Hey! Foggy Bottom! Arizona Isn't China

Senior members of the Obama administration have many things in common. Among these are (1) a willingness, no, an eagerness, to dump on Arizona's new immigration law; (2) an inability or unwillingness to actually read the law before sounding off on just how racist it is.

The latest to join the damn-before-reading chorus are a pair of worthies at the State Department. The first of these is Assistant Secretary of State, Micheal Posner, who took it upon himself to apologize for Arizona's xenophobic exercise in racial profiling and related icky-poo manifestations of caviler indifference for human rights to--of all people--the delegation from the Peoples Republic of China, which was here to discuss human rights. The second was the Designated Flack From Foggy Bottom, P.J. Crowley.

China may hold all too much of Uncle Sam's indebtedness and may be a key player in the ongoing drama, Will Iran Get the Bomb? Neither of these, however, puts a high gloss on China's abysmal record in the area of human rights. At the same time the new Arizona law is scarcely in the same league with such infamous measures as the Chinese and Japanese Exclusion Acts passed in California early in the Twentieth Century.

The various exclusion acts were flatly racist. So also was the badly misnamed "Gentlemen's Agreement" entered into by the administration of Theodore Roosevelt and its Japanese counterpart. On the face these measures were driven by racial hatred and fear prevalent in the populations of California and other western states. To put it bluntly and accurately, citizens from the Pacific coast eastward into the Rocky Mountain states had long feared the presence of both Chinese and Japanese in their midst. The cultural differences--to say nothing of the capacity and willingness of these Asians to engage in hard work for long hours and low pay--had rankled the American nativists ever since gangs of Chinese laborers had been imported to build the Transcontinental Railroad in the 1860s.

The same racism hit in the months after the attack on Pearl Harbor with the result that thousands of Japanese including Americans of Japanese ancestry born in the US were rounded up and put in concentration camps deep in the desert interior of our country. This gross wrong was later admitted to by the US government, but at the time it was approved of not only by the administration of Franklin Roosevelt but Congress and the US Supreme Court.

These various actions involving members and leaders of both parties and extending over more than fifty years constituted a grave violation of human rights by any reasonable standard. Most importantly they can be compared to the Arizona law by no stretch of even the most fevered, partisan imagination. Any attempt to do so--like attempts to equate Arizona with Hitler's Germany--are both a violent perversion of history and a cheapening of past evils.

For Mr Posner to bring up the Arizona law as a sign of current American problems in the human rights field is to equate the law and its effects with the gross and widespread abuses of civil and political rights of Tibetans and other ethnic minorities by the Beijing regime. Any such equation, even by implication, even by allowing the Chinese to draw the inference, is not only as wrong as a soup sandwich, it diminishes the culpability of Beijing.

As such it constitutes a disservice to the citizens of Arizona and their elected representatives as well as the large majority of Americans generally who support the new law. Worse, it serves to trivialize and marginalize the victims of systematic human rights violations in China.

Mr Crowley's defense of the Posner Distortion makes even less sense. One can only assume that his action was approved by the highest level of the State Department, SecState Clinton. It is hard to fathom just how Ms Clinton in her most twisted lawyer logic could allow Mr Crowley to aver that by repeatedly bringing up the Arizona law to his Chinese interlocutors, Mr Posner was "standing up" for Americans.

Even more difficult to understand is the logic behind the top floor's approval of Mr Posner's characterization of the Arizona law and its aftermath as "an issue of discrimination or potential discrimination" which is a "troubling trend" in the US. The only reasonable explanation of the Posner stance and its presumed approval by Ms Clinton is a hopeless and bootless conviction that political correctness must trump reality or at least realism.

There is no way around the fact that many, perhaps most, of the twelve of so million foreigners currently living illegally in the US are from Mexico and other Latin American countries. Thus while the Arizona law specifically bars race, ethnicity, and language as the "sole" reason for a law enforcement officer to question a person's legal status, it is reasonable to assume that most of those inconvenienced by the new law will be of Hispanic ancestry. It is also reasonable to assume that most cops, most of the time, will do what cops tend to do--apply a dynamic mental algorithm based on experience which can be accurately termed, "profiling."

These twin realities are unpleasant, and the Geek shares a distaste for both--having become personally all too well acquainted with both over the course of his life. This does not imply that the law either in principle or in effect is racist, xenophobic, or violative of civil and political rights.

