Nothing Aside

Speaking Truth To Power In Russia

This is the kind of shake-up Russia needs right about now.  With President Vladimir Putin continually tightening his grip on power, it is great to see one of the few people in Russia with some legitimate clout to stand up to Putin's destructive power grab and call it what it is.  Andrei Illarionov, Putin's top economic advisor, is grabbing the spotlight to call Putin on his blatant excesses.

"Six years ago, when I took up this post, I devoted my work to creating the conditions for increasing economic freedoms in Russia," he said, according to the ITAR-TASS news agency. "In the last year it has become clear that not only has economic policy become different, but the economic model itself in the country has, too."

Mr. Illarionov also struck at the Kremlin's centralization of power and muzzling of critics. "There has been a change in the political regime," he said. "It is one thing to work in a partially free country such as Russia was six years ago. But it is quite another when the country has ceased to be politically free."

Certainly Russia has ceased to be politically free (it recently regressed on how the Freedom House political freedom scale - a rarity) in recent years as Putin has sought the glory of the Soviet era - if not the Soviet era itself.  It is good to see Mr. Illarionov stand up to Putin on this.  Perhaps we might see some changes.  More likely we will see nothing more than a tighter grip.

Liberty Neglected

One of the most fundamental issues in our republic is at the fore of our national political discussion right now: the protection of civil liberties.  We are seeing the issue arise on a number of fronts.  With the news of the NSA wiretaps authorized by the Bush administration based on its own interpretation of executive authority we saw the issue jump to the front pages.

Today there is this AP story about a memo that Judge Sam Alito wrote in 1984 when he worked in the Reagan Justice Department.  It is troubling on a few levels.  First there is the fact that Alito argues that the Attorney General deserves "absolute immunity" for anything he does to ensure national security.  Absolute immunity.  If there were ever a jurist with more blind deference to executive authority, Alito would be hard pressed to top him or her.  With civil liberties being chipped away every day (as the PATRIOT Act is reauthorized in the coming weeks), a judge with such total deference to the power of the president is exactly the wrong person for the job. 

Social conservatives in the Republican base should realize what President Bush is really after.  Alito isn't the nominee that is out to overturn Roe vs. Wade and signal a sharp turn towards social conservatism.  Rather, Alito is just like Roberts as far as his believe in unfettered executive power.  Bush is out to mold a Court that will bow to his every grave pronouncement of the "threat" we face.  Whatever that threat is, of course, depends on the day.  Meanwhile our civil liberties shrink, wither and are smothered.

And don't count on Republicans on the Senate Judiciary Committee to stand up for civil liberties as Republicans in the past used to.  Here is Sen. John Cornyn of Texas giving the clearest summation of today's Republican Party I've heard in a while:

None of your civil liberties matter much after you're dead.

That statement has everything you need to know about the priorities of the Republican party:  fear-mongering and an utter disrespect for the most basic of civil liberties that define our nation. 

A few of our founding fathers might have a thing or two to say about Cornyn's declaration:

They who would give up an essential liberty to obtain temporary security deserve neither liberty nor security.

That's Ben Franklin, of course.  And let's not forget Patrick Henry:

Give me liberty or give me death.

If we forget what made our country great in the first place, what is left?  Certainly our security is of great importance, but if we're secure and have nothing left that originally defined our country as a beacon of liberty, we will have lost.

Political Oppression In Egypt

Democracy is on the march - away from Egypt.  Perhaps that is an inaccurate statement considering democracy really was never marching in Egypt in the first place, but the jailing of President Hosni Mubarak's strongest challenger (he came in second in the recent election with a whopping 7% of the vote) on totally bogus charges does nothing to improve Egypt's status as a roadblock on the path to freedom and democracy in the Middle East.

The New York Times account of Ayman Nour's court sentencing hearing is fascinating if only because it is so absurd.  Even the judge seemed ashamed of the verdict he was serving up. 

With diplomats from the United States, France, Norway and the European Union seated in a courtroom otherwise packed with uniformed police and state security men, a judge read out the verdict and sentence in a nearly inaudible whisper. Mr. Nour, 41, locked in a foul-smelling, filthy cage in the courtroom, began to chant, "Down with Mubarak."

Mr. Nour was convicted of having forged signatures on the petitions used in 2004 to create his own political party - charges that political analysts, diplomats, academics and writers said appeared to be little more than a fig leaf for political persecution, especially after one of the prosecution's main witnesses said he testified only after state security forces threatened his nieces.

