Does Military nation building really work?

Yesterday the US Army held a press conference  regarding its new field manual, The Stability Operations Field Manual, which essentially amplifies the new philosophy of military occupation as successful nation building. It's not simply the Army's job to forcefully enter a country and beat the bad guys, it is its job to create a new country in the shell of the old and see that it becomes a democracy. Well, James L. Payne, a political scientist and research fellow at the Independent Institute, says it's not that simple. 

"Pundits and presidents talk about nation building as if it were a settle technology, like building bridges or removing gall bladders. Huge amounts of government and foundation money have been poured into the topic of democracy building, and academics and bureaucrats have produced reams of verbose commentary. But still there is no concrete, usable body of knowledge."

In his article for the American Conservative, "Deconstructing Nation Building," he identifies 51 attempts at nation building by Britain and the USA and assesses whether they succeeded or failed. His research shines a light on what's really involved every time nations send in a military to make peace follow corruption. Does coercion make stability? Not so fast. Payne points out that a military has to actually leave the country for democracy to be deemed successful. So how does the military build the nation and leave at the same time? Not very easily. The US is eager to prove its work in Iraq a success, but at the same time can't quite say it's so successful that troops can leave. Is this nation building or military occupation?

Israeli settlements and occupation

Israeli settlements in the West Bank and Greater Jerusalem have long enabled a stranglehold on the Palestinian economy. Here's the way it works: build an illegal settlement, get the military to protect it, use coercive means to "control" the Arab population. This is no secret. It continues the long held narrative that only One people deserve the land. So long as this type of Military Occupation looks like it builds prosperity for democracy, the world can't see a problem. But there is a serious toll that's revealed when the public believes that the only way out is through more bloodshed on both sides.

tempting hope with headlines

The BBC has an article posted that is titled "Bush Urges Israeli occupation end." But then, just when we muster enough hope to read, the opening sentence reads,

"US President George W Bush has said Israel must end its occupation of some Arab land to enable the creation of a viable Palestinian state."

Talk about a headline that doesn't really mean what it says!

But on a lighter note, had I been in the room when Bush made the following remark:

“I’m on a timetable,” Mr. Bush said in Ramallah only moments after saying that a timetable could not be forced on the Israeli and Palestinian leaders. “I’ve got 12 months in office,” he said.

I would have erupted into hand clapping and cheers. Only one year left! Now there is something to look forward to!

Getting to work in the morning

You may think your commute time to work in the morning is a headache, but check out this article comparing what Israelis and Palestinians have to go through on their perspective commutes.

On "rights," the UDHR, and real life under military occupation

Today I've been looking at the Universal Declaration on Human Rights, contemplating that word "rights" which it employs throughout, and marveling at the fact that my country (the USA) can use it so freely and yet continue to employ military occupation as a means to a "democratic" end. Let me begin with this word "rights." I really don't like the word. It's so cold. It suggests entitlement. It suggests the bare minimum of "you get this. . . . I get that." I don't want to suggest for this reason that the document is not important, or useful. When nations really use it, and applied it in curbing their own destructive appetites, it is a wonderful thing. But when viewed through the lens of life under military occupation, the UDHR has severe limits and seems castrated of its power to accomplish what it desires. At best, for those under military occupation, the UDHR is a sign of the failed best wishes of the international community.

Let's look at some of the "rights" of all persons under the UDHR.

Article 1: "born free and equal in dignity and rights." Not for anyone born after 1967 in Gaza or the West Bank.

Article 2: "no distinction shall be made on the basis of the political, jurisdictional or international status of the country or territory to which a person belongs, whether it be independent, trust, non-self-governing or under any other limitation of sovereignty." Again, where has this been the case for Palestinians or Iraqis?

Article 6: "Everyone has the right to recognition everywhere as a person before the law." Okay, so does this rule out targeted killings by military gunships?"

Article 9: "No one shall be subjected to arbitrary arrest, detention or exile." Tell this to the thousands who've experienced this in Palestine since 1967.

