Re: Thank God We Rescued the Iraqis...

President Bush has this to say today from his rose garden (see here [ABC News]):

A year ago, I did give a speech from the carrier saying that we have achieved an important objective, that we had accomplished a mission, which was the removal of Saddam Hussein. And as a result there are no longer torture chambers or rape rooms or mass graves in Iraq. As a result a friend of terror has been removed and now sits in a jail. I also said on that carrier that day that there was still difficult work ahead....

Of course, he must have meant no more torture chambers or rape rooms run by Saddam.

Thank God We Rescued the Iraqis...

...from Saddam's torture chambers. I mean, that way we can hook the electrodes to their testicles ourselves. Adnan Al-Pachachi comes to the US's defense, noting that while Saddam tortured and killed his prisoners, the US only tortures the prisoners, but doesn't kill them. Of course, judging by Tuesday's Afghanistan article, it's only a matter of time before we start killing them too.

Alright, so clearly it's disingenuous to suggest that this is in any way US policy. However, I think it's entirely appropriate to suggest that the US government has completely failed in their task of preparing soldiers for the work required of them. Since the close of the Cold War the US army has been mostly used for interventions and peace-keeping operations. And the likelihood that we'll engage in a large-scale conventional war anytime in the next decade or so is exceedingly slim. Yet the military has stubbornly refused to accept that peacekeeping is an important duty that is required of them. Instead of preparing for it, they whine and moan each time that their soldiers are not prepared for this and don't know what to do, and, boy, what difficult and compromising position we're putting them in. Oh, poor me. The Bush administration came in with the same mind-set, and in 2002 they shut down the Army War College's Peacekeeping Institute (which, of course, only had a budget of $200k and a staff of 10 people anyway). So every time that the military screws up in Iraq and we hear the familiar refrain they were trying to perform a job they were never trained for, let's keep in mind that this is only the case because both civilian and military leadership refuse to admit the by-now obvious reality that peacekeeping is a vital part of the military's mission.

And these people are running our country...

You know, I may have gotten this Wolfowitz guy all wrong--he really does know his stuff. Not.

Better Them Than Us

I don't generally find George Will to be a terribly insightful writer, but he's got a column in the Washington Post today wherein he suggests that a Sunni-Shiite civil war wouldn't be a bad thing since it would get them shooting at each other instead of at us. Now that right there is a prize-winner of a statement. If you're trying to find it in the column, this is after he brands the UN as useless, but before he suggests that we provide the Shiites with an incentive to crush the Sunnis. Who gave this clown a column in the Post anyway?

Figuring Out the New Rules

Joseph Nye has YASPC (yet another soft power column) on CSM. He acknowledges that the US holds complete military dominance over the rest of the world, but questions how useful this is in the face of evolving threats. The 2002 National Security Strategy correctly analyzed the problem, but came up wanting on solutions. This is not a problem that hard power alone can solve. Like the democracy article, this is nothing new, but it is a point that desperately needs a wider audience.

Democracy Is Hard

CSM is running a story about a shift in public opinion regarding democracy in Latin America. Disappointed by decades of poor performance from their major parties many Latin American voters are electing populist outsiders, who unfortunately are also struggling to bring improvement. Democracy is a difficult form of government. We've discussed this here before, but it bears repeating. It becomes particularly difficult if you lack stable civic institutions, a substantial economic middle class, and sound economic policies. Latin American nations suffer on all accounts. Their experience has not been so different from those of other fledgling democracies in Africa and South-east Asia. Even the former Soviet states, which are relatively better off in those regards, have struggled with democracy. This is the backdrop in which the US invasion of Iraq needs to be considered. The idea that we could simply remove Saddam Hussein and then Iraq would transform into a shining beacon of freedom and democracy in the Middle East was absurd from day 1. I think people in the US are slowly beginning to realize this.

A People's History of the War on Iraq--One Radical's View

See what Howard Zinn has to say about our current predicament in the June Progressive Magazine. Zinn will be speaking in Madison on May 8, for anyone who might be interested...

Bringing American Standards of Human Rights to Afghanistan

Last week the government of Afghanistan executed Abdulah Shah by firing squad, the first execution since the Taleban lost control of the country. I guess we bring these occupied countries up to speed on some things more quickly than others...

Who's Helping Who?

Howard Kurtz caught a bit of news in his column today that is an interesting cultural sign of the times. He considered how much effort NBC went through to cross -promote the Trump reality show. Kurtz gives the following examples:

Katie Couric chatted up Donald Trump on "Today," which also hosted 14 fired contestants and aired audition tapes. "Dateline NBC" devoted chunks of two programs to the reality show's finale, including behind-the-scenes footage and interviews with the winner. Not to mention an MSNBC poll on who should win, CNBC's preemption of Monday night newscasts for "Apprentice" reruns, and segments on NBC cable shows "Deborah Norville Tonight," "Capital Report" and "Scarborough Country."

