Category: Politics

Josh Marshall has been writing a lot of good stuff on North Korea lately. I have some comments on this post. In it, he discusses the administration’s claim that North Korea is already a nuclear power, and thus it’s not a huge concern if they get more nukes.

One might well argue that the administration is correct in this. If North Korea has had nukes for several years and hasn’t used them, then maybe there isn’t so much urgency after all. The sense of urgency around North Korea’s nuclear program is predicated on the idea that if North Korea has nukes, something bad will happen. If North Korea has had nukes and nothing bad’s happened, what’s a few more?

Of course, if the administration uses such logic, it makes a hash of the Bush national security doctrine. I think that’s the real hole in what Powell had to say, but since Bush has already positioned Powell as the maverick who’s not always in line with him, it’s deniable.

I think in the long term, America’s going to have to learn how to survive in a world in which nuclear weapons have proliferated, so in some ways I’m heartened to see Bush treating this as a minor issue. Alas, I don’t really believe that’s a policy statement as much as it is the result of his focus being elsewhere.

Steven Dan Beste misses the point in arguing that we can defend South Korea and invade Iraq simultaneously. I think he’s right. We could. Except that he’s not really arguing that the US can defend South Korea and invade Iraq. He’s arguing that the US could provide air cover (with help from Japan) while South Korea defends itself.

This is, by the by, multilateralism: the awareness that the US needs allies to successfully pursue its goals.

OK. So, but it’s also beside the point. The worry regarding North Korea is not that they’ll try to invade South Korea. The worry is that they’ll develop their nuclear program. The current US foreign policy calls for preemptive strikes to prevent this, particularly in the case of nations that are hostile. North Korea’s part of the axis of evil, which I assume means they qualify.

In the latter portion of the essay, he points out that “The one thing that the North Korean governing elite apparently wants is to remain in power.” This is a powerful argument, and one with much merit. Maybe North Korea is in fact not a danger to us, or even to our allies in Southeast Asia. The irony here is that this is the exact same argument used by many of those who object to war in Iraq. Hussein’s desire to stay in power is greater than his desire to rule the Arab world. He knows that if he uses any weapons of mass destruction he may have, he’s gonna get vaporized. Etc. Yes, Iraq has invaded neighboring countries. Wasn’t all that long ago that North Korea was at war, either. The leadership has not changed in either case.

Dan Beste also says that we can always remove the atomic threat as and when they’re turning out refined plutonium in quantity. He ought, perhaps, to read the statements by Colin Powell, to which he linked: “North Korea has had nuclear weapons for a couple of years in violation of its previous agreements, he [Powell] said.”

The policy that calls for invasion of Iraq also calls for proactive attempts to defuse the North Korean atomic program. If one is important, the other is also important. If we can’t do both at once, we ought to reexamine that policy and modify it to fit geopolitical realities.

That policy is explicitly designed to contain terrorism. It is directed at rogue nations who may possess only a few nuclear weapons. It’s not designed for Russia, it’s designed for new nuclear powers and terrorist organizations. North Korea fits the profile perfectly. If North Korea is not the kind of nuclear power that requires proactive action, what is?

Annnnnnd it’s more on the Confederate flag issue.

It’s an important article to read for two reasons. First, it describes how white supremacists have hijacked the Sons of Confederate Veterans. These days, the SCV is into talking about how much blacks enjoyed fighting for segregation. This is real. This is not a random accusation from the left wing. This is a major, important Southern organization being coopted by virulent racism.

Second, it also makes it clear that the Sons of Confederate Veterans weren’t all racists or rednecks. Those who formerly ran the SCV are outraged and are working to take back their organization — as they should. These are men who are proud of the Confederate flag, and who are also working against racism.

As pretty much everyone who cares knows by now, Sean Penn recently visited Iraq and was promptly used by Saddam Hussein for propaganda purposes. You have to hope he wasn’t surprised by this. I thought it might be interesting to see what he actually said, though, since it’s been somewhat under-reported. Quotes are from various sources; search Google (for the next 30 days or so, at least) for cites.

“I am a citizen of the United States of America. I believe in the Constitution of the United States, and the American people. Ours is a government designed to function

Glenn Reynolds notes that North Korea supports US unilateralism, but somehow fails to miss the irony inherent in the idea that this new supporter of Bush’s policies is one of our biggest foreign policy headaches. Me, I find it amusing. “You were right, guys; the North Koreans are in our corner!”

