Politics

Politics begets cynicism, especially during the campaigning season when each politician tries to outdo the other in spouting disingenuous and sometimes patently false statements. Cynicism in turn becomes the aegis with which we defend our apathy. (“It’s all the same”, “Why bother when nothing changes.”) But are our peregrinations into indifference, well founded? I gather not for things do change - like they have over the past eight years under Bush. There exist not only a strong imperatives to prevent the ‘worse’ choice from getting elected - for cost of such misadventures is often great (at least $4 trillion has been added to the deficit in the past 8 years to pay for tax cuts for the rich, and Iraq War), but more optimistically the rewards of having someone sensible (when the off chance arrives as it has with Barack Obama’s candidacy) in a leadership position are often as large as the costs of electing an imbecile. Here below, I briefly document the policy achievements of two leaders (Kevin Rudd and Zapatero), to corroborate the claim made above.

Kevin Rudd, leader of the Australian Labor Party, was elected to the Prime Minister’s office about five months ago, on 3rd December, 2007. His first ‘official act’ on taking office was to sign the Kyoto Protocol, and mandate Australia – the largest per capita polluter in the world – to deal with the biggest crisis in the world today. With that signature, Rudd not only wiped clean the Howard era moral bankruptcy, but also put Australia firmly on the path of enacting a progressive climate policy. A few days later, Rudd de facto scrapped “Pacific Solution”, the ignominious Howard era policy that sent all asylum seekers arriving by boat to remote islands for ‘assessment’. Rudd’s policy agenda has been far more ambitious than merely rolling back the perverse policies of Howard regime. Rudd committed his government to tackling homelessness, a growing and salient problem in Australia. In February, Rudd offered a short but unambiguously worded apology on behalf of the government and the Australian parliament for the shameful the treatment of the aborigines.
[Read more at BBC News]

Zapatero’s achievements as head of Spain may have been slower in coming than Rudd’s whirlwind pace, but they have been no less momentous. In his four years at the helm, he “legalized gay marriage, brought in fast-track divorces and laws to promote gender equality and tackle domestic violence. He also introduced an amnesty for undocumented workers.” (BBC. He has introduced “targeted measures to raise the female employment rate (which is still comparatively low in Spain)”, “established the legal right to paternity leave”. Under Zapatero’s capable finance minister, Pedro Solbes, Spain “declared a budget surplus for a third consecutive year, topping 2 per cent of gross domestic product for 2007.” Policy Network

The impact of electing someone like Obama would be similarly momentous for the US, and the penalties for electing McCain (running for the third term of Bush), or Clinton (who is planning to “obliterate” Iran) severe.

Kevin Rudd - White paper on first 100 days (pdf)

The military regularly ranks as the most trusted institution on public opinion surveys. Veterans are regularly deified by politicians of every stripe as heroes rendering extraordinary service to the country. Even when politicians are articulating their dissent for the Iraq War, they frequently find time to issue a short sermon praising the heroes, and reiterating America’s commitment to its veterans.

The unique status of the veterans and the military in the modern American consciousness can be traced to the revolutionary origins of the United States. The military success in the “War of Independence”, and the “Second War of Independence” (War of 1812), and the heroism of the ‘founders’, is an essential part of America’s collective memory, along with being an essential part of the school history curricula. Tony Judt, in his superb column for The New York Review of Books, writes that one of the reasons militarism continues to persist in US is because -

“Americans, perhaps alone in the world, experienced the twentieth century in a far more positive light. The US was not invaded. It did not lose vast numbers of citizens, or huge swathes of territory, as a result of occupation or dismemberment. Although humiliated in distant neocolonial wars (in Vietnam and now in Iraq), the US has never suffered the full consequences of defeat. [Judt makes a reference here to South's defeat in the Civil War and subsequent reaction as exception that proves the rule] Despite their ambivalence toward its recent undertakings, most Americans still feel that the wars their country has fought were mostly “good wars.” The US was greatly enriched by its role in the two world wars and by their outcome, in which respect it has nothing in common with Britain, the only other major country to emerge unambiguously victorious from those struggles but at the cost of near bankruptcy and the loss of empire. And compared with other major twentieth-century combatants, the US lost relatively few soldiers in battle and suffered hardly any civilian casualties.”

Vinay, a regular contributor here, adds to the above argument, articulating that the other possible reason for this continued ‘heroification’ of military and veterans is because as a country of immigrants, people in US have often found it hard to find things (like common history) to rally around. In absence of those themes, people have opted to rally behind things that exclude no one. That latent tendency has been buttressed by generations of strategic political actors, and mass culture producers.

The other unique fact that brings the above arguments in sharp relief is the disproportionately (as compared to other countries – excepting ones with mandatory military training) large number of veterans in the US. According to the Statistical Abstract of United States for 2004-2005, the country had 24.9 million veterans. The large veteran population is a result of two things – having one of the largest standing armies in the world, and the preponderance of personnel who serve the army only for a few years (generally as a way to have their college tuitions paid.)

Given the factors outlined above, it shouldn’t come as a surprise that the American residency has been dominated by men with prior military experience. However the sheer number is still surprising – for 137 of the 219 years the country since its independence, the country has had a veteran as a president. Associatedly 29 of its 43 presidents have been veterans. There are at least three caveats about the numbers provided above– Eight years of George W Bush’s ’service’ in the National Guard have been excluded; the five years of Lincoln presidency have been included (Lincoln participated very briefly in the Black Hawk War of 1832), and Millard Fillmore’s tenure isn’t included as his experience in the military was after he had left his presidency. One can raise questions about inclusion of some other presidents including Madison (whose service was brief again), however, as one can see, such tinkering is unlikely to impact the numbers much.

The longest time American’s went without electing a veteran was the 32 year period starting with Taft in 1913, and ending with Roosevelt’s death in 1945. Incredibly, during this time, the country took part in the two World Wars.

Perhaps the subsequent question we may want to ask is what impact has election of presidents with prior military experience had on the country. The lessons there remain less clear.

US President mil experience summary table[1] - Get more documents

In David Fidanque and Janet Arenz, Petitioners on Review, vs. State of Oregon, Oregon Supreme Court (1998) defines lobbying as “influencing, or attempting to influence, legislative action through oral or written communication with legislative officials, solicitation of others to influence or attempt to influence legislative action or attempting to obtain the good will of legislative officials.”

The proponents of lobbying argue that any law curtailing it impinges on two core First Amendment clauses - that Congress shall make no law abridging the right of the people “to petition the Government for a redress of grievances”, or curtailing “freedom of speech”. In return, states have argued that they have substantial interests in preventing actual corruption, and perception of corruption, and given lobbyist’s common perception of being dishonest, and a vast array of empirical evidence as to the actual incidence of corruption, they have interests in placing restrictions on lobbying.

Courts have for long upheld citizen’s rights to petition the government taking note that the idea of democratic government implies in part a right of the citizen to petition. (Capps, 2005) The “right to petition”, as numerous legal scholars have noted, predates the Bill of Rights and hence is sacrosanct. Furthermore, Courts have also for long upheld the idea that lobbying, in essence, is a way of petitioning one’s representatives. In Liberty Lobby, Inc. v. Pearson (390 F.2d 489, 491, 492 (D.C. Cir. 1967)) [For details on case citation], the Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit found that peopleinvolved in trying to effect congressional action by engaging in lobbying activities were exercising their right to petition.

However the courts have long also recognized that while the right to petition is an essential one, it is also a limited one. (Capps, 2005) Hence, the courts have ruled that there is no absolute right of a citizen to speak in person with public officials. In absence of absolute rights, and citing countervailing interests like state’s interest in preventing corruption given the likelihood that lobbying will “promote the temptation to use improper means to gain success”, and maintaining confidence in the public decision making process, the courts have sided with the government in a host of cases to restrict contingency fee arrangements, impose registration and disclosure requirements on lobbyists, prohibit lobbyists from making political contributions when legislature is in session (N.C. Right to Life, Inc. v. Bartlett, 168 F.3d 705, 717-18 (4th Cir. 1999)), among others. Courts, while ruling in these decisions, have noted that barring such practices do not substantively curtain the right to petition as they don’t impose a significant (or merely unsubstantiated) burden on the petitioning process, and should a law do so, it may be grounds for it being invalid. For example, in the Oregon Supreme Court decision cited above in the definition of lobbying, the Court found that the biennial registration fee imposed by the state on the lobbyists to be in excess of costs of registration itself, and hence invalid.

The underlying strain in these cases has been the need to balance the needs of the citizenry to openly petition its representatives in line with the basic tenets of a representative government, and the needs of the executive and legislative branch to safeguard the system itself from threats of corruption. While deciding on these cases, the courts have always been keenly cognizant that in line with the constitution’s dictum of three equal and separate branches of the government, they have limited rights in imposing the standards of operation within each branch of governance, for as long as they do not violate the freedoms and rights guaranteed in the constitution. Simultaneously, the court has recognized in the past the merit of not only reducing the actual occurrence of corruption, but also reducing the perception of corruption. In both Buckley v. Valeo (424 U.S. 1 (1976)), and McConnell v. FEC (540 U.S. 93 (2003) - brought after the enactment of McCain-Feingold or BCRA/Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act) the Court has recognized the need to mitigate perceptions of corruption and actual incidence of corruption, and congressional authority to pursue legislation towards that purpose. The Court’s arguments, offered on maintaining the sanctity of the election process of legislators, should theoretically apply to the legislative process as well.

The “freedom of speech” arguments for lobbying stand on less firmer grounds. The right to “freedom of speech” is not and should not be seen as a law guaranteeing the “right to be heard”. Similarly, there is no law protecting the right of a citizen to have a private hearing with the legislator, or more broadly speaking, private speech.

