[House Hearing, 111 Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Printing Office]
FLAG ON THE BAG?: FOREIGN ASSISTANCE AND THE STRUGGLE AGAINST TERRORISM
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HEARING
BEFORE THE
SUBCOMMITTEE ON TERRORISM, NONPROLIFERATION AND TRADE
OF THE
COMMITTEE ON FOREIGN AFFAIRS
HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
ONE HUNDRED ELEVENTH CONGRESS
FIRST SESSION
__________
NOVEMBER 18, 2009
__________
Serial No. 111-68
__________
Printed for the use of the Committee on Foreign Affairs
Available via the World Wide Web: http://www.foreignaffairs.house.gov/
______
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COMMITTEE ON FOREIGN AFFAIRS
HOWARD L. BERMAN, California, Chairman
GARY L. ACKERMAN, New York ILEANA ROS-LEHTINEN, Florida
ENI F.H. FALEOMAVAEGA, American CHRISTOPHER H. SMITH, New Jersey
Samoa DAN BURTON, Indiana
DONALD M. PAYNE, New Jersey ELTON GALLEGLY, California
BRAD SHERMAN, California DANA ROHRABACHER, California
ROBERT WEXLER, Florida DONALD A. MANZULLO, Illinois
ELIOT L. ENGEL, New York EDWARD R. ROYCE, California
BILL DELAHUNT, Massachusetts RON PAUL, Texas
GREGORY W. MEEKS, New York JEFF FLAKE, Arizona
DIANE E. WATSON, California MIKE PENCE, Indiana
RUSS CARNAHAN, Missouri JOE WILSON, South Carolina
ALBIO SIRES, New Jersey JOHN BOOZMAN, Arkansas
GERALD E. CONNOLLY, Virginia J. GRESHAM BARRETT, South Carolina
MICHAEL E. McMAHON, New York CONNIE MACK, Florida
JOHN S. TANNER, Tennessee JEFF FORTENBERRY, Nebraska
GENE GREEN, Texas MICHAEL T. McCAUL, Texas
LYNN WOOLSEY, California TED POE, Texas
SHEILA JACKSON LEE, Texas BOB INGLIS, South Carolina
BARBARA LEE, California GUS BILIRAKIS, Florida
SHELLEY BERKLEY, Nevada
JOSEPH CROWLEY, New York
MIKE ROSS, Arkansas
BRAD MILLER, North Carolina
DAVID SCOTT, Georgia
JIM COSTA, California
KEITH ELLISON, Minnesota
GABRIELLE GIFFORDS, Arizona
RON KLEIN, Florida
VACANT
Richard J. Kessler, Staff Director
Yleem Poblete, Republican Staff Director
------
Subcommittee on Terrorism, Nonproliferation and Trade
BRAD SHERMAN, California, Chairman
GERALD E. CONNOLLY, Virginia EDWARD R. ROYCE, California
DAVID SCOTT, Georgia TED POE, Texas
DIANE E. WATSON, California DONALD A. MANZULLO, Illinois
MICHAEL E. McMAHON, New York JOHN BOOZMAN, Arkansas
SHEILA JACKSON LEE, Texas J. GRESHAM BARRETT, South Carolina
RON KLEIN, Florida
Don MacDonald, Subcommittee Staff Director
John Brodtke, Subcommittee Professional Staff Member
Tom Sheehy, Republican Professional Staff Member
Isidro Mariscal, Subcommittee Staff Associate
C O N T E N T S
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Page
WITNESSES
Kristin M. Lord, Ph.D., Vice President and Director of Studies,
Center for a New American Security............................. 7
Walid Phares, Ph.D., Director, Future of Terrorism Project,
Foundation for Defense of Democracies.......................... 15
Mr. Samuel Worthington, President and Chief Executive Officer,
InterAction.................................................... 26
Kenneth Ballen, Esq., President, Terror Free Tomorrow............ 34
LETTERS, STATEMENTS, ETC., SUBMITTED FOR THE HEARING
Kristin M. Lord, Ph.D.: Prepared statement....................... 10
Walid Phares, Ph.D.: Prepared statement.......................... 17
Mr. Samuel Worthington: Prepared statement....................... 28
Kenneth Ballen, Esq.: Prepared statement......................... 36
APPENDIX
Hearing notice................................................... 52
Hearing minutes.................................................. 53
The Honorable Gerald E. Connolly, a Representative in Congress
from the State of Virginia: Prepared statement................. 54
FLAG ON THE BAG?: FOREIGN ASSISTANCE AND THE STRUGGLE AGAINST TERRORISM
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WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 18, 2009
House of Representatives,
Subcommittee on Terrorism,
Nonproliferation and Trade,
Committee on Foreign Affairs,
Washington, DC.
The subcommittee met, pursuant to notice, at 2:05 p.m., in
room 2172, Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. Brad Sherman
(chairman of the subcommittee) presiding.
Mr. Sherman. I want to thank everyone for being here. As it
happens, we are doing a markup of a bill that could conceivably
involve trillions of dollars over in Financial Services, and so
myself, the ranking member, and some other members of the
subcommittee may have to go there. I know our vice chair may be
able to chair these hearings for some portion of the hearing,
and I expect that the gentleman from Virginia may do so as
well.
We are engaged in a global war on terror, or whatever we
are calling it this week. Support for foreign aid is relatively
weak among the people of the United States. I think foreign aid
is the right thing to do because it is the right thing to do.
But, we go back and tell our constituents that foreign aid is a
critical part of the global war on terror or the effort for
national security. And, it would certainly help if that were
true. The more true it is, the more those of us who go to town
halls will be able to explain that foreign aid is not just
charity, it is not a, quote, deg. ``waste of money,''
but it is as important to our national security as any aircraft
carrier. That presentation will work better if it is actually
true.
Now, there is no shortage of projects for us to provide
foreign aid to. Our generosity does not match the need. It
doesn't come close. So, even if we were to ignore certain
opportunities to provide aid, and concentrate on others, we
would have no difficulty finding excellent development
projects. So even if we confine our aid to those projects that
are consistent with our global national security effort, we
will do just as much good as if we ignore our national security
effort and only focus on our development objectives.
And so I believe that we should look at our global war on
terror objectives, our national security objectives, when we
select which country to aid, select what program, decide on the
methodology of the program. Do you just distribute food, or do
you put the flag on the bag? And, finally, the public diplomacy
effort that goes along with the foreign aid effort: To what
extent do you resource that effort and what strategy?
Now, I know the purists would say we should only do good,
and only do the most good we can, without ever trying to seek
any credit for it. I realize that philosophers and theologians
who have focused on charity have said that the highest level of
charity is when you provide aid and you do it anonymously. But
these same advocates of purity internationally are happy to
tell Members of Congress to go home and lie to our constituents
for a good cause, and to tell our constituents that our foreign
aid programs are carefully calibrated to meet our national
security objectives, when in fact here in Washington they
resist that very effort.
