Month: June 2007

How Not To Promote Democracy

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by hilzoy Here’s a perfect example of the wrong way to advance an objective: “Tehran’s jailing of Haleh Esfandiari, a 67-year old grandmother who holds dual Iranian-American citizenship, as well as the interrogation of others with similar papers, is evidence that Washington’s latest attempt to foist change on Iran is backfiring — as Iranian democracy … Read more

Abstraction

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by hilzoy

In his last post, publius writes:

“Maybe I’m expanding it, but I read Klein’s argument as expressing skepticism of abstractions (and policy-by-abstractions), rather than skepticism of the individual abstract values themselves. In this sense, his foreign policy argument seems to be philosophical — he’s skeptical of theory itself.”

This is an interesting point, and an important one to get clear on. I’ll take a stab at it below the fold, so as not to distract from Katherine’s post. (Katherine: poetry. Me: analysis. At the moment, I’d rather be Katherine. Pout.)

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Abstract words, too noble to neglect

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by Katherine

Ezra Klein’s essay on ‘American values’ reminded me of a famous quotation from Ernest Hemingway, in A Farewell to Arms:

There were many words that you could not stand to hear and finally only the names of places had dignity. Certain numbers were the same way and certain dates and these with the name of the places were all you could say and have them mean anything.

Abstract words such as glory, honour, courage, or hallow were obscene beside the concrete names of villages, the numbers of roads, the names of rivers, the numbers of regiments and the dates.

I know exactly what he means. Watch:

America’s vital interests and our deepest beliefs are now one. From the day of our Founding, we have proclaimed that every man and woman on this earth has rights, and dignity, and matchless value, because they bear the image of the Maker of Heaven and earth. Across the generations we have proclaimed the imperative of self-government, because no one is fit to be a master, and no one deserves to be a slave. Advancing these ideals is the mission that created our Nation. It is the honorable achievement of our fathers. Now it is the urgent requirement of our nation’s security, and the calling of our time.

So it is the policy of the United States to seek and support the growth of democratic movements and institutions in every nation and culture, with the ultimate goal of ending tyranny in our world….

Our country has accepted obligations that are difficult to fulfill, and would be dishonorable to abandon. Yet because we have acted in the great liberating tradition of this nation, tens of millions have achieved their freedom. And as hope kindles hope, millions more will find it. By our efforts, we have lit a fire as well – a fire in the minds of men. It warms those who feel its power, it burns those who fight its progress, and one day this untamed fire of freedom will reach the darkest corners of our world. — President George W. Bush, Second Inaugural Address.

Abu Ghraib. Guantanamo. Haditha. Bagram. The Salt Pit. The Dark Prison. The Kandahar Airport. The Palestine Branch. Masra Torah. Camp NAMA. FOB Mercury. FOB Tiger. Camp Diamondback and Camp Glory. The Tigris River. Balad. Dover Air Force Base. Walter Reed Army Medical Center. A trailer near the Baghdad Airport. New Prague, Minnesota. Baghdad. Baghdad. Baghdad. Baghdad. Baghdad. Baghdad.  Baghdad. Baghdad.

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Supreme Court Will Hear Guantanamo Case

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by hilzoy From the Washington Post: “The Supreme Court, reversing course, agreed Friday to review whether Guantanamo Bay detainees may go to federal court to challenge their indefinite confinement. The action, announced without comment along with other end-of-term orders, is a setback for the Bush administration. It had argued that a new law strips courts … Read more

Bleg, And News

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by hilzoy Does anyone know how to find cached copies of old web pages? It seems like a useful skill to have. I thought of it just now because I just realized that John Derbyshire seems to have called (ironically? He was chanelling Betjeman) for the destruction of Washington DC and then thought better of … Read more

I Don’t Get It

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by hilzoy

Like Matt Yglesias, I’m puzzled by this:

“The International Atomic Energy Agency’s Board of Governors met two weeks ago for budget negotiations, but could not agree to a funding increase for the agency. To make matters worse, donors have not yet delivered over $35 million dollars in promised contributions. That may not seem like a tremendous amount, but the IAEA’s total budget is only $379 million.

