# Posted 6:50 PM by David Adesnik  

"LEFT BEHIND IS EVIL": That is the title of a post on Fred Clark's blog. (Hat tip: DP) Clark is a committed Christian who sees the Left Behind novels -- and even moreso, their popularity -- as serious threat to all that Christianity stands for. I don't know enough to agree or disagree, but I thought I should post a dissenting opinion since my comments on the book have not been fiercely critical. Clark writes that:

The apocalyptic heresies rampant in American evangelicalism are more popular than ever.

It's easy to dismiss these loopy ideas as a lunatic fringe, but that would be a mistake. The widespread popularity of this End Times mania has very real and very dangerous consequences, for America and for the church. ("Premillennial dispensationalism" -- the technical terms for what these prophecy freaks teach -- teaches that the Sermon on the Mount does not apply to Christians living today. It also undermines the core of Christianity -- Jesus' death and resurrection, and the hope of that resurrection. These are not tangential matters for Christians.)

The cultural standard bearer for these Very Bad Ideas is the "Left Behind" series of novels by Tim LaHaye and Jerry B. Jenkins. These books have become so popular that every pastor in America is now confronted with the task of gently, pastorally explaining to their congregation why the theology of these books is misguided and misguiding.

I'm not a pastor, so I won't be pastoral here. These books are evil, anti-Christian crap. This weekend, I'm beginning a new series of posts in which I'll go through these books, page by page.

Clark is currently up to page 71 in Left Behind. His posts are compiled here, in reverse chronological order. (1) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 6:30 PM by David Adesnik  

ELECTIONS RESULTS IN IRAQ: Jeff Weintraub is very glad that the Sistani list didn't get two-thirds or even a majority of the vote. He argues that this will create incentives for coalition building and moderation.

Now, I wouldn't be all that concerned if the Sistani list had gotten a much larger majority, since I think it has done quite a good job of demonstrating its democratic bona fides. Even so, Jeff is 100% right that the absence of a majority will safeguard the stability of the new government by creating incentives for moderation. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 5:06 PM by David Adesnik  

APOCALYPSE, PART FINAL? I just finished the book a few minutes ago. Just like fans of Harry Potter and Lemony Snicket, I can't wait to read the next book in the Left Behind series, entitled Tribulation Force. After that, there are eleven more. (And since I'm a grad student, I'll be borrowing them from the library instead of paying for them at the bookstore.)

For the moment, I'm just going to provide a few more comments about the tensions within the novel's partial embrace and total rejection of secular intellecualism. In the pages leading up to the novel's climax, both Cameron Williams and Chloe Stole, the most skeptical and secular of the book's protagonists, embrace Christ and become born-again Christians.

At first glance, the conversion of Cameron and Chloe simply represents the authors' semi-fantastical hope that the standard bearers of America's secular elite will abandon their skepticism. Yet the conversion also indicates just how badly the authors want to finding highly intelligent, perhaps even intellectual spokesmen for the born-again movement.

In other words, the condescension of the secular elites has had a profound impact on at least two important spokesmen for the movement, and they feel compelled to respond. They also feel compelled to defend themselves from the common accusation that proselytizing is an inherently offensive behavior. Before Chloe's conversion, her father thinks to himself that:

The disappearance of God's people was only the beginning of the most cataclysmic period in the history of the world. And here I am, Rayford thought, worried about offending people. I'm liable to "not offend" my own daughter right into hell. (Page 343, emphasis in original.

To be sure, this sort of response won't comfort those who resent proselytization. But it shows that the believers are aware of the dilemma they face. Thus, Rayford forces himself to be patient with his daughter.

Rayford is also patient with Cameron, aka "Buck", who discovers the truth while interviewing Rayford for a story on the Rapture:

Buck sat without interrupting as this most lucid and earnest professional calmly propounded a theory that only three weeks before Buck would have found absurd. It sounded like things he had heard in church and from friends, but this guy had chapter and verse from the Bible to back it up. (Page 384)

A secular reader might wonder why citing Biblical verses is at all persuasive to a journalist like Buck, who is presumably aware of scholars' conviction that the Bible is the product of human hands. Yet for the authors, citing such verses is constitutes rational and intellectual behavior, the kind one might asociate with a "lucid and earnest professional." Once again, we see how badly the authors want to endow their Christianity with the intellectual legitimacy possessed by secular wisdom and science.

The text of the novel seems to indicate that presenting arguments about faith in a calm and rational manner is essential to the conversion of the skeptic. Thus, after talking to Rayford,

Buck did not sleep well...if this was true, all that Rayford Steele postulated -- and Buck knew instinctively that if any of it was true, all of it was true -- why had it taken Buck a lifetime to come to it?...

Yet even Captain Steele -- an organized, analytical airline pilot -- had missed it, and Steele claimed to have had a proponent, a devotee, almost a fanatic, [i.e. his wife] living under his own roof...

The Holy Land attack [when Russia attempted to destory Israel] had been a watershed event in [Buck's] life...he had known beyond a doubt for the first time in his life that unexplainable things out there could not dissected a and evaluated scientifically from a detached Ivy League perspective. (Pages 393-394)

As Buck approaches the brink of conversion, he admits to himself that

He had always considered the "born-again" label akin to "ultraright-winger" or "fundamentalist." Now, if he chose to take a step he had never dreamed of taking, if he could not somehow talk himself out of this truth he could no longer intellectually ignore, he would also take upon himself a task: educating the world on what that confusing little term really meant. (Page 396)

Here we see the authors attempting to challenge the conventional wisdom that born-again Christians are, by their very nature, extreme and irrational. Yet in order to do so, they must abandon the anti-intellectualism they embraced just two pages earlier and assert instead that Buck's intellecutalism is precisely what led to him embrace Christianity instead of ignoring it.

Is it possible to resolve this contradiction? Perhaps one might argue that intellectualism is only viable and sound when built on a foundation of religious faith. Thus secular intellectualism is condemned to fail.

Yet if faith must precede intellectualism, how can one justify faith on intellectual grounds? Within the context of Left Behind, the answer is simple: World events have provided miraculous and incontrovertible evidence of the Bible's literal truth.

In our world, a different answer must be found. What this novel seems to suggest is that if born-again Christians learn to speak in the calm, detached manner of secular intellectuals, they can overcome the negative stereotypes that that have subjected born-again Christians to so much condescension and scorn.

Although there is a certain validity to this hypothesis, one must also address the more fundamental question of whether the actual substance of the born-again faith is somehow inherently offensive to both secular intellectuals as well as those intellectuals who embrace the Catholic, Jewish, Muslim and other faiths.

Naturally, one can't expect a novel to resolve the eternal conflict between reason and faith. Yet this novel directly raises such issues. Therefore, I hope that the next books in the Left Behind series do more to address such issues in a substantive manner. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 1:38 AM by David Adesnik  

APOCALYPSE, CONT'D: I just can't put down this book. Since I last posted, I've read another 150 pages of Left Behind. I can't exactly explain what makes me enjoy reading it so much.

A big part of it, I think, reflects my fascination with an American subculture with which I am totally unfamiliar. Yet at the same time, I am quite familiar with the Biblical prophecies on which the novel draws. Although in a much more subdued form, they also have their place in modern Jewish culture.

As a child, I did believe in the imminent coming of the messiah. Although my parents demonstrated no interest in such fantasies, there were both teachers and public figures who were willing to encourage them. So in a strange sort of way, reading Left Behind is a process of self-discovery.

As such, I was not glad to discover the increasingly prominent strain of anti-intellectualism in the novel. More often than not, accusations of anti-intellectualism tend to serve as a partisan battering ram. Nonetheless, anti-intellectualism does exist and the right and should identified for what it is.

In Left Behind, the anti-intellectual current focuses at first on Chloe Steele, Stanford undergraduate and daughter of protagonist Rayford Steele. Whereas Ray immediately recognizes the Rapture for what it is, Chloe resists. After Chloe tells her father that her mother (now in heaven) used to tell her about the Rapture and the end times, Ray asks here:

"But you still don't buy it?"

"I want to, Dad. I really do. But I have to be intellectually honest with myself."

It was all Rayoford could do to stay calm. Had he been this pseudosophisticated at that age? Of course he had. He had run everything through that maddening intellectual grid -- until recently, when the supernatural came crashing through his academic pretense. But like the cabbie said, you'd have to be blind not to see the light now, no matter how educated you thought you were. (Page 237)

The novel's portrayal of Chloe is not without sympathy, but it hammers home the same message again and again: Do not be deceived by your commitment to reason. Let faith take over. (Obi-wan Kenobi would be proud.)

The section of the book I've just finished also contains what seems to be the theological core of the novel's premise. Searching for answers, Ray Steele visits the church that his wife attended before she was taken by Christ. Steele discovers that the pastor and almost the entire congregration were saved as well, but the pastor wisely prepared a video tape with instructions for those Left Behind. At the conclusion of the tape, Pastor Billings tells his viewers that:

"If you accept God's message of salvation, his Holy Spirit will come in unto you and make you spiritually born anew. You don't need to understand all this theologically. You can become a child of God by praying to him right now as I lead you--" (Page 215)

Within the context of the novel, this message makes perfect sense since of the Bible's literal truth surrounds the characters. Yet if one approaches the novel as an inspirational work for those of us living in the real world, its message becomes problematic.

Both Pastor Billings and those other characters who have knowledge of the Rapture and what is to follow derive their information from sophisticated decodings of numerous passages in the Bible. For example, during his lecture on the video tape, Billings recites in their entirely the six verses from 1 Corinthians 15 that serve as the Biblical foundation of the book's premise.

During his lecture, the pastor feels compelled to explain the meaning of the verses in considerable detail. This is necessary precisely because the meaning of the verses is so obscure. If you read them without already knowing what they mean, you would probably never be able to figure out that they are referring to the Rapture or anything like it.

Which isn't to say that the pastor's interpretation of the verses is necessarily wrong. Yet his interpretation clearly entails significant intellectual labor. Moreover, the labor required is not simply his own, but also those of numerous experts and scholars to whom the book occasionally refers.

This hidden intellectualism is especially problematic when considered side-by-side with the overt anti-intellectualism prevalent throughout the novel. In practice, it constitutes a double standard. The secular intellectualism of characters such as Chloe is denigrated. The sacred intellectualism of unnamed experts is glorified.

It is also beyond reach. Converts such as Ray Steele are not allowed to challenge it. They are told to simply embrace their faith in a simple, child-like manner. In the context of the novel, this makes sense. If one could watch Biblical prophecies being fulfilled on CNN, then trusting one's pastor makes a certain amount of sense.

But I am curious to know: Will there be disagreements in the final pages of the novel about what action the Bible prescribes for those who are Left Behind? Or is the meaning presumed to be so apparent that the only relevant question is whether the characters choose will faith over skepticism?

Although novels are not supposed to be handbooks for day-to-day living, this one clearly has a message for those who want to devote more of their life to religion. And it is message I am becoming somewhat uncomfortable with.

UPDATE: Click here for the next post in this series. (1) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 12:52 AM by David Adesnik  

OXBLOG, FIDDLE & MANDOLIN: I just saw a great bluegrass concert by King Wilkie. Check'em out. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 12:46 PM by David Adesnik  

LIVE-BLOGGING THE APOCALYPSE: As part of my growing interest in evangelical Christianity, I've decided to read Left Behind by Tim LaHaye and Jerry Jenkins. Is reading a novel the best way to educate myself about a serious subject like this? No, probably not. But I spend all day reading academic prose, so if I'm going to spend my spare time on something it has to be entertaining.

I've been looking for a novel to read for quite some time now, so when Time Magazine decided to list LaHaye as one of the 25 Most Influential Evangelicals in America, I thought it might be fun to read some of his books. After all, if LaHaye and Jenkins have sold 42 millions books, it's pretty safe to assume they are fun to read.

And they are. I read a hundred pages last night and another fifty after breakfast this morning. LaHaye and Jenkins write in a simple, straightforward, user-friendly kind of way. There are no artistic or intellectual pretensions here. The purpose of this book is to tell a story.

The story begins 30,000 feet over the Atlantic, on flight from Chicago to London. Suddenly, dozens of passengers disappear. Literally. An old woman wakes up to discover her husband's clothes just lying on his seat. His shoes are on the floor with his socks still inside.

Quickly, it becomes apparent that this is a global crisis. Millions and millions of people have disappeared across the globe. Including every last child. The result is chaos. When drivers suddenly disappear from cars, engineers from trains and pilots from their planes, massive accidents result.

The protagonists of the book are the 747 pilot Ray Steele and ace reporter Cameron "Buck" Williams. In the manner of a 1950s comic book, it seems that everyone in the United States has un-ethnic names. Thus, the list of characters includes Hattie Durham, Marge Potter, Christopher Smith and Steve Plank.

Williams' role is that of the well-informed, well-educated, rational individual trying to come to grips with the apparent fulfillment of Biblical prophecies on a global scale. At least for the moment, Steele's role is something of a mystery. Why should we care about this pilot? What is his relevance to the unfolding events? He is also a non-believer struggling with spiritual events, but what makes him different from billions of others caught in the same situation?

The mystery of these implicit questions heightens the novel's suspense. In fact, just about everything heightens this novel's suspense. This morning, I looked up from the book and there was something about New York on television. For a moment, I was actually surprised that New York was still there.

Naturally, my interest in this novel is also political. Foremost in my mind are pervasive stereotypes of evangelical Christians as intolerant, close-minded and provincial. Already after 150 pages, I can say this book isn't strictly provincial. Although focused on a small number of individuals, it studies them against a trans-continental back drop of transformative events with global implications.

Yet within this globalism there are hints of chauvinism. For example, we learn on page 48 that

At a Christian high school soccer game at a missionary headquarters in Indonesia, most of the spectators and all but one of the players disappeared in the middle of play, leaving their shoes and uniforms on the ground. The CNN reporter announced that, in his remorse, the surviving player took his own life.

So out of 240,000,000 million Indonesians, the only ones saved are those who embraced Christianity. Of course, if the authors are committed to their interpretation of the Bible, it is hard to avoid such conclusions. Nonetheless, such details may strike non-Christian readers as remarkably intolerant and even provincial. Yes, the events in question take place in Indonesia. But the only apparent purpose of Indonesia is to provide converts for a foreign faith.

A fundamental question here is whether a book like Left Behind can reach to those who don't share the faith of its authors. For example, will the address whether Catholics can be saved, or whether they must automatically be left behind? If Catholics can be saved, why not Muslims or Hindus?

By initiating such a work of fiction, the authors confront a precipice. Either they can make a broad audience feel good by suggesting that anyone can be saved if he or she is basically a good person. Or they can inspire those who share their faith by suggesting that it is essential to salvation.

Choose the former, and the value of faith becomes questionable. After all, why believe if non-believers can also be saved? Conversely, is it possible to assuage the guilt of those believers who don't want their friendly Buddisht or agnostic neighbors to be condemned to eternal suffering in the event of an onrushing apocalypse?

