Imperial Overstretch in Afghanistan
He donned a leather bomber's jacket with an Air Force One logo on it, got up in front of a boisterous crowd of about 2,000 military personnel in a hangar at Bagram Air Base, and gave a tub-thumping, "support the troops" campaign speech. I'm talking about Barack Obama on his six-hour visit to "Afghanistan." Of course, any presidential trip to "the front" is always essentially a domestic political phenomenon destined to trump all other news and be covered uncritically. In this case, it was undoubtedly part of the post-health-care run-up to election 2010, emphasizing an area -- the Afghan War -- in which Americans are, at the moment, remarkably supportive of the president's policies.
Starting with that bomber's jacket, the event had a certain eerie similarity to George W. Bush's visits to Iraq. As Bush once swore that we would never step down until the Iraqis had stepped up, so Obama declared his war to be"absolutely essential." General Mohammad Zahir Azimi, a spokesman for the Afghan Defense Ministry, even claimed that the president had used the long-absent (but patented) Bush word "victory" in his meeting with Hamid Karzai. Above all, whatever the talk about beginning to draw down his surge troops in mid-2011 -- and he has so far committed more than 50,000 American troops to that country -- when it comes to the Afghan War, the president seemed to signal that we are still on Pentagon time.
Particularly striking was his assurance that, while there would be "difficult days ahead... we also know this: The United States of America does not quit once it starts on something... [T]he American armed services does not quit, we keep at it, we persevere, and together with our partners we will prevail. I am absolutely confident of that." He assured his listeners, and assumedly Americans at home, that we will "finish the job" (however undefined), and made another promise as well: "I'm looking forward," he told the troops, "to returning to Afghanistan many times in the years to come."
Many times in the years to come. Think about that and fasten your seatbelt. The U.S. evidently isn't about to leave Afghanistan anytime soon. The president seems to have set his watch to the Pentagon's clock, which means that, in terrible financial times, he is going to continue investing staggering sums of our money long-term in a perilous war in a distant land with terrible supply lines and no infrastructure. This represents a perfect Paul-Kennedy-styleworking definition of "imperial overstretch."
NOW: NOW Applauds Life Sentence for Roeder, Calls for Anti-Abortion Rights Violence to be Acknowledged as Terrorism
Not Just Guantanamo: U.S. Torturing Muslim Pre-Trial Detainee in New York City
Today in New York City, the U.S. is torturing a Muslim detainee with no prior criminal record who has not even gone to trial.
For the last almost three years, Syed Fahad Hashmi has been kept in total pre-trial isolation inside in a small cell under 24 hour video and audio surveillance. He is forced to use the bathroom and shower in full view of the video. He has not seen the sun in years. He takes his meals alone in his cell. He cannot see any other detainees and he is not allowed to communicate in any way with any prisoners. He cannot write letters to friends and he cannot make calls to anyone but his lawyer. He is prohibited from participating in group prayer. He gets newspapers that are 30 days old with sections cut out by the government. One hour a day he is taken into another confined room where he is also kept in total isolation.
Children are taught that the U.S. Constitution protects people accused of crimes. No one is to be punished unless their guilt or innocence has been decided in a fair trial. Until trial, people are entitled to the presumption of innocence. They are entitled to be defended by an attorney of their choice. And the Eighth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution prohibits cruel and unusual punishment.
The punishment of Mr. Hashmi has been going on for years while he has been waiting for trial. In addition to the punitive isolation he is subjected to today, he was denied the attorney of his choice. He was allowed only counsel investigated and pre-approved by the government. He is not allowed to look at any translated documents unless the translator is pre-approved by the government. He is not allowed any contact with the media at all. One member of his family can visit through the heavy screen for one hour every other week unless the government takes away those visits to further punish him. The government took away his family visits for 90 days when he was observed shadow boxing in his cell and talked back to the guard who asked what he was doing.
If the Constitution prohibits cruel and unusual punishment, what is the impact of forced isolation? Medical testimony presented in his case in federal court concluded that after 60 days in solitary people’s mental state begins to break down. That means a person will start to experience panic, anxiety, confusion, headaches, heart palpitations, sleep problems, withdrawal, anger, depression, despair, and over-sensitivity. Over time this can lead to severe psychiatric trauma and harms like psychosis, distortion of reality, hallucinations, mass anxiety and acute confusion. Essentially, the mind disintegrates.
That is why, under international standards for human rights, extended isolation is considered a form of torture and is banned. The conditions and practices of isolation are in violation of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the U.N. Convention against Torture, and the U.N. Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination.
In 1995, the U.N. Human Rights Committee stated that isolation conditions in certain U.S. maximum security prisons were incompatible with international standards. In 1996, the U.N. special rapporteur on torture reported on cruel, inhuman, and degrading treatment in U.S. supermax prisons. In 2000, the U.N. Committee on Torture roundly condemned the United States for its treatment of prisoners, citing supermax prisons. In May 2006, the same committee concluded that the United States should “review the regimen imposed on detainees in supermax prisons, in particular, the practice of prolonged isolation.”
