Week of: |
5:41 PM
Military budget update
When the Bush administration's $85 billion supplemental military spending request was first proposed in February, it was initially greeted by bipartisan outcries over the vagueness of its requests. But yesterday the Republican House Leadership suddenly overcame all their concerns and decided to okay the measure, paving the way for a final floor vote this spring.
The request, which provides funding for the "unpredictable cost of wars", namely in Afghanistan and Iraq, would also fund several other projects, including $592 million in funding for the single largest embassy in the world to be built on Iraq's soil. (For a critique of the original proposal, see this Slate article by Fred Kaplan) The embassy would house over 3,500 employees and fall under the State Department's authority. As the Washington Post reports, "House leaders said Rice assured them that the embassy would be built in 24 months, but that the money was needed up front to get contractors to bid because of the dangers involved."
While fully approving the President's war funds, the Congressmen cut down or cut out portions of the budget that they felt were merely "feel good" items, such as foreign assistance to countries like Afghanistan and to the Palestinian people, as well as funds for tsunami relief. Overall, this assistance was cut from $5.6 billion to around $3 billion. (For a breakdown of the original $5.6 read these remarks by Secretary Condoleeza Rice) There is no indication as of yet that the $5 billion slated for the restructuring of US Military forces, a line item which has met with aggressive opposition from Congress, has been altered. Overall, the request has been reduced to around $81 billion.
The Bush administration initially came under fire for including these restructuring costs as items in the supplemental budget, since they would require far less congressional scrutiny than they would if they were written in the regular budget. Many Democratic congressmen felt that this inclusion was inappropriate and several Republican congressmen are still expressing concerns. Democrats have yet to review or propose specific amendments to the budget, but it's clear that they'll have their work cut out for them in the Republican-stacked congress.
Link this
E-mail this
Print this
5:23 PM
The pink revolution?
While commentators cheer the spread of democracy throughout the Middle East, South America has just ushered in another leftist leader. Following the elections of Venezuela's Hugo Chavez, Ecuador's Lucio Gutierrez, Brazil's Luiz Inacio da Silva, and Argentina's Nestor Kirchner, Uruguay's first leftist president, Dr. Tabare Vazquez, has taken office.
Most of these leaders are far from the radical leftists of the days of yore. As New York Times' Larry Rohter puts it, "they are not so much a red tide as a pink one." Chavez is the one big exception here: nationalizing Venezeula's big businesses, building up his armed forces, stockpiling Russian-made weapons, and, more recently, accusing the Bush administration of trying to oust his government. But even though South America's other leftist leaders don't share Chavez's strident tone, they too are trying to move away from the open-market policies heavily influenced by Washington, and toward their own models of social democracy. Part of that shift has involved strengthening ties with other leftist governments in the region—including Cuba.
In Uruguay, Dr. Vazquez's second order of business—after proposing a dramatic increase in social spending—was to restore diplomatic relations with Cuba and announce that he "will tolerate no outside interference in our internal affairs." This may have just been a rhetorical move to appeal to Uruguay's public, which has yet to reap the benefits of foreign investment and freer trade. But Vazquez has also put himself in a position in which it would be hard not to deliver on his promises. Meanwhile, he has appointed former leftist guerrilla leaders, rebels, and other opponents of the former military governments, to important political posts.
It's too soon to tell whether these leftist governments will try to forge a unified Latin American movement. But the regimes are now looking toward alliances with Russia and China rather than with the United States. Similarly, countries like Brazil and Venezuela have been working toward a continental alliance modeled on the European Union. Thus far, they've produced nothing more than joint ventures and military cooperation. But it's worth keeping an eye on the upcoming presidential elections in countries like Bolivia, Chile, and Mexico, countries in which "pink" leaders are firmly in the running. And it will be interesting to see who takes the lead voice in this growing ideological shift (and whether or not they are smoking Cuban cigars).
Link this
E-mail this
Print this
4:49 PM
Brazil flirts with GMOs
In an effort to boost Brazil's agricultural economy and undermine a growing black market in soybeans, the nation's congress has overwhelmingly approved the use of genetically modified crops (GMOs), despite widespread opposition from environmentalists and scientists.
On the one hand, the recent use of genetically modified crops has helped push Brazil's soy production sky-high; but on the downside, it's also led to increased rates of deforestation. Without additional reforms in land use or environmental policy, widespread use of GMOs will likely lead to an even greater escalation in rates of deforestation in order to accommodate the market potential of the new crops. Although Biotech companies such as Monsanto plan to throw $20 million towards the endeavor, many legislators within President da Silva's Worker's Party have spoken out publicly against the decision.
Scientists, meanwhile, worry about the harmful side effects that GMOs may have on humans. (An outline of the potential dangers of consuming GMOs can be viewed here.) But despite all the uncertainty, Brazil has pushed ahead with economic interests and global competitiveness in mind, a far easier solution that combating the black market and competing with countries who already allow the crops.
Link this
E-mail this
Print this
2:45 PM
The next step in port security?
