Against War Profiteering

Last week the House of Representatives passed a bill establishing strong penalties for "war profiteering," with only three votes in opposition. This follows a vote earlier this month to bring military contractors within U.S. jurisdiction. These are admirable measures which the Senate should duplicate. My only quibble is the "war profiteering" bill's narrow definition of the concept. According to Congress, war profiteering is the mere defrauding or ripping off of the government by contractors. My own understanding of the term would cover any business that has a vested interest in war or the expansion of the military establishment. That means Blackwater. That means Halliburton. I doubt whether Congress can make their mere existence illegal, but they could go further towards reversing the privatization of the military that Dick Cheney initiated at the end of the Cold War and accellerated in collaboration with President Clinton while Cheney headed Halliburton. By all means, regulate them while we're stuck with them, but speed the day when we're unstuck and you'll do the country a real service.

Here's an article about the two bills, with a complaint from one of the dissidents, and here are links to H.R. 400 and H.R. 2740. Regarding the latter bill, it must be noted as a caveat that Blackwater itself supports this measure.

Updates

Blackwater: Mr. Prince, the company founder, claims that pockmarks on Blackwater vehicles prove that his men were fired upon during the September incident in which, according to the Iraqi authorities, 17 people were killed. He's being careful in his assertions, not going so far as to say his evidence proves that any insurgents fired first, although he'd clearly like people to infer that. He only states that the pockmarks prove that his men weren't firing at each other. But what makes him so sure? It was apparently a chaotic scene that day. I usually don't speculate along these lines, but since I really don't trust Blackwater, I have to wonder whether Prince's evidence is legitimate. Bushies might take offense that I give the Iraqis the benefit of the doubt over an American, but Erik Prince is a war profiteer, and that fact testifies against his character as far as I'm concerned.

License to Break the Law? As far as the Governor of New York is concerned, it's none of his business if people enter the United States illegally. At the least, it should have nothing to do with whether the state issues drivers' licenses to undocumented immigrants. Mr. Spitzer condescended to address people's complaints in an interview published today in the Albany Times Union. Let's put him on the record here:

The issue of our giving a privilege to those who are not here legally,
necessarily, I don't think is the right way to view it. These are individuals
who are here in our communities, going to our public schools, going to our
hospitals, working in our economy. And we are all better off making them part of the aboveground economy rather than keeping them beneath the surface where we don't even know they exist.

In other words, they're here, they're ... whatever, get used to it, to borrow someone else's slogan. Facts on the ground count for more than the law, which is an interesting principle to apply in other cases where the criminal law looks equally clear. For a former prosecutor it's especially interesting, but as you'll see, immigration isn't his problem:

The fact that when you crossed the border you didn't have a visa, you
didn't come in properly, that is not the purpose of the driver's license. That's
the federal government's responsibility, and they have failed for decades to
enforce and do their job.

In that case, maybe what's needed is a federal law prohibiting all the states from issuing licenses to people who violate what is, after all, a federal law. It would be even more interesting to see whether the Governor would enforce such a law. He's been careful so far not to espouse any actual open-borders or "no one is illegal" doctrine. He's basically using lawyer tactics to narrow the focus of debate to his preferred public-safety-on-the-roads track, but it only looks like he has tunnel vision.

In Defense of Mercenaries

The History News Network reprints an item published in the neocon organ Commentary by Max Boot, a military historian who has celebrated American adventurism throughout history and the invasion in Iraq in particular. Boot thinks mercenaries are getting a bum rap. He doesn't go out on a limb to say that Blackwater or any of its competitors is getting a bum rap. Instead, he contends that there is nothing inherently wrong or unacceptable about Americans employing mercenaries or acting as mercenaries abroad. He notes in passing this country's founding animus against "Hessians" but seems to dismiss it as mere resentment of an enemy. He offers counter-examples of American military heroes, foreigners who served this country or Americans who served abroad, who could be categorized as mercenaries. His list includes such heroes of the American Revolution as the Marquis de Lafayette, Baron von Steuben and John Paul Jones. Right at the beginning, then, something was wrong.

Boot seems satisfied that any soldier who receives pay is a mercenary. By this logic, of course, ours is an entirely mercenary army, as are all other armies wherever governments can afford them. But does it make the foreign heroes we were taught to revere in school mercenaries that they received commissions and pay? My understanding was that people like Lafayette sympathized with the American cause and volunteered their services in the sense of freely offering them, not offering them for free. In fact, this source says the Marquis did fight for free, as did von Steuben, though the Baron initially expected pay and got a pension later.

It seems to me that Boot can only call such people mercenaries if he defines a mercenary as anyone who is not drafted or otherwise compelled to serve. A more just definition would be anyone who contracts to fight on a purely business basis, or to the highest bidder. We should allow for some flexibility or personal preference, since I doubt that Mr. Prince of Blackwater would hire out to fight for Osama bin Laden, but I also doubt whether he applies an ethics test to every potential client. Purely in pragmatic terms, Boot may be right that mercenaries might be useful to U.S. interests. On principal, however, hiring mercenaries is a confession that one's own people are unwilling to fight their country's battles, which should always throw the motives behind those battles into question.

Russia and the Real World

It was an unhappy encounter between Vladimir Putin and Condoleezza Rice today. The Russian president remains unreconciled with the idea of the U.S. setting up missile-defense sites in Poland or the Czech Republic, and seems determined to throw his country's weight around the world as in days of old. Here's a summary of the arguments.

My first reaction when anyone complains about anyone else building a missile-defense system is to ask, "What? Do you think you have a right to nuke another country?" In effect, however, the balance-of-terror deterrence system developed during the Cold War acknowledged such a right. Each superpower was restrained, the theory went, by the assurance that the other could and would destroy it with a retaliatory strike. Ever since Gorbachev, the Russians have seemed to see it as a form of cheating that the U.S. wants to change the rules. In geopolitical terms, I understand the complaint. An effective missile defense system (however unlikely it may seem today despite U.S. propaganda) is presumed to give a country freedom of action around the world, since it would no longer be deterred by other countries' nuclear arsenals. From this funhouse-mirror perspective (so it must look to Americans), developing a defensive system is an act of aggression.

Secretary Rice assures the Russians that the missile defense apparatus is not directed at them, but at terrorist and rogue nations. In that case, she will need to explain more effectively to the American people as well as the Russians why such a system is ideally located in one or two former members of the Warsaw Pact, rather than in closer proximity to alleged rogue states. For that matter, why is the Russian offer to have their Azeri client state host the system unacceptable to the U.S?

I'm not happy to be taking Putin's side in this matter, because he seems to be an odious character out to centralize and consolidate power in the old Russian style -- and by old I mean before the Bolshevik Revolution. Like other aspiring authoritarians, he seems to be driving dissent off of TV while thinking of himself increasingly as an indispensable man. Maybe I'm reading and hearing too much American propaganda, but the bare facts don't tell an inspiring story. That's part of the problem with this missile-defense issue. To the extent that Putin is perceived as a dictator or would-be dictator (a la Hugo Chavez), our government and our opinion leaders tend to see Russia as an enemy.

It would be a mistake, however, to assume that conflict between the U.S. and Russia in Eastern Europe is ideological in nature. Putin's perceived turn toward dictatorship may influence American unwillingness to concede any sphere of influence to Russia, but the Russians are likely to demand a sphere of influence in Eastern Europe regardless of who rules them. Russia is a big country and its people have a cultural superiority complex. They think they are the natural leaders of the Slavic or Orthodox Christian world, and as a large country they think they are entitled to favorable economic relations with their neighbors.

Historically, Americans have had a hypocritically hostile attitude toward other nations' spheres of influence. Understandably, as a rising economic power, the U.S. saw these spheres of influence as shutting them out of trade opportunities. One hundred years ago, for instance, the U.S. opposed European plans to divide post-Boxer Rebellion China into spheres of influence, proposing instead an "Open Door" policy that wouldn't shut them out of a huge market. Principle and self-interest are intertwined here. The principle is that no country, no matter how big or how close, should have the right to assign another country to its sphere of influence if the people of the other country think they can do better trading with different nations. The self-interest is self-evident. The hypocrisy can be summed up in two words: "Monroe Doctrine."

My hunch is that the heart of the current conflict between the U.S. and Russia is an American refusal to concede Eastern Europe to Russia's sphere of influence. Capitalism wants markets everywhere, and ever since the rest of the world recovered from World War II, the U.S. has been losing markets. We're even losing them in our own sphere as South American countries discover they can do business with China, Iran, etc., without questions being asked about how their governments behave. The more that happens, the more the U.S. is likely to be "aggressive" about opening markets by preventing or breaking up spheres of influence. That will mean measures to prevent big powers from imposing their will within their accustomed or expected spheres of influence. A missile-defense system in Poland sounds like such a measure to me, but we need to know more about the plans before we draw conclusions. That said, there seems to be some cause for suspicion for both U.S. and Russian motives.

