Andrew Hagen

The web does a lot of things well. One thing that it does very well is provide an outlet for writers, including writers who could never have been published before. Tom Bradley delivers the goods, even in speech form, in “No Baudelaires in Babylon.” (*) Mirror (†)

Atrios of Eschaton, a web log, writes that Christopher Hitchens’s head is “exploding” now that Henry Kissinger, his nemesis, is working for President Bush on the 9/11 investigative commission. (*) Yet, is this not the same Henry Kissinger that the establishment Left, and Atrios, incidentally, so shamelessly embraced a few scant weeks ago when Kissinger had public words of caution to Bush on Iraq policy? (†)

The question is Henry Kissinger’s credibility. If he were credible, the fact that he spoke up against some aspect of Bush’s Iraq policy a few months ago would be worthwhile taking note of. If Kissinger is credible, furthermore, the case against him as chairman of the 9/11 commission would be deeply undercut. On the other hand, if he is not credible, then his words of caution on Iraq carry no special significance simply for being spoken by the Henry A. Kissinger.

Leftists, like everyone else, must choose one position or another. While it is conceivable that Kissinger is right sometimes and not others, the point is that the Left cannot treat Kissinger as credible one day but not the next. He is either credible or not. Otherwise, an explanation is in order. Notably, no explanation is forthcoming.

Again the establishment Left has dived into inconstancy and capriciousness. It supports Kissinger and cites him when it suits their interests, but when it is not any longer convenient, the establishment Left uses the same man to bash their perceived enemies. It is all of a piece.

According to the analysis of Atrios and the establishment Left, Christopher Hitchens is now on the right-wing. They say he switched. Yet, Hitchens’s Slate article shows that he is able to maintain a critical posture against the Bush Administration even as he gives voice to his genuinely progressive conscience on the pressing issue of Iraq policy. (‡)

Hitchens is part of the independent Left. So are many of us. We independents are slowly taking back the Left, and there is nothing that the establishment Left can do about it anymore. The days of the establishment Left’s political correctness run amok, its unending support for Soviet agents like Hiss and the Rosenbergs, its whitewash of Stalin’s crimes (in particular, the disgraceful argument that Hitler was worse than Stalin), and its unending capriciousness are all soon coming to a close. The establishment Left is fading.

The Left is not a monolith. A person like Hitchens is perfectly consistent in supporting some key aspects of Bush’s Iraq policy while criticizing Bush severely on other issues. That is not inconsistency; it is complexity. It is important that we on the Left rededicate ourselves to our core values, and eschew arguments on the basis of convenience.

Adapted from a comment made on Eschaton. (§)

Update: 9 December 2003. Jay Reding comments. (**)

George W. Bush has made one of the worst political mistakes of his life in naming Henry Kissinger as chairman of the national commission to investigate the government failures that preceded and failed to prevent the 9/11 attacks. The announcement was made Wednesday. (*) Earlier, it looked like a commission to investigate 9/11 would not be created, due to excessive partisanship. (†) Fortunately, Congress finally authorized an investigation. It did so in Title VI of the recent intelligence budget authorization bill, HR 4628. Regardless of its formal name, there can be little doubt that it will usually be referred to as the “Kissinger Commission.”

Even as Dr. Kissinger, Nobel Peace Prize winner, continues to evade the war crimes tribunal that wants him as a witness, and as possibly a suspect in the investigation of thousands of murders and crimes against humanity perpetrated against the people of Chile in the 1970s at the behest of the US government, when he was President Nixon’s personal vassal, now he is named to serve on the commission that will investigate the worst crime against humanity committed in the 21st century.

The purpose of the commission is to answer why the federal government failed to protect its citizens from the attacks of 9/11. In particular, the commission will produce a report bolstered by evidence that ought to be decisive against those who hold conspiracy theories about the 9/11 attacks. Who believes in those conpsiracy theories? Predominantly, and unfortunately, it is the Left.

Kissinger’s long record of lying to the public and covering up secrets does not bode well for the commission’s credibility. He has made a career of dissembling about the US’s unfortunate role in propping up dictatorial client regimes around the world, from that of Chile’s Pinochet to that of Indonesia’s Suharto. Kissinger starts his work with no credibility with the Left, even when it is certain parts of the Left that the commission most needs to persuade.

I have never flirted with the notion that 9/11 was anything but an unexpected attack by foreign terrorists. With the appointment of Kissinger, the case of the conspiracy theorists is strengthened. Even though it does not provide any positive evidence of any conspiracy, Kissinger’s appointment makes Bush look calculating, cynical, and Machiavellian. It makes people suspicious of him, particularly with regard to Bush’s potential negligence in the months preceding the attacks.

The work has not yet begun. It is entirely within the realm of possibility that the Kissinger Commission will produce a report of outstanding value. There is no doubt in my mind, however, that regardless of the quality of the work, the fact that the commission’s chairman will be Henry Kissinger will irremediably taint it with suspicion. If the commission finds that Bush and his administration did all they could to prevent 9/11, that conclusion will be questioned on the basis that Kissinger, the chairman, is biased and untrustworthy. If the commission finds that Bush or his administration failed in some germane way, that, too, will be questioned perhaps as trying to provide cover for some even worse failure.

My own pet theory is that Bush knows of Kissinger’s bad name among the left-wing, and he just wanted to rub the Left’s face in the fact of the conservative victory at the polls this election cycle. Indeed, there is nothing that progressives can do now to stop Kissinger from taking the helm.

This is a terribly rash decision by President Bush that he will eventually regret. With the formation of this commission, Bush had a chance to put all the ceaseless, vile rumors to rest. Instead, he chooses to put Henry Kissinger in charge of the thing, just to show how powerful he is. Instead of being able to rely on an independent commission to investigate all the evidence fairly, now we as alert, patriotic citizens must have a high degree of concern that we are being lied to. With the appointment of Kissinger, we must now not decrease, but increase the level of scrutiny that we put on Bush and his administration.

Christopher Hitchens vents spleen upon Henry Kissinger in Slate. (‡) Hitchens notes that Kissinger is currently being sued for the murder of Rene Schneider of Chile. Another particularly important charge against him is that under his business concern Kissinger Associates, Henry Kissinger may have ongoing, secret business dealings with Gulf oil oligarchies. Can there be any doubt that Kissinger is a business partner with the Saudis? This is the man that is supposed to investigate 9/11? Kissinger’s conflicts of interest gape like an open maw.

