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March 14, 2005
An Open Letter to Sen. Judd Gregg Re: the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge
The following open letter went out today to Sen. Gregg's DC office, and to all major NH newspapers.
March 14, 2005
Senator Judd Gregg
393 Senate Russell Building
Washington, DC 20510
Re: An open letter to Senator Judd Gregg regarding the coastal plain of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge
Dear Senator Gregg,
It is my understanding that you, as the head of the Senate Budget Committee are helping the Bush administration and the powerful oil industry to open up the coastal plain of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge for oil drilling.
Here is how the political end-run that you are facilitating works: by installing Refuge drilling in the budget, advocates of drilling avoid the legislative process. Using the budget process, only a one-vote majority will be required, and budget resolutions are not subject to filibusters. As you know, early in 2004, this tactic was defeated by a 52-48 vote margin. But now, with an additional 4 Republican votes after the 2004 election, the margin may be reversed.
"It was in the president's budget and we're trying to do what the president asked for," you told reporters on March 9, 2005. Is it a Senator’s job to do whatever the president says, whether it is right or wrong? I thought it was a Senator’s job to represent the best interests of the people in his or her state. For many reasons described below, I don’t think that’s what you’re doing here.
The fact that this plan is yet another case of arrogant neoconservative, we-know-better politics is only one problem with this backhanded tactic.
Advocates of drilling make it sound as though there are enormous oil reserves in the part of the refuge they wish to open. In fact, the U.S. Geological Survey and even oil company executives say that there is only a few months' worth of oil in the area you and Mr. Bush want to open up. Furthermore, that oil would not be available for a decade. Plain and simple, it is bad policy to damage one of the last pristine areas in North America for a speculated few months’ worth of an energy resource we should be phasing out.
Many conservationists argue that this end-run around the legislative process (a process in which drilling advocates have lost many times in past attempts to start drilling in the Refuge) is really a vendetta designed to put conservationists on notice that neoconservatives are going to go ahead and do as they please--- legislative process, environmental concerns, and public participation be damned. In 2004, Rep. Tom DeLay (R-TX) told a group of high-ranking Republicans that the ongoing argument over drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge is "symbolic". The larger debate is about who decides whether or not oil and gas drilling should be allowed in pristine wild areas in the US.
It isn’t like the poor oil industry has been shut out of Alaska’s coastline. The Refuge contains the last 5% of the entire Alaskan coastal plain that does not already allow for oil drilling. Can’t they leave just one little bit for the huge diversity in wildlife that lives there?
It is fiscally irresponsible to include this budget provision as well: the exact amount of oil to be had in the Refuge is unknown. It is impossible to accurately predict how much revenue it would add to the US treasury. With conflicting figures on both sides of this argument, the likelihood of substantial environmental damage, and an already troubled US economy, it is clear that this type of gambling is irresponsible and does not belong in the US budget.
Mr. Gregg, when George W. Bush says that we need to be less reliant on foreign oil, he is speaking a partial truth. Why does he not say that we need to be less reliant on oil--- period? Considering the political strife caused by control over oil, and the environmental damage its use causes, wouldn’t it be in our best interest to wean ourselves from this addiction as quickly as possible?
The US EPA estimates that by increasing the fuel efficiency of our vehicles by a mere 3 MPG, we would save about five times the amount of oil believed to be in the Refuge. But even this fact fails to address what’s really needed.
Perhaps the greatest danger related to oil use is global warming. Now, Mr. Gregg, I know that Mr. Bush, Mr. Cheney, and myriad oil lobbyists like to deny that global warming is actually happening. However, you may recall that recently a friend of the oil industry shocked the White House by stating that global warming is very real. Dr. Rajendra Pachauri, chairman of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), told an international conference attended by representatives of 114 governments in January 2005 that he believes the world has "already reached the level of dangerous concentrations of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere". He called for immediate, "very deep" cuts in pollution, stating that it is a matter of the survival of humanity.
The Bush administration thought Dr. Pachauri was going to say whatever they wanted him to say. Exxon specifically asked the Bush administration in a memorandum to the White House in early 2001 to get the previous chairman of the IPCC, Dr. Robert Watson, "replaced at the request of the US". The Bush administration then aggressively lobbied member countries in favor of installing Dr. Pachauri, believing that based on his past, he would make declarations favorable to the oil industry. They got him in the driver’s seat, but I guess he didn’t deliver what they wanted him to say. He told delegates at the January conference: "Climate change is for real. We have just a small window of opportunity and it is closing rather rapidly. There is not a moment to lose."
