What's importantly similar to the Pentagon Papers
The greatest similarity between the WikiLeaks trove and the Pentagon Papers [2] is that the documents end before the current administration's policy began. In political terms, that is hugely important.
The Pentagon Papers, of course, were a secret study [3], commissioned during the Lyndon Johnson administration by Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara. The period under study ended in 1968, and the papers were not made public until 1971. Johnson left office in 1969, and was succeeded by a president of the opposing party, Richard Nixon. Nixon promised a shift in Vietnam policy, and while his policy did not differ as much in practice as he had hinted that it would while campaigning, he was not held responsible, by most voters, for the deepening mess of the Johnson years.
In the current case, as the White House has repeatedly pointed out in the last 18 hours, the papers end before President Barack Obama's announcement [4] last year of an Afghanistan policy that departed from that of President George W. Bush. (That policy, of course, has centered on significantly increasing the number of troops, and focusing more on counterinsurgency.)
What's crucially different from the Pentagon Papers
In terms of important disclosures, it's not even close, with the historical importance of today's documents [5] likely to be relatively minor, and that of the Pentagon Papers enormous. The most significant revelations today include the Taliban's limited use of heat-seeking missiles (which had been previously reported [6], though little-noticed), and the Pakistani intelligence service's constant double-dealing [7] and occasional cooperation with the Taliban (long the subject of news stories [8], and even of some official complaints).
In 1971, in contrast, the Pentagon Papers revealed a host of important discrepancies between the public posture of the U.S. government with respect to Vietnam and the truth -- from the Truman administration, through the times of Presidents Eisenhower, Kennedy and Johnson.
These included Johnson's dissembling during the 1964 presidential campaign and in the run-up to the key decision in 1965 to send large numbers of combat troops, as well as confirmation of U.S. involvement in the 1963 coup [9] against South Vietnamese premier Ngo Dinh Diem. And perhaps most famously, was the evidence that the administration had decided to escalate the war before the 1964 Tonkin Gulf Resolution gave it the authority to do so.
There are many reasons for the differences between these two troves of documents, but perhaps the most important is that today's documents provide a "ground-level" view of the war, while the Pentagon Papers offered a classic "top-down" perspective. Wars are fought on the ground, and the perspective such a view provides can be invaluable. But many of a war's key secrets, especially in political terms, are generated at the top.
The real impact of the Pentagon Papers
There is a lot of loose talk today about the impact of the Pentagon Papers. Much of it, I suspect, stems from this in the Wikipedia entry [10]: "The revelations widened the credibility gap between the US government and the people, hurting President Richard Nixon's war effort." In fact, a much stronger argument can be made for the proposition that there was almost no impact on the Nixon administration's ability to conduct the war as it wished. Nixon's policy continued apace, through the peace negotiations of 1972 (during a presidential campaign!), continuing with the Christmas 1972 bombing of Hanoi and Haiphong harbor, and including the January 1973 peace accords.
The great antiwar demonstrations that many of us recall -- the March on Washington, the student Moratorium [11], Kent State -- all took place before the publication of the papers. Nixon invaded Cambodia 14 months earlier. What happened after the papers was that Nixon coasted to re-election by one of the largest majorities in American history, and his adviser Henry Kissinger won a share of the Nobel Peace Prize for "ending" the Vietnam War.
That said, there were profound effects from the release of the Pentagon Papers. They came in how the Nixon administration responded to the leak and the publication of the papers. First, the administration went to court and soon suffered, in the Supreme Court [12], the most significant defeat for the executive branch in the national security field since Lincoln's suspension of habeas corpus was struck down in 1866 [13] (i.e. after the Civil War ended and after Lincoln was killed).
Beyond the legal battle, Nixon and his henchmen launched the "plumbers [14]" operation (to stem more leaks) and thus set off down the road that led to Watergate -- and all that followed. These became the central American political events of the 1970s, and hugely weakened the presidency, with consequences including the Gerald Ford administration's powerlessness with Congress when the North Vietnamese violated the peace accords in 1975.
How the Obama administration will react today is, of course, still emerging, and already being debated [15]. But where Nixon brought suit and ordered burglaries, I find an early sign in this [16] from the New York Times Washington bureau chief, Dean Baquet:
"I did in fact go the White House and lay out for them what we had," Baquet said. "We did it to give them the opportunity to comment and react. They did. They also praised us for the way we handled it, for giving them a chance to discuss it, and for handling the information with care. And for being responsible."
