Why tough questions are good for everyone

I am not known to have many kind words for Condoleezza Rice's performance as National Security Advisor or Secretary of State. However, she does a very good job at explaining the US administration's position on the global war on terror and its resulting policies in the following interview with the BBC. I disagree with many things Ms. Rice says, but wanted to post this to show how challenging interviews actually help the debate and to highlight how sorely lacking tough questions are from interviews by US network news "journalists." Less punditry and more journalism would be a welcome change on this side of the pond.

Equally brilliant.

Brilliant.

Sarkozy wages war on the French (in secret)

Earlier this year, French President Sarkozy signed a secret decree to create a computer database to track and store details on "anyone active in politics or trade unions and or in a significant role in business, the media, entertainment or social or religious institutions." This includes children over the age of 13 who are "susceptible to breaching the public order." See here (London Times) and here (website of the French Data Protection Authority, in French).

The new database that Sarkozy wants to create will have information on millions of law abiding French people, and is appropriately named "Edvig." Edvig is the Italian form of "Hedwig" which is a combination of "hadu" meaning "contention" and "wig" meaning "war."

All this may sound familiar to those who have been following the Bush administration's attacks on civil liberties on this side of the Atlantic. A few years ago, the US military was creating a database that is eerily similar to Edvig. It, too, had an appropriate name: Total Information Awareness Program ("TIA"). As the ACLU explained in 2003:

Virtual dragnet programs like TIA ... are based on the premise that the best way to protect America against terrorism is for the government to collect as much information as it can about everyone - and these days, that is a LOT of information.

Here's the logo that TIA was using (notice the slogan: "knowledge is power") --


The libertarian Cato Institute described it as follows:

The TIA logo features an edited version of the Great Seal of the United States: The 13-block pyramid (think 13 original colonies) topped by the Eye of God. The original carries the phrase (translated from Latin) "A New Order of the Ages," reflecting a principled view of individual freedom quite alien to that of the Orwellian TIA office. The TIA's version perverts the proud seal that originally symbolized our freedom. The "eye" is no longer God's, but the federal government's, surveying the entire globe in a single glance. TIA's new slogan? "Knowledge is Power." But whose knowledge? And power to do what?

After a public outcry that TIA contravened basic American values, Congress shut down funding. However, as the Washington Times reported last year, not for long. The Department for Homeland Security revived the program in 2007.

Back in 2003, the ACLU pointed out a number of powerful objections to programs like TIA. For example, TIA kills privacy, harbors tremendous potential for abuse, and is based on virtual dragnets instead of individualized suspicion.

I would add another, overarching objection to these types of programs: "mission creep." Once given the power to collect data on any citizen, regardless of suspicion of wrongdoing, the state will never give it up. Rather, the state will provide endless new justifications why "we" are all better off not having control over basic information regarding our purchases and preferences, thereby hastening our slide into the National Surveillance State.

All of this is perhaps defensible if Edvig and TIA are implemented following widespread debate and in a democratic manner. But for decisive "men of action" like Sarkozy, Poindexter (TIA) and Chertoff (Homeland Security), democracy is too messy.

Must read election analysis

The website FiveThirtyEight.com contains a wealth of up to date polling data and analysis re. the upcoming election. Today's entry discusses the Republican National Convention and possible consequences here.

Taking the post-Democratic National Convention bump into account (and not yet the post-Republican National Convention bump, because it is still too soon after that convention), Obama currently has a wide lead in electoral votes -- 310 v. 228. Here's a graph from the website showing the current distribution of the electoral vote --

















And here is the current trend --


















The coming days should be interesting, and may give a better sense whether the argument that although McCain is a good tactician, Obama is the better strategist holds water (h/t Ochoro).

Yankah on Palin

My friend Ekow Yankah has a thoughtful post on the pregnancy of Palin's daughter here. The post includes the following:

As Governor of Alaska, Sarah Palin has, in keeping with her party, steadfastly denied support for comprehensive sex education. (She has publically said she refused to support “explicit” sex education.) . . . Now the world thrusts an example of a young woman from an educated family of faith who has an apparently unplanned pregnancy. Nor is this a case of my using anecdote as data; the current best evidence available shows that abstinence-based programs and the lack of comprehensive sex-education is an absolute failure, at best delaying sexual activity for a short period but greatly increasing unsafe sex practices. . . . It is fair enough for us to inspect Governor Palin’s record on this issue specifically as well as worry about the general disdain that Republicans have shown in recent years for using the best evidence available to guide our policies.

I would go even further: exposing the immediate results of Palin's failed policies is not only "fair", it is imperative. However, I disagree that the Obama campaign or anyone close to it should do that by using the pregnancy of Governor Palin's daughter. This girl is in many ways a victim (including of the machinations of her own mother) and to use her in these circumstances to make a perfectly valid point strikes me as inappropriate. Obviously, the same reticence should not apply to anything regarding Palin herself...

Sarah Palin: Against the US before she was for it

The title of this blog comes from one of the comments in a blog in which Jack Balkin asks some of the questions I have been asking in private as well:

- how would the infotainment industry have reacted if senator Obama had been a member of a political party that wanted Illinois to secede from the US?

- how would Fox news and the rest of the mindless infotainment industry have reacted to the news that senator Obama's teenager daughter was pregnant?

And, I would add:

- how would the infotainment industry have reacted if senator Obama had tried to pressure the police chief in some city in Illinois to fire Obama's brother in law because he was going through a nasty divorce with Obama's sister?

Hint: apoplectic, frothing and mouth would each appear in the sentence responding to these questions (although not necessarily in that order).

Fox News Deserves Award For Tireless Work On Behalf Of African-Americans

Money quote: "I never thought I would see the day that an old white millionaire is viewed as having more in common with working folks than the black man. It's a proud day for America."

I love the Onion --


Portrayal Of Obama As Elitist Hailed As Step Forward For African Americans

Picking Palin fits a pattern

McCain is known to have an eye for young and attractive women. In 1980, he divorced his disabled first wife to marry Cindy Hensley (17 years his junior). There is no doubt that he was having an affair with Ms. Hensley while he was still married to his first wife.

Earlier this year, there were persistent rumors that the 71 year old McCain was cheating on Cindy with 40 year old Vicki Iseman (a young and attractive lobbyist).

Perhaps his preference for young and attractive women explains why McCain picked 44 year old Ms. Alaska beauty contestant and "Supermodel tour de force" Sarah Palin to be his running mate?







I know, I know, POW.

The "Maverick"

Piece on Huffington Post about McCain's selection of Sarah "One-Heartbeat-Away" Palin:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/linda-bergthold/the-vp-choice-that-lost-t_b_122381.html

The piece, by Linda Bergthold, focuses on just how incredibly cynical this selection was.

McCain campaign (to the PUMAs): Oh, disillusioned and confused Hillary supporters, don't fret. Want a women on the ticket? No prob!! Coming up, one laughably inexperienced, rabidly anti-choice and otherwise hyper-conservative trophy VP candidate. That her policy positions resemble Clinton's, uh, not at all, shouldn't be an issue...should it?

I loved this dig at McCain's carefully cultivated maverick image (cuts both ways?) by a commenter named chinshihtang:

"For McCain, it is a crazy risk, and it totally undermines two areas where he had made substantial progress in recent weeks: 1) moderates of all stripes; and 2) national security voters. I have great respect for group 2)--it is the way people should evaluate Presidential candidates. This pick shows that McCain is a maverick, indeed, in the sense of the old TV show--a riverboat gambler..." (my emphasis).

