Happy to be an Urbane Libertarian

I’m surprised none of my colleagues have commented on this, but one of the interesting throw-away lines in Jamie Kirchik’s Ron Paul expose in The New Republic is his calling certain Ron Paul supporters as being “nothing like the urbane libertarians who staff the Cato Institute or the libertines at Reason magazine.” I can’t speak for my fellow Cato-ites — and will let my friends at Reason comment on their moniker — but I for one will take “urbane” any day of the week and thrice on Sunday.

Me on TV and Radio re International War Crimes

Tomorrow from 1:30 to 2:30 EDT I'll be on Voice of America's "Straight Talk Africa" discussing "the role of the International Criminal Court in on-going war crime cases concerning the Democratic Republic of the Congo, the Central African Republic, northern Uganda and the Sudanese region of Darfur." Live streaming video and audio here.

Podcast of AFF Panel

You can listen to my take on private military contractors from last week's roundtable here.

On the Radio Again

I'll be on Alaska Public Radio's morning show from 1-2pm EDT, talking about the history and constitutional aspects of impeachment.

My First Radio Appearance as a Cato Staffer

This evening at 6:15pm EDT I will be on the Chris Baker Show on KTRH (Houston) discussing the case of Medellin v. Texas. Live streaming audio at ktrh.com.

Also, The Sky Is Blue

An apparently serious article -- on CNN.com, not The Onion -- reports that men place a high value on good looks when choosing a mate.

Gosh I hope that study wasn't funded with taxpayer money.

Friedman's Blind Spot

Lest my last post be taken as too much of a softening on my hard line against what I consider to be Tom Friedman's formulaic writing -- "When I was recently in [foreign city], I spoke to [high official/man-on-the-street-with-exotic-background], and he told me that [clever sound bite that seems to revolutionize international relations theory but not really]. -- I should mention one glaring slip of his tongue. Or rather an omission of the tongue.

At one point during his presentation, Friedman ran through a long list of agents of change regarding the end of the Cold War and changing the former Soviet Union from going in a negative direction to going in a positive one. "George Bush, Jim Baker, Brent Scowcroft, Helmut Kohl, Francois Mitterand, [Mikhail] Gorbachev, [Eduard] Shevardnadze." Um... Reagan?

Iraq is Flat

Tom Friedman, in the course of gallivanting around the Middle East on one of his periodic travels to discover his Next Big Idea, just spent about an hour in a discussion with me and 50 of my closest friends on his thoughts on Iraq, the world, and everything.

Now, I've never been shy in expressing my long-held belief that he is vastly overrated and his insights vastly underwhelming. Part of this may be envy -- does anyone who has inclinations toward the written word not want to be a New York Times columnist? -- but I just think he's formulaic, doing diligent research and reporting but producing pablum. It's the Bob Woodward school of journalism: He's a fabulous reporter with incredible access and a decent (if somewhat cloying) writer, but a mediocre thinker.

Nevertheless, he made several good observations in a little impromptu talk that began the meeting:

1. We'll only win (the war on terrorism) if we get them to fight all of us (the civilized world).
2. If we leave, Iraq will collapse into itself in about 10 minutes, but if we stay 10 years, the outcome will still be uncertain -- so how do you make policy given this reality?
3. The surge is not an unmitigated 100% success, but there are some very "interesting" things going on with the Sunni tribes and other formerly hostile groups.

And here are some choice quotes and points raised during the Q & A:

• When we leave, it won't be a clear-cut win for Iran because they'll have to deal with the ancient intra-Shia Persian v. Arab divide.
• Our differing treatment of Saudi Arabia and Iran is a problem. For too long our Middle East policy consisted of three dictates to Arab governments: keep the oil pumps open, keep prices low, and don't bother the Jews too much (but do whatever you want with women, civil rights, religious extremism, etc.). On 9/11 and since, we're reaping the back-end results of that front-end policy.
• We have to get Arab leaders to condemn Muslim-on-Muslim violence. "When Christians kill Muslims it's a big deal. When Jews kill Muslims it's a Security Council meeting. When Muslims kill Muslims... it's a fucking weather report."
• Quoting senior Israeli officials whom he was with, coincidentally, the day after 9/11, "we have to change the village." "When the village is silent, look what happens." Meaning no matter how good you are at stopping suicide bombers, one will eventually get through unless you change attitudes at their source.
• "If I were President Bush, I would go on a global apology tour" and then ask world leaders what they're going to do now. "London, Paris, and Moscow are a lot closer to the Middle East than Minnesota [where Friedman is from]."
• The Middle East is the only part of the world/Third World/developing world afflicted with all the obstacles to development: the curse of oil, a legacy of colonialism, a religion antithetical to modernity, and a legacy of authoritarianism.
• "We're gonna have to keep coaching these guys [referring to the Iraqi leadership]."
• "We're not doing nation-building -- that would be easy -- we're doing nation-creating."
• "This is indeed Germany after the war -- 1648, not 1948." We're creating institutions wholesale.
• "The young people [of the Middle East] wanted us to succeed."
• When asked by a reporter for a pan-Arab newspaper that prints his column about his stance on a supporter of the war at its start, Friedman said, somewhat sarcastically, "I'm sorry. I thought Arabs wanted democracy and peace. Next time I'll be a better Frenchman."

