It seems increasingly clear that waterboarding was conducted to force a confession about ties between Al Qaeda and Iraq. After all the recent accounts on how effective waterboarding can be in getting people to say whatever the interrogator wants, why didn't it work? Why didn't the Bush administration succeed in getting Khalid Sheikh Mohammed to say he was involved with Al Qaeda, despite waterboarding him 183 times?

Perhaps they did get a confession yet knew it was inadmissible (or invalid) due to the circumstances under which it was elicited. But then why waterboard if the results couldn't be announced proudly to the world: "IRAQI OFFICIAL ADMITS TIES TO AL QAEDA!"?

Perhaps the only explanation is that Bush officials honestly thought there were ties and that waterboarding worked. This is a defense but not a good one because it shows, in yet another way, how they were not listening to so many military and intelligence professionals who knew both.

What do you think?

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Getting the poor and lower-middle-class to vote against their interests has been one of the great successes of the conservative movement. I wonder, however, if the twin mantras against taxation and large government won't someday (perhaps soon) come back to bite the elite who've promoted them.

Smaller government means less oversight but fewer public services. The rich thrive with less oversight and can manage just fine without public services. The more vulnerable members of society, however, will suffer profoundly without good schools, unemployment insurance, hospitals, public libraries, paved roads, and checks on pollution and abuses of power (read discrimination and police brutality).

Less taxes and smaller government will make the rich richer and the poor poorer. At what point will the poor and lower-middle-class realize that the paying of taxes and the existence of a robust public sector is good for them? At what point will the rich and powerful alienate their base beyond repair?

I think the recent tea-baggers and many others need a lesson on how taxes benefit them directly and immediately. They also need to be taught that the government institutions and programs taxes fund are absolutely critical to their livelihood, safety, and general well being.

But what do you think?

(PS: As a side note, the US Department of Defense is terribly inefficient, consistently over budget, and replete with corruption and cronyism. Nobody suggest we "starve" or "shrink" that beast. On the contrary, most call for better and greater funding to rectify problems, improve oversight, and increase efficiency. Why doesn't the same principle apply to government in general?)

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What does North Korea's launch of a long rang missile mean to the US and Japanese defense departments?

A) They both really dropped the ball
B) The countries they are meant to defend are now under grave threat of imminent destruction
C) They just received justification for massive budget increases and are currently popping champagne corks in celebration

What do you think?

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Term limits are elemental to a functional democracy. But can they also have ill effects on the public good?

One of the top priorities of a president's first term is to be reelected. During that period, it's critical they remain broadly popular by looking out for the interests of as much of the electorate as possible.

During a second term, all bets are off. Because reelection is not possible, a president can spend that time rewarding friends and allies with little regard for the political ramifications. Being in a position to accumulate vast and sustainable private influence, favor, and wealth can be well worth the cost of grave yet temporary unpopularity.

In principle, presidential terms are good for "capital-D Democracy." But are they good for our democracy? 

For a variety of reasons, I've been thinking quite a bit lately about one of the guiding principles of good parenthood: the hope that our kids have a better life than we do. We all share this hope, don't we? It's only natural. But do we all feel it equally? More precisely, do we all make the same effort?

I don't think so.

Lately, I've had occasion to be around a few working-class foreigners here in Japan. Immigrating from the Philippines, China and elsewhere, they, like immigrants around the world, endure profound hardships. They don't speak the language; they following a strange religion; they look different; they have no family or close friends nearby, and they are often quite poor. Society looks down on them: they are the suspects of crime, depredation, and immorality. They suffer discrimination and ridicule at every turn.

But they endure these profound hardships because they know their kids will benefit by growing up in a country infinitely safer and more prosperous then their own.

Lately, I've begun looking at working-class immigrant families with a sense of awe. I wonder honestly if I have the same mettle. They endure so much and sacrifice so greatly to ensure their kids have a better future. What do I do? I read to my kids before they go to bed. I try to tell them creative stories and listen when they have something to say. I stash away a few dollars for their education. That's about it and it's nothing compared to the Herculean efforts of so many immigrants here in Japan, the US and around the world.

I wonder how different the world would be if we all made the same sacrifices; if we all put the same effort into our kids' futures as do so many working-class immigrants.

What do you think?

(As a side note, there's a new movie coming out about the plight of upper class parents in New York unable to get their kids into elite nursery schools due to crowding and high costs. There's a scene in the trailer where a woman who is all choked up says something like "they're my kids and I'd do anything for them..." Really? Would you do anything? How about quitting your job and taking care of your kids yourself?)