Now, I know that a large portion of our aid currently is
going to Iraq and Afghanistan, and there it is part and parcel
of our national security effort. But those are temporary
programs for the most part. I guess we may be providing aid to
Afghanistan decades from now, after our national security
interest is over. Iraq is an oil-rich country. But in any case,
my focus here is not on Iraq and Afghanistan, but on our
ongoing development efforts.
Now, Deputy Secretary of State Armitage made substantial
efforts in this area with his National Security Strategy in
2004. He insisted literally on the flag on the bag and graphics
of ``From the American People.'' He faced considerable
opposition. He succeeded. American foreign aid can help improve
the image of the United States.
For example, we provide very massive aid to Egypt but have
only a 27 percent approval rating. In 2003, the Advisory Group
on Public Diplomacy for the Arab and Muslim World issued a
report stating that too few people in the Arab and Muslim world
knew the extent of U.S. foreign assistance efforts. If people
don't know about our aid, one wonders how that can be part of
an effort to gain popularity for the United States and our
values.
A positive element was seen in Indonesia. In 2004, 79
percent of Indonesians said they had a more favorable view of
the United States as a result of our aid in the wake of the
tsunami. In recent surveys in Pakistan, it was found that more
than six out of every ten Pakistanis, even those who have a
favorable view of bin Laden and al-Qaeda, said their opinion of
the United States would significantly improve if the United
States increased its aid to Pakistanis.
Now, those who are advocating that we take the flag off the
bag--and they are seeking to do that by persuading the
administration--should realize that this is not only good
policy, it is the law. Section 202 of the Food for Peace Act
and section 641 of the Foreign Assistance Act require branding
to the fullest extent practicable.
I should note that in the area of foreign affairs,
sometimes this administration and the prior two administrations
simply ignore statute, for example, the Iran Sanctions Act. But
I would hope that those who are advocates of development and
democracy in foreign countries would believe in democracy in
the United States. And whether they think the flag on the bag
is good policy for the United States or not, a proper respect
for the rule of law would call upon them to ask the
administration to adhere to the law while it is on the books.
The administration has not been able to provide us with a
witness here today. This shows a tragic lack of focus on the
issue we are talking about. If we had a division that didn't
have a general for 10 months, it would be a national scandal.
But who can say that USAID is less important to American
national security than a single division in the United States
Army?
Yet, we do not have a head of USAID, and in fact we don't
have anybody over there who feels that they can come here and
explain how our foreign aid policy juxtaposes with and
coordinates with our national security policy. Do you think
that there is a single general who can't describe how his
division juxtaposes with our national security policy? And yet
I think that our foreign aid policy is more important than any
aircraft carrier group to our national security.
So whether it is country selection, project selection,
project methodology, or public diplomacy, all of these need to
be tailored to meet our national security objectives. This is
important for our national security and has the additional
advantage of allowing us to go back and advocate foreign aid
and to do so truthfully. If we can show that our foreign aid is
tailored to our national security efforts, then we might well
see our foreign aid efforts funded at the aircraft carrier
level.
Until then, the efforts of the purists are both
inconsistent with any purist obligation to tell the truth, and
inconsistent with the objective of increasing our foreign, aid
and, coincidentally, inconsistent with our national security
objectives.
With that, I will yield to our ranking member.
Mr. Royce. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I appreciate it.
The subject of today's hearing, branding foreign aid--in
other words, letting the recipient of the aid know that it is
the U.S. that is doing the aiding--I think we agree that in a
number of instances this can generate goodwill. The chairman
has shared with you the often-cited results of U.S. relief
efforts that in the 2004 tsunami clearly indicated that it had
a beneficial effect in Indonesia, and certainly we saw some of
that in the aftermath of the 2005 earthquake in Pakistan. And
presumably goodwill translates into Indonesian and Pakistani
Government policies that are more aligned with ours, including
combating terrorism. Emergency relief aid, though, might be
unique.
I have read through a CRS memo that notes that after
providing tens of billions of dollars in aid to Egypt over the
years, much of that aid branded, only 6 percent of Egyptians
view the United States favorably.
I spent this morning with a Colonel Kim who had defected
from North Korea and testified before the Tom Lantos Human
Rights Commission. He shared with us the result of the foreign
aid, the food aid, that went into North Korea and explained how
that aid ends up supporting the North Korean military.
As a matter of fact, there was one particular example where
the NGO was so insistent that they go along to see the aid
given out in the community that the military took the NGO out
there with the aid, and then came back up afterwards and
collected the aid and took the aid where they always take it,
which is the military. Now, I did ask him, does it always end
up in the hands of the military? No. It turns out the French
NGOs were right; some of it ends up on food exchanges in the
nation's capital where it is sold for hard currency. But one
way or another, none of it gets into the hands--well, suffice
it to say that this, in his view, it was propping up the regime
and it had for years. And, on top of that, it had the added
benefit, from the standpoint of the North Koreans, of helping
give them the hard currency so that they could develop three-
stage ICBMs, helped them a little bit in terms of their efforts
developing a nuclear weapon, and he explained to us how they
are now working to miniaturize those nuclear weapons so they
will have delivery capability.
But when asked about this kind of aid, he said: ``Why
wouldn't you instead give us medicines that they couldn't have
sold, and at least that could be done? You know the effects of
the malnutrition on North Koreans. Half of them are affected to
the point where they, you know, we can see that they are
stunting their growth.''
But this is me speaking now for a moment. I have been over
in North Korea. It is very clear that the malnutrition is
affecting the ability of children to think and conceptualize
and so forth. Why not that kind of aid instead of the type of
aid that ends up getting into the hands of the regime? Why
aren't we more cautious about this?
Well, I think part of it is we never check our premise on
this. We never ask ourselves: How are these totalitarian
regimes utilizing this aid and for what purpose? And I think at
the end of the day, you know, we know that it has been U.S.
policy to try to brand foreign aid when possible.
But I do think, I agree with the chairman, I think the
application of this has been somewhat haphazard, whether it is
U.S. law or not. There are exceptions which are wise, if
branding threatens the lives of aid providers, certainly, but
others are unacceptable to me if the name on the bag is a self-
promoting NGO instead of ``USA'' on the bag.
And that brings us to one of the other questions that I
think we will get into today. All aid will have a brand of some
sort, because resources do not go unclaimed. Sometimes our
enemies rebrand the aid. Unbranded or U.N.-branded aid that we
provide has been manipulated, and sometimes even granted to
terrorists, as we have heard in the past about such groups as
Hamas ending up utilizing aid for its own purposes. Al-Shabab
in Somalia certainly is a problem. Some portion of our aid to
Afghanistan reportedly fell into the hands of the Taliban who
used it for their own purposes.
I hope the committee moves H.R. 1062, Ranking Member Ros-
Lehtinen's Foreign Assistance Partner Vetting Act of 2009,
because that bill would address these types of abuses.
