A Second Hand Conjecture

I apologize for the title. Still, go read Eric Scheie on the latest in drug war silliness, the war on Khat.

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Like speaking about the problems of “todays youth” we are generally told the institution of marriage is in trouble, and maybe it is. However, just as most social problems amongst our young are, and have been, in decline for some time, divorce is not trending higher and in fact has been declining for quite a long time as well. H/T: Greg Mankiw.

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If we wish to lower the use of oil we should tax it right? Probably, but it isn’t as simple as that. Tyler Cowen explains why.

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Or they might seize your car.

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I say this not because I think the perpetrators fraud is surprising. My thoughts however are the same as those of Billy Beck:

I marvel at the enormous psychic energy required to maintain such a horrendous fraud for so long. Can you even imagine?

Frankly I can’t imagine it. I would be a wreck within a week. The Grey Lady hangs her out to dry.

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Despite the increased operational tempo and a deemphasis on force protection US military casualties continue to decline in addition to the decline in civilian casualties (likely this month to have made an even more dramatic drop when al the numbers are in.) Spook86 breaks down the data.

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Alan Greenspan gives an interview at Democracy Now! There is both a link to the audio and a transcript at the link. Brave. The interview is given by Amy Goodman, who generally I find insipid. Her guest interviewer however is the the frankly ignorant Naomi Klein. I don’t mean she is merely wrong in her beliefs about policy, though that is true as well. I mean ignorant in the plain meaning of the term. She demonstrates in the interview that she knows nothing of the real history of Latin America, or the role of the fed. She repeatedly acts as if Greenspan personally presided over policies which have nothing to do with the powers of the Federal Reserve. Greenspan is admirably patient in dealing with her misconceptions, but I frankly am not. The woman is embarrassing. Here is a taste:

I’m aware of that, Mr. Greenspan, but there are many developmentalist policies that were trying to address those colonial disparities. They were called it import substitutions. And those leaders were systematically eliminated in a series of coups.

Uh, is she under the impression that import substitution (a disastrous policy in any case) was ended by coups? That the military and other coups were run by a bunch of free marketeers? That those same coups didn’t result in populist and nationalist economic policies including import substitution? Ignorance run rampant.

Oh well, he does give a nice response to questions about his role in the “subprime crisis.”

Well, the sub-prime crisis did occur as a result of lower interest rates. The lower interest rates, however, are, if one takes a look at the whole context of rising home prices throughout the world, is clearly a global issue. It is the result of fundamental changes that occurred as a consequence of the end of the Cold War, and that housing bubbles appear in more than two dozen countries around the world, which screams for an explanation that is global, not individual. So we in the United States –

[...]

We in the United States basically try to get mortgage interest rates up and slow the bubble. And remember, it’s the bubble which created a goodly part of the problem which we have had in the sub-prime market. And we failed. And that tells us, basically, that it’s the global forces that are at play here.

What is being pointed out here is something I have said before, the Fed has far less control over interest rates than most people, including economists, believe. The Fed is given far more credence than it deserves as an economic actor. Of course this calls into question the whole “Maestro” meme. The Fed deserves far less credit for the good times as well. Interest rates are set by the market for the most part, the Fed generally follows that market. We have the relationship on interest rates, at least since the early 1990’s when reserve requirements were removed for all bank deposits except checking accounts, backward. Yes, I am saying the recent interest rate cuts are pretty much irrelevant even in what happens next.

Hat tip: Megan

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You won’t find me rushing to the barricades to defend Rush Limbaugh very often. We have a very different view of the world, politics, and style (though he did use a post of mine on David Galula as background for a radio segment, and kindly linked.) However, the latest attack on him shows what a silly political mess we have become. From TPM:

As we reported earlier today over at The Horse’s Mouth, Rush Limbaugh said on his radio show that soldiers who favor U.S. withdrawal from Iraq are “phony soldiers.”

The assertion — reminiscent of MoveOn’s attack on Petraeus, which generated enormous controversy when Republicans attacked the group — has the potential to be equally explosive, since some troops who are currently fighting in Iraq, and a handful who have died there, have questioned the war in the media.

Now Dems are stepping forward to blast his remark.

They sure are, and the left blogosphere is cheering them on. Now Rush says some things people can get up in arms about, but at minimum it should matter whether he said what is being claimed. Here is the transcript:

RUSH: It’s not possible intellectually to follow these people.

CALLER: No, it’s not. And what’s really funny is they never talk to real soldiers. They pull these soldiers that come up out of the blue and spout to the media.

RUSH: The phony soldiers.

CALLER: Phony soldiers. If you talk to any real soldier and they’re proud to serve, they want to be over in Iraq, they understand their sacrifice and they’re willing to sacrifice for the country.

Whatever you think of that exchange, the description of soldiers which “come up out of the blue” and Rush’s use of the word “the” before phony soldiers implies he is speaking of a particular group. We all know who he is talking about, but somehow that is being purposely obscured. Who is he talking about? Why, the Jesse Macbeth’s and Scott Beauchamp’s of the world, a string of fabulists who have lied about, or completely made up stories about their service. One might forgive a bit of careless reading by people desperate to find something to smear their opponents, but no such excuse works at this point. Why? Because Rush later made it clear what he meant for those who somehow managed to miss his point:

Here is a Morning Update that we did recently, talking about fake soldiers. This is a story of who the left props up as heroes. They have their celebrities and one of them was Army Ranger Jesse Macbeth. Now, he was a “corporal.” I say in quotes. Twenty-three years old. What made Jesse Macbeth a hero to the anti-war crowd wasn’t his Purple Heart; it wasn’t his being affiliated with post-traumatic stress disorder from tours in Afghanistan and Iraq. No. What made Jesse Macbeth, Army Ranger, a hero to the left was his courage, in their view, off the battlefield, without regard to consequences. He told the world the abuses he had witnessed in Iraq, American soldiers killing unarmed civilians, hundreds of men, women, even children. In one gruesome account, translated into Arabic and spread widely across the Internet, Army Ranger Jesse Macbeth describes the horrors this way: “We would burn their bodies. We would hang their bodies from the rafters in the mosque.” Now, recently, Jesse Macbeth, poster boy for the anti-war left, had his day in court. And you know what? He was sentenced to five months in jail and three years probation for falsifying a Department of Veterans Affairs claim and his Army discharge record. He was in the Army. Jesse Macbeth was in the Army, folks, briefly. Forty-four days before he washed out of boot camp. Jesse Macbeth isn’t an Army Ranger, never was. He isn’t a corporal, never was. He never won the Purple Heart, and he was never in combat to witness the horrors he claimed to have seen.

You may not like the messenger, but his point is valid. Phony soldiers and fabulists have repeatedly been lauded by the anti war left for “speaking truth to power.” Events which we can know little about are built up and turned into evidence against our military before any real evidence comes to light. Even when the events turn out to reflect negatively, the burning need to convict bespeaks a disregard for the truth and a desire to see our conduct as evil that frankly does call into question what people’s priorities are. Speaking that truth is quite important, and Rush deserves no criticism for pointing out its most egregious manifestation.

Update: Capt. Ed has his own thoughts. Rick Moran doesn’t buy it. I have a great deal of respect for Rick, and there is no doubt whose views I agree with more when it comes to a Rick or Rush, but I ask him what “they never talk to real soldiers” or “out of the blue” and “the phony soldiers” was referring to? Rush made it clear later, but quite clearly they are saying they are talking about those who are not real soldiers. Not metaphorically, but actual fakers in that passage. As for this point:

If he wanted to clarify his point he could have done so immediately.

It is a radio show. It isn’t scripted. Sorry, too high a bar. The language was clear to me, and I am personally (a long standing theme of this blog) of the mind that just because something can be interpreted one way, if just as good (and in this case one that fits the literal text better) an explanation for the comment can be made and the author of the comment says that was what was meant, then that is the end of it in all but the most extraordinary cases. Otherwise people are in a no win situation.

If they can’t clarify something with some sense that the clarification will be accepted given that the plain reading of the text supports them, then what they mean is fully in the hands of those who wish to discredit them. If something can be interpreted in an embarrassing manner then they have no defense, they are just backtracking. Once again, the caller said literally, “they never talk to real soldiers.” He never says all anti war soldiers are not real soldiers. They “come out of the blue” as in they have no real history. Rush then confirms his remark by saying they are speaking of “the phony soldiers.” Literalism fits, and nowhere does a remark along the lines of “all anti-war soldiers are phony soldiers” appear.

Maybe in Rush’s heart of hearts he meant that, but that isn’t what he actually said, and he is adamant that is not what he meant. Reading between the lines may be necessary at times, but if a person didn’t mean what is being claimed what is his recourse if someone’s interpretation becomes dispositive despite the plain text and the adamant denials of its author? I have no idea, and frankly I don’t want to be held to that standard. I have been accused too many times of saying something I didn’t because someone “knew” what I meant. It is bad enough when I put something in a way that the plain text was unclear, it is beyond infuriating when it goes directly against the plain meaning of my words.

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Yikes…

Hollywood star Tom Cruise is planning to build a bunker at his Colorado home to protect his family in the event of an intergalactic alien attack, according to new reports.

The Mission Impossible actor, who is a dedicated follower of Scientology, is reportedly fearful that deposed galactic ruler ‘Xenu’ is plotting an evil revenge attack on Earth.

Now, don’t get me wrong. I think a bunker would be a wonderfully good thing to invest in. I’d like to have one myself. Be handy to have in case a tornado hit our house, or even a zombie attack. But an alien invasion, PUH-LEASE. If they have the technology to come here, surely they would have the tech to ferret us out from underground.

A spokesperson for the actor has denied the reports, saying: “This is completely untrue. He is not building on his property at all.”

OK then…

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Some interesting observations about universal health care in Japan. I suppose limiting the amount of care the government provides for is one way to hold down health care costs, but I doubt that is what people have in mind when they hear about plans for instituting such a thing here.

If universal care were the genuine cure-all, the one country where it should work is Japan. They have a homogenous population, healthier lifestyle, eat more fish and soy, more vegetables and far less obesity than here. If universal care does not work there why should it work anywhere?

…

While Japanese patients want American-style treatment, their policymakers are alarmed. With a huge national debt and corporations worried about higher taxes, they say Japan can¹t afford to pour money into treatments that can¹t extend life span by very much.

“America did too much of this and that¹s why their medical costs have grown,” said Masaharu Nakajima, a surgeon and former director of the Health Bureau at the Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare.

Since Japan enacted universal health insurance in the early 1960s, the emphasis has been on a minimum standard of care for all. People must pay a monthly health-insurance fee, and large companies pay also. Coverage decisions, doctors¹ pay, and other rules are set by the central government.

