HOW TO WIN COALITION PARTNERS AND INFLUENCE PEOPLE

From the Times of India, here:

WASHINGTON: George Fernandes was strip-searched twice in Dulles Airport in the US capital area when he was defence minister, once while on an official visit to Washington and another time while en route to Brazil, according to former Deputy Secretary of State Strobe Talbott.

In his new book Engaging India - Diplomacy, Democracy and the Bomb , Talbott says he was told this angrily by Fernandes himself when he had visited India in February this year. . . .

[. . .]

"Just as we were saying good-bye to Fernandes, a member of our delegation innocently asked him when he would next be coming to Washington. His demeanor abruptly changed. It was as though he was glad to have an excuse to tell us how he really felt about our country", he recalls.

"Ignoring an Ethiopian delegation that was already filing into his office and taking its seats, Fernandes regaled us with the story of how he had been strip-searched by officers of the US Immigration and Naturalization Service at Dulles Airport when he arrived for an official visit in early 2002, and again, in mid-2003, when he was passing through the US on his way to Brazil."

"He seemed to enjoy our stupefaction at this tale. He and other Indians who later referred to the incident clearly regarded it as more than merely a lapse of protocol or just another example of the post 9/11 excesses and indignities that air travellers had to endure for the sake of security. The Indians saw it as a symptom of a deep-rooted widespread condescension - or worse - on the part of the West toward the East.

And from Richard Armitage's [July 14th] press conference in New Delhi:

Q: Mr. Armitage, I am Amit Baruah from "The Hindu" newspaper. I saw earlier in the day you said something about Mr. Fernandes being searched -- you spoke to him and you offered your regrets. I just wanted to know that -- obviously in the post-9/11 situation airport security is an obvious area of concern to the United States, but when a senior minister like our Defense Minister travels to the U.S., what can you do to make sure that these kinds of things don't happen again?

Armitage: Well, first of all it's not quite correct -- I did call my friend George Fernandes this morning; tried to call him first thing in the morning and I got to him around 10 o'clock I think, to not, not to express my regrets but my sincere apologies. But let's get the facts right, he was not strip-searched. He said so on television today at noon. He'd removed his shoes and I find this something worthy of an apology.

Q: I just said body search.

Armitage: I just want to be clear because there was a lot of misinformation about this. Yes, I think there are things that we can and should do and it starts with us knowing ahead of time when people are going to travel. And when that happens, generally we are able to make arrangements so that people are treated appropriately. We don't like the situation in which we find ourselves, and need to protect our borders in such a, let me use the word, intrusive way. And we long for a day when things will be better, but I think that day is a ways off. So, we have to educate our own people who are involved in the customs and immigration and the transportation and safety agency work. We also have to depend on friends, in this case Indian friends, to give us a heads up when people are traveling so that we can make the proper arrangements.

MORE ON ELECTION POSTPONEMENTS

Election law specialist Rick Hasen has three posts (here, here, and here) that set out his basic views on the matter, which boils down to a) an attempt to highlight news stories that reduce the alarm level, and b) a plea for clear pre-election rules that grant limited discretion. I really doubt that this congress -- focused like a laser beam on other, apparently more pressing issues this week -- is going to put any good policy in place in the next few months, but I could be wrong.

For a good expression of the kind of fears that this discussion has let loose, see this eloquent post.

I hesitated to call attention to the election postponement story because I think that it has the effect of exaggerating the threat from al Qaeda. We have a fear-driven and superficial media culture and an administration that has managed to heighten, not reduce, the fear level.* I don't believe that this climate of fear is necessarily a conscious policy -- we live in a fear-drenched culture -- but I do think that it's a bad thing. See Adam Felber here. And at the end of the day, things probably would have been a heck of a lot better if John McCain were president instead of George Bush.

This is not to say (Charles) that one shouldn't worry about the harm to democracy that might emanate from bungling an eventual election date change. At first glance, tough, I think that current policies would probably prove sufficient to deal with what's likely to happen (nothing), and sufficient to deal with what is unlikely to happen (an attack).

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*If you want confirmation of the media's role in creating a climate of fear, look at those Fox news memos again. From the Good Friday memo:

The religious significance of this week is also not lost on terrorists. Be ready if they're successful.

Give me a break.

SO TRUE

So true.

AMENDING BISMARK

Man, those Fox News memos are ugly.

Three points:

1) Someone should be able to do a straight-arrow objective content analysis of the memos and develop a bias quotient for Republican causes and against Democratic ones.

2) Someone should be able to make a rock-solid empirical case concerning the influence of John Moody's editorial guidelines on the content of Fox news reporting.

