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Turkey: A Look In From the Outside

By Patricia H. Kushlis

Earlier this week, Bloomberg reported that the Turkish police had arrested two retired generals, the head of Ankara’s main business lobby and 21 others affiliated with an ultra-right wing group in a failed coup plot against the Turkish government.

Military takeovers in Turkey were part of the political landscape for years but, if I remember correctly, they were normally restricted to the highest ranks of the active duty Turkish armed forces. They were usually successful. They only occurred when actions by civilian politicians threatened to destroy the country and, as a consequence, they also had considerable popular support.

This week’s reported coup plot and the arrests made met none of those criteria.

That was then . . .

When I first visited Turkey in January 1979, the country was on the verge of collapse. The economy was in shambles. Gas lines were long, inflation was rampant, trading on the black market for dollars was ubiquitous, even coffee – that staple of all Turkish staples – was scarce. The migration of villagers from the plains and mountains of Anatolia to the slums of Istanbul in search of a better life had already begun and the country’s infrastructure and leaders couldn’t cope with the strains.

The political system was in chaos: caught between ultra right and extreme left – street fights and murders had become all too common place. Eighteen months later – when I was filling in for three weeks on the Turkish desk at the then US Information Agency, the military moved in and restored order ushering in – as it turned out – the beginning of a new and far more prosperous and stable era.

This is now. . .

Since then Turkey – and Turkish politics – have come a long way despite ups and downs, slips and slides. Yet, every so often the Turkish political system confronts a crisis as is happening again this summer. This latest crisis – in which the Constitutional Court has not only been asked to declare the ruling moderate Islamist party illegal and ban the government’s leaders from power but has also agreed to rule on this contentious issue - is unlike any this country has ever confronted. The Bloomberg report hints, at least, that the recent arrests may be the government’s response to its establishment challengers.

A changing Turkey

Yet, what is less understood is that the rules of the game – and some of the players themselves - have changed because over the past decades Turkish society itself has substantially changed. As a result, even banning the ruling party and its leaders will not, repeat not, eliminate moderate Islamists from the Turkish political scene.

When in the Course of human events...

by Cheryl Rofer

The Los Angeles Times has annotated the Declaration of Independence in today's mode, with hyperlinks.

Check it out. Even if you don't click on the links, it's worth reading again.

America's Unsuccessful War in Pakistan

By Patricia Lee Sharpe

Pakistan is the world’s sixth largest country, with a population of nearly 168,000,000 people, most of them Muslims, which means there are multiple deeply held divergences in the interpretation and practice of Islam, although these chasms may disappear when outside force is applied—U.S. force included. To understand this dynamic, Americans might remember how bipartisanship crops up when external threats appear. So Americans should not be surprised that even relatively secular urban Pakistanis are not enthusiastic about American efforts to vigorously pursue or eradicate “Islamist insurgents” within their northern borderland. There is certainly a problem of law and order in the Federally Administered Tribal Areas, a problem that is acquiring urgency because the ferment is spilling out and into other parts of Pakistan. Terrorists have threatened Islamabad and Lahore as well as the ever volatile megacity of Karachi, for example. Above all, longstanding, largely tacit understandings about cultural autonomy and spheres of influence within and across national boundaries have been abused and violated by many players.

But employing the Pakistani Army to slaughter unruly tribals by the hundreds or thousands in order to pluck Osama bin laden, America’s Enemy Number One, out of his mountainous safe haven would appear, to most Pakistanis, like swatting a fly with an atom bomb: a strategy certain to do more harm than good. And Pakistan is jealous of its sovereignty.

“Half of all Pakistanis want their government to negotiate and not fight Al Qaeda, with less than a third saying military action by the Pakistani government is called for,” according to a recent poll by Terror Free Tomorrow. They'd prefer to negotiate with the Afghan and Pakistan Taliban, too. Some 73 per cent of those polled said that “the real purpose of [America's] war on terror is to weaken the Muslim world and dominate Pakistan.” Part of me wonders if a more effective Public Diplomacy effort might have led to less negativity. Part of me replies, "It's the policy, stupid."

