Obsidian Wings

For Your Reading Enjoyment:

The National Strategy on Iraq.  Actually this looks as if it has been cut-and-pasted from a PowerPoint presentation, but otherwise presented without comment*.  Here's your chance to analyze it before hilzoy has done her usual thorough dissection.  Don't wait for the back of the book to show up, give it a shot.

Books And Blogging

by hilzoy

Naomi Baron has a rather silly op-ed in the LATimes. (Short version: now that students have Google, they don't have to read books. This threatens their ability to understand sustained arguments. Short answer: Baron is a professor. She can assign papers that require students to construct sustained arguments, and she can require drafts, which would let her tell the students exactly where they're falling short before the paper is due.)

What makes this interesting is that Kevin Drum and Jeanne d'Arc have similar responses to this piece. Kevin Drum:

"It's not just that I spend less time reading books, it's that I find my mind wandering when I do read. After a few paragraphs, or maybe a page or two, I'll run into a sentence that suddenly reminds me of something — and then spend the next minute staring into space thinking of something entirely unrelated to the book at hand. Eventually I snap back, but obviously this behavior reduces both my reading rate and my reading comprehension.

Is this really because of blogging? I don't know for sure, but it feels like it's related to blogging, and it's a real problem. As wonderful as blogs, magazines, and newspapers are, there's simply no way to really learn about a subject except by reading a book — and the less I do that, the less I understand about the broader, deeper issues that go beyond merely the outrage of the day."

Jeanne d'Arc:

"I find that the more I read online, the less I read off. I don't think it's even a matter of using up my reading time. It actually destroys brain cells or something, because if I've been doing too much online reading, I lose the patience for following a sustained or subtle argument, or reading a complex novel. One of my reasons for frequent blogging disappearances is recovery: I need to get away from the fast and facile and let my brain heal. It actually feels like recovering a bit of humanity that I forgot I had."

My experience is exactly the opposite of theirs.

Cunningham Resigns. Good Riddance.

by hilzoy

Today, Duke Cunningham pled guilty to accepting bribes, among other things, and resigned from Congress. From the WaPo:

"Rep. Randy "Duke" Cunningham, an eight-term congressman and hotshot Vietnam War fighter jock, pleaded guilty to graft and tearfully resigned Monday, admitting he took $2.4 million in bribes from defense contractors to steer business their way.

"The truth is I broke the law, concealed my conduct, and disgraced my office," the 63-year-old Republican said at a news conference. "I know that I will forfeit my freedom, my reputation, my worldly possessions, most importantly, the trust of my friends and family." He could get up to 10 years in prison at sentencing Feb. 27 on federal charges of conspiracy to commit bribery and fraud, and tax evasion.

Investigators said Cunningham, a member of a House Appropriations subcommittee that controls defense dollars, secured contracts worth tens of millions of dollars for those who paid him off. Prosecutors did not identify the defense contractors.

Cunningham was charged in a case that grew out of an investigation into the sale of his home to a defense contractor at an inflated price. The congressman had already announced in July -- after the investigation became public -- that he would not seek re-election next year. But until he entered his plea, he had insisted he had done nothing wrong."

Liar.

Long before this story broke, it was obvious that Cunningham was a repulsive man who had no business serving in Congress. (I mean, what other word is there for someone who said that the Congressional leadership (in 1992) ""ought to be lined up and shot"?) His district should be ashamed to have elected him, with or without the bribery scandals.

But taking bribes is much, much worse. And taking bribes to steer business to defense contractors is worse still. Let's be clear about what this means: a contractor who thinks he would not get a contract in open competition, presumably because he either does substandard work or charges more than his competitors, decides to rig the system by paying off someone to steer contracts to him anyways. At best, in a case in which the contractor does do competent work, but overcharges for it, this means that our money is not being well spent. And these are our tax dollars, which should be used for our benefit, not Duke Cunningham's. But in the worst case, it means that contracts on which the defense of our country and the lives of our soldiers might depend are given not to those who will do the best job, but to those who have the best connections.

