The Ugly Faces of Foreign Intervention In Internal Affairs

The first face is that it is illegal. Why? Sovereignty is absolute. That is unless two or more sovereignties agree to reciprocate exchanges. Like in granting diplomatic immunity to another country within national boundaries. Even such reciprocity is limited to the premises of the foreign mission, the ambassador's residence, the diplomatic vehicle when engaged in official functions, and the diplomatic mailbag (pouch).

The second ugly face of intervention in domestic affairs is that it invites bad national feelings. Sooner or later, such resentment might bring about retaliation and a push-back amounting possibly to armed conflict.

The third ugly face is that it makes a mockery of cross-border cooperation which was born about 2000 years ago, well before the birth of the UN. That early birth took place along the shores of the Italian north Mediterranean. When such cooperation is disturbed, the average citizen loses the fruits of the give and take.

And the fourth ugly face of foreign intervention is that the intervening government, though feeling good about its illegal interventions, would soon be emboldened to intervene in the private lives of its own citizens. For illegal intervention abroad is infectious internally, and soon boomerangs on the populace of the abusing government.

Having set forth a framework for the ills of intervention in domestic affairs, let us also recall the only exception to what is set forth above. That exception is what came to be known as of the 1950s as the "international humanitarian intervention doctrine." It is activated only when the sovereign brings about havoc and mayhem to large groups of its population, thus triggering an outside corrective mechanism to end the internal aggression.

Now beyond the above-stated theories and exceptions, we now need to cite examples drawn from the world scene of today. For good measure, we start with the latest episode of Mr. Trump, while visiting the United Kingdom, attacking the policy of the UK government as regards its exit from the European Union.

By doing so, the American President, who was a guest of Great Britain, personified the face of "The Ugly American," immortalized in a novel. That novel signaled the distance between being rich internally, and stupid externally. Though a narrative, "The Ugly American" also evokes the natural hostility of any culture to be scorned by other cultures. In cultural terms, poverty is not a sin. It is a temporary status.

Trump, who by his own confessions, does not read much, had violated earlier this month in Great Britain more than one taboo (called red line). He whimsically spoke about what he doesn't know or is capable of grasping. He embarrassed Theresa May, his hostess and Prime Minister. He ignited the wrath of the British populace in England and Scotland. He was scorned by the European Union and by NATO. And he elevated even to greater heights, the blimp fashioned in his image: an angry baby, floating with a cell phone over London. How could any of these results help the American people?!

As I am of dual nationalities, both Egyptian and American, I turn my attention to various forms of American intervention in Egyptian domestic affairs. Let us start with the recent hearings in US Congress regarding the American financial aid to Egypt since the signing of the Egypt/Israel peace treaty of 1979.

The way US Senators addressed this matter on the floor of the Senate 8 days ago manifested, not only ignorance about the framework of that issue. But, more importantly, an imperial tilt in the way they, in their Republican majority, disparaged the governance of 103 million Arabs who call themselves Egyptians.

They should bear in mind that the annual aid of $1.3 billion is not a unilateral gift. It is mostly spent in the U.S. on American products, mostly military equipment. It is an integral part of a treaty, whose guarantor is the US itself. Disturbing that treaty, or any of its provisions, could be tantamount to disturbing peace in the Middle East. And how could either America or Israel benefit from that?

In that explosive context, the attacks on Egypt, through impugning the legitimacy of its Government, came feigned concern for human rights in Egypt through the back door. The question therefore naturally arises: Have these senators objectively compared between the status of human rights in America and those in Egypt, even if they are entitled to do so?

The U.S. Executive, through an annual State Department Human Rights Report on several countries, states the following in 2016 about Egypt: "Domestic and international observers also concluded that government authorities professionally administered the parliamentary elections that took place October through December 2015 in accordance with the country's laws, while also expressing concern about restrictions on freedom of peaceful assembly, association, and expression and their negative effect on the political climate surrounding the elections."