In a rare move, IAEA Director Mohammed elBaredei appealed directly to the Board of Governors, which is composed of thirty-five IAEA member states, to urge them to consider the consequences of an IAEA budget that provides for zero-growth. (…)

elBaredei’s plea makes me wonder if we are living on borrowed time. Accidents are bound to happen, particularly as more and more countries seek nuclear power as an alternative to fossil fuel. But, as he points out, the agency’s ability to respond to a Chernobyl style incident is severely diminished by an overstretched budget. Also, some of the important verification work the agency does in places like North Korea and Iran may be called into question by the ageing environmental sampling technology the agency is forced to use. elBaredei even says that the IAEA must outsource some of its lab work, calling into question the whole principal of neutrality that gives the IAEA its credibility.

The board has until September to finalize the budget, so there is a chance that they may reconsider. The alternative — an IAEA without the resources to counter, say, nuclear smuggling — is truly frightening. “

The Christian Science Monitor reports that we owe a third of the missing funds, and adds some context:

“With the IAEA’s ¤283 million ($379 million) annual budget, the United Nations has touted the Vienna-based agency as “an extraordinary bargain.” The US Office of Management and Budget has stamped it as “100 percent” worth the US allocation. The IAEA and ElBaradei were jointly awarded the 2005 Nobel Peace Prize. (…)

The negotiations by the IAEA Board of Governors ended last week with the prospect of zero increase in funding, prompting ElBaradei to speak out. The budget deadline is in September, at the IAEA General Conference.”

If there ever was an agency we ought to fund, the IAEA is it. They are competent; they have a good track record; they are extremely credible to people who no longer trust us; and they are dealing with some of the most important issues on the planet. It would be one thing if they needed trillions of dollars to carry out their work. But they are asking for so little. 22% of $379 million is $83.38 million By the standards of the Federal budget, that’s practically a rounding error. To put it in context, this year President Bush requested $204 million for abstinence education. If we can manage to spend $204 million on a discredited approach to sex ed that’s in the budget solely as a sop to religious conservatives, surely we can manage to increase the budget of the agency responsible for verifying compliance with the nuclear nonproliferation treaty, coping with accidental nuclear discharges, nuclear safety, and a host of other really, really important issues. Better still, cut the abstinence education and send the whole $204 million to the IAEA.

I’ve put parts of el Baradei’s letter to the IAEA’s governors below the fold. I have also cleaned up characters that came out oddly in my source — for instance, I assume that in “we can’t do it”, the second word is “can’t”, and have altered it accordingly.

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Undervaluing Values?

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by publius

Unlike Hilzoy, I was more sympathetic to Ezra Klein’s “Down With Values” argument. So at the risk of sparking a rootin-tootin’ ObWi family feud, I’m going to try to defend it.

Maybe I’m expanding it, but I read Klein’s argument as expressing skepticism of abstractions (and policy-by-abstractions), rather than skepticism of the individual abstract values themselves. In this sense, his foreign policy argument seems to be philosophical — he’s skeptical of theory itself. One question it raises is whether theory has any useful role to play in the foreign policy realm.

I recognize that I’m using “theory” a bit loosely. For today, “theory” refers to a comprehensive abstract ideology cited as an animating foreign policy principle. For instance, a foreign policy based on “freedom” or “justice” is what I’m calling “foreign policy by theory.”

With that in mind, the first problem with foreign policy by theory is that it flips empiricism on its head. The idea of empiricism is that you study the individual situation first, and draw abstract conclusions second. An abstraction-based foreign policy — whether democracy-promotion or Communism — reverses this order. It begins with the abstraction (often with excessive epistemological certainty) and applies it to the individual situation.

Consider how these two approaches might play out regarding, say, China and Taiwan. Approaching the dispute with a blank slate would likely lead the US to stay mute and ambiguous. China is very touchy about it, and a military escalation over Taiwan would be disastrous for pretty much everyone (and every market) involved. If we decided, however, that our commitment to the abstract idea of freedom outweighed these pragmatic concerns, we might act in a very unwise way (or interpret events in an inaccurate way). This is a simplified example, but the broader point is that approaching objective reality with a pre-existing theory in mind colors and distorts our perceptions.

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Ezra Klein On Values

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by hilzoy

I normally agree with Ezra Klein. Not only that, I think he’s one of the sharpest commenters out there. So I don’t like saying that I think his article on values in foreign policy is just plain wrong. Unfortunately, though, I do.

Ezra starts off with this:

“I have a confession to make: I am not a values voter. I do not want a foreign policy based upon “the idea that is America.” I do not think we should be guided in all things by such glittering concepts as liberty, democracy, equality, justice, tolerance, humility, and faith.

