Thereby hang's a tale

Iraq, Where Do We Go From Here?

2008-06-19T10:07:00.001-04:00

Withdrawal timing is "not too important," says McCain.

The troops might disagree.

Robert Dujarric and Andy Zelleke’s article, “The Death of US Strategy in Iraq,” in the 17 April csmonitor.com analyzes the implications behind McCain’s recent statement that the timing of troop withdrawals from Iraq is “not too important.”

The authors submit that McCain may believe there is still a political objective, but it will be different from Bush’s only in that it will be more modest.

However, McCain has not given us answers to the most pressing question of “just what are our objectives in Iraq or the Middle East?” They authors break that question into three components:

· What are the political objectives for keeping large numbers of troops in Iraq for years to come?

· What plausible outcome would justify the costs (dollars and lives, I would guess)?

· Given one or more objectives, what is the strategy for getting there?

All valid questions and I would add, “What are the measures (metrics) that tell us we are making progress toward those objectives and how will we know we are there?” Dujarric and Zelleke write that slogans such as “winning” and “stability” are just not good enough.

War is a Continuation of Policy

Military folks and other strategic thinkers have brought Sun Tze and von Clauswitz back into popularity. von Clauswitz’ most famous statement that war is simply a continuation of policy by other means is pertinent here. If there is no policy objective, then there should not be a war.

Personally, I’ve been against this Iraq War since it became obvious that the Bush Administration was bent on war regardless of the facts. However, like many Americans, since we are now there and made a terrible mess, I have believed we need to stay and fix the mess and leave with honor. But I am no longer sure our civilians can define an end, or an objective, and therefore an honorable end is unlikely. And, I’m no longer sure that success in Iraq is necessary to our military’s sense of honor.

ur military has always been self-contained and isolated from the rest of society. Success to our servicemen and their military leaders is gauged within the military, by each other and by military leaders. Civilian opinions matter less. Our servicemen and servicewomen certainly don't want to be pitied as victims of Washington, DC (and I've been guilty of that kind of thinking). They do want to be recognized for their skills and accomplishments, but that's kind of hard when the great bulk of America has little knowledge of the military or its skills.

Going to war is not a military decision and stopping a war is not a military decision. Our civilian leaders start wars and declare when a war is done or when it is time to withdraw without success. One can hope that such wars are the result of defined political objectives. Afghanistan was one such war that had and has a clearly defined political objective – Iraq is not.

A Time to Fight

For a military opinion I turn to Jim Webb, Virginia Democratic Senator, who has written A Time to Fight (2008, Broadway Books, Doubleday, New York). Webb, like several other ex-military folks, ran for Congress, as a Democrat. Webb discusses why the military learned to hate the Democratic Party beginning in the 1960s and why all that is changing today, but that is for another post.

Webb also asks that the political objective(s) for Iraq and the Middle East be clearly defined. Here are some quotes I cherry picked:

· “Their [Bush Administration, extreme elements in Congress, and the RNC] most glaring and crucial failing has been an adamant refusal to match the sacrifices of our military with a sound, regionally based diplomatic strategy designed to take advantage of the military’s performance.”

· “Such a strategy could have, and should have, been in place as early as 2003.”

· “Our military has consistently answered that call, never failing to control its tactical battle space. But over the same span of time the region, from Lebanon to Pakistan, has descended into ever more dangerous instability.”

· “Most military people can see and understand these realities. But rather than openly recognizing them, Republican leaders have for years claimed that any mention of the insults “the troops” and comprises a form of defeatism that will not “let them win” in Iraq.”

· “Except in an Orwellian world, wars are not supposed to be endless. Nor are occupations supposed to last forever.”

· “Those who claim that one cannot oppose the President’s policy and still be supporting the troops should consult the opinions of the troops.”

Is Iraq Worth It? Ask the Troops

With that last point in mind, Webb presents the following poll figures from Army, Navy, Air Force, and Marine Corps Times and LA Times (and I checked them and they are as Webb stated):

· 2006

o 72% of troops believed we should pull out of Iraq by end of 2006.

o Dec: 60% disagreed with Bush’s Iraq policies.

· 2007

o Dec: 60% of military families believed the war was not worth the cost

o Dec: 58% said US should withdraw within a year or sooner.

from Military Times Poll Dec 29, 2006

egardless of whether our next President defines our objectives for Iraq, Afghanistan and the rest of the Middle East, our troops will continue to perform with honor and bravery. But they do deserve to know what they are fighting for.

Webb ends the chapter that I’ve been quoting with his own quote from President Eisenhower in 1952.

“[The Korean War] was never inevitable, it was never inescapable… America … appealed to the heroism of its youth… The answer to that appeal has been what any American knew it would be. It has been sheer valor…

“from these heroic men there comes back an answering appeal… Where do we go from here? When comes the end? Is there an end?

“[These questions] demand truthful answers. Neither glib promises nor glib excuses will serve. They will be no better than the glib promises that brought us to this pass….”

Amen

Back from Another Trip

2008-06-17T11:20:00.002-04:00

I haven't posted or even thought about posting in the last few days. My wife and I just came back from another trip to northern Virginia with the usual repeated backups at every exit on I-95. I drove those miles daily from 1972 to 1985 but that masochism is now hard to imagine. I can't believe I spent hours in the mornings and evenings, never knowing how long it would take to get to work or home.

This trip was to attend the high school graduation of our third oldest granddaughter. We have four.

Brian informed me by comment that Tom Perriello, who is opposing Virgil Goode for the 5th district Senate seat, is running on a platform that excludes donations from corporations. He is also running as a Christian that believes in the following:

ensure that all hard-working Americans are guaranteed a living wage and secure retirement
every American deserves access to a doctor, and none of our elderly should ever have to face the soul-crushing choice of whether to buy medicine for a spouse or put food on the table
Americans are less safe today than on September 12th because of the decisions made by this Administration and many in Congress.
our national security, our climate, and our economic competitiveness demand that we achieve independence from fossil fuels during this generation.

To contribute to his campaign, you must, "confirm that the following statements are true and accurate":

I am not a foreign national who lacks permanent residence in the United States.
I am not a Federal government contractor.
This contribution is made from my own funds, and not those of another.
This contribution is not made from the funds of a corporation or labor organization.
This contribution is made on a personal credit card or debit card for which I have the legal obligation to pay, and is not made either on a corporate or business entity card or on the card of another person.
I am at least eighteen years old.

I would like to hear more about other issues from this man, but this is a good start. He seems to believe in personal integrity. His Christianity is refreshingly old fashioned - back to a time when Christianity was in your heart, not in your face.

I can't say, at this time, whether I will vote for him. I need more information. But I've heard enough to contribute to his campaign, and I did. I hope my contribution at least helps Perriello develop his message.

Fix Congress Wrap Up Correction

2008-06-11T10:18:00.002-04:00

Brian, also of my area, noted that Tom Perriello is opposing Virgil Goode. I knew that but my mind must have been in neutral on my last post. What I didn't know is that Perriello has taken a pledge not to accept PAC or lobby money. Thanks Brian.

One of my problems with the Change Congress site, is that access to their database of candidates is limited. I tried to locate Perriello and couldn't find him in their database. Perriello might have made his pledge but not at the Change Congress but that site should still know about him. I sent an email to Change Congress asking for better access to their database and some clarification on how to help with their research.

Visiting Change Congress reminded me of an item of note. Most of us know that Obama says he will not accept special interest money of any kind. Few know that the DNC has also pleldged to "not take a dime from Washington lobbyists or special interest PACs..."

That's good but we'll see how far that pledge goes with the candidates for Congress. The Democratic Party is known as, among many other things, a party with little centralized control - perhaps the exact opposite of the Delay/Rove gestapo.

I, for one, would hope the candidates do oppose the DNC, except for the special interest pledge. Democrats have, since the late 1960s, become identified with special interests of just about any minority (gays, etc), but at the expense of the non-special interests of the majority. Democrats also lost their moral compass long before the Republicans did during the Pharaoh Bush years.

In order to get my vote, Democrats needs to regress (as we've blamed Republicans for doing). They need to study FDR, Truman, and Kennedy. They need to remember that addressing the needs of the majority of Americans was once the Democratic platform. And, most of all, Democrats need to remember that the Democratic platform was once a moral one.

Even so, as a retired military guy, I have other issues with Democrats, but that's for another post.

Anniversary and Fix Congress Wrap Up

2008-06-09T11:18:00.002-04:00

Sorry about no posts for a week and a half. My wife and I have been away for a 50th wedding anniversary celebration put on my our two sons and their daughters. It was quite an affair a chauffeured (number 1 son) ride to northern Virginia, some visiting, an elaborate and fancy dinner, a reception after the dinner with cake cutting and such, then a chauffeured (number two son) ride back home. We were out of town for four days and I purposely did not take my laptop.

Running Horse, 18x24, charcoal

Fix Congress Wrap Up

Based on the number of readers and the time spent on my blog, my Fix Congress series is not very popular. Perhaps I've not communicated well, perhaps I've not presented it properly, or perhaps you readers are not interested in the problems with Congress. I hope the reasons you readers are not interested in fixing Congress is that I've failed. If it is because you are not interested, then I'm concerned for the nation's future.

Whatever the reason, I'm going to wrap up the series and get on to other things.

My previous posts covered the overall picture of Congress and its problems in a historical context, the failure of the budget process, earmarks, and inaction on entitlement funding. I've also talked about lobbyists, who serve a useful purpose, but serve interests other than our middle and low-income class folks. In fact, many of these lobbyists push interests that are detrimental to the average American (think drug companies, mortgage banking, big oil, etc).

I'll not discuss personal corruption of individual Congressmen. It exists and is detestable. You can't out them without luck and a more general fix to the way Congress does business. A check of web sites that do try to out corruption. I find many wrongs were committed after they served in Congress, and those are not crimes against the voters. And I just do not think personal corruption is serious problem for Congress as a whole.

Pick a Fix

I said I would give a list of different approaches to fixing Congress and their web addresses.

rute Force or Nuclear Option: All members of Congress are bad, or all members of Congress are a permanent political class. All are out of touch with the public. The solution is to get rid of all of them - vote all of them out of officer and get a new, compliant bunch.

I don't like this approach. Not all Congressmen are bad. Most, I believe, start out by wanting to do what's right. It's the system that changes them and it is the system that needs changing. Voting out incumbents does not address the Congressional system. It stay and, sooner or later, the new Congresses will fall into the same abusive routine.

To work, we would have to vote out the majority of incumbents within a few short years, otherwise those who remained would keep the system unchanged and would convert the new members much as is now done. To vote out the majority would require a massive voter movement that's not going to happen. Typically in most democracies folks are elected by small margins of just over 50%, usually less than 60%. Too many voters would not jump on this bandwagon.

Still, if nothing else works and the voters do reach a state of rebellion, this might be the only option. Check out VOID (Vote Out Incumbents Democracy).

ind Better Candidates: Some folks believe that we elect incompetent people. While I would agree that we elected an incompetent (and dishonest) President, I don't think most of our candidates are incompetent. Because our elections have become arenas for character assassination, the candidates are certainly more brave than most of us. How does one determine incompetence? As Republicans, do we tend to Democrats as less competent? As Democrats, do we - you get the idea. As an Independent, I don't like anyone very much anymore (Kingston Trio line).

Check out Vote None of the Above if you think incompetence lies inside the Beltway.

ix the System: Larry Lessig, once an aspiring Congressman, has started a web site that is getting some attention. Lessig believes that our Congressmen should not author earmarks (do away with them completely) and should abjure connections of any kind with lobbyists. While I might quibble with some details, this approach is the only one that has a chance of working and he has set up a program where voters can determine the progress toward the fix.

Lessig says "It's not a dependence that reveals itself in the way evil people act, but a dependence that corrupts even the way good people solve the problems they come to Washington to address," he said. "We need to solve this problem now." Also, "We just need to recognize that money in certain places is destructive of trust."

Lessig has called for a joint effort on the part of Congressmen and voters. Both can visit the sight and sign an oath to support four tenets:

accept contributions from individuals only, lobbyists excepted.
support the fundamental reform of congressional earmarks.
support reform to increase transparency in Congress.
support public financing of public elections.

There's little fire-breathing rhetoric in these tenets, just clear steps toward changing the way Congress does the business of the people. The tenets are clearly geared to making Congress the prime lobbyist for all of us rather than special interests.

If you are interested visit Lessig at Change Congress. You can view the list of Congressmen who have taken the pledge and you can sign up to take the pledge and donate. You can also view a map, locate your local representatives, and see how much of their financing came from special interests.

I have joined Change Congress, signed the pledge, made my own pledge to contribute a certain amount of money to Congressional candidates who also pledge. Since my own Congressman, Virgil Goode of Virginia receives 43% of his 2008 campaign financing from PACs and he is unopposed, I plan to contribute the money to candidates outside my district.

Goode has supported military and veteran issues important to me, but I believe the greater good is to convince Goode and his pals to think hard about representative the people first.

My list of Fix Congress web sites has not been exhaustive as I first planned. For those who want more info on our government and our elected officials, I found that Sunlight Foundations, Insanely Useful Web Sites is the best list you can find in one place.

Neocon Phoenix

2008-05-28T12:08:00.002-04:00

In Greek mythology, the phoenix is a bird that dies by fire and a new phoenix regenerates from the ashes of the old bird. Most of us remember this from somewhere, but we often forget that the fire that consumes the phoenix was built and lit by the phoenix.

Such may be the fate of the neocons, or at least their political philosophy. After the Bush Administration failed so miserably in pursuing a neocon path, it is hard to find a group of folks more reviled than neocons. Yet, John McCain has chosen Robert Kagan, a neocon par excellence, as his foreign policy advisor. McCain has hinted at more of the same in Iraq. Does he now want to start with a failed neocon team so the he can also repeat the original mistakes of the Bush team?

ctually I don't believe McCain would follow in Bush's footsteps. I think he's more intelligent than that, but I do find his adoption of the neocon philosophy to be troubling for a variety of reasons. I tend to agree (mostly) with the neocon view of the world situation, but I do not agree with their concept of using America's power to remake the world in our image.

Get Acquainted with Neocons

For those who are not familiar with the neoconservative (neocon) movement, I invite you to the following sites:

Neo-consertive, SourceWatch give a quick rundown on the history and status of the movement.
Neoconserviatism, Wikipedia is a much longer and very complete presentation on the movement.
Empire Builders, Christian Science Monitor Online reports on the key neoconservatives and where they were in 2005.
All in the Neocon Family, AlterNet is an interesting article showing that many of the top neocons are related by family or marriage.

hether the neocons are primarily responsible for the Iraq War debacle is debated. Some of the neocons who were once calling the shots now say that the Iraq War disaster was not their fault but was the result of bungled mismanagement of the war by their bosses. This implies that Bush, Cheney, Rice, Rumsfeld, et al were the mismanagers and that they were not neocons.

