Myanmar

The most recent article I read about Myanmar turned my anger into depression. It seems that the military is a big part of the culture, and decreasing its role seems unlikely. At the same time though, it shouldn't be impossible to give it a role similar to ours. The need for a strong US military is rarely questioned in mainstream America. But it doesn't rule the country or violently crack down on protests (although the police does sometimes).

What's worse is that it seems like sanctions won't do a thing, and there is little hope that any UN or American peacekeeping force would be tolerated. So, with the help of China, we'll probably get some concessions from the military junta that makes it look like it is opening up, and then soon enough things will go back to normal - where normal means monks get beaten and arrested when they call for democracy.

UPDATE:
You have to love The Onion, and not just for its crude but random humor. It's political satire is so often spot on. Take this one for example:

First Lady Laura Bush said Tuesday that the White House was ready to slap sanctions on the Burmese military government if it did not move toward democracy. What do you think?

Ian Brannon,
High School Administrator
"I didn't care about Darfur. Good luck getting me to give a shit about Burma."

So true - and so depressing. Although the fact that Laura Bush is talking about it suggests that the American public is likely to be more sympathetic towards monks in Burma than Africans in Sudan.

Our New Best Friend

Many conservatives were supportive of Bush's "go-it-alone" approach to foreign policy. Unfortunately, it looks like the result was that we traded partners like France, Germany, and the UN for China. I wonder if that was part of the plan.

Granted, part of the reason they are a partner is they have the leverage we need in dealing with countries like North Korea, Iran, and Myanmar; leverage that we wouldn't have going through the UN. Still, this (along with the Iraq War) shows the limits of "Cowboy diplomacy".

I would say that it is comforting to see China being so active, but in the end, they are doing it because it is in their interest.

No Hope in Congo

Summary:
There has been an epidemic of rapes recently in the Congo. The Rwandan genocide of 1994 may be one of the causes.

I wonder if President Clinton realizes the long term consequences of our acceptance of the genocide in Rwanda. Sure, he has apologized for it, and maybe he thinks he really meant it. But if he thinks the situation is behind him - and behind the world - he is wrong.

In Congo, there is a serious epidemic of rape (an odd phrase since one rape is too many, and two might be enough for me to consider it an epidemic). Here is the NY Times on the story: According to the United Nations, 27,000 sexual assaults were reported in 2006 in South Kivu Province alone, and that may be just a fraction of the total number across the country. We know that women have been victims during conflict; rapes were a part of the genocide in Rwanda and are a major concern in Darfur and refugee camps for those feeling the violence in Darfur. But the sheer numbers in the Congo, particularly the Eastern region is horrifying.

The reason I link this to the genocide in Rwanda is that one of the groups carrying out the rapes were members of the Hutu militias responsible for the genocide. Since then they have apparently fled Rwanda into Congo. The NY Times article suggests that the psychological damage from the genocide might be playing a part in the particular savageness of these crimes.

To me, the bigger reason is the lawlessness in the region. The largest UN peacekeeping mission is in Congo(17,000 troops), but it isn't nearly big enough. Until the world gets seriously invested in protecting the victims of conflict and post-conflict situations, we will continue to hear horrifying stories like this.

Not Interested

I've got to say, I don't really understand all the attention we give to President Ahmadinejad of Iran. He is far weaker in his own government than we make him out to be. So why do we pay so much attention to him, when all it does is make him more popular and make him look strong? It isn't smart strategy. If I were the Bush administration, I would make sure to say things like, "We are disappointed that the President of Iran is saying this, but in the end, we listen to Ayatollah Ali Khamenei for information about the policy direction of Iran." It also makes us look dumb to care so much about what he says because it makes us look like we don't know that he is mostly powerless.

Yup, I Like Vouchers

Summary:
Guess what? I now support vouchers. Two studies are showing that some voucher programs are demonstrating early positive results. And I can no longer find reasons to defend why low income students should be kept out of private schools when their public schools are failing.

The New York Sun published an article about new research that shows vouchers improved public schools in Milwaukee. The research was done by Federal Reserve Economist Rajashri Chakrabarti, and is available here. Further, RAND Corporation released a study that also investigates effects of school vouchers. Their conclusion is that it is too early to judge for sure whether these programs have or have not worked, but some programs have shown promising results, and program design is very important to the success of the school choice program.

