KEVIN DRUM LIKES TOM DELAY. . .

just as much as I do. See his post here. HA!

INTERVIEW WITH STRUCK

German Defense Minister Peter Struck has an interview in Sunday's Tagesspiegel. The interview is noteworthy for the (very Berlin-like) sarcasm of the interviewers. Plus, Struck tries to minimize the post-Iraq differences between Germany and the U.S., while noting German efforts to increase European defense capabilities, in part to "unburden" the U.S. I'd give some translations but I'm starting to get a really bad conscience about procrastinating on my taxes. I have to wade through forms for NY, MD and the IRS. Argh.

JUS SOLI

Eric e-mailed me to ask me about why I criticized jus soli. Eric thinks it's better than jus sanguinis, at least, because it at least tends in the direction of the principle that people who are affected by a government decision (by being on the soil, for example) should have a say in the decision. Jus sanguinis doesn't have as close a fit with that basic democratic principle of citizenship.

Eric's right to an extent. I'm still indifferent to jus soli as such because I think that the critical battle should be fought on the naturalization front, and that is why I find Foley's nativism to be repulsive. Whatever the allocation of citizenship at birth, defensible citizenship policies should allow people to consent to new citizenship in a relatively easy fashion. Easier rules of naturalization would also accord better with the principle that people should have a say in the affairs of governments that act on them.

If, in an alternate world, someone proposed abolishing jus soli rules because they seemed strange and feudal, and the debate over abolishment wouldn't whip up nativist sentiment that will result in both legal and illegal attacks on non-citizens and immigrants, I wouldn't be too upset. Foley's proposal is resolutely part of our world, though. So even though I'm indifferent to jus soli, I am opposed to Foley's proposed changes. I hope he's just engaging in posturing anyway.

THINGS I'VE LEARNED ABOUT CROSS-BURNING

. . .This may not be new to you, but it's still interesting to me. The Court's recent cross-burning case, its complexity, and the public reaction to it, led me to wonder about a few things. What practical effect will the Court's decision have? What did the Court actually do? What other laws are already used to prosecute cross-burning? Will these laws be affected by the Court's ruling?

As far as I can tell, and I may be wrong on this, the Court's ruling won't have any practical effect on the legal dangers that you face if you engage in cross-burning. What the Court really did here was to continue the disciplining of states that have cross-burning statutes. After R.A.V. v. St. Paul (1992), the Supreme Court's earlier cross-burning ruling, state judges attacked cross-burning statutes that they considered vague; the VA Supreme Court did this in the ruling that the U.S. Supreme Court acted on last week; Maryland and South Carolina courts acted in a similar fashion in the early 1990s (see footnote 10 in the Harvard Law Review note cited at the bottom of this post).

What the Supreme Court said to VA, then, is that it can have a cross-burning statute, but it has to tie the cross-burning to intimidation. As far as I understand it, what the Supreme Court did was, in effect, to apply what are essentially the working principles of federal cross-burning prosecutions to an analysis of state cross-burning laws.

Federal prosecutors go after cross-burners under several statutes, as the recent case of U.S. v. Dartez from the U.S. District Court, Western District of Louisiana, shows. Read the Lafayette Advertiser article on the defendants' sentencing last week here, the DOJ press release on the sentences here, and the transcript of Judge Melancon's remarks here (PDF file). Melancon's remarks are really worth a look. He quotes Justice Thomas's remarks from his dissent in VA v. Black, to the effect that the KKK is the "world's oldest, most persistent terrorist organization."

Dartez and four others were prosecuted under three federal statutes: 18 U.S.C. § 241, which punishes interference with civil rights; 42 U.S.C. § 3631, which prohibits interference with housing rights; and 18 U.S.C. § 844(h)(1), which enhances the sentence of anyone who uses fire or explosives in the commission of a felony. Robert A. Viktoria was convicted under these statutes as well, after the Supreme Court threw out his conviction under the St. Paul hate speech ordinance at issue in R.A.V..

A few more things strike me as interesting about this whole question as it emerged last week. First, of course, is Thomas's and Melancon's attempt to hook into the legitimacy of anti-terrorist arguments. This is an old story, of course: in the late 1960s, the FBI went after the Klan as well as civil rights groups and American communists. I don't know too much about this whole story, but the similarities are interesting: responses to perceived threats to the state have also brought attacks on the KKK, attacks that use the same kind of techniques and same kinds of language. The FBI has been talking about the KKK and other white supremacist groups as terrorists for some time now. See, for example, the FBI's 1999 report on domestic terrorism (PDF file).

