Focus 580; A Secure America in a Secure World: Foreign Policy In Focus Task Force On Terrorism Report

I'm sure we all remember where we were and how we failed on September 11 2001. An event like 9/11 will motivate a strong reaction and as citizens of a nation that was attacked we would hope for a strong response by our government. The immediate statement from our president was to say this means war but the war on terrorism is of a different nature than any previous war. And in this election year it seems we are just beginning to debate the ways in which the Bush administration has conducted the war on terrorism. During this our focus 580 will look closely at the response by the United States since 9/11 and consider other actions we might take to address the terrorist threat and to increase the security of America and the world. Our guest is John Gershman director of the Global Affairs Program at the into her him a spherical Resource Center and principal author of a new report published by the Foreign Policy in Focus taskforce on terrorism. The report is in title a Secure America in a secure world. The report declares that the Bush administration's war on terrorism reflects a major failure of leadership and makes America more vulnerable rather than more secure and it makes a number of recommendations for an alternative

approach to dealing with terrorism and security. We'll talk with John Grossman about that during this hour as we do we invite you into the conversation. Your contributions to this dialogue are very important. We hope you will call us the number around Champaign-Urbana 3 3 3 9 4 5 5. We also have a toll free line. Anywhere you hear is around the Midwest if you're listening on the air anywhere in the U.S. canell us if you're listening online toll free 800 to 2 2 9 4 5 5. And John Grossman joins us this morning by telephone. Good morning. Good morning. How you doing. Doing fine thanks so much for being with us. Thanks for having me. To begin Could you tell us just to start a little bit about the intra him a spherical resource center in the work of the Foreign Policy in Focus Task Force on Terrorism. Sure. The Interahamwe Resource Center which is a ridiculously long name so I'll refer to it if I are OK. It's 25 years old this year originally began as a nonprofit think tank focused on U.S. Latin-American relations

and in the 90s mid 1990s. Jointly created a project called Foreign Policy in Focus with the Washington D.C. based Institute for Policy Studies. The idea being that in the aftermath of the Cold War the progressive did not have a think thing think tank that tried to articulate in debate issues of U.S. Foreign Policy and International Affairs in contrast to other parts of the political spectrum in the US. And so since 1906 we have worked as a very small overhead network of several hundred analysts in the U.S. and abroad that right can do analysis on U.S. foreign policy and international affairs. We occasionally convene task force task forces on issues that we think are of particular import and consciously try to draw in people that would not necessarily be immediately seen as progressive in trying to articulate broader. Policy

agenda on a particular issue that we think is still true to our progressive values but we try to reach out to more let's call them more mainstream policy figures. And so this is the second major report of this kind that we did this year earlier in the year we did an alternative military budget and task force released a report on that. And this is the report that you mentioned a secure American a secure world had about 24 members. And what we tried to lay out was our analysis and critique of the Bush administration's approach to fighting the so-called global war on terror and then articulate an alternative policy agenda. OK and I certainly want to dive in and talk about the substance of the report but I'm just curious about the process of doing this because it seems that you know I don't know it maybe just seems as as a journalist who's been you know covering this for a long time. Right. That the range of the debate has been fairly narrow in that there has been little

latitude to sort of question the the approach that we have taken as as the United States has pursued the war on terrorism. And I think there is a natural tendency to you know to unify and line up behind the president. Right. And I just you know think that during an election year. I would hope that we could have a real dialogue on these issues and I wonder if you have encountered resistance to that dialogue. I would say that we have encountered more resistance to that dialogue among people in mainstream media outlets and people some people who are in the kind of the foreign policy establishment but we find that if we're talking about regular average American citizen if we talk about can a large number of congressional staff members and we even talk about significant numbers of both retired and current uniformed military officers we find that there's quite an open quite

a much different degree of openness and willingness to depart to talk about these issues in part because people feel that you know they're very critical and important to talk about it in part because there's a seems to be a nagging sense that things are not going well and the sense was it has been exacerbated by what's happened in Iraq. And so but certainly within. Let's call it the gatekeepers of official debate in opinion there's not been that much willingness to kind of broaden the debate. You know some relatively minor differences. But when we're talking about a broader public debate certainly with American citizens and in particular uniformed military officers we find much more willingness to debate they may not agree with everything we say but we've certainly found a willingness to engage with the issues that we have. We have a number of former Pentagon officials on the task force one of whom served in the Reagan administration one in the Clinton administration and we have a retired