UPDATE: Click here for the next post in this series. (3) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 12:17 PM by David Adesnik  

DOES BUSH CARE ABOUT TOGO? Zero Sum takes me to task for assuming that this administration actually intends to promote democracy in every wayward corner of the globe, e.g. Togo. FYI, this is the criticism of a conservative realist, not of a carping liberal just waiting to pounce on the President for his supposed hypocrisy. ZS writes that

Togo has no strategic value for the US , and since most Americans haven't heard of, paid attention to, or care about Togo, there is simply no electoral advantage at this point in saying or doing anything.

Although I do believe that promoting democracy has political advantages on the domestic front, I think it is very wrong to assume that this sort of domestic calculus enters the fray when the White House thinks about places like Togo.

If the President wanted to send a strong message to the government in Lome, he could do so at very little cost. The power differential between us and Togo is so great that even our ambassador or Assistant Secretary of State for Africa could make America's voice heard.

The real issue, I think, is that Togo isn't important enough to command the President's attention. With crises brewing in Iran and North Korea, it's hard to imagine that the NSC, State Department or Pentagon will even want to bother the President with memoranda about Togo.

By the same token, the NY Times and Washington Post haven't devoted any serious attention to the issue, so there's no outside pressure to address the situation. If Bush actually thought about Togo for more than a few seconds and realized how low the cost of involvement was, I'm fairly sure that he would do the right thing.

In conclusion, the presumption that Bush makes decisions on the basis of a narrow domestic political calculus presumes that the President and his closest advisers spend enough time thinking about peripheral issues to determine how they will play on the homefront. But the real problem with places like Togo is that they don't even get subjected to that sort of analysis.

So, is there a way out of this dilemma? Actually, yes. If sustained over time, a presidential commitment to democracy promotion will slowly diffuse throughout the bureaucracy. If the embassy staff in Lome or the West Africa desk officer at Foggy Bottom begin to believe that the President really wants them to promote democracy in Togo, they may take the initiative on their own without orders from above.

(Maybe our folks in Lome are actually doing that right now. But as a general rule, I don't think there is a grassroots commitment to real democracy promotion at the embassy level. In principle, I'm sure all of our diplomats support democracy promotion. However, in any given situation, other interests tend to predominate.)

Over time, lower echelon officials may even come to believe that promoting democracy right now is better than waiting for the African Union or other multilateral organizations to develop a concerted apporach to the country in question. But that won't happen until a long time from now, and it won't happen unless the next President and his successor pick up where Bush left off. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 5:47 PM by David Adesnik  

CAN THE DEMOCRATS GET TOUGH ABOUT NATIONAL SECURITY? That is the question posed by an open letter to the party posted on the website of the Progressive Policy Institute. The letter's basic message is as follows:

Once again, our foes doubt that we will fight and sacrifice for the ideals we profess to live by. Once again, we must prove them wrong. Moral clarity in this fight is essential. The American people will not trust leaders who will not vigorously defend their ideals.

Does the Democratic party dare associate itself with a phrase such as "moral clarity"? Or will the invocation of a phrase associated with the White House simply persuade the Democratic left that the idealists who drafted this letter are closet Republicans? I hope not, but it wouldn't surprise me if they did.

One should also point out the significance of this letter's suggestion that the American people actually prefer leaders who "vigorously defend their ideals." I can't really recall any instance during the campaign when either Democratic pols or media figures said that John Kerry was hurting himself by not talking about democracy promotion. Unsurprisingly, Kerry didn't even try to insist that he was the real idealist and that Bush was just a poseur. Instead, Kerry simply let Bush take the pro-democracy high-ground.

Although both the pols and journalists knew that Kerry had to present himself as tough, they never seemed to think that American voters also cared about electing a president who is openly idealistic. Nor did the pols and journalists ever argue that being idealistic is part and parcel of being tough.

The bottom line is that there is a massive gulf of perception that separates tough, idealistic Truman-style Democrats from the party's liberal establishment. This isn't just about the war in Iraq or even the occupation. Rather, it is a fundamental division about what role idealism should play in American foreign relations and the degree to which the American people actually care about those ideals.
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# Posted 5:31 PM by David Adesnik  

KRISTOF WANTS IT BOTH WAYS: Hippercritical says it doesn't make sense. Last fall, Nick Kristof was among the vocal advocates of calling a spade a spade and declaring that mass murder in Darfur amounts to genocide.

In a recent report on Darfur, the UN refused to label the murders as genocide. But instead of criticizing the UN, Kristof attacks Bush for preventing the UN from referring Darfur to the International Criminal Court. Naturally, Kristof doesn't mention that the ICC may be completely toothless, so his complaint about Bush is sort of irrelevant.

Now, I sympathize with Kristof to a certain degree. He is a good liberal who therefore wants to be a good humanitarian and a good multilateralist. But Darfur has demonstrated once again that the multilateral response to massive human rights violations is often pathetic. At some point, Kristof and others may have to recognize that being a good liberal means becoming a bad multilateralist.
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# Posted 5:13 PM by David Adesnik  

THIS SHOULD'VE BEEN AN EASY CALL: Why won't the United States speak out on behalf of democracy in Togo? After the death of dictator Gnassingbe Eyadema, the US has patiently waited for the African Union and other multilateral bodies to come up with an appropriate response, even though the military has installed the dictator's son in power.

Since Togo has no strategic value, the Bush administration should've jumped at this chance to show the world that the President meant what he said about the spread of democracy across the globe. On the other hand, the Bush administration's silence is far better than Jacques Chirac's pathetic statement that the dead strongman was "a friend of France who was for me a personal friend."
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# Posted 1:57 PM by David Adesnik  

THE HUMAN SIDE OF OUTSOURCING: A fascinating set of observations about life in India.
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# Posted 1:13 PM by David Adesnik  

REAGAN ON SOCIAL SECURITY: What follows is a letter, dated February 9, 1983, from the President to George Burns, the well-known actor and octogenarian:

Dear George:

I just had to answer your letter knowing how concerned you are about Social Security. Now that I've reached the age of eligibility you can rest assured I've done something about it. I've made sure it will be on a solid basis for all you young fellows when your turn comes.

February 6 was my birthday -- I finally made PAR-72 the hard way.

Nancy sends her love and so do I.

Sincerely,
Ronnie

Source: Reagan: A Life in Letters, Page 162.

Reagan's letter provides an interesting contrast to the message in which FDR declared that private annuities should ultimately replace Social Security. According to OxBlog reader AS, this website and others have fundamentally misunderstood the sort of program that FDR was advocating. Drawing on this report by the official historian of the Social Security Administration, AS comments that:

FDR's proposal of "voluntary contributory annuities" was for insurance-type annuities, to be issued and guaranteed by the government. Income from this program "would go into the trust fund along with the payroll taxes collected under the mandatory program." This is essentially just a voluntary extension of what we now know as traditional Social Security...

FDR proposed a program with money held by the government, and a return guaranteed by the government. In stark contrast to what FDR proposed, the Bush proposal is for money held by Wall Street and returns are guaranteed by no one.

FDR proposed allowing workers to voluntarily increase the size of their government-guaranteed retirement account. Bush, on the other hand, proposes decreasing the size of the government-guaranteed retirement account, and instead entrust the money to Wall Street. The two proposals are diametrically opposed, yet you're still treating them as equivalent.

AS points to numerous important contrast, but also overlooks some important similarities between the two proposals. First of all, FDR did envision the reduction of guaranteed benefits, although such a reduction would take place in the indefinite future. Now, almost seven decades later, we are living in that indefinite future.

AS is correct to point out that FDR's proposal made no provision for Wall Street. Then again, in 1935, how could anyone have reasonably proposed that investing in the stock market was a safe and secure course of action?

One should also point out that under the still-to-be-defined Bush plan, one can invest in US government bonds. In fact, it seems that private account holders will be able to invest entirely in government bonds should they so choose. If they do so, the returns will be guaranteed by the United States government and not by "no one".

Finally, I believe that AS overlooks a very important similarity between the FDR and Bush proposals, namely that the investor will be in full possession of the benefits, which the government will never be able to take away. Under the current system, the government retains the right to reduce benefits, raise the retirement age or alter the system in any number of ways. Both the private annuities described by Roosevelt and the private accounts proposed by Bush would be immune from such action.

That said, I want to emphasize that these comments are not intended as a defense of the Bush administration's approach to this issue. Rather, I believe it is important to dispel certain myths and misperceptions perpetuated by the President's critics. Or for that matter, by the administration itself.

UPDATE: Matt Yglesias counters via e-mail that:

The statement that under the Bush plan you'll be allowed to invest in US government bonds is true, but misleading. The personal accounts will be financed in the short term through government borrowing (since we need to keep paying benefits to people 55 and over). This will open up a new hole in federal finances over and above the existing one. The Bush plan involves first closing the existing gap in some unspecified way. The second gap will be made up by a further reduction in guaranteed benefits for people who choose to start a private account. The second reduction will be calculated by determining the size of your account contributions and tacking on a three percent annual interest rate, three percent being the interest rate on the bonds that the government will need to sell in order to let you start your account.

This has the benefit of ensuring that, over the long term, the transition costs will be managed. The downside is that in order to make money with your account, you need to invest in assets that have a higher rate of return than do bonds. The only assets that do so are riskier assets (either stocks or corporate bonds). So while you'll be permitted to invest your money in Treasury Bills, there would be no point in doing so since your reduction in guaranteed benefits would be exactly equal to the rate of return on the bonds you purchased, minus the administrative fees on your account. The choice, then, is a bit illusory.

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# Posted 1:16 PM by David Adesnik  

HELP WANTED: I've been in Washington yesterday and today in the hopes of averting post-graduation unemployment. Posting will resume tonight.
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# Posted 8:28 PM by David Adesnik  

HALFTIME WITH PAUL McCARTNEY: A major improvement over Justin and Janet in every way. But what's with Paul's shirt? Deep red with a black star?
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# Posted 1:44 PM by David Adesnik  

LONG MEMORIES, SHORT TEMPERS: David Holiday, who shares my esoteric interest in US-Central American relations during the Reagan era, is less than happy about Elliot Abrams' promotion over at the National Security Council. The media clearly hasn't forgiven or forgotten, either. According to the first sentence of a wire report reprinted in the WaPo,

Elliott Abrams, who pleaded guilty in 1991 to withholding information from Congress in the Iran-contra affair, was promoted to deputy national security adviser to President Bush. [NB: Abrams will be a deputy NSA, not the deputy NSA. --ed.]

David H. observes that Abrams

Still thinks he did nothing wrong...Sounds like a model policy maker for the Bush administration to me!

Since the legal aspects of the Iran-Contra affair are not my area of expertise, I am going to withhold judgment. I have read the transcripts of many of Abrams' jousting sessions with House and Senate oversight committees, and it is hard not to be impressed by his intellect.

Given how often liberal recollections of the 1980s are just plain wrong, I would not be surprised if their is far more merit to Abrams' case than his critics let on. (For Abrams defense of his own record, see here.) In fact, even some of Abrams most persistent liberal critics admit that he took the fall on behalf of other Reagan era officials.

What I can comment on with a certain degree of confidence is Abrams' commitment to democracy promotion. In contrast to many of those around him in the 1980s, Abrams understood fully that America must take down right-wing dictators along with their Communist counterparts. In spite of Abrams' controversial support for the Contras, he was fully able to work side-by-side with arch-liberal Sen. Tom Harkin toward the objective of bringing down the Pinochet regime in Chile.

In fact, I would argue that Abrams is a pivotal figure in the history of neo-conservatism. In the early 1980s, in the heyday of Jeane Kirkpatrick, democracy promotion was nowhere to be found on the neo-con agenda. In fact, Kirkpatrick rose to fame by arguing that the Carter administration's greatest failure was its hesitation to support pro-American dictators like Somoza and the Shah.

If you want to understand why the new generation of neo-conservatives is so committed to democracy promotion, you have to focus on the influence of Elliot Abrams.

One of Abrams' assistants at the State Department in the 1980s was Robert Kagan. Now, I can't be objective about Kagan since I worked for him and think he's a great guy, but who wouldn't admit that Kagan is the most important and persuasive spokesman today for neo-conservatism?

Neo-conservatism today is much stronger than it was 20 years ago, and Elliot Abrams is one of the most important reasons why.
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# Posted 1:24 PM by David Adesnik  

ASK AND THOU SHALT RECEIVE: Yesterday, I wanted to know how the ICC could enforce an arrest warrant for war criminals in the Sudan. Today, veteran Human Rights Watcher David Holiday points me to the HRW commentary on Section I, Article 59(4) of the ICC charter (Available here as a PDF), entitled "Issuing an International Arrest Warrant":

Recommendation: The Pre-Trial Chamber should have the power to take appropriate measures when an arrest warrant, issued under Article 59, has not been executed. Specifically, such measures should include the issuance of an international warrant for the arrest of the accused, (240) delivered to all states and binding on state parties, or ordering the freezing of assets of the accused without prejudice to the rights of third parties. Where the prosecutor satisfies the Court that the failure to execute a warrant was due to the failure of a state party to cooperate with the Tribunal, the Court may so communicate to other state parties. (241)

Comment: The Court must develop a mechanism towards ensuring that accused persons cannot escape conviction by absconding or otherwise refusing to submit to the jurisdiction of the Court. The Court should be empowered to insist that all state parties share responsibility for bringing to trial those indicted by the Court. The adoption of this recommendation would mean that, in the event of an accused person being shielded from prosecution by the State on whose territory she or he is residing, the accused could be arrested on entering the territory of another state party to the treaty, or cooperative non-state party.

Now, I'll be the first to admit that I don't know jack about jurisprudence. But what HRW's commentary seems to be saying is that unless NATO provides the muscle, the ICC is powerless. So how about it Jacques? Gerhard? Want to prove to Middle America that Europe actually cares about genocide? This is your chance.

Anyhow, while Jacques & Gerhard are thinking it over, it is possible that the simple threat of an ICC indictment may prevent further atrocities. As Randy Paul explains [via e-mail]:

It was the announcement of the indictment of Charles Taylor in the Sierra Leone ad-hoc tribunal that provided the impetus to get him out of power in Liberia.

