Month: September 2007

Worst Op-Ed of 2007

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by publius I’ll nominate today’s Ignatius column. It’s the most extreme example of blaming “both sides” for unreasonable Republican behavior that I’ve seen lately.

The War

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by publius Ken Burns’ “The War” will likely trigger a new round of Greatest Generation celebration and WWII retrospectives. It’s strange — I haven’t really heard any of it yet, but it’s already exhausting me. Those thoughts, however, make me feel ungrateful and guilty — so I go through a self-imposed Maoist self-confessional and grudgingly … Read more

Pirate Broadband for Burma?

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by publius Whatever else it’s accomplished, the Myanmar regime is vindicating Tim Wu and Jack Goldsmith’s argument in Who Controls the Internet? Illusions of a Borderless World. The book might as well been named The Empire Strikes Back. Contrary to the initial utopian ideas that the Internet would break down borders, Wu and Goldsmith argue … Read more

The Victory Next Time

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by publius My source for White House press statements – K-Lo – comes through again. After the Senate’s SCHIP vote, Lopez dutifully sent out the following from the White House. It’s fascinating: Today, the Senate passed a State Children’s Health Insurance Program (SCHIP) reauthorization bill that fails to focus on poor children, and instead creates … Read more

It’s the Tubes, Stupid

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by publius When Uncle Ted Stevens famously called the Internet a “series of tubes,” many of you foolishly ridiculed him. While cleverly disguised as senile rambling, Uncle Ted’s visionary statement illustrates why Verizon’s text-messaging drama matters. Despite all its charms and complexity, the Internet (and communications networks more generally) still rely on old pipes and … Read more

1,421 To 1

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by hilzoy Roger Cohen in the NYT: “Between January and August this year, Sweden took in 12,259 Iraqis fleeing their decomposing country. It expects 20,000 for all of 2007. By contrast, in the same January-August period, the United States admitted 685 refugees, according to State Department figures. The numbers bear closer scrutiny. In January, Sweden … Read more

Nah, There’s No Need for Net Neutrality After All

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by publius Sorry for the slowdown — things should be back to normal shortly. In the meantime, Verizon has apparently decided that pro-choice text messages are simply too controversial to ride over their wireless networks: Saying it had the right to block “controversial or unsavory” text messages, Verizon Wireless has rejected a request from Naral … Read more

Honor Killings

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by hilzoy

There’s a fascinating article in the NYT magazine today about the controversy over an honor killing in Syria.

“Fawaz later recalled that his wife, Zahra, was sleeping soundly on her side and curled slightly against the pillow when he rose at dawn and readied himself for work at his construction job on the outskirts of Damascus. It was a rainy Sunday morning in January and very cold; as he left, Fawaz turned back one last time to tuck the blanket more snugly around his 16-year-old wife. Zahra slept on without stirring, and her husband locked the door of their tiny apartment carefully behind him.

Zahra was most likely still sleeping when her older brother, Fayyez, entered the apartment a short time later, using a stolen key and carrying a dagger. His sister lay on the carpeted floor, on the thin, foam mattress she shared with her husband, so Fayyez must have had to kneel next to Zahra as he raised the dagger and stabbed her five times in the head and back: brutal, tearing thrusts that shattered the base of her skull and nearly severed her spinal column. Leaving the door open, Fayyez walked downstairs and out to the local police station. There, he reportedly turned himself in, telling the officers on duty that he had killed his sister in order to remove the dishonor she had brought on the family by losing her virginity out of wedlock nearly 10 months earlier.

“Fayyez told the police, ‘It is my right to correct this error,’ ” Maha Ali, a Syrian lawyer who knew Zahra and now works pro bono for her husband, told me not long ago. “He said, ‘It’s true that my sister is married now, but we never washed away the shame.’ ”

By now, almost anyone in Syria who follows the news can supply certain basic details about Zahra al-Azzo’s life and death: how the girl, then only 15, was kidnapped in the spring of 2006 near her home in northern Syria, taken to Damascus by her abductor and raped; how the police who discovered her feared that her family, as commonly happens in Syria, would blame Zahra for the rape and kill her; how these authorities then placed Zahra in a prison for girls, believing it the only way to protect her from her relatives. And then in December, how a cousin of Zahra’s, 27-year-old Fawaz, agreed to marry her in order to secure her release and also, he hoped, restore her reputation in the eyes of her family; how, just a month after her wedding to Fawaz, Zahra’s 25-year-old brother, Fayyez, stabbed her as she slept. (…)

