A Second Hand Conjecture

A potential warning that something may be afoot…

we have the same type of trading that took place in the days that preceded the 9/11 attacks – but on a larger scale. Nearly $1 billion of “put options” have been purchased, basically betting that Standard and Poor’s 500 index will fall significantly by the third Friday in September. A large number of these options have also been purchased calling for 50% decline by September 21, 2007. For example, a 5% drop in the Dow Jones Industrial Average would be the current equivalent of about 670 points. A decline of 11% would equal about 1,470 points in today’s market. Obviously, larger drops, such as a 50% decline, would cause an unprecedented market collapse. Money would be made for the purchaser(s) of the put options – but the same purchaser(s) stand to lose over $1 BILLION in the investment if the market remains relatively static through September 21, 2007.

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Austin Bay makes some good points today on what Petraeus’ report to Congress will likely entail, and why it is important.

Petraeus’ report is a creature of this instantaneous and pervasive media. For better or worse, he is responding to the condition and using the condition.

War doesn’t operate on media time or political calendars. Petraeus’ report will address that fact. The Baghdad clock and the Washington clock run at different speeds. The Baghdad Clock is ponderously slow and painfully incremental. Why? Because what the Iraqi government does and does not do must be politically digestible in a nation where democratic politics is a brand new experience.

Washington’s clock — at least the one run by the likes of Sens. Carl Levin and Hillary Clinton — is set to the 2008 election.

Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki disdains their myopia. At a news conference earlier this week, Maliki said: “There are American officials who consider Iraq as if it were one of their villages, for example Hillary Clinton and Carl Levin. They should come to their senses.”

Petraeus will give all politicians an opportunity to come to their senses.

One can look at the General as pressing the front-page and even the podium in front of Congress, into service as part of the strategy to win the war. To one degree or another, the media has always played some part in the battle space. Would the Spanish/American War have been fought if not for the “Sinking of the Maine.” The “anti-war” crowd has been trying their hardest to sap the credibility of Petraeus since at least July. They are already discounting anything he might have to say in front of Congress. Even as Harry Reid starts edging away from his hardline stance.

This fits in nicely with some other recent, related posts in the blog-sphere:

Arguing from Different World: http://www.thomaspmbarnett.com/weblog/2007/08/debating_mr_hewitt.html

But that’s why the debate is getting so dysfunctional on our end: all name calling and cries of traitor if you discuss our options in anything less than totally unconditional terms (to be against Bush is to hate America and its military and be a surrender monkey). It is highly unrealistic and approaching infantile to restrict our conversation so, not to mention full of hypocrisy (Anyone give a shit over 400,000 dead in Darfur? Don’t plan on it anytime soon. And yet, if Bush and Co. plan the postwar better, we could have been there and back by now. And please don’t remind us of what the hardcore righties declared when Clinton finally took us into the Balkans, leading them to back Bush in 2000 because he promised outright never to engage in such craziness, only to then make Clinton look small in comparison).

We’re losing our ability to discuss Iraq with any perspective–at least in the public realm. I discuss the issues and strategic choices with none of this hyperbole or name-calling on a daily basis in professional realms (yes, that vast world of reality beyond the blogs, where I earn a real living working with actual people with actual names), and there heads remain quite cool on the subject, despite many schools of thought existing.

Opinions set in stone: http://www.qando.net/details.aspx?Entry=6793

yesterday in a comment about the GAO report:

” Each side will highlite the select portions of the various reports that support their arguments. (And I’ll include myself in that statement.) And we’ll have yet another toss-up of conflicting visions and talking past each other. I think, most people who’ve made up their mind, aren’t going to change their mind anytime soon.”

For the most part, I think he’s right. But if you believe this Zogby poll, there is still an apparent segment of the country that is changing its mind about Iraq and has suddenly put at least these poll numbers in a majority saying they do not believe the US has lost the war in Iraq

GOA Report: http://www.qando.net/details.aspx?Entry=6791

The “Petraeus Report”: http://www.qando.net/details.aspx?entry=6764

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Does the blogosphere make history more relevant? Is it possible that Santayana’s famous admonishment is made less likely by bloggers routinely wielding history as a foil to those arguments favoring actions proven desultory in the past? And that’s not to mention how blogs go about correcting historical inaccuracies trotted out by our betters. I can’t help but wonder about these questions, and the role of the blogosphere on the future, when so many lessons that I thought had been learned are tested once again.

In addition to that supremely failed experiment called communism, we also see attempted repeats of the Vietnam exodus and denials of the likely aftermath. Despite what history teaches us about all these events, some vow that this time will be different, or worse pretend that the past did not occur the way it actually did. Today bears witness to proposals which apprently ignore the wonderfully failed government intervention that brought us the S&L crisis from the 70’s and 80’s.

President Bush today plans to outline a number of proposals to stem the tide of mortgage defaults and help people hold on to their homes, a senior administration official said Thursday.

The program is the first detailed administration response to the housing-sector woes that have roiled financial markets worldwide since June, amid surging home loan delinquencies.

Included in the plan, according to the official, will be a proposal to expand the Federal Housing Administration’s ability to insure loans for people who have fallen behind on their payments and could be helped by refinancing.

The president also wants to raise the limit on the insurance premiums that the FHA can charge home buyers. That could allow the agency to insure a greater number of loans to high-risk borrowers.

In addition, Bush will propose temporarily suspending an Internal Revenue Service rule that makes a homeowner liable for taxes on any amount of mortgage debt that is forgiven by the lender, said the official, who requested anonymity because the president’s program hadn’t been formally unveiled.

The markets reacted predictably:

U.S. stocks rallied, led by bank shares, on President George W. Bush’s plan to curb mortgage defaults and stem losses in credit markets.

Countrywide Financial Corp., the nation’s largest mortgage lender, and Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc., the biggest underwriter of bonds backed by home loans, advanced after Bush said the government will help people with delinquent mortgages keep their homes. Dell Inc., the second-largest maker of personal computers, rose after posting profit and sales that beat analysts’ estimates.

Of course, that was just until Ben Bernanke said his own piece on the matter:

Stocks retreated from their highs after Federal Reserve Chairman Ben S. Bernanke said it is “not the responsibility” of policy makers to protect lenders and investors from the consequences of their financial decisions.

It’s like a globalized version of “good cop, bad cop.” Nevertheless, I find it curious that the moral hazard implicit in the S&L crisis is yet again being offered as a solution here. Indeed, there are great many similarities between the behaviors that led to the current subprime woes and the underlying conditions that brought about the S&L crisis (the primary difference being that high interest rates were an incentive then, while low interest rates were an incentive in the recent meltdown). In short, when the bad consequences of taking risks are minimized to the risk-taker, or insured for free by someone else, then we should expect to see more of the riskiy behavior. An even shorter version is, if you want more of something, the pay for it.

Will blogs bring once again wield history in a way that sheds light on why this is a bad idea. It is true that the blogosphere does not have a wonderful track record of success when it comes to changing behavior, but is it possible that by the constant and instantaneous reminders from the past will help avoid similarly bad decisions in the future? Hopefully, these questions and others will find some answers in the near term. Our current leaders could use a healthy dose of history.

Technorati Tags: history, blogosphere, S&L crisis, subprime mortgages

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Jeff @ Protein Wisdom makes some good points about the received wisdom of the mainstream media…

You have to wonder, reporters are skeptical of our government and military sources of information, but hardly skeptical about each other.

McQ also has a deconstruction of the article in question…

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Shocked I tell you, I am absolutely shocked to learn that some professional wrestlers take steroids.

OK, I’m not shocked, and this is a good move by WWE. Now if we could only get “professional” baseball, and football to go along with this. Or stop the hypocrisy and start enhanced leagues, where anything goes. Steroids, bionics, anything goes.

http://www.thesun.co.uk/article/0,,2003560001-2007400628,00.html

IN the most decisive move of its kind in the history of the wrestling business, the WWE have suspended many of their biggest name wrestlers for breaking drug rules.

The action came after the 10 men – allegedly including former world champions Edge and Randy Orton, ECW champ John Morrison, Brit William Regal and rising star Mr Kennedy – were identified as clients of Signature Pharmacy in Orlando.

That company was busted by cops in February for the distribution of steroids and other prescription drugs to clients who had not been examined by a doctor.

It has now been established that their ‘patient’ list included the 10 grapplers.

Former stars Chris Benoit, Brian ‘Crush’ Adams’ and Eddie Guerrero were also clients – all are now dead.

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Joshua brought up this little tid-bit in his last post…

There is also a rather shocking exhibit of an underreported side effect of the war: advances in medical technology now allow survivability after injuries that once were fatal. Which means a new generation of the crippled and maimed are coming home.

There have been “advances” in battlefield medicine in many past wars. So, it shouldn’t be that shocking. And as these advances become mainstream medicine, it improves the field, and our quality of life overall. Also look for improvements in the follow-on care of these soldiers. It isn’t to hard to predict advances in bionics, skin regrowth, and other medicine, as the new members of our “Greatest Generation,” demand more from the VA then a bed in the back ward.

The survivability rate has dramatically improved, with 90% of the wounded being saved.

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2006/06/04/sunday/main1680075.shtml

“You go back to the Revolutionary War and 42 percent of those soldiers who were hit in battle died,” Gawande says. “By World War II, it was under 30 percent who had died from their wounds. And, yet, by the Korean War, Vietnam War and even the Persian Gulf War, it was around 25 percent who died.

“We didn’t make a massive improvement and, yet, in this war we have.”

…

“Shipping them to Landstuhl (in Germany) and then back to the United States, while they’re still critically ill and on ventilators and in need of further surgeries, that — that was unheard of until this war,” says Colonel Craig Shriver, who teaches battlefield surgery at the Walter Reed Army Medical Center.

To appreciate the speed, consider this: during the Vietnam war, it took 45 days for the wounded to go from battlefield to stateside.

Today, it takes less than four.