In addition, I can't help but have the sense that there is a real dishonesty in the way that the First Amendment claims of cross-burners have gotten discussed. Robert Viktoria was eventually sent to prison for the same acts that the Supreme Court said that St. Paul couldn't prosecute him for under its hate-speech law. He wouldn't be crazy to view his eventual incarceration as partially a response to his beliefs about blacks, regardless of what the official justifications are. Plus, we know why the KKK engages in the kinds of acts it engages in: they have a developed racial ideology that entails both a set of "political beliefs" (the desirability of political structures that express racial hierarchy) and a prescription of certain violent means. This prescription becomes concrete in a cross-burning. The reason the feds go after the KKK with harsh punishments for cross-burning is, I would gather, not just because of the actual harms that are outlined in the relevant statutes. The feds know that the KKK is likely to engage in violence, as an empirical matter, and they know that official tolerance of cross-burning would in essence be a signal of tacit support for that violence. They go after cross-burning to send a message about the state's relationship to the KKK. Note the words from the U.S. attorney who prosecuted Dartez, from the press release:

"This cross burning by the KKK is an act of domestic terrorism. Prosecuting terrorism, international or domestic, is the Department of Justice’s highest priority. The KKK's only real purpose is to cause terror and strike fear into the hearts and minds of people who only want to enjoy the blessings of liberty guaranteed by the American Constitution. The KKK has a long and sorry history of criminal behavior. These acts will be vigorously investigated and prosecuted by this office," stated U.S. Attorney Washington. "The message from the Court today is clear. If you threaten or intimidate an American by burning crosses or other acts of terror, you will serve time in jail."

Perhaps it's good to make the states jump through certain hoops if they want to go after cross-burning and the groups that use that symbol as both a means of solidarity-building and intimidation. But I find it hard to see much substance in the doctrinal somersaults that the Court has gotten into here. It's not that I'm anti-intellectual (by no means!). It's just that it's pretty clear what both the states and the feds want to do here -- go after the Klan and similar groups -- and, looked at as a whole, the federal court system hasn't really impeded the federal efforts. So why all the elaborate, self-congratulatory rhetoric about content-neutral categories and upholding free-speech values? I'm being a little cynical, but I really am having a bit of a hard time figuring out the Court's actual role here.

For further discussion of these statutes, see "Federal Prosecution of Cross-Burners," 107 Harv. L. Rev. 1729.

GOSH. NO THANKS.

TalkLeft discusses Bush's most recent judicial nominees to come under fire.

CROSS-BURNING AGAIN

Partly because we're talking about this case in my Civil Liberties class, I've had the Court's recent cross burning case on my mind this past week. I've come to the (somewhat reluctant) conclusion that I think that Thomas's dissent is right in at least one respect: the Court should have rejected First Amendment challenges to VA's cross-burning statute, partly because the message of cross-burning, as it has actually evolved over the course of American history, is a threat of violence.

Justice O'Connor's opinion argues that cross-burnings can have a dual message: political and ideological solidarity among white supremacists and the threat of violence against blacks, communists, Jews, labor unions, and others. If I understand her right, O'Connor says that the First Amendment kicks in because the expression of political and ideological solidarity is "core political speech" that requires First Amendment protection from government interference. When the threat is very clear and directed at a person, the government can punish the act of cross burning despite the fact that a message of political and ideological solidarity is also present in the act. Absent a direct threat, however, the government is merely punishing "political speech" when it punishes cross-burning.

At one level, Thomas and O'Connor simply disagree about what cross-burning means. Thomas is willing to say that a threat is always implied, and that, at any rate, the VA legislature thought that a threat was always implied given the Klan's nature as a terrorist organization and its history of activity in the south and in VA. He wants to say that individuals who read the burning cross as a threat are engaging in a valid interpretive act. O'Connor argues that a threat is not always implied or sufficiently clear as to justify a restriction of political speech. In other words, O'Connor must contemplate situations in which people who see a burning cross are simply mistaken when they feel threatened with violence, rape, and murder.

So there is a basic dispute over what cross-burning is and what it means. One option is to look to historical writing for guidance as to the meaning of a burning cross; both Thomas and O'Connor do this, however, and they reach different results. I tend to believe that Thomas got it right as a matter of historical interpretation; it is at least reasonable to read a burning cross in your neighborhood as a threat of future violence. Few who did so could be deemed crazy, at least.

Another option is to defer to the judgment of the VA legislature with respect to the meaning of a burning cross, but this is problematic. Souter's "other" opinion turns this potential argument on its head by questioning the motives of the VA legislature:

The cross may have been selected because of its special power to threaten, but it may also have been singled out because of disapproval of its message of white supremacy, either because a legislature thought white supremacy was a pernicious doctrine or because it found that dramatic, public espousal of it was a civic embarrassment.

