team from the Pakistani Taliban.
While the decision to negotiate with the TTP and the
latter’s response was itself a substantial achievement,
the harsh reality is that the problems for the State have
just begun. Given the issues and questions, this process
is likely to be anything but easy.
From Sami-ul-Haq to the Four Horsemen: A Changed
Strategy by the Government
During the last week of January 2014, the government
appointed a four member committee to negotiate with
the TTP, comprising of Rahimullah Yusufzai, Irfan
Siddiqui, Rustam Shah and Major (Retd) Amir.
Rahimullah Yusufzai is a well-known and independent
senior journalist. His writings in mainstream
newspapers have been balanced and he his insights are
respected. Irfan Siddiqui is also a senior journalist, but
today he is known more as a pro-Nawaz person; he is
also a Special Assistant to the Prime Minister. Major
Amir has been reported as a former ISI officer who is
close to Nawaz Sharif. According to Amir Mir, "Major
(retd) Amir... has a murky past being the alleged
architect of the infamous ' Operation Midnight Jackal ' to
topple the first government of Prime Minister Benazir
Bhutto in 1989." ( The News , 30 January 2014). Rustam
Shah is a former diplomat who has served in
Afghanistan and is known to be sympathetic to the
Taliban.
In terms of the composition, it could be generally agreed
that two of them (Irfan Siddiqui and Major Amir) are
seen as closer to Nawaz Sharif. There is nothing wrong
in Sharif choosing his confidantes, in fact, given the
intricacies it is always useful for the Prime Miniester to
choose a team he has confidence in. However, as Fazlur
Rehman has already criticised, they were not chosen on
a consensus, nor they have a political background. The
four horsemen are all professionals in one field or the
other, but have never been politicians.
Will the four horsemen be able to deliver? Except for
Fazlur Rehman, the rest of the political leadership,
cutting across political lines at the national and regional
levels, seems to have faith in the new initiative.
From Suicide Attacks to a Ten Member Committee:
Understanding the Change in TTP
What has changed for the TTP in the last month that it
has agreed to negotiate with the government?
Was it because of the military strikes in Waziristan?
Given the nature of the attacks and the short duration,
it appears that the military strikes were aimed more at
convincing the US, where Sartaj Aziz was attempting to
revive the strategic dialogue between the two countries,
rather than at bringing the Taliban down. Had the latter
been the case, the strikes would have continued until
the TTP begged for a dialogue. However, this was not
the case.
Why did then the TTP agree to negotiate? Does it really
believe in negotiating with the government? Or is the
negotiation a strategy of its ongoing war with the
State?
What would the TTP Demand?
Will this negotiation between the TTP and the
government be without any preconditions? Unlikely. The
TTP is likely to emphasise that there should be no
military strikes in the first place. As a logical extension
of that, it is likely to pressurise the State to tell US that
the latter completely stop its drone programme. In fact,
the TTP leadership should be more worried about the
drone strikes than the military strikes. However
indiscriminate the military strikes are likely to be, they
can never be as precise as a drone attack. The TTP is
also likely to demand the release of its top leadership,
who have been arrested by the State and kept in
different jails.
Politically, the TTP is likely to pressurise the
government to sever ties with the US and ensure that
the Durand Line becomes irrelevant for the Afghan
militants.
Will the TTP also demand the imposition of shariah
elsewhere in Pakistan, as it demanded in Swat? It may
place that demand but is unlikely to carry it forward,
given that the time is not ripe. Such a demand may
perhaps be acceptable for the State in remote FATA or
the Swat valley, but not acceptable in the rest of
Pakistan. Not yet.
How Far will the State Go in Yielding to the TTP?
Clearly, the State is not keen in pursuing a military
option vis-Ã -vis the militants. The TTP would not
be satisfied with the status quo.
The primary question is not what the TTP wants.
Rather, it is how far the State is willing to go to
accommodate the TTP.
PAKISTAN: HYPER-NATIONAL SECURITY STATE
For over six decades, the Pakistani elite have pursued a
`hyper-national security state’ geopolitical approach,
stemming from an almost continuous and obsessive
`search for power symmetry with India’, which has laid a
“geo-strategic curse” on the country at the expense of
any lasting political or economic reform. This has
resulted in `domestic stagnation and even chaos’.
Though seemingly successful in the short-term, or from
a tactical point of view, they distorted the country’s
development in the long run, imperilling its national
security.
This is the central thesis of the construct offered in `The
Warrior State – Pakistan in the Contemporary World’, a
new book by Dr TV Paul, Professor, International
Relations, McGill University, Canada.
Pakistan had its `great power patrons’ – the US and
China – both of whom it received massive military
assistance from; but even their policies and patronage
discouraged the adoption of `painful economic and
social reforms necessary for rapid, equitable economic
and political development’. Dr Paul tellingly brings out
how ever since its founding in 1947, Pakistan remained
at the center of major geopolitical struggles: the US-
Soviet Union rivalry; the conflict with India; the Soviet
invasion of Afghanistan; and most recently, the
post-9/11 wars. Massive foreign aid kept pouring in
from major powers and their allies with a stake in the
region. The reliability of such aid defused any pressure
on the political elites to launch far-reaching domestic
reforms necessary to promote sustained growth, higher
standards of living, and more stable democratic
institutions.
Pakistan’s elite – primarily the military leaders who
repeatedly usurped power, abrogating constitution-
making and the evolution of democratic processes –
had, according to Dr Paul, `both the motive and
opportunity to pursue such policies’. Their strategic
ideas and ideological beliefs about statehood,
development and power became major factors in
determining strategies they followed. However, these
ideas were `devoid of prudence and pragmatism’ and
produced `unintended consequences, that were often
negative’.
Citing the European experience to understand the
relationship between war and state building in the
Pakistani context, the book suggests that Pakistan has
unfortunately tended to slide into the category of `weak’
or `failing states’ as its elites showed a proclivity to
dabble `in other regional conflicts, proxy wars or
promotion of insurgencies’, instead of devoting
capacities for `the creation of public goods to its
citizenry by way of education, healthcare, employment
and high standard of living’.
