We draw our own conclusions

Lynne Olson wrote a book, "Troublesome Young Men", about the group of British Conservatives who eventually forced Chamberlain to resign and be replaced with Churchill. In Sunday's Washington Post she had a piece about the similarities between Bush and Chamberlain, keying off the assumption that Bush believes himself to be another Churchill. Consider these similarities between Chamberlain and Bush:

• Both came to office with little, if any, foreign affairs knowledge or experience dealing with international leaders, yet believed that he alone could bring tyrants to heel.
• Both were unilateralists, believing alliances would only hamper them.
• Both claimed to be the 'decider' and did not have to discuss things with the legislature.
• Both authorized wiretapping of their citizens.

When the shoe is on the other foot

When Victor Rita was convicted of perjury, Bush's Justice Department urged that he serve 33 months in jail. Rita had been involved in government work for years, served with distinction in the army for 25 years and had no criminal history. Other than his military service, how does Rita's situation differ from Libby's?

Bush's Justice Department asked for 24+years for a Dynegy executive who was convicted of fraud. Is this a worse crime than outing a CIA agent and lying about it?

Gonzales has been pushing for tougher federal sentences. I guess they would only apply to you and me.

Another example of why cynicism is rampant

"The punishment is excessive," says Mr. Bush with regards to Mr. Libby's conviction by a jury of his peers. Of course, in Bush's world there are no peers. Those who decide can run roughshod over our judicial system. A fine of $250,000 would be impossible for most of us to pay. Do you think Libby will have a problem writing a check? If he does, his friends will help him out. Disbarment would normally mean a tougher life for most lawyers. Will Libby have a hard time getting a well-paying job?

Meanwhile, there are those guys in Guantanamo who have yet to have any sort of a trial in the years they have been there. Is their punishment 'excessive'?

Greed

"The more we pay people, the less they want to pay for anything," Nell Minow.

Vide

• Alan Mullaly was paid $28,200,000 by Ford last year. His wife, children and guests can fly on the company planes even though Alan is not with them.
• AIG paid Martin Sullian $21,200,000 last year. His pay included $257,498 for personal use of company aircraft.
• Dell provides medical checkups for senior officers and spouses. The checkups are worth $5,000.
• Rockwell Automations paid for 'leisure activities' for spouses of officers and directors at board retreats.
• Occidental paid Ray Irani $416,300,000 in 2006. $61000 of that was to cover the cost of bringing his wife along on trips.
• Of course, all of these expenses are reimbursed plus the tax gross-ups.

The Price of Gas

I think $3.95 is a lot for a gallon of gas here on the Vineyard, but I know it's quite a bit more expensive in Europe. Surprisingly, most expensive place to buy gas is Turkey; it is triple the price in the States.

For more information than you want to know about the price of gas around the world, read this.

The latest from Richardson

Just Security

Foreign Policy in Focus has published a very interesting piece on an alternative foreign policy. The policy is based on these principles:

The United States must advance rather than undermine international mechanisms and institutions. We should move from a unipolar system presided over by the United States to a secure, multipolar system that is held in place by a latticework of international institutions and laws.

We must support the rule of law, not the rule of the jungle. The United States should spend less time talking about the rule of law and more time practicing the rule of law—by upholding international agreements such as the Geneva Conventions, ratifying the core labor standards of the International Labor Organization, and supporting new international institutions such as the International Criminal Court.

We must lead by example, not by force. The United States is No. 1 in several dubious categories—most powerful nuclear arsenal, largest greenhouse gas emitter, leading arms exporter—so if we want to change the world we have to start by changing ourselves.

Global problems call for global solutions, but one size does not fit all. The world is a varied place and what works in one place for one problem may not work the same elsewhere.

We should support just policies abroad because they also encourage just policies at home. Global inequality, unregulated arms sales, and weakened international agreements and institutions are not just foreign policy issues. They have tremendous impact on the U.S. economy and the security of the population.

We need more public involvement in global affairs not less. We can't leave it to the experts to solve the world's problems because, in many cases, the experts got us into the jam in the first place. As those who live in this country, we must use democratic means to close the gap between what the polls say and what our leaders are doing.

Security is not just about the military. When we speak of security, we are talking about freedom from military conflicts and terrorist attacks. But we also believe that security involves access to sufficient food and shelter, good health care and good jobs, a clean environment and well-functioning, accountable political structures.

The policy calls for

• A reduction of $213 billion in U.S. military spending, or one-third of the total "defense" budget.
• Dramatic cuts in U.S. and Russian nuclear arsenals as a first step toward nuclear disarmament.
• An international process under the auspices of the UN to secure a viable peace between Israel and Palestine.
• A global carbon fee to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and generate funds to help countries transition to sustainable sources of energy.
• A large-scale, global plan to train four million new health workers.

