Frida Berrigan: All Publications, Events and Press

Frida Berrigan in the Arizona Daily Star | ' Tucson Airmen Part of US Push to Create Good Will in Latin America'

Articles — Fri, 24 Oct 2008 09:20:00 -0400

New America in the News:

"There's certainly nothing wrong with increasing good will and promoting partnerships," said Frida Berrigan of the Washington, D.C.-based think tank New America Foundation, who has spent 10 years studying Latin America.

But leaving that job almost totally up to the military "highlights the profound imbalance in our foreign engagement, in the way we interact with other countries," she said. LINK

Too Many Guns

Articles — Thu, 23 Oct 2008 12:23:00 -0400

We've heard a lot about gun control and the second amendment in this election season. A McCain-Palin poster, featuring Alaska's 44-year-old governor with a big gun and the viewer in her rifle sights, is just one of the more graphic indications that gun control is a lightning-rod issue that distracts, distorts, and dismays.

More than 200 years after our founding fathers enshrined the right to "bear arms" in our Constitution, we have more arms than we can bear. Wars are fought, fortunes are made, and nations rise and fall on these weapons. At the human-to-human level crimes are committed, vengeance is taken, rage is given full range, and… more

No Recession for Arms Sales

Articles — Fri, 19 Sep 2008 08:18:00 -0400

The CEO of a weapons manufacturer has plenty of chances to rub elbows with deputy secretaries of defense, officials from Homeland Security, retired military personnel, and the best and brightest of the defense establishment almost any week of the year.

One such opportunity occurred at the ComDef 2008 conference, which wrapped up at the National Press Club in Washington on September 3. Sponsored by weapons giants like Boeing, Raytheon, and BAE Systems, the day-long conference was organized around the theme of "Defense Priorities in an Age of Persistent Conflict." It featured presentations from a Navy undersecretary, a deputy director at the Pentagon, several weapons manufacturers, and defense representatives… more

The Pentagon's Cubicle Mercenaries

Articles — Tue, 16 Sep 2008 04:40:00 -0400

Seven years into George W Bush's global "war on terror", the Pentagon is embroiled in two big wars, a potentially explosive war of words with Tehran, and numerous smaller conflicts -- and it is leaning ever more heavily on private military contractors to get by. Once upon a time, soldiers did more than pick up a gun. They picked up trash. They cut hair and delivered mail. They fixed airplanes and inflated truck tires. Not anymore. All of those tasks are now the responsibility of private military corporations. In the service of the Pentagon, their employees… more

How to Stay in Iraq for 1,000 Years

Articles — Fri, 22 Aug 2008 08:46:00 -0400

Few Americans had ever heard of a SOFA until earlier this year, when the Internet lit up with a revelation many observers of US foreign policy had long predicted. Despite repeated claims to the contrary, US officials were pressing the Iraqi government to accept an indefinite US military presence, including--and here was the shocker--up to 58 American bases on Iraqi turf.

The term SOFA, shorthand for Status of Forces Agreement, was suddenly all over the news. The countries have been bargaining feverishly over this and a related pact called a Strategic Framework Agreement. The separate pacts have been conflated and… more

Frida Berrigan on GRITv with Laura Flanders | "Remembering Hiroshima"

Communications — Wed, 06 Aug 2008 12:56:00 -0400

New America in the News:
(GRITv)--Today marks the 63rd anniversary of the US bombing of Hiroshima. Here at GRITtv Frida Berrigan, of the New America Foundation, offers her perspective. LINK

Avoiding Brinksmanship with Iran

Articles — Wed, 23 Jul 2008 05:33:00 -0400

As the 63rd anniversary of the atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki approaches, the world continues to face a litany of nuclear concerns. There is the failure to safeguard all the nuclear material lying loose around the globe. And proponents of nuclear power have gained ground as a result of the current energy crisis.

But the radioactive rhetoric printed on newspaper opinion pages and proclaimed from would-be presidential podiums puts Iran at the top of the nuclear list.