No one who does this -- who allows his concern for our defense and the lives of our soldiers to be outweighed by his own greed -- has any right to describe himself, as Cunningham did, as a patriot or as strong on defense. People like that sell out their country and the men and women who depend on them for money. They should be ashamed. And anyone who suspected that this was going on but did nothing about it should be ashamed as well.

Intellectual Integrity Watch

by hilzoy

Joe Biden wrote an editorial calling for a timetable for Iraq yesterday, and today the White House not only endorsed Biden's plan, but claimed that it was actually Bush's:

"The White House for the first time has claimed possession of an Iraq withdrawal plan, arguing that a troop pullout blueprint unveiled this past week by a Democratic senator was "remarkably similar" to its own. (...)

In the White House statement, which was released under the headline "Senator Biden Adopts Key Portions Of Administration's Plan For Victory In Iraq," McClellan said the administration of President George W. Bush welcomed Biden's voice in the debate.

"Today, Senator Biden described a plan remarkably similar to the administration's plan to fight and win the war on terror," the spokesman went on to say. McClellan added that as Iraqi security forces gain strength and experience, "we can lessen our troop presence in the country without losing our capability to effectively defeat the terrorists." McClellan said the White House now saw "a strong consensus" building in Washington in favor of Bush's strategy in Iraq."

Unfortunately, no one warned the right-wing bloggers that this was coming, and so, predictably, they heaped scorn on Biden's editorial. Paul at Powerline has a post called 'Clueless Joe':

"This op-ed in the Washington Post by Senator Joseph Biden provides a reminder of why Democrats are unfit to direct this country's foreign policy. (...) What we have in Iraq is an armed conflict, not a government program. In this context, timetables and schedules should not dictate events; rather events must dictate timing. But this reality is beyond the comprehension of clueless Joe Biden and most of his fellow Democrats."

Captain Ed:

"Senator Joe Biden writes an op-ed for today's Washington Post that gets the entire war on terror fundamentally wrong -- and demonstrates why the Democrats have entirely failed to provide any leadership on Iraq and the wider war. (...) And in this last question, we have exactly the reason why Biden and his political allies cannot ever take charge of American security. Both of his priorities reflect a fundamental misjudgment about the nature of war, the nature of this war, and the nature of our enemy."

Instapundit quotes the first sentence of Captain Ed's post with approval.

Hugh Hewitt:

"Slow Joe has an op-ed in the Washington Post today, continuing his decades=long campaign to be thought other than Delaware's luckiest man. But with Niel Kinnock replaced by Tony Blair, Slow Joe is left to his own devices, and that's always dagerous [sic] as just about any tape of unreahersed [sic] Joe shows us."

And on, and on.

Now: imagine for a moment that the bloggers I just quoted actually sat down and thought about Biden's plan, concluded that it was a bad idea, and that this reflection explains their posts. In that case, you'd expect them to respond to today's White House statement with horror and alarm. After all, it's one thing for the Senator Powerline calls "the Delaware windbag" to adopt a plan. He is in the minority party, and has no real influence over policy. It's quite another for the President of the United States, our Commander in Chief, to embrace a policy that "gets the entire war on terror fundamentally wrong", and shows that people who adopt it "cannot ever take charge of American security" and "are unfit to direct this country's foreign policy". The thought that Bush, who does direct America's foreign policy, is 'unfit' to do so, since he 'gets the entire war on terror fundamentally wrong', should be terrifying.

And yet, oddly enough, not one of these worthies has seen fit to comment on Bush's embrace of Biden's plan. And it's not lack of time: they have somehow managed to fit in posts on Whoopi Goldberg, Cindy Sheehan, the Carnival of the Cats, and all sorts of other momentous topics. But somehow the fact that our President is, by their standards, unfit to direct our foreign policy seems to have escaped their notice.

Why am I not surprised?

Alito And CAP

by hilzoy

The fact that Samuel Alito was a member of the Concerned Alumni of Princeton, and cited that fact on his 1985 job application, has been in the news recently; and it occurred to me that since I was a Princeton undergraduate (class of '81) while CAP was active, I might be able to provide some useful background on this one.

