LFTC - Letter From The Capitol

LFTC - Index 5/15/09

2 posts: (1) The Next Justice: GOP Must Lose Honorably--The Home Front; (2) Our Ally Down Under: Part V--Wobble Watch.

LFTC - The Next Justice: GOP Must Lose Honorably

ABC News Supreme Court correspondent Jan Crawford Greenburg scopes top contoneders to replace David Souter.  An NRO Bench Memo offers advice to the GOP: As Obama will get his choice confirmed, do not stall, but do pin the nominee down on the nominee's judicial record and philosophy.  Fair enough.  Elections do indeed have consequences.  Let us not have a "Borking."  Jeffrey Lord, former aide to Jack Kemp, says the GOP should fight openly & cleanly, like his former boss always did, and make sure a liberal nominee does not get anything like the 96 votes Ruth Bader Ginsburg got, or the 87 votes given Stephen Breyer.   Karl Rove sees the nominee's confirmation hearing as a chance to make the case for judicial restraint.  (Arlen Specter's vote cannot be counted upon, given that the Democrats shafted Specter last week, giving him junior rank on all but one committee; Specter's recent comments that he would support GOP Senator Norm Coleman over challenger Al Franken in the disputed Minnesota Senate race angered his new chums.)

But let the GOP recognize to permanent changes that liberal activism has brought upon the Supreme Court and lower federal courts: (1) jurisprudence will inevitably ratchet to the left, if liberal activist periods are interrupted only by conservative periods that, while refraining from activism, do not reverse leftward drift; (2) questioning of nominee views must now become standard for liberal as well as conservative choices.

Washington Times pundit Wesley Pruden sees the Democrats gearing up their "Borking machine" to target those opposing whomever 44 nominates.  Call this collateral Borking.  Pruden acidly captures what 44 wants for the Court:

The president's farewell toast to David Souter suggests that he's not necessarily looking for a lawyer who understands the Constitution and the meaning of an oath to protect and defend that Constitution, but a nominee who knows all the words to "Kumbaya" and wants to give the world a Coke. "I will seek someone who understands that justice isn't about abstract legal theory or a footnote in a casebook; it is also about how our laws affect the daily realities of people's lives, whether they can make a living and care for their families, whether they feel safe in their homes and welcome in their own nation. I view that quality of empathy ... as an essential ingredient for arriving at just decisions."

This is an odd job description from a man who once taught constitutional law, but there's a considerable difference between the Constitution and constitutional law. The Constitution is a remarkable document, written by learned men in the plain language that the common man understands. The modern study of constitutional law is the work of lawyers trained to deconstruct plain language in search of things the authors of the Constitution never put there. Mr. Sessions and his colleagues have thankless work to do.

National Journal law columnist Stuart Taylor superbly profiles the ideal Justice the President should nominate--not a liberal activist, because 44 would risk seeing his national security policies undermined:

As I have noted briefly, the intersection of law and national security will provide the most consequential cluster of issues that the Supreme Court will consider over the next decade or more. Obama surely understands that the Court's response to his national security policies will be more important by far to the success of his presidency than any decisions on abortion, race, religion, gay rights, crime, or free speech.

Obama's national security policies are already under relentless attack from leading advocates of liberal judicial activism, such as the ACLU. Indeed, most (or at least many) lawyers and scholars who favor a liberal activist approach on social issues also tend to support relatively broad judicial power to overrule the president on national security.

The justifiable rejection of President Bush's wildly excessive claims of near-dictatorial war powers by the five more-liberal justices -- including Souter and swing-voting centrist Anthony Kennedy -- has a downside for Obama. The justices, followed by the lower courts, have now asserted far more power than ever before to oversee and second-guess presidential decisions about national security.

Meanwhile, in moving from campaign mode to the presidency, Obama has had many reasons to worry about such judicial second-guessing. One federal District judge has rejected the administration's claim that it can detain suspected jihadist fighters captured outside Afghanistan at Bagram Air Base without judicial oversight. A federal Appeals Court has rejected the White House's efforts to use the "state secrets" doctrine to block lawsuits by former detainees who claim they were tortured.

Still other lawsuits demand the release of any detainees in the war on terrorism who cannot be convicted of crimes, and publication of classified CIA documents that Obama would rather keep under wraps. A reported, perhaps tentative plan by administration officials to use "military commissions" instead of ordinary courts to try some of the detainees for war crimes would surely bring more legal attacks. And for the foreseeable future, squadrons of liberal lawyers will be suing a range of companies for cooperating with the president on matters such as wiretaps, "renditions" of suspected terrorists to other countries, and other actions deemed by Obama to be vital to national security.

The more the courts smile on such lawsuits, the harder it will be for the president to protect the country. Indeed, some human-rights and civil-liberties activists have done their best to hamstring virtually all of the surveillance, search-and-seizure, detention, and related powers on which the government depends to find and disable suspected terrorists.

It's unclear how Obama would fare in such cases with the current Court. But he would surely run the risk of seeing some of his key security policies overturned if he were to choose someone who turns out to be more aggressive than Souter in curbing presidential war powers.

One law maven examines what 44 means by "pragmatism" on the part of judges, and smells incipient liberal activism.  Legal scholar Richard Epstein details how judges should approach rulings (hint: not via "empathy").  To Sowell reminds us of how Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes (Supreme Court tenure: 1902 - 1935) scorned empathy in deciding cases.

