# Posted 11:49 PM by David Adesnik  

THOSE POOR, INNOCENT SAUDIS: Dan Drezner's recent TCS column points to an important finding by the 9/11 that has been completely: there is no evidence of a collaborative relationship between Saudi Arabia and Al Qaeda.

I have to admit, I took it for granted that such a relationship existed. By extension, I partially bought into the common belief that the Bush administration hasn't done enough to bring the Saudi government into line. But the egg on my face is nothing compared to what this says about Michael Moore, who spends the first half-hour of Fahrenheit 9/11 constructing highly speculative conspiracy theories about the Saudi responsibility for international terror.

Moving on, Dan has also put up some good posts on Iraq which point to informative articles in the WaPo, Time and elsewhere. Most surprising of all are early indications that Iyad Allawi actually commands considerable respect from everday Iraqis, something that the NYT and Spencer Ackerman thought impossible. The question now is how long his popularity will last, especially if Allawi demonstrates more concern about crushing insurgents than he does about institutionalizing political freedoms.

Finally, don't miss Dan's latest TNR column on outsourcing, which shows how deeply the American public believes in scapegoating foreign workers for domestic job losses. So I guess I shouldn't let anyone know that OxBlog has been farming out its work to some grad students on the far side of the Atlantic... (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 8:42 AM by Patrick Belton  

AND NOW FOR A LOOK INSIDE AFGHANISTAN: OxFriend Michael Bhatia and two other American and British security analysts have just published an exhaustive indictment of the appallingly insufficient extent of Nato and international security assistance to Afghanistan, in a report with the title 'Minimal Investments, Minimal Results: The Failure of Security Policy in Afghanistan'. (The pdf file is lengthy but well worth the download.)

Several excerpts:

• 'Are the principal factional commanders less powerful, less abusive of their fellow citizens, or less brazen in their dealings with the central government now than they were in 2002? Has the opium crop been eliminated, reduced, or even held constant since 2002? Is the physical security of Afghan citizens, government officials, NGO workers, or national and international troops better now than in January 2002? Tellingly, and regrettably, the answer to all three questions is 'no'.'

• 'ISAF (the International Security Assistance Force) however, was never resourced to move outside of Kabul in a more than symbolic way, and when it finally did, has focused more on its own security than that of Afghans. Despite Afghanistan being widely proclaimed as Nato's highest priority, the unwillingness of Nato member states to adequately resource ISAF with troops and equipment has seriously undermined the ability of ISAF commanders to do their job effectively.'

• 'Prime Minister Tony Blair's 2003 declaration that the international community 'will not walk away from' Afghanistan missed the real question: When will the international community really walk into Afghanistan, and make the necessary commitments and investments that will give the Afghan people a reasonable chance at building a peaceful and stable country?'

• 'In addressing one of the key sources of insecurity in Afghanistan - factional commanders - the Government of Afghanistan, the international community, and even the international military forces appear plagued by timidity. The Government often shrinks from confrontation and instead engages in short-term deal-making that often undermines long-term policy objectives. International military commanders assert they can only stay in Afghnistan 'with the consent' of the factional commanders, and thus cannot afford to be confrontational or assertive in their dealings with them. This attitude sells short the moral authority of the government and the military power of the Coalition and ISAF, and it sells out the people of Afghanistan for whom this may be the most pressing of all security issues'.

The whole report is worth reading - its summary of the current situation in Afghanistan is succint and detail-rich, and the writing and analysis are compelling and convey a much needed sense of urgency. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 12:17 AM by David Adesnik  

OUR FIRST LOOK INSIDE FALLUJA: Back in junior high, Nir Rosen was a scrawny kid who could draw just about anything if you have him a pen and paper. He bought overpriced designer jeans and paid for them by installment.

Nir never had much respect for authority and once got suspended for a having a haircut that was more cut than hair. Girls liked him. He left our school after 9th grade and I didn't see him more than once or twice in the next seven years.

In the fall of 1999, I was crossing N Street near Dupont Circle when a heavily-muscled man with short hair and a very attractive woman on his arm called out my name. It was Nir. As we caught up over the next few months I found out that he wanted to be an investigative journalist.

Like the kids who made their by driving down to Central America in the 1980s, Nir figured the best way to get things done was to go where the action was and write about it. When I saw first saw him, he was saving up for a trip to Bosnia and Yugoslavia.

In the meantime, he was trying to get through college and making ends meet by working assorted jobs. He had been a bouncer in Georgetown bar for a while, but discovered that it wasn't an enjoyable job unless you really liked hurting people. Most of his colleagues did.

After the invasion of Iraq, Nir shipped out for Baghdad without hesitating. Early on, he got an article published in Time Magazine. Since then, he has freelanced for newspapers including the Pittsburght Post-Gazette and the Asia Times.

But now Nir has hit the big time. He has the lead essay in this week's New Yorker, entitled "Home Rule". Congratulations are in order, since writing about Falluja from the inside takes a lot of courage, in addition to the literary talent expected of all contributors to the New Yorker. A lot of older correspondents won't risk going into the heart of the Sunni Triangle, but I'm guessing that only made it more attractive for Nir.

The story Nir has found is a fascinating one. In the absence of American soldiers, Falluja has reverted to a sort of clerical rule embodied in the person of Sheikh Dhafer al-Obeidi. In spite of having his authority granted by Falluja's most senior Sunni cleric, Dhafer struggles to reign in the foreign jihadis in town while also collaborating with the nominal mayor and the former general appointed by the United States to maintain local security.

The individuals and events that Nir describes demonsrate just how accomplished he has become at integrating himself into foreign cultures. Still, there are important questions that Nir seems to have left unasked. While consulting an impressive cross-section of local authority figures, Nir doesn't give us much sense of what the broader mass of Falluja residents wants for themselves. Does their resistance to the American occupation stem from an ideological commitment to Ba'athism, a religious commitment to Islam or an attachment to the extensive material benefits that Saddam once bestowed on his favorite subjects?

Nir hints at an answer to this quesiton when he writes that

In the first few months after Saddam’s government fell, the city had been fairly stable internally. Religious and tribal leaders had appointed their own civil management council before the Americans arrived. Falluja did not suffer from looting, and government buildings were protected. Tight tribal bonds helped maintain order. Early in the occupation, however, a demonstration protesting the Americans’ takeover of a school building had turned bloody, and a cycle of attacks and retaliation began, with the resistance increasing in sophistication. Local fighters were joined by rogue mujahideen and jihadis from other Arab countries, and, as in the rest of Iraq, the violence and disorder spiralled out of control.

I must admit that I am quite suspicious of the implicit suggestion that it is all the Americans' fault. First of all, American soldiers began to clash with Sunni gunmen in Falluja less than three weeks after the fall of Baghdad. The march that first led to violence was actually a celebration of Saddam's birthday. (I'm not sure if this is the same march that Nir refers to above.)

In other words, the residents of Falluja are not simply anti-American but are (or at least were) actively pro-Saddam. This pro-Saddam sentiment explains why there was no looting: the residents of Falluja didn't hate Saddam and suffer under his rule the way the rest of Iraq. Moreover, how much stability was there in Falluja if protest marches turned violent during the first weeks of the occupation?

All in all, it is somewhat misleading for Nir to describe the intense conflict in Falluja as a product of minor disturbances that "spiralled out of control". A spiral implies a lack of responsibility and a lack of awareness on the parts of its participants. In Falluja, the violence was not part of a spiral, but of the rabid anti-Americanism of the Ba'athist dictatorships most fervent supporters.

After describing Falljua's hybrid political order as "a controversial experiment in Iraqi autonomy", Nir concludes his article by writing that

As the handover to sovereignty began [in late June], the experiment with self-rule in Falluja looked more and more like a desperate measure that had been taken too late.

In other words, the handover itself is simply Falluja writ large: "a desperate measure...taken too late." While there is much to criticize about the handover, Nir's comparison of Falluja with Iraq as a whole is profoundly misguided, if not atypical of American journalists in Iraq.

After all, how can one predict the attitudes and behavior of Shi'ites and Kurds -- let alone most Sunnis -- from the attitudes and behavior of Saddam's most loyal supporters? Journalists' refusal to acknowledge such religious and tribal differences led to their prediction in early April that Moqtada Sadr's Shi'ite insurgents would join with their Sunni counterparts in a national revolt against the American occupation. For most correspondents, Sadr's defeat and Sistani's support for the Americans discredited such predictions. Yet Nir still holds to them quite fast. He writes that

Falluja is one of the most religiously conservative towns in the “Sunni triangle,” but the recent confluence of the Shiite uprising led by Moqtada al-Sadr and the siege of Falluja by the marines had created a curious alliance that transcended religious differences.

In our arguments about the occupation, Nir has insited without reservation that there is an anti-American consensus lurking just below the surface of Iraq's intensely factionalized politics. In his essay in the New Yorker, this article of faith makes itself manifest.

Nonetheless, I think Nir deserves tremendous credit for risking his life -- literally -- to educate the American public about critical events in one of the most important but least well-known parts of Iraq. Regardless of any reservations I have, there is no question that I have learned a lot from Nir's impressive work. (1) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 11:15 PM by David Adesnik  

MOORE IS LESS: Over at TNR, Richard Just deliciously deconstructs one of the most disingeuous aspects of Fahrenheit 9/11.

And while we're on the subject, let me just say that Paul Wolfowitz desperately needs a makeover from the boys at Queer Eye for the Straight Guy. Even though I have a lot of respect for Wolfowitz, it was almost impossible not to cringe during Fahrenheit 9/11 when Wolfowitz pulls a comb from his pocket, puts it in his mouth and then slurps on it as if it were a greasy popsicle.

After fixing his hair with the spit-waddled comb, Wolfowitz then slurps on his fingers and runs them through his hair. All the while, the Deputy Secretary of Defense has an impish grin on his face, the kind you see on children who know that they can get away with picking their noses in public because their parents are too tired to stop them.

Even though it's sort of mean and unfair for Moore to include this kind of gross-out footage, it's not as if Wolfowitz didn't know he was looking into a television camera. Like it or not, images are political.

On the other hand, it's good to know that the mainstream media didn't make a big deal out of the Wolfowitz gross-out footage, even though they clearly could've done so. After all, making fun of someone's poor grooming habits doesn't isn't all that mature.

Then again, Moore seems to have a sense of humor about his own appearance, so I guess it's okay if he sometimes calls the kettle black. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 8:07 AM by Patrick Belton  

IRAQ A SOVEREIGN COUNTRY, AS OF THIS MORNING: In a surprise move aimed at disrupting terrorist attacks timed around the formal handover of sovereignty to the Iraqi government, the United States and United Kingdom transferred sovereignty this morning to the Iraqi government led by Prime Minister Allawi. Joe Gandelman takes an exhaustive look:

The U.S.-led coalition transferred sovereignty to an interim Iraqi government Monday, speeding up the move by two days in an apparent bid to surprise insurgents who may have tried to sabotage the step toward self rule.

Legal documents handing over sovereignty were handed over by U.S. governor L. Paul Bremer to interim Prime Minister Iyad Allawi in a ceremony in the heavily guarded Green Zone. (from AP)

And from an announcement this morning by FM Zebari:

Mr Zebari said the deteriorating security situation in the country was one of the reasons why the date had been brought forward.

"We will challenge these elements in Iraq, the anti-democratic elements, by even bringing the handover of sovereignty before June 30 as a sign we are ready for it," he said.

He added: "We have made some very good progress in terms of the new security council (in Iraq) and the return of sovereignty to the Iraqi people to take away the level of occupation we have suffered a great deal from.

"There are many Iraqis who are standing up to the challenge. We are here to seek more help and assistance, training and equipment."

(0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 9:43 AM by David Adesnik  

GOING TO THE CHAPEL: One of my best friends from high school is getting married today. Back tomorrow night. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 3:31 AM by Patrick Belton  

NATO AT 55: Over the next two days, the elected leaders of the twenty-six nations which comprise Nato will be assembling in Istanbul to decide together which directions they will take the 55-year old alliance. (More formally, and to use the quaint language peculiar to the venerable transatlantic alliance, Nato’s governing North Atlantic Council will be convening at the level of heads of state and government.)

What will happen in Istanbul? Here’s one set of predictions:

• Afghanistan: Secretary Jaap de Hoop Scheffer has called Nato’s International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) in Afghanistan the central issue for this summit. Unfortunately, Nato’s limited capabilities at the moment make it unlikely the alliance will do much to expand ISAF’s reach from Kabul and Kunduz, which it controls at present. Look though for about five nationally-run Provincial Reconstruction Teams (provincially based nation-building units of 80-200 troops each scattered around the country) to be reflagged as part of ISAF.

• Iraq: The Bush administration would like to see Nato assume responsibility for the southern central sector of Iraq, currently controlled by a 6,200-strong multinational brigade led by Poland. Military planners at SHAPE dispute whether there are enough troops available to undertake both an expanded mission in Afghanistan and a new one in Iraq, and President Chirac famously told a Hungarian newspaper in February he did not see ‘in what conditions a Nato commitment in Iraq would be possible.’ On the other hand, the German government has indicated it could support a Nato mission, if the sovereign Iraqi government requests it. Iraqi Prime Minister Ilyad Allawi duly wrote to Nato’s Secretary General the week before the summit, to request Nato’s assistance in developing the Iraqi security forces after the transfer of sovereignty. Prediction: We've already seen an abstract commitment to agreeing to PM Allawi's request by Nato ambassadors in the run-up to the summit, though with no word about actual troop commitments. At the actual summit, it takes back seat to Afghanistan.

• Bosnia: Look for Nato to announce the successful completion of its decade-long SFOR mission in Bosnia. France will be happy to see the EU pick up Bosnia as an important new mission, and troop-strapped Nato leaders will be happy to see it go.

• Counterterror: Nothing will happen here, unfortunately. Though adopting terrorism as a Nato mission is a principal U.S. aim, France, Germany, and Belgium are too firmly committed toward steering the counterterrorism enterprise into the EU rather than Nato headquarters. A cosmetic package of measures will be rolled out, though, and look for the U.S. to receive increased measures toward intelligence sharing, a Rumsfeld favorite, as a consolation prize.

• Middle East Initiative: Another principal American aim for this summit, it has little European support, apart from a surprisingly sympathetic Germany. Nato staffers are indicating the Mediterranean Initiative—Nato’s outreach program to the Arab world—will be relaunched under a new name as a Istanbul Cooperation Initiative. Look for talk of ‘supporting indigenous reform’ and ‘joint understanding over security issues.’ (Further hint: don’t look too hard for talk of ‘democracy’ or ‘women's rights’.)

• Working with the EU: The European Security and Defence Policy (ESDP) is France’s baby, which it sees as the EU’s alternative to Nato (without the pesky Americans). Other countries, after the rather paltry European contribution during Kosovo, see it more as a program to build up European defence capacities, and get more ‘bang for their Euro’. The December 2002 ‘Berlin Plus’ deal provided the EU with access to Nato operational planning and shared assets for operations in which Nato as a whole is not engaged. The British government deftly hijacked in December France’s ambitions to lead the ESDP as a breakaway military province from Nato, by ensuring that the EU planning cell would be located at SHAPE—the alliance’s military headquarters. ESDP undertook a fairly successful several-month long maiden mission in Macedonia last year, but as regards capabilities, European leaders still have to demonstrate, even under the ESDP, that they will be capable of getting more ‘bang for the Euro’.

So Nato will finally get out of Bosnia; the Middle East Initiative—which Germany, at least, supports—will go nowhere; the U.S. wants improved counterterror, but won’t get it. France wants EU-Nato relations worked out, and they will be, partially. Meaningful alliance participation in Afghanistan and Iraq will be hindered by the capabilities gap. And so on.

If this catalog of predictions leaves you feeling somewhat underwhelmed, it’s because of the basic problem of the alliance—which is cash. While the US contributes 3.3% of its GDP to national defence, 12 of the 19 pre-2004 Nato allies contribute less than 2% of theirs. To look at it another way, the US picks up the tab for 64% of Nato military expenditures ($348.5 million, 2002), while all other allies together contribute only 36% ($196.0 million). For their part, European governments are facing budget shortfalls and budget pressure from ballooning pension costs.

What comes out of this is a capabilities gap. Of 1.4 million soldiers under Nato arms in October 2003, allies other than the US contributed all of 55,000. Nearly all allies lack forces which can be projected away from the European theatre. SACEUR General James Jones testified before Congress in March 2004 that only 3-4% of European forces were deployable for expeditions. Then there are the problems of interoperability: there is a recurring problem of coalition-wide secure communications which can be drawn on in operations. Allies other than the U.S. have next to no precision strike capabilities, although these are slowly improving. The US is generally the sole provider of electronic warfare (jamming and electronic intelligence) aircraft, as well as aircraft for surveillance and C3 (command, control, and communications). The US is also capable of much greater sortie rates than its allies.

The other problem is political will, which is most in evidence on the issue of terrorism. There's been progress (beginning with the 2002 Prague Summit) toward the creation of a Nato Response Force capable of sophisticated counterterror missions. There's also been progress toward the drafting (which has been done) and implementation (which hasn't) of a military concept for counterterrorism. But allies still strongly disagree about whether counterterrorism should even be one of Nato's primary missions - so the principal task of the US at the moment lies in the area of creating political will among allies to adopt counterterrorism as a Nato responsibility. That we have not done so is at least in part our fault - Allies felt rebuffed after they gave the US unprecedented political support through invoking Article 5, and then were not consulted in the prosecution of the war in Afghanistan. For their part, the civilian leadership of the Pentagon believed Kosovo had been an unacceptable example of 'war by committee', and political interference from allies would prevent a quick and decisive Afghanistan campaign. Perhaps it might have, but now at Nato the United States is facing the consequences in the form of less enthusiasm for counterterror missions.

The result of this impecunity and general want of resolve is, something like a Horatio Alger novel adapted by a rather perverse naturalist, a litany of unfulfilled promises. Addressing the operational inadequacies of Nato was to be the subject of the Defence Capabilities Initiative launched at the April 1999 Washington Summit—but the DCI was widely regarded as too broad and unfocused. To remedy this shortfall, the Prague Capabilities Commitment (PCC) then grew out of the November 2002 Prague Summit and in an act of military humility instead suggested individual allies tailor their contributions by focusing on specific capabilities they might actually be able to handle (strategic lift for Germany, aerial tankers for Spain, unmanned aerial vehicles for a group of six other allies). As far as how well the PCC has performed—well, don’t expect too many presidents and prime ministers to be slapping each other on their backs in self-congratulation in Istanbul.

And then there’s counterterrorism. The US had encouraged adoption of counterterror as a core alliance task since the Clinton administration, and particularly during the runup to the Washington Summit in April 1999. With some assistance from Germany and Belgium, France led opposition to its adoption even then, preferring to see the EU built up as a pillar of European security and Nato reduced in importance. (This opposition overlaps with France's hostility to out-of-area missions, which counterterror operations would largely be, and which would also expand Nato's role in the world). On the other hand, under the leadership of recently retired Secretary General Lord Robertson, Nato’s staff established an internal terrorism task force to coordinate the work of different staff offices touching on the issue, and made some staff-level progress on civil-military emergency planning and consequence management. The military concept for counter-terrorism received approval at the November 2002 Prague summit - it includes proposals for a standard threat-warning system, establishing standing forces dedicated to post-attack consequence management, creating standing joint and combined forces for counterterror operations, and creating civil assistance capabilities which could be used after a WMD attack. The Nato Response Force (NRF) was adopted by the Prague Summit, which called for initial operating capacity by October 2004 and full operational capacity by October 2006.

These would indeed be useful tools in countering terrorist threats around the world, but there are reports these capabilities will not be fielded until before the end of the decade, if at all. Another unfulfilled promise of the Prague Summit was the launching of a Nuclear, Biological, and Chemical analytical lab and event response team, which remain unimplemented - among other things, Nato's Weapons of Mass Destruction Centre has a current staff of only 12 people. Also, France has successfully hindered efforts to give Nato’s Civil-Military Planning Directorate operational capabilities for post-terrorist attack consequence management, preferring to see the EU take up the policy area.

These are dire situations, indeed, to greet President Bush and his aides when they arrive in Istanbul, but the luxury is not generally permitted to presidents to give up and run home from Nato summits. In general, the task facing the US - and President Bush - at Istanbul is twofold: to try to build political will, while playing mostly against the French, to actually implement these paper counterterror programs; and to show domestic voters his administration can indeed play well with others, while bringing home tangible results for American national security from multilateral fora. Note to Bush staff— points to strike from the administration’s lexicon: Talk of ‘Old Europe’ offends the Poles and other Central European countries, who object to any division of the European continent. The idea of a divided Europe understandably has different historical resonances for them. Likewise for Secretary Rumsfeld’s talk of ‘coalitions of the willing’. Have any dissenting aides read the North Atlantic Treaty (1949), which grounds allied decisionmaking on a principle of consensus. It worked for us during the Cold War, and it can be made to work again. It’s not as though France's presence in Nato is a particularly new invention, after all. Also, talk of removing the legitimating presence of North Atlantic Council unanimity from the implementation of Nato military might scares the bejesus out of European allies, whose history makes them particularly touchy about violations of borders and national sovereignty, even when absolutely morally warranted.

For the Kerry campaign, their task will instead be to stay clear of the easy temptation to claim France would be an enthusiastic Nato ally today if it weren't for the Bush administration. It wouldn't, and claims it would (example: mantra-like invocations of Le Monde’s September 12th 'Nous sommes tous Américains'), are likely to come across as partisan. The Kerry camp will also have a two-fold task. First, without retreating into tired talking points about ‘unilateralism’, it needs to sell voters the message that US presidents can't command Nato allies to do anything, they can only convince - and then make the case that this administration hasn't succeeded terribly well to date in that task. Second, it will have as well to show voters that Kerry and his aides can grapple creatively—and in a prose style more elevated than the sound bite—with complex alliance issues of national security, in an election which promises to be decided on precisely national security.

It's a crucial moment, really, for both the president and the senator from Massachusetts – who in his basic foreign policy outlook resembles no one among recent presidents so much as Bush I, who was at least good at alliances. For the Kerry camp, Istanbul represents an opportunity to make the case to voters that its vaunted multilateral approaches can contribute meaningfully to national security. And for the Bush administration, the Istanbul Summit represents a chance to show its critics that it can indeed work creatively in multilateral fora, and more importantly and even against expectations, produce results there. And at the North Atlantic Council and on the summit’s margins, its task will be to work to create a consensus for orienting Nato to the war on terror, which is where its efforts badly need to be. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 1:48 AM by David Adesnik  

THE UNEXPECTED MICHAEL MOORE: I descended this night into the belly of the beast. I saw Fahrenheit 9/11 on its opening night in Harvard Square. Just minutes into the film, someone in the audience yelled out "F*** Bush!" Driven by an unknown compulsion, I responded aloud "How much are you paying?" No one else interrupted the film with comments, although applause came at regular intervals.

One of the things that made this film enjoyable was that I didn't have to be on guard. Christopher Hitchens has already provided ample evidence of how misleading and dishonest Fahrenheit 9/11 is, so I didn't have to take notes. Instead, I could just focus on the gut level questions of whether this is good filmmaking or good propaganda.

The best way to describe this film is as an extended free association. The tone is prosecutorial, but even the harshest critics of George W. Bush might not be able to figure out how one part of the film relates to the next.

For example, why does the first half-hour of the film focus on the relationship between the Bush family and Saudi Arabia? The apparent point of the segment is to demonstrate divided loyalties. Unbelievably enough, Moore asks whether Bush wakes up and thinks about Saudi national interests before he thinks about America's.

Then suddenly, the Saudis disappear. I was sure that they were going to reappear at some critical moment in the closing minutes of the film. After all, what Hollywood screenwriter would spend half an hour foreshadowing an event that never arrives?

Instead, Moore moves on to an extended discussion of how the Bush administration has moved the terror alert level from yellow to orange to yellow and back again. There is also a long excerpt from a network interview with Richard Clarke, whose criticism is far more plausible and coherent than anything Moore comes up with on his own. I've never bought in to Clarke's accusations, but Clarke does come across as an intelligent and public-minded, not to mention having the inherent credibility of having been Bush's counterrorism czar.

I thought the film had reached its turning point. The Saudis were out of the way and we could now focus on how the CIA and the Pentagon managed to persuade themselves that Iraq had massive stockpiles of weapons of mass destruction that are still unaccounted for. Instead, Moore wanders on to the next episode in his crusade.

Iraq. It is a happy place where citizens where children fly kites and loving families spend quality time together. It is a "sovereign nation". Perhaps Moore will say that he was being sarcastic or humorous when he decided to make no mention at all of the horrific atrocities that Saddam Hussein committed. The rape, the murder, and the torture chambers. Perhaps Moore will say that he just wanted to present a picture as outrageous as the one George W. Bush presented to the American public.

Frankly, Moore could use that defense to explain just about any inaccuracy in the film. Misleading? No, just mocking the Bush administration's own propaganda. Except, of course, that life under Saddam really was hell, even if Iraqi mothers still loved their children, some of whom were allowed to fly kites.

To my surprise, Fahrenheit 9/11 spends only a minute or two criticizing Bush and Cheney for conflating the threats presented by Saddam and Al Qaeda. Instead, Moore provides us with gruesome footage of mangled Iraqi limbs and splintered Iraqi children. (Don't expect him to let you know that Saddam murdered more Iraqis almost every month than the Americans killed during their invasion.)

Next up are the mangled and splintered bodies of the American soldiers in Iraq. The final half hour of Fahrenheit 9/11 tries to drive home one point again and again: that young Americans are suffering and dying for a worthless cause.

Without question, this is the strongest part of the film. In essence, it is the story of one mother -- Lila Lipscomb --in Moore's hometown of Flint, Michigan who lost her son in Iraq. Her raw emotions are far more powerful than any of the bizarre conspiracy theories or humorous cheapshots the fill out the rest of the film. This one mother has an authenticity that the rest of the film is desperately in search of.

