Palestinians reach power-sharing deal

Prodded by Saudi Arabia and spooked by the prospect of a Palestinian civil war, Fatah and Hamas have finally agreed to a unity government.

The good news: As part of the deal, Hamas agreed to respect past peace agreements with Israel.

The bad news:

The United States and Israel have demanded the new government explicitly renounce violence, recognize Israel and agree to uphold past peace accords. The vague promise to respect past deals — a compromise reached after Hamas rejected pressure for more binding language — did not appear to go far enough.

U.S. and Israeli acceptance is crucial to the deal's success. Unless they are convinced Hamas has sufficiently moderated, the West is unlikely to lift a crippling financial blockade of the Palestinian government, and it will be difficult to advance the peace process.

The main bad news is that the "respect" language was a compromise, after Hamas rejected stronger language. That's a sign that Hamas is not yet prepared to do what needs to be done to reach a peace deal.

That said, actions are more important than words. The Israeli/U.S. position is reasonable and understandable, but they should not let insistence on the letter of the law get in the way of the spirit.

The new, unified government will Give Hamas the prime ministership and nine of 19 Cabinet posts. Fatah retains Abbas as president and gets six Cabinet posts. Four other posts go to independent parties, including the crucial interior ministry -- which controls the security forces -- and the foreign ministry.

A big test will come when Abbas seeks to reopen peace negotiations with Israel. Expecting Hamas to embrace the process is probably unrealistic. Perhaps the best that can be hoped for is that Hamas, while never publicly admitting a change of stance, will nonetheless let Abbas negotiate a deal that the unity government will ratify and both Fatah and Hamas will abide by. As long as such a deal is seen as binding on the Palestinians -- and a unity ratification would achieve that -- it shouldn't matter whether an individual party like Hamas ever formally accepts it. Breaking the deal would put them in violation of Palestinian law, and trigger severe sanctions.

As always, however, this is the Mideast. We just had a step forward; now it's time to wait and see if the next step will be forward or backward.


Fatah, Hamas, Palestine, politics, midtopia

Another non-scandal

First there was the Starkist stock deal. Then there was "Obama in a madrassa."

Now the latest non-scandal dreamed up by Republicans is "Pelosi One."

At issue is what kind of aircraft the House speaker — second in line to the presidency — should use to get around the country. For years, speakers flew commercial like everybody else in Congress. But after the Sept. 11 attacks, it was deemed that anyone two heartbeats away from the presidency warranted a military jet.

Until now, the only speaker affected was Republican J. Dennis Hastert, who commuted to his Illinois district in small executive-style military jets.

But those aircraft require ideal weather conditions to make the cross-country trip without stopping to refuel.

The main aircraft that can make the trip nonstop is a modified Boeing 757 that is much larger than the plane Hastert flew in. Hence the attempts to paint Pelosi as "demanding" a plane fit for a king.

Putting aside the fact that Vice President Cheney gets around in a similar plane, let's agree that a 757 is a bit much for one person to have, even if that person is third in line for the presidency. Surely there are smaller planes that can fly cross-country without having to refuel.

Still, there's no "there" there. The negotiations didn't involve Pelosi or her office; they were conducted entirely by the House sergeant-at-arms. Pelosi merely said that she would like to be able to make the trip without refueling, and if there was no plane available with that capability she preferred to fly commercial instead.

Now, one can certainly speculate that she was free to say all that, knowing that only one plane was big enough for the job and that her security people wouldn't let her fly commercial. But there's simply no evidence to suggest that that's what happened.

Other Republican attempts to make hay out of this were simply stupid. They claim Pelosi wants the bigger plane so she can fly family and supporters around. This ignores the fact that Pelosi recently led the House in passing new ethics rule that forbid most such practices, and that in addition the military planes come with rather strict restrictions of their own, including severe limits on family travel -- which must then be reimbursed.

Pelosi did herself no favors by publicly speculating that the White House or the Pentagon were behind the brouhaha.

Pelosi said news reports suggesting that she seeks a lavish jet suggest a "misrepresentation that could only be coming from the administration. One would wonder why the practice deemed to be necessary from a security standpoint would be mischaracterized in the press. I know that it's not coming from the president, because he impressed upon me the amount of security I need to have."

Turns out she was right about the president. Today the White House dismissed the whole thing.

"This is a silly story and I think it's been unfair to the speaker," White House spokesman Tony Snow said.... (he) said the negotiations over Pelosi's transport have been conducted solely by the House sergeant-at-arms and the Pentagon, with no direct involvement by the speaker or her office -- or the White House.

When the White House comes to the defense of the Democratic Speaker of the House, you can be pretty sure there's nothing there.

As I noted in the "Obama madrassa" post, a disheartening pattern is starting to become clear. Unfounded rumors and alleged scandals emerge from conservative sources -- with the Washington Times and its online magazine, Insight, playing a prominent role. Those rumors and scandals are then picked up and flogged as fact by right-wing blogs, commentators, columnists and sometimes -- as in this case -- elected officials, notably Roy Blunt and Patrick McHenry.

And for what? Pathetic attempts to (falsely) smear ranking Democrats. Pelosi, in particular, seems to attract more than her share of wrath.

It's something I remember from the Clinton days, when the Richard Mellon Scaife-funded "Arkansas project" manufactured dirt on the Clintons. It mostly disappeared after Bush won the White House. With Democrats out of the majority everywhere, NewsMax and WorldNetDaily were marginalized and conservatives seemed content to simply toss names and insults at Democrats. It was Democrats who engaged in conspiracy theories and trumped-up spin -- though I don't remember it being to this degree of simply making stuff up.