There's been a good deal of outcry over America's lax border security of late. The main worry is that a terrorist may be able to sneak nuclear material into the country in a cargo container coming by land or sea. With the extraordinarily high number of containers entering our country every day, it would be physically impossible to check even a reasonable percentage of them, while detectors, such as those used in airports, don't have the capability to "see" through the metal containers.
However, as the Economist reports, two scientists in Los Alamos National Laboratory, New Mexico, may have found a solution to the container problem, involving invisible particles called muons. The particles, which easily pass through metal, are deflected by uranium and plutonium and can be used to detect nuclear material.
Although the technology has yet to be developed, theoretically it could be used in ports and border crossings to examine the contents of each and every vehicle or container passing through. Unfortunately, although the power source is free—muons come from the sun after all—the detection equipment is expected to be quite expensive with early estimates coming in it at $1 billion per device.
Link this
E-mail this
Print this
4:11 PM
It's because he's black, isn't it?
In Zimbabwe, the March parliamentary elections are expected to be dominated by president Robert Mugabe's party. That's no real surprise considering that Mugabe has everything working for him: thugs to beat up the opposition, an undisclosed voters' roll that may include dead "voters", and, most abhorrent of all, the support of influential regional African leaders such as South African President Thabo Mbeki and Tanzania's President Benjamin Mkapa.
Recently, other West African nations proved effective at pressuring Togo's Faure Gnassingbe to step down after he seized power in a military coup. The Economic Community of West African States suspended Togo's membership, imposed an arms embargo, and sanctions in the name of restoring democracy in Togo. Sadly, no such pressure is present in the case of Zimbabwe and it all seems to boil down to the issue of race.
Tanzania's Mkapa claims that Zimbabwe is not poorly governed. The problem, he says, is with the opposition party, Movement for Democratic Change (MDC). Considering the MDC represents the only real opposition to Mugabe, and still doesn't even stand a chance in the corrupt and farcical elections, it's a perplexing accusation. Mkapa further ventured that the only reason westerners have a problem with Mugabe is because he has seized white-owned land and given it to blacks. This race card seems to be what is keeping Mkapa and Mbeki from intervening in Mugabe's destructive dictatorship. Indeed, whenever Mbeki is pressed on the issue of Mugabe's policies, he always brings it back to the issue of conflict between blacks and whites rather than addressing the more relevant issues such as human rights violations, growing poverty, hunger, unemployment, and corruption.
Mr. Mbeki has stated that he prefers a "quiet diplomacy" in regards to Zimbabwe. So far, it appears to be silent. The international community would do well to push for fair elections now before the country slips further into chaos and becomes a larger crisis than it already is. Already, a group of Zimbabwe NGOs formed to monitor and coordinate electoral activities has published a report stating that free and fair polls this March are infeasible.
Link this
E-mail this
Print this
3:56 PM
Bogus mercury "facts"
A new report (pdf) by Reps. Richard Pombo (R-CA) and Jim Gibbons (R-NV) about mercury deposits, entitled "Mercury in Perspective: Fact and Fiction About the Debate Over Mercury," would have been more aptly titled if the word "fact" had simply been stricken out. Both Chris Mooney and Amanda Griscom Little dissect the Pombo/Gibbons report, which tries to convince readers that mercury actually poses little harm to humans, despite the countless medical and scientific studies saying otherwise. The report comes just as the EPA is set to finalize its new mercury policy by March 15.
The report notes that the U.S. portion of global mercury emissions is a mere 2 percent and that the portion due to coal-fired power plants is a mere 0.8 percent. So far so good. They then go on to argue, however, that this small percentage justifies the assertion that even if mercury were a problem, its not our problem, nor is it the fault of our power plants. Secondly, the report argues that natural emissions make up 61% of all mercury emissions worldwide and that the presence of mercury in our environment is perfectly acceptable and normal. While natural mercury emissions do make up a large portion of all mercury emitted (61% is debatably high), there is far more to the story here.
Naturally-emitted mercury is composed almost entirely of "elemental mercury" which at environmental levels is not really harmful to humans. Moreover, it can remain airborne for over two years and gets transported all across the globe. Power plants, on the other hand, emit far more "reactive gas mercury" which is heavier and falls out of the sky within a matter of hours or days. As a result, locations downwind receive a high dosage of this form of mercury. While not toxic in natural doses, reactive mercury is highly "reactive", and is easily converted into "methylmercury" in aquatic environments where it is ingested by fish and quickly makes its way up the food chain. Methylmercury is quite dangerous to humans, particularly pregnant women, whose babies can suffer severe birth defects.
Non-natural mercury emissions from other countries, notably Eastern Europe and Asia, are also a problem for the United States. The non-natural elemental mercury produced abroad usually has no trouble making the journey over here. The situation is exacerbated by high levels of pollution which aids in the formation of reactive mercury. Scientists have discovered that rain events in California show nine times the rainout of reactive mercury when pollution from Eastern sources is present than would otherwise occur.