Should be fun to watch this one play out over the next few days (although it's annoying how, predictbaly, 100% of media attention has been diverted from an overall succesful DNC).

Out with the old, in with the new!

Brendan Smialowski for The New York Times

Hillary Clinton's terrific speech

Dutch "intelligence"

Dutch police commissioner Fup Goudswaard was recently placed on administrative leave because the Dutch intelligence services ("AIVD") refused to certify their approval of his appointment. According to the AIVD, Goudswaard had an affair during his first marriage years ago and he was therefore at risk of being blackmailed. It turns out he was cheating on his wife with a number of women, including his former boss and a woman who later became his second wife... I wonder how these affairs could have been used to blackmail him --

Extortionist: Ma'm, your husband cheated on his first wife.
Wife: Yes, that was with me.

If the implausibility of this scenario is not enough, I'd say that discussing the affair in the Dutch newspapers took care of any risk of Goudswaard being blackmailed. Nevertheless, the AIVD maintains that Goudswaard is a security risk and he will likely be terminated from the police on September 10.

Dunkin' Donuts Independents...

Latest Poll Reveals 430 New Demographics That Will Decide Election

The future of NATO

Yesterday, Georgian president Mikhail Saakashvili was interviewed by the BBC about the current situation in Georgia. At one point, he said that the current situation is no longer about Georgia but rather about the future of NATO. I think he's right. Indeed, perhaps the situation in Georgia was always about the future of NATO.

NATO has been searching for a raison d'etre ever since the fall of the Berlin wall and the collapse of the Soviet Union. Last month, NATO hired a former Coca Cola executive to retool its brand and revamp its image. The question is, of course, what the purpose of a military defense alliance is in a world in which there are no existential military threats.

Placed against this backdrop, the recent developments in Eastern Europe and the Caucasus suddenly take on a different light. Although not necessary and known to antagonize Russia, NATO insists on building a missile defense shield in Poland and the Czech Republic. Although not necessary and known to antagonize Russia, Georgia launches a military attack on South Ossetia. Suddenly, we are told that the Ukraine and Georgia must be admitted to NATO to ward of imminent Russian military aggression. Implicitly and expressly, we are told that unless we act now, the Russians will dominate "us" in the near future.

Really? Thus far, Russia has acted quite predictably when it seized the opportunity presented by Saakashvili's reckless decision to launch a military attack on Ossetia, shooting down Russian military planes and killing Russian peacekeepers in the process. No rational leader of a small country would have decided to attack the Russian army unprovoked without some assurances that he would receive help. (Perhaps he and the Russians were played?). A simple thought experiment shows why the Russian response was utterly predictable. Imagine Iran launching a military attack to secure its control over the Shatt al-Arab waterway bordering Iraq, shooting down US military planes and killing US soldiers. Now imagine what the US would do...

This is not to say that Russia should not be held to its agreement to withdraw under the Georgian peace deal, and its intent to maintain a continued military presence inside Georgia must be rejected. In the meantime, Europeans should ask themselves what is to be gained by a new cold war with Russia. The purpose and future of NATO directly depend on the answer.

Meddling kids

Today, the New York Times gave its take on the limited policy options that are available to the US in responding to Russia's strategic victory in Georgia --"Friction with Russia may spell trouble for US."

Quoting Stanford University professor and Barack Obama's chief Russia advisor Michael McFaul, the New York Times asserts that Russia currently has more options available to thwart US strategic objectives than the other way around. At one point, professor McFaul apparently observed that:

Russia appeared intent on trying to “disrupt the international order” and had the capacity to succeed.

Similarly, the article quotes Georgetown University professor Angela Stent as saying:

Ironically, since the collapse of the Soviet Union, there’s always been the concern about Russia becoming a spoiler, and now we could see the realization of that.

I wonder what international order Russia is disrupting or spoiling by opportunistically defending its interests in Ossetia and Abkhazia? Would that be the international order in which everyone bows to a US hegemon that opportunistically pursues its own interests unconstrained by the rule of law or the interests of its allies? In that case, a little disrupting and spoiling may not be such a bad idea. Perhaps it will cause the US to retreat from its imperial ambitions and to return to being the world's staunchest defender of universal values like human dignity. However, given that some of the comments quoted above are from an Obama adviser, I won't hold my breath.

Why Bacevich would make an excellent addition to the next administration

On Friday, PBS broadcast an interview with Andrew Bacevich about the current state of US foreign policy. Bacevich's explanations are cogent and show why he would be an excellent vice president, secretary of state, or national security adviser in the next administration (hint: one of the reasons is that he does not have the ambition to be the next vice president, secretary of state or national security adviser).

unfortunate offspring

Paris Hilton v. John McCain

McCain is trying to paint Barack Obama as a vapid celebrity by comparing him to Paris Hilton. For reasons discussed here, this does not appear to be a convincing strategy. In response to McCain's ads, Hilton has just put out the following video announcing that she will be running for president:

See more funny videos at Funny or Die

Funny thing is, Hilton is more coherent than the actual candidate. Check it out:

the Hamdan farce

The headline of the London Times says it all: "Bin Laden driver gets 66 months - but will never be released." Scott Horton does a good job explaining the difference between the Nuremberg trials and the Guantanamo farce -- here.

Hamdan was convicted of "material support for terrorism" because he was Bin Laden's driver and bodyguard from 1998 until 2001. As Marty Lederman explains:

The government's argument is that any attempt, like this one, to aid in the killing of U.S. forces on a battlefield is a violation of the laws of armed conflict if it is committed by an unprivileged combatant, i.e., a nonuniformed person.

This is a fairly radical theory -- that any belligerency by nonprivileged persons is itself a war crime. If I'm not mistaken, it would mean that CIA officials and many U.S. Special Forces are not only regularly violating the domestic laws of the nations where they operate, but are committing war crimes. Can that be right?

Oops. Time to amend the arrest warrants.

time for some campaigning!

Send a JibJab Sendables® eCard Today!

bread crumbs

This morning Ron Suskind was interviewed on National Public Radio. Suskind is a Pulitzer prize winning journalist and a former national correspondent of the Wall Street Journal. Based on numerous interviews within the administration and the CIA, Suskind just wrote a book detailing how the highest echelons of the Bush Administration, including Bush and Cheney, knew that Iraq had no weapons of mass destruction long before the invasion and later instructed the CIA to fabricate "evidence" of a connection between Saddam Hussein and the attacks on 9/11. You can hear the interview here.

On a related note, Greenwald has been relentlessly following the circumstances surrounding the apparent suicide of Bruce Ivins. Ivins was an army scientist in a biological research lab at Fort Detrick who was suspected of involvement with the anthrax attacks on prominent Americans shortly after 9/11. Starting September 18, 2001, someone sent letters with anthrax to 2 US senators and a number of news anchors, killing 5 people. As Greenwald notes:

It was anthrax -- sent directly into the heart of the country's elite political and media institutions, to then-Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle (D-SD), Sen. Pat Leahy (D-Vt), NBC News anchor Tom Brokaw, and other leading media outlets -- that created the impression that social order itself was genuinely threatened by Islamic radicalism.

Moreover, based on anonymous sources, ABC News reported during this time that the anthrax that was used had a unique composition showing that it came from Iraq. The timing shortly after 9/11 and the content of this reporting provided support for the Bush administration's (false) narrative that Iraq was behind the attacks on the World Trade Center, thereby increasing support for the subsequent invasion. In response to Greenwald's efforts, two prominent journalism professors have started a campaign to force ABC to disclose it's anonymous sources for the anthrax story. Based on their knowledge of journalistic ethics, they have formulated the following three questions that ABC should answer:

1. Sources who are granted confidentiality give up their rights when they lie or mislead the reporter. Were you lied to or misled by your sources when you reported several times in 2001 that anthrax found in domestic attacks came from Iraq or showed signs of Iraqi involvement?

