International Relations -- 'Yesterday's Man' Leaves Europe

June 17, 2008

by Faiz Shakir, Amanda Terkel, Satyam Khanna, Matt Corley, Ali Frick, and Benjamin Armbruster

INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS

'Yesterday's Man' Leaves Europe

President Bush concluded his farewell journey through Europe in Belfast, Northern Ireland yesterday with attempts at rapprochement with leaders throughout the continent. "[L]ots has changed" since 2003, London School of Economics international relations professor Michael Cox noted. While Bush enjoyed warmer relations with Germany, Italy, and France -- mainly due to leadership changes in those countries -- most Europeans, like many Americans, are suffering from "Bush fatigue," as they are looking forward to the next president and "will be glad to see the back" of Bush. Anti-American sentiment in Europe runs high as a result of Bush's leadership. A recent poll by London's Daily Telegraph newspaper found that "[m]ore people in France, Germany and Britain view the United States as a 'force for evil' than good in the world." And despite Bush's seeming friendly relationship with conservative German Chancellor Angela Merkel, Germany's leading news source Der Spiegel reported last week that "senior politicians from Merkel's ruling grand coalition as well as from opposition parties have done away with diplomatic niceties, seizing on Bush's farewell visit to express their aversion to the president who remains vilified in Germany for launching the Iraq war."

CAN'T BE BOTHERED TO BOO: Because of his rejection of the Kyoto Protocol and other multilateral measures, Bush was a "popular villain" to many Europeans even before the Iraq war, which ultimately caused his popularity there to bottom out. Though Bush was met with "boisterous demonstrations" when he first visited Slovenia in 2001, "only a few small, loosely organized protests were planned" when he arrived there last week for the European Union summit, a reflection of the "deep-seated apathy for a president increasingly viewed as yesterday's man." Many Slovenes "expressed a growing disinterest in Bush, coupled with a keen interest in who will replace him at the White House." In Germany, no one "bothered to keep a six-year tradition alive by organizing" to protest Bush. "Bush is not even popular in the role of the enemy anymore," wrote Der Tagesspiegel newspaper. Rome "braced for violent protests against Bush, with 10,000 police mobilized and hundreds of prisoners being moved out of the Regina Coeli prison to make room for arrested demonstrators." Yet as Bush's arrival in Italy came and went, Rome's prison cells "remained empty" as the protests "numbered no more than 2,000 people, most of whom went home when it began to rain." A respectable but relatively small crowed turned out in Paris for demonstrations and across the English Channel, about 2,500 demonstrators gathered in London to greet Bush, a far cry from the "hundreds of thousands who marched down Whitehall during his state visit in 2003."

REBUILDING THE ALLIANCE: Before Bush left for Europe, National Security Adviser Stephen Hadley played down any expectations that Bush would produce any "breakthroughs" with his European counterparts: "I don't think you're going to see dramatic announcements on this trip," Hadley noted. While reality played out much of Hadley's prediction, some European leaders appeared agreeable on some major issues, indicating the possibility of a stronger and more effective post-Bush trans-Atlantic partnership. Merkel, Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi, and French President Nicolas Sarkozy pledged unity in confronting Iran's nuclear program, while British Prime Minister Gordon Brown went a step further agreeing to tighten sanctions on Iran and urging his EU partners to do the same. However, the Iranian government preempted any increased sanctions by moving $75 billion in assets "from Western financial institutions to banks in Iran and Asia." But Brown also pledged to increase Britain's troop level in Afghanistan with "about 230 engineers, logistical staff and military trainers" and said the U.K. would keep most of the its 4,500 troops in southern Iraq "until the situation is stable enough to withdraw them." While Brown appears to have acquiesced to Bush's recent demand that "there should be no definitive timetable" for withdrawal from Iraq, the U.K. was expected to cut its troop levels there to just a few hundred by this time next year.