…

“I believe that necessity is the mother of invention. And as you would probably agree, war provides many necessities,” says Dr. Larry Loughlin, dean of the Uniformed Services University.

Prior to the Civil War, Loughlin says, “The concept of the hospital as we know it did not exist.”

During World War I, the idea of bringing blood to the battlefield for blood transfusions was introduced. World War II marked the first widespread use of penicillin and after debuting during the Korean war, emergency evacuation helicopters became a common feature of medicine’s battle plan during Vietnam.

Shriver says the correlation between advances in emergency care and war stems from the fact that war is “an intense American experience where really the best minds of health care are all coming together for a cause.”

He adds, “And so we’re putting the best people — a lot of them together on a specific issue — and good things come out of that.”

And what has past wars brought us…

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battlefield_medicine

* The practice of Triage, by Dominique Jean Larrey during the Napoleonic Wars.
* Advances in surgery – especially amputation, during the Napoleonic Wars and first world war on the battlefield of the Somme.
* The first practical method for transporting blood, by Norman Bethune during the Spanish Civil War.
* Ambulances or dedicated vehicles for the purpose of carrying injured persons.
* The extension of emergency medicine to prehospital settings through the use of emergency medical technicians.
* The establishment of fully equipped and mobile field hospitals such as the Mobile Army Surgical Hospital and its successor, the Combat Support Hospital.
* The use of helicopters as ambulances, or MEDEVACs.

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Josh is taking a break from everything until Tuesday. Happy Labor Day, you Socialist pigs!.

Defense & The War

• One of the men involved in the Abu Ghraib atrocity has been brought to justice: for “disobeying an official order to keep silent about the investigation. Prosecutors have asked that Jordan be fined one months pay – about $7,400.” Our fabulous system of military justice.
• The GAO just called the White House and DoD a a cabal of liars.
• A good look at crashing morale in the Army, and the ways in which an outspoken enlisted corps might change civilian-military relations. There is also a rather shocking exhibit of an underreported side effect of the war: advances in medical technology now allow survivability after injuries that once were fatal. Which means a new generation of the crippled and maimed are coming home.

Around the World

• I’ve been asked to begin assembling roundups of what blogs are saying about Afghanistan for Global Voices Online, a cross-cultural communication website run by the Berkman Center for Internet and Society at Harvard Law. My first post, on the poor judgment used by the West and the U.S. in Afghanistan, is up.
• Seeing the trailer for The Kite Runner actually made me excited about a new movie for once.
• So Uncle Pervy is quitting the Army. Cool. But in Benazir Bhutto, who proved a feckless and ineffective ruler last time she was around, really a better choice? Roger Williams has more.
• I guess Belgium is on the verge of collapse?
• Another company is figuring out how to use cell phones to make profit through poverty relief. I really think this kind of distributed microfinance is going to lead to a revolution in how we view commerce: that profit-making can be targeted to specifically benefit the worst off among us; and in process everyone is made wealthier. In this case, they’re enable micropayments and remittances through cell phones, so expatriates can wire money back home incredibly quickly. Think about how that could be leveraged on a global scale, among many countries, in a massive, and spontaneous, outpouring of profit-making poverty relief. Incredible.
• Why is the nuclear deal with India such a bad idea? I’ve speculated it is because it undermines the NPT, grants needless favoritism to a tense standoff in South Asia, and undermines our case against North Korea, while giving us even less credibility and moral authority over nuclear proliferation. Ivan Oelrich explains further just how bad an idea this really is.
• Speaking of nukes, what exactly is Iran doing with theirs? Something doesn’t add up.
• Again, with the Soviet dystopian industrial nightmare pictures. I can’t get enough of ‘em.

Back at Home

• Lance neglects to notice that the absurdly small brains of French civil servants have already graced this blog, in a News Brief dated July 25. Thanks for reading, Lance!
• Image advice for Senator Craig, from one homosexual to another. Don’t miss the “You’re a naughty boy, Bill Clinton” video at the end.
• An acapella group at my alma mater has decided to make jokes about that kid whose throat was slashed in their application process. Classy!
• I am not the only one who is kind of bored but definitely put off by the Instapundit’s beathlessly incorrect sensationalism.
• It is a refrain oft-repeated here: our terrible information policy, which is the equivalent of building only roads that would generate the most toll volume and leaving the rest to be gravel paths, will destroy us in the future.

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The “reality based” ideologues often decry when politics get in the way of science, but that certainly seems what they are doing with regards to global warming. But then, hey, making overblown claims based on the scantiest of evidence, real or anecdotal, gets them in the press, and makes them seem caring.

http://epw.senate.gov/public/index.cfm?FuseAction=Minority.Blogs&ContentRecord_id=b35c36a3-802a-23ad-46ec-6880767e7966

Of 528 total papers on climate change, only 38 (7%) gave an explicit endorsement of the consensus. If one considers “implicit” endorsement (accepting the consensus without explicit statement), the figure rises to 45%. However, while only 32 papers (6%) reject the consensus outright, the largest category (48%) are neutral papers, refusing to either accept or reject the hypothesis. This is no “consensus.”

The figures are even more shocking when one remembers the watered-down definition of consensus here. Not only does it not require supporting that man is the “primary” cause of warming, but it doesn’t require any belief or support for “catastrophic” global warming. In fact of all papers published in this period (2004 to February 2007), only a single one makes any reference to climate change leading to catastrophic results.

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When threats are phoned in, how seriously should they be considered?

At my last company, one of the buildings we had offices in would get a bomb threat called in 2 or 3 times per month. Now, the company gave us the latitude to go wait outside the building until it was cleared, or we could ignore it. After the first couple of times, everyone got to the point of ignoring it (unless you wanted to go pick up Starbuck’s, or something, in which case it was convenient.)

Now, this tactic would seem to be easily spoofed by having a few employees do something odd, like jumping jacks in front of the window. Of course, with Google and others wiring up the planet for live 24/7 video, a potential extorter would still be able to see what was going on.

This seems like cell-phone version of the Nigerian Scam. If they make 100 calls, and only 10% of people wire money, your still talking $300,000

So what happens when that funky new table reads the contents of your wallet, or that key-fob credit card (for the cash-less society) and some one’s hacked into the table. Yep, progress. Sometimes I feel like becoming a Luddite, despite my career in software technology.

http://apnews.myway.com/article/20070830/D8RB656O0.html

Large grocery and discount stores across the country have been targeted by a caller who threatens to blow up shoppers and workers with a bomb if employees fail to wire money to an account overseas, authorities said.

Frightened workers have wired thousands of dollars – and in one case took off their clothes – to placate a caller who said he was watching them but may have been thousands of miles away. The FBI and police said Wednesday they are investigating similar bomb threats at more than 15 stores in at least 11 states – all in the past week.

“At this point, there’s enough similarities that we think it’s potentially one person or one group,” FBI spokesman Rich Kolko said from Washington.

No one has been arrested, no bombs have been found, and no one has been hurt, though the calls have triggered store evacuations and prompted lengthy sweeps by police and bomb squads.

…

Kapin said the FBI found the call was made from a cell phone registered to a Los Angeles phone number but was leased out from a European company. Investigators determined the call had come from somewhere in Portugal.

Callers also tried to extort money with calls to a US Bank in Boise, Idaho, Wednesday morning; a Wal-Mart in Hutchinson, Kan.; bank branches at Wal-Marts in Salem, Va., and Fairlawn, Va., on Tuesday; to a Vons store in Vista, Calif., near San Diego, on Friday; and to two Giant Eagle grocery stores in the Pittsburgh area, authorities said. The FBI said it was also investigating similar incidents at a grocery store in Orem, Utah, on Monday and a store in McAllen, Texas on Saturday.

Separately, the FBI is looking into bomb threats on college campuses, including two in Ohio – the University of Akron and Kenyon College. No explosive devices have been found. Law enforcement officials said there was no evidence at this time linking the college bomb threats with those at grocery and discount stores.

Kenyon, in Gambier in central Ohio, received six separate bomb threats in a general admissions e-mail account between 6 a.m. and 9 a.m. Wednesday, college spokesman Shawn Presley said. Local and federal authorities determined the threats to be a hoax and the school was not evacuated as officials swept buildings searching for the bomb, he said.

The University of Akron closed classrooms, labs and offices in its Auburn Science and Engineering building on Wednesday, after a secretary in a dean’s office received an anonymous e-mail that included a bomb threat.

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So, when you spend a great deal of time touting your authority based on the unique advantages of editors, the question must be asked, who reviews the views and claims of the editors? From the editorial board of the New York Times we get this rather startling new information on our Constitution:

It is an eminently good thing that the anti-suicide measure would require medical specialists to keep track of veterans found to be high risks for suicide. But that’s to care for them as human beings, under that other constitutional right — to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. Respect for the grave sacrifices by veterans requires the Senate to strike down the Coburn ploy and hurry this vital measure to President Bush.

I think these kinds of beliefs explain a lot about how The Times views our Constitution. I suggest that they disabuse themselves of such ignorance by having everyone on their editorial board (and make it a requirement of future editors as well) study the work of a notable New Yorker by the name of Alexander Hamilton, as well as his co-authors John Jay and James Madison. Perhaps they have heard of the work, “The Federalist Papers.” Preferably they could do so under the tutelage of Randy Barnett (I think one should have it lead by someone likely to challenge any desire to search for what they want to in the text. Broadening perspective and all that.) This work, which they may have had assigned long ago, under rigorous examination may not change their views about anything, but at least we wouldn’t have to listen to them claim quite as often things about our constitution and how it is supposed to be interpreted which are manifestly untrue. Of course, while it would be a good thing for our nation if such an influential organ did this kind of thing, it would deprive many of us of a certain smug satisfaction.

So be it, we all have to make sacrifices.

(H/T: Instapundit)

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Drinking himself into a stupid over at The Conjecturer.