A lot of interesting stuff there, though, as he said, he's still digesting it all. I thought on the last one he was gonna add some sort of smoothing punchline, but he didn't, which certainly gains him credit from these quarters. Maybe I'll take a look at his next few Iraq columns, see if he comes up with anything useful from this "eye-opening" trip.

The War as They See It

Yesterday seven NCOs (non-commissioned officers) published an op-ed in the NYT, essentially saying the war is lost because we're still playing whack-a-mole with the insurgency and the Iraqi people will never trust us. Blackfive fisks it.

Busy Day in Ramadi

My good friend Mario Loyola has a multi-media presentation from Ambassador Crocker's important visit to Ramadi the same day I was there.

Watery Rubbish

Accuse me if you will of linking too often to the New York Times, but that paper provides such rich blog fodder ("blodder"?).

Just now I read an article on how a backlash against bottled water is developing among the smart (read urban liberal) set. It infuriated me, but I'll spare you my picking apart nearly every person figuring in the piece.

I mean, c'mon people, we throw out so much stuff, why single out water? Moreover, most recycling uses up more energy than you save. (I don't mean re-using the same bottle, obviously, but rather bottles made from recycled materials.) And you know what else? -- buying bottled water spurs the economy (just like buying any other consumer good), and you bleeding hearts with your heads in the clouds wouldn't want little children to starve because their mommies and daddies lost their jobs in plastic engineering, now would you?

And I'm not saying all the above because my current daily consumption rate is about 6-8 bottles/day (along with 3-4 iced teas, 1-2 Gatorades, and several 100% juice drinking boxes). Mmmm... writing all this has made me thirsty. Time to go to one of the refrigerated palettes we have sitting around and pick up some more future trash and the refreshing liquid it holds inside.

A Facebook User and a Gentleman

As I was doing my PT this morning, I listened to last week's podcast of On The Media, NPR's popular show covering how the "sausage" of journalism is manufactured. (Yes, I listen to certain NPR programming, and also eat sushi, drink lattes, and read the New York Times -- while also supporting the Iraq mission, wanting to cut taxes, eliminate most federal agencies, and bring back the Constitution circa 1937... you got a problem wit dat?)

Anyway, one particular segment caught my attention, a piece on how internet social networking sites reinforce preexisting social divisions rather than create a new world utopia where we all hold hands and sing Kum-ba-ya. To wit, a researcher has determined that sites like MySpace and Facebook self-segregate by class.

MySpace originated in the indie music world of LA, and has continued to be a fannish/high school type of place. Facebook, meanwhile, was created by Harvard students, quickly expanded to the rest of the Ivy League, then to all college students, and of late seemingly anyone (though with certain gatekeepers).

Further, the military has restricted access to MySpace (ostensibly for bandwidth reasons), but not Facebook. The researcher surmises that this policy results from a situation whereby, of the military community that uses these sites, most officers (being college-educated) skew toward Facebook, while enlisted men use MySpace.

So, accepting the above distinction between MySpace and Facebook users (and limiting our discussion to those two sites), there are two things going on here: 1. People choosing to join virtual communities where they can find their peers, and 2. Official policies privileging what is perceived as the higher-class online network.

On the first, well, that's human nature. I don't want to tell people who like and are comfortable with MySpace to switch to Facebook because I personally find MySpace too cluttered and juvenile. Similarly, forcing Facebook users to suddenly switch to Facebook would do nothing but create resentments. As a rough analogy, look at the effects of busing schoolkids in an attempt to remedy racial segregation (leaving aside the issue that the Supreme Court recently decreed such a practice to be unconstitutional).

On the second, I can't imagine that the military instituted its internet policy to discriminate in favor of officers (and then concocted some bandwidth ruse to justify it). Everything I've seen suggests that enlisted men are treated fairly, and are valued as soldiers/sailors/airmen/marines and as citizens. There must be something to the bandwidth issue, but also the type of content available (and pushed) on MySpace may not be in line the military's rules and regulations on conduct befitting servicemembers.

Of course, the question remains: Where does Friendster [or insert another networking site] fit into all this? My intuition is that if you surveyed all of these different sites, you'd find a much richer, more parsimonious way to categorize them than simply by class or education level -- much as the "offline" world can be sliced in a practically infinite number of ways.

"In the Loop" is Out of Touch

One of the things I did Friday while procrastinating from packing was to email Al Kamen in response to his latest "In the Loop" column:

Dear Mr. Kamen,

I just read today's column and had to respond to your deplorable sarcasm and dripping condescension. Regardless of your views on whether the decision to invade Iraq in 2003 was correct, neither the war nor nation-building are laughing matters. Let alone the safety of the brave and dedicated men and women, military and civilian, performing difficult jobs in dangerous situations. And I take special umbrage at the great fun you have with the Rule of Law Advisor post: One of my law firm colleagues is about to rotate out after a year in that position, and I'm about to head over to do a similar project from the DoD side. It is selfless, challenging, and necessary work, and all part of the effort to, yes, replace the rule of the militia with the rule of law.

Sincerely,
Ilya Shapiro