Now that the Democrats are back in power, parts of the Republican world are reverting to very bad habits. I only hope that such crude smear tactics serve more to discredit those who use them -- on both sides of the aisle -- then to hurt their targets. We deserve better discourse than this.

Blunt, a member of the Republican leadership, should be especially ashamed of himself.

ethics, Pelosi, politics, midtopia

Sorry, I want to give your job to a friend

The Bush administration has a very bad track record when it comes to politicizing the apparatus of the federal government. From politicizing science, to sending unqualified appointees to help run the Provisional Authority in Iraq, to the Katrina debacle, Bush has tended to put political loyalty way ahead of actual competence, to a degree rarely seen in previous administrations.

So perhaps we shouldn't be surprised that the practice has now reached the highest ranks of federal law enforcement. It's been a simmering issue for a while, and today came to a head in Congressional hearings.

McNulty acknowledged that six U.S. attorneys in the West and Southwest were notified in December that they would be asked to step aside, including the lead prosecutor in San Diego, whose office oversaw the bribery conviction of a former Republican congressman.

A seventh former U.S. attorney, Bud Cummins of Little Rock, has said that he was asked to leave last year to open the job for J. Timothy Griffin, who previously worked for Rove and for the Republican National Committee. McNulty did not dispute that characterization yesterday.

Now on one level, there's nothing wrong with this. U.S. attorneys are political appointees, and they serve at the pleasure of the president. Further, the Justice Department insists that six of the seven firings were for cause -- though they don't (and perhaps can't, publicly) back up that claim.

But rarely has politics intruded this deeply or this nakedly into the process.

There's also a constitutional issue, because Attorney General Alberto Gonzales is using interim appointments to bypass the normal Senate confirmation process.

Several top lawmakers, including Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.), have been particularly angered by a little-noticed provision slipped into USA Patriot Act legislation last year that allows Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales to appoint replacement prosecutors, such as Griffin, on an indefinite basis.

Feinstein and other Democrats in the House and Senate have proposed legislation to return to the old selection process, which allowed district courts to appoint interim U.S. attorneys after 120 days until a final candidate was confirmed by the Senate. Sen. Arlen Specter (Pa.), the Judiciary Committee's ranking Republican, said yesterday he will join Democrats in pushing for a return to the previous arrangement.

But McNulty said the Justice Department is in "strong opposition" to that proposal because it puts the judicial branch in the position of hiring people in the executive branch.

You've got to love the administration's argument. In order to keep the judicial branch from appointing temporary replacements, we need to let the executive branch appoint permanent replacements without bothering with Senate review. It's a classic "cure is worse than the disease" power grab. And never mind that the previous process worked just fine for years.

Fire attorneys so you can replace them with more loyal hacks? Legal, if sleazy. Avoid Senate review of the appointments? No. If the administration doesn't want the judiciary appointing temporary replacements, they have two options: get a replacement confirmed within the 120 day period, or remove the "indefinite" status from interim appointments, instead requiring that the appointee be confirmed within a set amount of time like other recess appointments.

law, politics, midtopia

The ultimate Brinks truck

Not much has come out of the widely anticipated grilling of Paul Bremer by Congressional Democrats. The WaPo's Dana Milbank attributes it to Dem rustiness in the art of holding investigative hearings, as well as Bremer's elusiveness.

Still, the one subject they did manage to bring up rather boggles the mind.

Near the end of 2003, as the United States prepared to hand over control of the country to the Iraqi government, the Iraqi finance minister expressed concern over his ability to pay government expenses during the first few months.

A fair concern. So what did we do? Perhaps we helped them set up accounting and finance systems. Or electronically transferred money to their accounts. Or let them channel payments through our own systems until theirs were up and running.

Well, no. Our solution was to airlift in $5.5 billion. In cash. On pallets. 363 tons of it.

The money belonged to the Iraqis, consisting of proceeds from oil exports and frozen Saddam-era assets. This wasn't U.S. aid, which usually has strings and financial controls attached. So perhaps outrage is misplaced. It was their money, and if they wanted it in cash, why not?

All well and good, but who really believes it all went to pay legitimate government expenses? How much of that, I wonder, has ended up helping finance the death squads and insurgents? How much of that disappeared into the pockets of corrupt officials? Dumping billions in cash into a war zone is akin to pouring gasoline on a raging fire. It was simply a dumb thing to do.

Then again, this is Paul Bremer we're talking about, and dumb (or even delusional) things seem to be his speciality. I guess we shouldn't be surprised.

Bremer, Iraq, politics, midtopia

The end of an error

I don't always agree with the Chicago Tribune's Steve Chapman, but in his latest column he efficiently states something I've been saying for a while.

Pardon the extensive quote, but it's pretty good.

Pulling out, the argument goes, would destroy our credibility and embolden the terrorists. Neoconservative Robert Kagan of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace is among those confidently predicting a parade of horribles: ethnic slaughter, a regional war and a secure base for Al-Qaida to launch attacks on us and our allies.

If we withdraw, he wrote recently in the Washington Post, "the war in Iraq and in the region will not end but will only grow more dangerous." And there is the old argument that if we don't fight the terrorists in Iraq, we will have to fight them at home.

The first flaw in this line of reasoning is that lamenting the dangers of failure is not the same as finding a formula for success. Bush tells us that his new approach offers a path to victory, but that's what he said about the old strategy. Why should anyone believe that this time he knows what he's doing or is telling us the truth?

The forecasts of neoconservatives have generally been as reliable as your daily horoscope. In 2004, Robert Kagan derided those who thought the war was lost, declaring that the United States was about as likely to fail as Derek Jeter (a career .317 hitter) was to hit below .200.