My sense is that Taylor was in a much weaker position than the Sudanese goverment is now, but hey, you never know. If I lived in Darfur, I would put NATO on my speed-dial.
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# Posted 1:35 AM by David Adesnik  

AND THE WINNER IN IRAQ IS...Saddam. (Hat tip: BM)
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# Posted 1:19 AM by David Adesnik  

JUMPING ON THE BANDWAGON: I've already had two readers (AL and VJB) send me this excerpt from FDR's message to Congress on Social Security from 1935, so its existence is clearly not a secret. But it's quite interesting, so here goes:

In the important field of security for our old people, it seems necessary to adopt three principles: First, noncontributory old-age pensions for those who are now too old to build up their own insurance. It is, of course, clear that for perhaps 30 years to come funds will have to be provided by the States and the Federal Government to meet these pensions. Second, compulsory contributory annuities which in time will establish a self-supporting system for those now young and for future generations. Third, voluntary contributory annuities by which individual initiative can increase the annual amounts received in old age. It is proposed that the Federal Government assume one-half of the cost of the old-age pension plan, which ought ultimately to be supplanted by self-supporting annuity plans. [Emphasis added]

You'd think that Bush's speechwriters would've discovered this quotation while researching his State of the Union address. But I guess they figured that FDR would be the last one to provide the President with ammunition for his struggle with the Democrats.
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# Posted 11:52 PM by David Adesnik  

THE UN IS NOT THE PROBLEM IN DARFUR: In response to my recent post on Darfur, Randy Paul points to this report from Human Rights Watch which says the Bush administration's refusal to refer the case to the ICC is forcing the death toll ever higher.

I haven't followed this as closely as the situation warrants, but the HRW report doesn't explain how an ICC indictment would be enforced. Would the small African peacekeeping force now in Darfur be expected to arrest any indicted war criminals? If they tried, would the Sudanese government and its militias respond with overwhelming force?

It seems to me that HRW should learn from Bush rather than criticizing him. If you want to stop the murderers in Khartoum, there is only one way to do it: go in there and get them.

Had the United States not invaded Iraq, it would be reasonable to advocate a US-led mission to Sudan, a la Kosovo. But that is not an option. Given the state of transatlantic relations, the United States can't exactly demand that the French and Germans put their money where their mouth is and deal with the situation and Darfur.

But if Chirac and Schroeder really want to demonstrate that Europe is ready to lead rather than just criticize, this may be the best opportunity of the decade.
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# Posted 11:45 PM by David Adesnik  

EVERYTHING BUT THE KITCHEN SINK: Check out this post from the Regular Staple. It mentions Prague, hot babes, Jonathan Safran Foer and democracy promotion. And did I mention it includes a gratuitous insult directed at Canada?
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# Posted 11:39 PM by David Adesnik  

I (HEART) DUKAKIS & MONDALE: Finally, there is a website to devoted to the great also-rans of American history. From DeWitt Clinton to Samuel Tilden (the Al Gore of his day and age) to modern favorites such as George McGovern, they've all come together at Defeated Online.
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# Posted 6:35 PM by David Adesnik  

ANOTHER LIBERAL MISUNDERESTIMATES BUSH: Yesterday in TNR, David Kusnets, chief speechwriter for Bill Clinton from 1992-94, wrote that

If Bush continues to sound as unabashedly idealistic as he did in his inaugural--when he appeared in a hurry to remake the nation and the world--then you'll know that's the real Bush, not simply the Bush that [Michael] Gerson presented to the world during the last five years. My bet is that's not going to happen...

While [Bush] won't backtrack from his support for democracy overseas, he'll likely lean more heavily on realist rhetoric to explain why such policies will make America more secure.

Wow. It's hard to be more spectacularly wrong than that. (Although you've got to give Kusnets credit for laying it all on the line and making explicit predicitons.)

Speaking more broadly, I find it to be extremely striking that someone with such extensive experience inside the White House speechwriting machine could so thoroughly misunderstand the nature of presidential rhetoric. After leaving the White House in 1994, did Kusnets ever presume that major, substantive aspects of Clinton's rhetoric were the work of speechwriters, rather than a reflection of the president's own interests?

I don't know, but I doubt it. The clear subtext of Kusnets' argument is that Bush didn't understand (or perhaps didn't care about) what he was saying in public during the first four years of his administration. Now that is misunderestimation.
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# Posted 6:30 PM by David Adesnik  

GOOD WORK, JAMIE: OxFriend Jamie Kirchick, current president of the Yale College Students for Democracy (or just YCSD), got 200 of his fellow students to dip their fingers in blue ink as a symbol of support for the elections in Iraq. (Hat tip: JVL)
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# Posted 6:11 PM by David Adesnik  

IRONY WATCH: Safia al-Souhail was a special guest of the First Family last night at the State of the Union Address. According to al-Souhail, the man who murdered her father on Saddam's behalf just happens to be one of the businessman who made millions off of the Oil-for-Food scam. Al-Souhail even says that the assassin received the oil vouchers as a reward for his work. (Hat tip: JS)
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# Posted 8:56 PM by David Adesnik  

LIVE-BLOGGING THE STATE OF THE UNION: No, live-blogging is not conducive to the most thoughtful and reflective observations. But it does create a faithful record immediate reactions and, besides, what else am I supposed to do while watching a speech on TV? Listen?

9:01 PM: Brian Williams tells us that at some point, the State of the Union address became a made-for-TV spectacular. There's actually quite an interesting bit of background here. Before Woodrow Wilson became President, chief executives delivered the State of the Union address in written form. Broadly speaking, changes in the presentation of the SotU parallel important developments in the changing nature of presidential leadership.

9:10 PM: President announces unprecedented mission to Mars.

9:11 PM: Oh wait, that was last year.

9:11 PM: Bush introduces his speech as an implementation in the ideals of Second Inaugural Address.

9:13 PM: Denny Hastert should really make more of an effort to look like he's paying attention.

9:14 PM: A long list of health care reforms. But will they help resolve the Medicare crisis?

9:19 PM: You know, Bush could say "nook-LEE-uhr" if he wanted to, but he likes messing with the Democrats' minds by saying "nook-YOU-luhr".

9:20 PM: Immigration reform? Another issue that will divide the Republicans? I support it, but does Bush have any political capital to spare?

9:24 PM: Bush reminds us that in 2018, Social Security will begin to pay out more than it takes in. In other words, it will finally begin to resemble everyother government program.

9:24 PM: Social Security will simply not be "bankrupt" in 2042 and will not require dramatically higher taxes to save it. Raising the retirement age and slowing benefit growth are also very strong options.

9:26 PM: So we've got a lot of "options on the table" for Social Security reform. Which means we don't actually have a well-defined plan.

9:30 PM: Private accounts. Will Bush put a price tag on the transition costs? It doesn't seem like it.

9:32 PM: Bush says he wants a marriage amendment. The question is, will he make any real effort to overcome almost unbeatable opposition in the Senate?

9:33 PM: We can grow extra body parts from embryos? Cool!

9:42 PM: Bush promises to continue building "the coalitions that will defeat the dangers of our time."

9:44 PM: OK, so we're getting a brief recap of the inaugural. Now let's take about implementing those ideals.

9:46 PM: $350 million for Palestinian democracy is nice. But is it wise to raise expectations of peace between Israelis and Arabs?

9:47 PM: I was hoping for a second sentence there about democracy in Egypt. Of course Egypt "can" lead the way to a more democratic Middle East. But what will America do to make it so?

9:49 PM: I don't think that fighting terrorists in Iraq really prevents us from having to fight them here at home. But if the election is over and Bush is still sticking to this idea, then I guess he really believes it.

9:55 PM: Of course I agree that we should train Iraqi forces to defend their own nation. But what if Bush also said that we will train Iraqi forces who cannot only hold their own on the battlefield, but also respect the rights and liberties that the people of Iraq risked their lives to win at the polls?

10:00 PM: That is a powerful image -- the mother of a fallen Marine hugging one of the Iraqi women whose freedom her son died to protect.

10:02 PM: State of the Union addresses always have a sort of laundry-list quality about them. It's hard to get really excited about them, especially when all of the stirring rhetoric appeared so recently in the form of the Inaugural Address

10:04 PM: Tim Russert says that George Bush has bet his presidency on Iraq. As goes Iraq, so goes the President's second term. I would add: One year ago, that seemed like a terrible bet. Now freshmen members of the house are waving their ink-stained fingers in the air.

10:06 PM: In a few minutes, we'll get to hear the Democratic response from Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid. We know we're going to hear some strong words about Social Security. But will the Democrats have anything to say about Iraq?

10:09 PM: A bold prediction from Russert -- the debate about Social Security will be "hot, heated and contentious."

10:12 PM: Sen. Reid says he grew up around people of strong values. So why is Nevada the only state with legalized prostitution?

10:13 PM: Yes, that undoubtedly was a cheap shot. It's just so funny to hear someone who represents Las Vegas talk about value.

10:15 PM: Don't the Democrats have something better to offer than telling us the Indians and Chinese are going to steal our jobs?

10:17 PM: I have to admit, Harry Reid is the right guy to deliver a tough address. He just seems so nice and kind and agreeable, no matter what he's saying.

10:19 PM: That was really short on details.

10:20 PM: Pelosi looks like she's talking to a camera. It's because her eyes don't move.

10:21 PM: So much for Democrats trying to build an issue of toughness. Like John Kerry, Pelosi can only think about when our troops get to come home.

10:22 PM: "Regional diplomacy must be intensified." There's a slogan that will be remembered for the ages.

10:24 PM: Notice how Pelosi said absolutely nothing about strengthening democracy in Iraq. She described training the Iraqi army as the number one priority for US forces in Iraq. Fine. But what she had to say is that training Iraqi forces is a priority because it is the most important step toward the consolidation of Iraqi democracy.

10:26 PM: Pelosi briefly mentioned both Sunday's elections in Iraq as well as those that will take place this fall. But she said absolutely nothing about Bush's vision for a democratic Middle East. She didn't endorse it. She didn't condemn it. She just had nothing to say.
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# Posted 1:55 AM by David Adesnik  

"LIBERALISM IS THE ONLY THING THAT CAN SAVE CIVILIZATION FROM CHAOS": Those are the words of Woodrow Wilson from 1919. To modern ears, Wilson's words seem like some sort of ridiculous partisan statement. In order to understand what Wilson actually meant, you have to substitute the words "liberal democracy" for Wilson's "liberalism". And instead of "conservatives", think "realists":

Conservatives do not realize what forces are loose in the world at the present time. Liberalism is the only thing that can save civilization from chaos -- from a flood of ultra-radicalism that will swamp the world. (David Schmitz, Thank God They're On Our Side, page 13)

Wilson's words reflected his response to the Bolshevik challenge in the aftermath of the Russian revolution. But they may as well represent George Bush's response to violent Islamic fundamentalism in the aftermath of September 11th.

Wilson's critics thought he was a fool. Warren Harding argued that that Wilson had "preached the gospel of revolution in the central Empires of Europe" and that

The menace of Bolshevism...owes a very large part...to the policies and utterances of the Chief Executive of the United States. (Schmitz, 18)

Of course, history has not been kind to Woodrow Wilson. Yet instead of his passion for democracy, it was his passion for multilateralism that supposedly did him in. Although it is tempting to argue that Bush will not share Wilson's fate because the current President cares nothing for multilateralism, I think that such an inference would be false.

The League of Nations may not have fulfilled its founders' expectations, but I think it is foolish to believe that the existence of the League made the outbreak of World War II any more likely than it otherwise would have been. Naturally, there are those who would disagree, and extended arguments should be had about this subject.

Anyhow, the point I really want to make is that Wilson has somehow acquired an undeserved reputation for being an advocate of appeasement, accommodation and masochism. Somehow, we forget that Wilson dispatched American soldiers to Mexico, Nicaragua, Haiti and the Dominican Republic. And, of course, Wilson made the tremendously controversial decision to do battle against German imperialism rather than hope that Britain and France could win the war on their own.

Thus, when comparing Wilson to Bush, one cannot suggest that the latter has perverted the ideals of the former because of his willingess to use force. Rather, Bush has reminded us that the Wilsonian tradition represents the marriage of strength and idealism.

To an idealist such as myself, the analysis above represents something of a vindication for Bush. However, I think my analysis can also serve as the foundation for a less partisan and more broadly acceptable point:

Bush's ideas do not represent the strange marraige of Democratic naievete to Republican belligerence. Bush is not a neo-Wilsonian. He is a Wilsonian.

Whether you are for or against the President, you can sharpen your own arguments by learning more about the historical context in which his ideas were born.
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# Posted 1:49 AM by David Adesnik  

HEADED FOR A FALL IN PYONGYANG? This report from the London Times says that the days are numbered for Kim Jong-Il. The details are tantalizingly persuasive. But how many times before have hopeful visitors insisted that the North Korean regime doesn't have long to live? (Hat tip: JG)
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# Posted 1:38 AM by David Adesnik  

YOU MAY BE FAMOUS BUT NOT EVEN KNOW IT: And if you sue the right corportation you may also be rich. (Hat tip: JVL)
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# Posted 11:47 PM by David Adesnik  

MORE FROM THE MIDDLE EAST: Is it me, or is this Al Jazeera report actually critical of Europe for closing its eyes to human rights abuses in Cuba? Regardless of the answer to that question, I think everyone who reads the report will agree that Al Jazeera is very harsh on the Castro dictatorship.

Also, take a look at this report on Cuban efforts to call the kettle black by putting up massive billboards in Havana with photos from Abu Ghraib. You know, if Al Jazeera doesn't get with program and start romanticizing left-wing dictatorships, it will never match the accomplishments of the BBC.
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# Posted 11:30 PM by David Adesnik  

THIS IS A LOT BETTER THAN THE BBC: I just started reading the English-language reports on Al Jazeera. I was definitely surprised to read this:

Mishan al-Jibury, a Sunni candidate from Mosul, said lower turnout in the Sunni areas was due to lack of security and functioning polling stations as well as calls for a boycott from Sunni groups hostile to the US military presence...

"I can honestly say that this has been in general a fair and landmark dress rehearsal for democracy," he said.

Speaking to Aljazeera from the northern city of Mosul, Mustafa Ibrahim, an independent Iraqi journalist, said the turnout in Mosul had been fair despite some problems.

"There was a fair attendance compared to the expectations of many in the city.

"In general, the election held in Mosul was a surprise to all as the number of voters was more than expected when considering the daily messages and posters threatening voters with death if they went to polling stations," Ibrahim added.

Of course, such reports are balanced by more negative ones like this:

[Iraqi journalist Ziyad]Al-Samarrai reported that political beliefs, rather than security factors, were the reasons behind Iraqis' boycott of the elections.

Most citizens interviewed by the journalist said the elections reflected nothing but the will of the United States and was for its own interests.

Not bad. Not bad at all. If this is what well-informed citizens in the Arab world are reading, they must just figure out what's actually going on.
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# Posted 11:23 PM by David Adesnik  

NOR ANY DROP TO DRINK: Riverbend has an interesting post about waiting for the faucets to go on in Iraq. Strange, isn't it, that in today's world someone can live in a home without running water but still be able to communicate with thousands of strangers all over the world.