American policymakers should pay attention to such disheartening poll results. Pakistan, as a semi-cooperative ally, is endlessly exasperating to American policy makers. Pakistan as a sullen ex-ally would be far worse, and all it would take to accomplish such a divorce is the capture and public parading of a few U.S. special forces operatives nabbed on the Pakistani side of the border with Afghanistan. The furor over America's border-crossing bombs, called in to kill alleged insurgents who turned out to be Pakistan Border Corps troops, of whom 11 died, gives a tiny hint of the likely reaction. American popularity in Pakistan is at an all time low these days, while sympathy for Al Qaeda’s goals, if not the violence with which those goals are pursued, is rising. Thus, the secular elite that has been governing Pakistan since its inception is increasingly under siege. To stay in power the non-religious parties must maintain their nationalist if not their Islamist credentials. A popular way of criticizing Pervez Musharraf, George W. Bush’s increasingly marginalized ally in the “war against terror,” is to call him an American tool.

Hands Across the Border

Once upon a time India served as the juicy scapegoat for Pakistan’s nationalists, and not so long ago outside observers worried that India (or Pakistan) might inadvertently (or intentionally) lob a nuclear device across the border. To defend the brand new country against the threat of Indian irredentism is what the Pakistan army was created for. And why did Pakistan originally encourage the activities of violent Islamists who are now, in classic blowback fashion, threatening a form of Islamic revolution within Pakistan itself? Why, to weaken India on the cheap, by forcing New Delhi to deal with incessant insurgency in Muslim majority Kashmir.

But things may be changing on the Indian front. When asked the tired old question as to whether a “foreign hand” might be “fanning trouble in the tribal belt,” Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani replied “yes.” Yet India wasn’t named this time. The alleged culprits were “some foreigners from Central Asian States.” No doubt American policymakers would have preferred a Gilani diatribe against Arabs, as in Osama bin Laden, or Egyptians, as in Aymen Al Zawahri, but the latest series of talks between India and Pakistan seem to be achieving some degree of trust between the traditional enemies. The still wary neighbors are discussing peach and security, confidence building measures in Kashmir, economic ties, prisoner exchanges and anti-terrorism.

Better yet, from that point of view, a recent editorial in Dawn applauds the new sanity:

....detente between Indian and Pakistan will impact positively on global politics. With no signs of Islamabad winning the “war on terror” in the immediate future and the militants recognizing no borders, a wise strategy demands that India and Pakistan join hands in their security endeavour.

However, the Dawn editorial ends with a twist that may not please Washington:

In that context their agreement...to hold meetings of their anti-terrorism mechanism regularly is encouraging. It would also reduce Islamabad’s dependence on Washington in world politics.

Speaking of Washington, when asked about making Pakistan’s Dr. Strangelove, Dr. Abdul Qadeer Khan, available for further interrogation from IAEA as a result of recently uncovered evidence that his one-man proliferation operation was even more generous than previously known, Gilani said, “the issue of Dr. Qadeer is over.” This will displease the Americans. So will Gilani’s present position on the Pakistani nuclear weapons program: “we are not a rogue state and are neither indulging in an arms race with any one” although “minimum deterrence will be maintained in this regard.

Desperately Seeking Bin Laden

Above all, the Americans are definitely not happy with Pakistan’s failure to nab Osama bin Laden or to permit American forces to nip over the border from Afghanistan to do the job for them.

Tuesday Buffalo Gourd Blogging

by Cheryl Rofer

Last year, I bought a packet of buffalo gourd (Cucurbita foetidissima) seeds. Buffalo gourd (which I've previously known as coyote melon) is a luxurious plant I've always wanted in my yard. It is a perennial curcibit, spreading its vines of leathery gray-green leaves over an area tens of feet across, with curcibit-yellow flowers, smaller than those of summer squash or pumpkin, that result in little yellow gourds.

I planted some seeds last year in a place that I particularly wanted my buffalo gourd vine: very sandy, overlooking my rose and lilac bushes, to cover an area that seemed unlikely to support much else. Nothing.

