Week of: |
5:44 PM
The new cure for PTSD?
As combat veterans continue to trickle home, many face increasingly bleak futures. A study undertaken last year by the military found that 1 in 8 veterans of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan suffered from Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD)—and this percentage may well have risen since then, with the increasing frequency of attacks in Iraq.
The study found that more than half of PTSD sufferers don't seek out mental health assistance. Even more disturbing, however, is reporter Mark Benjamin's report in Salon today, noting that the premier military medical facility, Washington DC's Walter Reed Medical Center, is failing to provide adequate PTSD treatment, which has resulted in worsened conditions and even suicide among inpatient soldiers. The hospital is also charging some wounded veterans hundreds of dollars a month for their meals there, all while the Army prevents soldiers with PTSD from receiving adequate disability payments. It's reached the point where many soldiers have resorted to talking with each other on internet message boards to seek out answers to their mental health problems.
But hey, things may be finally looking up for those shell-shocked combat veterans struggling with terrifying flashbacks, debilitating insomnia, paranoia, and urges to inflict violence upon others. The Food and Drug Administration has recently authorized soldiers to participate in a clinical study on the use of ecstasy in treating PTSD—sure to work wonders on the mental damage caused by witnessing death or having killed others in combat.
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11:58 AM
Obstruct away!
Here's an interesting little tidbit from the recent Wall Street Journal/NBC poll:
Fully 60%, including one-fourth of Republicans, say Democrats in Congress should make sure Bush and his party "don't go too far." Just 34% want Democrats to "work in a bipartisan way" to help pass the president's priorities.
We've often scoffed at the idea that obstructionism would hurt the Democrats electorally—but this seems to indicate that digging in the heels would actually help them, no?
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11:00 AM
State of the foreign policy
In his press conference announcing the nomination of John Negroponte to the new National Intelligence Director slot, the president had a few interesting things to say about American foreign policy:
QUESTION: Europeans want more support from the U.S. in their negotiations with Iran. Would the U.S. consider joining these talks?
BUSH: Well, first, a couple of points. One, we are a party to the talks or a party to the process as a result of being a member of the IAEA. In other words, we're on the IAEA board with some 30 odd nations. So we've been very much involved with working with the Iranians and the world to achieve a goal that we share with the Europeans, and that is for Iran not to develop a nuclear weapon.
I look forward to, again on this trip, discussing strategies, ways forward with the Europeans to make sure we continue to speak with one voice, and that is Iran should not have a nuclear weapon and how to work together to make sure they don't.
What? Let's assume President Bush is merely being dishonest here; the more-charitable-yet-far-more-frightening interpretation is that he truly believes the U.S. has contributed in some constructive way to the ongoing EU talks with Iran over the latter's nuclear program. It hasn't, of course. The U.S. has just lurked in the background, urging Europe to push harder and harder on Iran, talking up "secret" intelligence that Iran is violating its agreements, hinting that the issue should be referred to the Security Council. But the White House has given no indication as to what it would actually do if Iran was referred to the Security Council. (Most likely, any "tough" action would be vetoed by Russia and China, and that would be that.) It's also clear that, without the U.S., Europe cannot offer any substantial incentives for Iran to give up its nuclear progam—the Bush administration has flatly vetoed proposals to allow Iran to join the World Trade Organization, for instance. The old Atlantic chums haven't been "speak[ing] with one voice," as the president claims; the U.S. has done nothing.
As for North Korea, the president didn't have a whole lot to say, except to note that he and former Chinese premier Jiang Zemin once agreed that "that the Korean Peninsula should be nuclear weapons-free." Well okay, then! More encouragingly, though, the White House seems now to be endorsing measured steps against Syria, rightly urging it to withdraw from Lebanon, bur promising to withhold judgment on just who killed former prime minister Rafik Hariri until after an international investigation.
All in all, it sort of looks like Bush would prefer not to let foreign policy crises get in the way of his big Social Security push. Then again, now that his privatization proposal is all but drowning these days, maybe a greater focus on Iran, North Korea, and Syria would be just what he needs to change the subject, save face, and avoid looking like a lame little duckie.
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10:07 AM
Who doesn't love voting reform?
Ed Kilgore has a good run-down of the new election reform bill put down by Sens. Hillary Clinton, Barbara Boxer, and John Kerry and Rep. Stephanie Tubbs Jones yesterday:
The proposal itself is pretty far-reaching, including (1) making Election Day a federal holiday, (2) creating uniform rules for handling of provisional ballots, (3) requiring early voting opportunities, along with no-questions-asked absentee balloting, (4) boosting training for poll workers, (5) criminalizing voter intimidation tactics, (6) restoring voting rights for former felons, (7) requiring paper receipts for electronic voting machines, and (8) providing the federal funds to make sure this reform isn't as shoddily impemented as its predecessor, the Help America Vote Act.
