Marie Harf Stays On-Message, And She Isn't Alone

Not Marie Harf's official photo, but close

As a cheerleader for the Obama administration, Marie has only one job. It's stupid, but she's going to do it. I have to admire that kind of focus.

Frankly, I wish everybody would leave Marie alone. All she did was repeat a very common bit of conventional wisdom about the "root causes that lead people to join these groups" such as ISIL. You know, root causes, like joblessness and a lack of economic opportunity.



The notion that poverty drives terrorism has been debunked repeatedly, but that hasn't made the idea go away. And it isn't just Marie who insists otherwise. Here's another believer in those root causes:

“We fight against poverty because hope is an answer to terror” – George W. Bush, remarks at the International Conference on Financing for Development (2002)

Republicans, among others, have pushed the poverty-leads-to-terrorism equation when they were selling foreign economic development programs to the American public. In the case of George Bush in 2002, it was the Millennium Challenge Corporation that was going to undermine those economic root causes of terrorism.

Joshua Keating, today in Slate, demolishes the idea that terrorists are just angry about being unemployed:

The idea of terrorists as desperate young men lacking in economic opportunity is not borne out by empirical evidence. A well-known 2002 paper by economists Alan Krueger (later an assistant secretary of the Treasury in the Obama administration) and Jitka Maleckova found that support for violence among Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza was not any higher among those with lower living standards or levels of education. In Lebanon, participation in Hezbollah was actually associated with higher living standards and levels of education. The same was true for Israeli settlers who participated in attacks against Palestinians.

A 2012 survey in Pakistan reached a similar conclusion: Poorer Pakistanis were less likely to support militants than the middle class. The political scientists conducting the study hypothesized that “the urban poor suffer most from militants’ violent activities and so most intensely dislike them.” A 2004 study by Harvard economist Alberto Abadie, looking at country level data, found that “terrorist risk is not significantly higher for poorer countries.” Abadie found political freedom to be a more important factor: Countries in the kinda-free range had more terrorism than highly democratic or highly autocratic countries.

Actual terrorists are often better educated than most in their societies, and, indeed, in ours. From a 2005 New York Times Op-Ed

We examined the educational backgrounds of 75 terrorists behind some of the most significant recent terrorist attacks against Westerners. We found that a majority of them are college-educated, often in technical subjects like engineering. In the four attacks for which the most complete information about the perpetrators' educational levels is available - the World Trade Center bombing in 1993, the attacks on the American embassies in Kenya and Tanzania in 1998, the 9/11 attacks, and the Bali bombings in 2002 - 53 percent of the terrorists had either attended college or had received a college degree. As a point of reference, only 52 percent of Americans have been to college. The terrorists in our study thus appear, on average, to be as well educated as many Americans.

The 1993 World Trade Center attack involved 12 men, all of whom had a college education. The 9/11 pilots, as well as the secondary planners identified by the 9/11 commission, all attended Western universities, a prestigious and elite endeavor for anyone from the Middle East. Indeed, the lead 9/11 pilot, Mohamed Atta, had a degree from a German university in, of all things, urban preservation, while the operational planner of 9/11, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, studied engineering in North Carolina. We also found that two-thirds of the 25 hijackers and planners involved in 9/11 had attended college.

Pew Research surveyed Where Terrorism Finds Support in the Muslim World and found it has exactly as much support among low-income as among high-income Muslims.

The University of Chicago's project to study suicide bombers found, where information is known about the attackers, that three times as many suicide bombers had professional or skilled occupations, or were students, than were unemployed or low-skilled. As for education, almost three times as many had post-secondary education as had only secondary education or less.

Quite a few filthy-rich kids have become terrorists. Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, the 'underpants bomber' who failed to detonate his weaponized BVDs over Detroit, is the youngest child of a wealthy Nigerian banker and businessman, reputedly one of the richest men in Africa, and a former Chairman of First Bank of Nigeria and former Nigerian Federal Commissioner for Economic Development. He was also educated, having earned a degree in mechanical engineering from a University in London.

The four suicide bombers who committed the July 7, 2005, attacks in London did not lack economic or other opportunities. They were all second generation immigrants with university educations, jobs, and families. Why did they commit one of the more heinous terrorist attacks in recent British history?