Lipscomb describes herself as a conservative Democrat. Each morning she unfurls her American flag and attaches it to the stand on the outside wall of her home. She hates the anti-war protesters at first, but learns to respect their ideas. In his final letter home from Iraq, her son writes that Bush is a fool who is wasting the lives of American soldiers.

While Moore bashes the American media for ignoring the stories of individual stories, the fact is that they have become a standard feature of American war coverage. After all, it was just two days ago that OxBlog praised the WaPo for its in-depth account of the life and death of Pfc. Jason N. Lynch.

While I am often suspicious of the motives of those who write such stories, their work coincides with my principles. They want to demonstrate that war causes unjustified suffering. I want to honor the sacrifice of those men and women who lay down their lives for their country and for its ideals. We should know as much as possible about each of these men and women.

From a political perspective, however, Moore may not get very far. Contrary to what the journalists have to say, concern over mounting casualties doesn't seem to disturb the American public or diminish its support for nation-building in Iraq.

Walking out of theatre, I didn't have the sense that Fahrenheit 9/11 represented any sort of threat to the Bush candidacy. There were even surprising moments when the film made Bush look far wiser and more patient than I ever would have expected. During the Saudi phase of his film, Moore places great emphasis on the seven minutes Bush spent reading to elementary school children in Florida even after the second plane hit the World Trade Center. According to the NYT,

For the White House, the most devastating segment of "Fahrenheit 9/11" may be the video of a befuddled-looking President Bush staying put for nearly seven minutes at a Florida elementary school on the morning of Sept. 11, continuing to read a copy of "My Pet Goat" to schoolchildren even after an aide has told him that a second plane has struck the twin towers. Mr. Bush's slow, hesitant reaction to the disastrous news has never been a secret. But seeing the actual footage, with the minutes ticking by, may prove more damaging to the White House than all the statistics in the world.

I couldn't disagree more. Whereas Bush often looks foolish and befuddled during interviews with the press, the expressions on his face during those seven minutes in the classroom are those of a proud leader confronting his own fear and anguish while struggling to protect the children around him from the panic of a brutal and horrific attack on their homeland.

The lesson to take away from Fahrenheit 9/11 is that propaganda doesn't work, regardless of whether it is Dick Cheney's or Michael Moore's.
(2) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 6:51 AM by Patrick Belton  

TO WRITE CRICKET BATS, SO THAT WHEN WE THROW UP AN IDEA AND GIVE IT A LITTLE KNOCK, IT MIGHT...TRAVEL: Blogger Mark Pilgrim excerpts one of my favourite passages from Tom Stoppard.

(Speaking of writing, I hope whoever was looking for a free eulogy for a motorcycle death found what you were looking for....) (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 5:42 AM by Patrick Belton  

ENGLAND: OUR CONDOLENCES. (Though I'm not sure why 'BBC Persian' comes up as a related link for the photo gallery of England's 6-5 loss to Portugal yesterday, which knocked England out of the Euro Cup. Conspiracy theorists are warmly welcomed to contribute suggestions.) (1) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 1:35 AM by David Adesnik  

POLLING UPDATE: The most recent Annenberg Survey shows some significant gains for Bush compared with one month ago. Bush's overall approval rating rose 52%, up from 48%.

Bush also made significant gains in terms of the numbers who consider him "trustworthy", a fact which goes against the trend picked up by the WaPo's most recent poll. It is hard to compare the results, however, since Annenberg asks voters to rate the President on a 1-to-10 scale rather than giving a Yes-or-No answer. Moreover, the Anneberg survey was taken over the course of almost two whole weeks, which makes it very hard to gauge the impact of the 9/11 Commission's recent report.

On a related note, Ruy Teixeira reports that Kerry has opened up some pretty strong leads in the battleground states of Ohio, Florida and Pennsylvania. It looks like we're headed for an exciting summer...
(1) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 1:23 AM by David Adesnik  

GEPHARDT ATTACK: I agree with Ruy, John and Matt; George Bush is the only one who will benefit from having Gephardt as Kerry's running mate. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 1:07 AM by David Adesnik  

FINANCE AND ECONOMY IN IRAQ: The Economist describes the surprising success of American efforts to refrom the Iraqi banking sector. There is also some good news about the Iraqi economy -- as well as a considerable amount of useful infomation -- in this CFR background brief. Both links are courtesty of Dan Drezner, who felt obliged to balance out all of the criticism he's been directing at the CPA for ideologically-motivated intransigence. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 12:53 AM by David Adesnik  

CONDOLENCES: To Matt Yglesias, on the loss of his mother, a young and vibrant woman. Grief is not a common emotion on political websites, but I think that Matt's own post and the kind words of his readers are a good reminder that we here in the blogosphere are still very human. In a good way. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 12:29 AM by David Adesnik  

AFFIRMATIVE ACTION AS IVY FIG LEAF: This NYT article confirms a disturbing trend that I personally experienced as an undergraduate at Yale. Instead of benefiting the victims of historic prejudice in the United States, Ivy League affirmative action programs result in the admission of disproportionate numbers of Caribbean and African immigrants, and/or their children. Apparently, it isn't only at Yale where black students tend to have French surnames.

While Caribbean and African blacks deserve their places at Harvard and Yale, they shouldn't benefit from preferential admission standards designed to encourage the admission of African-Americans. Of course, Ivy League admissions officers are quite resistant to talking about this trend. They are so desperate to cement their employers' progressive image that they are not concerned about how they come up with enough black students to fill their unofficial quotas.

Now, I'll be the first to admit that this sort of criticism lacks a certain credibility, coming as it does from an author who generally opposes affirmative action. Yet as the chair of the Harvard sociology department points out,

"You need a philosophical discussion about what are the aims of affirmative action...

"If it's about getting black faces at Harvard, then you're doing fine. If it's about making up for 200 to 500 years of slavery in this country and its aftermath, then you're not doing well. And if it's about having diversity that includes African-Americans from the South or from inner-city high schools, then you're not doing well, either."

Even Henry Louis Gates and Lani Guinier think the system is deeply flawed. I'd go further and say that Ivy League political correctness has become a palliative for liberal white consciences rather than a commitment to real social justice. (1) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 11:49 PM by David Adesnik  

ALONE AND AFRAID:

In the later years of Saddam Hussein's rule, getting caught trying to solicit meant life in prison or even death. In a public ceremony in 2000, Hussein had 200 women beheaded after accusing them of prostitution.

So in some respects, the American invasion has represented an advance in terms of women's rights. Still, selling yourself in Baghdad is dangerous proposition. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 10:55 AM by Patrick Belton  

DEMOCRATS ABROAD OF THE UK are for some reason showing - multiple - screenings of Michael Moore's latest film. And offering 'a complimentary glass of wine upon arrival' to anyone who comes by.* Someone should have these folks read Christopher Hitchens or Michelle Cottle, and consider picking a new Democratic role model.

_________________
* Of course, the wine might prove an inspired touch. Not only might it make it easier for the audience to sit through one of Moore's films, but it would also open up the possibility of creating some interesting Michael Moore drinking games.... (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 7:42 AM by Patrick Belton  

NATO AT 55: Next week, on 28 and 29 June, the North Atlantic Council governing the NATO alliance will meet in Istanbul at the heads of state and government level. (As a bit of Nato trivia, Nato's supreme body - which represents the equality and consensus that characterised the U.S.'s Cold War relations with its allies, and treats equally the votes of Luxembourg and the United States - can meet at the level of permanent representative, defence or foreign ministers, or heads of government. It's the same committee, the NAC, which meets in all three instances - only the bodies seated behind the names of countries change.)

I'm quite fond of Nato, having served in the American mission at its headquarters several years ago, and I'll be looking forward to taking the opportunity afforded by the Istanbul Summit to examine where Nato is, where it's going, and where it could stand to do things differently or take a different tack. Here's my first take.

There's been progress (beginning with the 2002 Prague Summit) toward the creation of a Nato Response Force capable of sophisticated counterterror missions. There's also been progress toward the drafting (which has been done) and implementation (which hasn't) of a military concept for counterterrorism. But allies still strongly disagree about whether counterterrorism should even be one of Nato's primary missions - so the principal task of the US at the moment lies in the area of creating political will among allies to adopt counterterrorism as a Nato responsibility. That we have not done so is at least in part our fault - Allies felt rebuffed after they gave the US unconditional political support through invoking Article 5, and then were not consulted in the prosecution of the war in Afghanistan. For their part, the civilian leadership of the Pentagon believed Kosovo had been an unacceptable example of 'war by committee', and political interference from allies would prevent a quick and decisive Afghanistan campaign. Perhaps it might have, but now at Nato we're facing the consequences in the form of less enthusiasm for counterterror missions.

At the moment, the alliance is very strongly split between New and Old Europe (with France, Germany, and Belgium being most opposed to adopting counterterror as a Nato mission). The US had encouraged adoption of counterterror as a core alliance task since the Clinton administration, and particularly during the runup to the Washington Summit in April 1999. France led opposition to its adoption even then, preferring to see the EU built up as a pillar of European security and Nato reduced in importance (it also overlaps with France's opposition to out-of-area missions, which counterterror operations would largely be, and which would also expand Nato's role). On the other hand, under the leadership of recently retired (and admirable) SecGen Lord Robertson, Nato at the staff level established an internal terrorism task force to coordinate the work of different Nato staff offices touching on the issue, launched a new capabilities initiative, and made some staff-level progress on civil-military emergency planning and consequence management. The military concept (Military Concept for Combating Terrorism) began with the December 2001 defence ministerial as a tasking to the SACEUR and SACLANT and was approved at the November 2002 Prague summit - it includes proposals for a standard threat-warning system, establishing standing forces dedicated to post-attack consequence management, creating standing joint and combined forces for counterterror operations, and creating civil assistance capabilities which could be used after a WMD attack. On a separate front, the operational inadequacies of Nato (which in turn create an incentive for the US to act outside it, and reinforcing transatlantic drift...) were the subject of the Defence Capabilities Initiative (DCI) launched at the April 1999 Washington Summit, but the DCI is widely regarded as having been too broad and unfocused. The Prague Capabilities Commitment (PCC) grew out of the November 2002 Prague Summit and suggests individual allies tailor their contributions by focusing on specific capabilities (i.e., Germany and strategic lift, Canada/France/Italy/Spain/Turkey/Holland and unmanned aerial vehicles, Spain and aerial tankers, Polish special forces, etc.) The Nato Response Force (NRF) was adopted by the Prague Summit, which called for initial operating capacity by October 2004 and full operational capacity by October 2006.

This would indeed be a useful tool in countering terrorist threats around the world, but political support is currently inadequate among allies, and these capabilities will not be fielded until before the end of the decade, if at all. Another unfulfilled promise of the Prague Summit was the launching of a Nuclear, Biological, and Chemical analytical lab and event response team, which remain unimplemented - among other things, Nato's Weapons of Mass Destruction Centre has a current staff of only 12 people. Also, France has successfully hindered efforts to give the Civil-Military Planning Directorate operational capabilities for post-terrorist attack consequence management, preferring to see the EU take up the policy area.

In general, the task facing the US - and the Bush administration - at Istanbul is twofold: to try to build political will (playing mostly against the French) to actually implement these paper programs, which would do a great deal to improve both US and allied security; and to show domestic voters that it can play well with others, and bring home tangible results for American national security from multilateral fora. For the Kerry campaign, its task will be to stay clear of the easy temptation to claim France would be an enthusiastic Nato ally today if it weren't for the Bush administration. It wouldn't (repeated invocations of 'nous sommes tous Américains' to the contrary), and claims it would are likely to come across as partisan. The Kerry camp, like the Bush administration, will also have a two-fold task: first, to recognise US presidents can't command Nato allies to do anything, they can only convince - and then try to sell to voters the more nuanced, correct claim the present administration hasn't succeeded terribly well to date in that task; second, it will have as well to show voters that Kerry and his aides can grapple creatively with complex political and strategic issues of national security, in an election which promises to be decided on precisely national security. It's a crucial moment for both the president and the senator from Massachusetts. To the extent the Kerry camp deals in a creative and nuanced way with complex questions facing the alliance, rather than falling back on the temptation to use Istanbul as just one more occasion to lob easy criticisms at the administration for its unilateralism, then it can contribute to a constructive national security debate where partisan competition helps overcome bureaucratic inertia and produce better ideas about how to promote national interests. And for the Bush administration, the Istanbul Summit represents a chance to show its critics that it can indeed work creatively in multilateral fora, and more importantly, produce results there. And at the NAC and on the margins, its task will be to work against Francophone and German opponents of Nato to win the vote of sensible Old European countries (Netherlands, Portugal, Italy) and create a consensus for orienting Nato to the war on terror, which its efforts are badly needed.

Oddly, the website of the US Committee on Nato, www.expandNATO.org, in which there was substantial bipartisan participation (PPI president Will Marshall, for instance), now points to 'discount vitamins'. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 2:07 AM by David Adesnik  

SEVEN-OF-NINE EIGHTY-SIXES ILLINOIS GOP: Democratic prodigy Barack Obama now has a lock on Illinois' vacant Senate post thanks to the court-ordered opening of his opponent's divorce records. Compared to Jack Ryan's escapades, President Clinton's indiscretions are PG-13 at best.

Of course, what really matters here is that Ryan's ex-wife is none other than Jeri Ryan, the super-sexy extra-terrestrial known as "Seven of Nine" on Star Trek: Voyager. While there may be a handful of super-wonks now speculating about whether Obama's election will let the Democrats will take back the Senate -- or even whether Obama will be Hillary's running-mate in 2008 -- I can personally guarantee that there are millions of Star Trek fans (men, for the most part) salivating over every detail of the court records while knowing in their hearts that they would have given Seven of Nine the respect she deserved.

UPDATE: TNR has an interesting column about Chicago area pundits' hypocritical reaction to the Ryan affair. The column makes the valuable point that however unusual Ryan's tastes are, there was nothing inherently immoral about what he did -- a description that doesn't apply at all to Bill Clinton's indiscretions.

(0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 1:47 AM by David Adesnik  

OUR BIPOLAR MEDIA: Brad DeLong has put up a persuasive post documenting certain journalists' contempt for policy expertise. However, I think Brad goes too far when he condemns the entire media establishment for its arrogant anti-intellectualism. After all, how can the same journalists who savage George W. Bush -- and once savaged Ronald Reagan -- for failing to master the intricate details of national policy be considered anti-intellectual?

I think it might be better to say that the media is opportunistic and narrative-driven. Instead of simply criticizing individuals, it tries to brand them as stock characters: Bush and Reagan the cowboys, Clinton the womanizer, etc. Even when they play against type, they get forced back into their pre-assigned roles. What Reagan taught us is that there is only one way to transcend this imposition: by dying at an opportune moment. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 1:37 AM by David Adesnik  

JOSH'S HERO SPEAKS: Vaclav Havel reminds us that we need democracy everywhere, even Zimbabwe -- and especially Zimbabwe. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 1:20 AM by David Adesnik  

EACH SOLDIER LOST IS AN INDIVIDUAL TRAGEDY: It is a point that cannot be emphasized enough. Pfc. Jason N. Lynch laid down his life for his country. His fellow soldiers in the 6th Field Artillery are still there in Iraq, fighting hours-long gun battles in the blistering desert heat. For all of us at home, it is a humbling thought. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 1:33 PM by Patrick Belton  

A SAD DAY FOR ALL FRIENDS OF MEXICO: Crusading journalist Francisco Ortiz Franco, was slain yesterday by the very drug cartels he spent his life combating, as he left a Tijuana clinic with his children.

Ortiz Franco's Tijuana-based weekly newspaper, Zeta, was founded in 1980 by a group of journalists - Jesús Blancornelas, Héctor Félix Miranda, and several like-minded friends - who made it their work to write explicitly about who was selling drugs, who was accepting bribes, and which government officials were turning their heads. Héctor 'El Gato' Félix Miranda was murdered in a Tijuana alley on 20 April, 1988. The narcobusinessman whose bodyguard was convicted in Félix Miranda's shooting, Jorge Hank Rhon, is now running for mayor of Tijuana. Blancornelas survived an assasination attempt and a hail of 400 bullets on 27 November, 1997, with his driver and friend Luis Valero Elizaldi not being so lucky. In a country where it is common practice for reporters to sell their coverage, or simply print government press releases verbatim, these people are showing that journalists can be heroes.

Francisco, que descanses en paz, y tus compadres, que Dios les bendiga. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 1:05 PM by Patrick Belton  

IF YOU GET ON THE L TRAIN, THE L TRAIN WILL GET YOU WHERE YOU'RE GOIN'. Without a human conductor, that is. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 12:36 PM by Patrick Belton  

THIS HAS ALREADY led to rumours of French villagers attempting to surrender to it:

MARSEILLE, France (Reuters) -- The southern French city of Marseille called off a three-week hunt for a black panther on Tuesday after the animal sighted by several residents turned out to be a large house cat.

(0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 8:27 AM by Patrick Belton  

WILL BAUDE MAKES what I believe is his TNR online debut, with a piece on the Court's slippery slope on police prerogatives - congratulations, Will! (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 6:28 AM by Patrick Belton  

OUR FRIEND Molly Richardson pointed out, in response to our Ron Paul privateers post, that there was currently sadly no effort in Congress to give official public recognition to International Talk Like a Pirate Day - a proud holiday which has the support of, among others, Dave Barry and the Rev. Moon. This made us realise that we had failed in our duty to you, our readers, by neglecting to cover* the '25th Annual Mooning of Amtrak Day' which took place just this last 10 July, just as it has every year for a quarter century in the city of Laguna Niguel, California. (As one official website notes, 'To the people of countries outside the U.S.A. visiting our web site: Less than one-hundreth (1/100) of a per-cent of our population does this.')

______________________________
* possibly not the right word (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 2:07 AM by David Adesnik  

DARFUR: Both liberals and conservatives are outraged. After all, that is the only acceptable response to genocide. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 1:45 AM by David Adesnik  

A LITTLE CLINTON-BASHING FOR OLD TIMES' SAKE: The WaPo says Clinton's memoirs are dishonest. Anne Applebaum writes that "the book itself can only be described as disappointing, even bizarre." The merciless Fred Barnes goes for Clinton's jugular by declaring the President's record in office to be both mediocre and conservative.

Of course, America still loves Clinton. Polls show that 62% of Americans think Clinton did a good job as President, up from 55% a year ago but down from 65% when Clinton left office. Perhaps more importantly, 50% have a favorable impression of Clinton as a person, up from 44% when he left office and 32% percent at the depths of Monica-gate. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 1:26 AM by David Adesnik  

OXBLOG IN THE WEEKLY STANDARD: I've just published an article in the Weekly Standard on Reagan's legacy of promoting democracy worldwide. It begins as follows:

A ROMANTIC. A DREAMER. An optimist. A man of conviction. In the few short days since President Reagan left this world, both his admirers and his critics have settled on a short-list of character traits that are supposed to capture his essence. Yet neither Reagan's admirers nor his critics have begun to grapple with the most romantic and optimistic of the convictions that animated his foreign policy--one that still exerts an unparalleled influence on the conduct of American foreign relations. Whenever President Bush describes democracy as a universal aspiration, capable of flourishing even in the desert wastelands of the Middle East, it is Ronald Reagan's voice that he echoes.

In his historic address to the British Parliament at Westminster in the summer of 1982, Reagan foresaw the downfall of the Soviet empire. Much less noticed was his declaration that democracy promotion must serve as the moral and strategic foundation of American foreign policy. Reporters at the time portrayed Reagan's address as an anti-Communist broadside, all but ignoring its positive agenda of promoting human freedom and self-government.

The discussion of Reagan's legacy as an American statesman has focused almost exclusively on the degree to which his diplomacy was responsible for the end of the Cold War. Without intending to do so, participants on both sides of the debate have reinforced the notion that Reagan's legacy is one of tearing down, not one of building up. If so, then Reagan has nothing to teach us about the post-Cold War era.

Yet at Westminster, Reagan was careful...

The rest of the article is for subscribers only. But life will go on. Really, it will. In the meantine, why not take a look at Reagan's historic address at Westminster? Or perhaps at the 1986 State of the Union Address, in which Reagan memorably and controversially declared that

To those imprisoned in regimes held captive, to those beaten for daring to fight for freedom and democracy -- for their right to worship, to speak, to live, and to prosper in the family of free nations -- we say to you tonight: You are not alone, freedom fighters. America will support with moral and material assistance your right not just to fight and die for freedom but to fight and win freedom -- to win freedom in Afghanistan, in Angola, in Cambodia, and in Nicaragua. This is a great moral challenge for the entire free world.

If you still want more, you can find a list of Reagan's most important speeches right here. And if it's a speech from Reagan's first six years as President, you can find the full text here. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 1:25 AM by David Adesnik  

THE QUAGMIRE DEEPENS: In Chechnya. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 11:29 PM by David Adesnik  

AMERICA SAYS BUSH IS A LIAR: The WaPo continues to amaze with its abominable coverage of US public opinion. On yesterday's front page, it reported that

Public anxiety over mounting casualties in Iraq and doubts about long-term consequences of the war continue to rise and have helped to erase President Bush's once-formidable advantage over Sen. John F. Kerry.

At least the Post got one fact right: Kerry is surging in the polls, especially on issue of whom voters prefer to conduct the war on terror. But Kerry's surge has absolutely nothing to do with public anxiety about casualties in Iraq or the long term consequences of the war.

Unsurprisingly, the Post compiles all the available evidence of public disenchantment with the occupation, but ignores all of the evidence that point's to Bush's success. One month ago, 38% of Americans thought that we are making "significant progress" toward the establish of a democratic government in Iraq. 57% disagreed. But the now the split is 50-48 in Bush's favor.

An increasing number of Americans think that Bush has a "clear plan" for handling the situation in Iraq, although the split is still 50-48 against the President. Surprisingly, 51% think that the United States is making "significant progress toward restoring civil order" in Iraq, with 48% disagreeing. Thus, it isn't suprising that 44% now approve of Bush's handling of Iraq, up 4% from last month. (55% disapprove, down from 58.)

Now, one can make a pretty strong argument that all of these good feelings about Iraq reflect the American public's overvaluation of the approaching transfer of sovereignty on June 30. After all what kind of sovereignty can Iraq have with 150,000 American soldiers on its soil?

As it turns out, the American public seems to understand this dynamic pretty well. 53% say that the United States, and not Iraq, will hold real power after the handover. Moreover, an overwhelming 77% disapprove, saying that the Iraqis themselves should be in charge.

So what is going on here? If things are looking up for the President in Iraq, why do more Americans now trust John Kerry to wage the war on terror? It turns out that there is a very simple answer to this question and the WaPo completely missed it: The American public has come to believe that Bush is a liar.

According to the WaPo/Poll, 39% of Americans believe that Bush is "honest and trustworthy" while 52% say the same about Kerry. Strangely, the Post provides no trend data on this question, so it's hard to know what the numbers mean...unless you invest the effort necessary to dig up poll results from two months ago and compare.

On April 18th, 55% said Bush was honest and trustworthy. Previously, that number had never dropped below 52% and went as high as 71% in mid-2002. Now, can one make a strong case that this dramatic change in Bush's honesty ratings is responsible for the nosedive in public opinion about the War on Terror?

Absolutely. Judging by the size of the headlines alone, the 9/11 Commission's finding that there was no "collaborative relationship" between Saddam and Al Qaeda has been the biggest story so far this year -- and it played out in the days immediately preceding the WaPo's most recent poll.

Technically speaking, I think it's fair to say that Bush never lied about the relationship between Saddam and Al Qaeda. (I'm not sure I would be so kind to Cheney.) Regardless, Bush's statements have been confusing, disingenuous and utterly unbecoming of a president.

The big question now is whether the damage done to Bush's reputation for honesty is permanent. If the good news of Saddam's capture provided a temporary spike in public assessments of the situation in Iraq, perhaps the impact of the intensive coverage of the Commission's finding will slowly fade during a long, hot summer.

Or perhaps not. My gut feeling says that American voters pay far more attention to a President' personal characteristics than they do to what's happening on the ground half a world away. Bush may recover some of his lost ground, but I suspect that a significant amount of the damage will be permanent.

UDPATE: I just noticed an EJ Dionne column that explains why the Commission's report is so damning:

The battle over the al Qaeda-Hussein connection is ground zero in the fight over the administration's credibility.

On the failure to find weapons of mass destruction, the administration has alibis. It may have ignored contrary evidence on the existence of those weapons and it may have pressured intelligence agencies to reach conclusions that would justify war. But the administration can point to many Democrats, and even Europeans, who thought those weapons existed.

But when it comes to Saddam and Al Qaeda, Bush and Cheney are all alone. I don't agree with much else Dionne says, but he got that much right. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 6:41 PM by Patrick Belton  

PRIVATEERS!!!!! One of the odder constitutional moments to arise out of the aftermath of September 11th transpired when Representative Ron Paul (R-Tx), rereading Article I, Section 8 of the Constitution, realised that Congress had the power to grant letters of marque and reprisal. Letters of marque and reprisal, for those of you with lives who aren't congressional foreign policy or constitutional scholars, were a means of sanctioning privateers to travel abroad - hence past the nation's frontier, or 'marque' - and search, seize, or destroy assets or personnel of a hostile country - yes, the 'reprisal bit' - in private response to a public wrong. It was considered a retaliatory measure short of a declaration of war, and as such was meant to be governed by a rough proportionality between the original delict and the state-sanctioned privateer's reprisal. Pirates with letters of marque and reprisal were operating within the colour of law, and were hence privateers. For instance, the famous pirate Captain Kidd's letter of marque from the Admiralty is here. These went out of fashion with the Declaration of Paris in 1856, of which the US was not a signatory, though at several points - during the US civil war and the Spanish-American war, in particular - the US government indicated it would at least for present purposes abide by the principles of the declaration.