Consider the other horribles that are envisioned. An emboldened Al-Qaida? It's not as though the terrorists are all sitting home playing checkers, having lost the desire to slaughter infidels. In fact, as they demonstrate daily in Iraq and Afghanistan, they're emboldened already. Lost credibility? Our credibility crumpled when we invaded on the cheap and proved unable to preserve basic order.

Ethnic and sectarian killing are occurring with us there and doubtless would continue with us gone. But MIT defense scholar Barry Posen notes that mass murder tends to occur when one group is unarmed, and "everyone in Iraq is armed." We could minimize bloodshed on our way out by offering protection to anyone who wants to relocate within Iraq, and by accepting refugees who have put their lives at risk helping us.

A secure base, Posen points out, is unlikely for the Sunni Al-Qaida in a country dominated by Shiites, and unlikely in a region where the group has few friends and many enemies -- unlike Afghanistan, where it has long gotten help from Pakistan.

There's also little basis to expect a regional war. Iran has no reason to intervene directly because its Shiite allies are already in the driver's seat. Saudi Arabia would be asking to get hammered by Iran if it invaded on behalf of the Sunnis. The Turkish army might cross the border to show the Kurds who's boss, but none of its neighbors would strenuously object, much less fight.

As for the claim that the terrorists would merely follow us back to our shores, history suggests the opposite. Texas A&M political scientist Michael Desch says that during Israel's 18-year occupation of Lebanon, some 1,200 Israelis were killed there. In the following six years (up to last summer's invasion), despite Israel's proximity, only 23 Israelis died in Hezbollah attacks launched from Lebanon. You're much more likely to get stung by bees if you poke their hive than if you keep your distance.

What amazes me is that after all this time people still pull out such hoary bromides as "fight them over there so we don't have to fight them here", ignoring fundamentals like the fact that the Iraqi insurgency (which makes up 90 percent or more of our opposition in Iraq) didn't exist until we invaded Iraq. Or that the jihadists who do come to Iraq to shoot at us by and large aren't "terrorists", as that term was widely understood before the administration began using it to describe everyone who disagrees with them -- including, famously and hilariously, teachers.

Pulling out will cause us to lose face. It will lead to short-term damage to our credibility on things like threatened use of force. But those are temporary effects, and anyway, what credibility do we have on that score now? Overall, while a civil war in Iraq will be bad, the direct damage and threat to the United States will be less than that caused by our continuing presence there.

Iraq is an expensive disaster, national securitywise. The only reason to stay at this point is whatever responsibility we feel for creating the current mess. But given the central government's involvement in factional fighting and the refusal of the warring parties to even attempt to talk, that responsibility lessens by the day. If they refuse to help themselves, it's not our job to prop them up.

Give Bush his surge and give Iraq one last chance to show it's serious about national reconciliation. But after all the incompetence and hubris that has gone before, one last chance is all they deserve.

terrorism, Iraq, politics, midtopia

Fumo indicted

Pennsylvania state Sen. Vincent Fumo, a Democrat and one of the most powerful men in state politics, was indicted yesterday on 141(!!!) counts, mainly charges that he defrauded taxpayers and his own nonprofit out of more than $2 million.

Mr. Fumo, 63, regularly deployed state workers to perform a litany of personal chores, from overseeing construction at his 33-room Philadelphia mansion to spying on his ex-wife to working his 100-acre farm near Harrisburg, prosecutors charged.

Mr. Fumo, one of the most powerful figures in Pennsylvania politics, misused $1 million in state resources and another $1 million from the nonprofit neighborhood group he controlled, U.S. Attorney Patrick Meehan said.

The nonprofit was a sham, according to prosecutors.

Despite its charity status, the group covertly funded political activities, including a poll and a lawsuit filed against one of Mr. Fumo's political rivals. Mr. Fumo also used the group's coffers to pay for vehicles, farm equipment, trips and a $600,000 renovation to his South Philadelphia office.

Innocent until proven guilty, of course. But then there was the coverup:

Mr. Fumo, a Democrat who has served in the Senate since 1978, also was charged with obstruction for ordering his staff to destroy years worth of e-mails from government computers.

That don't look good.

Hall of Shame has been updated.

Pennsylvania, Fumo, corruption, politics, midtopia

Iran: Behind the caricature

The New York Times Magazine may be the best weekly publication in the country, bar none. It's the reason I buy the Sunday New York Times. It's ability to make me interested in things I didn't know I cared about -- or provide fresh, relevant perspectives on things I already do -- is unparalleled, in my opinion.

With all the talk about Iran, it's hardline president and its nuclear ambitions, informed perspective is largely absent. So naturally, along comes the magazine with an article from a correspondent who traveled around Iran before and after the Dec. 16 elections there.

It's well worth a read, even if it's now behind the Times Select wall. We'll start with a section discussing the immediate aftermath of the elections, in which president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's slate of candidates was soundly defeated.

By mid-January, Ahmadinejad's isolation even within his own faction was complete: 150 of 290 members of parliament, including many of Ahmadinejad's onetime allies, signed a letter criticizing the president's economic policies for failing to stanch unemployment and inflation. A smaller group also blamed Ahmadinejad's inflammatory foreign-policy rhetoric for the United Nations Security Council resolution imposing sanctions on Iran. As if that were not enough, an editorial in Jomhouri Eslami, a newspaper that reflects the views of the supreme leader, accused the president of using the nuclear issue to distract the public from his failed policies. Ahmadinejad's behavior was diminishing popular support for the nuclear program, the editorial warned. The Iranian political system seems to be restoring its equilibrium by showing an extremist president the limits of his power.