Given its otherwise full willingness to espouse white supremacy in the form of segregation laws, the 1950s VA legislature (Souter seems to imply) was more concerned with the "civic embarrassment" of the KKK. In 1952, public attention to white supremacist violence threatened the legitimacy of white supremacist rule itself. Souter is putting a twist on Douglas's dissent in Dennis v. U.S, the famous Smith Act prosecution case decided at the height of the second red scare, where Douglas argues that the teaching of communism should be allowed in plain sight, because "if [it is] understood, the ugliness of Communism is revealed, its deceit and cunning are exposed, the nature of its activities becomes apparent, and the chances of its success less likely." In the cross-burning case, Souter is arguing, subtly, that an anti-cross-burning law can be intended to have the effect of muting public criticism of a virulent form of prevalent local racial tyranny; better, perhaps, to have it out in the open where the ugliness of segregation as a whole can be understood.

Now, however, rather than signaling the desire of the legislature to preserve the (racist) status quo, an effective cross-burning statute would signal the seriousness of the legislature with respect to protecting particular groups who know that they may be the target of violence. I don't see why the legislature shouldn't be able to engage in that expressive act, and I don't see why the legislature can't read cross-burning as its (reasonably likely) victims would read it.

NOTE: Nathan Newman is tempted by Thomas's dissent, but ultimately opts for a "middle ground," although it is not clear from his post exactly why (at least to me). He seems to be analogizing to the Cohen ("Fuck the draft") case by folding the determination to use violence into an expressive content category that includes what he calls "political determination." I'd still side with the potential victims of violence here; it's not political determination if you're expressing your intent to engage in violence; that's criminal determination. The immediacy question is likely to be cold comfort for the targets of the message. I like Nathan's blog, so this is really intended to be friendly criticism. . .

NOT A DEBACLE

. . .I was wrong. I fell for it. I thought that the (predictable) post-euphoria wave of war criticism should be taken at face value, and that the war was becoming a debacle. If military success means causing the Iraqi army to dissolve, then the U.S. has had military success here, and with fewer casualties than many had predicted. Given that the administration decided on war (a long way back, apparently), quicker victory is better than longer, protracted battles, particularly with respect to civilian casualties.

I am happy that people celebrate Saddam's ouster, as well. Saddam's rule appears to have been truly awful; the pictures of statues falling and people welcoming American troops were, in fact, stirring for me, and I have never been to Iraq.

The more people celebrate, the higher the expectations for the post-war order, and the higher the pressures on the adminstration to actually follow through on promises of aid. I've already given the reasons why I'm skeptical that the administration is serious on this score, or that any long-term commitment (in a desirable direction) is likely to be an aspect of American foreign policy, so I'm happy when the U.S. seems to be locked in, publicly, to a serious reconstruction effort. Let me just add another reason why I'm skeptical, though: the more that Congressional Republicans talk about "God's freedom" for Iraqis, the more the tensions in the Republican position will become evident, and when faced with a future Algeria-like choice, should this come to pass, between a stable autocracy and an islamic democracy, Americans will be tempted to choose the former. For some, "God's freedom" is only really possible in a Christian nation anyway. The U.S. response to Turkey is, so far, a counterexample. Let's hope that the case of Turkey is generalizable.

WaPo LISTENS TO SUBCONTINENT

. . .Read the story here. The Washington Post finally gets around to reporting on this story.

SHOPPING ON SATURDAY

. . .If you've ever lived in Germany, you'll know that the Germans have pretty strict laws about when stores can be open. Stores used to have to close at 4:00 p.m. on Saturdays, but in the early 1990s an exception was made for the first Saturday of the month ("long Saturday"), when they could stay open until 6:00 p.m. The rest of the week, stores had to close at 8:00 p.m. as well. There were a few wrinkles in the rules but not many (stores could stay open on some Sundays, but would then have to close at 2:00 p.m. on the previous Saturday). All of this was a bit of a pain if you're used to running out for a fresh grapefruit and a six-pack (or something) for a midnight snack three times a week. Plus, the shops were always crowded on Saturdays; it seemed to me that Germans were typically more grumpy while shopping than folks in the U.S., and their clerks were definitely not trained to put on a saccharine smile and "put the customer first." On the other hand, planning my shopping trips became just another aspect of life in Germany, which already seemed regulated and scheduled in a way that was, to be sure, foreign to my life as a college student in the U.S.

But now the German government is screwing it all up and allowing states to keep their shops open on Saturday until 8:00 p.m. if they want to. Read the article in FAZ here (reg. required). The new law also includes a provision allowing employees to request one free Saturday a month.

