2009 January » Undiplomatic

30 January 2009 Charles J. Brown
02:52 pm

Most Underreported Story of the Week: CCW

From a State Department “media note” released last Friday:

On January 21, the United States deposited its instruments of ratification for Protocols III, IV, and V of the Convention on Conventional Weapons (”CCW“) and for an amendment to that Convention. Protocol III covers incendiary weapons, Protocol IV covers blinding laser weapons, and Protocol V deals with explosive remnants of war. The Amendment expands the scope of the Convention to non-international armed conflicts.

The United States took a leading role in negotiating these protocols and the amendment, has long complied with the norms contained in them, and is pleased to become a party to each of them. This action reaffirms our commitment to the development and implementation of international humanitarian law.

The CCW and its Protocols are part of a legal regime that regulates the use of particular types of conventional weapons that may be deemed to pose special risks of having indiscriminate effects or causing unnecessary suffering. The CCW is a framework convention. States Parties to the CCW negotiate protocols within this framework to regulate specific types of weapons. States ratify each protocol separately.

According to Wikipedia, the Convention has five separate protocols:

Protocol I restricts weapons with non-detectable fragments.

Protocol II restricts landmines, booby traps.

Protocol III restricts incendiary weapons.

Protocol IV restricts blinding laser weapons (adopted on October 13, 1995, in Vienna).

Protocol V sets out obligations and best practice for the clearance of explosive remnants of war, adopted on November 28, 2003 in Geneva.

The United States had already signed** Protocols I and II, but until now had not agreed to the provisions of the other three. (To be considered a signatory, a country had to sign at least two of the five, so the U.S. was a signatory to the Convention in fact if not in spirit.

So why is this important? First, this is yet another repudiation of Bush. The Convention is an annex to the Geneva Convention, one largely uncontroversial outside of the Cheney-Bolton-Whack-job wing of the Republican Party. This represents not merely a willingness to work withing existing international norms, but also a promise to adhere to the laws of war — a view with which the Bushies were vehemently (and notoriously) disagreed. Somewhere, John Bolton and David Addington are developing facial tics.

Second, Protocol V obligates the United States to agree to standards on the “explosive remnants of war.” Although this includes unexploded munitions such as cluster bomb fragments, it also includes certain types of mines. in fact, the negotiations leading to Protocol V, which failed to include all land mines, ultimately led to the Ottawa Treaty, which bans all anti-personnel mines — also known as land mines.

Both the Clinton and Bush Administrations refused to sign or ratify the Ottawa treaty in large part because land mines are a key component of the U.S.-South Korean defensive perimeter — in fact there are over one million anti-personnel mines along the DMZ.

It’s too early to tell whether the Obama Administration’s decision to sign Protocol V will lead to a decision to become a signatory to the Ottawa Treaty, but it certainly looks promising. That said, my guess is that even if the U.S. signs, the Administration is unlikely to submit the Ottawa Treaty to the Senate for ratification: Republicans would use such a step to pillory Obama as soft on North Korea.

In fact, I’d be surprised to see the Administration do more than sign all such “controversial” treaties. I would prefer ratification, of course, but we’re not yet in a place where issues like land mines and the International Criminal Court are not controversial. Until that day comes (I hope soon), we’ll have to settle for the Administration’s determination to adhere by these treaties and conventions’ standards even if they do enjoy the force of law.

*WONK NOTE: For those unfamiliar with treaty law, there are two steps: signing and ratifying. In the press release, the Administration says that it has “deposited its instruments of ratification,” which means it has signed the treaty. For the United States to become an actual party to the convention (known in treatyland as a “state party”), the Senate must ratify it by a two-thirds majority, per Article II, Section 2 of the Constitution. Given the Republicans’ active dislike of international law, and given the fact that Democrats would need at least seven Republicans (66 votes) to support any attempt to ratify, those treaties obligating the U.S. military to do things it does not want to do (like ban land mines) are unlikely to be submitted to the Senate by any Administration, no matter how worthy they may be.

Ethics, Lynn, and Unintended Casualties

I want to take a moment to discuss an issue that has been covered extensively in the press — Obama’s new EO on Ethics and the waiver granted to DOD DepSec-designate William Lynn. Please read through to the end, as I think there’s an important component of this story that has been overlooked: the impact of the controversy on highly qualified individuals who are unintended casualties of both the order and Lynn kerfuffle.

As I’m sure all of you know, one of Obama’s first acts as President was to sign an executive order establishing strict guidelines both on what those serving in his administration could do once leaving and what they were doing before they joined it. The whole thing is worth reading, but for now let me highlight two sections. First the restriction on appointing people who previously have lobbied:

2. Revolving Door Ban All Appointees Entering Government. I will not for a period of 2 years from the date of my appointment participate in any particular matter involving specific parties that is directly and substantially related to my former employer or former clients, including regulations and contracts.

3. Revolving Door Ban Lobbyists Entering Government. If I was a registered lobbyist within the 2 years before the date of my appointment, in addition to abiding by the limitations of paragraph 2, I will not for a period of 2 years after the date of my appointment:

(a) participate in any particular matter on which I lobbied within the 2 years before the date of my appointment;

(b) participate in the specific issue area in which that particular matter falls; or

(c) seek or accept employment with any executive agency that I lobbied within the 2 years before the date of my appointment.

In general, I think these are laudable goals, and were they applied evenly, would help end the tendency of those in Washington to benefit financially from inside connections (as opposed to experience). The problem, as I’m sure you know, is there’s a loophole:

Sec. 3. Waiver.

(a) The Director of the Office of Management and Budget, or his or her designee, in consultation with the Counsel to the President or his or her designee, may grant to any current or former appointee a written waiver of any restrictions contained in the pledge signed by such appointee if, and to the extent that, the Director of the Office of Management and Budget, or his or her designee, certifies in writing (i) that the literal application of the restriction is inconsistent with the purposes of the restriction, or (ii) that it is in the public interest to grant the waiver. A waiver shall take effect when the certification is signed by the Director of the Office of Management and Budget or his or her designee.

(b) The public interest shall include, but not be limited to, exigent circumstances relating to national security or to the economy. De minimis contact with an executive agency shall be cause for a waiver of the restrictions contained in paragraph 3 of the pledge.

Further complicating all this is the fact that Obama has appointed (and OMB has granted a wavier to) William Lynn as Deputy Secretary of Defense, largely because SecDef Robert Gates wants him. Lynn has spent the past few years at Raytheon, where he was a registered lobbyist. Some Republicans — most notably John McCain — are now raising concerns about the wavier, questioning whether it undermines the EO.

I have no axe to grind with Lynn, nor any strong opinion about whether he is the right person for the job. But the controversy around his appointment means that the Obama Administration is likely to think twice before granting another wavier.

And that will mean some very talented people will be unintended casualties of an otherwise worthy objective.

You see, it’s not just the Raytheons of the world who hire lobbyists. Non-governmental organizations do it all the time. Many, like Human Rights Watch and the Environmental Defense Fund (and my former organization, Citizens for Global Solutions), have registered as lobbyists or established separate 501(c)4 arms to lobby. This is all perfectly legal under the IRS code regarding non-profits, and it gives them the chance to push Congress and the Executive Branch to do the right thing.

But now those who worked so hard during the Bush Administration to prevent it from torturing or gutting environmental laws or attacking the United Nations are now ineligible for jobs because they did the right thing — or to put it more bluntly, because they were fierce advocates for what is right at the very time that such opinions were most unpopular.