Iran isn't a full democracy, of course. While elections are held for lower positions, ultimate power is wielded by the unelected council of clerics headed by Ali Khamenei. But that just demonstrates the limits of Ahmadinejad's influence. He is not aligned with Khamenei. His faction is populist and hardline -- often called "neoconservative", in fact. The clerics, while conservative, have grown pragmatic during their years of rule. And they know they are riding a delicate balance between using limited democracy to avoid unrest and allowing too much democracy and losing control.

Iran also faces the same problem that Israel does: trying to decide whether it is a democracy or a religious state.

A hardline cleric known as Ayatollah Crocodile, Taqi Mesbah-Yazdi, is one of Ahmadinejad's main allies. He has famously inveighed against democracy, free speech and women's rights. He has called public execution and flogging "a basic principle of Islam." Islam is the only right way and "the people are ignorant sheep." He also complained about the need to break the "unnecessary" taboo on violence in order to properly confront Islamic reformists.

Swell guy, and the article contains even more outrageous statements by him or his followers. But his main point, for my purposes here, is that Islamic rule and democracy are incompatible.

And he's right; they are. Even reformists agree with him.

"In a sense, many people, including myself, we believe that Mesbah is right," Sadegh Zibakalam, a reformist Tehran University professor, reflected when I visited him at his mother's home in north Tehran in December. "Trying to make an amalgam of Western, liberal, democratic ideas and Shiite theology is nonsense. It doesn't work."

Later, he added: "Either Khamenei is infallible, or he's not. If he's not, then he is an ordinary person like Bush or Blair, answerable to the Parliament and the people. If he is, then we should throw away all this nonsense about Western values and liberal democracy. Either we have Western liberal philosophy, republican government and checks and balances, or we should stick to Mesbah."

Unfortunately, both democracy and Islam are enshrined in Iran's constitution. So Iran, so solid-looking from the outside, is actually engulfed in an ongoing crisis of legitimacy -- and one that cannot easily be solved.

To this day, the structure of the Iranian state remains too liberal for the authoritarians and too authoritarian for the liberals, but the traditional conservatives at the center of power cannot resolve this obvious paradox at the republic's heart without relinquishing their own position.

And there are other weaknesses.

The Iranian economy has been mismanaged at least since the revolution, and to fix it would require measures no populist would be willing to take. Under Ahmadinejad, inflation has risen; foreign investors have scorned Iranian markets, fearing political upheaval or foreign invasion; the Iranian stock market has plummeted; Iranian capital has fled to Dubai. Voters I talked to pointed to the prices of ordinary foodstuffs when they wanted to explain their negative feelings about the government. According to Iranian news sources, from January to late August 2006 the prices of fruits and vegetables in urban areas rose by 20 percent. A month later, during Ramadan, the price of fruit reportedly doubled while that of chicken rose 10 percent in mere days. Housing prices in Tehran have reached a record high. Unemployment is still widespread. And Ahmadinejad's approval rating, as calculated by the official state television station, had dipped to 35 percent in October.

Catch that? Ahmadinejad's approval rating is about as high as President Bush's. So on one level, when it comes to Iran, we have two unpopular leaders rattling swords at each other in an effort to rally support for themselves. It's almost a cooperative venture.

The article goes on to note that Iran is relatively wealthy, urbanized, educated and modern, with a large middle class. All of these things encourage moderation when it comes to meaningful politics and international diplomacy. Which is why Ahmadinejad's fiery rhetoric helped his faction get stomped in December.

Secor closes:

For a Western traveler in Iran these days, it is hard to avoid a feeling of cognitive dissonance. From a distance, the Islamic republic appears to be at its zenith. But from the street level, Iran's grand revolutionary experiment is beset with fragility. The state is in a sense defined by its contradictions, both constitutional and economic. It cannot be truly stable until it resolves them, and yet if it tries to do so, it may not survive.

Don't get me wrong. I still think Iran is a poster child for "countries that should not be allowed to have nuclear weapons." They are still more despotic than democratic. But as with most things, and especially with regards to things in the Middle East, the reality is far more complicated than the reductionist labels and rhetoric imply. And that is why dialogue and engagement with Iran is likely to produce more results -- both in Iraq and in the nuclear arena -- then confrontation. Oh, military power and economic sanctions are part of the dialogue. But they should not -- really, cannot -- be the only tools.

Understand your enemy if you wish to either defeat or co-opt him. We failed that lesson miserably in Iraq. Let's not make the same mistake in Iran.

nuclear, Iran, politics, midtopia

Oh, THAT China!

I thought this was pretty funny:

The leader of a Grenada police band that performed Taiwan's national anthem at the inauguration of a China-financed cricket stadium was temporarily relieved of his music duties.

Inspector Bryan Hurst will not lead the Royal Grenada Police Band while investigators determine how his ensemble came to play the anthem of Taiwan instead of its rival during the opening of the $40 million Queen's Park stadium last weekend, according to police spokesman Troy Garvey on Tuesday....

(Chinese Ambassador Qian Hongshan) and scores of blue-uniformed Chinese laborers who built the stadium were visibly uncomfortable as Taiwan's anthem reverberated inside the 20,000-seat venue, which will host Super 8 matches during the cricket World Cup in April.

To the Chinese' credit, they politely sat through the screw-up.

On a darker note, while I knew China was rapidly spreading its influence throughout Africa, who knew they were doing the same thing in the Caribbean?

Grenada, China, politics, midtopia

Iraq: It's not just us

I get a little tired, sometimes, being so down about Iraq. I occasionally wonder if maybe the problem is my perspective. Am I just not seeing things properly? Is the grass really greener on the pro-war side of the fence, where victory is just a step or two away and all we have to do is gut it out?

Sadly, no.