In general, as the superpowers compete for ever-scarcer resources, spheres of influence and trade relations will loom ever larger as potential flashpoints for war. China, India, Russia and the U.S., among others, are going to want to reserve as much of those resources to themselves as exclusively as possible. There ought to be a way out of this, but it would require everyone to be willing to share, which means learning to accept only one's proper share of resources rather than what any country thinks it deserves. How we bring that about is a topic for another time.

Broken Clock Watch: Armenian Time

An old proverb notes that even a broken clock is right twice a day. Today, at least, the Bush Administration is halfway there. The President, along with representatives of the State and Defense Departments, have urged Congress to vote down H.Res 106, a bill affirming that the massacres of Armenians by Ottoman Turks during World War I consitute a "genocide." The bill is mainly a litany of facts about the massacres and past recognition of same, with a recommendation that U.S. policy reflect "appropriate understanding and sensitivity concerning ... the consequences of the failure to realize a just resolution." The administration warns that the present Turkish government's sensitivity on this point of history might endanger the nation's strategic position in the Near East if Congress insists on provoking the Turks.

As a private citizen and student of history, I do not dispute that the Turks were guilty of mass murder. As private citizens, members of the House of Representatives have the right to speak out in memory of the Armenians and against the Turks' refusal to own up as fully as many wish they would. As a nation among nations, the United States must be senstitive to the interests and biases of other nations, no matter how repugnant they seem to us. Americans ought to have learned from the Iraq debacle, when we were incited to war in part by propaganda against a "genocidal" dictator, that we ought to be careful about imposing our moral will on the rest of the world. The Iraq invasion was as much an act of moral vanity as it was a grab for resources or a social experiment. H.Res 106 is no less a piece of moral exhibitionism, even if it gets no Americans killed, and it can only add to the damage done to our international standing.

Like it or not, the United States is in competition with other powers for resources and influence around the world. Our competitors, particularly China, do not scruple about the character of leadership in countries that have resources they need. The Chinese consider their national interests first, well before any universal principles of humane government or human rights. As much of the world is still ruled by dictators or oligarchic cliques, those rulers will prefer to deal with countries that don't ask annoying or insulting questions about affairs that are none of their business. In the Turkish case, reasonable people will weigh the strategic costs of insulting the Turks against the benefit to their consciences. Modesty is called for at this low point in American diplomatic history.

I'm going to leave it to someone else to figure out the other time that Bush was right today.

Good, but Not Great

Christopher Hitchens is probably doomed to live in infamy as the most notorious fellow-traveler with the neocons during the War on Terror. This erstwhile Trotskyist fancies himself to be the new Orwell, if not a modern Voltaire. He is a true believer in the right of some entity to topple dictatorships across the globe, and he is convinced that "Islamofascism" is an evil unto itself that must be crushed without consideration of other factors that may have made the 2001 attacks on New York and Washington possible. While he hasn't backed down on his support for the invasion of Iraq, he seems to be distancing himself from the Bush administration, members of which, at least, he once regarded with awe. He clearly wants to reposition himself as not merely a partisan enemy of Islam, but as the scourge of all superstition and barbarism.

God Is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything is Hitchens's entry in the growing library of "militant atheism," alongside Richard Dawkins's The God Delusion and Sam Harris's The End of Faith and Letter to a Christian Nation. These books are characterized by a rejection of tolerant attitudes toward belief; their common refrain is that it is not OK for people to believe in anything they like. They cover much of the same territory in their common effort to disprove the familiar arguments for faith in God. Even for the intellectually sympathetic reader, there's a certain monotony that sets in after reading several of these tomes. While Hitchens is often a brilliant stylist, his volume doesn't really relieve the monotony.

The Hitchens book is often overwrought, starting with the title. It's simply not true that religion poisons "everything." It doesn't even poison everything it touches, which is perhaps what Hitchens meant in abbreviated form. Worse, the further you go in the book, the more you suspect that it isn't even religion that's poisoning everything in the cases he diagnoses. After he establishes that faith in the monotheist God isn't the sole problem, and after he acknowledges the crimes of ostensibly secular regimes like the USSR and Nazi Germany (without conceding that they can be labelled atheist nations), it becomes more apparent that some factor like "culture" or "ideology" is the real problem. The author himself admits that the contemplative spiritualist isn't usually a menace to his neighbors, so the problem must be with the impulse to impose conformity on those neighbors, and there is nothing specifically religious about that impulse unless you choose to identify it as religious, which is what some authors do when they attribute, say, Stalin's purges to "dogmatism" rather than atheism. That approach turns atheism into the equivalent of capitalism in the Libertarian imagination: if you see an avowed atheist murdering masses, the argument goes, he's not really an atheist. I don't buy this, but I don't buy either the believers' counter-argument that atheism was a primary motive or authorization for Bolshevik terror.

While the book as a whole is rather a hodgepodge with little sense of an organizing principle, there are plenty of passages that are thrilling to read. Hitchens is probably the best stylist of the "militant atheists," and he's especially good at challenging the contention of liberal Christians that faith was necessary to motivate good works like the civil rights movement. As a sample, here's Hitchens on Martin Luther King, from page 176:

At no point did Dr. King -- who was once photographed in a bookstore waiting calmly for a physician while the knife of a maniac was sticking straight out of his chest --even hint that those who injured and reviled him were to be threatened with any revenge or punishment, in this world or the next, save the consequences of their own brute selfishness and stupidity. And he even phrased that appeal more courteously than, in my humble opinion, its targets deserved. In no real as opposed to nominal sense, then,was he a Christian

.

Any reader will get the point, but not all will think to ask whether Dr. King himself would accept this description. I don't know as much about King as I should, but I suspect he would be among those who believed that there had to be eternal values, independent of human conception or imagination, for peace and justice to be possible, and that those values could only come from a Creator and final Judge of the universe. Hitchens makes no real effort to refute this idea, which means he's not going to make much progress among religious progressives, much less the more conservative believers.

This points to a general weakness among the "militant atheists." They'd like people to abandon unthinking faith in primitive revelations, and they understand that people cling to faith to answer important questions about the meaning of life and death and so forth, but instead of actually attempting to answer those questions themselves, they're content with telling other people that their answers are stupid. The sole exception to this is Sam Harris's recommendation of scientifically-verifiable (?) Eastern meditative practices as a path to personal peace, but Hitchens, noting Buddhist atrocities through history, might argue that even that approach might poison everything. In every case, these books seem like preaching to the atheist choir, even when Harris is purportedly addressing Christians. I would be greatly surprised if any of these books converted anyone over college age.

Let me make clear that I think it an admirable goal to wean makind away from faith in ventriloquist Gods and their dummy prophets, but this is one area in which the metaphor of the marketplace of ideas is justified. We're not going to sell atheism to anyone simply by shouting over and over that Brand X (pun intended) is junk. We've got to offer them a better product. In other words, we need to teach people that they will die, and that death will be the end of everything for them, but that they can still die happy and content. If you don't believe that's possible, then we might as well give up.

Not Ready For Prime Time

As I write, I'm listening to the MSNBC rerun of the latest Republican debate. It ran live at 4:00 p.m. Eastern Time, which for all I know might be when political junkies are most likely to be watching cable news. Nevertheless, it seems almost as if they had something to hide, or as if they were hoping most people would watch the rerun after the pundits had a chance to mold people's expectations. Maybe it was a kindness to Fred Thompson, who was making his competitive debut as a presidential candidate today.

In any event, the debate was meant to focus mostly on economic issues, which boiled down to Giuliani and Romney arguing over who cut taxes more in their former jobs. Somehow, someone remembered to ask Ron Paul about Iraq, which makes me think the news channels know that people are tuning in to see Paul rip into the war. He didn't disappoint here, adding to his repertoire warnings against invading Iran. He condemns the notion of preventative war, rightly calling it unconstitutional, but most of his rivals appeared to think that the Commander in Chief has gotta do what he's gotta do.

Before I go overboard about Ron Paul, let me remind everyone that he is a Libertarian who wants to bring back the gold standard. Worse, he appears to be a Christian Right Libertarian, which you would have thought was an oxymoron. For all that, he's probably the best the Republicans have, indisputably so on foreign affairs, but that just serves as a strong argument against voting Republican next year.

Immigration: What is "progressive?"

Over on DailyKos I posted a diary criticizing Gov. Eliot Spitzer's policy facilitating the issuance of drivers' licenses to undocumented immigrants. I argued that uncritical support for such policies and an unwillingness to take objections seriously exposed a liberal blind spot that might cost a non-Republican presidential candidate crucial votes for the 2008 election. Predictably, my viewpoint was challenged. One respondent in particular emphasized that supporting the undocumented was the "progressive" thing to do.

"Progressive" is one of those slippery words like "liberal." Its meaning changes over time, since it is really a label rather than a substantive term. Just the same, it's worth noting that, approximately 100 years ago, unconditional support for undocumented immigrants would not have been considered a "progressive" policy. At least it wouldn't have been considered Progressive with a capital P.

