World Affairs: February 2003 Archives

"Politics today is too much about careerism, special interest, campaign contributions and access—what I need, what I want, about my rights. But the ideal I believe in is about all of us together. It is about the common good. What is best for all of us. What is best for our children and future generations. Politics is, as Plato said, "an art whose business is a concern for souls". For me, the ideal of America is about a nation of people still searching for a nobler cause, for a better destiny. We are better than who we are today. And because we know this, we are frustrated by the gap between who we are and who we should be.

America still represents a promise, a promise that democratic people can learn to live together better, that we can rise above autonomy and selfishness, that we can create a "city on a hill". I want to challenge you to join me in realizing that promise, in holding our nation and ourselves to a higher standard, to use the creativity of our heads to find new ways to realize the passion in our hearts—a passion for a just society, a passion for a great society, a passion for the ideal of the American republic."

Another of Hart's major policy speeches, this one delivered at Thomas Jefferson's University of Virginia and dealing with the topic of his Oxford doctoral thesis - restoring Jefferson's forgotten "republic of duties" to our "democracy of rights."

"There is within almost every American soul a desire to make a contribution, to invest time and energy to make things better, to know the unique satisfaction of helping one's country. We call that sense idealism—the notion that the gap between what is and what ought to be can be narrowed if we will simply try.

The world does divide itself between "realists" and idealists, or perhaps it is between those who accept a kind of Darwinian determinism dictated by fate or natural selection—a Calvinistic predestinarianism between the saved and the damned—and those who believe that nothing is "written", that the human condition can be improved, that none need be left behind. Or, as Robert Kennedy said: "Some men see things as they are and ask 'Why?' I dream things that never were and ask, 'Why not?'"

The sense of idealism has roots in political theory and reality. It is the very essence of the republic. From ancient Greece and early Rome, the ideal of the republic was founded on civic virtue, the sense of citizen duty; on popular sovereignty, the notion that we are self-governing and thus determine our own destiny; on resistance to corruption, requiring the common good to prevail over special interests; and on the commonwealth itself, the proper stewardship of all those things we hold in common."

I won't try and break down his thesis.  He's written an entire book on the subject, and does a much better job of presenting it in the speech than I could summarizing.  Give it a read and see why this man must run for President.

"When I was your age, I believed in an ideal of America. And now, more than four decades later, I still do. I have only one goal in the public arena, to serve my country and perhaps also to try to inspire people like you to do so. I want you to imagine a picture of America that is above self-interest, above commercialism and materialism, and above ordinary politics. "

From anyone else's mouth this would be the clumsiest of political clichés.  But from my perspective - having now read two of his books and given careful consideration to his views on government and contemporary American politics - Hart honestly feels this way.  It is reflected in his thoughtful writings and a career of public service, of which the last 20 years has been spent in the political wilderness.  Its time to bring him back.

"A little more than half a century ago, Vinayak Savarkar was on trial for his life, accused of conspiring with seven other men in the assassination of Mohandas K. Gandhi on Jan. 30, 1948.

The court acquitted Savarkar, citing insufficient evidence, but there was never much doubt about where his sympathies lay: A hard-line Hindu nationalist who wrote admiringly of Nazi Germany, he made no secret of his antipathy toward India's Muslim population or toward Gandhi, whose embrace of religious tolerance and diversity he saw as a threat to India's cultural purity.

Moreover, Savarkar was personally acquainted with Nathuram Godse, Gandhi's assassin and one of Savarkar's most devoted followers. Some historians still believe that Godse would not have committed the murder without a green light from Savarkar, who died in 1966.

But yesterday's suspect is today's hero. In a ceremony this afternoon, India's Hindu-nationalist government unveiled a portrait of Savarkar to hang opposite Gandhi's in the central hall of Parliament, describing him as a neglected and misunderstood patriot who deserves his place in the pantheon of India's great leaders."

No real commentary on this, but I thought it relevent to a discussion over at John-Paul's a few weeks back about the merits of Indian culture and the powers-that-be.

"It has been 16 years since former Sen. Gary Hart, D-Colorado, last ran for the Democratic presidential nomination, but he may be getting ready to take another shot. Is the third time the charm for Hart? Find out if he'll run for president and whether he would go to war with Iraq."

Gary Hart is making another appearence on Crossfire tonight at 7pm (5pm Mountain)

"What does Saddam Hussein see in himself that no one else in the world seems to see? The answer is perhaps best revealed by the intimate details of the Iraqi leader's daily life"

On the eve of Saddam's interview with Dan Rather - and almost certainly of war - I thought it important to direct my readers to a profile of Saddam that might provide a good base on which to judge his public behavior and the abovementioned interview.  In May of last year, Mark Bowden, author of Black Hawk Down (the book, not the movie), presented the most comprehensive profile I've yet read of Saddam Hussein.  I've found this article (which, incidentally, solely convinced me to become an Atlantic subscriber, rather than continuing to buy it at newsstands) to be immensely useful in understanding the situation we find ourselves in today. 

I'm sure CBS will replay the interview, and if not, the important bits are available at the above URL.