I have two comments about these studies. One is that when more research like this comes out, liberals need to trust its findings and change their opinions just like they expect conservatives to do when studies show evidence that contradicts their beliefs. I don't actually expect either side to do this, but I feel the need to say this anyway. The fact is, liberals (including myself) yell and scream when conservatives say that people on welfare are just lazy, despite overwhelming evidence that most want to work but face significant obstacles (need for childcare, no jobs nearby, no easy way to get to jobs that are far away, etc). So if our goal is to improve education opportunities (as opposed to just trying to preserve funding for public schools regardless of results), and if it seems some voucher programs do improve achievement, than we need to adjust our thinking and support them.

My second point though is on the philosophy of school choice. I am finding it harder and harder to defend the opinion that we need to force people who can't afford private schools to remain in traditional public schools. The current argument seems to be that public schools are sacred institutions and we need to preserve them at all costs. It is hard to see public schools this way when so many schools are failing so many people.

There is often debate about whether education is valued in some of the communities where performance is worse. It doesn't seem hard to understand though why people would stop believing in education if they were in a place where the public schools were terrible and there were no other options available. Many of the studies I have seen show high parental satisfaction rates with charter schools and voucher programs - even when performance isn't improving. So obviously parents want options.

So after reading the results of these two studies, I am ready to support vouchers (I already support charter schools) in low income areas with low performing schools. The program should be specifically targeted to those in the failing schools, and should be direct subsidies instead of income credits. Anyway, I suggest everyone reads at least the press release of the two studies - or if you have to choose one, read the RAND press release.

It's About Time

So who else is excited that the NY Times finally ended TimesSelect? See, now when you read my posts, you can actually read the Nicholas Kristof and Thomas Friedman columns that I link to. You're excited aren't you?

I would link to a column now to celebrate, except Kristof in on book leave, and Friedman's recent columns haven't been great.

I'm with Bremer

Summary: I don't think Bremer's decision to disband the Iraqi army was necessarily a bad one. And the problem in Iraq isn't this issue, the problem is that we didn't go in with enough troops and didn't plan for the occupation.

I have so much I want to write about, I don't quite know where to start. I guess I will begin with something quick. Recently, L. Paul Bremer 3 has been defending his decision to disband the Iraqi army and move forward with de-Baathification. In hindsight, both decisions seem to have been very poor choices. But I don't know if this was obvious as they were being carried out. Before I get into it though, I want to be clear that I think these failed strategies point to the bigger problem that the Bush administration clearly didn't plan for what to do with Iraq after they ousted Saddam.

I have to say, I think it would have been hard to keep the Iraqi army together after our initial run to Baghdad. The army was a symbol of Saddam's brutal oppression, especially to Shiites. And the group whose support we needed from the beginning was the Shiites. They are the majority in the country, and they have reason not to trust us. After the first Gulf War, we encouraged them to rise up, and then refused to intervene when Saddam crushed them. Leaving the army in place would have sent a very bad sign, and might have caused an even stronger Shiite resistance than we see now.

In the end, the reason this failed isn't so much a few policies that didn't work. It failed because we went in without enough troops and without much thought planning about how to handle the country once Saddam was gone. We need to focus on that, and not get lost arguing about some of these smaller issues - especially one like this where neither option is a very good option.

Rousseau and Hobbes (Nope, No Calvin)

Summary:
An article in the NY Times magazine puts a new spin on religious extremism in the Middle East by comparing it to the West's religious history. The author suggests that our move towards secular liberal democracy might be unique and we cannot expect the Middle East to jump on board. If so, what kind of governments are we willing to tolerate?

I am getting caught up on my back issues of NY Times Sunday Magazine and finally finished this article. It puts religious extremism in the Middle East in the context of the West's own religious history. The author's main point seems to be that our own history is similar to what the Middle East is going through, but our conversion to secular liberal democracy is unique. We therefore can't expect the Middle East to follow that path, especially at so fast a pace.

