Headlines: 31 July 2008

• Sexuality bias seen at Justice Department: Margaret Chiara, the U.S. Attorney in Grand Rapids, MI, was fired because of rumors that she was a lesbian.
• A Shiite Militia in Baghdad Sees Its Power Wane*: The Mahdi Army, led by Moqtada al-Sadr, has lost significant influence as PM Nouri al-Maliki asserts his legitimacy.
• The Kirkuk Impasse: Recent attacks in Kirkuk have exposed an underlying tension between the Kurds, Turks, and Arabs.
• Olmert to Quit After Elections in September*: The Israeli PM is resigning over corruption charges, but where does this leave negotiations with the Palestinians and Syria?
• China Angered by Lobbying on Rights*: China doesn't like the U.S. House of Representatives passing a resolution urging them to uphold their pledge to improve human rights before the Olympics. Maybe they should have thought about that before they broke it.
• Judge Rules White House Aides Can Be Subpoenaed*: Shocking.
• Sleazy Campaign Tactic of the Day: The head of the Virginia RNC is worried you might register to vote.
• The Recession Election: The pendulum swings left?

*Note: The New York Times may be changing their website, and you may have to register/login to see these articles.

War and or Peace?

"No nation could preserve its freedom in the midst of continual warfare."

~James Madison

A lot of people lately have been arguing that the United States is not (and should not be) engaged in a 'war on terror' and that the phrase itself is counterproductive. Three arguments for ditching the 'war on terror' mindset:

1. The Semantic Argument: Clinton sent troops to the Balkans, H.W. Bush to Panama, Reagan to Grenada, yet these engagements were never really considered to be wars by the public. Why? Because unlike World War II, the general public wasn't asked to make sacrifices, there was no draft, and the casus belli was not a grave, existential threat. (The threats of communism and terrorism have largely been overblown. Al-Qaeda and other likeminded terrorists "are fighting modernity itself." They will continue to be a small group, and they will never attain their goal of a re-established caliphate.)
2. The Constitutional Argument: Everything changes in a period of active war. Murder becomes legal. The executive is allowed to assume expansive powers. But because the threat of terrorism can never be completely eliminated, a war on terror would never end, and the powers the president assumes would be permanent.
3. The Pragmatic Argument: Restraint is a valuable asset in counterterrorism. Overreaction has largely fueled terrorist movements. Terrorism has been reduced almost everywhere, but two noticeable exceptions are Iraq and Afghanistan.

Yes, we should fight terrorists. But it is just that, a fight, not a war. The 'war on terror' is counterproductive.

Headlines: 24 July 2008

• Guns ruling spawns legal challenges by felons: What? You don't like that you lost your right to bear arms after being convicted of a felony? What about losing your right to vote? You don't care? Hmm, lemme think...NO.
• Is Afghanistan a Narco-State?: POPPIES! The Taliban has been using the opium/heroin trade to finance their insurgency, but President Hamid Karzai has avoided eradicating poppies in the south for his own short-term political gains.
• Turkey makes 'coup plot' arrests: Worrying.
• Congress Revisits Military's Policy on Gays: 75% of Americans think gays should be able to serve openly in the military.
• How Sudan Was Brought to Court: Sudanese leaders are being charged with genocide after three years of diplomatic filibustering.
• Iraqi teams banned from Beijing Olympic games for accusations of political interference.
• Poll: Latinos favor Obama by big margin: "'Hispanics seem to have seamlessly shifted from Clinton to Obama,' said Susan Minushkin."

The McCain Roller Coaster

You must be at least 54" tall to ride the Straight Talk Express.

The McCain campaign has been going through some ups and downs lately, while Barack Obama is flying high on his world trip.

Last Friday, McCain submitted an op-ed about Iraq to the New York Times after Obama's was published four days before. On Monday, the Drudge Report, erm, reported that the Times asked McCain to rewrite it, as it largely criticized Obama's plan and presented no strategic vision of his own. Once this story broke, conservatives were immediately up in arms about media bias.

Two things: (1) There isn't really any bias here: The Times will gladly publish what McCain has to say, as soon as he has something substantive to say. True, Obama's op-ed criticized Bush and McCain, but it largely laid out (and made the case for) his own plan. McCain's simply tore Obama down. (2) Why didn't the Times simply avoid conservatives' grumbling about media bias, publish the editorial in the first place, and watch as others criticized McCain's criticism and lack of a coherent strategy?

