Occam’s Razor

America’s real enemy is from within

While in Boulder, Colorado last week, my brother and I stopped by Boulder Books. There I found on the rack a new collection of Tom Tomorrow cartoons. His latest book is Hell in a Handbasket. On the cover, it depicts our president, Dick Cheney and political adviser Karl Rove. Each has devil horns coming out of their foreheads. It is subtitled, “Dispatches from the country formerly known as America”.

I am a big fan of Tom Tomorrow and his weekly strip This Modern World. Looking back on this collection of strips though, which begin in late 2002 as the Iraq War was being sold to the American public, it is as easy to cry as it is to laugh. In fact, it is hard not to laugh and cry and the same time. Not all of us were deceived by the lies coming from the Bush White House at the time. For me, the Iraq War was nothing more than a simpleton’s paranoid fantasies fully realized by 150,000 American troops. I raised holy hell at the time. I attended peace marches. I wrote letters. I called senators. This preemptive war to remove a despotic dictator with delusions of grandeur (but zero influence outside his own country) to me symbolized everything that was wrong with my country. Tom Tomorrow got it right. The day we invaded Iraq, my country lost its soul. I no long live in the United States of America.

As Sparky the liberal penguin put it in this cartoon from 2002, “Um - here’s a scenario for you: what if the invasion of Iraq turns out to be a complete catastrophe - costing thousands of lives, setting off other wars in the region, and ultimately doing far more harm than good?” To which the two Republican clones start worrying if Saddam Hussein is training an army of giant mutant lizards who can shoot deadly laser beams out of their eyeballs.

As a country, we lost our minds and our souls on March 18th, 2003, the day that we invaded Iraq. Just about all of us were hornswoggled. You would expect neoconservatives, with their Neanderthal and schizophrenic vision of the world, to lose a sense of perspective. But Colin Powell? The same man who warned Bush that when it came to invading Iraq, if we broke it, we owned it? The same man who cautioned us never to go into a war without a sound exit strategy? I remember at the time debating his presentation to the U.N. Security Council with friends online. Most were wholly convinced. Fuzzy satellite shots of railroad cars and dubious intelligence reports from second hand sources were sufficient to them for us to start a war. Gosh, we knew where those WMDs were: smack dab in the middle of the Sunni Triangle. Rumsfeld knew it for a fact.

It was all so clear to me back then, but I was mostly alone among my peers. They treated me with either disdain or condescension. Bush and his fellow yahoos could try, but they could not yank my chain. Yet it was clear that as Bush was yanking most of our chains, his chain was also being yanked. The neoconservatives played our simpleton and puffed up fool of a president like the puppet that he is. In turn, it is tempting to think that Saddam was pulling the neoconservatives’ chains. However, I do not think that was the case. Saddam simply could not conceive of someone even more deeply paranoid than he was.

See, here is the thing. Why were the neoconservatives so convinced that Saddam was acquiring weapons of mass destruction? It is clear to me: because subconsciously they identified with Saddam. I know he would do it because I would do the same thing, was what was coming from their id. Something must have gone very wrong with them while growing up. Perhaps Dad had been too handy with the belt. Perhaps they had been picked on too much during recess at school. They were full of repressed anger and anxious for a suitable form of revenge. Unfortunately, those who hurt them had disappeared. So they found others on whom to turn the tables. They convinced themselves that they really were smarter and better than everyone else. Moreover, they would prove it by slowly, over many years, gaining power. They would suck up to simpletons like Bush and use them as their means to an end. For one-dimensional people like Bush had an uncanny ability to latch onto the millions of other simpletons out there. It required leveraging the same faith that these voters had in their religion into candidates who emulated their values, but who could be manipulated. Bush was a convenient toady, but there are still plenty of them around. Bill Frist is the next George W. Bush.

For all the neoconservatives’ protestations about wanting to spread freedom, their real aims were duplicitous. What they really wanted was to control us so they could remake us into a stronger sort of mongrel super-race of uber-Americans. While many of Bush’s supporters are creationists, the neoconservatives are pragmatic social evolutionists. Social Darwinism is their most basic core value: Americans must become meaner and nastier than every other country, because in their paranoid minds the world was an incredibly nasty place. Only by becoming as ruthless and single minded as the enemy could we triumph. To save our way of life, it must first be destroyed, then remade into a new, more militant and less tolerant image.

A trumped up war with Iraq gave them the means to their end. Their vision of America had us citizens goose-stepping to their beat. Just like Adolph Hitler, they cravenly hit us at our most vulnerable spots: fear, paranoia and rabid patriotism. Fear: if you vote for the Democrats then you are helping terrorists, because they secretly want the enemy to win. Moreover, we need color-coded alert levels so we are always aware of just how precarious our happy suburban lives are. Paranoia: be suspicious of everyone who does not act patriotic. Pass something called The Patriot Act, which makes everyone markedly less free. Patriotism: you are either for us or against us. They knew we would fall for it, because it worked wonders for the Nazis too. Human nature is constant and the masses are malleable with the right leverage. For Bush, the rule of law became inconvenient to a nation’s new challenges. Therefore, he invented the most dubious of rationales: a “unitary executive theory” that he interprets as no law can touch him if he does not want it to. He can do anything he wants as long as he thinks his actions protect the country from its enemies. Just to make sure it lasts for the foreseeable future, he made sure that fellow conservatives who subscribe to the unitary executive theory filled two Supreme Court vacancies.

Now finally, the country is sobering up. It would have been much better had the country been fully sober last November. Nevertheless, as I pointed out back then, karmic forces cannot be held in check forever. Bush’s poll numbers hover in the mid thirties and Congress’s numbers are even lower. Dick Cheney’s approval rating is 19%. Cheney was booed today throwing out the first pitch at the Washington Nationals’ season opener.

In reality though we still live in dangerous times. The biggest threat though is not from al Qaeda. For Osama bin Laden is the real puppet master. He was shrewd enough to realize exactly who our president was: one big dumb ass easily manipulated domino. His goal was not to convert America into devout Muslims, although that may be a long-range fantasy. No, his real goal is to convert the Islamic world into one conservative Islamic caliphate. To accomplish it, he needed a force bigger than he could muster. The United States military was the first domino, and he just needed the President of the United States to tip it. His goal could be done on the cheap. Just hijack a few planes using some misguided religious martyrs with box cutters. Have them fly a few airplanes into our most prominent buildings. Do it and we would respond more predictably than Pavlov’s dog. We have been masterfully played for the fool, but bin Laden was also fortunate to have his evil stars so perfectly aligned. Such a grandiose mistake like the one we made in Iraq was only possible with the neoconservatives in positions of power and a complete fool in the Oval Office.

Therefore, the dominoes fell one by one. Many gave the illusion of progress on the war on terror, while actually exacerbating it. It remains to be seen whether those Americans who still remember the blessings of freedom and liberty can stop this chain of dominoes before the world slowly devolves into an eternal set of religious mini-wars lasting generations.

However, forces are lining up to limit further damage. It is already beginning. To work, it simply must be manifested by a return to power by the Democrats in both houses of Congress this autumn. With a change in Congressional power, our new leaders will then have to summon the courage to impeach and convict Bush for his clearly illegal high crimes. It is unclear though that even if Bush is impeached and convicted, that he would actually vacate his office. It is also unclear whether the 2006 elections can be conducted fairly. There was enough voting fraud in 2000 and 2004 for even the mildly paranoid to be disturbed. Diebold controls many voting machines and they sure enough delivered Ohio for the Republicans as promised with a last minute Republican vote surge. Republicans also control most supervisor of election positions. I do not think they will go peacefully; having power is just so intoxicating.

The November elections may turn out to be a time to manifest real patriotism. It will require our supervisors of elections simply to do their duty and let the voting be free and fair. For our biggest enemy is no longer hiding in caves in northwestern Pakistan. He and his cronies occupy the White House and all positions of power in the government. They have shown an unwillingness to listen to reason and an affinity for using whatever means are necessary to affect their desired ends, legal or illegal. We will need every tool at our disposal.

