The following facts show that the modern State of Israel was created in Palestine because of the historic connection between the Jewish people and the Land of Israel, and not in response to the Holocaust, as many Holocaust deniers and Antisemits falsely argue.
Fact 1: The Jewish people have had a continuous presence in the Land of Israel for nearly 3500 years.
Circa 1400 B.C.E. – Joshua leads the Israelites into Canaan.
866 B.C.E. – King David declares Jerusalem capital of Israel.
825 B.C.E. – King Solomon builds the First Temple in Jerusalem.
423 B.C.E. – Destruction of the First Temple by the Babylonians.
325 B.C.E. – The Second Temple is built in Jerusalem.
70 C.E. – Fall of Jerusalem and destruction of the Second Temple.
135 C.E. – Defeat of Bar Kochba by the Romans.
231-254 C.E. – Early Church Father and theologian Origen “visited Erez Israel a number of times and came into contact with leading Jewish scholars there.”1
614 C.E. – “The Persian army of Chosroes II approached Jerusalem in 614 and besieged it with the help of its Jewish allies.”2
670-740 C.E. – “During the first century after the Arab conquest, the caliph and governors of Syria and the Land [Palestine] ruled entirely over Christian and Jewish subjects.”3
985 C.E. – The Arab writer Muqaddasi states that “The mosque is empty of worshippers…The Jews constitute the majority of Jerusalem’s population.”4
1099 C.E. – A synagogue is burned during the Crusader conquest of Jerusalem. Jewish correspondence following the destruction of Jerusalem marks “the earliest account on the conquest in any language.”5
1267 C.E. – Ramban moves to Jerusalem.
1492 C.E. – Mass immigration of Jews to Palestine following the Spanish expulsion.
1884 C.E. – Beginning of the First Aliya.
Fact 2: Throughout the ages the Jewish people have kept Jerusalem and Zion foremost in their prayers.
Preceding the Shema Israel
Bring us in peacefulness from the four corners of the earth and lead us with upright pride to our land.
SHEMA ISRAEL
In the Amidah
Sound the great shofar for our freedom, raise the banner to gather our exiles and gather us together from the four corners of the earth. Blessed are you, God, who gathers in the dispersed of the people of Israel.
And to Jerusalem your city, may You return in compassion, and may You rest within it, as You have spoken. May You rebuild it soon in our days as an eternal structure, and may You speedily establish the throne of David with in. Blessed are You, God, the builder of Jerusalem.
Psalm 126:
A song of ascents. When God will return the captivity of Zion, we will be like dreamers. Then our mouth will be filled with laughter and our tongue glad with song. Then they will declare among the nations, ‘God has done greatly with these.’ God has done greatly with us, we were gladdened. O God – return our captivity like springs in the desert. Those who tearfully sow will reap glad song. He who bears the measure of seeds walks along weeping, but will return in exultation, a bearer of his shaves.
Psalm 137:
By the rivers of Babylon – there we sat and also wept when we remembered Zion. On the willows within it we hung our lyres. There our captors requested words of song from us, with our lyres playing joyous music, ‘Sing for us from Zion’s song!’ ‘How can we sing the song of God upon the alien’s soil?’ If I forget you, O Jerusalem, let my right hand forget its skill. Let my tongue adhere to my palate if I fail to recall you, if I fail to elevate Jerusalem above my foremost joy. Remember, God, for the offspring of Edom, the day of Jerusalem – for those who say Destroy! Destroy! To its very foundation.
Musaf for the High Holidays, Passover, Shavuot and Sukkot:
Draw our scattered ones near, from among the nations, and bring in our dispersions from the ends of the earth. And bring us to Zion, Your City, in glad song, and to Jerusalem, home of Your Sanctuary, in eternal joy.
Fact 3: As the First Aliyah brought large groups of European Jews to Palestine, the leadership of the Zionist movement expressed their claim to a Jewish state in their ancestral homeland.
“Zionism seeks for the Jewish people a publicly recognized legally secured homeland in Palestine.” (From the program of the First Zionist Congress, Basel, Switzerland 1897.)
“My plan is simple enough. We must obtain the sovereignty of Palestine – our never-to-be-forgotten, historical home.” (Theodor Herzl, quoted in The New York Times, August 31, 1897.)
“That the Zionist Congress firmly maintains the principle for the foundation of the colony in the Jewish-father-land, Palestine, or in that vicinity. The congress thanks Great Britain for the offer of African territory, the consideration of which, however, is terminated…” (Resolution adopted by the Seventh Zionist Congress, July 1905.)
Fact 4: Following World War I and the collapse of the Ottoman Empire, the victorious nations began the re-division of Ottoman territory. Recognizing the historic connection between the Jewish people and Palestine, they committed to establishing a Jewish state therein.
“When it is asked what is meant by the development of the Jewish National Home in Palestine, it may be answered that it is not the imposition of a Jewish nationality upon the inhabitants of Palestine as a whole, but the further development of the existing Jewish community, with the assistance of Jews in other parts of the world, in order that it may become a centre in which the Jewish people as a whole may take, on grounds of religion and race, an interest and a pride. But in order that this community should have the best prospect of free development and provide a full opportunity for the Jewish people to display its capacities, it is essential that it should know that it is in Palestine as of right and not on the sufferance. That is the reason why it is necessary that the existence of a Jewish National Home in Palestine should be internationally guaranteed, and that it should be formally recognized to rest upon ancient historic connection. (British White Paper of 1922)
“Whereas the Principal Allied Powers have also agreed that the Mandatory should be responsible for putting into effect the declaration [the Balfour Declaration] originally made on November 2nd, 1917, by the Government of His Britannic Majesty, and adopted by the said Powers, in favour of the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people…
Whereas recognition has thereby been given to the historical connexion of the Jewish people with Palestine and to the grounds for reconstituting their national home in that country.”(Conference of the Principle Allied Powers at San Remo – July 24, 1922.)
Fact 5: Even before the wave of Jewish immigration to Palestine as part of the First Aliyah, a Jewish majority has existed in Jerusalem.
3 Parker, James. Whose Land? A History of the Peoples of Palestine. Great Britain: Harmondsworth, 1970, Page 66.
4 Kahler, Erich. The Jews among the Nations. New York City, NY: F. Ungar, 1967, Page 144.
5 Kedar, Benjamin Z. “The Jerusalem Massacre of July 1099 in the Western Historiography of the Crusades.” The Crusades. Vol. 3. Aldershot, England: Ashgate Publishing, 2004, Page 63.
6 Tal, Eliyahu. Whose Jerusalem. Tel Aviv, Israel: International Forum for a United Jerusalem, 1994, Page 94
Two hundred and thirty-three years ago, the United States of America were born when a courageous group of patriots pledged their lives, fortunes, and sacred honor to the proposition that all of us were created equal. America began as a unique experiment in liberty – a bold, evolving quest to achieve a more perfect union. And in every generation, another courageous group of patriots has taken one step closer to fully realizing the dream the founders enshrined on that great day. U.S. President Barack Obama recalls the American Idea.
Remarks of President Barack Obama
Weekly Address
The White House
July 4, 2009
Hello and Happy Fourth of July, everybody. This weekend is a time to get together with family and friends, kick back, and enjoy a little time off. And I hope that’s exactly what all of you do. But I also want to take a moment today to reflect on what I believe is the meaning of this distinctly American holiday.
Today, we are called to remember not only the day our country was born – we are also called to remember the indomitable spirit of the first American citizens who made that day possible.
We are called to remember how unlikely it was that our American experiment would succeed at all; that a small band of patriots would declare independence from a powerful empire; and that they would form, in the new world, what the old world had never known – a government of, by, and for the people.
That unyielding spirit is what defines us as Americans. It is what led generations of pioneers to blaze a westward trail.
It is what led my grandparents’ generation to persevere in the face of a Depression and triumph in the face of tyranny.
It is what led generations of American workers to build an industrial economy unrivalled around the world.
It is what has always led us, as a people, not to wilt or cower at a difficult moment, but to face down any trial and rise to any challenge, understanding that each of us has a hand in writing America’s destiny.
That is the spirit we are called to show once more. We are facing an array of challenges on a scale unseen in our time. We are waging two wars. We are battling a deep recession. And our economy – and our nation itself – are endangered by festering problems we have kicked down the road for far too long: spiraling health care costs; inadequate schools; and a dependence on foreign oil.
Meeting these extraordinary challenges will require an extraordinary effort on the part of every American. And that is an effort we cannot defer any longer.
Now is the time to lay a new foundation for growth and prosperity. Now is the time to revamp our education system, demand more from teachers, parents, and students alike, and build schools that prepare every child in America to outcompete any worker in the world.
Now is the time to reform an unsustainable health care system that is imposing crushing costs on families, businesses, large and small, and state and federal budgets. We need to protect what works, fix what’s broken, and bring down costs for all Americans. No more talk. No more delay. Health care reform must happen this year.
And now is the time to meet our energy challenge – one of the greatest challenges we have ever confronted as a people or as a planet. For the sake of our economy and our children, we must build on the historic bill passed by the House of Representatives, and make clean energy the profitable kind of energy so that we can end our dependence on foreign oil and reclaim America’s future.
These are some of the challenges that our generation has been called to meet. And yet, there are those who would have us try what has already failed; who would defend the status quo. They argue that our health care system is fine the way it is and that a clean energy economy can wait. They say we are trying to do too much, that we are moving too quickly, and that we all ought to just take a deep breath and scale back our goals.
These naysayers have short memories. They forget that we, as a people, did not get here by standing pat in a time of change. We did not get here by doing what was easy. That is not how a cluster of 13 colonies became the United States of America.
We are not a people who fear the future. We are a people who make it. And on this July 4th, we need to summon that spirit once more. We need to summon the same spirit that inhabited Independence Hall two hundred and thirty-three years ago today.
That is how this generation of Americans will make its mark on history. That is how we will make the most of this extraordinary moment. And that is how we will write the next chapter in the great American story. Thank you, and Happy Fourth of July.
The unanimous Declaration of the thirteen united States of America,
When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.
That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, –That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed.
But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.–Such has been the patient sufferance of these Colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former Systems of Government.
The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States. To prove this, let Facts be submitted to a candid world.
He has refused his Assent to Laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good.
He has forbidden his Governors to pass Laws of immediate and pressing importance, unless suspended in their operation till his Assent should be obtained; and when so suspended, he has utterly neglected to attend to them.
He has refused to pass other Laws for the accommodation of large districts of people, unless those people would relinquish the right of Representation in the Legislature, a right inestimable to them and formidable to tyrants only.
He has called together legislative bodies at places unusual, uncomfortable, and distant from the depository of their public Records, for the sole purpose of fatiguing them into compliance with his measures.
He has dissolved Representative Houses repeatedly, for opposing with manly firmness his invasions on the rights of the people.
He has refused for a long time, after such dissolutions, to cause others to be elected; whereby the Legislative powers, incapable of Annihilation, have returned to the People at large for their exercise; the State remaining in the mean time exposed to all the dangers of invasion from without, and convulsions within.
He has endeavoured to prevent the population of these States; for that purpose obstructing the Laws for Naturalization of Foreigners; refusing to pass others to encourage their migrations hither, and raising the conditions of new Appropriations of Lands.
He has obstructed the Administration of Justice, by refusing his Assent to Laws for establishing Judiciary powers.
He has made Judges dependent on his Will alone, for the tenure of their offices, and the amount and payment of their salaries.
He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harrass our people, and eat out their substance.
He has kept among us, in times of peace, Standing Armies without the Consent of our legislatures.
He has affected to render the Military independent of and superior to the Civil power.
He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitution, and unacknowledged by our laws; giving his Assent to their Acts of pretended Legislation:
For Quartering large bodies of armed troops among us:
For protecting them, by a mock Trial, from punishment for any Murders which they should commit on the Inhabitants of these States:
For cutting off our Trade with all parts of the world:
For imposing Taxes on us without our Consent:
For depriving us in many cases, of the benefits of Trial by Jury:
For transporting us beyond Seas to be tried for pretended offences
For abolishing the free System of English Laws in a neighbouring Province, establishing therein an Arbitrary government, and enlarging its Boundaries so as to render it at once an example and fit instrument for introducing the same absolute rule into these Colonies:
For taking away our Charters, abolishing our most valuable Laws, and altering fundamentally the Forms of our Governments:
For suspending our own Legislatures, and declaring themselves invested with power to legislate for us in all cases whatsoever.
He has abdicated Government here, by declaring us out of his Protection and waging War against us.
He has plundered our seas, ravaged our Coasts, burnt our towns, and destroyed the lives of our people.
He is at this time transporting large Armies of foreign Mercenaries to compleat the works of death, desolation and tyranny, already begun with circumstances of cruelty & perfidy scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous ages, and totally unworthy the Head of a civilized nation.
He has constrained our fellow Citizens taken Captive on the high Seas to bear Arms against their Country, to become the executioners of their friends and Brethren, or to fall themselves by their Hands.
He has excited domestic insurrections amongst us, and has endeavoured to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers, the merciless Indian Savages, whose known rule of warfare, is an undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes and conditions.
In every stage of these Oppressions We have Petitioned for Redress in the most humble terms: Our repeated Petitions have been answered only by repeated injury. A Prince whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a Tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free people.
Nor have We been wanting in attentions to our Brittish brethren. We have warned them from time to time of attempts by their legislature to extend an unwarrantable jurisdiction over us. We have reminded them of the circumstances of our emigration and settlement here. We have appealed to their native justice and magnanimity, and we have conjured them by the ties of our common kindred to disavow these usurpations, which, would inevitably interrupt our connections and correspondence. They too have been deaf to the voice of justice and of consanguinity. We must, therefore, acquiesce in the necessity, which denounces our Separation, and hold them, as we hold the rest of mankind, Enemies in War, in Peace Friends.
We, therefore, the Representatives of the united States of America, in General Congress, Assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions, do, in the Name, and by Authority of the good People of these Colonies, solemnly publish and declare, That these United Colonies are, and of Right ought to be Free and Independent States; that they are Absolved from all Allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political connection between them and the State of Great Britain, is and ought to be totally dissolved; and that as Free and Independent States, they have full Power to levy War, conclude Peace, contract Alliances, establish Commerce, and to do all other Acts and Things which Independent States may of right do.
And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes and our sacred Honor.
Der vorliegende Band bietet einen Überblick über die neueren Entwicklungen des hermeneutischen Übersetzungsansatzes, der Forschungsergebnisse aus der Linguistik und den Kognitionswissenschaften in seinen Diskurs integriert.
Besprochen werden hier Grundprobleme der Translation wie die Rolle des Übersetzers im Übersetzungsprozess und sein Umgang mit den Texten im Blick auf Verstehen, Interpretation, Kreativität der Formulierung u.a. Wege zur Anwendung des hermeneutischen Konzepts in der Übersetzungsdidaktik werden aufgezeigt und die Tragfähigkeit des zugrundeliegenden philosophischen Diskurses (F. Schleiermacher, E. Husserl, M. Heidegger, H.-G. Gadamer, J. Patočka, P. Ricœur) für die Translations-theorie wird überprüft.
***
Cet ouvrage offre une perspective d’ensemble sur les développements récents de l’approche herméneutique en traduction qui intègre dans sa conception théorique les résultats de la recherche actuelle en linguistique et en sciences cognitives.
On y débat des problèmes fondamentaux tels que le rôle du traducteur dans le processus de la traduction et son approche textuelle sous l’angle de la compréhension et de l’interprétation du texte, de la créativité en traduction etc. On y suggère des voies d’accès à l’application de la théorie herméneutique dans la didactique de la traduction et l’on discute la viabilité du discours philosophique sous-jacent (F. Schleiermacher, E. Husserl, M. Heidegger, H.-G. Gadamer, J. Patočka, P. Ricœur) pour la traductologie.