Nevertheless, the EPA estimates that 60 percent of the mercury that falls to the surface in the U.S. is from American non-natural sources, most of which is attributable to power plants. But perhaps Pombo and Gibbons know all that. As Chris Mooney surmises, they may have something else in mind entirely:
Pombo & Co. officially come out in favor of cap and trade, but there's a disconnect: Reading their report gives the impression that there's no reason to regulate mercury at all. Indeed a cynic might even suspect Pombo and Gibbons of staking out an extreme denialist position on mercury risks to make the Bush stance seem more moderate and reasonable. That would be a clever strategy, certainly – provided you don't mind treating scientific information about risks to American children as political football.
Link this
E-mail this
Print this
1:21 PM
Who are these ankle bracelets for, exactly?
The Department of Homeland Security is trying to crack down on immigrants. In a new trial program, immigrants will be required to wear electronic ankle bracelets like those used to monitor suspected criminals under house arrest. The program targets immigrants whose status is still pending, including asylum seekers. An NPR morning addition report yesterday showcased two immigrants who have been forced to wear the bands, and neither is much of a flight risk. One is an immigrant from Belize who has been in the country for 5 years, owns a house, pays taxes, and has worked his way up from dishwasher to assistant manager of a restaurant. The other is a woman who fled Liberia's civil war (after rebels killed her children, husband, father, and gang raped her), has been living in the U.S. for almost 10 years and has remarried an American citizen.
A problem may exist regarding immigrants falling off the radar, but this isn’t necessarily due to the immigrants evading the law. A Justice Department report (pdf) from 2003 blamed U.S. immigration officials for losing track of non-detained immigrants. So, while money is being spent on the creation of task forces to track down illegal immigrants, these forces might not even know where to look. That’s because the database that keeps track of immigrants' addresses remains full of glitches and sorely under-funded. The report is pretty damning and well worth the read:
Our 1996 report also cited the lack of accurate address information for aliens as an obstacle to their removal. Our interviews and recent reports…confirm that the INS continues to face significant data accuracy problems. During this review, we compared data from the INS’s and EOIR’s alien case tracking and management systems and found name, nationality, and case file number discrepancies, as well as cases missing from the electronic files.
Victor Cerda of Homeland Security says they will experiment with the electronic ankle trackers for 6 more months. If they like the results, Homeland Security's Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS) may require every non-citizen who is applying to permanently stay in the United States to wear the anklets while their status is pending. That is, if they don't forget that the experiment ever happened in the first place—which is apparently a big 'if'. According to the 2003 DoJ report,
The INS agreed to conduct field tests to target for removal of all aliens with final orders and informed us that a limited duration pilot project conducted at the Philadelphia field office had positive results. Based on those results, the INS told us that it was considering conducting tests at two additional field sites. However, the INS was neither able to provide any information regarding these pilot projects at any of the three locations, nor able to locate anyone who could remember the projects.
I'm feeling safer already.
Link this
E-mail this
Print this
11:00 AM
Not just for the elderly...
The Poverty and Race Research Action Council has a new report (pdf) on how 3.1 million children receive Social Security benefits in America, thanks to the program's crucial disability benefits and protections for widows. Indeed, these features often seem like minor details, but 3.1 million children works out to around 1 in 12 of all Social Security beneficiaries, and that's roughly equal to the 3.8 million children receiving welfare benefits. The president, as we know, is still too terrified to put forward a specific privatization proposal, but any plan that diverted payroll taxes into private accounts would certainly undercut Social Security's Trust Fund, making it all but impossible for the program to pay out survivor or disability benefits. For those keeping track, that's about half of all Social Security beneficiaries. Hey, someone tell little Noah!
As the report's author, Will Spriggs, writes, "far from Social Security being a fight of the young versus the old, the program is really about family security, young and old." It's too bad that "think of the children!" doesn't seem to be an effective rallying cry these days—who do you think suffers from steep GOP cuts to Medicaid and public housing assistance?—but, well, think of the children.
Link this
E-mail this
Print this
10:20 AM
Where's the action on Sudan?
The Center for American Progress has started cranking up the outrage over genocide in Darfur, and it's worth highlighting their efforts today. Nick Kristof has also been doing yeoman's work on this subject in the New York Times—in particular stumping for the Darfur Accountability Act to pass through Congress, which would enable more concrete action via the African Union.
So where's the action? We've all heard about how the U.S. refuses to help prosecute the culprits behind the massacres all because it would require use of the International Criminal Court. And the ICG's John Prendergrast recently explained to Mother Jones how the lucrative oil and arms businesses with Sudan have helped to slow the international response. But today the Progress Report also caught yet another impediment to action:
SAVING CASH FOR CONTRACTORS: One reason that some of the funds for the African Union have been held up: a big chunk of the money has remained in the United States to pay private military contractors. Detouring work through outside private contracting groups (which, after all, are in it to make a profit) drains precious resources, is overly expensive, notoriously slow and an inefficient use of money. Nevertheless, the State Department has allocated over $20 million to Pacific Architects and Engineers (PAE), which has a "record of allegedly overcharging the United Nations in the Democratic Republic of the Congo," and DynCorp, a company officially sanctioned in Afghanistan for overly aggressive behavior, investigated for sex trafficking in the Balkans, and suspected of drug running in South America.
