meditations

Eight Wasted Years

Sometimes a picture really is worth a thousand words, or in this case a million. From the remarkable Seattle editorial cartoonist David Horsey

Reason #3 why I hate paying taxes

Because some fraction of the money goes to the idiotic DoJ effort in the all important "war on terrorism." From Kevin Drum

TIME FOR A NEW AG?....Attorney General John Ashcroft is 0 for 5,000: that is, 0 anti-terror convictions for 5,000 anti-terror detentions. TalkLeft has the details.

On the other hand, we prevented Cat Stevens from entering the country. Onward!

UPDATE: OK, let's clear up what's really going on here. This is what David Cole says in The Nation about Ashcroft's conviction record now that a federal judge has tossed out his terrorism case in Detroit:

Until that reversal, the Detroit case had marked the only terrorist conviction obtained from the Justice Department's detention of more than 5,000 foreign nationals in anti-terrorism sweeps since 9/11. So Ashcroft's record is 0 for 5,000. When the Attorney General was locking these men up in the immediate wake of the attacks, he held almost daily press conferences to announce how many "suspected terrorists" had been detained. No press conference has been forthcoming to announce that exactly none of them have turned out to be actual terrorists.

Defining whether a "terror" conviction is really a terror conviction is surprisingly hard, and Ashcroft, of course, takes an expansive view of this, routinely counting even minor visa violations as "terror" convictions. But that's not what Cole is talking about. What he's talking about is the number of convictions resulting from anti-terrorism sweeps and preventive detentions following 9/11. Among the 5,000 who were detained, so far none have been convicted of terror-related offenses.

I have several good friends from college who work for the Department of Justice. None, fortunately, within ten feet of this particular tar baby.

The Day After

Sunday was a tough day for me, tough enough that I couldn't sleep and am posting late at night. There are articles by Sy Hersh in The New Yorker, on MSNBC, and in Newsweek that collectively indicate the Abu Ghraib situation is a just a symptom of a much larger disease, that the administration made a conscious decision post 9/11 to discard not just the conventional rules of warfare, but of human decency.

Mind you, from the beginning this has been a "war" entirely from a domestic political point of view. In the aftermath of 9/11 the nation wanted certainty and a hope for the future. For Bush, not exactly a "shades of grey" kind of guy, that meant not only calling the fight agaist terrorism a war, it meant launching an open ended and ill-defined struggle which would only be accomplished when terrorism was eliminated from the globe.

Of course, given that terrorism is neither a nation nor a foe, "war" seems little more than an emotionally appealing term, but using it meant Bush could claim to be a "war president" (essentially all of whom have been re-elected by wide margins in our country's history... an interesting coincidence) and that he could pursue a forceful and and uncompromising agenda, which fits well with his unreflective and immoderate nature.

Instead, terrorism is a technique used by the desperate with few other options. Bush might as well have declared war on fad diets or cosmetic surgery (other techniques of the desperate). So we have a faux war. One that gives the administration political talking points without any actual way of measuring progress, knowing what "winning" means, or requiring any sacrifice from the American people.

The last point is crucial. Had Bush been willing in the days after 9/11 to ask for real commitment on our part to change the world and make it safer for our children, he would have gotten it. Had he said, "We need to roll back the tax cuts on the top 2% to fund the war on terror" the very people paying that money, his core base, would have applauded his decision. Had he called for significantly increasing our armed forces, partially for combat, but more for the nitty-gritty of saving failed states that breed terrorists, he would have gotten the people he needed. Had he asked our allies, whom we saved from despotism 60 years ago and protected from the same for the next 40 years, to share in this burden, he would have been hailed as a wise and visionary leader of the free world. (And, in my opinion, he would still be at 80% in the polls and heading for a landslide re-election).

Instead our faux war has been waged on the cheap. No rise in taxes. No increase in the armed services. No cost/benefit analysis on whether occupying a distant and complex Arab Islamic country would be worth the effort. Indeed, no real understanding of what it would mean to invade such a nation.

There are ways, even with our current force levels, to put more boots on the ground in Iraq and possibly --- but not certainly ---- to stabilize the country. But all of them would require hard decisions or compromises, any of which are beyond the capability of this incompetent administration. It's EASY to hope for the best. It's EASY to ignore advice from professionals who know their fields. And apparently it's easy to give up basic moral decency, such as observing the Geneva Conventions, instead of making the hard decisions it takes to prosecute a nebulous conflict.

