5:36 PM
In good hands
In attempt to expedite the pullout from Iraq, U.S. and British forces are training Iraqi police forces on the finer points of keeping the streets of Iraq safe. The course, oddly enough, contains a written test, and The Guardian offers a few sample questions:
In a democratic free society the role of police is to protect
a) the citizens
b) the leader
c) the state
d) the military
The police basic standard of conduct requires
a) all citizens to be treated with respect and dignity
b) information to be shared with the local community
c) special treatment for privileged persons and organizations
d) bribes to be collected for services
External values come from
a) enemies
b) friends
c) criminals
d) dictators
Human rights can be taken away from a person
a) never, human rights are inalienable
b) if the government says so
c) if the accused has committed a serious crime
d) in time of war
Any act prohibited by law, for which law arranges a punishment, is
a) justice
b) civil
c) foreign policy
d) crime
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5:22 PM
Inching towards peace in the Middle East
For all the optimistic talk in the press regarding peace talks between Israel and Palestine, the facts on the ground are still fairly inconclusive. While world attention was focused on the Iraqi elections, Mahmoud Abbas and Ariel Sharon seemed to come to some agreement to sit down and talk. Or at least sit down and talk about the prospect of talking. Lately President Abbas has been negotiating with resistance groups for a truce between Palestine and Israel. The groups appear to have been good to their word so far, with levels of violence in the Gaza area reportedly decreasing. Abbas' tactic is to offer groups like Hamas a chance to pursue their aims via politics rather than weapons. He appears to be making some headway: A recent Hamas document even went so far as to publicly recognize Israel's 1967 borders.
So what has Israel done on their end? Well, they agreed to release a few prisoners—though not the ones Palestinians wanted. And Israel still won't agree to a formal ceasefire with Palestinian resistance groups. Rather, it says that it will "respond in kind to a cessation of violence." Meanwhile, the U.S. recently expressed concern about the possibility that a 1950 Absentee Property Law will be used to take land from the Palestinians who have been cut off by the separation barrier that Israel is continuing to build. The most recently-approved section is one of the most widely disputed as it goes deep into the heart of contested territory.
Abbas has managed to maintain a relative calm thus far, but resistance groups have made it clear that their loyalties lay more with Palestinian independence rather than with Abbas. As Zachariah Zubeidi of the Martyrs' Brigade recently said, "The question of surrendering our weapons depends on the Israeli side. If these Israelis care about peace and the creation of a Palestinian state, Mahmoud Abbas doesn't even have to ask us. There will be no need then to carry arms."
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1:48 PM
Gonzales squeaks through
Last night, Alberto Gonzales, author of the infamous torture memos, was approved by the Senate after a vote in which all but 6 Democrats opposed his nomination for Attorney General. This trumps the Ashcroft vote and takes the prize for the closest confirmation vote for an attorney general since 1925. The criticisms piled on: Sen. Barak Obama (D-IL) expressed doubts that Gonzales would give priority to the Constitution over the President's agenda. A retired senior military officer referred to Gonzales' legal analysis as "sloppy" and "shortsighted." The Republicans countered largely by drawing attention to Gonzales' personal success story. Conversation revolved around the fact that the nominee grew up in a small crowded home with no hot water and no telephone. Meanwhile, Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-UT) waved away any doubts Democrats might have: "Some of my colleagues say they will against him because he does not have the proper respect for the law… give me a break."
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1:14 PM
Big media drops the ball
Flipping around the news channels last night, Bob Somerby watched various media talking heads either parroting or acquiescing to Bush's line that Social Security will soon be "bankrupt". Social Security, of course, can never go bankrupt or run out of money—not so long as American has a producing class that's working and contributing payroll tax receipts to the program.
Now perhaps Bush, along with our illustrious television commentators, believe that come 2042 America will no longer have any workers whatsoever. That's a very interesting view! I just wish someone would ask the president whether or not he thinks this scenario might pose other, somewhat larger problems for the future of our country. Hm?
Update: Via Atrios, apparently CNN's "economics correspondent" Kathleen Hays doesn't understand how the current program works either.
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10:55 AM
Is Bush going soft on crime?
Admittedly, there was one minor part of President Bush's State of the Union Address that I liked when I first heard it:
In America we must make doubly sure no person is held to account for a crime he or she did not commit -- so we are dramatically expanding the use of DNA evidence to prevent wrongful conviction. (Applause.)
Yeah, it seemed like a rather random interjection, but that doesn't mean it's not important. After all, wrongful convictions do happen quite often in this country. An excellent book on the subject, Actual Innocence, documents 64 cases in the 1990s where innocent convicts were exonerated via DNA testing, and 80 cases over the past two decades where a death sentence was overturned. So Bush deserves credit for calling attention to this fact. But nevertheless, as Jeralyn Merritt points out, the president was also talking about a piece of legislation that's primarily a victim's rights bill, rather than a bill that actually focuses on overturning wrongful convictions. That's not necessarily a bad thing—most of the money goes towards DNA-testing that helps track down suspected rapists, certainly a worthy goal—but it's awfully odd to pretend the law is something it's really not.