Btw, I'm looking forward to River's comments on the election, which aren't up yet.
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# Posted 11:18 PM by David Adesnik  

MR. DRUM GOES TO WASHINGTON: Kevin debuts in the WaPo. Congratulations!
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# Posted 11:10 PM by David Adesnik  

FUTILITY: According to Fareed Zakaria,

No matter how the voting turns out, the prospects for genuine democracy in Iraq are increasingly grim. Unless there is a major change in course, Iraq is on track to become another corrupt, oil-rich quasi-democracy, like Russia and Nigeria...

Paul Bremer did an extremely good job building institutional safeguards for the new Iraq, creating a public-integrity commission, an election commission, a human-rights commission, inspectors general in each bureaucratic government department. Some of these have survived, but most have been shelved, corrupted, or marginalized...

Much of the reason for this decline is, of course, the security situation. The United States has essentially stopped trying to build a democratic order in Iraq and is simply trying to fight the insurgency and gain some stability and legitimacy. In doing so, if that exacerbates group tensions, corruption, cronyism, and creates an overly centralized regime, so be it.

Well, that's certainly the first nice thing I've heard about Paul Bremer in a long time. And I think it's unfair to say the US is no longer trying to build democracy in Iraq. That election didn't happen by itself. The question is, how much of a personal commitment will the President make to those aspects of democratic life, e.g. the rule of law, transparency, etc., that rarely result from elections?
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# Posted 10:56 PM by David Adesnik  

"WHAT NEXT FOR ZARQAWI?" asks Dan Darling. Dan also links to a very interesting and in-depth report about the insurgents just published in Newsweek.
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# Posted 10:32 PM by David Adesnik  

WITH GREAT POWER COMES...The evidence for the maturaion of India as a great power consists of more than just comic books. Fareed Zakaria and Sumit Ganguly [subscription required; excerpt here] explain. (Hat tip: DD)
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# Posted 10:24 PM by David Adesnik  

UN FILES REPORT ON VIOLENCE IN SUDAN: And if the government in Khartoum doesn't stop killing people, the UN will...file another report.
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# Posted 4:34 PM by David Adesnik  

NYT COMMENTS ON HISTORIC ELECTION:

Revolution has many causes, deeply rooted in time, place, passion and economics...

But every revolution's ultimate source of power is an idea: that the authority of government derives no longer from divine will or historical antecedent or superior wealth or overwhelming force, but only from the consent of the governed. Ancient in origin and perfected in Renaissance Europe and America, that idea is now proclaimed so universally that even the most brutal tyrants feel obliged to profess adherence to it.

For centuries now, when people ask themselves why any person may rule over another, they have been able to give only one rational answer: ''. . . Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness. That, to secure these Rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just Powers from the Consent of the Governed; that, whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these Ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute a new Government. . . .''

That was the Times' response -- on February 25, 1986 -- to the historic election that brought down the Marcos dictatorship in the Philippines. The Times' response to yesterday's election in Iraq was somewhat more muted. There are considerable grounds for caution with regard to Iraq, yet it would be fitting for the Times to recognize that yesterday's triumph was, in fact, an expression of the exact same universal ideals whose pervasiveness and strength the Times celebrated almost twenty years ago.
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# Posted 1:46 AM by David Adesnik  

A THOUGHT from Michael Ignatieff:

The election in Iraq is without precedent. Never, not even in the dying days of Weimar Germany, when Nazis and Communists brawled in the streets, has there been such a concerted attempt to destroy an election through violence - with candidates unable to appear in public, election workers driven into hiding, foreign monitors forced to 'observe' from a nearby country, actual voting a gamble with death, and the only people voting safely the fortunate expatriates and exiles abroad.

Hat tip: TMV.
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# Posted 1:33 AM by David Adesnik  

DOES THAT COUNT AS AN INFORMED COMMENT?

The 1997 elections in Iran were much more democratic.

Maybe if I said stuff like that I could get a job in the history department at the University of Michigan. Oh, and here's another bit of Ann Arbor scholarship, taken from the same post:

If it had been up to Bush, Iraq would have been a soft dictatorship under Chalabi.

Well, maybe under President Rumsfeld.
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# Posted 1:25 AM by David Adesnik  

WILL THE NEW YORKER EVER GIVE SY HERSH THE BOOT? I doubt it. But Max Boot certainly does.
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# Posted 1:15 AM by David Adesnik  

PLEASE HELP ME CONFIRM MY PREJUDICES: I didn't have high expectations for this essay in the WaPo entitled "In Europe, An Unhealthy Fixation on Israel." I figured it would provide some low-grade indications of European anti-Semitism that would further close my mind to the possibility that Europeans have valid opinions about the Arab-Israeli conflict.

But I wasn't ready for this:

A poll of 3,000 people published last month by Germany's University of Bielefeld showed more than 50 percent of respondents equating Israel's policies toward the Palestinians with Nazi treatment of the Jews. Sixty-eight percent of those surveyed specifically believed that Israel is waging a "war of extermination" against the Palestinian people.

Germany is not alone in these shocking sentiments. They have been expressed elsewhere, and often by prominent figures. In 2002, the Portuguese Nobel Prize-winning writer Jose Saramago declared, "What is happening in Palestine is a crime which we can put on the same plane as what happened at Auschwitz." In Israel just last month, Mairead Corrigan Maguire, the Irish winner of the 1976 Nobel Peace Prize, compared the country's suspected nuclear weapons to Auschwitz, calling them "gas chambers perfected."

Moreover, in a Eurobarometer poll by the European Union in November 2003, a majority of Europeans named Israel as the greatest threat to world peace. Overall, 59 percent of Europeans put Israel in the top spot, ahead of such countries as Iran and North Korea. In the Netherlands, that figure rose to 74 percent...

BBC poll of 4,000 people taken late last year, in the run-up to Holocaust Remembrance Day last Thursday, showed that, amazingly, 45 percent of all Britons and 60 percent of those under 35 years of age had never heard of Auschwitz -- the Nazi death camp in southern Poland where about 1.5 million Jews were murdered during World War II...

The Eurobarometer survey quoted above also showed 40 percent of respondents across Europe believing that Jews had a "particular relationship to money," with more than a third expressing concern that Jews were "playing the victim because of the Holocaust."

What the hell is going on here? You hear a lot about how ignorant Americans are, how 50% of us still believe that Saddam was responsible for 9/11. Next thing you know, 50% of Europeans will believe that the Mossad was responsible for 9/11.

UPDATE: 'Zap' has put a lot of effort into answering my question about European anti-Semitism, i.e. What the hell is going on here?
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# Posted 1:07 AM by David Adesnik  

IS ZARQAWI ON THE US PAYROLL? I've been asking myself this for a while. It's as if the guy says everything he possibly can to make George Bush look smart. It turns out I'm not the only one asking such questions. In today's WaPo, Fawaz Gerges has an excellent article that looks at the political significance of Zarqawi's surprising rhetoric.
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# Posted 1:02 AM by David Adesnik  

DOES IRAN WANT A SHI'ITE IRAQ? Ross turns to Stratfor for some answers. Meanwhile, Reihan wonders why his fellow co-ethnics are having a collective bad-hair day.
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# Posted 6:45 PM by David Adesnik  

LISTEN TO ME, IGNORANT WORLD: This is not a post about today's election in Iraq. Today's election is a cause for tremendous celebration. The Iraqi people have spoken, so my comments are irrelevant.

This is a post about civlian casualties in Iraq. In a passionate cri de coeur, Daniel Davies of Crooked Timber demands to know why the world has responded in silence to the fact, reported by a study in The Lancet, that 100,000 Iraqis have lost their lives because of the occupation. He writes:

The debate over whether this war worked is vitally important, because we are talking about setting a precedent for an entirely new world of international relations, and the debate is not being carried on honestly. This is quite literally madness, and also quite literally suicidal.

Although I share few of Dan's opinions, I fully share his surprise at the absence of a more forceful response to the Lancet study in the mainstream media. After its initial publication on October 29th, the study became the subject of brief articles in almost all major newspapers. But that was it. The 100,000 figure didn't become conventional wisdom. (Although by establishing the upper bounds of responsible estimate, it provided tremendous credibility to the lower, but still profoundly unreliable casualty statistics distributed by Iraq Body Count.)

Furthermore, Dan observes,

The response in the world of weblogs has been exactly the same as the rest of the media; in the immediate aftermath of the report, half-assed attempts to rubbish the survey, or links to same. Then, when this didn’t work, just pretend that it’s all been dealt with and move on. Maybe say “I’ll get back to you on that”and never do.

"I'll get back to you on that" is precisely what OxBlog said. But I never did. Why? Why has a site that has devoted so much attention in the past to the subject of civilian casualties -- in Iraq, in Afghanistan and in Kosovo -- suddenly gone silent?

It isn't hard to provide an ulterior motive for this oversight. As Dan says, those who supported the war are deserate to "protect themselves from hostile information." Of course, if that were my motive, I wouldn't know it, so I cannot confess. The question is, now that I am confronted with the issue, can I provide rational arguments in defense of my position?

But what is my position? Frankly, I don't know exactly what I think of the Lancet study. Precisely because it has not received extensive coverage from the mainstream media, I cannot rely on the expertise of others to address this highly technical issue. But I have a feeling that something is very, very wrong.

Now, some of you may remember that Fred Kaplan published a forceful refutation of the Lancet Study shortly after it emerged. Above all, Kaplan memorably observed of the 100,000 figure that, "This isn't an estimate. It's a dart board." Yet as this post demonstrates, Kaplan's remark represents a fundamental misunderstanding of what a "confidence interval" is.

Briefly, the study asserts with 95% confidence that the actual number of deaths lies somewhere in the interval between 8,000 and 194,000. Kaplan wrongly assumes that all values within this range are have an equally probability of being the actual figure. In point of fact, estimates clustered around the center of the interval are far more plausible. (NB: I refer to "deaths" rather than "casualties" because the 100,000 figure refers to both violent and non-violent deaths of both civilians and non-civilians caused by the war and occupation.)

Another objection raised with regard to the study is its dependence on a "cluster sampling" methodology. In the same post mentioned above, I think Dan explains quite well why, given the constraints inherent in conducting population surveys in a war zone, "cluster sampling" is an acceptable method. Moreover, according to multiple experts interviewed for a recent article in the Chronicle of Higher Education, the study in The Lancet relied on statistical methods that reflect the state of the art.

However, as a stranger to the art and science of statistical inferences, I am still struck by the fact that the figure of 100,000 deaths was derived from the observation of only 43 "extra" deaths. In the population clusters sampled by the survey, there were 46 deaths in the 14.6 months prior to the war and 142 in the 17.8 months thereafter. However, 63 of those deaths were observed in a single cluster in Falluja. After removing this outlier, one is left with a total of 89. 89-46=43. (All the relevant data is in Table 2 on the fourth page of the study, numbered 1860)

Now, I understand quite well that the purpose of statistics is to extrapolate significant findings from limited amounts of data. What I just can't get my head around is the degree to which limited data sets taken from chaotic war zones such as Iraq should be trusted. As the article in CHE points out, the lead author of the Lancet essay has conducted similar surveys in other warzones, such as the Congo. In those instances, his results were no less dramatic but still embraced by numerous governments including our own.

Still, I can't shake the notion that this time, something went wrong. Perhaps my suspicions have something to do with the efforts of the lead author -- Les Roberts, by name -- to demand the publication of his study before last November's presidential election. To some degree, that isn't fair, since critics should evaluate Roberts' data rather than his motives. Yet when we are dealing with such small numbers, trust begins to matter.

For example, what about the number 21? Of the 89 post-war deaths outside Falluja, 21 were the result of violence, primarily American bombing. Of the 46 deaths before the war, only 1 was the result of violence. In other words, even though human rights organizations estimate that Saddam killed something on the order of 10,000 of his own subjects per year, only one violent death was recorded in the 14.6 months before the invasion. Why?

Did the households interviewed want to protect themselves by attributing Saddam's murders to some natural cause? Or did they simply not mention the death of family members executed by the state? Or perhaps the observation of a single violent death is just a statistical anomaly. As the authors of the Lancet survey point out,

The sampling strategy somehow might not have captured the overall mortality experience in Iraq...[because] there can be a dramatic clustering of deaths in wars where many die from bombings.

For some reason, the authors seem fixated on the potential for death that results from bombing. Yet what about deaths that resulted from state-sanctioned mass murder? Perhaps these are even harder to detect in a random survey.

By the same token, one has to wonder why the only bombings that the authors seem to discuss are those initiated by American helicopters and airplanes. But what about the suicide bombings that have killed hundreds or perhaps thousands of Iraqis? According to the study in The Lancet, of all the deaths it observed, only "two were attributed to anti-coalition forces."

Again, this may just be a statistical anomaly. As noted above, cluster sampling tends to underestimate the impact of focused violence. Yet the authors don't even ask whether the focused violence they underestimate was perpetrated by the Ba'athist government and its insurgent heirs.

At the moment, because of my manifest lack of expertise and respect for the academic positions that the authors occupy, I want to dissociate myself from any explicit accusation of bias, even if analysis above intimates that it may have existed. Before reaching any sort of firm conclusion, I hope to consider the responses to this post by other bloggers with a strong interest in this subject, such as the aforementioned Mr. Davies as well as the very scholarly Tim Lambert.

What I consider most likely is that a statistical anomaly, intended by no one, is responsible for all of this confusion. In war after war, the United States has inflicted numerous casualties from the air. As a result, we have abandoned the indiscriminate carpet-bombing of the Vietnam era in favor of the precision attacks launched against Belgrade, Kandahar, and Baghdad. I find it almost impossible to believe that the methods of the post-Cold War era continue to result in casualty figures that belong to the days of Vietnam.
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# Posted 2:36 AM by David Adesnik  

UNCONTROLLABLE LAUGHTER: After kindly linking to my thoughts on Spider-Man, Glenn provides a link to this perverse, bizarre and incredibly funny essay on sex and the single superhero. Enjoy!
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# Posted 2:20 AM by David Adesnik  

LOOKING FORWARD TO THE VOTE: An excellent (as usual) post from Greg Djerejian. Also, congrats to Greg on his second blogiversary.
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# Posted 1:58 AM by David Adesnik  

FIRE THE PERSON WHO CAME UP WITH THAT SLOGAN: There is an American Airlines ad running on the WaPo homepage that advertises "3,800 flights a day, including one home to a good face-licking."

(There is no direct link to the ad, but you can find it on this page by clicking on "movies" and scrolling down to "Woman's Best Friend".
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# Posted 1:18 AM by David Adesnik  

I LAUGHED, I CRIED, IT WAS BETTER THAN CATS: Third-generation author Matthew Yglesias, in his role as film critic, has come up with one of the best backhanded compliments I have ever come across in a movie review. With regard to Assault on Precinct 13, Matt says "it's without a doubt the second best movie in which Ethan Hawke battles corrupt cops."

It also turns out that Mr. Yglesias is the number one Matthew on the entire web. If you do a Google search just for Matthew, Mr. Yglesias shows up at both #1 and #3, with Matthew Shephard coming in at #7 and the best-selling author of the Gospel of Matthew coming in at a lowly 25.

