Obama Administration » Undiplomatic

10 March 2010 Charles J. Brown
11:42 am

Sorry Folks, But John Yoo Did Not Throw Liz Cheney under the Bus

A lot of folks in the Twittersphere are pointing to a New York Times story this morning and saying that John Yoo — John Yoo! — has thrown Liz Cheney and Keep America Safe under the bus.

I don’t think that’s the case. Here’s the original quote, along with the NYT’s framing of it (emphasis mine):

John C. Yoo, the former Justice official whose memorandums on torture and presidential power were used to justify some of the most controversial policies of the Bush administration, said he had not seen the material from Ms. Cheney’s group. But Professor Yoo, who now teaches at the University of California, Berkeley, and is active in the Federalist Society, said the debate about lawyers who once represented detainees at the American prison in Guantánamo Bay serving in the Justice Department was overheated.

“What’s the big whoop?” he asked. “The Constitution makes the president the chief law enforcement officer. We had an election. President Obama has softer policies on terror than his predecessor.” He said, “He can and should put people into office who share his views.” Once the American people know who the policy makers are, he said, “they can decide whether they agree with him or not.”

Right now, everyone is focusing on the first half of Yoo’s comments. But it is, in fact, the last sentence that is most telling. Yoo is saying that DOJ should name names. And that’s the core message of Keep America First’s ad: why is DOJ refusing to name names?

One of the things that made McCarthyism so dangerous — and so corrosive — was the Senator’s constant brandishment of supposed lists and his demand that the government give him the names of the people already supposedly on the list. In essence, he was demanding that the government become complicit in the smear, either by naming names or by insisting that names were not on the list — either way giving McCarthy a win and destroying careers.

Yoo is suggesting that once DOJ names names, then “the American people know who the policy makers are, they can decide whether they agree with” the President.

But people shouldn’t be making up their minds over whether they agree with a policy based on who executes it. They should be making their decision based on the policy itself. The whole KAS argument — and Yoo’s implicit support for it — is predicated on the idea that “wrongheaded” people somehow can’t implement good policy. And since the Obama Administration can’t be hit for the actual policy, they’re going after the people responsible for making it work.

And that’s why the KAS ad is so outrageous What Cheney, Thiessen, Kristol — and yes, John Yoo — are arguing is that you should blame the messenger — and demand that she be fired because you didn’t like a message she delivered before she had her current job. It’s a straw man argument at its worst, because it is designed not only to damage the Administration by association, but to destroy the lives — and livelihoods — of good and decent public servants.

To its credit, the DOJ has refused to respond to the demands. From the same NYT piece:

Matthew Miller, a Justice Department spokesman, said accusations that the administration had been secretive or had dragged its feet in responding to the inquiry were untrue. But Mr. Miller said the department would not participate “in an attempt to drag people’s names through the mud for political purposes.”

In a letter sent to Senator Jeff Sessions, Republican of Alabama, the Justice Department said in February that the lawyers understood that they had to take different positions while working for the United States than they did as private lawyers, and that in any case they would recuse themselves from matters in which they had participated earlier.

That’s the real answer, and all we can do is hope that DOJ will not back down.

Jack Cade, White Courtesy Phone Please

Via Adam Serwer, it turns out that the Cheneyites remain convinced of the justice of their holy cause. This time it’s Hans von Spakovsky, who was one of the Bush-era DOJ officials responsible for hiring attorneys for non-political positions based on their political affiliations:

I certainly don’t think those same lawyers should be in the Justice Department directing policy and making decisions on prosecutions of those same terrorists. That would be like hiring Mob lawyers in the Organized Crime and Narcotics Task Force or hiring someone who volunteered to defend the Klu Klux Klan in the Civil Rights Division. Those lawyers who all come from big firms have a wide choice of who to help on a pro bono basis and their choice of terrorists says a lot about them –- I would not hire them to represent my company either if I were still a corporate in-house counsel, because I would not want my company’s money subsidizing that kind of legal work.

Those lovely sentiments come via Dave Weigel over at the Washington Independent, who sought out von Spakovsky’s views. Von S. also has a lengthy piece in National Review arguing that the DOJ under Holder is radicalizing its civil rights division — and thus is racist. (I wish I was making this up, but I’m not It just goes to show that the current stewards of William F. Buckley’s legacy will not be satisfied until they eliminate all rational thought from this former bastion of thoughtful conservatism.)

I’ve already touched upon the mob lawyer canard in my comments on Marc Thiessen column in today’s WaPo. Now Steve over at Nomoremrniceblog dismantles the equally insipid (and offensive ) Klan lawyer argument:

I can’t find any Klan defenders in Holder’s Justice Department, but I can certainly find Klan defenders whose work I think Holder would approve of.

How about Eleanor Holmes Norton, currently D.C.’s non-voting member of the House of Representatives, who, as a young ACLU lawyer, defended the free-speech rights of Klansmen, George Wallace, and the National States Rights Party?

Or Anthony P. Griffin, who defended a Klan Grand Dragon in the early 1990s and won the 1993 William J. Brennan, Jr., Award from the Thomas Jefferson Center for the Protection of Free Expression?

Or David P. Baugh, who defended a Klan cross-burner in 1998 and subsequently received the Virginia State Bar’s Lewis F. Powell Jr. Pro Bono Award?

All three of these lawyers are African-American, by the way.

This is a disgraceful argument. Attempting to secure due process for terrorism defendants, or free speech rights for racist haters, is not the same as waging jihad or fomenting a race war. It’s about maintaining a society with the rule of law.

Methinks the Cheneyites are starting to sound like the mob in Act IV of Shakespeare’s Henry VI, Part 2:

DICK THE BUTCHER: First thing we do, let’s smear all the lawyers. . . .in DOJ.

Okay, that’s not quite what he said, but it’s close enough. And lest we forget, here’s what happens a little later in the same scene — an event that few remember and no one likes to quote:

CADE: Let me alone. Dost thou use to write thy name? Or hast thou a mark to thyself, like an honest plain-dealing man?

CLERK: Sir, I thank God, I have been so well brought up that I can write my name.

ALL: He hath confessed; away with him! He’s a villain and a traitor.

CADE: Away with him, I say! Hang him with his pen and ink horn about his neck.

Because that’s what happens after you kill smear all the lawyers: a long slow slide into summary justice and mob rule.

Marc Thiessen: Our Bizzaro World Torture Apologist

Ladies and gentleman, I present you the latest WaPo column by Marc Thiessen, who apparently has decided that his goal in life is to make Liz Cheney look like Mother Theresa:

Would most Americans want to know if the Justice Department had hired a bunch of mob lawyers and put them in charge of mob cases? Or a group of drug cartel lawyers and put them in charge of drug cases? Would they want their elected representatives to find out who these lawyers were, which mob bosses and drug lords they had worked for, and what roles they were now playing at the Justice Department? Of course they would — and rightly so.

Yet Attorney General Eric Holder hired former al-Qaeda lawyers to serve in the Justice Department and resisted providing Congress this basic information.

Get the insinuation? Mob lawyers, as everyone knows, are lawyers hired by the mob to defend their interests. Drug cartel lawyers, as everyone knows, are lawyers hired by drug cartels to defend their interests. So “al Qaeda lawyers” must be. . . .

I know! Paid by al Qaeda! Those bastards! Send them to Guantanamo!

Only one small problem here, Marc. The attorneys in question worked pro bono, frequently at the request of [Bush] Administration officials. And some of the people in question, as I’ve noted elsewhere, were brought in by the Bush Administration in the exact same way that you now object to under the Obama Administration.

One other thing: those lawyers you despise for allegedly selling out their country? They took their cases to the Supreme Court. And in a couple of instances, they won. If we were to use your twisted logic, we should now start calling members of the Supreme Court “al Qaeda justices.” And what about the JAG attorneys who defended terror suspects in front of the military tribunals? Are they now al Qaeda judge advocates?

Here’s another Thiessen counter-factual:

Where was the moral outrage when fine lawyers like John Yoo, Jay Bybee, David Addington, Jim Haynes, Steve Bradbury and others came under vicious personal attack? Their critics did not demand simple transparency; they demanded heads. . . .The standard today seems to be that you can say or do anything when it comes to the Bush lawyers who defended America against the terrorists. But if you publish an Internet ad or ask legitimate questions about Obama administration lawyers who defended America’s terrorist enemies, you are engaged in a McCarthyite witch hunt.

Sigh.

