July 28, 2010
Of Leaks and Sources
When I was a teenager in Paris I used to prowl around used book stores for interesting stuff. At one point I found and bought a pamphlet from the mid-nineteenth century, in French, written for field anthropologists; it being essentially a very long list of suggested questions for the natives (I'm pretty sure I've still got it in a box somewhere in the attic). One chapter had to do with how natives trade, with questions such as 'do you leave your trade goods under the banyan tree at night, and recover traded articles the next day?' — assuming that native trading partners might well be too bashful to meet face to face. This is not, we should be absolutely clear, a model for how contemporary leaks pertaining to U.S. national security take place.
July 27, 2010
The Diary of Samuel Pepys
For those, like me, who infinitely regret the demise of Patrick O'Brian, and who, like me (English majors may snicker), had also somehow managed to overlook The Diary of Samuel Pepys
July 26, 2010
The Curious Case of Wikileaks
On balance I think it's a good thing that Wikileaks made public 91,000 documents in its 'Afghan War Diaries.' Though I doubt that there's much in there that we didn't already know, in general terms if not in the specifics, having this material available allows us to confirm a number of suppositions. Afghan resistance fighters, for example, are using relatively advanced heat seeking anti-aircraft missiles. And Pakistan's ISI is more involved in supporting the Afghan resistance than the administration has wanted to acknowledge. Connect the dots, you get back to the India-Pakistan relationship. Without resolving their disputes, it's difficult to see how you suppress their proxies in Afghanistan... In any case, most of what the administration doesn't want public from these 'Diaries' constitutes a political embarrassment, not a security risk. There's a separate question of what happens to all those whose names appear in the documents — Americans, contractors, Afghans, etc. — but I suppose they're just collateral damage. In terms of advancing the public debate, overall, this is a significant milestone, simplifying, as it does, the questions that mainstream 'journalists' need to ask. On balance, a good thing. But what really interests me is, who leaked?
July 24, 2010
The Value of Citizenship
The U.S. Constitution does not define citizenship. It was less an oversight than a concession to slavery that the process of defining American citizenship had to wait until after the Civil War, when the 14th Amendment, ratified in 1868, declared "All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside." In terms of Constitutional Amendments, up to the present, that's all that there is; thus, the definition of citizenship remains less than entirely clear. Though over the years the Supreme Court has ruled on a number of cases regarding citizenship issues, the conventional wisdom, that the Court has determined that a person becomes a citizen at the time of birth in the U.S., is not exactly true. The Court has never explicitly said, for example, whether or not, under the 14th Amendment, the children of illegal aliens are citizens. The closest the Court came was in United States v. Wong Kim Ark, in 1898, but in that case the question involved becoming a citizen at birth when the parents were in the country legally. Moreover, apart from the parents' legal status, additional extenuating circumstances not considered in Wong could conceivably apply. To put it bluntly, appropriate laws defining American citizenship have never been written, nor tested in court.
July 21, 2010
Democracy Deficits
If our political system offered voters real choices, voters would take their responsibilities seriously. Since it doesn't, for the most part they don't, focusing instead on narrow self-interest or mass 'entertainment' — Lindsay Lohan's prison extravaganza, for example, or Mel Gibson's latest meltdown. Take away responsibility, you infantilize the population.
July 18, 2010
Washington's Conventional Wisdom
When I was camped out at the Carnegie Endowment, in the early 1990s, my office was just down the hall from the office of Richard Haass. Because Bosnia was often in the news, because the then head of Carnegie, Mort Abramowitz, was intensely interested in the crisis, and because, clearly, careers were being made out of it, Richard from time to time sought my views. Unlike Mort, whose interns ghost-wrote many of his op-eds, Richard wrote his own stuff but his ideas were always derivative. He was a nice enough guy and, to be honest, I've never heard bad things spoken about him, but his intellectual acumen never impressed me in the slightest way. A think-tank version of Chauncey Gardiner.
July 13, 2010
Podcast Schedule Mid-July/Early August
For your summer enjoyment, here's the podcast schedule for the coming month: This Friday my guest is Michael Sims, talking about his latest book, Dracula's Guest
July 11, 2010
Sleepeяs
In 1991, but before the Soviet Union had finally collapsed, BBC aired its comedy/drama Sleepers
July 9, 2010
Reading the Political Tea Leaves
You're starting to see more than a little muttering around the internet about how Mr. Obama has forgotten about the coalition that elected him. No jobless benefits, no jobs, not much of a recovery for ordinary people. What gives? Why aren't the Democrats even trying for a second stimulus package? Probably the White House is focused on two things. The first, the mainstream media has already identified: Mr. Obama's 'Mayberry Machiavellis' believe that there are more likely voters worried about the deficit than there are about jobs. A corollary is that the boomers are moving right, so the president must move with them. Such assumptions are deeply flawed and fundamentally misleading, but we won't go into the specifics here. The second thing the White House may be thinking remains purely guesswork: Mr. Obama, cynically, may want the Democrats to lose by a substantial margin in November so that in 2012 he'll have a better chance of playing the fear card.
Questions for Chili?
Here's a first: the campaign of a congressional candidate emailed to offer him for an interview. Naturally, I said "yes, please, thank you very much." Surya Yalamanchili is running on the Democratic ticket in Ohio's second district, against the notorious Republican incumbent, Jean Schmidt. That's southern Ohio, the district has been Republican about 93% of the time since 1897, but both of Schmidt's last two re-election campaigns have been close, with 2006 being a real squeaker. So who knows what might happen? The interview is set for Monday, I'll have my own list of prepared questions, but I'd very much welcome any suggestions for questions that you all may have.
July 1, 2010
Templeton Press Essay Competition
An email just came in from Templeton Press. In conjunction with their publication of New Threats to Freedom they're sponsoring a contest open to bloggers and those who read blogs. In less than 500 words, write about the biggest threat to freedom. The winner gets $500. And there's a possibility that winning essays may be considered for inclusion in the paperback edition of the book. Good luck!