In fact, I’m fed up with values. Entirely. They’ve failed this country. As a lodestar, there is none worse.”

He then goes on to make the following points: First, he talks a bit about Anne-Marie Slaughter’s new book, which I haven’t read and thus cannot comment on. Then, he notes the frequency of various moral terms in Bush’s second inaugural, which I think is irrelevant to any interesting point. He notes that concepts like democracy and liberty “do not, themselves, suggest a foreign policy.” This is true, but it’s also true of any other general concept on which we might seek to base policy. To take this as an objection to basing foreign policy on values implies that we should not base our foreign policy on any general concept at all, since any general concept — the national interest, democratic values, human rights — will require some actual thought about how it is to be promoted in a complicated world. The only alternative to basing our foreign policy on something that requires such thought is not to have a coherent foreign policy at all.

Ezra then says that “the language of idealism” enables a style of argument in which one side slams another for not being moral enough to support a given policy whose consequences the slammers have not bothered to understand:

“The language of idealism enabled what my friend Chris Hayes refers to as the “moral blackmail” of the Iraq war: How could anyone who professes to believe in freedom and democracy refuse to devote a couple of tax dollars to freeing the Iraqi people from tyranny?”

Again, this is true of any general basis for foreign policy, since nothing that could serve as such a basis is immune to being advocated by idiots. Compare: “How can you say you care about our national interest when you’re not willing to spend a few dollars to gain complete control over Iran’s oil reserves by invading it and installing a friendly puppet government that the Iranian people will adore? Huh?” It’s even true of what looks like almost no foreign policy at all: a dedication to protecting ourselves from a world we regard as hostile, and with which we refuse to engage. That still requires some actual thought about how to protect ourselves, and leaves us open to what we might call the “self-defense blackmail” argument: How can anyone who professes to want to protect our country refuse to sacrifice a couple of tax dollars to strengthen our version of the Maginot line? How can they say that our plan to build deep-sea platforms from which we can pour molten pitch onto the heads of ocean-going invaders isn’t worth it? Don’t they care about America??

Ezra ends his article with this:

“What I want is not a foreign policy vision that builds from a foundation of values, but from one of consequences. Whether a policy is concordant with America’s view of itself is less important than its likely outcomes. The Paul Wolfowitzes of the world had thought plenty about values and were perfectly capable of discussing their vision of Iraq as a shining city on a Mesopotamian hill. What they hadn’t thought about were outcomes — constraints on our action and capabilities, the likely effects on others’ actions of our use of force, etc. Good thing they weren’t really pressed on the subject, lest they’d have had to conjure up a postwar plan for a reception that didn’t include candy and flowers — a plan they didn’t have. But they weren’t questioned, because they were effectively able to keep the conversation focused on values — do you care about liberty? hate tyranny? believe Arabs can be democratic? — rather than consequences.

What the Democrats’ post-Bush foreign policy vision must do is be able to outlast the Democrats. I have no doubt that President Obama, or President Edwards, or Secretary of State Slaughter can implement a values-based foreign policy I find congenial. What I do fear is what happens when their terms close, and the language that they let Americans remain accustomed to is appropriated by a far more hawkish administration. Much better for Democrats to create a foreign policy framework that a future administration would have to fight against if it wished to revive neoconservatism. Giving them language they can slip right into seems awfully accommodating.

So no more of “the idea that is America.” Let’s hear the argument that is a wise and sane American foreign policy. Let’s hear about conditions for the use of force, and the constraints surrounding it. Let’s hear the hardnosed cases for restraint and multilateralism. Don’t subsume those points beneath malleable terms like “humility” and “democracy.” Popularize the explicit arguments for how American should act. Do that, and our values will be safeguarded, even when their protectors have long since left.”

This is the most serious objection, and I’ll put my discussion of it below the fold.

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Goodbye, Immigration Reform

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by hilzoy From the Washington Post: “The most dramatic overhaul of the nation’s immigration laws in a generation was trounced this morning by a bipartisan filibuster, with the political right and left overwhelming a coalition of Republicans and Democrats who had been seeking compromise on one of the most difficult social and economic issues facing … Read more

Southampton Dock

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by von

ROSS DOUTHAT, last Tuesday:

Two out of two Matts agree: If the U.S. pulls out of Iraq or fails to bomb Iran, the "stab in the back" narrative is going to become the centerpiece of a revived post-Bush conservatism, and progressives need to steel themselves to combat it.

