United States – RI Future

February 29, 2016April 18, 2016

Textron still makes cluster bombs despite downward global, US trends

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Rhode Island-based Textron is one of four private-companies on earth, and the last North American producer, to manufacture what is quickly becoming one of the world’s most controversial weapons of war: cluster bombs.

“The cluster munition industry is gone because many nations have banned the weapon,” said Mark Hiznay, a senior arms researcher for Human Rights Watch.

“Most foreign producers are state-owned industries,” he said, such as China and Russia. In addition to Textron he knows of only three other privately-held companies in the world that still make cluster bombs, two are in South Korea and one is in Singapore.

Human Rights Watch recently released a report criticizing the failure rate of Textron-made cluster bombs and accused Saudi Arabian-led forces in Yemen of using them dangerously close to civilians.

At one time 34 different nations made cluster bombs but now only 16 still do, or reserve the right to, according to the Cluster Munition Monitor, an annual report of the sale, use of and efforts to ban cluster bombs. 119 countries have banned them. Canada, Germany, Italy, Japan and England, among others, have already destroyed their entire stockpiles, Hiznay said.

The United States, on the other hand, has not signed the 2008 Convention on Cluster Bombs treaty. In 2003, the US military used Textron-made cluster bombs against Iraqi tanks as it advanced on Kirkuk.

Both of Rhode Island’s senators say they see the need to curtail the use of cluster bombs.

“Senator Reed has supported efforts to limit the sale and transfer of cluster munitions and to ensure the use of more precise technologies to protect civilians,” said his spokesman Chip Unruh.

Senator Sheldon Whitehouse is a co-signer of the Cluster Munitions Civilian Protection Act. “Cluster bombs can take a terrible and lasting toll on civilians, which is why I’ve cosponsored legislation to restrict their use,” he told RI Future. “I hope the Senate will take action on this bill to help protect innocent civilians from these dangerous weapons of war.”

The House-version of this bill is sponsored by Massachusetts Congressman Jim McGovern, who represents the Worcester area. Congressmen David Cicilline and Jim Langevin could not be reached for comment.

The Textron-made bomb – the CBU-105 Sensor Fuzed Weapon – is at the center of a new Human Rights Watch report that indicates the weapon malfunctions more than 1 percent of the time, a violation of US export law, and accuses the Saudi Arabian-led forces in Yemen of using the weapon dangerously close to civilian populations which has resulted in several documented injuries.

“It’s puzzling to us that Textron is marketing this as a reliable weapon,” Hiznay said. “We’re not sure if it’s Textron’s problem or the Saudis’ problem, but we’ve had the US Air Force use them in Iraq and produce duds and now we have Saudi forces using them and producing duds in Yemen.”

US export law requires cluster bombs sold to foreign countries to malfunction less than 1 percent of the time, a success rate Human Rights Watch says the Textron-made bomb has not achieved. A 2008 Department of Defense Directive, the current prevailing US policy on the use of cluster bombs, requires the US military to only use cluster bombs with similar success rates.

“Most of the SFW’s have been sold to the US Air Force,” said Textron spokesman David Sylvestre in an email. “Comparatively few have been sold to US allies.” He declined further comment about the sale of weapons saying, “Much of the data about what we sell to a particular military customer may be considered protected or classified info by the US government or the customer.”

According to a 2011 Department of Defense news release, Textron was contacted to sell 404 cluster bombs to Saudi Arabia for $355 million. In 2012, Textron was contracted to sell 325 cluster bombs to South Korea for $325 million. The US last put aside funds to buy cluster bombs from Textron in 2007, said Hiznay, but didn’t make the buy after the weapons malfunctioned more than 1 percent of the time.

“We believe that SFW is truly the best area attack weapon in the world,” said Ellen Lord, senior vice president and general manager of Textron Defense Systems. “Through a process of rigorous research, testing and analysis, we have created a weapon that is reliable, safe and meets current clean battlefield standards.”

September 30, 2015October 1, 2015

Cicilline to Obama: Accept 100,000 Syrian refugees

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Congressman David Cicilline told President Barack Obama to increase tenfold the number of Syrian refugees the United States accepts – from 10,000 to 100,000.

“We’ve always been a beacon to the rest of the world,” Cicilline told RI Future, in explaining why he implored the president to do more. “It speaks to our character as a nation. We need to regain that moral high ground.”

Earlier this month the Obama Administration announced it would increase the number of Syrian refugees the US takes in this from about 1,500 to 10,000. Subsequently, Cicilline wrote a letter to the president saying the US should take in 100,000 Syrian refugees.

“Other countries look to the United States to lead when it comes to refugee resettlement, and so it is absolutely critical that the U.S. lead by example,” reads the letter. “The U.S. should use its considerable global influence to encourage other nations, including within the European Union, to accept additional refugees and increase the resources available to support them.”

