The Senate Rebuilds Pakistan

By Michael Ruhl, University of New Mexico - Talk Radio News Service

Senator John Kerry (D-Mass.)
Photo by Michael Ruhl

In the next 5 years, the Pakistani infrastructure will be fortified by almost $10 billion American dollars, if Senators John Kerry (D-Mass.) and Richard Lugar (R-Ind.) have anything to say about it. The aptly titled Kerry-Lugar Bill will provided money for rebuilding the lives of civilians in war torn Pakistan.

Both Kerry and Lugar said that most of the money that has been funneled into Pakistan in the past few years has gone towards security. The aim of this bill is to shift the balance, to place more of an emphasis on infrastructure.

The Senators want to use the money for building schools, improving health care, building bridges, water projects, and other elements of infrastructure. Kerry said that the target projects are “things that would improve life and give people a sense of progress” to civilians.

The money would also be used for ensuring an independent media, expanding human rights and the rule of law, expanding transparency in government, rooting out political corruption and countering the drug trade.

Additionally military funding would be conditioned upon several things, including Pakistani security forces preventing al Qaeda and Taliban forces from operating in Pakistan. The military forces would not be able to interfere in politics or in the judicial process, according to the provisions of the bill.

The legislation bill would give $1.5 billion each year from FY 2009-2013, and would recommend similar amounts of money over the subsequent five years. There would be required benchmarks to measuring how effective the funding is, and the President will have to submit semi-annual reports to Congress about progress made.

One in seven people goes hungry each day

By Suzia van Swol, University of New Mexico-Talk Radio News Service

At a Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearing on “Alleviating Global Hunger: Challenges and Opportunities for U.S. Leadership, Chairman John Kerry (D-Mass.) said, “It’s quite astounding that in 2009, there are over 850 million hungry people in the world. One in seven people on earth goes hungry every day, and when we talk about going hungry every day, we are talking about real pain and anguish and sufferingthat goes with that hunger.” Kerry went on to explain that “While other threats force themselves into the front burner and command our attention, hunger and malnutrition remain the number one risk to health world wide.”

The first millennium development goal is to cut the proportion of people in the developing world who suffer from hunger in half by 2015. Kerry said that, “Last year’s food riots were a worrisome sign of how a crisis in food security can quickly become a national security issue. The global financial crisis also poses an urgent and an immediate threat. The World Bank estimates that as a result of this crisis, an additional 65 million people will fall below the $2 per day poverty line this year, and an additional 53 million will fall below the absolute poverty level of $1.25 per day.” Kerry went on to say that if food prices spike in the next month, we risk a double calamity in which farmers in poor countries can’t afford to plant and buyers can’t afford to purchase food.

Kerry said that, “We can’t tackle hunger alone. We have to engage a multi-lateral approach, we have to work in coordination with international institutions, including the world food program, international aid organizations, and the World Bank.” He also said that we must demonstrate our commitment by fully funding the President's international affairs budget and initiating a foreign aid reform process.

Catherine Bertini, executive director of the World Food Program, said that “If we are to be leaders in this area, then we can see many benefits for the United States. We can see national security benefits because we see that hunger and poverty have become political flash points; that many countries have had food riots, and that those have helped unseat at least two governments in this world in the last year.” She went on to explain that it is a moral responsibility for Americans to help our sisters and brothers from around the world who are hungry and that it will restore American standing and leadership in the world.

Daniel Glickman, former United States Secretary of Agriculture, stated that “By acting decisively and in our own national interest, our country can play a central role in saving millions if not tens of millions of lives in the poorest nations of the world, as we did during the Green Revolution.” Glickman used an analogy from the movie Schindler’s list and stating that, “If you save one life, you save the entire world.” He went on to state that there is a prescription to make people self reliant so that they can become productive citizens and get themselves out of poverty and out of malnutrition.

Ranking member Richard Lugar (R-Ind.) and Senator Robert Casey (D-Pa.) have introduced the Global Food Security Act of 2009, which aims to serve as a practical starting point for improving United States and global efforts that food security should play a much larger role in our national security strategy. Lugar said that, “Overcoming hunger should be one of the starting points for United States foreign policy.”

Global food prices up 43 percent

The Senate Foreign Relations Committee held a hearing on “Responding to the Global Food Crisis,” focusing in particular on U.S. agricultural investment in foreign nations and how the development of corn-based ethanol and other biofuels have contributed to the rise in food prices.

Edward Lazear, chairman for the Council of Economic Advisors, said that global food inflation was 43 percent during the 12 months ending in March 2008. He emphasized that Americans spend less than 14 percent of total expenditures on food, while Africans spend about 43 percent and for the poorest populations in Sub-Saharan Africa subsisting on less than one dollar per day, this figure may be as high as 70 percent.

Lazear testified that wheat prices have increased 123 percent, soybeans 66 percent, corn 37 percent, and rice 36 percent. Emerging market consumption, he said, has increased by 45 percent from 2001 to 2007 compared to 1991 to 2000, and that this increase in demand accounts for about 18 percent of the rise in food prices. Other factors, he said, are adverse weather conditions that destroy crops and to a smaller degree, ethanol production. He said that the world’s ethanol production accounts for approximately 13 percent of this year’s 37 percent increase in corn prices, and since corn makes up a small fraction of the International Monetary Fund’s Global Food Index, it is responsible for only about 1.2 percent of the year’s 43 percent total global food price increase.