"What all this means is that when it comes to building democracy in Iraq, the Europeans are uninterested, the Americans are hypocritical and the Arabs are ambivalent. Therefore, undertaking a successful democratization project there, in a way that will stimulate positive reform throughout the region, will require a real revolution in thinking all around — among Americans, Arabs and Europeans. If done right, the Middle East will never be the same. If done wrong, the world will never be the same."

Thomas Friedman calls everyone to the carpet on Iraq and the Middle East.  First, Europe:

"We all know what this is about: the Jewish question. "For too many Europeans, Arabs are of no moral interest in and of themselves," observes the Middle East analyst Stephen P. Cohen. "They only become of interest if they are fighting Jews or being manhandled by Jews. Then their liberation becomes paramount, because calling for it is a way to stick it to the Jews. Europeans' demonstrations for a free Palestine — and not for a free Iraq or any other Arab country — smell too much like a politically correct form of anti-Semitism, part of a very old story."

Then the US

"Only after 9/11, as we realized that what was going on out back in these countries threatened us, did the U.S. begin to call for democracy in the Arab world — but only to get rid of Yasir Arafat and to punish those Arab regimes it did not like, namely Saddam Hussein's. You still have not seen any serious democratization effort being directed at Saudi Arabia or Egypt or Kuwait. For America, government of the people, by the people and for the people is only for our enemies, not our friends."

And lastly, the Arabs themselves

"But then, other than a few courageous Arab liberals, Arab intellectuals have not made democracy promotion a supreme value either. In part it's because liberating Palestine has always been treated by them as a more important political value. And in part it's because many Arab societies are still so tribalized, and have such a weak sense of citizenship, they fear that democracy could bring forth fundamentalists, a rival tribe or anarchy. Hence the Arab saying: "Better a hundred years of tyranny than one day of anarchy.""

John-Paul may now proceed to make mustache jokes.

"Turkey has reportedly been offered the right to occupy much of Iraqi Kurdistan. Yes, that's right: as we move to liberate the Iraqis, our first step may be to deliver people who have been effectively independent since 1991 into the hands of a hated foreign overlord. Moral clarity!

Meanwhile, outraged Iraqi exiles report that there won't be any equivalent of postwar de-Nazification, in which accomplices of the defeated regime were purged from public life. Instead the Bush administration intends to preserve most of the current regime: Saddam Hussein and a few top officials will be replaced with Americans, but the rest will stay. You don't have to be an Iraq expert to realize that many very nasty people will therefore remain in power — more moral clarity! — and that the U.S. will in effect take responsibility for maintaining the rule of the Sunni minority over the Shiite majority."

Paul Krugman pokes another pin in the "We really just want to invade Iraq to help the Iraqi people" balloon.   Trudy Rubin also touched on the possible Turkish occupation of Iraqi Kurdistan on Morning Edition today.  Krugman also demonstrates what's in store financially for Iraq, by way of Afghanistan's recent experiences.

"...President Bush promised that our interest wouldn't end once the war was won; this time we wouldn't forget about Afghanistan, we would stay to help rebuild the country and secure the peace. So how much money for Afghan reconstruction did the administration put in its 2004 budget?

None. The Bush team forgot about it. Embarrassed Congressional staff members had to write in $300 million to cover the lapse."

Moral clarity!

"But if the antiwar movement dissuades the United States and its allies from going to war with Iraq, it will have contributed to the peace of the dead. Saddam Hussein will emerge victorious and ever more defiant. What has been accomplished so far will unravel. Containment is doomed to fail. We cannot forget that despots protected by their own elaborate security apparatus are still able to make decisions.

Saddam Hussein has dragged his people into at least two wars. He has used chemical weapons on them. He has killed hundreds of thousands of people and tortured and oppressed countless others. So why, in all of these demonstrations, did I not see one single banner or hear one speech calling for the end of human rights abuses in Iraq, the removal of the dictator and freedom for the Iraqis and the Kurdish people? If we are going to demonstrate and exert pressure, shouldn't it be focused on the real villain, with the goal of getting him to surrender his weapons of mass destruction and resign from power? To neglect this reality, in favor of simplistic and irrational anti-Americanism, is obfuscating the true debate on war and peace.

I agree that the Bush administration must give more time to the weapons inspectors to fulfill their mandate. The United States is an unchallenged world power and will survive its enemies. It can afford to be a little more patient. Kofi Annan, the secretary general of the United Nations, has proved himself to be a strong mediator and no friend of dictators. He and a group of world leaders should use this time to persuade Saddam Hussein to resign and go into exile. In turn, Saddam Hussein could be credited with preventing another war and sparing his people. But even this approach will not work without the continued threat of force."

A good opinion piece in the New York Times by Nobel Peace Prize winner and East Timor's Minister of Foreign Affairs, José Ramos-Horta.  He brings up an important point which is being ignored by the majority of anti-war protestors:  Sometimes war is necessary for peace.  He also makes another important point - one that is being ignored by the "rush-to-war" crowd: the US can afford to be a bit more patient.  There's no need to go tearing up the UN charter just yet.

"In meetings yesterday with senior officials in Moscow, Undersecretary of State John R. Bolton told the Russian government that "we're going ahead," whether the council agrees or not, a senior administration official said. "The council's unity is at stake here."

