lte_6-7.qxp_JUNE/JULY 2022 LETTERS TO THE EDITOR 5/19/22 5:23 PM Page 6
Executive Editor: Managing Editor: Contributing Editor: Contributing Editor: Other Voices Editor: Middle East Books and More Director: Finance & Admin. Dir.: Assistant Bookstore Dir.: Art Director: Founding Publisher: Founding Exec. Editor: Board of Directors:
DELINDA C. HANLEY DALE SPRUSANSKY WALTER L. HIXSON JULIA PITNER JANET McMAHON NATHANIEL BAILEY CHARLES R. CARTER JANNA ALADDIN RALPH-UWE SCHERER ANDREW I. KILLGORE (1919-2016) RICHARD H. CURTISS (1927-2013) HENRIETTA FANNER JANET McMAHON JANE KILLGORE
Washington Report on Middle East Affairs (ISSN 87554917) is published 7 times a year, monthly except Jan./Feb., March/April, June/July, Aug./Sept. and Nov./Dec. combined, at 1902 18th St., NW, Washington, DC 20009-1707. Tel. (202) 939-6050. Subscription prices (United States and possessions): one year, $29; two years, $55; three years, $75. For Canadian and Mexican subscriptions, $35 per year; for other foreign subscriptions, $70 per year. Periodicals, postage paid at Washington, DC and additional mailing offices. POSTMASTER: Send address changes to Washington Report on Middle East Affairs, P.O. Box 292380, Kettering, OH 45429. Published by the American Educational Trust (AET), a nonprofit foundation incorporated in Washington, DC by retired U.S. foreign service officers to provide the American public with balanced and accurate information concerning U.S. relations with Middle Eastern states. AET’s Foreign Policy Committee has included former U.S. ambassadors, government officials, and members of Congress, including the late Democratic Sen. J. William Fulbright and Republican Sen. Charles Percy, both former chairmen of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. Members of AET’s Board of Directors and advisory committees receive no fees for their services. The new Board of Advisers includes: Anisa Mehdi, John Gareeb, Dr. Najat Khelil Arafat, William Lightfoot and Susan Abulhawa. The Washington Report on Middle East Affairs does not take partisan domestic political positions. As a solution to the Palestinian-Israeli dispute, it endorses U.N. Security Council Resolution 242’s land-for-peace formula, supported by nine successive U.S. presidents. In general, it supports Middle East solutions which it judges to be consistent with the charter of the United Nations and traditional American support for human rights, self-determination, and fair play. Material from the Washington Report may be reprinted without charge with attribution to Washington Report on Middle East Affairs. Bylined material must also be attributed to the author. This release does not apply to photographs, cartoons or reprints from other publications. Indexed by ProQuest, Gale, Ebsco Information Services, InfoTrac, LexisNexis, Public Affairs Information Service, Index to Jewish Periodicals, Ethnic News Watch, Periodica Islamica. CONTACT INFORMATION: Washington Report on Middle East Affairs Editorial Office and Bookstore: 1902 18th St. NW, Washington, DC 20009-9062 Phone: (202) 939-6050 • (800) 368-5788 Fax: (202) 265-4574 E-mail: wrmea@wrmea.org bookstore@wrmea.org circulation@wrmea.org advertising@wrmea.org donations@wrmea.org Web sites: http://www.wrmea.org http://www.middleeastbooks.com Subscriptions, sample copies and donations: P.O. Box 292380, Kettering, OH 45429 Phone: (800) 607-4410 • Fax: (937)-890-0221 Printed in the USA
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LetterstotheEditor BACKLASH TO RUSSIA EXPOSES AMERICAN HYPOCRISY Recently, the United Nations General Assembly voted 93 to 24 to suspend Russia from the U.N. Human Rights Council. Fifty-eight nations abstained from the vote. The resolution accused Russia of “gross and systematic violations and abuses of human rights” in Ukraine. President Joe Biden denounced President Vladimir Putin and said he should be charged for war crimes. But is the U.S. so innocent? Why has the United States long opposed the International Criminal Court (ICC), which was created by the Rome Statute? The statute has been ratified by 123 nations, but not the United States, Russia or Ukraine. In 2020, former President Donald Trump even sanctioned senior ICC figures involved in investigating possible U.S. war crimes in Afghanistan. How quickly we have forgotten our government’s offshore black sites where detainees were subjected to the most gruesome medieval torture and then dispatched to Guantanamo Bay, or the “shock and awe” of our invasion of Iraq based on faulty intelligence which resulted in the death of over one million Iraqis and the destruction of much of their country. If Biden is so incensed with Putin’s criminal behavior, shouldn’t he climb down from his lofty perch and adopt a uniform code of ethics in preventing wars? While we rightfully take aim at Putin’s brigade of criminals on the use of cluster munitions—whose only purpose is to create terror blowing up men, women and children into tiny pieces— why have we long used cluster bombs in Iraq and Afghanistan? They were also used extensively in prior wars by the U.S. in Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia. Is it not surprising the United States stubbornly refuses to ratify the treaty banning these hideous weapons? Let’s charter a new beginning by releasing the “forever prisoners” languishing in Guantanamo who have never been charged with a crime, offering them massive
WASHINGTON REPORT ON MIDDLE EAST AFFAIRS
reparations and sending them back to their countries, saving U.S. taxpayers $13 million per year for each prisoner. Finally, let’s halt shipments of weapons to Saudi Arabia, which is waging a war on poverty-stricken Yemen that goes beyond the pale of extreme cruelty and ruthlessness. Jagjit Singh, Los Altos, CA The insincerity of U.S. foreign policy was recently magnified by a “gaffe” made by former President George W. Bush during a May speech. Bush was outlining the foreign and domestic offenses committed by Russian President Vladimir Putin when he committed the ultimate Freudian slip, condemning “...the decision of one man to launch a wholly unjustified and brutal invasion of Iraq.” The former president quickly caught his mistake, saying, “I mean Ukraine.” But, he then appeared to mutter, “Iraq, too.” While Bush and the crowd laughed at the mistake, it’s perhaps the closest a recent U.S. president has come to admitting his role in the violation of human rights and international law. As Ian Williams notes in this issue (p. 18), the U.S.’ outrage at the invasion of Ukraine is in many ways undermined by its own acts in violation of international norms, as well as its support for rogue regimes such as the State of Israel.
ISRAEL PUSHING FOR A U.S. WAR WITH IRAN Israel, one of the strongest militaries on the planet (really the first with the U.S. guaranteeing back-up), is going after Iran, a country that originally signed the U.N. non-proliferation agreement (allowing U.N. inspectors in to prove they have no nuclear weapons). This is such a joke. Israel will not allow U.N. inspectors to check out its nuclear weapons and has assassinated many of Iran’s scientists. Israel attacked Iraq’s nuclear reactor in 1981 and helped push the U.S. to war with the country in 2003. Israel, with the help of Russia and the U.S., is bombing Syria. Israel is also involved in wars in JUNE/JULY 2022