In considering these issues, we should guard against
falling into a self-absorbed view that events throughout the
world, especially the Muslim world, are mainly determined by
what we do. And this is something I would caution our
witnesses, because I have more and more seen a tendency for us
to think this way, and the mindset is that if only we do this,
or if only we do that differently than we do now, the situation
on the ground overseas is magically going to improve.
Countries struggle with their own demons, many including
despotism that goes far, far back that creates dysfunctional
society. And it is not all about us. It isn't. And the
presumption that if we do things differently it is going to
change, I think, is an interesting one.
One dangerous force at play is the jihadist activity that
we see around the world, a very intolerant version of Islam
that gravely threatens the United States abroad and at home. I
think the Fort Hood massacre underscores that.
Boosted by petro dollars, and highly organized, I have seen
jihadists march across Central Asia and across Africa. In my
trips over there when I chaired the Africa Subcommittee, I
watched it grow like a cancer, displacing in many areas--
displacing mainstream Islam with a very different version and
very confrontational version of this. And jihadists have a dark
and grim vision for their societies. Women are battered in
these societies. The slightest offense to the orthodoxy can end
up meaning death.
I have seen schools where 13 boys were decapitated in
Central Asia because they rejected jihad in the madrassah, so a
Gulf state custom was suddenly imposed.
The Taliban certainly are adherent to this philosophy. And
this jihadist thinking has been around for a long time. It is
going to continue its hostility to our country, regardless of
U.S. foreign policies, I am afraid, from what I have seen. And
no matter how much aid we trumpet, I think the madrassahs are
going to continue to turn out young men who have this ambition.
Where radical Islam rules, I would say, Do not expect to be
loved, flag or no flag on the bag.
And I thank you, Mr. Chairman, for holding this hearing.
Mr. Sherman. At this point, are there other opening
statements?
Mr. Connolly. Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Sherman. I recognize Mr. Connolly.
Mr. Connolly. Mr. Chairman, thank you for holding today's
hearing on what I believe to be a vital component of our effort
to revive the mission and identity of the United States Agency
for National Development.
The need for drawing a coherent connection between our
national security and international policies, I think, has
reached a critical point. To its credit, the administration has
initiated steps to evaluate current U.S. development policy.
In July, the State Department announced its Quadrennial
Development and Defense Review which will provide the short-,
medium-, and long-term blueprint for our diplomatic development
efforts.
Soon after that, the President authorized a Presidential
Study Directive on Global Development Policy. These assessments
are, at best, adequate first steps, but we must continue
striving for the larger goal of overhauling the U.S.
development apparatus so that foreign assistance is distributed
in the most efficacious way possible.
Of course, all of these efforts have been hampered by the
fact that we have gone nearly a year without clear leadership
at USAID. The nomination of current Agriculture Under Secretary
Rajiv Shah is encouraging, but the administration must equip
him with the tools and freedom to hit the ground running if we
are to succeed in reviving the agency and its mission.
Effective development requires a strong USAID and experienced
development professionals in the field.
Foreign aid can benefit noble causes: Women's empowerment,
poverty reduction, disease reduction. And it ought to be
centralized, not micromanaged. I know the committee will
address this issue on a larger scale in coming months, and I
thank the chairman for his leadership in foreign aid reform.
There is a misconception that development is based on
short-term charity. That notion is false. The true goal of
development is to empower local populations to gain skills and
build institutions that improve their lives and the lives of
future generations. This in turn helps the United States by
promoting economic and social stability. It also can help spur
goodwill and improve our relations with a myriad of other
nations.
While there are circumstances in which we or our partners
may not want to push the USAID brand, it is clear we are not
seizing strategic opportunities with the aid we do provide. If
the United States plans its foreign aid strategy properly,
investments in that aid will return to us many times over.
Just look at the strides already made in education, for
example. The agency's American Schools and Hospitals Abroad
program has assisted 237 institutions in more than 70
countries. It has facilitated the development and sustainment
of superior libraries, schools, and medical centers in Africa,
Asia, Eurasia, Europe, Latin America, Caribbean, and the Near
East.
We need a robust reinvigorated U.S. development agency, one
which consolidates and coordinates the disparate initiatives
such as the Millennium Challenge Corporation, the President's
Emergency Program for AIDS Relief, short funding, and the
expanded bilateral program with Pakistan, just to name a few.
In addition, I believe USAID ought to have a seat in the
National Security Council to further cement its mission and
voice as the lead agency in this government on international
development matters.
Moving forward, our foreign assistance and development
policies must have a focal point for their articulation and to
ensure full accountability. The time has come, in my opinion,
to rebuild and refocus the Agency for International
Development. And I yield back. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Sherman. Are there other opening statements? The
gentleman from Florida.
Mr. Klein. I thank the chairman and ranking member for this
important hearing. As the full committee is engaged in a
discussion about how to make foreign aid more effective and
efficient, this discussion comes at an opportune time and very
timely as we begin this process.
Foreign aid is one of many important ways that we can
express our foreign policy priorities, and with the right
strategies America can advance its leadership and values. I am
glad this hearing will focus on whether or not we claim credit
for the funds we distribute, which has already been discussed.
And I also want to make sure to mention that whether or not we
promote the American role in the aid, it is the taxpayers'
money, and taxpayers have every right to hold our partners
accountable. This means appropriate and sensible vetting. This
also means flexibility to respond to events that happen around
the world. And this means implementing robust end-use
monitoring strategies. We must know where our equipment and
funds end up. And, obviously, from time to time--when we hear
the stories about it ends up in the wrong hands--Americans are
rightfully upset.
Just last week, the New York Times reported that in the
middle of what could be a proxy war between Saudi Arabia and
Iran, Yemeni extremist groups, quote, deg. ``do not
seem to need military supplies from outside the country; they
have no trouble buying or stealing them from Yemen's
military,'' closed quote, deg.which receives supplies
from us, the United States.
So I look forward to this conversation and the opportunity
to learn more from our guests today, and I thank the witnesses
for being here and for their thoughts. I yield back the balance
of my time, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Sherman. Thank you.
Mr. Sherman. Are there further opening statements? Seeing
none--ordinarily when I would leave, our vice chair would come
to the chair. It is my understanding that he, like myself,
wants to spend more time at Financial Services. So I will call
upon the gentleman from Virginia at some point, unless he has
found Financial Services to be less interesting than I do. But
I want to hear at least the first witness. Then I am going to
turn it over to the gentleman from Virginia. I will be back to
ask questions. And I have read most of your statements, so if I
am not here in person it is not that I am going to lose the
opportunity to learn your wisdom, I just will miss the
opportunity to see you deliver it in person.
Dr. Lord is the vice president and director of studies at
the Center for a New American Security. Prior to that she was a
fellow in foreign policy studies at the Saban Center for Middle
East Policy at the Brookings Institution. Dr. Lord.
STATEMENT OF KRISTIN M. LORD, PH.D., VICE PRESIDENT AND
DIRECTOR OF STUDIES, CENTER FOR A NEW AMERICAN SECURITY
Ms. Lord. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman, Ranking Member
Royce, and distinguished members of the subcommittee. It is a
true honor to appear before you today to discuss the branding
of foreign assistance and its place in the struggle against
violent extremism.