The ringleader of the four, Mohammad Sidique Khan, explained their motive in a very articulate martyrdom video:

I and thousands like me are forsaking everything for what we believe. Our drive and motivation doesn't come from tangible commodities that this world has to offer. Our religion is Islam, obedience to the one true God and following the footsteps of the final prophet messenger. Your democratically-elected governments continuously perpetuate atrocities against my people all over the world. And your support of them makes you directly responsible, just as I am directly responsible for protecting and avenging my Muslim brothers and sisters. Until we feel security you will be our targets and until you stop the bombing, gassing, imprisonment and torture of my people we will not stop this fight. We are at war and I am a soldier. Now you too will taste the reality of this situation.

Is there any reason to doubt that was his motive? He was thirty, educated, employed, and married with a child. He did not lack opportunity. As he said, he chose to forsake that opportunity in order to take revenge upon Britons at large for their democratically expressed support for wars against his fellow Muslims. He was not distracted from this mission by tangible commodities, no matter what Washington figures from George W. Bush to Marie Harf may think. Could Khan have made that any more clear?

There's Diplomatic Immunity, Consular Immunity, And A Couple Other Kinds, Too, I Think

An obstacle to U.S.-Indian relations

So many unintended consequences have flowed from that simple arrest in New York City five days ago.

The criminal allegation made by the United States Attorney for the Southern District of New York (here) and its supporting statement by a Diplomatic Security agent (here) are clear enough: The Indian Deputy Vice Consul in New York, a nice looking lady named Dr. Devyani Khobrange, committed visa fraud and made false statements, felonies that could put her in prison for up to 15 years.

The circumstances of Dr. Devyani Khobrange's arrest are not so clear. She wasn't fleeing, she wasn't accused of a violent crime, and she is a foreign diplomat. So why pull her out of her car when she was taking her kids to school and do the whole handcuffs-strip search-holding cell routine before cutting her loose on bail? Is that normal treatment for a white collar criminal in New York (I doubt it), or was the U.S. Attorney trying to make a point?

The Indian Embassy in Washington "immediately conveyed its strong concerns to the U.S. Government" (here) over our treatment of their Deputy Vice Consul, and made counter allegations about the Indian domestic servant who was the object of Dr. Khobrange's alleged visa fraud and is now our witness in the criminal case against her. They even asked the U.S. government to extradite our witness back to India. Good luck!

Some commenters in India pointed out that the U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York, Preet Bharara, was born in India to a Sikh father and a Hindu mother, and hinted at some mysterious ethnic feud between him and Dr. Khobrange, who is from the Dalit caste. I can't even guess whether that motive is at all plausible; the question wouldn't have come up if the U.S. Attorney were named John Smith, however.

Meanwhile, the Indian government has gone completely over the top, calling in the U.S. Ambassador, harassing U.S. diplomats in India by yanking some airport access and import privileges and threatening to withdraw their diplomatic identity cards, going on a witch hunt for any of our locally engaged staff in India who might be underpaid, and finally, removing concrete vehicle barriers that they had previously allowed us to place on a public street outside our embassy compound in the diplomatic quarter of New Delhi.

And, of course, the biggest question of all is, what kind of legal immunity does Dr. Khobrange enjoy? Is it full diplomatic, or the more limited type of consular immunity, and how does that affect her prosecution for visa fraud?

This is a puzzling situation about a delicate matter of diplomatic relations. So you can imagine how anxious I was to hear State Department Deputy Spokesperson Marie Harf explain everything during the daily press briefing this afternoon. She did not disappoint.

QUESTION: India.

MS. HARF: Okay. Mm-hmm.

QUESTION: Do you have anything to say on the steps announced by Indian Government today on the – withdrawing some of the consular facilities provided to Indian diplomats inside – U.S. diplomats in India and withdrawing the security parameters [surely "perimeters" not parameters] outside the embassy in opposition to the steps – arrest of Indian diplomats in New York?

MS. HARF: Well, a couple points on this. I think you probably saw the statement that I put out just before coming out here, that the U.S. and India enjoy a broad and deep friendship, and this isolated episode is not in any way indicative of the close and respectful ties that we share and will continue to share. We have conveyed at high levels to the Government of India our expectations that India will continue to fulfill all of its obligations under the Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations, and Vienna Convention – on Consular Relations, excuse me.

Obviously, the safety and security of our diplomats and consular officers in the field is a top priority. We’ll continue to work with India to ensure that all of our diplomats and consular officers are being afforded full rights and protections. Also, of course, safety and security of our facilities as well is something we take very seriously, and we’ll keep working with the Indians on that.

QUESTION: Why wasn’t that in the statement?