First of all, the critics of Yoo et. al. demanded both transparency and heads. Second, this isn’t a tit for tat situation. You are alleging that the lawyers in question did something you didn’t like — but was perfectly legal — when they were in private practice. Those criticizing (and yes, demanding the resignation/censure of) Yoo and friends were saying that they engaged in illegal behavior. Those are not the same thing — and you know better. This is the worst kind of straw man argument — one that uses a straw man to mount an ad hominem attack.

Would someone please again tell me why the Washington Post hired this guy?

Does Liz Cheney Hate America? Or Does She Just Love Dillweeds?

Does Liz Cheney hate America? Of course not. But if I were to use the tactics that she and her friends over at Keeping American Scared Safe are using to attack the Obama Administration, that’s just the kind of thing I’d be saying right now. That, of course would be an ad hominem attack. And as Liz Cheney knows well, ad hominem attacks are out of bounds in American politics.

Heh. If you believe she believes that, I have a used prison in Cuba I’d like to sell you.

As it happens, the folks over at Care2 asked me for my thoughts on Liz Cheney’s campaign to subvert America accuse Obama Administration DOJ officials (who KAS likes to call the al Qaeda 7 or the Guantanamo 9) of being soft on terrorism because they have, at some point in their career, defending terrorist suspects. Here’s an excerpt:

The Bush Administration also hired individuals who defended alleged terror suspects. . . .And that little inconvenient truth gets to the crux of the matter: defending the accused is is not some sort of lefty plot destroy America. Oh no. It’s far worse: it is a fundamental tenet of the American legal system originally expressed by the Founders in a little something we like to call the Bill of Rights.

Al Qaeda 7? Guantanamo 9? I’d like to suggest a more accurate name: the Sixth Amendment 9. Or if you want to include the three individuals from the Bush Administration, let’s call them the Sixth Amendment 12. Or we could take it even further and include every lawyer who has ever defended someone unsavory. But then we’d have to call it the Criminal Justice Section of the American Bar Association.

You can find the whole thing here.

While I’m at it, I hope that I won’t be accused of engaging in McCarthyism when I suggest that Liz Cheney and her friends at Keeping America Scared (and no I”m not going to link to them — go Google it yourself) are worthy of today’s Dillweed of the Day honors. Because frankly, I can’t actually prove that she is a dillweed. In fact, I have no evidence that she has ever eaten, grown, or in any way been associated with dillweed. But it is quite possible that in the past, she knew somebody who has eaten, grown, or hugged dillweed. So we can’t necessarily rule it out. And that, of course, means that we will continue to suspect her until we find out the troot, the whole troot, and nothing but the troot.

So I urge you. Call Liz Cheney today. Ask her why she won’t tell us whether she’s been associated in the past with dillweed. What does she have to hide?

Surprise: Washington Post Mangles Story on Religion and Foreign Policy

I’ve been meaning to get to a report in Wednesday’s Washington Post headlined “‘God gap’ impedes U.S. foreign policy, experts say.” The story, by Post reporter David Waters, well… let me just quote it rather than try to explain it:

American foreign policy is handicapped by a narrow, ill-informed and “uncompromising Western secularism” that feeds religious extremism, threatens traditional cultures and fails to encourage religious groups that promote peace and human rights, according to a two-year study by the Chicago Council on Global Affairs.

When I read this, I was surprised — The Chicago Council on Global Affairs is a well-regarded and -respected organization, and its reports have made valuable contributions to the debate on the scope and direction of U.S. foreign policy. How in the world could they be associated with a report that suggest that religion should be a core tenet of our foreign policy?

Then I went to their website and read the report. The first thing I discovered was that the phrase “God gap” doesn’t appear anywhere in either the executive summary or the full report. The second thing I discovered is that “narrow” is used in the report, but not exactly in the way Waters suggests:

The United States should avoid actions that use or appear to use religion instrumentally, i.e., the United States should not try or be widely perceived as trying to manipulate religion in pursuit of narrowly drawn interests.

and…

The greater visibility of religion and religious actors in international politics has greatly complicated America’s approach to world affairs. A narrow view of religion in the context of terrorism and counterter- rorism strategy will no longer suffice. Instead, religion must be seen as a more profound and encompassing social reality—one that shapes and is shaped by other major transnational phenomena, including violent conflict and war, globalization, and democratization.

What about “ill-informed”? Nope. Nowhere to be found.

And “uncompromising Western secularism”? Yes, that does appear, but I think it’s not exactly what Waters infers:

The United States should build, cultivate, and rely upon networks and partnerships, which will vary in scope and size, with religious communities. . . . Such a strategy will enable the United States to avail itself of opportunities and facilitate the constructive role that religious organizations and leaders play in the world. It also recognizes that the United States cannot reduce the appeal of destructive religious forces by promoting an uncompromising Western secularism. Such a position can have the unintended effect of feeding extremism by further threatening traditional sources of personal, cultural, and religious identity. Instead, engaging religious communities can cre- ate an atmosphere that marginalizes extremists.

So if I understand the report correctly, promoting an “uncompromising Western secularism” could feed extremism. That, of course, may be true, but it’s also true that much of the world could regard past actions by the United States — particularly during the Bush Administration — as having promoted an uncompromising Christian world view. So Waters manages to state a key point — and yet mangle it at the same time.

Then there’s this graph from Waters’s story, which is even more alarming:

The council’s 32-member task force, which included former government officials and scholars representing all major faiths, delivered its report to the White House on Tuesday. The report warns of a serious “capabilities gap” and recommends that President Obama make religion “an integral part of our foreign policy.”

Here’s what the report actually says:

President Obama’s speech in Cairo in June 2009 set the stage for a new departure in U.S. foreign policy toward Muslim communities. This is a vital task and a laudable beginning. However, the scope must be much broader. Engaging Islam is only one very crucial component of a larger challenge—engaging the multitude of religious communities across the world as an integral part of our foreign policy.

Uh, okay. Call me crazy, but I think there is an enormous difference between making “religion” an “integral part of our foreign policy” and making “engaging the multitude of religious communities” an “integral part of foreign policy.” There is a kinda sorta pretty much completely obvious distinction there. But Waters doesn’t seem to notice it.

In seeking a response to the report Waters quotes Chris Seiple, the President of the Institute for Global Engagement:

“It’s a hot topic,” said Chris Seiple, president of the Institute for Global Engagement in Arlington County and a Council on Foreign Relations member. “It’s the elephant in the room. You’re taught not to talk about religion and politics, but the bummer is that it’s at the nexus of national security. The truth is the academy has been run by secular fundamentalists for a long time, people who believe religion is not a legitimate component of realpolitik.”

I don’t know Chris Seiple, so I won’t make any assumptions here. But I do know his dad, Robert Seiple, who was the first U.S. Ambassador for International Religious Freedom in the Clinton Administration. It’s a little odd, don’t you think, that his son would think that religion isn’t part of U.S. foreign policy when his dad’s former job was to make sure that the U.S. addressed religious freedom issues as part of its foreign policy. Even more troubling is the fact that Waters doesn’t appear to have even thought about using the Googles to make the connection.

Maybe Waters read the report. But it sure doesn’t look like it. And as a result, a serious effort to address the question of how U.S. foreign policy should address the challenge of engaging religious communities becomes, in Waters’ story, an “ill-informed” screed calling for an end of separation of church and state in U.S. foreign policy.

To put it another way, the report attempts to put forward a nuanced argument in favor of broader U.S. engagement with religious groups around the world, and approvingly cites President Obama’s speech in Cairo as an important first step. And it’s not exactly news that engagement with religious communities is a component of U.S. foreign policy. Last I checked, we had diplomatic relations with the Vatican, the President regularly receives religious leaders — most recently the Dalai Lama — at the White House, and the State Department issues an annual report on religious freedom around the world.

Waters’ story, in contrast, adopts a sensationalistic tone that breathlessly implies that the report thinks Obama should to name God to be his next Secretary of State.

In fairness, Waters isn’t the only one who didn’t read the report. Bloggers from across the political spectrum seized on his story, using it to reinforce their own arguments. They might want to sit down and read the 100-page report, or at least the executive summary. As I’ve said, I don’t agree with many of the report’s conclusions. But I do think that it deserves a better fate than the Waters’ inept pastiche.

This is exactly the kind of shoddy journalism that the Washington Post used to abhor. Shame on them for allowing such a terrible piece of reporting to grace their pages.

Image: josephpetepickle via Flikr, using a CC BY 2.0 license

Be Afraid. Vewy Afraid.

I missed this when it came out last week. My friends over at Human Rights First respond to Liz Cheney’s “Keep America Safe” group’s love for fearmongering:

It continues to amaze me that a radical sect within the Republican party insists that we no longer can afford to live by our own laws. It shouldn’t, but it does.

