International Issues
COMMENTARY
My thoughts about the screaming match that is the health care reform debate will have to wait. Another story has caught my attention, and while it may seem a bit trivial to some, it raises an important issue.
Over the weekend, the man known as the “King of Bollywood” was detained according to some reports (although airport officials deny an actual detention) at Newark Liberty International airport as he traveled to Chicago for an Indian Independence day celebration. Shah Rukh Khan is the Bollywood equivalent of Hollywood stars Brad Pitt, George Clooney, and Tom Cruise COMBINED. While Western audiences may not know the name, to South Asian audiences, Khan is a box office rainmaker having appeared in some 70 films. A lot of people are asking why he was held up by immigration officials until Indian consular officials, in the words of the Washington Post, “vouched for him“. The Indian press and Khan himself are openly asking whether it’s because he’s a Muslim. Maybe that’s the case, and maybe it’s not. But the larger issue it raises, how and why people coming through security in U.S. airports are detained and questioned, needs attention. Perhaps the U.S. should take a closer look at the way security screening is handled in Khan’s own India.
I visited India two years ago, flying into and out of the teeming metropolis that is New Delhi. What I noticed that is different there is that everyone faces the same tough security. There wasn’t any “profiling” of people who looked a particular way, had a certain last (or first) name, or wore certain clothing. When I went to the airport to leave New Delhi, I along with every other person catching a flight, went through the usual putting of our bags through the X-ray machines. Then, to my surprise, EVERYONE, was hand wanded and patted down. Men handled male passengers, and women handled females because when I say people were patted down, I’m not talking about a light touch. These guards got familiar and invaded your personal space. There were no tables set up to pull people out of line. There were no random people pulled out of line for secondary screening. EVERYBODY got secondary screening. It was fair. Yes, you have to get to the airport early to get through the line and make your flight, but not much earlier than you have to arrive for international flights leaving Dulles or BWI.
Contrast the above described experience with my experience when I arrived from New Delhi at Charles de Gaulle in Paris. As I waited to board my flight home to Washington, I was pulled out of line for a secondary inspection. Initially, I didn’t mind. It happens. It’s the price we all pay in a post September 11th world. But then, I began to watch as the female French security officer pulled out of line only the women of color who were either of South Asian or African descent for further screening. I didn’t see her pull any European women out of line for secondary screening. When I arrived home, I happened to attend a luncheon that was also attended by France’s Ambassador to the U.S. I let him know how disappointed I was in the security team’s behavior in Paris. Being the daughter of parents who survived the Jim Crow South, I had always heard about discrimination but until that moment, I’d never experienced it so blatantly and in your face.
My experience is different from Shah Rukh Khan’s in that I wasn’t questioned for 66 minutes as he says he was. I was only asked to submit to a secondary screening of my carry-on bags and questioned about every item I had with me. However, the reasoning behind both our inconveniences appears to be the same. We fit someone’s profile of a person who needed additional attention. As I mentioned, initially I wasn’t bothered because it’s what happens post 9/11, and my previous experiences had been occasions where the selection process was random and fair. No one group was singled out. The opposite happened in Paris. Security profilers and experts need to remember there are people who pose a threat who aren’t Muslim and aren’t people of color. Personally, I prefer the New Delhi airport’s approach. Just examine everyone. As uncomfortable and invasive as it was, no one could say anyone was being singled out because of his/her race, ethnicity, color, religion, etc.
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I chatted with Germany's Ambassador to the U.S. last week about the EU Open House. It's a great opportunity for people living in Washington to step into the diplomatic world for a day and see what life is like inside an Embassy. While I had the Ambassador in the studio, I also asked him about Germany's efforts to produce clean energy. In spite of the fact it has fewer bright sunny days than the U.S., it's one of the leading producers of solar energy. As you'll see in the interview, they've even figured out how to power a digital clock using only water and salt!
COMMENTARY
It has been awhile since I last blogged, and much about the world has changed. A new President is getting ready to take office. The November election wasn't as close as I thought it might be. Yes, I was surprised by President-Elect Obama's margin of victory. I've been equally surprised by the speed with which he chose his Cabinet. I am not surprised by the political pragmatism displayed in his Cabinet choices. Nor am I surprised that his fellow Democrats are giving him more grief early on than the loyal opposition Republicans.