But for once, maybe what Bush is saying is just as significant as what he's actually doing. In his very next sentence the president vowed to "fund special training for defense counsel in capital cases." Perhaps this too will prove less than it seems. But the subtle rhetorical shift—away from victim's rights and towards an emphasis on the rights of the accused—marks a pretty big retreat from the "tough on crime" political rhetoric of the 1970s, 80s and even some of the 90s. (Imagine Michael Dukakis proposing more funding for defense lawyers.) That a conservative lauded for his toughness is making this shift could signal something of a trend.
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10:15 AM
Keeping an eye on Iraq's troops
During the Iraqi elections last Sunday, one of the most encouraging signs was that the Iraqi security forces helped maintain order across the country—the first time the Iraqi National Guard had ever participated in a nationwide operation. The Christian Science Monitor reported one ING major as saying, "Now our confidence in our troops is much stronger."
But does that mean things are looking up? Maybe not. In recent testimony (PDF) before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Peter Khalil noted that the Iraqi security forces still weren't even close to being ready to secure the country on their own:
Local Iraqi police forces currently complete 8 weeks of training (or a 3-week refresher course for former officers) in police academies around Iraq and in Jordan. Still, their capabilities are limited to local policing duties and ensuring basic law and order. Given their skill sets, they are unable to combat the insurgency effectively as a frontline force. It should be noted that even the best-trained Western police forces would have a great deal of difficulty with such intense and continuous attacks with RPGs, small-arms fire, and suicide bombings on their officers and police stations.
At the moment, the only portion of the Iraqi security forces that can capably fight the insurgency is the Iraqi Army. Not only does the Army have a better recruiting system, leading to better-quality troops, but it also has a more centralized vetting structure, making it less likely that Baathist insurgents have infiltrated its ranks.
So there's some hope. But no one should expect to rely on the military alone to defeat the insurgents—otherwise Iraq will likely end up looking like Algeria or Pakistan, with a brutal counterinsurgency campaign carried out by an increasingly Army. Given Iraq's long and sordid history with military rule, along with the fact that civilian control over the Ministry of Defense is still not very well-established, leaving the country with a high-quality Army and nothing else could turn out to be catastrophic.
So some sort of specialized civilian force is necessary. Unfortunately the U.S. only started training these soldiers in early 2004; prior to that no one could admit that the insurgency existed and required a drastic response. So our exit strategy will hinge on training the Iraqi Civil Intervention Force. Oddly enough, the State Department's Iraq Weekly Status Report no longer charts troop training by individual specialties, but it looks like the U.S. has a lot of the Army trained and not nearly as much of the interior security forces trained. Better numbers here would be appreciated.
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9:43 AM
Gambling, indeed.
Both the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities and Matthew Yglesias have provided helpful summaries of the Bush administration's latest Social Security scheme. The frustrating thing is that the president still hasn't put an actual plan on the table. Instead, the White House had a background briefer send out a few hazy details, and then barked at the Washington Post's Jonathan Weisman when he got those hazy details a bit wrong. So keep in mind that this stuff could change without warning at any time.
Anyway, let's put Bush's latest plan into simple terms. First, the government will have to borrow trillions of dollars for these new private accounts, putting Social Security's finances in even worse shape, and necessitating steep across-the-board cuts. This is what Republican Rep. Jim McCrery is talking about when he says that private accounts will undermine the Trust Fund. Keep in mind that Bush hasn't said how he'll actually make the necessary cuts; he's bravely decided to leave that to Congress. No wonder "the base" is nervous…
Second, the government will let you give up most of your guaranteed benefit in exchange for some money to invest in the stock market now. If your investments do really well—netting more than a 3 percent real return—then you can recoup some of the losses. (Though you'll have to do really, really well to recoup that initial benefit cut.) If you don't, well, you can always move in with your kids. How is any of this different from taking a paycheck in the hand and spending it at the craps table? Good question.
At any rate, until Bush puts forward an actual plan, the CBPP's analysis of the effects will do nicely. If you're in your twenties, you can expect to see your expected benefit drop on average from $19,700 a year to $13,097. That first number is what the current Social Security will be able to pay with no changes whatsoever. The lower number is what you'd get with private accounts even if you made pretty decent investments. Good deal, huh? If you're in your thirties, expect to lose about $5,000 per year in benefits. If you're in your forties, about $3,000 a year. And it gets worse for the grandkids. Americans born in this decade will lose about a third of the benefits Social Security would be able to pay them. But the point, I guess, is that people get to "own" their newly-reduced benefit. Or at least they do until a deficit-strapped government decides to start taxing everyone even further…
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3:42 PM
A bit of SOTU pedantry...
Sometimes, when you say a word over and over, it loses it's meaning. The freedom with which this administration throws around words like, well, "freedom" sent me straight to Merriam-Webster to try and recapture the spirit of this great word.