Until now, losing an election was enough to remove someone from power. It may take massive demonstrations that will dwarf recent immigration protests to remove the neoconservatives. It may take massive civil protests with demonstrators lying down blocking access to public buildings, like during the Vietnam War. It may take ordinary citizens standing in front of tanks like in Tiananmen Square. Let us hope a sane head or two in the neoconservative power circle can persuade the rest that their time is over.

Let us also hope that Tom Tomorrow’s next book of cartoons comes from the United States of America that we grew up in, not the grotesque and sick parody that is currently foisted on us. We must stare down these paranoid schizophrenics and firmly show them the door. We may have to push them out. We may have to haul them out one by one and throw them onto the streets. However, they must go if we want to live in the United States of America again.

April 11th, 2006 at 09:25pm Posted by Mark | Politics 2006 | 2 comments

Fight Smart

From an Osama Bin Laden videotape, released by Al Jazeera on November 1, 2004:

All that we have to do is to send two mujahidin to the furthest point east to raise a piece of cloth on which is written al-Qaida, in order to make the generals race there to cause America to suffer human, economic, and political losses without their achieving for it anything of note other than some benefits for their private companies.

This is in addition to our having experience in using guerrilla warfare and the war of attrition to fight tyrannical superpowers, as we, alongside the mujahidin, bled Russia for 10 years, until it went bankrupt and was forced to withdraw in defeat.

All Praise is due to Allah.

So we are continuing this policy in bleeding America to the point of bankruptcy. Allah willing, and nothing is too great for Allah.

I hope the NSA will not notice this blog entry. I hope that I will not have Secret Service agents on my doorstep accusing me of collaborating with the enemy. You cannot take anything for granted from our president anymore, including the right of due process. Yet there is a fundamental truth in this statement from our enemy Osama bin Laden: this War on Terror is bankrupting our country.

It used to be when you fought an all out war, both sides ended up equally impoverished. This certainly was true of our Allies in Europe after both world wars, and they were the victors. Freedom is certainly priceless and beats totalitarianism. Terrorism though is a new modus operandi for conducting a war. We are like medieval armies using catapults to deal with an army that has discovered cannons and gunpowder. We need to rethink how a nation deals with this new kind of threat.

In our new reality, nation against nation wars are becoming obsolete. Now, a handful of people with minimal amounts of money can rather effectively gum up the works of a free society. Smart terrorists like bin Laden know how to yank our chain for maximum effectiveness. From their perspective, we are like a dog chasing its tail, distracted and spending most of our time and money on fruitless efforts. The War on Terror has been enormously expensive so far and arguably, the meter just started running. The Iraq War has cost at least $250B to date. Since Bush still has three years in office, he has already said some future president will have to decide when to withdraw troops from Iraq. Considering current obligations in the pipeline, the cost of the Iraq War alone will end up as $500B at least. It could conceivably cost a trillion dollars, or more. That’s $1,000,000,000,000.

This is just the cost of the war in Iraq. Then there is the destruction of al Qaeda, bringing bin Laden to justice, and ensuring that Afghanistan cannot harbor terrorists like al Qaeda again. That costs maybe $30B or so a year. On top of that, there is also the cost of making us safer here at home. Those costs are harder to quantify, since all sorts of dubious expenditures are being charged to the War on Terror.

All this money of course has to come from somewhere. Thus far, it has come from borrowing. Lenders of course are not giving away money; they expect to get it back with interest. This means that, all things being equal, our government will be paying more interest (as a percent of the budget) in years ahead than we do now. Consequently, either government programs like Social Security and Medicare will be chopped in the future, or when we pass our national credit limit, taxes are going to go way up, with the obvious decrease in our general standard of living. In addition, there are indirect costs for all of us. All this federal borrowing also drives up the cost of private borrowing. While interest rates are low by historical standards, they would be even less expensive if the government was not sucking away so much of the available capital.

It took al Qaeda a couple hundred thousand dollars to instigate 9/11. In return, we will likely spend $1-$2 trillion in direct costs, and those are only the ones we can project today. To put it another way, for every $1 spent by al Qaeda to destroy America, we will spend at least $1,000,000. As you can see, bin Laden may be a reprehensible troll, but he is not stupid. He knows how to get maximum leverage for his money. He stated it clearly: we cannot continue to afford the War on Terror forever.

Nevertheless, bin Laden got a surprise bonus from President Bush. I doubt even he expected quite his slavishly Pavlovian response. A rational president might have concentrated forces on where the problem was acute, which was arguably in Afghanistan. However, Bush imagined a much larger threat to America from terrorism than was actually there. Consequently, we got a badly planned War in Iraq.

It was like bin Laden, after hitting the jackpot, next won the grand prize in the state lottery. Our focus shifted from him to Saddam Hussein. 130,000 troops, instead of combing the Afghanistan countryside, got to hang out indefinitely in Iraq instead. Muslims, many of whom were indifferent to America prior to the invasion, got to watch our armies shoot up their fellow Muslims live on Al Jazeera. Instead of empathy from many Muslims for 9/11, we now had their antipathy. Many who would have never considered jihad found it a holy cause to which they could commit. We both squandered hundreds of billions of dollars and made the War on Terror worse. Lovely. Not.

Meanwhile, other emerging first world countries like China and India also indirectly caught a break. It is hard for America to focus on its economic future when it is fighting a costly and indefinite War on Terror. Their capital is freer to improve their economies and offer a competitive advantage to their nations.

Am I the only American who thinks the actual threat from al Qaeda is vastly over-inflated? I do not want to discount the horror of 9/11. I witnessed the Pentagon burning that day. I felt the terror too. Yes, nearly 3000 of our citizens died horrible deaths. Yet look how it was accomplished. It was done on the cheap. Now, in our ultra-paranoid mode, we assume of our enemy much more powerful than he likely will ever be again.

The War on Terror needs to be reframed and scoped down. By making it bigger than it needs to be, we are both bankrupting ourselves and losing our focus. It can be boiled down to a few major tasks.

First, we need to get rid of those who perpetrated and funded 9/11. We need to deny them refuge, cut off their assets, stop their recruiting and kill those directly responsible if we can. This will not be done overnight. It will take decades. To accomplish it though does not require us to have 130,000 troops in Iraq.

Second, and arguably most important of all, we need to secure vulnerable nuclear stockpiles across the world. It has gotten short shrift from this administration. If we have to redeploy 130,000 troops, let us volunteer them for use in foreign countries to secure these stockpiles until they are properly secured. Otherwise, our borders and ports could sure use a lot more security than they have.

Third, we need to do better dealing with North Korea. Unfortunately, if North Korea really does have nuclear weapons, there is not much we can do other than constructive engagement. Anything that will lessen their leader’s paranoia is good, unless it helps him acquire more nuclear material or gives him the means to deliver them. Mostly North Korea must be contained until the time when, if ever, saner heads prevail there. We should encourage North and South Korea to work through their long-standing problems. We must be careful not to make the situation worse. I doubt that statements saying how evil their regime is will be constructive.

As for Iran, their nuclear efforts can still be checked. Our War on Terror was something of a bonus for Iran too. Thanks to us, Iraq, which used to be Iran’s implacable enemy, will likely Balkanize into separate ethnic states. Shiite Iraq is likely to be Iran’s friend, not their enemy. Kurdistan is unlikely to be their enemy. Although the Taliban were reprehensible folk, Iran considered their extreme form of theocracy a threat to their state. We removed Iran’s two biggest external threats.

Iran needs constructive engagement and a reduction in all the pointless, ineffective and hateful rhetoric. It needs a bold stroke. You can rule that happening while Bush is in office. It needs a Nixon in China sort of engagement. If I were president, I would propose flying to Iran for direct talks. While there, I would apologize again for our involvement keeping the Shah of Iran in power, and basically just let them vent. After the venting is over, I will bet you would see moves toward constructive engagement.

These are all difficult, but not impossible tasks. However, they are not impossible, amorphous and Herculean tasks like our current unfocused war on terror. We need to stop biting off more than we can chew.