NGO advocates should not be penalized just because they did the right thing. In addition, it’s created a false dichotomy between two sets of people who sought the same goals: if a given individual is working at a university or think tank, they would not be affected by the order, even if they wrote dozens of op-eds and law review articles arguing that the Bush Administration should not do something. But if that same person instead worked for an NGO that has registered as a lobbyist — and wrote the exact same articles — s/he would be excluded by the terms of the EO, unless, of course, they received a waiver.

That’s ridiculous. President Obama should consider some sort of 501(c)3 NGO waiver that would remove this obstacle. He’ll have to be careful, however: many companies and industries have created “trade associations,” and many are registered as 501(c)4 non-profit lobbying groups. That probably means that legitimate NGOs that have established (c)4s are out of luck, but at least their colleagues on the (c)3 side will have a chance.

Blago No Mo

By a vote of 59-0, the Illinois State Senate has impeached Rod Blagojevich.

Didn’t the Chicago Cardinals lose an NFL championship by that score?

Best part, he can’t ever hold office again.

I guess that means he needs a new line of work. Given his impassioned closing statement, I’d suggest two possibilities: playing Illinois homeboy Ronald Reagan’s character in a remake of Bedtime for Bonzo; and buying Hair Club for Men.

If it’s the latter, he could say he’s not just a bleeping client, he bought the bleeping company. And he’s not going to just give away something so bleeping valuable.

Johnson and Johnsen

One Obama Administration appointment that has not received much attention either in the blogosphere or the mainstream media (the exceptions being the always excellent and perceptive Spencer Ackerman and Carolyn O’Hara over at Passport) is the appointment of Jeh Johnson to serve as General Counsel at the Department of Defense.

This is a great choice, and not just because Johnson brings first-rate legal credentials and a distinguished track-record on civil rights issues. More importantly, he previous experience in the Pentagon, having served during the Clinton Administration as General Counsel to the Department of the Air Force.

Why is this position so important? Two words: William Haynes. For those unfamiliar with Haynes, you only need to know two things: 1) he was General Counsel at DOD during the Bush Administration; 2) he was a key ally of David Addington, Alberto Gonzales, and John Yoo successful efforts to legalize torture, and indefinite detention.

In The Dark Side, Jane Mayer identifies Haynes as one of the five architects of Bush and Cheney’s torture, detention, and rendition policies (the others were Gonzales, Addington, Yoo, and CIA General Counsel Timothy Flanigan). He is the individual who told Alberto Mora (the Navy General Counsel who objected to the nascent torture policies) that the White House had decided to move forward with its interogation plans.

And perhaps most importantly, he drafted and/or signed the decision memos recommending that Donald Rumsfeld approve “enhanced” interrogation techniques. He therefore could be described as the engineer, if not the architect, who made both Guantanamo and Abu Ghraib possible.

As I noted back in September, Haynes is one of twelve Bush Administration officials whom should be prosecuted for war crimes.

Obama’s choice of Jeh Johnson represents as important a break with past policy as his choice of Dawn Johnsen to serve as the head of the Office of Legal Counsel at Justice (and, for that matter, his selection of David Barron and Marty Lederman as her principal deputies). Johnsen is to Yoo as Johnson is to Haynes (although technically speaking, Yoo was the deputy chief of OLC, his relationship with Addington gave him greater authority and access than his bosses). Like her near-namesake at DOD, Johnsen has a distinguished track record, including a stint during the Clinton Administration as deputy chief of OLC. In a recent law review article, she described the Bushies’ torture policies as illegal.

Obama has now named hard-headed realists — individuals who recognize the damage caused by the Bush Administration’s torture regime and see the solution as returning the U.S. government to its core values — to the very positions that, under Bush, were largely responsible for creating the tortured legal justifications for torture.

Johnson and Johnsen both will play a central role in dismantling Guantanamo-centered detention regime, per Obama’s executive orders of January 22nd, which establishes an inter-agency working group to facilitate the closure of all such detention facilities and evaluate what to do with the remaining detainees. Although the orders name Cabinet-level officials to the committee, most of the work is likely to be done, in the words of the orders “their designates.” That probably means that J & J will be players in making the orders more than symbolic acts.

Kool-Aid No More

My post last week on the vomitous new video from Demi Moore and other celebrities, in which all sorts of famous rich people try to convince that they will “be a servant to our President” by shutting off the lights in their ginormous mansion and selling their Ferraris to buy a Prius, got me thinking about the role of progressive bloggers during an Obama Administration.

As regular readers of this blog know, I was a strong supporter of President Obama during the election. On more than one occasion I acknowledged crossing the line from advocacy to drinking the Kool-Aid. I don’t regret that, but to paraphrase our President, it is time to put aside such childish things and get down to the work of thoughtful analysis — and frequently criticism — of the President and his Administration’s decisions.

I’ve already been doing that — if you’re new to the blog, go here and here and here — and I don’t think I’ve ever defended Obama for the sake of defending him. But from now on, no more Kool-aid moments. No more “West Wing” tributes. No more “Yes We Can” cheerleeding.

To put it another way, it’s time to move from ardent supporter to loyal opposition.

And if you catch me falling back into the Kool-Aid, don’t hesitate to call me on it.

“As Rich and Fulfilling as My Hatred for Your Country”

Jon Stewart opens up a can of whoop-ass on those Republicans fear-mongering over the closure of Guantanamo:

The Daily Show With Jon StewartM - Th 11p / 10c

Guantanamo Baywatch - The Final Season

Daily Show Full Episodes
Daily Show Tickets

Ice, Ice Baby

As those of you in the DC area know, we got snow yesterday and ice last night. Not much, but enough to cause panic in the streets the schools to close. The long and short of it is that I’m home with Greta today, which is good news for me, but not so much for the blog.

I will try to post later, but don’t count on it — Greta is a blast, but requires all my time and attention.

Potterville No More

Via Jim Fallows Gawker is reporting that the Vice President’s residence (a.k.a Potterville the Naval Observatory) is no longer undisclosed — you can now see it with Google Maps and Google Earth.

This might not seem like a big deal, but as Fallows notes, transparency should extend not just to politics but also to perception. Especially when the perception is that the Vice President is a bitter twisted old man deeply paranoid.

Speaking of which, I wonder about how Dick is doing these days. Maybe he can get his bunker ranch in Wyoming fuzzed out.

The Other Don’t Ask Don’t Tell

When I was at the State Department, I had the opportunity to work closely with a terrific group of foreign service officers who were memberw of Gays and Lesbians in Foreign Affairs Agencies, who were fighting to get recognition for same sex spouses.

Although benefits were a big part of what they were fighting for, an equally important issue was how their spouses were treated overseas. The reality is that unlike a number of European countries, American gay and lesbian spouses do not enjoy the same status overseas as their heterosexual colleagues. That means, among other things, that they do not have the rights, privileges, and protection that other spouses do. As former Ambassador Michael Guest put it back in 2007 when he resigned from the foreign service over the treatment of his partner, the foreign service (and by extension the U.S. Government) forced him to choose

between obligations to my partner, who is my family, and service to my country,” which he called “a shame for this institution and our country.

Back when I was in the Clinton Administration, gay spouses did not have even the most basic rights and privileges. To its credit, the Bush Administration changed some of the rules — permitting partners/spouses to attend security and other introductory seminars — but not much more.

Yesterday, GLIFAA released to the press a copy of a letter sent last week to incoming Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton:

We, the undersigned and representing the diversity of the foreign affairs agencies. . .are troubled that our families are not all treated equally and with the same respect. We are concerned that access to the federal health care insurance program is denied to same-sex partners of employees serving in Third World countries with substandard medical care.

We question the logic of leaving same-sex partners to fend for themselves during an emergency evacuation of a high danger post. We are embarrassed when the Department will reimburse a variety of moving expenses, including the cost of transporting a pet, when an employee is assigned overseas, but will not do the same for a same-sex partner.