As the first speaker on this panel, I will summarize some
of the benefits of publicizing foreign assistance, but I will
also sound a few notes of caution.
Violent extremism is a complex phenomenon, with many
causes, and I have tried to lay out a few of those causes in my
written testimony. But it is also sustained by anti-
Americanism. Widespread anti-American sentiment provides
fertile grounds for extremist ideologies and makes it harder to
accomplish American foreign policy objectives, including but
not limited to countering terrorism.
Support for terrorist networks like al-Qaeda is waning in
many predominantly Muslim societies, but nonetheless violent
extremists still find it all too easy to translate anti-
American attitudes into tangible benefits: Money, safe havens,
new recruits, and moral support. Anti-American attitudes remain
prevalent despite positive reactions to the election of
President Obama. Indeed, just 27 percent of Egyptians, 25
percent of Jordanians, and 16 percent of Pakistanis hold
favorable views of the United States.
These attitudes, frankly, mystify many Americans who see
the large amounts of financial assistance Americans provide to
those in need, and they recall the military commitments our
country has made to defend Muslim societies residing in Kuwait
and the Balkans. If the world just knew how much good we do,
some argue, anti-American attitudes would subside and violent
extremists would find less fertile territory for their vicious
ideologies.
This argument presumes that anti-Americanism stems from a
fundamental lack of awareness about our country's good
intentions and actions. And for those who hold this belief, a
logical extension is to recommend that the United States should
build greater awareness of American aid by both branding and
publicizing foreign assistance. And, indeed, there is solid
empirical evidence that at least in cases of two significant
humanitarian disasters, foreign assistance did improve public
opinion toward the United States. The chairman and ranking
member have already provided these figures, they are in my
written testimony, but let me add just one more provided by the
nonprofit group, Terror Free Tomorrow, whose president is with
us today.
According to Terror Free Tomorrow, 63 percent of
Indonesians and 78 percent of Pakistanis reported having a more
favorable opinion because of that assistance. So, in other
words, those who had a more favorable opinion attributed that
directly to American aid, and I think that is worth
underscoring. Yet we should not over learn the lesson that
foreign assistance leads to more favorable public opinion.
First, the data linking aid and favorable public opinion is
extremely limited and it is largely focused on large-scale
disaster relief which could be a special case. The USAID has
conducted analyses of public opinion before and after
communications campaigns in recent years. Such studies are the
exception. They have surveyed only limited audiences, and they
haven't tracked the impact of foreign assistance on public
opinion over sustained periods of time. If we are honest with
ourselves, we actually have very little empirical evidence to
justify a face on branding.
Second, favorable reactions to humanitarian assistance seem
to have a relatively short shelf life. Only 1 year after
delivering earthquake aid, only 15 percent of Pakistanis
reported favorable opinions toward the United States, a lower
percentage than the years immediately before the aid was
delivered. In addition, while 38 percent of Indonesians
reported favorable views of the United States after the tsunami
aid, that percentage soon dropped to 29 percent in 2007.
Third, the link between foreign assistance and more
favorable public opinion is far from clear-cut. The recent
announcement of a $7.5 billion aid package to Pakistan, the so-
called Kerry-Lugar bill, was met by widespread outrage, not
gratitude, due to Pakistani perceptions that mandatory
protections against corruption were too intrusive. To give
another example, only 27 percent of Egyptians hold favorable
opinions of the United States, though Egypt has received nearly
$70 billion in U.S. aid since 1975.
In addition to being careful not to draw unwarranted
conclusions about the relationship between aid and opinion,
there are special circumstances when our Government should
consider carefully whether to brand or publicize foreign aid
assistance at all.
When the lives of aid workers are placed in jeopardy due to
their association with U.S. assistance programs, the protection
of these individuals should weigh heavily against the desire to
claim credit. And in the midst of active counterinsurgency
campaigns, such as the war in Afghanistan, questions of how and
whether to brand assistance should be evaluated in the context
of broader security, economic, political, and cultural
considerations. In these circumstances, America's strategic
success, not to mention American lives, depends on
strengthening public confidence in the indigenous government
and its ability to deliver services to the population. Thus,
the United States should maintain enough flexibility in its
branding guidelines to make sure it is not undermining its own
wartime strategy.
In most instances, however, the real question will not be
whether to brand or publicize foreign assistance, but how.
Americans generally should embrace transparency and take steps
to make foreign publics aware of the assistance that is
provided by our Nation and funded by our taxpayers, but we
should not undermine our own objectives by giving the
appearance that we are only giving assistance in order to
improve our own popularity.
U.S. representatives overseas should therefore take care
not to create the impression that the United States gives aid
only to get something in return. Where U.S. foreign assistance
is unpopular, those perceptions in fact often arise because of
the belief that aid is an attempt to meddle in the affairs of
other nations, perhaps even with maligned intent. So spreading
knowledge of U.S. assistance without addressing perceptions
about why that assistance is given could be time ill-spent.
In conclusion, the United States gives foreign aid for many
reasons unrelated to public opinion, and it should continue to
do so. Improving foreign opinions about the United States is
only one, and not even the most important, reason why the
United States provides assistance to foreign countries. Though
assistance can and should play a role in improving America's
relations with the world, public diplomacy--and, by the way, I
am known as a public diplomacy advocate----
Mr. Sherman. Dr. Lord, I am going to have to cut you off.
You have gone considerably over.
Ms. Lord. My apologies.
Mr. Sherman. That is okay. I didn't start tapping until a
few seconds ago. With that, I am going to turn it over to the
gentleman from Virginia, and I look forward to coming back when
it is time for me to ask questions. Thank you.
[The prepared statement of Ms. Lord
follows:]Kristin Lord deg.
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Mr. Connolly [presiding]. Thank you very much, Dr. Lord.
Dr. Walid Phares is a senior fellow at the Foundation for
the Defense of Democracies. He also leads the Foundation's
Future of Terrorism project. He is also a senior fellow at the
European Foundation for Democracy, and an adjunct professor at
National Defense University.
I would say to all of our witnesses, we have your full
statement which will be included in the record. So if you could
summarize your testimony, that would be most welcome. Dr.
Phares.
STATEMENT OF WALID PHARES, PH.D., DIRECTOR, FUTURE OF TERRORISM
PROJECT, FOUNDATION FOR DEFENSE OF DEMOCRACIES
Mr. Phares. Thank you very much. I would like to thank the
chairman and the members of the committee for extending this
invitation to me to testify on foreign assistance and the
struggle against terrorism.
For almost a decade the United States has been involved in
a confrontation with terror forces overseas and at home. During
these years, huge amounts of foreign aid has been dispensed in
the countries where these forces operate and produce
radicalizations.
The first three quick questions are: Has that aid,
strategically speaking, and humanitarian assistance been
helpful in countering, reducing, and even containing
radicalization, let alone terrorist activities and influence?