Defense & The War

• Yes, expressing doubt about the independence of the Petraeus report and the curious information war he is fighting against America is really just liberal propaganda. That’s it exactly.
• Meanwhile, the deal in Baghdad that might have offered some reconciliation looks more like it was kabuki theater so the 9/11 report (the one on Iraq, mind you) would have something nice to say… from ginormous failure of an embassy.
• I get it: Bush is scrambling for reasons to stay in Iraq, Ahmadinejad says Iran will fill the vacuum after the inevitable, Bush immediately proclaims moral victory (the war is now about saving Iraq from Iran, apparently?) and asks Congress for another $50 billion, and we all giggle and clap our hands and forget that Iran has anything to do with Iraq precisely because we are still there and who really wants Iran around anyway? Clever!
• It’s a good thing we’re fighting this war for the Iraqis, because we won’t even let the ones who are fleeing in terror to register as refugees inside Iraq. Way to go, Bush! Create millions of at-risk innocents, and prevent them from ever finding safe haven! Luckily, the newest member of the Council on Foreign Relations recently took a trip to Iraq to push for refugee rights. The consensus? “God, I’m so turned on.” Unfortunately, there is a larger point to be made as well: this one trip by St. Angelina (an unfair label, since in interviews she seems genuine) will do more to draw attention to the issue than months of professional reporting.

Around the World

• Russian IP thieves, at GAZ. Of all the cars in the world to copy, they chose a Chrysler Sebring, rather than a car people would want to drive. Maybe it’s because Chrysler is going bankrupt.
• I am probably one of a very few people in this country who find choomi (Tuvan throat singing) beautiful… but I do. An interesting interview with the film maker is over at neweurasia.net. More hypnotic, utterly beautiful throat singing can be found on .
• Hey everyone, let’s go study at the new English-language North Korean Technical University!
• You know the efforts in Afghanistan are totally on track when he hire former heroin dealers to head anti-corruption campaigns.
• I take a look at the rise of Islamism in the Ferghana, over at Registan.net.

Back at Home

• Much-maligned Wal-Mart has been caught not paying taxes in Wisconsin. Silly billies.
• While it’s appropriate to mock Miss South Carolina with all our might, what most concerns me is that sash, which says only, “Dumb Bitch.” I want that. I want it for when I’m at work. I want it for when I’m out. I want it for when I interact with people. That is beautiful.
• Speaking of dumb bitches, poor Larry Craig is clearly a victim of an over-eager press and unfortunate circumstance… since 1982, I imagine, and certainly since October, when people like Instapundit were defending him. Meanwhile, Gay Patriot has an appropriate reaction. And The Malcontent, as always, has a big smirk on its collective face.
• I might as well die and go to heaven when . There is pretty much no reason not to vote for him anymore.

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Winterspeak discusses, “how to undo the bubble?”

I think one inevitable requirement of unwinding the housing bubble market is that housing prices have to come down to fall in line with historic trends. In some areas this means very dramatic decreases — maybe 40%+ in real terms? I’m not sure what a “deflated housing bubble” would look like if it did not bring prices back to historic norms. We are not going to see price declines of this magnitude unless we have very very motivated sellers, which means banks for older properties (which have been foreclosed on), and builders for newer properties. If prices do not fall, then transactions will dry up. I can see the government stepping in and helping owners (and their lenders) but I’d be surprised if builders will be helped that much. This means that areas that have had the most new construction should see the most dramatic price corrections.

That is why this will take a long time. Most people will stay in their houses and refuse to sell because they can’t afford to sell at a price that will move. Thus we will see a slow adjustment, unlike stock prices. Prices will come back into line as more and more sellers have to accept what the market is willing to bear, as people default, and the slow movement of inflation.  Meanwhile the residential construction business (which in employment terms has not really corrected due to the filling of existing orders) will have a long tough road, as well as all the industries associated with it and on and on in decreasing effects. With mortgage equity withdrawal collapsing this will probably have a big impact on spending patterns through that mechanism as well. Changing consumption and investment patterns means adjustment. That usually means slower growth and possibly recession. None of this requires the present credit concerns as a catalyst, though that issue is obviously problematic as well.

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That is the headline, which normally might be fodder for a joke, or something in The Onion or Scrappleface, but its the underlying story makes me uncomfortable in making it. Hat tip: Alex Tabarrok

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Unions, Socialists, and now Castro, want a Democrat in the White House…

Hmmm, why is that unsettling??

http://www.reuters.com/article/politicsNews/idUSN2825114320070829?feedType=RSS&feedName=politicsNews&rpc=22&sp=true

Ailing Cuban leader Fidel Castro is tipping Democratic candidates Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama to team up and win the U.S. presidential election.

Clinton leads Obama in the race to be the Democratic nominee for the November 2008 election, and Castro said they would make a winning combination.

“The word today is that an apparently unbeatable ticket could be Hillary for president and Obama as her running mate,” he wrote in an editorial column on U.S. presidents published on Tuesday by Cuba’s Communist Party newspaper, Granma.

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But the Iraq war is lost, he needs to buck up and keep listening to the Democrats…

Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr has ordered a six-month suspension of activities by his Mahdi Army militia in order to reorganize the force, and it will no longer attack U.S. and coalition troops, aides said Wednesday.

The aide, Sheik Hazim al-Araji, said on Iraqi state television that the goal was to “rehabilitate” the organization, which has reportedly broken into factions, some of which the U.S. maintains are trained and supplied by Iran.

“We declare the freezing of the Mahdi Army without exception in order to rehabilitate it in a way that will safeguard its ideological image within a maximum period of six months starting from the day this statement is issued,” al-Araji said, reading from a statement by al-Sadr.

In Najaf, al-Sadr’s spokesman said the order also means the Mahdi Army will no longer launch attacks against U.S. and other coalition forces.

“It also includes suspending the taking up of arms against occupiers as well as others,” Ahmed al-Shaibani told reporters.

Asked if Mahdi militiamen would defend themselves against provocations, he replied: “We will deal with it when it happens.”

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I’m at a loss for explaining these vastly different views. Is it mere political partisanship? Or is it something more fundamental, like having hope and optimism, or dare I say it, faith? How are these views biasing the coverage in the media?

http://www.zogby.com/news/ReadNews.dbm?ID=1352

A majority of Americans – 54% – believe the United States has not lost the war in Iraq, but there is dramatic disagreement on the question between Democrats and Republicans, a new UPI/Zogby Interactive poll shows. While two in three Democrats (66%) said the war effort has already failed, just 9% of Republicans say the same.

The poll comes ahead of a September report to Congress by David Petraeus, commander of the multi-national force in Iraq, on the progress of the so-called surge in quelling attacks by insurgents and creating an atmosphere where the new Iraqi government can develop.

This strong skepticism of success in Iraq among Democrats echoes the position of some party leaders, most strongly worded by Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, who said in April that he believed that “this war is lost and that the surge is not accomplishing anything.” This latest UPI/Zogby poll shows Americans are divided on the success of the U.S. troop surge in Iraq – while 49% believe it is not working, nearly as many (45%) said the surge has been effective. The vast majority of Democrats (86%) don’t believe the surge is working, compared to just 11% of Republicans.

(H/T HotAir)

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Thanks Michael for putting that up for me. This site (along with many of my other favorite blogs,) was on the banned list here at work for a while, and we don’t have the internet hooked up at home, having just moved.

The money quote for me is:

“We believe that when you rely on someone else, you’re at their mercy”

One can use New Orleans, and Katrina (or any calamity for that matter,) as a mirror into ones views of life. Here we have two vastly different outcomes and outlooks on life. One positive and the other negative. As they say, “What goes around comes around.” You can blame others for failures in your life, but that doesn’t divorce you from the choices you make.

There is something to be said for that good “old fashioned” American value of self-reliance. Of course, too many progressive/liberal/leftist/democrats, that means one is left all alone, disconnected from anyone else, and must only rely on ones own means. It seems odd that they would depend on faceless,far-away bureaucrats, before they would ask their neighbors for help, or even help their neighbors without any personal gain. To many others, self-reliance is not depending on handouts and being in charge of your own destiny. Asking family, friends, and your community for help, or pooling your resources together, as this Vietnamese community has done, is the perfect example of self-reliance.

The lesson, you can sit around waiting (and complaining) for help to arrive, or you can make do with what you have, and help yourself and others.

With the hurricane season getting into gear, and tornadoes popping up across the midwest, laying in supplies for a couple of days (or weeks if you have the budget and room,) is just the prudent thing to do.

And emergency supplies don’t have to cost a lot.

Popular Mechanics has some good info on this topic.

And surprise, surprise the government even has some good info on preparing yourself, your family, and even your community for disasters. http://www.ready.gov/ has been available since 2002

Two quotes on self-reliance that I try to live by are:

“Hope for the best, but prepare for the worst” and “Prior planning prevents poor performance and panic.”

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Two years after the devastation of New Orleans from Hurricane Katrina, New Orleans is still rebuilding and the politicization of the storm is still raging (emphasis added):

(CNSNews.com) – In the two years since Hurricane Katrina struck New Orleans on Aug. 29, 2005, the Bush administration has failed to restore the city because of its reliance on conservative policies, a liberal organization charged in a report released Tuesday.

While conservative analysts acknowledged that the federal government could have responded more effectively to the disaster, they noted that the document failed to place any blame on the New Orleans mayor and the Louisiana governor – both of whom are liberal Democrats – while using President Bush as a “convenient scapegoat.”

“The failure we see in the rebuilding of New Orleans is without any question a failure of conservative governance,” said Robert Borosage, co-director of the Campaign for America’s Future, during a telephone news conference announcing the group’s report [pdf], “Compounding Conservative Failure: Hurricane Katrina Two Years Later.”

The report refers to a speech President Bush made on Sep. 15, 2005, in which he said: “We will do what it takes, we will stay as long as it takes, to help citizens rebuild their communities and their lives” in New Orleans.