The Obama administration has already demonstrated its irrational love of the politically correct by refusing to use accurate terminology when discussing the suicide bombers, the terrorists, those who subscribe to the violence demanding ideology of political Islam. In the interests of either political correctness or an ill-founded belief that using accurate terminology will infuriate those to whom the terms accurately apply, they have demanded that the truth not be told--even if that transparent effort to protect "sensitivities" may have the unintended consequence of impairing our capacity to detect and defeat our enemies.

Thus it is not surprising that the same intellectually challenged bunch refuses to acknowledge the real nature of our failure to control our own borders. Notice the use of the word, "our." It is critical to remember that the borders of the US are not the sole responsibility of Federal bureaucrats. The borders were established by the government--the state--acting according to the outcome of conflicting demands within our polity as well as between our state and foreign states.

The lines on the map, the almost invisible border between ourselves and the Canadians as well as the semi-fortified fence between ourselves and the Mexicans is not simply a line demarcating two different sovereignties. The border also divides different nations, different assemblages of culture, history, folkways and mores, different economies, different interests. More than the political sway of states, borders delineate peoples--nations.

The borders of our country are also the limits of We the People. As a result the securing of the borders, the decision to admit some incomers but not others may belong primarily to the federal government. It does not follow, however, that the federal government has sole responsibility in this area. Nor does it follow that when a perception of federal failure in this area exists that the several states are necessarily powerless.

As a one time professor of Constitutional law Mr Obama must be considered to have an awareness of the concept of divided and ambiguous sovereignty as between the central government, the several states, and We the People. Over the centuries the authority over borders and its concomitant, immigration, has been left to the central government. It made the system easier to administer, somewhat more equitable in application, and more easily understood by people here or abroad.

However, in the past, states have taken the lead on the immigration question. True, that occurred far in the past, but the precedent exists. Simply put, the action taken by the Arizona state government is not racist, not xenophobic, not discriminatory in intent. It is also not without precedent.

Even if the law lacked any precedent it still does not fall in the category of "interposition." It is not akin to the Nullification Act passed by South Carolina during the administration of Andrew Jackson. It is not even like the assorted measures taken by southern states seeking to block the effect of Brown v. Board of Education.

The state of Arizona has not sought by its new law to block the effect of federal laws dealing with immigration. Rather it has sought to repair a perceived failure on the part of the central government to effectively protect the American people against the impact of large scale, unregulated, indeed, illegal immigration.

There are no reasons for the Obama administration to apologize or explain this Arizona act to any foreign government. Not the Canadians. Not the Mexicans. And, most assuredly not the Chinese.

Considering the Chinese record of shooting down or having tanks run over protesters, forcing draconian measures of population control, censoring communications, oh, God, how the list goes on, for what should the US be apologizing or explaining? And, if the Obama "team" thinks it is necessary to explain or apologize for the human rights record of Arizona to the Chinese, who is going to be the next recipient?

Perhaps the Iranians.

They Still Just Don't Get It

Assistant Secretary of State for International Narcotics and Law enforcement, David Johnson, briefed the media on a new report in which the Deep Thinkers of Foggy Bottom came to the (totally unshocking) conclusion that the international drug trade particularly those portions involving Afghanistan or Mexico "threaten American national security." The tone of Mr Johnson's remarks had the glib somberness of a well practiced funeral director.

Let's get a grip here.

The opium and morphine base production in Afghanistan does represent a direct threat to US personnel in that particular geographic expression by providing the finances necessary for the Taliban to keep on keeping on. Less money from the drug trade would automatically and instantly translate into a lessened Taliban military capability.

The same can not and should not be said regarding Mexico. The Geek has become quite annoyed by the Cassandra claims that Mexico is a "failing state" caught in the throes of an emergent insurgency powered by "drug lords." The immediate, direct implication of these dire predictions of impending dissolution to the south are not only overdrawn by a couple of orders of magnitude, they injure relations with Mexico by offending the very real sensitivities of a government and elite facing very real problems.

The Geek lives close enough to the border to almost hear the gunfire in Cuidad Juarez. Not surprisingly he keeps a close eye on matters down there.