March 23rd, 2006 at 07:59pm Posted by Mark | Politics 2006 | no comments

Iraq’s Unconventional Civil War

Sometimes I hate calling it right. Granted, I have been sometimes wrong with my prognostication in the past. Last I looked President Kerry was not in the White House. Nevertheless, I hit the bullseye on Iraq. I called it right even before the war started. Winning a prediction would normally make me want to gloat. Yet as I watch Iraq descend into the civil war that I predicted, I just feel sick over the whole thing. Moreover, I feel almost nauseous knowing that my country recklessly lit the fuse.

Arguably, there has been a minor civil war going on in Iraq since around 2004. At first American forces were the principle targets of the insurgency. We are still hit regularly by insurgent forces. Seven Americans died from IEDs just the other day. Of course, American forces are now harder to target. We have adapted to losses by keeping many of our forces in their bases instead of patrolling or fighting. It makes for lower casualty counts for our increasingly antiwar public, but it probably does not improve Iraq’s security.

No one knows for sure who is causing the violence. That alone is telling. If forces were really in control, there would be no anarchy. Yet here we are nearly three years after our invasion and we are still operating with our blinders on. It appears that our intelligence today is not much better than the virtually nonexistent intelligence used to start this war.

The best guess is that the current anarchy in Iraq is mostly caused by a myriad of sectarian forces, each hoping to expand their own power by cutting down opposing sects’. Of course, when hardly anyone is minding the store, it becomes easier for the entirely wrong elements to become unleashed. One hundred forty thousand American troops were clearly not enough boots on the ground to prevent anarchy. Therefore, al Qaeda and affiliated elements easily crossed borders and set up shop, possibly aided by Iran and Syria. It would be a good bet to assume they are responsible for this most egregious act: the destruction of the Askariya shrine in Samarra. However, it could also have done by a small sect of Sunni insurgents.

If we were to do a risk assessment of what would trigger an Iraqi civil war, you would think blowing up some of the holiest Shia and Sunni shrines in the country would do it. Forces sufficient to repel attacks should have been securing these sites. But since war is hell, it must lead to a lot of muddled thinking. It must be hard to think tactically when you are not even sure you can get down the street safely. While not quite to the Shia what St. Peter’s Church in the Vatican is to the Roman Catholics, the Askariya shrine is nearly as important. Think how outraged Catholics would feel if the Sistine Chapel with Michelangelo’s precious frescos were turned into rubble by terrorists.

Not surprisingly, the attack had the desired effect. The Shia, who have always been in the majority, found that with an incident this egregious they could no longer sit on their hands. Numerous Sunni mosques were quickly damaged or destroyed, although with all the anarchy it is hard to quantify the size of the destruction. That in turn led to the destruction of some Shia mosques. Hundreds of people have been killed. Iraqis will be fortunate if only thousands more are killed as a direct result of this incident.

As for the nascent Iraqi constitutional government, it is likely gone with the wind. A major Sunni sect will no longer participate unless some extremely onerous demands are accepted. Perhaps they will think more clearly with time. Rather than expecting unity, expect Iraqis to become passionately sectarian. This one nation ideal is just no longer a good fit. When push comes to shove, you have to make unpleasant choices. In Iraq that means that clan loyalty trumps over national loyalty. Rather than seeing the united and pluralist Iraq of America’s dreams, Iraq will devolve into heightened civil war and ruthless sectarianism. The result will mean what is has arguably already occurred: the end of Iraq as a country. Instead, there will be Eastern Iraq. Since it is predominantly Shia, it will likely end up as part of Iran. The Kurds will have their own country, if Turkey will allow it. The Sunnis will form either their own impoverished nation or affiliate with Syria, Jordan or Saudi Arabia. Iraq as we have known it since the British assembled it after World War I is effectively history. We are too blinded by our predispositions to see this yet. What should concern us more is whether the civil war in Iraq will spill outside its borders, inflaming the whole Middle East.

This civil war is unlikely to look like most civil wars. I will grant that insurgents have been attacking the Iraqi army and police at levels that suggest a civil war started years ago. Yet there does not appear to be a united insurgency. Therefore, “civil war” may not be the right label. Then what exactly do you call it when a nation descends into anarchy and chaos and sects fight other sects in the street? To call it an insurgency is absurd. We may need a refined definition of civil war for our modern age.

I believe that what we witnessed in Lebanon in the 1970s and 1980s is what we will see in Iraq for at least the next decade. Perhaps as in Lebanon, the factions at some point will have released their entire animus. Perhaps even the insurgents will get so sick of fighting that they will either demand peace or go home. Perhaps. However, this day is a long way off.

I believe that this civil war was destined to happen. Saddam Hussein the chess player set up the violence we are witnessing by inflaming sectarian tensions during his dictatorship. Sunni and Shia have lived peacefully together for many years. Their relationship was not always in perfect harmony. However, prior to Saddam Hussein each side rarely saw reasons to get violent with the other. Much of what we are now witnessing is a sad denouement of Saddam’s dubious legacy. One thing is clear: by invading, we added gasoline to this smoldering fire. It is unlikely that history will look kindly at our noble intentions.

February 25th, 2006 at 09:22pm Posted by Mark | Politics 2006 | one comment

Good intention wreak unintended consequences in the Middle East

Hindsight should always be 20:20. Strangely though, we seem to be unable to learn lessons from our attempts at nation building, particularly in the Middle East. Why is this? Let us ponder the wreckage and see if we can learn the lessons that seem to escape our current leadership. Then let us examine how we might do things differently in the future.

So Iran, which claims that its nuclear program is purely for peaceful purposes, may be building the bomb. This seems a rational assumption. After all, its latest president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, is not exactly firing on all cylinders. For example, he thinks the Holocaust is a myth. Even though Iran is a signatory to the 1968 Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty, he feels Iran can give lip service to it. Perhaps channeling the spirit of Saddam Hussein, he is quite comfortable throwing out inspectors from the International Atomic Energy Agency whenever he finds it convenient. Never mind that by doing so he is violating the treaty.

Meanwhile, a leading Iranian newspaper is sponsoring an international cartoon contest on the Holocaust. Reputedly, this is being done so that Jews will know how it feels to suffer the gross sacrilege Muslims are going through with the publication of imprudent cartoons featuring the Prophet Muhammad. I have to wonder why Jews would feel offended if indeed the Holocaust were truly a myth. Do they think that Israelis are not aware of the many virulently anti-Israeli and anti-Jewish cartoons already routinely printed in Middle East newspapers? Moreover, there is the wee problem that it was not Jews but a Danish newspaper that published the offending cartoons. Meanwhile the rioting over these cartoons continues unabated across the Muslim world. Nine Muslims died today alone in Libya. These Muslims seem to think that by accidentally killing more people (all fellow Muslims so far) and destroying more property that the Prophet Mohammad and Allah are pleased. Somehow, I doubt it.

Over in Iraq voters in a recent parliamentary election, rather than voting for secular candidates, voted for sectarian and religious ones instead. The majority Shi’ites, at the insistence of their firebrand cleric Moqtada Sadr, nominated Ibrahim Jaafari as the new prime minister. Jaafari is the current ineffectual interim prime minister. Sadr, of course, wants closer ties with the Shi’ite country of Iran and wants nothing to do with a national unity government promoted by the United States, or for that matter the United States.

In addition the Palestinians have elected Hamas into power. As you probably know, this is a political party whose professed aims include the destruction of the state of Israel. The many suicide bombers that have killed Israel citizens demonstrate the sincerity of their beliefs. Palestinians voted this way quite mindfully of the implications. Although unhappy with the outcome, even President Bush complemented Palestinians on how well they followed the Democratic process.

So perhaps democracy is spreading all over the Middle East. Arguably, even our current nemesis state Iran is a democracy. (It would flunk our test of being a real democracy, since clerics have the final say on whether a candidate gets on the ballot.) Unfortunately, Americans are not getting the desired outcome for the billions of dollars we invested. We assumed that democracy would to lead naturally to pro-Western, pro-American governments happy to sell us oil. Unfortunately, the evidence suggests (with Kuwait perhaps the exception) that in the Middle East people will vote for those with virulently anti-American, anti-Israeli and pro-Islamic state positions. For the most part, they are democratically saying, “Bring on theocracy!”