Publication date: 1 July 2009 Size: 6.50 x 9.45 in Pages: 352 Language: German, French ISBN:978-973-1997-06-3(paperback)
Inhalt / Sommaire
Larisa Cercel (Freiburg i. Br.): Auf den Spuren einer verschütteten Evidenz: Übersetzung und Hermeneutik (Einleitung)
Radegundis Stolze (Darmstadt): Hermeneutik und Übersetzungswissenschaft – eine praxisrelevante Verknüpfung
Lorenza Rega (Triest): Übersetzungspraxis und Hermeneutik im Spannungsverhältnis zwischen Vergangenheit und Gegenwart
John W. Stanley (Köln): Die Relevanz der phänomenologischen Hermeneutik für die Übersetzungswissenschaft
Jane Elisabeth Wilhelm (Genève): Pour une herméneutique du traduire
Arno Renken (Lausanne): Oui – et non. Traduction, herméneutique et écriture du doute
Inês Oseki-Dépré (Aix-en-Provence): Traduction et herméneutique
Domenico Jervolino (Naples): À la recherche d’une philosophie de la traduction, en lisant Patočka
Heinz-Otto Münch (Heidelberg) & Ingrid Steinbach (Worms): Verstehen und Geltung. Gadamers Hermeneutik im kritischen Licht der Übersetzungswissenschaft
Bernd Ulrich Biere (Koblenz): Die Rolle des Übersetzers: Bote, Ausleger, Verständlichmacher?
Ioana Bălăcescu (Craiova) & Bernd Stefanink (Bielefeld): Les bases scientifiques de l’approche herméneutique et d’un enseignement de la créativité en traduction
Marianne Lederer (Paris): Le sens sens dessus dessous: herméneutique et traduction
Alexis Nouss (Cardiff): La relation transhistorique
Alberto Gil (Saarbrücken): Hermeneutik der Angemessenheit. Translatorische Dimensionen des Rhetorikbegriffs decorum
Larisa Cercel (Freiburg i. Br.): Übersetzen als hermeneutischer Prozess. Fritz Paepcke und die Grundlagen der Übersetzungswissenschaft
The disgraced New York financier Bernard Lawrence “Bernie” Madoff has been sentenced to 150 years in prison by a court after pleading guilty to a massive Ponzi scheme, which severely impacted, among others, many philanthropies and individuals.
The sentence means that the 71-year-old, once a highly-respected Wall Street figure, will spend the rest of his life in jail.
He took billions of dollars from investors who trusted his reputation for providing spectacular returns and most of it has not been traced. The money was never invested but was put in banks and used to shore up the illusion that his business was trading successfully, as well as financing his luxury lifestyle.
Applause erupted in the courtroom when the sentence was announced, and despite a pubic apology by Madoff, Judge Denny Chin showed no leniency. “I don’t get a sense that Mr. Madoff has done all he could, or told all that he knows,” the judge said.
The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) today revised its World Economic Outlook forecast upward for the first time since 2007, indicating that the global economic slide may be approaching a bottom.
The group revised its estimates for 2009 upward, projecting a contraction of 4.1 percent rather than the 4.3 percent it projected before, and also projected slight growth in 2010, whereas before it had projected none.
The new OECD report coincides with meetings of the U.S. Federal Reserve’s Open Market Committee today in Washington.
A blog entry in the Wall Street Journal says the focus of the Fed’s meetings will be interest rates, how to word its statement on the economy, and the Fed’s asset purchase plan.
Elvis is the greatest cultural force in the twentieth century. He introduced the beat to everything, music, language, clothes, it’s a whole new social revolution — the 60’s comes from it. (Leonard Bernstein)
Elvis was an instinctive actor…He was quite bright…he was very intelligent…He was not a punk. He was very elegant, sedate, and refined, and sophisticated. (Walter Matthau)
A water glass full of whiskey
And women that I never knew too well
Lord, the things I’ve seen and done
Most of which I’d be ashamed to tell
I don’t know how it started
But that’s what makes a man a man, I guess
Now I’m holdin’ on to nothing’
Tryin’ to forget the rest
I’m lookin’ back on my life
To see if I can find the pieces
I know that some were stolen
And some just blew away
Well, I’ve found the bad parts
Found all the sad parts
But I guess I threw the best parts away
Lord away, away
Playing the bars, playing like a star
Anything to get a name
Carryin’ on, living on songs
My friends wrote to me to sing
I’m lookin’ back on my life
To see if I can find the pieces
I know that some were stolen
And some just blew away
Well, I’ve found the bad parts
Found all the sad parts
But I guess I threw the best parts away
Away, away
Lord, the pieces of my life
They’re everywhere, they’re everywhere
And the one I miss most of all
Is you and you know who
Lookin’ back on my life, Lord
To see if I can find the pieces
Lookin’ back on my life, today
To see if I can find the pieces
Lookin’ back on my life
God help me find the pieces
Iran entered its final day of campaigning before its presidential elections tomorrow. President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s challengers held rival protests in the city, criticizing the president for his crackdowns on personal freedoms and his troubles managing Iran’s struggling economy.
Several media have noted that Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s challengers, mostly the reformists Mir Hossein Mousavi and Mehdi Karroubi, once appeared pretty weak but seem to have gained momentum in recent weeks. It remains to be seen, of course, whether any of the challengers stands a chance of unseating the president. Some analysts have predicted that Mousavi and Karroubi will split the reformist vote, undermining one another.
The New York Times reports the state of the Iranian economy has emerged as a defining issue ahead of the vote.
EurasiaNet has an analysis arguing that Ahmadinejad may be trying to foment a “revolution within the Islamic Revolution” in hopes of establishing a “neoconservative dictatorship with the blessing of the country’s spiritual leader.” The problem, the article says, is that Ahmadinejad’s opponents are stronger than the Iranian president once thought.
Foreign Policy has a special report on the elections questioning whether a new revolution might be taking place.
Last night, when I spoke with you about the fall of Rome, I knew at that moment that troops of the United States and our Allies were crossing the Channel in another and greater operation. It has come to pass with success thus far.
And so, in this poignant hour, I ask you to join with me in prayer:
Almighty God: Our sons, pride of our nation, this day have set upon a mighty endeavor, a struggle to preserve our Republic, our religion, and our civilization, and to set free a suffering humanity.
Lead them straight and true; give strength to their arms, stoutness to their hearts, steadfastness in their faith.
They will need Thy blessings. Their road will be long and hard. For the enemy is strong. He may hurl back our forces. Success may not come with rushing speed, but we shall return again and again; and we know that by Thy grace, and by the righteousness of our cause, our sons will triumph.
They will be sore tried, by night and by day, without rest – until the victory is won. The darkness will be rent by noise and flame. Men’s souls will be shaken with the violences of war.
For these men are lately drawn from the ways of peace. They fight not for the lust of conquest. They fight to end conquest. They fight to liberate. They fight to let justice arise, and tolerance and goodwill among all Thy people. They yearn but for the end of battle, for their return to the haven of home.
Some will never return. Embrace these, Father, and receive them, Thy heroic servants, into Thy kingdom.
And for us at home – fathers, mothers, children, wives, sisters, and brothers of brave men overseas, whose thoughts and prayers are ever with them – help us, Almighty God, to rededicate ourselves in renewed faith in Thee in this hour of great sacrifice.
Many people have urged that I call the nation into a single day of special prayer. But because the road is long and the desire is great, I ask that our people devote themselves in a continuance of prayer. As we rise to each new day, and again when each day is spent, let words of prayer be on our lips, invoking Thy help to our efforts.
Give us strength, too – strength in our daily tasks, to redouble the contributions we make in the physical and the material support of our armed forces.
And let our hearts be stout, to wait out the long travail, to bear sorrows that may come, to impart our courage unto our sons wheresoever they may be.
And, O Lord, give us faith. Give us faith in Thee; faith in our sons; faith in each other; faith in our united crusade. Let not the keeness of our spirit ever be dulled. Let not the impacts of temporary events, of temporal matters of but fleeting moment – let not these deter us in our unconquerable purpose.
With Thy blessing, we shall prevail over the unholy forces of our enemy. Help us to conquer the apostles of greed and racial arrogances. Lead us to the saving of our country, and with our sister nations into a world unity that will spell a sure peace – a peace invulnerable to the schemings of unworthy men. And a peace that will let all of men live in freedom, reaping the just rewards of their honest toil.
Thy will be done, Almighty God. Amen.
U.S. President Franklin Delano Roosevelt – June 6, 1944
Haaretz reports U.S. President Barack Obama’s administration reached out to Israel following his speech yesterday addressing the Muslim world. Speaking in Germany today, Obama said the “moment is now” for pushing forward a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
Speaking before the Committee on the Budget of the U.S. House of Representatives in Washington, yesterday, U.S. Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Shalom Bernanke said Washington will need to bring down long term budget deficits and said a failure to do so could lead to future debt problems.
Chairman of the Board of Governors of the United States Federal Reserve
Current economic and financial conditions and the federal budget
Before the Committee on the Budget, U.S. House of Representatives, Washington, D.C.
June 3, 2009
Chairman Spratt, Ranking Member Ryan, and other members of the Committee, I am pleased to have this opportunity to offer my views on current economic and financial conditions and on issues pertaining to the federal budget.
Economic Developments and Outlook
The U.S. economy has contracted sharply since last fall, with real gross domestic product (GDP) having dropped at an average annual rate of about 6 percent during the fourth quarter of 2008 and the first quarter of this year. Among the enormous costs of the downturn is the loss of nearly 6 million jobs since the beginning of 2008. The most recent information on the labor market–the number of new and continuing claims for unemployment insurance through late May – suggests that sizable job losses and further increases in unemployment are likely over the next few months.
However, the recent data also suggest that the pace of economic contraction may be slowing. Notably, consumer spending, which dropped sharply in the second half of last year, has been roughly flat since the turn of the year, and consumer sentiment has improved. In coming months, households’ spending power will be boosted by the fiscal stimulus program. Nonetheless, a number of factors are likely to continue to weigh on consumer spending, among them the weak labor market, the declines in equity and housing wealth that households have experienced over the past two years, and still-tight credit conditions.
Activity in the housing market, after a long period of decline, has also shown some signs of bottoming. Sales of existing homes have been fairly stable since late last year, and sales of new homes seem to have flattened out in the past couple of monthly readings, though both remain at depressed levels. Meanwhile, construction of new homes has been sufficiently restrained to allow the backlog of unsold new homes to decline – a precondition for any recovery in homebuilding.
Businesses remain very cautious and continue to reduce their workforces and capital investments. On a more positive note, firms are making progress in shedding the unwanted inventories that they accumulated following last fall’s sharp downturn in sales. The Commerce Department estimates that the pace of inventory liquidation quickened in the first quarter, accounting for a sizable portion of the reported decline in real GDP in that period. As inventory stocks move into better alignment with sales, firms should become more willing to increase production.
We continue to expect overall economic activity to bottom out, and then to turn up later this year. Our assessments that consumer spending and housing demand will stabilize and that the pace of inventory liquidation will slow are key building blocks of that forecast. Final demand should also be supported by fiscal and monetary stimulus, and U.S. exports may benefit if recent signs of stabilization in foreign economic activity prove accurate. An important caveat is that our forecast also assumes continuing gradual repair of the financial system and an associated improvement in credit conditions; a relapse in the financial sector would be a significant drag on economic activity and could cause the incipient recovery to stall. I will provide a brief update on financial markets in a moment.
Even after a recovery gets under way, the rate of growth of real economic activity is likely to remain below its longer-run potential for a while, implying that the current slack in resource utilization will increase further. We expect that the recovery will only gradually gain momentum and that economic slack will diminish slowly. In particular, businesses are likely to be cautious about hiring, and the unemployment rate is likely to rise for a time, even after economic growth resumes.
In this environment, we anticipate that inflation will remain low. The slack in resource utilization remains sizable, and, notwithstanding recent increases in the prices of oil and other commodities, cost pressures generally remain subdued. As a consequence, inflation is likely to move down some over the next year relative to its pace in 2008. That said, improving economic conditions and stable inflation expectations should limit further declines in inflation.
Conditions in Financial Markets
Conditions in a number of financial markets have improved since earlier this year, likely reflecting both policy actions taken by the Federal Reserve and other agencies as well as the somewhat better economic outlook. Nevertheless, financial markets and financial institutions remain under stress, and low asset prices and tight credit conditions continue to restrain economic activity.
Among the markets where functioning has improved recently are those for short-term funding, including the interbank lending markets and the commercial paper market. Risk spreads in those markets appear to have moderated, and more lending is taking place at longer maturities. The better performance of short-term funding markets in part reflects the support afforded by Federal Reserve lending programs. It is encouraging that the private sector’s reliance on the Fed’s programs has declined as market stresses have eased, an outcome that was one of our key objectives when we designed our interventions. The issuance of asset-backed securities (ABS) backed by credit card, auto, and student loans has also picked up this spring, and ABS funding rates have declined, developments supported by the availability of the Federal Reserve’s Term Asset-Backed Securities Loan Facility as a market backstop.
In markets for longer-term credit, bond issuance by nonfinancial firms has been relatively strong recently, and spreads between Treasury yields and rates paid by corporate borrowers have narrowed some, though they remain wide. Mortgage rates and spreads have also been reduced by the Federal Reserve’s program of purchasing agency debt and agency mortgage-backed securities. However, in recent weeks, yields on longer-term Treasury securities and fixed-rate mortgages have risen. These increases appear to reflect concerns about large federal deficits but also other causes, including greater optimism about the economic outlook, a reversal of flight-to-quality flows, and technical factors related to the hedging of mortgage holdings.
As you know, last month, the federal bank regulatory agencies released the results of the Supervisory Capital Assessment Program (SCAP). The purpose of the exercise was to determine, for each of the 19 U.S.-owned bank holding companies with assets exceeding $100 billion, a capital buffer sufficient for them to remain strongly capitalized and able to lend to creditworthy borrowers even if economic conditions over the next two years turn out to be worse than we currently expect. According to the findings of the SCAP exercise, under the more adverse economic outlook, losses at the 19 bank holding companies would total an estimated $600 billion during 2009 and 2010. After taking account of potential resources to absorb those losses, including expected revenues, reserves, and existing capital cushions, we determined that 10 of the 19 institutions should raise, collectively, additional common equity of $75 billion.
Each of the 10 bank holding companies requiring an additional buffer has committed to raise this capital by November 9. We are in discussions with these firms on their capital plans, which are due by June 8. Even in advance of those plans being approved, the 10 firms have among them already raised more than $36 billion of new common equity, with a number of their offerings of common shares being over-subscribed. In addition, these firms have announced actions that would generate up to an additional $12 billon of common equity. We expect further announcements shortly as their capital plans are finalized and submitted to supervisors. The substantial progress these firms have made in meeting their required capital buffers, and their success in raising private capital, suggests that investors are gaining greater confidence in the banking system.
Fiscal Policy in the Current Economic and Financial Environment
Let me now turn to fiscal matters. As you are well aware, in February of this year, the Congress passed the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, or ARRA, a major fiscal package aimed at strengthening near-term economic activity. The package included personal tax cuts and increases in transfer payments intended to stimulate household spending, incentives for business investment, increases in federal purchases, and federal grants for state and local governments.
Predicting the effects of these fiscal actions on economic activity is difficult, especially in light of the unusual economic circumstances that we face. For example, households confronted with declining incomes and limited access to credit might be expected to spend most of their tax cuts; then again, heightened economic uncertainties and the desire to increase precautionary saving or pay down debt might reduce households’ propensity to spend. Likewise, it is difficult to judge how quickly funds dedicated to infrastructure needs and other longer-term projects will be spent and how large any follow-on effects will be. The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) has constructed a range of estimates of the effects of the stimulus package on real GDP and employment that appropriately reflects these uncertainties. According to the CBO’s estimates, by the end of 2010, the stimulus package could boost the level of real GDP between about 1 percent and a little more than 3 percent and the level of employment by between roughly 1 million and 3-1/2 million jobs.
