Discourse.net

Gary Farber on the Power of Music

Gary Farber has a great piece on the (soft) power of music, If it ain’t got that swing, which introduced me to Willis Conover. Who’s that?

Willis Conover is, or at least once was, one of the most world famous Americans for forty years, and yet unknown to all but a few Americans…

European Union and the Democratic Deficit

Friday was a dark day for many in Europe (and not only for those in France that were watching their national team lose 1-4 against Holland at the European soccer championship).

In a referendum Irish voters said no to the Lisbon Treaty (53,4%). This is a new blow for the EU after the trauma of the Spring of 2005 when the new European Constitution was rejected in referendums held in Holland and France.

EU leaders thought that they had figured it out this time. The Lisbon Treaty includes (1) some of the essential components of the rejected Constitution (institutional reform, stronger role for the parliament etc), (2) none of the focal points that plagued its predecessor (constitutional bells and whistles such as the EU flag and hymn) (3) many unreadable sections and undecipherable wordings.

Now who would object to such a fine document? EU leadership was not planning on giving voters a chance to object anyway. So far the Lisbon treaty had been ratified by 18 member states without organizing national referendums.

So it is painful for the EU that the outcome of the only referendum organized is negative- especially because Ireland is one of the countries that supposedly benefited a lot from the EU (40 billion euros in subsidies aided its visionary turn to IT-foreign investments).

What’s next? The Lisbon Treaty will certainly survive. What about Ireland’s position in the EU? Perhaps a slimmed down version could be adopted in Ireland including some of the essential institutional components.

(more below)

Many Europeans citizens do not feel that they are part of the decision-making process – either because of the lack of connection to the European parliament or the high degree of bureaucratic decision-making on the EU level. At the very least, “Brussels, we have a PR problem”.

But there also seems to be something about the instrument of referendums. In Ireland, the political opposition was able to frame the vote of the Lisbon Treaty in terms of Ireland’s autonomy on diverse issues such as abortion, gay marriage – a bit of a stretch when looking at the Treaty’s content. Other than some of the more obvious arguments, what is it exactly about referendums that make them so easy to manipulate?

How Others See Us

Painful to watch.

Americans are NOT stupid - WITH SUBTITLES.

(Note that the video seems about 18 months old. And KFC chicken doesn’t probably actually come from Kentucky. )

Thank goodness my exams are nothing like this.

Lies, Lies, Lies

Lies abound.

• Lies, Damned Lies, a Searchable Database of Lies — links to and describes a new database of Bush administration lies about Iraq
• Computers piece together millions of shredded Stasi documents — unraveling Communist lies
• Why similar forensics may be needed here in the USA: Plame Investigation and Missing Emails: Analysis on Emails

Free Opinions

In one of the comments to my Guy Fawkes Day Musings, anonymous asks:

What exactly is your position on Islamic extremism? … Your other postings about torture, surveillance and profiling are pretty meaningless as well, as you have never articulated your assessment of threat level. …

… A google search of your blog reveals no stated position on the Israel conflict, and little in reference to Islamic extremism. I am somewhat baffled how a discussion of contemporary civil liberties can be had without a statement of position on the threat (if any) to western freedoms posed by what is perceived to be a spreading doctrine of genocidal fascism. At a bare minimum, since a google search also reveals you to be Krugmanite economist, the profound affects on our economic stability (which I assume you’d agree is closely tied to viable liberal civil liberties) certainly bear mention with regards to oil prices.

I’m surprised this needs saying, but here goes: Since I’m not running for office, I feel no need whatsoever to have a position on every issue.

I write about the things that either interest me the most, or on which I think I have some value added to contribute. There are a huge number of issues that I think are important but that I don’t write about either because I don’t have the time, or because I don’t think my opinions are all that likely to be of interest to anyone. I have much more to say about domestic matters than foreign (as opposed to international) because I live and vote here: I’m concerned about and responsible for US policy in ways that don’t apply elsewhere, so naturally I write the most about the USA. I think the suggestion that a blogger has some sort of obligation to opine on every good or bad thing that every foreign government or organization does is a fairly risible idea. It’s a big world.

In any case, I don’t see “Islamic extremism” as a topic, much less one on which I have much that is unusual to say. It’s complex, not monolithic. Like, say, “modern capitalism” which is also complicated and varies from place to place.

I do, however, have the following opinions, which you may have free of charge:

• I think it is always wrong to target civilians with violence.
• I disapprove of all non-democratic regimes, Islamic or not. The worse they are to their people, or their neighbors, the more I disapprove of them. I accept that there can be strategic reasons to ally with dictators, but I think that our policy makers take this option too often, because it seems to offer quick and easy results. In so doing, they frequently trade long-term results for short-term gains. See, e.g., the Shah of Iran.
• I think we should make crash efforts to wean ourselves from our dependence on foreign oil for multiple reasons: ecological, economic, and geo-political.
• I think the current administration’s attempt to terrify the American people into submission with the fear of Islamic terrorism has done us (as a nation) more economic and political damage than even the violence of 9/11.
• I blame the administration for failing to heed the clear warning they had: they ignored a report given to them entitled “Bin Laden determined to attack inside the U.S.”. That doesn’t excuse the 9/11 attackers, of course, but it does suggest that a competent administration, using ordinary tools of intelligence gathering and police work, would have been able to keep us safe. And that the various excesses we’ve had since, from airport shoe searches to waterboarding CIA prisoners were neither necessary nor appropriate.
• That doesn’t mean there is no threat of terrorism. It means that we are still at a threat level where we maximize our benefits by not being seen to respond in a such a panicky fashion. Over-reaction actually encourages terrorism, since they get a bigger bang for their … bang.
• To the extent that there is a “spreading doctrine of genocidal fascism” outside the Balkans and North Korea, the things that most fan those flames are the occupation of Iraq, and the stalemate in the negotiations over the West Bank and Gaza. The administration totally screwed up the first, and failed to make the second a priority (they somehow thought it would be magically resolved once Iraq became a model democracy!).
• I think the the label of “genocidal fascism” does a poor job of capturing much of what might be called “Islamic extremism”. Islamic extremism is in part a religious fundamentalism, in part tied to various nationalism, and in some much smaller part tied to pan-Arabism. It is very very difficult to change people’s religious beliefs. It is much less difficult, although not always easy, to have some influence on the conditions that make religious fundamentalism attractive to nationalists. We could, for example, do a little more negotiating and a little less saber-rattling. (Whatever happened to the “speak softly” part of “speak softly and carry a big stick”?) Indeed there is evidence that Islamic-country viciousness is poorly correlated with Islamic religiosity:

  statistical analysis indicates little or no correlation between the absence or practice of torture in today’s Muslim-majority countries and the degree of commitment these countries profess to Islamic law. Instead, this article concludes, the absence or practice of torture in a given Muslim-majority country today correlates with the same factor with which it correlates in a given non-Muslim-majority country: the absence or presence of democratic government.

  In that sense, and in other ways, the lip service that the Administration pays to the spread of democracy could have been justified; it is the means that they use in service of their ostensible end that are so awful.
• I don’t claim any special expertise in Middle East diplomacy, but what little I know does not make me optimistic: the current Israeli government is weak, which makes concessions difficult. The current Palestinian government is even weaker, and in the past not even the stronger Palestinian leaders have been particularly able to bring themselves to close deals. The US could help matters by leaning on Israel to stop settlements in disputed territory. I don’t know if it has much in the way of leverage on the other side. Until both sides want a deal, there won’t be one.

Worth at least what you paid for them.

Hourly Updates on Burma/Myanmar

Visit the Buddhist Channel for hourly updates on the situation in Burma/Myanmar.

Yahoo!'s Veracity Challenged

Does Yahoo! have more in common with Gonzales than is good for them? You may recall the cause celbre of Yahoo! giving up email records to the Chinese government which were then used to jail a dissident. According to Yahoo! at the time the issue hit the fan, the story was that when Yahoo! had been asked for the email records Yahoo! didn’t know this was a political rather than ordinary criminal matter.

Now, however, there’s evidence that at all relevant times Yahoo! knew or should have known that this was a political case. The case is made out by Rebecca MacKinnon at RConversation: Shi Tao’s case: Yahoo! knew more than they claimed.

Dept. of "Huh?"

US House votes to deny all aid to Saudi Arabia (AFP)

We give aid to Saudi Arabia???? A tiny nation awash with petrodollars?