Army intelligence officer who also served on the task force. So I think we've benefited both from their insights but I think it's also a reflection of among people who are trying to grapple seriously with the issues of security in the 21st century. They're willing to engage in a broader range of debate than in let's say what we might see on the evening news. Well very good. Well let's talk about the report. The report a Secure America in a secure world says the Bush administration has failed in its approach to dealing with security and terrorism and you list six factors that sort of detail this list. Let's talk about each one first. You see there has been an over emphasis on military responses. Right. I mean first of all that in the very frame of saying that we need to combat terrorism by engaging in war and war on terrorism you know if you think about fighting a war in general in foreign policy you think about the military and if we look at where the largest chunk of resources has

gone in the aftermath of the 9/11 attacks overwhelming percentage of that has gone to the military even though much of that spending has not necessarily been for the kind of military operations that would be of use against terrorism. It's been much just a broader. Increase in the Pentagon budget and secondly we saw it and I think this is the clearest example of the framing the invasion and occupation of Iraq as a war on terrorism when in fact that the connections between Saddam Hussein and al Qaeda were minimal at best and certainly not operational and that if anything by engaging in the invasion and occupation in the way that we have have actually created a new recruiting tool for al Qaeda. So while we can we can see that the intervention in Afghanistan was probably appropriate although we can perhaps disagree with exactly how it was conducted. We would we

would view that the military needs to be in a subordinate role and by framing things as a war that that immediately kind of gets people to focus on you know expanding military options increasing military budgets and that may not be the most effective approach. OK. We actually I have several questions of all up on that but I will defer to callers we do have a listener joining us on line number 1 in Champaign. Good morning you're on focus 580. Yes. You know I have always voted that I've never been to you know a true Democrat but I am appalled at what is going on in Iraq. We certainly had our hands full with Afghanistan and I can't believe that there are people Republicans who are voting for George Bush when we have this horrible situation on our hands. So I hang up and listen. OK well thanks for the call. You know whatever you like to say in response.

Sure well I think I mean I think the caller pointed to a very central issue which was I think there was a general recognition that something had to be done about Afghanistan and that you know that there were these there was the military operation in Afghanistan but then very quickly the Bush administration's attention turned to Iraq and now we see that the price of this is that you have inadequate resources financial and military resources devoted to reconstruction and security in Afghanistan. You still have the Taliban and al-Qaida remnants operating in both Afghanistan and northwestern Pakistan that make the consolidation of a have a democratic regime very difficult. And so without having actually completed. The operation they're basically ousting the Taliban and capturing and killing a number of al Qaeda leaders that the Bush administration kind of moved on and I think that was that was a big strategic error. And then of course deciding to focus into

Iraq. And the U.K. based Institute for International Strategic Studies for example is the rough equivalent of the Council on Foreign Relations and in the United States and in their report an annual report on the street world strategic situation they highlighted that Iraq the rain impact that the Iraq war has had on the war on terrorism has been to lead to accelerating recruitment by al Qaeda because it appeared that the United States was in fact or could be represented the United States was in fact engaging in a war on Islam. And the failure to find WMD and so forth is basically able to reinforce a powerful recruiting story that al Qaeda can use. And having failed to really do anything substantive in Afghanistan in terms of supporting reconstruction and security I think this is this is where we find ourselves in a situation where the particularly the policy in Iraq has made us worse off than we would have been

otherwise. You know we have a civil cause winning and I promise we'll get right to them but I can't resist following up on this this issue because I think it's something that Americans feel very conflicted about. You know and that well An example would be for when Howard Dean initially said that the war in Iraq has made America less secure. And that was greeted with a firestorm of criticism against Howard Dean for daring to say such a thing. You know what the problem I think the that we have is all the things that you say may be true about how it's increased. You know the fertilisation of you know recruitment of terrorism and distracted us from other fronts Afghanistan and al-Qaida. But is there any objective measure that you can use to say we are more or less secure because of the invasion. Iraq. Well I think we. How do we determine if we're actually making progress in the war. I mean there is no I mean what is there an objective measure.