Where, indeed, all of this rested - until October 10, 2001, when Representative Paul reread the Constitution and realised that Congress still retained the power to grant letters of marque, and, heroically deciding that the President could not possibly be expected to win a war on terror without such an important tool (i.e., as pirates), he decided thenceforth to devote himself to a holy personal mission of granting President Bush the power to grant letters of marque and reprisal in the war on terror. To this end, he introduced HR 3076, the September 11 Marque and Reprisal Act of 2001. Helpfully, the bill's section 2(a) notes that the September 11 terrorists were, indeed, pirates (air pirates), and of course, who could be expected to fight pirates except with pirates? (Actually, wasn't it the Royal Navy that put down most piracy in the Caribbean and Atlantic sea lanes? hey, we're having fun here, don't spoil it.) And indeed, in short order letters of marque became Rep. Paul's best answer to everything: on the House floor, with parliamentary eloquence not heard since Cicero, Rep. Paul praised them as the obvious result of proceeding with caution and deliberation, taking into account unintended consequences, and avoiding hasty responses - 'We should be careful not to do something just to do something- even something harmful. Mr. Speaker, I fear that some big mistakes could be made in the pursuit of our enemies if we do not proceed with great caution, wisdom, and deliberation. Action is necessary; inaction is unacceptable. No doubt others recognize the difficulty in targeting such an elusive enemy. This is why the principle behind "marque and reprisal" must be given serious consideration.' (yes, he really did praise bringing back pirates as a 'cautious, deliberate' solution to September 11. And that's just a glimpse, ladies and gentlemen, of the keen intelellect and leadership skill it takes to be a member of Congress.) Sadly, the bill has not moved anywhere visible to the naked eye in committee - but something tells me we haven't heard the last of the September 11 Marque and Reprisal Act. Crusades are made of flinty stuff.

Frankly, I'm comforted by the notion that members of the House of Representatives are, like Ron Paul, even as we speak reading the Constitution to scan for powers that can be reinvigorated and placed in the president's hands to prosecute the war on terror. This is principally because I'm comforted by the fact that at least some members of the House can read. Although if we were to commission pirates to act in our interests, I'd like to nominate patriot Hans Sprungfeld. And this isn't even to speak of the constitutional fun and games that can be had, say, in establishing standards of weights and measures, or even in establishing post roads (woo-hoo!). (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 6:54 AM by Patrick Belton  

BUT WHERE DOES SPACE BEGIN? As Josh and many other blogosphere commentators have noted, SpaceDev technology's SpaceShipOne vessel yesterday became the first private craft to cross into space. More interesting, though, is the question of when precisely it did so.

Common usage in the United States accords the title of 'astronaut' to any person travelling above an altitude of 50 miles, or 80 km. By comparison, a Boeing 747-400 most typically cruises at an altitude 10 kilometers, or 32,900 feet (6.23 miles). More officially, the Fédération Aéronautique Internationale, based in Lausanne, describes the boundary of space as being at 62 miles, or 100 km. SpaceShipOne's trajectory yesterday peaked at 100.12 kilometers (62.214 miles, or 328,491 feet) - meaning Michael Melvill had only 124 meters each way in which to enjoy officially stamping his passport in space.

The atmosphere thins gradually through its upper reaches, making it difficult to identify a clear delineation between it and space, but re-entering orbital craft begin to encounter noticeable atmospheric effects at 75 miles, or 120 km. (For terminology buffs, the portion of the earth's atmosphere from 50 to 85 km above the equator generally is referred to as the mesosphere, whereas the segment above 80-85 km is referred to as the thermosphere. The less exhilerating - though nonetheless stratospheric - heights lying immediately below the mesosphere are the familiar stratosphere, which ranges from 17-50 km above the equator.) Or, if you don't want to go that far, you can just go to the Stratosphere casino in Las Vegas. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 1:51 AM by David Adesnik  

BUSH HAS MORE IN COMMON WITH EUROPEAN LEADERS THAN YOU THINK: Guido Calabresi is a federal judge and a former dean of Yale Law School. He is not known for the subtlety of his political opinions. But yesterday he outdid even himself by comparing Bush to Mussolini and Hitler:

In a way that occurred before but is rare in the United States...somebody came to power as a result of the illegitimate acts of a legitimate institution that had the right to put somebody in power. That is what the Supreme Court did in Bush versus Gore. It put somebody in power...

The reason I emphasize that is because that is exactly what happened when Mussolini was put in by the king of Italy...The king of Italy had the right to put Mussolini in, though he had not won an election, and make him prime minister. That is what happened when Hindenburg put Hitler in. I am not suggesting for a moment that Bush is Hitler. I want to be clear on that, but it is a situation which is extremely unusual..

When somebody has come in that way, they sometimes have tried not to exercise much power. In this case, like Mussolini, he has exercised extraordinary power. He has exercised power, claimed power for himself; that has not occurred since Franklin Roosevelt who, after all, was elected big and who did some of the same things with respect to assertions of power in times of crisis that this president is doing...

Of course Bush isn't Hitler, says Calabresi. So why mention old Adolf? The analogy is actually a terrible one. Yes, Hindenburg had a right to appoint Hitler. Shortly thereafter, Hitler held rigged elections and then 'persuaded' his pet Reichstag to let him rule by decree. (I guess Calabresi would say that even as a dictator, Bush is a total failure.)

I don't know enough about Italian history to debunk the analogy to Mussolini, but I'm guessing it's pretty worthless as well. And hey, what the f*** is up with comparing FDR to Mussolini?

(Special thanks to SH for the link. For more on Calabresi see Eugene's posts here and here.) (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 12:37 PM by Patrick Belton  

INCIDENTALLY, a rather unattractive male English teenager is currently attempting to auction off his virginity on Ebay. (The link is to the auction.) He's starting bidding at £1,500.00. Oddly, no one has yet bid.

UPDATE: The Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle at work - unfortunately, Ebay has withdrawn the ad. And David Vardy, 19, is sadly stuck with his virginity. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 8:47 AM by Patrick Belton  

MAJOR DIPLOMATIC INCIDENT UNFOLDING: Iran has seized three vessels of the Royal Navy which were patrolling the Shatt al-Arab, and have seized eight British sailors. The Ministry of Defence has stated that the ships were involved in helping the Iraqi police patrol the area.

UPDATE: The NYT has more - the MOD has described the three boats as 'inflatable' and indicated their crew were in the process of delivering them to Iraq. Separately, the British Embassy in Tehran released a statement that three training patrol boats had lost radio contact with their base.

UPDATE: The BBC is quoting Iranian Al Alam TV that the Iranian government is intending to prosecute the eight sailors, for illegally entering its (disputed) territorial waters. Foreign Secretary Jack Straw held a telephone conversation this morning with Iranian FM Kamal Kharazzi to discuss the matter, but there is no report on how the conversation proceeded. The matter is also receiving suprisingly little press attention. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 4:49 AM by Patrick Belton  

THIS MORNING IS THE SUMMER SOLSTICE: And here is how it looked as summer broke over Stonehenge:


(0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 11:51 PM by David Adesnik  

IS POLLACK OFF THE RESERVTION? Greg D. points out that Ken Pollack's criticism of George Bush has gotten to the point where the centrist and moderate scholar has begun to sound like Fisk or Chomsky.

Even so, Pollack's column in TNR is well worth reading. Fortunately, there is only one point at which he waxes idiotarian. While reading the column, I think it's important to remember just how much Pollack's professional reputation has suffered because of Bush's handling of the occupation.

Of course, there are flaws in Pollack's argument beyond his intemperate criticism. Greg points out some to them. I would just add that Pollack seems completely oblivious to the fact that the intense controversy surrounding Bush's decision to invade Iraq consumed the White House's attention in the months before the war. Already averse to nation-building, there was little reason to think the Bush administration would prepare seriously for the occupation even if the President committed himself in principle to building democracy. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 11:16 PM by David Adesnik  

THE WAR LETTER: Along with Kos and Dan Froomkin, Tim Noah over at Slate is trumpeting this letter as definitive evidence that Bush stated unambiguously that there was a working realtionship between Saddam and Al Qaeda.

I was pretty suspicious of this spin on Bush's letter, but didn't have the legal expertise to show why Noah et al. were wrong. However, Eric Soskin does quite a job of it here and here. Tom Maguire and Gene Volokh have more. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 4:14 PM by David Adesnik  

CIRCLING THE WAGONS: The Weekly Standard has joined NRO in its all-out assault on the 9/11 Commission's finding that there was no active relationship between Saddam and Al Qaeda. Following NRO's Andrew McCarthy, the Standard's Stephen Hayes has thrown a spotlight on the equivocations and oversights of the Commission's recent report, not to mention press coverage thereof.

While I agree with a good number of the individual points that Hayes and McCarthy make, I disagree with their apparent premise that the 9/11 Commission could (and should) have resolved certain questions left unanswered by their report. In contrast to the independent counsels responsible for both the collection and interpretation of evidence during Iran-Contra and Monica-gate, the 9/11 Commission seems to be wholly dependent on the intelligence community for providing it with material to evaluate.

Perhaps more importantly, this administration has a powerful incentive to provide the Commission with all relevant material that might have established an active relationship between Al Qaeda and Saddam. In contrast, the Reagan and Clinton administrations had every incentive to cooperate with investigators as little as possible.

Thus, the real question here is not why there are certain oversights in the Commission's report, but rather why the administration, after investing so much time and effort in the search for compelling evidence of an active Saddam-Al Qaeda relationship, hasn't been able to come up with anything more definitive.

That said, Hayes and McCarthy do a good job of identifying three potential points of contact between Al Qaeda and Saddam that I expect to become the staple references for all those who take issue with the Commission's report. Those points of contact are:

1. The undefined relationship between Iraqi agent Ahmed Hikmat Shakir and 9/11 hijacker Khalid al Mihdhar.
2. The unverified but undisproven claim that Mohammed Atta met with an Iraqi agent in Prague in June 2000.
3. The connection of both Bin Ladin and the Iraqi government to the Sudanese chemical plant levelled by an American attack in June 1998.

With regard to each, Hayes and McCarthy make a good case that there is more to know than the Commission lets on. But if the Bush administration couldn't demonstrate that these points of contact were part of a collaborative relationship, why should one expect the 9/11 Commission to support that allegation? (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 4:05 PM by David Adesnik  

A PERFECT SUMMER DAY: The solstice isn't until tomorrow, but yesterday belonged to summer. I swam and lay on the beach at Thoreau's Walden Pond. I picked fresh strawberries and ate them right then and there at a small farm in Lincoln, Massachusetts. At night, we barbecued outdoors and had dinner on my friend's porch as the sun set and the fireflies lit up the garden.

If this brief description of paradise has made you jealous, just remember that I will spend tomorrow two stories underground, sitting at a small table surrounded by dusty old books, with nothing but a harsh fluorescent light to read by. But that's not for another 18 hours! (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 3:43 PM by Patrick Belton  

AND FOR NEWS OF THE WEIRD: Thousands of bunnies, nibbling in concert, prevent historic Warwickshire radio towers (the origin of the BBC time 'pip' before the hour) from being demolished. Well, who's to say they shouldn't have liked them? (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 2:00 PM by Patrick Belton  

ROYAL ASCOT WATCH: Hey, it's a Britain-themed day...

More than two-and-a-half tons of smoked salmon, nearly five tons of strawberries and one hundred twenty thousand bottles of champagne were devoured at Royal Ascot, which ended on Saturday. Also consumed at the races were an estimated 12,000 bottles of Pimms. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 1:51 PM by Patrick Belton  

AFTER A HALF-DECADE as a proud resident of Great Britain, I can note that I've finally learned how to tell, within a second of looking at someone, whether they're a foreigner.

They're the ones who smile back. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 1:49 PM by Patrick Belton  

RISING POWER: Per Sunday Telegraph (today's print edition, p.3), the government of China hopes to reach the top tier of the world's cricket nations within 20 years. (1) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 4:04 AM by David Adesnik  

BLOGS VS. DEAD-TREES: Right now, Time Magazine has a big and breathless story about blogs right on the top of its website. My response? To ignore it. I mean, what can you say to a million-selling news-weekly that lists Glenn Reynolds as one of its "Five Bloggers to Watch"? Maybe next week Time will announce that Barry Bonds has a pretty good shot at making the Hall of Fame.

Now here's something interesting: This week, Spencer Ackerman of TNR has been guest-blogging for Josh Marshall. Huh? An established journalist at a top-flight publication filling in for a blogger on vacation? What next? Will Kos write editorials for the NYT? Will Jayson Blair fill in for Drudge?

It's probably worth noting that Spencer has his own blog, Iraq'd, over at TNR. At least in terms of influnce, Iraq'd certainly isn't TPM. So Spencer is sort of moving up by filling in for Josh. Still, it's hard to get away from the notion that Spencer's decision reflects the rising prestige and credibility and that blogs have developed in the recent past.

Or perhaps I'm getting this all wrong. Maybe Josh and Spencer are friends, and Spencer is just doing this for Josh as a favor. But even if that were the case, it says a lot about the approaching parity of first-tier blogs with first-tier opinion journals. Two years ago, would any blogger have dared to ask a professional journalist -- even a friend or especially a friend -- to fill in for them? Of course not. It would've been an insult, sort of like asking Luciano Pavarotti to sing karaoke.

But somewhere along the lines, things changed. Now I'm not trying to say that blogs are taking over Big Media. But there is a growing interface between the two that results in talent in one sphere being equated with talent in the other.

(0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 3:50 AM by David Adesnik  

THE BRUTALITY OF AL QAEDA: I have nothing to say. The beheading of Paul M. Johnson speaks for itself. But just imagine: imagine if instead of celebrating the brutal murder of an innocent, instead of posting photograhps of his severed head on their website, the Saudi militants responsible for Johnson's death announced that they were letting Mr. Johnson go in order to demonstrate their moral superiority to the infidels who abused and humiliated Muslim prisoners at Abu Ghraib.

No, I don't think that could happen. These terrorists seem incapable of recognizing that kindness is often a far more dangerous weapon than violence. If they understood that, then I would truly be afraid. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 2:56 AM by David Adesnik  

ARE BUSH'S CRITICS IRRESPONSIBLE? According to NRO, they're just plain wrong. Andrew McCarthy says that if you take a close look at what the 9/11 Commission says about the Saddam-Al Qaeda connection it's far from definitive.

I don't buy it. While I'll be the first to admit that there's a helluva lot we don't know about both Saddam and Al Qaeda, I'm not sure that there's much more evidence out there to find right now. If the Bush administration has invested so much time and effort in investigating the relationship between Saddam and Osama, why hasn't it found evidence of a connection? And if it found such evidence, why doesn't the 9/11 Commission believe that Public Enemies #1 and #2 had a "collaborative relationship"?

But what about the actual criticism directed toward the administration? With regard to the "Bush lied" chorus, the WaPo says that

The accusation is nearly as irresponsible as the Bush administration's rhetoric has been.

That's pushing it. The NYT may be ineffably pretentious when it writes that "Now President Bush should apologize to the American people" -- as if the absence of a Saddam-Al Qaeda connection was news -- but irresponsible and disingenuous rhetoric from the White House is far more dangerous than pretentiousness in the paper of record.

It is worth pointing out, however, that the NYT editorial board can be just as careless with its language as Messrs. Bush and Cheney. For example, it writes that

The Bush administration convinced a substantial majority of Americans before the war that Saddam Hussein was somehow linked to 9/11.

That is misleading at best or simply not true. While the Bush administration hardly sought to resolve public confusion about this point, the President never asserted that Saddam played a role in 9/11. Over at CBS, John Roberts isn't much better. He reported that

It is one of President Bush's last surviving justifications for war in Iraq, and today, it took a devastating hit when the 9-11 Commission declared there was no collaborative relationship between Saddam Hussein and Osama bin Laden. ... Those repeated associations left the majority of Americans believing Saddam was involved in 9/11.

While Roberts' accusation is less explicit than the NYT's, his comments are supposed to be straight news, not an editorial. Meanwhile, Dick Cheney is launching a pretty fierce counter-attack against the NYT. While I agree with Andrew that Cheney is right about the NYT headline being pretty unfair, Cheney's case seems to revolve primarily around the existence of a Saddam-Zarqawi relationship. If that's all the Vice President has to go on, he's not in good shape. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 2:43 AM by David Adesnik  

HEADLINE POLITICS: In response to my post on the NYT-WaPo headline duel, LS -- a professional journalists at a major daily paper -- puts it far better than I did:

I don't have any inside scoop on the NYTimes, but from where I sit, as an editorial writer for a page that is a lot more conservative than the newsroom, I can say with some assurance that what looks like "spillage" only happens when the newsroom and the editorial page are staffed by people who already agree. That is, the news pages would be exactly the way they
are if the editorial page weren't there at all.

The same has been true at the three papers I worked for before I came here, and other edit writers I know who are in the same situation say it has been their experience as well, so I think what you see is not the result of any influence by edit pages on the news coverage but simply the fact that the edit pages of big newspapers are more likely to be liberal than to be conservative, and so are the newsroom staff.

Interesting. One has to respect all those papers that put up a firewall between politics and opinion, but that wall may not be effective until the journalistic professional begins to represent a broader array of political opinions. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 7:06 AM by Patrick Belton  

18 JUNE: Today in 1873, Susan B Anthony was issued a fine of $100 for having cast a vote in the presidential election held on 5 November of the previous year. She was, incidentally, earning an annual salary of $100 from her work as a schoolteacher. My student Jon Silver points out that, like Frederick Douglass, Ms Anthony was a resident of Rochester. The fine would go unpaid.
(0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 6:44 AM by Patrick Belton  

INTERNATIONAL RESPONSE TO AIDS BOOK TOUR: OxBlog's good friend (and, lest we point out, Nathan Haler) Greg Behrman will be on the west coast this coming week for his book tour. His book is The Invisible People: How the U.S. Has Slept Through the Global AIDS Pandemic - think Woodward does the government's response to AIDS, just better. Here's where he'll be speaking, if you'd like to drop by!

SAN FRANCISCO and Bay Area

TUESDAY, JUNE 22

Stacey's Booksellers
12:30PM
581 Market Street

Cody's Books
7:30PM
2454 Telegraph Avenue
Berkeley, CA

WEDNESDAY, JUNE 23

Commonwealth Club of Silicon Valley
7:00PM
First Unitarian Church of San Jose
160 North Third Street
San Jose, CA

LOS ANGELES

THURSDAY, JUNE 24

Borders Books & Music
7:30PM
330 S. La Cienega Blvd. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 11:24 PM by David Adesnik  

DID BUSH REALLY SAY THERE WAS A RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN IRAQ AND AL QAEDA? I think the best description of his comments is "maddeningly vague". In March 2002, Bush said that

Al Qaeda hides, Saddam doesn't, but the danger is, is that they work in concert. The danger is, is that al Qaeda becomes an extension of Saddam's madness and his hatred and his capacity to extend weapons of mass destruction around the world.

Both of them need to be dealt with. The war on terror, you can't distinguish between al Qaeda and Saddam when you talk about the war on terror. And so it's a comparison that is -- I can't make because I can't distinguish between the two, because they're both equally as bad, and equally as evil, and equally as destructive.

The reliably partisan Center for American Progress pares down Bush's quote to the absurd statement that "You can't distinguish between al Qaeda and Saddam." Obviously, that isn't what Bush was saying. But what matters most is that the President was being much less than honest about the critical issue of the day.

The actual question Bush got asked was "Mr. President, do you believe that Saddam Hussein is a bigger threat to the United States than al Qaeda?" All Bush had to say was that they are both extremely serious threats and that he would deal with both of them. Or he could've said that Osama and Saddam may work together in the future because they both hate America so much. Instead, he implied that they were already collaborating.

According to Kos, the definitive evidence that Bush lied is the letter he sent to Congress just before the invasion of Iraq. In it, Bush said that invading Iraq

is consistent with the United States and other countries continuing to take the necessary actions against international terrorists and terrorist organizations, including those nations, organizations, or persons who planned, authorized, committed, or aided the terrorist attacks that occurred on September 11, 2001.

That sound pretty cagey, but I'm wondering if "consistent" has a precise legal meaning in the context Bush used it. Earlier on in the letter, Bush refers separately to "the continuing threat posed by Iraq". All he really seems to be saying about 9/11 is that going after Saddam doesn't preclude going after Osama as well. Besides, Bush has been very careful about denying any sort of relationship between Saddam and 9/11, even to the point where he publicly criticized Cheney for saying that one existed.

For another set of maddeningly vague quotes, you can head over to this compilation by the AP. In his 2003 State of the Union Address, Bush said that

Evidence from intelligence sources, secret communications, and statements by people now in custody reveal that Saddam Hussein aids and protects terrorists, including members of al-Qaida.

That seems like a reference to Abu Musab Zarqawi, whose relationship with Saddam still isn't clear.

Now, for the sake of being comprehensive, it's also worth pointing that in his infamous aircraft carrier speech, Bush said that

The liberation of Iraq is a crucial advance in the campaign against terror. We've removed an ally of al Qaeda, and cut off a source of terrorist funding. And this much is certain: No terrorist network will gain weapons of mass destruction from the Iraqi regime, because the regime is no more.

"Ally", huh? That sounds like a collaborative relationship. Or is it just a figurative description of the relationship between two of America's greatest enemies?

All in all, I'm inclined to support Matt Yglesias' observation that Bush's remakrs are all part of this administration's

longstanding practice of making technically accurate, but misleading and tendentious, statements in order to try and trick people into believing things that aren't true.

If you want to be a little nicer to Bush, you can say that he didn't have a malicious desire to trick people. But it doesn't really matter. The bottom line is that Bush contributed to public confusion about one of the most critical aspects of American national security instead of just telling the simple truth. If you want to bring honor back to the White House, that is certainly not the way to do it. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 10:49 PM by David Adesnik  

DOES ANYONE UNDERSTAND WHAT BUSH IS SAYING ABOUT AL-QAEDA AND IRAQ?

The reason I keep insisting that there was a relationship between Iraq and Saddam and al Qaeda, because there was a relationship between Iraq and al Qaeda.

This administration never said that the 9/11 attacks were orchestrated between Saddam and al Qaeda.

We did say there were numerous contacts between Saddam Hussein and al Qaeda. For example, Iraqi intelligence officers met with bin Laden, the head of al Qaeda, in the Sudan. There's numerous contacts between the two.

Was the President trying to say that "numerous contacts" constitute a "relationship"? Or did he begin by asserting that there was a "relationship" and then back-track to the concession that there were only "numerous contacts"?

While Bush doesn't seem to choose his words all that carefully when speaking off the cuff, his use of the word 'relationship' seems very, very calculated. The 9/11 commission said there was no "collaborative relationship" between Saddam and Al Qaeda. So is Bush suggesting that there was a relationship but that it wasn't collaborative?

With regard to a recent comment by Dick Cheney, Matt Yglesias writes that it wasn't technically a lie:

Rather, it was part of the administration's longstanding practice of making technically accurate, but misleading and tendentious, statements in order to try and trick people into believing things that aren't true, while protecting themselves from criticism in the elite media.

That certainly seems like a good description of Bush's remarks. Except for the fact that he utterly failed to protect himself from criticism in the elite media. This morning, the WaPo led off its Saddam-Al Qaeda article with the statement that

The Sept. 11 commission reported yesterday that it has found no "collaborative relationship" between Iraq and al Qaeda, challenging one of the Bush administration's main justifications for the war in Iraq.

According to tomorrow's paper,

President Bush yesterday defended his assertions that there was a relationship between Saddam Hussein's Iraq and Osama bin Laden's al Qaeda, putting him at odds with this week's finding of the bipartisan Sept. 11 commission.

So the news yesterday was that Bush is a liar and the news today is that Bush is a liar. Perhaps Bush thinks that his quasi-denial of the charges will be enough to keep the faith of some undecided voters. But frankly, responding to a highly-respected bipartisan commission with an evasive semi-denial is probably not going to persuade anyone except the Republican faithful.

My best guess is that Bush himself (along with Cheney) is deeply in denial. It's the same phenomenon we saw with Reagan. When you believe in something with all your heart and then stake your reputation on it, letting go is the hardest thing to do.

So is that an excuse for Bush's misleading comments? Hell no. His remarks were embarrassing and unpresidential. Period. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 2:35 PM by Patrick Belton  

ENGLAND FENDS OFF SWITZERLAND 3-0, for those of you who are interested in that sort of thing....

Also, per capita GDP seems a fair predictor for country's performances so far. For each matchup which has been held to date, here is the corresponding matchup between the two countries' per capita (purchasing-power parity) GDP as well as their net PPP GDP: (I've placed the larger number in each comparison in bold, for presentational convenience)

Greece 2, Portugal 1 ($19,900 vs $18,000; $212.2 bn vs $182.3 bn)
Switzerland 0, Croatia 0 ($32,800 v $10,700; $239.8 bn vs $47.14 bn)
Denmark 0, Italy 0 ($31,200 v $26,800;167.7 bn vs $1.552 tn)
Czcech 2, Latvia 1 ($15,700 v $10,100; $160.5 bn v $23.77 bn)
Spain 1, Russia 0 ($22,000 v $8,900; $885.5 bn v 1.287 tn)
France 2, England 1 ($27,500 v $27,700*; $1.654 tn v $1.664 tn)
Sweden 5, Bulgaria 0 ($26,800 v $7,600; $238.1 bn v $57.13 bn)
Germany 1, Holland 1 ($19,900 v $28,600; $212.2 bn vs $461.4 bn)
England 3, Switzerland 0 ($27,700* v $32,800; $1.664 tn v $239.8 bn)
Portugal 2, Russia 0 ($18,000 v $8,900; $182.3 bn v $1.287 tn)

So, as you can see, per capita GDP is a rather better predictor than net GDP. Disregarding matches which ended in ties (i.e., in indeterminate results), per capita GDP predicts the winner in five out of seven pairings, whereas net GDP predicts accurately in four cases.