The Times may have caused conservatives to rally around McCain, but now, with Obama largely succeeding abroad, Maliki supporting Obama's 16-month withdrawal timetable, and Bush negotiating with the Iranians, McCain seems to have lost his foreign-policy cred...and his temper. His comment that "Senator Obama would rather lose a war in order to win a political campaign," is a sign of unpresidential frustration.

But McCain's foreign policy ideas have largely been ridiculous from the start: Permanent bases in Iraq? Militancy with Iran? Removing Russia from the G-8 (which is impossible, considering that the other member nations would have to agree) and establishing a "League of Democracies" that would only ostracize the Russians and freeze Russo-American relations to nearly Cold War levels?

In short: "He has appeared brittle and inflexible, slow to adapt to changes on the ground, slow to grasp the full implications not only of the improving situation in Iraq but also of the worsening situation in Afghanistan and especially Pakistan."

And that's why for all of his experience, John McCain's foreign-policy views are worse than Barack Obama's.

Obama's World Tour

A multimedia review of Obama's jet-setting! An itinerary with some help from the Google:

View Larger Map

And Jon Stewart, like usual, gets it right:

Headlines: 21 July 2008

• Bomb blasts hit Spanish resorts: ETA detonates five bombs in northern Spain. No deaths.
• 2 Die in Blasts on Chinese Buses: As China tightens security before the Olympics, public protests pick up, and China may be using the threat of the Eastern Turkistan Islamic Movement (ETIM) to crack down in the west.
• Zimbabwe Rivals Sign Agreement: Talks between Robert Mugabe and Morgan Tsvangirai begin. Can they reach a power-sharing arrangement?
• Another Species in Danger: The wolverine should be added to the Endangered Species List.

The Fairest of Them All

Der Spiegel, Der Spiegel, auf der Wand, wer ist von ihnen alle das angemessenste?

In a Saturday interview with the German news outlet Der Spiegel, Iraqi PM Nouri al-Maliki said that "US presidential candidate Barack Obama talks about 16 months. That, we think, would be the right timeframe for a withdrawal, with the possibility of slight changes." And although "this is by no means an election endorsement," "[t]hose who operate on the premise of short time periods in Iraq today are being more realistic. Artificially prolonging the tenure of US troops in Iraq would cause problems."

How does the Bush administration respond? The day before Maliki's comments, Bush had spoken for the first time of a "general time horizon" for withdrawal. The day of Maliki's comments, someone within the White House accidentally emails the Spiegel article to the press corps mailing list. The day after Maliki's comments, the U.S. Embassy in Iraq contacts Maliki's office and Iraqi government spokesman Ali al-Dabbagh comes out and says that someone had mistranslated Maliki's remarks. Even though the translator worked for Maliki, not Der Spiegel. And even though that's what Maliki said.

Bomb Iran: Israeli Remix

"ISRAEL will almost surely attack Iran’s nuclear sites in the next four to seven months — and the leaders in Washington and even Tehran should hope that the attack will be successful enough to cause at least a significant delay in the Iranian production schedule, if not complete destruction, of that country’s nuclear program. Because if the attack fails, the Middle East will almost certainly face a nuclear war — either through a subsequent pre-emptive Israeli nuclear strike or a nuclear exchange shortly after Iran gets the bomb." ~Benny Morris

The insanity over Iran continues. The argument over war makes at least two leaps of logic that Joe Klein brilliantly points out here: (1) that Iran would use a nuke against Israel immediately after acquiring one and (2) that diplomacy will not work. Their basic underlying assumption is that the leaders of Iran are batshit insane. True, President Ahmadenijad may say some crazy things, but the real power lies with Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei. So let's assume that he's somewhat rational:

(1) Iran has several good reasons not to nuke Israel. Fallout from a detonation within Israel would likely contaminate parts of surrounding Muslim nations--Lebanon, Syria, Jordan, the Palestinian territories--and millions of fellow Muslims would be affected. A nuclear strike would destroy or contaminate the al-Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem, the third-holiest Islamic site.

(2) Diplomacy and economic sanctions do have an effect against Iran according to the National Intelligence Estimate released last November.

War with Iran, conducted either by Israel or by the U.S., is not the answer. Innocent Iranians would die in an attack; one of the enrichment sites is in the middle of a city of more than one million. A pre-emptive strike would inflame Iranian public opinion against the striker, and bolster Iran's hardline regime. There's no way either nation could be sure that they've destroyed all of Iran's uranium-enrichment sites. Iran will accelerate their nuclear program, and would now have a good reason to use a nuclear weapon when they get one.

