Friday, February 11, 2005
Why Bunker Busters Are A Bad Idea...With One Caveat
The Administration has long talked of creating a new class of nuclear weapons, so-called "bunker busters," referring to these bombs' ability to sink deep into the earth and destroy fortified bunkers. Bunker-busters are no-doubt intended for Iran and North Korea: they are designed to take out those countries' deeply buried, fortified nuclear and command bunkers.
Will the Administration continue to push for these weapons? Absolutely.
I confess that the idea of more powerful bombs, to be used for this strategic purpose, sounds like an inherently good one to this hawk. However, as is often the case, the Administration is not giving sufficient weight to the politics surrounding the situation.
One of the most powerful charges consistently leveled against the United States is the charge of hypocricy. In the past I have cautioned against letting our country's actions be dictated by the beliefs or prejudices of others. In this case I withhold that caution because in this case their charges are valid. (That is why they are powerful.) We do in fact have a long history of hypocricy, whether in our support of dictatorships or in our belief that certain countries deserve nuclear weapons while others don't.
Unlike people on the non-hawkish Left, I believe that our past actions were largely justified, or at the very least were open to honest debate. We did what we had to do in order to defeat Communism. Sometimes we overstepped, or understepped, but that is always the case with such things. (Hindsight, hindsight.) Unfortunately though, none of our previous justifications matter now: right or wrong, our history makes us highly vulnerable from a PR standpoint.
Also, we have entered a new paradigm, in part because of 9/11 and in part because of the Bush Administration's own policies. In order to succeed in our attempts to win freedom and liberty for the un-free world, we must raise the bar of our own actions. We must recognize that "realist" tactics (such as the development of these weapons) may no longer be useful. Ironically, the Bush Administration does recognize this more than almost anyone else: hence its policies and its much-criticized, "overly-idealistic" rhetoric. I believe the Administration's policy towards these "bunker-busters" represents a hold-over from its "realist" intellectual past (I believe this is particularly true of Rumsfeld, Cheney and Rice). Many conservatives and hawks are blinded on this issue, because to deny any new weaponry for the U.S. carries the distinct whiff of old-school liberal peacenikism.
Personally, while I think we have an excellent moral case for tolerating the possession of nuclear weapons by free democracies while not tolerating their possession by dictatorships (the basic, if unspoken premise of our nuclear policy), our moral imperative does not extend to creating a new class of nuclear weapons at the same time that we are encouraging moderate countries like Japan and Brazil not to develop any nuclear weapons at all. Nor can we ignore the shrill and effective cries of hypocricy that will echo across the Arab media if we pursue this plan. Substantiated accusations of that sort will be very detrimental to our goals there, far more detrimental than the commonly transmitted ones of the unsubstantiated variety.
I do have one caveat: if these bombs are truly necessary, which is to say, if they're ultimately going to save thousands or even millions of lives, then obviously we must have them. In the end I know I'm not qualified to judge that. But if that is true, then we must do everything possible to minimize the political cost of developing them. Therefore, if we do move forward the program should be tied to the phase-out of some other class of nuclear weapons, or to a widely publicized, unilateral reduction in the size of our general nuclear arsenal. We still have far more of these weapons than we need for any reasonable deterrent. Reagan's buildup was never about covering a necessary range of targets, it was about bankrupting the USSR. The number of weapons that we still possess is yet another hold-over of Cold-War military thinking that conservatives and liberal hawks should be willing to set aside anyway.
Finally, we must also be more certain that bunker-busters will be effective. I have seen nothing to convince me of this as yet, and our track record is bad. We created (an embarrassingly ineffective) missile defense system, and the Russians immediately announced they were building a new missile to counter not just what we possessed now, but to counter what we were aiming to create. (They will sell that missile, too, make no mistake.) The same sort of counter-reaction will likely occur with regard to bunker-busters. North Korea will simply build its bunkers even deeper, and in the meantime America will have weakened its credibility of the issue of non-proliferation. In an age of terrorism, when even the best-intentioned country could suffer an information leak or theft, not just to another country, but to Al Quaeda, further proliferation of any kind is not in our national security interest, nor is anything that promotes it.
Will the Administration continue to push for these weapons? Absolutely.
