Week of: |
5:30 PM
In defense of Clear Skies
On March 2nd, The Bush Administration's most important environmental policy, the Clear Skies Act will come to a vote on the Senate floor. For the most part, environmentalists flatly oppose the bill, claiming that it will substantially weaken the already existing Clean Air Act. But a few months ago in the Washington Monthly, David Whitman argued that that impression is somewhat without merit, coming about largely as a result of a misleading slide show that was leaked to the public in late 2001.
The leaked slide did a lot of damage, causing a lot of once-hopeful environmentalists to believe that the president was thoroughly anti-environment, especially after he had already reneged on his 2000 campaign promise to cap carbon dioxide emissions. Add in his withdrawal from the Kyoto protocol, and the "toothless" climate change policy that emerged around the same time, and environmentalists had little reason to trust Bush's Clear Skies Act. As Whitman says:
The battle over Clear Skies has shaped up as a classic Washington tale of a creditable endeavor hopelessly mismanaged by its sponsors, demagogued by its opponents, and tainted from the start of the administration's well-earned reputation as handmaidens of the industry. The resulting gridlock could delay attempts to clean up the environment and costs thousands of Americans their lives.
While the Clear Skies Act can justifiably be criticized for not going far enough or acting fast enough (Whitman's article explains how the United Mine Workers helped set the cap limits), its aim for near 70 percent reductions of sulfur dioxide, nitrogen oxides, and mercury emissions by 2018 is stricter than what can reasonably be expected from the Clean Air Act alone.
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4:30 PM
Accountability for contractors
As the U.S. government continues to hand out money to private contractors with shady pasts, it's worth noting that lax policies on reconstruction in Iraq and Afghanistan may be costing soldiers their lives. Many of the contractors in these countries currently operate under little or no oversight, allowing them to cut corners on reconstruction, or simply not deliver at all. But the longer it takes for electricity, running water, and other basic amenities to be restored, the stronger the Iraqi insurgency and its supporters grow.
One contracting group—Custer Battles— recently made the news because some of its employees are facing allegations of brutalizing innocent Iraqi civilians. The company provides security detail to U.S. convoys, and its actions affect the reputation of American troops, yet its employees aren't subject to the same scrutiny and oversight from the government. Meanwhile, so long as private contractors act like combatants, the distinction between aid worker and soldier will continue to be blurred in the minds of many. Violence against supposedly "neutral" humanitarian workers has already skyrocketed over the past year in Iraq and Afghanistan, in part because of this blurred line.
Cases against private contractors are often kept far from the public eye. As of now, only one case of private contract fraud—the case against Custer Battles—has been unsealed by U.S. courts. The allegations of violence against Iraqi civilians have yet to be publicly disclosed. In the case of Custer Battles, the investigation has been passed from the Army CID to the FBI, making it unlikely that we'll hear about the outcome any time soon.
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3:46 PM
Concrete diplomacy
Who needs dialogue when you've got concrete and electric fences? Check out the Atlantic Monthly's overview of notable security barriers around the world, from Gaza to Yemen.
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12:09 PM
"Don't be fooled by the wraparound sunglasses..."
Do we really need more over-simplified ideas on how to reduce poverty around the world? A Los Angeles Times editorial today clamors for U2's Bono to be the next president of the World Bank. "Bono could enhance the World Bank’s image and sell its poverty-reduction mission far more effectively." Since when has the World Bank's main problem been its ability to sell its poverty-reduction mission? In fact, the last time I checked, the World Bank was a, well, bank--not a humanitarian organization. Ending poverty would put the World Bank out of a job. I agree, Bono is, like, way cuter than outgoing president James Wolfensohn, but I'm pretty sure even Bono is grimacing at the idea of working for the Bank.
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11:09 AM
Attacking the hockey stick
One of the most important symbols in support of the notion that humans are altering the Earth's climate is a graph known as "the hockey stick", first published by Dr. Michael Mann in 1998, which shows that over the past hundred years, the Earth's average temperature has risen more dramatically that at any other point in the past millennium. More recently, the graph has become a compelling target for skeptics, who have started flooding the media with attacks on the hockey stick.