The organization most closely associated with the neocon movement is the Project for the New American Century (PNAC). Founding members of PNAC included Cheney, Rumsfeld, Perle, and Libby. Wolfowitz was considered the ideological leader of PNAC. Other members of note included Douglas Feith, Eliot Abrams and Jeb Bush.

Neocons and Cons

Some say Cheney and Rumsfeld were never neocons but used the neocons' philosophy to further their own aims; especially Cheney in his pursuit of an imperial presidency. That's drawing a pretty fuzzy line and one I think is misleading. For all practical purposes, Cheney and Rumsfeld were neocons. Here's how I see the neocon Bush cabinet

Cheney, VP: Definitely neocon with help from Libby.
State: Rice; political persuasion unknown but in tune with Bush and she avoided confrontation with Rumsfeld and John Bolton
National Security Council: Abrams, definite neocon; convicted for part in Iran-Contra Affair.
Defense: Secretary Rumsfeld, card carrying neocon. Under Secty for Policy Doug Feith, also card carrying neocon.
Chairman of Defense Policy Board, Richard Perle and members too many to list here.

could go on but the point is that prominent neocons had key appointments in all areas of defense and foreign policy. It is no accident that White House statements and actions have following the neocon approach almost to the letter. Whether Bush was a closet neocon, was duped by the neocons, or just liked their world view is beside the point. The point is that Bush acted like a neocon and he acted very well.

Robert Kagan, Brilliant Idealist

PNAC was co-founded by William Kristol and Robert Kagan. Kristol is the editor of the Weekly Standard, a conservative magazine that is, in my opinion, a top notch magazine with well-reasoned articles. I often don't agree with the articles but their quality is far above what usually passes today as Republican thinking. If you need some real news about the Iraq War, check out the Weekly Standard.

Robert Kagan, Warsaw, April 17, 2000
from Wikipedia, Robert Kagan

obert Kagan is an author of several books and writes columns for The New Republic, Policy Review (Hoover Institute), the Weekly Standard, and that venerable liberal rag (or so my ultra-conservative relative tells me) The Washington Post. He is also a foreign policy advisor on Senator McCain's campaign staff. Here is list of some Kagan writings:

" End of Dreams, Return of History," at Real Clear Politics
"Neocon Nation: Neoconservatism, c. 1776," at World Affairs
"Power and Weakness," at Policy Review, Hoover Institute

If you want a more complete taste of Kagan's brand of neoconservatism, I recommend The Return of History; and the End of Dreams, ( 2008, Knoph division of Random House, New York, NY; $19.95). Since Kagan writes very lengthy articles, you'd think this book would be huge, but it isn't. The book is short (and small page format), but extremely well written and Kagan makes a lot of good points.

The World According to Neocons

Basically, here is the neoconservative talking points, per my interpretation of Kagan:

The U.S. is the sole remaining superpower with extensive military capabilities.
The U.S. is a moral country, capable of leading the democratic/liberal world, and of promoting democracy throughout the world.
The U.S. should spread democracy because democracies make the world safe for other democracies.
Peace and the growth of democracy happened during only a brief period after the Soviet Union collapsed. This left many liberals and other misinformed folks in the U.S. and Europe believing in the "end of history" and a new world order wherein nations competed economically, not by war.
After the short-lived peace period, Russia and China found ways to return to, or retain, autocracy and still improve the prosperity of their peoples.
The world is now aligning into two camps: one of democracies, and one of autocrats.
Autocrats may not like other autocrats, but they must support each other or the democracies, especially the U.S., will force democracy on countries where it wouldn't work. Autocrats often tell their people that democracy is evil mob rule. Also, autocrats want to stay in power.
India and other democracies are aligning more with the U.S. than in earlier years. EU, finally seeing the truth as Russia controls their energy and rattles their many nuclear sabers, is also moving toward the U.S.
The world still works on the "sovereignty of nations" principal and balance of power remains the operative policy concept.
Muslim extremists can never be satisfied because the West cannot give them what they want.
The proactive policies of the Bush Administration are not new. America has pursued invasions and "preventative" foreign military actions throughout its history, especially during the Cold War.
The UN Security Council is deadlocked with roughly equal representation from autocracies and democracies, and has no power.

All the above is, I think, mostly true. But none of the above points mention any action to be taken because of this world view. And that is where I have problems with the neocons.

Neocons versus Realists

I've always considered myself in the realist foreign policy camp. I revere George F. Kennan, architect of the Cold War containment policy. I also believe Henry Kissinger was one of our most brilliant policy experts. As I read Robert Kagan, I am struck by how closely his neoconservative view comes to a realist view for the post peace dividend world. But there is a difference.

n America that pursues a realist foreign policy would promote democracy and block autocrats where it served our interests. That America would also deal with autocrats if those autocrats could also serve America's needs and interests. That America would also promote democracy but would not invade a sovereign states unless the state posed a clear and imminent threat to the United States.

he neoconservative would invade and go to war with a lot less reasons - something like Cheney's 1% doctrine wherein one can take action if there is only a 1% chance of a threat to the U.S. Kagan doesn't really address the degree to which the neoconservatives would advise aggression. And that is where we need to be concerned when neoconservatives gain power in our government. What conditions are sufficient for a neocon to go to war? You will find nothing specific in their writings but you can find indicators when you think about how the U.S. might flex its sole superpower role to promote democracy. One way is by invading or otherwise forcing regime change (sorry, regime change is a dirty word/phrase and I should have called it something else). Other ways are less warlike. We need to look at the neocon track record to discover how they might promote democracy.

Regime Change by Force

The Iraq War was badly bungled and that bungling may not be the neocons fault, but the war was started by neocons or folks who thought like neocons. If we go back a little in history, to the 1990s, we find a steadily increasing neocon drumbeat for a greater U.S. presence in the Middle East. The idea was to promote democracy, support Israel, and guarantee our oil supplies. There were many candidate countries but Iraq, once America's friend against Iran, was high on the list. Iraq was threatening the area, had a brutal dictator, and had lots of oil. Saddam's invasion of Kuwait finally marked Iraq for regime change. But American's aren't comfortable with creating democracies by force, so other reasons for war were necessary. September 11, 2001 provided the avenue, if not the answer to invading Iraq. If some insiders are to be believed, the neocons even advised invading Iraq instead of Afghanistan after 9/11. WMDs and support of terrorists became the excuse to invade Iraq. As those reasons proved false, the neocons returned to the original concept of a democratic Iraq.

This latter drive to invade Iraq when the threat was in another country is indicative of an idealist-driven agenda wherein the ideals override reality. The Iraq War has accomplished none of America's goals and has even made us less secure, jeopardized our national defense, plundered our treasury, and made us a hated sole superpower. As bad as the Iraq War is, the neocons seem ready to try it again.

do not disagree much with the neocon world view. The world remains a dangerous place and America needs to remain strong and guarded. What concerns me is when these political philosophers are put in charge of the implementation of that philosophy. These folks are idealists and as idealists, they do not respond well to the reality of facts. As idealists they are prone to seeing a world that proves their ideals rather than as it really is. I think this is how our White House saw WMD when there weren't any and saw a Saddam-terrorist connection when there wasn't any.

hey say that the neocons began as Trotskyites. Trotsky was that nice communist that opposed Stalin and was assassinated in Mexico for his troubles. But he was still a communist and he was an idealist. Lenin was an idealist. bin Laden is an idealist. Woodrow Wilson was an idealist. I think neocons are idealists. I am not fond of idealists running a country. Give me a pragmatist anytime.

McCain, if elected, might benefit from neocon advice, alongside other advice. The danger would be when the neocon advice drives foreign policy. If McCain remains as independent as his reputation has it, then I wouldn't see a problem. But he has a recent record of courting the more radical elements of the so called conservative wing of the Republican base. I'm no longer sure of his independence.

Fix Congress - Earmarks, Update

2008-05-23T19:30:00.003-04:00

Senator John McCain is going to veto all earmarks and save us $100B annually.

Most experts use a total of between $16B and $18B for all earmarks, so I find it difficult to see how one can get $100B out of that. Even the Center for American Progress Action Fund, with their own ax to grind, estimates only $52B.

I just don't know about McCain. I haven't decided on my Presidential vote and I have always respected McCain as one of us retired military, one who has integrity, and one brave enough to buck his own party. But he sure is losing me with this apparent drive to self-destruct.

First there was walk in an Iraqi market, sans body armor, to show that Iraq was safe. It turned out to be staged, something I would expect from Clinton but not McCain. Then came his mistaking Sunnis for Shiites in a speech about progress in the Iraq War. You simply cannot understand even the basics about Iraq (or all of the Middle East for that matter) if you can't tell a Sunni from a Shiite. But that was not the only gaffe on Iraq, just the most blatant.

Is my hero going senile? More likely it's his handlers. If they come from the RNC training camp, then I don't hold much hope for McCain unless he decides that he must run his own campaign. If that letter I received from the RNC is any gauge, the RNC is far removed from the voting public with the exception of that 30% that still thinks Bush is doing a good job.

Fix Congress - Lobbyists

2008-05-22T19:37:00.002-04:00

Say the word "lobbyists" in just about any group and you get universal agreement that these folks are bad. It conjures an image of money passing from the fat cats to our Congressmen in a dark, smoke filled room. We see record gasoline prices and we all "know" that Exxon is lobbying for more government subsidies in addition to record profits. Our mortgage-backed financial markets are in meltdown and we do know that their lobbyists convinced Congress to reduce regulation of that industry in previous years.

There are lobbyists for any special interest that each of, us personally, support or need. Lobbyists also represent big businesses, foreign interests, and single-issue organizations. All are "special interests" and that phrase also conjures a nasty image, unless the named special interest is your own special interest.

There are many problems with the whole nature of lobbyists and lobbying, but the most unforgiving problem is the same as earmarking the federal budget - and that's secrecy. The most blatant example of such secrecy was early in the Bush Administration when Cheney met with energy executives to set America's energy and environment policies. What went on in that meeting remains secret these years later.

McCain Rids His Staff of Lobbyists

I doubt there is any candidate who has a record of trying to improve government ethics through campaign finance and lobbying reforms than John McCain. Yet, even McCain has lobbying problems. The New York Times, "McCain Finds a Thorny Path in Ethics Effort," has a good rundown on the fact that McCain has removed a number of his staff because they were lobbyists. I don't know the number but the Monday Houston Chronicle's "Texan's lobbying success becomes liability for McCain" notes Tom Loeffler was the fifth to leave.

The NYT article notes that the leaving staff members lobbied for customers including foreign governments, foreign companies, and rich foreigners; and large US corporations. The punch line comes early in the article but it is a good one. The responsibility for removing these lobbyists from McCain's staff falls on Rick Davis, McCain's campaign manager, and Davis is himself a prominent lobbyist.

Davis did take leave from his lobby firm two years ago. I don't think that taking leave is not the same as quitting. His company has started specializing in the interests of foreign politicians and businessmen.

Most of these lobbyists/campaign staff members are friends of McCain. The NYT gives an indication of why this is so. The entire lobbying industry cycles between campaign work in the even numbered years and lobbying in the odd years. To me, this is an indicator of just how entwined are the Congress and lobbyist.

I saw one article indicating that Obama also has lobbyist on his staff, but I doubted its veracity so I won't repeat it. However, I would guess that Obama did have lobbyists on his staff until he decided to make McCain's lobbyists an issue. I assume Clinton has lobbyists since she is probably more of the Beltway establishment than either McCain or Obama.

Lobbying is a Billion Dollar Industry

Lobbying is pervasive. We all know it exists, but that's about all we know. Ask any Congressman if his or her vote is ever affected by lobbyists and you'll get a strong no with a pained look that you could even suggest such a thing. If that were so, then lobbying must be a dumb industry that spends billions of dollars ($2.8 billion in 2008) but gets no results.

Lobbying is successful. This chart from the Center for Responsive Politics shows how this industry continues to grow.

Of course lobbying affects how our Congressmen vote. That relationship is incestuous and involves what's called the revolving door wherein people move back and forth between the work of Congress and the work of lobbying. Members of Congress who either lose or give up their seats often move over to lobbying to make use of all their personal contacts in Congress, and to get a piece of that billion dollar industry.

While it is easy to point to specific lobbyists and the Congressmen they lobbied, it is difficult to get your hands around the whole lobbying industry. The Center for Responsive Politics' web site, Open Secrets, gives about the best overall picture I could find. Go to their Industries tab. This list shows the top industries' contributions to each political party and to the current Presidential candidates (Ignore the different colors. I clipped the table as an image and the colors change are for links that I visited.).

I wouldn't put too much stock in the relative amounts given to each political party since lobbying is an opportunistic endeavor. Lobbyists have agendas and they will support whichever party, candidate, or elected official that will further their agendas. There has recently been a shift in lobby monies to Democrats which shows how they see coming power shifts.

One can guess at the agendas behind the above list. Lawyers (mostly trial lawyers) would like to stop any legislation that limits liability of big business; securities and investment firms would oppose any regulation of the mortgage industry; health professionals, insurance, pharmaceuticals, and hospital industries will want their say in any effort to fix Medicare or provide national health care; and electric utilities and oil and gas industries can effectively block environmental legislation and keep subsidies to oil companies flowing.

Where's the Smoking Gun?

But in all of the above, I find no smoking gun. That some industries spend lots of money lobbying our leaders is interesting but it is not even circumstantial evidence of any wrongdoing. I had to look elsewhere.

Traditionally, "legal" monies get to Congress and candidates by soft money, individual contributors, and PACs. In 2002, soft money was banned which leaves money from individuals and PACs. There is not much to say about individual donors; you get the same lack of hard data as in the above case.

We all hear about the more notorious PACS such as those single issue PACs that oppose gay rights and abortion and purportedly support family values. There are also PACs that follow an extreme right or left political agenda. But none of these appear in the list of top PAC monies .

As in the list of top lobbying industries, the Republicans are not well represented. That's another indication that the influence industry sees the Democrats as the current winners. In this case, however, we see that the list is also filled with PACs that have traditionally favored Democrats.

Half of the PACs in this top 20 list are labor unions or worker organizations. Only three are single corporations: AT&T, UPS, and AFLAC. This list doesn't strike me as one of nefarious special interests. Labor unions and workers associations certainly represent a special interest but even that is an interest of very large groups of mostly average John and Jane Does.

Given that lobbying really is a problem, where is the smoking gun? Part of the problem is defining the problem. All of the data at OpenSecrets depends on disclosure via Senate rules. The disclosure is not all-encompassing nor is it perfect. Some data is simply not reported.

Peddlers of Influence and Other Friends

More importantly, I believe, the influence industry may not depend so much on money as we might think. Note that in the current case of John McCain's removing lobbyist from his campaign staff, most of these lobbyists were personal friends of McCain. Such friendship is, I believe, the key to effective influence peddling. How does this begin?