The New York Times finds that Kissinger’s supposed biggest strength—being an insider—is in fact his biggest drawback. The Times editorializes that it is

tempting to wonder if the choice of Mr. Kissinger is not a clever maneuver by the White House to contain an investigation it long opposed.

It seems improbable to expect Mr. Kissinger to report unflinchingly on the conduct of the government, including that of Mr. Bush. He would have to challenge the established order and risk sundering old friendships and business relationships.

(§) While the Times may delve too deeply into the probability of expectations, it makes the important point that even if all the evidence of Kissinger’s crimes is rejected, with his insider relationships, Kissinger is the right man for the wrong job.

David Corn surprises me with a useful article in the post-Hitchens Nation. “Asking Henry Kissinger to investigate government malfeasance or nonfeasance is akin to asking Slobodan Milosevic to investigate war crimes.” (**) Corn goes on from there to make a strong, detailed case about why Kissinger cannot be trusted, especially in this role.

Finally, the Guardian sums it all up. (††)

There has been a long-standing need for an independent commission to investigate what the government did wrong when it failed to prevent the 9/11 attacks. With the creation of the Kissinger Commission, there is still a need for such an independent commission.

Tom Daschle made a statement two weeks ago that said much about his failure to grasp the War on Terrorism, and yet drew hysterical reactions from the media and even the White House. Daschle was speaking out while homeland security legislation was under discussion, and just after the audiotape that was purported to have the voice of Osama Bin Laden.

I’m troubled that we haven’t found bin Laden in all this time. Frankly, I think that it really caused many of us to be concerned about whether or not we are winning the war on terror.’

(*) At the time, government experts had found the tape to be genuine, despite the voice having a different timbre compared to the voice in previous Bin Laden tapes. Now, the Dalle Molle Institute of Perceptual Artificial Intelligence of Switzerland has announced that they believe the new tape is a fake. (†) If it is a fake, there is no evidence that Bin Laden still lives. This revelation is no surprise to the readers of Jay Reding, who has convincingly argued that Bin Laden is indeed dead. (‡) (§) Jay has one of the sharpest web logs out there, both presentationally and intellectually. (**) I read it regularly.

With the new report, the audiotape’s authenticity is indeed questionable at best. This significantly undermines Daschle’s argument that the US is losing the war. Even if Bin Laden were alive, however, Daschle would have a poor argument. Osama Bin Laden being alive would not mean the US is losing the war on terrorism. Hitler was alive up until the last days of World War II, for example. Bin Laden is the biggest target in the war, but not the only one.

Tom Daschle’s statement that the US might not be winning the War on Terrorism was not well-founded on evidence. It was not, however, an unpatriotic or even uncommon sentiment. In an ABC News poll last October 7, only 47% of Americans said the US is winning the war. (††)

The Bush Administration’s response to Tom Daschle’s statement was anything but measured, however. It may even have qualified as Machiavellian. President Bush’s initial statement after the tape surfaced was very reasonable. As USA Today reported:

Bush himself told reporters, “We’ll take the warning very seriously,” even before knowing for sure whether bin Laden made the tape.

He said the tape proved that “there is an active enemy that continues to hate, that is willing to use murder as a way to achieve their goals.”

(‡‡) This is exactly the right approach. The tape shows that someone out there, Bin Laden or someone else, wants to commit terrorist acts just as Osama Bin Laden has done. The tape must be taken seriously as a threat, regardless of its authenticity. It is not good evidence on the overall success of the war, however.

President Bush’s reasonableness was not matched by others in his administration, at least not after Tom Daschle made his statement. A day after Daschle’s statement, Bush Administration officials and right-wing media outlets flooded the airwaves with new warnings about terrorist attacks. Was it merely a coincidence that these new warnings occurred in the wake of Daschle’s dissent? Newsday reported this bit of intrigue:

Intelligence and law enforcement officials in the United States and Europe are bracing for major al-Qaida terrorist attacks between now and the new year, authorities said Friday.

“Our message is be afraid, be very afraid,” said a normally dispassionate senior Bush administration official who reviewed recent CIA terrorism warnings. “There is very good reason to be alert now.”

That assessment follows the stark language in a bulletin posted by the FBI on its Web site Friday that warns that al-Qaida terrorists may be planning “spectacular attacks” in the United States aimed at mass casualties and economic disruption.

And it highlights the growing concerns expressed in recent weeks by political, intelligence and law enforcement figures in Europe, most notably in Britain, France and Germany, all key U.S. allies.

(§§) (emphasis added) “Be afraid. Be very afraid.” Nevertheless, the Homeland Security Threat Level did not change from the middle, yellow level: “elevated.” (***) (†††) Yes, recently, terrorists did attack Israelis in Kenya. (‡‡‡) New terrorist strikes could hit the USA at any time, too, but the fact remains that the Threat Level has not been raised.

If these warnings were genuine, the Threat Level should have been raised. Without raising the Threat Level, it’s not worthwhile taking the new warnings seriously. I have yet to hear a good argument that the Threat Level should not have raised, but the warnings were still genuine. This discrepancy cannot merely be a case of the FBI and CIA engaging in a CYA effort, as the New York Times editorialized about. (§§§) If it were purely CYA, the warnings would have been issued after the new tape surfaced and before Daschle spoke.

The sudden, new torrent of warnings appeared, curiously enough, right after Daschle’s statement. The warnings provide a small impetus to Daschle’s argument. If there is still a need to warn, that means we have not yet achieved absolute victory. The actual impact of the warnings was, however, to deter continued high-level questions of the record of the Bush Administration in conducting the War on Terrorism.

We don’t have all the answers yet. There is good reason to suspect, however, that the Bush Administration was engaging in pure Machiavellian politics when it unnecessarily frightened the American public with fresh warnings without actually raising the official Threat Level. One thing is beyond doubt. Today, Daschle and other high-profile Democratic leaders are not publicly questioning the success of the War on Terrorism.