Japanese doctors complain that they have no time to spend with patients. The experience of seeing a doctor is summarized as “a three-hour wait for a three-minute visit.”

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Questions continue to be raised about General Petraeus’ data on casualties that he presented to Congress. Today I went to Iraq Body Count and Iraq Coalition Casualty Count to see what the data was showing now that more was in. The numbers looked very encouraging, but before I went to the trouble of compiling the data in a useful form (both outfits compile charts, but they can obscure as much as enlighten in comparing them to Petraeus’ data) I checked John Wixted at Back Talk. Lucky me, he had just done it for me. First let us look at the ICCC data:

Of great interest is September which is shaping up as a drastically less violent month. The numbers will increase as days are added and late data comes in, but unless there is a substantial pickup the numbers are unlikely to change enough to alter that conclusion.

As you can see the trend identified by Petraeus is readily apparent. However, the numbers differ considerably. Why? Mostly because Petraeus uses media and morgue data to compile his, while ICCC does not use morgue counts. Wixted believes this would miss many of the executions, especially at night, that were a huge part of the surge in violence after the bombing of the Samarra mosque in early 2006 and the media might not pick up. That seems reasonable to me, so let us look at the numbers from IBC which do use morgue counts:

The numbers are higher, and differ most from the ICCC during the periods when Petraeus argues sectarian killings were most prevalent. The numbers diverge less from the ICCC now when it is claimed that sectarian killings (especially the executions and other types more likely to be missed by the media) are less of an issue. An intriguing clue on the sub controversy over sectarian killings, rather than the overall level of violence. Score one for Petraeus.

So, while the trends support Petraeus in both cases, how does Petraeus’ data square with the data from IBC, which is the most comparable to his?

I would call that close enough for government work!

Especially in recent months they fit pretty closely. So, the two most prominent independent (and very opposed to the Iraq war) sources for data agree with Petraeus’ characterization, if not the exact numbers (nor would we expect them to match up exactly, especially in ICCC’s case.) Maybe they are all wrong, and maybe the progress cannot be sustained, but his data was reasonable either way. The books were not cooked.

Wixted has more thoughts and I recommend you read the whole thing as well as his previous post.

Update-For newcomers to this discussion I suggest you take note of one of the most compelling pieces of evidence that my take that the fall in violence is real, and quite possibly larger than the numbers show (because the sectarian violence was worse earlier than the numbers revealed due to the difficulty in tracking it mentioned above, amongst other factors.) That is, the huge drop in demand at the morgue and hospitals in Baghdad.

Tags: Baghdad, COIN, Counterinsurgency, Iraq, politics, statistics, War

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Those pesky Kurds, who keep building a prosperous society in defiance of claims that Iraq is lost and that nothing is worth or can be saved, now have a casino. Right up against the Iranian border no less.

Oh well, let us just leave and abandon the freest, and amongst the most peaceful, place in the Middle East to the wolves. It is only almost a third of Iraq, but because it isn’t a mess it doesn’t matter. In fact, success seems completely unimportant in many people’s minds. All that matters is what hasn’t been accomplished. By my count around 50% of the country now lives in relative peace in terms of population. I hope that trend keeps expanding.

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That is the gist of what we know so far about what happened in Baghdad during the tragic incident involving Blackwater security personnel on Sept. 16th according to The New York Times. The claim that the guards fired without provocation is something I frankly do not believe. That they fired without sufficient provocation is possible, that they made poor decisions under fire is possible. That they may be criminally liable is possible. That they are guilty of murder or even indiscriminate “cowboy” behavior seems unlikely. Anyway, read the whole thing.

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My tolerance for sheer bloody-mindedness is actually pretty high. If someone wants to insist that they are right despite every fact being against them, then that’s their problem as far as I’m concerned. When such persons continually lob snarky, and completely counterfactual bombs my way, however, sooner or later I’m going to respond. I guess that time is now.

Fellow contributer to ASHC, Joshua Foust, does not like Blackwater. I know this because he takes every opportunity to brand them as “murderers” and out-of-control thugs, always with that extra special dose of sneer that makes his posts so illuminating. Upon me pointing out that casually calling someone a murderer raises serious legal issues, Josh became very upset. My motives were questioned, my integrity lambasted, and my all around general mental well-being challenged as being two eggs short of an egg and cheese biscuit. Hold the biscuit.

Despite the verbal jousting (Fousting?), Joshua agreed that perhaps he had been a bit rash in labelling someone a murderer without actually backing it up in any way whatsoever.

I think I’ll just add that P.M. Nouri al-Maliki seems to be under the impression Blackwater employees have a history of killing civilians in Iraq (he does not say “murdering,” and you’ll get no argument from me – I said above you two were both right I shouldn’t sling that around without caveats).

Fair enough. The only point I wanted to get across was that we shouldn’t be slinging defamatory accusations around that can’t be proved.

As a side issue, Josh insisted that Blackwater and other PMC’s are completely outside the purview of any laws holding them accountable for the actions of its employees in Iraq. In response I linked to and quoted from such laws. In particular, the War Crimes Act:

(a) Offense.— Whoever, whether inside or outside the United States, commits a war crime, in any of the circumstances described in subsection (b), shall be fined under this title or imprisoned for life or any term of years, or both, and if death results to the victim, shall also be subject to the penalty of death.
(b) Circumstances.— The circumstances referred to in subsection (a) are that the person committing such war crime or the victim of such war crime is a member of the Armed Forces of the United States or a national of the United States (as defined in section 101 of the Immigration and Nationality Act).
(c) Definition.— As used in this section the term “war crime” means any conduct—
(1) defined as a grave breach in any of the international conventions signed at Geneva 12 August 1949, or any protocol to such convention to which the United States is a party;
(2) prohibited by Article 23, 25, 27, or 28 of the Annex to the Hague Convention IV, Respecting the Laws and Customs of War on Land, signed 18 October 1907;
(3) which constitutes a violation of common Article 3 of the international conventions signed at Geneva, 12 August 1949, or any protocol to such convention to which the United States is a party and which deals with non-international armed conflict; or
(4) of a person who, in relation to an armed conflict and contrary to the provisions of the Protocol on Prohibitions or Restrictions on the Use of Mines, Booby-Traps and Other Devices as amended at Geneva on 3 May 1996 (Protocol II as amended on 3 May 1996), when the United States is a party to such Protocol, willfully kills or causes serious injury to civilians.

Upon being confronted with such facts, Josh initially dissembled:

Just like how there are laws against fraud, yet the numerous Iraqi contractors who have stolen hundreds of millions of dollars (sorry, “been unable to account for hundreds of millions of dollars”) have yet to face any charges?

Gimme a break. You know as well as I do that the executive branch will not press charges against anyone accused of committing a crime in Iraq.

Not being one to kick a man when he’s down, I tried to simply let the whole thing go. I had made my point, and Josh had agreed, that accussing someone of murder, when that person has neither been tried, convicted nor even charged with such offense, is not a good idea.

Since then, however, Josh decided to backtrack and has been systematically trying to prove that there are in fact no laws under which civilian contractors can be prosecuted if they commit crimes in Iraq. How does Josh know? Because Stephen Colbert told him so!:

Somehow, Steven Colbert got it exactly right on the absurdity of pretending there are laws to restrict the actions of PMCs. That surprises me.

Any of you who actually followed Josh’s link were probably surprised as well since Colbert says absolutely nothing about Blackwater when you click through. Genius debater that he is, Josh linked to the wrong the video (here’s the right one).

Other examples of Josh’s newfound legal skillz can be found in the same post as his mis-linked Colbert enlightenment:

Meanwhile, Blackwater is the most trigger happy of all the other State Department security firms. Huh. One would almost be forgiven for thinking they’re uncontrollable maniacs with no restraint and serve as a functional roadblock to the U.S.’s mission there. But we don’t want to go slinging about accusations we can’t back up.

And here:

One more quote from that story: “An Army brigadier general said finding a way to prosecute security companies for violations was more crucial than regulating them. In Iraq, they were given immunity under a regulation, Order 17, crafted by Iraq’s U.S. overseers after the 2003 invasion.” But really, pay attention to “skeptics“, who insist there are laws to prosecute them, and because not a single PMC employee has been prosecuted for violence in four years of dozens of accusations or murder, rape, and theft, then we can reasonably conclude no crimes have actually been committed. It’s only logical.

Yeah, ‘cuz that’s the argument.

Unfortunately for Josh, he’s not just wrong on defamation, he’s also wrong on the laws that can hold Blackwater employees accountable:

Current U.S. Law Providing for Jurisdiction Over Contractor Crime Overseas

The U.S. Justice Department currently has the authority to prosecute civilian contractors for certain crimes committed outside the United States under several U.S. laws, including:

The War Crimes Act. This law, 18 U.S.C. § 2441, criminalizes certain war crimes committed inside or outside the United States by anyone who is a member of the armed forces or is a U.S. national. Under the Act, a war crime includes conduct defined as a grave breach of the Geneva Conventions, or constituting a violation of common Article 3 of the Conventions. The latter prohibits, inter alia, cruel treatment, torture, and outrages upon personal dignity, in particular humiliating and degrading treatment.

That’s from a statement delivered to the House Committee on the Judiciary, Subcommittee on Crime, Terrorism, and Homeland Security by Erica Razook of Amnesty International. There are other laws mentioned for holding contractors accountable as well, so go ahead and click the link to read all about it. If it looks vaguely familiar to you, the you’re probably a reader of mine.

Now, Ms. Razook is no cable comedy show guru, but she can apparently read. Like Josh, she wants to see Blackwater and its employees tied to a spit and held over a very hot fire. Or, at least, she wants them to be held accountable, which is something I’d like to see as well. Unlike Josh, she recognizes that there are laws in place to accomplish such an end. It must be all those seconds of research done in a manner designed to discover the facts of the issue rather than to confirm her biases. Hmmm, it seems like there might be a lesson there for someone.

Moving along.

It seems there are others who are aware of the fact that U.S. laws are in place to prosecute civilians who commit crimes overseas, including John Ashcroft:

Last Thursday [May 6, 2004], Attorney General John Ashcroft announced that the Justice Department had jurisdiction to prosecute civilians implicated in crimes in Iraq. But whether these prosecutions will actually take place is far from clear ….

The most likely option for American civilian contractors implicated in Iraqi abuses is prosecution in the U.S. federal courts. There are two federal laws that could be used, depending on the offense at issue.

The most serious crimes could be prosecuted under the War Crimes Act of 1996. War crimes, as defined in the law, include grave breaches of the 1949 Geneva Conventions (such as torture or inhuman treatment) and violations of the Conventions’ common article 3 (such as “outrages upon personal dignity” and “humiliating and degrading treatment”).

Possible penalties for conviction under the law include imprisonment for life, for a term of years, or, if the victim of the crime dies, the death penalty.