While oil-rich Saudi Arabia has never been a large recipient of US aid, the Bush administration channeled a total of more than 2.5 million dollars to the kingdom in fiscal 2005 and 2006 as part of their partnership in the war on terror, congressional officials said.

Oh. OK. It’s walking around money.

But they Love Him in Albania

Lest you fear I’ve gone soft on Bush while on vacation, Crooks and Liars reminds us why Bush is so well respected abroad in ‘What exactly did I say?’:

Bush at a press conference on Saturday:

Q: And on the deadline [for Kosovo independence]?

Bush: In terms of the deadline, there needs to be one. This needs to come — this needs to happen. Now it’s time, in our judgment, to move the Ahtisaari plan. There’s been a series of delays. You might remember there was a moment when something was happening, and they said, no, we need a little more time to try to work through a U.N. Security Council resolution. And our view is that time is up.

Bush at a press conference on Sunday:

Q: Thank you, Mr. President. Yesterday you called for a deadline for U.N. action on Kosovo. When would you like that deadline set? And are you at all concerned that taking that type of a stance is going to further inflame U.S. relations with Russia? And is there any chance that you’re going to sign on to the Russian missile defense proposal?

Bush: Thanks. A couple of points on that. First of all, I don’t think I called for a deadline. I thought I said, time — I did? What exactly did I say? I said, “deadline”? Okay, yes, then I meant what I said.

At which point assembled reporters started laughing at him.

Kevin asked, “[I]s it really too much to ask the president of the United States to take his own policies seriously enough to actually know what they are?”

Apparently so.

The issue, though, isn’t so much whether Bush knows what ‘his’ policies are as what role he plays in setting them. Or, as Adam Kotsko suggests that The real problem with the Bush presidency is that it is conceptually unclear what kind of king he thinks he is — the absolute monarch of the Ancien Régime, or the Hegelian constitutional monarch who just “says yes and dots the i’s.”. But I prefer his other observation, that

The Democrats are now the party of continuing to have a constitution — paradoxically, they think that the only way to do this is by refusing to face down Bush’s gravest violations of the constitution. Hence no impeachment, no real investigation into intelligence manipulation, just this endless dithering with marginal scandals like the US Attorney thing. No one wants to “officially” expose the fact that the executive branch has been effectively treating the constitution as suspended for all this time, even though the information pointing to this conclusion is publicly available and overwhelming.

Meanwhile, I read in the papers that Bush received a rapturous reception in Albania. “Why did Bush go to Albania?” someone asked here. “It was the largest country he could find that approved of him,” someone else said.

How to Figure Out French Politics

Think, “French Daily Show but with puppets”: Les guignols de l’info. Usually hilarious, but as with Le Canard Enchainé it helps a bit if you have some grasp of the basics…

Public Transport as a Cute Public Good

Via The Early Days of a Better Nation, a pointer to this wonderful party political broadcast by the Scottish Socialist Party.

As Ken MacLeod points out, this video is so cute that “You can disagree completely with the policy and still find yourself smiling.”

I’d add that although I can’t speak to the cost estimates (or the relative value of the things to which the cost is compared) the basic economics underlying the proposal are straight out of what I recall from my college public welfare economics course: mass transit is a public good because every user of the bus or train reduces the number of cars on the road, thus increasing the value of the (less clogged) roads for everyone else. Thus, the socially optimum price of mass transit is actually less than the profit-maximizing price (because the price fails to give credit for the positive externalities), and likely to be a price that runs the system at a loss. In a world free of transactions costs, pricing mass transit at zero is probably below the socially optimum price, but there comes a point at which collecting the money costs more than it is worth, so free transit may be economically rational. Politically, of course, it is also a visible symbol of what your tax monies are buying.

They Love Us, They Really Do

One of many photos from GW Bush’s recent visit to Brazil.

Click photo for larger version

Making it Official

Let the jokes with tinges of nervousness begin: Halliburton to Move Headquarters to Dubai.

When I first saw this headline, I thought it was a parody, some jape about the location of the nerve center of the military-industrial complex. But it’s in the New York Times, not the Onion…

Guess Where

Guess what country this newspaper is talking about here:

• The President "has suffered a potentially fatal blow to his authority"
• In "an unprecedented rebuke," 150 members of the legislature signed a letter bitterly attacking his policies. The signatories included many of "the president's former fundamentalist allies, now apparently seeking to distance themselves as his prestige wanes."
• The mounting criticism is fueling speculation that the President is politically doomed. Observers have even suggested he might be impeached and removed from office.

France? The US? Israel? Newly democratic Iraq? Somewhere else?

Answer below.

No, according to the Guardian, it's Iran.

The Gang That Can't Shoot Straight

Did you see this in your newspaper? I didn’t notice it in mine.

FT: Somalia strike ‘missed al-Qaeda targets’

The controversial US air strike in southern Somalia missed all three top al-Qaeda members Washington alleges are hiding out in the country, a senior US official said on Thursday.

The official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said eight to 10 “al-Qaeda affiliated terrorists” were killed in Monday’s attack, but gave no details.

Imagine if it had been the Clinton administration: the media would be all over it.

Blogging the Coup In Thailand

Jim Moore's free world politics and policy carries a local account of the coup in Thailand:

I know that "coup d'etat" sounds dramatic and makes Thailand appear a banana republic (or, as my political scientist friend calls Thailand, a banana monarchy), but in fact Bangkok is a very firt-world city, and this coup seemingly a very white-collar maneuver. Sure, it's no surprise that a lot of the politicians are corrupt, and that there's dissent in the ranks, but the issues have been playing out more on the stock exchange and Op-Ed page than the streets -- that the military has taken control seems a bizarre response to the situation. It would be as if Enron middle-management had staged a coup.

The wild card, of course, is the king. The general who's taken over doesn't really want to retain power for himself and has declared his allegience to the king; even the tanks circling Government House are wearing yellow ribbons, the symbol of the monarchy.

But, the king isn't a substitute for a prime minister, and he isn't a replacement for Thaksin. A few months ago, when the dubiously-called elections were found to be dubiously-monitored and Thaksin the dubious winner, some of the opposition asked the king to intervene and appoint a prime minister. The king went on national television and scolded them: this is a democracy, he said, and a democracy holds elections. (To that point, Thaksin has been legitimately elected twice by an overwhelming majority.)

It seems to me with this coup that the general is now forcing the king's hand, making him intervene and perhaps appoint someone else. Or, declare his support for Thaksin, which may be in the best interest of democracy but does not seem to be in keeping with the king's personal taste.

It's a curious kind of coup that a) declares allegience to someone else; b) puts that someone else in an impossible position; c) justifies itself by saying the country is too divided under the current leader, and a coup is therefore required to restore harmony; d) apologizes to the citizens for the inconvenience.

Coming Soon to a TV Near You?

It's all too easy to imagine how this Australian commercial for the Fascist Party, Fascism is Fun, could be adapted for the US market.

It's a somewhat slow download, but I recommend perseverance.

PS. In case it wasn't evident from the dry Australian humor -- THIS VIDEO IS SATIRE. Just as much as this was.

Our Great Allies, the Saudis

Eric Muller points us to this revolting information about the Saudi bigotry-indoctrination program.

This isn't an oversight: this is government policy from our great ally in the Middle East.

War Games

All that stuff about focusing on attacking Iran? William Arkin thinks it's true:

Early Despite Denials, U.S. Plans for Iran War: The U.S. Central Command (CENTCOM) has been conducting theater campaign analysis for a full scale war with Iran since at least May 2003, responding to Pentagon directions to prepare for potential operations in the "near term."

The campaign analysis, called TIRANNT, for "theater Iran near term," posits an Iraq-like maneuver war between U.S. and Iranian ground forces and incorporates lessons learned from Operation Iraqi Freedom.

...

These studies, war games, and modeling efforts have been the first step in shifting the bulk of planning from almost exclusive focus on Iraq to Iran. At CENTCOM headquarters in Tampa, Florida, at Army and Air Force CENTCOM support headquarters in Georgia and South Carolina, and at service analysis and operations research organizations like the Center for Army Analysis at Fort Belvoir (thanks readers for correcting me), a monumental effort has been underway to "build" an Iran country baseline for war planning.

...