That should speak for itself. One other much-neglected point, though. Calls to "do something" in Sudan are certainly noble, and indeed, so long as genocide continues, something ought to be done to stop it. But Sudan is also a living, breathing country with its own history, internal fractions, and messy politics. Unless that situation is better understood, a peace settlement could end up making the situation worse or prolong the violence—as seems to have happened with Rwanda and the Democratic Republic of the Congo. The Darfur rebels, note, have largely been supported and even encouraged by Hassan al-Turabi, the former Sudanese Islamist leader who sheltered Osama bin Laden and Ayman al-Zawihiri during the early 1990s. Turabi's ouster by current president Omar al-Bashir may have led him to foment the current rebellion as part of an ugly power struggle in the nation's capital. So there's a lot going on here, and while that's no excuse for doing nothing—one would hope that's not the reason the White House has been catastrophically slow in coming to Darfur's aid—it's a reason for caution.
Link this
E-mail this
Print this
4:39 PM
No more clean needles
The U.S. is pressuring the United Nations to stop using needle exchange programs as part of a campaign to decrease HIV/AIDS worldwide. You might think the U.S. won't get anywhere with this, given that experts have shown time and again that needle exchange programs are among the most successful in stemming HIV transmission. But the U.S. is the largest donor to the UN's Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC), which currently chairs the UN program on HIV/AIDS. That means the Bush administration is in a prime position to push its weight around.
The administration's already done some damage. According to Human Rights Watch, UNODC director Antonio Costa, a former proponent of needle exchange programs, recently pledged to review UNODC documents for any references to needle exchange and avoid such references in the future. The announcement followed a meeting with U.S. Assistant Secretary for International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs Robert Charles.
The U.S. is currently the only country in the world that has explicitly banned the use of funds for needle exchange programs. Yet U.S. groups such as the American Medical Association have proven through studies that needle exchange programs are not only effective in HIV/AIDS prevention, but that the programs show no evidence of causing an increase in drug abuse.
Next week, the 48th session of the Commission on Narcotic Drugs will take place in Vienna. One of the focal points of the meeting's agenda is HIV prevention in relation to drug abuse. It will be interesting to see whether this attempted arm-twisting will be addressed and tackled head-on as it should be.
Link this
E-mail this
Print this
12:41 PM
Bush's abortion obsession
Back in 1980, the United States signed on to the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW). But, unlike the 179 other signatories, the U.S. is the sole country that has yet to ratify the convention. Nevertheless, the Bush administration thinks that fact should not prevent them from having a say on what's included in the convention. Now, in an ongoing UN session—which is being held primarily to reaffirm the original convention—the White House is pushing for an amendment stating that the document does not afford women the right to abortion.
The Bush administration's monomaniacal focus on abortion could stand in the way of the session's original purpose: an endorsement of the much broader and much more important advancement of women's rights world-wide. The main thrust of the document, after all, is to extend women the same legal, health, work, political, and educational rights afforded to men. The word "abortion" doesn't even appear in the actual document. The words "reproductive" and "reproduction" appear only five times. Furthermore, their appearance is only in the context of a woman's right to health services, referring to access to health care and "access to information and advice" on family planning. It would be an embarrassment for the United States to be the sole country delaying the reaffirmation of this important document by pushing a ideological point that isn't even relevant.
Link this
E-mail this
Print this
11:04 AM
Gingrich takes on Medicaid
A few weeks ago, the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities wrote up a good analysis of Medicaid noting that, if anything, the government-funded program that provides health care for low-income families was keeping its costs down surprisingly well. Most of the increase over the past few years has been due to an increase in enrollment—thanks especially to the rickety job market and falling incomes during the first Bush administration—and not due to some fundamental inefficiency. Of course, we all know that the whole point of the White House's attack on Medicaid is to free up money to pay for tax cuts, but let's not pretend the overt motive is sound either.
On that note, then, there's much to agree with in Newt Gingrich's Washington Post op-ed today, when he says the debate over Medicaid shouldn't hinge on the money alone. But Gingrich goes on to suggest that Medicaid is forced to take care of a bunch of drastically different groups of people—the poor, the elderly poor, and people with disabilities—and should be divided up accordingly. That's odd. It's true that the elderly and disabilities account for the vast bulk of Medicaid's costs, but there's no obvious reason to separate them out of the program.