First, Congressmen collect friends sometimes just like ordinary citizens do, but mostly they collect friends more like business leaders collect business friends and contacts for networking. The friends usually have similar ideas about running the country, And they can be helpful in a variety of ways. In return, the Congressman can often help the friends.

There is also the revolving door process noted above. A typical case is one wherein a young staffer performs well for a Congressman. The Congressman contacts a friend and gets the staffer a good job in private industry, usually in an industry of interest to the Congressman. A few years later, the staffer leaves his industry job for another staff position, possibly with the same Congressman, maybe another but certainly to a higher staff position. The staffer now has several valuable friends/contacts in both Congress and industry. Then, a few good performance later years, the staffer returns to industry, probably in a very high position. And so the cycle continues upward. Eventually the staffer ends up as a corporate officer, or maybe a Cabinet position, or similar. The Congressman now has many high-level contacts in industry and has a good job waiting for the time he leaves Congress.

The process is not inherently incestuous or evil, but it certainly provides plenty of opportunity for influencing the votes of our Congressmen. But we don't know and that is our problem that Congress must fix. Transparency is the term most often used as the opposite of secrecy. That's good. I'll use it.

Since this post has become quite long, I'll leave the possible solutions to another post.

Fix Congress - Earmarks

2008-05-18T10:16:00.002-04:00

Earmarks are those things Congressmen do to the Federal Budget to send some special money to some special people. There is nothing inherently wrong in the earmark concept. Senators and Representatives are supposed to represent their constituents and that includes carving out a part of the budget for the folks back home. But earmarks are the source of two problems. First, earmarks too often add to the budget, rather than carve out a part of it. Second, the receivers of earmarks may not be the folks back home, but may be cronies, bribers, and other kinds of special friends.

Honest Leadership and Open Government Act

If I remember correctly, earmarking comes from England and we carried it to the colonies. It involves slitting or otherwise cutting the ears of livestock to show ownership. The purpose is to identify the livestock's owner. In Congress, an earmark identifies the recipients, not the author, until 2007 when the Senate passed the S. 1: Honest Leadership and Open Government Act of 2007 and the House adopted H. Res. 6: Ethics Reform resolution. S. 1 was also approved by the House and signed by the President, so it is now law. The House did not enact H.Res. 6 but did vote to use the new rules for earmark transparency.

Earmark Watch (see image at right, from Earmark Watch home page) is a tremendously useful site that lets you track the status of many bills in Congress (they are aiming for all bills). While their aim was to track earmarks, the site provides a wealth of info on many things dealing with transparency in government. Earmark Watch gives a summary of S. 1, Honest Leadership and Open Government Act. This act covers several areas where more transparency is needed. For earmarks, the Act:

"Requires that Senators who submit earmark requests on a bill or committee report be identified as the sponsor of their requests on a publicly accessible congressional website at least 48 hours before the item comes to a vote [Tile V (Sec. 521)]."

Earmark, noun; a distinguishing mark; or identification; ...

So, if earmarks are now transparent, why am I discussing it? Because transparency has not been achieved and, as you might guess, some Congressmen have found ways around S. 1. Part of the problem is that there is no agreed upon definition of earmarks.

Earmark Watch gives the following:

"For the purposes of Earmark Watch, earmarks are those spending provisions in appropriations bills that House Resolution 6 and the Honest Leadership and Open Government Act of 2007 require House members and Senators, respectively, to disclose. The Honest Leadership and Open Government Act of 2007 uses the euphemism "congressionally directed spending" for earmarks, which it defines as

a provision or report language included primarily at the request of a Senator providing, authorizing, or recommending a specific amount of discretionary budget authority, credit authority, or other spending authority for a contract, loan, loan guarantee, grant, loan authority, or other expenditure with or to an entity, or targeted to a specific State, locality or Congressional district, other than through a statutory or administrative formula-driven or competitive award process...

"But bear in mind that there is no single agreed upon definition of earmarks. The Office of Management and Budget defines them here as, in part,

funds provided by the Congress for projects or programs where the congressional direction (in bill or report language) circumvents Executive Branch merit-based or competitive allocation processes, or specifies the location or recipient, or otherwise curtails the ability of the Executive Branch to manage critical aspects of the funds allocation process.

"However, the House Report to the Interior, Environment and Related Agencies Appropriation Bill notes that

Earmarking or directed spending of Federal dollars does not begin with Congress. It begins with the Executive Branch. For example, the list included above lists 92 specific land acquisition or construction projects which have been submitted by the Administration. The Administration, in selecting these projects, goes through a process that is the functional equivalent of earmarking."

Ok, the definition of an earmark is a problem, but why can't Congress, using S. 1, include those Administration earmarks and identify the source as the White House. They could even identify the department. They could also report, even after the fact, whether the money was awarded "other than through a statutory or administrative formula-driven or competitive award process."

Are earmarks really a problem? To answer, let's get into a bit of media flim-flamery.

2007 Federal Budget Contains 11,780 Earmarks

Search "earmarks" in Wikipedia and you get the following:

"Congress' year-end budget passed in December 2007 contains nearly 10,000 Congressional earmarks worth $10.4 billion, according to a comprehensive database compiled by Taxpayers for Common Sense.[4] In addition, the Department of Defense appropriations bill, passed earlier in the year, contains nearly 2,200 earmarks worth $7.9 billion. The total Congressional earmarks for fiscal year 2008 numbered 11,780 worth $18.3 billion. This is a 23% cut in earmarks from the high in FY 2005, but falls well short of the 50% reduction House leadership set as its goal earlier in the year.[5]

Citizens Against Government Waste identified 2,658 of the FY08 earmarks representing $13.2 billion as "Pork Projects", significantly lower than the numbers and dollar amounts of recent prior years: 13,997 "Pork Projects" for a total of $27.3 billion in 2005, and 9,963 projects for a total of $29 billion in 2006."

Wow, 11,780 earmarks in the 2007 budget and for a whopping $18.3 billion! That would be sound bite reporting. Hold on a minute.

In my last Navy tour, I was in Washington, DC, and was responsible for a small portion of the Navy's budget. I lived the budget cycle and even had to participate at Congressional subcommittee budget hearings. My miniscule part of the budget had at least 200 items and I can picture the Navy's total budget request running into several tens of thousand items. Now expand that to all the government departments and offices and the total items clearly comes to several million items. The draft budget is delivered to Congress in many volumes carried, no doubt, by forklifts.

John McCain is Outraged

Are 11,780 earmarks really a significant number? Not really, but John McCain was outraged by uncontrolled earmarks during his major economics speech back in April. Robert Borosage at the Huffington Post in the article, "McCainomics: A Double Dose of the Same Poison" has some good points (but I don't agree with all of his article).

Borosage makes the following point:

"First, foremost and repeatedly, he (McCain) is outraged by earmarked spending by the Congress which he vows to veto if president. This is cute, but a joke. Earmarks total less than $15 billion a year in a $2.7 trillion budget. Erasing them all will make utterly no difference in our economic posture."

I think the latest figure is more like $18 billion but we're still only talking about 6/10ths of 1%. So I ask, "Why am I still talking about earmarks?"

Hypothetical Earmarks

I am still talking about earmarks because $18 billion is still a big piece of change in anyone's language.

Let's say that all the Congressmen shared the $18 billion equally. Divide $18 billion by 535 and you get about $ 33 million each. Now let's say that we trust most Congressmen and maybe 75% goes to good causes for the folks back home. Some earmarks sneak by and we don't know which Member of Congress sneaked them into the budget, the language probably notes a worthy cause but the money is to go to a specified contractor (remember, this is hypothetical).

Why specify a contractor? Assuming we even knew about the earmark, we don't know why but we would be suspicious. So would an honest Congressmen. I don't know if 25% is a good figure for suspicious earmarks; it might be 10%. If it's 25%, then each portion comes to $8 million; if 10%, it's $3 million available to each our equally sharing Congressmen for their suspicious purposes.

But let the statistic keep rolling. About 62% of the budgets goes to entitlement programs and the federal debt. There isn't much change for shenanigans in those items. That leaves 38%, or about $1 billion susceptible to suspicious earmarks. The $18 billion in earmarks now comprises closer to 2% of the budget susceptible to earmarks. Increase all the above estimates accordingly.

from "Introduction to the Federal Budget Process"

Suspicious Purposes

The suspicious purpose could be simply going to a good contractor who deserves to the contract because he has the right skills - maybe ok, but we probably don't know. That contractor might also be owned by a relative of the Congressman - not good. That contractor might also be getting a payoff for campaign favors - definitely not good. Or it might simply be a payoff for a bribe - downright crooked.

My point is that hidden earmarks may constitute an awful lot of money when we discuss it in average human terms. I am not against earmarks, but I do believe all earmarks should be visible to the public and, especially, we should know the authoring Congressman. In other words, let's really earmark the earmarks.

This has been just a summary of the earmark subject. It gets really complicated in the details. So what should be done?

Mark the Earmark

First, get an agreed upon definition of earmarks and make that definition an Act of Congress, signed by the Senate, the House, and signed by the President (without a signing statement). A good place to start is the "OMB Guidance to Agencies on Definition of Earmarks." OMB should provide the guidance, but Congress must make it law.

After that, we probably need another, better Honest Leadership and Open Government Act of 200x. What that should contain depends on whom you ask. Larry Lessig, professor of law at Stanford and once aspired to be a member of Congress, has taken a puritanical approach of abolishing all earmarks and no money from PACs. He seems to be gathering a following among voters, at least one state legislature, and some US Congressmen of both Parties. You can read about Lessig at "Fix Congress First" at the Huffington Post, and "Larry Lessig: Time to reject corporate influence on Washington" on CNET News. Or you can visit his site, Change Congress and sign up as a supporter, see which Congressmen have recently signed up, or find how much or your local Member is getting from PACs.

I'm not fond of completely doing away with all earmarks, but I wouldn't oppose it if Congress takes the step. If McCain is elected, this is what he says he will do.

The public is aware of earmarks and wants solutions. Some Congressmen are for doing away with earmarks, more are for making earmarks completely visible. The next President and Congress will feel the pressure and have an opportunity to fix the problem. The only thing that might prevent a solution are those who benefit from the $18 billion in earmarks.

Former Politician Adopts Truth

2008-05-16T19:38:00.001-04:00

Chuck Robb, former US Senator, former Governor of Virginia, and now national security expert gave a talk yesterday to a group of business and academic leaders in Southside Virginia. His talk was refreshingly honest in that it covered our greatest threat (nuclear Iran) and our greatest problem in responding to today's threats (not enough ground troops).

I say his talk was "refreshing" mostly because I find little "refreshing" honesty in the campaigns of our three Oval Office seekers, but then, Robb is a former politician.

cCain also talked yesterday and said we will win in Iraq by 2013. That's good. I want to win and I like having a date. But what will we have won? Why are we there? What is our national security priority that makes us want to win and be there in 2013?

In short, what is the national security platform for McCain and the Republican Party? Where do you want to take this country? What are our goals for the world and why should we Americans want those goals? "To make the world safe for democracy," "to bring freedom to freedom loving people" are slogans, not answers.

I believe we should be in Iraq in 2013 and longer if necessary and I have reasons that may or not be the same as yours, but I am not running for President. Before you accuse me of siding with one or more Democrats, I ask similar questions of Clinton and Obama. Clinton leans to keeping troops in Iraq but with some kind of undefined timetable. Obama favors a rapid timetable to do something undefined at the end of that timetable. Neither has defined the role of the US in Iraq or the Middle East. Since our presence in the Middle East seems unavoidable, I'd like the next President to define our purposes and goals.

On the domestic side, McCain favors flat tax and more tax cuts, the first of which will never pass Congress and the second is just more voter candy like the gas tax holiday. Clinton returns to some kind of national health care but seems to have no other plans for the economy. Obama wants us to all work together to do what?

What Robb Said

ere's the gist of Chuck Robb's talk. Iran is developing nuclear weapons and would probably give those weapons to terrorists. This will be at the top of the next President's inbox and a solution can't wait. America's military ground force is stretched too thin, "almost to the breaking point." America is in a difficult economic position with having to increase its national security force and also paying for two financially crippling wars.

When asked if the political process was capable of electing a leader empowered to solve these problems, Robb answered, "Empowered, yes. Political will, no." (I would have given a reference web page but this report was in a local newspaper and I could not find a web news article reporting on the talk.)

We haven't heard much from Robb since 2004, his last year as Senator. Since then he has served as co-chair for the Iraq Intelligence Committee, as a member of the President's Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board and the Iraq Study Group.

'm still working of the Fix Congress theme and plan on discussing earmarks next. Throughout this research, I am struck by the sheer complexity of the issues and the difficulty of presenting my findings in a brief, coherent post. The issues confronting America are, indeed, complex and the time for corrections in running out. The peace dividend after the Cold War came and went in a flash, terrorism continues to threaten us, our national debt increases as foreigners (with no personal ties to America) increasingly buy our debt, health care is near breakdown for most people, entitlement programs are running out of time for a fix, and our military is not prepared to defend America against virtually any kind of new threat.

And with all this, we have Presidential candidates who discuss none of these issues in any meaningful way. Perhaps part of the problem is the media that forces candidates to talk about old sermons of former pastors and a host of other trivial subjects that in no way resemble the issues facing this nation.

Could it also be that Americans do not want to hear or talk about the important issues?

30% Believe Bush is Doing a Good Job

resident Bush has an approval rating of around 30%, depending of the time of day and the barometric pressure. Since elections in most democratic countries are won by little over 50%, the low 30% approval is significant. However, I am struck by the fact that about one out of three people think Bush has done a good job.

Most of us are well beyond the point of denying that the Bush Administration either lied to or misled America on everything from the terrorist -Iraq connection and Iraq's WMD, to torture, and to the nature of spying on America. We really do have the facts on the lies or misdirection from Bush, Rove, and Cheney. I must assume that those who still believe in Bush do not believe any of these facts.

am not talking about why Bush and his team did it. There are many reasonable conjectures on that subject. And I am not talking about why these Bush supporters deny the facts. There are many conjectures on that too.

I am talking about 30% of the population that is not susceptible to facts. Given that, am I hoping for the impossible that politicians might start campaigning on truth? If politicians were to present their plans for America, will the media destroy them with sound bite "journalism" directed to that 30% who do vote with passion.

If the last is true, then it will be because enough Americans prefer sound bites to complicated plans. It would be because too many Americans prefer simple, warm fuzzies to real plans.

ou tell me. Is our future to be a series of national disasters brought on by simplistic (and usually wrong) promises? Are we to worry more about the pastor Wrights and Hagees than about the need to increase our national security? Are we to worry more about Clinton's popularity with us old farts and Obama's lack of support from supposedly racially motivated (hint, hint) West Virginians than our financial futures? I'm afraid that, for the 30%, it's probably true.