Obama One Year On: A Foreign Policy Report Card

Over at Care2, my other blog home, I have an analysis of Obama’s first year as foreign policymaker-in-chief. A highlight:

In no area is this more true than in foreign policy, where Obama has managed to change the way the United States engages the rest of the world. In contrast to the Bush Administration, which tried to dictate terms, Obama has recognized the limits of American power and the potential of American leadership. Or as he put it in his inaugural address, “we reject as false the choice between our safety and our ideals.”. . .

What Obama has done is pursue a foreign policy based on sound strategic principles and coherent tactics. It has emphasized both innovation and results, rewarding creativity and encouraging critical thinking. Realism has trumped ideology, and principles have trumped “interests.” Call it pragmatic idealism, if you must apply a label.

This approach is not unprecedented in American history. It. . .reflects the creativity and flexibility of the postwar Truman Administration, which, under the leadership of men like George Marshall and Dean Acheson, had to build new foreign policy and national security institutions virtually from scratch.

It therefore is possible that, to use Acheson’s famous phrase, we are once again “present at the creation” of a new paradigm, one that focuses on what the United States can do for the world, not what the world can do for the United States. Thanks to the financial crisis, the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and now Haiti, it will take more time than originally envisioned. But in the end, Obama has the opportunity to remake the way the United States pursues its interests in the world.

You can find the whole thing, including my grades on issues ranging from Afghanistan to nukes, here.

Guest Post: A Marshall Plan for Haiti?

The following guest post was written by Jacob Francois, an entrepreneur with over eighteen years experience in the financial services industry, and owner of Lakay Financial International, Inc. in addition to reaching out to the Haitian and Haitian-American communities via appearances on radio and television, Mr. François has served 7 years as a board member and two years as president of the Haitian-American Community Association (HACA) located in Chicago. He is also founder of Project 2000 International, a non-profit organization dedicated to providing assistance to Haitian children. The organization is responsible for securing donations in-kind, as well as monetary donations to purchase whatever is necessary to facilitate the education (school supplies, uniforms, shoes, etc.) of these youngsters whose families would otherwise be unable to provide these necessities for them. For more information about these organizations, please follow the above links.

Haiti has been struck by a terrible catastrophe far beyond its economic capacity. Immediate humanitarian assistance is essential, but Haiti will need more that just relief if it is to rebuild and prosper. For this reason, we at the Haitian Priorities Project propose a “Marshall Plan” for Haiti:

$5 billion to help the Haitian people rebuild their livelihood
$2 billion earmarked for the private sector
$1 billion for a 1500-megawatt electrical plant
$1.5 billion to rebuild various government compounds in the 10 departments
$1 billion for a communication system capable of providing at least 1 million land lines
$3 billion to rebuild 5,000 km of roads, connectors, sewers and provide garbage collection
$1 billion for 10 national airports in 10 departments
$1 billion for the agricultural sector
$2 billion for the school sector
$2.5 billion for economic development programs
$700 million for heavy machinery

In all, $20.7 billion per year for three years could put Haiti back on the path to becoming a modern nation. If we put this amount is the context of the United States GDP for 2009, the amount is less than 1/100th of 1 percent of the United States GDP.

The Marshall Plan from its inception, was known as the European Recovery Program, (ERP). The first phase of the program started in 1948 and ran through 1952. The United States implemented the ERP as a tool for rebuilding and creating a stronger economic foundation for countries in Western Europe.

Given the destruction of its infrastructure, Haiti would benefit from a similar plan, which could be dubbed the Haiti Recovery Plan (HRP), and without which Haiti may never be a viable nation.

Haiti is the most impoverished country in the Western Hemisphere with 80 percent of the population living under the poverty line and 54 percent in abject poverty. Two-thirds of all Haitians depend on the agricultural sector, mainly small-scale subsistence farming, and remain vulnerable to damage from frequent natural disasters, exacerbated by the country’s widespread deforestation.

The economy has shown some signs of recovery in recent years, registering positive growth since 2005 after the ravages of hurricane Jeanne in 2004. Several hurricanes damaged the entire system in 2008 as well as the transportation infrastructure and agricultural sector. Haiti has enough natural resources to build a viable nation, although capital investment is lacking and some natural resources possessed by Haiti are deemed strategic reserves to the United States. Haiti has bauxite, copper, calcium carbonate, gold, marble, hydropower and oil.

US economic engagement under the Haitian Hemispheric Opportunity through Partnership Encouragement (HOPE) Act, passed in December 2006, has boosted apparel exports and investment by providing tariff-free access to the US. HOPE II, passed in October 2008, has further improved the export environment for the apparel sector by extending most favored nation preferences to 2018; the apparel sector accounts for two-thirds of Haitian exports and about 8 percent of GDP. Remittances are the primary source of foreign exchange, equaling more than 15 percent of GDP and about twice the earnings from exports.

Haiti suffers from high inflation, a lack of investment, limited infrastructure, and a severe trade deficit. In 2005, Haiti paid its arrears to the World Bank, paving the way for reengagement with the Bank. Haiti has received debt forgiveness for about $525 million of its debt through the Highly-Indebted Poor Country (HIPC) initiative by mid-2009. The government relies on formal international economic assistance for fiscal sustainability.

The United States and France have a moral obligation to correct the wrongs against Haiti dating back to 1824, four years after the Monroe Doctrine was initiated. In 1824, France sent 65 ships to Haitian ports threatening to take the country back to slavery if an agreement was not signed to start paying 100 million francs to France on a yearly basis. At the time, Haiti had to shut down all government services including all the schools. This action had a profound impact on Haiti’s development and on all subsequent government efforts to build viable institutions.

Without substantial new investment, Haiti will never come out of its terrible position. A government operating with less than $2 billion a year, of which 60% is from bilateral aid, will never be able to respond to the needs of a population of 10 million people.

The United States has in particular been helpful. At this juncture, however, if substantial investment is not made in Haiti, the epidemic of boat people to Florida will continue for a long time.

Our plea is to appeal to the humane compassion we know to exist in the Unites States, France, Canada, Venezuela, and all other countries to make their investments in the framework that was stated above in a length of time not to exceed three years. Otherwise, the spiral of misery will continue in Haiti for another two hundred years.

Photo: UNDP Flickr Photostream using a CC 2.0 license

Haiti: Devastation Beyond Comprehension

Imagine, for a moment, that 9/11 or Hurricane Katrina had devastated not merely New York/Arlington or New Orleans but the entire country. That’s what the people of Haiti face today: a tragedy almost beyond comprehension, one that may dwarf any other recent natural disaster.

If some reports are accurate, hundreds of thousands may be dead as many may be missing today because a devastating 7.0 earthquake rocked Port-au-Prince and most of the country on Tuesday. The loss of life, widespread devastation, and collapse of government and society on a national level is nearly complete. Those who could have responded to this tragedy — including the UN Mission to Haiti and international relief NGOs — are among its victims.

Such devastation is almost beyond our comprehension, especially in a place like Haiti, a star-crossed island country of sheer misery and destitution on a good day. The world is now responding with a massive outpouring of emergency aid, rescue teams, and mobile hospitals. They must move quickly to rescue thousands who are alive but trapped in the rubble, and do so when almost all infrastructure has disappeared.

President Barack Obama announced yesterday morning that the U.S. government will provide its full support to the people of Haiti in assisting in rescue and recovery of hundreds of thousands of people and provide food, water and medicine immediately. Using the Joint Southern Command to manage logistics, USAID, led by its new administrator, Dr. Rajiv Shah, will lead and coordinate the USG’s humanitarian response.

Hillary Clinton, who had just left for a week-long trip to the Pacific rim, cancelled her trip, but not before heading to a military base in Honolulu to coordinate the State Department’s response. She soberly remarked that Haiti had just come through some terrible events of “biblical proportions” in recent years, including hurricanes and mudslides, only to be victimized again by another unimaginable and devastating natural disaster.

President Rene Preval, the president of Haiti, now homeless himself, was able to notify his ambassador to the U.S. reporting that he and his family were alive, but he was unable to contact his cabinet members. Haiti’s capital, Port-au-Prince has been described as virtual dust, with the Presidential palace in total collapse, as well as most of the government buildings. Preval described the macabre scene in an interview with the Miami Herald:

“Parliament has collapsed. The tax office has collapsed. Schools have collapsed. Hospitals have collapsed,” he said. “There are a lot of schools that have a lot of dead people in them.” He said the Roman Catholic archbishop of Port-au-Prince is among the dead and that the head of the U.N. peacekeeping mission, Tunisian diplomat Hedi Annabi, is missing.”

