30 April 2007
Tenet’s Slam Dunk
On the 29 April 2007 CBS 60 Minutes program, George Tenet presented his rationalization of the “Slam dunk” comment he admits he made when asked by President Bush about the case against Saddam Hussein on weapons of mass destruction. He admitted to saying those infamous words, but begged to clarify the context. He insisted that the slam dunk did not refer to the fact that Saddam had the weapons, for CIA estimates are only based on assumptions by analysts whom you trust to know what they’re talking about. It was a slam dunk for President Bush, rather, to make the case to others, presumably at the U.N., that Saddam had the WMD, based on the arguments that the CIA would provide.
Apparently, this is the purpose of the CIA in Mr. Tenet’s view. It isn’t the national security of the U.S. that the CIA is supposed to monitor and protect. Rather, it is in the service of the policy making and executive measures of the presidential administration that the CIA’s intelligence and analysis are to be put.
The subjugation of our government’s best intelligence to the objectives of the Administration would normally not be alarming. The problem is that when the Administration bases its actions on a political agenda rather than on a broadly accepted definition of the country’s interest, the CIA becomes a partisan tool instead of a national resource.
George Tenet was a team player; but the team on which he was playing was in the game only for its own survival and not on behalf of the nation’s good. So when his slam dunk rebounded off the rim, he was expendable. It was not good enough loyally to manipulate the knowledge of the CIA to make as convincing a case as possible for justifying an Administration strategic decision after the fact. During his 60 Minutes interview, Tenet was impassioned in defense of his former employees at the Agency. He apparently desires greater loyalty from them in return than he was awarded by the White House. All he got was a medal.
On the 29 April 2007 CBS 60 Minutes program, George Tenet presented his rationalization of the “Slam dunk” comment he admits he made when asked by President Bush about the case against Saddam Hussein on weapons of mass destruction. He admitted to saying those infamous words, but begged to clarify the context. He insisted that the slam dunk did not refer to the fact that Saddam had the weapons, for CIA estimates are only based on assumptions by analysts whom you trust to know what they’re talking about. It was a slam dunk for President Bush, rather, to make the case to others, presumably at the U.N., that Saddam had the WMD, based on the arguments that the CIA would provide.
Apparently, this is the purpose of the CIA in Mr. Tenet’s view. It isn’t the national security of the U.S. that the CIA is supposed to monitor and protect. Rather, it is in the service of the policy making and executive measures of the presidential administration that the CIA’s intelligence and analysis are to be put.
The subjugation of our government’s best intelligence to the objectives of the Administration would normally not be alarming. The problem is that when the Administration bases its actions on a political agenda rather than on a broadly accepted definition of the country’s interest, the CIA becomes a partisan tool instead of a national resource.
George Tenet was a team player; but the team on which he was playing was in the game only for its own survival and not on behalf of the nation’s good. So when his slam dunk rebounded off the rim, he was expendable. It was not good enough loyally to manipulate the knowledge of the CIA to make as convincing a case as possible for justifying an Administration strategic decision after the fact. During his 60 Minutes interview, Tenet was impassioned in defense of his former employees at the Agency. He apparently desires greater loyalty from them in return than he was awarded by the White House. All he got was a medal.
19 April 2007
A Mature Democracy
In his Comment on the creation of a presidential super primary in many U.S. states (in the April 16, 2007, New Yorker), Hendrik Hertzberg called for the U.S. to become a “mature democracy.” His implication is that a popular democracy is morally superior to the American Electoral College system. And indeed, this might practically be true if the U.S. were really an aggregation of individuals rather than an association of communities.
The states that compose the United States are more than mere geographic locations where citizens reside. They have distinct characters created by history, topography, neighboring countries, etc. The grand compromise of the Constitutional Convention that formulated the system, which has served our country so well for 228 years, awarded relatively greater power to the more numerous but less populous states that would not be ignored in its affairs.
Small entities have become more and more important not only in international political affairs but also in business organization. The impulse to define one’s interests in terms of a shared community within the personal reach of its stakeholders has become essential to maintaining an individual’s bearings in the “flat” world of today. Eliminating curious Electoral College politics would contribute to that disorientation. It could be more costly to personal self worth than the theoretical disenfranchisement that Mr. Hertzberg attributes to the coming compression of American primary elections.