In my previous blog on November 4, 2008, I noted that there was one foreign policy issue that deserved much more attention than it received during the election season. It was the Middle East Peace Process. I said it would fall to a new administration to deal with the Israeli-Palestinian question, and with less than two weeks to go before Obama's swearing-in, there's fighting in Gaza. Some may even call it a full-blown war.
The U.N. resolution calling for an immediate and durable cease-fire is so far being ignored, and Egyptian and French efforts to mediate such a truce have yet to yield results. This conflict falls squarely in Obama's lap and exactly how he'll handle it isn't clear. He's expressed concern about the violence but continues to remind everyone that there's only one President and one U.S. foreign policy at a time. That's true, and it's a prudent move. However, the world is watching how he'll handle his first big international crisis. He has signaled he'll be as engaged in the Middle East from the start of his administration as President Bush has been at the end of his. The only question is will the Obama Administration be viewed as an even-handed broker by both sides in the peace process? The answer will come in time.
But as the conflict in Gaza consumes much of the globe's attention, the incoming Obama Administration should also keep it's eye on Russia. The bickering over the flow of Russian natural gas supplies through Ukraine is about more than a price dispute that's leaving much of Europe in the cold, literally. The Bear is flexing its muscles. And while the Obama folks monitor and determine their first steps in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, the eyes in the back of their head should be squarely fixed on a Kremlin determined to let the world know its resurgence is just beginning.
During Thursday's edition of Federal News Today, I spoke with former Ambassador Wendy Chamberlin, the president of the Middle East Institute. She has a very unique perspective on the situation in Pakistan today as she was U.S. Ambassador to that country when the September 11th attacks occurred in 2001. She says one of the most critical questions yet to be answered is who will lead Pakistan when Musharraf either leaves office of his own accord or is forced out? The other question to be answered: will the next leader be committed to fighting Al-Qaeda?
Ten years after separate bombings ripped apart two U.S. Embassies in East Africa, the alleged mastermind, Fazul Abdullah Mohammed, remains on the run and many families of the Americans killed still struggle with their loss. In fact, some of the families of those Americans killed in Nairobi, Kenya and Dar es Salaam, Tanzania on August 7, 1998, feel those victims of Al-Qaeda's terrorism have been largely forgotten because the bombings happened half a world away.
On Thursday's broadcast of Live Tonight, I spoke with Edith Bartley, an advocate for the embassy families, about her decade long fight to get the U.S. government to provide some kind of compensation for these families. Unlike the 9/11 families, the embassy families haven't received anything from the government for their loss. The House of Representatives has, for the second time, passed a measure compensating the victims. But for the second time, the bill is stalled in the Senate.
Bartley lost her father, Consul General Julian Bartley, a senior career diplomat serving at the embassy in Nairobi as well as her 20 year old brother, Jay, who was a summer intern at the embassy. She has told me she doesn't really understand why the Senate hasn't acted but that she knows her dad would want her to keep fighting and keep up the pressure on lawmakers. The House approved measure would provide some 18 million dollars for the families and is intended, according to Bartley, to help Foreign Service workers injured in any future terrorist attacks.
The interview is posted below. One tidbit I found interesting is that Bartley said the U.S. government had received intelligence as far back as 1996 that Al-Qaeda was watching the embassy in Nairobi and that prior to the attack, then Ambassador Prudence Bushnell repeatedly warned then Secretary of State Madeline Albright about the embassy's vulnerabilities. However, Bartley said the threat level for the building was never raised.
- Nick Clooney on the Crisis in DarfurFormer television news anchor Nick Clooney returns to the Federal News Today to discuss the ongoing efforts he's made to stem the humanitarian crisis in the Darfur region of Sudan.
- A New Year, New President, New Conflict2009 ushers in a new President, a new conflict in the Middle East and international issues that can't be ignored.
- What's Next For Pakistan?A political crisis in Pakistan has many wondering who will lead when Musharraf leaves.
- 10 Year Anniversary of Kenya Embassy BombingA decade later, families of the Americans killed in the Al-Qaeda bombing of the U.S. Embassy in Nairobi, Kenya say they feel forgotten.
- The ICC, Darfur, and Interesting QuestionsQuestions to ponder as the ICC prosecutor seeks an arrest warrant for Sudan's President, Omar al-Bashir.