In simultaneous attacks, terrorists set off a car bomb in a hotel lobby in Kenya, murdering at least 7 civilians and injuring many more, and fired two surface to air missiles at an Israeli passenger jet. (*) The missiles both streaked past the plane and missed. It appears to have been a lucky break. The passengers suffered no casualties and the jet landed safely in Israel under fighter escort. The car bomb attack hit the Paradise Hotel in Kikambala, near Mombasa. The missile attack took place as the plane took off from Moi International Airport (MBA) in Mombasa. (†) CNN has reported that the missiles were SA-7 Strelas. They are relatively widely available in the arms market. Jerusalem Post has further coverage of the horror. (‡)

Additionally, a small plane is reported to have dropped three packages on the same hotel, which appeared to be bombs. There are no reports of injuries stemming from this particular thrust. (§)

I believe that these terrorist crimes were perpetrated by Al Qaeda. The coordinated nature of the attacks is the best indication of that. It would be the first time that Al Qaeda has attacked Israeli targets directly, though it is no surprise that they have done so. Like their other attacks, it is nothing more than savage barbarity. Al Qaeda must be hunted down and killed without mercy.

Paul Hirst has an engaging review of Philip Bobbitt’s recent book, Shield of Achilles. (*) The strength of the book is its combining of the author’s critical views on history, law, and strategy. Bobbitt’s argument is a sharp rebuke to the liberal internationalist presumption that war is preventable. If his argument is sound, the nation-state system is due for systemic change for the first time in centuries.

Perhaps we are cursed to live in interesting times, but Bobbitt’s book promises to be a sure guide to the construction of a secure and just future.

Political philosopher John Rawls died Sunday at the age of 81. (*) Rawls reworked such Enlightenment, liberal values and concepts as liberty, equality, natural rights, and the social contract. He is best known for his argument of the original position: that should the citizens of society have choice in what privileges that the various racial, sexual, and other categories hold, without knowing beforehand what categories they themselves fit into, they would choose equality at the expense of privilege. His contributions will be felt into the future. Thomas Nagel recently assessed Rawls’s works (†), as did Peter Berkowitz. (‡) Further resources are also available. (§)

Some news sources have erroneously reported that Rawls was 82 years old when he died. One of these sources is Le Monde, even though that same paper says he was born in 1921. (**) It’s safe to say he was 81.

John Rawls, 21 February 1921–24 November 2002. RIP.

Last updated: 27 November 2002.

Under the pseudonym “Juan Non-Volokh,” an unknown writer bravely charges out against the fashionable, Orwellian term, “homicide bomber.” (*) This anonymous person has a good point in not only that the term, popularized by Press Secretary Ari Fleischer (†), is intrinsically redundant, but also that “the only purpose of inserting the word ‘homicide’ is to make a political statement. Unfortunately, it comes at the expense of the English language.” There have been other forceful criticisms of this egregious Newspeak in Squiish (‡), and from Tapped (§) and Japan Times. (**) Let’s systematically take the term apart.

• The term bomber refers equally to any soldier in a regular military unit whose task is to bomb the enemy, and to any terrorist bomber. When a bomber bombs, he is trying to kill someone. A bomber who succeeds in his mission has killed at least one person.
• The term suicide refers to an act that is inherently shameful under Judaism, Christianity, and Islam.
• The term suicide bomber refers to terrorist bombers who kill themselves in the process of killing others with a bomb. It could also refer to kamikazes in regular military units, such as Japan’s kamikaze airmen in World War II. Usually, however, the term suicide bomber refers to terrorists, fighters who for political purposes primarily target civilians and are themselves not in regular military units.
• The term homicide refers to the killing of another, whether murder or self-defense. A suicide cannot be a homicide, because the suicide in itself does not result in the killing of another.
• The term homicide bomber, analogously to the term homicide, refers to the killer of another, whether he is acting in self-defense or aggression. It refers to anyone who uses a bomb to try to kill other people. Examples include a B-52 bombardier, Timothy McVeigh, the Unabomber, and the Bali bombers.
• Therefore, the term homicide bomber when applied to a suicide bomber, leaves out the important information that the bomber shamefully committed suicide in the act of trying to kill others.

As the critics have noted, this is a purposeful omission that is meant to advance a certain political agenda.

In fact, it does not advance that political agenda very well. As Joseph Lelyveld observes in the New York Times of 28 October 2001, the Arab media is wont to use not suicide bomber, but martyr.

In Gaza, a poll taken in June that Palestinian and Israeli analysts both respect found that 78 percent of the population approved of the attacks carried out in their name in Israel or on its frontiers — more by a long shot than presently approve of peace negotiations. In Gaza, in other words, support for bombings staged in support of the Palestinian cause has become a cultural norm.

Only, since it’s universally accepted that suicide is contrary to the teachings of the Prophet, they are hardly ever called ‘’suicide bombings.'’ That term — our term — can be translated into Arabic but seldom is. Those we call suicide bombers are called shaheed, or martyrs, which is how bin Laden has urged the entire Muslim world to view 19 hijackers who extinguished more lives in an hour and a half on a golden American morning than all those killed over the years, on both sides, in two intifadas and nearly five dozen suicide bombings launched by Palestinian groups — three times more, in fact.

(††) Surely Ari Fleischer must know this. The conclusion must be drawn that Ari Fleischer believes that those who usually hear the term suicide bomber—that is, those in the West—are not sufficiently opposed to suicide bombings, and that deception through Orwellian language is necessary to trick them into firmer opposition. It is upon this point that Fleischer’s reasoning founders.

We should condemn suicide bombings in the strongest possible terms. To rely on deceptive language such as with the term homicide bomber, only weakens our condemnation. The strongest condemnation is to hang the terrorists on the hook of their own making: their double shame of suicide and murder. If anyone’s rhetoric is in need of correction by Ari Fleischer, it is that of the Arab media as it shamefully portrays suicide bombers as heroes for the sake of boosting their own ratings and profits.

Update: 29 November 2003. Fixed Volokh URL.

Frank Rich delivers a cogent, highly critical column in today’s New York Times about Al Gore, freshly returned from self-imposed hiatus. (*) Rich notes the cynicism of Gore’s new support for universal health care: the details of Gore’s plan will come later. He also takes Gore to task for criticizing the Administration’s Iraq policy but endorsing the UN Security Council resolution. What should Bush do now that the resolution has passed? Gore does not know.