So as not to be too depressing, comedian Jim Colbert has a Colbert Report "Empathy" video (3:22) that hilariously satirizes the line of critics about President 44's citation of "empathy" with ordinary people's problems as one criterion for picking a Supreme Court nominee--namely, that "empathy" is a code word for judicial activism.  It is, but enjoy Colbert's riff.

LFTC - Our Ally Down Under: Part V

Part V (9:07) covers the future of global and Australian political and economic freedom.  He sees two decisive turns over the past decades: the end of Soviet imperialism and the lifting of hundreds of millions around the globe out of poverty.  He sees as unlikely a return in the West to the degree of government control over economic activity that persisted throughout the 1960s & 1970s.  Howard sees India's rise and that of Muslim democratic Indonesia as key to Australia's future in Asia.  He calls his country a "blunt but loyal" friends of America's.  One can only hope that President Obama understands how true that is, lest otherwise he wreck a precious friendship.

LFTC - index 5/14/09

4 posts: (1) GOP: Newt Needed Next?--The Home Front; (2) Nuclear Zero?--9/11, 3/11 & N/11; (3) Military Commissions: 44 Follows 43--9/11, 3/11 & N/11; (4) Our Ally Down Under: Part IV--Wobble watch.

LFTC - GOP: Newt Needed Next?

Mark Steyn, ever sharp, explains in a crisp op-ed that conservatives are at a structural political disadvantage versus the Left, because they cannot consistently muster constituent passion for smaller government, as the Left can for more government.  Steyn argues that the Right must, nonetheless, not move to the Center, but move the Center towards the Right, by making principled arguments.

Bill Kristol advances a "5 Ds program for the GOP: Debt, Defense, Diplomacy, Detention, Docs.  Well said.

David Frum sees dangerous & bad change in Team Obama's vision of America.  In a nutshell, Team Obama is undermining the foundation of legal contractual rights in pursuit of its political goals and on behalf of its political supporters.  In addition to the Chrysler mess (LFTC covered this last week) we have now, Frum notes, the latest example: Threatening California with loss of $8.6B in federal funds unless gov. Terminator rescinds a proposed $74M pay cut for unionized home care workers.

If Steyn, Kristol & Frum are right, as I think both are, that makes the GOP need to put front and center a figure with the national stature and ability to articulate a compelling vision, as the best candidate for 2012.  It is not the kiddie corps of talented GOP under-50 leaders--Governors Sarah Palin (AK), Bobby Jindal (LA); Representatives Eric Cantor (VA), Paul Ryan (WI), Mike Pence (AR)--who should take on Team 44 in 2012.  Barring catastrophe, very possible but hardly inevitable, Obama will be hard to beat come 2012.  He is an icon, adored by mainstream media, and faces a badly discredited opposition.

Which suggests that the logical candidate pool for 2012 is not younger comers, who can bide their time and season themselves further in the meantime--raise funds for fellow GOP candidates, as Ronald Reagan did during the 1970s; hone their message and deepen knowledge of issues outside their areas of strength; extend their already impressive career accomplishments.

Look, then, to the over-60 set for 2012.  They have one more shot at the brass ring.  The failure of the Dole (age 73) & McCain (age 72) candidacies suggests that the American public prefers a candidate who takes office before turning 70 (Reagan turned 70 three weeks after taking the oath of office).  Mitt Romney, with his expertise on economic matters, could be one, if he can show himself able to build a broad base among GOP factions, and appeal to Independent voters.  Mitch Daniels, a successful governor of Indiana and former chief of the Office of Management & Budget, has the resume but lacks national visibility.

Which leaves former Speaker Newt Gingrich.  His travails of the mid-1990s are ancient history, and Americans famously love second-act comebacks.  He has been all over the talk shows, and talks issues better than anyone in his party: principled, intellectually coherent, historical perspective, detailed factual grasp of the full spectrum of issues.  He has two shortcomings.  First, he has never run a large organization, but neither has 44 nor had McCain (save his brief post-Vietnam squadron command stint).  And Newt does have a tendency at times to toss out ideas so fast that listener may not be able to follow; this is fixable if with his maturity in the national spotlight he applies discipline.

Bottom Line.  Newt alone can frame issues in a compelling fashion, and has nothing to lose by taking what will be his last chance to win the White House.  Let the kiddie corps wait and grow.  Let Newt go for it come 2012.

LFTC - Nuclear Zero?

Reporter Philip Taubman writes in the NY Times Magazine on "The Trouble With Zero": nuclear abolitionism raises serious practical problems:

One solution suggested by abolition advocates would be a form of latent or virtual deterrence, based not on weapons all but ready to launch, but on the ability to reassemble or rebuild them.

If arsenals are drastically reduced, the next steps toward abolition could be even trickier. Since scientific and engineering knowledge cannot be expunged from mankind’s memory, the potential to build weapons will always exist. Efforts to hide a few weapons may be difficult to detect and prevent. And any nation able to enrich uranium usable in nuclear power plants, like Iran, has a capacity to produce highly enriched fuel for weapons. Nuclear arms experts have been analyzing these issues intently and have come up with plans to address them. The steps include improvements in the tools used to monitor and verify compliance with treaties and new ways to prevent cheating, including more intrusive inspections.

The enrichment problem, they say, could be solved by limiting the production of enriched uranium to internationally controlled fuel banks that would supply power reactors in places like Iran, eliminating the need for national enrichment plants.