As I've said before in these pages, I don't believe that the United States is planning to imminently attack Iran, and I specifically don't think so because Iran doesn't have nuclear weapons and it hasn't lashed out militarily against anyone.

But the United States military is really, really getting ready, building war plans and options, studying maps, shifting its thinking.

I suppose the only lighter-than-bleak lining here is that unless the plan is nukes and/or bunker busters only, they will have to pull out of Iraq in order to have any troops...

But I don't think the US is going to be greeted with flowers, do you?

Some Old Jokes Never Quite Die

Unqualified Offerings documents the transmogrification of an old joke.

BlogAfrica Quiz -- Easy Grading

BlogAfrica has a ten question news quiz on Africa in 2005. Fortunately, they're much easier graders than I am: 60% is a passing score -- and I just squeaked in.

The Bush Show Doesn't Play Well on The Road

Although Elisabeth Bumiller of the New York Times is far too much the courtier and flatterer to say so, it is clear from her description of Bush at the Latin American trade talks that he is a completely incompetent negotiator. And he gets cranky when he misses his naps.

Far Away From Home, No Rest for a Weary President: The next day, an administration official said Mr. Bush would skip a two-hour lunch with the leaders because of "time served" at dinner the night before. But the president's planned escape was soon moot because the contentious summit talks ran so late, three hours over schedule at that point, that Argentina canceled the lunch.

So by 3:30 p.m., evidently on an empty stomach, Mr. Bush said he was sticking to his itinerary - a 4:05 p.m. Air Force One departure from Argentina to go to Brazil - and he did, leaving an assistant secretary of state behind to sweat out the trade talks. They ended hours later in failure.

"I didn't get any readout of the president's mood," a senior administration official told reporters when asked about Mr. Bush's state of mind. "But I can't imagine that he's mad."

Well, he certainly did not look happy a lot of the time. Polls indicate that Mr. Bush is the most unpopular American president ever in Latin America, but what has been most striking about watching him on his trip to Argentina, Brazil and Panama, which ends Monday night, is how removed he sometimes seemed from the cacophony around him.

But, even if he is worse than totally useless at multi-national gatherings, it seems there is something that GW Bush does well!

Bush, Replying to Chávez, Urges Latin Americans to Follow U.S.: At one point, [Brazilian president, Luiz Inácio Lula ] da Silva even exhibited a map of his country, which is larger than the continental United States. "Wow! Brazil is big," Mr. Amorim quoted the American president as responding.

Wait for it, because it's sure not geography....

After their appearance together, the two presidents and their wives headed off to Mr. da Silva's residence for an outdoor Brazilian-style barbecue that included several premium cuts of beef, as well as lamb, oxtail and cheese. Mr. Bush later pronounced the meal "unbelievably good."

Didn't change the Brazilian position one iota, but he sure can chow down...

US Drops ICANN/DNS Bombshell (on WSIS?)

The US Department of Commerce has announced an unexpected new policy regarding the Domain Name System (DNS) and the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN).

In previous pronouncements, the US had indicated that the US would someday release its ultimate control over the "root" -- the file that contains the master list of authorized registries and thus determines which TLDs show up on the consensus Internet and who shall have the valuable right to sell names in them. That day would come if and when ICANN fulfilled a number of conditions spelled out in a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU).

Today's announcement says the opposite: the US plans to keep control of the root indefinitely, thus freezing the status quo. Nothing will change immediately as a result. But the timing is weird, coming as it does only a short time before the forthcoming meeting of the UN-sponsored World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS).

Five years ago, in Wrong Turn in Cyberspace, I wrote (footnote 42, reformatted slightly):

Whether and under what circumstances DoC would turn over the root to ICANN has been the subject of somewhat contradictory pronouncements. In the White Paper, DoC stated, "The U.S. Government would prefer that this transition be complete before the year 2000. To the extent that the new corporation is established and operationally stable, September 30, 2000 is intended to be, and remains, an 'outside' date.'" White Paper, supra note 15, at 31,744. More recently, DoC assured Congress that it intends to retain its rights over the DNS:

The Department of Commerce has no intention of transferring control over the root system to ICANN at this time [July 8, 1999]. . . . If and when the Department of Commerce transfers operational responsibility for the authoritative root server for the root server system to ICANN, an [sic] separate contract would be required to obligate ICANN to operate the authoritative root under the direction of the United States government.

Letter from Andrew J. Pincus, DoC General Counsel, to Rep. Tom Bliley, Chairman, United States House Committee on Commerce (July 8, 1999), National Telecommunications and Information Administration.

Meanwhile, or at best slightly later, DoC apparently assured the European Union that it intends to give ICANN full control over the DNS by October 2000:

[T]he U.S. Department of Commerce has repeatedly reassured the Commission that it is still their intention to withdraw from the control of these Internet infrastructure functions and complete the transfer to ICANN by October 2000. . . . The Commission has confirmed to the US authorities that these remaining powers retained by the United States DoC regarding ICANN should be effectively divested, as foreseen in the US White Paper.

Commission of the European Communities, Communication from the Commission to the Council and the European Parliament: The Organization and Management of the Internet International and European Policy Issues 1998-2000, at 14 (Apr. 7, 2000) (emphasis added), Information Society Promotion Office. Recently, DoC assured the GAO that "it has no current plans to transfer policy authority for the authoritative root server to ICANN, nor has it developed a scenario or set of circumstances under which such control would be transferred." GAO Report, supra note 28, at 30. ICANN meanwhile stated on June 30, 2000, that "[s]ince it appears that all of the continuing tasks under the joint project may not be completed by the current termination date of the MOU, the MOU should be extended until all the conditions required to complete full transition to ICANN are accomplished." Second Status Report Under ICANN/US Government Memorandum of Understanding (30 June 2000), § D.4, (June 30, 2000).

Since then, every time the MOU with ICANN has lapsed, the US has observed that the terms were not met -- but extended the agreement. And every time, ICANN has said that it's just about to meet all the necessary conditions any day now...although it never does. And in fact, ICANN has come closer and closer, although one or two major, perhaps insurmountable, obstacles remain (agreements with the root server operators and especially agreement with the ccTLD operators).

Thus, the ambiguity remained. Most recently, in fact, Commerce had sent signals suggesting it was leaning in ICANN's favor, notably an announcement that the current MOU extension would be the last one -- leading me and other observers to think the fix was in for turning ICANN loose.

But today, in a surprise statement by the Commerce Department, the US government took out the ambiguity -- and said it intended to keep its authority over the root. In the short and medium term, the implications of this statement are political, not operational as the status quo for operations remains unchanged.

The new policy states that the US no longer has any intention of handing the root to ICANN even it meets the terms of the MOU (as amended):

U.S. Principles on the Internet's Domain Name and Addressing System
The United States Government intends to preserve the security and stability of the Internet's Domain Name and Addressing System (DNS). Given the Internet's importance to the world's economy, it is essential that the underlying DNS of the Internet remain stable and secure. As such, the United States is committed to taking no action that would have the potential to adversely impact the effective and efficient operation of the DNS and will therefore maintain its historic role in authorizing changes or modifications to the authoritative root zone file.

Governments have legitimate interest in the management of their country code top level domains (ccTLD). The United States recognizes that governments have legitimate public policy and sovereignty concerns with respect to the management of their ccTLD. As such, the United States is committed to working with the international community to address these concerns, bearing in mind the fundamental need to ensure stability and security of the Internet's DNS.

ICANN is the appropriate technical manager of the Internet DNS. The United States continues to support the ongoing work of ICANN as the technical manager of the DNS and related technical operations and recognizes the progress it has made to date. The United States will continue to provide oversight so that ICANN maintains its focus and meets its core technical mission.

Dialogue related to Internet governance should continue in relevant multiple fora. Given the breadth of topics potentially encompassed under the rubric of Internet governance there is no one venue to appropriately address the subject in its entirety. While the United States recognizes that the current Internet system is working, we encourage an ongoing dialogue with all stakeholders around the world in the various fora as a way to facilitate discussion and to advance our shared interest in the ongoing robustness and dynamism of the Internet. In these fora, the United States will continue to support market-based approaches and private sector leadership in Internet development broadly.

This new statement is consistent with some of what Commerce has said to Congress in the past, but it is not consistent with much of what the US has been telling its allies. Some of them are going to be very upset with this change in policy.

