Pinky and the Brain

Immigration

2007-05-27T10:53:00.001-07:00

Andrew Samwick, from Dartmouth, makes three important points regarding the immigration debate over at his blog, Vox Baby:

1) Is immigration from Mexico just like any other wave of immigration?The historical success of immigration in this country has been based on immigrants who left the old country behind, to assimilate and to blend their culture with the existing American culture. Mexico is right next door. The presumption that most immigrants will assimilate is much weaker, if not plain wrong. We should be very wary of absorbing so many immigrants, even legal immigrants, from a neighboring country whose objectives may not coincide with our own.
2) Is a guest worker program a good idea?I regard a guest worker program as a form of second-class citizenry, and I do not support the creation of a second-class citizenry. Citizenship to me is not incidental to an economic relationship. Once we legitimize a second-class citizenry, their pleas to be elevated to first-class citizenry will be difficult to ignore, particularly given our national history of inclusion and equality. Once we legitimize frequent border crossings, we take ownership of the social problems that result from explicitly transitory populations NOT rooted to family relationships in a particular place. Show me the shining examples of guest worker programs in other large industrialized countries and I'll change my mind.
3) Are there jobs that Americans won’t do (this one is straight from an earlier post)?There are no jobs that Americans refuse to perform. There may be jobs that Americans refuse to perform at the prevailing wage rates. This simply means that the wage rates should rise and the number of jobs should fall, until the number of jobs matches the number of people authorized to work in the country who are willing to perform them. If it turns out that with these higher prevailing wage rates, the employer can no longer operate at a profit, then the employer should cease operations--or relocate to a place where labor and other costs are sufficiently cheap as to allow a profitable business.

Points one and two address fundamental problems with the current immigration bill. The third point, although it could be interpreted as anti-immigration, highlights why low skilled Americans lose with increased immigration.

I support immigration, particularly high-skilled immigration. However, America does not adequately protecting its poor and sick, its disenfranchised and marginalized; it is wrong of us to simply replace them with a new wave of immigrants.

Any immigration package must first help those citizens who have been left behind. After that, as Andrew suggests, we must be careful to ensure that future citizens come for more than just financial prosperity. American ideals are larger than that and we must keep it that way.

Posted by Peter

Libertarian Paternalism

2007-05-26T08:04:00.000-07:00

From a debate on the merits of government intervention at Econoblog, Richard Thaler writes:

Let's recapitulate. People make mistakes, so sometimes they can be helped. It is possible to help without coercion. That is libertarian paternalism. The concept can be and is used in both the public and private sectors. For example, in London, pedestrians from abroad are reminded by signs on the pavement to "look right" because their instincts from back home are to expect traffic to approach from the left. No one is forced to look right, but fewer pedestrians are hit by trucks.
Another example comes from Sweden, which launched a partial privatization of their social security system in 2000. The plan was open to any fund, which meant that participants faced 456 options. There was also a very well-designed default fund -- using private managers selected by the government -- that offered global diversification at very low fees (16 basis points). By any standard, both ex ante and ex post, the participants who selected their own portfolio of funds did worse than those who took the default plan. The main mistake the government made in designing this plan was to discourage participants from choosing the default fund, perhaps thinking, as Mario does, that choosing for oneself is always the best approach.
Mario thinks we are naïve about government. We think he is naïve about firms. Does he think that the companies that offered stock options to student loan officers to induce them to feature their loans had the "actual preferences" of the students at heart? Maximizing profits does not always mean maximizing the welfare of the customers.
Finally Mario seems to have a phobia about slippery slopes. I guess he thinks that if governments start with signs that say "look right," the next thing you know we will have Prohibition coming back. By the same logic, we should worry that if libertarians succeed in eliminating rent control that we will be soon down the slippery slope toward anarchy. Slippery slope arguments should be avoided unless there is proof that the slope is greased. In our case, by insisting, as we do, on only libertarian paternalism, the slope runs into a brick wall before it even gets started. And besides, what is the alternative? Inept neglect?

Conclusion: Ronald Reagan was wrong; the government is not the problem.

69%

2007-05-22T13:52:00.000-07:00

69% of US oil consumption is used for Transportation.

The majority of this is for our vehicles (43% of US oil consumption is used to run cars and trucks).

The Imperial Presidency

2007-05-19T05:48:00.000-07:00

The Economist has an illuminating editorial about America's love for royalty, despite our deep Federalist traditions. Lets hope America remembers the importance of decentralized power when we go to vote for the next presidency. Hillary Clinton symbolizes the concentration of power and rise of a political elite which many people find troubling in principle, but, as seen with the election of George W., few voters are willing to do anything about.

If we value the life-stories of our most loved presidents, such as Lincoln's journey from a log-cabin to the White house, we won't vote for another Imperial President. King George already taught us this lesson.

Posted by Peter

Win a Free iPod

2007-05-01T12:22:00.000-07:00

There's a competition to win a free iPod over at UGResearch.org (www.ugresearch.org).

Check it out.

Posted by Peter

Giuliani Redux

2007-04-30T14:22:00.000-07:00

From the New York Times:

Until this week, Mr. Giuliani’s views on Iraq were not well known. But on this trip he made clear, though never mentioning President Bush by name, that he firmly supported the administration’s current strategy, including Mr. Bush’s decision to send more than 20,000 additional combat troops there.
As for Iran, Mr. Giuliani said that “in the long term,” it might be “more dangerous than Iraq.” He then casually lumped Iran with Al Qaeda. “Their movement has already displayed more aggressive tendencies by coming here and killing us,” he said.

Posted by Peter

McCain's Foreign Policy

2007-04-30T12:31:00.000-07:00

McCain's Foreign Policy could be bluntly summarized by his response two weeks ago to a question about military action against Iran: "That old, eh, that old Beach Boys song, Bomb Iran," he said, alluding to the classic song Barbara Anne, "Bomb, bomb, bomb, bomb, anyway, ah... " I understand that he was just joking, but it's still revealing.

McCain's statements are stark compared to the diplomatic words of Democratic candidates. When asked about America's reliance on oil, McCain said that "We better understand the vulnerabilities that our economy, and our very lives, have when we're dependent on Iranian mullahs and wackos in Venezuela." Ignore for a moment that Iran's 'mullahs' don't control the oil supply (and that it is often a deragatory term) and focus on the implications of this rhetoric. McCain portrays himself as someone without concern for foreign perceptions of US leadership and with no desire for "soft power". This is another version of Bush's Axis of Evil. A McCain presidency would likely come with similar interventionist policies.

Of course, that's largely what Republican voters want. I posted the overall figures below (43% of Americans favor a military strike in Iran if they are close to achieving a nuclear weapon) but Republican support is more telling from McCain's standpoint: Republicans favor military intervention 2 to 1 (60% in favor, 30% oppose).

For all the talk of a shift in US foreign policy after the mid-term elections, there are just as many hawks today as there were in 2002.

Posted by Peter

Iran Polls

2007-04-29T08:39:00.000-07:00

CBS News Poll 3/26-27/07
"Which comes closer to your opinion? Iran is a threat to the United States that requires military action now. Iran is a threat that can be contained with diplomacy now. OR, Iran is not a threat to the United States at this time."

MilitaryAction Now: 18%
DiplomacyNow: 54%
Not a Threat: 18%
Unsure: 10%

--------------------
NBC News/Wall Street Journal Poll, March 2-5, 2007
"If Iran continues with its nuclear research and is close to developing a nuclear weapon, do you believe that the United States should or should not initiate military action to destroy Iran's ability to make nuclear weapons?"
Should: 43%
Should Not: 47%
Unsure: 10%

Given the divided opinion of Americans on whether or not the US should attack in case Iran develops nuclear weapons, it is important to know the a Candidate's real position, rather than the one they adopt when it is politically expedient.

Posted by Peter

Iraq Polls

2007-04-29T08:38:00.000-07:00

"Do you approve or disapprove of the way George W. Bush is handling the situation with Iraq?" CBS News/New York Times Poll. April 20-24

Disapprove: 74%

The Real Hillary?

2007-04-29T08:32:00.000-07:00

In 2005, Hillary took a backseat on the Iraq debates. At that time:

Clinton took responsibility for her vote for the 2002 resolution authorizing Bush to go to war, while leaving open whether she would have opposed it, given what is now known about faulty intelligence and mismanagement by the administration. She pummeled Bush for his conduct of the war itself but left murky how long she believes U.S. forces should stay in Iraq. As she told Kentucky Democrats earlier this month, "I reject a rigid timetable that the terrorists can exploit, and I reject an open timetable that has no ending attached to it."

Whereas she now bandwaggons with the other Democrats in criticizing the war, at that time, liberals had few good things to say about her, "Senator Clinton is demonstrating cowardice in the face of the right-wing noise machine," said Tom Mattzie, Washington director of the liberal group MoveOn.org.

Given that she now supports phased withdrawal, it is hard to know where she stands. Is she simply a wise politician blowing with the wind? As a voter, it's hard to tell what she would do in the future.

Posted by Peter

Obama Foreign Policy, Part 2

2007-04-29T05:54:00.000-07:00

In separating Democrats and Republicans, people focus on prescriptions from the two camps. It usually comes down to a litmus test over Iraq: the Democrats advocate withdrawing troops; Republicans support the surge. On Iran, it is less clearcut. Republicans are more likely to advocate isolation and a military solution, whereas Democrats advocate engagement and developing a multilateral consensus.

However, the administration is pursuing a multilateral solution in Iran, whereas Joseph Lieberman has advocated air strikes.

Democratic candidates like Clinton and Edwards currently support phased withdrawal of our troops, but they also voted unapologetically for the war. Clinton speaks of a renewed internationalism, bilateral talks and promoting, "religious freedom, democracy, women's rights, social justice and economic empowerment." But, as I will explore in a later post, it is unclear whether, aside from this rhetoric and her commitments to leaving Iraq, her views would lead her down radically different path from the Bush administration

Obama has tried to separate himself from Clinton and Edwards, since he opposed the Iraq War from the very beginning. He has been the most consistent and convincing in offering an alternate worldview to the one currently espoused by the administration.

Of course, there are his views on Iraq, "there can be no military solution to what has become a political conflict between Sunni and Shi’a factions."

But focusing on Iraq masks what I see as the more important difference in Obama's views: the ideological belief that the problems of the 21st century require a new way of thinking. Neorealists will laugh at this suggestion, but that's exactly the point. Obama argues for a break with the previous worldview. Whether he actually achieves this is less clear.

In some ways, Obama offers more of the same and plenty of platitudes. At the Chicago Council on Global Affairs, he advocated expanding the military, the importance of "putting boots on the ground," and the need to sometimes act unilaterally. He praised Bush 1 for garnering clear support before launching Operation Desert Storm. On the liberal side, he wants to decrease the spread of nuclear weapons, strengthen multilateral institutions and stop global warming.

As a candidate who needs to appear more centrist, these words are not surprising.

But his Foreign Policy is certainly neither Neoconservative nor Neorealist. By invoking the wisdom of John Kenney, ("the security of the American people is inextricably linked to the security of all people,") calling for American intervention in fighting avian flu and changing the education policies in foreign countries, he is significantly expanding the domain of national security.

He originally opposed the Iraq War, not because of doubts over the validity of the intelligence on WMD, but because, "it was based on a fundamental misunderstanding of the threats that 9/11 brought to light." Whereas Clinton believed removing Saddam would make the world safer, Obama believed that, in a world where threats cannot be contained by borders and boundaries, cooperation between countries of the free world is paramount in overcoming our challenges.

America cannot lead by "bluster and bombast" or bludgeoning and bribing our allies; we must lead by example, strengthening the principles at home which we want others to install abroad; "we are not a country that runs prisons which lock people away without ever telling them why they are there or what they are charged with;" "we are not a country which preaches compassion and justice to others while we allow bodies to float down the streets of a major American city."