Most hospitals are believed to be non-functioning, and water and electricity are virtually non-existent, according to media reports. Injured persons and other survivors are said to be lying in the streets, afraid of returning to their homes, due to strong after shocks, while others have been digging people out by hand to rescue those trapped in the rubble. Police, medical personnel and ambulances have been noticeable by their marked absence on the streets.

The European Union is sending 3 million euros in relief aid; China is providing search teams and the Swiss Red Cross is sending one million Swiss francs. Canada, France and Germany are contributing search teams and money. Hundreds of non-governmental relief agencies from around the world are responding to the crisis.

The Fairfax County, Virginia Fire Department was one of the first responders to fly into Haiti. Fortunately, the airport is functional, but the road between Port au Prince and the airport is still unpassable. U.S. Army engineers will be attending to the airport damage, minimal in comparison to the overall devastation. I know the Army engineers will provide some relief to the Haitian people who are existing in one of the most desperate situations on Earth.

If you haven’t taken action yet, please do what you can. CBS has put together a comprehensive list of agencies you can support.

Photo: UNDP Flickr photostream using CC 2.0

Reading between the Lines: Obama’s Sotto Voce Message to Pakistan

One other observation — one that I don’t think I’ve seen elsewhere. Twice in the speech, Obama talked about the danger of nuclear weapons. The first was during his arguments on why this is a necessary war:

The people and governments of both Afghanistan and Pakistan are endangered. And the stakes are even higher within a nuclear-armed Pakistan, because we know that al Qaeda and other extremists seek nuclear weapons, and we have every reason to believe that they would use them.

The second was toward the end, when he made a brief reference to his campaign to reduce the world’s stockpile of nuclear weapons:

We will have to take away the tools of mass destruction. That is why I have made it a central pillar of my foreign policy to secure loose nuclear materials from terrorists; to stop the spread of nuclear weapons; and to pursue the goal of a world without them. Because every nation must understand that true security will never come from an endless race for ever-more destructive weapons — true security will come for those who reject them.

You can bet that our friends in Islamabad heard the implied message here: we will not let your nukes fall into the hands of extremists, and if I have my way, we will do everything we can to ensure that you don’t get to keep your nukes no matter who is in charge.

The Pakistani military is, I’m sure, really really unhappy about this. Keep in mind that they view everything through the lens of what they see as India’s existential threat to Pakistan. They already regard U.S. policy in Afghanistan as nothing less than a covert attempt to help India encircle Pakistan (really — I’m not making this up). And now Obama has made it clear he’s going to do what he can to take away their toys.

This is not going to help the Zadari Administration, which already has lost all credibility with the military because of its close relationship with the U.S.

Photo: US Department of Energy archives.

The Speech

My thoughts on the speech are up over at Care2, my other blog home. An excerpt:

[Obama] laid out a clear strategy, refuted the key arguments against his approach, and reminded everyone of why this is a war we must fight. Equally importantly, he served notice to both Kabul and Islamabad that Bush’s blank check strategy is over. And he did not pull punches when it came to acknowledging both governments’ corruption and ineptitude. . .

Of course, the speech was the (relatively) easy part. The much harder part — actually implementing the strategy as outlined, but also doing it successfully — will take years, and no matter how good Obama’s intentions, may ultimately fail. This is now Obama’s war. It doesn’t matter that Bush got us into it. It only matters how (and when) the President manages to get us out.

You can read the whole thing here.

Afghanistan: The Right’s Alternate Reality

It’s a good thing that Republicans are so appalled at Obama’s decision to send 34,000 additional troops to Afghanistan. After all, it’s smaller not as big as insignificant compared to significantly larger than the Bush surge of 21,000 troops in Iraq.

Maybe they’ll have the chance to fix it someday. After all, as Dick Cheney reminded us today, it’s not like it’s their fault or anything.

In a 90-minute interview at his suburban Washington house, Cheney said the president’s “agonizing” about Afghanistan strategy “has consequences for your forces in the field.”

“I begin to get nervous when I see the commander in chief making decisions apparently for what I would describe as small ‘p’ political reasons, where he’s trying to balance off different competing groups in society,” Cheney said.

“Every time he delays, defers, debates, changes his position, it begins to raise questions: Is the commander in chief really behind what they’ve been asked to do?”

. . .But Cheney rejected any suggestion that Obama had to decide on a new strategy for Afghanistan because the one employed by the previous administration failed.

Cheney was asked if he thinks the Bush administration bears any responsibility for the disintegration of Afghanistan because of the attention and resources that were diverted to Iraq. “I basically don’t,” he replied without elaborating.

These guys really have entered an Orwellian alternate reality, where torture is the rule of law and failure is success.

Vote Republican — it’s all for the double plus good.

Photo: Two guys who have absolutely no responsibility for the mess in Afghanistan. Really. We swear. Via Wikipedia

Inside Baseball: Embassy Beijing’s Public Diplomacy 0.0

While (and I use this term quite loosely) researching my previous post on Obama, China, and the vast media conspiracy against media’s poor coverage of his recent trip, I ran across the U.S. Embassy/Beijing’s website. Take a look at this screenshot of the English-language version of the home page:

This is sad — I know grade school kids who could produce better code than this (full disclosure: I sure as hell couldn’t). More importantly, reading this is likely to convince Chinese that the United States is hopelessly boring and backwards.

To be fair, I’m not sure if this is true of the Mandarin version of this site, given that I don’t read Mandarin. But given the fact that its looks to be different, I’m guessing — given the Great Firewall — it’s even more anodyne. And as far as I can tell, there’s no Cantonese version. I guess the assumption is that everyone reads Mandarin.

Let me offer one example. There was a lot of snarky commentary in the U.S. media about the Shanghai town hall and the fact that it wasn’t shown throughout China. Well guess where else Chinese can’t see it? Yep. The Embassy Beijing site has no video. No link to video. Not even a photo. Only the text.

Sometime the page is so bad that it borders on the comical (and potentially, at least to the prickly Chinese, offensive). Here’s a shot of one small part of the English-language version of the home page — it’s part of a list of “warden messages,” which basically are travel warnings for U.S. citizens:

Whoops.

There are supposed to be two separate travel warnings — one on security measures in the lead-up to the 60th anniversary of the founding of the PRC and one on concerns about reports of pneumonic plague. But somehow somebody conflated them. So now October 1 is the National Day Holiday Plague.

Please explain this to me. Shouldn’t we want to make the United States look interesting and exciting? And make the presentation of that information eye-catching? It’s great that the State Department website is all glam and web 2.0 and everything, but if this is what our embassy in Beijing is doing, then the main targets of our public diplomacy — the Chinese people — aren’t really getting the message.

For what it’s worth, Embassy Beijing site appears to be the exception, not the rule. Home pages for the U.S. embassies in Italy, India, and even Papua New Guinea have better content, are better designed, and incorporate social media. In fact, even the Shanghai consulate has a better site (including photos and links to the video of the Shanghai town hall meeting).

The new U.S. Ambassador to China, Jon Huntsman seems to understand the importance of the intertubes — it was he, after all, who posed the Great Firewall question to Obama during the Shanghai town hall. here’s hoping that he takes a minute to tell his staff to fix this mess.

(By the way, I also checked out the English-language home page for the Chinese Embassy in D.C., and it’s just as bad. But that’s certainly no excuse for the USG’s terrible presentation and content.)

Obama, China, and the Media’s Noob Kremlinologists

Over at the Atlantic, the always perceptive Jim Fallows has done a series of posts (1 — 2 — 3 — 4 — 5) on the utter failure of the traveling press to report accurately on Obama’s China trip. Fallows main point is that the MSM “manufactured” the perception that the trip was a disaster when in fact it was a relative success. As Fallows notes, the media focused on two elements of the trip — its visuals (e.g. Obama bowing to the Emperor and the joint Hu-Obama press conference where Obama didn’t take questions) and the final joint U.S.-China communique (in which Obama failed to secure any “concessions”) — that are almost never favorable to a U.S. president.

I think that the first reason for this — and one that Fallows doesn’t raise — is that MSM (and for that matter new media) coverage of summits is not unlike the now-dead art of Kremlinology: its practitioners are attempting to parse out trends and conclusions from a very limited data set. If all you have to work with is a series of photo ops and official communiques, then it’s awfully hard to make anything more than the most superficial observations. And given the fact that you’re largely guessing, chances are that you’re going to get it wrong a big part of the time. The one difference between today’s media and yesterday’s Soviet experts is that the media is doing it constantly and near instantly. As a result, its reading of the tea leaves is even less accurate than those now-discredited Kremlin parade-watchers.