The increases in spending and reductions in taxes associated with the fiscal package and the financial stabilization program, along with the losses in revenues and increases in income-support payments associated with the weak economy, will widen the federal budget deficit substantially this year. The Administration recently submitted a proposed budget that projects the federal deficit to reach about $1.8 trillion this fiscal year before declining to $1.3 trillion in 2010 and roughly $900 billion in 2011. As a consequence of this elevated level of borrowing, the ratio of federal debt held by the public to nominal GDP is likely to move up from about 40 percent before the onset of the financial crisis to about 70 percent in 2011. These developments would leave the debt-to-GDP ratio at its highest level since the early 1950s, the years following the massive debt buildup during World War II.
Certainly, our economy and financial markets face extraordinary near-term challenges, and strong and timely actions to respond to those challenges are necessary and appropriate. Nevertheless, even as we take steps to address the recession and threats to financial stability, maintaining the confidence of the financial markets requires that we, as a nation, begin planning now for the restoration of fiscal balance. Prompt attention to questions of fiscal sustainability is particularly critical because of the coming budgetary and economic challenges associated with the retirement of the baby-boom generation and continued increases in medical costs. The recent projections from the Social Security and Medicare trustees show that, in the absence of programmatic changes, Social Security and Medicare outlays will together increase from about 8-1/2 percent of GDP today to 10 percent by 2020 and 12-1/2 percent by 2030. With the ratio of debt to GDP already elevated, we will not be able to continue borrowing indefinitely to meet these demands.
Addressing the country’s fiscal problems will require a willingness to make difficult choices. In the end, the fundamental decision that the Congress, the Administration, and the American people must confront is how large a share of the nation’s economic resources to devote to federal government programs, including entitlement programs. Crucially, whatever size of government is chosen, tax rates must ultimately be set at a level sufficient to achieve an appropriate balance of spending and revenues in the long run. In particular, over the longer term, achieving fiscal sustainability–defined, for example, as a situation in which the ratios of government debt and interest payments to GDP are stable or declining, and tax rates are not so high as to impede economic growth – requires that spending and budget deficits be well controlled.
Clearly, the Congress and the Administration face formidable near-term challenges that must be addressed. But those near-term challenges must not be allowed to hinder timely consideration of the steps needed to address fiscal imbalances. Unless we demonstrate a strong commitment to fiscal sustainability in the longer term, we will have neither financial stability nor healthy economic growth.
Federal Reserve Transparency
Let me close today with an update on the Federal Reserve’s initiatives to enhance the transparency of our credit and liquidity programs. As I noted last month in my testimony before the Joint Economic Committee, I asked Vice Chairman Kohn to lead a review of our disclosure policies, with the goal of increasing the range of information that we make available to the public. That group has made significant progress, and we expect to begin publishing soon a monthly report on the Fed’s balance sheet and lending programs that will summarize and discuss recent developments and provide considerable new information concerning the number of borrowers at our various facilities, the concentration of borrowing, and the collateral pledged. In addition, the reports will provide quarterly updates of key elements of the Federal Reserve’s annual financial statements, including information regarding the System Open Market Account portfolio, our loan programs, and the special purpose vehicles that are consolidated on the balance sheet of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York. We hope that this information will be helpful to the Congress and others with an interest in the Federal Reserve’s actions to address the financial crisis and the economic downturn. We will continue to look for opportunities to broaden the scope of the information and supporting analysis that we provide to the public.
Ben Shalom Bernanke, chairman of the Board of Governors, The Federal Reserve Board, USA
United States Secretary of the Treasury Timothy Geithner
Timothy Geithner, in his first visit to China as U.S. Treasury Secretary, presented a plan for the United States and China to work together to rebuild the global economy and restore growth.
Chinese media focused on Geithner’s implication that China should play a more significant role in global economic policymaking. China Daily says the primary goal of Geithner’s trip, which has included meetings with several leading Chinese economic policymakers, has been to reaffirm China’s faith in U.S. dollar-backed assets and still fears that U.S. budget deficit and loose monetary policy will prompt inflation, undermining Chinese holdings of both the U.S. dollar and U.S. Treasury bonds.
Below is the text of Timothy Geithner’s speech.
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The United States and China, Cooperating for Recovery and Growth
Treasury Secretary Timothy F. Geithner
Speech at Peking University – Beijing, China June 1st, 2009
It is a pleasure to be back in China and to join you here today at this great university.
I first came to China, and to Peking University, in the summer of 1981 as a college student studying Mandarin. I was here with a small group of graduate and undergraduate students from across the United States. I returned the next summer to Beijing Normal University.
We studied reasonably hard, and had the privilege of working with many talented professors, some of whom are here today. As we explored this city and traveled through Eastern China, we had the chance not just to understand more about your history and your aspirations, but also to begin to see the United States through your eyes.
Over the decades since, we have seen the beginnings of one of the most extraordinary economic transformations in history. China is thriving. Economic reform has brought exceptionally rapid and sustained growth in incomes. China’s emergence as a major economic force more fully integrated into the world economy has brought substantial benefits to the United States and to economies around the world.
In recognition of our mutual interest in a positive, cooperative, and comprehensive relationship, President Hu Jintao and President Obama agreed in April to establish the Strategic and Economic Dialogue. Secretary Clinton and I will host Vice Premier Wang and State Councilor Dai in Washington this summer for our first meeting. I have the privilege of beginning the economic discussions with a series of meetings in Beijing today and tomorrow.
These meetings will give us a chance to discuss the risks and challenges on the economic front, to examine some of the longer term challenges we both face in laying the foundation for a more balanced and sustainable recovery, and to explore our common interest in international financial reform.
Current Challenges and Risks
The world economy is going through the most challenging economic and financial stress in generations.
The International Monetary Fund predicts that the world economy will shrink this year for the first time in more than six decades. The collapse of world trade is likely to be the worst since the end of World War II. The lost output, compared to the world economy’s potential growth in a normal year, could be between three and four trillion dollars.
In the face of this challenge, China and the United States are working together to help shape a strong global strategy to contain the crisis and to lay the foundation for recovery. And these efforts, the combined effect of forceful policy actions here in China, in the United States, and in other major economies, have helped slow the pace of deterioration in growth, repair the financial system, and improve confidence.
In fact, what distinguishes the current crisis is not just its global scale and its acute severity, but the size and speed of the global response.
At the G-20 Leaders meeting in London in April, we agreed on an unprecedented program of coordinated policy actions to support growth, to stabilize and repair the financial system, to restore the flow of credit essential for trade and investment, to mobilize financial resources for emerging market economies through the international financial institutions, and to keep markets open for trade and investment.
That historic accord on a strategy for recovery was made possible in part by the policy actions already begun in China and the United States.
China moved quickly as the crisis intensified with a very forceful program of investments and financial measures to strengthen domestic demand.
In the United States, in the first weeks of the new Administration, we put in place a comprehensive program of tax incentives and investments ¨C the largest peace time recovery effort since World War II – to help arrest the sharp fall in private demand. Alongside these fiscal measures, we acted to ease the housing crisis. And we have put in place a series of initiatives to bring more capital into the banking system and to restart the credit markets.
These actions have been reinforced by similar actions in countries around the world.
In contrast to the global crisis of the 1930s and to the major economic crises of the postwar period, the leaders of the world acted together. They acted quickly. They took steps to provide assistance to the most vulnerable economies, even as they faced exceptional financial needs at home. They worked to keep their markets open, rather than retreating into self-defeating measures of discrimination and protection.
And they have committed to make sure this program of initiatives is sustained until the foundation for recovery is firmly established, a commitment the IMF will monitor closely, and that we will be able to evaluate together when the G-20 Leaders meet again in the United States this fall.
We are starting to see some initial signs of improvement. The global recession seems to be losing force. In the United States, the pace of decline in economic activity has slowed. Households are saving more, but consumer confidence has improved, and spending is starting to recover. House prices are falling at a slower pace and the inventory of unsold homes has come down significantly. Orders for goods and services are somewhat stronger. The pace of deterioration in the labor market has slowed, and new claims for unemployment insurance have started to come down a bit.
The financial system is starting to heal. The clarity and disclosure provided by our capital assessment of major U.S. banks has helped improve market confidence in them, making it possible for banks that needed capital to raise it from private investors and to borrow without guarantees. The securities markets, including the asset backed securities markets that essentially stopped functioning late last year, have started to come back. The cost of credit has fallen substantially for businesses and for families as spreads and risk premia have narrowed.
These are important signs of stability, and assurance that we will succeed in averting financial collapse and global deflation, but they represent only the first steps in laying the foundation for recovery. The process of repair and adjustment is going to take time.
China, despite your own manifest challenges as a developing country, you are in an enviably strong position. But in most economies, the recession is still powerful and dangerous. Business and households in the United States, as in many countries, are still experiencing the most challenging economic and financial pressures in decades.
The plant closures, and company restructurings that the recession is causing are painful, and this process is not yet over. The fallout from these events has been brutally indiscriminant, affecting those with little or no responsibility for the events that now buffet them, as well as on some who played key roles in bringing about our troubles.
The extent of the damage to financial systems entails significant risk that the supply of credit will be constrained for some time. The constraints on banks in many major economies will make it hard for them to compensate fully for the damage done to the basic machinery of the securitization markets, including the loss of confidence in credit ratings. After a long period where financial institutions took on too much risk, we still face the possibility that banks and investors may take too little risk, even as the underlying economic conditions start to improve.
And, after a long period of falling saving and substantial growth in household borrowing relative to GDP, consumer spending in the United States will be restrained for some time relative to what is typically the case in recoveries.
These are necessary adjustments. They will entail a longer, slower process of recovery, with a very different pattern of future growth across countries than we have seen in the past several recoveries.
Laying the Foundation for Future Growth
As we address this immediate financial and economic crisis, it is important that we also lay the foundations for more balanced, sustained growth of the global economy once this recovery is firmly established.
A successful transition to a more balanced and stable global economy will require very substantial changes to economic policy and financial regulation around the world. But some of the most important of those changes will have to come in the United States and China. How successful we are in Washington and Beijing will be critically important to the economic fortunes of the rest of the world. The effectiveness of U.S. policies will depend in part on China’s, and the effectiveness of yours on ours.
Although the United States and China start from very different positions, many of our domestic challenges are similar. In the United States, we are working to reform our health care system, to improve the quality of education, to rebuild our infrastructure, and to improve energy efficiency. These reforms are essential to boosting the productive capacity of our economy. These challenges are at the center of your reform priorities, too.
We are both working to reform our financial systems. In the United States, our challenge is to create a more stable and more resilient financial system, with stronger protections for consumer and investors. As we work to strengthen and redesign regulation to achieve these objectives, our challenge is to preserve the core strengths of our financial system, which are its exceptional capacity to adapt and innovate and to channel capital for investment in new technologies and innovative companies. You have the benefit of being able to learn from our shortcomings, which have proved so damaging in the present crisis, as well as from our strengths.
Our common challenge is to recognize that a more balanced and sustainable global recovery will require changes in the composition of growth in our two economies. Because of this, our policies have to be directed at very different outcomes.
In the United States, saving rates will have to increase, and the purchases of U.S. consumers cannot be as dominant a driver of growth as they have been in the past.
In China, as your leadership has recognized, growth that is sustainable growth will require a very substantial shift from external to domestic demand, from an investment and export intensive driven growth, to growth led by consumption. Strengthening domestic demand will also strengthen China’s ability to weather fluctuations in global supply and demand.
If we are successful on these respective paths, public and private saving in the United States will increase as recovery strengthens, and as this happens, our current account deficit will come down. And in China, domestic demand will rise at a faster rate than overall GDP, led by a gradual shift to higher rates of consumption.
Globally, recovery will have come more from a shift by high saving economies to stronger domestic demand and less from the American consumer.
The policy framework for a successful transition to this outcome is starting to take shape.
In the United States, we are putting in place the foundations for restoring fiscal sustainability.
The President in his initial budget to Congress made it clear that, as soon as recovery is firmly established, we are going to have to bring our fiscal deficit down to a level that is sustainable over the medium term. This will mean bringing the imbalance between our fiscal resources and expenditures down to the point - roughly three percent of GDP – where the overall level of public debt to GDP is definitively on a downward path. The temporary investments and tax incentives we put in place in the Recovery Act to strengthen private demand will have to expire, discretionary spending will have to fall back to a more modest level relative to GDP, and we will have to be very disciplined in limiting future commitments through the reintroduction of budget disciplines, such as pay-as-you go rules.
The President also looks forward to working with Congress to further reduce our long-run fiscal deficit.
And, critical to our long-term fiscal health, we have to put in place comprehensive health care reform that will bring down the growth in health care costs, costs that are the principal driver of our long run fiscal deficit.
The President has also proposed steps to encourage private saving, including through automatic enrollment in retirement savings accounts.
Alongside these fiscal actions, we have designed our policies to address the financial crisis to carefully minimize risk to the taxpayer and to allow for an orderly exit or unwinding as soon as conditions permit. Across the various financial facilities put in place by the Treasury, the Federal Reserve, and the FDIC, we have been careful to set the economic terms at a level so that demand for these facilities will fade as conditions normalize and risk premia recede. Banks have a strong incentive to replace public capital with private capital as soon as conditions permit.
Let me be clear - the United States is committed to a strong and stable international financial system. The Obama Administration fully recognizes that the United States has a special responsibility to play in this regard, and we fully appreciate that exercising this special responsibility begins at home. As we recover from this unprecedented crisis, we will cut our fiscal deficit, we will eliminate the extraordinary governmental support that we have put in place to overcome the crisis, we will continue to preserve the openness of our economy, and we will resolutely maintain the policy framework necessary for durable and lasting sustained non-inflationary growth.
In China, the challenge is fundamentally different, and at least as complex.
Critical to the success of your efforts to shift future growth to domestic demand are measures to raise household incomes and to reduce the need that households feel to save large amounts for precautionary reasons or to pay for major expenditures like education. This involves strengthening the social safety net with health care reform and more complete public retirement systems, enacting financial reforms to help expand access to credit for households, and providing products that allow households to insure against risk. These efforts can be funded through the increased collection of dividends from state-owned enterprises.
The structure of the Chinese economy will shift as domestic demand grows in importance, with a larger service sector, more emphasis on light industry, and less emphasis on heavy, capital intensive export and import-competing industries. The resulting growth will generate greater employment, and be less energy-intensive than the current structure of Chinese industry. Allowing the market, interest rates, and other prices to function to encourage the shift in production will be particularly important.
An important part of this strategy is the government’s commitment to continue progress toward a more flexible exchange rate regime. Greater exchange rate flexibility will help reinforce the shift in the composition of growth, encourage resource shifts to support domestic demand, and provide greater ability for monetary policy to achieve sustained growth with low inflation in the future.
International Financial Reform
These are some of the most important domestic economic challenge we face, and these issues will be at the core of our agenda for economic cooperation.
But I think it is important to underscore that we also have a very strong interest in working together to strengthen the framework for international economic and financial cooperation.
Let me highlight three important areas.
At the G-20 Leaders meeting, we committed to a series of actions to help reform and strengthen the international financial architecture.
As part of this, we agreed to put in place a stronger framework of standards for supervision and regulation of the financial system. We expanded and strengthened the Financial Stability Forum, now renamed the Financial Stability Board. China and other major emerging economies are now full participants, alongside the major financial centers, in this critical institution for cooperation. We will have the chance together to help redesign global standards for capital requirements, stronger oversight of global markets like derivatives, better tools for resolving future financial crises, and measures to reduce the opportunities for regulatory arbitrage.
We also committed to an ambitious program of reform of the IMF and other international financial institutions. Our common objective is to reform the governance of these institutions to make them more representative of the shifting balance of economic and financial activity in the world, to strengthen their capacity to prevent future crisis, with stronger surveillance of macroeconomic, exchange rate, and financial policies, and to equip them with a stronger financial capacity to respond to future crises. We also committed to mobilize $500 billion in additional finance through the enlargement and membership expansion of the IMF’s New Arrangements to Borrow in order to provide an insurance policy for the global financial system.
