Publication of the Research/Action Team on Nonviolent Large Systems Change,
an interorganizational project of the Organization Development Institute

LETTERS:  DIALOGUING

AN OPEN LETTER TO THE AMERICAN PEOPLE:

729 security scholars want 'fundamental reassessment' of Iraq war policy

           Security Scholars for a Sensible Foreign Policy, October 2004, http://www.sensibleforeignpolicy.net/letter.html

     We, a nonpartisan group of foreign affairs specialists, have joined together to call urgently for a change of course in American foreign and national security policy.   We judge that the current American policy centered around the war in Iraq is the most misguided one since the Vietnam period, one which harms the cause of the struggle against extreme Islamist terrorists. One result has been a great distortion in the terms of public debate on foreign and national security policy -- an emphasis on speculation instead of facts, on mythology instead of calculation, and on misplaced moralizing over considerations of national interest.[1] We write to challenge some of these distortions.

     Although we applaud the Bush Administration for its initial focus on destroying al-Qaida bases in Afghanistan, its failure to engage sufficient U.S. troops to capture or kill the mass of al-Qaida fighters in the later stages of that war was a great blunder. It is a fact that the early shift of U.S. focus to Iraq diverted U.S. resources, including special operations forces and intelligence capabilities, away from direct pursuit of the fight against the terrorists.[2]

     Many of the justifications offered by the Bush Administration for the war in Iraq have been proven untrue by credible studies, including by U.S. government agencies.   There is no evidence that Iraq assisted al-Qaida, and its prewar involvement in

international terrorism was negligible.[3]   Iraq?s arsenal of chemical and biological weapons was negligible, and its nuclear weapons program virtually nonexistent.[4]   In comparative terms, Iran is and was much the greater sponsor of terrorism, and North Korea and Pakistan pose much the greater risk of nuclear proliferation to terrorists.   Even on moral grounds, the case for war was dubious:   the war itself has killed over a thousand Americans and unknown thousands of Iraqis, and if the threat of civil war becomes reality, ordinary Iraqis could be even worse off than they were under Saddam Hussein. The Administration knew most of these facts and risks before the war, and could have discovered the others, but instead it played down, concealed or misrepresented them.

      Policy errors during the occupation and reconstruction of Iraq have created a situation in Iraq worse than it needed to be.   Spurning the advice of Army Chief of Staff General Shinseki, the Administration committed an inadequate number of troops to the occupation, leading to the continuing failure to establish security in Iraq. Ignoring prewar planning by the State Department and other US government agencies, it created a needless security vacuum by disbanding the Iraqi Army, and embarked on a poorly planned and ineffective reconstruction effort which to date has managed to spend only a fraction of the money earmarked for it.[5] As a result, Iraqi popular dismay at the lack of security, jobs or reliable electric power fuels much of the violent opposition to the U.S. military presence, while the war itself has drawn in terrorists from outside Iraq.

     The results of this policy have been overwhelmingly negative for U.S. interests.[6]   While the removal of Saddam Hussein's regime was desirable, the benefit to the U.S. was small as prewar inspections had already proven the extreme weakness of his WMD programs, and therefore the small size of the threat he posed.   On the negative side, the excessive U.S. focus on Iraq led

to weak and inadequate responses to the greater challenges posed by North Korea's and Iran's nuclear programs, and diverted resources from the economic and diplomatic efforts needed to fight terrorism in its breeding grounds in Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, and elsewhere in the Middle East. Worse, American actions in Iraq, including but not limited to the scandal of Abu Ghraib, have harmed the reputation of the U.S. in most parts of the Middle East and, according to polls, made Osama Bin Laden more popular in some countries than is President Bush. This increased popularity makes it easier for al-Qaida to raise money, attract recruits, and carry out its terrorist operations than would otherwise be the case.

     Recognizing these negative consequences of the Iraq war, in addition to the cost in lives and money, we believe that a fundamental reassessment is in order. Significant improvements are needed in our strategy in Iraq and the implementation of that strategy.   We call urgently for an open debate on how to achieve these ends, one informed by attention to the facts on the ground in Iraq, the facts of al-Qaida?s methods and strategies, and sober attention to American interests and values.