100 years ago, we were in what historians usually label the "Progressive Era." This label covers the administrations of Theodore Roosevelt (1901-9), William Howard Taft (1909-13) and Woodrow Wilson (1913-21), although only Roosevelt, seeking a return to power in 1912, declared himself a Progressive. Like Taft, Roosevelt was a Republican as President, while Wilson was a Democrat. "Progressivism" crossed party lines and usually describes a greater willingness to claim regulatory powers over business for the government. On the social-cultural level, it involved an attempt to more closely regulate people's private lives. This included more aggressive attempts to assimilate or Americanize immigrants, an imperative that Roosevelt emphasized forcefully.

The 1920s are considered the tail end of the Progressive Era. During those last years, the U.S. government took dramatic steps to limit the number of people who could enter the country, and established preferences for countries of origin. A quick survey of history resources on the Internet showed that historians credit these laws to the Progressive Era generally, even though the Progressive Party (which flourished only fitfully, racking up electoral votes in 1912 and 1924) had little, presumably, to do with the legislation. We can assume fairly safely, then, that as recently as 80 or 90 years ago, the "progressive" policy was restriction and assimilation.

We shouldn't take this point too far, however. As political conditions evolve, the concept of "progressive" policies will evolve as well. Common sense tells us that the Progressive position of 1912, for instance, wouldn't necessarily be "progressive" in 2008. On the other hand, we might wonder whether there's even an evolutionary continuity of any sort linking the policies of 1912 or 1924 to policies advocated as "progressive" today. The impression I get from reading DailyKos is that it's "progressive" to be compassionate toward the undocumented. That begs all manner of questions about the direction in which the nation is desired to progress. Merely to be "progressive" tells us nothing about the direction of proposed progress. Rather, to label oneself "progressive" is to insinuate that there is only one reasonable direction of progress, so obvious that that you don't have to describe it apart from saying that you want progress. This is all a labored way of suggesting that when someone tells you that they're a "progressive," capital P or not, that they've told you nothing, and that when they say that "amnesty" for the undocumented or unrestricted immigration is progressive, you shouldn't be impressed.

Ahmadinejad's Mythology

For many Muslims, today was Qods Day, an occasion to express solidarity with Palestine and curse Israel -- as if they needed a special day to do the latter. Naturally, it was also an occasion for President Ahmadinejad of Iran to make a speech. This time around he made his position on the Holocaust a bit more clear than before -- at least as reported by Agence France-Presse.

Here's the crucial passage:

"The Iranian nation hates killing and considers Hitler and the executioners of the World War II as black and dark figures," he said.
"But the Iranian nation has a question and as long as there is no clear and reasonable response to this question, it will remain.
"They have made the Holocaust sacred and do not allow anyone to ask questions. Under the pretext of the Holocaust they are allowed to commit whatever crime they like," he added.

I take the first sentence as Ahmadinejad's acknowledgement that the event generally known as the Holocaust actually took place. Now jump to the end. This is what he means when he talks about a "myth" of the Holocaust; the idea that the event entitles Zionists to commit what the Iranian characterizes as "whatever crime they like." In other words, the "myth" is that the Holocaust is the justification for the existence of Israel.

As an aggrieved Muslim, Ahmadinejad should know that Zionists were settling Palestine long before Hitler took power in Germany. If he meant to suggest that Zionism only got going because of the Holocaust, he's just being silly. If he means to suggest that Zionism has gained international legitimacy because of the Holocaust, he's closer to the right track. His problem, of course, is that he thinks that by refuting the "myth" of the Holocaust, Israel will lose all legitimacy. Worse, he thinks that Jewish people will just pack their bags and head for some new homeland generously provided by the West. He suggests Canada or Alaska -- has he read Michael Chabon's Yiddish Policemen's Union? Once we reach this point in the president's oration, we have to reiterate that he's a nut. Yes, I acknowledge that maybe the Arabs or Islam in general were treated unfairly when part of their patrimony was reserved for Jewish people, but there are millions of facts on the ground, and the idea that you can get rid of them without what some would call a Second Holocaust is, well, a myth.

License to Break the Law

A constitutional crisis of some kind may be coming soon to New York State as the great majority of county clerks have voted to defy Governor Spitzer's order to issue drivers' licenses to undocumented immigrants who present valid passports from their home countries. The clerks believe that the new policy rewards illegal aliens and might facilitate terrorist infiltration. The governor insists that the policy is necessary to ensure safe roads, since otherwise, he asserts, the aliens will drive without licenses or car insurance. He addresses concerns about homeland security by noting that applicants will be put on a database that will prove handy to law enforcement. Here's a summary of the current situation from one of my local TV stations.

I've seen the press release Spitzer issued after the clerks took action. The stunning thing about the document is the governor's complete refusal to address the issue of illegal immigration. As far as he's concerned, this is all about auto safety and his version of homeland security. Sadly, some Republicans went overboard about the possibility of terrorists' exploiting the new policy, and that gave Spitzer an opening to keep the issue on that topic. On the question of whether undocumented applicants are criminals, this erstwhile super-prosecution apparently could not care less. I can't help but read this as an expression of contempt for his constituents. For them, the real issue is whether illegals should be "rewarded" with licenses to drive on New York roads. Perhaps Mr. Spitzer considers that a primitive, provincial prejudice, but as long as this country and the 50 states constitute a democratic republic, it is the people's right to set rules allowing or forbidding newcomers to enter the country. If Spitzer wants to tell us that we're wrong, that we should think differently about the undocumented, let him use his bully pulpit to talk honestly on the subject. This is no longer a question of safety on the roads. It's a question of the rule of law and the rule of the people, which ought to be one and the same thing.

My latest diary at Daily Kos also addresses this subject. It ought to be interesting to see how committed liberal Democrats respond.

One Less Executive Privilege?

In an overwhelming bipartisan vote, the House of Representatives has voted to give Inspectors General more secure tenure in office. As MSNBC reports, the President has threatened to veto this bill, but unless he has 41 supporters in the Senate, he is likely to get trampled if he stands in the way of this legislation.

What alarmed me while reading the story was that all the House seemed to be asking for was the standard protections that civil service employees usually expect. That is, they won't be removed from office without proper cause being shown if the bill becomes a law. The President, apparently, would prefer that Inspectors General serve solely at his pleasure, subject to removal whenever he pleases. That's his power under the original 1978 law, which states: "An Inspector General may be removed from office by the President. The President shall communicate the reasons for any such removal to both Houses of Congress." It's odd that the old law says sets so few conditions (none, in fact) for removal, given the criteria it establishes for appointment. An Inspector General must be chosen "without regard to political affiliation and solely on the basis of integrity and demonstrated ability in accounting, auditing, financial analysis, law, management analysis, public administration, or investigations."

Congress is taking action against the President because his lackeys aren't abiding by the terms of the 1978 law. That document dictates: "Each Inspector General shall report to and be under the general supervision of the head of the establishment involved or, to the extent such authority is delegated, the officer next in rank below such head, but shall not report to, or be subject to supervision by, any other officer of such establishment. Neither the head of the establishment nor the officer next in rank below such head shall prevent or prohibit the Inspector General from initiating, carrying out, or completing any audit or investigation, or from issuing any subpoena during the course of any audit or investigation."
But as the MSNBC story notes, there have been numerous recent cases in which "heads of the establishment" are interfering with Inspector General investigations. The object of the current bill seems to be to give the IGs more leverage by stripping their superiors of the ability to deter investigations through the threat of a summary sacking by the President. The President's mouthpieces will doubtless say that the whole IG program is an executive branch effort at self-regulation and that the bill's grant of budgetary powers to Congress violates the separation of powers. Too bad for them: part of the separation and balance of powers should include empowering the different branches to act as watchdogs over one another. There seems to be proof enough that this Administration, at least, can't be trusted to be its own watchdog, or can't be trusted to treat its watchdogs better than a beaten pit bull at the Vick kennel.

Here's the 1978 law itself for those who want to research it further.

A Friend of Blackwater.

I'm just going to point you to my diary entry for today on DailyKos. It's my response to an obnoxious column that ran today in one of my local papers. It's content in praise of Blackwater is bad enough, but when I delved further into Douglas MacKinnon's scarily speculative fiction, it made his column even more disturbing. People should also read the October 1 memorandum from Rep. Waxman's committee. Someone really needs to put an end to Dick Cheney's long-term project of privatizing as many aspects of the military as possible. This dates back to his Secretary of Defense days under Bush I, when in other respects he was still relatively sane, and accelerated as Halliburton cut deals with Bill Clinton and surged after September 11. Blackwater is probably only the tip of the BlackIceburg, and the Ship of State is going full steam ahead into the night.