Freedom: "Freedom is worth fighting for, dying for, and standing for—and the advance of freedom leads to peace." – George W. Bush 11/6/2003
freedom n. the absence of necessity, coercion, or constraint in choice or in action
-- March 19, 2003 -- George W. Bush declares unilateral war on Iraq
freedom n. the quality or state of being exempt or released, usu. from something onerous
-- "[He's] doing a heck of a good job. When I picked him I knew he was a fine business leader and a fine, experienced man." July 17, 2002 -- Bush on Cheney regarding Halliburton
freedom n. the quality of being frank, open or outspoken
-- "All told, more than 3,000 suspected terrorists have been arrested in many countries. And many others have met a different fate. Let's put it this way: They are no longer a problem to the United States and our friends and allies." George W. Bush 2003 State of the Union
freedom n. unrestricted use
-- Bush requests $80 billion more for Iraq and Afghanistan, January 25, 2005
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3:02 PM
Just posted on MJ.com: David Enders' Baghdad Journal
In the latest of a series of dispatches from Iraq, David Enders finds that Baghdad, after the election, has reverted to what passes for normal there: snarled traffic, gas lines, high tension. Also back, after a few days' euphoria and relief, are serious fears that darker days are ahead. Read Enders' "Post-Election Hangover" here.
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12:07 PM
The price of rhetoric
Over at National Review Online, Jonah Goldberg posts up a reader email giving credit to President Bush's democratic rhetoric:
Well, remember, too, that the Saudis are holding municipal elections within the month. And it's important to note that if the Saudis didn't think they had to do it, they wouldn't. Bush is the factor.
Ah yes. The problem is that these elections are not only useless, but worse than useless. Over the past decade, a large number of Arab despotic regimes have taken this precise route, holding elections in order to channel the opposition into largely symbolic activities. And yet municipal elections simply do not lead to democracy. Ask Morocco or Jordan or Bahrain, all of which have relatively free legislative elections that produce no real opposition, or check on the executive branch, or really much of anything. If anything, they inhibit change by fracturing and de-energizing the opposition.
The point is that Bush's largely symbolic approach to democracy-promotion will only produce, as you'd expect, largely symbolic results. Everyone around the table is very motivated to make it look like change is happening, so that's precisely what we get.
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11:58 PM
So what's behind this Social Security "reform"?
Kevin Drum gets the new Social Security privatization scheme exactly right:
What a Rube Goldberg monstrosity: layer upon layer of weird safeguards and limitations just to make sure that the new system can do what the current system already does, namely provide a guaranteed, stable retirement income for old people.
Indeed, under the old system—even if we need to cut benefits slightly to make up for the projected shortfall—every senior was guaranteed a minimum income. Under Bush's proposal, we'll have to borrow $4.5 trillion dollars, wrap people up in the hassle of private accounts, expand the annuity industry, and add new forms of government bureaucracy that a) select what stocks to invest in and b) figure out how much to take away from your private account when you retire...
...all this simply to ensure a guaranteed minimum income will be less than what the current system can pay! So what's the point? Probably twofold. For one, this is partisan warfare. The president will get to paint the Democrats as hidebound defenders of the status quo, and Republicans as innovators of the future. Second, this plan is a ticking time-bomb that will eventually blow Social Security wide open. Borrowing $5 trillion over the next 20 years will necessitate very near-term benefit cuts. Meanwhile, if the GOP stays in power, it can gradually relax the rules on controlling investments in the future. Before you know it, it's good-bye Social Security and hello full privatization! Unfortunately, as the Wall Street Journal reports today, doing so has almost always resulted in disaster for countries around the world. But oh well, Bush will be out of office by then....
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10:16 AM
Social Security by the numbers!
We'll have a lot to say on President Bush's brand new Social Security phase-out scheme (now trickier and more confusing than ever!), but to see what's going on here, let's start with some concrete numbers, brought to us by the tireless folks at the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities.
I'll use myself as an example. I was born in 1981, and may as well consider myself a "median worker", so under the current Social Security system, I'm promised $20,500 a year when I retire (in 2004 dollars). Now as it happens, the program's actuaries think that I and my peers won't be that much more productive than our parents were, so the country won't grow as much in the future, and Social Security might not be able to pay out all of those promised benefits. Okay. If we do nothing to fix the system, and it does have to make cuts, I'd only get $19,700 a year when I retire—a bit of a cut, but nothing too painful, and certainly more than what retirees get today.
Under Bush's plan, meanwhile, I'd get a private account, controlled by the government, that forced me to invest in whatever companies they felt deserved a little extra cash. The account would accumulate a bunch of money. Upon retirement, the government would then confiscate the vast majority of that money. In the end, I'd be left with about $13,092 a year, payable as an annuity. If, thanks to my healthy diet and smoke-free lifestyle, I happen to outlive my annuity, then I'm left with nothing at a very old age. What a deal! Let's just hope I've socked enough money away under the mattress.
By the way, people 55 and over may reasonably think this won't plan affect them. Bush, after all, promised it wouldn't affect them. But consider: someone 55 years old right now will be 80 in 2030. By then, Bush's scheme will have added $4.5 trillion to the federal deficit. Now who do you think is going to have to help pay that all back? Does the money come from a) trees, b) magic, or c) across-the-board benefit cuts for seniors?
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4:49 PM
Surprise sonograms
Today's New York Times reports that church clinics are luring women seeking abortions through their doors, only to spring sonograms on the unsuspecting patients in order to persuade them to keep their babies. One such group has already spent some $4.2 million this year for sonogram machines and training. The next step is obtaining new machines that can show the fetus in three dimensions.