We are saddened that individual and community safety are put at risk because full language instruction is not available to same-sex partners. We are uncomfortable that same-sex partners receive less compensation and fewer benefits for performing exactly the same job inside the mission as an opposite-sex spouse, that is, when same-sex partners are given a chance to work.

An order from your office designating same-sex partners as Eligible Family Members (EFMs) could remedy many of the inequalities that these families face. Other remedies will require coordination between the Executive and Legislative branches.

Madam Secretary, we believe that no colleague of ours is a second-class colleague, and no colleague’s family is a second-class family. Given your commitment to protecting the safety and promoting the welfare of all Foreign Service families, we ask for your full consideration of our concerns and we hope that a dialogue aimed at ending this unequal treatment can be started.

This is what I mean by the other don’t ask don’t tell. It’s not as discriminatory as what happens in the military: gays and lesbians no longer are drummed out of the foreign service as a result of their sexual orientation. But they are asked to pretend that they are not second-class citizens.

To put it another way, they’re being told “don’t tell us we’re not treating you fairly and we won’t ask why that’s a problem.”

That’s ridiculous, and shameful. As the GLIFAA letter notes, there’s a simple solution here: designate partners as Eligible Family Members, which would “give” them the rights and privileges (and protection) enjoyed by all other family members. (Of course the notion that the government has the ability to “give” fundamental human rights to people is, in itself, offensive, but we’ll set that aside for the moment.)

You want to know how ridiculous this is? If a foreign service officer is married to the love of her life, and her spouse brings into the marriage a daughter, and the foreign service officer adopts that daughter, the daughter is an Eligible Family Member, but her own birth mother is not.

During Hillary’s confirmation hearing, Senator Russ Feingold (D-WI) asked her about this issue:

FEINGOLD: What would you do as secretary of state to address these concerns? Will you support changes to existing personnel policy in order to ensure that LGBT staff at State and USAID receive equal benefits and support?

CLINTON: Senator, this issue was brought to my attention during the transition. I’ve asked to have more briefing on it because I think that we should take a hard look at the existing policy. As I understand it, but don’t hold me to it because I don’t have the full briefing material, but my understanding is other nations have moved to extend that partnership benefit. And we will come back to you to inform you of decisions we make going forward.

This is both good news and bad news. It’s good news because Secretary Clinton demonstrated a willingness to “take a hard look” at the issue. It’s bad news because she did not promise to change policy. That is a politicians’ caution — perhaps understandable given her husband’s experiences — but this isn’t 1992. Public attitudes about and understanding of these issues has changed significantly: although there remains no consensus on marriage, most Americans support both civil unions and partner benefits.

So why didn’t Clinton commit? I can only speculate. First, the federal bureaucracy may be hesitant to allow State to take the lead on this. I think that’s ridiculous — given the fact that one part of the government (the military) already has a separate discriminatory policy, I don’t see why another part of the government having a separate progressive policy should be a problem.

Second, some folks at State may nervous about “granting” full rights and privileges to same sex spouses because they’re afraid of how some countries — particularly the Vatican, most African states, and Muslim-majority states — may react. You could call it the Anglican church precedent: rock the boat and you create problems. That’s a fallacy, of course — it hasn’t been the case for other countries that have given same-sex spouses full rights and benefits — and it’s allowing diplomacy to mask discrimination.

Lest you think that these are a minor issues, remember this: until the Clinton Administration, one of the questions on the security clearance questionnaire was whether you had ever engaged in “homosexual activity.” Some very talented people over the years have been excluded from the foreign service or drummed out simply because they were gay. Don’t forget that the red hunts of the 1950s were also used to fire gay foreign service officers because they were viewed as somehow more “susceptible” to recruitment.

But even after that terrible practice stopped, diplomatic security found other ways to make the lives of gays and lesbians miserable. I’ll never forget a meeting I had during my time at State when a foreign service officer told how diplomatic security gave him a choice: forget about a foreign service career or out himself to his parents, who did not know he was gay. Another was actually outed to his parents by diplomatic security.

Here’s hoping that Secretary Clinton does the right thing, and does it quickly.

Then we can turn to the bigger problem in that other agency.

Does More Carbon out Equal Less Carbon in?

I can’t remember when I started doing this, but I read the obituaries in the New York Times fairly regularly, and I was struck by one several days ago. A Norwegian philosopher, Arne Naess, died at the age of 96. I know nothing of Mr. Naess’ philosophy beyond what I read in the article, and am merely using it as a springboard for presenting an idea that occurred to me based on something else I read a couple weeks ago. First, the section of the obituary that struck me.

In the early 1970s, after three decades teaching philosophy at the University of Oslo, Mr. Naess (pronounced Ness), an enthusiastic mountain climber and an admirer of Rachel Carson’s “Silent Spring,” threw himself into environmental work and developed a theory that he called deep ecology. Its central tenet is the belief that all living beings have their own value and therefore, as Mr. Naess once put it, “need protection against the destruction of billions of humans.”

Deep ecology, which called for population reduction, soft technology and non-interference in the natural world, was eagerly taken up by environmentalists impatient with shallow ecology — another of Mr. Naess’s coinages — which did not confront technology and economic growth.

I am sure that, when taken out of its larger context, this sounds worse than Mr. Naess meant and doesn’t reflect what he truly felt, but the idea in isolation is fairly anti-human (for lack of a better term). In my experience, it reflects the greatest political stumbling block towards addressing scientific issues — such as climate change — that will require significant political will and economic cost: the “true believer” problem.

No matter what the issue, true believers share a blind spot: an inability to understand that not everyone looks at things the way they do. They can’t imagine how or why others may not see something as a problem, or how they can view the solution, differently than they do. Climate change, the magnitude of human contribution to it, and the question of whether the solutions proposed are worth their social and economic cost, are viewed very differently by individual Americans. Successfully enacting steps to halt this process will require substantial sacrifice by everyone — sacrifices that many will see as necessary.

Yet there are more compelling arguments and data to present, for this and other science and technology issues on which there is not already broad agreement. For example, in the January 9, 2009 issue of Science, Constance Holden predicts that, by the end of our current century, higher global temperatures will likely result in reduced global food harvests:

Thousands of people died from the heat that baked western Europe in the summer of 2003. The heat wave also devastated the region’s agricultural sector: In France, where temperatures were 3.6°C above normal, the country’s corn and fruit harvests fell more than 25%. Thirty-one years earlier, another very hot summer shrank harvests in southwest Russia and Ukraine and led to a tripling in world grain prices.

By the end of the century, two researchers predict, those summers may seem like cool ones, and the impact on agriculture will be even greater.

In a paper appearing on page 240, atmospheric scientist David Battisti of the University of Washington, Seattle, and economist Rosamond Naylor of Stanford University in Palo Alto, California, apply 23 global climate models used by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change to estimate end-of-century temperatures. Their conclusions with regard to agriculture are sobering. “In the past, heat waves, drought, and food shortages have hit particular regions,” says Battisti. But the future will be different: “Yields are going to be down every place.” Heat will be the main culprit. “If you look at extreme high temperatures so far observed–basically since agriculture started–the worst summers on record have been mostly because of heat,” not drought, he says.

The models predict that by 2090, the average summer temperature in France will be 3.7°C above the 20th century average. Elevated temperatures not only cause excess evaporation but also speed up plant growth with consequent reductions in crop yields, the authors note. Although rising temperatures may initially boost food production in temperate latitudes by prolonging the growing season, Battisti and Naylor say crops will eventually suffer unless growers develop heat-resistant versions that don’t need a lot of water. “You have to go back at least several million years before you find … temperatures” comparable to those being predicted, Battisti says.