Dumb and Dumber Republicans

So as Senator McCain supposedly backpedals from his "Christian nation" comments on BeliefNet, ex-Senator Thompson puts his foot into it. This site sums it up pretty well while offering a running commentary from all sides, and the History News Network tries to put the controversy in a more learned context. Some people think it's enough to say that since a majority of Americans were Christian at the time of the Founding that the country was Founded on a Christian basis. Leaving aside the absence of God from the Constitution, it boils down to what you mean by "Christian." Some people equate Christendom with Western Civilization and would credit all the accomplishments of the latter to the former. Others include the Deist Founders among the Christian majority even though Deism is essentially un-Christian in denying the divinity of Jesus in particular and the miraculous in general. That's an important distinction, because to the extent that many Founders invoked God or Providence, they meant something they inferred from history and nature rather than something taken from scripture on faith. By comparison, when today's fundamentalists and theocons talk of a Christian nation, they mean a country that would take the Bible as an infallible guide, on faith. The Founders (or, let's face it, the ones who counted) would regard such assertions with amused contempt.

McCain: Dumbest Presidential Candidate?

John McCain gave an interview to BeliefNet, a web site that deals with church-state issues, and earned some unhappy headlines by asserting that the United States was founded upon the Christian religion. This is ground I've already gone over, but apparently the main points can't be repeated often enough for people like Senator McCain. He tries to weasel his words almost immediately, noting that ours is a Christian nation "in the broadest sense," but no sense of the phrase can be so broad as to encompass nothingness, and there is no mention of God as creator or bestower of rights anywhere in the Constitution. As I wrote before, the only reference of any kind to God is in the dating of the document to "the year of our Lord" 1787. Perhaps McCain presumes that the Founding principles derive from Christian principles, but that needs to be proved rather than asserted. Unless someone is willing to make a learned argument, any assertion such as McCain made is self-evidently wrong. But if he seems singularly stupid, that's because he was dumb enough to go on the record where it would be reported to the wider world. Does anyone doubt that other, or all Republican candidates believe the same thing?

We were probably wrong all along in believing McCain to be an enemy of the Religious Right. His famous comments from 2000 now appear to be petty whining over the fact that the pastors had chosen another man, the usual complaint against sour grapes in a political form. Now still hopeful of their endorsement for 2008, the fool curries favor in spite of every statement of distrust from the Bible-belters toward the man who insulted them back then. Even if McCain was sincere in his criticism seven years ago, he's clearly sold out now. If that's so, that's another reason to deplore the American Bipolarchy. In an ideal nation, presuming the McCain of 2000 was a sincere man, he might have tried to build a new movement that more definitely expressed his own views, some of which continue to go against conservative orthodoxy, e.g. on campaign financing. For that matter, he might have gone third party that year and changed history whether he won or not. Instead, like all his peers, he would rather take power than make power. He wants the brand name and fundraising apparatus of the Republican party, so he must kowtow to all the powerful factions that comprise the "base." He compromises his own character, such as it may be, to conform to brand-name expectations. Rather than, for instance, meeting with blacks or other minorities to discuss how his ideas could help them (see below), he'd rather shout hallelujah like the French King who decided, against his own beliefs, that Paris was worth a mass.

Some people will tell you that it's a good thing that the Bipolarchy compels people to compromise their principles and moderate their demands, since we would not want radical ideas discussed in our legislature or, heaven forfend, taken to the streets. Be warned: when you hear such stuff, it's a pod person talking, like the one called John McCain.

A Black Day for the GOP

It should have surprised nobody that the four leading Republican contenders for their party's Presidential nomination found themselves unable to attend a debate dedicated to minority issues. It is perhaps more surprising that several candidates actually did show up, as I had heard rumors of a complete boycott. Ultimately, the opportunity to get some news time to denounce the front-runners proved an irresistible temptation, so Brownback, Huckabee, Hunter, Paul, Tancredo and new candidate Alan Keyes participated in the event. The sad aspect of the story is that most reports seem to focus on the participants' diatribes against the non-participants, rather than on their answers to questions on minority issues. That only furthers the impression that Republicans have nothing to say to blacks and other minorities. It's more true to say, with no offense intended, that blacks have nothing to say to Republicans. The GOP, after all, does have something to say, but it's the standard conservative message, which most blacks long ago determined was of little use or meaning to them. Still, the fault lies with the front runners -- Giuliani, McCain, Romney and Fred Thompson -- for not even making an effort.

The preferred excuse seems to be that they had "scheduling conflicts," i.e. more important things to do, e.g. fundraising. If so, that's a sad commentary on Republican priorities. Worse would be if the front runners have caught the Bush disease, the most obvious symptom of which is an aversion to any situation in which someone might heckle you. Republicans have trained themselves to believe that demonstrations of merited public disapproval are nothing more than proofs of irrational hatred. Conservatives have long had a hard time distinguishing disapproval from hatred. Believing themselves to be embodiments of lawful freedom, they must interpret any criticism as envious slander. Communists? Motivated by hate. Islamists? Motivated by hate. Liberal Democrats? Motivated by hate. Once you convince yourself that any disagreement with your views is based only on character flaws, you probably see very little reason to expose yourself to the enemies' howls of hatred, and you begin convincing yourself that they can never be converted to your views, and that they can only be made to acquiesce by any means necessary. A Republican reader might say that I exaggerate the situation. I allow the possibility, but the best way to prove me wrong would have been for the front runners to go to yesterday's debate and take their medicine.

Democrats vs. Democracy?

One disappointing detail of last night's Dartmouth debate was the unanimous endorsement of the concept of "sanctuary cities" for illegal immigrants. All the aspirants for the Democratic nomination at once put themselves at odds with what seems to be the majority opinion in this country. I'm willing to concede that they take their position as a matter of principle. Many people do believe that the poor of the world have an inalienable right to go wherever they need to in order to make a living for themselves and provide for their families. It is a bias of modern "liberal" or "progressive" thinking that the poor are always right. As President of the United States, however, your constituency is not the wretched of the earth or its huddled masses. Your job is to execute faithfully the laws of the United States, which in theory represent the will of the people who made you President. Nothing stops you from going through the proper channels to change the law if you think it unjust. But the President cannot actively resist or encourage resistance to federal laws. Whenever we get even a whiff of George W. Bush doing something similar, a bunch of us cry impeachment. How would you like to have Tom Tancredo or some other anti-immigrant hardliner introduce an impeachment resolution if President Democrat fails to crack down on the sanctuary cities? It's the same general principle.

Leaving the virtues of immigration aside, the Democrats are missing an opportunity to exploit a growing national consensus. We know that a lot of people oppose both the Iraq War and anything resembling "amnesty" for illegal immigrants. A lot of liberals find it hard to conceive that anyone could hold those two thoughts simultaneously, but the evidence is out there. Liberals may disagree about immigration, but they need to appreciate a larger truth if they want any chance of victory next year. They need to understand that Americans are sick of seeing people get away with stuff. They see it happening at the highest and lowest levels of society. They see it in the Bush Administration. They see it on the border. They see it all around them. They see themselves as law-abiding, players by the rules, and they feel certain that they would not be allowed to get away with much of anything. The anger they feel is an emotion that conservatives contemptuously call "envy," but liberals and Democrats can't even come up with a word for it. Some call it "populism," but that term has too many contradictory connotations to be useful. The person who can give this feeling a proper name, and thus name a movement, might go a long way toward empowering multitudes in this country. An institution known as the Democratic Party might seem to have an advantage in any contest to reach these people, but the self-styled Democrats of 2007 seem handicapped instead. Whether ideology or the pathologies of the American Bipolarchy are to blame is a question for another time.

On an individual note, I must emphasize that I don't share widespread fears about unassimilable immigrant hordes, and am willing to see quotas for legal entry increased for Mexicans and other Central Americans to reflect realities of immigration trends. For me, this is a rule of law issue that puts the sovereignty of the American people at stake. We cease to be a sovereign nation if we cannot set conditions for the entry of newcomers. It sounds very pious and progressive to say "No One is Illegal," but as long as we are not all one world and one government, the people of each nation have the right to stigmatize newcomers as illegal aliens. That doesn't mean we can't strive to create one world and one government, but we can't live and act as if we're there already when we're not. In another context, that would be called unilateral disarmament.

Blackwater Update

Here's the latest from the L.A. Times. Anyone who reads this should be able to generate their own outrage. Let me just say that there should be absolutely nothing classified about the government's dealings with a "civilian" contractor. If Blackwater has copies of these communications, Rep. Waxman should think about finding a way to confiscate them.

Subject to Debate

I made an effort to watch the Democratic debate on MSNBC tonight. It's hard to pick winners of these contests, which is why I put up a poll on DailyKos for people to vote on who lost. More specifically, I asked which candidate respondents would eliminate from the field based on tonight's performance. Here's a whimsical notion: instead of the current primary-convention system, which leaves a growing number of states fighting to be first or at least early, why couldn't we follow the example of some "reality TV" shows and use the debates as a process of elimination, gradually winnowing out the field until we have a championship showdown. Especially if the party committee cut a deal with one network, the inherent drama involved in each make-or-break round could turn the selection process into a ratings phenomenon. People really seem to dig the decisiveness of people being voted off the archetypical island. It's as if they're having a race memory of the ostracism process that was part of old-school Athenian democracy. My modest proposal would tap into that feeling, and might just strike oil in the form of a newly engaged, energized electorate.