In speaking with the police, Zahra’s brother used a colloquial expression, ghasalat al arr (washing away the shame), which means the killing of a woman or girl whose very life has come to be seen as an unbearable stain on the honor of her male relatives. Once this kind of familial sexual shame has been “washed,” the killing is traditionally forgotten as quickly as possible. Under Syrian law, an honor killing is not murder, and the man who commits it is not a murderer. As in many other Arab countries, even if the killer is convicted on the lesser charge of a “crime of honor,” he is usually set free within months. Mentioning the killing — or even the name of the victim — generally becomes taboo.

That this has not happened with Zahra’s story — that her case, far from being ignored, has become something of a cause célèbre, a rallying point for lawyers, Islamic scholars and Syrian officials hoping to change the laws that protect the perpetrators of honor crimes — is a result of a peculiar confluence of circumstances. It is due in part to the efforts of a group of women’s rights activists and in part to the specifics of her story, which has galvanized public sympathy in a way previously unseen in Syria. But at heart it is because of Zahra’s young widower, Fawaz, who had spoken to his bride only once before they became engaged. Now, defying his tribe and their traditions, he has brought a civil lawsuit against Zahra’s killer and is refusing to let her case be forgotten.”

To add the final touch of horror to this story, Zahra was kidnapped because a friend of her father’s told her that her father was having an affair, and that he would reveal it if she did not join him outside her house. That is how he was able to take her to Damascus and rape her: because she was herself trying to protect her family’s honor.

More below the fold.

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“Just Lowering My Risk Of Prostate Cancer, Heh Heh Heh…”

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by hilzoy The BBC brings good news for guys: “Men could reduce their risk of developing prostate cancer through regular masturbation, researchers suggest. They say cancer-causing chemicals could build up in the prostate if men do not ejaculate regularly. And they say sexual intercourse may not have the same protective effect because of the possibility … Read more

The Village Remembers

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by G’Kar

Let me begin with the standard disclaimers, despite which I am certain that at least one commenter will complain that I am in some way attempting to justify the Iraq War, the surge, the presidency of George Bush, tooth decay, world hunger, dogs and cats living together or worse. In fact, I think the war was a mistake, I suspect that the surge is going to be insufficient to turn the tide in Iraq, and I have precisely zero brief for George W. Bush, let alone tooth decay, or worse. [Update: I will confess to being agnostic about dogs and cats living together.] I don’t intend to support any of those things. I just want to try to explain a little about what can drive soldiers.

Several weeks ago I spent a few hours helping to offload 40 tons of flour from two flatbed trucks into storage containers. Our civil military guys brought it in to give to local villages to help them when they run short on food. Those guys spend most days on the road, delivering water and other necessities of life to the numerous tiny villages that dot the countryside in this part of Iraq. In a city east of here there’s a new textile factory that will provide jobs to 50 townspeople, built by Iraqis using American dollars. I suppose a cynic would argue that the people wouldn’t require this assistance had the U.S. not invaded, and maybe that’s true. But that damage is done, and there are a lot of Iraqis that are living better lives because the civil military guys go out and try to learn what needs to be done to help these people.

My team is only tangentially related to that kind of operation. Our brief is trying to help the Iraqi Army learn to do a better job protecting the people. While reports from Iraq sometimes seem to suggest that every member of the Iraqi Security Forces is only looking to advance their particular faction, the fact is that, like people everywhere, you get all kinds. Some of them are doubtless just infiltrators. But we also work with men who want to see their country be more than just a hotbed of factionalism. While the idea that inside every Iraqi is an American trying to get out is asinine, the idea that every Iraqi is devoted to nothing but endless killing of everyone like him is equally so. There are a lot of Iraqis here who are risking their lives to make their country a better place. If we can help even one of them do so, there’s something to be said for that.

I don’t expect that we will make any big differences in Iraq. The government doesn’t appear to be interested in doing anything but preserve its power base, and I don’t know if that will change even if the U.S. does decide to actually pull out, which seems implausible in any case. I can’t make the Iraqi government work any better. I may not even be able to do much to make the Iraqi Army work any better. But I can try to help those Iraqis who want to make their country better succeed in their own small ways, and I can take advantage of my own position to directly aid Iraqis it is in my power to help. It doesn’t sound like much. It probably isn’t much. But few of us are destined to make a big difference in life; if I can make a little difference, that has to count for something.

