US Government Whatdown?

Democrats and Republicans are fighting each other here on Capitol Hill…
Image credits: whisky21178

Confused about the Americans? Wondering what their government is playing at? Don’t fear, Online Features Editor Imogen Watson is here!

If you have ever watched The West Wing, you might remember the don’t-mess-with-me way in which President Bartlet stares down the Republican Speaker of the House of Representatives and denies his last-minute blindsiding demand for a budget decrease of three per cent, instead of the previously agreed one per cent. Without agreeing to it, he will be responsible, he is warned, for shutting down the federal government. “Then shut it down,” responds President Bartlet, and the lights shut off, one by one, to black. If you never have, just imagine it. Trust me, it’s cool.

Jump forward to 2013, and I like to imagine that in the current situation such a cutting response occurred in Washington, D.C as Republican and Democratic congressmen locked horns over the government budget and the federal government closed its doors, furloughing thousands of employees in the process, unpaid. But although it may be a fascinating story for politics students and interested members of the wider public as another one of those quirks in the American system of government, the reality is that it is the catalyst for a great number of problems and represents  a fundamental rupture between two sets of elected politicians.

As all governments do, the central government of the United States has to pass a budget to be able to run the country and pay its bills, including the debt and interest that it owes. This Act of Congress is the responsibility of the House of Representatives, and allows for the raising of the government debt ceiling. The Senate is supposed to debate it, but as a key part of the running of government, ultimately agree to it so the President can sign it into law.  This is where the current problem lies; between a Republican House of Representatives, a Democratic Senate and a Democratic White House, this essential bill has not yet been agreed.

For further explanation on the often-bizarre way in which the Americans do politics, allow me to return to another of Aaron Sorkin’s West Wing explanations. Imagine that the government has “maxed out the national credit card,” and to rectify it they have “a quick vote to raise the limit on the credit card”. Such a vote is usually held close to the deadline so that no member of Congress will attempt to attach a controversial amendment, which would cause other congressmen to vote against it and sink the budget, therefore causing something akin to “the immediate collapse of the US economy, followed by Japan sinking into the sea, followed by a worldwide depression the likes of which no mortal can imagine, followed by week two,” as Sorkin so reassuringly puts it.

Over one of these controversial amendments is exactly how the fallout has occurred, as congressional Republicans – who are not generally fans of President Obama’s healthcare reforms – have refused and continue to refuse to pass a bill without some form of defunding or dismantling of what they believe to be overly-socialist healthcare legislation and impingements on the freedoms of American citizens. Because Democrats and Republicans could not agree, as the 30September budget deadline passed, the government closed its doors.

It is not a great spectator sport either for the millions of government employees sent home without wages. Most of 400,000 Pentagon employees – mainly workers for the National Security Agency and the Department of Defense – have now been brought back to work and promised back-pay for their unforeseen time off, but they are presently the minority.

National parks, monuments and Smithsonian museums are closed, tours of the United States Capitol building cancelled, and the Lincoln Memorial cordoned off. National food programs aiding malnourished and poor pregnant women and new mothers are closed and state-run supplies are estimated to last a week; public health services, including the national influenza vaccination program, are shut; international travellers have been warned to expect severe delays through immigration – as if the wait were not already long enough.

And the Democrats here in the White House.
Image credits: Tom Lohdan

Week one of shutdown has not yet seen quite the aforementioned dramatic tales that Sorkin foretold, but the situation is not even gradually improving. Republicans and Democrats in Congress persist in arguing between themselves and with the Democrats in the White House; it is quite something when the leaders of the free world are reduced to that which resembles a playground scrap. Whilst the “he said, she said”  continues, the deadline of the 17 October to resolve the crisis looms, leering at lawmakers, at which point the United States of America defaults on its loans.

Everything would be funny if it were not so serious. Whilst the current shutdown of services is not ideal, a US default on its debt would be worse. As the world’s biggest economy and as the beginnings of global economic upturn are starting to appear, the last thing we need is for the USA to not be able to pay its interest and debt and see us all tumble back into financial despair. The Treasury echoes such comments, and in the meantime the Labor Department will not be releasing its September report on jobs, leaving businesses guesstimating what it might have said, and how best to react.