The Arab League sent Mokhtar Lamani to Iraq to persuade its bitterly divided Shiite, Sunni and Kurdish leaders to make peace. He failed, and has now resigned, disillusioned and nearly drained of hope.

He says his mission was doomed by feeble support from the Arab governments that hired him, U.S. policies and the refusal of Iraq's leaders to work together.

"I am no longer going to stand and watch Iraqis' bodies being taken to the cemetery," he told The Associated Press in Cairo, where he returned from Baghdad last week to deliver his resignation to the Arab League.

It's telling that not even othr Arabs can get the Iraqi factions to talk to each other. It means they're hellbent on confrontation, and there's no neutral "government" to defend against the bad guys; everyone is implicated.

Lamani's take:

In his Jan. 22 resignation letter, a copy of which he gave to AP, Lamani said of the Iraqi leaders: "My only problem was their own relations with each other, their strong feeling that each is a victim of the other."

Lamani said he ultimately blames Washington for Iraq's deterioration. "Its ways of dealing with the Iraqi problems, including the Iranian intervention, are not right. ... They need to change their policy in an urgent way," he said.

He has backed the Iraq Study Group's report in December that recommended Washington engage Iran as part of a regional approach to ending Iraq's violence....

Lamani also faults the 22 nations of the Arab League, saying they did not give Iraq "the necessary priority or seriousness." Arab governments were so detached from Iraq that it was "as if it were on the moon," he said.

This is a guy who spent eight months in Baghdad, living outside the Green Zone, driving an unarmored car with no bodyguards. Despite such risks and fervent work, he failed to accomplish his most basic aim: a conference of Sunni and Shiite leaders to discuss national reconciliation.

So let's recap: the Arab League representative, after eight months of trying, couldn't get Iraqi factions to agree even to talk to one another.

And we think a short-term "surge" will help?

Call me a pessimist, but I don't think so.

Lamani, Iraq, politics, midtopia

War resolutions get sidetracked

An effort to pass a Senate resolution opposing the troop surge in Iraq was blocked by Republicans, who want the debate to include a couple of alternative proposals.

The vote was 49-47 to proceed with debate, short of the 60 votes required.

The blocked bill is Continuing Resolution 7, sponsored by John Warner. One alternative, sponsored by Judd Gregg, is essentially some of the language of the Warner bill pulled out to stand on its own -- a rather direct method of watering down the resolution. The other alternative, sponsored by McCain and Lieberman, supports the president's plan.

The slim margin of the vote could mean the resolutions are sidetracked forever. Republicans insist they're not trying to avoid debate on the topic -- we shall see. If the resolutions never make it to the floor, that's a bad sign. But the Senate rules are so byzantine that it could be the Democrats who sidetrack it rather than risk letting the Gregg proposal pass, for instance.

Cynically speaking, letting the resolutions die might serve several purposes in Congress -- notably, not putting anybody on record as supporting or opposing them. Republicans will get credit for killing them; Democrats will get credit for trying. Nobody's hands get dirty.

On the other hand, both Dems and moderate Republicans seem genuinely serious about the resolutions, and it would be seen as weak for them to back off now. The sponsors, in particular, are tied to their respective resolutions, so they have little incentive to back off. But the full Senate could have other ideas.

Iraq, politics, midtopia

Puppy killers on "People's Court"

Back in June I wrote about a family whose dog was killed by some neighbor boys, and how they were musing about taking the case to Judge Judy.

Well, alerted by a reader, it turns out that they did, and the episode ran today. Not Judge Judy, but "People's Court."

I can't find anything about a verdict. Anyone able to help me (and the reader) out?

People's Court, politics, midtopia

$245 billion more

That's what the administration wants for Iraq and Afghanistan in the next two years: $100 billion for the rest of 2007 (on top of $70 billion already approved) and $145 billion in 2008. Plans call for an appropriation of $50 billion in 2009, and none after that when the hope is we will have withdrawn.

Add that $295 billion to the $378 billion already appropriated for Iraq and at least $70 billion for Afghanistan, and it brings the total cost of the two wars to nearly $800 billion -- more expensive than Vietnam even on an inflation-adjusted basis. Never mind the indirect costs, or the long-term costs for things like health care for veterans, which added in would bring the total cost into the $2 trillion to $3 trillion range.

The Afghan expenditures I have no quarrel with. The Iraq expenses, which account for the bulk of the money, represent an incredible amount of forgone opportunities in order to pursue an unnecessary war.

Speaking of which, the latest NIE makes clear that prospects for success are daunting.

Iraqi leaders will be hard pressed to achieve sustained political reconciliation in the next year to year and a half, a collaborative report by 16 U.S. spy agencies says, raising uncertainty about the prospect for withdrawing American troops that are shoring up the government.

Months in the making, the assessment says that growing and entrenched polarization between Shia and Sunni Muslims, inadequate Iraqi security forces, weak leaders, and the success of extremists' efforts to use violence to exacerbate the sectarian war all create a situation that will be difficult to improve.

One key point it makes is that Iraqi security forces are unlikely to be ready to take over responsibility for security in the next 12 to 18 months -- raising the question of what happens to the benchmarks we've told Iraq to meet, and how long we're willing to hold their hand.

And while it accuses Iran of meddling, it also says Iraq's neighbors are not "major drivers" of violence, nor are they likely to be -- largely because Iraqis are more than capable of generating plenty of violence on their own.

There is one hopeful section:

The estimate said some positive developments could — analysts stressed "could" — help reverse negative trends. They include broader acceptance of the Sunni minority of the central government and concessions on the part of Shiites and Kurds to make more room for Sunni participation.

