Nothing Aside

The Latest Weapon of War

For a while the military has been experimenting with various non-lethal weapons.  They have tried low frequency sound waves that can literally shake the bowels of the enemy.  They have tried shrieking sound waves to incapacitate the enemy due to the extreme high frequency.  But now there's this latest contraption from the Air Force and the Joint Non-Lethal Weapons Directorate:

Active Denial Technology is a breakthrough non-lethal technology that uses millimeter-wave electromagnetic energy to stop, deter and turn back an advancing adversary from relatively long range. It is expected to save countless lives by providing a way to stop individuals without causing injury, before a deadly confrontation develops.
...
This non-lethal technology was developed in response to Department of Defense needs for field commanders to have options short of the use of deadly force. Non-lethal technologies can be used for protection of Defense resources, peacekeeping, humanitarian missions and other situations in which the use of lethal force is undesirable. The system is intended to protect military personnel against small-arms fire, which is generally taken to mean a range of 1,000 meters. The system is described as having a range of 700 yards.
...
Active Denial Technology uses a transmitter to send a narrow beam of 95-GHz millimeter waves towards an identified subject. Traveling at the speed of light, the energy reaches the subject and penetrates less than 1/64 of an inch into the skin, quickly heating up the skin's surface. The 95-GHz energy penetrates 1/64 inch into the skin and produces an intense burning sensation that stops when the transmitter is switched off or when the individual moves out of the beam. Within seconds, an individual feels an intense heating sensation that stops when the transmitter is shut off or when the individual moves out of the beam. According to reports, a 2-second burst from the system can heat the skin to a temperature of 130° F. At 50 °C, the pain reflex makes people pull away automatically in less than a second. Someone would have to stay in the beam for 250 seconds before it burnt the skin.

Sounds pretty cool.  But look at the picture of the thing:

It looks fairly ridiculous.  It seems to me that a huge wind drag on the top of your vehicle would seriously slow the Humvee.  Perhaps they can come up with a smaller, less top-heavy version of this latest non-lethal weapon.

Good Riddance

It is about time we got out of Uzbekistan.

WASHINGTON Jul 30, 2005 — The Central Asian nation of Uzbekistan has ended its agreement allowing U.S. military aircraft and personnel to use an air base that has been an important hub for American military operations in Afghanistan, administration officials said Saturday.
...

K2 has been a critical staging point for U.S. military operations in Afghanistan since the earliest days of the war, which began in October 2001.

More recently, the base has been used to move supplies, including humanitarian aid, into northern Afghanistan. It also is a refueling point for transport planes.

The eviction notice came just days after Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld returned from a Central Asia visit to two Uzbek neighboring states, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan. Officials in Kyrgyzstan affirmed to Rumsfeld that U.S. forces can continue to use Manas air base for as long as the Afghan war requires.

I don't know all the benefits of having bases in Uzbekistan versus Kyrgyzstan, but it seems like if we don't have to play nice with Islam Karimov we are coming out ahead on this.  Especially after the massacre in Andijan in May, it is clear that the Uzbek leader is no ideological friend of the United States.  If we can clarify our stance on democracy and human rights by cutting our ties with a brutal dictator, I am all for it.

Uzbekistan's ties with Washington have deteriorated after the Bush administration joined other Western nations in urging an international investigation into the suppression of a May uprising in the eastern Uzbek city of Andijan.

Uzbek government troops fired on protesters in the city after militants seized a prison and a government building. Authorities denied that troops fired on unarmed civilians and said that 187 people died in the unrest; human rights groups put the figure as high as 750.

Uzbekistan's president, Islam Karimov, who has ruled for 16 years and tolerates no dissent, has blamed the violence on Islamic militants.

He has rejected the demands for an outside inquiry, and, facing Western criticism, has found a strong support in Russia and China. Both of them are wary about the U.S. military presence in the strategic and resource-rich region.

Russia and China can have Karimov.  It will just clarify even more who cares about freedom and who mocks it with a heavy hand.

Fitting The Profile

Profiling.

This is a subject that makes me uncomfortable, but ultimately I think it is what needs to happen if we are going to keep America safe from the inevitable suicide bombers who will want to target the public transportation systems of major cities or other vulnerable targets.  The London bombings have only made the need for tighter measures more obvious.  We can no longer go on with random searches of 5 year-old kids or 80 year-old grandmothers.  That is a severe waste of resources - something we can not afford to risk in this age of mass scale attacks that will come with little or no warning. 