Other crimes could be prosecuted under the Military Extraterritorial Jurisdiction Act (MEJA). MEJA, which was enacted primarily to protect American soldiers and their dependents living abroad, covers federal crimes punishable by more than one year’s imprisonment. Passed in 2000, the law is still untested.

I think a recap is in order. Josh contends that there are no laws to prosecute civilian contractors in Iraq. I have presented numerous examples. Josh ignores those examples and tries to slay strawman he accuses of fighting on my behalf. I disabuse Josh of his fanciful notions.

Any questions?

Now if Josh will just spend even half the time he’s used to take potshots at me in an effort to honestly uncover why no civilian contractors have been tried … well, except this one … for abuses overseas, then maybe we can get somewhere. Until then, class will be open when I feel like doing some more schooling.

It really does grow tiresome having to point this this stuff out.

Technorati Tags: Blackwater, contractors, civilian, Iraq, legal accountability, War Crimes Act, MEJA

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I’m headed up to New York for a (not) relaxing 4-day weekend. So no news brief tomorrow. Or Monday… but lots of great stuff will be there (or not) over at The Conjecturer.

Defense & The War

• Fabius Maximus has posted his latest essay on the Long War, and our prospects for the future. I mostly agree with him, but differ in a few areas. I’ll offer some more commentary later, when I’ve had a chance to digest it apart from the grueling days at the office.
• Did we blow a chance to settle the regime change question peacefully? If so, then for once I will be at a loss for words. More concretely, the way Bush was behaving like a petulant child (or, alternatively, a bull in a china shop) with regards even to sympathetic allies—including his seething hatred for UN authorization, and the utter contempt with which he treated friendly countries like Chile—is beyond the pale, even for basement-level standards I have already assigned him. How disgusting.
• Somehow, Steven Colbert got it exactly right on the absurdity of pretending there are laws to restrict the actions of PMCs. That surprises me.
• Meanwhile, Blackwater is the most trigger happy of all the other State Department security firms. Huh. One would almost be forgiven for thinking they’re uncontrollable maniacs with no restraint and serve as a functional roadblock to the U.S.’s mission there. But we don’t want to go slinging about accusations we can’t back up.
• P.W. Singer, of whom I remain an avid fan, has yet another must-read on PMCs in wartime.
• I’ve gotten grief for saying the pro-war right is practically salivating at the chance of bombing Iran. Obviously Michelle Malkin and Hannity & Bolton don’t count. Because I mean, they’re just standing up for freedom.
• Oh, and I actually forgot when the war was meant to cost $60 billion in total, and not $190 billion per year. And when Administration officials were fired for suggesting it would cost $100 billion instead of $60 billion. Those were the days, sigh.

Around the World

• I have no idea why or how Anonymous Lobbyist got the idea to interview Michael Totten for the latest issue of “That’s So Jane’s.” No idea at all. They talk Iran, where Totten says, “it’s like Seattle, only with occasional public hangings.” I have no idea how she teases these responses out of people, but it’s glorious. Make sure to click each link. LOL!
• Sukhoi, which is known for making beautiful, hyper-advanced fighter jets for the Russian military, has unveiled its latest offering: a medium-range passenger jet, the Superjet-100. Only, in the write-up and picture gallery on news.com, I saw the following passage, which is highlighted: “the Superjet 100 is notable as the first aircraft designed and produced in the “new Russia”–that is, in the more than two decades since the demise of the Soviet Union.” The Soviet Union fell in 1986?
• Africa? Somalia faces mass starvation, rampant seaborne piracy, and militarized children in the cities; Zimbabwe is in such dire straits half the population will require emergency food aid (and Mugabe’s new idea to confiscate white businesses is certainly boffo); Congo is creating yet new waves of refugees and people fleeing the machetes in terror.
• Kerry Howley has been giving us the hookup on what’s going on in Burma, including the midnight raids on monasteries.
• The Instapundit (who still loves trotting out incoherent pablum like how because Iraq doesn’t resemble a 1980’s Mel Gibson action movie featuring Tina Turner, the media lies to us) links to this TCS Daily essay on what made Hugo Chavez “possible.” In a vein quite similar to his ignorant linking policy on Central Asia, he seems to be under the impression that a libertarian blaming tyranny on too much redistribution is a mature and coherent analysis of why politics in Latin America tend to swing to the authoritarian left (Llosa, who works for the Independent Institute, also blames decades of political corruption and incompetent government, though this takes a backseat). A rigorous look at the continent’s history would take into account the work of M.A. Centeno, whose seminal book highlighted the role great wars and their absence served to heighten racial, socio-economic, and class divisions within society. This harsh disconnect created the ideal environment for strongmen and populists to emerge, which is a far more nuanced look at how and why people like Chavez and Evo Morales win such support from the lower classes. Indeed, like all else, the reasons why something that is seemingly inexplicable happened is a far more complex picture than mismanaged democratic institutions and a disconnected elite; fans of Nassim Nicholas Taleb will recognize the danger of assigning complex realities to simple stories—what he calls the narrative fallacy. This is a prime example, on both their parts.

Back at Home

• The new State Department blog, DipNote (which is a lousy name akin to “State Talk Express,” an alt.name I did not invent) links to Global Voices Online, which I write for. Score!
• Hey look, at least one branch of the government still cares about the fundamental principles of the country, and doesn’t see the need to sell them out just for a minor increase in potential safety.
• Ouch: “As a daily user of Mac OS X, Ubuntu and Vista, I’m keenly aware of what works and what doesn’t. Mac and Linux work.”
• The inimitable Dan Savage points out that the foofaraw over the Folsom Last Supper ad is more than a bit hypocritical… but I was saying that yesterday. Chris Crain, on the other hand, makes a compelling case for why it is in fact offensive. I certainly think it’s tacky and in really poor taste (and if there’s one thing homosexuals care about, it’s being classy), but I also think the hyperventilation over it is a big much.
• Maybe she will, afterall, go to rehab. And not say “no no no.”
• Ugh. Fifteen months (or whatever) until , and then we can start a brand new one.
• Also, I’ve never felt like this, ever. Not even when I’m trying to leave a D.C. United game at RFK.

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Probably pirating em-pee-threes over at The Conjecturer.

Defense & The War

• Well, the military realizes how fundamentally broken our relationship with the PMCs in Iraq has become, and are now pressuring the State Department to exercise some control or oversight over Blackwater. Some military officials are now comparing the Blackwater shootout, which resulted in 11 dead Iraqis, to the Abu Ghraib scandal, such is their worry for how Blackwater has undermined their mission.
• One more quote from that story: “An Army brigadier general said finding a way to prosecute security companies for violations was more crucial than regulating them. In Iraq, they were given immunity under a regulation, Order 17, crafted by Iraq’s U.S. overseers after the 2003 invasion.” But really, pay attention to “skeptics“, who insist there are laws to prosecute them, and because not a single PMC employee has been prosecuted for violence in four years of dozens of accusations or murder, rape, and theft, then we can reasonably conclude no crimes have actually been committed. It’s only logical.
• Mountain Runner is right, however, that reforming PMC laws is a delicate dance, and one that should not be undertaken emotionally. It’s reasonable to assume PMCs won’t go away… but I do think it is reasonable that, seeing how badly Blackwater has undermined the mission, it is not unreasonable to forbid them from the theater.
• The Independent claims those horrible sniper bait-and-switch tactics I mentioned previously were used to puff out insurgent casualties to bolster the case for the surge. So we’re tricking Iraqis into getting shot in the head (for picking up pieces of wire and sometimes rifles that were dropped in the street), then counting the surge a success? I really hope not, because this is beyond low. Notice, too the language of the Capt. Didier, testifying in court martial: “we would engage the individual” who picked up the planted weapons. In a PC war, I suppose it is more difficult to talk about killing people than it is to simply pick them off in the street. And all this is coming to light not because it might be morally reprehensible to drop high-value bait in an impoverished country (think about what it means if people are scavenging for bits of wire in the street), but because a sniper team was caught planting wire after the fact. Unreal.
• The Air Force might be looking at smaller, COIN-friendly gunships. But they’d rather buy fast, worthless faux-fifth gen fighter jets instead. Score!

Around the World

• Well known anarcho-libertarian paradise Somalia is now facing widespread starvation thanks to… wait for it… population pressures in refugee camps from people fleeing all the inter-tribal warfare. “But,” you may be wondering, “I thought infant mortality had improved under anarchy?” No, dear ignorant sheltered economist who has never been there—that was a guesstimate based on faulty data collected from the only two stable cities in the country, one which might not even be there as it’s really in Somaliland. But what’s a few more dozen thousand dead children, when the 300,000 dead from starvation (a situation that never existed even under the broken faux-socialist policies of Mohammed Siad Barre) already mean anarchy works “better than you might think?” For the record, aid agencies are now saying the humanitarian situation in Somalia has eclipsed that of Darfur or the Democratic Republic of Congo.
• The story of the Burmese monks bravely standing up to the junta continues to inspire. Just today, riot police crashed their march, and at least one monk is reportedly dead from the shootings. Hundreds have been arrested. I don’t think stricter sanctions are the key here, however—it was sanctions in the first place that led the monks to march; moreover, sanctions tend to hurt innocent people at the lower rungs of society far more than they hit the elites and leadership. Rather, we need to lean on China to end its support for the junta—not by trying to tax one of our largest trading partners into adjusting its currency, which is currently wending its way through the Senate, but by using shame and public ethics. A “Peacefully Rising China,” the preferred name of the framework for China’s economic development since Deng Xiaoping, is at odds with China supporting and funding extremist, brutal, oppressive corrupt dictatorships. The West’s hypocrisy on this subject is palpable, but I also think it is surmountable: soft power, which George W. Bush clearly dislikes and obviously misunderstands, can be the most effective tool here, rather than starving the peasants to death.
• Mahmoud Ahmadinejad wants the addresses (and fabulous dresses) of homosexuals in Iran. You know, for the persecution.
• I guess I’ll be an Iranian apologist (again) and point out that this Heritage guy doesn’t actually have any evidence that Iran is sending weapons to Afghanistan, merely seizures of Chinese and Russian weapons that “could have come in via Pakistan, but China is a major arms supplier to Iran.” Umm. China is also a major arms supplier to Pakistan—how do you think China was able to precipitate the Lal Masjid standoff after three Chinese workers were kidnapped and murdered? Alas, evidence and reason (and, apparently, regional knowledge) don’t seem to matter much to those who blindly lust for war with Tehran. And only apologists, I suppose, find that a disquieting concept.
• The cult of the Benazir carries on in some quarters.
• “Bill Clinton Is Not Afraid of Commitment.” Brilliant.
• I speculated about whether or not grain markets would be used as leverage by Russia against Central Asian states. Nathan threw some water on that, though I don’t think he fully discounted it. Anyway, the global wheat price spike is having some serious consequences in Tajikistan, and guess who might be stepping in to fill the gap.

