Another Democratic fumble

For an example of why earmark reform is going to be messy, consider this: Senate Democrats were forced to delay a vote after nine Democrats joined with Republicans to back a reform bill that is stricter than the Democrat version.

The measure, an amendment to an ethics and lobbying bill, would have adopted a wider definition of "earmarks," specific projects inserted in bills, to include Corps of Engineer water projects, Pentagon weapon systems and items from other federal entities.

The language favored by Reid would require disclosure of only targeted funds directed to nonfederal entities such as city parks, state universities and private contractors.

Good as far as it goes; the Republican bill essentially mirrors language passed by House Democrats. But here are the two most interesting details:

DeMint insisted that the Senate definition would catch about 5 percent of earmarks, saying that in most instances lawmakers insert their pet projects not into the bill itself but into the explanatory report language that accompanies the bill and is not subject to a vote.

Sen. Tom Coburn, R-Okla., said that of 12,852 earmarks found in bills last year, 534 would be subject to Senate disclosure rules....

Democratic Whip Dick Durbin, D-Ill., also said the DeMint provision was "unworkable" because it was so broad it could be applied to thousands of projects included in federal spending bills.

This illustrates a common Congressional trick: passing laudable bills, but writing key exceptions into the instructions for federal bureaucrats who actually come up with the regulations and formulas for turning the bill into workable law.

And if Durbin's right, it means lawmakers must first agree on a meaningful definition of "earmark."

But legislation that only catches 5 percent of such deals isn't worth the effort. Congress should come up with an effective rule or stop pretending it cares.

earmarks, ethics, politics, midtopia

Democrats ease on down the sleaze trail

In the opening week of the new Congressional session, Democrats have generally kept to their promises, including their stated committment to clean up the ethics and pork-barrel mentality in Congress.

But now comes an example of why they should be subjected to close scrutiny.

The new minimum-wage bill, which would raise the wage from $5.15 to $7.25, fulfills one of their "100 hour" pledges. But dig into the details, and you find the wage doesn't apply to every location under American jurisidiction. For instance, it will affect the Northern Marianas, home of notorious garment sweatshops. But it specifically exempts American Samoa.

What's so special about Samoa? It has a Democratic delegate to Congress, for one thing. Further, it's dominated by the tuna industry. And one of the biggest tuna canners, StarKist, is owned by Del Monte, which has its corporate headquarters in Pelosi's San Francisco district.

The direct Pelosi link is a bit hyped -- Del Monte is a huge and geographically diverse company, and none of the StarKist operations are in San Francisco -- but the exemption makes no sense. If a minimum wage is good for the Marianas and the U.S. proper, it's good for Samoa.

And the Republicans don't escape untainted here, either. They opposed the minimum wage measure, so it's a bit disingenuous to see them complaining that it doesn't cover every last inch of U.S. territory. And they did pretty much nothing about the Marianas sweatshops when they were in power; at least the Democrats are doing something.

The story notes that canneries in Southeast Asia pay 67 cents an hour instead of the average of $3.60 that Samoan canneries pay, raising the concern that applying the new minimum wage to Samoa would cause the canneries to leave en masse and make Samoa one big welfare client, because the canneries employ about half of the Samoan workforce.

But is making people work for $3.60 an hour really a solution? Doesn't that just perpetuate a bad situation -- and, given the low Asian wages, one that isn't going to get better? Isn't the real answer to diversify the Samoan economy so it no longer has to rely on such low-wage jobs, especially jobs concentrated in a single industry?

The minimum wage should apply to Samoa. And if that causes the canneries to leave, then a two-pronged response is called for: a look at how to draw investment to Samoa to replace them, and an examination of the goals and economic rationale behind the minimum wage.

Opponents have long said that the minimum wage hurts small businesses and low-wage businesses and the workers they employ, both by making those businesses less competitive and by giving them incentive to hire fewer workers. If the canneries leave Samoa, that would seem to prove the opponents right. Supporters would then need to show why Samoa is an exception, or why such localized effects are outweighed by the overall benefit of a higher wage.

Those benefits are usually described in terms of overall benefit: 900,000 workers making $7 an hour collectively make more money ($6.3 million) than 1 million workers making $5 an hour ($5 million). So even though some workers are laid off, as a group minimum-wage workers are better off. And while those 100,000 laid-off workers may end up on welfare, a higher minimum wage makes getting a job an attractive alternative to remaining on welfare, so overall one should see a decline in welfare rolls as well.

Finally, the ripple effect of a higher minimum wage means wages higher up the payscale will likely see a minor bump, too, spreading the benefit to more workers and helping increase real wage gains in an economy, like this one, that has seen wage increases lag far behind corporate profits.

The question comes down to whether the benefits outweigh the costs, and that depends on the size of the various effects: In my example above, if raising the wage to $7 results in a 30 percent layoff rate instead of 10 percent, the group benefit for low-wage workers disappears.

Sorry for the tangent. Bottom line: if the Democrats want to apply the minimum wage, it should apply to all U.S. territories. Anything else is unfair.

ethics, Samoa, minimum wage, politics, midtopia

Iraq plan DOA?

Probably not, but the ranks of Republican opponents is growing in a sort of negative bipartisanship. Several senators took on Condoleeza Rice on the topic today on Capitol Hill.

Some were longtime war opponents, like Chuck Hagel:

President Bush’s decision to deploy 21,500 additional troops to Iraq drew fierce opposition Thursday from congressional Democrats and some Republicans — among them Sen. Chuck Hagel, who called it "the most dangerous foreign policy blunder in this country since Vietnam."...

In a heated exchange with Hagel, a potential presidential candidate in 2008, Rice disputed his characterization of Bush’s buildup as an "escalation."

"Putting in 22,000 more troops is not an escalation?" Hagel, a Vietnam veteran and longtime critic of Bush’s Iraq policy, asked. "Would you call it a decrease?"

"I would call it, senator, an augmentation that allows the Iraqis to deal with this very serious problem that they have in Baghdad," she said.

Hagel told Rice, "Madame secretary, Iraqis are killing Iraqis. We are in a civil war. This is sectarian violence out of control."

She disputed that Iraq was in the throes of a civil war. To that, Hagel said, "To sit there and say that, that’s just not true."

More interesting to me, though, is Bill Nelson, D-Fla., who withdrew his support while complaining that the Bush administration had lied to him and the American people. Or George Voinovich, R-Ohio, who did not come out and say he was withdrawing support, but said Bush had not made a convincing case for his plan.

Separately, an Associated Press poll found strong opposition to the president's plan, with 70 percent opposing sending more troops. Polls should be taken with a grain of salt. This one, for instance, largely reflects overwhelming (87 percent) opposition from Democrats and lukewarm (52 percent) support from Republicans. But that's still a solid majority opposed to the idea.

terrorism, Iraq, politics, midtopia

Same old, same old

A steady stream of leaks means there were few surprises in Bush's speech on Iraq, but let's go through it anyway.

First, two reference links: The speech, and the fact sheet.

Bush starts out by acknowledging the obvious: 2006 was a disaster. He says any mistakes are his, and that it's clear a change is needed. All good words, but it's disheartening that Bush was months behind the rest of the country in recognizing the downward spiral in Iraq.

He then asserts that "failure in Iraq would be a disaster." In the fact sheet, the phrasing is even starker: "The war on terror cannot be won if we fail in Iraq." Those are scare words, and simply not true. Iraq is hurting our cause, not helping it. But let's address Bush's specific arguments.

Radical Islamic extremists would grow in strength and gain new recruits and oil revenue from a "safe haven" in Iraq. Nope. Our presence in Iraq has itself greatly increased extremist recruiting and helped inflame an entire region; I doubt our leaving could boost it much more. Plus, Iraq would not become a "safe haven" for terrorists. The Shiite majority has no use for the Sunni fundamentalists in Al-Qaeda. Nor do the Kurds. Nor do most of the Sunni clans, who resent foreign interference as well as the attempts to provoke a sectarian war against the numerically superior Shiites. If we leave, the insurgency loses most of its momentum and al-Qaeda loses most of its support.