Tracing causes of this political evolution through its
turbulent history, Dr Paul concludes that Pakistan has
`ended up as a garrison or praetorian state’; whenever
the military ceded power to elected civilian governments,
it did so only partially. This left the country as a `
hybrid democratic model’ with the military remaining ` a
veto player’ in crucial decision making.
An interesting chapter is devoted to comparing
Pakistan’s internecine civil-military conflict with similar
situations in other Muslim majority countries such as
Turkey, Indonesia, Egypt, and even with `non-Muslim
National Security States’ such as South Korea and
Taiwan. Though acknowledging some similarities
relating to the `existential nature of threats faced’, Dr
Paul finds Pakistan’s wars were `limited in nature’ and
were `never utilised by the elite to transform the
country’s economic policies’. The military’s dominance
`was never tamed’ and `the co-operation of civil society
groups’ was channelised `in the direction of geo-
political projects’, instead of garnering support for
policies of economic development. Religion was
repeatedly utilised in the quest for Islamic legitimacy
and as a crutch to justify the military’s abrogation of
democratic politics, in the process leading to the
`misuse of political Islam’; rise of sectarianism; and
endemic ethnic cleavages – all characteristics of weak,
insecurity-generating states.
The book examines how Pakistan is coping with `the
trap of the Warrior State’ today and whether it will
transform in the near future. Though some signs of
change are discerned, through growing introspection
among some sections of civil society, Dr Paul says
Pakistan’s `ongoing war-making efforts have deeply
affected its prospects for emerging as a tolerant,
prosperous and unified nation-state. He believes
`ironically, that Pakistan’s democratic elections and
political transitions made things worse domestically’,
leaving civil society much weaker and the middle class
`increasingly sympathetic to extremism’. The army has
recently taking on the Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan (TTP),
though this seems a reluctant and limited strategy
conditioned by calculations of calibrated response in the
context of Afghanistan. It still has the `temptation’ to
play `good Taliban’ and `bad Taliban’ while pursuing
tactical or asymmetric objectives. Offering a rather dour
prognosis, Dr Paul suggests that things could improve
`only if ideas and assumptions of the elite change
fundamentally’. The state could otherwise fall apart `if
they (the elite) persist in “double games”’.
The State’s long term policies have neither focussed on
economic development nor shown political cohesion.
Despite the impact of the internet revolution, enabled by
a reasonably free media, the younger generation has not
been allowed to globalise or benefit from economic
liberalisation. The education and science and technology
sectors have languished or remained bound under old
narratives of insecurity.
Emphasising `twin fears for the future in its immediate
neighbourhood’ – the fear of India and the fear of losing
primary influence over Afghanistan – Pakistan’s
military is shown to have assumed a protector’s role –
so typical in `Warrior States’ [Charles Tilly, in “War
Making & State Making as Organised Crime,” ‘Bringing
the State Back In’, 1985]. The army is called upon again
and again to assume the protector’s role from threats it
has itself created in the first place – thus showing how
`a protector can become a protection racketeer’.
Soundness of theoretical premises notwithstanding, this
is severe castigation indeed and may not go down well
with audiences in Pakistan, coming as it does from an
academic of Indian origin, albeit now ensconced in
hallowed climes. It also reflects, perhaps, an inadequate
and unduly pessimistic appreciation of complex social
and political factors influencing responses of various
players in the Pakistan’s domestic arena.
After Musharraf’s last disruption of democracy in
November 2007, the lawyers’ movement for restoration
of the higher judiciary definitely reflected deep-seated
changes in these relationships and a partial maturing of
civil society in the country. Both former President Asif
Ali Zardari and former Army Chief, Gen Ashfaq Parvez
Kayani understood these changes and made interesting
course corrections in typical behaviour patterns which
determined civil-military interactions in the five-year
interregnum (2008-2013). Thoughpolitical parties
remained weak, the army too could not or did not
voluntarily (sic!) exercise absolute power. The ignominy
of the Abbottabad action by the US to eliminate Osama
bin Laden was not lost either on a politically aware
polity or among young officers in the Pakistani Defence
Services, who were unhappy with their own impotence.
Though berated by new found judicial activism, the
civilian political leadership still sacked a retired General
as Defence Secretary during the strained `Memogate’
phase, though having to dismiss their chosen
Ambassador to the US, Hussain Haqqani, due to the
army’s insistence. Former Prime Minister Yousaf Raza
Gilani nevertheless, lamented in a forceful speech in the
National Assembly that no organ of the State could
claim to be “a State within the State,” asserting that
“decision-making is done only by Parliament” and “all
institutions of the county remain answerable” to it.
Though civil society activism in Pakistan seems to have
ebbed, real political power is today diffused and spread
among several actors. The centre-right politicians who
received an overwhelming popular mandate in the 2013
general elections have built their own patronage and
connections with radical Islamic actors; and the latter
too have emerged with increasing clout in civil society.
The Pakistan People’s Party could not contest elections
freely due to threats from the Taliban and suffered at
the hustings due to anti-incumbency and mal-
governance. However, it retains its mass base in Sindh,
and could bounce back. As a national mainstream party,
it extended solidarity to the ruling PML (N), when civil-
military relations recently became strained. The
Muttahida Qaumi Movement (MQM-Altaf) has its own
ethno-cultural clout, in the context of law and order
management in Karachi.
These factors place limits on the military’s ability to
control things entirely, though the Inter-Services
Intelligence (ISI) remains the key military institution for
the manipulation of politics. This has been vividly
demonstrated in the crisis after the attack on Geo
compere, Hamid Mir, and the army-backed attempts to
coerce or curb freedom of the press.