Back at Home

• A security expert has determined DRM not only wastes endless amounts of money but is also disastrously ineffective.
• I love how the NSA cares so much about our freedom, it disregards our freedom to save the freedom it loves.
• Georgia, Saudi Arabia, Men hate women drivers.
• Imagine: our economy cannot function without illegal immigrants. Who could have possibly thought such a thing?
• Christians confuse art, scripture, and think a parody of the Last Supper is somehow tantamount to defaming Jesus. Intrigued? CNS helpfully includes a large jpeg of the ad—which features leather daddies sitting at a table laden with sex toys, including an ominous-looking rubber fist—for research, you know. Sound like CNS is treating a Da Vinci (code) painting like an idol? It does to me too. I think the thing is kind of tasteless, but the Holy Outrage™ is a bit much. So why don’t Christians care when other Christians defame Christ, only when those terrifying “homosexuals” (I LOVE how they refuse to say “gay” or “leather daddies”) place advertisements where mature adults might find them? I would wager it’s because most Christians (since when is a man in charge of Concerned Women for America?) don’t actually read the bible, they just like throwing it at people.
• c.f. the Ahmadinejad item above: have Christians nothing else to worry about? Oh yeah, they’re with the Ayatollahs on this one.

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I have to second Joshua’s recommendation that you read this article from Small Wars Journal on Private Security Contractors. Abu Muqawama has some thoughts as well, including the admission by an Iraqi Government spokesman that they need Blackwater, and don’t really want them to go away.

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As a Louisiana native I probably should have weighed in on the “Jena Six.” Like Michael, and many others, my initial reluctance has been being unsure of what really happened due to sketchy and conflicting reporting. What I can say at this point is that the decisions from a legal perspective have in each aspect of the case been very reasonable. The reporting has obscured that fact at times by declining to mention the nature of the attack, that there is no evidence it was associated with the “nooses” incident or the criminal history of Mychal Bell and the other defendants.

That the legal decisions have been reasonable does not make them right, but any decision is likely to be seen as less than satisfactory by someone. They have all been defensible however, and in the end the “Jena Six” are being tried on an appropriate charge. I give you Reed Walters, the prosecutor, defending his conduct in the New York Times:

I cannot overemphasize how abhorrent and stupid I find the placing of the nooses on the schoolyard tree in late August 2006. If those who committed that act considered it a prank, their sense of humor is seriously distorted. It was mean-spirited and deserves the condemnation of all decent people.

But it broke no law. I searched the Louisiana criminal code for a crime that I could prosecute. There is none.

Similarly, the United States attorney for the Western District of Louisiana, who is African-American, found no federal law against what was done.

Was this a “schoolyard fight?”

Conjure the image of schoolboys fighting: they exchange words, clench fists, throw punches, wrestle in the dirt until classmates or teachers pull them apart. Of course that would not be aggravated second-degree battery, which is what the attackers are now charged with. (Five of the defendants were originally charged with attempted second-degree murder.) But that’s not what happened at Jena High School.

The victim in this crime, who has been all but forgotten amid the focus on the defendants, was a young man named Justin Barker, who was not involved in the nooses incident three months earlier. According to all the credible evidence I am aware of, after lunch, he walked to his next class. As he passed through the gymnasium door to the outside, he was blindsided and knocked unconscious by a vicious blow to the head thrown by Mychal Bell. While lying on the ground unaware of what was happening to him, he was brutally kicked by at least six people.

Imagine you were walking down a city street, and someone leapt from behind a tree and hit you so hard that you fell to the sidewalk unconscious. Would you later describe that as a fight?

Only the intervention of an uninvolved student protected Mr. Barker from severe injury or death. There was serious bodily harm inflicted with a dangerous weapon — the definition of aggravated second-degree battery.

Given the facts as best as I have been able to determine, this is a reasonable view of the case. Whatever else was going on at the time at Jena High School, it shouldn’t be allowed to obscure or justify a vicious assault on a student, especially when it has nothing or little to do with those other events.

Update: Brendan Nyhan and others have brought up the point that Mr. Reed is eliding past the point that they were originally charged with attempted second degree murder. That may have been inappropriate, though we don’t know that given that others stopped them before they finished whatever was being attempted, and some of the witness testimony certainly might support such a charge. However, It is hardly unususual for prosecutors to start with the most serious charge which might be warranted before settling on a lesser one. The point is that the actual charge is second degree aggravated battery.

It is also said Mr. Barker was a racist, which he may well be, and that racist websites are holding him up as a hero, which goes beyond irrelevant. Mychal Bell however hardly gets a pass as a potential racist given his conduct though, and more to the point Mr. Barker’s opinions on race are not the issue either.

As for the pistol grip shotgun incident, the problem there seems to be that the stories are conflicting and hard for the prosecutor to get a handle on. It also was earlier than the attack on Justin Barker when it seems the prosecutors office decided to crack down, and when the violence reached its most dangerous point. Still, if there is compelling evidence that the young man in question committed a crime, it in no way mitigates what happened to Mr. Barker. These comments from Bean at Lawyers, Guns and Money sums up the problem with the commentary I continue to hear (and bean is far more reasonable than most, but why pick on the deluded:)

Yes, “Free the Jena 6? has become a rallying cry around this whole sorry mess, but I’m not sure even the protesters believe the six should get out of jail free if they were involved in the attack on Justin Barker.

It’s just that so many others ought to be going to jail as well.

That certainly isn’t what we hear from the protesters. Many do feel they should get out of jail free, and the problem is why protest in his favor at all? He committed aggravated battery! The protests speak of freeing the Jena Six because that is the focus, not that others should go to jail. Sadly, they want to invert the injustice (assuming the others mentioned should go to jail) and give similar charges to them and free the “Jena Six.” No putting more reasonable aims in the protesters mouths will change that.

The reasoning behind the decision to charge Mychal Ball as an adult is flimsy at best. His attack was by surprise (so the DA says)? Still not enough to try to throw a high school kid in jail for double-digit years.

Michael Bell is in high school, but he was a star athlete of 17 years when he did this with a history of violence including 4 previous violent crimes, two committed while on probation for a previous battery conviction. Bell has had numerous chances and threw them and a Division I athletic scholarship away. He is no innocent naif caught up in an isolated incident. While it might be argued he shouldn’t be tried as an adult, the case for doing so is not in any way flimsy.

I’m not sure how it’s worded in the Louisiana code, admittedly, but the resort to “my black friend says so too” immediately makes me suspicious.

It doesn’t make me suspicious. Given the constant emphasis, including in his post, of the race of people involved on the prosecutorial side, the jury, the witnesses, etc., pointing out that not only white figures in the cases agreed is unfortunately quite necessary. You can’t have it both ways. Bean and others have made race central to every aspect of the case, not just where it is obviously relevant. Reed didn’t choose for it to be seen that way, the protesters and his critics have.

For a very reasonable view of the case I suggest Richard Thompson Ford, despite ignoring the students history of violence and accepting at face value some claims which may not be true (Was there really a “white tree?” Many claim there wasn’t.)

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The Telegraph lists the 100 most consequential men of the left in Britain. Hat tip Norm Geras (who finishes no. 77)

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Most governments in the area oppose withdrawal, the Iraqi government opposes withdrawal, and now we learn (as I suspected) that most foreign policy analysts in Europe oppose withdrawal:

While the American public and policy debate revolves largely around exit strategies and “redeployment,” there is apparent consensus among European policy analysts that American troops should remain in Iraq for the foreseeable future. In contrast to both European media opinion and the prevailing views of American liberals, our respondents supported sustained troop levels. Many consider the announcement of a timetable for withdrawal to be counter-productive and even outright dangerous, saying that lack of American involvement would drive Iraq into further chaos.

From Captain Ed.

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Details are emerging on the murder of Abdul Sattar al-Rishawi.

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Mass murderer Che Guevara gets the whitewash.

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Cross-posted on The Conjecturer.

Defense & The War

• This look at PMCs, from late August no less, is pretty close to my views. Recognizing the impracticality of removing all PMCs in the lack of any ability to regrow military capacity for at least a decade, we’re stuck with them. But some groups, such as Blackwater, have acquired such a terrible reputation among locals that their presence is counterproductive. For the rest, explicit rules about conduct and consequences is key to ensuring, say, the embassy doesn’t willfully ignore or discount any more incidents.
• The former head of DARPA wonders why the DoD doesn’t introduce more COTS tech into warfighting. Too many acronyms? Think of it this way: why does a RQ-1 Predator, the pilotless drone in use in countless warzones, cost almost $5 million each, while Commercial, Off The Shelf technology makes similar systems (though obviously at a much smaller scale) available for under $2000? There is no sense of proportion—and the Predator is not that advanced, save perhaps its targeting systems for the optional Hellfire missiles and optics for the surveillance cameras. There is no reason it can’t cost far less… were it designed with pre-fabricated parts, instead of designed from scratch. That is the fundamental conceit of the military: it builds things from scratch when it doesn’t need to, and in the process duplicates an entire economy’s-worth of innovation and testing… wasting hundreds of millions of dollars in the process.
• Related: the new Ford-class CVN carriers will dramatically exceed their contracted cost… with no consequences. There is no incentive to keep things on budget, or even to forecast budget accurately—whoever wins these huge cost-plus monstrosities (I’m looking at you, Lockheed Martin) is basically given a license to print money.
• And why bother putting your new African Command in Africa? It’s not like policymakers will somehow magically start caring about the continent anyway.
• One thing I am tired of: the case for war being based solely on ill-defined progress (didn’t we used to fight to defend “truth freedom and the american way”?) and an assumption that small, local successes are in any way generalizable. That isn’t to deny those successes when they happen—they matter, and we should celebrate them. But there remains no evidence that progress is spreading… or that it can spread with the current troop levels, to say nothing of what happens when they’re drawn down next April. Since even Petraeus is in effect quitting halfway through (by withdrawing the surge as the extended, 15 month deployments wind down)… why do we bother with not going all the way and just cut all our losses?