In his Comment on the creation of a presidential super primary in many U.S. states (in the April 16, 2007, New Yorker), Hendrik Hertzberg called for the U.S. to become a “mature democracy.” His implication is that a popular democracy is morally superior to the American Electoral College system. And indeed, this might practically be true if the U.S. were really an aggregation of individuals rather than an association of communities.
The states that compose the United States are more than mere geographic locations where citizens reside. They have distinct characters created by history, topography, neighboring countries, etc. The grand compromise of the Constitutional Convention that formulated the system, which has served our country so well for 228 years, awarded relatively greater power to the more numerous but less populous states that would not be ignored in its affairs.
Small entities have become more and more important not only in international political affairs but also in business organization. The impulse to define one’s interests in terms of a shared community within the personal reach of its stakeholders has become essential to maintaining an individual’s bearings in the “flat” world of today. Eliminating curious Electoral College politics would contribute to that disorientation. It could be more costly to personal self worth than the theoretical disenfranchisement that Mr. Hertzberg attributes to the coming compression of American primary elections.
18 April 2007
Changing Minds on Iraq
It’s not up to the military to end a war. Fighting a war is their responsibility. Starting and ending a war are political decisions.
Everyone now realizes that the professed reasons for going to war in Iraq—the threat to U.S. security posed by Saddam’s supposed possession or development of WMD, his concocted collusion with Al Qaeda, his denial of liberty to the majority of Iraqi citizens—were, at best, only excuses for unleashing the American war machine. Both the White House and Congress, not to mention the electorate, have changed their minds on whether the U.S. military should be there at all, and on the justification for withdrawing it from Iraq.
The military is part of this debate, too. Its overall objective is to protect itself from destruction so its soldiers may live to fight again. It can do that the Bush way—at the expense of Iraqi freedom and security; or it can do it the way the Democratic opposition proposes—admit a mistake and make an orderly retreat.
The trauma of 9/11 led most of us to react without sufficient reflection and to accept ill-advised measures that ended up costing more in blood, capital, and influence than any of us anticipated. That can be said generously to apply to Bush as well as to his political opponents. Now is not the time to show our troops in Iraq the money, as advocated by the VFW and American Legion commanders in the April 12, 2007, Wall Street Journal. It is time to show them something more. Good judgment demands that the U.S. pull them out of Iraq and restore them to their role as protectors of the nation’s security.
It’s not up to the military to end a war. Fighting a war is their responsibility. Starting and ending a war are political decisions.
Everyone now realizes that the professed reasons for going to war in Iraq—the threat to U.S. security posed by Saddam’s supposed possession or development of WMD, his concocted collusion with Al Qaeda, his denial of liberty to the majority of Iraqi citizens—were, at best, only excuses for unleashing the American war machine. Both the White House and Congress, not to mention the electorate, have changed their minds on whether the U.S. military should be there at all, and on the justification for withdrawing it from Iraq.
The military is part of this debate, too. Its overall objective is to protect itself from destruction so its soldiers may live to fight again. It can do that the Bush way—at the expense of Iraqi freedom and security; or it can do it the way the Democratic opposition proposes—admit a mistake and make an orderly retreat.
The trauma of 9/11 led most of us to react without sufficient reflection and to accept ill-advised measures that ended up costing more in blood, capital, and influence than any of us anticipated. That can be said generously to apply to Bush as well as to his political opponents. Now is not the time to show our troops in Iraq the money, as advocated by the VFW and American Legion commanders in the April 12, 2007, Wall Street Journal. It is time to show them something more. Good judgment demands that the U.S. pull them out of Iraq and restore them to their role as protectors of the nation’s security.
Global Warming and Pascal’s Bet
Is it important whether global warming is due to the actions of man? As Holman Jenkins, Jr. pointed out in the April 4, 2007, Wall Street Journal, a consensus of opinion does not constitute scientific fact. Of course, most scientific “facts” are only hypotheses, constantly subject to testing in order garner universal acceptance through peer review. Until proven otherwise, a generally accepted hypothesis is tantamount to fact.
In any case, what’s really important is whether humanity can slow down global warming. It is incontrovertible that global warming will change life on our planet. If the consensus of opinion is that the change will be for the worse, we are left with a policy question rather than a matter of scientific speculation. The appropriate response is to determine what can be done about it, and to select options that balance the costs with the benefits.