Signed --There were 729 signatures as of 6:00 PM on 13 October 2004. The list of signatures is at: http://www.sensibleforeignpolicy.net/signatories.html.

NOTES

[1] On the mythology, see Jack Snyder, "Imperial Temptations," The National Interest , Spring 2003.

[2] See, e.g., James Fallows, "Bush?s Lost Year," The Atlantic , October 2004.

[3] National Commission on Terrorist Attacks, "The 9/11 Commission Report: Final Report of the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States," (W.W. Norton & Co., 2004).

[4] The Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, "WMD in Iraq: Evidence and Implications," January 2004; Chaim Kaufmann, "Threat Inflation and the Failure of the Marketplace of Ideas: The Selling of the Iraq War," International Security , vol. 29, no. 1 (Summer 2004). Weapons inspector Charles Duelfer concluded Saddam's Iraq had no stockpiles of weapons of mass destruction in an interview on NPR?s "All Things Considered," October 6, 2004.

[5] See, e.g., James Fallows, "Blind Into Baghdad," The Atlantic , January/February 2004; Peter W. Galbraith, "Iraq: The Bungled Transition," New York Review of Books , September 23, 2004; David M. Edelstein, "Occupational Hazards: Why Military Occupations Succeed or Fail," International Security , Vol. 29, No. 1 (Summer 2004), Robin Wright and Thomas E. Rick, "Bremer Criticizes Troop Levels" Washington Post , October 5, 2004.

[6] On negative impacts on the war on terrorism, see Mia Bloom, Dying to Kill: The Allure of Suicide Terrorism (New York: Columbia University Press, forthcoming); Ivan Arreguin-Toft, "Tunnel at the End ofthe Light: A Critique of U.S. Counter-Terrorist Grand Strategy," Cambridge Review of International Affairs, vol. 15, no. 3 (2002); Robert A. Pape, "The StrategicLogic of Suicide Terrorism," American Political Science Review 97, no. 3 (August 2003), and "Dying to Kill Us," New York Times , September 22, 2003, p. A17; Anonymous, Imperial Hubris (Washington, DC: Brassey?s, 2004). Regarding problems in Iraq itself, see Anthony H. Cordesman, "The Critical Role of Iraqi Military, Security, and Police Forces: Necessity, Problems, and Progress," Center for Strategic and International Studies, Third Revised Draft: September 27, 2004 (3.1); David Rapoport, "The Fourth Wave: September 11 in the History of Terrorism," Current History (December 2001);and Douglas Jehl, "US Intelligence Shows Pessimism On Iraq's Future," The New York Times , September 16, 2004, page A1.

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LETTER FROM SEARCH FOR COMMON GROUND, Fall 2004

     Unfortunately, the gap between the US and the Islamic world appears to be widening. There are profound differences over both policy and perceptions. On both sides, most people seem unable to comprehend the worldview of the other - and to move beyond ignorance and stereotyping.   Without assigning blame, we feel there is an urgent need to transcend mutual resentment and encourage a sense of common humanity.

     PARTNERS IN HUMANITY. In 2002, in partnership with Prince Hassan bin Talal of Jordan, we established Partners in Humanity.   The idea was to launch a two-way process for sharing culture, technology, and moderate values. As Prince Hassan said,

<>     Those who promote hatred are energetic and organized.   We can be more energetic and more organized than that enemy.   We must become more proactive, may I say aggressive, about moderation.   We must enhance what is universal and cultivate respect for our differences.
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     Concrete Action. In July 2003, with funding from the Carnegie Corporation of New York, Partners in Humanity convened 60 leaders of NGOs, government agencies, international organizations, and the media in Amman, Jordan.   Participants recommended a list of activities, which we are currently implementing:

            *News Service.   We are expanding our Common Ground News Service (CGNews), which originally focused on the Israeli-Palestinian struggle, to include the whole Islamic world.   CGNews distributes solutions-oriented, tolerance-building articles to newspapers, websites, and 11,000 individual subscribers. Over 1,200 of its articles have been reprinted by leading publications.       