As for the debate itself, I was least impressed by Senator Obama, who seemed listless and uninvolved -- not a good impression to make on the day he skipped the vote on the odious Lieberman-Kyl bill, which ex-Gov. Gravel characterized as an "authorization of force" against Iran. Senator Clinton voted for this bill and defended that vote tonight, which on principle should make her the loser. Also, on a day when people had a good laugh at the President over his "childrens do learn" remark, Clinton offered, "Every one of us are ..." Gravel, however, had the line of the night, unintentionally. Answering a question about whether, as President, he would tolerate "sanctuary cities" that defy federal crackdowns on illegal immigrants, the old Alaskan asserted that the entire country should be a "sanctuary for the war." He corrected himself immediately, but fairness requires zero tolerance for poor public speaking. He gets points anyway for pinning Clinton to the wall over Lieberman-Kyl, while Senators Biden and Dodd get major points for voting No. Edwards, Richardson and Kucinich had their moments, and Kucinich really cannot tell the story of his battle with the utilities as mayor of Cleveland often enough. Overall, though, I think people are probably starting to feel frustrated that they still can't vote yet to get rid of some of these people.

Conservatives and Ideologues

"Name me a great centrist," Mr. Right challenged Mr. Peepers in the office this evening.

Mr. Peepers seemed perplexed, which may be understandable in retrospect, since Mr. Right believes that there is no such thing as a "great centrist."

Nevertheless, Mr. Right offered analogical suggestions. "Ted Kennedy is a great liberal, from the liberal perspective," he said with a hint of contempt, "Ronald Reagan was a great conservative." But Peepers had still not come up with a great centrist. This seemed to confirm Mr. Right's opinion.

Centrists, he opined, are nothing but fence straddlers who are unwilling to be honest about what they believe. Mr. Right himself believes that ideological correctness is essential to national well-being. Democrats and liberals must be defeated, he affirmed, because "their ideology is totally wrong for this country."

Mr. Right has no problem identifying himself with a conservative ideology. This struck me as strange, because I've read self-described conservative writers who've gladly defined their conservatism as an absence of ideology. Jeffrey Hart, an editor of National Review who has called George W. Bush the worst president in American history, says, "Ideology is always wrong because it edits reality and paralyzes thought." Many writers for The American Conservative magazine second this viewpoint. These conservatives claim to be guided by experience and the wisdom of the past. They define ideology as abstract, ahistorical, a demand that the world must be a certain way because we wish it so. They label neocons as "radicals" rather than "conservatives" because the neos self-consciously seek to instigate "revolutionary" change around the world. Mr. Right would deny that he is a neocon or a Bushie. He might dispute the definition of "ideology" offered here, but I didn't have time to test the idea, since my workday was done and I had a bus to catch.

Hail Columbia!

Last Friday Mr. Right was full of contempt for Lee Bollinger, the president of Columbia University, who had dared invite President Ahmadinejad of Iran to speak on his campus. He insinuated that Bollinger had left his former post at the University of Michigan under a cloud, and seemed convinced that the invitation to Ahmadinejad was simple proof of Bollinger's anti-Americanism. Mr. Right's complaints are echoed in depth by this comment from the Wall Street Journal, published before Bollinger tore up the Iranian in his introductory remarks.

Mr. Right was unimpressed when I rehearsed the argument I posted here last week. His dismissal of the notion that a trip to Ground Zero under American supervision could prove instructive to Ahmadinejad, or that it would make this country look good, tended to confirm my suspicion that belligerents like Mr. Right aren't really interested in winning "enemy" hearts and minds. His own opinion that people like Ahmadinejad cannot be persuaded would seem to leave no options beside submission or death. President Bollinger's remarks, and the critical questions of the Columbia students, don't prove that people like Ahmadinejad can be persuaded by reason, but it does prove my other point about the usefulness of engagement. Bollinger was able to denounce the Iranian to his face in language that President Bush would envy, while the students goaded Ahmadinejad into making an ass of himself on the issue of homosexuality.

Bulletin: Jay Leno has just made further mockery of Ahmadinejad by dubbing in Larry Craig's "I'm not gay" disclaimer over footage of the Iranian at Columbia. It's crude, but Ahmadinejad had it coming.

The only thing I would dispute about Bollinger's comments is his characterization of Ahmadinejad as a "dictator." Petty and cruel he seems to be, but so long as Ayatollah Khamenei is the "supreme leader," and so long as the president needs friendly legislators to get things done domestically and has fewer of them than when he started, Ahmadinejad is pretty far from dictatorship. I can't resist saying this -- it's even debatable whether he's more of a dictator than the American "commander in chief," at least in the latter's dreams. In Bollinger's defense, he did say that Ahmadinejad only "showed the tendencies" of a dictator, but an academic ought to be more precise in his language. Overall, he gave an exemplary performance. He didn't threaten the Iranian's sovereignty, but he expressed his opinion and his principles honestly and publicly, and Ahmadinejad had to take it. Bollinger deserves the respect of every American, if only for today.

The American Bipolarchy: A Sketch.

The main reason why something seems fishy about the persistence of the current two-party system is that it has persisted much longer than its predecessors. While there has never been a three-or-more-party system in American history, there have been periods when different parties struggled for power.

Party politics began with the emergence of an opposition to George Washington's administration. Thomas Jefferson and James Madison believed that Alexander Hamilton was using his power as Treasury Secretary to favor banks and financial speculators. After Washington won two terms without opposition, the first contested election was in 1796. Under the original constitutional rules, Jefferson became John Adams's vice president by finishing second to Adams in the Electoral College, even though Adams was a Federalist, one of Hamilton's party. Jefferson defeated Adams in 1800 and the Federalists never won another presidential election. They were discredited by their opposition to the War of 1812 and ceased to exist as a national party by 1820. In that year James Monroe ran unopposed. His reelection marked the "Era of Good Feeling" that ended four years later.

Jefferson's party chose its presidential candidates through a Congressional caucus. In 1824 the rank and file resisted the caucus's choice. Four different candidates received electoral votes that year. None got a majority in the Electoral College, forcing the House of Representatives to choose the President. While Andrew Jackson got the most popular votes, the House chose John Quincy Adams. Jackson got his revenge on Adams in 1828. During Jackson's two terms, an opposition began to coalesce, first calling themselves National Republicans, later labeling themselves Whigs. They won the Presidency in 1840 and 1848. Jackson's party became the Democratic Party that exists today.

By 1856 the Whig Party had disintegrated. The Democrats were immediately challenged by the anti-Catholic American (aka Know-Nothing) Party and the free-soil Republicans. After finishing second in 1856, the Republicans took the White House in 1860 after a four-party race. From that point on, neither the Republicans nor the Democrats have finished worse than second, with the exception of 1912, when ex-President and ex-Republican Teddy Roosevelt ran as an independent, relegating Republican incumbent William Howard Taft to third place.

To sum up, the first party period (Jeffersonians vs. Federalists) lasted roughly from 1796 to 1816, while the second (Democrats vs. Whigs) lasted roughly from 1832 to 1856. That's less than a quarter-century apiece. The current period (Democrats vs. Republicans) has lasted since 1864 -- 143 years and counting.

There were moments when the current system could have failed. The Democratic Party could well have been discredited for being the party of Southern secessionists and "copperhead" defeatists during the Civil War. The Democrats in fact went 24 years, from 1860 until 1884, without winning the Presidency, but the party survived. The Republicans might have collapsed after their humiliation in 1912, and barely survived their identification with Herbert Hoover during the Great Depression. Instead, it kept coming back, even after Barry Goldwater was crushed in 1964, even as the Democrats bounced back from similar landslide losses in 1972 and 1984. These were all worse defeats than the Whigs ever suffered, yet the two parties survive today. For some reason, people keep coming back to one or the other.

Have voters lost imagination, or courage, or even a sense of risk, since 1824 or 1856? Or have the two parties proved so accommodating that there's never been a reason to abandon either of them? Some people might say the adaptability of the two parties is a good thing, but what should we make of the fact that each party now affirms policies nearly the opposite of those it espoused 100 years ago? Once upon a time the Democrats were the party of fiscal conservatism and white supremacy, and the Republicans championed civil rights and protectionism. Is it a good thing that these institutions, rich from perpetual fundraising and certainly self-interested, can change positions to keep in power? Or does that show that both parties are "democratic" entities, responsive to the will of the grass roots, mere instruments to be used by mass movements as they arise? That only begs the question: why didn't any of these mass movements form their own parties? Why did they prefer to take over the existing parties, when by comparison no one thought to take over the Whig Party? Why are the two parties seen as prizes to be captured rather than relics to be buried?