When it comes to global warming, the question of causality is really a matter of faith. Similar to Pascal’s bet, do we lose anything if man turns out not to have caused global warming? Either way, we should be trying to mollify it.
Is it important whether global warming is due to the actions of man? As Holman Jenkins, Jr. pointed out in the April 4, 2007, Wall Street Journal, a consensus of opinion does not constitute scientific fact. Of course, most scientific “facts” are only hypotheses, constantly subject to testing in order garner universal acceptance through peer review. Until proven otherwise, a generally accepted hypothesis is tantamount to fact.
In any case, what’s really important is whether humanity can slow down global warming. It is incontrovertible that global warming will change life on our planet. If the consensus of opinion is that the change will be for the worse, we are left with a policy question rather than a matter of scientific speculation. The appropriate response is to determine what can be done about it, and to select options that balance the costs with the benefits.
When it comes to global warming, the question of causality is really a matter of faith. Similar to Pascal’s bet, do we lose anything if man turns out not to have caused global warming? Either way, we should be trying to mollify it.
17 April 2007
The Integration of Iraq
Ambassador Samir Shakir Sumaida’ie wrote in the April 10, 2007 Wall Street Journal that Iraq is “far too integrated” for partition, whether “hard” or “soft,” to render a solution to sectarian violence. That is not a surprising statement for him to make as a Sunni Muslim whose co-religionists could in the past share in, if not control, the natural resource wealth of the country only by dominating the more numerous, and geographically better located, ethnic groups in Iraq – the Shiite Muslims and the Kurds. Moreover, he obviously was welcomed to his current post by a Bush Administration with whose alarmist justification for occupation he apparently agrees – preventing demons from bringing a war of terror to American shores and those of “our friends.”
It is not inevitable that the sectarian segregation of Iraq will entail economic disintegration or the disappearance of civil order. It could be just the opposite. Staid formulas of statecraft no longer rule collaboration between international communities. The European Union shows that business and resource exploitation can operate without regard for once stubborn borders or native language differences.
Progress in Baghdad, therefore, will probably come when the American superpower and its misguided sycophants lose their allegiance to the old order of nation states that has not served us well. The sooner that system is replaced with a new organization of world affairs, involving looser associations of people in overlapping communities of interest, the sooner will the world no longer be hostage to threats of violence from state or non-state actors.
Ambassador Samir Shakir Sumaida’ie wrote in the April 10, 2007 Wall Street Journal that Iraq is “far too integrated” for partition, whether “hard” or “soft,” to render a solution to sectarian violence. That is not a surprising statement for him to make as a Sunni Muslim whose co-religionists could in the past share in, if not control, the natural resource wealth of the country only by dominating the more numerous, and geographically better located, ethnic groups in Iraq – the Shiite Muslims and the Kurds. Moreover, he obviously was welcomed to his current post by a Bush Administration with whose alarmist justification for occupation he apparently agrees – preventing demons from bringing a war of terror to American shores and those of “our friends.”
It is not inevitable that the sectarian segregation of Iraq will entail economic disintegration or the disappearance of civil order. It could be just the opposite. Staid formulas of statecraft no longer rule collaboration between international communities. The European Union shows that business and resource exploitation can operate without regard for once stubborn borders or native language differences.
Progress in Baghdad, therefore, will probably come when the American superpower and its misguided sycophants lose their allegiance to the old order of nation states that has not served us well. The sooner that system is replaced with a new organization of world affairs, involving looser associations of people in overlapping communities of interest, the sooner will the world no longer be hostage to threats of violence from state or non-state actors.
16 April 2007
The Danger in Islamic Nuclear Development
Officials of Islamic countries, like Iran or Saudi Arabia, argue that it is illogical for them to wish to develop nuclear weapons technology. This, they say, reduces their political and physical security rather than increases it for it invites neighboring countries to match that capability in order to protect themselves with a second strike capability. That only makes it possible for a rogue state to launch a first strike.
Unfortunately, no matter how reasonable this argument appears to be, it begs the question: How does support for terrorist non-state organizations, like Hezbollah and Hamas, make either Iran or Saudi Arabia more secure? As long as resources of oil-rich states in the Middle East are directed to violent paramilitary organizations that do not conform to international standards of behavior, security cannot be called the compelling policy of those states. Nuclear weapons will become another resource that one day may be directed into the hands of those paramilitary organizations.