Headlines: 15 July 2008

• Army Secretary Asks for Probe of Firing: Gina Grey was fired from her posts as public affairs director of Arlington National Cemetery after she opposed imposing new restrictions on the media's coverage of funerals, even when the families had consented.
• A war that nobody wants but everybody needs: "[War with Iran] may become inevitable due to the fear of peace. After eight years of Bush-Cheney, such is the state of our world." Three lame ducks want one last quack. Apparently they think it won't echo.
• Nozzle Rage!
  

Obama Understands Iraq

In an op-ed in yesterday's New York Times, Obama lays out his opinions on and his plans for Iraq, and he gets it exactly right. Some excerpts:

Only by redeploying our troops can we press the Iraqis to reach comprehensive political accommodation and achieve a successful transition to Iraqis’ taking responsibility for the security and stability of their country. Instead of seizing the moment and encouraging Iraqis to step up, the Bush administration and Senator McCain are refusing to embrace this transition — despite their previous commitments to respect the will of Iraq’s sovereign government. They call any timetable for the removal of American troops “surrender,” even though we would be turning Iraq over to a sovereign Iraqi government.

But this is not a strategy for success — it is a strategy for staying that runs contrary to the will of the Iraqi people, the American people and the security interests of the United States....

We can safely redeploy our combat brigades at a pace that would remove them in 16 months...After this redeployment, a residual force in Iraq would perform limited missions: going after any remnants of Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia, protecting American service members and, so long as the Iraqis make political progress, training Iraqi security forces. That would not be a precipitous withdrawal....

As president, I would pursue a new strategy, and begin by providing at least two additional combat brigades to support our effort in Afghanistan. We need more troops, more helicopters, better intelligence-gathering and more nonmilitary assistance to accomplish the mission there. I would not hold our military, our resources and our foreign policy hostage to a misguided desire to maintain permanent bases in Iraq.

He also credits the surge with reducing violence; conservatives have been attacking him for not doing so.

Joe Klein, of Time magazine, has one complaint: "[Obama is] clinging to his 16 month [sic] timetable." I don't interpret it that way. In the editorial, Obama writes that "[i]n carrying out this strategy, we would inevitably need to make tactical adjustments. As I have often said, I would consult with commanders on the ground and the Iraqi government to ensure that our troops were redeployed safely, and our interests protected." To me, that sounds like he hopes he can withdraw the troops in 16 months, but that could change as events unfold.

Personally, I continue to be amazed that for all of McCain's foreign policy experience, Obama seems to understand the outside world much better.

Bajoobahead #3: Kathleen Parker

Apparently Kathleen Parker has a problem with Barack Obama. In a particularly incoherent editorial entitled "El panderosa," (Shouldn't it really be el panderoso?) she criticizes Barack Obama's so-called pandering to the Hispanic community. Except her claims are completely illegitimate and the editorial flails wildly, trying to get any claim to stick to Obama.

She starts by accusing both Obama and McCain of pandering, but are there any specific complaints levied against McCain? Of course not. Next, Obama tells individuals' stories in his speeches, while McCain's are filled with substantive policy points (read: abburidos). THOSE ARE THEIR RESPECTIVE RHETORICAL STYLES. That doesn't mean Obama doesn't have policies to deal with the problems. And because "[p]oetry is in the DNA of this romantic, passionate people," his rhetoric is an obvious pander.

Ms. Parker then seizes on this quote by Obama:

Instead of worrying about whether immigrants can learn English, they'll learn English, you need to make sure your child can speak Spanish.

She concedes that Americans would benefit from learning a foreign language, but then attacks Obama for not encouraging immigrants to learn English. She misses his point completely; he didn't say that immigrants shouldn't try to assimilate into American society, or even that they shouldn't learn English. His intent is to dispel the stereotype of the lazy, uneducated immigrant, when most immigrants work hard to learn English and improve their lives.

Ms. Parker, before you writes your next editorial, I recommend that you (and anyone else) consider this: Is a statement really a pander if it's something they truly believe?

Don't Talk to the Police

This popped up on Google Videos last night and I thought it was quite interesting.  This is a lecture given by a former criminal defense attorney who is now a law professor and a former police officer who is now finishing his third year of law school.  

Basically, they both explain how based upon the 5th Amendment, it is never in your benefit to talk to the police without immunity.  In the former police officer's segment of the lecture, he describes cases in which talking to the police have led to people incriminating themselves as well as different interview (interrogation) techniques he uses (they are tricky).  Watch the videos but beware, Prof. James Duane talks like he's trying to set a record.

Part One with Professor James Duane

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Part Two with Officer George Bruch