OK, OK, some real commentary. This is kind of interesting. Who does North Korea want uninvolved? Answer: Japan and of course South Korea. Japan in particular is likely to be more worried about North Korea than we are, because Japan is a lot closer and definitely within North Korean missile range. In fact, Japan is strongly considering sanctions against North Korea. That’d have a fairly major impact. North Korea would love it if the US discouraged Japan from taking action. Japan’s more likely to take painful action (from the North Korean standpoint) than is the US.

Meanwhile, South Korea is criticizing North Korea for ignoring the world community; it’s no surprise that North Korea would react to that by taking the opposite position.

Daily Kos asks how Southerners get away with displaying the Confederate flag. Well, you know, it is a symbol of Southern pride. Recognizing that is just as important as recognizing that US arrogance pisses off the rest of the world, sometimes.

The issue here is that the Confederate flag has two meanings, and the second darker meaning is not inherently associated with the first. It’s not safe to assume that those who care about the first meaning also care about the second. It is possible to be proud of one’s heritage without being proud of slavery. It’s futile to tell an entire region that their entire heritage is crap because of one prominent blemish.

It is equally important for those flying the flag to recognize that it’s deeply painful to another group of people. Maybe I don’t associate the flag with slavery; that doesn’t mean it’s wrong for you to make that association.

Beating people over the head isn’t going to solve the problem. Gotta step back, say “I understand that you are flying the flag for reasons other than racism” or “I understand that the flag has very bad connotations for you,” and work from there.

Kevin Drum challenges us to come up with a two-axis system of political temperament classification that makes sense. OK, I’ll bite.

Preferatory, I’ll note that I think it’s important that the ends of the axes are non-pejorative. The Libertarian quiz fails because the questions are slanted. Any useful system can’t be biased towards one result. That’s propaganda, not political science.

So: axis one is Freedom vs. Safety. What’s more important to you? There’s no “right” answer to this question, in my book. I have my own strong preferences. That’s me. Someone else might have different preferences. Note that this isn’t a question about rights; I might think that everyone has a natural right to be safe but personally prefer to give up that right for the sake of freedom.

OK, but what about the question of freedom for /me/ vs. safety for /you/? You can’t talk about freedom and safety in the abstract. You have to acknowledge that sometimes the question is whether you’re willing to compromise someone else’s freedom in order to secure your safety. Do you think it’s OK to remove the Afghani government (compromising their freedom) in exchange for greater safety for the US?

I was thinking that this is the Personal vs. Global axis, but I’m not sure if there’s really a range there. I can’t think of a case in which you’d take someone else’s freedom in order to increase your own; same goes for safety. It’s easy to find cases where you compromise someone else’s safety for your freedom, or their freedom for your safety, but if you’re already on one side or the other of that axis then there’s no difference between the personal decision and the global decision.

There’s the nugget of something there. I think the question of whether you consider rights to be universal or personal is important. Just not sure how to phrase it.

Yeah, so I hesitated for about half a second before pointing to NationStates. Now you, too, can run your own country with whatever policies and attitudes you like. On my first day as ruler of the Free Land of Velodrome, I was faced with an animal rights issue: “The increasingly militant Animal Liberation Front struck again last night, freeing dozens of chickens bound for delicious snack packs.”

I had to agree with Billy-Bob Longfellow, who said “These nuts have got to be stopped. They need to face the fact people want snack packs, no matter how many innocent chickens must be sacrificed. Besides, chickens would do the same to us if they had the chance.” Sure, my economist argued that we should just tax meat-eating, but I’m not a tax and spend kind of a guy.

I’ve created a region named Blogistan. Anyone who likes is welcome to join me. (Don’t be clicking that until after you’ve made a nation, sport.)

This seems somehow much healthier than squabbling over Patty Murray. Maybe it’s just me.

According to the Washington Post, the CIA is torturing prisoners in Afghanistan. The best quote from the article: “‘If you don’t violate someone’s human rights some of the time, you probably aren’t doing your job,’ said one official who has supervised the capture and transfer of accused terrorists.” Fun stuff. Reportedly, the CIA has also turned prisoners over to various countries for interrogation, including Syria. Last time I looked, Syria was not near the top of our friendly powers list.