Of course, these states’ rejoinder to this objection to their non-transparent development of nuclear power is that those in the West who would limit their “right” under the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty to produce fissile material hypocritically defend a terrorist state, Israel. All issues in this part of the world correlate to the Israeli-Palestinian dispute. NPT cannot be resolved in the absence of the establishment of a two-state solution in the Middle Eat and the signing on to it by all the parties involved, including all of the Arab League, the rest of the Islamic community, NATO, and Israel. The money for it will have to come from the oil-rich countries of the Middle East (whose wealth comes at the expense of the West); the enforcement of it will have to come at the hands of both the West and as a result of withdrawn support for non-state (and state-sponsored) terrorist activities, whether official or unofficial, whether offensive or defensive, retaliatory or pre-emptive.
No partial resolution will be possible. But the coming to a head of the nuclear issue may force a comprehensive settlement.
Officials of Islamic countries, like Iran or Saudi Arabia, argue that it is illogical for them to wish to develop nuclear weapons technology. This, they say, reduces their political and physical security rather than increases it for it invites neighboring countries to match that capability in order to protect themselves with a second strike capability. That only makes it possible for a rogue state to launch a first strike.
Unfortunately, no matter how reasonable this argument appears to be, it begs the question: How does support for terrorist non-state organizations, like Hezbollah and Hamas, make either Iran or Saudi Arabia more secure? As long as resources of oil-rich states in the Middle East are directed to violent paramilitary organizations that do not conform to international standards of behavior, security cannot be called the compelling policy of those states. Nuclear weapons will become another resource that one day may be directed into the hands of those paramilitary organizations.
Of course, these states’ rejoinder to this objection to their non-transparent development of nuclear power is that those in the West who would limit their “right” under the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty to produce fissile material hypocritically defend a terrorist state, Israel. All issues in this part of the world correlate to the Israeli-Palestinian dispute. NPT cannot be resolved in the absence of the establishment of a two-state solution in the Middle Eat and the signing on to it by all the parties involved, including all of the Arab League, the rest of the Islamic community, NATO, and Israel. The money for it will have to come from the oil-rich countries of the Middle East (whose wealth comes at the expense of the West); the enforcement of it will have to come at the hands of both the West and as a result of withdrawn support for non-state (and state-sponsored) terrorist activities, whether official or unofficial, whether offensive or defensive, retaliatory or pre-emptive.
No partial resolution will be possible. But the coming to a head of the nuclear issue may force a comprehensive settlement.
04 April 2007
Back to the Future in Palestine
The Bush Administration is reverting to the style of previous Presidential strategies for resolving the Middle East (i.e. Israeli-Palestinian) issue, according to Helene Cooper in the April 1, 2007 New York Times. If so, the solution still requires the enlistment of other Arab nations in it. For over two years, those countries have benefited from the high market price of oil without devoting its bounty to the use of peaceful tactics in settling the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. The propensity of Islam to adopt violent responses to perceived inequities, lamented by Tawfik Hamid in the Wall Street Journal of April 3, 2007, has translated into support for terrorist enemies of Israel (and the West) rather than practical subsidization of Palestinian economic and social development.
The West is already paying the cost of the Arab oil bounty, and should exert some pressure on them as to its use. Those proceeds could be partially devoted to resolving the major cause of acrimony between the Middle East and the West. After all, Global Warming will force us to put an end to that bounty eventually. Why not use the liquidity it makes possible in the meantime to relieve a political pressure point in world affairs?
The Bush Administration is reverting to the style of previous Presidential strategies for resolving the Middle East (i.e. Israeli-Palestinian) issue, according to Helene Cooper in the April 1, 2007 New York Times. If so, the solution still requires the enlistment of other Arab nations in it. For over two years, those countries have benefited from the high market price of oil without devoting its bounty to the use of peaceful tactics in settling the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. The propensity of Islam to adopt violent responses to perceived inequities, lamented by Tawfik Hamid in the Wall Street Journal of April 3, 2007, has translated into support for terrorist enemies of Israel (and the West) rather than practical subsidization of Palestinian economic and social development.
The West is already paying the cost of the Arab oil bounty, and should exert some pressure on them as to its use. Those proceeds could be partially devoted to resolving the major cause of acrimony between the Middle East and the West. After all, Global Warming will force us to put an end to that bounty eventually. Why not use the liquidity it makes possible in the meantime to relieve a political pressure point in world affairs?