The US does not lead through its military and State Department alone. It leads through domestic policies and promoting democracy at home rather than forcing it abroad. It leads by supporting the World Bank, WHO and international law. It leads by example rather than force.

This is nuanced neoliberalism and there is little doubt that Obama believes in what he says.

Posted by Peter

Obama's Foreign Policy, Part 1

2007-04-29T03:34:00.000-07:00

Kingston got this one rolling on Friday. There's no hiding the fact that I heart Obama, but I'll try and keep it as objective as possible. I'd like to pick up where Kingston left off, with the theme that Obama offers the, "potential for a substantively compelling foreign policy vision that actually attacks the underlying premises of the neocon worldview."

Lets start by reviewing the neocon worldview, both neocon 1 (the pre-invasion worldview) and neocon 2 (the current worldview, which makes the same faulty assumptions, but broadens the approach). In the next post I'll expand on how Obama differs from this worldview.

Neocon Foreign Policy 1

From the work of Irving Kristol, the godfather of Neoconservatism, one can outline the following basic premises of neocon foreign policy: World government (The United Nations) is a terrible idea, statesmen should have the ability to accurately distinguish friend from foe, protect national interest actively both at home and abroad, promote national security by spreading democracy abroad, and develop a strong military.

Historically they supported the Vietnam War and took a strong stance against the Soviet Union; they aligned themselves with the policies of Reagan in the 1980s. They support Israel and Taiwan. They tend to be less deferential to traditional conceptions of diplomacy and international law.

Neocons begin with axiomatic principles, which they will not compromise even if it means unilateral action. For example, neocons begin with the assumption that spreading democracy is always good for US national security. From this assumption, they derive a foreign policy which supports regime change, even in the face of international opposition. This was the logic behind the Iraq invasion. Neocons did not need WMD to justify the invasion; as Bush himself has said, he would have invaded even if he knew that Saddam had no weapons program.

Neocon Foreign Policy 2

Much has been made about the dismissal of neocon advisers in the White House (such as the the outing of Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz) and the rise of Condoleeza Rice. Neoconservatism is supposedly out, Neorealism is in.

Neoconservatism or Neorealism? It is hard to tell. There are signs of Neorealism, such as our attempts to foster bandwaggoning. The administration is seeking a multilateral approach to Iran and North Korea. They are working through the UN and the IAEA. Gone is the rhetoric of the Axis of Evil. Whereas the American Enterprise Institute is advocating regime change in Iran, the administration is focusing on economic carrots and sticks.

It may be semantics, but I do not believe the administration has shifted significantly from its previous assumptions. This is Neoconservatism with a multilateral bent. The administration still advocates the spread of democracy as a means to protect America. They still believe there is a military solution in Iraq; leaving Iraq is described as surrender. There is unambiguous support for Israel. National security is still fostered by actively intervening abroad. Peace in America can only be achieved by hunting down terrorists abroad and undermining or destroying the states where they operate.

They are engaging more with international institutions, but it came only after military constraints in Iraq and political weakness at home. This is constrained Neoconservatism, rather than a fundamental shift in worldview.

Posted by Peter

Right-Wing Pundits and the War

2007-04-29T02:14:00.000-07:00

Via the Huffington Post, editorial cartoonist Tom Tomorrow marks the fourth anniversary of the invasion of Iraq with a brilliant compilation (click to make bigger) of what right wing pund-idiots (Fineman and Matthews aside, though they were stupendously wrong as well) were saying about critics of the war back in March/April 2003:

What makes all this so infuriating is not so much that these guys were dead wrong, but rather the fact that these are the same people now insisting that those who support a phased withdrawal of U.S. forces from Iraq are "defeatists" and do not support the troops. You'd think they'd show a bit more restraint before ranting and raving about how we'll only lose if we quit but I suppose that's far too much to ask.

Posted by Kingston

Obama

2007-04-28T03:14:00.000-07:00

I don't mean to steal Peter's thunder, as he's been providing us with some handy summaries on where the candidates for President in 08 sit on various foreign policy issues, but I thought I'd jump the gun and tell you that I found this bit from Barack Obama's big foreign policy speech last Monday to be right on the money:

In 2002, I stated my opposition to the war in Iraq, not only because it was an unnecessary diversion from the struggle against the terrorists who attacked us on September 11th, but also because it was based on a fundamental misunderstanding of the threats that 9/11 brought to light. I believed then, and believe now, that it was based on old ideologies and outdated strategies – a determination to fight a 21st century struggle with a 20th century mindset.

As Matt notes, the contrast between this and what John Edward's emphasized in his "I was wrong about Iraq" mea culpa back in 2005 is striking:

Almost three years ago we went into Iraq to remove what we were told -- and what many of us believed and argued -- was a threat to America. But in fact we now know that Iraq did not have weapons of mass destruction when our forces invaded Iraq in 2003. The intelligence was deeply flawed and, in some cases, manipulated to fit a political agenda.

I realize that Hilary and Edwards are in some sense unable to take the Obama line on this given their gung-ho support for the war back in that fateful fall of '02, but in Obama I'm beginning to see the potential for a substantively compelling foreign policy vision that actually attacks the underlying premises of the neocon worldview rather than simply focusing on the tired - albiet in many ways legitimate - "Bush manipulated the intelligence" theme.

Hat Tip: Ezra

Posted by Kingston

New Democratic Polls

2007-04-27T06:48:00.000-07:00

Clinton has slipped in the polls. A Wall Street Journal/NBC Poll from yesterday showed her only 5 percentage points ahead of Barack Obama. A Rasmussen poll from earlier this month showed Clinton and Obama tied.

After raising $25.8 million dollars this quarter, Obama is establishing himself as a legitimate threat. He has managed to do so without catering too much to the far left, which means he has a good chance of going the distance. Lets hope he does: between the Imperial Presidency of Clinton and the Meek Attractiveness of Edwards, Obama is the only viable candidate offering fresh realism.

Posted by Peter

The Foreign Policy of Hillary Clinton

2007-04-27T05:53:00.000-07:00

Hillary portrays herself in a softer light than Rudy Giuliani, focusing on rebuilding allies around the world, rather than focusing on aggressive pursuit of our enemies, "First, and most obviously, we must by word and deed renew internationalism for a new century." (Speech at CFR) Opposing the policy of this administration, she advocates bilateral talks with Iran and North Korea: "Direct Negotiations are not a sign of weakness; they're a sign of leadership."

As compared to Bush
Hillary's Foreign Policy is more nuanced; she dismisses the division of countries into camps of "good" and "evil". The Bush administration did accept Libya after it supposedly forsook its evil ways; although this is the type of action Hillary is advocating, the rhetoric and approaches are different. Whereas dealing with Libya fits within Hillary's policy approach, it is inconsistent with the administration's policies towards other countries in the Axis of Evil.

On Iraq
Hillary has been politically savvy in avoiding too many direct suggestions regarding Iraq. Like many, she is revisionist in her interpretation of the Iraq invasion, focusing on the failure of implementation. In 2005, "Clinton blasted the administration's policy, and said the best policy instead would progressively redeploy US troops in the region, call for a regional conference to help discuss options and advocate for the creation of an organization aiming at guaranteeing a division of oil income among all Iraqis." (Breitbart) In February 2007, she introduced a bill to cap the number of troops in Iraq at pre-surge levels, and initiate a phased withdrawl. Yesterday she voted for the Emergency Appropriations Bill calling for the withdrawl of US troops from Iraq, "With this vote, Congress has provided funding for our troops while also putting forward sensible provisions to begin the withdrawal of troops from Iraq." (Clinton 2007)

Last night, she put it more succinctly, "But I think the real question before us is, what do we do now? ... If the president does not get us out of Iraq, when I am president, I will."

Posted by Peter

The Foreign Policy of Rudy Giuliani

2007-04-24T10:42:00.000-07:00

Rudy Giuliani's ideas on Foreign Policy are not widely known. He likes to portray himself as tough, somewhere between a Neocon and a Realist; most of his statements seem to confirm this position.

On Terrorism
Giuliani thinks that the previous US stance on terrorism was overly defensive and agrees with the plan President Bush outlined on September 20th, 2001, of rooting out terrorism around the globe. He also believes that "Removing Saddam Hussein was a necessary part of the war on terrorism," since Saddam was "a pillar of support, both in a practical sense, and in training people, and assisting." (Giuliani 2004) Frighteningly, there are, " easily seven, or eight, or nine other pillars of support," and that, "You’ve got to remove those pillars of support." It is unclear whether these "pillars" include Iran, Saudi Arabia, North Korea, Palestine and Lebanon, but I need not elaborate on the consequences of attempting regime change in all of these countries.

On the Middle East
As a telling sign of his views, 10 Israeli experts concluded that Giuliani is the best presidential candidate for Israel (Haaretz). Given that Giuliani had late Palestinian Authority chairman Yasser Arafat ejected from a concert at the Lincoln Center in New York in 1995, this isn't too surprising. His quotes are also very positive of Israel: "Israel is the only outpost of freedom and democracy in the Middle East and the only absolutely reliable friend of the United States." (August 2002) New York City politics likely played a crucial role in his previous statements, but one cannot ignore the importance of precedence in dictating future behavior.

This is the first in a series of posts on the Foreign Policy of 2008 Presidential Candidates.

Posted by Peter

DeLong Critiques the Neocons

2007-04-21T20:39:00.000-07:00

In critiquing The Economist, Brad Delong explains the great intellectual history of neoconservatives.

The "neoconservatives" were a different group of people, later--Irving Kristol and Norman Podhoretz were their intellectual godfathers, rather than Daniel Bell and Daniel Patrick Moynihan. The real neoconservatives formed into a group at the end of the 1970s around four planks:

1) That the Soviet Union was winning the Cold War, which the west needed to heat up and wage it with harsher methods--nuclear weapons, aircraft carriers, and death squads rather than limp-wristed Carter-Ford focus on international economic prosperity, democratization, and human rights.
2) That Likud should be encouraged to drive Palestinians into their existing homeland of Jordan as soon as practicable.
3) That taxes should be cut, (military) spending raised, and budgets balanced--and that anyone who pointed out that this didn't add up needed to be shouted down.
And:
4) That African-Americans got too easy a ride in modern America, and needed to be made poorer and less powerful.

It's not much to be proud of.

Posted by Peter

Neocons

2007-04-21T20:28:00.000-07:00

The Economist on the fate of neocons:

"But the movement's implosion is nevertheless astonishing. One neocon sums up the prevailing mood in the movement. The neocons are a “laughing stock”. Their “embrace of power” has been “a disaster”. ... The “surge” is a desperate response to failure. ...

The neocons are being relentlessly marginalised in Washington. ... They are also being marginalised—or at least slapped down a bit—within the conservative movement. .... Realists dislike them for their destabilising foreign policy. Small-government types dislike them for their indifference to government spending. Libertarians dislike them for their preoccupation with using the state to impose virtue. Neoconservatism could well return to where it started—the intellectual property of a handful of families called Kristol, Podhoretz and Kagan. "

Posted by Peter

Bush's Polls

2007-04-15T19:16:00.000-07:00

"Do you approve or disapprove of the way George W. Bush is handling the situation with Iraq?"

Disapprove: 65%
approve: 35%

The Administration is gambling that Congress will take the timeline out of the funding provision. These polls suggest that Bush is going to lose this battle.

Posted by Peter

The Right Response

2007-04-15T19:06:00.000-07:00

The Chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, Carl Levin, has the right response for Dick Cheney's BS. "He has misled the people consistently on Iraq," Levin said. "He has misstated. He has exaggerated. And I don't think he has any credibility left with the American people."

Levin could say the same for most people in the administration.