Around the World

• My latest roundup for Global Voices Online, as well as thoughts on who Russia might be modeling their new foreign policy after at Registan.net. And, for good measure, Nathan takes aim at a capricious (and corpulent!) Russian exile plutocrat, who also happens to be after a big share of The Arsenal… and Craig Murray, heh.
• A disturbing trend: marketing skin lightening as the only way to get ahead in South Asia.
• I actually thought Mahmoud’s visit was incredibly smart of him—he made Iran seem harmless, a paradise of fools, while we debate our own freedoms and forget the lack of Iran’s. And we played right into it. Jesse Walker disagrees, and thinks this sort of thing—in a way, exposing and humiliating the figurehead of a hostile country—advances the debate. It could, I’ll grant that much… but I think Ahmadinejad ultimately wound up on top. Roger Williams points out the rather salient fact that, contra Bollinger, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is, in fact, not a dictator, but a figure head.
• Is Rwanda the most improved nation in Africa? I couldn’t say. But it is wonderful to see some signs of hope there.
• On the verge of a harsh crackdown, Bush plans to “pressure” Burma. Umm. What?
• Remarkably, just as troops were pulled from Afghanistan to surge in Iraq, the Taliban surged in Afghanistan.
• John Bolton is still recklessly beating the drum of a phantom nuclear collaboration between Syria and North Korea, despite having nothing but assumption to back it up. I’m glad he gets op-ed space!
• Why is Russia strong-arming India, with whom it has traditionally enjoyed warm relations? Because a strong Russia is in Russia’s best interests.

Back at Home

• We can mock Bush’s pronunciation guide as much as we want, but I don’t mind that he has one… I do, however, mind that he never uses it. I rather take James Fallows’ approach: applaud the man for refusing to call it Myanmar.
• The NSA hates your freedoms.
• The consequence of coal mining in West Virginia. They want to power your cars using the same technique, if they can trick Congress into subsidizing liquified coal… while claiming there is a “natural market” for the stuff (which would imply it doesn’t need subsidization, but whatever, right?). Meanwhile, what does it mean when West Virginia comes off as far more enlightened and tolerant than my own regular Virginia?
• Even though I barely use it, I do support Apple’s iTunes Music Store… in concept. Now that they finally released some DRM-free tracks, despite the added cost, there is a reason to eschew the $9.99 physical CD you can buy from Amazon. Well, except now Amazon has a store that pops out DRM-free MP3s with fewer restrictions than ITMS. And it looks like their albums are a dollar cheaper at $8.99. I’m inclined to use Amazon over iTunes at this point… and that’s coming from a dedicated Mac-head.
• Oooh, in other words, we’re back to where MP3.com was, only five years later and hundreds of millions of dollars spent in lawsuits that ultimately came to nothing. But blame pirates for running the record companies out of money!
• A fascinating look at how blogs challenge Big Media. I’m sympathetic to this take, though I desperately rely on Big Media for things to blog about. My life is too boring (and I’m too shy) to post a diary-like thing.
• It is really difficult to escape my fundamental dislike of the police for being petty, power-mad, and corrupt, when I see things like websites complaining about cops writing fellow officers of the law traffic tickets. Because what’s the point of being a cop if you can’t flagrantly disregard inconvenient laws while punishing office workers for going out to lunch? You can of course find more about how brazenly cops enjoy breaking the law at copwatch.net.

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I highly recommend going to the Volokh Conspiracy for an interesting discussion of Jeffrey Toobin’s The Nine: Inside the Secret World of the Supreme Court. Here is a link to all the various posts on one page. Jeffrey Whelan has more here, here and here.

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Respecting all races and religions over at The Conjecturer.

Defense & The War

• It turns out the U.S. repeatedly refused to investigate or handle any of the complaints about Blackwater allegedly murdering civilians. But don’t worry—there are clearly laws against murder, so we can rest assured the lack of convictions is evidence that no crimes have been committed.
• Interestingly, the CIA was warning the White House of the dangers of trying to occupy Iraq. But George Tenet declared it a slam dunk, Dick Cheney declared flowers, and we’re still there.
• Fred Kaplan wants to know why we’re not debating the largest military budget ever. I do too, especially considering how much fraud, waste, and abuse happens… as well as the seemingly impunity with which the military wastes money on gadgets instead of spending it on people. There is a balance to be struck, and rushing to field the latest hyper-expensive technical panacea (MRAP, the F-22) for what amounts to a technologically unsolvable doctrine problem (IEDs, battling counterinsurgencies) is how all that money seems to disappear. All part of the MICC (that’s military-industrial-congressional complex, as Eisenhower wanted to put it).
• I do wonder how many innocent people were killed by the sniper bait-and-snipe tactics. I guess I should state it is deeply unfair to the snipers to ask them to look at some schlub picking up a weapon and determine, through their scope, whether he is an insurgent or just looking to sell it to feed his family. Again: that is a doctrinal failure, one of many in this war, and not a personnel one.
• In an otherwise excellent (and quite damning) indictment of the Bush administration’s failed wars, the highly-respected Barnett Rubin describes the “thankless labor of documenting the administration’s crimes and blunders in Iraq,” as equivalent to convincing “a skeptical audience that water is wet.” Heh.
• Meanwhile, a buddy of mine who works at World Vision describes the herculean efforts going into the equally thankless task of caring for the millions of refugees Bush created but refused responsibility for.
• Some uncomfortable questions for the U.S. Air Force.

Around the World

• Is Virgin Mobile illegally using Flickr users in their advertising campaigns?
• Is human trafficking a crock? I sure hope not… because if it turns out some people have exaggerated the problem, then the very real issues—of slavery, forced prostitution, and so on—will continue, just under the radar.
• Safrang posts a neat vignette of an Afghan farmer who successfully switched from farming opium to farming saffron. That is how alternative livelihoods should work!
• The U.S. embassy in Islamabad might have finally been given permission to grow the balls to protest Musharraf’s failing regime. In other “America’s complicity with thugs and murderers” news, there are now allegations the U.S. guaranteed the freedom of Radovan Kradzic, one of the butchers behind the Srebrenica massacre (recently, if perhaps incorrectly, deemed a genocide).
• The future is Asian… or so they’d have you believe.
• 100,000 protest the military junta in Burma. Not yet revolution, but the courage on display is truly stunning. More, please.
• America is losing the PR war against Iran.
• A survey of Central Asian humor.
• The problems and opportunities of entrepreneurial African infrastructure development.

Back at Home

• The rotting Dupont Circle embassy of the Democratic Republic of Congo. My question is: how does a reporter afford a place in Dupont Circle? Ever since the metros chased the gays out to Shaw, Dupont has become ridiculously expensive—almost as expensive as my beloved Arlington.
• My God, why am I agreeing with Think Progress? Oh right—I’m a free speech extremist, and I bristle at anyone’s attempt to silence anyone else. When even President Bush think it’s okay to let Mahmoud tell a University full of wealthy homosexuals there aren’t any of their kind in Iran when they’re hung (quite literally, from posts) on a regular basis… well, then, might it be safe saying Hunter might have jumped the shark?

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I have been following this story for about a week now, and I still can’t figure out what happened. Most of the core facts seem to be in dispute, such as whether or not the nooses in the “White Tree” were meant to intimidate black students intending to sit under it, or as school spirit gesture in light of the football game that day against the Avoyelles Mustangs. Parts of both explanations ring as true, while other parts of each don’t seem to add up. It’s a common theme in this saga thus far. The end result is that it really is difficult to figure where to stand on this story.

I tend to agree with Jeralyn Merritt that, in the very least, it looks like a case of overcharging on the part of the prosecutor:

While I still can’t make judgments as to much of the story, I have no problem declaring the case one of prosecutorial over-charging and abuse of a system that allows prosecutors discretion in charging juveniles as adults. I think the only reason the kids were charged with such serious felonies was to get Mychal Bell, then a juvenile, into adult court.

The only explanation I’ve found suggesting that the Jena Six were not mis-charged is offered by Pastor Eddie Thompson from Jena (HT: MSimon):

Justin Barker, the white student attacked, was not the first white student targeted by these black students. Others had been informed they were going to be beaten, but stayed away from school and out of sight until they felt safe …. The “Jena Six” have repeatedly been held up as heroes by much of the race-based community and called “innocent students” by the national media. Some of these students have reputations in Jena for intimidating and sometimes beating other students. They have vandalized and destroyed both school property and community property. Some of the Jena Six have been involved in crimes not only in LaSalle Parish but also in surrounding parishes. For the most part, coaches and other adults have prevented them from being held accountable for the reign of terror they have presided over in Jena. Despite intervention by adults wanting to give them chances due their athletic potential, most of the Jena Six have extensive juvenile records. Yet their parents keep insisting that their children have never been in trouble before. These boys did not receive prejudicial treatment but received preferential treatment until things got out of hand.

I don’t know if Pastor Thompson is any more reliable on this matter than anyone else putting facts and opinions out there, but the information he’s thrown into the mix certainly makes it appear as if the whole story isn’t being told. If it makes any difference to you, the Pastor also penned an essay las December titled “The Battle Against Racism In Jena, Louisiana” in which he had this to say:

David Duke once received over sixty percent of the vote in a statewide election in LaSalle Parish. For whatever reason, there are a couple of schools here that were never integrated. There are no longer any tracks—the railroads having long abandoned what was once a sawmill paradise—to separate us in Jena, but most blacks live in their “quarters” while most whites live in theirs. I’ve lived here most of my life, and the one thing I can state with absolutely no fear of contradiction is that LaSalle Parish is awash in racism: True racism. Not the sort of affirmative action/name-calling/reparations-seeking fluff that keeps Jesse Jackson and liberal do-gooders in business, but a systematic, culture of bigotry, neglected by the scrutiny of time.

Obviously, Pastor Thompson isn’t hiding his head in the sand on this one, nor trying to cover for anyone’s actions that were motivated by racism. Indeed, he expresses a clear desire to tackle the issue head on. Of course, that doesn’t make his version of events any more reliable, just a bit more credible.

Another article I read recently that has a rather sober view of the Jena incidents is by Jason Whitlock:

Thursday, thousands of us, proud African-Americans, expressed our devotion to and desire to see justice for the “Jena Six,” the half-dozen black students who knocked unconscious, kicked and stomped a white classmate.

Jesse Jackson compared Thursday’s rallies in Jena to the protests and marches that used to take place in cities like Selma, Ala., in the 1960s. Al Sharpton claimed Thursday’s peaceful demonstrations were to highlight racial inequities in the criminal justice system.

Jesse and Al, as they’re prone to do, served a kernel of truth stacked on a mountain of lies.

[...]

You won’t hear about any of that because it doesn’t fit the picture we want to paint of Jena, this case, America and ourselves.

We don’t practice preventive medicine. Mychal Bell needed us long before he was cuffed and jailed. Here is another undeniable, statistical fact: The best way for a black (or white) father to ensure that his son doesn’t fall victim to a racist prosecutor is by participating in his son’s life on a daily basis.

That fact needed to be shared Thursday in Jena. The constant preaching of that message would short-circuit more potential “Jena Six” cases than attributing random acts of six-on-one violence to three-month-old nooses.

And I am in no way excusing the nooses. The responsible kids should’ve been expelled. A few years after I’d graduated, a similar incident happened at my high school involving our best football player, a future NFL tight end. He was expelled.