This should not surprise us. From interpreting the Quran, a theocracy should be the natural form of government in a predominantly Muslim country. Values we cherish like pluralism and secularism are much harder to instill when submission to the will of Allah trumps all.

Where did our good intentions go wrong? How did Iran become such a problem for the United States? Why are Iraqis voting for religious and sectarian parties? Why would the Palestinians, whose better relations with Israel are now finally bearing some fruit, suddenly prefer a religious government with murderous impulses toward Israel?

I see two overall reasons. First, our government has engaged in short-term thinking and ignored the long term likely consequences. Second, we projected our worldview on the Muslim worldview and assumed it would be a natural fit.

Case Iran. How did Iran get to hate us so much? It is because during the Cold War, we used Iran like a ten-dollar whore. It was just another pawn in our international chessboard. We wanted to deny the Soviet Union access to warm water ports. Therefore, it made sense for us to promote an Iranian king, the Shah of Iran. It was convenient for us to overlook his excesses and his oppression of his people. He was a means to an end: containing the Soviet Union. We discounted the ill will that would result if the Shah were overthrown. We assumed we could contain Iran so this would never happen. Our outcome in Iran though was partly a result of bad timing. Islamic fundamentalism was sweeping across the Middle East at the time. Iran was the first place in modern times where it would be tried as a form of government. Perhaps in the context of those Cold War times our choice was unavoidable. On the other hand, perhaps instead of allowing Iran to become a monarchy, we should have promoted real democracy. Had we done so perhaps its current clerics would not be associating us with the Great Satan. Perhaps instead of hearing regular chants of “Death to America” they would be peeling the bells for their democracy day.

Our tactics were similar in Iraq: contain the Soviet Union with what you have to work with. Consequently, we promoted Saddam Hussein, the very man we revile. Why did we help him? We aided him because our plan for containing the Soviet Union using Iran collapsed when the Shah was overthrown. In Iraq, we took big risks, including looking the other way as we did in Iran when Saddam ruthlessly oppressed its citizens. Saddam became too powerful and his ambitions became too imperialistic, resulting in a situation we could not contain.

As far as the needs of the Palestinian people, we have been unabashedly pro-Israel since its creation. We came late to the table in recognizing that the Palestinian people had legitimate needs. We looked the other way or offered the mildest protests every time another Jewish settlement was established in occupied Palestinian territories. We often aided Israel in the Security Council. We made sure that virtually no resolution against it would pass. We should have been cutting our aid to Israel as it expanded its settlements. More often, we simply increased our aid. The more Israel whined, the deeper we dug into our pockets.

This is what hindsight should show us if we were to look back on the past objectively. It should also inform us that democracy is not always the solution. Even if we are able to install a democratic government in a Middle East country, the odds are that its citizens will elect leaders opposed to our interests. Should this surprise us? For the culture of the Middle East is much different than our own culture.

Fostering democracy in the Middle East may or may not take wings, but it will not necessarily lead to a world more aligned to America’s interests. Neither is democracy in the Middle East a panacea for our nation’s long-term security. Perhaps President Bush is finally sobering up. In his latest State of the Union address, he said our nation is addicted to oil. Unfortunately his policies did a lot to increase our addiction. However if we were to follow through on his suggestion to dramatically reduce our need for oil from volatile spots like the Middle East, in the process we should also increase our national security. For whether democracy or more totalitarianism results in the Middle East in the future, the outcome is less likely to affect our national security.

February 17th, 2006 at 07:20pm Posted by Mark | Politics 2006 | no comments

The Meaning of the Law

Back in May, I asked the question “Why do we have governments?” As I said back then, the answer was not rocket science. After disclosures this week that President Bush authorized the National Security Agency to conduct warrantless electronic eavesdropping on American citizens, not just once, but apparently thirty times since 9/11, I have to wonder if President Bush missed some fundamental lectures on government too. Could Mr. Bush accurately answer the question, “Why do we have laws?” I doubt it.

Maybe he would answer something like, “Laws are rules that people must follow, except presidents, particularly when it comes to the nation’s national security.” The disclosure this week by The New York Times of these illegal wiretaps and Bush’s subsequent bizarre rationalization suggests that it will take a new administration to remove this terminal case of cognitive dissonance from the White House.

His “logic” seems to go something like this. Despite this FISA statute that explicitly prohibits eavesdropping on American citizen’s telephone calls without approval from the special secret FISA court, FISA was countermanded by the joint resolution passed by Congress on September 14th, 2001. It gave me carte blanc powers for anything I think might even be remotely related to 9/11.

Of course, the resolution says nothing about authorizing wiretapping against American citizens without a warrant. You would think it would be clear from the title of the resolution, which is “Authorization for the Use of Military Force”. Moreover, it authorized the use of our armed forces “against those nations, organizations, or persons he determines planned, authorized, committed, or aided the terrorist attacks that occurred on September 11, 2001, or harbored such organizations or persons.”

Thus far, Jose Padilla is the only United States citizen charged in the United States with helping the Al Qaeda terrorists. (He was finally charged years after he was first detained.) He has had a tough time getting a trial for his alleged crime, because Bush declared him an enemy combatant. Padilla has been languishing in a military brig for three and a half years, stripped of the rights we assume all Americans have, including the right to a fair trial. Even so, this joint resolution sounds like it does authorize the president to send the military against any American who might have colluded with the enemy. Unless these few errant citizens are engaged against our forces in combat, you would think it would be much simpler to send the FBI and charge them with treason.

In this case, we are talking about the National Security Agency. The last I checked the NSA was not part of the military. In addition, it cannot exert any military force. The guards at the front desk at the NSA may have a pair of revolvers, but it is unlikely that we will see brigades of NSA eavesdroppers ever going into battle. Of course, the NSA likely does fine intelligence work, but they simply are not a military force. If you polled members of the 107th Congress, I bet you would be hard pressed to find any member who thought that in passing Joint Resolution 23 they were invalidating part of the FISA law.

Even Bush seems to acknowledge his actions broke the FISA law.

QUESTION: Why did you skip the basic safeguards of asking courts for permission for the intercepts?

BUSH: First of all, right after September the 11th, I knew we were fighting a different kind of war. And so I asked people in my administration to analyze how best for me and our government to do the job people expect us to do, which is to detect and prevent a possible attack. That’s what the American people want.

There is only one wee problem to his logic. It is this minor thing called the Oath of Office. Bush solemnly swore to:

“I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will faithfully execute the office of President of the United States, and will to the best of my ability, preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States.”

Of course, the U.S. Constitution sets a framework for laws that Congress may pass. To protect the constitution a president must necessarily enforce the laws passed by Congress. In fact, that is the whole point of being president: to faithfully execute our laws. (Commander in Chief is a separate duty which applies only to leading our armed forces.) The president does not make any laws. However, whether he agrees with them or not it is his solemn duty to do his best to uphold our laws. All of them.

However, Bush apparently thinks he can ignore laws when he does not agree with them. That this is wholly inconsistent with his oath of office does not bother him in the least.

Nevertheless, it should bother you. It should bother you a lot. The law may be smart or it may be stupid. Clearly, Bush thought the FISA law was stupid and dated after 9/11. Instead of doing what he should have done, which is to petition the Congress to change the statute, he flagrantly and repeatedly violated the law. Why did he do this? Most likely, because he knew that Congress would not change the law. So he invented the world’s most dubious excuse to circumvent it. It is as if he dropped his pants and mooned both Congress and the American people. You can almost hear him taunting, “I know what must be done and you are too stupid to do it. You are a bunch of morons. So I’ll do it anyhow.”

Consulting with a few members of Congress about his decision does not change the law. It does not make it okay. Even if it did, the information was classified. No one who knew about it could disclose their knowledge of it without breaking the law. That is why some of the few in Congress who did know what was going on, people like Senator Jay Rockefeller and Congresswoman Nancy Pelosi, chose to say nothing. If they had, they would have broken the law. They could have gone to prison. They respected the law, even though in this case they were clearly troubled by Bush’s apparently illegal acts.

