Its credit rating downgraded (in August 2011 by Standard and Poor’s), its politicians deadlocked in a bipartisan danse macabre, it middle-class impoverished, its hordes of long-term unemployed a fixture. It has been called a rogue state, a colonialist-imperialist throwback, the puppet of Zionism. But, is the United States of America a failed state?
The US State Department’s designation of “rogue state” periodically falls in and out of favor. It is used to refer to countries hostile to the United States, with authoritarian, brutal, and venal regimes, and a predilection to ignore international law and conventions, encourage global or local terrorism and the manufacture and proliferation of weapons of mass destruction (WMD). Most rogue states are not failed ones.
An “immature state” is a polity whose elites are dysfunctional, venal, and narcissistic; whose economy is not viable, frequently dependent on handouts; and whose coherence is threatened by a lack of social consensus. Immature states typically lack political traditions, change agents, goal-oriented bureaucracies, and institutional memory. Consequently, the denizens of immature states are often xenophobic and insular.
A “failed economy” fails to attract foreign direct investment. It is characterized by kleptocratic governments and rampant corruption, increased geopolitical risk, and lack of modern infrastructure. It features all-pervasive failure of institutions; lack of commitment to true reforms; absence of a functioning private sector; problematic mentality (laziness, passive-aggressiveness, pathological and destructive envy; xenophobia, resistance to learning, etc.); a low-level of research-and-development and innovation; an antiquated and dysfunctional education system; and primitive banking system and capital markets. While not failed states in the political and full-fledged sense of the word, “failed economies” come in a close second.
A “failed state” is a country whose government has no control and cannot exercise a monopoly on the legitimate use of force over a substantial part of its territory or citizenry. It is continuously and successfully challenged by private military power: terrorists, warlords, or militias. Its promulgations and laws are futile and inapplicable.
Admittedly, the USA’s unilateralist, thuggish and capricious foreign policy represents a constant threat to world peace and stability. But labeling the USA a “rogue state” may be overdoing it. It better fits the profile of a semi-failed state.
A semi-failed state is a country whose government maintains all the trappings and appearances of power, legitimacy, and control. Its army and police are integral and operative. Its institutions function. Its government and parliament promulgate laws and its courts enforce them. It is not challenged by any competing military structures within its recognized borders.
Yet, the semi-failed state – while going through the motions – is dead on its feet. It is a political and societal zombie. It functions due mainly to inertia and lack of better or clear alternatives. Its population is disgruntled, hostile, and suspicious. Other countries regard it with derision, fear, and abhorrence. It is rotting from the inside and doomed to implode.
In a semi-failed state, high crime rates and rampant venality, nepotism, and cronyism affect the government’s ability to enforce laws and implement programs. It reacts by adding layers of intransigent and opaque bureaucracy to an already unwieldy mammoth. The institutions of the semi-failed state are hopelessly politicized and, thus, biased, distrusted, and compromised. Its judiciary is in a state of decrepit decline as unqualified beneficiaries of patronage join the ranks.
The result is social fragmentation as traditional and local leaders, backed by angry and rebellious constituents, take matters into their own hands. Centrifugal politics supplant statehood and the nation is unable to justly and effectively balance the competing claims of the center versus the periphery.
The utter (but insidious) institutional failure that typifies the semi-failed state is usually exposed with the total disarray that follows an emergency (such as a natural disaster or a terrorist attack).
To deflect criticism and in a vain attempt to reunite its fracturing populace, the semi-failed state often embarks on military adventures (cloaked as “self-defense” or “geopolitical necessity”). Empire-building is an indicator of looming and imminent disintegration. Foreign aggression replaces reconstruction and rational policy-making at home. The USA prior to the Civil War, the USSR between 1956 and 1982, federal Yugoslavia after 1989, and Nazi Germany are the most obvious examples.
Is the USA a semi-failed state?
I. Empire-building and foreign aggression
Its neighbors always perceived the United States as an imminent security risk (ask Mexico, half of whose territory was captured by successive and aggressive American administrations). The two world wars transformed the USA into a global threat, able and only too willing to project power to protect its interests and disseminate its brand of missionary liberal-capitalism.
In the last 150 years, the USA has repeatedly militarily attacked, unprovoked, other peaceful or pacified nations, near and far. To further its (often economic) ends, the United States has not refrained from encouraging and using terrorism in various parts of the globe. It has developed and deployed weapons of mass destruction and is still the biggest arms manufacturer and trader in the world. It has repeatedly reneged on its international obligations and breached international laws and conventions.
II. Dysfunctional institutions
Hurricane Katrina (August-September 2005) exposed the frailty and lack of preparedness of FEMA (Federal Emergency Management Agency) and, to some extent, the National Guard. It brought into sharp relief the cancerous politicization of the crony-infested federal government.