In fact, as Gore said in his Iraq speech in September, he favors building an international coalition before removing Saddam Hussein from power, because the cooperation of other nations will then be better secured in the wider War on Terrorism. (†) Around this pivots the debate. Gore says that the US should not intervene in Iraq with relatively few allies. The flaw here is that it presumes that Al Qaeda is a threat more pressing than Iraq, when the reverse is true. While Al Qaeda has attacked with frequency US interests and even the homeland itself, Al Qaeda is far from acquiring a nuclear weapon. Through various means and connivances Iraq, however, will soon have such a weapon within its reach. Thus, while Iraq is less likely to attack the US, any attack from Iraq entails more risk, particularly because of Iraq’s current store of chemical and biological agents. A threat from Iraq has a low likelihood of occurring but presents a very high level of danger. It is upon this matter of risk analysis that Gore’s argument proves itself inadequate.

Rich focuses the Democratic Party’s attention on its failure to develop a coherent foreign policy. Until the Democrats have something serious and relevant to say on national security and related matters, there is no reason for voters to trust the Democratic Party, no matter what its domestic policies are. It’s nice to see that Rich has read Heather Hurlburt’s excellent Washington Monthly article (‡) that, incidentally, I cited to it in an earlier post. (§) Hurlburt should be at the top of all progressives’ reading lists.

Glenn Reynolds and other right-wingers were quite peeved after it turned out that the sniper, or, neither of them, was not a white male. He charged the supposedly biased media with inventing the myth of the angry white male shooter. (*) (†) This was criticism without merit. Reynolds forgot all about Benjamin Nathaniel Smith, white male, who, in 1999, went on a multi-day shooting spree against minorities and Jews in Illinois and Indiana, leaving three dead and many others wounded. (‡) As CNN reported, “A specific motive for Smith’s three-day shooting spree has not been determined, but the 21-year-old had well-known racist views.” (§) (**) On the basis of this incident, it was natural to think that the recent snipings in the Washington, DC area were carried out by a racist white male with a gun. That had been the case of Benjamin Nathaniel Smith.

Reynolds and other conservatives should issue corrections. I frankly doubt they will, however.

Last updated: 12 February 2003. Phrasing.

Now that the Republicans are taking over the Senate, let’s review the oft-repeated Republican charge that the Senate Judiciary Committee was blocking President Bush’s nominations to the federal bench. For example, writing in the Wall Street Journal this October last, John Fund repeated the gross misrepresentation that “[I]t’s on judges that the monkey-wrench [sic] Senate attitude is most obvious. Nearly 40 of President Bush’s nominees to the bench haven’t gotten a hearing, including several who were nominated 17 months ago.” (*) The numbers have changed somewhat in the intervening month, but Fund is still guilty of fuzzy statistics. Fortunately for the truth, the Committee has been maintaining a web page with the actual statistics on the number of judicial nominations acted on. There’s no telling whether that page will continue to exist in the new regime, though the new Chairman, Senator Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania, is definitely a fair-minded man. Today, the page lists the following statistics, edited for brevity:

Nominations Statistics
November 21, 2002
Active Article III Federal Judges: 802
Confirmations since July 10, 2001: 100
Nominees Pending a Senate Vote: 0
Nominees Given Committee Hearings: 103
Nominees Voted On by Committee: 102
Nominees Pending a Committee Vote: 1
Nominees with Complete Paperwork to be Reviewed and Scheduled: 11
Judicial Nominations Received: 131
Nominations without Home-State Consent: 13
Nominations Without ABA Peer Reviews: 6
Vacancies on July 10, 2001: 110
New Vacancies since that date: 50
Current Vacancies: 60
Judicial Vacancies without Nominations: 29
Judicial Emergency Vacancies without Nomination: 7

(†) Do the math. Of the 103 nominees given a hearing, 100 were confirmed. One has a committee vote pending. Two others were not confirmed, meaning their nominations were voted down. Admittedly, had Dennis Shedd’s nomination been voted down (‡), that number would have increased to a not-so-whopping three. The supposedly obstructionist Senate in reality blocked a grand total of two of Bush’s nominations. Note further that there are 29 judicial vacancies for which President Bush has nominated no one. The real obstructionist would be in the White House.

The truth about Bush’s nominees is that most of them have sailed through. So what were those Republicans complaining about? Could it all have been just a political game?

Congress has finally passed legislation, H.R. 5005, to create the new Department of Homeland Security mostly from existing agencies. (*) The bill is no less than 484 pages long. († PDF) Politically, this legislation has wrought disaster on the Congressional Democrats. Instead of voting the legislation through earlier this autumn, when they could have done so before the elections, Senate Democrats stalled until this week. The public reacted and punished Democrats at the ballot box for their striking indifference to the War on Terrorism. Now that the Senate has been lost to the Republicans, the Democrats have voted overwhelmingly in the lame duck session for what is mostly the same bill, only now with several Republican special interest provisions attached. The pork provisions aren’t all inedible, as the Republican Senate leadership has promised to eliminate some of them in the next Congress. (‡) Had the Democrats simply voted for the bill a few weeks ago, they surely would have kept the Senate.

In an ironic twist, Senator Max Cleland of Georgia voted in favor of the bill, despite opposing it during the electoral campaign. The issue was used by his Republican challenger, Saxby Chambliss, as an effective point of attack against the incumbent Cleland. Had Cleland simply voted for the bill earlier, he would surely have remained in the Senate.

The main Democratic objection to the bill is that it does not extend civil service protections to the entire department. The President will have the ability to declare certain employee positions in the department off-limits to union organizing activity. Theoretically, the whole department could be included. The new department will have an intelligence gathering sub-unit, however, and clearly such a sensitive area in particular could not be subject to union work rules. While the lack of a blanket guarantee does create room for abuse, later legislation can remedy any such abuse that President Bush or a successor might foment. Legislation that reintroduces reasonable protections could be achieved even in the absence of any abuse. The bottom line is that the Democrats strategized poorly regarding homeland security, and were cornered on the issue right before the elections by Bush. What then is the Democrats’ response? Mostly it is whining that Bush was playing political games with the issue. There is an aspect of politics in all things Washington, of course. The real problem has been the lack of seriousness by Democrats on the now-critical issues of foreign policy and national defense.

