MotherJones.com | MoJoBlog - Social Issues and Political Commentary: August 19, 2007

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August 25, 2007

Gonzales Finally On the Way Out?

U.S. News' Paul Bedard: "The buzz among top Bushies is that beleaguered Attorney General Alberto Gonzales finally plans to depart and will be replaced by Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff. Why Chertoff? Officials say he's got fans on Capitol Hill, is untouched by the Justice prosecutor scandal, and has more experience than Gonzales did, having served as a federal judge and assistant attorney general."

August 24, 2007

Russia Drowns NGOs in Red Tape

Strict enforcement of a new registration law is not only belaboring the work of NGOs in Russia but threatening their very existence. As the English-language daily the Moscow Times reports, many NGOs are struggling to comply with the new law's onerous demands.

Groups whose agenda present a challenge to the power-grasping Putin administration seem to have been singled out. The St. Petersburg-based Citizens' Watch, which seeks to protect constitutional rights from police and military encroachments, is now obligated to submit "the entirety of its written correspondence with anyone or any organization outside the office over a three-year period—including e-mails." Another group, the Heinrich Boell Foundation, which promotes democracy and human rights, plans to take on an extra employee just to deal with the increased paperwork.

Some in the NGO world and elsewhere wonder whether the new measures are, at least partially, in response to the recent revolutions in former Soviet bloc countries. Georgia's Rose Revolution in 2003 and the Ukraine's Orange Revolution in 2004 both toppled pro-Putin leaders through grassroots protests.

It's a pity Putin doesn't seem to realize that a strong state is helped, not hindered, by a strong civil society. Then again, perhaps it's too optimistic to expect a former KBG man, who has stacked his administration with former comrades, to allow the forces of transparency to operate unfettered.

— Ellen Charles

Tony Snow Wants You (If You Are a Reserve Officer Who Supports the Surge)

A reader sends this email he received today from a retired Marine general addressed to members of the Reserve Officers Association of the United States. Reserve officers of the supposedly non partisan association are invited to share any "positive (and negative)" developments in Iraq they believe the press may have failed to report.

Dear [xxxx], President Groskreutz and I recently had the opportunity to participate in a White House teleconference conducted by Press Secretary Tony Snow. Mr. Snow reinforced the President’s message about the preliminary report of Ambassador Crocker and General Petraeus on the progress being made in Iraq since the “surge” of additional forces earlier this year. Mr. Snow repeatedly stated that he believed the country does not fully understand the critical nature of the threat in Iraq, and that the press has failed to report many of the positive things that have been happening. The press secretary asked that we use our best efforts to enable the men and women who have served in Iraq and Afghanistan to come forward with their own accounts of what they saw and experienced in combat, their own assessments of the nature of the threats facing our Nation, and their view on the need for our presence in these theaters of war. Many ROA members have a truly unique insight into the “ground truth” in Iraq and Afghanistan. Sharing those insights with the American people and with our governmental leaders will help everyone to better understand the complex situation in which we find ourselves.

Do we have vital national interests in Iraq? Afghanistan?

Is the “surge” of forces working?

Are there positive (or negative) things happening that the press fails to report?

It’s important that the views of the men and women who have served in Iraq and Afghanistan are heard. To facilitate this, we’ve created the “ROA Deployment Blog" as a vehicle for our members to share their experiences and views. ROA will do several things with the submissions we receive. We will publish a report outlining the range of responses, highlighting key trends, and quoting from the your submissions. (If you withhold permission to quote you by name, we will honor that direction and your submission will remain anonymous.) ROA will also send this report to the White House, DOD and the Congress. The ROA Deployment Blog ....can be accessed from the links in this message or from the front page of the ROA web site. As an alternative, responses may be sent to me by mail or e-mail. ...

LtGen [XXX] USMC (Ret)

Reserve Officers Association of the United States

Washington DC 20002

The recipient of the email sent an accompanying note, "Oh, this is great. ROA is becoming a shill for the White House.....!" And later informed me that he is resigning his membership in the group.

Electric Shocks Prompt "Impulsive" and "Primitive" Side of Brain

A recent study coming out of Britain finds that when the threat of electric shock looms near, humans shift from the prefrontal cortex (the part of the brain that governs rational thought) in order to engage the "fight or flight" part of the brain. In the study (published in its entirety yesterday in Science), volunteers played a game similar to Pac-Man, in which they had to evade a predator. When the computer predator caught them, they would receive a shock to the hand. Researchers found that as the predator closed in, the threat of iminent punishment moved the player's thinking from rational to impulsive and primitive.

Continue reading this post on our environment and health blog, The Blue Marble.