Oh, and in case you weren't sure, I am the #1 Adesnik on the web. Coming at #7 is a post from Chez Nadezhda entitled "Further Proof That David Adesnik is the Worst OxBlogger." Suffice it to say, that is far from the worst thing I've been called.

UPDATE: This Google thing is a lot of fun. It turns out that my esteemed colleague is the #1 Chafetz on the web, beating out Randall C. Chafetz, Senior Vice President of Mitsubishi Securities, prominent artist Sid Chafetz, and legendary Jewish sage Israel Meir Ha-Cohen Kagan, aka the Chafetz Chaim.

Now, the news on the Patrick front isn't so interesting, but my other esteemed colleague has hit #38 on the Belton chart, behind the #1 ranked city of Belton (MO), the #2 ranked city of Belton (TX), manufacturing giant Belton Industries (#8) and that financial powerhouse the Bank of Belton (#10).

I guess the lesson here is that if you want to be famous on the internet, you should have an obscure Semitic name. Anyhow, PB is the #1 Patrick Belton on the web, although the other Patrick Belton has his own entry in the Internet Movie Data Base. In case you were curious, he has starred in thought-provoking films such as It Happened in a Bungalow and Under the Bus. Mr. Belton also had a small role as "College Kid #1" in episode 4.5 of Buffy The Vampire Slayer.

UPDATE: On a more serious note, check out Mr. Yglesias' post about setting expectations for tomorrow's (today's) vote in Iraq. I think Matt is right that the NYT and others are setting themselves up for a fall by speculating that low turnout and low voter enthusiasm are real possibilities (Sunni Arabs excepted).

If you want to be a more serious sort of cynic, you have to adopt the Yglesias approach of stating that

The real question to be asking is: Even if the election goes well as a procedural matter tomorrow, what good will it do?

Funny, I recall Sen. Kerry hinting at something similar.
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# Posted 1:10 AM by David Adesnik  

THE FRENCH ARE OBJECTIVELY GENEROUS, THOUGHFUL AND KIND: Check out this article about the French Navy from the Associated Press. I wonder how often the AP runs puff-pieces about other militaries. Also notice the reference to anonymous "critics" of the American armed forces whose accusations are never rebutted.

UPDATE: The only reason I came across the AP article about the French Navy was that someone forwarded it to an Oxford maillist that I'm on. Naturally, the person who forwarded it did so entirely in order to emphasize the criticism of the United States contained in the article.

Although I have long since tired of responding to every anti-American posts on certain Oxford maillists, super-stud Steev Sachs decided to defend our nation's honor. Perceptively, Steev noticed that the AP article provides some very brief quotes from Condi Rice in order to support its allegations that the US took advantage of the tsunami to strengthen it's ties to the Indonesian military.

As it turns out, the AP quoted Rice wildly out of context. According to this transcript, Dr. Rice responded to a question about public diplomacy by saying:

I do agree that the tsunami was a wonderful opportunity to show not just the U.S. government, but the heart of the American people. And I think it has paid great dividends for us.

Here's how the AP reported what she said:

Critics of the U.S. military's work in Indonesia say Washington has seized on the disaster as a pretext for advancing its strategic interests in the archipelago and improving ties with the Indonesian military.

Those ties effectively were cut in 1999 after Indonesian troops and their proxy militias killed 1,500 East Timorese after the half-island territory voted for independence in a U.N.-sponsored independence referendum.

During her recent Senate confirmation hearings, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice (news - web sites) said the tsunami provided a "wonderful opportunity" for the United States to reap "great dividends" in the region.

Classic, no? Rice talks about showing generosity and the AP twists her words to suggest she wants to jump in bed with murderers.

UPDATE: Steev has now provided his own fisking of the AP.
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# Posted 1:57 PM by David Adesnik  

GRASSROOTS BLOGGING: Friends of Democracy is doing its best to provide on-the-ground reports about the election process in Iraq. FoD's recent posts include reports from Mosul and Baghdad.
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# Posted 6:57 PM by David Adesnik  

EVERYBODY LOVES RAYMOND PAUL WOLFOWITZ: What follows is just one liberal Democrat's opinion:

I want you to know how much I have appreciated the way in which you have conducted your relationship with this subcommittee.

I think in many ways it has been a model of executive-legislative relations. I think you have contributed in a very significant way to a bipartisan consensus on many of the important issues...

I think America's interests have been effectively served by that approach, and we have found your insights, your wisdom, your views, your experience to be enormously helpful to our subcommitee as we have gone about discharging our own responsibilities.

If we have not always agreed on every issue, I think that is only to be expected. What is truly amazing is how many issues we have agreed on. I think what it demonstrates is that when you have people in the administration and in Congress who are willing to work together in pursuit of the national interest, that it is in fact possible to forge the kind of consensus which is in the best interests of the Nation.

To which Wolfowitz responded:

I, too, would like to say that the experience of working with this subcommitee and with the Congress as a whole over the last several years has been a very rewarding one and it has been a productive one. I think it has certainly served the national interest...

It is a tough commitee to appear before because the questions are always well informed and very often pointed. It is a challenge. It think it keeps us on our toes in ways you do not appreciate in our day-to-day management of affairs back in the State Deparment.

That reference there to Foggy Bottom may have tipped you off. The previous exchange between Rep. Stephen Solarz (D-NY) and Monsieur Wolfowitz took place on February 20, 1986, back when Wolfowitz was Assistant Secretary of State for East Asia. The commitment of both men to fighting communism by promoting democracy led to a remarkable degree of productive cooperation, of the kind we would most certainly benefit from today.

If you want to read more, the full transcript of the hearing before Solarz's subcommittee should be available at any major research library. The title of the hearing (which you can enter into a library search engine) was "The Philippine Election and the Implications for U.S. Policy." The quotations above are from pages 54 and 56, respectively.

UPDATE: Reader GR points to this letter-to-the-editor, co-authored by Wolfowitz and Solarz (c. 1999) as evidence that the exchange described above

Was more like a meeting of neocon minds, with one of them still a Democrat. Sort of like a Lieberman bouquet to the administration on Iraq today.

I disagree. As I told GR, Solarz was a liberal in the mold of Truman and JFK who had a sincere interest in democracy and human rights but was not afraid of using force to achieve American objectives.

In contrast to say, Jeane Kirkpatrick, Solarz's "neo-con" leanings never led him to abandon his critical faculties when confronted by friendly Republicans. Thus, Solarz was a persistent critic of the Reagan administration who challenged its foreign interventions and became known as the author of a Democratic reponse to the Reagan doctrine, sometimes referred as (you guessed it) the Solarz Doctrine. Nonetheless, I urge to read the Solarz-Wolfowitz letter-to-the-editor and judge for yourself.
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# Posted 5:12 PM by David Adesnik  

SPIDER-MAIL: Lots of interesting responses here. I wrote in the Standard that:

Had that tiny spaceship from the planet Krypton landed in Munich or Moscow during the perilous summer of 1938, comic-book history might have turned out very different.

Yet as Michael Pollard points out, DC Comics actually did publish a "What if?" series in which Superman's ship landed in the Soviet Union. According to NRO, the "What if?" series, published last year, was a pathetic apologia for Stalinism as well as a veiled attack on George W. Bush.

[UPDATE: Reader PE suggests I should've actually read DC's Soviet Superman mini-series rather than just linking to NRO's hatchet job. PE says the series is far more thoughtful and balanced than NRO is willing to admit. So now I have an excuse to spend another $20 on comic books...]

On a related note, MF points out that Saturday Night Live did its own "What if?" take on what might have happened if Superman had landed in Germany. But the real question is, if Superman had landed in Paris, would the French still have found a way to surrender to the Germans in 1940?

[NB: The stereotype of the cowardly Frenchman is both unfair and malicious. The French were actually quite well-prepared for the German invasion in terms of the number of men and amount of funding devoted to defense in the years before the war. Moreover, the French army fought quite valiantly and its defeat was far from inevitable.]

Now, with regard to Superman's immigration status had he landed in the US, PD writes that

[Superman] would not have been admitted as a refugee from Krypton, not even under Temporary Protected Status, because neither of those existed at the time.

While I'm not a lawyer, having a fairly extensive background in immigration politics and history I'm still reasonably sure that Superman would have qualified for admission as teachers, the same provision that let in Teller and Fermi and so many others in the 1930s: clause 4d f section 4 of the National Origins Act.

A good point. But it turns out that there was a flaw in my own logic that makes this point moot. If Superman's first adventures took place in 1938, the Baby of Steel presumably arrived a good twenty to twenty-five years earlier, at a time when immigration laws were much less strict.

Finally, TM observes that

The notion that "with great power there also comes great responsibility" in India precedes the Indian incarnation of the webbed one and is evident in things ranging from the characterization of Indian mythical gods to Bollywood heroes to the rhetoric, if not the practice of, Nehruvian internationalism.

More recently, in the aftermath of the tsunami, India's moves to help its neighbours were mainly for humanitarian and strategic reasons, but also heard was a refrain of "it is our responsibility as the largest nation in the neighbourhood."

Sounds good to me.
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# Posted 2:15 AM by David Adesnik  

HELP ME! I'M TRYING VERY HARD TO CRITICIZE THE PRESIDENT! In a column entitled "Reality Check for the Neo-Wilsonians", David Ignatius reports the following:

Bush's idealism astonishes even [Georgian President Mikheil] Saakashvili. The Georgian leader recalls a meeting at the White House last year in which he tried to engage Bush by telling him of Georgia's strategic importance because of its proximity to Caspian Sea oil. The president didn't seem interested. It was only when Saakashvili began talking about freedom and liberty, he says, that Bush got excited.

Saakashvili also praises Bush for resisting the normal pragmatic trade-offs. He remembers urging Bush to back another peaceful revolution in the former Soviet Union by supporting demands for a rerun of the fraudulent Ukrainian election. But he expected that Bush would cave when Ukraine's then-president, Leonid Kuchma, threatened to withdraw his country's troops from Iraq. After all, America badly needed the few allies it had in the Iraq coalition. But Bush didn't let his pragmatic need for Ukrainian troops temper his support for Ukrainian democracy.

Say it ain't so! A Texas prospector not interested in oil? A refusal to compromise with dictators for the sake of military expediency? Who the hell does Bush think he is, Jimmy Carter? (Actually, Carter was pretty good at compromising with dictators for the sake of military expediency. Think Chun Do Hwan and Ferdinand Marcos)

For some more effective criticism of the President, try Anne Applebaum, who wants to know what Bush is doing about reports of Iraqi security personnel abusing Iraqi prisoners, a la Abu Ghraib.
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# Posted 2:09 AM by David Adesnik  

THE AMAZING SPIDER-BLOG: Haven't read enough about Spider-Man in the past few weeks? Then check out my article on the webcrawler in today's Daily Standard. Here's a teaser:

Only superheroes have superpowers. But are superpowers the only ones who have superheroes? Let me explain: In the six and a half decades since the birth of the superhero comic-book genre, a disproportionate number of super-powered men and women have -- surprise, surprise -- turned out to be American citizens.

Most were born in the United States. Others, such as Superman, were aliens (illegal, presumably, given the immigration restrictions in place when he arrived in 1938) who decided to make America their home. And thank God for that. Had that tiny spaceship from the planet Krypton landed in Munich or Moscow during the perilous summer of 1938, comic-book history might have turned out very different...

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# Posted 2:06 AM by David Adesnik  

GO REIHAN! IT'S YA BIRFDAY! Actually, I have no idea when Reihan's birthday is. But he has a nice column in TNR on the politics of Social Security reform.
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# Posted 1:51 AM by David Adesnik  

DON'T VISIT ISRAEL (UNLESS YOU WANT TO DIE): The government of Bangladesh has imprisoned journalist Salah Choudhury and charged him with sedition, a crime punishable by death.

Choudhury was initially arrested for a passport violation because of his attempt to travel to Israel to participate in a writer's conference. Previously, he had been an outspoken advocate of interfaith and cross-cultural reconciliation.

To sign a petition on Choudhury's behalf, click here. The writer's group PEN USA has also published excerpts a letter from Choudhury smuggled out of prison. (Hat tip: JG)
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# Posted 1:38 AM by David Adesnik  

INVESTMENT ADVICE: Learned Hand has reposted a WSJ column [in PDF format] that provides a solid overview of the stock market's historical ability to outperform government bonds.
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# Posted 2:08 PM by David Adesnik  

FROM THE CUTTING FLOOR: I pitched this op-ed to a well-known paper but they said that the inaugural address is already old news. But OxBlog is a big fan of old news, so here's what I wrote:

The Future of the Second Inaugural

The accusations of hypocrisy were inevitable. Journalists found themselves compelled to point out that the United States has drawn ever closer to Egypt, Pakistan and Saudi Arabia as a result of the War on Terror. The President’s critics dismissed his inaugural address as a pleasant fiction designed to mask the hard core of an American foreign policy exemplified by the abuse of prisoners at Guantánamo and Abu Ghraib. Sadly, their analysis ended there.

In order to understand the true significance of the second inaugural, one must look forward to the impact it will have on Bush’s second term instead of only looking back at the compromises and failures that may impair the credibility of the President’s words.

For the past four years, I have studied the relationship between idealistic rhetoric and the less-than-idealistic nature of American foreign policy. The most important lesson buried in the historical record is that idealistic rhetoric tends to generate a momentum of its own that gradually brings American behavior into line with American ideals.

The best illustration of this trend is the rapid evolution of America’s relationship with anti-Communist dictatorships during Ronald Reagan’s second term in office. In the State of the Union address that followed shortly after his second inaugural, Reagan declared that “We must stand by all our democratic allies. And we must not break faith with those who are risking their lives – on every continent, from Afghanistan to Nicaragua – to defy Soviet-supported aggression and secure rights which have been ours from birth.”

With amazing precision, responses to the “Reagan Doctrine” prefigured the exact criticism that has confroned George W. Bush’s second inaugural. In 1985, journalists found themselves compelled to point out that the United States had drawn closer to the Filipino, South Korean and Chilean dictatorships as a result of the Cold War. The President’s critics dismissed his inaugural address as a pleasant fiction designed to mask the hard core of an American foreign policy exemplified by the massacres in El Salvador and Nicaragua. Sadly, their analysis ended there.

In 1986, the United States helped bring down the Marcos dictatorship in the Philippines. In 1987, it played an important role in the South Korean transition to democracy. Shortly after Reagan left office, Pinochet fell from power in Chile and the Sandinista dictatorship came to an end in Nicaragua.

Reagan himself often served as a hindrance to such positive developments. Yet his rhetoric empowered idealistic Republicans, both within the administration and on Capitol Hill, to place American power in the service of American ideals. Although events in the Philippines made few headlines until the final months of the Marcos dictatorship, officials such as then-Assistant Secretary of State Paul Wolfowitz helped the Filipino opposition prepare the ground for a revolution.

