4:33 PM
Iraq Body Count
While the deaths of American military personnel in Iraq have quite rightly gotten a good deal of news coverage, it's worth noting the other casualties of the war. According to a database compiled by the goup Iraq Body Count, so far the conflict in Iraq breaks down as follows:
- U.S. military deaths: 936- Deaths among non-U.S. coalition forces: 125 (64 British)
- Iraqi civilian (non-combatant) deaths: 11,510-13,483
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4:30 PM
McCain and Giuliani not ready for prime time
John McCain and Rudy Giuliani will handle prime-time duties during the first day of the Republican National Convention. But you'll have to have cable to see their speeches.
As they did for the Democratic National Convention, the networks will only broadcast four hours of live convention coverage and will skip one night entirely. For the Democrats, that was Tuesday night, when Howard Dean, Ted Kennedy, Barack Obama and Teresa Heinz Kerry spoke. But with Arnold Schwarzenegger headlining the GOP's Tuesday night, the networks chose to instead skip Monday's McCain/Giuliani opening night. While some GOP spokespeople called the move "baffling" or "a mistake," Bloomberg consultant Mitchell Moss told the New York Post he understands :
"Arnold Schwarzenegger is in a league of his own. He's governor of the largest state in the country, he's married to a Kennedy, and he transcends politics. There are very few people in political life who have movie-star looks and are willing to speak at a national convention."
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3:09 PM
Tell Cheney to stop bashing our "sensitive" soldiers!
Republicans have had no end of fun over Kerry's "sensitive war on terror" remarks. Never mind that GOP took Kerry's words out of context. Ignore the fact that Bush also used a similar "sensitive" line, as pointed out by Jon Stewart. The real story is that our soldiers are trying to fight an extremely "sensitive" war this very second, and Cheney is all but scorning their efforts. Here are the troops in Najaf:
Wary of igniting more anger, the US military said the [current] assault [in Najaf] would exclude the Imam Ali Mosque. Government officials said only Iraqi forces would disarm militia inside.
And here's our vice-president (who, as you remember, was apparently too sensitive to ever fight in Vietnam):
'America has been in too many wars for any of our wishes, but not a one of them was won by being sensitive.'
I'd love to join the legion of liberal pundits who are shaking their heads over Kerry's "sensitive" remark (which was apparently ad-libbed by Kerry himself.) But if you look at how badly we've screwed up Iraq, it's obvious that we really do need to wage a more delicate war. This is a rhetorical debate that liberals need to win sooner or later. Kerry could start by applauding the oh-so "sensitive" Marines in Najaf, and tell Cheney to stop trivializing their efforts.
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2:33 PM
MJ.com on privatizating the federal government's contractor database
Back in May, Mother Jones Washington correspondent Michael Scherer reported on how the government's Federal Procurement Data System database -- a database of federal contracts -- has been outsourced to a private company called Global Computer Enterprises (GCE). As Scherer wrote:
"In signing the $24 million deal, the Bush Administration has privatized not only the collection and distribution of the data, but the database itself. For the first time since the system was established, the information will not be available directly to the public or subject to the Freedom of Information Act, according to federal officials. 'It's a contractor owned and operated system,' explains Nancy Gunsauls, a project manager at GCE. 'We have the data.' "
Earlier this month, the Washington Post played catch-up with a piece on this latest instance of government outsourcing, but the topic has yet to receive much attention in the press. Too bad. What's in jeopardy is access to currently public information. Raw data from the various federal agencies will be passed on directly to the GCE and not to the government's General Services Administration, which has shared it with the public at a nominal fee. GCE has said that it won't provide the raw data to the public and the price tag for its reports is yet to be named, though it is expected to be significantly higher than the government's. This may put the data out of reach of the many journalists and government watchdog groups. More troubling As Steven L. Schooner, a professor at George Washington University Law School told the Post: "It seems to me to be wrongheaded for the government to intentionally take data that they have been generating and give it to a contractor for the purposes of not disclosing it. That sounds like they are hiding it."
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12:58 PM
Score one for labor standards
Sheridan Prasso has an important piece about Cambodia -- yes, Cambodia -- in the latest issue of The New Republic. Back in 1999, the U.S. signed an experimental trade agreement with the South Asian country, wherein U.S. quotas on garment imports were dependent on improved working conditions in Cambodian factories. In other words, the more Cambodia reformed its factories, the more shirts and shoes it could sell. According to Prasso, it more or less worked:
In the trade deal's early years, in fact, it seemed more destabilizing than beneficial. As emboldened workers organized into unions, Cambodia suffered a dramatic increase in labor-management acrimony, resulting in strikes and violence that damaged the country's reputation with foreign investors. In addition, making the improvements in working conditions required by the ILO increased manufacturing costs. … Such problems may have deterred investors desiring cheaper, more compliant labor forces, and some built factories in Indonesia, Vietnam, or Bangladesh instead.
But, for other garment manufacturers, the value of a good labor practices certification was worth the slightly higher costs. Brands like Nike and Gap, both of which came under fire during the 1990s for selling clothes made in sweatshop conditions, wanted to overcome their negative reputations with consumers. And buying from Cambodia brought better p.r. … Indeed, with huge volumes of garment purchases from companies like Nike, Cambodia has tripled these annual exports since the agreement was signed.
More importantly, Prasso notes that enforced labor standards and higher pay seemed to help Cambodia's workers -- which runs counter to the usual intuitions about free trade and growth. There are two things to point out here. First, even though labor standards should have put Cambodia at an economic disadvantage, the p.r. factor can't be discounted. Jagdish Bhagwati hinted at this point in his pro-free trade book, In Defense of Globalization -- protests and public outcry against sweatshops may be misguided, but they are often the only incentive corporations have to improve their practices. Thus the activist crusade against Nike forced the shoe company to seek out a "save haven" in Cambodia.
Second, more sadly, it's very doubtful that Cambodia can preserve this system for long. The WTO is due to remove all quotas on textiles in 2005, putting Cambodia in direct competition with cheaper labor in China and Bangladesh. Only a broader commitment to labor standards would preserve the Cambodia system. Is that viable? No one knows, but policymakers might want to look twice at Cambodia's successes before shrugging off the question.
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11:51 AM
Keyes: repeal the 17th Amendment!
Alan Keyes wants voters to put him in the U.S. Senate. But if he had his druthers, voters wouldn't have that option.
A Keyes spokesman told Chicago's Daily Herald that Keyes still supports repealing the 17th Amendment, a position he previously touted in his presidential campaigns. For those forgetting their civics lessons, the 17th Amendment gave citizens the right to vote for senators, who were previously selected by state legislatures. Spokesman Dan Proft explained:
"He does still support repeal of the 17th Amendment. [But] this is not to be a centerpiece item of his legislative agenda should he be elected."