Monday, July 26, 2010
Why WikiLeaks’ ‘War Logs’ Are No Pentagon Papers
Saturday, July 24, 2010
Carmichael on Natural Law
Gershom Carmichael (1672–1729) studied at Edinburgh University (1687–1691), taught at St Andrews University (1693–1694), and spent the rest of his life at Glasgow, first as a regent in arts and then as professor of moral philosophy. He was a main conduit into Scotland of the European natural law tradition, a tradition of scientific investigation of human nature with a view to constructing an account of the principles that are morally binding on us. Among the great figures of that tradition were Hugo Grotius (1583–1645) and Samuel Pufendorf (1632–1694), thinkers whose writings played a major role in moral philosophical activity in Scotland during the Age of Enlightenment.
In 1718, during the first stirrings of the Scottish Enlightenment, Carmichael published Supplements and Observations upon the two books of the distinguished Samuel Pufendorf's On the Duty of Man and Citizen. In 1725 he published a second edition containing extensive additional material. Carmichael affirms: “when God prescribes something to us, He is simply signifying that he requires us to do such and such an action, and regards it, when offered with that intention, as a sign of love and veneration towards him, while failure to perform such actions, and, still worse, commission of the contrary acts, he interprets as an indication of contempt or hatred” (Carmichael, Natural Rights, p. 46). Hence we owe God love and veneration, and on this basis Carmichael distinguishes between immediate and mediate duties. Our immediate duty is formulated in the first precept of natural law, that God is to be worshipped. He seeks a sign of our love and veneration for him, and worship is the clearest manifestation of these feelings.
The second precept, which identifies our mediate duties, is: “Each man should promote, so far as it is in his power, the common good of the whole human race, and, so far as this allows, the private good of individuals” (Natural Rights, p. 48). This relates to our ‘mediate’ duties since we indirectly signify our love and veneration of God by treating his creatures well. On this basis, Carmichael deploys the distinction between self and others in two subordinate precepts: “Each man should take care to promote his own interest without harming others” and “Sociability is to be cultivated and preserved by every man so far as in him lies.” These precepts, concerning duties to God, to self and to others, are the fundamental precepts of natural law, and though the precept that God is to be worshipped is prior to and more evident than the precept that one should live sociably with men, the requirement that we cultivate sociability is a foundation of the well-lived life.
Carmichael therefore rejects an important aspect of Pufendorf's doctrine on the cultivation of sociability, for the latter argues that the demand “that every man must cultivate and preserve sociability so far as he can” is that to which all our duties are subordinate. Yet for Carmichael the precept that we worship God is not traceable back to the duty to cultivate sociability, and therefore the requirement that we cultivate and preserve sociability cannot precede the laws binding us to behave appropriately towards God.
For instance, God is central to the narrative concerning the duty to cultivate our mind, for performance of this duty requires that we cultivate in ourselves the conviction that God is creator and governor of the universe and of us. Carmichael criticises Pufendorf for paying too little attention to the subject of cultivation of the mind, and indicates some features that might profitably have been considered by Pufendorf, for example the following.
Due cultivation of the mind involves filling it with sound opinion regarding our duty, learning to judge well the objects which commonly stimulate our desires, and acquiring rational control of our passions. It also involves our learning to act on the knowledge that, as regards our humanity, we are neither superior nor inferior to other people. Finally, a person with a well cultivated mind is aware of how little he knows of what the future holds, and consequently is neither arrogant at his present happy circumstances nor excessively anxious about ills that might yet assail him.
The Stoic character of this text is evident, as is Carmichael's injunction that we not be disturbed on account of evils which have befallen us, or which might befall us, due to no fault of ours. The deliberate infringement of the moral law is said however to be another matter; it prompts a discomfort peculiarly hard to bear. In full concord with the Stoic tendency here observed, we find him supporting, under the heading ‘duty to oneself’, a Stoic view of anger. Though not expressing unconditional disapproval of anger, he does point out that it is difficult to keep an outburst of anger within just limits, and that such an outburst is problematic in relation to natural law, for: “it must be regarded as one of the things which most of all makes human life unsocial, and has pernicious effects for the human race. Thus we can scarsely be too diligent in restraining our anger” (Natural Rights, p. 65). Anger conflicts with sociability and it is only by due cultivation of the mind that our sociability can be fortified and enhanced.