Our oil use should be treated like the crisis that it is, and if you were a genuinely responsible politician who cared about his constituents and not special interests like the oil lobby, you would be leading the way to immediate changes to genuinely safe alternative, renewable energy sources.
Fortunately for your constituents, there is still time to stop this foolish political move you have tried to hide in the Senate budget process. I urge my fellow citizens of New Hampshire to contact your office and demand that you remove oil exploration and drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge immediately from the Senate’s budget resolutions. I also urge Senator John Sununu’s constituents to contact him and demand that he not support passing the Senate’s budget resolutions as long as your oil provision is part of it.
Finally, since two things at issue here are transparency in government and accountability of representatives, as a citizen of New Hampshire and a constituent of yours, I call on you to publicly address the points I make in this open letter.
Sincerely,
Tom Jackson
Portsmouth, NH
CC VIA EMAIL:
Portsmouth Herald
Fosters Newspapers
Mount Washington Valley Newspapers
Concord Monitor
Nashua Telegraph
Manchester Union Leader
Keene Sentinel
Posted by Joe Public at 12:50 PM | Comments (0)
March 13, 2005
Afghanistan Today: What Kind of Freedom is This?
If one were to listen only to the Bush administration and the mainstream media that so dutifully and unquestioningly publishes Bush administration statements as though they were gospel truth, then one would think that everything is coming up roses in Afghanistan. Well, the reality is poppies, maybe, but not roses. (Opium production has tripled since the Karzai administration was installed, and 2004 was a record production year according to US and UK sources.)
So, smack is up, but how about other things? Human rights, democracy, quality of life?
Human Rights: little has changed for Afghan women
After the fall of the Taliban, George W. Bush proclaimed, "The mothers and daughters of Afghanistan were captives in their own homes, forbidden from working or going to school -- today women are free."
Free? Not true. Not even true three years later. Ramita Navai reported in the January 23, 2005 Sunday Herald, “In President Hamid Karzai's Afghanistan, women are still imprisoned for running away from home.”
In all fairness, ancient traditions and social mores are deeply engrained and won’t change overnight. However, the point is a lack of any serious attempt at change--- 90% of Afghan women are illiterate today! Added to old mindsets, Afghanistan is still so dangerous that programs of development and social uplift have gone nowhere.
In late 2003, the Revolutionary Association of the Women of Afghanistan (RAWA) stated, "[n]early two years on, discrimination, violence, and insecurity remain rife, despite promises by world leaders, including President Bush and US Secretary of State Colin Powell, that the war in Afghanistan would bring liberation for women".
Human Rights: abuses continue, post-Taliban
Amnesty International reported in 2002, “[a]buses perpetrated by armed groups against women and girls since the fall of the Taliban government in November 2001 include rape, abduction, and forced and underage marriage.”
In ’03, an Amnesty report stated, "[n]ot only are police unable to guarantee the protection of human rights in Afghanistan, some members of the police are themselves involved in committing human rights violations,"
Then there’s widespread reports of abuse in and out of prisons—by US troops and by Afghan security. This includes allegations during summer 2004 of sexual and physical abuse by US marines against 35 civilian villagers detained in central Afghanistan.
While I was in Afghanistan during May 2004, filming for what became “Worlds Apart: 9/11 First Responders Against War”, many Afghans told me that they felt as though the country was on the verge of another civil war. Even in the words of Karzai himself, “[t]he warlords and private militias who were once regarded as the west's staunchest allies in Afghanistan are now a greater threat to the country's security than the Taliban.” (The Guardian (London), July 13, 2004 )
Marc Herold, UNH professor and author of the controversial Afghan civilian body count during US bombing, summed up the human rights situation when I interviewed him: “If this is a success story, I fear to see what a failure would be.”
Democracy: What kind of democracy is this?
Some mainstream media pundits in the US have claimed that the proposed Afghanistan constitution has no mention of Shariah, the legal code based on the Koran. However, according to the Afghanistan Constitution, Article One, “Afghanistan is an Islamic Republic”. Alternative media pundits have argued that in order to have a strong, US-friendly Afghanistan presidency, the US has been willing to concede to local tribal leaders a foundation of Islamic law in the Afghan constitution.
The Afghan judicial system can offer people little help, since it was virtually non-existent after a quarter century of war. It is now on the rebuild at a glacial pace, in Kabul. Outside of Kabul, lack of governmental control, the existence of ongoing conflict, and de facto rule by warlords in many areas of Afghanistan undermine the rule of law on a daily basis.