A few quick comments: Judging, at least, from the New York Post's coverage, provision #6 there—giving felons the right to vote—will probably garner a lot of attention in the conservative press, but it's a good idea, and now that we finally have a "soft on crime" president, the time is ripe for this sort of reform. On the other hand, the federal holiday provision would probably benefit Democrats far more than Republicans (federal workers tend to vote Democratic, whereas many high-paying "Republican" jobs don't get federal holidays off no matter what), so expect that to get denounced rather quickly as a drain on the economy.
All in all, though, it's a good start, and far better than the GOP alternative, which effectively raises the bar to voting by requiring photo IDs, along with a tawdry bit of Iraqi-voter exploitation by proposing "a pilot program for the use of indelible ink at polling places." Sad but true.
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12:49 PM
More terrorists, please
A big welcome for our new Director of National Intelligence, John "What death squads?" Negroponte. This latest addition adds to the ranks of cabinet appointees, along with Alberto Gonzales and Michael Chertoff, have helped further the United States disregard for human rights and international law. Political figures come and go, but how long will it take to purge the policies ushered in by these people?
According to the CIA and FBI, who cite a growing number of terrorists, the damage has already been done. The director of the Defense Intelligence Agency, Vice Adm. Lowell Jacoby, stated that U.S. policy has fueled Islamic resentment throughout the world. The illegal detainment, torture and denial of legal rights to hundreds of mostly Middle Eastern detainees is the result of this administrations’ pushing of legal limits. As detainee lawyer Clive Stafford Smith told Mother Jones, “They say that for every person in Guantanamo, there are 10 people out there who want to blow us up. That's totally false—there are a thousand people out there who want to blow us up as a result of what we’ve done.”
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10:02 AM
Still too much "crisis" talk?
The latest Wall Street Journal/NBC poll seems to show Social Security privatization dead in the water. 50 percent of Americans support "making some adjustments but leaving the Social Security system basically as is," while only 40 percent favor privatization, a number that has dropped every time a new poll emerges. And the "basically as is" crowd is much more firm in their support—I suspect that many supporters of private account still aren't aware that diverting payroll taxes would entail trillions of dollars in transition costs. (Then again, the poll did use the term "private accounts," rather than whatever more genial term—"personal accounts"? "patriot accounts," maybe?—the White House prefers.)
So on the whole, Americans like Social Security, they like the fact that it provides "guarantees for the future," and they're not buying into all this ownership talk. The next step, then, is for everyone to realize that the tweaks necessary to shore up the program don't have to be massive right now. 52 percent of Americans think the program's either "in crisis" or "in serious trouble," which is just not true. High growth over the past few years has improved the system's long term-outlook, and minor tweaks like passing the GOP immigration amnesty bill will bring in new payroll tax revenue and keep things humming along nicely for awhile.
Indeed, anything more drastic ought to be treated with suspicion. President Bush has proposed, for instance, lifting the cap on payroll taxes. That sounds nice, and his proposal would certainly patch up the program's projected 75-year shortfall, but we can all see where this is going. Next year the 75-year shortfall would reappear, and opponents of Social Security would say, "Look, we tried to fix the program with crippling tax hikes, but they didn't work, there's still a deficit on the infinite time horizon, and it can only be fixed via the magic of private accounts and benefit cuts." As Mark Schmitt has pointed out, privatizers have been plotting their "Leninist Strategy" to abolish the program since the 1980s and won't give up anytime soon. This is a long-term battle, and one way to fight it out is to point out that it's rather senseless to obsess over shortfalls on the "infinite time horizon" when the general fund is running deficits right now. Or more simply: There is no crisis.
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4:10 PM
More money for these people?
Recently, we learned that the Pentagon has been hiring foreign soldiers to provide security in Iraq—often recruiting from countries with poor human rights records. Why should we care? Well, because these soldiers are fighting in our war, and according to an MSNBC report released yesterday, they're doing an awful job of it. Four men—all retired U.S. military vets—have reported that their coworkers at private security firm Custer Battles LLC have, among other things, shot at unarmed teenagers and rolled over vehicles with children inside to clear a traffic jam.
While Custer Battles has refused all interviews, the CEO apparently remarked that some of the workers in question did not work directly for the organization, but rather for a subcontractor. That raises some important legal questions: Who, exactly, is responsible for these subcontractors? Furthermore, are contractors subject to American law, Iraqi law, or no law at all? Everyone appears eager to pass the blame, and no regulatory body seems to have been established to oversee the conduct of private security personnel in Iraq. This is troubling because these workers are fully armed and effectively operating as combat soldiers.
