Month: June 2007

This Week’s Music Prediction

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by publius It’s just up on Rhapsody, so I haven’t listened to it yet. But given that Pitchfork put the new Whites Stripes album in its recommended “Best New Music” section, I’m guessing it must phenomenal. For strangers to the polysyllabic, adjective-happy dreamland that is Pitchfork, the Best New Music section is a complex beast. … Read more

Anti-Althousiana, Hooray!

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by von I DON’T GENERALLY READ Ann Althouse; I find her shtick — and a lot of it is shtick — to be kinda boring.  Indeed, that Professor Althouse attempts treat blogging as performance art doesn’t mean that all of her performances are art (or particularly good).  But curiousity got the better of me, and … Read more

A Wrinkle In The Fence

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by hilzoy About that fence along the Mexican border: here’s a problem I hadn’t thought of. Doesn’t the border run mostly along the midpoint of the Rio Grande? Why, yes it does, for 1254 of the border’s 1951 miles. Are the people who want to build a fence proposing to build 1254 miles of it … Read more

Family Values

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by hilzoy There are a lot of issues about which I think: Republican politicians have taken the name of something I care a lot about, turned it into something I scarcely recognize, and made it very tempting for liberals to just dismiss it: to accept the idea that the concept in question is what Republicans … Read more

Big Media Benen

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by publius Steve Benen continues to expand his media empire, with a flattering profile today in the Politico. I particularly enjoyed this: His wife nudged him, too [to start blogging]. “I would frequently bother (her) with hours of political diatribes. She ultimately encouraged me to take it online.” Some say Iraq, but I’m convinced that … Read more

Testing, Testing: Open Thread

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by hilzoy Yesterday, after several years of abuse, my hardy TiBook decided it was time to pack it in (more or less, it still sort of croaks along, but not in a way that fills me with confidence.) So today I went off and got a brand new one — the 15″, isn’t it pretty? … Read more

With Friends Like These ….

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by von LOOK, I GET IT.  The Pajama-folks are, by and large, idiots.  Were you to put Roger Simon and Charles Johnson in a room ask them to create a foreign policy, you would end up with a panda bear.  Not a metaphorical panda bear.  An actual panda bear.  Don’t ask how they did it: … Read more

Woodrow Wilson Sucks

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by publius

Dear lord am I tired of reading columns like this. From today’s Post:

Democrats today have a problem with democracy. We have lost our voice on the issue of promoting democracy abroad — which means that what was once a core Democratic foreign policy idea is being ceded to the GOP.
. . .
Woodrow Wilson, FDR, Harry S. Truman and John F. Kennedy must be turning in their graves. Using U.S. power to promote freedom and democracy was central to their foreign policies and legacies. . . . Is the party of Wilson abandoning Wilsonianism?

Let’s hope so.

In all seriousness, I used to be very sympathetic with this foreign policy vision. But no more. I’m tired of hearing about Woodrow Wilson’s idealism, and I’m really tired of hearing about Harry Truman. Frankly, Democrats — and America more generally — would be better off abandoning idealistic democracy promotion as a foreign policy goal altogether. That’s not so much because the abstract idea is bad, it’s that attempting to implement it causes more harm than good in the real world.

As for the column itself, its first problem is that it dignifies the Bush administration’s foreign policy by pretending that it (1) is coherent and (2) embodies moral ideals. Putting aside morality, if you look at the administration’s actions (not its words), it’s difficult to conclude that democracy promotion has been a consistent priority. I can’t really complain about that though. The fact that the Bush administration has only selectively pushed for “democracy promotion” is its saving grace. Indeed, the administration’s greatest failures have come when it has tried to promote democracy (e.g., Iraq/Palestine) and/or has taken militant stances in the name of abstract ideals (Axis of Evil).

Getting away from Bush, the bigger problem with this column is on the merits. The working assumption — one expressed ad nauseum by Democratic foreign policy elites like the author — is that democracy promotion should be a central and explicit foreign policy goal. I used to agree. I don’t anymore. I’m all for human rights. I’m all for promoting liberal reforms. But I’m through with democracy promotion.

At the outset, I should say that I support democratic capitalism as much as the next guy. I wish the whole world consisted of liberal democracies — it would be a far better place. But, we conduct foreign policy with the world we have. And as recent history teaches us, the steps taken to promote democracy often make the world worse than it otherwise would be.

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Why Did The USSR Collapse?