...

Inside, the courtroom was so packed with plainclothes security men that it was impossible for Mr. Nour's supporters and members of his party - El Ghad, or Tomorrow Party - to enter. Uniformed police officers made a wall in front of the bars, so that he could barely be seen.

One officer said the men in court were "relatives" of other defendants in the case, but the men kept saluting each other and one seated in the front row acknowledged that they were state security officers.

"What is happening to our country," shouted Mr. Nour's lawyer, Mr. Salem, as the police shoved their way into the courtroom. "What's all this security? What kind of law is this?"

I'm curious as to why Mubarak feels he can get away with such blatant political oppression.  Perhaps, though, this is nothing new.  Egypt has never seen real political freedom.  Indeed it is only in comparison to Mubarak's pronounced movement towards greater political freedom - and the lack of that reality - that makes this stand out as especially flagrant.

"We speak about the rule of law but we don't believe in the rule of law," said Yehia el-Gamal, a law professor at Cairo University and former minister and member of Parliament who said the decision to prosecute Mr. Nour was clearly political. "We are living in the state which is personified by the president. The president is the law. The president is the ruler."

Others said Mr. Nour was the latest in a line of people, including Mr. Ibrahim and Essam el-Erian of the Muslim Brotherhood, to be crushed by the weight of the state for having crossed some arbitrary red line.

Crushed by the weight of the state, indeed.

Liberty And Security Out Of Balance

It's been a bit too long since I last posted and a lot has happened in the meantime.  Most notably, this business with the NSA spying on calls by U.S. citizens without warrants.  I haven't had time to really read all about the issue, but even if I did much of this would be beyond my expertise.  On the surface of it all though, it seems very troubling.

I'm not an expert on FISA or on the full legal history of executive power, but this seems like an overstep.  What's more, the White House seems almost excited about the possibility of picking this fight on what seems like one of the most important issues in our country: the trade-off between security and liberty. 

What the Bush administration has shown over the past five years however, is nothing that would let me think that this is harmless.  This is an administration that has sought executive power without end and in the wake of 9/11 has had that authority unchecked and unchallenged.  It seems only inevitable that some of that hubris would backfire and would ultimately prove to be beyond basic standards of reasonableness. 

It seems that these extra-judicial, post-facto warrants (or even total lack of warrants) fall into this category of the Bush administration declaring itself king and seeing what it can get away with.  This is a fundamental affront to our freedoms as American citizens and to our basic liberties.

Some have argued that there is nothing wrong with these (illegal) searches because they target such and such terrorist or more infamously on Fox News and other conservative talking shops, "a guy whose phone number is in Zarqawi's cell phone".  Any student of the law, or any citizen who has ever taken an interest in the rule of law that governs American society knows this to be a faulty argument from the very beginning.  To argue "I'm OK with the government potentially spying on innocent people because they have nothing to hide" is the first, second and third step towards fascism.  If we are to live up to the ideals that support American patriotism the rule of law must be maintained and civil liberties must not be surrendered.

Another argument in support of the FISA-less wire taps suggests our new threat from terrorism requires new powers for the president and if the legislature can't keep up in responding to the looming, never-ending threat, then the president is free to do just about anything he wants in the arena of foreign policy.  This is nonsense.  When is "war time"?  What is war these days?  When will this war ever end?  The answers are not clear and the Bush administration has taken that as an invitation to gobble up as much of the constitution as possible. 

Meanwhile the president and his spokesman are insisting that these powers to make dubious wire taps were authorized by, of all things, the authorization to go to war with Iraq.  Considering that these wire taps were happening well before that vote occurred, this is a blatantly flawed argument.  But then again, that hasn't stopped this administration before.

I don't know.  There is clearly a lot we don't know about here and probably a lot that has not come out yet.  The radical Hamiltonians in the White House right now seem to have forgotten Ben Franklin's famous quip:

Those who would give up essential liberty for temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.

It seems those in the White House who are defending this abuse of basic constitutional rights have forgotten how quickly our liberty can disappear in the face of overzealous "defenders of security".  For too long the White House has suggested that those who oppose its version of necessary security are weak on protecting America.  They forget, or perhaps refuse to see, that protecting America means protecting our basic civil liberties first and foremost.

