Book Review: Alex von Tunzelmann, Red Heat: Conspiracy, Murder, and the Cold War in the Caribbean

Alex von Tunzelmann, Red Heat: Conspiracy, Murder, and the Cold War in the Caribbean , Henry Holt and Co, 2011.

Americans remain fascinated by the Cuban Missile Crisis. In the fall of 1962, American planes photographed Soviet nuclear missiles in Cuba. The situation quickly escalated with members of both the American and Soviet governments calling for nuclear war. Mercifully, both U.S. President John Kennedy and Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev came to their senses before blowing up the world.

At the heart of the conflict was Cuban leader Fidel Castro, whose 1959 revolution threw American leaders into fits of fury. Alex von Tunzelmann’s new and very readable book, Red Heat: Conspiracy, Murder, and the Cold War in the Caribbean, certainly will appeal to readers fascinated by the intrigue between Castro and Kennedy. This relationship became implanted in popular memory both through the missile crisis and with the rumors that Castro was behind the plot to assassinate JFK.

We don’t know anything concrete about Castro’s involvement in that murder, but we do know that Kennedy did approve several plots to kill Castro. That’s just the start of von Tunzelmann’s detailing of American outrages committed in the Caribbean during the Cold War. Focusing on Cuba, Haiti, and the Dominican Republic she paints a deeply disturbing picture of the United States propping up brutal dictators, overthrowing democratically elected governments, and undermining social reform in the name of anti-communism.


Beginning with the Spanish-American War of 1898, the United States dominated Cuba and the rest of the Caribbean. In 1904, President Theodore Roosevelt declared it U.S. policy to act in the best interests of its irresponsible American neighbors. In practice, this meant supporting governments that protected American business interests and sending in the Marines when governments threatened those interests.

These interventions caused long-term resentment toward the United States. As the Cold War developed, Americans became obsessed with keeping its neighbors communist-free, even though, as von Tunzelmann points out, Stalin had no interest in world revolution. Equating social justice and economic rights with communism, the CIA gave almost unconditional support to Cuban dictator Fulgencio Batista.

Batista’s corrupt government gave rise to many protest movements, but under amazingly long odds, Fidel Castro and his tiny group of guerillas in the Sierra Madre convinced the dictator to flee at the end of 1958. While Castro first avoided identifying with communism, the United States took his revolution personally, particularly as he looked to end American domination of Cuba. The 1961 Bay of Pigs invasion to topple Castro proved an unmitigated disaster for the United States. Moreover, it forced Castro into the arms of the Soviets, precipitating the missile crisis, solidifying his support among the Cuban people, and creating long-term hostilities between Cuba and the U.S.

Von Tunzelmann revisits the frequently asked question of when Fidel Castro became communist. I find this debate tiresome but she usefully points out that Castro had flexible ideological leanings in these years. She accurately refers to him as a pragmatist, unlike Che Guevara or Raul Castro, both of whom supported communism from the revolution’s start. Fidel’s primary goal was a nationalist Cuba free from U.S. Intervention, he might have avoided the Soviet alliance had he any alternative. Of course, once he committed to communism, he turned his attention to developing a centrally planned economy, but his relationship with the Soviets waxed and waned over time.

Von Tunzelmann shows that no head of state took advantage of Castro’s rise as effectively as the Dominican Republic’s Rafael Trujillo. Ruling over his nation with an iron fist since 1930, Trujillo tortured, murdered, and raped opponents into submission. The United States supported him throughout his decades in power, seeing him as an unfortunate but necessary anti-communist leader. When a democratic government followed Trujillo’s assassination in 1961 and began instituting social reforms, the United States balked. Von Tunzelmann excoriates Lyndon Johnson for ordering the 1965 invasion that led to another three decades of right-wing dictatorship.

Her connection between Cuba and the Dominican Republic is clear. But at first, the reader wonders why she spends so much time on the non-ideological regime of the murderous Francois Duvalier’s Haiti. Americans thought of him as a mad man and plotted his overthrow. But Duvalier masterfully played Trujillo, Castro, and successive American presidents. Although he had no particular ideological agenda, he created enough “communists” to convince Americans of his importance. By promoting order, he established alliances of convenience with the Dominicans. This point may be von Tunzelmann’s greatest contribution: the United States would and did actively promote any type of human rights violations to support short-term goals on fighting communism.

While I liked the book, von Tunzelmann sometimes panders to American sensibilities. I find her suggestion that Kennedy had learned from Cuba and might not have invaded the Dominican Republic in 1965 highly dubious and ahistorical (p.316). This is a prime example of perpetuating what I call the “Evolving Kennedy myth” in popular history: Kennedy about to become a champion of civil rights, Kennedy pulling out of Vietnam, Kennedy rejecting American domination of Latin America. Maybe this would happened. Who knows.

All we can do as historians is judge a president on what he actually did. Kennedy did not press hard for civil rights. He expanded American involvement in Vietnam. He approved any number of questionable and illegal activities in the Caribbean. Americans want to think the best of Kennedy, but his actual actions don’t support this interpretation. While Lyndon Johnson pursued a disastrous foreign policy, it’s hard to believe that Kennedy would have done anything much differently. And Johnson is the presidential hero of civil rights, not Kennedy.