Bottom Line.  We could not verify nuclear progress in North Korea, nor could we find all the WMD in Iraq in the 1990s, nor could we discover that Saddam had disposed of his WMD before the March 2003 Iraq invasion.  It simply strains credulity to sees abolition as achievable until verifications advances to vastly improved levels.  All serious proponents of ultimate nuclear abolition understand this.  But those who do not may see a carpe diem moment with an idealistic administration, susceptible to Utopian visions.  Stay tuned.

LFTC - Military Commissions: 44 Follows 43

NRO ace legal eagle Andy McCarthy shows how Team Obama's revision of military commission trial rules looks like..the Bush 43 rules, tweaked but a tad.  AND CHECK OUT THIS HUMAN EVENTS PIECE ON GITMO, WHICH HAS A 70-SECOND VIDEO AD THAT IS A "MUST SEE."

LFTC - Our Ally Down Under: Part IV

Part IV (8:04) covers the global financial crisis.  Notable is Howard's opining that China will continue to finance the American federal budget deficit by purchasing US Treasuries, despite their concerns at massive public debt expansion, because America will remain, at the end of the day, a haven for investment.

LFTC - Index 5/13/09

5 posts: (1) Taliban: Who is Losing Hearts & Minds?--Us v. Them; (2) Economy: Slow-Motion Thrift Paradox?--'It's the Earth Stupid!"; (3) Federal Reserve: Goldman Preserve, Congress Observes--The Home Front; (4) "Harlem Miracle" Students--The Home Front; (5) Our Ally Down Under: Part III--Wobble Watch.

LFTC - Taliban: Who is Losing Hearts & Minds?

Start with Pakistan, and then turn to Afghanistan:

Pakistan.  The mantra during Vietnam was that American policy was losing "hearts and minds."  The record then was more complex--"nuanced" as John Kerry might put it--but the principle was vital: counter-insurgency requires winning H&M.  A Sunday Washington Post front-pager reports how the Taliban are alienating Pakistanis by imposing harsh Sharia law upon them.  But militant Islam is, nonetheless, having a chilling effect--call it creeping Islamism:

Criticism of such draconian practices, which faded after Zia's death in 1988, has suddenly revived as horror stories of Taliban-style justice have filtered out of the Swat Valley. Newspapers are filled with letters from readers expressing outrage at the perversion of Islam being perpetrated there and warning that the Taliban is trying to force a modern country back to medieval times.

And yet some observers have noticed a subtler, more insidious trend. It is not only the fire-breathing sermons by radical mullahs calling for a "sharia nation" or the rantings of Taliban leaders who accuse the entire Muslim government of being "infidel."

These observers describe a creeping social and intellectual chill that several have called "the Talibanization of the mind."

It is a growing tendency for women to cover their faces, for hosts to cancel musical events, for journalists to use phrases that do not offend powerful Islamist groups, for strangers to demand that shopkeepers turn off their radios.

"With each passing month a deeper silence prevails," columnist Kamila Hyat recently wrote in a widely circulated article. The public is afraid, uncertain and retreating into religion because the country's leaders are failing to address its problems. "Just as we fight to regain territory" from the Taliban, Hyat wrote, "we must struggle to regain the liberties we are losing."

It is important to note that the turnaround in Iraq began in September 2006 with the Anbar sheiks coming to the Americans, after al-Qaeda has beheaded their children and commandeered their wives.  The Americans could be exasperating, but they did not do such evil stuff.  So began the partnership that with the 2007 - 2008 surge led to turnaround in Iraq, avoiding the defeat compromise with the bad guys would have brought.

Ralph Peters, who sees a showdown coming, with Taliban fighters better motivated that Pakistani soldiers, who are reluctant to die for a corrupt (even though elected) government.  Bret Stephens asks whether Pakistan is a country or a space:

About Iran, Henry Kissinger once asked whether the Islamic Republic was a country or a cause. About Pakistan, the question is whether it's a country or merely a space.

Mr. Kissinger's point was that if Iran were a country like France or India, its bid to acquire nuclear weapons wouldn't pose an apocalyptic threat: It would merely be seeking the bomb in pursuit of rational, and limited, national interests, like prestige and self-defense. But if Iran is a cause -- the cause being world-wide radical Islamic revolution -- then there's no telling where its ambitions end.

The world has a tough time dealing with cause countries, no matter if the causes are bad (Nazi Germany, Soviet Russia), good (the U.S.), or somewhere in between (colonial Britain and France). Even more difficult is knowing what to do about countries that are really just spaces, wholly or partly ungoverned.

Today, Somalia is a space not even pretending to be a country. The result is destitution, piracy and a sanctuary for Islamic jihadists, but little by way of ideas for how to change things. Historically Afghanistan has always been a space, defined mostly by its power to repel: The Obama administration would be smart to take this into account by keeping its expectations for nation-building low. Whether post-invasion Iraq is a country or a space remains a question, though it seems to be leaning in the former direction.

As for Pakistan, we're about to find out.

Stephens adds that Pakistani identity is defined negatively:

What kind of state simply accepts that its judicial and political writ doesn't actually run to its internationally recognized boundaries? Three cases are typical.

One is a weak state that lacks the capacity to enforce its law and ensure domestic tranquility -- think of Congo. Another is an ethnic patchwork state that knows well enough not to bend restive or potentially restive minorities to its will -- that would be present-day Lebanon. A third is a canny state that seeks to advance strategic aims by feigning powerlessness while deliberately ceding control to proxies -- the Palestinian Authority under Yasser Arafat.