The Courts have sided with the government in a significant number of cases where the state has shown a plausible case for restricting lobbying based on corruption concerns, and wherever they have found that the restrictions don’t disadvantage some content over other. However there are legitimate important rationales that undergird the right to lobby (petition) and courts have been cognizant to not support legislation that is overly broad. The law however doesn’t provide guidance on voluntary disavowal of money from lobbyists for campaigning (without the “magic words” that breach express advertising standard), and nor does it restrict lawmakers from running on a platform that upfront states that the said candidate will not accept ‘favors’ (legal ones) from lobbyists, or will not join a lobbying firm if his or her reelection bid fails (close the “revolving door”). Congress and the Executive - both have significant leeway in enacting significant ethics reforms that will likely sharply curtail the power of “special interests”, and a myriad options (including the one chosen by Edwards and Obama) remain open remain for lawmakers to not ‘choose’ to be influenced by ‘lobbyists’. Combating the influence of special interest would however require more widespread measures – especially as public opinion polls become the key determinants of candidate policy positions and as lobbyists’ influence in manipulating opinion through media or ‘astroturfing’ increases. Fewer options exist to combat that except perhaps a more active citizenry.

Last thoughts - “Democratic Senator Max Baucus, the new chair of the tax-writing Senate Finance Committee, is offering special interests a chance to go skiing and snowmobiling with him - $2,000-dollars a head, or $5,000-dollars from a political action committee.” reports ABC 7. (pdf)

Citation -

“Gouging the Government”: Why a Federal Contingency Fee Lobbying Prohibition is Consistent With First Amendment Freedoms”. 58 Vanderbilt Law Review 1885. Meredith A. Capps. (2005)

Chaste, a contributor to the site, has crafted a persuasive argument - with a little help from me - as to why Obama is the better candidate in the Democratic primary. Read more -

Why Obama?
The system of democracy that we have been assigned to only allows us to make comparative judgments between candidates standing for election. We do not get to vote for “ideal” candidates but merely the best among the ones who are running. At this stage, Democratic partisans and independents (in some states) get to choose between Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama. One of these candidates will eventually represent the Democratic Party in November against a Republican candidate.

The past eight years in this country have been an unmitigated disaster – they have not only been financially ruinous (an average of about $12,000 of debt has been added to the already burdened back of an average American, the dollar has plummeted), they have also proven to be catastrophic for America’s reputation and caused grievous harm on vitally important issues like climate change. All of the major Republican candidates running today – while careful in distancing themselves from Bush – espouse positions that are virtually indistinguishable from that of Bush. There is little doubt in my mind that if we elect another Republican to the White House, we are going to see a rehash of the policies that have proven to be so ruinous. So for all who are concerned about having another Republican in White House come January 2008, it is important to pay attention to electability.

As Frank Rich points out in his column for the NY Times, Republicans are all set to dig up the unending mounds of dirt that emerged from the White House under Clinton Era. The Clinton closet hides more than Lewinsky’s stained blue dress; it also contains sodden episodes like the Whitewater kickbacks, the White House as guest house for donors, pardoning of Marc Rich, the Clinton library donation from the Saudis, among many others. More than that, Hillary is widely seen (justly or unjustly) as a “divisive” candidate unlikely to win any converts among independents. There is now empirical evidence –from the four contests and national opinion polls – that that is indeed true, as Obama has handily won amongst independents in each of the contests and leads amongst independents nation wide.

Let me move next to discussing their stances on the Iraq war –a core issue for a lot of Americans not only for its price tag, estimated at over $2 trillion by Columbia and Harvard professors, but also for the active disinformation campaign by the administration and the complicity of press and “opposition” leaders.

Senator Obama had the judgment and the courage to call the Iraq war correctly from the beginning. This was no happenstance or knee-jerk response. “I am not opposed to all wars. I’m opposed to dumb wars,” he had said in 2002. His argument was based not only on the insultingly egregious evidence presented for going to war but also steeped in pragmatism - he accurately predicted that American troops won’t be greeted with flowers in Iraq. His sound judgment is in part the product of his abiding interest in foreign policy: his major at Columbia was International Relations. It is also due in part to his life experiences: as a boy with a Kenyan father—and later an Indonesian stepfather—who spent four years growing up in Indonesia, and who lived in the multicultural swirl of Hawaii. Fareed Zakaria, a former managing editor of Foreign Affairs Magazine and currently Editor of Newsweek International, said that Senator Obama is the only candidate who knows “what it means not to be an American”, an understanding critical to a successful foreign policy in our time. Senator Obama is an admirer of the foreign policy of President Truman who combined the establishment of NATO with the Marshall Plan, and of President Kennedy who combined a military build up with the establishment of the Peace Corps. He wants to make Foreign Aid a strong component of American foreign policy to establish American military and moral leadership. He is currently the only candidate running for office who is open to talking to Iran without any preconditions.

Senator Obama also has a clear grasp of economic policies. Recently, a Washington Post writer decided to grade all the candidates based on the stimulus packages they proposed to address the recent economic downturn. As the candidates put together these responses relatively quickly, they accurately indicate the quality of the candidates’ understanding of the economy. Senator Obama topped with an A-, Senator Edwards and President Bush had a B-, and Senator Clinton had a C+; the best grade for a Republican candidate was a D+. The article is a very good read so I would recommend that you read it in full.

Senator Obama gives us grounds for trusting his integrity because of his record of putting his money where his mouth is. After graduating from Columbia, he worked for several years as a community organizer on the south side of Chicago, not the regulation one year that most law school applicants work to beef up their resume. After graduating Magna cum Laude from Harvard law, he chose to be a civil rights lawyer rather than making millions as a corporate lawyer.

Senator Obama also has a record of bringing people together to get things done. He has done this at least since his days at Harvard Law when he emerged as the consensus candidate as the president of the Harvard Law Review after bitter acrimony between ideological factions (no mean feat as law students like their own opinions very much, and have nothing to lose from being obdurate). In the U.S. senate, he has worked with respected Republicans like Senator Lugar over the control of conventional weapons like hand-held anti-aircraft missiles and land mines, as well as with Republican ideologues like Senator Coburn over corporate transparency legislation.

Senator Obama’s main opponent, Senator Clinton often offers up her experience as the reason for preferring her. While Senator Clinton was very competent and successful in her long career as a corporate lawyer, her career in public life has unfortunately been marked by incompetence. Her mishandling of Health care reform not only resulted in the Republican landslide of 1994 that swept away strong Democratic majorities in Congress; it put off any serious consideration of Health care reform for more than a decade.

If part of the debacle of her Health care effort may be attributed to political inexperience, no such excuse exists for her vote to authorize the war on Iraq in 2002. At the same time, Senator Clinton also voted against the Levin amendment, which would have required Mr. Bush to come to Congress for war authorization if he failed to obtain a U.N. resolution. The two votes combined make it clear that Senator Clinton’s authorization for the war on Iraq was unequivocal, and not conditional on exhaustive diplomacy as she would have us believe. Senator Clinton had access to the entire National Intelligence Estimate. The full report had considerable reservations about the WMD claims spun by the Bush administration. To date, she has consistently refused to say whether she did or did not red the full report, instead maintaining only that she was briefed on the report. Failure to read the report in an important matter like war would suggest incompetence and a lack of seriousness; her vote after reading the report would suggest that she attached more importance to the spin of the Bush administration and TV Pundits than to the assessments of career civil servants even in important matters like war. (NY Times, Hillary on War)

To err may be human, but not to learn from one’s mistakes is incompetence. Senator Clinton has refused to acknowledge that she even made a mistake in her war authorization vote, which suggests a temperament on which experience is wasted. An instance of this was her vote for the Kyl-Lieberman resolution in 2007, which urged the Bush administration to declare Iran’s Revolutionary Guards (numbering about 120,000) a “terrorist” entity. Many saw this resolution as the basis for a possible invasion of Iran in the future. Senator Clinton claimed that her vote would help negotiations with Iran. Yet calling a major state agency “terrorist,” will only make it difficult for the Iranians to compromise, and the “terrorist” label would increase domestic U.S. pressure against meaningful negotiations with Iran. Senator Clinton’s use of such flawed logic as the basis for a possible war creates grave doubts about the quality of her thinking. Fortunately, The Bush administration adopted a much more judicious and restrained approach than that advocated by Senator Clinton, and declared only a small subset of the Revolutionary Guards as a “terrorist” entity. The tension was further defused recently when the National Intelligence Estimate concluded that Iran has had no nuclear weapons program for the past few years. It however very powerfully brings into question Senator Clinton’s judgment.

Senator Clinton has chosen to run a divisive campaign making liberal use of the gender and race cards. She has recruited surrogates including her own husband to launch a vitriolic campaign, which has only divided the Democratic Party. These are the actions of a candidate who is in ONLY to win. Senator Clinton was already a polarizing influence in the nation as a whole (though this is not entirely her fault). Her calculated dividing of the Democratic Party bodes ill for her chances in November if she is the candidate, and for passing her agenda if she becomes President.

The foregoing shows that when it comes to the qualities we seek in a president, such as soundness of judgment, clarity of understanding, quality of thought, and integrity, Senator Obama is by far the better candidate. He has a much clearer understanding of both foreign policy and of the economy. The domestic programs of all three Democratic candidates are substantially comparable. Senator Obama’s proven record of uniting people and working across the isle gives him a much better chance of turning his program into legislation.

For all these reasons, I urge you to vote for Senator Obama in the primary on Feb 5.

Links:

• Barack Obama’s speech on MLK day urging Americans to be more empathetic.
• SF Chronicle
• San Jose Mercury News
• Chicago Tribune
• The Boston Globe
• Michael Chabon - Obama Vs. the Phobocracy in The Washington Post

Get Involved

On February 5th 22 states go head to head in contests that will essentially decide the Democratic candidate. If you support Obama’s candidacy, and would like to get involved, please go to Barackobama.com to learn more about how you can contribute. You can donate towards the campaign by clicking here.

The drive to acquire Nuclear weapons is thought to stem largely from local threat perceptions. The above statement becomes all the more clear when we take stock of the countries where the nuclear weapons activity is limited to.

The Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (North Korea) nuclear weapons program initially started as a response to the not-so-veiled nuclear threat from Truman during the Korean War. During a press conference on November 30, 1950, Truman acknowledged that using the nuclear bomb was part of the contingency planning. (Bruce Cummings, Korea’s Place in the Sun: A History, multiple other sources) and during 1951 active hints - moving Mark IV nuclear capsules - were dropped to convey that the usage was imminent. Beyond 1953, US’s continued presence in the Korean peninsula and in the Sea of Japan – is seen as a key reason as to why North Korea assiduously followed its nuclear program. Iran’s drive for acquisition of Nuclear Weapons can be similarly understood as a response to guard against the US threat.

It is however hard to imagine what particular use the smallish stockpile of nuclear weapons would be of to DPRK. Any nuclear escalation by it will surely be met by an ‘overwhelming’ US response. Simply put, there is no deterrent against a super-power. Except perhaps alliance with another superpower. (I will come to this point later.) However nuclear weapons do provide a country with capability to make any assault on it costly for the superpower by attacks on its key allies (Japan and South Korea). (Vinay) So while North Korea is held in check by the incredible US military power, US in turn is held in check (to some degree) through North Korea’s ability to inflict damage on its allies. The same goes for Iran, which feels vulnerable to unprovoked US attack, given its inability to inflict damage on its ally (Israel) in the region.

Strategy towards DPRK until now

The strategy to contain DPRK nuclear weapons program has been consisted of the Agreed Framework signed in 1994, the multilateral ’six-party’ agreement signed in 2007, and multitude of covert “Sun Tzuian” attempts to affect regime change. All these strategies have ended in different levels of failure.

The Agreed Framework, which required the DPRK to “dismantle its nuclear facilities and dispose of all its weapons grade plutonium”, only temporarily interrupted production - the fuel rods, with weapons grade plutonium embedded in them, were stored in a pool awaiting reprocessing, and never removed from North Korea - as DPRK simply re-prioritized its efforts to construction of delivery systems. The efforts culminated in the successful August 1998 Taepo Dong I missile test. DPRK – as AQ Khan confirmed in 2003 – also developed an indigenous uranium enrichment capability in the intervening years. In a three week period in Dec 2002/Jan 2003, Kim Jong Il expelled all international weapons inspectors, restarted the Yongbyon reactor and withdrew from the Non-Proliferation Treaty. Three months later the DPRK acknowledged it had nuclear weapons, and eventually tested one in Oct 2006.

After years of neglect, Six-Party Talks held in February 2007 resulted in an agreement that called for North Korea to shutdown its 5 MW (e) graphite moderated reactor at Yongbyon by 14 April 2007. Almost immediately, North Korea refused to comply with the terms of this agreement and the Yongbyon reactor continued operation for more than two months beyond the mutually agreed upon deadline. On 18 July 2007, the International Atomic Energy Agency finally confirmed that all five nuclear facilities at Yongbyon had been shut down. Since that time, “disablement” has continued. However, more recently on 26 December 2007, Hyon Hak Pong, vice director-general of North Korea’s Foreign Ministry, stated the disablement process will be delayed, in a statement reminiscent of the process of “repeated delays” practices following the signing of the 1994 Agreed Framework.

The 13th February agreement, which was signed on the precondition that US would release the $25 million dollars frozen by Washington at a Macau bank, Banco Delta Asia, which had allegedly helped the DPRK illegally lauder money and pass counterfeit $100 bills, is a much weaker agreement than the 1994 one. The 13th February agreement avoids the term “dismantling”, and uses the more ambiguous terms “abandonment” and “disablement”, which allows the DPRK to essentially leave its entire nuclear infrastructure in tact. Immediately following its signing, the DPRK state-run news agency announced that the offer of aid equivalent to 1M tonnes of fuel oil was made in connection with North Korea’s “temporary suspension of the operation of its nuclear facilities”.

Reasons for failure

While the 13th February agreement holds the six-parties - China, Japan, the ROK, Russia and the U.S. – accountable, each have different motives and capabilities of performing the duty. For instance, while China may admonish DPRK publicly – as it did when DPRK fired ballistic missiles on the 4th of July and then conducted a nuclear test on 09 October - it has little incentive to be a truly accountable. After all, the nuclear threat from NK concerns US much more than it does China. Similarly, Russia has little incentive to police North Korean compliance. Japan and the US have very little leverage with North Korea due to non-existent trade links, that make any possibility of tangible economic threat moot, and South Korea seems disinclined. North Korea on the other hand doesn’t quiet have the security guarantee to comfortably forgo its nuclear program which makes its giving up of nuclear capability unlikely.

Strategy for success

Putting NK’s security needs at the heart of the debate is essential to gain a better understanding of how to craft a more sustainable agreement for North Korea. To gain a better understanding on its security needs, I will briefly survey the threat posed by Japan/US combine.

The US has over the past many years led the most cavalier foreign policy in the world. The policy has led to numerous regime changes, more failed regime changes, countless assassinations, and support of terror groups. In East Asia, US maintains a significant military presence, has bi-lateral security agreements with Taiwan, Japan, and South Korea – and as co-guarantor of their security flexes muscle at each of their expressed security worries - and regularly issues damning rhetoric like ‘axis of evil’. While US’s capability to launch an attack in East Asia has been severely compromised due to ongoing conflagration in Iraq, it nonetheless remains a potent and continuous threat to North Korea.

While Japan has a strictly ‘pacifist’ constitution, it hasn’t stopped it from building a very sophisticated and well armed “self defense force”. Similar kind of ambiguity underpins its nuclear strategy. While Japan under Prime Minister Eisaku Sato, promulgated the “Three Non-Nuclear Principles” on 05 February 1968, and has been a tireless promoter of non-proliferation at a variety of international venues, it also has one of the largest stockpiles of enriched plutonium in the world – estimated at over 46 tons. While the majority of its plutonium is in storage in France and the UK, an estimated 5.7 tones (still enough to build in excess of a thousand of nuclear weapons) exists within Japan. In addition, Japan currently possesses approximately 3 tons of “near” (i.e. roughly 90% Pu-239, 7% Pu-240, 3% Pu-241) Weapons Grade Plutonium (WGPu), and could immediately begin production of larger quantities of WGPu and Weapons Grade Uranium (WGU) for more reliable and higher yielding warheads. It also has potent delivery vehicles in the form of H-2 (ICBM capable of carrying a 4,000 kg payload over 15,000 kms), and M-3SII (IRBM capable of carrying a 500 kg payload approximately 4,000 kms). In addition, Japan possesses a robust Theater Ballistic Missile Defense (TBMD) system which forms the centerpiece of “deterrence by denial” strategy. Since 2002, many high level Japanese officials have openly discussed the possibility of Japan pursuing an indigenousness nuclear capability. Chief Cabinet Secretary Yasuo Fukuda and Tokyo Governor Shintaro Ishihara have bluntly called for “revising” the Three Non-Nuclear Principles.

Kim Jong Il is primarily interested in maintaining himself as North Korea’s “Dear Leader”. US rhetoric about democratization, and omnipresent military threat jeopardize that. A “non-use of force” agreement between the US, South Korea and the DPRK would go a long way in ameliorating North Korea’s concerns but still won’t remove all doubts from either side. Minus the trust in such a treaty, all things go back to some version of the status quo. A better idea would be to rope in China and ask it to sign a protection deal with North Korea –styled on US –Taiwan agreements. Of course China’s interest in roping in North Korea is debatable given that a nuclear North Korea is a concern for US and not China. China, however, can be enticed through incentives. This kind of a deal would mean sacrificing some of the military supremacy that US has enjoyed in East Asia but in the longer term it would lead to a safer region for its allies.

Threats from non-state actors and other contingencies

Since “Chicago Pile One” – the first self-sustaining nuclear reaction - in 1942, a total of 9 Nuclear Weapon States (NWS) have emerged. In addition to the 9 current NWS, Japan possesses the capacity to produce nuclear weapons on a quick notice. Two other countries, Libya and South Africa have come forth and disbanded their nuclear weapons programs.

However, the critical nuclear threat is now thought to come from non-state actors. None of the 9 NWS can provide an exact accounting of the amount of Weapons Grade Plutonium (WGPu) or Highly Enriched Uranium (HEU) they possess. In Russia alone, only 64% of the basic Material Protection, Control, and Accounting (MPC&A) “rapid upgrades ” (i.e. bricking over windows, installing detectors at doors) have been completed, and even fewer “comprehensive security and accounting upgrades” specifically designed for securing each facility and its stored material(s), have been completed. More ominously, cases of trafficking of nuclear materials are becoming more commonplace. The most recent case came on 01 February 2006 in the Georgian capital of Tbilisi when North Ossetia resident and Russian citizen, Oleg Khintsagov attempted to sell 100 grams of weapons-grade uranium to a Georgian undercover agent posing as a rich foreign buyer. This uranium was obtained from the nuclear material storage facility in Novosibirsk, Siberia; the same facility suspected to be the source of another 2003 nuclear material trafficking case which involved the seizure of 170 grams of HEU. Also in 2003, a court case in Russia revealed that a Russian businessman had been offering $750,000 for stolen weapon-grade plutonium for sale to an unidentified foreign client.

There is legitimate concern about non-state actors using nuclear weapons but using them would mean such an unacceptable escalation that would surely jeopardize the larger aims of whatever organization. But non-state actors are much less rational than nation states and diffuse organizations may mean that the ability to conclusively hit back at them is limited at best. The other concern is that neutralizing the organization may not neutralize the threat of the ideology that the organization may purport. On the positive side however – non-state actors often times have depended on explicit nation state funding. As long as nuclear material is traceable to its source – something which isotopic analysis can do now – the organization and the state actors funding it can be implicated providing each state actor with powerful incentive to control such activity by the organization they fund or support.

Summarizing

The US must embark on a much saner foreign policy course and tone down its rhetoric so as to ameliorate the security worries that countries feel. The other related action would be to see to it that countries like North Korea get their security guarantees from major powers to which they are close to. Little recourse exists as to dealing with non-state actors except strengthening state actors – including providing help in sealing nuclear materials, and instituting a strengthened security program. It is important to keep in mind that the chance of a nuclear attack is minuscule and expenditure on security should be commensurate to it.