Fallows quotes U.S. Ambassador Jon Huntsman’s reaction to tthe coverage:

I attended all those meetings that President Obama had with Hu Jintao and Wen Jiabao,” Huntsman said, referring to the Chinese president and premier. “I’ve got to say some of the reporting I saw afterward was off the mark. I saw sweeping comments about things that apparently weren’t talked about, when they were discussed in great detail in the meetings,” he said.

The problem for the media, of course, is that they’re not in those meetings. (If they were, it would have produced the exact outcome they so blithely reported as reality.) So reporters are stuck — they can tell the truth (”we have no idea what happened”) and look like noobs, or they can speculate (as most did in this case) and try to look wise.

Moral of the story: given the choice between looking like a noob and looking like a reporter, almost every White House reporter is going to choose the latter, even if s/he doesn’t know what s/he’s talking about.

The second reason is, as both Fallows and Howard French note, is that the press now covers the White House as if everything it does is a campaign event. Now on one level, this is true, but sometimes — particularly when it comes to foreign policy summits — it isn’t. But given the habits and tendencies of the media to regard everything as political, it’s almost impossible for them to change their frame of reference. French calls it “instant scorekeeping,” noting that “[e]verything [the press writes] is shot through this prism of short-term political calculation as opposed to thinking seriously about stuff.”

I think that part of the problem is not especially China-related but strikes me as a reflection of something that’s happening in the culture, particularly in the news culture, partially in response to the habits of television coverage and the increased pressures that come from digital media. There’s a growing reflex of instant punditry and reflexive reaction that works counter to more meaningful analysis. We’re in a state where we’re very often privileging the gut or the knee, as in knee-jerk, rather than thinking more meaningfully about things.

I think French (and Fallows) hit the nail on the head, but they miss one thing here: one of the reasons the White House press corps uses the campaign frame is that almost every news outlet now assigns its most able campaign reporters to cover the White House (Chuck Todd, white courtesy phone please). As one White House insider put it to Fallows (on background, of course),

I don’t care if someone criticizes us, I just would like it to be accurate and in context. I fear I am learning that is not the skill of some in the White House Press corps. They are experts on horse races, and so that is the way everything is cast.

I’m only surprised that this official is surprised. If you’re a reporter, and you’ve splent the past year/months/decade covering campaigns, then you’re going to look at everything as a campaign. It’s a manifestation of cynicism, and while unhelpful, it certainly is obvious to anyone able to step back and look at the broader question of how the media covers everything.

The third reason is related to the media’s role as a collective expression of a more generalized national uneasiness about the perceived decline in America’s role in the world. French, again:

The piece that really relates directly to China, I think, and the signals I get from this coverage are equally distressing. The unstated element for me in all of this coverage of Obama’s visit is a kind of hysterical insecurity in the American mind about the possibility—or reality, depending on how you look at it—of American decline. China being the most obvious and immediate symbol of American vulnerability and decline. You put these two things together, the hysterical insta-pundit on the one hand and the hysterical anxiety on the other hand, you end up with this kind of coverage that says essentially that Obama goes to China and doesn’t get instant, public, overt gratification on issues A through Zed and therefore it was a failed trip, or we’re losing ground to China or we have no more standing or we have no more clout or the Chinese moment is upon us—any number of variations on this decline-related theme. . . .

That leads us to the fourth and final reason: the MSM’s long slow slide into parochialism. French again:

To the extent that the American media embarks on this trip with some version of this very familiar storyline—that Obama, this great celebrity, this great speaker, this media star, this grand personality, is going to stroll through China and win the day—to the extent that they bought into that storyline and expected it to function, at any meaningful levels shows an extraordinary misunderstanding of China. You can fault that storyline on many other levels, but it shows a total misunderstanding of China. The Chinese doesn’t want to be part of our storyline.

The reality is that the MSM views everything through the prism of the United States. Their coverage of Obama’s trip reminds me of an old National Lampoon parody of local newspapers (be sure to read the sub-head on the story “Two Dacron Women Feared Missing in Volcanic Disaster”):

John Judis at the New Republic demonstrates just how bad this has become in his commentary on the South Korea leg of Obama’s trip (apologies for quoting at length, but I think it’s worth it):

If you are like me, you can’t name the second largest city in South Korea, you’re not within five or ten million of how many people live there, and you’re not sure how South Korea is currently getting on with China and Japan. So you need help. Both the Post and the Times focus not on South Korea per se, but on Obama’s taking a “stern tone” toward North Korea in his discussions with the South Koreans. The Post suggests that the two sides have agreed to a “new approach,” which will reject “endless, inconclusive disarmament negotiations” with the North. OK, pardon me if I yawn. Haven’t I read this story about forty-two times since 1995 or so. Having read the two stories I came away with exactly nothing.

Now let’s look at the Financial Times story by Christian Oliver and Edward Luce, which is about one-third the size of the other pieces. The headline reads, “Seoul trades on better ties with Beijing than Washington.” Hmm. That’s interesting and says something important about the balance of power in Asia and the world. Now here are the opening paragraphs:

When George Bush senior visited Seoul as US president 20 years ago, things were simple – the US was the undisputed main ally and trade partner. Astonishingly, there was only one weekly flight from South Korea to China, the communist foe.

Barack Obama on Wednesday visits a South Korea where the US is no longer the only show in town. China is now the main trade partner, with 642 flights each week. While the US is still the chief political ally, Mr. Obama’s cheery soundbites on Korean issues are not convincing Seoul that Washington is dedicating enough thought to the peninsula.

One flight versus 642 flights – that’s a small detail that tells a large story about South Korea and China. And what of the rest of the story? In the other newspapers, I learned that the U.S. is going to “satisfy” the demand of the North to send a “high-level” envoy by dispatching Stephen Bosworth to Pyongyang. But in the Financial Times, I learn that China is sending its premier Wen Jiabao and that diplomats in Seoul are not convinced that Bosworth, “a part-time diplomat, keeping a university teaching job in the US,” is the “right man for the job.”. . .

All in all, you get in one-third the length three times more interesting information than in the Times and Post articles, and it’s epitomized in the lead paragraphs comparing the number of flights that now run weekly between China and South Korea.

I’d even take it a step further: the FT reported on how South Korea had changed in the last twenty years (a story you rarely see — the media reserves that particular frame for its coverage of China), while the NYT and WaPo reported on how the U.S. position on North Korea hasn’t changed in the past twenty weeks.

Journalism used to be the first draft of history. Now it’s little more than a post-it note.

(An aside about Photo 1: Is the White House embarrassed about the trip? I could not find a single photo showing Obama with Hu Jintao or speaking to students in Shanghai. The only photos were of the students themselves, Obama at the Forbidden City, and Obama’s motorcade (???) heading to the Great Wall. I had to get this crappy shot from our friends at Dipnote.)

Liz Cheney is Here to Save the Day

According to Ben Smith over at Politico, Liz Cheney, best known as a former Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Near Eastern Affairs daughter of Mr. Potter Dick, will head a new 501(c)4 organization to be known as “Keep America Safe.”

Former Vice President Dick Cheney’s eldest daughter Liz will launch a new group aimed at rallying opposition to the “radical” foreign policy of the Obama administration which it says has succeeded only in undermining the nation’s security.

The new group, Keep America Safe, will make the case against President Barack Obama’s moves to wrench America away from Bush era foreign policy on issues from detaining alleged terrorists at Guantanamo Bay to building a missile shield in Eastern Europe.

“The policies being proposed by the Obama administration are so radical across the board,” Cheney said. “Whether you’re a Republican or a Democrat, you want the nation to be strong and so many steps this president is taking are making the nation weaker.”

The new group will add institutional heft to a scathing critique of Obama articulated first and loudest by Liz Cheney’s father, and fills a void left by a Republican Party made skittish by the Iraq War, and apparently more eager to engage the president on domestic issues like health care.

Keeping America Safe plans to release memos from the Bush era demonstrating that torture was a good thing and not, uh, torture:

The Keep America Safe website, she said, would feature memos by Bush Administration lawyers justifying waterboarding and other practices to make the case that they aren’t torture.

Supporters “can read the memos on enhanced interrogation instead of reading them through the lens of the media where they’re called ‘Torture memos’ when, actually, they’re lawyers talking about an anti-torture statute and how not to violate it,” she said.

Here’s the thing — those memos aren’t about how not to violate Section 2340 of the U.S. Criminal Code — they’re about framing language so as to ensure that the Bush Administration’s actions could be justified as not violating the statute.