FEMA is only the latest in a long chain of failed institutions. The SEC (Securities and Exchange Commission) coped poorly with virulent corruption and malfeasance in Wall Street. The FDA (Food and Drug Administration) capitulated in the face of commercial and political pressures and neglected to remove from the market malfunctioning medical devices and drugs with lethal side effects.
The EPA (Environmental Protection Agency) has sacrificed America’s nature reserves to business interests. A heavily politicized Supreme Court legitimized manifestly tainted election results and made a president out of the loser of the popular vote. The disenfranchisement of minorities, the poor, and ex-convicts is now in full swing.
The legislature – the two houses of Congress – are deadlocked and paralyzed owing to partisanship and corruption. The executive either ignores laws passed by the the legislative branch of government (President Bush issued well over 750 “presidential statements”, effectively obviating many of them) or actively encroaches on Congressional turf (for instance, by sending the FBI to search the offices of elected Representatives).
As the 2011 brinkmanship debate about the debt ceiling proved conclusively, the organs of the government of the United States now function only when exposed to acute embarrassment and a revolted public opinion. Private firms and charities sprout to fulfill the gaps.
III. The National Consensus
Americans long mistook the institutional stability of their political system, guaranteed by the Constitution, for a national consensus. They actually believe that the former guarantees the latter – that institutional firmness and durability ARE the national consensus. The reverse, as we know, is true: it takes a national consensus to yield stable institutions. No social structure – no matter how venerable and veteran – can resist the winds of change in public sentiment.
Hurricane Katrina again demonstrated the unbridgeable divides in American society between rich and poor and black and white. But this time, the rift runs deeper.
The Bush administration is the first since the Civil War to dare to change the fundamental rules of the political game (for instance by seeking to abolish the filibuster in the Senate and by a profligacy of recess appointments of judges and officials). Its instincts and reflexes are elitist, undemocratic, and violent. It is delusional and its brand of fanatic religiosity is not well-received even among the majority of Americans who are believers. Additionally, it is openly and unabashedly corrupt and ridden with nepotism and cronyism.
Yet, Bush, unlike Nixon, is not an aberration. He is unlikely to be impeached. He was overwhelmingly re-elected even as his quagmire war in Iraq unraveled and the self-enrichment and paranoia of his close circle became public.
This is the new and true face of at least half of America, to the horror and dismay of the other half, its liberals. If the history of the United States is any judge, these two camps are unlikely to sit back and navel-gaze. Semi-failed states typically disintegrate. A bloodied (perhaps even nuclear) second civil war is in the cards.
Should the United States devolve into its constituent states, the world will breathe a sigh of relief. A European Union (EU)-like economic zone between the parts of the former USA is bound to be far more pacific and to contribute to world stability – something its malignant former incarnation had so signally failed to do.
It’s time for us to stop lying to ourselves about this country. America is great in many ways, but on a whole host of measures — some of which are shown in the accompanying chart — we have become the laggards of the industrialized world. Not only are we not No. 1 — “U.S.A.! U.S.A.!” — we are among the worst of the worst.
“At the very time that many Americans — and the very country itself — are struggling to emerge from a very deep hole. The draconian Republican budget proposal would simply throw the dirt in on top of us.” [ READ MORE ]
Not so long ago the mere suggestion that an African team might win a World Cup would have been dismissed out of hand – all of a sudden, the idea no longer seems far-fetched. Could this be Africa’s time? Unperturbed by his 1977 prediction that an African side would triumph by the end of the 20th century, Brazil legend Pele genuinely believes it can occur next year.
BBC: Close your eyes and try to imagine the scenes of jubilation across Africa if a team from the continent were to win the 2010 World Cup.
A celebration like no other, one billion people reveling in one of the greatest sporting and cultural achievements.
For the first time in its 80-year history, football’s blue riband competition is coming to the world’s poorest and most underdeveloped land.
How better to mark the occasion than with a first African champion?
“Winning the World Cup would be one of the proudest moments in the history of that country and our continent as a whole,” former South Africa striker Shaun Bartlett told BBC Sport.
“Every African nation has its internal problems but football can do wonders for people and nations, which is a huge incentive.”
Nobody is saying it is going to happen but the groundswell of opinion suggests South Africa 2010 is the best opportunity yet. [ READ MORE ]
The Genius of Pele
The 2010 Draw:
Group A: South Africa, Mexico, Uruguay, France
Group B: Argentina, Nigeria, Korea Republic, Greece
Group C: England, USA, Algeria, Slovenia
Group D: Germany, Australia, Serbia, Ghana
Group E: Netherlands, Denmark, Japan, Cameroon
Group F: Italy, Paraguay, New Zealand, Slovakia
Group G: Brazil, Korea DPR, Côte d’Ivoire, Portugal
Aramaeans have been for millennia the moving force of vast empires, like the Achaemenidian Persian, the Arsacid Parthian, and the Sassanid Iranian empires, as well as the Islamic Caliphates, particularly the Abbassid empire of Baghdad. Great Central Asiatic empires like the Kushan and the Uighur empires owe their strength and socio-economic interconnectedness to the use of Aramaic writing and language that helped diffuse many, different backgrounds’ religions, notably Mithraism, Manichaeism, other Gnosticisms, Buddhism, and Nestorian Christianism.