That Governor Blanco and Mayor Nagin escaped blame is a bit odd. Neither comported themselves well before, during or after the natural disaster. But if your aim is to lambast political opponents, by blaming “conservative policies” for NOLA’s woes, then the omission makes sense.

“This administration believes that tax breaks and private enterprise will redevelop the society,” said Borosage, but “fundamental change has to be done, with the federal government making the commitment to build a modern public infrastructure ….”

“The same combination that crippled the reconstruction in Iraq – lack of planning, crony capitalism, no-bid contracts and scorn for public infrastructure – has undermined reconstruction in New Orleans,” the report said.

(emphasis added). If only that bolded part were actual conservative policy, I would probably count myself amongst their ranks. As it stands, “conservatives” in the Bush Administration simply believe in a relatively smaller government solution than what the Campaign for America’s Future would prefer to see. In the meantime, while the fight continues over just how much government is necessary to rebuild NOLA “a lot” vs. “and then some”), citizens in the community of Versailles have taken the rebuilding process upon themselves to great effect.

Entire strip malls remain shuttered in east New Orleans.

Apartment buildings are abandoned, and rows of utility poles still lean at precarious angles — a reminder of how viciously the area was battered by Hurricanes Katrina and Rita and the subsequent flooding — and how hard it’s been to rebuild.

But one enclave, the Vietnamese neighborhood known as Versailles, has rebuilt itself nearly to pre-Katrina conditions.

Homes in the community 12 miles east of downtown New Orleans have been gutted, rebuilt and repainted. Nearly all of its 7,000 residents have returned, and nearly every business has reopened.

While many projects across the Gulf Coast wait on billions of dollars in promised federal funds, Versailles residents have taken matters into their own hands.

While one place bickers with the federal government over just how much of a helping hand should be administered to rebuild the city, another place takes the initiative and nearly completes its rebuilding process on its own. Pastor Vien in Versailles nails the difference on the head.

The rebuilding effort has centered around Vien The Nguyen, pastor of Mary Queen of Vietnam Catholic Church.

“We believe that when you rely on someone else, you’re at their mercy,” Vien says.

Amen, pastor. Amen.

(HT: email from Keith)

Technorati Tags: Hurricane, Katrina, Rita, New Orleans, Louisiana, Ray Nagin, Kathleen Blanco, Versailles, Vien The Nguyn, Campaign for America’s Future, conservative policies, private initiative

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Our big brothers at QandO begin their fifth year today. Make sure you stop by and wish them a happy blogoversary.

We here at ASHC are deeply indebted to Jon, Dale and McQ for our own start. The addition of Billy and Bryan has made a great thing even better. So, Happy 4th guys. Here’s to many more.

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Digging for gold over at The Conjecturer.

Defense & The War

• Kevin Drum wonders what I do about General Petraeus’ report next month: “Will everyone swoon? Or will they demand more than just anecdotal evidence and unsupported statistics?” I know of at least one guy who has already pre-swooned.
• I wonder if they’ll account for the higher levels of violence that are borne out by the higher levels of death?
• There has been some confusion, even doubts, over whether or not we are over reliant upon airpower in Afghanistan. I explore how there really should be no doubts about this, over at Registan.net. But it’s not only the Air Force—the Navy is fond of buying multi-billion dollar obsolete misnomers as well.
• Now this is keen: “I just think the Pentagon’s acquisition strategy over the last six years has been to schizophrenically jump from one technology to the next in search of silver bullets. As a result, we let the insurgents set the technological tempo in Iraq, forcing the U.S. military to expend a premium of blood and treasure playing catch-up.” Indeed, until the surge we have been primarily reactive—a losing strategy if one ever existed. Even now, the focus tends to be on tech (like the MRAP) instead of on doctrine or strategy… despite the surge.

Around the World

• An alternative take on the designation of the Revolutionary Army as a terrorist organization. The gist is that by doing so, the Bush administration is uniting fractions within the government in opposition to American goals. This shouldn’t be surprising: Iranians are as patriotic as Americans are, and nothing makes them forget their differences like a foreigner trying to keep them down. It is worth considering, especially as the calls for “regime change” intensify.
• Kim Jong-nam, who is apparently just done with living on his estate and gambling away flood money in Macau, has moved back to North Korea for “high level” work in the same department where his father, The Dear Leader and General Kim Jong-il, got his start. If North Korea suddenly begins publishing 10,000 page hagiographic biographies, we’ll know who will be the next Dear Leader of Satan’s Paradise.
• Is it neo-orientalist to accurately describe the horror of Afghani gender relations? We’ve seen before the (to us) odd ordering of sexual sin: many Afghans would rather their boys be gay than look at a woman improperly; as such, I see little wrong with portraying the horrid state of women under the Taliban as exactly that. Plus, Hosseini is a beautiful writer, and I almost cried at the end of The Kite Runner. And I need to get to this new work soon—it is sitting on my nightstand, unopened.
• Speaking of which: how awesome is it that a major reformer in Iran might be destroyed for the crime of shaking hands with a woman?
• The environmental catastrophe of communism in Europe. The horrors of making a left turn in Beijing.
• A pilot in Afghanistan is distributing soccer balls to children. Problem is, the balls have a Koranic verse on them… and some Muslims find kicking the Koran disrespectful. More over at Registan.net.
• Uncle Pervy might trade his Army role to remain President. Ahem.
• Part three of Barnett Rubin’s excellent analysis of the UNODC report on opium in Afghanistan is up.
• Bonnie Boyd on the coming troubles of ENI in Kazakhstan.

Back at Home

• LOL: “If your man’s a conservative Republican who gets off on bemoaning the deleterious societal epidemic that is same-sex marriage, he’s PRETTY MUCH GAY.” It certainly seems that way these days. As Nick Gillespie puts it: “[Conservatives] should re-learn their supposed political philosophy, which is that government should leave people (and their money) alone as much as possible to pursue happiness.” Then again, Mr. Craig has apparently been denying this since 1982. So, for 25 years, we’ve known Pages were being abused by Congressmen? And we continue letting it happen, like Altarboys?
• If I may say so: it is fracking cool that we now upload embarrassing archival footage to YouTube within hours of these things coming out, so to speak… and that a book about the sexual abuse of minor Pages was published on 9/11/79. Wow.
• The pathetic legacy of Alberto Gonzalez.
• I hope everyone loves South Park as much as I do. But how can you talk about brilliant South Park episodes without mentioning Grey Dawn, or the Mormons, or the Scientology one? Actually, the more I think of it, the less I think I could narrow it down to 10. Heh.

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I recommend this podcast of Paul Romer with Russ Roberts talking about long-run economic growth. Hat tip: Greg Mankiw and Tyler Cowen amongst others.

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According to Robert Shiller, this much:

This index is already adjusted for inflation. This could mean housing has always been way undervalued, or that restrictions on building have artificially inflated prices and thus made them more sustainable. I am sympathetic to both explanations, to a point. My guess is, that point was passed long ago.

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McQ reminds us that we lost a true legend 17 years ago today. He offers a suitable paean to guitar master, but I wanted to contribute a taste of what I think may Stevie one the best of all time. From MTV’s “Unplugged” series:

and from the American Caravan, the “Oreo Cookie Blues” (with Lonnie Mack):

Enjoy. (RIP, Stevie: October 3, 1954 – August 27, 1990)

Technorati Tags: Stevie Ray Vaughn, SRV, acoustic, blues, August 27, 1990, guitar

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Teaching your girlfriend that thing you said you like over at The Conjecturer.

Defense and the War

• The reconciliation deal is of course welcome news. Lance urges proper caution (in particular because the Baath Party is none too pleased with the changes in de-Baathification), as Maliki has proven a marked ability not to hold these together. I wonder what impact that will have on the insurgency, and on the counterinsurgency. If the surge somehow did provide the government the breathing space we say it needed, will that push more pro-war bloggers to push for withdrawal? Or are signs of progress (such as the overwhelming presence of children in our detention centers) as equally indicative of our need to stay for years and years as signs of failure?
• This is certainly distressing, and it makes me doubt further our noble intentions in invading Iraq: “Rather than send the snake eaters to poke around mountain caves and mud-walled compounds, the U.S. military wanted to fight on a grander stage, where it could show off its mobility and firepower.” Well, I’m certainly glad Newt Gingrich convinced The Don Rumsfeld, and eventually Bush himself, that we needed a flashier war to prove how awesome we are. That like, totally worked out.
• Also, notice how even the war supporters in the government are saying the longer the war drags on, the better the jihadists become at methods and tactics? It really is a think tank for terrorism, one we created.
• Oops. National Review forgets what it advocated for years in Iraq, choosing instead to blame Democrats. Sounds about right. Also I lolled reading about how Paul Brinkley is “under investigation” for behaving like John Bolton and wanting a vast array of state-funded enterprises to fake an Iraqi economy. It sometimes moves beyond parody, ya know? Like, when we have 3,000 logistics offers per 2,000 ground troops in the surge…
• The F-35 was mis-designed by Lockheed Martin, turning it almost into a useless paperweight. This is one of the many reasons David Axe quite rightly sees the Air Force as increasingly irrelevant. He also repeats the Obama-slander that an over-reliance on air power creates havoc and kills too many civilians in Afghanistan. But what would he know? He’s only been there.