The Homeland Security Act will bring momentous change, but we just don’t know what the end result will be. Declan McCullagh rightly questions the potential privacy vortex the new department might create. (§) Yet, such concerns could be overstated. One interesting part of the bill is that it does not place primary responsibility for prosecuting terrorist suspects in the new department. That role will still be handled by the Justice Department. This separation between homeland security investigation and prosecution could be an important link in the chain to prevent abuse of authority. Another interesting part of the bill is that it officially bans the proposed Operation TIPS; the plan to get every American to spy on his neighbor is rightly dead.

Senator Robert Byrd of West Virginia has made the excellent point that this homeland security department will not be fully consolidated for years, and thus the change will likely not help in our immediate efforts against Al Qaeda. (**) With hope, by the time the new department is fully in motion, we will have exterminated Al Qaeda. The longer war against terrorism will continue for years past that date, however. In this longer war, especially, the new department will play a key role in the defense of the homeland. Thus, despite Senator Byrd’s concerns, there is a need to press ahead now.

The philosophic approach of the bill is to put the federal government in charge of homeland security, and in a coordinating if not supervisory role for most if not all homeland security operations. Yet, as David Carr points out in an Atlantic essay, there is just no way for the federal government to defend every citizen and every building. (††) The country is too big, too wide, and too open for ironclad security. There is talk among private citizens of the need to be vigilant in our own defense of the homeland. It is against us civilians that the Enemy has first taken aim, after all. I believe this civilian aspect will be critical to the long-term vitality of any successful homeland security strategy. Glenn Reynolds argues a similar point. (‡‡) I would disagree with Reynolds slightly, however, and say that at this stage, there is no particular need to arm more civilians with guns.

One type of response that is needed is the growth of non-centralized community watchdog groups. Ultimately, to win this War on Terrorism, Americans will have to become friendly with their immediate neighbors again. Maybe this is why communitarians like Amitai Etzioni have so fervently supported the War effort. (§§) (***)

We will need a strong Department of Homeland Security to successfully fight the War on Terrorism. The landmark legislation has passed, and now the real work begins.

Right-wingers have recently become enraged by how the First Amendment to the Constitution prohibits the erection of an altar to the Lord in the Alabama Supreme Court. In the dead of night 31 July 2001, the recently elected Chief Justice of the Alabama Supreme Court, Roy Moore, invited a film crew from the fundamentalist “mega-church” Coral Ridge Ministries to record him installing into the rotunda of the courthouse a 5,280 pound granite monument engraved with the Ten Commandments and many other godly references. Later, videocassette copies produced from the shots would go on sale for $19 each. Many Christians have prayed before the courthouse altar. (*) (†) (‡) The War Liberal is on the case, stinging as usual. (§) I am not a lawyer, but I believe it is sad that this flagrant violation of the Establishment Clause was committed by someone sworn to not only uphold, but to protect the law of the land. Fortunately, a federal judge viewed the altar, artfully termed a “monument,” in its whole context, which is deeply religious. (** PDF) This is not a theocracy, and yes, we can thank God for that.

Twenty million barrels of oil have sunk miles beneath the Atlantic Ocean, creating a timebomb that could go off anytime just off a pristine Spanish coastline. The Liberian-registered and Bahamian-flagged oil tanker MV Prestige somehow had developed a giant, gaping 50 meter gash amidships on her starboard side as she sailed through stormy conditions north of the Iberian peninsula. To say she was seaworthy when she set from port would simply be laughable. After a few days of listing and leaking two million barrels of oil, she broke up and sank. (*) (†) (‡) Ibidem has excellent coverage. (§) Obviously, neither Liberia nor the Bahamas troubled themselves with assessing the vessel. Their willingness to put their mark on a ship is inhibited by nothing but greed. Though I am not a lawyer, the private owners and lessors are probably now on the hook for very significant damages as fishing industries and wildlife areas are ruined. They knew the risks going in, and must have known that she wasn’t safe, but still chose the MV Prestige for their shipping business.

This is a textbook case where the free market has broken down and massive externalities—costs to parties not associated with the business transaction itself—must be borne by people who had nothing at stake and everything to lose. Regulation is called for. Something must done be at an international level to further ship safety, particularly that of oil tankers.

President Bush’s new proposal to outsource 850,000 federal jobs has drawn sharp criticism for its likely effect of increasing corruption in government. White House political honcho Karl Rove has compared Bush to Andrew Jackson, though apparently Rove was not intending to allude to Jackson’s corrupt “spoils system” of handing out federal jobs on the basis of party loyalty. (*) Paul Krugman points out that the justification Bush cites, cost savings, is illusory. (†) When government services are privatized, the initial bidding process will show projected cost savings for public services, but once the private contractors start doing the work, they regularly demand more than they bid for the job, saying they cannot do the work at the price they agreed to. Government has nowhere else to turn, having liquidated the prior public agency, and must pay up. The result is that private contractors don’t save the government a lot of money except in some areas of service. In those areas, privatization makes sense. In most areas, it doesn’t. Bush’s plan won’t save much money overall, though the initial projections will make that claim. The larger problem is not the phony cost savings, however. It is the corruption that this system would engender.

Krugman reports that the President’s brother, Jeb Bush, has already undertaken the same policy in Florida where he is governor. Since Jeb Bush’s policy went into effect, privatized government jobs have gone out mostly to the fiercest of Republican loyalists—Republican contributors who contribute exclusively to Republican candidates—and in return those very same loyalists have created a feedback loop by pumping more of their dollars, no doubt earned through the corrupt bidding process, into the coffers of Republican candidates.

At the federal level, it can only get worse. How could the bidding out of 850,000 jobs take place in any reasonable and timely manner? There are just too many bids to manage in an effective way. Instead of an intelligently designed process guided by awarding contracts to the most efficient and serious bidders, the process will devolve into a feeding frenzy where the staunchest of Republican loyalists will get the juiciest of government contracts.

President Bush has evinced the virtue of constancy in his dogged pursuit of terrorists and their state sponsors. He is not dissuaded by those who falsely believe that terrorism is a social condition that can be cured by feeding the hungry or kowtowing to every ludicrous demand. Nevertheless, constancy taken to an extreme ceases to be a virtue. If President Bush pursues this reckless patronage plan that he did not even talk to voters about on the campaign trail, with the same vigor he is pursuing the fleecing of Americans’ hard-earned Social Security dollars by casting them into the over-priced stock market, then the civil service is truly in trouble.