I confess that the idea of more powerful bombs, to be used for this strategic purpose, sounds like an inherently good one to this hawk. However, as is often the case, the Administration is not giving sufficient weight to the politics surrounding the situation.
One of the most powerful charges consistently leveled against the United States is the charge of hypocricy. In the past I have cautioned against letting our country's actions be dictated by the beliefs or prejudices of others. In this case I withhold that caution because in this case their charges are valid. (That is why they are powerful.) We do in fact have a long history of hypocricy, whether in our support of dictatorships or in our belief that certain countries deserve nuclear weapons while others don't.
Unlike people on the non-hawkish Left, I believe that our past actions were largely justified, or at the very least were open to honest debate. We did what we had to do in order to defeat Communism. Sometimes we overstepped, or understepped, but that is always the case with such things. (Hindsight, hindsight.) Unfortunately though, none of our previous justifications matter now: right or wrong, our history makes us highly vulnerable from a PR standpoint.
Also, we have entered a new paradigm, in part because of 9/11 and in part because of the Bush Administration's own policies. In order to succeed in our attempts to win freedom and liberty for the un-free world, we must raise the bar of our own actions. We must recognize that "realist" tactics (such as the development of these weapons) may no longer be useful. Ironically, the Bush Administration does recognize this more than almost anyone else: hence its policies and its much-criticized, "overly-idealistic" rhetoric. I believe the Administration's policy towards these "bunker-busters" represents a hold-over from its "realist" intellectual past (I believe this is particularly true of Rumsfeld, Cheney and Rice). Many conservatives and hawks are blinded on this issue, because to deny any new weaponry for the U.S. carries the distinct whiff of old-school liberal peacenikism.
Personally, while I think we have an excellent moral case for tolerating the possession of nuclear weapons by free democracies while not tolerating their possession by dictatorships (the basic, if unspoken premise of our nuclear policy), our moral imperative does not extend to creating a new class of nuclear weapons at the same time that we are encouraging moderate countries like Japan and Brazil not to develop any nuclear weapons at all. Nor can we ignore the shrill and effective cries of hypocricy that will echo across the Arab media if we pursue this plan. Substantiated accusations of that sort will be very detrimental to our goals there, far more detrimental than the commonly transmitted ones of the unsubstantiated variety.
I do have one caveat: if these bombs are truly necessary, which is to say, if they're ultimately going to save thousands or even millions of lives, then obviously we must have them. In the end I know I'm not qualified to judge that. But if that is true, then we must do everything possible to minimize the political cost of developing them. Therefore, if we do move forward the program should be tied to the phase-out of some other class of nuclear weapons, or to a widely publicized, unilateral reduction in the size of our general nuclear arsenal. We still have far more of these weapons than we need for any reasonable deterrent. Reagan's buildup was never about covering a necessary range of targets, it was about bankrupting the USSR. The number of weapons that we still possess is yet another hold-over of Cold-War military thinking that conservatives and liberal hawks should be willing to set aside anyway.
Finally, we must also be more certain that bunker-busters will be effective. I have seen nothing to convince me of this as yet, and our track record is bad. We created (an embarrassingly ineffective) missile defense system, and the Russians immediately announced they were building a new missile to counter not just what we possessed now, but to counter what we were aiming to create. (They will sell that missile, too, make no mistake.) The same sort of counter-reaction will likely occur with regard to bunker-busters. North Korea will simply build its bunkers even deeper, and in the meantime America will have weakened its credibility of the issue of non-proliferation. In an age of terrorism, when even the best-intentioned country could suffer an information leak or theft, not just to another country, but to Al Quaeda, further proliferation of any kind is not in our national security interest, nor is anything that promotes it.
Wednesday, February 09, 2005
More on Social Security
In addition to the Newsweek article on Social Security, I like this, from Robert Samuelson.
It's not so much the idea of reform I object to, assuming it is in fact required, I object to the dishonest and ineffective way the Bush Administration is proposing to go about it.
It's not so much the idea of reform I object to, assuming it is in fact required, I object to the dishonest and ineffective way the Bush Administration is proposing to go about it.