John McCain said his two years in solitary confinement were torture. “It crushes your spirit and weakens your resistance effectively than any other form of mistreatment.” The reaction of McCain and many other victims of isolation torture were described in a 2009 New Yorker article on isolation by Atul Gawande. Gawande concluded that prolonged isolation is objectively horrifying, intrinsically cruel, and more widespread in the U.S. than any country in the world
Life in 'Tin Can Town' for South Africans ahead of World Cup
Campaigners say conditions in Blikkiesdorp or 'Tin Can Town' are worse than in the townships created during apartheid
In some cases families of six or seven people are crammed into living spaces of three by six metres. They complain that the corrugated walls swelter in summer temperatures of 40C and offer little protection from the cold in winter. Tuberculosis and HIV are rife. Babies have been born at Blikkiesdorp and, still unknown to the state, officially do not exist.
See more from blogger-following (57) »The latest messages from the Google Reader teamvia Official Google Reader Blog by Zach Yeskel on 4/1/10At the recent SXSW conference, we handed out free Google Reader T-shirts to people based on how many Reader items they'd ever read... in their whole life. We knew that free shirts would be a hit, but we learned something much more important: a lot of ... See more »
Arms Control Wonk
38 North [7]
The US-Korea Institute at SAIS has a new blog, with the swell name 38 North. (That’s the latitude
longitude
line that established the division of Korea.)
I’ve got an article (How AQ Khan Helped Distort America’s DPRK Policy) that applies the themes I described in my post, Leaks and Motives of AQ Khan, and applies them to North Korea. (See also Josh Pollack’s post, The Media, Generals, & Passion of AQ Khan).
Ah, more winning friends and influencing people.
But what is spectacular about 38 North is that James Church is a contributor. Church is the pseudonym of the author of the fabulous Inspector O novels. Church has a post on Six Party Talks that contains this exchange:
We were both quiet for a few moments. Finally, O broke the silence. “Why are you stuck in the mud again?”
“Me?”
“You know what I mean. Your people are hip deep in a swamp of their own making. Things should have been moving six months ago on the diplomatic front. Last August the door was wide open when Clinton came to dinner. It was as clear as day that the stars in Pyongyang were aligned. Instead, for the past six months, all we hear about is strategic patience. You don’t want to play that game, believe me. We may not have much, but patience we have by the bucketful.”
“You can’t wait forever.”
“We don’t have to wait forever. We only have to wait until November.”
“You on the RNC mailing list or something?”
“No, but I watch Wolf News.”
“Fox. And you do?”
“The Propaganda and Agitation Department has started using it as a teaching tool, part of our new opening policy. They record it on CDs and hand them out during training sessions.”
( I won't suggest that was a joke. )
Unilateral Statements [3]
The first strategic arms control talks between Washington and Moscow were handled poorly by the Nixon White House. President Richard Nixon and national security adviser Henry Kissinger didn’t trust their bureaucracy or U.S. negotiators, which they sent off on wild goose chases while they engaged in backchannel deals with the Kremlin. Many of the harshest critics of the resulting SALT I accords were individuals who were involved in the process and embarrassed or enraged by the process and its results.
Some U.S. officials, including SALT I negotiator Gerard Smith, proposed a freeze on new construction at the outset of negotiations. This was rejected by the Nixon White House, and may well have been unacceptable to the Kremlin, as well, which was building new ICBM silos and modernizing its forces at a far more rapid rate than the Pentagon. U.S. negotiators were unable to place tough restrictions onICBM modernization so, recognizing the linkages between strategic missile defenses which were seriously constrained by the ABM Treaty, and strategic offenses which were barely constrained, the Nixon administration resorted to a “unilateral statement” in an effort to leverage Moscow. Here’s the text of unilateral statement D on “heavy” ICBMs, issued by the U.S. delegation on May 26, 1972:
“The U.S. Delegation regrets that the Soviet Delegation has not been willing to agree on a common definition of a heavy missile. Under these circumstances, the U.S. Delegation believes it necessary to state the following: The United States would consider any ICBM having a volume significantly greater than that of the largest light ICBM now operational on either side to be a heavy ICBM. The United States proceeds on the premise that the Soviet side will give due account to this consideration.”
The Kremlin proceeded to modernize its “light” SS-11 ICBMs into far more capable, MIRVed SS-19 missiles, notwithstanding the toothless U.S. unilateral statement. Soviet actions and the U.S. unilateral statement subsequently became the basis for heated assertions of Soviet noncompliance or, at a minimum, bad faith, with the SALT I Interim Agreement.