No, the real problem is that Medicaid is too small. That's right, too small. Many of the program's eligibility rules are so complex that poor families are often deterred from joining—or else aren't even aware that they're eligible. So it doesn't even cover everyone it should be covering. Meanwhile, thanks to the wild income swings experienced by many Americans, families keep bobbing over and under the income threshold to qualify for the program, thus leading to erratic coverage. With such high turnover, managed-care providers don't have much incentive to invest in their patients for the long-term, using the sort of "modern information technology systems" that leave Gingrich agog. These are real problems, and the only answer is to integrate Medicaid into some sort of universal health care system. Nothing less will fix any of this.
On the contrary, Gingrich's proposed "reform" on health care for the poor—offering them tax credits to buy their own care—is horrendous. Leave aside his snooty assumption that the poor visit the emergency room for the fun of it. (Susan Madrak skewered that "insight" here, but she could've also noted that many doctors simply won't see Medicaid beneficiaries, and emergency rooms are often a last resort.) Gingrich wants to force the poor to pay their own way up front, to "encourage a more rational use of health care," but this will contain costs only in the sense that people will be deterred from actually seeking out care. In the long term, as economist Jonathan Gruber has shown, Medicaid is actually a cheaper and more efficient way of covering the uninsured than tax credits or private savings accounts. It's best to stick with what we have, and strengthen it, until someone can create something better.
Link this
E-mail this
Print this
10:32 AM
Is the Sunni insurgency losing?
Spencer Ackerman notices some good news out of Iraq: the Association of Muslim Scholars, a Sunni umbrella group that opposes the U.S. occupation, has denounced the vicious suicide bombings over the last few days, especially the one that killed 125 innocent Iraqis in Hilla. Indeed, when the news first broke, one of my first thoughts was that the situation could end up resembling the 1997 Luxor Hotel massacre in Egypt, which was so horrifying that the group responsible, al-Gama'a Islamiyya, alienated most of its Egyptian supporters and really deflated the radical Islamist movement within the country. The comparison isn't entirely apt—Gama'a Islamiyaa was primarily a lower-class movement in the first place, while the Sunni insurgency has broad middle class support in Iraq—and the ensuing bloody crackdown in Egypt, of course, isn't really a model to emulate, but anything that tamps down the violence is a good thing. Much hinges, though, as Spencer notes, on whether Iraqis start blaming their new government for failing to provide security, or rally behind it.
UPDATE: Meanwhile, swopa works his usual dot-connecting magic and notices that that high-ranking insurgent official captured a few days back may well have been one of the two key leaders of the entire insurgency. One hopes so.
Link this
E-mail this
Print this
10:09 AM
Casting blame for bankruptcy
Over at the Angry Bear site, Kash has a terrific explanation of what's so terrible about the bankruptcy bill floating around the Senate. The only thing to be said in the bill's favor, of course, are that credit card companies love it—it makes it harder for people to discharge their debts—and it comforts those who think hordes of Americans are filing for bankruptcy simply to escape frivolous debt. As if it was all in good fun. Just listen to Sen. Bill Frist: "For too many people, bankruptcy is no longer a last resort. It has become a first stop."
But you could look at the flip-side. For too many credit card companies, shoving high-risk, high-interest loans on those who can least afford it is no longer a last resort. It has become a first stop—and a prime money-maker. Kash argues that the credible threat of bankruptcy keeps lenders honest and the market working efficiently. Maybe. But it seems there's a deeper problem here, one in which the market is never truly efficient. Consumers quite obviously don't have full information about the risks associated with signing up for a credit card with a $10,000 limit. (As Elizabeth Warren once pointed out, "[I]f the market were working properly, how could Citibank sell 40 percent of its high-priced subprime mortgages to families with good credit who would have qualified for low-cost mortgages.") If anything, a dose of regulation is in order. Instead, the Senate wants to push the other way.
Link this
E-mail this
Print this
3:11 PM
Bring back Bono!
Apparently two of the top candidates for the next president of the World Bank are former Hewlett Packard CEO Carleton Fiorina and deputy secretary of defense Paul Wolfowitz. Fiorina, like current World Bank president James Wolfensohn, is well-known in business circles and dabbles in economic development issues on the side. But Fiorina's career has revolved mostly around business and banking. It's unfortunate that those who have dedicated their lives to the study of economic development—how about Nobel Prize winner Amartya Sen?—aren't more seriously considered. If the World Bank is interested in moving towards sustainable human development and better coordination with the UN, the names thrown around thus far seem a bit curious. Wolfowitz? That's just silly.
Link this
E-mail this
Print this
2:01 PM
Let the lawsuits begin
The State Department recently released its 2004 Country Reports on Human Rights Practices, which included a list of alleged human rights abuses by the interim Iraqi government. Said one State Department official, "What it shows is that we don't look the other way. There are countries we support and that are friends, and when they have practices that don't meet international standards, we don't hesitate to call a spade a spade."
Luckily, neither do Human Rights First and the ACLU, who today announced that they will bring a lawsuit against Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld in federal court over his responsibility for torture and abuse of detainees in U.S. custody. The suit was filed on behalf of eight men who were held in U.S. detention facilities in Afghanistan and Iraq. All eight have been released and none were ever charged with a crime. The HRF/Human Rights First statement charged that the clients "were subjected to torture and other cruel degrading treatment, including severe and repeated beatings, cutting with knives, sexual humiliation and assault, mock executions, death threats, and restraint in contorted and excruciating positions."