Around the World

• China barely has an environmental protection officials, which should inspire doubt as to their commitment to said environment… especially for the Olympics. And while I am generally “up” on China, they have serious human rights issues as well—such as the imprisonment and torture of Tiananmen Square dissident (and U.S. resident) Yang Jianli. As they expand their ocean presence, the way in which China chooses to exercise its growing power will to a large degree determine how various other countries—including this one—treat China right back.
• Russia may have finally zeroed in on the killers of Anja Politkovskaya. The culprits? Foreigners, conspiring to “discredit” the Kremlin. I daresay the Kremlin has been far more effective in this regard. I cover this more, including all the zaniness happening along the border with Georgia, over at Registan.net
• Barnett Rubin has an extensive exploration of the new U.S. Counternarcotics Policy for Afghanistan, with a great follow up here. Rubin is required reading for serious studies of Afghanistan.
• Meanwhile, Afghanistanica really beats a dead Chechen horse, twice. No, I’m not kidding, and read both links to see why. He and I share a deep frustration with the incredibly lazy reporting on Afghanistan… though I would extend that to westerners (and bloggers!) covering all of Central Asia.
• Hrm: Bridging two countries with one soul. I like the sound of that. Pics of the new drug trafficking bridge are available here.
• Bangladesh will most likely be the new front of anti-terrorism in the next decade. This is in part because big areas of the country are uncontrolled (rather, controlled by extremist groups like Harkat-ul Jihad al-Islami), and in part because for years there have been rumors of al-Qaeda operatives setting up shop in the central and northern bits of the country. In fact, shortly after the invasion of Afghanistan, a cargo vessel with known ties to al-Qaeda (i.e. it’s been tracked trafficking supplies for them) was seen in Chittagong and later Dhaka. Further, Bangladesh borders the insurgency-ridden Indian state of Assam… which bodes poorly for cross-border movement. There is nothing yet beyond rumor and educated guessing… but I don’t think this bodes well for the security of South Asia.
• What to make of Pervez Musharraf’s aides visiting with Bneazir and Nawaz? Might he behave like a mature adult, hold elections on time, and step down peacefully? Might Pakistan finally get back the democracy it so richly deserves? Might there be the chance Pakistani politics won’t be hopelessly corrupt?
• When the Turkish military complains that secularism is under attack, I immediately begin to wonder how long it will be before yet another coup. Turkey is caught in a nasty bind: its population has radicalized lately, in part because of its woes with EU ascension, in part because (let us be frank) because of our invasion of Iraq. But if the military takes over the government, as seems to be the pattern every three decades or so, they definitely won’t even join the EU, and it would worry an American military nervous they’ll also invade Kurdistan and muck up the very fragile consensus that might be building there. So what to do?
• Thank goodness the Chinese have finally begun to feel okay with having sex. Actually, that’s partially serious: I’m all about people feeling free to make their own choices about sex, without some lame-ass ideology—whether religious or socio-political—telling them not to. Just, ya know… double bag it.

Back at Home

• Alberto Gonzalez tendered his resignation, though he can’t recall doing so or the reasons for taking such an action. Adios, dickhead. Reason makes it a point to remind me what a nightmare pretty much all Attorneys General have been. Yuck.
• A student at my alma mater had his throat slashed on the first day of classes by a crazed older gentleman who then proceeded to stab himself several times in the chest. I think we need to respond with stricter knife control, because otherwise criminals will keep using knives to commit crime.
• Granted it’s Perez Hilton (himself a horrendous beast who makes me reconsider my stance against euthanasia), but his fake story on Castro’s death just left my jaw on the floor.

The should be familiar to anyone who ever took High School French.

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I, for one, am happy with this result. The man clearly had no control over his department and revelled a little too much in novel legal theories rather than hard analysis.

Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales announced his resignation today, ending a controversial cabinet tenure that included clashes with Congress over the firing of nine U.S. attorneys and over the use of warrantless wiretaps in the war on terror.

[...]

In a brief statement from an airport tarmac in Waco, Tex., President Bush praised Gonzales as “a man of integrity, decency and principle.” The president also asserted that his attorney general had been unfairly maligned.

“It’s sad that we live in a time when a talented and honorable person like Alberto Gonzales is impeded from doing important work because his good name was dragged through the mud for political reasons,” Bush said.

As with all spin, there is a grain of truth to what the President says. Gonzales has been unfairly maligned in my opinion, even though he should have resigned many months ago. The whole Attorney-Gate fiasco is a political boondoggle, designed to do nothing more than weaken the Bush Presidency. The very idea that there is a Congressional investigation into whether political appointees were fired for political reasons illuminates just how pointless that exercise has been. However, while I eschew the means, I won’t lament the ends. Gonzales needed to go, not least because the evidence against him, even when viewed in the best light, evinced a total lack of competence on the part of the AG. And that’s without considering the clear violation of the law that occurred under his watch with respect to the Immigration Judges, as revealed by Monica Goodling’s testimony.

The investigations into Gonzales’ tenure will go on, although I’ll bet they will peter out for the most part, resulting in a watered down excoriation of the ex-AG, primarily because the Democrats, sensing they will win back the White House in 2008, won’t want to tie the hands of their own President. Hopefully, the investigation having to do with the IJ’s will bear more fruit, since there seems to be some serious problems there.

In the meantime, Paul Clement takes the helm and a new appointment is waiting in the wings. Michael Chertoff, former 3d Circuit Judge and current Home Land Security czar, is the most prominent name floated so far. Most likely, Bush will not want a serious confirmation fight this late into his lame-duck presidency, but if he nominates Chertoff he then has to make a second appointment. Clement, on the other hand, is not assured an easy appointment, as he is considered a Bush loyalist who will undoubtedly be subjected to tough questioning and a rough ride towards being confirmed. Expect the lame-duck to opt for the least path to resistance.

Chertoff would probably be confirmed for AG, so despite the double confirmation specter I’m guesing he will be the nominee. In that case, Bush needs to nominate someone equally confirmable to the HLS position. Off the top of my head, Peter Pace seems like the most viable candidate. He would have to resign from the military, of course, but that may be in the works anyway. As a former CJS Chairman he is already in line for further political appointments. His military career does not have anywhere near the same boundlessness as far as I can see, so taking over the HLS duties may just be the kind of job he’s looking for. Plus, given the latest testament to his forthrightness, he would probably sail through his confirmation hearing.*

Regardless of who the new AG is, Gonzales’ resignation is good news to more than just those who suffer from BDS. The man has nary a political bone in his body, and his management skills leave much to be desired. As I said at the beginning, I’m don’t much like the machinations that forced him from office, but I’m not crying about the result.

* Although, the reports on Gen. Pace’s recommendations appear to have been, a bit hasty:

The Times reported Friday that Gen. Peter Pace, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, was expected to advise Bush to reduce U.S. force levels next year by almost half because of the strain on the military.

But Pace on Friday said, “The story is wrong, it is speculative. I have not made or decided on any recommendations yet.”

Technorati Tags: Alberto Gonzales, Attorney-Gate, Monica Goodling, Attorney General, Bush Administration, Attoreny General, Paul Clement, Michael Chertoff, Home Land Security, Department of Justice, DOJ, resignation

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The American consumer is showing strain:

US consumers are defaulting on credit-card payments at a significantly higher rate than last year, raising the prospect of problems in the stricken US subprime mortgage market spreading to other types of consumer debt.

Credit-card companies were forced to write off 4.58 per cent of payments as uncollectable in the first half of 2007, almost 30 per cent higher year-on-year. Late payments also rose, and the quarterly payment rate – a measure of cardholders’ willingness and ability to repay their debt – fell for the first time in more than four years.

Why?

Analysts at Moody’s, the rating agency, said the trend could be related to the slowdown in the US property market and a fall in the number of borrowers rolling their mortgage debt into new and cheaper home loans.

They express doubts some people have about that connection, but Megan McCardle fills in some of the reasons I find it compelling:

There are multiple avenues for the spread. The credit contraction, to begin with; just as it’s making it hard for strapped borrowers to refinance, it’s also cutting down on those zero balance transfer deals that some people use to get themselves out of trouble, or at least stave off the bailiffs.

But of course, there’s also the fact that for the last ten years, many homeowners have resolved crushing credit card debt by borrowing money on the value of their homes. That’s suddenly gotten much harder to do, which may be forcing people into default.

And, obviously, people who are having trouble meeting their mortgage payments may decide that Visa and Mastercard need to get in line behind the bank with the power to kick them out of their house.

I think everybody knows what I think. This has been a long time coming and I suspect will be a very hard fall for many people. How important is this?

Over the 6 years from 2001-06, Americans pulled $6.1 trillion of cash from the value of their appreciated homes, more than $1 trillion per year on average. The freed-up dollars came from 1) the sale of homes where the seller downsized, 2) home equity loans, and 3) cash taken out in a refinancing transaction (source: Federal Reserve).

That has pretty much dried up.

How about this for a fun statistic to verify what I suspected about where all the trouble was going to be the worst:

2 OUT OF 50 – Just 2 states (California and Florida) accounted for 32% of all the home foreclosure filings in the nation during the month of July 2007 (source: RealtyTrac).

That was a train wreck waiting to happen.

Is the collapse of the housing market for many a bit like watching NASCAR is for many fans? I suspect many who have been predicting doom and blaming it on the administration’s economic policies do feel that way. It is disturbing, but compelling, and oddly satifsying. For much different reasons I feel a bit that way myself.

Bad, bad blogger.

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Taylor Owen assesses Samantha Powers attempt to construct a realistic progressive Foreign Policy. He does a credible job, and the exchange in the comments between he, David Adesnik and Patrick Porter is interesting as well. I have made this point of David’s, and only half as well, before:

The fundamental flaw you can ascribe to the neocons is perhaps their overinvested faith in the Bush administration. But in general, why do we view and judge an entire school of thought by the standard of Iraq? Is that fair? One can argue that the realists under Bush Pere got Gulf War I terribly wrong when they left a murderous and dangerous dictator back into power, and when they opposed many successful humanitarian interventions in Sierra Leone and Kosovo (just as the neocons, along with liberals, supported these efforts). And yet we don’t measure realist success or failure as an ideology because of these blunders, nor do we dismiss their opinion leaders because of these past failures. Let’s apply the same standard, then, to neocons.