On the ensuing military interaction with TTP too, Dr
Paul’s prognosis seems off the mark. With civilian
political leaders still paying lip service to mediation and
talks, how the army tackles what has been described as
the newest `existentialist threat’ against the State
perhaps needed to be explained beyond the parameters
of `a warrior state’ construct.
That said, Dr Paul’s book offers a rich bibliographic
canvas and is a welcome addition to the burgeoning
literature on political dynamics in Pakistan.
`hyper-national security state’ geopolitical approach,
stemming from an almost continuous and obsessive
`search for power symmetry with India’, which has laid a
“geo-strategic curse” on the country at the expense of
any lasting political or economic reform. This has
resulted in `domestic stagnation and even chaos’.
Though seemingly successful in the short-term, or from
a tactical point of view, they distorted the country’s
development in the long run, imperilling its national
security.
This is the central thesis of the construct offered in `The
Warrior State – Pakistan in the Contemporary World’, a
new book by Dr TV Paul, Professor, International
Relations, McGill University, Canada.
Pakistan had its `great power patrons’ – the US and
China – both of whom it received massive military
assistance from; but even their policies and patronage
discouraged the adoption of `painful economic and
social reforms necessary for rapid, equitable economic
and political development’. Dr Paul tellingly brings out
how ever since its founding in 1947, Pakistan remained
at the center of major geopolitical struggles: the US-
Soviet Union rivalry; the conflict with India; the Soviet
invasion of Afghanistan; and most recently, the
post-9/11 wars. Massive foreign aid kept pouring in
from major powers and their allies with a stake in the
region. The reliability of such aid defused any pressure
on the political elites to launch far-reaching domestic
reforms necessary to promote sustained growth, higher
standards of living, and more stable democratic
institutions.
Pakistan’s elite – primarily the military leaders who
repeatedly usurped power, abrogating constitution-
making and the evolution of democratic processes –
had, according to Dr Paul, `both the motive and
opportunity to pursue such policies’. Their strategic
ideas and ideological beliefs about statehood,
development and power became major factors in
determining strategies they followed. However, these
ideas were `devoid of prudence and pragmatism’ and
produced `unintended consequences, that were often
negative’.
Citing the European experience to understand the
relationship between war and state building in the
Pakistani context, the book suggests that Pakistan has
unfortunately tended to slide into the category of `weak’
or `failing states’ as its elites showed a proclivity to
dabble `in other regional conflicts, proxy wars or
promotion of insurgencies’, instead of devoting
capacities for `the creation of public goods to its
citizenry by way of education, healthcare, employment
and high standard of living’.
Tracing causes of this political evolution through its
turbulent history, Dr Paul concludes that Pakistan has
`ended up as a garrison or praetorian state’; whenever
the military ceded power to elected civilian governments,
it did so only partially. This left the country as a `
hybrid democratic model’ with the military remaining ` a
veto player’ in crucial decision making.
An interesting chapter is devoted to comparing
Pakistan’s internecine civil-military conflict with similar
situations in other Muslim majority countries such as
Turkey, Indonesia, Egypt, and even with `non-Muslim
National Security States’ such as South Korea and
Taiwan. Though acknowledging some similarities
relating to the `existential nature of threats faced’, Dr
Paul finds Pakistan’s wars were `limited in nature’ and
were `never utilised by the elite to transform the
country’s economic policies’. The military’s dominance
`was never tamed’ and `the co-operation of civil society
groups’ was channelised `in the direction of geo-
political projects’, instead of garnering support for
policies of economic development. Religion was
repeatedly utilised in the quest for Islamic legitimacy
and as a crutch to justify the military’s abrogation of
democratic politics, in the process leading to the
`misuse of political Islam’; rise of sectarianism; and
endemic ethnic cleavages – all characteristics of weak,
insecurity-generating states.
The book examines how Pakistan is coping with `the
trap of the Warrior State’ today and whether it will
transform in the near future. Though some signs of
change are discerned, through growing introspection
among some sections of civil society, Dr Paul says
Pakistan’s `ongoing war-making efforts have deeply
affected its prospects for emerging as a tolerant,
prosperous and unified nation-state. He believes
`ironically, that Pakistan’s democratic elections and
political transitions made things worse domestically’,
leaving civil society much weaker and the middle class
`increasingly sympathetic to extremism’. The army has
recently taking on the Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan (TTP),
though this seems a reluctant and limited strategy
conditioned by calculations of calibrated response in the
context of Afghanistan. It still has the `temptation’ to
play `good Taliban’ and `bad Taliban’ while pursuing
tactical or asymmetric objectives. Offering a rather dour
prognosis, Dr Paul suggests that things could improve
`only if ideas and assumptions of the elite change
fundamentally’. The state could otherwise fall apart `if
they (the elite) persist in “double games”’.
The State’s long term policies have neither focussed on
economic development nor shown political cohesion.
Despite the impact of the internet revolution, enabled by
a reasonably free media, the younger generation has not
been allowed to globalise or benefit from economic
liberalisation. The education and science and technology
sectors have languished or remained bound under old
narratives of insecurity.
Emphasising `twin fears for the future in its immediate
neighbourhood’ – the fear of India and the fear of losing
primary influence over Afghanistan – Pakistan’s
military is shown to have assumed a protector’s role –
so typical in `Warrior States’ [Charles Tilly, in “War
Making & State Making as Organised Crime,” ‘Bringing
the State Back In’, 1985]. The army is called upon again
and again to assume the protector’s role from threats it
has itself created in the first place – thus showing how
`a protector can become a protection racketeer’.
Soundness of theoretical premises notwithstanding, this
is severe castigation indeed and may not go down well
with audiences in Pakistan, coming as it does from an
academic of Indian origin, albeit now ensconced in
hallowed climes. It also reflects, perhaps, an inadequate
and unduly pessimistic appreciation of complex social
and political factors influencing responses of various
players in the Pakistan’s domestic arena.