A senior diplomat from another council member said his government had heard a similar message and was told not to anguish over whether to vote for war.

"You are not going to decide whether there is war in Iraq or not," the diplomat said U.S. officials told him. "That decision is ours, and we have already made it. It is already final. The only question now is whether the council will go along with it or not."

President Bush has continued to say he has not yet decided whether to go to war. But the message being conveyed in high-level contacts with other council governments is that a military attack on Iraq is inevitable, these officials and diplomats said. What they must determine, U.S. officials are telling these governments, is if their insistence that U.N. weapons inspections be given more time is worth the destruction of council credibility at a time of serious world upheaval."

What a frickin mess.  That's all I have to say.

"That most lamentable duct tape suggestion last week by a Homeland Security official -- which drove countless panicked citizens out to buy the product -- has been widely derided as useless and pretty crazy.

But maybe not so crazy. Turns out that nearly half -- 46 percent to be precise -- of the duct tape sold in this country is manufactured by a company in Avon, Ohio. And the founder of that company, that would be Jack Kahl, gave how much to the Republican National Committee and other GOP committees in the 2000 election cycle? Would that be more than $100,000?"

Cute.

[via BoingBoing]

"With war in the offing, Slate asked prominent people in politics, the arts, entertainment, business, and other fields to answer the following question: Do you favor a U.S. invasion of Iraq? The respondents run the gamut, from those who believe war is a bad idea (Spike Lee says we're being "hoodwinked" by the Bush administration) to those (like Mark Bowden) who think we should have invaded already. "

An interesting compendium of opinion compiled by Slate.  Some of the more interesting comments:

"Paul Berman is the author of Terror and Liberalism, to be published in March.
I do not favor an invasion of Iraq solely for the purpose of disarming the regime. If disarmament is the goal, there is no reason we shouldn't keep up a pressure short of invasion. I would favor an invasion for a larger purpose, though, which is this: to begin a roll-back of the several tendencies and political movements that add up to Muslim totalitarianism. I would favor an invasion whose purpose was to foment a liberal revolution in the Middle East. Unfortunately, Bush has not spoken of such a thing. He has not tried to summon the support of liberal revolutionaries from the Muslim world, or from any other part of the world. He will probably stage his invasion, anyway. I will protest against it, but not because I want him to withdraw the troops or to do less. I will protest because I want him to do more. In our present terrible predicament, a liberal revolution is our best hope—the best hope for ourselves, and the best hope for the Arab world."

...

"Charles Peters is the founding editor of the Washington Monthly.
No. This country has been conned by Karl Rove and the superhawks. They've succeeded in changing the subject from George W. Bush's failures and embarrassments, making Iraq number one on the national agenda for nearly six months at the expense of more important matters—like finding Osama Bin Laden, securing peace between Israel and Palestine, drastically improving the FBI's and CIA's ability to deal with terrorism, keeping nuclear weapons from being used by the nations that already have them, including North Korea, and engineering economic recovery here at home. If we end up paying practically all the bill for the war with Iraq and the subsequent military occupation, that money won't be there for badly needed health and education programs.

Thinking about Iraq alone—which is what the administration has tried to get us to do—it's not hard to get fired up about teaching Saddam a lesson. But once you think about these other higher priorities, the danger from Iraq just isn't imminent enough to justify war. War, however, does offer the probability of a quick and dramatic victory, and that, I fear, is why it has such enormous appeal for Bush and his colleagues."

...lastly...

"Sarah Vowell is a contributing editor for public radio's This American Life and the author of The Partly Cloudy Patriot.
I reminded myself to answer this question by writing it in my to-do list, just below "buy duct tape and plastic sheeting." The reason I would rather not rush off to war in Iraq is also a to-do list issue. The first thing on my foreign affairs post-it note is obliterating Bin Laden and the rest of al-Qaida, followed by giving North Korea the attention they apparently crave. Then, the U.S. might consider Colombia and/or Zimbabwe, after which it could indulge in a wistful moment pondering the legacy of Havel and how he was the only world leader who knew who Moe Tucker is. Finally, America could polish off the list by ganging up with the U.N. and deciding what we are all going to do about Saddam and how France is getting on our nerves."

The commander of Pakistan's air force, Air Chief Marshal Mushaf Ali Mir, his wife and several senior officers were among 17 people killed in a plane crash on Thursday, the air force said.

Air force spokesman Air Commodore Sarfraz Ahmed Khan said it was an accident. The air force Fokker F-27 turboprop in which Mir and the others were traveling crashed in northwestern Pakistan and all 17 people aboard were killed.

State-run Pakistan Television said the crash was caused by "technical reasons," but did not elaborate.

Hmm.  Odd, especially in light of this.  Bad luck?

"North Korea may already possess one or two nuclear weapons, but U.S. policy correctly calls for the Korean Peninsula to be free of all nuclear weapons. In a matter of months, the six to eight bombs' worth of plutonium Pyongyang could then possess would be enough to support an offensive military strategy -- and to export. North Korea has announced the restart of its existing nuclear reactor, and it could finish construction of two larger reactors that were frozen under the 1994 Agreed Framework. Within a few years it could be churning out dozens of bombs' worth of plutonium each year. By then, its secret enrichment program could be producing bomb-grade uranium, too.