Pakistan's odd distinction is that it fits all three descriptions at once. It is politically weak, ethnically riven, and a master of plausible deniability -- an art it has practiced not only toward India, Afghanistan and the U.S. with its support for various "freedom fighting" groups but also, in the matter of the CIA drone attacks, toward its own people.

The roots of Pakistan's problems go to its nature as a state. What is Pakistan? Even now, nearly 62 years after its founding, the best answer is "not India": As with the Palestinians, Pakistani identity is defined negatively. What else is Pakistan? As with Iran, it is an Islamic Republic: Punjabis, Pashtuns, Kashmiris, Balochis, Sindhis and so on are only really knitted together in their state as Muslims.

Afghanistan.  The firing of General David McKiernan & his replacement by special ops commander, Gen. Stanley McChrystal, is Team Obama's shakeup move in an Afghan campaign it sees going badly.  Gen. Petraeus backs the move.

Here is an Afghan War view, from Stratfor's George Friedman, The Strategic Debate in Afghanistan, posted May 11, and republished with permission of Stratfor:

After U.S. airstrikes killed scores of civilians in western Afghanistan this past week, White House National Security Adviser Gen. James L. Jones said the United States would continue with the airstrikes and would not tie the hands of U.S. generals fighting in Afghanistan. At the same time, U.S. Central Command chief Gen. David Petraeus has cautioned against using tactics that undermine strategic U.S. goals in Afghanistan — raising the question of what exactly are the U.S. strategic goals in Afghanistan. A debate inside the U.S. camp has emerged over this very question, the outcome of which is likely to determine the future of the region.

On one side are President Barack Obama, Defense Secretary Robert Gates and a substantial amount of the U.S. Army leadership. On the other side are Petraeus — the architect of U.S. strategy in Iraq after 2006 — and his staff and supporters. An Army general — even one with four stars — is unlikely to overcome a president and a defense secretary; even the five-star Gen. Douglas MacArthur couldn’t pull that off. But the Afghan debate is important, and it provides us with a sense of future U.S. strategy in the region.

Petraeus and U.S. Strategy in Iraq

Petraeus took over effective command of coalition forces in Iraq in 2006. Two things framed his strategy. One was the Republican defeat in the 2006 midterm congressional elections, which many saw as a referendum on the Iraq war. The second was the report by the Iraq Study Group, a bipartisan group of elder statesmen (including Gates) that recommended some fundamental changes in how the war was fought.

The expectation in November 2006 was that as U.S. President George W. Bush’s strategy had been repudiated, his only option was to begin withdrawing troops. Even if Bush didn’t begin this process, it was expected that his successor in two years certainly would have to do so. The situation was out of control, and U.S. forces did not seem able to assert control. The goals of the 2003 invasion, which were to create a pro-American regime in Baghdad, redefine the political order of Iraq and use Iraq as a base of operations against hostile regimes in the region, were unattainable. It did not seem possible to create any coherent regime in Baghdad at all, given that a complex civil war was under way that the United States did not seem able to contain.

Most important, groups in Iraq believed that the United States would be leaving. Therefore, political alliance with the United States made no sense, as U.S. guarantees would be made moot by withdrawal. The expectation of an American withdrawal sapped U.S. political influence, while the breadth of the civil war and its complexity exhausted the U.S. Army. Defeat had been psychologically locked in.

Bush’s decision to launch a surge of forces in Iraq was less a military event than a psychological one. Militarily, the quantity of forces to be inserted — some 30,000 on top of a force of 120,000 — did not change the basic metrics of war in a country of about 29 million. Moreover, the insertion of additional troops was far from a surge; they trickled in over many months. Psychologically, however, it was stunning. Rather than commence withdrawals as so many expected, the United States was actually increasing its forces. The issue was not whether the United States could defeat all of the insurgents and militias; that was not possible. The issue was that because the United States was not leaving, the United States was not irrelevant. If the United States was not irrelevant, then at least some American guarantees could have meaning. And that made the United States a political actor in Iraq.

Petraeus combined the redeployment of some troops with an active political program. At the heart of this program was reaching out to the Sunni insurgents, who had been among the most violent opponents of the United States during 2003-2006. The Sunni insurgents represented the traditional leadership of the mainstream Sunni tribes, clans and villages. The U.S. policy of stripping the Sunnis of all power in 2003 and apparently leaving a vacuum to be filled by the Shia had left the Sunnis in a desperate situation, and they had moved to resistance as guerrillas.

The Sunnis actually were trapped by three forces. First, there were the Americans, always pressing on the Sunnis even if they could not crush them. Second, there were the militias of the Shia, a group that the Sunni Saddam Hussein had repressed and that now was suspicious of all Sunnis. Third, there were the jihadists, a foreign legion of Sunni fighters drawn to Iraq under the banner of al Qaeda. In many ways, the jihadists posed the greatest threat to the mainstream Sunnis, since they wanted to seize leadership of the Sunni communities and radicalize them.