If the inconveniences were not sufficient, every additional day that it takes the legislature to reach a fair deal is a strain on international affairs: Obama has already cancelled a trip to Asia, including an economic summit, with the White House citing it a “consequence of the House Republicans forcing a shutdown of the government”, and referring to the “difficulty in moving forward with foreign travel in the face of a shutdown”. Japan and China have both spoken up urging the US to make a speedy agreement, with China’s vice-Finance Minister saying they were “naturally concerned about developments in the US fiscal cliff”.

It is a mark of how much the American right-wing despises Obamacare that they would risk a shutdown, the likes of which have not been seen for seventeen years, over it. Clinging gladly to the NHS (despite its problems), British perspective is difficult to reconcile with American concerns; it is irresponsible for a group of elected representatives – supposedly experts in the political field – to fight over a healthcare act widening access to health insurance, which was thoroughly debated and passed in 2010 and subsequently ruled constitutional by the Supreme Court in 2012, resulting in a hijack of the ability of a government to actually govern. Whilst many congressional Republicans scream, Obamacare currently appears somewhat vindicated. Despite some start-up glitches, more than seven million people attempted to log into the new healthcare system online during its first three days of service.

For now, the end does not appear in sight and it is doing no one any favours, not least the politicians involved in the mess. Whilst the people they serve suffer the consequences of shutdown, they suffer the consequences of causing it as blame is apportioned to everyone to a greater or lesser extent. With the only solution being through Congress and President Obama able to use only his influence among the power games (Treasury Secretary Jack Lews has explained that, “There is no option that prevents us from being in default if we don’t have enough cash to pay our bills,”), with the tennis ball being thrown from one party’s court to the other’s and half-hearted attempts at stopgap measures to reach a deal, it looks like we are all going to have to hang on just a bit longer.

Imogen Watson, Online Features Editor

Syria: Police? Superpower? Bulldog? The UK must redefine its international role

Image credits: FreedomHouse

Despite the atrocities witnessed in Syria, Sophie Trotman debates the UK’s role on the international stage and its involvement in Syria.

The newsreader warns you that ‘you may find the following images disturbing’ but you look anyway. Rows of bodies, splattered with blood, grieving mothers clutching at the air and a final shot of a dead child, cradled like a broken puppet in the arms of an inconsolable parent. You’ve seen it before, on the news, in the paper, but each time the same potent cocktail of outrage, disgust and hideous pity is overwhelming.

This is the Syrian Crisis. A bloody civil war located in the heart of the Levant, between President Bashar al-Assad’s Ba’Ath government and several other forces (including the Free Syrian Army) seeking to oust the regime.

It’s important to stress that this conflict is not new; the Syrian Uprising has its roots in the wider Arab Spring and has been ongoing for over two and a half years. And like most other of the Arab Spring uprisings, media coverage began to wane as the public lost interest.

Yet this week, Syria has been at the forefront of the news once again, with two of the permanent members of the UN Security Council, the UK and US issuing increasingly bellicose rhetoric regarding the issue.

So what has changed to precipitate this international response?

On August 21, at least 355 people were reported to have died in a suspected chemical attack in the Ghouta area, close to the Syrian capital, Damascus. This alleged use of chemical weapons, purportedly by the Assad government, appears to have weighted national stances regarding the crisis and provoked threatening rhetoric from key statesmen such as Foreign Secretary William Hague who on Wednesday said, “…we can’t allow the idea… that chemical weapons can be used with impunity”.

Whilst many are in no doubt as to the perpetrators of this blow against human rights (with US Vice-President Joe Biden describing al-Assad’s usage of chemical weapons as “undeniable”) the lack of definitive proof has been pointed out by the Russians. Yet despite this lack of absolute certainty, the incontrovertible evidence that thousands of Syrians continue to suffer agonizing deaths remains sufficient impetus for talks of military action.

So it may come as a surprise that I am arguing against intervention.

The crux of the argument for no intervention is built around the three issues; the misplaced paternalism of the West and our own democratic considerations and most importantly, the hypocrisy and weakness of the most likely form of attack, a missile strike.

According to Hague, diplomatic pressure on Syria has failed. The UN death toll estimate of 100,000 dead condones his words. Diplomacy has indeed failed in solving the conflict of the civil war. Yet it seems naive to expect UN mediated peace talks to have any effect; against the bloody realities of civil unrest and repression, the words of the international community must serve as little more than superfluous soundbites.