As the paper notes, Keyes would have little chance -- even less than he has now -- under that scenario, as Democrats control both houses of the state legislature. His stance might be regressive, but at least one can't say he took it based on self-interest.
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10:35 AM
Sistani finally speaks out on Najaf
Yesterday we wondered what Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani was planning to do about the fighting in Najaf. Today, according to the New York Times, the answer is pretty clear:
The ayatollah said Najaf and other Shiite cities were 'experiencing tragic circumstances now, in which sanctities are violated, blood is shed, and properties destroyed, with no deterrence.' He went on to call for a negotiated solution. 'His eminence calls on all factions to work seriously to end this crisis soon, and lay principles to ensure that it does not occur again,' the statement said.
As mentioned before, Sistani is probably the only religious leader in Iraq with enough credibility to approve an assault on Najaf. Now that he's denounced the attacks on the city, Prime Minister Ayad Allawi will have no choice but to call for a truce:
One aide said that Dr. Allawi, himself a Shiite, had been influenced by a growing number of calls for restraint from other leading Shiites in the new political establishment in Baghdad. As well, they said, he had taken note of a statement issued from a London hospital on behalf of Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, the most revered of Iraq's Shiite religious leaders, who left the country just before the uprising reignited.
There are still a lot of questions here. Did Allawi think that maybe, just maybe, Sistani would approve of a full-blown attack on Sadr? Is that why the prime minister pushed this far, and blustered on about "no negotiations and no truce." Also, did Allawi expect more support from his own cabinet -- remember, Ibrahim Jaaferi, one of Iraq's vice-presidents, undermined Allawi's stance by calling for an outright withdrawal. (And if we really want to get into the grit of things, is the reclusive Jaaferi trying to curry favor with hardline Shiites, setting himself and his al-Dawaa party up for next year's elections?)
If a truce is signed, Allawi and the Americans will have done well insofar as they avoided mass riots across Iraq. Rumor has it that Sadr has rigged the shrine with explosives; if the shrine exploded, the interim government would be doomed.
But on the downside, they've strengthened Sadr's position immensely. As in April, he'll likely be allowed to maintain his position in Najaf. More importantly, Sadr's already high poll numbers will likely skyrocket after this little stunt. And with his militia bristling in East Baghdad, the cleric could play a big part in influencing next year's elections. Meanwhile, the U.S. has lost tremendous support among Shiites, and is pretty much out of options. It's a weak position for the occupation to be in, and it really makes one wonder whether they expected more cooperation from Sistani.
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10:27 AM
Advice for the CIA chief (aka the "skunk at the garden party.")
The Director of the CIA, in the words of James Woolsey, the man who held the post from 1993 to 1995, is the "skunk at the garden party." Thanks to Michael Moore, we know that Porter Goss, President's Bush nominee to head the CIA, and a former spook himself, said that he lacked the necessary cultural, technical, and linguistic skills to be hired by the agency today. And since Directing the CIA for Dummies has yet to be published, others guides will have to suffice for now. The Christian Science Monitor comes to the rescue with a great little memo today, citing advice from three former CIA directors -- including Woolsey -- on how to run spook central. Here are some things the "skunk"-to-be should keep in mind:
1. Don't get caught up in politics
2. Serve up the facts
3. Know your place
4. Don't shy away from the phrase "I don't know."
5. Don't let other people pick your metaphors
6. Your job doesn't require a crystal ball
7. Fight for your people.
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4:49 PM
Bush's defenders are at a loss for words
I guess the old adage is true: You can always find a couple of right-wing hacks to defend a bad economic policy. First, Robert Novak tries to explain why the recent economic numbers are actually good for Bush. First, we get a bit of household vs. payroll survey confusion:
In the opinion of economists I consulted, the 32,000-job figure reflects less the real state of the economy than faults of methodology in the Labor Department's Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS).
Should we wonder why none of Novak's "economists" wanted to be named? Maybe because the arguments against the BLS's methodology have all been discredited. (Remember, even Alan Greenspan says the BLS numbers are the gold standard.) Then Novak adds this bit of wisdom:
Furthermore, the July unemployment rate is 5.5 percent -- a low rate and exactly what it was in July 1996 when Bill Clinton was seeking re-election. In contrast, unemployment was 7.7 percent in July 1992 as the senior George Bush began his descent. That these favorable numbers are not trumpeted by Bush's political operation suggests an uncertain trumpet.
Gee, maybe the White House doesn't want to call attention to the fact that, according to Novak's own numbers above, unemployment declined by 2.2 percent during Clinton's first term. Meanwhile, the current 5.5 percent rate is higher than when Bush took office.
Let's be fair: Novak isn't pretending to be an expert on these matters. But I'm not sure what the Wall Street Journal's excuse is. Here Paul Wesbury argues that the low job figures simply can't be true:
Real GDP has increased by 3.4% per year, retail sales have increased by 4.8% annually and housing activity has been setting record after record. No major economic model would have predicted such solid economic performance with such insignificant job growth.
What is he talking about? Any number of models could explain jobless economic growth. Sectoral reallocation, for starters -- when workers lose jobs in shrinking sectors, it can take time to train and find jobs in new sectors. (See this paper, for instance, put out by the Chicago Fed.) Rising productivity is another possible explanation -- if firms can get more output from their existing workers, they have less incentive to hire new workers.
These explanations may not be correct. But that's beside the point: Wesbury is saying that he doesn't understand why the economy is in such bad shape, therefore it must be in good shape. Defenders of the White House have seen better days.
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4:44 PM
Calling Bush on his bull
Kudos to the Associated Press for calling President Bush on one of his factually inaccurate statements.
At a campaign stop in Las Vegas, Bush defended his support for the planned nuclear waste dump at Yucca Mountain. But, as the AP reports, Bush told a bit of a whopper about Kerry's position on Yucca:
"He says he's strongly against Yucca here in Nevada, but he voted for it several times."
The AP followed that sentence with a concise, "That is not exactly true."
Of course, Kerry has consistently opposed the Yucca project. The AP says Bush was probably alluding to Kerry's vote 16 years ago for an overall budget bill that included a Yucca provision, but the president's statement is, at best, a grossly unfair exaggeration.
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4:27 PM
In the CIA, those who can't do ... lead
Michael Moore has posted an outtake from Fahrenheit 9/11 in which soon-to-be CIA chief Porter Goss, who is himself a former spook, tells the film's crew that he would not make the cut in today's CIA:
"I couldn't get a job with CIA today. I am not qualified. I don't have the language skills. I, you know, my language skills were romance languages and stuff. We're looking for Arabists today. I don't have the cultural background probably. And I certainly don't have the technical skills, uh, as my children remind me every day, 'Dad you got to get better on your computer.' Uh, so, the things that you need to have, I don't have."