            *TV Production.   Common Ground Productions produces television programming that helps build consensus. Examples include:   The Shape of the Future, a four-part documentary series, to be broadcast this fall in the Middle East, that shows agreements are possible in the Palestinian-Israeli conflict without threatening either party's national existence; and Nashe Maalo, a dramatic children's TV series, aired in Macedonia for five years, that promotes understanding between Christian Macedonians and Muslim Albanians.

            *Training.   Radio and TV talk shows usually have a polarizing impact. However, we believe that talk shows can also be used to bring people together, and we train journalists in how to do this. Recently, with funding from the US State Department, we sponsored two five-day trainings for Middle Eastern talk show hosts and producers, one at Al-Jazeera's training center in Qatar and one in London. We also have sponsored similar trainings for Palestinian journalists on the West Bank and in Gaza.

            *Connecting Youth. In partnership with Solis, an NGO that combines technology and bridge-building - and with funding from the Compton Foundation - we are sponsoring a project to use electronic media to promote dialogue between students in Egypt, Jordan, Lebanon, the Palestinian territories, and Qatar and their counterparts at US universities. The students engage in facilitated video-conferencing for a semester and produce short video segments about divisive issues. These video clips are then exchanged and distributed through the internet, TV, CGNews, and the Common Ground Film Festival.

            *Boarding Schools. The Western press often refers to Islamic boarding schools in Indonesia, called pesantren, as places where extreme views are taught.   We have started a pilot project on the island of Madura to promote peace education in    pesantren. We work in partnership with local educators to encourage a non-zero-sum approach to religion, and we hope to replicate this project elsewhere.

            *World Economic Forum. We have formed a strategic partnership with the World Economic Forum, the Davos, Switzerland-based organization that regularly convenes top world leaders. Specifically, we are providing a secretariat to support concrete measures for Islamic-Western cooperation. Shamil Idriss, who previously did extraordinary service as our Chief Operating Officer, and Oussama Safa, who headed our Morocco project, are directing this effort for us.   

     SOAP MEISTER. This spring, we passed a milestone when we produced our 2,000th episode of radio soap opera. We believe that soap - radio drama - is a highly effective way to reach mass audiences with themes of non-violent conflict resolution.  

     Shifting Consciousness. In Burundi we have produced Our Neighbors, Ourselves since 1996   The series tells the story of a Hutu family and a Tutsi family who, in 616 episodes, so far, have succeeded in resolving their disputes peacefully. Burundi is a small media market, where polls show the series reaches 87% of the population. Indeed, the impact has got to the point where our fictional characters have become part of national folklore, and we are, in effect, defining Burundian archetypes. Roger Conrad, an official with USAID, our principal funder, describes the impact thusly:  

     You have introduced the vocabulary of peace and reconciliation to the national conversation at all levels, where previously only words of hate and mistrust were heard.

     Cleaning Up. In Sierra Leone, our daily soap, called Atunda Ayenda (Lost and Found) has run 683 episodes. The fictionalized characters focus on disarmament, demobilization, and reintegration and on the profound social issues involved in rebuilding a shattered nation.   The impact can be seen in the following incident:   In the capital city of Freetown, there has long been extremely poor garbage collection, and our scriptwriters have regularly called attention to the problem.   We hoped that corrective action would be taken, but nothing happened.   So finally, we sent a producer to talk to the Public Relations Officer of the Ministry of Health. But the PR man kept avoiding the producer.   Our local production team, committed to peaceful dispute resolution, came up with a creative approach. They aired an episode that portrayed the Public Relations Officer as a mute and asked the question of why should a person who cannot talk be assigned to such a job. The very next morning when our office opened, the PR Officer was literally waiting on the doorstep.   He wanted to make a statement about how to improve the sanitation problem.   Shortly thereafter, the government reorganized the sanitation department, and the situation has improved markedly.    

     Local Content. Bukavu in Eastern Congo is one of the more difficult places where we work. Still, our Congolese team produces a weekly soap, now in its 93rd episode, called Jirani ni Ndugu (My Neighbor, My Brother). The series addresses issues that are very much on the minds of listeners:

            *The idea that politicians serve all the people, instead of their own ethnic group

            *Illegal road taxes (usually shakedowns) demanded by the army

            *Families whose children were seized by armed groups during the war

            *Land disputes between neighbors (In at least one case, a longstanding local conflict was settled by the exact same process used in an episode of the soap.)   

