emptywheel

How to force the Administration to get serious

2004-04-07T08:06:00.000-05:00

I keep looking back to the $87 billion appropriation--that was the last time Congress had any opportunity to exercise some oversight on this war. And, in how ever small part because the D Senate leadership agreed to a voice vote, they pissed that opportunity away. We NEEDED to say, then, that there would be ongoing oversight over contracting, guarantees that Iraqis would be brought into reconstruction, and guarantees that the troops would get what they need--like body armor.

So I wonder, how do we get another shot at that oversight? Do we have to wait unil November 4, when BushCO will ask for another $50 billion? Or do we get a nice bipartisan group to stall all funding (we could start with the highway bill) until the incompetent administration allows congress to serve in its constitutionally mandated oversight role.

Of course, at this late date, I'm not sure what good it will do. But perhaps we can avoid this turning into the Iraqi intifada?? Perhaps we can prevent the massacring of civilians??

Comments on Kerry's Energy Policy

2004-03-30T17:41:00.000-05:00

I just got an email about Kerry's energy policy (for the long version, go here). And it drives me crazy. Here's a guy with real environmental credentials (I often take solace in that). But his energy policy stinks. So let's brainstorm how we can improve it.

A quick overview of the policy, with my comments/critiques:

Reverse Bush broken promise and urge OPEC to increase oil supply.

Kerry's first bullet point promises something he cannot deliver (oh, where is HoHo calling for honesty?). You're not going to get Saudi Arabia (which has a better relationship with Bush, so would be more likely to listen to him) or Venezuela (which has an understandably crummy relationship with the US, and Kerry's hardline calls against Chavez aren't going to improve that) to increase oil supplies unless you can find some way to get them more money for their oil. But since the dollar is tanking, you're going to have to get them 20% or more than what they were getting.

Kerry needs to address some of the underlying issues here--the weakness of the dollar, our inability to really affect oil supplies, and a real need to begin to cut back overall. Or better yet, Kerry could be honest and say that we need to find a way to deal with increased oil prices because we might as well get used to them--what's that, you can't get elected on that? Okay, we'll wait until after the election.

Temporarily suspend filling the Strategic Petroleum Reserve until oil prices return to more normal levels.

Insisting on filling the SPR is actually one of Bush's few honest acts--stocking up some oil for when we will need it, because we will need it (okay, I realize it also helps his buddies make bottom line profit). I'd actually prefer Dem congresscritters to call for this, because I think if Bush does stop filling the SPR, then it might be perceived as a victory for the D's. And I'd like him to NOT make it a campaign issue, because one way or another, it needs to be refilled, and there is a pretty good chance prices are only going to get higher. But I do like Kerry's call for a long-term management plan for the SPR.

Enact a simpler, cleaner national fuels strategy

Kerry rightfully calls for more coordination among fuel regulations--if there was more standardization, it would prevent oil companies from reaming consumers by not producing enough fuel for a given area.

But even the Senate has agreed that one of the problems with fuel distribution in this country is concentration. There are too few refineries in many markets (particularly CA), and there are too many bottlenecks in production.

You're not going to get a more functional market in fuels in this country unless you have more competition. So you need to accompany a standardization with a call to break up Exxon Mobil and Chevron Texaco.

An energy policy to decrease dependence on foreign oil and protect Americans.

Why is this the fourth bullet???? This should the the first thing Kerry talks about when he talks about energy--and it should be foregrounded as a program to create jobs, make America more competitive with other countries, and otherwise stimulate the economy. Hell, it should be the first thing Kerry talks about, period.

I also think Kerry needs more details here. He promises incentives for clean and efficient fuel use. Is he proposing tax breaks? Credits? Is he going to tailor business taxes to foster efficiency and alternatives as well?

Ditto his Renewable Energy Trust Fund. He provides some details ("will also create 500,000 new jobs"), but he needs to give more meat here. This is where, given John Kerry's history and environmental background, he can really begin to form his own vision.

Oh. And he needs to name it something more inspiring than "Renewable Energy Trust Fund." Particularly coming from someone whose wife has, well, a fairly sizable trust fund, this sounds like the pastime of a really rich person, not a visionary program to unite this country. This name needs to inspire people, get them dreaming, unite the country. Something like, "21st Century Energy Discovery Fund."

Gary Sick's October Surprise and our potential October Surprise?

2004-03-21T18:44:00.000-05:00

I just finished reading Gary Sick's book, October Surprise. Gary Sick was the head of the Iran desk in Carter's National Security Council. He tells the story of the plot on the part of the Reagan-Bush campaign to make a deal with the Iranians to prevent the release of the hostages until after the 1980 election.

I decided to read the book (Kevin Phillips used it in his American Dynasty) as a way to gain some perspective on our own potential October Suprise as well as for background on our current relationship with Iran (we know there have been some backroom dealings going on, and I'd love to guess out what they might be--some of the players, like Ghorbanifar and Laurence Silberman are still in the game, too). Anyway, here are my thoughts on what is a very worthy and (at this moment) timely read.

I should say, straight out, that Sick's book was discredited when it first appeared. He relies on a number of anonymous witnesses, and it took him until after Iran-Contra broke to form the conclusion that the Reagan-Bush campaign had pulled off an October Surprise. Later, corroborating evidence appeared, not least in Soviet spy files. I, however, found Sick's book surprisingly balanced, much more so than Phillips' book (better written, too). For example, Sick seems much more skeptical of one of the most incendiary allegations about the event, that Poppy Bush was involved in the negotiations with the Iranians. Further, he provides a balanced consideration of the validity of all the information he presents; I imagine this reflects his background working with intelligence.

Anyway, one of the things I tried to figure out was what made it possible to pull off the negotiations. One thing was that Carter had alienated the intelligence community. He had cut the number of covert agents from 1200 to 400, which meant there were a lot of people with really good contacts who had reason to work against Carter's re-election. One example of how this hurt Carter is that top-secret information (such as the plan for a second rescue attempt) found its way to the Reagan-Bush campaign within days. In addition, disgruntled intelligence personnel managed to keep the R-B camapign informed of the Carter negotiations with the Iranians. They even managed to turn one of the chief interlocutors with the Iranians into double agents, working both with the Carter administration and, more faithfully, with R-B.

Another thing that made the scheme possible was that Carter had alienated some key international players. Obviously, he had alienated Khomeini. Sick describes Khomeini's actions, at times, as motivated out of a visceral dislike of Carter. But Carter also alienated the Israelis, partly because of his tough stances at Camp David, partly because they felt he wasn't considering their interests. By the end, the Israelis gambled wholeheartedly on a Republican Administration, going so far as to send shipments of arms, against Carter's explicit request, before the election (they fudged it, so they could get the first shipment off before actually responding to Carter's inquiry about it).