Personally, I'm actually not that upset with this promise to maintain the status quo because I don't see ICANN as deserving to slip loose of the last significant source of even potential control on its ever-expanding budget and activities. And, although it's not politically correct in international circles to say so, I'd be uncomfortable with any international control over the Internet that gave any foreign despot a say in how domestic communications work. (I'd be fine with a coalition of the willing serving as co-trustees if membership were limited to democracies; for some reason that's never what anyone contemplates.)

But the timing of this announcement seems odd -- even Bolton-eseque -- as it comes so soon before WSIS, and may be experienced as a stick in the eye by some of the governments there. Is it an attempt to dissuade participation in WSIS on the grounds that it will be pointless? An attempt to lower expectations? Or just ham-handed?

The bright side from the point of view of potentially angry foreign governments is the invitation to thinking about new ways to deal with ccTLD issues; coupled with the reference to multiple fora, this suggests a possible deal on taking the ccTLD part out of ICANN and situating it somewhere else. But that's pure speculation on my part.

Updates: Henry Farrell suggests that the ccTLD part is just a sop: "This is very small beer; country level domain names aren't that important."

Also, I just came upon this remarkably defensive interview with ICANN CEO Paul Twomey, held before this announcement (but did he know?) in which he asserts that ICANN's future is not in danger, and denied rumors that the EU's Paul Verhoef, who had been ICANN's Vice-President, quit suddenly (did he know?) because Verhoef was frustrated with ICANN and/or because the EU is lessening its support.

Update2: According to someone who should know, the job Verhoef left ICANN for is one that anyone in their right mind would prefer, so one should not read anything into that move.

Three Iraq-Related Posts From 'First Draft'

First Draft is an excellent blog. Here are snippets of three posts in a row that are well worth reading.

U.S. Forces In Iraq Violate Geneva Convention (Reuters)

Thousands of people are detained in Iraq without due process in apparent violation of international law, the United Nations said on Wednesday, adding that 6,000 of the country’s 10,000 prisoners were in the hands of the U.S. military.

In Iraq, “one of the major human rights challenges remains the detention of thousands of persons without due process,” Secretary-General Kofi Annan said in a report to the 15-nation U.N. Security Council.

Brits Cut and Run? (Glasgow Herald)

BRITISH forces may begin a withdrawal from Iraq “in three or four months”, a senior UK commander claimed yesterday.

Lieutenant-Colonel Andrew Williams leads a 1000-man battle-group based near the flashpoint town of al Amarah, about 100 miles north of Basra.

…

However, the Ministry of Defence played down the suggestion of any timetable for the removal of the 8500 UK troops in Iraq, saying that any cut in force levels was “contingent on the security situation and the availability of Iraqi forces to shoulder responsibility”.

Losing Control of the Mercenaries (The Guardian)

A group of American security guards in Iraq have alleged they were beaten, stripped and threatened with a snarling dog by US marines when they were detained after an alleged shooting incident outside Falluja last month.

“I never in my career have treated anybody so inhumane,” one of the contractors, Rick Blanchard, a former Florida state trooper, wrote in an email quoted in the Los Angeles Times. “They treated us like insurgents, roughed us up, took photos, hazed [bullied] us, called us names.”

…

According to Peter Singer, a Brookings Institute scholar and author of the book Corporate Warriors, private military contractors in Iraq are operating in a black hole as they do not fall within the military chain of command. “What appears to have happened here is tension between forces bubbling to the surface,” he told the Guardian.

But he said the incident also raised the question of what happens to contractors if they are caught doing something wrong, such as firing on civilians, as their legal status is not defined. “If the marines think [the contractors] did do something illegal there is no process they can go through. Who are they going to hand them over to?” Mr Singer said. “There have been more than 20,000 [contractors] on the ground in Iraq for more than two years and not one has been prosecuted for anything.”

I Signed This Petition

I signed this petition: Oppose the Blacklist of Israeli Academics Petition.

Happy Memories of Hitler Youth

Eric Muller translates a Das Bild article with elderly Germans’ reminiscences about their happy days in the Hitler Youth. It’s stunning stuff, and none more than this piece of work:

I didn’t know anybody back then who was against it. Whoever was against it, like an uncle of mine, was immediately arrested.

But this one comes close:

There was absolutely no discrimination among the young people who were members of the Hitler Youth and the anti-aircraft helpers.

Another Triumphant Victory by Homeland Security

More evidence for the hypothesis that they have lost sight of reality over at Homeland Security (or never had sight of it): Ensight - Jeremy C. Wright » The End of the Story.

Homeland Security: Keeping America Safe from Canadian Bloggers.

Update: And from dangerous T-shirts too!

The Politics of the Withdrawal from the Optional Protocol to the Consular Convention

Yesterday I blogged the legal issues relating to the US’s decision to withdraw from the Consular Convention. Today I want to explore the politics of it. And they’re somewhat strange.

I don’t of course know what the administration is thinking, and my ability to build a working mental model of the political and legal thinking of the crazed royalists in and around the White House is, I trust, somewhat limited. Nevertheless, from my perch very far outside the Beltway it seems much more likely than not that this move is primarily driven by the Medellin case and the more general problem that foreign states are bringing and winning cases in the ICJ charging failure to inform foreign nationals of their rights under the Consular Convention. These losses, most recently a very quick decision on provisional remedies, interfere with some of our states’ desires to execute foreigners convicted of serious crimes, just as those states execute our own citizens.

The US’s decision to withdraw from the mandatory jurisdiction of the ICJ over violations of the consular convention is a poke in the eye to the ICJ. It adds its mite to the US’s increasing isolation among the civilized and cooperative nations of the world. It – quite intentionally – sets back the cause of the rule of law in the international system. These other effects were probably features, not bugs, in the eyes of the Administration. But they were, I suspect, fundamentally mere side-effects, bonuses..and it is the very casualness with which the administration tolerates such side effects which will magnify the damage they cause.

It’s not hard to understand how this administration might think it scores points with the base – or even the masses – by acting in away that it can describe as both pro-death penalty and anti-world government. But in fact the act of withdrawal from the Optional Protocol (presuming it is even valid) is formally neither. The ICJ, unlike the WTO or the ICC, is about as far from world government as you can get. And were the administration committed to the rule of law domestically, the removal of the ICJ’s ability to beat us over the head with words is also of almost no significance. Because our law instructs our courts (and other government officials) to beat themselves over the head when needed.

Article VI of the U.S. Constitution states that “all treaties made, or which shall be made, under the authority of the United States shall be the supreme law of the land.” International customary law is also part of federal law: as the Supreme Court reminded us over 100 years ago, in the Paquete Habana case, “International law is part of our law.” And, under the Supremacy Clause of the Constitution, it follows that if the nation is bound to follow international law, that obligation must somehow be communicated to and adhered to by the states. The precise means by which that happens in the absence of legislation may be uncertain; the role of the President and of the federal courts in making that stick may be controversial; but it is clear that the obligation exists in some form. Taking away the compulsory jurisdiction of the ICJ that arises from the Optional Protocol of the Consular Convention will not change that formal obligation, nor so long as the US remains a party to the Consular Convention will our legal obligations under it be diminished in any way.

The decision to walk away from the Optional Protocol is thus revealed as being only one of three things: (1) It could be an act of simple petulance; (2) It could be a studied move of retaliation against the ICJ for other decisions in other areas, a retaliatory act whose subtlety would seem to exceed the capacity of the people who wish to make paleoconservative John Bolton our ambassador to the UN; or (3) most likely, it is an invitation to the states to take it easy on compliance with our legal obligations under the Consular Conventions, obligations which endure past our withdrawal from the Optional Protocol.

That third option is of course another poke in the eye, a destructive thrust aimed not at international system, but at the domestic commitment to the rule of law. That it emanates from people who do not, in their hearts, speech and writings really consider international law to be law in any binding way, and who see the basic sinews of international legality – the Geneva Conventions, for example – as at most annoyances, only makes it worse. And it further calls into question their belief in domestic law.

Henry Kissinger Remains Dangerous

Henry Kissinger is the author of a line that I like to quote a lot, in which he describes a claim as “having the added advantage of being true”. I like the line for many reasons, one being because it reminds us that when it suited him Kissinger was not above pushing ideas that were false.