Right. Well I think I don't think there is a single objective measure but I think we can look at a range of objective range of measures and in and look at what they might tell us about what happened. So one thing might be in the immediate aftermath of 9/11 there was clear international support for the fact that the United States had been attacked and we saw that and you know opinion polls and so on and so forth. Since since 9/11 and particularly since the invasion and occupation of Iraq popular support internationally for the United States and anti-American sentiment has declined and anti-American sentiment has increased particularly in countries that are of concern. In the context of having to combat al Qaeda so Muslim majority countries like Indonesia much of North Africa the Middle East and so forth and these are dramatic turnarounds in terms of popular opinion and support polls from the Pew Charitable Trusts as well as Gallup and others.

Chart this just dramatic Ridge decline in popular support and in some places you know in terms of ranking Who are the political figures that you trust you know that George Bush falls below Osama bin Laden. I mean this is a sign that the Jew we've lost a broad wellspring of popular support that's important in terms of sustaining and maintaining international unity the kind of international cooperation that's necessary in terms of combating terrorism. So that would be my one main indicator. The second indicator is work from places like the International Institute of Strategic Studies which tries to chart what is what are the operations and membership in of al Qaeda. And while on the other hand we have been successful at preventing or we have not suffered an attack on the U.S. homeland since 9/11. But we clearly see a shift in al Qaeda. And al Qaeda linked groups operations to targeting softer targets that have lower levels of

security and that it's becoming in Americans are finding it less interesting to travel abroad because of concerns about security and so forth and so just taking two quick kind of indicators the level of popular support and basically the declining base where Americans can feel free and safe in terms of traveling abroad. In addition to recruiting numbers and so forth that other groups have have calculated that we see that this I would argue that this is a real problem and and that then in that that those would be kind of the primary indicators of specifically in the case of Iraq. Because it's really attributable to Iraq the public opinion polls did not decline as dramatically with respect to the invasion of Afghanistan. There was actually a U.N. Security Council support and blessing to the military operation in Afghanistan and you we really see this decline only in the aftermath

of the Iraq war. Our lines are full and I'll go on and take the next call from listeners. Let me just reintroduce our guests this morning we'll talk with John Grossman He's the principal author of the report a Secure America in a secure world. Its report from. Foreign Policy in Focus taskforce on terrorism is highly critical of the approach the U.S. has taken in the war on terrorism as the term is used. And we welcome calls we have the phone numbers in a couple of minutes when we have some open We'll go next to a listener in Chicago on line number four. Good morning. I think if you're truly going to take an alternative view you need to first look at Afghanistan because after three years we do not have some of the Loddon or any of his top people supposedly involved in the planning of 9/11. And if you think about that and think of the destruction of human life more more than 4000 Afghan lives and the physical destruction of that country which we don't even contemplate and you think where would

we have been if we had continued to negotiate with the Taliban for some of them lied. I think that within three years we probably would have had a negotiated solution without this terrible loss of life and physical destruction. So the military solution has been a failed one from the start and I think that you really need to stop glossing over Afghanistan saying well that one was OK that one wasn't ok and it was very failed. We don't have what we supposedly bombed and destroyed Afghanistan stands for. And Afghanistan is is much worse off than it was I don't think anyone can say that that country is better off. So I think a true alternative viewpoint starts with not glossing over Afghanistan but talking about the failed policy there. Well I certainly wouldn't. Didn't mean to gloss over Afghanistan and I think there's some areas where we agree and from some point on which we disagree. First of all I think

that if we can play you have a thought experiments about why would the Taliban have turned over Osama bin Laden in three years and I think that that's a hard one I remain to be convinced of that. Well you know in the last before the negotiations broke apart they were arguing to turn some of them off to a third party which the United States did not agree to. Right and that I think within three years if that was your starting point at the beginning of the three years I think we could have gotten somewhere. I'm bettin. I said that that's entirely it's entirely possible that there would have been the case I still remain to be convinced it's not clear to me in several reasons one is that in many ways it was al Qaeda that was providing the critical infrastructure for Taliban rule in Afghanistan rather than the reverse. And while certainly the Taliban was taking that rhetorical position I think they took every Torkel position precisely because they knew that the United States was not going to accept that and they were one of their