The Jena school board foolishly overruled its principal and suspended the kids for three days.

But the kids responsible for Barker’s beating deserve to be punished. The prosecutor needed to be challenged on his excessive charges. And we as black folks need to question ourselves about why too many of us can only get energized to help our young people once they’re in harm’s way.

It’s a good article, and I recommend that you RTWT, but again I don’t know if Whitlock’s recitation of facts is any more reliable that any one else’s. Unfortunately, I don’t know if we’ll ever really know the truth of what happened during those several months that racial tensions flared into violence at and around Jena High School. It does not appear at this juncture that enough people are invested in sussing out the facts so that the real narrative can be told.

Despite all the confusion and competing narratives regarding the Jena Six, however, there is one unequivocal truth that has emerged: thank God for Martin Luther King, Jr.

I shudder to think what would have happened to the Civil Rights Movement if the race hustlers like Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton had been in charge back then. Although not everything that resulted from the cause led by Dr. King was a great big bowl of cherries, at least with his leadership and ability real problems of racism were exposed and real racism was confronted. If instead it had been the Jesse and Al show back then, we would be lucky if Jim Crow laws and “colored water fountains” were the worst remaining vestiges of that racially charged time. Given the level of incompetence and self-aggrandizement displayed by these two in Jena ( as well as that of their fellow travelers), I don’t think it is an exaggeration to say that if they had led the march to Montgomery in 1965, a full on race war would have erupted, and that we would all be a lot worse off.

So, whatever else comes of this Jena Six debacle, say a prayer for Dr. King, and thank God that it was he who led the Selma March.

Technorati Tags: Jena Six, race hustlers, Eddie Thompson, Jason Whitlock, racism, Martin Luther King, Jr., Selma, Civil Rights Movement

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Al Qaeda lost in Anbar, and Michael looks at why with one of the most admired commanders in Iraq, 3rd Infantry Division Lieutenant Colonel Mike Silverman.

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The Monkey Tennis Centre looks at the issue of private military contractors and the recent controversy over Blackwater’s conduct.

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I’m in in ur browser, killing ur time, over at The Conjecturer.

Defense & The War

• We’ll see if the CSIS Smart Power blog has anything interesting to say. So far, it’s nothing new, or at least nothing interesting.
• Michael Kinsey on the childish antics of MoveOn.org… and how it’s highlighted the politics of umbrage.
• Salam Adil at Global Voices Online posted a roundup of Iraqi blogging on the most recent Blackwater incident. An eye witness account accuses the Blackwater employees of even killing policemen rushing to the scene as well as unarmed civilians fleeing the fighting being shot in the back. Other bloggers note that the uncontrolled shooting during motorcades—an action condemned repeatedly by military commanders—generate a tremendous amount of ill will toward the U.S. In other words, these PMCs are actively hurting the mission in Iraq—if the dozens of unprosecuted murder charges are not enough to make us reconsider their use, then surely the way they actively undermine our reason for being there should.

Around the World

• Leslie Gelb writes a devastating critique of Mearsheimer and Walt’s book that blames our bad foreign policy choices on the Jews. But she does us the favor of not just calling them anti-Semitic, but shoddy scholars. While she tries to explain away this sloppy work as their desperate need to explain as bad a decision as the Iraq War, I think that misses the point: the fact that otherwise respected scholars would throw together slapdash critique of Israel makes it appear to be driven by anti-Semitism, rather than ass-covering.
• Meanwhile James Dobbins (who wrote an excellent piece in the current Foreign Affairs blaming Iraq on institutional failures, rather than nefarious motives, an argument I find convincing, as I’ve come to think the government’s foreign policy establishment malfunctions on a rather fundamental level), whose work at RAND on nation building have been extraordinarily eye-opening, wrote a piece on how truly dangerous the Middle East remains, in the context of a possible war between Israel and Syria. Here is some more skepticism of that Israel sir strike (though from what I’ve seen, it now most likely looks to be a batch of SCUDS).
• NATO keeps insisting it’s finding Iranian arms and saying it’s government policy, I keep wondering why they don’t think it’s the drug lords along the open border. I mean, the Iranians have NO reason to try to destabilize a friendly government in Kabul to benefit a terrorist group they almost went to war with. Right? Would they miscalculate that badly—like Americans? Meanwhile, Péter Marton sees some surprisingly slippy reporting out of RFE/RL, which is ordinarily a first class news agency.
• The Acorn notes that the protesting monks of Burma are setting a new high in non-violent protest. I think he’s right—considering the consequences they face, which are severe, those monks are worthy of our adulation and, more importantly, our support. We should pressure China to stop supporting the junta, just as we’ve pressured them to stop supporting the thugs who run Sudan.
• East Africa is a hot mess. Ethiopia is as on the verge of war as ever, we seem to be pushing Eritrea into more alienation and extremism, Somalia still can’t get its head straight, and there are now hundreds of thousands fleeing violence in Kenya. It’s like nothing ever stops there, no one ever gets a break.
• Irony rules: Pirate Bay, the Sweden-based bit torren service, is suing some big names in the media industry for acts of sabotage, to include denial of service attacks and hacking attempts, originating from these companies. Naughty naughty, those companies will do anything to protect their decaying obsolete business models, won’t they?
• Indeed the SS vacation photos are shocking—for how banal they all considered the business of genocide. It makes me wonder what goes through the heads of those who today commit mass murder: do they realize what it is, become numb, or decide not to care? How can they live with themselves?

Back at Home

• H4×0rS hate teh RIAA. Also is it sad I own that Angelina Jolie movie?
• Sometimes, I wish evolution really worked.
• The U.S. coal industry seems dead set on polluting our gas tanks. Seeing up close the ways in which they have quite literally rendered vast tracts of West Virginia uninhabitable through strip mining and mountain top removal, and how they have ruthlessly distorted that state’s politics (to the point to where the legislature will vote to extend coal rights over elementary schools), you can color me unimpressed. Aside from the environmental impact of wasting coal-produced energy to turn coal into a different power source (a process that uses around 6 gallons of water per gallon of fuel), it does not address our far more fundamental problem. What we don’t need is more coal, but rather alternatives to carbon-based energy.
• Someone is finally taking American employers to task for unpaid overtime. An a so-called “exempt” employee, I really don’t like making the same amount of money whether I work 30 hours in a week or 90. While I can understand the argument that it may be a way of subsidizing unproductive hours at work, or less-active work, I think you can view it a different way: productivity. After the 65th hour or so, my productivity drops way the hell off… and apparently it was never that great to begin with—Europeans tend to be more productive per hour worked, which has resulted in high incomes and drastically shorter average work weeks (and vacation lengths that make most of us here blanche). Unfortunately, my Protestant work ethic (curiously not related to my current Protestantism) would drive me bonkers if I were forced into a 35-hour work week; that being said, I wouldn’t mind more than 10 days’ vacation a year. Or maybe just fewer weekend spent working. Or a lot more money to do so.

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I’m probably the last one to see this, but this song/commercial is really well done. I especially like the homage to the Beatles.

And I think sums it all up:

why cant real apples sing like that?!?!?!?!?!,

Heh.

As a bonus, here’s the video for that other commercial that’s stuck in my head:

Technorati Tags: “Blue”, The Fruit Guys, Feist, “1 2 3 4″, cool commercials, iPod, Fruit of the Loom

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Once her son is off to school, Laura Mansfield settles in at her dining room table with her laptop and begins trolling Arabic-language message boards and chat rooms popular with jihadists.

Fluent in Arabic, the self-employed terror analyst often hacks into the sites, translates the material, puts it together and sends her analysis via a subscription service to intelligence agencies, law enforcement and academics.

More and faster please.

Hat tip to Glenn Reynolds who also refers to this piece:

This should come as no surprise. American civilians, perhaps more even than their counterparts in Europe, Japan, and the rest of the industrialized world, are used to making rapid changes based on new information. Accustomed to a steep learning curve in business and in life, we should be able to out-adapt those who, after all, are ultimately committed to returning the world to a simulacrum of the 12th century.

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The story has not only finally pierced our Newsbrief, but the NY Times.

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Most likely sober over at The Conjectuer.

Defense & The War

• We still haven’t figured out how to bolster the Afghan police properly.
• Michael didn’t like me accusing Blackwater employees of a “history of murdering civilians,” nor did he think I was right in claiming PMCs in Iraq operate outside the law. While he may be technically correct on the second point (the Military Extraterritorial Jurisdiction Act does confer jurisdiction on any contractor of the DoD, CPA, or related agencies), functionally he is not: the Pentagon has yet to draw up the terms of how these rules would be implemented, and in any case it is up the DoD Inspector General to assign charges. So, we are to rely on Bush-appointed inspector generals, who, even at the State Department have been accused of not doing their jobs, of doing their jobs (for the record, the State Dept. IG is accused specifically of blocking investigations into… wait for it… contractor fraud and abuse in Iraq and Afghanistan).
• It’s funny, too, because Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki sure seems to be under the impression Blackwater as a history of murdering civilians in Iraq. Maybe he should say “alleged,” since we clearly have laws that cover this stuff, and if no one has been accused in a court of law then no crime has been committed. Of course, Maliki only cares now because it might gain himself some traction because the latest shooting happened in a Sunni neighborhood. But why does that matter? No one, not even the U.S. military, pretends the PMCs in Iraq don’t commit atrocities (and they have committed atrocities in other theaters of operation, too, without consequence). It is time they either go, or have established, unambiguous rules of conduct—something conspicuously missing from the debate.
• The Republicans filibustered an attempt in the Senate to reduce deployments from 15 months to 12 months. You could argue that, since casualties tend to cluster at the beginning and end of deployments, reducing the overall number of deployments might reduce the number of casualties (or that longer deployments are necessary in a complex 4G War where personal relationships with locals is key)… but you could also argue that it’s deeply unfair to stretch a volunteer force already dealing with a wave of PTSD to stay in the field well beyond any reasonable expectations they had. From the looks of it, however, there is a real chance this debate might actually be mature and sober, with no one accusing the other of being feckless defeatists or zombie warmongers. That’d be a nice change.