2. It now appears that the attacks were of domestic origin and the anthrax came from within U.S. government facilities. This leads us to ask you: who were the “four well-placed and separate sources” who falsely told ABC News that tests conducted at Fort Detrick showed bentonite in the anthrax sent to Sen. Tom Daschle, causing ABC News to connect the attacks to Iraq in multiple reports over a five day period in October, 2001?

3. A substantially false story that helps make the case for war by raising fears about enemies abroad attacking the United States is released into public debate because of faulty reporting by ABC News. How that happened and who was responsible is itself a major story of public interest. What is ABC News doing to re-report these events, to figure out what went wrong and to correct the record for the American people who were misled?

On yet another related note, yesterday government and defense counsel started their closing arguments before a military commission in Guantanamo that is deciding whether Salim Hamdan is guilty of conspiracy and providing material support for terrorism. From 1998 until 2001, Hamdan was one of Osama Bin Laden's chauffeurs. Here's the amazing thing: even if Hamdan were to be acquitted from all charges (a small likelihood when the "impartial" jury consists of military officers), the U.S. will continue to detain him until the Global War on Terror is declared over. That's right, regardless of the outcome of these proceedings, Hamdan will not be released. In the words of Hamdan to the military judge at an earlier stage:

If you ask me what is the color of this paper, I say white. You say black. I say white. You say black. I say, okay, it's black -- and you say white. This is the American government.

The increasingly desperate McCain campaign

The Republican attack machine is running out of steam. After successfully depicting a real war hero as effeminate and "French" while turning a wimpy war-dodger into a tough guy in 2004, McCain's spokespeople are trying to do the same now. McCain's campaign manager just described Obama as "the biggest celebrity in the world" and compared him to Britney Spears and Paris Hilton. He then added: "I think there's an expectation that the American people, not the French president, will decide who the next president is going to be."

This is such a convincing argument against a candidate who has consistently appealed to people's intelligence! When faced with someone who gave one of the most eloquent and thoughtful electoral speeches on the influence of race in America, it is only natural that you then depict that person as similar to Britney Spears and Paris Hilton. November will be a landslide. (Unless electronic votes or voting machines will mysteriously and unverifiably go missing in Ohio, Michigan, Florida, Colorado, New Mexico and Virginia.)

Tolerance across the Atlantic: how Europe and the US can learn from each other

Last week, Barack Obama made a triumphant tour through Europe. German Chancellor Angela Merkel, French President Nicolas Sarkozy and British Prime Minister Gordon Brown each did their best to give a warm welcome to the Democratic presidential candidate. In addition, 200,000 people showed up in Berlin to hear Obama speak.

Towards the end of the week, Julie Sell and Margaret Talev at the McClatchy newspaper asked the following intriguing question: "Would Europe elect a black leader?" One reason I am excited about Obama's candidacy is that it belies European cynicism towards the American dream. As the democratic primaries have shown, the American answer to the question whether the country would possibly elect a black leader is, at a minimum, no longer an automatic no.

Sell and Talev imply that the same is not true for Europe. Although the article contains a few basic mistakes (for example referring to French Minister of Justice Rachida Dati as a "junior minister"), its overall premise that cultural hurdles make the prospects for non-white potential candidates very difficult are sound. As Sell and Talev explain:

European political systems also function differently than the American-style primaries. In Europe, tight circles of party insiders, who often attend the same elite schools, choose the national candidates. Critics say that makes it harder for outsiders, and minorities, to break in.

I am one of those critics. The current system not only prevents outsiders from breaking in, it stifles many new ideas as well, and there's ample reason for changing the current European model of electing leaders.

But the McClatchy question has an obvious corollary: "Would the U.S. elect a gay leader?" Unlike the U.S., attitudes in Europe towards the LGBT community have undergone a rapid evolution. A July 2008 "Special Barometer" of the European Commission found, for example, that "most Europeans would feel comfortable with having a leader who is homosexual in their country" (p. 59). Indeed, on a "comfort scale" from 1 to 10, with 10 indicating complete comfort, 36% of all Europeans would feel totally comfortable with this situation (giving a rating of 10 out of 10) while the EU average is 7.0 out of 10. This includes people from very religious countries in Eastern Europe like Bulgaria, Cyprus and Romania (whose populations' comfort rating is each less than 4). Conversely, the comfort level is very high in Western European countries like Sweden (9.1 out of 10), Denmark (9.0) and the Netherlands (8.8).

Sadly, asking the question "Would the U.S. elect a gay leader?" is to provide the answer: no it would not in the foreseeable future. Indeed, mainstream Democratic presidential candidates like Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton have stated that they do not even support the basic right of members of the LGBT community to get married (instead, emphasizing their support for supposedly separate but equal measures like civil unions).

Obama's candidacy is built on hope and change. Applied across the Atlantic, one can always hope that as much as an Obama candidacy changes attitudes in Europe, an LGBT candidate for office in Europe might change things here. The current mayors of Paris and Berlin, Bertrand Delanoe and Klaus Wowereit, could very well be those candidates.

Updates in the struggle for American values

In the latest issue of the New York Review, Jane Mayer takes stock of the Bush administration's policies over the last seven years in an article entitled "the Battle for a Country's Soul." Before explaining how the Bush administration has subverted American values in its "global war on terror", Ms. Mayer appropriately starts her article with a quote from the convention where the U.S. constitution was drafted:

A lady asked Dr. [Benjamin] Franklin, "Well Doctor, what have we got, a republic or a monarchy?" "A republic," replied the Doctor, "if you can keep it."

One of the core American values is, of course, that the U.S. government is "a government of laws, and not of men." (as expressed by John Adams in the Constitution for the commonwealth of Massachusetts of 1780). Nowhere has the U.S.'s soul suffered more from Bush's war on terror than here. In its zeal to expand the powers of the executive (at the expense of the legislature and the courts), the Bush administration has broken numerous laws and there is no sizable movement to hold its members to account. Indeed, there's no reason to believe that the Bush administration has stopped breaking the law.

One of the most significant and poignant "battles" for the rule of law focuses on the detention of captives in the global war on terror in a military facility in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. The Bush Administration moved captives there in part because it believed that constitutional rights (including the right to a fair trial) do not apply to foreigners who are held outside the U.S. In "Why It Was A Great Victory"(again in the New York Review), Ronald Dworkin explains why the recent decision in Boumediene v. Bush is one of the most important Supreme Court decisions in recent years. In short, for the first time the U.S. Supreme Court has held that the executive branch of the government cannot circumvent judicial review and the constitutional right to habeas corpus (a right to challenge detention) simply by moving captives to a military facility outside the country. Quoting the majority opinion of Justice Kennedy, Dworkin explains: "The test for determining the scope of this [constitutional] provision must not be subject to manipulation by those whose power it is designed to restrain."

The Supreme Court's decision moves American case law much closer to the case law of the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg which has long held in cases like Loizidou v Turkey, 20 EHRR 99 (1995), that the European Convention on Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms also applies in geographical areas that are under the "effective control" of a signatory.

