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Comments by YACCS

 

Religion of peace?

This is scary. The death toll in Indonesia is now up to 118, with a hundred or more injured. I guess I shouldn't be so hasty as to automatically assume that the attacks in Indonesia are Islamic terrorism, but it certainly seems like a plausible explanation.

Combined with a mall explosion in Finland, and the sniper murders in Maryland -- neither of which are necessarily related to Islamic terrorists at all -- and the attack on the French tanker in Yemen, and I really start to get worried about the state of the world now. I wonder if this will convince anybody in the UN, or the Norwegian Nobel committee, that you can't solve every problem by talking about it. Nah.

[Update: the death toll is now up to 182, and given the nature of this attack, I expect it will climb higher; there are hundreds more wounded. Not to be macabre, but with the exception of 9/11, has there been a single terrorist attack of this magnitude before? Oh -- I guess the U.S. Marine barracks in Lebanon. And the Pan Am 103 bombing.]

posted by David Nieporent at 10/12/2002 11:49:00 PM |

 

Et Tu Brute?

I've argued that the Democratic opposition to Bush is incoherent, and has no real answers of its own. You'd expect me to argue that. But when ardent and loyal Democrats like Frank Rich are saying the same thing, then Democrats should really note their electoral peril.

As soon as President Bush rolled out his new war on Iraq, the Democrats in Washington demanded a debate, and debates they got, all right. There was the debate between Matt Drudge and Barbra Streisand about the provenance of an antiwar quote she recited at a party fund-raiser. There was the debate about whether Jim McDermott, Democratic Congressman from Washington, should have come home from Baghdad before announcing on TV that we can take Saddam Hussein's promises at "face value." There were the debates about why Al Gore took off his wedding ring, why Robert Torricelli took a Rolex, and why Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson took noisy offense at so benign and popular a Hollywood comedy as "Barbershop."

But as for the promised debate about Iraq, it became heated only after Congressional approval of the president's mission was a foregone conclusion. Though the party's leaders finally stepped up, starting with Mr. Gore, most of them seemed less concerned with the direction of the nation in 2002 than with positioning themselves for the White House in 2004 (or '08). They challenged the administration's arrogant and factually disingenuous way of pursuing its goal, then beat a hasty retreat to sign on to whatever fig-leaf language they could get into the final resolution. (Mr. Gore, after his Sept. 23 Iraq speech, dropped the subject altogether.)

Of course, Frank Rich is convinced that the Democrats can win by presenting a different agenda; the Democrats in office clearly are not. It would certainly make the debate more interesting if the Democrats were willing to actually engage in it -- but it wouldn't change the outcome. Perhaps Rich is confused because Jimmy Carter was just honored, but he should think back and remember this: telling Americans what we can't accomplish was not a winning strategy for the peanut farmer, and it isn't a winning formula now. Maybe it will turn out that the so-called hawks are wrong about Iraq -- but at least they offer hope. Rich wants Democrats to tell us that we can't fight Afghanistan and Iraq, that we can't beat Iraq, that we can't make the world a safer place for America. Is it any wonder that they're scared to tell us that?
posted by David Nieporent at 10/12/2002 11:24:00 PM |

 

Taking a lesson from the Palestinians

Abba Eban famously said of Yasser Arafat that he never missed an opportunity to miss an opportunity. Apparently Saddam Hussein studied at the same school as Arafat; a day after Congress voted overwhelmingly to give President Bush the authority to use military force against Iraq, Hussein decided to make a special effort to emphasize how uncooperative he would be.

The Iraqi government erected new hurdles today to unrestricted U.N. weapons inspections in Iraq, saying it could not provide security guarantees to U.N. aircraft in northern and southern Iraq and warning that new inspections could be impeded if the United Nations fails to pay for services that had previously been free.

A senior Iraqi official, Gen. Amir H. al-Saadi, told Hans Blix, the U.N.'s chief weapons inspector, in a letter that "the aggressive military acts by the U.S. and British air forces" enforcing "no-fly" zones in northern and southern Iraq would "hamper" Iraq's capacity to guarantee the safety of weapons inspectors. U.N. officials maintain that the inability to fly their aircraft to U.N. offices scheduled to be set up in the regional capitals of Mosul and Basra in northern and southern Iraq could add several hours to the time it would take them to conduct inspections, eliminating the element of surprise.