Well that's reassuring.
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3:59 PM
Meet the unhinged swift boat veterans for Bush
First, there was the commercial, where a bunch of swift boat veterans who didn't serve with John Kerry opine on his command in Vietnam. Now there's the new book by longtime Kerry nemesis John O'Neill and co-author Jerome Corsi.
O'Neill's schtick is familiar, but Corsi is normally just described as a Harvard Ph.D. and experienced writer. Thankfully, Media Matters looked into some of Corsi's writing, and he's definitely on the O'Reilly/Coulter end of the credibility spectrum. Here are some of his previous thoughts on John Kerry (the Media Matters site has links to the original sources):
"First let's undermine the US in Vietnam. Then we can go for gay marriage. When you get to be Pres. JFK-lite, there will be no end to how much of America we can destroy.""Just don't let anybody put a tablet with the Ten Commandments in front of the school where that girl wants to wear a Muslim scarf -- OH, No --- then the RATS would complain. Anti-Christian, Anti-American -- just like their Presidential Candidate -- Jean Francois Kerrie.
"After he married TerRAHsa, didn't John Kerry begin practicing Judiasm? He also has paternal grandparents that were Jewish. What religion is John Kerry?
"John F*ing Commie Kerry and Commie Ted [Kennedy] discuss their plan to hand America over to our nation's enemies."
And this guy has the No. 1 book on Amazon…
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2:26 PM
Gaffes galore on the campaign trail!
Both George Bush and John Kerry are campaigning around the country, giving plenty of speeches and giving themselves ample opportunity for making gaffes.
In Bush's case, that meant this curious response to a Florida audience member's suggestion for a national sales tax:
"He's talking about getting rid of the current tax system and replacing it with a national sales tax. It's an interesting idea. You know, I'm not exactly sure how big the national sales tax is going to have to be, but it's the kind of interesting idea that we ought to explore seriously."
Wednesday, the Kerry camp pounced on that comment, while the White House did its best to distance itself from the sales tax idea:
On the other side, the White House is already having fun with Kerry's comment that, "I believe I can fight a more effective, more thoughtful, more strategic, more proactive, more sensitive war on terror that reaches out to other nations and brings them to our side." Not surprisingly, Dick Cheney singled out "sensitive" from that statement as part of the campaign strategy to make Kerry an object of ridicule:
"President Lincoln and General Grant did not wage sensitive warfare, nor did President Roosevelt, nor Generals Eisenhower and MacArthur."Just two and a half more months of this…
1:55 PM
Not everybody hates the electoral college!
Timothy Noah has a column today about the prospects for abolishing the electoral college. The main argument is that small states should agree to do away with the electoral college, because their voters actually have disproportionately little voting power in the current system. It's a bit counterintuitive -- most people would assume small states have disproportionately great power -- but he's got the numbers to back it up.
It's not a bad theory, but I can see a pretty significant obstacle to abolition: Republicans make out very well under the electoral college system. Consider what would happen if the system was discarded. Democratic presidential candidates would spend all their time in urban areas, since that's where their constituencies live, and that's where they could amass the most votes. No more pandering to ethanol farmers in Iowa. No more hobnobbing with suburban soccer moms or NASCAR dads. A Democrat would just have to hit up voters in, say, the 30 largest cities, and the election would be in the bag!
Meanwhile, the Republican candidate would have to scurry from county to county, trying to pick up scattered rural votes -- since every vote would count. That means lots of regional ad buys, lots of campaign stops, an overstretched get-out-the-vote campaign, and ultimately, lots of money. It also means conservatives would have to appeal to a wider range of interests and constituencies. (A Democrat can sound similar themes in both New York City and Atlanta; a Republican might have to stretch a bit to win over both Provo, Utah, and Orange County, California.)
Of course, Democrats would still have to spread out geographically in order to win in the House and the Senate. But at the presidential level, they'd have a real advantage. Which would be fine with us -- but it just seems that abolishing the electoral college probably isn't the political slam dunk that Noah thinks it is.
12:03 PM
What is Sistani thinking?
Despite a fairly cautious approach to Najaf, the U.S. military offensive against Moqtada Sadr's militia is already sparking protests among Shiites. Protests don't equal disaster, of course, but it's certainly not a good omen. It's worth wondering, then, whether Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani might step in and try to defuse the crisis.
Sistani is in London for medical treatment at the moment, but today his aide finally spoke out, announcing, "We call for the holy soil and holy sites of [Najaf] to be respected," a statement that studiously avoids taking sides. If Sistani wanted, he could in theory approve a U.S. offensive against the Imam Ali shrine, where Sadr is holed up with roughly 1,500 of his men. This might -- might -- cut off a good deal of Shiite outrage. But Sistani, of course, has ordered no such thing.
The ayatollah's silence makes intuitive sense, but strategically, it's hard to figure out what he's thinking, exactly. It seems unlikely that Sistani wants a mass Shiite uprising against the American troops, since he has always preached a peaceful resistance to the occupation. It also seems unlikely that Sistani would approve of a Sadr victory -- as Spencer Ackerman relates, yesterday Sadr all but announced his intentions to supplant the aging ayatollah. Sadr, recall, has criticized Sistani before; and for his part, Sistani has tried to rally Shiite leaders against the "reckless upstart." Might Sistani be worried that coming down too hard against Sadr here and now would enrage the emerging radical wing of the Shia? It's a tricky situation, and perhaps that's why Sistani removed himself to London in the first place -- so that he wouldn't have to take sides. Whatever the case, in the weeks ahead, the political backdrop to the Najaf battle may well prove more important than the battle itself.
11:09 AM
Hey, British kids are stupid, too
When the BBC quizzed Britons on the greatest battles in the nation's history, to accompany its Battlefield Britain series, it got some curious responses, particularly from the nation's youth. Less than half of 16-24 year olds knew that Sir Francis Drake defeated the Spanish Armada, with a fifth crediting Christopher Columbus,13 percent C.S. Forester's fictional navy hero Horatio Hornblower, and 6 percent Gandalf, the wizard in J.R.R. Tolkien's trilogy "The Lord of the Rings" for the achievement. Some say that the findings are not surprising given that too little history is taught in schools, the BBC has scaled back its educational programming in favor of entertainment, and that the universities accept too many students, dumbing down exams accordingly. Others suggest that British intellectualism has always been overhyped. As Cambridge historian John Adamson told the Christian Science Monitor "in the broader culture, we have a certain disdain for clever-cleverness."