After Musharraf’s last disruption of democracy in
November 2007, the lawyers’ movement for restoration
of the higher judiciary definitely reflected deep-seated
changes in these relationships and a partial maturing of
civil society in the country. Both former President Asif
Ali Zardari and former Army Chief, Gen Ashfaq Parvez
Kayani understood these changes and made interesting
course corrections in typical behaviour patterns which
determined civil-military interactions in the five-year
interregnum (2008-2013). Thoughpolitical parties
remained weak, the army too could not or did not
voluntarily (sic!) exercise absolute power. The ignominy
of the Abbottabad action by the US to eliminate Osama
bin Laden was not lost either on a politically aware
polity or among young officers in the Pakistani Defence
Services, who were unhappy with their own impotence.
Though berated by new found judicial activism, the
civilian political leadership still sacked a retired General
as Defence Secretary during the strained `Memogate’
phase, though having to dismiss their chosen
Ambassador to the US, Hussain Haqqani, due to the
army’s insistence. Former Prime Minister Yousaf Raza
Gilani nevertheless, lamented in a forceful speech in the
National Assembly that no organ of the State could
claim to be “a State within the State,” asserting that
“decision-making is done only by Parliament” and “all
institutions of the county remain answerable” to it.
Though civil society activism in Pakistan seems to have
ebbed, real political power is today diffused and spread
among several actors. The centre-right politicians who
received an overwhelming popular mandate in the 2013
general elections have built their own patronage and
connections with radical Islamic actors; and the latter
too have emerged with increasing clout in civil society.
The Pakistan People’s Party could not contest elections
freely due to threats from the Taliban and suffered at
the hustings due to anti-incumbency and mal-
governance. However, it retains its mass base in Sindh,
and could bounce back. As a national mainstream party,
it extended solidarity to the ruling PML (N), when civil-
military relations recently became strained. The
Muttahida Qaumi Movement (MQM-Altaf) has its own
ethno-cultural clout, in the context of law and order
management in Karachi.
These factors place limits on the military’s ability to
control things entirely, though the Inter-Services
Intelligence (ISI) remains the key military institution for
the manipulation of politics. This has been vividly
demonstrated in the crisis after the attack on Geo
compere, Hamid Mir, and the army-backed attempts to
coerce or curb freedom of the press.
On the ensuing military interaction with TTP too, Dr
Paul’s prognosis seems off the mark. With civilian
political leaders still paying lip service to mediation and
talks, how the army tackles what has been described as
the newest `existentialist threat’ against the State
perhaps needed to be explained beyond the parameters
of `a warrior state’ construct.
That said, Dr Paul’s book offers a rich bibliographic
canvas and is a welcome addition to the burgeoning
literature on political dynamics in Pakistan.
12 Jun 2014
TTP AND THE KARACHI AIRPORT ATTACK
Karachi has been generally referred as the City of
Lights. But this Sunday, unfortunately it became the
City of Flames – literally and figuratively, with its airport
being attacked by the Pakistani Taliban and smoke
spiralling out.
While in the coming days there are likely to be multiple
analyses on this attack, two simple questions need to
be addressed – what does the attack say of what is
happening, and what does it mean for the events to
come.
Just a week before the attack on Karachi Airport, the
social, print and electronic media was full of reports
discussing the split within the Taliban, especially in
Waziristan. One of the Mehsud factions led by Said
Khan Sajna announced in public that they are leaving
the TTP fold; one of the spokespersons of the Sajna
faction was reported to have announced the following
as the reason for the split: “The central leadership has
gone into the hands of unseen forces, sectarian issues
and extortion in the name of Taliban…We have decided
to go our own way.”
Following the above difference, there was a general
belief and expectation that the Pakistani Taliban under
the leadership of Fazlullah would be weakened and easy
to target by the State forces. The fact that Sajna, who
had announced the split belongs to the Mehsud tribe in
Waziristan made many to believe that with the
Mehsuds, the most powerful groups within the TTP
deciding to part ways, the TTP would lose its impact
and importance. Immediately, following the above
announcement, the government also announced a group
of tribal elders in Waziristan to evict all the foreign
fighters from the region; the State gave them a 15 days
ultimatum.
The attack on Karachi airport by the Pakistani Taliban
should be interpreted in the above background. Days
within the announcement of the split and the ultimatum,
the TTP decided to answer to those two developments
in an appalling manner. From New York Times and
Washington Post in the US to the Sydney Morning
Herald in Australia, every news agency – print and
electronic covered the horror and gave substantial space
to what had happened in their front pages and
editorials.
So, the Pakistani Taliban has sent a strong and
powerful statement not only to the State in Pakistan,
but also the rest of international community, that
neither the split within the ranks, nor the announcement
of an impended attack would frighten them. This seems
to be the first major statement of the TTP’s attack on
the Karachi Airport.
Second, the attack in Karachi, far away from what is
believed to its nerve center – the tribal agencies of the
FATA along the Durand Line also convey the reach of
the TTP. And this is not the first attack in Karachi. Few
years earlier, in May 2011, the Taliban carried out a
similar spectacular attack on the PNS Mehran, a Naval
base in Karachi, destroying warplanes and also a P-3C
Orion using just rocket-propelled grenades and heavy
machine gun fire. A similar strategy was used few days
ago in the Karachi airport attack as well.
Third, the attack also reveals the ability of the TTP to
carry out high profile attacks on a regular basis.
Consider the following attacks after the assassination of
Benazir Bhutto since 2007 – on the GHQ in Rawalpindi
(2009), PNS Mehran in Karachi (2011), Minhas Airbase
in Kamra (2012) and Bacha Khan International Airport in
Peshawar (2012). And in almost all these cases, it was
not a huge attack, in terms of numbers; almost like the
fidayeen attacks that J&K witnessed during the last
decade – a small group of well trained and battle
hardened militants (in the case of Karachi Airport attack
– ten militants) creating a huge mayhem, leaving
security, economy and regular life in tatters.