Clearly, Bush had no qualms though. Therefore, the American public need to send him a clear message. No one person is above the law, and that includes the President of the United States. We need to bring this out in hearings. Then, if our Congress had any backbone, the House would impeach him and the Senate would remove him from office for flagrantly and repeatedly violating the law of the land.

This is not a partisan issue. This is an issue of law. The law is meaningless unless it is enforced. The citizens of the former Soviet Union had rights. It included:

In accordance with the interests of the people and in order to strengthen and develop the socialist system, citizens of the USSR are guaranteed freedom of speech, of the press, and of assembly, meetings, street processions and demonstrations.

Did they have these rights? Sure, but only if they toed the line of the Communist Party. The reality was that the Soviet Union did not support these rights. Consequently, they became meaningless. By circumventing the FISA law, Bush used the law like toilet paper, and essentially canceled a right to privacy for hundreds of millions of Americans. In addition, he cheapened the rights and liberties of all American citizens.

In reality, he is destroying our way of life. We fought against the British because we wanted a government that represented our interests. Our constitution and laws define our liberties and rules of conduct. They apply equally to everyone.

Yet Bush thinks he is an exception. In reality, Bush is nothing but a bully. Bush is trying to win through intimidation. However, bullies have only as much power as we let them get away with. It is time for citizens to demand that our Congress hold Bush accountable for his law breaking. Let me be clear: your freedom and the freedom of your children depend on it. Otherwise, our future is going to start looking a lot like the Soviet Union’s.

December 21st, 2005 at 08:37pm Posted by Mark | Politics 2005 | one comment

You broke it, you own it

Earth to George W. Bush: no one made you invade Iraq. Rather you chose to invade Iraq. You broke it, so you own it.

Stop trying to shift the responsibility to the American people. Yes, it is true that Congress did authorize you to use force against Saddam Hussein, but only if you thought it was necessary for our national security. Congress did not say “go”. They gave you a qualified “go”. You made the judgment that there was an imminent threat to our national security. You said “go”. Therefore, you bear the responsibility for sending our troops into Iraq to contain a weapons of mass destruction threat that did not exist. You did so despite contradictory evidence. You did so despite the many sober expressions of caution and concerns from our closest allies.

Yes, and it was you who told us that Iraq was (and apparently to you still is) the central front on the war on terrorism, even though before the war we had only one despotic dictator with delusions of grandeur. It was you who linked, in your State of the Union address no less, Iraq, Iran (its enemy) and the wholly non-Islamic (but clearly wacked state) state of North Korea into an “Axis of Evil”. It was clear to everyone except possibly yourself that these three countries were not collaborating on anything.

You set the ball in motion. You made the decision. The buck stopped on your desk. You agreed to optimistic war plans that put insufficient troops on the ground and had no strategy for securing the peace. You are responsible for the debacle that followed. Colin Powell tried to warn you before going to war: you will own it. Not surprisingly, you want the American people to own your war. Leadership does not work that way. However, this is the way that weasels deal with big problems that are their fault.

You are sounding silly and shrill in your “major” speeches lately on the Iraq War. Your words belie the facts on the ground. The security situation is such that the Iraqi “government” must operate inside the U.S. protectorate state called the Green Zone or it would not operate at all. It has been proven ineffective at controlling the situation outside the Green Zone. Instead, we have the sad and sick reality of a country in chaos and anarchy. The plain facts are that no one controls anything in that country. However, anyone with an axe to grind can cause murder and mayhem with little chance of being held accountable.

You wanted to show the nation how virile you are. Instead, you have shown us just what a faux president you actually are. Because there is more to being president than making decisions. Being president also means being accountable for your actions. The American people expect that a president can recognize reality and when things do not go according to plan, will adjust forces accordingly to change the outcome.

However, you will have none of that. It is always “Stay the course” even though clearly staying the course has simply made things worse. By virtually every measure, Iraqis are worse off than they were before we invaded. Despite this, you keep seeing steady progress. You cannot recognize the obvious reality. You cannot even acknowledge the obvious truth that our mighty Army is disintegrating before our eyes. Clearly, we will not be able to sustain our troop strength in Iraq much longer anyhow, but you are heedless of the problem. Perhaps you expect that new patriots will spring up from the ground when needed. Is this your latest faith based initiative?

These are some of the reasons why your approval ratings are down so sharply. You are not a leader because only fools are following. American unfortunately has plenty of fools, but they are not in the majority. However, we do agree that the war on terrorism is hard work. So far, you have not shown much inclination to do the hard work necessary to change the situation. Why bother when it is easier to complain about how hard it is? You have, however, found plenty of time to go mountain biking and take extended vacations.

If you truly care about the War on Terrorism and our national security, you still have a few years left in your presidency to try to mend things. You can start by getting rid of the gang that led you into this war. This includes for starters Cheney, Rumsfeld and Rice. Then you need to talk to moderate and sober members of both parties and develop a national consensus. You need new sober minded people with experience and pragmatic natures in your leadership positions. Sadly, this does not appear to be in your nature. Nevertheless, you can at least apologize to the American people for your failings. You screwed up big time.

There is little in the way of commitment for the War in Iraq or the War on Terror aside from throwing more money on strategies that have proven unsound. Commitment takes real resolve and real sacrifice. Resolution requires providing sufficient resources and the right people to handle the reality. Sacrifice involves giving up some of today’s pleasures in order to ensure a better, safer and more orderly tomorrow. You asked for neither. It is not surprising then that your support has always been halfhearted.

There’s no fool like an old fool.

December 8th, 2005 at 06:35pm Posted by Mark | Politics 2005 | no comments

Clueless

If politics is theater then the last two days have been a lot like the movie Clueless. The American public has turned decisively and irrevocably against the war in Iraq. The American people know this war is lost and it is borne out in countless polls. Yet with a few exceptions, nobody in the White House or Capitol Hill can acknowledge that we are hanging in on a fool’s errand. That is why the excrement really hit the fan yesterday. The normally hawkish Pennsylvania Representative John Murtha yesterday simply acknowledged the sad reality in Iraq, and called for the immediate withdrawal of our troops from Iraq. This stirred up a huge hornet’s nest.

There is an elephant sitting in the White House Briefing Room. There is another one roaming Capitol Hill. These elephants though do not represent Republicans. Instead, they are the elephants in the room that no one wants to acknowledge. These elephants have a simple message: we have lost the war in Iraq. It is all over but the body count. What we are witnessing, at least those of us tuned to C-SPAN, are furious denials asserting that the elephant is simply not really in the room. Despite massive and undeniable evidence that we have lost Iraq it cannot be openly acknowledged in Congress. Consequently, the Republican House leadership has its death rays trained on Rep. Murtha, a conservative, pro-defense advocate, who shed blood for this country in Vietnam. Murtha is the infidel that dared to acknowledge the elephant. The ironic part is they are really aiming their death rays at their own heads, but are too clueless to understand it.

Meanwhile the White House hopes that with sufficient vitriol, the elephant will disappear. Therefore, we get White House press secretary Scott McClellan absurdly comparing Rep. Murtha with Michael Moore. Yet what choice does Bush have? This is his only card: the wan hope that with sufficient pompous bravado and “stay the course” rhetoric that America will suddenly fall behind him again.

Ain’t gonna happen. Bush has cried wolf one too many times. He is now a parody of himself. All he can do is cry “Stay the course!” when it is clear to everyone but those who placed their trust in him that staying the course simply means more fiasco lies ahead.