Earlier this year, I sprouted some buffalo gourd seeds and planted them in multiple places around the yard. Nothing. I planted a few in flower pots in the house. They didn't get enough sun and became very leggy and so soft that they died the first day in the sun.

I sprouted more seeds and planted them in pots outside. The cotyledons, those funny-looking leaves that first emerge from the seed, were bitten off, I think by the local towhees. But one plant survived. It is still in the pot during these dry days, basil below and parsley above.

I also planted a few seeds in an indoor pot and put it in the sunniest spot in the house. Two of them came up and did quite well. I put them outside to harden up, and they did well until the towhees found them. You can see the lesser damage to the cotyledons on the larger one; they were totally bitten off the smaller one. I suppose I could put this pot outside now, but I am wary.

It's been horrendously dry for at least a month now. I drove through a rainstorm yesterday that ended just north of my house. These two plants are doing reasonably well, and the third may come along. I'm going to wait until the rains come to plant them in that sandy place.

My googling shows that some think there may be all sorts of uses for buffalo gourd. I'll be happy if those gray-green leaves take over that area above the roses.

POW Experience and the Presidency

by Cheryl Rofer

When I heard Wesley Clark say, on Sunday, that while John McCain's behavior as a prisoner of war was honorable, it wasn't a job qualification for the presidency, I breathed a sigh of relief that at last someone was calling the McCain campaign, and possibly even more so, the media, on the unthinking conflation of things military with things civilian.

McCain's POW experience speaks to a particular kind of military discipline and honor. Those qualities have some relevance to the character traits we want in a president. But too often, McCain's POW experience seems to stand in for experience in foreign affairs, military command, and numerous other intellectual/managerial qualities we want in a president. I thought that Clark made the distinction nicely, and that it was a distinction that needed saying.

So ensues the faux outrage over any criticism of anything military. Andrew Bacevich has pointed out the militarization of our society, which includes putting military experience beyond criticism. Today he has an op-ed in the Boston Globe that speaks to other matters, but it has some relevance to the Clark furor.

The challenge facing Obama is clear: he must go beyond merely pointing out the folly of the Iraq war; he must demonstrate that Iraq represents the truest manifestation of an approach to national security that is fundamentally flawed, thereby helping Americans discern the correct lessons of that misbegotten conflict.

The problem with a lifetime of honorable service in the military, intensified by experience as a POW, is that it can produce a mindset that elevates that military. McCain's membership in today's Republican party and everything he has said so far on the Iraq war suggest that he shares this mindset, part of the militarization of our society.

So I'm joining others in the blogosphere in saying that Wesley Clark said nothing wrong. In fact, what he said could be a beginning of disentangling American security from mindless militarism.

Others commenting:

Ezra Klein

Kevin Drum

Jason Sigger

Cernig

Ron Beasley

Libby

Congregations Against Torture

by Cheryl Rofer

I drove past the Santa Fe Unitarian Universalist Church this afternoon, after viewing "Constantine's Sword," which is about Christianity and antisemitism and, I might add, power. The sign in front was covered with a black banner with white letters condemning torture. I commented to my passenger that the antiwar movement of the sixties and early seventies included more church people than the priests and nuns depicted in the movie, and it was about time to see the churches taking a stand on torture.

I was wondering about how much of a movement might be developing, so I checked for news stories. Apparently the movement is among individual congregations, mostly Catholic and mainline Protestant denominations, but including Jewish congregations and a few others for a total of about 300.

The Washington Times is one of the few newspapers bothering to cover this development, at least according to what I find in Google News. Papers in localities where the signs are going up are also covering the news. (Corvallis, Oregon; River City, Iowa; Atlanta)

Here's the Video

by Cheryl Rofer

via Barron YoungSmith and Kevin Drum.

But Kevin, Barron has it, well, not quite right.

It's not "largely irreversible." There are other possible ways to cool the Yongbyon reactor, as was pointed out not totally convincingly in the release of information about that Syrian building the Israelis targeted.