Why is everyone so outraged about AIG giving out bonuses to its execs? That's what companies do. That's their reason for existence! It doesn't matter where that money came from, whether it's given to them from tax payers or extorted from insurance customers.

I'm not saying it's not wrong. I'm just surprised people are outraged that AIG did what it's built to do.

But what do you think?

The explosive legal memos of the Bush administration released yesterday justify presidential privileged that supersedes many laws and constitutional protections. They assert that president could unilaterally abrogate foreign treaties, ignore any guidance from Congress in dealing with detainees suspected of terrorism, and conduct a program of domestic eavesdropping without warrants.

The justification for such strident executive privilege is based on the notion that the president, as Commander in Chief, has the right to take any and all action necessary in a time of war to defeat an enemy. The word "war" appears in the memos several times such as in the following example:

"First Amendment speech and press rights may also be subordinated to the overriding need to wage war successfully."

I don't mind if my dentist wants to call the campaign against Al Qaeda a war. I don't even mind if the talking heads on cable news continue to go on about the "War on Terror." Everyone knows what they mean.

It should not be forgotten, however, that "war" has a specfic legal meaning in the United States. War can only be declaired by the Congress and, indeed, in a legal state of war, the Commander in Chief is endowed with certain special privleges. But, in a state of warfare or "virtual war," such as we've been in since 9/11, the Commander in Chief has no special legal authority.

I would not expect Joe the dentist or Sean Hannity to be sticklers for the legal definition of war. Fighting is fighting. It's all some form of war. I would, however, expect that the president's legal council makes that distinction. If he or she does not, who will?

The very reason the Founders gave Congress the sole prerogative to declare war was to prevent the president from abusing his authority as Commander in Chief. If the president had the right to declare war at will and in so doing be granted special legal privileges that enabled him to circumvent the constitution, we would have a serious problem on our hands: a dictatorship in all but name.

The secret legal memos just released suggest the administration was operating as if in a legal state of war despite there being no congressional declaration. This to me is one of the most disturbing breaches of the constitution committed by the Bush administration and the key reason why the legal arguments are inherently and absolutely indefensible.

But what do you think?  


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Huffpost is reporting that:

Vowing to fight Barack Obama's budget in Congress, Republicans have resorted to a three-pronged attack: accusing the president of proposing unprecedented spending, irresponsible taxation, and using dishonest projections about how to pay for it all.

The GOP apparently got some help from Admiral Mullen, the head of US forces, with a suggestion on Fox New Sunday that he did not know where the Obama administration was getting its long-term projections for the money it will save by drawing down the war in Iraq.

Gotcha!!

Not really. Budget projections don't (and shouldn't) go in that directions. Top brass can make suggestions about what equipment to buy and how to move people around but the bottom line on spending comes from a civilian government. The government sets policy and the military follows orders. This separation of powers and duties is one of the hallmarks of a successful progressive democracy.

Going further, am I the only one who feels it inappropriate for military leaders to appear on TV commenting on the budget or policy in general? Is it their place? 

For more on Mullen and this topic see my earlier blog post.     


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The GOP launched a new front in its battle to appear multicultural with the decision to have Bobby Jindal do the Republican response to the president's address to congress.

I bring this up because the only thing novel about this Republican sound bite was the race of the person giving it. Other than that, it was the same old set of false axioms about governments being inherently dysfunctional, lower taxes being manifestly good, and that national health care is, well, bad for our health.

Government institutions can and often do fail to function effectively. But precisely the same thing can be said about capitalist institutions (companies). No one proposes shrinking or disposing of those, let alone "drowning them in the bathtub." Moreover and most important, some governments DO function effectively. Born, raised, and educated in the US, I now divide my time equally between Australia and Japan. While these systems are not perfect, I can say without equivocation that state and local institutions in my two adoptive homes work exceptionally well. Very, very few people in Australia and Japan would suggest that governments are inherently dysfunctional. Because they are not.

On taxes, I'm consistently struck by how unhappy people are about paying taxes. I understand this on a very superficial level. Who wants to give money to someone without getting something handed right back? But the fact of the matter is that if we did not pay taxes, our lives would be less safe, less comfortable, and even more unhealthy. More bridges would collapse, fewer levies would be built, fewer towns would have libraries, the streets would have more potholes, and there would be fewer after-school programs (meaning more kids hanging out at the corner). There'd be less control over pollution and even less financial oversight. I know this again from living in societies where we pay far more taxes than in the US but where far fewer people complain. Why? Because we feel we get what we pay for. We have better and cheaper health care, finer schools, better roads and bridges, etc. We also realize tax money that goes to programs we don't use personally improves society as a whole, thus benefiting us profoundly, albeit indirectly.