The short answer is no.
The second question: Should we use foreign aid and
humanitarian assistance in our global strategy to mitigate
extremism and enhance counterterrorism? The short answer, of
course.
The third question: Are there problems and oppositions in
using foreign aid? Do we encounter resistance when we are
engaging this policy? The short answer, yes, they were; and,
yes, they are.
Based on my 30 years of experience before the Cold War,
after the end of the Cold War, and after 9/11, and in engaging
with ideologues who basically refuse the idea of American
foreign aid, interaction with European lawmakers and experts
who have a parallel experience in extending foreign aid and the
resistance to it, and of course after having consulted on
strategic communications across U.S.--defense, national
security, and diplomacy since 9/11--I would raise five points
related to the issue and make my recommendations.
Point one is the use of aid. Point two is, do we have the
resources? Point three, are there forces countering our
messaging? Point four, what is the state of our strategic
communications in response to that challenge? Point five, what
are the actual options in branding that we have and
recommendations?
Point number one. USAID must be used basically to ensure
that these societies engaged in resistance or in struggles
against terrorist forces would actually benefit from our help,
and, at the same time, are backed by the international
community. USAID is one of the most strategic tools the United
States has in the struggle against terrorism and
radicalization. It may, if well used and smartly, avoid future
confrontations.
Point number two. Do we have the resources? We have a vast
panoply of agencies and resources in the existing agencies. My
estimate is that what we have now exceeds what we need to
counter the narrative.
So the question is, how come we failed? There are two
answers. One has to do with the forces that are countering the
U.S. messaging. And, second, the failure of U.S. strategic
communications in assisting in this messaging.
The forces countering U.S. messaging are simply wide,
global, interconnected, and focused on rejecting the message
that goes along with U.S. aid. They are regimes, they are
organizations, and they are media that are coming together in
an effort, a global effort, not always a coordinated effort, to
basically sink our message.
Among the regimes that have been openly involved in
countering the U.S. message that comes with United States aid
are certainly Sudan, Iran, and Syria. I have examples I can use
in the Q and A section.
Among the organizations that have been able to counter the
U.S. message that comes with U.S. aid, you have two types:
Those that are in control of areas, specific areas, and those
that are influential in those specific areas. Type one
examples: Hamas in Gaza; Hezbollah in Lebanon; Taliban in the
Pakistani-held areas inside the northwestern provinces; an
example also in Somalia, Shabab-al jihad, in those areas, and I
could expand on that later.
These organizations have been able to deploy a vast array
of means and ways to either counter the message or appropriate
the message, let alone to control the distribution system.
Other organizations that are not dominant in their areas or
their countries, such as Salafist, neo-Wahabis, Deobandis, and
multiple countries--and I would indicate the weakest countries
would be the Safal areas in Africa stretching from Chad to
Senegal--have also been very effective in countering our
message.
So, basically, the strategic global success of the United
States depends, on the one hand, on the capacity of these
forces in countering our message. The examples of success of
U.S. messaging was in the tsunami case, as it was mentioned.
But keep in mind that 1 week after the rate went up, a
collaboration between various Salafi forces in Indonesia and
the intense activity by media that counters our message
basically killed the progress that was made.
The same could be said about Hezbollah in Lebanon.
Mr. Connolly. Dr. Phares, I am going to have to ask you to
sum up.
Mr. Phares. I would only mention here that strategic
communication has to be reviewed both in regard to the cultural
advising body that we have, and with regard to the U.S.-funded
media that we also have.
Branding, we have three options: One is to not brand at
all, and that would give the adversaries the ground; blind
branding; that is, to put the flag but not the message, and
that would return to not branding.
I would recommend strongly to use the strategy or the
option of strategic branding; that is, branding but, of course,
have a strategic messaging that would go with it.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Phares
follows:]Walid Phares deg.
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Mr. Connolly. Thank you, Dr. Phares.
Samuel Worthington has been president and CEO of
InterAction, the Nation's largest alliance of U.S.-based
international relief and development NGOs, that is
nongovernmental organizations, since October 2006. Mr.
Worthington serves on the Advisory Committee for Voluntary
Foreign Assistance at the U.S. Agency for International
Development, and also sits on the board of directors for the
U.S. Global Leadership Campaign and the Alliance to End Hunger.
Welcome, Mr. Worthington.
STATEMENT OF MR. SAMUEL WORTHINGTON, PRESIDENT AND CHIEF
EXECUTIVE OFFICER, INTERACTION
Mr. Worthington. Thank you, Mr. Connolly. Thank you very
much for this opportunity to address you today and to talk a
little bit about foreign assistance and the role that the U.S.
NGO community plays in spreading generosity around the world.
As mentioned, InterAction is the largest coalition of U.S.
nonprofits involved in relief and development. We have more
than 185 members operating in every developing country, in many
ways, with 106,000 staff, many of them mostly local, working to
overcome poverty, exclusion, and suffering.
Our community supports the marking and branding of U.S.
foreign assistance. We recognize it as an important tool of
America's image overseas. We routinely mark ``from the American
people'' on the programs we are engaged with in partnership
with the American Government. We are proud to express the
compassion of the American people. And it is important to note
this engagement of Americans that most of the resources
received from our community, over 70 percent, come directly
from private contributions. We are engaged in villages and
communities overseas, in many ways thanks to an outpouring of
the American people.
The current marking and brandy policy of U.S. Government
represents a workable and fair balance to ensure foreign
assistance is properly credited to a source. At the same time,
with members of our staff killed, threatened, or kidnapped, we
do not want to compromise the safety of U.S. citizens, our
national staff, or partners as they operate and work on the
ground, particularly with local groups under authoritarian
regimes.
There are situations to establish exemptions in these
areas, and it is important to recognize that in those countries
that have authoritarian regimes, the ability to rest, to engage
in aid, depends on our ability of having aid workers on the
ground. These are rare exceptions. They are waivers that,
however, are critical to the safety of our staff. This is a
very real danger. In 2008, 206 humanitarian aid workers were
killed, kidnapped, or seriously injured; 28 of those were
employees of our member organizations.
I saw this firsthand when I visited our members' programs
in El Fasher, Darfur, traveling through the center of town with
a large ``No Gun'' symbol on our vehicle. In this kind of
situation, it is not just the American flag that will draw
hostile criminal attention, but any flag of any wealthy nation.
And just some points in conclusion. The members of
InterAction believe that marking and branding of U.S.
Government-funded programs overseas is important and vital to
shaping the goodwill and generosity of Americans overseas and
to sharing that with the populations we try to reach.
At the same time, we see that we have an important
responsibility for the safety of our employees, and recognize
that there are circumstances where a population may receive
something, where they will feel afraid to be attacked by a
third party if it is marked or branded. In these cases, where
the marking of goods and programming as distinctly American,
places the lives of our employees at additional risk, we will
take advantage of these rare exceptions provided by the U.S.
Government regulations to have waivers to these requirements.