This would be more hopeful if the first part of the report didn't assess the likelihood of any of that happening as very small.

NIE, Iraq, politics, midtopia

Pushing back on civil liberties

We have some signs that the courts aren't going to let the Bush administration skate on a couple of important civil liberty cases.

NSA WIRETAPS
When the administration recently agreed to submit its NSA eavesdropping program to court review, part of its motivation for doing so had to be the fact that a district court judge had ruled the program unconstitutional. The administration was appealing that decision, but by canceling the program and replacing it with a new one I'm sure they hoped to make that case moot and avoid the risk of an adverse ruling.

They might have a surprise coming. At the urging of the plaintiffs, the appeals court is considering continuing the case anyway.

Three federal judges hearing the first appellate argument about the legality of a National Security Agency domestic surveillance program on Wednesday indicated that they were not that convinced the issue was moot now that the Bush administration had agreed to submit the program to a secret court.

In a series of sharply worded questions to an administration lawyer defending the program, the judges noted that the administration did not promise to continue working with the secret court in the future.

“You could opt out at any time, couldn’t you?” asked Judge Ronald L. Gilman of the United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit.

Deputy Solicitor General Gregory G. Garre acknowledged the possibility.

The government makes two procedural arguments, and neither should be decided in the government's favor.

The first is that the program's revamping renders the case moot. But that's little more than a dodge. When it comes to something as intrusive as warrantless surveillance, we as citizens deserve a clear understanding of what is legal and what is not. The court should make a definitive ruling on what the Fourth Amendment allows in this regard, and not simply avoid the question.

The second is that the plaintiffs do not have standing, because they cannot prove they have been harmed by the program. This, too, is a bit of sophistry, because the program is secret and thus it is almost impossible to show direct harm. Allowing that argument to stand effectively means the program can never be subjected to legal scrutiny. "Standing" is a legitimate legal concept, designed to keep people from interfering in cases that are none of their concern. But in this case one ought to be able to sue on the grounds that the program essentially affects all Americans, even if only theoretically. Our civil liberties deserve at least that much respect.

I await their preliminary ruling with interest and trepidation.

ENEMY COMBATANTS
Separately, an appeals court in Virginia heard a challenge to Bush's "enemy combatant" policy.

In a series of probing and sometimes testy exchanges with a government lawyer, two of three judges on a federal appeals court panel here indicated Thursday that they might not be prepared to accept the Bush administration’s claim that it has the unilateral power to detain people it calls enemy combatants...

“What would prevent you from plucking up anyone and saying, 'You are an enemy combatant?'" Judge Roger L. Gregory of the United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit asked the administration’s lawyer, David B. Salmons.

The government's response shows clearly why such a designation is Constitutional offensive:

Mr. Salmons said the executive branch was entitled to make that judgment in wartime without interference from the courts. “A citizen, no less than an alien, can be an enemy combatant,” he added.

Got that? Because we're at war, the administration has the sole authority to decide who to jail. And any person so jailed cannot contest their incarceration, and can be held indefinitely without trial. In other words, the Fifth Amendment gets suspended during wartime.

Besides being grossly violative on its face, the argument again points up the problem with trying to view the fight against terror through a "wartime" lens. The clothes simply don't fit. As one of the judges on the panel said:

“Nations have wars against each other,” Judge Motz said. “People have quarrels or fights. Individuals can be terrorists. Individuals don’t make war.”

Precisely.

civil liberties, terrorism, wiretapping, NSA, politics, midtopia

First step, get rid of the witnesses

Back in December, I wrote about a New Jersey student who recorded his history teacher engaging in lengthy religious harangues. I'll repost part of that story here:

Shortly after school began in September, the teacher told his sixth-period students at Kearny High School that evolution and the Big Bang were not scientific, that dinosaurs were aboard Noah's ark, and that only Christians had a place in heaven, according to audio recordings made by a student whose family is now considering a lawsuit claiming Mr. Paszkiewicz broke the church-state boundary.

"If you reject his gift of salvation, then you know where you belong," Mr. Paszkiewicz was recorded saying of Jesus. "He did everything in his power to make sure that you could go to heaven, so much so that he took your sins on his own body, suffered your pains for you, and he's saying, 'Please, accept me, believe.' If you reject that, you belong in hell."

Classy, no?

After hearing one such harangue, one of his students, Matthew LaClair, tape-recorded eight subsequent classes, then complained to the school district.

At the time, the district said they had disciplined Paszkiewicz, but declined to say how. Now the other shoe has dropped.

After a public school teacher was recorded telling students they belonged in hell if they did not accept Jesus as their savior, the school board has banned taping in class without an instructor’s permission, and has added training for teachers on the legal requirements for separating church and state.

Training? Fine. But banning the tape-recording of classes? Besides obstructing learning -- some students record their classes to aid in their studying -- it seems an odd thing to do after a recording documented a problem that needed to be addressed.

The school board's stated rationale is privacy:

After several students complained to the school board that their voices had been broadcast on the Internet and on television news programs without their consent, the board adopted a policy in mid-January that requires students to request permission from an instructor to record or videotape a class.

Beyond the question of whether anyone has a reasonable expectation of privacy in a classroom (answer: probably not), the problem would seem to be with the act of broadcasting, not the act of recording. So the school board's ban seems unnecessarily broad -- and raises the question of whether they simply want to avoid any more embarassing revelations.

Especially because whatever disciplinary action they took apparently didn't work:

Meanwhile, Matthew said that Mr. Paszkiewicz recently told the class that scientists who spoke about the danger of global warming were using tactics like those Hitler used, by repeating a lie often enough that people come to believe it.