Posted by Peter

More McCain Nonsense

2007-04-14T14:07:00.000-07:00

Regular readers of this blog (I'm sure there are a few of you out there) will be aware that we're not very fond of John McCain. This past Thursday, McCain gave a big speech on the war at the Virginia Military Institute. The central theme is that we need to prolong the war indefinitely because any strategy that hints at withdrawal or redeploying forces would pretty much lead to the end of the world. But this was my favorite bit:

For the first time in four years, we have a strategy that deals with how things really are in Iraq and not how we wish them to be.

Gee! Given that McCain thinks the past four years have been marked by unrealistic Pollyannish platitudes, I'm sure glad he went to such great lengths to unseat the architect of that failed strategy back in 2004. Oh wait...

Hat Tip: Andrew

Posted by Kingston

Really Bad Day in Iraq

2007-04-12T09:44:00.000-07:00

Over at Too Hot For TNR, Spencer highlights the ominous significance of today's suicide bombing in the Green Zone and the destruction of the al-Sarafiya bridge in northern Baghdad, respectively. On the Green Zone:

...someone in a uniform had to wave the bomber into the parliament building. I didn't visit the parliament, but getting into a facility like the U.S. Embassy chow hall requires passing through several tiers of security. You are scanned and frisked. Your papers are scrutinized. Your companions are questioned. Items on your person are confiscated, even without suspicion of their use for terrorism. It's a likely bet that someone guarding the facility, and quite possibly a beneficiary of our training, equipping and mentoring efforts, wanted the attack to occur.

And on the bridge bombing:

This is the first successful attack with real military significance since the beginning of the surge. There aren't too many ways across the Tigris in that area, and it's bound to have something of a deterrent effect on either resupply or the mobility of U.S. or Iraqi forces who need to get from one side of Baghdad to the other. It may not be major, but it'll be a factor....Add to that the cost of hardening the rest of the city's bridges to ensure that further access doesn't get lost -- which has the effect of frustrating Iraqis who already endure massive traffic snarls at the city's numerous checkpoints -- and we see an insurgent/terrorist strategy developing that displays real military sophistication.

As Matt notes,

Two different attacks both of which indicate a qualitative leap in insurgent capabilities or intentions over what we've seen over the past four years of combat does not, to me, suggest an insurgency that's in its last throes or a "surge" that just needs more time to succeed.

Posted by Kingston

Iran Announces Nuclear Expansion

2007-04-09T10:04:00.000-07:00

Ahmadinejad could best be described as "psyched" to announce Iran's opening of a 3,000 centrifuge enrichment plant, which increases their nuclear production capability by almost 10 fold. This is yet more evidence that, while the international community is quite certain that Iran will produce nuclear weapons (and I agree with that assessment), no one is going to stop Iran's nuclear progress.

After our failure in Iraq, the US has lost the international (and domestic) credibility to successfully intervene militarily in Iran. Our military options are limited. 1) An invasion is too costly and, unless we were willing to became a permanent occupying power, it would not be a long term solution. 2) We could turn Iran into a parking lot, but I need not dwell on the ethics of such a decision. 3) We could launch a limited strike on their production facilities, but we could not be sure of hitting all of them and this would only escalate the situation; unfortunately, in a crisis situation, or a confrontational stand-off with the West, I have little faith in Iran's restraint in using nuclear weapons, particularly by giving them to terrorist organizations.

Diplomatic solutions will almost certainly not stop Iran's nuclear ambition. It is unlikely they would trust a US security guarantee. The Iraq invasion taught Iran that nuclear weapons are the only deterrent against US military might.

If we do not attack, we are left to build better relations with yet another nuclear power. I have enough faith in humanity to believe that we can resolve our differences; however, failure to calm Iran's passions and control their nuclear power, could have far worse consequences for the future.

It is not an easy decision to make.

Posted by Peter

The DPRK-Ethiopia Affair

2007-04-08T00:49:00.000-07:00

Hasn't the Bush administration been arguing since 2002 that the North Korean regime is one of the world's greatest threates to international peace and security? From today's NYT:

Three months after the United States successfully pressed the United Nations to impose strict sanctions on North Korea because of the country’s nuclear test, Bush administration officials allowed Ethiopia to complete a secret arms purchase from the North, in what appears to be a violation of the restrictions, according to senior American officials.
The United States allowed the arms delivery to go through in January in part because Ethiopia was in the midst of a military offensive against Islamic militias inside Somalia, a campaign that aided the American policy of combating religious extremists in the Horn of Africa.

Let's take a bet on how much purposeful obfuscation Powerline will need to engage in in order to defend this abomination of a policy.

By the way, remember how conservatives were heaping praise on the Ethiopians for defeating Islamic militants in Somalia? Looks like that's not working out so well.

Posted by Kingston

Good Unemployment Figures

2007-04-06T06:48:00.000-07:00

Unemployment in the US has dropped to 4.4%, with good numbers for all sectors outside of manufacturing (Bureau of Labor Statistics). Unlike some previous manipulations by the administration, this improvement comes from an increase in the employment to participation raio (hat tip Angry Bear) rather than a drop in labor force participation (which held steady at 66.2%).

Not that this is helping Bush, who's approval rating remains at 35%.

Post by Peter

Senate v. Bush Showdown

2007-03-31T07:55:00.000-07:00

The administration is raising its rhetoric in its battle over funding for Iraq. It has been none too pleased with the Senate for fulfilling its consitutional duty to check the authority of the executive.

When Bill Clinton had a showdown with the Republican congress over the Budget, the public increasingly sided with Bubba. Bush claims that congress will eventually be held responsible in the same way for "abandoning" our troops. I disagree. There is a fundamental difference between being forced to shut down the federal government and being forced to constrain the operations of our troops.

The public is much futher removed from the latter and, whereas the Republican congress was proposing cuts to social services during Bill Clinton's presidency (difficult to begin with), Bush is fighting to prolong an unpopular war. To win this political battle, the Democrats need to step up the pressure; they must maintain the constant message that Bush and Cheney are untrustworthy as leaders and that they have lost contact with the needs of the country. By discrediting the policies of the administration (which is easy to do, given their incompetence) congress will be able to remove our troops from the civil war.

Lets hope they succeed.

Posted by Peter

Senate Pulls Through

2007-03-28T05:02:00.000-07:00

The Senate voted in favor of a pullout date yesterday, to my great pleasure and to Dick Cheney's great dismay. I'm particularly proud of Chuck Hagel, who's comments echo my own feelings: "There will not be a military solution to Iraq. Iraq belongs to the 25 million Iraqis who live there."

John McCain disagreed. He noted that, "A second-year cadet at West Point could tell you that if you announce when the end will be, it's a recipe for defeat." While I would agree with McCain for conventional battles, his argument does not hold for civil wars. There can be no clear military defeat, because there is no clear military victory. There is no state to surrender; no general to raise the white flag. The insurgency grows organically from within the dysfunctional state and will continue to do so until the Iraqis make the necessary compromises. We cannot force them to make these changes.

Bush will likely veto the final version of the bill, but as with his many failed decisions regarding Iraq, I expect little more from him.

Posted by Peter

"And then you can challenge the Klingons for interstellar domination!"

2007-03-19T10:00:00.000-07:00

I know I shouldn't start my day by reading the New York Post, but this column by Amir Taheri almost made me throw up my Kellogs' Crunchy Nut Clusters this morning. Money quote:

Preserving the victory achieved in Iraq means delivering a deathblow to all the Middle East's demons: the pan-Arab chauvinists, the Khomeinists, al Qaeda and other jihadis, Shiite and Sunni sectarians, and reactionary autocrats.

Amazing.

Posted by Kingston

Rolling Stone on Iraq

2007-03-19T09:27:00.000-07:00

Rolling Stone recently asked a panel of experts to give their views on the future of Iraq. According to the likes of Zbigniew Brzezinski, Richard Clarke, Gen. Tony McPeak (retired), and Paul Pillar, among others, the best we can hope for is civil war and a stronger al-Qaeda while the worst case scenario is World War III. The most likely scenario, they argue, falls somewhere in between: years of ethnic cleansing and war with Iran. Depressing stuff. But divorced from reality? I wish I could say yes.

Posted by Kingston

Libby Pardon

2007-03-08T03:26:00.000-08:00

People didn't waste any time raising the issue of pardoning Libby for his crimes. The New York Times presents a neutral piece on the issue here, whereas The Wall Street Journal, The Week Standard and the National Review swiftly undermined the purpose of a judicial system by demanding an immediate pardon.

We are either a country ruled by law or we are not; there is no place in a just society for exceptions based on power and connections. Those on the right will try and argue that his crime was not heinous, "he only lied in front of a grand jury." Mobsters have been sentenced to jail over lying to a grand jury; do we discuss pardoning them? The perpetrators of Iran-Contra were pardoned because they acted out of "Patriotism". Those on the right make the same argument for Libby: lying to a grand jury is not patriotic, neither are covert operations or exposing CIA operatives.

I have little doubt that Libby will be pardoned by Bush in the final minutes of his Presidency; his father did the same for the Iran-Contra criminals. That other Presidents have defiled our justice system (Bill Clinton did so, I might add, with Marc Rich) does not mean the current one should do so as well.

I believe in forgiveness, but we need consistency. For a President who executed hundreds without sympathy while in Texas, and has pardoned few during his Presidency, pardoning Libby would show that Justice is not blind, but rather a socialite, tipping the scales as she sees fit.

Posted by Peter

Libby Gets Ace'd

2007-03-06T15:43:00.000-08:00

The guy lied in front a grand-jury...repeatedly. Even Andy McCarthy admits it! He deserves to go down!

The more salient question, however, is - and always has been - why Cheney went to such great lengths to discredit Joe Wilson, who at that time was essentially a nobody. Is this yet another case of mindless Bush administration incompetence or were Cheney & Co. willing to do pretty much anything to prevent their less than honest manipulation of intelligence on Iraq's WMD from being blown wide open? Count me as a believer in the latter.

For more speculation, see Andrew and Kevin.

Posted by Kingston

More Giuliani

2007-03-06T15:32:00.000-08:00

In a brilliant column on the farcical three ring circus that is the GOP race for the presidency, Matt saves his best for the "glory-chasing" former Governor of NYC:

A thrice-married occasional cross-dresser with a penchant for seizing guns while turning a blind eye to illegal immigrants who also thinks cutting taxes on the rich is the be-all and end-all of economic policy isn't going to inspire anyone to wonder what's the matter with Kansas. Next to Giuliani, everyone looks like the candidate for values voters.

Read the whole thing!

Posted by Kingston

Giuliani

2007-03-03T04:01:00.000-08:00

I have blogged several times about why McCain is unlikely to be elected in 2008, but with Rudy Giuliani leading significantly in the polls, it's time I wrote a little about the dangers of a Giuliani presidency.

To be fair, with 3 wives and a host of homosexual friends, he would be one of the most culturally liberal presidents ever; but, with his predisposition to draconian security policies, hard-nose politics, and picking fights, Rudy Giuliani is a terrible person to lead this country in the wake of George Bush, Jr.

Americans think of Giuliani as the mythical figure in New York City on September 11th, 2001. Too few have taken the time to consider him, not as the idealized character of that legend, but as the polarizing mayor who killed his own political career, dumped his wife on television and created a racially divisive police state to try and solve New York's crime problems (of course, those who have read Freakonomics, or the original paper by Steven Levitt, know that Giuliani's police state may have had little to do with the turn-around in crime).

With a Democratic Congress I am not particularly concerned about the mistakes Giuliani might make domestically; he will most likely make standard Republican promises of cutting social programs and increasing the size of the military, but the Democratic Congress will help check his folly.