Here’s what Ambassador Smith had to say about this controversy in his book, Doubletalk:
“It is true that the Soviets have not conformed to the U.S. unilateral definition of a heavy missile. But the Soviet Union has not violated the agreement. Ungrounded U.S. expectations are responsible for this particular delusion. The Soviet delegation had repeatedly refused to accept our proposed definition. They told us informally that they would be deploying new MIRVed missiles of a larger volume in their SS-11 silo launchers. After signing the SALT agreements, Brezhnev advised
Unpaid Labor Illegal? In America?
by Robert Farley
4 people liked this
Damn. And just when LGM was thinking about offering an unpaid internship:
With job openings scarce for young people, the number of unpaid internships has climbed in recent years, leading federal and state regulators to worry that more employers are illegally using such internships for free labor.
Convinced that many unpaid internships violate minimum wage laws, officials in Oregon, California and other states have begun investigations and fined employers. Last year, M. Patricia Smith, then New York’s labor commissioner, ordered investigations into several firms’ internships. Now, as the federal Labor Department’s top law enforcement official, she and the wage and hour division are stepping up enforcement nationwide.
Good on ‘em. Let’s be clear; the unpaid internship effectively excludes a wide socioeconomic swath from gaining useful experience and making effective connections in business, government, and NGOs. For example, it was utterly impossible for me to even consider an unpaid internship as an undergraduate; paying the bills was difficult even with loans and full time work. Lots of young people lack significant parental support, and require minimum payment to have any hope of making ends meet. Moreover, even for those with support the “payment” for unpaid internships (connections, experience, and recommendations) often has no lasting effect on the intern’s job prospects. If you’ve ever wondered why DC NGOs and journalistic organizations are dominated by Ivy Leaguers, it ain’t just because they’re smart.
Related posts:
"everyday bullshit in the world of organized labor"
If America Does It, It’s Not Immoral. If A Republican Orders It, It’s Not Illegal.
Putin’s Still Got It…President Nixon that the Soviet Union would proceed with its missile modernization program as permitted by the agreement. In view of this record, the Soviet ICBM replacement activities under the freeze are not as surprising as the White House’s assurances in June 1972 that there were adequate safeguards in its agreement against substitution of heavy missiles (presumably as we had defined them) for light ones.”
In the recently concluded New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty, the shoe is on the other foot: The United States is proceeding with purposeful, necessary upgrades of theater missile defenses oriented toward the Iranian and North Korean missile programs. Moscow feels uncomfortable with U.S. BMDprograms, and seeks to constrain them. The Obama administration has clarified in numerous exchanges with Russian leaders and negotiators, as well as in a unilateral statement that is reportedly attached to the agreement, that these activities are outside the scope of treaty limitations. The Kremlin has repeatedly expressed its reservations, along with a reaffirmation of its right to withdraw from the treaty, in a parallel unilateral statement.
Enter Senators Kyl, McCain and Ensign, who have written a letter to national security advisor James Jones dated February 17, 2010, with the following warning:
“It would be very troubling, for example, if the treaty included a provision that would allow Russia to withdraw from the treaty if it felt threatened by U.S. missile defense capabilities, for example, if it felt that ‘strategic stability’ was upset by a deployment by the United States. Even as a unilateral declaration, a provision like this would put pressure on the United States to limit its systems or their deployment because of Russian threats of withdrawal from the treaty.
“We ask your assurance that the Administration will not agree to any such provisions, even a unilateral Russian declaration, in the treaty text or otherwise that could limit U.S. missile defenses in any way.”
Throwing mud against the wall and seeing what sticks is a time-honored approach to messing up treaty ratification. As noted in this space previously, no-one did this more effectively against the SALTI accords than Senator Henry “Scoop” Jackson.
If the mud sticks in this instance, Senators will be sending a very unfortunate message abroad – that the United States of America can be spooked by unilateral statements that have no legal or practical effect. They will also be giving unintended credence to the canard that Moscow has veto rights over U.S. ballistic missile defense programs.
The United States can and will continue to improve BMD capabilities on the basis of threat perceptions, technical, cost and cost-effectiveness grounds. The legislative branch will continue to be a very active participant and the final arbiter of these decisions, courtesy of its powers of the purse.
The Russian unilateral statement in New START will no doubt be accorded the same “due account” as the Kremlin gave to the Nixon administration’s statement on heavy missiles in 1972.
Lawyers,Guns & Money
Unpaid Labor Illegal? In America?
Damn. And just when LGM was thinking about offering an unpaid internship:
With job openings scarce for young people, the number of unpaid internships has climbed in recent years, leading federal and state regulators to worry that more employers are illegally using such internships for free labor.
Convinced that many unpaid internships violate minimum wage laws, officials in Oregon, California and other states have begun investigations and fined employers. Last year, M. Patricia Smith, then New York’s labor commissioner, ordered investigations into several firms’ internships. Now, as the federal Labor Department’s top law enforcement official, she and the wage and hour division are stepping up enforcement nationwide.