Tuesday, February 08, 2005
Great Analysis of Social Security in Newsweek
Powerline Going After Taxes in AEI
Be afraid, be very afraid. AEI online has published a 'power'ful essay by the Powerline guys, in which they put forth a clear attack on the progressivism in even REAGAN'S AND BUSH'S tax CUTS. These guys are hardcore. And they attack Bush's Social Security plan for what it will do to the amount of PAYROLL taxes ordinary Americans pay out. Read it here.
Unfortunately, they out themselves on a bit of sophistry. Look at this, they write: "In 2002 (the last year for which complete IRS data are available), the top 1 percent of U.S. taxpayers paid 34 percent of all personal income taxes."
Ooh, scary. Well, we're all familiar with that one.
Income taxes, they said, note. But then, later, they talk about how poorer people often pay more PAYROLL taxes while making their point about what Bush's privatization/owership plans will do to poorer people's sense of ownership:
"The result is that nearly 80 percent of Americans now pay more in payroll taxes (supposedly earmarked for Social Security and Medicare, but in practice co-mingled with all other federal revenues) than they do in income taxes"
So, guys, your figure on income taxes seems (pretty conveniently) to exclude those payroll taxes.... For the sake of the axe you're currently grinding, those taxes may not matter, but as a matter of practicality and principle, they do.
Unfortunately, they out themselves on a bit of sophistry. Look at this, they write: "In 2002 (the last year for which complete IRS data are available), the top 1 percent of U.S. taxpayers paid 34 percent of all personal income taxes."
Ooh, scary. Well, we're all familiar with that one.
Income taxes, they said, note. But then, later, they talk about how poorer people often pay more PAYROLL taxes while making their point about what Bush's privatization/owership plans will do to poorer people's sense of ownership:
"The result is that nearly 80 percent of Americans now pay more in payroll taxes (supposedly earmarked for Social Security and Medicare, but in practice co-mingled with all other federal revenues) than they do in income taxes"
So, guys, your figure on income taxes seems (pretty conveniently) to exclude those payroll taxes.... For the sake of the axe you're currently grinding, those taxes may not matter, but as a matter of practicality and principle, they do.
Saturday, February 05, 2005
Social Security is our Gettysburg
Matt has a nice journalistic post at Progressive Nation:
Take a look.
But Matt, while you note the Soc.Sec. Administration's growth estimates and the CBO's growth estimates, you fail to note that using the President's OWN growth numbers -- the ones he uses to estimate the effect his tax cuts will have -- there will NEVER be a point at which Social Security's trusts are exhausted.... Ah the irony, the sweet, sweet irony.
Take a look.
But Matt, while you note the Soc.Sec. Administration's growth estimates and the CBO's growth estimates, you fail to note that using the President's OWN growth numbers -- the ones he uses to estimate the effect his tax cuts will have -- there will NEVER be a point at which Social Security's trusts are exhausted.... Ah the irony, the sweet, sweet irony.
Wednesday, February 02, 2005
Chin Up, Mark Brown
Yesterday, Mark Brown of the Chicago Sun Times speculated in an essay: "What if Bush has been right all along?" This man is no conservative, no neocon, no liberal hawk. But he has naturally been attacked for his thoughts. He has responded with this excellent piece. A good man.
We must always try to assimilate new information and change our opinions if need be. My support for this war was not always as strong as it became last fall. Mine began to grow when I realized that Bush believed, honestly, that he was spreading democracy and freedom. It grew further when I realized he was too stubborn to back down; one of my great fears for this invasion was that the political will would not exist to see it through. When the war began I believed, as did many, that Bush had begun it on a perfect timeline to propel him to reelection. Perhaps so, but then he stuck with it even when it became hugely difficult and unpopular -- and he got reelected anyway. Also, the more I read about Sistani, the more I realized that he is like a latter-day George Washington, not a new Khomeini. He is savvy, political, and has the best interests of his country at heart. I started reading Iraqi bloggers who were pro-occupation, and I started analyzing the what, where and why of the insurgency. I started looking at the opinions of those who most opposed the invasion, and at their conflicting interests. I came to the conclusion that this could actually work.
I'm also from Montana, so I don't have the natural aversion to cowboy swagger that many liberals do.
Finally I thought, what if we really do lose?