Surge Is Pushing Iraq Toward Partition

If today's news on Iraq isn't bleak enough for you, take heart: There's more. Since the surge began, the rate of Iraqis fleeing their homes has increased 20-fold. Part of the increase can be attributed to increased monitoring by the Iraqi government (such as it is), but continued sectarian violence is the real driver of displacement: Sixty-five percent of displaced Iraqis interviewed by the U.N. said that they had fled in response to direct threats to their lives. With so many Iraqis fleeing from mixed Sunni/Shiite areas, Iraq is looking more and more like a partitioned state.

Read more here about how the U.S. has hung its Iraqi supporters out to dry.

MSNBC Reports Really, Really Fake News

MSNBC.com reported yesterday that Michael Vick's dogfighting case is dividing African American leaders into two camps—one that criticizes the quarterback's cruelty to animals, and another whose members think his persecution is driven by a racist agenda. Supposedly leading the latter is the Reverend Al Sharpton, who the news group quotes at length.

The problem, as Gawker and National Review Online have noted, is that not one word of the attribution came out of Sharpton's mouth. To the contrary, it came from News Groper [full disclosure: the associate editor was a fact-checker—can you feel the irony?—for Mother Jones], a website made up entirely of satirical celebrity blog entries. Sharpton can be pretty dramatic sometimes, but it's surprising that reporter Alex Johnson wasn't given any pause by the absurdity of the "quote":

"If the police caught Brett Favre (a white quarterback for the Green Bay Packers) running a dolphin-fighting ring out of his pool, where dolphins with spears attached to their foreheads fought each other, would they bust him? Of course not," Sharpton wrote Tuesday on his personal blog. "They would get his autograph, commend him on his tightly spiraled forward passes, then bet on one of his dolphins."

MSNBC got hip to the error and, rather than apologize to its readers for astoundingly sloppy reporting, posted in a correction that it "has determined that the blog is a hoax." The correction doesn't mention what tipped the news organization's meticulous fact-checkers off: News Groper's logo, which is a hand moving toward two globes that look like giant balls, or maybe breasts; Al Sharpton sharing a blog site with Lindsay Lohan, George Bush, and Mahmoud Ahmadinejad; or the words "fake parody blogs" in the title bar of every page.

Obasketball

If you want to be President, you've got to have a mean jump shot:

(H/T Marc Ambinder).

Of course, it's not beating the point guard of the Bobcats at HORSE, but it's something. Just one question: what would CNN be saying if he missed? I can almost see it now: "This is a HUGE gaffe by Obama, thinking that he can play, when he can't even make an open three. Very damaging... Why is he distracting voters from the issues?"

YouTube also has old school Obamastketball/Obamaball/Obasketball for your viewing pleasure.

Renzi Won't Seek Re-election

Three-term Arizona congressman Rick Renzi, who the watchdog group CREW ranks among the "20 most corrupt members of Congress," said yesterday that he won't seek reelection in '08, a decision that surely has something to do with the fact that he's under investigation by the FBI for a suspect land deal.

The Arizona Daily Star reports:

Renzi helped promote the land sale that netted $4.5 million for his former business partner and campaign donor James Sandlin, according to state records and officials.

Renzi also found himself caught up in the controversy over the firings of eight U.S. Attorneys after it was revealed that Arizona prosecutor Paul Charlton was targeted for dismissal by the Justice Department shortly after opening an investigation into Renzi.

Surge-tastic!

Kevin Drum over at the Washington Monthly has some data from the Brookings Institution (home of Michael O'Hanlon and Kenneth Pollack, surge defenders extraordinaire) and finds that, contrary to O'Hanlon and Pollack's recent upbeat assessment in the New York Times, "the news sure doesn't look very good." The numbers are from Brookings' own Iraq Index Project, so Matt Yglesias wonders "how it is that Brookings fellows like Peter Rodman, Michael O'Hanlon, and Kenneth Pollack seem so unaware of it."

Meanwhile, the Los Angeles Times reports the Joint Chiefs want significant troop cuts in Iraq, Yglesias notes Fred Kagan evaluating his own work on the surge in the Weekly Standard, and Iran invades Iraqi Kurdistan. Back in the White House, President Bush has "stepped up his high-pressure sales job... to stay the course in Iraq." But then again, as a Bush aide told Ron Suskind, people like Kevin Drum and McClatchy reporters and Peter Pace and the Los Angeles Times and Suskind himself — people who criticize the President — are "In what we call the reality-based community," and "that's not the way the world really works anymore.... We're history's actors... and you, all of you, will be left to just study what we do."

— Nick Baumann

Gen. Pace v. Gen. Petraeus

The Los Angeles Times reports that outgoing chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Major Gen. Peter Pace will call for cutting U.S. forces in half next year, putting him at odds with another general whose September report is much anticipated:

Administration and military officials say Marine Gen. Peter Pace is likely to convey concerns by the Joint Chiefs that keeping well in excess of 100,000 troops in Iraq through 2008 will severely strain the military. This assessment could collide with one being prepared by the U.S. commander in Iraq, Army Gen. David H. Petraeus, calling for the U.S. to maintain higher troop levels for 2008 and beyond.