Corollary to Belton's Law: Belton's Law does not apply to England. England ought to have beaten France by both per capita and net GDP predictors; similarly, Switzerland should have beaten England by per capita GDP (though not by net GDP). Granted, both economic figures are for the UK rather than England, as I haven't come across economic data for England alone. But I assume the result would have been conserved by using English rather than UK data, which, given the location of the City and its financial centre in England, would have raised per capita GDP over France still more, though not necessarily up to the Swiss level - i.e., no change in that result - though on the other hand, it would have made net GDP a correct predictor of the France-England matchup. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 7:07 AM by Patrick Belton  

ADVERTISING MISMATCH - PAGING THE CROOKED TIMBER IRONY-WATCHERS: I love the Weekly Standard. I also happen heartily to enjoy the French language, the French literary and intellectual tradition, all flesh-and-blood French people I have the pleasure to know, and most things, actually, about the French nation, apart from the various political institutions it seems to generate from time to time. But just out of curiosity, is the Standard necessarily the optimum place for Champs Élysée Audiotapes to urge readers to 'Become fluent in French!'? (That said, I heartily endorse, applaud, and support any advertisers who seek to provide monetary assistance to the Weekly Standard, New Republic, Slate, or any of my other daily reads...)

UPDATE: A reader emails in: 'Back here in the States, you might be interested to know that The Longest Day, broadcast on D-Day this year, was sponsored by Mercedes-Benz! (Maybe they thought that the Germans' staff cars were some kind of product placement...)' (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 7:01 AM by Patrick Belton  

JOSH CHERNISS is posting up a storm on Stuart Hampshire. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 6:15 AM by Patrick Belton  

BLOOM: LAST CALL... Sheila O'Malley, lovely girl that she is*, has been posting loads on Bloomsday. Also, OxFriend Phil C. poses a question to our readers:

I was trying to explain to a colleague—over beers @ Mackey’s Pub on L St—last night why Joyce is worth reading (she was forced to read “Portrait” for a lit class in college, couldn’t figure out what was going on, and has disliked JJ ever since).

Eventually I got on to the topic of 1922 as the annus mirabilis of 20th-century literature and began to gas on a bit about how JJ’s technique of bringing the sound and soul of the modern city into his writing very closely resembles TS Eliot’s method of “bricolage” (think of all the snatches of conversation, pop music, etc. from the London scene in The Waste Land—kind of TSE’s nightmare version of JJ’s Dublin, w/ its pompous schoolmasters, blowhard editors, mellifluous Italian music teachers, crippled coquettes on beaches, sirenical barmaids, debating literary intellectuals etc replaced by the typist and her small house-agent’s clerk, the tense married couple, the ladies in the pub, one-eyed Smyrna merchants, and so on).

But for the life of me I couldn’t explain who influenced whom, or if indeed there are filiations of influence from one to another of these giants. I know that Waste Land came out in ’22, and that JJ mailed portions of Ulysses to TSE, Ezra Pound, et al. while JJ was working on it (which must have been before ’22—chunks of U were indeed written during WWI, if I recall correctly). Yet on the other hand, TSE had published works such as “Prufrock,” which use some of this “found-objects-or-experiences-transmuted-into-art” method as early as 1914.

So are JJ & TSE just parallel—like Newton & Leibniz, geniuses who had similar brilliant insights independently but almost simultaneously—or did one affect the other more than vice versa?

Any thoughts?

_____
* In fact, sufficiently avid readers of OxBlog will recall that Sheila is - along with my lovely wife, Sasha Castel, and the NHS's cross-dressing crouton doctor - one of a very exclusive number of female blogosphere friends to have attained the highly coveted status of 'OxBlog OxBabes of the Week'. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 3:41 AM by David Adesnik  

QUICK! BEFORE THEY'RE GONE! Take a look at today's front-page images from the NYT and WaPo. The WaPo has a five-column headline that reads: "Al Qaeda Scaled Back 10-Plane Plot". In contrast, the NYT has a four-column headline that reads: "Panel Finds No Iraq-Qaeda Tie; Describes A Wider Plot for 9/11".

There no question that politics played a big role in all of this. After all, you only have to look as far as the editorial page to see what the editors were thinking. For the NYT, the Commission's report is conclusive evidence that Bush lied. Anticipating the "Bush lied" chorus, the editors of the WaPo write that "The accusation is nearly as irresponsible as the Bush administration's rhetoric has been."

From where I stand, the clearest thing of all is that editorial page politics spill over onto page one and that those responsible for this spillage are either unaware of it or unable to admit it.
(0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 3:29 AM by David Adesnik  

BEWARE OF EVIL BLOGS: Hugh Hewitt warns that the and Karl Rove and assorted Islamic fundamentalists may soon be up to no good in the blogosphere. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 3:26 AM by David Adesnik  

TORTURE AND SHAME:

Slowly, and in spite of systematic stonewalling by the Bush administration, it is becoming clearer why a group of military guards at Abu Ghraib prison tortured Iraqis in the ways depicted in those infamous photographs. President Bush and his spokesmen shamefully cling to the myth that the guards were rogues acting on their own. Yet over the past month we have learned that much of what the guards did -- from threatening prisoners with dogs, to stripping them naked, to forcing them to wear women's underwear -- had been practiced at U.S. military prisons elsewhere in the world. Moreover, most of these techniques were sanctioned by senior U.S. officials, including Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld and the Iraqi theater command under Lt. Gen. Ricardo S. Sanchez. Many were imported to Iraq by another senior officer, Maj. Gen. Geoffrey D. Miller.

From a masthead editorial in the WaPo. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 3:17 AM by David Adesnik  

THREATS FROM IRAN: The inspections stand-off takes another step closer to becoming a nuclear showdown. Jim Hoagland has more. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 3:02 AM by Patrick Belton  

THOSE GODLESS COMMUNISTS, have they got no shame? (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 2:47 AM by David Adesnik  

YOUNGEST BLOGGER EVER: Little Edward was born on June 10th and already has his own blog. For the moment, his parents are doing most of the posting and taking care of the technical side of things, but I'm sure Edward will get the hang of it soon.

In their most recent post, Mom & Dad write about Edward that

He's little. He has deep black pools for eyes -- when he opens them, which he's hesitant to do. He turns red when he's excited. He likes to eat, doesn't particularly care for baths. He's wonderful.

Which is why we're starting this blog. To watch him grow, to share our thoughts and reflections as he gets bigger, to offer up fun anecdotes from his babyhood. Maybe also to hear ourselves think -- something that, often now, it doesn't feel like there's much time for.

NB: I'm not including any links to Edward's blog because it really just intended for family and friends. Of course, if Edward posts anything political, I may decide to fisk it. :p (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 4:17 PM by Patrick Belton  

BLOOMSDAY REDUX: The Emigrant, an Irish print and online newspaper serving an audience principally of Irish expatriate communities around the globe, was kind enough to pick up my Bloomsday article. Thanks, lads! (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 12:21 PM by Patrick Belton  

HOPEFULLY, HE DOESN'T LIVE IN VIRGINIA: Otherwise, Slate, you might want to call your lawyer. David Amsden's story carries the title (on their main page) 'Prom Night Undercover: Our reporter sneaks back into high school with a 17-year-old date.' Obviously this advertising campaign isn't reaching someone... (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 6:30 AM by Patrick Belton  

BLOOMSDAY: A CENTURY. In some sense, modern literature began a hundred years ago today.

Stately, plump Buck Mulligan came from the stairhead, bearing a bowl of lather on which a mirror and a razor lay crossed. A yellow dressinggown, ungirdled, was sustained gently behind him by the mild morning air. He held the bowl aloft and intoned:

-- Introibo ad altare Dei.

In the world of text, of Molly Bloom's sensuous, doubting, ultimately affirming soliloquy (I was a Flower of the mountain yes when I put the rose in my hair like the Andalusian girls used), of Stephen Daedalus's monologue walking along the beach which stretches in Sandycove from Martello tower to Dun Laoghaire (Ineluctable modality of the visible: at least that if no more, thought through my eyes), this was the day Stephen and Leopold wandered throughout the city Joyce himself had fled (using for my defence the only arms I allow myself to use - silence, exile, and cunning), enacting a modern Odyssey, and eventually finding one another briefly (and in Bella Cohen's brothel) as father-seeking son meeting son-seeking father. In the other, non-textual world, the world of breakfasts made of 'the inner organs of beasts and fowls' and 'grilled mutton kidneys which gave to his palate a fine tang of faintly scented urine', 16 June 1904 was the day when the artist, as a young man, fell in love with rustic Galway girl Nora Barnacle. And he would immortalise the day for her.

Halted, he peered down the dark winding stairs and called up coarsely:

-- Come up, Kinch! Come up, you fearful jesuit!

Joyce is not quite Stephen - the worlds of language and sausages don't correspond quite that neatly - but both come together in places. Daedalus was, after all, Joyce's early pen name as a student at Clongowes, and in a more real sense, Joyce was the real Daedalus, the architect who created the Labyrinth for the minotaur at Crete, and then showed his son Icarus to fly to escape it. After observing painfully his son's death, Daedalus is exiled to Sicily - undoubtedly, one supposes, to be the crafter of novels. And as far as how well the artificer of the century's most intricate, Labyrnthine text did succeed when he went to 'encounter for the millionth time the reality of experience and to forge in the smithy of my soul the uncreated conscience of my race'- well, go this morning to O'Connell Street to see how Joyce's myth of Dublin has been received by that city's people, and si monumentum requiris, circumspice.

In the Celtic calendar, there is day called Samhain when, after one agricultural cycle has ended in harvest and before the next one has begun, two years are joined together - but imperfectly, and in the crack between them, it was possible to pass between the world of men and the world of the Sidhe, the faeries. Bloomsday is such a day, when the world of sausages and the world of Joyce and Daedalus come together - imperfectly, but for a moment it's somehow more possible to pass between them. And benefit from the reconciliation, in the world of faeries, myth, and divine jesuitical artificers, between Stephen's intellect, Bloom's corporeality, and Molly's sensuality, and between the father who forever sought a son and the son who forever sought his father.

I put my arms around him yes and drew him down to me so he could feel my breasts all perfume yes and his heart was going like mad and yes I said yes I will Yes.

Is the book really as grand as all that to-do happening in O'Connell Street this morning suggests? Oh Yes yes yes it is, yes.


(0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 3:48 PM by David Adesnik  

HOW REAGAN WON THE COLD WAR: In response to my recent post, RG makes a very well-informed argument about Reagan's impact on the Soviets:

Your posting on the Gorbachev factor contains one serious error of fact and a couple of analytical deficiencies.

The factual is:

"Kaplan's point about Andropov is misleading, since the Politburo appointed him as General Secretary in the expectation that he would die. However, few of us now remember that Chernenko was born in the same year as Ronald Reagan. He was a hardliner and he wasn't supposed to die."

In point of fact, Andropov's demise was the one that was unexpected. Chernenko was known to be sick when he was elevated to the post of general secretary, as can be verified by reviewing newspaper and magazine articles of the time. His appointment was widely considered a surprise for the fact of his being sick, and came about only because the even sicker older men in the Politburo weren't quite ready for the coming generational shift in power.

The analytical deficiencies are:

1). The failure to reckon with the effects of the Pershing II deployment. I haven't read Kaplan's piece but would suspect this failing is present in his analysis too. Pershing II, not SDI, was Reagan's decisive contribution to the resolution of the Cold War. The deployment came despite massive protests in Western Europe (this is the time of "The Fate of the Earth" and the rise of the Green Party in Germany) and negated the Kremlin's hopes of driving a wedge between the US and the European allies. It took skilled diplomacy to keep Germany and the Benelux countries in the fold, and under a different president the confrontation very likely would have had a different outcome.

2). The failure to reckon with the inspirational effort of Reagan's rhetoric behind the Curtain. I think the testimony of folks like Walesa and Havel to this point is quite irrefutable. And I don't see either Carter or Mondale either saying the things Reagan did, or inspiring the same reaction among the captive peoples if they had tried.

Bottom line: I read Brown's book several years ago and fully agree that without Gorbachev, the end of the Cold War doesn't play out as it does. But I also think Reagan's presence in the White House and conduct of policy narrowed Gorbachev's options and forced him onto a path it wasn't his intention to take. I say this as someone who voted for Anderson in 1980 and Mondale in 1984. My academic specialty at the time was US-Soviet relations and I remember full well that no one in the field, not Hough, Stoessinger, Bialer, Ulam, Gaddis, etc., saw the demise of the Soviet Union coming. That it did come forced me to reassess Reagan, and I had to conclude he got quite a few more things right than he was generally given credit for.

RG makes some good points. With regard to Andropov & Chernenko, I'm to guess that my bad memory is responsible for the error. I'll also go back to Brown and see what he says.

With regard to the Pershing deployment, I disagree with SG's suggestion that it was a sort of final gambit on the Kremlin's part, after which they gave up on opposing the West. I'm not sure what the state of the evidence is on this point, but I was under the impression that the Pershing deployment was one more step in the arms control dance, rather than a historic watershed.

Finally, regard to the inspirational effect of Reagan's rhetoric, the testimony of Walesa, Havel and others is all but irrefutable. Yet it was Carter who first energized Soviet dissidents with his unprecedented support for international human rights. To be sure, Carter's rhetoric on Soviet human rights violations became much less confrontational after his first year in office. Even so, it did make a difference.

The more important point, however, is that the inspirational value of Reagan's rhetoric had a negligible impact on Gorbachev's decision to let the the Eastern European satellites break out of the Soviet orbit. I think the best book on this subject is Jacques Levesque's The Engima of 1989: The USSR and the Liberation of Eastern Europe. It's basic argument is that the primary determinant of Gorbachev's Eastern European policy was his absolute refusal to use force to keep the satellites in line. Nor did he actively encourage reforms in Eastern Europe. Rather, Gorbachev simply decided to let the Soviet Union's puppet goverments fend for themselves.

While fending for oneself may have been harder in the face of an inspired opposition, Reagan's rhetoric was hardly the decisive factor that motivated widespread opposition to Soviet rule. Moreover, the satellite governments' unwillingness to use force was an extension of Gorbachev's refusal to back up their security services with Soviet armed forces.

In the final analysis, I don't believe that either Pershing episode or the impact of Reagan's rhetoric provides the sort of evidence one would need to say that Reagan 'won' the Cold War rather than that he accepted Gorbachev's surrender. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 11:47 PM by David Adesnik  

THE OTHER KIND OF OUTSOURCING: Not high-tech jobs to India, but national security in Iraq. If the accusations in this column are correct, then the Pentagon has been complicit in a process that is very, very disturbing. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 11:33 PM by David Adesnik  

THE VIOLENCE CONTINUES: Car bombings in Iraq, today and yesterday. I have to admit, I'm amazed at how many of their fellow Iraqis the insurgents are willing to kill. Or in the case of jihadis, how many of their fellow Muslims.

UPDATE: The electrical power grid is also a mess.
(0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 11:24 PM by David Adesnik  

HAPPY FLAG DAY!

Justice Antonin Scalia, who voted to strike down the statutory ban on flag burning some years ago, has described in speeches how doing so irritated him. He would have loved to put the defendant -- a "bearded, scruffy, sandal-wearing guy burning the American flag" -- in jail, he said. It made him "furious" not to be able to. But "I was handcuffed -- I couldn't help it, that's my understanding of the First Amendment. I can't do the nasty things I'd like to do."

As a frequent sandal-wearer, especially in the summer months, I am quite relieved. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 4:42 PM by David Adesnik  

DID REAGAN WIN THE COLD WAR? Perhaps Kevin and I have lost our ideological bearings, but he's convinced that Reagan won the Cold War while I think that all Reagan did was graciously accept Gorbachev's surrender. According to Kevin, Reagan

Really did win the Cold War. Maybe it didn't happen in quite the way his fans would like to believe, and maybe it wouldn't have happened at all without Mikhail Gorbachev, but still: Reagan's defense buildup and his quixotic insistence on pursuing an unworkable missile defense shield really did help to bring down the Soviet Union. When I say this, it's not because I especially want to believe it, but because the historical record seems to show that it really happened.

Kevin's argument rests on a recent Fred Kaplan column in Slate which develops an argument based on declassified transcripts of Politburo meetings. My counterargument rests on the work of Oxford prof Archie Brown, as presented in his excellent book, The Gorbachev Factor.

Hardly a Reagan cheerleader, Kaplan begins by pointing out that

The Gorbachev factor — too often overlooked in this week of Reagan-hagiography — was crucial. If Yuri Andropov's kidneys hadn't given out, or if Konstantin Chernenko had lived a few years longer, Reagan's bluster and passion would have come to naught; the Cold War would probably have raged on for years; indeed, Reagan's rhetoric and actions might have aggravated tensions.

Kaplan point about Andropov is misleading, since the Politburo appointed him as General Secretary in the expectation that he would die. However, few of us now remember that Chernenko was born in the same year as Ronald Reagan. He was a hardliner and he wasn't supposed to die.

In the past, I've heard conservatives argue that Reagan's military buildup, and especially Star Wars, led the Politburo to appoint Gorbachev in the expectation that he would enact reforms and reduce tensions with the United States. However, Brown makes a solid case that after Chernenko's death there was no one left in the Politburo with Gorbachev's influence, so his elevation reflected power politics rather than a sense of impending crisis. The fact that the rest of the Politburo showed little enthusiasm for Gorbachev's reforms isn't all that surprising given their initial preference for Chernenko.

When it comes to Star Wars, Kaplan's supposed ace in the hole is the transcript of a March 1986 Politburo meeting at which Gorbachev said

"Maybe we should just stop being afraid of the SDI! Of course, we cannot be indifferent to this dangerous program. But [the Americans] are betting precisely on the fact that the USSR is afraid of the SDI. … That is why they are putting pressure on us—to exhaust us."

If somebody says, "Maybe we should stop being afraid of the bogeyman," it usually means he is afraid of the bogeyman. It's pretty clear that in the spring of 1986 Gorbachev and all those around with him were at least a little afraid of the SDI bogeyman.

From where I stand, being "a little afraid" doesn't count for much. The real question is, why did Gorbachev respond to an economic crisis not just with market-based reforms, but with radical democratic reforms that dismantled the Communist Party's total domination of Soviet politics? After all, why not follow the nascent Chinese example of liberalizing the economy without giving up political control?

According to Minxin Pei, Gorbachev's political reforms were a desperate attempt to kickstart an economic reform package that wasn't going anywhere. While Pei makes some excellent points -- especially his explanation of why economic reforms worked in China but not the Soviet Union -- he makes the same mistake as Kaplan by not asking why Gorbachev found political reforms acceptable at all.

It on this point that Brown presents his strongest evidence. As part of younger generation, Gorbachev grew up in a family that suffered horrendously under Stalin. By the same token, Gorbachev was young enough at 25 to have been profoundly influenced by Khrushchev's denunciation of Stalin's inhumanity in 1956.

As a rising but open-minded star in the Communist Party, Gorbachev took advantage of his contacts with Western European politicians to learn more about the democratic and capitalist way of life. From men like Willy Brandt, Gorbachev learned that democracy and human rights were not slogans of American imperialism, but humane answers to the tragic deficiencies of the authoritarian Communist model.

Neither Chernenko nor any of the lesser lights on the Politburo shared this sort of background. The idea that any of them would have negotiated the INF treaty, held elections or let go of Eastern Europe is simply beyond the pale. While they might have spent less on weapons and initiated some economic reforms, the most they would have given Reagan was a second era of detene, not an end to the Cold War.

Kaplan concludes his article by writing that

If Reagan hadn't been president—if Jimmy Carter or Walter Mondale had defeated him or if Reagan had died and George H.W. Bush taken his place—Gorbachev almost certainly would not have received the push or reinforcement that he needed.

I don't buy that for a second. Gorbachev's political and military reforms had nothing to do with Reagan's push. Instead, they were the result of an intensely personal vision of ethics and society that Gorbachev had developed on his own. With Carter or Mondale in office, the US-Soviet rapprochment would have advanced just as rapidly -- with Democrats proclaiming all the way that their President had won the Cold War by abandoning the Republicans' alarmist and alarmingly expensive military build-up.

While Reagan deserves all the credit in the world for working with Gorbachev to end the Cold War, the bottom line is that he got very, very lucky. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 4:33 PM by David Adesnik  

OLSEN TWINS TURN 18: It was inevitable, I guess. Personally, I'm much more excited about Lindsay Lohan crossing the threshhold of legality on July 2.

UPDATE: Perhaps in honor of the occasion, the State of Virginia is launching an aggressive campaign against statutory rape. The campaign's slogan will be: "Isn't she a little young? Sex with a minor -- don't go there." (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 8:59 PM by Patrick Belton  

MORE FROM OXBLOG'S INTREPID AFGHANISTAN CORRESPONDENT:

In this episode, our dashing Afghan adventurer meets Poppies and Pesticides

After lunch, we drove back into town with the local farmer's association to check out their almonds. Like Kunduz and most of the rural Afghan towns I've visited, Tashqurgan offers a forbidding face to any stranger in its streets. High mud-brick walls enclose every home, with windowless, domed clay roofs appearing over the wall. Once you leave the bazaar, the only buildings open to view are ruins or mosques, all usually empty. The outhouses and sewers drain directly into the dusty streets. To a Western eye, the residential areas have a stifling lack of public space -- no parks, few open areas. But the private spaces are elaborate, comfortable, and beautiful; as soon as a gate opens, you can see whitewashed houses, grape trellises, canals, and gardens just inside. From the street, you would hardly realize there was a tree in town. Inside the compounds, you realize that the whole city is an orchard. It's a disconcerting mix of external squalor and internal beauty.

We drove through the streets in our convoy of SUVs, with the shooters keeping a sharp eye out for trouble. For some reason, we were turned away from several gates. When we were finally admitted to one of the farmers' compounds, our suspicions were confirmed: under the almond and pomegranate trees, the whole place was one big opium poppy field. The flowers were tall and gangly, not the deep red carpet from Oz some of you might be envisioning. It was the beginning of harvest season; the bulbs had been scratched to extract opium gum, and most of the poppies had bloomed a pale pink. The farmer chuckled with mild embarrassment, then took us around to diagnose the pest problems he was having with his almonds. In the next compound we visited, the farmer had diversified his crop, growing a broad row of cannabis around the poppies.

Needless to say, anyone working in Afghan agriculture has to deal with the question of poppy cultivation. Afghanistan produces a ridiculously high proportion of world opium -- somewhere between 70 and 79 percent, these days. Poppies can be grown profitably even under drought conditions (though irrigation greatly increases their value), and are on average four times more profitable than wheat. They're also labor-intensive around harvest time, requiring eight or nine times as much labor as wheat -- but there's no shortage of labor in Afghanistan, especially as this is a job rural women can perform. The poppy price dropped more than expected at this year's harvest, but because farmers can hang on to the dry opium for months, they'll probably still cut a significant profit.

Opium isn't just valuable as a cash crop, but as cash... and credit, too. The Afghan banking system collapsed over the decades of war and Communism, with the final blow delivered when the Taliban enforced a clumsy interest-free "Islamic" banking mandate and dismissed all female bank employees. Inflation soared, credit dried up. Only the central bank, Da Afghanistan Bank (Pashto for "Bank of Afghanistan", not ebonics for "The Afghanistan Bank") survived. Throughout rural Afghanistan, opium became the de facto currency, and opium traders paid local farmers a lump-sum in advance for their yearly crop -- in effect, a loan on highly advantageous terms for the traffickers. Even now that Afghanistan has a few banks and a stable currency, "narco-lenders" are still an important source of credit for many farmers.

Does this make opium a good thing for Afghan farmers? No, not really. Interest rates are high on narco-loans, often trapping the farmer into future opium production; and the money has played a part in funding all those guns and landmines floating around rural Afghanistan. The opium trade has had a terrible effect on neighboring countries, too, enriching powerful mafias and contributing to appalling rates of heroin and opium abuse. Despite its draconian anti-drug policies, Iran has nearly as many junkies as all of Western Europe -- in absolute numbers, not as a percentage of population! And of course, Afghan opium also helps fund the Taliban and al-Qaeda, which is no good for anybody.

The Taliban famously banned poppy cultivation in July 2000, which led to a slight thaw in international condemnation of their regime, a plunge in world opium supply, and a dramatic spike in prices. However, they didn't ban the opium _trade_, and their ban came immediately after the 2000 poppy harvest. They had apparently stockpiled a great deal of opium, and made money hand over fist from the ban. (Our friends in the Northern Alliance also cleaned up, incidentally, planting tremendous amounts of opium poppy in their stronghold province of Badakhshan). The Taliban didn't provide any alternative crops for the farmers, and so their ban impoverished innumerable Afghans already hard-hit by drought. We'll never know whether the Taliban would have maintained the ban had they remained in power past 2001, but I rather suspect they would have retracted it long enough to rebuild their stockpiles, then tried to trade a new ban for international favors (something like what North Korea's doing with its plutonium). The remnants fighting along the border have now declared that it's religiously okay to cultivate opium for its "medicinal properties." Right.

President Karzai's declared ban in January 2002 doesn't seem to have had much effect; he isn't beating up farmers on the same scale as the Taliban. Cultivation spread to a number of previously poppy-free provinces last year. Some local governors implemented eradication measures along the highways, but moved their own poppy fields up to remote mountain areas. In Balkh province, the "eradication" usually takes place just after the opium has been harvested. All in all, it's not a terribly impressive performance.

My friend Mumtaz reports that a local commander near Kandahar recently told him: "If Karzai says, 'Don’t grow poppy,' I will still grow poppy. But if Khalilzad says 'Don't grow poppy,' well, then I will be poor." (Zalmay Khalilzad is the American ambassador to Afghanistan). The Americans have hit a number of heroin laboratories and drug markets belonging to warlords, and could presumably knock out a lot more if they chose. It's a dangerous game -- there are some very rich folks out there (including some in the Kabul government) who could start stirring up trouble for the U.S. occupation if it cuts into their opium profits. But I think at this stage, we're better off taking the risk and hitting the traffickers than burdening the farmers with a major eradication program. Give the big donor-funded agricultural projects another couple years to demonstrate alternative cash crops (almonds, raisins, cumin, etc.), set up rural credit and finance institutions, and fix up irrigation structures, so the farmers have genuine alternatives to poppy. Then the government can start enforcing a ban at the farmer level. The U.N. has also suggested scheduling big public works projects to coincide with that labor-intensive opium harvest season, to draw labor away from poppy farmers. It's an interesting idea, which to my knowledge hasn't been tried, but deserves to be.