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by hilzoy Kevin Drum mentioned this article by Yegor Gaidar a few days ago, but clever me didn’t read it until just now. It’s really fascinating, so if any of you made the same mistake, now’s your chance to undo it. He makes a really interesting argument about why the USSR collapsed. Basically, the first … Read more

Open Thread: ‘Muslims In Space’ Edition

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by hilzoy Via Unfogged, an article in Discover: “As Malaysia’s space program prepares to send the country’s first astronaut to the space station next year, it is confronting some of the standard first-astronaut questions: what scientific research to pursue, which local delicacy to bring aboard, and who among the eager candidates should go. It is … Read more

Black Shadows

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by hilzoy

From the Washington Post:

“Army Spec. Jeans Cruz helped capture Saddam Hussein. When he came home to the Bronx, important people called him a war hero and promised to help him start a new life. The mayor of New York, officials of his parents’ home town in Puerto Rico, the borough president and other local dignitaries honored him with plaques and silk parade sashes. They handed him their business cards and urged him to phone.

But a “black shadow” had followed Cruz home from Iraq, he confided to an Army counselor. He was hounded by recurring images of how war really was for him: not the triumphant scene of Hussein in handcuffs, but visions of dead Iraqi children.

In public, the former Army scout stood tall for the cameras and marched in the parades. In private, he slashed his forearms to provoke the pain and adrenaline of combat. He heard voices and smelled stale blood. Soon the offers of help evaporated and he found himself estranged and alone, struggling with financial collapse and a darkening depression.

At a low point, he went to the local Department of Veterans Affairs medical center for help. One VA psychologist diagnosed Cruz with post-traumatic stress disorder. His condition was labeled “severe and chronic.” In a letter supporting his request for PTSD-related disability pay, the psychologist wrote that Cruz was “in need of major help” and that he had provided “more than enough evidence” to back up his PTSD claim. His combat experiences, the letter said, “have been well documented.”

None of that seemed to matter when his case reached VA disability evaluators. They turned him down flat, ruling that he deserved no compensation because his psychological problems existed before he joined the Army. They also said that Cruz had not proved he was ever in combat. “The available evidence is insufficient to confirm that you actually engaged in combat,” his rejection letter stated.

Yet abundant evidence of his year in combat with the 4th Infantry Division covers his family’s living-room wall. The Army Commendation Medal With Valor for “meritorious actions . . . during strategic combat operations” to capture Hussein hangs not far from the combat spurs awarded for his work with the 10th Cavalry “Eye Deep” scouts, attached to an elite unit that caught the Iraqi leader on Dec. 13, 2003, at Ad Dawr.

Veterans Affairs will spend $2.8 billion this year on mental health. But the best it could offer Cruz was group therapy at the Bronx VA medical center. Not a single session is held on the weekends or late enough at night for him to attend. At age 25, Cruz is barely keeping his life together. He supports his disabled parents and 4-year-old son and cannot afford to take time off from his job repairing boilers. The rough, dirty work, with its heat and loud noises, gives him panic attacks and flesh burns but puts $96 in his pocket each day.

Once celebrated by his government, Cruz feels defeated by its bureaucracy.”

Read the whole thing. It’s horrible. More below the fold.

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Taguba

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by hilzoy Major General Antonio Taguba (ret.) talks to Seymour Hersh. Here he’s talking about a meeting with Rumsfeld: ““Here . . . comes . . . that famous General Taguba—of the Taguba report!” Rumsfeld declared, in a mocking voice. The meeting was attended by Paul Wolfowitz, Rumsfeld’s deputy; Stephen Cambone, the Under-Secretary of Defense … Read more

What Makes Them So Mad

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by publius It’s official. As predicted, the conservative base is in full-scale revolt over the immigration bill. While this revolt was not unexpected, I’ve always wondered why immigration (or illegal immigration to be precise) gets the base so exercised (particularly bloggers and pundits). What exactly makes them so mad? It’s tempting to attribute it all … Read more

The Darkness Has Fallen

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by hilzoy There’s altogether too much to say about Hamas’ takeover in Gaza, but somehow I don’t have the heart to try to arrange any of it into any sort of coherent form. For now, I’ll just give you a piece from NPR, by Hossam al-Madhoun, who lives in Gaza. It’s much better if you … Read more

Do Not Pass Go. Do Not Collect $200.