The Bush administration has not yet given up, however, and Attorney General Mukasey quickly responded to the Supreme Court's decision by calling for legislative action. As Marty Lederman explains over at Balkinization, Mukasey's request should be rejected for what it is -- an apparent and improper attempt to further delay judicial review. It's high time that we allow the courts to do what they do best: evaluate evidence and apply the law to determine whether the detention of captives is lawful. By doing so, the judiciary may -- as a side benefit -- also help recapture some of the ideals that made the U.S. a shining example to many around the world before the current administration. If so, it would not come a minute too soon.

In a welcome victory for Sarkozy, France radically improves constitution

French President Nicolas Sarkozy enjoyed a big victory today when a special session of both houses of the French parliament voted in favor of a radical and very positive overhaul of the French Constitution. Described as the most sweeping change in half a century, the new constitutional provisions:

- limit the president to serving two terms;
- limit the ability of the president to govern by decree;
- introduce greater parliamentary oversight over presidential appointments;
- introduce greater parliamentary control over presidential emergency powers;
- require parliament to be informed about any overseas deployment of troops, and allows parliament to veto any such deployment if it lasts more than 4 months;
- introduce an ombudsman to deal with complaints about citizen interactions with the French administration; and
- allow the president in the future to directly address parliament.

In the Dutch press, it was further reported that French citizens living abroad will enjoy better representation and that, in the future, criminal defendants can directly challenge the constitutionality of a law that they allegedly violated.

The provision allowing the president to directly address parliament was the most controversial revision, and the constitutional reforms ultimately passed by a single vote (538 votes were needed, and 539 members of parliament voted in favor). With the exception of former minister Jack Lang, the Socialist Party voted against the proposed reforms because they did not go far enough. Apparently not realizing that a bird in the hand is worth two in the bush, the Socialist Party's spokesman explained his party's opposition as follows: "[t]his text does not contain the counterweights, the guarantees which would allow us to avoid the risk of a concentration of powers, what we call a monocracy."

An Independent Diplomat?

Can that be – an independent diplomat? It seems a paradox, a contradiction in terms. But Carne Ross, author of a book called ‘Independent Diplomat’ and director of a non-profit organization of the same name, at least tries to live it.

In the book, Ross, a former British fast-track diplomat, describes his ‘slow descent from illusion to disillusionment’. His last posting as a diplomat is at the UK Mission to the United Nations in New York, where he is responsible for Iraq in the Security Council. Ross gets more and more frustrated, for example on the Iraq sanction regime, also known as ‘the Oil-for-Food’ program, for which he is the UK ‘expert’ and lead negotiator. He concludes that there is ‘something very wrong about sitting around a table in New York arguing about how many children are dying in Iraq and whose fault is was’ without any of the debaters having ever been in Iraq.

The last straw for Ross is the invasion in Iraq and especially the misinformation used to justify it. He testifies for the Butler commission of inquiry into the use of intelligence on Iraq’s Weapons of Mass Destruction, at first anonymously, but later he sends his testimony to the highest official of the Foreign Office, and resigns.

Carne Ross raises many important issues about foreign affairs and diplomacy. He questions for example the inequity in resources between large and small countries and the lack of accountability for diplomats. The last chapter of the book is called ‘The End of Diplomacy?’ and Ross gives ten reasons to do away with ‘the separate cadre of diplomats altogether’.

Unfortunately the analyses and the alternatives Ross offers are not always completely convincing or practical, as is also pointed out in some reviews of the book, especially the one from Brian Urquhart which appeared in The New York Review of Books. See also Ross’s letter there and Urquhart’s reaction.

But Ross has at least drawn conclusions from his observations and thoughts by resigning from the Foreign Service and starting his own business – Independent Diplomat, a diplomatic service for those who need is most. On the website this is explained by:

ID’s aim is to resolve or prevent conflict by enabling disadvantaged and marginalised actors to engage effectively in diplomatic processes.

ID offers an independent and confidential source of advice and assistance on diplomatic technique and strategy to governments, international institutions, non-governmental organizations and political groups in areas of conflict or potential conflict. We provide clear, practical and effective counsel to those facing unfamiliar and complex international and political challenges to help them achieve their international objective.

For me, being a diplomat myself, this book was wonderful, though sometimes discomforting, read. Many of the descriptions and observations are right on target and the shortcomings of the diplomatic process are real. But diplomacy and internationals affairs are inherently linked to the existence of nation states and their (perceived) interests. For the time being there is no credible alternative. But that should not prevent us from trying to work on it – just like Carne Ross!

Immunity: bought and paid for

A picture says more than a thousand words (h/t Greenwald). Less than two weeks after a Democratic controlled Congress and Senator Barack Obama approved a bill granting immunity to AT&T for years of breaking the law, we learn that AT&T is a financial supporter for the 2008 Democratic National Convention where Obama will be formally elected as the Democratic presidential candidate. Coincidence?

Sarkozy love-fest

It's official. Roger Cohen is in love with French President Nicolas Sarkozy. Describing the French president's critics as if they're universally viewing Sarkozy as a "Bonapartist Caligula, consumed with himself, brooking no dissent, [and] petulant to the point of puerility", Cohen argues that Sarkozy is instead "a tonic to his country and the most important European leader of his time." In a similarly fawning New York Times column last August, Cohen described Sarkozy as "a French president who seems determined to make his office more accountable, more accessible, more open, and invoking American-style checks and balances to achieve that."

I am not surprised by these public declarations of love for the French President. Cohen, an IHT columnist based in Paris, is a "liberal hawk." As Michael Tomasky outlined in the Guardian last year, others are Newyorker editor David Remnick, Newyorker writer George Packer, Atlantic correspondent Jeffrey Goldberg, and Vanity Fair contributor Christopher Hitchens. Each of these public intellectuals has in common that they wholeheartedly supported the U.S. invasion of Iraq. Most of them later argued that although the decision to remove Saddam Hussein without broad international support remained correct -- and that they were not responsible for the resulting carnage because of their "good intentions" -- they had been wrong to support regime change in Iraq because no one could have foreseen that the Bush Administration would be so inept in the execution of this war of aggression.

After having been proven wrong by the critics of the Iraq invasion who expressed caution and demanded careful scrutiny of claims that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction before going to war -- notably including the previous French administration -- it must be nice for Cohen to turn the page and focus on a President who cannot deal with criticism, and who is impatiently trying to implement grand ideas without being able to deliver. You know, the kind we have in the White House now.

"Appeasement"

May 15, 2008: President Bush wants to score points during a speech before the Israeli parliament and attacks Obama's intent to engage in talks with Iran:

Some seem to believe that we should negotiate with the terrorists and radicals, as if some ingenious argument will persuade them they have been wrong all along. We have an obligation to call this what it is: the false comfort of appeasement, which has been repeatedly discredited by history.

Same day, Republican pundit Kevin James insists on MSNBC that Obama's plan to open a dialogue with the "axis of evil" and to use force as a last resort, not a first option, is no different than Neville Chamberlain's policy of appeasement towards the Nazis when he ceded part of Czechoslovakia to Hitler in 1938 (James is massacred by "liberal" Chris Matthews for not knowing the difference between diplomacy and appeasement) --



Danny Ayalon (Israel's ambassador to the U.S. from 2002-2006), makes the same point in Haaretz, writing in an online forum hosted by that newspaper:

My specific concern is [Obama's] policy towards Iran. On one hand he describes the Ayatollah's regime in Tehran as Hitler-like and on the other he calls for negotiations with them. What needs to be clarified is:

1. What does he expect to achieve in negotiations with "evil"?
2. Why does he think talking to "Hitler" can succeed?
3. What would be on the agenda?
4. How would such negotiations be conducted in terms of timeline and consequence of failure.