Someone Is Watching You...

by hilzoy

From the WaPo:

"The Defense Department has expanded its programs aimed at gathering and analyzing intelligence within the United States, creating new agencies, adding personnel and seeking additional legal authority for domestic security activities in the post-9/11 world. The moves have taken place on several fronts. The White House is considering expanding the power of a little-known Pentagon agency called the Counterintelligence Field Activity, or CIFA, which was created three years ago. The proposal, made by a presidential commission, would transform CIFA from an office that coordinates Pentagon security efforts -- including protecting military facilities from attack -- to one that also has authority to investigate crimes within the United States such as treason, foreign or terrorist sabotage or even economic espionage.

The Pentagon has pushed legislation on Capitol Hill that would create an intelligence exception to the Privacy Act, allowing the FBI and others to share information gathered about U.S. citizens with the Pentagon, CIA and other intelligence agencies, as long as the data is deemed to be related to foreign intelligence. Backers say the measure is needed to strengthen investigations into terrorism or weapons of mass destruction. The proposals, and other Pentagon steps aimed at improving its ability to analyze counterterrorism intelligence collected inside the United States, have drawn complaints from civil liberties advocates and a few members of Congress, who say the Defense Department's push into domestic collection is proceeding with little scrutiny by the Congress or the public.

"We are deputizing the military to spy on law-abiding Americans in America. This is a huge leap without even a [congressional] hearing," Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.), a member of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, said in a recent interview. (...)

Perhaps the prime illustration of the Pentagon's intelligence growth is CIFA, which remains one of its least publicized intelligence agencies. Neither the size of its staff, said to be more than 1,000, nor its budget is public, said Conway, the Pentagon spokesman. The CIFA brochure says the agency's mission is to "transform" the way counterintelligence is done "fully utilizing 21st century tools and resources."

One CIFA activity, threat assessments, involves using "leading edge information technologies and data harvesting," according to a February 2004 Pentagon budget document. This involves "exploiting commercial data" with the help of outside contractors including White Oak Technologies Inc. of Silver Spring, and MZM Inc., a Washington-based research organization, according to the Pentagon document. For CIFA, counterintelligence involves not just collecting data but also "conducting activities to protect DoD and the nation against espionage, other intelligence activities, sabotage, assassinations, and terrorist activities," its brochure states.

CIFA's abilities would increase considerably under the proposal being reviewed by the White House, which was made by a presidential commission on intelligence chaired by retired appellate court judge Laurence H. Silberman and former senator Charles S. Robb (D-Va.). The commission urged that CIFA be given authority to carry out domestic criminal investigations and clandestine operations against potential threats inside the United States."

This is serious.

Iraq and Vietnam: Similarities and Differences

by Charles

I know this has been ground well trod before, but former Nixon defense secretary Melvin Laird put together an informative piece, juxtaposing the history of our past involvement in Vietnam with our present involvement in Iraq.  Several factors caused me to take a second look at Laird.  One, he was a primary architect of Vietnamization, and then this entry stands out:

In spite of Vietnam and the unfolding Watergate affair, which threatened to discredit the entire Nixon administration, Laird retired with his reputation intact.

Such is the taint of Nixon that any of those who worked under him are viewed with hard skepticism.  I knew little of Laird because I was in grade school at the time he was defense secretary, and in his own words, he has been below the radar for the last thirty years.  But when someone with integrity and reasonably good judgment decides to speak up after three decades of relative silence, it's worthy of notice:

I have kept silent for those 30 years because I never believed that the old guard should meddle in the business of new administrations, especially during a time of war. But the renewed vilification of our role in Vietnam in light of the war in Iraq has prompted me to speak out.

Iraq And Al Qaeda

by hilzoy

A few days ago, Chris Bertram at Crooked Timber made a good point:

"Cheney asks

"Would the United States and other free nations be better off or worse off with (Abu Musab al-) Zarqawi, (Osama) bin Laden and (Ayman al-) Zawahiri in control of Iraq?” he asked. “Would be we safer or less safe with Iraq ruled by men intent on the destruction of our country?"