The new law is only a marginal change from the old law, and states are going to have to option to refuse to allow their stores to open late on Saturday. My attraction to the old way of doing things is not simply nostalgia, however: when the shops are not open, there is no pressure or temptation to go shopping. This means that more space is carved out, by law, for non-commercial pursuits, which, for me, meant playing cards, chatting with my friends, talking walks -- when the weather wasn't crappy--and hanging out in pubs. One can certainly argue that no one is preventing me from doing all those things in the U.S. Of course. But law also has an expressive function. Laws that indicate that there is more to life than shopping are, as far as I'm concerned, a good thing. We also have laws that make the same statement (e.g., we also block certain kinds of exchanges, such as, in many states, exchanging money for sex). At a deep level, I am in favor of these kinds of laws because they indicate the desirability of a life beyond commerce, and I think that Germany should resist the temptation to move in the direction of the U.S.'s preference for shopping all of the time. I suppose that the internet will make these laws irrelevant anyway, however; I'm not sure how developed e-commerce is in Germany, but I wouldn't be surprised if the pressure of internet shopping contributed to calls for changes in the law.

RAND ON DEVELOPMENT AID AND TERRORISM

. . .Read the report put out by RAND, Terrorism and Development (PDF file). The authors use programs in the Philippines, Northern Ireland, and the West Bank and Gaza Strip to examine whether and when development assistance can be helpful in staving off, as the authors put it, a "resurgence of terrorism." The basic conclusion of the study is that effective programs must be designed as part of a comprehensive plan that takes account of community needs and is linked with peace accords and other political instruments. Development programs that are well-designed and actually serve to build economic infrastructure can help to encourage potential terrorist recruits to eschew violence and enter productive occupations, and can also help create a middle class that is likely to reject terrorism. There is no certainty in any of these conclusions, of course, and the authors are at pains to discuss the limitations of their analyses. But the report should be part of a debate that gets beyond the "9/11 hijackers were middle-class Saudis" argument.

SADDAM, OU EST-IL?

Amid speculations that Saddam is already dead, gone, or hiding out in his birthplace, Le Devoir's Michel Garneau has another thought.

WHAT I FEEL LIKE TODAY

awrrk!!. From the Frankfurter Rundschau.

IT'S A BIG WORLD

Ever heard of the "Juche idea"? Well, call me a boor, but until I was making my quasi-regular rounds of the DPRK news website, I didn't know that I had been ignorant concerning the "the progressive idea that indicates the way for all the countries and nations to build an independent, prosperous and new society, completely realize independence of the popular masses and, furthermore, build an independent world." Apparently there are international groups devoted to the study of "kimilsungism." See this site in Japan. You learn something new every day, I guess.

UGLY UGLY UGLY

Read the comments at PLA (permalink's busted) on the Court's recent decision in State Farm v. Campbell. Ugly of State Farm, ugly of the Court, ugly all around. This opinion hasn't gotten the play it deserves.

JURISDICTION-STRIPPING BILL

On April 1, Representative Ron Paul (R-TX, 14th) introduced a jurisdiction-stripping bill on abortion. Read the text of HR 1546 here. (Via courthouse news) The bill seeks to keep all litigation about abortion out of the district courts and the court of federal claims.

Lots of bills get proposed and perhaps there's no particular reason to pay attention to this one; he doesn't have any co-sponsors, and he's probably just trying to play to anti-abortion sentiment in his district -- see his April 1 remarks on his other abortion-related bills. I just note jurisdiction-stripping here as something that I want to know more about. . .

IRAN DAILY'S EDITORIAL TODAY

I'm pasting in today's editorial from the Iran Daily so you can read it for yourself. The paper comes in PDF format with no archive (as far as I can tell). This editorial expresses the idea that the Iraq war has the potential for cutting against US interests if understood in terms of securing perpetual global military superiority. But pay attention to the democracy-promoting rhetoric at the end of the piece. One critical test for US foreign policy is going to be the ability to grit out teeth and bear harsh criticisms from democratic governments without succumbing to the temptation of seeing them as enemies. (I'm not saying that Iran is democratic right now; what I'm saying is that democrats are probably going to have more success as critics of the US than as open friends.)

NEW WORLD (DIS)ORDER, Nawan Khan, Brussels

It would not be any exaggeration to say that after 20 March, the day the Anglo-American invasion of Iraq started, the world will not be the same.

From the ravages and ruins of Baghdad a new world order, or perhaps disorder, will emerge.

Henceforth, much will depend on the free people's will to confront the American drive for golbal domination and create a multipolar world order in which the global decision-making process is no longer controlled by one superpower.