Use of nuclear weapons has been stigmatized in international arena to such a degree that nuclear weapons are weapons of last resort for state actors, and likely for non-state actors too. The chance of usage of nuclear weapons hence remains minuscule and it is debatable whether it is worth focusing large amounts of resources on removing them from regimes with limited capacity to produce or use them. However, nuclear weapons do have strategic consequences (e.g. deterrence) on the ability of US to exercise power. The prominent worry is that with deterrence countries could feel emboldened to support terrorism. In addition, given the predicted cascading effect of nuclear weapons-neighboring countries feel threatened by nuclear neighbors and then their neighbors feel threatened etc. – strategic consequences can be immense. The course of action that I prescribe above focuses on mitigating security threat of countries that are intent on building nuclear weapons. But the strategy comes with consequences. Ameliorating threat perceptions of North Korea may also imply giving up chance of ever really threatening North Korea. And therein lays the bargain and a key dilemma. You can have a nuclear armed country with deterrence that that successfully deter your attacks or be in a treaty with you or another major power which also effectively provides deterrence to it. There are two key advantages to the latter strategy – preventing the cascade effect, and limiting threat of proliferation. The significant downside to both strategies is limiting the ability to mount punitive action. Given that alternative sanctioning mechanisms like levying economic sanctions have proven to be ineffective, very little edge ways space is available to counteract support for hostile entities except perhaps mounting negotiations – which may not quiet work minus the threat of the stick.

It is perhaps best to look at the issue as to how much harder does presence of nuclear weapons make launching of punitive action in face of hostile activities. The fact of the matter is that propensity for mounting war as punitive action – even without nuclear deterrence - remains very low given the political and economic costs of war. So in the small minority of cases – really Iran and North Korea – presence of nuclear weapons may make US attack a little less likely from the already low number but given the overwhelming military superiority that US enjoys – not terribly less likely than non-nuclear scenario.

Seen hence, nuclear weapons possession can be seen as a marginal gain for the countries but nothing which will decisively tilt the power equation.

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Part of the research for this article was done by Cmdr Mark Williamson, Fellow at the Hoover Institution.

It was only a little more than a month ago that Benazir Bhutto returned to Pakistan, after nearly eight years in self-imposed exile, to a rapturous welcome, and a stark threat of violence. Within days, however, emboldened by her reception, the largely salutary attention from the media – both national and international, and her pragmatic assessment of Musharraf’s rather limited options, Bhutto schemed to press home her perceived advantage in the power-sharing deal with Musharraf. A welcome opportunity arose when the Supreme Court led by self-styled messiah of constitutionality, Chief Justice Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry, appeared set to reject Musharraf’s recent “election” – the entire opposition boycotted this barely concealed charade – as President.

Musharraf, ever the wily General, pre-empted Supreme Court’s actions with a declaration of emergency on November 3rd, days before the Court was to hand its verdict. The emergency, which appears to have been declared at least with the knowledge of US if not with its backing, drew swift condemnation from around the world. Emergency declaration spawned the by now familiar scenes of protesting lawyers, undoubtedly with some PPP support, against the ‘illegality’ of Musharraf’s declaration. Musharraf and Bhutto, still hedging their bets, appeared to avoid a confrontation till November 9th when Bhutto declared her intention to lead a motorcade from Lahore to Islamabad on the 13th. Musharraf reciprocated by giving the orders to put Bhutto under house arrest.

The chorus of condemnation, and the Western penchant for espousing formulaic naïve idealism, put enormous pressure on America’s support for Musharraf. From America’s perspective, it appeared that supporting Musharraf and the status quo wasn’t particularly in their interest, given the choice of dealing with equally amenable democratically elected representatives. America, it appears, let Musharraf know as much, and then worked with Saudi Arabia to bring Nawaz Sharif – whom Musharraf had removed in a coup in 1999 had successfully exiled – back to Pakistan.

With the arrival of Nawaz Sharif, who still appears petulant - in spite of his hair transplant- with his threats to boycott elections in January, even though the first thing he did after coming to Pakistan was file his nomination papers, the electoral equation has changed. There is now a strong possibility that Sharif, untainted by General’s touch, would perform strongly in the polls. The return of Sharif and the possibility of his electoral success marks the denouement of a political drama thick with intrigue, lack of trust, and greed.

Not so Sharif

Last time Sharif fought elections in 1997, his party managed to garner enough seats in the parliament to change the constitution, which it used first to strip president of his discretionary power to dismiss the government (Article 58 (2b)), and then to enact a law to allow party leaders to expel anybody from legislature who violated “party discipline”. The second measure was rejected by the Supreme Court as unconstitutional. Accusations of ‘judicial activism’ were leveled against the court and Sharif set to bring the court under his control. After a protracted battle with Chief Justice Sajjad Ali Shah during which Sharif threatened to curtail the size of court to 12 from 17, Sharif forced the resignation of Shah by ably recruiting the other justices on the court against Shah. Between 1997 and 1999, Sharif assiduously worked to concentrate power. By early 1999, he felt sufficiently emboldened to suppress media. Between December 1998 and January 1999, his government sent notices to Jang newspapers to remove 16 journalists considered hostile to the government. When Jang refused, they launched cases charging tax fraud, among other things. “In May, two senior journalists, Najam Sethi and Hussain Haqqani, were arrested and a few others were harassed by the intelligence agencies. Sethi was accused of treason on the grounds that he delivered an anti-Pakistan speech in New Delhi.” (Hasan-Askari Rizvi, 1999)

Consumed by hubris, Sharif, whose relationship with the army soured notably after the army failed to deliver on Kargil, set to tackle the Army. On October 12th while Musharraf was on an official tour to Sri Lanka, Sharif dismissed Musharraf and replaced him with a low level crony from Pakistan’s intelligence services. While Musharraf was still on the plane, the army responded by banding behind Musharraf and executing a coup against Sharif’s government. By the end of the day, Musharraf had taken the newly minted position of ‘Chief Executive’ - since the position of President was already taken - and thrown Sharif into jail.

The ‘incomparable’ Bhutto

Benazir Bhutto embodies the conflicts that cleave at the heart of Pakistani politics. She is a Radcliffe (Harvard’s college for women) and “oggsford” (the college Gatsby went to) alumna and a “deeply dedicated Muslim” , a Shia by birth and a Sunni(?) by marriage, daughter of the last ’statesman’ – a reputation Zulfikar, (the name of the double-edged sword Husayn used in Karbala, and a name that aptly captures his two sided personality of a feudal minded socialist), sealed with Shimla accord– and wife of Mr. 10%, the first democratically elected female leader in the Muslim world and the leader of one of the most notoriously corrupt regimes to lead Pakistan.

Bhutto’s political career rests upon the mythology of her father and the Bhutto name, and she has done little to let PPP grow beyond a personality cult, much like the nepotistic practices of the Nehru-Gandhi family in India. Bhutto, over her career, has not only shown calculating pragmatism – like her marriage to an undistinguished “successful businessman” at 34 in preparation of elections in 1988, or courting the West by playing to its stereotypes, and decisions reflecting deep sense of entitlement and nepotistic feudal tendencies like her appointment of mother, Nusrat, as a senior minister without portfolio, followed by appointment of her father-in-law as chairman of the parliamentary public accounts committee, she has also shown a penchant for making brash decisions that come easy to a woman born in luxury, excessively feted by the West, and who was elected a Prime Minister at the age of 35. Her decision to press her advantage – when she saw a beleaguered Musharraf at the center of an international outcry – was one such misstep – and a misstep that is likely to cost here politically.

Pakistan: A country of exiled political leaders

When Sharif was sent to exile in Saudi Arabia in 2000, the heads of Pakistan’s three major parties –the other two being Bhutto (PPP) and Altaf (MQM) - were to all in exile. Despite the forced absence of leaders from parties which rely a fair bit on their leaders, Musharraf still couldn’t cobble together a new political structure – as was his stated intent. Perhaps it was because these leaders were able to rule so effectively from their respective exiles. But the more likely reason is that new political structures aren’t built in elites – they are built by years of demagoguery and pandering. In reality, Musharraf shouldn’t have tried to cloak his authoritarian regime with democracy. By playing a benevolent autocratic democrat, Musharraf clearly took on too much. He replaced politics with something far more inert and calculated, and his self-righteous defense of the charade combined with his increasingly manifest status as a vassal to US, drew people away.

The present and the future

Musharraf imprudently relied too much on continued support from US, while Bhutto overplayed her hand by pushing too far with her rent-a-day rioters. It is very likely that the true beneficiary of the current fiasco would be PML, which will expectedly fight the election in alliance with Islamic parties, if elections are allowed to be held fairly – a relatively improbable scenario.

Bhutto, Sharif, and Musharraf do not trust each other. A game of political brinkmanship, as evidenced by banning of Sharif and his brother Shahbaz by the Musharraf controlled Election Commission and the meeting between Sharif and Bhutto, is now unfolding as each tries to form alliances or thwart the other. It is useful to note that forming alliance with one on a particular issue doesn’t preclude forming an alliance with another. This game will continue till election results come in and throw the power equation in sharp relief. Election results will also draw accusations of unfairness, and each of the power blocs has a large enough support base to cause major disruptions.

It is going to be a turbulent few months for Pakistan.

Further Reading:
BBC: Pakistan - the balance of forces Added (12/17)

The following article has been written by Chaste, an astute commentator who has written for Spincycle before.

Note: The author has used the phrase, “illegal workers” only when the illegality is specifically implicated. Elsewhere, he has used the phrase “foreign workers.”

Discussions about immigration reform have acquired a feverish intensity. Not only is there a pervasive sense of the intractability of the problem, there are wildly differing accounts of the nature and extent of the problem. These are tell-tale signs that the problem is probably overstated, and that there is a simple and straightforward solution – that the problem lies in the public’s attitude to foreign workers and immigration (read race-class nexus in substantial part). Here below, I will try to show that this conjecture is largely true.