MS. HARF: Because it was a short statement and I knew I’d get lots of questions on it in the briefing. I mean, there’s – I have a lot of information on this we can talk about in the briefing.

-- snip --

QUESTION: Your comment about how you have conveyed to the Indian Government at the highest levels or --

MS. HARF: At high levels, I said.

QUESTION: -- at high levels --

MS. HARF: Mm-hmm.

QUESTION: -- that you expect them to uphold the Vienna Convention – is that a reference to the fact that Indian police today removed security barriers around the Embassy?

MS. HARF: Certainly part of it.

QUESTION: Okay.

MS. HARF: Certainly part of it.

QUESTION: So did you see the Indian police removing those security barriers as a reflection of their unhappiness at the treatment of their diplomat in New York?

MS. HARF: I’d let them speak for what the reasoning was behind it, certainly.

-- snip --

QUESTION: Marie, have you actually asked for them to rescind these measures that they took today, particularly the ones about the security barriers?

MS. HARF: I can double-check and see if we have more details about the diplomatic conversations. We’ve been very clear that they need to uphold all of their obligations under the Vienna Convention, and in terms of security, we’ll keep working with them on that as well. Again, our focus here is on moving the bilateral relationship forward, that this one isolated episode not impact the bilateral relationship.

QUESTION: Do you feel that measures that were taken were actually proportionate to what happened to the deputy general consul in New York last week?

[TSB note: Ms. Harf strayed off the topic a bit here, talking about measures the State Department had taken.]

QUESTION: But I think my question was more – are the measures, were the measures taken by the Indian – Indians’ government proportionate to what --

MS. HARF: Oh, I see. Measures by the Indian Government.

QUESTION: Indian Government, yes.

MS. HARF: Proportionate to what?

QUESTION: To the arrest in New York of a deputy consul general.

-- snip --

QUESTION: So just to put a fine point on it, if you’re saying that [the arrest in New York and the measures the Indian government has taken against U.S. Embassy personnel in India] shouldn’t be linked and then you’re saying that they shouldn’t take actions against your diplomats in a response to one of their diplomats being arrested, even if it was handled possibly in an improper way?

MS. HARF: Well, again, at this point there are no indications that it was, as I said just a second ago. Let me go back to this --

QUESTION: Even if they have concerns with the way she was treated, it sounds like you’re saying, just to put a fine point on it, that the Indian Government should not take punitive measures against your diplomats in response to an incident that they feel one of their diplomats was (inaudible).

MS. HARF: Certainly, we have called on them to uphold all of their obligations under the Vienna Convention, everything that they are obligated to do and according our diplomats rights and all of the things that go under the Vienna Convention.

-- snip --

QUESTION: Now could you talk – you talked a little bit about it, but you said you would get us some more answers on this diplomat’s – this deputy consul general’s diplomatic status. Could you expand on that a little bit?

MS. HARF: Well, I don’t think I said I’d get on theirs specifically. I said there are different kinds of immunity – diplomatic immunity, consular immunity, I think there are a couple of other kinds. I have asked our folks to sort of lay out very explicitly, hopefully to be released as a TQ, exactly what all of those mean. But generally speaking, right, diplomatic immunity applies sort of across the board – again, this is a very general and the lawyers are probably going to be mad at me – but consular immunity only applies to things done in the actual functions of one’s job. And this just isn’t for diplomats in the U.S., of course; it’s for our diplomats overseas as well.

QUESTION: Now, even if a diplomat doesn’t have diplomatic immunity or consular immunity --

QUESTION: What’s the difference, by the way, between diplomatic immunity and consular immunity. I don’t understand that.

MS. HARF: Well, diplomatic immunity applies to everything. Consular immunity only applies to official functions in – that one performs in the duty of their job.

QUESTION: So is this person – does this person enjoy diplomatic immunity?

MS. HARF: Consular immunity.

QUESTION: Only consular?

MS. HARF: Mm-hmm.

QUESTION: Why don’t they enjoy diplomatic immunity, given that they are a diplomat?

MS. HARF: Well, she’s the consul general at a consulate.

QUESTION: Yeah.

MS. HARF: I can double-check the exact specifics for who falls under what. I know it’s different everywhere. And again, this applies to our folks overseas as well.

QUESTION: So – but that would be good to get clear.

-- snip --

QUESTION: One of the allegations that clearly has the Indian Government most angered --

MS. HARF: Yes.