Myself, I think that liberals should be praying that the Right embraces the "stabbed in the back" theory of what went wrong in Iraq (and possibly Iran as well), because it will push conservatives toward political irrelevance.

Professor Reynolds, today, ignoring Douthat’s advice:

JUST BACK FROM IRAQ, J.D. JOHANNES HAS A COLUMN ON RICHARD LUGAR: "Is it possible to win a war on the ground, and lose it in Congress?"

J.D. Johannes, Reynolds’ support, explaining:

The principal accomplishment of the surge to date is solidifying the “Anbar Awakening,” the significance of which has been under-reported by the media and ill-understood by the public. If any piece of territory in Iraq qualified as a “terrorist safe haven,” it was bloody Anbar. …..

The virtual extinction of the insurgency in the province — a victory that I was privileged to witness first-hand — represented not some momentary quirk of tribal alliances, but a diligent application of the revised tactics that coalition forces have implemented under skilled, battle-proven officers and Gen. Petraeus.

Anbar province and Baghdad, this week:

[June 24] Iraqi authorities say a suicide bomber driving a fuel tanker has killed at least 10 people in an attack on police headquarters in the city of Baiji.

[June 25] A stealthy suicide bomber slipped into a busy Baghdad hotel Monday and blew himself up in the midst of a gathering of U.S.-allied tribal sheiks, undermining efforts to forge a front against the extremists of al Qaeda in Iraq. Four of the tribal chiefs were among the 13 victims, police said.

[June 26] The Petraeus team’s attempt to try to (at least temporarily) change the game in Iraq’s Anbar province by arming some tribes against the ISI (the loose Islamic State of Iraq) looks like it is already over. A significant failure in security allowed a suicide attack in the Mansour hotel lobby that killed key leaders (made critically important due to the imposed hierarchy deemed necessary to create a single Sunni "front") of the "Anbar Salvation Council." In parallel, there are rumors of bitter rivalry and that a tribal leader ("Anbar Awakening") absconded with $75 m in US money given to fund militia development.

[June 26] Iraqi commandos raided the home of a Sunni Cabinet member Tuesday after a warrant was issued for his arrest, outraging Sunni politicians and jeopardizing U.S.-backed reconciliation efforts within the Shiite-led government.

The move against Culture Minister Asad Kamal al-Hashimi came after he was identified by two suspected militants as the mastermind of a Feb. 8, 2005, ambush against secular politician Mithal al-Alusi, an Iraqi government spokesman said. Al-Alusi escaped unharmed but two of his sons were killed.

[June 26] An Iraqi tribal leader has been shot and killed in southern Baghdad, one day after at least four Sunni tribal leaders were killed in a suicide bombing at a hotel in Iraq’s capital.

[June 27] Iraqi officials say a car bomb has exploded in northern Baghdad, killing at least seven people.

Authorities say the blast in the Kadhimiya district on Wednesday evening injured at least 14 others.

Bomb attacks and other violence Wednesday in Iraq killed about 50 people overall, many in the Baghdad area.

[June 27] Insurgents killed a US marine during combat operations in the restive Sunni province of Anbar in western Iraq, the military said Wednesday.

[June 27] Police found the bodies of 21 people in Baghdad on Wednesday. Most had been shot. ….Four Iraqi policemen were killed in an ambush near the oil city of Kirkuk, 250 km (155 miles) north of Baghdad, when gunmen opened fire on their vehicles, police said. …. The Iraqi army have killed four insurgents and detained 85 others during the last 24 hours in different districts of Baghdad, the Defence Ministry said. ….Gunmen killed two members of the Assyrian’s Beth-Nahrain Association Union in a drive-by shooting in central Mosul, 390 km (240 miles) north of Baghdad, police said. …. A suicide car bomb targeting a police commando checkpoint killed one policeman and wounded three other officers in the al-Jaderiyia district of southern Baghdad, police said. …. A roadside bomb killed seven people, including five police commandoes in Samarra, 100 km (60 miles) north of Baghdad, police said, adding that two civilians were killed when security forces opened fire in the aftermath of the blast. …. A car bomb killed at least three people in an attack on police vehicles near a busy market in northern Baghdad, a witness said. Police said there had been an explosion in the Suleikh district and 10 people were wounded. …. Fourteen insurgents were killed when a truck they were rigging with explosives blew up overnight in the town of Shirqat, 310 km (190 miles) north of Baghdad, police said. …. Five people were killed and three wounded in different attacks by gunmen on Tuesday in Mosul, police said. …. An athletic club in Mosul was badly damaged when gunmen planted bombs inside the building overnight, police said.