So who is footing the bill for all this? As the director of one group remarks, "We're a Christian organization and believe that God is behind this effort. If the Lord chooses to bless us, the money will come in." Hopefully the same good fortune will "bless" those persuaded to go through with the pregnancy even when they have no stable income, or are emotionally or physically incapable of raising a child.
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4:06 PM
Bring in the robots?
George Bush may not be able to tell parents tonight that their sons and daughters are coming home from Iraq anytime soon, but he can certainly tell them about the reinforcements that he's sending in. Namely, the Robo-Soldier: a cross between R2D2 and a tank, complete with M240 (shoots up to 1,000 rounds per minute). It's the stuff of 10-year-old-boy dreams. Meanwhile, a small number of SWORDS (Special Weapons Observation Reconnaissance Detection Systems) are slated to be sent out to Iraq sometime in March or April. Operated by remote control and equipped with optics equipment, these robots are said to be a near perfect shot. Makes you wonder why 1,000 rounds per minute are even necessary.
The Pentagon has invested millions of dollars in contracts with organizations like Lockheed Martin to develop these new weapons. Coming months will also bring us robots that can scale walls and get dropped into combat from airplanes. All this in the hopes of reducing wartime casualties. While we're at it, maybe we should also come up with some robotic Iraqi civilians.
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3:33 PM
Talking about Iraq in the SOTU
This evening, in his State of the Union address, President Bush will likely frame Iraq as something of an American success story. Indeed, as Julian notes below, Republicans are already planning to take full credit for the elections last Sunday, making a rather sad mockery of Iraqi bravery. Now perhaps you think that all this is deserved, and that Iraq really ought to be grateful to the GOP for being able to have elections at all. Maybe. But situating Iraqi democracy purely in the context of American policy also has real-world perlocutionary effects—namely, causing Iraqis to distrust the concept altogether. Ramzy Baroud, an Arab journalist, recently outlined this conundrum rather well:
By the time this article is published, Iraqi elections will be over and the Bush administration will do its utmost to ensure that the numbers are spun in positive terms: High turnout could mean that Iraqis approve of the US military occupation; low turn out, means the terrorist-espoused culture of fear is overpowering Iraqis and thus the US presence is still required.
That is the definition or type of democracy that Arabs oppose. It's not democracy that they distrust. It is the cynical exploitation of the term for imperial or geostrategic purposes that they oppose.
Iraq needs to be able to trust that it is pursuing democracy for its own sake, not for those of the United States. President Bush will no doubt make a few decent gestures towards this end—he has already said that "The Iraqi people, themselves, made this election a resounding success." But far more is needed.
Tonight the president has a unique opportunity to offer a clear declaration of our goals and principles in Iraq, to state once and for all where our interests end and Iraqi interests begin. In testimony before the Senate today, Lt. Gen. Greg Newbold, USMC (Ret.), laid out several things that needed to be stated clearly to Iraqis: that we will withdraw the moment the Iraqi government asks us to; that we will not keep permanent military bases in Iraq; that we will not exploit Iraq's economy or its oil in any way; that we will continue to offer aid to benefit all Iraqis. These things may be "obvious" to certain pundits, but they are not obvious to Iraqis—among whom conspiracy theories about U.S. intentions run rampant—and have not yet been forcefully declared at the highest levels.
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3:13 PM
"Partner or Property?"
The Center for American Progress just unveiled its new blog, Think Progress, and it already looks like a good one. The top entry deals with a woefully under-the-radar story: namely, the much-too-lenient penalties for spousal rape around the country—a proud tradition that hails back to the days when wives were considered the property of their husbands.
How serious is the issue? As the Progress people note, "martial rapes account for 25 percent of all rapes." So pretty serious. I would also add that, while firm statistics about this are notoriously hard to come by—reporting is always an issue, and there's ambiguity about definitions—some studies have found that married rape is actually more common than rape in unmarried relationships. Whether this is due to the more lenient penalties is impossible to say, but certainly the matter deserves serious attention.
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3:01 PM
How to withdraw from Iraq
All this talk about withdrawing or not withdrawing from Iraq is quite interesting. On the Democratic side, both Sen. Harry Reid and Rep. Nancy Pelosi have shied away from Sen. Ted Kennedy's call for a timetable for withdrawal. That sounds about right for now: no one wants to see the U.S. pull away only to plunge the country into chaos, or watch the Baathist insurgents stage a coup, and the only way to prevent that is to meet certain goals, such as rapid training of Iraqi security forces. One problem, as Anthony Cordesman of CSIS has pointed out, is that we lack the metrics to judge whether we're actually meeting those goals, but that's another story.
That said, it's worth paying attention to the final numbers on Sunni turnout for Sunday's elections, which will probably emerge in a week or so. Early signs don't look good, and senior diplomats are already keeping expectations low. If we discover that the Sunnis mostly stayed home on election day and will continue to fight against the new government and the U.S., then we may need to rethink the timeline question.
Here's why. At the moment, the insurgency is made up of a bunch of discordant elements: jihadists like Abu Musab Zarqawi who want a Taliban-style state, Salafist youths who see the American occupation as an affront to Islam, and Baathists who would like to revive the military-socialist Iraq of old. The main thing holding these odd bedfellows together is the presence of American troops. So at some point, a focused withdrawal could help to create rifts in the insurgency and allow the new Iraqi government to deal with matters more capably. But it's difficult, exactly, to see when this point will come—it depends on a variety of factors—which makes it all the more important that Cordesman's advice is followed and the military develops better metrics for progress, so that we can have an informed national debate about all this. Otherwise, policy sits at the mercy of mere bluster and counter-bluster from the Ted Kennedy and George Bush camps.