Unemployment Brings Emotional Cost on Top of Financial Losses -
A new Pew Research Center survey puts numbers to that sentiment. Among those who have been out of work for at least six months, 38% say they’ve lost some self respect since they lost their job, based on data from interviews with 810 adults, ages 18 to 64, who are currently unemployed or had been at some point during the recession. For those unemployed for shorter spells, 29% felt they had lost some self respect.
Nearly a quarter of the long-term unemployed workers surveyed said they had turned to professional help for depression or some other emotional issue after losing their jobs. Just 10% of those out of work for less than 3 months said the same.
Anxiety and depression are common problems among the long-term unemployed and research has shown spells of joblessness can have serious heath effects. In fact, a layoff could decrease a middle-aged worker’s life span by one to 1.5 years, according to a 2009 study by Till Marco von Wachter, a Columbia University economist and the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago’s Daniel Sullivan.
Social habits also tend to change more for those who’ve been jobless for at least six months. In slashing their budgets, often the first cuts are for social gatherings. Some 43% of long-term unemployed people said they had lost contact with close friends, according to Pew. For those out of work for less than three months, 35% had lost touch with friends.
The strain on family relationships was even higher. Nearly half, 46%, of the long-term unemployed reported tension in their family relationships compared to 39% who said the same but had been jobless for less than three months.
Longer spells of joblessness changed workers’ plans for the future as well. Some 43% of long-term unemployed Americans said the recession will have a big impact on their ability to achieve long-term goals. And many had to scale down their goals: “Among workers who found a job after being unemployed for six months or longer, about three-in-ten (29%) say their new job is worse than the one they lost, compared with only 16% of re-employed workers who had been jobless for less than six months. In separate questions, these workers also report their new job paid less and had worse benefits than their old one,” Pew says.
The majority of workers unemployed for at least six months also expanded their search. Seven in 10 said they either changed careers or put serious thought into it.
And as the job search drags on, workers grow more pessimistic. “Among adults who are currently unemployed, those who have been jobless for six months or longer are significantly more pessimistic than the short-term unemployed about their chances of finding a job as good as the one they lost,” according to Pew.
Goldman Sachs Finds Cutting Government Spending Slows Growth, Post Columnist Michael Gerson Says Opposite
The folks who thought the housing bubble was cool are now working overtime to make the victims of its collapse suffer as much as possible. This presumably explains the reason that Washington Post columnist Michael Gerson claimed that a Goldman Sachs study of 44 countries found that a study of 44 countries found that: "reducing government expenditures by one percentage point, in contrast, increases average annual growth by 0.6 percentage points."
What the study actually found was that a one percentage point decline in government consumption expenditures was associated with a 0.63 percent increase in growth. However, it found that a one percentage point increase in government investment expenditures (spending on education, research, infrastructure etc. ) was associated with a 1.25 percentage point increase in growth. This would mean, for example, that a one percentage point decline in spending that was split evenly between cuts to government consumption and cuts to investment would lead to 0.31 percentage point decline in GDP growth.
There are reasons that this study is inapplicable to current circumstances. Most notably, the bulk of the benefit from spending cuts appears to come through the channel of lower interest rates inducing more investment. This is unlikely to be a important channel given that interest rates are already extremely low, however, even ignoring this issue, Gerson has seriously misrepresented the findings of the study that he cited.
Perdue orders more budget cuts
North Georgia agency officials said Friday they are not surprised that Georgia Gov. Sonny Perdue has ordered additional budget cuts for health care programs, prisons and parks.
Logan Boss, public information officer at the North Georgia Public Health Department, said budget cuts in the last decade have left the Northwest Georgia health departments already operating at 80 percent efficiency.
“Right now, we are trying to deal with these budget cuts by not filling positions as they come open,” Mr. Boss said. “That’s typically due to people leaving at the county health department level or at the district level, where we serve as administrative arm for the county health departments, or from people who retire.”