As part of this process of reform, the United States will fully support having China play a role in the principal cooperative arrangements that help shape the international system, a role that is commensurate with China’s importance in the global economy.
I believe that a greater role for China is necessary for China, for the effectiveness of the international financial institutions themselves, and for the world economy.
China is already too important to the global economy not to have a full seat at the international table, helping to define the policies that are critical to the effective functioning of the international financial system.
Second, we must cooperate to assure that the global trade and investment environment remains open, and that opportunities continue to expand. As economies have become more open and more closely integrated, global economic growth has been stronger and more broad-based, bringing increasing numbers out of poverty, and turning developing nations into major emerging markets. The global commitment to trade liberalization and increasingly open investment played a critical role in this process ¨C in the industrialized world, in East Asia, and, since 1978, in China. As we go through the severe stresses of this crisis, we must not turn our backs on open trade and investment - for ourselves and for those who have yet to experience the fruits of growth and development. The United States, China, and the other members of the G20 have committed to not resort to protectionist measures by raising trade and investment barriers and to work toward a successful conclusion to the Doha Development Round.
And third, one of the most critical long-term challenges that we both face is climate change. Individually and collectively, there is an urgent need to ensure that each and every country takes meaningful action to deal with this threat. Reducing land and forestdegradation, conserving energy, and using clean technology are important objectives that complement both our efforts to achieve a new, sustainable pattern of growth and our goal of reducing greenhouse gas emissions. China and the United States already are working closely through the Strategic and Economic Dialogue in areas such as clean transportation, clean and efficient production of electricity, and the reduction of air and water pollution. We must continue these efforts for the sake of our natio ns and the planet.
Conclusion
In the last few years the frequency, intensity, and importance of U.S.-China economic engagements have multiplied. The U.S.-China Strategic and Economic Dialogue that President Obama and President Hu initiated in April is the next stage in that process. I look forward to welcoming Vice Premier Wang, State Councilor Dai and their colleagues to Washington to participate in the first meeting of the U.S.-China Strategic and Economic Dialogue.
Our engagement should be conducted with mutual respect for the traditions, values, and interests of China and the United States. We will make a joint effort in a concerted way “同心协力“. We should understand that we each have a very strong stake in the health and the success of each other’s economy.
China and the United States individually, and together, are so important in the global economy and financial system that what we do has a direct impact on the stability and strength of the international economic system. Other nations have a legitimate interest in our policies and the ways in which we work together, and we each have an obligation to ensure that our policies and actions promote the health and stability of the global economy and financial system.
We come together because we have shared interests and responsibilities. We also have our own national interests. I will be a strong advocate for U.S. interests, just as I expect my counterparts to represent China. China has benefited hugely from open trade and investment, and the ability to greatly increase its exports to the rest of the world. In turn, we expect increased opportunities to export to and invest in the Chinese economy.
We want China to succeed and prosper. Chinese growth and expanding Chinese demand is a tremendous opportunity for U.S. firms and workers, just as it is in China and the rest of the world.
Global problems will not be solved without U.S.-China cooperation. That goes for the entire range of issues that face our world from economic recovery and financial repair to climate change and energy policy.
I look forward to working with you cooperatively, and in a spirit of mutual respect.
Last week, President Barack Obama and former vice president Dick Cheney presented competing views of how America was kept secure after September 11, 2001 - and how to proceed in the future.
Mr. Cheney first documented the threats America faced in the wake of the 9/11 attacks and how the Bush administration shaped the nation’s response. The post-9/11 “comprehensive strategy” has “required the commitment of many thousands of troops in two theaters of war, with high points and some low points in both Iraq and Afghanistan – and at every turn, the people of our military carried the heaviest burden,” he said. “Well over seven years into the effort, one thing we know is that the enemy has spent most of this time on the defensive–and every attempt to strike inside the United States has failed.”
Key to the successful post-9/11 strategy, Mr. Cheney said, was “accurate intelligence” – including that received through enhanced interrogation.
Danielle Pletka, foreign policy insider and former staff member for Near East and South Asia at the Committee on Foreign Relations of the U.S. Senate, commented on the Cheney speech in the pages of USA Today.
Five years after photos initially surfaced of prisoner abuse at the Abu Ghraib detention center in Iraq, the photos taken at the camp are again at issue after a former U.S. army major general alleged to the British paper the Telegraph that additional, unreleased photos show U.S. soldiers raping inmates.
President Barack Obama has reversed his initial position that he would release all remaining photos, saying that the photos are graphic and would put U.S. and British troops in danger.
Editor of The Paris Review and former staff writer of The New YorkerPhilip Gourevitch, writing in the New York Times, argues that Obama’s decision not to release the photos should be viewed differently from the George W. Bush administration’s initial denials of torture at Abu Ghraib.
U.S. President Barack Obama announces his nominee for the Supreme Court, Sonia Sotomayor, in a video message to Organizing for America.
I am proud to announce my nominee for the next Justice of the United States Supreme Court: Judge Sonia Sotomayor.
This decision affects us all – and so it must involve us all. I’ve recorded a special message to personally introduce Judge Sotomayor and explain why I’m so confident she will make an excellent Justice.
Judge Sotomayor has lived the America Dream. Born and raised in a South Bronx housing project, she distinguished herself in academia and then as a hard-charging New York District Attorney.
Judge Sotomayor has gone on to earn bipartisan acclaim as one of America’s finest legal minds. As a Supreme Court Justice, she would bring more federal judicial experience to the Supreme Court than any Justice in 100 years. Judge Sotomayor would show fidelity to our Constitution and draw on a common-sense understanding of how the law affects our day-to-day lives.
A nomination for a lifetime appointment to the highest court in the land is one of the most important decisions a President can make. And the discussions that follow will be among the most important we have as a nation.
European Council on Foreign Relations (ECFR) Senior Policy Fellow Anthony Dworkin wrote a strategic paper entitled Beyond the “War on Terror”: Towards a New Transatlantic Framework for Counterterrorism.
This policy paper shows how divisions with the United States of America over counterterrorism policy have been a major problem for the European Union since September 11, 2001 and how the presidency of Barack Obama offers the possibility of a new approach, based on transatlantic agreement over the core principles for fighting terrorism. The author argues that EU leaders should work with the new US administration to agree a comprehensive declaration on counterterrorism that could be signed under the Spanish EU Presidency in 2010.
To seize the opportunity provided by the new US leadership, the European Union should launch an internal review to clarify its own views about core principles for fighting terrorism as part of the preparation for a joint declaration. EU officials should also restart a dialogue on international law and counterterrorism with the United States. This would give it input into a series of US reviews, and allow Europeans to push for clarification of the US position on key questions of international humanitarian law and human rights. Finally, the author calls on European countries to quickly agree on a joint position on resettling detainees from Guantanamo and consider offering a new home to these prisoners wherever possible.
The head of the Austrian Jewish community, Ariel Muzicant, has accused extreme-right politicians in his country of stoking hate in the run up to elections for the European Parliament in June 2009. Muzicant said in an interview that the tone of the campaign by the far-right Austrian Freedom Party (FPÖ) was directly responsible for a recent series of anti-Semitic incidents in the country.
The FPÖ encouraged “right-wing extremism in their own ranks and systematically want to make it socially respectable,” Muzicant said. He also likened the agitation of the party’s general secretary, Herbert Kickl, to those of Nazi Germany’s propaganda minister Joseph Goebbels.
FPÖ leader Norbert Hofer demanded in a statement released Saturday that Austrian president Heinz Fischer and Parliament speaker Barbara Prammer condemn Muzicant’s words, but there has been no official response.
While most Austrians are likely to support the governing Social Democrats (SPÖ) and Austrian People’s Party (ÖVP) in the elections, far-right parties won nearly 29 percent of the vote in last year’s national elections. Recent incidents in Austria include an attack by four right-wing youth on Holocaust survivors in the town of Ebensee; anti-Semitic statements made by Austrian students visiting the Auschwitz memorial; the refusal of a hotel in Tyrol to accept Jewish guests; and an Austrian far-right columnist blaming Jews for the current world financial crisis. An FPÖ campaign ad suggested that not only Turkey but also Israel, which is not a candidate for accession, should be prevented from joining the European Union.
Meanwhile, the Simon Wiesenthal Center warned that voter indifference across Europe could empower anti-Semitic parties in the upcoming European Parliament elections. “In the past, low voter turnout has played into the hands” of European parties and their allies which “are openly anti-Semitic and some include convicted Holocaust deniers,” said a statement released by the center. The Wiesenthal Center is arguing that votes can influence the Israel-Europe relationship and Jewish life in Europe because the EU Parliament will address issues such as anti-Semitism, the Iranian nuclear threat, dialogue with Hamas and Hezbollah, and trade agreements with Israel. Some 736 members of the European Parliament will be elected by proportional representation to represent 500 million Europeans in the 27 member states.
Yesterday the political battles in Washington D.C. over the closure of Guantanamo detention center heated up. President Barack Obama has reinforced his call to shut down the Guantanamo Bay detention camp, saying its flaws have weakened national security. But opponents say the camp has made the United States safer and predict legislative obstacles on transferring detainees.
President Barack Obama delivered a speech laying out in general terms his plan to close Guantanamo and his argument for balancing transparency with national security. Former Vice President Richard B. Cheney immediately followed up in a speech at the neoconservative think tank American Enterprise Institute (AEI), suggesting one aspect of Obama’s plan – bringing Guantanamo prisoners to U.S. soil – may never pass congressional muster. The speeches came in the wake of a recent decision by Senate Democrats refusing to release funds for the closure of Guantanamo.
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Here is President Barack Obama’s speech.
THE WHITE HOUSE – Office of the Press Secretary
______________________________________________________
For Immediate Release May 21, 2009
REMARKS BY THE PRESIDENT ON NATIONAL SECURITY
National Archives, Washington D.C., 10:28 A.M. EDT
THE PRESIDENT: Good morning, everybody. Please be seated. Thank you all for being here. Let me just acknowledge the presence of some of my outstanding Cabinet members and advisors. We’ve got our Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton. We have our CIA Director Leon Panetta. We have our Secretary of Defense William Gates; Secretary Napolitano of Department of Homeland Security; Attorney General Eric Holder; my National Security Advisor Jim Jones. And I want to especially thank our Acting Archivist of the United States, Adrienne Thomas.
I also want to acknowledge several members of the House who have great interest in intelligence matters. I want to thank Congressman Reyes, Congressman Hoekstra, Congressman King, as well as Congressman Thompson, for being here today. Thank you so much.
These are extraordinary times for our country. We’re confronting a historic economic crisis. We’re fighting two wars. We face a range of challenges that will define the way that Americans will live in the 21st century. So there’s no shortage of work to be done, or responsibilities to bear.
And we’ve begun to make progress. Just this week, we’ve taken steps to protect American consumers and homeowners, and to reform our system of government contracting so that we better protect our people while spending our money more wisely. The – it’s a good bill. The engines of our economy are slowly beginning to turn, and we’re working towards historic reform on health care and on energy. I want to say to the members of Congress, I welcome all the extraordinary work that has been done over these last four months on these and other issues.
In the midst of all these challenges, however, my single most important responsibility as President is to keep the American people safe. It’s the first thing that I think about when I wake up in the morning. It’s the last thing that I think about when I go to sleep at night.
And this responsibility is only magnified in an era when an extremist ideology threatens our people, and technology gives a handful of terrorists the potential to do us great harm. We are less than eight years removed from the deadliest attack on American soil in our history. We know that al Qaeda is actively planning to attack us again. We know that this threat will be with us for a long time, and that we must use all elements of our power to defeat it.
Already, we’ve taken several steps to achieve that goal. For the first time since 2002, we’re providing the necessary resources and strategic direction to take the fight to the extremists who attacked us on 9/11 in Afghanistan and Pakistan. We’re investing in the 21st century military and intelligence capabilities that will allow us to stay one step ahead of a nimble enemy. We have re-energized a global non-proliferation regime to deny the world’s most dangerous people access to the world’s deadliest weapons. And we’ve launched an effort to secure all loose nuclear materials within four years. We’re better protecting our border, and increasing our preparedness for any future attack or natural disaster. We’re building new partnerships around the world to disrupt, dismantle, and defeat al Qaeda and its affiliates. And we have renewed American diplomacy so that we once again have the strength and standing to truly lead the world.
These steps are all critical to keeping America secure. But I believe with every fiber of my being that in the long run we also cannot keep this country safe unless we enlist the power of our most fundamental values. The documents that we hold in this very hall – the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution, the Bill of Rights – these are not simply words written into aging parchment. They are the foundation of liberty and justice in this country, and a light that shines for all who seek freedom, fairness, equality, and dignity around the world.
I stand here today as someone whose own life was made possible by these documents. My father came to these shores in search of the promise that they offered. My mother made me rise before dawn to learn their truths when I lived as a child in a foreign land. My own American journey was paved by generations of citizens who gave meaning to those simple words – “to form a more perfect union.” I’ve studied the Constitution as a student, I’ve taught it as a teacher, I’ve been bound by it as a lawyer and a legislator. I took an oath to preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution as Commander-in-Chief, and as a citizen, I know that we must never, ever, turn our back on its enduring principles for expedience sake.
I make this claim not simply as a matter of idealism. We uphold our most cherished values not only because doing so is right, but because it strengthens our country and it keeps us safe. Time and again, our values have been our best national security asset – in war and peace; in times of ease and in eras of upheaval.
Fidelity to our values is the reason why the United States of America grew from a small string of colonies under the writ of an empire to the strongest nation in the world.
It’s the reason why enemy soldiers have surrendered to us in battle, knowing they’d receive better treatment from America’s Armed Forces than from their own government.
It’s the reason why America has benefitted from strong alliances that amplified our power, and drawn a sharp, moral contrast with our adversaries.
It’s the reason why we’ve been able to overpower the iron fist of fascism and outlast the iron curtain of communism, and enlist free nations and free peoples everywhere in the common cause and common effort of liberty.
From Europe to the Pacific, we’ve been the nation that has shut down torture chambers and replaced tyranny with the rule of law. That is who we are. And where terrorists offer only the injustice of disorder and destruction, America must demonstrate that our values and our institutions are more resilient than a hateful ideology.
After 9/11, we knew that we had entered a new era – that enemies who did not abide by any law of war would present new challenges to our application of the law; that our government would need new tools to protect the American people, and that these tools would have to allow us to prevent attacks instead of simply prosecuting those who try to carry them out.
Unfortunately, faced with an uncertain threat, our government made a series of hasty decisions. I believe that many of these decisions were motivated by a sincere desire to protect the American people. But I also believe that all too often our government made decisions based on fear rather than foresight; that all too often our government trimmed facts and evidence to fit ideological predispositions. Instead of strategically applying our power and our principles, too often we set those principles aside as luxuries that we could no longer afford. And during this season of fear, too many of us – Democrats and Republicans, politicians, journalists, and citizens – fell silent.
In other words, we went off course. And this is not my assessment alone. It was an assessment that was shared by the American people who nominated candidates for President from both major parties who, despite our many differences, called for a new approach – one that rejected torture and one that recognized the imperative of closing the prison at Guantanamo Bay.
Now let me be clear: We are indeed at war with al Qaeda and its affiliates. We do need to update our institutions to deal with this threat. But we must do so with an abiding confidence in the rule of law and due process; in checks and balances and accountability. For reasons that I will explain, the decisions that were made over the last eight years established an ad hoc legal approach for fighting terrorism that was neither effective nor sustainable – a framework that failed to rely on our legal traditions and time-tested institutions, and that failed to use our values as a compass. And that’s why I took several steps upon taking office to better protect the American people.
First, I banned the use of so-called enhanced interrogation techniques by the United States of America.
