Archives for February 2018

Episode 182: Sulome Anderson

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Sulome Anderson was in utero when her father, the journalist Terry Anderson was kidnapped in Beirut. She met him for the first time as a six year old, when he was finally released by his Hezbollah linked captors.

Her book The Hostage’s Daughter investigates the circumstances of her father’s kidnapping and also serves as a memoir of her own experience dealing with her trauma and the trauma of her family.  The book was published about 18 months ago to critical acclaim — and it’s since been optioned for a movie.

In our conversation Sulome discusses what it was like to write and report this book. She also opens up about the impact her father’s kidnapping had on her childhood and adolescence, and she describes the catharsis she experienced after having interviewed one of her dad’s kidnappers for this book.

We kick off discussing something a little different: Sulome has been working as a freelance journalist in the Middle East for many years and she was recently the subject of an article in the Colombia Journalism Review that describes the challenges of working as a freelance foreign affairs journalist in a world obsessed with Trump.

 

The Syria Conflict is Entering a New Phase

 

The conflict in Syria has entered a new phase. ISIS has been defeated, yet in many ways the war is metastasizing.

In Eastern Ghouta, on the outskirts of Damascus, the war is as brutal as ever. After days of extremely heavy bombing, the UN secretary general called Ghouta “hell on earth.” Meanwhile, in another part of Syria, in the northern town of Afrin, the US-backed Kurdish forces that were instrumental in defeating ISIS are now under attack by America’s NATO ally, Turkey. Meanwhile, in recent weeks, an Israeli fighter jet was downed over the country and the United States reportedly killed dozens of Russian mercenaries in a bombing.

On the line with me to help put what is happening in Syria in the broader context of the trajectory of this nearly seven year old conflict is Raed Jarrar who is the Advocacy Director for the Middle East and North Africa for Amnesty International, USA.

We kick off discussing the situation in Ghouta which is setting off international alarm bells as an ongoing mass atrocity event. We then discuss some of the broader trends of the conflict and what advocacy organizations like Amnesty are doing to keep pressure on the international community to reduce the toll this conflict is taking on civilian populations.

Overall, this conversation serves as a helpful explanation of how the Syria conflict has evolved over the last several months and where it may be heading. If you have 20 minutes and want to learn the current state of the Syria civil war and why we are entering a new phase of it, have a listen.

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Episode 181: Daher Ahmed Farah is a Democracy Activist in Djibouti

Djibouti is the only country in the world that hosts military bases for both the United States and China. The US base, Camp Lemmonier, hosts US special forces and its only a few kilometers from China’s only military base outside of Asia.  France, the former colonial ruler, also has a base in the country.

That so many countries would want their military stationed in tiny Djibouti is partly due of the country’s geography. It is strategically located in the horn of Africa, bordering Somalia, Ethiopia and Eritrea at the exact point where the Gulf of Aden meets the Red Sea, across the straight from Yemen.

But in part as a consequence of its strategic location its longtime leader President Ismael Omar Guelleh has had a stranglehold on power since 1999, cracking down on civil society, thwarting any potential political rivals and subverting democratic institutions.

One person trying to restore democracy to Djibouti is Daher Ahmed Farah, who is on the line with me today. He is the leader of the country’s main opposition political party, the Movement for Democratic Renewal and Development (MRD). He is currently in exile, living mostly in Brussels after the government issued a warrant for his arrest.  We caught up as Farah was visiting Washington, DC for meetings at the state department and elsewhere.

Djibouti is obviously not much on the news radar and I found this conversation an interesting explanation of how a government that is a strategic ally of many world powers can use that position to consolidate power at home at the expense of democracy.

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Why American Funding for the United Nations is a Bargain

It’s budget season in Washington, DC. And this year (like last year) the White House has requested massive cuts to foreign affairs spending in general, and to the United Nations in particular.

The Fiscal Year 2019 budget request from the White House asks for about a 30% overall cut in non-military international affairs spending over current spending levels. Congress, which ultimately controls the purse strings, has largely pushed back against these more draconian spending measures.

On the line with me to discuss how the United Nations fits into the US budget and spending debates ongoing in Washington, DC is Peter Yeo. He is the President of the Better World Campaign and Vice President for Public Policy and Advocacy at the United Nations Foundation. He was a longtime congressional staffer and knows the ins and outs of the foreign affairs budget and the UN budget process as well as anyone in D.C.