And, oh boy, it seems like Kissinger is still up to his old bullying tricks trying to deny, obscure, or distract attention from his complicity in the Chilean coup that replaced Salvador Allende with the evil Augusto Pinochet., as well as a strategic CIA murder plus the CIA’s and White House’s involvement in “Operation Condor”, Pinochet’s scheme to murder his opponents living abroad in several Latin American countries and then later — in the Letelier affair — in Washington D.C.

None of which is all that surprising. What’s amazing is the number of establishment figures still willing to do the old man’s dirty work for him.

Happy Valentines Day

Happy Valentines Day. Be grateful you don’t live in Saudi Arabia:

Saudi law forces Valentines underground: Each year shortly before Feb. 14, the country’s religious police mobilize, heading out to hunt for and confiscate - red roses, red teddy bears and any signs of a heart.

In a country where Valentine’s Day is banned, ordinary Saudis find they must skirt the law to spoil their sweethearts.

The Valentine’s Day holiday celebrating love and lovers is banned in Saudi Arabia, where religious authorities call it a Christian celebration that true Muslims should shun.

Our great allies in the fight for ‘liberty’.

Urkaine Has Orange Secret Policement

History on the hoof, reported by the New York Times: How Ukraine’s Top Spies Changed the Nation’s Path. Fascinating, exciting, stuff.

Hollywood, are you listening?

Life In the Bubble

Bush Says Election Ratified Iraq Policy (washingtonpost.com)

President Bush said the public’s decision to reelect him was a ratification of his approach toward Iraq and that there was no reason to hold any administration officials accountable for mistakes or misjudgments in prewar planning or managing the violent aftermath.

George Bush's Best Appointment?

Admittedly, the competition is not exactly tough, but based on Kudos where deserved, I suspect that Tony Hall, U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. Food and Agricultural Agencies, is GWB’s best appointee.

Trends in Leader Portraiture and Personality Cults

Over in North Korea, portraits of “Dear Leader” Kim Jong Il are disappearing from offices and public places, creating a “baffling blankness”.

Meanwhile, back here in the US, billboard-sized portraits of “Our Leader” are springing up in public places, as a “public service” from Clear Channel Communications. Cult of personality, anyone?

Corruption, Bloody Corruption

The story has been bouncing around the web for months, but the New Republic has now brought it out into the mainstream. It seems that after two plus years of passivity in the hunt for Bin Laden, and chasing after mirages in the Iraqi sands, the Bush administration has been telling the government of Pakistan repeatedly and in strong terms that it would like a July Surprise—a capture of one or more major Al Qaeda figures, ideally timed to take all the air out of the Democratic convention.

Yes, it’s nice that the administration is finally getting serious about catching the real villains, although it’s rather late. And yes, it is rage-inducing that nothing, simply nothing, is too significant, or a matter of national honor, to be twisted and sullied by Rovian manipulation.

If the US has indeed pressured a foreign government in the hopes that their capture of a major national enemy should be delayed, or timed, so that this administration could milk it for domestic political gain, I am prepared to discuss whether we should amend the Constitution to reinstate the punishment of corruption of blood so we can apply it to the Bush clan.

Pro G 2 TRE-T 1STITUAN 1 KONSTITU6ON POOR L'€P

“La langue de l’Europe c’est la traduction.”
— Umberto Eco

Roland Barthes would have loved this. A Euro-MP named William Abitbol has gone and had the draft European Constitution translated into Texto SMS ‘for the benefit of the younger generation’.

So here’s a hipness test, dear reader. Can you read this:

Kon6an ke l’€p ét 1 continan porteur 2 6viliza6on ; ke C zabitan, venu /vag suxSiv 2 p8 lé ler zaj 2 lumaniT, i on DvloP progrSivman lé valeur ki fond lumanism : légaliTD zètr, la libRT, le rSP 2 la rézon,

If you looked at that and saw the first paragraph of the Preamble,

Conscients que l’Europe est un continent porteur de civilisation; que ses habitants, venus par vagues successives depuis les premiers âges de l’humanité, y ont développé progressivement les valeurs qui fondent l’humanisme: l’égalité des êtres, la liberté, le respect de la raison,

Then you are hip indeed. And your French is good too.

(Credit: My wife, who teaches EU law, tipped me off to this one.)

Canada Searches for a (Very) Warm-Water Port

Canadians are agitating to annex the Turks and Caicos Islands in the Caribbean. Yes, the Canadians are seeking a warm-water port:

“In the long term, what is so absolutely vital for Canada is to expand our sphere of influence,” says Conservative MP Peter Goldring, a driving force behind the Turks and Caicos movement.

Canadians seeking Lebensraum? Wait a minute…

“We had a sphere of influence in the Caribbean 100 years ago. Canada was a major shipper and transporter to the Caribbean from the Maritime provinces. We have lost that direct Maritime link with the Caribbean.”

Goldring has organized an all-party committee of Parliamentarians as well as a group of business leaders to lay the groundwork for a possible union between Canada and the Caribbean Island.

“I’d like it to be the 11th province,” Goldring says.

“It would be a Canadian province at the gateway to the Caribbean.”

Of course, being nice Canadians, they don’t call it “annexing” but use words like “union” or “merger” or “free association” and even “overseas territory,” while contemplating “400 kilometres of white beaches and 800 kilometres of virgin reef for divers and snorkellers.” Plus temperatures that stay in double digits year round. Even in Centigrade.

If this “merger” happens would it signal a reversal of the trend towards increased devolution and the creation of micro-states? Could this start a trend?

And, how would the US react to being flanked by Canada?

The Reign in Spain Did Not Talk Plain

For what little it’s worth, almost all the early US commentary on the Spanish elections seem about 98% mistaken to me. As far as I can tell, the moral of the story has nothing to do with strength or weakness, appeasement or terror, and relatively little to do with the costs of being GW Bush’s (or the US’s) friend and ally. It even has relatively little to do, alas, with the political costs of entering precipitously into wars of choice.

No, the moral of the story is this: voters don’t like to be lied to, and in politics the coverup often costs more than the crime. The Spanish voters decided, apparently correctly, that their government had lied to them when it blamed ETA, local terrorists, for an act of barbarism committed by al Qaeda, foreign terrorists.

Which means that the 2% of recent commentary I agree with is the part that says this is bad for Bush: as the Bush lies like a rug meme gathers steam (the latest outrage about muzzling Richard S. Foster, Medicare’s favorite actuary — only reinforces it), the idea that the US voters will punish Bush for lying, like the Spanish voters punished José María Aznar will begin to take hold.

Update: Seems like someone agrees.

Update (2): More agreement.

Meanwhile, Back at Reality, 8000 Spent Fuel Rods are Missing in North Korea

Jack Pritchard, What I Saw in North Korea

On Jan. 8, North Korean officials gave an unofficial American delegation, of which I was a member, access to the building in Yongbyon where about 8,000 spent fuel rods had once been safeguarded. We discovered that all 8,000 rods had been removed.

Whether they have been reprocessed for weapons-grade plutonium, as Pyongyang claims, is almost irrelevant. American intelligence believed that most if not all the rods remained in storage, giving policymakers a false sense that time was on their side as they rebuffed North Korean requests for serious dialogue and worked laboriously to devise a multilateral approach to solving the rapidly escalating crisis.

Here’s what George W. Bush had to say about this critical subject in the State of the Union:

Different threats require different strategies. Along with nations in the region, we’re insisting that North Korea eliminate its nuclear program. … America is committed to keeping the world’s most dangerous weapons out of the hands of the most dangerous regimes.

Well, I feel better now, don’t you?

Ed Hasbrouck on TSA's Latest Idiocy

I very rarely quote entire entries from other blogs for copyright reasons, and because I think if folks write it, let them enjoy the traffic. But I'm making an exception here because it's a tale of the sort of petty stupidity and tone-deafness to justice that just makes my blood boil (and because I know Ed Hasbrouck will forgive me...). So everything below the line is by him, not me.

---

The Practical Nomad blog: How the USA honors the memory of M.L.K., Jr.: It's a national holiday today in the USA in honor of the birth anniversary of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

So what stirring story of the progress of American freedom and racial tolerance do I wake up to?

French fury over US treatment of air staff (free registration and cookie acceptance required)

The article is worth reading in full, but here's the gist:

It seems that the USA is now requiring a personal interview with a TSA specialist, on each arrival in the USA, for foreign-citizen airline staff born in specified countries (all of which have Muslim-majority populations) -- even though they already have multiple-entry professional visas, and could be questioned and investigated as thoroughly as desired before those visas are issued.