In spite of overwhelming evidence that Marcos had rigged the February 1986 elections in order to preserve his dictatorship, Reagan embarrassingly defended the balloting as fair. Yet Sen. Richard Lugar (R-IN) – then, as now, the Chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee – returned from his mission to the Philippines as an election monitor and declared the election to have been a total fraud. Within days, Reagan revised his earlier statements and ushered Marcos into exile in Hawaii.

The experience of the second Reagan administration demonstrates just how much rhetoric can accomplish even when the President’s commitment to his own ideals is less than firm. However, the most striking difference between the president of 1985 and the president of 2005 is that George W. Bush has a far greater awareness of and commitment to the implications of his rhetoric.

Shortly after his re-election in November, President Bush made a personal decision to devote his inaugural address to an expansive vision of freedom spreading across the globe. The precise content of that address developed slowly through twenty-one separate drafts. During its development, the White House consulted leading conservative thinkers on the subject of American foreign policy and democracy promotion.

Although every inaugural address since Carter’s has made a passing reference to the spread of freedom across the globe, such references described the United States as playing a passive role in the process. Thus, in his first inaugural, President Bush spoke of freedom as “a seed upon the wind, taking root in many nations.” In contrast, the President now speaks of an American mission and argues that “it is human choices that move events.”

Journalists’ observations about our close relationships with Egypt, Pakistan and Saudi Arabia often imply that the President remains blissfully unaware of the contradictions between his rhetoric and his government’s behavior. Yet the inaugural address warned the United States’ authoritarian allies that “success in our relations will require the decent treatment of their own people.”

Which is not to say that criticism of the President is superfluous. In fact, it will have a critical role to play in ensuring that he lives up to his ideals. Inevitably, the temptations of short-term expedience will distract the President from his ultimate goals. It is at precisely such moments that the soaring rhetoric of his second inaugural will empower critics both within the administration and without to insist that the President live up to his word.

In fact, the President may be counting on just that sort of criticism to ensure that he earns his place in the history books.

David Adesnik is a fellow at UVA’s Miller Center of Public Affairs and an editor of OxBlog.com.

UPDATE: As Steve Sturm points out, my op-ed doesn't really address the issue of whether promoting democracy in Iraq is a good idea (although my opinion is quite visible if you read between the lines). Steve's advice for the President is "Do the right thing. For America, not for Iraq."
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# Posted 1:10 PM by David Adesnik  

A SAD DAY: 30 Marines have died in a helicopter crash in western Iraq. The cause of the crash is unknown.
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# Posted 5:52 PM by David Adesnik  

QUESTIONS TO ASK ABOUT SOCIAL SECURITY: Yesterday's post on Social Security generated more of a respone than any single post I've written in a good six months, so I thought I'd summarize three of the critical points that all y'all raised:

1) Shouldn't we deal with the problem now, before Social Security reform becomes more divisive and more expensive?

Ideally, yes. In practice, the question is one of priorities. In other words, should reforming Social Security, which may or may not be in crisis, take precedence over efforts to deal with skyrocketing Medicare costs and federal budget deficits?

2) What is the precise nature of the Social Security trust fund? When held by a government agency such as SSA, do government bonds represent a true asset or simply an accounting fiction?

These are the issues that begin to get over my head. Many of you have been kind enough to provide concise answers to such questions. Please feel free to recommend any articles or posts designed to explain these issues to a non-expert. For the moment, I'll cite one passage from an article by Donald Luskin:

The trust funds will redeem the last of their bonds in 2041 — demanding from the government $1.003 trillion that year. From 2018 through 2041, the trust funds will redeem bonds worth, cumulatively, $11.9 trillion. Once again, just to be perfectly clear, let me emphasize that the federal government will have to come up with this $11.9 trillion somehow — either by tapping the capital markets, raising taxes, or trimming spending.

This should illuminate the debate on whether the trust funds are “real” or not. They are perfectly “real” in the sense that the Treasury bonds they hold are valid legal claims on the government. But they are not “real” in the sense that they, as a June, 2004, Congressional Budget Office report put it, “contain no financial resources” in and of themselves. For their value to be realized, the Treasury bills they hold must be redeemed for cash by the government — and that cash has to come from somewhere. [Hat tip: SP]

Naturally, many people disagree with Donald Luskin, so I welcome other points of view. Albeit unintentionally, I think his comments point to the fact that as long as the government avoids defaulting on its bonds, then Social Security will remain solvent until 2042.

3) No, the government won't default. But where will all of the money necessary to pay off those bonds come from? Higher taxes? Additional borrowing? Cutbacks on other programs?

The question touches on an accounting issue which seems to be way over my head. How does an insitution like the federal government plan for complex transfers of funds that will take place decades from now? How will the amount of money "owed" to SSA compare the amount of money owed to other bondholders? In other words, will the additional liability represented by the trust fund stretch our ability to cover outstanding debts, or is it something the government can take care of in the normal course of business?

Well, that's it for now. It looks like this debate is far from over.
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# Posted 6:15 PM by David Adesnik  

WHAT SOCIAL SECURITY TELLS US ABOUT IRAQ: With great caution, I have begun to read about Social Security. Lacking the expertise necessary to have an independent opinion about the subject, I restrict myself to tentative conclusions about the subject.

In search of a primer on the current debate, I turned to the Outlook section of yesterday's WaPo, which compiled seven different experts' brief essays on the subject. For the moment, I find the arguments of the President's opponents to be more persuasive.

The Social Security Administration's own projections indicate that SSA's revenue will continue to exceed its outlays until 2018. The trust fund generated by this surplus will enable the SSA to fully fund all of its commitments until 2042.

This seems to be the point from which all debate must begin. If the status quo will enable the SSA to remain solvent for another four decades, one cannot say that Social Security is in the midst of a crisis.

Which is not the same as saying as private accounts are a bad idea. According to both U-Illinois economist Jeffrey Brown and Clinton adviser Laura D'Andrea Tyson, can spread the benefits of the market economy to the working class.

Whereas Brown suggests that private accounts might replace a percentage of current benefits, Tyson wants private accounts to supplement current benefits.

Replacement seems to have considerable costs. First of all, the transition will be expensive, an expense that will be hard to justify in the presence of a major budget deficit. Unless you believe that there is a crisis, it's hard to see why this kind of expenditure makes sense right now.

What I don't understand about Tyson's proposal is how it would create any new incentives to save and invest. Tax-free 401(k) investment accounts already exist. As Alicia Munnell points out, 401(k)'s are both under-utilized and recklessly misused.

Tyson does mention that she wants to limit the options available to investors. But I don't want the government to limit my options. Just because other people invest without caution doesn't mean I should be punished.

Munnell says that a private accounts system can only work if it is extremely simple. She cites the failures of government-sponsored investment account in Britain, Chile, and Sweden as evidence for this point.

In spite of living in the UK for almost three years, I must confess total ignorance of its investment program. Moreover, I am totally bowled over by the fact that the welfare-worshipping UK would inaugurate a market-based government pension program a full twenty years before the serious consideration of a similar program in the United States. I guess Thatcher was just that tought.

Now, presuming for the moment, that the analysis above is basically sound, one might ask why the President seems so passionately committed to an agenda of reform that is both unnecessary and may seriously jeopardize the political health of his administration.

Jonathan Rauch argues that the President's commitment to reform is fundamentally an ideological issue. He writes that

Republicans frame Social Security reform as a dollars-and-cents issue, but what they really hope to change is not the American economy but the American psyche.

From a certain perspective, dependence on the government for one's security in old age is a moral hazard. Thus, Social Security is both a symptom and a cause of an insufficient commitment to traditional American values.

I have to admit that I am uncomfortable with this degree of dependence on the government. I was stunned to learn, also courtesy of the WaPo, that more than 46 million Americans receive Social Security benefits.

Yet given that Social Security is both popular and cost-effective (how often can you say that about big government?), I am willing to accept the moral cost of dependence on the government. After all, Americans are still pretty much the most individualistic people in the world.

On the political front, I think that George Bush's commitment to reform has to be understood in the context of his commitment to building democracy in Iraq. For quite a long time, liberals insisted that Bush only got behind the invasion because it was a guaranteed winner on the homefront.

Yet within six months of taking Baghdad, it became clear that the occupation was a liability. Voters may have had even less faith in Kerry's ability to administer the occupation than they did George Bush's, but the situation in Iraq was still a major drag on Bush's approval rating.

By now, it is apparent to all that Bush will stay committed to Iraq regardless of the political cost. He took an uncompromising stand on principle and still got re-elected. Now there are no more elections to face. Now the President's eyes are on the history books. That's what second terms are all about.

George Bush has faced down unpopularity before and won't let it stop him from tackling Social Security.
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# Posted 6:02 PM by David Adesnik  

STOCK ANSWERS FROM KRUGMAN: Reader AG, who knows a lot about this subject, has provided an insightful response to my earlier comments on Paul Krugman and the stock market:

It's impossible to cram serious analysis into an op-ed column, and this sometimes gets Krugman in trouble. In fact, you're both right.

Stocks are riskier than bonds. There have been periods, as you point out on your BLOG when stocks have done poorly. (Your example of the 1970s isn't a good one, though, because bonds were also performing horribly at the time as inflation and interest rates skyrocketed.) So no rational investor would buy stocks unless he or she expected a higher return on equities than on fixed-income securities.

Careful analysis of the relative returns and risks of bonds and stocks over long periods of time (e.g., the 20th century, the post-WWII period) indicate that the excess return of stocks over bonds has been greater than one would expect just given the relative riskiness of the two asset classes. This extra risk-adjusted return on stocks is referred to as the "equity risk premium." Such a premium is something like a free lunch for equity investors. The point Krugman is making is that this premium is unlikely to be as large in the future as it was in the past. That's probably true, too.

Why is this relevant? The question being debated is: "The level of average economic growth over the next 50 to 100 years held constant, how likely is it that distant future retirees and taxpayers would be better off under the Bush plan (whatever it actually is) than they would have been under the current system?" If the forward looking equity risk premium is still high, then partial privatization will look good in retrospect. If not, not. No one knows. And, from the point of view of the next generation of Adesniks, it almost doesn't matter.

When you look at this issue this way it's easy to see that this whole debate, while in the center ring politically, is an economic side show. How well off retirees and workers are in the future absolutely depends much much more on how fast the economy grows between now and the distant future. One of the most important ways in which the Federal government can create a growth-friendly policy environment is to keep its overall fiscal house in order. But getting that right involves dealing with the bigger, nearer-term issues like the government's structural operating deficit and medicare.

More broadly, American's want European social public services, Japanese taxes, and the savings rate of an undergraduate. They can't have them all, and the Bushies have decided to go after social security first because dealing with it requires no short-term pain and because Asian central banks seem willing to buy as much of our debt as we can produce.

So the real problem with Bush's proposal is not that it is or isn't a good idea in the very narrow sense of what the equity risk premium might be. No one can know that now or even make a good guess. The real problem is that the whole thing is a distraction.

The reason for despising this policy initiative is not that the Administration is overstating the equity risk premium but that the right way to deal with our fiscal problems is to raise taxes, preferably on gasoline, and right now.

Now that OxBlog has a car, it doesn't like gas taxes. So let's tax the wealthy instead! (NB: OxBlog reserves the right to reverse this proposal should it become wealthy at some point in the indefinite future.)
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# Posted 7:21 PM by David Adesnik  

ELECTIONS 101: David Holiday teases Prof. Cole for letting his politics get the better of his political science.
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# Posted 8:56 PM by David Adesnik  

THE QUANTIFICATION OF CARMEN ELECTRA: What else would you expect from a political scientist?
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# Posted 8:40 PM by David Adesnik  

YOU GIVE A SNARK, YOU GET A SNARK: With regard to the inaugural address, Matthew Yglesias writes that

As a substantive intervention into American and world politics, however, it's utterly trivial. I expect it will have set the hearts of Oxbloggers all 'round the world a-twitter, but minds are made up.

You'd think Matt would've have waited for myself or Josh or Patrick to say something about the inaugural address before dismissing our views as naive, but as Matt correctly observes, "minds are made up."
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# Posted 8:02 PM by David Adesnik  

WHAT THE OTHER GUYS SAID ABOUT DEMOCRACY PROMOTION: There are two attributes that distinguish Bush's second inaugural from those that preceded it. Its talk of democracy spreading across the globe is not one of them. That is a cliche.

But the intensity of Bush's emphasis on democracy promotion is unprecedented. His emphasis has forced all those who comment on the inaugural address to grapple with that issue.

But more importantly, Bush repeatedly emphasized that the United States must take an active role in spreading freedom and liberty across the globe. In contrast, his predecessors have relied on passive formulations that, as John Quincy Adams might have said, present the United States as a "well-wisher to the freedom and independence of all" but "the champion and vindicator of only her own."

For example, Clinton's first inaugural declared that

Our greatest strength is the power of our ideas, which are still new in many lands. Across the world we see them embraced and we rejoice. Our hopes, our hearts, our hands are with those on every continent who are building democracy and freedom. Their cause is America's cause.

In his second inaugural, Clinton stated that

For the very first time in all of history, more people on this planet live under democracy than dictatorship...

[Someday], the world's greatest democracy will lead a whole world of democracies...

May those generations whose faces we cannot yet see, whose names we may never know, say of us here that we led our beloved land into a new century with the American dream alive for all her children, with the American promise of a more perfect Union a reality for all her people, with America's bright flame of freedom spreading throughout all the world.

In other speeches, Clinton suggested that democracy promotion would be the foundation of his grand strategy. Although Clinton's achievement in that domain were significant, his aspirations were often frustrated.

Suprisingly, George H.W. Bush was more emphatic about democracy in his inaugural address, although his careful constructions also implied a passive role for the United States:

I come before you and assume the Presidency at a moment rich with promise. We live in a peaceful, prosperous time but we can make it better. For a new breeze is blowing and a world refreshed by freedom seems reborn; for in man's heart, if not in fact, the day of the dictator is over. The totalitarian era is passing, its old ideas blown away like leaves from an ancient, lifeless tree... [This was 10 months before the Berlin Wall came down. --ed.]

Great nations of the world are moving toward democracy -- through the door to freedom. Men and women of the world move toward free markets -- through the door to prosperity. The people of the world agitate for free expression and free thought -- through the door to the moral and intellectual satisfactions that only liberty allows.

We know what works: Freedom works. We know what's right: Freedom is right. We know how to secure a more just and prosperous life for man on earth: through free markets, free speech, free elections and the exercise of free will unhampered by the state.

To the suprise of many, myself included, it turns out that George W. Bush also spoke quite clearly about the spread of democracy in his first inaugural:

Through much of the last century, America's faith in freedom and democracy was a rock in a raging sea. Now it is a seed upon the wind, taking root in many nations. Our democratic faith is more than the creed of our country, it is the inborn hope of our humanity, an ideal we carry but do not own, a trust we bear and pass along. And even after nearly 225 years, we have a long way yet to travel.