Due to their extensive islamization, the Aramaeans — in great numbers — lost their language and identity, as the majority among them adopted exclusively Arabic language after their islamization. Even worse, over the past five (5) centuries, the depopulated Christian Aramaeans, as the bulk of the Aramaean Nation (since few Aramaean Gnosticists, only the Mandaeans, have survived down to our days), have been targeted by the colonial West, France and England, and more recently the pro-European part of the American establishment.
The result is that the outright majority of the Mesopotamian Aramaeans fled away during the last two decades of the Ottoman Empire and the posterior period of rise of the colonial structures of Iraq and Syria that were systematically directed by the criminal colonial powers and their local puppets, the besotted agents of Pan-Arabism and Islamism, against the Aramaean Christianity. The recent deterioration of the situation of the Aramaeans of Iraq reflects only one stage of the Aramaean Genocide which has been carried out at two distinct levels, physical and spiritual.
Sending a dramatic Letter — Appeal to the President-elect Barack Obama, the chairmen of the three major Aramaean organizations, notably Gabriel Sengo, Chairman of the Arameans of Aram-Naharaim Organization, Gabi Gallo, Chairman of the Aramaic Democratic Organization, and Aboud Gouriye, Chairman of Platform Aram, highlight in a summarized form the troubles of the multi-targeted Christian Aramaeans of the Middle East.
I republish herewith the Letter — Appeal, as it emanates from those who should the primary concern for President-elect Barack Obama.
Nr.: 2008-11-26/6
Netherlands, 26th of November 2008 Subject: Re: Your overwhelming election as 44th president of the United States of America
The Most Honourable President-elect of the United States of America
His Excellency Barack Obama
The White House
1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW
Washington, DC 20500
United States
Dear Mr. President-elect,
We, the undersigned, the Arameans of Aram-Nahrin Organization, the Aramean Democratic Organization and Platform Aram want to congratulate you with your impressive and overwhelming election as the 44th president of United States of America.
We wish you much success and wisdom and we hope that under your leadership the United States of America will become a beacon of prosperity, stability, equality and justice for everyone.
Your Excellency, we would like to take this opportunity to draw your attention to the fragile situation of the Indigenous Aramean people of Mesopotamia, in ancient times called Aram-Nahrin in Aramaic and Aram-Naharaim in Hebrew.
The Aramean people (not to be confused with ‘Armenians’) have been present for thousands of years in this part of the world, also known as the Cradle of Civilization. The Aramean people speak Aramaic, the language spoken by Abraham, Moses and Jesus, through which they have made a very important contribution to world civilizations. [1] This ancient Semitic people, now divided into several denominations and spread throughout the Middle East, amount to approximately 8 million people worldwide.
History testifies that the Aramean people are peaceful minded, living according to the ten commandments, showing respect, dignity and love to their neighbours and always respecting the law of the countries in which they reside. They show others the example of love and brotherhood. In contrast to other peoples they never resorted to the path of intolerance, fanaticism and violent uprising. On the contrary their motto has always been: loving and respecting your neighbour like yourself!
Unfortunately, the Aramean concept of peaceful cooperation based on equality and mutual understanding is not cheered by everybody in the complex and turbulent area of the Middle-East; which has been the scene of battles and conflicts for hundreds of years between various groups and peoples whose dictionary seems to lack words like peace, brotherhood and respect. Our terrible experience is that many of these groups seem rather to resort to the path of intolerance and fanaticism.
This very path of fanaticism and intolerance has been the cause of discrimination against our nation, exclusion, extortion, ethnic cleansing, genocides[2] and continuous persecutions for hundreds of years right up until today.
Our nation is facing difficulties in many areas of the Middle-East, however their situation in Iraq is most severe, in particular in the Mosul area where a mass exodus took place in late September; after killings and threats by the forces of intolerance and fanaticism. In several letters to the government of Iraq and the United Nations we have tried to ask for their attention for the dire situation of our people[2]. In spite of measures taken by the central government, the situation of the Aramean indigenous nation of the Middle-East remains very precarious in the Mosul area.
The marginalization, persecution and exclusion of our nation for hundred of years and their fragile situation in our days, where they are threatened with ethnic cleansing from the land of their forefathers, is not exclusively due to the forces of fanaticism and intolerance, but it has its roots in the spiritual colonial practices of the Western missionaries and diplomats in the 16th and 19th centuries whereby nationalism and fanaticism was brought to the Middle-East. [2] In addition to this, we believe that the genocide of 1915 [4] which claimed the lives of around 600.000 Arameans of different denominations, would have been less severe if the Arameans were united and were not stuck with the hatred that was implemented by the outsiders in the name of “assistance,” “education” and “faith.”
