Climatologists Agree: Gore's movie is full of it

Scientists respond to Gore's warnings of climate catastrophe"The Inconvenient Truth" is indeed inconvenient to alarmistsBy Tom HarrisMonday, June 12, 2006

"Scientists have an independent obligation to respect and present the truth as they see it," Al Gore sensibly asserts in his film "An Inconvenient Truth", showing at Cumberland 4 Cinemas in Toronto since Jun 2. With that outlook in mind, what do world climate experts actually think about the science of his movie?
Professor Bob Carter of the Marine Geophysical Laboratory at James Cook University, in Australia gives what, for many Canadians, is a surprising assessment: "Gore's circumstantial arguments are so weak that they are pathetic. It is simply incredible that they, and his film, are commanding public attention."
But surely Carter is merely part of what most people regard as a tiny cadre of "climate change skeptics" who disagree with the "vast majority of scientists" Gore cites?
No; Carter is one of hundreds of highly qualified non-governmental, non-industry, non-lobby group climate experts who contest the hypothesis that human emissions of carbon dioxide (CO2) are causing significant global climate change. "Climate experts" is the operative term here. Why? Because what Gore's "majority of scientists" think is immaterial when only a very small fraction of them actually work in the climate field.
Even among that fraction, many focus their studies on the impacts of climate change; biologists, for example, who study everything from insects to polar bears to poison ivy. "While many are highly skilled researchers, they generally do not have special knowledge about the causes of global climate change," explains former University of Winnipeg climatology professor Dr. Tim Ball. "They usually can tell us only about the effects of changes in the local environment where they conduct their studies."
This is highly valuable knowledge, but doesn't make them climate change cause experts, only climate impact experts.
So we have a smaller fraction.
But it becomes smaller still. Among experts who actually examine the causes of change on a global scale, many concentrate their research on designing and enhancing computer models of hypothetical futures. "These models have been consistently wrong in all their scenarios," asserts Ball. "Since modelers concede computer outputs are not "predictions" but are in fact merely scenarios, they are negligent in letting policy-makers and the public think they are actually making forecasts."
We should listen most to scientists who use real data to try to understand what nature is actually telling us about the causes and extent of global climate change. In this relatively small community, there is no consensus, despite what Gore and others would suggest.
Here is a small sample of the side of the debate we almost never hear:
Appearing before the Commons Committee on Environment and Sustainable Development last year, Carleton University paleoclimatologist Professor Tim Patterson testified, "There is no meaningful correlation between CO2 levels and Earth's temperature over this [geologic] time frame. In fact, when CO2 levels were over ten times higher than they are now, about 450 million years ago, the planet was in the depths of the absolute coldest period in the last half billion years." Patterson asked the committee, "On the basis of this evidence, how could anyone still believe that the recent relatively small increase in CO2 levels would be the major cause of the past century's modest warming?"
Patterson concluded his testimony by explaining what his research and "hundreds of other studies" reveal: on all time scales, there is very good correlation between Earth's temperature and natural celestial phenomena such changes in the brightness of the Sun.
Dr. Boris Winterhalter, former marine researcher at the Geological Survey of Finland and professor in marine geology, University of Helsinki, takes apart Gore's dramatic display of Antarctic glaciers collapsing into the sea. "The breaking glacier wall is a normally occurring phenomenon which is due to the normal advance of a glacier," says Winterhalter. "In Antarctica the temperature is low enough to prohibit melting of the ice front, so if the ice is grounded, it has to break off in beautiful ice cascades. If the water is deep enough icebergs will form."
Dr. Wibjörn Karlén, emeritus professor, Dept. of Physical Geography and Quaternary Geology, Stockholm University, Sweden, admits, "Some small areas in the Antarctic Peninsula have broken up recently, just like it has done back in time. The temperature in this part of Antarctica has increased recently, probably because of a small change in the position of the low pressure systems."
But Karlén clarifies that the 'mass balance' of Antarctica is positive - more snow is accumulating than melting off. As a result, Ball explains, there is an increase in the 'calving' of icebergs as the ice dome of Antarctica is growing and flowing to the oceans. When Greenland and Antarctica are assessed together, "their mass balance is considered to possibly increase the sea level by 0.03 mm/year - not much of an effect," Karlén concludes.
The Antarctica has survived warm and cold events over millions of years. A meltdown is simply not a realistic scenario in the foreseeable future.
Gore tells us in the film, "Starting in 1970, there was a precipitous drop-off in the amount and extent and thickness of the Arctic ice cap." This is misleading, according to Ball: "The survey that Gore cites was a single transect across one part of the Arctic basin in the month of October during the 1960s when we were in the middle of the cooling period. The 1990 runs were done in the warmer month of September, using a wholly different technology."
Karlén explains that a paper published in 2003 by University of Alaska professor Igor Polyakov shows that, the region of the Arctic where rising temperature is supposedly endangering polar bears showed fluctuations since 1940 but no overall temperature rise. "For several published records it is a decrease for the last 50 years," says Karlén
Dr. Dick Morgan, former advisor to the World Meteorological Organization and climatology researcher at University of Exeter, U.K. gives the details, "There has been some decrease in ice thickness in the Canadian Arctic over the past 30 years but no melt down. The Canadian Ice Service records show that from 1971-1981 there was average, to above average, ice thickness. From 1981-1982 there was a sharp decrease of 15% but there was a quick recovery to average, to slightly above average, values from 1983-1995. A sharp drop of 30% occurred again 1996-1998 and since then there has been a steady increase to reach near normal conditions since 2001."
Concerning Gore's beliefs about worldwide warming, Morgan points out that, in addition to the cooling in the NW Atlantic, massive areas of cooling are found in the North and South Pacific Ocean; the whole of the Amazon Valley; the north coast of South America and the Caribbean; the eastern Mediterranean, Black Sea, Caucasus and Red Sea; New Zealand and even the Ganges Valley in India. Morgan explains, "Had the IPCC used the standard parameter for climate change (the 30 year average) and used an equal area projection, instead of the Mercator (which doubled the area of warming in Alaska, Siberia and the Antarctic Ocean) warming and cooling would have been almost in balance."
Gore's point that 200 cities and towns in the American West set all time high temperature records is also misleading according to Dr. Roy Spencer, Principal Research Scientist at The University of Alabama in Huntsville. "It is not unusual for some locations, out of the thousands of cities and towns in the U.S., to set all-time records," he says. "The actual data shows that overall, recent temperatures in the U.S. were not unusual."
Carter does not pull his punches about Gore's activism, "The man is an embarrassment to US science and its many fine practitioners, a lot of whom know (but feel unable to state publicly) that his propaganda crusade is mostly based on junk science."
In April sixty of the world's leading experts in the field asked Prime Minister Harper to order a thorough public review of the science of climate change, something that has never happened in Canada. Considering what's at stake - either the end of civilization, if you believe Gore, or a waste of billions of dollars, if you believe his opponents - it seems like a reasonable request.
Tom Harris is mechanical engineer and Ottawa Director of High Park Group, a public affairs and public policy company.