Violence, particularly in and around Juarez is higher this year than last. Life in Juraez is more at risk than in Baghdad--or even Kabul. That does not mean Mexico is imploding, or, if it does do so some day, that it will be at the hands of drug cartels.

Mexican involvement in meeting the desires of American consumers for mind and mood altering drugs is not a national security threat. Get a grip on that. It may be a major problem for the Mexican government, but it is not a looming threat to our security. Any threats come instead from underlying, systemic problems in the Mexican economy and society. These will continue whether or not the drug thugs keep on pumping lead into each other--and any interfering cop.

Mr Johnson also excoriated countries which are not collaborating with the US in its oft-declared "war on drugs." He took particular note of Venezuela as a major non-participant in the American moral crusade against the individual's right to alter his own state of mind and mood without a physician's authorization. Golly, gee, Mr Johnson, who would have thunk?

Hugo Chavez and his neo-Castroite regime are both unpleasant and potentially threatening to American strategic interests and even (because of the Iranian and Hezbollah connections) our national security. Hugo's annoying attitude and the actions it drives are not connected directly and materially to his lack of support for our anti-drug crusade.

To define or defend American national security interests in terms of what country does or does not soldier faithfully in the "war on drugs" first declared forty years ago by Richard Nixon is simply to show a disconnect between a moral and political stance on one hand and the realities of national security and strategic interests on the other. Mr Johnson and any other worthies in the State Department who actually think that drugs qua drugs are a threat to our national security anywhere except Afghanistan are simply out to lunch.

Anyway there is a rapid, sovereign means to protect our national security against the threat allegedly posed by illegal drugs. Legalise them.

Declare the truth. Declare that the "war on drugs" has been well and truly lost. Drugs of all sorts are more plentiful and at a lower cost in constant dollars today than they were when King Richard announced the Grand Crusade Against Getting High.

It is time for the State Department Deep Thinkers (and, of course, their colleagues in other departments) to recall a little bit of American history. Back before the combination of racism, xenophobia, junk science, fear mongering and rank ambition propelled the Harrison Act and its expansion back in the distant days of the late 19th and early 20th centuries, drugs were widely available, and rather commonly used. At the time as well as in retrospective analysis of the (admittedly sketchy) data, there were no crime waves predicated on drugs. There were any number of very successful professional and business people who had cocaine and morphine habits which extended for decades.

We have ample laws covering "natural" crimes to protect society against offenders who might also be drug users. We have more than enough information to counsel against use while acknowledging the short- and long-term use of many, if not most, currently illegal drugs carries no profound ill-effects. (Recently the British publication New Scientist had a fine piece comparing the impact of Ecstasy with peanuts--peanuts came out in second place particularly for acute reactions.)

The time has come to drop the cant about "sending the wrong message to our children" or the bogus scare numbers concerning the terrible effects of drugs on the artifact of self-interest called "lost productivity."

The war on drugs is ongoing but long lost.

Have the guts to admit it.

Mr Johnson, if you are right, if the international drug trade is threatening our national security, your oath to uphold and defend the Constitution requires you to state the truth--legalising drugs protects the US.

Is PM Maliki Throwing The War?

Two days ago very disturbing testimony was offered by the former chief of the anti-corruption effort established three years ago in Iraq. Judge Radhi Hamza al-Radhi made a very convincing appearance before Rep Henry Waxman's Committee on Oversight and Government Reform regarding the extreme methods employed (or at least countenanced) by the al-Maliki government to prevent effective investigation and prosecution of corruption by Iraqi officials at all levels including the most senior.

Reports of al-Radhi's allegations and its aftermath haven't exactly littered the electronic landscape but the WaPo gave good coverage http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/10/04/AR2007100401305.html. A non-US perspective of value is offered by http://www.middle-east-online.com/english/?id=22568.

History leads the Geek to accept al-Radhi's tale of corruption and gangland type murders to be accurate. History also compels the Geek to predict that without a rapid, robust, and effective US response to the endemic corruption in the Iraqi regime, all the security efforts to date will go down the drain.

In short, unless the stables in Baghdad are cleaned very well and very rapidly, all the military success, all the deaths and killing, will have meant zero, zip, nada.

Anyone aware of two facets of recent history could (and would) have predicted massive governmental corruption in the wake of the US invasion. The first historical trajectory is that of Iraq itself during the years following the Gulf War of 1991.