The war on Iraq, among other things, will force a change in the way many people see the new world order, from a view based on the supremacy of UN and international law to one that we must find our own solutions to our problems, uninhibited by the chains of international law or legitimacy.

The first lesson the US-UK invasion of Iraq has given to the world is a verification of the ancient adage that 'might makes right' which has almost made the UN irrelevant.

To say the least, the world body has suffered a major setback which could be partially checked depending on its role in post-war developments.

What fate awaits other equally-failed regional or international bodies like the Arab League, the OIC, NAM etc.? Have they become obsolete?

There should be no doubt that the US agenda goes much deeper than it appears and involves grandeur designs in the region than just controlling Iraq's oil or taking out Saddam Hussein.

Can assurances given by Washington officials that the US will not attack other countries in the region, be taken at face value?

A thorough soul-searching in the Arab-Islamic world is the need of the day. First and foremost, inter-Arab relations need [an] overhaul.

Could the Anglo-American invasion have taken place without the cooperation and help provided by certain Arab regimes in the Persian Gulf?

Talk about Arab brotherhood and solidarity has been blown to pieces by bombs on Iraq dropped by US planes flying from bases in Kuwait and other Arab states.

Demonstrators in the Arab streets are calling on their leaders to turn inaction, powerlessness and defeatism into action, power and victory through solidarity and unity.

A robust and genuine democratization process must be launched in the Arab-Muslim world to discourage the likes of Saddam from seizing power and impos[ing] havoc, suffering and humiliation [on] the whole region.

Relations between the Arab-Muslim world and Europe need[] to be re-examined in the wake of the blind support to the US by certain European countries.

Certainly, the war on Iraq has taken away the moral grounds from the US and Europe to preach to others about human rights, democracy and the rule of law.

INDIAN CONDEMNATION OF IRAQ WAR

. . .This came a little late in the day, so you may have missed it. Buried in a New York Times piece on India, Kashmir and Pakistan yesterday is the following paragraph:

Few experts here think India will make a pre-emptive strike based on the American precedent. India has been increasingly critical of the United States action in Iraq, which would make it difficult to then turn around and emulate it. [India's Parliament passed a resolution on Tuesday deploring the allied attack against Iraq. "Change of regime through military action is unacceptable," the resolution said, and it called for the quick withdrawal of coalition forces from Iraq.]

An article in the Indian Express by TVR Shenoy discusses the tendency of India to end up on the wrong side of history in its foreign policy pronouncements: in this condemnation, in their support for the Ottoman Caliphate two years before the Turks abolished the title, and in their support for Hussein in the first Gulf War which resulted in expulsions of Indians from the Gulf.

U.S. relations with India have been on the upswing in recent years; let's hope that the Bush administration does not decide to engage in any sort of retaliatory gestures. There are at least two reasons why such action would be a bad idea: 1) as a country with good relations with both nuclear powers on the subcontinent, the U.S. needs to play an important mediating role between India and Pakistan, and 2) as the world's largest democracy, India has a natural kinship with the U.S. that policymakers and diplomats should attempt to strengthen over the long term. So far, I haven't seen any evidence of a Bush administration desire to retaliate (the French seem to be running interference for everyone here).

I WROTE SONGS IN COLLEGE

. . .My songs were pretty crappy. So are John Ashcroft's. Then again, I didn't have a herd of underlings to sing them for me to kick off my day. Probably would have liked that. Link via Sisyphus Shrugged.

FOLEY AND DELAY TAG TEAM FOR DEMOCRATS

. . .I'm adding Mark Foley's web site to my watch list as well. This guy is pretty rich. See his press releases on a proposed ban on frivolous lawsuits against gun manufacturers, and his recent proposal to amend the constitution to make sure that the U.S. stops "giving away citizenship like free AOL hours" (by ditching jus soli as a principle for citizenship). To be honest, I have no real reason to support jus soli; it's a doctrine that has roots in feudalism and doesn't necessarily make all that much sense from the perspective of liberal principles of citizenship. But Foley's reasons for advocating the change are pretty suspicious. There seem to be two: 1) a nativist reason that attacks citizenship requirements that are easy on (undesirable) foreigners, and 2) a war on terrorism reason, especially concerning Hamdi, whose citizenship is a stumbling block for the administration, although not a particularly difficult one for the 4th Circuit to deal with, apparently. As to 1), nativism is deeply at odds with any principle of national allegiance that I find attractive. 2) solves itself, as courts will merely ask "how high?" whenever the administration says to them, "jump for terrorism prosecutions!"

As for the frivolous lawsuit ban, check out the following paragraph:

Under today’s unregulated tort system, a state lawsuit in a single county could destroy the nation’s firearms industry and deny citizens nationwide the ability to keep and bear arms, guaranteed by the Constitution. These lawsuits could potentially shut down interstate commerce in firearms, which Congress has the Constitutional authority to protect.