Reliable data about the effect of illegal workers on the economy is hard to come by, in part because of basic disagreements about which factors to measure. Therefore, I will rely on analytical reasoning. On its face, the contention that immigrants who come to America in search of work are a burden on the economy seems absurd. The economy supports most native workers through their parasitic (from the economic point of view) phases of childhood and early youth. Americans for instance, consume close to $100,000 in school funding alone by the end of their high school. It is inconceivable that the average foreign worker could consume public services on a scale even remotely close to that. The economy gets a free lunch from foreign workers because it gets the benefit of their productive years without ever supporting them in their parasitic / dependent phase. This is a minor variation on what we know as the “brain drain.” That it goes largely unacknowledged points out the close ties between class and worth in this society.

Other popular arguments such as the burden on public schools also strain credulity. It is unclear that a child who may be here through no choice of its own should be lumped together in the same categories as illegal immigrant workers. In any case, since most of these children will grow up to be Americans, the rational approach to measuring their impact on the economy is within the trajectory of their own lives. Some even lament the supposedly downward pressure on wages. Yet wage levels are not determined merely by the market internals of demand and supply. External checks in forms like foreign competition are significant. The assessments of regulatory agencies like the Federal Reserve regarding the optimal wage pressures in a labor market are particularly important.

The proposed solutions are equally mired in unreal contentions and assumptions. Despite the clamor for walls and tighter border security, there is no evidence that migration patterns are responsive to anything other than economic opportunities for foreign workers. Programs that allow employers to check the immigration status of their employees voluntarily have produced no results. Massive state action in the form of imprisonment against employers, or deportation / imprisonment against foreigners who have been in this country for many years, is probably too controversial to be viable.

For the record, I will quickly lay out the simplest solution, one that is obvious to anyone who has given the issue any serious thought. The solution makes the following basic assumptions:

• The government has an interest in having a stable and competitive labor market. It has the right to use immigration as a tool to address market distortions caused by structural problems (health and legal sectors are dramatically over-compensated relative to other sectors), or by cultural stigma (specific types of casual labor do not attract American workers at a pay rate appropriate to the relative lack of required skills). The government can achieve this with minor modifications to the concept of “prevailing wage rate.” The government currently uses the “prevailing wage rate” to protect American skilled workers from wage cuts due to immigration.
• To the extent that American workers maybe disadvantaged by immigration, this is largely a function of the disparity in rights between citizens and foreign workers. The obvious solution would involve not depriving foreign workers of rights, but rather drowning them in rights. It is important here to distinguish between rights and entitlements: rights simply give privileges within a transaction such as employment without any guarantees that the transaction (employment) will actually happen whereas an entitlement guaranties that the transaction will happen. Currently, the government protects victims of sexual trafficking, and it can similarly protect foreign workers when employers violate their rights (henceforth “violating employers”). Indeed the government should allow the foreign workers to recover substantial financial damages from violating employers.
• The government should use market incentives rather than administrative regulation because it will enable more effective implementation. As mentioned above imposing greater burdens on illegal workers is unhelpful because it is their very lack of rights that makes them attractive employees. Besides, with no rights, even deportation has failed as a deterrent. Imprisonment of violating employers will likely be politically controversial. Very stiff fines against violating employers will target a group, which is particularly sensitive to such incentives, and will have an increased chance of political viability.
• The government should avoid controversy and increase efficiency by delegating implementation to private enterprise. American lawyers have proved themselves gods of enterprise by defying even the most basic laws of economics like the price supply curve: even as the country is drowning in lawyers, they continue to rake in enormous incomes. The government should allow private civil actions in court in which lawyers for successful foreign workers can recover lawyer’s fees from violating employers and get a percentage of the recovered damages.

The broad outline of a solution is clear. The government should determine the minimum wage rate for different professions based on the needs of the economy. Thus, the minimum wage rate can be lower than the prevailing wage rate in over-compensated professions so that those sectors do not become a drag on the economy. Conversely, the minimum wage rate can be higher than the prevailing wage rate for lower skill jobs because the low prevailing wages are often possible only because of indirect government subsidies in the form of social services. The foreign workers should have the right and incentive to sue violating employers. If successful, the foreign workers should get a permanent right to stay, should get their lawyer’s fees paid by their violating employer, and be able to recover substantial damages from violating employers (between $50,000 and $100,000). The prospect of 40% of $50,000 – $100,000 in addition to lawyer fees will motivate lawyers to pursue violating employers aggressively. Once these measures ensure enforcement, the government can throw open employment opportunities to foreigners, and increase labor supply in over-compensated and culturally stigmatized sectors. The minimum wage rate and the threat of legal action will make employers wary of hiring foreign workers in other sectors except in special circumstances.

This simple solution is obvious to anyone who has given the matter serious thought, or to anyone who has a passing familiarity with the legal sector. Yet mainstream media never mentions it. The public eschews practical solutions in favor of posturing in part because as discussed above the alleged problems likely do not exist. The idea that foreign workers should have the rights to sue American employers is anathema to American conservatives. They are unlikely to accept the idea to resolve fictitious problems. Liberals do not see immigration as much of a problem, and are content with the status quo. Americans would dearly love to have the jobs themselves, and have the work done by foreigners, all without the inconvenience of having the foreigners in their midst. Failing this, they have settled for the perks of cheap labor, the comforting disparity in the rights enjoyed by themselves and the largely non-white foreign workers, and the self-indulgence of a self-righteous hysteria centered on law and legitimacy.

Preface

Epistemic standards for evidence delineate the kind of decisions reached in a decision making system though different systems need different kinds of explicit statutes for evidence to reach decisions of same ‘quality’ on average. Explicit standards for evidence and argument are critical in a competitive system where competing groups have palpable incentives to withhold information, monger stilted information, use irrelevant information, or use any tactic to win. In the following paragraphs, I etch out my argument using US government as an example.

Epistemic standards in government

Differing epistemic standards pervade different branches of the US government. The epistemic standards are loosely correlated with the idealized ‘expected’ function of the branch of government.

Let me begin by outlining the differing epistemic standards and then I will go into detail as to the possible effects of those ’standards’ or lack thereof.

Epistemic standards in judiciary

US judicial system uses the adversarial system in which each of the parties present its case to a neutral party (judge or jury). Each side is supposed to furnish evidence in support of its argument, and an ‘impartial’ judge decides on what evidence is better in terms of its applicability and strength.

The adversarial system is a competitive system that relies on the sparring parties to furnish evidence. Like any competitive system, the sparring parties have explicit incentives to withhold information from each other and misrepresent information. The system relies on the ‘other’ party to excavate any such violations, and sometimes on the neutral party. There are some other formal procedures to limit the kind of evidence that can be presented (though some are rooted in alternate theories) and procedures for sharing corroborative evidence. There are also formal procedures as to what kind of arguments can be presented.

The adversarial judicial process inarguably uses the strictest standards of evidence amongst any branch of government.

Epistemic standards in Legislative and Executive branch

While the legislative process is largely a ‘competitive’ system, it has no formal epistemic standards limiting the kind of evidence or arguments that can be presented. The strength of the evidence presented, its applicability, etc. are either ‘judged’ by ‘citizens’ (substantially mediated by media) or by members of the other competing party.

The problem with legislative branch is not only that it is a competitive system but that is a corrupt, special interest driven, competitive system. The system provides little incentive to the members to judge the evidence in an impartial manner with the ‘nation’s’ best interests in mind.

There are literally no epistemic standards that hold back the executive branch except for some loose constraints that tie those standards to marketability of a particular policy decision.

Side note: Adversarial systems flirt with Inquisitorial systems

Congress also uses the ‘Inquisitorial system’ when it conducts ‘Congressional Hearings’ to ‘investigate’ a particular issue. Of course due to partisanship pressures, the inquisitorial system often uncomfortably borders on ‘inquisition’.

Conclusion

Lack of epistemic standards for evidence and argumentation hobble the democratic system immensely. One way to correct the problem would be to create governance structures that explicitly involve independent bodies that judge the strength and applicability of evidence presented.

‘Public Opinion’ is central to the democratic political process and it has never been more important that today, when ‘Opinion Poll’ numbers are constantly cited in the media to buffet policy choices. It behooves us hence to foremost understand opinions and the process of opinion change, and then to think critically about whether the causal mechanism driving ‘opinion change’ are commensurate with the expressed ideals of ‘democracy’.

What is the value of an ill-considered opinion from a person with limited knowledge of the facts? Close to none, one would expect. But apparently, it is worth much more in a policy debate on the Hill if sound bytes by politicians quoting poll numbers to buffet the validity of their issue positions are anything to go by.

Courtesy significant advances in sampling methodology, communication technology, and computational technology, one can now conduct a nation wide Opinion Poll cheaply (relatively) and quickly. Every major media company, from New York Times to Fox News, now publishes stories about the ‘findings’ from the polls with unerring frequency and drops these numbers casually on near about every policy issue, let alone questions like, ‘What should Paris Hilton eat for breakfast?’

Given the important role that media has in ‘framing’ the issue (Iyengar), and the fecundity of the polls, news media now often cites figures from opinion polls as part of a story on an issue and asks politicians to defend their policy choices (in six seconds or less) given the poll numbers. Correspondingly politicians increasingly cite poll numbers on issues as corroboratory evidence for or against a policy direction.

Where do opinions come from?

In a culture that values ‘individual expression’ above everything else, it isn’t surprising that people offer opinions on issues they know little to nothing about an issue. Funnily, and as has been extensively documented in Political Science literature, people not only offer opinions about what they know nothing about, they also offer opinions about non-existent (phantom) issues. (Lippman, 1993 and others) Krosnick et al. have posited a more benevolent interpretation of ‘phantom opinions’ arguing that these opinions originate from ‘violation of communication norms’. Even if Krosnick is right, there is wide agreement within the field that the general public which makes it to the voting booth and gleefully casts its vote (a behavior strongly based on overall opinion) is deeply ignorant about most issues.