Good on ‘em. Let’s be clear; the unpaid internship effectively excludes a wide socioeconomic swath from gaining useful experience and making effective connections in business, government, and NGOs. For example, it was utterly impossible for me to even consider an unpaid internship as an undergraduate; paying the bills was difficult even with loans and full time work. Lots of young people lack significant parental support, and require minimum payment to have any hope of making ends meet. Moreover, even for those with support the “payment” for unpaid internships (connections, experience, and recommendations) often has no lasting effect on the intern’s job prospects. If you’ve ever wondered why DC NGOs and journalistic organizations are dominated by Ivy Leaguers, it ain’t just because they’re smart.
Related posts:
- "everyday bullshit in the world of organized labor"
- If America Does It, It’s Not Immoral. If A Republican Orders It, It’s Not Illegal.
- Putin’s Still Got It…
The Flimsy Case for Drone Wars
Amitai Etzioni, a
law
professor at George Washington University, has followed up the State Department’s justification for drone attacks in Pakistan with an argument of his own, published in the new issue of Joint Force Quarterly.
Here is the first paragraph, sentence by sentence with commentary:
The substantial increase in the employment of unmanned aircraft systems in Afghanistan, Pakistan and other arenas has intensified debate about the moral and legal nature of the targeting killing of people who are said to be civilians.
Oh good. Because when I first saw the title – “Unmanned Aircraft Systems: The Moral and Legal Case” I almost thought Etzioni believed he needed to make the case for unmanned systems per se. But of course it’s not the systems themselves that are at issue. The issue is in using them – or any technology – for targeted killings of civilians, whatever we might suspect those civilians of doing, and particularly inside the sovereign borders of countries with whom we’re not at war. A better title for this particular piece might be “Targeted Killings of Civilian Terror Suspects: The Moral and Legal Case.”
The US and its allies can make a strong case that the problem is those who abuse their civilian status to attack truly innocent civilians and to prevent our military and other security forces from discharging their duties.
OK, fair enough. But note this is a PR argument, not a legal or a moral argument per se.
In the long run, we should work toward a new Geneva Convention, one that will define the status of so-called unlawful combatants.
Fair enough also. I myself have been in favor of an Additional Protocol that would create a multilateral consensus around what current law means in an era of asymmetric war. But note that this implies there is actually no legal case to be made for this behavior using existing law.
These people should be viewed as having forfeited most of their rights as civilians by acting in gross violation of the rights of others and of the rules of war.
Whoa, stop the presses. Quite a jump from arguing that the US should point out that these individuals are abusing humanitarian law for their own purposes, and suggesting that the law be updated, to suggesting that they lose all their rights “as civilians.” What I think Etzioni means is that they should lose their immunity from attack as civilians.
As far as I understand it, there is no legal justification for this – that is, no “legal case” to be made here. If they are civilians, they lose their immunity only as long as they are directly participating in hostilities. If they might actually be considered combatants, then Etzioni’s distinction between “innocent” and “abusive” civilians doesn’t make much sense. And even if it did, he suggests no means to distinguish between the two categories for the purpose of making sure you avoid “innocent civilian” casualties – arguably one of the key moral dilemmas that would need to be addressed in order to “make the case.”
Etzioni makes a few other unconvincing statements in supporting his argument: he overestimates, in my view, the differences between today’s wars and previous wars; his claim that we must kill terrorists before they attack us hinges on the notion that terrorists cannot be deterred or rehabilitated (they can); and he seems to be arguing that the UN Charter regime is irrelevant, when he suggests that no government who wishes to target a terrorist on foreign soil should wait for the consent of the foreign government. Maybe his goal is to push us back into a world where conventional war is the norm – go ahead and undermine the territorial integrity norm, and that’s what you’ll have.
This poor execution (pardon the pun) detracts from the two important points he makes: a) the US needs to make a clear moral case for these tactics if we are going to use them and b) the ethical/legal dilemmas raised by targeted killings suggest the need for a new multilateral consensus about what the laws of war mean – a new Additional Protocol to the Geneva Conventions, perhaps.
But ultimately, I think this article really does nothing to help us think through what a genuine moral / legal case for targeted killings would be, whether there actually is one, or what those new rules would need to look like in order to remain consistent with the larger body of humanitarian law. Mostly, it looks like apologism for existing US policy and a roadmap for rhetorical strategies policymakers might use to dupe the public into thinking it’s within the bounds of the law whether or not it actually is.
Danger Room has a bit more on this particular article. Etzioni has also been on NPR with his views; I’ve not had a chance yet to find out if he expounds more on them there than in the written piece.