Your Excellency;
The motto of your election campaign was ‘change,’ a term heard and understood very well by people from all walks of life. This not only attracted the attention of young people, of those living on the fringes of society, and of those who have been marginalized and ignored, but this also gave hope to many throughout the world.
From our side, we hope that this change, under your leadership, not only will be implemented in the United States but will also have its effects on other peoples and nations, who are living in a very weak and fragile situations throughout the world, including the Aramean indigenous nation of Aram-Nahrin, also made known as “Assyrians” or Chaldeans in some media; who at this moment face terror and destruction in Iraq, in particular in the Mosul area.
We hope that the situation of many weak, excluded and ignored nations, including Arameans, throughout the world will became a part of the spearhead of US foreign policy in order to facilitate more justice, equality, peace and brotherhood for many all over the world.
We are looking forward to working with your administration and we would be honored to provide you, where needed, with genuine information regarding the Aramean Indigenous Nation of Aram-Nahrin who has been continuously present for thousands of years in this part of the world. Again we want to underscore our best wishes to achieve the noble goals you have so clearly expressed during the election campaign.
Respectfully Yours,
Gabriel Sengo
Chairman
Arameans of Aram-Naharaim Organization
[1] The contribution of the Aramean nation to world civilizations is well-summarized by a world- renowned Eminent Oxford University Scholar Professor Sebastian Brock, a specialist on Aramaic (Syriac) and Hebrew, who said “Almost all societies are dependent upon the use of writing, but very few peoples realise that the great majority of the world’s scripts can be traced back to a common ancestor, an alphabet invented in the Middle East four thousands years ago, which was subsequently refined by the Phoenicians and the Aramaeans who spread it throughout the known world. It is thus without doubt one of the greatest gifts of the Aramean peoples to world culture.” (Hidden Pearl volume I: Page 27)
“…Nevertheless it is undeniable that the simple Aramaic alphabet of 22 letters has had the most extraordinary impact on the development of alphabetic writing systems throughout the world. Indeed, it is very hard to imagine how human culture and scientific learning could have progressed without (the Aramaic language).” (Hidden Pearl volume I: Page 58)
(Hidden Pearl: http://www.aramnaharaim.org/English/film_arameans.htm)
[3] The result of this was that a part of our nation started identifying itself as “Chaldeans” (since the 16th century) and another part as “Assyrians” (since the 19th century). Roughly speaking, this division was due to the spiritual war between the Western political and spiritual colonial powers, that is to say the war between Catholics and Protestants, which was battled out at the cost of the Aramen nation, thereby planting doubts regarding their ethnic origin; with the result that a kind of spiritual genocide was committed against our nation.
A divided nation is obviously a weak nation. Through this division we have been made vulnerable to the hostile environment of the Middle-East where we are threatened with extinction and ethnic cleansing. The events which took place in Mosul, Baghdad and other areas in Iraq, where our nation was forced to leave their homes and heart, are vivid proof of our assertions.
[4]Aramean Genocide: Aramean Physical and Spiritual Genocide: The discussion around the genocide of 1915 is for an important part concentrated on the Armenian question and is called ‘Armenian genocide’. This is not fair, for not only the Armenians have suffered, but also the Aramean Indigenous Christian nation of Mesopotamia as well as the Greeks have suffered under these horrible acts, which cannot be described by pen and paper.
Contrary to the Greek and Armenian Genocides, the Aramean genocide consists of both Physical and Spiritual genocide.
America did an excellent job in Afghanistan; however, after seven (7) years of battles, diplomacy and investment, Afghanistan is about to be lost, having gradually been taken back and controlled by the opponents of the US-led alliance.
America did also an excellent job in Iraq, but after five and half (51 1/2) years of battles, diplomacy and investment, Iraq is in total chaos, at the epicenter of a maelstrom that risks absorbing the entire Middle East.
Speaking twice on Somalia a week ago, notably in the UN Security Council meeting and afterwards, Secretary Rice revealed that the US and several other countries have developed a common understanding with respect to piracy off the Somali coast, and that with the coverage of the recent UN Security Council Resolution 1851, they will undertake a great effort to eradicate piracy from the Somali coastland.
With references to AMNISOM, preventive policies, and international efforts, Condoleezza Rice demonstrated that the US plans of combating piracy are merely superficial. The perplexity of the Somali society and politics seem not to have been taken into consideration by the useless administrators of the collapsing superpower.
In fact, combating piracy in Somalia signifies either a mere theatrical act if operations are limited offshore or ? in case if ashore operations ? a damage against mainly the Puntland warlords and their financers, which would be a severe hit against the TFG president Abdillahi Yusuf and his local puppets at Garowe.