The main antagonists in this drama are Ross McKitrick, a Canadian economist, and Stephen McIntyre, a Canadian Minerals Consultant. Aside from both being Canadian and novices in climate change, these two men have something else in common: they work for companies funded from oil giant ExxonMobil. Exxon has made it very clear that the science of climate change is bad for business and has established a campaign called the "Global Climate Science Communications Action Plan" to expose and attack the uncertainty of the science behind climate change wherever possible.
Regardless of the funding, the attacks by McIntyre and McKitrick should be judged on the merits—and by many accounts they fall short. The hockey stick graph they attack is just one of a number of studies, each using different methods, and all of which turn up very similar results. Even if the pair were able to refute the hockey stick—and it's not clear that they have—their critiques primarily attack particulars unique to Mann's results, and say nothing about the validity of other studies. More recently, Mann and his colleagues went back and scrutinized the pair's work, finding their points mostly irrelevant, if not totally invalid.
The two Canadians have also attempted to debunk the notion that the world is warming by attacking surface temperature data. On that note, Tim Lambert caught the pair confusing "radians" with "degrees". Consequently: "every single number [McKitrick] calculates is wrong!"
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12:57 PM
Trouble in the Amazon
Dorothy Stang, a 74-year-old missionary and prominent activist opposing the destruction of Brazil's Amazon rain forest, was killed on February 12th. She was shot six times while helping to establish the creation of a federal preserve in Brazil's notorious Para District—home to over 500 land-related murders in the past two decades. None of those murders, though, have had the public impact of this one: The Brazilian government has reacted to all the international outrage and promised that the world will see a drop-off in deforestation this year.
Brazil's President, Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, has already ordered the creation of two massive rainforest reserves totaling over 9 million acres; placed a six-month moratorium on logging licenses in over 20 million acres of the Para region while they determine which areas to protect; and deployed an additional 2,000 troops (on top of 4,000 already there) to police the region. But there's little evidence that these moves will amount to any more than cosmetic changes.
It doesn't seem to garner much attention these days, but the rate of deforestation in Brazil has been steadily increasing since 1997, and the last two years were especially aggressive, with areas larger than New Jersey having been cleared each year. Why is this happening? For starters, Brazil's export economy is very strong. Demand for beef from Europe and the U.S. is higher than ever, Brazil's production of soy has exploded, and countries around the world continue to purchase Brazil's lumber, despite the fact that an estimated 80 percent of it is illegally logged.
Will this change anytime soon? Agriculture alone makes up nearly 10 percent of Brazil's GDP, so there's not much economic incentive to change the status quo. The government, meanwhile, worries about the increased conflict and bloodshed that could result from reform. Corruption is still an issue, as is inadequate funding for Brazil's environmental protection agency. The government is also continuing some of its seriously counterproductive policies, such as paving a major road in the region, BR163, in order to improve access. A similar project back in the 1970s, the Trans-Amazonian Highway, was also intended to promote economic development in a similar fashion, but because the project gave squatters ownership over their land and incentives to farm, thus leading to more deforestation. There's no indication that the new road will be any different.
In the end, then, creating preserves, policing the area, and catching the bad guys are all important, but in the larger scheme of things, it represents little more than a superficial solution at a time when major economic and environmental policy change is needed.
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9:38 AM
Delayed precedent
Speaking of Supreme Court cases, another one to keep your eye on is Hamdan v. Rumsfeld. Salim Hamdan was slated to be one of the first Guantanamo detainees to stand trial before the Pentagon’s military commission. But this past November, U.S. District Judge James Robertson ruled that a military tribunal would be illegal without a court first discerning whether or not Hamdan was entitled to Geneva Convention protections. The Supreme Court has declined to take up the case until after the D.C. Court of Appeals hears the case. Oral arguments aren't scheduled until March 8. The case is likely headed to the Supreme Court eventually, and it is simply a matter of waiting—possibly up to a year before this case is decided, which should be a landmark in deciding the legality of the Pentagon's military tribunals. Ironically, until the Supreme Court decides what rights are actually afforded detainees under U.S. law and the Geneva Conventions, detainees have no rights at all.