QUESTION: -- is that she has said to have been strip searched. The question is whether you know – I mean, I can understand it would be embarrassing to admit it, but it’s also just a factual matter. And if --

MS. HARF: I don’t speak for other government agencies, actually. I speak for the State Department, and that allegation --

QUESTION: And the State Department is not aware of whether or not she was strip-searched? Because the State Department presumably wants to know whether or not she was strip-searched so that it can deal --

MS. HARF: Again, we’re looking --

QUESTION: Can I finish? So it can deal with the Indian Government.

MS. HARF: Let me finish.

QUESTION: Go right ahead. So you don’t want to know whether she was strip searched?

MS. HARF: That’s why we’re looking into what transpired right now.

QUESTION: So you don’t know?

MS. HARF: That’s why we’re looking to get – I don’t have all the facts. No. I wasn’t there.

QUESTION: Do you know that fact?

MS. HARF: I don’t know what – I do not know the facts about exactly what happened and I’m not going to stand up here and say what I’ve heard or what I haven’t heard or what allegations are out there.

QUESTION: But if you don’t know, I’m willing to accept that. That was my question.

MS. HARF: I’m not telling you I haven’t heard anything – I’ve heard about the allegations.

QUESTION: Right.

-- snip --


MS. HARF: Yep. On this still?

QUESTION: Can we change topics?

QUESTION: No, I’ve got one more. Sorry. It was mentioned by my colleague that one of the issues was the withdrawal of all ID cards issued by the Ministry of External Affairs. How is that going to affect the work that your diplomats do on the ground in India?

MS. HARF: Well, we certainly don’t want any of the measures that he outlined to affect our work on the ground in India because it’s such an important relationship. We work together on so many important issues. And that’s why we’ll keep talking to the government about how to move forward.

QUESTION: What are they actually used for on a day-to-day basis?

MS. HARF: I can double-check. I can double-check.

QUESTION: Have they actually taken those measures that he described, or you don’t know?

MS. HARF: I’m not sure. I’ll double-check. I’ll double-check with --

QUESTION: Is it true that if the diplomat doesn’t have that ID the diplomat can be arrested by the local police or --

MS. HARF: I’ll check. I’ll check. I don’t know.

Given a political matter this sensitive, a legal situation this complicated, and with so many facts still so elusive, I look forward to many more daily press conferences just like this one.

Here's my question for Marie Harf: "Who do you want to play you in the inevitable Law and Order episode based on this incident, which is no doubt even now being written?"  

Art, Mm-Hmm, In Embassies

Sean Scully's 'Wall of Light Cubed 2'

As you may have read, the Art in Embassies program of the U.S. State Department shelled out one million dollars for the artwork depicted above, which will be displayed at the future new U.S. Embassy in London. The new embassy office building will be a work of art in its own right, so I guess we needed exactly the right sculpture to compliment the new building. Why the sculpture costs more than some entire buildings do, I just can't say.

The artwork of Sean Scully, which you can browse on his website, is not something I am qualified to judge, so here is an expert description:

Sean Scully is known for rich, painterly abstractions in which stripes or blocks of layered color are a prevailing motif. The delineated geometry of his work provides structure for an expressive, physical rendering of color, light, and texture. Scully’s simplification of his compositions and use of repetitive forms—squares, rectangles, bands—echoes architectural motifs (doors, windows, walls) and in this way appeals to a universal understanding and temporal navigation of the picture plane. However, the intimacy of Scully’s process, in which he layers and manipulates paint with varying brushstrokes and sensibilities, results in a highly sensual and tactile materiality. His colors and their interactions, often subtly harmonized, elicit profound emotional associations. Scully does not shy away from Romantic ideals and the potential for personal revelation. He strives to combine, as he has said, “intimacy with monumentality.”

I think I'm starting to see it ... yes ... intimacy combined with monumentality ... abstract, geometric, repetitive, and it echoes architectural motifs (the motif part sounds good to me). Plus, it is universal, sensual in a tactile way (do we get to touch this art?), and it elicits emotional responses.   

I can easily believe the part about eliciting emotional responses. With no disrespect for Sean Scully's artistry, any time the U.S. government spends a million dollars to buy a sculpture for display at an embassy you can be certain that there will be profound emotional responses, particularly from members of Congress. 