The Custer Battles allegations are currently being looked into by the Army Criminal Investigation Command (CID), the body responsible for investigating any criminal activity in relation to the U.S. Army. But one could question whether it is even the CID's responsibility to investigate the allegations, since they involve a private contractor rather than the U.S. Army itself. Furthermore, is the CID in a position to do a thorough investigation? It already has its hands full investigating a slew of detainee abuse cases. And even if the Army CID finds the allegations against Custer Battles workers to be true, who will prosecute the company?
This isn't the first time Custer Battles has been in the news. The company has been charged with defrauding the Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA) of some $15 million dollars—apparently by providing security for civilian flights at an airport that wasn't even running flights.
According to Alan Grayson, the attorney prosecuting the fraud case, the Bush administration doesn't seem to care about the lost money, and it fell on two former company employees, rather than the U.S. government, to bring the case to court. Lawyers for Custer Battles claim that the case should be dismissed because they allege that the money the company is accused of wrongfully taking belongs to Iraq, not the U.S. Technically that seems to be correct: When the CPA was dissolved last June, the funds were handed over to the Iraqi government. So can the Iraqi government bring a case against Custer Battles? And if so, why haven't they already?
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3:25 PM
Hot potato
Interesting: a few days after word gets out that the Senate might conduct a formal inquiry into the CIA's handling of detainees, the agency announces that it is looking to scale back its role as "interrogator and custodian" of terrorist suspects.
The CIA now wants to hand these folks off to the FBI and the FBI, for its part, wants nothing to do with it. Apparently neither agency wants their agents taking part in any interrogation procedures that might skirt international law. Go figure. Congratulations, by the way, are in order for our new Attorney General Alberto Gonzales and our new Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff for penning the torture memos that pushed the CIA and FBI into questionable interrogation and confinement tactics in the first place.
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1:30 PM
Praise for the filibuster?
Have to admit, it's pretty funny to hear a freshman Republican senator rattle off the virtues of the filibuster:
Isakson, noting he had just been in Iraq, said he asked a Kurdish leader if he worried that the majority Shiites would "overrun" the minority Kurds. And "he says, 'Oh, no, we have a secret weapon.' . . . And when asked what it was, he said one word, 'filibuster,' and then proceeded to describe their study of American democracy and our republic."
"If there were ever a reason for optimism about" giving more aid to Iraq, Isakson said, "it is one of their minority leaders proudly stating one of the pillars and principles of our government as the way they would ensure that the majority never overran the minority."
Indeed, Sen. Isakson. Indeed. Now somebody tell Bill "Nuclear Option" Frist, and quick! Hey, it's also worth noting that the elected Kurdish leaders represent only about 20 percent of Iraq's population. Democrats in the United States Senate, meanwhile, represent over 50 percent of Americans. (Yes, we're really quite fond of that stastic...)
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12:16 PM
The terror trump card
Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld today explained to members of the House Armed Services Committee why the administration should be given $82 billion in "emergency money" for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. You'd think it would be important to present reasonable arguments as to where the money will be going, and how long it will take to secure results. But no, instead Rumsfeld simply said: "The extremists continue to plot to attack again. They are at this moment recalibrating and reorganizing."
Is anyone else getting tired of the terror card—particularly in the absence of any other reasoning—getting pulled at important junctures? Instead of answers, we get vague threats. Not only is Rumsfeld saying that less money for Iraq will produce more terror in the United States, he is also alluding to future requests for money: "The future of this conflict is not predictable. So additional funds will have to be requested as required." I think we could all use some clarity as to what "this conflict" is. If the administration is implying we'll need to end all hatred towards America before it stops asking for emergency funds, they should just say that so that we can all have a good laugh and not give them any more money.
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11:57 AM
Markets in everything... except Iraq?
Both Spencer Ackerman and Juan Cole have put up useful profiles of Ibrahim al-Jaaferi, the man likely to be Iraq's next prime minister. Bottom line: Jaaferi leans toward making Iraq an Islamic state—indeed, since it looks like his selection will have to be approved by Ayatollah Ali Sistani, any prospective prime minister would have to lean that way—though he seems to understand how important it is to reach out to the country's disgruntled Sunni minority.
Meanwhile, the keen-eyed Swopa notices that the New York Times is still trying to depict Ahmed Chalabi—the neo-con darling who urged the U.S. to war—as an actual, formidable opponent of Jaaferi. I suspect that Chalabi isn't really a serious contender here, though it might not be wholly surprising to learn that American officials were working behind the scenes to advance his cause. There's an economic aspect to this prime minister race, after all, that deserves more attention.