So, according to Foley, the right to "keep and bear arms" implies the right of gun manufacturers to be free of lawsuits that could shut them down. Wow. I find it hard to believe that someone could advance this argument with a straight face. Plus, we have a beautiful attempt to hack into the meaning of the interstate commerce clause.

I'm all for departmentalist constitutional interpretation. In fact, in recent weeks, I've actually been impressed with some of the stuff I've seen on the floor of Congress, with respect to the "day of fasting and prayer" bill in particular (more on this later). I think that a luxurious culture of assertions of constitutional values and principles, however understood, is a good thing, even when I disagree with the particular notions that any given person advances. But Foley's stretching it a bit. . .

NOTE: "Seen," above, is figurative.

KLEINER BUSH, WAS NUN?

. . .What are the German papers saying about the fall of Baghdad to the Americans and British? Some claim that the events of the last few days are a cause for celebration, but limited celebration. The Sueddeutsche Zeitung's editorial by Peter Muench, for example, speaks of the end of an "idolatrous cult and of a mass murderer," symbolized by the tearing down of statues of Hussein. In the rest of a long piece discussing the requirements of a successful transition from Baath Party rule, Muench mentions several tasks still ahead:

• Addressing basic needs of the Iraqi people (food, water, safety)


• investment in infrastructure, in the billions of dollars for certain


• De-Baathification

Although Muench doesn't mention this, it seems to me that the problem here is likely to be similar to the problem that presented the allied forces with respect to de-nazification: how to provide for enough punishment to satisfy the moral craving for retribution, but how also to acknowledge the deep complicity of even ordinary people in sustaining the regime at a variety of levels? In Germany, widespread civilian destruction and the desire to rebuild West Germany in particular (in order to keep the communists out) led to an incomplete process; the pressures in that direction will be even more pronounced here, I would imagine, given the fact that the U.S. has tried to leave the civilian infrastructure intact and would like to leave Iraq fairly quickly (if public pronouncements of the Bush administration are to be taken literally). It is going to be very hard for U.S. military authorities, and for whatever regime is left in their wake, to deal with this matter in a way that satisfies both moral demands for justice and the hard realities of the need for political stability.

Most German papers report on both celebrations and looting. See the Frankfurter Rundschau here, the Tagesspiegel here, and taz here, which has a sour commentary by Dominic Johnson bemoaning the lack of clarity in the U.S.'s post-war plans (they could mean "anything"). The Berliner Zeitung has the most complete coverage, at least according to my tastes: an article that discusses the attempts by the U.S. to keep control over post-war policy in Iraq, including boxing out the U.N. so far and developing an aid plan through US-AID that includes the participation of U.S. companies (The difficult task of peace"); a brief portrait of Tommy Franks's success as a war strategist ("The new master [Herr] of Iraq"); an article on the U.S. army's "triumphant" entry into Baghdad, including quotes from civilians who thanked the troops and destroyed pictures of Saddam Hussein. One man is quoted as saying: "I couldn't find any flowers, so I'm giving you a branch from an Iraqi tree." Finally, the Berliner Zeitung throws a little cold water on the party with two articles. One notes the serious humantarian needs of the Iraqi population, in particular with respect to drinking water. Hospitals are in rough shape, cholera is raising its head, the increasing heat makes clean drinking water even more necessary, and an attack on a Baghdad power plant last week has sharpened the crisis. Another, by Roland Heine, looks backward at the justifications for war in an article entitled the spectacle of chemical weapons. Roland's money lines are worth quoting in full:

The war aims of the U.S. were, and still are, neither the destruction of Iraqi WMDs nor the freeing of the Iraqi people from a bloody dictator. During the dictator's bloodiest phase, namely the eight-year Iran-Iraq war, the U.S. provided massive support to this regime. What we are experiencing in Iraq is another phase of the war of world order that the U.S. announced in spring 2001 under the slogan "war against terrorism." In his State of the Union speech in January 2002, U.S. President Bush blamed not fewer than 60 nations for supporting terror and placed, in actuality, a third of the nations of the world under the threat of war. The USA wants to order the world as it sees fit, and the case of Iraq is just the most recent example of this desire.

For the record, I've tried to read the 2002 SOTU in a way friendly to Heine's analysis, but I'm finding it pretty hard to do so. I'm not quire sure how "terrorist training camps in over a dozen countries" and the discussion of outlaw regimes adds up to either 60 countries or a third of the world. But I don't think that Heine's weird math is fatal to his point. Just recall today's AP story on John Bolton's warning to Syria that it could share Iraq's fate.