I’ll be writing more on this by and by, but I’m curious what readers think about the moral/legal dilemmas associated with targeted killings, by drones or even by manned aircraft. The blog at National Defense University Press has solicited reactions from the general public, so consider leaving a comment there as well.
[cross-posted at Duck of Minerva and Current Intelligence]
Related posts:
Starting with that bomber's jacket, the event had a certain eerie similarity to George W. Bush's visits to Iraq. As Bush once swore that we would never step down until the Iraqis had stepped up, so Obama declared his war to be"absolutely essential." General Mohammad Zahir Azimi, a spokesman for the Afghan Defense Ministry, even claimed that the president had used the long-absent (but patented) Bush word "victory" in his meeting with Hamid Karzai. Above all, whatever the talk about beginning to draw down his surge troops in mid-2011 -- and he has so far committed more than 50,000 American troops to that country -- when it comes to the Afghan War, the president seemed to signal that we are still on Pentagon time.
Particularly striking was his assurance that, while there would be "difficult days ahead... we also know this: The United States of America does not quit once it starts on something... [T]he American armed services does not quit, we keep at it, we persevere, and together with our partners we will prevail. I am absolutely confident of that." He assured his listeners, and assumedly Americans at home, that we will "finish the job" (however undefined), and made another promise as well: "I'm looking forward," he told the troops, "to returning to Afghanistan many times in the years to come."
Many times in the years to come. Think about that and fasten your seatbelt. The U.S. evidently isn't about to leave Afghanistan anytime soon. The president seems to have set his watch to the Pentagon's clock, which means that, in terrible financial times, he is going to continue investing staggering sums of our money long-term in a perilous war in a distant land with terrible supply lines and no infrastructure. This represents a perfect Paul-Kennedy-styleworking definition of "imperial overstretch."
NOW: NOW Applauds Life Sentence for Roeder, Calls for Anti-Abortion Rights Violence to be Acknowledged as Terrorism
Not Just Guantanamo: U.S. Torturing Muslim Pre-Trial Detainee in New York City
Today in New York City, the U.S. is torturing a Muslim detainee with no prior criminal record who has not even gone to trial.
For the last almost three years, Syed Fahad Hashmi has been kept in total pre-trial isolation inside in a small cell under 24 hour video and audio surveillance. He is forced to use the bathroom and shower in full view of the video. He has not seen the sun in years. He takes his meals alone in his cell. He cannot see any other detainees and he is not allowed to communicate in any way with any prisoners. He cannot write letters to friends and he cannot make calls to anyone but his lawyer. He is prohibited from participating in group prayer. He gets newspapers that are 30 days old with sections cut out by the government. One hour a day he is taken into another confined room where he is also kept in total isolation.
Children are taught that the U.S. Constitution protects people accused of crimes. No one is to be punished unless their guilt or innocence has been decided in a fair trial. Until trial, people are entitled to the presumption of innocence. They are entitled to be defended by an attorney of their choice. And the Eighth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution prohibits cruel and unusual punishment.
The punishment of Mr. Hashmi has been going on for years while he has been waiting for trial. In addition to the punitive isolation he is subjected to today, he was denied the attorney of his choice. He was allowed only counsel investigated and pre-approved by the government. He is not allowed to look at any translated documents unless the translator is pre-approved by the government. He is not allowed any contact with the media at all. One member of his family can visit through the heavy screen for one hour every other week unless the government takes away those visits to further punish him. The government took away his family visits for 90 days when he was observed shadow boxing in his cell and talked back to the guard who asked what he was doing.
If the Constitution prohibits cruel and unusual punishment, what is the impact of forced isolation? Medical testimony presented in his case in federal court concluded that after 60 days in solitary people’s mental state begins to break down. That means a person will start to experience panic, anxiety, confusion, headaches, heart palpitations, sleep problems, withdrawal, anger, depression, despair, and over-sensitivity. Over time this can lead to severe psychiatric trauma and harms like psychosis, distortion of reality, hallucinations, mass anxiety and acute confusion. Essentially, the mind disintegrates.
That is why, under international standards for human rights, extended isolation is considered a form of torture and is banned. The conditions and practices of isolation are in violation of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the U.N. Convention against Torture, and the U.N. Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination.
In 1995, the U.N. Human Rights Committee stated that isolation conditions in certain U.S. maximum security prisons were incompatible with international standards. In 1996, the U.N. special rapporteur on torture reported on cruel, inhuman, and degrading treatment in U.S. supermax prisons. In 2000, the U.N. Committee on Torture roundly condemned the United States for its treatment of prisoners, citing supermax prisons. In May 2006, the same committee concluded that the United States should “review the regimen imposed on detainees in supermax prisons, in particular, the practice of prolonged isolation.”
