The report documents how over half the total project revenue — nearly $5 billion — went directly to the Burmese military junta, and examines recent refusals from the Yadana companies to disclose their payments to the Burmese military regime. The report alleges the funds have enabled the country’s autocratic junta to maintain power and pursue an expensive, illegal nuclear weapons program while participating in illicit weapons trade in collaboration with North Korea, threatening the domestic and regional security balance.
In the report, EarthRights International further asserts that gas revenues are stored in private offshore bank accounts, where the money “could be used for many purposes, including the illicit acquisition of nuclear technology and ballistic weaponry.” This follows a report by ERI in 2009 that exposed two offshore banks in Singapore as repositories of the Burmese generals’ ill-gotten gains from foreign investment including the gas project. Both named banks – the Overseas Chinese Banking Corporation (OCBC) and DBS Group – previously denied the allegations.
The report also reveals on-going, serious human rights abuses associated with the Yadana project, including the recent extra-judicial killing of two ethnic Mon villagers in the pipeline area confirmed by EarthRights International in February of this year. The report goes on to analyzes how both Total and Chevron remain liable for these and other serious human rights abuse in their home countries.
EarthRights International previously sued Unocal Corporation (now Chevron) for complicity in murder, rape, torture, and forced labor in connection to the same gas pipeline. In 2005, Unocal paid Burmese plaintiffs a confidential settlement before the company was acquired by Chevron.
My research currently focuses on two themes: (1) the political economy of Islamic political mobilization in democratic Indonesia and (2) financial politics in emerging market economies, both in Southeast Asia and beyond. I maintain a broader interest, however, in the political economy of reform and adjustment and Southeast Asian politics.
Below is a list of research projects and data. Click the titles to view.
Decentralization, Indonesia-Style January 2010 with Maria M. Wihardja Presented at the 2009 Annual Meeting of the American Political Science Association (Toronto).
•‘Religion, Media and Cultural Studies’. Martin Marty Center’s Religion and Culture Web Forum, May 2009. (A pre-publication version of a chapter to appear in Theory/Critique/Religion: Classic and Contemporary Approaches. Richard King (ed.). New York: Columbia University Press. Forthcoming, 2010.)
•‘Afterword’. Entertainment Media in Indonesia. Edited with Mark Hobart. New York and London: Routledge. 2008. (Reprinted from Asian Journal of Communication. 16/4 [2006]: 432-8; Afterword.pdf).
•‘Visions of Terror: On the Use of Images in Mass-Mediated Representations of the 2002 Bali Bombings’. (Visions of Terror.pdf) In Media and Political Violence. Annabelle Sreberny et al. (eds.) Cresskill, NJ: Hampton Press. Pp. 211-45. 2007.
•‘Substantial Transmissions: A Presuppositional Analysis of “The Old Javanese Text” as an Object of Knowledge, and Its Implications for the Study of Religion in Bali’. Bijdragen tot de Taal-, Land- en Volkenkunde. 159/1 (2003): 65-107.
Snr-Gen Than Shwe is facing a mutiny among his subordinates. Although no rebellion is expected, there are growing signs of discontent among his cabinet ministers. The reason—they have been betrayed by their boss.
Than Shwe quietly ordered his uniformed cabinet ministers to resign from their army posts. In Burma, shedding the uniform means losing protection, security and livelihood. Like it or not, army uniforms are a symbol of authority in Burma. Those who wear them always get priority over those who don't; they are respected and can expect easy cooperation from others. Suddenly, they will lose that privilege.
Another reason Than Shwe's cabinet ministers are upset is that the army chief is holding the cards for the one-quarter of representatives in the People's Assembly who will be drawn from the ranks of the military. They wanted to be in that 25 percent to secure a place for themselves in the parliament. Now, they are on their own. They will have to contest the election, and unless Than Shwe supports them with some dirty deals from behind the scenes, they are sure to lose. Once this happens, they will be down the drain.
These are people who reached high positions through loyalty to their army bosses, nothing else. They are almost completely devoid of professionalism. Look at what happened to our country under their rule for more than four decades. Their track record reflects their total lack of creativity. But those who keep quiet about what is happening are rewarded with many privileges that are unthinkable in any transparent society. These privileges have made them very rich, and they want to keep their stolen goods forever. Now, however, they can only watch helplessly as they are quietly kicked out of their positions.
Furthermore, if they intend to run for parliament, they will have to declare their assets to the Election Commission. But that would be suicidal, because it would immediately reveal the extent of their corruption. No minister would ever dare to disclose what he actually owns. Even their houses are worth far more than they could ever afford on their official salaries. How could they ever account for the 10 luxury cars that are the bare minimum for anyone in a position of power to possess?
They can smell danger. They know that Than Shwe can easily find ways to put them in jail indefinitely. Look at what happened to Gen Khin Nyunt and his cronies. So they know they're in a very precarious position right now. But they also know that if they show any signs of rebellion, they're doomed.
But there is also some peril in this situation for the senior general himself. For every step of the election process, the Election Commission has the final say, subject only to the orders of Than Shwe. But this means that he has to instruct the commission to rig the vote in such a way as to ensure that all of his lieutenants get their assigned places. If he doesn't go about this very carefully, he could be hoisted by his own petard.