Under those circumstances, intense pressure would build in South Korea and Japan to acquire nuclear weapons. The reverberations would quickly extend to Taiwan and China, then India and Pakistan.

If North Korea continues to view unconventional weapon exports as its chief cash crop, it will find numerous customers with adequate means and motive. Access to plutonium could shave years off the efforts of al Qaeda and other terrorists to obtain the weapon of ultimate destruction."

George H W Bush wants his son to wake up.  So he sent his former National Security Advisor and a former member of his National Security Council, message in hand, to the op-ed pages at the Washington Post. 

[via Talking Points Memo] 

"Iranian-backed Iraqi opposition forces have crossed into northern Iraq from Iran with the aim of securing the frontier in the event of war, according to senior Iranian officials.

The forces, numbering up to 5,000 troops, with some heavy equipment, are nominally under the command of Ayatollah Mohammad Baqir al-Hakim, a prominent Iraqi Shia Muslim opposition leader who has been based in Iran since 1980 and lives in Tehran."

Well, this is an interesting development. 

[via Drudgereport]

"You can write the next paragraph yourself. Sixteen months ago, Powell wanted to isolate Bin Laden from other Muslims, so he said Bin Laden was lying about being involved in Iraq. Now Powell wants to justify war against Iraq, so he says Bin Laden is telling the truth. Same claim, same media outlet, same speaker, same U.S. official assessing the claim, same congressional venue, different U.S. agenda, different result.

The punch line? Bin Laden was talking about hypocrisy."

Slate's William Saletan commenting on Powell's reaction to the latest message from Bin Laden.  These are the kind of actions that make it VERY easy for folks to question the link between terrorism and Iraq that the Administration is attempting to draw. 

Questioning that link as presented is not un-American, it's the end result of completely rational thought processes.  If the Administration wants to be taken seriously, they need to drop their presumptive claims that al-Qaeda and Iraq are in bed together.  Its not a convincing case, and there are much better cases to be made - namely that Iraq is in breach of UN resolutions, is deceiving the inspectors as we speak and is a dangerous regional force that needs to be put down.

Unfortunately, I suspect they've botched up their political strategy on this so badly that there is probably no recovery and they will have to live with the fact that completely reasonable people are going to question their every move.  I can only imagine the mess we're now going to be in if the war goes badly.

"CIA Director George J. Tenet, who joined Jacoby in briefing the Senate Armed Services Committee, also acknowledged the North Koreans have the capability to reach the western United States with a long-range missile.

Previous U.S. intelligence reports have said such a missile probably could carry a nuclear weapon-sized payload across the Pacific Ocean."

How long do you suppose the missile will remain untested once we move on Saddam?

I wonder how much longer Bush can pretend Iraq is the bigger threat.  Combine this with the recent reports (subscription only) that North Korea may have sold Iraq some intermediate range scuds and I think it's easy to see who is the bigger threat to American interests.

Note that this shouldn't imply that I'm against war in Iraq.  I just think Bush's priorities are bass-ackwards in this particular case and have said so for a while.  Whatever happened to that two-war doctrine anyhow?

Every day we don't do something about North Korea, we display the same irrelevance we're so excited to point out at the UN and NATO.  The lesson that will be learned from our continuing cries of regional containment in the Koreas while screaming for Saddam's head in the Middle East: 

If you want to avoid pre-emption by the US, get yourself some nukes as quick as you can.

[via Drudgereport]

"We are now more than a decade beyond the Cold War and as yet our political leadership has failed to provide a comprehensive sense of America's role in the post-Cold War, early 21st-century world. For almost half a century our central organizing principle, upon which both a foreign policy and defense policy were built, was "containment of communism". The world in which we now live defies the simplicity and predictability such a doctrine offered. And even containment of communism left unanswered the question of how to achieve that goal, a question that often divided our country deeply, not least between those advocating the use of power to promote our interests and those advocating adherence to human rights as defining of our values.

But rather than presenting a new foundation and framework to define America's role in the world, our current administration has embarked on a dangerous effort to apply power without relationship to America's principles. Its doctrine seems to be that we are powerful enough to do as we wish, and those not with us are against us. A world divided between pro- and anti-Americans is not a world in which we will hope to be secure.

Moreover, the administration's preoccupation with military superiority erodes our greatest strength—the admiration the world has for the American character. We drive the world's prosperity. We are the champions of the ideal of democracy. We are the world's greatest source of optimism, energy, and hope. Global citizens by the hundreds of millions say that they disagree with the United States government but like the American people. To compromise that goodwill through belligerence is to squander our greatest resource.

In direct contrast to a policy featuring force, and to replace a decaying Cold War-era debate between interests and values, today I would like to propose a foreign policy based upon principle, indeed a set of principles upon which I believe America should base its relations with the peoples of the world in this new century, principles representing the best traditions and beliefs of the American people."