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by hilzoy From the Washington Post: “A federal judge today ordered I. Lewis “Scooter” Libby to report to prison within weeks to begin serving a 30-month sentence for lying to federal investigators about his role in disclosing a covert CIA officer’s identity to the media. In ruling that Vice President Cheney’s former chief of staff … Read more

More Of Your Tax Dollars At Work

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by hilzoy From the NYT, via Tapped: “In theory, it was simple: Congress gave two decommissioned Coast Guard cutters to a faith-based group in California, directing that the ships be used only to provide medical services to islands in the South Pacific. Coast Guard records show that the ships have been providing those services in … Read more

Samarra

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by hilzoy (photo from the BBC.) From the NYT: “One of Iraq’s most sacred Shiite shrines, the Imam al-Askari mosque in Samarra, was attacked and severely damaged again today, just over a year after a previous attack on the site unleashed a tide of sectarian bloodletting across the country. Following the attack, which destroyed the … Read more

The Spectrum Auction for Dummies (and by Dummies)

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by publius

As Matt Stoller and others have noted, the FCC is finalizing plans for its upcoming auction of extremely-valuable wireless spectrum. It’s an incredibly important auction, the outcome of which will shape wireless voice service and, more importantly, wireless broadband for years to come. I’ll be writing more about this, but I thought it would be useful to provide an overview of some of the big-picture issues at stake. I’ll give a basic intro first, and then move on to more complicated policy debates.

As many of you know, the right to use the electromagnetic spectrum is controlled by the federal government. The FCC carves it up and “licenses” pieces of it to various types of parties (radio broadcasters, TV broadcasters, cell phone providers, etc.). Like real estate, though, not all spectrum is created equal. Lower-frequency spectrum is more valuable because it travels further and is more resilient (i.e. better able to go through walls, hills, etc.) than higher-frequency spectrum. That’s why, for instance, AM radio stations have much wider range than FM stations — they operate at lower-frequencies.

For reasons both historical and political, TV broadcasters have enjoyed access to wide swaths of incredibly valuable low-frequency spectrum. However, as a result of the DTV transition (digital TV), broadcasters will soon be abandoning parts of this spectrum. Specifically, they will soon be required to broadcast digitally rather than in analog. Because digital transmissions are more efficient, the transition will free up spectrum space. Our eminently-wise public servants in Congress have decided that this newly-freed-up broadcasters’ spectrum should be reallocated to commercial users via auctions and to public safety agencies (e.g., fire departments, emergency communications). These are all good things.

At long last, the DTV transition draws nigh. Later this year (or early next year), the FCC will auction off big chunks of the broadcasters’ spectrum — often referred to as the “700 MHz spectrum.” In the wireless world, this spectrum is considered “beachfront property” because it is stronger and more resilient than the spectrum that wireless providers (voice and broadband) currently use. For instance, one reason why your cell phone doesn’t work in urban office buildings (particularly if you have Sprint or T-Mobile) is that the phones often use higher frequency spectrum (e.g., PCS spectrum) that can’t penetrate heavy concrete walls very well. In addition, and for similar reasons, the 700 MHz spectrum is far better-suited for mobile broadband than higher-frequency spectrum.

Right now, the FCC is considering the rules (the “service rules”) that will govern the spectrum auction and will likely release those rules in the next month or so. The upshot here is that the rules the FCC adopts will essentially determine who is going to “win” this spectrum. There really is no “neutral” outcome here. The structure of the rules will determine the winners, and thus the shape of the wireless market in the years ahead. That’s why parties are furiously lobbying right now to get the rules they prefer embedded in regulations governing the auctions. To take one example, consider the “block size” rules (i.e., should the pie be sliced in 6 pieces or 4 pieces? Or maybe 2 big pieces and 100 tiny pieces?). Big carriers want the spectrum auctioned in “big” blocks that no one else can afford to bid on. Smaller carriers in turn want “smaller” (and more local) blocks.

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Tertium Non Datur

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by hilzoy There’s an article in the NYT that discusses the aspect of the al-Marri decision that I found most interesting: whether or not there is some third category in between ‘civilian’ and ‘combatant’ into which someone like al-Marri might fall. From the Times article: “Before the Sept. 11 attacks, there were soldiers and civilians, … Read more

Your Tax Dollars At Work

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by hilzoy Via TPM: Apparently, all those nice people at the Transportation Department don’t have enough to do these days. I mean, how else to explain the fact that one of them graciously decided to take the time to lobby for the auto industry against California’s clean air standards? “Hi … this is Heideh Shahmoradi … Read more

Al-Marri

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by hilzoy

From the Washington Post:

“A federal appeals court today ruled that the U.S. government cannot indefinitely imprison a U.S. resident on suspicion alone, and ordered the military to either charge Ali Saleh Kahlah al-Marri with his alleged terrorist crimes in a civilian court or release him.

The opinion is a major blow to the Bush administration’s assertion that as the president seeks to combat terrorism, he has exceptionally broad powers to detain without charges both foreign citizens abroad and those living legally in the United States. The government is expected to appeal the 2-1 decision handed down by a three-judge panel of the conservative U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit, which is in Richmond, Va.

The decision is a victory for civil libertarians and Marri, a citizen of Qatar who was a legal resident of the United States and studying in Peoria, Ill., when he was arrested in December 2001 as a “material witness.” He was detained initially in civil prisons, then transferred to a naval brig in Charleston, S.C. , where he has been confined for the past five years.