The years of the sanctions saw Iraq become a morass of corruption. Everyone who could put his hand in the pile, grabbed all he could and elbowed latecomers aside. This universal corruption was evident even from open sources. It should have been even more obvious to the current administration with its access to pan-source base intelligence.

The neocon ninnies within the current administration were so gripless that they must have believed unbridled theft was a species of free enterprise. That is the only charitable explanation for the US having invaded without any mechanisms in place to check the continued looting and plundering of the public trough by the men who came to power under our tutelage.

That the US did not and does not have the will or capacity to drain the Great Dismal Swamp presided over by the al-Maliki government was made manifest by the total absence of intellectual and moral courage exhibited by our State Department at the Friday hearings. The schmuck on the spot was a deputy secretary of state named Larry Butler.

Butler, presumably operating under instructions which he didn't desire to violate no matter how much the American national interest might benefit by his so doing, hid behind the ultimate cover of the scoundrel--National Security. Despite fulsome praise of al-Radhi's character and integrity, Butler refused to say anything that might be taken as supporting or agreeing with the ousted Judge's testimony.

Any such agreement could only take place, Butler repeatedly insisted, behind the guarded doors of an executive session of the committee. Of course, Butler, like anyone who has been around DC more than a couple of hours, knows that executive session testimony is leaked even before the transcript has been made.

But, leaks aren't "official." Leaks can be plausibly denied. At the worst, leaks become the sort of twisted, passive voiced "mistakes-have-been-made" non-explanation, non-apology.

This brings us to the second prong of history.

The US has been down this road before. Counterinsurgency and host government corruption seem to be the ham and eggs combo of violent politics.

Our first post-WW II adventures in counterinsurgency in Greece and the Philippines showed that unpleasant linkage between internal instability and hands reaching for the money stream. In both countries US personnel on the ground and in Washington had to make exceptional efforts to facilitate the growth of fiscal and political integrity within the regimes we were supporting. Our successes and the means by which we achieved them remain little more than an unexamined footnote to the two wars.

The US defeat in South Vietnam was in part, arguably in large part, the result of our inability to assure an increase in governmental and military integrity on the part of the South Vietnamese. Documents declassified over the past quarter century show again and again that we were aware of the miasma of corruption hanging over Saigon. They show that we were aware that the rottenness in Saigon was desperately imperilling our efforts against the Viet Cong and North Vietnamese.

The documents also show that we were only willing and able to address the problem on a sporadic and ad hoc basis. The largest single reason for this was the absence of a South Vietnamese equivalent of al-Radhi.

Al-Radhi exists this time around. He and his documents give a chilling account of so much that is so rotten in Baghdad. He is a one man transparency project. He is a war winning asset.

But, only so long as We the People and our "representatives" have his story, his facts and figures, his naming of names out in the full light of open public testimony.

There is one more requirement if al-Radhi is going to be able to help us assure that all our efforts and losses will end with a better state of peace in Iraq. The State Department, which means the current administration, will have to match al-Radhi's openness.

The current administration has to take a firm grip on reality. It will take more political hits by admitting that it has not been able to do diddly to limit the epidemic of corruption in Baghdad. So what? The current administration screwed the pooch the moment the Commander Guy said, "OK" to the invasion.

The Geek is not so addicted to fantasy that he expects the current administration to own up to having made a world-class blunder with its "regime change" hallucination. No. What the Geek would like to see is the current administration follow the lead of the US military in recent months.

"How's that?" You ask.

The military has done something the Geek would never have really, really believed it could. It changed its doctrine for counterinsurgency. It has invited "human terrain" academic specialists to give direct, in-the-field assistance to its units. In short, the US military services, under the pressure of looming failure, woke up, smelled the coffee, and started to fight the right war in the right way.

The current administration owes it to those who have already been killed in pursuit of its hallucination of a liberal, pluralistic, democratic Iraq to match the military in intellectual and moral courage. No skulking around in executive session practicing government by leak and counter-leak. No nasty little personal attacks against outspoken bringers of unwanted bad news as was the case Friday. (The snideness was from Rep Dan (Brain-dead) Burton a Republican from Indiana.)

The State Department, the Secretary of State, and others in the loop have to match our military in getting a grip on reality. Not simply because it is the right thing to do.

No.

It must be done because our dead demand it. It must be done because our national future demands it.