Government "solutions" to High Gas Prices Cause More Problems

Sen. Bob Menendez, D-NJ, has come up with a solution to skyrocketing pump prices: He wants to suspend the federal tax on gasoline, saving motorists 18.4 cents a gallon.
But there's a catch. Democrats want to raise taxes on the big oil companies by an equal amount - a cost they'd inevitably pass along to the consumer.

The Menendez "gas tax holiday" would reduce the cost of regular gas as well as diesel, but it which would last just 60 days. Still, the move could save consumers $100 million dollars per day for as long as it lasts.

But according to the liberal web site Raw Story: "Democrats say the money will be made up by cutting six billion dollars in tax breaks to oil firms."

If the oil companies pass their new costs along without any carrying charges, it would cancel out all the savings to consumers under the Menendez plan.

If "Big Oil" wants to maintain the same profit margin, however, the companies would have to hike pump prices even further - and the Democrats' plan could actually end up costing motorists.

Worse still, where the Menendez "gas tax holiday" would be temporary, the tax hikes on oil companies would apparently be permanent.

The proposed Democrat tax increases include:

• A change in accounting methods that would increase the oil companies tax liability when prices rise. (Read: punish the oil companies for being too successful)
• Eliminating the tax break on the larger oil companies for accelerated depreciation of expenses associated with "geological and geophysical expenditures." (Read: decrease incentives for oil companies to drill for more oil - WTF?)
• The elimination of royalty relief and other direct spending for oil and gas production incentives. (Read: don't produce more, or you'll get punished)

When will people learn? The solution to market problems is not MORE government intervention, but LESS. LET THE MARKET FIX ITSELF.

Tony Blair's Speech, Part 2

The Hon David Hawker MP, Speaker of the House of Representatives; the Hon Paul Calvert, President of the Senate; the Hon John Howard MP, Prime Minister; The Hon Kim Beasley MP, Leader of the Opposition; Distinguished Members and Senators of the Parliament of Australia. Mr Speaker, I am grateful to you and to the Parliament of Australia for giving me the opportunity to address the Members and Senators who are gathered here in this superb Chamber.

It is good to see my old friend Kim, at whose feet I used to sit, back leading the Labor Party; and it is a privilege to be in the company of Prime Minister John Howard, whose steadfast leadership and firmness as an ally and friend has often given me cause to be deeply grateful.
Australia may not be in my blood; but it surely is in my spirit. My earliest memories are Australian. From the age of 2 til 5, I lived in Adelaide. I remember returning from the hospital where my sister Sarah had just been born, looking at her in the back of the old Austin we drove; running errands for our neighbour, Mr Trederay; taking showers under the garden hose in the heat on the lawn; visiting friends up country in the Adelaide hills; and being chased by magpies as I ran across the open ground near our home, early training for later skirmishes with the media. At Uni, I was reintroduced to religion by an Australian, Peter Thomson; and introduced to politics by another Geoff Gallop, both dear friends to this day. I've been back many times. I love the people; love the place; always have and always will. Australia is just a very special place to be.

We all are familiar with our shared history; and our shared sporting passion and rivalry. The English victory in the Ashes was like a carnival of celebration, perhaps as much for its rarity value. At the Commonwealth Games in Melbourne, you once again showed the world, the exuberance and sheer style that is modern Australia. You also won rather more than the rest of us.

I wrote a speech once about how Britain had to become a "young country" again and it was Australia I had in mind.

Today I like to think we share a lot more than history and endeavour on the playing fields. We share an outlook to life. We are both confident, outward bound, and "up for it" type of nations.
This is a world in the course of choosing. Underneath its daily tumult - the stories of strife and sensation that blast their way into our consciousness - we are in struggle of a more profound kind.

Globalisation is a fact.

But the values that govern it are a choice.

We know the values we believe in: democracy and the rule of law; also justice, the simple conviction that, given a fair go, human beings can better themselves and the world around them. These are the values our two countries live by; and others would live by, if they had the chance.

But we believe in more than that. We believe that the changes happening in the world that make it more integrated, the globalisation that with unblinking speed re-shapes our lives, is an opportunity as much as a risk. We are open societies. We feel enriched by diversity. We welcome dynamism and are tolerant of difference.

Left and right still matter hugely in politics and the divergence can sometimes be sharp. But the defining division in countries and between people is increasingly open or closed; open to the changing world or fearful, hunkered down, seeing the menace of it not the possibility.
This is the age of the inter-connected. We all recognise this when it comes to economics, communication and culture. But the same applies to politics.

The struggle in our world today therefore is not just about security, it is a struggle about values and about modernity - whether to be at ease with it or in rage at it.
To win, we have to win the battle of values, as much as arms. We have to show these are not western still less American or Anglo-Saxon values but values in the common ownership of humanity, universal values that should be the right of the global citizen.

This is the challenge.

Ranged against us are the people who hate us; but beyond them are many more who don't hate us but question our motives, our good faith, our even-handedness, who could support our values but believe we support them selectively.

These are the people we have to persuade.

They have to know this is about justice and fairness as well as security and prosperity.
And in truth there is no prosperity without security; and no security without justice. That is the consequence of an inter-connected world.

That is why we cannot say we are an open society and close our markets to the trade justice the poorest of the world demand.

Why we cannot easily bring peace to the Middle East unless we resolve the question of Israel and Palestine.

Why we cannot say we favour freedom but sit by whilst millions in Africa die and millions more are denied the very basics of life.

If we want to secure our way of life, there is no alternative but to fight for it. That means standing up for our values not just in our own country but the world over. We need to construct a global alliance for these global values; and act through it.

Inactivity is just as much a policy, with its own results. It's just the wrong one.

The immediate threat is from Islamist extremism. You mourn your victims from Bali as we do ours and those from July 7 last year in London. We can add to them victims from Madrid, or September 11 in the US. But, this terrorism did not begin on the streets of New York. It simply came to our notice then. Its victims are to be found in the recent history of many lands from Russia and India, but also Algeria, Pakistan, Libya, Saudi Arabia, Yemen, Indonesia, Kenya and countless more.

And though its active cadres of terrorists are relatively small, it is exploiting a far wider sense of alienation in the Arab and Muslim world.

We will not defeat this terror until we face up to the fact that its roots are deep, and that it is not a passing spasm of anger, but a global ideology at war with us and our way of life.
Their case is that democracy is a western concept we are forcing on an unwilling culture of Islam. The problem we have is that a part of opinion in our own countries agrees with them.
We are in danger of completely misunderstanding the importance of what is happening as we speak in Iraq and Afghanistan. Our troops, British and Australian are along side each other; and I know whatever our views on either conflict, we are all deeply proud of the commitment, dedication and bravery of our armed forces.