Hello! It has been two and a half years since we unwisely invaded Iraq. Is the situation any better than it was when Bush declared “Mission Accomplished” on the deck of the U.S.S. Abraham Lincoln? No, sorry, it is worse. Much worse. Moreover, it is not as if we have another army in our back pocket to improve the situation. It is quite clear to the American people that what we are doing in Iraq is not working. Something needs to change! Bush is like the guy with a shot engine and broken transmission convinced that if he adds another quart of oil the car will run as good as new. The American public clearly sees the smoke belching from the engine. We see the transmission in pieces on the ground. “Well, he’s pretty clueless,” is what the American people are thinking. When asked by a pollster, we let him know what a buffoon in allegedly leading our country. According to Harris, Bush’s approval ratings are plummeting even further, to 34%.

Yes, of course it is more of “stay the course”. That is all Bush knows how to do. That is his philosophy in a nutshell. Admit no mistakes. The War in Iraq is just another faith-based initiative. Remember, we are getting rid of “evil”. Terrorists in Iraq, and the governments of Iran and North Korea have nefariously joined forces and created an Axis of Evil out to destroy America, turn us into Muslims or Communists (the lines get kind of blurry) and, oh yes, stomp on cute little bunnies too. That is the kind of people these evildoers are. Consequently, when anyone of consequence dares to disagree with him he has to paint them as actively aiding and abetting terrorists. It is amazing that he does not arrest them as enemy combatants. His buffoonery is no longer humorous. Instead, we see him as the small, naked and pathetic shell of a man that he is.

The arguments for war against Iraq get more and more bizarre. We are told that Bill Clinton thought Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction too. Hello! Yes, he thought Saddam was a dangerous man and was concerned that Saddam might have had WMDs. Here is the difference: Clinton was way too smart to wage a preemptive war based on conflicting intelligence. But Bush had his ideology to guide him. He was incapable of looking at the evidence impartially. He trusted his guts, not the evidence. Now he is being called to account. Why? Because in the real world people who make decisions about war based on gut feelings encounter this gaping pothole called reality. It was the reality pothole, not evildoers, which resulted in the senseless death of over 2000 of our soldiers and the resulting insurgency in Iraq.

Subconsciously Congress realizes that they have been taken for suckers. The thought is too terrifying to acknowledge, so for most it has not yet surfaced. They voted their fears and biases rather than doing what they should have done: make an informed decision based on debate and a hard look at the evidence. So most of them find themselves trapped between a rock and a hard place. For now, they feel they have no choice but to continue goose-stepping behind the President, even though the President has already goose-stepped off the cliff. It will be clear in retrospect, when so many of them are tossed out of office in 2006 and 2008 that they should have leveled with their constituents. It is much better to plead a mea culpa on their vote for the Iraq war, then work to solve the situation than to march off the cliff with their foolish leader. For in politics in the end it only matters what the voters think on Election Day.

Those who are now castigating Representative Murtha will, within weeks I suspect, be fervently wishing they too had acknowledged the elephant in the room. Those who do something concrete to change the course of our involvement will likely be rewarded by voters. It could be something like calling for staggered troop withdrawals, or setting deadlines for Iraqi troops to assume full responsibility. Whatever it is, it must acknowledge the elephant. For the U.S.S. United States has already hit the iceberg. The hull has been breached. Water has been surging in for some time. In fact, the stern of the ship is already submerged. Those in Congress who are members of the reality-based community are already in the lifeboats. Those in Congress who want to be reelected have two choices: jump in the lifeboats or try to save the ship. Even if saving the ship is likely to be futile, at least they can say they took some action to change the unwinnable current strategy.

However, standing on the deck cheering on Capt. Bush is political folly.

November 18th, 2005 at 09:50pm Posted by Mark | Politics 2005 | 2 comments

The Gitmo Scapegoats

At Guantanamo Bay in Cuba, we have been housing “detainees”, most of who were captured in Iraq or Afghanistan, for as much as three and a half years. Most were caught in a battle area without a uniform so they were not granted prisoner of war status. Instead, they have been shuffled into a legal limbo for which there appears to be no exit.

Some of these detainees may very well be terrorists. Many claim not to be. However, it does not seem to matter to our government. They have become persona non grata devoid of any rights or privileges, with no right to a trial or even (some allege) a fair hearing. (If it were not bad enough to do this to non-citizens, a court recently affirmed the president’s right to do it to an American citizen during a time of war too.) Since the War on Terrorism promises to last longer than the War on Drugs, these detainees could well spend the rest of their lives in the cells at Gitmo.

Some have reached the breaking point. At least 128 of them are on a hunger strike, and more seem to be joining the ranks every day. Some have been forcibly removed to the infirmary where they are being kept alive through forced feedings. The hunger strike is now on its fifth week. If not for the forced feedings, it is likely that some of these detainees would now be dead.

I do not know how any American, no matter how patriotic, can read these stories and not feel unsettled and deeply disturbed. These detentions may be legal under our bizarrely interpreted rules of engagement, but they are unquestionably inhuman and immoral. The U.N. Declaration of Human Rights, is very clear:

No one shall be subjected to torture or to cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment… Everyone has the right to recognition everywhere as a person before the law… Everyone is entitled in full equality to a fair and public hearing by an independent and impartial tribunal, in the determination of his rights and obligations and of any criminal charge against him.

Those guilty of crimes deserve to be punished. Those innocent deserve to be free. Nevertheless, no one, not even someone we suspect to be our worst enemy, deserves to be held in prison forever with their ultimate fate unknown. Basic human decency tells us this is true, and the United Nations, which speaks for all humanity, calls us to account.

Perhaps I would be more accommodating to our president if I had some indication that these men were truly dangerous and bent on destroying America. Who can say? No one seems to be in any rush to bring forth evidence against these men. And naturally our president is wholly indifferent to their fate. He says he is protecting America. If in the process he spoils a few perfectly good apples, well that’s the breaks. Nevertheless, when you read stories like this, then even the most rabidly patriotic among us must have some doubts.

A masked teenager in an Iraqi army uniform walked slowly through a crowd of 400 detainees captured Monday, studying each face and rendering his verdict with a simple hand gesture, like a Roman emperor deciding the fate of gladiators.

A thumb pointed down meant the suspect was not thought to be an insurgent and would be released by U.S. soldiers. A thumb pointed up meant a man would be removed from the concertina wire-encased pen, handcuffed with tape or plastic ties and taken by truck to a military base to be interrogated.

Feeling the heat, the military has decided that some of the detainees can go back to their country, provided their host countries put them in local prisons. Perhaps this is an improvement. The medical care at Gitmo may be better but friends and relatives may come by the prison to say hello. Now these detainees live thousands of miles from what they know as home, cut off from their culture, in a foreign climate, caged, controlled, ceaselessly monitored and conveniently out of the public eye.

About a fourth of the prisoners at Guantanamo have said, “Enough.” Give them a fair hearing or they will choose death. Others allege brutality by the guards and interrogators. Some claim that prisoners are segregated based on how well they cooperate with interrogators. Those in orange jumpsuits are considered uncooperative and they claim are singled out for discipline tantamount to torture.

However, apparently we cannot even give them the dignity of choosing their own permanent exit from their hellish imprisonment. So that we will not bear the stain of their deaths, we will keep them force fed against their will. In their case, we will not even recognize their human right to have control over their own body. In effect, these detainees have been relegated to a legal status of something less than human.

What a sorry and sick situation. I doubt more than a handful of these people are true terrorists. They may have been part of the Taliban and were fighting what they saw as the illegal occupation of their country. That by itself does not mean they terrorized other people. Perhaps some were even affiliated with al Qaeda, but it is unlikely that any one of them directly helped in the attacks on September 11th.

In effect, the detainees at Guantanamo Bay have become our country’s scapegoats. Unable or unwilling to capture Osama bin Laden, we pick people who may be vaguely associated with him instead. I am reminded of William James’s book, The Moral Philosopher where he envisioned:

Millions kept permanently happy on the one simple condition that a certain lost soul on the far-off edge of things should lead a life of lonely torment, what except a specified and independent sort of emotion can it be which would make us immediately feel, even though an impulse arose within us to clutch at the happiness so offered, how hideous a thing would be its enjoyment when deliberately accepted as the fruit of such a bargain?