In showing how similar the current situation in the Middle East is to our own history, the author tries to make us recognize that religious extremism is a natural human impulse. He talks about how we use terms like fascism to describe the extremism we are witnessing, and we blame it on the economic and political systems that lead people to messianic views of religion. This point is compelling, except that it ignores Hobbes' description of why religion took hold in the Middle Ages; life was chaotic (solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short...) and religion gave people comfort. Similarly, people in the Middle East are turning towards a form of religion that is empowering. So I don't think we can discount how overall life conditions affect the strength of religious devotion and the lengths to which believers will go in its name.

The author's conclusion is that we can't expect secular liberal democracy to develop and we will have to accept non-secular governments in the Middle East, even some who base their laws on Sharia. The author sites Muslim writers like Tariq Ramadan (who was prevented from taking a teaching position at Notre Dame by the US government) who are pushing for more modern interpretations of Islam but are not suggesting that Muslims disavow Islamic law. This is a very different position from people like Thomas Friedman who say that liberal democracy is the only hope for the Middle East.

This article seems to illuminate two really difficult issues. One is whether or not other countries / cultures have to follow the West's development path. If so, the next question is whether they have to follow all our steps or can we help them jump ahead to our stage. This is an obvious issue in development, but I see it here too. Can we help the world achieve secular liberal democracy, or do we need to step back and let them figure it out?

The other broad issue is the tension between relativism and universalism. While we think about whether cultures will follow our path, we should also think about whether they have to? We believe secular liberal democracy is the best form of government - but should we impose it on everyone else (even if try methods less violent than Iraq)? If not, what kind of governments are we willing to tolerate? The author of this article suggests we might have to accept governments based on Sharia, but with more modern interpretations of the Koran. I don't believe that you have to be either be a universalist or a relativist. There is a middle ground - no matter what adjunct professors at graduate school say. There are some things we cannot accept, like rules that completely subjugate women.

I think both of these issues lie at the crux of our foreign policy (that is, if we care about having a thoughtful and consistent foreign policy). What do we accept, and what should we do to move governments towards what we find acceptable?

Overthrow: A Synopsis

Summary:
Stephen Kinzer lays out all of the situations when the American government has overthrown a foreign government. It is indeed a long list: Hawaii, Cuba, Puerto Rico, the Philippines, Nicaragua, Honduras, Iran, Chile, South Vietnam, Guatemala, Grenada, Panama, Iraq, and Afghanistan. In most of the situations, our reasons seem incredibly unjust. Unfortunately, the book is far too superficial to feel completely confident in all of its conclusions. Either way though, in the end our actions rarely resulted with us achieving our aims in the long run and in many of the situations we should feel ashamed for what we did.

The idea of the book is brilliant. It means to show how badly America has been at regime change and how many times our reasons for intervening were both bunk and unjust. Unfortunately, the book lacks solid detail and analysis, and gives the feeling that the author wanted to rush through the book so he could fit everything in. Overall it makes a good point, but for the individual cases, I feel that I would need to do more research to draw any real conclusions. (This is of course the exact opposite feeling you get from Samantha Power's book - you don't feel like she left anything out.)

The author notes that he has left Indonesia, Brazil, the Congo, Mexico, Haiti and the Dominican Republic off the list because for the first three the US didn't play the decisive role in the overthrow and in the last three the US invaded but did not overthrow the governments. Kinzer also does a good job of giving us a list of villains, including John Foster Dulles, Henry Kissinger, and everyone in the George W. Bush administration.

Kinzer breaks the book into three sections based on the types of intervention. The first section describes overthrows that were based largely on imperialistic grounds. This isn't how it was justified to the public, but based on the evidence Kinzer gives us, there is little doubt the reasons were to expand our power and protect American business. The following countries fall into this list: Hawaii (now a state), Cuba, Puerto Rico, the Philippines, Nicaragua, and Honduras. Of these countries, Cuba, the Philippines, Nicaragua and Honduras have had a tumultuous history since our intervention and were much more peaceful beforehand.

The second part shows covert action against supposed leaders leaning towards communism. Countries included in this section are Iran, Chile, South Vietnam and Guatemala. In each of these countries though, threat of communism was either misinterpreted or a veil to disguise imperialist reasons.