But in each case, we have nations engaged in a titanic struggle to be free of a legacy of oppression, stagnation and servitude. In each case, its people have, for the first time, been offered a choice to vote. In each case, they have seized it, despite obstacles we can scarcely imagine. What better symbol of hope, and of belief in the values, we too hold dear.
But in each case also, the forces of reaction are at work, trying through the most evil of means, terrorism - the slaughter of the innocent because they are innocent - to destroy this hope.
I know the Iraq war split this nation as it did mine. And I have never disrespected those who disagreed with me over it.

But for almost 3 years now we have been in Iraq with full UN support. From the outset our forces in Afghanistan have been there with UN authority. In both cases, there is the full support of democratically elected governments.

Every reactionary element is lined up to fight us. They know if they lose, a message is sent out across the Muslim world, that strikes at the heart of their ideology. So they are fighting hard.
We must not hesitate in the face of a battle utterly decisive in whether the values we believe in, triumph or fail. Here are Iraqi and Afghan Muslims saying clearly: democracy is as much our right as yours; and in embracing it, showing that they too want a society in which people of different cultures and faith can live together in peace. This struggle is our struggle.
If the going is tough - we tough it out. This is not a time to walk away. This is a time for the courage to see it through.

But though it is where military action has been taken that the battle is most fierce, it will not be won by victory there alone.

Wherever people live in fear, with no prospect of advance, we should be on their side; in solidarity with them, whether in Sudan, Zimbabwe, Burma, North Korea; and where countries, and there are many in the Middle East today, are in the process of democratic development, we should extend a helping hand.

This requires, across the board an active foreign policy of engagement not isolation. It cannot be achieved without a strong alliance. This alliance does not end with, but it does begin with America. For us in Europe and for you, this alliance is central. And I want to speak plainly here. I do not always agree with the US. Sometimes they can be difficult friends to have. But the strain of, frankly, anti-American feeling in parts of European politics is madness when set against the long-term interests of the world we believe in. The danger with America today is not that they are too much involved. The danger is they decide to pull up the drawbridge and disengage. We need them involved. We want them engaged.

The reality is that none of the problems that press in on us, can be resolved or even contemplated without them.

Our task is to ensure that with them, we do not limit the agenda to security. If our security lies in our values and our values are about justice and fairness as well as freedom from fear, then the agenda must be more than security and the alliance include more than America.

Once the Israeli election has taken place, we must redouble our efforts to find a way to the only solution that works: a secure state of Israel and a viable, independent Palestinian state.

We must continue to mobilise the resources and will to turn the commitments of 2005 into action to combat the ravages of conflict, famine and disease in Africa where millions, literally millions, die every year preventably.

We must focus on the threat of climate change, now made all the more acute by anxiety over energy supply. I know there are disagreements here. We strongly support Kyoto. You did not. But we need also to look to the future now. You have the Asia-Pacific Partnership. We inaugurated the G8+5 Gleneagles dialogue. There is the UN process after Montreal. At some point we must bring it all together. There will be no agreement worth having that does not involve the US, China and India as well as the rest of us. There will be no resolution without a clear, disciplined framework for action, with measurable outcomes. And there will be no forgiving of any of us if we do not pay attention to the degrading and polluting of our planet.
Then, in the immediate term, we are confronted with the World Trade Round. Again, the issue is: open or closed. People in our countries look at the rise of China, the emergence of India; they see the competition; fear the loss of jobs and push back.

Everywhere you look today the tide of protectionist sentiment is flowing. In this WTO trade round, we have the opportunity to make it ebb. At stake, obviously is our commitment on world poverty and development. But also in the balance, is the very idea of multilateral action to achieve common goals. If we can't put a decent trade round in place, when it is so plain that our long-term national interest and the wider interests of the world demand it, this will be a failure with multiple consequences, all of them adverse.

Europe's agricultural protection is a policy born of another age and it's time to end it. But change in Europe alone is not the answer. America must open up. Japan, too. And in non-agricultural market access we look to leadership from Brazil and India. And we must agree a development package for the poorest that includes 100% market access and aid for trade.
This is a cause of prosperity - because we all benefit from open markets; of justice, because the poorest nations need to be able to stand on their own two feet and trade in our markets; and of self-interest, because if we want to build the right relationship with China, the sensible thing is to bind them into the world economy, not put them in opposition to it.

And if all this were not enough, we have to fight for our values here at home too. Both our nations have been formed in part by waves of migration. Today's world is a world on the move. We need rules to ensure such migration is fair. But both Britain and Australia have long since gotten over the fear that different ethnic groups damage our identity or put our cohesion at risk. Today we take pride in our diversity. We know tolerance, respect for others, and a basic way of life founded on democratic freedoms are held in common by the vast majority of our people, whatever their race or creed. When the terrorists struck, Britain and Australia reacted in the same way. We did not turn on Muslims; we united against terrorists. In doing so, we sent out a signal of belief; and the world heard it.

This is a big agenda. It means action on all fronts. There will be many insidious and persuasive voices that urge us to stay in our comfort zone, high in the stands and watch the field of play. It is tempting and yet I don't believe our countries will ever truly prefer spectating to playing. We naturally get stuck in. It's our way. It's certainly always been yours.

In 1939, when Britain declared war on the Nazi tyranny, that same day your Prime Minister announced you were at war too. No ifs, no buts, just solidly with the world. How magnificent and how typical. We needed you then. We need you now. This is a struggle of a very different nature, but it will determine our collective future. It is one, together, we can win.

Tony Blair's Speech on Civilization, part 1

Over these past nine years, Britain has pursued a markedly different foreign policy. We have been strongly activist, justifying our actions, even if not always successfully, at least as much by reference to values as interests. We have constructed a foreign policy agenda that has sought to link, in values, military action in Kosovo, Sierra Leone, Afghanistan and Iraq with diplomatic action on climate change, world trade, Africa and Palestine. I set out the basis for this in the Chicago speech of 1999 where I called for a doctrine of international community, and again in the speech to the US Congress in July 2003.

The basic thesis is that the defining characteristic of today's world is its interdependence; that whereas the economics of globalisation are well matured, the politics of globalisation are not; and that unless we articulate a common global policy based on common values, we risk chaos threatening our stability, economic and political, through letting extremism, conflict or injustice go unchecked.

The consequence of this thesis is a policy of engagement not isolation; and one that is active not reactive.

Confusingly, its proponents and opponents come from all sides of the political spectrum. So it is apparently a "neo-conservative" ie right wing view, to be ardently in favour of spreading democracy round the world; whilst others on the right take the view that this is dangerous and deluded - the only thing that matters is an immediate view of national interest. Some progressives see intervention as humanitarian and necessary; others take the view that provided dictators don't threaten our citizens directly, what they do with their own, is up to them.