conditions was also that he would be turned over to a third party and tried in a in Islamic court. I don't know any country in the world that would allow for people who have been accused of crimes against their citizens to say yes you can be tried in a in a different kind of a different kind of court. So I think I think the Taliban were trying to prevent and were being very strategic. But I also think they took that position because they knew it was a nonstarter on the part of the US. And if you're terribly impatient I mean if we were truly involved in negotiation and willing to negotiate I simply feel that in each case there is not a sincere commitment to negotiation and always using the mill military solution and the military solution has failed again and again and we continue to ignore the fact that it's failing. Because we're not counting the human life we're not counting the physical destruction of our environment. And I think that probably it's

one of the things I suggest your group does in Sincerely look at the cost to each country what the loss of human life the future cost the cost to further development the costs of the world when we have such severe environmental destruction especially of mountain chains as we've had and that Ghana stand and then see if that military solution has been such a success. We have no we have no disagreement with you that it's not entirely clear that a military option needed to be taken in either it needed to be taken or it needs to be taken in the way that it was. I think we would definitely agree on that then much of our other work has to do with the costs of war both the human ecological financial and that we would agree with that my only point was to contrast and I would disagree with you on this question of is Afghanistan better off now than it was under the Taliban. And I think there is some plausible evidence for at least for large chunks of the country. In

fact it is better off currently than under. Taliban but there are significantly large chunks of the country for which That's definitely not the case. And but I think that for the situation of at least girls they do have access to go to school of the fact that you're having you're going to have direct elections and that women represent 40 percent of the registered voters. I think there are some halting progressive steps forward and absolutely an even inadequate and so forth. But I think it's a situation that's dramatically different than one that existed under the under the Taliban. OK. Well we have several calls when we'll go next to someone in India on line number one. Good morning. Well yes you may have taken away one question. It's a few weeks ago a person who was in Afghanistan as a reporter said on one of them. One of the newscasts that basically

Afghanistan large parts of it now were have been retaken by the Taliban. It's you know sliced and that the only really safe places are the larger cities where the United States has some forces in in the in the Afghanis have their forces there too. But it's still not particularly real safe to go down the street certain times you know. So if you want to ask about that in the second question. On the world scene I'd be concerned if I was an intelligence agency to give too much information to the United States in some ways especially after what they did to that woman who was a CIA operative that these boys play very very nasty game and I often wonder if that would be a mindset for somebody especially now that we've you know mainly ostracized frankly everybody except a few European countries that need our money pretty bad. If you had any comment about that makes any sense whatsoever in terms of

a world play Sure well the taking Afghanistan point first. I think that's exactly that's exactly the situation particularly in south and eastern Afghanistan. Large chunks of Taliban former Taliban and al Qaeda forces are operating. You also have the problem that there were people who had been part of the Northern Alliance and fought against the Taliban and but were basically warlords and were not particularly progressive folks themselves. You also have a similar kind of set of issues with. And that basically the current transitional government in Afghanistan is largely a ball and a few other kind of major regional cities. And that that in part the problem in my original point was that in did Iraq became a distraction from that. And once you had to redirect resources away from Afghanistan because you were concerned about invading and occupying Iraq immediately reduces the availability of those resources to actually

be effective in Afghanistan. It's actually Nieto that is providing the troops for the security of the transitional government and then U.S. troops in Afghanistan are supposed to be going after al Qaeda and Taliban remnants. And again this is one of the big costs that if Iraq becomes a kind of failed example of an alternative approach that's going to be yet another prime recruiting tool. In addition to the fact that just you have a significant chunk of al Qaeda folks are able to operate and recruit and so forth as a result of the ongoing war. In the case of this question of broader international cooperation. And particularly in the intelligence realm I think it's it's an even there the United States has itself not been as forthcoming as it might be in cooperating with some countries although with others it has been good. I think the greater concern at this point is.