From the above, one could see stark contradictions in the above assertions, representing an erroneous value judgment on the internal affairs of another sovereign -Egypt. Aside from that, the language of that official American concern embodies the very language set forth in the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution.

Egypt is constituted on the basis, not of the US Constitution, but of its own constitution of 2014. Its preamble states in Arabic reads: "We women and men members of the Egyptian populace, are the masters of this sovereign country. This is our will, and this is the Constitution borne out of our revolution." The language of that constituent document is the bulwark against all the ugly faces of foreign intervention in internal affairs.

But as a defense attorney, I need to go beyond the standard to attempt a comparison intended to show how foolish are these calls which generate this adversarial comparison. The "holier than thou" attitude propagated by today's reclusive and retreating Trumpist America does not take into account the following facts:

• Egypt is a country presently engaged in a brutalizing campaign on three fronts: terrorism, reconstruction, and massive reallocation of newly-found natural resources. During periods of transition, nations need to place the rights of the general community above individual rights, at least provisionally;
• In the same vein, President Abraham Lincoln, during the American Civil War in which 600,000 Americans perished, was obliged to suspend the operation of sections of the US Constitution;
• Egypt, which demographically comprises one third of the entire Arab Nation, has no military forces occupying foreign territory. By contrast, America, through what can be described as imperial security policy, has troops of various sizes in 120 countries around the world;
• Comparing the Egyptian regulations of public protest with that of the U.S. regulations, the Egyptian equivalent is more liberal than its American equivalent. The latter imposes police-enforced restrictions on permits for demonstrators in terms of Time, Place, and Manner. Witness the way the American movement of "Occupy Wall Street" was crushed brutally by the security forces in less than 2 hours;
• America, under its present tilt to the conservative right, whether religious or political, is still trying to cope with its past of enslaving Afro-Americans. The rise of Trumpism has been in part energized by the elections of a black American, Barack Obama, to the presidency twice from 2008 to 2016. By historical comparison with Egypt, the white slaves of the Ottoman Empire, the Mamelouks, were able to advance to the rulership of Egypt until their military defeat by Napoleon in 1798, and Muhammad Ali in 1808;
• On the international scene, Egypt, a State of 7000 years, has never abrogated a treaty. On the other hand, the present American administration sees in treaties shackles that could be broken liberally, even if they were security commitments to friends and allies. Note here that Egypt's nationalization in 1956 relative to the Suez Canal, was not in terms of the Canal itself (a sovereign territory), but of the Company which ran the Suez Canal;
• And let us remind those in America who see in the intervention in the internal affairs of others, a "modus operandi" -sometimes called "divine destiny," that Guantanamo shall always stand for a stain on the honor of the enterprise called "The USA." No Rule of Law has been applied to 700 Muslims incarcerated as of 2002 without arraignment, charges, right to counsel, or the benefit of Habeas Corpus. Only one, Khalid Sheikh. Muhammad -was so tried.

Trump, while being a guest of the UK's Prime Minister, Theresa May, said to the British press that Boris Johnson, a rival of the PM that he "would make a great prime minister." An unthinkable intervention in the UK's internal affairs.

Here is an early example of Egypt's hostility toward foreign intervention. Muhammad Ali, the great founder of modern Egypt was opposed to the construction of a Suez Canal in Egypt. His famous opposition was expressed in the following words: "I do not want a Bosporus in Egypt." In reference to Turkey's problem with outside powers because of the channel separating between Asian and European Turkey.

This narrative is not intended to disparage the good which is still rendered by America in various ways around the world.

The main objective is to prove the folly of foreign interference in the internal affairs of other sovereign nations. A principle stressed by the UN Charter in Article 2 (para.7) as a means to fostering friendly relations among nations.

65 Years Ago, My Professor at Rutgers University Predicted the Emergence of an American Dictator!

That was Professor Sydney Ratner, for whom I was Teaching Assistant. The subject he taught was "American Economics." But, on that occasion, he was commenting on the American Constitution.