If a strong hit is delivered against the Somali piracy, the anti-ARS ? Shebab part of the Somali politics will be weakened; this would end up with an increased role for those whom the US establishment considers as unacceptable as ‘terrorists’.
This alone makes clear the US targets during the impending attack; as a matter of fact, the piracy phenomenon will not be uprooted; the reason is simple. Piracy is not a local phenomenon in Somalia, and it has never grown there. All the events we have been attesting over the past years clearly demonstrate that through bribery, deception and corruption, piracy has been implanted by evil, colonial England in Somalia ? certainly not directly but through several levels of proxies.
The pseudo-phenomenon was badly needed by the evil groups of power that machinate Somalia’s destruction; it has been geared to serve as mere pretext for the US attack against the liberation forces of Somalia, namely ARS and the Shabab. Through this anti-Somali conspiracy the colonial powers intend to impose on Somalia a neo-colonial regime with continuous US presence ? as it currently happens in Afghanistan.
I republish herewith Condoleezza Rice’s speech at the UN Security Council, and her remarks following the UN Security Council meeting on the situation in Somalia. Both speeches bear witness to the superficial approach and inadequate understanding of all things African that characterize the State Department. Usually, when the distance from the down-to-earth reality becomes astronomical, the final failure is guaranteed.
But does it truly matter for a mourning Somali mother at Hobyo, bereft of children, husband, parents, food and property, whether America will finally fail after a paranoid attack against Somalia undertaken under the pretext of the theatrical Somali piracy?
Secretary Condoleezza Rice
New York, New York
December 16, 2008
SECRETARY RICE: Thank you very much. Thank you, Mr. President. Thank you, Mr. Secretary General. And thank you very much to all my colleagues for participating in this very important Security Council session on piracy.
Obviously, we are here because the outbreak of piracy and the increasing threat to commerce, to security, and perhaps most importantly, to the principle of freedom of navigation of the seas is one that should concern every nation-state. And I do believe that the resolution that we have passed today will help us go a long way toward a coordinated response to the scourge of piracy.
We have noted that several factors have been limiting the effectiveness of our response, although a number of countries have been responding. The United States has been a part of that response, as has the EU, NATO, and a number of other countries in this chamber. But because there has been no existing mechanism for states to coordinate their actions effectively, I believe that our response has been less than the sum of its parts.
I would like to announce that the United States intends to work with partners to create a Contact Group on Somali piracy. We envision the Contact Group serving as a mechanism to share intelligence, coordinate activities, and reach out to other partners, including those in shipping and insurance industries. And we look forward to working quickly on this initiative.
A second factor limiting our response is in the impunity that the pirates enjoy. Piracy currently pays. But worse, pirates pay few costs for their criminality. Their dens in Somalia provide refuge from the naval ships in the Gulf of Aden, and as we saw with the hijacking of the Sirius Star 500 nautical miles from Mombassa, and with the recent unsuccessful attacks even further south off the Tanzanian coast, pirates are adapting to the naval presence in the Gulf of Aden by traveling farther to attack unsuspecting ships.
To make piracy costlier and more difficult to undertake, the United States, with the agreement of the Somali Transitional Federal Government, believes that the Security Council’s authorization today that states may pursue pirates into their places of operation on land will have a significant impact. History has demonstrated again and again that maritime operations alone are insufficient to combating piracy.
Mr. President, we also have a problem concerning the steps that must be taken to facilitate the delivery, detention, and prosecution of captured pirates. Through international law reflected in the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea, Security Council Resolutions 1846 and 1816, and the 1988 Convention on the Suppression of Unlawful Acts Against the Safety of Maritime Navigation, SUA, the international community already has sufficient legal authority and available mechanisms to apprehend and prosecute pirates, but sometimes the political will and the coordination has not been there to do so. This problem of capacity is especially pronounced in the regional states. Their proximity to piracy makes them an obvious choice to cite prosecutions, but many lack the necessary judicial and law enforcement capacities to do so.
So we call on all states, particularly those victimized by Somali piracy, to contribute generously to building the legal capacity of regional SUA states. In the resolution, we also ask the United Nations to explore what can be done to build legal capacity in those states.
At the same time as we expect regional states to play a critical role, victim states also need to bear equal responsibility for prosecuting pirates. States who flagged hijacked vessels, whose nationals own hijacked vessels, or who have crew members on hijacked vessels, must honor their SUA obligations in relation to receiving and prosecuting suspected pirates.
Fourth, we must ask the maritime industry to promote capabilities to enhance ship self-defense. Once a hostage situation develops, the stakes in military operations increase. Consequently, an important part of counter-piracy efforts must be measured in enhancing self-defense capabilities of commercial vessels, increasing the odds of success against pirates until warships arrive.