I assume that most of you who read this post understand more of the complexities facing this nation. You understand that the media-driven news is not news. There are reporters and journalist who do try to cover the important issues. I believe that number actually increasing, but they are moving to the Internet where media corporations cannot control them. Newspapers, my newspaper in particular, are less and less a source of news. But now and then you find and interesting article like the one on Chuck Robb.

RNC Wants My Opinions

2008-05-12T18:28:00.002-04:00

If you've never been a Republican, you are missing out on some depressing humor that comes in letters from the Republican National Committee. I get at least one such letter in the months before each election cycle. This time, I received three letters so the RNC must be in some sort of panic. The last letter was the official "Republican Party Census Document." Yep, that's the title and they want me to tell them about my most important issues for the coming elections.

Cat in Japan, 12x18, pastel

received a similar (no - make that almost identical) census before the 2006 elections. I answered the questions and added a comment to the effect, "I will not vote Republican again until the Party returns to its roots of integrity and fiscal responsibility." As you might suspect, I didn't get a response, but that might be because I didn't send any money.

By the way, I also receive letters from the NRA. They say I'm not paid up and they will terminate me. Since I've never been a member of the NRA, termination is kind of scary. I own handguns and have had other guns. The Constitution, not the NRA, protects that right. Still, I wish the NRA would clarify how they intend to terminate me.

ut this post is for you folks who don't get the wonderful RNC Census. Let me give you some their questions, the ones I really like. My comments in italics:

Should we make our fight against the Democrats' massive tax hikes a central part of the 2008 campaign?

What tax hikes? No Democrat, no candidate of any party, has proposed tax hikes. However, any fixes to Medicare, health care or the like will require more taxes now, or like we usually do, push the debt on to our grandchildren. Maybe more importantly, we need to increase our military budget if we are to fight terrorism AND defend against other threats. Has the RNC mentioned a Republican massive tax hike to defend America?

President Bush's successful income and capital gains tax cuts are set to expire -- should they be made permanent?

No. The growing disparity between middle America and Bush's rich should leave no one doubting that this White House has been pro-wealthy and pro-business. Even Reagan realized that tax cuts work only if the are timed correctly and are temporary. Bush's tax cuts are certainly successful - for the very wealthy.

Should Republicans fight for a balanced budget?

Yes, dammit. When will you start?

Should Republicans in Congress oppose the new, wasteful government spending programs proposed by the Democrats and their leaders, Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid?

Yes. But what if the new programs are what America needs, are not wasteful, and are proposed by Pelosi and Reid. Will you still fight them ornery Democrats?

Do you agree that our top military priority should be fighting terrorists?

That depends. Fighting terrorists that threaten the US has not been a priority since 2003. In the meantime we've hurt our military so much that we have little reserve to defend against another war of any kind. With no other major threats at this time, I'd vote for fighting terrorist as the top priority, so, when do we start? At least, let's try not to make more terrorists than we started with.

Should Republicans fight Democrat efforts to impose Clinton-era cuts in the Pentagon's budget?

Yes, although no Democrat has proposed such cuts. While you are at it, maybe you could also vote to fully fund the VA, start taking care of our vets from all wars to the present, and stop proposing cuts in the medical care promised to us retired military.

This is just a sampling. The questions read like a bad joke but I think these folks at the RNC are serious. Note the inflammatory, but meaningless, sound-bite phrases:

Democrats' massive tax hikes
new, wasteful government spending programs proposed by the Democrats
Clinton-era cuts in the Pentagon's budget

There were worse phrases, but you get the idea. I don't know which angers me most - those meaningless word images or the selection of equally meaningless questions. Democrats are evil and Republicans are the only ones who man the ramparts against such despicable evildoers. By November, I wouldn't be surprised if the Democrats didn't become part of the Axis of Evil.

t just makes me sad that my once proud Republicans have sunk so low. It used to be a party that built a platform on reason (yeah, somewhat elitist). This letter/census is pure hate mail geared to emotion only. A close relative said, "Well, the Democrats did it first." Well, that's true but I don't remember it stooping to such a level that insulted the intelligence of voters.

Anyway, I don't really care what the Democrats did or do. I'm not very interested in that Party; the only values I share with that Party are some of social values and a concern for the non-rich. I am concerned with the Republican Party and would like it move away from the radical right and present a reasoned and thoughtful platform.

I'm sure the RNC letter was intended for the party faithful and not to me. Sorry I opened someone else's mail, but it was addressed to me. At least the RNC hasn't threatened to "terminate" me - yet.

Congressional Problems Are Not New

2008-05-02T10:05:00.002-04:00

The December 1984 Atlantic Monthly had an article by Gregg Easterbrook titled, "What's Wrong with Congress." With a title like that, I had to take a look and I recommend it since not much has changed since then. However, the article was written at a time when readers had a much longer attention span, so be prepared for a very long read.

Since the article covers so much territory, I'll summarize the points that grabbed me. Easterbrook relates the current (1984) problems to the removal of the seniority system a decade earlier. Until the mid 70s, senior senators and representatives controlled just about everything that happened in Congress. Other members could gain seniority only when the seniors retired or died, and they knew that they had to follow the seniors' wishes or lose out.

Many of the senior members of Congress were from the South, mostly Dixiecrats. Civil rights was the dominant issue and the public demanded progress on this and other issues. Congress was under a lot of pressure to change the way it conducted business and they decided to remove the seniority system.

emoval of the seniority system was good because it made Congress more representative of America's diverse regions. But it was bad because it left no one in charge and it caused a proliferation of committees and subcommittees.

When the seniority system was in effect, the work of Congress flowed smoothly and on time, even if certain regions of America lost out on funding because they didn't have a senior member of Congress. Without the seniority system, the work of Congress slowed and the status of any bill or act became impossible to predict.

Removal of the seniority system was also bad because it happened about the same time that television news discovered the sound bite. Television news was never good at reporting on complicated issues or proceedings. Since Congress is always dealing with complicated issues and must conduct long and boring proceedings or hearings, Congress and TV news were never a good match.

However, the newly freed Representatives and Senators were free to talk and promote themselves to their constituents back home. TV reporters and Members of Congress discovered the sound bite. It was a marriage made in heaven for the participants. TV could pack more material, that looked and sound like news. Members of Congress could get exposure without ever exposing their thought processes to public review.

Here are some of Easterbrook's examples Congressional troubles, and my comments and my titles:

Confusion Abounds

"Recently Congress voted for a $749 billion package of tax cuts, and only a few months later was locked in debate over a constitutional amendment for a balanced budget. The House voted in favor of Ronald Reagan's plan to almost double the number of nuclear warheads in the U.S. arsenal, and not long after voted in favor of the nuclear freeze."

"...many spending bills have not been completed until months after the spending they supposedly control has begun. ... and these often contain "unprinted amendments" whose contents congressmen have never had an opportunity to read."

Morris Udall said, "The end of the seniority system; the arabesque budget "process" and other time-consuming new additions like the War Powers Act; the transformation from party loyalty to political-action-committee (PAC) loyalty; the increased emphasis on media campaigning; the vogue of running against Washington and yet being a member of the Washington establishment; the development of ideological anti-campaigns; a dramatic increase in congressional-subcommittee power and staff size, and a parallel increase in the scope and intensity of lobbying--all are creations of the past fifteen years. Some have served to make the nation's legislature more democratic and to improve its contact with the public. Others have made congressmen more frantic and timorous. But every change has in some respect caused Congress to become more difficult to run. Right now there isn't anyone in charge, and there may never be again."

Easterbrook evaluates: "More than any other factor, the deregulation of subcommittees has increased Congress's workload and decreased its cohesion."

e still have much of this with us today. I find it absurd that Congress can propose tax cuts and then pretend to vote for a balanced budget. The key element of this dishonesty is to pass "temporary" resolutions that produce an budget deficit and increases the allowed debt. These resolutions are rarely temporary.

Negative Campaigning and Workloads

"Since low attendance (on the floor of Congress) has an instant negative connotation, one of the easiest ways for a challenger to attack an incumbent congressman is to hammer at a "bad attendance record" on floor votes--a tactic that avoids the issue of whether the congressman might have made more meaningful use of his time."

"Because of the regularity with which redundant floor votes occur, Congress "never finishes anything, never arrives at a decision," according to Senator Ted Stevens, of Alaska. "Always they are just preliminary decisions that will be addressed again later anyway. It's totally confusing to the public, and even to ourselves."

"The shift. in campaign financing toward direct mail and PACS has an obverse effect that is often overlooked: the shift away from political-party structures as a source of funds.... "Today, if you can't sell an issue in twenty seconds, you can't use it," Representative Synar says. "It only takes twenty seconds to say 'Your congressman is against prayer.' It takes me five minutes to explain why that's wrong. But television won't give me five minutes."

his raises the issue of whether more useful work is done on the floor or in committee. We don't know and perhaps the members of Congress don't know. But it does illustrate that most Congressmen have to spend otherwise useful time in covering their backsides.

Budget Woes

Much of Easterbrook's article deals with the budget. That's proper since the budget is a prime Constitutional role for Congress. Here are some examples and thoughts about the budget process:

"Before 1974 the House and Senate each had three kinds of committees involved with the budget: authorizing, appropriating, and revenue. The authorizing committees, like Agriculture, Transportation, Energy, and Interior, are the most familiar; they "authorize" federal activity by writing legislation in their subject areas. But though they can start or end programs, they cannot approve expenditures--only the two appropriating committees can do that. Since the amount spent on a program usually determines that program's effect on policy, the potential for overlapping and disputation is boundless. Neither authorizing nor appropriating committees, meanwhile, have the power to raise the money that backs up the checks--only the Finance Committee, in the Senate, and the Ways and Means Committee, in the House, do. Because of this separation it became all too easy for authorizing and appropriating committees to ignore the fiscal consequences of their actions--getting the money was somebody's else's job--and for the revenue committees, in turn, to demand that the other fellow crack down on spending." (Emphasis is mine.)

"The budget process was intended to bring together the questions of how much to spend, how to spend it, and where the funds would come from with a single resolution that would both guide Congress and impose a series of spending ceilings to control the deficit. ...Ideally this would have been accomplished through some merging of the authorizing, appropriating, and revenue committees. But merger would have required that at least two powerful chairmen, plus many subcommittee chairmen, surrender their posts. So an entirely new procedural tier, the budget committees, complete with two important new chairmanships, was set on top."

"Often in recent years the United States has technically not had a budget at all but rather has operated under a "continuing resolution" that keeps the money flowing but avoids an official legislative confrontation over the deficit. Continuing resolutions are popular, in part because they are one of the mechanisms that allow congressmen to seem to be voting for both sides at once: they can vote No on the budget itself ("I'm opposed to these deficits") and vote Yes for individual programs on the continuing resolution ("I brought increased federal spending to this district"). Similarly, the frequent votes to raise the federal debt ceiling are technically "temporary" legislation, so that congressmen can claim that each vote was merely for an emergency stopgap, not an endorsement of the debt itself."

"In recent years there also has been an increase in the use of supplemental appropriations bills, which are in effect end runs around the stagnated budget process."

"A noncontroversial philanthropic bill--who could be against food for drought victims and summer jobs for youth?--was ideal as a carrier of baggage. Within ten days the Senate had attached no fewer than thirty-five more riders to the bill."

Summary

think this article is a good introduction and summary of why we never get a balanced budget, why it takes so long to settle on any kind of budget, and how the confusion allows unnamed members to tack on earmarks and supplementals that drive the budget into red. Clearly Congress needs to change their budget procedures.

The main points are:

The budget process is unworkable

budget approved after expenditures begin
Neither Members of Congress or the voter have any idea of where any part of the budget stands at any time

The budget process allows Members of Congress to evade responsibility

Authors of additions to the budget not often identifiable
Too many committees and subcommittees. They overlap and allow a Member of Congress to increase spending in one committee and then claim fiscal responsibility in another committee

The budget process does not promote a balanced budget, nor does it facilitate reducing the deficit.

Verizon Might Lose My DSL

2008-04-28T19:50:00.003-04:00

have a painful and frustrating history with Verizon. Two years ago I rejoiced that DLS was finally available at my location and I could drop the totally infuriating DirecWay.

Wringing Out the Line

switched from Sprint to Verizon for land line and requested DSL. I got the new land line and DSL about one month later. You see, it takes one month for them to "wring out" the line and make sure it works. Does anyone really believe in today's world that it could possibly take more than a couple of days, and those two days only to get a work order to the technician.

I had DSL services for three days and it went dead. It turns out that Verizon had switched my land line without a proper release from Sprint, whatever that means (actually a company that had just bought a Sprint territory). This, they carefully explained to me, required that they "wring out" the line again. On a line that had already worked? I griped and they rushed and I got my DSL back in three weeks. BTW, I had no dial-up during this period. Not a good start with someone that wants my business.

Disconnect in Four Days

ne year later, I scheduled web payment of my Verizon bill but apparently was distracted and didn't hit the final submit payments button. My mistake. But my only notice from Verizon was a letter received on a Friday afternoon requiring payment by the next Tuesday. Even web payment wouldn't arrive in time, nor would snail mail. I made a web payment anyway and then doubled up by using my credit card to pay by telephone. Now - get this. In order to use my own credit card on Verizon's telephone payment costs me between $15 and $20 (I forgot the exact amount). And that was an automated system.

How Verizon Does Business

made the mistake but Verizon has my credit report and they could have an automated system that check when payments are late and evaluates whether the customer is a risk. If so, they would have found that I had absolutely no late payments in the 15 years that the credit bureaus maintain (it has been more than 25 years for me). I griped and Verizon rescinded the fee. I asked if there was a mistake and that I should have received earlier warning. No definitive answer. Frustrated, I asked if this was the standard way they do business. The answer was definitive - "yes, that's the way we do business."

No Dial Tone

ow for today. A week ago last Friday, I lost my dial tone. No dial tone a the box outside the house. I placed a service order by cell phone to their other automated system for losing service orders. They couldn't send a technician for five days. I don't know. Maybe I'm confused, but I thought Verizon was a telephone company. Five days?

Five days passed and no technician showed up. After 6PM, I placed a work order via their web site (note that my DSL still worked). It was scheduled for the next day even though I had no human to gripe to. No technician ever showed up. However, my phone magically had a dial tone that morning. Shortly after that, someone associated with Verizon called on the land line to ask if our phone was working. My wife was sarcastic.

I had noticed that the phone line coming down the telephone pole to a box there (the line goes underground from that box to the one at my house). It was flapping in the breeze and I suspected that might be part of the problem. I returned the call to that local Verizon person. A lady answered by saying, "Hello." She didn't say Verizon or some-Verizon-subcontractor, just "Hello." I noted the flapping wire problem and she said she'd get someone on it. That was six days ago and it's still flapping.

No Dial Tone, Again --- And Slow DSL

lost the dial tone again about one week later, last Thursday. I called the automated system and asked for an agent as soon as the system could understand the difficult word agent. All I could get was another promise of a technician in another - you guessed it - 5 days. I couldn't explain that this was a second event and I couldn't talk to a supervisor. I couldn't even add anything about that flapping wire.