The government argued that Marri, who had met with al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden, was sent to the United States for a second wave of terrorist attacks.

The appeals panel said President Bush overstretched his authority by declaring Marri an “enemy combatant,” because the Constitution protects both U.S. citizens and legal residents such as Marri from an unchecked military and from being detained without charges and a fair trial.”

Marty Lederman has posted the decision here (pdf). It’s quite interesting. It rejects a whole slew of the government’s claims: that the Military Commissions Act strips al-Marri of habeas rights, that the Authorization for the Use of Military Force empowers the President to detain people in this country and designate them ‘enemy combatants’ at will, and that the President has the inherent power to do this under Article II. Excerpts and further discussion below the fold.

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The Classy Counterculture

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by publius

Reviewing Brink Lindsey’s “The Age of Abundance” in yesterday’s NYT Book Review, George Will writes this interesting aside:

Lindsey tantalizes readers with some pithy judgments that call for more elaboration than he supplies[.] [For example,] he acutely sees that “the Aquarian project” had its own cultural contradictions: “Without the immensely intricate division of labor developed and constantly elaborated by capitalism, there would have been no mass affluence; without mass affluence, there could have been no counterculture.”

It’s not entirely clear, but I read this as a swipe against the counterculture (particularly given the authors). Technically, it’s an observation rather than argument, but it seems like the ol’ argument-via-observation – i.e., by observing that the 60s counterculture was itself a product of capitalist affluence and inequality, Will and Lindsey are implicitly critiquing and discrediting it.

Regardless of their intent, it’s an interesting point – and a thoroughly Marxist/Rousseau-inspired one. The observation is that the counterculture was a class-based phenomenon made possible by affluence and leisure (and thus by underlying economic structures/distributions). The tricky – and fascinating – part is what arguments exactly follow from this observation, and whether those arguments do in fact discredit the so-called counterculture.

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Black Sites

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by hilzoy From the NYT: “In a report on Friday, the lead investigator for the Council of Europe gave a bleak description of secret prisons run by the Central Intelligence Agency in Eastern Europe, with information he said was gleaned from anonymous intelligence agents. Prisoners guarded by silent men in black masks and dark visors … Read more

“Early Next Year”

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by publius Wash. Post, 6/10/07 U.S. military officials here are increasingly envisioning a “post-occupation” troop presence in Iraq that neither maintains current levels nor leads to a complete pullout, but aims for a smaller, longer-term force that would remain in the country for years. This goal, drawn from recent interviews with more than 20 U.S. … Read more

I Can Has More Risk?

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by hilzoy This seems like something we should be thinking about, not just allowing to happen willy-nilly. From the WSJ; since it’s behind a subscription wall, I’ll quote more extensively than I normally would: “As hurricane season gets under way, a dramatic shift in the way homeowners insure against disasters could pose a big financial … Read more

Snarkalicious!

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by hilzoy It’s a horrible, hot, muggy day here in Baltimore. My tomato plants are all wilty, and even Mr. Nils, the outdoor cat to end all outdoor cats, does not want to go outside, preferring instead to mope around on the sofa, looking very, very put out. I myself had to go to the … Read more

Your Conspiracy Theory O’ The Day

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by publius Like Kevin Drum, I read that our future War Czar© thinks that the surge hasn’t really worked, and won’t work absent political reform. This is interesting for a couple of reasons. First, it’s a bit out of character for Bush administration officials to be openly voicing pessimism like this. You’d expect this kind … Read more

Paul Krugman Is Bewildered Too!

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by hilzoy

Krugman in the NYT:

“In Tuesday’s Republican presidential debate, Mitt Romney completely misrepresented how we ended up in Iraq. Later, Mike Huckabee mistakenly claimed that it was Ronald Reagan’s birthday.

Guess which remark The Washington Post identified as the “gaffe of the night”?

Folks, this is serious. If early campaign reporting is any guide, the bad media habits that helped install the worst president ever in the White House haven’t changed a bit.”

More below the fold.

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Are We Disappearing Children?

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by hilzoy Today, six human rights groups released a report (pdf) on 39 people who they think the US government might be holding in undisclosed locations, and whose location is presently unknown. (Thus, they are not counting anyone known to be at Guantanamo or Bagram; just people who are missing.) That we have disappeared anyone … Read more

More Bewilderment

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by hilzoy Via Digby: in the Republican debate, did Giuliani say that Iran already has nuclear weapons? “GIULIANI: Part of the premise of talking to Iran has to be that they have to know very clearly that it is unacceptable to the United States that they have nuclear power. I think it could be done … Read more