That many countries have to look askance at U.S. intelligence claims that if you look at. For example both Australia and the United Kingdom have done kind of fairly comprehensive reviews of their intelligence operations in the aftermath of the Iraq war and many of them took what was being presented at face value by what was presented as the consensus view of the US intelligence service without the US intelligence community without the various qualifications that in concerns that some members in the CIA in the State Department had about intelligence of weapons of mass destruction and so forth. But I think that the major cost has been you know the declining reliability and reputation of U.S. intelligence. And it certainly has to be some concern about how intelligence provided by other countries could potentially be used or manipulated to advance a political agenda as I think many people widely believe was done in the case

of Iraq. And that would really have to you know make potential partners intelligence partners in other countries. Take many second third fourth. Thinking now before they engage in cooperation with the United States concerned both about political manipulation and and secondly about how you know whether or not they're going to be able to count on reliable information coming back from the United States. Well there's more in the report in fact about intelligence reform and the you know the idea being that we still haven't conducted you know effective in performing our own intelligence services and sort of coordinated the information that we have on for example a terrorist watch list. Right we have some things that you would think would be at least three years after 9/11 would be kind of no brainers to have assembled such as a unified terrorist watch list and which we still don't have. And I think one of the unfortunate things is that there was.

Momentum for intelligence reform was really delayed by the Bush administration's initial opposition to the creation of the 9/11 Commission and then dragging its feet in cooperating with it. So that report came out much later than had originally been planned. And they've kind of lost the momentum that might have existed having the report come out closer to the original attacks in a real sense that that this needed to be done. And at this point you know Wolf we'll see probably some relatively minor changes in the intelligence community at this point before the election a lot depends on the outcome of the election. But. But you know we've we've plenty of other things to do in terms of making intelligence agencies collaborate more share information. And a lot of work to be done still in that area. We have a couple of the callers let me just read his or guess rule passed or mid point during this our focus 580 would John Gershman. He's director of the you know his hemispheric Resource

Center. You're right that is a long title and he's a principal author of a Secure America in a secure world. REPORTER The foreign policy focus tast Foreign Policy in Focus Task Force on Terrorism. And we have a couple callers waiting in a couple lines open if you'd like to join us. 3 3 3 9 4 5 5 that's around Champaign-Urbana toll free elsewhere. Eight hundred to 2 2 9 4 5 5. A champagne listener next on One. Good morning. Hi there. Thanks for the show this is really interesting. First off I just wanted to reiterate what the Chicago caller said a couple calls ago especially about this doesn't ministrations total lack of regard for human life in other countries and that's why you know they claim to be such a pro-life administration they clearly have blatant disregard for other people's lives in other countries. So I just think that's a sham. But anyway I guess the question that I was hoping maybe you could maybe talk about a little bit is I saw Fahrenheit 9 1 1 and there was a couple questions

I don't think has been answered. One is they brought up in that movie I think other places about how the link with Saudi Arabia and how several of the terrorists from one known one were from Saudi Arabia and that countries To me it seems like it's been kind of glossed over like you know that's not really part of the problem. I don't know but that and also just the movie talked about some different family ties with the Bush's and the Bin Ladens. So I was just hoping maybe that you. Comma on that and then I'll hang up and listen. Thanks again thanks. Sure well I think the issue of Saudi Arabia of course needs to be central not just with 9/11 but with broader debates about energy policy and so forth and that in the context of 9/11 that 15 of the hijackers were from Saudi Arabia. What does this what does it mean. Well our report looks at Saudi Arabia in kind of two dimensions one is that Osama bin Laden and his

network that he helped to find to found al Qaeda emerges in part as a direct response to the repressive nature of politics in Saudi Arabia. The other Gulf states and the lack of openness for people to critique the policies of those regimes and so we argue that the United States needs to really re-evaluate its approach to supporting regimes that are repressive in repressive politics can be effective breeding grounds for terrorism in the absence of other channels to articulate dissent. And so that's one dimension certainly on energy policy. And then the third dimension has to do with the fact that Saudi Arabia is an active promoter of Wahabism which is a particular fairly conservative and reactionary current within Islam and it supports very reactionary networks of madrassas of religious schools throughout the Arab and Islamic broader

