The Center for American Progress (CAP) is perhaps the most influential left-wing think-tank in DC. So it may come as a shock that among its largest donors is a regime deeply implicated in the war crimes and humanitarian disaster unfolding in Yemen. The UAE is an active part of the Saudi coalition bombing Yemen. Worse, there are credible reports that Yemeni prisoners are being brutally tortured by UAE agents.
Though distressing, the UAE’s support for CAP has been an open secret for a long time. What is perhaps more surprising is that CAP seems to have allowed the UAE to influence its position on the murder of Washington Post contributing columnist Jamal Khashoggi. Khashoggi was lured to the Saudi embassy in Turkey apparently at the behest of the Saudi crown prince. There, he was brutally murdered.
Through its ambassador in DC the UAE, on behalf of its close ally Saudi Arabia, appears to have influenced CAP’s response to Khashoggi’s killing.
At issue was an internal debate over how to frame CAP’s response to the murder of Washington Post contributing columnist Jamal Khashoggi, who was dismembered by Saudi Arabian officials inside the nation’s consulate in Istanbul on October 2.
The initial draft of the CAP’s statement condemned the killing and Saudi Arabia’s role in it, calling for specific consequences. Brian Katulis, a Gulf expert at CAP, objected to the specific consequences proposed in an email exchange with other national security staffers, according to sources who described the contents of the thread to The Intercept. At an impasse, the specifics were dropped, replaced merely with a call to “take additional steps to reassess” the U.S.-Saudi relationship, and the statement was released to the public on October 12. [...]
The UAE, Saudi Arabia’s closest ally, is one of the top donors to the think tank. Katulis is close with the UAE’s ambassador in Washington, Yousef Al Otaiba, who is the go-between for Emirati money flowing into Washington. Otaiba also played a key role in elevating Mohammed bin Salman to his position as crown prince of Saudi Arabia, using his considerable influence within the American foreign policy establishment to make the case for bin Salman’s moderation and reform-minded approach to government. — theintercept.com/…
In December, the Senate, responding partly to the furore over Khashoggi’s killing, voted to end military assistance to Saudi Arabia for its war in Yemen. Every single Democratic senator and seven Republicans voted for the War Powers resolution which was led by Bernie Sanders (I-VT), Chris Murphy (D-CT) and Mike Lee (R-UT). The bill’s supporters in the Senate reached out to CAP to get its endorsement for this historic resolution, but were unable to get it. Everyone in DC knew this was a historic moment:
The measure, which passed by 56 votes to 41, marked the first time the Senate had invoked the 1973 War Powers Resolution to seek to curb the power of the president to take the US into an armed conflict. It marked a significant bipartisan rebuke to the Trump administration, which lobbied intensively against it. — www.theguardian.com/...
It was an unusual invocation of the War Powers Act, a 1973 law by which Congress sought at the end of the Vietnam War to reassert its constitutional role in deciding when the United States would go to war.
Mr. Sanders called it the first time Congress had used the law to make clear “that the constitutional responsibility for making war rests with the United States Congress, not the White House.”
“Today, we tell the despotic regime in Saudi Arabia that we will not be part of their military adventurism,” he said. — www.nytimes.com/...
Somehow, CAP decided not to endorse this historic resolution. Perhaps it was a coincidence that this is what its benefactors in the UAE wanted.
By the way, the State Department says the UAE is a major destination and transit point for sex and labor trafficking. DC think-tanks aren’t alone, the university I attended built a satellite campus in the UAE. Labor conditions during its construction were exploitative.
If you thought it couldn’t get worse, hold on to your hats.
That makes it all the more shocking that the UAE is so rarely criticized by leading U.S. think tanks, who not only ignore the Gulf dictatorship’s repression, but give a privileged platform to its ambassador, Yousef al-Otaiba. Otaiba is a deeply influential voice in U.S. foreign policy circles, and is known in Washington for using his pocketbook to recruit allies. [...]
One of the documents obtained by The Intercept was an invoice from the Center for New American Security, an influential national security think tank founded in 2007 by alumni from the Clinton administration. The invoice, dated July 12, 2016, billed the UAE embassy $250,000 for a paper on the legal regime governing the export of military-grade drones. It was signed by Michele Flournoy, a senior Pentagon official under President Barack Obama; Hillary Clinton was widely expected to name Flournoy as her secretary of defense. Flournoy co-founded CNAS and, in addition to outside work as a management consultant, currently serves as the think tank’s CEO. — theintercept.com/...
The paper Flournoy offered to author for $250k would have supported the the UAE’s request to purchase drones from the US military. Drones that would then have been used in the UAE’s operation in Yemen, where its forces are assisting the Saudi army in starving millions of civilians.
If we’re upset about a potential National Security Adviser like Michael Flynn lobbying for Turkey, we’ve got to be as upset about a potential Secretary of Defense nominee working for the UAE. These are senior uniformed and civilian military officials entrusted with the defense of the US. When did it become acceptable for them to enter a revolving door where they peddle influence to the highest bidder among a range of unsavory despots?
Why are these think-tanks pretending to be independent while allowing themselves to be influenced by donors? Why are government officials making decisions based on their position papers when they can be bought?
— @subirgrewal