Presidents and others had no doubt the Soviets were manipulating Mossadegh [Iran], Arbenz [Guatemala], and Allende [Chile]. That turned out to have been wrong. The three leaders had differing views of Marxism - Mossadegh detested it, Arbenz sympathized with it, Allende embraced it - but they were nationalists above all.

In Guatemala and Chile, various American business interests (United Fruit, telephone, railroad, and others) would have been hurt by the popular socialist / nationalist governments. And in Iran, Mossadegh, their popular leader, wanted to take back control of the country's oil wealth from foreign companies. Our current poor relations with Iran can be traced back to the moment we overthrew Mossadegh. And our history in Chile, where we overthrew a popularly elected president and supported a violent far-right government, is something we should forever be ashamed of. Vietnam was of course unlike the other three in that we were overthrowing a leader while we were aiding that country in war - we hoped to get a leader who would be better in the war against North Vietnam.

The third section focuses on actual invasions. Grenada, Panama, Afghanistan, and Iraq all fall into this section. We know much about the later two; I think most would say that our invasion of Afghanistan was just, but we turned our attention to Iraq far too soon, and Iraq was neither just nor has it been managed well. The first two also might be argued as somewhat legit (Noriega and the New Jewel leaders were ruining their countries), but again, poorly managed and unstable following our intervention (the looting in Panama is all too similar to Iraq).

What we see throughout the book, and still present today, is American aggression towards countries that attempt to exercise independence and empowerment. On the flip side, America exhibits tolerance for oppression and violence by leaders of countries that support us and give free reign to our businesses. Our role in Iran has had disastrous effects on our foreign policy, we are still paying for preventing elections in Cuba, and we should be seriously ashamed by what we tolerated in Chile and elsewhere in the name of propping up governments that would be anti-communist and pro-American (but not democratic). We should have learned our lesson before Iraq, and we should mind it when we deal with someone like Pervez Musharraf in Pakistan.

Red Scared

Summary:
Communism v. Capitalism is really equality (fairness) v. efficiency. In gov't, want more fairness. In business you want more efficiency so you can have a higher overall standard of living. But market failures lead to necessity of gov't intervention to fix some inequities.

A coworker and good friend of mine likes to make a show of her support for communism around me. I think in part she plays it up because it gets me all agitated - apparently people get a kick out of seeing me in an excited state. Each time she brings it up I make it clear that I think communism is unrealistic - that the theory obviously doesn't understand human nature. The point being that communism can never work without being propped up by authoritarian government.

What I really should point out though is that even if communism was implemented democratically, it would still be bad policy. In my mind, free market and communism represent opposite extremes of efficiency versus equity / fairness. I believe that government should be much closer to the extreme of equity and fairness, which is why I firmly believe in a government of collective decision-making (democracy).

In the business world though, I lean more towards efficiency because with more efficiency, you can have a higher overall standard of living. Communism has never been able to achieve the level of comfort and average wealth that free markets have. This is the case in part because in a free market you have a select group of people managing the assets and making decisions. The basic idea of communism is the opposite - collective ownership of the means of production. In this scenario, all workers make all decisions collectively and share the risk and reward. While collectives and co-ops can be successful, on the whole I think they are far less efficient. On a bigger scale where profit motives disappear, efficiency decreases.

I will acknowledge that I am oversimplifying economic theory significantly in places, but I think the overall point still stands. And I know I am not breaking any new ground necessarily, but if I were I would likely be in a Econ PhD program.

Now, one more point before I conclude. While I clearly celebrate the virtues of free market capitalism, we must also acknowledge what a lot of the strict free marketeers won't: Markets aren't perfect. There exist glaring market failures that government has a role in correcting. One obvious example of this is the environment. While our economy puts a price on land, it doesn't put a price on air. Without government intervention, businesses would not have worked to decrease their environmental impact in the 80s and 90s (we still have a long way to go). And without further intervention, businesses will not decrease their green house gas emissions.

Another example of a market failure is unemployment. While a certain amount of employment is necessary for a stable and efficient economy (theory holds that "Natural Unemployment" protects against wage inflation), any decent sense of fairness requires that government intervene to take of those that are left out. This is why social welfare programs are necessary.