Bolstered by some 23,000 pages of documents released under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA), the lawyers have widespread documentation of abuses stretching back to 2002, when the FBI first began to complain about interrogation techniques being used by the military.
Human Rights First and the ACLU have also filed lawsuits against Colonal Thomas Pappas, Brigadier General Janis Karpinski, and Lt. General Ricardo Sanchez, charging that all three officers bore responsibility for the abuses at Abu Ghraib prison. Hopefully, some enforceable precedents will be set to prevent the continued abuse of prisoners still detained in Afghanistan, Iraq, and Guantanamo.
Link this
E-mail this
Print this
9:35 AM
A new ruling on Padilla
There were two U.S. citizens detained in Guantanamo and deemed "enemy combatants" by the Bush administration: Yaser Esam Hamdi (the plaintiff in Hamdi v. Rumsfeld) and Jose Padilla. Hamdi has since been released without charge. While Hamdi was captured abroad, Padilla was arrested in Chicago's O'Hare airport. He was held as a material witness and the government charged that he was planning to set off a "dirty bomb" in the U.S. When Padilla challenged the warrant on which he was arrested, President Bush ordered the Pentagon to assign "enemy combatant" status to Padilla. This led to his military custody and detainment in Guantanamo.
The question raised by Padilla's case is why the Bush administration did not simply pursue the usual legal venues to charge Padilla and detain him within the United States. In a federal court ruling (pdf) handed down yesterday, Judge Henry Floyd remarked, "the Court finds that the President's subsequent decision to detain Petitioner [Padilla] as an enemy combatant was neither necessary nor appropriate." Most of Floyd's opinion pointed to the superficial nature of the Justice Department's legal arguments that attempted to justify Padilla's detainment as an "enemy combatant." Floyd, note, was appointed to the U.S. District Court by President Bush himself in 2003, and his damning opinion is worth quoting at length. In response to the White House argument that Padilla's detainment was legal simply because the President determined that Congress said it was, Floyd writes:
Certainly Respondent does not intend to argue here that, just because the President states that Petitioner's detention is 'consistent with the laws of the United States'…that makes it so. Not only is such a statement in direct contravention to the well settle separation of powers doctrine, it is simply not the law. Moreover, such as statement is deeply troubling. If such a position were ever adopted by the courts, it would totally eviscerate the limits placed on Presidential authority to protect the citizenry's individual liberties.Judge Floyd concludes:
[T]he Court is of the firm opinion that it must reject the position posited by the Respondent. To do otherwise would not only offend the rule of law and violate this country's constitutional tradition, but it would also be a betrayal of this Nation's commitment to the separation of powers that safeguards our democratic values and individual liberties.Ouch. The court's decision, which will lead to an order to release Padilla unless criminal charges are brought against him, also established some new precedents. The federal Non-Detention Act, which bars the detention of any citizen without approval by Congress, has long been ignored by the Bush administration, which claims that the Act does not apply to "enemy combatants." Judge Floyd rejected this argument. Similarly, it asserted that President Bush has no "inherent authority" to act alone (without Congress) in deeming people "enemy combatants."
Floyd suggested numerous other venues with which to legally pursue terrorists and terrorist activity. Echoing Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia's dissenting opinion in Hamdi v. Rumsfeld, Floyd listed some 13 criminal statutes that are available for the Bush administration to use in the fight against terrorism, all of which are within the boundaries of the law. His message to the Bush administration was that if it was lacking the necessary legal measures in the war on terror, it would behoove the administration to approach Congress and request that they make appropriate modifications rather than just making stuff up and having lawyers try to put together shoddy post hoc legal justifications.
1:52 PM
Bad accounting or extortion? You decide!
In other "it would probably be funny if it wasn't actually happening" budget news, Noah Shachtman takes note of the Pentagon's latest budget two-step. It goes something like this: First you take out some of the money set aside for soldiers' paychecks, and use as desired. Then, when it actually comes time to pay the soldiers, you go to Congress and demand it fork over additional "supplemental funds", lest the soldiers go broke and start foraging in garbage cans for food. Needless to say, members of Congress usually declare themselves anti-foraging for garbage, and approve the extra funds immediately.
1:49 PM
No crutches for you!
The Center on Budget and Policy Priorities has a new report out on the true costs of Bush's proposed "tough" budget, both now and far into the future. No surprise, it's worse than expected. Education? Slashed! HIV/AIDS treatment funding? Hacked! Food assistance to pregnant women, infants, and children? Chopped! You get the idea. The GOP is also, it seems, snatching crutches out of the arms of the crippled. By the way, the CBPP released another important report back in January with a rather vivid pie chart—the bulk of the deficits since 2001 have come about not because the government was giving out too many crutches to the crippled, but because of tax cut legislation that was unaffordable. So these cuts won't get us much closer to fiscal sanity. Meanwhile, a growing number of economists now think the long-term drag on economic growth from the deficits will outweigh or cancel out any gains from the tax cuts. But hey, on the plus side, having fewer crutches really promotes the sort of "rugged individualism" that made this country what it is today.