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Stevens: The Plot Thickens

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by hilzoy From the Washington Post: “An Alaska oil contractor cooperated with the FBI by tape-recording phone calls with Sen. Ted Stevens (R-Alaska) as part of a public corruption investigation, a source familiar with the probe said last night. The recordings done by former Veco Corp. chief executive Bill Allen mean that Stevens, who is … Read more

“Thank You For The Privilege Of Serving Today”

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by hilzoy

Those of us who don’t plan to read Robert Draper’s Dead Certain can find a lot its interesting anecdotes in Sidney Blumenthal’s review in Salon. For those of you who don’t even want to read the review (which you should), here are a few:

“In his interviews with Draper, he is constantly worried about weakness and passivity. “If you’re weak internally? This job will run you all over town.” He fears being controlled and talks about it relentlessly, feeling he’s being watched. “And part of being a leader is: people watch you.” He casts his anxiety as a matter of self-discipline. “I don’t think I’d be sitting here if not for the discipline … And they look at me — they want to know whether I’ve got the resolution necessary to see this through. And I do. I believe — I know we’ll succeed.” He is sensitive about asserting his supremacy over others, but especially his father. “He knows as an ex-president, he doesn’t have nearly the amount of knowledge I’ve got on current things,” he told Draper.

Bush is a classic insecure authoritarian who imposes humiliating tests of obedience on others in order to prove his superiority and their inferiority. In 1999, according to Draper, at a meeting of economic experts at the Texas governor’s mansion, Bush interrupted Rove when he joined in the discussion, saying, “Karl, hang up my jacket.” In front of other aides, Bush joked repeatedly that he would fire Rove. (Laura Bush’s attitude toward Rove was pointedly disdainful. She nicknamed him “Pigpen,” for wallowing in dirty politics. He was staff, not family — certainly not people like them.)

Bush’s deployed his fetish for punctuality as a punitive weapon. When Colin Powell was several minutes late to a Cabinet meeting, Bush ordered that the door to the Cabinet Room be locked. Aides have been fearful of raising problems with him. In his 2004 debates with Sen. John Kerry, no one felt comfortable or confident enough to discuss with Bush the importance of his personal demeanor. Doing poorly in his first debate, he turned his anger on his communications director, Dan Bartlett, for showing him a tape afterward. When his trusted old public relations handler, Karen Hughes, tried gently to tell him, “You looked mad,” he shot back, “I wasn’t mad! Tell them that!”

At a political strategy meeting in May 2004, when Matthew Dowd and Rove explained to him that he was not likely to win in a Reagan-like landslide, as Bush had imagined, he lashed out at Rove: “KARL!” Rove, according to Draper, was Bush’s “favorite punching bag,” and the president often threw futile and meaningless questions at him, and shouted, “You don’t know what the hell you’re talking about.”

Those around him have learned how to manipulate him through the art of flattery. Former Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld played Bush like a Stradivarius, exploiting his grandiosity. “Rumsfeld would later tell his lieutenants that if you wanted the president’s support for an initiative, it was always best to frame it as a ‘Big New Thing.'” Other aides played on Bush’s self-conception as “the Decider.” “To sell him on an idea,” writes Draper, “aides were now learning, the best approach was to tell the president, This is going to be a really tough decision.” But flattery always requires deference. Every morning, Josh Bolten, the chief of staff, greets Bush with the same words: “Thank you for the privilege of serving today.””

Stop and think for a moment: if your assistant greeted you every morning with the words “Thank you for the privilege of serving today”, how would you respond? I think I’d make light of it the first day, but if it continued, I’d say: I appreciate the compliment, but it’s really not necessary. If, God forbid, my assistant went on saying it, I would at some point have to sit him or her down and explain that it made me uncomfortable. The one thing I really can’t imagine is letting someone go on saying that day after day. It’s just too crazy.

Which is, I suppose, just one more piece of evidence that I am not, in fact, George W. Bush.