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6:25 PM
Guantanamo Update
Included in the Bush administration's recent $81.9 billion supplemental spending request is some $42 million to build a long-term prison for the detainees in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. General Richard Myers, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff told a Senate committee,
What we’re doing is transitioning to a long-term detention mission, because there are some there that are bad enough that you do not want to release them. They are going to have to be detained in some location. And no matter how the courts come out, that's probably going to be the location.
It would be nice to be able to say that it's completely unjustified for Gen. Myers' to dismiss the rights of Guantanamo detainees. But it's not—at least not yet. The two relevant Supreme Court cases here—Rasul v. Bush and Hamdi v. Rumsfeld—have yet to be completely resolved. In Rasul, the Court examined the rights of aliens captured abroad and then detained in Guantanamo, and decided that federal courts do have jurisdiction to hear detainee challenges to their detainment. Hamdi dealt with the rights of a U.S. citizen captured abroad and then detained in Guantanamo—here the Court decided that a U.S. citizen captured abroad cannot be held indefinitely without due process.
While Rasul made it clear that federal courts have jurisdiction over detainees, it did not go so far as to grant alien detainees due process rights. To clear that mystery up, government lawyers have jumped on the part of the Hamdi decision suggesting that a military tribunal might be sufficient to meet due process requirements for any U.S. citizen detained in Guantanamo. The government has argued that what's good for a U.S. citizen is good for a non-citizen here. But the interpretations are all hazy enough that the Supreme Court will most likely have to revisit these issues again.
In response to the cases, the Pentagon has put in place Combatant Status Review Tribunals to determine whether or not a prisoner is, in fact, an "enemy combatant." These trials do not meet the standards prescribed in Hamdi. Detainees do not have the right to legal representation and are subject to review by three military officers who look over classified evidence to determine a detainee's status.
The interpretation of these two Supreme Court cases has led to two different rulings regarding whether or not the U.S. government has the right to dismiss all challenges to detainment filed by Guantanamo detainees. Judge Joyce Hens Green of the D.C. District Court ruled this past January that the military tribunals are unconstitutional and do not provide necessary due process to detainees. This ruling came shortly after D.C. District Court Judge Richard Leon's ruling that detainees do not have the right to challenge their detainment in U.S. federal courts. The conflicting ruling has led the Department of Justice to appeal Green's latest ruling. This appeal has effectively frozen the detainees' cases and will most likely end up in Supreme Court. Until then, it's detainment and torture as usual in Guantanamo.
(Thanks to Vanessa Blum at Legal Times for helping translate legalese to English.)
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3:43 PM
Arms embargoes and China
So what's new in the crazy world of transatlantic feuds? Ah, here we go. Europe plans on lifting its embargo on arms sales to China. The U.S. thinks it one day may find itself shooting at China over the Taiwan issue, and doesn't want the embargo lifted. This would all seem rather pedantic, except that Philip Gordon—a Brookings scholar who often seems more optimistic about U.S.-European relations than most—is quoted as saying that the dispute "really does have the potential to blow up into another U.S.-Europe crisis."
That doesn't sound happy. But then I got around to reading the transcript from this Brookings forum on U.S.-Europe relations, and found the Gordon quote embedded in a longer and much more nuanced take on the topic:
From an American point of view, it's the United States and not Europe that is responsible for security in East Asia, that is responsible for security in Taiwan, and the idea that the Europeans, in the view of many American critics, for commercial or geopolitical reasons would start selling weapons to China, where they have no strategic stake, is intolerable. And this really does have the potential to blow up into another U.S.-European crisis.
What we propose in here is a sort of cease-fire on this issue. The United States doesn't respond and retaliate for a lifting of the arms embargo per se. Frankly, the Europeans are going to go ahead with it. But the United States, while still opposing it, would expect from Europe what the Europeans say they're prepared to do, which is to put on a much more restrictive code of conduct which would indeed limit, more than the non-binding embargo that is theoretically there—and present, in fact—the potential arms that could be sold to China.
The Europeans would also insist that China sign the U.N. Convention on Civil and Political Rights, to tie it back to the human rights issue which was the source of the arms embargo in the first place. And the United States would commit, if it's going to retaliate at all, to retaliating against actions by Europeans—that is to say, weapons sales rather than this broad political move of lifting the arms embargo.
