An elucidation.

Not paranoid, rational. "Something bad" is not a code word for a second 9/11 or even a domestic attack on the United States. A domestic attack on any of these dates would have a vast effect on the Congressional and domestic debate on the future of the occupation, but that does not mean it will happen. Far from it. The apparent ease with which such an attack could be carried out is surprising. The willingness to die and automatic weapons would be disastrous in an unprotected area such as a mall (The Mall of America perchance?) or an airport (how secure are the waiting zones to pass through security?), or any number of other densely populated areas. I will not say that such an event is an impossibility, but likely is far from an appropriate description. A large attack in Iraq or Pakistan I do see as a probability, however. The effect of a domestic attack is ambiguous. It might turn the remaining pro-war legislatures toward bringing the troops home as an admitted failure. It might just as easily strengthen their cause with the renewed emphasis on the need to win. Such a strike is risky to say the least. An equivalent event abroad only reinforces the idea that its their war and that the more days that pass with American troops abroad the more will die to no avail.
The fact that nothing has happened since 9/11 must be attributed to either the weakness of AlQaeda compared to the past, local distractions (Afghanistan, Iraq, Pakistan, etc) for both energy and focus, a planned pause by the leadership, or some combination of the above. These factors will not change in the next several weeks. Withdraw the troops in September and they will.

Mid-September

Sept. 11th - The 6th Anniversary of September 11th.
Sept. 12th - The estimated date of Gen. Petraeus congressional report on Iraq (due to Congressional scheduling it is thought that his testimony will take place on either the 11th or the 12th of September.
Sept. 13th - The start of Ramadan

Good on on something bad happening on one of these days? I'd say so.

Smoke Signals

Quoted from Stratfor's early August analysis of the Iraqi situation.

Normally, when a country faces a rebellion against its prime minister, the formation of a de facto separatist government, the threat of invasion and resignation of its military chief -- simultaneously, no less -- Stratfor considers it a failed state. But Iraq is a bit of a different animal (and has been a failed state for years) so our assessment is different.

Believe it or not, all of this is actually good news.

Iraq's future is not going to be settled by Iraq's various Sunni, Shiite or Kurdish factions unless outside actors choose to empower them (and even that would be no small task). The locals are all too weak, too fractured and too fratricidal to be able to establish internal control without a huge amount of outside help -- and this assessment extends to the "national" government of al-Maliki as well.

Which means that "progress" -- such as it is in Iraq -- is now not only largely out of the hands of the Iraqis, but also largely outside of Iraq itself. The country's future can no longer be ascertained by reading the local smoke signals, but only by looking at the wider region. It is not so important that some southern Iraq Shia are threatening to break away, but it is critical that the United States is dumping a few tens of billion of dollars in weapons on the region's Sunni states in order to ensure their agreement in Iraq. It is now a side note that the Kurds might shelter Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) rebels from Turkey, and far more critical that Washington might give Ankara a green light to invade northern Iraq to root out the PKK in order to demonstrate to Iran that the United States still has some cards to play.

Quarrel over NYT article on taxes

I have got to say that someone is putting something in the water at the NY Times. I read this piece on recent income data and immediately sensed cherry picking of data, with a touch of populism. I swore that I would debunk it the second I got home, but within hours, several had beaten me to the catch.

The gist of the article suggested that taxpayers in 2005 earned LESS than their counterparts in 2000. That should immediately seem suspicious, as I see it. Why compare 2000 (the peak of an asset bubble) to 2005? Why not 1998 to 2005, or 1996 to 2001? The answer is that the writer already had his mind made up on what the results should show. The random collection of data is a stark indicator of that.

Fellow bloggers, many more keen on this subject than myself, rushed to point out the inconsistencies. Before long, other blogs had picked up the torch.

Citizen journalism, at its best. For the record, Johnston, the author of the piece, defended his article in the comments section of many of these blogs. I think this is incredibly admirable - a dialogue with critics lends credence to his arguments. I just wish more reporters at the NY Times were as courageous.

Happy Birthday

All the best to The Rational, who is celebrating his birthday today. A year older, and many years the wiser.

Giuliani beats Hillary

An interesting poll out which has Giuliani beating Hillary in 2008's match up. It goes back and forth. But it seems to me that if Hillary barely beats Giuliani when the GOP is AT ITS WORST, she might have problems in the general election. Of course, I have no belief that Obama will get the Dem. nomination.

New imbedded reporter: Wesley Morgan

From what I've read so far he will provide some welcome commentary. He is also imbedded with one of the army's "ultimate" counter insurgency units, the 1-14 Cavalry under Col. Peterson. Check it out.

