Threads from Henry's Web

Tag: Politics

  • Anthropology and Military Planning

    It seems that some people in the military have noticed the fact that we don’t really understand the territories and the countries about which we so glibly pontificate. And much of the pontification is official, which makes the ignorance more egregious.

    In an BBC article received via e-mail, I read the following:

    But that is not all. The US military has developed a new programme known as the Human Terrain System (HTS) to study social groups in Iraq and Afghanistan.

    The HTS depends heavily on the co-operation of anthropologists, with their expertise in the study of human beings and their societies.

    Steve Fondacaro, a retired special operations colonel overseeing the HTS, is keen to recruit cultural anthropologists.

    “Cultural anthropologists are focused on understanding how societies make decisions and how attitudes are formed. They give us the best vision to see the problems through the eyes of the target population,” he said.

    There’s a story that brings up mixed emotions. We certainly do need to understand people better, but a phrase like “target populations” presents an understanding that is at least equivocal. What exactly are we targeting these populations for? What are we going to do with them, and what gives us the right to do it?

    But despite my questions I welcome the notion of creating a better educated military. Hopefully somewhere in this process some military leaders will be asking just how we can cooperate with, rather than dominate local populations. Perhaps troops can learn how to work in a way that minimizes offense. But as long as those military forces are operating under orders to transform those societies into an image that is desirable in American eyes, I don’t think it will work perfectly. It’s good military strategy, but good military strategy needs to be employed in the service of good political and diplomatic strategy.

    And that is the level at which I believe our country as a whole, and particularly the appropriate portions of our government need to be better educated. A little bit of anthropology would go a long way with our diplomats. To those who suggest that we have such experts, I would answer that we are 1) not listening to them, 2) they are not as expert as they appear, or 3) we don’t have enough of them.

    I suspect all three. Why? Because somewhere up there in the American government somebody thought that we would easily accomplish the invasion of Iraq (we did), would be welcomed by the Iraqi people as liberators, and then would easily create a new government. Low cost in money, in lives, and even in time. Then we could get on with other targets in the war on terror.

    Whoever painted that scenario was somewhere between criminally negligent and grossly stupid. There was never any reason for anyone to believe that in the first place.

    Of course we need anthropologists and other social scientists in the military. The more wisely force is applied, the less force is needed. In social situations, the best result is when no force is actually applied at all. I’m not so optimistic as to think we can attain that easily, but the more intelligently we act, the less people we’re going to have to kill–our own and others.

    The tragedy is that we’ll be sending in anthropologists to help us deal with various tribal groups after much of the damage is already done. If we are to fight and win a war on terror, we will need more than a military strategy. The prime error of diplomats is the belief that diplomacy accomplishes all; the prime error of those who wield military power (but not usually of the soldiers on the front line) is to believe that force can ultimately solve all problems.

    A strategic approach to the [tag]war on terror[/tag] will have to involve an intelligent strategy, first political, and then military where problems are actually intractable.

    One further note–I can see the ethical objections to anthropologists in being part of these teams. Do you want to use your understanding of a tribal group to facilitate their manipulation by the military with no control over just what will be done and how? You would never know when your knowledge might become the key to destroying a culture. At the same time, applied at the proper level, such knowledge could result in great savings of life. Perhaps there is a balance to be sought here.

  • Predicting Hillary Derangement Syndrome

    Jeremy Pierce is predicting that if [tag]Hillary Clinton[/tag] wins the presidency, some folks, particularly evangelical Christians, will be subject to Hillary Derangement Syndrome (HT: evangelical outpost).

    His note reminded me of a political science professor from whom I took a few classes. He would regularly tell us that if we felt that our lives would be irreparably damaged should the other party win the next election, we were too invested in politics.

    I think he is almost completely right. The part I wonder about in his post is this:

    I don’t think we’ve ever seen a phenomenon quite like this until the current president. A lot of people who didn’t like Bill Clinton said lots of nasty things about him, especially evangelical Christians who should have obeyed the Bible a little more carefully with regard to respecting those in governmental leadership under God. But I don’t think it was anything like the kind of irrationality I’ve seen over the current president. . . .

    I disagree, at least for this part of the world. I’m in the Florida Panhandle which voted quite overwhelmingly for Bush. I should note also that a significant part of the opposition to Bush seems to have been to the right rather than the left. (I exaggerate, or at least I hope I do.)

    Around these parts The last 15 years have sounded about the same–just exchange people and positions. While [tag]Bill Clinton[/tag] was president he was pretty much the anti-Christ, or at least his precursor. When Bush became president, the shift to the left with much the same rhetoric hardly seemed to make any difference. I don’t think the standard has been set during this presidency. I think it was already set. Many of the same people who hated Bill Clinton that much will be well prepared should Hillary be elected.