"Bomb, Bomb Iran," sang John McCain -- the man running for President of the United States on a record of foreign policy experience, military know-how, and gravitas -- to the tune of The Beach… more

Frida Berrigan in the National | 'Guantanamo Ruling Sets up Political Showdown'

Communications — Mon, 16 Jun 2008 15:02:00 -0400

New America in the News:

...“Politics is going to come in here very, very fast,” said Frida Berrigan, an organiser with the grassroots group Witness Against Torture, which is also seeking to close Guantanamo.

“Does Congress have a mandate to back the supreme court in the middle of this election season?” she asked. “I think there’s going to be a lot of roadblocks in the way of enacting what the supreme court has judged and determined.

“What does it mean for the men of Guantanamo?” Ms Berrigan said. “It means more waiting; it means more ambiguity; it means more games – with their lives at stake...” LINK

Trouble at the Pentagon

Ron Tang — Wed, 11 Jun 2008 08:03:00 -0400

The Pentagon is in crisis: The war in Iraq is entering its fifth hot summer. And while U.S. troop casualties are down, the light at the end of the occupation tunnel is no closer and no brighter.

Headaches mount on the home front as well. The head of the Air Force was recently embarrassed and forced from the cockpit. Billions of dollars have been misplaced or misspent. Huge cost overruns bedevil weapons contractors. And, private contractors have formed a cubicle mercenary force, outnumbering uniformed personnel and federal employees in many DoD agencies.

The Government Accountability Office has issued… more

Iraq War Spurs Growth in Vehicle Manufacturing and Fuel Supply Contracts

Communications — Wed, 04 Jun 2008 15:39:00 -0400

Today the New America Foundation released a policy brief by William D. Hartung, director of the New America Foundation's Arms and Security Initiative. The text is pasted below. Also, see a PDF of the policy brief: http://www.newamerica.net/files/PBTop100AnalysisReport200806.pdf.

Contact: William D. Hartung, 212-431-5808, ext. 201, hartung@newamerica.net; Frida Berrigan, 212-431-5808, ext. 200, berrigan@newamerica.net. For further information on the Arms and Security Initiative, click here.

Iraq War Spurs Growth in Vehicle Manufacturing and Fuel Supply Contracts: Budgetary Pressure on Big Ticket Systems Likely to Increase

By William D. Hartung… more

Entrenched, Embedded, And Here To Stay

Ron Tang — Tue, 27 May 2008 09:20:00 -0400

A full-fledged cottage industry is already focused on those who eagerly await the end of the Bush administration, offering calendars, magnets, and t-shirts for sale as well as counters and graphics to download onto blogs and websites. But when the countdown ends and George W. Bush vacates the Oval Office, he will leave a legacy to contend with. Certainly, he wills to his successor a world marred by war and battered by deprivation, but perhaps his most enduring legacy is now deeply embedded in Washington-area politics -- a Pentagon metastasized almost beyond recognition.

The Pentagon's massive bulk-up… more

The U.S. Senate: Stalling Hemispheric Arms Control

Ron Tang — Wed, 30 Apr 2008 12:31:00 -0400

In 1997, President Bill Clinton, standing beside Mexican president Ernesto Zedillo in the Organization of American States’ flag-bedecked Hall of the Americas, declared: “Gun trafficking is an issue of national security for our governments, and a matter of neighborhood security for all of us in the Americas.” The presidents had joined together to sign an OAS treaty known as the Firearms Convention, or by its Spanish initials as CIFTA, designed to end the illicit manufacture and trafficking of guns, ammunition, explosives, and related materials. It requires that ratifying nations create laws (if they do not already exist) that establish procedures… more

Bush Woos Europe

Ron Tang — Thu, 10 Apr 2008 09:10:00 -0400

The big news of President George W. Bush’s trip to Europe last week was not the multiple agendas that he juggled or the feathers he ruffled. It was the news he left behind. President Bush tried to set the domestic agenda for the week, with a pre-dawn press conference on his way to the airport last Monday. The sleepy First Couple stood side-by-side, as Bush told Congress they had “a lot of work” while he was gone. He even left a to-do list: pass Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, act on his Federal Housing Administration reform proposals, and agree to the… more