Moreover, while von Tunzelmann points out that Castro is not a mass murderer on the scale of Duvalier and Trujillo, for narrative’s sake she frequently lumps the three dictators together. Many Americans may think of Castro as the devil, but it’s worth noting that Cuban health care, education, and life expectancy far surpass almost any other nation in the developing world. I’m not apologizing for Castro’s lack of democratic values. But to compare Castro with Duvalier and Trujillo simply doesn’t make sense except to note that all three were dictators, which is hardly a revelation.

Overall, Red Heat is a useful and readable primer for U.S. Cold War activities in the Caribbean. Americans as a whole lack knowledge of how its government tolerated, trained, and encouraged some of the world’s most notorious dictators. The American government found Fidel Castro so shocking that it nearly plunged the world into a nuclear war. It accepted a homicidal maniac in Haiti because he was non-communist. It overthrew a democratically elected government in the Dominican Republic because it feared a new Castro. The people of these nations still feel the effects of American foreign policy today in their nations’ poverty, violence, and shaky to nonexistent democratic institutions.

Inhofe Hearts Gbagbo

Jim Inhofe continued his run as America's Worst Senator with a speech yesterday defending Ivory Coast dictator Laurent Gbagbo against the attacks by U.N. supported and fairly elected Alassane Ouattara. Why would Inhofe do this?

Because Gbagbo is an evangelical Christian and Ouattara is Muslim.

The right conducts its foreign policy in no small part based upon their comfort with the religion of the individual they are talking to. Right-wing evangelical Christianity has had no problem supporting murderous dictators who have converted. Guatemala's Rios Montt is possibly the most famous example of this. Gbagbo is a more recent example.

In the 1960s, the entire foreign policy establishment operated this way. Powerful American Catholics such as John Foster Dulles and Mike Mansfield supported Diem in Vietnam because he was a member of the Catholic elite in a Buddhist nation.

This was a tremendously stupid way to run foreign policy. Democrats and some Republicans have moved on from this myopia. Neoconservatives and the evangelical right very much have not.

Kissinger v. Gerson

I do love me some Republican infighting....

Michael Gerson claims that the foreign policy realism of Nixon and Kissinger failed to bring about effective results.  Using the issue of emigration of Jews from the Soviet Union, Gerson states that

Realists often hold a simplistic view of great-power relations, asserting that any humanitarian pressure on Russia or China will cause the whole edifice of global order to crumble. This precludes the possibility of a mature relationship with other nations in which America both stands for its values and pursues common interests.

Gerson then goes on to claim that the Jackson-Vanik Amendment, which linked normal trade relations between the US and USSR with the freedom of Soviet Jews to emigrate, helped lead to the end of the Cold War, showing the amorality of realism.

But Jackson-Vanik turned out to be a pivot point in the Cold War. After an initial drop in emigration, the legislation exerted two decades of pressure on Soviet leaders, eventually resulting in higher emigration levels. It pressed one of the West's most powerful ideological advantages against the Soviet Union by demonstrating the weakness of a system that must build walls to keep its people from fleeing. This emphasis on human rights inspired not only Jewish refuseniks but other groups and nationalities that inhabited the Soviet prison.

Jackson-Vanik was both a rejection of Kissinger's realism and a preview of Reaganism. It asserted that oppressive regimes are more likely to threaten their neighbors, placing human rights nearer the center of American interests. It elevated standards of human dignity that were direct threats to regimes premised on their denial.

This is, of course, absurd, as Kissinger points out in his rebuttal.

Gerson ascribes the collapse of the Soviet Union in part to the Jackson-Vanik Amendment. The amendment played no significant role in what resulted from imperial overstretch, incompetent economic management and the determined resistance of a succession of presidents from both parties, culminating in the Reagan period.

But then again, this debate sums up Republican foreign policy--the grown-ups of the 70s and 80s versus the immature children of the Bush administration who saw every foreign policy as the penultimate battle between good and evil.

I detest Kissinger with great passion, but he is certainly right here. Gerson presents his case wearing classic neoconservative clothing--the fetishization an idealized version of Israel and Jewish people, the overly simplistic argument, the claiming of Reagan as all things good and right in the world, and the idea that America working from a moralistic standpoint can use its power to magically force the world's bad guys to change.

Never mind the abject failures of Iraq, Afghanistan, and every other piece of Bush's foreign policy.

Meanwhile, Kissinger provides actual evidence and demonstrates the great complexity of early 70s foreign policy issues, of which Jewish emigration from the Soviet Union had to play a relatively minor part.

To put this in the context of a class, Kissinger is the student whose politics make me retch but who knows what he's talking about, writes a sophisticated paper, and gets an A before going on to a graduate program at Harvard or Georgetown. Gerson is the equivalent of the privileged but moronic freshman who writes a poorly written and naive power about how America rocks and the commies are evil. He gets a C, but it doesn't matter because Daddy is going to take care of him no matter what happens.

That the morons control the appartus of Republican foreign policy scares me far more than the competent but evil Republicans of years past.

Historical Image of the Day

Victims of the 1953 CIA-led Iranian coup which placed the Shah on the throne and gave American petroleum companies enormous oil concessions.

Historical Image of the Day

Rep. Charlie Wilson (D-TX) in Afghanistan, 1987

Would the US Actually Protect the Baltic States from Russia?