Ratner's prophesy was based on the possible disappearance of checks and balances, resulting from the concentration of power in one major political party, or the manipulation of the Constitution by an authoritarian Chief Executive. Or both factors.

America of today is what that professor, who valued his patriotism and his Jewishness had predicted. The America of Trump proved Professor Ratner to have been a true Cassandra, though not generally believed in 1953. As his Arab and Muslim disciple, I trusted somewhat in what he foresaw.

We now find at the White House, a President who rules largely by executive orders, without fear of a Congress which is controlled by a party which he had bent to his ways. It does not matter whether the Republican majority in Congress stands either in fear of Trump, or in sincere belief in his ways. The result is the same.

The third co-equal branch of government, the Supreme Court, has now tilted to the right in favor of Trumpism. It does not matter whether a Court which glories in 5 - 4 decisions, is constitutionally correct or not. The result is the same, and shall become the enduring symbol of the disappearing checks and balances if Judge Kavanaugh ever ascends to its bench.

As a judge and law professor, Judge Kavanaugh had penned his view of any U.S. president. In 2009, he stated in an article that a chief executive was immune from civil or criminal investigation or prosecution while occupying the White House. Too distracting from executive duties. Kavanaugh had therefore put the Chief Executive above the law.

That is not the position of the U.S. Constitution. Its Article II, Section 4 states: "The President ... shall be removed from Office on impeachment for, and conviction of treason, bribery, or other high crimes and misdemeanors." On that basis, Kavanaugh's former students at Yale University countered recently his belief in a totally immune president.

In a letter reported in the New York Times of July 20, 2018, they retorted: "Judge Kavanaugh's nomination presents an emergency -for democratic life, for our safety and freedom, for the future of our country."

Well, the not-so-surprising tenor of that letter confirms Ratner's prophesy of 1953, predicting the emergence of an American dictator. For infecting the judiciary, through the US Supreme Court of 5-4 decisions, with the position of a totally immunized president, makes a mockery of the on-going investigations by Special Counsel, Robert Mueller of Russian interference in the US elections of 2016.

The connectedness of these issues is the essence of connecting the dots on today's American scene. These are: American governance, the rise of Trumpism, the erosion of checks and balances, and all the other aspects of American federalism as anchored in the Rule of Law.

Let us propound those dots, beginning with the oath of office:

It includes the following words: "... and will to the best of my ability, preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States." Such oath or affirmation by the President upon inauguration makes it incumbent upon such person to serve the United States, not any other foreign power, and all Americans, not just those who voted for him (or her).

But the incumbent President, especially at the Helsinki Summit, had by secreting himself alone with the Russian President, committed various legal violations: No American official record of what transpired, as required by the Official Records Act. Publicly, at the press conference that followed, siding not with American intelligence services, but with assertions by Putin that no Russian cyber-attack was perpetrated on the US.

In legal terms, that is the definition of treason: violation of allegiance to your sovereign (the American people) by adhering to their enemies. A breach of faith coming within the Constitutional scope of "other high crimes and misdemeanors" (Article II, Section 4). Impeachable offenses!!

Yet the presidential shock waves did not stop there. On July 19, the White House announced that President Trump planned to invite President Putin to visit the White House in the fall. The stunned reaction by Dan Coats, the director of national intelligence was on public view. He got the news, not from his President, but from a reporter who was interviewing him.

Coats' reaction to the news of that invitation, "SAY THAT AGAIN?," shall forever live as the three words which frame the mysterious retreat of America to the status of a client-like State behind Russia.

Wondered Michelle Goldberg in the New York Times of July 17: "It was hard not to be staggered by the American President's slavish and toadying performance." But the Republican-controlled Senate, in the face of that American retreat, made more grievous by Trump's attacks on the European Union, NATO and the UN system, stood as a paralyzed co-equal branch of government.