That is how the situation at Gitmo feels to me. It preys on my conscience. What we are doing there feels deeply evil and wrong, as evil as anything these people would do to us. I wish we had leaders who felt similarly. However, apparently I must be in the minority. Our president does not care. In fact, he feels great about what he is doing, although the evidence suggests it is just encouraging more terrorists to lash out against us. My two Republican senators and my Republican congressional representative do not seem to care. Moreover, for many Americans, anyone in Gitmo is by inference guilty of hating America anyhow, and we are being oh so humane just by keeping them alive.

What this repugnant situation needs is prompt resolution. Military tribunals strike me as reprehensible, but at least it might amount to some sense of closure for these detainees. Being left for forgotten and perpetually in legal limbo is perhaps the cruelest fate we can inflict on anyone. Better to be dead than to be alive but not to live.

I am afraid it will take a new administration and a new congress to change the situation. I hope that when resolution finally arrives there is something resembling human beings left in the inhabitants of these cells at Gitmo. In addition, I hope that whether they are innocent or guilty, when it is all over these detainees will have the strength to forgive us.

September 13th, 2005 at 09:15pm Posted by Mark | Politics 2005 | one comment

After Iraq, then what?

I have been meaning to write this entry for a while, but vacation got in the way. In addition, I was not quite sure what to write. This is a particularly hard topic for me to think through. After we lose in Iraq, how do we go on and actually win the larger war on terror?

My assumption is that our exit from Iraq will not be particularly pleasant. I do not know how much longer it will be before we formally throw in the towel, but I am convinced that we will throw in the towel. If I had to guess, I would bet we would be mostly out by the end of 2007. The 2006 midterm elections should sober Washington up, assuming it takes that long. As I suggested some months ago we are likely to see a replay of Vietnamization in Iraq. The first three acts have been the same. It remains to be seen if the final act will be a repeat too. At some point, even the polite fiction that we can maintain some sort of rough control in Iraq will be blown either literally or figuratively away. While we can, we might maintain some bases in Iraq to leverage force in particularly lethal battles. However, Iraq is more likely to devolve into a civil war. In this case, since we could not choose sides our forces would be useless. It is very unlikely that brigades of terrorists will launch frontal assaults on Iraqi cities. That is not their modus operandi.

Therefore, although the end is easy to see, exactly how things will play out in the final act remains a guessing game. However only fools or high stake gamblers will bet that we will leave Iraq with a peaceful and democratic government that can maintain control for the long term. There will be a natural tendency to want to bring the all our troops in Iraq home and to make noises, but take little in the way of effective action, against al Qaeda and its agents. This would be a mistake.

I have outlined some pragmatic steps that we should take elsewhere. Many of these I lump for my convenience into a set of “birth control” strategies. It is premised on my belief that like the Cold War, the problem of Islamic extremism is not going to fade away. Consequently, we need effective long-term strategies that lesson the likelihood that new generations of terrorists will arise eager to destroy America. Even the Bush Administration is starting to understand that a genuine and lasting peace between Israel and the Palestinians is the best long-term use of our time and money. By some estimates, we will have squandered more than a trillion dollars before we leave Iraq. Yet we support Israel’s national security at a cost of about ten billion dollars a year. Surely a few billion dollars a year invested in Palestine to build quality housing and schools would be money well spent. This money needs to be tied to meaningful metrics, like the end of terrorism and a gradual withdrawal by Israel from the West Bank.

We also need better understand how the Islamic world thinks and behaves. You can get a sense of how clueless we are from our actions in Iraq. After more than two years, we still do not even really know exactly who the insurgents are that are fighting us and who is funding them. We guess they are mostly ex Ba’athists and al Qaeda sympathizers, but much of the time we are clueless. No wonder we are so ineffective dealing with them. A good place to start understanding Islam is by engaging Muslim America. We treat Islam as something of a curiosity, rather than the full-fledged religion with over a billion adherents that it is. We tend to fear that which we do not understand. As a result, we get radio talk show bozos like Michael Graham who paint the religion of Islam as “a terrorist organization”.

Sorry Michael. Al Qaeda is no more like modern Islam than Eric Rudolph typifies mainstream Christianity. (Although after Pat Robertson’s bizarre remarks today, you have to wonder at least a little if mainstream elements of Christianity are having a case of al Qaeda envy.) Just as Islamic nations needs to understand us better, so we need to be coaxed into learning more about Islam. In America, we seem almost proud of our ignorance of the rest of the world. In any event, it is clear that we cannot effectively deal with a problem that we do not understand both intellectually and with some degree of empathy. We are using 20th century tactics against terrorism and it clearly is not working. Our military force can and should be leveraged, but they should be used selectively. This war is more likely solved more through winning hearts and minds, and through good intelligence, than through conventional weapons and armies. Therefore, rather than recoil at the plan to put Al Jazeera International on our cable system, maybe we should welcome it.

A more Machiavellian strategy might suggest a policy of containment. While I am not advocating it, I will put it out there for what it’s worth. This strategy suggests that unstable Islamic countries should be isolated politically, culturally and economically from the West. It is based on the assumption that Muslims have to work through their own problems and our assistance is counterproductive. If they are going to kill people, the thinking goes, far better for them to kill each other instead of us. If Islam must go through its own dark ages and reformation like Christianity, why not start now? Just stay to the sidelines and let the Muslim nations implode.

On the other hand, I do not advocate its opposite either. While I think engagement is useful, I think part of the reason 9/11 happened is that we either deliberately or inadvertently introduced too much change too fast into the Islamic world. Yes, PCs and satellite dishes are undeniably convenient. However, we did not have to market to these countries. Moreover, we do not have to go around proselytizing democracy. This strategy does not have much success with Jehovah’s Witness adherents, so it probably will not work for us either. If democracy is inherently good, wayward countries will eventually knock on our doors asking for assistance. Jimmy Carter’s low key approach has been very successful.

As for short and medium term strategies, securing nuclear stockpiles is a fairly easy and inexpensive problem to solve. It is also a lot more doable than trying to impose democracy on unstable countries. I do not feel terribly hopeful that we can restrain the development of atomic weapons, although I certainly think we should continue to try. The price of joining the nuclear club is a lot lower than it used to be. Nevertheless, certainly we can stop doing asinine things like providing nuclear equipment to India, as President Bush did recently. (India has never signed the nuclear non-proliferation treaty.)

Clearly, Iraq caused us to lose focus against our real enemy: al Qaeda and those who support it. We can certainly refocus on finding and killing Osama bin Laden. That will not solve the problem of terrorism, but it will send an important signal. I am somewhat puzzled why we found it perfectly okay to invade Afghanistan, but we somehow feel as if we cannot send a single troop across the Pakistani border without permission. We need to be clear that any nation that gives sanctuary to our enemy, either deliberately or inadvertently is subject to attack. I am certainly not recommending that we overthrow the Pakistani government, but we should feel free to attack suspected al Qaeda hideouts in that country without advance notice and with impunity.

There are branches of al Qaeda in Indonesia and elsewhere. We should continue to feel free to help governments there find, capture and kill these people, or to do it ourselves if necessary. Nevertheless, we should be judicious in our use of force. Where possible our strikes should be short and surgical. Our footprints should be minimal. Ideally when these counterstrikes happen we should profess ignorance and disclaim responsibility.

There is also nothing wrong with changing policies even if they may appear to be appeasing terrorists. I have pointed out many times that our support for Israel is counterproductive. It buys us far more enemies than friends. I think Israel can and should be weaned off American aid. I do not see why we need so obnoxiously promote American values either. What is the point of rattling the saber when it just riles up those already inclined to hate us? Why do we have to have the equivalent of giant neon billboards associated with our country? Would more mainstream values like greater support for the United Nations and an agreement to join the International Criminal Court really be that bad for the United States? Some of us remember a time when the United States was the U.N.’s biggest supporter. Of course, we are not going to agree with many member countries. However, the point of the U.N. is to have a forum for countries to air their grievances peacefully, instead of through armed conflict. After more than fifty years, it is still an organization that helps keep the world peaceful. We are better off as friends and supporters of the United Nations than openly hostile to it.