Today in The New York Times there is an Op-Ed by a Mr. Paul Sperry which criticizes the new subway random search policy instituted in New York City as a response to the London Underground bombings.

Young Muslim men bombed the London tube, and young Muslim men attacked New York with planes in 2001. From everything we know about the terrorists who may be taking aim at our transportation system, they are most likely to be young Muslim men. Unfortunately, however, this demographic group won't be profiled. Instead, the authorities will be stopping Girl Scouts and grannies in a procedure that has more to do with demonstrating tolerance than with protecting citizens from terrorism.

Critics protest that profiling is prejudicial. In fact, it's based on statistics. Insurance companies profile policyholders based on probability of risk. That's just smart business. Likewise, profiling passengers based on proven security risk is just smart law enforcement.

Besides, done properly, profiling would subject relatively few Muslims to searches. Elderly Muslim women don't fit the terrorist profile. Young Muslim men of Arab or South Asian origin do. But rather than acknowledge this obvious fact, the New York Police Department has advised subway riders to be alert for "people" in bulky clothes who sweat or fiddle nervously with bags.

Well, a lot of people wear bulky clothes. A lot of people fiddle with their bags. And for that matter, a lot of people sweat. Could the Police Department be any more general in describing the traits of an Islamic suicide bomber? Could its advice be more useless?

It's clear that the random search policy is intended to put tolerance before security.  While I certainly empathize with the argument against profiling, it does result in the most effective policy for preventing the types of  attacks that killed dozens a few weeks ago in London.  That should always be our first priority.

One problem with profiling, however, is that once we start picking out males of south Asian decent in their 20s and 30s, the terrorists will inevitably evolve their methods and we would soon see women (as we have seen in recent years in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict) or Muslims of African decent more often.  This is a powerful argument against profiling, and one that I don't take lightly. 

Perhaps what we really need is a common sense policy.  No more stupid inspections of little kids or elderly folks in wheelchairs.  An every-5th-person policy is far too rigid for tackling a threat that has a much more recognizable profile.  It is time we take a more flexible approach to defending our nation so national security is not jeopardized in favor of a potentially dangerous degree of tolerance.

**POSTSCRIPT**: Just to be clear, I do see quite a difference between this type of profiling for national security purposes and the larger racial profiling issue at play in American politics today.  Feel free to disagree with me on this one.  If there were ever a post worthy of comments, this is it.

The "Goyal Foil"

The job of the White House Press Secretary might be one of the least forgiving jobs out there.  Every day he or she must avoid, tip-toe around and deflect destructively prying questions from the White House press corps.  In the past few years though, the press corps has backed off a bit and has allowed non-answers and complete dodges to go unchallenged.  This is unacceptable.  The job of the press corps is to get to the facts despite the spin - not to get caught up in the spin. 

When the CIA leak investigation blew up onto the front of the news cycle the past few weeks, the White House press corps finally stood up for its right to ask tough questions.  No more evasive and time-wasting "The President believes strongly that all people want to live in freedom" nonsense which just avoids the meat of a question. 

So how does a battered press secretary find respite from the new found courage of reporters determined to do their job?

Has Raghubir Goyal ever had a bigger week? And has White House press secretary Scott McClellan ever been more grateful for Goyal's presence? Goyal is the White House correspondent for the India Globe and the lifeline for White House press secretaries during daily briefings since, no matter what issue or scandal is preoccupying the rest of the press corps, Goyal is a sure bet to ask a question about something else--namely India and Pakistan. During the days of the Enron scandal, for instance, when reporters were pummeling then-White House spokesman Ari Fleischer with questions about Ken Lay and the administration's ties to the bankrupt company, Fleischer would reliably catch his breath during the daily briefing by cutting off other reporters and calling on Goyal, who would ask about the Indian home minister or Pakistani fighter planes. "If you're in a jam, go to Goyal," Clinton White House spokesman Joe Lockhart told The Washington Post's Dana Milbank, who in turn famously termed press secretaries' habit of using Goyal as a life raft the "Goyal Foil."