From the NY Times of December 17, 1990

Op-Ed: War in the Gulf: Counsel of Ignorance

By ARTHUR SCHLESINGER JR.

any factors shape foreign policy -- interest, information, judgment, vision, prejudice, fatigue, fear, panic, stupidity -- but there is one we tend to forget. That factor is ignorance -- ignorance of the challenge, of the context, of how ignorant we may be.

Take the Persian Gulf crisis. Do we really know enough about the Mideast to act with confidence? The U.S. has not had serious historic experience in this region. A few missionaries went there in the 19th century, a few oilmen in the 20th and that is about it. We have no strong tradition of Arabist studies in our universities. Most of the time we don't know what we are doing in the Mideast.

Recall our policy toward Saddam Hussein: support when he committed "naked aggression" against Iran; unconcern when he gassed Iranians, massacred Kurds and murdered his own opposition; agricultural credits amounting to a billion dollars; opposition to economic sanctions against Iraq until the very eve of more "naked aggression," against Kuwait.

One year, Saddam Hussein is our pal; the next, he is Hitler. One year, Hafez al-Assad of Syria is the king of terrorists; the next, he is our pal: we will repent that, too. When we got so much wrong about the Mideast yesterday, the day before yesterday and the day before that, why do we suppose we have suddenly got it right today? Right enough to send thousands of Americans to their deaths?

Years after the Vietnam War, I asked a high official of the Johnson Administration why they had ever supposed, as they said at the time, that North Vietnam was the spearhead of planned Chinese expansion into South Asia. Historians, I noted, could have told them that the Chinese and Vietnamese had hated each other for a thousand years.

My friend replied: When it came to Soviet questions, policymakers could turn to Government experts like Charles Bohlen, George Kennan and Llewellyn Thompson for informed counsel. In the case of China, John Foster Dulles had purged the State Department of the old China hands in the 50's. Our Far Eastern policy in the 60's thus plunged blindly ahead without benefit of expertise on China. So we got things wrong.

Alas, no Middle Eastern Bohlens and Kennans advise the Government at high levels today. In consequence, we are used, exploited and manipulated by wily locals in flowing robes who live in air-conditioned hotels and expect us to do their fighting for them.

If our ignorance of today's Middle East is considerable, our ignorance of the future there is total. Yet the case for war is increasingly based on the conviction that we have divine foreknowledge and know the shape of things to come. Those who claim the gift of prophecy say that unless we destroy Iraq's nuclear program, 5, 10 or 15 years from now Saddam Hussein, armed with the bomb, will terrorize the world. We have heard such prophecies before. It is the old -- I thought discredited -- argument for preventive war.

It requires particular presumption in 1990 to claim accurate foreknowledge of the future. Over the last four years, the world -- from the Soviet Union to Eastern Europe to South Africa to China to the Middle East -- has undergone extraordinary changes. What is equally extraordinary is that no one foresaw them: All the statesmen, sages, experts, all those bearded chaps on "Nightline" were caught unaware.

Some Americans were once so sure they could foretell the future that they called for preventive war against the Soviet Union and China. Does anyone regret that our Government declined to drop the bomb? And if great powers like the Soviet Union and China did not rate preventive war, why should we contemplate it against a third-rate power like Iraq?

Let us not sacrifice lives today because of a guess about what Iraq may be up to 10 or 15 years from now. Don't forget the warning of the theologian Reinhold Niebuhr about "the depth of evil to which individuals and communities may sink . . . when they try to play the role of God to history." Ignorance of the present, ignorance of the future -- these are pardonable. No statesman, no nation, can expect to know everything. But ignorance of how ignorant we are is unpardonable.

Arthur Schlesinger Jr. is professor in the humanities at the City University of New York.

Mickey has passed on

The Palestinian version of Mickey Mouse has been killed by an Israeli agent.

Is it cursed?

The Thomas P. O'Neill Tunnel, aka "The Big Dig", will likely go down in history as not only one of the largest construction projects in America but also the one plagued with many, many problems.

A couple of years ago water began to seep into the tunnel. The contractors vowed to stop the seepage. They did make some strides, but, it looks as though the strides have come up short. Today, 2,000,000 gallons of water are pumped from the tunnel every month. This is 18% above last year's monthly pumping.

Will 2005 turn out as bad as 2006?

Just about 20% of the sub-prime mortgages granted in 2006 and that are at least fifteen months old are delinquent. The CMO - collateralized mortgage obligations - boosters say things got out of control in 2006. Well, the boosters may not be right. It seems that about 19% of the sub-prime mortgages granted in 2005 that are at least twenty-six months old are delinquent.