Furthermore how is a civil war ‘solved’? Our hopeful cultural relativism suggests democracy – the pinnacle of liberal achievement born from the Western Enlightenment. But the US’s and the UK’s blithe paternalism has already misfired; the portentous example of Iraq demonstrates how cack-handedly our ‘gift’ of democracy has been fostered upon a Middle Eastern nation, precariously cemented by millions of pounds and the blood of thousands. So what then? The stabilizing of the oppressive Assad regime? Or the supporting of a divided and dangerous secular rebel army? Both solutions are unpalatable and neither would not ease the suffering of the Syrian people.

The nature of a civil war is that it is internal. We must not foist our Western values upon a divided nation that is at war with itself. Post Cold War the US’s

role as ‘policemen of the world’ is inappropriate and outdated – proved by the mistakes of Iraq and (to a lesser extent) Afghanistan.

This paternalism and expectation for the US and UK to take action (especially following their threatening rhetoric) has been manifested in the most likely form of intervention; a missile strike, a comparatively low cost, low risk form of action.  Done remotely, a missile strike would essentially let the US and UK off the hook; they would have ‘done something’, limiting the damage to their reputation on the world stage following the excessive bellicose rhetoric issued by both nations.

Essentially the US and the UK have verbally committed themselves to some kind of action, and despite Cameron’s humiliating defeat in Parliament, President Obama and France’s Hollande still appear to be willing to use a strike.

It is imperative that this form of action is avoided. Firstly, if chemical weapons storage were targeted, it may not be that they are wholly eliminated or even made safe, and instead could release some chemicals; an ironically macabre gesture. According to Daryl Kimball, director of the Arms Control Association, “If you drop a conventional munition on a storage facility containing unknown chemical agents… some [of those agents] will be spread… a classic case of the cure being worse than the disease”. Nor would the strike be Obama’s intended “shot across the bows”. The consequences of the strike would be very limited and a feeble demonstration of tepid Western intervention, if you like ‘US JUSTICE LITE’. It’s already apparent that the deaths of the Syrian people do not perturb Assad, and it would be the ‘liberators’ of the West who are instead adding more Syrians to the 100,000+ death toll.

And to the civil war? It will not make any difference to the outcome.

This results in a more worrying conclusion.  Despite the US’s position as policeman of the world waning, it remains influential and is still turned to in a crisis. To send a missile strike thinly preserves this illusion of US-meted justice. Therefore a missile strike would be the height of immorality, an ineffectual move done not simply for the sake of ‘doing something’ but more worryingly, to save face on the international stage.

The legality of action is another factor against intervention. The UN’s own divisions would weaken any possible action, and have wider negative repercussions for international relations. Russia and China, also permanent members of the UN Security Council, have stressed the importance of UN procedure and remain opposed to intervention, with Russia stating that any military action without a mandate from the Security Council as a “grave violation of international law”. To intervene in Syria would further inflame our antagonistic relationship, a secondary concern, yet senseless in an air strike primarily engineered to maintain the US and UK’s political standing in the world.

Furthermore the UN inspectors, present in the country until Saturday morning, are not there to allocate blame. The results of their report must be heeded; the Ba’Ath government has not yet been found unequivocally guilty of using chemical weapons.

Image credits: FreedomHouse

At home, the lingering spectre of Iraq has left the British people wary of armed intervention, especially in the political and religious hotbed that is the Middle East. Reports in the media reflect this; according to a survey by YouGov for the Sun, the public was against air missile strikes by a ratio of 2:1. This has been compounded by the recent vote in Parliament, if anything a success for UK democracy, as conceded by the PM, “It’s clear to me that the British parliament and the British people do not wish to see military action… I will act accordingly.”

The images, reports and video footage of the many many victims of the Syrian Crisis have provoked an intense moral outrage. It is understandable, even commendable for key figures in US, UK and French politics to attempt to alleviate the suffering of the Syrian people. To do something. To help. But this is an emotional response, and the outrages committed cannot and do not legitimize a military response, no matter how well intentioned. Our ‘good intentions’ in Iraq, in Afghanistan, have continued to haunt Britain, as demonstrated by the defeated Commons Bill on Thursday. The US and to a lesser extent the UK’s role as policeman of the world is paternalistic, outdated and [at the time of writing – without the approval of the UN] illegal. To preserve a facade of US judicial dominance via a punitive missile strike is a shockingly weak move that serves only to maintain the crumbling reputation of the US as a liberating power, Bush’s “beacon of democracy”. The Syrian people cannot be used as a human collateral, a human capital with which the West uses to bargain with the al-Assad regime.