The incomparable State Department Deputy Spokesperson Marie Harf displayed some performance art of her own at last Friday's daily press briefing when she tried to explain why she thinks this purchase is "a good use of our limited resources" (yes, she does):

Okay, on the artwork, we have an Art in Embassies program run through the Office of Art in Embassies which curates permanent and temporary exhibitions for U.S. embassy and consulate facilities. It’s a public-private partnership engaging over 20,000 participants globally, including artists, museums, galleries, universities, and private collectors. For the past five decades, Art in Embassies has played a leading role in U.S. public diplomacy with a focused mission of cross-cultural dialogue and understanding through the visual arts and the artist exchange.

In terms of the London piece, like much of the art purchased by this program, this piece was purchased under the market price after considerable negotiation with both the artist and the gallery. This is an important part of our diplomatic presence overseas. We maintain facilities that serve as the face of the U.S. Government all throughout the world, and where we can promote cross-cultural understanding, and in this case do so for under market value, we think that’s a good use of our limited resources. Yes, we do.

-- snip --

QUESTION: -- to give you the critics’ point of view. I don’t think any of the critics, even the more harshest ones, are saying that people should go to receptions at U.S. embassies abroad and drink Ripple or Natty Boh or something like that. And I’m not – and I don’t think that they’re saying that people --

MS. HARF: (Off-mike.) Yes, go ahead.

QUESTION: -- people at – people who are waiting in line or go to embassies should be looking at velvet Elvises and dogs playing poker either on the walls. (Laughter.) But do you acknowledge at least that the amount that was spent and the timing of – that the optics are not particularly good ... particularly going into the government shutdown?

-- snip --

QUESTION: You mentioned that you purchased the art at below market prices.

MS. HARF: Sometimes. Sometimes.

QUESTION: Sometimes.

MS. HARF: I don’t know about --

QUESTION: Is that not sort of stiffing the artist? I mean, why not – now, I understand you want to be good stewards of the public’s money. But on the other hand, why not pay them what their stuff is actually worth?

MS. HARF: Well, it’s a negotiation between the artist and the gallery, and having their art displayed in a U.S. embassy and especially a prominent one in a place like London, I think is probably something that, if artists choose to sell us their pieces, is an important thing for them as well.

QUESTION: And it is displayed prominently if anyone could actually get into the embassy to take a look at it, right?

MS. HARF: Is that really a question?

QUESTION: Well, it’s not exactly like it’s a public – it’s going to be – unless it is. I don’t know. Is it going to be outside?

MS. HARF: I have no idea.

"Is that really a question?" Yes, it really was a question, and a pretty basic one. Does the public get to see the art on display in our embassies, or not? Is a sculpture such as Wall of Light Cubed 2 going to be displayed inside or outside the walls of the new London embassy? That's the sort of question a Deputy Spokesperson might reasonably be expected to answer. Alas, Deputy Spokesperson Marie Harf had no idea.

I can't be the only one who gets the impression that Deputy Spokesperson Marie Harf doesn't actually know all that much about the operations and activities of U.S. Embassies. She always comes off second-best in her frequent bantering with AP's Matt Lee, for example. Why doesn't she have a couple subject matter experts around to prompt her when questions arise that she can't answer?

And don't even get me started on that annoying "Mm-hmm' sound she makes as a sly way to suggest agreement without saying anything. That sound was amusing when it came from Yoda - here's Yoda as Deputy Spokesperson: "A question you have? Mm-hmm" - and creepy when it came from the guy in Sling Blade. When it comes from someone conducting the State Department's daily press briefing it just makes me think she's a lightweight poser.

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P.S. - On the subject of art in embassies, let me put in a good word for Velvet Elvises and paintings of dogs playing poker. What's so wrong about those? Personally, I think American artists have only begun to explore the possibilities of the vernacular working-class theme of anthropormorphized dogs playing poker. It is art for the masses and therefore impeccably democratic, so why shouldn't it be displayed in a cross-cultural dialog thingee? At the very least, it ought to get us points for irony.

And who is to say that sort of art doesn't have real cultural value? In a recent post I used a photo of a Proto-Elamite sculpture, a bull in a human pose, which is on display at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. According to the Met's museum label, bulls in human poses were a common theme in Proto-Elamite art. Is that sculpture on display today merely because it was created around 3,000 BC in southwestern Iran, or because it has genuine artistic interest?

I say to the fancy-pants curators of the Art in Embassies program, don't rule out paintings of dogs playing poker just because it's a modern theme favored exclusively by guys who drink domestic beer. Let's promote that cross-cultural dialog and understanding through the visual arts of the low-brow and the popular, as well as through the rarefied and expensive.