The Israelis proved to be a real liability here. When Iran's military supply needs became dire after Iraq invaded, there were three possible sources (besides shady individual arms dealers): Pakistan, North Korea, and Israel. The comment made me realize that in many ways Israel is as much of a rogue arms dealer as Pakistan and North Korea. But of course, they're our rogue arms dealer. The only problem is, Carter got stuck in a spot where they were dealing for the other side--and they managed to undermine US interests in the process.

Another key factor was Carter's principled nature. Up until the week before the election, he refused to consider dealing weapons to the Iranians in exchange for the hostages. Of course, since there was someone else who was willing to deal weapons (R-B), that meant that Carter was necessarily offering a less attractive deal. Not surprisingly, the Iranians went with the more lucrative offer. Sick explains, "By refusing to compromise for his own political advantage, Carter inadvertently helped to ensure that the hostages would not be released until the next administration took office."

I couldn't help but thinking, btw, that our principle and our unwillingness to put the interests of other parties (Israel) ahead of our own national interest is what gets Democrats looked on as so ineffectual from a security standpoint. It's ironic, I know, but if you're willing to basically bribe another party, you're more likely to get them to act reliably, rather than if you just try to deal with them honestly.

Finally, not surprisingly, R-B engaged in some of the same kind of directly contradictory disinformation they're spewing now. Reagan once said that "he would not be surprised if Iran released the hostages before the election since Iran probably preferred Carter to himself as President." Bush wondered whether Carter was going to pull an October Surprise, saying, "there's not a darned thing we can do about it." All the while, they're negotiating with Iran, asking them to hold 52 American citizens for an additional three months. Once Reagan was inaugurated, he kept spouting off about how he would never negotiate with terrorists, but of course, he got elected precisely by negotiating with terrorists. Reading about this didn't surprise me in the least, but boy did it seem familiar.

So what does this teach us with respect to the possibility of an October Surprise this year?? It's a remarkably parallel situation. Like Carter, Bush has pissed off some key international players. Also like Carter, Bush has profoundly angered a significant portion of the intelligence community; I suspect Poppy's influence will help to keep some of the intelligence community on their side, but many have already publicly sided with Kerry or at least against Bush. (I also have really big questions about how the intelligence community feels about the prospect of a Kerry presidency, given his history of leading investigations into CIA involvement with drugrunning; will they be thrilled because he (like Bush) has whitewashed stuff for them, or will they feel like they have a debt to settle??) But of course, we're not expecting an October surprise from Kerry; we're expecting it from Bush.

Reading this book made me feel like an October Surprise may be what is going on in Pakistan. Of course it'd be about bin Laden (and as with R-B, the timing of his capture). But what is in it for Pakistan? What interests would it serve Musharraf? It seems like it doesn't incease his political or life security at all. And the US is in a position to deal openly with Musharraf.

Anyway, I think Bush's similar positioning to Carter make it possible that, if they are trying to pull off an October Surprise, it might fail. I think it's hard enough because they're presumably dealing with Pakistan (since ISI agents are almost all playing it both ways all the time). But they also likely can't expect the support of the intelligence community. I suspect Israel is again voting for the Repeublicans (although I kept thinking of Kerry's backpedalling with Israeli policy issues when I was reading about Israeli behavior then). But clearly Bush can't count on the support of other allies (imagine if he needed help from the Turks, for example).

Anyway, I said above that "we're not expecting an October Surprise" from Kerry. But what if he could deliver one (I suspect he could, given some of the people he has working for him)?? Would I want my own side to pull an October Surprise if I knew it was the best (only) way of winning an election? Tough to say. I'm with Jimmy Carter here, I'd rather take the principled route. And after reading this book, I couldn't help but conclude that the Republican/Democratic divide in this country has less to do with policy and more to do with a split between putting a pursuit of power ahead of the interests of American versus putting the interests of America first. And I wonder, at times, whether allowing this regime to have another term won't mean the end of many things I hold dear in this country. So could you argue that it is in the best interest of the country to sponsor an October Surprise for our side?

I guess I'd rather reapply myself to finding an honest way of getting Kerry elected.

Irish Contribution to Civilization

2004-03-17T12:37:00.000-05:00

Here's a sad thought about Ireland's greatest contribution to civilization.

I've long had a joke with my (Irish) husband that the Irish are colonizing the world with Guinness. There are Irish bars in every major city of the world, it seems. And even in a city like Prague (where, if you speak Czech, a half liter of the best beer in the world can be had for $.13), people are willing to pony up a lot of money (in local beer currency terms) for a Guinness. We've actually started making a point of visiting the Irish bars around the world . . . and let me warn you, Guinness is really not good in Rio de Janiero. Guinness was not built for warm-weather climes.

But most of the Irish bars around the world are nothing like the real thing. They've got cheezy pictures of Joyce painted on the wall, discarded rugby and hurling equipment hanging from the rafters. They're way too clean. And they break the space of the room down too much, discouraging real drunken mingling.

Well, that's bothersome enough. But now, in Ireland, the traditional pub is being renovated into a fancy yuppie bar, with brushed steel fixtures and neon-colored vodka-based beverages. I suppose that has the salutory effect of making it more acceptable for a woman to be in the pub outside of the snug. But I'm really worried that the real McCoy is disappearing.

There are even people in Ireland who are worried that civil society is suffering as a result. People are staying home or hanging out with the people the came to the pub with. It's only a matter of time before a witty Irish intellectual writes a book on "pubbing alone" (maybe I'll do it once my citizenship comes through later this year).

At any rate, while you're enjoying your Patty's day festivities, give some thought to the (sadly declining) democratizing instincts of the Irish pub.

Howard Dean as a Narrative for the 21st Century

2003-11-24T05:15:00.000-05:00

The best article, by far, on Howard Dean's campaign is this article in the IT magazine, Baseline. It provides a deatiled look at the way that Meetup.com and blogs have served Dean's campaign. The article gets what a lot of people have not--Dean's campagin uses technology as a way to build a great grassroots network, not as a campaign in itself. It's worth it for a review of the ways they're using technology.

But I most enjoyed glimmers of a sense that the Dean campaign tells a different kind of story. This is a story without a dominant narrator, one that evolves but is richer because of it:

Television, radio, print and mail can create awareness and desire for a product. Senders control the presentation and, if intelligently worded and presented, the messages cause an individual or company to vote with its dollars, by buying the product. But the lesson of Dean's campaign is that the Web is not for micromanagers. With the Internet, an effective campaign creates a community that will on its own begin to market your product for you. Properly done, you won't be able â€“ or want â€” to control it.