It is crucial, as organizations that operate in the world's
most dangerous places, that we do not cede the dangerous
streets of this world to extremists, and see the utility of
program that we run as powerful tools in fostering a positive
view of the American people. In many ways, nonprofits operating
overseas are a face of America operating in the most difficult
circumstances, and this type of humanitarian assistance or
development aid programs overseas are two very powerful weapons
in what has been known as the war on terror.
Marking and branding are important, but they are simply one
tool in ensuring that this presence of nonprofits overseas
exists and that as we, as a community of Americans, often with
our own resources, try to show our Nation's character and
values in very difficult circumstances are able to operate.
Thank you.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Worthington
follows:]Samuel Worthington deg.
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Mr. Connolly. Thank you, Mr. Worthington.
Ken Ballen. Ken Ballen is the president of Terror Free
Tomorrow. During his more than 20 years of experience in
international relations, he has advised Members of Congress on
policy initiatives regarding crime prevention and security,
intelligence oversight, and select national security measures.
Welcome, Mr. Ballen.
STATEMENT OF KENNETH BALLEN, ESQ., PRESIDENT, TERROR FREE
TOMORROW
Mr. Ballen. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. And thank
you for holding this hearing, trying to get at the facts behind
what occurs in other countries and set policy based on those
facts. That is what we have been doing since 2004.
Our mission at Terror Free Tomorrow is to understand why
people support extremism and, as importantly, why they might
oppose it. We have conducted over 30 public opinion surveys in
Muslim majority nations, interviewed more than 100 extremists.
My focus today, however, is not on why an individual may become
a terrorist or extremist, but how public opinion matters.
There are three issues. One, why people support al-Qaeda or
extremism? What can the United States do about it? And, third,
why does it matter? And I would agree with the ranking member.
Sometimes we have too much of an American-centric view on these
matters, and oftentimes public opinion in other nations is
driven by internal factors having little to do with the United
States. Nonetheless, we must act.
And that brings up an important point. When people in
surveys say they are sympathetic to bin Laden or al-Qaeda, what
does it really mean? Is that support a deeply held ideological
belief, or is it more in the nature of a protest vote? Are they
saying they are unhappy with their own government, or they are
unhappy with American foreign policy?
We found through over 30 surveys that it is the latter. For
the vast majority of people who indicate support for extremism,
it is more in the nature of a protest vote, more in the nature
of a dissatisfaction with their own condition, intensely felt
as it is, than any kind of deep ideological commitment.
Indeed, what we find when we have asked people what would
change their view from supporting extremism--as the chair
mentioned earlier--Mr. Chairman, we found that in Pakistan,
through four nationwide surveys, that six out of ten people who
support al-Qaeda, who support bin Laden, would change their
point of view if American aid was directed to Pakistani people
themselves. Now, of course, not everyone is going to change
their point of view. There are some people that, no matter what
the United States does, it makes no difference whatsoever. They
are die-hard dead-enders for al-Qaeda and the extremist point
of view.
We have seen two examples where we did the first polling,
both in Pakistan and Indonesia, after the tsunami and after the
earthquake, where American aid made a substantial difference.
Now, some people have said that has to do with the fact that it
was an emergency, and tragedy was vast. That is true. But I
submit what we found in our surveys, based on the evidence that
what drove the change of opinion toward the United States, was
the fact that American aid went directly to the people in the
countries involved and directly helped them. It did not go to a
corrupt government where it was siphoned off, or an unpopular
government.
And that is the lesson that we should take from those
experiences. Not that American aid cannot change opinion and
not that that change in opinion cannot be sustained, because it
can be sustained. It is the type of aid that is delivered and
how it is delivered. And it is important also to remember, both
in Pakistan and Indonesia, that it wasn't the United States
that carried the message of our aid, it was the local media
inside the country that was trusted by people viewing it. That
is an important distinction, too. So it didn't come across as
propaganda or as message, but as news. And people saw the
United States and al-Qaeda supporters and bin Laden supporters
and people who supported Pakistani terrorist groups said they
welcomed the United States in their view change.
So these are valuable lessons that we should take. We can
make an impact on the support for extremism around the world.
The people who indicate support for that extremist are not much
different from their contemporaries. They want economic
development, they want more democracy, they want goals that are
anathema to al-Qaeda itself.
The people who support--the very small, small, small group
of people that support al-Qaeda can be isolated in these
countries. We have seen success stories in Indonesia and in the
Philippines where American policy, working together in the
country delivering aid on the ground and in a sensible fashion,
achieves a real victory in the war on terror.
We can have more victories like that, and United States
foreign assistance can play an important role. Thank you.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Ballen
follows:]Kenneth Ballen deg.
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Mr. Connolly. Thank you, Mr. Ballen.
And the subcommittee will operate under the 5-minute rule.
Let me say before my time starts that we expect votes to be
called any minute, and there are going to be at least four
votes and it is probably going to be about 40 minutes on the
floor. So we are going to have to interrupt the hearing, and I
hope you will be able to indulge us and stay. Members of the
subcommittee don't control the floor schedule; otherwise we
would postpone these votes for this hearing. So bear with us.
Thank you.
If I could begin with you, Mr. Ballen. I am very intrigued
with what you just said and what we have learned: That what
creates a popular shift in opinion is the hands-on dirty
business of actually delivering real development assistance.
And I think there has always been a debate, frankly--I used to
work in the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. My job was to
write the Foreign Assistance Act every year, or legislation
every year. And, frankly, the folks at the State Department all
too often were satisfied with writing big checks to the central
bank to keep a client-state happy when the folks at AID were
actually trying to do the more difficult task of actually
developing projectized aid. It seems to me that what you
suggest we have learned is projectized aid has much to commend
it.
Mr. Ballen. I think you are absolutely right, Mr. Chairman.
That is the point. I mean--and it was earlier cited, statistics
about Egypt--when we give large amounts of aid to a government
that is basically and deeply unpopular inside the country, I
don't know how we can expect, whether we brand that aid or not,
people to appreciate that aid. You know, it is just either
feeding--and we have this experience in Pakistan. We gave $10
billion to the Musharraf regime, a regime that became deeply
unpopular in Pakistan, and it is not going to win us any points
among the Pakistani people. And I think it is a Cold War model.
I think we used to see--we had to buy off client-states, and it
was just a matter of giving the aid to the government.
You know, that is over with. We are in a different kind of
struggle. The struggle against extremism comes from the ground
up. And if we are going to start to affect it with our foreign
assistance, then we have got to affect it from the ground up
and not from the top down.
Mr. Connolly. And the final point on what you are saying
too, that I draw, is it goes way beyond the issue of labeling.
Mr. Ballen. Absolutely. I think that is not the fundamental
issue. The fundamental issue is the type aid we give. And then
if we do that, I think the message will get out. I think the
idea that we can somehow have Madison Avenue marketing or
branding or whatever, I think that is foolish. I don't think it
is effective and I think it can be counterproductive. But if we
are delivering aid in a meaningful way, in the way that people
for Mr. Worthington's group do and other people do, that is
going to make a difference over time.