Around the World

• Another Lebanese member of Parliament murdered, another nail driven into the heart of an independent Lebanon. Eight anti-Syrian Lebanese politicians have been murdered in the last three years. And no one really seems to condemn Syria for its obvious involvement (like, say, the Hariri assassination).
• Hrm. Maybe they could tase Ahmadinejad for balance?
• If Omar al-Bashir is being honest and he really will call a cease-fire among the janjaweed in Darfur, then it is a significant victory. Of course, Roger Williams notes how this looks like another big raised middle finger to the world.
• Some interesting questions about the Israeli airstrike on Syria. They revolve around North Korea and the PSI—yet another international institution the Bush administration may have swept aside for the sake of short term expediency. I’m talking, of course, about India, and our deal to help them further develop their nuclear sector, despite both their own rejection of the NPT and their nuclear collaboration with Iran. Will we now begin indirectly assisting Iran’s nuclear projects? I actually wouldn’t mind that, since the only thing they’d get out of it would be nuclear power—something they probably need anyway, seeing as to how their entire energy infrastructure hasn’t been improved since 1979.
• And now Baghdad looks to Moscow…
• The absolutely despicable Robert Mugabe has begun to use access to water to thirst-out his competition. I’m glad Gordon Brown is taking the chance to publicly shun Mugabe at an upcoming summit.
• If true, news that we might finally start talking with Turkmenistan is long long long overdue, like 10 months after everyone else of interest at that level or higher already spoke with them. That’s how you know we care.
• What was the Soviet Union like in the 80s? It looks kinda like it does today, sadly.

Back at Home

• If you want to avoid screenings, watch what you read. That’s why I travel only with untranslated Arabic novels and manuals—to remove suspicion from our retarded TSA screeners.
• Yuck. America is boring today.

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is leaving me and Baton Rouge. My former home, the Bayou, burned down. Now the legendary downtown Baton Rouge watering hole, The Thirsty Tiger, is being sold and turned into a high end wine and martini bar. We wanted a vibrant downtown, but obviously it is a mixed blessing. We seem to be replacing a dark, old hole in the wall, in the basement of a building (I say with a contented sigh) with another trendy attractive place where the drinks will cost 2-3 times as much.

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This is highly amusing…

http://www.breitbart.com/article.php?id=paLydon_Thurs_14_Lydon_carcass&show_article=1

Punk legend John Lydon has lashed out at Sting – calling The Police frontman a “soggy old dead carcass”.

The Sex Pistol, also known as Johnny Rotten, poured scorn on the Eighties band’s recent comeback.

Lydon, 51, was speaking as the Sex Pistols prepare for a one-off gig to mark the 30th anniversary of their album Never Mind The B*****ks.

The former punk rebel dismissed Sting as “Stink”, saying: “That really is a reformation isn’t it? But honestly that’s like soggy old dead carcasses.

“You know listening to Stink try to squeak through Roxanne one more time, that’s not fun.

“It’s like letting air out of a balloon.”

Especially after seeing this the other day…

The Sex Pistols have joined the growing list of 1970s bands hitting the comeback trail, after announcing a one-off gig in London later this year.

The four surviving members of the band will take to the stage at the Brixton Academy on Nov 8 to mark the 30th anniversary of their album Never Mind The Bollocks.

Their announcement follows the ticket scramble sparked by last week’s news that Led Zeppelin are to play a charity gig at London’s O2 arena, also in November.

The Sex Pistols – the most celebrated and notorious British punk band – split in 1978 shortly before the death of bassist Sid Vicious.

They last reformed at a poorly-received show in Crystal Palace in south London in 2002.

Frontman John Lydon – formerly known as Johnny Rotten – told music website NME.com that “all of Britain” was welcome to attend the Brixton show, which coincides with the re-release of their first album.

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Why? This chart might give a clue:

Seems that not only is the US the best place to be treated for cancer, Canada isn’t even in the top 20. The difference is also startlingly large. Say Anything has more.

Update: See Kav’s comment below for some clarification that my post seems to desperately need.

More: Thanks to QandO I found a breakdown of the study by Jody at Polyscifi. She has the breaks down the numbers by type of cancer, and the US looks good even when you break it down to its constituent parts. Some data on France is included as well.

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One can only hope he was caught red-handed…

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,297426,00.html

An Iranian officer accused of smuggling powerful roadside bombs into Iraq was arrested Thursday in northern Iraq, the U.S. military said.

The arrest could add to tensions between Washington and Tehran already strained by the detention of each other’s citizens as well as U.S. accusations of Iranian involvement in Iraq’s violence and Iran’s disputed nuclear program.

The military said the suspect was a member of the Quds force — an elite unit of Iran’s Revolutionary Guards — and was seized from a hotel in the Kurdish city of Sulaimaniyah.

Two other Iranians were detained in the raid but later released, a Kurdish official said.

The Iranian officer was allegedly involved in transporting roadside bombs, including armor-piercing explosively formed penetrators, or EFPs, into Iraq, according to a military statement. It said intelligence reports also indicated he was involved in the infiltration and training of foreign fighters in Iraq.

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Three kinds of busy over at The Conjecturer.

Good News
I was ambushed by the Anonymous Lobbyist of Wonkette fame, and asked a lot of questions about Central Asia for Jezebel, a sister publication in the Gawker blog family. The result? A creatively-edited and mildly schizophrenic interview about the issues surrounding the region. Neat!

Defense & The War

• Yes, the complaints about Blackwater’s history of murdering civilians in Iraq without consequence is just a game of politics. Real patriotic pro-war Americans know that Blackwater can and does do no harm.
• Speaking of which, Blackwater Vice-Chairman Cofer Black, who also runs Total Intelligence Solutions (a spy-for-hire business with shady ties in Iraq), has been named Mitt Romney’s counterterrorism advisor. Because nothing says “hearts and minds” like hiring one of the men in charge of one of the most hated groups in the Muslim world.
• How useful are show of force missions? I would estimate “not very,” considering insurgents in the Iraq already know what we can do and what we cannot do, and an A10 buzzing by overhead doesn’t really scare them much. But then again, what do I know?
• Baghdad has been so surged and fixed that the U.S. embassy has banned ground travel outside the Green Zone.
• Meanwhile, flag officers like Major General Stone offer some hope that, maybe, we’re not as screwed up the butt as I fear when it comes to handling the Muslim world. I suspect a change of civilian leadership will improve things dramatically.
• David Axe is quickly turning into a favorite read: this time he asks questions about tactics and strategy in Iraq, and not only gets non-answers from the guys in charge but is practically accused of defeatism by some DR commenters. Go Axe, I say. At least one of the military reporters out there is asking questions.
• Like this guy. If Waxman has something, and knowing Waxman he might not (or if he does, he just might not be able to say so in less than 5k words), then one of the State Department’s own top-level political appointees had a primary role to play in the billions of dollars of fraud that has been committed against this war. Knowing how brazenly companies like KBR ripped off the government for hundreds of millions of dollars—with nary an indictment—it is difficult to adhere to that whole “innocent until proven guilty” thing. In other words, this shit just makes my blood boil.

Around the World

• The Liberal Democratic Party of Russia—which is neither, and run by the anti-Semitic half-Jew Vladimir Zhirinovsky—wants Andrei Lugovoi to run for the Duma. This, we know. What is amazing is what Zhirinovsky thinks of the world: “There is our main enemy, the Anglo-Saxons,” he said, pointing to Britain on a map of the world. “The UK is trying to rule the world.” “Andrei is now the point-man in a historic confrontation between our country and Britain.” So I guess it’s the 1850s again?
• At long last, one of the highest ranking members of the Khmer Rouge just might face justice for the unbelievable amount of misery and horror he inflicted upon Cambodia.
• Michael Totten’s excellent essay on the armed rebels of western Iran is finally online.
• I talk Turkey, then I cruise Kyrgyzstan and their new Constitution, over at Registan.net.
• Roger Williams points me to this collection of Chinese propaganda posters. I don’t know what it is, but for some reason they feel more sinister than the ones from the Soviets. Maybe it’s all the criticism sessions. I don’t know. But I added some deeper reflections on those Soviet posters, as well as what they might tell us of post-Soviet psychology, over at Registan.net.
• Has a new singularity opened? The World Bank now has its own and Flickr Stream.

Back at Home

• American diplomacy has been brought low by the Bush administration: earlier this year Secretary of State Rice could not get an op-ed published (we have something in common!), and now even the Pope has snubbed her like a Muslim. This is not good if you’re looking at the long term health of the country as something other than a military force. Somebody tell John “we need more clandestine regime change” Bolton.
• As expected, no one bought the Petraeus Report. More accurately, no one’s mind changed.
• Yay! We’re second only to cesspool LA for traffic congestion!
• indeed.
• Speaking of which, dear God, please don’t ever let me have a bikini wax.

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Last month I posted about nearly a BILLION dollars in put options placed on the S&P 500 closing down by a significant amount. That’s placing a large bet on the stock market crashing.

Well, come Friday the bet is up…

After yesterday’s Fed action and the resulting boom day, this little piece of market news from last week has gotten overlooked: someone placed a HUGE options bet—$900 million—that only pays off if the S&P 500 crashes between about 35% to 60% down.

These options expire on Friday, September 21.

Would be very interesting to find out who was behind this bet…

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The last installment in Michael Yon’s recent series is now up.

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One of the more irritating aspects of debates on urban planning is the denial of what should be obvious. More people per square mile relative to the number of miles of roads means more traffic congestion. Yet “Smart Growth” and “New Urbanist” planners continue to act as if mass transit, urban design and increasing density can change this relationship. Amusingly they typically describe for we rubes Los Angeles as the hell we are all supposed to avoid.

There are two problems with that prescription. Los Angeles is the densest metropolitan area in the US and has the fewest per capita road miles. Unsurprisingly they lead the nation in congestion! Los Angeles isn’t an argument for increased density and allocation of resources away from increased road capacity, they are proof such a strategy doesn’t work! The latest report from the Texas Transportation Institute makes that clear as cities who have neglected road construction in favor of light rail and other solutions saw congestion increase faster than those which did not (small pdf.)

 

Funny how supply and demand works.

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Part of the reason for the increase in inequality of recent years is that we are getting back to a more “normal” distribution. Paul Krugman thinks this is bad and an unraveling of the New Deal accomplishment. Tom Maguire calls BS and finds where the smell is coming from.

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Or that is how Michael Dobb’s of the Washington Post views them, along with Napoleon and Alexander the Great, in his pathetic attempt to critique Fred Thompson’s claims about the sacrifices of America for other people’s liberty. Captain Ed and James Joyner apply the appropriate brickbats.

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McQ, you know, actually checks for what the criteria is for a sectarian murder. The WAPO seems not to have.

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Economist Michael Greenstone has done an admirable, even handed and statistically rigorous analysis of available data on the trends in Iraq since the beginning of the surge. His most important conclusions:

1. Civilian casualties have declined. The decline is not only substantial, but statistically significant. It has been not only true in Baghdad, but it has not led to an increase in the rest of Iraq. So much for the violence merely moving (though that has undoubtedly occurred to some degree.
2. Despite an increase in active operations and with more troops involved coalition and Iraqi Security Force casualties have not increased, though total numbers have not declined. Some areas such as non fatal injuries have declined.
3. Oil production has not increased and may have declined. Electricity may have become more widely available, though not in Baghdad.
4. While Iraqi Security Forces have continued to increase, they have increased at a slower rate.