In practice, I doubt we'll have a couple years to set up alternatives. I suspect that if the Afghan presidential election goes ahead as scheduled, and Hamid Karzai wins as scheduled, we'll see a strict ban reiterated this fall. The elections are supposed to fall in September, and poppy planting generally starts in October; Karzai won't have to antagonize rural Afghans by declaring an eradication policy during his campaign, but there'll be plenty of time for tough talk and interdictions before that other presidential election scheduled for November... And by spring, when the poppy crop comes up, we'll see an eradication program. There's too much pressure from Washington, where a number of "eradicators" with Latin American experience stand to profit from a push to clear fields in Afghanistan.

Anyway, that day in Tashqurgan we told the farmers that we couldn't fund them unless they signed a paper promising to cease poppy cultivation. They told us they understood, and would take that into consideration when deciding whether they wanted our funding. Our California experts examined their almonds and pomegranates. We then all sat down on a big red carpet under a shade tree, and the farmers passed around refreshments -- a tray of white mulberries, and six glasses of shorombe, "the Afghan beer," as Mohibi called it. Shorombe, known as "dogh" in Dari, is sour yogurt blended with salt, pepper, and sometimes cucumber. It's held to make you drowsy, and was a favorite beverage of the Taliban. (My colleague Rahimi, who worked in Kabul during the late 1990s, once commented to the Taliban Minister of Rural Development that the Northern Alliance could take Kabul without firing a shot, if they only knew to attack during the hour from 2:00 to 3:00 every day when everybody in every ministry was in a shorombe-induced stupor. Fortunately, the Taleb was amused by this observation).

We drained our glasses and got down to business. The California agriculturalists noted that a number of the almonds had been infested by bugs, and asked what pesticides the farmers here were using. The farmers broke out a couple of bottles covered in cheery pictures of worms, beetles, flies, tomatoes, corn, wheat, and other pests/crops. Our expert read the bottle: "Methyl parathion. Huh. You know, they took that away from us in the States a few years ago. Highly, highly toxic. Are you guys wearing any sort of protective covering when you spray this?" No, they hadn't ever been told that was necessary. The expert put down the bottle gingerly and looked for someplace to wipe his fingers. "Yeah, in California after we sprayed this stuff, we had to post a sign telling everyone to keep out of the field for a week or so. Don't suppose you do that here?" No, they definitely didn't do that. The expert looked around a little anxiously. "You use it on the almonds. Anything else?" Well, yes. Pretty much everything else. Including the produce, like the cucumbers that had probably gone into our shorombe. We stopped eating the mulberries.

After a couple more questions about how many people had dropped dead with poisoning symptoms in Tashqurgan in recent months -- thankfully few -- we decided to our relief that the bottle was most likely full of a diluted or totally different solution. Mohibi called up the pesticide vendor and chewed him out for his misleading bottle illustrations that had suggested that methyl parathion went well with tomatoes. Yeesh. We chatted for a little longer with the farmers, and suggested other pest control means. Then, as it got on toward late afternoon, we decided it was time to head to Mazar.

[next time: why the helpless Kabul government/powerful warlords story ain't necessarily so] (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 1:20 AM by David Adesnik  

DREZNER! Guest blogging for Glenn at MSNBC, on World News Tonight over at ABC, and still watch-dogging those journalists who ignore the evidence and confuse outsourcing with Armageddon.

And somehow, he still finds time to over-intellectualize the dating history of Jennifer Lopez. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 12:36 AM by David Adesnik  

EULOGY: For President Reagan, courtesy of President Bush:

He believed that people were basically good, and had the right to be free. He believed that bigotry and prejudice were the worst things a person could be guilty of. He believed in the Golden Rule and in the power of prayer. He believed that America was not just a place in the world, but the hope of the world...

When he saw evil camped across the horizon, he called that evil by its name. There were no doubters in the prisons and gulags, where dissidents spread the news, tapping to each other in code what the American President had dared to say. There were no doubters in the shipyards and churches and secret labor meetings, where brave men and women began to hear the creaking and rumbling of a collapsing empire. And there were no doubters among those who swung hammers at the hated wall as the first and hardest blow had been struck by President Ronald Reagan...

As he showed what a President should be, he also showed us what a man should be. Ronald Reagan carried himself, even in the most powerful office, with a decency and attention to small kindnesses that also defined a good life. He was a courtly, gentle and considerate man, never known to slight or embarrass others.

(0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 12:20 AM by David Adesnik  

THE POLLS, CONT'D: In response to the semi-recent surveys of Iraqi public opinion, SD observes that

I don't know much about Kurdish history, but I doubt they have been a united, secualr, democratic oriented people for a very long time. If I remember correctly, they had been plagued for years by tribal power struggles. They were the epitome of the violent, factional Middle Eastern political culture. Now they appear to be the model Moslem ethnic group.

What did we do right? I would expect that they would appreciate our protection. But I would not expect them to embrace our values as they have. Is there anything we can learn from this?

The Kurds' attitudes are especially surprising given their past relationship with the United States. In the 1970s, Kissinger cut a deal with Iran and Iraq that allowed thousands of Kurds to be slaughtered. Then we let Saddam kill tens or even hundreds of thousands. And even after the first Gulf War we let thousands die in a failed uprising before establishing a protectorate in northern Iraq.

So what did we do right? Well, my best guess is that the Kurds had a unique opportunity during the 1991-2003 interregnum to slowly develop capitalist and democratic norms while being reminded on a daily basis of how horrific life under Saddam had been -- because he was still living right next door.

While the neighboring republics and kingdoms may provide Iraqis with some reminder of what their options are, a foreign country's flaws simply don't have the same cultural significance. Instead, Iraqis today are free to focus on their material deprivation and the failings of the American occupation. In contrast, the Kurds experienced American protection without an American occupation.

So is there lesson here? Perhaps. I think it is that attitudes toward the United States won't improve while our troops are on the ground. But what matters more than whether or not they like us is whether or not they believe in democracy. And if they polls are right, they do. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 3:00 PM by David Adesnik  

JESUS SAVES! (MOSES INVESTS.) Last night I was Saved! It is a remarkable film, destined for a place in the great canon of teen angst and rebellion. Yet it stands out from other classics of the genre because, instead of Generic American High, its setting is the American Eagle Christian High School.

Saved! is a film that recognizes the profound difference between growing up in secular, public school America and growing up in a faith-based educational community. It is a difference that I identify with very strongly, because I attended an Orthodox Jewish school in New York City from kindergarten through twelfth grade.

I grew up in a world apart. All of us were aware of mainstream American culture, but it was not ours. Ours was a religious tradition that influenced everything from how we dressed to how we prayed to what we ate.

In its opening minutes, Saved! hints at the profound ethical transformation that a religious upbringing can have on a child. Instead of a sadistic bitch a la Heathers, the prettiest and most popular girl in school take cares of her wheelchair-bound brother and tries to save the school's token, chain-smoking Jew from the peril of her ways.

Of course, there is a hint of condescension and intolerance in this attempted conversion. But we also understand that it is fundamentally an act of kindness. Sadly, as the film develops, all such hints of kindness fall away. Each and every one of the Christian characters reveals his or herself as hypocritical, arrogant, or even cruel.

In contrast, the pregnant heroine, the wheelchair-bound apostate, the demonized homosexual and the chain-smoking Jew become the school's saviors. They are the only characters capable of true compassion and love. And once again, I identify with them. I hated my high school. I hated its hypocrisy, its ignorance and its racism. I hated how it was brainwashing a generation of bright and well-intentioned children, transforming them into a ghettoized and incurious suburban middle-class.

That, of course, is an exaggeration. But it is what I felt at the time. Yet it seems that the adults responsible for Saved! have not learned to leaven their criticism with any sort of nuanced perspective. In the climactic scene, the pregnant and almost-birthing heroine lectures the school's principal on how imposing one's beliefs on others is cruel and unjust because the world isn't a black-and-white place. Sadly, there is not a single hint in the entire scene that the film's creators recognize how their politically correct polemic has fallen prey to exactly the same hypocrisies that it preaches against.

Nonetheless, the film is a teenage classic. The acting is first-rate. The clothes and music and language ("Let's kick it Jesus-style!") perfectly capture the existence of an alternative Christian universe. And above all, the humor is devilishily irreverent. Upon seeing the nobody-yet-knows-she's-pregnant heroine emerge from a Planned Parenthood clinic, the Jew tells the apostate that there is only one reason a good Christian girl would be walking out of the clinic in dark glasses. He responds: "To plant a pipe bomb?"

In the last week, I have also seen another film, Priest, that attacks Christian intolerance with much greater sophistication as well as much greater honesty and kindness. Its protagonist is Father Greg, a British Catholic struggling both with his own homosexuality as well as the social degeneration of his working-class parish.

Not once in the course of his suffering -- often imposed by the intolerance of his community and his church -- does Greg abandon his faith in Christ. He rages against the Lord, insults him and even lusts after his muscular, taut and crucified body. Rather than a one-sided lecture, the film culminates in an inconclusive scriptural shouting match between Father Greg, his supporter Father Matthew, and an aging parishioner.

With the fire and brimstone of the Old Testament, the parishioner condemns Father Greg's perversion. With the tolerance and compassion of the New, Fathers Greg and Matthew preach forgiveness. Unabashed about its politics, the film lets its audience know what it believes: that if Christ is love, then the love of one man for another should be a source of inspiration, not a source of shame.

It is a controversial message but an honest one. Those who disagree are portrayed as neither ignorant nor hypocritical. The only villian in the film is the vicious father who commits incest with his daughter, one of Father Greg's students. His is not a sin of love. It is a barbaric sin that its perpetrator must hide from both his wife and his community because there is no defense for its cruelty.

At their heart, both Saved! and Priest are about the clash between absolute love and absolute faith. In my own days of adolescent rebellion, I saw love and faith as irreconciliable antagonists. I captured that message in my high school yearbook by placing below my portrait a poem by Langston Hughes known as 'Luck'. It reads:

Sometimes a crumb falls
From the tables of joy,
Sometimes a bone
Is flung.


To some people
Love is given,
To others
Only Heaven.

I'm not sure it means exactly what I thought it did, but I will always remember it.

UPDATE: Amazingly, the NY Times fails to note any sort of hypocrisy in its review of Saved! Instead, A.O. Scott writes that

The film, directed by Brian Dannelly, also wants to be a peace offering [Like the Germans' at Munich? --ed.] in the culture wars, suggesting that the polarization of our society is a smoke screen for our own internal confusion about values, morals and desire...

Some Christians may object that "Saved!," in the end, promotes liberal humanist piety at the expense of religious belief, and there is some truth to this complaint. At the same time, satire can never be evenhanded, and it's possible that this movie would have been better if it had indulged in a little more cruelty.

(0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 2:59 PM by David Adesnik  

WELCOME TO PLANET EARTH, LITTLE EDWARD: Your Mommy and Daddy love you very much and I think they will be wonderful parents. Coming soon: Baby photos! (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 2:47 AM by David Adesnik  

THREE CHEERS FOR JIMMY CARTER: I'm sure Ronald Reagan would be proud of his predecessor's efforts to monitor elections and promote democracy around the globe. In fact, Carter even played a critical role in monitoring the 1990 elections in Nicaragua which did so much to vindicate Reagan's struggle against the Sandinistas.

Carter's most recent effort involves Venezuela. Hugo Chavez is still trying to rig the vote, but Jimmy and the OAS are on him every step of the way. Let's hope that the Bush administration gives Carter and the OAS all the support they need. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 2:24 AM by David Adesnik  

THE IRAQIS HATE US: Well, at least this WaPo article says so. It seems, however, that everyone Ed Cody interviewed for the article is from Baghdad, which tends to be far more anti-American than either the Shi'ite south or the Kurdish north.

But what's really going on, I think, is that the polls which showed 80% of Iraqis have an unfavorable opinion of US troops have given reporters a license to write 80% negative stories. If the polls say 80% don't like American soldiers, then four out of five man-in-the-street quotations will be anti-American.

You see the same thing with polls in the US, although the split is rarely so dramatic. Anyhow, Ed Cody puts it this way in his article:

Since U.S. forces drove to Baghdad and overthrew President Saddam Hussein in April 2003, the 138,000 American soldiers stationed here have lost their status as liberators in the eyes of most Iraqis. Polling by the U.S.-led Coalition Provisional Authority has chronicled a steady souring of opinion, with the most recent surveys showing about 80 percent of Iraqis with an unfavorable opinion of U.S. troops.

While I don't think that a majority of Iraqis have positive feelings about our soldiers, it is interesting how Cody assumes they have lost their status as liberators. After all, a soldier can be both an occupier and a liberator, much as our soldiers now are.

But the more important point is that Cody and numerous others misinterpret the polls. Most Iraqis think they are better off since the invasion and even more Iraqis expect things to get better in years to come. In addition, 50% of Iraqis expect their nation to become democratic.

From where I stand, that constitutes a powerful albeit implicit acknowledgement that American soldiers are liberators as well as occupiers. The majority of Iraqis may not be happy with the way Americans treat them day to day, but they haven't forgotten who it was that toppled Saddam and who will oversee the transition to democracy. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 2:11 AM by David Adesnik  

REAGAN REALITY CHECK: Slowly, the press seems to be getting its memory back. Dan Balz writes in a straight news column that

The parallels are obvious for all to see: two conservative presidents who made tax cuts at home and muscular confrontation abroad the centerpieces of their administrations, westerners who sought to restrain the federal government but who had trouble taming the beast, men of faith who courted Christian conservatives, politicians who were often controversial and divisive in office.

It's hard to disagree with that, regardless of your political persuasion. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 1:57 AM by David Adesnik  

IDEOLOGICAL CONSISTENCY LONG OVERDUE: Daniel Pipes says that certain Islamic terrorists are now taking care not to kill Muslims, only the rest of us. Does that mean that we should appoint Kareem Abdul Jabbar as our next Ambassador to Iraq? (Link via JVL) (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 11:50 PM by David Adesnik  

WHAT THE MEDIA REALLY THOUGHT ABOUT REAGAN: Andrew Sullivan has a remarkable round-up that adds a lot of breadth to my previous posts on the subject. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 3:20 PM by Patrick Belton  

GADDIS ON REAGAN'S LEGACY AS A STRATEGIST: From a lecture he gave last month at George Washington. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 2:13 PM by David Adesnik  

DEJA VU ALL OVER AGAIN: According to a NYT columnist, the President's foreign policy

reflects a general ideological premise of this Administration: that the United States can best deal with its problems in the world by using force and acting unilaterally, without regard to the views of friends and neighbors.

The columnist was Anthony Lewis, the President was Reagan and the date of publication was April 16, 1984. So? The point I'm trying to make here is that liberals should reconsider the fond memories of Reagan they've suddenly developed in the six days since his passing.

Moreover, I would argue that this sort of criticism directed at Reagan was far more valid than similar criticism directed at Bush. Lewis's column came in respone to Reagan's illegal mining of Nicaragua's harbors in the spring of 1984. Because the CIA failed to inform the Senate Intelligence Committee of what it was up to, numerous conservatives were just as outraged about the mining as were liberals. Barry Goldwater, who was both Reagan's ideological godfather and the chariman of the Senate Intelligence Committee told the director of the CIA that

All this past weekend, I've been trying to figure out how I can most easily tell you my feelings about the discovery of the President having approved mining some of the harbors of Central America.

It gets down to one, little, simple phrase: I am pissed off!...

This is an act violating international law. It is an act of war. For the life of me, I don't see how we are going to explain it.

Now, I'm not saying that we shouldn't criticize Bush because, in some respects, Reagan was worse. Mostly, I'm interested as a scholar in setting the historical record straight. But I do think it is important to separate criticism of Bush from his personality. We should recognize both that his actions are rubbing salt into old partisan wounds and that the Democrats' response reflects a cultural trope as much as does an actual consideration of the President's flaws. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 5:01 AM by Patrick Belton  

WANT A KID? You only get to keep them for a year, but if you'd like to be a host for a student from Afghanistan, Central Asia, or Russia, there are three programmes which are looking for host families as well as local coordinators (who basically keep an eye out on how they're doing in school and with their host families, make sure they have prom dates, etc.). If you're interested in finding out more, email Tatyana. They have a website, too, at www.americancouncils.org.

The three scholarships, by the way, are these: 1) a Future Leaders Exchange Program (FLEX), which is a scholarship program funded by the United States to encourage learning and understanding between Americans and students from the Newly Independent States of the former Soviet Union; 2) the Youth Exchange and Study Program (YES-Afghanistan), also funded by America to bring students from Afghanistan to study in the US for a year; 3) and the Open Russia Ambassadors Program (ORAP) a Yukos Oil funded scholarship program for students from Russia, particularly Siberian towns.

Kids, incidentally, can be really cute, if you're looking for an extra incentive. (Bibliographic reference: cite Kleinfeld, Kleinfeld, and Kleinfeld 1979) (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 12:41 AM by David Adesnik  

A LITTLE TORTURE NEVER HURT ANYONE: Steve Sturm thinks that OxBlog, Andrew Sullivan and the Washington Post are being naive in their opposition to torture. Steve asks:

How will you explain to the families of Americans killed in future terror attacks that their loved ones died because this country did not use all of the tools at its disposal - in large part because of your opposition - to learn of the attack in advance?

In defense of Andrew and the WaPo, I think I should point out that they are not categorically against torture, but against the irresponsible way in which the Bush Administration has dealt with the issue, both ex ante and ex post.

On the other hand, OxBlog was pretty categorical. Then again, it was a one-line post. So let me clarify: I recognize that there are certain extreme situations in which torture is justified. If a terrorist knows that a chemical warhead is about to explode in downtown Baghdad, then the gloves come off.

But in general, I think is premature to say either that torture is an efficient method of interrogation or that it is the only method. Moreover, the negative repercussions of torture in terms of both domestic and foreign opinion are so great that we can only afford to use it as a method of last resort. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 12:06 AM by David Adesnik  

OXBLOG ENDORSES CHENEY!?!? OxFriend James Kirchick has a column in The Hill about anti-Semitic congressman Jim Moran (D-VA) and his Republican opponent Lisa Marie Cheney.

One thing I didn't realize until reading Jamie's column is that Moran's district, the 8th, consists of Arlington and Alexandria. In other words, it is the home of some of the most educated voters in the country.

I hope that they realize that having an anti-Semitic representative is simply intolerable. Unfortunately, the district's Democrats didn't recognize that fact in this week's primary, in which Moran beat challenger Andy Rosenberg by almost 20 percent.

So what can you do about it? Well, I just gave Cheney $20. Click here if you're thinking about it, too. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 11:57 PM by David Adesnik  

DOGS IN THE NEWS: The good news is that dogs are much smarter than we thought. The bad news is that military intelligence officers explicitly authorized the use of dogs to intimidate prisoners at Abu Ghraib.

So I guess President Bush has two options: One, to blame the dogs at Abu Ghraib for not knowing better, since they're so smart. Two, to stop pretending that what happened at Abu Ghraib was the responsibility of just a few soldiers with a sadistic side. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 11:19 PM by David Adesnik  

SIMPLE IRONY OR POETIC JUSTICE? With the 40th president's body still warm, both the WaPo and NYT indulged their liberal appetites for irony by demanding that the 43rd president honor his predecessor's memory by doing something anathema to numerous conservatives: lifting restrictions on stem cell research.

But wait -- the irony goes deeper. According to this WaPo article -- published the day before the WaPo editorial -- the relationship between stem cell research and fighting Alzheimer's is tenuous at best. However, that is the last thing that stem cell researchers want to admit, since they benefit from the public confusion generated by Nancy Reagan's advocacy for the cause.

But wait -- the irony goes deeper than that. As both candidate and president, Reagan persuaded himself of patent untruths in order to promote conservative causes. What is the source of air pollution? Trees! Are there right-wing death squads in El Salvador? No, just Communists in disguise. Did I honor my promise not to trade arms for hostages? "My heart and my best intentions still tell me that is true, but the facts and the evidence tell me it is not."

So, if the First Lady and the liberal media are now Reagan's good name to popularize bad science, is that ironic? Perhaps. But I'd prefer to call it poetic justice. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 5:02 PM by David Adesnik  

RAY CHARLES: Rest in peace. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 9:00 AM by Patrick Belton  

OXBLOG'S WINE PICKS: This is going to be a running section. Last night's: Don Melchor 2000 private reserve (Chile). This is a Cabernet Savignon which has remarkable body and a long, tarry finish, and its complex layers of flavour, structured tanins and hints of smoke and pepper made it one of the best reds I've had in months. Tonight's: whatever Rachel ends up bringing home from Marks & Spencer. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 8:40 AM by Patrick Belton  

KERRY DOING WELL IN COLLEGE: With the release of a new Zogby poll, Art Tripias updates his State by State 2004 map to give Kerry the lead by 296-242. (ed: See what electoral college sophisticates 2000 has made us all!) Florida and Pennsylvania swing this week from Bush's column to Kerry's, along with less vote-heavy Oregon, Nevada, and West Virginia. Bush strengthens his lead in Ohio, while Kerry does better in Michigan and Minnesota, and worse in Iowa. The flip seems more due to Art using Zogby's numbers instead of the Hegehog Report's than to any change in the dynamic of the race, since Zogby's numbers actually represent a decline (from twelve to eleven) since his projection of 24 May in the number of the the 16 battleground states in which Kerry leads Bush. (Thanks to OxFriend Dick Riley for pointing Art's revised map out to us....) (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 2:26 AM by David Adesnik  

THAT EXPLAINS WHY I'VE BECOME LESS LIBERAL SINCE COLLEGE: The more you weigh, the more likely you are to vote Republican. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 2:11 AM by David Adesnik  

GOP ANTI-SEMITISM: Moran isn't the only moron. It's the anti-Soros crowd, too. Of course, if you're a devoted Dem, you can celebrate the GOP's efforts to embarrass itself. Anyhow, more reactions here. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 2:06 AM by David Adesnik  

TORTURE: It is wrong for America, whether practiced at home or abroad. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 1:57 AM by David Adesnik  

THE CHALLENGE OF COVERING IRAQ: A very thoughtful piece in the Post, focusing on how to balance the imperative of security with the imperative of getting the story. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 1:33 AM by David Adesnik  

WHY IS THE NYT BEING SO NICE TO BUSH? It's hard to know whether the Security Council's 15-0 vote reflects a major accomplishment for the United States, or whether it simply reflects the UN's willing to sign off on the American occupation provided that they don't actually have to support it with soldiers or funds. Accordingly, the WaPo reports that

The Bush administration considers the Security Council vote a victory, particularly after failing to win U.N. support for the March 2003 invasion.

Yet the NYT reports Bush's alleged victory as if it were a fact rather than a boast, hence:

The 15-to-0 vote on the measure, co-sponsored by the United States and Britain, gave President Bush a major diplomatic win.

This sort of unwarranted praise reflects a pattern that I have noticed both while reading old NYT and WaPo articles for my dissertation as well as while blogging about the UN before the invasion of Iraq. In both cases, American presidents could almost guarantee themselves favorable coverage by working through multilateral organizations, UN-based or otherwise.

Moreover, the significance of achievements in any sort of multilateral context is often exagerrated by the press. While it may be too early to say this about the UN and Iraq, I find it quite surprising how any positive blip in US negotiations with Nicaragua in the 1980s got spun as a major opportunity to resolve tensions with the Sandinistas.

In addition, the Nicaraguans racked up a lot of positive headlines by making peace offers they knew the United States couldn't accept. To be fair, the WaPo did this just as much as the NYT despite the Post's more moderate editorial board. On the bright side, it seems the Post has learned a thing or two since then. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 1:16 AM by David Adesnik  

PLUS CA CHANGE:

When Rep. Chris Cox (R-Calif.) was in graduate school at Harvard University in the mid-1970s, he often tuned in to a Boston country music station to listen to Ronald Reagan's political commentaries. "It felt a little bit like listening to Radio Free Europe behind the Iron Curtain," he said.

(0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 12:32 AM by David Adesnik  

REAGAN THE FANTASY LIBERAL: Just like Wes Clark, Maureen Dowd is trying to attack Bush by comparing him (unfavorably) to Reagan. Yet in order to come up with such an unfavorable comparison, Dowd and Clark have to cherry pick or simply fabricate the rare dovish moments in Reagan's presidency.

I'm opposed to this for two reasons. First, for better or worse, Bush hasn't come close to Reagan in terms of hawkishness or intransigence. Second, liberals should not abet conservative efforts to launder Reagan's record. Third, I've spent this whole week being pissed off at what a poor knowledge of recent history most journalists have, despite the fact they lived through it themselves.

I'm so pissed off that I am allowed to defy basic axioms of mathematics.

UPDATE: Finally, Howard Kurtz provides some perspective on the media's incredible ability to forget how much it hated Reagan.

UPDATE II: Jim Hoagland is also trying to correct a lot of the misperceptions that are out there.

UPDATE III: Now Kevin Drum is joining the Reagan-better-than-Bush crowd. I don't get it. As someone who spends his days reading newspapers from and books about the 80's, I find it amazing that anyone could describe Reagan as more flexible or more responsive to criticism. I have two words for you, people: IRAN-CONTRA.