The debate on world trade has thrown all sides into an orgy of political cross-dressing. Protectionist sentiment is rife on the left; on the right, there are calls for "economic patriotism"; meanwhile some voices left and right, are making the case for free trade not just on grounds of commerce but of justice.

The true division in foreign policy today is between: those who want the shop "open", or those who want it "closed"; those who believe that the long-term interests of a country lie in it being out there, engaged, interactive and those who think the short-term pain of such a policy and its decisions, too great. This division has strong echoes in debates not just over foreign policy and trade but also over immigration.

Progressives may implement policy differently from conservatives, but the fault lines are the same.

Where progressive and conservative policy can differ is that progressives are stronger on the challenges of poverty, climate change and trade justice. I have no doubt at all it is impossible to gain support for our values, unless the demand for justice is as strong as the demand for freedom; and the willingness to work in partnership with others is an avowed preference to going it alone, even if that may sometimes be necessary.

I believe we will not ever get real support for the tough action that may well be essential to safeguard our way of life; unless we also attack global poverty and environmental degradation or injustice with equal vigour.

Neither in defending this interventionist policy do I pretend that mistakes have not been made or that major problems do not confront us and there are many areas in which we have not intervened as effectively as I would wish, even if only by political pressure. Sudan, for example; the appalling deterioration in the conditions of the people of Zimbabwe; human rights in Burma; the virtual enslavement of the people of North Korea.

I also acknowledge - and shall at a later time expand on this point - that the state of the MEPP and the stand-off between Israel and Palestine remains a, perhaps the, real, genuine source of anger in the Arab and Muslim world that goes far beyond usual anti-western feeling. The issue of "even handedness" rankles deeply. I will set out later how we should respond to Hamas in a way that acknowledges its democratic mandate but seeks to make progress peacefully.
So this is not an attempt to deflect criticism or ignore the huge challenges which remain; but to set out the thinking behind the foreign policy we have pursued.

Over the next few weeks, I will outline the implication of this agenda in three speeches, including this one. In this, the first, I will describe how I believe we can defeat global terrorism and why I believe victory for democracy in Iraq and Afghanistan is a vital element of doing that. In the second, I shall outline the importance of a broad global alliance to achieve our common goals. In the third, in America, I shall say how the international institutions need radical reform to make them capable of implementing such an agenda, in a strong and effective multilateral way. But throughout all three, I want to stress why this concept of an international community, based on core, shared values, prepared actively to intervene and resolve problems, is an essential pre-condition of our future prosperity and stability.

It is in confronting global terrorism today that the sharpest debate and disagreement is found. Nowhere is the supposed "folly" of the interventionist case so loudly trumpeted as in this case. Here, so it is said, as the third anniversary of the Iraq conflict takes place, is the wreckage of such a world view. Under Saddam Iraq was "stable". Now its stability is in the balance. Ergo, it should never have been done.

This is essentially the product of the conventional view of foreign policy since the fall of the Berlin Wall. This view holds that there is no longer a defining issue in foreign policy. Countries should therefore manage their affairs and relationships according to their narrow national interests. The basic posture represented by this view is: not to provoke, to keep all as settled as it can be and cause no tectonic plates to move. It has its soft face in dealing with issues like global warming or Africa; and reserves its hard face only if directly attacked by another state, which is unlikely. It is a view which sees the world as not without challenge but basically calm, with a few nasty things lurking in deep waters, which it is best to avoid; but no major currents that inevitably threaten its placid surface. It believes the storms have been largely self-created.
This is the majority view of a large part of western opinion, certainly in Europe. According to this opinion, the policy of America since 9/11 has been a gross overreaction; George Bush is as much if not more of a threat to world peace as Osama bin Laden; and what is happening in Iraq, Afghanistan or anywhere else in the Middle East, is an entirely understandable consequence of US/UK imperialism or worse, of just plain stupidity. Leave it all alone or at least treat it with sensitivity and it would all resolve itself in time; "it" never quite being defined, but just generally felt as anything that causes disruption.

This world view - which I would characterise as a doctrine of benign inactivity - sits in the commentator's seat, almost as a matter of principle. It has imposed a paradigm on world events that is extraordinary in its attraction and its scope. As we speak, Iraq is facing a crucial moment in its history: to unify and progress, under a government elected by its people for the first time in half a century; or to descend into sectarian strife, bringing a return to certain misery for millions. In Afghanistan, the same life choice for a nation, is being played out. And in many Arab and Muslim states, similar, though less publicised, struggles for democracy dominate their politics.

The effect of this paradigm is to see each setback in Iraq or Afghanistan, each revolting terrorist barbarity, each reverse for the forces of democracy or advance for the forces of tyranny as merely an illustration of the foolishness of our ever being there; as a reason why Saddam should have been left in place or the Taliban free to continue their alliance with Al Qaida. Those who still justify the interventions are treated with scorn.

Then, when terrorists strike in the nations like Britain or Spain, who supported such action, there is a groundswell of opinion formers keen to say, in effect, that it's hardly surprising - after all, if we do this to "their" countries, is it any wonder they do it to "ours"?
So the statement that Iraq or Afghanistan or Palestine or indeed Chechnya, Kashmir or half a dozen other troublespots is seen by extremists as fertile ground for their recruiting - a statement of the obvious - is elided with the notion that we have "caused" such recruitment or made terrorism worse, a notion that, on any sane analysis, has the most profound implications for democracy.

The easiest line for any politician seeking office in the West today is to attack American policy. A couple of weeks ago as I was addressing young Slovak students, one got up, denouncing US/UK policy in Iraq, fully bought in to the demonisation of the US, utterly oblivious to the fact that without the US and the liberation of his country, he would have been unable to ask such a question, let alone get an answer to it.

There is an interesting debate going on inside government today about how to counter extremism in British communities. Ministers have been advised never to use the term "Islamist extremist". It will give offence. It is true. It will. There are those - perfectly decent-minded people - who say the extremists who commit these acts of terrorism are not true Muslims. And, of course, they are right. They are no more proper Muslims than the Protestant bigot who murders a Catholic in Northern Ireland is a proper Christian. But, unfortunately, he is still a "Protestant" bigot. To say his religion is irrelevant is both completely to misunderstand his motive and to refuse to face up to the strain of extremism within his religion that has given rise to it.

Yet, in respect of radical Islam, the paradigm insists that to say what is true, is to provoke, to show insensitivity, to demonstrate the same qualities of purblind ignorance that leads us to suppose that Muslims view democracy or liberty in the same way we do.
Just as it lets go unchallenged the frequent refrain that it is to be expected that Muslim opinion will react violently to the invasion of Iraq: after all it is a Muslim country. Thus, the attitude is: we understand your sense of grievance; we acknowledge your anger at the invasion of a Muslim country; but to strike back through terrorism is wrong.