It clearly reveals a pattern in terms of both the reach
and ability of the TTP; and also perhaps it highlights
the failure of the security and intelligence agencies.
Worse, some analysts within Pakistan even consider,
that there could be some information from inside. A
targeted suicide attack of two military/intelligence
officers near Islamabad few days ago, by the bombers
dressed as beggars in a railway crossing make a section
suspect that the TTP could be getting some insider
information.
Besides what has happened, what this attack means for
the future is also equally important. The Karachi Airport
is no ordinary one in the region; it is the largest
international airport in Pakistan, acting as a powerful
connectivity hub and economic gateway to the country.
All leading airlines and cargo planes have Karachi as
their main destination than Lahore or Islamabad. The
security situation in the rest of Pakistan had already
made many of the airlines and related agencies to cut
down their operations. With this attack very much inside
the Airport, one is likely to see further curtailing of
international airlines from Europe in particular, which
further acts as a hub to North America.
With the recent budget announcement and the
expectation to revive the economy and foreign direct
investment, the Airport attack is likely to leave huge
trails in the subsequent months on the potential to
attract investment, thereby improve the country’s
economy. With bad news spreading all over the world
about what is happening within Pakistan, any decline in
the air traffic further means limited travel to know and
understand the ground situation. This connectivity is
important for any major corporation to make any
investment in Pakistan.
The Karachi Airport attack would also mean the end of
peace talks between the government and the TTP, which
was actually being dragged during the last few months.
Early this year, there were so many expectations within
a section, especially within the Sharif government that
the talks between the TTP and the government would
ultimately yield to peace. Both sides announced multiple
committees and even few ceasefires. There were even
few reports that the military was not totally happy with
what was happening in terms of the talks between the
TTP and the political leadership. A section within the
Civil Society even suspected that the TTP would only
use this opportunity to hit back at a later stage. It
appears, that is what has happened.
The dialogue between the TTP and the government is
now in tatters. Will the civilian and military leadership
come together now, and start a full blown war against
the militants and militancy within Pakistan? Will
Pakistan stand up against violence and militancy?
In the past, as explained earlier in this commentary,
there were numerous instances of high profile attacks
led by the TTP, even on military targets for example the
bases of Air force and Navy, and also on the GHQ in
Rawalpindi. There was even a suicide attack on the
President. Unfortunately, Pakistan’s response to
militancy so far has been divided with one section
strongly advocating negotiations as a means. The State
should attempt the same as a strategy; but when such
an approach does not yield the desired result, it should
also be open to pursue a military strategy. Perhaps, a
section in Pakistan, even within the Establishment
believes that these non-State actors would be an asset
elsewhere in the near future.
What has happened in Karachi Airport shows the reach
and resolve of the TTP to continue its violent march
Lights. But this Sunday, unfortunately it became the
City of Flames – literally and figuratively, with its airport
being attacked by the Pakistani Taliban and smoke
spiralling out.
While in the coming days there are likely to be multiple
analyses on this attack, two simple questions need to
be addressed – what does the attack say of what is
happening, and what does it mean for the events to
come.
Just a week before the attack on Karachi Airport, the
social, print and electronic media was full of reports
discussing the split within the Taliban, especially in
Waziristan. One of the Mehsud factions led by Said
Khan Sajna announced in public that they are leaving
the TTP fold; one of the spokespersons of the Sajna
faction was reported to have announced the following
as the reason for the split: “The central leadership has
gone into the hands of unseen forces, sectarian issues
and extortion in the name of Taliban…We have decided
to go our own way.”
Following the above difference, there was a general
belief and expectation that the Pakistani Taliban under
the leadership of Fazlullah would be weakened and easy
to target by the State forces. The fact that Sajna, who
had announced the split belongs to the Mehsud tribe in
Waziristan made many to believe that with the
Mehsuds, the most powerful groups within the TTP
deciding to part ways, the TTP would lose its impact
and importance. Immediately, following the above
announcement, the government also announced a group
of tribal elders in Waziristan to evict all the foreign
fighters from the region; the State gave them a 15 days
ultimatum.
The attack on Karachi airport by the Pakistani Taliban
should be interpreted in the above background. Days
within the announcement of the split and the ultimatum,
the TTP decided to answer to those two developments
in an appalling manner. From New York Times and
Washington Post in the US to the Sydney Morning
Herald in Australia, every news agency – print and
electronic covered the horror and gave substantial space
to what had happened in their front pages and
editorials.
So, the Pakistani Taliban has sent a strong and
powerful statement not only to the State in Pakistan,
but also the rest of international community, that
neither the split within the ranks, nor the announcement
of an impended attack would frighten them. This seems
to be the first major statement of the TTP’s attack on
the Karachi Airport.
Second, the attack in Karachi, far away from what is
believed to its nerve center – the tribal agencies of the
FATA along the Durand Line also convey the reach of
the TTP. And this is not the first attack in Karachi. Few
years earlier, in May 2011, the Taliban carried out a
similar spectacular attack on the PNS Mehran, a Naval
base in Karachi, destroying warplanes and also a P-3C
Orion using just rocket-propelled grenades and heavy
machine gun fire. A similar strategy was used few days
ago in the Karachi airport attack as well.
Third, the attack also reveals the ability of the TTP to
carry out high profile attacks on a regular basis.
Consider the following attacks after the assassination of
Benazir Bhutto since 2007 – on the GHQ in Rawalpindi
(2009), PNS Mehran in Karachi (2011), Minhas Airbase
in Kamra (2012) and Bacha Khan International Airport in
Peshawar (2012). And in almost all these cases, it was
not a huge attack, in terms of numbers; almost like the
fidayeen attacks that J&K witnessed during the last
decade – a small group of well trained and battle
hardened militants (in the case of Karachi Airport attack
– ten militants) creating a huge mayhem, leaving
security, economy and regular life in tatters.
It clearly reveals a pattern in terms of both the reach
and ability of the TTP; and also perhaps it highlights
the failure of the security and intelligence agencies.