It also seems that there are no such TSA specialis in Cincinnati, even though it is an international airport and Delta Air Lines hub, served by regular flights on Delta's "Skyteam" marketing partner, Air France.

Since knowledge of multiple languages is one of the most important qualifications for flight attendants, and many Air France passengers are travelling to and from points beyond France in Africa, Asia, etc., it should be no surprise that many Air France flight attendants were born outside France, and are either immigrants or children of French parents born abroad.

So what has happened? According to the Telegraph (UK):

One Moroccan-born stewardess who flew into the city was prevented from leaving when officials could not conduct her interview. Instead, she was driven for eight hours to Atlanta, nearly 500 miles away, and forced to fly back to France as an ordinary passenger.

And now the TSA has issued a a new directive:

The directive ... advises Air France not to use the foreign-born crew members on flights to Cincinnati because airport staff there lack the facilities needed to conduct the security interviews.

Let's get this straight: the TSA is telling Air France to discriminate against members of its staff -- French citizens holding valid proefessional visas to the USA -- in assignmets to flights to the USA, on the basis of their country of birth.

If an airline or company based in the USA did that, it would constitute illegal discrimination based on national origin.

So the USA is ordering Air France to engage in discriminatory practices that would be illegal for a USA company.

Ah, but they're French, which makes everything different, doesn't it.

Where's Dr. King when we need him?

Self-Fulfilling Prophecy Dept: Cheney Predicts Decades of War

Cheney’s grim vision: decades of war / Vice president says Bush policy aimed at long-term world threat

Oh heck. It’s too depressing to contemplate just how awful this administration is. Even the politics of this elude me. Do they think that because polls right now show the incumbents as being more trusted on defense issues that the scarier the make the world sound the more votes (and Haliburtondollars) they get? Or is this honest belief? And which is worse?

I remember Bush’s first post-9/11 speech, which I also saw in a hotel room, just as I’m in one now reading this. It was very upsetting. I was imagining my children being drafted and killed for his campaign against an ism. This sounds like the more intellectual version of the same thing. But now I’m more angry than upset.

Give me Dean, Clark, Edwards, even Kerry (uninspiring). Heck even Gephardt (unelectable) or Lieberman (unprincipled). Anything.

The Nation's Wishful Thinking: 'French May Indict Cheney'

Doug Ireland, writing in The Nation, asks Will the French Indict Cheney?. While no expert on the subject, my sense of French prosecutorial independence is that there’s less of it than, say, one finds in Italy. In other words, while there may be some ugly facts, short of a confession on video, there would be no prosecution unless the French central government wanted one. And I’d be rather surprised if they wanted one right about now. Unless they really hate Bush, which I suppose is possible.

Then again, if anyone is up to bucking the French establishment, it’s Judge [French prosecutors are judges] Van Ruymbeke, who has already prosecuted major French politicians for taking bribes from ELF…

Yet another sordid chapter in the murky annals of Halliburton might well lead to the indictment of Dick Cheney by a French court on charges of bribery, money-laundering and misuse of corporate assets.

At the heart of the matter is a $6 billion gas liquification factory built in Nigeria on behalf of oil mammoth Shell by Halliburton—the company Cheney headed before becoming Vice President—in partnership with a large French petroengineering company, Technip. Nigeria has been rated by the anticorruption watchdog Transparency International as the second-most corrupt country in the world, surpassed only by Bangladesh.

One of France’s best-known investigating magistrates, Judge Renaud van Ruymbeke—who came to fame by unearthing major French campaign finance scandals in the 1990s that led to a raft of indictments—has been conducting a probe of the Nigeria deal since October. And, three days before Christmas, the Paris daily Le Figaro front-paged the news that Judge van Ruymbeke had notified the Justice Ministry that Cheney might be among those eventually indicted as a result of his investigation.

How to Lose Friends and Upset People

Via Lenz Blog (this is my week for Germans?), who got it from Richard Stallman’s political notes — an interesting but user-unfriendly list that thus mirrors its author — I find out about the US’s latest bit of Really Stupid anti-PR—putting foreign reporters in lockup, starving them, then deporting them. (Sadly, almost as stupid policies exist elsewhere.) Yes, when I went to Australia to give a lecture, I had to get an expensive visa and do paperwork and they were fussy about it and if I hadn’t they might not have let me in. Yes, the young woman in question (who was going to interview Olivia Newton John for a magazine) didn’t do her paperwork right, but she told the truth when asked about it. That may justify an hour’s extra questioning, but not deportation. But then I always said the INS U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) was one of the worst bureaucracies in DC.

Incidentally, that remark of mine about “one of the worst” prompted a commentator to ask me what I thought the other bad bureaucracies in DC were. I’d say the Veteran’s Administration is near the top of the list, although I like what I hear about the current administrator. The Bureau of Surface Mining, the Bureau of Land Management, the Agriculture Dept, are pretty much captured, so they are terrible if you are citizen, but great if you are their corporate masters. I’m never sure how to class the IRS. It’s pretty awful, but some substantial fraction of its problems seem due to Congress.

I'm Getting Nervous About Our Flight Back to the USA

We’re due to fly on British Airways from Manchester to London to Miami tomorrow and it looks as if we may be caught up in the latest terrorism-related scare and political dispute. I’m not nervous about flying…I’m nervous about not flying: it seems there is a chance that my flight may be cancelled due to a dispute between the British airline pilots’ union (which opposes any guns on board their aircraft) and the US government which may require armed ‘air marshalls’ as a condition of flying into the US.

The US is requiring foreign carriers to have air marshalls on board. But the UK pilots’ union (and maybe British Airways?) is balking. The UK government appears to have bowed to US pressure, perhaps because of actual intelligence info (who knows?), but BA is not happy about it.

[The UK government] emphasized in a statement on Monday that “only the U.K. can authorize the placing of air marshals on U.K. carriers.”

The British Air Line Pilots Association said in strong terms that arms did not belong on aircraft, and British Airways, the country’s biggest airline, said it reserved the right not to fly if it was forced to add air marshals. “We have received the request for the deployment of cover capabilities on flights,” an official with the airline said. “Only if British Airways was satisfied that safety was enhanced would that flight take off.”

The airline pilots were less polite. On the TV news this evening they were quoted as saying that unless they can be satisfied that

1. The pilot remains in command of the plane.
2. The air marshalls are operating under written rules
3. Their training is sufficient to make it safe to have them on board

then they don’t want to fly. (The last condition may be much tougher than it sounds, given that the UK is being forced to rush the armed guards aloft without any time to plan this or train them!) The pilot interviewed hinted pretty strongly at a refusal to fly if these (quite reasonable, IMHO) demands were not met.

It looks as if my flight may be the first British one to have the new armed guards on board…and that the pilots’ union is advising the pilots to stay on the ground:

The British Air Line Pilots’ Association (Balpa) wrote to Alistair Darling, the Secretary of State for Transport, yesterday calling for a meeting to discuss the policy which it believes is “dangerous” and flawed. The association, which has said it does “not want guns on planes” has advised pilots to refuse to fly if they do not feel happy carrying armed marshals posing as passengers.

Mr Darling said he would meet the pilots to discuss their misgivings and said they would be told when an undercover marshal was on a flight.

The Secretary of State defended the Government’s decision to allow plain-clothes officers with low-velocity weapons on selected flights, saying it was a “responsible and prudent step” that would be used “where appropriate”.

He said their use was “only one of a number of measures” and “a last line of defence”, together with increased screening of bags, to deter terrorists. But he warned that passengers could face longer queues at airports because of the “heightened” state of security.

“The best thing is to try to stop people getting on the aeroplane in the first place,” he said on BBC Radio 4’s Today programme.

“Most of our efforts are rightly focused on the screening of passengers’ baggage.”

Sky marshals are expected to begin deployment in the next 24 hours on transatlatic flights to and from the UK.

Wouldn’t just strengthening the cabin door to the pilots’ area be enough?

If the London-Miami flight won’t fly we get stranded in London — we presumably have to do the Manchester-London leg no matter what and can’t just elect to stay here, where we have a place to stay, until the dust settles. What happens in the event of a labour dispute to us and to our luggage will probably not be much fun.