I know some have argued that brutal methods like waterboarding were necessary to keep us safe. I could not disagree more. As Commander-in-Chief, I see the intelligence. I bear the responsibility for keeping this country safe. And I categorically reject the assertion that these are the most effective means of interrogation. What’s more, they undermine the rule of law. They alienate us in the world. They serve as a recruitment tool for terrorists, and increase the will of our enemies to fight us, while decreasing the will of others to work with America. They risk the lives of our troops by making it less likely that others will surrender to them in battle, and more likely that Americans will be mistreated if they are captured. In short, they did not advance our war and counterterrorism efforts – they undermined them, and that is why I ended them once and for all.
Now, I should add, the arguments against these techniques did not originate from my administration. As Senator McCain once said, torture “serves as a great propaganda tool for those who recruit people to fight against us.” And even under President Bush, there was recognition among members of his own administration – including a Secretary of State, other senior officials, and many in the military and intelligence community – that those who argued for these tactics were on the wrong side of the debate, and the wrong side of history. That’s why we must leave these methods where they belong – in the past. They are not who we are, and they are not America.
The second decision that I made was to order the closing of the prison camp at Guantanamo Bay.
For over seven years, we have detained hundreds of people at Guantanamo. During that time, the system of military commissions that were in place at Guantanamo succeeded in convicting a grand total of three suspected terrorists. Let me repeat that: three convictions in over seven years. Instead of bringing terrorists to justice, efforts at prosecution met setback after setback, cases lingered on, and in 2006 the Supreme Court invalidated the entire system. Meanwhile, over 525 detainees were released from Guantanamo under not my administration, under the previous administration. Let me repeat that: Two-thirds of the detainees were released before I took office and ordered the closure of Guantanamo.
There is also no question that Guantanamo set back the moral authority that is America’s strongest currency in the world. Instead of building a durable framework for the struggle against al Qaeda that drew upon our deeply held values and traditions, our government was defending positions that undermined the rule of law. In fact, part of the rationale for establishing Guantanamo in the first place was the misplaced notion that a prison there would be beyond the law – a proposition that the Supreme Court soundly rejected. Meanwhile, instead of serving as a tool to counter terrorism, Guantanamo became a symbol that helped al Qaeda recruit terrorists to its cause. Indeed, the existence of Guantanamo likely created more terrorists around the world than it ever detained.
So the record is clear: Rather than keeping us safer, the prison at Guantanamo has weakened American national security. It is a rallying cry for our enemies. It sets back the willingness of our allies to work with us in fighting an enemy that operates in scores of countries. By any measure, the costs of keeping it open far exceed the complications involved in closing it. That’s why I argued that it should be closed throughout my campaign, and that is why I ordered it closed within one year.
The third decision that I made was to order a review of all pending cases at Guantanamo. I knew when I ordered Guantanamo closed that it would be difficult and complex. There are 240 people there who have now spent years in legal limbo. In dealing with this situation, we don’t have the luxury of starting from scratch. We’re cleaning up something that is, quite simply, a mess – a misguided experiment that has left in its wake a flood of legal challenges that my administration is forced to deal with on a constant, almost daily basis, and it consumes the time of government officials whose time should be spent on better protecting our country.
Indeed, the legal challenges that have sparked so much debate in recent weeks here in Washington would be taking place whether or not I decided to close Guantanamo. For example, the court order to release 17 Uighurs – 17 Uighur detainees took place last fall, when George Bush was President. The Supreme Court that invalidated the system of prosecution at Guantanamo in 2006 was overwhelmingly appointed by Republican Presidents – not wild -eyed liberals. In other words, the problem of what to do with Guantanamo detainees was not caused by my decision to close the facility; the problem exists because of the decision to open Guantanamo in the first place.
Now let me be blunt. There are no neat or easy answers here. I wish there were. But I can tell you that the wrong answer is to pretend like this problem will go away if we maintain an unsustainable status quo. As President, I refuse to allow this problem to fester. I refuse to pass it on to somebody else. It is my responsibility to solve the problem. Our security interests will not permit us to delay. Our courts won’t allow it. And neither should our conscience.
Now, over the last several weeks, we’ve seen a return of the politicization of these issues that have characterized the last several years. I’m an elected official; I understand these problems arouse passions and concerns. They should. We’re confronting some of the most complicated questions that a democracy can face. But I have no interest in spending all of our time relitigating the policies of the last eight years. I’ll leave that to others. I want to solve these problems, and I want to solve them together as Americans.
And we will be ill-served by some of the fear-mongering that emerges whenever we discuss this issue. Listening to the recent debate, I’ve heard words that, frankly, are calculated to scare people rather than educate them; words that have more to do with politics than protecting our country. So I want to take this opportunity to lay out what we are doing, and how we intend to resolve these outstanding issues. I will explain how each action that we are taking will help build a framework that protects both the American people and the values that we hold most dear. And I’ll focus on two broad areas: first, issues relating to Guantanamo and our detention policy; but, second, I also want to discuss issues relating to security and transparency.
Now, let me begin by disposing of one argument as plainly as I can: We are not going to release anyone if it would endanger our national security, nor will we release detainees within the United States who endanger the American people. Where demanded by justice and national security, we will seek to transfer some detainees to the same type of facilities in which we hold all manner of dangerous and violent criminals within our borders – namely, highly secure prisons that ensure the public safety.
As we make these decisions, bear in mind the following face: Nobody has ever escaped from one of our federal, supermax prisons, which hold hundreds of convicted terrorists. As Republican Lindsey Graham said, the idea that we cannot find a place to securely house 250-plus detainees within the United States is not rational.
We are currently in the process of reviewing each of the detainee cases at Guantanamo to determine the appropriate policy for dealing with them. And as we do so, we are acutely aware that under the last administration, detainees were released and, in some cases, returned to the battlefield. That’s why we are doing away with the poorly planned, haphazard approach that let those detainees go in the past. Instead we are treating these cases with the care and attention that the law requires and that our security demands.
Now, going forward, these cases will fall into five distinct categories.
First, whenever feasible, we will try those who have violated American criminal laws in federal courts – courts provided for by the United States Constitution. Some have derided our federal courts as incapable of handling the trials of terrorists. They are wrong. Our courts and our juries, our citizens, are tough enough to convict terrorists. The record makes that clear. Ramzi Yousef tried to blow up the World Trade Center. He was convicted in our courts and is serving a life sentence in U.S. prisons. Zacarias Moussaoui has been identified as the 20th 9/11 hijacker. He was convicted in our courts, and he too is serving a life sentence in prison. If we can try those terrorists in our courts and hold them in our prisons, then we can do the same with detainees from Guantanamo.
Recently, we prosecuted and received a guilty plea from a detainee, al-Marri, in federal court after years of legal confusion. We’re preparing to transfer another detainee to the Southern District Court of New York, where he will face trial on charges related to the 1998 bombings of our embassies in Kenya and Tanzania – bombings that killed over 200 people. Preventing this detainee from coming to our shores would prevent his trial and conviction. And after over a decade, it is time to finally see that justice is served, and that is what we intend to do.
The second category of cases involves detainees who violate the laws of war and are therefore best tried through military commissions. Military commissions have a history in the United States dating back to George Washington and the Revolutionary War. They are an appropriate venue for trying detainees for violations of the laws of war. They allow for the protection of sensitive sources and methods of intelligence-gathering; they allow for the safety and security of participants; and for the presentation of evidence gathered from the battlefield that cannot always be effectively presented in federal courts.
Now, some have suggested that this represents a reversal on my part. They should look at the record. In 2006, I did strongly oppose legislation proposed by the Bush administration and passed by the Congress because it failed to establish a legitimate legal framework, with the kind of meaningful due process rights for the accused that could stand up on appeal.
I said at that time, however, that I supported the use of military commissions to try detainees, provided there were several reforms, and in fact there were some bipartisan efforts to achieve those reforms. Those are the reforms that we are now making. Instead of using the flawed commissions of the last seven years, my administration is bringing our commissions in line with the rule of law. We will no longer permit the use of evidence – as evidence statements that have been obtained using cruel, inhuman, or degrading interrogation methods. We will no longer place the burden to prove that hearsay is unreliable on the opponent of the hearsay. And we will give detainees greater latitude in selecting their own counsel, and more protections if they refuse to testify. These reforms, among others, will make our military commissions a more credible and effective means of administering justice, and I will work with Congress and members of both parties, as well as legal authorities across the political spectrum, on legislation to ensure that these commissions are fair, legitimate, and effective.
The third category of detainees includes those who have been ordered released by the courts. Now, let me repeat what I said earlier: This has nothing to do with my decision to close Guantanamo. It has to do with the rule of law. The courts have spoken. They have found that there’s no legitimate reason to hold 21 of the people currently held at Guantanamo. Nineteen of these findings took place before I was sworn into office. I cannot ignore these rulings because as President, I too am bound by the law. The United States is a nation of laws and so we must abide by these rulings.
The fourth category of cases involves detainees who we have determined can be transferred safely to another country. So far, our review team has approved 50 detainees for transfer. And my administration is in ongoing discussions with a number of other countries about the transfer of detainees to their soil for detention and rehabilitation.
Now, finally, there remains the question of detainees at Guantanamo who cannot be prosecuted yet who pose a clear danger to the American people. And I have to be honest here – this is the toughest single issue that we will face. We’re going to exhaust every avenue that we have to prosecute those at Guantanamo who pose a danger to our country. But even when this process is complete, there may be a number of people who cannot be prosecuted for past crimes, in some cases because evidence may be tainted, but who nonetheless pose a threat to the security of the United States. Examples of that threat include people who’ve received extensive explosives training at al Qaeda training camps, or commanded Taliban troops in battle, or expressed their allegiance to Osama bin Laden, or otherwise made it clear that they want to kill Americans. These are people who, in effect, remain at war with the United States.
Let me repeat: I am not going to release individuals who endanger the American people. Al Qaeda terrorists and their affiliates are at war with the United States, and those that we capture – like other prisoners of war – must be prevented from attacking us again. Having said that, we must recognize that these detention policies cannot be unbounded. They can’t be based simply on what I or the executive branch decide alone. That’s why my administration has begun to reshape the standards that apply to ensure that they are in line with the rule of law. We must have clear, defensible, and lawful standards for those who fall into this category. We must have fair procedures so that we don’t make mistakes. We must have a thorough process of periodic review, so that any prolonged detention is carefully evaluated and justified.
I know that creating such a system poses unique challenges. And other countries have grappled with this question; now, so must we. But I want to be very clear that our goal is to construct a legitimate legal framework for the remaining Guantanamo detainees that cannot be transferred. Our goal is not to avoid a legitimate legal framework. In our constitutional system, prolonged detention should not be the decision of any one man. If and when we determine that the United States must hold individuals to keep them from carrying out an act of war, we will do so within a system that involves judicial and congressional oversight. And so, going forward, my administration will work with Congress to develop an appropriate legal regime so that our efforts are consistent with our values and our Constitution.
Now, as our efforts to close Guantanamo move forward, I know that the politics in Congress will be difficult. These are issues that are fodder for 30-second commercials. You can almost picture the direct mail pieces that emerge from any vote on this issue – designed to frighten the population. I get it. But if we continue to make decisions within a climate of fear, we will make more mistakes. And if we refuse to deal with these issues today, then I guarantee you that they will be an albatross around our efforts to combat terrorism in the future.
I have confidence that the American people are more interested in doing what is right to protect this country than in political posturing. I am not the only person in this city who swore an oath to uphold the Constitution – so did each and every member of Congress. And together we have a responsibility to enlist our values in the effort to secure our people, and to leave behind the legacy that makes it easier for future Presidents to keep this country safe.
Now, let me touch on a second set of issues that relate to security and transparency.
National security requires a delicate balance. One the one hand, our democracy depends on transparency. On the other hand, some information must be protected from public disclosure for the sake of our security – for instance, the movement of our troops, our intelligence-gathering, or the information we have about a terrorist organization and its affiliates. In these and other cases, lives are at stake.
Now, several weeks ago, as part of an ongoing court case, I released memos issued by the previous administration’s Office of Legal Counsel. I did not do this because I disagreed with the enhanced interrogation techniques that those memos authorized, and I didn’t release the documents because I rejected their legal rationales – although I do on both counts. I released the memos because the existence of that approach to interrogation was already widely known, the Bush administration had acknowledged its existence, and I had already banned those methods. The argument that somehow by releasing those memos we are providing terrorists with information about how they will be interrogated makes no sense. We will not be interrogating terrorists using that approach. That approach is now prohibited.
In short, I released these memos because there was no overriding reason to protect them. And the ensuing debate has helped the American people better understand how these interrogation methods came to be authorized and used.
On the other hand, I recently opposed the release of certain photographs that were taken of detainees by U.S. personnel between 2002 and 2004. Individuals who violated standards of behavior in these photos have been investigated and they have been held accountable. There was and is no debate as to whether what is reflected in those photos is wrong. Nothing has been concealed to absolve perpetrators of crimes. However, it was my judgment – informed by my national security team – that releasing these photos would inflame anti-American opinion and allow our enemies to paint U.S. troops with a broad, damning, and inaccurate brush, thereby endangering them in theaters of war.
In short, there is a clear and compelling reason to not release these particular photos. There are nearly 200,000 Americans who are serving in harm’s way, and I have a solemn responsibility for their safety as Commander-in-Chief. Nothing would be gained by the release of these photos that matters more than the lives of our young men and women serving in harm’s way.
Now, in the press’s mind and in some of the public’s mind, these two cases are contradictory. They are not to me. In each of these cases, I had to strike the right balance between transparency and national security. And this balance brings with it a precious responsibility. There’s no doubt that the American people have seen this balance tested over the last several years. In the images from Abu Ghraib and the brutal interrogation techniques made public long before I was President, the American people learned of actions taken in their name that bear no resemblance to the ideals that generations of Americans have fought for. And whether it was the run-up to the Iraq war or the revelation of secret programs, Americans often felt like part of the story had been unnecessarily withheld from them. And that caused suspicion to build up. And that leads to a thirst for accountability.
I understand that. I ran for President promising transparency, and I meant what I said. And that’s why, whenever possible, my administration will make all information available to the American people so that they can make informed judgments and hold us accountable. But I have never argued – and I never will — that our most sensitive national security matters should simply be an open book. I will never abandon – and will vigorously defend – the necessity of classification to defend our troops at war, to protect sources and methods, and to safeguard confidential actions that keep the American people safe. Here’s the difference though: Whenever we cannot release certain information to the public for valid national security reasons, I will insist that there is oversight of my actions – by Congress or by the courts.
We’re currently launching a review of current policies by all those agencies responsible for the classification of documents to determine where reforms are possible, and to assure that the other branches of government will be in a position to review executive branch decisions on these matters. Because in our system of checks and balances, someone must always watch over the watchers – especially when it comes to sensitive administration – information.
Now, along these same lines, my administration is also confronting challenges to what is known as the “state secrets” privilege. This is a doctrine that allows the government to challenge legal cases involving secret programs. It’s been used by many past Presidents – Republican and Democrat – for many decades. And while this principle is absolutely necessary in some circumstances to protect national security, I am concerned that it has been over-used. It is also currently the subject of a wide range of lawsuits. So let me lay out some principles here. We must not protect information merely because it reveals the violation of a law or embarrassment to the government. And that’s why my administration is nearing completion of a thorough review of this practice.
And we plan to embrace several principles for reform. We will apply a stricter legal test to material that can be protected under the state secrets privilege. We will not assert the privilege in court without first following our own formal process, including review by a Justice Department committee and the personal approval of the Attorney General. And each year we will voluntarily report to Congress when we have invoked the privilege and why because, as I said before, there must be proper oversight over our actions.
On all these matters related to the disclosure of sensitive information, I wish I could say that there was some simple formula out there to be had. There is not. These often involve tough calls, involve competing concerns, and they require a surgical approach. But the common thread that runs through all of my decisions is simple: We will safeguard what we must to protect the American people, but we will also ensure the accountability and oversight that is the hallmark of our constitutional system. I will never hide the truth because it’s uncomfortable. I will deal with Congress and the courts as co-equal branches of government. I will tell the American people what I know and don’t know, and when I release something publicly or keep something secret, I will tell you why.