A 'SPECIAL RELATIONSHIP' DAMAGED: In an interview with the Times of London at the outset of his trip, Bush admitted "that his gun-slinging rhetoric made the world believe that he was a 'guy really anxious for war' in Iraq," expressing "regret at the bitter divisions over the war." The Times reported that Bush now aims "to leave his successor a legacy of international diplomacy for tackling Iran." Yet Bush's attempt to heal old wounds seemed to fall on deaf ears. The London Independent issued a scathing editorial today reflecting on Bush's visit and his presidency: "[P]erhaps Mr. Bush's most significant legacy, as far as Britain is concerned, will be the destruction of the instinctive trust of America and its leaders that once prevailed here. It is no exaggeration to say that Mr. Bush has done more damage to relations between our two nations than any president in living memory. This rupture is not an accident of circumstance; there are no impersonal forces of history to blame. This sorry state of affairs is the consequence of the actions of a single leader and his small coterie of advisers. ... And whatever the future holds for transatlantic relations, there will be very few in this country who watched President Bush's plane depart yesterday without a feeling of profound relief that the end of this disastrous presidency is finally in sight."

ETHICS -- WAXMAN REQUESTS CONTRACTING FRAUD INVESTIGATION: House Oversight Committee Chairman Henry Waxman (D-CA) requested in a letter yesterday that the Defense Department Inspector General (IG) begin investigating what could be thousands of criminal cases involving fraudulent contracts in Iraq. A May 22 IG report on contracting fraud examined a sampling of contracts, with 4 percent resulting in criminal referrals. In his letter, Waxman wrote that when extrapolated "to the entire pool of 180,000 transactions, it appears that there may be more than 7,000 potential criminal cases involving more than $190 million in federal spending that have not been identified...an astounding amount of potential criminal fraud." Last week the AP reported that the military doesn't have enough staff to fully investigate fraud. Although the Army contracting budget has nearly doubled since 2002, from $46 billion to $112 billion -- "the number of people who hunt down crooked companies and corrupt officials has stayed about the same," with fewer than 100 agents assigned to the Army Criminal Investigation Command fraud unit.

MILITARY -- VETERANS RECRUITED FOR TESTING ON DRUGS LINKED TO SUICIDE AND VIOLENCE: A Washington Times/ABC News investigation released today finds that "mentally distressed veterans from Iraq and Afghanistan are being recruited for government tests on pharmaceutical drugs linked to suicide and other violent side effects." During one experiment, the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) took three months to alert patients of the "severe mental side effects" associated with Chantrix, an anti-smoking drug being tested. According to the report, U.S. Army sniper James Elliott, who has been diagnosed with PTSD and was given $30 per month to take Chantrix, suffered a "severe mental breakdown" and was arrested after walking the streets with a loaded gun. Elliott described himself as a "lab rat, guinea pig, disposable hero," adding that "they never told me that I was going to be suicidal, that I would cease sleeping." Arthur Caplan, one of the nation's top medical ethicists, told the Washington Times that Elliot's treatment was "a pretty serious breach of ethics." Miles McFall, the VA's director of programs for PTSD sufferers, blamed the three month delay in notifying the patients of potential problems with Chantrix on government bureaucracy, saying it was an" incredibly quick response for a governmental institution."

ADMINISTRATION -- BUSH SAYS CRITICIZING U.S. ACTIONS AT ABU GHRAIB IS 'SLANDERING AMERICA': During an interview with Britain's Sky News Monday, President Bush declared, "I believe in the universality of freedom." Sky News reporter Adam Boulton noted that many of the Bush administration's policies on torture and detention represent "the exact opposite of freedom," pointing to Guantanamo Bay, Abu Ghraib, and rendition and replied, "Of course, if you want to slander America." Bush defended Guantanamo, telling the reporter he should "go down to Guantanamo and take a look at how these prisoners are treated" to see that the U.S. is "a land of law." Bush also said that Abu Ghraib was simply "the actions of some soldiers." In fact, today a new Senate investigation reveals that Pentagon lawyers were directly involved in creating an abusive interrogation program for Guantanamo detainees that included stress positions, sleep deprivation, and waterboarding. A McClatchy investigation found that these practices led to the radicalization of Guantanamo detainees and created more terrorists. Furthermore, as ABC News reported in April, top members of Bush's administration, including Vice President Cheney and Condoleezza Rice, explicitly signed off on abusive interrogations.

A Senate investigation has found that "top Pentagon officials began assembling lists of harsh interrogation techniques in the summer of 2002 for use on detainees at Guantanamo Bay and that those officials later cited memos from field commanders to suggest that the proposals originated far down the chain of command." It provides evidence that the policies were "not the work of out-of-control, lower-ranking troops."