This time around, Bush has no intentions of letting the wind decide where the seeds will fall. Even Reagan, who became more committed to democracy promotion as time wore on, did not escape the language of passivity in his second inaugural, let alone his first, when he stated that:

As we renew ourselves here in our own land, we will be seen as having greater strength throughout the world. We will again be the exemplar of freedom and a beacon of hope for those who do not now have freedom.

To those neighbors and allies who share our freedom, we will strengthen our historic ties and assure them of our support and firm commitment. We will match loyalty with loyalty. We will strive for mutually beneficial relations. We will not use our friendship to impose on their sovereignty, for our own sovereignty is not for sale.

Finally, there was Jimmy Carter, who stated that

The best way to enhance freedom in other lands is to demonstrate here that our democratic system is worthy of emulation...

The world itself is now dominated by a new spirit. Peoples more numerous and more politically aware are craving and now demanding their place in the sun --not just for the benefit of their own physical condition, but for basic human rights...

Because we are free we can never be indifferent to the fate of freedom elsewhere. Our moral sense dictates a clearcut preference for these societies which share with us an abiding respect for individual human rights.

Presumably, I have taxed your patience with a post of this length. But it is only in the context of his predecessors' words that the uniqueness of George W. Bush's inaugural address can be understood.
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# Posted 6:31 PM by David Adesnik  

NOW THAT'S USEFUL: Scroll down a bit on the NYT's Inauguration Website and you'll find links to the full text of the inaugural addresses given in '89, '93, '97 and '01. You can find Reagan's inaugural addresses here and here.
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# Posted 6:25 PM by David Adesnik  

TASTY: The Times mocks ABC, NBC and CBS for their no-substance coverage of the inauguration. By the way, what substance consists of is being nasty to the President. Hence:

The self-consciousness of network news anchors worried about accusations of liberal bias coincided with unselfconscious display of Republican triumphalism - the extraordinary confidence that veined the president's speech ("We are ready for the greatest achievements in the history of freedom").

Personally, I think it's all the bloggers' fault.
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# Posted 5:27 PM by David Adesnik  

OUT-EXPERTING THE EXPERTS: I don't know much about economics, so I am a little bit surprised at my ability to spot an apparent flaw in Paul Krugman's economic logic. Krugman's political logic may have less value than a junk bond, but you figure he'd get his economics right. In Friday's column, Krugman tells us to

Remember the disclaimer that mutual funds are obliged to include in their ads: "past performance is no guarantee of future results."

Fifty years ago most people, remembering 1929, were afraid of the stock market. As a result, those who did buy stocks got to buy them cheap: on average, the value of a company's stock was only about 13 times that company's profits. Because stocks were cheap, they yielded high returns in dividends and capital gains.

But high returns always get competed away, once people know about them: stocks are no longer cheap. Today, the value of a typical company's stock is more than 20 times its profits. The more you pay for an asset, the lower the rate of return you can expect to earn. That's why even Jeremy Siegel, whose "Stocks for the Long Run" is often cited by those who favor stocks over bonds, has conceded that "returns on stocks over bonds won't be as large as in the past."

Krugman may be right that stocks are now overpriced and thus can no longer provide the historic returns of the 1990s. That is plausible.

But fear of another Great Depression didn't always make stocks a good investment. If memory serves, there was a lot of hype about stocks, especially blue chips, in the early 1970s. But the price of those stocks promptly fell and the market stagnated for the rest of the decade. Clearly, something more complex was going on here. By the same token, something more complex than low prices was probably responsible for stock market growth in the 80's and 90's.

Since all of this is way out of my area of expertise, I wouldn't surprised if there is some fundamental flaw in my analysis that I have failed to recognize. With any luck, some of you (presumably including AG) will be able to point out the error of my ways. But until then, I will enjoy some tentative schadenfreude.
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# Posted 5:22 PM by David Adesnik  

NOT A METAPHOR: Nicholas Kristof reminds us that when President Bush says that "no one deserves to be a slave", we should take him literally.
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# Posted 4:59 PM by David Adesnik  

MASOCHISTS OR ALTRUISTS? David Brooks notes in passing that

Bush's inaugural ideals will also be real in the way they motivate our troops in Iraq. Military Times magazine asked its readers if they think the war in Iraq is worth it. Over 60 percent - and two-thirds of Iraq combat vets - said it was. While many back home have lost faith, our troops fight because their efforts are aligned with the core ideals of this country, articulated by Jefferson, Walt Whitman, Lincoln, F.D.R., Truman, J.F.K., Reagan and now Bush.

Our soldiers in Iraq (and Afghanistan) have suffered and will continue to suffer more than any other Americans committed to bringing democracy to the Middle East. Why?

One might say that impressionable young men recklessly believe what their officers tell them. One might say that those who grow up in Red States recklessly believe what their President tells them. One might even suggest that some of them are still under the impression that Saddam was responsible for 9-11. But I don't buy it.

If there is any subsconcious motivation for our soldiers' surprising faith in their mission, it is this: that when you have invested so much in a cause, when you have watched your friends die for that cause, abandoning it becomes unthinkable.

But even that is unfair to our men and women in uniform. Americans are not afraid of sacrifice, but we also tend to protest quite loudly when our government wants us to sacrifice more than we should. Remember the soldier who demanded that the Secretary of Defense explain why the Pentagon hasn't provided armor for every vehicle in Iraq? I'm curious to know whether he still thinks this mission is worth it.

Perhaps not. But I think that even 18 year-olds in uniform are sophisticated enough to separate the failures of their generals, their secretary and their president from the failure of their ideals.
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# Posted 4:48 PM by David Adesnik  

REMARKABLE IF TRUE: "Despite Insurgent Threats and Lack of Democratic Tradition, 80 Percent Say They Are Likely to Vote." I can only imagine the avalanche of "I told you so"'s that would follow this kind of result in the Iraqi elections. (Naturally, OxBlog reserves the right to participate in the avalanche.)

The poll that discovered the 80% figure was conducted by the International Republican Institute (IRI), the GOP affiliate that is part of the National Endowment for Democracy. I would feel better if someone else conducted the poll, but there is no reason to doubt IRI's integrity. And in eight more days, we'll know if the poll was right.

UPDATE: Here's a classic bit from the NYT:

Every single Shiite interviewed for this article said he or she planned to vote. Though there are a few Sunni leaders running for office, all the Sunnis interviewed, except one, said they were going to boycott. That could mean a humiliation for American forces and the new Iraqi government, who have relentlessly pounded the Sunni areas in a so far unsuccessful campaign to wipe out the resistance.

Hmmm. I never thought "humiliation" consisted of overwhelming support from Shi'ites and Kurds, who together make up 80% of the Iraqi population. Pray tell, twelve or fifteen months ago, how many journalists expected even majority support from the Shi'ites? If memory serves, all we were hearing back then was how Moqtada Sadr represented the true face of Iraqi Shi'ism.

UPDATE: Spencer Ackerman comments on the strengths and weaknesses of the IRI poll. Also check out his post about Iraqi politicians' vague stance on how long American troops should stay in Iraq.
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# Posted 4:31 PM by David Adesnik  

THAT SPEECH WAS NO ACCIDENT: Bush's second inaugural address was the result extensive consultation with this administration's conservative brain trust:

The planning of Bush's second inaugural address began a few days after the Nov. 2 election with the president telling advisers he wanted a speech about "freedom" and "liberty." That led to the broadly ambitious speech that has ignited a vigorous debate. The process included consultation with a number of outside experts, [William] Kristol among them.

One meeting, arranged by Peter Wehner, director of the White House Office of Strategic Initiatives, included military historian Victor Davis Hanson, columnist Charles Krauthammer and Yale professor John Lewis Gaddis, according to one Republican close to the White House. White House senior adviser Karl Rove attended, according to one source, but mostly listened to what became a lively exchange over U.S. policy and the fight for liberty.

Gaddis caught the attention of White House officials with an article in the latest edition of Foreign Affairs magazine that seems to belie the popular perception that this White House does not consult its critics.

Gaddis's article is, at times, strongly critical of Bush's first-term foreign policy calculations, especially what he calls the twin failures to anticipate international resistance to Bush's ideas and Iraqi resistance to peace after the fall of Baghdad. But the article also raises the possibility that Bush's grand vision of spreading democracy could prove successful, and perhaps historic, if the right choices are made in the years ahead.

Unsuprisingly, accusations of hypocrisy (at home and abroad) began to emerge not long after the inaugural. But the President's critics would be wise not to forget that there is considerable substance to his message
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# Posted 1:49 AM by David Adesnik  

WOODROW WILSON LIVES.
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# Posted 1:45 AM by David Adesnik  

COMPARE BUSH'S ADDRESS TO REAGAN'S SECOND INAUGURAL: Reagan's emphasis is on freedom from government at home, an idea that Bush touched upon indirectly at best. Yet Reagan devoted one critical paragraph to the ideal of freedom abroad. He declared that:

We strive for peace and security, heartened by the changes all around us. Since the turn of the century, the number of democracies in the world has grown fourfold. Human freedom is on the march, and nowhere more so than in our own hemisphere. Freedom is one of the deepest and noblest aspirations of the human spirit. People, worldwide, hunger for the right of self-determination, for those inalienable rights that make for human dignity and progress.

America must remain freedom's staunchest friend, for freedom is our best ally and it is the world's only hope to conquer poverty and preserve peace. Every blow we inflict against poverty will be a blow against its dark allies of oppression and war. Every victory for human freedom will be a victory for world peace.

This is the seed from which Bush's rhetoric of freedom has grown. Yet as Reagan learned, freedom is easier said than done.
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# Posted 1:41 AM by David Adesnik  

NOT WHAT YOU WANT TO HEAR WHEN IT'S SNOWING:

"Does this SUV have anti-lock brakes?"

"Well, it used to."

Charlottesville got its first real snowfall tonight, and that is an actual conversation I had with my friend JB. Great guy. Really.
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# Posted 1:19 AM by David Adesnik  

TOWARDS AN ANTHROPOLOGY OF THE RED STATE PRIMITIVE: David Von Drehle means well. In his cover story for the WaPo magazine, he recounts his 700 mile road trip from Nebraska to Texas, in search of what makes Red State voters tick.

Von Drehle is driven by the liberal impulse to understand that which is foreign rather than condemning it. But think about the whole premise of his article; the basic idea behind it is that you can't understand Republican voters by assessing the merit of rational arguments advanced on behalf of their presidential candidate.

Instead, you have to treat them like the indigenous tribes of the Brazilian rainforest or southeast Asian highlands; you have to abandon your notions of rationality in order to understand why their irrational behave makes sense according to some foreign cultural standard.

Now ask yourself: Could you imagine this scenario in reverse? Could you imagine a reporter for the WaPo or even Wall Street Journal embarking on a road trip from Boston to Pittsburgh in order to "understand" why Blue State voters supported Kerry? Of course not. (Then again, an anthropological approach may help explain why entire institutions nominally devoted to rational thought, e.g. the American university, have become prisoners of the far left.)

That said, Von Drehle deserves credit for putting together a major article that almost totally avoids outright condescension towards people who believe in God, oppose abortion, oppose gay marriage and vote for Bush. In the end, I don't think he does much to help explain why Bush peformed so much better in this election than he did in his first. After all, the shift that won it for Bush happened in the swing states, not in the Redlands. Almost every demographic group registered a small but significant shift to the right, not just evangelicals.

Van Drehle explains his ability to transcend liberal stereotypes by providing a short autobiography. He writes:

Here, on the eve of the president's second inauguration, is an honest effort to set down what I saw, what I heard, what I thought and what I learned.

But who is doing this seeing and hearing and filtering?

For the purposes of this story, I'd say I'm a man who has lived among blues and lived among reds and never felt like a proper fit anywhere. My current home is one of the bluest places in America -- the District of Columbia, which voted 10 to 1 in favor of Kerry. I have friends and neighbors who were literally in tears the day after the election. Politics for many Washingtonians is more than just a civic duty or an every-few-years diversion. It is a passion and a livelihood. They find the Red Sea hostile, baffling and, frankly, menacing.

On the other hand, my roots are out there. I grew up at the western end of the nation's unbroken red high prairie. Aurora, Colo., has become a populous place, miles of suburb shading into more miles of exurb, but I remember it when tumbleweeds three feet high blew through our yard, and jackrabbits burrowed under the back fence, and asphalt gave way to dirt farm road a scant quarter-mile from our front door.

That stuff about the prairie and the jackrabbits is nice and all, but Van Drehle presentation of himself as a red-blue hybrid won't have any credibility in my mind until he answers the question that really matters: How many times has he gone into the voting booth and pulled the lever for Bush or any other Republican presidential candidate?

From talking to some of them, I know that Big Media correspondents are often paranoid about letting anyone know their real opinions about politics. They say that if they admit that they voted Democratic, Republicans would attack everything they publish as biased. And you know what? They probably would.

But Republicans already attack the media -- constantly -- for being biased. Perhaps if the press corps abandoned its faux non-partisanship, they would get some more respect from the GOP. But more importantly, if the press could admit to itself what it believed, it might not have to embark on anthropological expeditions across the midwest in order to understand Republicans.
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# Posted 2:45 AM by David Adesnik  

WHY IS THE NYT BEING SO NICE TO DICK CHENEY? Beats me. But Noam makes a pretty strong case that the Times recently wnet soft on the man from Wyoming.
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# Posted 1:23 AM by David Adesnik  

DIRTY WARS, DIRTY BOMBS: It isn't everyday that the Big Media muckamucks decide to extend their hand in friendship to the blogosphere. So when HBO, PBS and the Council on Foreign Relations invited me to a film premiere at the French Embassy, I decided that free food and alcohol are justification enough for consorting with the enemy.

The film in question is Dirty War, a BBC production (to be aired in the United States by HBO and PBS) that dramatizes the explosion of a massive, radiation-enhanced "dirty bomb" in central London. On a gut level, the film just works. Once the bomb went off, my heart jumped up into my throat and stayed there for the rest of the movie. What I felt was a combination of adrenaline and nausea.

In other words, this isn't a film you are exactly supposed to enjoy. Although it borrows heavily from Hollywood's crime-thriller and natural disaster genres, it is, above all, a political film. And this film amounts to nothing less than a vicious broadside against the Blair government for leaving Britain tragically vulnerable in the face of an impending terrorist attack.

When I say vicious, I mean vicious. The first half hour of the film devotes itself to the systematic humiliation of the fictional cabinet minister responsible for London's security. In rapid succession, the minister exposes her ignorance, selfishness, incompetence, and unhesitating willingness to deceive the British public.