Now, in all the areas that I’ve discussed today, the policies that I’ve proposed represent a new direction from the last eight years. To protect the American people and our values, we’ve banned enhanced interrogation techniques. We are closing the prison at Guantanamo. We are reforming military commissions, and we will pursue a new legal regime to detain terrorists. We are declassifying more information and embracing more oversight of our actions, and we’re narrowing our use of the state secrets privilege. These are dramatic changes that will put our approach to national security on a surer, safer, and more sustainable footing. Their implementation will take time, but they will get done.
There’s a core principle that we will apply to all of our actions. Even as we clean up the mess at Guantanamo, we will constantly reevaluate our approach, subject our decisions to review from other branches of government, as well as the public. We seek the strongest and most sustainable legal framework for addressing these issues in the long term – not to serve immediate politics, but to do what’s right over the long term. By doing that we can leave behind a legacy that outlasts my administration, my presidency, that endures for the next President and the President after that – a legacy that protects the American people and enjoys a broad legitimacy at home and abroad.
Now, this is what I mean when I say that we need to focus on the future. I recognize that many still have a strong desire to focus on the past. When it comes to actions of the last eight years, passions are high. Some Americans are angry; others want to re-fight debates that have been settled, in some cases debates that they have lost. I know that these debates lead directly, in some cases, to a call for a fuller accounting, perhaps through an independent commission.
I’ve opposed the creation of such a commission because I believe that our existing democratic institutions are strong enough to deliver accountability. The Congress can review abuses of our values, and there are ongoing inquiries by the Congress into matters like enhanced interrogation techniques. The Department of Justice and our courts can work through and punish any violations of our laws or miscarriages of justice.
It’s no secret there is a tendency in Washington to spend our time pointing fingers at one another. And it’s no secret that our media culture feeds the impulse that lead to a good fight and good copy. But nothing will contribute more than that than a extended relitigation of the last eight years. Already, we’ve seen how that kind of effort only leads those in Washington to different sides to laying blame. It can distract us from focusing our time, our efforts, and our politics on the challenges of the future.
We see that, above all, in the recent debate – how the recent debate has obscured the truth and sends people into opposite and absolutist ends. On the one side of the spectrum, there are those who make little allowance for the unique challenges posed by terrorism, and would almost never put national security over transparency. And on the other end of the spectrum, there are those who embrace a view that can be summarized in two words: “Anything goes.” Their arguments suggest that the ends of fighting terrorism can be used to justify any means, and that the President should have blanket authority to do whatever he wants – provided it is a President with whom they agree.
Both sides may be sincere in their views, but neither side is right. The American people are not absolutist, and they don’t elect us to impose a rigid ideology on our problems. They know that we need not sacrifice our security for our values, nor sacrifice our values for our security, so long as we approach difficult questions with honesty and care and a dose of common sense. That, after all, is the unique genius of America. That’s the challenge laid down by our Constitution. That has been the source of our strength through the ages. That’s what makes the United States of America different as a nation.
I can stand here today, as President of the United States, and say without exception or equivocation that we do not torture, and that we will vigorously protect our people while forging a strong and durable framework that allows us to fight terrorism while abiding by the rule of law. Make no mistake: If we fail to turn the page on the approach that was taken over the past several years, then I will not be able to say that as President. And if we cannot stand for our core values, then we are not keeping faith with the documents that are enshrined in this hall.
The Framers who drafted the Constitution could not have foreseen the challenges that have unfolded over the last 222 years. But our Constitution has endured through secession and civil rights, through World War and Cold War, because it provides a foundation of principles that can be applied pragmatically; it provides a compass that can help us find our way. It hasn’t always been easy. We are an imperfect people. Every now and then, there are those who think that America’s safety and success requires us to walk away from the sacred principles enshrined in this building. And we hear such voices today. But over the long haul the American people have resisted that temptation. And though we’ve made our share of mistakes, required some course corrections, ultimately we have held fast to the principles that have been the source of our strength and a beacon to the world.
Now this generation faces a great test in the specter of terrorism. And unlike the Civil War or World War II, we can’t count on a surrender ceremony to bring this journey to an end. Right now, in distant training camps and in crowded cities, there are people plotting to take American lives. That will be the case a year from now, five years from now, and – in all probability – 10 years from now. Neither I nor anyone can stand here today and say that there will not be another terrorist attack that takes American lives. But I can say with certainty that my administration – along with our extraordinary troops and the patriotic men and women who defend our national security – will do everything in our power to keep the American people safe. And I do know with certainty that we can defeat al Qaeda. Because the terrorists can only succeed if they swell their ranks and alienate America from our allies, and they will never be able to do that if we stay true to who we are, if we forge tough and durable approaches to fighting terrorism that are anchored in our timeless ideals. This must be our common purpose.
I ran for President because I believe that we cannot solve the challenges of our time unless we solve them together. We will not be safe if we see national security as a wedge that divides America – it can and must be a cause that unites us as one people and as one nation. We’ve done so before in times that were more perilous than ours. We will do so once again.
Thank you, God bless you, and God bless the United States of America.
END at 11:17 A.M. EDT
***
Here is former Vice President Richard B. Cheney’s speech.
***
REMARKS BY RICHARD B. CHENEY
by former Vice President Richard B. Cheney
American Enterprise Institute, Washington D.C., May 21, 2009
Thank you all very much, and Arthur, thank you for that introduction. It’s good to be back at AEI, where we have many friends. Lynne is one of your longtime scholars, and I’m looking forward to spending more time here myself as a returning trustee. What happened was, they were looking for a new member of the board of trustees, and they asked me to head up the search committee.
I first came to AEI after serving at the Pentagon, and departed only after a very interesting job offer came along. I had no expectation of returning to public life, but my career worked out a little differently. Those eight years as vice president were quite a journey, and during a time of big events and great decisions, I don’t think I missed much.
Being the first vice president who had also served as secretary of defense, naturally my duties tended toward national security. I focused on those challenges day to day, mostly free from the usual political distractions. I had the advantage of being a vice president content with the responsibilities I had, and going about my work with no higher ambition. Today, I’m an even freer man. Your kind invitation brings me here as a private citizen – a career in politics behind me, no elections to win or lose, and no favor to seek.
The responsibilities we carried belong to others now. And though I’m not here to speak for George W. Bush, I am certain that no one wishes the current administration more success in defending the country than we do. We understand the complexities of national security decisions. We understand the pressures that confront a president and his advisers. Above all, we know what is at stake. And though administrations and policies have changed, the stakes for America have not changed.
Right now there is considerable debate in this city about the measures our administration took to defend the American people. Today I want to set forth the strategic thinking behind our policies. I do so as one who was there every day of the Bush administration who supported the policies when they were made, and without hesitation would do so again in the same circumstances.
When President Obama makes wise decisions, as I believe he has done in some respects on Afghanistan, and in reversing his plan to release incendiary photos, he deserves our support. And when he faults or mischaracterizes the national security decisions we made in the Bush years, he deserves an answer. The point is not to look backward. Now and for years to come, a lot rides on our President’s understanding of the security policies that preceded him. And whatever choices he makes concerning the defense of this country, those choices should not be based on slogans and campaign rhetoric, but on a truthful telling of history.
Our administration always faced its share of criticism, and from some quarters it was always intense. That was especially so in the later years of our term, when the dangers were as serious as ever, but the sense of general alarm after September 11, 2001 was a fading memory. Part of our responsibility, as we saw it, was not to forget the terrible harm that had been done to America . . . and not to let 9/11 become the prelude to something much bigger and far worse.
That attack itself was, of course, the most devastating strike in a series of terrorist plots carried out against Americans at home and abroad. In 1993, terrorists bombed the World Trade Center, hoping to bring down the towers with a blast from below. The attacks continued in 1995, with the bombing of U.S. facilities in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia; the killing of servicemen at Khobar Towers in 1996; the attack on our embassies in East Africa in 1998; the murder of American sailors on the USS Cole in 2000; and then the hijackings of 9/11, and all the grief and loss we suffered on that day.
9/11 caused everyone to take a serious second look at threats that had been gathering for a while, and enemies whose plans were getting bolder and more sophisticated. Throughout the 90s, America had responded to these attacks, if at all, on an ad hoc basis. The first attack on the World Trade Center was treated as a law enforcement problem, with everything handled after the fact–crime scene, arrests, indictments, convictions, prison sentences, case closed.
That’s how it seemed from a law enforcement perspective, at least – but for the terrorists the case was not closed. For them, it was another offensive strike in their ongoing war against the United States. And it turned their minds to even harder strikes with higher casualties. Nine-eleven made necessary a shift of policy, aimed at a clear strategic threat – what the Congress called “an unusual and extraordinary threat to the national security and foreign policy of the United States.” From that moment forward, instead of merely preparing to round up the suspects and count up the victims after the next attack, we were determined to prevent attacks in the first place.
We could count on almost universal support back then, because everyone understood the environment we were in. We’d just been hit by a foreign enemy – leaving 3,000 Americans dead, more than we lost at Pearl Harbor. In Manhattan, we were staring at 16 acres of ashes. The Pentagon took a direct hit, and the Capitol or the White House were spared only by the Americans on Flight 93, who died bravely and defiantly.
Everyone expected a follow-on attack, and our job was to stop it. We didn’t know what was coming next, but everything we did know in that autumn of 2001 looked bad. This was the world in which al-Qaeda was seeking nuclear technology, and A. Q. Khan was selling nuclear technology on the black market. We had the anthrax attack from an unknown source. We had the training camps of Afghanistan, and dictators like Saddam Hussein with known ties to Mideast terrorists.
These are just a few of the problems we had on our hands. And foremost on our minds was the prospect of the very worst coming to pass – a 9/11 with nuclear weapons.
For me, one of the defining experiences was the morning of 9/11 itself. As you might recall, I was in my office in that first hour, when radar caught sight of an airliner heading toward the White House at 500 miles an hour. That was Flight 77, the one that ended up hitting the Pentagon. With the plane still inbound, Secret Service agents came into my office and said we had to leave, now. A few moments later I found myself in a fortified White House command post somewhere down below.
There in the bunker came the reports and images that so many Americans remember from that day – word of the crash in Pennsylvania, the final phone calls from hijacked planes, the final horror for those who jumped to their death to escape burning alive. In the years since, I’ve heard occasional speculation that I’m a different man after 9/11. I wouldn’t say that. But I’ll freely admit that watching a coordinated, devastating attack on our country from an underground bunker at the White House can affect how you view your responsibilities.
To make certain our nation country never again faced such a day of horror, we developed a comprehensive strategy, beginning with far greater homeland security to make the United States a harder target. But since wars cannot be won on the defensive, we moved decisively against the terrorists in their hideouts and sanctuaries, and committed to using every asset to take down their networks. We decided, as well, to confront the regimes that sponsored terrorists, and to go after those who provide sanctuary, funding, and weapons to enemies of the United States. We turned special attention to regimes that had the capacity to build weapons of mass destruction, and might transfer such weapons to terrorists.
We did all of these things, and with bipartisan support put all these policies in place. It has resulted in serious blows against enemy operations: the take-down of the A.Q. Khan network and the dismantling of Libya’s nuclear program. It’s required the commitment of many thousands of troops in two theaters of war, with high points and some low points in both Iraq and Afghanistan – and at every turn, the people of our military carried the heaviest burden. Well over seven years into the effort, one thing we know is that the enemy has spent most of this time on the defensive – and every attempt to strike inside the United States has failed.
So we’re left to draw one of two conclusions – and here is the great dividing line in our current debate over national security. You can look at the facts and conclude that the comprehensive strategy has worked, and therefore needs to be continued as vigilantly as ever. Or you can look at the same set of facts and conclude that 9/11 was a one-off event – coordinated, devastating, but also unique and not sufficient to justify a sustained wartime effort. Whichever conclusion you arrive at, it will shape your entire view of the last seven years, and of the policies necessary to protect America for years to come.
The key to any strategy is accurate intelligence, and skilled professionals to get that information in time to use it. In seeking to guard this nation against the threat of catastrophic violence, our Administration gave intelligence officers the tools and lawful authority they needed to gain vital information. We didn’t invent that authority. It is drawn from Article Two of the Constitution. And it was given specificity by the Congress after 9/11, in a Joint Resolution authorizing “all necessary and appropriate force” to protect the American people.
Our government prevented attacks and saved lives through the Terrorist Surveillance Program, which let us intercept calls and track contacts between al-Qaeda operatives and persons inside the United States. The program was top secret, and for good reason, until the editors of the New York Times got it and put it on the front page. After 9/11, the Times had spent months publishing the pictures and the stories of everyone killed by al-Qaeda on 9/11. Now here was that same newspaper publishing secrets in a way that could only help al-Qaeda. It impressed the Pulitzer committee, but it damn sure didn’t serve the interests of our country, or the safety of our people.
In the years after 9/11, our government also understood that the safety of the country required collecting information known only to the worst of the terrorists. And in a few cases, that information could be gained only through tough interrogations.
In top secret meetings about enhanced interrogations, I made my own beliefs clear. I was and remain a strong proponent of our enhanced interrogation program. The interrogations were used on hardened terrorists after other efforts failed. They were legal, essential, justified, successful, and the right thing to do. The intelligence officers who questioned the terrorists can be proud of their work and proud of the results, because they prevented the violent death of thousands, if not hundreds of thousands, of innocent people.
Our successors in office have their own views on all of these matters.
By presidential decision, last month we saw the selective release of documents relating to enhanced interrogations. This is held up as a bold exercise in open government, honoring the public’s right to know. We’re informed, as well, that there was much agonizing over this decision.
Yet somehow, when the soul-searching was done and the veil was lifted on the policies of the Bush administration, the public was given less than half the truth. The released memos were carefully redacted to leave out references to what our government learned through the methods in question. Other memos, laying out specific terrorist plots that were averted, apparently were not even considered for release. For reasons the administration has yet to explain, they believe the public has a right to know the method of the questions, but not the content of the answers.
Over on the left wing of the president’s party, there appears to be little curiosity in finding out what was learned from the terrorists. The kind of answers they’re after would be heard before a so-called “Truth Commission.” Some are even demanding that those who recommended and approved the interrogations be prosecuted, in effect treating political disagreements as a punishable offense, and political opponents as criminals. It’s hard to imagine a worse precedent, filled with more possibilities for trouble and abuse, than to have an incoming administration criminalize the policy decisions of its predecessors.
Apart from doing a serious injustice to intelligence operators and lawyers who deserve far better for their devoted service, the danger here is a loss of focus on national security, and what it requires. I would advise the administration to think very carefully about the course ahead. All the zeal that has been directed at interrogations is utterly misplaced. And staying on that path will only lead our government further away from its duty to protect the American people.
One person who by all accounts objected to the release of the interrogation memos was the Director of Central Intelligence, Leon Panetta. He was joined in that view by at least four of his predecessors. I assume they felt this way because they understand the importance of protecting intelligence sources, methods, and personnel. But now that this once top-secret information is out for all to see – including the enemy – let me draw your attention to some points that are routinely overlooked.
It is a fact that only detainees of the highest intelligence value were ever subjected to enhanced interrogation. You’ve heard endlessly about waterboarding. It happened to three terrorists. One of them was Khalid Sheikh Muhammed – the mastermind of 9/11, who has also boasted about beheading Daniel Pearl.
We had a lot of blind spots after the attacks on our country. We didn’t know about al-Qaeda’s plans, but Khalid Sheikh Muhammed and a few others did know. And with many thousands of innocent lives potentially in the balance, we didn’t think it made sense to let the terrorists answer questions in their own good time, if they answered them at all.
Maybe you’ve heard that when we captured KSM, he said he would talk as soon as he got to New York City and saw his lawyer. But like many critics of interrogations, he clearly misunderstood the business at hand. American personnel were not there to commence an elaborate legal proceeding, but to extract information from him before al-Qaeda could strike again and kill more of our people.