July 18, 2006: President Bush sends a high ranking diplomat to Switzerland to meet with Iranian envoys and plans to open a diplomatic presence in Tehran.

Hmm... Will we now hear Kevin James and Danny Ayalon refer to "George W. Chamberlain?" Will they concede that the administration has flip-flopped and stop demonizing Obama for his (pragmatic and sensible) approach to deescalate the political problems in the Middle East? Of course not. Gotta love these so-called "conservatives" -- consistent only in their branding of opponents. There's only one word to describe it: chutzpah!

It's what we call the news

My dear friend Tai asked the other day if there was room for less serious posts as well. He's right, of course, and I immediately added the Sartorialist feed on the right. In similar vain (and apropos Alanna's thoughtful post regarding the Obama cover "controversy" below) check this out -- it's what we call the news.

Mercenaries in Zimbabwe

Looks like Mugabe got his own little Blackwater to help out with terrorizing the population -- see here.

The exclusive reliance by the U.S. and its "coalition of the willing" on force without legal legitimacy or redress, and their increasing use of unaccountable mercenaries (now referred to as "private military contractors") rather than regular armed forces to project this force, make it very difficult for the West to condemn the actions of lawless and morally corrupt regimes like Mugabe's, al-Bashir's, etc.

The insistence by U.S. and British mercenaries like Blackwater, KBR and Aegis (and by extension the governments that use them) that there's a difference because they employ former U.S. and British military personnel and are therefore the good guys is in this regard (a) factually false because they also employ former military personnel from other countries, including Chile and South Africa; and (b) a prime example of circular reasoning: we believe we're the good guys and therefore we are the good guys who deserve the benefit of the doubt. And this belief is shared by the people who employ them. As U.S. Brigadier General Karl Horst put it in a recent interview with Salon.com about mercenaries that are employed by the U.S. in Iraq:

"These guys run loose in this country and do stupid stuff. There's no authority over them, so you can't come down on them hard when they escalate force."

It's high time that we put the use of mercenaries back on the list of morally repugnant acts that includes piracy, using cluster bombs, and scattering land mines.

New Yorker Cover

I just found out that there is apparently a huge flap about the July 21, 2008 New Yorker cover which is a cartoon depicting Michelle Obama as an afro-wearing revolutionary and Barack Obama as muslim. While the couple is fist-bumping, the American flag burns in the background and Osama Bin Laden peers down at the couple from the revered place in the picture frame over the mantle. You can see the image here. http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/toc/2008/07/21/toc_20080714

Although the cover does not say it, the image is for the cover story entitled "The Politics of Fear". It is about what the last seven years have been in this country. If Americans begin losing faith in their leaders, raise the terrorism alert to reverse that slide in the polls. If people question policy, announce that you have just captured a key member of the axis of evil and that saying anything against the government at this time would be unpatriotic.

Of course, we all know that we live in a country where image is everything and that more can be said (true or not) and perceived as fact in a five second televised image repeated every hour in the 24-hour news cycle, than can ever be said by presenting a rational, well thought out explanation. I understand that images can hurt, wound, present unintentional messages, and change moods, trends, and feelings. Nonetheless, I have to wonder why is this image so disturbing to everyone?

The Obama campaign has called it "tasteless and offensive". McCain's campaign was quick to distance themselves from it. David Remnick, of the New Yorker (see the interview here http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/07/13/david-remnick-on-emnew-yo_n_112456.html), calls it satire. He says it is meant to play up all the stereotypes that play on peoples' fears and show how irrational, and often silly, they are. I think it does that. Anyone, on the right or left, already knows (or at least Jon Stewart and Michelle Obama in an appearance on "The View" tried to tell them) that the fabricated controversy over the "terrorist" fist bump between the putative democratic nominees for first couple was ridiculous and plainly wrong. Those who read the New Yorker have seen controversy in the cover art (not to mention the content contained within the confines of the cover) before. Those with long memories will remember the cover cartoon of a black woman and an orthodox jewish man kissing just days after the Crown Heights riots in Brooklyn broke out between the two groups. Without mentioning the religious infractions visited upon the orthodox man who would commit what some view as blasphemous and heinous actions, it was clearly a time of heightened sensitivity being mined for a greater point.

One would also hope that those who read the New Yorker, which in my view clearly requires some attention span given the lengthy articles with tiny type and occasional laborious prose would take the time (at least over five seconds) to understand what it is the magazine was about. After all, it is the magazine of the few, not the many in this country. Its subscription pool generally runs to the well-educated, left-leaning, affluent and frankly mostly consists of New Yorkers and those who used to or wanted to live in New York. Hardly the type to buy into right-wing stereotypes or be affected solely by a cover image. Yet, this cover has provoked a slew of letters calling for cancellations of subscriptions, the head of the editor, and has replaced use of Obama's middle name and fist-bumping critiques as what plays for news on the 24-hour news cycle.

Have we as a society become the egg-shell victim -- So sensitive to criticism that even attempts at satire provoke mortal wounds to our psyche? Is this simply a tempest in a teapot? After all, there is only so much one can say when news reports go on for 24 hours continuously and we all know the biggest love affair the press have is with itself. So perhaps it is simply another incident of an industry discussing its internal issues with us the public as the witnesses and the bystanders to the venting. More importantly, what does this controversy say about us as a society? There are those that argue that this is just giving those on the right, those who are ignorant, McCain and his supporters, and those who simply do not like Obama more fodder for their attacks. I have to say that I doubt it really helped or hurt with any of those segments. There are those that are such Obama fanatics that any potentially negative image or critique is cause for concern, while such reinforcing images as the halo-encircled Jesus down from the mountaintop images of Obama that appear on magazines such as a recent cover of Rolling Stone fail to provoke ire.

For me, the concern looms larger. I have been worried for some time that we have become a country of individuals so deeply entrenched in our own views of the world that we only talk to people who share them, watch "news" (I use this label loosely) that reinforces our world view, and remain closed to new ideas, changes, or considerations. Perhaps I commit the same sin as all do as they age of romancing the past, but I thought I remembered an age where our disputes were not about what the facts were (which today remain hotly contested on everything) or our deeply entrenched beliefs but the focus was on a problem that needed to be solved and we just simply had different ways and thoughts about how to get there. The former is intractable. There is nothing to do but wonder whether we are a deeply divided country, so entrenched in our beliefs that they paralyze us to action. The latter position lends itself to discussion. We seem to be in the age of the former and this controversy is simply more evidence. So, where do we go from here?

Habermas on the European institutional crisis

A very interesting analysis from Jurgen Habermas about the state of Europe after the Irish rejection of the Lisbon treaty can be found here.

Habermas offers two possible solutions to the current situation. First Habermas proposes to allow countries like Ireland to partially or wholly withdraw from the European Union. As he explains:

This, at least, takes the decision of Irish voters seriously -- even though that was likely not the Irish intent. The mere mention of such an option sends the right message, however. A cooperative treaty with member states that wish to be temporarily relieved of the obligation to take part in certain institutions could help Europe move beyond the malaise.

Second, Habermas proposes to hold a European wide referendum on the future and direction of Europe. Habermas believes that, with luck and commitment, this could lead to a "two-speed Europe" in which different countries integrate at a different speed.

Habermas's ideas have much appeal. They squarely address the democratic deficit of the European Union as well as the elitism/disdain that many Europeans equate with the "European project." However, there are quite a few impediments to making this happen. For example, many governments oppose the idea of a two-speed Europe, even if their country is given the option not to participate, because their influence would be reduced.