John McCain said his two years in solitary confinement were torture. “It crushes your spirit and weakens your resistance effectively than any other form of mistreatment.” The reaction of McCain and many other victims of isolation torture were described in a 2009 New Yorker article on isolation by Atul Gawande. Gawande concluded that prolonged isolation is objectively horrifying, intrinsically cruel, and more widespread in the U.S. than any country in the world
Life in 'Tin Can Town' for South Africans ahead of World Cup
Campaigners say conditions in Blikkiesdorp or 'Tin Can Town' are worse than in the townships created during apartheid
In some cases families of six or seven people are crammed into living spaces of three by six metres. They complain that the corrugated walls swelter in summer temperatures of 40C and offer little protection from the cold in winter. Tuberculosis and HIV are rife. Babies have been born at Blikkiesdorp and, still unknown to the state, officially do not exist.
See more from blogger-following (57) »The latest messages from the Google Reader teamvia Official Google Reader Blog by Zach Yeskel on 4/1/10At the recent SXSW conference, we handed out free Google Reader T-shirts to people based on how many Reader items they'd ever read... in their whole life. We knew that free shirts would be a hit, but we learned something much more important: a lot of ... See more »
Arms Control Wonk
38 North [7]
The US-Korea Institute at SAIS has a new blog, with the swell name 38 North. (That’s the latitude
longitude
line that established the division of Korea.)
I’ve got an article (How AQ Khan Helped Distort America’s DPRK Policy) that applies the themes I described in my post, Leaks and Motives of AQ Khan, and applies them to North Korea. (See also Josh Pollack’s post, The Media, Generals, & Passion of AQ Khan).
Ah, more winning friends and influencing people.
But what is spectacular about 38 North is that James Church is a contributor. Church is the pseudonym of the author of the fabulous Inspector O novels. Church has a post on Six Party Talks that contains this exchange:
We were both quiet for a few moments. Finally, O broke the silence. “Why are you stuck in the mud again?”
“Me?”
“You know what I mean. Your people are hip deep in a swamp of their own making. Things should have been moving six months ago on the diplomatic front. Last August the door was wide open when Clinton came to dinner. It was as clear as day that the stars in Pyongyang were aligned. Instead, for the past six months, all we hear about is strategic patience. You don’t want to play that game, believe me. We may not have much, but patience we have by the bucketful.”
“You can’t wait forever.”
“We don’t have to wait forever. We only have to wait until November.”
“You on the RNC mailing list or something?”
“No, but I watch Wolf News.”
“Fox. And you do?”
“The Propaganda and Agitation Department has started using it as a teaching tool, part of our new opening policy. They record it on CDs and hand them out during training sessions.”
( I won't suggest that was a joke. )
Unilateral Statements [3]
The first strategic arms control talks between Washington and Moscow were handled poorly by the Nixon White House. President Richard Nixon and national security adviser Henry Kissinger didn’t trust their bureaucracy or U.S. negotiators, which they sent off on wild goose chases while they engaged in backchannel deals with the Kremlin. Many of the harshest critics of the resulting SALT I accords were individuals who were involved in the process and embarrassed or enraged by the process and its results.
Some U.S. officials, including SALT I negotiator Gerard Smith, proposed a freeze on new construction at the outset of negotiations. This was rejected by the Nixon White House, and may well have been unacceptable to the Kremlin, as well, which was building new ICBM silos and modernizing its forces at a far more rapid rate than the Pentagon. U.S. negotiators were unable to place tough restrictions onICBM modernization so, recognizing the linkages between strategic missile defenses which were seriously constrained by the ABM Treaty, and strategic offenses which were barely constrained, the Nixon administration resorted to a “unilateral statement” in an effort to leverage Moscow. Here’s the text of unilateral statement D on “heavy” ICBMs, issued by the U.S. delegation on May 26, 1972:
“The U.S. Delegation regrets that the Soviet Delegation has not been willing to agree on a common definition of a heavy missile. Under these circumstances, the U.S. Delegation believes it necessary to state the following: The United States would consider any ICBM having a volume significantly greater than that of the largest light ICBM now operational on either side to be a heavy ICBM. The United States proceeds on the premise that the Soviet side will give due account to this consideration.”
The Kremlin proceeded to modernize its “light” SS-11 ICBMs into far more capable, MIRVed SS-19 missiles, notwithstanding the toothless U.S. unilateral statement. Soviet actions and the U.S. unilateral statement subsequently became the basis for heated assertions of Soviet noncompliance or, at a minimum, bad faith, with the SALT I Interim Agreement.
Here’s what Ambassador Smith had to say about this controversy in his book, Doubletalk:
“It is true that the Soviets have not conformed to the U.S. unilateral definition of a heavy missile. But the Soviet Union has not violated the agreement. Ungrounded U.S. expectations are responsible for this particular delusion. The Soviet delegation had repeatedly refused to accept our proposed definition. They told us informally that they would be deploying new MIRVed missiles of a larger volume in their SS-11 silo launchers. After signing the SALT agreements, Brezhnev advised
Unpaid Labor Illegal? In America?
by Robert Farley
4 people liked this
Damn. And just when LGM was thinking about offering an unpaid internship:
With job openings scarce for young people, the number of unpaid internships has climbed in recent years, leading federal and state regulators to worry that more employers are illegally using such internships for free labor.