10:15 AM
Note to media: that Bush says something doesn't make it true; in fact ...
Anyone interested in the media coverage of the lead-up to the war in Iraq should read today's long Washington Post self-investigation. In the piece, Karen DeYoung hints at one of the important structural reason for the paper's failure to criticize the administration's case for war:
Bush, Vice President Cheney and other administration officials had no problem commanding prime real estate in the paper, even when their warnings were repetitive. "We are inevitably the mouthpiece for whatever administration is in power," DeYoung said. "If the president stands up and says something, we report what the president said." And if contrary arguments are put "in the eighth paragraph, where they're not on the front page, a lot of people don't read that far."Newspapers have been falling back on this old standby for so long, it's easy to forget how ridiculous it is. So long as the media focuses on the fact of a government official saying something, rather than on the veracity of those statements, they're going to get suckered every time. When President Bush says that Iraq has connections to al Qaeda, this isn't a news event, and it's certainly not "one man's opinion" -- rather, it's a factual claim to be dissected and analyzed.
Or, if you want to put it in philosophical terms, the president's speech acts should be reported as news -- i.e. when he announces his intention to invade Iraq. But the president's propositional statements are always either true or false, and the media should immediately find out which (as best they can). Making this distinction would go a long way towards improving our media coverage.
10:11 AM
Let us build a palace of ice ...
"Let us build a palace of ice … big and grand enough for 1,000 people," so declared the President Saparmurat Niyazov of the very hot -- and very authoritarian -- Turkmenistan, the gas-rich Central Asian state that borders Iran and Afghanistan. Niyazov, who has proclaimed himself as "Turkmenbashi"-- "The Father of All Turkmen" and president-for-life -- is an egomaniac fond of grandiose projects. In Ashgabat, the state capital, a golden statue of Niyazov rotates to face the sun, January has been officially renamed as "Turkmenbashi," and the president's writings are taught as great works of literature. To protect Turkmens from hearing otherwise, Niyazov has shutdown independent media and signed a decree firing state workers who have been educated abroad. But with temperatures at 91 degrees Fahrenheit, Niyazov will need all the artificial help he can get, to prevent his latest project from melting under the hot, Turkmen sun.
5:01 PM
Do tax cuts encourage charitable giving? No
Conservatives have often argued that we don't need high taxes and government programs to care for the poor. After all, they say, without a welfare state, wealthy people would just give freely to charity, which works just as well for taking care of the needy. (See, for instance, Edwin Feulner's argument here.) Is that right?
Maybe not. A quirky new study by the Congressional Budget Office shows that a repeal of the estate tax would reduce charitable giving by up to $25 billion over the next few years. As things currently stand, the estate tax entices the wealthy to pony up to charity, so as to reduce their tax burden upon death. But what the CBO found was that this system really has a massive effect on giving. Seems like some people still need a little, ahem, persuading before they dig deep and donate.
2:22 PM
Is Greenspan's rate hike more about politics than economics?
Economists will no doubt debate for days the implications of the Fed's latest rate hike. The stock markets love it, of course, because it looks like Alan Greenspan has faith in the economy, even after shoddy job numbers and a dip in consumer confidence. But what is Greenspan really thinking? Jared Bernstein, a senior economist at EPI, takes a look at the politics behind the latest hike:
If the FOMC [Federal Open Market Committee] chose not to raise now, especially after signaling previously that it had planned to do so, it could have been interpreted as a bald-faced attempt to boost the economy to help the incumbent president. If more bad news comes in, it can hold fast (i.e., not raise) at the next meeting with a bit more impunity, especially if the Fed continues to warn about economic weakness, as it did in today's statement.But there's another side to this political calculation. Despite evidence to the contrary, George W. Bush is running around the country claiming the economy is "strong and getting stronger." For Greenspan to contradict him by not raising today would have deeply undermined the president's credibility. Had the FOMC held fast today, imagine Bush officials trying to square this action with the president's rhetoric.It's not a bad theory. Greenspan gave up any pretense of being nonpartisan when he endorsed Bush's 2001 tax plan and argued that we should pay down the surplus by cutting taxes rather than increasing spending. (That's a policy choice; Greenspan is in no place to make it.)
Also of interest, Bernstein notes -- as other liberal economists have done -- that the Fed is still trying to promote price stability, rather than full employment. Indeed, with productivity making huge long-term gains -- growing 4 percent from 2001 to 2004 -- basic analysis would tell us that we need an even faster rate of growth to reach full employment. A rate hike, of course, will make that difficult, and Greenspan knows it. Apathy towards employment is one of the under-reported aspects of the Federal Reserve, and it's surprising how many politicians, Democrats included, are willing to treat this as a natural choice to make.
1:35 PM
What does the Reform Party have in the bank? $18.18
The Reform Party, founded by billionaire Ross Perot, has fallen on some hard economic times with only $18.18 in the bank.
Treasurer William Chapman, who told the Associated Press of the party's struggles, said he also asked the FEC to terminate the Reform Party "based on guidelines the FEC had established" for the party's operation.
Whether the party disbands or not, the fact it doesn't have enough money to buy most hardcover books shows just how far it's fallen in the past three election cycles.
Formed around Perot's candidacy - which earned it major-party status with Perot's 1992 and 1996 showings - it devolved quickly with his retirement. Jesse Ventura won in Minnesota as a Reform candidate in 1998, but he later left to form his own party. Reform members split in 2000, with the majority endorsing Pat Buchanan as the party's nominee, and a substantial minority backing John Hagelin. This election, the party isn't even running a presidential candidate, choosing in May to endorse Ralph Nader's independent run instead.
It's no surprise that a party with such incompatible candidates couldn't sustain itself. Eventually, the Reform Party came to stand for anything but the major-party platforms and a house that divided wasn't likely to stand long.
1:30 PM
Did private contracting firm CACI fleece the Pentagon?
Mother Jones contributor Osha Gray Davidson has a good piece in Salon about the use of private contractors in Abu Ghraib. As the now-declassified annexes to the Taguba report make clear, private companies such as CACI International and Titan Corp. brought in inexperienced translators, interrogators, and analysts to the prison, setting the stage for abuse:
According to an investigation released July 21 by the Army's inspector general, a third of contract interrogators at Abu Ghraib "had not received formal training in military interrogation techniques, policy, and doctrine."The problem might not have been so serious if there had been only two or three contract workers on interrogation teams. But according to the Taguba report and an inside source, all 20 of the interpreters at Abu Ghraib worked for Titan. The classified documents contain an organizational chart that indicates that on Jan. 23, 2004, nearly half of all interrogators and analysts employed at Abu Ghraib were CACI employees.Some of this has been reported before, but it's still shocking. The military hardly had any of its own interrogation teams in Abu Ghraib. Is the Army really so understaffed that it has to rely on underqualified contractors? Many critics have suggested that the Pentagon intentionally employs private firms in order to distance itself from rough-handed interrogations. Maybe. But there might be other, structural reasons to explain why corporations like CACI were contracted for the job -- they simply fleeced the Pentagon.