U.S. policy under former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld had been unbending hostility to the Sunni insurgency. The policy under Gates and Petraeus after 2006 — and it must be understood that they developed this strategy jointly — was to offer the Sunnis a way out of their three-pronged trap. Because the United States would be staying in Iraq, it could offer the Sunnis protection against both the jihadists and the Shia. And because the surge convinced the Sunnis that the United States was not going to withdraw, they took the deal. Petraeus’ great achievement was presiding over the U.S.-Sunni negotiations and eventual understanding, and then using that to pressure the Shiite militias with the implicit threat of a U.S.-Sunni entente. The Shia subsequently and painfully shifted their position to accepting a coalition government, the mainstream Sunnis helped break the back of the jihadists and the civil war subsided, allowing the United States to stage a withdrawal under much more favorable circumstances.

This was a much better outcome than most would have thought possible in 2006. It was, however, an outcome that fell far short of American strategic goals of 2003. The current government in Baghdad is far from pro-American and is unlikely to be an ally of the United States; keeping it from becoming an Iranian tool would be the best outcome for the United States at this point. The United States certainly is not about to reshape Iraqi society, and Iraq is not likely to be a long-term base for U.S. offensive operations in the region.

Gates and Petraeus produced what was likely the best possible outcome under the circumstances. They created the framework for a U.S. withdrawal in a context other than a chaotic civil war, they created a coalition government, and they appear to have blocked Iranian influence in Iraq. But these achievements remain uncertain. The civil war could resume. The coalition government might collapse. The Iranians might become the dominant force in Baghdad. But these unknowns are enormously better than the outcomes expected in 2006. At the same time, snatching uncertainty from the jaws of defeat is not the same as victory.

Afghanistan and Lessons from Iraq

Petraeus is arguing that the strategy pursued in Iraq should be used as a blueprint in Afghanistan, and it appears that Obama and Gates have raised a number of important questions in response. Is the Iraqi solution really so desirable? If it is desirable, can it be replicated in Afghanistan? What level of U.S. commitment would be required in Afghanistan, and what would this cost in terms of vulnerabilities elsewhere in the world? And finally, what exactly is the U.S. goal in Afghanistan?

In Iraq, Gates and Petraeus sought to create a coalition government that, regardless of its nature, would facilitate a U.S. withdrawal. Obama and Gates have stated that the goal in Afghanistan is the defeat of al Qaeda and the denial of bases for the group in Afghanistan. This is a very different strategic goal than in Iraq, because this goal does not require a coalition government or a reconciliation of political elements. Rather, it requires an agreement with one entity: the Taliban. If the Taliban agree to block al Qaeda operations in Afghanistan, the United States will have achieved its goal. Therefore, the challenge in Afghanistan is using U.S. power to give the Taliban what they want — a return to power — in exchange for a settlement on the al Qaeda question.

In Iraq, the Shia, Sunnis and Kurds all held genuine political and military power. In Afghanistan, the Americans and the Taliban have this power, though many other players have derivative power from the United States. Afghan President Hamid Karzai is not Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki; where al-Maliki had his own substantial political base, Karzai is someone the Americans invented to become a focus for power in the future. But the future has not come. The complexities of Iraq made a coalition government possible there, but in many ways, Afghanistan is both simpler and more complex. The country has a multiplicity of groups, but in the end only one insurgency that counts.

Petraeus argues that the U.S. strategic goal — blocking al Qaeda in Afghanistan — cannot be achieved simply through an agreement with the Taliban. In this view, the Taliban are not nearly as divided as some argue, and therefore their factions cannot be played against each other. Moreover, the Taliban cannot be trusted to keep their word even if they give it, which is not likely.

From Petraeus’ view, Gates and Obama are creating the situation that existed in pre-surge Iraq. Rather than stunning Afghanistan psychologically with the idea that the United States is staying, thereby causing all the parties to reconsider their positions, Obama and Gates have done the opposite. They have made it clear that Washington has placed severe limits on its willingness to invest in Afghanistan, and made it appear that the United States is overly eager to make a deal with the one group that does not need a deal: the Taliban.

Gates and Obama have pointed out that there is a factor in Afghanistan for which there was no parallel in Iraq — namely, Pakistan. While Iran was a factor in the Iraqi civil war, the Taliban are as much a Pakistani phenomenon as an Afghan one, and the Pakistanis are neither willing nor able to deny the Taliban sanctuary and lines of supply. So long as Pakistan is in the condition it is in — and Pakistan likely will stay that way for a long time — the Taliban have time on their side and no reason to split, and are likely to negotiate only on their terms.

There is also a military fear. Petraeus brought U.S. troops closer to the population in Iraq, and he is doing this in Afghanistan as well. U.S. forces in Afghanistan are deployed in firebases. These relatively isolated positions are vulnerable to massed Taliban forces. U.S. airpower can destroy these concentrations, so long as they are detected in time and attacked before they close in on the firebases. Ominously for the United States, the Taliban do not seem to have committed anywhere near the majority of their forces to the campaign.

This military concern is combined with real questions about the endgame. Gates and Obama are not convinced that the endgame in Iraq, perhaps the best outcome that was possible there, is actually all that desirable for Afghanistan. In Afghanistan, this outcome would leave the Taliban in power in the end. No amount of U.S. troops could match the Taliban’s superior intelligence capability, their knowledge of the countryside and their willingness to take casualties in pursuing their ends, and every Afghan security force would be filled with Taliban agents.