Petraeus is expected to support a White House view that the absence of widespread political progress in Iraq requires several more months of the U.S. troop buildup before force levels are decreased to their pre-buildup numbers sometime next year. ....

Pace is expected to offer his advice privately instead of issuing a formal report. Still, the position of Pace and the Joint Chiefs could add weight to that of Bush administration critics, including Democratic presidential candidates, that the U.S. force should be reduced.

The newspaper further reports, "the Joint Chiefs in recent weeks have pressed concerns that the Iraq war has degraded the U.S. military's ability to respond, if needed, to other threats," including Iran.

Pace retires at the end of September.

August 23, 2007

Judges Nod Off as Fujimori's Hearing Continues

Today several of Chile's Supreme Court judges had trouble staying awake as the court continued to consider the human rights charges against former Peruvian President Alberto Fujimori. Does their exhaustion stem from a night of agonizing over the ex-dictator's extradition proceedings? Highly unlikely. As much as I'd like to believe that the court appreciates the gravity of Fujimori's crimes, it just does not seem to be the case. In fact, earlier this week I wrote how odd it was that Chile fast tracked the case days after Peru's catastrophic earthquake, apparently hoping few people would notice.

It seemed likely that Chile's court would render a quick verdict in the favor of Fujimori when it was reported that the proceeding would be wrapped up in a day. But perhaps because members of the victims' families and human rights organizations have been present in court, and the judges realized they had to put on a bit of a show, a thorough reading of the corruption and human rights charges is being allowed.

— Rafael Valero

Bush Okays Blowing Up Mountains for Mining Companies

Bush is set to release a regulation tomorrow that will allow mining companies to blast the tops off mountains and dump the resulting waste in nearby streams and valleys.

To learn more about Bush's latest assault on the environment, continue reading this post on our science and health blog, The Blue Marble.

Who's Behind "Allawi-for-Iraq.com"?

IraqSlogger reports that on August 17, White House-connected lobby powerhouse, Barbour Griffith & Rogers (BGR), purchased a domain name, Allawi-for-Iraq.com.*

The timing was interesting. As Slogger's Christina Davidson reports, former Iraqi prime minister Ayad "Allawi argued in an August 18 Washington Post op-ed that Iraq will descend into chaos unless Maliki is replaced as prime minister."

Presumably, replaced by himself, he might have been hinting.

A couple months ago, I reported here on BGR's lobbying for another of Iraq's players, the Kurdistan Regional Government.

*Update: Whois registration for the Allawi domain below the fold:

Whois Record
Registrant:
Barbour Griffith & Rogers, Inc
1275 Pennsylvania Avenue, 10th Floor
Tenth Floor
Washington, DC 20004
US

Domain Name: ALLAWI-FOR-IRAQ.COM

Administrative Contact, Technical Contact:
Barbour Griffith & Rogers, Inc
1275 Pennsylvania Avenue, 10th Floor
Tenth Floor
Washington, DC 20004
US
202-333-4936 fax: 202-833-9392

Record expires on 17-Aug-2008.
Record created on 17-Aug-2007.
Database last updated on 23-Aug-2007 11:18:59 EDT.

Domain servers in listed order:

NS7.WORLDNIC.COM 205.178.190.4
NS8.WORLDNIC.COM 205.178.189.4

New White House Surge Surrogate, Freedom's Watch

Politico's Mike Allen reports that a new pro-war group, Freedom's Watch, fronted by former Bush White House spokesman Ari Fleischer, has launched a $15 million advertising blitz to promote the surge:

A new group, Freedom’s Watch, is launching Wednesday with a $15 million, five-week campaign of TV, radio and Web ads featuring military veterans that is aimed at retaining support in Congress for President Bush’s “surge” policy on Iraq. ...

The board consists of Blakeman; Fleischer; Mel Sembler, a Florida Republican who was Bush’s ambassador to Italy; William P. Weidner, president and chief operating officer of the Las Vegas Sands Corp.; and Matt Brooks, executive director of the Republican Jewish Coalition. The donors include Sembler; Anthony Gioia, a Buffalo businessman who was Bush’s ambassador to Malta; Kevin Moley, who was Bush’s ambassador to the U.S. Mission to the United Nations in Geneva; Howard Leach, a former Republican National Committee finance chairman who was Bush’s ambassador to France; Dr. John Templeton of Pennsylvania, chairman and president of the John Templeton Foundation; Ed Snider, chairman of Comcast Spectacor, the huge Philadelphia sports and entertainment firm; Sheldon Adelson, chairman of the Las Vegas Sands Corp. and ranked by Forbes magazine as the third-wealthiest American; and Richard Fox, who is chairman of the Jewish Policy Center and was Pennsylvania State Chairman of the Reagan/Bush campaign in 1980.