I am concerned about his likely actions in the Middle East, or with new Russia and the rise of China. As a man who seems to charge like a bull at all confrontation, his tendency towards aggression could have grave consequences.

Unfortunately, many Americans support these type of hard-line policies, which means that the most worrisome part of his candidacy will likely go unquestioned.

Social conservatives actually have little to worry about his previous Pro-Abortion, Gun-Control history; he's a good enough politician to flip-flop like a champ and never look back.

That means moderate liberals like me have a fair amount to worry about.

Piling on Kyl

2007-02-28T03:17:00.000-08:00

Senator Jon Kyl (R-AZ) has returned from a trip to the Middle East "with a growing concern over the pernicious role Iran plays in the region." According to Kyl, we know that Shiite militias "are clearly being armed by Iranian agents" because we've found advanced IEDs - known as Explosively Formed Penetrators (EFPs) - that "had Farsi writing on them indicating they were made in Iran."

Note to Jon: This is very thin gruel! First, as retired Army lieutenant general William E. Odom has noted, the idea that we need to escalate the war to counter "the pernicious role Iran plays in the region" is preposterous:

One of the president's initial war aims, the creation of a democracy in Iraq, ensured increased Iranian influence, both in Iraq and the region. Electoral democracy, predictably, would put Shiite groups in power -- groups supported by Iran since Saddam Hussein repressed them in 1991. Why are so many members of Congress swallowing the claim that prolonging the war is now supposed to prevent precisely what starting the war inexorably and predictably caused?

Secondly, Kyl's uncritical parroting of Bush administration talking points on Iranian EFPs distorts what in reality is a very complicated situation. Of course, in pointing this out I do not mean to suggest that the Iranians are a stabilizing force in Iraq - though as noted above, Kyl would do well to remember that our invasion made Iranian meddling in Iraq inevitable (for more on how the U.S. has also been throwing its weight behind less than savory Shia groups in Iraq, see here). That said, Kyl simply has no way of knowing whether (1) Iranian weapons are actually meant to be used to kill U.S. forces (as opposed to aiding the Shia groups in their war against the Sunnis, for example) or (2) if the highest levels of the Iranian government have actually authorized the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps's Qods Force to supply weapons for use against U.S. troops. What's more, Kyl's claims are further undermined by this Wall Street Journal report which shows that Iraqi insurgents and militias appear to be capable of constructing EFPs on their own!

Posted by Kingston

Yes To Diplomacy

2007-02-27T15:44:00.000-08:00

According to this report, it appears that the Bush administration is rethinking its ridiculous policy of nonengagement with Iran and Syria on Iraq. Though there are no plans for direct talks between the U.S. and Iran - apparently negotiations will occur in the context of a series of international meetings on Iraq planned for this Spring - this is certainly an upgrade over the current approach, which basically amounts to denying that we desire a war with Iran, but in the next breadth pursuing policies that make the war we're trying to avoid more likely.

Posted by Kingston

Assassination Attempt

2007-02-27T00:40:00.000-08:00

The assassination attempt of Iraqi Shiite VP, Adel Abdul-Mahdi, is troubling, not least because it was carried out in the Ministry of Public works, a building with supposedly impenetrable surveilance from the time of Saddam Hussein. US troops had swept the building with bomb sniffing dogs just hours before the explosion.

This is yet another reminder that the US is incapable of creating security in the country, even in one of the most secure buildings in Baghdad.

It's time to leave.

Posted by Peter

The Cheney Strategy

2007-02-25T04:05:00.000-08:00

Dick holds no punches in describing Pelosi as a new-aged appeaser:

"Al-Qaeda functions on the basis that they think they can break our will. That's their fundamental underlying strategy: that if they can kill enough Americans or cause enough havoc, create enough chaos in Iraq, then we'll quit and go home," Cheney added. "And my statement was that if we adopt the Pelosi policy, that then we will validate the strategy of al-Qaeda. I said it, and I meant it."

Cheney's strategy, on the other hand, is flawless: stay in Iraq so as to validate al-Qaeda's claims that the USA is an imperial power, increase terrorist recruiting, lose American soldiers in a war which makes the US weaker as opposed to stronger and perpetuate chaos in Iraq by stopping the Iraqis from dealing with their own civil war.

Cheney is incapable of admiting that the invasion was a mistake, and that our continued presence strengthens the enemy. Americans are still influenced by his irrational rhetoric, but hopefully they are learning that he can't be trusted.

Posted by Peter

Budget Woes

2007-02-15T07:50:00.000-08:00

Robert Samuelson has a great article over at Real Clear Politics. It asks ,Democrats in particular, to think a little harder about our budget priorities. This graph helps emaphasize the change in national priorities over the last 40 years.

In 2006, the federal government spent almost $2.7 trillion. Social Security ($544 billion), Medicare ($374 billion) and Medicaid ($181 billion) are the largest permanent, and growing, sections of that budget. Military spending was $520 billion (including Iraq). Although I believe that military spending should be about two-thirds that amount (not to mention allocated very differently), even saving $200 billion does not cover the deficit.

We need to reconsider who receives welfare payments and why; these are political landmines. When Roosevelt first signed The Social Security Act, poverty rates among senior citizens exceeded 50%. There are still destitute senior citizens, but the numbers are no longer comparable, nor are the problems that seniors face, or workers face in moving towards retirement. The average life expectancy has increased by about 10 years.

It's time that American citizens understand the finer points of this debate, so that populist politicians can't demonize realistic solutions.

Posted by Peter

Strong Strategy

2007-02-15T05:45:00.000-08:00

John Murtha is advocating a bill that will forbid the Pentagon from sending additional troops "unless they have adequate training and unless they have adequate equipment." Since the Democrats argue that thousands of troops lack body armor, the bill seemingly has merit; in reality, since soldiers are always at risk, there is never enough protection from this perspective. Such a bill would curtail Bush's dangerous Surge. Extending the strategy to include bringing home troops who have been in a war zone for a single tour of duty would go a long way towards ending America's presence in the country.

This strategy has strong rhetorical value since it shifts the focus from ending the war to protecting the troops. All they need is a Republican Strategist to give the bill a catchy name (an equivalent to the Death Tax). Maybe the Soldier Defense Act, or Protect Our Soldiers Bill. Who knows. Accompany the bill with pictures of 18 year old boys coming back in body bags and the American public will broadly support of the bill.

The Democrats could never block funding for "the troops" and hence not stop the war by attacking the funding directly. Bush has done a good job of turning his $93 Billion request for funds into a litmus test for "supporting the troops".

If the Democrats can tie all Iraq war funding to "adequate" training and protection of the troops and limits on tours of duty, they might have an appealing political package that will finally get us out of Iraq. The question remains whether congress will be able to exert enough oversight to restrain the executive in this way.

Posted by Peter

War on Terror v. The Cold War

2007-02-14T00:53:00.000-08:00

Question: Which is more misguided, the Domino Theory or the Iraq Theory?

The Domino Theory was the idea during the Cold War that if we didn't fight the Russians at every moment as if it were the final showdown, they would slowly conquer the world, like dominos falling, one after another.

The Iraq Theory is the current misperception that the entire War on Terror is encompassed within the borders of Iraq, and leaving would be tantamount to inviding Al-Qaeda (read: everyone who has ever been anti-American) to enter our homeland and blow it up.

Both theories are wrong, I'm just not sure which is more destructive for America.

Posted by Peter

Thank You, GOP

2007-02-13T15:26:00.000-08:00

Via Mike Crowley, get a load of this internal House GOP memo:

The debate should not be about the surge or its details. This debate should not even be about the Iraq war to date, mistakes that have been made, or whether we can, or cannot, win militarily. If we let Democrats force us into a debate on the surge or the current situation in Iraq, we lose.

Rather, the debate must be about the global threat of the radical Islamic movemebnt... Join us in asking our Democratic colleagues, if we do not defeat the radical Islam in Iraq, then where will we do so?

Note to Democrats: Add this to the arsenal of cudgels meant for use against the GOP in the lead up to 2008!

P.S. Aren't you glad to see that Republicans are supporting the Bush administration's escalation of the war in Iraq because they actually believe it can succeed!?

Posted by Kingston

Executive Pay Reductions?

2007-02-10T14:20:00.000-08:00

The Associated Press suggests that CEO pay will draw increasing scrutiny this year.

While it's true that President Bush did a little token finger wagging at executive compensation in a recent speach, I'm not holding my breath for real action. Activist investors don't have the same power as insiders, and ultimately, insiders determine the pay packages.

Posted by Peter

Politics 101

2007-02-09T11:26:00.000-08:00

What are the chances the Maliki will actually combat the Shiite and Sunni militias equally? Based on the history of most politicians, particularly in states with civil war, the odds are unlikely. One of the fundamental lessons of politics is to support your base. Given that Maliki came to power with the help of Sadr and the very Shiite's he is now supposedly targeting, he would be an uncommon leader to honor his word on this score.

More likely, he is telling George Bush exactly what he wants to hear (as Putin has done quite successfully I might add) and carry out a few token raids against those Shiites that oppose him.

Considering that the majority of Iraqi's are Shiite, he isn't going to abandon nationalist politics now.

Posted by Peter

Surge Politics

2007-02-09T02:19:00.000-08:00

So now that the surge is underway will Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki make good on his promise to crack down equally on all perpetrators of violence, whether they be Sunni or Shia? Not so says Joshua Partlow in today's Washington Post:

Iraqi and U.S. forces should not launch a military offensive against the militias -- most of them Shiite -- that are a major source of turmoil in Iraq, but should instead rely on nonviolent steps to bring militiamen into the political fold, according to an Iraqi report that draws largely on the views of prominent Shiite politicians.

"In the short-term at least, there can be no military offensive against the militias. Military confrontation, in the current climate, will only strengthen their appeal and swell their ranks," the Baghdad Institute for Public Policy Research concludes.

The institute said the 18-page report, "Dismantling Iraq's Militias," was based on a round-table discussion by six Shiite politicians, two Kurds and a Sunni Arab. Government officials said Thursday it would be considered in setting policy, but some here saw it as reflecting the private thinking of Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki as more U.S. troops arrive to try to end the violence.

Maliki has publicly declared that the joint effort will target all lawbreakers equally, regardless of sectarian affiliation. But late last year, his advisers said the prime minister was urging the Americans to combat Sunni groups while Iraqi forces focused on Shiite militias.

Or to put it another way, Maliki and his supporters want American troops to do the dirty work of sidelining the Sunnis while he consolidates Shia hegemony over Iraq. Anyone else think American troops shouldn't be dying for this?

Posted by Kingston

Gambling on '08

2007-02-08T12:51:00.000-08:00

One of my favorite sites on the internet is TradeSports.com, eventhough I've never bet on a sporting event there. That's because TradeSports also has a market for political bets, including the US primaries and 2008 presidential election. For finance lovers, you can sometimes find arbitrage opportunities for easy money (we spent a good deal of time in a finance seminar at Dartmouth one spring making arbitrage profits off Pope contracts).

I've been following the contracts for the Democratic nominee since 2005. Hillary Clinton has topped the list for 2 years, with a current ask price of $49.9 and a volume of 89,500 contracts (this means the market believes that Hillary has roughly a 49.9% chance of winning). Barack Obama contracts are selling for $18.7.

For someone who worries about the rise of the royal presidency and the triumph of cold political calculation, these are not happy numbers.

On the bright side, contracts for Democrats winning the Presidency in 2008 are selling for $55.9.

The market is often wrong, and to make a little money proving my point, I'm going to sell some Hillary contracts short and go long on Barack Obama.