To change the system without changing people is a dangerous game. Late dictator Gen Ne Win tried it, with disastrous results. Unless Than Shwe can put a truly democratic system in place before he leaves the scene, his future is not safe at all. His deputies are the same fish in the same ponds; but if they ever find themselves in positions of real power someday, they may think nothing of turning on their old master. After all, these are people who have risen to high positions by concealing the depths of their ambition, much as Than Shwe himself did through most of his career. Treachery would be second nature to them.
More immediately, Than Shwe faces a few other obstacles if he plans to proceed with his rigged election.
On the ethnic front, his efforts to convince the armed cease-fire groups to transform themselves into border guard forces has met with a coordinated rejection from all the major ethnic armies. Moreover, China has said that it won't turn a blind eye if the Burmese army launches an offensive against armed groups based along the border between the two countries. In any case, the Burmese army is in no state to wage a major war with anybody. If they fight, they will lose.
Despite the forced dissolution of the National League for Democracy, Than Shwe's attempts to silence the democratic opposition once and for all are also faring rather poorly. Aung San Suu Kyi remains a hugely charismatic presence, with or without her party. The US, EU and now Asean have all indicated that Than Shwe's carefully orchestrated “democratic” transition will lack credibility without her participation. In other words, if he really wants to move on, he will need Suu Kyi's blessings.
The economy is something else that Than Shwe can't afford to ignore forever. Corruption is rampant and is only likely to get worse if the same old crooked generals and their cronies continue to control the country's assets. Chronic mismanagement of Burma's resources could become a flashpoint for social unrest, and could even weaken Than Shwe's hold over the military. No patriotic citizen, soldier or civilian, can be happy to see the country falling ever deeper into poverty while a handful of dirty officials become obscenely wealthy.
To our wild guess, the election will be held in October, during the school holidays, with schoolteachers as poll watchers. They are presently being trained in various places. An election law stipulates that representatives of candidates will be watching during the vote count. In other words, if the election is fair as it was in 1990, the ex-minister candidates will lose. If their dismissal from army positions was a deliberate move to eliminate them once and for all, Than Shwe is moving in the right direction. The next step we should see is the release of political prisoners and Suu Kyi. If we see Suu Kyi’s involvement in the next ruling council, Than Shwe will be remembered as a true national hero.
We hope the senior general will seize this opportunity for the sake of our country.
When looking for my first full-time job about six years ago, I didn't really consider tapping my personal networks online. Friendster and MySpace -- the big names in social media at the time -- were just vehicles for sharing pictures and finding out what old friends were up to (without having to actually talk to them). And that newfangled thing called Facebook, which still required a college e-mail account to join, just seemed redundant.
Today you're falling woefully behind in the race for open jobs if you're not plugged into social-networking sites. Facebook, for example, has exploded with more than 400 million active users, each of whom averages 130 friends. That's a whole lot of people who could help with your job hunt. LinkedIn, with more than 70 million members, offers a more professional networking platform for you to post your résumé and connect with former and current co-workers. And many other sites, including Twitter, can also help you find employment. Wherever you surf, here are tips on how you can work the social-networking scene to land your next (or first) job:
Build your professional brand. Just as you would with a traditional résumé and cover letter, you should create an online presence that represents you best. If you're active on Facebook or other sites for personal use, consider creating separate accounts specifically for your professional efforts.
Make sure all your profiles are complete, highlighting your skills and filled with keywords and phrases that recruiters might search for. Andrea Sittig-Rolf, author of "Revolutionize, Revitalize & Rev Your Résumé," recommends including a mission statement of five words: "I help companies . . . "
You should also start a blog or Twitter account that can establish you as an expert in the field you'd like to pursue. "A blog will enable you to become more visible in search engines, such as Google, which hiring managers use to screen a lot of candidates," says Ivan Misner, author of "Networking Like a Pro" and founder of networking company BNI.com.
Part of building and maintaining a brand is monitoring what others have to say about you. Watch out for anything about you (or someone with a similar name) floating around cyberspace that might put you in a bad light -- which could be anything from photos of you drunk to bad language or even excessively poor spelling. Google yourself regularly, and delve deeper into your online presence with sites such as Pipl.com and Spokeo.com.
Keep in touch. Social-networking sites have made it easier than ever to maintain relationships with distant relatives, old classmates, former co-workers -- just about anyone you've ever met (who's also plugged in). Facebook suggests people you may know through your existing contacts, and LinkedIn shows you first-, second- and third-degree connections.
Advertise your professional intentions. Misner suggests letting your networks know the top five companies you'd like to work for. Send out tweets and status updates asking, for example: "I'd really love to work for Kiplinger. Can anyone put me in touch with someone there?"
"That laser specificity is counterintuitive, but it's very powerful," he said. When you're explicit, people are more likely to remember connections they might have and offer them to you. Also, ask for an introduction, not just contact information.
Research prospective employers. Use your social-media savvy to dig up all you can about any companies and jobs that interest you. Check out a company's Web site and Google the heck out of it, but also search social-networking sites for company pages, as well as employees. Or follow them on Twitter; some companies even offer feeds specifically for job postings, including AT&T (@attjobs), MTV (@mtvnetworksjobs) and Thomson Reuters (@TRCareers). You can also check on career sites, such as Vault.com -- where you can find loads of information on companies for free, plus additional details for $10 a month.