So Iraq explicitly promises to hinder the inspections, while making implicit threats to the safety of the inspectors. In addition, Iraq rebuffed Hans Blix, who has been desperately trying to pretend he can reach an agreement with Iraq to conduct inspections:

Blix had appealed to Saadi in an Oct. 8 letter to confirm Iraq's commitment to abide by a series of U.N. terms for inspections of national security sites, interviews of scientists, surveillance operations and travel to suspected weapons facilities.

But Saadi ignored Blix's request, proposing instead a resumption of negotiations to resolve "any difficulties which may confront our work." He also dismissed Blix's insistence that Iraq, which operates daily flights from Baghdad to Basra, has the ability to ensure the safety of U.N. aircraft along the same route.

So, now the unrestricted inspections are so unrestricted that the inspection teams need to negotiate even more than they already did two weeks ago.

Doesn't this argue against the theory that Saddam Hussein isn't really a threat even if he gets weapons of mass destruction because he can be deterred? The strategy of deterrence is based on the hope that Hussein will act rationally. But we see that even as the threat from the U.S. becomes more imminent, he's stonewalling inspections even more. Either his weapons programs are much farther along than we think, and he's desperate to hide the progress that Iraq has made, or he's irrational. Either way, it doesn't make one sanguine about avoiding war.
posted by David Nieporent at 10/12/2002 06:50:00 AM |

 

Credit where credit is due?

Funny, but when the stock market jumps 300 points in one day, we don't hear the people who criticized President Bush for the declines giving him praise for the rise. So that's 564 points in two days.
posted by David Nieporent at 10/11/2002 07:40:00 PM |

 

Why don't they just award the prize to Saddam Hussein?

As James Taranto continually points out, Yasser Arafat won a Nobel Peace Prize in 1994. So it's hard to work up too much outrage about any prize, even one given to professional candidate Jimmy Carter, even if he has spent the last couple of decades sucking up to dictatorships like North Korea.

Still, the Nobel Committee managed to top even that outrage, by coming out and saying that Carter was given the award as a rebuke to President Bush:

At a news conference, Nobel Committee Chairman Gunnar Berge said that, in addition to honoring Carter, the 2002 prize "should be interpreted as a criticism of the line that the current [U.S.] administration has taken." 

"It's a kick in the leg to all that follow the same line as the United States," he added.

Can we add Norway to the Axis of Evil?
posted by David Nieporent at 10/11/2002 07:28:00 PM |

 

Hope they're grading on the curve

Amusing New York Times correction:

A picture caption on Sept. 23 with an article about Afghan women who were learning to read and write referred incorrectly to the lesson written on a blackboard in a class in northern Afghanistan. The chalked characters were numbers, not letters.

Close enough.
posted by David Nieporent at 10/10/2002 05:17:00 AM |

 

Selective reporting

The CIA wrote an open letter to Congress disclosing portions of its assessments of Iraq. So what does the news media choose to focus on? The New York Times headline is typical: "C.I.A. Warns That a U.S. Attack May Ignite Terror":

The letter said "Baghdad for now appears to be drawing a line short of conducting terrorist attacks" with conventional or chemical or biological weapons against the United States.

"Should Saddam conclude that a U.S.-led attack could no longer be deterred, he probably would become much less constrained in adopting terrorist action," it continued. It noted that Mr. Hussein could use either conventional terrorism or a weapon of mass destruction as "his last chance to exact vengeance by taking a large number of victims with him."

The letter dated Oct. 7 also declassified an exchange from a closed Congressional hearing on Oct. 2 in which a senior intelligence official judged the likelihood of Mr. Hussein's initiating an attack in the foreseeable future as "low."

So, the Times feels that the letter downgrades the threat from Iraq. The Times does present the other side, but in a way sure to convey the Times' disbelief of this position:

Mr. Tenet said tonight that "there is no inconsistency" between the C.I.A. views in the letter and those of the president. He emphasized the Iraqi leader's use of such weapons against his own citizens.

Senior administration officials insisted that the letter did not contradict President Bush's assertions on the imminent threat posed by Mr. Hussein. They pointed to another section of the letter that noted that the likelihood of Mr. Hussein's using weapons of mass destruction "for blackmail, deterrence, or otherwise, grows as his arsenal builds."