It is a posture of weakness, defeatism and most of all, deeply insulting to every Muslim who believes in freedom ie the majority. Instead of challenging the extremism, this attitude panders to it and therefore instead of choking it, feeds its growth.

None of this means, incidentally, that the invasion of Iraq or Afghanistan was right; merely that it is nonsense to suggest it was done because the countries are Muslim.

I recall the video footage of Mohammed Sadiq Khan, the man who was the ringleader of the 7/7 bombers. There he was, complaining about the suppression of Muslims, the wickedness of America and Britain, calling on all fellow Muslims to fight us. And I thought: here is someone, brought up in this country, free to practise his religion, free to speak out, free to vote, with a good standard of living and every chance to raise a family in a decent way of life, talking about "us", the British, when his whole experience of "us" has been the very opposite of the message he is preaching. And in so far as he is angry about Muslims in Iraq or Afghanistan let Iraqi or Afghan Muslims decide whether to be angry or not by ballot.

There was something tragic, terrible but also ridiculous about such a diatribe. He may have been born here. But his ideology wasn't. And that is why it has to be taken on, everywhere.
This terrorism will not be defeated until its ideas, the poison that warps the minds of its adherents, are confronted, head-on, in their essence, at their core. By this I don't mean telling them terrorism is wrong. I mean telling them their attitude to America is absurd; their concept of governance pre-feudal; their positions on women and other faiths, reactionary and regressive; and then since only by Muslims can this be done: standing up for and supporting those within Islam who will tell them all of this but more, namely that the extremist view of Islam is not just theologically backward but completely contrary to the spirit and teaching of the Koran.

But in order to do this, we must reject the thought that somehow we are the authors of our own distress; that if only we altered this decision or that, the extremism would fade away. The only way to win is: to recognise this phenomenon is a global ideology; to see all areas, in which it operates, as linked; and to defeat it by values and ideas set in opposition to those of the terrorists.

The roots of global terrorism and extremism are indeed deep. They reach right down through decades of alienation, victimhood and political oppression in the Arab and Muslim world. Yet this is not and never has been inevitable. The most remarkable thing about reading the Koran - in so far as it can be truly translated from the original Arabic - is to understand how progressive it is. I speak with great diffidence and humility as a member of another faith. I am not qualified to make any judgements. But as an outsider, the Koran strikes me as a reforming book, trying to return Judaism and Christianity to their origins, rather as reformers attempted with the Christian Church centuries later. It is inclusive. It extols science and knowledge and abhors superstition. It is practical and way ahead of its time in attitudes to marriage, women and governance.

Under its guidance, the spread of Islam and its dominance over previously Christian or pagan lands was breathtaking. Over centuries it founded an Empire, leading the world in discovery, art and culture. The standard bearers of tolerance in the early Middle Ages were far more likely to be found in Muslim lands than in Christian.

This is not the place to digress into a history of what subsequently happened. But by the early 20th century, after renaissance, reformation and enlightenment had swept over the Western world, the Muslim and Arab world was uncertain, insecure and on the defensive. Some countries like Turkey went for a muscular move to secularism. Others found themselves caught between colonisation, nascent nationalism, political oppression and religious radicalism. Muslims began to see the sorry state of Muslim countries as symptomatic of the sorry state of Islam.

Political radicals became religious radicals and vice versa. Those in power tried to accommodate the resurgent Islamic radicalism by incorporating some of its leaders and some of its ideology. The result was nearly always disastrous. The religious radicalism was made respectable; the political radicalism suppressed and so in the minds of many, the cause of the two came together to symbolise the need for change. So many came to believe that the way of restoring the confidence and stability of Islam was the combination of religious extremism and populist politics.

The true enemies became "the West" and those Islamic leaders who co-operated with them.
The extremism may have started through religious doctrine and thought. But soon, in offshoots of the Muslim brotherhood, supported by Wahabi extremists and taught in some of the Madrassas of the Middle East and Asia, an ideology was born and exported around the world.
The worst terrorist act was 9/11 in New York and Washington DC in 2001, where three thousand people were murdered. But the reality is that many more had already died not just in acts of terrorism against Western interests, but in political insurrection and turmoil round the world. Over 100,000 died in Algeria. In Chechnya and Kashmir political causes that could have been resolved became brutally incapable of resolution under the pressure of terrorism. Today, in well over 30 or 40 countries terrorists are plotting action loosely linked with this ideology. Its roots are not superficial, therefore, they are deep, embedded now in the culture of many nations and capable of an eruption at any time.

The different aspects of this terrorism are linked. The struggle against terrorism in Madrid or London or Paris is the same as the struggle against the terrorist acts of Hezbollah in Lebanon or the PIJ in Palestine or rejectionist groups in Iraq. The murder of the innocent in Beslan is part of the same ideology that takes innocent lives in Saudi Arabia, the Yemen or Libya. And when Iran gives support to such terrorism, it becomes part of the same battle with the same ideology at its heart.

True the conventional view is that, for example, Iran is hostile to Al Qaida and therefore would never support its activities. But as we know from our own history of conflict, under the pressure of battle, alliances shift and change. Fundamentally, for this ideology, we are the enemy.
Which brings me to the fundamental point. "We" is not the West. "We" are as much Muslim as Christian or Jew or Hindu. "We" are those who believe in religious tolerance, openness to others, to democracy, liberty and human rights administered by secular courts.
This is not a clash between civilisations. It is a clash about civilisation. It is the age-old battle between progress and reaction, between those who embrace and see opportunity in the modern world and those who reject its existence; between optimism and hope on the one hand; and pessimism and fear on the other. And in the era of globalisation where nations depend on each other and where our security is held in common or not at all, the outcome of this clash between extremism and progress is utterly determinative of our future here in Britain. We can no more opt out of this struggle than we can opt out of the climate changing around us. Inaction, pushing the responsibility on to America, deluding ourselves that this terrorism is an isolated series of individual incidents rather than a global movement and would go away if only we were more sensitive to its pretensions; this too is a policy. It is just that; it is a policy that is profoundly, fundamentally wrong.

And this is why the position of so much opinion on how to defeat this terrorism and on the continuing struggle in Iraq and Afghanistan and the Middle East is, in my judgement, so mistaken.

It ignores the true significance of the elections in Iraq and Afghanistan. The fact is: given the chance, the people wanted democracy. OK so they voted on religious or regional lines. That's not surprising, given the history. But there's not much doubt what all the main parties in both countries would prefer and it is neither theocratic nor secular dictatorship. The people - despite violence, intimidation, inexperience and often logistical nightmares - voted. Not a few. But in numbers large enough to shame many western democracies. They want Government decided by the people.

