SPEAKER Ismail Criticizes U.S. Policy in Speech By Maya Noronha Hoya Staff Writer

Visiting Professor of Government Ashraf M. Ismail said Wednesday that the executive in United States government has repeatedly usurped powers from Congress in a lecture entitled, “Democratic Perversities and the Practice of American Security.” Ismail criticized American foreign policy and the war in Afghanistan to about 20 students at the Delta Phi Epsilon Foreign Service Fraternity house.

Ismail accused the U.S. of having killed more innocent civilians outside its borders than China or the former Soviet Union. The U.S., according to Ismail, engaged in terrorist-like activities such as killing Native Americans in the move westward, funding figures like Saddam Hussein and the Shah of Iran and engaging in illegal bombing campaigns in Cambodia and Laos.

He listed a variety of examples of American foreign policy decisions that were not crucial to national security over the past 50 years – from efforts to overthrow the government in Guatemala in 1954 and Chile in 1972 to foreign relations in recent years involving a wide range of countries, such as Cambodia, Laos, Panama, South Korea, Taiwan, Iran and Afghanistan.

Ismail divided the ways he thought the executive usurped power three ways: by taking congressional war powers, their ability to appropriate and through covert activity.

The wars in Bosnia, Kosovo, the Middle East, Korea, Vietnam and those with the Barbary Pirates and Native Americans were all examples of the executive usurping congressional war powers, according to Ismail. Moreover, there were over 135 incidences of the executive circumventing Congress.

In terms of appropriations, Ismail used the example of the Iran-Contra scandal to show how the executive used third party funding. Moreover, Ismail also mentioned the processes of bundling military funding and funding without full disclosure – as used in the bombings of Cambodia and Laos.

Ismail’s criticism was also targeted at the present war in Afghanistan. He criticized the way President Bush referred the war as a fight against the “axis of evil.” When a student suggested that the U.S. employed a less oppressive regime, Ismail said that it is dangerous to make judgments like that which are not clear in foreign policy.

Another student distinguished between American bombing as the unintentional killing of civilians and Osama bin Laden’s motives as intentional. In response, Ismail said that whether it was intentional or not does not make a difference to the families of the victims.

The way to reform the government, Ismail said, is to develop an external legal and moral framework that would eliminate the asymmetry of bias.

Sofia Khiji (SFS ’05) said she liked his proposal for reform. “I really think that it was valuable.

The fact that he defined the machination from the perspective of our Constitution and the framework of what the Constitution intended is a new perspective,” she said. “He focused on effects not intentions. He didn’t have the arrogant tone that so many of the speakers have. He showed diverse points of view and a course for change. It’s about minds that care enough to vocalize a change.”

Ismail also said that American foreign policy has been dominated by the interests of global corporate conglomerates.

One student asked him whether he was a citizen of the United States.

Ismail said he did not see the relevance in the question, but said that he was a citizen but not proud of being one at present.

Ismail received his masters in Economics from the London School of Economics and his Ph.D. in political science from Cornell University. His dissertation was entitled “Perils of the Open Economy: Institutional Design, Bank Governance and Financial Crisis in Asia and Latin America.”