And there is a deeper issue yet that Gates has referred to: the Russian experience in Afghanistan. The Petraeus camp is vehement that there is no parallel between the Russian and American experience; in this view, the Russians tried to crush the insurgents, while the Americans are trying to win them over and end the insurgency by convincing the Taliban’s supporters and reaching a political accommodation with their leaders. Obama and Gates are less sanguine about the distinction — such distinctions were made in Vietnam in response to the question of why the United States would fare better in Southeast Asia than the French did. From the Obama and Gates point of view, a political settlement would call for either a constellation of forces in Afghanistan favoring some accommodation with the Americans, or sufficient American power to compel accommodation. But it is not clear to Obama and Gates that either could exist in Afghanistan.

Ultimately, Petraeus is charging that Obama and Gates are missing the chance to repeat what was done in Iraq, while Obama and Gates are afraid Petraeus is confusing success in Iraq with a universal counterinsurgency model. To put it differently, they feel that while Petraeus benefited from fortuitous circumstances in Iraq, he quickly could find himself hopelessly bogged down in Afghanistan. The Pentagon on May 11 announced that U.S. commander in Afghanistan Gen. David McKiernan would be replaced, less than a year after he took over, with Lt. Gen. Stan McChrystal. McKiernan’s removal could pave the way for a broader reshuffling of Afghan strategy by the Obama administration.

The most important issues concern the extent to which Obama wants to stake his presidency on Petraeus’ vision in Afghanistan, and how important Afghanistan is to U.S. grand strategy. Petraeus has conceded that al Qaeda is in Pakistan. Getting the group out of Pakistan requires surgical strikes. Occupation and regime change in Pakistan are way beyond American abilities. The question of what the United States expects to win in Afghanistan — assuming it can win anything there — remains.

In the end, there is never a debate between U.S. presidents and generals. Even MacArthur discovered that. It is becoming clear that Obama is not going to bet all in Afghanistan, and that he sees Afghanistan as not worth the fight. Petraeus is a soldier in a fight, and he wants to win. But in the end, as Clausewitz said, war is an extension of politics by other means. As such, generals tend to not get their way.

LFTC - Economy: Slow-Motion Thrift Paradox?

A Sunday NY Times front-pager reports that the personal savings rate, which has risen during the recession, will stay at a higher base after recovery, due to changing attitudes:

Fearful of job losses and anxious over housing and stock declines, Americans are squirreling away more of their paychecks than they were before the recession. In the last year, the savings rate — the percentage of after-tax income that people do not spend — has risen to above 4 percent, from virtually zero.

This happens in nearly every recession, and the effect is usually fleeting. Once the economy recovers, Americans revert to more spending and less saving. Over the last 30 years, the savings rate has fluctuated from over 14 percent in the 1970s to negative 2.7 percent in 2005, meaning Americans were spending more than they made.

This time is expected to be different, because the forces that enabled and even egged on consumers to save less and spend more — easy credit and skyrocketing asset values — could be permanently altered by the financial crisis that spun the economy into recession.

Bottom Line.  Most Americans are not big risk-takers, nor should they be.  They put security first, and run economic risks only when those are perceived as small, relative to potential rewards.  Stock market and housing bubbles convinced them to take financial risks that, in retrospect, they realize were excessive.  Many have paid a severe penalty for such adventurism.  With 401k accounts like like 201f today, and 101c in store if the economy continues to decline, investors are not looking for The Next Big Thing.  Look then, for slower growth after recovery, whenever it comes.  Which bodes ill for the financing of Social Security and Medicare.

LFTC - Federal Reserve: Goldman Preserve, Congress Observes

A recent WSJ editorial on ex-Goldman CEO Steven Friedman's resignation as President of the New York Federal Reserve Bank--the most influential off all the regional Feds, by far--raises not only conflict of interest issues but also whether the Fed will survive this financial crisis with its traditional independence intact.  Not if, the WSJ editors write, Barney Frank has anything to say about it.  Stay tuned, and be afraid, very afraid.  The Fed is far from perfect, and there are enough Goldman alumni floating around in government, but Barney Frank as Fed overseer....

LFTC - "Harlem Miracle" Students

Pundit David Brooks details spectacular test results at Harlem charter schools with no-nonsense, "no excuses" standards.  In effect, they combine education with middle-class parental values taught students who often come from homes where such values are not inculcated.  The results: complete elimination of the white-black educational achievement gap.  Wonderful news, indeed.  The problem may prove to be, I fear, what might be terms, after a celebrated 1980s teacher, the Marva Collins Scaling Problem.  Put simply, exceptional teachers cannot be replicated.  By definition, everyone cannot be exceptional.  Results simply will not scale from micro to macro worlds.  Only if it can be shown that average teachers and administrators can achieve these results will a macro solution prove achievable.

LFTC - Our Ally Down Under: Part III

Part III (6:40) covers the Australia - China relationship.  Howard, who has lived in China, sees the need for a"pragmatic" relationship with what remains as authoritarian country; he praises BUSH 43 for keeping relations low-key with China over Taiwan, while getting closer with Japan and opening a new, deepening strategic relationship with India.  Howard notes that in addition to coalitions with America & its allies, Australia had vital peacekeeping operations in the Pacific region.

LFTC - Index 5/12/09

3 posts: (1) Iran Makes (Strategically) Nice--Us v. Them; (2) Hamas Floats "Peace"; Emanuel Floats Folly--Us v. Them; (3) Our Ally Down Under II--Wobble Watch.