Then there’s this, which doesn’t make me feel good either: Skies of Major U.S. Cities Off Limits for New Year. Again, I’m more worried by the hysteria than the formless threats. I sure hope they write the rules of engagement for those militiary pilots circling the civilian US skies carefully. Would they really shoot down a civilian plane?

Another Minor Bush Mystery Explained: Why There Was So Much Sex in that UN Speech

At the time George W. Bush gave his speech to the UN, the speech that everyone expected would be devoted to Iraq, the amount of time devoted to the evils of the international sex trade seemed mysterious, even inexplicable. The best explanation I could come up with at the time was that it was filler thrown into the speech becuase the warring factions within the administraiton couldn’t agree on much else.

Now, though, an alternate explanation is taking shape: Karl Rove is a genius. The speech was an attempt at political innoculation against the potential corrosion from the Neil Bush sex scandals stemming from his divorce case.

Here’s how even staid CNN describes Neil Bush’s deposition testimony in his divorce case:

He admitted in the deposition that he previously had sex with several other women while on trips to Thailand and Hong Kong at least five years ago.

The women, he said, simply knocked on the door of his hotel room, entered and had sex with him. He said he did not know if they were prostitutes because they never asked for money and he did not pay them.

“Mr. Bush, you have to admit it’s a pretty remarkable thing for a man just to go to a hotel room door and open it and have a woman standing there and have sex with her,” Brown said.

“It was very unusual,” Bush said.

One has to wonder whether Neil Bush is so stupid as to not have figured out what was going on, or whether he’s so stupid as to think this lack of knowledge is credible testimony. But that’s almost beside the point.

The point that matters is that this incident just might explain why GW felt a need to get on record on the sex trade issue?

Of course, the real irony here is that the political innoculation was probably unnecessary. It looks as if there won’t be a Neil Bush sex scandal: the press is playing this one with even more restraint than the circumstances warrant … the exact opposite of press behavior during the last adminstration.

New Afghan Constitution: Well, That Didn't Go Too Well

Prof. Kim Lane Scheppele of the University of Pennsylvania Law School is an expert on new constitutions. She’s not very happy about the new Afghan effort:

An English translation of the proposed constitution of Afghanistan is available [Word .doc].

This constitution will be debated and ratified, if all goes according to plan, in a Constitutional Loya Jirga to be convened in December.

If you want to know more about the process through which it was drafted, the Constitutional Commission’s English language website is very informative. It can be found [here] .

International expert opinions (organized under UN auspices but which, so far as I can tell, were mostly ignored on the larger questions) can be found[here].

In my first reactions, it seems to me that the draft constitution is a substantial step backwards from the 1964 Constitution that brought Afghanistan its first representative democracy. Many of the rights provisions are subject to the qualification that the details will be regulated by law (which makes many basic rights subject to legislative limitation). There is a general equality clause but no specific equality clause for women. The constitution nationalizes natural resources and forbids foreigners from owning land.

The President has sweeping powers. The Parliament’s role is limited to approval or disapproval of state policy that originates with the President. The President appoints the vice president, all of the ministers (though these may be subject to no confidence votes), one-third of the upper house and all of the judges of the Supreme Court (with the latter subject to the approval of the upper house). There is no Constitutional Court, though there is a Human Rights Commission. Constitutional questions can only be taken up by the Supreme Court upon a petition from the government or the courts. There is no public access to constitutional review.

But by far the biggest change in the new constitution is in the role of Islam. In the 1964 constitution, Islamic law was to be used by judges only where there was no positive law on point, as a kind of common law that could be used when statutes and the constitution ran out. Now Islam is a central organizing basis of constitutional life at an equal or perhaps even higher level than the Constitution itself. Political parties may not be formed that conflict with Islam. The educational system shall be designed to be in accord with Islam. The section on the family requires the state to eliminate traditions contrary to Islam. The new constitution does not specify which branch of Islamic law shall be considered authoritative (the old one did), but one can imagine in a country whose most recent government was the Taliban that the view of Islam on offer throughout the political system may not be particularly friendly to international standards of human rights.

While the current president of Afghanistan is a moderate, the current Supreme Court is left over from the Taliban time and they have quite radical views of what Islamic law requires. In fact, in the present legal system, there are almost no judges educated in secular law because all of the universities have been closed since the start of the civil war. Those who are literate (and far less than half of the male population and less than 20% of the female population are literate these days) learned what they know in madrassas which operated in the tribal lands of Pakistan, and this includes the present judges on the Supreme Court.

I must admit to being both disappointed and wary of the draft constitution. It is a constitution that would be easy to abuse. I’d love to hear others’ thoughts on this.

(reprinted from Conlaw list with permission; minor reformatting)

Sets a great precedent for Iraq, right?

Cuba Travel Ban Endangered

CNN.com - Senate votes to end Cuba travel ban - Oct. 23, 2003. Well, that ought to get the folks in Little Havana excited. But maybe not as excited as it would have a few years ago.

There is a pervasive myth that the US embargo of Cuba weakens the Castro dictatorship. I believe it strengthens it. I wish our Cuba policy were like our Poland policy during the regime of the evil General Wojciech Jaruzelski. At that time, and before, the US policy—spurred by the Polish-American lobby who wished to enrich rather than impoverish their families—was to encourage two-way cultural exchanges, and lend Poland lots of money to buy our goods. The combination was devastating to the Communists. When people saw what life was like on the other side of the Iron curtain they got, well, bolshi. US engagement helped create the conditions for Solidarity’s victories. Conversely, embargo entrenches the dictatorship, by creating a foreign scapegoat for the nation’s dismal economy. Viewed as an act of neighborly hostility, the embargo is invoked to justify repression.

Thus, I want to scream when I read,

Opponents warned that the provision sent a wrong signal at a time when the Castro regime has escalated its crackdown on dissidents. “Why should we now open up travel to Cuba to give additional cash flow to the Castro regime?” asked Sen. Ted Stevens, R-Alaska, chairman of the Appropriations Committee.

No. No. It’s not a “signal”. It’s a policy. And the reason you live with whatever short run benefits might enure to a Communist regime — even when it’s misbehaving — is that 40 years of your policy has produced nothing good. Meanwhile, doing the opposite in Europe brought down the entire Warsaw Pact.

It’s true that for many years local passions in Miami ran so deep that local leaders and rank-and-file were basically (my Cuban secretary will not like me saying this…) irrational on the subject of the embargo. It was about honor, revenge, divorce, it was personal. There’s still some of that feeling in Miami today, but my sense is that it is not as unthinking as it once was. The community is no longer monolithic, and even some of the supporters are not as passionate.

Of course, there’s still the passionate opposition of US sugar beet farmers, who don’t want to compete with Cuba in the sole industry in which it has any comparative advantage…

Expect a Bush veto.

Uzbekistan, Our Ally In the Iraq and Afghan Conflicts, Is Boiling Prisoners

Here’s a candidate for humanitarian invervention (particularly if you belive Iraq was one): Uzbekistan. According to this article in the Guardain, Ambassador accused after criticising US, the government of Uzbekistan—an important ally in the war against whatever it is we are fighting, and which receives a US bribe subsidy of half a billion dollars per year, sounds like, well, Iraq.

The UK embassador to Uzbekistan was undiplomatic about certain local customs, like the jailing thousands of political prisoners, and the government boiling some of them to death. So, he’s in trouble. His friends blame pressure from the US. The UK denies the pressure (but they would, wouldn’t they?). The Guardian suggests that instead of being outspoken about the Uzbekistan’s abuses, the US government supports the regime.

The important thing here is not the details of a British ambassador’s career. The important thing is what this reminds us about the side effects of the Administration’s obsession with Iraq. Add the entrenchment of the murderous regime in Uzbekistan to the calculus the next time someone explains how the world is better off without Saddam.

How many other murderous regimes is it worth entrenching to get rid of one?

Background Information

Human Rights Watch, World Report 2003 on Uzbekistan reports “Human rights abuses on a massive scale”.

EurasiaNet has links to many other Human Rights documents.