There will always be a trade-off between fairness and efficiency. And like a good moderate, I believe that the only way to be successful is to keep both in mind. An efficient system allows us all to have the best life we can - to enjoy both comforts and necessities. And a fair system helps us take care of people and problems that the market doesn't value.

Punch Someone in the Face

So I finally finished A Problem From Hell. I don't think I need to say too much about it, since I posted about it when I first started reading, and ever since it has obviously had a huge impact on my beliefs and writings. In fact, I think I will let a good friend of mine sum it up:

Everytime I look at that book on my shelf it makes me angry to think about. I think about how much of a parallel situation Sudan is with Rwanda or the Balkans and how we're absolutely doomed to repeat ourselves. Its amazing that this country has fallen into exactly the same pattern. A few vocal individuals supporting action, lip service by the higher ups, and not nearly enough outrage by the general public. I mean, how can this not be a topic of debate for the upcoming election? It makes me want to punch someone in the face!

Seriously, that sums up everything I have been thinking about that book. It is the most enraging book I have ever read. It makes me disgusted at almost everyone - from politicians I thought I respected (Colin Powell, Bill Clinton, Bob Dole, etc.) to family and friends who aren't as outraged as I am.

And yet I feel quixotic when I try to convince people how important this issue is. People tell me that the world doesn't care about genocide and this fact will never change. Samantha Power in her book shows how the few people who did speak out were thought naive, that they didn't understand the world. With her final paragraph, she inspires me to continue talking about this.

George Bernard Shaw once wrote, "The reasonable man adapts himself to the world. The unreasonable one persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore, all progress depends on the unreasonable man." After a century of doing so little to prevent, suppress, and punish genocide, Americans must join and thereby legitimate the ranks of the unreasonable.

If you want to know the two books that have most changed my political life, it is of course this one and From Beirut to Jerusalem. The later was my introduction to international events and gave me nightmares when I was in the middle of it.

Dobbs and the All-American Team

So I have been trying to get caught up with my NY Times Sunday Magazine articles, and I just finished this one about immigration debates in local governments. I have to say, I have a hard time seeing the urgency in this whole debate. Why is illegal immigration all of a sudden a big issue? Granted, part of the answer is that Karl Rove has pushed it hoping to help the Republican party attract Hispanic voters and create a permanent Republican majority. But this doesn't explain why the rest of the country is invested.

As best as I can tell, this hasn't been playing out as a security issue. None (or very little) of the debate seems to be about preventing terrorists from crossing the border from Mexico. If we think that the town in the Times Magazine article is representative, it seems that a big part of the debate revolves around culture. One of the pieces of legislation the town council tries to pass is one recognizing English as the main language of the town. What becomes clear pretty quick is that people supporting this kind of legislation seem to be using "illegal immigrant" and "Hispanic" interchangeably.

I am often amazed at how arguments don't really evolve over time, but merely repeat themselves. Arguments by people like Lou Dobbs sound very similar to Nativist arguments at the end of the 19th Century and beginning of the 20th Century. Each time a new group becomes conspicuous in our country, people make allegations that the group isn't trying to become American. If that is a concern, one should know that second and third generation Hispanic immigrants do speak English at home, in the same way that previous immigrant groups did.

But even that fear I don't understand. I can't wrap my mind around the fact that some people don't want this melting pot to include certain ingredients. As if all of a sudden, there now is an American culture that shouldn't be changed - that everyone else should have to change into instead of allowing new people to influence it.

I have only ever heard one good argument form people who vocally oppose illegal immigration for why the status quo needs to be changed. The husband of a former co-worker of mine worked in landscaping and he was having trouble competing with other landscapers because they were hiring illegal workers and he was not. But my response then is that we need easier immigration rules so that business owners who want to hire new immigrants can do so without a major bureaucratic headache.

Look, I don't mind debating immigration, so long as it isn't about issues like making English the only language and other efforts that make it clear that Hispanics in general are the targets. And I get the feeling from people like Lou Dobbs and the All-American Team of council members in the Times article, that their goal is to make Hispanics feel unwelcome.

Boy Soldier

In a similar vein, but different in mood, from my previous post, the news from Sierra Leone is particularly interesting after having read A Long Way Gone: Memoirs of a Boy Soldier by Ishmael Beah. The book is amazing, but very haunting. The violence that the author saw regularly and then had to deal with is incredible. The article in the NY Times today says that elections there seem to be going well. Good news.