Just as France offered a glimpse of the future in temperate regions, says Naylor, the Sahel in Africa shows what life could be like in the tropics and subtropics, home to half the world’s population. A generation-long drought in the region lifted in the early 1990s, but higher temperatures have remained, depressing crop and livestock production. The authors predict future production reductions of 20% to 40%, while the population in tropical regions is expected to double to 6 billion.

The conclusions of the paper seem “reasonable,” says plant and soil scientist Peter Smith of the University of Aberdeen in the United Kingdom, who also does greenhouse gas modeling. Smith adds that future pressures on food supplies come not only from steadily growing populations but also from changes in food preferences, in particular, more people eating meat. “Demand for livestock products in developing countries will greatly increase over the next few decades,” says Smith. That trend, he says, represents “a switch to less efficient ways of feeding ourselves.”

Too many arguments for environmental stewardship set humans against the rest of the global ecosystem. They ask people to make the world better for every other species by making it worse for themselves. Other than true believers, most individuals won’t do that.

That said, most people will be motivated to protect the environmental by something concrete and closer to their hearts - like a lack for food for humans - to a much greater extent than they will be by an essentially abstract concern over disappearance of species they have never seen, and (justifiably) care about much less than their own.

To put it another way, more “carbon out” (carbon emissions) will equal less “carbon in” (food).

And everyone can get that.

Slow Blog Day

Bit of a consulting-heavy day today, plus a doctor’s appointment. So light posting for most if not all of today (though I believe Chris should have something up shortly).

24 Hours, 142 Spam

Captcha system going back on. Sorry guys.

New Comments Policy Open Thread

In the hopes of solving the problem that has plagued some of you who have tried to comment but have not succeeded, I’ve disabled the captcha system. We’ll try it for a while, but if I get spam-bombed, I’ll have to go back to the captcha system.

You’ll still need to fill in a name and email address, however.

So if you have an itch to comment on anything right now, go at it.

Javallelujah!

As follow up to my post on Truth In Spiritual Advertising, I thought it might be interesting to explore current trends/needs in the marketing of religion.

I have no issue with the need for marketing in religion. Marketing is a necessary reality for any organization to stay fiscally sound. I’d like to see those of us who pursue organized spiritual activities stay awake, and not let marketing and budget concerns over-ride common sense and our true values.

Two points I’d like to press: 1) organized religion is market-driven; 2) being market-driven, it can run the risk of losing the original mustard seed (so to speak) and cross the line from spirituality to spirituality theatre.

If you have a good sense of humor and willingness to laugh at this side of Organized-Religion-as-Business, watch this video (h/t Think Christian):

Short story: no one would come back.

For more on this, check out Web Design for God’s Audience: Learning From Church Development, on the Blogger’s Blog by Lorelle Van Fossen.

Whoopsie

The RSS feed for remarks by the Secretary of State is still entitled “Secretary Rice Remarks.”

Ah, the joys of a transition.

A Servant to My President?

As regular readers of this blog know, I don’t just drink the Obama Kool-Ad, I revel in it. I bathe in it. I even do synchronized swimming moves.

But this (h/t Ta-Nehisi) — this thing, this tone-deaf, sanctimonius — nay vomitous — celebrity-soaked piece of propaganda. . .

. . .is just too much.

First of all, where do these beautiful, slim, and impossibly rich people get off telling us that we need to do more? I agree with President’s noble call to put aside childish things, but if there is a class of Americans who most need to do that it’s the Hollywood elite.

Second, most people would love to have these folks’ problems. I wish I could shut off all the lights in my mansion, or sell my Ferrari and buy a Prius. But I guess I’ll have to settle for my fat ass, our two-bedroom apartment (where the lights already get shut off when we don’t need them) and our dented Volvo (which while not that old, is worth less than the cost of a new hybrid).

Third, what about all of us who didn’t need a courageous President to do the right thing? Molly and I have been giving significant (at least for us) sums to charities of our choice since we’ve been together. We’ve both volunteered for various organizations, This year, we couldn’t afford to give as much, but that was in part because I spent considerable sums driving around the Eastern Seaboard to volunteer my time for the Obama campaign.

A commenter on YouTube put it better than I can:

I pledge to stop paying fools for the crap movies they all star in and ride on the backs of middle and lower income AMERICANS. i pledge to laugh at fools instead of get mad at them. i renew my pledge to this COUNTRY - not the man in office because he makes me feel all gushy inside. Self indugent HOLLYWOOD - so now you’ve seen the error of your ways? You were a creep yesterday but now you’ve seen the light? Well don’t forget to turn the lights off PDiddy, or whatever name you go by this week

I couldn’t agree more. No matter how much I support Barack Obama, my belief in this country and its capacity to do good is not based on my joy that he is now President.

Fourth, what were they thinking?? Demi Moore says, “I pledge to be a servant to our President?” A servant to my President???? WTF? Who produced this thing, Pravda? Last I checked, there’s a reason that we call those we elect public servants. They are in service to us, not the other way around.

Yes, we need to grow up, be responsible, and follow the leadership of our smart and talented President. But I’m guessing that he’d be the first person to tell you that none of us should be a servant to him. And I’d further bet that few people better understand the difference between patriotism and the cult of personality.

There’s a word for this. It’s flat-out propaganda, no matter how sincere the intent or worthy the sentiment.

One other thing: you might have noticed that at the end of this horrible pile of poo, it says “copyright 2009 Harpo Productions.” That’s Oprah’s company. She should know better. And so should usaservice.org, whose goals are far more worthy of support than this kind of garbage can ever convey. Let’s hope they pull this video before it turns into a complete embarrassment.

Oh wait. It already is.

Israel: So Why Exactly Did It Go to War?

Remember how the Israeli attack on Gaza had supposedly destroyed the network of tunnels between Gaza and Egypt? According to Danger Room, (as Jon Stewart would say), uh, not so much:

The Israeli military bombed hundreds of tunnels during the Gaza war — to shut down Hamas‘ weapons-smuggling routes, and to put pressure on Egypt to the militants from getting more. But just days after the battle’s end, those tunnels are re-opening, with Hamas in charge.

“Hamas has seized control of all the smuggling tunnels under the Philadelphi Corridor in southern Gaza and has been moving additional arms into the Strip since Operation Cast Lead ended on Sunday morning,” the Jerusalem Post reports. Those passages, “are usually run by local Palestinian clans, and Hamas’s decision to take control is believed to be part of the group’s attempts to reestablish its regime in Gaza. Hamas can now decide what is smuggled into the Strip and give priority to weapons and explosives.”

At the beginning of the conflict, I noted that the Olmert government appeared to lack any clear strategic vision of what it wanted to achieve and why it thought war was the only way to achieve it. Now, with a fragile cease-fire in place and Israeli troops having completed their withdrawal from the strip, we find out that one of the supposed tactical objectives of the war — closure of the tunnels — not only wasn’t successful, but is now actually worse: Hamas remains large and now is in charge.

I am no Middle East expert (I suggest if you want first-rate analysis on the conflict and its aftermath, go to Daniel Levy’s outstanding blog), but I can see. As far as I can tell, here’s where we are now that the conflict has “ended.”

1. The tunnels remain open and are now under the control of Hamas.

2. Hamas’s leadership remains largely intact.

3. Although Hamas’s control over Gaza is, by some reports, less tenuous, Fatah’s control over the West Bank suffered far greater damage, from which it may never recover.

4. There are increasing calls for an international investigation into allegations that the Israeli military used white phosphorus rounds indiscriminately — and in the process helping to obscure the fact that Hamas’s firing of rockets and its use of human shields clearly constitute war crimes.