As Afghanistan’s October ’04 election approached, Human Rights Watch (HRW) issued a report detailing extensive abuse of democratic rights by warlords and their militia throughout Afghanistan. HRW’s report outlines systematic intimidation of political rivals, election organizers, journalists, and coercive methods used to ensure support of ordinary voters.
Surprisingly, even the mainstream press in the US criticized the approaching elections in Afghanistan.
“These days, Mr. Bush and other administration officials often talk about the 10.5 million Afghans who have registered to vote in this month's election, citing the figure as proof that democracy is making strides after all. They count on the public not to know, and on reporters not to mention, that the number of people registered considerably exceeds all estimates of the eligible population. What they call evidence of democracy on the march is actually evidence of large-scale electoral fraud.” (New York Times, October 1, 2004 )
While in Afghanistan last spring, I had the good fortune of meeting and interviewing Dr. Massuda Jalal who was a presidential candidate in 2002 and 2004.
Jalal admitted that she didn’t have a chance to win the election. This was due to a number of reasons. “I have zero money. I have zero military support.” Then there’s the cultural mores. Then there’s the enormous disparity between Karzai’s ability to use Afghanistan’s media, and that of the rest of the candidates.
Ongoing violence in Afghanistan actually played in Karzai’s favor in the election. As president, he already had name recognition, and access to the media that no other candidate had. While some candidates were well know in certain regions of the country, lack of access to the media or to in-person visits to other parts of the country undermined their ability to gain recognition.
Furthermore, Dr. Jalal explained that grassroots access to the public is challenged under the current administration. In one typical scene, government officials in the city of Mazar-e-Sharif tried to block Jalal from speaking to residents by revoking permission at the last minute for her to use a university hall.
"We just gathered in the park instead," she said. "What could they do about that? We had no loudspeaker, of course, so I spoke in a loud voice. In the end, the people were agreeing with me -- what kind of democracy is this?"
Jalal summed up the likelihood of her or anyone else defeating Karzai by saying, “[t]he US backs Karzai. Karzai will win.”
In the October election, Karzai won, taking 55% of the vote.
The tragedy of the installation
Hamid Karzai was the US leader of choice from the fall of the Taliban. The BBC described him as “[w]ell educated, Westernized and stylish… He even won praise from the Gucci fashion house for his trademark green-and-white chapan - traditional Uzbek coat - and ceremonial karakul hat.”
Karzai was born in Kandahar. He is an ethnic Pashtun and a member of the powerful Populzai clan from which many Afghan Kings have come. Thus, he was involved in Afghan politics early on. He did postgraduate work in political science in India from 1979 to 1983, then returned to Afghanistan to work as a fund-raiser supporting anti-Soviet uprisings during the rest of the 1980s. After the expulsion of the Soviet military from Afghanistan, Karzai served as a government minister for the new leader, Burhanuddin Rabbani. When the Taliban arrived on the political scene in the early 1990s, Karzai initially supported them. He later broke with the Taliban, citing distrust of their links to Pakistan. After the Taliban overthrew Rabbani in 1996, Karzai declined an offer to serve as their U.N. ambassador.
Many sources have reported that Karzai once worked as a consultant for the oil company, Unocal. (The first claim seems to have appeared in the December 9, 2001 issue of the French newspaper Le Monde.) Spokespeople for Unocal and Karzai have denied any such relationship.
Afghans who I asked about the pipeline had no specific information, except they were sure it was being built. The pipeline runs out of the Caspian Basin, to the north of Afghanistan, and down through Afghanistan, thus avoiding running it on the more direct route through Iran.
Given the unshaking support of Karzai from the US, it is clear that he is at the very least a pipeline-friendly leader.
A RAWA representative (she preferred to remain anonymous) who I interviewed stated that violence of the current scale could have been avoided, but for the installation by the US of Karzai. She said (and Jalal agreed) that warlords around the country were ready to turn in their weapons just after the Taliban fell, but before Karzai was installed. After more than 25 years of war, Afghans just wanted peace—warlords included. But, once someone who was seen as a US puppet was installed, warlords determined it was in their best interest for their militias to remain armed. In his inauguration speech in December 2004, Karzai vowed to curb the influence of regional warlords. He gave no specifics on his approach.
Violence in Afghanistan continues, albeit on a somewhat lower level than many of the past 25 years. While our government paints a rosy picture of Afghanistan, many Afghans fear the worst is yet to come.
Posted by Joe Public at 05:01 AM | Comments (0)