But in talking with some of the key people a different picture emerges:

"I appreciate the fear that we might be shilling for shows," the NBC News president [Neil Shapiro] says. But, he says, the Trump show doesn't need any ratings help, while NBC news shows got a big boost.

Shapiro went on to discuss the fact that NBC tried to get Survivor contestants on their shows as well, but was cut off by CBS, meanwhile NBC themselves restrict access to Apprentice people. It turns out that they're not using their news programs to pump the reality shows, but rather using the reality show segments to pump viewership of news programs. It's a sad world...

Democratic Reform in the Middle East Tarnished By US Support

This isn't a real shocker, but since it is relevant to a discussion Barry and I had over the weekend, I thought I'd post it. CSM is reporting that democratic reform in the Middle East may be set back by the Bush administration's strong support. According to the article "[h]ostility to the US in the region is so intense that the administration is finding that anything marked "made in USA," such as the reform plan, is not well received." They cite events in Fallujah, Najaf, and Bush's recent statements on Israel as key issues. CSM also quotes European diplomats worrying that American actions are hindering their ability to promote democracy through negative association.

Condi's Secret Fantasies

From this New York Metro story:
A pressing issue of dinner-party etiquette is vexing Washington, according to a story now making the D.C. rounds: How should you react when your guest, in this case national-security adviser Condoleezza Rice, makes a poignant faux pas? At a recent dinner party hosted by New York Times D.C. bureau chief Philip Taubman and his wife, Times reporter Felicity Barringer, and attended by Arthur Sulzberger Jr., Maureen Dowd, Steven Weisman, and Elisabeth Bumiller, Rice was reportedly overheard saying, “As I was telling my husb—” and then stopping herself abruptly, before saying, “As I was telling President Bush.” Jaws dropped, but a guest says the slip by the unmarried politician, who spends weekends with the president and his wife, seemed more psychologically telling than incriminating. Nobody thinks Bush and Rice are actually an item. A National Security Council spokesman laughed and said, “No comment.”

The Washington Post is also covering the Freudian slip here.

Bush's Efforts to Redefine Sovereignty

Black's Law Dictionary defines sovereignty as follows:
(1) Supreme dominion, authority, or rule.
(2) The supreme political authority of an independent state.
(3) The state itself.

I am deeply troubled that on at least two instances, the Bush administration is misusing that term for political purposes. First, it maintains that although the United States has "complete jurisdiction and control" over Guantanamo Bay and retains the property for as long as it likes, Cuba retains "ultimate sovereignty" because a 1903 lease and a corresponding treaty between Cuba and the United States says so. But "sovereignty" used in that way simply has no meaning. Cuba has no legal authority over individuals at the base and cannot terminate the lease without the consent of the United States. And the lease restricts the use of the land for "coaling and naval stations only, and for no other purpose," but quite clearly we have been using the land for other purposes for some time (including as storage for Haitian refugees before using it as a prison camp) but Cuba cannot terminate the lease despite the United States' failure to comply with its provisions. Apparently, the only right that Cuba retains is to get the land back if the United States ever abandons it.

Second, the United States claims that it is transferring sovereignty to Iraq on June 30, but really it is not transferring "absolute political authority" or anything remotely close to it. According to this WP article, Marc Grossman, the Under-Secretary of State for political affairs, recently stated that the caretaker government to whom "sovereignty" will be transferred will have no law-making authority, and the United States military wil continue to exercise final authority over all troops stationed there, as well as the Iraqi army, police, and security forces. What, then, does sovereignty mean in that context? Mr. Grossman explains taht "in many, many, many other parts of Iraqi life, there will be a very important Iraqi face on an Iraqi government." (NYT and LAT also provide similar reports). An "Iraqi face" does not equal sovereignty, plain and simple.

The problem is more than a semantic one. It reflects a fundamental precept of American foreign policy. Specifically, the United States refuses to cede one inch of its own power to an international governing body because doing so would jeopardize American sovereignty, but when it comes to exerting authority over others, the U.S. strips all functional meaning from that term. That duality surely does not go unnoticed by the rest of the world, and compromises our standing and integrity. And in the context of Guantanamo Bay, it tears at the very fabric of our government. When our own government plays fast and loose with the concept of sovereignty, "we, the people" are at grave risk of losing the power that the Constitution grants to us.

E-ink product is launched in Japan

The New York Times has this coverage. I never wanted to be Japanese before now (even this didn't do it for me). But the chance to get my hands on one of those e-ink e-books, it would almost be worth giving up all the "God Bless America" goodness and liberties.

Update on the Alleged Misappropriation of $700M

The Center for American Progress has done some searching and its preliminary findings only raise more questions--but they are certainly questions for which the public (and Congress) should demand an explanation.