The US Dept. of State Country Reports on Human Rights Practices - 2002, says “Uzbekistan is an authoritarian state with limited civil rights.” As you read on, that turns out to be a positively British understatement:

The Government’s human rights record remained very poor; although there were some notable improvements, it continued to commit numerous serious abuses. Citizens could not exercise the right to change their government peacefully. The Government permitted the existence of opposition political parties but harassed their members and refused either to register the parties or to allow them to participate in elections. Security force mistreatment resulted in the deaths of several citizens in custody. Police and NSS forces tortured, beat, and harassed persons. The Government invited the U.N. Special Rapporteur on Torture to visit the country, which he did in November. Prison conditions were poor, and pretrial detention often lasted several months. Police routinely and arbitrarily detained citizens to extort bribes. Police and NSS arbitrarily arrested persons, particularly Muslims suspected of extremist sympathies. They also planted evidence on persons; however, it was less common than in previous years. The number of persons in prison for political or religious reasons, primarily individuals the Government believed were associated with extremist Islamic political groups but also members of the secular opposition and human rights activists, was approximately 6,500. The judiciary did not ensure due process. Police and NSS forces infringed on citizens’ privacy. Those responsible for documented abuses rarely were punished; however, for the first time since independence the Government convicted nine officers of the NSS and police for serious human rights abuses.

The Government severely restricted freedom of speech and the press, and an atmosphere of repression stifled public criticism of the Government. In May press censorship was eliminated; however, the Government warned editors that they were responsible for the content of their publications, and new amendments to the media law in effect encouraged self-censorship. The Government continued to ban unauthorized public meetings and demonstrations, and police forcibly disrupted a number of peaceful protests. The Government prevented many more protests, citing the threat of unrest. Ordinary citizens remained circumspect in criticizing the Government publicly. The Government continued to deny registration to opposition political parties; however, for the first time in several years the Government allowed an opposition political party to hold congresses. For the first time, the Government registered an independent domestic human rights organization; however, it denied the applications of two other human rights organizations. The Government restricted freedom of religion and harassed and arrested hundreds of Muslims it suspected of extremism. The Government tolerated the existence of minority religions but placed limits on their activities. The Government restricted freedom of movement. Internal passports were required for movement within the country and permission was required to move from one city or district to another. Exit visas were required to travel abroad. The Government harassed and abused members of domestic human rights groups. Several human rights activists were arrested in circumstances that suggested selective enforcement of the law and targeting of human rights activists.

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There were no confirmed reports of political killings; however, in July two inmates, Mirzakomil Avazov and Khusnuddin Olimov, incarcerated for membership in an extremist Islamic political party, were apparently tortured to death in Jaslyk prison.

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Although the law prohibits these practices, both police and the NSS routinely tortured, beat, and otherwise mistreated detainees to obtain confessions or incriminating information. Police and the NSS allegedly used suffocation, electric shock, rape, and other sexual abuse; however, beating was the most commonly reported method of torture. Human rights observers reported that the use of torture abated in some prisons following the January conviction of four policemen. Torture nonetheless continued in prisons, pretrial facilities, and local police and security service precincts; and the severity of torture did not decrease during the year. At the end of his visit in December, the U.N. Special Rapporteur on Torture concluded that the use of torture in the country was systemic.

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The Constitution provides for freedom of religion and for the principle of separation of church and state; however, in practice the Government restricted this right.

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The Constitution provides for free movement within the country and across its borders; however, the Government severely limited this right in practice.

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The Constitution provides citizens with the right to change their government; however, in practice citizens could not change their government through peaceful and democratic means. The Government severely restricted freedom of expression (see Section 2.a.) and repressed opposition groups and individuals; however, no opposition members were jailed. No independent opposition groups participated in government. During the year, the Birlik opposition movement was allowed to hold congresses throughout the country for the first time since 1991 (see Section 2.b.). Four government-controlled political parties held the majority of the seats in Parliament, and most remaining seats were held by government officials.

The Government is highly centralized and is ruled by a strong presidency. President Karimov was elected in a limited multi-candidate election in 1991. A 1995 referendum and subsequent parliamentary decision extended his first term until 2000. He was reelected in 2000 to a second term with 92.5 percent of the vote. His opponent, Abdulhafiz Jalalov, ran a token campaign and admitted on election day that he himself had voted for Karimov. The OSCE declined to monitor the presidential election on the grounds that the preconditions did not exist for it to be free and fair. Following a January referendum, which multilateral organizations and foreign embassies refused to observe, the term of the Presidency was extended from 5 to 7 years.

President Karimov and the executive branch maintained control through sweeping decree powers, primary authority for drafting legislation, and control of all government appointments, most aspects of the economy, and the security forces.

Many government officials were members of the People’s Democratic Party of Uzbekistan (PDP), formerly the Communist Party and still the country’s largest party

Posted by Michael at 03:32 AM | Link | Comments (2)

The Second Time As Farce

Beautiful Horizons is where I go to find the Latin American stories that the local newspapers miss. Today’s is a doozy: Cuba and Bioweapons. The jist of it is simple: the Adminstration is accusing Cuba of being Up To Something with bioweapons…but it has no evidence of anything. That’s what’s so suspicious, explains an Administration source: “It’s a question more of them exciting suspicions by not being open. I don’t know of any tangible stuff that shows yes, they are making anthrax [or anything else]. There is stuff we don’t know about.” Yes, Castro is not inviting us in to see everything he’s got! He’s up to no good!

If it sounds like you’ve heard something like this before about some other country…you probably have.

Obligatory Castro-related disclaimer: Everyone in Miami hates Castro. Especially if we wish to live. Even those of us who think that the only thing keeping Castro in power is the embargo, and wish we treated Cuba the way we used to treat Poland (basically, entrapping its government in economic and cultural exchanges that brought the regime to its knees), would be happy to see Castro replaced by a democratic government (but not, preferably, by carpet-bagging revanchists).

Deconstructing the Cabinet

So I’m thinking about the Republican Veepstakes, and trying to see how many members of the Bush cabinet I can name without a cheat sheet, and I remember this old line of President Nixon’s, “every Cabinet should include a future president”. Which thorough the magic of google brought me to this paragraph from a (rather too complimentary?) Nixon obituary reprinted from the Washington Post

The man who said that “every Cabinet should include a future president” deserves large credit for the sumptuousness of so many of his appointments. This was not a leader unnerved to have commanding personalities working for him. Like perhaps none since the New Deal, the Nixon administration brought to prominence dozens of figures who became national fixtures. Mentioning Henry Kissinger, George Shultz, William Simon, Dick Cheney, George Bush, Bob Dole (as Republican national chairman), William Safire, Pat Buchanan and Alexander Haig only scratches the surface.

Nobody is ever going to say that about George W. Bush. How many members of the Bush cabinet can you even name without help? And, now that you’ve peeked, how many of them (or other top Bush people) look like a future President? I make it about one—Colin Powell, and, while he certainly hasn’t trashed it fatally, he hasn’t done his reputation much good by his service in this Administration. As for the rest of them, …

On the whole it’s a pretty sad lot.

The rest of the Cabinet are either too old, too identified in the public mind with evil, or too faceless. (Of the non-Cabinet, only Dr. Rice has really made much a public splash, and overall I don’t think her robotic approach to uncomfortable questions will help her at all.)

• Rummy has his rabid fans and detractors, but there’s no point arguing about him, he’s too old to run four or more years from now;
• Treasury Secretary Snow is a walking disaster area;
• Attorney General Ashcroft is branded in the public mind as a snooper and a mindless prude
• Interior Secretary Gale Norton may not be James Watt, or she may be, but she’s no President either way.
• Commerce Secretary Donald Evans presides but does not impress;
• Labor Secretary Elaine Chao is of course unpopular with labor;
• HHS’s Tommy Thomspon has ambitions, and probably one of the least risible picks of this bunch, but that first “H” stands for “health”;
• Homeland Security’s Tom Ridge is universally agreed to be in over his head, to have lost bureaucratic turf wars, and generally to be screwing up badly;
• Agriculture’s Ann Veneman ought to be popular in the farmbelt, as the administration has certainly given away the store to Big Ag, but I have no idea how this is actually playing out.
  
• HUD’s Melquiades Martinz, Transportation’s Norman Mineta, Energy’s Spencer Abraham, Education’s Roderick Paige all share the distinction of not having achieved much of a public persona outside the Beltway. That’s not fatal, but it doesn’t suggest the executive and political talent that could propel someone from the Cabinet to greater things.

That brings me to Secretary of Veterans’ Affairs Anthony Principi. He’s a veteran with a real medal. He was a graduate of the Naval Academy, then later Navy JAG. And he can do the straight-talk thing: get a load of this and especially this.

One to watch?

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