Finally ? and a number of colleagues have spoken to this ? we must address the root of the piracy problem. Piracy is a symptom. It’s a symptom of the instability, the poverty, the lawlessness that have plagued Somalia for the past two decades. The Djibouti peace process has achieved some political headway in the last few months. And I thank you, Secretary General, for your excellent special representative, Ambassador Ould-Abdallah. But the deteriorating security and humanitarian situation on the ground is threatening that progress and threatening it every day.
The international community must make it a priority to work with the TFG, both to stabilize its internal situation and to work with the alliance for the rehabilitation ? re-liberation of Somalia, and the African Union mission in Somalia to help stabilize the country’s security situation. In this regard, let me note that the United States does believe that the time has come for the United Nations to consider and authorize a peacekeeping operation. This has been requested by the AU. It has been requested by countries that are taking the brunt of the difficulty on the ground. And while the conditions may not be auspicious for peacekeeping, they will be less auspicious if chaos reigns in Somalia and we have to turn at some point to peacemaking. Prevention is the issue here.
And while the United States will do everything that it can to continue the support of AMISOM ? indeed, the United States provided $67 million for training and equipping and deploying AMISOM last year ? we will continue to do that, and we will buttress our support to AMISOM. But I am afraid that the history of support for forces of this kind is not a very good one. What happens is that we are not able to sustain the voluntary contributions, we’re not able to sustain the voluntary training, we’re not able to sustain the mechanisms to make certain that the work is flowing smoothly. That is why we have a peacekeeping operation in the UN, because it draws on the full resources of the member-states in a way that is not voluntary, but that is compulsory, to do the work of this Council.
And so, Mr. Secretary General, the United States will be, with other states, continuing to raise in consultations ? not yet for consideration by the Council ? but in consultations, the need for a peacekeeping force in accordance with the request of the African Union that we do so.
Let me just say finally that once peace and normalcy have returned to Somalia, we believe that Somalis can start down a path to real economic development. Offering the Somali people an alternative to piracy and criminality is, in the long run, the best sustainable strategy for combating piracy. As a part of this strategy, the United States believes in working with the international community to help Somali fishermen prosper by preventing illegal fishing and dumping in Somalia ? Somali territorial waters.
With our meeting today and the resolution, we have sent a strong signal of commitment to combat the scourge of piracy. This current response is a good start, but we must do much more to defend freedom of navigation and trade. The shipping industry will be an important partner in those efforts. But let us make no mistake: It is governments that must lead, and we need to coordinate our efforts through a common point of contact. We need to end the impunity of Somali pirates. We need to support regional states in building capacity to prosecute pirates effectively. And we need to work to build security and stability in Somalia so that the Somali people can finally enjoy the blessings of peace and the rule of law and development.
Secretary Condoleezza Rice Remarks Following the UN Security Council Meeting on the Situation in Somalia
New York City, New York
December 16, 2008
SECRETARY RICE: I’ve just attended a very successful Security Council session on piracy. The Security Council adopted Resolution 1851, which is a very strong resolution that deals with issues of detention of pirates, with the prosecution of pirates, with the ability to use all necessary means on land as well as at sea, because we know from history that it isn’t really possible to contain this problem just as a maritime issue.
We talked a good deal about the need for coordination on intelligence, on information sharing. The United States is going to lead a Contact Group on Piracy on the Somali Coast. We also talked about the need for commercial shipping to take means that are defensive means, some of which are readily available, so that the pirates cannot turn a situation into a hostage situation, because once a hostage situation comes into being, obviously the stakes go up.
So it was a very fulsome discussion. But ultimately, all members spoke to the need to deal with the root cause of the problem, which is the instability in Somalia. There is great support, as the United States supports the Djibouti process and the hopes for peace as Somali factions begin to try and chart a course ahead.
I also want to note that we are calling on the members of the Transitional Government to deal with their own internal matters. There needs to be a stable government there, and they need to deal with their own differences, because the Somali people deserve that.
Finally, we talked about the security situation. We very much respect and support AMISOM, the AU force, for what they are doing. And the United States has been a big supporter. We’ve trained ? helped with training and logistics and financial support. But we believe that a proper UN peacekeeping force, as is called for by the African Union, is a necessity here. While AMISOM is doing very good work and we will continue to support it, we have a history with voluntary contributions and voluntary training that, with a situation as urgent as the one in Somalia, we actually have an apparatus within the United Nations that can deal with that kind of situation.
And so the United States believes strongly that we ought to have a Security Council resolution as soon as possible. In fact, we believe that by the end of the year we should try and have such a Security Council resolution. And so we’ll take that matter up separately. It was not something that we took up today. We are still in consultations.
QUESTION: Madame Secretary?
SECRETARY RICE: Yes.
QUESTION: Over the last 24 hours, there’s been another two hijackings off the coast of Somalia. I’d like to get your reaction to that. And also, do you see the eventuality of U.S. troops going ashore in Somalia to catch the pirates?