Islamic world that can become again recruiting grounds and are certainly part of an ideological current that is broadly supportive of the kind of views articulated by al-Qaida and that Saudi Arabia has also provided money to Palestinian organizations that engage in terrorism and so forth. So we would we agree that we need to really really evaluate the U.S. relationship with Saudi Arabia in the context of Michael Moore's Fahrenheit 9/11. I think what's unfortunate about that movie is that it. Yes there were personal ties longstanding personal ties particularly between the bush. Bush the father and the Carlyle Group and Saudi Arabia and the network of alliances that has emerged in since World War Two. Basically that kind of tie a chunk of the US elite to the Saudi Arabian elite and organized around oil and so forth in particular. But the

dimension about U.S. policy towards the Middle East in general that Michael Moore leaves out has to do with U.S. policy towards Israel and that if you look at the people for example who were staunchest behind the war in Iraq these were not the people who were the closest supporters of Saudi Arabia. And so forth. But people who saw. Particularly Paul Wolfowitz and Douglas Feith and others who have for a long time seen taking out Saddam Hussein as something that would be not only in the U.S. interest but would be in the interest of Israel. And I think Michael Moore's movie kind of crosses over this in terms of the two kind of easy to see to see kind of a Saudi Arabian interest link to Karbala driving things but there are other interests that have shaped U.S. policy in the Middle East including people who see the U.S. Israeli alliance as central and at these currents sometimes agree and sometimes disagree on appropriate policy and strategy and that it was not really the

the proponents of stronger ties with Saudi Arabia or protect Saudi Arabia in the aftermath of the 9/11 attacks. They were really behind for example the invasion of Iraq. And so I think that there's we need to be cautious about the conspiratorial dimensions of Michael Moore's movie even if much of the broader point that he makes are absolutely accurate in need to be raised. OK. Well because the caller's question we have three people waiting we'll go next to a listener champagne County on one number three. Good morning. Good morning gentlemen. I was going to go down to the bottom of your list and get you to talk about root causes particularly in context of Bush's speech at the U.N. But I guess I have to weigh in on Afghanistan and as far as the documentary that it's spot on as they say over in Britain. About the cabal. I would recommend hijacking catastrophe from the Media Education Foundation and that's available at both of the Champaign-Urbana libraries and the

DVD farm. But since we're applauding the voting effort in Afghanistan I think I'd like to point out that it was applauded and applauded and the turnout was was so gratifying etc. etc. It turned out that maybe the census is wrong but actually there seem to be more people registered than there are in Afghanistan. And it seems to me with the place awash of warlords and drug money raw opium and heroin traffic trafficking is back in place. There are probably warlords probably have a buy the electoral vote strategy and that's that's probably what's going to happen. And that's where it's going to that's the turf it's going to be fought at. I'm not I'm not trying to be rude. Reduce Afghanistan to people who are willing to sell their votes but I mean poverty is a big medicine. And there's also a lot of other kind of pressures for them too I think. Think we take your point. I'd also like to to you know maybe have you return to the

question about taking root causes because OK we'll let you go. Let's go with yeah root causes is the last part in your bullet point and I think it's an important one and you haven't discussed it yet so the context that I'd like to raise with the speech is that he points at this Millennium Challenge money which as far as I know and I think now covered it on PBS a couple weeks ago that as far as what they've done so far as they've outfitted a fancy looking office in D.C. which you probably have visited I guess maybe and haven't haven't done any kind of development work anywhere in the world. And the money that he pointed at 15 billion dollar initiative. Right rings hollow since that's not been dispersed some of it's reprogrammed money and actually he's not putting any pressure to get the even the 15 million dollars that's on the docket in the Senate for AIDS right now so as far as poverty alleviation or reduction or elimination

and affair or economic system broadly in the world there's there seems to be no particular effort in this administration at all and I'm not confident about the next one. Whichever one it is either. So could you ask could you just talk about root causes and I assume the lines are still jammed so I'll just listen to the radio on the radio thank you. Thanks Michael. Well thank you. Great question. Yes we do talk about causes and in the report. And one of the things that we want to do is actually argue against what is sometimes a common notion across the political spectrum that you know poverty is the root cause of terrorism. And in terms of the people who commit most terrorist acts in fact are not. From the poorest groups in society and what we basically argue is that poverty and inequality in particular are important because they can be used as recruiting tools in support of the commission of terrorist

acts but it's not by and large the poor who are involved in committing terrorism. And we think that there is a there's a danger in trying to say well we should be fighting poverty because you know poverty breeds terrorism and we think we should be fighting poverty because poverty fighting poverty should be a moral and ethical obligation. And we do happen to think it may have some relationship to terrorism but it's not the direct one that poverty and inequality causes terrorism but that they can become. Important recruiting tools and support environments for for terrorism. So we do. We are critical of the Bush administration not only before we even talk about foreign aid of its efforts to kind of say in the way we're going to solve poverty is by having free trade agreements everywhere and plenty of I think now kind of well known criticism of ambiguous impact ambivalent impact on reducing poverty and inequality of the

