econtalk

So this headline appeared in the NYT today. "Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel said Monday that as long as he is the leader, a Palestinian state would not be established, reversing his support for a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict."  I trust that the Israeli voter will be turned off by this and it will seal his defeat in this election. He must be desperate and hopefully the voters will not be so gullible to destroy the opportunity for peace in the foreseeable future.  

posted by econtalk @ 4:21 PM 0 comments

Then there was Putin

I have been absent too long and the world is moving on, not necessarily moving forward! The last couple days was filled with speculation that Putin was mysteriously absent, ranging from a secret trip to Lugano for the birth of a love child to rumors that he is ill or very ill. Though his behavior has been at best puzzling to at worst diabolical, it is not at all clear that any successor would be any better. There is at least an equal chance that a successor would be more dangerous. So be careful what you wish for! Given the information wars going on, it is even possible and maybe plausible that this is a staged event so that fears of a more diabolical successor would benefit his public image.

posted by econtalk @ 10:21 AM 0 comments

More on the torture backstory

There is another part of this torture story that is coming into focus with testimony of former CIA and FBI professionals who opposed these “enhanced interrogation methods” as unnecessary and ineffective not to mention against the values we cherish. It has been known that the SERE program professionals, who trained pilots and others to resist torture during capture, were very active in pushing for using these methods against terrorists and enemy combatants. Recall they trained pilots to resist these methods because the methods are used to extract not true information but false confessions. They were not experts in interrogation as were those professionals in FBI especially, but also in CIA. Why would they advocate the methods they were qualified to teach and use? Well, think about who benefits. Follow the money. Adoption of these methods would be a huge financial benefit to those trainers and practitioners. I am not inclined to see conspiracy around every corner, but this is looking like a blatant money move. Let us wait and see, but I expect this will be remembered as a big mistake that was strongly promoted by those who stood to gain the most financially from adoption of these methods. Time will tell.
Be patient in tribulation (St Paul)

posted by econtalk @ 8:18 PM 0 comments

The real reason to torture?

I must confess that my posting on 100 days seems to be too wishy-washy about motives of the Bush-Cheney team relative to the Iraq war. I said “I could, however, believe that Cheney and company deliberately made us believe that the Iraqi threat was much larger than it was just to gain support for going to war in the first place.” Well “could” is not right. I DO believe that, but there is new (at least to me) evidence tying this ruse to the “torture memos”. I was mistaken about the motives for the extreme interogation measures used by the Bush-Cheney team. I had assumed it was panic over possible future attacks, though panic obviously is not a good basis for sound judgments.

Meanwhile, says NYT columnist Rich there is evidence the comprehensive Senate Armed Services Committee report on detainees of another motivation for Bybee to write his memo in August 2002. Remember this report was signed by ALL Armed Service Committee members, including McCain, Warner and Lindsay Graham and Joe Lieberman. The report found that a United States Army psychiatrist assigned to interrogations in Guantánamo Bay that summer of 2002,said “A large part of the time we were focused on trying to establish a link between Al Qaeda and Iraq and we were not being successful”, the major said, “there was more and more pressure to resort to measures” that might produce that intelligence.

So this was not a “Jack Bauer” moment, when a bomb was ticking and extreme measures were the only way to save the world. The tick-tock was the Bush administration’s timetable for selling the war in Iraq and getting Congress to pass a war resolution before the 2002 midterm elections. This sounds incredible, but remember the way water-boarding and similar measures were used on US prisoners of war and most other tyrannical governments from the Middle Ages on was not to find the truth but rather to extract confessions that could be used as propaganda or to defame the prisoners. So these methods, while not so good for finding out useful intelligence, were more likely used to extract false information that could be used to link Iraq to Al Qaeda.

Sacrificing our cherished values as the “good guys” and our long standing reputation in the world for cheap excuses to go to war??? Incredible!!

posted by econtalk @ 9:50 PM 0 comments

Bad news and good news

This is a bit crazy, so forgive me for telling the gory details, because it is also a bit funny. I have a complex travel in May. Well, in order to make that work, Bologna U should buy my ticket to Brussels 16 May and return June 7 then buy a ticket from Brussels to Bologna 24 to 31 May for the actual teaching time. Well, with all the Italian rules and regs, they are not sure they can do that because it is not a roundtrip from US to Bologna. So just to cover my ass, I was checking last night to see if I could get a roundtrip to Brussels on my ff miles as a backup and to give me peace of mind until they decide what to do. So the first airline i called did not work, then I called American Airlines. Well they could not get me to Brussels, so I said what about Paris, since my first meeting anyway is in St Malo on 18-19 May. Well, she said there was a flight on 13th! Ok, let's work with that and see now the rest works out. So then coming back to USA I need to come back on 7 June, so I can take a flight to Los Angeles on 8th. Well she said I could leave on 7th but need to stay overnight in NYC and continue on 8th. But, I said, I need to be in Los Angeles the 8th. So, get this, she says she can fly be direct from Paris to LAX on Air Tahiti on the 7th! How cool is that??

posted by econtalk @ 7:16 PM 0 comments

100 Days and counting: Is Obama making things better or worse?

I recently heard someone say that the Obama Administration has deliberately made the economic situation worse so that it would increase the chance to get his agenda accepted in Congress and the public at large. This was mentioned in the context of some new announcement about GM and maybe firing of the GM CEO, but it could have been raised in connection with a number of different actions or announcements recently.