Worse, some analysts within Pakistan even consider,
that there could be some information from inside. A
targeted suicide attack of two military/intelligence
officers near Islamabad few days ago, by the bombers
dressed as beggars in a railway crossing make a section
suspect that the TTP could be getting some insider
information.
Besides what has happened, what this attack means for
the future is also equally important. The Karachi Airport
is no ordinary one in the region; it is the largest
international airport in Pakistan, acting as a powerful
connectivity hub and economic gateway to the country.
All leading airlines and cargo planes have Karachi as
their main destination than Lahore or Islamabad. The
security situation in the rest of Pakistan had already
made many of the airlines and related agencies to cut
down their operations. With this attack very much inside
the Airport, one is likely to see further curtailing of
international airlines from Europe in particular, which
further acts as a hub to North America.
With the recent budget announcement and the
expectation to revive the economy and foreign direct
investment, the Airport attack is likely to leave huge
trails in the subsequent months on the potential to
attract investment, thereby improve the country’s
economy. With bad news spreading all over the world
about what is happening within Pakistan, any decline in
the air traffic further means limited travel to know and
understand the ground situation. This connectivity is
important for any major corporation to make any
investment in Pakistan.
The Karachi Airport attack would also mean the end of
peace talks between the government and the TTP, which
was actually being dragged during the last few months.
Early this year, there were so many expectations within
a section, especially within the Sharif government that
the talks between the TTP and the government would
ultimately yield to peace. Both sides announced multiple
committees and even few ceasefires. There were even
few reports that the military was not totally happy with
what was happening in terms of the talks between the
TTP and the political leadership. A section within the
Civil Society even suspected that the TTP would only
use this opportunity to hit back at a later stage. It
appears, that is what has happened.
The dialogue between the TTP and the government is
now in tatters. Will the civilian and military leadership
come together now, and start a full blown war against
the militants and militancy within Pakistan? Will
Pakistan stand up against violence and militancy?
In the past, as explained earlier in this commentary,
there were numerous instances of high profile attacks
led by the TTP, even on military targets for example the
bases of Air force and Navy, and also on the GHQ in
Rawalpindi. There was even a suicide attack on the
President. Unfortunately, Pakistan’s response to
militancy so far has been divided with one section
strongly advocating negotiations as a means. The State
should attempt the same as a strategy; but when such
an approach does not yield the desired result, it should
also be open to pursue a military strategy. Perhaps, a
section in Pakistan, even within the Establishment
believes that these non-State actors would be an asset
elsewhere in the near future.
What has happened in Karachi Airport shows the reach
and resolve of the TTP to continue its violent march
11 Jun 2014
SCOTLAND AND BRITAIN IN THE BALANCE
YOU DON’T win because you don’t
care enough.” The Ukrainian chess
player’s pithy observation in Allan
Massie’s fine novel A Question of
Loyalties resonates today where the
continent’s extremes meet, from the eastern
borderlands to the far northwest.
The violent political coercion in Ukraine is
in deep contrast to the peaceful, democratic
nature of the process under way in Scotland,
where Scots will vote on their country’s
independence on 18 September and therefore
decide also the destiny of the United Kingdom
state. Yet if the principles at stake in each
case – sovereignty, law, citizenship, belonging
– are similar, so too is the fact that those
seeking to change the status quo seem driven
by a far greater inner conviction than their
adversaries. (And this is true of both their
immediate adversaries and, in Brussels and
London, their more remote ones.)
Scotland’s chief twentieth-century poet and
controversialist Hugh MacDiarmid (1892–
1978) is more often quoted by scandalised
anti-nationalists these days, but his lines, “The
present’s theirs, but a’ the past and future’s
oors,” well conveys the confident ownership
of the independence argument by the “yes”
side, led by the Scottish National Party, or
SNP, government in Edinburgh.
Greatly aided by an ultra-committed
grassroots campaign (whose architect, Stephen
Noon, describes its mantra as “conversion
through conversation”), the “yes” side is
managing an extraordinary feat. It is making
“no” advocates resemble squatters in their
own land, unable to offer a coherent vision of
Scotland’s future as a nation in its own right.
The latter are aware of the danger; as Alistair
Carmichael, the Scottish secretary in London’s
coalition government (and a Liberal
Democrat), writes in the Scotsman on 16 May,
“[in] this crucial debate on the future of our
nation, we cannot allow the feeling to grow
that to be on the other side of the argument
from the SNP is somehow to be less Scottish.”
True, nothing is predestined in post-Calvinist
Scotland. And a feature of this long campaign
– launched in the early weeks of 2012 and
thus now well into its third year – is that the
anti-independence, or unionist, side has
enjoyed a consistent , if lately diminishing,
polling lead. It remains the favourite to win.
But atmosphere and momentum matter, both
in themselves and because they reflect what
both camps perceive to be happening on the
ground. With the winning post lying just
beyond a packed season of symbolic national
jousts – the Bannockburn battle anniversary,
its Armed Forces Day rival, the
Commonwealth Games, the Great War
commemoration – the youthful Yes Scotland
steed looks more sprightly than the Better
Together pantomime horse.
HE EARLY weeks of 2014 made the
contrast more marked, in two ways.
First, they provided fresh and vivid
examples of the political misjudgement
that has long gripped the wider case for
unionism in Scotland. A series of speeches by
the UK establishment’s economic A-team –
prime minister David Cameron, chancellor
George Osborne, Bank of England governor
Mark Carney – questioned the case made in
the Scottish government’s vast independence
prospectus : namely, that a post-UK Scotland
could expect to continue in a currency union
with the rUK (“residual” or “rest of” the UK).
The tone of the interventions varied according
to the persona and his position. Cameron’s
more placatory address (delivered at the site
of the London Olympics) was a don’t-forget-
Emeli-Sandé celebration of the United
Kingdom’s “intricate tapestry,” Carney’s a
nuanced outline of the concessions of
sovereignty that a currency union would
require (using the eurozone’s troubles as a
subtle code). Osborne alone, the cold strategist
to Cameron’s sunny-side-up act, exuded
genuine menace.