Income inequality

I have a question posed to all viewers, to be answered in the comments section.

In a free capitalistic society, is extreme income inequality a necessary by-product? And if not, how can it be mitigated avoiding medieval income redistribution?

Is a more fair distribution of income even an appealing objective? Why or why not?

In a world without taxes...

Saw an interesting post discussing the result of the dissapearence of taxes, and how it would be the best thing possible for the poor.

I've always believed that the altruistic tendencies of governments is one of the most dangerous things in the world, if not the most dangerous. For the government to rob one man of his contribution to society and give it to another (through their own misguided "moral reasoning") is the antithesis to what our Founding Fathers sought to do with this country. The more I read, and the more real world experience I attain, the more I've realized that the world is composed of three types of people.

1) the Producers - those who create value
2) the Looters - those who steal value through force or threat of force (income taxes...)
3) the Parasites - those who demand and receive the fruits created by the producers, via the looters, and return the favor by voting for or supporting the looters

This is largely along the line of Ayn Rand's reasoning, and if you want to read more about this framework of society, check out this book and this book.

The question for you is, which one of those 3 are you? Which one do you want to be? And what kind of person do you want leading society? Try to categorize the current political class into these categories and I think you'll come to look at things different. Believe in your own reasoning.

How many trees?

Right now I'm living in a hotel in NY during training, and one of the big bonuses is free newspapers (USA Today, WSJ, NYT). The only one available on Sunday is the NYT Sunday edition. I have got to comment on the fact that this thing is a tome! Aside from terribly slanted coverage and the substitution of opinion for fact, the NYT must be destroying whole forests with this thing. I can honestly attest that the majority of the content is unreadable, and no one person will read the whole Sunday edition. As a result, this thing is environemntally disgusting. For a paper that participates in scaremongering on global warming and other environmental issues, it sures seems like they're contributing to the problem. But then again, that sort of hypocrisy seems rampant among purported environmentalists.

Regarding global warming, it seems that dissent on this issue is not welcome, with a discussion here.

The hypocrisy can also be explained by the idea that the "global warming" show is merely a convenient political tool with no real substance.

Michael Yon's Imbedded reporting

AQI and religious "extremism."

"This has nothing to do with being Muslim or being Christian, it's beyond that. It's crazy."




"If you cut the head, the rest of the tail will wither. It's done."

Let's hope they got the head in Baqubah. The initial reports of 80% of the big boys escaping don't sound as promising as this Iraqi hopes, but there is a chance.

Pork and the Republican Tradition

This excellent op-ed in the WSJ yesterday, Northern Exposure, has only made my opinion of both parties continue to sink lower and lower. Raise your hands everyone who thinks the majority leader who passes any bill will be likely to label it an earmark...right....

Privately, many Republican senators believe Mr. Stevens may be forced to retire next year. "The suspicions are great," one GOP senator told me. "He's toast. You start out thinking you are representing your state and you take one step after another until suddenly you're primarily representing your friends in the state." That's a path many others in Congress have trod--which is why real earmark reform is necessary now.

The issue is that Mr. Stevens is not just the exception to the rule. Pork provides the grease for the current system to run. The benefits it provides for incumbents are phenomenal. Deviations from strict partyline voting are almost always explained by incumbency. The incumbency advantage has also grown for all offices over the past century. (Ansolabehere, 2001) Besides the simple explanations of experience, connections and patronage; in the "what have you done for me lately" world, the more money spent in state the more popular you are. The duty lies not to the nation, but to your voters. Simple facts.

Transparency and Accountability. Without them the system is lost. But how can one vote against a bill that contains "ethics" in the title? Everyone is for more ethics, even 'worthless' ones.

From the outsider's viewpoints it looks like its going downhill fast. The parties are seemingly continuing their gradual merge toward the muddled middle of empty rhetoric and big spending. Focus the 'big issues' of difference: abortion, etc. and ignore the big issue. Federal decisions or state decisions, government decisions or personal decisions, and finally, decisions or systems. These are not the debates around which government policy revolves. These questions have already been silently answered and put aside. The role of government is evolved from taking care of public goods (used in the economic sense of goods that cannot be provided by, or denied to, individuals. National security, or clean air for example. Everyone benefits from increased security (to different degrees) and it is something that cannot be taken away from individuals (who don't find it worth the cost) in a differentiated manner without jeopardizing the security of the whole.) to the classic nanny state. I believe that the Democratic party is dangerous because they (on the whole) make no bones about their desire to continue upon that path. The Republicans on the other hand have historically defined themselves in opposition to it. At least the Democrats are honest on the issue.