I'm no longer a young man and have lived through a lot of disappointments: the Vietnam war, the draft, and the protests; the Watergate hearings and the loss of faith in our national institutions; Jimmy Carter's feckless leadership and the "national malaise"; Iran contra and astrologers in the White House; and fat interns with visible thongs almost bringing a government down.

Clearly I don't like the Bush administration, but even in the worst moments I never dreamed this government, our government, would consciously choose to ignore the Geneva Conventions, the most basic codifications of human decency. If the reports in Newsweek and the New Yorker are true, we have seen the high point of America and the descent will be swift.

It goes up to 11

For those of a certain age, the members of the band Spinal Tap are archetypes of genial incompetence. I'm not sure if Ryan Lizza is of that age, but today he compares the Bush administration's anti-terrorism staffing to Spinal Tap's regular need for new drummers, and (I think) concludes there were fewer drummers than anti-terrorism czars.

The good news for the White House is that all of these ex-terrorism czars can't write tell-all books like Richard Clarke did, at least not before the election. There just isn't enough printer capacity to get them all out before the Fall.

And as an official tangent, let me say that Michael McKean is the great under-recognized comic genius of my lifetime. He was hilarious in Spinal Tap, he was hilarious on SNL, he was hilarious in Flashback, Dream On, Radioland Murders and Best in Show. He was even funny, while being badly upstaged by David Spade, in Coneheads. If some people would watch paint dry for entertainment, I'd be willing to watch Michael McKean sleep. He's that funny.

Fool me thrice!

I've been on the road almost all of the last two weeks --- the consulting position I've landed is great for the pocketbook, but poor for even remotely serious blogging --- so I'm running badly behind on current events. Missed the Condi Rice testimony to the 911 commission, but hope to read a transcript shortly and offer a few thoughts. Also, I did manage to catch "This Week" in my hotel room Sunday morning. Two things stuck out, one bad and one good.

• The Bad: Pressed on the current uprising in Iraq, Richard Perle repeatedly cited the opinions of Ahmed Chalabi (and his personal confidence in them) as evidence that things are not as bad as they seem. Ummmm... sorry here, but there's no subtle way to put this, "WHAT IS PERLE SMOKING?" The facts on the ground have consistently and overwhelmingly demonstrated that Chalabi sold the administration a pipe dream. As Fareed Zakaria says in Newsweek, Chalabi has the highest negative ratings of any public figure in Iraq and Perle still speaks of him as a source of insight? Stunning.
  
• The Good: For the first time in a long while, I heard an idea which was not only new, it was downright good, on the utter mess which has become our foreign policy. Senator Susan Collins of Maine suggested that we approach the UN and/or NATO and get them to take up some of our security responsibilities elsewhere in the world (she specifically mentioned Bosnia and Kosovo) in order to free-up additional US troops for the Iraqi occupation. It's an excellent idea, giving some cover to our allies (both the estranged and the non-estranged) to assist our efforts in the Middle East without having to risk troops on the ground. It's a far more realistic approach than the empty mantra --- endlessly mouthed by, among others, the Democratic presidential candidate --- about internationalizing the occupation, as if the world is filled with countries eager to embrace the tar-baby we have made of Iraq.

  Of course, Collis' idea would also mean the White House would have to make nice with France, Germany, etc. so don't hold your breath.
  

Fool me once: Shame on You! Fool me twice...

and I qualify for a senior position in the Bush administration!

It's in poor taste to be humorous about such a disaster, but sometimes it's the only way to numb the pain. Both the airwaves of the blogosphere and, to a lesser extent, the mainstream media have been filled with the "progress" of what may soon be the final unraveling of our misguided policies in the Middle East. As usual, Josh Marshall has been all over this. See his comments here, here, and here . Josh's assessment --- that the key factions in Iraq have been hanging back and waiting for us to leave before unleashing massive sectarian violence --- is chillingly grounded in the history of the region.

Speaking of history, it would be nice to know if anyone planning our first preventive war had taken the time to read up on the region. I mean anyone at all. Even a chubby intern with a crush on the president and a visible thong would have been able, after reading a couple books, of raising serious questions about the goals and planning of the war.

One thing said intern might have foiled is the "Curses! You tricked me again!" nature of our dealings with Iraqi opposition groups. It's long been clear that Ahmed Chalabi sold Wolfowitz et al. some choice Florida swampland. Now we learn that the administration has been taking (with open eyes and gaping mouths) the word of a one of Chalabi's minions (aptly code-named "curveball") at face value.