     COMMON GROUND FILM FESTIVALS. Like all media, film has the ability both to inflame and defuse conflict. Unfortunately, few filmmakers use their immense power to portray peaceful conflict resolution.   For our part, we try to encourage and honor filmmaking that does this. Since 2001 we have sponsored annual Common Ground Film Festivals in Washington. This year's Festival will be held October 19-22 at George Washington University's Elliott School.   In addition, we have sponsored Festivals in India, Indonesia, Guyana, and East Africa, along with university film series on such campuses as Columbia, Harvard, Missouri, Tufts, and Wisconsin.      

     This Year in Jerusalem. In June, in partnership with the Jerusalem International YMCA, we held a Common Ground Film Festival.   The gala opening featured Monsieur Ibrahim, the story of an elderly Muslim shopkeeper (Omar Sharif) who befriends a Jewish teenager in Paris in the 1950s. The standing-room-only audience seemed to enjoy the film, but beyond that the Israelis, Palestinians, and internationals present were clearly glorying in the atmosphere of coexistence. Many people lingered at a reception that lasted well into the night as they ate food prepared by Chefs for Peace and got a sense of how life could possibly be different in Jerusalem. Funding came from the Dutch Embassy in Tel Aviv, the Dutch Representative Office in Ramallah, the Francophone Community of Belgium, the Office of Public Affairs of the US Embassy in Tel Aviv, the Office of Public Affairs of the US Consulate General in Jerusalem, and USAID.

     UKRAINE:   RESTORATIVE JUSTICE. As conflict resolution practitioners, we are interested in finding ways to transform wrongdoing and injustice. The goal is to heal the harm caused by destructive behavior - while at the same time, assuring that offenders accept responsibility for their misdeeds. Justice that restores can often be more effective than justice that punishes or exacts revenge.   On the individual level, victim-offender mediation can be used to make a victim whole. On a societal level, truth and reconciliation commissions, like the one that operated in South Africa, can help restore equilibrium in a society damaged by wrongdoing.  

     Institutionalization. In Ukraine, with funding from the Institute for Sustainable Communities, the UK Government, and the European Union, we have launched an initiative to develop a locally based restorative justice model and to train a cadre of specialists to apply it. In May, our team in Kiev, led by Roman Koval, scored a major success when Ukraine's Supreme Court adopted a resolution that recommends the use of restorative justice by Ukrainian courts and urges them to work with non-governmental organizations (NGOs), like us, "that aim to achieve reconciliation."  

     IMPACT ON POLICY. Cheyanne Church, our Director of Institutional Learning and Research, and Mari Fitzduff, Director of the Master's Program in Coexistence and Conflict at Brandeis University, have edited a new book, NGOs at the Table: Strategies for Influencing Policy in Areas of Conflict. The book describes the activities of a number of NGOs that have successfully influenced both policy and program development in conflicts throughout the world. One chapter by Susan Collin Marks, our Executive Vice President, and Amr Abdalla, Dean of Academic Programs at the University of Peace in Costa Rica, describes the impact of our Great Lakes Policy Forums in Washington, DC and Brussels.

     INDIVIDUAL INVESTMENT. We have established a vision-based fundraising program to raise awareness about our work and give individuals an opportunity to contribute. At the heart of this program are short introductory events which supporters host in their homes and offices. To date the response has been overwhelmingly positive, as guests share their frustration about world events and their desire to help create a safer future.   The actress Kathleen Turner and her husband Jay Weiss hosted such an event in July.   Other events will take place in New York on October 5 and 6 and Washington on October 28. These meetings will be followed by our annual fundraising events where people will have an opportunity to invest in SFCG. These events are scheduled for New York on November 16 and Washington on November 18.   If you are interested in attending or hosting an event, please contact Shannon Greenspan at sgreenspan@sfcg.org.   

     THANK YOU.   We are able to do the work that we do because people and institutions see fit to invest in our work.   We are extremely grateful for what we receive.