In public discussion of these matters, there has been a strange and sometimes willful attempt to conflate what happened at Abu Ghraib prison with the top secret program of enhanced interrogations. At Abu Ghraib, a few sadistic prison guards abused inmates in violation of American law, military regulations, and simple decency. For the harm they did, to Iraqi prisoners and to America’s cause, they deserved and received Army justice. And it takes a deeply unfair cast of mind to equate the disgraces of Abu Ghraib with the lawful, skillful, and entirely honorable work of CIA personnel trained to deal with a few malevolent men.
Even before the interrogation program began, and throughout its operation, it was closely reviewed to ensure that every method used was in full compliance with the Constitution, statutes, and treaty obligations. On numerous occasions, leading members of Congress, including the current speaker of the House, were briefed on the program and on the methods.
Yet for all these exacting efforts to do a hard and necessary job and to do it right, we hear from some quarters nothing but feigned outrage based on a false narrative. In my long experience in Washington, few matters have inspired so much contrived indignation and phony moralizing as the interrogation methods applied to a few captured terrorists.
I might add that people who consistently distort the truth in this way are in no position to lecture anyone about “values.” Intelligence officers of the United States were not trying to rough up some terrorists simply to avenge the dead of 9/11. We know the difference in this country between justice and vengeance. Intelligence officers were not trying to get terrorists to confess to past killings; they were trying to prevent future killings. From the beginning of the program, there was only one focused and all-important purpose. We sought, and we in fact obtained, specific information on terrorist plans.
Those are the basic facts on enhanced interrogations. And to call this a program of torture is to libel the dedicated professionals who have saved American lives, and to cast terrorists and murderers as innocent victims. What’s more, to completely rule out enhanced interrogation methods in the future is unwise in the extreme. It is recklessness cloaked in righteousness, and would make the American people less safe.
The administration seems to pride itself on searching for some kind of middle ground in policies addressing terrorism. They may take comfort in hearing disagreement from opposite ends of the spectrum. If liberals are unhappy about some decisions, and conservatives are unhappy about other decisions, then it may seem to them that the President is on the path of sensible compromise. But in the fight against terrorism, there is no middle ground, and half-measures keep you half exposed. You cannot keep just some nuclear-armed terrorists out of the United States, you must keep every nuclear-armed terrorist out of the United States. Triangulation is a political strategy, not a national security strategy. When just a single clue that goes unlearned, one lead that goes unpursued, can bring on catastrophe – it’s no time for splitting differences. There is never a good time to compromise when the lives and safety of the American people are in the balance.
Behind the overwrought reaction to enhanced interrogations is a broader misconception about the threats that still face our country. You can sense the problem in the emergence of euphemisms that strive to put an imaginary distance between the American people and the terrorist enemy. Apparently using the term “war” where terrorists are concerned is starting to feel a bit dated. So henceforth we’re advised by the administration to think of the fight against terrorists as, quote, “Overseas contingency operations.” In the event of another terrorist attack on America, the Homeland Security Department assures us it will be ready for this, quote, “man-made disaster” – never mind that the whole Department was created for the purpose of protecting Americans from terrorist attack.
And when you hear that there are no more, quote, “enemy combatants,” as there were back in the days of that scary war on terror, at first that sounds like progress. The only problem is that the phrase is gone, but the same assortment of killers and would-be mass murderers are still there. And finding some less judgmental or more pleasant-sounding name for terrorists doesn’t change what they are – or what they would do if we let them loose.
On his second day in office, President Obama announced that he was closing the detention facility at Guantanamo. This step came with little deliberation and no plan. Now the President says some of these terrorists should be brought to American soil for trial in our court system. Others, he says, will be shipped to third countries. But so far, the United States has had little luck getting other countries to take hardened terrorists. So what happens then? Attorney General Holder and others have admitted that the United States will be compelled to accept a number of the terrorists here, in the homeland, and it has even been suggested US taxpayer dollars will be used to support them. On this one, I find myself in complete agreement with many in the President’s own party. Unsure how to explain to their constituents why terrorists might soon be relocating into their states, these Democrats chose instead to strip funding for such a move out of the most recent war supplemental.
The administration has found that it’s easy to receive applause in Europe for closing Guantanamo. But it’s tricky to come up with an alternative that will serve the interests of justice and America’s national security. Keep in mind that these are hardened terrorists picked up overseas since 9/11. The ones that were considered low-risk were released a long time ago. And among these, we learned yesterday, many were treated too leniently, because 1 in 7 cut a straight path back to their prior line of work and have conducted murderous attacks in the Middle East. I think the President will find, upon reflection, that to bring the worst of the worst terrorists inside the United States would be cause for great danger and regret in the years to come.
In the category of euphemism, the prizewinning entry would be a recent editorial in a familiar newspaper that referred to terrorists we’ve captured as, quote, “abducted.” Here we have ruthless enemies of this country, stopped in their tracks by brave operatives in the service of America, and a major editorial page makes them sound like they were kidnap victims, picked up at random on their way to the movies.
It’s one thing to adopt the euphemisms that suggest we’re no longer engaged in a war. These are just words, and in the end it’s the policies that matter most. You don’t want to call them enemy combatants? Fine. Call them what you want–just don’t bring them into the United States. Tired of calling it a war? Use any term you prefer. Just remember it is a serious step to begin unraveling some of the very policies that have kept our people safe since 9/11.
Another term out there that slipped into the discussion is the notion that American interrogation practices were a “recruitment tool” for the enemy. On this theory, by the tough questioning of killers, we have supposedly fallen short of our own values. This recruitment-tool theory has become something of a mantra lately, including from the President himself. And after a familiar fashion, it excuses the violent and blames America for the evil that others do. It’s another version of that same old refrain from the Left, “We brought it on ourselves.”
It is much closer to the truth that terrorists hate this country precisely because of the values we profess and seek to live by, not by some alleged failure to do so. Nor are terrorists or those who see them as victims exactly the best judges of America’s moral standards, one way or the other.
Critics of our policies are given to lecturing on the theme of being consistent with American values. But no moral value held dear by the American people obliges public servants ever to sacrifice innocent lives to spare a captured terrorist from unpleasant things. And when an entire population is targeted by a terror network, nothing is more consistent with American values than to stop them.
As a practical matter, too, terrorists may lack much, but they have never lacked for grievances against the United States. Our belief in freedom of speech and religion, our belief in equal rights for women, our support for Israel, our cultural and political influence in the world – these are the true sources of resentment, all mixed in with the lies and conspiracy theories of the radical clerics. These recruitment tools were in vigorous use throughout the 1990s, and they were sufficient to motivate the nineteen recruits who boarded those planes on September 11, 2001.
The United States of America was a good country before 9/11, just as we are today. List all the things that make us a force for good in the world–for liberty, for human rights, for the rational, peaceful resolution of differences–and what you end up with is a list of the reasons why the terrorists hate America. If fine speech-making, appeals to reason, or pleas for compassion had the power to move them, the terrorists would long ago have abandoned the field. And when they see the American government caught up in arguments about interrogations, or whether foreign terrorists have constitutional rights, they don’t stand back in awe of our legal system and wonder whether they had misjudged us all along. Instead the terrorists see just what they were hoping for – our unity gone, our resolve shaken, our leaders distracted. In short, they see weakness and opportunity.
What is equally certain is this: The broad-based strategy set in motion by President Bush obviously had nothing to do with causing the events of 9/11. But the serious way we dealt with terrorists from then on, and all the intelligence we gathered in that time, had everything to do with preventing another 9/11 on our watch. The enhanced interrogations of high-value detainees and the terrorist surveillance program have without question made our country safer. Every senior official who has been briefed on these classified matters knows of specific attacks that were in the planning stages and were stopped by the programs we put in place.
This might explain why President Obama has reserved unto himself the right to order the use of enhanced interrogation should he deem it appropriate. What value remains to that authority is debatable, given that the enemy now knows exactly what interrogation methods to train against, and which ones not to worry about. Yet having reserved for himself the authority to order enhanced interrogation after an emergency, you would think that President Obama would be less disdainful of what his predecessor authorized after 9/11. It’s almost gone unnoticed that the president has retained the power to order the same methods in the same circumstances. When they talk about interrogations, he and his administration speak as if they have resolved some great moral dilemma in how to extract critical information from terrorists. Instead they have put the decision off, while assigning a presumption of moral superiority to any decision they make in the future.
Releasing the interrogation memos was flatly contrary to the national security interest of the United States. The harm done only begins with top secret information now in the hands of the terrorists, who have just received a lengthy insert for their training manual. Across the world, governments that have helped us capture terrorists will fear that sensitive joint operations will be compromised. And at the CIA, operatives are left to wonder if they can depend on the White House or Congress to back them up when the going gets tough. Why should any agency employee take on a difficult assignment when, even though they act lawfully and in good faith, years down the road the press and Congress will treat everything they do with suspicion, outright hostility, and second-guessing? Some members of Congress are notorious for demanding they be briefed into the most sensitive intelligence programs. They support them in private, and then head for the hills at the first sign of controversy.
As far as the interrogations are concerned, all that remains an official secret is the information we gained as a result. Some of his defenders say the unseen memos are inconclusive, which only raises the question why they won’t let the American people decide that for themselves. I saw that information as vice president, and I reviewed some of it again at the National Archives last month. I’ve formally asked that it be declassified so the American people can see the intelligence we obtained, the things we learned, and the consequences for national security. And as you may have heard, last week that request was formally rejected. It’s worth recalling that ultimate power of declassification belongs to the President himself. President Obama has used his declassification power to reveal what happened in the interrogation of terrorists. Now let him use that same power to show Americans what did not happen, thanks to the good work of our intelligence officials.
I believe this information will confirm the value of interrogations–and I am not alone. President Obama’s own Director of National Intelligence, Admiral Blair, has put it this way: “High value information came from interrogations in which those methods were used and provided a deeper understanding of the al-Qaeda organization that was attacking this country.” End quote. Admiral Blair put that conclusion in writing, only to see it mysteriously deleted in a later version released by the administration–the missing twenty-six words that tell an inconvenient truth. But they couldn’t change the words of George Tenet, the CIA Director under Presidents Clinton and Bush, who bluntly said: “I know that this program has saved lives. I know we’ve disrupted plots. I know this program alone is worth more than the FBI, the Central Intelligence Agency, and the National Security Agency put together have been able to tell us.”
If Americans do get the chance to learn what our country was spared, it’ll do more than clarify the urgency and the rightness of enhanced interrogations in the years after 9/11. It may help us to stay focused on dangers that have not gone away. Instead of idly debating which political opponents to prosecute and punish, our attention will return to where it belongs – on the continuing threat of terrorist violence, and on stopping the men who are planning it.
For all the partisan anger that still lingers, our administration will stand up well in history – not despite our actions after 9/11, but because of them. And when I think about all that was to come during our administration and afterward–the recriminations, the second-guessing, the charges of “hubris”–my mind always goes back to that moment.
To put things in perspective, suppose that on the evening of 9/11, President Bush and I had promised that for as long as we held office–which was to be another 2,689 days–there would never be another terrorist attack inside this country. Talk about hubris – it would have seemed a rash and irresponsible thing to say. People would have doubted that we even understood the enormity of what had just happened. Everyone had a very bad feeling about all of this, and felt certain that the Twin Towers, the Pentagon, and Shanksville were only the beginning of the violence.
Of course, we made no such promise. Instead, we promised an all-out effort to protect this country. We said we would marshal all elements of our nation’s power to fight this war and to win it. We said we would never forget what had happened on 9/11, even if the day came when many others did forget. We spoke of a war that would “include dramatic strikes, visible on TV, and covert operations, secret even in success.” We followed through on all of this, and we stayed true to our word.
To the very end of our administration, we kept al-Qaeda terrorists busy with other problems. We focused on getting their secrets, instead of sharing ours with them. And on our watch, they never hit this country again. After the most lethal and devastating terrorist attack ever, seven and a half years without a repeat is not a record to be rebuked and scorned, much less criminalized. It is a record to be continued until the danger has passed.
Along the way there were some hard calls. No decision of national security was ever made lightly, and certainly never made in haste. As in all warfare, there have been costs – none higher than the sacrifices of those killed and wounded in our country’s service. And even the most decisive victories can never take away the sorrow of losing so many of our own – all those innocent victims of 9/11, and the heroic souls who died trying to save them.
For all that we’ve lost in this conflict, the United States has never lost its moral bearings. And when the moral reckoning turns to the men known as high-value terrorists, I can assure you they were neither innocent nor victims. As for those who asked them questions and got answers: they did the right thing, they made our country safer, and a lot of Americans are alive today because of them.
Like so many others who serve America, they are not the kind to insist on a thank-you. But I will always be grateful to each one of them, and proud to have served with them for a time in the same cause. They, and so many others, have given honorable service to our country through all the difficulties and all the dangers. I will always admire them and wish them well. And I am confident that this nation will never take their work, their dedication, or their achievements, for granted.
The song went gold and became a hit in June of 1969 when the cultural icon and Artist of the Century (commonly known as “Elvis”, and sometimes referred to as “The King of Rock ‘n’ Roll” or “The King”) Elvis Aaron Presley (1935-1977) recorded it in his album From Elvis in Memphis. Piano on this song was played by then unknown Ronnie Milsap (born 1944).
Lyrics
Seven lonely days
And a dozen towns ago
I reached out one night
And you were gone
Dont know why youd run,
What youre running to or from
All I know is I want to bring you home
So Im walking in the rain,
Thumbing for a ride
On this lonely kentucky backroad
Ive loved you much too long
And my loves too strong
To let you go, never knowing
What went wrong
Kentucky rain keeps pouring down
And up aheads another town
That Ill go walking thru
With the rain in my shoes,
Searchin for you
In the cold kentucky rain,
In the cold kentucky rain
Showed your photograph
To some old gray bearded man
Sitting on a bench
Outside a genral store
They said yes, shes been here
But their memory wasnt clear
Was it yesterday,
No, wait the day before
So I finly got a ride
With a preacher man who asked
Where you bound on such a dark afternoon?
As we drove on thru the rain
As he listened I explained
And he left me with a prayer
That Id find you
Our beloved friend and colleague Rabbi Benjamin Blech took time to serve as guest editor, commenting the Pope’s visit in Israel. In January 2005, Rabbi Blech became one of the first rabbis in history known to confer the priestly blessing on a Pope, when he visited the Pope John Paul II in the Apostolic Palace.
My Encounter with the Pope
by Rabbi Benjamin Blech
New York, May 17, 2009
Was I wrong at that moment to believe it’s at last possible to cast off centuries of mistrust, misunderstanding and religious intolerance?
How does a rabbi feel when he meets the pope?
As a 10th-generation rabbi who has spent a lifetime teaching Torah to Jews, that’s something I thought was about as likely to happen to me as winning a gold medal at the Olympics. My world is the ivory tower of Jewish academia, not the Vatican. The people I’m used to seeing with yarmulkes on their heads are congregants, not cardinals. The holy city I most often visit isn’t Rome but Jerusalem.
But sometimes truth is stranger than fiction, and Divine providence put me together not just with one pope but with two.
Before I share with you the circumstances of these remarkable meetings, a little personal background is important. My parents came from Poland, and when I was a child they would tell me about their early lives there. On Christmas and Easter they knew they could not dare be out in the street. Their church-going neighbors would search for any of the Jewish “Christ killers” who their priest had impressed upon them in his sermon were guilty of killing their Lord. Anti-Semitic attacks were almost everyday occurrences, the expected price that Jews understood they had to pay for residence in a non-Jewish land. It’s sad to say but for Jews, Christians were the villains – because we were constantly victims.
If my parents ever wondered whether a time might come when this would all change, the Holocaust put an end to whatever optimism they dared to allow themselves. No, they concluded, and constantly reinforced in their admonitions to my siblings and to me. The rift between us and “them,” as they saw it, was unbridgeable. Only a fool, they never failed to tell us, would deny the lesson of so many centuries.