[June 28] A massive car bomb exploded at a street-side bus depot during Baghdad’s Thursday morning rush hour, killing at least 22 people and wounding more than 40 others in a tremendous explosion that set fire to scores of vehicles, Iraqi police said.

Authorities say at least 18 others were wounded by the blast in the northern town.

Earlier Monday, a suicide car bomber killed eight people and wounded 25 in an attack on the governor’s offices in Hillah, a predominantly Shi’ite city, south of Baghdad.

It took four years of failure for the President and his supporters to heed the advice of Senator John McCain and others.  It took four years for them to admit that, maybe, McCain, Powell, and Shinseki were right. Now, they complain that we do not trust their judgment.  Now, wars are not lost by the Commander in Chief or the Secretary of Defense, but by the U.S. Senate.  Now, we are the ones who are oblivious to reality.  Now, we cannot ask whether the surge is "Too Little, Too Late."  Now, they are right and we are wrong.  Now, four years on, they still do not get it.

It may well be that the troops have been stabbed in the back.  Reynolds and Johannes, however, are pointing their fingers in the wrong direction.

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Touchback

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by publius With immigration coming to a boil today in the Senate and at NRO, I have a question for the bloggy masses. Is there any plausible policy justification for the touchback provision other than pure spite? (The touchback provision requires people to go back to their home country to get a visa/green card application). … Read more

Cheney: Respect My Authoritah! Congress: No.

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by hilzoy

From the NYT:

“The Senate Judiciary Committee on Wednesday issued subpoenas to the White House, Vice President Dick Cheney’s office and the Justice Department after what the panel’s chairman called “stonewalling of the worst kind” of efforts to investigate the National Security Agency’s policy of wiretapping without warrants.

The move put Senate Democrats squarely on a course they had until now avoided, setting the stage for a showdown with the Bush administration over one of the most contentious issues arising from the White House’s campaign against terrorism. (…)

The panel’s action was the most aggressive move yet by lawmakers to investigate the wiretapping program since the Democrats gained control of Congress this year.

Mr. Leahy said Wednesday at a news conference that the committee had issued the subpoenas because the administration had followed a “consistent pattern of evasion and misdirection” in dealing with Congressional efforts to scrutinize the program.

“It’s unacceptable,” Mr. Leahy said. “It is stonewalling of the worst kind.””

Leahy is right. The Congress has been asking nicely for information on the NSA program for ages, without effect. Nor has the administration been particularly forthcoming with other kinds of information: as far as I can tell, TPMMuckraker posts a new exasperated memo from one or another committee chair asking why the White House has not responded to its repeated requests for information about every other day. And this is just wrong. The Congress has the right to ask for this information. It’s essential if Congress is to do its job.

The Depty White House Press Secretary said that “It’s unfortunate that Congressional Democrats continue to choose the route of confrontation,” but this is absurd. If your landlord had been asking you for the rent for eight months and you hadn’t even bothered to reply, and she then sent you an eviction notice, it would be a bit much for you to say: “It’s unfortunate that she chooses the road of confrontation.” When you failed to pay your rent, you chose the road of confrontation, and left her with only two choices: to passively accept your failure to meet your obligations, or to initiate eviction. To think that it’s “confrontational” of her to choose the second option is absurd. Same here.

Meanwhile, Rahm Emanuel will move tomorrow to cut funding for Dick Cheney’s White House office, on the theory that if he’s not part of the Executive Branch, he doesn’t need it. Here’s Emanuel on Hardball, courtesy of ThinkProgress (which has a very good, and much longer, video; alas, the official Hardball transcript is unavailable, since the link for it goes to Tucker Carlson):

“[Cheney] is acting like he’s unaccountable to anybody…and he’s taking an unbelievable step saying he’s not a member of the executive branch, he’s a member of the legislative branch, therefore he doesn’t have to provide information. … So I said, If that’s your logic, then we shouldn’t be funding you through the executive branch. Either Wednesday or Thursday my amendment will be on the floor, because the funding for the executive branch is on the floor. And I’ll strike the money for the Vice President’s Office. He can live off the Senate presidency budget that funds him up here. And that’s fine. But if he’s going to be funded in the executive branch, he complies with the rules that apply to everybody. He is not above the rules of the executive branch.”