A few months ago, the Washington Post discovered that, back in 1998, CACI had signed a $500 million "blanket-purchase agreement" with the Pentagon, an open-ended contract that could later be used to agree on specifics without public oversight. So the Defense Department had a prearranged agreement to pay CACI for unspecified services. In 2003, the company said, "Hey, we can provide interrogators," and the DoD said "Sure, why not?" Only later did the inspector general's office discover that maybe this portion of the contract wasn't all that appropriate.
But how did CACI manage to finesse the original contract? Perhaps the company's close ties with the Pentagon had something to do with it. The Project on Government Oversight (POGO) issued a report in June on former government officials working with defense contractors. They didn't document CACI's ties to the government, but a quick search yields plenty of information. CACI's board of directors includes Michael J. Bayer, who serves as chairman of the U.S. Army Science Board and was part of a task force in the late '90s to improve management of the Defense Department (Any chance the recommendations included the increased use of private contractors?). It also includes Arthur L. Money, a former Assistant Secretary of Defense and DoD Chief Information Officer; and Gen. Larry D. Welch, USAF (Ret.).
Did these military connections give CACI some leeway in securing what seemed to be an inappropriate contract for supplying interrogators? And on a larger level, is the "revolving door" between the Pentagon and the defense industry causing lapses in military oversight? If lobbyists and private firms can use their connections to pressure the Pentagon into taking up contractors, then of course we're going to see a lot more breakdowns like the one at Abu Ghraib. At this point, no one really knows how the revolving door works, but it certainly bears closer scrutiny.
1:16 PM
Some advice for John Kerry on women
Single women, an overwhelmingly Democratic -- but notably apathetic -- constituency, are at last receiving the sort of attention previously bestowed on soccer moms and Nascar dads, both of which "groups" they vastly outnumber. As a recent MotherJones.com article pointed out, "if single women had voted in 2000 at the same rate as married women, an additional 6 million ballots would have been cast" and history may have turned out much differently. This week, Boston Globe columnist Thomas Oliphant offers some sound advice for the Kerry camp: the way to mobilize single women voters this election is to focus on their pocketbooks:
"If John Kerry would kindly remind the public once in a while that he favors a $7-an-hour minimum wage, he would be talking directly to them.Half of all the women in this country who are not married scrape by on 30 grand a year or less.If John Kerry would kindly remind the public occasionally that he will block all attempts to even partially privatize Social Security and will in fact shore up the retirement system (private pensions included) he would also be talking directly to women on their own."
12:12 PM
Britain gives the go-ahead on stem cell research
While embryonic stem cells remain a contentious issue in the U.S. election, the British government is taking a major step to advance the research.
On Wednesday, scientists at the University of Newcastle received the UK's first license to clone human embryos for stem-cell purposes. As in the U.S., the eggs used in the procedure are left over from in-vitro fertilization, and would otherwise be destroyed. Moreover, as in the U.S., that hasn't stopped anti-abortion forces from protesting. Josephine Quintavalle of Comment on Reproductive Ethics trotted out a familiar line in an interview with the BBC:
"It is very worrying indeed….No human life should be sacrificed for the benefit of anybody else, no matter how dramatic the promises are."Thankfully, cooler heads are prevailing in the UK, where the procedure has been legal since 2001. Professor Alison Murdoch, of the Newcastle fertility center leading the research, told the BBC:
"Since we submitted our application we have had overwhelming support from senior scientists and clinicians from all over the world and many letters from patients who may benefit from the research. This research should give valuable insight into the development of many diseases."
11:09 AM
U.S. to train Pakistani officers
The rehabilitation of Pakistan by the Bush administration continues, with Paul Wolfowitz suggesting Tuesday that the U.S. resume training Pakistani officers in U.S. military academies.
Wolfowitz told the House Armed Services committee he believes such training would increase American influence on the troops and reduce the influence of Al Qaeda and other extremist groups:
"You don't promote military reform in a country like Pakistan by cutting off education for Pakistani military officers here and pushing them into the one alternative, which is the Islamic extremists… I think one of our problems in Pakistan today is that for too long we deprived ourselves of one of the most important instruments of influence in a country where the military is one of the most important institutions, and that is the contact between our military and their military."That training was ended as part of the government's 1990 decision to cut off Pakistan's military aid after the country was found to be developing nuclear weapons. And while the Bush administration has treated the Musharraf regime as a close ally, Pakistan's record is spotty at best. For all its help in arresting Al Qaeda operatives, Pakistan has yet to undergo major reform at home. Any U.S. training of officers should also concern India, as American-trained Pakistani forces would likely play a role in the ongoing dispute over Kashmir.
Pakistan has already reaped a windfall of aid from the Bush administration. Maybe it should show some serious reform before the U.S. continues down that path.
11:00 AM
Workers can't afford to get sick
We sure talk about economic insecurity enough around these parts, but sometimes it's hard to grasp the full extent of the problem. A stunning new study, by the Institute for Women's Policy Research, puts it into perspective: According to IWPR, 66 million workers -- over half the work force -- do not get any paid sick leave after a full year of work.
For the young and healthy, of course, sick days are just a great way to whip up a sniffle and skip work. But for everyone else, including families, the consequences of no sick leave can be quite severe:
Workers come to work sick, spreading disease and sapping productivity. Parents who need to stay home and care for sick children can lose wages or risk being fired. And when parents can't stay home, children usually take longer to recuperate, and end up missing school. Health care costs skyrocket. After all, staying home with a hot bowl of soup -- or being able to take soup up to a sick child -- can often head off a more serious illness down the line. Now in this instance, the problem is pretty easy to fix. The Healthy Families Act, introduced by Ted Kennedy and Rose DeLauro, has been around for a while, in various forms. But the larger point is that our political leaders rarely talk about this sort of insecurity, and thus few people have a good grasp of the problem. These 66 million people aren't just feeling a 'pinch'. For these workers, every day is a precarious balancing act, ready to topple at -- literally -- the first sneeze.
10:53 AM
The foreigners are coming ... to a polling station near you!