Posted by Peter

Blame the Democrats

2007-02-05T12:42:00.000-08:00

Back in January I wrote about how many of those supporting President Bush's escalation of the war in Iraq were at the same time beginning to lay the groudwork to blame the Democrats in the event that the troop surge were to fail. That effort is now in full swing. As Noemie Emery puts it in the most recent issue of the Weekly Standard,

If...the surge is seen to fail, [the Democrats] will be the ones who made it more difficult, demoralized the armed forces, kneecapped the commander, and telegraphed to the enemy that our will was cracking, and we would shortly be leaving.

I don't want to spend too much time on Emery's smear because it borders on McCarthyism. I will say, however, that rants like this demonstrate just how desperate and unhinged the neocon's position on Iraq has become.

Posted by Kingston

Budget Bonanza

2007-02-05T09:06:00.000-08:00

Don't sell your equity in military contractors quite yet; Bush just asked for at least $624.6 Billion for defence spending. This money could do great good for domestic programs, or even for more intelligent foreign affairs. Instead, Bush wants to waste it in a quagmire.

Posted by Peter

An Inconvenient Truth

2007-02-03T14:32:00.000-08:00

For those who haven't seen the movie, I recommend that you watch it here.

It is compelling and shocking. A couple of points.

1) That the US has lower emission standards than China, or any other developed nation is embarrassing and stupid. The weak laws may have caused complacency in Detroit and exacerbated the decline of US automakers relative to Japan.

2) The pictures of melting in Greenland and Antartica, followed by models of flooding around the world (20ft) are powerful.

3) The comparison of Big Tabacco media denials with those of Big Oil make me even more concerned that Mr. Gore is correct.

This is more than just an incovenient truth.

Iraq Chaos

2007-02-03T10:48:00.000-08:00

More grim news from Iraq today as a suicide truck bomber slaughtered more than 100 people in a Shiite area of Baghdad. How should this news be interpreted? One would expect most rational people to come to the conclusion that the inability of US/Iraqi forces to protect ordinary Iraqis from being regularly blown up on the streets of Baghdad nearly four years after the toppling of Saddam suggests that our mission is failing rather than succeeding. Not so says Powerline. Paul Mirengoff has frequently argued that things in Iraq are not nearly as bad as the Democrats and mainstream media make them out to be (see here). Unfortunately, mass casualty terrorist attacks like the one that occurred today in Baghdad "help persuade Americans that our mission is failing." If only I could take refuge in the world of purposeful obfuscation as comfortably as Powerline. Then I would realize that the problem with all the bad news from Iraq is that it deludes Americans into thinking that we may actually be losing.

Posted by Kingston

Shia death squad leaders flee Baghdad ahead of surge

2007-01-30T06:08:00.000-08:00

Is this evidence that the surge can work or are the Shia death squads simply avoiding conflict now in order to fight another day? I'm hoping for the former but fear that the latter is the more likely scenario.

Posted by Kingston

Rand on the Insurgency

2007-01-30T04:00:00.000-08:00

If they don't have money, they won't be able to fight. Thus goes an old argument regarding insurgencies, which Keith Crane from RAND is recycling for Iraq. He offers a 5 point plan to make it happen.

It is important to first understand where they get the funding: "Militias and insurgents in Iraq obtain funds from four major sources: government payrolls; the resale and smuggling of gasoline and diesel fuel; extortion, robberies, and kidnappings; and other countries. " It is unclear which is the largest source of income. Sadr apparently funds his militia through the payrolls of Ministries of Agriculture, Transportation and Health, but there is plenty of money from other sources.

According to Crane, if the US and Iraqi government can control these sources of revenue ("starving them of cash") we will have better success at ending the insurgency.

Crane's argument ignores the fundamental problems in the conflict and the difficulty of stopping an insurgency in this way. As another old addage goes, where there's a will there's a way. The Colombian government tried "starving" the FARC by spraying coca fields, but the guerrillas would move production or shift to other revenue sources, such as kidnapping.

Slowing the funding for guns and bombs is certainly important, but does not address the fundamental political problem in Iraq. As Crane rightfully points out, "Bombs and bullets have failed to stop Iraq's insurgents and militia fighters," and it's time for a new tact.

Posted by Peter

"The Iranian Missile Crisis"

2007-01-27T03:50:00.000-08:00

Spencer Ackerman has a great post up on the folly of the Bush administration's "aggressive new policy" toward Iran. Money quote:

So let's review administration strategy here. In Iraq, the plan is to escalate the war in order to buy time for Iraqi politics... which is thoroughly dominated, according to U.S. intelligence, by Iran. The best case scenario for us in Iraq is handing Iraq to Iran even more than we already have. At the same time, U.S. military and intelligence assets will go around the country seeking to kill Iranian Revolutionary Guard Forces. (Pop quiz: how many soldiers or intelligence operatives do we have in Iraq who can tell the difference between Arabic and Farsi if they heard it?) Also, we plan to take unspecified "aggressive moves" to roll back Iranian influence around Iran, and, for good measure, confront Iran over its nuclear program on the world stage. And apparently, we think Iran will do nothing, roll over, and decide that conducting foreign policy with a sense of dangerous triumphalism has all been folly, according to [Dafna] Linzer:
Senior administration officials said the policy is based on the theory that Tehran will back down from its nuclear ambitions if the United States hits it hard in Iraq and elsewhere, creating a sense of vulnerability among Iranian leaders.
More likely, Archduke Ferdinand is en route to Sarajevo.

For starters, compare Ackerman's take on all this to Powerline's ridiculous insinuation that military confrontation with Iran is the key to solving our problems in Iraq. First, what part of "our allies in Iraq are also allies of Iran" doesn't Powerline understand? And second, does Powerline actually believe that Iran will simply kneel before us and accede to our demands after we've launched an illegal/unprovoked military first strike against what we think are their nuclear facilities?

Last April the WaPo's David Ignatius quoted Graham Allison as noting that the growing conflict between the U.S. and Iran is turning out to be "the Cuban missile crisis in slow motion." However, what worried Ignatius then (and what worries Ackerman now) was "that the relevant historical analogy may not be the 1962 war that didn't happen, but World War I, which did." The more the Bush adminstration carelessly ratchets up the pressure on Iran, the more likely we are to ignite a conflagration of epic proportions in the Middle East from which America may never recover.

Posted by Kingston

Ugly Politics

2007-01-27T01:47:00.000-08:00

There are early signs that this is going to be an ugly primary season. I'm not sure who fabricated the story, or the leak, but this is exactly the kind of politics that Barack Obama is trying to redefine. From the New York Times:

A disputed report on the Web site of a conservative magazine about Senator Barack Obama’s childhood schooling kicked off a pointed exchange this week The original report, posted on the online version of Insight, a magazine owned by The Washington Times, said that as a child in Indonesia, Mr. Obama had attended a madrassa, a school that teaches a radical version of the Muslim faith. Mr. Obama, who spent a few years in Jakarta as a boy, is a Christian.

Adding to the political volatility of the report was the attribution of the news to “researchers connected to” Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton.

Representatives of Mr. Obama of Illinois and Mrs. Clinton of New York denounced the Insight report, calling it false and an effort by a conservative publication to smear two Democratic contenders at the same time.

Quote of the Day

2007-01-25T09:07:00.000-08:00

It is critical that we understand that this new form of terrorism carries another more subtle, perhaps equally pernicious, risk. Because it might encourage a fear-driven and inappropriate response. By that I mean it can tempt us to abandon our values. I think it important to understand that this is one of its primary purposes...

London is not a battlefield. Those innocents who were murdered on July 7 2005 were not victims of war. And the men who killed them were not, as in their vanity they claimed on their ludicrous videos, 'soldiers'. They were deluded, narcissistic inadequates. They were criminals. They were fantasists. We need to be very clear about this. On the streets of London, there is no such thing as a 'war on terror', just as there can be no such thing as a 'war on drugs'.

The fight against terrorism on the streets of Britain is not a war. It is the prevention of crime, the enforcement of our laws and the winning of justice for those damaged by their infringement...

Britain's director of public prosecutions, Sir Ken Macdonald, in a speech to Britain's Criminal Bar Association. Sir Ken makes two absolutely critical points here. First, conceiving of terrorism as a military target is conceptually incoherent and utterly counterproductive when it comes to devising strategies to combat it. Second, the gravest consequences of terrorism come not from the damage inflicted by terrorists themselves, but from the overreactions they provoke.

Hat Tip: Andrew Sullivan

Posted by Kingston

Are Teachers Really Underpaid?

2007-01-24T12:24:00.001-08:00

There's an ongoing debate in the US about the pay of public school teachers. It is often claimed that they are inadequately compensated; the Teachers' Union and others have claimed that higher pay will increase educational results. However, there is substantial evidence that pay has no effect on student performance.

A common reason many of my peers dismiss teaching is because of the salary. That teachers are undercompensated is such a common refrain that it is rarely questioned (perhaps because of publicity by the national teacher unions?). If one looks more closely at the numbers, teaching is actually a financially attractive profession.

One factor people often leave-out of this debate is the fact public school teachers work substantially less than other professions (about 9 months out of the year, as opposed to 11.5). The average income of a teacher in the US is $46,752 (excluding benefits). If these this mythical teachers worked all year, rather than take their standard 3 months vacation, their pro rata income would be $62,336 (plus benefits).

Benefits differ by state, but there are some commonalities. Pension plans tend to be generous: for example, in Missouri, a teacher who worked from age 22-55 could retire with 84% of her annual salary, adjusted for inflation; at age 55, the ex-teacher could even take a new job and still receive the pension. As one might expect, teachers, on average, retire four years younger than the average retiree collecting Social Security. Incredibly, health insurance coverage for public school teachers is over 99% nationally.

When compared to other similarly educated professional using these metrics, teaching is actually a very attractive profession.

If the government really wants to increase the caliber of new teachers, rather than emphasize the miserly pay, it should publicize the fact that it is a wonderful financial and personal opportunity for college graduates.

Posted by Peter

Are Teachers Really Underpaid?

2007-01-24T12:24:00.000-08:00

Globalization and Wages

2007-01-20T04:34:00.000-08:00

The Economist's latest magazine focuses on the impact of globalization on inequality and wages. All and all, it's a solid report, but I have one major bone to pick: their argument that CEO compensation reflects true "value" in the market. They find it preposterous that CEO's might be overpaid, eventhough there is no evidence that CEO pay actually correlates with performance. Home Depot's $210m severance package for its failed leader being a most recent example. This is faith in markets ad absurdum, and plenty of business leaders would agree with me. Warren Buffet being the most revered.

Berkshire Hathaway has enjoyed a 41 year history with a compounded annual gain in book value of around 22%, an extraordinary achievement. In Warren's words:

Too often, executive compensation in the U.S. is ridiculously out of line with performance. That won’t change, moreover, because the deck is stacked against investors when it comes to the CEO’s pay. The upshot is that a mediocre-or-worse CEO – aided by his handpicked VP of human relations and a consultant from the ever-accommodating firm of Ratchet, Ratchet and Bingo – all too often receives gobs of money from an ill-designed compensation arrangement.

I like The Economist. But it's dead wrong on this one.

Posted by Peter

Conservatives Support Raising Gas Taxes

2007-01-18T10:57:00.000-08:00

There is hope after all. Greg Mankiw reports that Robert Samuelson is advocating adding a $2 a gallon tax to gasoline. While he doesn't get into the nuances of making this tax neutral for low-income Americans, I like the direction conservatives are headed.

Posted by Peter

The King

2007-01-17T17:14:00.000-08:00

Kinger raised some good points in his last few posts. Aside from the amusing quote from the department of the WTF, I particularly like his looking forward to the inevitable debate about "Who lost Iraq" (which will be the PR battle of a lifetime for conservatives) and the critical analysis of Donald Stoker's could be article in FP.