More than 70 members of Congress co-signed the letter to Obama, including Joe Kennedy, of Massachusetts. Congressman Jim Langevin did not sign the letter. Langevin spokeswoman Meg Geoghegan said, “While he shares Congressman Cicilline’s belief that the U.S. should do far more for these refugees, he does not feel comfortable prescribing that specific number until we have assurances that the resources exist to actually process that many people in a timely way without risking any potential impact to American security.”

Langevin told RI Future in a prepared statement: “We are facing one of the worst humanitarian crises in history, and our country and others around the world must do more for those who have faced unimaginable suffering, leaving their homes behind in fear for their families. The United States must significantly increase the number of refugees we take, while ensuring adequate resources to protect the security of our citizens.”

Cicilline said his request to accept 100,000 Syrian refugees is based on the recommendation of the Refugee Council USA, a coalition of 20 of the leading refugee aid organizations in this country. Refugee Council USA also recommends the United States increase the overall number of refugees it takes in this year from 100,000 to 200,000. Last year, the US accepted about 70,000 refugees but only 1,500 from Syria, which has seen an exodus of more than 4 million citizens since the start of a bloody civil war four years ago.

Cicilline’s letter points out that accepting 100,000 Syrian refugees would only increase the US population by “less than a quarter of one percent” while “Lebanon’s population by contrast has grown 25% with the influx of refugees at its borders.” In a reference to the viral video of a Syrian boy who died while fleeing his country, the letter continues, “How can we tell little Aylan’s family that we simply can’t manage to welcome them, that it would be too dangerous or take jobs away. Surely we can do better.”

Cicilline visited Syrian refugee camps on a recent trip to Jordan, which helped cement in his mind the need for the United States to be a leader in responding to the crisis. In a conversation with a Jordanian man, he explained that there is some political resistance to accepting Syrian refugees in the United States. The Jordanian man told him, “This wasn’t a debate. These are our brothers and sisters fleeing war and we welcomed them,” according to the congressman.

Cicilline also said taking in refugees is a “sensible economic decision,” saying “in 2013 69 percent of all refugees were self-sufficient after 180 days. By comparison, refugees living in camps around the world are often relying on international assistance for a very long time – 10, 15, 20 years – and in most cases the United States is paying for most of that.”

Cicilline spoke earlier this week in Washington at a press conference about the Syrian refugee crisis.

February 27, 2014February 27, 2014

Cicilline, Langevin oppose ‘fast-tracking’ TPP free trade agreement

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The Trans-Pacific Partnership, a proposed 12 nation free trade agreement that’s been nicknamed “NAFTA on steroids” between the US, Canada, Japan and others, has the American left – if not mainstream America yet – on high alert for two reasons.

One reason is that so-called “free trade” agreements and organizations like the TPP, NAFTA and the WTO benefit big business rather than regular Americans.

“Global health advocates, environmentalists, Internet activists and trade unions have deep concerns about what the deal might contain, and are making as much noise as possible in order to influence negotiations before a final version becomes public,” according to a Washington Post Wonkblog post from December.

And the other reason is that the final version could win congressional approval without ever becoming public. President Obama has been seeking what is called “fast track authority” which would stifle lawmakers ability to amend the deal.

That’s why Congressmen David Cicilline and Jim Langevin, along with 150 House Democrats, signed a letter saying the TPP it should not be fast tracked.

“I believe it is too important an issue for Congress to be bypassed with fast-track authority,” Langevin said in an email to RI Future. “The TPP is far-reaching, affecting economics, intellectual property, the environment, health care and so much more, and as such, it merits a transparent, measured discussion between the Administration and members of Congress.”

Added Congressman David Cicilline: “Using trade promotion authority to ‘fast track’ complex trade agreements restricts Congress’s ability to ensure trade policies are fair for American workers, businesses, intellectual property holders, and consumers. Congress should have a say in crafting trade agreements, which impact U.S. workers and our economy.”

While details of the TPP are still shrouded in secrecy, there is some evidence that the free trade agreement could have a particular impact on an industry important to Rhode Island’s economy. According to the International Business Times (emphasis mine): “The U.S. has its own issues about opening up certain industries, too, such as removing sugar import tariffs and quotas that would harm American sugar beet farmers. The U.S. is also facing the sensitive prospect of inflicting harm on domestic textile and seafood producers in the negotiating process.”

But the Left in general fears the deal because, like NAFTA, it could put American workers in peril and would probably have adverse effects on environmental protections as well. According to the Economist: The “21st-century” aspects of TPP are “behind-the-border” issues, such as intellectual-property protection, environmental and labour standards, the privileges of state-owned enterprises and government-procurement practices. All are problematic.”