Iran would be emboldened to pursue nuclear weapons. Perhaps. But they're pretty darned emboldened now, and one reason is because we have our hands full in Iraq. Leaving Iraq would give us a lot more options for dealing with Iran.

That's it; that's what he says to support the "cannot be won if we fail in Iraq" claim.

Next he turns to solutions. First, secure Baghdad. He correctly notes that most of the sectarian violence occurs in the ethnically mixed areas in and around the capital. He also correctly notes that all previous attempts to secure Baghdad failed because we didn't have enough troops.

Again, totally unsurprising -- and totally disheartening that Bush has only now come to that conclusion, three years (and at least three "retake Baghdad" attempts) after invading.

He claims the new pacification plan will work. Here it is. Iraqi army and police units will spread out across Baghdad and do most of the heavy lifting. American troops -- five brigades worth -- will back them up. This, supposedly, will finally give us enough troops to clear and hold neighborhoods.

Except that these are the same Iraqi troops that didn't do much in previous efforts, and the same Iraqi police that are riven with sectarian divisions, as well as being underequipped and ill-trained to engage in urban combat. And again, "clear and hold" has been the policy for a long time. Bush is admitting that for months he has been pursuing a strategy that was doomed to fail because there weren't enough troops to make it work. If there weren't enough troops, why was he pursuing such a strategy?

On Sunday, George Will made the point that, Bush's blithe assertions aside, even with the additional troops we still won't have enough forces. He quotes Wayne White, a long-time State Department official, who calls Baghdad "a Shiite-Sunni Stalingrad."

Based on experience in the Balkans, an assumption among experts is that to maintain order in a context of sectarian strife requires one competent soldier or police officer for every 50 people. For the Baghdad metropolitan area (population: 6.5 million), that means 130,000 security personnel. There are 120,000 now, but 66,000 of them are Iraqi police, many — perhaps most — of whom are worse than incompetent.

Because their allegiances are to sectarian factions, they are not responsive to legitimate central authority. They are part of the problem. Therefore even a substantial surge of, say, 30,000 U.S. forces would leave Baghdad that many short, and could be a recipe for protracting failure.

Bush claims that political interference -- read, opposition from the U.S.-supported central government -- hamstrung previous pacification efforts, but this time the Iraqis have pledged to be cooperative. Good as far as it goes -- but the fact that such a pledge is needed speaks volumes about the likelihood of success this time around.

Bush also told Prime Minister Maliki that the American committment is not open-ended, and mentioned the benchmarks he has established for the Iraqi government to show it can become self-reliant. He said Iraq will take over all security responsibilities by November, reform the oil-revenue laws, hold provincial elections, allow Baathists back into government and spend $10 billion on reconstruction.

All good, but mostly surface. The benchmarks are not particularly demanding. "Security responsibilities" is a paper handoff; U.S. troops will still be heavily involved. Elections mean little as far as security. The revenue sharing and deBaathification are solid, addressing two major Sunni grievances.

The $10 billion is kind of remarkable, considering that Iraq's entire federal budget is only $65 billion. The link, by the way, also raises another question about Iraq's ability to achieve self-reliance, because that federal budget is larger than its GDP ($47 billion), and includes a $16 billion annual deficit.

Bush didn't mention a reported pledge of $1 billion in U.S. money. Which is just as well; $1 billion would sound more impressive if his 2007 budget hadn't cut Iraq reconstruction aid from about $10 billion a year to zero.

Let's see, what else: increased training of Iraqi forces? Good, as long as we're not just training and arming militia members. Better coordination of reconstruction efforts? Good, but minor. Increase forces in Anbar province by 4,000 troops? Good, I guess, but probably too few to make a serious difference, and since those troops will simply be reshuffled from elsewhere in Iraq it means the game of whack-a-mole continues.

Intriguingly, he then refers to "interrupting the flow of support from Iran and Syria" -- but gives no details. I'm curious what he means by that. He can't mean diplomacy, because he has ruled out talks with those two. And we don't have enough troops to seal the border. Does he mean cross-border strikes? Aggressive interdiction? That should be a focus of questioning from the press.

He then closes with stirring rhetoric.

The fact sheet fleshes out some details -- a demobilization program for militias, increasing the size of Iraqi security forces, reforming the Interior Ministry -- but little else.

So what's new? Not much. I have to agree with several other observers, including the WaPo's Don Froomkin and conservative blogger AllahPundit: His grand new strategy is just more of the same. Another conservative blogger, Jay Reding, provides some more analysis, but even he was underwhelmed.

We are in trouble.

terrorism, Iraq, politics, midtopia

The lessons of Somalia

The recent U.S. airstrikes against suspected al-Qaeda militants in Somalia raises some questions and reinforces some points that often get lost in the debate over Iraq.

Reports out of Somalia are, as always, conflicting on that score. Somali officials are reporting that Fazul Abdullah Mohammed, a key planner of the 1998 embassy bombings, was killed, but U.S. officials caution against believing that and say they aren't even sure he was in the country.

Assuming the strike is not a precursor to something foolish -- like the introduction of U.S. ground troops -- it signals a return to the sort of thing we should be doing in battling terrorism: identifying top terrorists and killing them, as we have with missile-armed drones in Yemen and other such places. It's a pinpoint approach that goes after actual terrorists, rather than the big hammer approach of invasion that inflames whole populations and consumes lives and resources while creating enemies rather than eliminating them.

It's not always the easiest path. It takes elite troops and excellent equipment. It requires that the intelligence be good and the strike accurate. And above all it takes patience -- both political and tactical.

So far, the Somali strike appears to fit the bill. Let's hope we see more of this sort of operation as we begin to extricate ourselves from the mess in Iraq.

Somalia also shows the value of using regional proxies -- Ethiopia, in this case -- to do whatever conventional fighting is required. By avoiding the introduction of U.S. troops, it not only makes such interventions easier politically but also avoids a very practical problem -- the inflammatory nature of a U.S. troop presence. Astute selection of such countries helps develop and strengthen allies in key regions and sends a message to the world: if you fight terrorists, you can expect our help; if you harbor them, you can expect us to help your enemies.

It's not quite that simple, of course: care must be taken not to back allies of momentary convenience, or get drawn into taking sides in a local conflict because of spurious or insignificant terrorist connections. But it worked in Afghanistan, it's working in Somalia and it can work elsewhere, too.

Somalia, terrorism, politics, midtopia

The final voyage of the Swiftboaters

Swiftboat Veterans for Truth, the Republican-backed organization that went after John Kerry in 2004, is no more.

The Federal Election Commission announced today that Swift Boat Veterans for Truth will pay a fine of under $300,000 and disband the 527 organization that expressly (and illegally) advocated for the defeat of Sen. John Kerry in the ‘04 presidential election.

The SwiftVets group raised more than $25 million in unlimited individual and corporate donations during the 2004 election cycle with the chief purpose of convincing voters through advertising, direct mail and other communications that Kerry was “unfit for command.” Such overt messages opposing a candidate should have required SwiftVets to register with the FEC as a political committee and abide by contribution limits.

By registering only with the Internal Revenue Service as a tax-exempt 527 organization, SwiftVets was able to accept approximately $12.5 million in individual contributions in excess of the $5,000-per-year limit to political committees and to accept more than $715,000 in prohibited corporate contributions—commonly called “soft money.”

John Kerry opened his war record up to scrutiny when he made it one of his main qualifications for office. But the Swiftboaters didn't just scrutinize him: they used innuendo, speculation and even outright lies to try to discredit him. Their Republican backing became known pretty quickly; and now we know that complaints about their tax status were justified.

Too bad the ruling comes two years too late. I wasn't a big Kerry fan (and I really, really, really hope he doesn't run again). But such a delayed ruling means the group had their full effect on the 2004 elections and essentially let them get away with illegal fundraising -- in exchange for a $300,000 fee (er, fine).