    We would perhaps do well to ponder the consequences of this type of attitude if harbored too long. On the other hand, I may just spend my time laughing at folks who get way more worked up than I do. It’s hard to tell.

  • The Potential of Secrecy without Accountability

    I don’t know if the claims made by this CEO according to the Washington Post are true or not, but I suggest we would do well to give them due consideration.

    First, do you regard this kind of activity as impossible? Is it unlikely that the executive branch of the government would do such things?

    Second, what is there to prevent them from doing it? They declare the material secret, take action against a citizen, and then they try to block the defense by claiming all the evidence is secret.

    Some government secrecy is necessary, but we must limit it, and we must make those who hold those secrets as accountable as possible. This man may simply be making a self-serving claim, but his story is way too possible, even easy, for my comfort.

  • Wrap-up on the Jena 6

    I was going to do a bit of a wrap up on my comments on the [tag]Jena 6[/tag] even though I haven’t yet had the time to read all of the documents that were provided by Laura Curtis. She has, however, and has written a wrap-up. She’s already said what I wanted to say, and it sounds like she’s come to a pretty balanced conclusion. I still hope to read more in the future, but it’s not at the top of my list.

    I want to congratulate Laura for bringing this to many people’s attention, including mine, and for managing to remain quite balanced and rational in spite of frustration. Considering that we come from substantially different points on the political spectrum, I think it’s significant that I have found her writing on this issue on target and balanced at all times.

    Hopefully this situation will be concluded justly. The fact that Mychal Bell is being tried as a juvenile is a positive indication.

  • Executive Accountability Loophole

    . . . through which one could easily drive a complete tyranny.

    MSNBC.com reports:

    The Supreme Court on Tuesday terminated a lawsuit from a man who claims he was abducted and tortured by the CIA, effectively endorsing Bush administration arguments that state secrets would be revealed if the case were allowed to proceed.

    Read the entire article. The evidence is there that this option has been misused, and how could one possibly expect that it would not be misused? It’s too nice of a loophole, and it sounds so good. “Your security would be compromised if we were accountable on this issue, so we get to do what we want.” Somehow this makes some people feel safer for completely unknown reasons.

    This is one of those things that makes me want to hold my nose and vote Democratic, rather than holding my nose and voting Republican (not holding my nose doesn’t appear to be an option), simply because the Democrats are more likely to put judges on the bench who are willing to hold the executive branch accountable for their actions.

    There are secrets that need to be kept, but somehow the courts need to find a way to keep accountability, whilst protecting them. Perhaps we need a law that would provide a special judicial panel that could review claims of “state secrets” in secret, and then rule on such a claim.

  • What I Want for Election Day – A Counter-Terror Strategy

    It’s getting within a quarter or so of the first votes, so I thought I’d put in a few posts on what I, as a self-proclaimed moderate independent want for election day. I have to note that it doesn’t look thus far like I’m going to get it, but one can always wish, no?

    The great weakness of our candidates, I believe, is that they lack any evidence of strategic thinking on dealing with terror. From one side we are hearing the “we’re in a war” beat, and we are told that we will go hunt terrorists for however long it takes and wherever they are hidden. What we are not told is how this strategy is ever to come to a close, or how the resources for such a strategy are to be provided.

    On the other hand we have those who would pull out of [tag]Iraq[/tag]–an option devoutly to be desired in my view. At the same time, they haven’t laid out any long term plan that would substantially reduce or eliminate terrorism as a threat in the world. Iraq was a bad idea. Whether you are just plain anti-war, or simply prefer your wars to accomplish something, you can get on board with that. Incidentally, I would also like to see the withdrawal accompanied by an assessment of just what a foreign army can actually accomplish in Iraq, no matter how good that army is, and a measurement against that realistic standard. “Unified and democratic” isn’t likely to be on that list of potential objectives.

    On the domestic front, it seems to me that we are in the business of kind of patching this or that element up haphazardly. What does a nation that is alert to [tag]terrorism[/tag], has the law enforcement and intelligence capabilities to detect such attacks, and can deal with the legal aftermath look like?

    On the Republican side, it seems to me to look more and more like a terrorist state, where we just “trust” the executive branch of the government to do the right thing without any sort of accountability. More law enforcement is no good unless it is also smarter law enforcement. What will it be like to live in this country at the end of the process? I suspect that most of these candidates haven’t really thought about that. On the Democratic side, many candidates are interested in protecting our rights, but what precisely are they going to do instead?