Last week, the Goyal Foil reached a level of effectiveness never before seen. First, and not surprisingly, McClellan relied heavily on Goyal as a respite from the rest of the White House press corps' questions about Karl Rove and his involvement in leaking the identity of CIA operative Valerie Plame. When the press' pummeling got particularly brutal during one briefing last week, McClellan immediately employed the Goyal Foil--and CNN, which had been covering the briefing live, just as immediately went back to its regular programming, as Goyal launched into a long question about Pakistan and McClellan replied with a long answer about how "free nations are peaceful societies."

When you're drowning, go to Goyal.

A Night At Wrigley

I went to an amazing Cubs game tonight.  It was my first night game at Wrigley Field and I was happy just to get in.  A friend and I knew the game was pretty much sold out, but we went up to Addison and Clark anyway.  About 2 hours before the game was to begin, we managed to get Standing Room Only tickets.  That's all we were hoping for because it was our ticket inside.  After getting kicked out of the first seats we tried, we stood until the 3rd inning when we managed to find some empty seats in a prime location: third base line, even with the pitcher's mound, just under the overhang (so when it rained we stayed dry).

$12 for seats in the $50 section.  Can't beat that.  And the game was great too.  The Cubs were down 2-1 for most of the game.  They tied it up in the 8th after loading the bases.  Then, they stopped the Giants in the top of the 9th.  In the bottom of the 9th, they managed to get runners on the corners with just one out.  The whole crowd could feel it.  Then, Burnitz hit a middle-range fly to left-center.  Ronny Cedeno tagged up at 3rd and beat the throw to home by a hair.  The crowd erupted. 

There's nothing like a night game at Wrigley - and there's nothing quite like a Cubs win in the bottom of the 9th on a play at the plate.

Meet Justice Roberts

We have a new Supreme Court nominee: John G. Roberts.

Of course at this stage it is a bit difficult to tell where Judge Roberts stands on the ideological spectrum.  He went to Harvard Law. He clerked for Rehnquist.  He served in the White House counsel's office during the Reagan administration.  He was deputy to Solicitor General Kenneth Starr (yes, that Kenneth Starr) during the first Bush administration.  He practiced law in the private sector during the Clinton years.  He was nominated by President Bush in 2001 to the U.S. Court of Appeals for D.C., and took the bench in that position in 2003 after a contentious Senate battle. 

Hmm.

From listening to some of the commentary, it sounds like this nomination is a pretty good one.  He is conservative, but not an ideologue.  Perhaps the best thing I heard was that he was more in the mold of his former boss, Chief Justice Rehnquist, than he was of a Scalia or the like.  And, the "contentious" aspect of his Appeals Court nomination process stemmed from his refusal to give the sharp answers that Democrats sought.  Perhaps that was his right during an Appeals Court nomination hearing, but the Supreme Court deserves a higher bar. 

At this point, it's hard to tell where this one is headed.  It looks like it won't produce a huge backlash from liberals, who feared an extremist ideologue, and it won't ignite the conservative hecklers because not only is he thought to be highly consistent in his take on the law, but he is largely unmapped on a whole host of issues.  Not a lot of ammo for either side - and that is definitely a good thing.

Do As I Say, Not As I Do

I'm going to say this once, and only once, so listen up: I agree with John Bolton. 

Today the Bush administration made a deal with the government of India to share some sensitive American nuclear technology with India in exchange for a pledge by PM Singh to step up efforts to combat proliferation.  Huh?  This is proliferation.  It not only doesn't make it O.K. just because the proliferation is our own doing, but it undercuts our efforts to control the nuclear development of dangerous countries like Iran and North Korea.  Bolton and I agree on this point: by rewarding India, which developed its nuclear program in secret, with an nice prize like this, we severely undercut our credibility elsewhere.

President Bush agreed yesterday to share civilian nuclear technology with India, reversing decades of U.S. policies designed to discourage countries from developing nuclear weapons.

The agreement between Bush and Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, which must win the approval of Congress, would create a major exception to the U.S. prohibition of nuclear assistance to any country that doesn't accept international monitoring of all of its nuclear facilities. India has not signed the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, which requires such oversight, and conducted its first nuclear detonation in 1974.

Participants in the discussions said there had been debate within the administration about whether the deal with India -- which built its atomic arsenal in secret -- would undercut U.S. efforts to confront Iran and North Korea over their nuclear programs. There were also concerns about how the agreement would be accepted in Pakistan, India's regional rival and an ally in the U.S. campaign against al Qaeda.