The Wikileaks cables have leaked a U.S.-NATO plan to defend the Baltic states of Latvia, Estonia, and Lithuania in case of a Russian attack.

But I have to ask, if Russia did in fact decide to invade the Baltics and reestablish their empire, is there a damn thing the U.S. would really do about it?

I have to think not. I don't think Americans care enough about tiny nations in eastern Europe to do anything more than boycott Russian goods or something. I'm not saying Americans still have a sort of Vietnam Syndrome after 9/11, but I really have trouble seeing any scenario where this happens unless the Russians decide they want Poland as well.

The Finnish would be mad because their cross-Baltic trips to buy massive amounts of cheap vodka would end. And, um, I can't think of any other nation would who care enough to really try to stop from retaking those nations.

Am I wrong about this?

Historical Image of the Day

In my recent America class, I'm having the students read selections from Douglas Little's American Orientalism: The United States and the Middle East since 1945. So this week's images will be of Americans in the Middle East. These are actually pretty hard images to find, at least for historical images. So we'll see how long I can keep this up.

Aftermath of bombing of U.S. Marine Barracks, Beirut, Lebanon, 1983

Wikileaks

I'm really having trouble seeing the outrage over the Wikileaks release of American diplomatic cables. I suppose the State Department doesn't want these made public, and I understand that. But I think most of the outrage over Julian Assange comes from right-wingers who prefer to live in an America isolated from the rest of the world and which we can bomb if they cause us any problems.

I say this because I see little the US should be embarrassed by in the documents. In fact, I see a situation where the State Department struggles with the same questions as the rest of the informed world. North Korea is crazy and unpredictable. Iran's neighbors are nervous at their nuclear weapons program. No one wants to take Guantanamo prisoners.

What is particularly shocking here? Nothing. If anything, the cables just reinforce what I already thought about U.S. foreign policy--that for the most part, we don't really understand many of the countries that oppose us. Big deal. I'd have been more interested if the cables showed any real comprehension of the problem and created a path forward in dealing with Iran or North Korea.

Historical Image of the Day

Editorial cartoon concerning the Embargo Act of 1807. The Embargo Act was arguably Jefferson's worst move as a president and was one of the nation's great foreign policy disasters. Admittedly, the U.S. was not bargaining from a strong position. But still, Jefferson really wasn't a very effective president.

As for the specifics of the cartoon, I'm not sure what it all means. Pre-Civil War editorial cartoons are full of extremely obscure insider references.

Diplomatic Issues Facing Honduras's Porfirio Lobo Sosa

It would appear that Porfirio Lobo Sosa's administration is not going to get the smooth diplomatic treatment many in Honduras had hoped for. For starters, Brazil's foreign minister, Celso Amorim, said Brazil continues to not recognize the electoral process that brought Lobo Sosa to power, though in a linguistic trick, also claimed that Brazil recognized "states, not governments."

On the other hand, while the United States has moved to recognized Honduras in the wake of elections, it has made it clear that recognition will not be a carte blanche for Lobo Sosa:

The US State Department has rejected Porfirio Lobo Sosa's nomination of Roberto Flores Bermúdez to be the Honduran Ambassador to the United States. Flores Bermúdez was appointed Ambassador to the United States by Manuel Zelaya Rosales, but shortly after the coup on June 28, 2009, switched allegiance to the de facto regime in Honduras.

As RNS points out, it is quite possible that

Lobo Sosa was likely testing the waters to see how much he needed to distance himself from the de facto regime, which he has never denounced. No one who was directly involved in the de facto regime has had their US visa restored. The State Department's rejection of Lobo Sosa's choice as Ambassador means that the United States, like Spain, so far, is rejecting the participation in diplomacy of anyone directly linked to the de facto regime.

I think this makes sense, and I think it speaks better of the Obama administration's approach than many have allowed. I agree that perhaps it could have done more to condemn the coup, but I (semi-paradoxically) also have few objections to the U.S. not directly intervening in Latin America. Presuming the U.S. continues to remain inflexible in refusing members of the de facto Micheletti government to have visas or participate in international politics with regards to the U.S., then I think this is a worthwhile message to send, and offers at least some measure of punishment to those politicians and business leaders who hoped to get well off of the coup.

Lincoln Gordon Dead

Lincoln Gordon, former U.S. ambassador to Brazil, has died at 96. Gordon is one of the early "villains" in the rise of Brazil's military dictatorship. Gordon had made clear throughout the 1963-1964 period that the U.S. was strongly opposed to leftist Joao Goulart, and that it would support a return to "democracy," even if that meant an overthrow of Goulart. When the military began moving against Goulart (whose rise to the presidency was complex), Gordon immediately made clear his support of the movement, and was in communication with the generals who led the initial coup and those who established control after the coup. Fearing popular resistance to the military, Gordon had even convinced Lyndon Johnson to begin sending U.S. ships towards Brazil to support the government. Unfortunately for Brazil, the military set up power with popular support so quickly (and Goulart's administration and support collapsed so rapidly) that the ships never even made it to Brazil; before they were even halfway to Brazil, they were able to turn around, as the military had already established a control that it would not relinquish for 21 years, during which hundreds and even thousands were tortured, and hundreds more "disappeared."