Maybe Ms. Cheney should consider changing her new group’s name to reflect its real purpose.

Something along the lines of “Keeping Daddy Safe from Prosecution.”

Afghanistan: Avoiding That 3 a.m Phone Call

My latest post at Care2 discusses the time that the Obama Administration is taking to review its Afghanistan and Pakistan strategy:

The problem with Bush’s team wasn’t that they wouldn’t be there at 3 a.m. — I mean there’s a phone next to the President’s bed, for crying out loud (and as The West Wing showed on many an occasion, a situation room in the White House that monitors such things 24/7). Nor was the problem that you don’t want Bush (or Obama or McCain or Clinton) answering the phone when it does ring.

The real problem is that bad planning, bad intelligence, and (in particular) bad decision-making are exactly what usually causes the phone to ring at 3 a.m.

The Obama team has been portrayed by Republicans as spending too much time making such an essential decision — as if knee-jerk, unthoughtful, and usually hastily arrived-at decisions got the Bush Administration anywhere.

You can read the whole thing here.

Obama, Tibet, and “Inconsistency” in U.S. Foreign Policy

David Rothkopf makes an off-hand observation:

The problem with U.S. foreign policy is that more often than not the true Secretary of State of the United States is yesterday’s newspaper. That’s what determines what today’s policy will be. We achieve balance in complex relationships through cyclical inconsistency. Slam China on tires … tiptoe around them on Tibet … hope that gives you some room to make nice with Taiwan on arms transfers. Too often the countervailing measures are out of whack in terms of real importance to us or to them.

I think this can be true, but not in this particular case. Obama’s decision to avoid a meeting with the Dalai Lama is not the direct result of the decision to ratchet up tariffs on tires, but rather part of a broader strategy of “constructive engagement” with China that, the Administration hopes, will encourage China to work with the U.S. on a range of issues (including not only the economy but also Iran, North Korea, and Pakistan).

In accusing the Administration of “inconsistency,” Rothkopf is pretty selective — how is this Administration acting any less consistently than President Bush, who met with the Dalai Lama and yet also gave the Chinese carte blanche to abuse human rights in Xinjiang? In fact, I would argue that the outlier here is the tire tariff — every other Administration statement on China has sought to emphasize common interests.

I think the President was mistaken in not welcoming His Holiness to the White House. I’ve been deeply disappointed by his Administration’s downgrading of human rights as a foreign policy priority. But given the Obama Administration’s past statements on China and human rights, the decision was hardly inconsistent.

Thought for the Day: Today’s Big Story Trumps Monday’s Big Story

I’m not saying this is why President Obama did it, but it does occur to me that today’s joint statement on Iran means that everyone (except Spencer) forgot that Gen. Stanley McCrystal sent his troop and resource request to the Pentagon earlier this afternoon.

Mahmoud and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Week

Please check out my latest Care2 post, which looks what a really, really, really crappy week Mahmoud Ahmedinejad just had. Here’s a taste:

Now [the second nuclear facility] is not merely a small building in the desert. Nope. It’s a Dr.-Evil’s-secret-complex-in-the-mountain kind of facility. And the Administration went public at least in part to demonstrate to the Iranians that it had the intelligence capacity to find out about such stuff. In response, Ahmadinejad canceled subsequent media appearances, including a press conference scheduled to take place this afternoon.

Maybe Ahmadinejad can convince the West that it’s an amusement park ride.

You can read the whole thing here.

If you’re curious where the photo comes from, check out my post from last summer about Iran’s secret missile photoshop project.

Obama the Communitarian

Apologies for the delay in getting this up, but I wanted to give priority to Tanya’s very important post on the events in Belgrade and Keith’s commentary on the G-20.

Yesterday, I posted over at Care2, offering my thoughts on Obama’s UN speech. I urge you to go read the whole thing, but I wanted to highlight one point:

[In his UN speech,] Obama used language consistent with communitarianism, a political philosophy that believes that individual rights must be balanced by the needs and interests of the community. Communitarians argue that each community is shaped by its culture, but also believe that a strong civil society is a prerequisite for a strong community.

Now take a look at some of what Obama said during the speech:

“We can only reach [a future of peace an dprosperity] if we recognize that all nations have rights, but all nations have responsibilities as well. That is the bargain that makes [the world] work. That must be the guiding principle of international cooperation. . . .The United States stands ready to begin a new chapter of international cooperation — one that recognizes the rights and responsibilities of all nations. And so with confidence in our cause, and with a commitment to our values, we call on all nations to join us in building the future that our people so richly deserve.”

As I noted in my post, it’s all there — the focus on balancing rights and responsibilities, the emphasis on needing to work together to achieve common goals, the challenge to other nations to the burden of solving the world’s most pressing problems. Obama went out of his way to call on every nation live up to the UN’s founding vision — what he called “the wisdom that nations could advance their interests by acting together instead of splitting apart.”

It’s an interesting way to approach foreign policy. The danger, of course is that communitarianism by its very nature requires consent, which other countries — including America’s partners and allies — may not want to grant. Without it, it will be much harder to accomplish Obama’s vision.

That said, I think it’s a smart move by Obama, essentially giving the world a vision reasserts American leadership while acknowledging past American mistakes. John Bolton may not like it (surprise!), but we’ve seen more progress on nukes in the past 72 hours than we had seen over the past nine years.

The first major test of Obama’s new approach will be Iran — especially after this morning’s news. Obama has laid the groundwork, and others — particularly the Russians — appear willing to go along.

So far.

Care2 Join Me?

I’ve been remiss in mentioning that I am now also blogging over at Care2’s fine site — I hope you’ll follow me there as well. In my first couple of posts, I’ve managed to start another raging debate over ACORN (which had nothing to do with the post) and get Hondurans yelling at me over my suggestion that Zelaya and Micheletti compromise or something.

Later today, I’ll link to my post there on Obama’s speech to the UN.

So all in all, it’s a pretty good start. I hope you’ll join me there as well.

If You Ask Me, Delaware is Even More Foreign Than Hawaii

Via Jonathan Chait over at TNR, this has to be the political parody of the day/week/month:

My only fear is that the birthers will think this is for real.

Saturday Surprise: A Breakthrough in the Middle East?

Not to put too fine a point on it: Holy Crap.

Via the apparently sleepless and time-off-less Laura Rozen:

THE WHITE HOUSE
Office of the Press Secretary
__________________________________________________________________
For Immediate Release September 19, 2009

Statement from White House press secretary Robert Gibbs

On Tuesday, September 22, President Obama will host a trilateral meeting with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas. The trilateral meeting will be immediately preceded by bilateral meetings between President Obama and the two leaders. These meetings will continue the efforts of President Obama, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, and Special Envoy George Mitchell to lay the groundwork for the relaunch of negotiations, and to create a positive context for those negotiations so that they can succeed.

“It is another sign of the President’s deep commitment to comprehensive peace that he wants to personally engage at this juncture, as we continue our efforts to encourage all sides to take responsibility for peace and to create a positive context for the resumption of negotiations,” said Special Envoy Mitchell.

Wow. Talk about close-hold. I don anyone sawcoming. Just earlier this week there were several articles suggesting that the negotiations were stalled and that nothing was going to happen soon (sorry — posting quickly; will try to get the links up later). So much for that theory.

If George Mitchell actually is the one pulling this off (and assuming that it actually leads to something more than another faux deal), think about what that means: he will go down as one great — if not the greatest — peacemakers of our time. First Northern Ireland, and now this. And with little fanfare and even less attention.

Ending the So-Called Czar Controversy

Let’s not mince words. The so called czar controversy is a ridiculous farce, a tempest in a teapot generated by Republicans solely to score political points among its base.

I find it absurd that Republicans who are upset that Ron Bloom might actually be coordinating manufacturing policy were never upset that David Addington was coordinating enhanced interrogation torture policy. If there ever was a czar, Addington was it. But nobody on the Republican side of the aisle ever complained about unbridled executive power when their guy was in charge.

But the reality is that the Republicans and the their friends in the MSM are not going to let this go.

Therein lies an opportunity for the President. At his next press conference, Obama should make sure someone asks about the czar controversy. The President then could, after decrying the absurdity of the “debate” and noting how many of these alleged despots have actually been confirmed by the Senate, could offer his opponents a fairly straightforward deal: those so-called tsars czars who a) haven’t already been confirmed by the Senate and b) are not Special Assistants to the President should be confirmed.

Richard Holbrooke, white courtesy phone, please.