Bush does not believe that government can ever work despite the evidence to the contrary. Thus, instead of proposing badly needed reforms to the civil service system, he apparently intends to toss out the 130-year-old system as if it had no worth at all. The baby is flung out the back window along with the bathwater. The civil service system does have worth. In addition to the many skilled government employees whose only would-be demerit is their inability to get media coverage, the civil service system has remained remarkably free of corruption. In the US, bribery is uncommon. In this, we compare favorably to just about every other country. To replace our bribery-resistant system, the President is proposing a system of institutionalized bribery, albeit in a form that is confusing enough to the masses to create plausible deniability. It is like the police siding with the gangsters.

Thanks to incompetent management by political leaders from both parties, our country is becoming more and more corrupt every day. From stock analyst Jack Grubman’s rating adjustment of AT&T stock for no purpose at all except to forward a bribe so that he could send his twins to a tony, exclusive nursery school (‡); the Enron disaster; the WorldCom disaster; the corporate responsibility mess; the shenanigans of Thomas White; Bush’s own secret backroom deals; the continued de facto bribery allowed by the campaign finance system; and now Bush’s plan to auction off government contracts for ever-increasing campaign contributions, America is indeed “slouching towards Gomorrah,” but not at all in the way that Messers. Bork and Bennett would have the public believe.

Enough is enough. I love my country too much not to speak out when I see us heading into an abyss of wickedness and debasement. Let us all work hard to see that the Bush patronage system never passes Congress. We still have another 719 days until the 2004 elections.

Last updated: 22 November 2002. Jack Grubman’s twins are of age to attend nursery school, not kindergarten.

Having been convicted of four murders each plus an assortment of other crimes for their brutal crime spree in Wichita, Kansas nearly two years ago, Reginald and Jonathan Carr will each receive the maximum punishment: death. The full sentences are:

Reginald Carr: Four death sentences on capital murder; 47.5 years for attempted murder and multiple counts of kidnapping, rape, aggravated criminal sodomy, aggravated robbery, aggravated battery, burglary, theft, cruelty to animals and felon in possession of a firearm; life for felony murder with a minimum 20 years served before eligible for parole. All sentences run consecutively.

Total minimum noncapital sentence: 67.5 years.

Jonathan Carr: Same as Reginald Carr, except he was found not guilty of four charges related to the carjacking of Andrew Schreiber. He also was not charged with felon in possession of a firearm.

Total minimum noncapital sentence: 61 years.

(*) An earlier entry on this site discussed the crimes. (†) I oppose the death penalty except in cases of multiple or exceptionally brutal murders. For their conduct, the Carr brothers have received just sentences.

“The Commission concludes that the nation will have to be a space-faring nation in order to be the global leader in the 21st century—our freedom, mobility, and quality of life will depend on it.” The report issued today by the Walker Commission, formally the Commission on the Future of the United States Aerospace Industry, starkly draws the aerospace challenges facing our country. Our future depends on success in space. (*) (†)

The report is not easily available from the Commission’s web site. They could have just posted links to the PDFs, but instead they chose to do something else. If you dig, you can finally find the PDFs, including the executive summary. (‡ PDF)

The Commission notes that the aerospace industry is in poor shape, and that while the workforce is graying, schools aren’t producing enough graduates with the requisite science and math skills to replace retirees. Yet, aerospace is integral to economic performance, transportation, national defense, and homeland security, just to list a few important areas. The report calls for a national aerospace policy. The problem has been that a wide variety of agencies from the Department of Defense to NASA to the FAA to several others take action that affect the aerospace industry without the guidance provided by one overarching policy. In particular, the new aerospace policy must work in concert with the nascent homeland security policy.

One interesting problem area is air traffic control. For the past few decades, the pace of information systems upgrades by the FAA has been slow. While the current plan will not be finished for several years, the future challenges soon upon us will include handling both manned and unmanned aircraft and, no doubt, vehicles comparable to space planes. Then, there are the additional homeland security needs in the wake of 9/11. A massive automation of air traffic control is required.

For future space exploration and travel, the Commission suggests that new, breakthrough advances must be achieved in the field of propulsion. Travel time within the solar system must be cut from years to weeks. It won’t happen without more research spending by the federal government.

The economic recommendations are far-reaching. Regulations need to be streamlined, international trade in space products must be opened, and more focus must be given to teaching the next generations math and science.

The Commission suggests that very high level goals are within reach. By 2010, we should be able to demonstrate technology that cuts travel time by air and through space by half, aviation noise by 90%, and the fatal aviation accident rate also by 90%. In addition, time to market for new aerospace technologies can be slashed significantly.

It’s now in the hands of Congress, and, by extension, its constituents. If the Republican-controlled Congress is able to undertake both aerospace policy and homeland security in a competent manner, that would be a huge accomplishment. Will it happen? Let’s pressure our legislators to make sure it does.

Noam Chomsky and many others have blamed terrorist acts on “root causes,” but that argument is now coming under increasing stress as terrorists claim justification for their killings from the liberation of East Timor. (*) (†)

As a frequently published writer, Noam Chomsky’s various political stances are a matter of public knowledge. Chomsky was long a supporter of the liberation of East Timor from the genocide carried out by the Indonesian army that killed over 200,000. East Timor is mostly Christian and Indonesia is mostly Muslim, but until recently that was not a widely observed factual contrast. The liberation of East Timor was accomplished thanks to a UN intervention, primarily backed by the Australian military. Chomsky has stated his pleasure in knowing that East Timor is free. (‡) Nevertheless, Chomsky has refused to take a position on whether the UN intervention itself was justified, as Christopher Hitchens has noted. (§) Why has Chomsky refused to take a position? The answer is so far unclear. Today, East Timor is a free and sovereign state.

Chomsky has said that the 9/11 attack had its root causes. (**) Specifically, the terrorists were reacting to an unjust US foreign policy. By extension of this logic, other terrorist acts, such as the Bali attacks, should also have root causes in other injustices. The Bali bombings killed over 180 people and wounded hundreds more. Australia bore the brunt of the attacks, suffering more deaths among its nationals than any other nation; more than 80 Australians were killed.