In a first in U.S. presidential election history, the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) will -- at the request of the U.S. government -- be dispatching election monitors to the "land of the free." The OSCE, whose members include the U.S., is known for sending observers to ensure the integrity of the election process in the newly independent states of the former Soviet Union and Eastern Europe but it has also recently monitored recent elections in the U.K. and France. And this won't be the first time that the OSCE will monitor a U.S. election. Back in 2002, it sent a team to Florida -- once again at the request of the U.S. government -- to observe the 2002 Congressional elections. In a report, the OSCE commended the state and federal government for improvements made since the 2000 voting debacle, but it also noted that "a number of issues remained to be addressed, including access for non-partisan domestic observers to all levels of the election administration, reform in the use of the felons list, and the development of more effective links between the state and county levels of election administration." (You can read the report in PDF file by clicking here).
News of the OSCE monitoring comes following the defeat of a bill in the House of Representatives which would have requested the United Nations to send its election observers to monitor the presidential election. Representative Steve Buyer, a fierce opponent of the bill expressed his opposition thusly:
"Imagine going to your polling place on the morning of November 2 and seeing blue-helmeted foreigners inside your local library, school or fire station. The United Nations has sent monitors to Haiti, Nicaragua, Angola, Mozambique ... and now the United States?"Well, Congressman Buyer, ready or not, foreigners -- helmeted or not -- are coming to a fire station near you.
9:43 AM
You call this security?
Want to know how thoroughly we've trained the Iraqi security forces? This Washington Post story says it all:
Gunmen briefly asserted control of some Baghdad neighborhoods and called for a curfew over the entire city. Authorities rejected the demand and said the city remained securely under government control, despite scattered reports that some policemen had chosen to hide rather than fight.Residents of several neighborhoods said streets emptied when members of the Mahdi Army, the militia loyal to Sadr, came through, apparently unchallenged by the police.The Los Angeles Times, meanwhile, reports that half of Iraqi security troops are ready to go, and the full force should be prepared by June 2005. Good news, right? But let's face it, there's training and then there's training. And the policemen in Baghdad fleeing from the Mahdi Army probably need more time at boot camp. So it looks like next summer might be a tad too soon for the U.S. to call it an occupation and leave.
6:26 PM
Is the U.S. learning its lessons in Iraq? Maybe.
On our front page, Juan Cole is quoted as saying that going into Najaf would "cost the U.S. the war." Cole is certainly the undisputed expert on all things Shiite, but in this case, he might be wrong. From all accounts, the American troops are waging an extremely delicate battle in Najaf, picking their fights wisely and trying to avoid any major offenses. Meanwhile, the governor of the city has given the U.S. permission to enter the shrine, although the military has so far declined the offer. (According to The New York Times, the U.S. wanted to send Iraqi troops into the temple areas, but were worried that the Iraqis weren't ready to go it alone.) It seems the U.S. Army is learning its lessons.
Meanwhile, Spencer Ackerman wonders why Moqtada al-Sadr won't back down. It seems likely that Sadr badly miscalculated; he probably thought Ayad Allawi and the Americans would refrain from entering Najaf, preferring instead to offer Sadr yet another truce, leaving the Mahdi Army in charge of the city, and boosting Sadr's popularity. But as I argued yesterday, Allawi really has everything to lose from a Sadr victory. If the prime minister can get peace, he'll take it, but if he's forced to eliminate a major rival, Allawi probably won't hesitate.
5:26 PM
Do we want an intel czar who runs in fear of Jersey girls? Well, do we?
If the Senate hearings for Porter Goss do get nasty, we'll no doubt see plenty of dirt dredged up. But for now, this passage will have to suffice, taken from an old article by Mother Jones contributor Gail Sheehy. It's good to know we have such bold leadership for such uncertain times:
The four moms [widows of 9/11 victims known as the Jersey Girls] --Kristen Breitweiser, Patty Casazza, Mindy Kleinberg and Lorie van Auken-use tactics more like those of a leaderless cell. They have learned how to deposit their assorted seven children with select grandmothers before dawn and rocket down the Garden State Parkway to Washington. They have become experts at changing out of pedal-pushers and into proper pantsuits while their S.U.V. is stopped in traffic, so they can hit the Capitol rotunda running. They have talked strategy with Senator John McCain and Senate Minority Leader Tom Daschle. They once caught Congressman Porter Goss hiding behind his office door to avoid them. (emph. added.)
1:53 PM
How to combat tax evasion (it's easier than you think)
The DLC has a nice report out today about ways to combat tax evasion. California, for instance, has implemented tough new penalties for those who promote or use tax shelters, and has made it easier for the Franchise Tax Board to investigate illegal tax havens. The result? A tidy $500 million a year in additional revenue for the state.
It would be nice if the federal government took note. As I mentioned the other day, Bush continues to insist that higher taxes will lead to higher rates of evasion. But if you simply enforce existing tax laws, this won't happen.
Of course, in fairness to Bush, higher rates of evasion have become more common under his watch. Earlier this year, The New York Times reported that tax enforcement has plummeted over the past few years. The IRS remains underfunded, and mostly goes after low-income taxpayers these days. Meanwhile, there is around $311 billion in unpaid taxes out there, an amount that would cover most of this year's budget deficit. In the vast world of policy dilemmas, this one's pretty much a no-brainer.
12:27 PM
Think Porter Goss will have an easy confirmation? Think again.
Can someone explain the wisdom of nominating Porter Goss to the DCI slot before we even know whether or not there will be a Director of National Intelligence? Or what sort of powers the DNI will have?
Admittedly, we haven't had much to say about fixing the intelligence community, mainly because this stuff is probably better left to the experts. But: 1) It seems a bit foolish to reshuffle the entire intelligence community, based entirely on a report devoted to only one aspect of intelligence, namely, counterterrorism; and 2) It seems especially foolish to rush any such changes. Naming a Director of Central Intelligence before the changes are actually announced, then, seems like a surefire way of either rushing those changes, or creating a system that is most favorable to whoever is in charge -- namely, Porter Goss.
Also, for those betting on Goss' chances of making it through the Senate, this Meet the Press exchange from July 11, between Tim Russert and Sen. John D. "Jay" Rockefeller IV (D-WV), the ranking Democrat on the Senate Intelligence Committee, might be of interest. There could be a battle brewing:
MR. RUSSERT: Is Porter Goss one of those names?SEN. ROCKEFELLER: I'm not getting into names.MR. RUSSERT: The chairman of the House Intelligence...SEN. ROCKEFELLER: I don't think that anybody who should be up for consideration should have a political background.MR. RUSSERT: And [Goss] does.SEN. ROCKEFELLER: Yes.
11:45 AM
Europe punts on Sudan genocide
Considering the multiple attempted genocides that scarred Europe over the past century, it's not unreasonable to expect the European Union to take a strong stance against such atrocities the present. But the EU abdicated that responsibility Tuesday, refusing to classify the crimes in Sudan's Darfur region as genocide, and throwing the issue back to the United Nations.