Now that seems like a reasonable foundation for compromise. Indeed, on Gordon's last point, it looks like Europe merely wants to lift the embargo without necessarily letting actual weapons flood into China. The EU's "Code of Conduct" was set up precisely to deter such sales, after all. But then again, what are the odds we'll actually see a reasonable compromise here? GOP lawmakers, like Rep. Duncan Hunter (R-CA), are already talking about breaking off military cooperation with Europe in retaliation for the lifted embargo. The president has already berated his European allies over the matter. It doesn't seem like there's a whole lot of trust here.
There's also a question of whether it makes sense for the U.S. to take such a strident stance toward China in this day and age. Especially since, as Brad Setser points out, the People's Republic is more or less financing our little adventures abroad and may soon get sick of picking up the tab... But that's another issue for another time.
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10:36 AM
War room envy
The Hill takes an inside look at the GOP's new communications juggernaut:
Conference Chairwoman Deborah Pryce (R-Ohio) announced the eight teams of members last week after initially introducing the strategy during last month’s bicameral Republican retreat in West Virginia.
The teams, each of which will focus on a particular set of legislative issues, are Retirement Security, Voter Values, Economic Competitiveness, War on Terror, Lawsuit Abuse and Affordability, Education and Career Opportunities, Healthcare Access and Affordability, and Waste, Fraud and Abuse.
Each team, apparently, will have a "designated pollster, who will serve as message adviser." And each issue team will have it's own rapid-response "war room." Hey, while we're on that topic, did you know that Congressional Democrats just recently got themselves war room of their own? It's a bit late—oh, okay, a decade late—but at least they have one now.
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9:52 AM
Anyone but Chalabi...
Even though everyone's favorite Iraqi con man, Ahmed Chalabi, has dropped out of the race for prime minister, it doesn't look like he'll stay down for very long. The Christian Science Monitor reports that top Shi'ites offered to make Chalabi "the top financial overseer in Iraq, responsible for oil, trade, and finance ministries in exchange for him withdrawing [from the PM race]." The AP, meanwhile, hints that Chalabi will get the post of deputy prime minister in charge of economic and security affairs.
Ah, yes. Economics and security affairs—Chalabi's specialty, no? To see why this might be a bad idea, let's go back and reread Michael Hirsh's account of a U.S. raid on Chalabi's office last May:
Thursday’s raid stems from a long-running probe by the Central Criminal Court of Iraq into financial corruption and criminal charges linked to [Chalabi's party,] the INC and its alleged efforts to profit illegally from Iraq’s reconstruction. Among the documents police were searching for relate to charges that INC officials profited from the introduction of a new currency. According to an official with the Coalition Provisional Authority, an INC-affiliated company was placed in charge of destroying the old currency, but “a lot of money was coming out again into circulation instead of being burned. Some of it had signs of partial burning.” The currency handover was supposed to be a one-to-one exchange, he said, “but we got a lot less in old money then we gave out.”
Among the felony counts already filed are theft of government property, theft of government money, misrepresentation and abuse of power, he said. Some of the other charges are connected to the INC’s seizure of government-owned homes and cars, especially through the group’s effective control of the Ministry of Finance, the CPA official said.
Add to Chalabi's fine dossier the fact that he's wanted for fraud in neighboring Jordan, and you have all the trappings of a man you really don't want handling your money. (He also reportedly passed American intelligence onto Iran, though we haven't heard much about that story of late.) But there's more—again, from Hirsh:
The CCCI is also investigating whether INC officials, including Chalabi and his intelligence chief, Aras Habib, misused the Baath Party files they seized upon being helped into Iraq early by the U.S. military. Chalabi ultimately became head of the De-Baathification Committee, and U.S. officials believe that some Iraqis have been threatened with blackmail by being identified as Baath Party members if they declined to do the INC’s bidding, the CPA official said.