He makes other points about some of the claims about what the neo-cons actually argued for that are often ignored as well. The neo-cons have been brought low, but they have certainly looked good in the past to many, and the same with people such as Holbrooke,  and other liberals. Most ways of  looking at foreign policy have had their moments when they have looked good and bad. The Neo-cons were filled with confidence and many ears were cocked their way for a reason, and that confidence was far less deserved than they thought. That was a key reason for some of their failures. We will do ourselves great harm if we over estimate their errors, and over generalize them, and even greater harm if we accept uncritically the overly confident claims of their competitors who have the virtue of not having the benefits of their approaches subject to any falsification at the moment.

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John Kerry has allowed the three year window to file defamation claims against the Swift Boat Veterans to expire. Belldar claims:

The very last thing John Kerry wants is to ever give the SwiftVets the legal tools they’d need to conclusively document their claims, because truth is, of course, a complete defense to defamation claims. Kerry doesn’t deserve vindication, and he knows he could never get it in court. In court, there would be compulsory discovery of witnesses and documents, followed by a fair and disciplined adversary process, followed by a definitive determination of the truth or falsity of the SwiftVets’ charges — a determination that he damn well knows would go against him. Instead, the haze of time and the near-universal bluster of his mainstream media allies (who continue to insist that the SwiftVets’ claims were “debunked” and that Kerry was victimized) has given him a far better result than he could ever get in court.

Pretty strong stuff. Is Beldar willing to back it up?

You have a standing offer from me: Just sue me here in Houston for defamation. After all, I’ve republished most of the SwiftVets’ claims here on my blog, and I’ve made many of them again in my own voice. I use a pseudonym for my blog name, but it’s not anonymous — my name and address are linked on every page of this blog, and have been since the day it started. I’ll waive any statute of limitations defense. I’ll waive service of process. Hell, I’ll meet you at the federal courthouse doors for the Southern District of Texas, Houston Division (you have diversity jurisdiction), and I’ll even pay your filing fee!

You think it will be too expensive to have big teams of lawyers? Fine — since you were once a big-time courtroom lawyer, let’s just you and me tangle one-on-one, both of us pro se. (I’ll agree not to oppose your application for admission pro hac vice to the federal court here in Texas, and I’ll even pay the fees to get your law license reinstated in Massachusetts.) Just me at my table, you at yours, and then a set of jurors good and true in the jury box. (I may need a napkin, though, or maybe even a drool-bucket, because the very notion of going one-on-one with you in court is causing me to salivate.) Or, hell, you can have as many lawyers as you want, and I’ll still go pro se. Go fetch David Boies, he might do it for free (unless he’s already figured out what a loser your case would be). Whatever. As long as there’s a judge who can make you shut up each time your turn is over and who’ll then give me a fair turn, I’ll be satisfied.

My one stipulation is: No confidentiality orders, and no motions to quash. Everything that’s uncovered in pretrial discovery has to become part of the public record without delay. We’ll put it all on the internet via a neutral host (say, the WaPo). We’ll do the pretrial depos on video, too, and jointly move the court to permit TV coverage of the trial, so that the public (and the jury, eventually) can see who sweats under oath under the bright lights.

Doesn’t that sound like fun, Senator? Gosh, it does to me.

I was pretty damn tired of the media and blog swirl last time this was big, but forgive me, that would be fun.

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I will be putting out a roundup of news, views and analysis of the campaign in Iraq later this evening, but with the heirs of Galula in charge I think starting with the first two parts of Michael Yon’s four part series on the application of counterinsurgency in Iraq,
“The Ghosts of Anbar,” should be a must read. Part one: The Paradox of Counterinsurgency, takes us back to previous campaigns of the British in Anbar and part two: Through the Window, Clearly, takes us into the minds of the commanders and into the field with the troops to see the challenges in this rapidly changing part of Iraq.

In it he discusses COL Simcock, so I think here would be an appropriate place to send you to this discussion (pdf.) he had at a bloggers roundtable:

Q Yeah, if I could just follow up on one quick thing here. If you were, say, commandant for the day or CINC for the day, what one or two capabilities that you may not have or need more of would top your list?

COL. SIMCOCK: That’s an easy question. And the commandant was just out here a couple weeks ago and I told him exactly what I wish I had more of. Engineers and route clearance. Those are the two capabilities. It’s a lowdensity, high-demand type capability that we just — we need more of out here. The engineers, they’re working 24/7, literally. They’re either building something or tearing something down, and that’s something that I wish I had more of. They do a great job for us, but I’m just — I just don’t have enough of them.

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Dr. Helen reviews, Until Proven Innocent: Political Correctness and the Shameful Injustices of the Duke Lacrosse Rape Case.

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Glenn sounds like he had my kind of birthday celebration.

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Like Charlie Brown facing Lucy placing the football, we have heard hopeful things on political progress in Iraq before, so we should take this with caution and realism. Caution, in that it may mean little. Realism, in that even if it does amount to real progress, it will only be partial, and will undoubtedly start a process that will not be all steps forward. Just as in politics in more stable democracies, alliances will fray, conflicts will develop. Just watch our own congress as their opinions and loyalties switch as the surge gathers momentum. The leaders in Iraq are certainly no less susceptible to political machination, meaningless gestures and various other behavior than our own.

Still, we asked for some signs of progress, so hopefully this news qualifies as a step in that direction:

Iraqi Shia, Sunni and Kurdish leaders have signed a reconciliation deal, Prime Minister Nouri Maliki says.

The accord was the second step towards rebuilding Iraq’s political process, Mr Maliki said, after four Kurdish and Shia parties formed a new alliance.

A committee formed by the parties had “accomplished some solutions”, he said.

[...]

Issues under discussion between Iraqi politicians include holding provincial elections and easing a ban on former Baath party members in the civil service and military.

After the meeting, Mr Maliki appeared at a news conference alongside Iraqi President Jalal Talabani, Sunni Vice President Tariq al-Hashemi, Shia Vice President Adel Abdul-Mahdi and Massoud Barzani – president of the Kurdish region.

[...]

Mr Hashemi said he had taken part in the talks as vice president but did not indicate his Iraqi Islamic Party was about to join the moderate Shia-Kurdish alliance.

Update: More details , which sound much more impressive than the BBC article seemed to imply, though above caveats still apply.

The Washington Post pretty much keeps to the law on de-Baathification.

The New York Times doesn’t seem to have anything yet.

Update: The Guardian, Still nothing from the NYT unless it is buried in another story somewhere. That is odd.

Others Blogging: Captain’s Quarters, Powerline, Commonsense, The Discerning Texan, Wake Up America, The Oxford Medievalist, Ace of Spades, The Baltimore Reporter, Noblesse Oblige, Thinking Right, Sublime Bloviations, Flopping Aces, Free Will Blog, The Jawa Report

More: All things Conservative, The Detroit Populist Times, QandO,

Update again: Gateway Pundit:

Unlike several US politicians, the French Foreign Minister, Bernard Kouchner, said that he is willing to apologize to Iraq if the leaders there feel he had meddled too much into their affairs.

Technorati Tags: Iraq, reconciliation, Maliki, Shia, Sunni, Kurd

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Tom Maguire engages in a favorite activity, being picky about exactly what is being said. Given that he is speaking of the pricing of insurance options, examines “fat tails” and involves Michael Lewis, I am drawn as moth to flame.

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One consequence of the Invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan, exposure to tropical disease. Stanley Aronson breaks down the history of the disease known as leishmaniasis, though it is also known as Burwan Fever, the Aleppo boil, espundia, Dumdum fever and yes, the Baghdad Boil. Thousands of our troops have been diagnosed and, because of its slow presentation of symptoms, our doctors back home need to read up and be prepared to diagnose and treat it after troops arrive back home.

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Jamie Kerchick asks if it is time to consider knocking off Mugabe. Probably won’t happen even if it is the right thing to do, but this is part of the reason I despise Thabo Mbeki:

As an umpteenth example of the United Nation’s utter fecklessness, the world body has decided that the millions of Zimbabweans who have fled to neighboring South Africa over the past several years are not entitled to refugee status, and thus won’t receive any of the U.N.’s enormous largesse. Apparently because only a limited number have applied for political asylum (a limited number due to the fear of being caught and deported to a land where they will starve and/or be tortured) these poor people will continue to languish in penury, ignored by the international community. Meanwhile, the grandchildren of Palestinians who fled during Israel’s 1948 War of Independence have a unique status–conferred upon them by the U.N.–among the world’s refugees.

Remind me, again, why the U.N. matters?

Who is leading the charge to provide cover in the UN for Mugabe on this? Thabo Mbeki. The leadership of South Africa has lost any moral authority their long struggle gained them in their constant defense of dictators and mass murderers. Where is Nelson Mandela? Where is the ANC? Or is fighting injustice only a matter of the color of the perpetrators skin?

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General Pace, suddenly a voice of wisdom after supposedly being part of the problem, has suggested we need to draw down forces sometime next year. This has driven Martin Lewis to argue that Pace relieve Bush of his command and place him under military arrest. I assumed this was satire or hyperbole, and then I read it, the guy is serious. Of course Lewis and much of the rest of the netroots believe we are already in a near dictatorship, so pointing out that Lewis has no clue about the way our system is structured is pointless, you can’t discuss things with people suffering from that level of delusion.

Captain Ed nevertheless does his level best to point out the lack of constitutional or legal basis for such an act.

Frankly many people have just about lost their minds.

Update: Dale Frank’s thoughts on this are well worth reading.

Technorati Tags: Bush, Commander in Chief, military, General Pace, Coup, UCMJ

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Are we irrationally biased against torture?

In many situations it would be better to impose a punishment of torture than imprisonment. The fact that the U.S. justice system rejects torture as a punishment is the result of an anti-torture bias.

Torture has two benefits over imprisonment. It’s cheaper for the state to impose and it doesn’t prevent the criminal from engaging in useful labors (such as parenting and working at a job) for long periods of time. To determine who should be tortured as opposed to imprisoned we need to consider the benefits to society of imprisonment.

Read the whole thing (it isn’t long) and please discuss. I certainly have a bias against torture. I am not sure I should be. Let us avoid for now the issue of torturing for intelligence gathering, but purely on the basis of its use for deterrence, retribution or incapacitation (as in keeping criminals from having the capacity to commit crimes again.)