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution reported Friday that Gov. Perdue ordered 4 percent cuts that would reduce state spending by $25 million a month because some federal stimulus money appropriations are stalled in Congress.
Mr. Boss said public health departments have scaled programs for heart attack and stroke prevention and a mobile dental office that helped schoolchildren who do not have health insurance.
“This certainly impacts our ability to provide a level of services that we are charged with providing to the people of Northwest Georgia,” Mr. Boss said.
Amy Carroll, nurse manager at the Catoosa County Health Department, said cuts would affect staffing and cause longer wait times in clinics.
“We will have to look at all the services we provide in the community and focus more on the state-mandated ones,” Ms. Carroll said.
Those services include tuberculosis and socially transmitted disease testing as well as family planning, Ms. Carroll said.
Health care agencies are not the only ones affected by the cuts.
Bobby Wilson, park manager of Cloudland Canyon State Park on Lookout Mountain, said he’s proud of his staff for learning to adapt to the widespread underfunding.
Mr. Wilson said he did not know exactly where the cuts would come from, but “these days we’re prepared for anything.”
He also said state parks are dealing with a lack of funding by not filling vacant positions.
“It’s no secret that there have been significant budget cuts over the past two or three years,” Mr. Wilson said. “That just seems to be the way things are going right now.”
Thursday, July 22, 2010
Purchases of U.S. Existing Homes Fell in June
Sales of U.S. previously owned homes fell in June for a second month, adding to evidence the market will slump as the effects of a federal tax credit fade.
Purchases of existing houses dropped a less-than-forecast 5.1 percent to a 5.37 million annual rate, figures from the National Association of Realtors showed today in Washington. The number of transactions will be “very low” in coming months, reflecting the end of the government incentive, the group’s chief economist said in a news conference.
The tax credit of up to $8,000 boosted sales earlier in the year, releasing pent-up demand and indicating the market will be slow to recover. Increasing foreclosures are swelling the number of unsold homes, putting pressure on prices and keeping buyers out of the market as unemployment hovers near 10 percent and the economy cools.
“We’re seeing the first stage of the cooling as the tax- incentive purchases fall off,” said Avery Shenfeld, chief economist at CIBC World Markets in Toronto, who projected sales would drop to a 5.38 million pace. “We will see prices retreat as the demand falls off without the tax incentive.
Stocks held earlier gains after the report on improving earnings forecasts at companies from United Parcel Service Inc. to AT&T Inc. The Standard & Poor’s 500 Index rose 2.1 percent to 1,092.23 at 10:25 a.m. in New York.
Other reports today showed the economic outlook dimmed and more Americans than projected filed applications for unemployment benefits.
Leading Index
The Conference Board’s index of leading indicators fell 0.2 percent in June, according to figures from the New York-based research group.
Initial jobless claims jumped by 37,000 to 464,000 in the week ended July 17, exceeding the highest estimate of economists surveyed by Bloomberg News, Labor Department figures showed. The survey median projected claims would climb to 445,000.
Existing home sales were forecast to decline to a 5.1 million pace, according to the median forecast of 74 economists in a Bloomberg News survey. Estimates ranged from 4.25 million to 6.2 million. May’s sales rate was 5.66 million, unrevised from the previous estimate.
Purchases of existing homes increased 7.2 percent compared with a year earlier prior to adjusting for seasonal patterns.
The median price increased 1 percent to $183,700 from $181,800 in June 2009.
The number of previously owned homes on the market climbed 2.5 percent to 3.99 million. At the current sales pace, it would take 8.9 months to sell those houses compared, the most since August 2009.
More Supply
The supply is likely to jump to 10 or more in coming months as sales slow, said Lawrence Yun, the group’s chief economist.
Like other housing data, sales of existing homes have been whipsawed by the timing of the tax credit. After surging to a two-and-a-half year high of 6.49 million in November, the month of the credit’s initial expiration, they dropped for the next three months. Demand then recovered in March and April, which was the deadline for signing contracts, only to slip again the following month.