Apparently the money must have come either from the immediate post-9/11 funds (made available by HR 2888, passed 18 September 2001 and archived here) or from the emergency funds that Congress passed on 2 August 2002 (H.R. 4775, passed 2 August 2002). I have excerpted the relevant portion (the part dicussing military funding) from HR 4775 because the whole Act is quite long.

Scenario 1:
If Bush got the $700M from the emergency funds that Congress made immediately available after 9/11 (HR 2888), (1) the President was required to "consult with the chairmen and ranking minority members of the Committees on Appropriations prior to the transfer of these funds," and (2) the Office of Management and Budget was required to submit quarterly reports on the use of those funds.

As for the first requirement, Senator Robert Byrd--the Chairman of the Senate Appropriations Committee at the time--recently stated:
To the best of my knowledge, and I was Chairman of the Senate Appropriations Committee at that time, the Bush White House provided no consultations as required by law about its use of funds for preparation for a war in Iraq in advance of those funds being spent. There is nothing contained in the Administration's quarterly reports indicating that projects were being funded to prepare for war with Iraq.

As far as those quarterly reports to Congress (requirement #2), the full reports covering the relevant timeframe can be found here (9 August 2002) and here (17 October 2002) [Whitehouse]. But rather than making you go through the whole document I have excerpted the pertinent page from each document (the one discussing military spending), which you can view here and here.

As the reports demonstrate, Bush didn't offer any specifics whatsoever. Instead, he grouped the military spending into broad categories like "Increased Situational Awareness" and "Improved Command and Control." Nowhere do the reports mention Iraq. Remember what the Constitution (Article I, Sec. 9, cl.7) requires: that "a regular Statement and Account of the Receipts and Expenditures of all public Money shall be published from time to time." I don't know what these reports typically look like, but it hardly seems that the reports the OMB provided pass constitutional muster.

Scenario 2:
If Bush spent the money from the second appropriation of funds, well, an immediate problem presents itself--Woodward claims that the $700M was authorized to be spent in preparing for the Iraq invasion in July 2002, but that money was not even available until August of that year.

But even more problematic, the Act specifically provides:
That during the current fiscal year, upon a determination by the Secretary of Defense that funds previously made available to the ??Defense Emergency Response Fund?? are required to meet other essential operational or readiness requirements of the military services, the Secretary may transfer up to $275,000,000 of funds so required to the appropriate funds or appropriations of the Department of Defense, 15 days after notification to the congressional defense committees.

In other words, the amount available to the Department of Defense was limited to $275M (not $700M) and that money could only be transfered 15 days after some members of Congress were notified. Senator Byrd serves on the Senate Armed Services Committee, and never heard a thing about military spending for Iraq at that time.

So far, the news coverage on this issue has been sparse. The LA Times quotes a few Congressional representatives in this article--and they are obviously not too happy about the development. Professor Cass Sunstein, who I respect a great deal, gave his two cents on the matter here [Salon.com]. He states:
With the words 'promoting national security,'[the language from HR 2888] Congress cannot plausibly have meant to give the president a blank check to prepare for hostilities wherever he chooses.

What does the Bush administration have to say about all this? According to this Fox News story, General Tommy Franks sent the Pentagon a $700M "request for improvements" (whatever that means), but the Pentagon reviewed the request and funded only $178M, which went to "fuel and rations, improvements to military communications networks and improvements to Franks' headquarters in Florida." The DOD's full statement to the press can be found here. I don't understand why General Franks would be submitting budget requests to the Pentagon instead of Congress, like it's supposed to work, and it certainly doesn't fit the Pentagon's M.O. to turn down an opportunity to spend more money.

The official response, from Scott McClellan on Tuesday:
I think the Department of Defense briefed on that yesterday, and pointed out that that simply was not the case. Congress was kept informed and the funding, the emergency funding from the -- the emergency funding gave the Pentagon broad discretion in how funds were used. And they also pointed out that the funding specifically for Iraq came after the resolution that Congress passed. And Congress was kept fully informed of the funding.

It is a possibility that Woodward simply got bad information. But even if that were so, we are certainly entitled to a better explanation than what has been provided so far.

Another Take on the Outsourcing Debate

Robert Kuttner, the editor of The American Prospect, has this to say about outsourcing [Boston Globe].

Honduras

The Detroit Free Press yesterday wrote that Honduras announced it plans to withdraw all its troops (370) "in the shortest time possible." Reuters reports here that both the Dominican Republic and Honduras are leaving in response to the spiraling violence and pressure from Spain. Said Honduras's Defense Minister Federico Breve: "I do not see any reason why relations between Honduras and the United States should deteriorate."