In this, as in so many other ways, there are direct historical parallels to Britain's efforts in the Middle East following WW I. If you read David Fromkin's excellent book, A Peace to End All Peace, you'll learn the story of Muhammed Sharif al-Faruqi, a young Arab lieutenant befriended by Mark Sykes in 1915. Sykes was Britain's chief policy planner for the post-war Middle East and the principal author of what is today called the Sykes-Picot treaty, an agreement between the great powers dividing the Ottoman Empire into British, French, and Russian spheres. Far less is known about al-Faruqi. His life before meeting Sykes is a mystery, and his life afterwards was relatively short, as he was killed in a skirmish in 1920. But in 1915 and 1916, during the critical stages of Sykes' planning and negotiations, al-Faruqi was front and center. To the British he presented himself as being associated with a secret society of Arab officers who would rise up against the Turks, help England seize the Middle East, and bring the war to an early end. To the Arabs he presented himself as an agent of the British. As Fromkin states:

During his months in the spotlight in 1915-16, he directly or indirectly led Britain to promise concessions to France, Russia, Arabs, and others in the postwar Middle East. As a middleman between British officials and Arab leaders, he was either misunderstood of else misrepresented each to the other. One can only guess at his motives. To the twentieth-century Middle East, he left a legacy of misunderstanding that time has not yet entirely dissipated.

...

al-Faruqi spoke little English, and it is difficult to tell from the fragmentary historical record the extent to which he was correctly understood or the extent to which words were put in his mouth by those who wanted to hear what they claimed he said.

Sound familiar? If you have a little time I strongly recommend Fromkin's book. It's a serious work of history, so not exactly a light read, but well worth the effort. One can only hope that the parallels between our involvement in this part of world start diverging, soon and rapidly, from Britain's after WW I.

Update: BillMon over at the Whiskey Bar is also citing Fromkin's book and the similarities between Britain's experiences in the 1920s and the mess we find ourself in today. There's no comfort in these similarities, particularly for the fine young men and women of our military, who have been sent on a fool's errand not of their choosing.

Newton's Law of Gravity: The Jury is STILL out!

Kevin Drum has a rather amusing post about a column in the National Review by John West (I'll dig up the link later) contesting the theory of evolution being taught in schools. I say "amusing" only because of my ability to laugh through the tears. There are, I believe, three dangerously corrosive trends in American culture over the last 20+ years:

1. The rigid and divisive partisanship which characterizes our politics at every level, from the presidency down to school boards.
   
2. The cheap sensationalism, materialism, violence and raw, loveless, sexuality regularly purveyed by Hollywood (particularly on television).
   
3. The ever greater blurring between that which is fact, that which is opinion, and those things which are articles of individual faith.
   

Of the three (and they are certainly all intertwined) the last is the worst, for by it's very nature it limits our abilities, both individually and as a society, to address the others. If we cannot use the tools of reason and critical thinking, if only in those limited areas where empirical facts exist and can be weighed, then our society will surely fall.

Think I'm being apocalyptic? Read a little Arab history. These were the most advanced societies in the world a thousand years ago, combining high scientific achievements with a remarkable devotion to their faith (a far higher devotion than found even in today's "bible belt"). But at a certain point these societies turned inwards, rejected self-criticism, and faith drove out reason. Today, as David Lamb says in his sublime book The Arabs: Journeys Beyond the Mirage, the average Arab wants technology while rejecting the underlying science. Thus the society which gave us the zero was led, in the early 70's, by a king who stated publicly that the earth was flat and the moon landings were staged (lest this seem an anti-Arab screed, we have lots of similar nutcases here at home).

Let's be clear: gravitation is a fact. There is no empirical evidence to contradict it. If I drop a pencil, it falls. If I drop it a million times, it falls a million times. There are tiny variations in the rate of fall from place to place on the earth (due to the underlying density of the crust) but these are measurable, quantifiable, explainable and predictable. Einstein's theory of gravitation only augmented that of Newton, it didn't displace it. Similarly, the roundness (actually oblate roundness) of the earth is a fact.

Evolution, like the big bang, the expansion of the universe, the life cycle of stars, and a host of other scientific theories is a not a fact, but it's a highly likely conjecture not contradicted by any empirical observations. Why are these not facts? Well, because we have a finite lifespan and weren't there at the time to TiVo the events. Just because evolution isn't a fact in the same sense as F=ma doesn't mean that it's no better (or, in some people's mind, worse) than the allegorical writings of Semitic shepherds 2000 years ago.