I had noticed that my Internet was slower on Saturday but didn't get around to checking it. My download speed was about half of normal and half of what other Verizon customers in my zip code were getting. I took ten valium and called Verizon for DSL trouble. I was connected to that wonderful country that speaks native Vulcan but we call it India.

The tech support was quite good but they couldn't do anything. They promised that I would get full speed back when I got a dial tone. The supervisor also passed on through the phone guy that I would probably lose my DSL before the dial tone was repaired.

Verizon Wants to be Your Communications Center

o I expect a technician to show up or otherwise repair both the dial tone and the DSL? Given Verizon's history, it's not promising.

I constantly get ads to get my DLS, land line, cell phone, and DirecTV (thankfully I've had that for 11 years and not through Verizon). Anyone who falls for this package and misses one payment will lose all communication with outside world for a period of time to be determined or not determined by Verizon, after payments of course.

Two Reasons to be an Independent

2008-04-28T18:46:00.002-04:00

As a one time Republican, and what used to be called Conservative, I've thought about a post on why I finally gave up on the Republican Party. I haven't gotten around to drafting that yet, but I just received two letters that reminded me of some reasons for leaving that party.

Both letters are from the Republican National Committee. The first letter reminded me how important it is to keep the Democrats out of office. Let me extract some quotes.

"But I am not writing to you today only to seek your support for our Party this fall."

No, the request for money was in the other letter received on the same day.

"Our opponents rely on the financial backing of leftist billionaires...., radical groups..., Hollywood elites, and Big Labor...

If the terrorists don't get you, then the leftist billionaires, radical groups, Hollywood elites, and Big Labor will destroy you! Scare tactics perfected since Reagan. This is insulting and I hope we've come to a time when the average voter sees through the use of scare tactics to hide the lack of a party platform. Also, we just lost a famous Hollywood elite - Charlton Heston.

"They (Democrats) promised "reforms" last November, but what have they delivered?

Groundless partisan investigations of the Bush Administration;"
A budget with the largest tax hike in American history;
Conditions on funding for our troops fighting to protect us and winning the War on Terror
Parliamentary procedure games instead of meaningful legislation; and,
Unofficial attempts at backdoor diplomacy with tyrants.

Groundless investigations? The facts are there. There is more than enough justification to proceed with those investigations which, by the war are hardly partisan since responsible Republicans are also asking for those investigations. There is also sufficient evidence to begin impeachment hearings but none of us really want another partisan circus.

Tax hike: There is no tax hike proposed. Instead the Democrats want the temporary tax cuts to expire as the Republicans promised and wrote into the bills at the time they were passed. Again this is fact, but Republicans would want you to forget that the tax cuts were temporary. They do not want you to hear that temporary tax cuts can help, but long-term/permanent tax cuts damage the economy, especially increasing unemployment, in a few short years. Most economists agree that the our economy is hurting and that the Iraq War is a very small part of the cause. Tax cuts are the primary cause.

War on Terror: Democrats have never put conditions on fighting the War on Terror; they have attempted to put conditions of funding troops in Iraq which responds to the wishes of about 70% of Americans.

Parliament procedures: The rise of crippling parliamentary procedures occurred mostly during the Clinton and Bush II periods. If one wants to consider meaningful legislation, I suggest you look at about any Congress other than those serving while Bush II reigned. Backdoor diplomacy must refer to Pelosi's trips, possibly even Carter's. The moral here is that anyone who talks to evildoers are committing treason. All administrations since 1945 have talked to and negotiated with the USSR. Nixon began serious dialogue with evildoer China. The list goes on. Any President who does not negotiate with the enemy is courting war. Talking is good. Talking is not equal to agreeing. Negotiating is essential.

"The Democrats' lineup of liberal presidential candidates ... promises of punitive taxation, massive spending, abandonment of our tough national security policies,, and far-reaching intrusion into the lives and liberty of the American people."

Those bulleted points, in a nutshell, would have been the platform of the Republican Party of old. These terms are now a very good description of the Republican Party today, with the exception of punitive taxation. They like to call Democrats as "tax and spend" which has some truth to it. I would call the Republicans of today as "spend like no Democrat ever conceived possible, but make our children and grandchildren pay for it."

The second letter asks for $1,000, or amounts smaller to $25. I chose an even smaller amount of $0. They wonder if I have "abandoned the Republican Party." Maybe they know?

Then the letter goes on to list diatribe similar to or exactly the same as the first letter. They also wonder "Have you given up?" No, I haven't. I'm not a Democrat and don't think I could ever buy their platform in toto. I hope the moderate Republicans retain a measure of the integrity and true financial conservatism of the Grand OLD Party and that they may once again control the party. But for now moderate Republicans and myself do not feel welcome in a party that's gone off the deep end.

I believe that this is my first really angry post. I am angry at a Party that has rubbed its traditional values in crap. I am angry at a Party that claims budgetary responsibility but has outspent previous administrations with glee. I am angry at a Party that once really believed in less government into private lives, but now spies on us and tries to push a narrow-minded morality into our homes. I am angry at a Party that once participated in the world rather than ignoring the Geneva Conventions, ridiculing once friendly nations because they disagreed on a war that has proven them right, and moving us away from an inherently moral superiority.

I have one more angry post coming but it will not be about war or politics. It's about Verizon.

Congress Needs an Overhaul, Not Repair

2008-04-27T16:24:00.003-04:00

What's wrong with Congress? Let me count the ways. I used the term "bent but not broken" in describing the condition of our Army and Marine Corps. When it comes to Congress, I think we can call it "bent, maybe broken, and certainly not serving the people in any meaningful way."

began this study of the problems of Congress as I usually start new projects, by underestimating the enormity of project. I began with a concern that Congress had allowed the Executive Branch to assume unconstitutional powers that led to a Presidency that is out of control. I am finding (or re-discovering) that this is only the tip of the iceberg. Congress is incapable of doing most of the things for which they were elected.

The Web is filled with sites dedicated to fixing some part of the Congressional mess. Most have analyzed some problems and proposed viable solutions. A few go to the extreme of proposing that we vote out all incumbents. The idea is that, if we vote out all incumbents, the new Congressmen and Congresswomen will understand that their job futures depend on the American voter. I don't personally buy the approach, but it may, in the end, be the only workable approach to a failed Congress.

ost of these sites, in my opinion, do not address the broad range of Congress's problems, with the exception of one new site which I'll mention in a later post. The following are the major topic areas I've collected from a lot of web pages:

The budget process has become nonfunctional.

Committees and subcommittees have proliferated. They overlap, discuss the same issues, call the same witnesses, and rarely reach decisions.
Some committees and subcommittees have the job of adding to the budget while claiming they are reducing it.
Because of the proliferation of committees and subcommittees, few if any Congressmen know where any element of the budget stands at any time, let alone knowing the condition of the entire budget.
It is impossible for citizens to follow the budget process.
Earmarks can be added without other Congressmen or citizens knowing who added them. Thus, the budget grows without accountability.
The budget cycle is never on schedule, sometimes even resulting in approval after the spending has started.

News/media report on individual members of Congress, but rarely report on the workings of Congress as a legislative body.

The seniority system died in 1975 (a good thing), but it leaves us with 100 individual prima donnas in the Senate and 435 in the House. Each vies for publicity and exposure to their constituents.
With media-type news that has little ability or interest in reporting on complex issues, the media gravitates to the sound bites of Congressional prima donnas, but never tells us about what's going on in Congress.

Issues that become publicized are voted on along strict Party lines. This is partly due to the rise of the power of the Republican Party (now being emulated by the Democratic Party) and partly due to the above prima donna effect wherein our Congressmen seek publicity by being partisan. Result: nothing gets done.
Related to the above issue is the hidden control of Congress by PACs. Partisan voting is also due to the money influence of PACs. Depending on your political, financial, or moral leanings, some PACs are good, some are bad, but all enjoy hidden relationships with the peoples' representatives. Since it is obvious that those we elect dance to the tune of powers other than the voter, we should, at the very least, know who is calling the dance.
Social Security and, especially, Medicare are in trouble and approaching crisis. We've known this for years. Congress has also known it for years. Yet nothing has been done in the last three Administrations or the last six or seven Congresses. The time for action is running out yet Congress only promises action in the next Congress, again and again.
Congress should hold government agencies accountable for the funds Congress gives to them. Yet waste abounds and Congress can do nothing.
Some Congressmen are corrupt, a very few are very corrupt.

ut the biggest problem isn't listed above. And that is, if Congress is to change, then only Congress can make that change. Catch-22. There are some Congressmen that do want change, but most do not. New Congressmen spend so much time trying to learn the baroque workings of the place, that once they get used to it, they don't want to change it.

I listed personal corruption last because I do not believe that it is a major problem. Even if corruption is worse than I believe, all the other issues must be addressed before we could effectively root out much corruption.

I've see a couple of sites that say that today, more than at any other time in the recent past, Americans are ready to make Congress change. I agree, but how do we go about it? In later posts I will get into a little more depth on some of the major issues. Mostly I will try to summarize the issues and point the reader to sites that cover the issues in more depth. I will present the various solutions that others have proposed and again point to those sites. I might even propose my own solutions.

Grand Canyon 1, 9x10 colored pencil, 2000

Miscellaneous Items

2008-04-21T18:39:00.002-04:00

I promised some discussion and research on the "what's wrong with Congress" topic and it will probably be a few days until you see my first post on the topic. Those few of you who followed my 2007 posts know that I tend to research a topic, gather my notes into a somewhat cohesive thought pattern, and then post/inform as I go. Shooting from the hip is not my style. I like to roll things around in my mind for a while.

I've collected information on Congress' problems that go back to 1984 analyses. There are some threads that you see running through different analyses and over the years, but there are also a lot of ways of looking at the problem. I need to first sort all that into some useful groupings. In the meantime, this post covers some miscellaneous items.

First, I plan on showing off my too-many hobbies from time to time. One hobby is painting and here's one selected at random, and completed in 1999.

Biloxi Porch, watercolor, 9x12, 1999, signature blurred on purpose

No Update on the Iraq Situation

I have nothing to add to the situation in Iraq. It is confusing. Operations in and around Basra and Sadr City are apparently ongoing or renewed. I question the size or progress of both operations. In my first post of this year, I referenced some knowledgeable reporters who said the operations were directed at the Mahdi Army. This was bolstered by actions in the Iraqi Parliament and statements by the Grand Ayatollah Sistani to marginalize al-Sadr.

But al-Sadr has responded with only lukewarm threats to end the truce. I have to suspect that either the operations are having little impact on the Mahdi Army or al Sadr is actually too weak to do anything other than threaten. It's too early to tell.

Web Research Tools

The Internet is a playground for this 71-year-old guy who's always been addicted to learning new things and to research. My first PC was in 1980, a TRS-80. By 1982, I was on the Internet before the web existed using the absurdly expensive Compuserve. Finding good Internet research tools is not easy. I've used several shareware and freeware clipping/organizer tools over the years and none have satisfied me until I started using Firefox.

There are several web clipping plugins for Firefox. Google Notebook and Dappad are two useful items but I quit using them. My longtime favorite is Scrapbook (with Multi-Scrapbook enabled). Scrapbook can clip (and save) any portion or all of a web page and the files into folders or categories you designate. Once saved you can then edit the pages to remove unwanted frames or sections, add inline or sticky notes, and highlight text. Scrapbook is extremely powerful. My only problem has been with accessing the files from a network drive. I often get corrupted files from my laptop.

Recently I've used EverNote. EverNote is kind of odd. You can categorize clips, but they're called tags, which makes sense. Notes can be selected by single or multiple tags and then scrolled like a very long tape. Scrolling uses two scrolls sliders, one for moving quickly from one clip to the next, and another slider for more precise scrolling. The second slider controls the speed of scrolling. It takes some getting used to. You can also search the clips with keywords.

Evernote has a free and a paid version but they recently offered a free invitation to the paid version. The free version is nice enough; I found their automatic categories (image, etc., and "this week," "this month," etc.) get in the way. The paid version removes those automatic categories and adds online synchronization of the database to their server (plus some other nice features if you use a graphics pad). Visit Evernote and see if the free invitation is still offered.

I use Scrapbook for research results that I intend to keep for some time and access infrequently. It has more sophisticated structuring and it is easier to find things you've forgotten about. I use Evernote for blogging research and other short-term research. I find Evernote is easier to use "on the fly" but I'm not sure why it seems that way to me.

I tried the Opera browser and I really like it. Compared to Firefox or IE7, Opera opens like a speed demon. Opera has a built-in note taker and I found it not to be very useful for extensive research. Since neither Scrapbook or Evernote are adapted to Opera, I stayed with Firefox.

Congressional Conundrum

2008-04-19T20:04:00.002-04:00

from VOID
www.voidnow.com
(Vote Out Incumbents Democracy)

Only 20 % of Americans approve

of the job

Congress is doing.

*******************************

Yet we will send virtually the same

Congressmen and Congresswomen

Back to Try Again.

Presidential elections always generate more interest and more press than Congressional elections, but I propose that Congressional elections are as important. The Bush term is coming to an end, but the unconstitutional powers that he assumed will remain for the next president. Whether we elect a Republican or Democrat, Congress must reclaim its constitutional authority and give us, once again, a government of, by, and for the people.

Oval Office Emperor

Recounting all the events that have made the Bush Administration a tragedy of historic measure no longer serves any purpose. However, we should acknowledge that this Administration has the power to ignore the overwhelming desires of the American people and the Congress we elected to right the Administration's wrongs. Our inability to restore the nation's honor and return to the principles on which the nation was founded is more than frustrating. Our President has the power to stonewall every effort to change our course and he has used the power repeatedly.

The problem may not end in January 2008 with a new president. Power is a subtle, but powerful, corrupter, and it may well corrupt the next president whether Republican or Democrat, whether man or woman. Our founders realized this and established a government of checks and balances. Congress was designed to be a check on the Executive and Congress simply has not performed that responsibility in the last eight years, maybe more.

Flailing, Failing Congress

e are unhappy with Congress. But we keep sending the same folks back to the same place. Walt Kelly put the right words into one of his characters in the 1950/60s comic strip, Pogo (I don't remember if it was Pogo or Alfred who said it), "We have met the enemy and they are us." For you younger folks, that quote was at a time when Pogo was poking sarcastic fun at the far Right Wingers of the time, the John Birch Society. He called them the Jack Acid Society. This was also a time of Senator McCarthy and his Anti-Communist Hearings, both the Birch Society and McCarthy attempted to silence opposition with smear tactics and calls to false patriotism. Sounds like the past eight years.

We, the American voter, must share the responsibility, but we may be partially forgiven because we had little useful information from the media/press. These folks basically forgot about responsible reporting and, instead, concentrated on entertainment "news" and accepted Administration press releases as truth.