Peter Yeo discusses the UN budget process and explains how American funding for the United Nations ends up being a pretty good deal for the United States.

If you have twenty minutes and want a good, explanatory take about one of the most important financial relationships in world affairs then have a listen.

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Episode 180: Anote Tong, former President of Kiribati

President Anote Tong of Kiribati addresses General Assembly. UN Photo/J Carrier

To the people of Kiribati, climate change is an existential threat.

This is an Island nation in the pacific — it is a string of atolls about halfway between Australia and Hawaii. It has a population of about 100,000 and is known for its vast Tuna stocks.

But climate change and rising sea levels are making much of Kiribati uninhabitable–it is a country that is facing extinction. And not in some distant future. This is happening now.

My guest today, Anote Tong, served as President of Kiribati from 2003 to 2016. President Tong is well known in international circles for being a powerful advocate on behalf of people living in small island states that are on the front line of climate change.

What I found so interesting about this conversation was learning how President Tong’s advocacy in international forums has evolved over time–and how this existential threat contributed to President Tong’s decision to create what is the world’s largest marine sanctuary: the Phoenix Islands Protection Area.

This episode is presented in partnership with the Global Challenges Foundation, whose aim is to contribute to reducing the main global problems and risks that threaten humanity. Last year, the Global Challenges Foundation held an open call to find new models of global cooperation better capable of handling the most pressing global risks. In May this year at the New Shape Forum in Stockholm, the top proposals will be presented publicly and further refined through discussions with key thought leaders and experts. US$5 million will be awarded to the best ideas that re-envision global governance for the 21st century.

President Tong is a Global Challenges Foundation ambassador and in the conversation we discuss this prize and why new ideas for global governance are important for the future of small island states like Kiribati.

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Hate Speech is on the Rise in Poland

Last week, the Polish Senate passed a law that would make it a criminal offense to claim that Poland was complicit in Nazi crimes. The Israeli government strongly opposed this measure, as do most people who care about honest academic discourse. Nevertheless, the measure was passed and now awaits the signature of the president to become law.

When I caught up with my guest today, Monika Mazur-Rafał, Poland’s lower house had recently passed the measure, and as Monika explains the public debate and discourse about it was heavily colored by invocations of ethnic nationalism and hate speech.

Monika is the director of Humanity in Action-Poland, which is an organization that seeks to promote pluralism and cosmopolitan values. As she explains, the use of hate speech around this particular public debate is just one manifestation of a trend that has increased sharply in recent years.

In fact a public survey, which Monika describes in detail, finds that Polish people’s exposure to hate speech has increased dramatically with the coming to power of the far right wing Law and Justice party. She explains that dynamic, and the relationship between anti-semitism, homophobia, islamophobia and racism and the electoral success of the ruling Law and Justice Party.

Credit: “CONTEMPT SPEECH, HATE SPEECH Report from research on verbal violence
against minority groups” from the Stefan Batory Foundation

Needless to say, there are some interesting and disturbing parallels to what is happening in Poland and what happened during the 2016 election in the United States. Finally, Monika explains what organizations like Humanity in Action are doing to counter this trend.

If you have 20 minutes and want to learn why hate speech is on the rise in Poland, and why that matters to world affairs, then have a listen.

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Episode: 178 Max Boot

Max Boot is a foreign policy commentator and historian. Just this week he was named a contributing writer to the Op-ed page of the Washington Post.

He is the author of several books;  his most recent is The Road Not Taken: Edward Lansdale and the American Tragedy in Vietnam 

Lansdale was a CIA officer who was the inspiration behind the title character of the famous Graham Green novel, The Quiet American. As Max explains Lansdale pioneered a “hearts and minds” approach to the Vietnam quandary and sought to avoid a massive American military buildup in Vietnam, but was ultimately overruled.

We discuss this history in detail and also the relevance of Lansdale to American foreign policy today. We then have an extended conversation about Max’s background, including his own intellectual evolution. And here, Max explains how the Trump administration is causing him to re-think certain assumptions he once held as a movement conservative and Republican.

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