Tag: Liberty Page 2 of 3

In one month, the future of the country will once again be up for grabs. And while legislative control is not as exciting as the presidency, it’s still the duty of every citizen to pay attention. If you feel like the world is going to hell in a handbasket, here’s your opportunity to demand that we pull over and ask for directions.

Here’s a quick recap for those who haven’t been keeping score: Iraq is devolving into a civil war. The CIA has revealed that Iraq has become a fertile jihadist recruiting ground. The Taliban is resurgent in Afghanistan. One of the fundamental tenets of Western law, habeas corpus, the right of the imprisoned to challenge their detainment in a court of law, has been suspended for aliens classified as enemy combatants or awaiting classification. This essentially allows the President to detain anyone, anywhere in the world, and hold them indefinitely without trial, forever. The Geneva Convention prohibition against “outrages upon personal dignity” against prisoners of war has been stripped from unlawful enemy combatants and those who have “purposefully and materially supported hostilities against the United States” or its allies.

Don’t think this applies to you, because you’re a law abiding citizen who has nothing to hide? Better to fight them over there than over here? Remember that the steady erosion of rights always starts with someone else. It’s not so bad when it’s a suspected terrorist being held in a cell, tortured until he confesses. But when the United States drops all pretense of being the land of the free, we all suffer. It puts our fighting men and women in further danger if they are captured, and it foments international anger. It’s bad enough that the Middle Eastern street thinks that America is the great Satan, we don’t need to confirm it for them. If we’re really in a great clash of civilizations, shouldn’t we show our enemy what we really stand for?

On the home front, things aren’t much better. Yes, gas prices have fallen significantly over the last month, and the Dow is back near its historic high. But the Federal debt is over $8.5 trillion. That’s $28,541 per citizen, even more to add to your college payments. Foreign central banks have begun selling their shares of our debt, getting out of a bad investment before it gets worse. New proposed air pollution standards lower restrictions on particulates. New historical climate data reinforces the scientific consensus on global climate change. Senator Mark Foley sent explicit emails and instant messages to a sixteen year old page, and Speaker of the House Dennis Hastert knew for years.

I’m assigning everyone homework. Think of it as a one unit course for the next month. First, read a real newspaper. If you’re not outraged, you’re not paying attention. Find out if your senator is up for reelection, and look at their platform and that of their opponent. Then decide who you want to run the country. And maybe look at your local house race. Register to vote in your home district with the National Mail Voter Registration form. Request an absentee ballot; links to every state election office are available.

It is critical that you participate this year. In 2002, the Republicans parlayed their midterm victory into a mandate for total governance. Remind everyone in power that a slim margin of victory is not a writ for dominance by either side, but a reminder that there are two sides to this debate. It’s your country too; fight for it.

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Published in the October 13 Tech

Less than a year ago, Vice President Cheney remarked that the Iraqi insurgency was in its “last throes.” He may have been right. In the intervening months, the conflict there has transformed from mere random violence to the brink of a full-blown civil war. What happens when Iraq passes the tipping point? Whose side will we be on in the impending conflict? Or will we “cut and run”, leaving a bigger mess than we found?

The trigger for the recent violence was the bombing of the Shiite shrine at Samarra on February 22nd. This attack, presumably carried out by Sunnis trying to foment sectarian violence, lead to days of protests and riots that killed over 200 civilians. Reprisal killings of journalists, professionals, and government officials have claimed at least 1,000 in the last two months. These are throes all right, but far from the last.

A generally accepted social science definition of civil war is: “Sustained military combat, primarily internal, resulting in at least 1,000 battle-deaths per year, pitting central government forces against an insurgent force capable of effective resistance…” (Henderson and Singer, “Civil War in the Post-Colonial World, 1946-92,” Journal of Peace Research, May 2000). Iraq fits every clause of this definition. While there are foreign fighters, the majority of the violence is perpetrated by Iraqis against Iraqis. We cannot blame this violence on Iran, or Syria, or al-Qaeda, only ourselves. Prime Minister Iyad Allawi notes that “We are losing each day as an average 50 to 60 people throughout the country, if not more.” This is a significant increase over the baseline rate of about 30 Iraqi military casualties per day during 2004 (Department of Defense, “Measuring Stability and Security in Iraq,” 17 February 2006, p27). The insurgent force is clearly capable of offensive actions against the government, and they have infiltrated the Iraqi security apparatus so thoroughly that they are often aware of American counter-attacks as soon as the order is issued to move.

Why is the Bush administration trying so hard to maintain the aura of control over this rapidly disintegrating situation? Because the moment it becomes clear that this is indeed a civil war, our mission to promote democracy becomes null and void. When democracy fails to take root, and protracted sectarian violence takes hold, American and allied public support for an winnable war will plummet. Spending blood and treasure to fight a civil war is not quite the mission we signed up for.

Sadly, because we started this conflagration, we bear the responsibility for what happens when, not if, we leave. While a permanent American presence in Iraq is being built and planned for, it is not our long term goal to patrol the streets. A friendly Iraq was supposed to be a check against Iran, and a beacon of liberty in a region darkened by autocracy. An Iraq mired in civil war doesn’t exactly inspire confidence in the righteousness of the American way.