While the U.S. was not directly involved in the Brazilian coup in the way it would be in Chile in 1973 and in Argentina in the late-1970s, its rapid support for the military hinted at the policies that would overlook democracy in the name of anti-Communism in Latin America in the 1970s and 1980s, and Lincoln Gordon was at the epicenter of these policies in Brazil. Gordon himself openly admitted his role in quickly supporting the generals in 1964 (see here, with thanks to Greg). As a result, while you cannot blame the U.S. for its role in overthrowing a democratic government in Brazil to the same extent that you can in other places, Gordon did play the key role among U.S. actors in supporting that process, and is definitely one of the more villainous characters in the opening act of Brazil's dictatorship.

The Successful Coup

After everything, the Honduran coup was an unmitigated success for Roberto Micheletti, the army, the business owners, and the other elites who supported it. Last weekend's election saw the left hobbled, the conservative candidate victorious, and the United States basically agreeing to recognize the results. Spain and most of the world refuses to recognize the elections. But with the United States signaling its recognition, it's only a matter of time before the rest of the world gives up and comes around.

What's so disturbing is the success of Jim DeMint and other right-wing Republicans in the matter. DeMint led the Republican charge in favor of the coup. He put a hold on Thomas Shannon, Obama's nomination for ambassador to Brazil over the matter. But after the last talks on returning deposed president Manuel Zelaya to power fell apart, even after a preliminary accord had been reached, Shannon announced that the US would recognize the elections even if Zelaya was not returned to power. DeMint took his hold off Shannon's nomination. Hillary Clinton confirmed the government's intentions to DeMint.

In the end, Honduras just isn't important enough to the United States. It's been a client state for a century and that's where American policymakers would prefer to keep it. Certainly they aren't going to the democratic mat for it. Given that Republican senators can stop nearly anything right now through delaying tactics, the far right has major control over foreign policy despite its small numbers.

The bigger issue is not Honduras, which is a total mess and is likely to remain that way, but how other Latin American countries see this news. I'm not particularly worried about Nicaragua or Bolivia, where a coup would lead to civil war, or Venezuela, where Chavez remains in strong control. I'd say Paraguay might be the nation most likely to follow Honduras' lead--a popular and populist leader with leftist credentials versus a long history of single-party right-wing rule, a very weak democratic tradition, and a nation peripheral to American or world interests.

In the end, the U.S. provided weak leadership in Honduras. The coup leaders were shocked at Obama's unwillingness to recognize their actions, and they'll be supporting Republicans however they can from now on. But Obama could have gone farther, freezing coup leaders assets and banning them from visiting the United States. Many of these families have major investments in the U.S., including large estates, and they come to the U.S. on weekend shopping trips. For people who don't care about sanctions or international aid, this is how you get at them. Alas, we failed and much of the world thinks so. I can't really say Obama earned his Nobel Peace Prize for Honduras.

Obama, Lula, and Iran: Understanding the Complexities of International Relations

One of the refrains I've heard from some in Latin American and in the U.S. is that Obama is no different than Bush in terms of policies. These claims are clearly laughable at face value, and every value beyond that. Still, some still make those claims, based mostly on a "reasoning" that (and I paraphrase) "Obama hasn't stopped the wars, and Obama's a leader of an empire, just like Bush was." Again, stupid and simplistic arguments, but they exist.

In the face of such baseless and unrealistic accusations, this week offered yet another reminder of just how different the two administrations are:

President Obama sent a letter on Sunday to President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva of Brazil reiterating the American position on Iran’s nuclear program, a day before Iran’s president made his first state visit to Brazil, an aide to Mr. da Silva said Tuesday.

Mr. Obama did not explicitly criticize Mr. da Silva for hosting President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad of Iran, implying instead that he hoped Mr. da Silva would use the occasion to express support for the international effort to forge a compromise on Iran’s nuclear ambitions, according to two American officials.

In the three-page letter, Mr. Obama restated his support for a proposal by the International Atomic Energy Agency that would try to steer Iran into developing nuclear energy for peaceful, civilian purposes. The proposed accord calls for Iran to export most of its enriched uranium for additional processing into a form that could be used in a medical reactor in Tehran.

The differences between Bush and Obama should be fairly clear here. In Bush's black-and-white, with-me-or-against-me vision of foreign relations, I just don't see how he would have been nearly as nuanced in his letter-writing (if he even bothered to write a letter). Instead, we probably would have gotten some tired mashup of the "axis of evil" rhetoric, with no efforts to use Ahmadinejad's trip to Brazil to try to emphasize the policy we felt should be taken (which, to be fair, called for war against Iran during the Bush years - not exactly a policy to push at any time).

Under Obama, we get a cordial letter that clearly shows a far more nuanced understsanding of how international politics work not just between the U.S. and other countries, but between other countries and other countries. It's a far more multi-lateral position that understands and acknowledges the importance of other countries in the global arena without ever "conceding" the U.S.'s own role. Indeed, I think it's safe to say that Obama's move, while it may not be effective, was rather brilliant: he found a way to try to get the U.S.'s message to Ahmadinejad without ever having to talk directly to the Iranian president. Whether Obama's letter came up in conversation between Lula and Ahmadinejad (and what the nature or tone of that conversation was) may never be known, but moves like this should obliterate any declaration that Obama and Bush are "the same thing."