The Hyena's Belly

It is amazing how a personal narrative can change how you see things. I think the last time I posted about Somalia, I was mostly concerned with whether or not an extremist Islamist government would remain in power. But after reading Notes from the Hyena's Belly: An Ethiopian Boyhood by Nega Mezlekia, I find myself more despondent than anything else. His memoir, beautifully written, describes what it was like to be one of the otherwise faceless people suffering during Ethiopia's famine and civil wars.

Having a picture of this person in my mind, I see the war so much differently. Based on Somali culture and history, the country isn't likely to rally behind a central government (or any government). Instead, the Islamist extremists are likely to continue the fight indefinitely, backed by foreign Muslim groups. And the Ethiopian army will continue the fight backed by Western money. And both sides will act with complete disregard towards the civilians caught in the middle.

The truth is, we have a long history in this region, backing Ethiopia, then Somalia, then Ethiopia again, again and again. Unfortunately, this region continuously finds itself in the middle of battles it doesn't seem to start. First it was the West against totalitarian Communism - now it is the West against Islamic terrorism and extremism. Our response is always the same - we send in arms to whoever seems to be on our side at the time, but immediately turn our back when our interests are no longer in danger.

But the fact is, we should care about this. We should be invested and concerned about the lives of the people who are continuously caught in the middle of the violence that stems, at least in part, from the weapons we have supplied to the region. It is because of us and the USSR that these armies and para-armies have the ability to kill so many people so quickly.

For the Kurds

Summary:
This article in the NY Review of Books really has me thinking about Iraq. Basically it says that the benchmarks are bunk, there won't be much more violence than there is now, and there is a better option than Biden's three-way partition.

I haven't read a more convincing article about Iraq than this one in the New York Review of Books. It basically slaps down most of my arguments and concerns. First, it says that Iraq will not really fall apart after we leave.

But there will be no Saigon moment in Iraq. Iraq's Shiite-led government is in no danger of losing the civil war to al-Qaeda, or a more inclusive Sunni front. Iraq's Shiites are three times as numerous as Iraq's Sunni Arabs; they dominate Iraq's military and police and have a powerful ally in neighboring Iran. The Arab states that might support the Sunnis are small, far away (vast deserts separate the inhabited parts of Jordan and Saudi Arabia from the main Iraqi population centers), and can only provide money, something the insurgency has in great amounts already.

Iraq after an American defeat will look very much like Iraq today—a land divided along ethnic lines into Arab and Kurdish states with a civil war being fought within its Arab part. Defeat is defined by America's failure to accomplish its objective of a self-sustaining, democratic, and unified Iraq. And that failure has already taken place, along with the increase of Iranian power in the region.

It also says there is really no chance for success through American troops and the benchmarks that Congress is so fond of.

But even if Iraq's politicians could agree to the benchmarks, this wouldn't end the insurgency or the civil war. Sunni insurgents object to Iraq being run by Shiite religious parties, which they see as installed by the Americans, loyal to Iran, and wanting to define Iraq in a way that excludes the Sunnis. Sunni fundamentalists consider the Shiites apostates who deserve death, not power. The Shiites believe that their democratic majority and their historical suffering under the Baathist dictatorship entitle them to rule. They are not inclined to compromise with Sunnis, whom they see as their longstanding oppressors, especially when they believe most Iraqi Sunnis are sympathetic to the suicide bombers that have killed thousands of ordinary Shiites. The differences are fundamental and cannot be papered over by sharing oil revenues, reemploying ex-Baathists, or revising the constitution. The war is not about those things.

The author also makes really good points about how Iraqi politicians aren't able to achieve any of the benchmarks anyway; the political coalitions are weak and divided, and the leaders have learned how to move slow and avoid action. So what is to be done about this?