Finally, a word on the tired GOP claim that "health care decisions should be made by doctors, not government bureaucrats." This notion is purely disingenuous. Under the currently dominant HMO system, doctors are not deciding who gets health care and how. Company bureaucrats are, and they're single priority is profit, not people's welfare. In fact, I think the GOP is most resistant to precisely the idea of doctors, not companies, making decisions about health care. Under a single payer nationalized system, government bureaucrats don't, in fact, make decisions about who gets what health care. They just pay. It's not rocket science. It's not abstract. It's a simple fact. Try living in Australia, Japan, or someplace even more exotic: Canada. The GOP is lying to us about this.

It's time to push back against these false GOP axioms about government, taxes, and health care.

But what do you think?

I'm currently summering in Tokyo where Hillary Clinton was today met with the kind of enthusiasm reserved for rock stars and soccer heroes (no, that's not a typo; my other home's in Sydney where it's definitely summer).

As I watched the swooning of politicians, journalists, and the public alike, I was struck by a sense of nostalgia for the days when the last American politician was greeted in Japan with such unreserved zeal. And it brought a wry smile to my face to recall that it was a Clinton then as well.

Seeing how well Hillary handled herself and how energetically she was embraced by the Japanese fills me with hope that America can reclaim a positive image abroad and once more be the country others WANT to follow and emulate rather than the petulant bully it's symbolized for the last 7 years.

But what do you think? 

Who wants bipartisanship?

I may be stating the obvious but it's worth repeating that division is the lifeblood of party politics. Some seem shocked that the GOP doesn't want to cooperate with the president but why should they? One thing more important than doing what's best for the country is doing what's best for the party. And the only way the GOP stands any chance of getting back into the majority is by distinguishing themselves from the majority. They need to resist at all cost. 

But what do you think?

In his first interview as president, Barack Obama reiterated a line from his inauguration speech directed at the Muslim world:

To those leaders around the globe who seek to sow conflict or blame their society's ills on the West -- know that your people will judge you on what you can build, not what you destroy.

When I first heard this, I was struck by how the second half of the sentence is a threat of imminent demise, not by the power of US bombs and bullets, but rather by a people who realize their leaders' policies and methods are bankrupt.

Again, Obama was addressing the Muslim world but I suspect he is aware that his statement is just as equally applicable to the former US administration as well as himself. To be sure, Bush tried to achieve presidential greatness through destruction. Whether it be terrorists, Social Security, FEMA, welfare, or banking regulations, Bush was always on the side of tearing things down. (To be fair, I suspect he honestly thought doing so was in the best interest of the country but alas, we know now that it was not, good intentions aside.) And sure enough, the people judged him accordingly and he was ran out of office with his tail between his legs: perhaps the closest we can get in a democratic system to a coupe.

Obama, I think, knows that people will judge him too by what he builds rather than what he tears down and I believe that his choice of words at the inauguration exhibit a degree of intellectual subtlety, nuance, and self reflection we have not seen in a while.    

Thanks for commenting and recommending.

After 9/11, the US administration (and pretty much the whole of America) began lumping together terrorists into the same basket with those countries and groups that support terrorist organizations. In this equation, the Saudis were always the most problematic since the kingdom is a major sponsor of various kinds of terror, not least of which includes that directed at their own people (sound familiar?). Yet the Saudis are also staunch allies and friends of the US.

Well, here's yet another example of this profound irony.

At the close of the recent Israeli-Hamas "conflict," the Saudi king Abdullah pledged US$1 Billion to rebuilt Gaza. After seeing the horrific images of death and destruction that flowed out of the Palestinian territory over the past several weeks, few would object to such a gesture. But let's think about this a little deeper. How will the Saudi's donate this money to Gaza? Do you suppose they'll drop it from helicopters? Probably not. How about sending in Saudi diplomats to pass it out from door to door? Nope! Perhaps some NGOs will get a cut, maybe even the Red Crescent, to be sure. But almost without a doubt, the ones who will be entrusted with the largest portion of that huge sum of cash will be the territory's legal and democratically elected government: Hamas. Yes, the same Hamas that the Israelis and the US tell us incessantly is a terrorist organization.

The Saudis are close allies and friends of the US.
The Saudis give money to terrorist organizations.
 
Any questions?

Thanks for commenting and recommending. 