Therefore, I think our war against Islamic extremists needs to be fundamentally rethought. If we bring home the troops from Iraq, we could use the time for a devising new and effective strategies to combat Islamic terrorism. It is very clear that our current course is counterproductive. We need new and pragmatic leadership, not leadership that cannot see beyond their prejudices or will not try new strategies when the old ones fail. President Bush is right in one thing: this is not a war that will end anytime soon. However, in time it can end by embracing effective short, medium and long-term strategies. We should be inviting Islamic scholars like Juan Cole to help draft these policies. To win this war we must avoid knee jerk reactions. Instead, we must think with our forebrains.

August 23rd, 2005 at 09:34pm Posted by Mark | Politics 2005 | one comment

On Terrorism: Don’t Feed the Animals

I do not know why we find it so hard to state the obvious. Nevertheless, I will: our war on terrorism is not working. Our current approach is actually increasing terrorism rather than decreasing it. The horrible but predictable bombings in London yesterday, which left over fifty people dead and more than ten times that many wounded, are more grim evidence that we are failing. We need to rethink our approaches to this war on terrorism.

Even our own administration cannot seem to come to consensus on how well we are doing. When it comes to Iraq, for example, Vice President Dick Cheney insists that the insurgency there is in its last throes. According to Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, the current insurgency might last as much as twelve more years. In addition, as Gary Trudeau pointed out in yesterday’s Doonesbury, Bush seems to believe that our war in Iraq ended two years ago and we are in a mopping up operation.

The London bombings demonstrate that the “flypaper theory” (if we fight terrorism overseas it will not come to visit us) no longer holds much credence. Apparently, terrorists will choose the battlefields they prefer. Since September 11th, terrorist incidents are way up. This hardly demonstrates that we are winning. Our own State Department indicates there were 650 “significant” terrorist incidents last year. In 2003, there were 175. However, the National Counterterrorism Center suggests that the Bush Administration is deflating the numbers. It counts almost 3200 terrorism incidents worldwide during 2004.

Solving the terrorism problem is, as President Bush repeatedly warned us, “hard work“. Few would argue with his assessment, just his methods. Most of our strategies simply are not working. Most nations at war are savvy enough to change their strategies if they are not working. During World War I, for example, German U-Boats sunk Allied ships by the hundreds every year. Our leaders eventually examined the problem and tried different tactics. For example, they tried a convoy system. This made ships harder for the Germans to find in the vast Atlantic Ocean. In addition, since the convoys had armed escort ships, we had an effective means of fighting back. In short, we adapted. As a result, the allies got the supplies they needed to win the war.

However, our current administration cannot admit any mistakes. While I believe that most are naively sincere in their belief that we are winning the war, they demonstrate the follies of myopia, inflexible thinking and ideology. In any war, each side adapts to the perceived strengths and weaknesses of the other. If you do not then you lose, because the other side will. Al Qaeda proved this when it sent our planes into the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. We could not think outside the box. So if we want to win this war then we must adapt too.

Here are my suggestions on how to turn things around and actually win this war.

Step 1: Get the hell out of Iraq. Yes, I know that Bush calls it the “central front” on the war on terrorism. It attracts terrorists (most of whom are actually Iraqi insurgents) because we are there. Our withdrawal is not likely to bring peace to Iraq. On the other hand, our occupation of Iraq is not bringing peace to Iraq either. Moreover, many Iraqis want us out of their country. Eighty two members of Iraq’s legislature want us out immediately. However, our fight there is clearly squandering the lives of our soldiers and costing us a fortune. As I pointed out some entries ago, our house of cards must collapse in time anyhow. It is a slam-dunk. With virtually no chance of a draft and with our army full of people who joined up expecting to serve in peacetime but now serving indefinitely in a war, we are squandering our armed forced. We will not be able to bring in enough new recruits indefinitely. We are literally running our army ragged. So let us get them out of there. Let us consider this a strategic withdrawal. In every war, you win some and you lose some. Meanwhile, our troops need to recharge. Our military equipment needs to be repaired and replaced.

Step 2: Demand that Israel commit to achieving a real and lasting peace with the Palestinians. Much of the anger against the United States is a result of real injustices by Israel against the Palestinians. Tie a meaningful peace agreement to the aid we provide Israel. Cut their aid by one fifth for every year that they delay. That will get their attention. Nevertheless, make sure that Israel understands the bottom line of what it will take to accomplish a real peace in that region. Everyone knows the formula, so insist that they do it. Israel must withdraw to its 1967 borders. The Palestinians keep the rest, but give up their right of return. Jewish settlers on occupied territory have to vacate. Water rights must be equitably shared based on population. In addition, East Jerusalem must eventually be the capital of a Palestinian state. It may be necessary for Jerusalem to be run by an international organization like the United Nations. To tempt the Palestinians, we can make large increases in their aid contingent upon meeting milestones for a real peace too. As Palestinians reach important milestones, we need to make sure they are rewarded lavishly. Non-defense aid should be roughly equal for both Palestine and Israel. Yes, it is a lot of money. But it’s a hell of a lot cheaper than war. And this money will provide real hope to long suffering peoples.

Step 3: Narrow the scope of the war on terrorism. This was perhaps our biggest mistake: biting off more than we were ready to chew. Our war is against those elements of al Qaeda that participated or aided in the events of September 11th and other terrorist events against our country. We are not after every tin horned dictator we do not like, no matter how odious we find them. Clearly, Osama bin Laden remains at large. We should do more than give lip service to his capture. However, we need to understand that capturing bin Laden will not cause al Qaeda to cease to exist. So in addition to doing a much better job of infiltrating this and affiliated organizations, we need to understand what is truly motivating them. This way we can devise strategies to stop the inflow of new recruits.

Step 4: Secure nuclear stockpiles. Incidents like what happened in London yesterday are but a bee sting. While they hurt us, anger us and focus our attention, if terrorists get a hold of nuclear weapons then our misery will be magnified thousands or millions of times. We absolutely cannot let this happen. We need a triage to determine which of these nuclear sites are the most vulnerable. We need to convince these governments to work with us to develop short and long-term ways of securing and centralizing these facilities. Where possible we should commit our own troops to guard these facilities until they are less vulnerable.

Step 5: Real homeland security. This means securing our vulnerable ports and doing a much better job of airline security. This includes inspecting all air cargo. However, it also means tracking and controlling ingredients inside this country that are used to make weapons of mass destruction. Ordinary fertilizer proved deadly in the Oklahoma City bombing.

Step 6: Prepare to fight different kinds of wars. In reality, much of our weaponry is almost obsolete. I’m not saying we need to get rid of our aircraft, cruise missiles and armaments, it’s just that we are less likely to fight wars against other countries. In this new war, intelligence is crucial. We need better technology that will help us collect and synthesize intelligence so that is more useful. Of course, we also need spies inside these organizations. Yes, it takes time, so we had best get started.

Step 7: Become mainstream. We need to reexamine our national policies, many of which (like global warming) are way outside the international mainstream. Where we are outside of international norms, let us consider moving into the mainstream. Our unqualified support for Israel is one example. In general the less offensive we are to the world the less attention we attract. Being a boring country may do more to give us real national security than anything else may. We should strive for neutrality. If we have issues with a particular country, we can often be much more effective through low-key diplomatic efforts than bombastic statements from our leaders.

Step 8: Energy independence. While it may seem utopian, many of our problems are a direct result of our addiction to foreign oil. The evidence is clear that oil will become increasingly scarce in the years ahead. We need a Manhattan plan to develop alternative and environmentally sensitive technologies for a post-oil age. For a start, we could increase CAFE standards and set requirements for the percentage new cars that must use hybrid technologies.

These are some of my suggestions. Of course, I do not have any silver bullets. Nevertheless, I suspect my ideas would likely do something to change the underlying and increasingly dangerous dynamics of this war. Now we are just throwing gasoline on the fire. No wonder sparks hit us in places like London from time to time.

As the signs say at the zoo: Don’t Feed the Animals.

July 8th, 2005 at 02:36pm Posted by Mark | Politics 2005 | no comments