I understand the rationale for this: China is a rising power that will need balancing and India is a behemoth with the manpower, if not yet the might, to help us control a surging China.  Additionally, our alliance with Pakistan is at best temporary.  We will want - need - India on our side if something is to be done (militarily or otherwise) about Pakistan's continued culture of extremism.  It is becoming increasingly clear that Pakistan, along with Saudi Arabia, is a top playground for terrorists.  Our support for Musharraf is only a temporary stop-gap on the horrible leak of extremism coming out of Pakistan.

But regardless of all the longer-term reasons for making this deal with India, it sets a horrible precedent for other nations. 

The White House faces two major hurdles to put the deal into effect. One is altering rules in the Nuclear Suppliers Group, a consortium of more than 40 countries that controls export of nuclear technology. The group has been unreceptive to previous Bush administration initiatives and will be reluctant to create country-specific rules, said George Perkovich, a nuclear specialist at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.

The other challenge will be persuading Congress to change the U.S. Nonproliferation Act, which prevents sales of sensitive nuclear technology to countries that refuse monitoring of nuclear facilities.

Rep. Edward J. Markey (D-Mass.) condemned the agreement as a "dangerous proposition and bad nonproliferation policy" and said he will introduce legislation to block it. "We cannot play favorites, breaking the rules of the nonproliferation treaty, to favor one nation at the risk of undermining critical international treaties on nuclear weapons," he said in a statement. "What will Russia say when they want to supply more nuclear materials or technology to Iran? You can be sure that Pakistan will demand equal treatment."

And that's the problem.  It tells Russia that we're really just kidding when we say they need to stop supplying Iran with nuclear technology.  It tells Iran and North Korea that if you're able to get into the nuclear club secretly, good things await you on the other side.  It tells Pakistan that they'll always be #2 as far as its conflict with India is concerned (not that there's anything wrong with this - it's just not something we should officially be saying).  On the whole, this is just a bad agreement. 

If it is a sign of our strengthening ties or of our generosity in helping the Indian economic surge help us instead of hurt us, it seems we could have made a gesture in a less policy-undermining way - like with a rare official dinner or a visit to the Crawford ranch.

Mr. Khan, Terrorist

To follow up on my previous post, I think it's useful to take a closer look at who these London suicide bombers were.  The Sun (yes, I know, a British tabloid) has some details, sensationalized as they may be, about one of the bombers.

SUICIDE bomber Mohammad Sidique Khan was a mentor to school kids.

Khan, 30, helped in a primary in Dewsbury, West Yorks, just days before the London blasts.
...

Married dad Khan, 30, is thought to have landed his teaching job through the influence of wife Hasina, 28, who is four months pregnant with their second child.

She used to be a Community Enrichment Officer - working in schools alongside special needs pupils.

Khan was a supply special needs teaching assistant who specialised in helping children with disabilities at schools around Leeds and Dewsbury, West Yorks.

Staff described Khan as gently spoken, endlessly patient and hugely popular with children.

And he told The TES: "A lot of them have said this is the best school they have been to."

His wife gave up her job 18 months ago after the birth of their first child but Khan continued working several days a week.

He booked time off last Tuesday so he could take part 48 hours later in the London bombings that killed up to 70 and injured at least 700.

Neighbours spoke last night of the Khans as a "quiet couple".

One woman who did not want to be named said: "They seemed like a really happy family. Hasina was from an Indian family and there are not often mixed Pakistani and Indian marriages but they didn't mind.

How does someone like this become a suicide bomber?   Karl Rove may dismiss this question as liberal softness, but it is the essential question for winning this war against terror.  If we can't figure out how a special needs teaching assistant is motivated to become a killer, our battle will never end.  It is the essential question of this war. 

Terrorist 3.0

It has long been clear to me that arguments that suggest that Islamic terrorists are motivated by the poverty of their situation are bogus.  Bin Laden was a billionaire.  Many of the September 11 terrorists were well educated and had real prospects for success in engineering careers or the like.  And now with the London bombings, we are seeing that today's terrorist was yesterday's teacher's aide, yesterday's husband of a pregnant wife, and yesterday's university student.  What motivates Muslims of such promise to give it all up and take as many people as they can with them?  Thomas Friedman has some ideas:

Why are young Sunni Muslim males, from London to Riyadh and Bali to Baghdad, so willing to blow up themselves and others in the name of their religion? Of course, not all Muslims are suicide bombers; it would be ludicrous to suggest that.