Iraq's Kurdish leaders and Iraq's dwindling band of secular Arab democrats fear that a complete US withdrawal will leave all of Iraq under Iranian influence. Senator Hillary Clinton, Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Joe Biden, and former UN Ambassador Richard Holbrooke are among the prominent Democrats who have called for the US to protect Kurdistan militarily should there be a withdrawal from Iraq. The argument for so doing is straightforward: it secures the one part of Iraq that has emerged as stable, democratic, and pro-Western; it discharges a moral debt to our Kurdish allies; it deters both Turkish intervention and a potentially destabilizing Turkish– Kurdish war; it provides US forces a secure base that can be used to strike at al-Qaeda in adjacent Sunni territories; and it limits Iran's gains.

For the longest time I have been convinced that a regional war would erupt if we left. This article did a good job of making me reconsider that. But as convincing as this all is, I still think violence internally would increase. Without American troops, Sadr's militia would have no one holding them back at all and Sunni attacks could conceivably increase even more.

What I really like though is the idea that we would stay to protect the Kurds (and prevent Turkey from invading). This plan is far more reasonable than Biden's proposal to partition the country into three (although as well as things are going, I suppose that should be left on the table). And I like that while it talks about American withdrawal, it is mindful of the country we are leaving behind. I never got the impression that people like Richardson (or Vilsack) were too concerned with Iraqis at this point.

Pork - It's What's For Dinner

Summary:
Guess what? Remember how Democrats said they were going to bring transparency and responsibility to pork spending? Well, they are doing the opposite. Surprised? Seriously though, check out the NY Times graphic - it sums it all up.

I am going to let you all in on a major lesson I just learned. Maybe you are all smarter than me and already knew this. But in case you didn't know it, here it goes: Whichever party is in control in Congress will abuse pork spending. This holds despite campaign promises of reform (by Democrats) or fiscal responsibility (by Republicans). In fact, not only will they abuse pork spending, but they will refuse options for transparency.

The NY Times has a truly absurd example from the bill to increase health coverage for children.

Despite promises by Congress to end the secrecy of earmarks and other pet projects, the House of Representatives has quietly funneled hundreds of millions of dollars to specific hospitals and health care providers under a bill passed this month to help low-income children.

Instead of naming the hospitals, the bill describes them in cryptic terms, so that identifying a beneficiary is like solving a riddle. Most of the provisions were added to the bill at the request of Democratic lawmakers.

One hospital, Bay Area Medical Center, sits on Green Bay, straddling the border between Wisconsin and the Upper Peninsula of Michigan, more than 200 miles north of Chicago. The bill would increase Medicare payments to the hospital by instructing federal officials to assume that it was in Chicago, where Medicare rates are set to cover substantially higher wages for hospital workers.

Lawmakers did not identify the hospital by name. For the purpose of Medicare, the bill said, “any hospital that is co-located in Marinette, Wis., and Menominee, Mich., is deemed to be located in Chicago.” Bay Area Medical Center is the only hospital fitting that description.

For more charming examples like this one, check out this graphic. I feel the need to point this out for two reasons. One, it really pisses me off that the Democrats campaigned loudly that they would come into office and end these practices and instead they just use their power to get the pork for themselves. The sad thing is that the Democrats did the same thing when it came to ethics reform - they made a lot of big speeches to humiliate Republicans, then didn't do anything significant.

But more importantly, I think it illustrates a valuable point. Neither party is actually more moral or responsible than the other party. People tend to forget this - purposefully or not. They yell loudly when the opposite party does it, but explain it away when their party is caught. Instead, it should be the opposite. You should yell the loudest when it is your party giving away money. But I suppose that expecting people to actually look at these issues objectively is naive.

Lessons Learned

Summary:
After finishing Overthrow and coming to the end of A Problem From Hell, I have learned two things. First, we need to accept that America has made many mistakes in our past. Second, America needs a consistent foreign policy.

The two books I am finishing now have a common theme: American foreign policy is full of examples where our decisions have not lived up to our projected better nature. Both books show this from two very different angles; Overthrow contends that our actions have pushed many countries into chaos while A Problem From Hell shows how our inaction allowed millions of people to fall to genocide.

It is armed with knowledge like this that people like Howard Zinn and Noam Chomsky earn converts. (Also, one of Jimmy Carter's weaknesses as a President was his acknowledgment of these flaws.) Where I disagree with Zinn and Chomsky is not their view of history, but in how it affects our policies. Chomsky opposed our invasion of Afghanistan because we lacked the moral standing to call anyone terrorists. It seems to me that his goal in pointing to Americas flaws is to call for inaction, instead of calling for better action in the form of more moral policies.