The Washington Post and ThinkProgress have more. "Freedom's Watch will go head to head with Americans United for Change, a Democratic Party ally, backed by organized labor, that is pressuring the same wavering Republicans to break with the White House," the Post reports. "Although louder and more experienced, Americans United is not so moneyed, with a fundraising goal of $10 million for the year, and $1.75 million to $2 million already spent on ad campaigns."

Watch has money, organization and the White House on its side. But the recently released NIE on Iraq does not easily lend itself to the flag-backed ad blitz, which rallies "those who believe we must win the war on terror" to call and tell their congressperson "defeat is not an option."

Unclassified NIE on Iraq Key Judgments

An early copy of the unclassified key judgments from the new National Intelligence Estimate on Iraq, "Prospects for Iraq’s Stability: Some Security Progress but Political Reconciliation Elusive," prepared by the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, and available to the masses in a few hours.

Hot off the presses (.pdf) and below the fold. Analysis to come.

Key Judgments

There have been measurable but uneven improvements in Iraq’s security situation since our last National Intelligence Estimate on Iraq in January 2007. The steep escalation of rates of violence has been checked for now, and overall attack levels across Iraq have fallen during seven of the last nine weeks. Coalition forces, working with Iraqi forces, tribal elements, and some Sunni insurgents, have reduced al-Qa’ida in Iraq’s (AQI) capabilities, restricted its freedom of movement, and denied it grassroots support in some areas. However, the level of overall violence, including attacks on and casualties among civilians, remains high; Iraq’s sectarian groups remain unreconciled; AQI retains the ability to conduct high-profile attacks; and to date, Iraqi political leaders remain unable to govern effectively. There have been modest improvements in economic output, budget execution, and government finances but fundamental structural problems continue to prevent sustained progress in economic growth and living conditions.

We assess, to the extent that Coalition forces continue to conduct robust counterinsurgency operations and mentor and support the Iraqi Security Forces (ISF), that Iraq’s security will continue to improve modestly during the next six to 12 months but that levels of insurgent and sectarian violence will remain high and the Iraqi Government will continue to struggle to achieve national-level political reconciliation and improved governance. Broadly accepted political compromises required for sustained security, long-term political progress, and economic development are unlikely to emerge unless there is a fundamental shift in the factors driving Iraqi political and security developments.

Political and security trajectories in Iraq continue to be driven primarily by Shia insecurity about retaining political dominance, widespread Sunni unwillingness to accept a diminished political status, factional rivalries within the sectarian communities resulting in armed conflict, and the actions of extremists such as AQI and elements of the Sadrist Jaysh al-Mahdi (JAM) militia that try to fuel sectarian violence. Two new drivers have emerged since the January Estimate: expanded Sunni opposition to AQI and Iraqi expectation of a Coalition drawdown. Perceptions that the Coalition is withdrawing probably will encourage factions anticipating a power vacuum to seek local security solutions that could intensify sectarian violence and intra-sectarian competition. At the same time, fearing a Coalition withdrawal, some tribal elements and Sunni groups probably will continue to seek accommodation with the Coalition to strengthen themselves for a post-Coalition security environment.

• Sunni Arab resistance to AQI has expanded in the last six to nine months but has not yet translated into broad Sunni Arab support for the Iraqi Government or widespread willingness to work with the Shia. The Iraqi Government’s Shia leaders fear these groups will ultimately side with armed opponents of the government, but the Iraqi Government has supported some initiatives to incorporate those rejecting AQI into Interior Ministry and Defense Ministry elements.

• Intra-Shia conflict involving factions competing for power and resources probably will intensify as Iraqis assume control of provincial security. In Basrah, violence has escalated with the drawdown of Coalition forces there. Local militias show few signs of reducing their competition for control of valuable oil resources and territory.

• The Sunni Arab community remains politically fragmented, and we see no prospective leaders that might engage in meaningful dialogue and deliver on national agreements.

• Kurdish leaders remain focused on protecting the autonomy of the Kurdish region and reluctant to compromise on key issues.

The IC assesses that the emergence of “bottom-up” security initiatives, principally among Sunni Arabs and focused on combating AQI, represent the best prospect for
improved security over the next six to 12 months, but we judge these initiatives will only translate into widespread political accommodation and enduring stability if the Iraqi Government accepts and supports them. A multi-stage process involving the Iraqi Government providing support and legitimacy for such initiatives could foster over the longer term political reconciliation between the participating Sunni Arabs and the national government. We also assess that under some conditions “bottom-up initiatives” could pose risks to the Iraqi Government.

• We judge such initiatives are most likely to succeed in predominantly Sunni Arab areas,
where the presence of AQI elements has been significant, tribal networks and identities
are strong, the local government is weak, sectarian conflict is low, and the ISF tolerate
Sunni initiatives, as illustrated by Al Anbar Province.