To wit: Jaaferi is a member of al-Dawaa, an Islamic group whose spiritual leader, the late Muhammad Baqir al-Sadr, wrote a number of treatises on Islamic economics arguing that the state "has absolute control of all aspects of economic activities." Not a good sign for foreign companies hoping to capitalize on a newly liberalized Middle Eastern market, no? (And hey, who can blame the Iraqis? The free-market has, quite honestly, offered Iraq nothing apart from one of the most shamefully corrupt reconstruction projects in history.) Chalabi, by contrast, is an ideal businessman, fondness for embezzling and all. If I were a foreign corporation planning to have a serious presence in Iraq over the next decade, I know who my pick would be.
At any rate, the money aspect is important here, though it's hard to figure out how much leverage the U.S. will actually have in the decisions over cabinet posts in the new Iraqi government, so I'll hold off on the Chalabi conspiracy theories for now. There are also hints that foreign businesses may win out no matter what: according to the Los Angeles Times, the elected Iraqi government might try to give out cabinet positions as a means of divvying up Iraq's resources among key sectarian groups. This is the sort of system, unfortunately, that inevitably produces corruption, graft, and eventually a lot of misery—but on the bright side, it pacifies disgruntled ethnic groups, and at the very least the oil industry knows how to operate in this sort of environment. Yikes…
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10:23 AM
Say good-bye to Amtrak?
While it may no longer be newsworthy to point out that the Bush Administration's new budget has scrapped subsidies to Amtrak, it's worth taking a moment to look at the massive railway company's planned successor.
Namely, nothing.
Although it's been supposed that, without subsidies, Amtrak will be forced to sort out its financial mess by declaring bankruptcy, the company will more likely just die a quick death. At any rate, Bush believes that the future of rail will be in privatized, regional compacts rather than in a federally subsidized national rail system. To this end, he's proposed that the government send $360 million to maintain commuter and freight services in the Northeast Corridor to replace Amtrak. But as for the rest of the country, nothing.
Why has no alternative been laid out? One would presume that the whole reason for only taking out Amtrak this year (it's been subsidized and 'losing' money for three decades) is not that it's becoming less popular (it enjoyed record ridership this past year) but rather that it's just another domestic cut intended to trim the budget, or at least make the administration appear more fiscally responsible. Although Congress could conceivably strike down Bush’s request—they are at least publicly supportive of Amtrak—some speculate that the final funding amount will be substantially less than last year's $1.2 billion, which could have a similarly debilitating effect.
It's not clear, moreover, that a private alternative to Amtrak would be that much better. New York attempted just that back in 1998, and the results weren't very successful. And while such a plan is not necessarily doomed to failure, it would at least take time to set up and coordinate. Scrapping Amtrak without making any headway towards a viable alternative may make sense when tallying up federal expenditures, but it falls short of a sensible approach to meeting our country’s growing transportation needs.
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9:04 AM
Kyoto goes into effect
Today, at 5:00 AM, Greenwich time, while the United States was sleeping, the Kyoto Protocol officially went into effect. Up until recently, the effort couldn't legally get underway until it had enough signatories to represent 55 percent of all global emissions—a hurdle finally cleared when Russia signed on 90 days ago. The treaty had originally hit a snag in 2001, when the United States, which emits around 36 percent of the world's CO2 emissions, backed out.
Kyoto's first goal will be to get participants to reduce global emissions by 5.2 percent from 1990 levels by the year 2012. While critics argue that this is an insignificant reduction (and by itself it is), and question whether or not some countries can even meet those targets—since some seem fairly unprepared—the real significance of this event is quite simple. For the first time, the international community has finally committed itself to do something concrete about climate change.
That's more than can be said for the United States. But while the Bush Administration's decision to pull out leaves a conspicuous and significant hole in the treaty, that doesn't mean that the U.S. is sweeping pollution control under the carpet entirely. Already a number of state governments are taking their own initiatives to control emissions. In California, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger has pledged to continue support for an aggressive plan, laid out by his predecessor, Gray Davis, to curb vehicle CO2 emissions 30 percent by 2016. There's only one catch: In order to pass the plan, Schwarzenegger needs first to get approval from the Bush-backed EPA and then to ward off a lawsuit by the auto industry. This could turn into a big showdown, but if Schwarzenegger succeeds, other states may follow in California's footsteps.