Pieter Feith, who visited the country on behalf of the EU's foreign policy chief, tried to play both sides of the issue Monday, explaining the situation as dire but refusing to classify it as genocide:
"We are not in the situation of genocide there. But it is clear there is widespread, silent and slow, killing going on, and village burning on a fairly large scale…There are considerable doubts as to the willingness of Sudan's government to assume its duty to protect its civilian population against attacks."To their credit, both the U.S. House and Senate have passed resolutions calling the Darfur killings a genocide and urging the White House to take action. After meeting with Darfur refugees Tuesday in Nairobi, Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist correctly blasted the EU response:
"I disagree with the statement made by the European Union yesterday in saying this is not genocide. The international community must not turn its back on this crisis. When I had the opportunity to talk to refugees as well as official representatives leads me to conclude that what is going on in Darfur is genocide…The raping of women, the purposeful killing of hundreds of civilians, the widespread burning of villages and the destruction of lives and the racial overtones, all of which put together qualifies as genocide."While Frist didn't specifically call for military action, he said "sanctions will not be sufficient" to make the Sudanese government disarm the Janjaweed militias as promised, and said the international community should make Sudan comply with its disarmament deadline:
The Khartoum government could end this crisis immediately, I don't think it takes 60 days or even 30 days... It is unlikely that they will and giving them additional days to pursue their policies only hurts the refugees and contributes to this ongoing tragedy."
11:31 AM
Economic insecurity: the deeper (and trickier) problem
Jacob Hacker has more on economic insecurity in today's Washington Post. He starts out by noting the obvious -- that as incomes rise and unemployment falls, Kerry's complaints about the Bush economy will carry less conviction; but he goes on to explain that the deeper -- and more durable -- economic problems involve job security, fluctuating wages, and an inadequate safety net. Hacker points out, however, that these factors are difficult to address:
Kerry said in his convention speech that Democrats "value an America where the middle class is not being squeezed, but doing better." Yet the cost of closing the gap between middle-class incomes and expenses, when earnings are stagnant and key living costs are rising at double-digit rates, will be immense.Kerry and Edwards have proposed new programs and tax breaks. But there's a limit to what they can fund by rolling back the Bush tax cuts for the wealthiest. Worse, subsidizing middle-class expenses could end up driving costs even higher, adding fuel to the inflationary fire in markets that are often only weakly competitive.Unfortunately, the Post didn't leave Hacker much space to sketch out some actual solutions. Kerry's health care plan would obviously alleviate some insecurity. Another idea, proposed by Hacker in his New Republic article, is to create tax-free accounts for "universal insurance"--which would protect families against sudden drops in income or massive, unaffordable expenses.
I suppose we could add government-funded job training, child care, and after-school programs, but suddenly our list is very long, and politically quite thorny. The main problem here is that family-centered entitlements have never gained the support that entitlements for old people have. This is mainly because, well, old people vote more. So if Hacker knows how to get younger folks to vote in greater numbers, that would be a good first step.
11:17 AM
Venezuela: another reason to kick the oil habit
Venezuela, one of America's top petroleum sources, might plunge into chaos this weekend, but the country's governmetn promises the oil will keep flowing.
Venezuela's oft-polarizing incumbent president, Hugo Chavez, faces a recall vote on Sunday, the latest attempt by his political opponents to get him canned. The fierce loyalty Chavez inspires among some of his nation's poor -- and the equally fierce hatred he inspires in business and right-wing circles -- have brought predictions of rioting in the streets after the election.
For Americans, that potential instability looms as a threat to needed Venezuelan oil exports. (The U.S. gets about 14 percent of its oil from Venezuela.) And Chavez, who views the Bush administration as part of the campaign to oust him, vowed to cut off those exports if the U.S. tries to interfere with the results of Sunday's vote.
To allay any fears, Vice President Jose Vicente Rangel told a group of diplomats Tuesday that the government will guarantee all oil exports regardless of the election results. He also promised more than 100,000 troops will be deployed to keep the peace during and after the vote.
9:53 AM
The New York Times wants it both ways on Iraq reconstruction
On Monday, The New York Times made note of the dismal reconstruction effort in Iraq. Most of that money in the infamous $87 billion spending bill, of course, has either been spent much too slowly or frittered away. But Bob Somerby of the Daily Howler points out something else: the Times' slipperiness on this issue:
Gee! Any chance that Kerry (and others) may have been right when they said they wanted a more detailed plan before giving Bush this "blank check?" The editorial fails to raise this point, but that's the way your press corps works. Kerry should have voted like Biden--it has become a Hard-and-Fast Press Script, typed wherever press typing is sold. Any chance that Kerry and others were correct in their doubts about this bill in the first place?Somerby might not have gone far enough. Only a week ago, the Times was taking Kerry to task for his so-called "confused" stance on Iraq -- voting for the war, voting against the $87 billion. Would it kill the Times to admit that they were wrong about the spending bill and that Kerry (and many other liberals) had, at minimum, valid concerns?
5:34 PM
What to do about gerrymandering?
Jeff Jacoby's recent Boston Globe op-ed on gerrymandering revisits a few old concerns. The relevant facts are all-too familiar: Over 98 percent of House seats are safe in any given year. Incumbents, meanwhile, have redrawn their districts to give themselves maximum electoral security. And this vote-rigging, meanwhile, has depressed turnout and scuttled our faith in voting and democracy. To which Jacoby proposes an oft-cited remedy:
The solution to all this is obvious: Take the mapping power away from the politicians and give it to an independent commission. Several states already do this, most notably Iowa, which entrusts redistricting to its Legislative Service Bureau, a neutral agency. The bureau is required by law to draw districts that are equal in population, don't divide towns or counties, and are compact and contiguous -- all without regard to party registration or any other political data. Result? Iowa districts are consistently more competitive than those in most of the country.It's not bad, but it still leaves a slew of problems. First off, as the House currently works, minorities needs special "minority districts" if they want any representation at all. African Americans tend to get a few (very few) such districts here and there, but many other minorities -- say, gay people -- have a difficult time finding representatives. Independent districting would at best preserve this dismal status quo, and would more probably reduce minority representation. Furthermore, it certainly wouldn't end the prominence of pork-barrel politics, wherein a representative's loyalty resides first and foremost with whatever big project is going on in his or her district, rather than with a cause or political outlook. And House races would still favor "local heroes" rather than out-of-town candidates who may be far more qualified to govern the country.
The obvious solution, of course, would be to abolish the geographical district system used by the House, in favor of some sort of statewide (or nationwide) proportional representation. But an independent commission is probably an okay start.