The key word is "insisted," Timespeak for "This guy's lying."

So after leading with a headline de-emphasizing the threat from Iraq, and quoting from the portion of the letter that supported this view, and denigrating the opposing view, what does the Times slip by in a single sentence? The argument that the Times has been sneering at since it was raised by the Bush administration: that Iraq and Al Qaeda are connected.

The letter also cited credible reporting that Al Qaeda leaders sought contacts in Iraq who could help them acquire weapons of mass destruction and that Iraq has provided members of the terrorist group with training in the areas of poisons, gases and bomb making.

In fact, it said far more than that. From the letter:

¶Our understanding of the relationship between Iraq and Al Qaeda is evolving and is based on sources of varying reliability. Some of the information we have received comes from detainees, including some of high rank.

¶We have solid reporting of senior level contacts between Iraq and Al Qaeda going back a decade.

¶Credible information indicates that Iraq and Al Qaeda have discussed safe haven and reciprocal nonaggression.

¶Since Operation Enduring Freedom, we have solid evidence of the presence in Iraq of Al Qaeda members, including some that have been in Baghdad.

¶We have credible reporting that Al Qaeda leaders sought contacts in Iraq who could help them acquire W.M.D. capabilities. The reporting also stated that Iraq has provided training to Al Qaeda members in the areas of poisons and gases and making conventional bombs.

¶Iraq's increasing support to extremist Palestinians coupled with growing indications of relationship with Al Qaeda. suggest that Baghdad's links to terrorists will increase, even absent U.S. military action.

Well, that sounds pretty serious to me. I wonder if the Times will write a story about it.
posted by David Nieporent at 10/10/2002 02:42:00 AM |

 

Insult to injury

I didn't hear this reported elsewhere, but the Washington Post reports that the Maryland sniper left a taunting note at the site of his last shooting.

The sniper linked to nine area shootings left what appeared to be a taunting message for authorities outside the Bowie school where a 13-year-old boy was shot Monday morning, police sources confirmed last night.

"Dear policeman, I am God," the message said. Police said it was found on a Tarot card known as the Death card, part of a deck used in fortunetelling. Sources close to the investigation said it was spotted in a wooded area about 150 yards from the school entrance, where police also found a spent shell casing and a matted area of grass that suggested that the gunman had lain in wait.

The message, first reported last night on WUSA-TV (Channel 9), was the first known communication from the sniper, police sources said last night.

If this story is accurate, it seems to me -- though I'm no expert -- that it almost certainly points to a lone nutcase, rather than any organized group of domestic or foreign terrorists. It's a sign of the times that I'm not sure whether that's something to be relieved about or not.
posted by David Nieporent at 10/09/2002 07:27:00 AM |

 

Back to the races

As I suspected would happen, the U.S. Supreme Court declined to get involved in the New Jersey Senate race ballot dispute, as did a federal district court. The Republicans had a couple of reasonable arguments, but I think the Democrats had the stronger position on this one point, from their Supreme Court brief:

The Applicant has failed to meet his burden of proving irreparable harm in every way. He alleges no harm of his own, and he shows no real potential of harm to others – except Senator Lautenberg and the Democrats of New Jersey. Given that there is currently no voter from the State of New Jersey whose ballot condition will not or cannot be fixed over the next month, there is no need for this Court to intervene.

While Doug Forrester's election chances were seriously harmed by this decision, that's not the kind of harm the court is going to rectify. That doesn't mean I agree with the Democratic position, though. The real harm was not to Forrester, but to the rule of law. It sounds reasonable to say that statutes should be interpreted "liberally" in order to preserve voter choice. Why let some minor technical administrative details get in the way of a full electoral process? Why? Because that's the law. It's true that rules can sometimes operate in ways that seem rigid. But there's an advantage to "rigid" rules that doesn't apply when one construes the rules "liberally." There's no possibility of bias. Exceptions aren't made by formula; human beings have to decide to grant exceptions. And those people aren't deciding in a vacuum; they know the effects of their decisions when they make them.