Technorati Tags: torture, crime, criminal justice, law, deterrence, retribution, prison

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For personal reasons one part of the surge has held my interest lately, the operations southeast of Baghdad being carried out by Task Force Marne (I believe the name Marne comes from a large road that traverses the area, not a reference to the Marne river made famous in WWI as a battle ground, though I am sure that resonated.) The reason is that is where my brother will be deploying, operating out of Forward Operating Base Hammer. The area has seen little coalition presence over the course of the war and thus has been ruled by a combination of insurgent groups including both JAM (al Sadr’s bunch) and al Qaeda.

For a look at what is happening in this long neglected theater I suggest starting with Jeff Emanuel who is embedded with the 3rd Infantry Division at this time.  Like others he sees progress, and challenges.

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Throwing rocks at HAMAS over at The Conjecturer.

Defense & The War

• More on what The Surge is accomplishing: “Despite some evidence that the troop buildup has improved security in certain areas, sectarian violence continues and American-led operations have brought new fighting, driving fearful Iraqis from their homes at much higher rates than before the tens of thousands of additional troops arrived.” Naturally, we still refuse to resettle or admit the millions of fearful refugees we’ve unleashed on the region.
• Meanwhile, outgoing Chairman Pace and the Joint Chiefs of Staff are continuing to be feckless defeatocrats, noting the current deployment is unsustainable and recommending a pullout.
• I don’t know what version of the NIE Bill Gertz was reading, but he’s pretty much the only one who read it and saw improvement and stability, rather than worries about the new bottom-up strategy (after the top-down one crashed) and Iraq’s political unraveling. Contrast with Greg Miller’s analysis, (or hell, even McQ’s and Lance’s, though I think their optimism is misplaced, it is nevertheless sober and justifiable). Go Moonies, I guess.
• Interesting, too, to compare Senator Warner and Representative Baird, who essentially have opposite ideas of where the war is headed. I must admit to being confused: aside from anecdotal evidence (that, in the case of Michael O’Hanlon, doesn’t even match his own reports), every measure we have of Iraq is that it is worse off under the surge than before: more violence, more refugees and IDPs, deadlier bombings, and a political meltdown in process. Where does all the optimism come from? Or are anecdotes and the assurances of soldiers that we’re getting it right this time (assurances that have filled the blogosphere since 2003) more meaningful?
• MRAPs don’t protect from EFPs, but we already knew that. Of course, the best answer the DoD can come up with is yet another acquisition race to the top-dollar: an even bigger MRAP (cleverly called the MRAP II) with thicker armor. This is while the original MRAP is still being purchased and deployed in small numbers. This is illustrating a tactical point that can, I think, be reasonably expanded to a materiel one—a huge, slow-moving industrial machine will never keep pace with a small, highly adaptable insurgent force. At least not anymore, not in the current environment. You defeat IEDs and EFPs with superior strategy, not bigger and bigger trucks.
• Russia (MiG) is supposedly about to debut a new low-observable UCAV, the Skat. That’s “skate” to you weirdos who don’t do transliterated Russian. This mean anything? Not really—a working, operational, deployable version is many years away… and it has a weird shape, both longer and with a shorter wingspan than the highly successful MQ-1 Predator drone we’ve used for years.

Around the World

• Still excited about the 2014 winter olympics in Sochi? Just after a rebel leader was killed in Chechnya, other rebels ambushed and killed several Russian troops in both Dagestan and Ingushetia… all three of which are less than a day’s drive from Sochi. Nothing says “spirit of the olympiad” like a good old fashioned separatist movement. More on the horrible tendency of the IOC to award games to human rights abusers here.
• Again, with The Economist: this time, they’re claiming Vladimir Putin has modeled his presidency after Yuri Andropov, of all people, because they both happened to come from the KGB (and Putin once said something nice about him). Of course, the real implications of this—Andropov was a vicious and brutal man known more for his reckless brinksmanship and the brutality of Hungary in 1956 and Czechoslovakia in 1968 than his reforms—escape The Economist, which sees Andropov merely as a a KGB head. They also miss the crucial element of Yeltsin’s regime: it was unfathomably corrupt, and the reduction of this corruption (at least in its more flagrant forms) is a big reason why Putin has won such popularity. But who needs context, anyway?
• Questions for the famine study.
• Oh look, Vietnamese people didn’t like Bush’s comparison of their country to Iraq. They saw their struggle as one of liberation from colonial occupation (ironic, given this context), and many hated the U.S. for prolonging a war that could have otherwise ended a decade earlier—at a human cost we’re unwilling to ponder. See, mass death is just fine when it’s for democracy; when it is for communism, pious conservatives shake their fists in anger. Hypocrites.
• Next door, news that Cambodia once held the world’s largest pre-industrial city—Angor was almost as large as present-day Manhattan—gave me a quite welcome sense of wonder.
• I’ll just quote the lede: “A New Zealand-based pizza chain is under fire for a recent advertising campaign that showed Adolf Hitler making a salute with a slice of the cheese pie. After locals protested, the company has replaced Hitler — with Pope Benedict XVI.”

Back at Home

• McConnell slips, assists numerous plaintiffs suing the government for illegal wiretapping. Jacob Sullum has more on just how despicable this entire episode is, and how poorly it speaks to President Bush’s much-vaunted love of this country whose laws he ignores when he deems fit. As a commenter said, “Remember, “give me liberty or give me death” is liberal sedition.” Sometimes it feels that way.
• You know, James Madison said something I consider very apropos: “If tyranny and oppression come to this land, it will be in the guise of fighting a foreign enemy.”
• Michael Schuer is mad he wasn’t praised in the CIA’s report on how it failed to counter 9/11. Considering he was a reason it failed, I don’t see what his problem is, aside from an inflated sense of who he is and what he accomplished. His brags of the CIA’s awesomeness in tracking down Bin Laden ring more than hollow, and I’ll try to unravel them this weekend (on a macro level: if the Agency was so super awesome at finding and almost killing Bin Laden so many times, how did he magically slip through their fingers in 2002? There is surely more to that story than Schuer allows).
• While the rest of the article is interesting for describing how my favorite web comic came into being, I was most fascinated with a song, “My Belruel,” which Jerry Holkins, the writer-genius behind Penny Arcade, composed and recorded on his Nintendo DS. The quality is sick (that is to say: really good) and it’s actually hilarious. We live in surreal times, indeed.
• AT&T, the bane of my existence where the Toll Road meets The Beltway, has finally dropped its clearly false “fewest dropped calls” campaign.
• Duh: “The Bush administration is now arguing that the White House Office of Administration, which provides the administrative services to the White House including IT services, is not subject to the Freedom of Information Act… Gee, what changed? Oh, that’s right – now there’s an FOIA request for information that could hurt the President politically. Therefore, the Office of Administration is magically no longer subject to the FOIA.”
• Ending on a happy note: this is a truly touching story about combat vets finding a measure of peace by completing an Outward Bound course in Colorado. Having done a small amount of mountaineering when I lived in Boulder, I can testify to the cleansing power of physical exertion at altitude—for whatever reason, it makes all other stresses in life feel okay. And you feel okay, too, letting go. It’s hard to explain, and I couldn’t possibly hope to compare with these guys… but it does make me resent to a certain degree how much my life has changed since then—stuck inside climate controlled boxes in a nature-hating suburban wasteland. I do miss those mountains.

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From Daniel Drezner:

Alex Tabarrok proposes So You Think You Can Be President? One proposed segment:

Game Theory: Candidates compete in a game of Diplomacy. I would also include several ringers – say Robin Hanson, Bryan Caplan and Salma Hayek. Why these three? Robin is cold, calculating and merciless – make a logical mistake and he will make you pay. Bryan is crafty and experienced. And Salma? I couldn’t refuse her anything but presidents should be made of stronger stuff so we need a test.

Diplomacy and Salma. Oh, that’s hot.

I could have posted straight from Alex, but he provided the link to the picture, so a link was deserved. I also am in complete agreement with Daniel’s final statement. I love Diplomacy.

Pejman has a few additional gaming suggestions:

And we don’t have to just play Diplomacy. Let’s see how the candidates do in chess, Go or even Settlers of Catan.

All good ideas, especially the Settlers of Catan, though could we even try something along the lines of Third Reich? And Salma is wearing that particular blouse, though that means I would most undoubtedly not be a good ringer myself. I would lose bigtime.

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From Pejman:

Republicans must be positively salivating at the thought that the fourth ranking Democrat in the House, yea verily, the architect of the Democratic takeover in the House, is now on record arguing in favor of the earmarking process. Seldom is a political gift so swiftly delivered. And seldom is a contention–in this case, the contention that the earmarking process has now become transparent–so easily refuted.

Yeah, those problems with earmarks, corruption and wasteful spending were all about the Republicans people (/sarcasm.)  I am glad they lost, they needed a good bit of slapping around to do their job (or at least the one I want them to do, which is stand in the way of Democratic plans to expand the size of the state, and it seems to have helped a good bit) but they were not the real problem on spending. I dealt with that nonsense before the elections here, here and here.

It was a disingenuous campaign on that score, and this is just one more piece of evidence.

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We may have been closer than we think in 1935, though Nate Oman believes the threat would have receded in the light of political reality. Whatever the case, the discussion of the case of Schechter Poultry Corp. v. United States is well worth reading in understanding legislatively what we came close to passing, an economic regime quite close to Fascist Italy, the most influential economic and political program to come out of the first half of the last century:

The brain-trusters may have been enamored of centralized planning, but I don’t think that FDR was. Rather, I think that he was entranced by a rather diffuse commitment to the poor, activity, and — most of all — electoral success. The Soviets and the Fascists survived precisely because their economic idiocy was insulated from the positive and negative feedback of democratic politics. I suspect that without Schechter, the NRA would have moderated itself dramatically. By 1935 its political popularity was already in retreat, and FDR seems to have been perfectly willing to scrap grandiose experiments when elections were on the line.