In return, the Senate amends its rules so that every single Presidential nominee is guaranteed a floor vote no later than 90 days after the President submits the nomination to the Senate. Any Senator can still place a hold on any nominee — but only for 90 days. That would provide more than enough time for Committees to review and vote on the candidate and other Senators to hold up a floor vote to raise legitimate questions. Such a system already exists in the Senate Committees, where any member of the committee can place a hold on a nominee, but only until the committee’s next business meeting.

I can see lots of reasons that neither side will accept this. But at the very least, such a ju jitsu move by the President would put those demanding “accountability” on the defensive.

9/11: Democratic Martyrs and the American Idea

This is partly a repost from last year, with some new observations added at the end. Two days after I put this up, David Foster Wallace committed suicide. I still think his short essay represents one of the most lucid distillations of what it means to live in our crazy, troubled, and wonderful country. Let us not forget those who died that day, nor those who, like Wallace, who have/had the courage of their convictions to demand better of all of us in the years since that tragic, terrible day.

About a year ago, The Atlantic asked a number of prominent thinkers to write, in 300 words or less, what they thought was “The Future of the American Idea.”

This is what novelist David Foster Wallace had to say in response.

Just Asking

Are some things still worth dying for?

Is the American idea one such thing?

Are you up for a thought experiment?

What if we chose to regard the 2,973 innocents killed in the atrocities of 9/11 not as victims but as democratic martyrs, “sacrifices on the altar of freedom”?

In other words, what if we decided that a certain baseline vulnerability to terrorism is part of the price of the American idea? And, thus, that ours is a generation of Americans called to make great sacrifices in order to preserve our democratic way of life—sacrifices not just of our soldiers and money but of our personal safety and comfort?

In still other words, what if we chose to accept the fact that every few years, despite all reasonable precautions, some hundreds or thousands of us may die in the sort of ghastly terrorist attack that a democratic republic cannot 100-percent protect itself from without subverting the very principles that make it worth protecting?

Is this thought experiment monstrous? Would it be monstrous to refer to the 40,000-plus domestic highway deaths we accept each year because the mobility and autonomy of the car are evidently worth that high price?

Is monstrousness why no serious public figure now will speak of the delusory trade-off of liberty for safety that Ben Franklin warned about more than 200 years ago? What exactly has changed between Franklin’s time and ours? Why now can we not have a serious national conversation about sacrifice, the inevitability of sacrifice—either of (a) some portion of safety or (b) some portion of the rights and protections that make the American idea so incalculably precious?

In the absence of such a conversation, can we trust our elected leaders to value and protect the American idea as they act to secure the homeland? What are the effects on the American idea of Guantánamo, Abu Ghraib, Patriot Acts I and II, warrantless surveillance, Executive Order 13233, corporate contractors performing military functions, the Military Commissions Act, NSPD 51, etc., etc.? Assume for a moment that some of these measures really have helped make our persons and property safer—are they worth it?

Where and when was the public debate on whether they’re worth it? Was there no such debate because we’re not capable of having or demanding one? Why not? Have we actually become so selfish and scared that we don’t even want to consider whether some things trump safety? What kind of future does that augur?

I would add, from the perspective of 2009, that even under a new Administration, this debate has not yet occurred. Rejecting the failed policies of the previous Administration is not the same as making a principled argument as to why our values matter, why we must reject such extremism, and why we must embrace the better angels of our nature, no matter what we face.

Tuesday night, President Obama told Congress, “we did not come here to fear the future, we came here to shape it.” We cannot shape the past, but neither should we fear it.

Jokes of the Day, Joe Wilson Edition

A couple of friends have come up with some pretty good Joe Wilson jokes. First:

Darkened movie theater, big love scene on screen, and each time an actor utters a line, a voice hollers from the back of the theater: “YOU LIE!” - until an usher comes up, shines a flashlight on the offender, and says “Mr. Wilson, you’ve been warned about this before…let’s go, now.”

Second:

Joe Wilson certainly has fallen a long way since he left Valerie Plame.

Oh, and then there’s this. Gotta love it.

Heard another? Post yours below, and vote for your favorite.

Afghanistan: Get Stuffed

The UN sponsored Independent Election Commission of Afghanistan announced today that it is ordering a partial recount of votes cast during the August 20 presidential elections. The Commission based its decision on ”clear and convincing fraud” in a number of polling stations, even though election officials have declared that President Hamid Karzai had won a plurality of the votes.

The results are likely to be delayed well beyond the original September 19 deadline. According to the latest count with 91.6 percent of the polling stations tallied, Karzai has 54.1 percent of the vote, while Dr. Abdullah Abdullah has dropped to 28.3 percent. If avoiding a run-off election.

These fraud reports break new ground, and not in a good way: unnamed Western officials indicate that supporters of President Hamid Karzai set up approximately 800 fake polling sites that garnered thousands of fraudulent votes. Investigations also report that Karzai supporters took over another 800 polling stations and used them to cast thousands of ineligible votes for the incumbent.

This is beyond anything I’ve observed. Indeed, it even beats anything I observed in the Balkans, including fifteen to twenty busloads of Serbian voters pulling up at polling stations just inside Bosnia in 1996. We also recorded more voters than people registered in that discredited election. In Nepal I witnessed this gentleman “assisting” every woman in his village to vote for his preferred party, akin to reports of families voting together in Afghanistan.

Unfortunately these reports only add to the pressure that the Obama Administration has to be feeling about its policy in Afghanistan. But what is more disturbing is the the fact that American soldiers are dying to sustain the rule of a man who increasingly appears to be uninterested in free and fair elections.

The real numbers are anyone’s guess. Karzai’s supporters have stuffed so many ballot boxes that in some cases, there are more voters than people. Such fraudulent activities do not bode well for a successful democracy or another Karzai led government. Obama and his advisors have plenty to do in Afghanistan, but waiting for the Independent Election Commission to sort out this troubling situation is just another burden the administration doesn’t need.

I Lead A Sheltered Life

I don’t have full cable. I don’t watch much live television - we catch our favorite shows through Netflix. I follow the news online, and in publications like The Economist. Despite these things, I suspect most people who know me would agree that I am not someone who is out of touch with the “real world.”

However, imagine my surprise when I caught my first episode of Glenn Beck on Fox during a family visit. While I understand that he is intending mainly to be an entertainer, it is a sad testament that he is one of the louder voices of opposition in our democracy. I say that because even I knew who he was when he introduced himself, but beyond him and Rush Limbaugh, I couldn’t tell you another prominent conservative voice opposing the current government.

My point is not that I agree or disagree with this or that aspect of the Obama Administration’s activities or plans, or any aspect of the status quo. My point is that one doesn’t hear logical arguments against those activities or plans from people like Glenn Beck, and that means that the ”average” Republican - or simply conservative - American voter is handicapped in the small debates that should and do happen in our society.

I would like to say that this is true for science and technology issues as well, but that would imply that they are occasionally discussed, which I have never encountered outside of my work. So, to do my part to catalyze some discussion on this front, I offer the following two observations. Neither is new, yet neither has a satisfactory answer, and I would argue that neither is seriously addressed by either party.

First (you’ve all heard this before), we spend twice as much money on health-care as the next closest rich countries, and yet we have shorter life expectancies and higher infant mortality, which are the most basic measures of human health. With so many counterexamples of how to do it right, what exactly is wrong with our system? Seriously, Cuba scores better than we do!

Second, we spend as much as other top OECD countries on education, and yet our students do badly in math and science when compared to students from other nations. Again, for a society that appears to value economic efficiency over practically everything else, what are we doing wrong?

I’m betting I won’t get an answer from Glenn Beck.

Afghanistan: Between a Rock and a Hard Reality

President Barack Obama and his team of advisors are stuck between a rock and a hard place in unforgiving Afghanistan: The August 20 elections appear to have been riddled with fraudulent activities, allegedly directed by President Hamid Karzai. Karzai is currently leading with 46 percent, besting his closest rival Dr. Abullah Abdullah, who has about 35 percent, as the count continues. Abdullah flew down to Kandahar Tuesday to receive the endorsement of the Bariz leaders, a southern tribe who have accused Karzai and his advisors of stuffing 23,900 ballots, a notably brazen act.

But the endorsement of Abdullah never happened. Aides to Mr. Karzai’s brother, Ahmed Wali, seized all the ballots in the Shorabak District on election day and shipped them to Kabul; reportedly every ballot was marked for Karzai. The Afghan Electoral Complaints Commission has received 2,729 complaints of electoral irregularities to date.