Mr. Connolly. And that requires patience and investments of
time. And Mr. Worthington, you are shaking your head in
concurrence. Did you want to comment?
Mr. Worthington. One thing that the nonprofit community has
learned is that the only way to make a difference in the lives
of people is to have people involved in their own development
process. They have to be engaged in change that benefits their
children, their families, their community.
And it is not just targeting the people, but it is the
front line of government. It is that interface between a
community and that local municipal government, enabling that
government to provide services to a people. That is what our
community has been doing for decades, and we have primarily
been doing it with private resources that are donated by the
American people directly to our organizations. Oftentimes we
find that project aid, even projectized aid that isn't
listening to what the people want, doesn't become owned by
them, so that that school is a school that is given, rather
than one of our members who has about 450 schools in Pakistan
or built by the local community themselves. They respect that
type of aid. It is slow, it is complicated, it is one valley at
a time, and it does take decades.
With a program with that type of approach, I do believe
that you will find the aid program of the United States will
change hearts and minds. It is not in years, but it will
happen.
Mr. Connolly. Thank you. I am going to try to get one more
question in before I hand the gavel back over to our chairman.
Dr. Lord, I was listening to your testimony and it is very
striking that $70 billion to Egypt, pretty much as a Camp David
Accord, and not widely appreciated. We are not getting a lot of
bonbon and flower pedals at our feet.
Indonesia and Nigeria are two Muslim majority nations with
a positive opinion of America and our involvement in those two
countries. To what do you attribute the contrast? And, Dr.
Phares, please feel free to comment as well.
Ms. Lord. Well, I am not an expert on the details of those
aid packages, but I can make some comments. I think one major
issue is the one I raised about perceived intent, when people
think that aid is being given but the objectives of the United
States are not in their best interests.
So to give one example, I know a television producer in
Egypt who received United States aid funds, produced some
television programs, and he was pilloried afterwards because
people kept asking him why did the United States fund the
series? What were they trying to convince Egyptians to believe?
And I think that shows up in the polls that show that a
striking percentage of Egyptians believe that the goal of the
United States in Egypt is to weaken and divide Islam. So I
think that is one answer.
I think the other potential answer--and these gentlemen
would be better qualified to comment--is the nature of the
programs that U.S. assistance is funding. So I would encourage
you to investigate where is money going. And I believe in
Indonesia, it has been much more directed at the local level
over the period of time in discussion.
Mr. Phares. Yes, I will add a couple of things with regard
to those percentages that are very worse than to us. I will
take the example of Egypt. I don't have contention with the
actual results of these polls because let me give you one
example about Egypt. Egypt has 10 percent of its population, 10
percent Copts. Now, when we ran the polls with regard to Copts
through their churches, 80 percent basically supported being
helped by the United States. So there is something wrong with
the numbers. How can 80 percent of 10 percent completely
support, and then there is 1 percent of the rest of Muslim
communities----
Mr. Sherman [presiding]. I am afraid the time has expired.
I am doing that because we are going to have a vote on the
floor, and I want to yield to Mr. Royce.
Mr. Royce. Mr. Phares, you testified that Hamas ensures
that the distribution of aid in Gaza occurs via groups set up
by the organization itself. I was going to ask you, whose aid
is Hamas distributing in Gaza?
Mr. Phares. Hamas has a strategy basically to counter
United States aid or European aid with their own strategies.
Number one, if they can't take the control of that aid
directly, i.e., by having Europeans or the United States
accepting of Hamas as a government would do so, that would be
the A) preference. It is not happening.
B) Hamas would then set organizations, NGOs, or partner
with NGOs, local NGOs, or even penetrate, if you may say, NGOs.
Those NGOs are recognized by the United States or by the
Europeans or the international communities and they will set
the distribution of aid. What is missing in that operation is
that the message that should go to the Palestinians living in
Gaza will be simply eliminated. So we would be sending aid, it
would be indirectly controlled by NGOs, controlled by Hamas,
and the message won't go. That is why in the polling return
that we have, you are not going to have a superb majority of
Palestinians in Gaza supporting the idea.
Mr. Royce. Do you see Hamas' control of aid there as
integral to their sort of maintaining political control? Is
that one of the ways in which they are able to----
Mr. Phares. Across the board, Hamas, Hezbollah, or the
dominant organizations I mention in my testimony, the first
concern basically is not the actual physical logistical aid;
they would welcome that aid, they would want to basically
distribute it themselves; it is the message that would come
with it.
If it comes through NGOs or directly through the United
States, that would promote values that are not the values of
Hamas, or a project which is not Hamas, such as engaging in
peace negotiations with Israelis or multipartners, especially
after June 2007, then that will not be to their interest.
Therefore, anytime United States or European aid will be
delivered to the region, it is in their interest that they will
seize the control of that aid for strategic reasons for this
organization.
Mr. Royce. I always saw it as sort of the, say, Tammany
Hall did it in New York for these organizations.
I was going to ask Dr. Lord, it has been reported that the
U.S. Agency for International Development has distributed
foreign assistance into Hamas-linked Islamic University in Gaza
and al-Quds University. Do you think our aid needs better
vetting?
Ms. Lord. Sir, I am not qualified to answer that question.
I can't confirm that the aid went there. I would question if
that is true, what exactly the aid went to; was it a
humanitarian reason, was it an educational reason? I would need
far more information, I am afraid, to give you a good answer.
Mr. Royce. Thank you, Kristin.
Let me ask Mr. Phares another question. You have written
that jihadi ideology is spreading and is crossing the barriers
of ethnicities, races, nationalities, and geographical
frontiers. We now have Fort Hood. So I was going to ask: This
suggests, then, that it is a movement driven by much more than
opposition to U.S. foreign policy, I would presume, in your
mind.
Mr. Phares. Yes. There are two schools that look into the
issue. One school begins by saying anti-Americanism is
generating jihadism. The other school, which I advocate, looks
at it differently. Jihadism, as an ideology, is generating
anti-Americanism and also other agendas for the simple historic
reason that the jihadist ideologies have preceded--our U.S.
foreign policy in the region have preceded the Arab-Israeli
conflict. So the ideological rules of organizations such as
Hamas or the Muslim Brotherhood or the Salafi combat groups
have begun in the 1920s. So that is number one.
Number two, the jihadists are basically an ideological
movement within Muslim communities. And sometimes we have the
confusion between Islamists and Muslim societies. Muslim
societies are regular societies around the globe; the Islamists
are a political movement that want to establish a certain
regime. The jihadists are those who want to take that doctrine
into action, into what they perceive or what they call jihad.
Over the past 20-30 years, the jihadists have been able to
go beyond the Arab cultural field and been able to penetrate
other ethnicities and other cultures, other regions. That is
why we see today, for example, jihadists are very active in the
Sahal area of Africa or in Somalia, or all the way down to the
south Philippines, or in Kashmir. Which means that, practically
speaking, it is now an international movement; it is not just a
local national liberation movement as could have been the case
30 or 40 years ago.