Convinced that many unpaid internships violate minimum wage laws, officials in Oregon, California and other states have begun investigations and fined employers. Last year, M. Patricia Smith, then New York’s labor commissioner, ordered investigations into several firms’ internships. Now, as the federal Labor Department’s top law enforcement official, she and the wage and hour division are stepping up enforcement nationwide.
Good on ‘em. Let’s be clear; the unpaid internship effectively excludes a wide socioeconomic swath from gaining useful experience and making effective connections in business, government, and NGOs. For example, it was utterly impossible for me to even consider an unpaid internship as an undergraduate; paying the bills was difficult even with loans and full time work. Lots of young people lack significant parental support, and require minimum payment to have any hope of making ends meet. Moreover, even for those with support the “payment” for unpaid internships (connections, experience, and recommendations) often has no lasting effect on the intern’s job prospects. If you’ve ever wondered why DC NGOs and journalistic organizations are dominated by Ivy Leaguers, it ain’t just because they’re smart.
Related posts:
"everyday bullshit in the world of organized labor"
If America Does It, It’s Not Immoral. If A Republican Orders It, It’s Not Illegal.
President Nixon that the Soviet Union would proceed with its missile modernization program as permitted by the agreement. In view of this record, the Soviet ICBM replacement activities under the freeze are not as surprising as the White House’s assurances in June 1972 that there were adequate safeguards in its agreement against substitution of heavy missiles (presumably as we had defined them) for light ones.”Putin’s Still Got It…
In the recently concluded New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty, the shoe is on the other foot: The United States is proceeding with purposeful, necessary upgrades of theater missile defenses oriented toward the Iranian and North Korean missile programs. Moscow feels uncomfortable with U.S. BMDprograms, and seeks to constrain them. The Obama administration has clarified in numerous exchanges with Russian leaders and negotiators, as well as in a unilateral statement that is reportedly attached to the agreement, that these activities are outside the scope of treaty limitations. The Kremlin has repeatedly expressed its reservations, along with a reaffirmation of its right to withdraw from the treaty, in a parallel unilateral statement.
Enter Senators Kyl, McCain and Ensign, who have written a letter to national security advisor James Jones dated February 17, 2010, with the following warning:
“It would be very troubling, for example, if the treaty included a provision that would allow Russia to withdraw from the treaty if it felt threatened by U.S. missile defense capabilities, for example, if it felt that ‘strategic stability’ was upset by a deployment by the United States. Even as a unilateral declaration, a provision like this would put pressure on the United States to limit its systems or their deployment because of Russian threats of withdrawal from the treaty.
“We ask your assurance that the Administration will not agree to any such provisions, even a unilateral Russian declaration, in the treaty text or otherwise that could limit U.S. missile defenses in any way.”
Throwing mud against the wall and seeing what sticks is a time-honored approach to messing up treaty ratification. As noted in this space previously, no-one did this more effectively against the SALTI accords than Senator Henry “Scoop” Jackson.
If the mud sticks in this instance, Senators will be sending a very unfortunate message abroad – that the United States of America can be spooked by unilateral statements that have no legal or practical effect. They will also be giving unintended credence to the canard that Moscow has veto rights over U.S. ballistic missile defense programs.
The United States can and will continue to improve BMD capabilities on the basis of threat perceptions, technical, cost and cost-effectiveness grounds. The legislative branch will continue to be a very active participant and the final arbiter of these decisions, courtesy of its powers of the purse.
The Russian unilateral statement in New START will no doubt be accorded the same “due account” as the Kremlin gave to the Nixon administration’s statement on heavy missiles in 1972.
Lawyers,Guns & Money
Unpaid Labor Illegal? In America?
Damn. And just when LGM was thinking about offering an unpaid internship:
With job openings scarce for young people, the number of unpaid internships has climbed in recent years, leading federal and state regulators to worry that more employers are illegally using such internships for free labor.
Good on ‘em. Let’s be clear; the unpaid internship effectively excludes a wide socioeconomic swath from gaining useful experience and making effective connections in business, government, and NGOs. For example, it was utterly impossible for me to even consider an unpaid internship as an undergraduate; paying the bills was difficult even with loans and full time work. Lots of young people lack significant parental support, and require minimum payment to have any hope of making ends meet. Moreover, even for those with support the “payment” for unpaid internships (connections, experience, and recommendations) often has no lasting effect on the intern’s job prospects. If you’ve ever wondered why DC NGOs and journalistic organizations are dominated by Ivy Leaguers, it ain’t just because they’re smart.