I frequently encounter people who, feeling strongly about an issue, say their opinion "is a fact." Wheher or not you agree with their opinion (a different issue entirely!) when you meet such people I suggest taking a religiously inspired response: be like the Amish, shun them.

l'Affaire de Clarke

Catching up on the news of the last week, it's been interesting, in a depressing sort of way, to watch the administration's response to Richard Clarke's book and public appearances before the 9-11 commission and on 60 Minutes, Meet the Press etc. The subject is getting a lot of attention in the mainstream media, and nothing less than carpet-bombing coverage in the blogosphere. That being the case, I have nothing new to add (this horse is truly being flogged to death) just a few quick observations:

• What in heaven's name is the administration thinking? Who's in charge of their response? If this really came down from W himself it's going to bring back the jokes that he's too stupid for the job. Their strident rhetoric has been completely over the top and only served to make them look desperate (did Dick Cheney really say Clarke was "out of the loop" on terrorism?).
  
• The White House may have picked the wrong dude to dis. From what I've seen of Clarke so far, he's like Shaft, a bad mother******. He's calm, reasonable, and completely unflappable. I've yet to see him asked a question he didn't seem completely prepared for (whether you agree with his answer or not) and while he may be something of a camera hog, the administration's "slime the messenger" approach only makes Clarke more in demand. Paul O'Neill (and to a lesser extent John DiIulio) made similar criticisms of the White House's dysfunctional policies, and in areas where the administration is far more culpable than the 20:20 hindsight of 9-11. But neither of them had the steely-eyed dedication of Clarke -- O'Neill, even with the kid gloves treatment he gets in Ron Suskind's book, just can't coming across as naive and a bit odd -- and both wilted under pressure from the WH. The attacks on Clarke, methinks, are only fuel for the fire, and let Kerry cut into Bush's credibility on national security without explicitly going negative.
  
• As often happens, Kevin Drum has the best take on what the White House should have done. A calm, understated response that would have left Clarke with a mere 15 minutes of fame and his book mired far off the best seller list, garnering attention only from those who already oppose everything Bush does. Instead Clarke's headed for celebrity and is raking in royalties by the truckload. Now you've go to believe there are dozens of other administration insiders pondering a quick "tell all and cash in" strategy. (BTW, congrats on the new gig Kevin! Well deserved, and your always high quality commentary is even better now!)
  
• Even if the administration wises up and flies right, this is already a serious losing issue for them. Over 600,000 copies of Clarke's book are in print, Condi has to swear on her mother's grave, and the Bush-Cheney joint appearance before the 9-11 commission is going to get parsed down to the phoneme. Even if they have nothing to hide, it will almost certainly raise more questions than it answers, so this could simmer all summer.
  

All in all, Rove and company have forgotten the most basic rule of presidential politics: a third of the people are going to support you no matter what you say, a third won't support you in any event, it's the other third, the ones in the middle, that you have to plan around. If I was open-minded about who I was going to vote for in November, I'd be reading Clarke's book, wondering about the White House's histrionic response, and asking some pretty serious questions.

UPDATE 4/1/04: Catching up on my reading, I see that Kevin has another excellent post about Clarke, quoting liberally from a Washington Post profile that appeared over a year ago. Take the time to give this a read. The White House has definitely picked a poor fight.

The March of Folly

Brad DeLong has an excellent post (with some fairly good follow-up commentary) about the weak labor market and its relation to the administration's severely misguided fiscal policies. I couldn't say it any more clearly than Brad, "...the effect of the 2003 (and 2001) Bush tax cuts was to enlarge the budget deficit in a relatively un-job creating way. It is as if they were designed to reduce national savings as much as possible in the long run while providing little short-run boost to demand."

As an added bonus, Brad works in some well-deserved criticism of the blinders worn by far too many "experts" in the mainstream press who checked their brains at the door when Bush was nominated (in this case Robert Samuelson).

