Andrew Hagen

Henry Kissinger has stepped down from the commission designated by Congress to investigate intelligence failures prior to 9/11. (*) He cited potential conflicts of interest between his private business and the work of the commission. As I wrote earlier, there is reason to believe that these potential conflicts would have been very real. (†) This is a victory for everyone who wants to see a strong and truly independent commission undertake this important work. It should not be seen in any way as a disgrace to the former diplomat. Dr. Kissinger has his business interests, and as it turns out potential conflicts arising from those would inhibit the credibility of the commission. He has done the right thing. He also has significant questions about his past to answer. Those should have nothing to do with 9/11. Thankfully, they won’t distract the commission’s work any longer.

Earlier, I stated that appointing Kissinger was the worst political mistake of President Bush’s life. (‡) Regardless of the propriety of Bush’s mistake in naming Kissinger in the first place, Bush finds himself in a much more favorable political position today. It’s likely that Bush or an aide urged Kissinger to step down, or even pressured him to do so. This just shows how incredibly deft, nimble, and savvy George W. Bush is when it comes to politics. He has a way of recovering from setbacks.

Bush’s next step is to quickly find a truly independent figure to replace Kissinger. There are many qualifications for the job, but chief among them is impeccable integrity. The Democrats have their own challenge as well. Earlier in the week, George Mitchell stepped down, also citing conflicts. Two good names that come to mind are Republican Warren Rudman and Democrat Gary Hart.

Richard Gott reports that the conditions in Venezuela are sinking to to the level of overt class warfare. (*) Gott may be overstating things, but the conflicts he cites are very real, including those involving race, profound economic inequality, and the proposed sale of the crown jewel of the Venezuelan economy—its petroleum company. The president of Venezuelua, Hugo Chávez, was elected with 60% of the vote. (†) The next election is scheduled for 2006. The minority opposition wants Chávez to step down and hold a special election immediately, as Juan Ferero reports for the New York Times. (‡)

The Times must be held suspect in its reporting on Venezuela. Last April 12, a military coup deposed Chávez. Pedro Carmona, the would-be dictator, announced that the National Assembly, the supreme court, and other constitutional institutions of government were suspended. This unlawful, anti-democratic coup d’etat was hailed by the New York Times editorial page the next day. (§) Events soon overtook the newspaper, however, and Chávez was restored to power by loyal military units, particularly paratroopers, of which Chávez was a veteran. The Times printed a retraction of their junta-loving editorial a few days later. (**) It wasn’t just the Times that showed a dark side, either. The conservative journal of record, the National Review, printed a toasty bit of propaganda by Thor Halvorssen, arguing that Chávez was the real dictator. (††) Halvorssen repeated a number of scurrilous and unsubstantiated rumors that had originated in the opposition—for example, that one million protesters were in the streets of Caracas before the coup (it was closer to 300,000), and that Ch?vez’s men were shooting protesters from rooftops (it was probably a right-wing paramilitary group that was doing the shooting). (‡‡) The performances of the American media and conservatives were shameful. Whether you like Chávez or not, he was democratically elected, and is the legitimate president of Venezuela.

There were also inklings that the US government may have encouraged the coup plotters. (‡‡) The attempted putsch of the legitimate government did follow a pattern similar to the US-sponsored coup d’etat of the democratically elected president of Chile, Salvador Allende, replacing him with the murderous thug Augusto Pinochet. The evidence of US involvement in Venezuela is little more than supposition, however.

Venezuela continues to face steep challenges. No less than 67% of the population is below the poverty line. The country’s main economic asset is its oil reserve. The state-owned oil company monopolizes proudction of the resource. All of the profits, however, flow to its employees. Chávez put a stop to the planned sell-off of the company, and now the potential beneficiaries of the sale, comprising a small minority of the Venezuelan population, are howling. While those opposed to the democratically elected Chávez are a minority, they are a force to be reckoned with. For example, as Le Monde Diplomatique estimates, Chávez’s opposition controls 95% of the country’s media. (§§) Chávez’s support mostly comes from the black, the indigenous, and the poor.