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1:52 PM
From the cost of freedom to the value of cheap theatrics
Ultimate sacrifice:
Salim Yacoubi bent over to kiss the purple ink stain on his twin brother's right index finger, gone cold with death."You can see the finger with which he voted," Shukur Jasim, a friend of the dead man, said as he cast a tearful gaze on the body, sprawled across a washer's concrete slab. "He's a martyr now."
The stain marked the hard-won right to vote that Naim Rahim Yacoubi exercised Sunday, and the price he paid for that privilege.
Cheap stunt:
Some of the president's supporters are reportedly planning to waving fingers dipped in purple ink in the air [at the State of the Union address], an echo of the method used at Iraqi polling stations to identify people who had voted.
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12:31 PM
Democratic unity reconsidered
Both Noam Scheiber and Matt Yglesias offer more sophisticated reasons to think that maybe Harry Reid should have held off before announcing that the Democrats were fully united against the president's Social Security phase-out scheme. Both suggest that the Democrats could have given "Bush enough rope to hang himself with," as Matt puts it, by getting the Republicans to put forward a full proposal, replete with benefit cuts, and then not only oppose it, but use all those unsavory specifics to beat the Republicans into a pulp during the midterm elections.
That's clever, perhaps even brilliant, but my vaguely-defined fear is this: by opening up even the possibility that Bush's scheme could succeed, the whole thing could acquire a certain momentum and "inevitability" in the media that might, in fact, lead to privatization actually passing. Plus, as we know there's no possible way to shore up Social Security without cutting benefits, and there's no way to add private accounts without either borrowing trillions or raising taxes, so the GOP will have to put forward an unsavory proposal sooner or later. There will be more than enough rope to go around.
On the other hand, there's a certain appeal to using this battle to utterly trash the GOP—just as Republicans did with Clinton's health care plan a decade ago—and doing so might entail a certain amount of legislative gymnastics and trickery on the part of Harry Reid. There's another point too: Democrats have been warning voters for decades that Republicans would destroy Social Security. But in the 2004 election it seemed like those scare tactics finally lost their appeal among seniors. So unless Bush actually gets to put forward a maximally offensive "borrow-and-slash" scheme, and unless it looks like there's a real threat in such a thing passing, voters might not ever realize that the GOP really does intend to do away with retirement insurance. Do I really want to see the Dems resort to scare-mongering? No. But is there any other way to beat this nonsense down? That's a good question.
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12:03 PM
Health and bankruptcy
Nearly 1.5 million Americans filed for bankruptcy in 2001, and the usual line on many of these people is that they're financially irresponsible, or wastrels, or too lazy to get a job, or whatnot. Alas, not so. A new study in Health Affairs finds that about half of these filers cite medical causes as the reason for bankruptcy, which means that roughly 2.2 million people a year (filers plus their dependents) are put to financial ruin by unavoidable health emergencies. Interestingly, remedying all this isn't solely a matter of extending insurance to the uninsured: a whopping 75.7 percent of the sick had medical insurance, but ended up paying on average $11,354 out of pocket.
Now when it comes to health care, those fabled 44 million without insurance get all the attention—and they do deserve attention, obviously—but as the study shows, health care problems run much deeper than that. Even brief lapses in coverage can put a family into ruin, and employment-based coverage often fails at the worst possible moment—when illness causes a worker to lose his or her job. And then there are the costs, which is somewhat separate from the question of coverage. I'm not sure I'd endorse all of the authors' policy prescriptions here, but they certainly capture the scope of the problem.
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11:36 AM
Destroying freedom to expand it
As reported in today's Washington Post, John Ashcroft has taken up-is-downism to a new level, insisting that that his draconian law enforcement and intelligence gathering were "expansions of freedom" that helped prevent terrorist attacks.
Ashcroft is also at pains to set the record straight on some of his more menacing, I-can-have-you-taken-out-at-any-time type remarks. One in particular stands out:
The former Missouri governor and senator stood by some of his most controversial statements, including Senate testimony in December 2001 that many interpreted as an attempt to quash political debate over terrorism policies. "To those who scare peace-loving people with phantoms of lost liberty, my message is this: Your tactics only aid terrorists, for they erode our national unity and diminish our resolve," Ashcroft said at the time.Ashcroft said yesterday that the remarks were often misinterpreted and were aimed at warnings of "phony lost liberties" rather than valid criticism.
"If you take a look at the words I said, I feel that way," he said, adding later: "I stand by my statement that people who do that divert us."
Good to have that cleared up.
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10:08 AM
Media, Democrats line up against phase-out
Well here's some good news. First we hear that not a single Democrat in the Senate will support President Bush's plan to phase-out Social Security. Then Josh Marshall reports that the New York Times is calling Social Security privatization by its real name. As we know, the White House recently realized that the phrase "private accounts" didn't poll well, so they decided to start sayiong "personal accounts," demanding that reporters follow along. But kudos to Robin Toner for cutting through the nonsense! What good is a liberal media if it's taking marching orders from the president, eh?