Showcase your tech savvy. Ours is the first full generation raised on computers. Social-networking skills and knowledge that feel natural to us (no, Mom, you don't say the Facebook) can be a great advantage, especially in workplaces looking to enhance their online exposure. Be sure to include your social-networking expertise on your résumé.
Now that you've plumbed the Internet for opportunities to jump-start your career, remember that your online persona can only get you so far. You have to continue your job search with in-person meetings.
By Laura Blumenfeld Washington Post Staff Writer Sunday, July 4, 2010; A01
Headlights approach on an empty road. A government agent steps out of an armored SUV, carrying a locked, black satchel.
"Here's the bag," the agent says, to the intelligence official. "Here's the key."
The key turns, and out slides a brown leather binder, gold-stamped TOP SECRET. The President's Daily Brief, perhaps the most secret book on Earth.
The PDB handoff happens in the dead of every night. The book distills the nation's greatest threats, intelligence trends and concerns, and is written by a team at CIA headquarters.
"This is the one for the president," the intelligence official says, moving inside a secure building, opening the binder.
As dawn draws near, intelligence briefers distribute more than a dozen locked copies to Washington's nocturnals, a group of top officials charged by the president with guarding the nation's safety: CIA Director Leon Panetta, national security adviser James L. Jones, Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates, Homeland Security chief Janet Napolitano, Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr., National Counterterrorism Center Director Michael Leiter, Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Mike Mullen and FBI Director Robert S. Mueller, among others.
With two wars, multiple crises abroad and the threat of growing terrorist activity at home, these national security officials do not sleep in peace. For them, the night is a public vigil. It is also a time of private reckoning with their own tensions and doubts. They read the highest classification of intelligence. They pursue the details of plots that realize the nation's vague, yet primal, fears.
It is all here, inside the brown leather binder. Black typeface on white paper, marked by red tabs and yellow highlighter, an accumulation of the dangers hidden in the dark. Compiling them is an all-night process, and it begins every day at sundown.
8:40 p.m.
On board special air mission
Andrews Air Force Base
There is no sun. The day fades from gray to black. It's raining, and the motorcades are late.
"Are they coming soon?" the aircraft commander radios from the cockpit. Jet fumes seep into the government C-40, which was supposed to take off for Islamabad 10 minutes ago.
Leon Panetta boards first, drenched, wearing work boots. "Where do you want me?" he asks, looking around the cramped cabin. He flies to the Middle East so often, he says, "my body is probably somewhere over Ireland."
Tonight the CIA director will bunk with the national security adviser, Gen. James Jones, at the back of a C-40, sharing a chair, a small couch and a lavatory stocked with Tylenol. The men will fly 16 hours and then drive into midnight meetings about terrorist networks in Pakistan. "The pressure is on," Panetta says. "We can't afford to sleep. It's like the nighthawk that has to keep circling."
The CIA is engaged in some of the most aggressive actions in the agency's history. Panetta is required to sign off on operations two or three nights a week.
"When I was [White House] chief of staff, Bill Clinton used to call in the middle of the night" to talk, Panetta says. "But in this job, when I get a call, it's a decision about life and death."
"Dr. Panetta!" Jones calls out as he strides onto the plane. He holds up his phone. "I'm trying to get in touch with my Russian counterpart."
Panetta nods, sympathetic. "I have a call with Dianne Feinstein."
The crew urges them into their seats. Jones sets his watch to Pakistani time. Panetta keeps his synched with his home state, California. "What we do -- doesn't get done in regular time," Jones says. The White House situation room wakes him two to three nights a week. "We operate on a different clock."
A Panetta aide prepares 200 pages of background material, which maps the terrorist landscape in Pakistan. Jones calls his son, concerned about his pregnant daughter-in-law who's having complications: "I'm leaving. Let me know about Beth."
The plane lifts off, bumping and lurching through black clouds. The air ahead is rough. No one expects a good night.
10:52 p.m.
The Intercontinental Hotel, a hallway
Kansas City
"Good night!" says Robert Gates, on his way down the hall to his suite, stopping by Room 718, where Air Force sergeants are testing secure lines.
To prepare for a one-night hotel stay in Kansas City, Mo., advance team members paid a $125 fee to clear the furniture out of Room 718. Then they filled it with 15 cases of communications equipment. They put a satellite dish on the balcony. They replaced the bed with a tent for reading secret cables, to shield it in case of concealed spy cameras. When a maid knocked to ask whether she could straighten the pillows, one guy blinked: "Well, you could try."
The defense secretary must be reachable at all hours. He transmits orders from the White House to the Pentagon in an era when troops operate in every time zone. If North Korea tests a nuclear weapon or Iran tests a new missile, Gates needs to know now. "I don't feel like I'm ever really off," he said earlier. "I have security and communications people in the basement of my house. They come up and rap on the basement door."
Next to his bedroom at home, he confers in a soundproof, vault-lock space. He calls it "The Batcave."
Gates smiles. He radiates control: Individual white hairs lie combed into place; a crack in his lips is smoothed repeatedly with ChapStick. But even this confident Cabinet secretary -- the slightly feared Republican whose status others covet by day -- slips, at night, into the shadows of doubt.
At home, at a military compound in Washington, he'll change into jeans and a baseball cap and take a walk after 11 p.m. He'll count the number of surveillance cameras watching him and look out into the dark and reflect on the "persistent threat. You know, and you wonder, what more can you be doing? What have we missed?"