First, on who lost Iraq. Despite all of the counterfactuals which IR professors will write for decades, people familiar with the region were convinced that the mission would fail from the outstart. Indeed, even people familar with the general history of foreign occupations and insurgency had strong convictions that the regime change would fail (see my undergraduate thesis here, for an example. But, as King suggests, the Revisionists will tell a different story, just as conservatives have tried to distort the explanation for America's failure in Vietnam. The beauty of revisionist history is that you can choose an moment to begin creating your fairy tale. Revisionists will most likely start with this moment, when Liberals voted against the troop surge, as the turning point. The argument will go something like this:

President Bush's Administration, and particularly Donald Rumsfeld, made some careless mistakes after their overwhelmingly successful invasion, which led to an increase in sectarian violence. Just when President Bush arrived at the winning strategy of increasing US troops and pressuring the Iraqis to control Sadr, Liberals in Congress lost their nerve, demoralized the troops and eventually forced the US withdrawl of troops at the end of Bush's last year as President, in hopes of giving Republican candidates some help. If the Liberals hadn't been so weak, the USA would have prevailed. This story will pop up somewhere; it's patently false.

Of course, the strategy could have worked. I recently played the Powerball while I was in the states. The grand prize was around $160 million (which without taxes and multiple winners is better than a fair bet) and I bought a ticket. I could have won!!! But I didn't. What were my odds? Exactly 1:146,107,962. Donald Stucker is right, the strategy could work, and the revisionist story I outlined above could be true, just as Aliens might arrive tomorrow. Any student of statistics will appreciate the difference between things that could happen and things that are likely to happen. As Kinger says, "Last time I checked, sound policy needs to be based on the likelihood of success rather than on wishful thinking about how it could work."

Posted by Peter

I Hope, Therefore it Will Work

2007-01-17T09:16:00.000-08:00

Others have already commented on this piece by Donald Stoker in Foreign Policy (see here and here) but I want to take a bit of a different angle. According to Stoker:

The cold, hard truth about the Bush administration’s strategy of “surging” additional U.S. forces into Iraq is that it could work. Insurgencies are rarely as strong or successful as the public has come to believe. Iraq’s various insurgent groups have succeeded in creating a lot of chaos. But they’re likely not strong enough to succeed in the long term. Sending more American troops into Iraq with the aim of pacifying Baghdad could provide a foundation for their ultimate defeat, but only if the United States does not repeat its previous mistakes. [italics mine]

Last time I checked, sound policy needs to be based on the likelihood of success rather than on wishful thinking about how it could work.

Posted by Kingston

Fresh in From the Department of WTF

2007-01-17T09:01:00.000-08:00

Via Kevin, look what our President thinks about sacrifice and the Iraq War:

LEHRER: Let me ask you a bottom-line question, Mr. President. If it is as important as you've just said -- and you've said it many times -- as all of this is, particularly the struggle in Iraq, if it's that important to all of us and to the future of our country, if not the world, why have you not, as president of the United States, asked more Americans and more American interests to sacrifice something?....

PRESIDENT BUSH: Well, you know, I think a lot of people are in this fight. I mean, they sacrifice peace of mind when they see the terrible images of violence on TV every night.

Any thoughts on what this could possibly mean? Personally, I think he's completely lost it.

Posted by Kingston

Surging to Nowhere

2007-01-17T03:02:00.000-08:00

According to Thomas Sowell, we'd be winning in Iraq if it weren't for the Democrats and the liberal media. Simply put, it's Vietnam all over again.

Deep down Sowell knows that the surge is likely to fail - how else to explain the fact that he doesn't bother to explain how it will make things better. What's more, he knows that American forces will eventually withdraw without having been able to prevent a blood bath. Like most of his comrades on the Right, Sowell is attempting to lay the groudwork for the "Who Lost Iraq Debate" that will inevitably follow our retreat. If only the defeatist media had presented a less biased account of events. If only excessively restrictive "rules of engagement" hadn't prevented us from wiping out Sunni insurgents and the Shia militias. If only we could have imposed our iron will by disregarding the wishes of Iraq's elected government. Or something like that.

Instead of making ridiculous assertions about how great Iraq would be if it weren't for Nancy Pelosi, defenders of the surge need to be making arguments that actually comport (or at least somewhat comport) with the reality on the ground. Does the bulk of the evidence suggest that escalating the war is going to make things better? How is the surge going to prevent the transformation of the Iraqi government into an Iran-backed Shia theocracy (think Sadr) bent on annhilating the Sunnis? And what if the surge fails? Is Sowell prepared to send even more troops? Why are so many on the Right unwilling to answer these questions?

Posted by Kingston

What Reconciliation

2007-01-15T23:56:00.000-08:00

A quote from one of the Sunni mourners following the executions of Al-Barrack and Barzan Ibrahim:

"Where are those who cry out in demands for human rights?" Marwan Mohammed asked in grief and frustration. "Where are the U.N. and the world's human rights organizations? Barzan had cancer. They treated him only to keep him alive long enough to kill him. We vow to take revenge, even if it takes years."

Posted by Peter

How Long Does a Surge Last?

2007-01-15T13:42:00.000-08:00

According to the optomistic General Casey, he does not expect significant results in Iraq until the summer and fall, but, in his words, "I believe that this plan can work."

Interestingly enough, I expect the same death toll among American troops this August as we had last August (about 70), and, in my words, "I can't believe they think this plan can work."

George Casey certainly has more credibility than I do, but then again, General Casey himself was against sending more troops to Iraq before he was for it. General Abizaid (Another 4 Star General) has also opposed the troop surge in the past. I'm interested to see if Bush has him recant to the national press as well.

Posted By Peter

What Apology?

2007-01-15T11:27:00.000-08:00

President Bush last night on "60 Minutes":

PELLEY: Do you think you owe the Iraqi people an apology for not doing a better job?

BUSH: That we didn't do a better job or they didn't do a better job?

PELLEY: Well, that the United States did not do a better job in providing security after the invasion.

BUSH: Not at all. I am proud of the efforts we did. We liberated that country from a tyrant. I think the Iraqi people owe the American people a huge debt of gratitude, and I believe most Iraqis express that. I mean, the people understand that we've endured great sacrifice to help them. That's the problem here in America. They wonder whether or not there is a gratitude level that's significant enough in Iraq.

Right on Mr. President. Clearly the thousands of innocent civilians killed in Iraq each month should have sent thank you notes to the White House before they were blown up eating at a cafe, shopping at a market, or walking their kids to school.

Posted by Kingston

In Case We Needed Another Reason ...

2007-01-11T11:25:00.000-08:00

Leaks from Maliki's government reveal that the Shiite-led government does not want an American troop increase.

From The New York Times:

[That the US should not increase troop levels] is an opinion that is broadly held among a Shiite political elite that is increasingly impatient, after nearly two years heading the government here, to exercise power without the constraining supervision of the United States. As a long-oppressed majority, the Shiites have a deep-seated fear that the power they won at the polls, after centuries of subjugation by the Sunni minority, will be progressively whittled away as the Americans seek deals with the Sunnis that will help bring American troops home.

We are putting ourselves in the middle of the Iraqi Civil War. The Shiite's don't want us to send more troops, since they now have the upper-hand; moderate Sunni's are asking for more US troops to combat Sadr's Shiite militia. While Bush is correct that millions of Iraqis want peace, there is also a powerful number of people on in the Shiite-led government who want revenge. It is unclear how either staying in Iraq or sending more troops will change that sentiment.

Posted by Peter

Americans Want Out

2007-01-11T07:58:00.000-08:00

From an AP-Ipsos Poll:

Fully 70 percent of Americans oppose sending more troops, and a like number don't think such an increase would help stabilize the situation there. The telephone survey of 1,002 adults was conducted Monday through Wednesday night, when the president made his speech calling for an increase in troops. News had already surfaced before the polling period that Bush wanted to boost U.S. forces in Iraq.

Hopefully this will give Congressional Democrats more confidence in stopping Bush from Dumping more troops into Iraq.

Posted By Peter

Bush Speaks

2007-01-10T18:21:00.000-08:00

If we leave, apparently a sanctuary for Al Qaeda will develop in Iraq, harboring terrorists to launch attacks on the US. There is no mention of how Iraq in such a scenario would differ from our present situation with other countries in the region, nor how staying in Iraq would increase our ability to actually alter the perception of Americans in the Middle East.

Sending more troops only reinforces the terrorist's rhetoric that we are an occupying power.

I feel bad for our troops: over 3000 dead and 20,000 injured, and as Bush admits, it isn't going to get better any time soon. He used the old Vietnam argument that we can not let our troops die in vain by leaving. I have never understood how sending more troops to die in their place honors anybody. I'm interested to see if Congressional Democrats will make a stand, and if the American public will support them.

Posted by Peter

20,000 New Troops

2007-01-10T08:01:00.000-08:00

A drop in the bucket.

I applaud the spirit of not wanting to "give up", but it's time we finally help the situation by leaving. Yes, there will be civil war when we leave: there is already civil war.

People who advocate risking the lives of more troops start with the assumption that we can "win the war." Such people don't take the time to define what such a victory would look like. Is it the end of sectarian violence? Over a thousand years of violence isn't going to end with an additional 20,000 troops, and I've yet to hear an argument as to how these extra troops are going to overcome all of the problems we've had to this point. Is it establishing a government? We've already done that. Eliminating WMD? They were never there. Training more police and army forces? Talabani has said that Iraqi troops are sufficiently trained since 2005. Ensure that the government does not collapse? Our presence has no impact on this; the Iranian's have already offered to support the government if asked, and if we're worried about handing Iraq over to Iran, we already fucked that when we invaded.

I wish we wouldn't send the troops, but I don't think the Democrats have the political cohesion to block funding for the additional troops. Some Democrats are saying (incorrectly) that it is unconstitutional for the congress to deny the president funding for the troops. Unless moderate Dems decide to bring the troops home now, we'll unnecessarily put more young Americans in harms way and run-up the deficit another 100 billion dollars or so.

Wake up Mr. President. There's nothing left to win in Iraq.

Posted by Peter.

Democrats Playing Smart

2007-01-05T13:02:00.000-08:00

Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid issued a joint letter to President Bush today, urging him to abandon the insanity of increasing troop levels in Iraq, and to begin bringing troops home in 4 to 6 months. Aside from cutting funding for the troops (which would be politically stupid), the Democrats have no control over the President's executive decisions regarding Iraq.

Bush will probably go ahead and send more troops to Iraq anyways; There is a sad desire to Fail Big and then go home. As King and I have argued in the past, more troops are not going to end the civil war. We learned that lesson in Vietnam.

The Democrats are playing this well. They are focusing on the Budget by pushing through domestic legislation on PAYGO and ethics reforms, all while keeping pressure on Bush to get out of Iraq. When Bush ignores them and sends more troops, it will hurt both his legacy and McCain's chances at the Presidency. Indeed, the best thing Bush could do for Republicans in pull out of Iraq now. At least then they can continue peddling the myth that sending more troops may have helped.

Posted by Peter

The Minimum Wage Redux

2007-01-04T17:33:00.000-08:00

The mantra that "the minimum wage should be $0" fills every economics 101 textbook that I've ever seen and conservatives like to repeat the saying along with their usual chant for "smaller government." The argument is that the mimimum wage distorts the labor market and leads to unemployment. For years, this was the consensus among economists, but no longer. When PhD members of the American Economic Association were recently polled, it is one of the few issues that generates basic controversy: 37.7% want it increased and 46.8 want it eliminated.

I support raising the minimum wage, although it is a crude anti-poverty measure and I would vastly prefer a reduction in the tax rate for people earning under $20,000 a year. But, given that all tax bills somehow end up unequally benefiting the top 1% of Americans, increasing the mimimum wage is a start.

I agree with Kinger and Kevin Drum that conservative economists often mistakenly view workers as commodities. Aside from the moral problems with this view, there is plenty of research showing that it is factually wrong: commodity markets and the labor market are fundamentally different (See this paper by Stiglitz et al for an example).