Former Secretary of State Colin Powell stated this dilemma as the “Pottery Barn Rule”: You break it, you buy it. We certainly broke this vase, but do we have the skill or wherewithal to fix it? In the coming Iraqi civil war, whose side will we be on? We have placed our faith so far in the Shia, but do we dare trust the young rebel cleric Moqtada al-Sadr? His Mahdi Army was responsible for the uprisings of August 2004 and our subsequent siege of Fallujah. Or perhaps the ruling Sciri party (Supreme Council of Islamic Revolution In Iraq), which was founded in the intellectual heritage of Ayatollah Khomeini, the leader of the Iranian Islamic Revolution of 1979. This is the party of the current Prime Minister Ibrahim al-Jaafari, who is currently in the process of being forced out by Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice. Under his leadership, the Parliament has failed to form a government for the last three months. Remember that election in Janurary? They still haven’t actually formed a coalition. Could we back the Kurds, who we helped save from Saddam with our Northern No-Fly Zone during the inter-war containment? But they are now self sufficient, with their own private army, the Pershmerga. If they can control Kirkuk, and its oil wealth, they have no need for a united Federal Iraq. An independent Kurdistan would infuriate the Turks, who continue to repress their eastern Kurdish minority.

Clearly none of our putative allies are convincing champions of democracy, and we have no horse to back in this race. Even if you’re not up on your Iraqi politics, there’s no denying that the situation looks abysmal. Every ethnic group has their own agenda, and none are entirely friendly to the United States. Even if we were to choose a side, no one wants to be on ours.

As Iraq slowly crumbles, we will continue to pass the buck. In the eyes of the Bush administration, it’s the Iraqi’s fault that they couldn’t create a modern society out of the wreckage Saddam left them. Never mind that we never gave them the security or the support they needed, or that the one crucial decision of disbanding the Iraqi army essentially created the insurgency.

Leaving Iraq in a civil war will have profound repercussions in the region, none of them good. Iran may exert it’s influence more directly, creating another state ruled by sharia. Turkey may invade to stop the creation of a Kurdish state. And Israel won’t be happy about yet another unfriendly pocket of violence in their neighborhood.

We have failed the Iraqi people. When we pull out and leave them with a country in pieces, perhaps even worse than before the our ill-planned invasion, we will have only ourselves to blame.

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Published in the April 7, 2006 edition of The Tech.

In case you missed last week’s CSPAN-3 coverage of Judge Roberts’ nomination hearings, let me recount them for you here:

> Sen Specter (R-PA, Chairman): I’m a moderate Republican, and am slowly being edged out of my party. Will you respect the constitution right to privacy that underlies the Roe vs. Wade decision?

> Judge Roberts: I’m cold, logical and calculating. A legal machine, devoid of any feeling, despite my all-American looks and picturesque family. If the words “right to privacy” aren’t in the Constitution, they’re dead to me.

> Sen Durbin (D-IL): I’m running for President, and have a big neck.
> Judge Roberts: As that question regards issues that may come before the court, I don’t believe it would be proper for me to answer.

> Sen Kennedy (D-MA): I’m an elder statesman, and still haunted by the ghost of Chappaquiddick. Will you defend the civil rights I fought for half a century ago?

> Judge Roberts: I have no respect for the march of time, and the progress of human values. If slavery were still legal, that would be the precedent I would uphold.

> Sen Feinstein (D-CA): As the only woman on this panel of old white windbags, will you answer my questions?

> Judge Roberts: Not a chance.

> Sen Brownback (R-KS): I’m also running for President. May I kiss you?

> Judge Roberts: On the cheek only; the mouth would cross the line between adoration and Satanism.

> Sen Hatch (R-UT): Will you answer my sycophantic questions?

> Judge Roberts: With pleasure.

> Sen Biden (D-DE): I’m also running for President, I also co-authored the Violence Against
Women Act, which is unconstitutional. Do you feel that men and women deserve equal protection under the law?

> Judge Roberts: I think women should be barefoot and pregnant, just as God intended.

> Sen Graham (R-SC): I think we can all agree to that.

> All, sans Feinstein: (laughter)

Now that the panel has adjourned, Roberts has returned to his squirming children and doting wife, Bush has returned to ignoring the plight of the poor, Congress can get back to their tense partisan standoff, and the nation can return its attention to things that really matter, like football, Renee Zellweger’s divorice, and missing blonde teenagers.

As a card-carrying pinko-Commie-Liberal, I’m supposed to hate Roberts. But try as I might, no matter how many hours of hearings I forced myself to sit through, I couldn’t. He’s got a calm, strong persona, without the craziness or malice of Bork. Although he is a Harvard grad, he is clearly an intellectual of the highest level. Anyone who puts their faith in two hundred year old words instead of human experience deserves the respect of this school.

In all seriousness, it looks like Roberts will be easily confirmed, and it was wise that the Democrats didn’t put up too strong of a fight. Enough resistance to show that they have a spine, but not enough to actually make a difference. They saved their right to filibuster for a truly divisive candidate, like the one that Bush will most likely nominate for the position vacated by O’Connor. To keep the gender ratio at a sensible 2/9, he will likely put forward a woman with real conservative credentials like Priscilla Owen, the Wicked Witch of Texas. Will the circle be unbroken Lord, by and by?

Published in the September 20th Tech. The following letter, and my response ran in the next issue.

Instead of starting off with “In case you missed last week’s C-SPAN3 coverage…”, Josh Levinger might have said “In case you missed last week’s David Brooks Op-Ed in The New York Times.” [“Card-Carrying, Pinko-Commie-Liberal Can’t Force Self to Hate John Roberts,” The Tech, Tuesday, Sept. 20.] It seems that Brooks had the exact same idea as Levinger, namely to provide a bitingly satirical “transcript” of the Roberts confirmation hearings. Not only did the Brooks piece outshine Levinger’s stylistically, it was published on Sept. 15, three days before the submission deadline on the September 20 Tech.
*Ian Z. Jacobi ’06*

Author’s Response: While I acknowledge the similarity between David Brooks’ column and my own, the truth is that I had not read his before I submitted my own. I assure the readers that I was unaware of either the topic or the text of Brooks’ column. *Josh Levinger*