One of the biggest tasks the fledgling Iraqi government will face over the next six months is to try to bring some of the Sunni insurgents back into the political process. That means convincing many of the ex-Baathists now fighting in the cities and countryside that they won't be hounded and persecuted if they lay down their arms. Some of these Baath fighters and supporters, after all, worked in Saddam's government merely to get ahead in life and committed no real crimes. Unfortunately, Chalabi has a rather well-known reputation for getting a bit too zealous in his Baath purges—to the point of blackmail and real persecution. At a time when the U.S. may (may) be making headway in talks with some of the Sunni insurgents, the last thing anyone needs is for Ahmed Chalabi to take the reins. No wonder the neo-cons are all cheering him on, then…
UPDATE: The Financial Times reports that the likely new prime minister, Ibrahim al-Jaaferi, may carry out some Baath purges of his own. His reasons for doing so—that Iraq's security services have been infiltrated by Saddam loyalists—sound plausible enough, especially in light of the curiously sophisticated attacks on Baghdad recently, attacks that might have required inside information. But this sort of thing can very quickly get out of hand. Just ask Ahmed Chalabi.
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1:53 PM
Three cheers for cronyism!
How are federal contractors being used to create a new "spoils system" in Washington? Nathan Newman has all the gory details here.
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1:45 PM
What to do about Russia?
The president's trip to Europe has been a bit boring so far, but he did manage to say a few surprisingly harsh words about Vladimir Putin's curious idea of "democracy" in Russia:
President Bush warned Russia yesterday that it "must renew a commitment to democracy and the rule of law" but said he believed that the nation's future lay "within the family of Europe and the trans-Atlantic community."…
"We recognize that reform will not happen overnight," Bush said. "We must always remind Russia, however, that our alliance stands for a free press, a vital opposition, the sharing of power and the rule of law -- and the United States and all European countries should place democratic reform at the heart of their dialogue with Russia."
Ferocious! Shortly thereafter, however, Putin politely told Bush to mind his own business. So it's unclear whether Bush will still like what he sees when he peers into his counterpart's soul this Thursday.
Beyond the snide commentary, though, where can we really expect U.S.-Russian relations to go in the second term? After all, in the president's first term, the White House was mostly just willing to turn a blind eye to Putin's creeping authoritarianism at home in exchange for cooperation on terrorism issues abroad. But it's hard to imagine that the White House still finds Russia's contributions in the "war on terror" very helpful. So a change is coming, and much has been made of the fact, meanwhile, that new Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice was trained as a Russian scholar and expected to implement a "real" Russian policy.
But beyond that, it's not clear what the U.S. can actually do. Russia has nearly paid off all its heavy IMF loans incurred during the 1990s, so there's no longer a debt lever to force Russia to behave. Meanwhile, Russia's Minister of Economic Development recently announced that he didn't much care for foreign investment, so the U.S. may find itself no longer able to pull economic levers of influence, as it could during the Yeltsin era. On the other hand, Fiona Hill, who has done a lot of great work on Russia for Brookings, recently noted at a Brookings forum that the gas and oil trade between Russia and Europe could turn out to be the most important factor here.
So this could become one of the few genuine points of transatlantic cooperation over the next few months. Looking more closely, it's fair to assume that, unlike on most things, the U.S. and Europe basically see eye-to-eye on the Russia issue. They're both worried about all that creeping authoritarianism, they're both worried about Russia exercising its influence over other European countries—as it did during the Ukrainian elections—and they both no doubt acknowledge that Russia has often been working at cross-purposes with them on various issues, including Iran. And critically, Russia may be an issue the U.S. can't tackle on its own.
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12:53 PM
Trail of torture lengthens
This past week, the ACLU released new documents from an the Army CID's investigation into U.S. torture of prisoners in Afghanistan and Iraq. One of the interviewed prisoners alleged that U.S. soldiers beat him with a baseball bat, dislocated his arms, choked him with a rope, and broke his nose by stepping on his face. The documents also describe investigations in bases in Iraq, Bagram, and Kandahar, revealing an ever-broadening trail of torture. Many of the investigations were closed due to "insufficient evidence to prove or disprove" allegations. There's also a new stockpile of "trophy photos."
For more on the wide scope of abuses and their systematic spread from Guantanamo and Abu Ghraib to other U.S. bases in the Middle East, see Emily Bazelon's "From Bagram to Abu Ghraib" in the March/April issue of Mother Jones.