Because, after all, don’t we have better uses for $4.75 million than to spend it on appropriations for someone who claims he isn’t even an entity?

Seriously: Cheney has always acted as though the laws, the Constitution, the Congress, and the will of the American people were just annoying impediments standing between him and what he wanted to do. He has always tried to brush them, meaning us, aside as though we were annoying flies to be flicked away, not taken seriously. He is wrong. The laws and the Constitution are absolute constraints on his actions. The Congress is a coequal branch of government, with the power to defund him. And we, the people, are the sole source of his power. Ordinarily, I would think Emanuel’s proposal was just theater. But given Cheney’s conduct, I think it’s a very welcome sign that someone, somewhere refuses to go along with his fantasy of omnipotence and unaccountability.

With any luck, Cheney won’t pay attention, and the Democrats really will defund him. We should be so lucky.

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How To Produce Ghosts

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by publius Michael Gerson (today’s Post): But there is a problem with this [withdrawal] approach. Feeding America’s natural isolationism — no country relishes sending its sons and daughters to fight in a far-off desert — can create a momentum of irresponsibility that moves beyond control. In 1974, a weary Congress cut off funds for Cambodia … Read more

From Hegel To Huh?

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by hilzoy When I read on Atrios that Jonah Goldberg had changed the title of the book proposal formerly known as Liberal Fascism: The Totalitarian Temptation from Mussolini to Hillary Clinton, I thought he was kidding. I clicked on the Amazon link and thought that someone must have made up a whole fake Amazon page … Read more

Go Elizabeth Edwards!

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by hilzoy Elizabeth Edwards takes on Ann Coulter: I have to say: I really admire Elizabeth Edwards’ restraint. As you know, I am not a very angry person, but if my husband and I had lost a son and some ghoulish political shock artist wrote that my husband had a bumper sticker that said “Ask … Read more

Zimbabwe: Econ 101

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by hilzoy Every so often, I read an op-ed or blog post that informs me all I need to answer some complicated policy question is “Econ 101.” I almost always think that a statement like that is not just wrong, but a sign that I don’t really need to read further. When, for instance, someone … Read more

And So It Goes

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by von LONGTIME READERS will know that I am, in foreign policy matters, a Lugarist:  whence Sen. Richard Lugar (R-Ind.) went, so, generally, do I scramble to follow.  So I can’t let this post from Professor Reynolds pass: 535 COMMANDERS-IN-CHIEF: Now it’s Richard Lugar calling for a new strategy. Maybe we could do something to … Read more

Cheney: Beyond Good and Evil

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by publius

Like everyone else, I’ve been reading the Post series on Cheney with half disgust, half morbid fascination. As difficult as it may be, when assessing Cheney’s actions (as Hilzoy is doing masterfully), it’s important to resist the temptation to blame it on Cheney’s individual “evilness.” While immensely fun, explaining Cheney’s behavior as “evil” is too simple. More to the point, it reduces complex social phenomena to fairy-tale morality narratives. In the terrorism context for instance, words like “evil” are often lazy shortcuts that people use to avoid grappling with the complexities and structural causes of the problem.

Similarly, dismissing Cheney as “evil” is too easy. Cheney is not some one-time moral aberration, he is the product of deeper, more structural flaws in the American political system. For that reason, we can expect future Cheneys if these fundamental flaws aren’t recognized and addressed.

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Justice Prevails

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by hilzoy From the Washington Post: “The D.C. administrative law judge who sued his neighborhood dry cleaner for $54 million over a pair of lost pants found out this morning what he’s going to get for all his troubles. Nothing. In a verdict that surprised no one, except perhaps the plaintiff himself, a D.C. Superior … Read more

The Cheney Series: Abu Ghraib

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by hilzoy Anonymous Liberal, both in comments here and in a very good post, makes an important point about today’s article on Cheney, namely: it implies that he and his staff bear real responsibility for the abuses at Abu Ghraib and elsewhere. The crucial part of the article is this: “That same day, Aug. 1, … Read more

Legal Realism Lives

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by publius Shocking isn’t it. The Supreme Court finds it ok to regulate student speech (at a public parade) when it references drugs. But then basically the same coalition of Justices think McCain-Feingold’s regulation of issue ads places an impermissible burden on speech. And by strange coincidence, virtually the same coalition of Justices dissent in … Read more

The Cheney Series: War Crimes

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by hilzoy

The Washington Post’s articles (1, 2) on Cheney are just stunning — so much so that it’s hard to know where to begin. If you haven’t been reading them in their entirety, do. The second, in particular, is the story of a protracted bureaucratic battle, fought by a master, for the right to commit war crimes. Since this will be long, I’m putting it below the fold.