Presented yesterday at a World Affairs Council event in San Franciso, Gary Hart reveals his foreign policy platform and outlines the principles that would guide it:

• First, our alliances, both old and new, should be characterized by equality of status, common interests, and greater shared responsibilities, and participation in these alliances should not require compromise of our principles;
• Second, we must resist imperial designs by others without seeking empire for ourselves;
• Third, our economic strength, arguably our greatest strength, should be used to help create opportunity and open societies for those nations left behind;
• Fourth, our military power should be used only to defend our nation, protect our justifiable interests, fulfill our alliance commitments, and prevent imminent attack.
• Fifth, with our allies we must seek to prevent the failure of states or, if they fail, seek to manage their peaceful restructuring;
• Sixth, we should encourage democracy—especially among regional powers—including forms of democratic government possibly different in design and structure from our own;
• Seventh, we should adopt a new definition of security in an age where the nature of conflict is rapidly evolving;
• And, eighth, we must explore new areas where international cooperation may relieve disproportionate burdens on U. S. economic and military resources.

He goes into MUCH greater detail and I won't attempt to summarize since I'm not sure I could do all his ideas justice.  Some of the highlights in my view

• Replacing "top-down" foreign aid with more grassroots efforts focusing on micro-loans, empowering the women of the third world, agricultural technologies and opening the US market to third world products.
• Ensure corporate America behaves as well abroad as they are expected to at home.
• Establish clear standards for the use of military force
• Stop allying ourselves with the "enemy of our enemy" and reform existing alliances to make them more relevent to the 21st century
• Encourage democractic evolution in Russia , China and India and, recognizing their key regional leadership roles, assist their integration into the emerging internation system and encourage their emergence as regional powers.
• Recognize that nation-state sovereignty is changing under the pressures of globalizing economic forces and there is nothing that can be done to stop this process.  New sovereign international organizations must be carefully constructed to deal with the resulting issues.

If you have any interest in the future of foreign affairs, even if not in Hart the candidate, you need to read this document.  He effectively distills the most progressive forward-thinking ideas in foreign affairs into a policy that I feel could make a real difference both in the wider world, and here at home.  He finishes with the following, which I could not agree with more fervently.

"Perhaps most importantly, all Americans must now become engaged in America's conduct in the world. Our foreign policy, our relations with the peoples of the world, is no longer the province of so-called experts. The forces of globalization, the spread of American commercial and cultural influence, the internationalization of the Internet, the immediacy of travel, the rise of a global environmental common, all now require the engagement of the American people. We must not let our role in the world be dictated by ideologues with their special biases and agendas, by militarists who long for the clarity of Cold War confrontation, by think-tank theorists who grind their academic axes, or by Americans who too often find it hard to distinguish their loyalties to their original homelands from their loyalties to America and its national interests.

As war is too important to leave to the generals, so, in the 21st century, is foreign policy too important to be left to specialized elites and interests. In the 21st century, the veil separating the foreign policy priesthood from the people must be removed. We, the people, must insist that our nation's finest principles characterize our dealings with our global neighbors. In this new age, our policy toward the world must be the policy of the American people—a policy that reflects our belief in our freedom, a policy that shows our desire to be friends and helpful neighbors, a policy that makes us proud of our heritage when we meet our foreign neighbors abroad and when we greet them here at home, and most of all a policy that leaves a legacy to our children that makes them proud of us.

Gary Hart
Kittredge, Colorado"

I've said it before, and I'll say it again.  This man gets it.

"FRANCE BLOCKS NATO WAR PLANNING, blares a February 10 CNN.com headline. But click through and you find a story about how France, Germany, and Belgium vetoed moves to prepare Turkey for war with Iraq. The headline is startlingly inaccurate, but in today's climate not at all surprising. With baseball's opening day still almost two months away, Americans in recent weeks have adopted an off-season national pastime: France-bashing.

Jonah Goldberg of National Review has revived the phrase "cheese-eating surrender monkeys" from its Simpsons provenance to describe the French, and now bloggers can't get enough of it. George Will, who doesn't often borrow from Rush Limbaugh's lexicon, recently called foreign minister Dominique de Villepin "oleaginous" and quipped that de Villepin's response to Colin Powell at the United Nations Wednesday showcased "the skill France has often honed since 1870--that of retreating, this time into incoherence." The New York Sun published a column last week claiming that France's "Last Great Coup" was the Kellogg-Briand pact of 1928, which "roped" the United States into defending France from Germany. Richard Perle has groused that France has lost its "moral fiber." And on and on. All this obsessive loathing sounds oddly familiar. It reminds one of, what is it again? Oh, right--France's purported obsessive loathing of the United States. "

As I mentioned yesterday, France-bashing is one thing that Americans of all political persuasions take some pleasure in.  Today, Economist's countries editor, Robert Lane Greene explains why at The New Republic Online.

"DR. PATRICK WALSH, a urologist at Johns Hopkins Hospital who pioneered the safest form of prostate removal, said Kerry, 59, who is otherwise fit, had a 95 percent rate of being cured. He said the senator should be back at work in a couple of weeks after the surgery.
       Kerry, a decorated Vietnam War veteran who was elected to the Senate in 1984, scheduled a news conference for 5 p.m. ET to announce his diagnosis. Aides said the surgery would not effect his presidential campaign. "

Well that was quick.

There will be an announcement this afternoon (I believe, at 5 PM EST) that will -- temporarily at least -- shake up the Democratic presidential race. Because it's health-related, I'm not going to say more than that. But keep your eye out later this afternoon.