5. The war appears to have hurt Kadima and its allies politically; were the elections to be held today, Likud would sweep to victory and Benjamin Netanyahu would become prime minister.

6. Although it’s unclear whether those on the Palestinian side who lost their lives in the conflict were predominantly Hamas fighters or civilians, international opinion has largely coalesced around the idea that a significant number of civilians were killed indiscriminately as a result of both the bombardment and invasion.

7. As a result, Israel is even more isolated internationally than it was before, and now must deal with an American administration that, while committed to supporting Israel, is less likely to tolerate such foolishness in the future.

8. And perhaps most relevant to the casus belli that started this whole mess, Hamas is busily rebuilding its capacity to fire rockets into Israel.

So why exactly did Israel go to war? And what exactly did it accomplish — other than to weaken further the government’s own position both domestically and internationally? And how does this differ from what happened in Lebanon a few years ago?

Did you learn anything from that conflict? Anything at all? Bueller?

Stupid would not be too strong a word to describe this mess.

Verbatim: The Guantanamo E.O.

Upon further review, it’s worth passing on large chunks of the Guantanamo executive order (emphasis added):

In view of the significant concerns raised by these detentions, both within the United States and internationally, prompt and appropriate disposition of the individuals currently detained at Guantánamo and closure of the facilities in which they are detained would further the national security and foreign policy interests of the United States and the interests of justice.

Merely closing the facilities without promptly determining the appropriate disposition of the individuals detained would not adequately serve those interests. To the extent practicable, the prompt and appropriate disposition of the individuals detained at Guantánamo should precede the closure of the detention facilities at Guantánamo. . . .

The individuals currently detained at Guantánamo have the constitutional privilege of the writ of habeas corpus. Most of those individuals have filed petitions for a writ of habeas corpus in Federal court challenging the lawfulness of their detention. . . .

Some individuals currently detained at Guantánamo may have committed offenses for which they should be prosecuted. It is in the interests of the United States to review whether and how any such individuals can and should be prosecuted. . . .

The detention facilities at Guantánamo for individuals covered by this order shall be closed as soon as practicable, and no later than 1 year from the date of this order. If any individuals covered by this order remain in detention at Guantánamo at the time of closure of those detention facilities, they shall be returned to their home country, released, transferred to a third country, or transferred to another United States detention facility in a manner consistent with law and the national security and foreign policy interests of the United States. . . .

In accordance with United States law, the cases of individuals detained at Guantánamo not approved for release or transfer shall be evaluated to determine whether the Federal Government should seek to prosecute the detained individuals for any offenses they may have committed, including whether it is feasible to prosecute such individuals before a court established pursuant to Article III of the United States Constitution, and the Review participants shall in turn take the necessary and appropriate steps based on such determinations. . . .

With respect to any individuals currently detained at Guantánamo whose disposition is not achieved [as a result of release, transfer to another country, or prosecution in the United States] the Review shall select lawful means, consistent with the national security and foreign policy interests of the United States and the interests of justice, for the disposition of such individuals. The appropriate authorities shall promptly implement such dispositions. . . .

The Review shall identify and consider legal, logistical, and security issues relating to the potential transfer of individuals currently detained at Guantánamo to facilities within the United States, and the Review participants shall work with the Congress on any legislation that may be appropriate.

The language might be legalistic, but it’s poetry to those who have worked so hard to make this day happen.

The New Executive Orders: Guantanamo, Torture, Detainees

It’s not up on YouTube yet, but the NYT has the video of Obama signing the Executive Orders on Guantanamo, changing interrogation rules to conform with the army field manual, and disposition of detainees. You can watch it here.

The basics:

1. U.S. policy will no longer ignore our core principles.

2. Guantanamo will be closed within one year.

3. The U.S. will comply with its treaty obligations including the Geneva Convention and the Convention against Torture.

4. Anyone detained by the United States will be interrogated according to rules established by the Army Field Manual (which is what the human rights community wanted included in the Military Commissions Act).

5. The administration is establishing an inter-agency task force to recommend on how to handle those detainees that cannot be released and provide guidance and advice to both the military and the Administration on how to handle detainees in the future.

6. The case of Ali Saleh al Marri is currently before the Supreme Court. The Administration is asking the Court to postpone consideration of the case until it can determine whether it wishes to continue to be a party to the case.

This is huge. This is everything and more than the human rights community hoped would happen in the first 90 days of the Administration, much less the first few days. With these actions, President Obama has obliterated much of the very actions that caused such ill will around the world, and pulled the rug out from underneath those who argue that the United States was a force for harm in the world.

It is a day to cheer, but not to celebrate. The Bush Administration’s policies caused great harm not only to our reputation but also our national security. There are hundreds if not thousands of terrorist aspirants who joined the ranks of al Qaeda and other groups as a result of Abu Ghraib, Guantanamo, and other such abuses. Sooner or later, one of them will participate in an attack against the United States, its interests, or its allies.

That is the real legacy of Bush — not the supposed 2,668 days he supposedly (single-handedly?) prevented another terrorist attack. (And let’s not even talk about the fact that had he paid more attention, he just might of prevented 9/11 — with a strong emphasis on might.) Many of those who hate us do so not because they hate us or our freedom (as Bush so liked to say) but rather because they saw a huge gap between our rhetoric and our practices. With today’s actions, that gap begins to close, but it cannot prevent the harm that will be caused by the previous Administration’s acts.

In addition, much remains to be done in terms of implementation, and it will take more than a few signatures to rebuild completely our international reputation. And sooner or later, word will come out of someone exceeding the Army Field Manual; when that happens, it will be important to ensure that the Obama Administration responds quickly and appropriately.

And perhaps most important of all, this is an executive action, not a fundamental change. A future Administration could very well decide to reverse these EOs as quickly and efficiently as Obama did to Bush’s policies. Preventing that may in the end be the real challenge, one far greater than ending a few abhorrent policies: how do we change the culture so that we no longer celebrate evils committed in the name of the public good.

To put it another way, how do we exorcise the ghost of Jack Bauer?

That is a question I hope to address in the coming weeks. In the meantime, know hope. This is the change we wanted, and change we can believe in.

UPDATE: Google docs beats White House.gov (h/t Yglesias).

UPDATE 2: All but the al-Marri order are now up on Whitehouse.gov

Guantanamo: Huge Huge Props. . .

. . .to my friend Elisa Massimino and her colleagues at Human Rights First, who organized the delegation of 18 retired generals and admirals that met with Obama during the transition and who were behind him during the signing ceremony today.

If you don’t know, HRF, you should check out their website — and support them. Unlike other groups (including one that I used to work for), they focus not on criticism but solutions. They have helped ensure that the Obama Administration did the right thing, and did it expediently. Even better, they found the right people to speak out on the issue.

Go give them money. Now.

(In the spirit of Obama-era transparency, I have no affiliation with HRF now and have not had one in the past.)

A Minor Rant

If you’re going to promise posting all executive orders on the new White House website, can you please freaking do it in a timely manner? It’s been over four hours since Obama signed the new EOs and they’re still not up.

Hard to summarize/analyze/praise without the docs, guys.

UPDATE (6:22 pm): They’re up.

Rock Star

No, not Obama:

Secretary Clinton: The Challenges Ahead

As you’ve probably already heard, the Senate confirmed Hillary Clinton yesterday, and today she made her first appearance at State. If her speech at the welcoming ceremony represents the direction she plans to take the Department, it augurs well for the next four years. Take, for example, what she had to say about personnel:

In my testimony before the Foreign Relations Committee, I spoke a lot about smart power. Well, at the heart of smart power are smart people, and you are those people. And you are the ones that we will count on and turn to for the advice and counsel, the expertise and experience to make good on the promises of this new Administration. . . .