Let me get this straight. At time t you advocate a policy involving the invasion and occupation of Iraq on multiple grounds, none of which include the forestalling of an Al Qaeda seizure of power in Iraq (since such an eventuality is risibly improbable). At time t+n , as a direct consequence of that brilliant policy, the only options are (a) its continuation or (b) an Al Qaeda takeover of Iraq. Genius. No wonder that man got re-elected."

I'd just like to add a few things. First, an al Qaeda takeover of Iraq is still risibly improbable. To take over Iraq, al Qaeda would have to take over the Shi'a and Kurdish areas of Iraq, which I very much doubt it can do. Nor is there any reason to believe that al Qaeda would be even remotely capable of governing a country. What is not so improbable is that al Qaeda might set up a base of operations in the Sunni area of Iraq, and that the Iraqi government would not have the power to dislodge them. And since one of the things a terrorist organization needs is a base of operations, this would be a very bad thing.

Second: this possibility really does exist only as a result of our invasion. Of the three main communities in Iraq, the Shi'a and the Kurds would never cooperate with al Qaeda. The Kurds are secular, and have no interest in Islamic fundamentalists like bin Laden. Moreover, they are basically interested only in protecting their autonomy, which would have been jeopardized by al Qaeda's presence in their territory. Al Qaeda is a Sunni group, and would have gotten no sympathy from the Shi'a. The only people in Iraq who would ever work with al Qaeda are the Sunni Arabs.

As long as Saddam Hussein was in power, however, this was not going to happen. Saddam would not have allowed al Qaeda to set up a base of operations on his territory: they are much too uncontrollable, and he was a megalomanaical control freak. The likelihood that he would allow a group that was given to doing things like flying planes into the World Trade Center to set up shop in his country was basically zero -- not because of any moral scruples, but because if anyone was going to commit monstrous acts from Iraqi territory, it was going to be him.

Moreover, the one group that might, in principle, have cooperated with al Qaeda was Saddam's power base: the group that was most fully committed to him, in which he had the best and deepest connections, and which would not have gone against his wishes on something this important. The likelihood that al Qaeda would have been able to set up a base of operations in Sunni territory against Saddam's wishes was, therefore, approximately zero.

By invading Iraq, we changed all that. Now, the one group that is opposed to the government, and over which the government has the least (read: no) control, is the Sunni Arabs: the very group that might give al Qaeda sanctuary. Moreover, the government itself is much too weak to be able to block the Sunni Arabs from giving al Qaeda sanctuary should they wish to do so. We have, that is, transformed the one region in which al Qaeda might ever have set up shop from a region that was completely controlled by a government that wanted no part of al Qaeda into an outlaw region in which al Qaeda could operate with impunity.

There were all sorts of other reasons to loathe Saddam Hussein, and to cheer his downfall. But so long as he was in power, al Qaeda would never have had a base of operations in the territory he controlled, including the entire Sunni region. That possibility exists solely because we created it.

The Abramoff Case Widens...

by hilzoy

From the WaPo:

"The Justice Department's wide-ranging investigation of former lobbyist Jack Abramoff has entered a highly active phase as prosecutors are beginning to move on evidence pointing to possible corruption in Congress and executive branch agencies, lawyers involved in the case said. Prosecutors have already told one lawmaker, Rep. Robert W. Ney (R-Ohio), and his former chief of staff that they are preparing a possible bribery case against them, according to two sources knowledgeable about the matter who spoke on the condition of anonymity.

The 35 to 40 investigators and prosecutors on the Abramoff case are focused on at least half a dozen members of Congress, lawyers and others close to the probe said. The investigators are looking at payments made by Abramoff and his colleagues to the wives of some lawmakers and at actions taken by senior Capitol Hill aides, some of whom went to work for Abramoff at the law firm Greenberg Traurig LLP, lawyers and others familiar with the probe said. Former House majority leader Tom DeLay (R), now facing separate campaign finance charges in his home state of Texas, is one of the members under scrutiny, the sources said. Sen. Conrad Burns (R-Mont.), Rep. John T. Doolittle (R-Calif.) and other members of Congress involved with Indian affairs, one of Abramoff's key areas of interest, are also said to be among them.