Better late than never. But let's hope the pace of justice moves a little more quickly in the 2008 cycle.

politics, midtopia

Chavez's tinpot socialist dream

Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez, fresh off a commanding electoral victory, wants to launch a socialist state by nationalizing industries and ruling by decree.

Chavez said he would submit a "revolutionary enabling law" to legislators through which he would be able to pass bills by decree to rush through socialist economic packages. The measure should sail through Congress, dominated by Chavez loyalists....

Chavez, in power since 1999, said he would nationalize Venezuela's largest telecommunications firm CANTV and unspecified power companies in the fourth biggest oil exporter to the United States.

He has also said that only loyalists can serve in the army or work for the state-run oil company.

It sure sounds like Chavez is setting himself up as a dictator -- and proponent of leftist revolutionary confrontation -- in the world's eighth-largest oil exporter, subverting democracy to his own ends.

What should we do about it? Nothing.

Chavez is hugely popular in Venezuela. He won 61% of the vote in the recent elections. Since opinion polls leading up to the vote showed similar levels of support, it's reasonable to conclude that the vote was accurate.

Further, Chavez is doing everything in the open. He's making no secret of his plans or his goals.

I think Venezuelans will come to regret throwing democracy away, but if they want a socialist dictatorship they should have it, and it should be none of our business.

But wait, critics say. Chavez controls all that oil. What if he uses it as a weapon?

What if he does? Venezuela's production of about 3 million barrels a day accounts for less than 4 percent of global output. He simply doesn't control enough of the market to be able to set prices -- or even influence them much. Further, anything he tries will end up hurting Venezuela more than his target, by reducing oil revenues. And he's going to need those revenues to finance his social programs.

Well, what about a military buildup? What if he invades his neighbors?

Venezuela's military is tiny: about 82,000 total, of which the Army accounts for 34,000 (plus another 23,000 national guardsmen). While the air force is relatively modern, the navy is small and aging and the army's equipment is seriously outdated. Total military spending is less than $2 billion a year, and a tiny fraction of GDP.

To the west, Colombia spends more than three times as much. To the south, Brazil spends 12 times as much. Only tiny Guyana to the east could possibly be a victim, with just 1,600 or so troops. But beyond the general sanction such a move would bring, Guyana is a member of the British Commonwealth -- meaning Britain would take specific exception to any aggressive move. Plus Guyana is a poor country, with nothing of value that Chavez could want.

What about using his oil money to finance leftist insurgencies around South America and the Caribbean? This is the most legitimate worry, as it's the most feasible way for Chavez to stir up trouble if he were so inclined. But it hasn't happened yet, and there's nothing to do until it does. We cannot and should not punish a country for what we think it might do someday. We can only punish it for its actions or clearly imminent actions.

So while Venezuela appears ready to embark on a major mistake, it is their mistake to make. Our role is simply to be vigilant to make sure Chavez's problems stay inside his borders -- and to assist democracy if and when the Venezuelan people grow tired of dictators.

Chavez, Venezuela, politics, midtopia

Implementing the 9/11 Comission recommendations

One of the Democrats' "100 hours" promises was to implement all of the 9/11 Commission's recommendations, notably a push to screen every cargo container that enters the country, plus mandates to distribute security funds by need rather than geography.

The latter is a no-brainer, and it has been a badge of shame for Congress that up until now such spending has been subject to the same "every Congressmember gets a share" mentality that has so poorly served the country.

On cargo inspection, however, conservatives are pushing back.

The bill requires that within three years, all cargo on passenger jets be inspected for explosives, as checked baggage is now. The House bill also requires that within five years all ship cargo containers headed to the United States be scanned overseas for components of a nuclear bomb.

Homeland Security Department officials say there is no proven technology for such comprehensive cargo screening, at least at a reasonable cost or without causing worldwide bottlenecks in trade. The screening for air cargo is estimated to cost $3.6 billion over the next decade, and ship inspections could cost even more. “Inspecting every container could cause ports to literally shut down,” said Russ Knocke, a Homeland Security spokesman.

First off, reasonable cost? We've spent or authorized about $400 billion on Iraq thus far, with credible estimates putting the long-term cost at up to $2 trillion. $3.6 billion for a decade of cargo screening is a bargain by contrast.

Maybe conservatives are bad at math.

The more credible criticisms are whether 100 percent screening should be a mandate rather than a goal, and whether the proposed methods would actually work efficiently.

I totally understand cumbersome bureaucracies using ineffective technology: consider the Transportation Security Administration. It would be pointless to spend billions installing a system that doesn't work. For instance:

The radiation detection equipment now in use, for example, probably would not pick up a crucial radioactive substance for a nuclear weapon if the material was shielded. And even if all cargo containers were checked, terrorists could find other ways to smuggle weapons into the United States, including on private boats or ships that carry cars, which would not be not covered by the inspection mandates.

But that's a criticism of a specific technology. And smuggling in radioactive materials in cars or boats opens would-be terrorists to detection by other means, as well as simply making it more difficult. A working nuke, even a small one, weighs a ton and fits in a pickup truck bed. That's a difficult thing to transport, much less move across the border undetected.

In any event, such reservations should be an excuse to ignore the gaping cargo hole in our security net.

Is it worth several billion to improve cargo inspections? Yes. Can we do it without shutting down international commerce? Yes, even if we have to resort to such low-tech methods as hiring thousands more inspectors to physically search more containers, both randomly selected and those identified as suspicious based on port of origin, destination, the shippers involved, paperwork problems, etc.

Such inspections would pay other dividends as well, helping fight both smuggling and illegal immigration. So the cost could be justified on broader grounds than "finding nukes."

Speaking of bureaucracy, consider this beauty:

Homeland Security Department officials said they were researching ways to inspect more air and sea cargo. The agency has tests planned this year at three ports in Pakistan, Honduras and England, where all ship containers headed for the United States will be checked for radioactive substances or dense objects that might be hiding a bomb.

Got that? Five years after 9/11, the agency is researching ways to inspect more cargo. Way to go, guys. Nimble and flexible, that's you.

I'll accept that 100 percent screening should be a goal rather than a mandate. But intermediate steps -- say, 50 percent or 75 percent -- should be mandates, with the specific methodology and timetables emerging after discussions with Homeland Security. Such a two-pronged approach would provide increased security now and the promise of a more thorough and efficient process later as technology matures.

Update: Here's a nice explanation of the difficulties involved in detecting enriched uranium. Plutonium's easy; uranium, much less so.

terrorism, security, politics, midtopia

The U.N. complex(ity)

A large segment of the U.S. public likes to bash the United Nations at every turn, accusing it of ineffectiveness (while paradoxically accusing it of taking over the world), corruption and harboring socialist, anti-Western mentalities.

They have a few valid points, mostly on the corruption and bureaucracy front. But the "socialist, antiWestern" charge mostly applies to the all-but-powerless General Assembly, while ignoring the fact that when it comes to actual action the U.N. cannot do anything without the approval of the five permanent members of the Security Council. Further, the bills are largely paid by the West. Those facts, combined with the United State's economic and military clout, means the U.N. serves our purposes far more than it undermines them.

The "ineffectiveness" charge springs from that, mixed in with a misunderstanding of the purpose of the United Nations and an ignoring of the many good works the organization performs.

So it was refreshing to see this balanced look at the U.N. from the Economist magazine.

It paints a picture of the organizational and political weaknesses that hobble the U.N., as well as the things it does well. For instance:

the UN's once shambolic relief operations are now regarded as second to none. Around 30m people in some 50 countries currently depend on its services for survival. In March a new $500m central emergency relief fund was launched to deliver assistance within hours, rather than months, of an emergency. Another $250m fund, administered by the UN's new intergovernmental Peacebuilding Commission, has been set up to help finance reconstruction in countries emerging from conflict.

Peacekeeping, which is not even mentioned in the UN Charter, is another of the organisation's recent success stories. The explosion of civil wars and of ethnic and religious violence at the end of the cold war caught the UN by surprise. It had no standing army, no effective military staff, and very little peacekeeping experience. What troops it managed to muster, mostly from developing countries, were often poorly trained and badly equipped. Peacekeeping mandates from the Security Council tended to be far too restrictive both in scope and numbers. Some terrible mistakes were made: the UN's failure to stop the slaughter in Rwanda and the massacre in Srebrenica continues to haunt it. But over the past five years or so there has been a marked improvement.

A 2005 Rand Corporation study of American and UN peacekeeping operations concluded that the blue-helmet missions were not only cheaper, but had a higher success rate and enjoyed greater international legitimacy. Another Canadian study attributed the dramatic decline in the number of conflicts and battle deaths over the past decade to the “huge increase” in preventive diplomacy and peacekeeping over the same period, “for the most part authorised and mounted by the UN”. Never has the demand for the organisation's peacekeeping services been so great

To add some detail to that last point, consider another Economist article and a U.N. fact sheet. About 80,000 U.N. peacekeepers are now deployed in 18 hot spots around the world -- and by and large they are doing a very good job at halting hostilities and providing stability. And they do it for just $4.75 billion a year -- about what we spend in Iraq in three weeks.

The peacekeepers are mostly from developing countries, and the bills are mostly paid by Western countries. One can read all sorts of political meaning into that, but it comes down to a simple case of economics -- comparative advantage, to be precise. Developing countries are poor and wages are low, so peacekeeping duties can be attractive. Western countries have money but limited political will or patience for peacekeeping, and few Western soldiers want to be deployed to remote areas for extended periods. So the rich pay the poor to do the work.

The U.N. has also produced a slew of multilateral treaties and economic agreements that would have been difficult to arrange -- and enforce -- otherwise.

Does the U.N. deserve criticism? Of course. Does it deserve absolute condemnation, a U.S. pullout and extinction? No. What it does require is an understanding of its powers and limitations, and the patience to deal with what is essentially a messy and imperfect democracy of 192 fractious members. Sometimes it doesn't seem worth it; but I think we would come to find that a world without the U.N. as a safety valve -- no forum for discussion, no diplomatic cover for U.S. actions, no moral legitimacy for pronouncements on human rights, for example, or the rights of nations -- would be a world much less to our liking.

United Nations, politics, midtopia

A look at dark matter

Dark matter -- a long-postulated mystery substance that makes up at least 6/7 of the mass of the universe -- has apparently finally been found.

One of the greatest mysteries of the universe is about to be unravelled with the first detailed, three-dimensional map of dark matter - the invisible material that makes up most of the cosmos.

Astronomers announced yesterday that they have achieved the apparently impossible task of creating a picture of something that has defied every attempt to detect it since its existence was first postulated in 1933.

Dark matter is thought to be some sort of subatomic particle that doesn't interact much with ordinary matter like you and me. Think of neutrinos with mass. Because it doesn't interact directly, the only way to detect its presence is by the gravitational effect of its mass.

Even more interesting is how the dark matter is organized:

"A filamentary web of dark matter is threaded through the entire universe, and acts as scaffolding within which the ordinary matter - including stars, galaxies and planets - can later be built," Dr Massey said. "The most surprising aspect of our map is how unsurprising it is. Overall, we seem to understand really well what happens during the formation of structure and the evolution of the universe," he said.

Astronomers have long been aware of various structural symmetries in the visible universe. For instance, they've identified a "supercluster" known as the Great Wall, a sheet of galaxies 500 million light years long, 200 million light years wide and 15 million light years deep. Another is the Great Attractor.

Such structures are exceptions to theory, which expects a more uniform distribution of galaxies resulting from the Big Bang. Dark matter, it turns out, may be one reason such structures exist.

Cool stuff. And one reason why generous funding of space exploration (manned, robotic and telescopic) should continue.

astrophysics, astronomy, science, space, politics, midtopia

The Bible in Legos

This guy has too much time on his hands (Hmm. As a blogger should I really be throwing stones like that?). But he's created a fabulously funny site with it.

Check out the visual index of Old Testament laws. The best sequence is "Why to Keep the Law," in which we discover in graphic Lego detail what happens if you don't follow God's word.

Legos, religion, politics, midtopia

Senate second thoughts

In a stark sign of how far the political winds surrounding Iraq have shifted -- and a sign of how difficult it will be for Bush to get Iraq initiatives through Congress -- a majority of senators who voted 77-23 to give Bush authorization to invade Iraq now say they regret the vote and would vote differently if the vote were held today.

By ABC News' count, if the Senators knew then what they know now, only 43 — at most — would still vote to approve the use of force and the measure would be defeated. And at least 57 senators would vote against going to war, a number that combines those who already voted against the war resolution with those who told ABC News they would vote against going to war, or said that the pre-war intelligence has been proven so wrong the measure would lose or it would never even come to a vote.

For any Senate vote to switch from 77-23 in favor to essentially 57-43 against is quite remarkable, and far more so for a decision as significant as the one to go to war.

This isn't a comparison of that Congress to this Congress; it's asking those who cast a vote on the resolution -- be they current or former senators -- how they would vote today.

There's a small hole in ABC's methodology, in that they didn't ask those who voted against the resolution whether they now supported it. But that's a tiny thing, because it's highly unlikely that the answer would be "yes."

Hindsight is great, of course. But it demonstrates how impossible it is anymore to paint war opponents as far-left extremists or naive hippies or Al-Qaeda sympathizers.

And there's this observation:

The president, not up for re-election, can try to move forward on his plans for Iraq regardless of public sentiment, Ornstein added.

"But if Lyndon Johnson were alive today, he'd tell the president you can't keep prosecuting a war when the public — and many of your congressional supporters — abandon you," he said. "It makes it much, much harder to sustain it."

Among those who stood by their vote to authorize war were Republicans Dick Lugar, Sam Brownback, Pete Domenici, Orrin Hatch and Bill Frist, and Democrats Joe Lieberman and Ben Nelson.

There's actually a lot more nuance to the answers than you might expect, so if you want the full taste, read the link.

Iraq, politics, midtopia

White House secrecy -- literally

In its continued quest to claim the title of "most secretive administration in history" -- a title that many observers think they've already won by a landslide -- the Bush administration has now classified White House visitor logs.

The five-page document dated May 17 declares that all entry and exit data on White House visitors belongs to the White House as presidential records rather than to the Secret Service as agency records. Therefore, the agreement states, the material is not subject to public disclosure under the Freedom of Information Act.

In the past, Secret Service logs have revealed the comings and goings of various White House visitors, including Monica Lewinsky and Clinton campaign donor Denise Rich, the wife of fugitive financier Marc Rich, who received a pardon in the closing hours of the Clinton administration.

The memo last spring was signed by the White House and Secret Service the day after a Washington-based group asked a federal judge to impose sanctions on the Secret Service in a dispute over White House visitor logs for Abramoff.

And now for the irony:

In the mid-1990s, a conservative group, Judicial Watch, obtained Secret Service entry logs through a lawsuit.

Secret Service records played a significant role in the Whitewater scandal in the 1990s, supplying congressional Republicans with leads to follow in their investigations of the Clintons.

A decade ago, Senate investigators used Secret Service logs to document who visited the White House during the fundraising scandal surrounding
President Clinton's re-election campaign.

Good for the goose -- but, apparently, not good for the gander.

I thought reclassifying declassified material was ridiculous. But this is truly ridiculous. And a transparent attempt to hide material that is merely embarassing rather than sensitive.

I hope Bush is either forced to retract the memo, or the case moves quickly to the courts for a ruling. A hearty helping of ridicule and yet further reduced political capital for the president is also in order.

ethics, security, Bush, politics, midtopia

Political Compass

Not much time tonight, so how about a little topical entertainment?

The blog is named Midtopia, and I think of myself as a moderate. But am I really? I took the Political Compass test to find out.

It plots your political position on two axes, giving a more nuanced view than the traditional left-right divide.

My score on a scale that seems to go from -10 to +10:

Economic Left/Right: -1.38 (slightly left leaning)
Social Libertarian/Authoritarian: -3.18 (moderately Libertarian)

I guess I really am moderate -- though with a libertarian streak. And I think the nature of some of the questions means the score actually overstates my leftward tilt.

If you're interested, take the test and post your score in the comments.

politics, midtopia

Let Bush read your mail

Speaking of civil liberties, here's Bush's opening salvo for 2007.

President Bush has quietly claimed sweeping new powers to open Americans' mail without a judge's warrant, the Daily News has learned.

The President asserted his new authority when he signed a postal reform bill into law on Dec. 20. Bush then issued a signing statement that declared his right to open people's mail under emergency conditions.

That claim is contrary to existing law and contradicted the bill he had just signed, say experts who have reviewed it.

Bush's defense -- that a looming emergency, such as a ticking bomb, overrides such protections -- rings hollow, since such exceptions are already clearly enshrined in law, and his language, which cites "exigent circumstances", is far broader than such exceptions. Further, a warrant to search specific, suspect mail would not be hard or time-consuming to get. So it's difficult to see what the point of the signing statement is except to enlarge the exceptions beyond recognition.

Here's the text of the signing statement, in full. The bill itself was H.R. 6407 from the 109th Congress; you can find the full text of it on Thomas (see the sidebar for a link).

Side note: Beyond the statement on opening mail, Bush also rejected a rule requiring postal governors to represent the public interest, be chosen solely on the basis of their experience in public service, law, accounting or running a major organization, and not be representatives of "specific interests using the Postal Service". He also rejected a deadline to appoint an inspector general for the agency.

I understand Bush's insistence that deciding who to nominate to oversee the Postal Service is an executive prerogative. But it sure sounds bad to be defending his right to appoint self-interested cronies. Further, Congress was given specific authority over post offices in the Constitution, appointed the first Postmaster General (Ben Franklin) itself, and actually ran the Postal Service until 1970. So his authority here is somewhat more shaky. Finally, Congress' "advice and consent" role essentially makes the objection moot, as they can reject any appointee who doesn't meet the qualifications.

This is just one more example of why signing statements are a coward's way out, legislationwise. Rather than work with -- or confront -- Congress to adjust the bill's language -- and thus conduct business in full sunlight -- Bush simply signs it and then announces what he will accept and what he will ignore. It's bad governance, bad law and bad faith.

Postal Service, civil liberties, signing statements, politics, midtopia

The year in civil liberties

Dahlia Lithwick provided the rundown in the Washington Post. Some highlights:

The Bush administration's argument in court is that judges should dismiss entire lawsuits over many of the outrages detailed on this very list. Why? Because the outrageously illegal things are themselves matters of top-secret national security. The administration has raised this claim in relation to secret wiretapping and extraordinary renditions. A government privilege once used to sidestep civil claims has mushroomed into broad immunity for the administration's sometimes criminal behavior.

If government can cover up illegal activity simply by declaring it classified, we have no effective oversight of our elected officials.

Government Snooping: Take your pick. There's the continued defense of the National Security Agency's warrantless eavesdropping program wherein the president breezily authorized spying on the phone calls of innocent citizens, in violation of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act. The FBI's Talon database shows that the government has been spying on non-terrorist groups including Quakers, People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, and Veterans for Peace. And that's just the stuff we know about.

All stuff I've written about before, all stuff that should remind us of the very worst of the McCarthy and Nixon eras.

Jose Padilla. First, he was "exploring a plan to build and explode a radiological dispersion device, or 'dirty bomb,' in the United States," according to then-Attorney General John D. Ashcroft. Then, he was planning to blow up apartments and, later, was part of a vague terrorism conspiracy to commit jihad in Bosnia and Chechnya. Always, he was a U.S. citizen. After 3 1/2 years in which he was denied the most basic legal rights, it has emerged that Padilla was either outright tortured or near-tortured and, according to experts, is too mentally damaged now to stand trial. The Bush administration supported his motion for a mental competency assessment, in hopes that such a motion would help prevent his torture claims from going to trial. As Yale Law School's Jack Balkin put it: "You can't believe Padilla when he says we tortured him because he's crazy from all the things we did to him."

And let's not forget that the government defended its right to hold him as an "enemy combatant" until a court ordered them to provide actual evidence to support such a designation -- at which point the administration abruptly dropped all terrorism charges and dumped him into the civil courts. This is the same administration that asks us to just trust that they're doing the right thing.

Never mind civil liberties. At this point, they have to first convince us that they're actually competent.

civil liberties, Bush, politics, midtopia

Bet you can't top this

Competing in the "extreme bipartisanship" category is the Pennsylvania legislature.

Democrats have assumed the majority in the Pennsylvania House and promptly elected a Republican as speaker the first time in at least a century that a majority party doesn't have one of its own members as presiding officer.

Republicans had held the majority for 12 years, but Democrats picked up eight seats in November, just enough to give them a 102-101 lead.

That was followed by two months of ballot recounting and political intrigue that culminated in a behind-the-scenes deal in which nearly all House Democrats and a half-dozen Republicans banded together to oust Republican Speaker John Perzel and put the gavel in the hands of GOP Rep. Dennis M. O'Brien by a 105-97 vote.

O'Brien was generally viewed as a less divisive figure than Perzel particularly among Democrats and his promises of reforms drew in votes from Republicans looking for an alternative.

We're only a few days into 2007, but I'm inclined to give them the award now. I don't think anyone will be able to top that.

bipartisanship, politics, midtopia

Now in session

The Minnesota Legislature opened its session today, with a situation mirroring the national one: both chambers controlled by Democrats (or the DFL, as they're known here) and the governor's seat occupied by a Republican.

One major difference, though, is in that Republican: Tim Pawlenty has already acknowledged the need to change course on several things, and he was always more clueful and willing to compromise than Bush is. So there's actually some hope that this legislature will be able to get some good things done.

Here are some of the things I've asked my elected representatives to do. A lot of the big issues (like civil liberties, health care, education or Iraq) are missing, and that's deliberate: I consider these items that need addressing, but are at risk of being lost in the shuffle.

To my local representatives:

1. Fund transit projects like the Central Corridor and Northstar, and start looking at ways to expand it into the western suburbs.

2. Legalize instant-runoff voting, both as an option for local elections and as a requirement for statewide contests.

3. Allow grocery stores to sell wine. It's a small thing, but I strongly dislike it when an industry (liquor stores, in this case) uses the law to insulate itself from competition.

4. Stop balancing the state budget on the backs of property taxpayers.

Nationally, I've asked my representatives to:

1. Sign on to tighter ethics rules and more transparent government.

2. Adopt "pay as you go" rules and aggressively reduce the deficit.

3. Reform Social Security by eliminating the earnings cap (thus replenishing the "trust fund" by recouping money from the taxpayers who most benefited from raiding it) and indexing benefit increases to inflation.

The list is hardly exhaustive. Feel free to list your political priorities in the comments.

Minnesota, politics, midtopia

Bush to Congress: drop dead

Speaking of bipartisanship, or lack thereof, the Justice Department has refused a Congressional request for documents detailing CIA interrogation procedures.

The administration notified Leahy on Dec. 22 that it would not release a presidential directive signed by Bush authorizing the CIA to set up secret prisons overseas for suspected terrorists or a 2002 Justice Department legal memorandum outlining "aggressive interrogation techniques."

Justice's reasoning is a bit specious:

In its Dec. 22 letter to Leahy, the Justice Department said the information he sought was classified and included confidential legal opinions that were privileged.

The department also said disclosing sensitive operational information, such as interrogation techniques, would help the enemy.

Classified informtion isn't an obstacle; the Congressmen involved usually have security clearances. And disclosing to Congress is aiding the enemy? I suppose it depends upon how you define "enemy."

Congress has a right to know how the president is carrying out the laws Congress has passed -- or whether he's violating them. Expect a subpoena from Leahy if this doesn't get resolved soon. And rightly so.

This is less a squabble between parties than a squabble between branches, but it doesn't bode well for the working relationship between Congress and the president if the administration remains unwilling to expose itself to such scrutiny.

CIA, torture, politics, midtopia

Democratic ethics specifics

Here are a few of the ethics provisions that will be adopted in the first 100 hours of the new Congress.

Democrats will adopt and then amend the House Rules package tomorrow to ban all travel paid for by lobbyists or organizations that employ lobbyists, require the ethics committee to pre-approve travel paid for by outside groups, enact a total gift ban, and require lawmakers to pay the market cost of flying on a corporate jet, said Democratic staffers and officials with government watchdog groups.

And, because they feel they lost the 2003 Medicare prescription drug benefit vote because GOP leaders held it open for three hours, during which they flipped opponents into the “yes” column, Democrats will include a provision in the rules to prevent any sort of repetition, said aides to incoming Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.).

Democrats also will eliminate the practices of changing conference reports after members have signed them and excluding elected members from conference committees.

All solid moves. Assuming they pass as described, an excellent first step toward fulfilling Democratic campaign promises.

Meanwhile, in a brilliant bit of politics, a couple of GOP members are tweaking Pelosi:

Meanwhile, GOP Reps. Tom Price (Ga.), Eric Cantor (Va.), and Patrick McHenry (N.C.) plan to introduce a resolution next week modeled on legislation that Pelosi introduced in 2004.

Pelosi’s “Minority Bill of Rights” demanded that legislation move through the committee process before reaching the House floor and urged GOP leaders to give lawmakers 24 hours to review legislation before it is considered and voted on by subcommittees or on the House floor.

While the GOP is being breathtakingly hypocritical in proposing the measure -- they never even considered Pelosi's proposal back in 2004 -- it appears to be a good bill, especially the part giving legislators time to actually read and understand what they are voting on. I'd have to look at the details, but if it's as described, it should be adopted, too -- while noting the self-serving hypocrisy of the GOP minority.

If the Dems reject the GOP bill they had better have a good reason, or else they open themselves to the same hypocrisy charge.

ethics, politics, midtopia

About Keith Ellison's swearing in....

.... he'll be using Thomas Jefferson's Koran.

Jefferson's copy is an English translation by George Sale published in the 1750s; it survived the 1851 fire that destroyed most of Jefferson's collection and has his customary initialing on the pages.

Jefferson wasn't Muslim, of course; he was simply a widely read intellectual. Still, pretty funny. Good to see Ellison keeping his temper and playing this perfectly.

religion, Keith Ellison, politics, midtopia

Thanks for the laughs, Mr. President

Bush is lecturing Congress on fiscal accountability.

President Bush said Wednesday he'll submit a proposal to balance the budget in five years and exhorted Congress to "end the dead of night process" of quietly tucking expensive pet projects into spending bills.

So let's see.... by 2012, four years after he leaves office, the budget will be balanced.... and then we can start paying off the $2 trillion in debt Bush has piled up during his term. And then we can get started on the trillions piled up by the presidents before him, most notably Reagan.

I also find it curious that Bush didn't have a problem with pork-barrel spending as long as Republicans were in charge of Congress. But now that the Dems have taken over -- Katie bar the door!

Still, however genuine his (political) deathbed conversion may be, let's hope he means it. Better a reluctant, late and hypocritical convert to fiscal sanity than continued red ink.

Bush tossed in another knee-slapper with a Wall Street Journal op-ed that called for -- get this -- bipartisanship.

If the Congress chooses to pass bills that are simply political statements, they will have chosen stalemate. If a different approach is taken, the next two years can be fruitful ones for our nation. We can show the American people that Republicans and Democrats can come together to find ways to help make America a more secure, prosperous and hopeful society. And we will show our enemies that the open debate they believe is a fatal weakness is the great strength that has allowed democracies to flourish and succeed.

Bush has a long history of talking a good game and then doing the opposite. His "I'm a uniter, not a divider" line remains a classic in the genre, along with such hits as "I'm a fiscal conservative" and "I do not want war with Iraq."

It's hardly surprising that his "reaching out" to the Democrats consists mostly of a threat to veto anything he doesn't like. It's consistent with his history: to Bush, bipartisanship means "we'll get along fine as long as you do it my way."

The good news, such as it is, is that the Republicans don't want to be seen as obstructionist, and don't want Bush to still be defining the party in 2008. So if Bush remains Bush, members of his own party will be elbowing each other aside to be the first to tie him to a rail and run him out of town.

It is entirely possible that Washington will devolve into partisan gridlock; such is the political maturity of many of our elected officials. But for now I hold out hope that the forces at play lean toward effective compromise instead.

Congress, Bush, politics, midtopia

Democratic backpedaling?

Are the Democrats walking the ethics and inclusiveness walk? You decide.

After some internal discussion, House Democrats have decided to use procedural rules to prevent Republicans from offering alternatives to any of their "first 100 hours" legislation -- bills to raise the minimum wage, rewrite ethics rules and the like.

Some observers have argued, vitriolically, that Dems have already abandoned their pledge to include the GOP in the legislative process -- in stark contrast to Republican behavior in the previous Congress, where a "majority of the majority" rule limited what bills could reach the floor.

Democrats, for their part, insist they remain committed to including Republicans, but don't want to give the opposition an opportunity to derail or delay these initial bills. They say the bills themselves have been debated at length before, so substantial additional debate or modification is unnecessary.

While I understand the Democrats' dilemma -- torn between full inclusiveness and the need to act quickly -- I will not be happy if this sets any sort of precedent for the rest of the session. I'll give them a pass on this if they live up to their promises on everything else; but it's yet another reason to watch them closely to make sure that they do.

Separately, the House ethics panel has publicly rebuked John Conyers, incoming chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, as part of a 2003 complaint that alleged he used congressional staff for personal errands and campaign work.

Speaker Nancy Pelosi has said Conyers will retain his chairmanship. Did she lie when she said she was going to clean up the House?

That depends on whether you think a three-year-old complaint should apply, and whether the admitted transgression rises to the level necessary to compel a resignation. Considering all Conyers has admitted to is not communicating clearly with his staff, that's hard to argue.

For me, the fact that the complaint is from 2003 is the major factor here. Democrats never said they would retroactively punish members, nor would that be good policy or good politics in a chamber where every member has some stains on their soul. The test for Democrats is how they behave from here on out, not how they behaved before.

But it does point up the need for an ethics panel with teeth, and (as I've begun to say so often I sound like a broken record), the need to watch the Dems closely and hold them to their promises.

Conyers, Pelosi, ethics, corruption, politics, midtopia

Let the spin begin

The White House is putting out its version of the Iraq strategy review, courtesy of the New York Times.

The major news here is that General George Casey, the top military commander in Iraq, may be moved out of the post by March -- several months earlier than planned.

As well, there's this frank assessment of what happened to the administration's strategy:

In interviews in Washington and Baghdad, senior officials said the White House, the Pentagon and the State Department had also failed to take seriously warnings, including some from its own ambassador in Baghdad, that sectarian violence could rip the country apart and turn Mr. Bush’s promise to “clear, hold and build” Iraqi neighborhoods and towns into an empty slogan.

This left the president and his advisers constantly lagging a step or two behind events on the ground.

“We could not clear and hold,” Stephen J. Hadley, the president’s national security adviser, acknowledged in a recent interview, in a frank admission of how American strategy had crumbled. “Iraqi forces were not able to hold neighborhoods, and the effort to build did not show up. The sectarian violence continued to mount, so we did not make the progress on security we had hoped. We did not bring the moderate Sunnis off the fence, as we had hoped. The Shia lost patience, and began to see the militias as their protectors.”

Hmmm. Pretty much what everyone outside of 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue has been saying for quite some time.

Other than that, however, the article is mostly devoted to giving the administration's version of the Iraq debate. If you believe them, the current strategy was Casey's, and Bush has had doubts for a year or more. Finally those doubts grew strong enough that he ordered a complete strategy review in September -- on his own initiative, not because of political pressure.