My goal is the latter. We need to understand where we failed the world to understand where we can do better. With Overthrow, we learn that in the past we have used military force to change democratic governments that are not friendly to the US (and US businesses) - but in some situations not dangerous - into oppressive but US-friendly governments. Policies like this hurt our international standing; we can't claim to support democracy if we only support pro-US democracies.

On the flip side, the US has refused to intervene in every genocide of the 20th century. In fact, Samantha Power shows that we didn't even speak out against them. The lesson we still haven't learned is that we have a moral obligation to do what we can to stop mass murder. Each time we say never again, but each time we ignore the next one. If Samantha Power had waited a few years, she could have included a chapter on Darfur.

This leads me to my second point - that we need a consistent foreign policy. The interesting thing is that these two books can lead to opposite cautions in foreign policy. Overthrow warns of intervention, and A Problem From Hell calls for it. But the two can be part of the same foreign policy plan. An administration can choose to do all it can to stop genocide, while also recognizing that it shouldn't intervene in situations like Bush's Iraq War, or Cuba, the Philippines, Nicaragua, or Panama. (I think Afghanistan was the right decision and had Bush kept his eye on the ball, there would have been a far better outcome.)

Every once in a while - or all the time - we need to look at our past decisions and ask if they live up to our moral standards. And we need to do this objectively. There is nothing wrong with criticizing our flawed policies, as long as it is meant to improve our decision-making in the future.

Wow, They Have Feelings

It is amazing how often it turns out that the right thing is also the more efficient policy option. Sometimes it seems so obvious, it's hard to imagine that people don't see it ahead of time. For example, it turns out that killing civilians by mistake when trying to bomb insurgents, turns local civilians against your cause. Imagine that. So if we were smart, we could avoid civilian deaths, actually engage insurgents, and we would be more successful. Of course this won't happen, because people are a little slow at catching up to anti-insurgent tactics.

With Friends Like These

Just so you know - our foreign policy is full of hypocrisies. The most clear example of this is of course Saudi Arabia. They have an unelected and extremely oppressive government, women there have few rights, and they are mostly responsible for the spread of violent Sunni Islam throughout the Middle East, Southeast Asia, and Northern Africa. But yet they are considered one of our best allies.

In this article, Shiite Muslim British citizens accuse the Saudi secret police of torturing them. I wonder how many people in the Bush administration will say anything. Probably none. But Saddam - he was really bad, except there is no connection between him and Al Qaeda.

Lots Going On

It seems that everyone is talking about Iraq again. I don't know if I have the energy to recap everything. Suffice it to say, it has got me thinking a lot. As you know, I am a fan of Nicholas Kristof. His recent column has me reconsidering (a little) my position that our troops are doing more good being in the country.

Basically, Kristof cites a poll that shows a large majority of Iraqis think the presence of US troops is hurting the country and they want us to leave.

First, a poll this spring of Iraqis — who know their country much better than we do — shows that only 21 percent think that the U.S. troop presence improves security in Iraq, while 69 percent think it is making security worse.

Granted, the danger with any poll is that it can be misleading depending on how it is administered - who is asked to participate and how the questions are worded.

If we assume for now though that the survey is an adequate representation of the feelings of the Iraqi people, then maybe I have not assessed the situation correctly (which means maybe I owe Gov. Richardson an apology). I still have trouble accepting this given the level of violence and the fact that it is not so much directed at us but at each other as each group fights for power and revenge.

On the other hand, this argument was used in Vietnam to keep us there, and if my understanding of history is correct, there wasn't too much violence after we pulled out. I don't think Iraq and Vietnam are the same war (the violence in Iraq is between the main ethnic groups, not a nationalistic uprising), but there are some similarities, especially in the rhetoric that is used.

Kristof also does a good job of articulating the frustration of watching our commander in chief talk about "progress" for three years. We all know nothing of the sort has happened at any time he has used the word, but he continues to try to sell the country on it. It is seriously enraging to hear it and I wonder that he has any supporters left.