I believe that these tactics have made it easier to carry out operations against Al Qaeda. No question at all. Information is power.

I also believe that these tactics are flat out wrong, because I think that sometimes we must sacrifice efficiency for the sake of our values. Or, if you like, for the sake of those human rights so casually dismissed above.

Bill Whittle wrote a piece on gun control, which many conservative bloggers linked to with great relish. It is burdened with a great deal of irrelevant anti-European sentiment, which I find ignorant and superficial. I could write an entire post on the ways in which his snideness about France trivializes the substantial and noble risks taken by the French resistance during World War II.

However, he said one thing in particular which I think is exceedingly relevant here. Those who would defend the use of torture in our conflict with Al Qaeda would do well to consider it, and how it relates to the matter of torture, rather than simply waving the matter off with some comment about how much more efficient this strategy is. He’s talking about the dangers of totalitarianism here: “Try and understand this about Americans like myself and others who can look such horrors in the eye: We are not going out like that. Get it? We’ll put up with handgun murders if we have to, but we are not going down that road.”

That’s a reasonable statement. Yes, handgun ownership may result in deaths. He’s thought about that and he thinks it’s worth the price. Freedom is worth some sacrifice.

Now think about that in relation to torture. Is it worth giving up our ideals in order to keep ourselves a little safer? Is safety more important than knowing that we are not the kind of country who tortures other human beings?

You can have a pretty serious argument about that. I know what my answer is. Yours may be different, and I don’t think that disagreement here is insane or unwise. It’s just different priorities. The important thing is not to pretend that there’s no possible debate, and that the tradeoff is inevitable. This is not a question to be handwaved.

Largely because of this post, I’ve been thinking about Bush’s faith-based initiatives some more. Bunch of aspects to this. Let’s break ‘em down.

First off, yes, this is advantageous to Bush politicially. As NPR pointed out a few nights ago, this will demonstrably and directly benefit some portions of society which have tended to vote Democratic in the past. I’m sure Bush knows that. I also don’t think it’s relevant to whether or not the initiatives are a good idea.

Second, there’s a question as to whether or not Bush had the right to issue this executive order. That’s the one that says religious groups can receive federal grants even if they display religious symbols in their facilities or discriminate in hiring on religious grounds. As Daily KOS pointed out earlier this month, this may be more rightfully a Congressional decision. In fact, discussion of this topic stalled in Congress last year. I dislike the idea that something devolves to Presidential decision simply because Congress is stuck on the issue.

Third, is it a good idea? I think yes, with caveats. Bush specifically called out some continuing and unaffected requirements for faith-based groups recieving funds. First, they can’t discriminate in who they help. Second, they can’t use the grant to proselytize. Those are key points, and he’s got ‘em covered.

The handbook (PDF) providing guidance to faith-based groups on these issues is worth reading, to get an idea of how careful Bush is being. Example question: “If someone asks me about my faith, can I share it with them?” “If someone asks you about your personal faith while you are providing a government-funded service, you may answer briefly. But if you wish to have a longer discussion on matters of faith, you should set up a time to speak with that person later.” I think that’s a fairly good balance between the right of a volunteer to free speech and the necessity to distinguish between church and state.

OK. So that’s the good. Now, the bad.

Critics who say that this could erode the separation between church and state are correct — they’re only wrong if they claim such erosion is inevitable. The biggest danger is that Bush will find his administration in the position of determining which religions are acceptable. It is utterly essential that Bush makes sure that the grants aren’t slanted towards any one brand of religion. It would be unfortunate (that’s dry sarcasm, there) if we looked up a year into this and discovered that no Islamic organization had gotten any grants. For that matter, the Church of Satan better be able to get a grant if it wants one. (It doesn’t; Satanists of that stripe are devout individualists. But you get the idea.)

Mind you, in one sense, this problem is no different than the question of which non-faith-based groups get grants; favoritism is favoritism. However, we ought to acknowledge that religious groups do occupy a special place in their ability to sway minds. That means we need to take more care with them. Fact of life; not an insult to religion by any means, but a recognition of the special role it plays in our society.

Withholding federal grants from religions isn’t a way to discriminate against religions; it’s a way to avoid favoring one over another. Characterizing it as the former (and Bush did that) is a disservice to the real danger.