Context is everything here. Schools are supposed to be about intellectual inquiry, which can include lively debate on controversial topics. And at least this isn't religious proselyzation. But it's difficult on the surface to see what relevance global warming has to American history, Paszkiewicz's assigned subject.

That's not necessarily a problem; off-topic discussions should be allowable. So if this was an open debate, fine; if it was a teacher subjecting his students to a political diatribe, it's a problem. For my money, it's difficult to imagine a teacher legitimately invoking Hitler in such a discussion.

It's up to the school district how they want to handle the teacher. But banning recording devices strikes me as a poor decision intended more to shield the district from scrutiny than to protect legitimate privacy concerns.

education, politics, midtopia

Recession ahead?

Some interesting economic news today.

Savings rates: It's the worst since the Great Depression, negative 1 percent. Meaning people are spending more than they're taking in and not putting money aside for a rainy day. But take that with a grain of salt, because the savings rate is a highly flawed statistic. it doesn't count home equity, for instance, or retirement accounts or stock appreciation. It's basically a measure of cash flow, not solvency. It's true we stink as savers, but not nearly as bad as the savings rate would indicate. A more accurate picture would rename the savings rate to "cash flow" and pair it with a net worth measurement.

Other economic news: The same link shows the ISM manufacturing index falling below 50, an indication that the sector is contracting, while jobless claims also fell, indicating fewer workers being laid off. But job growth was a lower-than-expected 111,000 -- not enough to keep up with population growth -- and as a result the unemployment rate ticked up to 4.6 percent. Wages were essentially flat, rising about as much as inflation.

A couple of economists I know -- one a Republican, one a Libertarian -- think we're headed for a mild recession in 2007. The above numbers, plus the cooling of the housing market, generally lend credence to that view. An interesting thing to speculate about is the timing. In an expansion, wages typically lag overall economic growth. But this expansion has been unusual in the length of that lag, and overall wages are only now starting to rise in meaningful amounts -- just in time for a new recession to put an end to that. Which means we would have gone through an entire expansion cycle without much if any benefit trickling down to the workers. They aren't going to be happy about that. It also helps explain why a lot of people don't think the economy is all that fabulous even though the macro statistics are pretty good.

economy, politics, midtopia

Global warming showstopper

It's real. It's serious. And it's largely man-made.

That is the consensus opinion of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, a group that includes hundreds of scientists in 113 countries and represents the current state-of-the-art on global warming.

The report says rising temperatures are "very likely" human-caused -- a phrase that reflects more than 90 percent certainty.

Some specifics:

The panel predicted temperature rises of 2-11.5 degrees Fahrenheit by the year 2100. That was a wider range than in the 2001 report.

However, the panel also said its best estimate was for temperature rises of 3.2-7.1 degrees Fahrenheit. In 2001, all the panel gave was a range of 2.5-10.4 degrees Fahrenheit.

On sea levels, the report projects rises of 7-23 inches by the end of the century. An additional 3.9-7.8 inches are possible if recent, surprising melting of polar ice sheets continues.... Many scientists had warned that this estimate was too cautious and said sea level rise could be closer to 3-5 feet because of ice sheet melt.

Besides directly flooding land, rising sea levels would increase erosion, increase flooding during storms, and degrade inland soil and water quality. And that effect would be compounded by another effect of global warming: an increase in the number and intensity of severe storms like hurricanes.

What should be done? The report is a bit gloomy about that. It says the warming at this point will continue for centuries no matter what humans do about it. So the question is, what effort should be made now to eventually mitigate our influence on global temperature?

Those are the sort of questions that Congress will take up soon. The House has created a global warming committee, which is supposed to develop a bill by July. Meanwhile, various Senators have introduced bills aimed at reducing U.S. emissions of greenhouse gases by various amounts. So we can expect some sort of action on that front sooner rather than later. Whether it will amount to more than grandstanding, and whether it will survive potential Republican opposition, is another thing.

Food for thought.

politics, midtopia

Double the surge! Or halve it

President Bush's surge has been advertised as involving 21,500 soldiers. I always assumed that was a total. But now the Congressional Budget Office says that only counts actual combat troops, and when you add in support troops the figure could be as high as 48,000.

The number comes in response to a request from Rep. John Spratt, D-S.C., the chairman of the House Budget Committee, for an estimate on how much the surge will cost ($27 billion a year, as it turns out).

What are support troops? They're the folks who back up the soldiers doing the actual fighting. For every infantryman on the front line, there's a whole bunch of soldiers behind him, responsible for paying, feeding, equipping, informing and otherwise taking care of his needs. The ratio of combat to support troops in a military organization is known as the "teeth-to-tail" ratio, and that ratio is usually quite lopsided. When I was in the Army in the early 1990s, the Soviets had a ratio of about 3:1, meaning there were three support soldiers for every soldier actually fighting. The U.S. ratio was much higher: 8:1 or even 10:1, IIRC.

The lower the ratio, the more combat power you can deploy with a given number of troops. But the higher the ratio, the more durable your combat power is. So the Soviets could throw huge numbers of troops into the fray, but their logistical train was fragile so their combat power would decay rapidly. We could field fewer combat troops, but our robust tail meant we could sustain that level of combat power far better.

That assumes, of course, that the tail is actually functional, and doesn't simply represent bureaucratic dead weight.

Anyway, the reason I assumed the 21,500 figure included support troops is because such figures almost always include support troops. If you're sent to Iraq, it doesn't matter if you're a rifleman or a clerk-typist; you're in Iraq, and you count as part of the overall strength. So it's a bit surprising to find out that Bush was counting things up differently.

There are two reasons he might have done this, and which you choose probably depends on your view of Bush. On the one hand, it could have been politics: he might have played up the lower figure in order to minimize opposition to the move. On the other hand, it could have been that he simply didn't know yet how many support troops were being sent.