Yes, the House speaker, Paul Ryan had said: "We stand by our NATO allies and all those countries who are facing Russian aggression." But the Republicans in Congress on the same day that Ryan spoke, also blocked a series of measures put forward by Democrats, all anti-Putin resolutions.

The Grand Old Party (GOP) which had been led by Lincoln, is no more, as it has been coopted by Mr. Trump. Strangely, the GOP, prior to the Trump coup, was the champion of free trade, of immigration, of alliances confronting an expanding Soviet Union, and of universal institutions - the UN, the World Bank, and the International Monetary Fund. These were structures negotiated between Roosevelt and Churchill as of 1942 -three years before the end of World War II.

That party is no more. The Trump Party now stands for: high tariffs (a form of taxation); criminalizing asylum seekers; withdrawing from the UN Human Rights Council; withholding funds from UNESCO; attacking the World Trade Organization; threatening war against Venezuela; withdrawing from the 6-States Iran nuclear deal; blaming the dismemberment of the Ukraine on Obama.

Moreover, Trump had praise for Putin's call for surrendering American diplomats to Russia for interrogation; and favored the expansion of the Mueller investigation into Russia's possible collusion with the Trump campaign by including in it Putin operatives.

"The Word 'Treason' Enters the Debate as the List of Trump Critics Grows," headlined the New York Times of July 18. The Washington Post of July 16, in a column by a noted former Republican, Max Boot, stated that "accusing (Trump) of treason was once unthinkable. No longer... If anyone is the enemy of the people, it is Trump himself."

Truthfulness is the underpinning of trust which binds the governed to the government. Again "no longer" under Trump who is reported to have lied 3200 times in less than 2 years in office. Falsehoods have been explained as "alternative facts;" and the aspiration for "A More Perfect Union" has been inverted into a movement by the American right towards "the destruction of the Administrative State."

Today in front of the White House, throngs of protesters banging on pots and pans, shouted "Welcome Back Traitor."

On Twitter, the word "Traitor" was used 800,000 times; the word "treason" about 1.2 million times.

65 years ago, I should have been more trusting in my professor, Sydney Ratner, who predicted the emergence of an American dictator. 

Like a Piece of Swiss Cheese: American Democracy Has Many Holes In It!!

Trumpism did not arise from a vacuum. The 242-year old Constitution, plus judge-made law, lie at its roots. A great Justice of the Supreme Court, Oliver Wendell Holmes, once wrote of the Constitution: "It is an experiment, as all life is an experiment." Well, that "experiment" was expressed darkly by President Trump as he alluded to that great document as "archaic."

Trump is a president who was catapulted to the White House by less than the majority of those who voted. His adversary, Hillary Clinton for whom I voted, garnered 3 million more votes than that "reality show" host.

The Constitution intended to establish a government "of the people, by the people, and for the people" (the words of President Abraham Lincoln at his first State of the Union message.) But the electoral votes are counted twice: once for citizens voting; the other for a non-democratic allocation by a pre-determined formula to each state. The magic number of 270 is calculated through a non-elected body called the Electoral College.

It could therefore be said that the Trump presidency, though in accord with the Constitution, is a presidency that is "undemocratic;" when measured by the formula "one man, one vote." 

So was the Bush presidency in 2000 during the Bush-Gore contest. But in that earlier instance, it was the US Supreme Court, a non-elected body of 9 justices, which ordered the stoppage of recounting the Florida ballots. The deciding vote was that of Justice Sandra O'Connor who tipped the scale of the conservatives on that divided 5 to 4 court.

This is where the recent nomination by Trump of Brett Kavanaugh as Associate Justice of the Supreme Court, replacing retiring Justice Anthony Kennedy, represents a further politicization of that Court. It pushed that body further to the right to serve a decidedly non-democratic purpose, namely-interpreting law, thus making law by a non-elected body.

A close reading of the Constitution as written does not give the Supreme Court a clear right to give a final say over the meaning of the Constitution and federal laws. Nor do they have the power to order state and federal officials to comply with its rulings. They can only make decisions on cases that are brought to them by in application a person who is actually affected by the laws. So why is the practice different in application?