"The actual physical threat to Americans today from abroad, in reality, is worse than it was in the Cold War. All you have to do is look at these repeated attempts to set off bombs in populated places. I think if you asked any of us what keeps us awake at night, it's the idea of a terrorist with a weapon of mass destruction."
And once Gates is awake and walking beneath the hundred-year oaks, "the one thing that weighs on me most is knowing that our kids are out there getting wounded and getting killed, getting attacked." His voice falters. "And I sent them."
Wherever he is, whether the Batcave or Kansas City, he is followed by killed-in-action reports. They arrive by secure e-mail, slide into the room by a secure fax.
11:45 p.m.
Janet Napolitano's guestroom
"This old fax keeps jamming," Janet Napolitano says, sticking her hand into the secure fax. Crumpled paper. "Oh, Lord."
The secretary for homeland security can't go to bed until she reviews a secret fax. She asks an aide to have it re-sent. She puts up water for black tea.
"This time of night is the fourth act," says Napolitano, an opera fan. She rode home an hour ago in a motorcade accompanied by flashing lights and Mozart's "Cosi fan tutte." "There is the normal workday -- Act 1 -- with all the hearings on the Hill, banquets and news shows. But the real drama is behind the scenes, at very odd hours."
Recently Homeland Security has been trying to intensify efforts against home-grown extremism, pushing Napolitano's own home life to the extreme. Although Napolitano lives by herself, tonight her apartment all but sings with characters and action. A Secret Service agent hulks outside. The kitchen answering machine bleats messages from her chief of staff. Rand Beers, the counterterrorism coordinator, rings her bedside phone as she's stepping toward her gray slippers.
"No suspects or targets?" Napolitano asks Beers. "We'll talk to the undersecretary for intelligence about that."
She hangs up. Nighttime calls about terrorism investigations are "not unusual in the weird, sick world I inhabit." At 2 a.m., she has been called about adjusting outbound rules at airports to catch a fleeing suspect and about emergency communications with the Royal Canadian Mounted Police. On a trip to Asia, a senior Napolitano staffer set her BlackBerry alarm to ring every hour, all night, so the staffer could check e-mail alerts.
To fall asleep, "to calm down my brain," Napolitano reads on the couch. "A lot of times I'm reading, and I'll wake up and the book is on my face." She lifts the 1,184-page "Christianity: The First Three Thousand Years." "I don't want to read this one before bed. If it falls on my face, I'll break my nose."
A shriek pierces the air -- the tea kettle boiling: "Let me get that, before the Secret Service comes in." The secure fax whirrs -- the secret memo: "Ah, bueno. Here it is. It's hot."
Napolitano reads the hot document. Drinks her hot tea.
12:01 a.m.
Eric Holder's kitchen
"Iced tea for me!" Eric Holder says. He jokingly cracks the door of his liquor cabinet. If Napolitano's nights are operatic, the attorney general's are notably calm.
At 11 p.m., Holder turned off the lights in his son's room where he's sleeping. He removed the iPod earbuds from his sleeping teenage daughter. His wife, a gynecologist who for years was jangled awake -- "I could do her calls by now, 'How far apart are your contractions? Okay, you're 5 centimeters' " -- is also in bed upstairs.
Holder now sits down at the kitchen table. He spreads legal papers across the round, granite surface and puts his legs up. At his Justice Department office, he plays Tupac and Jay-Z. Not here. He keeps it so quiet, he notices when the refrigerator motor clicks off.
All day, voices bombard Holder, advocating discordant legal remedies for terrorism. "So much of national security has been politicized," he says. "There's a lot of noise."
Only at night can he contemplate: "What's best for the case? What's best for the nation?" Here, he makes his most difficult, controversial decisions. At 1 a.m., eating Chips Ahoys, Holder determined that 9/11 detainees should stand trial in New York and that terrorist suspects should be tried in federal court. The conflicting demands filled him with tension: "That tension to be independent, yet part of the administration."
Of all the nighthawks, Holder occupies the loneliest perch. He is the president's friend, yet as the government's chief law enforcer, he has to stand aloof. White House aides roll their eyes behind his back; Hill critics roll their eyes to his face. His predecessors understand: "There's an AG's club. Former Republican AGs call and say, 'Hang in there!' "
Holder does, one midnight at a time. He turns off the lights around the house, even in the kitchen, except for the bulb above the round table. Sitting alone, in a cone of light, he listens. "I need a place and time to step away from the opinions and other voices, and almost -- "
The house is silent. " -- hear my own voice."
12:35 a.m.
White House Situation Room
The night duty officer can't hear his own voice. A White House maid is vacuuming. "Can you wrap it up?" He plugs a finger in his ear and presses his mouth to the classified, yellow phone: "This is the Situation Room. We are going to try to connect Gen. Jones with his Russian counterpart."
"Yes, sir," replies a communications officer at the end of the line, cruising with Jones on the C-40 toward Pakistan.
The national security adviser is 37,000 feet over the Atlantic, bunking with Leon Panetta. Jones has changed out of charcoal pinstripes into a Georgetown sweat shirt. He checked an e-mail update about his pregnant daughter-in-law. "No baby yet," his son said. There are complications, and Jones is concerned.