The advantage of this is that everyone becomes a storyteller. So rather than one orderly, controlled message radiating from a center (and paid for through expensive ad time), you've got a lot of little conversations, many told by a narrator who has built in credibility for the listener:

But Dean's Net effort is about getting individuals to give time, not just money. Trippi and Teachout want others to tell the Dean story, not themselves.

Of course, this has one more advantage. It allows you to tailor for different markets, so you can be more things to more people. Given the kind of marketing people are used to in this day and age, I imagine it is a pretty powerful marketing tool:

Dean himself discourages the language of marketing, yet this is marketing of a new sort. "It's not marketing and branding in the sense of demanding complete fidelity to a very succinct message, saying you can't waver on font, color, or verb â€“ 'Coke Is it,'" says Teachout. "We've allowed for local-interest, geographic, ownership of the campaign. That necessarily runs counter to it. We have a flowering of different brands. If this was a branding contest, we'd be losing."

There is a caveat of course. At times, Dean does send out an old-style top-down message. This is part of creating a legitimate story that can be repeated over and over again:

Sometimes, though, the candidate's own message trumps this diffuse branding effort. Rather than sending targeted e-mail to specific interest groups, for example, the campaign sends the same message to everyone, whether it concerns healthcare or foreign policy. If the Internet is being used to recreate New England town meetings all across the country â€“ and to involve all those meetings in the same discussion â€“ the candidate can't say different things to different people.

This is the way most successful narratives work in this day and age--from Harry Potter to Left Behind to LOTR. You've got to have a strong message (I doubt, for example, that someone without Dean's strength of personality could have pulled this off). But you've also got to find a way to saturate with the story, you've got to find a way to get people to participate in it, rather than just sit in a darkened theater absorbing it.

Let's just hope that the passive theater crowd goes the way of the last century because of it.

Area Studies and the New McCarthyism

2003-11-11T02:49:00.000-05:00

It is no secret that the conservative movement is trying to take back the universities. People like David Horowitz are advocating a new-fangled affirmative action program, in which conservatives are guaranteed a certain number of positions in university departments to counteract the liberal "bias" of universities.

The latest salvo in this effort is an attempt to require university Area Study departments to openly support America or stand to lose their funding. If passed, this bill would establish a committee to review the policies of Area Study centers to make sure they had enough faculty that supported US policies:

If it becomes law, it will create a board to monitor how federally funded international-studies centers impact national security. The board will evaluate whether supporters of American foreign policy are adequately represented in university programs.

The real target here is Middle Eastern studies departments. Neocons complain they have been taken over by leftists--often natives of the countries themselves--who support the "islamo-fascist" revolution. But the program would institute the review on all of the programs. And it would bring with it an expectation that the Area Studies departments would produce more spooks for the government.

Now, actually, this move is not all that distant from the urge that established the Area Studies centers in the first place, nor is it entirely removed from movements already underway in universities. Most Area Studies programs were formed during the Cold War in an attempt to train professionals sufficiently to work intelligently in the regions. Area Studies programs would not only give people advanced language training, but they would provide the interdisciplinary background that gives a real understanding of a region.

Even now, students working in Area Studies centers are likely to be aware of the security-related concerns behind their programs. Most notably, Area Studies programs are the avenue for receiving funding to study languages overseas; this funding is limited to languages that are underrepreseted in the US. The notion is that the funding program will compensate for this shortage in expertise, no matter if the interests of the people involved tend more to (as Martin Kramer, one of the proponents of the bill, scoffs in the Salon article) gender in eigth centry Cairo than it does to contemporary terrorism.

Some scholars associated with Area Studies centers have recently been rethinking the model. Some note that the regions of the Area Studies centers are artificial constructs that often prevent one from learning about more general trends in globalization; they would like to move the centers under a larger International Studies umbrella (this is how Michigan's program is organized, for example). Other complain that these regions were originally formed with an eye to Cold War considerations, and that they therefore continue to look at the regions from a geopolitical strategic standpoint, rather than a neutral one.

Now I'm not sure that such a neutral standpoint exists. However, I'm sure there are problems with this bill. Right now, Area Studies centers tend to compensate for the biases inherent in the sub-disciplines of the area. For example, because Slavic departments are largley staffed by Communist-era exiles, the departments tend to shy away from any kind of materialist analysis. To their detriment. But working within a Russia and East European Studies center offers schoalrs a way to use such methods in their work.

But the effect of this bill would move the work of Area Studies away from compensating in these ways to a way that analyzes all regions through the same lens--that of the US as a benevolent actor. As Martin Kramer admits, "The idea that the United States plays an essentially beneficent role in the world is at the very core of this approach."

We've just learned the dangers of such tunnel visioned thinking. And that is the point some of its opponents clearly articulate:

For professors of Middle Eastern studies, though, it's outrageous, and dangerous, that the government is meddling with academic freedom. And it's especially galling that those who are calling for government intervention are the very neocons whose fear-mongering claims about Iraq have been shown to be false. "The thing that burns me, these are the guys who told us that Saddam had an active nuclear weapons program and would have a nuke within three years," says Cole. "And they're coming back and telling us that our scholarship is shoddy and we need to be overseen by them?"

Looking at regions of the world as pawns of the Cold War, as Area Studies originally did, was blinding enough. But starting with the assumption that the US is a force for good in this world is certain to cause us to miss some things.

The Surest Counter to US Power

2003-10-22T10:09:00.000-05:00

My academic work looked at (among other things) the possibilities of 2nd world countries (those reasonably developed countries that can either thrive or fail through trade with the rest of the world) to exercise real sovereignty. One of the problems for these countries--I looked at the Czech lands and Argentina--is that they were always triangulated by larger powers. It was too easy to replace one region with another. For example, Latin America had a relationship with Europe that suffered after 1989, because Europe traded preferentially with the former communist states. You can even argue that Central and Eastern Europe provided some of the materials that Latin America would come to supply after Conquest.

There have been efforts on the part of these nations, heretofore unsuccessful, to band together to prevent this kind of triangulation. In the 70s, non-metropolitan countries tried to increase their influence with the non-aligned nations. But some of the areas in which they operated, such as UNESCO, were simply undermined by the US, thereby undermining the stregnth of the movement.

The latest version of this is the alliance that brought down the Cancun trade talks, the G21 (actually the number fluctuates depending on the issue you're discussing). Now, I'm not saying that what happened at Cancun is a good thing. It would be better to have one organization overseeing fairer trade, than to have the kind of bilateral agreements the Bush Administration is currently pursuing.

But an alliance between these countries, in particular between India and Brazil, could be powerful.

And the effort has continued--however lessened--after Cancun.