Yesterday, the Supreme Court agreed to hear a lawsuit brought by a Pakistani man who was living in the United States before being imprisoned after Sept. 11, 2001. The man was held for in solitary confinement for several months, "where he was subjected to daily body-cavity searches...as well as to beatings and to extremes of hot and cold," after which he pleaded guilty to document fraud.

In a Wall Street Journal op-ed, former Justice Department official John Yoo condemns last week's Supreme Court habeas corpus ruling as "judicial imperialism of the highest order," arguing against giving rights to those "captured fighting against the U.S." Salon's Glenn Greenwald responds, "[A] huge bulk of our 'War on Terror' prisoners, including those at Guantanamo, were not 'captured fighting against the U.S.' at all."

Charles M. Smith, the Army official who oversaw a multibillion-dollar contract with KBR, "says he was ousted from his job when he refused to approve paying more than $1 billion in questionable charges to KBR." "They had a gigantic amount of costs they couldn’t justify," he said. His successors "approved most of the payments he had tried to block."

In a letter sent to Karl Rove's attorney Robert Luskin, Democrats on the House Judiciary Committee said they may be willing to accept "that Rove appear 'without a transcript or oath,' but without any limit on the committee's right to seek sworn testimony later."

In the past two fiscal years, nearly 20,000 soldiers have been discharged. Many of them run the risk of "financial ruin" while they wait for their "claims to be processed and their benefits to come through." Injured soldiers are usually "discharged on just a fraction of their salary and then forced to wait six to nine months, and sometimes even more than a year, before their full disability payments begin to flow."

"The global number of refugees and displaced people reached 67 million last year," according to the UN refugee agency. Once again, Afghanistan and Iraq topped the list of the countries of origins for refugees with 3.1 million and 2.3 million respectively. In Iraq, "the number of internally displaced rose from 1.8 million at the start of the year to close to 2.4 million by the end of 2007" due to sectarian and political divisions.

"Congressional leaders lost millions in last year's economic downturn," financial disclosure reports show. Yet "while House members suffered losses, senators defied the odds and saw their profit margins rise." Both Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) and Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) "added hundreds of thousands to their holdings between 2006 and 2007."

And finally: Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice has made 22 trips to Israel during the Bush administration, including this past weekend. Yet as Time's Jerusalem Bureau Chief Tim McGirk notes, "[S]he has little to show for it." There was "no fanfare, no motorcades snarling up the city's traffic," and she couldn't even book a room at her usual hotel, having to settle for a "less grand" one. Israeli TV announcers have even "coined her name as a verb, meaning to go endlessly around in circles, accomplishing nothing."

After last month's landmark decision striking down a ban on gay marriage in California, county clerks around the state "began issuing marriage licenses to same-sex couples Monday at 5:01 p.m."

VIRGINIA: "Civic and social organizations are teaming with Virginia Gov. Timothy M. Kaine to try to add thousands of nonviolent offenders to the voting rolls in time for the November election."

NEW JERSEY: "Gov. Jon Corzine and legislative leaders Monday agreed on a $32.8 billion state budget that the governor said will include 'unprecedented' spending cuts."

LOUISIANA: A "storm surge could pour over levees in New Orleans if a strong Category 2 or higher hurricane strikes the city, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration said Monday."

THINK PROGRESS: Fox anchor falsely claims Iranian missile could possibly "hit some military installations" in the United States.

WONK ROOM: Afghanistan jailbreak partially the result of an under-resourced international effort.

DAILY DISH: Anti-gay marriage ad from the Family Research Council reads, "Enjoy your Father's Day. It might be your last."

GLENN GREENWALD: John Yoo's ongoing falsehoods in service of limitless government power.

"We took an extremely strongly pro-Geneva Convention position in the Pentagon."
-- Iraq war architect Doug Feith, 4/24/08

VERSUS

"[O]fficials in the office of then-Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld started to research the use of waterboarding, stress positions, sensory deprivation and other practices in July 2002."
-- Washington Post, 6/17/08

Think Progress

'Yesterday's Man' Leaves Europe

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