• Sunni Arab resistance to AQI has expanded, and neighborhood security groups,
occasionally consisting of mixed Shia-Sunni units, have proliferated in the past several
months. These trends, combined with increased Coalition operations, have eroded AQI’s
operational presence and capabilities in some areas.

• Such initiatives, if not fully exploited by the Iraqi Government, could over time also shift greater power to the regions, undermine efforts to impose central authority, and
reinvigorate armed opposition to the Baghdad government.

• Coalition military operations focused on improving population security, both in and
outside of Baghdad, will remain critical to the success of local and regional efforts until
sectarian fears are diminished enough to enable the Shia-led Iraqi Government to fully
support the efforts of local Sunni groups.

Iraqi Security Forces involved in combined operations with Coalition forces have
performed adequately, and some units have demonstrated increasing professional
competence. However, we judge that the ISF have not improved enough to conduct
major operations independent of the Coalition on a sustained basis in multiple locations and that the ISF remain reliant on the Coalition for important aspects of logistics and combat support.

• The deployment of ISF units from throughout Iraq to Baghdad in support of security
operations known as Operation Fardh al-Qanun marks significant progress since last
year when large groups of soldiers deserted rather than depart their home areas, but
Coalition and Iraqi Government support remains critical.

• Recently, the Iraqi military planned and conducted two joint Army and police large-scale security operations in Baghdad, demonstrating an improving capacity for operational command and control.

• Militia and insurgent influences continue to undermine the reliability of some ISF units, and political interference in security operations continues to undermine Coalition and ISF
efforts.

• The Maliki government is implementing plans to expand the Iraqi Army and to increase its overall personnel strength to address critical gaps, but we judge that significant security gains from those programs will take at least six to 12 months, and probably
longer, to materialize.

The IC assesses that the Iraqi Government will become more precarious over the next six to 12 months because of criticism by other members of the major Shia coalition (the Unified Iraqi Alliance, UIA), Grand Ayatollah Sistani, and other Sunni and Kurdish parties. Divisions between Maliki and the Sadrists have increased, and Shia factions have explored alternative coalitions aimed at constraining Maliki.

• The strains of the security situation and absence of key leaders have stalled internal
political debates, slowed national decisionmaking, and increased Maliki’s vulnerability to alternative coalitions.

• We judge that Maliki will continue to benefit from recognition among Shia leaders that
searching for a replacement could paralyze the government. Population displacement resulting from sectarian violence continues, imposing burdens on provincial governments and some neighboring states and increasing the danger of destabilizing influences spreading across Iraq’s borders over the next six to 12 months. The polarization of communities is most evident in Baghdad, where the Shia are a clear majority in more than half of all neighborhoods and Sunni areas have become surrounded by predominately Shia districts. Where population displacements have led to significant sectarian separation, conflict levels have diminished to some extent because warring communities find it more difficult to penetrate communal enclaves.

The IC assesses that Iraq’s neighbors will continue to focus on improving their leverage in Iraq in anticipation of a Coalition drawdown. Assistance to armed groups, especially from Iran, exacerbates the violence inside Iraq, and the reluctance of the Sunni states that are generally supportive of US regional goals to offer support to the Iraqi Government probably bolsters Iraqi Sunni Arabs’ rejection of the government’s legitimacy.

• Over the next year Tehran, concerned about a Sunni reemergence in Iraq and US efforts to limit Iranian influence, will continue to provide funding, weaponry, and training to Iraqi Shia militants. Iran has been intensifying aspects of its lethal support for select groups of Iraqi Shia militants, particularly the JAM, since at least the beginning of 2006. Explosively formed penetrator (EFP) attacks have risen dramatically.

• Syria has cracked down on some Sunni extremist groups attempting to infiltrate fighters into Iraq through Syria because of threats they pose to Syrian stability, but the IC now assesses that Damascus is providing support to non-AQI groups inside Iraq in a bid to increase Syrian influence.

• Turkey probably would use a range of measures to protect what it perceives as its interests in Iraq. The risk of cross-border operations against the People’s Congress of Kurdistan (KG) terrorist group based in northern Iraq remains. We assess that changing the mission of Coalition forces from a primarily counterinsurgency and stabilization role to a primary combat support role for Iraqi forces and counterterrorist operations to prevent AQI from establishing a safehaven would erode security gains achieved thus far. The impact of a change in mission on Iraq’s political and security environment and throughout the region probably would vary in intensity and suddenness of onset in relation to the rate and scale of a Coalition redeployment. Developments within the Iraqi communities themselves will be decisive in determining political and security trajectories.

• Recent security improvements in Iraq, including success against AQI, have depended significantly on the close synchronization of conventional counterinsurgency and counterterrorism operations. A change of mission that interrupts that synchronization would place security improvements at risk.