I have a couple quick observations to add to Brad's thoughts: It's not like this should be a complete surprise. A wide range of sensible and respected economists predicted, back in the early days of the 2000 presidential campaign, that Bush's proposed tax cuts would have just this effect. At the time, before the recession and sharp drop in the job market, the arguments centered primarily about the wisdom of what to do with the surplus, and the relative fairness of giving so large a proportion of the cuts to the wealthy --- leave it to the Democrats, they seldom miss a chance to substitute brain-dead populism for clear policy --- but now that we're in an extended jobless recovery (Brad estimates we're 4 million jobs behind where we could be with sensible fiscal policies) why isn't the press (and the public at large) all over these guys for it?

The standard "talking point" given by the administration is that "but for the president's policies, the job market would be even worse" which is (a) completely hypothetical and (b) even if you accept it means we are arguing over whether Bush is the absolute worse or just the second worst president for job creation in the last 100 years. Don't we expect better?

What I Like to Read

For me, as for so many other people in this country, the events of 9/11 were an unexpected shock, and their aftermath has brought enormous personal change. I was fortunate enough not to lose any relatives or close friends in the tragedy, but know far too many who did, and my heart goes out to them, and to the thousands of others who suffered such quick and terrible losses that day.

Since then, I've made a conscious effort to live a more informed life, and to cherish the freedoms and good fortune which I, and most Americans, had too often taken for granted.

Trying to become a better "citizen of the world," I am working my way through an extensive reading list, including most of Bernard Lewis' books, various histories of Islam and the Middle East, and several volumes on military history. To understand the current role of the US and the challenges we face I read books such as Kennedy's "The Rise and Fall of Great Powers." In the lead up to the Iraq war I read Tuchman's sublime "The Guns of August" and Fromkin's equally good (and more readable) "A Peace to End All Peace." In time I'll offer assessments of these and other books (and am always open to suggestions for what to read next).

But what has really proven educational is regular consumption of the blogosphere. For what it's worth, I was one of the early pioneers of the internet/web --- and no, I don't remember Al Gore being involved much --- and I think that the weblog is, thus far, the truest incarnation of Tim Berners-Lee's original vision: an open marketplace of ideas so nimble, so widespread, and so open that the quality of thought is the only real currency. It's hard to say whether the mainstream media has become passe, or just cowed by a disciplined and heavy-handed administration, but either way, if you want to learn about current affairs, the blogosphere is the place to be.

Here, in no particular order, is a short list of the blogs I try to skim at least daily, mainly centered on foreign affairs, economic policy, and a certain amount of domestic politics. I'll frequently link to stories on one or more of these sites, along with my own commentary. As with my (physical) reading list, I'm always looking for suggestions on good blogs to follow, and make a conscious effort to read a wide range

Talking Points Memo: I'll start with the best! To me Josh Marshall is the master of the game nowadays, respected on both the right and the left, and better described as a "real time on-line journalist" than a blogger. As befits a historian, his posts are almost always well researched and impeccably written.

Brad DeLong's Web Journal: Brad is a Professor of Economics at Berkeley, and he consistently has the best economic commentary to be found on-line. He's also quite a comic stylist, and I'd read his blog every day just to catch the occasional faux Socratic dialogue.

Andrew Sullivan/The Daily Dish: One of the acknowledged masters of the trade. His posts are cryptic, sharp, almost cutting, but on TV he seems different from his written persona: warm, thoughtful, balanced... thus, of all the bloggers I read, Andrew is the one I would most like to meet in person.

Calpundit: I began reading Kevin Drum's excellent work during his well-researched analysis of GWB's national guard service discrepancies.

Daniel Drezner: This eponymous web site by a University of Chicago PoliSci professor focuses on foreign policy, current affairs, and on more than one occasion, beautiful women wearing skimpy swimsuits.

Kausfiles: Long brought to us by Slate, Mickey's daily musings always give me a laugh and more often than not leave me thinking hard about an issue or two. He does such a good job of covering the blogosphere you could almost treat his column as a "blog portal."

Other excellent blogs sampled less regularly:

The Whiskey Bar: An aptly named "hangout" for leisurely and well informed posts by a former journalist with a bent for history, politics, economics, and populism.

Instapundit: Law Professor Glenn Reynolds' musings can be found here, as well as at GlennReynolds.com. I used to read this regularly, but suspect Glenn is pulled in too many directions at the moment. The price of success.

Patrick Ruffini: Want to meet someone for whom being a Republican is a divine experience? Patrick fills the bill and makes it fun, if occasionally over the top. Welcome to "red state" America!

The Belgravia Dispatch: Excellent, thoughtful, blog focusing on Foreign Affairs, and with a non-US slant, by Greg Djerejian in London.