There are many in the news business today who realize those errors and they are trying to separate the press from the media and bring back some honesty and integrity. There is now a recognition on their part that the entertainment media is incompatible with responsible news reporting. There are many facet to the problems and their solutions, but check out Nieman Watchdog in my News Blog Links and PressThink for discussions of the issues.

Congress has, from time to time, given the President exceptional powers. That is not the problem. But when Congress either gives those exceptional powers, or when the Executive assumes unconstitutional powers, Congress has the additional responsibility to monitor the use of those powers and to advise and consent, or advise and not consent.

Congress rolled over and played dead while Bush waged a wrong war, hamstrung environmental and energy regulation and in general promoted a big business policy at the expense of the people. Congress cheered for destructive tax cuts for corporations and the very, very wealthy and they assisted in selling those tax cuts by giving trivial cuts to the middle class and poor, and by selling permanent cuts as temporary.

Congress is now trying to perform their constitutional powers and responsibilities and they are failing. It is now too late to do much about Bush. But the acquisition of exceptional powers in the Executive do not naturally die with the next President, whether Republican or Democrat. Congress must not allow this to continue.

Congressional Conundrum - Polling Oddities

ongress has an absurdly low approval rating. Here's a sampling from PollingReport.com.

The table at PollingReport is actually longer and shows more poll results, but the they are consistent with what I've extracted here. Two-thirds or more of Americans disapprove of Congress as a whole group. Ten to fifteen percent are unsure. Only about 20% approve.

When it comes to individual members of Congress, the figures are not quite as bad (also taken from PollingReport.com). In February, PEW Research asked, "Regardless of how you feel about your own representative, would you like to see most members of Congress reelected in the upcoming congressional election, or not?" 49% said NO (36% yes, 15% not sure). The answers from polls taken late in 2007 were more negative.

Americans are very unhappy with Congress, but only somewhat unhappy with members of Congress.

There's certainly some disconnected thinking here. Since Congress is composed of nothing more the members, is it possible for a collection of so-so members to perform so badly? An explanation must lie in voter perceptions.

The conundrum. According to VOID (Vote Out Incumbents Democracy), 92% of all Senate incumbents will be reelected. In the House it's 98%. In other words, nearly all members of Congress will be reelected yet the job approval for Congress is around 20%.

Voters have a different perception for their own Senator or Representative than for Congressmen in general. Going back to the PollingReport.com, here's the way the questions were paired:

"Would you like to see your representative in Congress be reelected in the upcoming congressional election, or not?"

YES	NO
60 %	22 %

"Regardless of how you feel about your own representative, would you like to see most members of Congress reelected in the upcoming congressional election, or not?"

YES NO

36 % 49 %

Fox News posed a similar question in November 07. The responses for 'own representative' totaled 50% Yes, 29% N0. Pretty close to the same as above. On the second question for 'all representatives' it was 26% Yes, 45% No. Again very similar answers.

Let me summarize those statistics in my own words:

YES?

Is Congress doing a good job? 20 %

Are Congressmen doing a good job? 36 %

Do you like your Congressman (reelect)? 92+ %

So, Congress is performing poorly. Our own Congressmen are good guys or women. Then the problem is because of all the other Congressmen. That doesn't make sense and I would hope that anyone reading this would agree.

What's Wrong

here are only two other explanations. One is that our own Congressmen really aren't very good, but I doubt that. Most Congressmen have good intentions and are at least as competent as the average citizen. (The VOID site that I quoted in the opening has some interesting ideas, but voting out all incumbents responds to the frustration, not the problem.)

A second explanation lies in the way Congressmen interact and work together as a Congress, or do not interact and do not work together. We tend to call this partisanship, but that term evokes a vision of Republicans against Democrats. Congressional partisanship involves more than just political parties.

We do not like partisanship in our government. We want actions and solutions. But what if Congressional partisanship is really the partisanship in the American electorate being acted out on a national stage? I think so and I intend to discuss it in future posts.

Maliki, "There ain't room enough in this town for al Sadr and me."

2008-04-15T16:02:00.002-04:00

In my last post I closed with, "I've thought some about the recent Maliki moves against Basra militias. I'm not sure what all this means."

I'm still not sure what all this fighting in Basra and now Sadr City means but some reporters who are close to the action have some useful info and some plausible ideas.

The Quiet Time

Let me back up a little to some concerns I had last year. I was impressed by the Surge but I also wondered how much of the reduction in violence was also due to other factors. One important factor was Muqtada al-Sadr's truce. No one ever doubted that he and his Mahdi Army still wanted to drive the American occupiers out: they just decided not to shoot at the time, probably realizing that they weren't quite ready to take on the US forces. But little press was given to the extent of the rivalry between Maliki and al-Sadr.

Now fast forward a few months. Al Qaeda has been reduced to a dangerous annoyance. The Sunnis are happy with America as long as we give them arms and money, and let them "form a government from the bottom up." The central government is still dominated by Shias, with a little Kurd help. al-Sadr's truce has kept things relatively quiet in the predominantly Shia areas from Sadr City south through Basra to the Gulf. Fighting in and around Basra has been intense and the Brits basically abandoned the city, but that fighting is mostly between factions who would like to control oil fields (60% of Iraqi oil).

Maliki Government Moves on Mahdi Army

In late March, the Iraqi Army moved on Basra. Malcom Nance at the Small Wars Journal has an interesting post, "The Basrah Gambit – Defining Moment for Iraq or the Jaysh al-Mahdi?" Malcom reminds us of the misinformation put out by MNF and Iraqi press reps. The Iraqi Army's push to Basra would appear to be an effort to control various dissidents, but local Mahdi militia elements see this as a direct attack only against them. Malcom agrees.

Malcom very clearly tells us just why the operations in Basra were the opening salvos of this new Maliki versus al-Sadr rivalry. The Basra operation began on 25 March and by the time of Malcom's post (31 March), the Iraqi Army had not actually entered Basra when another cease fire was declared. It looks like a defeat for the Iraqi Army since they had overwhelming numbers but couldn't penetrate Mahdi strongholds. The Mahdis apparently had a lot of casualties but the Iraqi Army had some 1300 defectors. The media-press made sure we knew about the defectors as an indicator of the Iraqi Army's incompetence. I'm not so sure. I don't think the number is that large and I would suspect many of those were troubled by this being a brother-against-brother kind of battle. Since this was also the first test of the new army, it would also be a good time to get rid of deadwood. What's not generally reported is that the Iraqi Army took control of several other southern cities. Still, al-Sadr came out looking like the political winner.

The Pentagon to put another spin on the Basra action by claiming the southern citizens were fed up with all the violence and that the Iraqi Army was going to help them out. The Pentagon said, "I think at this early stage, it looks as though it is a by-product of the success of the surge." The Surge was never anywhere near Basra. Those citizens on the receiving end of the Iraqi Army see this as simply the Maliki Army against the al-Sadr militia.

Nance also informs us of how our forces have been destroying some Mahdi Army units by claiming that they were rogue elements (Anti-Iraqi Forces) who were not following the truce. This allowed the US to whittle away at al-Sadr's militia without breaking the truce. That action may be a prelude to the action that's moved back to Baghdad - specifically Sadr City.

Badr Brigade, Iran Proxy

I rarely see the media-press refer to the Badr Brigade but they are a major player. The Badr Brigade was formed in opposition to Saddam Hussein. They formed into a viable military force (of perhaps 10,000 strong) during the Iran-Iraq War. They were based in Iran and didn't return to Iraq until we toppled Saddam. The Brigade has participated fully in the Iraqi government and the elections, and they are closely allied with Maliki. Both the Badr Brigade and the Mahdi Army accept help from Iran, but this probably tells us less about support for Iran than it tells us that Iran has much better Islamic diplomatic skills than the US.

Badr Brigade members make up a significant part of the Iraqi Army and the national police. They have been implicated in atrocities against both Sunnis and Shias. They have certainly committed acts against followers of al-Sadr. See Joe Klein's article, "Too Many Kagans, Too Little Knowledge" at Swampland for more info on how our government perpetuates myths about the warring factions in Iraq.

Can't Take Basra? Try Sadr City

Bill Roggio at the Long War Journal has two articles of perspective on Sadr City. In "Ayatollah Sistani on the Mahdi Army" Bill reports on the Grand Ayatollah Sistani's support of the central government and his call for the Mahdi Army to disband. Also important is that Bill connects this push to isolate al Sadr with the recent Basra actions. Noteworthy is that al Sadr's supporters in the Iraqi Parliament are also being isolated.

In a later article, "Iraqi government: "We will continue until we secure Sadr City"," Roggio describes the extent of the operation in and around Sadr City. He reports that there are nine MNF brigades, 3 Iraqi Army and one National Police brigades in the area. MNF force is close to half our total Iraq force. Stryker units, usually the advance strike units, are already engaged with Mahdi units as are air support and Predator units.

Why Now?

With all this action occurring suspiciously just before Gen. Petraeus' testimony and during the presidential campaign, rumors on timing are everywhere. Malcom Nance (see above Nance article) lists a few which I'll just summarize (note that Nance's article is of 31 March):

Success in Basra would give General Petraeus yet another opportunity to claim before Congress that he needs an additional six months.
Could also play well for Senator John McCain's pro-Iraqi War stance.
May have also been an attempt at a Hail Mary pass originating from the White House and carried to Iraq in Cheney's recent visit. The purpose could have been to benefit the Republican cause and to salvage Bush's legacy.

Since the Iraqi Army did little in Basra, none of the above possible benefits became real. However I believe, again if any of the above are true, the push against Sadr City is even more important to the Administration and Gen. Petraeus (and Maliki). An interesting side note on Item 2 above is that McCain might have telegraphed the Basra operation before it happened. On his return to the US, McCain said, “Today America and its allies, stand on the precipice of winning a major victory against radical Islamic extremism.” Could be. Or maybe McCain prefers precipices to turning corners.

My Note

It's easy to read evil intent in the orchestrated press briefings by this most secretive, shadow Bush Administration. It's also easy to make light of any show of progress since most Bush progress claims have devolved into mini-Mission-Accomplished charades. But none of the reporters I've referenced in this post have noted that, in addition to Basra and Sadr City being the first major action of their new army, it is also the first major political action taken taken by the Iraqi government. Am I reading too much into this?

Yes, there warring factions and even personal vendettas involved. But the US has demanded a political solution. For that to happen, someone has to win. We hope that all parties can win but that is not likely. Our best bet is to help the Maliki government root out those who oppose a workable central government. Finally we may be seeing some political movement from the Iraqi government.

Once the Mahdi Army is defeated, then they might take on the more important smaller factions. The remaining question is, Can the Iraqi Army (with MNF's help) prevail against the Mahdi?

Sometimes Right, Sometimes Wrong

2008-04-14T13:55:00.002-04:00

I reviewed my initial posts which began in June 07 and ended November 07. My original intent back in June was to introduce counterinsurgency operations (COIN) theory, and the Army Marines field manual FM 3-24, to non-military readers. When I quit posting, I was averaging around 70 readers a day, each staying an average of about 4 to 7 minutes. I even had a handful of subscribers, but I had absolutely no comments (one tiny exception). Two veteran bloggers told me there is a critical mass of 500 or more readers before folks start to comment - has something to do with no one wanting to be the first to comment, I guess. But it sure was hard to continue with no feedback.

I stopped in November because of a couple of health problems but I did not resume when the health issues quickly ended. I discovered that I had little more to say on COIN or FM 3-24. Not much had changed in those six months of posting.

I've reviewed those posting I was wrong in some instances.

I supported the administration in taking a belligerent tone toward Iran. I believed that scaring them was our only option. I now think that was irrational.
I favored a soft partition of Iraq. That was not so wrong as it has become impossible to even consider it as a U.S. policy position. Instead I think we are facing some kind of partition through internal civil wars. Whether soft or hard partition, or a return to another brutal dictatorship may depend on the outcomes of several civil wars within Iraq.

My main objection to COIN operations was in FM 3-24's troop estimates. We were, and still are, far short of those requirements in Iraq and even further short of the requirements for just about any other country where we might have to conduct COIN.

I tried to come up with some metrics to measure the success of COIN operations and the Surge. I don't think I was very successful. But I did note that violence levels on civilians had not been reduced as much as the press had trumpeted. Late in 2007, I said that violence in Baghdad had been reduced to mid-2006 levels and that elsewhere in Iraq the violence was about the same. Sadly, that too has not changed much. Now entering our sixth year of war, we can only claim we've reduced violence to a level of about two years ago. In the meantime we've created or allowed Baghdad to become more ghettoized and we've made no inroads into the Shiite militias. The relative peace in Baghdad may be only a prelude to inter-ghetto conflicts as the U.S. reduces troop levels.

I expressed concern that Iraq was dangerously stressing our troops, both regular and reserve component. That concern is now surfacing as a major campaign issue, but I doubt that most Americans realize just how vulnerable we are. We are certainly less safe than on the eve of the Iraqi invasion. The recent tour reductions from 15 to 12 months will only prevent the Iraq/Afghanistan stress from increasing (and that won't be effective for another year), but it will takes years to reform, supply, and train units.

The Surge and our COIN operations have one overarching goal and that is to get the Iraqi government to agree on its form and to take control of the country. FM 3-24 notes that the ultimate goal is a political solution and Gen. Petraeus also tout a political solution.

Is there any progress toward a central government? We really don't know since no press reports from anyone tell us anything of importance about what's going on inside the Iraqi government. We know they have real problems coming together and the process is difficult. We know most of their important issues. Yet we know of no progress on any issue. Given that the Bush Administration touts every success, even when there isn't one, and that they've touted no successes or progress in this case, I assume there is no progress. With no political progress and no other tools than our military, why are we still there? I don't know.

Throughout all those posts I've asked people to support our troops through donations, and by giving attention to the real sacrifices of our troops and their families and loved ones. I think, more than anything else, I wanted Americans to be engaged in the Iraq and Afghanistan wars. My favorite quote in all my post was from Victor Hanson at the National Review,

"...a society that does not fathom who keeps them safe in order that it might stare at Oprah and fixate on Brad and Angelina, eventually will be a society not kept safe to so stare or fixate."

Since not much has changed in the Iraq War, I hope to move on to other subjects, but I will frequently revisit Iraq since I can't get it out of my mind.

----------------------------

I wrote the above post a couple of days ago. Since then, I've thought some about the recent Maliki moves against Basra militias. I'm not sure what all this means and the press is giving us only shallow coverage, but I think this is really an important event. The Maliki army conducted its first major operation and failed. Al Sadr called a truce and came out an obvious winner, but the Iraqi Parliament is still trying to bar legislators who have militia ties from being seated. The U.S. supported the Iraqi army operations, but Gen. Petraeus indicated that we didn't agree with the operation in the first place. The White House says things are going well in Iraq, but may have to admit that giving Basra to the Brits, who also left, was a mistake.