The obvious candidate would be Graham, he just got out of the hospital last week, but I've seen a few articles today talking about him getting his paperwork in order to begin fundraising.  Hmm.

"  Mrs. FEINSTEIN. Mr. President, I am pleased to join Senators SNOWE, COLLINS, CANTWELL, CORZINE, DODD, DURBIN, JEFFORDS, LEAHY, MURRAY, REED, CLINTON, and SCHUMER in introducing legislation to increase Corporate Average Fuel Efficiency, CAFE, Standards for SUVs and other light duty trucks.

   This bill will close the ``SUV Loophole,'' and require that SUVs meet the same fuel efficiency standards as passenger cars by 2011.

   Simply put, this legislation is the single most important step the United States can take to limit dependence on foreign oil and better protect our environment.

   If implemented, closing the SUV Loophole would: Save the U.S. 1 million barrels of oil a day and reduce our dependence on foreign oil imports by 10 percent. Prevent about 240 million tons of carbon dioxide--the top greenhouse gas and biggest single cause of global warming from entering the atmosphere each year. Save SUV and light duty truck owners hundreds of dollars each year in gasoline costs.

   CAFE standards were first established in 1975. At that time, light trucks made up only a small percentage of the vehicles on the road, they were used mostly for agriculture and commerce, not as passenger cars.

   Today, our roads look much different, SUVs and light duty trucks comprise more than half of the new car sales in the United States.

   As a result, the overall fuel economy of our Nation's fleet is the lowest it has been in two decades, because fuel economy standards for these vehicles are so much lower than they are for other passenger vehicles.

   The bill we are introducing today would change that, SUVs and other light duty trucks would have to meet the same fuel economy requirements by 2011 that passenger cars meet today.

   The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, NHTSA, has proposed phasing in an increase in fuel economy standards for SUVs and light trucks under the following schedule: by 2005, SUVs and light trucks would have to average 21.0 miles per gallon; by 2006, SUVs and light trucks would have to average 21.6 miles per gallon; and by 2007, SUVs and light trucks would have to average 22.2 miles per gallon.

   Last year, the National Academy of Sciences, NAS, released a report stating that adequate lead time can bring about substantive increases in fuel economy standards. Automakers can meet higher CAFE standards if existing technologies are utilized and included in new models of SUVs and light trucks.

   And earlier this month, the head of the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration said he favored an increase in vehicle fuel economy standards beyond the 1.5-mile-per-gallon hike slated to go into effect by 2007. ``We can do better,'' said Jeffrey Runge in an interview with Congressional Green Sheets. ``The overriding goal here is better fuel economy to decrease our reliance on foreign oil without compromising safety or American jobs,'' he said.

   With this in mind, we have developed the following phase-in schedule which would follow up on what NHTSA has proposed for the short term and remain consistent with what the NAS report said is technologically feasible over the next decade or so: by 2008, SUVs and light duty vehicles would have to average 23.5 miles per gallon; by 2009, SUVs and light duty vehicles would have to average 24.8 miles per gallon; by 2010, SUVs and light duty vehicles would have to average 26.1 miles per gallon, by 2011, SUVs and light duty vehicles would have to average 27.5 miles per gallon.

   This legislation would do two other things: 1. It would mandate that by 2007 the average fuel economy of the new vehicles comprising the Federal fleet must be 3 miles per gallon higher than the baseline average fuel economy for that class. And by 2010, the average fuel economy of the new federal vehicles must be 6 miles per gallon higher than the baseline average fuel economy for that class.

   2. The bill also increases the weight limit within which vehicles are bound by CAFE standards to make it harder for automotive manufacturers to build SUVs large enough to become exempted from CAFE standards. Because SUVs are becoming larger and larger, some may become so large that they will no longer qualify as even SUVs anymore.

   We are introducing this legislation because we believe that the United States needs to take a leadership role in the fight against global warming.

   The International Panel on Climate Change, estimates that the Earth's average temperature could rise by as much as 10 degrees in the next 100 years, the most rapid change in 10,000 years.

   This would have a major effect on our way of life. It would melt the polar ice caps, decimate our coastal cities, and cause global climate change.

   We are already seeing the effects of warming: In November, the Los Angeles Times published an article about the vanishing glaciers of Glacier National Park in Montana. Over a century ago, 150 of these magnificent glaciers could be seen on the high cliffs and jagged peaks of the surrounding mountains of the park. Today, there are only 35. And these 35 glaciers that remain today are disintegrating so quickly that scientists estimate the park will have no glaciers in 30 years.

   This melting seen in Glacier National Park can also be seen around the world, from the snows of Mt. Kilimanjaro in Tanzania to the ice fields beneath Mt. Everest in the Himalayas. Experts also predict that glaciers in the high Andes, the Swiss Alps, and even Iceland could disappear in coming decades as well. These dwindling glaciers offer the clearest and most visible sign of climate change in America and the rest of the world.

   Yet, the Administration has walked away from the negotiating table for the Kyoto Protocol. This is a big mistake. The United States is now the largest energy consumer in the world, with 4 percent of the world's population using 25 percent of the planet's energy. We should be a leader when it comes to combating global warming.