Convinced that many unpaid internships violate minimum wage laws, officials in Oregon, California and other states have begun investigations and fined employers. Last year, M. Patricia Smith, then New York’s labor commissioner, ordered investigations into several firms’ internships. Now, as the federal Labor Department’s top law enforcement official, she and the wage and hour division are stepping up enforcement nationwide.
Related posts:
- "everyday bullshit in the world of organized labor"
- If America Does It, It’s Not Immoral. If A Republican Orders It, It’s Not Illegal.
- Putin’s Still Got It…
The Flimsy Case for Drone Wars
Amitai Etzioni, a
law
professor at George Washington University, has followed up the State Department’s justification for drone attacks in Pakistan with an argument of his own, published in the new issue of Joint Force Quarterly.
Here is the first paragraph, sentence by sentence with commentary:
The substantial increase in the employment of unmanned aircraft systems in Afghanistan, Pakistan and other arenas has intensified debate about the moral and legal nature of the targeting killing of people who are said to be civilians.
Oh good. Because when I first saw the title – “Unmanned Aircraft Systems: The Moral and Legal Case” I almost thought Etzioni believed he needed to make the case for unmanned systems per se. But of course it’s not the systems themselves that are at issue. The issue is in using them – or any technology – for targeted killings of civilians, whatever we might suspect those civilians of doing, and particularly inside the sovereign borders of countries with whom we’re not at war. A better title for this particular piece might be “Targeted Killings of Civilian Terror Suspects: The Moral and Legal Case.”
The US and its allies can make a strong case that the problem is those who abuse their civilian status to attack truly innocent civilians and to prevent our military and other security forces from discharging their duties.
OK, fair enough. But note this is a PR argument, not a legal or a moral argument per se.
In the long run, we should work toward a new Geneva Convention, one that will define the status of so-called unlawful combatants.
Fair enough also. I myself have been in favor of an Additional Protocol that would create a multilateral consensus around what current law means in an era of asymmetric war. But note that this implies there is actually no legal case to be made for this behavior using existing law.
These people should be viewed as having forfeited most of their rights as civilians by acting in gross violation of the rights of others and of the rules of war.
Whoa, stop the presses. Quite a jump from arguing that the US should point out that these individuals are abusing humanitarian law for their own purposes, and suggesting that the law be updated, to suggesting that they lose all their rights “as civilians.” What I think Etzioni means is that they should lose their immunity from attack as civilians.
As far as I understand it, there is no legal justification for this – that is, no “legal case” to be made here. If they are civilians, they lose their immunity only as long as they are directly participating in hostilities. If they might actually be considered combatants, then Etzioni’s distinction between “innocent” and “abusive” civilians doesn’t make much sense. And even if it did, he suggests no means to distinguish between the two categories for the purpose of making sure you avoid “innocent civilian” casualties – arguably one of the key moral dilemmas that would need to be addressed in order to “make the case.”
Etzioni makes a few other unconvincing statements in supporting his argument: he overestimates, in my view, the differences between today’s wars and previous wars; his claim that we must kill terrorists before they attack us hinges on the notion that terrorists cannot be deterred or rehabilitated (they can); and he seems to be arguing that the UN Charter regime is irrelevant, when he suggests that no government who wishes to target a terrorist on foreign soil should wait for the consent of the foreign government. Maybe his goal is to push us back into a world where conventional war is the norm – go ahead and undermine the territorial integrity norm, and that’s what you’ll have.
This poor execution (pardon the pun) detracts from the two important points he makes: a) the US needs to make a clear moral case for these tactics if we are going to use them and b) the ethical/legal dilemmas raised by targeted killings suggest the need for a new multilateral consensus about what the laws of war mean – a new Additional Protocol to the Geneva Conventions, perhaps.
But ultimately, I think this article really does nothing to help us think through what a genuine moral / legal case for targeted killings would be, whether there actually is one, or what those new rules would need to look like in order to remain consistent with the larger body of humanitarian law. Mostly, it looks like apologism for existing US policy and a roadmap for rhetorical strategies policymakers might use to dupe the public into thinking it’s within the bounds of the law whether or not it actually is.
Danger Room has a bit more on this particular article. Etzioni has also been on NPR with his views; I’ve not had a chance yet to find out if he expounds more on them there than in the written piece.
I’ll be writing more on this by and by, but I’m curious what readers think about the moral/legal dilemmas associated with targeted killings, by drones or even by manned aircraft. The blog at National Defense University Press has solicited reactions from the general public, so consider leaving a comment there as well.
[cross-posted at Duck of Minerva and Current Intelligence]
Related posts:
Well, packing is finished and I’m ready to head to the airport. It’s raining here in Philadelphia; I hope it doesn’t delay my flight, causing me to miss my connection to Johannesburg.
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