And who is trying to stop them? In Iraq, a mixture of foreign Jihadists, former Saddamists and rejectionist insurgents. In Afghanistan, a combination of drug barons, Taliban and Al Qaida.
In each case, US, UK and the forces of many other nations are there to help the indigenous security forces grow, to support the democratic process and to provide some clear bulwark against the terrorism that threatens it. In each case, full UN authority is in place. There was and is a debate about the legality of the original decision to remove Saddam. But since May 2003, the MNF has been in Iraq under a UN resolution and with the authority of the first ever elected Government. In Afghanistan throughout, UN authority has been in place.
In both countries, the armed forces and police service are taking shape so that in time a democratically elected government has, under its control, sufficient power to do the will of the democratic state. In each case again, people die queuing up to join such forces, determined whatever the risk, to be part of a new and different dispensation.

Of course, and wholly wrongly, there are abuses of human rights, mistakes made, things done that should not be done. There always were. But at least this time, someone demands redress; people are free to complain.

So here, in its most pure form, is a struggle between democracy and violence. People look back on the three years since the Iraq conflict; they point to the precarious nature of Iraq today and to those who have died - mainly in terrorist acts - and they say: how can it have been worth it?
But there is a different question to ask: why is it so important to the forces of reaction and violence to halt Iraq in its democratic tracks and tip it into sectarian war? Why do foreign terrorists from Al Qaida and its associates go across the border to kill and maim? Why does Syria not take stronger action to prevent them? Why does Iran meddle so furiously in the stability of Iraq?

Examine the propaganda poured into the minds of Arabs and Muslims. Every abuse at Abu Ghraib is exposed in detail; of course it is unacceptable but it is as if the only absence of due process in that part of the world is in prisons run by the Americans. Every conspiracy theory - from seizing Iraqi oil to imperial domination - is largely dusted down and repeated.
Why? The answer is that the reactionary elements know the importance of victory or defeat in Iraq. Right from the beginning, to them it was obvious. For sure, errors were made on our side. It is arguable that de-Baathification went too quickly and was spread too indiscriminately, especially amongst the armed forces. Though in parenthesis, the real worry, back in 2003 was a humanitarian crisis, which we avoided; and the pressure was all to de-Baathify faster.

But the basic problem from the murder of the United Nations staff in August 2003 onwards was simple: security. The reactionary elements were trying to de-rail both reconstruction and democracy by violence. Power and electricity became problems not through the indolence of either Iraqis or the MNF but through sabotage. People became frightened through terrorism and through criminal gangs, some deliberately released by Saddam.

These were not random acts. They were and are a strategy. When that strategy failed to push the MNF out of Iraq prematurely and failed to stop the voting; they turned to sectarian killing and outrage most notably February's savage and blasphemous destruction of the Shia Shrine at Samarra.

They know that if they can succeed either in Iraq or Afghanistan or indeed in Lebanon or anywhere else wanting to go the democratic route, then the choice of a modern democratic future for the Arab or Muslim world is dealt a potentially mortal blow. Likewise if they fail, and those countries become democracies and make progress and, in the case of Iraq, prosper rapidly as it would; then not merely is that a blow against their whole value system; but it is the most effective message possible against their wretched propaganda about America, the West, the rest of the world.

That to me is the painful irony of what is happening. They have so much clearer a sense of what is at stake. They play our own media with a shrewdness that would be the envy of many a political party. Every act of carnage adds to the death toll. But somehow it serves to indicate our responsibility for disorder, rather than the act of wickedness that causes it. For us, so much of our opinion believes that what was done in Iraq in 2003 was so wrong, that it is reluctant to accept what is plainly right now.

What happens in Iraq or Afghanistan today is not just crucial for the people in those countries or even in those regions; but for our security here and round the world. It is a cause that has none of the debatable nature of the decisions to go for regime change; it is an entirely noble one - to help people in need of our help in pursuit of liberty; and a self-interested one, since in their salvation lies our own security.

Naturally, the debate over the wisdom of the original decisions, especially in respect of Iraq will continue. Opponents will say Iraq was never a threat; there were no WMD; the drug trade in Afghanistan continues. I will point out Iraq was indeed a threat as two regional wars, 14 UN resolutions and the final report of the Iraq Survey Group show; that in the aftermath of the Iraq War we secured major advances on WMD not least the new relationship with Libya and the shutting down of the AQ Khan network; and that it was the Taliban who manipulated the drug trade and in any event housed Al Qaida and its training camps.

But whatever the conclusion to this debate, if there ever is one, the fact is that now, whatever the rights and wrongs of how and why Saddam and the Taliban were removed, there is an obvious, clear and overwhelming reason for supporting the people of those countries in their desire for democracy.

I might point out too that in both countries supporters of the ideology represented by Saddam and Mullah Omar are free to stand in elections and on the rare occasions they dare to do so, don't win many votes.

Across the Arab and Muslim world such a struggle for democracy and liberty continues. One reason I am so passionate about Turkey's membership of the EU is precisely because it enhances the possibility of a good outcome to such a struggle. It should be our task to empower and support those in favour of uniting Islam and democracy, everywhere.

To do this, we must fight the ideas of the extremists, not just their actions; and stand up for and not walk away from those engaged in a life or death battle for freedom. The fact of their courage in doing so should give us courage; their determination should lend us strength; their embrace of democratic values, which do not belong to any race, religion or nation, but are universal, should reinforce our own confidence in those values.

Shortly after Saddam fell, I met in London a woman who after years of exile - and there were 4 million such exiles - had returned to Iraq to participate in modern politics there. A couple of months later, she was assassinated, one of the first to be so. I cannot tell what she would say now. But I do know it would not be: give up. She would not want her sacrifice for her beliefs to be in vain.

Two years later the same ideology killed people on the streets of London, and for the same reason. To stop cultures, faiths and races living in harmony; to deter those who see greater openness to others as a mark of humanity's progress; to disrupt the very thing that makes London special would in time, if allowed to, set Iraq on a course of progress too.
This is, ultimately, a battle about modernity. Some of it can only be conducted and won within Islam itself. But don't let us in our desire not to speak of what we can only imperfectly understand; or our wish not to trespass on sensitive feelings, end up accepting the premise of the very people fighting us.

The extremism is not the true voice of Islam. Neither is that voice necessarily to be found in those who are from one part only of Islamic thought, however assertively that voice makes itself heard. It is, as ever, to be found in the calm, but too often unheard beliefs of the many Muslims, millions of them the world over, including in Europe, who want what we all want: to be ourselves free and for others to be free also; who regard tolerance as a virtue and respect for the faith of others as part of our own faith. That is what this battle is about, within Islam and outside of it; it is a battle of values and progress; and therefore it is one we must win.

Is Delaware Really THE State to Incorporate In?

