Jim Moore’s blog: Innovation, Strategy, Public Policy

Edwards

Does anyone else think that John Edwards’ remarks on national security last night were particularly unfortunate? 

Edwards’ message to Al Qaeda,  “we will hunt you down,” was a low point of the evening. 
I envision the video clip playing across the Arab world today on Al
Jazeera, alongside a rerun of Bush’s “bring it on.”  Edwards fed into the Bush oversimplication: terrorism as a mano-a-mano
battle of wills.

Terrorism

We need three Ps to combat terrorism:  prevention, protection and prosecution–not one P.

John Edwards’ speech last night  at the Democratic Convention emphasized prosecution.

By contrast, Bill Clinton advocated a very different approach in his speech on Monday night.  Clinton emphasized prevention and protection, as well as prosecution:

How do we do this? We start by understanding people and areas that we
have previously ignored, where terrorist networks and other social
pathologies are incubated.

Terrorism incubators

Consider Sudan.  Sudan was the incubator of the modern Al
Qaeda.  Al Qaeda was formed by Osama bin Laden with the help of
the US CIA as a vehicle for fighting the Soviets in Afghanistan. 
After the collapse of the Soviets, the US withdrew funding.  
Bin Laden then moved his base of operations to Sudan, an authoritarian
Islamic state “off the map” of the great powers.  From 1991 to
1994 Bin Laden lived in Sudan and used this location to accomplish two
things.  He built Al Qaeda into a systematic recruiting, training,
and action network to carry out terrorist attacks on behalf of radical
Islam, and he established a variety of businesses that provide
continued financing to the network.  Then in the late 1990s he
began seeding his network into other parts of the world, extending from
Sudan first into Afghanistan under the Taliban, and then into the
United States and other target nations.

It is almost certain that Osama bin Laden’s base system businesses and
other organizations is still operating in Sudan.  Sudan has become
a kind of low-tech Swiss-banking center for criminal organizations,
including Al Qaeda.  For example, in September of 2002 The Washington Post reported that large quantities of gold had been transfered from Pakistan to Sudan by Al Qaeda.

Sudan:  Human rights abuse, weapons, oil, and banking

For months I and a group of friends have been operating the web site Sudan: The Passion of the Present,
which focuses on stopping a genocide being promoted by this same
Sudanese goverrnment. In doing so, we have uncovered much more about
the story:  An unholy story of human rights abuse, weapons
dealing, oil money, and banking.

Sudan is a human rights abuser, and currently carrying out a genocide
that will likely kill a million people. This is not the first mass
killing it has done.  Over the past two decades Sudan has killed
more than two million others, through a combination of military action
against its own people, and engineered famines. These fact, by the way,
are not in question.  The reason you may not have heard of them is
that Sudan is a closed society, and is not covered  by the world
media–nor has it until recently been a serious focus for
diplomacy. 

Sudan’s human  rights abuses are essential to its role in
supporting terrorism.  The closed communication and authoritarian
policies of a Sudan, a North Korea, or a Saudi Arabia are not
coincidental to their support of terrorism.  It is these features
that keep terrorist organizations
hidden from the rest of the world, that render the internal workings of
these states largely invisible to the rest of us, and allow them to
develop their capacities to the point that they become serious threats.

Sudan is protected by other nations that benefit economically
from  it.  Sudan is fueled by oil riches, armed by Russia
(which for example just sold a new shipment of MIG jets to Sudan),
funded by China (who has established its Africa-wide oil services
operation in Sudan), and linked to the world banking underground by way
of Pakistan.  Here is a link to a summary of the whole system.

Currently the United States is attempting to press the UN Security
Council for a resolution on Sudan that would pave the way for helping
save more than a million likely victims of a genocide in Darfur,
Sudan.  Blocking the resolution are Russia, China, and Pakistan.

So far, by the way, the current administration has not made much of
the  human  rights abuse/weapons/oil/banking connnection.
Perhaps in part  this is because we maintain our own similar
relationship with Saudi Arabia–another authoritarian state that is a
breeding ground for terrorists including the 9/11  perpetrators.

Returning to Bill Clinton’s words, “we have to both fight terror and
build a world with more partners and fewer terrorists.”  This
requires a compehensive address to the problem of hidden, closed states
like Sudan. 

It is not enough to track down members of al Qaeda,  Al Qaeda and
other networks will continue to breed in placese like Sudan as long as
we accept a world of authoritarian governments that oppress their
people, and that are maintained by hidden, shadowy relationships among
the economic powers of the world.

If Kerry and Edwards hope to lead our nation to a new level of security
and hope, they need to develop a foreign  policy that opens up
closed societies like Sudan, North Korea, and Saudi Arabia. We need to
promote universal human rights.  And we need to expose and
transform economic relationships that support closed societies, and
that in turn enable conditions that breed terrorism.

For a quick, powerful overview on Sudan, focusing on the genocide but
also reviewing the broader story, I recommend
 “Song for Sudan” (MP3)