Mr. Royce. Thank you, Dr. Phares.
I have seen it across Africa--it is quite a phenomenon--and
in central Asia. Increasingly, villagers are asking questions
about the changing of the culture; that their culture is being
changed to Gulf State culture primarily through the madrassahs
that spring up there, especially when they decapitate the young
men for leaving the jihadist training.
Mr. Sherman. I am going to have to interrupt at this point
and also impose strictly the time limit on myself if we are
going to have even 1 minute or 2 for the gentleman----
Mr. Boozman. That is fine, I am enjoying this.
Mr. Sherman. Well, we will try to maximize the
entertainment value in the future of these proceedings.
First of all, I think at least one witness commented that
we don't want to be perceived as being selfish in the reasons
why we give out aid. Let me assure you that no matter how pure
we are, we will be perceived as being selfish. No one in the
world is going to think that we are doing something and not
keeping in mind our own interests, even if the truth be that we
are not.
Second, I want to echo the ranking member and his comment
about Tammany Hall. Those of us who hold elective office, who
hold some degree of power in the United States Government,
understand that one of the key things to maintaining that power
is bringing home the bacon. A ribbon-cutting is perhaps the
most significant political activity. And I realize bringing
home the bacon is not Halal, it is also not kosher, but it is
critical to any government staying in power.
And so the question then is, do we have examples of when
our aid has gone through hostile governments, where hostile
governments get to cut the ribbon, or through hostile quasi-
governmental institutions such as Hamas? We have heard about
Hamas. Does anyone here have an example of where it is the
Hamas flag on the bag or the anti-American flag on the bag?
Mr. Ballen.
Mr. Ballen. When we went into Pakistan after the
earthquake, we were competing with local radical and extremist
organizations who definitely put their mark and their brand on
the bag. It was a competition. It was the same thing in
Indonesia. And this is true, as others can--Dr. Phares can
testify on the West Bank in Gaza, Hamas and Hezbollah
definitely put their brand on the bag. There is no doubt about
it.
Mr. Sherman. Does anybody have an example of where we pay
for the bag and the wrong flag is on the bag?
Mr. Phares. If I may go north to Hezbollah was mentioned
over the past 5 years. We could provide significant reporting,
if asked.
Mr. Sherman. You are asked. Please provide it for the
record.
Mr. Phares. Well, Hezbollah has been able to mount,
actually, NGOs, Lebanese NGOs, or penetrate other existing
NGOs, both human rights, humanitarians. And those NGOs have
been recipients of U.S. aid through the Embassy and through
other ways, so that when Hezbollah or the NGOs controlled by
Hezbollah went to the Bakhar in the south, what the individual
Lebanese shia have seen basically is an NGO whose members are
from their neighborhoods, Hezbollah.
Mr. Sherman. So these were Hezbollah front organizations
distributing our aid?
Mr. Phares. Yes.
Mr. Sherman. I think most people in this room are good
advocates of foreign aid, so please don't tell my constituents
about the World Bank loans to Iran, and please don't tell them
about these examples of United States aid going to Hamas and
Hezbollah front organizations.
Are we spending enough on public diplomacy? The natural
tendency is to take every development dollar and spend it on
development. I would argue that you should spend a certain
percentage of it telling people. When I see private
corporations do good, they put advertisements on my TV. I
sometimes think maybe 75 percent of the money is going to tell
me how much good the 25 percent is doing.
I will go down the list. Maybe a quick yes, no. Are we
spending enough to publicize our aid?
Mr. Ballen. You know, we could spend as much as we want,
and it is not going to work if the aid itself is not going to
the people.
Mr. Sherman. So we need a good strategy of the aid and the
effort.
Mr. Ballen. Correct.
Mr. Sherman. But assuming we let you control the dollars
that are being spent on public diplomacy, are there enough
dollars?
Mr. Ballen. Probably I would say yes.
Mr. Sherman. Mr. Worthington, enough dollars, yes or no? We
will get to strategy later.
Mr. Worthington. No.
Mr. Sherman. Dr. Phares.
Mr. Phares. What we have earmarked exceeds the necessity
for the battle of strategic communications. I am not expert on
aid per se, but for strategic communications exceed.
Mr. Sherman. So we are spending more than we need to on
communications.
Dr. Lord.
Ms. Lord. Mr. Chairman, my answer is no.
Mr. Sherman. We have to spend more?
Ms. Lord. Correct.
Mr. Sherman. Okay.
Next, there are a number of criteria that go into selecting
a country to aid and a project to fund. The question here is:
In the foreign aid decisions that we make now, is that number
one, or tied for number one, as a criteria for selecting
projects, in general?
Mr. Ballen.
Mr. Ballen. We clearly do that. I mean, I think it is tied.
Mr. Sherman. So it is a major priority.
Mr. Ballen. Yes.
Mr. Sherman. Mr. Worthington.
Mr. Worthington. A direct link to U.S. foreign aid to
strategic countries.
Mr. Sherman. Dr. Phares. I think we need to divert the
strategy to have partnership on the ground, NGOs. We don't have
it.
Mr. Sherman. Dr. Lord, in your testimony you said that it
shouldn't be the number one criteria for selecting projects. Is
it?
Ms. Lord. No, I don't think it is.
Mr. Sherman. It isn't, and it shouldn't be.
We should vote. I don't know if the gentleman from Arkansas
has any comments.
Mr. Boozman. Yes. I would just like to follow up on your
label question.
The U.N. doesn't allow labels on the U.N. stuff from their
partners that are distributing. USAID does, and sometimes it
gets so labeled that you don't really know what is there.
Should USAID consider going to the U.N. style and adopting that
strategy?
Mr. Worthington. My answer would be no. In the difficult
places in the world where labeling is a problem, the reality is
what is on the bag is really not important. If anything, our
committee tries not to label anything, including the names of
our member organizations, because it is too dangerous.
Ultimately, it comes down to you are feeding someone. And I
have seen an Islamic organization handing out a bag that is
clearly marked from the American people, and showing that
partnership between an Islamic organization from the American
people being handed out to help people in a place like Darfur I
think is a powerful message.
Mr. Phares. The Islamic Republic of Iran or Qatar or Saudi
Arabia, when they do send foreign aid to areas, they are proud
to have the flag. And they accompany this flagging with
individuals who explain what this aid is for. They will, in
some cases, actually display the ideology.I21I think the United
States, to be able to reach similar objectives, should not be
afraid of flagging or of claiming. What it should do, in peril,
is to have its partners, NGOs, non-government organizations,
from the region, from the societies who espouse the same
ideals, be accompanying this operation.
Mr. Boozman. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Sherman. I think we now stand adjourned. We have 4
minutes and 28 seconds to go vote. Thank you very much,
witnesses.
[Whereupon, at 3:15 p.m., the subcommittee was adjourned.]
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