12:47 PM
Drumbeat for Allawi
As'ad Abu Khalil and the pseudonymous Abu Aardvark notice that the pro-U.S. Arab media is trying to create a groundswell for Ayad Allawi to stay on as Iraq's Prime Minister. Al-Hurra, the U.S.-owned radio station, seems to be snatching these rumors out of thin air, as can be expected. What's no less surprising is that al-Arabiya, a Saudi-owned TV station, is also pushing this story—they've been doing this for some time. Presumably the station is trying to get on the good side of the United States, which views al-Arabiya as a force for "liberalization" (i.e. pro-U.S. sentiment) and a "benign" alternative to its main competitor, al-Jazeerah. (The Saudi royal family likes this too: Al-Jazeerah tends to criticize the Saudi regime frequently, whereas al-Arabiya takes great care not to inflame Arab nationalist or Islamic sentiments.)
At any rate, swopa notices that the New York Times has joined in on the fictitious groundswell, plumping for Jaafari as the great secular hope. And behind the scenes, American diplomats "have been privately urging the main political leaders to work for a broad-based government"—which means they will ask the Kurds to support an Allawi government, rather than one run by religious Shiites.
The dangers in pushing too far to meddle in the new Iraqi government should be obvious. True, Allawi may cut a less polarizing figure than the current front-runner for prime minister, Ibrahim al-Jaaferi, and he would be less likely to push for sharia (traditional Islamic law) in Iraq. At the same time, he hasn't done very well in reaching out to the Sunnis—last November, the influential Association of Muslim Scholars, a Sunni umbrella group, held Allawi personally responsible for the attacks on Fallujah. Overt American backing, moreover, only fuels the widespread "Allawi is a U.S. puppet" meme, essentially rendering him the last person on earth who can put Iraq back together again. This is no way to build legitimacy for the new Iraqi government.
11:03 AM
Politicizing the SSA
Ah, I see the indefatigable Henry Waxman—whose Government Reform Minority Office seems to be the only place doing any real investigating these days—has just released a new report (pdf) on the increasing politicization of the Social Security Administration. The SSA's official booklet now says "Social Security must change." Press releases encourage Americans to think those guaranteed benefits will up and vanish soon. And so on. Charming. The overt point, of course, is to use a supposedly neutral government entity to wage partisan warfare on a healthy and successful Democratic program. But we knew that. The covert aim, meanwhile, seems to be to undermine trust in government altogether. It's so much easier, after all, to phase out a program that's slinging around mud and getting involved in an increasingly ugly political fight.
10:39 AM
Risk and bankruptcy
Conservative Hugh Hewitt asks a question: "What if Bush accomplishes everything on his agenda except social security reform before the elections of 11/06?" Perhaps he's just trying to put a happy face on what's looking more and more like a resounding defeat for the president, but he also has a point. There's a lot out there on the "ownership agenda" besides Social Security, and much of it is really quite pernicious. Starting today, Republicans are looking to shove through their much-cherished bankruptcy bill through the Senate, which would make it harder for families to declare bankruptcy and avoid credit-card debt. Thanks to heavy lobbying by the credit card industry, many Democrats—including, it seems, that much-lauded "centrist," Hillary Clinton—are willing to go along. They shouldn't.
If we want to talk about growing economic risk—and Peter Gosselin's Los Angeles Times series on the subject is a great place to start—bankruptcy and credit card debt is a big part of it. The deregulation of the lending industry in the 1980s started a trend whereby credit card companies could charge increasingly high rates and hence target increasingly lower-income families. (Bigger risk but bigger reward.) When the debt starts piling up, card companies swoop in to target those families with financial problems and bad credit, offering them "special one-time loans" stuffed to the gills with insanely high rates and fees. Even though many of these families eventually go bankrupt, the high rates ensure that companies like Citigroup make a good chunk of their profits off financially vulnerable families. Now, with the new bankruptcy bill, the lenders want to make sure they can collect even more. Rather than reduce economic risk, the new bill will only make the downside that much more dire.
Democrats are right to focus most of their attention on Social Security—after all, it's the biggest, most successful, and most popular social insurance program around. But it's certaom;y not the only aspect of social insurance that deserves attention, and many of the smaller items on the GOP agenda can do just as much harm in exposing the American worker to an increasing amount of economic risk.
10:13 AM
The CID stonewalls
If you want to know whether or not the Army Criminal Investigation Division (CID) is investigating allegations of criminal conduct by employees of private contractors in Iraq and Afghanistan, well, you'll just have to guess. Recently I sent a list of contractors to the CID with an inquiry as to which ones were currently under investigation. A representative responded by saying, "if you had a specific allegation or specific circumstances, I may be able to assist." The logic here seems to be that if you want to find out which contractors have criminal allegations against them, you must first guess which contractors have criminal allegations against them. Furthermore, you have to guess (correctly) what the allegations are. Now it's up to the media to keep an eye on these contractors, but without access to the relevant information here, this is awfully hard to do.