The analysis shows results which confirm the overall assessment of the data underlying Petraeus and Crockers testimony. No cooking of the books can be seen in this assessment. Number 4 above may also not be the negative it seems at first glance. Some of the decline in the growth rate may be due to increased vetting of Iraqi forces. A great deal of effort has been put into eliminating sectarian influence since the beginning of the surge. He doesn’t address this possibility, but it may be worth having him follow up. This assessment is hurried by in many hands, such as Kevin Drum’s, as “inconclusive.” Actually the word was mixed in the paper. They are mixed, and certainly are not conclusive, but the trends are overall encouraging and similar to what we have been hearing on the ground and from the military.

Of less interest to me is his analysis of the Iraqi bond market. Bond prices have a pretty good predictive record, so why my skepticism? First his results. They show a rapid rise in the yields of Iraqi bonds. Not only absolutely, but more analytically important, relative to other bonds. My rationale:

1. James Hamilton argues that the reason for the spread may be an assessment that regardless of Iraq’s prospects overall, the bonds could be showing a reshuffling of the manner in which that prosperity may manifest itself. Iraq’s prospects may still be same or better, but the central government may be less likely to profit from those prospects.
2. The difference seems huge when expressed as a 40% increase in the implied rate of default and when illustrated with this graph:But it only means the implied default rate has moved from 6% per year to 8%. As an assessment it is negative on its face, but hardly disastrous. More importantly, essentially all risky bonds have seen a substantial increase in yields during this time period.
3. “But they also saw the increase in relative terms, even against emerging market bonds.” He did control for that, but I will gently and sympathetically fault his methodology and suggest there may be no way to correct for this. He even suggests he knows this is a problem. One of the issues with riskier debt holdings has been that spreads, not only between broad categories of risk such as developed market bonds and emerging debt have been abnormally tight, but within those broader asset classes as well. Iraq’s spreads have even been used in the past as an example of the absurdity of these tight spreads. Iraqi bonds (much like much subprime debt) never deserved the low yields/high prices they were garnering. Notice the big rise occurred at the same time as the credit markets began making much more individualized assessments of risk across the world of debt. So I see this as most likely being a reassertion of more appropriate risk spreads between and within broader aggregates of credit instruments. (Which is why Kevin Drums argument: “The Iraqi bonds suffered even compared to other risky government bonds” does not necessarily imply his “Bottom line: the decline in Iraqi bond prices appears to be genuinely related to events in Iraq, not just events in the global credit markets.“) To assess this would require an index of similar risky bonds and how they behaved, and since the relative risk of Iraqi debt is precisely the issue at hand I am not sure how he could have controlled for that in any satisfying way. I also should address another point of Kevin’s: “First, the price of Iraqi bonds began to plunge before the subprime meltdown.” Uh, not really. The effect he is describing began well before the middle of July, that is just when the flames raged most intensely. So, unless those issues are addressed, I see to much noise to feel confident that the markets perceptions of credit risk are related to the surge at all.
4. Even assuming that issue was moot, the credit markets could be reflecting broader concerns about Iraq unconnected with the surge. He does a good job of testing that on some discrete factors, but the likelihood, for example, that the surge may be abandoned may account for it irrespective of the factors he tests. Combined with a more realistic appraisal of risk in general discussed in the previous paragraph the spread may be quite reasonable even if the surge is working spectacularly well.
5. Finally, as readers here are aware I have been arguing for some time that risk has been mispriced for some time across and within markets generally. If generally market predictions are superior to most individual predictions, the vary volatility we have witnessed recently illustrates the markets have not been pricing risk efficiently and thus our confidence in their ability to assess relative risk should be somewhat tempered in any particular group of securities at any particular point in time, even if overall and over time they do a pretty good job.

I feel number three is the major factor and would appreciate someone with more time than me taking a more in depth look at how the credit disruptions of the last few months could or could not account for the change.

Other thoughts at Marginal Revolution, Freakonomics and from Mark Thoma.

Update:  Mark Thoma has some thoughtful responses to James Hamilton’s post. I will reiterate my point on his use of the term “mixed.” I will also repeat that the data quality questions while real, do not alter that both on the ground observation, and through independent assessment of data, the evidence overwhelmingly points to success in reducing civilian casualties, and more importantly, day to day violence, at this point.

Finally, Mark brings up a point I have brought up before, that some of the decrease is likely due to the cleansing of many neighborhoods. That is undoubtedly true. However, a possible conclusion which I have not posted on yet has some bearing here. My own guess given what we do know about the extent of the still remaining opportunities available for sectarian violence, is that absent the US forces and the change in tactics violence would not have declined, and probably would have continued to escalate. What the cleansing accomplished has made it easier for the coalition forces to reduce the violence due to the greater ease in keeping rival groups apart.  It does not necessarily follow that the violence was due to fall anyway. In fact, given the desires of the extremist groups carrying it out they had far more work to do on a far grander scale. On the ground reporting such as this also shows that mixed communities still exist as well, and sunni-shiite cooperation is starting to occur.

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Slowly going mad with exhaustion at The Conjecturer.

Defense & The War

• Security is falling to pieces in Southern Iraq. Rather than taking it as evidence of the need for benevolent Western leadership over Iraqi affairs, I see it as evidence that we really can’t solve their problems for them.
• Meanwhile, Iran continues to beat the drum that feeds them. I wonder how much thought has been given to the feedback mechanism in the nuclear talks: the more Iran acts out like a petulant teenager, the more attention we lavish upon its corrupt leadership.
• Woops—the Pentagon’s numbers on civilians casualties and deaths don’t play nicely with those used by General Petraeus.
• Woops #2—Admiral Fallon, new Commander, CENTCOM, thinks we need to withdraw from Iraq to focus on more urgent problems like Pakistan. Oh and he also claims to hate the man as a sycophant, though he has also apparently denies saying as much. So now I don’t know what Fallon actually said or meant or thought.
• A good summary of the murky situation surrounding the Blackwater Brouhaha of Baghdad. Alliteration!
• Despite the obvious need for increased social science research, the military seems to be cutting its funding, according to a new report from the National Research Council.

Around the World

• Oh no, what will Pakistan ever do without Benazir Bhutto? Elect someone else? Seriously, I do not like how we seem to look at failed and disgraced politicians as beacons of truth to guide Pakistan on the path of righteousness. Anyone else find that distinctly lacking in imagination?
• Three cheers for destructive mega-projects that create big targets for insurgents without producing much of value to the locals! Yes, I am referring to Rory Stewart’s Damn Afghan Dam, and you should read up on it before smiling gleefully about how wonderful it is.
• Here’s a crazy idea: maybe Europe can learn from us about racial and religious tolerance. That is to say, for the most part—I still don’t like how much people freaked over Kieth Ellison taking his loyalty oaths over the Koran. That was a worrying sign. Even so, our openness is our strength, and we are fooling to want to close ourselves off.
• The rise of Islamic fashion. I’m sure that’s great—for them. I’m none too interested in taking up the dishdasha, no matter how flatteringly cut.
• Here is an interesting look at government-run not-for-profit microfinance in rural China. The Chinese government faces a dilemma: over the next 20 years, something like 300 million people will move from the countryside to the cities. This will require building the equivalent of New York City, from scratch, every four months to house, feed, and employ them all. Or lead to mass privation… again.
• I have a thing for old Soviet artwork. It was just… I don’t know, so surreal, inhuman. I especially dig this collection of InTourist Posters—namely, advertisements for how super awesome the Caucasus is, the glories of a Leningrad choked by factory stacks belching toxic chemicals, or the oil derricks of Baku. Of a similar bent is this blog that is posting one Soviet propaganda poster per day for… well who knows. I actually own several of those posters, at least prints of them, thanks to an enterprising friend who purchased them during a trip to Krasnodar a few years back. I’ve always felt a bit strange at the idea of framing and hanging them, but I cannot escape their sheer visual interest…

Back at Home

• That’s funny—:-) is almost as old as I am.
• Mike McConnell wants to tap your phones to save Iraq. What?

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While I am saddened that I may not get to read the final book in The Wheel Of Time series, my oldest will be crushed.

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Ambassador Crocker (you know, the guy who is busy hiding his head in the sand and cooking the books with Petraeus) takes on one of the real problems with our Iraq policy, the treatment of refugees from the fighting there. I guess Bushbots occasionally slip a gear:

The U.S. ambassador to Iraq warned that it may take the U.S. government as long as two years to process and admit nearly 10,000 Iraqi refugees referred by the United Nations for resettlement to the United States, because of bureaucratic bottlenecks.

In a bluntly worded State Department cable titled “Iraqi Refugee Processing: Can We Speed It Up?” Ambassador Ryan C. Crocker noted that the Department of Homeland Security had only a handful of officers in Jordan to vet the refugees.

This is frankly pathetic and should be something that an opposition less focused on denying reality (have they been exposed to too many Bush administration brain waves?) about progress and indulging conspiracy theorists, would make an issue. It undermines the good will we have been able to build over the last few months and stands in mockery of our professed goals.

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Captain Ed posts about the dramatic decline in the level of business at Baghdad’s Hospital and Morgue. As some squabble over interpretations of data, reports of dramatic change still keep coming in (From Reuters! We know they are on the Bush payroll.)

A row of beds lies empty in the emergency ward of Baghdad’s Yarmouk Hospital. The morgue, which once overflowed with corpses, is barely a quarter full.

Doctors at the hospital, a barometer of bloodshed in the Iraqi capital, say there has been a sharp fall in victims of violence admitted during a seven-month security campaign.

Last month the fall was particularly dramatic, with 70 percent fewer bodies and half the number of wounded brought in compared to July, hospital director Haqi Ismail said.

“The major incidents, like explosions and car bombs, sometimes reached six or seven a day. Now it’s more like one or two a week,” he told Reuters.

Whether it is sustained or not, claims by some that the data was being twisted by Petraeus just don’t square with observation after observation. From the Captain:

As Reuters notes, the dramatic decline in the use of hospitals indicates that the testimony of General David Petraeus was truthful. One emergency ward in an area of previously intense fighting only had two patients in it when Reuters visited. In the morgue, the bodies that remain from the sectarian violence have been there for weeks. The previous month has brought an end to the flood of casualties that had plagued Baghdad, and especially the Sunni areas, for years.

Nouri al-Maliki estimated that violence has fallen in Baghdad by perhaps as much as 75% of what had been previously seen. The Deputy Health Minister estimates closer to 85%. He declared the situation in the capital “calm and stable”, and that the violence is much less prevalent than before.

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If you have already read part I of Michael Totten’s coverage of Anbar’s Awakening, part II is now up. If you haven’t, please start there.

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