Diplomat's visit addresses U.S. policies in the Middle East By Matt Kapko Opinion editor The Lumberjack 10-30-2002 A State Department official faced a barrage of frank questions, last Thursday, from an audience skeptical of the United States intentions in its policies. Marc Sievers works in affairs related to Lebanon, Jordan and Syria in the bureau of Near Eastern affairs. Stationed as a political officer in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, until 2001, he said the threat of terrorism from Al Qaeda and Osama bin Laden was constant. He said the department expected attacks to happen in Saudi Arabia because it was aware that bin Laden’s main grievance was with Saudi Arabia and its close relations with the United States, namely the American troops now permanently stationed there since the build up to the Gulf War in 1990. After Sievers’ opening remarks, the presentation changed to a question-and-answer period giving the audience an opportunity to write queries on 3-by-5 cards. A panel filtered through the questions before handing them over to the moderator, Jane Rogers, a journalism instructor. The talk quickly shifted to the Israel-Palestine conflict. “It is heartbreaking to see where it has ended up now,” he said. “It is our view that continued terrorist attacks against Israeli citizens … continue to poison the situation. “Freedoms should not be achieved by violence against civilians,” he said. He also said the Israeli army has used vicious force against Palestinians and it is a terrible thing. “Many times we have suggested to (the Israelis) their actions are counterproductive. “(The department) is opposed to the settlements,” and in the context of achieving peace, the settlements must stop, he said. When asked about U.S. funds being used to purchase weapons for the Israeli army, he said, “Israel is one of the few countries in the world that faces an existential threat to its existence. You can’t get Israel to make territorial concessions for peace when it fears it would be annihilated if it doesn’t maintain military dominance.” American economic aid to Israel was at its peak in 2000 at $4.12 billion, according to Clyde Mark’s research for Congress in “Israel: U.S. Foreign Assistance.” Noam Chomsky, linguistics professor at MIT, did extensive research on the negative effects of U.S. policy toward Israel and Palestine in “Fateful Triangle.” In 1983, the year of the book’s publishing, Chomsky wrote, “… Israel’s economic progress offers no meaningful model for underdeveloped countries. It is possible that recent aid amounts to something like $1,000 per year for each citizen of Israel when all factors are taken into account.” The other controversial issue, perhaps more pressing on the minds of the audience, was the continuing pressure for war in Iraq by the U.S. government. Selma Sonntag, department chair of government and politics, said she did not attend the event because she thinks it was not adequately communicated to faculty members and students what the purpose of his talk was. “I think the guy came here to sell this community and all other communities on a war with Iraq,” Sonntag said. Sievers delved into the many complex issues at hand concerning Iraq by saying, “I don’t deal with Iraq,” but “Iraq in many ways poses a serious threat to regional security.” At the end of the Gulf War, Iraq was required to dismantle all weapons of mass destruction and “the inspectors in many ways were successful,” he said. However, “there are considerable unresolved issues in the capabilities and systems Iraq contained.” Sievers said, “If Iraq does not cooperate with the United Nations, there will be severe consequences.” When asked about previous American support for Iraq and its alleged shipment of chemical weapons to the friend that has become foe, Sievers said, “I’m not aware of evidence that the United States supplied chemical weapons to Iraq. There was an effort by the United States to help the Iraqis. It’s certainly true that at some point, particularly in the late ‘80s, there was closeness between the United States and Iraq.” Sievers’ statement is inconsistent with records from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in the early ‘90s and the Senate Banking Committee report in 1994. According to the report, the CDC and a biological sample company sent strains of anthrax and other deadly pathogens — including the West Nile Virus — directly to the Iraqi Atomic Energy Commission among other agencies involved in Iraq’s weapons programs. In late September, Jonathan Tucker, a former U.N. weapons inspector, said the United States delivered “samples that Iraq said had a legitimate public health purpose, which I think was naïve to believe, even at the time.” Sievers hailed the United States’ bombing of several buildings where the alleged production of weapons of mass destruction was underway. In “Terrorism: Theirs and Ours,” Eqbal Ahmad, a professor of political science critical of U.S. policy in the Middle East, wrote, “There is increasing evidence now that the pharmaceutical factory which was hit in Khartoum, Sudan, was not producing any chemical weapons or any weapons of mass destruction. The U.S. government claimed that its intelligence says that it was. But if there is anything that distinguishes the intelligence of the United States, or any other country, it is the number of times they are wrong.” Nearing the end of his presentation Sievers was becoming noticeably tired with the incessant questions and minor concessions were made amid heckles from a few members of the audience. “There is probably a double standard in terms of great powers and not-so-great powers,” Sievers admitted. In conclusion to the barrage of questions, he said he planned to go back to the State Department and inform it of the dissent and disapproval he saw at HSU. However, when asked if he would dare to speak out against the war and use this opportunity among skeptics of U.S. policies to dissent, “no” was his quick response. His reason offered was that avenues for dissent exist within the department and he would have to resign to publicly criticize department policies. Home