These are rhetorical questions, some of which readers should be able to answer themselves, but in future installments I want to look into what actually happened to give these two parties their unnatural strength. Money will be a factor, as anyone can guess, but I think the growing power of the Presidency is another, since the one obvious reason to have a national party is to elect the one official who claims to represent the entire nation. Whatever we find, let's not take the existence of the two-party system for granted as the best of all possible worlds, or in Churchill's phrase, the worst form of government except for all the others. Look at American politics today and you should know better automatically.

What a surprise!

Blackwater is back in business in Baghdad. The Iraqi government has basically admitted that they don't have the power to force the company out of their country. Now there's talk of resolving the matter of the little massacre last weekend by offering compensation to the bereaved. Who do you suppose will be paying that blood money? Blackwater or the American taxpayers?

According to the Guardian, a UK daily, some mercenaries think Iraq has been drying up as a market for their distinctive services already. The scary thought you have to have about businesses like Blackwater, Aegis, etc., is that, like any other business, they'll want to create new markets when old ones are exhausted. It's the same thought you have to have about Halliburton. That company's apologists always like to argue that nobody else can do what Halliburton does. For me, that begs the question: why does it exist? In the aftermath of World War I people around the world understood that it was a bad thing for businesses to have a stake in war. But for some Americans today, "war profiteering" is a dirty word, a libel. I hope, however, that with sufficient repetition on TV or in the halls of Congress we'll get accustomed to the term again.

Credit where it's due: this item comes from the New York Post, of all places, and from an author who is still gung-ho for the war overall. Maybe he's just old school.

Meanwhile, Jeremy Scahill, the man who wrote the book on Blackwater, testified them in front of a Congressional committee today. The Nation has a transcript and a YouTube clip of Scahill.

NYC: City of A**holes

Back in 1945, we made Germans visit the death camps. American troops would herd whole towns through liberated prisons while bodies were still piled high. It's reasonable to assume that we wanted to teach the civilians a lesson. You might think that you could teach an Islamist fanatic a similar lesson by taking him to Ground Zero, the site of the destroyed World Trade Center. It's not as stark a site as it was a few years ago, but the message should still sink in when the government-appointed tour guide tells our imaginary Islamist, "This is what your hate accomplished."

In 2007, the American people, or at least the opinion makers of New York City, aren't interested in teaching any lessons. They've decided that President Ahmadinejad of Iran is unworthy to look upon the sacred ground. He must repent first, renouncing terrorism (one assumes) before he might be allowed to go, whereas the object of marching Germans through Dachau was to induce repentance. This article sums up the situation while letting you look at the asinine cover of today's Daily News -- and remember, the News is the city's liberal tabloid.

Too many people seem to share the attitude expressed by Senator Clinton, that even getting to visit the U.S. is some sort of reward for good behavior. The Iranian must surrender, in effect, before we negotiate with him, not to mention let him tour New York. Many people are probably also afraid that Ahmadinejad would somehow turn a trip to Ground Zero into some sort of propaganda coup. Such fears suggest that Americans aren't really interested in a real contest in the global marketplace of ideas. Recall how often the Bush Administration urges the media not to publish full texts of bin Laden's lectures. Our establishment doesn't want a debate or a real negotiation on the basis of realistic interests. They simply demand universal acknowledgment of American moral superiority, much as the Islamists insist that everyone recognize theirs as the best of religions.

Sometimes I wonder if our leaders are even interested in persuading people like Ahmadinejad to change their ways. If they were, they would gladly escort him to a stage-managed presentation at Trade Center site where he would have little choice but to hear all about the innocents who died for no good reason, only to slake some men's petty thirst for revenge. But it would be beneath them to persuade people, because their truths, after all, are so "self-evident" that only a depraved or primitive mind could deny them. For a long time, their preference has been for unconditional surrender, and nothing requiring compromise on their part. This is the "arrogance" that Iranians complain about so often, and it has gotten a lot of Americans killed, and may end up getting a lot more Iranians killed. As an Islamist, Ahmadinejad has his own share of arrogance, but New York City had a chance to show him something different, even if it was only a hole in the ground. I should have known better than to expect anything other than what we saw.

Who Controls Congress?

Way, way back in November 2006, the Democrats boasted that they had captured control of Congress. They had won majorities in the House of Representatives and in the Senate, and they gave the impression that they intended to undo many bad things that the Bush Administration had done. We should have known better from the first. It was apparent immediately that the Democrats had veto-proof majorities in neither house. Worse, Bush wouldn't have to bother vetoing most of the legislation he most feared because it wouldn't get past the Senate. In the upper house, the cloture rule applies, dating back no further than 1917 and last modified in the 1970s. Under this rule, anyone who wants to pass a bill needs the support of 60 Senators to end debate. In a partisan age, if no one party has the 60 votes, a state of gridlock exists in effect.

I intend to knock the Democrats pretty often in this space, but in today's case of the thwarted bill to extend leave time for servicemen returning from combat, all blame belongs to the Republicans. It doesn't belong to all of them, since six voted for the bill, but blind partisan loyalty to Bush and the war limited the total vote to 56, and anything short of 60 might as well be zero under existing rules.

Cloture is a rule the Senate set for itself. Senators have also set the rules for changing the rule, even though they disagree about it today. It was long believed that a two-thirds majority was needed to change or eliminate cloture, but Republicans recently said it would take only a simple majority, which they threatened to use if Democrats objected too strongly to Bush's Supreme Court nominees. Some may say that imposing a supermajority requirement is a good thing because it prevents one political party from forcing its will at will upon the other. Since I'd like people to imagine an age without political parties in the current oppressive sense, I think we should eventually arrange things, preferably via constitutional amendment, so that any coalition of 51 Senators can get something accomplished. They'd still need a two-thirds majority to override a Presidential veto, but there's no reason for the Senate to be able to veto itself in mockery of majority rule.

Deeper into Blackwater

The BBC has an update on the Blackwater story. Note the last paragraph especially. There's a test of wills on the horizon, and with many U.S. politicians already calling for al-Maliki's removal, he may feel plenty of pressure to back down. He should press on with his review of all the mercenary outfits operating in his country, and the American people ought to support him. The idea that the United States would ever depend on mercenaries to accomplish any military purpose should make the Founding Fathers burst from their graves, muskets in hand. Mercenaries were probably the only thing they considered worse than an actual standing army, and that, too, should clue you in on how far gone this country is.

One Cheer for Iraq.

I rarely have cause to applaud the Iraqi government, but readily endorse their decision, reported here, to expel the Blackwater corporation from the country following an overzealous shootout over the weekend. All the mercs have to go except the ones involved in the shooting, who get to stand trial in an Iraqi court because mercenaries aren't protected by international law. I only have two questions. First, what took them so long? Second, what exactly were Mr. al-Maliki and Secretary Rice talking about with regard to Blackwater? If it has anything to do with getting the Iraqis to take Blackwater back, al-Maliki should answer with one of the wise sayings of Dick Cheney. I'll let you guess which one.

Muslims? No Problem!

Der Spiegel, the German equivalent of Time and Newsweek, has a story about how well Muslims are doing in the U.S., immigrants included. I recommend it because it sends a different message than you get from some people in this country. The Germans have a less happy perspective to judge from, given their history with Turkish immigrants. The writer is clearly impressed by the absence of Muslim ghettos in the U.S., and that is something the country can be proud of. But the portrait seems a little too rosy in light of recent polls that show growing support among young American Muslims for suicide bombing under certain circumstances. In turn, we should perhaps be no more alarmed by that than a survey showing that Irish Americans thought bombings were okay in certain places, e.g. Ulster. The difference, of course, is that under some circumstances Muslims might be bombing us.

The American Bipolarchy, Part I.

I just made that word up -- what do you think? I don't mean to suggest that manic-depressives rule America, but if you take it to mean that the two-party system is crazy, then good for you.

Like many bloggers, I'll go off on tangents on topics like religion, but every so often I need to remind myself and my few readers that my main purpose here is to make a case against the American two-party system. With that in mind, I introduce James Madison (1751-1836), the "Father of the Constitution." Here's something he said at the Constitutional Convention of 1787. My source is Ralph Ketcham, ed., The Anti-Federalist Papers and the Consitutional Convention Debates (New York: Mentor, 1986), p.52. You can also find his entire speech here.

What has been the source of those unjust laws complained of amongst ourselves? Had it not been the real or supposed interest of the major number? Debtors have defaulted their creditors. The landed interest has borne hard on the mercantile interest. The Holders of one species of property have thrown a disproportion of taxes on the holders of another species. The lesson we are to draw from the whole is that where a majority are united by a common sentiment, and have an opportunity, the rights of the minor party become insecure. In a republican government the Majority if united have always an opportunity. The only remedy is to enlarge the sphere, and thereby divide the community into so great a number of interests and parties, that in the first place a majority will not be likely at that moment to have an common interest separate from that of the whole or of the minority; and in the second place, that in case they should have such an interest, they may not be apt to unite in pursuit of it. It was incumbent on us then to try this remedy, and with that view to frame a republican system on such a scale and in such a form as will control all the evils that have been experienced.