Article 12: "No one shall be subjected to arbitrary interference with his privacy, family, home or correspondence, nor to attacks upon his honour and reputation. Everyone has the right to the protection of the law against such interference or attacks." Wow, wouldn't this be nice?

Article 13: "(1) Everyone has the right to freedom of movement and residence within the borders of each state. (2) Everyone has the right to leave any country, including his own, and to return to his country." Mmmm.... hmmm. Show me.

This document is a moral document. It assumes that human beings possess an innate sense of dignity and worth and desire this for all other humans. On paper this sounds wonderful, laudable, incredible! But since 1948, unless we're just not paying attention, we humans have hardly learned to live by this moral document. I would submit that Military Occupation is exhibit A as evidence to this fact. The UDHR needs an amendment, clearly spelling out for future generations that Military Occupation is immoral by its very nature and can never be employed to further human rights.

Naomi Klein on US Media coverage of Iraqi elections

Life Under the Gun

I can walk down the street here in Chicago and never see an armed soldier standing patrol. Every night on the news I see them though. Standing guard on the other side of the planet. Far enough away that I can choose not to think about it. But sometimes, like when a tornado destroys a town in Kansas, I hear that here at home the states suffer from a lack of vehicles in the event of crisis. Why? Because when the guardsmen go serve in Iraq they take the trucks and hummers with them. But usually I can go through a day and not think about it.

I remember driving up to the checkpoint at Bethlehem in the West Bank four years ago and seeing a young man playing with his fully automatic rifle as though it were a toy. I know that soldiers are people and not machines. They are taught to kill but also be entirely humane. They're taught to do a job, to be task oriented and follow orders, but then to also be responsible and make ethical decisions. A young soldier is handed a gun and asked to enforce a military occupation for an indefinite period of time. He (or she) is put in the position of policing, guarding, communicating, and patroling where innocent civilians just want to live their lives. These civilians would rather be like me and pretend that soldiers don't exist. But in Iraq and Palestine they don't really have that option. They learn to live with it, compensate, move themselves around and negotiate to survive, but in the end they are caught. They exist in an impossible political situation with an uncertain future. They feel abandoned by the world. They've stopped listening to the promises. When the promises come and then break for forty years (West Bank and Gaza) you learn not to expect much in the way of change.
But changes do come, usually not for the better. What stays the same are the soldiers. Children learn all the latest lines of weaponry and munitions. They learn what landmines and cluster bombs look like. They learn where not to play. And to the rest of the world it sounds like it's not their problem. But it is! Oh God it is! This Military Occupation thing is no isolated incident. Some political strategists firmly believe in it. Think its a great idea. We must speak out to stop them. Before we see little Iraqs everywhere. Personally, I doubt very much that a soldier can handle being a kindly killer. Soldiers are for war, not policing. It was George W. Bush who originally admitted he wasn't into nation building. Now his administration claims that Iraq is the dawn of a new democracy for the world. One in which Military Occupation is just and humane and has innocent civilians in mind. How much cognitive disonance like that can any people handle?

Palestinian Christians Decimated

The Palestinian Christian is an endangered species.

When the modern state of Israel was established there were about 400,000 of us. Two years ago the number was down to 80,000. Now it’s down to 60,000. At that rate, in a few years there will be none of us left. When this happens non-Christian groups will move into our churches and claim them forever.
Palestinian Christians within Israel fare little better. On the face of it, their number has grown by 20,000 since 1991. But this is misleading, for the census classification “Christian” includes some 20,000 recent non-Arab migrants from the former Soviet Union.

So why are Palestinian Christians abandoning their homeland?
We have lost hope, that’s why. We are treated as non-people. Few outside the Middle East even know we exist, and those who do, conveniently forget.
I refer, of course, to the American Religious Right. They see modern Israel as a harbinger of the Second Coming, at which time Christians will go to paradise, and all others (presumably including Jews) to hell. To this end they lend military and moral support to Israel.