So many "buts." The Basra region contains sixty percent of Iraq's oil and has the only accesss to the sea. Basra militias are more than the Mahdi Army and the Badr Brigade. Think of many warlord wannabees jockeying for control of oil fields regardless of whither the Iraqi government goes.

Still Under Construction

2008-04-06T10:53:00.001-04:00

I've tried some of the free templates from other sites, but I invariably run into some kind of trouble. I can muck my way around html, but I'm just too old to get enthused about learning xml. So I'm trying another Blogger template. I have a few more mods I want to make before posting.

In the meantime, I want to make note of one veteran-related charity. I've noted before that I regularly contribute to the DAV and other disabled veteran organizations. Over the past couple of years I've donated a few hundred dollars to the "Disabled Veterans for Life Memorial" which hopes to build a memorial in Washington, D.C. This is certainly a goal that I would support.

However, their methods have often angered me. At no time do they give any status or progress information and they ignore any written questions. They push donations by sending (without asking) mostly cheap junk with patriotic themes - I have some pretty nice coffee cups, a couple of really ugly t-shirts, and numerous trivial items probably valued at less than a dollar each.

So I checked them out at a couple of charity watch web sites and found that virtually all of their funds are spent on fund raising. Apparently little or none of the money has yet gone into even planning for the memorial. I am not an expert on charities so I can't say that the DVLM charity is bogus, but I stopped giving. I suggest you check them out before donating.

This is a test

2008-03-25T19:44:00.001-04:00

I've been gone for several months, but I'm thinking about starting up the blog again. I will be changing the format and testing this Live Writer to make posting a little easier.

This is one of my pen and ink works and it's just to test adding and formatting images.

Gout You Say?

2007-11-05T11:07:00.000-05:00

It’s been more than a few days since my last post and I blame it on a surgery and my “keystone cops” recovery. I had an elective surgery to insert a double stint to prevent further expansion of an aortic aneurism. The surgery went well and I left the hospital the next day. Recovery was complicated by some irritation from a catheter into my bladder and I was up several times each night trying to urinate.

During one of those nights I was disoriented and fell against a wall. My left ankle became very swollen and very painful. I was at the hospital emergency last Saturday. After six hours of waiting for x-rays, consultation by two doctors, and delays on just about everything, they decided there was no break, but they didn’t know anything beyond that.

The swelling and pain level indicated it was worse than a sprain. Gout is a possibility. Now, for this history nut, I thought gout was something people got in the 1700s. I believe Gen. Nathaniel Green had it. I assumed gout was some kind of generic term for some things we now call by different names. Not so. Gout is still real and has something to do with crystals forming on a joint. The doctors discussed another possibility but the pain medication,Percocet, fog prevented me from understanding all of what was going on.

I have a follow up orthopedic appointment today so maybe I’ll know more later. And, as modern medicine goes, I might not learn anything. Meanwhile small wars continue, Pakistan becomes more dangerous, the Democrats are confused, the Republicans are confused, neither party is so confused as to entertain bipartisanship, and Bush is staying the course but hasn’t noticed that the compass needle disappeared several years ago.

Let’s Scare the Hell Out of Iran

2007-10-31T09:37:00.000-04:00

I don’t know how you feel about all this fear of Bush attacking Iran, but I’m getting tired of the media rhetoric. Anyone who has read a few of my posts would know that my opinion of Bush is pretty low (something like the worst President in over 300 years of our history), but all this made up fear is just getting to be too much.

Take David Ignatius’ article “Walking Into Iran's Trap” in the Oct 28 Washington Post. Ahmadenijad and his hard liners may very well be planning a trap by angering the U.S. to attack. But we haven’t attacked.

The Bush Administration has increased efforts to engage and expand the EU efforts to control Iran. It is not that the EU is an effective world player (they’re not), but that we should welcome any efforts by our government to rejoin our groups of mostly friendly nations.

More important is what the Bush Administration has done about Iran. First was declaring the Revolutionary Guard to be a terrorist organization and second was to close the bank teller window to that Guard and several other Iranian groups that are probably the same Guard under cuter names. Since we believe that we are an honorable and moral nation, what could be more honorable or moral than to call the Revolutionary Guard what they really are and then to crimp their dollar support? This is the Guard that actively supports Hamas, Hezbollah, Shia killers in Iraq (probably Sunnis too), and supplies specialized weapons for killing our troops.

Just recently the Pentagon announced a new budget of beaucoup bucks to develop the Massive Ordnance Penetrator (MOP) and refit the B-2s to carry them. The Pentagon claims this weapon is for COIN support but anyone who is familiar with Bush smoke and mirrors knows this is not true. The bomb is a huge bunker buster with targets probably already selected in North Korea and Iraq (Syria, too?).

I worked on test and evaluation for Missile Defense the late 1980s. Called Star Wars then, I can vouch that the program was more sham than reality, but it did scare the USSR and contributed their collapse. I suspect it remains more sham than reality today, but It still scares Russia. Whether Missile Defense or the MOB are effective is not so important as how the target nations react.

I really like what this administration is doing to Iran. We call those in Iran what they really are, then we rattle our sabers a little, and then we buy some scary weapons whose aim is very clear. At this point there is little we can actually do about Iran, except scare them to the negotiating table.

One caveat. What if Igantius and the other fear writers are right? Does Bush really intend to attack Iran without open provocation? I hope not and I have to admit Bush’s track record is scary. Until then and if we don’t attack until our Army and Marines have recovered from Iraq/Afghanistan, scaring the hell out of Iran is kind of fun.

America is NOT at War

2007-10-21T17:53:00.000-04:00

Should We Be?

With about 0.4% of Americans serving in the military and the other 99.6% mostly ignoring the progress of two wars, this nation is not at war. As Lt. Gen. Peter W. Chiarelli (senior military assistant to SecDef) put it in the Sep/Oct Military Review, “Learning From Our Modern Wars,”

“The U.S. as a Nation—and indeed most of the U.S. Government—has not gone to war since 9/11. Instead, the departments of Defense and State (as much as their modern capabilities allow) and the Central Intelligence Agency are at war while the American people and most of the other institutions of national power have largely gone about their normal business.”

Robert Kaplan in WSJ Opinion had something stronger to say (see also IntelDumps commentary on the article, “Robert Kaplan on heroes and service”):

"An army at war and a nation at the mall do not encounter each other except through the refractive medium of news and entertainment."

This post will explore the issues of supporting small wars of COIN (counterinsurgency) or nation building.

Why Do We Hate This War?

In one of my very early posts (say, June 07), I mentioned that I did not fully understand the public’s intense dislike of the Iraq War. Some blame it on casualty aversion (that’s PC-speak for deaths), but I don’t buy it. Americans ignore casualties, or any suffering, the further they are away from home and family. We certainly don’t get nationally upset at genocide in Darfur and we’ve even forgotten about the deaths in our own back yard with Katrina. I’ve mentioned before that our troops and their families endure further hardships, short of death, that are unimaginable to most civilians. I think that most civilians are vaguely aware of that truth but still don’t quite comprehend it.

Robert Kaplan explained the disconnect as:

Put simply, military service used to be viewed as a duty for all. Now, it is viewed as a choice for some. The act of joining the military has morphed into a heroic act, if only because so few Americans do it, and so few understand or appreciate the nature of this act, let alone the acts of extraordinary heroism which define the word for those in uniform.

This partially explains the problem but it also leads to some other problems with how civilians view the troops, as Kaplan also explains:

“The sad and often unspoken truth of the matter is this: Americans have been conditioned less to understand Iraq's complex military reality than to feel sorry for those who are part of it…

“As one battalion commander complained to me, in words repeated by other soldiers and marines: "Has anyone noticed that we now have a volunteer Army? I'm a warrior. It's my job to fight." Every journalist has a different network of military contacts. Mine come at me with the following theme: We want to be admired for our technical proficiency--for what we do, not for what we suffer. We are not victims. We are privileged.

"An army at war and a nation at the mall do not encounter each other except through the refractive medium of news and entertainment."

But to those service men or women reading this, I think the battalion commander who complained is asking for something unobtainable. I would ask him to pick any other profession, for which he has not been trained, and tell me if he respects those in that other profession because of a technical proficiency that he does not understand and probably has no interest. Do you respect us engineers because of our mathematical ingenuity:? Do I respect lawyers because of their knowledge of obscure law? If not, do you really expect civilians to understand your technical proficiency and respect you for it? It is possible that the service members’ expectations of civilians are as unreal as is the public’s expectations of our military.

Regardless of other conclusions in this post, we need to better educate the public in the risks and requirements (in time, money, and lives). One of the reasons the public remains against the Iraq War is that neither our civilian leaders or the media have attempted to inform the public. Lt. Gen. Chiarelli said,

“Perhaps the most important thing we need to do to prepare for a dangerous future is change the cultures of our national security organizations and increase our efforts to educate the U.S. public.”

Casualty aversion, lack understanding of small wars, and poor media coverage when taken together still did not explain America’s dislike for this war. Perhaps the explanation is simply that America does not like to be embarrassed or does like to lose faith in itself. Stephen Holmes in a The Nation Article, “Apocalypse Now?,” confirmed my guess when he said,

“But before we lay all the blame on newspapers and networks that may have deceived the American public, we need to consider the possibility that many Americans did not and do not want to be informed about the misdeeds of their own government abroad. A majority of the electorate supported Bush for some time after the pretexts for the Iraq War were exposed as mendacious and the appalling behavior of some American personnel at Abu Ghraib became well-known. Support waned only after the war turned into an undeniable and embarrassing fiasco, not because a large majority was appalled that the war had been launched on false pretenses or conducted by immoral and illegal means.”

There is a lot of meaning in that blunt statement. If true, it is critical to our national psyche. We can’t lay the blame on Congress or the media without also blaming ourselves. It should be painfully obvious to anyone, liberal or conservative, that too many in Congress are adjusting their positions to what they think their voters want to hear. Of itself, that’s not a bad approach, but when the public is wrong, Congress is also wrong, and the country is in trouble.

If 31% of America still supports Bush (depending on the latest polling), then I suppose that 31% who would disagree “that the war had been launched on false pretenses or conducted by immoral and illegal means.” If Holmes is correct, it doesn’t matter.

We have about 69% of the public that is against the war. Going to war on al Qaeda had public support in the months after 9/11, but a common cause of this level is not common. We typically elect our Presidents with 51 or 52% and that seems to be common across most Western democracies. We usually elect our leaders without clear mandates (although Bush claimed a mandate with 51%). Yet we continually face wars, and now must add small wars to the equation. We need leadership supported by more than 51% of the nation. But there is a danger in that. It could lead to a President who might go to war under false pretenses and conduct the war by immoral and illegal means. Our Constitution provides the solution and it is called a separate and distinct Congress, with the help of a separate and distinct Supreme Court.

Congress did not exercise its advise and consent role from 2000 to 2006; it was essentially a cheering section for a popular but wrong war. Since early 2006 Congress has begun to exercise that role but, sadly, it is mostly a byproduct of party warfare. That won’t change until the public changes. Congress’ approval rating is even lower than Bush’s, yet each of us must perceive our own Senators or Representative as good since we re-elect them time after time. If we want our leaders to be more statesman-like, then we voters must also start acting and voting more statesman-like. There must come a time when we really believe that our nation and way of life is worth saving. I leave this soap box with a quote from “Newsworthy Reconsidered,” by Victor Hanson at the National Review:

“… a society that does not fathom who keeps them safe in order that it might stare at Oprah and fixate on Brad and Angelina, eventually will be a society not kept safe either to so stare or fixate.”

Failure is a Choice

Virtually every text on COIN, small wars, or long wars state three requirements:

Military must organize and train for COIN operations.
Supported by civilian leaders (White House and Congress)
Supported the American public

I will add the media to this list since the media is the primary conduit of communications between the military, our leaders, and the public.

The first requirement is being met, the second is in doubt, and the third seems unlikely to ever happen.

I want to talk about the second and third elements, but first a brief summary of the first element.

The Military

The Marines have a long history of small wars experience so adding COIN operations has been relatively easy for them. The Army has made remarkable progress toward an effective COIN force over the past two or more years. In fact, for a very large organization, the U.S. Army’s change is stunning.

The Public

We, the U.S. and the West, have not had much success in winning at small wars, counterinsurgency operations, or nation building. Here are some favorite reasons for why insurgent win (from “The American Way of War,” CATO Institute):

· Insurgents have a greater interest in the outcome of the war and therefore bring to it a superior political will, a greater determination to fight and die; the insurgents wage total war, whereas the government or foreign occupying power fights what, for it, is necessarily a limited war.

· Others contend that superior strategy best explains insurgent victories—that is, protracted guerrilla warfare against a politically impatient and tactically inflexible conventional enemy.

· Still others …argue that democracies, as opposed to dictatorships, lack the political and moral stomach to prevail in long and bloody wars against irregular adversaries…

There is some truth to each of these points but the following may apply specifically to the U.S. (extracted from the above list):

· fights a necessarily a limited war.

· politically impatient.

· as a democracy, lack s the political and moral stomach to prevail in long and bloody wars.

There’s not much we can do about small wars being limited wars fnor can we avoid long wars. But politically impatient and lack of political and moral stomach may describe us and may be our downfall. Lt. Gen. Chiarelli says,

“Our current problems raise the legitimate question of whether the U.S., or any democracy, can successfully prosecute an extended war without a true national commitment. “

“The American Way of War” has a similar analysis and reaches the following conclusion:

“If this analysis is correct, the policy choice is obvious: avoidance of direct military involvement in foreign internal wars unless vital national security interests are at stake. Such wars are primarily political struggles and only secondarily military contests, and the very presence of foreign combat forces can provoke insurgent attack and undermine the legitimacy of the host government. Avoidance of such conflicts means abandonment of regime-change wars that saddle the United States with responsibility for establishing political stability and state building, tasks that have rarely commanded public or congressional enthusiasm.”

And

Barring profound change in America’s political and military culture, the United States runs a significant risk of failure when it enters small wars of choice, and great power intervention in small wars is almost always a matter of choice. Most such wars, moreover, do not engage core U.S. security interests other than placing the limits of American military power on embarrassing display. Indeed, the very act of intervention in small wars risks gratuitous damage to America’s military reputation. The United States should abstain from intervention in such wars, except in those rare cases when military intervention is essential to protecting or advancing U.S. national security.

There is the choice. I agree that we should avoid intervention in small wars, but I don’t think we can avoid them as much as the CATO Institute seems to imply. I disagree that most such wars do not engage core U.S. interests since the threat of WMD use by al Qaeda, or its brother crazies or its replacements, are a valid and continuing threat. I would even project that there will be many small wars in our future that we cannot avoid. So I think failure is a choice but not one we should be willing to make.

What Stirs the Hearts of Americans?