Anyway, back to the Senate Democrats! Total unity will obviously allow them to filibuster any phase-out scheme that comes their way; and it will also make the Republicans nervous about screwing over future retirees without any bipartisan cover. So it's good news all around. The next step, though, is to realize that there are no compromises to be made here. Some Democrats have made vague noises about adding private accounts on top of a healthy Social Security safety net. Now that's a great idea, but it's also precisely the sort of good idea that—like Medicare drug coverage or Homeland Security—would get appropriated and promptly distorted by congressional Republicans. For those who don't quite remember the last four years in Washington, you can read all about how a bill becomes a GOP debacle here. Extra points if you can guess what two-syllable insult gets pegged on any Democrat who complains that a once-solid bill has been perverted beyond all reason. The onus is on the party in power to rebuild trust in Congress and facilitate compromise, not the Democrats.
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2:08 PM
Iraq's other election
One of the largely overlooked stories from Sunday's election in Iraq was the situation in Kirkuk, an oil-rich city up in the north. For the past year and a half, Kurds have been pouring back into the city—after having been evicted by Saddam Hussein during the 1970s and 80s—while forcing tens of thousands of Arabs to flee. For most of the occupation, the U.S. entirely ignored this situation: the Iraqi Property Claims Commission set up in 2003 to resolve disputes over resettlement didn't start hearing claims until late last year. By that time, Kurdish peshmerga were already confiscating and redistributing land as they pleased.
The ultimate aim here was to create a vast Kurdish majority that could then vote to add the city (and its vast oil wealth) to the semi-autonomous "super-province" that the Kurds are hoping to create. (Although most Kurds favor independence, Kurdish leaders are wary about pushing this too far.) It looks like the plan worked: according to early reports, the main Kurdish alliance won about 68 percent of the vote in the city. Kirkuk, for all intents and purposes, is now Kurdish property.
Most experts think that Turkey, which has a restless Kurdish population of its own, is worried about a powerful autonomous Kurdish province sitting right across the border. Turkey's prime minister, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, has already warned Kurdish leaders of "serious consequences" should they move to seize Kirkuk. And its foreign minister, Abdullah Gul, has just declared that "the situation has reached dangerous proportions." Now it's true that Ankara is trying to jockey for EU membership right now, so they'll try to avoid war if possible, but if the Kurds start violating the perceived oil-rights held by ethnic Turks and Turkomen in Kirkuk, all bets really are off. Meanwhile, all those dispossessed Arabs can't be happy about losing the rights to a city that pumps out about 40 percent of Iraq's oil.
This morning, Dexter Filkins wrote a useful account of the coalition-building that will take place within the newly elected National Assembly. Pundits are already heatedly speculating about whether the resulting government will be run by secular Shi'ites or religious Shi'ites, and who will get what position of power. One key thing to note, though, is that any governing coalition (which will essentially need a two-thirds majority in the legislature) will depend rather crucially on wooing the Kurds. So no one is in any position to tell them to tamp down their aggressive stance on Kirkuk. And according to Doug Feith, the United States is planning to stay out of the process: "It is going to be worked on by the Iraqis." Not a good sign at all.
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1:32 PM
Taking the "non" out of non-proliferation.
As noted in today's FT.com, the second-term Bush administration has shown a marked preference for “nuclear hawks” in filling top arms control and non-proliferation posts.
The latest hawk to get the nod is Jack Crouch, who becomes deputy national security adviser. Crouch's commitment to arms control and non-proliferation can best be gauged by his support for testing nuclear weapons, his recommendation, in 1995, for the destruction of North Korea's nuclear complexes, and his dissent from Bush senior's decision to pull nukes from South Korea.
To anyone hopeful that John Bolton's departure as undersecretary of arms control signalled a more moderate administration tack ... well, forget it. Bolton's replacement, John Rood, is another nuclear hawk. As an unnamed administration adviser tells FT (presumably with a straight face):
The promoted officials ... had less regard for arms controls and more commitment to building new generations of nuclear weapons and missile defence systems.
In other reassuring proliferation news, the Washington Post reports that, at the urging of Donald Rumsfeld, this year's budget will likely include about $10 million to resume study into "bunker buster" nukes..
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12:01 PM
Just like 401(k)s, eh?
Whenever weak-kneed liberals like, um, Republican Rep. Don Young (AK) start arguing that private Social Security accounts will be too complicated for the average joe to understand, conservatives are always quick to point out that people manage their 401(k)s without much trouble. Indeed, they do. But maybe that's not such a great example. As Nathan Newman notes today, the corporate shift over the last twenty years from traditional pensions to 401(k)s also coincided with a vast decrease in median wealth among older households. So much for retirement security! And for those who love stock market fluctuations, do note that, that thanks to private pensions, about 30 percent of the 74-year-old cohort have lost half or more of their financial wealth over the last decade.
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11:37 AM
A "good idea" gap?
As the race for DNC Chair heats up, I'd recommend reading Mark Schmitt's thoughts on the subject. As with most of the left-center blogosphere, Schmitt endorses technocrat Simon Rosenberg, but cautions that the next chair "must appreciate the role that organizations and individuals outside of the party play in strengthening the party itself." He also makes a short case against Howard Dean—who is likely to win—noting that the doctor is too much "a candidate at heart" and may not "understand[] that the party must have different faces in different situations and [needs to] skillfully deploy people."