Osama Bin Laden, or someone in the Al Qaeda leadership pretending to be him, has now stated on a recent audiotape given to the media that the Bali killings were specifically motivated by the independence of East Timor. Bin Laden himself believed that East Timor was properly part of Indonesia, and should not have been allowed to declare independence. On the audiotape translated by the BBC, the Enemy leader, Bin Laden or otherwise, states:

We warned Australia before not to join in [the war] in Afghanistan, and [against] its despicable effort to separate East Timor.

It ignored the warning until it woke up to the sounds of explosions in Bali.

Its government falsely claimed that they [the Australians] were not targeted.

(††) Now that the root cause of the Bali attacks is known to be the liberation of East Timor, Chomsky finds himself in an uncomfortable position.

The very independence of East Timor that Chomsky worked so hard for, and praised so highly, has been claimed by terrorists as the root cause of their actions, even as Chomsky says that injustice is the root cause of their actions. Instead of citing to an injustice, the Enemy leader is citing to an act of liberation as his pretext for mass killing. Chomsky’s position is not tenable.

Just as Chomsky’s position no longer has intellectual respectability, neither does that of others who make similar claims. As we now know, thanks to the Enemy leader’s message, terrorism’s root cause is not injustice. Instead, the root cause of terrorism appears to be something that most people around the world deeply cherish: freedom. The terrorists say they are attacking us because we favor freedom and have flatly said so. Therefore we ought to defend ourselves from the enemy’s onslaught.

Adapted from a post to Democratic Left. Last updated on 2 December 2002 to clarify that it is not material whether the audiotape was actually made by Osama Bin Laden, or another member of Al Qaeda’s leadership.

Update: 20 June 2003: I just found an interview of Chomsky, dated 8 November 2002, where he discusses the Bali bombing. He says:

QUESTION: Is the “war on terrorism” a manifestation of the “Frankenstein syndrome,” meaning that the US is now having to protect itself from enemies that it has created?

CHOMSKY: That’s happening, but let’s be a little bit clearer. The war on terrorism was declared in 1981, by pretty much the exact same people who redeclared it after Sept. 11, and with the same rhetoric. The war on terrorism has been going on for twenty years. Orwell would tell us that the war on terrorism is in fact a terrorist war. In the first phase in the war on terrorism led by the people in Washington throughout the 1980s, the US carried out massive terrorist atrocities in Central America, the Middle East, Southern Africa, and so on. That was the first phase in the war on terror. The second phase, that they redeclared on Sept. 11, happened to be aimed at organizations that you describe. The terrorists are now those recruited, trained, organized, and armed by the CIA and its associates in the 1980s, not to help the Afghans, but for reasons of state, power, the usual kinds. Yes, in around 1990, they turned against the US for reasons they described. This is not anything particularly new. In 1993, related groups came very close to blowing up the World Trade Center. According to the WTC engineers, if they had a little better planning, they would have killed tens of thousands of people. That’s in 1993, not 2001. Those groups happened to be organized by the West.

You can say the same about plenty of others. Take Israel’s main terrorist enemies — Hezbollah and Hamas. Where did they come from? In part, the origins of Hamas lie in Israeli sponsorship of radical Islamist groups to undermine the secular Palestinian leadership. Hezbollah came out of a US-backed Israeli invasion of Lebanon twenty years ago which killed about 20,000 people, and had no defensive purpose whatsoever — it was barely even pretended. It was an attempt to undermine the secular PLO because its efforts at negotiation were becoming difficult to handle. The end result is that it helped create Hezbollah. Incidentally, terrorist acts are just a gift to the most hard-line oppressive elements. An increase in terrorism gives Sharon an opportunity to drive the Palestinians out, it gives the Russians an opportunity to clamp down in Chechnya, and so on throughout the world.

It’s very probable that the same thing is going on in Indonesia now. What was behind the Bali bombing is not yet clear, but chances are it was the Jamat al Islamaya. But where did they come from? They’re part of the effort of the Suharto dictatorship — with the backing of the United States, Britain and others — to link up radical Islamists and the Indonesian military to carry out terrorist atrocities against their own populations. In fact, the big massacres in Bali, far worse than this one, were in fact a combination of Islamist groups and the army. Those things happen pretty commonly.

(‡‡) That’s very interesting. Chomsky is saying that the “war on terrorism” began in 1981. Thus, the 9/11 attacks would be part of this “war.” The Bali bombings may have been carried out by Jemaah Islamiah, which is sometimes thought to be a branch of Al Qaeda. Furthermore, like Chomsky’s view of Al Qaeda, Jemaah Islamiah is a creation of the people it is now fighting. All of that is wrong, but that doesn’t stop him from prattling on. Most notably, Chomsky forgets to mention that Al Qaeda and Jemaah Islamiah are cold-blooded murderers.

Chomsky’s modus operandi should by now be apparent. First, Chomsky ascribes to terrorists a motivation (such as a list of grievances). Then, he condemns what the terrorists do (such as murder). Next, he condemns taking military action against terrorists, saying that is unjustified. Nevertheless, what the terrorists do is condemned, and thus we must do something. Thus, he supports using law enforcement to capture the terrorists and detain them. Finally, he caps his argument by strongly arguing against such laws as the Patriot Act that are designed to supplement the efforts of law enforcement to capture the terrorists and detain them. In summary, Chomsky condemns terrorism, supports fighting it only in a limited manner, and would reduce our ability to fight terrorism even in that limited manner. At some point the question must cease to be what motivates the terrorists, and become what motivates Chomsky.

Chomsky recognizes legitimacy in the terrorists’ grievances. In the context of the argument he makes, Chomsky’s recognition works as an implicit blessing of terrorism.

Finally, let me emphasize that, once again, nowhere does Chomsky deal with the motivations of the Bali bombers. Once he does, he must face some deep contradictions in his thinking.

Update: 17 November 2003. Tim Blair links. (§§)

What should be on the agenda of the Democratic Party as it looks ahead to the 2004 elections? Here are some worthwhile objectives to pursue.