No one expected this election to be without challenges. There is not a single country in democratic transition that doesn’t have technical problems. But with each passing day, Karzai, who tried (with out much success) to convince the United States and, more importantly, the Afghan people that the election would not be fraudulent, looks weaker and weaker — and at a time when the Taliban has become far more sophisticated in its strategy and tactics. Meanwhile, July saw 43 American soldiers die — the greatest single monthly tally since the war began.

Not only does the administration have this situation to ponder, but Tuesday’s morning news greeted us with a Taliban proclaimed assassination of Abdullah Laghmani, the deputy director of Afghanistan’s intelligence bureau, who had been investigating Taliban for criminal network activities. Meanwhile, Lt. Gen. Stanley Chrystal, commander of NATO troops in Afghanistan has presented a new strategy to the Pentagon that included a request for more troops (rumored to be up to 40,000 additional soldiers equaling to two Army divisions) to get Afghanistan back on track.

As Obama’s approval numbers hover at 50 percent approval (mostly due to the health care debate) Americans’ enthusiasm for a sustained Afghanistan war could also decrease. Apparently White House staff are also concerned whether Americans have an appetite for expanding the war, especially given the continued engagement in Iraq and a sputtering economy to contend with at home. In fact, if anything should grab the president’s eye it should be that 56 percent of Americans believe the country is on the wrong track, according to a recent poll on Pollster.com. The sagging economy has to be a contributing drag on those numbers.

First out of the gate to criticize Obama’s Afghan war, was George Will, the conservative columnist who wrote in the Washington Post:

U.S. forces are being increased by 21,000, to 68,000, bringing the coalition total to 110,000. About 9,000 are from Britain, where support for the war is waning. Counterinsurgency theory concerning the time and the ratio of forces required to protect the population indicates that, nationwide, Afghanistan would need hundreds of thousands of coalition troops, perhaps for a decade or more. That is inconceivable.

So, instead, forces should be substantially reduced to serve a comprehensively revised policy: America should do only what can be done from offshore, using intelligence, drones, cruise missiles, airstrikes and small, potent Special Forces units, concentrating on the porous 1,500-mile border with Pakistan, a nation that actually matters.

Genius, said de Gaulle, recalling Bismarck’s decision to halt German forces short of Paris in 1870, sometimes consists of knowing (his italics) when to stop.

Secretary of Defense Robert Gates and Admiral Mike Mullen, the chairman of the joint chiefs, conducted a joint press briefing this afternoon strongly defending President Obama’s March war strategy, but Mullen candidly admitted that “there was a sense of urgency” and time was not on their side. Mullen underscored the urgency of the mission by saying he believed they had to reverse the security situation “over the next 12 to 18 months.”

Gates discussed Lt. Gen. McChrystal’s secret report indicating that he had received it two days ago and informally sent it to the president for his review. Gates also said that he would be meeting with President Obama next week to discuss the report’s security assessment with him and members of the National Security Council. But he pointedly said that all decisions about additional resources would not be made until that review process was completed, including the Joint Chiefs, as well as General Petreus, the commander of Southern Command.

Both men were emphatic that the main objective of the March strategy was to protect the Afghani people and to build up Afghani security forces over time. Reporters challenged Mullen as this strategy being “very manpower intensive.” But Mullen explained McChrystal’s tactical strategy to be “very direct, very face-to-face”and has made that tactical strategy the number one priority for U.S. forces.

While noting that not all of the 21,000 troops approved by the President in March had yet arrived to Afghanistan, Gates said he was concerned about the U.S. forces’ footprint becoming overly intrusive, based upon the history of a country which has reflected in the past that ”a tipping point can be reached when outside forces become part of the problem than rather the solution.”

Gates is wise to point out the history of Afghanistan as its militias have demonstrated countless times that it is none too intimidated by great powers and tossed out the British Empire, not once, but twice in the 19th century, followed by the Soviet Empire in the 20th century.

As the President takes a break from the pressures of the Oval office at Camp David over the weekend, it is the time for him to consider a number of sobering critiques by those outside the Administration. The following questions should be considered:

What are the objectives of the Afghanistan war? If we are not nation building, then what are the outcomes the Administration intends to achieve and to what end?
How many lives is the Administration willing to lose? 5,000, 10,000, 15,000, or 20,000 casualties? How long will the American public support such an operation without jeopardizing the president’s ability to effectively govern at home and in the world?
Given the fact that the U.S. cut two active Army divisions in the 1990s and the troop withdrawal in Iraq will take time, where are the soldiers going to come from? The active Army components, as well as the reservists and guardsmen, are contributing well above what can be expected.
How much more money can the U.S. government spend on this war, in view of a troubled economy?

Until we see answers, it’s going to be hard for the Administration to win not only the war over there, but the battle for public opinion at home.

It’s Easier to Penalize Coup Plotters than USG Contractors

Secretary of State Clinton announced today that the United States is terminating existing foreign assistance to Honduras:

After Secretary of State Hillary Clinton met with Honduras’ ousted President Manuel Zelaya today, the State Department announced that Clinton has decided to terminate U.S. assistance to Honduras. Clinton had previously suspended U.S. assistance to the Central American state in the wake of the June 28 coup.

Negotiations led by Costan Rican President Oscar Arias under the auspices of the Organization of American States broke down last month, after Honduras’ de facto leader Roberto Michelleti rejected efforts to allow Zelaya to return to power before Honduras’ November elections.

According to Reuters, Honduras receives $18 million in direct foreign assistance and another $135 million from the Millennium Challenge Corporation. Via twitter today (the transcript isn’t available yet), Dipnote, the Department’s blog, is reporting that State Department spokesman Ian Kelly just announced that the USG has “formally terminated” nearly $30 million of the $153 million.

Meanwhile, State Department spokesman Ian Kelly acknowledged yesterday that the Armor Group, the contractor responsible for providing jello shots to maintaining security at the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad, has a four-year contract worth $189 million per year. And at the moment, the Department does not have the ability to cancel the contract without first undertaking an investigation:

QUESTION: Can you say when they were sent?

MR. KELLY: Starting in June 2007, all the way through April 30, 2008, and then actually there was a ninth, and this was the most serious one. It’s called a show cause notice. A decision to issue a show cause notice is a serious matter and was not taken lightly. The issuance of a show cause notice was necessary due to repeated staffing shortages, which had been brought to the attention of the contracting officer. The show cause notice was the first step towards considering termination of the contract and was carefully considered by all concerned parties.

QUESTION: When was that?

MR. KELLY: This was September 21^st, 2008.

QUESTION: So this contract, you said, was signed originally in March?

MR. KELLY: 2007.

QUESTION: March of 2007. But the first – and so March, April, May, so three months into the contract you sent the first deficiency notice?

MR. KELLY: Yeah. It’s a – I mean, Kabul is a very challenging environment. There are very serious challenges for recruitment and logistical challenges.

QUESTION: So the last letter that was sent to them was that ninth, the show cause letter?

MR. KELLY: Mm-hmm.

QUESTION: And they responded to that?

MR. KELLY: They did respond to that. That was about –

QUESTION: And they corrected the deficiencies that were –

MR. KELLY: And they corrected the deficiencies. It was a staffing issue.QUESTION: Ian, is it fair to say that you put up with all of these deficiencies because you really had no other alternative? I mean, was there another option available to the State Department for the specific functions that ArmorGroup was providing?

MR. KELLY: Well, there are other options. There – I mean, obviously, we cannot just terminate any contract anywhere for any embassy because we cannot have our embassies go unprotected. So this – I mean, there is an issue where you have to, obviously, transition to another arrangement. And of course, the universe of kind of organizations that can provide this kind of very challenging – provide this kind of security in a very challenging environment is not a very big universe, obviously.

Clearly State got caught with their pants down here (okay, perhaps that wasn’t the most appropriate metaphor), and I’m confident that Secretary Clinton will make damn sure that this gets resolved quickly. But you have to wonder whether the Department’s bureaucratic apparatus will be able to to terminate the Armor Group’s contract in less time than it took to end aid to Honduras.

Yes there are differences in the laws covering contracts and foreign assistance (the USG can move far more quickly on the latter than the former). And yes, State can’t just fire Armor Group without finding a replacement to provide security in Kabul — after all, as Kelly himself acknowledged later in the same briefing, they’ve had to delay the replacement of Blackwater Xe, which is providing similar services in Iraq, because DynCorp, the new contractor, isn’t ready to take over.

But if State does choose to revoke the contract (and I presume that they will) I hope that it will take less than the 68 days.

And while we’re at it, can we try to fix a system where an relatively impoverished Central American country gets less from the United States than a security provider?

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