UPDATE IV: Actually, Iran-Contra is probably one word, not two. But as noted above, I am exempt from the laws of mathematics. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 12:27 AM by David Adesnik  

OXBLOG CONDEMNS ASSASSINATION PLOTS: But you've got to give Qaddafi credit for at least recognizing that Saudi Arabia is an embarrassment to the Middle East. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 5:30 PM by Patrick Belton  

WITTY STALINIST PUT-DOWN OF THE DAY (or something like that): 'The South Korean army's military provocations in the sensitive waters in the West Sea is as foolish an act as jumping into the fire with faggots on its back.' North Korean official news agency KCNA, via CNN. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 4:52 PM by Patrick Belton  

HEARD AROUND TOWN: Nathan Hale energy guru Ronan claims that 'Your mom reads my Blog, suckah' has become the latest hip insult on the edgy inner-city streets of, well, Cambridge, anyway. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 4:35 PM by Patrick Belton  

NOTES ON A 6-MONTH OLD CNN ARTICLE: I'd just run across a link to this CNN piece on Salam Pax. Interesting points: (1) author Avril Stephens (who I'll go easy on, as she sounds from her first name like a coethnic of yers truly) inventively manages to misspell 'blog', continually referring to Salam Pax's product as a 'log', (2) it's interesting, in light of the recent discussion on the conspicuous lack of female bloggers, that according to Avril anyway a full 40 percent of Iraqi bloggers are women (i.e., 2 out of the 5); and (3) Salam Pax has apparently been fielding emails from Iraqis ever since the end of the war asking how to download porn. Looks like they took that 'democracy, whisky, and sexy' thing seriously.... (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 4:10 PM by Patrick Belton  

YOU DON'T SAY: 'Harrods rethink over Hindu goddess underwear' (BBC) (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 8:20 AM by Patrick Belton  

ONE SORELY NEGLECTED aspect of the Al Ghraib prison mess, which I don't believe either mainstream media or bloggers have yet devoted anything approximating enough attention to, is the reflection it casts on prisons here at home.*

When the Washington Post profiled Specialist Charles Graner, the face behind many of the most brutal images to come out of Al Ghraib, one of the most startling revelations to come out of the article was that this was his day job. Graner, a reservist, had been employed between the two Gulf Wars at Fayette County Prison and at State Correctional Institution-Greene in southwestern Pennsylvania. Images from how Graner and the other guards treated prisoners there rings eerily familiar to the images we have been treated to in the news over the past month. According to the Post's David Finkel and Christian Davenport,

In 1992, [Graner] was working at a county prison in Pennsylvania with guards who acknowledge beating up prisoners as a means of control

According to allegations which led to the firing of two dozen guards in 1998, at Greene guards as a matter of course 'beat prisoners, spit in their food, showered them with racial epithets and wrote "KKK" in one beaten prisoner's blood'.

'In 1994, [Graner] made a fellow prison guard [named Robert Tajc] sick by spraying Mace into his coffee.'

'In 1998, when he was working as a guard in a state prison, he was accused by one inmate [Horatio Nimley] of slipping a razor blade into his food.' 'Nimley, who is serving time for burglary, takes a spoonful [of mashed potatoes]. His mouth fills with blood. He spits out a razor blade. He screams for help. At first the guards ignore him. Then they take him to the nurse. And then they punch him, kick him and slam him to the floor, and when he yells, "Stop, stop," one of the guards says, "Shut up, nigger, before we kill you."'

Prison abuse in America doesn't receive nearly the exposure it should - whether because of misguided subconcious notions that prisoners deserve whatever comes to them, the reluctance of broader rights organisations to associate themselves with their causes, or a more simple lack of resources and attention to the problem.

But Al Ghraib - if it is to have any beneficial repercussions apart from serving as a recruiting poster for organisations and movements in each country which seek portray the United States, not governments such as Saddam's, as the chief enemy of human dignity - can at least provide an opportunity to examine and address this issue, which mocks human dignity and our own nobler commitments to the fair rule of law in our penal, judicial, and police institutions.

Of organisations which have begun to bring the issue to a larger national stage, the efforts of Human Rights Watch are worth noting (I'm happy to use this space to draw the attention to the work of any other groups our readers might know about). Slate has covered the issue, too, from the perspective of prison rape.

More is needed. Much more.

____________
*(By 'here', incidentally, I mean the United States, not England; a ditto referent for 'home', though that's not intended to disparage against a country that's often made me feel warmly welcome as a half-decade's resident.) (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 7:07 AM by Patrick Belton  

PRESIDENTIAL HISTORIAN RICHARD MILLER HAS UNEARTHED a long speculated-about suicide poem by future President Lincoln, dating from 1838. Joshua Shenk has more in the New Yorker:

On August 25, 1838, the Sangamo Journal, a four-page Whig newspaper in Springfield, Illinois, carried its usual mixture of ads, news, and editorials. Wallace & Diller’s Drug and Chemical Store had just received a fresh supply of sperm oil, fishing rods, and French cologne. L. Higby, the town collector, gave notice that all citizens must pay their street tax or face “trouble.” Atop the news page, the paper carried an unsigned poem, thirty-six lines long. The poem, which is typical of the era, in its sentiment and morbidness, stands out now for two reasons: first, its subject is suicide (the title of the poem is “The Suicide’s Soliloquy”); second, its author was most likely a twenty-nine-year-old politician and lawyer named Abraham Lincoln.

(0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 6:08 AM by Patrick Belton  

OXBLOG'S AFGHANISTAN CORRESPONDENT STRIKES AGAIN:

This time, our adventurous dashing hero experiments with Gorges and Guns

In the late morning, we passed through the town of Pul-e-Khumre and turned onto the road to Mazar. The road wound up from the broad, fertile lowlands of Baghlan into grassy, treeless hills. Half the terrain in Afghanistan seems to have been designed to facilitate ambushes, and the hill country of Samangan was no exception; every turn in the road brings you out underneath or facing some high vantage from which a surprise attack could be launched. The deep, curving creases between hills would allow easy getaways. As elsewhere, the littering of old tanks and truck frames along the roadside testified to the success of past guerrillas.

Descending from the hills, we saw the thick shadow of forests in the distance: the poplars and almond orchards of Samangan town. The recent brawling between militias in the area hasn't depressed a local construction boom; large new cement houses seemed to be going up all along the road into town. The local Ministry of Agriculture folks were gone, so we drove on to visit their counterparts an hour or so north. The forests and broad wheat fields gave way to a range of desert crags, which crept in on either side of the highway until suddenly we found ourselves driving into Tashqurgan Gorge.

The gorge is unbelievable -- a natural gap in the rock, barely wide enough for the road and a narrow river, with sheer cliffs shooting up hundreds of feet on either side. This natural gateway was hotly contested during the decades of war, and here for the first time I saw on the shoulder of the road the red-and-white-painted stones that indicate uncleared minefields (you're safe on the white side of the rocks, likely to lose a limb on the red side). Not thirty feet from the landmines, entrepreneurial Afghans have set up a half-dozen fruit stands catering to the travelers who stop to gawp at the gorge. We stopped, and gawped, and bought a lot of really tasty apricots.

On the far side of the gorge, the towering cliffs quickly descend to low clay outcrops, with a scattering of walled homes and scenic orchards along the river. These are the outskirts of Tashqurgan -- also known by its ancient name of Kholm, from the jolly old days when the Uzbek khanates of Kunduz and Kholm vied for supremacy of the steppe. Locals claim that eight hundred years ago, the plain was fertile and populous, and you could travel the many miles between Kholm and Mazar-e-Sharif by jumping rooftop to rooftop. Now there's just a thick ribbon of trees running north along the river from Tashqurgan, which like most rivers in northern Afghanistan is swallowed by the desert long before reaching the Amu Darya. The wasteland beyond is empty, oppressively featureless -- it's a palpable shock to drive out of the dramatic crags of Tashqurgan Gorge and suddenly face a completely empty horizon. The minute we drove down into the arid plains, swarms of locusts began hitting our windshield with heavy, wet splats.

We took lunch at a lone house in the desert, with representatives from a local farmers' association. Across the road, we saw a few dozen parked tanks and artillery pieces that looked much less derelict than the normal roadside wrecks. Asking our hosts about it, we found out that it was a DDR storage zone -- the "demobilization, disarmament, and reintegration" program, under which the government hopes to disarm 60 percent of Afghanistan's tens of thousands of irregular fighters before the September elections. This is a dauntingly huge project; billions of dollars of American money in the 1980s (and Saudi money over the last twenty-five years) bought a whole lot of weapons. Essentially, there was a time in Afghanistan when virtually anyone who wanted an automatic rifle could have one. That's a hard genie to coax back into the bottle.

The DDR program has enjoyed spotty successes. On May 5th, a local commander in Wardak province (just south of Kabul) reportedly surrendered over 200 heavy weapons and 600 light weapons to the authorities. Local farmers in the same area complained to news reporters that the DDR program is taking away the means to defend their land, which I take to be a good sign -- DDR isn't working unless people feel they can no longer protect themselves with their guns. (It also made me feel a bit more comfortable when I ended up driving through that bit of Wardak on June 5th... but that's another story).

On the other hand, the official commencement ceremony of the DDR "main phase" in Kabul on May 17 was slightly marred when a hundred Afghan army engineers refused to sign their discharge papers (no demobilization), claimed that the sixty Soviet-made rockets on display scheduled for destruction were duds (no disarmament), and angrily declared that the retirement offer of $200 per man, a bag of wheat, and vocational training were pathetically inadequate (no reintegration). And so far, most of the warlords who have offered to disarm have been the ones allied to the government. Their rivals generally refuse to relinquish their weapons, fearing that in a pinch the government will rearm or fight on behalf of their enemy.

Take our lunchtime DDR view, for example. We were in the province of Balkh, home to at least three major squabbling militia groups -- the Jamiat-e-Islami (mainly ethnic Tajik), the Hizb ul-Wahdat (ethnic Hazara), and the Uzbek irregulars of Abdul Rashid Dostum. I'm guessing that all those tanks we were looking at, lightly guarded across the road, came from the Jamiat warlord Atta Mohammad -- he's cooperated with the DDR program more than any of the other northern warlords, because his party happens to be the main power in the Kabul government. The defense minister, Mohammad Qasim Fahim, is the head of Jamiat, and has shown no qualms about sending the Afghan National Army in to back up his clients against other warlords (more about that in another update). It's hardly surprising that Dostum has so far refused to disarm in response to Atta Mohammad's gestures.

The success of DDR is absolutely essential. I think the need for a strong central government in Kabul is often overstated -- in a country as ethnically divided as Afghanistan, I would argue that you shouldn't make the center too great a prize, because then only one ethnic group will really be perceived as holding power at a given time. That's embittering for everyone else, and destabilizing for the country. (Right now, that dominant group is the Tajiks of the Panjshir valley and their political party, the Jamiat-e-Islami. More on that later, too). America currently works with both the Kabul government and the regional governors/warlords on development projects, poppy eradication, fighting the Taliban, and so on -- that could be formalized into a federal structure where the regions retain a great deal of authority. But while I don't think the central government should have a monopoly on power, I do think it should have a monopoly on guns. Local governors shouldn't be able to resolve their disputes by shooting each other (or their disputes with the Kabul government by shooting the police). And elections will obviously be a little more free and fair if the political parties aren't hanging out with Kalashnikovs around the ballot box.

What could be done to make the DDR program more successful? I can see two strategies that might help: (1) a crackdown by NATO and the Afghan army on warlords who don't disarm, and (2) an attempt to make the Afghan National Army more ethnically neutral, less a branch of the Jamiat-e-Islami. The first option is politically easier, and is already being pursued against Dostum, Ismael Khan, and several minor warlords. The second option would be tricky -- the Jamiat was the main branch of the Northern Alliance, and has enjoyed the backing of the USA ever since the war in 2001. Taking the Defense Ministry away from Marshal Fahim and giving it to some neutral technocrat (like the Interior Minister, Ali Ahmad Jalali) would be a tremendous political risk, even if you give Fahim a nice Vice-Presidency or something in compensation. But it would also make it easier for Dostum and Khan to relinquish their weapons, without effectively handing over power to a local rival.

[next: more travelogue, more political rambling]
(0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 5:08 AM by Patrick Belton  

NEW DEMOCRACY UPDATE NEWSLETTER: We at OxBlog (and over at our foreign policy think tank, too) try regularly to do all we can to raise the profile of democracy promotion and democratisation issues, stripped bare of any connection to party or ideology, just because we believe deeply in their moral imperative. But democracy promotion is still a young field, where you can count the principal contributors (Thomas Carothers, Larry Diamond....) on one hand, and have another left to count the principal organisations (the National Endowment for Democracy, Carnegie's Democracy and Rule of Law project, Freedom House) - and probably still have enough fingers remaining to play a workable game of 'paper, rock, scissors'. (Or, for our text/instant messaging-addicted friends, the text message version: [ ] o 8x )

This is why it's incredibly nice when new people and initiatives join the field - and lately, one of those is Freedom House's Democracy Digest, which is produced by a transnational democracy network with editors in the US and the UK. It's a really stunningly well produced digest, which renders into one attractively written report the week's principal relevant news events, publications and information sources, job vacancies, and conferences. Personally I'm suspecting that our own democracy efforts at Nathan Hale will involve substantial collaboration with these folks - and in the meantime, everyone should really go and subscribe. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 4:39 PM by Patrick Belton  

INTERNATIONAL RESPONSE TO AIDS BOOK TOUR: OxBlog's good friend, and Nathan Haler Greg Behrman has just released a groundbreaking work on the international response to AIDS, titled The Invisible People. Greg's work in this book is really astounding, and his enviable access to the halls of the White House, international organisations, and developing countries where the AIDS epidemic was playing out, permitted him to offer a much fuller account of the bureaucratic red tape, inexplicable blunders, egos, power plays, and pain and suffering, that went into the epidemic and the associated US response than any other source had done.

We'll be providing a fuller review of Greg's book here soon, but if you'd like to catch him yourself, here are the dates and cities of his book tour:

ATLANTA
Tuesday, June 8
8:00 PM
Outwrite Books
991 Piedmont Ave.
Co-sponsored by AID Atlanta

WASHINGTON, D.C.
Wednesday, June 9
7-9 PM
Co-sponsored by: UN Association / YouthAIDS
at UN Foundation (Connecticut Ave.)
-Cocktail Party

Thursday, June 10
7:00 PM
Borders Books & Music
1801 K Street NW
-Would particularly love to see some friendly faces at
this one!

Friday, June 11
6:00 PM
Global AIDS Alliance
Luna Books
1633 P Street, NW
-Cocktail party / 10 minute film screening

Monday, June 14
6:00PM
Council on Foreign Relations
1779 Massachussets Ave.
Co-sponsored by CFR, CSIS and DATA
-Amb Princeton Lyman presiding over discussion of book
and current policy
(0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 1:35 PM by David Adesnik  

APPROVAL NOT PENDING: Patrick, stop grossing out our readers. The swimwear-related image you mentioned in the last post almost persuaded me never to read OxBlog again. ;) (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 6:23 AM by Patrick Belton  

THOUGHT COMMERCIAL PUBLISHING COULDN'T GET ANY MORE DUMBED-DOWN? Joe Gandelman notes that Penguin is dispatching models into the street in the UK to encourage men to read. Okay, it's hard to summon up too much savage indignation about that one. On the other hand, if you feel OxBlog isn't sexy enough for you, please do feel free to imagine the three of us* wearing bikinis while wisecracking and otherwise punditting forth about politics.

_________
* pending David and Josh's approval. And, come to think of it, Rachel's, too. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 4:45 AM by Patrick Belton  

ELECTORAL COLLEGE TRACKING MAP: Arthur Tripias has an electoral college map of the United States indicating which candidate is currently ahead in each state, according to the latest polls. He will be updating the map frequently between now and the election. If the election were held today? Bush by 307 electoral votes to 231.

So how does that stack up against last time? In 2000, Bush received 271 votes to Gore's 266 - which made that the closest collegiate result since 1876. By way of comparison, in 1976, Carter secured 297 votes against Ford's 240 (a Washington State 'faithless' elector voted for Reagan in the end); Kennedy bested Nixon in 1960 by a fairly expansive college margin of 303 against 219 (Harry Byrd received 15 votes). In historical elections, the closest results were Jefferson-Burr's 73-73 tie in 1800 prior to the ratification of the 12th Amendment (which sent the election of the President to the House, where 10 state delegations then voted for Jefferson, 4 for Burr, and 2 abstained), and 1876's Hayes-Tilden 185-184 score, where Congress referred a dispute over the votes of four states to the Electoral Commission, which then awarded their votes to Hayes. Even George Washington's practically-speaking uncontested election of 1789 wasn't particularly close as an electoral college result, with his vice president John Adams securing 34 votes against his 69 in a preordained result. In particularly bad electoral college showings, Roosevelt-Landon in 1936 produced a 523-8 landslide (whereas even in wartime, Dewey would hold FDR to at least 432-99 in 1944); Nixon received 520 against McGovern's 17 in 1972; and Reagan bested Mondale by 525-13 in 1984. Lincoln's 212-21 trouncing of McClellan in 1864 no doubt deserves mention, too.

Incidentally, Benjamin Harrison's victory over Grover Cleveland in 1888 wasn't that close in the electoral vollege, even though popularity queen Cleveland turned a capital-L loser when she got to college (Ed: wait, I think you're looking for www.nytimes.com/dowd - this is OxBlog. MD: oh, thanks!), and Cleveland bested Harrison by a mere 100,456 votes in the national popular count (5,540,309 votes to Harrison's 5,439,853). The electoral college produced a healthy spread that year of 233-168. (And if you're curious, as a percentage of votes cast, Cleveland's lead of 0.915% compares quite healthily with 2000's margin of 0.536% for Gore)

And finally, if you're going to be an elector and want to maximise your influence, then head to one of these states, which haven't passed laws against faithless electors: among them, New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Delaware, Texas, and Illinois. (It's questionable whether penalties in other states are legally enforceable, too, and no state has ever sought to apply such a penalty.) Here's a list of faithless electors in history - the first was Pennsylvania's Samuel Miles in 1796 (pledged to John Adams, cast vote for Thomas Jefferson); New Hampshire's William Plummer in 1820 changed his ballot to ensure (mistakenly, but laudably) that no President other than George Washington would be elected with the unanimous vote of the Electoral College; in 2000, the District of Columbia's Barbara Lett-Simmons abstained from voting for Gore to protest the district's lack of congressional representation. The coveted title of stupidest faithless elector probably goes to nurse Margaret Leach of West Virginia, who in 1988 was shocked to learn that she could vote for whichever candidate she chose, so she switched the names of Dukakis and Bentsen; when she tried to convince other electors to follow suit, no one joined her. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 4:11 AM by Patrick Belton  

OXBLOG REVERSES ITS ADVICE: Save your eyesight, watch BBC! You can watch the transit of Venus safely on the BBC's SunCam. In 1761 and 1769, the transit of Venus proved crucial in calculating the astronomical unit - the mean distance between Earth and the sun - as roughly 150 million kilometres. This methodology was urged on astronomers by the Astronomer Royal, Edmund Halley, before his death (the distance had already been approximated at 140 million kilometres by Jean Richer and Giovanni Cassini in 1672, using the parallax of Mars.)

The Economist has an amusing tale of the transit quests of 1761, which motivated Cook's first voyage of discovery and an expedition to Sumatra by the later-famous British explorers Mason and Dixon - and, on the French side of a cross-channel scientific rivalry which predated the twentieth century's space race by two hundred years, the pathetic tale of the excessively-surnamed Guillaume Joseph Hyacinthe Jean-Baptiste Le Gentil de la Galaisiere. Later, in 1874, that year's transit impelled the first (and badly functioning) motion camera. (There's also a great deal more history here.) (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 8:47 PM by David Adesnik  

REAGAN'S LEGACY: PROMOTING DEMOCRACY IN IRAQ. In the midst of debating whether or not Reagan won the Cold War, both liberals and conservatives have embraced the implicit but flawed premise that Reagan's impact on American foreign policy did not endure beyond the fall of the Soviet Union. Yet the fact of the matter is that every time President Bush describes freedom as a universal aspiration, capable of flourishing even in the political wastelands of the Middle East, it is Ronald Reagan's voice that America hears.

In his historic address to the British Parliament in 1982, Reagan foresaw the downfall of the Soviet empire. Much less noticed was Reagan’s declaration that democracy promotion must serve as the moral and strategic foundation of American foreign policy. Contemporary journalists described Reagan’s address as an anti-Communist broadside, almost wholly ignoring the President’s positive agenda of promoting human freedom. Scholars of the Reagan era have mostly done the same.

While Reagan found it hard to withdraw American support from right-wing dictators with whom the President had established close personal ties, his administration ultimately oversaw the democratization of the Philippines, South Korea and Chile. While Reagan often found it hard to acknowledge the human rights violations committed by democratic forces, his “crusade for freedom” ultimately brought both human rights and democracy to the suffering citizens of Nicaragua and El Salvador.

But most important of all, Reagan persuaded a generation of Republicans that the GOP’s response to the Democratic embrace of human rights should not be a return to the amoral realpolitik of the Kissinger era, but rather a proud commitment to sharing America’s democratic ideals with all those who still live in the midst of dictatorship. As things now stand, George Bush’s vision of a democratic Middle East seems like little more than a pipe dream. Yet as Reagan’s legacy shows, it would not be wise to “misunderestimate” the President.
(0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 6:26 PM by David Adesnik  

OBITUARY WARS: An in-depth critique of the NYT and WaPo obituaries for President Reagan could fill a book, so I'll limit myself to a few observations. First and foremost, the WaPo obituary reflected the worst sort of mindless adoration that tends to emerge in the aftermath of an important man's death. While I am all for praising the dead at funerals, journalists have an obligation to tell the whole truth and nothing but the truth even while the body is still warm.

What I found most disturbing about Lou Cannon's obituary in the WaPo was that its tone and substance were completely at odds with Cannon's own magnificent biography of the President. Cannon's biography demonstrates how desperately out of touch Reagan was with the reality around him and how little he cared to learn more about it. Whether death squads in El Salvador or bureaucratic warfare in his own Cabinet, Reagan allowed himself to remain blissfully unaware. What makes the biography so damning is that it was written by Cannon, who even in the 1980s was known as the mainstream journalist most sympathetic to Reagan.

Actually, the real problem here is that the Post decided to let Cannon write Reagan's obituary. While one can forgive Cannon for publishing an uncritical eulogy of a man with whom he had a close personal relationship, the Post should have known better than to let the President's friends write his obituary. Of course, this is not how conservatives are looking at it. Already, the Weekly Standard is praising the WaPo while blasting the NYT for its spare and mocking coverage.

While I agree that the Times' could've done far more than publish a single, long obituary, the fact remains that its account of Reagan's presidency is far more balanced than the one written by Cannon. The main problem with the Times obituary is that its smirking arrogance detracts from the credibility of an otherwise fair account. As Hawken points out, the Times' obit comes dangerously close to suggesting that Reagan's success reflected little more than his good looks. In short, the Times obit reflects the same elitist condescension that marred the paper's coverage of Reagan during his two terms in the White House. The message then was the same as the message now: conservative presidents can only succeed because of the gross ignorance of the American voter.

Perhaps as penance for the failures of their respective obituaries, both the NYT and WaPo have published masthead editorials that contradict the obituaries' basic message. The WaPo editorial is a thoughtful evaluation of how Reagan's uncomprising ideological convictions were responsible for both his triumphs and his failures. The NYT editorial balances the expected liberal criticisms of economic and foreign policies with a good bit of ahistorical fluff. Unbelievably, the NYT writes that

Many people who disagreed with his ideology still liked him for his personality, and that was a source of frustration for his political opponents who knew how much the ideology mattered. Looking back now, we can trace some of the flaws of the current Washington mindset — the tax-cut-driven deficits, the slogan-driven foreign policy — to Mr. Reagan's example. But after more than a decade of political mean-spiritedness, we have to admit that collegiality and good manners are beginning to look pretty attractive.

As a doctoral candidate whose research involves reading old NYT articles from the 1980s, I can assure you that the Times was far more likely to criticize Reagand for his dishonesty and diviseness than praise him for his collegiality and good manners. Even if the President was always a gentleman in person, he didn't shy away from playing a very nasty sort of hardball politics when he thought that America's best interests were on the line.

The Times' revisionist history is disturbing because it dovetails with the revisionism that conservatives have embraced for quite some time now. For example, the Weekly Standard has just reposted a Fred Barnes column from 2001 that begins:

RONALD REAGAN had an unusual way of dealing with reporters and columnists: He transcended them. He didn't complain about what they wrote or said on TV. At least I never heard that he had. He didn't flatter them, as some politicians do, by pretending to admire their work, in hope they'd produce puff pieces about him. So far as I know, he didn't have friends in the Washington press corps and didn't want any.

As a matter of fact, Reagan complained very vocally and publicly about liberal bias in the media. For example, in the very speech that I described yesterday as Reagan's greatest, the President insisted that

For months and months the world news media covered the fighting in El Salvador. Day after day we were treated to stories and film slanted toward the brave freedom-fighters battling oppressive government forces in behalf of the silent, suffering people of that tortured country.

And then one day those silent, suffering people were offered a chance to vote, to choose the kind of government they wanted. Suddenly the freedom-fighters in the hills were exposed for what they really are -- Cuban-backed guerrillas who want power for themselves, and their backers, not democracy for the people.

In short, Reagan believed that the liberal media were useful idiots that did Moscow the favor of working without compensation. Collegiality and good manners? Not by a long shot.

(0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 6:18 PM by David Adesnik  

SILVER LINING BECOMES VISIBLE: Even the pessimistic Swopa thinks that things are getting a lot better in Najaf. But that doesn't mean that we're out of the woods just yet. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 2:57 PM by Patrick Belton  

NEW INDIAN BLOG: Regular OxBlog readers will remember that we're occasionally fortunate enough to have contributions on the subject of India from our good friend Antara Datta, who's not only brilliant but is a complete sweetheart, too. Well, fortunately for the blogosphere, she's gone and started her own blog where she'll be commenting on politics in India, which is at http://indiapolitics.blogspot.com. A warm welcome to the blogosphere, Antara - and for the rest of you, her blog comes very warmly recommended! (1) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 2:05 PM by Patrick Belton  

NOTED: A while back, I offered a review of google's new email service, Gmail, which we were privileged to be able to take for a test drive. (Some people get to test drive cars. Oh well, you take what you can get. Our review is in three parts, here, here, and here.) Like our good friend Jacob, I plan on using my account principally to store backup copies of my dissertation. (And for our truly bored readers, you can read an early draft of my chapter on Congress and China policy here....)

As we noted before, Gmail doesn't seem to deal particularly well now with spam - which might just be because as a newer service, its filters have less experience with what constitutes spam. More interestingly, though, there seems to be a rather unique form of spam going about now which only affects Gmail accounts - which consists of spammers asking people with gmail accounts to help them get gmail accounts, presumably to spam from. This makes some sense, as test-drive members each have two accounts which they can give to friends - in our case, we passed them along to readers. It's also rather funny, in a sick sort of way. (Kind of like rain on your wedding day - oh, wait....)