Meanwhile, in Congress, Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) and Sen. Joseph Lieberman (D-CT) are planning to reintroduce their Climate Stewardship Act, which experts believe serves as a good model for a nationwide trading system to curb emissions. And Senator Chuck Hagel (R-NE), who opposes the Kyoto protocol, is planning to introduce his own three-part legislation that focuses, among other things, on reducing emissions in developing nations and developing new technologies for storing carbon underground.
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5:24 PM
The real barrier to peace
So far, it looks both Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas are making efforts to move deeper towards their recently announced cease-fire. But there is one issue that just keeps cropping up—the barrier wall that Israel continues to build along the West Bank despite the fact that the International Court of Justice (ICJ) ruled last July that the wall, and the plans to continue building it were illegal. Predictably, the Israeli government rejected the ruling and the U.S. backed them up on it. White House spokesman Scott McClellan has said, "We do not believe that that's [the ICJ] the appropriate forum to resolve what is a political issue. This is an issue that should be resolved through the process that has been put in place, specifically the road map."
The problem, though, is that the barrier wall is being built around illegal Israeli settlements, creating a de facto border that undermine the spirit of the "Roadmap for Peace". Nor does the barrier help bolster the current cease-fire. While negotiations are currently on the table for Israelis to pull out of the Gaza strip, new settlements have already been proposed in the West Bank for the newly displaced Israeli settlers. And the wall, along with the security checkpoints that come with it, are carving into disputed territories and undermining negotiations for Israeli withdrawal from a handful of West Bank towns.
Already, human rights and international medical groups have expressed concerns regarding the disconcerting and growing number of Palestinians who lack access to medical care due to the placement of the wall. And violence along the barrier continues despite the cease-fire. So it's about time the U.S. stick to the roadmap and address the issue of this growing barrier to peace.
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2:54 PM
So... was Eason Jordan, um, wrong?
What with Kim Jong Il rattling off nuclear threats, an American president actively trying to crash the financial markets, and more potential instability brewing in the Middle East, this "Bloggers Attack CNN Executive" kerfluffle hasn't ranked all that high on my list of interests. Like 27th or so. But apart from the feel-good reflections on how "Wowie blogs are so darn cool because they took down Eason Jordan, man! Eason Jordan!", one part of this story has been much-neglected: Was Eason Jordan actually wrong?
As we know, Jordan resigned after claiming that the U.S. military has been actively targeting journalists in Iraq. Now maybe he said it too zealously, or tastelessly, or maliciously, or whatever, and truly deserves to go. But as far as I can tell, all the outrage over the CNN exec's remarks has obscured the fact that a number of journalists in Iraq really have been killed by U.S. fire, often under suspicious or unresolved circumstances, and this deserves an investigation. Perhaps Jordan went too far when he said "journalists have been arrested and tortured by US forces," but just because he resigned doesn't make everything he's ever said untrue.
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2:34 PM
"War on terror" keeps the courts busy
The Bush administration is keeping the U.S. Department of Justice lawyers pretty busy these days. In January, the Washington D.C. District Court made two contradictory rulings on whether or not terror suspects being held in Guantanamo have the right to challenge their detentions and "enemy combatant" status in court. Judge Richard Leon ruled they do not have that right, while Judge Joyce Hens Green ruled that they did. The Bush administration is currently appealing Green's decision, and it seems likely the issue will end up back in the Supreme Court—which, apparently, addressed the issue all too ambiguously the first time around, in Rasul vs. Bush and Hamdi vs. Rumsfeld.
The Supreme Court will also be batting around a case on behalf of 17 Americans who were held as POWs in Iraq in 1991. In a rather disturbing twist of irony, many of the POWs were held and tortured in Abu Ghraib—the abuses even echo those of recent Iraqi detainees. While a federal court awarded the POWs a settlement payment, and even froze a portion of Iraqi assets in order to provide the funds, the Bush administration has refused to give them a dime, claiming that the money should be used for Iraqi reconstruction. As of now, the administration is pushing to have the case dropped entirely while, in the same breath, offering compensation to Iraqi victims of abuse in Abu Ghraib. Perhaps U.S. torture trumps Iraqi torture? The U.S., it should be noted, doesn't have a great track record on recompensing its soldiers—some 14,000 American POWs interned in Japan during WWII still haven’t even been allowed a day in court.
For even more U.S. legal irony surrounding the war on terror, read David Luban's account of the prosecutions' reasoning behind the recent conviction of lawyer Lynne Stewart.
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2:05 PM
Before we go invade Syria...
With all the accusations now flying back and forth over just who assassinated former Lebanese premier Rafik Hariri, it's difficult to figure out what, exactly, is going on. The Bush administration has quickly blamed Syria and today recalled its ambassador from the country, while hinting that further sanctions and action may be in the works. (The Congressional Research Office put out a useful primer on the current state of U.S.-Syrian relations here.)