Right now, PNAC is most concerned about the next threat to its power coming from the European block (thus the engagement but simultaneous restructuring of NATO) or from China (thus the interest in bases in East Asia).

They have not apparently given much consideration to India, nor to the possibility that you will have an alliance between the larger developing nations with access to technology.

What intrigues me about a Brazilian-Indian alliance (although the article focuses on Brazil and Argentina) is that

you've got a huge chunk of population

you've got a mix of rural and industrial production that can, within itself, act as a powerful trade block

with India, you've got the genuine transfer of technological information, if not (yet) the investment

again, with India, you've got a reasonably large army, with the bomb

you've got strategic distribution in key areas

It's way too early to know how this will come out. But I find it intriguing. And I find that having two democracies--however dysfunctional--as the potential successors to the US empire rather comforting.

Bolivia's President Dumped by . . . Gaddafi???

2003-10-21T17:03:00.000-05:00

This is rich.

The recently ousted president of Bolivia, who tried to privatize one of the poorest countries in the world (even after previous riots had proven that Bolivian peasants will not be cowed), is trying to shift the blame for his failure to the usual suspects.

First, he blames narco-traffickers and terrorists, no doubt trying to follow Columbia President Uribe's example of naming all his opponents terrorists so that Bush has to fund him:

My departure was the product of a conspiracy, of sedition by armed groups, 'narco-syndicalist' groups, terrorist groups and cartels who created a confrontational situation, leaving me no way out but to resign.

Then, he goes on to blame the recently rehabilitated Colonel Gaddafi:

Well, it's very difficult to be specific, because, you know, these things only come to light through other countries' intelligence reports. Bolivia doesn't have channels of this kind. But it's interesting to note that Evo Morales received a peace prize in Libya awarded by (Colonel) Gaddafi.

Now, Morales is one of the indigenous leaders of the riots that led to the President's overthrow. He has ties to coca growers, which of course has earned him little favor from the Bush Administration.

But really. Colonel Gaddafi has just now gotten back into Washington's not-so-evil-graces. He is not about to do anything to jeapordize that, particularly not by sponsoring terrorism. And if he were going to sponsor terrorism in Latin America, I'm guessing Venezuela would make a much more likely candidate. Or Columbia through Venezuela.

One way or another, this is another example of the state of rhetoric, when all a leader (or former leader, in this case) has to do to appeal to Washington is to call it terrorism.

Hey, Maryland Has Caught Up!

2003-10-21T14:41:00.000-05:00

Just to give credit where it is due, the democrats in Maryland are moving to double double double check the machines the state has purchased. The article suggests that the Dems may not get the review they really want, due to time considerations:

To that end, Hollinger and Hixson asked the legislative agency to examine the process used to select the firm to conduct the review of the Diebold system and the Johns Hopkins report and to report on "the professional credentials and organizational composition of SAIC to ensure that the SAIC analysis was objective, balanced, impartial, and free of outside influence or other conflicts."

And then it continues:

Karl S. Aro, executive director of the Department of Legislative Services, said that his agency would respond to the request, but he noted that the deadline set for his report -- Jan. 12, near the start of the legislative session -- might be too close.

"We will look at it," Aro said. "We'll see exactly what they're asking us to do."

But at least they're going to try. I kind of suspect that, if this voting machine thing is going to hit the fan before the presidential election, it will do so in Ohio or Maryland.

The Democratic Party as the Party of the Groups

2003-10-20T17:23:00.000-05:00

I haven't read the book, but as I understand it Zell Miller has pissed off quite a few people with his "National Party No More."

In it, he complains that the Democratic Party is moving too far to the left, even claiming the moderates running for President are too far to the left:

"But Lord, those current presidential candidates in my party!" Miller writes. "They are good, smart and able folks but if I decide to follow any of them down their road, I'd have to keep my left turn signal blinking."

But the thing that really pissed people off (and that I think offers a bit of worthwhile insight) is his complaint about "The Groups":

Miller calls them "the Groups" - with a capital G - including labor, the National Organization for Women, gays, gun-control advocates and environmentalists. He says he quit going to Tuesday caucuses of Senate Democrats because they were dominated by "the Groups."

Now, frankly, I'm a woman who has had enough gay friends bashed to see the need for gay rights, who walks in the woods with her dog every day, and who stopped going to a local pub because of a scare during hunting season. I'm as much Democratic "Group" as they come. And one of the reasons I will always support democrats--even if I won't register with the party (see below)--is because I believe in the importance of supporting these groups.

But Miller's complaint is important insofar as it attests to an important perception that weakens the Democratic party. There are just too many people who support all of the Democrat's policy positions, but oppose the party, to ignore the complaint.

The easy (and I think incorrect) answer is to repackage Democratic issues in a more universal language. We could actually do that pretty easily. For example (and I'll return to this at some point), universal health care can easily be packaged as a benefit for the American business community. After all, if the government provides health care, then US businesses will be better able to compete with British businesses. At the very least, helping out with health care would stimulate the formation of small businesses, which is where all the growth is, anyway.

But I think the universal approach is the wrong idea, if for no other reason than the fact that the Republican party, because of its fundraising advantage, will have the best access to the universalizing media. Like Fox News Channel. Or TV in general.

That says to me, that any universalist message that you are trying to get out (which, logically, you would use a universalist medium for), you will not be able to compete very well. (I'll blog more on this in the near future. It's really where this blog should be going.)

However, I think the "group" nature of the democratic party lends itself to the micromedia out there. And mircomedia--particularly the Internet--are media that the Dems can easily take the advantage in, precisely because their message is inherently modular.

What I think the Democratic party ought to be doing is building a networking organization that allows them to multiply the identities each Democrat has with the party, thereby making them a more intelligent, but no less committed supporter.

Well. That's a start, I guess. Of course, the trick is really working out how that networked relationship building can happen. But I can come back and do that another time.

Why I'll Never Join a Political Party that Sends Me Questionnaires

2003-10-14T01:03:00.000-05:00

I've had it with the questionnaires I get from the DNC.

In general, I'm a big sucker for polls. Unlike most folks I know, I've never been called for jury duty; but unlike most folks, too, I often get called to do polls. And I love it. When I get the Dem polls, I'm glad my vote is counted. When I get the nasty Republican push polls, I try to fuck with their brain, and (I think) I usually succeed. And when the consumer goods companies call and I tell them I use co-op mayonnaise, I'm sure I fuck with their brains.

But the written polls that the parties send out? They drive me crazy.