Regardless of why we started this, if we lose this battle in Iraq -- it still could happen, even after the election -- then millions of lunatics who believe that the Holocaust never happened (much of the Muslim world), that the United States has become a paper tiger (much of the whole world), that Islam justifies mass-murder (a sizable chunk of the Muslim world), that the use of force is never justified (a massive chunk of the Western world), and that democracy is a cultural rather than a universal notion (another massive chunk of the Western world) would be thrilled. All very bad things. No one's vindication would be worth that price: not Michael Moore's, not Jimmy Carter's, and certainly not mine.
As to the hatred that this war has generated towards Bush, and towards America, I do not think it is a good argument against the war itself. Hatred is rarely justified. Ambrose Bierce put it this way in The Devil's Dictionary:
HATRED, n.
A sentiment appropriate to the occasion of another's superiority.
He might also have added definitions in less common usage:
A feeling caused when one's deepest assumptions begin to conflict with reality.
Occasioned by the success of one's enemies.
We must always try to assimilate new information and change our opinions if need be. My support for this war was not always as strong as it became last fall. Mine began to grow when I realized that Bush believed, honestly, that he was spreading democracy and freedom. It grew further when I realized he was too stubborn to back down; one of my great fears for this invasion was that the political will would not exist to see it through. When the war began I believed, as did many, that Bush had begun it on a perfect timeline to propel him to reelection. Perhaps so, but then he stuck with it even when it became hugely difficult and unpopular -- and he got reelected anyway. Also, the more I read about Sistani, the more I realized that he is like a latter-day George Washington, not a new Khomeini. He is savvy, political, and has the best interests of his country at heart. I started reading Iraqi bloggers who were pro-occupation, and I started analyzing the what, where and why of the insurgency. I started looking at the opinions of those who most opposed the invasion, and at their conflicting interests. I came to the conclusion that this could actually work.
I'm also from Montana, so I don't have the natural aversion to cowboy swagger that many liberals do.
Finally I thought, what if we really do lose?
Regardless of why we started this, if we lose this battle in Iraq -- it still could happen, even after the election -- then millions of lunatics who believe that the Holocaust never happened (much of the Muslim world), that the United States has become a paper tiger (much of the whole world), that Islam justifies mass-murder (a sizable chunk of the Muslim world), that the use of force is never justified (a massive chunk of the Western world), and that democracy is a cultural rather than a universal notion (another massive chunk of the Western world) would be thrilled. All very bad things. No one's vindication would be worth that price: not Michael Moore's, not Jimmy Carter's, and certainly not mine.
As to the hatred that this war has generated towards Bush, and towards America, I do not think it is a good argument against the war itself. Hatred is rarely justified. Ambrose Bierce put it this way in The Devil's Dictionary:
HATRED, n.
A sentiment appropriate to the occasion of another's superiority.
He might also have added definitions in less common usage:
A feeling caused when one's deepest assumptions begin to conflict with reality.
Occasioned by the success of one's enemies.
Tuesday, February 01, 2005
The Sober Tomorrow
No, to my friends who have asked: I'm not turning into a Bush supporter. I admire him on this issue and think that most liberals are wrong about it. Kos' response to the election was to post an old article from the Times talking about an election in Vietnam, which preceded failure. Nuts. The absurdity of Senator Kennedy's bleating about setting a timeline for removing our troops was highlighted today when Ghazi Al Yawar called it nonsense to think troops could be removed from Iraq in the near future. It is nonsense.
I also agree with Jonah Goldberg, who wrote yesterday that too many mistakes have been made for those who favored and/or have defended this invasion to gloat. (Though in my euphoria I gloated anyway, a little.) Things have not gone perfectly. For example, the press is correct to point out that the Bush Administration did not initially want this constitution to be written by elected Iraqis, and that Sistani forced it on them. Unfortunately, this same press failed to note that fact during the previous six weeks, which it spent agitating for those elections to be (impossibly) postponed. Let the record show that as well.
Those who have been most negative about Iraq will increasingly spin the election like this: "This was a referendum which showed that the Iraqis want to get American troops out of there. Therefore, we were right all along." This refrain will grow stronger the more successful Iraq becomes. However, that reasoning is based on the canard that Americans actually want to stay in Iraq and control it forever. Even in the days when Bremer tried to appoint people to write the Iraqi constitution no one who understands the politics of military deployment, or the politics of the Shia in Iraq, thought such a thing could really happen.