This is not going to be easy. (Laughter.) I don’t want anybody to leave this extraordinarily warm reception thinking, oh, good — (laughter) — you know, this is going to be great. It’s going to be hard. But if it weren’t hard, somebody else could do it, besides the professionals of the Foreign Service and the Civil Service and our Diplomatic and Development Corps.

So it looks like she understands the need to build morale in what has become an incredibly dispirited institution.

Unfortunately for her, that’s not the only institutional challenge she faces. Here are four more that will require considerable time and energy to fix.

1. The disastrously inefficient organizational chart. Secretary Clinton inherits a State Department that is a hodgepodge of agencies, bureaus, and offices. The past few Administrations (including that of her husband) have only made the situation worse , never in the process thinking through how such proliferation interferes with policy-making. Congress also has contributed to the problem, legislating “solutions” to policy issues by creating new offices.

This disorganization has produced bureaucratic turf battles, mangled flow charts and inefficient decision-making. Each Administration tends to move the chairs around without thinking through a more comprehensive approach. To cite a few examples, the Ambassador-at-large for War Crimes issues resides in Office of the Secretary, but most policy on those issues comes from the Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights and Labor (DRL). Similarly, democracy policy-making is divided between DRL and the Office of the Undersecretary for Democracy and Global Affairs (which used to be merely Global Affairs during the Clinton Administration). The Bureau of International Narcotics and Law Enforcement was, under Bush, moved from Global Affairs to the Office of the Undersecretary for Political Affairs even though the latter consists primarily of regional bureaus. Meanwhile, the Bureau of Political-Military Affairs resides not in Political Affairs, but in the Office of the Undersecretary for Arms Control and International Security.

Such bureaucratic chaos has had a direct impact on policy-making. Fiefdoms fight over who will take the lead on a given policy. Once those disagreements are resolved, the resultant “decision memo” have to be cleared by all relevant bureaus. That process — which was supposed to ensure that no bureau could set policy without input from other stakeholders — has instead become a tangled mess.

For example, when I used to write the introduction to the Annual Country Reports on Human Rights Practices, I had to get the clearance of every bureau/agency/office whose issue/country was mentioned. The last year I was there, over 250 different bureaus/agencies/office had to clear the final document. And every time one of them made a change, I had to go back to the others affected to approve the change. Making matters even worse was the phenomenon of “CYA (cover your ass) clearances” — where a particular office would tell me that they would clear it, but only if I first got another office to clear it.

Much of this can be fixed through a thoughtful reorganization of the Department so that lines of communication are simplified and clearances kept to a minimum. But that means more than moving the deck chairs around so that they make a lovely new pattern. It requires real thinking about what can make the process more efficient without denying particular Bureaus the ability to participate in the policy-making process.

2. Funding. In a time of economic turmoil and massive government spending, it is essential that the Administration not forget its promise to expand significantly the State Department’s resources and personnel. Hillary’s speech today points to that commitment:

There are three legs to the stool of American foreign policy: defense, diplomacy, and development. And we are responsible for two of the three legs. And we will make clear, as we go forward, that diplomacy and development are essential tools in achieving the long-term objectives of the United States. And I will do all that I can, working with you, to make it abundantly clear that robust diplomacy and effective development are the best long-term tools for securing America’s future.

A big part of the new funding should go to expanding the foreign service. Part should go, as noted above, to important institutional reforms. And a significant chunk also should go to updating the building’s incredibly outdated technology.

Despite the Administration’s promises, some pundits already are predicting that it won’t happen. Yesterday, Gideon Rose, the managing editor of Foreign Affairs, went on Marketplace and predicted that the Department would not get the resources it needs:

[T]he new administration basically has very little in the bank account and a lot of debts that it’s racking up. And so it’s not going to be looking for any major new financial spending or commitments on foreign policy or national security issues. And it’s going to try to wind down the conflicts it inherited while avoiding any new ones.

He’s mistaken for several reasons. First, expanding State does not involve new resources. Secretary of Defense Robert Gates has stated repeatedly (most recently in Foreign Affairs) that he supports using part of the existing DOD budget to fund State’s expansion. Second, should the Administrations successfully wind down the war in Iraq, that will free up significant funds, some of which could go to State. Third, any institutional reform will, over the long run, free up a small pot of money (not enough, to be clear) that could be used to repair the existing system.

To put it another way, adopting a pay-as-you-go (or pay-go, as it’s know to wonks inside the Beltway) approach to expanding State is entirely plausible. It then would not require the Administration to find new resources.

3. Reporting and Sanctions. This one is largely the fault of Congress, not State, but it will require leadership from Secretary Clinton to fix it. Over the past several decades, Congress has mandated that the Department produce each year a number of major reports on a range of issues, including (just off the top of my head), Human Rights, Religious Freedom, Trafficking in Persons, Narco-trafficking, and Terrorism.

As a result, the Department must use tremendous resources to produce multiple reports, some of which are redundant. For example, the Country Reports on Human Rights Practices includes sections on religious freedom and trafficking. So why do those issues also have separate reports? Because Congress felt that State was not paying sufficient attention to them and decided to make State report on it. In addition, the separate reports require “determinations” that may nor may not lead to sanctions. And each of these reports run into the hundreds of pages. Some run into the thousands.

To make matters worse, Congress mandates new reports (and offices) but does not fund them. So as each of these reports get added to the stack, the Department must foreign service officers to do more and more work with less resources.

Imagine how much time and effort this requires: it’s the bureaucratic version of the old “time to make the donuts — I just made the donuts” commercial. You finish one report, and almost immediately you need to start on another. And each momen a junior foreign service officer spends sitting at her desk in an embassy, writing yet another report, is a lost opportunity to actually get outside the embassy’s walls and talk to real people.

In the case of most of these reports, Congress also has instructed State to produce a list of those countries that do not meet minimal standards (as defined, in most cases, by the Congressional legislation). The end result includes the well-known “state sponsors of terrorism” list and the less-well known list of “countries of particular concern” about religious freedom.

The only problem is that the lists are for little more than show, producing no real efforts to sanction the governments listed (the one exception to this is the terrorism list). Each time one of these lists must be produced, certain parts of the Department do everything they can to keep certain countries off it. For example, there’s a battle almost every year as to whether India should be included on the list of “countries of particular concern.”

The reverse also is true: certain countries get included on a given list not because they actually belong there but because it serves other political ends. For example, does anyone seriously believe anymore that Cuba belongs on the list of countries that sanction terror, where it’s been since 1982? It’s as if the United States continues to believe that Che is running around the jungles of Bolivia.

The end result is a series of highly politicized lists that has little connection to reality. Each list is little more than a reflection of who won that particular set of bureaucratic battles.

That’s just nuts. Congress has a role to play in setting policy, but that doesn’t mean it should stray this far into the weeds. Secretary Clinton would do well to consider approaching the Chairs of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and the House Foreign Affairs Committee and initiate a dialogue on how best to streamline the process. A good starting point would be integrating the reports on human rights, religious freedom, and trafficking in persons into a single document. Another would be elimination of the highly politicized and largely useless lists of problem countries.

4. Soft/Smart Power The fourth — and probably the most daunting — challenge facing the Secretary is how to rebuild the traditional levers of U.S. soft power (or as Secretary Clinton likes to call it, “smart power”). This probably deserves a separate post, so for now let me just note that there are three major challenges.

First, the formerly independent (and incredibly effective) United States Information Agency was gutted and integrated into the State Department during the Clinton Administration, in large part because Senator Jesse Helms (then Chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee) decided that it was unnecessary. We’ve been paying the price ever since. It’s probably unrealistic to reinvent the wheel, but Secretary Clinton still should examine how best to reinvigorate our public diplomacy function.