One of my favorite points to make against conservative pundits is that there is no conclusive evidence that raising the mimum wage actually increases unemployment. David Carr and Alan Krueger provided the most compelling evidence. (If people know what they're talking about, they'll cite some other contradictory studies such as the work by Neumark and Wascher, but like I said, there's no conclusive evidence.)

Most people support the minimum wage as a matter of promoting equality. The minimum wage might also be about Power. Employers, such as fast-food restaurants, often have more power than their low skilled workers, who earn nickle and dimed wages. Poor workers have no option but to take the work they are offered, since they have no savings to search for higher-paying jobs. The miminum wage is a way of guarranteeing that poor workers are not exploited any more than they already are.

Not all employers enjoy such power and low-skill workers do not always produce more value than the wage they receive, which is why there are adverse effects to raising the minimum wage. But, if the government isn't going to help out the poorest Americans with tax breaks, free health care or other social services, a higher minimum wage is the best of a bad situation.

Poster by Peter

The Minimum Wage

2007-01-04T11:37:00.000-08:00

While I'm far less qualified than Peter to comment on this, George Will's take on the subject in today's WaPo didn't sit well with me:

But the minimum wage should be the same everywhere: $0. Labor is a commodity; governments make messes when they decree commodities' prices.

As Kevin Drum points out, "this, in a nutshell, is the core problem with conservative economics: it views workers as commodities. Naturally it follows from this that we should be free to treat workers like commodities, rather than as human beings." Any thoughts Pete?

Posted by Kingston

I Did Not Realize

2007-01-04T05:08:00.000-08:00

The AugustReview.Com (apparently a think tank) has just informed me of an Orwellian disaster in the making:

The global elite, through the direct operations of President George Bush and his Administration, are creating a North American Union that will combine Canada, Mexico and the U.S. into a superstate called the North American Union. There is no legislation or Congressional oversight, much less public support, for this massive restructuring of the U.S.

Lou Dobbs has the story too. My respect for CNN just dropped further. They claim the US government is planning a common currency called the "Amero"! This is populist fearmongering and absolutely ridiculous.

Posted by Peter

Human Rights, Democracy and Liberalism

2007-01-03T04:12:00.000-08:00

There are inconsistencies in all world views, although when we see them in our own philosophy we usually turn a blind eye. Saddham's execution reminded me of one of the problems with liberalism's belief in human rights. And as long as I am on the subject I thought I would take this opportunity to discuss the motherload of Liberal quandries, which is the support of Democracy around the World.

One of the revisionist justifications for overthrowing Saddham was his crimes against humanity, including the massacre of 148 Sunni Muslims for which he was ultimately sentenced to death. Ignoring the much larger loss in civilian lives and lower standard of living resulting from the invasion itself, most people I have spoken with do not recognize the irony of using political executions as a justification for invasion, only to turn around and execute the very person you claim was committing a crime. Some liberals will argue that Saddham received a trial and that his execution is therefore justifiable, whereas he killed people without such transparency. I don't buy it.

It is not difficult to run a counterfactual as to whether Saddham could have devised a trial for killing the 148 Sunnis after they tried to assassinate him, or that there could have been a trial for his massacre of the Kurds after Gulf War I. Beauty and murder are in the eye of the beholder. This is a paradox which most people ignore. We try and cloud our actions in righteousness, but our actions are inconsistent with our philosophy. Realists have a much easier time executing Saddham; he was a political threat, and now he isn't.

My concern is that our actions are obviously hypocritical to most people outside of this country. There is little wonder that people in the Middle East question our motives in the region, given that there is no coherent reason. The administration originally claims that it is for WMD, then it fails to admit it made a mistake and seamlessly creates the justification of emancipation and hypothetical security. People would respect us more if we remained consistent. In the long run, it would also be more effective.

The same is true of Democracy: we claim to support it until we don't like the results of the elections. The Bush administration has created a dichotomy between Democracies and Everyone-Else. Democracies Good. Everyone-Else Bad. We lose credibility when we push for elections in Palestine and we suddenly claim that Palestine is a bad Democracy when a political group associated with terrorist gets elected; it's inconsistent. It's time we stop claiming that Democracy is an end, in and of itself. The institutions themselves are not goals. We need to stop talking about bringing people Democracy, because when it fails to give people a better life, it actually undercuts the liberal agenda.

That's my first rant of 2007. Happy new year.

Posted by Peter

Troop Surges

2006-12-25T07:35:00.000-08:00

The right-wing blogosphere has been buzzing over the prospect of sending more troops to Iraq to do...well, nobody really know's what their strategic goals would be - kill the Sunnis? attack Al-Qaeda? disarm the Shia militias? Stop a civil war? Police the streets? - but sending more troops comports nicely with the conservative belief that "we'll succeed unless we quit"

For some useful primers on why sending more troops to Iraq is not the panacea its proponents make it out to be go here, here, and here.

Posted by Kingston

McCain: Political Suicide?

2006-12-14T14:58:00.000-08:00

From the AP

Sen. John McCain took his controversial proposal for curbing Iraq' sectarian violence to Baghdad on Thursday, calling for an additional 15,000 to 30,000 U.S. troops.

With the majority of Americans wanting to pull out of Iraq (not to mention that it's the best thing to do) McCain's position is going to be a tough sell on the Road to '08.

Posted by Peter

Americans Don't like Bush's Economy

2006-12-13T11:37:00.000-08:00

This sums-up the central economic problem in America today.

The Great Wealth Transfer, by Paul Krugman, Rolling Stone:

Why doesn't Bush get credit for the strong economy?" That question has been asked over and over again in recent months by political pundits. ... The reason most Americans think the economy is fair to poor is simple: For most Americans, it really is fair to poor. Wages have failed to keep up with rising prices. Even in 2005, a year in which the economy grew quite fast, the income of most non-elderly families lagged behind inflation. The number of Americans in poverty has risen even in the face of an official economic recovery, as has the number of Americans without health insurance. Most Americans are little, if any, better off than they were last year and definitely worse off than they were in 2000.

But how is this possible? The economic pie is getting bigger -- how can it be true that most Americans are getting smaller slices? The answer, of course, is that a few people are getting much, much bigger slices. ...

Rising inequality isn't new. The gap between rich and poor started growing before Ronald Reagan took office, and it continued to widen through the Clinton years. But what is happening under Bush is something entirely unprecedented: For the first time in our history, so much growth is being siphoned off to a small, wealthy minority that most Americans are failing to gain ground even during a time of economic growth -- and they know it.

--
Posted by Peter
Hat Tip: Economist's View

Wishful Thinking

2006-12-11T09:56:00.000-08:00

Bush seems to think that Iraq's neigbors are interested in its success as a democracy:

"We also talked about the neighborhood, the countries that surround Iraq and the responsibilies that they have to help this young Iraqi democracy survive," Bush said. "We believe that most of the countries understand that a mainstream society, a society that is a functioning democracy is in their interest. And its up to us to help focus their attentions and focus their efforts on helping the Iraqis succeed."

Right. Because that "neighborhood" has always been interested in promoting and nurturing democratic states.

Posted by Peter

Why not study fairy creatures?

2006-12-11T08:22:00.000-08:00

Iran is at it again. This time they are holding a conference for quacks, aka Holocaust Deniers.

According to the institute's chief, "This conference seeks neither to deny nor prove the Holocaust," Mousavi said. "It is just to provide an appropriate scientific atmosphere for scholars to offer their opinions in freedom about a historical issue."

Why not hold a conference to study dragons and fairy creatures?

I am sick and tired of radicals attempting to bring academic validity to their insanity. The sad thing is that it works and it has worked in the USA. Start a think tank with to publish "evidence" that Welfare Mothers are the problem with the American economy and the attention shifts from the growing disparity between the rich and the poor, and white-collar fraud. Start a conference on denying the Holocaust, and people suddenly start arguing with Wackos about whether the Holocaust happened an ignore the fact that they want to WIPE ISRAEL OFF THE MAP.

Not every theory has equal merit; not every belief is justifiable; not every conference is scientific, just because it claims to be so.

Posted by Peter

One Reason to Support Barack Obama

2006-12-09T15:13:00.000-08:00

Barack Obama, September 2002:

“I don’t oppose all wars. What I am opposed to is a dumb war. What I am opposed to is a rash war. What I am opposed to is the cynical attempt by Richard Perle and Paul Wolfowitz and other armchair, weekend warriors in this administration to shove their own ideological agendas down our throats, irrespective of the costs in lives lost and in hardships borne.”

Posted by Peter

Cassandras

2006-12-09T14:59:00.000-08:00

From Paul Krugman:

Paying Tribute to the Cassandras, Money Talks:

As Sen. Feingold has pointed out, it's striking that not one member of the Iraq Study Group spoke out against the war before it happened, or even raised doubts in public. One of the truly amazing things about the political and media scene today is this: not only are people who cheered on this grotesque mistake still taken seriously, there seems to be an unwritten rule that ONLY people who supported the war get to make pronouncements on national security. Somehow, the likes of John McCain, who has been wrong every step of the way, are considered more credible on this issue than people like Howard Dean, who has been right at every point. Go figure.

Unacceptable II

2006-12-07T09:00:00.000-08:00

John McCain worries me more every day. Here are some of his comments from this morning's committee meeting, in which he applauds sending MORE TROOPS to Iraq:

I applaud the ISG's endorsement of a surge of American combat forces to stabilize Baghdad. Such a step is long overdue. But the coalition should not characterize such a redeployment as "short-term" or place a timetable on its presence.
Posted by Peter

Unacceptable

2006-12-07T01:49:00.000-08:00

Via Gregory Djerejian, this excerpt from the just-released Iraq Study Group report in a nutshell tells you a lot about why we're failing in Iraq:

We were told that there are fewer than 10 analysts on the job at the Defense Intelligence Agency who have more than two years’ experience in analyzing the insurgency. Capable analysts are rotated to new assignments, and on-the-job training begins anew. Agencies must have a better personnel system to keep analytic expertise focused on the insurgency. They are not doing enough to map the insurgency, dissect it, and understand it on a national and provincial level. The analytic community’s knowledge of the organization, leadership, financing, and operations of militias, as well as their relationship to government security forces, also falls far short of what policy makers need to know.

In addition, there is significant underreporting of the violence in Iraq. The standard for recording attacks acts as a filter to keep events out of reports and databases. A murder of an Iraqi is not necessarily counted as an attack. If we cannot determine the source of a sectarian attack, that assault does not make it into the database. A roadside bomb or a rocket or mortar attack that doesn’t hurt U.S. personnel doesn’t count. For example, on one day in July 2006 there were 93 attacks or significant acts of violence reported. Yet a careful review of the reports for that single day brought to light 1,100 acts of violence. Good policy is difficult to make when information is systematically collected in a way that minimizes its discrepancy with policy goals.

Posted by Kingston

Twilight Zone

2006-12-05T14:56:00.000-08:00

Despite praising much of what soon-to-be Secretary of Defense Robert Gates had to say in front of the Senate Armed Services Committee today, the boys over at Power Line are flummoxed by an exchange Gates had with Senator Lindsay Graham concerning Iran:

Graham: The president of Iran has publicly disavowed the existence of the Holocaust, has publicly stated that he would like to wipe Israel off the map. Do you think he's kidding?

Gates: No, I don't think he's kidding, but I think there are, in fact, higher powers in Iran than he, than the president. And I think that, while they are certainly pressing, in my opinion, for nuclear capability, I think that they would see it in the first instance as a deterrent.