Making Sense Of Preemptive War

Be sure to get your hands on the Winter issue of The American Interest.  There is a great article by Ivo Daalder and James Steinberg about the use, and misuse, of preemptive warfare, the unchartered territory upon which we now view much of our foreign policy. It has been a while since I have seen a piece that argues so succinctly on an important national security issue like this.  It sets out why such a concept shouldn't be seen as overly aggressive in all circumstances since it has some very logical and practical applications.  Daalder and Steinberg's argument, that preemption is only a risky policy when it is used as sparingly and infrequently as it is today, is one that I was not expecting.  But it is nevertheless convincing.  Check it out.

Ahmadinejad: Let's Pretend The Holocaust Never Happened

If there was any doubt about the lunacy of the new Iranian president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, let it all be put to rest: this man has a few screws loose.  His most recent outburst includes a claim that perhaps the Holocaust didn't happen, and that Israel should be relocated to Europe.  That's right, relocated.  As if it's a trailer or something.

"Some European countries insist on saying that Hitler killed millions of innocent Jews in furnaces and they insist on it to the extent that if anyone proves something contrary to that they condemn that person and throw them in jail," IRNA quoted Ahmadinejad as saying.

"Although we don't accept this claim, if we suppose it is true, our question for the Europeans is: is the killing of innocent Jewish people by Hitler the reason for their support to the occupiers of Jerusalem?" he said.

"If the Europeans are honest they should give some of their provinces in Europe -- like in Germany, Austria or other countries -- to the Zionists and the Zionists can establish their state in Europe. You offer part of Europe and we will support it."

If I'm following this absurd logic correctly, Ahmadinejad is saying that Europeans feel guilty about the Holocaust and therefore supported the creation of Israel, but if the Holocaust didn't really happen, then there's no reason for Europe to support the creation of Israel and therefore the Jews should pack it up and squat in the fjords of Norway, the black forests of Germany or the suburbs of Warsaw.  If only the Holocaust didn't exist, right?

This is something that has never made sense to me.  How in the world can anyone claim that the Holocaust didn't happen?  It's right there!  Six million people don't just disappear.  Video of skeleton people doesn't just create itself.  Those who deny the Holocaust are absolute morons.  Quite clearly, the president of Iran, a nation of 68 million people, is one of these people.

Fix Iraq, Win A Billion Dollars

This must be proof that we're doing well in Iraq, right?  If you have a plan for stabilizing the country, the State Department will pay you $1.02 billion.  I can't even make this stuff up.

The grant is called the Strategic City Stabilization Initiative (SCSI) and it is being offered by the U.S. Agency for International Development.  Here's what it takes to become a billionaire:

The United States Agency for International Development is seeking applications for an Assistance Agreement from qualified sources to design and implement a social and economic stabilization program impacting ten Strategic Cities, identified by the United States Government as critical to the defeat of the Insurgency in Iraq. The number of Strategic Cities may expand or contract over time. USAID plans to provide approximately $1,020,000,000 over two years to meet the objectives of the Program. An additional option year may be considered amounting to $300 million at the discretion of USAID. Funds are not yet available for this program.

That last line might be the best of them all.  Not only are we lacking a plan for stabilizing ten (!) cities two years after Mission Accomplished, and offering more than a billion dollars for someone else to come up with such a plan, we don't even have the funds available.  To recap: no plan, no in-house creativity, no cash.  This is Bush administration bureaucracy at its very best.

Casing The White House

Yesterday evening I was on my way across town for dinner so I made sure my route passed by the White House.  With the newly paved pedestrian mall (underground bunker) completed, the north side of the White House is a nice area in the evening.  As I walked east along the north fence, right at the spot where everyone takes pictures, I looked up to see Sen. John McCain walking past me in the opposite direction.  I was a bit confused since I wasn't expecting to see a U.S. senator near that part of the White House (he was walking from the Treasury side of the White House towards the OEB side, not exactly the entry and exit point for high-profile visitors).  I was also surprised to see McCain without any staff tagging along and nowhere near any place where a car might be waiting. 

What was McCain doing walking past the White House?  Making a checklist of how he would redo the north lawn landscaping in three years when he's president?  Checking up on Cheney to make sure he didn't have his own waterboard operation going on in the Vice President's suite?  Getting his measurements taken so that the vendor who sells pictures of tourists with a cardboard likeness of the president is ready come January 2009?  Consulting with the crazy anti-nuke tent lady camped out in Lafayette Square about staying the course in Iraq?  The possibilities are endless really.