It is amazing how two intelligent and sensible people (like us?) can hear the same news or the same announcement and take away a completely different interpretation or impression. So I may have a different interpretation of events then you do, but I do reject the view of some that the Obama Administration is deliberately making things worse to advance their agenda. When people express such a view, which you may hear much more than I do, I would challenge them to think of why a rational human being would believe that increasing the number or the intensity of economic or other problems would be politically advantageous. It is a different thing to believe they made mistakes in judgment or undertake bad policies, but that they would willfully add to the enormous problems that already exist in the economy is just makes no sense—it’s nonsense.

It would be like saying that those promoting the Iraqi war allowed the situation to get really bad just so they could get more support for the war or send more troops. In my mind the conduct of the war was just incompetence not malfeasance. I could, however, believe that Cheney and company deliberately made us believe that the Iraqi threat was much larger than it was just to gain support for going to war in the first place. Maybe some of them really believed all that and maybe Bush himself was fooled by others, but I feel that at the very least, Bush failed to give sufficient attention to the cooler heads around him like Powell who was far less eager to go to war. Note that it took Bush about six years to figure out that Cheney was not the great source of wisdom he had thought, and began paying more attention to other voices.

Anyway, back to Obama and economics, I may not agree with all the economic decisions that are being made, but I do trust that they are truly trying to make things better not worse. I also prefer Obama’s decision making style, which takes consideration of wide ranging views and is more pragmatic than ideological. Note the balance in the terror memos, which let out the memos (mostly confirming what people already knew) but also protected those who carried out the authorized torture tactics. Note also the ruling by Justice that the Justice Department prosecutors who tried Sen. Stevens were unlawful so charges against Stevens were dropped.

I pay attention to Paul Krugman, who has been very critical of Obama’s economic policies, but don’t feel I understand the issues well enough to say he is always right and others wrong. In fact, conditions are such that it seems safer to try a range of remedies and hope that some will work, whereupon you do more of that and less of the ones that don’t.

In foreign relations I also prefer the talking approach and looking for common interests with other countries as opposed to the “my way or the highway” of the Bush administration. As Jim Baker says, “talking to the enemy is not appeasement”. We need to employ all kinds of power, economic, diplomatic, and moral, not just the military kind.

In general, what it comes down to is that I much prefer the Obama approach and the expertise he has assembled, and especially the idea that we have to deal with problems not piece by piece but in consideration of how each effects the other,- both in domestic economy and foreign affairs issues.

posted by econtalk @ 6:47 PM 0 comments

Just Vote!

Back in May, I was sitting around the table with my older brother and sister when they asked my opinion on the primary elections, and I lost my usual caution and blurted out that Obama would beat Hillary and then would also win over McCain. Well, it is my hope and wish as well as my prediction. Now that General Powell, Chris Buckley [http://www.thedailybeast.com/blogs-and-stories/2008-10-10/the-conservative-case-for-obama/], and lots of other prominent Republicans lined up to declare support for Obama [http://blogs.wsj.com/washwire/2008/10/24/obamacans-prominent-republicans-line-up-behind-obama/], it indicates a reason why the support of more voters is tilting his way, especially since the economic crisis emerged in September.

Though my opinion has not changed much since the beginning of this race, it was more of a hunch and a faith than something carefully analyzed. However, as the campaign has progressed, the leadership and organizational qualities of Obama have become more apparent. His success in the campaign against Hillary was actually an amazing consequence of very good and disciplined planning and implementation in the face of the Clinton machine that was supposed to be unbeatable but was not as well organized or disciplined. So that campaign actually helped to prepare them for the even harder one against McCain.

Some of the Republican support for McCain seems to have left him because he did not keep to his principles of many years as an independent thinker and actor (maverick) and lately seemed to show poorer judgment and less stability in the face of the economic crisis when compared to Obama's calm and reasoned approach. At least that is what these "Obamacans" have said about their decision to jump ship.

When we were at Goshen College we had an interesting conversation with a friend, who is a historian and theologian. He said we can never believe all that politicians tell us or promise us, but we should decide whom we trust more to use good judgment and solve problems that will surely be plentiful. Well, aside from my hunches and intuition to support Obama, I truly believe he can be trusted to surround himself with talented people and to listen to all sides of issues before making a decision. I am afraid this has been one of the problems with Bush 43 who did not consult enough, unlike Bush 41, who did. And as for McCain, I do not have such confidence after the way he choose his Vice President with more regard for short run gains than for long run potential consequences. This too was a reason some thinking Rs have turned from McCain. It is not a way to put "country first", when he picks a person who is so poorly qualified to be a heartbeat away from the Presidency, as even Eagleberger has said, though he supports McCain nonetheless.

Well, probably I went on too long. It looks like Missouri is not one of those states that will move from Red to Blue unless it is a real blowout, though it is very close at the moment. I feel like being in Iowa that used to be a swing state and you get bombarded with ads, mail and calls from both sides. Nice to be needed:) So anyway, I am not trying to persuade you but just to explore and explain my feelings. I even went out to canvass today, which I have never before done in a campaign. It was interesting and also revealed how so well organized everything is. Wow, it was impressive how perfectly inexperienced people like me could be organized in a few minutes to go out and help encourage people to vote. This was mainly targeted to get out the vote for Obama supporters or leaning to Obama and not trying to persuade people who were already known to support McCain, though I met a couple. Instructions were to just say thanks and move on if people did not support Obama.

posted by econtalk @ 6:54 PM 0 comments