The Drug War Continues Apace (Underwater)

Now the smugglers have subs:

A submarine-like vessel filled with hundreds of millions of dollars worth of cocaine was seized off the Guatemalan coast, U.S. officials said....Several drug-carrying submarines operated by Colombian drug cartels have been discovered in recent years. [emphasis mine]

There's nothing like basic economics to undermine the drug war. If you buy it, they will come. In subs, if necessary.

— Nick Baumann

GOP Senators Need Only Half Day in Iraq to Declare Significant Progress

Senator Jim Webb has called the military-organized trips American politicians take to Iraq "dog-and-pony shows." Sens. Lamar Alexander (R-TN) and Bob Corker (R-TN) must have seen one hell of a show earlier this week, because they're declaring "clear success, province by province" after just a half day in country.

Yup. The Tennessee duo spent 10-14 hours of their four day trip actually in Iraq. Yet Alexander felt comfortable saying, "There are probably seven provinces where enough progress has been made to involve Iraqis in their own security."

The good news, amidst all this disingenuousness, is that both Senators seemed to think things were going so well in Iraq that we could start reducing the number of soldiers there. I'm smelling a positive September report, followed by Republicans claiming it's time to start shuffling troops home. Bush will claim we have grand obligations to Iraq, but will reduce troops in time to kill the Democrats' biggest 2008 advantage.

The Atmosphere Ate My Laptop

The Government Accountability Office, source of so much amusement to the denizens of DC, has released a report (PDF) that says NASA employees stole almost $100 million in supplies from the agency in the past decade. From the New York Times:

One thief appropriated an office laptop as his own by declaring the machine lost. It had been thrown from the International Space Station, he explained, apparently with a straight face, and burned up in the Earth’s atmosphere.

The GAO report uses very strong language to condemn NASA's management, noting a "lack of accountability" and "weak internal controls." Let's not forget that this is at the organization responsible for sending people into space. Maybe a little accountability is in order? Just a thought.

— Nick Baumann

If the Election's Tomorrow and Clinton's the Nominee...

...Then she wins big, says Chris Bowers, who compiled the state-by-state head-to-head polls to put together two electoral maps. Clinton wins the electoral vote 335-203 over Giuliani and 430-108 over Romney. And Bowers thinks this is the Democrats' "worst case scenario":

It is important to keep in mind that Mitt Romney and Rudy Giuliani are the two frontrunners for the Republican nomination right now, and that Hillary Clinton is supposedly the least electable Democrat of the four early state candidates in double digits. To put it another way, this is supposedly the worst-case scenario for Democrats right now. On top of this, what do you think will happen to either Giuliani or Romney's numbers when, for nine consecutive months next year (February 6th through Election Day), they are on every media possible, every day, arguing that we don't need to withdraw any troops from Iraq?

Good news for the Dems, if it's true. Part of it, at least, may not be: according to some polls, Clinton is not the "least electable Democrat." Of the top three Democratic candidates, only Clinton won all three head-to-head contests with Giuliani, McCain, and Thompson. But seriously: 430-108? If you're a Republican, that has to make the prospect of a Romney nomination look pretty bleak.

— Nick Baumann

"Private Eyes, They're Watching You..."

Last week, while addressing a border security conference in El Paso, Director of National Intelligence Mike McConnell confirmed that about 100 people in the United States are currently subject to court-approved wiretaps. "On the U.S. persons side, it's 100 or less," McConnell said. "And then, the foreign side—it's in the thousands." The eavesdropping is part of ongoing counter-terrorism investigations. McConnell's comments were reported in a piece by Joby Warrick in this morning's Washington Post.

In related news, starting next Monday, U.S. intelligence agencies will begin screening thousands of people who work for charitable organizations that receive funding from the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID). The move apparently comes in response to a GAO report from 2005, which revealed that six organizations receiving U.S. funding were later determined to have ties to terrorist organizations. From the Post:

The program is described in the notice as the Partner Vetting System. It demands for the first time that nongovernmental organizations file information with the government on each officer, board member and key employee and those associated with an application for AID funds or managing a project when funded.

The information is to include name, address, date and place of birth, citizenship, Social Security and passport numbers, sex, and profession or other employment data. The data collected "will be used to conduct national security screening" to ensure these persons have no connection to entities or individuals "associated with terrorism" or "deemed to be a risk to national security," according to the notice.

Such screening normally involves sending the data to the FBI and other police and intelligence agencies to see if negative information surfaces.

The new system would also require that the groups turn over the individuals' telephone and fax numbers and e-mail addresses, another indication that those numbers would be checked against data collected as part of a terrorist screening program run by the U.S. intelligence community.

Until now, under an earlier Bush administration initiative, nongovernmental organizations had been required to check their own employees and then certify to AID that they were certain no one was associated with individuals or groups that appeared on applicable governmental terrorist listings.