And, this week Caliber Global Investments, a London investment fund, closed its doors because of the performance of the CMOs they bought, much of which represented sub-prime loans granted in 2005.

Finally, what will happen when the higher rates kick in on all those adjustable rate mortgages out there?

File this one

It may not happen tomorrow. It may not happen this year. But at some point fairly soon you will see at least one large business demise attributed to CLOs.

Over the past twenty years or so the devious minds of Wall Street have dreamed up a variety of truly exotic - and difficult to understand - financial techniques (which they call products). CLO - collateralized loan obligations - is the latest.

Basically, a CLO is a pool of bank loans bundled together by Wall Street and sold in pieces of differing degree of risk. You can buy the riskiest piece or the safest piece. One problem is that no one really knows what the true worth of a particular CLO is. Also, since the bank is going to sell the loan when the borrower walks out the door, the banker's interest in maintaining loan standards is not very great. This reminds me of the sub-prime market: make the sale and sell the risk to someone else. Another variant of the free lunch.

Has Caracas moved to Alberta?

There is a lot of oil in Alberta. The problem is it's very costly to get it out of the sands. The techniques used to get oil in Venezuela work quite well in Alberta. Given that Chavez has driven out a number of experienced oil workers and given the high price of oil, it is little wonder that Alberta has become the place for Venezuelan oil workers, many of whom can make more than $100,000 a year. Alberta houses more than 3,000 Venezuelan families. Some churches now offer at least one Mass in Spanish.

Perhaps the migration of the oil workers is the reason why Venezuela's oil production is 20% less now than it was in 1999, although prices are quite a bit higher today.

A new bill

For the story behind this bill see the FP Passport blog.

Human Rights in China

If you want to know what's going on in China vis-a-vis human rights, read this blog. In April they published a report on minority rights in China. They are under attack or, more accurately, relatively ignored.

More specifically,

• minorities can't participate in decision-making that affects them
• they get the short end of economic development money and efforts
• their cultural identity is not protected.

End of Mission

Alvaro de Soto was the UN's Middle East representative for the past two years. He was with the UN for twenty-five years and had a fairly large role in the Cyprus situation. He is leaving the UN and the Middle East and has published a report. Some conclusions from that report:

• The boycott of Palestine after the victory of Hamas was a major error and the Palestinians suffered greatly. The boycott "effectively transformed the Quartet from a negotiation-promoting foursome guided by a common document into a body that was all but imposing sanctions on a freely elected government of a people under occupation as well as setting unattainable preconditions for dialogue".
• Where 100,000 Palestinians used to travel to Israel for work every day, now none do.
• Israel has "essentially rejected" any settlement moves. They have set unachievable preconditions for talks.
• Palestine has done a very poor job of stopping the violence.
• The U.S. has "pummeled into submission" the UN's role in the Middle East.

How low have we sunk?

Human Rights Watch and five other commie/liberal organizations claim that the CIA has detained the sons of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed. Tough darts, right? Their father was a nasty man and his sons probably helped him even though they are only 6 and 8 years old.

Vitamin D is needed

When school let out for the summer, my mother would spend the first week telling us to get some sun, but not too, too much. That's harder to do for Muslim women who follow the religion's dress codes. Many of them have Vitamin-D deficiency. Could their manner of dress be the reason?

Probably Interesting Reading

Here's a posting that you may want to follow:

CIA Releases Two Significant Collections of Historical Documents
Two significant collections of previously classified historical documents are now available in the CIA's FOIA Electronic Reading Room.

The first collection, widely known as the "Family Jewels," consists of almost 700 pages of responses from CIA employees to a 1973 directive from Director of Central Intelligence James Schlesinger asking them to report activities they thought might be inconsistent with the Agency's charter.

The second collection, the CAESAR-POLO-ESAU papers, consists of 147 documents and 11,000 pages of in-depth analysis and research from 1953 to 1973. The CAESAR and POLO papers studied Soviet and Chinese leadership hierarchies, respectively, and the ESAU papers were developed by analysts to inform CIA assessments on Sino-Soviet relations.

No Surprise

The House Oversight and Government Reform Committee (chaired by Waxman) has issued this year's report on the state of the federal procurement system. It wasn't pretty last year and is uglier this year.

Take the issue of fair and open competition. The Committee found that $67.5 billion was awarded in 2000 for contracts where there was not fair and open competition. That number grew to $145.1 billion by 2005 and in 2006 was $206.9 billion.

Similarly, waste and fraud continue to grow. Last year the number was $745.5 billion. This year it's $1.1 trillion.