The hope, it seems, is to get Syria to withdraw its troops from Lebanon, allow free elections there, and disarm Hizbullah, as required by UN Security Council Resolution 1559. (Syria has long insisted its right to act instead according to the Taif Agreement, signed at the end of the Lebanese civil war in 1989, which offers a more grudging framework for withdrawal.)
Enforcing the UN resolution would certainly be a good thing, though there are two obstacles here. First, the bulk of Syria's trade is with Europe, so tighter sanctions from the U.S. alone won't necessarily force Syria's hand. The U.S. and France have been working for awhile on a diplomatic solution to the Lebanon-Syrian stalemate, and it will be crucial to see whether a more hostile American stance will disrupt transatlantic cooperation on the issue. France, for its part, has acted more cautiously thus far, requesting an international inquiry rather than direct action against Syria.
Second, it's not entirely clear that Syrian President Bashar Assad has complete control of his own country. Could the attacks have come from Syria without Bashar's approval? It's not crazy to think so. Consider: Ibrahim al-Hamidi, Al-Hayat's bureau chief in Damascus, recently told Syrian expert Joshua Landis that Bashar may in fact be trying to comply with U.S. requests to dry squelch support for the Iraqi insurgency within Syrian borders. The problem, though, is that bureaucratic corruption, rogue elements within the regime, and an extremely anti-American public have prevented Bashar from fully cracking down. That may or may not be true, but the issue's certainly more complex than that of a rogue regime openly defying the U.S., in dire need of an aggressive response. Some of the conspiracy theories here—"Syria killed Hariri at the bidding of Iran!"—may have merit, but at the moment they sound like excuses to revive old feuds with hated foes rather than any sort of intelligent response.
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12:11 PM
The logic of reform
Here's some logic for you: Money was originally allotted to improve social programs such as educational technology grants. Since "it is not clear" that the money "has been successful," the program gets cut. Education improved! Meanwhile: Last year, $626 million was put towards helping police fight crime. Crime is down, says the Bush administration, so we should now cut the funding. Apparently that program was too successful.
Here's more administration logic: Congress calls for better oversight of the Food and Drug Administration. The White House appoints the current acting commissioner of FDA to permanent head. Oversight problem, apparently, solved!
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5:58 PM
More torture news
If you really needed more evidence that prisoners in American holding facilities across the Middle East are being tortured, you're in luck. Former Guantanamo detainee Australian Mamdouh Habib yesterday gave a chillingly familiar account of his abuse while under nominal U.S. supervision—first in Egypt, then in Pakistan, and then at Guantanamo Bay.
Also yesterday, New York Daily News reported that military insiders came forward alleging to have observed (and vocally opposed) inhumane interrogations in Guantanamo. The officers claim to have been ignored by Pentagon officials.
There is still hope that the cloak of secrecy surrounding the "war on terror" detainees will be lifted. The Senate may finally start looking into the, as of now, secret interrogation practices of the CIA. Let’s hope the media keeps the pressure on.
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5:15 PM
Deficits and military transformation
So what do the deficits mean for Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld's vision of transforming the military? A report by the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessment finds that rising deficits may render Rumsfeld's current restructuring plan unaffordable:
Even if DoD were able to achieve the funding levels projected in the administration's new plan over the next six years and could sustain those funding levels in the face of ballooning deficits, DoD would probably not be able to execute its very ambitious modernization efforts and other plans.
According to the report, as serious plans to tackle the deficit eventually get laid out, history suggests that cuts in defense spending will be part of the solution, much as they were between 1985 and 1990, when a 12 percent real reduction in spending was achieved through a bipartisan effort to reign in the deficit. The report also suggests that history has shown that the DoD is unlikely to meet its projected cost goals, casting even greater doubt upon their ability to achieve the aggressive agenda they have laid out even if they do receive the funds they estimate will be needed.
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5:12 PM
Supplementary military spending
Quite a fuss is being made over the ways in which the Bush Administration is accounting for the cost of war and military spending, and what that means for the country's fiscal outlook. Although the White House's proposed budget for 2006, includes $419 billion for the Department of Defense, entailing a seemingly benign real increase of 3 percent over this year's budget, the actual increase in military spending will in fact be much higher.
In a supplemental spending request to be released tonight, the administration is planning to ask for an additional $82 billion for the costs of war and other military expenditures during the current fiscal year. While supplemental proposals are quite commonplace and often beneficial—designed to account for unpredictable events such as wars, floods, feast, and famine—this year's proposal has raised some serious concerns.