Obama on Cuba: Another Heterodoxy?

Barack Obama is back with another challenge to the foreign policy orthodoxy. (His willingness to attack Pakistan and his ruling out of a nuclear attack to eliminate terrorists are two others.)

This time, it's about Cuba. Obama stated a position in a Miami Herald op-ed that makes sense but doesn't take into account the political world's customary set of panderings. Members of the Cuban exile community that has huge sway in Florida politics take a hard line against the island nation, and any politician who hopes to win the Sunshine State usually follows their lead. They want to cut off or heavily restrict remittances and travel to Cuba, so as to kill Castro's regime by a slow strangulation. Obama said that he wants to ease restrictions, so Cubans in the U.S. can visit their relatives on the island, and send money home if desired.

Hillary Clinton and the Republicans, who all support the status quo, attacked Obama for his position, arguing that it is borne out of naiveté and that it illustrates the lack of strength and seriousness that makes the Illinois senator unfit for the role of Commander-in-Chief. Bill Richardson, Chris Dodd, and Dennis Kucinich, however, all said they agree with Obama in the wake of his Herald op-ed.

Stuff like this is getting Obama called gaffe-prone (see Hannity and Mitt Romney in this video), but in reality these aren't traditional faux pas; he's just refusing to accept conventional wisdom. Can you win a presidential election when you are frequently at odds with the think tanks, most of Congress, the powerful interests, and the status quo? Well, he was right on the Iraq War, and all those folks were wrong... What do you think?

Bush Administration's Own Report Doubts Maliki Gov't

In Bush's Iraq-as-Vietnam speech that Monika blogged about early this morning (lots of interesting stuff in the comments section, btw), he said Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki is a "good man with a difficult job." He's half right, I suppose.

But why come out in favor of Maliki when you are about to undercut him? From the Times:

The administration is planning to make public today parts of a sober new report by American intelligence agencies expressing deep doubts that the government of the Iraqi prime minister, Nuri Kamal al-Maliki, can overcome sectarian differences. Government officials who have seen the report say it gives a bleak outlook on the chances Mr. Maliki can meet milestones intended to promote unity in Iraq.

You can read all about the miserable Maliki government here. To date, Democratic Sens. Carl Levin and Hillary Clinton have called for Maliki to get the boot — it appears the intelligence community isn't far behind.

Update: For a rundown of Maliki's possible replacements, see this Time article. Looks like the U.S.'s hopes lie with a guy named Mithal Alussi. The real question is, who on earth would want this job?

Bush Vietnam Speech: We Have Met the Enemy, and It Is You

Everyone has a take on the president’s stunning Iraq-Vietnam analogy (message: things get better the longer we stay), but the VFW speech is a fascinating list of every other war rationale the Bush administration has tried and failed to make stick. There is the "the war in Iraq is all about fighting al Qaeda" line, with its easy conflation of insurgents and jihadists:

Like our enemies in the past, the terrorists who wage war in Iraq and Afghanistan and other places seek to spread a political vision of their own -- a harsh plan for life that crushes freedom, tolerance, and dissent.

Like our enemies in the past, they kill Americans because we stand in their way of imposing this ideology across a vital region of the world.

And the "if you're not with us, you're with them" smear, reincarnated as "peaceniks lost Vietnam, and that's why the terrorists are winning" (at least when John McCain goes down this road, he has a shred of integrity):

There was another price to our withdrawal from Vietnam, and we can hear it in the words of the enemy we face in today's struggle -- those who came to our soil and killed thousands of citizens on September the 11th, 2001. In an interview with a Pakistani newspaper after the 9/11 attacks, Osama bin Laden declared that "the American people had risen against their government's war in Vietnam. And they must do the same today."

His number two man, Zawahiri, has also invoked Vietnam. In a letter to al Qaeda's chief of operations in Iraq, Zawahiri pointed to "the aftermath of the collapse of the American power in Vietnam and how they ran and left their agents."

…Here at home, some can argue our withdrawal from Vietnam carried no price to American credibility -- but the terrorists see it differently.

Read the whole thing for yourself, and let us know what else jumps out at you in the comments.

August 22, 2007

State Officials Respond to Mother Jones' "School of Shock" Story, Call the Judge Rotenberg Center "Inhumane"

Jennifer Gonnerman's yearlong investigation for Mother Jones into the Judge Rotenberg Center—a taxpayer-funded "school" that takes autistic, mentally retarded, and emotionally disturbed kids from eight states and Washington D.C. and punishes them with electric shocks—is eliciting strong statements from state officials.

The first is from Massachusetts state Senator Brian A. Joyce and Representative John W. Scibak; Joyce has been trying for years to shut the Rotenberg Center down:

Senator Brian A. Joyce and Representative John W. Scibak are calling for the immediate passage of legislation that would strongly regulate the use of “aversive” therapy on children in light of a new report highlighting the practices of a Massachusetts-based school now infamously known as the “school of shock.”