Unfortunately, anger is growing on both sides, the rich and the poor, the lesser pigmented and the highly pigmented. The key conflict is over the oil company. If Chávez is able to shift control of it to those loyal to him, he will have won a major victory over the elite minority, and will have put himself in a position where he can reshape the Venezuelan economy to create a large middle class. It is not clear, though, if given the chance, whether Hugo Chávez will fulfill his promises and implement the reforms necessary to modernize his country’s economy in a just and equitable manner. I hope he does.

Update: 17 November 2003. Natasha of The Watch links. (***)

In his new book, Lost Discoveries, Dick Teresi sets forth an account of how basic facts about the natural world were discovered and scientific tools were invented in cultures and civilizations other than the West, even as Europe plodded through the Dark Ages. Westerners drew on much of this knowledge as they made discoveries and laid the technological groundwork for the modern age. The New York Times reviews it. (*) The book is partly a long, corrective footnote about our supposedly assured presumptions, made possible now that we know more of the origins of the building blocks of scientific knowledge, such as that of the place-value notation system, which was invented in ancient Babylon. It is also an acknowledgement of cultural achievements that were eventually forgotten. For example, the ancient Chinese knew that the year lasted approximately 365.25 days, but apparently no lasting scientific inquiry was erected on top of that. Other people in another time would have to independently make that same discovery, again.

Many cultures have achieved knowledge, but few have managed to place one foot in front of the other, and to continually build in steps upon already existing knowledge. Moreover, many cultures achieved some measure of knowledge, and then lost that knowledge for one reason or another. This is tragedy. When the Incan library and the Alexandria library burned, the contributions of generations went up in smoke.

Lest we Westerners feel assured in our repose of scientific and technological achievement, we ought to remember that all knowledge is perishable. The only way to secure knowledge is not to hide it in a cave, or to entrust it only to elites, but to free it. The only way to save science is to let all men practice it. While the West systematized science, and formulated the scientific method, there is nothing special about the West that predestined it to scientific success. The insights we have available to us were won slowly and with much struggle, intellectually and politically. For every Newton there was at least one Galileo. There is every sign, in this age of fascist totalitarian terrorists and fundamentalist anti-intellectuals, that to protect the storehouse of knowledge that men have today, and to extend its benefits to all, and to extend its reach ever deeper into the mysteries of nature, will require more struggle. So, possessed of this conviction and of the rectitude of the critical mentality, we march on. Only now, thanks to writers like Teresi, we can be even firmer in our belief that science rightly belongs not to only one civilization, but to all humanity.

American naval experts have concluded that the mammoth German battleship Bismarck was not sunk by the British, as had been previously claimed, but was scuttled. British torpedos had penetrated the outer hull of the battleship, but the inner armor was unharmed, leaving her seaworthy. (*) The British-German engagement that ended with the sinking of the DKM Bismarck ultimately proved decisive in the battle for supremacy in the Atlantic in World War II. In early 1941, the Bismarck was the biggest battleship ever built, and was greatly feared as a threat to the British. When the Bismarck broke out and threatened to attack shipping, the British had to respond quickly.

In the fierce and bitter naval engagement that followed, the Bismarck fired a shell that hit the British battle cruiser Hood and penetrated to her magazine. The HMS Hood exploded with over one thousand sailors’ lives lost. A flotilla of British ships pursued the Bismarck, knocking out all but one of her guns, and jamming her rudder so she could only steam in circles. The Germans feared the capture of the battleship for it would mean that the British would learn the secrets of their prized ship-building technology. This technology provided the double layer of armor that had protected the Bismarck so well from British attack. Were the British to capture the Bismarck, they could soon build ships that were nearly unsinkable, too. German sailors set off explosives below the waterline to scuttle the battleship. Despite the deliberate scuttling, just over one hundred of over two thousand German sailors survived. Ignoring the law of the sea, and with the memory of the Hood still fresh, the British warships turned away from the scene and steamed off, abandoning most of the German sailors floating in the cold ocean. (†) (‡) (§) (**) War does terrible things to men.

Edited: 10 December 2002.