I know, we all like to think of those hyperboloid towers as emblematic of and essential to nuclear plants. But they just run cooling water through them to get rid of the excess heat a power plant produces. They're on coal plants as well, and sometimes industrial plants.

It would be more irreversible to fill the reactor vessel with concrete. That would be irreversible.

And any country can throw the inspectors out, any time. They're just people, not even armed.

But I hate to seem to be coming out on the side of John Bolton.

It's a good thing that this was done, in both practical and symbolic ways. Perhaps even more important that the North Koreans encouraged recording of the event. I've been looking forward to posting the video.

And hey! How about some positive coverage for the Los Alamos National Laboratory? They've been working on the disablement for some time now, the real stuff that can make this irreversible. Even wearing suits in hot summer weather -- that's really a sacrifice for Los Alamos scientists. (6/30 - I see that Jeffrey now says that that's not Kevin Veal in the suit. I don't know Kevin and I don't know who it is in the suit.)

Where have all the public diplomacy specialists gone?

By Patricia H. Kushlis

You have to hand it to the US Advisory Commission on Public Diplomacy for engaging in what must have been a Herculean tooth pulling exercise with the State Department’s normally secretive Human Resources Division in an endeavor to determine what has happened to America’s public diplomacy specialists since 1999 when much of the U.S. Information Agency was slurped up by State. This is the subject of the Commission’s most recent report. It has a terrific title “Getting the People Part Right” and is the first report I’ve seen on the topic. It raises many of the right questions. Now almost ten years since 1999, this report, its approach and the resultant findings (and more) are badly needed.

Alarming

Anyone interested in learning about how the vast majority of civilian professionals tasked with tending America’s image abroad are being treated at Foggy Bottom and in US Embassies abroad should read this 45 page report. It is well written, organized and thought provoking. It explores recruiting, hiring, training, bureaucratic structures, institutional cultures as well as career advancement and the ever important question of impact - all in non-jargon laden terms.

In short, despite all the Bush administration’s rhetoric about the importance of public diplomacy and Condi Rice’s maxim that “we all do public diplomacy,” the State Department has too often neglected the very people who are tasked to “do public diplomacy.” Moreover, it has failed to provide the additional training necessary to enable Ambassadors or other high level embassy officials to “do” even a smiggen of public diplomacy right either.

It’s not for no reason that many public diplomacy specialists who could leave, left at the first opportunity or planned to leave as soon as possible after the consolidation announcement in fall 1997. And it’s also not for no reason that the US military has subsequently inserted its own information operations specialists into US Embassies abroad – presumably to pick up the slack in human capital missing from State.

State’s “Red-haired step children”

In my experience, far too often too few State Department officers ever understood how to use public diplomacy staff, programs and funding effectively. When I joined the Foreign Service in 1970, public diplomacy specialists were derisively labeled “red haired step children” by State. It’s clear that this part of the equation has not changed.

Unfortunately, this latest public diplomacy report demonstrates that public diplomacy officers remain State’s red-haired step-children. Despite the fact that the Department couldn’t wait to get its hands on USIA (in particular its budget) in its Greater State Department expansionary days under then Secretary Madeleine Albright who had made a devil’s pact with then Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chair Jesse Helms to sell out USIA, the public diplomacy specialty remains among the two most popular among new recruits. But unless things change quickly, the reality is that if these newly minted public diplomacy diplomats want to get ahead they need to shift into some other field and rapidly.

What should be the requirements for public diplomacy specialists?

There’s much to-ing and fro-ing and tut-tutting in the report with respect to lack of specialized recruitment and training for public diplomacy officers. I don’t doubt that it is real. But I wonder: what sorts of people would make good public diplomacy officers as opposed to, say, political officers? Is there really that much of a qualitative difference?

Senators McCain and Obama: How Will they Vote on the Wheelchair Bill?

By Patricia Lee Sharpe

While Obama and McCain play to the crowd on the oil price crunch, Congress is playing games with Medicare.