I actually prefer the republican ones. They are constructed with a good deal more intellectual honesty than the democratic ones. For example, I just answered one where I was given a choice whether or not I approved of Bush's handling of Iraq. Had it been a democratic poll, I'm sure I'd have gotten three choices, all of which amounted to support for Clinton or whomever was in office. So at least for the republicans, I was able to express my dissatisfaction. And then lie and say I was a republican so they at least thought twice before they threw out my results.

But the democratic ones do only two things for me. First, the construction of the questions demonstrates to me how ossified the party is. These are not questions that admit the possibility of new, creative solutions. They are simply the regurgitated party line that does not seem to change, even as the party loses its base.

The other thing these things do is insult my intelligence. The questions are bad enough. But then these things come sent in a fake overnight envelope. The most recent ones have had Terry McAuliffe's address written in fake handwritten letters on the return address. And to make it worse, they have these fake smudges, as if to prove that the fake handwriting is real. Of course, I've gotten two of them now, which, if I were stupid enough to believe that Terry McAuliffe was writing me personally, would lead me to ask why the DNC keeps leaving their mail out in the rain. As it is, I simply ask whether the party thinks I'm that stupid.

Luckily, Michigan has one of the least restrictive laws about voting in primaries. So I can state I'm a democrat, without having to mentally endorse the fake handwritten survey envelopes. But I sure wish the democrats would stop insulting the intelligence of their database.

Water Prices

2003-10-07T13:32:00.000-05:00

We pay too little for water.

I say that as I look at my bill for the period that includes my summer landscaping project. Every day for several weeks, I dumped water into my new "native prairie" for several hours at a time. I fully expected the water price to be significant, something akin to the other investment that I had made in the project, over $1000.

My bill for the previous quarter, in which I did a normal level of laundry, dishwashing, and (for me and Derek) showering, was $17. My water bill for this quarter, in which I did all that normal cleaning plus the landscaping, was $39.

So I paid $22 for the privilege of dumping water into the ground for days at a time, over a time period of three months. About the cost of 4 car washes, which only spray water for about one minute.

I wouldn't be so indignant about this, except that I realize how it, like the gas subsidies in this country, makes a wasteful lifestyle more palatable to money-conscious consumers. It makes the ridiculous green lawn habit fiscally possible. It makes it a lot easier for people to pressure their neighbors to have the perfect lawn, when in fact this means they are pressuring you to do something that has a net drain on their community.

I may return to this topic again, to talk more about the value and joys of native species, which (if you haven't already guessed) will use much less water over the long term. Suffice it to say, for now, just: "earthworm."

The Farmer and His Bug Bomb

2003-10-02T16:29:00.000-05:00

No one remembers this probably. But right before the Iraq war started (in that eerie week where Bush was issuing final offers), a farmer drove his tractor onto the mall claiming to have explosives in it.

Here's a story about that farmer on trial. (He was convicted and stands to do four to six years time.)

The whole story is rather pathetic. But I was fascinated while it was happening, and am a little haunted by this guy's testimony.

You see, the whole reason he pulled the stunt was to bring attention to the plight of Persian Gulf I's veterans, to the dangers of toxic pesticides, and to the government mistreatment of tobacco farmers. He had some legitimate (and short-sighted but understandable) issues. And he felt that the only way he could lobby for those issues was to threaten Washington DC.

I was fascinated, first of all, because this guy was using what is basically a terrorist tactic to draw attention to legitimate political issues. He was doing so at a moment--right before we went to war with Iraq, ostensibly in the name of terrorism--when the whole country was fired up about the danger of terrorism. But this attempt managed to look only pathetic.

I think this story is a really sad testimony to the degree to which average folks feel they cannot be heard anymore. Here's part of his court testimony:

I tried to do the right thing, like we were raised as kids, you know, go up and talk to your congressmen. . . . Everybody just blew me off," Watson told Harasek. "I said, 'Damn, these people up here in Washington, D.C., need a damn wake-up call. . . .
And the best wake-up call he could think of was to threaten people with explosives.

It is by now a truism that there is a abyss between Washington insiders and the rest of America. But when someone feels the need to threaten (or pretend) to threaten the nation's capital because he feels he has no legitimate recourse, we've got a problem.

Folks Are Waking Up to Diebold--Just Not in MD

2003-09-25T09:33:00.000-05:00

The Diebold voting machine controversy is finally beginning to take off. Kos, Atrios, Billmon, and CalPundit have all mentioned the machines recently. Mark Crispin Miller is making it a centerpiece of his new blog. It's beginning to look like people are becoming aware of the problem.

But not in MD.

The report from SAIC, on the security of the machines came out yesterday. And the report basically said what we already know, that the machines have serious security problems. But the response from MD seems to be to go ahead anyway.

It has been pointed out that SAIC is itself in the business of voting machines. So you can't really expect this report to be legitimate in any sense. But here the report is, admitting there are problems with the machines.

Any bet that Bush carries MD in 2004?

Who Keeps Turning the Lights Off?

2003-09-23T16:54:00.000-05:00

Well, it has happened again: a massive power outage. First the outage in the US, then one in London, and now this.

And, little noticed (as was this one in Scandinavia) was another power outage, the Monday after the US blackout, in the Republic of Georgia.

Now, as a Dane interviewed about their blackout pointed out, the London, US, and Danish outage came in countries that have soldiers in Iraq. Georgia, of course, doesn't have soldiers in Iraq, except for any mujahadeen sponsored by Al Qaeda. But Georgia is basically a summer camp for slavic mafia types, terrorists, and others interested in doing business on the the not-so-up-and-up.

I'm not saying they're related. But I am saying that these blackouts merit more unified attention. Purported Al Qaeda spoksepeople tried to take credit for the US blackout. They said they didn't want to explain how they had caused it, because they planned to use the strategy in the future.

Whom to Hate

2003-09-23T10:33:00.000-05:00

Voters are getting fickle about negative campaigning.

Pollsters have noted that when Joe Lieberman started slamming Howard Dean, Lieberman's poll numbers dropped drastically. When Gephardt started slamming Howard Dean, Gephardt's poll numbers dropped drastically. Pollsters are beginning to chant that negative campaigning is really going to hurt people in this campaign cycle.

Maybe on intra-party rivalries, but not when the country is at stake. Even though Republicans complain about attacks on Bush and suggest that "negative campaigning will hurt the Democrats," they seem wrong. The two candidates who have been boldest in criticizing Bush are Clark and Dean. And they, of course, are the poll leaders.

I sincerely wonder whether it is a matter of substance (unlike Rove or Lehane campaigns, Dean and Clark are simply telling the truth), or whether the electorate has soured on Bush, which makes it okay to attack him. EIther way, it is shaping up to give an interesting characteristic to the election.