untrammeled free trade in investment agreements the Millennium Challenge Account that you mention is does involve some additional resources that the Bush administration has appropriated as you mentioned they've yet to be actually dispersed. And the Millennium Challenge Account will actually primarily target countries that meet certain criteria for so-called good governance which would exclude places like Afghanistan and any other number of countries that we might think of as being in need of foreign aid and assistance. So that would be one problem the Millennium Challenge Account will not deal with countries that are basically the poorest of the poor. And so not addressing poverty in that dimension. And then the AIDS money as you noticed it has also. Now I've been dispersed. There was also problems with tying AIDS funding to abstinence only prevention programs so plenty a lot of problems also with the AIDS money as well in terms of broader issues around root

causes. So we would we would say you need to keep an eye on states that were like Afghanistan before the so-called failed states because they those can be important operating environments for transnational terrorist networks either in terms of distributing finance or actual operations. And the Bush administration has no plan for dealing with states such as Afghanistan and and so we would argue that you need to have actually a plan in approach it should be primarily multilateral in character and it would have to combine both providing for security and as well as meeting the significant socio economic needs in any of those countries. We would see the root cause question as in hard linked to politics is there the political space for people to engage in nonviolent forms of political dissent and that the United States should not run around imposing our vision of liberal democracy at the point of a ban net. But it should not at least be

providing resources to regimes that systematically violate the human rights of their citizens. And so that means you know trying not to prop up authoritarian regimes. Unfortunately in fighting the so-called global war on terror the Bush administration has repeated many of the errors of U.S. policy during the Cold War which is to back people who claim to be on your side and basically overlook human rights violations and this has been particularly the case in Central Asia and also in Pakistan and that that provides a very serious challenge to U.S. policy that we think need to change the role of the educational system particularly madrassas having stepped into because schooling at madrassas is free replacing non functioning or dysfunctional secular or pluralistic more tolerant forms of religious education would suggest that the United States foreign aid should be focused on strengthening those types of educational institutions

so that people would not be attracted to going to madrassas that preach a particular extremist form of a jihadist ideology. Again we've seen no significant initiatives on that front. And and then finally the ideological battle. You know you we could eliminate poverty tomorrow and eliminate lots of other things and there would still be people who would disagree with the United States and have an illogical opposition. And so in that way the United States needs to engage that battle but not by hiring people to do a very fancy expensive public relations campaign on how great the United States is. But we need to look at our policies and it's what we do I think in the policies that we have. And this is where support for the Israeli occupation and for the Sharon could Sharon government agenda in Israel is clearly not something that speaks to being able to present the United States and supportive of

international law and human rights for everyone. And so a more consistent application of policies in ways that are respectful of human rights and the human life of people elsewhere would provide a clear statement of in practice of U.S. values. I don't see that happening any time in the near future in either the first or potentially second Bush administration. And so that's where I think that you know that dimension of the battle would have to be also fought. None of these things are primarily military in nature. They involve lots of other people with different skills that don't have anything necessarily to do with firing a gun. And I think it's that again the question of Iraq. Highlight that the day and availability of resources to do many of these other things is very directly tied to the continued drain of resources to go into an occupation in Iraq. We have a couple calls and I promise we'll get right to them but just a quick follow up you mentioned you know Israel in

particular being a focal point of fueling anti-American extremism. And I think it's important to note that you know it's an important idea maybe for people to consider as your report does that the United States should continue with strategic and moral commitment to Israel sovereignity but there is a distinction between Israel's right to exist and support for the occupation in the West Bank and Gaza. Absolutely we don't. We as a task force and for myself personally that we do recognize Israel's right to exist. We don't need a Bush administration road map to peace. There have been several road maps based on international law that would involve. Ending the occupation and the creation and recognition of a Palestinian state. And the unfortunate thing is particularly in I mean the range of debate on these issues in Israel is where head of where that debate is in the United States where anyone who questions Israeli policy is immediately denounced as an anti-Semite or a self-hating Jew or whatever. But within Israel the range of debate over what should appropriate policy be and calls for ending the