UPDATE: Our friend Scott Evenson writes in to recommend Aventuremail as well, which apparently provides 2 gigabytes of storage capacity (that's 121 copies of my dissertation, after I put in the pretty graphs). (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 6:48 AM by Patrick Belton  

MORAN WATCH, III: Fortunately, Andy Rosenberg is running in Virginia's 8th congressional district Democratic primary to challenge Northern Virginian Congressman Jim Moran, whose nationwide reputation rests mostly on his paranoid and ridiculous (and, now, ironically self-fulfilling) comments that Jews are out to unseat him. He has my strong endorsement. Unfortunately, he's unlikely to win, and precisely because Jews (and in this case at least, quite unfortunately) don't control American congressional politics to the extent Moran apparently believes them to.

Here's what we had to say late April about this:

Posted 10:52 AM by Patrick Belton
MORON WATCH: Anti-Semitic Virginia Democrat Jim Moran tumbles farther toward his political doom with ridiculous comments last night that Jewish organizations were planning to direct and take over the campaign of his next electoral challenger. [According to the Washington Post, his speech included the comments that American Israel Public Action Committee (AIPAC) has begun organizing against him and will 'direct a campaign against me and take over the campaign of a Democratic opponent'.] (The meeting unfortunately ended before he could begin distributing copies of the Protocols of the Elders of Zion.)

Mercifully, Moran's rant was swiftly condemned by now-House Democratic leader Pelosi, who denounced them as 'offensive and [with] no place in the Democratic Party'. (Even if our politics might be slightly different, count me in as a closeted admirer of that woman, ever since her insurgency campaign against the first Bush administration's conciliatory post-Tian'anmen China policy represented one of the more tactically brilliant campaigns in congressional politics in that decade).

Never one to let a good line go, Moron - seeking perhaps to rev up his staff for the campaign's final push - apparently recently conducted an anti-semitic rant in the presence of his staff in March, leading to the resignation of pollster Alan Secrest from his campaign staff. However, lest our readers in the 8th congressional district think that Moron's political record consists solely of anti-semitic diatribes, we do want to be fair. It also consists of brawling in the hall of Congress with other members (in a 1995 dispute, Moran shoved Rep. Randy Cunningham (R-Calif.) off the House floor). Also, it includes a number of ethics scandals, too. (In 1998, for instance, Moran received a $450,000 home refinancing loan from MBNA Corp., in spite of being behind in credit card payments to MBNA to the tune of $30,000. Shortly after closing the loan, Caesar's Virginian wife signed on as a sponsor of bankruptcy overhaul legislation that stood to benefit the company.) Rep. Moran's first career ended on an unauspicious (but nonetheless somewhat prophetic) note when he was forced out of the Alexandria City Council on bribery charges. The Economist has more on his dubious record; there is also a quotes page.

'If I was to lose my passion, I'd get out of politics', Moran has been quoted as saying. Both sound like fairly good ideas. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 6:40 AM by Patrick Belton  

HOW NPR STOPPED PLAYING CLASSICAL MUSIC: Andrew Ferguson covers how it all happened:

Classical music listeners, the researchers [from Walrus Research, in 2002] discovered, "use classical music to escape from the problems of the world." Not surprisingly, there are similarities in race (white) and income levels (very high) between the average NPR listener and the lover of classical music, yet in fact they represent two very different kinds of people. One group the researchers dubbed "Classical Monks," the other, more typical of the new NPR listeners, were "NPR Activists."

Classical Monks use the music format to attain an internal state, soothing and calm, intensely personal. NPR Activists use information from NPR News to guide their relations with other people in their community and around the globe. . . . NPR Activists love analysis and debate. More talk is better, if that talk informs their understanding of global issues. . . . Classical listeners enter a dream world with images of paradise. The NPR newsmagazines keep reminding us of the real world, with its social conditions, environmental changes, and economic forces. . . .Classical Monks seek an emotion derived from the aesthetic. NPR Activists think that reason and logic, on the basis of solid information, can lead to the perfection of mankind.

The classical listener values lone serenity. NPR fans are the most politically active segment of the population.

For those who have trouble with complete sentences, Walrus Research helpfully broke the findings down into a neat PowerPoint chart (see above). "The portal to NPR news is through the intellect," said the study. "The portal to classical music is emotional."

In sum, Walrus said: "Classical listeners use the station for gratification of their private, internal needs." Sounds kind of yucky, doesn't it? And certainly not very public. Catering to such people might even be considered an abdication of responsibility for a program director bent on public service.

Incidentally, as Ferguson notes, there is an interesting academic paper, 'Guys in Suits with Charts,' by Alan Stavistky, about the 'transformation of public radio from its educational, service-based origins to an audience-driven orientation' - i.e., among other things, how it stopped playing Brahms and Mahler and began, like most arts in their decadant stage, dabbling in politics. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 6:30 AM by Patrick Belton  

THANKS ANYWAY, I THINK I'LL OPT FOR TELLY AND A HOT WATER BOTTLE: According to the latest Department of Health statistics, one out of every twenty oral drug doses given in English hospitals is incorrect.

UPDATE: Joshua Macy points out that our RSS feed apparently shortened the title of this post to the slightly less accurate, but more amusing, 'THANKS ANYWAY, I THINK I'LL OPT FOR TELLY AND A HO'. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 5:42 AM by Patrick Belton  

MORE FROM OXBLOG'S AFGHANISTAN CORRESPONDENT:

[When last we left our intrepid Afghan adventurer, he was struggling valiantly against evil customs officials, who would not permit him to bring accompanists beyond the waiting area, or even to have gases and passions inside his handbag...]

Wednesday: Observations and Negotiations

We got an early start out of Kunduz. The plan had been to drive south all morning, stopping off at various orchards and demonstration fields along the way. In the afternoon, we planned to head northwest as far as Samangan town, check out some almond groves in that area, and then either crash there or head back to the minor city of Pul-e-Khumre for the night. But our Deputy Head hadn't enjoyed our sparing accommodations in Kunduz, and decided that we would drive all the way to Mazar-e-Sharif that evening (two or three extra hours) in order to be guaranteed air-conditioned rooms and comfortable beds.

We didn't immediately inform our team of shooters of the change in plans when they rejoined us -- I guess we figured that if the shooters decided Mazar was out of the question, we would at least have their protection for the morning. Unfortunately, because our bodyguards didn't realize that the distance we'd be traveling had significantly increased, they decided to set a nice, relaxed pace for our convoy of SUVs. After twenty minutes, the Deputy Head pulled up next to us, rolled down the window, and yelled, "We'll never make Mazar at this rate! You guys take the lead!" Glad to oblige, our driver Ainodeen floored it past our surprised-looking security escort. As before, the shooters kept to their comfortable 60 kmph and soon fell out of sight behind us.

We drove for the next several hours through the fertile provinces of Kunduz and Baghlan, following the main river valleys through a succession of bustling market towns. The steep row of hills separating the provinces was speckled with hundreds of wild pistachio trees. Mohibi explained that the hilltop trees were common property, and right now dozens of Afghan soldiers were up there protecting the unripe pistachios. In a few weeks, when the nuts ripened, the hills would be opened to all comers, to pick as many as they could carry away. One California consultant shook his head and commented on this highly unprofitable use of agricultural resources. Mohibi didn't hear him; he was explaining with enthusiasm that once, long ago, he had served in the Afghan army as a pistachio guard himself. Back then, before the Soviet invasion, that sort of thing was one of the army's primary functions.

The war has left its marks everywhere, of course. Near Kunduz, a joker with a can of white spray paint had written "No Parking: Tow Zone" in English on a derelict tank that had been halfway hauled off the road. Over the following two days, we passed more old Soviet military hardware than I could list, rusting away on the roadside or flipped over halfway down a ravine. Frankly, after driving from Mazar to Kabul, I find it astonishing that the Russian Army has any tanks left. The typical speed bump in Kunduz, Baghlan, and Samangan is a tank tread, unrolled across the highway and reinforced with asphalt. (It can chew the heck out of your tires if you're not careful). Graves are the other strikingly common roadside sight -- typically a pole sprouting from a heap of stones, strung with green or black flags and streamers. Below the flags, there are usually wordless slate slabs at the head and foot of the mound. A few graves have white marble headstones with elaborate inscriptions.

Late in the morning, we pulled into the town of Baghlan, to check out a sugar factory that has been out of commission for over a decade but painstakingly maintained by the local government. The old Czechoslovak sugar beet processing machinery was dusty but not corroded; there were only a couple bullet holes here and there; and the caretaker was re-cutting glass for the broken window panes when we made our surprise visit. A fleet of Soviet cargo trucks were rusting away in the yard… plus, of course, a couple tanks.

We could get the place working again -- whether it would ever be profitable is another question. Part of the problem with Afghanistan is that it's surrounded by countries producing most of its potential exports at lower cost. Cotton? Hard to beat Uzbekistan (even if US cotton producers would allow USAID to assist the Afghan cotton sector). Textiles? Pakistan has too much riding on that market -- they'd slap on an enormous tariff or threaten to close off the border, if by some miracle Afghan textiles neared competitive advantage. Fresh fruit and produce? Not unless we can get quality up to the level of the Arab countries and Iran. Raisins and almonds? Maybe. Afghanistan used to supply more than half of the European dried fruit market. But quality standards have gone up in the EU while crashing in Afghanistan. Opium? Now we're talking -- Afghan intensive cropping practices have allowed them to get almost four times the yield per hectare of their closest competitor on the poppy market, Myanmar. And the Afghans are sticking with what they do well.

But I digress. The shooters showed up while we were breakfasting on fatty kebab, naan, and yogurt. At this point, we explained that our group was heading to Mazar for the evening; that we understood the security company hadn't planned for this extension of the trip; and that we were willing to pay for extra petrol if they needed it. The shooters pushed back their sunglasses to stare at us incredulously, conferred together for a moment, then said that the extra petrol would cost $50. This seemed just a tad steep, but they were the ones with the automatic weapons, so we accepted our weak bargaining position and shelled out.

They looked at the money, conferred again, and then asked, "But what will we put in our stomachs?" Mohibi grumbled (in English) that they could put the extra bloody petrol in their stomachs, since their boss had certainly given them enough money for food and lodging. We tried to convince them to just head back to Kabul and take the $50 as a don't-shoot-us-please fee, but they didn't like the thought of facing their boss if they returned a day early. In the end, the Deputy Head paid them another $50 for food, lodging, and "damn well keeping up with us wherever we decide to drive for the next two days." Curiously, the shooters no longer seemed to have any trouble matching our speed.

As we drove that day, I was struck by the near-total absence of female faces in public. In Kabul, as I mentioned last fall, roughly half the women I see on the street are in burqas, and the other half wear headscarves. In Kunduz and the countryside around it, the burqa is all but universal. Over two days of watching, only in Mazar city and in the town of Hairatan right on the Uzbek border did I see the face of a woman over fourteen or so. (We did see plenty of younger girls -- the good people of Kunduz, Baghlan, and Balkh seem to be sending their daughters to school in droves, which is encouraging. Everywhere we drove, we passed swarms of schoolgirls in black uniforms and gauzy white headscarves).

I asked Ainodeen to what extent this near-universal veiling was a legacy of the Taliban. He said that rural Afghans had always kept to a strict modesty code, and that ten, twenty, or thirty years ago if we'd been driving the same road we would have seen the same proportion of veiled women. The Taliban imposed all kinds of stifling, unpopular rules that were purely derived from their interpretation of the Qur'an: no music, no kite-flying, no sports. Those little textual tyrannies are why so few Afghans remember the Taliban with any fondness today. But in some cases (the burqa, restrictions on the travel of women) they also formalized long-standing rural norms, which continue to be socially enforced among the majority of Afghans who live outside Westernizing urban areas. The persistence of the burqa isn't an indicator of support for Taliban ideology; by the same token, no one should expect that the ouster of the Taliban has brought rural Afghanistan any closer to accepting Western gender values.

I don't mean to suggest that these deep-rooted restrictions on women's dress and movement persist on "cultural" steam alone, or that they exist unopposed in rural areas. Especially in villages close to the capital, many women state that they would gladly swap the burqa for the less confining headscarf if only they lived in Kabul. (Hopefully, a lot of those schoolgirls I saw on the road in the north will grow up feeling similarly). It takes a great deal of pressure to keep these women under wraps -- and the pressure isn't just exerted by family, neighbors, and the local mullah, but by governors and local militias.

Take as an example idyllic Paghman, a verdant, mountainous district where the Kabulis like to take their picnics. It's currently dominated by the militia of Abdul Rabb al-Rasul Sayyaf, a butcher and torturer who wrecked a good fraction of Kabul during the mujahidin era (and is now allied to the most powerful bloc in the U.S.-supported government). Sayyaf's gunmen on the one hand enforce a strict "Islamic" dress code, and on the other hand perpetrate much of the banditry, kidnapping, and rape that is held to necessitate that code. The burqa and other restrictions have traditionally been justified on the grounds that they protect women; like many protection rackets, the "protection" and the threat increasingly stem from the same sources.

But at least it's now possible to discuss gender issues a little more openly, and most departments of the central government are supportive. By contrast... well, my co-worker Mumtaz has a great story from his days in the late 90s as a translator with the UN. He accompanied a UN delegation to the new Taliban government to negotiate the conditions for UNICEF, UNHCR, and other groups to continue work in Afghanistan.

The Taliban Minister of Planning began their first meeting by leaning over the table and pointing straight at Mumtaz. "We are willing to talk about these aid programs. But tell them that if they so much as mention gender, I will f--- their mothers," he said with ferocious emphasis. "Translate!"

Mumtaz nodded gravely, turned to the UN staff, and said, "He says you are under no circumstances to mention gender. He will not hear of it." The UN staff nodded gravely, and Mumtaz turned back to their host. "Did you tell them?" insisted the Minister. "Did you tell them that I would f--- their mothers?"

"Of course," said Mumtaz, unflappable. "They do not look shocked," said the Taleb dubiously. Mumtaz shrugged, raised his palms in a helpless gesture. "They are Westerners. They do not mind such things."

[next time: guns 'n' poppies] (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 11:51 PM by David Adesnik  

REAGAN REMEMBERED: Rather than eulogize the President, I find it best to let his own words speak for him. On June 8, 1982, Reagan spoke to the British Parliament at Westminster. He declared that

In an ironic sense Karl Marx was right. We are witnessing today a great revolutionary crisis, a crisis where the demands of the economic order are conflicting directly with those of the political order. But the crisis is happening not in the free, non-Marxist West, but in the home of Marxist-Leninism, the Soviet Union. It is the Soviet Union that runs against the tide of history by denying human freedom and human dignity to its citizens...

Now, I don't wish to sound overly optimistic, yet the Soviet Union is not immune from the reality of what is going on in the world. It has happened in the past -- a small ruling elite either mistakenly attempts to ease domestic unrest through greater repression and foreign adventure, or it chooses a wiser course. It begins to allow its people a voice in their own destiny. Even if this latter process is not realized soon, I believe the renewed strength of the democratic movement, complemented by a global campaign for freedom, will strengthen the prospects for arms control and a world at peace...

What I am describing now is a plan and a hope for the long term -- the march of freedom and democracy which will leave Marxism-Leninism on the ash-heap of history as it has left other tyrannies which stifle the freedom and muzzle the self-expression of the people.

Who else dared to believe in 1982 that the Soviet Union was on its death bed? No matter how many times I read Reagan's address, I find his prescience to be almost incredible. Yet as Reagan himself said, all the evidence was there in plain sight. Who in their right mind could ever have believed that the Soviet system was as viable as its Western counterpart?

Reagan 1982 speech was also remarkable because of its prescient declaration that promoting democracy abroad must serve as the foundation of American foreign policy:

Around the world today, the democratic revolution is gathering new strength...

We must be staunch in our conviction that freedom is not the sole prerogative of a lucky few, but the inalienable and universal right of all human beings. So states the United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which, among other things, guarantees free elections.

The objective I propose is quite simple to state: to foster the infrastructure of democracy, the system of a free press, unions, political parties, universities, which allows a people to choose their own way to develop their own culture, to reconcile their own differences through peaceful means.

This is not cultural imperialism, it is providing the means for genuine self-determination and protection for diversity. Democracy already flourishes in countries with very different cultures and historical experiences. It would be cultural condescension, or worse, to say that any people prefer dictatorship to democracy. Who would voluntarily choose not to have the right to vote, decide to purchase government propaganda handouts instead of independent newspapers, prefer government to worker-controlled unions, opt for land to be owned by the state instead of those who till it, want government repression of religious liberty, a single political party instead of a free choice, a rigid cultural orthodoxy instead of democratic tolerance and diversity?...

The task I've set forth will long outlive our own generation. But together, we too have come through the worst. Let us now begin a major effort to secure the best -- a crusade for freedom that will engage the faith and fortitude of the next generation. For the sake of peace and justice, let us move toward a world in which all people are at last free to determine their own destiny.

When President Bush describes the democratic future that belongs to the people of Iraq, every word is vintage Reagan. Yet just as Bush preaches the gospel of democracy while failing to invest the effort and resources necessary to make it grow, so did Reagan fail to understand what sort of practical steps might have to be taken to implement his compelling vision.

For now, I will hold off on further criticism. For one moment, it is worth meditating on nothing more than the profound insights of a man who was a great patriot but never had pretensions of being a great philosopher.
(0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 8:29 AM by Patrick Belton  

GOING DUTCH: In OxBlog's 'ethnic and national calumnies against groups we really have nothing in particular against' category, a recent poll shows that one third of Dutch men believe watching their national football team play in the Euro2004 championship in Portugal is more important than celebrating their wife's birthday...if it came to that. (It was not polled, however, how many Dutch women wanted to celebrate their birthdays by watching footie...which seems a relevant question, too....) (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 5:34 PM by Patrick Belton  

TIAN'ANMEN SQUARE, 3-4 JUNE, 1989: We shall never forget.

(0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 10:25 PM by David Adesnik  

OUR IMPERILED DEMOCRACY: Picking up where Josh left off, I thought I'd compose a list of which of our Presidents "didn't live in a time when [their] bad decisions could imperil our democracy." That way, if anyone wants to complain about Bush in historical context they can do so properly. So here goes:

Definitely lived in a time in which their bad decisions could imperil our democracy:

Washington, Adams, Jefferson, Madison, Jackson, Buchanan, Lincoln, A. Johnson, Grant, Wilson, Hoover, F.D. Roosevelt, Truman, Eisenhower, Kennedy, L.B. Johnson, Nixon, Reagan, G.W. Bush.

Probably lived in a time in which their bad decisions could imperil our democracy:

Monroe, J.Q. Adams, Van Buren, Tyler, Polk, Taylor, Fillmore, Pierce, McKinley, T. Roosevelt, Taft, Carter, Clinton, G.H.W. Bush.

Sort of lived in a time in which their bad decisions could imperial our democracy:

Hayes, Arthur, Cleveland (I), Harrison, Cleveland (II), Harding, Coolidge.

Did NOT live in a time in which their bad decisions could imperil our democracy:

W.H. Harrison, Garfield.

Now, I'm sure you will find some of these decisions controversial. But I can say with confidence that American democracy was safe in March and April of 1841 as well as from March through September of 1881. So here's my idea for a Kerry slogan: "Bush: Only safe for 10 months every 228 years." Who wouldn't respond to that? (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 10:10 PM by David Adesnik  

TIME FLIES: Just got into New Haven -- this weekend is my 5th reunion. I have broadband where I'm staying, but not much time on my hands. Besides, I am firmly committed to blogging while sober. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 3:06 PM by Patrick Belton  

WELL THEY ALL LOOK ALIKE TO US WATCH, #28: In a series of recurring problems which grounded all air travel today in England and Wales, controllers systematically mistook Glasgow (habitually in Scotland) for Cardiff (generally to be found in Wales). We at OxBlog know that telling confusing Celtic capitals from each other can be awfully confusing, and are pained by the recent suggestion, to whomever it should be attributed (the initials PB and DA have both been suggested...), that the English are simply no good at telling foreigners apart.... (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 2:55 PM by Patrick Belton  

THERE WILL BE A NEW DCI: Tenet announces that he will be stepping down as director in July. Former DDI and NIC chair John E. McLaughlin will become interim director when Tenet's resignation takes effect. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 12:20 AM by David Adesnik  

DOUBLE-D VS. THE FEMINISTE: Prof. Drezner has an interesting encounter. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 11:33 PM by David Adesnik  

DOES SISTANI REALLY SUPPORT ALLAWI? That the question Swopa asks. A good question, too. For the record, my comment that Allawi "apparently" has Sistani's support reflected the WaPo's observation that "Although he is secular, [Allawi] reportedly has the support of the country's top Shiite cleric." But Swopa makes a good case that we've misunderstood Sistani before and that American correspondents in Iraq haven't learned their lesson.

UPDATE: Well, that answers that question. Sort of. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 6:52 PM by David Adesnik  

"CONSERVATIVES SHOULD HAVE SEEN THIS COMING": That's what Frank Foer wrote about Ahmad Chalabi ten months ago. But that was a long time ago, back when Pentagon officials were calling Chalabi the "George Washington of Iraq" and WSJ editorialists were describing him as a democratic visionary.

Anyhow, it now looks that Chalabi did exactly what everyone thinks he did -- tell Iranian intelligence that we broke their codes. Noam Scheiber says the news has already "flooded [his] stomach with more bile than [he] can handle for one day." I'm not sure exactly how much bile that is, but I have a feeling that a lot of people in Iraq are going to suffer from much more than an upset stomach because of Chalabi. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 6:23 PM by David Adesnik  

GOING ON THE DEFENSIVE? Spencer Ackerman continues to blog up a storm about Iraq. Today, Spencer takes a close look at the negotiations designed to produce a new Security Council resolution for Iraq.

Yesterday, Ackerman tore into American generals for suggesting that their new priorities will be to focus on the protection of Iraqi infrastructure and government officials. Spencer writes that

Leaving insurgents and militias--and every militia in Iraq is just tomorrow's pool of insurgents--unchallenged except for responding to discrete flare-ups will make it that much harder for the U.S. to protect the new government...By not conducting offensive operations, we're giving the extremists time and breathing space to regroup, resupply and redouble their efforts at murdering the new government and throwing the political process, such as it is, off track.

Unfortunately, I think Spencer is mischaracterizing the army plans. Lt. Gen. Thomas Metz, the officer in charge of day-to-day operations, has issued a

clear warning to "anybody who misinterprets our focus away from combat operations and onto other things like Iraqi security capacity and infrastructure protection."

"We will always maintain a quick-reaction force, with very lethal combat capability," he said. "If someone thinks there is a vacuum and wants to enter it with conventional forces, you better believe we are ready."

Now, it is fair to ask whether the emergence of new priorities had anything to do with our decision to accept a flawed settlement with Sadr's forces in Najaf while allowing former Ba'athists to run Fallujah. Metz's comments about Fallujah lean in that direction. Still, I think the army and the (ex-)CPA should be given more time to show that their approach works. On the other hand, OxBlog's correspondent in Fallujah warns that the situation there has become a fiasco and will be exposed by a major American publication in the coming weeks. I guess we'll see. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 11:05 AM by Patrick Belton  

SOMETHING NOT QUITE ADDING UP HERE: I don't really feel any particular need either to defend or to villify Ahmad Chalabi here, but there's one bit to the story as it now stands that I don't quite understand.

So as CNN and other news outlets are now reporting, Chalabi becomes aware that the United States has cracked the codes by which Iran encrypts its secret transmissions. Chalabi gives this information to the Iranian intelligence chief in Baghdad, who relays it to Tehran - but using one of the codes which he'd just become aware that the Americans had cracked. The Americans, reading this transmission (as they had cracked the Iranian codes - see previous sentence), then become aware that Chalabi had passed this information on to the Iranian intelligence station in Baghdad.

This doesn't quite seem to add up - which doesn't mean that Chalabi didn't betray us, is indeed our friend, or is even a nice guy - but why wouldn't the Iranians, who are apparently good at this game, relay the information to Tehran via a courier, instead of using a compromised channel? It seems they'd only act they way they did if: (1) their station chief in Baghdad was phenomenally stupid (which is, I suppose, always a possibility), or (2) if they had a grievance against Chalabi, and/or (3) believed that souring his relations with Washington was more in their nation's interests than, say, using the cracked code to send misleading information to the Americans. I suppose there's also one remaining possibility, (4) that they assumed in error that they had a safe code they could rely upon - but such a calculation is bound to be risky, once you know that the Americans have broken at least some of your codes - and why risk losing a valuable means for misdirecting one of your major adversaries, when you could test the safety of your different channels by (as they indeed did) transmitting test messages to see whether the Americans would act in such a way to indicate they'd read them?

Again, this isn't to say that Chalabi is a nice guy, or that I'd want to open a joint banking account with him in Jordan - but I'll still be curious to see if some of these incongruencies become settled as the story unfolds. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 2:05 AM by David Adesnik  

THE UNKINDEST CUT: The headline of the actual story in the WaPo (print & online editions) reads "Many Hurdles Ahead for US". But on the WaPo homepage, the story gets listed as "White House is Hopeful Tide has Turned in Iraq." (Technichal question: Do the WaPo and NYT file cached versions of their respective homepages? It's frustrating to link to headlines that disappear.) Anyhow, talk about being set up for a fall:

With the introduction of both a new Iraqi government and a new U.N. draft resolution, the Bush administration senses the beginning of the end to its controversial and costly intervention in Iraq...

President Bush was almost giddily buoyant during a Rose Garden news conference about Iraq's interim government...Not since the "Mission Accomplished" photograph aboard the USS Lincoln on May 1 last year, when Bush declared an end to major combat operations in Iraq, has the administration appeared as upbeat about the future.