A Look at the Poll Ratings

2003-09-23T08:32:00.000-05:00

Okay, so everyone has noticed that Bush's job approval ratings have fallen to an all time low. As they have noticed that Wesley Clark and John Kerry would both beat Bush in a head-to-head matchup conducted today.

But think about these latest poll data. First, a recent Washington Post poll found that nearly 70% of Americans believe Sadaam Hussein had some connection with 9/11. Meanwhile, in the recent Gallup poll reporting Bush's record low job approval ratings, only 50% of those polled believed that the war in Iraq was worthwhile.

I realize these two polls use different methodologies, and therefore can't be considered in complete conjunction. But even if you assume that Gallup would show a smaller number of people who believed that Sadaam sent over all those Saudi terrorists, you'd still have a significantly larger number of people who believed there was a connection than who believed that the war in Iraq was worthwhile--say, 15%.

15% of Americans believe Sadaam Hussein attacked us, but think that the war is not a worthwhile response to that attack.

I find this remarkable. For all the claims that Americans are bloodthirsty, short-tempered provincials, here we have a significant minority who believes that a war is not a worthwhile response to a terrorist attack launched--so they believe wrongly--by that country.

I don't know what to make of it. But I think it suggests a lot more ambivalence about war as a response to terrorism than you'd expect from watching Fox News.

David Brooks' Giddy New Gig

2003-09-16T09:58:00.000-05:00

I have a hunch about David Brooks. He's thrilled about his new New York Times gig because it gives him a very prestigious pulpit from which to shout his message. Newspaper of record and all that. But at the same time, I think he has heard myths about the liberal media so often, that he doesn't respect his audience at the Times. He can barely conceal his disdain for his own readers, and it makes his normally logical prose appear ridiculous.

Over the weekend, he wrote an article comparing Bush's and Dean's relative social standing. Dean, he pointed out, boasted a much higher pedigree. Although how he can equate Dean's years as a ski bum with Bush's as an alcoholic and coke aficionado, I don't understand.

Nice hook on your story, David, but who cares? Unless you hold a really caricatured picture of Democratic politics, you really can't think that this article is going to have an effect on Dean's support among Democrats. By suggesting that Dean's supporters ignore his class or pedigree, Brooks avoids having to deal with the real energy Dean has generated, not to mention the set of pragmatic (and none-too-liberal) policies he championed in Vermont. FDR's and JFK's pedigree were also good (although, Brooks would be sure to point out, not as good as Dean's). But it didn't play the definitive role in their policies.

Now, in today's column, Brooks makes a very weak argument about how Republican pollsters would welcome a Dean candidacy. The first problem with the argument is that Brooks doesn't even try to make his argument appear to be anything other than chatty insiders gabbing (his portrayal of their response as "hahahahaha" does little to improve this). When they're presenting supposedly scientific polls, pollsters are going to present a much different face than when meeting for beers with their co-conspirator.

But he also makes a very weak argument about what Dean stands for. He suggests that Dean can do no more than mobilize the democratic base (whose weak showing in the mid-term elections may have been decisive for the Republicans). He doesn't begin to explain why so many people on Dean blogs describe themselves as independents. In short, he makes a fairly reasoned argument that this election will be about mobilizing independents, but he fails to even address the issue of whether Dean is pulling support from the Democratic base or from independents.

And the argument is pretty bunk anyway, given all the recent coverage of how worried Republican pollsters are about Bush approval ratings in general. If they're so worried about a growing perception that Bush is a lying incompetent who will doom the economy and the war on terrorism, then why aren't they worried about one of the voices who has most effectively sold that message?

As I write this, I think Brooks' recent columns refute his pleas that Dean is not a threat quite well. If Dean is such a lightweight, David, why waste your lucrative Times space belittling him?

But the biggest problem is that Brooks doesn't seem to think that Times readers have any more sophistication than your average Fox fan. He can simply make blank accusations, without employing any of the sound argumentative ability he has shown in the past.

Which makes this respectable commentator look like a buffoon.

Collapse of WTO Trade Talks and US Bullying over Iraq??

2003-09-15T13:07:00.000-05:00

I can't help but wonder whether or not there is a connection between the hard stance developing nations took in the Cancun trade talks and our (the US') bullying leading up to the Iraq war.

The unwillingness on the part of the 6 decisive countries on the Security Council to vote in favor of the Iraq war was an almost unprecedented rebuke of the United States on the part of the developing world. (Ditto Turkey's refusal to allow basing privileges for the war.) For the most part, these were individual countries that, for disparate reasons, decided that voting in favor of the Iraq war was not in their own best interest. Importantly, these decisions were often made out of prinicpled opposition to pre-emptive war or the aggression of a developed nation against an overpowered developing one. I'm sure it helped, of course, that France, Germany, and Russia were supporting these developing nations behind the scene. Nevertheless, it was an inspiring stand against the world's biggest bully.

I think the stance signalled several things. First, it highlighted how little the United States really gives to most developing nations. It threatened these countries with trade retaliation. But few of them (Chile is the biggest exception) had much real trade with the United States anyway (the African nations usually trade more with Europe than the United States.) Further, the US really gives a teeny bit of international aid, particularly as compared with other developed nations. So in a very real way, I think the confrontation over the Security Council resolution really demonstrated how little the US gives to developing nations.

Perhaps more importantly, US intransigence about the war demonstrated (if our stance on Kyoto, etc. hadn't already done so) to all the world how relentlessly we are going to pursue our own interest, at the expense of the everyone else. It demonstrated the need for the rest of the world to start forming coalitions that could counteract our power. Belgian, France, and Germany formed the beginning of a military alliance. China and India resolved some long-standing disputes and developed closer relations. And now this.

The Group of 21 and the Group of 17 (groups of developing nations objecting to the agricultural and the investment rules, respectively) represent a very intriguing alliance. They include the largest developing nations, many of which have significant raw materials (Nigeria, South Africa) or human capital (India). And they include most of the world, literally. They largely feature an alliance between Brazil (which is reported to have provided the development leadership), China, and India. An alliance between these three nations really could threaten the United States. They represented the largest possible markets, some of the best human capital, and a good deal of military heft.

So I wonder whether our Iraq bullying has led directly to the coalition that eventually lead to our demise.

Double Standards for Islamic Nations Fighting Terrorism

2003-09-11T07:03:00.000-05:00

Bush is pretty clear when it comes to the road map, or the reasons behind his dismissal of Yasir Arafat. The Palestinians, you see, need to crack down on the terrorists within their midst.

As many people have pointed out, it matters little to Bush that the Israelis have completely dismantled Palestinian security services. Do it anyway, he seems to be saying, even if the people who could have done it have been killed or arrested.