More importantly, the referendum is meant to address a democratic deficit that was partly created by the national governments' lack of trust in their voters to do the "right" thing. Pointing to the Irish outcome, those same governments will oppose any efforts to give voters more rather than less power in determining the course of the European project.

Jim Baker and Warren Christopher go to bat for the rule of law

Never thought I would say it, but two illustrious and respected eminences grises of the foreign policy establishment -- Bush-pere's Republican Secretary of State Jim Baker III and Clinton's Democratic Secretary of State Warren Christopher -- just made a proposal that is so.... well... pre-9/11.

Baker and Christopher believe there's a need to pass the "War Powers Consultation Act of 2009" which "would, except for emergencies, require the president and Congressional leaders to discuss the matter before going to war." Let me repeat: this law would introduce the novelty of requiring the President to consult Congress before going to war. Oh wait, never mind, we already have the 1973 War Powers Resolution (passed by Congress in response to the Vietnam War, requiring -- you guessed it -- the President to consult with Congress before going to war). Baker and Christopher acknowledge this but add that the real problem is that the President does not recognize the validity of this resolution and that we are therefore in "a situation that undermines the rule of law, the centerpiece of American democracy."

It is beyond me why Baker and Christopher believe that future Presidents would adhere to this new War Powers Consultation Act of 2009 when they previously decided to ignore the 1973 War Powers Resolution. Indeed, it is beyond me why they believe that any President after this administration would take the trouble of complying with any inconvenient law. At a minimum, the President can attach a secret signing statement gutting the law (see here, explaining that in his signing statements "George W. Bush has routinely asserted that he will not act contrary to the constitutional provisions that direct the president to 'supervise the unitary executive branch.'") (emphasis added.) Moreover, the President can simply break the inconvenient law because there are unlikely to be any serious consequences to doing so anyway.

Put differently, who will make the President adhere to that "centerpiece of American democracy" called the rule of law if he or she does not do so voluntarily? Not the Courts. And apparently not Congress either.

Greenwald on why the FISA vote matters

The must read article in advance of the FISA "debate" this week can be found here.

I continue to be deeply disappointed by Obama's support for this bill. What's more, his rationale for supporting it -- "[t]he exclusivity provision makes it clear to any President or telecommunications company that no law supersedes the authority of the FISA court" -- is insulting our intelligence. Until the Bush administration began espousing its views of the unitary executive theory (the President is the decider and his power cannot be constrained by Congress or Court), no one believed that the President could break the law with impunity or that the President's power superseded the authority of the FISA court. If so, why was Clinton almost impeached based on allegations that he broke the law by lying under oath about his relationship with Lewinsky?

Moreover, the bill that Obama supports does nothing to contradict the unitary executive theory, and does nothing to prevent the President from knowingly breaking the law in the future. Rather, it shields everyone involved in the illegal spying program -- Bush administration officials, leading Democrats in the House and Senate, and the telecommunications companies -- from accountability, thereby reaffirming that the President can break the law with impunity.

Because the alternative is much worse, Obama can probably still rely on getting sufficient votes to become the 44th President. But where will the excitement be? Where will the "change we can believe in" be? Not with me.

And who will stand up and defend Obama as a man of principle when the same folks who now support the unitary executive theory because there's a Republican President will suddenly reassert the "proper" role of the federalist-society-infused judiciary as soon as there's a Democratic President? Not I.

Happy Fourth of July

A Fourth of July speech by Joseph Galloway for McClatchy newspapers that is well worth reading. (h/t to Greenwald.) Galloway poignantly explains the betrayal in Obama's new position and in McCain's continued support for the gutting of judicial oversight and the extension of retroactive immunity with respect to the illegal Bush-spying program --

The fact that British troops, operating on flimsy general warrants handed out by local magistrates, were kicking in the doors of ordinary Americans and rifling through their pantries and papers in search of smuggled, untaxed goods was a prime reason why our ancestors rebelled against their king and went to war.

This is WHY we celebrate the Fourth of July. This is why the vote on renewing the expanded version of FISA and whitewashing the egregious violations of the Fourth Amendment for seven long years by our government is important.

If neither John McCain, the Republican, or Barrack Obama, the Democrat, can find the courage to oppose such a violation of so basic a right, then what are we to do for a president, a successor to George W. Bush, The Decider, who has since 9/11 decided what rights you are entitled to keep, what laws he will or will not obey, and whether you will be protected by these words of the Constitution:

"The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized."

Indeed, before casting their vote in support of the new FISA legislation next week, Obama and McCain may want to consider the following thoughts by A.C. Grayling from across the pond --

The creation or adoption of instruments of control, surveillance, and eavesdropping, along with laws and powers to detain, proscribe, silence and punish in areas of thought and activity which were once not subject to such interference, is like loading a gun: we put the loaded gun in the hands of a benign and concerned government wishing to protect us from terrorism, illegal immigration and organised crime, then they pass the gun to the next generation of government, and they in turn to the next ... and so unpredictably into the future, in the hope that things will always be such, and times such, and people such, that benignity can and will reign all the way, with the ordinary citizen still functionally free and secure throughout.

History teaches a painfully different lesson about such naive hopes. If one would try to protect oneself against things going wrong, do not create instruments that could all too easily go wrong in the wrong hands - and very, very wrong at that.

I supported Obama over HRC, and vigorously defended this support, precisely because of my concern that HRC would suffer from the self-delusion that, because her motives were "benign", she could be trusted with the powers that the Bush administration has usurped over the past 7 years. Sadly, Obama appears to suffer from exactly that delusion.

Scalia's world

This is what Justice Scalia said on June 12, 2008 in his opinion dissenting from the Supreme Court's decision in Boumediene v. Bush that the prisoners in Guantanamo can ask a court to review whether their detention is lawful:

"[today's opinion] will almost certainly cause more Americans to be killed."

Here's what Scalia said two weeks later in his June 26, 2008 opinion in District of Columbia v. Heller striking down a government regulation making it a crime to carry an unregistered firearm:

"the Second Amendment extends, prima facie, to all instruments that constitute bearable arms, even those that were not in existence at the time of the founding."

That would include the 12-gauge shotguns and Tec 9 semi-automatic machine guns used in Columbine, and the Glock 19 used at Virginia Tech. I'm sure the irony of writing these two opinions within two weeks of each other is lost on Justice Scalia.

Keeping up appearances

Over the last few months, the U.S. Supreme Court has issued two important opinions in which the court determined that the "dignity of the procedure" should trump the rights and interests of a criminal defendant.

In Baze v. Rees (pdf), the U.S. Supreme Court affirmed a decision by the Kentucky Supreme Court that Kentucky's protocol for carrying out the death penalty did not violate the constitutional prohibition on cruel and unusual punishment in part because the protocol protected the "dignity of the procedure." Kentucky is a State where the death penalty is carried out by the injection of three separate drugs: the first drug is meant to induce a deep coma, the second drug paralyzes the muscles and stops the person's breathing, and the third drug stops the heart. It was asserted that the second drug should not be used because the person who is being killed may still be conscious but unable to show that he or she is in excruciating pain because his or her muscles are being paralyzed. The U.S. Supreme Court rejected this challenge to the use of the muscle-paralyzer in part because:

"[t]he Commonwealth has an interest in preserving the dignity of the procedure, especially where convulsions or seizures could be misperceived as signs of consciousness or distress."

Keeping up appearances for the witnesses and maintaining decorum during the execution is more important than avoiding the suffering of the person who is actually being killed.