Before he can sleep, Jones also needs to talk to Kremlin foreign policy adviser Sergei Prikhodko, to help negotiate a tougher stance on Iran's nuclear program. The Situation Room officer who handles secure calls for the West Wing is trying to locate Prikhodko, who's traveling in Kiev.
Jones stands by. He is a 6-foot-4, heavily decorated Marine and a light sleeper. He heard about his own son's birth in a monsoon on a hilltop near Cambodia, over the battalion radio at 1 a.m. As supreme allied commander in Europe, he learned that when darkness falls, opportunities rise.
Even as a boy, Jones was not afraid of the dark. He was afraid of Russia. His parents would talk soberly about the iron curtain. The image "terrified me as a child. Millions of people in prison, behind a so-called curtain."
Now a presidential envoy, Jones finds himself on many nights dialing Moscow, capital of his boyhood bogeymen. If the cold war of Jones's youth seemed scary, "this world has me more concerned. The threats we face are asymmetric and more complex." So he calls, at all hours, old adversaries to connect against the new threat.
It is 12:53 a.m., almost 8 a.m. in Kiev. The White House night officer reports, "Prikhodko's secretary said it might be an hour, or an hour and a half, to reach him." The officer mutters: "Our guys are up and working at 6 a.m."
On board the C-40, the CIA director takes a pillow and lies on the couch. Jones covers himself with a thin blanket and dozes in a chair.
At the White House, they dial the Russian's cellphone again. It rings 12 times. Another officer stands: "Got to go to the 1 a.m. Threat SVTC."
1 a.m.
National Counterterrorism CenterOps Center conference room
Virginia
The 1 a.m. Threat SVTC organizer says, "One minute to kickoff."
The secure video teleconference, convened by the National Counterterrorism Center, marks the apex of Washington's night watch. Feeds from 16 watch-floors blip onto a large screen. Dimly lit faces of men and women at the State Department, Coast Guard, NORTHCOM and others, cover a wall.
"Good morning, everyone," the organizer says, pressing a button on the microphone. "We're gonna brief three items." The FBI and NSA present terrorism reports.
Many nights an item prompts a call to wake the NCTC director, Michael Leiter, 41, the junior member of the nighthawks. He displays a copy of the Declaration of Independence next to a deck of baseball-style cards of high-value terrorist targets: "I keep the ones who are dead on top. It's a little macabre, but that's the world we live in." When the NCTC calls in the middle of the night, he is often half-awake.
"Bed is the worst place for me," Leiter says one evening, nodding toward his blue comforter, under the blades of his bedroom ceiling fan. "The mind keeps running."
The NCTC, created after 9/11 to integrate intelligence, produces a daily threat matrix, which averages 15 or more wide-ranging terrorist threats against American interests, outside Iraq and Afghanistan. In a 12-hour shift, analysts sift through 4,000 reports. "I can't shut that off; what else might be going on?"
Of all the jobs, counterterrorism intelligence seems the most likely to induce nightmares. Days before he resigned in May, Leiter's boss, director of national intelligence and retired Navy Adm. Dennis C. Blair, talked about his dream he first had years before as head of the Pacific Command and was now having again: "I'm running the ship aground. I'm sitting out on the bridge and I see it coming -- but I can't keep it from happening. I see a crumpled bow of the ship and sailors dying."
Leiter, a Bush appointee, also has had anxiety dreams ever since Christmas, when his agency failed to detect a man who tried to blow up a Detroit-bound plane: "I'm getting called. Someone says there's been another attack. Oh, my God -- "
Then he wakes up. And he reaches for a pad in the dark and scribbles ideas. "I terrify my staff at 7:15 a.m. and say, I was having trouble sleeping last night and I thought of something."
Leiter's nighttime tension is haunting, yet oddly creative: "My brain keeps working while I'm sleeping." New ideas churn, the ceiling fan turns and the blades chop at black air.
3:42 a.m.
Mike Mullen's front yard
No sound, no movement, except rotor blades chopping black air, as a helicopter buzzes over Adm. Mike Mullen's brick Colonial. Minutes later, a light blinks on in his second-floor window. The chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff is starting his day.
Mullen opens his front door at 4:03 a.m. in shorts and sneakers, his eyes still slitty, his voice a note deep. "Let's go," he says to his security detail.
Mullen drives to the Navy Yard gym, where he gulps a protein shake and bench-presses 255 pounds. Big Dave, his trainer, barks: "The baddest chairman ever!"
The admiral understands that to be baddest, he has to get ahead -- every day -- of the day. Fight the current war; anticipate the next one. Where will the next terrorist attack originate? "Yemen is a great worry. Somalia is a failed state. But we have to try to pay attention to the rest of the world, too. We don't anticipate well where stuff comes from in these wars. Our ability to predict is pretty lousy."
As senior military adviser to the president, Mullen steeps his predawn routine in anticipation. He drives to the gym through a night fog, scans headlines, reads e-mails from commanders, clips four stars to his collar and packs his seven briefcases of paperwork, all before 6:30 a.m.
Yet for all his talk about anticipating the future, Mullen is the nighthawk who is drawn deeply to the past. A Bible sits on his kitchen microwave. He buttons his dress service khakis, while reading the ancient wisdom of the Proverbs.
The enemy America's fighting, he says, "killed 3,000. But they would like to kill 30,000, or 300,000. They're still out there, trying. It's not their religion. It's not Islam. It's an evil that doesn't believe in anything we believe in. They don't value civilization. They have no limits in what they'll do to kill us. "
A Jerusalem, olive-wood cross swings from his rear-view mirror. His headlights shine on the empty road.