And as for Ahmadinejad's trip to Brazil, while it has sparked controversy, it hasn't been on the level of Chavez's alliance to Iran. Earlier this month, Lula met independently with Palestinian president, Mahmoud Abbas and with Israel's president, Shimon Peres, in an effort to try to increase negotiations for peace in the middle east. Lula has made little secret of his goal to use Brazil's newfound diplomatic presence in the global community to try to work towards peace in the region, and has even gone so far as to recommend the Brazilian national soccer team play a friendly game against an Israeli-Palestinian team. From Lula's point of view, Ahmadinejad's visit is a part of that broader effort. While the U.S. media has grossly misrepresented the Iranian president's trip to Brazil, declaring the trip, as Time magazine did, to be in "defiance" of the U.S., Time's own report indicated otherwise, and revealed Lula's motivation for hosting Ahmadinejad:

Lula enjoys considerable respect internationally, and the incorrigible talker believes problems can be resolved through dialogue. Before Ahmadinejad arrived, Lula pointedly declared, "It is important that someone sits down with Iran, talks with Iran and tries to establish a balance so we can get back to a kind of normality in the Middle East."

Exactly. Treating Iran's trip to Brazil as some isolated incident totally misses the point. Lula isn't meeting with Iran to thumb his nose at the U.S., or to show his support for "terrorism," or any such matter. The Iranian visit is part of a month-long effort to accelerate peace efforts in the Middle East, and Lula is well aware that Iran would be central to any such efforts. And it's not like it was some sycophantic, "best friends forever!" trip:

Of course, Lula has plenty of differences with his guest from Iran. He has made it clear he supports a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, has made a point of repudiating all acts of intolerance or terrorism, and has subtly criticized Ahmadinejad's denial of the Holocaust and of homosexuality in Iran.

Those are messages that Ahmadinejad needs to hear from friends, notes Anoush Ehteshami, a professor at the Centre for Iranian Studies at Durham University in England. Since Iran does not appear to be listening to the West, especially not the United States, on the issue, the emergence of interlocutors who could help bridge the gap between the two sides ought to be welcomed. "Hearing [these messages] from Lula will be a little bit better received than if it were coming from U.S. President or E.U. leaders," Ehteshami says.

Once again, that's exactly right. This latest trip is just another example of Lula's model of diplomacy throughout his career. Diplomacy depends on talking, on dialogue, and not on rejecting other leaders or countries simply because you disagree with them. And any effort towards peace, no matter who is leading it, is a valuable step. Sometimes, other countries may be in a better position for these kinds of talks than the U.S. is, and this is one of those instances. And anybody who insists Brazil is suddenly "palling around" with terrorists or directly contradicting the U.S. intentionally simply has no understanding of how diplomacy and foreign relations do and should work.

The Annual Protest at the School of the Americas/Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation

Erwin reminds us that today is the day of the annual protest against the Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation (WHISC), formerly known as the School of the Americas. The name-change happened back in 2001, when the Bush administration realized the School's name had been associated with some of the worst crimes against humanity in the 20th century in the Americas. Rather than closing the school down or providing a real analysis of possible changes in U.S. policy in the hemisphere, the government opted to simply change the name to the WHISC.

Among the school's more infamous graduates, there is murderous Guatemalan dictator Efrain Rios Montt, former friend-to-America Manuel Noriega, and Lieutenant Byron Carvajal, a Colombian facing 60 years in prison for murdering ten counternarcotics police in Colombia, as well as many other distinguished men who were involved in torture and murder throughout Latin America. Obviously, if you've been running a center that trained soldiers who raped, tortured, and murdered civilians everywhere from Chile and Argentina up to El Salvador and Guatemala, you would hope a complete shut-down would happen, rather than a simple name-change, but that would be too humane. As a result, the protests continue on an annual basis.

Father Roy Bourgeois, the founder of the group School of Americas Watch (and major protagonist in Leslie Gill's excellent book that looks at the history, ideology, and results of the SOA) has an article up at HuffPo that outlines the recent activities of graduates from the SOA (including one of the leaders in the Honduran coup this year), as well as outlining a quick history of the SOA and the theme of the protests this year (which focus on the 20th anniversary of the murder by armed forces of 6 Jesuits, their cook, and his daughter in El Salvador).

Without a doubt, the School of the Americas is one of the darkest parts of American foreign policy in the 20th century, and the fact that it continues to exist under a lengthy euphemism does nothing to take away from the ugliness of the facts. It's worth learning a little more about the SOA if you haven't already, and contacting your congressperson to ask them why the U.S. continues to support an institution notorious for its training of torturers, rapists, and murderers.

U.S.-Myanmar Relations

Brian McCartan has a good piece up on the U.S. beginning to engage with Myanmar's leaders. I think this is a good thing. As I discussed in my Honduras piece yesterday, American foreign policy struggles with countries who simply refuse to cooperate. Myanmar is a primary example of this. The military junta has ruled with an iron fist for the last 20 years. It's unlikely to change soon, though when Than Shwe finally dies perhaps things will thaw. The U.S. and other nations have implemented widespread sanctions against the nation, something supported oddly enough by the tourist boycott that has existed for over a decade.

What has all this accomplished? Nothing.