LFTC - Iran Makes (Strategically) Nice

Iran's decision to release the American journalist convicted under trumped-up charges of spying was clearly a grand outcome for the lovely lady, her family & friends, and America in general.  President Obama's expression of concern no doubt influenced Iran's decision--a sound exercise of soft power.  But no illusions should accompany our joy in her release: Iran wishes to win brownie-points for good behavior.  True, President Obama had to say something positive per public diplomatic convention, and he called it " a humanitarian gesture."  It was, of course, nothing of the sort.  It was a strategic move by chess-playing Iran.  Such manipulation of American public opinion and our leaders must not succeed.  We must bargain without sentiment, and remember that the mullahs still would love to see The Great Satan destroyed.

Very significantly, in releasing the journalist Iran did not reverse her kangaroo-court conviction.  They merely reduced her sentence from 8 to 2 years and suspended the remainder of her sentence--in essence, she was freed after time served to her release date.

LFTC - Hamas Floats "Peace"; Emanuel Floats Folly

Charles Krauthammer eviscerates the "peace gambit" that Hamas has floated.  It is, in reality, a 10-year truce while Palestinians flood Israel and Hamas girds for war.  Well worth a read, as is an op-ed by super-lawyer Alan Dershowitz, explaining why Rahm Emanuel has Mideast priorities exactly backwards: fixing Iran first makes peace between Israel & Palestinians more possible; putting Palestinians first puts the proverbial cart before the horse.

Emanuel's confusion stems from a perennial deformation professionellle in American Mideast diplomacy: that the Arab countries really desire a peaceful two-state solution between Israel and the Palestinians.  This is false.  Prior to September 11, 2001 and the resurgence of militant Sunni & Shia Islam, Arab states used the Palestinians as a convenient dagger to stick into Israel's side.  They never cared for the Palestinians, who have been called "the Jews" of the Arab Mideast.  Neither for the Palestinians nor the Arab states is peace their aim, as Israel would be more secure.

But the rise of militant Islam threatens Sunni Arab regimes in the region.  Iran is the chief agitator, despite its Shia pedigree.  And Israel is the only power in the Mideast that can stop Iran, assuming, as seems likely, that Team Obama falters.

Thus Arab states were muted in comments during the 2006 Hezbollah and 2009 Hamas wars with Israel.  Thus stone silence from Araby after Israel took out the North Korean plutonium Wal-Mart in Syria.  Thus watching Hezbollah strangle the Lebanese government, and Hamas nearly destroy the Palestinian Authority concentrates Arab states upon the real threats they face.  Those threats are existential.  Israel is to them an irritant, but does not, manifestly, pose an existential threat to the Arab states, with whom it ardently pursues peaceful relations--diplomatic and commercial intercourse. 

Robert Maginnis fears that the May 18 meeting between Israeli PM Netanyahu and President Obama could prove a train wreck that causes a rupture in US-Israel relations.  In the same vein, Caroline Glick calls pressure from Team 44 a "green light" for Israel to attack Iran, as it is clear America will not help.

Bottom Line.  America will undermine its geostrategic position in the Mideast by leaning on Israel to make concessions it cannot securely make, whilst negotiating with carrots in futile pursuit of accommodation with Iran's mullahs, who will neither abandon their nuclear quest nor seek peace in the region.  Iran seeks regional hegemony, and the sooner we awake (if ever we do) the better.

LFTC - Our Ally Down Under: Part II

Part II (7:13) covers "multiculturalism" and the Anglosphere countries (defined as countries combining political & economic freedom + where English is spoken as a first or second language--thus are India & the West Indies included with US, UK, Canada, AU & NZ).  Howard sees Anglosphere values is distinct but not exclusionary, and thus consistent with Australia's growing trade relations with Japan, South Korea & China (which together represent 40 percent of Australia's total trade).

LFTC - Index 5/11/09

4 posts: (1) Obama-Osiris: On the 73rd Day He Rested--The Home Front; (2) Pelosi Waterboardgate: 20,000 Lies Under the C(IA)--The Home Front; (3) Wall Street's 19th Century Math Guru--"It's the Earth Stupid!"; (4) Our Allies Down Under: Part I--Wobble Watch.

LFTC - Obama-Osiris: On the 73rd Day He Rested

At Saturday's White House Correspondents' Dinner President Obama read a series of jokes from his script, and got some decent laughs--his ribbing was gentle and gracious and non-partisan.  He is now officially a wit, judging by media commentary Sunday.  Set aside that Oval Office occupants with real wit--think Ronald Reagan and JFK--do not need joke writers.  That bad idea was introduced by President Ford, a decent, but hardly funny, guy.  Obama's delivery was not bad, but he has a long way to go.  Bear in mind the classic distinction between a comedian and a comic, put forth by showbiz legend Milton Berle, who was both: "A comic says funny things; a comedian says things funny."  Obama, in truth, is neither,  He has loads of charm, but little comic or comedic talent.

His best line, however, did satirize the lionizing and hagiographic coverage he has received over his first 110 days.  44 said that in his second 100 days he completed them in 72, and that on the 73rd day he rested.  The laugh is, of course, not on him, even if he half believes this, as possibly he does.  It is on the press corps, whose adulation approaches bobby-soxer proportions.  Next act: Can 44 sing like Sinatra?

In the meantime, Barack Hussein Obama-Osiris (ancient Egypt's God of regeneration and rebirth) will have to settle for being Designated Deity of all west of the Nile.