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Chemical Ali Will Hang

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by hilzoy

I oppose capital punishment, but if anyone deserves it, Chemical Ali is definitely on the list:

“Three senior aides to Saddam Hussein were found guilty on Sunday of genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity by the Iraqi High Tribunal and sentenced to death by hanging for their roles in the slaughter of as many as 180,000 Kurds in northern Iraq in the late 1980s.

The most notorious of the defendants, Ali Hassan al-Majeed — a former general known as “Chemical Ali” — received five death sentences for ordering the use of deadly mustard gas and nerve agents against the Kurds during the so-called Anfal campaign.”

Here’s Human Rights Watch on the Anfal:

“Iraqi troops tore through rural Kurdistan with the motion of a gigantic windshield wiper, sweeping first clockwise, then counterclockwise, through one after another of the “prohibited areas.” (…) Each stage of Anfal followed roughly the same pattern. It characteristically began with chemical attacks from the air on both civilian and peshmerga targets, accompanied by a military blitz against PUK or KDP military bases and fortified positions. The deadly cocktail of mustard and nerve gases was much more lethal against civilians than against the peshmerga, some of whom had acquired gas masks and other rudimentary defenses. In the village of Sayw Senan (Second Anfal), more than eighty civilians died; in Goktapa (Fourth Anfal), the death toll was more than 150; in Wara (Fifth Anfal) it was thirty-seven. In the largest chemical attack of all, the March 16 bombing of the Kurdish town of Halabja, between 3,200 and 5,000 residents died. As a city, Halabja was not technically part of Anfal–the raid was carried out in reprisal for its capture by peshmerga supported by Iranian Revolutionary Guards–but it was very much part of the Kurdish genocide.

After the initial assault, ground troops and jahsh enveloped the target area from all sides, destroying all human habitation in their path, looting household possessions and farm animals and setting fire to homes, before calling in demolition crews to finish the job. As the destruction proceeded, so did Hilberg’s phase of the “concentration” or “seizure” of the target group. Convoys of army trucks stood by to transport the villagers to nearby holding centers and transit camps, while the jahsh combed the hillsides to track down anyone who had escaped. (Some members of the militia, an asset of dubious reliability to the regime, also saved thousands of lives by spiriting people away to safety or helping them across army lines.) Secret police combed the towns, cities and complexes to hunt down Anfal fugitives, and in several cases lured them out of hiding with false offers of amnesty and a “return to the national ranks”–a promise that now concealed a more sinister meaning.”

This used to be a village before the Anfal Campaign:

Nyc20540

And these used to be people:

Mas

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Immigrants Of Questionable Legality: The California GOP Welcomes You!

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by hilzoy

Via TPM, the SF Chronicle:

“Michael Kamburowski, the Australian immigrant hired as a top official in the California Republican Party, was ordered deported in 2001, jailed three years later for visa violations — and has filed a $5 million wrongful arrest lawsuit against the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, according to U.S. District Court documents.

Kamburowski was named in March to be the chief operating officer of the California GOP. He is responsible for the state party’s multimillion-dollar budget and oversees campaign funds and financing for the nation’s largest state GOP organization. (…)

Kamburowski is a former registered lobbyist for Americans for Tax Reform and a top operative for the Ronald Reagan Legacy Project, both founded by conservative activist Grover Norquist. Nehring — also a former senior adviser and consultant to Norquist’s Washington, D.C., operation — worked with Kamburowski at Americans for Tax Reform in the 1990s.

News of Kamburowski’s troubled immigration past comes on the heels of revelations in The Chronicle earlier this month that the state GOP used a highly sought-after H1B visa to hire another immigrant as a top consultant.

Christopher Matthews, a Canadian citizen with no experience in statewide politics, was hired this month after the California Republican party applied for, and received, an H1B visa specifically to fill the role of “political director,” according to U.S. Department of Labor data. (…)

(A)sked about his immigration status, Kamburowski said he has a green card and added, “I am a legal resident. I am a permanent resident, and it can be proven.” He referred all questions regarding the matter to his attorney.”

Actually, it’s not clear from the article that Kamburowski is legal; the story of his immigration travails presented by the article ends with his having been released from custody on a $7500 bond in 2004. And he was pretty clearly illegal before that.