3) Someone should be able to make a persuasive case for editorial bias in story selection given the universe of news stories on any given day or week covered by the memos.

None of those people is me, though. Not because I like my sausage made sight unseen, but because I think that if you don't see an egregious editorial bias in Fox News, you're not worth talking to.

For the memos in html format, go here.

FREE BOOKS

. . .from the Army Corps of Engineers. See here. Via backup brain. It's, well, a specialized list, but some of them look pretty interesting, like Vanguard of Expansion: Army Engineers in the Trans-Mississippi West, 1819–1879 (Frank N. Schubert).

ON RESCHEDULING ELECTIONS

I agree with John Holbo's post on the subject of rescheduling elections -- if read in conjunction with Jack Balkin's argument here. One point from Balkin's post is important to emphasize (and I'm not an expert in elections so I'm following Balkin's lead here): states now seem to have the authority to reschedule an election if it can't be held on a given day [ -- but only after the fact, not in advance]. That is probably enough of a contingency plan for the extremely unlikely event of a serious terrorist attack on election day. If we want another plan, though, we could, for example, borrow from Israel the idea of a bipartisan Central Election Commission, as Holbo seems to like.

In addition, I agree with Prof. Balkin that election dates shouldn't be altered to prevent Madrid-style terrorist attack "influence" on the result. It should be noted, however, that the Republican argument about Madrid is also an argument about the illegitimacy of an eventual Democratic presidential victory after a hypothetical terrorist attack. If the Republican administration is developing a contingency plan with how to deal with elections conducted in the shadow of an attack, Democrats have to develop arguments to be used in the context of a victory in such circumstances -- not because I'm sure Democrats would win, but because Republicans have apparently already decided what they will say if Democrats do win in such circumstances. I don't think that we can rely on the current crop of Republican opinion leaders to accept a Democratic victory without screaming "appeasement."

Finally, what about comparative analysis here? Have Germans, Israelis, or Indians ever postponed elections because of violence on election day? I don't know. There are certainly no famous examples of such postponements. Unfortunately, you will never hear this administration speak of such matters in comparative terms, for two reasons. First, what would this administration think we have to learn from the experience of those countries? They're foreigners, after all. Second, why would the administration want to call attention to obvious foreign exceptions to their line that "9/11 changed everything?"

MORE: Note also Rick Hasen's quotes, here.

RIVKIN AND CASEY

David Rivkin and Lee Casey (D.C. lawyers with expertise in international law) write in NRO to justify, retrospectively, the war on Iraq. Even on its own terms, though, I'm not sure the argument works.

The heart of their argument is, I think, here:

When dealing with authoritarian anti-American states with a demonstrated history of WMD ambitions, the only safe way, short of regime change, to ensure that they are irreversibly disarmed is to adopt a wide-range of confidence-building measures, which go way beyond the traditional inspection regime. Under this scenario, the burden of persuasion is really on the regime itself. In this regard, as was persuasively argued by the president's national-security adviser, Condoleezza Rice, experience amassed during the "de-nuclearization" of such countries as South Africa and Ukraine demonstrates that a prerequisite to a successful nuclear disarmament is a willing host regime that is prepared to give the international community unrestricted access to its facilities and weapons installations and adopt a wide-range of confidence building measures. (Emphasis added.)

Note that this part of the argument hinges primarily on the character of the regime; if it is authoritarian and anti-American, there are only two options on the path to "safety": a) get the regime to cooperate with what we can call "inspections regime plus," or b) regime change.

Since we're really talking about a short list of countries, what about Iran and North Korea? Rivkin and Casey anticipate this point, although in a fundamentally unsatisfying way:

Both North Korea and Iran also pose serious threats in this area. However, the argument by the administration's critics that, since we are not actively pursuing a regime change option in either Iran or North Korea, we should have done nothing to replace Hussein, is incoherent. It appears to be based in some notion that the United States must treat all of its foreign enemies equally, and that to topple one dictator is somehow unfair when others are left standing. However, this all-or-nothing approach is neither good foreign policy nor a sensible military strategy. International law contains no "equal protection" clause benefiting rogue regimes, and dealing with threats sequentially, and focusing on the one that is both grave and the most manageable is the essence of good statecraft.

Two points. First, it's worth emphasizing that war with Iran and North Korea is clearly on the table for Rivkin and Casey. Second, the argument for war in Iraq seems to boil down to the claim that we had the capacity to go to war there (it was "the most manageable" of the identified threats).