   The single most effective action our nation can take to limit reliance on foreign oil and reduce global warming is to increase the fuel efficiency of our vehicles. The simplest way to do this is to simply bring the fuel efficiency standards for light trucks and sport utility vehicles, SUVs, into conformance with other passenger vehicles.

   I urge my colleagues to support this legislation. "

Legislation that actually can help us reduce our dependence on foreign oil by a million barrels a day, more than 1/3 of what we currently important from the Persian Gulf by raising fuel efficiency standards for light trucks by over 33% to bring them in line with regular passenger automobiles.  This bill needs support since similar measures have been squashed many times over by the automobile industry and unions.  Write and urge your Senators to support S. 255.  Don't yell "No Blood for Oil" without exercising your responsibilities as a citizen to try and remove as much oil from our foreign policy equation as possible.

"Sometimes I wish that the five permanent members of the U.N. Security Council could be chosen like the starting five for the N.B.A. All-Star team — with a vote by the fans. If so, I would certainly vote France off the Council and replace it with India. Then the perm-five would be Russia, China, India, Britain and the United States. That's more like it.

Why replace France with India? Because India is the world's biggest democracy, the world's largest Hindu nation and the world's second-largest Muslim nation, and, quite frankly, India is just so much more serious than France these days. France is so caught up with its need to differentiate itself from America to feel important, it's become silly. India has grown out of that game. India may be ambivalent about war in Iraq, but it comes to its ambivalence honestly. Also, France can't see how the world has changed since the end of the cold war. India can."

France-bashing is always fun, no matter your political persuasion ;)

And I do tend to agree with the general point that India needs to take a larger role in world affairs than they currently occupy.

"The Bush Administration is preparing a bold, comprehensive sequel to the USA Patriot Act passed in the wake of September 11, 2001, which will give the government broad, sweeping new powers to increase domestic intelligence-gathering, surveillance and law enforcement prerogatives, and simultaneously decrease judicial review and public access to information."

I've been meaning to post something on this, but I think I'm going to wait until it's actually introduced as potential legislation before devoting a whole lot of energy to it.  I suspect the political atmosphere has changed enough since PATRIOT that if introduced it would have a slim chance in hell of being passed in its existing form.  I did think it important enough to mention in any case, so readers can take a look at it and get their thoughts in order in case it does make it to the halls of Congress.

"The winds of political change are swirling even in Saudi Arabia. Sources here point to a "bill of rights" that was signed last month by 140 Saudi business leaders, professors and intellectuals. The four-page document, "A Vision for the Present and Future of the Country," called for a Saudi parliament, free elections, a fairer distribution of wealth, a crackdown on corruption and more rights for women.

The Saudi manifesto concluded: "We need not go beyond Osama bin Laden to prove that the new Islamists are on the wrong path." Sources say that King Fahd met with a delegation of 40 of the intellectuals to receive the document -- a sign that the royal family takes its demands seriously. Though it has been mentioned in the Arab press, the document has received surprisingly little attention in the West.

When the bombs begin exploding over Iraq, this reform process may be threatened by anti-American protest and renewed Islamic militancy. Muasher argues that the best way for the Bush administration to stem such a reaction is to show it is serious about reviving the peace process and halting Israeli settlements in the West Bank. "If you don't deal with settlements quickly, we are approaching the time when a viable Palestinian state isn't possible," Muasher warned."

The Arab world is moving to reform itself.  We need to be sure, that whether we go to war in Iraq - as seems almost inevitable now - or don't, that we lead by example in order to help the more reasonable and/or secular forces that are already working to change their societies and to avoid assisting their Islamist counterparts by fanning the flames of extremism.

I will be keeping my eyes open for a copy of the document mentioned, as it doesn't seem to have hit the web yet.

--
Composed with Newz Crawler 1.3 http://www.newzcrawler.com/

"The Islamic group Ansar al Islam assassinated a minister of the Kurdish parliament and two other government officials on Saturday night, and seized two hostages whose fate remained unknown today.

A team of gunmen, whom Kurdish officials said had been able to get close to the minister because they were masquerading as peace negotiators, also killed three civilians and wounded 12 other people. Among the injured was an 8-year-old girl who was shot in the forehead. Doctors said she was likely to die."

Leader of the Afghan Northern Alliance, Ahmed Shah Massoud, was assassinated on September 9th, 2001 by al-Qaeda agents posing as reporters to get close.  The assassination has been widely recognized as either a signal, or at least a sign that the 9/11 attacks were underway.  If Ansar al Islam is an Iraqi/al Queda front group as is alleged by many, could the assassination of Shawkat Haji Mushir - an important figure in the Kurdish government - be a sign to carry out pre-emptive strikes in anticipation of a US attacks?  I'll be keeping my eyes open.

I thought I'd share here something I posted today to a mailing list I'm on so those reading could gauge my reaction to Powell's presentation.  I'll have more to say on this once the thought-out foreign reactions start rolling in.

"I find the evidence of Iraqi active non-compliance convincing, and I suspect most everyone will have to fall in line eventually or risk irrelevence.  However, I'm a little surprised that no attempt was made to present the immediate need for action.  I suspect this is going to be a hanging point both at the UN and in Congress.

