Arming Rogues by Peter Ferenbach, California Peace Action Tompaine.com 12:38pm 13th May, 2003   13th May,2003.    California Peace Action will soon launch a national advertising campaign criticizing the Bush administration for increasing arms exports to regimes with terrible human rights records or dictatorships. TomPaine.com's Steven Rosenfeld spoke with the group's executive director, Peter Ferenbach, about the issue and the campaign's goals.    TomPaine.com: You say the next war is already being set in motion by a policy of arming any dictator that claims to be on our side in the war on terrorism. What do you mean by that?    Peter Ferenbach: Well, since the war in Afghanistan, the Bush administration has fairly radically increased military aid, and we're providing new military aid to countries with appalling human rights records, including Armenia, Azerbaijian, Indonesia, Georgia, Khazakhstan, Kyrgystan, Oman, Pakistan, the Philippines, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan.    All of those countries are either human rights-abusing governments or dictatorships. If the past is any guide, we may soon be finding the presidents of one of those countries identified as the next evil person, or the next person who is allegedly harboring terrorists, and the next place that U.S. troops are intervening.    TP.c: Tell me what you're doing about your observation of this trend?    Ferenbach: We're launching an advertising campaign -- a national ad campaign -- and we really have two objectives. And one is accountability. Despite the fact that we have repeatedly sent our troops into combat against opposition that previously received support from the United States, there's really been no accountability.    So the ad campaign is focused on a now infamous photograph of Donald Rumsfeld shaking hands with Saddam Hussein. The photograph was taken when Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld was then sent as a special envoy from the Reagan administration to meet with Saddam Hussein and to open up channels for supporting Iraq during the Iran-Iraq War.    We really want to draw this issue into the public eye. And as I say, one of the reasons is accountability. Not once has any member of this administration -- and many of them were involved in the Reagan administration as well -- stepped up to the mic and said, "We were wrong to support Iraq back during the 1980s. We're sorry. It had grave implications for the world and for our own security, and we're going to learn from that mistake."    So not once have they accepted basic accountability. And the idea of putting this image out, throughout the country, is to force that question a little bit.    TP.c: What is the reaction that you're hoping from policy makers or Congress or members of the administration?    Ferenbach: We're advocating an overall change in American foreign policy, and moving towards policies which will both make us safer and which are more rooted in our core values. One of the planks of that platform is that we adopt a policy of prohibiting arms sales or military aid to any human rights abusing government or dictatorships.    In running these ads, we have different goals. As it relates to the general public, we want people to basically recognize that there are reasons why we keep finding ourselves in this situation and there's something that they can do about it. And there's an alternative, which is not solely getting out in the street and protesting, it's really demanding a better, more constructive direction for our country.    I think it's a near certainty that if you went door-to-door in almost any town in America, and you asked people if they support human rights and democracy, probably 99 out of 100 would say yes. And yet, the sad truth is, today we lead the world in arms sales to human rights-abusing governments and dictatorships.    (Steven Rosenfeld is a commentary editor and audio producer for TomPaine.com ) Visit the related web page
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