Leaving aisde ‘phantom opinions’, let us try to understand where opinions come from. “Every opinion is a marriage of information and values-information to generate a mental picture of what is at stake and values to make a judgment about it.” (Zaller, 1991) It is important to notice how Zaller uses the term ‘information’ which he describes later in the paper as whatever political information a person consumes via media or other ways. By limiting himself to political information, Zaller mistakenly assumes that political opinion making sits in an isolated bunker – only affected by relevant political information – in people’s minds. Neuman in his book, ‘Common Knowledge’ has persuasively argued on the contrary. Leaving Neuman’s objections aside, it is easy to surmise that information has generally little to do with facts of the case. Secondly, we have yet to tackle how much of the opinion is driven by ‘values’ and how much of it is driven by ‘information’ but it seems intuitive that the mix would vary depending on a variety of factors ranging from the issue at hand (opinion on a value issue like abortion would inarguably have higher percentage of ‘value’ as compared to one on economic policy), need for cognition (people with higher need for cognition would use more ‘information’), cognitive ability, amount of information, etc.

Normative Questions

Since the publication of American Voter (Cambell et al.), and Coverse’s later explications (1964, 1970), which described the average American voter as apathetic, and largely ignorant about major issues, political theorists have grappled with threat that an uninformed voter poses to the claims of normative superiority of democracy. If democracy was to be claimed as a ‘normatively superior system’ in itself, without resorting to claims about its superiority as an instrumental good that provided ‘better governance’, it was important for the political theorists to argue that voters voted their interests – a claim which was no longer possible in lieu of evidence that pointed to widespread ignorance. The more severe threat that the theorists are rightly concerned about, is whether the democratic system can continue to deliver its benefits if the voters ceased to vote ‘their interests’ given a lot of benefits in the system are predicated on that assumption. While the conjecture is open to empirical analysis, we can theoretically analyze the value of an ‘opinion’ in an ideal democratic model.

The value of an expressed opinion in a democracy is directly proportional to its ability to tap into a voter’s ‘real interests’, best understood as ‘interests’ –as understood by the voter - under ‘full knowledge’ condition.

Ideal Opinions, Opinion Aggregation

Value of opinion cannot be pried apart from the system in which it is used. The composition of ‘ideal opinion’ would vary according to the system. Since we are talking about a democracy, let’s analyze its composition here.

The value of an opinion in a discussion is if it reveals a hitherto unknown piece of information. In a poll where you are asked to furnish your ‘considered preferences’ that benefit is lost to some degree. One can argue that there is indeed some knowledge hidden in the choice but since a poll weighs considered choices equally with ill-considered ones, and because we don’t know what led to the final choice, it is impossible to argue whether democratic majorities do bring forth collective knowledge. The only condition in which the scenario would hold is when a majority of the voters vote for the ‘right’ preference.

Let us now assume ‘full-information’ and the only variable as ‘value system’. If there is a ‘common’ universally accepted value system, then there is little value in soliciting opinions from everybody. It is when you start thinking about ‘averaging’ across value systems, a tenuous concept at best, that you need to think about soliciting opinions from others. Polling populace on a fixed choice of politicians is an impoverished way to go about tapping into ‘people’s will’.

Perhaps the way to tackle the problem is by actually breaking this down into a two-step problem – information maximization and ‘averaging’ over values. I believe we have the scientific community to address the former, but I do not have the answer to the latter but perhaps informed deliberation – which involves ‘public exchange of reasons’ - about consequences would be one way to approximate that.

In a previous article, I analyzed horse race coverage of political issues in terms of partisanship. In retrospect, I don’t think the issue can be appropriately dealt with in terms of partisanship. The most corrosive aspect of ‘horse race coverage’ is not partisanship, but lack of substance in coverage. I use this article to expand my analysis on this particular aspect.

Since ‘horse race’ was first used to define media coverage of elections, I have extended the term to how media covers issues though a more appropriate analogy here would be ‘football game’ style coverage given that is heavy on reporting or ‘analysis’ of strategy.

The reportage today is focused towards analyzing the strategy of ‘teams’(parties), which are understood chiefly through its celebrity players (political leaders), engaged in a highly complex game. News coverage on domestic politics today involves extensive coverage of the process of how decisions are made (and not made), the innumerable stories on the power dynamics between the Legislative branch and the Executive, or between the leaders of the parties, whilst little attention is paid to charting out the impact of the policies. Whereas we see extensive coverage and analysis of alleged ‘missteps’, we hear little about the substantive topic of interest – issues at the heart of it.

There is now a virtual army of pundits – each appropriately fitted with meager intellect, large ego, and partisan affiliation - that dissects each and every political move and its impact on the public perception of a particular leader or of political parties. Be it the reporting about the ‘immigration bill’ or “Iraq’, there is now an abundance of reports that talk about ‘Bush’s loss’ or ‘Rove strategies’ or the ‘lame duck president’. Indeed strategy is an intrinsic part of politics, and dictates what is possible and what isn’t, but reporting on strategic aspects shouldn’t come at the expense of reporting on issues.

Causes

Driven partially by celebrity style coverage that puts individuals at the center rather than issues, serious reporters have mistakenly taken on the view that it is important to devote substantial energy on reporting on PR and strategy aspect of how decisions are made and how they will influence some person or organization.

Part of this style of reporting has to do with how news organization choose to organize and how they prioritize- There is a ‘White House’ and there are generally a few reporting from the bowels of congress, but aside from a regular crime beat there are few reporters assigned to analyzing issues. Analysis is either left to polemicists or hack pundits.

Certainly a substantial part of the reason has to do with reporters who haven’t thought through what is worth reporting what isn’t. There is this bizarre idea that news is current, that if news is a day old then it is stale and unworthy. What the heck is the utility of this news either way for poorly informed citizens of a democracy? I understand why news about the weather has to be reasonably fresh, and why some business news has to be fresh, but why does anything else have to be delivered within five seconds of it happening? This harks back to the comments I have made about the marginal (more likely no) utility of breaking news. The point though is broader – lack of a theory of news – aside from race to earn the most money – has seriously compromised not only the overall coverage, which is more Paris Hilton than substantive news topics, but also the coverage that is given to ’serious’ topics.

Manipulating Median Voter Theorem

It is a commonly touted finding that partisanship within elites is much more rampant than within the common populace. One would have thought that in accordance with the “median voter theorem”, a simplistic majority voting model for single dimension issue space proposed by Duncan Black and later popularized by Anthony Downs, the elites would be under pressure to have public ideological profiles that appeal to the ‘median voter’.

This seemingly ‘irrational’ behavior of the elites can be explained in a variety of ways - average voter, which includes only the people who do vote, is on average more partisan than an average eligible voter, an average ‘voter’ chooses a candidate based on vague personality and party cues rather than specific issue position cues (to which they are largely unaware), voter’s issue positions are incestuously linked to the positions outlined by the candidates that they ‘like’, and the fact that elites gerrymander the multi-dimensional issue space so that the salient issue(s) on which an average voter votes are ones on which they have positions similar to the ‘median voter’.

Party and Partisanship

While the overall impact of parties has waned over the years, the party ‘line’ exercises more control on candidate’s professed positions. In this world of continuous media coverage there is increasing pressure to present a consistent party approved stance. At the other end, there is a strong self-selection process, precedent, and certainly fear of how each ‘off-message’ comments would be interpreted in media, that is driving an assembly line in which generally only candidates who profess abiding faith in party ideology succeed in the primaries.

There is a certainly an increasing gap between the message, the voting record, and the candidate opinion, and a deliberately cultivated one. The partisanship is held together by ‘partisan money’, and custom order research produced by think tanks to justify and corroborate any policy initiative that they are asked to.

Media and Partisanship

Horse Race format of covering policy

The other aspect of media’s impact on partisanship has been driven by how it covers political issues – be it immigration or Iraq. The much decried horse-race coverage, which was once a preserve of election coverage, has now entered the policy domain. A large number of articles in newspapers give an insider view of politicking and impact of a policy decision on the party rather than on say the nation. Now while covering a news story journalists go from politician to politician seeking quotes which they then use to provide worthless hack analysis in words of politicians. Nowhere do journalists stop and question the policy stances independently aside from what the ‘other side’ chose to point out. By doing this, they do two things – they first of all fail to provide substantive useful information to their readers, and secondly by weaving in partisan cues give readers automatic pointers to devalue certain information.

Partisan Identities: Using anger and satire

The rise of humorous “fake” news shows satirizing politics – most prominently “The Daily Show” by John Stewart - over the past decade has been widely seen as an unmitigated positive by a lot of self-identified ‘liberals’. What ‘liberals’, cozy in the success of a liberal comedy show, fail to realize is the pernicious aspect of satire - it delegitimizes opposing view points without proper analysis. It is only time before right-wing ‘news’ channels come up with their liberal baiting satire shows.

The other prominent way to delegitimize opposing opinion is through self-righteous anger. This is of course most prominently done by right wing pundits like Bill O’Reilly and Rush Limbaugh.

While Bill O’Reilly’s “No Spin Zone” is a stylized partisan lynching of the ‘liberal nigger’, Stewart’s satire is the vicious intelligent kind that ridicules the ‘idiots’. The shows use every rhetorical (and editing) trick to not only defeat the opposing party but do so in the most vicious incendiary manner that entertains the partisan viewers.

Both anger and satire are explicit identity building and reaffirmation rituals. What we see when straw man ‘guests’ get grilled on these shows is identify reaffirmation for the viewers – these people in the opposition are actually immoral, corrupt idiots.

Perhaps something of much more concern is the rise of entire partisan news channels. While there wasn’t much ‘news’ on the ‘news channels’ to begin with, and the ‘news’ coverage continues to cede territory to celebrity coverage, whatever shriveled carcass was left is now being preyed upon by explicit partisan coverage. There are no longer undisputed facts – there are now Republican facts, and Democratic facts. And of course both bear little resemblance to actual facts.

“Mr. Bush said Putin’s recent harsh comments toward the West suggests he may be trying to build support for his party in advance of next year’s elections, and the president saw that as positive. He said, quote, “When public opinion influences leadership, it is an indication that there is involvement of the people.”" (Fox Transcript)

The argument that Mr. Bush is making here, in case it is unclear, is that when leaders deliberately pander fear and do war mongering, it is a signal that the country is democratic. Alternatively, deliberate unethical manipulation of public opinion to garner votes is a “positive”.

Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry was born in 1948 in Quetta, Balochistan. Chaudhry went on to work for more than a decade in varying capacities in Balochistan. So it is surprising that the firing of this Baloch has prompted little or no response in Balochistan. The fact isn’t surprising if you look a little closer. Mr. Chaudhry, now feted as a humanitarian crusader, never once raised his voice when the general sahib ordered a full-fledged military assault on Balochistan. The reason why I mentioned this anecdote is because it serves as a useful example for how much arm in glove was Mr. Chaudhry with the general before the glove was discarded and picked up by the opposition parties.

There is one more twist to the tale – ethnicity. Chaudhry sahib is not an ethnic Baloch but a Punjabi abdagar, whom Balochis despise. We will come back to the ethnic angle later for no analysis of Pakistani politics is complete without analyzing the cross-cutting ethnic cleavages.

The Upright Justice

As Chief Justice, Chaudhry’s reputation rests on two cases – the now famous Steel Mill Case in which he ruled against selling of Pakistan Steel Mills to a group led by a friend of Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz (whose own position is in doubt due to the fact that he holds dual citizenship). Just as a footnote – the sale, which was overturned by Chaudhry, was authorized by a Cabinet Committee on Privatization led by Shaukat Aziz.

The second case that made his reputation was his decision to declare the Hasba bill, the NWFP Islamist bill, unconstitutional. Chaudhry was also vocal recently decrying Pakistani government’s complicity with US intelligence agencies and demanding the government provide information about the ‘missing people’.

The Corrupt Justice

Chaudhry was elevated to the position of Chief Justice by Musharraf in 2005. Since then Chaudhry sahib has played the role of an administration sock puppet admirably except, of course, in the cases mentioned above. There is little doubt that the humble justice’s wealth has grown with his position.

Most of the charges filed against the ex-CJP seem like the de-rigueur perks that a government bureaucrat in a reasonable position considers his right in South Asia – use of multiple cars, requiring “senior officials to receive him at airports”, “using helicopters and planes to go to private functions”, and forcing officials to help his son get admission in medical colleges and then getting him appointed as a “Grade 18 Police Officer”.

Somewhere among the litany of abuses is also this startling fact that Chaudhry wrote decisions on cases worth 55 million PKR. But the scale of corruption allegations can hardly be called dire - certainly not by South Asia’s lax standards. Critics point out more serious charges like property fraud and financial embezzlement dog other justices including two members of the Supreme Judicial Council which will hear the chief justice’s case. (BBC The critics further allege that “the chief justice was singled out because of his past performance, they say, which created misgivings in official circles about his likely role in the coming legal battles ahead of national elections, due later this year.”

Timeline– Chaudhry Dismissal to Karachi Clashes

Significant political events don’t automatically happen. A political scandal much like an unheeded boil festers and then bursts in violence. A timeline can give vital clues as to the kind of infection, who joined in and when, and what spurred the final orgy of violence. So here is a timeline to give a sense of the ebb and flow of this scandal.

March 9 – Justice suspended. More than the fact that he was suspended, it was the manner in which he was suspended that caught the attention. He was called up to General’s Rawalpindi residence, and held incommunicado for what people allege up to two days. The horror.

March 12 – Lawyers Begin boycott.

March 19 – Seven of the country’s judges resign including top judge of Punjab. Newspapers publish the picture of Chaudhry being shoved into a car.

March 28 – Chaudhry gives a speech arguing for independent judiciary

April 3 – Lawyers are still on strike. The SJC adjourns the hearings.

May 6 – Chaudhry gives speech in Lahore

May 13 – CJP Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry, came to address the city bar association on the 50th anniversary of the establishment of the Pakistani Supreme Court. Except it was not. It was a choreographed political move targeted to gain momentum against Musharraf. Except the move stalled and unraveled in its own strange way. Chaudhry never left the Karachi airport as PPP and MQM factions waged pitched battles in the streets killing nearly 40 and injuring 150 people.

Detailed Timeline at: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/south_asia/6649463.stm

Karachi, MQM, Jamat-e-Islami, and PPP

There are multiple centrifugal forces that make Karachi politics so volatile - the Mujahir-Sindhi-Pathan divide, the enormous class divide, the interaction between those two divides (ethno-class angle), and the divide created by self serving politics.
The political fortunes keep shifting depending on who is in power in Islamabad and the wishes of the American puppeteers. This current phase of violence saw the lines being redrawn across the MQM –PPP axis but with one key variation – MQM and PML-Q (Musharraf’s party) are now aligned. There is a reason for the realignment – MQM is the only viable political force against Jamaat-e-Islami Islamic fundamentalists that the US government so abhors. There is little doubt in my mind that this is a temporary alliance for Muhajirs have never had strong allies. It is likely that this current episode will eventually end with PPP and Musharraf coming to some kind of deal to thwart both MQM and JI.

Class and conflict

One look at the people going to welcome Chaudhry is enough to tell that they were these super well groomed rich elites. PPP has today become a party with significant traction amongst the landowning elite. In Karachi, it is represented and funded by the industrialists and the business owners.

Media and conflict
There was of course bias in the way media – and here I mean Western media for that is what I had access to – covered this event - it was the story of how a hero for political freedom and his supporters were thwarted by the autocratic government backed militia. The truth on the street obviously was a bit different.

Analysis

The most worrisome aspect of the violence was the collusion between the police and government. The 13,000 strong paramilitary that was deployed to control violence stood casually by as both the MQM and PPP backed militia sparred with each other. What brought home the complicity of the police for me was this classic video clip of a person held by the police on the street still being beaten by, who I am sure, were Musharraf supporters. Some have alleged that the indifference of the paramilitary forces was because they are Punjabi dominated.

The strangest thing in the whole Chaudhry scandal is not the Karachi violence but the alacrity with which lawyers banded together to protest the firing of the Chief Justice. Mobilization of lawyers seems like a handiwork of the PPP. It is unclear to me as to why would the lawyers protest – they didn’t protest when Mushy was made president. Why are they suddenly so worried about political freedom? It seems to be an exercise in political opportunism.

Lastly we must focus our attention on Chaudhry. He is neither a crusader for freedom nor a deeply corrupt judge. Chaudhry is somebody who dallied with anti-government stance, found himself in the deep-end, got scared, found the rope thrown by the opposition parties and hung himself with it. Now Karachi hangs in balance with him.

Further Reading:

• Dawn: Back to the future? By Zaffar Abbas
• BBC: Q&A: Pakistan’s judicial crisis
• BBC: Blood and batons spur Pakistan row

According to China’s fifth national census, conducted in 2000, there were around 117 males for every 100 females. The sex ratios in much of Europe and US are quite the reverse with there being around 105 females for every 100 males. Amartya Sen in an essay for NYRB argued that the reason behind the discrepancy was misogyny. Emily Oster, who was a Harvard graduate student at the time, published an article in 2005 arguing that “perhaps as much as 45 percent of the gender imbalance observed in the Sen (1992) missing women populations in the period 1980–90 can be accounted for by hepatitis B.” Oster further argued “that the explanatory power varies significantly across space: 75 percent of the missing women in China are accounted for, versus around 20 percent in India.” Oster’s article received a lot of attention on its release. Luminaries like Steven D. Levitt, inarguably one of the top economist in the world and regularly touted as a future Nobel Prize prospect, used Oster’s research to take a jab at Amartya Sen. The paper was seen as a sign post of how sometimes prejudicial seemingly convenient explanations can be completely off the mark. The article also produced a fair amount of backlash with Monica Das Gupta, a senior researcher at the World Bank who had prior produced scathing articles documenting female infanticide in Punjab, arguing that Dr. Oster’s methodology was flawed. Das Gupta’s critique didn’t go unrequited and soon the argument had turned into a narrow academic debate. Just recently Das Gupta has renewed her assault with an article that uses some innovative statistics to dig a hole in Oster’s hypothesis. “Das Gupta found that data from a huge sample of births in China show that the only women with elevated probabilities of bearing a son are those who have already borne daughters.” World Bank

When I contacted Oster with the link to Das Gupta’s latest salvo, Oster said that she plans to follow up on Das Gupta’s research and that she had been sidetracked by the academic job market.

After reading Das Gupta’s paper, there is little doubt in my mind that Gupta is right. The take home message is that statistics is a blunt instrument to deal with data and Oster-size holes are easy to dig if one is not careful. Additionally, gender discrimination remains a trenchant problem in South and South-East Asia.

Further Reading -

• Oster Rebuts
• Das Gupta Rebuts
• Das Gupta on Punjab

May 22, 2008

Oster admits that she was wrong - http://freakonomics.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/05/22/an-academic-does-the-right-thing/
Andy Gelman on Monica Das Gupta being right all along
http://www.stat.columbia.edu/~gelman/blog/

NY Times recently reported on research conducted by University of Washington that provides further corroboration for the well accepted fact that a dollar buys you more calories of junk food than say green vegetables. The other associated argument presented in the article is that government subsidies for oil and corn are primarily responsible for the cheap junk food. In effect, tax dollars are subsidizing obesity.

Listening to Gonzales testify about his role in the firing the US attorney was like listening to sand being grated across metal. Gonzales was so phenomenally incompetent and came across as so thoroughly morally bankrupt that it seemed like one was watching a SNL caricature of a Bush administration official.

Watching the proceedings on television, I repeatedly had the urge to bash my head against the wall, or throw something at the TV – to do anything –except of course turn off the TV- to make his smug doltish cherubic face, and his thin facile voice go away. “Mr. Gonzales came across as a dull-witted apparatchik incapable of running one of the most important departments in the executive branch,” according to the NY Times.

Both Republicans and Democrats picked Gonzales apart till he had nowhere to hide, except in the memory sinkhole. Gonzales used the phrase, “I don’t recall” a record 74 times (Nation pegs it at 64 plus numerous instances of “do-not-remember” and “can’t-quite-recollect” variations). (It is no wonder I suppose then that he can’t recall Habeas Corpus or the Constitution)
The phrase is set to become a “classic”, competing with greats like Nixon’s, “I am not a crook” and Clinton’s, “I did not have sexual relations with that woman.”