Even by the double-dealing standards of international diplomacy this is a breathtakingly cynical bargain. It is hard to know who is using whom more: the Christian Right for offering secular power in the expectation that the Jewish state will be destroyed by a greater spiritual one; or the Israeli Right for accepting their offer. What we do know is that both sides are abusing the Palestinians. Apparently we don’t enter into anyone’s calculations.
The views of the Israeli Right are well known: they want us gone.

Less well known are the views of the American Religious Right. Strangely, they find the liberation of Iraqis from a vile dictator just, but do not find it unjust for us to be under military occupation for 38 long years.
Said Senator James Inhofe (Rep.,Oklahoma): “God Appeared to Abraham and said: ‘I am giving you this land’, the West Bank. This is not a political battle at all. It is a contest over whether or not the word of God is true.”
Inhofe must have got it wrong. Promises are being made to earthly Jerusalem that God did not make. The Holy Land was promised to Abraham, Isaac, Jacob and their descendants, as stated in the Bible. These are the Palestinian Muslims, Christians and Jews, who have been living in the land for thousands of years. The Bible never mentioned that God promised it solely to Jews. Anyone can be a Jew, but not anyone can be a descendant of Abraham, Isaac, Jacob and their descendants. James Inhofe and followers are unable to tell the difference between Jew, Israelite and Israel.

House Majority Leader Dick Armey (Rep.,Texas) was even more forthright: “I'm content to have Israel grab the entire West Bank … I happen to believe that the Palestinians should leave.”
There is a phrase for this. Ethnic cleansing.
Silencing us, from seeking your support and enlightening you about our suffering, goes counter to what Jesus has mandated us to do. We all know that Muslims and Jews get ceaseless support (political, spiritual and financial) from Saudi Arabia and America respectively, while Palestinian Christians get nothing from Australian and other Western “Christian” governments. (The Pope has been an exception.)

Prior to the 1967 war, the Christian youth at the Lutheran, Baptist, Methodist and other churches in Bethlehem used to pray and rejoice and have a good chat with hundreds of American Christian pilgrims. In particular Texas and California were two places from where many came to visit the Holy Land. Today only fading memories prevail. Bethlehem has been vacated by Christian families. The remaining Christians are paying the price by experiencing curfews which last for weeks. They remain sandwiched between Muslims and Jews without drawing the slightest concern from the many so-called Western Christians.

So why do American Christians stand by while their leaders advocate the expulsion of fellow Christians? Could it be that they do not know that the Holy Land has been a home to Christians since, well … since Christ?
Do not think I am asking for special treatment for Christians. Ethnic cleansing is evil whoever does it and to whomever it is done. Palestinian Christians - Anglican, Maronite Catholics, Orthodox, Lutherans, Armenians, Baptists, Copts and Assyrians - have been rubbing shoulders with each other and with other religions - Muslims, Jews, Druze and (most recently) Baha’is - for centuries. And we want to do so for centuries more. But we can’t if we are driven out by despair.

We are equally frightened by those who commit suicide bombings. None of us Christians have condoned it or even contemplated the idea. Our commitment to Jesus’ teachings will never shake our resolve in this matter.
American journalist Anders Strindberg makes a clearer conclusion. He says Palestinians are equated with Islamists, Islamists with terrorists. And presumably because all organised Christian activity among Palestinians is non-political and non-violent, the community hardly ever hits western headlines. Suicide bombers sell more copy than people who congregate for Bible study.
What we seek is support: material, moral, political and spiritual. As Palestinians we grieve for what we have lost, and few people have lost more than us (the Ashkenazi Jews are one). But grief can be assuaged by the fellowship of friends.

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Prof Abe W Ata was a temporary delegate to the UN in 1970 and has lived and worked in the Middle East, America and Australia. Dr Ata is a 9th generation Christian Palestinian academic born in Bethlehem, and currently works at the Australian Catholic University.