1. Rededicate the Democratic Party to patriotism, but not the kind of patriotism that fails to question leaders or shortchanges freedom. Real patriotism requires love of country, a critical attitude, and an open mind.
2. Embody the best of liberal values in all our discussions, especially those amongst us progressives. All points of view should be considered on their merits. Personal attacks should be made only if they are truly justified. Encourage free thinking. Avoid censoring each other.The party should have a sense of fun in private and in public. Joke. Laugh.
3. Create a serious and realistic foreign policy alternative to Bush’s. It should not be isolationist, nor should it uncritically support the president. There must be a clear statement as to when it is right to use military force and when it is wrong. Historical examples should be cited as either positive, negative, or in between. These examples should include World War II, the Vietnam War, Libya, Panama, Iraq, Haiti, Somalia, Bosnia, Kosovo, and Afghanistan. Reasons should be given for why these uses of military force were right or wrong. Voice support for our troops in combat.
4. Take a position on the War on Terrorism. Some say it is a perpetual war that could last forever, like the war on drugs. Others say it is not a perpetual war, it is a curious war fought with new methods, but it will end like all other wars. If it is a temporary war then we would be more justified in reducing civil liberties protections because those reductions would be temporary. So is it a perpetual war or not?
5. Take a serious and realistic position on homeland security. Just where do we draw the line between civil liberty and security? The new homeland security department will not have employee protections like other agencies. Will Bush hand out positions in the new department on the basis of political patronage?
6. Don’t ignore immigration. Today, the nation’s immigration policy is not too tough or too lax, it’s completely screwed up. The current system protects neither immigrants nor the American people. It results in human rights abuses of many would-be immigrants, yet often fails to protect the American public from criminals such as the 9/11 hijackers and John Lee Malvo. We should take a position on how many immigrants we should let in, and what enforcement measures we should take against those who are in the country illegally. Is amnesty a good idea, and if so how broadly should it extend?
7. Criminal justice and terrorism. Are Guantanamo prisoners and military tribunals being handled the right way? If no, what alternatives should we suggest?
8. Freedom of information is basic to liberty and democracy. Having a blue-ribbon commission investigate the events of September 11 is critical to preventing it from ever happening again. Many commissions investigated Pearl Harbor, but no commission is investigating 9/11. On a related note, the secrecy of the Bush Administration is very troubling. One particular problem is Bush’s support for a law that would allow federal agencies to keep track of their own electronic databases of public information, without creating paper copies. This could allow agencies to destroy any embarrassing document without a trace. It could be eerily reminiscent of the memory holes in 1984. We should present an alternative.
9. Take a position on bioterrorism. Should the American public be vaccinated against smallpox, like Dick Cheney wants? We should also call for more investigation into Gulf War syndrome, which may have been caused by Iraqi bioterrorism or by the vaccinations given by the US military. Many uniformed personnel are leaving the service rather than be exposed to the anthrax vaccine, which is thought to have many nasty side effects. These concerns should not be brushed aside.
10. On the domestic agenda, we should support new tax cuts so long as they focus on the middle class and small business. Tax cuts are needed to stimulate the economy. We should accuse Bush himself of practicing class warfare for attempting to relieve rich taxpayers at the expense of everyone else. Once Bush announces his inevitable new round of tax cuts for the rich, we should frequently make a point to the extent that “at a time when our country should be coming together, the President proposes giving the lion’s share of tax cuts to just a certain class of people. That’s wrong. The tax cuts should be distributed fairly.” To defend the estate tax, we should say, “The estate tax affects too many farmers, ranchers and entrepreneurs today. The cut-off needs to be raised well above its current level, to at least $4 million. We should not eliminate the estate tax entirely, however, because it forces the very rich to go to work and be productive just like everyone else. Without the estate tax, there would be a permanent caste of rich people with no need to work, passing down their storehouses of wealth generation after generation, who would act like sedentary royalty, while most of society would get poorer and poorer. We need the estate tax to preserve the middle class.”
11. In general, reconsider our old ideas while dusting off our old ideals. That is, rethink our policy proposals while rediscovering our political philosophy.

Adapted from mailing list discussion.

George W. Bush does not bluff. Prior to the election, the establishment Left frequently argued that President Bush was using the Iraq issue to scare the voters into voting Republican. Usually this charge was entangled with other, contradictory charges. Yet, in an October 2d column for Alternet, David Morris of the Institute for Local Self-Reliance argued that the Bush Administration would not actually go to war with Iraq, and was making noises of war only to improve Republican prospects in the elections. (*) The absurd argument was proven a canard by Bush’s continued advocacy of a Security Council resolution past the November 5th elections. Last Friday, the council adopted resolution 1441. († PDF) Mirror 1 Mirror 2 Antiwar activists can still argue that Bush’s aims in pressuring Iraq are not related to the legitimate security interests of the US, but it is now clear that Bush was not bluffing on Iraq, or employing scare tactics.

A recent Salon article by Eric Boehlert asserts the reverse—that the resolution’s adoption proves Bush’s disingenousness because the resolution was weaker than what the US had proposed originally. (‡) On the contrary, if Bush had wanted to maximize the political impact of the UN Security Council resolution, he would have made those compromises before the election. Perception is key. As Boehlert notes, the resolution has resulted in many positive media stories for Bush. It doesn’t matter whether the compromises actually amount to much. Bush would have anticipated positive press before the election if he sped up negotiations and made the necessary compromises with Russia and France, but chose not to until after the election. That Bush kept pushing for a UN resolution after the election shows that he has some goal in mind other than electoral advantage. Bush says his goal is to see either the disarmament of Iraq or regime change. We should presume his intention is an honest one. It is almost certain that economic issues, including those related to oil, will be part of the US’s Iraq policy in the future, but it would be impossible for them not to be. The issue is whether the policy is just, not whether its motivation is partially economic.

Nevertheless, Bush did use the Iraq issue for political gain. He campaigned for Republican candidates on the issue of national security. Sometimes he stepped over the line, as with his remark that led Tom Daschle to give his emotional speech on the Senate floor in late September. (§) The bigger problem for the Democrats was that they had nothing serious to say about the War on Terrorism, but complained stiffly about Bush’s policy, creating an overall negative impression in the minds of voters. (**) Pessimism and cynicism aren’t winning political strategies.

Now Tom Daschle will allow the homeland security bill to reach the Senate floor. (††) While he complains about the lack of worker protections in the bill, he ought to consider that had he allowed the bill through a few weeks ago, the Democratic Party could still be in control of the Senate today, and well-positioned to re-insert worker protections into one of the no doubt many legislative changes that Congress will pass as the new cabinet-level department grows into its role.

The Democrats and the Left in general must get serious about national defense without delay.

Originally posted to Democratic Left