To continue (below the fold):

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Exhibit A of the Fraud Caucus – the Anguished Moderate

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by publius I direct a lot of my wrath toward “centrist” Republican legislators rather than, say, Inhofe. There’s a reason. As numerous others have pointed out, they don’t actually do anything to force a change of policy. They prefer to furrow their brow while voting lockstep to continue those bad policies. Their brow-furrowing, however, gives … Read more

Priming The Pump

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by hilzoy Noah Shachtman: “Sunni political and tribal leaders are increasingly throwing in their lot with U.S. forces here against Al-Qaeda in Iraq and other insurgent types. But, to get them to come over to our side, the American military has fed them a steady diet of anti-Shi’ite propaganda. Arrests and killings of Shi’ite militants … Read more

The Rotten State of Warner

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by publius Ah, the great John Warner. Let’s remember this gushing description of his record: Time and again, from his stance on withdrawing troops in Iraq to his concern about global warming, he has taken on his party and bucked conventional wisdom. [Larry Sabato says] “What’s important about John Warner and what distinguishes him is … Read more

Habeas Amendment Fails; Webb Amendment Up

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by hilzoy

OK, admittedly I’ve been busy for the last week or so, but how on earth did I not know that the habeas amendment was coming up for a vote today? According to comments at FDL, it has failed to gain the 60 votes it needed to pass. (56-43; FDL has the roll call.)

The Webb Amendment is up now. It would require that people who are deployed overseas be given as much time at home as they spent abroad. I’ve put a list of Senators to call below the fold (from Atrios.)

If you support this amendment, now’s the time to call. Thanks.

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Well, Knock Me Over With A Feather

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by hilzoy Newsweek: “In endorsing Gen. David Petraeus’s recommendations on Iraq, President George W. Bush said Thursday night that at least 21,500 U.S. combat forces, plus support troops, could leave Iraq and come home by next July. Curiously, the first military unit designated by Petraeus to return is the 13th Marine Expeditionary Unit based at … Read more

Investigations Galore

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by hilzoy

From the Washington Post:

“Howard J. Krongard, the State Department’s inspector general, has repeatedly thwarted investigations into contracting fraud in Iraq and Afghanistan, including construction of the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad, and censored reports that might prove politically embarrassing to the Bush administration, the chairman of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform charged yesterday in a 13-page letter. (…)

Waxman accused Howard Krongard of:

▪ Refusing to send investigators to Iraq and Afghanistan to investigate $3 billion worth of State Department contracts.

▪ Preventing his investigators from cooperating with a Justice Department probe into waste and fraud in the construction of the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad.

▪ Using “highly irregular” procedures to personally exonerate the embassy’s prime contractor of labor abuses.

▪ Interfering in the investigation of a close friend of former White House adviser Karl Rove.

▪ Censoring reports on embassies to prevent full disclosure to Congress.

▪ Refusing to publish critical audits of State’s financial statements.

Among the e-mails obtained by the committee are exchanges in which staff members discussed Krongard’s decision not to cooperate with the Justice Department on the embassy investigation.

“Wow, as we all [k]now that is not the normal and proper procedure,” an investigator wrote to John A. DeDona, an assistant inspector general. DeDona forwarded the e-mail to Deputy Inspector General William E. Todd, saying, “I have always viewed myself as a loyal soldier but hopefully you sense my frustration in my voicemail yesterday.”

Todd wrote back: “I know you are very frustrated. John, you need to convey to the troops the truth, the IG told us both Tuesday to stand down on this and not assist, that needs to be the message.”

DeDona responded: “Unfortunately, under the current regime, the view within INV [the office of investigations] is to keep working the BS cases within the beltway, and let us not rock the boat with more significant investigations.””

Paul Kiel at TPMMuckraker describes one of the most egregious examples:

“There have been allegations that the contractor First Kuwaiti used forced labor building the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad. So Krongard looked into it.

Only he had a peculiar method, according to Waxman’s investigation. First, he insisted on doing the report entirely by himself and shut out his staff. And instead of seeking out the source of the allegations, he allowed the contractor to choose the employees that he’d interview. He ultimately interviewed six employees.

The result? Krongard declared that he found no evidence of human trafficking.

But when Waxman sought the investigative materials that Krongard had generated in the course of his probing investigation, Krongard only turned over 20 pages total (after a subpoena from Waxman). Of those 20 pages, only six of them were Krongard’s own work product — sketchy handwritten notes from his interviews with the contractor’s handpicked witnesses.”