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11:00 AM
Bush's balancing act on Syria
In the Weekly Standard last week, Lee Smith had an interesting take on U.S. relations with Syria:
The tricky part is how to rebuke Syria without adding luster to the Alawites' [i.e. the minority sect that rules Syria] Arab nationalist appeal. What [the Syrian rulers] most fear at this point is being isolated in a region where they have little natural-sectarian-constituency.
Now that's worth noting. I'm no expert on Syria, but reading over Josh Landis' account this morning—and he is an expert on Syria—it seems that events are already moving forward on their own. The Lebanese opposition to the Syrian presence there has united rather forcefully after the death of former prime minister Rafiq Hariri. Meanwhile, the Ba'th party in Syria "is in all time disarray." And see this account—Syrians workers are fleeing Lebanon. On the other hand, Syria doesn't appear to be seriously thinking about withdrawing its troops from Lebanon anytime soon.
What this all portends is difficult to say, but Western involvement here will necessarily be a delicate process. U.S. backing for any one side does tend to carry with it the "kiss of death," but recently Lebanese leaders have actually been calling for a greater Western role in pressuring Syria. Whether the White House can find that tricky balance between meddling and tactical reticence will be quite crucial.
(By the way, the Council on Foreign Relations has a good primer on Syria here.)
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10:28 AM
The myths behind malpractice
The New York Times today does due diligence on the myths behind rising malpractice insurance rates. Short version: Lawsuits aren't really to blame. Long version: Lawsuits aren't really to blame and we've got statistics to prove it!
But I do wish the Times had fleshed out this throwaway line: "Insurers acknowledge that they consider several factors besides claims costs in setting prices for doctors." That seems important: most medical insurance companies, after all, make their money on investments, rather than claims management. That means the companies try to give all doctors more or less equal rates—even those 5 percent of doctors responsible for over half of all malpractice payouts—in order to sign up as many doctors as possible. It also means that insurance rates depend primarily on how well the stock market is doing. There are all sorts of perverse incentives here that have nothing to do with preventing malpractice from actually occurring, which in any rational society would be the primary concern here.
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9:59 AM
Will women save Iraq?
After several weeks of backroom dealing, the United Iraqi Alliance finally agreed on the likely next prime minister in Iraq: Ibrahim al-Jaaferi, conservative spokesman for the Islamic Dawa party. But does that mean Iraq is all set to become an Islamic (and quasi-socialist) state? Possibly not. Juan Cole did a bit of musing today on why Ahmed Chalabi—a huckster without real grassroots support—could have posed such a challenge to the popular Jaaferi. One possibility: all the women in the Shi'ite alliance voted against Jaaferi, who favors implementing sharia (traditional Islamic law) in Iraq.
Now if Cole's right, that could mean a good deal for the future of Iraq. Assuming the UIA can get its cabinet approved, they would then have a 51 percent majority in the legislature, and could in theory pass any sort of Islamic law they felt like passing. On the other hand, the elections were set up so that women would receive a third of the legislative seats, so perhaps the fundamentalists don't have the majority they need to spread their "family values" far and wide. It's possible, of course, that Ayatollah Ali Sistani—who still wields tremendous authority over the legislature—will jump in and prevent this from happening, but who knows. (Swopa reminds us what happens to those who disrespect the Grand Ayatollah.)
So that's reason for optimism. But there's another possible downside here. Let's say that the women and secularists in the UIA prevail and prevent Iraq from becoming a sharia state. There are still, alas, regions of the country where Shi'ite fundamentalists remain extremely popular—Basra province, for instance, where the radical Sadrists won 29 percent of the vote. Potentially, if leaders from these provinces think Iraq's new constitution and political order too secular for their tastes, they could request to form their own autonomous "superprovince," as the Kurds are asking for up north.
A federalist Iraq sounds fine to many people, and it might well work. The trouble is that the provincial boundaries don't divide along neat sectarian lines. Sunnis may find themselves caught in the newly theocratic Basra, for instance, which could lead to mass exoduses. A Shi'ite south, moreover, would likely be ruled by radical parties, such as the Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution in Iraq (SCIRI) or Moqtada al-Sadr's movement, both of which have large militias—or, sorry, "pop-ups"—that could refuse to integrate with the regular Iraqi army. In other words, you have a country verging on anarchy and factionalism. It's all speculation, of course, but the worst-case scenarios are hardly out of reach here.
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