As far as war goes, not much stirs the hearts of Americans. We look for that singular event, such as a Pearl Harbor or 9/11 that demands revenge and victory. But most events that lead to wars, especially small wars, are small and they build to some level that leads to action.

World War II is much in the media today. Although we all know it was a time when all of America joined the fight and all suffered to some extent, we should also know that America’s entry into WWII was a inevitable long before Pearl Harbor, but both Congress and the public remained in denial until that day of attack. Here are the events over nine long and eventful years before Pearl Harbor.

1932 - Japan completed invasion of Manchuria
1935 – Italy invaded Ethiopia
1937 – Japan began war with China and sinks U.S. gunboat
1938 – Germany annexed Austria and invaded part of Czechoslovakia
1939 – Germany invaded all of Czechoslovakia, Italy invaded Albania, Germany invaded Poland, USSR invaded Poland and Finland
1940 – Germany invaded Norway, Netherlands, Belgium, Luxembourg, and France. Italy declared war on France and invaded British Somaliland, Greece and Egypt. Japan occupied French Indochina. Hungary and Romania joined the Axis. Germany prepared for the invasion of Britain with all-out air warfare.
1941 – Bulgaria joined the Axis. Germany invades Yugoslavia and USSR.

When Japan attacked Pearl Harbor, Germany controlled all of continental Europe (except for Switzerland and Spain) and had invaded well into the USSR to within 50 miles from Moscow. The Mediterranean Sea had almost become an Axis lake and controlled many of America’s trade routes. Britain was alone against Germany and Italy with Japan threatening her Pacific possessions. Britain had been at war for 2 years and 2 months when Pearl Harbor was attacked, but the American public and Congress were not stirred to action until Pearl Harbor. America was not alone in its apathy. Belgium, the Netherlands, France, and others also choose to ignore the obvious until they too were attacked. Perhaps apathy, denial, or isolationism is simply a disease of democracies.

That the summation of small events might stir the American heart also seems remote. I saw a photo on one war blog that showed writing on the side of a refrigerator with a Marine in the background coming through the front door. The writing said, “America is not a war. The Marines are at war. America is at the mall.” The media is of little help. They can, at the least, be blamed for sensationalism and reporting to satisfy the corporate balance sheet. Kaplan reported the following statistic:

According to LexisNexis, by June 2005, two months after his posthumous award, his stirring story had drawn only 90 media mentions, compared with 4,677 for the supposed Quran abuse at Guantanamo Bay, and 5,159 for the court-martialed Abu Ghraib guard Lynndie England. (in reference to Medal of Honor recipient Army Sgt. First Class Paul Ray Smith)

A mental calculation tells me that each bad event got about 50 times the press as the one good event. Going back to Holmes’ article, we cannot just blame the press; we must consider our own attitudes that the media sells to.

Not much stirs the American heart to war. We need to change or we must face some realities about what kinds of wars we can fight and win.

America’s Way of War

America has a unique way of fighting our modern battles. Our way has been fantastically successful in the first Gulf War, the defeat of Iraq’s military, and even in Bosnia. We need this conventional capability, but it is also obvious that we also need to keep and improve our ability to conduct COIN wars. Many junior officers and some senior officers are saying that our Army is not stepping up to the plate on COIN and that there remains too many senior officers who remain entrenched in the successes of conventional warfare. That may be true but I hear a rising chorus of senior officers who are adopting COIN as a necessary component of our forces.

However, I am talking about civilian support. I believe the concepts of conventional warfare are imbedded in our national psyche, but the concepts of COIN operations are only dimly understood. Let’s look at how Americans view war.

The CATO Institute’s “The American Way of War: Cultural Barriers to Successful Counterinsurgency” observes:

“Antulio Echevarria, director of research at the U.S. Army War College’s Strategic Studies Institute, believes the United States “is geared to fight wars as if they were battles, and thus confuses the winning of campaigns . . . with the winning of wars.” He further contends that “the characteristics of the U.S. style of warfare—speed, jointness, knowledge, and precision—are better suited for strike operations than for translating such operations into strategic successes.”

…

“Frederick W. Kagan also believes that the primary culprit in delivering politically sterile victories is the Pentagon’s conception of war. The reason why “the United States [has] been so successful in recent wars [but has] encountered so much difficulty in securing its political aims after the shooting stopped,” he argues, “lies partly in a ‘vision of war’ that see[s] the enemy as a target set and believe[s] that when all or most targets have been hit, he will inevitably surrender and American goals will be achieved.” (emphasis is mine)

While the above condemns the military the perception also applies to civilians.

Compared to the complexity, frustration, and lack of sensational, set piece events in COIN operations, conventional warfare is easy to understand (but no less difficult to conduct). We look for battles that are clearly won or lost and we look for a series of battles as indicators of a successful or failed campaign. COIN operations rarely have such clearly defined events and even the status of a campaign may be unclear to member of Congress and the American public. The media’s emphasis on sensational events is not helpful.

The importance of these misperceptions should now be obvious if we remember the fall of Baghdad in 2003. The total collapse of the Iraqi military and government did not lead to a clear win for the U.S. The CATO report notes:

“…former presidential national security advisers Samuel Berger and Brent Scowcroft. “But that ‘transformation’ has had an unintended consequence. Rapid victory collapses the enemy but does not destroy it.” (emphasis is mine)

Regardless of what we eventually decide for our future war fighting capability, it seems clear to me that we need to educate the public on the COIN side of war. I think this is the responsibility of the White House, but this Administration has totally failed us in educating the public on today’s warfare. Had the Administration been honest about the Iraq War, especially when the new COIN training and operations were introduced in Iraq in 2006, I believe there would be more trust in this Administration and less opposition to the war in 2007.

If, in understanding COIN warfare, you get the idea that war and politics are being mingled, you are correct. Von Clausewitz (1780-1831) and his On War is once again popular in the Army/Marine reading list. Von Clausewitz professed that war and politics were related – “It is clear that war is not a mere act of policy but a true political instrument, a continuation of political activity by other means.”

The CATO Institute article also noted:

“the American tendency to separate war and politics—to view military victory as an end in itself, ignoring war’s function as an instrument of policy.”

I believe that attitude became prominent during WWII when we, Britain, and the USSR declared that we would accept only the “unconditional surrender” of the Axis powers. Politics (other than dividing Europe between the West and the USSR) was removed from that war; only unconditional surrender during war could end hostilities. WWII was also our last war that had clearly defined goals; it was the last war that we clearly won; and it was the last war declared by Congress. Small wars do not usually have these benefits.

We play Gary Cooper in “High Noon.” We let the bad guys shoot first, but return fire with devastation and demand unconditional surrender. I admit that Bush believes in shooting first on suspicion, but that is not America. Again, the White House needs to educate the public that small wars are a part of America’s international politics and that both are sometimes required to protect America and our interests. Each war is not an end in itself, but a tool. The goal is to protect America.

Conclusions

We face the probability of small wars, COIN wars, or nation building wars and we need to keep and perfect our capability to fight those wars. At the same time we must prepare for conventional war. The probability of facing a conventional war is less than for the small wars, but the risks of failure is far greater. Russia and China will not always remain militarily weak. At the least, competition for the dwindling energy resources will pit us against those two nations and the emerging strength of others such as India, Brazil, and possibly even our current friends in Europe. Expecting large, conventional wars is depressing; not preparing to them is suicidal. It appears we need both war fighting capabilities.

Yet our Army and Marines are being stressed to the point that senior officers are voicing worries about our fulfilling our commitments in Afghanistan and elsewhere and the degradation of our overall defense posture. I am more concerned about the longer term impact on the Army and Marine forces. We hear that enlistment standards have been purposefully lowered plus aggressive goals for recruitment centers have caused them to bend the rules. That alone lowers the professionalism at a time when our military needs the best personnel. Captains and majors are the key players in COIN operations and both the Army and Marines have significant shortfalls that will grow as the ground forces expand as planned through 2013. We are losing battle-experienced junior officers at an alarming rate. Incentives will cause some to remain in near constant battle, but many will leave and not return. It can only get worse as the war goes on.

The CATO Institute states the problem well:

“The policy question is not whether the United States should continue to maintain its hard-won and indispensable conventional primacy but whether, given the evolving strategic environment, it should create ground (and supporting air) forces dedicated to performing operations other than war, including counterinsurgency, or simply abandon direct military intervention in foreign internal wars altogether unless there is a compelling national security interest at stake and intervention commands broad public support.”

Although we could probably rebuild our forces to the levels we had in the relatively peaceful 1990’s, the stresses of Iraq and Afghanistan would act against more volunteers without significant and new incentives. Eventually we will have to admit the costs of a larger military and the new equipment needed, plus the equipment lost and destroyed and not now budgeted for replacement. I believe it would be difficult to build to that level and even that level appears inadequate to fight both conventional and COIN wars.

Lt. Gen. Chiarelli states the problem succinctly:

“Many proposals have been presented for maintaining the quality of the force, but if none of those work, we may not know until it is too late. The executive branch, Congress, the armed forces, and indeed the American population need to look now at the type of military we want for the future and the price we are willing to pay to ensure our national security.”

We need to consider the draft. I’ve been against the draft because I do not think it is compatible with our high-tech conventional war, or the complexity COIN wars. However, I see no other alternative to meeting our overall defense needs without the draft. There are probably methods and organizational structures that would effectively combine a draftee force into a more professional volunteer core force but we need a national discussion to get there.

Here’s my list of highly unpopular topics (in order of unpopular to more unpopular:

Any kind of war, especially wars without clear targets
Paying for wars
Wars that last longer than a few years
The Draft

And yet this is a list of what I believe we can expect and what we need to do. The draft would also introduce, to the citizenry, men and women who have real experience with the military. An America at the mall and an America at war would begin to understand each other and make better choices. Some might even enter politics and help put a brake on new and unnecessary small wars.

But until then, I don’t see the American public initiating any part of my unpopular list. It would have to begin with Congress and Congress won’t do anything unless the public is mostly in favor. Although retired, my military and engineering training conditioned me to seek solutions. I can’t find one here. Talk about Catch-22.

Real Post in Draft

2007-10-18T10:45:00.000-04:00

Sorry about the delay in my next post. I'm having some trouble beating my thoughts into some coherence. I want to write about the public support for small wars, whether it can ever happen, and whether it is even needed. I trashed my first attempt and am now working on a second draft.

I continue to review over 20 blogs or news sites and I ran across:

Afraid of the Dalai Lama? at the Washington Post. The article begins with a summary of China’s subjugation of Tibet and the Dalai Lama’s escape and then world fame. But then the article lists many of China’s problems that have nothing to do with the Dalai Lama and the article loses focus and becomes meaningless.

So even those who get paid to write sometimes have focus problems.

Sunni Insurgents Have Problems

2007-10-12T09:35:00.000-04:00

This is a note of some hope in our Iraq War. Sunni jihadist insurgencies may be failing because of problems they created. The Counterterrorism Blog has a most interesting post that gives perspective to some of their problems. “Khawaarij and Jihad: Is Al-Qaida's Network in Iraq Doomed to the Fate of the GIA?” recounts some recent verbal exchanges between the Sunni insurgent groups. Even bin Laden’s master planner, al-Zawahiri, has bad mouthed Hamas. I recommend reading the whole article.

The article relates these exchanges to the collapse of the GIA (Armed Islamic Group) in Algeria in the mid-1990s. That movement began, like our current insurgents in Iraq, with denunciations and killings of apostates and infidels. As newer, younger, and more radical commanders took over the movement their targets expanded to include anyone who disagreed with them. Not only did they lose their base support, but they also angered their own fighters and the movement broke into warring factions and eventually disintegrated.

In Iraq, we see the public rejecting al Qaeda in Anbar, Dyala, and other Sunni-dominated provinces. More recently we’ve heard verbal exchanges between Sunni insurgents in Iraq and between al Qaeda and Hamas. The article points to clashes between Iraqi groups based on the Muslim Brotherhood and Salafi-jihadists, and between al Qaeda supported groups and the al Qaeda upper echelons. I think we can assume that Surge success caused some of that bickering, but the history of the GIA indicates that Sunni insurgencies may also fail on their own.

Basically, this is good news for the West but not unqualified good news. We don’t yet know where all this might lead. I see three possible outcomes for Iraq and small wars ahead:

All Sunni insurgencies die out
One local insurgency survives and dominates
One international insurgency gains control of most/all local insurgencies

The first possibility is that all Sunni insurgencies will become so unpopular that they will begin dying out before they achieve much success. I doubt this will happen. The anger and conditions that give life to such movements will be around for years and I see various insurgencies growing in most Islamic countries. Any single insurgent group is certain to find some local acceptance and it may take some time before the local civilians become disenchanted with the insurgents. The al Qaeda-Taliban successes would probably have continued in Afghanistan had we not intervened.

A second possibility is that one insurgent group may dominate the insurgent marketplace and kill off other insurgents or drive them into hiding. There are several countries with budding or active insurgencies and this is certain to happen somewhere, especially in smaller countries or regions where the cause of insurgency is more uniform. If so, then that might lead us to something like Anbar Province where al Qaeda dominated as AQI. If those single insurgencies do learn from mistakes, then they might repeat the mistakes in Anbar and also die out. However, Sunni insurgencies have proven to be intelligent and we should expect them to revise their hardball tactics against the local populace. We should expect some insurgencies will find that successful line between terror and support.

A third possibility is that one, or a small few, international insurgent organizations such as al Qaeda will exert more central control over local insurgencies. This would have the advantage of a more unified front against apostates and infidels, better management of resources, and allow more controlled responses to civilian backlash. However, insurgencies (as clearly explained in FM 3-24, Counterinsurgency Field Manual) are weaker than the opposition through most of their development stages and they must remain secretive and hidden. This requires the very loose, cell-oriented organization wherein the chain of command is also very loose. There can be no firm control over local cells by the upper levels of command and this means that the movement remains somewhat fractured. Internal dissention is part of this kind of organization and this, in turn, can easily lead to the movement being fractured into separate movements.

I’m sure there are other possibilities, but I think the general trend is that Sunni insurgencies, especially the most prominent ones based on the Muslim Brotherhood and Salafi mentality, will eventually be degraded by internal problems and may fall under their own weight. We can use this knowledge to our advantage, but this is just one more aspect of counterinsurgency operations that will test our national patience.

I’ve not addressed Shia insurgencies and none of the above may apply to those insurgencies in Iraq. The Shia are a minority within Islam and, although a large minority, are probably more focused on issues so there might fewer dissenting avenues among insurgents. Shia insurgencies may also be more focused because Iran, the only Islamic republic in the Middle East, is Shia and actively supports Shia movements throughout the Middle East (and probably Sunni movements too). It is seems certain that Iraqi Shias have a different agenda than Iran’s, but at this time we really have little idea of what Iran or Iraqi Shias want from the association.

	YES?
Is Congress doing a good job?	20 %
Are Congressmen doing a good job?	36 %
Do you like your Congressman (reelect)?	92+ %