Meanwhile, the folks at the American Prospect offer up a variety of thoughts on the matter. Harold Meyerson in particular notes that the next DNC Chair should take a cue from Paul Butler (who? exactly…) and start promoting some innovative new ideas:
Whatever ails the party today, it’s not that the politically disparate Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi represent an ideological pole from which the party needs to distance itself. But there is, if anything, more fundamental rethinking to be done, and the new chair would do well to take a page from Butler and assemble some high-voltage ponderers. The congressional party has its hands full playing defense. The gubernatorial party -- well, there's not quite enough of a gubernatorial party just now. … The Democrats could do worse than have some bright folks at work on, say, how to develop economic security in a global economy.
Hey, I'm all for people coming up with great new ideas. Fun and games all around! But it seems a tad unfair to say that the Democrats are devoid of "high-voltage ponderers." The main issue here seems to be that all the innovation seems to come from the centrist wing of the party: either from Brookings or the New America Foundation or the Progressive Policy Institute (the DLC's think-tank). There are all sorts of goodies here, from the ASPIRE Act to funding private accounts with a pollution tax. Dean Baker's free trade solution for Medicare is one of the most clever and counterintuitive policy schemes I've ever seen. Meanwhile, Democratic hawks like Richard Clarke and Stephen Flynn have developed various programs for defeating the international jihadist network. But the further left one goes, the less there is, which is somewhat of a separate issue.
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11:20 AM
Decoding the State of the Union
Bull Moose has some pointers for decoding tomorrow's State of the Union address. The Republicans may look invincibly unified, he says, but don't be fooled -- just beneath the placid surface, resentment and dissension are aboil among the party's jostling constituencies. So look, in the speech, for nods (and non-nods) to various interest groups.
For instance:
Since the initial interpretation of the election had it that "social values" issues were decisive in the outcome, the religious right has been sitting in the catbird seat. However, of late, they have been miffed that the President might be backing away from pushing the gay marriage ban. Look for whether the issue is even mentioned in the State of the Union address and how much attention it will receive. Here is an educated guess - if it is mentioned, the money issues will overshadow the concerns of the social conservatives. ...
Immigration reform, so near and dear to the president (except when it's not at all), represents another fault line.
Immigration is to the Republicans what trade is to the Democrats - it splits the party right down the middle. Nothing fires up the talk show right than this issue - they are on the side the restrictionists. In reaching out to the Latino community, the President has taken a more progressive approach on immigration reform, but has failed to move legislation. Will he make it a priority and take on the restrictionist right?
Stay tuned ...
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10:01 AM
A softer Social Security plan? Not quite.
We're still waiting—very patiently, I might add—for President Bush to tell us just how, exactly, he intends to phase out Social Security. As yet, no one has heard an actual plan from the White House. But today we learn that the president is telling everyone that even though you can't see his secret plan, rest assured it will have a lot of good stuff, and maybe not as much bad stuff as everyone's worried about:
Bush, who plans to make Social Security the centerpiece of tomorrow's State of the Union address, has privately told GOP lawmakers and aides that he would support phasing in changes to the system to keep deficits under control over the next several years and push individuals who opt for private accounts into more conservative investments, such as bonds, as they near retirement to mitigate long-term risks, the sources said.
In addition, Bush has expressed strong support for protecting lower-income workers from the brunt of any future reductions in benefits, a chief concern of Democrats. The Treasury Department is doing a budget analysis to determine how many lower-income Americans could be shielded from benefit cuts necessary to offset the overall cost of creating private accounts, the officials said.
The first paragraph just means that, yes, we're still going to have to borrow trillions of dollars to destroy Social Security, but maybe we'll just borrow all that money after the president leaves office. That's cute.
The second paragraph is confusing. Look, there's only one way to privatize Social Security in the manner Bush has vaguely suggested. First, Congress will let workers divert their payroll taxes into private accounts. That means there's less money available to pay today's retirees. Since Congress isn't stupid and will never cut benefits for today's retirees, it will have to either raise taxes to cover that gap or borrow trillions of dollars. Bush refuses to raise taxes, so borrowing trillions of dollars it is. Meanwhile, reducing benefits for retirees far in the future is a completely separate issue. Under the CSSS "Model 2" plan—which will probably resemble Bush's phase-out scheme—savings from these benefit cuts won't come until far, far in the future, 75 years or so. So if Bush doesn't want to slash benefits for future low-income workers, fine, but private accounts will still cost as much as they did before; the only thing that will change is that we'll see fewer savings far, far in the future.
In other words, nothing's different. It's still a terrible idea.
Oh, and under Bush's "plan", Congress will apparently tell you exactly where you can invest your money. So let's say you firmly believe that abortion is wrong, and would never donate a single penny to the companies on The Boycott List (because they all help fund Planned Parenthood), well, too bad. Under Social Security phase-out, you'll probably be forced to invest in some of these companies and watch them prosper. Have fun!