Funny, then, their approach to the Pakistanis. It's pretty well accepted the Osama Bin Laden has taken refuge in the tribal areas within Pakistan, and that the Taliban has regrouped thanks to the safety offered by Pakistan. These, of course, are the terrorists who have actually struck the United States. And this is happening within a country run by the military. In an article describing US acceptance of Pakistan's ambivalence about pursuing Al Qaeda, this was basically dismissed as a question of capacity.

Western diplomats say the Taliban is building up its forces along the border and running a recruiting network inside Pakistan. But they see the problem as one of Pakistani capacity and politics, not will, and say they have seen no evidence of direct aid from Pakistan's government to the Taliban. "They may not know what to do," said one Western diplomat.

I guess Pakistan is lucky that they do not share a border with our closest ally?

How to Beat Bush's War Chest

2003-09-10T16:37:00.000-05:00

I've been thinking about Bush's $200,000,000 warchest a lot.

I am beginning to believe that either Howard Dean or Wesley Clark could beat Bush. And I'm doubtful the Administration will be able to entirely steal the election--that ability (through Florida-like shenanigans and the manipulation of electronic voting) is probably several years off. (Although if Arnie wins in California, it probably brings them a lot closer.)

Even so, I'm still worried about the power of a 2 million dollar warchest. That can pay for a lot of negative advertising, and we all know how good Rove is at that.

So I'm beginning to get more and more interested in seeing democrats develop a plan to have Bush legally removed from office in, say, August of next year. Before he gets the nomination, but not too far before.

You see, the Republicans have made a pretty crafty decision. They've postponed the Convention until September of next year, about a year away. They've done this to postpone the time when Bush will come under a different set of fundraising laws. The date of the Convention largely makes the $200 million warchest possible.

But I suspect that if, before he received the nomination, Bush were forced to resign, then he wouldn't be able to pass on the money. The money is specifically Bush precisely because he is not yet the party's nominee. So unlike the case of Lautenberg last year (who was able to take Torricelli's money as the new nominee of the party), I don't think the party would be able to pass it along in one lump sum.

And of course, Bush wouldn't be able to give it to the new candidate either. Rather, he'd be able to give only $2000, which won't fund many negative ads.

Perhaps I'm not remotely realistic. Perhaps there really isn't a chance in hell for Bush to have to step down from office between now and then.

But I'd prefer to be optimistic and at least plan for this kind of timing. There are so many possible reasons why Bush might have to step down (my new favorite is to hold him accountable for exposing 8 million New Yorkers to Superfund-like toxic chemicals by forcing the EPA to lie about air quality after 9/11. There's got to be a way to hang that on him--and make him accountable.

But there are other things. Enron may finally begin to burble some scandal again. There may be some kind of legal accountability for the falsified Iraq war. As a related issue, Bush's energy plan (or lack thereof) may doom him (more likely to get Cheney, I know, but you never do know).

Basically, I think there is enough flammable issues to convince other republicans (at least the marginally decent ones) that they need to jettison the captain to save the boat. And if that were to happen, it might be a surprisingly beneficial thing to happen to the presidential election.

Bush's New Unwillingness to Budge in Israel

2003-09-09T16:07:00.000-05:00

I've been thinking that Blair's problems with the Hutton inquiry bode poorly for the peace process in Israel. Bush's recent refusal to provide Ahmed Qureia with the reassurances he asked for before taking the prime minister job convince me I'm right.

Bush only ever invested in the Road Map as payback to Blair for his support in the Iraqi war. Blair needed some kind of tangible evidence that the Iraq war would have positive outcomes meaningful to British voters.

But now, Blair's support has sunk to the lowest point it has been in his administration (well, for that matter, so have Bush's, but he won't have to face up to the consequences for another year or so). It is highly likely that Geoff Hoon, his Defense Minister, will have to resign at the close of the Hutton inquiry. And more people have started to call for Blair's own resignation. The latter will probably not happen. But from this point forward, anything Blair does to support Bush will not be accomplished via normal parliamentary channels. Witness, for example, Hoon's ordering that 1200 more troops head to Iraq--he accomplished this by memo, not by debate. So it is no longer necessary for Bush to waste his political capital on helping Blair out.

I'm not sure whether Blair knows this and has told Bush as much, or whether Bush has just decided to cut bait (which would be more likely, but stupid). More importantly, I'm not sure whether the Palestinians have figured this out. Any more support for the Road Map is solely for political consumption at home, classic Bush rhetoric with absolutely no intention to follow through on it.

I still think that Qureia, if he were to decline the position, would still be making the right decision. Without real pressure from the United States, following the road map would only be accomplishing Israel's objectives with no payback--it would mean dismantling the only kind of defense the Palestinians have, with no hope they will get anything in return.

But that is a bleak, bleak proposition.

Lieberman's Inside-the-Beltway Blindness

2003-09-09T08:43:00.000-05:00

You hear the argument that people who have spent too much time inside the beltway lose their ability to understand common problems, outlooks, and perceptions. I agree with that in general. But I'm not sure I've seen a recent case as bad as Lieberman's.

Most inside-the-beltway democratic presidential candidates seem to have this problem (I think Kucinich is the exception, but he has his own set of problems). Their unquestioning vote for the Iraq war is one symptom of an inability to really evaluate something independently of the dominant paradigms of the capital. With the exception of Lieberman, however, the candidates seem to have responded more recently to what they were hearing on the campaign trail.

I don't think Lieberman's support for the war is the best evidence of his blindness--I think his stance can be defended with a lot of coherent (if not logical) reasons. But I do think his approach to the economy, the election, and the relation of the democratic party to its base are evidence of it.

The ferocity of his attack on Dean about his stance in the Middle East conflict is one example of this. Liebermans suggested that even voicing such ideas was dangerous: "If it's not [a well-thought-out idea], it's very important for Howard Dean, as a candidate for president, to think before he talks." As Dean has clarified, what he was basically saying is that, if we're going to intervene as mediators in the conflict, we need to be "even-handed" with both sides. It's a pretty good point: we're never going to win over Palestinian radicals so long as they believe they will not get all that is promised in the road map. And our lack of even-handedness has thus far been one of the problems. We're pretty quick to judge that the Israelis have fulfilled their obligations to free prisoners and end settlements, even though progress on both fronts was entirely symbolic.

I realize that, for Lieberman, this is a very personal issue. But to suggest blankly that Dean's comment was "a major break from a half a century of American foreign policy" implies a monolithic approach to Israel, one that does not allow for a critical stance towards any of its actions. Even as recently as the Clinton administration, an important part to our approach was a measure of distance from Israel.