Such warnings were reinforced by statements
from several high-profile companies with
head offices or extensive interests in Scotland.
For them, the prospect of independence
raised potential risks and costs that in
principle might influence investment or
location decisions. The Confederation of
British Industry, or CBI, attempted to register
as a “no” supporter with the electoral
commission that governs the referendum
process; this would allow it to spend money on
advertising its views. In addition, UK
ministers from several government
departments continued to insist or imply that
matters in their field of competence – defence
and its contracts, pensions and their
guarantees, energy and its subsidies, security
and its intelligence sharing, the European
Union and its conditions of membership –
would turn out badly for Scotland if the
country voted “yes.”
Taken together – especially by a Scottish
public acutely sensitised to real or perceived
slights from a southerly direction, but even by
the non-aligned or mildly independence-
sceptic – the heavyweight barrage looked and
sounded intimidatory. An argument could be
had on equal terms, was the dominant feeling;
if the empire was striking back, though –
whether consciously or because it couldn’t
help itself – then it would be rebutted. The
Scots, amid the flurry, realised that the
political terms of trade between themselves
and London had moved, if not actually
reversed.
Indeed, the impact on the polls was the
opposite of what London’s schedulers
intended, for the ensuing weeks saw a
perceptible rise in “yes” responses – albeit by
different measures and without clarifying
voters’ many underlying uncertainties.
Moreover, fourteen leading Scottish
institutions, among them universities and
broadcasters, resigned from the CBI in protest
at its implied political stance. And in a
stirring editorial, Glasgow’s Sunday Herald –
whose weekday stablemate is considered,
alongside Edinburgh’s Scotsman , Scotland’s
only national broadsheet – “came out” for
independence (the phrase from the doomed
Jacobite rising of 1745 seems oddly, perhaps
ominously, apposite):
We believe that now is the time to roll up our
sleeves and put our backs into creating the
kind of society in which all Scots have a stake.
Independence, this newspaper asserts, will put
us in charge of our destiny. That being the
case, Scots will have no one to blame for their
failings, no one to condemn for perceived
wrongs. We will, for the first time in three
centuries, be responsible for our decisions,
for better or worse… What is offered is the
chance to alter course, to travel roads less
taken, to define a destiny… The prize is a
better country. It is, truly, as simple as that.
It’s too early to say that the first months of
2014 will prove a turning-point in the entire
campaign (a case Iain Macwhirter, the
Herald’s political columnist, argues with
characteristic verve). These developments do,
though, signal the exhaustion of the rhetoric
of command as a tool of intra-British
statecraft. The Scots, albeit helped by an
ingenious filtering of the top-dog aspects of
their past, have gone way beyond that. But all
is fair in love, war and Scottish politics. The
crucial question now is whether Better
Together has anything more convincing in its
locker.
ABBOTT GOVERNMENT'S WAR ON TRANSPARENCY.
Political attention over the past few
weeks has been fixed on the drama of
the Abbott government’s first budget –
the winners and losers, the problem of
broken promises, the prospects in the
Senate. Beyond that, though, the budget
reinforces another trend of potentially great
significance for the quality of Australian
democracy. Since its beginnings, the
government has made a series of decisions
that mean public scrutiny of its policies and
their implementation is more difficult.
As soon as the Coalition took government last
September, it set about distinguishing itself
from its defeated, discredited predecessor. It
would be a “no surprises, no excuses”
government, Tony Abbott promised , and his
first weeks in the job were designed to project
an image of methodical deliberation. “Never
before in Australian history has there been
such a quiet transition to a new
administration,” veteran correspondent
Laurie Oakes wrote admiringly. “Abbott and
his team ignored the hungry media beast’s
demand to be fed.”
Within months, though, Oakes was accusing
the Coalition of “thumbing its nose at voters”
by avoiding media scrutiny. The new
government, it soon became clear, was even
more determined than its predecessors to
control the flow of information to the media
and the public.
The earliest decisions set the tone. All requests
for interviews with Coalition frontbenchers
would need the approval of the prime
minister’s office. MPs were banned from
engaging in political commentary on
Facebook and Twitter. The code of conduct for
ministerial staff gained a new clause, also
banning political commentary on social
media. One disenchanted senator, Ian
Macdonald, accused Abbott’s office and his
chief of staff, Peta Credlin, of “obsessive,
centralised control.”
Next, the government introduced rules
covering public servants’ use of social media
in their official and private capacities. “The
sweeping new rules will even cover public
servants posting political comments
anonymously, including mummy bloggers on
parenting websites,” marvelled the Daily
Telegraph. Public employees were expected to
report breaches by their colleagues.
The move was supported by the Human Rights
Commission’s new “freedom commissioner,”
Tim Wilson. “Ultimately,” he said, “public
servants voluntarily and knowingly choose to
accept these limits on their conduct when they
accept employment.” In other words, if they
didn’t like the new restrictions, they had the
freedom to resign.
The government also tightened freedom of
information, or FOI, procedures. After the
previous election, in 2010, at least seventeen
departments released the briefs they had
prepared for the incoming government,
providing valuable information to journalists
and the public about policy positions and
challenges. No such release came after last
year’s election, reported Crikey ’s Bernard
Keane, and officials were unable to explain
the logic behind the reversal. FOI requests for
the briefings were also refused .
In May, the attorney-general’s department
declined to release a $400,000 report by
KPMG examining three of Australia’s federal
courts. According to the Australian’s Sean
Parnell, it justified its decision on the novel
grounds that to make it public “would have an
impact on the proper and efficient conduct of
the department” because “it would impede the
provision of frank, independent advice from
professional services firms to inform policy.”
Such an open-ended exemption would justify
withholding any consultancy report to
government. As Parnell put it, “tactics of
secrecy and obfuscation have returned to the
fore in Canberra.”