The Administration maintains that the proposed expenditures have already been included in the deficit projections, but the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office (CBO), as a matter of policy, does not include supplemental budgets in its projections before they are released, as they are often difficult to predict. Given this logic, and the notion that there will likely be more supplemental requests in the years to come, the effects are obvious—a higher deficit than currently projected.
The CBO expects the cost of war in FY2006 alone to be $85 billion. And if it is unrealistic to think that our wars and occupations in the Middle East (or elsewhere) will be completed by the end of FY 2006, then its also unrealistic to think subsequent supplemental expenditures won't increase the projected deficit as well.
According to a report (PDF) on the defense budget, published by the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments, the CBO projects that the government will incur $858 billion in debt by 2015—without these sorts of expenditures. With the costs of additional programs, such as making tax cuts permanent, fighting wars, and reforming the Alternative Minimum Tax, they project that number could be anywhere from $3.8-5.5 trillion.
One final question: Will the $82 billion supplemental spending request even get passed? Historically, Congress hasn't taken very kindly to supplemental requests, mainly because those requests are subject to much less scrutiny. Whereas the Defense Department may have had to submit an 800-page report justifying expenditures in the regular budget, the justification for items in the supplementary budget can often be ticked off in a single paragraph.
Though its too early to know how Congress will respond, it is certainly not without options. It can request additional and detailed justification for the proposed expenditures from the DoD, and attempt to 'fence' in the spending. And if it so desires, it can always reject the whole supplemental request and force the administration to ask for the necessary funds via budget amendment.
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4:29 PM
Dying for whose country?
The U.S. military has been kicking up its recruiting efforts of late—but it's an uphill battle that has seen a disproportionate number of recruits coming primarily from poorer demographic groups. To make it a little easier to get the names of the right people to contact, the government has written recruitment into policy. For example, No Child Left Behind requires secondary schools that receive federal funds to provide the contact information of their students to military recruiters on request.
But even with this newfound assistance, the military is having a heck of a time getting Americans to enlist—and so it's begun looking abroad, finding foreigners who are willing to enlist in exchange for various immigration perks. One U.S. military recruiter reportedly took a trip to a high school in Tijuana, fueling "rumors that would-be immigrants could get U.S. citizenship by serving in the Army."
While the military insists that undocumented or illegal immigrants cannot serve in the U.S. armed forces, recruiters often promise expedited citizenship and money for education to provide incentives for non-citizens at home and abroad. As well, in 2002 President Bush signed an executive order that provides "expedited naturalization" for non-citizens serving on active duty.
The U.S. government has even found a way to get citizens who live in other countries to fight for U.S. corporate interests. American and private contractor companies such as Inveco International, Halliburton, Blackwater, and Triple Canopy have been recruiting people from El Salvador, Brazil, Colombia, Nicaragua, Chile, Fiji, Nepal, and the Philippines to work in Iraq as guards of security installations, U.S. embassies, and oil pipelines and other private security detail. Media reports from Colombia, Brazil, and El Salvador report that the companies are targeting those with prior military training and backgrounds. The salaries offered are often much higher than what those workers would in their own country, though still costing the companies roughly one-quarter of what it would take to pay a U.S. citizen. Makes perfect economic sense. Plus, when they die, Americans won't need to hear about it.
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4:14 PM
Rushdie's unfunny Valentine
Valentine's Day is, rather absurdly, the anniversary of Ayatollah Khomeini's fatwa against Salman Rushdie. It was on February 14, 1989 that the Iranian leader, taking exception to Rushdie's Satanic Verses and particularly to its "blasphemous" depiction of the prophet Mohammed, essentially called a mob hit on the author.
I inform the proud Muslim people of the world that the author of the Satanic Verses book which is against Islam, the Prophet and the Koran, and all those involved in its publication who were aware of its content, are sentenced to death. I ask all the Muslims to execute them wherever they find them.
A few years ago, it seemed Rushdie was off the hook. In 1998, after all, the Khatami government dissociated itself from the fatwa. But the rhetoric issuing from Iran seems to be heating up; at any rate it's unambiguous. Just last weekend, Iran's hardline Revolutionary Guards declared the death sentence "irreversible" and expressed high confidence that some good Muslim would "punish the apostate Rushdie for his scandalous acts and insults" against Islam. This came a month after Khomeini's successor, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, made a point of reminding Muslims en route to Mecca that if they got around to killing Rushdie that would be okay by him.
True enough, there's a pro forma quality to this rhetoric; but that's probably no great consolation to the author. (All it'll take is one wingnut in search of clerical approval ...) So, this February 14, spare a thought for Salman Rushdie -- resolutely unrepentant, determinedly productive, and still in fear for his life.