When the legislature wrote the law in question, they didn't know whether a Democrat or Republican would benefit. They didn't know whether the Senate would be closely divided. Their choice of a deadline, while arbitrary, was unbiased. When the New Jersey Supreme Court rewrote the law in question, they knew they were benefiting the Democratic Party. There's just too much temptation for abuse. There's the appearance of impropriety, even if the judges are trying to be fair. All we have to do is look at Bush v. Gore to see this problem. Republicans were convinced the Florida Supreme Court was biased. Democrats were convinced that the U.S. Supreme Court was biased. And it was all because people were ignoring the law in favor of ad hoc decisionmaking.

Aside from that, when exceptions are made, its inevitable that they'll be made to benefit the powerful, not the weak. Does anybody believe that the court would have extended the deadline for the Socialist Party, or the Libertarian Party, or the Greens? (In this case, the New Jersey Supreme Court even admitted it: this decision was made in part as part of a policy "to preserve the two party system.")

Pre-established rules, no matter how arbitrary, treat everyone equally. Exceptions don't. Exceptions can't.
posted by David Nieporent at 10/08/2002 03:47:00 AM |

 

So sue me.

You know that insane $28 billion verdict against Phillip Morris? Well, Max Power explains what's wrong with the logic behind such a huge punitive award -- besides the fact that it was based on the fiction that a smoker didn't know of the risks of smoking, I mean. It's punishing bigness, not wrongdoing. Max adds:

I don't smoke, I get annoyed at people who smoke in front of me on a moving escalator, but I still recognize this as a dangerous dangerous case. If the government has the power to randomly swoop in and take a third of your revenues for the year, well, that's a huge disincentive to doing business or investing in a business that can face such confiscatory policies. The same is true when the government's power is backed by a random assortment of twelve underemployed people and a judge who hates corporations. This isn't just cigarettes, it's hospitals, auto manufacturers, food sellers, retail stores, banks, etc. Jury verdicts like this do more damage to the economy than a hundred Ken Lays.

Max omitted one point in his argument: the "huge disincentive to doing business" is not a foreseen or unforeseen side effect of such suits. The disincentive is the goal of such suits. (Along with money for plaintiff's attorneys, of course.)

Along those lines, the New York times reported on the progress of a lawsuit against the gun industry. After laughably describing Americans for Gun Safety as a gun rights group, it describes the NAACP's (current) attempt to sue gun manufacturers for crimes committed with guns.

Anthony J. Sebok, a professor at Brooklyn Law School who has written about the gun cases, said the new information could build a devastating case against the gun industry. But he also said that if the plaintiffs fail in the Brooklyn case, that could be a setback for all the lawsuits across the country. "It could end the campaign to use litigation as a method of achieving gun control," he said.

Elisa Barnes, the chief lawyer for the N.A.A.C.P. in the Brooklyn case, said the 11 years of gun-sales data she obtained from the federal government is being analyzed by experts on marketing, the gun industry and statistics who are working with her on the case. In filing the suit in 1999, the N.A.A.C.P. said its goal was "to protect the well-being and security of its membership, which has been disproportionately injured" by illegal handguns.

[...]

Ms. Barnes made several strategic decisions that make the current case different from her 1999 case. Instead of seeking damages for the families of gun victims, for example, the current case seeks an injunction that would establish new restrictions on the marketing and distribution of handguns.

There are many problems with these sorts of lawsuits, but the biggest one is that they represent an end-run around the democratic process. Anti-smoking groups, anti-gun groups, and anti-fast food groups in the future, know they can't win in the legislatures. They can't convince a majority of the public to ban these supposed evils. But with the magic of punitive damages, they don't have to. They can destroy these industries by convincing twelve people to feel sorry for one suffering guy.
posted by David Nieporent at 10/07/2002 09:56:00 PM |

 

Probably just a coincidence

Terrorist attack on a French oil tanker off the coast of Yemen. Initially they were reluctant to call it terrorism, but now they're comparing it to the attack on the USS Cole. Apparently opposing the United States doesn't create goodwill among Islamofascists. Maybe the French might want to rethink the idea that they can win middle eastern friends just by being obstructionist.

At the same time, police have definitively linked the Fredericksburg shooting to the Maryland and D.C. shootings, making a total of seven apparently random shootings so far, with the shooter possibly moving south. I certainly don't want to jump to any unwarranted conclusions here, but isn't one of the hallmarks of Al Qaeda simultaneous attacks in well-separated locations? We don't have nearly enough information here, but it's something to keep in mind.
posted by David Nieporent at 10/06/2002 06:46:00 AM |