So I think the retort to Dean's comment was ill-formed. But more importantly, I think it betrays an inability to rethink the paradigm currently dominant in Washington DC. Yes, there is currently little room in our unquestioned support for Israel. But this a product of the neo-con policy, not really an accurate description of the American policy in the second half of the twentieth century. And it doesn't allow for any reflection on what is going wrong with the Road Map.

Lieberman's attacks on Dean's economic comments seem similarly divorced from out-of-the-beltway realm of possibilities. As this this Newsday account relates, Dean questioned the standard of our free-trade agreements:

"We ought not to be in the business of having free and open borders with countries that don't have the same environmental, labor and human rights standards," said Dean, the current if uneasy front-runner in the race for his party's nomination, during a nationally televised debate with seven of the other eight candidates in New Mexico. Dean's comment drew a sharp retort from Sen. Joseph Lieberman of Connecticut, who said adoption of that policy would mean abrogating existing trade agreements with Mexico and many other nations at a cost of millions of American jobs. "If that ever happened, I'd say that the Bush recession would be followed by the Dean depression," Lieberman said.

This comment certainly made for some good press coverage. But it doesn't really account for the effect free trade agreements have had on our economy. We continue to lose more and more manufacturing jobs--to countries with low or no environmental, labor, and human rights standards. More recently, we have begun to lose more lucrative service jobs, similarly to countries with fewer protections. We have replaced these jobs with low-paying service jobs . . . Wal-Mart jobs and the like. Sure, by changing the terms of free trade, we might lose some of the new service jobs supported by an expanding consumer society. But our society would lose much.

Now, even some corporate minds are beginning to accept this. Certainly, the common Joe has been able to figure out that his job has disappeared to a country where it will pay less. But Lieberman seems to uncritically accept what is only believed by those still living in the early nineties--or within a limited circle of DLC supporters.

Much of the analysis of Lieberman's assault on Dean has focused on machinations within the party and their likely influence on the primary outcome. But I think the issue is more important than this (that is, it will affect the general election as well). I think it is as much a question of whether the Dems can distinguish an evolving understanding of existing conditions from the paradigms available in a neo-con dominated Washington. Can they distinguish ideas that--outside of Washington--are readily accepted as legitimate from the limited set of ideas largely produced by the AEI? Do they have access to vibrant ideas anymore, or are they simply responding to Bush, as they have been for much of his administration?

Further, I think Lieberman's blindness risks losing one of the stregnths the Dems can leverage in the next election. The easiest way to undermine Bush's key asset--his charm--is to show how distant he truly is from normal folks' concerns. Lieberman's patriarchal tone and inability to understand the realities of real people risk ceding this advantage.

Review of Dana Priest's The Mission

2003-08-17T09:04:00.000-05:00

I read Dana Priest's The Mission last week, and am quite impressed. Not because I think the book is supremely well-written. But because it made me dramatically rethink my beliefs.

Dana Priest covers the military for the Washington Post. She used that experience--and a year and a half of work on this book--to explain how the role of the US military has drastically changed. We see reverberations of this in the squabbles between the State Department and Rummy. They're effectively fighting over method and control. What Priest provides is a detailed picture of how the military (largely since the end of the Cold War) has become the only effective entity working with a whole variety of nations around the world. In some cases, countries are simply too small for the US to maintain a diplomatic mission in the country; in other cases (like Indonesia), the military has more in common with the people who really run the country--the military--and they have the resources to make the most of this.

This much was a valuable picture, one which made me understand the conflict (and the stakes) between Rummy and Powell better. But what really challenged my understanding was the portrait of many of the military personnel Priest provides.

Take the example of General Anthony Zinni. The General got a lot of press before the war and since for his opposition to it. This has already gotten a lot of people on the left reconsidering this figure who otherwise is a caricature of the burly career military man.

What Priest adds to this is a picture of Zinni's empathy. As CinC of the Central Command in the Middle East, Zinni clearly developed an understanding of the issues and the people that is lacking, at least within the White House. There's a remarkable story, for example, of how the Saudis perceived him to be their protector in one discussion with Americans. They sat him in the seat of honor, and insisted he keep his hand in their lap throughout the whole discussion. Zinni was able to put aside American prejudices against homosocial contact, largely because he has invested enough in developing a cultural understanding of the issues, that he knew the stakes from the Saudi side.

This kind of empathy has gotten him in trouble--he has gotten in trouble, for example, for his understanding of the Palestinian perspective on the Middle East peace process. But it's clear that Priest judges this kind of empathy to be one of the advantages of the military's current involvement in all aspects of foreign policy.

I have to say that the whole Iraq war has drastically changed my preconceptions of military and CIA professionals. I'll admit it. But this gives a much more nuanced understanding of how the responsible and necessary features surfacing from the military have arisen from some really difficult situations.

I'll also say that the book made the problems with the UN a lot more clear to me. For example, the UN police used in Kosovo included a whole hodgepodge of forces from around the world. From developing nations, they were largely untrained, well-connected individuals looking for a good pay check. From the US, they were largely retired officers looking for a quick buck. Together, they end up being an uncoordinated mishmash with no good way to work together.

That said, the book does portray a scary picture. The US is relying on the military in any number of situations, most notably peace keeping and ongoing relationship building. When the military proved unwilling to cut ties with the Indonesian military for fear of losing all contact with that important country, it meant that we were implicated in the slaughter of thousands in East Timor (we provided military training to the people who conducted much of the slaughter). Because we are sending peacekeepers into Kosovo, Afghanistan, and (presumably) Iraq with primarily military tools, we can't do the things that will lead toward lasting peace: building civil society independent of warlords and thugs. I agree that the UN appears rather incompetent or difficult to work with (although their viewpoint is not really well represented in this book). But either we need to provide the military with the tools they need to really bring peace. Or we need to empower the UN and NGOs properly to get the job done. As it is, we're encouraging a kind of a warlordism that is likely only to spread. It is not just terrorism. We're encouraging a situation where all civil society development and diplomatic discussion comes with arms attached. And that can only contribute to long term insecurity, no matter what we can accomplish in the short term.

It Is Not Enough to Describe the NeoCons

2003-08-14T09:23:00.000-05:00

Okay okay, we've all discovered (or did so several years ago) the neo-cons and their evil plans for dominating the world. The news that they are behind many of Bush's policies has finally hit the news.

But for those of us who would like to do something about them, it is not enough to simply educate people on who and what they are.

We need to begin to analyze their weaknesses. I'm particularly interested in ways their policies can be used to split the right. For example:

would force the Administration to issue a finding

This are just initial thoughts. But I think they're worth pursuing. There are a lot of moderate Republicans who are Rs because they're fiscal conservatives. But the D's don't seem to be actively pursuing them. That's a missed opportunity!