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Friday, December 10, 2010
UN Human Rights Day
62 years ago today the UN passed the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, and December 10th became Human Rights Day.
I remind San Franciscans that the UN was founded here at the War Memorial building on 25 June 1945. It should be no surprise that the UN arose from the ashes of war; the name United Nations itself was borrowed from the name of the winning side in WWII.
The Declaration is an aspirational document; it holds signatory states to certain basic standards, but it did create enforcement mechanisms. Consequently, we find that China can imprison its Nobel Prize winning civil rights activist, Liu Xiaobo. No state is immune from the potential to violate these simple goals, and the now-defunct UN Commission on Human Rights included many major human rights abusers. In 2004, the US protested the election of Sudan to the Commission (and a decades-long stream of anti-Israeli condemnations from the Commison) by leaving, although it has now entered the reconfigured UN Human Rights Council, figuring it is better to fight the internal inconsistencies and moral failings from the inside.
It also helps to fight from the outside. My friend Kirk Boyd is such a fighter. Kirk, a UC Berkeley professor of law, heads up the 2048 Project, which seeks to engage global citizens in the creation of mechanisms to force states to live up to these standards ... by the 100th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration in 2048.
Kirk once noted, "the first impulse of most of us, myself included, when faced with what is distant, is to look away and turn to what is present." But Kirk, the 2048 Project, Liu Xiaobo, and many other workers in the human rights realm are the sort of dreamers who look to the distant future and set impossible goals. They are a bane to repressive states all over the world, and today is their day.
Paul Clarke is a retired Air Force officer, who served on the White House staffs of Presidents George H. W. Bush and Bill Clinton. He is the vice president of the Marin UN Association. The views expressed are his own.
| Dec 10 at 12:15 PM
Thursday, December 09, 2010
Sanctimonious hostage-takers of the world...Unite!
In his press conference announcing the tax deal with Republicans, President Obama painted his critics on the left as sanctimonious purists and his bargain-mates on the right as hostage-takers. The right was said to be holding the American taxpayer hostage in exchange for tax cuts for the rich. The President also chastised the left, citing the health care debate as evidence of a lack of will to compromise, a dubious argument that rather misses the point of the left's rage. The center was spared the president's judgment.
President Obama may have cut a good deal, despite polls which show that few want tax cuts for the wealthiest members of society, but he would have found broader support by taking on the increasingly negative role that money plays in our politics. And, since today is...
International Anti-Corruption Day, we might want to consider how this scourge impacts the US. The UN Secretary General noted in his Anti-Corruption Day message, "Corruption is a threat to development, democracy and stability. It distorts markets, curbs economic growth and discourages foreign investment. It erodes public services and trust in officials."
The US supports the UN efforts to reduce corruption around the world, because we believe that corrupt and failing states are a threat to our security. Americans can be proud that we have very little overt corruption here; Transparency International ranks the US 19th in the world, yet we suffer from our own form of money-infused political corruption that is every bit a threat to our democracy, stability and markets. Citizens of all stripes decry the power of special interests, and the recent election reminded us of the juggernaut of spending by corporations and other interests.
The president's tax deal is just one of many negotiations that will take place in coming months. This deal may be an indication that President Obama will turn toward Clintonesque triangulation, or it might be a sign that many more compromises are in the works, neither of which is necessarily bad, but it may also be the first sign that political expediency will top smart policy choices as we cut spending. This does not bode well for the day we finally tackle our Defense spending and re-prioritize our national security goals.
Paul Clarke is a retired Air Force officer, who served on the White House staffs of Presidents George H. W. Bush and Bill Clinton. The views expressed are his own.
| Dec 09 at 07:27 PM
Friday, November 19, 2010
Ratify the New START Agreement
Two weeks ago, I wrote about how the incoming Congress will address several national security issues. I will update those issues in coming days, but an important initiative, ratification of the new START Treaty, is being taken up by the current Congress.
I was serving on the National Security Council staff of President G.H.W. Bush when the original START agreement was signed in 1991, in the waning days of the Cold War. It was later ratified with overwhelming support in the Senate and was hailed as an important continuation of superpower cooperation, which had reached new heights under Ronald Reagan and Mikhail Gorbachev. It even survived the collapse of the USSR and helped ensure that the new states of Belarus, Ukraine and Kazakhstan would give up their nuclear weapons. The new START is a critical next step in this proud heritage to reduce nuclear weapon.
We need to ratify the New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START).
The reasons are many and compelling:
1. START enhances US security and has broad and deep support. The agreement was drafted by the Obama administration, and GOP Senator Richard Lugar, a lion of foreign policy, wrote the resolution to ratify START. Most nuclear weapons experts and former senior officials, including Republicans like former Secretaries of State James Baker and George Shultz and former National Security Advisers Brent Scowcroft and Stephen Hadley, have endorsed START. Current senior officials, including Sec. Gates, the senior military leadership, and the head of the Missile Defense Agency all endorse START, as does 73 percent of the US population.
2. The old START agreement has expired, so for almost a year, there have been no US inspectors in Russia. Passage of START will restore verification efforts.
3. The Obama administration has persuaded Russia to support important US initiatives, such as sanctions on Iran and the international effort in Afghanistan. Failure to ratify START will put this renewed cooperation in jeopardy.