Earlier this week, the Supreme Court in Indiana v. Edwards (pdf), the U.S. Supreme Court vacated and remanded a decision of the Indiana Supreme Court which had held that a defendant who is mentally competent to stand trial has a constitutional right to self-representation and cannot be forced to accept representation by counsel. In part to protect the dignity of the proceedings, the U.S. Supreme Court disagreed and held instead that the constitutional right to self-representation does not forbid State laws requiring that someone who is mentally competent to stand trial but not mentally competent to conduct that trial must accept representation by counsel. The U.S. Supreme Court explained that in those circumstances a criminal defendant's constitutional right to self-representation should be overridden because:

"given that defendant's uncertain mental state, the spectacle that could well result from his self-representation at trial is at least as likely to humiliating as enobling. Moreover, insofar a defendant's lack of capacity threatens an improper conviction or sentence, self-representation in that exceptional context undercuts the most basic of the Constitution's criminal law objectives, providing a fair trial."

Again, keeping up the appearance that all is peachy while prosecuting someone who is not competent to defend himself is more important than the constitutional rights of the person who is being prosecuted. However, as Grits wondered, "[i]s it any less a spectacle if we just lock up mentally ill people in prison en masse without the trial judge having to listen to them personally?"

Looking at both instances, is the focus on the marginal governmental interest in keeping up appearances and maintaining decorum at the expense of fundamental rights and due process more acceptable because the overruled constitutional rights are asserted by "bad" people?

World Values

Ronald Inglehart of the University of Michigan is the director of the "World Values Survey." This survey was started in 1981 by Dutch political scientists at the University of Tilburg and measures sociocultural, moral, religious and political values around the world.

One famous chart resulting from this survey is the Inglehart-Welzel cultural map of the world. Take a look on the World Values Survey website to see this map; it's fascinating. In short, the y-axis of the Inglehart-Welzel cultural map of the world shows where the populations of specific countries are located on a spectrum from traditional/religious values to secular/enlightenment values. As explained on the website:

The Traditional/Secular-rational values dimension reflects the contrast between societies in which religion is very important and those in which it is not. A wide range of other orientations are closely linked with this dimension. Societies near the traditional pole emphasize the importance of parent-child ties and deference to authority, along with absolute standards and traditional family values, and reject divorce, abortion, euthanasia, and suicide. These societies have high levels of national pride, and a nationalistic outlook. Societies with secular-rational values have the opposite preferences on all of these topics.

The x-axis of the map shows where those same countries are located on a spectrum plotting the development from industrial, "survival" societies to post-industrial societies emphasizing self-expression values in response to wealth accumulation. In this regard, the website states as follows:

The second major dimension of cross-cultural variation is linked with the transition from industrial society to post-industrial societies-which brings a polarization between Survival and Self-expression values. The unprecedented wealth that has accumulated in advanced societies during the past generation means that an increasing share of the population has grown up taking survival for granted. Thus, priorities have shifted from an overwhelming emphasis on economic and physical security toward an increasing emphasis on subjective well-being, self-expression and quality of life. [...]

Self-expression values give high priority to environmental protection, tolerance of diversity and rising demands for participation in decision making in economic and political life. These values also reflect mass polarization over tolerance of outgroups, including foreigners, gays and lesbians and gender equality. The shift from survival values to self-expression values also includes a shift in child-rearing values, from emphasis on hard work toward emphasis on imagination and tolerance as important values to teach a child.

Looking at this map, there are some intriguing tidbits of information. For example, it shows that the values of people in many Western European countries (including Germany, Sweden, Denmark and the Netherlands) are closer to the values of the Japanese than the values of the Irish (making professor Masayuki Tadokoro's recent plea to Western European leaders to stop thinking of the "East" as some amorphous alien world all the more understandable). Similarly, these surveys suggest that the values of the Portuguese are much closer to the values of the people in Chile and Argentina than for example to the values of the Spanish next door.

There are some interesting observations to be made about the U.S. as well. For example, when looking at the y-axis showing the spectrum from traditional/religious values to secular/enlightenment values, the U.S. as a whole is comparable to Romania, Poland, India or Vietnam. Because of the size of the U.S. and the differences among the various regions, it would therefore seem reasonable to conclude that parts of the U.S. are more traditional, religious and nationalistic than any region of any county in Western Europe other than Ireland, and are a world away from Japan and Sweden. At the same time, however, the U.S. is at the same level as those same countries when looking at the x-axis (development from survival to self-expression). Perhaps this begins to help explain some of the recurrent misunderstandings among "Europeans" and "Americans."

Where Is Obama On Telecom Immunity?

Today, the U.S. House of Representatives passed draft legislation that, if it also passes the Senate and is signed by the President, will grant retroactive immunity to telecommunication companies that knowingly broke the law by spying on millions of Americans without proper authorization -- House Passes Bill on Wiretap Powers. Personally, I strongly (!) disagree with granting retroactive immunity for companies that knowingly broke the law, especially when that retroactive immunity was bought and paid for with substantial campaign donations to a few key lawmakers.

Full disclosure: I am a big fan of the Obama candidacy. But how can he not have a clear position on one of the major political fights that has been brewing for months? By winning the primaries, Obama has become the de facto leader of the Democratic party -- by remaining silent, Obama is, in effect, supporting retroactive immunity for the telecommunication companies. Indeed, if Obama was serious about opposing it, he could have had a little chat with Nancy Pelosi, and he could still discuss this with Harry Reid, thereby preventing the cynical sale of retroactive get-out-of-jail-free cards.

I am not saying that Obama is under any legal or ethical obligation to do that. But at a minimum, a presidential candidate that asks us to believe in "change," and who said that "I am in this race to tell the corporate lobbyists that their days of setting the agenda in Washington are over", cannot remain silent and should have the guts to take a firm position on this. Not next month; not next week; now.

French army to return under U.S. command

You may have missed this, but Nicolas Sarkozy has just announced that the French military will reintegrate into the NATO military command structure. France left NATO's military command structure under General de Gaulle in 1966 in part over misgivings over the Vietnam war and to maintain her sovereignty.

NATO has both a civilian and a military command. The civilian command is always led by a European, the military command by an American. To reintegrate the French military into the NATO military command is thus to reverse De Gaulle's earlier decision to keep the French military strictly under French control. This decision not only affects France, it also affects the rest of Europe and the U.S. because France has the largest standing army in Europe, and the U.K. is the only European country with a comparable military projection.

All of this comes against the larger backdrop of the future of European defense. Since the early 90s, there has been a discussion about whether Europe should build up its own defense capability independent from NATO or whether to continue to build a closer alliance with NATO (thereby embracing the cold war pact whereby Europe swore allegiance to the U.S. in return for protection under the U.S. military umbrella).

I am on the fence about this. On the one hand, the annual military budget for the U.K., France and Germany combined is not even 20% of the annual military budget of the U.S., and pooling resources among allies and friends makes sense. On the other hand, over the past 8 years, the Bush administration has repeatedly treated those alliances and friendships with contempt and placed them in doubt at the slightest suggestion of disagreement (over very disagreeable and, as we increasingly learn, very illegal practices).

Obama has solid lead over McCain

Things are looking pretty good for Obama: even without Florida, he's leading 309 to 229 in electoral votes -- see here. Note that this finding is not contradicted by the polls that are reported in the main stream media which suggest that Obama's lead in the popular vote is still within the margin of error. (The analysis suggesting that Obama currently leads by 80 electoral votes is based on a prediction that Obama will win 51.6% of the popular vote with McCain getting 47.3%.)