Sanctions rarely work and are not generally an effective foreign policy tool. Certainly limited sanctions on arms and other such items make sense. But little else. The tourism boycott has done nothing at all to free Aung San Suu Kyi or to free up the Burmese people in any way. If anything, it's isolated them even more. The sanctions have only placed the Burmese people in greater poverty.

I'm certainly not confident that closer relations with the Myanmar junta will help bring any semblance of freedom to the nation's people or lead to free elections. But how can it possibly hurt? The junta's response to last year's typhoon was unconscionable and shows how uncaring they are. But more sanctions aren't an answer. Talking to them and engaging them can only help. Allowing tourism will bring information to the Burmese people and help get their stories out.

Considering all of this, it seems clear that the new U.S. stance toward Myanmar makes a lot of sense.

Did the Bush Administration Look the Other Way on War Crimes in Afghanistan?

That the U.S. may have worked with and supported a war criminal in Afghanistan in the wake of 9/11 does not surprise me, but that doesn't render this story any less depressing:

After a mass killing of hundreds, perhaps thousands, of Taliban prisoners of war by the forces of an American-backed warlord during the 2001 invasion of Afghanistan, Bush administration officials repeatedly discouraged efforts to investigate the episode, according to government officials and human rights organizations.

American officials had been reluctant to pursue an investigation — sought by officials from the F.B.I., the State Department, the Red Cross and human rights groups — because the warlord, Gen. Abdul Rashid Dostum, was on the payroll of the C.I.A. and his militia worked closely with United States Special Forces in 2001, several officials said. They said the United States also worried about undermining the American-supported government of President Hamid Karzai, in which General Dostum had served as a defense official.

Dostum is accused of having overseen the murders of hundreds and perhaps thousands of Taliban prisoner of war deaths. The report mentions FBI documents from 2003 in which detainees back up the allegations of being crammed into overstuffed containers and left to die or being shot. Dostum himself admits that there were around 200 under his watch, but that they were due to "combat wounds and disease." And satellite pictures and human rights groups have uncovered evidence of a massive grave in the area.

All of this combines to paint a grim picture of the actions of a man the U.S. openly supported during the Bush administration. Which of course brings the question around to Bush officials: if the administration was paying and openly supporting a war criminal, and if that war criminal gets convicted, could Bush officials be more likely to face charges? Of course, the landscape of this case could change, but right now, it doesn't seem like Bush or Cheney are directly tied to Dostum. Even if the administration announced its diplomatic support for a war criminal, that (unfortunately) doesn't translate into being charged as a criminal oneself, as the U.S. has proven time and again in the second half of the 20th century.

But things get a bit chippier once we get into the Department of Defense, under Rumsfeld at the time.

In 2002, Physicians for Human Rights asked Defense Department officials to open an investigation and provide security for its forensics team to conduct a more thorough examination of the gravesite. “We met with blanket denials from the Pentagon,” recalls Jennifer Leaning, a board member with the group. “They said nothing happened.”

Pentagon spokesmen have said that the United States Central Command conducted an “informal inquiry,” asking Special Forces personnel members who worked with General Dostum if they knew of a mass killing by his forces. When they said they did not, the inquiry went no further.

“I did get the sense that there was little appetite for this matter within parts of D.O.D.,” said Marshall Billingslea, former acting assistant defense secretary for special operations, referring to the Department of Defense.

I admit openly that I don't know enough of the details of international law to fully know what constitutes a "cover-up" of a known war crime, but this does seem to be pushing the envelope of the definition of a "cover-up." Blanket denials to investigate the matter independently and taking at face value the word of people who worked together with the alleged war criminal in order to close the investigation look suspect, to put it lightly. What role, if any, Donald Rumsfeld may have had in this is unclear for now, but one can't help but think he knew something, given that one of his deputy secretaries, Paul Wolfowitz, was more than aware of the problems:

Another former defense official, who would speak only on condition of anonymity, recalled that the prisoner deaths came up in a conversation with Paul D. Wolfowitz, the deputy secretary of defense at the time, in early 2003.

“Somebody mentioned Dostum and the story about the containers and the possibility that this was a war crime,” the official said. “And Wolfowitz said we are not going to be going after him for that.”

In an interview, Mr. Wolfowitz said he did not recall the conversation. However, Pentagon documents obtained by Physicians for Human Rights through a Freedom of Information Act request confirm that the issue was debated by Mr. Wolfowitz and other officials

Again, it's no surprise that Wolfowitz's stench would be attached to this particular case - he was actively involved in some of the darkest parts of the Bush administration's foreign policy. The documents confirmed by the FIA request indicate Wolfowitz knew exactly what had happened and what the allegations were, and was simply not interested in going after Dostum for the crimes. Given that position, plus the "blanket denials" the Pentagon issued, Wolfowitz comes out looking particularly bad. It seems to early to say if he looks "war criminal" bad, but if nothing else, he is attached to yet another despicable act of support for an open criminal, all in the name of furthering the Bush administration's misguided, inept, and downright destructive foreign policies.

Of course, if this case gains greater traction, the wingnut talking points are easy to predict: "It was a state of war! After 9/11! The Taliban was teh evil!" Many may agree with this, but it doesn't take away from a central tenet codified in such quaint documents like the Geneva conventions: "war criminals" of any stripe are tried and sentenced for their crimes in courts. They are not summarily executed, and they are certainly not thrown into overcrowded containers to slowly die (if they aren't shot) and then be dumped in a mass grave. What Dostum's men did, with or without his orders (and it would seem from the report that he was more than aware of those actions), constitutes a violation of the Geneva conventions and a war crime.