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11:09 AM
Al-Jazeerah catches the election fever
One of the big subplots from yesterday's elections in Iraq was the near-jubilant coverage by the Arab media. Both al-Jazeerah and al-Arabiyah—two widely popular stations that have been accused of anti-Americanism from time to time—gave positive attention to the actual voting, while playing down the relatively scant violence. It's unknown whether al-Jazeerah put such a happy face on things solely in order to curry favor with the new Iraqi government, given that the station is currently banned from Iraq, but it was still a pretty earth-shaking move. (You can find their coverage here.)
Keep in mind, too, that al-Jazeerah has never really been anti-democracy; as one State Department official recently put it, the station has "angered officials in Saudi Arabia, Iran, Egypt and many other countries by focusing on internal problems in those nations." Indeed, local Arab can be a powerful force for change and reform throughout the region, if the United States can figure out how to work with it rather than against it. Certainly al-Jazeerah and al-Arabiyah did far, far more to sell the Iraqi elections yesterday than the U.S.-sponsored (and largely cheerleading) al-Hurra, a lesson opponents of the stations would do well to remember.
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10:57 AM
Invading locally, thinking regionally
Over the weekend, Steven Weisman wrote a great piece in the New York Times about how events in Iraq have had repercussions throughout the Middle East—both good and bad. In particular, the fear of a Shi'ite-dominated government among governments in Riyadh, Amman, and Damascus could inspire Arab regimes to lend support to the Sunni insurgency:
Jordan's ruler, King Abdullah II, traveled to Washington recently to express the fears of the region's Sunni majority that an arc of Shiite influence could soon extend from Iran through Iraq to Iran's ally Syria and to Syria's puppet, Lebanon.
Bush administration officials have been pleading with Arab leaders not to overreact to such fears; a senior State Department official dismissed the king's comments recently as "racist anti-Shiite paranoia." But this official acknowledged that such fears have spread through the Arab world, and an Iraqi who has advised the State Department went further, suggesting that they could prompt Jordan and Saudi Arabia - and some elements in Syria - to let Sunni insurgents in Iraq be supported from their territory.
Like so much else, this is something we should have thought of long, long ago. Just look at a map of the region—there's no conceivable way we could ever stop other countries from meddling in Iraq. No country exists in a vacuum. And here, it seems, is where the Bush administration's aversion to multilateralism will really start to hurt. It's true that neither the United Nations nor smaller, regional security arrangements are very good at overthrowing rogue states or spreading democracy or stopping genocide or what have you. But these institutions are quite good at doing what they were designed to do—preventing mutual mistrust and military escalation between naturally hostile states. Curiously, the White House largely decided to carry out its great Middle Eastern transformation one state at a time—"first we'll do Iraq, which will then act as a catalyst for Israel-Palestine, which will then convince…"—but obviously the world doesn't work that way.
Looking forward, the U.S. can expect similar problems with Iran—if and when the Bush administration ever decides to do something about Iran, that is. Handling Tehran's nuclear problem isn't solely a matter of overthrowing the regime or negotiating an agreement with one country. It's also a matter of figuring out how to convince the Gulf states and Saudi Arabia that they don't need to go nuclear out of fear for an aggressive Iran regime. We're not just dealing with states; we're dealing with entire regions.
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9:35 AM
Iraq's elections: the rousing and the mundane
I certainly wasn't the only one moved by the pictures of all those Iraqis—some in wheelchairs, some with their children—braving violence to vote yesterday. On an emotional level, the day was massively important for millions of people, and no one can possibly begrudge them that. But even so, it's important to be precise when we're talking about the election's significance.
President Bush's statement—"Across Iraq today, men and women have taken rightful control of their country's destiny, and they have chosen a future of freedom and peace"—nicely captured the emotional energy of the day, but it doesn't really chart out any sort of future for Iraq. The relevant questions aren't about whether the election was legitimate or not, or whether freedom shuffled a little bit forward or not. They're about whether the new government can keep Iraq stable and secure.
Now depending on how the new National Assembly shapes up, it's very likely that the major expatriate parties that have been governing all along will continue to stay in power. So Iraqis didn't really have a meaningful choice at the polls yesterday. That's not necessarily a bad thing, but the outcome depends entirely on whether the new government can defeat the insurgency, handle the burgeoning ethnic wars in Kirkuk, convince the Sunnis to remain permanently in the political process, figure out how best to modernize Iraq's economy, etc. etc. These are all practical questions that have very little to do with grand notions of freedom and liberty and everything to do with the gritty details of governing.
So far the signs looking forward are uncertain. A number of Sunnis—especially fundamentalist Sunnis and many of the large rural tribes—will likely be marginalized in the new government, without any truly important cabinet spots or veto points. Already key Shi'ites, like Hussein Shahrastani and Ali Sistani, are frowning on the American-imposed legal provisions that will allow Sunnis or Kurds to veto a Shi'ite-drafted constitution. So while interim Prime Minister Iyad Allawi can today call on Iraqis everywhere to unite and cooperate, it remains to be seen whether such rousing patriotism will actually survive the mudslinging of politics. Likewise, as Newsweek's cover story this week pretty convincingly shows, the extensive insurgency in Iraq can be defeated only by quality intelligence and smarter counterinsurgency techniques—not, unfortunately, simply by Iraqis "reject[ing] the antidemocratic ideology of terrorists."
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