Meanwhile, the under-resourced Office of the
Australian Information Commissioner was
taking 250 days, on average, to finalise
requests for external reviews of decisions to
refuse FOI requests. On budget night the
government neatly disposed of this problem
by abolishing the office. In future, appeals
against FOI refusals are to be handled by the
Administrative Appeals Tribunal, Attorney-
General’s or the Commonwealth Ombudsman.
The office was created in 2010 to address the
long turnaround times and expensive appeals
in the working of the FOI system; its abolition
is likely to make it harder and more
expensive for FOI users to extract
information.
The government’s resistance to disclosure is
having an impact not only on what
information is released but also on what is
produced, and by whom. Recent conservative
governments have been much more active
than the Rudd–Gillard government in
moulding the senior sections of the public
service to their liking. The most disturbing
example is the Abbott government’s
insistence, immediately on taking office, that
Treasury secretary Martin Parkinson resign
his position, with effect later this year. Both
John Howard and Peter Costello advised
against the forced resignation, and
Parkinson’s predecessor, Ken Henry,
described it as unprecedented in the
department’s 113-year history. “No
government has ever thought it appropriate to
remove the head of the Treasury,” he said,
“and put in somebody who they think is of… a
more comfortable political character.” If that
was Abbott’s motive, he said, then it was
“disappointing” and “a historic action.” But
according to the Conversation ’s Michelle
Grattan, a key factor was Parkinson’s earlier
role as head of the Department of Climate
Change.
weeks has been fixed on the drama of
the Abbott government’s first budget –
the winners and losers, the problem of
broken promises, the prospects in the
Senate. Beyond that, though, the budget
reinforces another trend of potentially great
significance for the quality of Australian
democracy. Since its beginnings, the
government has made a series of decisions
that mean public scrutiny of its policies and
their implementation is more difficult.
As soon as the Coalition took government last
September, it set about distinguishing itself
from its defeated, discredited predecessor. It
would be a “no surprises, no excuses”
government, Tony Abbott promised , and his
first weeks in the job were designed to project
an image of methodical deliberation. “Never
before in Australian history has there been
such a quiet transition to a new
administration,” veteran correspondent
Laurie Oakes wrote admiringly. “Abbott and
his team ignored the hungry media beast’s
demand to be fed.”
Within months, though, Oakes was accusing
the Coalition of “thumbing its nose at voters”
by avoiding media scrutiny. The new
government, it soon became clear, was even
more determined than its predecessors to
control the flow of information to the media
and the public.
The earliest decisions set the tone. All requests
for interviews with Coalition frontbenchers
would need the approval of the prime
minister’s office. MPs were banned from
engaging in political commentary on
Facebook and Twitter. The code of conduct for
ministerial staff gained a new clause, also
banning political commentary on social
media. One disenchanted senator, Ian
Macdonald, accused Abbott’s office and his
chief of staff, Peta Credlin, of “obsessive,
centralised control.”
Next, the government introduced rules
covering public servants’ use of social media
in their official and private capacities. “The
sweeping new rules will even cover public
servants posting political comments
anonymously, including mummy bloggers on
parenting websites,” marvelled the Daily
Telegraph. Public employees were expected to
report breaches by their colleagues.
The move was supported by the Human Rights
Commission’s new “freedom commissioner,”
Tim Wilson. “Ultimately,” he said, “public
servants voluntarily and knowingly choose to
accept these limits on their conduct when they
accept employment.” In other words, if they
didn’t like the new restrictions, they had the
freedom to resign.
The government also tightened freedom of
information, or FOI, procedures. After the
previous election, in 2010, at least seventeen
departments released the briefs they had
prepared for the incoming government,
providing valuable information to journalists
and the public about policy positions and
challenges. No such release came after last
year’s election, reported Crikey ’s Bernard
Keane, and officials were unable to explain
the logic behind the reversal. FOI requests for
the briefings were also refused .
In May, the attorney-general’s department
declined to release a $400,000 report by
KPMG examining three of Australia’s federal
courts. According to the Australian’s Sean
Parnell, it justified its decision on the novel
grounds that to make it public “would have an
impact on the proper and efficient conduct of
the department” because “it would impede the
provision of frank, independent advice from
professional services firms to inform policy.”
Such an open-ended exemption would justify
withholding any consultancy report to
government. As Parnell put it, “tactics of
secrecy and obfuscation have returned to the
fore in Canberra.”
Meanwhile, the under-resourced Office of the
Australian Information Commissioner was
taking 250 days, on average, to finalise
requests for external reviews of decisions to
refuse FOI requests. On budget night the
government neatly disposed of this problem
by abolishing the office. In future, appeals
against FOI refusals are to be handled by the
Administrative Appeals Tribunal, Attorney-
General’s or the Commonwealth Ombudsman.
The office was created in 2010 to address the
long turnaround times and expensive appeals
in the working of the FOI system; its abolition
is likely to make it harder and more
expensive for FOI users to extract
information.
The government’s resistance to disclosure is
having an impact not only on what
information is released but also on what is
produced, and by whom. Recent conservative
governments have been much more active
than the Rudd–Gillard government in
moulding the senior sections of the public
service to their liking. The most disturbing
example is the Abbott government’s
insistence, immediately on taking office, that
Treasury secretary Martin Parkinson resign
his position, with effect later this year. Both
John Howard and Peter Costello advised
against the forced resignation, and
Parkinson’s predecessor, Ken Henry,
described it as unprecedented in the
department’s 113-year history. “No
government has ever thought it appropriate to
remove the head of the Treasury,” he said,
“and put in somebody who they think is of… a
more comfortable political character.” If that
was Abbott’s motive, he said, then it was
“disappointing” and “a historic action.” But
according to the Conversation ’s Michelle
Grattan, a key factor was Parkinson’s earlier
role as head of the Department of Climate
Change.
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