Everyone will eventually fall in line for action against Saddam, but I forsee more calls to let the inspections work before action takes place absent an immediate threat.  I do however see a large opportunity, having presented this evidence, for the US to put serious pressure on Iraq and lead the UN to a tougher inspections regime, which - given Saddam's intransigence - should lead to Iraq's eventually failing the test and clearly demonstrating to the world their deception.  I don't think the inspectors are far from calling the whole thing off anyhow.  Blix seems fairly fed up.  Why Iraq is allowed to nix U2 flyovers is confusing to me.  While I feel we would probably be justified in going in unilaterally now that reasonable evidence has been presented, I think if we choose to do so, our chances of future cooperation in such matters as supressing North Korean silliness and dealing with the Israeli-Palestinian issue are entirely diminished.  For these reasons we are better off- absent non-disclosed evidence of an immediate threat - using our the immense resources we are bringing to bear on Iraq for the  purposes of war to assist the UN inspections effort in every way possible, if for no other reason than to speed up the inevitable failure of the inspections process.

In the meantime, lets get the homeland tightened up.  Let's take all the spare money Bush has lying around to give to the taxpayers and tighten up the borders and strengthen local law enforcement and related agencies.  I'm willing to give up what'd be returned to me for those purposes.  Are you all?"

""The essential intellectual challenge," he told me, "is how to make liberalism relevant for our time. How do you make the principles of equality and justice and fairness work in a time when everyone's well off? I struggle with that every day. In my darkest soul, I sometimes wonder if it takes an economic depression.""

A NY Times Magazine feature on Gary Hart, his ideas, the scandel and why people can't get past it. 

[via Political Wire]

"President Bush will propose a nearly $470 million boost in NASA's budget for fiscal 2004, an administration official said on Sunday, promising investigators would look into whether past cutbacks played any part in the space shuttle Columbia disaster."

Good for Bush.  I can't imagine a riskier endeavor than travelling to space.  Thankfully, Bush seems to recognize this risk comes with the territory.  On to Mars!

"THE PRESIDENT: My fellow Americans, this day has brought terrible news and great sadness to our country. At 9:00 a.m. this morning, Mission Control in Houston lost contact with our Space Shuttle Columbia. A short time later, debris was seen falling from the skies above Texas. The Columbia is lost; there are no survivors.

On board was a crew of seven: Colonel Rick Husband; Lt. Colonel Michael Anderson; Commander Laurel Clark; Captain David Brown; Commander William McCool; Dr. Kalpana Chawla; and Ilan Ramon, a Colonel in the Israeli Air Force. These men and women assumed great risk in the service to all humanity.

In an age when space flight has come to seem almost routine, it is easy to overlook the dangers of travel by rocket, and the difficulties of navigating the fierce outer atmosphere of the Earth. These astronauts knew the dangers, and they faced them willingly, knowing they had a high and noble purpose in life. Because of their courage and daring and idealism, we will miss them all the more.

All Americans today are thinking, as well, of the families of these men and women who have been given this sudden shock and grief. You're not alone. Our entire nation grieves with you. And those you loved will always have the respect and gratitude of this country.

The cause in which they died will continue. Mankind is led into the darkness beyond our world by the inspiration of discovery and the longing to understand. Our journey into space will go on.

In the skies today we saw destruction and tragedy. Yet farther than we can see there is comfort and hope. In the words of the prophet Isaiah, "Lift your eyes and look to the heavens. Who created all these? He who brings out the starry hosts one by one and calls them each by name. Because of His great power and mighty strength, not one of them is missing."

The same Creator who names the stars also knows the names of the seven souls we mourn today. The crew of the shuttle Columbia did not return safely to Earth; yet we can pray that all are safely home.

May God bless the grieving families, and may God continue to bless America. "

The Presidents statement this afternoon.  Video available here.

"Immediate popular reaction in Baghdad on Saturday to the loss of the U.S. space shuttle Columbia and its seven-member crew -- including the first Israeli in space -- was that its was God's retribution on Americans.

"We are happy that it broke up," government employee Abdul Jabbar al-Quraishi said.

"God wants to show that his might is greater than the Americans. They have encroached on our country. God is avenging us," he said.

Car mechanic Mohammed Jaber al-Tamini noted Israeli air force Colonel Ilan Ramon was among the dead when the shuttle broke up shortly before its return to earth.

"Israel launched an aggression on us when it raided our nuclear reactor without any reason (in 1981), now time has come and God has retaliated to their aggression," Tamini said."

Iraq breaks out the shovels to dig their hole deeper.

"On Jan. 16, shortly after Columbia lifted off, a piece of insulating foam on its external fuel tank came off and was believed to have hit the left wing of the shuttle. Leroy Cain, the lead flight director in Mission Control, assured reporters Friday that engineers had concluded that any damage to the wing was considered minor and posed no safety hazard."

"The space shuttle Columbia appeared to explode and break up in the skies over Texas on Saturday with seven astronauts on board after it lost contact with NASA minutes before landing, followed swiftly by reports of debris on the ground."

17 years and 5 days after the Challenger disaster 8(