Indeed. Who could possibly have the temerity to suggest that Iran might consider its own survival to be a more important goal than seeking holy martyrdom via the destruction of Israel? Doesn't that mushy liberal Gates understand that the threat of massive mililtary retaliation has no influnece on Iran's decisionmaking calculus? In fact, I bet the liberal mainstream media has already convinced him that a Pentagon has six sides instead of five...

Posted by Kingston

OPEC and Pigou

2006-12-03T14:36:00.000-08:00

The members of OPEC are having a spat over whether to further cut oil supplies as we head into Q1 of 2007. Although the technicalities of maintaining the monopoly price are worthwhile (is it best to watch crude prices or accumulated inventories), I am more interested in the Pigovian effects of the Monopoly.

Arthur Cecil Pigou is the father of Welfare Economices. Pigovian Taxes, named in his honor, are taxes used to correct negative externalities. The classic examples are taxing pollution, cigs and alchohol.

The current US tax on gasoline is an example of such a tax; as I have argued previously, gasoline taxes should be increased (while simultaneously decreasing income taxes) in order to better account for negative externalities and improve the incentive structure of our tax code. Environmentalists love this idea, but I think Foreign Policy is a less appreciated and more powerful argument for increasing such taxes.

The OPEC cartel already helps us with the environmental side; by increasing the price of gasoline, the cartel is better aligning the costs of pollution with its consequences. The main difference is that Pigovian taxes usually help pay for the ill-effects, whereas the Cartel price goes to funding radicalism in Latin America and the Middle East, and potentially perpetuating corruption in all of the countries.

Raising taxes on oil in the US will increase its price and decrease its demand, which has the same effect domestically as the monopolist price, except that the US government keeps the prize.

People fail to appreciate the sort of Buyer Power the US has in the world oil market. We consume roughly 25% of world oil. OPEC controls only 30% of world production. The cartel has the upper hand since we have no substitutes for oil and their people already live in the economic equivalent of the middle ages, however, there is room to push back.

The more interesting question is how much Western Oil Companies lobby to maintain the status quo. Although people (including myself) always point to OPEC as the cause for the monopoly prices, it's important to realize that the Western Oil Companies piggy-back on their efforts and also enjoy the monopoly price. In other words, foreign countries have done what Exxon, BP, etc. would love to do at home if it weren't for anti-trust laws. (This reminds me of how sugar producers have lobbied for import quotas on cane sugar, which leads to both a subsidy for their US production as well as higher prices for the sugar plants they control in the Carribean). Does the lobbying power of Big Oil help explain the low US oil taxes?

It's time policy makers start to seriously discuss the problems with our "Addiction to Oil" and analyze why we do so little about it.

Posted by Peter

Letting Go of Iraq

2006-12-01T14:56:00.000-08:00

Recently I've been trying to come up with a clear and consice summary of my views on why we need to begin withdrawing troops from Iraq. As if right on cue, The Atlantic's James Fallows has done the heavy lifting for me:

So the choice is between a terrible decision and one that is even worse. The terrible decision is just to begin leaving, knowing that even more innocent civilians will be killed and that we’ll be dealing with agitation out of Iraq for years to come. The worse decision would be to wait another year, or two, or three and then take that terrible course. If we thought a longer commitment and presence would lead to a better outcome, then the extra commitment might be sensible. But nothing occurring in Iraq in the last year has given rise to any hope that things are getting better rather than worse. (This, by the way, is the reason I have changed my mind: the absence of evidence that the chances for a “decent” departure will improve.)

In refutation of this view, a vociferous chorus of neocons and liberal hawks are arguing that we need to make a last ditch effort to save Iraq by plugging another 20,000-50,000 troops into the cyclonic shitstorm that is Baghdad. This is of course ridiculous and doesn't deserve serious consideration. First, in terms of American domestic politics, it simply ain't gonna happen. Second, and more importantly, it naively assumes that all our problems in Iraq can be chalked up to a lack of security. The unrelenting cycle of blood-letting between Sunni and Shia, however, has taken on a life of its own. Adding more troops now isn't likely to ameliorate the fundamental social and political divisions that are tearing Iraq apart. In fact, given that not even the Iraqi Shia want us in their country anymore, it seems more likely that an influx of Amerian troops would only serve to exacerbate the situation.

Hat Tip: Matt

Posted by Kingston

1/32 American Adults in Jail, on Parole, or Probation

2006-11-30T01:56:00.000-08:00

7 million Americans last year were in Jail, on Parole or Probation. That's a lot of 'criminals' and a significant increase from past years. Race is also an issue; the statistic most people have heard, but don't always appreciate: 1 in 13 (8%) Black males between 25-29 are incarcerated. The equivalent figure for white men? 1 in 100.

These people may have broken Rousseau's dubious Social Contract, but Society is also letting them down. For all the Republican talk of getting tough on criminals, there's little empathy for the underlying causes of this increased incarceration.

Lets treat the problem, not the symptoms.

Posted by Peter

Mating and Inequality

2006-11-30T00:28:00.000-08:00

Interesting Article on the economics of mating; I know where the Right Wing will take this, but the argument would hold for strong gay couples and strong unmarried couples as well.

As the author points out, this is not a well established theory, although certainly worth some more research.

Posted by Peter

The Evidence Mounts

2006-11-29T13:02:00.001-08:00

At least 2 British Airways jets, which fly the London-Moscow route, have tested positive for traces of Polinium 210, the rare radioactive material that killed Alexandar Litvinenko, the ex-Russian spy and Putin critic.

Although this evidence seems to create a giant foam finger pointing at Moscow, the 2 planes in question also flew to other destinations, including Frankfurt, Barcelona and Athens. Furthermore, I am curious as to why more than a single jet is contaminated. The simplest "The Russian Government Killed Him" story would be if the poison was smuggled on a single plane.

I hope Sherlock Holmes is on the case, because I can't wait to hear the final verdict on this spy v. spy.

Posted by Peter

The Evidence Mounts

2006-11-29T13:02:00.000-08:00

At least 2 British Airways jets, which fly the London-Moscow route, have tested positive for traces of Polinium 210, the rare radioactive material that killed Alexandar Litvinenko, the ex-Russian spy and Putin critic.

Although this evidence seems to create a giant foam finger pointing at Moscow, the 2 planes in question also flew to other destinations, including Frankfurt, Barcelona and Athens. Furthermore, I am curious as to why more than a single jet is contaminated. The simplest "The Russian Government Killed Him" story would be if the poison was smuggled at on a single plane.

I hope Sherlock Holmes is on the case, because I can't wait to hear the final verdict on this spy v. spy.

Posted by Peter

Greta Van Susteren

2006-11-28T14:02:00.000-08:00

I just found out that the Greta Van Susteren is a Scientologist; and I thought Fox News was just a place for radical Christians. According to Wikipedia, "She recently admitted to have been attacked by a reincarnation of Xenu at the age of 12, her body thetan count was over 9000." Things make so much more sense now.

Posted by Peter

John McCain Must Be Stopped

2006-11-26T15:16:00.000-08:00

As Matt Welch correctly points out, the oval office-seeking Senator from Arizona has lost his marbles when it comes to foreign policy. In my opinion he's the most dangerous radical right-winger on the American political scene today. Why? Because so many people have bought into his "I'm a centrist, everyone else is an extremist" shtick. But would a "moderate" be making the rounds on the Sunday morning talk shows criticizing Bush for not being militaristic enough? I fear for the future of the country if he's elected.

Posted by Kingston

Who said the Cold War was over?

2006-11-23T15:35:00.000-08:00

Alexander Litvinenko, the Russian spy renowned for his criticisms of President Putin, died this evening in a London hospital from unknown poisons.

The Kremlin denies that it had anything to do with his untimely death, which may be correct, but is not a particularly satisfying answer to the mystery of how Litvinenko died. If not the Kremlin, then who?

The latest hypothesis is that he was poisoned with Radioactive Thallium. He could have been given this by anyone who wanted him dead; since he was ex-KGB, there could have been a long list of people wanting him dead. However, we also know that he was researching the death of an anti-Putin Russian journalist, Anna Politkovskaya, who was gunned down in her Moscow flat on October 7th.

It could be a coincidence that two vocal critics of Putin got axed in such a short span of time ... but I doubt it. Russia has been flexing its muscles in many ways (oil markets to name but one); it would not surprise me if the Kremlin reached out to silence its traitors.

Posted By Peter

Quote of the Day

2006-11-21T04:51:00.000-08:00

And yet here we have President Bush, stepping on to Vietnamese soil to further our rapprochement with Vietnam, and arguing, in so many words, that the lesson of Vietnam is that we should still be there blowing the place up thirty years later.

Josh Marshall, noting the mendacity associated with arguing that the lesson of Vietnam for Iraq is that "we'll succeed unless we quit."

Posted by Kingston

Off to a Bad Start

2006-11-20T01:38:00.000-08:00

Rep. Charles Rangel (D-N.Y.), the incoming chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee, is once again proposing to reinstate the draft.

Lord help us from the political idiocy of the Democratic Party.

It's not that Rangel's intentions are misplaced; he is correct that wars diproportionately affect poor families, and that reintroducing the draft would likely limit the willingness of politicians to vote for combat. It's not that he's wrong, he's just an idiot.

The last time he proposed something like this it was defeated 402-2. He's wasting his political capital on a bill that the public wouldn't stand and his colleagues aren't dumb enough to support. Get real Rangel, it's not going to happen.

Posted by Peter

Another Inconvenient Truth

2006-11-18T08:12:00.000-08:00

The Economist recommends legalizing the sale of kidneys in its most recent issue. This is a view that upsets many people, although as the article illustrates, there are several benefits to a market in human organs as well as some moral precedent.

A common argument against an organ market is that it forces the poor into life-threatening surgery and that they lack free-will on this sensitive decision. Interestingly, society has little problem allowing poor women to rent their wombs to would-be-parents, which is 6 times as likely to lead to death as an organ transplant.

The issue isn't as simple as The Economist suggests (what a surprise), but I do support their conclusion.

Posted By Peter

Montana Takes Over Washington, DC

2006-11-18T06:38:00.000-08:00

After two decades on the Finance Committee, Montana Senator Max Baucus finally has some clout. It remains to be seen how he uses it, but at least he's rejecting privatizing Social Security:

The incoming chairman of the Senate Finance Committee said Thursday he wants to hold hearings on looming insolvencies in the Medicare and Social Security programs but said President Bush's plan to partially privatize Social Security is dead. "Don't waste our time," said Democratic Sen. Max Baucus of Montana. "It's off the table." He said the rising cost of Medicare and other health costs is a priority for the committee, though he did not detail how the committee would approach those problems. He said he will hold "vigorous" hearings on the issue. Baucus said he will propose legislation to simplify the Medicare prescription drug program by streamlining the number of plans available and making it easier for people to choose one.

The Global Rich List

2006-11-17T12:18:00.000-08:00

The Fortune 500 likes to tout the World's Richest people. This website tells you where you fit in that list.

The scale isn't done for purchasing power parity (PPP), but it does give you some perspective on world income distributions.

Posted By Peter

Quote of the Day

2006-11-17T00:42:00.000-08:00

"We'll succeed unless we quit."

President Bush, drawing an Iraq lesson from Vietnam during his visit to Hanoi. And there you have it folks: had we stayed the course in Vietnam, we would have won the war. Had all those mushy liberals not been protesting in the streets of D.C., New York, etc., we would have won the war. Had Congress not cut off the funding, we would have won the war. Of course, all of this rests upon a willful distortion of history. Sadly, however, it's a narrative that enjoys a wide following, both inside and outside the halls of government.

Posted by Kingston

UPDATE: Spencer puts it better than I did: "That's right, we won the Vietnam war. We took that shit! It just so happened that we got so drunk on victory that we walked off the field with a huge lead in the fourth quarter. [Bush] thinks you're even stupider than he is."