The Rational anthem

For anyone who is needing to bash authority, there's this great song by Twisted Sister called "We're Not Gonna Take It." I was in a government-hating mood when I listened to it and it made me feel much better.

In fact, I want to make it my theme song, and I propose that it should be the anthem of this blog...

Speaking of the UN...

While not solely on the UN, a book I highly recommend is entitled "Lords of Poverty: the Power, Prestige, and Corruption of the International Aid Business." It is the most damning book on the international aid BUSINESS I've ever read. While almost 2 decades old, it is still relevant in its criticisms. It makes a great companion read to Easterly's "The White Man's Burden," but from a more journalistic and less economics oriented viewpoint. The issue is that when the idealism of the goal (whether peacekeeping, aid, assistance, development, etc.) eliminates any possible manner of questioning the viability of the method. That is the difficulty of almost all international organizations supported by the largess of the world's taxpayers. The countries paying the bills cannot even slow the constant increase of (and cannot even contemplate the possibility of lowering or eliminating) their support for wasteful and even dangerous UN organizations without being attacked as heartless. A relatively high level of inefficiency in a large scale organizations with varied goals, allegiances and priorities is understandable. The current system is run on patronage and the idea that 'moving money' is the goal, not helping people efficiently. Managers in many of the institutions are rewarded on the basis of dollars loaned and therefore. There is no outside organization capable of accurately examining the practices of these organizations and even when the internal 'auditors' of such groups manage to create an unbiased report about their failures the information is either suppressed or ignored.
The only criticism I have of the book (besides the fact that it is incredibly depressing) is that, while Hancock is excellent at pointing out problems, he limits his solutions to 'starving the beast.' From reading his book you know that the built in power structures and patronage of the 'system' will make that practically impossible. Easterly's options of gradually reforming and refocusing is more feasible.

Threats to free speech

Two particularly good articles out discussing threats to free speech, a key tenet of any democracy. The first discusses the recent rise of the Fairness Doctrine, while the second discusses Saudi pressure on authors and publishers to NOT publish books which critiscize Saudi connections to extremists throughout the world. Both are a good read.

UN Resolution to Expand its Iraq Role

Reading an article on the new UN resolution to expand its Iraq role, I was struck particularly by one sentence.

The existing UN mission in Iraq has had a low-key presence ever since a truck bomb devastated its headquarters in Baghdad in August 2003.

Low-key indeed. A truer sentence I have rarely heard. Before the bombing the issue was that the organization did not have enough presence in the country. The initial issue was that the UN wanted more representation and control in administration, choosing government officials, reconstruction priorities, etc. but no responsibility for security or reconstruction. According to the UN Wire

"the UN does not have the resources to reconstruct Iraq but the organization would be the best administrator."

The Coalition Provisional Authority on the other hand wanted to maintain little oversight, clear primacy in the decision making process and was accused of only wanting a minimal UN presence to 'legitimize' the occupation.

In May of 2003 the two sides seemed to have come to a compromise with Resolution 1483. This called for the UN Mission for Iraq to

'play a vital role in providing humanitarian relief, in supporting the reconstruction of Iraq, and in helping in the formation of an Iraqi interim authority.'

It notes that it is legitimate and actually encouraged for non-coalition States to

"contribute to stability and security in Iraq by contributing personnel, equipment, and other resources under the Authority."

What did the UN do with its accepted role in Iraq? The Security Council sent well regarded UN Human Rights Chief Sergio Vieira de Mello to be the new special representative to Iraq for four months. As special representative Viera de Mello left issues of security to the Coalition forces, but was authorized with "independent responsibilities" to fulfill its mandate on the ground while working "intensively" with US, UK and Iraqi officials.
Despite this development and subsequent exhortations from Annan for the Security Council to "accept the responsibility to stabilize Iraq" several countries including India, Germany and France, excused themselves from sending troops by citing the lack of a specific UN mandate to that extent. The US and UK believe (and from reading the document it seems they were quite justified) that Resolution was quite specific on that point. The real issue seemed to be distasteful, yet straightforward politics. Only months before, when the post-war situation looked far less grim, the nations that condemned the initial invasion had been quite ready to step in with significant resources, troops, and supervision. Later, when it seemed clear that the US had found itself in a sticky situation they were little inclined (even though they said the right things about truly 'desiring' to send troops) to help it out of it. A little 'serves you right' for the presumptuous unilateralist. The difficulty of the situation is that, as much as it salved the wounded egos of the countries slighted by American arrogance, such decisions did nothing to provide any semblance of benefit in the first important months of the occupation when 'legitimization' by an effective UN presence would have been most valuable. Then, when the bombing killed Viera de Mello and 22 others the UN pulled out all but a skeletal staff. By September 25th only 86 were left in the country.