It's of course the electoral votes that count, and those votes are allocated based on winner-takes-all in 48 of the 50 states. (Only Maine and Nebraska do not follow this rule.) To suggest that this is currently a close race is therefore to make the same mistake as advising a candidate in the democratic presidential primaries, where electoral votes are allocated by proportional representation, to only focus on the big states. (Mark Penn, anyone?) Hillary Clinton's "chief strategist" made this elementary mistake, thereby substantially contributing to her strategic loss.

Yoo

John Yoo is a former Justice Department lawyer who had his hand in legal memoranda for the Department of Defense and the CIA to give legal cover for their use of "enhanced interrogation techniques." These memos have been widely condemned as legally unsound, shoddy pieces of work that were simply after-the-fact justifications for the widespread use of torture after Cheney infamously proclaimed "we have to work... the dark side, if you will."

Today, Yoo has an oped in the Wall Street Journal attacking last week's decision by the U.S. Supreme Court holding that the military commissions used to try Guantanamo detainees are unconstitutional. Glenn Greenwald demolishes Yoo's reasoning in characteristically thorough and methodical fashion over at Salon.

After writing the torture memos, Yoo left the government and became a tenured professor at Boalt (UC Berkeley). Question: should Yoo be removed from teaching future lawyers because of his active participation in providing legal justifications for government sponsored torture? Professor Levinson on balkinization thinks not.

Historic meeting planned for Israeli and Syrian leaders

There's an article in today's London Times discussing a possible meeting between Basher Assad of Syria and Israeli prime minister Ehud Olmert. For various reasons -- including the domestic political problems of Olmert and Assad and the likelihood that we will soon welcome president Obama -- the stars may be aligned for a deal.

The article also mentions something interesting that is underreported in the U.S. press: the meeting between Olmert and Assad may take place during a "summit of European and Mediterranean countries" that will be held in Paris on July 13. As some of you know, I have long been a proponent of defusing the most pressing problems in the middle east by co-opting the various countries into a larger joint economic enterprise like the original European Economic Community founded in the 1950s. As noted in this article on euractiv.com, the Union of the Mediterranean already includes all countries of the E.U. (upon German insistence), Algeria, Egypt, Israel, Jordan, Lebanon, Morocco, the Palestinian Authorities, Syria, Tunisia and Turkey, and one of the key objectives is to establish a free trade area by 2010. Perhaps this is overly ambitious, but one can always hope (especially when there's money to be made).

How the mind works

Sometimes you come across something that broadens your horizon, deepens insight, and so on. The following article by Israel Rosenfield and Edward Ziff in this month's New York Review had that effect on me -- How the Mind Works: Revelations. In it, Rosenfield and Ziff explain the latest biological research into how our minds work, including how we form memories and how we are conscious of ourselves and our surroundings. One amazing experiment about the "phantom pain" experienced by people who have lost a limb is described as follows:

One famous case is that of a young man who had lost his hand in a motorcycle accident. In a therapeutic procedure devised by V.S. Ramachandran, and described in his book with Sandra Blakeslee, Phantoms in the Brain, the patient put his intact hand in one side of a box and "inserted" his phantom hand in the other side. As the illustration on this page shows, one section of the box had a vertical mirror, which showed a reflection of his intact hand. The patient observed in the mirror the image of his real hand, and was then asked to make similar movements with both "hands," which suggested to the brain real movement from the lost hand. Suddenly the pain disappeared. Though the young man was perfectly aware of the trick being played on him —the stump of his amputated arm was lying in one section of the box—the visual image overcame his sense of being tricked. Seeing is believing! Pain—the consequence of the incoherence between the brain's creation of a phantom limb and the visual realization that the limb does not exist—disappeared; what was seen (a hand in the mirror) matched what was felt (a phantom).

The implications of some of this research are astounding. For example, how can we fully trust line-up identifications when memories "can be modified by the addition of new information?"

The unsuccessful E.U. Constitution and Lisbon treaty (2)

Some thoughts about Robert Kagan's view of Europe as increasingly irrelevant as reflected in the rejection of the Lisbon treaty -- Kagan's oped in today's Washington Post

Kagan understands the world in terms of power -- dividing the world into leaders and followers, and into those "with us" and those "against us" (first the communists, now the so-called islamo-fascists). Like so many others, both here in the U.S. and in Europe, he bought into Huntington's clash of civilization paradigm. Viewed through this lens, Europe is losing relevance because (i) it has not made sufficient investments into military development; and (ii) it is weakened by the current enemy-du-jour (Muslims) from within.

But this is generally not how most Western Europeans see the world. Centuries of war and unspeakable atrocities have ingrained a distrust of military force to achieve positive change. This notion is quite like the traditional American distrust of "government." As a result, use of force must be constrained (institutionally and legally) and legitimate -- i.e. absent U.N. approval, military force is only justified to defend the country against an imminent threat. As shown by his support for the illegal and illegitimate war in Iraq and his preference for "strong leadership", Kagan views those institutional and legal restraints without the same historical perspective (and treats them as pesky impediments at best).

Kagan similarly ignores the historical context of the relationship between the U.S. and Western Europe. After WWII, the U.S. and Western Europeentered into an agreement: in return for accepting U.S. leadership and dominance, Western Europe enjoyed the protection of the U.S. military umbrella (thereby allowing it in part to invest in the current welfare systems, education and the economy). Although the terms of this transatlantic agreement became the subject of renegotiation after 1989 (with different European countries taking different approaches), it is still not in the U.S.'s interest if Europe were to begin making the kind of military investments that we see here. Indeed, the same "neocons" and "realists" who decry Europe's supposed irrelevance would suddenly perceive a threat to U.S. interests and perhaps decide that Europe is a more realistic enemy than the amorphous (and incapable) "islamo-fascists."

Rearming Europe would also be terrible for Europe. With the exception of its common agricultural policy, Europe is now on balance a force for "good" in the world. But this is partly the result of a horrific legacy and historical guilt stemming from colonialism and genocide. So why give matches to a pyromaniac seeking to make amends? It would also simply be a waste of resources that are used to support countries that are economically and socially behind the times (like the $60 billion plus that was invested by the E.U. in Ireland). Moreover, rearming for what purpose? To fight the Russians and the Chinese as Kagan suggests? Who would benefit from that? Although Europe needs Russia for its resources, Russia needs Europe for its cash, infrastructure and common market (not the mention that Russia is "European" too). Similarly, Europe and China have developed very strong economic ties that would not be served by creating a new arms race. Indeed, the argument that Europe needs to rearm itself lies on yet another false dichotomy and the continued (and increasingly desperate) search by the "right" for external threats -- Russia, China and the E.U. simply do not pose any military threat to each other now or in the foreseeable future.

Refusing a clash of civilizations paradigm also shows that rather than losing relevance, Europe is actually gaining importance and relevance as an honest broker and social laboratory. Although many citizens of many European countries are (frequently too) distrustful of their Muslim fellow-citizens for cultural and economic reasons, most governments and elites are actively resisting the notion that all Muslims are dangerous or disloyal to their country. With results: the active cooperation between citizens who are Muslim with the security and intelligence services has helped thwart attacks and has saved lives (including U.S. lives) around the world.

In short, Kagan and his followers should stop pandering their facile notions by painting the world into black and white. The belief that everyone in the world can be broadly categorized as friend or foe simply does not help make this world a better place for anyone (least of all Americans). Indeed, when was the last time you traveled to South America, Asia or even Europe and were not a little apprehensive identifying yourself as an American? -- when I lived in Paris a few years ago, I saw so many "Canadians" that by any count all of Canada was enjoying a vacation abroad.