                                                                                                With best wishes,

                                                                                                John Marks, President

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THOUGHTS FROM INGRID SATO:
THE WORST OF NATURE IS EVOKING THE BEST OF MANKIND

     If there is any good news, it is that the worst of nature is evoking the best in mankind. The U.S. expects to provide at least $350 million in initial aid, and other nations also are promising money, rescue workers and doctors.

     Compassion is even trumping age-old conflicts. Pakistan offered assistance to India, its nuclear rival. Leaders of an Indonesian separatist group declared a unilateral cease-fire.

* * *

     Newspapers have listed organizations collecting money for the Asian victims while stores, coffee shops and restaurants, particularly those run by Asian immigrants, have launched their own fundraising initiatives.

     At the New York Gourmet diner in the centre of Washington, many staff come from Indonesia, and a simple cardboard box has been left at the cashier's desk for customers to leave cash for the country's tsunami victims.

    "We have not counted it yet," said cashier Adeline Yosephine, who comes from Jakarta. Her colleague, Icha Sulaiman, said the money would be sent to the Indonesian embassy where long queues of people have signed a book of condolences ( USA Today ).

     In a solemn address to the nation, Sri Lankan President Chandrika Kumeratunga asked her often divided fellow citizens to use the tragedy as an opportunity to "take a fresh look at society and at ourselves," and overcome religious and ethnic differences, "as difficult as that may be to imagine." She proclaimed Dec. 31 as a national day of mourning.

     Carrying a candle in her left hand, President Chandrika Kumaratunga led public grief Friday and called on the nation of 19 million to forego New Year celebrations as a sign of respect for the dead.

     Kumaratunga stood next to her arch rival opposition leader Ranil Wickremesinghe and legislator Joseph Pararajasingham, who represents a party seen as close to the Tamil Tiger guerrillas who have tried to assassinate her, at the multi-religious ceremony.

     "We have lost much, but gained in strength by the knowledge of solidarity shown by the world," the president said as she thanked the international community for its spontaneous and massive support.

     Meanwhile, tourists say ordinary Sri Lankans have treated Westerners with great care. "The Sinhalese have been fantastic, I have to say that," Mr. Fletcher-Lee says. "They guided us, found shelter for us, and helped us. I have nothing but good things to say about them."

    The American Red Cross received almost $20 million in unsolicited contributions in the hours after television pictures brought home the horror of earthquake-driven waves smashing and killing tens of thousands of people. Catholic Relief Services received more than $1 million for its Tsunami Relief Fund before its computers crashed under the hits of contributors. A man who declined to give his name walked into the Atlanta office of CARE USA and laid a $10,000 check on the desk of the receptionist there. The richest Americans, Bill and Melinda Gates, through their foundation, allotted $3 million for food, water, shelter and health care.

     At Amazon.com alone, more than 53,000 people had donated more than $3 million by yesterday evening after the company made an urgent appeal on its home page. Catholic Relief Services was so overwhelmed with Web traffic that its site crashed. Online donations to the Red Cross outstripped traditional phone banks by more than 2 to 1 (AFP).

     "Online, by phone, the mail," marveled Steven Gotfried, a spokesman for Washington-based B'nai B'rith International, which has been overwhelmed with offers of support. "Every two or three minutes, we get a donation. People are really giving from the heart" ( Christian Science Monitor /AFP).

     A rapid surge in donations worldwide brought to half a billion dollars the funds raised or pledged for emergency relief in Asian countries swept by tidal waves that killed at least 118,000 people ( Washington Post ).

    Amid the common horror of the events, all foreign tourists speak their great gratefulness for incredible solidarity of the local population in Thailande.

     "People are so kind', says a French woman with tears in eyes. " They immediately come to bring us food and water...People were stopping on the road, taking tourists in their cars", she says.

      "They loose all, but still they bring food, they are caring   for wounded foreigns" says a German who was in Sofitel for holidays when tsunami divested (AFP).

     There's solace to be found in that kind of response. It can't hope to ease the torment of the Indian construction worker or others devastated by Sunday's tsunami. But it is a reminder that in the rare moments when we tap our common humanity, we unleash a force that rivals the power of nature (French AFP - [translated]).