SECRETARY RICE: Well, I don’t want to take a kind of speculative look at this. I think it’s better not to comment in theory. We ? the United States is a part of an international effort. We do have naval forces that have been involved in this effort. What this does, though, is to authorize that the sea ? the boundary of the maritime cannot become a safe haven boundary for pirates. And so what we do or do not do in issues like hot pursuit or so forth, I think we’ll have to see and you’ll have to take it case by case. So I don’t want to commit in a speculative way or in a hypothetical way to anything for the United States. But again, the authorization was a very important authorization.
As to the two incidents that have taken place, I think it just shows the increasing problem that this is. The pirates are a threat to commerce. They are a threat to security. And perhaps most importantly, they are a threat to the principle of freedom of navigation on the seas.
QUESTION: Madame Secretary?
SECRETARY RICE: Yes.
QUESTION: On the Six-Party Talks, the last round of meetings last week ended with no new declaration from North Korea. How do you leave this to your successors, and how do you respond to those who say that this has been a failure?
SECRETARY RICE: Well, we leave in place ? first of all, we are going to continue to work on it until the very last day. But we leave in place a Six-Party framework in which at least five parties are completely agreed as to what the verification mechanism has to look like. I might just note that we have an agreement with the North Koreans about a verification protocol, but there were a number of issues that had to be clarified in order to make sure that that verification protocol was going to be workable. And those assurances were given to us by the North Koreans. We, in fact, reported those assurances to the Chinese chair before this Six-Party round took place. And what happened in Beijing was that the North Koreans at the ? at this last session wouldn’t write them down. And at some point, those assurances are going to have to be written down. But there is, in fact, a verification protocol and a set of assurances that the five are agreed to and that the North Koreans, at least privately, before we lifted the terrorist designation, had also agreed to. And so we’ll just have to work through this.
I might note, too, that the disabling ? first, the shutdown of the reactor and then the disabling of the reactor has been an important step forward in dealing with the plutonium program. But we have a lot of questions about the highly enriched uranium route for North Korea. We have a lot of questions about proliferation. And we believe that the mechanism of the Six Parties and an associated verification protocol will be the best way to resolve those questions and to get to the bottom of the entire nature of the North Korean program.
And I just might note, too, that the September 19th agreement of a couple of years ago lays out a path for the completely denuclearization of North Korea and of the Korean Peninsula, and that agreement is an agreement among the Six Parties. So I think we leave a pretty good framework, but we’ll continue to see if we can get the North Koreans to write down the assurances that they gave us.
QUESTION: Secretary Rice?
SECRETARY RICE: Let me take this gentleman right here.
QUESTION: Two things, Madame Secretary. First of all, military ? a U.S. military commander in the area has expressed reservations about going ashore, so I’m wondering if that means that the resolution lacks teeth and if there is a disagreement between the State Department and the Pentagon on the use of force.
SECRETARY RICE: I wouldn’t be ? I would not be here seeking authorization to go ashore if the United States Government, perhaps most importantly the President of the United States, were not behind this resolution. And therefore, any voices about this are voices that need to be understood in the context that I was sent here to get authorization to go ashore so that we did not create a dividing line that was a maritime-to-land sanctuary for the pirates. And that is a position that is supported by the United States Government as a whole.
This gentleman has ?
QUESTION: The Secretary General said that he approached 50 countries, through organizations, I believe, asking for troops and he couldn’t get them. So I know that you were a little bit critical in saying that there should be some mechanism put in place to sort of force that issue. But if you can’t get the countries to contribute troops, how do you ?
SECRETARY RICE: The issue here is that, first of all, there is a force on the ground, the AMISOM force; and one of the possibilities is to blue-hat the ? to rehab the AMISOM force and to add forces to it, and there are a number of countries that have expressed their willingness to consider being a part of such a force. I don’t think that one is going to raise a large multinational force of countries from all over the world for Somalia, but the African countries have expressed a lot of interest in doing what they can in Somalia and they’ve also expressed their ? through the AU the need for a UN peacekeeping force. And the Africans ? the African representatives here, including South Africa, spoke in favor of a peacekeeping force.
QUESTION: Secretary Rice, would the U.S. commit troops to a UN peacekeeping force, and do you know if Barack Obama supports your push for a UN peacekeeping force?
SECRETARY RICE: Well, the President of the United States is the President of the United States, and we are seeking this and we believe that this is the best answer. I do know that no American administration is going to want to see chaos in Somalia. We’ve been there, we’ve done that; it didn’t look very good.
And finally, the Somalis actually have a legitimate process underway that needs to be supported. Now, I want to emphasize again, we did not seek a peacekeeping force today. The purpose of today was to deal with the piracy issue, and we’re going to continue consultations. But we cannot get into a situation in which a security vacuum is left in Somalia and all of the good work of Djibouti is undone and we go back to two years ago, prior to the Ethiopian offensive. That would not be a good circumstance to find ourselves in.