LFTC - Pelosi Waterboardgate: 20,000 Lies Under the C(IA)

So, Abu Zubaydah, senior al-Qaeda terrorist, had been waterboarded in August 2002, just before the briefing of September 4, 2002 when Speaker Nancy was briefed.  The entry in the CIA summary printed on the 10-page record of interrogation briefings given leaders in Congress reads--as the lawyers say in legal Latin, in haec verba:

“Briefing on EITs including use of EITs on Abu Zubaydah, background on authorities, and a description of the particular EITs that had been employed.”

Nancy says "Nope."  The Washington Post reported more bad news on what Pelosi knew or likely knew: that (a) a senior aide to Pelosi--who retired Feb. 4, 2009--was briefed early in 2003; (b) Pelosi admitted in 2007 having spoken with fellow senior Democratic congresswoman Jane Harman--who succeeded Pelosi as ranking Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee--about waterboarding, also in early 2003.  Now read this WSJ editorial with more detail about what Nancy earlier said, plus what Congress knew.

Former VP Dick Cheney weighed in with a Sunday "Face the Nation" interview (14:29) with Bob Schieffer.  He charged Team 44 with taking down some vital homeland defenses Bush 43 erected.  Cheney cited a pair of CIA memos he requested be released six weeks ago, that would show precisely what harsh interrogation memos achieved.  The memos detail attack plans and the volume of intelligence derived from detainees and thus, said Cheney, should be declassified to resolve the debate (that Democrats re-ignited).  Had the Bush administration intended to torture "we wouldn't have wasted our time at the Justice Department."

Cheney's bottom line, upon being asked by Schieffer if he had any regrets about what was done: "No regrets.  It was absolutely the right thing to do.  I am convinced, absolutely convinced, that we saved thousands, perhaps hundreds of thousands, of lives....No one then would have bet that we were going to go eight years without an attack....If you look at this intelligence program 20, 30 years down the road [people will see that] this was one of the great success stories of American intelligence."

Asked if he would testify under oath, as Vermont Senator Patrick Leahy, who chairs the Senate Intelligence Committee, invited him to do, Cheney said he would have to see the circumstances, but that he defends what was done.  (DC's caution is understandable: testifying under oath permits hostile questioners to treat as lying what may be a memory slip.)

Bottom Line.  Above all, think of this: The release of the damning document was authorized by...Leon Panetta, the current CIA director.  Panetta is not simply a prominent Democrat.  He has been a top player for some 35 years, in Democratic Party politics.  He once headed the House Budget Committee.  During the Clinton years he served a stint as White House Chief of Staff.  He would not toss this stuff into the public arena to harm his own party or its leader in the House of Representatives.  He did it to protect the CIA from further immense damage that future inquisitions would surely inflict.  Panetta thus made such harm less likely to come to pass, as a major investigation, let alone, prosecution, arising out of Bush administration detention policy now seems less likely than it did four days ago.

LFTC - Wall Street's 19th Century Math Guru

Economist Susan Lee spotlights a "Model from Hell" that led Wall Street to ruination, one devised by 19th century genius mathematician Carl Friedrich Gauss: the Gaussian copula.  Lee describes the GC:

The short answer: It's the formula used to figure out the risk in a pool of debts, like a mortgage-backed security. Or, to put the matter in the negative: It puts a number value on the danger that the mortgages could default at the same time. (Gaussian refers to a normal distribution, or bell curve, and copula refers to the behavior of more than one variable.)

Lee offers a thumbnail sketch of the GC model:

Mr. Li's copula function rummages around in a lot of individual debt securities and then pops out one number that gives the probability of the securities all going bad at once. If the default correlation among the securities is low (meaning they aren't dependent, or related, to one another) then a low number pops out which means, presumably, the pool carries a low risk.

Sounds good, eh? But, even better, Mr. Li discovered a clever way to come up with the default correlation. The usual practice to determine default probability was to engage in a mind-numbing gathering of historical data on actual defaults. But Mr. Li cut that corner by using prices for credit default swaps as a proxy for the actual data.

Read Lee's piece, which packs a lot in an op-ed, to see how this all played out.

Bottom Line.  Applying mathematical models--or any other kind--is a treacherous exercise.  First, models rest upon assumptions that, if flawed, yield flawed results:  Recall the classic dictum about computers: GIGO--Garbage In, Garbage Out.  Second, models must replicate the system being modeled with great precision: poorly matched models will yield inaccurate data, and will cumulatively grow worse over time.  Third, models must be sufficiently data-rich to enable useful calculation.  In other words, they must provide raw material for the algorithm (the mathematical equation at the heart of the model that attempts to solve a specific problem) to work its magic.

LFTC - Our Ally Down Under: Part I

Best-pal Australia--the only country to send troops to fight alongside America in every major shooting war of the 20th century--is recalibrating its foreign policy for an emerging geopolitical world in which American power is receding.

Here is the first of five interviews, totaling 40 minutes, that NRO did with former Aussie PM (Down Under's 25th since modern Australia was formed in 1901) John Winston Howard, a modern Churchill (what a delight that his middle name is  Winston!), on the future of Australia.  (Howard, BTW, was actually physically in Washington, DC, on 9/11/01; he thus began working in person with Bush 43 from the start.)

Part I (8:34) covers Australia's participation in Iraq, to which Australia contributed naval forces plus 2,000 troops--the equivalent of some 30,000 US troops on a per capita comparable basis.  Howard calls America "the ultimate guarantor of Australia's security"--both countries are part of the ANZUS Pact (which includes New Zealand).