Madison took the existence of "special" interests for granted, but expected Congress to have so many that they would either cancel each other out or compromise their interests in order to pass any legislation. He neither expected nor wanted one interest group to be able to rule the country. It should be obvious how the development of a two-party system, for which Madison himself is partly responsible, skews his plan. You may argue that each party depends on the compromise of numerous interests, but to the extent that all the interests involved in one party conflict with those in the other party, a two-party contest inevitably gives one coalition of interests abusive majority power over the minority party. Worse, in modern times the two parties have come to embody ideologies rather than collections of interests. Ideology and institutional self-interest make the two parties "interests" in their own right, turning elections more than ever into winner-take-all, loser-be-damned competitions. Unfortunately, Madison and his fellow Framers failed to program the Constitution with safeguards to prevent the rise of party government. Soon enough, he found himself at the head of a party in opposition to the President, a circumstance he seems not to have anticipated in 1787. In his defense, his idea of party and its purposes differs drastically from the perepetual electioneering machines that rule us today. In future installments of this series, I intend to make the difference more clear.

It's Not Just Monotheism.

Here's some disquieting news out of India, courtesy of the BBC. I sometimes tell myself that monotheism, because of its exclusivity, rather than religiosity itself, is the cause of many of the world's current woes, but here are the polytheistic Hindus to remind me that I'm wrong. The problem in India seems to be a faction that equates Hinduism (itself a debatable mix of cults) with Indian national identity and demands reverence as a matter of national solidarity. They've expressed themselves noisily in the past, from protesting Richard Gere's smooch with a Bollywood actress a few months ago to complaining about an allegedly disrespectful portrayal of Hindu gods on the Xena, Warrior Princess TV show. It's all in keeping with the unfortunate trend in Islamic lands that would suppress irreverence in the name of respect. It's something some groups in America, particularly the Catholic League, would like to get away with, and it helps explain why secularist or atheist writers like Richard Dawkins, Sam Harris and Christopher Hitchens seem more militant in their irreverence these days -- and why more people are reading them.

Moving On.

The New York Times is getting grief because it charged MoveOn.org a discounted rate for its notorious "General Betray-Us" full-page ad. Rudy Giuliani demanded the same rate for a similarly sized ad supporting Gen. Petraeus, and the Times now states that any "advocacy" group will pay the same price. If the paper made an exception to MoveOn in the first place, then it deserves the criticism, because that would be proof of bias. If they've offered the lower rate for "advocacy" all along, they also deserve criticism. At the newspaper office where I work, we charge political advertisers more than the normal rate. Even with that being the case, MoveOn would find it far less expensive to place a full page with us than with the Times, even at the drastic discount. On the other hand, my employers give a discount to not-for-profits and charity groups. Maybe the Times blurs the distinction between advocacy and charity, as some people very well might.

Enemies of Religious Freedom

The BBC has a report on the U.S. State Department's new survey of freedom of religion, or its absence, around the world. See this link. The only thing worth noting here is that, with one exception, the oppressors of religious freedom are not those mean old "militant atheists" we hear about lately, but people of faith themselves. The exception is in China, and the object of their oppression is Falun Gong, which Americans might be more willing to categorize as an "evil cult" if they were all over their country. I say that not to indict Falun Gong, but as a reminder that the U.S. has had regrettable encounters with cults in the recent past. In any event, even in China the oppression of religion isn't general, even though Catholics have a beef with that country's attitude toward the Vatican. I propose that people of all faiths might feel safer under a government that was avowedly atheist, because such a state would have no interest in whose doctrine is best suited for national salvation. They might not be happy with people openly debunking their dogmas, but who's more likely to persecute you? Someone who thinks you're a heretic, or someone who thinks you're a fool?

An American Myth

USA Today reports at http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2007-09-11-amendment_N.htm that a majority of all Americans surveyed believe that the Constitution establishes the United States as a "Christian nation." The balance is tipped by preponderant majorities of self-described Republicans and Evangelicals affirming the idea. What this tells me is that these people read the Constitution about as closely as they read their Bibles.

In secular circles, it is well known that the word "God" never appears in the Constitution, apart from the date of the "year of our lord" 1787. Check this for yourself http://www.archives.gov/national-archives-experience/charters/constitution_transcript.html The First Amendment, by stating that Congress shall make no law respecting religion, makes it impossible to establish Christianity or any other creed as the national faith. During George Washington's presidency, within a decade of the drafting and ratification of the Constitution, the State Department states flatly that the U.S. is in no sense founded on the Christian religion. The proof is right here: http://www.yale.edu/lawweb/avalon/diplomacy/barbary/bar1796t.htm.

Against these facts, believers offer mythology and confusion. Many who responded to the poll probably confused the Constitution with the Declaration of Independence, and may have taken the latter document's attribution of inalienable rights to a creator as some sort of acknowledgment of divine sanction for the Founding. Others who actively mislead the public blow out of proportion little stories like Benjamin Franklin's call for prayer during the Constitutional Convention (see http://www.wallbuilders.com/LIBissuesArticles.asp?id=98), or simply make stuff up out of faith that the Founders could only be godly men. They dismiss the "wall of separation" as a phrase that Thomas Jefferson made up but fail to admit that he was describing the First Amendment as he understood it, as shown at http://www.usconstitution.net/jeffwall.html. They assume a lot about this country, and you know what happens when you assume? You make an ass of yourself and everyone else in this country.

Not of This World?

Bin Laden released another video to mark the 11 Sept. anniversary, featuring the last will of one of the hijackers. Here's a story about it(http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,296372,00.html) that includes an unexpected comment from the terrorist. He says: we are not contending with you for this world. That seems to go against what I understood about Islam, which was that Muslims reject the Christian deferral of ultimate justice to the next life. While Christians take the statement, "My Kingdom is not of this world" to mean they should not expect or try to impose an earthly paradise in this life, or before Jesus returns, Muslims supposedly believe that they can establish a perfect state on earth based on the Sharia. But here's a presumably devout Muslim appearing to disclaim interest in this world, calling it insignificant in Allah's eyes. His attitude probably follows from al Qaeda's obsession with martyrdom, their avowed love of death, and their faith in an ultimate reward in the next life. But wherever he gets the idea, his statement begs the question: if you're not contending with us for this world, then why on earth are you trying to kill people? Perhaps Osama can answer that one at the same time that he explains why martyrdom is glorious for everyone but him.

The Day That Divided the World

Tuesday is the 6th anniversary of the terrorist hijackings and attacks on New York and Washington. To this day, the way people think about how the U.S. should have responded has been shaped by the initial context in which they perceived the attacks. For some of us, 11 September was always about the Middle East and its problems. In this view, the issues raised by the attacks could not be resolved without also resolving the underlying issues in the Middle East. Not to address those underlying issues while warring on terror meant, in effect, to endorse the nation's complacent, biased policy toward the region. Because I could not do that, I couldn't support the invasion of Iraq -- and there were plenty more good reasons to oppose that venture. But other people saw 11 Sept. in a more narrow context. They're the people who think al Qaeda is waging a war of aggression against the West. They think like the state GOP chairman I heard recently say, straight-faced, that the U.S. was "minding its own business" before the attacks. All they know and want to know is that this country was attacked. They're not so much interested in vindicating American foreign policy as in maintaining their right not to think about it. In any event, they don't think we have to address larger issues, which is why many of them have grown frustrated with the Bushies' incompetent attempt at nation-building. They may have wearied of the Iraq war, but they haven't come around to a new view of the Middle East. They may even feel reconfirmed in their original circa-2001 impulse to see the whole region nuked. To them, the Middle East is an annoyance that simply needs to keep quiet.

So 11 September divided the nation into conscientious contextualizers and the self-righteously ignorant. It also left us divided between prudence and moralism. Prudence, in this context, is a form of modesty. Modesty, in this context, means avoiding provocation. In this context, if our country's policies provoke people into attacking us, we should reconsider those policies. That doesn't mean automatically reversing them or "giving in to terrorists," but it does mean calculating whether the benefits of those policies outweigh the potential costs. The moralizing viewpoint scorns such calculations. Rejecting the concept of provocation, the moralists are satisfied that the terrorists' own evil natures are the necessary and sufficient causes of terrorist acts. Acting on the assumption that terrorists bear all moral responsibility for refraining from terrorism, the moralists deny any obligation on our part to reconsider provocative policies. In short, they say we don't have to change our ways at all in order to prevent terrorism. In effect, their war on terror can only be a vindication of our foreign policy, because they refuse as a matter of defiance to consider a change.

These divisions persist and will persist as long as we let ideology and cheap moralizing obscure our true interests in the rest of the world. Until we learn to think clearly about our interests and their limits, without the sophistry of right and rights, we will be at war with ourselves as well as large parts of the planet, at a time when the world can least sustain such conflict. Other people will tell you to remember the dead and think of vengeance, so this is something else to think about. Figure it out for yourselves.