MORE BLOGROLL ADDITIONS

Bureaucrat By Day (intelligent takes on law and politics)

Intelligent Life (Davidson grad, film critic, and generally interesting person with a new blog devoted to cool things)

Jason Rylander (smart)

Nathan Newman (Should have been reading this all along)

My approach to the roll is, "the more the merrier." Generally I'm more on the left, so my reading tends in that direction, but I also think that the virtue of the web is that you can find articulate, intelligent people who disagree with you and are generous enough to present public versions of their arguments. Plus, my circle of acquaintances is not restricted by political views at all. I also have tried to collect some European blogs, partly for their political messages, partly because they have inspiring designs. I'm happy to add anyone who thinks that they have something to say that I'd like to read. . .

I've tried to get inspired by OxBlog's cool new reorganization, but I haven't had any good organizational ideas lately. Thinking about picking a favorite CD and using the song titles. . .any other suggestions are welcome.

WHY BEING JAMES WILSON IS A COMPLIMENT

If you're coming here from OxBlog and you're interested in why I like James Wilson, you can read a section of my dissertation in draft form (157KB PDF); this is also a draft section of my article “Modes of Early Civic Legal Education in the U.S. ,” Studies in Law, Politics, and Society 24: 3-35. The actual section on Wilson is only a few pages long; I pasted in the full references for the chapter as a whole, and this takes up 11 of the 22 pages. My basic argument is that Wilson's Lectures on Law present an attractive understanding of democratic civic legal education.

TV TURNOFF WEEK

. . .See Adbusters' 15 Seconds of TV Freedom Page (loads a version of their commercial). I like these folks.

VINNY THE PUG

. . .is a rock climber! See the article, with pictures, here (sent by Anita). This definitely goes in the "things you never thought you'd see while sober" file (sorry, Bailey!).

ON THE PERILS OF LIVE WAR FOOTAGE

Read Adam Felber's characteristically amusing (and haunting) description of his television viewing experiences last night. Felber was watching live feeds of American tanks on Abu Dhabi televsion, picked up by CNN and MSNBC. Americans apparently opened fire on the journalists. Throughout Baghdad, several journalists were killed and wounded by Americans in attacks on Al-Jazeera's building, the Palestine Hotel, and the offices of Abu Dhabi television. It's a little hard to get a clear picture of what happened, so I'll just link some of the stories here: CBS's story, Yahoo news, a report from Utusan online (Malaysia), VOA, and a press release from Reporters Sans Frontiers.

Felber argues that the incident shows that CNN and MSNBC "suck": they should have figured out what was going on and commented on it earlier; they apparently ran the footage for a long time without recognizing that a journalist seemed to have just been killed. From the news reports I can't quite figure out what happened, so I'm willing to give the networks the benefit of the doubt here even though I agree with Felber's general assessment. The incident also shows something more fundamental about war coverage and about the hazards of live footage, something I've noted several times here: access to what Chris Hedges calls the "sensory data of war" will tend to create doubts about official versions of events because this sensory data shows how unheroic, confusing, and brutalizing war actually is.

The U.S. army is taking some real heat in the international press for these incidents. In addition to RSF's press release, see the BBC story here, the Guardian's article here,the Tagesspiegel's aricle ("Journalists Under Fire")here, Le Monde's article here, the Times of India article here, and El Mundo's most recent article here (reporting the Spanish government's recommendation that Spanish journalists leave Baghdad).

ON THE PERILS OF BEING JAMES WILSON

I'm flattered by OxBlog's designation (they put me in the "James Wilson" category). Josh knows that I would be happy with the comparison: Wilson is one of the people who comes off pretty well in my dissertation because of his relative optimism concerning the capacities of ordinary citizens to engage in democratic politics. There are some problems with his view on this score, though: he seems to me excessively reliant on a theological interpretation of law, and he explicitly relegates women to the separate sphere of "republican motherhood." But we can still appropriate the optimism without these limitations and consider ourselves inspired by Wilson.

Of course, Wilson died young (malaria), penniless, and fleeing debtors prison. He also angered George Washington with an inept attempt to become Chief Justice. His reputation didn't really rebound until the middle of the twentieth century, and his works are (I think) still out of print and hard to find. I'm hoping to avoid these aspects of Wilson's life, partly by keeping my credit cards at home and being a little more circumspect about self-promotion. . .