In the September edition of the national magazine Mother Jones, the reporter, who spent a year researching the article and interviewing Judge Rotenberg Center founder and director Matt Israel, refers to the schools as a high school version of Abu Ghraib and describes heartbreaking stories of children (some as young as 9-years-old) being painfully shocked by accident, shocked for swearing or being shocked over decades for the same behavior.

Eight states (including Massachusetts) send children with autism, mental retardation, ADD, ADHD and emotional problems to the Canton-based school that punishes them with food deprivation and powerful electric shocks. JRC currently treats about 230 children and brings in annual revenues exceeding $56 million.

Massachusetts legislators have been working with disability advocates for over twenty years to ban the use of shock (aversive) therapy with little results.

Senator Joyce and Representative Scibak recently filed two bills to safeguard and delineate a narrow range of behavior problems where aversive therapy may be appropriate and would address many of the egregious scenarios described in the article such as children being painfully shocked for swearing.

The bills are the culmination of hundreds of hours of work and discussions between behavior analysts and the psychological community, legislators, and disability and civil rights advocates.

"We believe that it is government’s fundamental duty to protect our most innocent and vulnerable populations,” said Senator Joyce noting that prominent behavior-modification experts, including some cited by Matt Israel, call the JRC ineffective and outmoded. The Canton-based school is in Senator Joyce’s district.

And this is from New York State Assemblywoman Joan L. Millman who represents Brooklyn (52nd District), home to several of the kids sent to the Rotenberg Center:

As the author of New York State's Billy's Law, which led to on-site visits and inspections of a score of out-of-state residential treatment facilities, I was encouraged by your recent article describing the non-professional practices at the Judge Rotenberg Educational Center, located in Massachusetts. The so-called treatment of mentally retarded, autistic and bipolar youngsters, which consists of electric shock treatment, specialized food programs (i.e. the withholding of food), the lack of sufficient academic and special education instructions, and the limited provision of related services, all contribute to the inhumane conditions that exist at the center. To subject our most vulnerable children to months and even years of such treatments, is an extreme and inhumane form of intervention, not based on current research. Thank you for shedding light on this controversial institution.

We'll keep you posted about what other elected officials are saying and doing (the story has been sent to all pertinent Congressional delegations and state representatives, so you can follow up too) about the Rotenberg Center. Meanwhile, you can read all about it here.

Nina Berman's Photos on Wounded Soldiers: Mother Jones First Ran Them Back in 2004

Today the New York Times has a nice piece heralding the work of photographer Nina Berman, who for years has been documenting the plight of soldiers wounded in Iraq and Afghanistan. The Times made mention of the fact that "20 of her portraits were published as a book, 'Purple Hearts: Back From Iraq' (Trolley Books, 2004), with an introduction by Verlyn Klinkenborg, a member of the editorial board of The New York Times." What the Times failed to mention, however, is that that book came out of a Mother Jones photo essay that appeared in 2004.

Interesting, because back then, neither the Times nor most other major papers were doing much to chronicle the fate of the wounded. Or the dead. Mother Jones, on the other hand, made a concerted effort to get photo essays that nobody else would publish into our pages. You can see these photo essays and other topics that will eventually be covered elsewhere (like what's happened to women in Afghanistan post-invasion) on our photo essay archive page. Where an interview with Nina also lives.

That, too, ran four years ago. But good to see the Times catching up.

Half of America's Gain in Income Goes to Richest 0.25 Percent

New York Times reporter David Cay Johnston is kind of an awesome dude. Yesterday, he dropped one of his customary bombshell reports:

[Earners of over $1 million/year,] who constitute less than a quarter of 1 percent of all taxpayers, reaped almost 47 percent of the total income gains in 2005, compared with 2000.

People with incomes of more than a million dollars also received 62 percent of the savings from the reduced tax rates on long-term capital gains and dividends that President Bush signed into law in 2003...

So less than one-quarter of one percent of all taxpayers took in almost 50 percent of the nation's ~~revenues~~ revenue gain. And what about the little guy? Screwed, as you would suspect.

Americans earned a smaller average income in 2005 than in 2000, the fifth consecutive year that they had to make ends meet with less money...

Total income listed on tax returns grew every year after World War II, with a single one-year exception, until 2001, making the five-year period of lower average incomes and four years of lower total incomes a new experience for the majority of Americans born since 1945.

Mother Jones has written in the past about how the rich get richer and the poor get poorer. We've also interviewed David Cay Johnston.

Bush Draws Parallel Between Iraq, Vietnam

Finally, something war champions and war critics can agree upon.

Posted by Laura Rozen on 08/22/07 at 8:04 AM | | Comments (9) |