Exasperated senators repeatedly expressed disbelief at Gonzales’s problems with remembering details of important events that happened less than six months ago. “He had no trouble remembering complaints from his bosses and Republican lawmakers about federal prosecutors who were not playing ball with the Republican Party’s efforts to drum up election fraud charges against Democratic politicians and Democratic voters. But he had no idea whether any of the 93 United States attorneys working for him — let alone the ones he fired — were doing a good job prosecuting real crimes.” (NY Times)

Senators, smelling blood, jabbed him repeatedly with pointed remarks. Sen. Specter, thoroughly annoyed with Gonzales’s smart aleck responses to his question about whether he was prepared for the press conference in which he stated that he had a ‘limited’ role in the firings, quipped, “I don’t think you’re going to win a debate about your preparation, frankly. But let’s get — let’s get to the facts. I’d like you to win this debate.” The most pointed comment though came from Sen. Lindsey Graham, conservative Republican from South Carolina, who said say, “I don’t believe that you’re involved in a conspiracy to fire somebody because they wouldn’t prosecute a particular enemy of a politician or a friend of a politician. But at the end of the day, you said something that struck me: that sometimes it just came down to these were not the right people at the right time. If I applied that standard to you, what would you say?”

The Ken Lay defense
“Well, again, as — I accept responsibility for everything that happens here within this department. But when you have 110,000 people working in the department obviously there are going to be decisions that I’m not aware of in real time. Many decisions are delegated. We have people who were confirmed by the Senate who, by statute, have been delegated authority to make decisions.”
DOJ transcript

Memory Hole Defense
“Specter: Were you involved in the decision on the removal of Arkansas US Attorney Bud Cummings as Kyle Sampson testified?
Gonzales: Senator, I have no recollection about that, but I presume that is true.”

I don’t recall but that doesn’t mean it wasn’t the right decision
Answering to Sen. Brownback’s question about why he fired Bogden, Gonzales said, “I do not recall what I knew about Mr. Bogden on December 7th. That’s not to say that I wasn’t given a reason; I just don’t recall the reason.”
“In the end, Gonzales explained, even though he did not know why he fired Bogden, “I believe it was still the right decision.”"

The non-strategy

Gonzales’ strategy, to the extent that he has one, was that of equivocation and evasion. As was apparent during the grilling, the strategy didn’t go well. It is a bit surprising why the administration went with this strategy rather than use the partisan card to stifle the debate. The fact is that incompetence looks much worse on television than partisanship. The incompetence strategy left Gonzales exposed on one other key front – it precluded support from even the reliable party hacks like Corbyn and Graham. Gonzales has battled Senate successfully on multiple issues – Guantanamo Bay and Abu Ghraib come to mind – by repeatedly taking out the partisan card. Had the issue been dealt with by Republicans in a way in which they could show that it was assertive defiant partisanship that led to the firings, they would have withstood the assault better.

Further Reading:

• Youtube link to PoliticsTV which has a lot of videos of Gonzales hearing.
• Dana Milbank of WP hopes Maybe Gonzales Won’t Recall His Painful Day on the Hill - somehow I doubt it.
• Transcript of the hearings
• Chris Matthews, untainted by concepts like ethics– much like Gonzales, was quoted as saying that two-thirds of people want Gonzales to stay. And no, its not even remotely true.

After every tragedy like today’s shooting at Virginia Tech. which left 32 (BBC says 33) people dead, calls are made to put curbs on violent media. Almost always the penny-a-dozen talk talk show hosts greatly exaggerate the prevalence and magnitude of these incidents. And then we have politicians in full thrall of panic button policy making. After all full 33 people were killed by a loner psychopath, so it reasons to call for ban on violent media, introduce mandatory psychological testing for foreign students, increase policing and do “whatever is neccessary” to prevent a recurrence of something like this. In effect we now have a policy making model in place where one-time rare events that can’t possibly be avoided are given every whit of attention and spun into events that were long time coming due to the “moral depravity” and associated explanations.

The magnitude of tragedy
Vice Provost of Stanford, Dr. Boardman, sent out a university wide email expressing this thoughts about the “terrible tragedy that occurred on the campus of Virginia Tech yesterday.” Adding, “Such violence is beyond comprehension.” I wonder how much beyond comprehension Iraq, with its 650,000 dead, would be for the meager intellect of Mr. Boardman. It is the insidious hyperbole that creates conditions ripe to sell all and every policy choice. What is indeed the magnitude of this tragedy? Pitifully small, if you ask me. It is small compared to virtually everything a government should possibly deal with and focus its energies on.

‘Werther Effect’ -relation between violent media and crime

Two hundred years after the publication of Goethe’s The Sorrows of Young Werther, which triggered the craze for yellow pants, sociologist David Phillips coined the term “the Werther effect” to describe imitative suicidal behavior transmitted via the mass media in his landmark 1974 paper which linked news stories about suicides to adult suicides. (Other causal models have been posited including increase in sadness on seeing a suicide etc. though mimesis remains the psychological causal model of choice) Research since then has provided ample evidence towards the claim that watching violent features, let alone effect of active interaction in video games, has a tangible increased propensity towards violent behavior. Given that today an average adult today watches about thirty hours of television each week, and given that the content is increasingly violent, one would expect the size to be robust in size except the statistics on violent crime when taken in conjunction with survey of perpetrators of violent crimes point the other way.

What do Cheney and Bush Watch

If indeed these violent behavior is explained by the prevalence of violent media, I do want to know what ours slave owning, genocidal ancestors were watching. It is a facetious argument and I realize it as much; it is merely meant to draw attention to the poorly thought out “solutions” that are in vogue.

Spectacle and healing
Every tragedy not only brings its army of cable pundits but also a stylized healing process. This country heals through candle light vigils and spectacle. Tragedy is carefully touched up and modeled to sell. The sham displays of kids paintings covering walls, empty gestures of flowers, and candles abound. This country heals or pretends to heal through spectacle. (Baudrillard - who more pointedly claimed that all reality is understood through spectacle). There are no real tragedies so the healing must also be appropriately fake.

The cherished childhood

It is jarring to see the media frenzy that school shoot outs generate. Children and young white adults have become the cherished innocents of this country and the only ones that can be reliably summoned to generate moral outrage against the “other”. Young children are cherished everywhere for they are the “future” and the workers who will pay for the retirement benefits for the old, but in US it approaches fetishistic proportions. America at once festishizes its young teenagers as virginal innocents and as hypersexual creatures. It is American puritanism that in its quest to dominate that creates such absurdities. And America deals with it by pricing the child beyond measure - someone mentioned “holocaust” on the radio station by the way - and hence all policy making becomes absurdist for it loses the anchoring of pragmatic pricing.

Paul Wolfowitz, head of World Bank and one of chief architects of US war on Iraq, is struggling to stay afloat amidst revelations that he “personally dictated” a gargantuan pay packet for this domestic partner, Shaha Ali Riza.

It appears now that the Riza angle goes much further back with Daily Mirror alluding to the relationship in March 2005. (Washington Post had a similar report). The Daily Mirror goes on to say that Riza was key in shaping Paul’s (and hence US administration’s) decision to invade Iraq. It is hard to substantiate this claim but there is little doubt in my mind that Riza had a key role in shaping attitudes of Paul Wolfowitz and the administration towards Iraq.

Women like Shaha Riza Ali belong to the select group of Arab women, Ayan Hirsi Ali and Azhar Nafisi are two others that come to my mind, who have risen to the top primarily due to their vocal (and much feted) articulation of female subjugation under Muslim cultures. These women have successfully transformed their personal suffering, both real and imagined, into vendetta against the entire culture through influencing public policy led by racist western hacks (primarily men) only too ready to act on whatever exaggerated personal hateful claims that they dare to make. This sad tradition of public policy making is by no means limited to policy on the Middle East - It in fact is part of a broader pool of policy making directed by racists from minority communities like Michelle Malkin (who has been called a “pathological racist”), Clarence Thomas, Dinesh D’Souza etc. Racist ethnic minorities provide other racist hacks in power to articulate their innermost prejudices without fearing the backlash. This happens equally on television shows and in the realm of policy making, which works through the media.

Marx Weber in 1946 gave a lecture on “Politics as Vocation” in which he described three preeminent qualities of a good politician- passion, a feeling of responsibility, and a sense of proportion. It is the missing last one - sense of proportion- that I declaim in this column.

NY Times carried an article today about the V-22 Osprey helicopter whose debut “on the battlefield end(ed) a remarkable 25-year struggle for the Marines to build a craft they could call their own.” The specificity of technology being built primarily for military is mind boggling. Equally mind boggling is the amount the military is willing to spend. “The Pentagon has spent $20 billion so far and has budgeted $54.6 billion for it….Each V-22 costs about three times the price of a modern helicopter and nearly the same as a fighter jet. The Marines will get 360 Ospreys, Air Force Special Forces will get 50 and there will be 48 for the Navy.”

The gung-ho patriots may be OK with figures except the program is blighted by safety questions. “On April 8, 2000, 19 marines were killed in a training exercise when a V-22 descended too fast and crashed near Tucson. It was the third V-22 to crash — seven people were killed in two previous crashes…In December 2000, four more marines, including the program’s most experienced pilot, were killed in a crash caused by a burst hydraulic line and software problems.” The hilarious part is Colonel Mulhern, the V-22 program manger, defends it - “The first marine it saves makes it worth what we paid for it. And I have real confidence that the V-22 will do it.” Yup, it won’t take 20 marines (one more than those killed in testing this white elephant) but just one marine to make it all worth it. And just for the record, a marine’s life is about $54.6 billion.

[This article is under revision. Please come back in a few days to read an updated version]

Identity politics is a phrase that is traditionally reserved for studying politics of third world nations with deep ethnic cleavages like India and Fiji. It is rarely used in the context of American politics yet identity politics is rife in America.

More boldly, I would like to say that in fact all politics is identity politics and the relative success of parties can be solely judged on how successful they have been in peddling robust identities. I use the word “robust” because it is important t