It’s really worth reading Waxman’s entire letter (pdf). If the allegations in it are true, the State Department’s IG, whose entire function in life is to ferret out waste, fraud, and corruption, has instead been covering not just for the very things he’s supposedly in charge of finding, but slavery. This, no doubt, is just one more example of the Bush administration’s desire to bring freedom to the Middle East.

Meanwhile:

“The federal Office of Special Counsel is investigating allegations that Rachel Paulose, U.S. attorney for Minnesota, mishandled classified information, decided to fire the subordinate who called it to her attention, retaliated against others in the office who crossed her, and made racist remarks about one employee.”

Besides allegations of leaving classified information about terrorism investigations lying about, “Paulose allegedly denigrated one employee of the office, using the terms “fat,” “black,” “lazy” and “ass.””

I fail to see why anyone would think that the bet possible candidate for a US Attorney’s job would be someone who either leaves classified information lying around or uses terms like that in reference to their subordinates.

Last, but not least, there’s the ongoing investigation into Sen. Ted Stevens (R-Intertubes), in which the head of an oil company that was awarded $170 million in government contracts admitted paying for extensive remodeling on Stevens’ home. Since Stevens has come up in other contexts as well, there’s reason to hope that we might soon see the last of the Senator who just topped The Hill’s list of Senators who got the most money in earmarks in this year’s Defense Appropriations Bill, and whose pet causes include “the University of Alaska’s High Frequency Active Auroral Research Program, which began as a far-fetched investigation into harnessing the power of the aurora borealis” ($100 million.)

And not a moment too soon. (Note: I’ve put some excerpts from a TNR profile of Stevens below the fold. They’re pretty amazing.)

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Canon Fires

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by publius

This weekend’s Book Review brought us a retrospective on the university canon wars. And I’m not ashamed to say I’m with Ross Douthat on this. I’ve always been a bit curmudgeonly on all matters Western Canon. In fact, defending the traditional canon illustrates one aspect of conservative thought that I’ve always found compelling. But first, to the wars.

Rachel Donadio correctly says that “it’s generally agreed that the multiculturalists won the canon wars.” Don’t get me wrong, I think adding some diversity to the required lists is good, but it’s important that the old books stay on the list. Douthat makes an interesting side point that the greater threat is not so much removal of the texts, but studying everything through “the ‘modes of inquiry’ (or in Harvard-ese, ‘approaches to knowledge’) view of education[.]” I tend to agree, but that’s a different debate. For now, I want to focus on the older one – i.e., why require those old books in the first place? Why call them a “canon”?

At the outset, I recognize that these are all dead white male books (except for Austen, who clearly belongs on any list). I also recognize that this disproportionate representation stems from social and political repression – and even slavery. I grant all that. But it doesn’t exactly answer the question. The question, after all, isn’t “how come these are all dead white male books?” We know that. The question is, “of all the dead white male books ever written, why do these particular ones stand out?” And the answer is because they are great books.

Fine, but what makes them great? Who gets to say? Tough questions, all. Books aren’t great because I say so. They’re not great because Harold Bloom says so (though his vote counts more than mine). To me, greatness is simply a function of appeal over time. If a book continues to appeal to generation after generation, then there’s probably some objective value lurking somewhere in the work. For instance, Shakespeare is still going strong at 400 not because a bunch of dead white professors pushed him for years on brainwashed students, but because the works have (thus far) appealed to each generation across cultures. Same deal for Homer.

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Dulce Bellum Inexpertis

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by hilzoy N.Z. reporting on the milbloggers’ meeting with George W. Bush: “Responding to one of the bloggers in Iraq he expressed envy that they could be there, and said he’d like to be there but “One, I’m too old to be out there, and two, they would notice me.”” Such a pity he missed … Read more

Basra

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by hilzoy One way to get a sense of what might happen when we leave Iraq is to watch what happens in Basra now that the British are leaving. There are some things Basra cannot tell us: what will happen to Kirkuk, whether Turkey will invade Iraqi Kurdistan, what the war between Sunni and Shi’a … Read more