And then there are the provisions of the TPP that should raise ire in every American. According to the Electronic Frontier Foundation: “Leaked draft texts of the agreement show that the [intellectual property] chapter would have extensive negative ramifications for users’ freedom of speech, right to privacy and due process, and hinder peoples’ abilities to innovate.”

January 4, 2012January 11, 2012

Finland Finland Finland, the country where I quite want to teach

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As it turns out, Monty Python was right: Finland isn’t just a great place for snack lunch in the hall…

It really does have it all: social democracy, smoked fish, and a public school system that American reformers are beginning to notice. Too bad they are noticing the wrong thing.

As many of you know, Finland is all the rage in education reform circles these days, particularly among those who don’t think that teacher unions and school governance are the primary problems facing American public schools. Finnish school children have done very well on international tests in recent years (far better than the middling U.S.), prompting a wave of visits to Scandinavia by American politicians and educators, and speaking tours by Finns here.

Most of the discussion has revolved around their model for the professionalization of teachers — kind of like Denver’s experiment on steroids — and on their lack of emphasis on standardized high-stakes testing and rote learning. All teachers in Finland must earn masters’ degrees from competitive graduate programs, are paid like professionals, and given responsibilities for curriculum and assessment that vastly exceed those of American teachers in the post-NCLB era.

The curriculum, meanwhile, de-emphasizes competition and tracking, and tends to be much more focused on creative play and vocational preparation than one generally finds in American schools (particularly urban ones). According to a recent article by Samuel Abrams in The New Republic, Finnish schools provide students with far more recess than their American counterparts — 75 minutes a day at the elementary level, compared to an average of 27 minutes in the U.S. They also mandate lots of arts and crafts, and more learning by doing.

American school reformers seem to see what they want to see in the Finnish success story. Liberals (if I can use that word in this context) point to their investment in early childhood education and parental leave policies, as well as the teacher autonomy discussed above. Conservatives point to the ability of Finnish schools to get high achievement out of students despite large class sizes, and regardless of background. If they can do it, they argue, why can’t our teachers? Of course, the ‘blame-the-teachers’ mantra is somewhat undermined by the fact that Finnish teachers are unionized at even higher levels than American teachers are, and also have tenure.

It is also undermined by the fact that levels of inequality and child poverty in the U.S. vastly exceed Finland’s — a critical point.

Anu Partanan, a Finnish journalist, published a thoughtful short piece in the Atlantic Monthly in late December 2011 on K-12 education in her country. The takeaway: most American observers have really missed (ignored) what’s at the core of Finnish school reform — equity.

Dissatisfied with the quality of Finnish public education at the end of the 1960s, in 1971 a government commission concluded that economic modernization could only take place if schools were improved. According to Abrams, Finland committed to reducing class size, boosting teacher pay, and requiring much more rigorous training for teachers.

While the US has focused primarily on ‘excellence’ since 1980 (based in part on the mistaken assumption that we had veered too far in the direction of equity since the mid-50s), Finland launched a concentrated effort to use public education to counteract inequality. It did this, based on the belief that equity would lead to excellence, and enable resource-poor Finland to compete in an increasingly globalized and post-industrial economy. This effort was supported by relevant social policies too.

Pasi Sahlberg, director of the Finnish Ministry of Education’s Center for International Mobility and author of the new book Finnish Lessons: What Can the World Learn from Educational Change in Finland?, told Partanan that the “main driver of Finnish education policy has been the idea that every child should have exactly the same opportunity to learn, regardless of family background, income, or geographic location. Education has been seen first and foremost not as a way to produce star performers, but as an instrument to even out social inequality.” At its core, Sahlberg says, this means that “schools should be healthy, safe environments for children. This starts with the basics. Finland offers all pupils free school meals, easy access to health care, psychological counseling, and individualized student guidance.”

While Partanan may not be an experienced observer of American politics and society, she is almost certainly correct that the way that American ‘reformers’ are viewing Finland’s success — ignoring the equity goals that are at the heart of it — demonstrates a kind of willful blindness to what is fundamentally wrong with the opportunity structure in the US, and how it undermines both the quality and distribution of public education.

The money quote:

“It is possible to create equality. And perhaps even more important — as a challenge to the American way of thinking about education reform — Finland’s experience shows that it is possible to achieve excellence by focusing not on competition, but on cooperation, and not on choice, but on equity.

The problem facing education in America isn’t the ethnic diversity of the population but the economic inequality of society, and this is precisely the problem that Finnish education reform addressed. More equity at home might just be what America needs to be more competitive abroad.”

It is unfortunate that so many of the moderates and liberals who formerly served as voices for equality of opportunity in public schools in the U.S. have fairly tripped over themselves — and others — to leap onto the bandwagon of ‘reform’ as its presently understood.

Originally posted on Chants Democratic blog.