    I could suggest many things such as a large increase in the number of linguists and specialists in Middle Eastern culture in our government and intelligence agencies. Our current strategy and intelligence shows a great lack in that area. I’m not talking about a minor change–I’m talking about a massive increase. That is just one thing that I think is not being given the attention that it deserves. There are many others.

    Do I personally have a strategy to propose? Not in detail, but then I’m not running for president. I can certainly tell you the key priorities of such a strategy.

    1. Military action limited to responses to attacks and search and destroy for specific terrorist targets. War is only a potential under the strict standards that require a short period of time and a clear improvement to result.
    2. Eliminate the option to prescribe a government for other countries. Let them figure it out, even if a dictatorship results. When the issue is genocide, respond with the international community, not unilaterally.
    3. Increase in law enforcement personnel and equipment. Much of the money being spent on Iraq would have been much better spent in this country. There are techniques and and technologies available to make travel much safer.
    4. Strong emphasis on intelligent intelligence.
    5. Education, education, education, both for personal safety and a better understanding of the world. We need a shift from a purely North-American/European emphasis in our historical and cultural education, to a greater inclusion of Asian, African, Middle Eastern, and Latin American material.
    6. Constant accountability. Nobody should be able to spend money, or more importantly kill people without having some responsible layers of accountability. Executive privilege and “state secrets” are being way overused. Some people may think this makes them safer, but instead it makes the agencies involved lazier, and less likely to pursue the highest probability activities.

    I don’t want much, do I?

    I’ll continue over the next few weeks with occasional posts on what I’d like to see in presidential and congressional candidates. Right now, I expect to be wearing a figurative clothespin on my nose when I go to the polls.

  • Race and the Legal System: A Perspective Check

    As I have blogged occasionally about the [tag]Jena 6[/tag] I have been reminded of the very different perspectives that different people have on issues such as this. For white residents of Jena, a common theme has been the defense of their community, pointing out that they are not bad people, that they have a good community, and they have many positive values. Of course, they want to avoid the label “racist” which is so negative in our society. (For an interesting take on the radioactive nature of the words “racist” and “racism” see The Difficult Discussions People Don’t Want to Have by Pam Spaulding on Pandagon.)

    For many of the African-American folks in that community, it is important to get the word out that they are not yet equal under the law, despite the desire of many of us to declare racism dead. They believe they are not being treated equally, and they want to be heard on the point.

    For the large law and order constituency around the country the issue has largely been whether the young men who were charged did things that could be properly construed as fitting the charges. If they did, then of course punishment was appropriate. How can anyone question their treatment if they’re guilty?

    For others, the primary focus is on annoying politicians. If one can catch Al Sharpton making an intemperate statement or glorifying these young men, then one has ammunition to attack any and all defenders. On the other hand, if one can find some white supremacists supporting the legal system, then one can use that to indict the system.

    There are yet others who look for heroes or villains in black and white (pun intended), good young men who have been downtrodden by an evil system, or evil young men being supported by dupes. But the fact is that justice generally operates somewhere in the huge range of gray in between. We have no guarantee that only the guilty are punished. If you believe that the vote of 12 people really provides some kind of a guarantee, let me suggest you’re naive.

    This whole situation connected with my own experience suddenly when I was reading a post on this issue from Michael L. Westmoreland-White, Racial Bias in the U.S. Courts: The Case of the Jena 6, when something clicked for me. I know conversations on this topic are difficult. We need to take a careful look at the problems involved from a different perspective.

    This is no great revelation. It’s come to me before. I just hadn’t applied it in this particular case, and it’s something we need to do all the time. Reading the post above led me to this site, amongst many others, which provide some statistics. Please go to the site and see the more detailed information, but here’s something that gives a summary:

    The official figures confirm what those who live in African-American communities know full well — too many blacks are behind bars, particularly black men. Indeed, nearly five percent of all black men, compared to 0.6 percent of white men, are incarcerated.5 In many states the rate is far worse. According to Human Rights Watch’s calculations based on the 2000 U.S. Census, in twelve states more than ten percent of black men ages 18 to 64 are incarcerated.6 The Justice Department reports that nationwide, a similar percentage of black men in the ages 20-29 are behind bars.

    Now here’s the thing. What is my first reaction to reading these statistics? Well, I want to “put them in perspective.” I want to ask just how many crimes are being committed by blacks as opposed to whites, I want to know what’s happening at their trials. I don’t want to be deceived by statistics. That’s one type of perspective. It has a great deal of value.

    But there’s another one. If I hold a conversation on this topic with an African American, he or she is at least five times more likely than I am to have someone close who has had a negative encounter with police. Whether this is right or wrong, whether the police were absolutely pure in their motives and methods or not, this is bound to create a different perspective on the problem. I’m talking about how some theoretical person should be treating some other theoretical person. My worst brushes with the law have involved a couple of traffic warnings. I haven’t even gotten a ticket.