Dead of Night
Undisclosed location
Headlights approach on the empty road. A government agent steps out of an SUV, carrying a locked, black satchel. An intelligence aide approaches him.
"Good morning."
"Good night."
The two silhouettes merge for a moment. "In this city, people have no idea what's going on," the intelligence aide says, nodding toward buildings with darkened windows.
The agent drives away, after handing off the brown leather binder, gold-stamped "TOP SECRET." The President's Daily Brief.
Briefers fan out across the city, distributing locked copies, modified for each department.
Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton's briefer rolls her satchel in on wheels. FBI Director Robert Mueller gets briefed, he says, "365 days a year, even on Christmas, even on vacation." Napolitano scours her book over one of her four morning cups of coffee. Holder unzips his while riding in the motorcade to his office: "If you read it, you're left with the reality of how many organizations are trying to harm our people. . . . I'm not in a good mood when I get to work. You don't get used to it. You just don't." He taps his window: "It's armored."
At the White House, outside the Oval Office, a briefer arrives to deliver the president's report. Rahm Emanuel is there, as is counterterrorism adviser John Brennan. National security adviser James Jones joins them. Since Jones returned from Pakistan, Russia agreed to toughen Iran sanctions. Jones's daughter-in-law gave birth to a boy.
"The baby was 10 weeks premature," the general says quietly. His grandson is being kept at the hospital under round-the-clock watch.
The president walks out. "All right," says Obama, eating a handful of cherries between meetings. "Come on, guys. Let's go."
Nine men file into the Oval Office, under the wings of an American eagle carved into the ceiling. Obama and Vice President Biden sit in the middle. Jones sits on a side couch. They all are holding the gold-lettered brown binders, the book of threats, written in the hours of darkness.
Morning light from the Rose Garden pours in from the east and the south. A mahogany grandfather clock ticks loudly. Jones takes a deep breath, runs his finger to the edge of the binder.
The room is bright. The president crosses his legs and looks at his men. What happened in the night?
Researchers Alice Crites and Lucy Shackelford contributed to this report.
The President appoints three more deputy ministers, making his cabinet the largest since the New Order era.
DIRECTOR-General of Higher Education Fasli Jalal picked up the phone in his office, Thursday two weeks ago. On the other end of the line was Minister/State Secretary Sudi Silalahi, who asked Fasli to report to President Yudhoyono. “I was told to bring along my CV,” he said. Monday afternoon, last week, Fasli drove to the Presidential Palace after reporting to his superior, Muhammad Nuh. At the Palace, this alumni of Cornell University, Ithaca, New York, USA, received word from the President that he was about to become Deputy Minister of Education.
Fahmi’s inauguration took place at the State Palace, Wednesday last week. Aside from Fahmi, President Yudhoyono also inaugurated the Deputy State National Development Planning Minister for the Funding Division Lukita Dinarsyah Tuwo, and Secretary-General of the Defense Department Sjafrie Sjamsoeddin, each serving as deputy minister in their corresponding government bodies. The deputy ministers’ inauguration was held at the same time with the inauguration of Dipo Alam—Deputy of the Coordinating Minister for the Economy—as the Minister/Cabinet Secretary, a position which had previously been left vacant ever since Sudi Silalahi, moved to the State Secretariat.
Minister of Education Muhammad Nuh warmly welcomed Fasli, his new deputy. “He would surely help me in doing my work,” said the former Minister of Communication & Information. Fasli has been around in the Education Department for a while. He joined the department a decade ago, as a senior staff who served under Minister Yahya Muhaimin during Abdurrahman Wahid’s presidency, leading a number of directorates general. When drafting began for the United Indonesia Cabinet II, Fasli was one of the most favored candidates nominated to replace the predecessor, Bambang Sudibyo.
Like Nuh, Defense Minister Purnomo Yusgiantoro was delighted with Sjafrie’s appointment. “In my opinion, there has to be a deputy minister because we have lots of work and budget,” said this Minister of Energy & Mineral Resources from 2000-2009. According to him, Sjafrie will deal with matters related to the army and police, including foreign affairs whenever the minister is unavailable. Former Defense Minister Juwono Sudarsono considers Sjafrie as the right man for the job due to his knowledge of military techniques.
Following the president’s announcement of his cabinet members last October, Nuh and Purnomo were among the ones who received the most attention because they were considered as not having enough experience to be placed in their positions. Politics observer Arbi Sanit thinks that Nuh’s experience—despite he once became a dean—is still insufficient. “He was chosen due to his closeness to SBY, he has no outstanding qualities,” said Arbi. While Jaleswari Pramowardhani, a military observer from the Indonesian Institute of Sciences, thinks that Purnomo has a technocratic tendency and lacks military knowledge. “He did serve as deputy chair of the National Resilience Institute in 1998, but things are different now,” she said.
Deputy appointments for these two ministers raises suspicion that the president wants to provide some cover for his less capable cabinet members. However, the president has come up with his own answer. President Yudhoyono said the deputy minister appointment for some departments was based on the consideration of the heavy workload and the target of his current cabinet. According to SBY, he expects the Deputy Minister of Defense to help formulate policies and defense strategies, as well as modernize the defense system primary tools. As for the Deputy Minister of Education, SBY expects him to help with the education reforms.