Delaware’s law no longer provides an advantage in major areas of corporate law over states that have adopted the Model Corporations Act. The only advantage left for Delaware’s corporate law is at the margins of corporate law. Most other statutory areas of corporate law have converged and now quickly follow Delaware’s lead in adopting new rules and standards as unique situations arise. However, those new adoptions are at the judicial level, as Delaware has become slower in passing new corporate governance statutes. Delaware has allowed other states to experiment, and then take what works best.
Most (as did I until recently) assume that Delaware is the leader in corporate law because of its superiority. While true in some aspects, such as its early, mid-20th century innovation, and the ability to maintain a large body of corporate law expert judges, Delaware seems to have fallen behind, and it is only because of its current monopoly position that it remains the jurisdictional choice for incorporating firms. The natural monopoly suggested by the authors does seem to ring true – after all, the vast majority of the Fortune 500 has incorporated there. Thus, new companies willing to compete with the larger, established corporations will likely follow suit and copy. Those lawyers that corporations (both established and newly formed) hire to advise them basically have two choices: the laws of their home state or of Delaware. While the article suggests that the laws of the home state may be superior, or, at least newer, than that of the DGCL, the poor performance of the home state courts and their lack of corporate expertise swing the decision to incorporating in Delaware.
The Delaware Chancery Court’s existence does seem to swing the decision of which state to incorporate in towards Delaware and its arguably more obsolete statutory code. This is surprising, especially since the Delaware Courts have seemed to muck up the clearness of Delaware’s laws to a point where more litigation is likely to occur. Furthermore, the Delaware Supreme Court’s frequent overturning of the Chancery Courts (twenty-five percent of Chancery decisions are overturned or remanded) adds more confusion as their self-imposed lack of dissent leads to major swings. Different panels of Supreme Court judges possess different corporate law experience and philosophies, and the decisions by those panels tend to show exaggerated shifts in philosophy, thereby reducing the ability of Delaware law to be consistently interpreted. Furthermore, even the chancery court has propagated non-brightline rules that make it difficult for transactional lawyers to advise their clients with any confidence. Those rules and standards that the Delaware courts do publish are more in line with the judge’s litigation backgrounds and evoke terms such as “fundamental fairness” that require litigants to argue about meaning, instead of more bright line rules.
The “corporate expertise” of Delaware Chancery and Supreme Court judges may be overstated as well, thus adding another reason why Delaware should not maintain its dominant legal position. Vice Chancellor Strine has admitted that Delaware judges do not even adopt common finance definitions for “fair market value” and instead consider policy when interpreting share value. This has led to perverse economic results, where some shareholders have purchased shares after a deal was announced (which would ordinarily immediately capture all of the value to the current shareholders) and still making 325% returns. Thus, it seems that even after a “great deal” was announced, activist shareholders, or at least those willing to buy and engage in litigation, could drive up the costs of the deal and profit, while punishing the acquirer who would be forced to pay more than the deal was though to cost.
Outside of the courts, the cost of incorporation seems akin to the excess value captured by monopolists from the mere fact of their dominant position. Franchise fees and taxes in Delaware run into the hundreds of thousands of dollars, and can be as high as .5% of a company’s value. Corporations in other states, such as Kansas, in contrast, pay as little as $40 in franchise fees. One could argue that you get what you pay for – if you want the benefit of Delaware statutes and its court system, you have to pay for it. However, what I have written above concerning the author’s positions does make a compelling case that a corporation is not receiving the benefit of its consideration. Instead, Delaware Corporations are paying for the comparative benefit that Delaware possessed ten, twenty, even fifty years ago, over other states. Delaware, if indeed in a monopolist position, can continue to exact these large rents while not providing cutting edge, innovative legal products to its corporate customers.
Overall, it appears that Delaware will continue to maintain its dominant position over other states in spite of all the reasons why it should not, or at least not undergo a massive restructuring. “Clearing house,” so to speak, of all previous and confusing Delaware decisions and starting over with a new code seems appealing, but is not practical. After all, Delaware is not faced with significant competition, even though some of the products that its competitor states are offering in terms of statutory clarity may be superior. If Delaware were to “start over,” it would then not have any legitimate reason to charge its corporate customers absurdly high franchise fees because those corporate customers could obtain similar statutory services in other states.

California Continues to Lag the Nation in Business

The Tax Foundation's annual report is out. As usual, California is among the worst state climates for business - although we're only 40th in the nation, as opposed to 45th and 46th the last 2 years. The Foundation makes a very simple point that seems to escape the folks up in Sacramento:

The modern market is characterized by mobile capital and labor. Therefore, companies will locate where they have the greatest competitive advantage. States with the best tax systems will be most competitive in attracting new businesses and be the most effective at generating economic and employment growth.

To be sure, globalization is an issue. But the powers that be in California ought to be more worried about the fact that right next door in Nevada is the 5th best business tax climate in the country. Yet, despite all this, Rob Reiner wants to increase income taxes for the "wealthy" - which directly impacts small businesses, whose owners pay ordinary income taxes on their earnings - by $2.4 billion. (See the aptlynamed StopReiner.org)

Another email from Phil in Iraq

A week has passed since I got back off leave, so I figured it was time for another update.

It probably sounds boring, but I spend about 75 percent of my time here doing staff work. I try to get out on missions every few days, but only if I’m current on my paperwork. The reality is that my job is about planning, coordinating, and managing operations much more than actually doing them. So from the time I wake up (around 7) to the time I go to bed (around 10 or 11), I spend the majority of the time in meetings or in front of my laptop, hooked up to the classified intranet, doing staff work. Today went just like that. I woke up, brewed a pot of Peet’s coffee, and checked my classified e-mail for stuff that came in last night. Then I started updating a 40-slide PowerPoint briefing that we use to capture all of the Iraqi police and emergency call center data for the province. That meant gathering a bunch of information from our station assessments, figuring out the right way to graphically depict the data, and then cross-checking it against some other assessments that we’ve done. After finishing that, I hammered out some small tasks like scheduling a couple of guys for a helo flight. And then I spent the afternoon working on an operations order tasking our subordinate military police platoons with a couple of upcoming missions. Small wonder my ops sergeant (a burly cop from the NYPD) gave me a hug when I came back off leave; he was glad to have someone to shoulder all this paperwork so he could do the fun stuff again. I try to get out on missions at least once or twice a week to break the monotony, and also to get a feel for how operations are going out in the field. 3-4 missions a week would be better. But at this point, one week back from leave, it doesn’t look like I’ll get nearly as much field time as I’d like. Oh well.

A couple of new faces have shown up in the last few weeks. My favorite is this new interpreter that everyone calls “Doc”. Everyone calls him that because he has a doctorate in law and was a law professor under the old regime. He speaks English very well and is a very interesting guy. He’s shared a bunch of war stories about his time as a criminal defense attorney under the old regime, and he’s always trying to engage me in some deep theoretical, academic discussion about “the law”. I think he’s more of an intellectual than just about anyone I’ve met in Iraq. Even though I usually don’t have time for his discussions, I really like them so I usually blow off whatever I’m working on to talk with Doc for a few minutes. He studied and taught comparative law, so he has a really unique perspective on the old and new Iraqi legal systems. Technically, he works for a U.S. government contractor as an interpreter, but we’ve already made him our informal legal adviser because he’s so knowledgeable and personable. And, if all goes well, I’m going to co-opt him into teaching law classes for Iraqi police so that we can leverage his expertise to train them on the basics of law enforcement and criminal procedure.