It was in 1803 that Chief Justice John Marshall, in a case called "Marbury v. Madison," interpreted Article III (of the Constitution) on the judicial powers to give the federal courts that final say. That opinion by John Marshall made the Supreme Court a sort of a co-legislative branch of the U.S. system of governance.

Herein lies the anticipated problem of possibly confirming Kavanaugh by the Senate. The extreme right in a highly tribalized America would then hold sway over the White House, Congress, and the Supreme Court. This would be a sure recipe for a fascist-like America. No checks and balances.

The Kavanaugh nomination caused Peter Baker of the New York Times of July 10 to describe it as follows: "That has raised the stakes for groups on the left and the right, guaranteeing an incendiary, ideological, partisan and well-financed confirmation battle in a capital already driven by incendiary, ideological, partisan and well-financed politics."

Speaking of "well-financed politics," the U.S. Supreme Court, in the case of Citizens United had, in effect, made money a decider of the outcome of American elections at federal and state levels. The First Amendments which guarantees "the freedom of speech" has been re-interpreted to make the unlimited wealthy nonprofit corporations, with millions of dollars in assets, free to support without limits political action committees (PACs). The dollar, now, has the unfettered freedom to speak on behalf of the causes of its donors.

As to the sovereign right of all eligible voters to express their political choices through the ballot box, we, in America, have the inequality of the application of that right.

This has come about through political gerrymandering at the state level. Even the ultraconservative late Supreme Court Justice, Antonin Scalia had said in 2004: "Severe partisan gerrymanders are incompatible with democratic principles."

So what is a gerrymander? It is defined as "the creation of a civil division of an unusual shape within a particular locale for improper purposes."

This process, in which the right in America has, for the past 50 years, worked assiduously, created legislative districts of unequal population. Hence the constitutional rule of "one man, one vote" required by the equal protection of the law has been violated.

In his seminal book (2014) calling for amending the US Constitution, retired US Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens (a liberal) called for requiring federal judges to apply the same rules in cases challenging political gerrymanders as those applicable to racial gerrymanders.

The remedy proposed, but seems to be quite far from attainment, is that voting districts should be compact and composed of contiguous territories.

At present, democracy in a disunited United States, suffers from destruction by the Republican Party, now the party of Trump, of the pillars on which this great enterprise was launched:

• The wall between the State and religion has been shaken to its foundation. The primary example is the recent endorsement by the Supreme Court of Trump's ban on Muslims from six States, from entering the U.S.;
• The call by Trump for an "America First" is in essence a call for "an America for whites only;"
• The tearing up of children from their parents (3000 of these) seeking asylum at the southern border, dispersing them throughout the US without much hope for family reunification, is as close as possible to being a genocidal act;
• The daily attacks by Trump and his submissive machine on the Department of Justice and the investigations presently conducted by special counsel Robert Mueller, are nothing but a direct vilification of the Rule of Law in America;
• The various legal infractions by the Trump family and the Trump Foundation are being overlooked as petty incidents by a so-called "non-political" president;
• The senate hearings, in today's America, have become devoid even of a modicum of due process to be accorded to witnesses.
• Powerful special interests, like the National Rifle Association (NRA), have amply demonstrated that they are able to dictate to Congress legislation in favor, not of the nation, but of their membership.

The party of Trump is no longer the party of Lincoln. Lincoln, the historic leader who ended slavery of the blacks in America. In his first State of the Union message to Congress in 1861, he set forth a legal standard for government. As the civil war raged, he inspiringly declared:

"It is as much the duty of Government to render prompt justice against itself, in favor of its citizens, as it is to administer the same between private individuals."

In the Trump era, that legal standard, on which American democracy was based, is no more. The sad fact is that America still regards itself as the world's mentor of liberal democracy. 

"The carpenter has a house whose door creeks for lack of repairs!!" (An Arab proverb).