4:16 PM
If you can't inspire loyalty, enforce it; lessons from the GOP
So what if they've bungled a few al-Qaeda investigations? When push comes to shove, the Republicans know how to thwart the real threats to public safety:
Republicans contend they foiled a plot by America Coming Together, a 527 organization that supports the Democratic Party, to disrupt the New Mexico rally [for Vice President Dick Cheney].And how did they foil said "plot"? Why, they forced all rally attendees to sign loyalty oaths:
When Vice President Dick Cheney spoke July 31 to a crowd of 2,000 in Rio Rancho, a city of 45,000 near Albuquerque, several people who showed up at the event complained about being asked to sign endorsement forms in order to receive a ticket to hear Cheney.''Whose vice president is he?" said 72-year-old retiree John Wade of Albuquerque, who was asked to sign the form when he picked up his tickets. ''I just wanted to hear what my vice president had to say, and they make me sign a loyalty oath."Aside from seeming utterly ridiculous, the enforcemnt of loyalty oaths seems politically questionable. The growing sense among observers is that Bush's campaign has continued to tack right, thereby repelling more moderate voters. Explicitly excluding such voters from your events, then, seems like the obvious wrong step, especially in a tight state like New Mexico. More evidence, it seems, that Bush really doesn't yet feel secure enough about the enthusiasm of his 'base'.
2:48 PM
Ralph Nader's campaign trail travails
Things aren't getting any easier for Ralph Nader on the campaign trail.
Over the weekend, the Nader campaign learned it had failed to get enough signatures for ballot access in California, collecting fewer than 100,000 when it needed 153,035. In response, Nader appealed to his supporters within the Green Party to place his name on the state ballot instead of the Greens' chosen presidential candidate, David Cobb. But Greens already decided on Cobb over Nader at their national convention. And for the California party to split off wouldn't bode well for the party's long-term viability, as spokeswoman Beth Moore Haines said:
"I think there would be considerable cost to California in goodwill toward the rest of the Greens in the nation, if we did something like that."The California debacle kicked off a crucial week for Nader's candidacy, with nine other state deadlines rapidly approaching. That list includes Pennsylvania, where Democrats are challenging his petition signatures. Gregory Harvey, a Philadelphia lawyer who reviewed the list, told the Associated Press that an "enormous number" of the signatures were fictitious, and Democrats plan to challenge the list in court. Nader spokesman Kevin Zeese acknowledged finding a number of fake signatures, but pointed out that the campaign collected nearly twice the required signature total.
The obsessive attempts by Democrats to challenge Nader's ballot access have often overshadowed the substance of Nader's campaign. But he keeps speaking around the country, most recently Monday in Maryland, where he spoke out against electronic voting machines. He also offered to have campaign staffers serve as poll watchers on Election Day, reporting any problems voters encounter with the machines. Because some states only allow observers affiliated with a campaign, Nader promised to credential activists nationwide who want to take part.
That's a good, progressive idea. And it should remind Democrats that voter disfranchisement had more to do with the 2000 election results than Ralph Nader did.
1:49 PM
Something else to worry about: economic insecurity
Bob Herbert really puts his finger on the enormity of America's economic woes in his Times column today. By several very concrete measures, workers in this country are suffering. The Economic Policy Institute, for instance, has shown that wage growth has declined, while the Century Foundation has tackled the alarming phenomenon of rising debt among middle-class families.
But that's not all. As Jacob Hacker argues in The New Republic, public discontent over the economy probably has another, less tangible, source -- namely, economic insecurity. American workers must worry constantly about vulnerable jobs, precarious health care coverage, rickety pensions, and the lack of any real safety net -- concerns which foster both discontent and a risk aversion that stifles economic growth. It's the sort of problem that even a robust recovery can't cure. It requires a public policy response.
The Democrats, for their part, haven't quite put their finger on the 'insecurity' issue. They should start. As things stand, a bump in employment would probably dampen John Kerry's economic message. But economic insecurity is a structural problem that will be around for quite some time, and is largely attributable to government policy.
1:19 PM
How to explain Najaf?
Most of the reporting on the recent fighting around Iraq hasn't really focused on the underlying political calculations. Why, for instance, has Prime Minister Iyad Allawi decided to go through with a bloody onslaught against Moqtada al-Sadr's forces in Najaf, the holiest of Shiite cities? Won't this just stoke the already white-hot flames of resentment? What is Allawi thinking?
Here's a rough guess. Both Allawi and the Americans know full well that the ceasefire with rebels in Fallujah turned into a gross failure, essentially surrendering the city to insurgents. They've tried peace; now they're ready to try full-scale war. What do they have to lose?
Allawi may be able to pull off this sort of crackdown because, as many commentators have pointed out, much of his popularity stems from his reputation as a tough guy, a strong man who is willing to do what it takes to secure peace in Iraq. Many Iraqis, as the Arab News suggests, have grown weary of Sadr's shenanigans and all the violence, and are perhaps ready to side with the interim government. In essence, Allawi is spending his political capital on this big showdown.
By the same token, the prime minister has taken some shrewd steps to ensure that this latest battle doesn't look like a political persecution -- he has, for instance, continued to offer Sadr a place in government, which has the effect of casting Sadr as the prime obstacle to peace. The importance of the political posturing by both sides probably can't be overstated. Allawi absolutely needs to win this propaganda war, which may be why he banned al-Jazeera for 30 days -- to give his government a temporary monopoly over media access.
More importantly, Allawi (and the Americans) are probably casting a wary eye towards the fate of Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, who is in Britain for medical treatment. If Sistani dies, his successor will assume a hugely important role among Iraq's Shiites. The Arab press has floated rumors that Grand Ayatollah Ishak Fayyad, a reformist Afghan Shiite, may be the next in-line. This would be the best of all possible worlds. The worst of all possible worlds -- for the Americans, the Kurds, for many ordinary Iraqis -- would be for Sadr to shoulder his way into a leading role among Iraqi Shiites. If Allawi backs away from Najaf, Sadr's popularity will continue to skyrocket, which could, as I noted earlier, force a bloody showdown between Sadr's Mahdi Army and the Badr Corps (the military wing of SCIRI, another contender for Shiite supremacy.)
This is all a gamble, of course. Prolonged violence in Najaf could well doom Allawi's popularity, and with it, his legitimacy as an Iraqi leader. It's also true, as Knight Ridder reported, the Mahdi Army doesn't just take its marching orders from Sadr. Many of the cleric's top lieutenants are probably behind this violence, and a focus on Sadr may prove misguided. But on the whole, it really seems like Allawi is taking a sharply calculated step to secure his own political position, and destroy that of a prime political rival.
12:25 PM
Nobody wan