In the face of this complicated and morally repulsive civil war, the US, UK and France must accept that intervention is, at best a quack’s panacea to a problem we cannot solve, and at worst, a display of Western ‘justice’ which will only compound the critical humanitarian crisis taking place in Syria.

Sophie Trotman

Enduring Honduras

Joel Mason reflects on the problems faced by Honduras, and his experience living there.

“When the great fall out, the weak must suffer for it” – so finishes the fable of ‘The fighting bulls and the frog’. Yet for the gently-spoken teacher sitting reading to the group of children assembled in front of him, wearing whatever collection of rags of uniform they could muster, this fable wasn’t just another story – it was their story. Sitting in the school on a picturesque hillside in rural Honduras, charged with teaching about 30 pupils of all ages and abilities in just one classroom, he recognised in Aesop’s tale the plight of his own country. Just as the frogs in the fable are trampled on when the bulls fight, so too do ordinary people across Central America feel powerless – victims of forces beyond their control.

US soldiers play football in Honduras Image credit: Staff Sgt. Sean A. Foley U.S. Army

At the time this occurred (the summer of 2009), the parallel had been thrown into particularly sharp relief for the students of that school, and the many like them across Honduras. The then-president Manuel Zelaya had just been ousted by the army in a coup, and much aid to the country had therefore been cut in response, including the daily ‘merienda’ funded by the World Food Program. The merienda provided all students in school with a simple meal during the morning, and for many poor pupils this was the only thing which stood between them and severe malnutrition. These people simply wished to get on with their lives – the political manoeuvrings of the country’s military elite were just news that filtered through to them on the radio and when traders passed through. Tegucigalpa, the capital, may as well have been a foreign country to them. Yet it was they, and not the powerful generals or corrupt politicos, who were punished when the bulls fought.

This feeling of being a dispensable pawn on some larger battlefield, echoes tragically once more in Honduras’ present situation. Since Nixon first declared the ‘war on drugs’ in 1971, it has consumed ever greater resources, with over $1 trillion spent on it to date by the US, but there is woefully little to show for this vast expenditure. This piece is not about the claimed rights to drugs of users in the US, nor about the Sisyphean futility of the task – cracking down on drugs, driving prices up, and thereby making drug trafficking an increasingly appealing option to poor, ill-educated people in countries with few opportunities. Instead, I wish to highlight the oft-forgotten impact this has on ordinary people in their everyday lives.

As the resources lavished on the traditional culprit, Mexico, gradually began to make drug trafficking there more difficult, the drug trade and its associated problems have gradually been pushed down Central America into countries which are even poorer and even less able to cope than Mexico. Now, it is estimated that 80 per cent of the cocaine which goes to America passes through Honduras, the majority of it overseen by powerful gangs.

Indeed, the emergence of gruesomely violent gangs across Central America, known as maras, has been exacerbated by the deportation of many who had been incarcerated in the US for drug offences. These people returned to Central America, replete with ruthless attitudes and experience of violent gangs, to countries already lacking the basic protection of law and order and awash with weapons.

Central America now finds itself inundated with violence; the murder rate in Honduras is the highest in the world outside a war zone, with an average of twenty people killed each day last year. San Pedro Sula, which should be a thriving industrial hub on the sweltering north coast of Honduras, is instead the most dangerous city in the world, in which street gangs murder with impunity. Of course, with the notoriously corrupt police barely able to keep track of all the violence, let alone prevent it, many young people are drawn to gangs by the safety and opportunities they appear to offer. With guns freely available, and the country growing ever more violent, the incentive is there for an ever-growing number of people to try to get their hands on weapons, which in turn leads to more violence, heightening the sense of fear, and so the vicious cycle continues.

Even in the small, rural village in which I lived for a year and a half between 2004-2005, it was commonplace even for respectable members of the community to walk around armed, pistols casually tucked into belts. I often used to go with friends to visit their little plots of land or tend to their cattle; though younger than almost everybody at this University, they would often carry pistols. In a society lacking the rule of law, and with a severe problem of alcoholism thrown into the mix, it is not hard to envisage the bloody end which is all too often the result of this toxic combination. In the year and a half I lived there, in my village and the surrounding area alone, with fewer than two thousand people, there were fourteen murders. This was, we were told, a good period. Having since been back, the problem has worsened significantly.