It's too soon to know where this will end up - probably at most with Dostum facing some level of ostracization, but not enough to be completely deprived of any power. I'd like to be proven wrong, but this doesn't seem like the kind of thing that will snowball a la the Pinochet case. And as for those in the administration who tied themselves, directly or indirectly, to this kind of war criminal, it will mark just one more file in the case that should be filed against the Bush Administration's own criminals, but never will be.

My 4th of July

I spent the day on a Nicaraguan beach, reading Joan Didion´s Play It As Is Lays. Definitely more interesting than fireworks, although thanks to a wedding celebration that night, I actually did see some fireworks.

But I also thought about what the great ol´USA has done to Nicaragua over the years. What is the greatest moment? Recognizing the ¨government¨of William Walker when he took the country over briefly in 1856 and reinstituted slavery (another black mark against the Pierce Administration)? The government allowing banana companies to dominate the nation for decades, including a 2 decade Marine invasion to protect banana interests and fight the rag tag forces led by Augusto Sandino? Supporting the Somoza government for 4 decades? Creating the Contras in the 1980s to undermine the Sandinista revolution in the 1980s? W openly threatening Nicaragua when Daniel Ortega was running for president in the 2000s?

Land of the free and home of the brave indeed.

More Analysis/Observations on the Honduran Coup

Greg hits it on the head in his four points about Zelaya, the coup, and issues of constitutionality and legality:

1. According to the constitution, taking Zelaya out of the country was illegal. Period.

2. Zelaya is charged with trying to amend the constitution to allow re-election of the president (which would be illegal), yet no one has ever provided evidence to that effect. It is illegal to amend seven particular parts of the constitution, but the wording of the proposed vote did not mention any of them.I do not care if you are positive he wanted to, as that does not constitute evidence. He said before the coup that he would leave office in 2010. Maybe he was lying, maybe not. But it deserves more investigation before overthrowing him. Ousting a president requires more than just assumptions about intent.

3. At various times, commenters have mentioned Venezuela as intruding (such as with the plebiscite materials) but I have never seen the Supreme Court or Attorney General mention evidence. Until I do, I think Venezuela is irrelevant. That Zelaya liked Hugo Chavez is not relevant to his standing as president. That Chavez says ridiculous things about invasion is not relevant to Zelaya's case either.

4. Zelaya was unpopular (even with his own party) and many people in Honduras are glad he's gone. This is irrelevant to the law. Surprisingly, I have not yet seen anyone make an argument for how a parliamentary system might have mediated the situation better--Honduran political institutions are so weak it might not have mattered.

I couldn't agree more with each of these items. As I said before, I think Zelaya overextended himself, I suspect thinking he'd have more support than he did when he tried to get the paper ballots for the referendum from the air force base and go against the Supreme Court - it wasn't necessarily that he was wrong in deed (and, as Greg points out, the definition of power in the constitution is nebulous at best); rather, he was wrong in the estimation of his limits. It is in this regard that I think you can say Zelaya is somewhat responsible (not "guilty") for what happened. However, the burden of the events rests on the military and the opposition (and those in Zelaya's own party) who supported the way things have played out since Sunday morning. Nothing was legal about this, if Zelaya is guilty of misestimations, the military and opposition are guilty of a blatantly illegal coup, and it shouldn't be too difficult for anybody to discern which of those two offenses is more severe. And given the points Greg makes, it really shouldn't be that hard for anybody to understand why Obama would want to come out against this coup. It's not about "meddling" in Latin America - it's about condemning an injustice committed against a democratically elected leader, something the global community has also vocally condemned.

Reporting the Honduras Coup, or, "How Some on the Left Are Reinforcing Ridiculous Perceptions of Obama"

Suffice to say, the coup in Honduras is a complex issue involving multiple power-struggles that cut to the core of how power is interpreted and assigned within the Honduran political system. Many people are trying to stay at the front of this story (including us), either through journalism or through analysis. However, as is typically the case in events like these, such quick rushes to judgement often look idiotic.

So it goes when one person has labeled this coup "Obama's First Coup d'Etat." Now, this could be interpreted in one of two ways: that it's the first coup that happened while Obama was president, or that it was the first coup he was involved with, directly or indirectly. I was willing to give the author the benefit of the doubt on the first interpretation, and it seemed that that may have been her viewpoint through the text. However, if it was, her updates leave her open to huge misinterpretation. Throughout the updates (which are frequent), Golinger repeatedly comments on Obama's failure to come out "fast enough" against the coup. I don't exactly know what she expects such a quick rush to judgement from the Obama administration will accomplish, but it's clear that she feels that, by not coming out "unequivocably" against the coup immediately, Obama is betraying some vague desire not to see Zelaya in power.