Did August 2003's passage of Resolution 1511's mandate to "strengthen its vital role in Iraq" change anything? Not at all. Despite the Security Council:

Recognizing

The importance of international support, particularly that of countries in the region, Iraq’s neighbours, and regional organizations, in taking forward this process expeditiously,

Recognizing

That international support for restoration of conditions of stability and security is essential to the well-being of the people of Iraq as well as to the ability of all concerned to carry out their work on behalf of the people of Iraq, and welcoming Member State contributions in this regard under resolution 1483 (2003)

Authorizing

A multinational force under unified command to take all necessary measures to contribute to the maintenance of security and stability in Iraq, including for the purpose of ensuring necessary conditions for the implementation of the timetable and programme as well as to contribute to the security of the United Nations Assistance Mission for Iraq, the Governing Council of Iraq and other institutions of the Iraqi interim administration, and key humanitarian and economic infrastructure;

Urging

Member States to contribute assistance under this United Nations mandate, including military forces, to the multinational force referred to in paragraph 13 above;

Emphasizing

The importance of establishing effective Iraqi police and security forces in maintaining law, order, and security and combating terrorism consistent with paragraph 4 of resolution 1483 (2003),

Calling upon

Member States and international and regional organizations to contribute to the training and equipping of Iraqi police and security forces

And most importantly resolving

That the United Nations, acting through the Secretary-General, his Special Representative, and the United Nations Assistance Mission in Iraq, should strengthen its vital role in Iraq, including by providing humanitarian relief, promoting the economic reconstruction of and conditions for sustainable development in Iraq, and advancing efforts to restore and establish national and local institutions for representative government;

Secretary-General Kofi Annan did not send back more than 500 of the UN staffers who left the country earlier in the year. Though Annan assured that the "utmost" would be done to fulfill the resolution, UN spokesman Fred Eckhard excused the agency because Resolution 1511 only called for action 'as circumstances permit' and:

"The security situation does not permit us to send any additional staff into Iraq.''

If only life were that easy. 'If the CPA cannot guarantee security our continued presence cannot be justified' was the logic. Despite this, understanding the importance of quick, effective action on the part of the international community the Security Council '[Decided] to remain seized of the matter.' The UN has endowed itself with responsibility for continued action on the matter by placing it on an agenda. Hallelujah. Is this the organization that desired a larger role in the immediate occupation on account of its success in similar situations the world over? The same organization that had 'succeeded' so well in Bosnia, Kosovo, and Somalia? The necessity of ultimate force protection limits any hope of effectiveness. A US soldier has said (paraphrased) that "if the death of a few of us means we get pulled out, we shouldn't have been there in the first place." In essence, if the military project is worthwhile the American soldier is willing to risk death. The politicians should be able to handle the mere public pressure of his death. Throughout our history the US legislature has had enough difficulty with such a responsibility even if the cause is just. Does the UN stand any chance of being able to withstand similar pressures? I have my doubts.

Maybe the UN should keep to its disastrous history in Aid, Health and Development. Or maybe that's a poor idea as well... How about maritime law? Only angry Japanese whalers present possible hazards there.

NY times is running scared

In case you didn't notice, Rupert Murdoch succeeded in purchasing the WSJ this week. As an avid reader of the WSJ, I'm not too concerned that Murdoch will devalue the journalism of the WSJ because of the statements he's made regarding "stewardship of an amazing brand name." But I do think he will pump capital into the WSJ and compete with the NY Times at a level they've never encountered. They know this, and are frightened.

I think he will ultimately be successful in taking down the Times as the premiere source of news in the US, largely because the Times refuses to change their business model. But I'm no fan of the Times, so maybe I'm just wishing all of this. Regardless, you have to wonder about the integrity of a newspaper which runs stories like this on their front page. Since when was President Hilary Clinton a sure thing? All the news thats fit to print? I'm sorry, it's not news, and it certainly isn't fit to print on the front page....

Ethanol isn't derived from corn, but rather pork

Many of the environmentalists have jumped on board the ethanol bandwagon, but a recent article in the magazine Rolling Stone sets the record straight on the implications of ethanol as an alternative to fossil fuels and the politics involved. I did research for an essay on the topic, and I can attest that the article is very accurate.

I'm interested in cheap alternatives, but ethanol is not cheap and will have disastrous social, environmental and economical consequences.