Guantanamo: The Bigger Picture

Ron Tang — Mon, 17 Mar 2008 04:50:00 -0400

The U.S. base at Guantanamo has been called many things. The "gulag of our time" (Amnesty International General Secretary Irene Khan, May 2005). "The key strategic intelligence platform in the war on terror" (Charles Stimson, Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Detainee Affairs, January 2007). The "legal equivalent of outer space" (unnamed Administration official). The right place for "the worst of a very bad lot" (Vice President Dick Cheney, January 2002) and for the "most dangerous, best trained, vicious killers on the face of the earth" (former Defense Secretary Donald… more

The Commander-in-Chef Cooks Up a Storm

Ron Tang — Thu, 28 Feb 2008 00:00:00 -0500

This article also appears in The Baltimore Sun.

In the week that oil prices once again crested above $100 a barrel and more Americans than at any time since the Great Depression owed more on their homes than the homes were worth; in the year that the subprime market crashed, global markets shuddered, the previously unnoticed credit-default swap market threatened to go into the tank, stagflation returned, unemployment rose, the "R" word (for recession) hit the headlines (while the "D" word lurked), within weeks of the fifth… more

Indonesia's Arms Appetite

Ron Tang — Wed, 27 Feb 2008 00:00:00 -0500

Jakarta wants weapons. Lots of them.

Right after Valentine’s Day, Indonesian Air Force officials met with their U.S. counterparts to discuss “bilateral defense cooperation.” On their wish list were Lockheed Martin’s F-16 fighters and C-130 Hercules tactical transport planes. There will be more defense talks in April between the two countries as they step up military cooperation.

The United States and Indonesia “normalized” military relations in 2005, ending a 10-year period during which Jakarta was essentially barred from receiving most forms of U.S. weapons sales and military aid and training because of its military’s human rights abuses and corruption. Jakarta… more

Surge in Spending on Nukes a Grave Error

Ron Tang — Sat, 09 Feb 2008 00:00:00 -0500

For many Americans, nuclear weapons bring up old memories and forgotten associations -- the duck and cover drills of the 1950s, President Reagan's exhortations against the "evil empire," and the plot lines of countless straight-to-video political thrillers. It may then come as a surprise that in 2008 the United States is considering a huge new investment in nuclear weapons.

The U.S. Department of Energy's National Nuclear Security Administration is pushing for an estimated $150 billion to develop a new generation of nuclear weapons and a more "responsive" production network. The centerpiece of this move is called Complex Transformation, a multi-year plan… more

The Fog of War Crimes

adminn — Mon, 07 Jan 2008 15:00:00 -0500

A Marine squad was on a dusty road in Iraq, far from home. Suddenly, a deadly roadside bomb explodes the early morning calm and kills a lance corporal and wounds two other Marines. The mission: tend to the wounded and find those who were responsible … Or make someone pay? Three sleeping families awaken to the sound of grenades and guns.

By the end of the "operation," 24 people were dead, including three women and six children. Bullets, fired at close range, tore through bodies and lodged deep in walls. A one-legged elderly man was shot nine times in the chest… more

Nukes and the Elections

adminn — Fri, 04 Jan 2008 15:20:00 -0500

In this extra-long (and far from finished) campaign season, we have heard a lot from the candidates. We have seen them in many debates and public forums -- engaging with one another and with the animated snowmen and gun-toting hunters that populated the YouTube debates.

But all this exposure has not resulted in an abundance of substance. Hot issues like immigration and gun control provide juicy sound bites and smoking zingers on both sides but fail to inform voters on the candidates' stances on looming and critical foreign policy issues. Perhaps even more importantly, this flavor-of-the-week approach fails to engage or… more

More Oil Money, Less Democracy?

adminn — Tue, 01 Jan 2008 15:29:00 -0500

This article was published in El Comercio, a leading Ecuadorian daily paper, under the headline of ‘Democracia y crudo no se llevan bien...’ The text as published in Spanish is available on the ElComercio.com; the English version is posted below in its entirety.

Long before he became Vice President of the United States, back when he was just the CEO of a company called Halliburton, Dick Cheney was asked about oil and democracy. He famously quipped: “The problem is that the good Lord didn't see fit to put oil and gas reserves where there are democratic governments.”

Blaming the… more