As an aside here: the fancy lawyer talk (the "equal protection" remark) is snide and distracts from the larger argument. Equal protection is at heart a category having to do with reasonableness – whether it is reasonable or justifiable to treat certain citizens differently than others. Courts have insisted that they can require a very high burden of proof from government agents when they treat classes of citizens differently. To continue Rivkin and Casey's uprooting of equal protection from its particular doctrinal context: much like courts do in equal protection analysis, citizens should examine the administration's arguments for treating "rogue regimes" differently. We should ask whether it was rational to go to war against Iraq -- especially given our current empirical knowledge about both what the regime was doing and how invasions tend to turn out with this administration in charge -- rather than against Iran or North Korea. If there are reasons of "statecraft" for not doing the latter, were there reasons of "statecraft" for not doing the former? Comparing cases that the administration itself claims are similar in significant respects should be part of that analysis.

As should an analysis of the mutual effect of our various policies. Rivkin and Casey's main argument implies the necessity -- as a matter of security -- of a war against Iran and North Korea, unless those regimes are either changed (into something better) or become willing to submit to an inspections regime plus. Perhaps strategists in this administration were thinking that such submission would be more likely after a successful war in Iraq. Reference to Libya's turnaround is usually part of that point.

But is it possible that North Korean and Iranian strategists also understand that the U.S. went to war in Iraq because that war was more "manageable" than an invasion of North Korea or Iran? And does anyone really believe that current conditions make an invasion of either country more "manageable" now than it might have been a few years ago?

In order to answer these questions [the 'statecraft' questions above, that is], one needs to compare the danger that was eliminated with the increased danger that arises from a narrowing of our capacities to respond to other dangers. This is true especially if, as Rivkin and Casey appear to argue, Iran, North Korea, and perhaps Syria, are as dangerous as they claim Iraq was in 2002.

I'm not sure about Rivkin and Casey's assessment of the security threat in this area, but even taking those arguments seriously, it's hard to say with any conviction that the "manageable" war in Iraq made us safer.

RUTHERFORD ON FDA BORDER SEARCH OF SENIORS

More from the folks at Rutherford. Read Federal Agents Strong-arm Elderly Citizens Seeking Affordable Drugs, a discussion of this piece in the AARP bulletin. Here's a snippet from the AARP:

That same day, when we came back across the border to Pembina, N.D., our group leader went back into customs. Then she came back and said, "The FDA is going to board the bus."

The FDA agents came on the bus like Gestapo agents. They were in black uniforms, similar to police uniforms, that said "FDA" on them. They were very somber, you know, very stern and straight-faced, and they said they wanted to see what we had. They started at the back of the bus and looked at everybody's purchases. They actually went into our bags, physically looked at the bottles, looked at you, and then moved on to the next person, working their way up to the front.

If you're tempted to evoke "Godwin's law" here, read the story to your grandparents (or closest senior citizen neighbor) and then get back to me.

RUTHERFORD ON THE LEFT BEHIND SERIES

I don't agree with the folks at Rutherford on everything, but they're worth reading.

For those of you interested in a mainstream Christian take on the Left Behind series, check out this article: God so loved the world that he gave us World War Three, an interview with Barbara Rossing, Lutheran School of Theology. Here's a snippet:

JWW: You argue in your book that LaHaye, Jenkins, Lindsey and others are addicted to war.

BR: Yes, I see that clearly in their books and what they say.

JWW: Why do you think they are addicted to war?

BR: Violence is addictive. Any of us could get addicted to it. Look at video games. They’re thrilling and exciting. They’re fast paced. It could happen to any of us. War correspondent Chris Hedges clearly shows us that in his book, War Is The Force That Gives Us Meaning. He says that violence is the most powerful narcotic ever invented. Yes, all of us can be sucked in by violence. That is why we need to resist. As a lamb, Jesus teaches us how to resist this sucking power. Violence was attractive even to early Christians, who were told not to go to the gladiator spectacles because they were going to find them fascinating and thrilling. Christians aren’t supposed to go to violence for entertainment.

Compare here and here.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, BILLY B.

Michael at Southern Appeal notes that William Blackstone was born 281 years ago last Saturday.

I thought about titling this post "cartoon vision of Blackstone," and discussing some of my thoughts (dissertation related) on both the unfairly hostile criticisms of Blackstone that developed from Bentham's critiques, and the uncritical praise of Blackstone that you can find lurking in some parts of our constitutional culture. I'm more a fan of James Wilson, who saw himself as advancing a Blackstonian legal education project but aimed at a wider civic audience (Blackstone was apparently interested in educating university-goers only).

In lieu of that post, meet William Blackstone as he appears on the web (google's first image hit, at least for now).

Picture source here