But what difference does it make if the minister is fictional? Tony Blair has been in charge of the British government for almost eight years. The film's message is unequivocal: Tony Blair has utterly failed to fulfill his obligation to protect Britain from terrorists.

If ABC, NBC or CBS produced a similar film about an attack on New York or Washington, even those critics less than favorably disposed towards the President would have to write it off as hatchet job bought and paid for by the liberal media. But perhaps the BBC can get away with this sort of thing.

Although I lived in the UK for almost three years, I never learned much about its domestic politics. Turned off by the intense biases of The Guardian, The Daily Telegraph and BBC News, I went online to get my news. From what I understand, the BBC is an independent institution funded by the government. What that actually means in practice, I'm not sure.

On the one hand, I have to marvel at the democratic ideals that inspire government support for an institution devoted to embarrassing the government. On the other hand, one has to wonder whether the BBC suffers from a constant compulsion to demonstrate its independence by attacking its patrons in the most sensational manner possible.

What it comes down to, I suppose, is the degree to which a film such as Dirty War represents a constructive response to the dangers that Britain (and America) faces. The film certainly has such pretensions; before the film starts, white letters on a black screen inform the audience that the film is based on extensive factual research.

Another good indication of the film's seriousness its American premiere was sponsored by the Council on Foreign Relations. Thus, along with dinner, the guests at the premiere were treated to a discussion of terrorism and homeland security led by Stephen Flynn of CFR and Michael Wermuth of the Rand Corporation, both experts in the field.

So, does the film blend drama and realism in a manner worthy of its creators highest hopes? Frankly, I have no idea. If the film taught me one thing, it is how little I know about homeland security. Perhaps because I have spent the last four and a half years studying foreign policy, I never devoted enough attention to the homeland side of the equation.

In order to remedy this situation, I hope to read Dr. Flynn's new book, entitled America the Vulnerable. Although you shouldn't judge a book by its (back )cover, it's hard to ignore Fareed Zakaria when he writes that

If officials in Washington would read just one book, this is it. Stephen Flynn describes how utterly unprepared we are for the next terrorist attack, More important, he explains that our vulnerabilities are not inevitable consequences of being an open society. It is a scary book, and it should scare us into action.

I actually read the first two chapters of the book after I got home last night. As soon as I finish it, you can expect a full review on OxBlog.

In the final analysis, regardless of whether the film gets sidetracked for half an hour by its anti-Blair agenda, I have no choice but to respect a creative enterprise that forced me to confront my apalling lack of knowledge about a subject so integral to our national security.
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# Posted 1:19 AM by David Adesnik  

LIVING WITH THE MAINSTREAM MEDIA. LITERALLY. My housemate MB is a journalist and one of her articles was just published on the web. If you are interested in water sports, then you should definitely check out MB's short profile of the unlikely rowing scene in Dubai. Yup, Dubai.
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# Posted 6:24 PM by David Adesnik  

OXBLOG VISITS THE AMERICAN SCENE: While in DC to interview Dr. Kirkpatrick, I will be crashing with the illustrious Reihan Salam. If you haven't already, head over right frikkin' now to The American Scene, which Reihan edits along with Steve M. and Ross D.

Recently, Reihan has compared himself to Cyrano de Bergerac. It seems that vertically-challenged folks such as Reihan may face social handicaps almost as dramatic as he of the long nose. (Full disclosure: I myself am a good inch shy of the national average of 5'9".)

Meanwhile, in a heartening display of intra-blog solidarity, Steve M. admits to his own insensitivity about the ridicule that vertically-challenged individuals suffer at the hands of corportate titans such as Burger King.

In contrast, Ross D. has decided to ignore the plight of the vertically-challenged on focus on some good old-fashioned prejudice against women -- at Harvard of all places.

That, my friends, is America. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 6:16 PM by David Adesnik  

OXBLOG TO INTERVIEW NEO-CONSERVATIVE ICON: Tomorrow, I will have the chance to sit down for thirty minutes with none other than Jeane Kirkpatrick. FYI, Dr. Kirkpatrick was Reagan's first ambassador to the United Nations, serving from 1981 through 1984.

I won't be able to provide excerpts from the interview since it is for academic purposes only, although I do hope to write a little more about Dr. Kirkpatrick's ideas.
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# Posted 9:27 PM by David Adesnik  

POSTPONE THE ELECTIONS? Larry Diamond is one of America's most respected scholars of democratization in the developing world. One week ago, he argued in the NY Times that going ahead with elections on Jan. 30 may derail democracy in Iraq.

Diamond makes a number of valid points, especially regarding the ways in which a voting system based on proportional representation will unfairly damage Sunni interests. Yet Diamond simply seems to ignore the major arguments against a postponement. For example, Diamond writes that

Sunni political and social leaders are not calling for an open-ended cancellation of the election. They are requesting a one-time postponement of several months, in order to establish the "necessary conditions" for a fair and inclusive vote.

In contrast, one might argue that in the absence of an election in January, conditions will be just as bad several months from now. Yet Diamond believes that negotiating with the Sunni leadership can ensure substantial Sunni participation in the next election:

Fortunately, it is no longer true, as has often been argued, that there is no one to negotiate with. Over the last few months, Sunni religious, tribal, civic and political leaders have begun meeting and forming alliances. At a conference in Tikrit on Dec. 23, Sunni representatives from seven provinces met, released a statement articulating their concerns and requests, and elected an "executive body" to negotiate on their behalf...

The outlines of a compromise are visible. The Sunnis could get a one-time postponement of the vote, an electoral system based substantially on provincial districts, and certain other political and administrative reforms. The leading Shiites, who have drawn together into the United Iraqi Alliance and seem set to win an election no matter when it is held or under what system, could get a commitment on the part of the Sunni opposition groups to end the electoral boycott and to work to reduce the violence, and thus to create a political situation in which their victory will be worth having.

But can the Sunni leadership really do anything to reduce the violence? Is there any reason to believe that insurgents will respect the requests of (relatively) moderate Sunni leaders? If the insurgents are given several more months to prepare for disrupting elections, should we really expect that much in the way of Sunni turnout, even if there are successful negotiations between the Sunni leadership and the Allawi government?

Diamond is correct to argue that holding elections now is hardly a cost-free proposition:

These elections will only increase political polarization and violence by entrenching the perceptions of Sunni Arab marginalization that are helping to drive the violence in the first place. This would not be the first instance when badly timed and ill-prepared elections set back the prospects for democracy, stability and ethnic accommodation. Think of Angola in 1992, Bosnia in 1996, Liberia in 1997.

Unfortunately, I don't know enough to comment on thesee examples of counterproductive elections that Diamond mentions. Of course, there are also positive examples, such as El Salvador in 1982.

Moving on, I think Diamond is right to suggest that voting with the current system will further marginalize the Sunnis. Yet given how marginalized the Sunnis already are and how much influence the insurgents have, should the United States or the Shi'ites and Kurds really want to take the dramatic risk of postponing the election in order to placate the Sunnis?

More importantly, Diamond ignores the benefits that will come with holding an election. First and foremost, Iraq will finally have a government chosen by almost 80% of its citizens, rather than one appointed primarily by the United States. With the government in their hands, the Shi'ite parties will have a very strong incentive to take ownership of the challenges facing the nation.

An elected government will also have the right to set the conditions under which Coaltion forces can stay in Iraq (or possibly be expelled). Of course, no one should think that the new government will be able to make an entirely independent decision about the fate of Coalition forces. Above all, Baghdad will still need someone to fight the insurgency for it.

Yet if an elected government permits Coaltion forces to remain, the Shi'ites will no longer feel that they are living under an full-fledged occupation regime. The presence of troops will still be problematic, but I think an election would put a permanent end to the kind of resentment that allowed Moqtada Sadr to launch his failed yet dangerous rebellions.

At this point, I think that the best course for the United States is to go through with the January elections and work behind the scenes to ensure that the constitutional assembly produces a document that addresses Sunni concerns. While it may be hard to persuade the newly-empowered Shi'ites to compromise, the same incentives that Diamond mentions will still be there.

In fact, the assembly might prove to be far more effective in negotiating with the Sunni leadership since it will have a democratic mandate, unlike the Allawi government. Instead of enticing the Sunnis with a postponed election, the Shi'ites can hold out the prospect of a constitution that favors district-based elections rather than proportional representation. If the assembly completes it work on time, then the Sunnis will be able to reap the benefits of a district-based system by the end of the 2005.

Admittedly, I have limited confidence in the ability of the United States to steer the assembly in the direction it prefers. Thus, the real question is whether the Shi'ite majority, once it has power, will live up to the ideals of democracy and tolerance it has advocated so consistently during the occupation. I believe it can.
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# Posted 2:22 PM by David Adesnik  

DEATH SQUADS, PART II: There have been many passionate responses to my initial post, both via e-mail and on other websites. I will do my best to address all of them.

First, let me to direct you to this very long and very informative post by David Holiday. I should have pointed out before that David has considerable expertise on this subject because he worked for America's Watch/Human Rights Watch more than a decade ago, when El Salvador was still a major subject of public debate.

The main thrust of David H.'s argument is that the Newsweek article which provoked the current round of debate about the death squads may have fundamentally misunderstood what the Pentagon meant when it suggested developing a "Salvador option" for Iraq.

Newsweek presumed that a "Salvador option" entailed the training of something similar to death squads, or at least abduction squads, yet David H.'s careful review of military publications suggests that the Pentagon has a very different understanding of the lessons of El Salvador. Rather than emphasizing the role of death squads in counter-insurgency operations, the Pentagon's interpretation of El Salvador focuses on how best to train the entire armed forces of a developing nation.

As David H. points out, military papers on this subject tend to avoid discussion of the horrific human rights violations that the Salvadoran armed forces committed while under the tutelage of the Pentagon.

While I find David's general argument about the Pentagon's thought processes persuasive, it is still impossible to know whether it is correct in this specific instance since Newsweek provided so little concrete information to substantiate its suggestion that the Pentagon has nefarious plans for Iraq.

Next, I would like to address the concerns of AS, who writes that my initial post

Repeated some false and misleading notions: first, that even without actively supporting the death squads, American officials were happy to tolerate them; second, that they were at all effective.

There were undoubtedly those who supported any measure that would kill comunists. Outside the Oliver North school of Latin American politics (and the naive Reaganites who followed along) however, you'd behard-pressed to find any.

While the "naive Reaganites" may have constituted a small minority, they counted among their number the President, the director of the CIA and certain other high-ranking officials. Thus, their influence far outstripped their strength in numbers.

Nonetheless, AS is right to emphasize -- as I failed to do in my initial post -- how fiercely many of the Americans involved with the situation in El Salvador opposed the mindless brutality of the Salvadoran anti-communists. At the height of the brutality, all of our ambassadors and the overwhelming majority fo embassy officials opposed the violence.

My sense is also that a strong majority of the soldiers assigned to train the Salvadoran armed forces were viscerally opposed to the wanton violation of human rights, yet at the moment I am not familiar with sufficient documentary evidence to make that claim more forcefully.

With regard to efficiency, I think all except the most committed of the "naive Reaganites" understood that human rights violations strengthened the guerrillas and aggravated the civil war. Had the Salvadoran officer corps truly been willing to reform itself, the civil war might have ended a decade earlier, or perhaps never started.

At this point, I'd like to address Matt Yglesias' observation that

I'm not sure the distinction between America supporting a government that supports death squads while tolerating the existence of the death squads and America supporting death squads can really bear as much weight as David [Adesnik, not Holiday] wants to put on it. Being clear on the historical record is worthwhile, but it sort of doesn't make a great deal of difference morally.

I think Matt's observation may reflect the fact that my initial post failed to point out how few Americans wanted to turn a blind eye to the death squads' activities. Moreover, I think there is an important point to be made about the moral status of President Reagan's ability to persuade himself of the virtuous nature of the Salvadoran armed forces.

Even Reagan's harshest critics seem to recognize that the President's ignorance on this subject was sincere. Should some historian discover evidence which clearly indicates that Reagan understood the true nature of the Salvadoran armed forces and intentionally lied in order to defend their conduct, we will all have to revise our assessments of the 40th President. Although ideologically-motivated negligence is damnable enough, it is a far cry from intentional and explicit support for mass murder.

Finally we come to the comments of GC, who writes that

You seem incredulous, but there is ample evidence of active U.S. support for so-called "death squads" in El Salvador, based on recently declassified communications. Of course, we didn't call them "death squads" at the time. We called them "rapid response battalions."

Note that these "rapid response battalions" were created by the U.S. military specifically for the purpose of _counterinsurgency_, which is why they are relevant to discussion of Iraq today. Other far-right armed groups operating at the time in El Salvador, also sometimes labeled "death squads", were not created for this purpose and therefore are not relevant to your discussion of a counterinsurgency "Salvador Option".

In your post, you mention the El Mozote massacre as an example of "death squad" activities. Do you know who was responsible for that particular massacre? A "rapid reaction battalion" created by, trained by, and supported before, during, and after the massacre by the U.S. military. [Specifically the Atlacatl Battalion, led by Lt. Col. Domingo Monterrosa. --ed.]

GC is correct that the United States trained the rapid response battalions (RRBs), often at American installations such as Fort Bragg and Fort Benning. GC is also correct that an RRB perpetrated the massacre at El Mozote, which I mentioned in my initial post but did not attribute to an RRB. Finally, GC is correct that American support for the RRBs did not stop after they committed the massacres.

The critical oversight in GC's argument is his failure to ask whether the RRBs' massacres at El Mozote or elsewhere had anything to do with their American training or whether their brutality reflected their Salvadoran origins. In fact, American trainers made an effort, albeit an insufficient one, to disabuse the Salvadorans of their murderous habits. The curricula for the RRB's included material on the importance of respecting human rights, although this message clearly did not get through.

There is also an important semantic point to be made here. As I mentioned in my initial post, the death squads were not simply uniformed soldiers, such as those in the RRBs, who committed atrocities. They were special units devoted to killing suspected insurgents. Although murder is murder is murder, it would be a very different story if the United States government created and trained special units responsible for murder, as opposed to training soldiers who committed atrocities despite being instructed not to.

(As WAB points out in a separate e-mail, there were individual Americans, some with extensive military experience, who acted in a private capacity to help create certain death squads.)

In many ways, GC's comments point to the crux of the issue being debated here. Newsweek seemed to suggest both that the US government intentionally set up death squads in El Salvador and that it was considering doing so in Iraq. I have tried to show that the United States deserves a different sort of criticism for a different sort of crime.

As part of a poorly-designed effort to prevent a Communist takeover in El Salvador, the Reagan administration turned a collective blind eye to the atrocities perpetrated by the Salvadoran armed forces, at least until December 1983, when Vice President Bush personally lectured the Salvadoran colonels about the total unacceptability of their behavior. Even before Bush's visit, many Americans (and, of course, even more Salvadorans) tried to defend the cause of human rights. But without the support of the White House, their efforts were not enough.
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