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11:00 AM
Give up the straw men!
Over at the Corner, Jonah Goldberg finds it amusing that on Meet the Press this weekend, Tim Russert hosted a foreign policy debate between Natan Sharansky—the president's guiding light on democracy-promotion—and noted isolationist Pat Buchanan. Goldberg thinks the show should have put up a Democrat "more accurate and representative of political reality" to debate Sharansky, which to him means "Ted Kennedy or Michael Moore."
This is thoroughly aggravating, of course, because neither Ted Kennedy nor Michael Moore is at all representative of mainstream Democratic thought. Straw men all around. But even if they were representative, that's still beside the point. There are serious critiques of President Bush's foreign policy out there—in the upcoming issue of Boston Review, for example, Stephen Walt lays out a very thoughtful vision of a more restrained American agenda abroad that can't be easily caricatured as "isolationist" or "seeking a UN permission slip"—and just because politicians aren't touting them doesn't mean they don't exist.
Goldberg's said before that it would be better for the country if liberals were more serious about foreign affairs, but he's hardly helpless on this front. Instead of spending so much time ridiculing Ted Kennedy, the National Review could very easily take a look at Walt's essay (or this or this or this) and discuss it on its own terms. It's simple, really: If you want a serious foreign policy approach from liberals, then start talking about serious liberal foreign policy views, regardless of whether you think the "Michael Moore wing" runs the Democratic party or not (it doesn't). The same goes for NBC, by the way—there's no reason they can't book thinkers like Walt more often. Over in the Middle East, networks like Al-Jazeerah usually put two guests from radically opposite ends of the political spectrum on the air to hash out the issues of the day; but, shockingly, we don't have to do that here at home.
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10:13 AM
Why oppose the bankruptcy bill?
Think Progress, the new blog from the Center for American Progress, has a good round-up of links on the revived bankruptcy bills now wending their way through Congress, both of which "would make it harder for consumers to wipe out debt through bankruptcy."
The post covers the basics nicely, though there's also a much-neglected women's issue here. As Elizabeth Warren testified to the Senate back in 1998 (about a bill that was in all key respects similar to the ones being proposed today), because the law makes it harder for men to file bankruptcy, it also makes many of them less able to free up income to pay child support. Essentially, single mothers would have to compete with big creditors for claims on their ex-husbands' income—which inevitably means the women lose out. In 1997, this little provision would have affected 325,000 single mothers, and the annual number has no doubt risen since. That's 325,000 actual families already saddled with debt (divorce is costly!) and struggling to get by—it's a huge deal.
There's no sense in being naive about all this—banking and credit lobbyists have a greater claim on Congressional attention than do low-income single mothers, so it's not likely that this bill will meet serious opposition. But if the Democrats ever want to actually reclaim those female voters they lost in 2004—instead of, you know, just talking about it—this would be a place to start.
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9:32 AM
About that pro-Iranian government...
The Washington Post's Robin Wright writes today that Iraq's election results bode ill for the Bush administration, bringing to power an Iraqi government that will have, in her words, "very close ties to the Islamic republic next door." (Even though it certainly won't, of course, be any sort of Iranian puppet or client state.) Curiously, no Bush administration officials are actually quoted in the piece, which makes one wonder how much anyone in the upper ranks actually, in fact, still fears this.
Indeed, it's even more difficult to see how the White House ever could have expected to install an Iraqi government that would actively compete with, or oppose, Iran. Very few leaders in Baghdad—from outgoing prime minister and U.S. ally, Ayad Allawi, to Iranian-trained clerics like Abdul Aziz al-Hakim—would ever appreciate an invasion of Iran, in the same way that China wouldn't appreciate an invasion of North Korea, or the U.S. a foreign invasion of Mexico. War tends to bring chaos, destruction, hordes of refugees, and strangely enough, people don't much like them going on in their own backyard.
But hey, it's not all bad: the upside to a thriving, semi-democratic Shi'ite Iraq is that Iran's legion of dissident clerics can now cross the border and move to the holy city of Najaf, thundering against Ali Khamene'i's regime from afar. Even more promising, the increased trade and cooperation between Iraq and Iran could well coax the latter into more peaceful paths to regional hegemony. Certainly this all sounds better than pitting the two states against each other, which might have only created a rather tense balance of power in the region, leading to more arms races, more military spending, more instability, etc. The U.S. tried that approach in the 1980s, as I recall, and it didn't work out too well. So a pro-Iranian Iraq may be a better thing in the long run, even if it's not what the White House originally wanted.
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