In completely unrelated news, Reuters noted here that President Bush appointed John Negroponte as future embassador to Iraq after the Coalition Provisional Authority hands off the baton on June 30 of this year. Wikipedia provides this biography and notes that from 1981 to 1985, he served as embassador to--of all places--Honduras. Some of Negroponte's critics (the Human Rights Watch, for instance) have accused him of ignoring human rights atrocities that were being committed by US-trained military (the Baltimore Sun ran this article back in 1995). Strangely enough, those allegations aren't contained in Negroponte's bio at the U.N. And I'm sure it is entirely coincidental that Honduras decided to withdraw its troops the day after Negroponte was appointed embassador.

Update: Here is what American Prospect's Matthew Yglesias has to say about Mr. Negroponte.

Pentagon Censors Woodward-Rumsfeld Transcript

Mike Allen from the WP writes that the Pentagon Deleted Rumsfeld's Comment to Woodward that Saudi Ambassador Bandar could "take it to the bank" that we were going to go to war. Specifically, Woodward's transcript reads:

[Rumsfeld:]I remember meeting with the vice president and I think Dick Myers and I met with a foreign dignitary at one point and looked him in the eye and said you can count on this. In other words, at some point we had had enough of a signal from the president that we were able to look a foreign dignitary in the eye and say you can take that to the bank this is going to happen.

You can read the entire deleted portion--complements of Woodward--here [WP]. What I can't figure out is why Bush is endorsing Woodward's book--does he (or Karl Rove) really think that people and the media will ignore what the book really says and accept instead however Bush characterizes it? People aren't THAT gullible are they?

Political Hot Potato

It has been known for some time that another major spending bill will be needed in Iraq and that the Bush administration is hoping to wait until after the election to deal with it. The Washington Post is reporting that US forces in Iraq may not be able to wait that long. They quote Republican vice-chair of the House Armed Services Committee Curt Weldon: "There needs to be a supplemental, whether it's a presidential election year or not. The support of our troops has to be the number one priority of this country... Somebody's got to get serious about this." Three ring political circus certain to ensue...

The Republican National Committee Takes Over the IRS & Treasury

John Marshall, the author of Talking Points Memo blog, cues his readers onto a gross abuse of taxpayer funds by the IRS.

Read the following paragraph that appears at the bottom of a US Treasury and IRS press release (dated April 9, 2004):

America has a choice: It can continue to grow the economy and create new jobs as the President's policies are doing; or it can raise taxes on American families and small businesses, hurting economic recovery and future job creation.

Now read this one, from a RNC factsheet (dated April 2, 2004):

America has a choice: It can continue to grow the economy and create new jobs as the President's polices are doing; or it can raise taxes on American families and small businesses, hurting economic recovery and future job creation.

NYT reports that the tax policy statement was included on four separate press releases that were issued that day. The Times also quotes Rob Nichols, a spokesperson for the Treasury department as saying:

Stating our position is appropriate ... . The administration's views on fiscal policy are that lower taxes have helped strengthen the economy and led to an environment of increased job creation.

Fox News reports that the Treasury Department's Inspector General is investigating the matter, along with the IRS's recent analysis of Kerry's tax proposals (you gotta read this IRS press release--it's unbelievable.)

Re: Fair at Work?

There is one point that I want to get out there before getting to the meat of your question: If individuals were afforded special consideration for family life, then it must apply equally to dads as it would to moms. I see no reason to favor women in that regard over men in similar circumstances. Indeed, providing unequal treatment in that regard would most likely be judged to violate the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment.

As to whether the government should afford some special protection to parents in the workplace, I have two problems. First, the free market is generally a good thing and unless there is a demonstrated market failure, if workers provide valuable skills and demand greater flexibility in the workplace so that they can better balance a family, one could argue that the market would provide such opportunities. Second, there is the potential that government regulation along the lines that you propose would end up hurting those people who decide not to have kids and instead focus on work. I do not see any good reason why government should weigh in and favor parents over non-parents in the workplace.

That being said, I do think there is a market failure. Often, "non-traditional" workers are discriminated against in the workplace. And every workplace I have observed firsthand comes in the "one-size-fits-all" variety, although that size does not in fact fit all. Workers who propose nontraditional working arrangements are generally not well received, even though they may offer value to that employer and be tremendously happier as a result. So there is room for the government to step in and encourage innovation (tax incentives might be one way to approach the problem).

One difficulty that exists in encouraging flexibility is that it is really hard to measure the value of any given employee. Because workers cannot easily weed out the lazy workers from the really valuable employees, it is hard to create different working conditions to suit different workers. Another problem is that workers just do not have a lot of market power to demand changes. Realistically, a job applicant cannot sit down with a prospective employer and propose his or her own hours and workplace conditions. If the government were to step in, I suggest they do so in a way that gives workers more power to demand flexibility--but only to the extent that those changes would be a positive for the worker and offer greater profitability for the employer.