Deputy minister appointment is the president’s privilege as mentioned in the State Department Law No. 39/2008. Its Article 10 says, “In case of heavy workloads which require special treatment, the president may appoint deputy ministers for corresponding deprtments.” Member of the House of Representatives (DPR) Agun Gunandjar Sudarsa said that the deputy minister appointments might actually help with the overgrown bureaucracy in several departments. “There are departments that have more than ten Echelon 1 officers,” said the Chairman of the State Department Law Special Committee.
Last week’s three deputy ministers appointment was the third wave of similar actions. Triyono Wibowo, appointed as Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs in September 11, 2008, was the first. Slightly different from the two following appointments, Triyono—then the Ambassador for the Republic of Austria and the Republic of Slovenia, and also acted as a UN Representative in Vienna—was appointed by Minister Hassan Wirajuda in the Department’s office at Pejambon, Central Jakarta.
In the second wave in November 11, 2009, more deputy ministers were appointed: Bayu Krisnamurti (Deputy Minister of Agriculture), Bambang Susantono (Deputy Minister of Transportation), Mahendra Siregar (Deputy Minister of Trade), Alex Retraubun (Deputy Minister of Industry), and Hermando Dardak (Deputy Minister of Public Works). That time, the President also appointed Gita Wirjawan as Chairman of the Investment Coordinating Board. It means the United Indonesia Cabinet II now has nine deputy ministers.
According to plan, the number should have grown to 11, had the President inaugurated Fahmi Idris as Deputy Minister of Health and Anggito Abimanyu as Deputy Minister of Finance. Appointments for the 2006-2009 Chairman of the Indonesian Medical Association and Chairman of Fiscal Policy Board of the Department of Finance were cancelled due to administrative reasons. According to the Minister/State Secretary Sudi Silalahi, the two candidates have not met the requirement of occupying an Echelon 1-A structural position. “If that has not been fulfilled, we cannot proceed. We do not want to break the rules,” he said. Sudi offered no explanation on when the two would be inaugurated either.
Even as it is only an administrative one, politics observer Eep Saefulloh Fatah said the mistake is serious and fatal. “The president is reckless when taking such important policies,” he said. A day before the intended appointments, presidential spokesperson Julian Aldrin Pasha revealed the appointment plans to reporters. Although he mentioned no specific name, Julian nodded when Tempo asked him whether Fahmi Idris and Anggito Abimanyu were amongst the list. According to Julian, the deputy minister candidates have signed their performance contracts and integrity pacts.
On the deputy minister appointments, Eep thinks of it as a proof of the president’s lack of commitment towards bureaucracy reforms. “This is the most overcrowded cabinet in the reform era. It even has more people than the entire New Order cabinets,” he said. This deputy minister appointment is a different matter compared to when Suharto appointed his junior ministers. Junior minister was a position formed in preparation of a new department. For example, Cosmas Batubara was appointed Junior Minister of Public Housing before he occupied the position as minister in the next period.
According to Eep, there are some positions which actually require deputy ministers, like the Department of Defense and the Department of Finance. The many deputy ministers today shows that there is no clear criteria as to which department requires one. He further added that if such notion continues, soon there would be no reason not to appoint deputy minister in every department. “This is a fatal political mistake, one which clearly shows the President’s terrible imagination. His creativity is questionable,” he said.
As Eep said, the president is facing multiple choices. Included in his array of choices are the options to select between a competent, but non-partisan individual, a partisan individual who is also competent, or whether to adopt accommodation politics. “But the President could not decide between the three options,” he said. It later resulted in an overcrowded cabinet.
Constitutional law expert Irman Putra Sidin said that an overcrowded cabinet goes against the spirit of decentralization. “An officer who finds little to do in Jakarta will be looking for work, like getting his hands on something which should have been the portion of the regional administration,” he said.
From the outset the newspaper was to be pro-Yudhoyono. No news or photos of demonstrations were featured.
IT was a Tuesday night in February last year, in the personal library of President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono (SBY) in Cikeas, West Java. Ramadhan Pohan, the editor in chief of Jurnal Nasional newspaper was having a casual discussion with his host. It was a serious talk, even though there was much joking. For five hours, SBY, Chairman of the Democrat Party Board of Trustees spoke with this journalist who went on to become a member of the House of Representatives from the Democrat Party.
When night fell, the two moved to another room in the house. First Lady Ani Yudhoyono was busy in the kitchen. The President took his own dinner that night, and even went back for seconds. Ibu Ani prepared the rice and mixed vegetables.
That night was the first time Yudhoyono granted an interview about the issue of him being nominated to run for a second term of office in the 2009 Presidential Election. Jurnal Nasional was given the first opportunity to interview him.
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ONE day in mid-2005. Three men from the Blora Center agreed to establish a media company. They were: Taufik Rahzen (an artist), Rully Charis Iswahyudi (a businessman), and Ramadhan Pohan (a former reporter for Jawa Pos). The Blora Center is a think tank which did the groundwork for Yudhoyono to step forward in the 2004 Presidential Election. Along the way the Blora Institute was formed, led by Taufik Rahzen—who later became a senior editor at the newspaper he formed.