That means more funding. It also means reestablishing the quasi-independent status of the Public Affairs Officers around the world. At one time, PAOs ran their own offices separate from Embassies, focusing largely on culture and the battle of ideas. Many also included libraries that frequently were the only source of accurate information in repressive regimes. Reestablishing that system is a worthy goal.

Another would be reforming the hodge-podge of broadcasting agencies that now exist, including Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, Radio Free Asia, Radio Marti, the Voice of America, and the various radio and televisions networks set up as part of the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.

Second, the Administration (and the Secretary) need to decide what to do about the U.S. Agency for International Development. As she noted in her remarks today, development is one of the three legs of U.S. foreign policy (along with diplomacy and defense). But where does USAID fit into this? Is it an independent agency? Is it part of State? Does it deserve, as various folks have proposed, cabinet-level status (as is the case in Great Britain and a number of other countries)?

Clinton’s decision to hold a second welcoming ceremony today at USAID headquarters is a reassuring first step, but it’s not enough. USAID’s current status, with one foot inside State and one out, leaves its leaders unsure of their role and its staff largely demoralized. Furthermore, the tendency by State to establish separate policymaking offices on issues like reconstruction and humanitarian assistance has further muddied the waters,

Third, the Secretary needs to consolidate and streamline funding mechanisms. For example, there are numerous government bodies funding projects in Iraq, frequently without close coordination. But the problem is not limited to Iraq: it’s true almost everywhere the US Government is funding local efforts to alleviate poverty, promote democracy, address chronic illness, or build sustainable legal systems.

Again, part of the problem is Congress. Many of the separate funding mechanisms come from Congressional mandates. Others are the result of bureaucratic battles in which a given institution had legitimate concerns about whether other funding mechanisms would address their concerns. And to top it all off, there’s the reality that no agency likes giving up the ability to give away money.

That’s a pretty full plate for the new Secretary — and it doesn’t even include all the various regional and country-specific challenges she and Obama face. It won’t be easy to make the changes necessary. But if Secretary Clinton wants to make a fundamental difference, she should not let the crisis of the day distract her from these very essential reforms.

Closing Guantanamo: Only The End of the Beginning

According to numerous reports, President Obama will sign today signed an three executive orders (or orders) today ordering mandating, among other things, the closure within one year of not merely of Guantanamo, but all remaining secret prisons. The order also will require that the government undertake a review of the cases of the remaining 245 prisoners held in Guantanamo.

The closure of Guantanamo, as I noted yesterday, is an important step. But reversing the Bush torture regime needs to be about more than symbolism. Many challenges remain, including significant resistance within the intelligence community to banning all interrogation techniques not included in the Army Interrogation manual; determining what to do with those prisoners; and deciding who (if anyone) should be prosecuted for violating U.S. law and treaty obligations.

It also looks like Obama will face resistance from Congressional Republicans, who are holding up Attorney-General-designate Eric Holder’s confirmation not because they are concerned about the Marc Rich pardon but rather because they are worried that Holder has not ruled out prosecuting Bush Administration officials for sanctioning torture.

What makes this report particularly troubling is the fact that Republicans are claiming it’s about protecting the line officers who tortured and not those who ordered the acts. They are pointing to the Military Commissions Act, which they argue gives legal protection to anyone who thought they were acting within the law. And they will use as ammunition the specious argument — put forward today by former Bush speechwriter and Helms acolyte Marc Thiessen — that the goal of preventing another attack on U.S. soil justifies anything that U.S. officials might have done or may do in the future.

The reality, of course — one that no Obama Administration official dare acknowledge (particularly those, such as Holder, who have not yet been confirmed) — is that the Nuremburg principles make it explicitly clear that the “I was only following orders” defense does not excuse war crimes and crimes against humanity.

But even if the Obama Administration were to set that important standard aside (and to be clear, I don’t think they should), I doubt that their focus would be to prosecute the line officers. That would represent a continuation of the Bush Administration’s decision to prosecute the soldiers who committed the atrocities in Abu Ghraib without going after those further up the line who encouraged such practices.

I think the Obama Administration understands that, and will not allow the Republicans to turn the Holder hearings into a sideshow over potential prosecutions. After all, asking Holder to say whether he will prosecute anyone is not unlike asking a Supreme Court nominee how he would rule on a given issue: both are hypotheticals and have little to do with what the nominee will do once in office.

But it’s increasingly clear that the path to justice will not be an easy one. The Obama Administration is facing significant resistance both from the intelligence community and Congressional Republicans. Even Jack Bauer is getting in the mix: the first episode of this season’s “24″ featured an unrepentant Bauer justifying his actions before a Congressional committee. It’s only a matter of time before the wingnuts pick up on the theme as well.

This represents one of the first real tests for the Obama Administration: will it seize the opportunity to do the right thing, or will it choose not to fight this fight — at least for now — allowing its opponents to use straw men to divert the public’s attention. I hope it is the former, that the coming executive order(s) represent only a beginning. That would mean that the Guantanamo decision will be followed not only by additional executive orders (on torture and rendition, for example) but also by a push in Congress to pass key legislation (such as a repeal of the Military Commissions Act).

Equally importantly, the Obama Administration should move quickly to release as many relevant documents as quickly as possible, and with minimal redactions. That should include all relevant “torture memos,” including those that have been leaked to the press.

In turn, human rights activists need to overcome the temptation to focus on prosecution. Instead, they should push the Obama Administration to focus on changing policy and the expedited release of relevant documents. Right now, the key is not prosecutions but getting to the bottom of what happened. In the end, the best way to ensure prosecutions is to expose what happened, and to do it as soon as possible.

UPDATE: I’ll share the text of the three orders as soon as they’re up on the White House website.

Response and Responsibility

I had a similar reaction as Ross: what can I possibly add to The Day?

Pride: I felt proud of of our newly minted president, who showed so much determination to hold us accountable: as a nation, as a president, as individuals. I felt proud to be a U.S. Citizen.

Awe: President Obama showed so little ego. C’mon, you’d have to have a healthy ego to go after being Commander in Chief. I’m sure he’s got it (and he’s going to need it), but how refreshing is it to listen to a President speaking not about his success, but what lies ahead, and what he expects of himself AND us?

Relief: We have a President who is hitting the ground running, and who put down any private animosities to work at what I can only describe as a HUGE reorganization. Leading by modeling. What a concept.

Shock: His call for us dig in and work. Did I really just feel a pull to walk over and speak to Rev. Rick Warren? Lay down my arms and talk human to human? I did. Well. Perhaps there will be pastors in my neighborhood I’ll be making appointments with.

This is the main message that walked into my house:

Hey, I’m President now, and this is what I have planned. Step up folks, this country is your job too.

President Obama: The World Reacts

The always fascinating photo blog, The Big Picture, has gathered some of the best photos from the inauguration. But what makes this particular collection fascinating are the shots of both American soldiers stationed overseas and people from other countries reacting to the Inauguration.

A couple of favorites:

Guantanamo Bay

Kabul, Afghanistan

Make sure to check out the whole collection.

Guantanamo: Heading in the Right Direction

There are stories going around the intertubes this morning The Associated Press is reporting that President Obama will issue an executive order today soon closing Guantanamo. Although that very well may be true, it hasn’t happened yet. There’s nothing on the new White House website, which includes a page dedicated to publishing all executive orders issued by the President (which in and of itself is a first).

But that doesn’t meant there hasn’t been progress:

In the first hours of his presidency, President Obama directed an immediate halt to the Bush administration’s military commissions system for prosecuting detainees at the detention center at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

Among other cases, the decision will temporarily stop the prosecution of five detainees charged as the coordinators of the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks, including the case against the self described mastermind, Khalid Shaikh Mohammed.