Update: 26 November 2003. A reader e-mails me and mentions that the British are said to have made a U-Boat sighting. That prompted them to quickly leave the scene of battle. Such a circumstance would mitigate the mistake of the British. The evidence is not striongly indicative of an actual sighting of a U-Boat, however. It may have been a false U-Boat sighting. (††) Trying to assign blame for a false U-Boat sighting, if it were false, would be difficult. It just doesn’t make sense to me that a U-Boat would peep its head out when German sailors were in the process of being rescued. On the other hand, the survivors who were rescued were treated humanely by the British.

If someone has knowledge of a definitive historical work on the subject, or of a primary document, I’d be much obliged for your contact. Thank you.

The author of The Shield of Achilles, law professor, and global strategy expert, Philip Bobbitt, is profiled in a recent edition of the Austin American-Statesman. (*)

Al Qaeda has taken responsibility for the Kenya attacks. (*) Al Qaeda has almost never made an admission of guilt before. Perhaps they were worried that their group would get overlooked, or perhaps they are operating under new, different guidelines, set by, perhaps, new leadership. Even if its leader has received the just desserts of an untimely death, however, the Enemy obviously remains a ferocious opponent.

The London Times speculates that in targeting Israelis on non-Arab soil, Al Qaeda may be attempting to increase its credibility among Muslims and Arabs. (†) That sounds right. This is some vindication for my long-held view that the foremost goal in the Enemy leader’s mind in plotting the 9/11 attacks was to start a world war between the West and the Muslims. What the Enemy fails to realize is, however, is that Islam is not the one-dimensional, groupthink entity that they would like it to be. There is a struggle ongoing for the soul of Islam. As free press, free communications, the Internet, and free speech penetrate the full extent of the Islamic world, that struggle will be waged not on military grounds, but on argumentative ones; and an argument is one thing that Al Qaeda simply cannot win. (‡)

The recent manifesto of Al Qaeda, attributed to Osama Bin Laden, is not in his writing style. Instead, it is written in outline form, with numerically designated points. (§) It may have been inked by Al Zawahiri, Bin Laden’s deputy, who was a physician until he turned to a life of terroristic evil. (**) The manifesto is utterly contradictory. First, it claims that terrorist attacks on the US are justified on the basis of fighting oppression. Second, the US must become completely Islamic immediately or more terrorist strikes will be launched. The notion that a forced religious conversion would be oppressive seems to elude the author.

Last modified: 10 December 2002. Changed abbreviations “AQ” to “Al Qaeda.” I plan to standardize my usage upon the latter form.

Is Henry Kissinger now working only for his reputation, or is he conflicted in his new role? Recently, President Bush named Kissinger to be the chairman of the commission charged to investigate intelligence breakdowns before 9/11. (*) It is an oft-repeated argument, such as by William Safire, that Dr. Kissinger can be trusted, now, because at his age he could only be concerned with his historical reputation. (†) With his legacy at stake, we can be assured that this accused war criminal will do nothing but mine for nuggets of truth.

To that end, Kissinger has announced that he will drop all clients of his firm, Kissinger Associates—which does business with Gulf oil concerns—that may present any conflict of interest with the business of the commission. (‡) Of course, he is not aware that any of them would conflict. Furthermore, he is not at liberty to disclose the client list of his firm. Therefore we must take him at his word. In any case, Kissinger will remain at the helm of Kissinger Associates, which without question will remain open for business as usual.

It would appear, at any rate, that Dr. Kissinger is not solely concerned with his historical reputation as it concerns the commission’s business. He also has his own business to run.

See the Agonist for additional analysis, sterling as always. (§)

Update: 3 December 2002. The New York Times editorial page calls for Kissinger to sever all ties with Kissinger Associates for the duration of the commission’s work. (**) The New Republic charges into the fray as well. (††) Finally, in Slate, Timothy Noah makes the unintentionally self-deflating point that because Kissinger wants revenge against Rumsfeld, he can be trusted to do a good job. (‡‡) Noah forgets that the objective of the commission is directly opposed to casting blame and gaining revenge. It is supposed to be an independent commission that will discover what went wrong. Henry Kissinger is not the man to head this supposedly independent commission.

Update: 10 December 2002. John Prados critiques the choice of Kissinger in the American Prospect. (§§) Additionally, the Congressional Research Service has issued an opinion that Kissinger must disclose his client list. (***)