CROSS BURNING MAKES MY HEAD HURT

The Supreme Court's ruling in Virginia v. Black has been hailed in the press as "upholding" VA's cross-burning law. Huh? From the second paragraph of O'Connor's opinion: "We conclude that while a State, consistent with the First Amendment, may ban cross burning carried out with the intent to intimidate, the provision in the Virginia statute treating cross burning as prima facie evidence of intent to intimidate renders the statute unconstitutional in its current form." As far as I understand it, the Court is concluding here that only some kinds of cross-burning statutes are legitimate, and VA currently does not have such a law. The Court opened up space for state and lower federal courts to find that certain kinds of cross-burning statutes are constitutional (if they explicitly link the cross-burning with intimidation), and it opened up space for the VA court to find that VA's law is constitutional if the section that makes cross-burning itself evidence of intent to discriminate is severable from the rest of the statute. But the VA Supreme Court can still kill the law if it wants to do so, apparently, by finding that the provision on evidence is not severable. I have no expertise in severability and I do not know what the VA court wants to do here, so I have no idea whether or not VA's law will actually stand.

Thomas dissented because he thought the statute should stand as it is and that all the convictions under the statute should be upheld, whereas O'Connor and the rest of the Court (not sure about Stevens) thought that one of the convictions could not stand at all, and that the other convictions could only stand if the VA court now jumps through a new set of hoops. (Jacob Levy is confused here, -- see his original post -- and he's right: the whole thing is pretty confusing.)

NOTE: see Eugene Volokh's post here, which soups up the language a bit but more or less says the same thing and provides more detail than I did (and he did it a few hours earlier than me).

PATRIOT ACT II. . .

according to Defective Yeti. Brilliant.

PAY ATTENTION II

These stories are just from today:

U.S Cannot Frighten DPRK

U.S. Alarming Military Moves Under Fire

U.S. War Moves Against DPRK Assailed

U.S. Termed Worst Rogue State

Minju Joson on U.S. Loudmouthed 'Terrorism'

KCNA Urges to Indict U.S. First

RNC'S PARTISAN BATTLE AXE MEETS JOHN KERRY

. . .TPM discusses the RNC's bulk e-mail on John Kerry. I've tried to get back on the RNC's mailing list, but after I replied to their e-mail on Estrada (see here), I didn't really expect them to start sending me that stuff again. Oh well. I'm not that broken up, though, since Tom Delay's press releases are entertaining enough for me. The real reason to get the RNC e-mails is so that you can learn how to spot their astroturf campaigns.

Here's Delay's response to Kerry:

DeLay: America Before New Hampshire; Desperate for Attention, Kerry Violates Pledge

WASHINGTON - House Majority Leader Tom DeLay (R-Texas) expressed disappointment at presidential hopeful Sen. John Kerry's (D-Mass.) desperate and inappropriate rhetoric.

The Boston Globe reported today that Kerry said in a Wednesday speech, “What we need now is not just a regime change in Saddam Hussein and Iraq, but we need a regime change in the United States.” The Globe continued, “Despite pledging two weeks ago to cool his criticism of the administration once war began, Kerry unleashed a barrage of criticism as US troops fought within 25 miles of Baghdad.”

“America before New Hampshire,” DeLay said.

BLOGROLLS

I've added a few blogs to my blogroll:

Greg Goelzshauser (a political science -- law school crossover blog with some good attention to Al Jazeera and alternate sources of news in the Middle East)

Farrellblogger (impressive academic blog)

Painpill (work of U Chicago public policy student and generally interesting person Paul Goyette)

After ditching Blogrolling I had to do some fiddling with the roll, but it now seems to load a lot faster and I'm generally happier just editing the code myself.

PRE-EMPTION RHETORIC HITS THE SUBCONTINENT

The U.S. press doesn't seem to have picked up on this story, but Indian External Affairs Minister Yaswant Sinha has been quoted recently as saying something along the lines that India has a better case for "preemptive" action against Pakistan than the U.S. had against Iraq. Read the Times of India articles on the fallout here and here, and Dawn's article here, and the Statesman's article here. As Dawn's article notes, the State Department has warned India not to follow our example.

You could say that the Indian administration is going to do what it thinks is in the best interest of India, regardless of whether or not the U.S. has invaded Iraq and regardless of Bush's justifications for doing so. Could be. But finger-wagging from State looks hypocritical at best.

(N)ICE TIME TO BE AWAY

I'm glad I was in Chicago this weekend. Aside from having a great panel, seeing some old friends, meeting some cool people, and getting to spend some time with Anita, I had the good fortune of missing what my colleague Craig Warkentin (quoting a news account, I think) called "the ice storm of the decade" in central New York. My roommate tells me that power was restored at our house here in Oswego this morning. From the Newsday article:

After an unusually cold and snowy winter, [Rochester resident Barb] Murphy appeared desperate for relief.

"I'm tired of it, I want it done already," she moaned. "I want to go to the beach!"

Indeed.