The discussion in the comments is quite good on the legacy of the New Deal from all parties to boot. I especially like this at the end of his post:

Still, as a myth rather than a historical or legal theory, Schechter has much to commend it. A small, religious, family business built by immigrants searching for the American dream of advancement and self-improvement gets shut down by arrogant government bureaucrats hell-bent on imposing economic idiocy on the nation. They push back, and David-like force the government Goliath to its knees. The chicken triumphs over the eagle.

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Eric Scheie looks into what might drive the wealthy leftist.

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If Castro can rule as an invalid, why couldn’t he rule as a dead man?

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Left in the comments by Joshua:

But the issue at hand is “Strippers for Ron Paul.”

“because the Christian congressman, Ron Paul, understands the proper role of government in the United States of America. Government should not dictate morality.”

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Democratic activists use gay stereotypes to attack Giuliani. From Gay Patriot.

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Radley nails this:

So I guess once you’re elected to Congress, you’re immune from drunk driving laws; you can stash the evidence that you’ve committed a crime in your office, because investigators aren’t allowed to search it; if you kill someone because you’ve got a lead foot and blew a stop sign, the taxpayers will cover your financial liability; and, we learn today, you can commit whatever Internet-related crimes you please, because the police aren’t allowed to search your computer.

Meanwhile, the same Congress that has immunized itself from much of the law is also responsible for the ever-expanding federal criminal code, which we can thank for our shamefully enormous and still-soaring prison population, which is by far and away the largest in the world.

You have lawmakers who feel they’re above the law. And who at the same time are criminalizing anything and everything they find tacky, repugnant, or immoral.

Forgive the lofty language, but you know what? This isn’t healthy for our republic.

If you didn’t get it, he thinks the first problem helps lead to the second. I concur and it is true at the state and local level as well. Thus we have problems such as these. Glenn Reynolds asks “what are we going to do about it?” On that score I am less than optimistic. As long as voters believe that growing the power of the state is justified we cannot reduce these men and womens power, and they will not meaningfully reduce their privileges.

As Matthew Yglesias has acknowledged, liberals firmly believe in expanding the power of the state for moral reasons, as do conservatives. That those moral ends lead to different policies does not change that they do see the state as the shaper of the particular (as opposed to general moral ends such as freedom or autonomy) moral outcomes they desire. To change that means changing that view. Few people are willing to do that, or reasonably restrict that impulse, even if they could do so in a bargain that others wouldn’t impose competing moral agendas. So liberals are unwilling to accept non violent sexual or racial discrimination even if it leads to a world where conservatives cannot pass laws forbidding certain sexual practices. Not to mention that in large areas they generally agree, such as on drug policy, whether illicit or for legal medications. If the larger entity of government does not satisfy most voters, it is not because of its size or reach, but the purposes that size and reach is put to which alienates them. Sadly, they will not sacrifice the reach they want to restrict the reach they don’t. Yglesias and Jonah Goldberg, reasonable and sharp liberals and conservatives, state that quite clearly in an exchange with Brink Lindsey at Cato Unbound. I think their point is sound. With such competing and often incoherent demands for the state we have little reason for great optimism.

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Update: McQ has a good roundup and similar thoughts to mine.

———————————————————————–

The place to go is the Small Wars Journal to start. The NIE is a fair assessment and the full 10 page document can be found here, which doesn’t mean it is the best way to look at every issue. Nevertheless the Small Wars Journal gives a good representation of its findings, while many blogs and media reports distort its findings. Most media reports in particular seem to have headlines that stress the negative aspects or give a more negative impression than the report warrants:

Report Cites Grave Concerns on Iraq’s Government – Mark Mazzetti and David Cloud, New York Times
Report: Iraqi Leaders ‘Unable to Govern’ – Eric Weiner, National Public Radio
Iraq Intelligence Estimate: No Surprise, it’s Bad – Sharon Weinberger, Danger Room
NIE: Iraq ‘Unable to Govern’ Itself Effectively – Peter Baker, Washington Post

Those actually analyzing it can expose its perceived failings, and the Small Wars Journal Has a good roundup of those as well as media reports. The key takeaway for me is that it sees the situation as difficult, but that progress is being made in almost all areas of interest, thus the trajectory is upward. It describes possible paths of successful progress, but shows they will take time. It describes a situation made more difficult by the possibility of a drawdown. This is having a negative affect in a number of ways on the internal politics as well as encouraging outside forces to prepare for that eventuality. The report is not sanguine about any change in mission as has been suggested by many:

We assess that changing the mission of Coalition forces from a primarily counterinsurgency and stabilization role to a primary combat support role for Iraqi forces and counterterrorist operations to prevent AQI from establishing a safehaven would erode security gains achieved thus far. The impact of a change in mission on Iraq’s political and security environment and throughout the region probably would vary in intensity and suddenness of onset in relation to the rate and scale of a Coalition redeployment. Developments within the Iraqi communities themselves will be decisive in determining political and security trajectories.

Recent security improvements in Iraq, including success against AQI, have depended significantly on the close synchronization of conventional counterinsurgency and counterterrorism operations. A change of mission that interrupts that synchronization would place security improvements at risk.

They describe the risks inherent in the local political progress being seen, as well as its benefits:

The IC assesses that the emergence of “bottom-up” security initiatives, principally among Sunni Arabs and focused on combating AQI, represent the best prospect for improved security over the next six to 12 months, but we judge these initiatives will only translate into widespread political accommodation and enduring stability if the Iraqi Government accepts and supports them. A multi-stage process involving the Iraqi Government providing support and legitimacy for such initiatives could foster over the longer term political reconciliation between the participating Sunni Arabs and the national government. We also assess that under some conditions “bottom-up initiatives” could pose risks to the Iraqi Government.

That seems about right to me.

Others blogging: Gateway pundit, Captain Ed, Flopping Aces, Outside The Beltway

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Cheating on your ex-boyfriend at The Conjecturer.

Defense & The War

• So, according to President Bush, if we leave Iraq, the communists will triumph? Like how they won the Cold War? I don’t get it. The argument from civil war doesn’t move me much, either—the only thing keeping Iraq from civil war before was a tyrant; short of that, I don’t see how we can prevent the random butchering. We can’t even beat Sadr’s Army, and they are not even the enemy AQI.
• I guess this free Iraq Bush sees in his crystal ball will have to buy its electricity from the militants in control of the switching stations. That is, if there is a free Iraq leftover once Maliki goes searching for “other friends.” Or, you know, if the entire country doesn’t unravel completely in the next 12 months.
• It may not be indicative, but this comparison of this summer versus last summer in Iraq doesn’t paint a pretty picture. By every measure of the tactical situation, with the exception of the number of multiple fatality bombings, all over metrics show the opposite of improvement. Even the multiple fatality bombings metric is a bit suspect: the recent mega-bomb that killed 500 people near the Syrian border would go a long way toward making the number of fatalities from multiple-fatality bombings similar.
• So again, what are we doing there? I hadn’t considered Ron Bailey’s take of the two main justifications for Iraq: Imagine how this sounds to the average Iraqi. “America is fighting this war for your freedom and safety. Also, we’re drawing all the world’s worst terrorists into your backyard so they blow up your markets and police stations, and steer clear of ours.”
• That, and the historical ignorance on display by Bush becomes more disheartening by the day.
• Oh, and how great is it that General Cody thinks it is appropriate to blame Bill Clinton for the lack of good general officers running the Iraq war?

Around the World

• Don’t think I mentioned this, but the Afghan ambassador to the U.S. and I have remarkably similar ideas as to what is most needed in Afghanistan. I’ll give you a hint: it’s not drug legalization.
• I like how National Review is so glib about things it just doesn’t understand: Kosovo’s current ambiguous status is not the fault of multi-lateral diplomacy, but of outsiders imposing an alien solution through force, and that being followed up not with prudent diplomacy but the blatant choosing of sides in a civil war with no protagonists. There is no reason to cleave Serbia’s territory, nor do the Kosovars have any real claim to independence—the EU wants that because they feel sorry for them, nothing more.
• Estonia is trying to come to grips with its brutal occupation by Soviet forces by charging former officials with genocide for their role in the mass deportation of 1949.
• Bangladesh’s military government has been facing protests, so they imposed a curfew. They even shut down cellular networks, in an attempt to stymie the self-organizing protesters.
• This is an interesting take on the Bush administration’s approach to North Korea: “The portrait that emerges is not one of a confrontational, militaristic administration; what instead becomes apparent is an image of a White House with extremely poor conceptual strategies and decision-making processes.” That works, I think. It explains, too, why they settled for the awful, already-failed Agreed Framework 2.0.
• But for real, North Korea is getting straight up CLAZY. Well, no more so than usual—it is still, I believe, quite accurately described as the closest conception we have of Hell. OFK has a budding review of what looks like a penetrating book on the numbers behind the Great Famine. Meanwhile, on Channel 4 there was a harrowing story of one family’s escape from North Korea (Kurt Russel has no idea), and a new report about the horrifying treatment refugees face when China illegally repatriates them. Oh, and let’s not forget Kim Jong-il’s nasty stash of biochem weapons.
• Zimbabwe is a basketcase: inflation hit 7,625% in July, and the IMF predicts it will hit 100,000% by the end of the year if drastic changes are not made. That being said, their stock market is booming… a clever illusion, alas.
• I’m totally starting a trend with Central Asia blogs doing news roundups. Pride!

Back at Home

• Oh look, we’re in the habit of covering up (so to speak) big spills of nuclear waste and materials. That is certainly comforting.
• I LOL when bloggers complain about the media, especially over petty crap. Most are just as bad, if not a good deal worse.
• Would any of you want to turn your cell phone into a ‘high-powered microwave transmitter?” Don’t those, like, cause cancer and stuff?

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