And I really don’t imagine American forces being a part of a peacekeeping operation. American forces are pretty busy these days.
Yeah.
QUESTION: Madame Secretary, I wonder if we could get you to look more philosophically at diplomacy at the end of 2008 going into 2009 after your eight years in the government, and to see in a new world that is not unipolar, not multipolar, what we can ? what lessons we can draw out of especially today’s discussion about Somalia and a piracy issue, kind of in the spirit of your friend Alexander Downer, who liked to say that the Owl of Minerva takes flight at dusk. At the dusk, what do you reflect on?
SECRETARY RICE: (Laughter.) Well, let’s see. Is it dusk yet? Midnight. In any case, I think that the United States, under President Bush, has actually used the mechanisms and the councils of the United Nations more than they’ve been used maybe ever, whether it is insisting that Security Council resolutions that have been passed be respected, whether it is seeking to deal with human rights and tyranny cases like Zimbabwe or Burma, whether it is the kind of really remarkable day that we’ve had today where we’ve had one resolution that was sponsored by the United States and Russia on the Middle East, something that I think might not have been foreseeable just a very short period of time. And I think, by the way, that is a product of the last several years of diplomacy on the Middle East that really have brought the international community to a joint understanding and strategy of what needs to be done to achieve the two-state solution that Bush outlined. That’s why Russia and the United States were able to sponsor this.
And then finally, this piracy case, it’s a kind of interesting story because we were down at the APEC, at the Asia-Pacific Economic Council, and the President and I talked to half a dozen leaders down there, including President Hu Jintao, President Medvedev, and others, and we got such strong and resounding agreement that somehow, even though the international community had already gotten very strong authorities on piracy, we didn’t seem to be coordinated; people didn’t seem to know, we weren’t sending a deterrent message to the pirates through our unity. And this has been a remarkable process of getting a very strong, unanimous resolution on a common threat. And so I’m very proud of the multilateral diplomacy that we’ve been able to do and that the President has been able to support. It’s been a good couple days at the UN.
Yes.
QUESTION: Following up on your answer, you said the U.S. has been sure that UN sanctions, et cetera, are followed. Is Pakistan following the UN Security Council’s ban on the Jamaat? The Foreign Minister just said this weekend that charitable organizations of the Jamaat-ul-Dawa will not be closed down. Is this a violation of international cooperation?
SECRETARY RICE: Well, the ? Pakistan is going to have to untangle a difficult circumstance with the Jamaat-ul-Dawa ? they are ? because I understand that there are so-called charitable activities. But we learned ? the United States learned the hard way that sometimes these are too intertwined with organizations that have terrorist ties and that have just been designated here. And so we will be pressing all member-states to adhere completely and to the letter of the designations that the United Nations has taken. And because I know the Pakistani Government to be a government that wants to deal in good faith with the world ? it’s a new civilian government that is a legitimate government that wants very much to be respected in international politics and, by the way, wants to deal with the terrorism problem that is itself having dire consequences in Pakistan ? I expect that there will be great ? will be cooperation.
QUESTION: (Inaudible.)
SECRETARY RICE: We’re continuing to pursue it ? the 123 agreement. We’re continuing to pursue it.
Yes.
QUESTION: On Somalia ?
SECRETARY RICE: Yes.
QUESTION: Does the U.S. favor imposing sanctions on Eritrea for its role in the internal conflict? And with the president now firing the prime minister, who is actually authorized in Somalia to authorize this?
SECRETARY RICE: Well, look, first of all, we believe that the prime minister of Somalia can only be relieved by the parliament, and therefore we recognize him. And we’ve made that clear to the president of Somalia.
Secondly, they need to work together. They have too many problems to be involved in these kinds of spats. I mean, the people of Somalia deserve better than this. And I just sat in a session in which the international community pledged all kinds of support to Somalia, all kinds of help to Somalia. Whether we agree or disagree among ourselves about exactly what kind of force can bring security, everybody in there wants to see security for Somalia, wants to see the Djibouti process work. The least that the leaders of Somalia can do is be equally committed to that cause, and we’re sending that message very strongly.
As to Eritrea, we will examine it. We do believe that there are difficulties being caused by the policies of Eritrea, and we’ll look at what actions we should take.
Thank you very much. Thank you.
QUESTION: (Inaudible) does this resolution mean that ?
SECRETARY RICE: Thank you.
QUESTION: — you can intervene militarily in Somalia?
SECRETARY RICE: We ? there is a very ? there is a very clear, longstanding understanding in international politics about the role of UN Security Council resolutions in this regard, and the fact that it is the Transitional Federal Government that is desirous of not having their territory used for safe haven for pirates. And so that is what has just taken place here in the Council.
Sam Vaknin is the author of “Malignant Self Love – Narcissism Revisited” and Editor-in-Chief at Global Politician