Me, I'm actually happy to find out he was undercounting. 48,000 troops still isn't a big enough increase to show we're serious, but it's a lot closer than 21,500.

On the other hand, maybe we only need half as many troops after all. In a frankly bizarre bit of testimony before Congress, Gen. George Casey -- the outgoing top general in Iraq who Bush has nominated to be the Army chief of staff -- said the surge was too big, and only half as many troops were needed.

Testifying before the Senate Armed Services Committee on his nomination to be Army chief of staff, Gen. George Casey said he had asked for two additional Army brigades, based on recommendations of his subordinate commanders. Bush announced Jan. 10 that he would send five extra brigades as part of a buildup that would total 21,500 soldiers and Marines.

Asked by Sen. John Warner, R-Va., why he had not requested the full five extra brigades that Bush is sending, Casey said, "I did not want to bring one more American soldier into Iraq than was necessary to accomplish the mission."

Yeah, because things went so well under Casey's watch. Methinks his credibility on this issue is not so high.

To be fair, Casey may be talking about a narrower, more specific thing: the number of troops necessary to carry out the specific mission he was given. As we discovered in September, actually defeating the insurgency hadn't been our mission up to that point. So if Casey defines his mission narrowly enough, his numbers make sense. But then he's either being myopic or obliquely saying that the problem was the mission -- a subtle criticism of Bush, who defines the missions that the military then carries out.

I'm beginning to think, however, that Bush isn't solely at fault for the mess that has engulfed Iraq.

politics, midtopia

Minimum wage bill passes Senate

After lots of wrangling the vote was 94-3. Among those voting against the bill was Jim DeMint. Presumably he was miffed that his line-item veto amendment failed.

The bill includes tax breaks for small businesses that must be resolved in conference committee, because the House version didn't include them. If the House goes along with the tax breaks, the bill will pass. If the conferees decide to strip out the breaks, then the "clean" bill will have to pass the Senate, a dicey proposition.

I urge Congress to keep the breaks. They are reasonable, and are paid for by eliminating various tax shelters and placing limits on tax-deferred compensation for executives.

BTW, today's political chuckle is provided by the White House. Remember when President Bush challenged Congress to balance the budget? Then consider this.

After the House passed its bill on Jan. 10, the White House issued a statement insisting that final legislation include small business tax breaks. It subsequently issued a statement supporting the Senate version, but said the revenue measures were not necessary.

Got that? Our newly minted deficit hawk of a president said the bill must include tax breaks, but didn't need to include revenue measures to pay for the tax breaks.

Perhaps someone needs to explain to Bush what "fiscal conservative," "balanced budget" and "deficit reduction" means.

Update: Here's a fun find: Two years ago, Republicans argued that a $2-an-hour minimum wage hike would cripple the economy. Now that the increase is a reality, let's see if they turn out to be right.

minimum wage, politics, midtopia

Chavez takes over

Hugo Chavez's captive National Assembly voted to give him the power to legislate by decree for 18 months, marking another step in Venezuela's remarkably open journey from democracy to dictatorship.

So what does he have in mind?

Chavez, a former paratroop commander re-elected with 63 percent of the vote in December, has said he will decree nationalizations of Venezuela's largest telecommunications company and the electricity sector, slap new taxes on the rich, and impose greater state control over the oil and natural gas industries.

The one I have the most problem with is the nationalization of the telecom. State control of the media is the first prerequisite for tyranny, and there's no compelling reason for it.

The law also allows Chavez to dictate unspecified measures to transform state institutions; reform banking, tax, insurance and financial regulations; decide on security and defense matters such as gun regulations and military organization; and "adapt" legislation to ensure "the equal distribution of wealth" as part of a new "social and economic model."

Chavez's defenders like to minimize his powers, noting that they are carefully defined and restricted to certain topics. But read the above list: what has been left out? His new authority is properly described as "sweeping." The only real check is the National Assembly's ability to revoke his power.

Chavez plans to reorganize regional territories and carry out reforms aimed at bringing "power to the people" through thousands of newly formed Communal Councils designed to give Venezuelans a say on spending an increasing flow of state money on projects in their neighborhoods, from public housing to potholes.

Local control over spending is a fine principle, but a lot depends on how those Communal Councils are formed and operated. Anyone want to bet that they turn into a patronage mill for Chavez supporters?

Sad as it is to see what is happening to democracy there, our proper response is to do nothing. As I've written before, Chavez is genuinely popular in Venezuela. His actions have majority support at the moment. 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 it is sad to see George Lucas made into a prophet: "So this is how liberty dies... with thunderous applause."

Chavez, Venezuela, politics, midtopia

A cure for cancer?

It sounds too good to be true. But everything I can find says this could be legitimate.

A molecule used for decades to combat metabolic diseases in children, may soon be available as an effective treatment for many forms of cancer, University of Alberta researchers are reporting.

In results that “astounded” school scientists, the molecule, known as DCA, was shown to shrink lung, breast and brain tumours in both animal and human tissue experiments. The study is being published today in the journal Cancer Cell.

Besides being known and safe, the drug is in the public domain -- meaning if this pans out, treatments would be dirt cheap. On the downside, it might be difficult to get it through clinical trials and bring it to market, since there's little or no profit in it for drug companies. So public financing of the trials may be necessary.

And those clinical trials are crucial. Lab results and even animal testing are nice, but the drug industry is littered with compounds that passed those two hurdles and failed in human testing. Such trials are expensive and take time, so any actual treatment is still years away.

But if this works, it would be way, way cool.

DCA, cancer, medicine, midtopia