occupation are again much more prominent. You know op ed pages in the media the mass media and represent significant political forces including in the Israeli parliament then are typically articulated in the United States and we think it's apparently clear at least from my you know speaking for myself that caring about Israel would need dictate needing to end the occupation and in the West Bank in Gaza because the occupation is not actually at this point in Hansing Israel's long term political security. Couple calls remaining will go next to a listener I believe in Kankakee on one number. Good morning Jack Brighton and guest John Dickerson. Let's consider perhaps and very simply stated Western. It would seem as though we need to decide whether the bombings of 9 1 1 2001 were actually crimes or acts of war against the United States. And secondly if these bombings were indeed acts of war what

state or states committed acts of war. What in fact would be the appropriate response of the United States to an act of war against the United States. Thank you. OK thanks for the call. Well sure I would that they were crimes. They were a crime large scale mega crimes. And they were not the the act of war by certainly by any state. They were crimes that were committed by a network of people most of whom were all of whom were tied to the network of al Qaeda. And that in that case you had a de facto regime in Afghanistan that was providing shelter to a effectively a criminal conspiracy that hitting gauged in not only attacks there but also in Tanzania and elsewhere. And and so in that case the appropriate approach a framework to thinking about that was that these people were criminals who would be brought to justice.

And that has sometimes happened however that you're not able to use legal means that I do you know all of the points made by previous callers taken into account that there may be times when you need to use military force against those kinds of groups. But that in a minimum the basic framework is that this was a crime. There's a quick follow up on that party report deals with in fact international institutions and you know the idea being that if indeed one wants international law applied in the. Such as this one would think about strengthening the international criminal courts and the other institutions of international law that would be capable of dealing with these things on an international cooperate basis. Right. And I think this is again this is something that is contribute to kind of broadening of anti-American sentiment worldwide is the Bush administration's cavalier dismissal of broadly speaking the framework of international law as well as particular institutions

like the International Criminal Court and that they would agree they would represent powerful institutions to be able to strengthen international frameworks to be able to go after terrorists to go after terrorist finance in the aftermath of 9/11 there has been the strengthening of a number of international conventions in the U.N. Security Council has strengthened their efforts in terms of. Getting member countries of the United Nations to strengthen laws against money laundering and terrorist financing and so forth. But I think things would be in even better shape if you had a US administration that actually saw its security be a security of United States is consonant with strengthening international framework of international law as opposed to saying well there's really going to be two laws one for us and one for everybody else. And that again feeds into this broader sense that the Bush administration has an agenda for empire and that

that's not going to be popularly supported throughout the world and that's in sharp distinction from say the position of the United States after World War 2 when we were although not as powerful relative in relative terms than today where a powerful country and you know tried to create and strengthen institutions of multilateral cooperation and that that I think when history looks back to the post-9 11 period it's going to be seen as a tragically missed opportunity for the United States to have really brought greater attention to international law human rights law and really strengthen those institutions. I'm sort of say we have just about a minute a half left and there's a call that so I apologize we won't be able to include it was not intentional we just ran out of time. I do want to ask you and perhaps this is unfair to you John Grisham either but we've been talking to. The Bush administration's policy do you have any take on the John Kerry administration might do to address the issues that you raise. Yes well I think Kerry would certainly be better in terms of we didn't talk about it much today domestic

civil liberties issues and certainly stronger in the areas of international cooperation and so forth. I think Kerry's stance Visa V Israel at this point seems to be basically the same as the Bush administration so I wouldn't see a lot of particular progress in that direction. I do think that there would be some to the extent that the occupation in Iraq is reduced either through withdrawal of U.S. troops or multilateral the station or some process of freeing up resources for homeland security issues for foreign aid that actually is dealing with failed states and poverty. But we would see this agenda as still being fairly much to the left of the incoming Kerry administration and would see ourselves as having a lot to do no matter who wins on November 2nd. OK. Well we'll have to leave it there but I will suggest for folks if you want to read more on the subject it's a very lucid report. A secure America in a secure world. And you can find it

I think on the web. Is that right. That's correct. And the address would be at the Our website is Foreign Policy in Focus which is w w w dot s p i f o r g. OK very good. And our guest has been John Grossman author of that report. Thank you so much Mr. Grossman. Thanks a lot Jack. Have a good day. All right.