This trio was helped by a team from the Brighten Institute—an institution where Yudhoyono sits as Chairman of the Board of Trustees. This team consisted of Joyo Winoto, Daddi Heryono, and Asto Sunu Subroto. On 1 June 2006, Jurnal Nasional was born.
The first general manager of Jurnal Nasional newspaper was Asto Sunu Subroto. A year later he was replaced by D.S. Priyarsono, who only held the position for a few months. The job then fell to N. Syamsuddin Ch. Haesy, who still presides over the paper today.
Jurnal’s close relationship with Yudhoyono has been thrown into the spotlight. It has been said that this paper received funds from a famous cigarette industry, the Sampoerna Group. This was denied by Ramadhan. However, Ramadhan did not deny that Jurnal is affiliated with Yudhoyono. “Jurnal Nasional does indeed defend SBY,” he said. From the outset, Jurnal was designed to be in alignment with the thinking of Yudhoyono, who wanted the media to publish positive news. “This is why there is news or photos of demonstrations in this newspaper.”
Hamid Dipo Pramono, the editor in chief of Jurnal Nasional after Ramadhan Pohan, denied the charge that Yudhoyono intervenes in the editing of the paper. According to him, the President has never given any special directions. “It is wrong if Jurnal is considered to be some sort of public relations body, and even more so if it [is said it] only takes orders from the Palace.”
Although the President does not intervene, according to some editorial staff at the paper, former Presidential Spokesman Andi Alifian Mallarangeng often interferes. Although he has never personally attended an editors meeting, he makes requests by telephone. Andi did not completely deny this. “I have a relationship with all editors in chief. If there is news which is inaccurate, I correct it,” he said.
Andi has been a regular writer for Jurnal from the beginning. His column, “From Kilometer 0.0”, has been routinely published since 29 May 2006. In addition to him, others from the Palace who write regularly are Anas Urbaningrum (currently Chairman of the Democrat Party faction in the DPR) and Denny Indrayana (a special staff member of the President in the legal field).
As the oil spill continues and the cleanup lags, we must begin to ask difficult and uncomfortable questions. There does not seem to be much that anyone can do to stop the spill except dig a relief well, not due until August. But the cleanup is a different story. The press and Internet are full of straightforward suggestions for easy ways of improving the cleanup, but the federal government is resisting these remedies.
First, the Environmental Protection Agency can relax restrictions on the amount of oil in discharged water, currently limited to 15 parts per million. In normal times, this rule sensibly controls the amount of pollution that can be added to relatively clean ocean water. But this is not a normal time.
Various skimmers and tankers (some of them very large) are available that could eliminate most of the oil from seawater, discharging the mostly clean water while storing the oil onboard. While this would clean vast amounts of water efficiently, the EPA is unwilling to grant a temporary waiver of its regulations.
Next, the Obama administration can waive the Jones Act, which restricts foreign ships from operating in U.S. coastal waters. Many foreign countries (such as the Netherlands and Belgium) have ships and technologies that would greatly advance the cleanup. So far, the U.S. has refused to waive the restrictions of this law and allow these ships to participate in the effort.
The combination of these two regulations is delaying and may even prevent the world's largest skimmer, the Taiwanese owned "A Whale," from deploying. This 10-story high ship can remove almost as much oil in a day as has been removed in total—roughly 500,000 barrels of oily water per day. The tanker is steaming towards the Gulf, hoping it will receive Coast Guard and EPA approval before it arrives.
In addition, the federal government can free American-based skimmers. Of the 2,000 skimmers in the U.S. (not subject to the Jones Act or other restrictions), only 400 have been sent to the Gulf. Federal barriers have kept the others on stations elsewhere in case of other oil spills, despite the magnitude of the current crisis. The Coast Guard and the EPA issued a joint temporary rule suspending the regulation on June 29—more than 70 days after the spill.
The Obama administration can also permit more state and local initiatives. The media endlessly report stories of county and state officials applying federal permits to perform various actions, such as building sand berms around the Louisiana coast. In some cases, they were forbidden from acting. In others there have been extensive delays in obtaining permission.
As the government fails to implement such simple and straightforward remedies, one must ask why.
One possibility is sheer incompetence. Many critics of the president are fond of pointing out that he had no administrative or executive experience before taking office. But the government is full of competent people, and the military and Coast Guard can accomplish an assigned mission. In any case, several remedies require nothing more than getting out of the way.
Another possibility is that the administration places a higher priority on interests other than the fate of the Gulf, such as placating organized labor, which vigorously defends the Jones Act.
Finally there is the most pessimistic explanation—that the oil spill may be viewed as an opportunity, the way White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel said back in February 2009, "You never want a serious crisis to go to waste." Many administration supporters are opposed to offshore oil drilling and are already employing the spill as a tool for achieving other goals. The websites of the Sierra Club, Friends of the Earth and Greenpeace, for example, all feature the oil spill as an argument for forbidding any further offshore drilling or for any use of fossil fuels at all. None mention the Jones Act.
To these organizations and perhaps to some in the administration, the oil spill may be a strategic justification in a larger battle. President Obama has already tried to severely limit drilling in the Gulf, using his Oval Office address on June 16 to demand that we "embrace a clean energy future." In the meantime, how about a cleaner Gulf?
Mr. Rubin, a professor of economics at Emory University, held several senior positions in the federal government in the 1980s. Since 1991 he has spent his summers on the Gulf.