U.S. Agency for International Development Administrator Henrietta Fore testified that the world’s one billion poorest people are living on one U.S. dollar per day, and that while Africa and Asia suffer most from this kind of poverty, Haiti is also facing a crisis. She also said that three-quarters of the world’s poorest people living on less than 50 cents per day are located in Africa. She advocated changing trade policies that present barriers to food supply and said that U.S. agricultural investment would be “enormously positive.” She mentioned that “even short term hunger” can “unalterably” affect a child through increased risk for disease, cognitive and developmental malfunction, and early death.

Sen. Richard Lugar (R-IN) said that people in nearly 40 countries face food shortages and potential civil unrest as a result. In 1980, he said, agricultural projects accounted for 30 percent of World Bank spending, whereas in 2007 that number was less than 13 percent. Along with Chairman Joe Biden (D-DE), he called for a “second Green Revolution” to increase agricultural research, development, and investment in order to augment yield per acre of crops by improving techniques. He said such an initiative would “benefit developed and developing countries alike,” as would removing trade barriers and tariffs. He also said that ethanol research cannot be curtailed because of its contribution to food price increases because it would put additional pressure on oil prices, which he emphasized is already at $120 per barrel.

Has there been progress in Iraq?

What progress has been made in Iraq? The progress question or some variant of it was asked repeatedly at the Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearing on "Iraq After the Surge: What Next?" Chairman Joseph Biden (D-DE) said in his opening statement violence in Iraq has gone down, but not as far as anticipated. These are fragile gains, he said, and the notion of staying in the country is not the goal. The continued loss of life, drains on our treasury, the impact of readiness on our armed services, and the ability to send soldiers to where al-Qaida has grouped, is like "treading water" and we can't keep treading water without exhausting ourselves.

Ryan Crocker, U.S. Ambassador to Iraq, relayed that it is hard to see progress in Iraq, and there is much to be done. However, he said, the surge is working. We have begun to develop a long-term relationship with the United States and Iraq, and the heart of the framework is a United States presence in Iraq. Our forces will remain in Iraq past December 31, which is when the current UN agreement expires. The new agreement will not make permanent bases in Iraq or raise up troop levels. Almost everything about Iraq is hard, Crocker said, but hard does not mean hopeless. Our gains are fragile and reversible. In regards to Iraq, Americans and the world will judge us not on what we have done, but what will happen in the future.

We have been transferring power to Iraqis, said Gen. David Petraeus, commander of the Multi-National Force in Iraq. Half of the provinces in Iraq are under their control, and Iraq's security forces expenditures have exceeded ours. While the forces in Iraq itself have improved, Petraeus said, their forces are not ready to defend themselves on their own. They are shouldering a lot of the load, but they are not yet ready for a resurgence of al-Qaida in Iraq, better known as AQI. There is an operational consideration, he said, transference of power requires a lot of time and monitoring. We've asked a great deal of our men and women in uniform, he said, and we are grateful and appreciate their sacrifices. All Americans should take great pride in them.

But what would happen if we removed our troops? Senator Richard Lugar (R-IN) asked that question, and Petraeus responded that we have put our teeth into their jugular, and we need to keep it there. In response to an additional question from Senator Biden, Petraeus said we are at a "six or seven" level on a scale from one to ten towards readiness to return to our pre-surge troop level. Biden also asked Ambassador Crocker, "In a choice, the Lord Almighty came down and sat in the middle of the table there and said, 'Mr. Ambassador, you can eliminate every al-Qaida source in Afghanistan and Pakistan or every al-Qaida personnel in Iraq,' which would you pick?" The Ambassador said he would choose al-Qaida in the Afghanistan Pakistan border area.

Senator Barack Obama (D-IL) said AQI was not in Iraq before we got there, and that AQI is really the focus here. If we are successful in Iraq, he asked, do we anticipate that AQI will not reconstitute itself? At what point do we say that they will not be particularly effective? In terms of our success in Iraq, it's just as fair to say that we can't get rid of AQI but just create a manageable situation. What is a legitimate affair between Iran and Iraq that would make us comfortable enough to pull out our troops? We all have the greatest interests in seeing a successful resolution in Iraq, he said. I continue to believe that going in was a blunder. I think that the surge has reduced violence and given us breathing room, he said, but not enough breathing room. I think increased pressure in a measured way, includes a withdrawal of troops.

Senate Foreign Relations Committee Hearing on Afghanistan

The U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Committee met today to discuss policy in Afghanistan. Chairman of the committee Joe Biden (D-DE) began by saying that he is skeptical of the Bush Administration's message that the U.S. is turning a corner in Afghanistan. He said that the U.S. should make a commitment invest greater funds towards development. He called Afghan security officials "corrupt" and "ineffectual" and said that he believes the war is winnable but that the U.S. is not winning.

Panelist and Assistant Secretary of State for South and Central Asian Affairs Richard Boucher talked about narcotics trafficking and other concerns in Afghanistan but his testimony mainly highlighted positive aspects of the situation. He foresaw a positive outcome to the conflict but advocated for increased troop levels to help train Afghan police and provide stronger security. He said that roads and infrastructure offer the greatest opportunity for Afghans and he mentioned a new $200 million budget to bring more electricity there.



Biden and the Republican leader of the committee Dick Lugar (Ind.) criticized Boucher's testimony for painting a rosy image of Afghanistan. Boucher said that situation in Afghanistan is better than it was during the 1990s. According to him, Afghanistan has transformed from a failed state under Taliban rule to a state with great potential today.