The funny thing is, Bush didn't actually say anything terribly optimistic at yesterday's press conference. I'm guessing he did appear quite giddy, however, since his moods tend to be fairly transparent. (Either that, or he is a far better actor than Ronald Reagan ever was.) I guess you might say that Bush learned the lesson of the "Mission Accomplished" debacle: don't go on the record as an optimist if you aren't pretty damn sure that the breaks will go your way. After all, when the administration gets dealt its next blow in Iraq, what are the critics going to say? That the President's smile was too broad back on June 1st?

UPDATE: The WaPo has changed the headline on its homepage to "Many Hurdles Still Ahead for United States in Iraq". (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 8:45 PM by David Adesnik  

IS PERVEZ PERVERSE? President Musharraf of Pakistan has a column in today's WaPo that would be extremely persuasive if it weren't written by a corrupt dictator. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 8:34 PM by David Adesnik  

HAITI STILL A TOTAL MESS: Not that it's surprising. Still, I think there is no question that the Bush administration did the right thing by forcing Aristide out and sending in US troops. (For an argument to the contrary, see Randy Paul.) Those troops will soon return home, to be replaced by a larger contingent of Brazilians. Rebuilding Haiti is clearly a good cause and our allies in Europe and Latin America are willing to pick up where the US left off. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 6:08 PM by David Adesnik  

LEAVE HISTORY TO THE PROFESSIONALS, TOM: Invoking Germany and Japan as precedents for nation-building in Iraq doesn't really work. There are some very important lessons to be learned, but critics can (and will) immediately point out that the invasion of Iraq was no World War II and that America doesn't have thorough-going European support like it did in '45. Pretty much, starting in about Germany and Japan means starting up an unproductive discussion about Iraq.

However, since Tom Friedman mentioned Germany and Japan first, I think it's a good idea to respond. Friedman writes that

I have a "Tilt Theory of History." The Tilt Theory states that countries and cultures do not change by sudden transformations. They change when, by wise diplomacy and leadership, you take a country, a culture or a region that has been tilted in the wrong direction and tilt it in the right direction, so that the process of gradual internal transformation can take place over a generation...

We did not and cannot liberate Iraqis. They have to liberate themselves. That is what the Japanese and Germans did. All we can hope to do is help them tilt their country in a positive direction.

Bollocks, bollocks, bollocks. The shock of defeat and the sudden infusion of American ideals provoked a radical transformation of both German and Japanese society and culture. For the best English-language accounts of these transformations, see From Shadow to Substance by Dennis Bark & David Gress and Embracing Defeat: Japan in the Wake of World War II by John Dower.

Way back in October 2002, Dower predicted that Iraq would not become another Japan because the US did not have the will power to endure the occupation. OxBlog half-agreed with Dower. I said that will power was, in fact, the critical issue, but that it was too early to dismiss the Bush Administration's commitment to nation-building. As things have turned out, the issue isn't commitment but competence.

So, does incompetence mean that we should settle for a tilt rather than a transformation? In some respects, perhaps. But there is no reason to compromise on our insistence that Iraq must have an elected government that respects the rights of its citizens. That alone would amount to a transformation. And if such a government can survice, Iraqis will have plenty of opportunities to liberate their culture and society from the legacy of Saddam.

(0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 5:42 PM by David Adesnik  

"DIVERSE GOVERNMENT TAKES SHAPE IN IRAQ": That the banner headline on the NYT homepage right now. The article that goes along with it is almost as upbeat as the headline. After all, is there anything that the NYT approves of more than diversity?

Anyhow, I'm not impressed with the handover. Yes, I know -- OxBlog is always supposed to be more upbeat than the NYT. I just feel that this is one of those formal occasions that gets big headlines because it's a formal occasion and not because it really matters. The fact remains that this is a caretaker government with partial sovereignty.

Strangely, even the Times' account of Bush's remarks about the transition doesn't even challenge any of the President's vague assertions or remind readers of the weaknesses in his speech from last week. In fact, the article doesn't even bother quoting a Kerry campaign spokesman or other Democratic figure. It is as if someone snuck a whole lot of ecstasy tablets into the water filtration system on West 43rd St.

UPDATE: The WaPo coverage is pretty soft, too. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 5:38 AM by Patrick Belton  

ADVERT OF THE DAY AWARD: goes to the campaign in the Dublin International Airport, lining the corridor between arrivals and passport control, which features roughly thirty posters of the fetching Hungarian Miss Europe, Zsuzsanna Laky, over a caption reading (roughly), 'If you want her, you need to take all of us. Budapest: A European Capital, 2004'. Talk about putting your best face forward.... (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 1:38 AM by David Adesnik  

BELATED MEMORIAL DAY THOUGHTS:

We don't really celebrate many of our holidays as intended here in the USA, but in the middle of a time of war it really does seem worth thinking a bit about the extraordinary courage and dedication shown by the members of the armed forces, especially today's all-volunteer force. It's remarkable as you drive through the outside-the-beltway part of Virginia and northern North Carolina just how frequently you see signs in local businesses admonishing passers-by and customers to support the troops. And, indeed, they deserve our support.

That's from Matt. He adds: "It seems to me that this is probably best done by providing them with some leadership that knows how to do its job properly." I half agree, but I think that for this one day, we should just focus on the troops and their personal sacrifices. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 1:36 AM by David Adesnik  

MATT YGLESIAS = ERIC CARTMAN? Why does Matt have an insatiable need to poke things with sticks? (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 11:56 PM by David Adesnik  

ARE THE JOURNALISTS LISTENING? When bloggers ask whether blogs matter, what they really mean is whether professional journalists respond to our questions and demands. We don't expect politicians to listen to us. We don't expect corporate executives to listen to us. But we see ourselves as journalists' next-of-kin and therefore deserve their attention.

While bloggers may argue about whether journalists listen, Rachel Smolkin actually went out there and asked a whole lot of actual journalists whether they make time for blogs. Most of the answers are pretty non-committal. The most interesting comes from NYT correspondent Jodi Wilgoren, who showed some interest in Wilgoren Watch. However, her critics

"typically did not reflect much knowledge about or understanding of mainstream journalism," Wilgoren says, and often came from passionate Dean supporters. "I got many, many letters accusing me of being a tool of the Republican administration or trying to destroy Howard Dean."

I think Wilgoren is throwing the baby out with the bath water. Certainly, some of her critics are mindless leftists. But even OxBlog thought that her coverage of Dean was harsh and unfair.

Now, the irony here is that Wilgoren is quite liberal herself, as one can tell from her efforts to whitewash the crimes of David Gilbert and Kathy Boudin. While Wilgoren deserves credit for at least looking at blogs, I think that her reaction may become typical for mainstream journalists, i.e. find a few online critics you can label as ignorant and use their prejudice to justify ignoring the blogosphere as a whole. According to NYT ombudsman Daniel Okrent,

"In some instances, some [blogs] are so partisan -- even though they're right in many instances -- they're immediately discredited within the newsroom because of their partisanship," [Okrent said]. "If the comment comes from someone who isn't identified as a partisan, they take it much more seriously."

This Okrent quote comes from an excellent column by Marc Glaser which addresses many of the same issues that Smolkin's essay does. Whereas Smolkin looks at the issue more broadly, Glaser focuses on a specific incident in which National Debate editor Robert Cox forced NYT editorial page editor Gail Collins to make an official policy change that imposed tougher standards on her columnists.

Now, it's hard to say whether Cox got a response from the Times because he was a blogger or because he was right. After all, non-blogging readers sometimes get responses as well if they're right. However, the fact that Cox got the Times' attention by posting a parody of their website -- thus provoking the threat of the lawsuit -- suggests that his medium played an important.

The Cox case provides an interesting contrast with the Trent Lott affair, which Rachel Smolkin covers quite nicely. As I see it, the difference between the two is that Cox was directly challenging the competence and authority of professional jouralists, while Josh Marshall and others helped bring down Trent Lott by converting journalists to the anti-Lott cause.

I think both sorts of influence are quite significant, although the Cox variety is somewhat more interesting because it demonstrates that when bloggers go head to head with the pros, they can still come out on top.

Now, last but not least, we come to Dan Drezner and Henry Farrell's effort to conduct a systematic survey of which blogs journalists actually read. I think that their approach is important since Smolkin's essay is rather anecdotal and Glaser's focuses only bloggers' success.

The results of Dan and Henry's survey aren't exactly a surprise. Journalists read the same blogs that bloggers read: Sullivan, Reynolds, Marshall, etc. But that is still a very significant finding because it demonstrates that journalists have developed a surprisingly similar sense of who is worth reading in the blogosphere. (Sadly, OxBlog didn't make the Top 10. Oh well.)

If there is one thing I'd add to all of these worthwhile contributions, it's that we still need to develop a better idea, in our own minds at least, of what role(s) blogs are supposed to play. Smolkin tends to suggest that blogs set themselves up as an alternative to mainstream, reportorial journalism. But I like Jay Rosen's take better:

Almost all of the op-ed writing in America used to be on op-ed pages. That is no longer true. Weblogs have taken over part of that territory. And while the best of them may have 'opinion clout,' the simple fact that they have some territory alongside Big Media is significant.

Bloggers are never going to replace correspondents. But we may be able to knock off Maureen Dowd. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 11:14 PM by David Adesnik  

CALL IT A HUNCH: The WaPo has an interesting analysis of the time stamps on the Abu Ghraib prison photo. One fact that really struck me was that soldiers in the 372nd began to abuse prisoners within two days of arriving at Abu Ghraib.

That being the case, it's very hard to imagine how the abuse could have taken place without some sort of green light from either military intelligence or superior officers. Yes, it is possible that these few soldiers were so sadistic that they leapt at the opportunity to commit human rights violations. But the alternative is too compelling to be ruled out. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 1:48 PM by Patrick Belton  

DISPATCHES FROM KABUL: OxBlog's Afghanistan correspondent is back afield, and sends in part one in a series of despatches to us:

Part I: Arrival

As a kindness to the daily herd of travelers waiting to see if their flights show up, the departure lounge of Kabul airport has been decorated with inadvertently funny signs. "No accompanists allowed beyond waiting area" -- once you pass through security, you're singing a capella. And there's the official list of items which are forbidden in one's handbag:

1. The handbag.
2. Explosives and military matters.
3. Gases and passions.

We showed up, handbags, passions, and all, in the early afternoon to a mostly empty airport -- the major commercial flights are all scheduled to depart in the morning. We were headed from Kabul to northern Afghanistan for a three-day tour of the almond groves with a couple California nut experts. (They pronounced almond to rhyme with "salmon," something I never quite got used to). The airport staff handed us flattering little Frequent Flyer -- Kunduz bag tags and hurried us through security to our two-prop AirServ charter plane. We scrunched into our seats; the pilots elbowed their way down the two-foot-wide aisle, buckled up, then craned their heads back for a conversational safety lecture.

I'd braced myself for a bumpy ride, but the skies were friendly -- and the view from the air so breathtaking I probably wouldn't have noticed if we'd dropped an engine. The mountains of Panjshir rose up like a white wall to our right, and to the left was the great central massif of Afghanistan, with ridge after snow-capped ridge rippling out to the horizon. Mohibi, our Afghan companion, pointed out the winding ravines running up to Bamiyan at the heart of the country. I was glued to the window for the whole flight. The mountains became hills, the hills gently rolling grassland, and we dropped smoothly into Kunduz.

The trip quickly became less smooth. We had sent up a couple of drivers the day before -- and, per our company's new security policy, we had called up the ex-military guy who runs the main protection racket in Kabul and asked him to send two cars full of hired "shooters" for our defense. However, when we arrived at Kunduz airport (which is a couple miles out of town), we found ourselves alone save for a handful of curious airport guards. After a couple of heated phone calls, our drivers showed up, speeding like the devil. Turned out they'd been ready to leave for the airport on time, but the shooters had taken a little while to muster up. As we spoke, our security escort arrived: two SUVs full of skinny, scruffy, shabbily clad Panjshiri irregulars, chain-smoking and casually brandishing their Kalashnikovs as they piled out of their cars. They didn't look very impressive. I imagine the Soviets thought the same thing.

We took off for town. The roads around Kunduz are unpaved, and throw up tremendous clouds of fine white dust as you drive along them. Somehow, our shooters managed to lose us in the cloud. I asked where they'd gone. Mohibi doubtfully said, "I think I saw them turn back to the airport." I asked why on earth they would have gone back to the airport. Mohibi shrugged and said, "Because the sky is so high" -- a wonderful Afghan phrase, which I heard him use a lot over the next few days. The shooters later caught up with us, and chewed out our drivers at length for "losing" them again. They then informed us that today, they were only contracted to escort us around Kunduz city, and that if we were going to drive out of the city for site visits we would need to pay them extra for petrol. This so irked our Afghan companion that he told them to get lost and meet us tomorrow morning. We drove around for the rest of the afternoon cheerfully unprotected.

Kunduz is a small provincial capital, with half-paved streets full of colorful horse-drawn carts. It's the city where the Taliban lost the war for the North back in 2001 (also losing one John Walker Lindh as a captive to the conquering Northern Alliance), and it was the first (and so far the only) city outside Kabul to get its own ISAF peacekeeping force. Course, there was already a pretty robust peace to keep -- unlike, say, the cities of Herat or Mazar-e-Sharif, Kunduz had no mighty warlord or clashing commanders to make life difficult for occupying troops, and it's well away from the Taliban resurgence. The surrounding countryside reportedly has a bit of a bandit problem, but the roads north to Tajikistan are open again. Power wires that were yanked down and sold as copper to Pakistan during the war are going back up, with electricity two or three hours a day.

The farm country around Kunduz is simply beautiful: broad fields of golden wheat and brilliant green rice, densely planted stands of poplar, old almond trees shading the fields. And when you head south out of the city, you quickly find yourself driving through my stereotype of a Central Asian landscape: a broad tableland of pasture and wheat fields, with a wall of nearly treeless pale green hills springing up at the horizon, and the snowy mountains of Badakhshan drifting sky-blue in the distance.

As we drove, I jokingly asked Mohibi why the Afghans referred to the mountains as the Hindu Kush -- seemed odd, given that they're in a resoundingly Muslim-majority region. "Well, you see, once there was an Afghan and a Hindu traveling together from Hindustan to Afghanistan," Mohibi informed me, beaming. "The Hindu had a very warm wolf skin coat, and the Afghan had only a shirt, but he had enough money, and he was very clever. So he said to the Hindu, give me your coat and I will give you all my money. The Hindu was greedy, he said okay. So the Afghan took the coat. When they came to the mountain, the Hindu realized it was so cold, so he said, I will pay you double, just give me back the coat. The Afghan said no. Soon the Hindu drop dead. The Afghan take all his money and keep the coat. That is why they call it 'Hindu' -- meaning Hindu -- and 'Kush' -- meaning kill." I learn something new every day.

We visited a bunch of farmer associations, orchards, and nurseries that afternoon. Our visiting California consultants had brought along sacks of cheap plastic animals, the kind you can buy by the hundred in most dollar stores in the States, and handed them out one at a time to the local kids wherever we went. It was a nice idea -- you never saw a little molded plastic pelican inspire such mirth and delight. They said that whenever they went to Mexico, they brought toy soldiers, but had thought better of it in this case.

The "Modesto boys" also dispensed little snippets of agronomical wisdom, but the whole three-day trip was mostly an excuse for our Deputy Head of Project for Agriculture to drive around the north and get a feel for the place. The Afghan farmers spread out blankets, carpets, and pillows in the shade of the almond trees, gave us juice boxes imported from Pakistan, and tried to draw our attention away from the opium poppies three fields over. When it finally began to get dark, we drove back to the German guesthouse in Kunduz.

Our dinner topics that night included rhetting, scutching, and hackling. You might think this was just the common South Asian expat game of describing the grotesque symptoms of whatever stomach virus we contracted from last night's salad. But no -- one of our companions was astonished to find that the local Afghans only used flax as an oilseed, and had never heard of linen. He immediately launched into a Heineken-fueled explanation of every step in the process of extracting flax fibers and turning them into tablecloths. As you might expect for a process older than the English language, it's got its own highly specific medieval-sounding vocabulary. Afghan and American alike, the rest of us listened with baffled interest.

Then our Deputy Head began to argue that our project should focus on getting Afghans to invest in "tree bonds" -- selling the ten-year income stream from a poplar grove. Apparently it worked in Bolivia. When someone questioned whether Afghan poplars were really a secure investment, the Deputy Head shook a finger in our collective faces. "I've worked in international development for forty long years, and it's been one failure after another. You try an idea, you hope it'll work, and it never does. But this, this works. This is my home run." The prospect of working in this field for four decades and coming out of it with a single success -- and tree bonds, at that -- was a bit discouraging.

We eventually crashed in our mildewed, over-warm rooms. I woke up around six and washed my hair in the sink (no functional shower) before hitting the road again.

more to follow....

(2) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 6:02 AM by Patrick Belton  

OUR HONOURED DEAD: General Logan's General Order #11, officially established Memorial Day (then called Decoration Day) in 1868. The day is celebrated officially in the United States by the placing of a small flag onto each grave at the Arlington National Cemetery, and the laying of a wreath at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier by the President.

PBS has a tribute. The White House Commission on Remembrance encourages the observance of one minute of silence at three o'clock in recognition of the nation's war dead.

They shall not grow old, as we that are left grow old:
Age shall not weary them, nor the years condemn.
At the going down of the sun and in the morning
We will remember them.
-Laurence Binyon, Trinity College, Oxford, 1914

(0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 5:14 AM by Patrick Belton  

ON A PERSONAL NOTE....Congratulations to OxBlog's good friends Hae Won and Wilson! Those of us who've already bought shares in the institution of marriage have a strong interest in keeping the share price high and protecting our investment, so thanks, you guys! :) (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 12:37 AM by David Adesnik  

GANDALF & SEX AND THE CITY: Did you know that Kim Cattrall debuted on Broadway opposite Ian McKellen in Chekhov's Wild Honey? (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 10:39 PM by David Adesnik  

WES CLARK, SUPERPUNDIT: Suddenly, he's everywhere. A cover story in the Washington Monthly. A share of the cover from TNR's special issue on Iraq. What is it that Wes Clark wants to say?

With regard to Iraq, Clark has two big ideas -- one new and one old. The old idea is that if we're nice to Europe, it will send its soldiers over to Iraq to die for our cause. Given that the French have already said that their soldiers will never, ever serve in Iraq, that approach probably won't work. Clark's new idea is that the United States must

involve regional governments in Iraq's reconstruction, giving them a seat at the table in that country's development so they understand that they are not the next targets of regime change.

By regional governments, Clark actually does mean Syria, Iran, Saudi Arabia, etc. Of course, has to wonder how we can help Iraq become more democratic by involving some of the world's most repressive dictatorships in its reconstruction. The closest Clark comes to answering this question is when he writes that

Of course, the United States will likely differ sharply with the positions some of these states take, but it is better to hash out such issues at the negotiating table than in vitriolic exchanges via the media.

Actually, I prefer vitriolic exchanges via the media. Compromising with Syria, Iran and Saudi Arabia about the future of Iraq means selling out the Iraqis we supposedly liberated.

Now what about Clark's cover essay in the Washington Monthly? It's supposed to be the big think-piece in which he demonstrates that he can apply the lessons of history to solve those problems that ignorant neo-cons just don't understand. (Translation: "Please, please Mr. Kerry, make me your Secretary of State!") Of course, to apply the lessons of history, you actually have to know some history first. Let's start with the last two sentences of Clark's essay:

If the events of the last year tell us anything, it is that democracy in the Middle East is unlikely to come at the point of our gun. And Ronald Reagan would have known better than to try.

Actually, promoting democracy at gunpoint was exactly what Reagan was all about. Remember Nicaragua? You know, the country where the United States sent guns to brutal right-wing guerrillas in the hope that they would promote democracy?

Bizarrely enough, that strategy worked despite its appalling cost in terms of Nicaraguan blood. A similar strategy, perhaps even bloodier, did the trick in El Salvador. Unfortunately, things in Afghanistan didn't turn out as well. Now, Clark has gone on the record saying that he voted for Reagan. As far as I can tell, he must've confused Reagan with Mondale.

Getting back to the point, the big lesson that Clark draws from our experience in the Cold War is that cultural engagement is the secret to victory. He writes that

During the 1950s and 1960s, containment...[entailed] holding the line against Soviet expansion with U.S. military buildups while quietly advancing a simultaneous program of cultural engagement with citizens and dissidents in countries under the Soviet thumb...

[In the 1980s], Western organizations provided training for a generation of human-rights workers. Western broadcast media pumped in culture and political thought, raising popular expectations and undercutting Communist state propaganda. And Western businesses and financial institutions entered the scene, too, ensnaring command economies in Western market pricing and credit practices.

Unless Clark is talking about China, I really can't think of any Communist state whose command economy even came close to being "ensnared" by Western corporations. As for Western media, the West Germans were pretty much the only ones who reached a Communist audience, but not in the Soviet Union. And as for the 1950s and 1960s, there were really no "cultural engagement" programs of any significance. In short, Clark's history of the Cold War is basically imaginary.

So there. I've now spent far too much time criticizing someone whom Democratic voters (except in Oklahoma) decided wasn't good enough to be their candidate for President. But when you're a graduate student, you feel compelled to expose the ignorance of anyone who tramples on your area of expertise. How demented. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 10:19 PM by David Adesnik  

CHALABI CENTRAL: Laura Rozen is a professional journalist whose blog has become the uber-source for liberals following the Chalabi scandal. Rozen seems to be extremely well-informed although her resentment of the neo-cons is palpable and vehement. (Yes, I know. Most liberals believe that being extremely well-informed and extremely resentful of the neo-cons go hand in hand. But I think you get what I'm saying.) (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 10:02 PM by David Adesnik  

WHAT LIBERAL MEDIA? Kevin Drum is bashing Fred Barnes. While you can judge the merits their arguments for yourself, what really interests me is how the biggest ideological divide between myself and moderate liberal bloggers such as Kevin and Matt Yglesias is the issue of media bias. Neither of them will give an inch on this issue and constantly denounce conservative criticism of the media as disingenuous or even dishonest.

For most of America, the conservative-liberal divide focuses on Iraq, both the invasion and its aftermath. Yet in spite of my relative optimism about both, I share Kevin and Matt's sense that all of the big decisions have been close calls and that a strong case exists for both sides. So why has the issue of media bias become so divisive? My best guess is that because bloggers depend so much on mainstream journalists, even the slightest differences in our perception of their work become greatly magnified. But again, that's just a guess. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 5:46 PM by Patrick Belton  

MORE ON ALLAWI: Just to follow up on David's post below, the Arabic page of Allawi's Iraqi National Accord party spells his name أياد علاوي - that is, with no shadda over the لا ('la'), and the shadda is generally not meant to be omitted.

On the other hand, the INA's English pages consistently spell his name 'Allawi', suggesting that it's probably the more appropriate English spelling. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 4:55 PM by David Adesnik  

THE CASE AGAINST ALLAWI: Courtesy of Spencer Ackerman. Ackerman overdoes it, but makes some good points. Unfortunately, he doesn't look at the all-important relationship between Allawi and Sistani, which is supposedly good.

On a related note, there seems to be persistent disagreement about whether to spell the Prime Minister's name "Alawi" or "Allawi". I haven't seen the PM's name spelled out in Arabic, but I'm guessing that the relevant issue is whether or not there is a pronunciation marker known as a "shadda" over the 'L' in Allawi's name. The role of the shadda is to double the sound of a consonant, so it would turn 'L' into 'LL'. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 4:42 PM by David Adesnik  

THE GREATEST GENERATION -- OR THE MOST LASCIVIOUS?

Guy Kemp, 85, a former Navy Seabee who served in the Pacific, found himself jitterbugging to "Chattanooga Choo-Choo" with a woman he didn't know.

Hey, I hope I'm that energetic at 85. Here at OxBlog, we've only got respect for the millions who served in the War. We just think they need a little ribbing, too. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 12:55 PM by Patrick Belton  

RAIN ON YOUR WEDDING DAY NOT REALLY IRONIC, RESEARCHERS FIND: OxBlog favourite Belle Waring, just one of the many excellent bloggers to be found over on Crooked Timber, points out that the preponderance of situations in the Alanis Morrisette Song 'Ironic' were not, in fact, ironic:

A recent post on our blog about whether any of the situations in the Alanis Morrisette Song “Ironic” were, in fact, ironic, has garnered unexpected interest. I looked at the lyrics more carefully, and I think perhaps half could be said to qualify in an extended sense, that is, they seem like dramatic irony. So: “rain on your wedding day” is unquestionably not ironic, it’s just somewhat unfortunate. But I’ll give her “death-row pardon two minutes late”, I guess, if we accept a certain notion of irony I outline below.

(0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 8:48 AM by Patrick Belton  

AND DÉJÀ VU ALL-OVER-AGAIN HEADLINE OF THE DAY: 'Hamas leader killed in Israeli helicopter strike.' From CNN. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 8:38 AM by Patrick Belton  

AMBITION ODDLY PHRASED QUOTE OF THE DAY: From WaPo: Although some Kerry staff aides cringe at their nickname, Holbrooke jested upon hearing that he is called a Pooh-bah, "It's the highest rank I've ever held, and I hope by the end of the campaign to be promoted to pasha." (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 8:01 AM by Patrick Belton  

I'M GLAD THERE'S AN ACADEMY, BECAUSE: how else then would we have articles such as On Toothpicking in Early Hominids, by W.A. Agger, T.L. McAndrews, and J.A. Hlaudy, Current Anthropology (45:3), June 2004, Page 403ff. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 2:12 AM by David Adesnik  

MORE GORE: Robert Tagorda points out a rather uncomfortable contradiction in the Vice President's recent speech. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 2:02 AM by David Adesnik  

KERRY ON IRAQ: The Bush-Cheney website has posted a rather clever interactive page that allows you to click on a given date and see what John Kerry was saying about Iraq at the time. There is no smoking gun which allows you to say "Ha! I knew he was a hypocrite!", but it is amazing how many different positions Kerry can appear to take without actually contradicting himself. On the other hand, Kerry seems to recognize that his criticism of the President can only go so far. It's not an easy position to be in. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion