Pentagon proposes more troops

It's about time.

The Pentagon ... is proposing to Congress that the size of the Army be increased by 65,000, to 547,000 and that the Marine Corps, the smallest of the services, grow by 27,000, to 202,000, over the next five years. No cost estimate was provided, but officials said it would be at least several billion dollars.

Other sources say the cost will eventually be $15 billion a year.

The military doesn't really measure things by division anymore, but that's about four divisions worth of troops. The boost will occur over five years, and in any event it will take time to recruit, train and equip the extra forces, so this won't mean a quick boost in deployment capability. But it's good to see resources finally starting to align themselves with strategic goals.

What'll we do in the meantime? The Pentagon also said it was abolishing limits on the amount of time a reservist could serve on active duty. Translation: more reservists will be used to relieve the strain on active units until more active units are available.

The interplay of timetables here should prove interesting. It could take two years before the first of the extra forces make themselves felt. Barring some unexpected successes in Iraq, that means there's a real chance that our large-scale involvement in Iraq will be over by the time the troops necessary to sustain it are ready. The prospect for that is only increased by the interim plan: the extended deployment of reservists will increase both opposition to the war and the economic impact of taking workers out of the civilian economy and sending them overseas.

While the larger military is needed and welcome, the proposal is part and parcel of the administration's recent style: proposing plans that would have made a difference in Iraq had they been adopted two or three years ago, but which they opposed at the time and are likely to have marginal impact at this late date.

Meanwhile, another poll -- CNN, this time -- shows 66 percent opposition to sending more troops, which matches up well with the 70 percent cited in an earlier AP survey.

Given those numbers, if Bush's "surge" doesn't work, he's done. We'll be out of Iraq by the end of the year.

terrorism, Iraq, politics, midtopia

Just for fun

It's Friday, and I've been coming across a lot of really bizarre links lately. So here's another one: The Museum of Really Bad Album Covers.

Update: photo added.

humor, midtopia

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