Notice of the decision came in a legal filing in Guantanamo by military prosecutors just before midnight Tuesday. The decision, which had been expected as part of Mr. Obama’s pledge to close the detention camp, was described as a pause in all war-crimes proceedings there so that the new administration can evaluate how to proceed with prosecutions. . . .

The prosecution filing Tuesday said the order came from the Secreatary [sic] of Defense, Robert M. Gates, “by order of the president.” It described the halt in all proceedings as designed “to permit the newly inaugurated president and his administration time to review the military commission process, generally, and the cases currently pending before the military commissions, specifically.”

The good news is that the judges in the pending cases appear willing to go along with the Administration’s request (they could have refused). As the Washington Post reported just a few minutes ago,

A U.S. military judge Wednesday suspended the trial of five detainees accused of involvement in plotting the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, acceding to a request from military prosecutors in accordance with a directive from the new Obama administration late Tuesday.

The suspension halts until late May the trial of Khalid Sheik Mohammed, the avowed mastermind of the Sept. 11 plot, and four other accused al-Qaeda members, even though Mohammed and three of the four objected to the delay.

This is a good first step, and, more importantly, the right one. Before the Administration can close Guantanamo, it must decide what to do with the 245 individuals currently held there. Although many if not most of those can be released to their home countries (or in cases where there is a fear of torture, other countries willing to take them in) there are a few, such as Khalid Sheikh Mohammed who cannot just be let go. The Obama team favors using domestic federal courts to prosecute these folks — using, I imagine, the precedents of the 1993 WTC bombing and 1998 embassies bombing prosecutions.

But it can’t commit to that step until it figures out just what happened under Bush. If any of the people most worthy of prosecution were tortured — and let’s not kid ourselves: those are the ones most likely to have been tortured — it creates real problems for any domestic prosecution.

That in turn may force the Obama Administration to reconsider how it can respect the rule of law and still hold the worst of the worst accountable — which may in fact me some sort of radically reformed military commission system. I doubt that anyone in the Administration wants that to happen, but they would be foolish not to leave that option open if the Bushies totally screwed up any chance of a domestic prosecution.

The bottom line is that this is the right way to go about it. Ordering a quick closure of Guantanamo without first addressing what to do with the detainees would merely be a continuance of the the knee-jerk policies of the previous Administration, albeit in the exact opposite direction. The last thing Obama wants is to release some of these guys and have them mount a major terrorist attack. He and his team are smart in doing this slowly, carefully, and methodically. It’s the best way out of the mess.

So for those who fear Obama won’t close Guantanamo or reverse the previous Administration’s policies on torture and rendition, relax. Expect an executive order in the next few days laying out a timetable for closure (and perhaps an official reversal of other policies).

But we need to give Obama’s new team the chance to do their job in a manner that reflects the complexity of the problem, and not merely its symbolism.

Flag Day

The coverage of yesterday’s truly monumental events has been so exhaustive that I hesitate to offer any additional thoughts simply because it seems that all the relevant observations have been written, spoken or blogged, and all the superlatives and cultural historical references have been used up.

I can only offer what is ultimately a purely emotional take on the inauguration of President Barack Obama, which began in the aftermath of the 2004 elections, and progressed, as it did with Charlie, with an enthusiastic embrace of a relative long-shot candidate back in 2006-07.

For both myself, and especially my wife, Kate (who devoted three months of her life to organizing with MoveOn in Minnesota in 2004), the aftermath of the 2004 election, and the (re-)inauguration that followed, was a profound disappointment.

I think many on the left, including us, lost more than an election that year. Due in part to the divisive nature of the politics of that time, it was easy to feel as though a significant number of your friends and neighbors, colleagues and even family members had heard your argument for change, heard your policy proposals and plans for a different way ahead and had simply rejected them all.

Indeed, in that moment, with the toil and sweat of a lost campaign still fresh in the mind, it was somewhat easy to take the result personally. I would venture a guess that, for some of us, our sense of belonging and camaraderie with our fellow Americans, indeed our entire idealistic outlook on the future, took a big hit. (I told you it was a low-point.) Though still patriots all, in that hour we could certainly be forgiven for wondering what our place in this new electorate ultimately would be.

As I heard more than once yesterday, perhaps the inauguration of the very embodiment of “change” would never have come were it not for that result in 2004. As former political organizers, steeled with the knowledge that our best might still might not be good enough, any remaining reason not to simply go for it, dream big and support a fellow organizer and apparent policy wonk by the name of Barack Hussein Obama basically evaporated — why not?

So we donated, canvassed in Ohio and made calls to Pennsylvania — but something prevented us from being 100 percent emotionally invested. Sure it was probably 85 to 90 percent, but looking back, it’s clear to me that 2004 was still hanging like a cloud over our heads. Although the enthusiasm of our fellow volunteers this time around was tangible, for us, it was also fleeting.

But then we called up our grandparents to babysit and took a trip downtown to Joe Louis Arena to see Nobel Laureate and former Vice President Al Gore endorse Senator Obama. The electricity in that crowd, the collective excitement and sense of unstoppable momentum pervasive amongst everyone reinvigorated our idealism, and reminded us why we had gotten involved in all of this.

After an oddly uneventful general election campaign (until the end of August, really), it seemed that our side was coming into the home-stretch well-equipped and with strong candidates for both president and vice-president (I love Joe Biden). Finally, on election night, all the hard work of scores of campaign staff and even more volunteers transformed into a beautifully executed victory, and not a few of us (Oprah and Rev. Jackson included) shed tears of pure joy at the prospect of electing such a fine person to the office of the Presidency of the United States.

Yet, something intangible remained — not doubt, or fear, or anything related to a goal or ideal, but something indescribable remained, despite my attempts to come to terms with whatever it was.

Until yesterday.

Then, as I was driving to work, listening to the beginning of a story on NPR about the inauguration concert Sunday night at the Lincoln memorial, it hit me. As Bono and U2 began to play “In the Name of Love”, the first full measure of the early morning sun began to shine through the trees of the park I was driving past and I looked to my left just in time to see it lit up in all its glory.

Our flag.

Now, there is really no chance I could have missed it, because this was one of those obscenely huge car-dealership-sized American flags, but at that moment it was the most beautiful flag I had ever seen. I realized then that ever since the 2004 election, I had simply been unable to look at the flag with unwavering, unquestioned pride. Although I wish I could have mentally separated this timeless national symbol — representative of our tireless and unsung heroes on the front lines as well as those here at home — from the actions of this past Presidential administration, the truth is that ultimately I couldn’t. It had been tarnished for me, and my sense of pride was almost always tempered with a twinge of disappointment.

But no longer.

In that brief moment yesterday, I realized that the flag was once again “our” flag, representative of the best and brightest, of the hopes and dreams and idealism that has guided so many of our predecessors throughout the history of this great, yet young, country.

While I’ve enjoyed the events of the past few days with a great sense of pride and collective accomplishment for our nation, and will likely remember the images from yesterday for (hopefully) the rest of my life, it really was that moment yesterday, when I got my flag back, for which I will remain forever grateful.

Quote of the Day

Steve Clemons today on The Washington Note:

The concept that political disputes can be bombed into submission - that populations could be “taught a lesson” by starving, bombing, or rocketing them, left Washington, DC on Air Force One this afternoon.

Except, of course, it wasn’t Air Force One anymore.

Sweeter Words Have Rarely Been Heard

Wolf Blitzer just now on CNN: “Former President George W. Bush.”

It’s really over.

Except cleaning up the big honking mess that he and his cronies left behind.

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