4. President Obama has placed a very high priority on strengthening efforts to halt the proliferation of nuclear weapons technology and materials. START is a demonstration of our global leadership in reducing the world's nuclear stockpile. If the US and Russia cannot agree to reduce our arsenal, which together constitute 96 percent of the world's total, how can we persuade others to reduce their stockpiles?
5. START has been examined for seven months with 20 briefings to Congress and 900 questions answered from multiple committees. It is at least as well examined as prior treaties. Waiting for the new Congress will ensure that it is delayed for months--or worse, defeated.
So, why is this critical national security effort stalled? Senator Jon Kyl of Arizona, the number two in the GOP Senate leadership, called for postpone until next year, when there will be six more Republicans in the Senate. President Obama has identified passage of START as his top priority for the lame-duck session, so we may have all the evidence we need to identify the motivation for Senator Kyl's opposition.
Once more time: politics should stop at the waters edge. Ratify the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty now--it is critical for America's security.
Paul Clarke is a retired Air Force officer, who served on the White House staffs of Presidents George H. W. Bush and Bill Clinton. He is a senior fellow at the Truman National Security Project. The views expressed are his own.
| Nov 19 at 11:45 AM
Thursday, November 11, 2010
Veterans Day and Don't Ask, Don't Tell
Today we honor the sacrifice of American veterans and their families. In SFGate, we find remembrance of vets, including from our own Craig Newmark, and in San Francisco, we held our modest annual Veterans Day Parade. I join the chorus saluting veterans.
But, there is one group of vets we fail to honor -- gay members of the military.
In his 2010 State of the Union address, President Obama vowed, "This year, I will work with Congress and our military to finally repeal the law that denies gay Americans the right to serve the country they love because of who they are." The long-term solution requires action from Congress, since Don't Ask, Don't Tell (DADT) is congressional law. As noted in the SF Chronicle yesterday, the repeal of DADT is now facing bleak prospects in Congress.
This is an all too familiar story for me. In 1993, I served as a spokesperson for the incoming Clinton administration. Candidate Clinton had vowed to end discrimination against gays in the military, but the military and members of Congress pushed back, and the result was the DADT law. As a spokesperson, I defended the new law, but when I went back to the Air Force, I found that DADT created a system that leaves homosexual servicemembers and their chain of command in an awkward conspiracy of institutionalized closeting and denial.
President Obama and his advisors, remembering 1993, wanted to ensure their efforts were not side-tracked by another fight over gays in the military. This may have been politically prudent, but gay military members continued to be drummed out of service; their experience and talents lost in a time of war. In the interim, DADT has meandered in Congress and had been challenged and re-challenged in the courts.
Imagine the state of our society if President Truman had left desegregation of the military to the courts to decide or if LBJ had taken a soft line on civil rights legislation due to fears about losing white voters in the South. In both these cases, the president took unpopular actions, because it was the right thing to do. We call this courage, which is one of the qualities we honor in our veterans. It is also a quality that is too scarce in Washington, DC, particularly on the DADT repeal effort. As the DoD survey clearly indicates, military members and their leaders are ready to end this discrimination.
On Veterans Day 2010, it is time for our political leadership to emulate vets by showing the personal courage to renew efforts to repeal Don't Ask, Don't Tell--which costs us dearly and is unfair to homosexual servicemembers who have volunteered to serve in wartime.
Paul Clarke is a retired Air Force officer, who served on the White House staffs of Presidents George H. W. Bush and Bill Clinton. He is a senior fellow at the Truman National Security Project. The views expressed are his own.
| Nov 11 at 11:35 AM
Wednesday, November 03, 2010
Election 2010 and Obama's foreign policy
While President Obama and Congress enacted considerable domestic policy the past two years, foreign policy initiatives often take much longer to bear fruit. Such is the case with the New START agreement with Russia, which was signed in April of this year but awaits Senate ratification.
The incoming GOP wave is sure to drive opposition to many Obama foreign policy goals and perhaps boost others. Foreign Policy magazine profiled some of the leaders who will be empowered by the elections. These include: Rep. Eric Cantor, likely House majority leader, who takes a hard line on most foreign aid, and Senator Jim DeMint, who strongly opposes the New START. Of course, the Tea Party element is also likely to bring a new flavor to foreign policy debates. Some areas to watch:
Afghanistan: Support for President Obama's expanded mission in Afghanistan is likely to be somewhat greater in the short-term, although the chorus by hawks for ignoring his July 2011 drawdown schedule is also likely to grow. This impetus will be balanced by a drive to cut the...
Defense Budget: Defense is still sacrosanct in Congress, since nobody wants to undercut the troops in wartime, but there is good reason to believe the worm is turning. Deficit hawks will be boosted by Tea Party expectations of budget reductions, and there are few other places where the spending is both large and discretionary. Secretary Gates proved that modest cuts can be sold to the public, and the recent British slashing give some credibility to big cuts. On the other hand, the anticipated departure of Robert Gates is likely to reduce President Obama's ability to sell his defense policy as bipartisan. The real question is whether we have the will to cut unneeded weapon systems and reduce commitments overseas. Either way, cuts are needed, but the flipside is the likely targeting of... Read More 'Election 2010 and Obama's foreign policy ' »
| Nov 03 at 05:35 PM
Editor's note:
This is an SFGate.com City Brights Blog. These blogs are not written or edited by SFGate or the San Francisco Chronicle. The authors are solely responsible for the content.
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