Prosecutions and plea deals have become more likely, the lawyers said, now that Abramoff's former partner -- public relations executive Michael Scanlon -- has agreed to plead guilty to conspiracy and to testify about gifts that he and his K Street colleagues showered on lawmakers, allegedly in exchange for official favors. An attorney for DeLay, whose wife worked for a lobbying firm that received client referrals from Abramoff, said there was no connection between her work and congressional business. A spokesman for Doolittle, whose wife received payments from Abramoff's lobbying firm, also said there was no connection with her husband's position. Burns's office has said his actions were consistent with his support for improving conditions for Indian tribes."

Hiring wives of Congressional representatives seems to play a significant role in this. I have no idea what the rules for this are, or how one would tell a legitimate hire from a bribe. This one sounds a little peculiar, though:

"Richard Cullen, an attorney for the DeLays, said Christine DeLay was hired by Buckham, an old family friend, to determine the favorite charity of every member of Congress. She was paid $3,200 to $3,400 a month for three years, or about $115,000 total, he said. "It wasn't like she did this 9 to 5, but it was an ongoing project," Cullen said. He said Christine DeLay's work was commensurate with the project and had nothing to do with her husband or any official congressional business. "This was something that she found to be very interesting, very challenging and very worthwhile," Cullen said."

There are 535 members of Congress, and 1095 days in three years. By my calculations, Christine DeLay had to find out roughly one member's favorite charity every two days. How much work would it take to find out? I would guess: one phone call. Maybe two or even three, if a member of Congress suddenly decided that not returning phone calls from the Majority Leader's wife was a good idea. Let's be generous to Mrs. DeLay, and suppose that she had to make twice as many phone calls as there are members. In that case she was making over $3,000 a month for making one phone call a day.

Nice work if you can get it.

And even nicer that we won't have to rely on the appearance of impropriety to make a case now that Michael Scanlon has flipped.

Dumbest. Column. Ever.

by hilzoy

Kevin Drum warned me not to click this link, but silly me had to go ahead and click it anyways. When I did, I found one of the stupidest columns of all time. In it, David Gelernter wonders why students now are so much more career-minded than when he was in college. He thinks he's figured it out:

"Why the big change between now and then? Many reasons. But there's one particular reason that students seem reluctant (some even scared) to talk or think about. In those long-ago days, more college women used to plan on staying home to rear children. Those women had other goals than careers in mind, by definition. They saw learning as worth having for its own sake; otherwise why bother with a college education, if you weren't planning on a big-deal career? (...)

In the days when many college-trained women stayed home to rear children, the nation as a whole devoted a significant fraction of all its college-trained worker-hours to childrearing. This necessarily affected society's attitude toward money and careers. A society that applauds a highly educated woman's decision to rear children instead of making money obviously believes that, under some circumstances, childrearing is more important than moneymaking. No one thought women were incapable of earning money if they wanted or needed to: Childrearing versus moneymaking was a genuine choice. (...)

But all that changed with feminism's decision to champion the powerful and successful working woman. Nowadays, feminists and many liberals are delighted when women make careers in large corporations, which are still the road to riches and power in this country. (...)

In many ways, life today is a lot easier than it was in 1960. But don't kid yourselves. The age that rated childrearing higher than money-grubbing and intellectual exploration higher than career preparation had it exactly right. We might come to miss what we had then, but we are never going back; no nation has ever sacrificed wealth for intangible spiritual satisfactions.

In some important ways, this society has made a tragic but probably inevitable (and certainly irreversible) mistake. Crying about it is senseless. Denying it is cowardly."

Despite the scary, scary nature of this topic, I'm going to brave my deepest innermost fears and discuss it. A veritable Profile in Courage, that's me -- at least until I get around to disagreeing with Gelernter, at which point I will magically transform myself into a coward. (I've been drinking Polyjuice Potion again.)