Note the subtext: Bush saw things clearly; his only failing was (understandably) placing too much faith in his general. Bush was not forced to review his Iraq strategy; he moved with clear-eyed deliberateness. End result: Bush gets let off the hook for what has happened in Iraq, and Casey is the fall guy, along with Donald Rumsfeld.

But given Bush's own statements and policy decisions, this seems to be a clear case of attempted hagiography. He constantly insisted that the war was being won. Every time a spasm of violence ended, he cited it as progress -- until the next, even worse spasm occurred. He steadfastly resisted calls to either send more troops or increase the size of the military or even define how what he was doing was achieving anything other than bloody stasis amid a widening sectarian war. He insisted on "victory", but repeatedly resisted providing the resources and strategic route that might have achieved it.

Does Casey bear some responsibility? It's reasonable to assume so, but we'll only know for sure when the Bush administration records are made public 25 years from now. His plan seems reasonable, had it been adopted quickly and with adequate resources. But it also seems that his reports to Bush suffered from both the traditional military "can do!" attitude -- which led to overly sunny analyses -- and a cognizance of military limitations that Bush himself had not yet (and perhaps has not yet) fully embraced.

But to suggest that the problem was Casey's ignores both Bush's own actions and his ultimate role as commander in chief. At some point an observer must conclude that Bush is either the problem directly, or alarmingly dependent on advisers who he is hideously bad at choosing.

Either way, his credibility is shot.

Iraq, Bush, politics, midtopia

Back in the swing

My apologies for the sparse posting of the last week or so: holidays and family took precedence blogging. Things will remain spare for the rest of this week, but I should be back in full swing by Monday.

While several notable things occurred over the holidays -- the deaths of Gerald Ford and Saddam Hussein, for example -- there's not really much to say about either of them. Ford was a decent guy that history will treat more kindly than his contemporaries did; Hussein was a bad guy who will not be missed (except for his brutal ability to hold Iraq together), but whose death doesn't change anything on the ground or begin to justify the invasion that toppled him. He's dead; good. It wasn't worth $400 billion or 3,000 lives or the scattered wreckage of U.S. foreign policy.

I hope you all had a good holiday season and are looking forward to 2007.

politics, midtopia

Islamists in retreat in Somalia

The internationally recognized transitional government of Somalia, with the backing of Ethiopian troops, has taken control of Mogadishu and put the Union of Islamic Courts into full flight.

When the UIC first rose to power, I counseled patience. Somalis had endured 15 years of violent anarchy between clans and rival warlords; if the UIC could bring peace, they deserved a chance to try. Various sources tried to paint them as an African division of Al-Qaeda, but that was never particularly convincing; what mattered is how they governed the place. And they were almost certainly better than the warlords they replaced.

But they instituted a particularly harsh brand of sharia, with one cleric famously threatening to shoot anyone who didn't pray five times a day. Then they began to attack the transitional government, closing schools to send students to the front. They had not brought peace; they had brought continued war, fought with child soldiers.

But they miscalculated. Not only did they overreach and provoke an Ethiopian counterattack; the heavy casualties suffered in that fighting has caused the UIC to splinter, as clans withdrew their forces in an effort to preserve them.

The question now is whether the transitional government can establish firm control over the country. Already looting and factional fighting has engulfed Mogadishu, and no one is quite sure what hard-core UIC fighters will do: fade into the civilian population? Unleash a guerrilla war?

The Somali government has an opportunity to put an end both to the UIC and the warlords, if they act quickly and firmly and retain the support of the Ethiopian military. If they don't, then Somalia could fade again into anarchy -- and the Somali people's suffering will continue.

Ethiopia, Somalia, politics, midtopia

A moderate Republican on Iraq

It's getting harder and harder to paint all Iraq war opponents as far-left crazies.

Frankly, it was impossible from the beginning; many, many reasonable people have opposed the mess from the start, even while hoping things would somehow turn out okay. But the drumbeat of rhetoric labeling such questioners as enemy sympathizers, or demanding that we rally behind the president in this time of crisis, helped delay serious discussion of the war for years.

Now, another Republican is breaking ranks.

At the close of the Senate’s lame-duck session, in between formulaic tributes to senators departing voluntarily or otherwise, a Republican backbencher suddenly rose to give one of the most passionate and surprising speeches about the war in Iraq yet delivered in Congress.

For a solid Republican who had originally voted for the war, the words spoken by the senator, Gordon H. Smith of Oregon, on the evening of Dec. 7 were incendiary and marked a stunning break with the president.

“I, for one, am at the end of my rope when it comes to supporting a policy that has our soldiers patrolling the same streets in the same way, being blown up by the same bombs day after day,” Mr. Smith said. “That is absurd. It may even be criminal.”

Smith cited two books as influential in changing his thinking: Thomas Ricks' "Fiasco" and a World War I book by John Keegan. In explaining the latter, Smith said:

Mr. Smith said that his use of the word “criminal” in his speech to describe the war in Iraq came from his reading of that book, which he said explained to him the “practice of British generals, sending a whole generation of British men running into machine guns, despite memos back to London saying, in effect, machine guns work.”

Much like the British in World War I, he added, “I have concluded that we are employing strategies that are needlessly getting kids killed.”

It's come to this: a Republican senator is now comparing Iraq to the senseless and indiscrimate slaughter of World War I. Not in scale, of course, but in the stubborn and heedless mindset that let politicians continue to send young men to their pointless deaths.

He might also have consulted "Imperial Life in the Emerald City" by Rajiv Chandrasekaran, which describes the detached reality inhabited by Paul Bremer and his postwar transitional government and the incredible decisions made by the Bush administration on its behalf. Chandrasekaran was a guest on MPR this morning, and he gave multiple examples of Bush's fantasyland at work. Bremer's staff, for instance, was chosen for political loyalty rather than any actual qualifications, with screeners that questioned applicants on their voting record and stance on abortion.

So you had the spectacle of a 24-year-old with no practical experience trying to restart the Baghdad stock exchange; A 21-year-old, not yet out of college, given sole responsibility for reforming the Interior Ministry; and an experienced post-conflict public-health official replaced by a more politically acceptable community-health official from Michigan, whose first order of business upon arriving in Iraq was to start planning an anti-smoking campaign.

Given such startling incompetence from our politicians, it's hardly surprising that we have arrived at the point we have. The question is what to do about it now.

Smith's point in that regard -- that we are pursuing a strategy that is not working and, in the process, is getting people killed needlessly -- is echoed by many soldiers currently serving in Iraq, who were asked if a troop "surge" of up to 30,000 soldiers would help pacify Baghdad.

Spc. Don Roberts, who was stationed in Baghdad in 2004, said the situation had gotten worse because of increasing violence between Shiites and Sunnis. "I don't know what could help at this point," said Roberts, 22, of Paonia, Colo. "What would more guys do? We can't pick sides. It's almost like we have to watch them kill each other, then ask questions." ...

"Nothing's going to help. It's a religious war, and we're caught in the middle of it," said Sgt. Josh Keim, a native of Canton, Ohio, who is on his second tour in Iraq. "It's hard to be somewhere where there's no mission and we just drive around." ...

Pfc. Richard Grieco said it's hard to see how daily missions in Baghdad make a difference. "If there's a plan to sweep through Baghdad and clear it, (more troops) could make a difference," said the 19-year-old from Slidell, La. "But if we just dump troops in here like we've been doing, it's just going to make for more targets."

Translation: We're not making headway; we're just sort of keeping the lid on things, and losing ground as the violence escalates daily. Which is a recipe for still being there 10 years from now, doing the same thing, and watching more of our soldiers die -- not in pursuit of victory, but in denial of failure. And 30,000 troops just isn't enough to make a difference in that equation.

President Bush says he'll announce his brilliant new Iraq strategy in early January. At that point we'll be able to judge whether he actually intends to materially alter the strategic situation. If not, there is little point to our continued presence in Iraq.

terrorism, Iraq, politics, midtopia

Edwards enters the race

John Edwards is officially in the 2008 presidential race -- a day earlier than planned, after his staff prematurely launched his campaign Web site.