Suggestion for Bin Laden

Osama wants Americans to embrace Islam. His is a missionary faith that has aggressively sought converts (choose your sense of the word aggressive) from the beginning. We know that the Saudi Wahhabis have spent much money to promote their religion. All this leaves me wondering why we don't see commercials for Islam along the lines of the ads made by the Mormons. The LDS airs utterly innocuous spots that make Mormons look like utterly ordinary folks who nevertheless have some secret key to happiness. Why can't Muslims do the same? Can't you see it already?

Whitebread couple, with kids, smiling in suburbia: "We were looking for answers and looking to Jesus for guidance, when we found a book that reveals Jesus's real message for mankind. This book finally tells the whole truth about Jesus and the whole truth about God. It's a guide to every aspect of life, straight from the source. It changed our lives for the better, and it can change yours as well."

If Muslims want us to take seriously their insistence that they don't just convert by the sword, then they'd use some of that oil money for commercials on U.S. TV. If they really want to convert the majority of Americans, they have to do something to counter the impression that Islam is just a religion that says No to everything and makes people miserable. I suspect, however, that bin Laden's Muslims aren't really interested in persuading Americans to convert. My guess is that they'd rather have Americans stay Christian, for the most part, so in their caliphic dreams they'd have the satisfaction of keeping Americans as second-class subjects. If Muslims don't want people to have such suspicions, they need to try harder to win hearts and minds, even if they'll never win mine.

Guilt by Association

This link (http://timesunion.com/AspStories/story.asp?storyID=620534&category=NATIONAL&newsdate=9/9/2007) merely confirms our worst suspicions about the Bush Administration's surveillance of "suspicious" persons. Because their actual intelligence gathering skills are crap, they have to resort to fishing like this, which brings us closer to the criminalization of dissent against American foreign policy. To those who sneer that we only complain because it's a Republican regime, we won't bother denying it because you won't listen. In fact, we'll say that we are more suspicious of Republicans because they have a 60-year history (if not longer) of mistaking dissent for subversion, dating to Joe McCarthy's time and before. I doubt, however, whether Democrats will really shun such tools, even though the FBI claims to have put this one aside. Once you assume the existence of an internal enemy, a republic is on its way down the chute.

Would you believe? . . .

Look at this: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/6985808.stm.

Maybe all those critics were on to something, or maybe the Law of Return isn't restrictive enough. Of course, Bobby Fischer the chess champion is part Jewish and one of the nastiest Jew-haters around. These guys are said to go after observant Jews so I don't know if they hate Jewishness as an ethnicity or if they're just some of those "militant atheists" we hear about these days. However you figure it out for yourself, it's just insane, and pretty sad.

Extremist Makeover

Take a moment and read Osama bin Laden's statement in transcript at http://counterterrorismblog.org/2007/09/obl_transcript.php. I plan to address the subject in more depth next week on the 11 Sept. anniversary, but I want to make a few quick observations here.

First, bin Laden has an odd sense of history. He seems to hold Donald Rumsfeld responsible for killing 2,000,000 people during the Vietnam War, and may have meant to imply that Rummy was involved in the Kennedy assassination. He espouses an Oliver Stone-style conspiracy theory that implicates the Establishment in JFK's demise. If the military does find bin Laden, they can skip the bunker busters and drop Vincent Bugliosi's book on him. At 1,600 pages in hardback, it should go through several layers of defensive shielding, and if Osama survives he might learn something.

Second, the U.S. media spin on bin Laden's makeover annoys me slightly. Yes, we can all make fun of Osama for having the vanity to dye his beard, but Americans are acting as if this is some exotic Arab custom to color greying hair. It only seems exotic because in bin Laden's case it's a beard. When Americans find grey hairs in their beards, they're more likely to shave them off.

Third, I hope he didn't think he would encourage Congress to end the war by griping about their failure to date to do so. The last thing Democrats want to hear is Republicans telling them, "You're doing exactly what Osama wants!" I suppose that's why some people were hoping that bin Laden would apply some reverse psychology and say something like, "Yes, keep your troops in Iraq so I can have a constant rallying point for the jihad." I don't think he thinks that way. He really, really wants Americans to get out of the Middle East. If they disappeared tomorrow, he wouldn't say, "Dang! So much for my recruiting drive!" He'd be praising Allah for joy. For our part, not one American should give a damn what bin Laden thinks about anything. If a Bushie wants to use that tactic I mentioned on any anti-war activist, the correct response is: so what? A policy is right or wrong regardless of what Osama bin Laden thinks of it. If leaving Iraq is the right thing to do, but also "rewards terrorists," that's the fault of the fools who sent Americans there in the first place.

The "Illegal" Majority?

Mr. Right was admiring Tim Johnson's return to the Senate the other day after his serious illness. He thought it remarkable that Johnson could bounce back so soon, but his admiration for the man's recuperative powers quickly turned into another dig at the Democrats.

"Of course," he snorted, "His fellow Democrats were more concerned about whether they'd keep their majority in the Senate than in whether Johnson would live." From there he observed that the Democratic majority was illegal, anyway.

"How so?" I asked. He cited the New Jersey election of 2002. Robert Torricelli withdrew from the race and was replaced on the Democratic line with Frank Lautenberg, who won the election. Mr. Right asserted that state law forbade the Democrats from changing their candidate after a certain deadline which had passed after Torricelli withdrew.

"If that's so, why doesn't anyone challenge the election? Why don't they take Lautenberg to court?" I pressed. Mr. Right huffed and hemmed and hawed and finally muttered something about a court decision. It turns out that the New Jersey Republicans had challenged the replacement at the time, and that the state's supreme court had allowed the Democrats to make the switch. That seemed final, since it was a state court ruling on state election law, but that hadn't stopped the Republicans in Florida in 2000. Maybe they felt they couldn't win this one, or maybe they had a collective Al Gore moment like the former Vice President had when he stood counting Electoral Votes, in a position to speak for millions who disputed the Florida decision, but did nothing because he feared a constitutional crisis. Or maybe they just didn't care that much.

In an ideal polity there would be no deadline for anyone to be qualified to receive votes. If people wanted Frank Lautenberg to be their Senator, no one should have the right to tell them it's too late for them to choose him. For that matter, he should have been free to run, and voters should have been free to vote for him, even if Torricelli remained in the race. Our choices only seem to be restrained by the physical limits of the ballot, but once upon a time people voted without ballots, and in theory could name anyone they wanted. In the digital age, we should think about overcoming the limitations imposed by ballots. An election isn't a restaurant menu, after all; if you like something you don't see, you should still be able to order it.

Congratulations to Michigan

Michigan has joined Florida in defying rules imposed by the major political parties and scheduling its primary elections for January 2008.
(See http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/us/AP-GOP-Primaries.html?_r=1&oref=slogin)
There is no good reason why Iowa and New Hampshire should have privileged positions in the choice of party nominees. Some say it's a good test of "retail" campaign skills for candidates to hustle for the votes of a small state. The Founders wouldn't have been impressed by that argument, since they thought it unseemly for anyone to electioneer for himself. They actually expected communities to take the initiative themselves and nominate worthy persons without prompting by a party caucus. Even then, of course, ambitious men manipulated people into nominating them while they retained the appearance of disinterest and self-sacrifice for the common good. Nevertheless, they believed in a grass-roots process, and we should do likewise. For that matter, why should any community in Michigan or Florida or elsewhere wait for the word of their governor before stating a preference? Why not have town meetings to select a candidate or draft a platform and invite a candidate to accept it. Those communities could seek out like-minded communities, establish committees of correspondence and through strength of numbers increase the incentive for a candidate to swear allegiance to a grass-roots platform. If people wanted to start that process now, there'd be nothing wrong with it, no matter what people in Iowa or New Hampshire think. Nothing stops them from doing likewise, and if the major parties say no, that would be as good a signal as any for the insurrection that finally ends the two-party usurpation of the American Republic.

Bangladesh: A Precedent for the President?

The government of Bangladesh has arrested the country's former leader on corruption charges. Predictably, the leader's supporters cry foul, claiming that the arrest was politically motivated. More information is available at http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/6976614.stm. Just such a response can be expected if anyone in the U.S. attempts legal action against George W. Bush after he leaves the White House. If so, those who sincerely believe that he abused his powers should take courage from the Bangladeshi example. The BBC article describes the current regime as dominated by the military, so they're probably no angels, but maybe more inclined to take action against a despised political class. In any event, for some people in this country the main argument against prosecuting any former President for war crimes or other offenses is that taking such action will have the appearance of partisanship. Others would also warn that arresting Bush would set a precedent for tit-for-tat prosecutions so long as we have a party system. These considerations are worth noting, but the most important consideration in any circumstance is to do the right thing. Let the consequences be what they may.