Looking at the problems faced by countries such as Honduras, and the effect these have on the lives of ordinary people, it is hard not to feel a sense of despair. Yet perhaps if more thought can be given to the lives of ordinary people as these great battles rage on around them, then there can be the prospect of a more optimistic future. Indeed, there is a growing cacophony of indignant voices which, appalled at the carnage they see, are calling for a change in the policies pursued by the US.

Ultimately, until people can harbour hopes of a better future from legitimate activity, they will continue to be drawn to drug trafficking. Until they can expect safety from the law and the state, they will continue to be drawn to violent gangs and the reassurance of weapons. The challenge faced by Honduras and other Central American countries is of how to achieve peace and prosperity when every day they face more bloodshed. For the sakes of the friends I have who live there, and the many people like them who simply wish to live their lives, I hope a solution can be found.

Joel Mason

An American Taliban?

It may sound far-fetched, but the rise of the Tea Party movement amongst the American right have much in similar with the Afghan Taliban, writes Gareth Browne.

Picture credits: AshMarinaccio

The Taliban are known to the majority of us as the Muslim zealots responsible for sheltering Osama Bin Laden and the group that coalition forces have only just managed to scarper in a multi-trillion dollar war. However across the Atlantic a Taliban less recognisable yet far more potent are taking the United States by storm; they have been doing so for the past few years and the American right are embracing them with a worrying enthusiasm.

Known as the Tea Party movement and operating under the guise of a Republican Party sect, the Tea Party claim to be conservative Republicans. Yet Republicans they most certainly are not. The true Republican Party is one that emancipated the slaves, champions free-market capitalism and promotes civil liberties. Whether you disagree with them or not, these are all reputable principles – unlike those of the Tea Party.

At first the term “The American Taliban” may seem somewhat far-fetched, yet on comparison many parallels can be drawn between both the American and Afghan Taliban: a fundamentalist belief  in ancient scripture, a drive to control females, intolerance of diversity and the rejection of scientific progress to name but a few.

Yet the perils of this movement don’t stop at its bigotry or ignorance but extend to a desire to ignore the secular principles of the United States. Secularism is after all one of the most significant mainstays of the US.  For the world’s only remaining superpower to be controlled by a person taking their ideals from an ancient scripture which Christopher Hitchens described as being “…put together by crude, uncultured mammals…” would be quite a hazardous state of affairs. Secularism is found not only in the First Amendment which states that “…Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof…” but also in numerous texts authored by the country’s founding fathers and early leaders, such as John Adams who insisted that “the government of the United States is not, in any sense, founded on the Christian religion…”. The fact that the United States is a secular nation would appear insurmountable. Thus it is worrying that so many Tea Party activists and figures believe the Bible to be ample defence for their xenophobia, ignorance and other undesirable “qualities”. Be it Rick Santorum’s comparisons of homosexuality to incest and bestiality, commentator Anne Coulter’s post 9-11 claim that we should invade all Muslim nations and convert them to Christianity or George W. Bush’s claim that God told him to strike Al-Qaeda.

Now one could easily conclude that The American Taliban are just the US’s current breed of right-wing lunatics – albeit a particularly potent on – but you would be wrong. The Tea Party is not a fringe group; in the current 112th congress 61 representatives claim Tea Party membership and in the Senate the number is at 4. The Republican presidential primaries also showed the sheer prevalence of Tea Party politics with Michelle Bachman, Hermain Cain, Rick Perry, Rich Santorum and Newt Gingrich all being serious contenders for the Republican nomination to run for the White House. Even in defeat the Tea Party’s influence is still evident. Mitt Romney, though previously a moderate, has been seen to shift to the right on many issues be it abortion, gay marriage, foreign policy and immigration. This has been solely to pick up the huge number of Tea Party aligned voters and, like all successful operations, the “American Taliban” are not just a political machine but also a social and media engine with Tea Party rhetoric spewing from the likes of Rush Limbaugh’s widely listened-to radio show or Anne Coulter who has sold over 3 million books.

Thanks to the recession, several wars and Barack Obama’s perceived broken promises, many American voters are looking for alternatives and many are finding the Tea Party. If the thought of the man with the nuclear button under one hand having a Bible under the other hand worries you then the huge growth in this group of voters should send shivers down your spine.