In a New York Times opinion piece published today, a Stanford professor of computer science (Sebastian Thrun) and a product manager at Google (Anthony Levandowski) propose four ways Detroit can "save itself." The suggestions are striking for their prohibitively high costs and complexity, and frankly, I can't see how any would address the American automotive industry's single biggest problem: how to make cars that have fuel efficiency high enough to counter the rising cost of driving.

In a nutshell, they propose the following:

1. Prevent fatal traffic accidents by installing WiFi technology into all the nation's cars, traffic lights, bridges, and intersections, allowing each to "communicate critical information" with each other.
2. Fix the problem of highway congestion and allow people to relax behind the wheel by building robotic cars that drive in a tight formation automatically, creating what's called a "highway train."
3. Build cars covered with photovoltaic cells to save fuel and "reduce our dependence on foreign oil."
4. Connect cars to the Internet. This will enable people to (ready for this?) make restaurant reservations or place takeout orders all from their cars. They will also be able to purchases instantly the songs they hear on their new Internet radio. Installing sensors on such things as parking spaces too, the authors suggest, will help drivers save time and fuel.

Suggestion 1 does nothing for fuel efficiency and the task of equipping the nations cars, traffic lights, bridges, and intersections with WiFi devices would be a monumentally complex project of enormous cost. It would also take many, many years. Sure it would save some lives but remember the assignment was to save something else: Detroit! How many people decide not to buy an American car because, as the article suggests, fog can be such a terrible hazard at intersections?

Suggestion 2 is just plain ridiculous (as is the accompanying sketch of a "highway train" made up of robotic cars, all lined up in an orderly file on the highway). I'm not an engineer but I think this one belongs to the realm of science fiction. If it were feasible, as it may be in a decade or two, I think cultural issues would prevent it from functioning well. Moreover and yet again, the complexity and cost of pulling such a thing off would be enormous.

Suggestion 3 is probably the best of the bunch but the authors themselves acknowledge that as a technology, it's far from perfected. It's not a short-term solution to anything, really.

Suggestion 4 is the most puzzling, not only because it echos suggestion 1 so closely (yet with a different but equally insulting image) but because it's entirely unnecessary with smartphone technology already achieving most of what it suggests.

Overall, I think these suggestions reflect the professional mind-sets of the authors. Notice how each relates to the advancement of computer infrastructure and Internet use? There's absolutely nothing on new legislation, bio-fuels, or alternate business models.

The biggest failure of this piece is that it lacks a clear problem to solve. They claim to want to "save Detroit" yet give no explanation for what's broken about it.

I have my own ideas on this topic but what do you think? What is the problem and how would you "save Detroit?" More fundamentally, should it be saved at all? 

Thanks for recommending and commenting.

Barack Obama's choice of Rick Warren to do the invocation prayer at his inauguration is a bitter pill that we should try our best to swallow.

Bush's biggest domestic debacle (yes, bigger than Katrina) was his failure to unite a nation bitterly divided along political, religious, and racial lines. This is true in spite of the unique opportunity he was given in the wake of 9/11 by a people resolved, practically begging, to be united.

The reason Bush failed was because he thought unifying people meant convincing opponents that they were wrong and that he was right. On issues as critical as education (evolution vs intelligent design), medicine (genome research), sexuality (gay rights), and war (justifying preemptive war), he simply did not compromise. That stance, of course, only deepened the gulf that divides us and solidified our partisanship. As a result, we are more divided then ever.

Rick Warren's stance toward gays and his views on a whole host of other issues run counter to core progressive principles. Most people reading this blog and probably Obama himself disagree with them. But the fact of the matter is that there are million upon millions who do not. To them, Warren's views are orthodox, they are correct.

By choosing Warren to do the invocation, Obama has decided to say to these very people, nearly 50% of Americans who sit on the other side of the political spectrum, I don't agree with you but I respect you and I'm willing to give you a place at the table. He's keeping his promise to "be their president too." This means more than just giving them tax cuts too. It's a much more profound and ultimately more difficult commitment to represent them and their views.

It's a whole new kind of politics. Obama sees that compromise is perhaps the most effective way to soften peoples' stances and to start a dialogue that might just lead to greater unity. If we really want to be a more perfect union, we need to take the difficult step of accepting that there are profound differences, attempt to tolerate them, and seek ways of finding common ground. Merely opposing them and trying to change the views of others would only be making the same mistake Bush made. And it would bring the same outcome. 

But what do you think? Thanks for commenting and recommending.

PS: Incidentally, the web site of Warren's church has already taken down it's statement on gays! See, compromise has already begun to work in our favor.
PPS: And isn't it infinitely more Christian of Obama to tolerate opposing views?