In any case, you’ll never guess why they hired these two. Honest, you won’t:

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About Right

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by von PROFESSOR REYNOLDS, clearly in his element, explains why Vice President Cheney’s claim that he’s not part of the executive branch misses the point.  I’m not an expert in this area, but it’s the best explanation that I’ve seen so far.  So just go read it.

Subprime Update

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by hilzoy From the WSJ (sub. req.): “Bear Stearns Cos.’s dramatic decision to lend as much as $3.2 billion to one of its two troubled hedge funds staves off the risk of a fund collapse that could have damaged its position as a major Wall Street bond player — and had the potential to ripple … Read more

Edwards’ Nonprofit

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by hilzoy

From the NYT:

“John Edwards ended 2004 with a problem: how to keep alive his public profile without the benefit of a presidential campaign that could finance his travels and pay for his political staff.

Mr. Edwards, who reported this year that he had assets of nearly $30 million, came up with a novel solution, creating a nonprofit organization with the stated mission of fighting poverty. The organization, the Center for Promise and Opportunity, raised $1.3 million in 2005, and — unlike a sister charity he created to raise scholarship money for poor students — the main beneficiary of the center’s fund-raising was Mr. Edwards himself, tax filings show.

A spokesman for Mr. Edwards defended the center yesterday as a legitimate tool against poverty.

The organization became a big part of a shadow political apparatus for Mr. Edwards after his defeat as the Democratic vice presidential nominee in 2004 and before the start of his presidential bid this time around. Its officers were members of his political staff, and it helped pay for his nearly constant travel, including to early primary states.

While Mr. Edwards said the organization’s purpose was “making the eradication of poverty the cause of this generation,” its federal filings say it financed “retreats and seminars” with foreign policy experts on Iraq and national security issues. Unlike the scholarship charity, donations to it were not tax deductible, and, significantly, it did not have to disclose its donors — as political action committees and other political fund-raising vehicles do — and there were no limits on the size of individual donations. (…)

Its directors included [“J. Edwin Turlington, a Raleigh lawyer who was the manager of Mr. Edward’s 2003 presidential exploratory committee” — earlier description from NYT article]; Miles Lackey, Mr. Edwards’s former chief of staff; Alexis Bar, his former political scheduler; and David Ginsberg, Mr. Edwards’s current deputy campaign manager.

The $1.3 million the group raised and spent in 2005 paid for travel, including Mr. Edwards’s “Opportunity Rocks” tour of 10 college campuses, consultants and a Web operation. In addition, some $540,000 went for the “exploration of new ideas,” according to tax filings.

Nonprofit groups can engage in political activities and not endanger their tax-exempt status so long as those activities are not its primary purpose. But the line between a bona fide charity and a political campaign is often fuzzy, said Marcus S. Owens, a Washington lawyer who headed the Internal Revenue Service division that oversees nonprofit agencies.

“I can’t say that what Mr. Edwards did was wrong,” Mr. Owens said. “But he was working right up to the line. Who knows whether he stepped or stumbled over it. But he was close enough that if a wind was blowing hard, he’d fall over it.””

Discussion below the fold.

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Spared Rod, Spoiled Child

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by publius The criminal enterprise that is our Vice President’s Office continues apace. Via Big Media Benen, I see that Waxman’s House Oversight Committee learned that the Vice President’s Office doesn’t consider itself subject to laws governing the executive branch: The Oversight Committee has learned that over the objections of the National Archives, Vice President … Read more

From An Alternate Universe …

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by hilzoy Politico: “Ralph Nader says he is seriously considering running for president in 2008 because he foresees another Tweedledum-Tweedledee election that offers little real choice to voters. (…) Nader would have little or no chance of winning the presidency should he run, but he doesn’t need to win to affect the outcome: Many Democrats … Read more

Good Americans

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by hilzoy From the Washington Post, more on the politicization of the Justice Department: “Karen Stevens, Tovah Calderon and Teresa Kwong had a lot in common. They had good performance ratings as career lawyers in the Justice Department’s civil rights division. And they were minority women transferred out of their jobs two years ago — … Read more

Subprime

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by hilzoy

Atrios picked up on a story that I’ve been watching for a couple of days now: the near-implosion of two Bear Stearns hedge funds. Since this post is long-ish, and has no obvious dividing lines, I’m putting it below the fold.

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