Fortunately, as Obama said in a recent press conference, the president of the U.S. doesn't work on a "24-hour news schedule." Instead (wonder of wonders), he waits to be informed of exactly what is going on, tries to let events play out some without directly jumping in and making matters worse, and then states his opinion. Indeed, yesterday Obama said that "the coup was not legal and that President Zelaya remains the president of Honduras." I already know what many would say: "It's too netural," "if Obama really weren't behind the coup, why not say it's 'illegal'," "why doesn't he say 'we fully support Zelaya/oppse the coup'," etc. My answer would be because Obama does have to consider broader-picture issues, and nobody knows how this is going to work out; to blindly pick one side or another before it becoming clear exactly how events will play out over the next hours or days can lead to a huge backfire. Just ask the Bush administration when they supported the failed coup of Chavez immediately in 2002.

Why does this matter? Sure, it's clearly in a partisan online publication that favors Venezuela and looks with very skeptical eyes at U.S. policy, but it's just one site. So what?

The problem is, I found this by getting it from friends in South America. This story is making the rounds among young people (and perhaps older people) who consider themselves "leftist" or "intellectuals" in Laitn America. They may not buy into it, but people generally don't foward stuff without comment if they think it's ridiculous. As a result, this image of the U.S. effectively doing in Honduras under Obama what Bush tried in Venezuela reinforces an image of Obama as just another imperialist bastard out of touch with the world.

This irritates me to no end for the same reasons that accusations in Brazil that Obama is "just like Bush" irritate me: because such positions couldn't be further from the truth. Look, I'm not going to pretend that Obama will be perfect, or that I (or the "left" more generally, whomever it may be at that moment) will always like his policies. We haven't already, and we won't. But to imply that he is no different from Bush simply because he's the head of the U.S. is beyond absurd, particularly given his penchant thus far to do things like, you know, be informed of a situation, listen to others' opinions, and welcome differing viewpoints before making decisions. Vague insinuations and charges from the left (within or outside of the U.S.) that this is "Obama's coup" and condemnations that his wording isn't "strong enough" are as absurd as charges from the right in the U.S. that Obama's response to Iran likewise wasn't "strong enough."

In some ways, this isn't Obama's or the bloggers'/journalists'/intellectuals' fault. As the Times points out today, the overthrow of Zelaya is "pitting Mr. Obama against the ghosts of past American foreign policy in Latin America." And there are a lot of ghosts, from the Mexican-American war and the takeover of 1/3 of Mexico's territory at the time, to the Spanish-American war and the turning of Cuba into a virtual American territory, to the involvement in Guatemala in 1954, to Chile in 1973, to Argentina during the Dirty War, to Guatemala and El Salvador, to the Contras in Nicaragua, to Noriega in Panama, to Chavez...and that only scratches the surface of horrible political moves the U.S. has made. This isn't to excuse Golinger's interpretation, but it's not like she doesn't have her reasons historically.

But there are constructive ways to use that past together with the current administration to try to effect change in U.S. policy. Calling the coup in Honduras "Obama's first coup," with the perjorative connotation that brings (reinforced through constant updates chiding Obama for not coming out with a "strong" statement against the coup), in no way helps anything, is in no way in touch with political realities in international politics, and ultimately makes the left look as ridiculous as those on the right who condemned Obama when it came to Iran.

This might belong in "Crisis of Masculinity Blogging"

I read this article this morning in the Mail & Guardian about Vladimir Putin and it made me giggle. At first, I thought that it was just worth a drive-by snarking on Twitter, but the more I thought about it, the more I realized I should go back and write about it.

At first, of course, you get the usual masculinity-fetish. The title of the article is "That Shrinking Feeling," which is just too obvious. Further down, a sentence reads, "Not that Putin is a spent force."

Sexual metaphors and obsession with Putin's bare chest are hardly rare--comic artist Becky Cloonan has a whole range of Putin-fantasy webcomics that are totally hilarious. I admit to a bit of a Putin obsession myself--he's such a caricature.

As was Bush, of course. A caricature of a certain type of American masculinity (just like Reagan before him) the same way Putin is a caricature of a certain type of Russian masculinity. He has judo videos! He shoots tigers! He's so BUFF!

Only a few months ago, we were scared of Putin "rearing his head," (oh, Palin, will you ever get old?) but now we hear little to nothing about him. And this article, masculinity fetish aside, makes a decent point about why, even if it buries it beneath layers of alternately fawning and poking at him.

Analysts add that United States President Barack Obama's emollient approach on Nato enlargement and missile defence is not helping.

As Russian president, Putin was a natural when it came to attacking former president George Bush, for example over Iraq.

But fast-forward one year and he looked far less comfortable, barely speaking above a whisper, as he made a conciliatory speech praising the new Iraqi order in front of Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki at a recent Moscow meeting.

As the public questions whether everything is really the United States' fault, a change of tone is needed that Putin may struggle with, says political commentator Arkady Dubnov of the newspaper Vremya Novostei.

(OK, they did say "enlargement.")

Does Obama's conciliatory approach to foreign policy make the former bluff and bluster between Bush and Putin look...well...juvenile? Does Obama's refusal to give leaders like Putin (and Chavez, and and and) a target effectively work where threats and yes, swagger didn't?

Of course it's far too early to tell. But during the campaign, especially the primaries, I wrote about Obama's demeanor and tone about foreign policy contrasted with his rivals, and how Hillary Clinton and Obama seemed to have switched gender stereotypes.

I'm disappointed with many of Obama's moves so far, but I wonder if just the tonal shift in public diplomacy is having an effect worldwide. It's definitely not calming the Right inside the U.S., but they sure do look silly. So there's that.