So in my mind, the pope became the general of an opposing army. Nothing personal, mind you, but surely sufficient to make me suspicious of any gesture on his part to improve our relationship.
It was with this mindset that I fortuitously became involved with a gentleman who had connections with the Vatican and offered to help when I informed him that there were many precious Jewish items in the hands of the church that we would love to bring back to their original owners. With his assistance and unbelievable good fortune we were invited to the Vatican Library to view some extremely precious manuscripts and initiate plans to bring some of them out on exhibit in Israel.
And then there was one more remarkable thing that happened. It explains what a nice Jewish septuagenarian like me was doing in the Apostolic Palace standing before the spiritual leader of 1.2 billion Catholics in the week before what proved to be his final illness.
Pope John Paul II was a different kind of pope. With all of my mistrust ingrained since my youth I had to attach significant meaning to the things I learnt about this spiritual leader of others who ironically enough was born in Poland, not far from my ancestors. I discovered that he was someone sensitive enough when he assumed the papacy to make one of his very first acts a visit to Auschwitz to in order express remorse at the fate of the 6 million victims.
More, he became the first pope since Saint Peter to visit a synagogue. He journeyed to the Western Wall in Jerusalem and left an inscribed message within one of its crevices asking for forgiveness for the sins Christianity committed against the Jews throughout the centuries. He denounced anti-Semitism as a “sin against God and humanity.” He normalized diplomatic relations with the State of Israel. He epitomized love, reconciliation and the healing of ancient wounds.
And because he had a profound feeling of affection for Jews, he made an amazing decision. Realizing his advanced age he made a personal and private request that was relayed to me. Pope John Paul II indicated that he would like to receive a blessing – a blessing from the spiritual leaders of the people who had for so long been the victims of its misplaced, virulent hatred. That is how I came to be a part of 150 rabbis and cantors who went to meet with the pope and fulfill his request.
At this historic moment three of us stepped forward to personally recite a blessing. It was then that I uttered the words recorded in the Talmud for a time when a Jew meets a great leader of the nations of the world: “We bless You O Lord for having granted of Your glory to Your creations.”
Was I wrong at that moment to believe it’s at last possible to cast off centuries of mistrust, misunderstanding and religious intolerance?
What went through my mind?
I heard the past speaking to me. I don’t know how it was possible for time to become so compressed that in those few moments, I could clearly make out so many conversations in my mind, all of them vying for my attention, all of them claiming my conviction. Some were filled with anger. Some were disbelieving. Some advised caution. Some were overcome with joyous emotion. All were battling for my agreement. It was simply too difficult for me to decide, too momentous a moment for me to come to any conclusion.
But with all the voices fighting to be heard within me one seemed most recognizable. I could swear that in the Vatican itself I heard my father, of blessed memory, whisper in my ear,” Perhaps. Perhaps.”
Not too long after that I was invited to be a member of the group that accompanied Pope Benedict, newly appointed after the death of John Paul II, when as one of the first acts of his papacy he too went to Auschwitz to pray, to request forgiveness, and to vow that civilized mankind would never again permit an atrocity of this horrendous magnitude to every again occur. I know that this pope is a German whose biography leaves us with some unanswered questions. I know that he has committed some serious errors of judgment in his response to Holocaust deniers within his own faith. And yet I saw him at Auschwitz. I heard his words. I spoke with him. I know that he, too, in his visit to New York last year chose to go to a synagogue to make clear his warm feelings towards Jews.
Pope Benedict was in Israel last week. He too has placed a prayer in the wall. He too has gone to the memorial for those who perished during the Holocaust. For some he didn’t say enough and he didn’t do enough. For others there is still the lingering and strong suspicion that he is the head of an organization that forever stands in opposition to our survival, at the very least theologically.
Only time will tell whether we may place our trust in the sincerity of these new gestures of friendship. But I would like to believe, seeing things with my own eyes that I know my parents and grandparents would never have deemed possible, that it is not too far-fetched and too naive to respond to these apparent attempts at reconciliation, with one word: “Perhaps. Perhaps.”
About the author: Rabbi Benjamin Blech, is the author of 12 highly acclaimed books, including Understanding Judaism: The basics of Deed and Creed. He is a professor of Talmud at Yeshiva University and the Rabbi Emeritus of Young Israel of Oceanside (California) which he served for 37 years and from which he retired to pursue his interests in writing and lecturing around the globe. He is also the author of If God Is Good, Why Is The World So Bad?
Reprinted with kindly permission of Aish HaTorah International.
In einem Kommentar erschienen in der heutigen Ausgabe der Frankfurter Rundschau erläutert Prof. Dr. Micha Brumlik, Mitherausgeber der Monatszeitschrift Blätter für deutsche und internationale Politik, warum der Papst-Besuch in Israel nicht wirklich von Erfolg gekrönt war.
“Diese Aufgaben auch nur halbwegs sinnvoll und erfolgreich miteinander zu verbinden, bedarf es authentischen religiösen Charismas, machiavellistischer Klugheit und eines auf Lebenserfahrung beruhenden und in Krisen gefestigten moralischen Urteils. Joseph Ratzinger verfügt über keine dieser Eigenschaften. Sein Leben ist … das eines sozialen Aufsteigers, der sich mit Fleiß und Intelligenz aus dem Kleine-Leute-Milieu seiner Eltern hochgearbeitet hat, persönlichkeitsbildende Freund- und Liebschaften weitgehend vermieden und sich entschlossen dem gewidmet hat, was Sicherheit verhieß: die als unumstößlich wahr angesehenen Dogmen jener Institution, in der allein er zu dem werden konnte, der er jetzt ist.”
Rabbi David Rosen, American Jewish Committee (AJC) international director of interreligious affairs, joined with Pope Benedict XVI and a group of Christian, Jewish, Muslim and Druze religious leaders in Nazareth, Israel, for an oecumenical meeting and to sing a song of peace.
“It illustrated dramatically that religion does not have to be the problem but the solution and that it is up to politicians to engage religious leaders in the search for peace,” Rabbi David Rosen said.
Pope Benedict XVI’s trip to Israel is a historic and positive step forward for Vatican-Israel relations and the Catholic-Jewish dialogue. This important trip reaffirms Pope Benedict’s commitment to continue to strengthen relations between the Vatican and the State of Israel, begun under his predecessor Pope John Paul II.
Benedict XVI’s visit – nine years since the last one by Pope John Paul II – is being hailed both as a reconfirmation of the Vatican’s commitment to meaningful and respectful dialogue and relations with the Jewish people, but also as a missed opportunity to deliver more unambiguous and emotive messages of a German pope’s remorse for the church’s past persecution of Jews. The Pope was criticized by some leaders in Holocaust remembrance, other commentators and Holocaust survivors for not having cited at Yad Vashem the number “six million,” for having used the term “killed” instead of “murdered,” and for not having specifically affirmed remorse for Germans’ or Christians’ actions.
In a op-ed published in the newspaper Jewish Telegraphic Agency (JTA), Abraham Foxman explains the true meaning of Pope’s visit to Israel.
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The Importance of the Pope’s Visit to Israel
by Abraham H. Foxman
National Director of the Anti-Defamation League (ADL)
When his plane touched down at Ben Gurion International Airport, Pope Benedict XVI became only the second pope in the history of the Catholic Church to officially visit the State of Israel.
Israeli, Jewish and Vatican leaders expressed high hopes for a smooth visit that would enhance the Catholic-Jewish and Israel-Vatican relationships.
Yet almost from the minute he got off the plane, Benedict’s actions and words have been severely scrutinized, dissected and criticized from all sides. This extraordinary level of public and media scrutiny has led to a series of controversies, expressions of dismay and failed expectations by some Israeli leaders.
It must be recognized that Benedict is following in the footsteps of his predecessor, the beloved Pope John Paul II, whose groundbreaking pilgrimage in March 2000 hit all the right notes and captured the hearts and minds of Jews and Catholics around the world. From the get-go it was always going to be unfair to measure Benedict’s trip by John Paul’s, especially since Benedict has stepped into a roiling political, religious and social climate that is vastly changed from the more hopeful regional environment just nine years ago.
It is not only the region that is different. The two popes have vastly different personalities and public personas. Where the Polish-born John Paul II was a grand communicator able to project his charm and personal story to a wide audience, Benedict, a native of Germany, is a reserved theologian who conveys a professorial tone.
Beyond style, there are the words themselves. In this there is room for debate.
Prominent officials have sharply criticized Benedict’s much-anticipated speech at the Yad Vashem Holocaust memorial for failing to live up to expectations.
When Pope John Paul II visited Yad Vashem he referenced the Nazis by name, condemned the murder of millions of victims and mourned the loss of his Jewish friends. He met at length with 30 Polish Jewish survivors.
By contrast, Benedict failed to mention Nazis or Germany, as well as his own personal history in Germany during the war. He did not use the word murder and ignored the issue of Christian responsibility for the Holocaust. A historic opportunity was squandered.
Yet a close examination of Benedict’s text and actions shows that he did deliver an appropriate speech focusing on the concepts of remembrance. He also met briefly with Holocaust survivors. It must be noted also that in recent months, Benedict has made strong statements repudiating Holocaust denial. And in the past, Benedict has talked about his personal experiences as a member of Hitler Youth and the Germany Army.
Therefore, it would do us well to keep things in perspective and recognize what this pope has said and done.
By coming to Israel at this time, the 82-year-old pontiff is solidifying the Vatican’s formal relationship with the State of Israel, launched when a historic diplomatic agreement was signed in 1993. His trip demonstrates the Church’s commitment to the security and survival of Israel as a Jewish state.
Benedict is also establishing a track record for future popes. No longer will Pope John Paul’s journey be able to be portrayed as an aberration or a personal mission. Indeed, Benedict’s trip will institutionalize that every pope visit Israel and commit the billion-member Roman Catholic Church to the importance of Israel as the Jewish state.
Benedict’s voyage also demonstrates the continuity of the Church’s commitment to enhance relations with the Jewish people. As Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, he was Pope John Paul’s chief theologian and, therefore, the many positive improvements in Jewish-Catholic relations over the past three decades were done in consultation with him.
To be sure, there are a series of outstanding serious issues challenging the Vatican-Jewish dialogue, including the recent troubling regressions in Catholic theology and liturgy about Judaism. Israel and the Vatican also have complicated property and tax issues to resolve.
However, the focus on this trip should be in recognizing the positive contributions of the current pope. Benedict has pledged to keep strengthening Catholic-Jewish relations and reaffirmed the Church’s unqualified repudiation of anti-Semitism and Holocaust denial. He has taught that Christians should gain a new respect for the Jewish interpretation of the Old Testament. And he has asserted that God’s Covenant and promises to the people of Israel are alive and irrevocable, further demonstrating his belief that the Jewish people “are beloved brothers and sisters.”
While we believe that Jews must remember and honor the past, we cannot change it. What we can do is create a future where Catholics and Jews deepen and expand our dialogue and work together with mutual respect and understanding in the interests of tikkun olam (i.e. Restoration of the World).
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About the author: Born in Poland in 1940, Abraham Foxman was saved from the Holocaust as an infant by his Polish Catholic nanny who baptized and raised him as a Catholic during the war years. His parents survived the war, but 14 members of his family were lost.
After he arrived in America in 1950 with his parents, Mr. Foxman graduated from the Yeshiva of Flatbush, in Brooklyn, NY, and earned his B.A. in political science from the City College of the City University of New York, graduating with honors in history. Mr. Foxman holds a law degree from New York University School of Law, and did graduate work in Jewish studies at the Jewish Theological Seminary and in international economics at New York’s New School for Social Research.
On October 16, 2006 Foxman was awarded as Knight of the Legion of Honor by Jacques Chirac, the President of France at the time. This award is France’s highest civilian honor.
Tel Aviv, May 14, 2009 – Professor Solomon Budnik has identified and described in elaborated monographs two unique Hebrew relics.
1. highly decorated silver bowl, holy relic ascribed to the Second Temple of Jerusalem (1st c. BCE), the only Temple artefact that survived the Temple destruction, fire and looting (most Temple objects are now reportedly in Vatican) by Emperor Titus. It bears inscribed dedications to David, Zhariah (High Priest of the Second Temple) and Yehudah (Maccabeus?);
2. King Solomon icon (10th c.) from the Collection of First Russian Czars, Grand Dukes of Kiev (10th-12th c.) in Professor Budnik Collection. (That icon has been confirmed by the Getty Museum).
The British Museum experts had stated upon examination of the images that they had never encountered such objects, and didn’t questioned, as didn’t Israeli experts, the authenticity of the items or the monographs of Professor Budnik. Indeed there is no analogy.
Here are detailed images of the decorated silver bowl ascribed to the Second Temple of Jerusalem by Etruscan artist of the Herod Period. This is the only holy vessel that must have survived the Temple destruction and fire caused by Emperor Titus. This item was not excavated or found in Israel.
This is King Solomon icon.
KING SOLOMON
It portrays for the first time in history the authentic images of King Solomon and his unique musical instrumen “kinor”.
The panel bears a painted King’s signet impression with the name Shlomo (Solomon) written in archaic Hebrew. King Solomon sits on a golden semi-throne, left foot resting on a golden stand. His throne and stand resemble the throne and stand of King Hammurabi of Sumer (1792-1750 BCE), depicted on the basalt pillar with the engrave Code of Hammurabi.
Similar thrones and stands were the royal attributes of the Pharaohs as well. Remarkably, King Solomon faces left toward his musical instrument, having no analogy in the history of music. This paramount discovery, along with other authentic details, speaks for the right attribution and provenance of this relic.
Tempera on panel. (53 cm. x 40 cm.). Asia Minor Antiquity, Khazarian Kingdom, 9th – 10th c. CE. Byzantine style painting. Unique artefact of unprecedented historical (biblical) and artistic value. No analogy. Fine state of preservation.Provenance: Collection of First Russian Czars, Grand Dukes of Kiev (10th-12th c.) in Professor Budnik possession.
This is an authentic portrait of King Solomon (Shlomo in Hebrew), marked with a signet-like Phoenician-Aramaic inscription Shlomo at the low edge of the panel. This unique masterpiece is painted on a large piece of very old wood, contemporary with the painting or even older. The priming and paint application are akin to Faiyum portraits (Lower Egypt, 2nd – 3rd c. CE), having no visible brush strokes.
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Below is the message from the British Museum.
Dear Professor Budnik,
Thank you for the additional images and for your interesting monograph. I have to confess that in all my years of experience at the British Museum, I have not encountered an object such as this, and I am really not able to comment on it.
With all good wishes,
Jonathan Tubb, Department of the Middle East
The British Museum
Media Contact:
David Ben-Hame
HIRAM7 REVIEW
E-Mail: hiram7@web.de
Daniel Taub, Jurist und Berater für internationales Recht des israelischen Außenministeriums, setzt sich in einem Artikel erschienen in der amerikanischen Tageszeitung The Boston Globe mit der weltweit verbreiteten Kritik am Vorgehen der israelischen Armee während der Militäroperation Gegossenes Blei im Gaza-Streifen auseinander.
“In starkem Kontrast zu dem komplexen und sogar schmerzvollen Balanceakt, den das internationale Recht von Soldaten und Rechtsberatern gleichermaßen verlangt, weigert sich eine lautstarke Gruppe von ‚Rechtsexperten’ nach wie vor, die Ärmel hochzukrempeln und die harten Komplexitäten von Konfliktsituationen wie Gaza anzupacken. Es mag tatsächlich Anreize dafür geben, das reine Ideal des internationalen Rechts aufrecht zu erhalten. In der Praxis jedoch stellt es ein nicht anwendbares Rechtsmodell dar, das absurderweise postuliert, dass ein Staat desto weniger reagieren darf, je unverantwortlicher, illegaler und moralisch verwerflicher das Vorgehen von Terroristen ist. Am Ende wird das internationale Recht selbst das größte Opfer eines solchen Ansatzes sein.”
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