But virtually all suicide bombers, of late, have been Sunni Muslims. There are a lot of angry people in the world. Angry Mexicans. Angry Africans. Angry Norwegians. But the only ones who seem to feel entitled and motivated to kill themselves and totally innocent people, including other Muslims, over their anger are young Sunni radicals. What is going on?
...

Clearly, several things are at work. One is that Europe is not a melting pot and has never adequately integrated its Muslim minorities, who, as The Financial Times put it, often find themselves "cut off from their country, language and culture of origin" without being assimilated into Europe, making them easy prey for peddlers of a new jihadist identity.

Also at work is Sunni Islam's struggle with modernity. Islam has a long tradition of tolerating other religions, but only on the basis of the supremacy of Islam, not equality with Islam. Islam's self-identity is that it is the authentic and ideal expression of monotheism. Muslims are raised with the view that Islam is God 3.0, Christianity is God 2.0, Judaism is God 1.0, and Hinduism is God 0.0.

Part of what seems to be going on with these young Muslim males is that they are, on the one hand, tempted by Western society, and ashamed of being tempted. On the other hand, they are humiliated by Western society because while Sunni Islamic civilization is supposed to be superior, its decision to ban the reform and reinterpretation of Islam since the 12th century has choked the spirit of innovation out of Muslim lands, and left the Islamic world less powerful, less economically developed, less technically advanced than God 2.0, 1.0 and 0.0.

"Some of these young Muslim men are tempted by a civilization they consider morally inferior, and they are humiliated by the fact that, while having been taught their faith is supreme, other civilizations seem to be doing much better," said Raymond Stock, the Cairo-based biographer and translator of Naguib Mahfouz. "When the inner conflict becomes too great, some are turned by recruiters to seek the sick prestige of 'martyrdom' by fighting the allegedly unjust occupation of Muslim lands and the 'decadence' in our own."

This is not about the poverty of money. This is about the poverty of dignity and the rage it can trigger.

It has never been about money per se.  Perhaps that is the case with suicide bombings in the Israel-Palestine conflict, but not in the suicide attacks that we face in the streets of Western cities.  It is about something more.  They seek revenge against the power framework that has left Islam suffering from its own inabilities to reform and evolve.  How else can young Muslims reconcile the two facts taught to them: that Islam is superior to all other religions and yet the Muslim world lives at the economic, intellectual and cultural mercy of a Western society with lesser religions?

The Battle Continues

If it wasn't crystal clear before who was the force for good and who was the force for heartless evil in the struggle for Iraq, today's bombing in Western Baghdad should put the debate to rest:

BAGHDAD, July 13 -- A suicide car bomber attacked a U.S. military patrol Wednesday morning in east Baghdad, killing at least 26 people, including many children and an American soldier, and wounding more than 50, police said.
...

The suicide bombing occurred at about 10:50 a.m. when a driver detonated a car bomb next to two Army Humvees in the capital's New Baghdad district, according to witnesses. The Humvees were stopped, and American soldiers were handing out candy and toys to neighborhood children, the witnesses said. "Many Iraqi civilians, mostly children, were around the Humvee at the time of the blast," the statement said.

"The terrorist undoubtedly saw the children around the Humvee as he attacked," Maj. Russ Goemaere, a military spokesman, said in the statement. "The complete disregard for civilian life in this attack is absolutely abhorrent."

If the insurgents think they can convince the Iraqi population that the Americans are the evil ones here, then they are sorely mistaken.  Killing children is cowardly and disgusting and should only strengthen the resolve of the Iraqi people to oppose the killers in their midst. 

Unfortunately I think our efforts in Iraq face another obstacle from the Iraqi people.  Some no doubt see these kinds of attacks and think, "these terrorists are killers, but if the Americans were not here my child would be alive."  I think this view is probably more prevalent than we would like to think.  It's not necessarily a sympathy for the terrorists, but it comes from a sense of desperation and a basic desire for security.  Right now, in the eyes of many Iraqis, the American presence is allowing for greater instability.  This is why when we first went in you heard some Iraqis bemoan the loss of the "stability" of the Saddam era.  It is from this same sentiment that you'll see a stunning silence from the Iraqi people in response to horrific events like this.  Few will stand up and see the obvious good that the Americans do and say no to the insurgents.  Right now, I think there is a simple desire for peace - however it may be.  As sad as that is, it is the result of decades of low expectations.  That is what we are really fighting against.