10:05 AM
The "cost" of environmental regulation
As the Clear Skies Act is set to come up for a vote in Congress over the next few days, and with a debate expected over the costs and benefits of more stringent pollution controls, it's worth taking a closer look at Clear Skies' predecessor, the Clean Air Act. The Environmental Protection Agency released two studies (with a third on the way) that take a hard look at the costs and benefits of the Clean Air Act in the United States—on both our health and pocketbooks—and the results reflect extremely well on environmental regulation.
The EPA's first study looked at the effect that the Clean Air Act had in its first twenty years (1970 to 1990), and the results are staggering. For a total cost of $537 billion, the Act managed to reduce several dangerous gases by 30 to 40 percent, reduce particulate matter by 75 percent, and lead by 99 percent, all told saving an estimated 205,000 lives. The study also calculated money saved due to, among other things improved health and worker productivity. The result? The United States saved somewhere between 5.6 and 49.4 trillion dollars—with a best estimate of $22 trillion dollars—a return obviously far above and beyond the initial investment.
The second report, which looks at the period between 1990 to 2010, evaluates the effects that the Clean Air Act revisions of 1990 have had above and beyond the baseline goals. The revisions reduced emissions even further, and saved additional lives, all told saving an estimated $510 billion dollars at a cost of a mere $27 billion. Sounds like a good deal to me. On an added note, Both reports also indicate that without the Clean Air Act, our most heavily-polluted cities would rival Bangkok, Bombay and Delhi in air quality.
9:49 AM
Sea-change in the Middle East
Is freedom on the march? Protests in Lebanon have just caused the pro-Syrian government to resign, and that, coupled with the near-earth-shaking news over the weekend that Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak would allow multi-candidate presidential elections, certainly bodes well. The White House, wisely it seems, has tried to stay quiet about all of this, letting the demonstrators themselves take the credit. (And in all honesty, it is hard to tell how much effect U.S. pro-democratic rhetoric has really had on both Egypt and Lebanon; many of these developments have been boiling beneath the surface for a good long while.)
But there's still vast room for improvement. Issandr El Amrani notes that the Egyptian elections will still be carried out under severe constraints; in particular, it seems unlikely that Islamist candidates from the Muslim Brotherhood will be allowed to run. Perhaps there's good reason not to let them run this time around, but they can't be sidelined forever, and eventually the push to open up elections will likely have to come from the United States. As well, while it may be a cliché to say that "one election does not a democracy make," this is doubly or triply true in Egypt, where a ramshackle constitution, an unwieldy body of legislation, and a wholly subdued judiciary have created a state that doesn't really have a functioning rule of law. Even if Egyptians did vote Mubarak out of office, the system would remain dysfunctional. The other big fear is that Mubarak will likely win his elections—he does have big advantages of the incumbent, after all—and then use the occasion to argue that reform is underway, and nothing further is necessary anytime soon. Again, constant pressure from the White House will be crucial; no resting on laurels here.
So that's the big challenge. On a very related note, Middle East scholar Martin Kramer recently reviewed Natan Sharansky's book, The Case for Democracy—the book the president has claimed as his guiding light on foreign policy—and noted that some of the attention to "freedom" in the Middle East is misguided. Lots of Middle Easterners, obviously, want freedom from their autocratic regimes. But it's not clear that there's an equally developed sense of what Kramer calls "freedom of"—i.e., a full sense of the rights and liberties inherent in a functioning democracy. Now I can't speak for most Muslims, so I don't know if Kramer's right or not, but his caution is well-taken, and augurs for at least as much focus on the actual mechanisms of democracy as on liberation from despotic regimes. The Bush administration has shown itself quite good at promoting the latter—at least in select countries—but it will need to keep a watchful eye on the institution part as well.
9:13 AM
A real Iran policy?
The Washington Post's Robin Wright reports that the Bush administration may finally be ready to negotiate with Iran over its nuclear program. The White House still won't negotiate directly, but they're finally willing to offer a few tangible incentives—like WTO membership—if Tehran disarms. Last week Iran experts Ray Takeyh and Ken Pollack advocated just such an approach in Foreign Affairs, arguing that U.S. economic clout could entice some of Iran's more "pragmatic" leaders into shelving Tehran's nuclear program.
If this all pans out, kudos to the Bush administration for at least trying to do something different. Meanwhile, I see that in recent weeks both the Weekly Standard and the National Review have come out rather stridently against any form of "appeasement" vis-à-vis Iran. So it will be interesting to see whether the hawks fall meekly in line behind the president, or whether the president backs down from this little "trial balloon," or whether a real carrot and stick policy actually succeeds—at which point we'll all have to wonder why this wasn't tried two years ago.