Supply Lines

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by hilzoy From the NYT: “As British troops pull out of their last base in Basra, some military commanders and civilian government officials in the area are concerned that the transition could leave them and a major supply route to Baghdad at greater risk of attack. The route, a lifeline that carries fuel, food, ammunition … Read more

Ladies And Gentlemen: Your Republican Party Leadership

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by hilzoy As you probably already know, John Boehner, the person the House Republicans elected as their Minority Leader, said this a few days ago: “BLITZER: Mr. Leader, here’s the question. How much longer will U.S. taxpayers have to shell out $2 billion a week or $3 billion a week as some now are suggesting … Read more

Supporting the Troops

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by G’Kar "We aren’t no thin red ‘eroes, nor we aren’t no blackguards too,   But single men in barricks, most remarkable like you;   An’ if sometimes our conduck isn’t all your fancy paints:   Why, single men in barricks don’t grow into plaster saints;" Tommy, Rudyard Kipling "Their’s not to make replyTheir’s not … Read more

Ordinary Life On Planet Bush

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by hilzoy Michael Ware has done consistently great reporting from Iraq. So I was interested in his reaction to Bush’s speech last night: “MICHAEL WARE, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, Anderson, my first impression is, wow. I mean, it’s one thing to return to the status quo, to the situation we had nine months ago, with 130,000 … Read more

One Small Step Away From Barbarity

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by hilzoy From ABCNews: “The controversial interrogation technique known as water-boarding, in which a suspect has water poured over his mouth and nose to stimulate a drowning reflex, has been banned by CIA director Gen. Michael Hayden, current and former CIA officials tell ABCNews.com. (Image above is an ABC News graphic.) The officials say Hayden … Read more

The Case Of The Unexplained Underwear (Open Thread)

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by hilzoy There are dark plots afoot at Guantanamo Bay, and not the usual kind: “Guards at the Guantanamo Bay prison camp found two prisoners sporting unauthorized underwear, and the U.S. military is investigating to determine how they got the contraband. Both prisoners were caught wearing Under Armour briefs and one also had on a … Read more

A Bright Shining Lie

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by publius John Hinderaker (Powerline): I was not able to watch President Bush’s speech tonight, but have read it. It was, I think, a great speech. . . . President Bush laid out the case for engagement in Iraq in a way that most will find compelling. Fred Kaplan: President Bush’s TV address tonight was … Read more

Bush’s Pointless Speech

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by hilzoy In a move that caught all of Washington by surprise, President Bush announced tonight that he will begin drawing down troops at almost exactly the rate that he must draw them down unless he is prepared to extend troop rotations or institute the draft. In another startling move, he described this drawdown not … Read more

Journalistic Malpractice

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by hilzoy This has already been noted in comments; I just wanted to put it on the front page, because I want to do my part to ensure that anyone who saw this AP story: “Despite the Iraq war’s unpopularity, Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama said Thursday that Congress lacks the votes to force a … Read more

Anbar

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by hilzoy

Marc Lynch, writing in TAP, asks a very good question:

“Much of the conventional wisdom about the Sunni areas now seems to come from the impressions formed by politicians and journalists on stage-managed visits to Iraq, or by carefully crafted press interviews with “former insurgents” hand-picked by American military handlers. But we don’t need such a mediated view. Leaders of the major Iraqi Sunni groups actually speak quite often and quite candidly to their own people, though: in open letters, in official statements posted on internet forums, in the Arab and Iraqi press, and in statements released on al-Jazeera and other satellite television stations. What they say in such statements, in Arabic, when addressing their own constituencies, might be considered a more reliable guide to their strategy and thinking. So what are the major Iraqi Sunni leaders saying?”

Luckily, unlike me, Marc Lynch speaks Arabic, and so can answer this question:

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Surrender Donkeys

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by publius Jeebus, I shouldn’t have read this article before my morning coffee. It’s already ruined my day. Harry Reid – whose strategy thus far has been smart and far-looking – let the Washington Post editorial page get in his head: Democratic leaders in Congress have decided to shift course and pursue modest bipartisan measures … Read more

Another Benchmark Bites The Dust

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by hilzoy From the NYT: “A carefully constructed compromise on a draft law governing Iraq’s rich oil fields, agreed to in February after months of arduous talks among Iraqi political groups, appears to have collapsed. The apparent breakdown comes just as Congress and the White House are struggling to find evidence that there is progress … Read more