Wednesday, July 21, 2010
Jeffares, Hilton to spar again in run-off
There will be a run-off in the Republican race to fill the District 17 state Senate post to be vacated by John Douglas after he left to pursue his run for Public Service Commission.Nicholas Day beat Jim Nichols 4,207 to 2,508 on the Democratic ticket and won Walton County 67 to 32 percent. The district encompasses Social Circle.Republican Todd Hilton, the top vote getter who earned 45 percent of the vote in Walton County, will face Rick Jeffares once again in the Aug. 10 Republican run-off. Ester Fleming Jr. placed third in the three-man race. “I didn’t think we could work any harder than we did, but we are going to have to again,” said Jeffares, a 46-year-old owner of J&T Environmental Services and former Henry County commissioner from Locust Grove. “We’re not going to stop take a day or two and put a plan and to get right back on it. I just want to thank everyone for coming out today. I think the voters of District 17 did a pretty good job.” Jeffares, of Locust Grove, said he sees transportation, education and water as his main concerns facing the district and said the state needs to operate with limited government by cutting wasteful spending and keeping our tax burdens low. Hilton, a Covington resident who teaches in Social Circle, has campaigned on returning control of schools from state hands to local school boards.“I think what motivated to vote for me was my message and it wasn’t the typical political answers,” he said. “I just told my story and it resonated with the people. I hope we have an opportunity for us to be together and have people see us side-by-side and compare. There has not been one bit of negativity between the two of us.” Nichols, a 29-year-old United Parcel Service truck loader from Stockbridge, earned an associate’s degree in political science from American River College. He is currently attending Georgia State University, working on a double major in economics and philosophy. Nichols could not be reached for comment.
In 9th District, Graves, Hawkins appear headed for runoff -- again
With 85 percent of precincts reporting as of about 10:30 p.m. Tuesday, Graves had 48.4 percent of the vote while Hawkins had 27.4 percent. Businessman Steve Tarvin was in third place with 15.1 percent.
Hawkins said he feels good about his chances in the Aug. 10 runoff.
“We are in this race for the same reason we got into it a year ago and that is to represent -- honestly and with integrity -- the people of the 9th District,” he said. “We will just keep going.”
Graves said he was ready for another showdown.
“As soon as I get back in town from D.C. I will be back on the trail and 21 days to go,” Graves said.
No Democrats have qualified to get on the November ballot. So whoever wins the Republican nomination will most likely head to Congress.
Last month, Graves decisively defeated Hawkins in a special election runoff with 56 percent of the vote. Graves carried 12 of the 15 counties in the 9th District, including Forsyth County. Hawkins, of Gainesville, won only Dawson, Hall and Lumpkin counties.
Hawkins said he focused on building support in the counties he lost in that election. And he repeatedly went on the offensive in his bare-knuckle contest with the congressman, attacking Graves’ business dealings.
Barnes wins Democratic race without runoff | ajc.com
Almost eight years after being ousted by Sonny Perdue and becoming the first Democrat to lose a governor's race to a Republican in modern Georgia history, Barnes overwhelmed a field of six other Democrats Tuesday.
Now Barnes can raise money and bide his time, waiting for Republican voters to decide in the Aug. 10 runoff whom he will face in November.
"Tonight is the beginning to take our state back from the lobbyists and the special interests," Barnes told a crowd of about 300 cheering supporters in Atlanta. "This is the end of building fish ponds and not paying teachers. This is the end of passing legislation that makes us the laughingstock of the nation.
"It's time, my friends, to make Georgia work again."
Handel, Deal survive first round in governor's race, head to GOP runoff
John Oxendine, long the front-runner in the race, saw his candidacy fall down an elevator shaft. The insurance commissioner faded to fourth, finishing behind former state Sen. Eric Johnson. Handel, the former secretary of state, won 33 percent of the vote, and Deal, the former congressman, won 23 percent.
"Nobody believed we could take on the career politicians and the establishment and win," Handel told ecstatic supporters at about 11 p.m. "But you, you believed. And because you did, we're standing here tonight and we finished first today."
Handel's campaign was certainly elevated by Palin's endorsement, first delivered via Facebook on July 12 and then in an automated phone call to Republican voters. But Handel herself said she felt the momentum turning two months ago.
Deal had a heavy-hitter endorsement of his own, winning the support of former U.S. House Speaker Newt Gingrich.
Now, Handel and Deal will make a final three-week charge to decide the GOP nomination, and all eyes turn to an unusual place: Alaska. Does Palin, the former governor of that faraway state, fly to Georgia to rally -- and raise money -- for Handel?