On the one hand, we have Republican politicians shouting that we can’t afford Medicare, much less universal health care, which many Democrats more or less support, while clinging to various coy and complex reservations. I include Obama in this flirtation with meeting American’s health needs, because he has not, to my mind, been sufficiently comprehensive in his goals or clear in his assertions. McCain is essentially for total health care privatization, which definitely won’t help to raise America’s life expectancy stats to a respectable level.

On the other hand, Congressional leaders of BOTH parties, it seems, have voted to undercut efforts to halt Medicare over payments for medical devices. It seems that an elderly or post-operative person who is a little wobbly can buy an ordinary walker in a big box store for half what it would cost Medicare to provide the same item.

How can this be? Simple. Current procurement policies for Medicare don’t require suppliers to bid competitively on contracts to supply such devices. This bit of federal assistance, a brazen subsidy to the private sector of the sort that "Conservatives" are addicted to, was going to be eliminated by Congressional reformers.

But then the industry got to work on our representatives and presto!!!! More of our tax dollars funneled—approximately $1,000,000,000—to the undeserving. That’s big business bed-manufacturers, not beggars. The system isn’t being milked by illegal immigrants, it seems. It’s being bilked by the free enterprise types who typically hate competition. It's so inefficient.

Inang Bayan’s New Clothes – A Book Review Essay

By Patricia H. Kushlis

Shhh. This delightful children’s book may – or may not - be off-limits to Americans. So let’s pretend you didn’t hear about it from me. But it’s a best seller in the Philippines.

I first learned about Inang Bayan’s New Clothes from one of the few informative articles I’ve come across of late in State the State Department’s in-house magazine so I sent out feelers to see if I could obtain a copy.

Don’t ask how I got it but I did.

That’s best kept part of my “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy – because of an outdated law known as Smith-Mundt that restricts Americans’ access to learning what our taxpayers’ dollars are supporting overseas. Thanks to the Internet, however, you can at least see American Ambassador Kristie Kenney on the US Embassy’s webpage reading from the book to a group of Filipino girls in 2006 when it first appeared. It then took over a year for the story to appear in State – but better late than never.

Suffice it to say that I’ll bet you never dreamed that US government money would help finance a story about two Filipino girls – Feliza and Nurhana, one Christian and the other Muslim – who live in Mindanao, work in a dress shop after school and despite their families’ religious differences are best of friends.

The purpose of this book is to promote inter-communal understanding – and it is clearly aimed at Filipino girls. It is full of pretty clothes, lovely pictures, and paper dolls to dress. In so doing, it shows the multi-ethnic heritage of Filipinos and it also depicts how it is possible – two girls at a time - to play a part in overcoming the devastating religious cleavage that has bedeviled the southern-most part of the archipelago for years. The name Inang Bayan means the Philippine Motherland or Spirit. It dates back - at least - to the early 1900s. Inang Bayan is also known as the "first muse" of Philippine poets.

In short, this little paperback book with cut-outable inserts is a winner.

Its authors – Tony Perez and Agnes Caballa - are veteran Filipino public diplomacy staff at the US Embassy in Manila and its illustrator is Frances Alcaraz, a illustrator and Ateneo de Manila University professor. Perez is an award winning author in his own right and Caballa is a television script writer, lyricist and stage director, as well as co-editor of the magazine Muslim Life in the Philippines. The book was published by Anvil, a major Filipino publishing house, and its publication and production was financed by the U.S. government. Inang Bayan’s New Clothes is, apparently, still in print – or perhaps back in print because it is so popular. But don't expect to find it on Amazon. The text is in both Cebuano (the language of Mindanao) and English.

Now you might ask why the US government would invest in a children’s book of this sort. It’s not, after all, about promoting the US image abroad. But in the event you’ve forgotten, in 2002 the US sent a small number of troops to the Philippines to help the Philippine armed forces cope with Mindanao-based Muslim insurgents including those with ties to Al Qaeda. As far as I can tell, the insurgents as well as Philippine and US troops are still there and the government’s long-standing insurgency problem has yet to be resolved for numerous reasons.

Yet Inang Bayan’s New Clothes is, at the very least, a tiny – delightful - step in the right direction.