More crucially though, the election never would have happened if American troops had not gone, and stayed. Period. The Iraqis, even if no one else does, will know that.
Moving forward, Democrats should not be focused on attacking President Bush about Iraq. It was the wrong position 18 months ago and is even more wrong now. The damage the anti-war Democrats are doing to the causes of protecting Social Security, labor rights, gay rights, women's rights and others will take twenty years to undo, if it is ever undone. President Bush will use the moral momentum gained from Iraq to push through his conservative judges, his misguided privatization plan, and his partisan attacks on trial lawyers. And, because he will, short of a catastrophe, increasingly be proved a SAGE (yes, a sage) on Iraq, the ability of Democrats to defend the things they are actually right about will be weakened, severely. But my Party just does not get it. As Kos and Senators Reid and Boxer, and Representative Pelosi show, it continues to march over the cliff....
I also agree with Jonah Goldberg, who wrote yesterday that too many mistakes have been made for those who favored and/or have defended this invasion to gloat. (Though in my euphoria I gloated anyway, a little.) Things have not gone perfectly. For example, the press is correct to point out that the Bush Administration did not initially want this constitution to be written by elected Iraqis, and that Sistani forced it on them. Unfortunately, this same press failed to note that fact during the previous six weeks, which it spent agitating for those elections to be (impossibly) postponed. Let the record show that as well.
Those who have been most negative about Iraq will increasingly spin the election like this: "This was a referendum which showed that the Iraqis want to get American troops out of there. Therefore, we were right all along." This refrain will grow stronger the more successful Iraq becomes. However, that reasoning is based on the canard that Americans actually want to stay in Iraq and control it forever. Even in the days when Bremer tried to appoint people to write the Iraqi constitution no one who understands the politics of military deployment, or the politics of the Shia in Iraq, thought such a thing could really happen.
More crucially though, the election never would have happened if American troops had not gone, and stayed. Period. The Iraqis, even if no one else does, will know that.
Moving forward, Democrats should not be focused on attacking President Bush about Iraq. It was the wrong position 18 months ago and is even more wrong now. The damage the anti-war Democrats are doing to the causes of protecting Social Security, labor rights, gay rights, women's rights and others will take twenty years to undo, if it is ever undone. President Bush will use the moral momentum gained from Iraq to push through his conservative judges, his misguided privatization plan, and his partisan attacks on trial lawyers. And, because he will, short of a catastrophe, increasingly be proved a SAGE (yes, a sage) on Iraq, the ability of Democrats to defend the things they are actually right about will be weakened, severely. But my Party just does not get it. As Kos and Senators Reid and Boxer, and Representative Pelosi show, it continues to march over the cliff....
Sunday, January 30, 2005
I Must Confess, I'm Tempted to Gloat...
I can't deny it; I'm tempted to gloat. It's too early to tell where this will all lead, but right now it looks like 60% of the Iraqis have voted...despite being threatened with death and being told by many (by you know who) that the elections had been foisted on them by America and/or meant nothing. That turnout, if it holds up, should shame Americans and Europeans. I dare anyone not to get a lump in his/her throat while looking at those proud Iraqis holding up their ink-stained thumbs. Rarely if ever have I felt so proud of my country, or of another country: Iraq. This is an affirmation of our common humanity, and those liberals and paleoconservatives who refused to forsee this are living in a dream-world: an unrealistic, nightmare dream. Already on the news, I see those who opposed the war, and who called for withdrawal, or who said "wrong-war at the wrong time," hedging their bets and trying to spin this, trying to say that if things had been carried out in their way everything would have turned out even better. Wrong. Dead wrong. If they had been in charge it never would have happened. Everyone, years from now, should know that what they say is desperate spin, and is more apparently wrong now than it will seem ten or fifty years from now. Freedom reigns, and must be fought for. Those who opposed it, those who called the Iraq vote meaningless or who sided with those who call America the Great Satan, or imperialist, or evil, are 100% misguided. I pity them. In the classic film, Casablanca, Captain Renault famously said, "We mustn't underestimate American blundering; I was with them in 1918 when they blundered into Berlin...." How true. God bless Iraq and God bless America. I hope with all my heart that we realize the hope we feel today.