    In learning to discuss this issue and seek solutions, I think this other perspective is more important. Somewhere in there we need to talk about crime levels, but we need to start by understanding that our experiences in approaching the problems are vastly different. It’s easy for me to say, “Well, if he’s guilty, we need to get him.” My African-American neighbor justly wants to ask, “If he’s white and he’s equally guilty, is he equally likely to go to prison.”

    In the middle of all this we ought to ask another question–not my topic, but I’m going to mention it. With such high levels of incarceration in the African-American community do we also see a comparable reduction in crime that can be attributed to all this punishment? One of our great assumptions in this country is that more draconian punishments will produce less crime. It’s worth asking whether this is, in fact, true.

    Let me just give an experience that help me with a perspective check. This occurred when I was 17 years old and newly employed. I was driving my employer’s van in order to pick up supplies, and I was traveling on a six lane street (3 in each direction) in a southern city. I was driving about 35 mph in a 35 mph zone, and was in the far left lane. A dump track in the far right lane carrying bags of garbage lost one bag. He was moving slower than I was–I would estimate about 25 mph. As I was passing the driver, he chose to swing from the far right lane to the left lane, pinned me against the media, and hit the right rear of my van. It turned out in addition that he was planning a U-Turn directly in front of a “No U-Turn” sign.

    Now I was 17 and naive. I had also just returned from living with my missionary parents in Georgetown, Guyana, South America, where I had been the sole white member of my youth group, another perspective-altering experience. What does this have to do with the story? Well, the driver of the dump truck was a black man in his 60s. He simply kept telling the investigating officer that he had his signal light on, something which did not impress that guy at all.

    Now you would think that the man was in enough trouble as it was. But when the officer handed me the accident report to sign, he had reversed our speeds. Now my speed read 25 mph, while the dump truck’s speed read 35 mph. Since I was going 35 myself and I had been passing the dump truck, I knew this was not possible. I pointed it out to the officer. He gave me a condescending look and said, “It doesn’t matter. Just sign it.”

    Between that and the experience of testifying in court, I discovered that this black man in his 60s simply didn’t mean as much to the officers or the court system. I even mentioned the speed discrepancy in my testimony, but it was ignored completely. The appearance was left that rather than turning into my vehicle during a lane change while I was passing him, he had sped forward and practically rammed my vehicle.

    I really don’t know the motivations of the officer for certain, but the lack of respect with which he treated the other driver provides evidence for the obvious. I was a nice, respectful, apparently intelligent white teen, and he was ready to make it look as good for me and as bad for the other guy as possible, even when that wasn’t necessary. I don’t know enough about the penalties involved to determine whether the changes impacted the sentencing.

    I try to put myself in that man’s place from time to time. What if he had discovered a body? Is it possible the report would have made him look guilty of murder? Could he feel certain he would be treated fairly in such a case? His experience is bound to tell him he could not. In order for us to conduct a serious conversation on these issues, that perspective must be recognized.

  • Suggest BOTH of them Resign

    Senator [tag]Larry Craig[/tag] says he won’t resign even though his attempt to withdraw his guilty plea failed. It seems that some Republicans are afraid that if they urge Senator Craig to resign, it will appear that they are discriminating–what about Senator [tag]David Vitter[/tag]?

    The Idaho Republican’s decision gives his GOP colleagues two unpleasant choices. They can resume pressuring him to leave, and risk being seen as disloyal politicians who go harder on alleged homosexual misdeeds than on heterosexual wrongdoings. (Source: MSNBC.com)

    Well, how about urging both senators to resign? Both engaged in behavior that they have publicly condemned and at least claim to be illegal. It seems to me that the party of family values might take a stand somewhere short of activities that are felonies.

    The other senators shouldn’t try to expel either one. Certainly one can be convicted of a misdemeanor and still serve in office. The real “term limiters” are the voters of each man’s state. But their colleagues can make it clear that their behavior and their hypocrisy are unacceptable.

  • Free Burma Day

    I will be participating in Free Burma day tomorrow. There will be a banner reading Free Burma, underlined for the full day and I will not be posting.

    You can find more information on this action here.

  • Satellite Imagery Confirms Myanmar Atrocities

    Those interested in the situation in [tag]Myanmar[/tag] (formerly Burma) will be interested in this story from ScienceNOW published by the AAAS.

    Researchers used high resolution images from commercial satellites to confirm a substantial number of reports of atrocities by the Burmese military.

    For those interested in taking action, see the U. S. Campaign for Burma.