I voted for him in the 2004 primaries, as the best of a bad lot. He was green, but he was smart and articulate and I liked many of his policy proposals.

In 2008, though, the field will be tougher. So he'll have to up his game and demonstrate that he hasn't been standing still in the last four years. Otherwise his main credentials are his single Senate term -- not a big foundation to build a campaign on.

For now it looks like he's going to trot out his "Two Americas" theme again. But he hasn't been standing still. He's focused his antipoverty message through the Center on Poverty, Work and Opportunity at the University of North Carolina, and has been lining up support among unions and other core Democratic constituencies.

He has some interesting ideas, like "Work Bonds" to encourage low-income workers to save money, "stepping stone" jobs to help welfare recipients earn work experience that will help them move up the pay scale, and push to get high-school dropouts back in school so they can earn diplomas.

He also has some standard social proposals, like universal health care and housing vouchers for poor families, for which the devil will be in the details.

Some strategists have suggested that his antipoverty message will seem dated, and won't play well among an electorate obsessed about Iraq. I disagree; while the war will be a major issue, a pure antiwar play isn't likely to be a winner. Even though there is widespread opposition to the war, and a growing sense that it was a mistake and badly botched in the bargain, there remains ambivalence about exactly how to get out, and when. Any candidate that calls for an immediate pullout will run into opposition (although by 2008, the scenario will be quite different). Further, any candidate that promises an immediate pullout must still answer the question of "Okay, you've pulled out of Iraq; what are you going to do for the rest of your term?"

So Edwards is being savvy by running against the grain. He has an Iraq plan, of course -- cutting forces by 40,000 immediately, followed by a gradual drawdown -- but by not focusing on it he distinguishes himself from the crowd that is focused on it. And that lets him keep presenting the upbeat, optimistic attitude that is one of his winning traits.

For now he's short on specifics on a lot of issues, but he's worth watching. He has clearly put a lot of thought and effort into planning the campaign; let's see where he takes it.

Edwards, politics, midtopia

Sandy Berger update

Having now read the redacted Inspector General report, including the summary of the Berger interview, a few more points of contention are cleared up.

Note that my purpose here is not to defend Berger; it's to debunk the conspiracy theories that he was covering something up related to the Millennium plots.

Berger visited the Archives four times. Once in preparation for a thorough document review, and then once for each of three separate document releases.

1. Berger was given preferential treatment, being allowed to review the documents in an Archive employee's office instead of in a secure reading room. He was allowed to bring in his cell phone and a briefcase, and was occasionally left alone with the documents.

2. Berger, who owned a consultancy, received time-sensitive work-related calls at the employee's phone, but never used his cell phone (and never told anyone his cell phone wasn't working) as had been alleged.

3. On his first visit, in May 2002, Berger had access to some original documents. The most sensitive were numbered and would be missed if taken, and he was never left alone with them. Still, the Archive cannot say for sure he didn't take anything, in part because a numbered document might have several pages, and the pages themselves weren't necessarily numbered. However, Archive records indicate Berger was not shown any Millennium Attack After Action Review (MAAAR) documents during his May visit.

4. On his second visit, in July 2003, Berger again had access to some original documents. He said he removed some of his notes but no documents, but there's no way to prove he didn't take something.

5. On his third visit, in September 2003, Berger had access to numbered originals of the most sensitive documents and copies of everything else. He couldn't have taken a unique document even if he wanted to, and the Archive says he didn't. He took a fax copy of what he thought was the final version of the MAAAR, plus some more notes.

6. On his fourth visit, in October 2003, he had access solely to copies, including printouts of e-mails. He found another copy of the MAAAR, this one classified differently from the one he had taken on his previous visit. He didn't know why it was classified differently, and he was told the only difference between the two versions involved money, not anything substantive. Nonetheless, he took it so he could compare the two versions later. Later he found yet a third version of the MAAAR and took that, too.

7. Notably, on this visit an Archive employee told him that he had returned a folder missing a document -- and provided Berger with another copy of it. This demonstrates that the Archive had copies of what Berger was reviewing. Berger, for some reason, took that copy, too -- for a total of four. He also took most of his notes.

8. The four documents Berger took were printouts of e-mails, with the MAAAR as an attachment. He never had access to the original MAAAR.

9. There were not any handwritten notes on the documents Berger is known to have removed.

10. Berger didn't consider the MAAAR very sensitive, despite its classification, which is why he was so cavalier about taking it.

So could Berger have taken original documents? Yes, in his first two visits. But his opportunities were limited, and he had no access to original copies of the MAAAR. All that he is known to have taken is faxes and printed e-mails, the originals of which remain in Archive hands.

The most reasonable explanation remains the simplest: that Berger didn't consider the MAAAR sensitive, and considered himself somewhat above the law, since he had written many of the documents in question. So he took them. And got caught.

Berger, security, politics, midtopia

A peek behind the media curtain

.... and it isn't pretty.

Whoever Tim is, he's in big trouble.

Update: Here's what happened, as explained by a staffer at the paper in question.

media, humor, politics, midtopia

The misuse of national security

I've written before (examples are here and here) about the problem of improperly classifying information. The government does it routinely, which is why I don't automatically get upset when someone leaks classified materials.

Here's another example. The White House redacted large parts of an op-ed piece by a pair of national security officials, even though the CIA acknowledged none of it was classified and the authors submitted documents showing that all of it was already in the public domain.

At the link you will find the author's describing the situation, as well as the redacted version of their article and all the citations they provided for the deleted portions.

As the authors conclude:

National security must be above politics. In a democracy, transparency in government has to be honored and protected. To classify information for reasons other than the safety and security of the United States and its interests is a violation of these principles. It is for this reason that we will continue to press for the release of the article without the material deleted.

civil liberties, secrecy, security, politics, midtopia

Ellison, Goode, Prager and the Koran

An update on the misguided uproar over Rep. Keith Ellison's Muslim faith.

When last we left the story, Rep. Virgil Goode of Virginia was warning that if we didn't act soon, more Muslims might immigrate to this country.

Ellison responded during a CNN interview. He noted that there are already 5 million Muslims in this country, most of whom oppose terrorism and embrace the American dream as much as any other immigrant.

It's at the end of the video, not in the written text, but for me the best part is where Ellison notes that he can trace his American ancestry back to Lousiana -- in 1742. I wonder if Goode can beat that.

Goode, for his part, said he's not backing down. His quote is a little less coherent.

"I will not be putting my hand on the Koran," Goode said at a news conference Thursday.

That's good, Virgil. Nobody is asking you to. Then there was this gem:

Goode also told Fox News he wants to limit legal immigration and do away with "diversity visas," which he said lets in people "not from European countries" and "some terrorist states."

Yeah, no way we should be letting those non-Europeans in.

Goode has been repudiated by politicians on both sides of the aisle, including Virginia's senior senator, John Warner.

Dennis Prager, who started this whole flap with his ignorant commentary, has been chastised by the board of the Holocaust Museum, of which he is a member. Prager responded by making clear that he hadn't heard a word anyone has said.

Mr. Prager said Muslim American groups and others had pressured the museum board. “Everybody knows there’s no bigotry in what I said, but they felt they had to do it,” he said in an interview.

“I completely respect Congressman-Elect Ellison’s right to take an oath on the Koran, and regret any language that suggested otherwise,” Mr. Prager added in a statement, emphasizing that he began reaching out to the Muslims 20 years ago. “My entire effort in the Keith Ellison matter has been to draw attention to the need to acknowledge the Bible as the basis of America’s moral values. Judeo-Christian values are the greatest single protection against another Holocaust.”

Translation: "I respect his right. Except I suggested in my commentary -- which was also historically ignorant -- that Congress should prevent him from taking his seat, and in fact he should be forced to swear on a Bible."

Sure, Dennis.

Glad to see everyone piling on.

Goode, Keith Ellison, Prager, religion, politics, midtopia