We’ve had a fair number of visitors pass through here recently. General George Casey, the top commander in Iraq, stopped by for an hour or so. Not to meet with us, of course. He was here to meet with the provincial governor and a number of the other Iraqi leaders who work on this compound. Still, it’s always high adventure when you have a 4-star general officer coming through. He travels with a large enough entourage where we were worried that we’d have enough parking on our postage stamp of a compound for all the trucks (we did), and we had no idea what sort of welcome he’d want from us (none, as it turned out). A few hours beforehand, we thought we might have to wave the whole thing off because one of our sentries spotted a bag with what he thought were protruding wires just outside the entrance to the compound. We called out the Iraqi police bomb disposal team – who sometimes have more guts than brains – to check it out. Their preferred technique is to walk up to a suspected bomb and kick it. That’s exactly what one of them did, finding that it was just a bag of trash. As he walked back, the Iraqi cop casually said “boom finished” in English to one of our guys watching the scene. Then he drove off. Gotta love those guys. “Boom finished” – what a great line. We’re all using it now.

Occasionally, these visits result in very good things happening. Another general (not Casey) came through the other day asking a lot of questions about our operations. He got an earful about the new police assessment report – you remember, the really long one that precipitated that Iraqi colonel sticking his radio antenna up his nose. Anyway, our colonel was pretty candid with him about how long, cumbersome and impractical this thing was. (The new boss is great about that stuff… he’s got no compunction whatsoever about giving the unvarnished truth to headquarters, and he’s really great to work for too.) And so, we now have a tasker to develop a shorter, better version that captures the stuff that really matters out at the police stations. We’re pretty stoked about this small victory over headquarters.

The violence around here seems to have abated over the last few days. We’ve had a few IEDs go off near our compound (one as I was writing the paragraph before this, in fact), but nothing too close. No direct attacks on our compound in downtown, nor any attacks on any of our U.S. convoys. I think we’ve gotten a little numb to it all though. If the explosion isn’t close enough to feel the overpressure from the blast in your ears, it’s not close enough to worry about; I rarely get up from my desk, or get out of bed, unless it’s big or close enough to shake the concrete buildings we live and work in. (Truth be told, I usually just sleep through the explosions at night, since I’m a pretty heavy sleeper.) Or close enough that you can hear shrapnel and debris raining down. The same is true for gunfire. There’s enough sporadic gunfire around here that you’d go crazy if you jumped at every shot. So long as it stays a couple hundred meters away, we don’t worry about it much. It’s smarter to just let the situation develop, get the reports of what’s going on, and then react if necessary. Otherwise you’d go crazy here.

Division released the first draft of its redeployment order this week. Which is kind of crazy, because we still have 6 months to go. But there is just so much crap that goes into moving the 101st Airborne Division around the world – lining up schedules, planning for the shipment of trucks, helicopters, and shipping containers; scheduling Air Force plane flights and charter plane flights, etc., that it all has to be planned months in advance. I like having the planning process underway though. It gives us a bunch of milestones to look forward to, i.e. the date that the incoming unit sends its recon party, the date that we pack up our shipping container, the date we redeploy back up to Tikrit, etc. Time seems to pass more quickly when you break it into smaller chunks, I guess.

I learned last week that I was awarded the Combat Action Badge by division for a raid I went on in December when my patrol hit an IED. It feels strange to receive an award like this, because I don’t really think of what we do here as “combat,” despite the risks and hazards around us. Vietnam was combat; what the Marines did in Fallujah was combat; my war is something different. Still, I’m proud to receive the award, which the Army created to recognize non-infantry soldiers who see action over here. It’s just a piece of metal; it doesn’t help me do my job better or come home faster. But to warriors, these little pieces of metal and cloth mean something that’s hard to describe.

Attached are a couple of pictures so you can visualize what life is like over here. The first (pps-hq.jpg) is the view from our old headquarters into the neighborhood of Tahrir in Baqubah. The second (gc.roof.jpg) is the view from our new building’s roof into the slightly nicer neighborhood of Old Baqubah. (It seems that social stratification and gentrification aren’t just an L.A. thing after all.) The third (gc.bldg.jpg) is the side view of my barracks building; we occupy a corner of the state capitol building for the Diyala province. And the fourth (gc.room.jpg) is my room. It feels a lot like a college dorm room and has about as much space, so I really can’t complain.

That’s all for now. I hope all’s well back in the states. Talk to you soon.

--Phil

Should those who option their shares be able to vote them?

The main “problem,” with encumbered shares having the same voting rights as standard shares held in an unencumbered fashion, is that an investor may have a substantial investment in a corporation through stock ownership, but actually be able to vote those shares to harm the company but profit massively using options and derivatives. A shareholder maintaining only shares has a long position in the company and would vote those shares to increase the value of those shares, while a derivatives only holder could not influence the corporation through voting (although could through manipulation of the share price through temporary bets). I am convinced that there is a disconnect that shareholders (such as I) with a long position could be threatened by those voting with a short position. Now, how can we fix it?

The rise of financially engineered instruments has obsoleted the one-share/one-vote standard in aligning control with risk is persuasive. However, I find that the practical implementation of any alternative is not only burdensome, expensive, and complicated, but also not likely to solve the problem of voter control. States would very likely not be interested in changing such alignments from the present system because they wish to attract the best corporations to incorporate in their states. Thus, it would probably require a federalization of corporate law in order to implement. Besides the costs to implement (with the resulting upheaval in the financial markets as the markets attempt to "understand" what to do), it is likely that the benefits, if any, would be short-lived as newly engineered instruments took over to again disconnect the risk from the share.

Perhaps the easiest change would be to forbid those who “borrow” shares from exercising the vote upon them, or those who “loan” shares from being able to vote. When street individual investors, mostly apathetic themselves, place their shares into an account, they should have to indicate whether they intend to maintain voting rights on those shares in the event that they were loaned. Of course, since shares are fungible, how would the market know which loaned shares to those borrowing them still have their attached rights? Would the shorter receive some discount on those shares because they are “less” valuable than other shares with attached rights? Thus, maybe the only real possible solution would be to prevent those who borrow shares from being able to vote on them, limiting the one-share/one-vote franchise to those with real ownership. The loophole remains, however, as one may own shares but still create massive options- or futures- based risk management or financial gain positions. It is quite impossible, thus, that any change to the present system could ever “correct” the current “problem.”

I would suggest leaving the market alone. Has there been a situation in which a company actually has suffered (and the long shareholders as well) from the actions of a shareholder with a short position? Probably. However, at this time, it does not seem to suggest that a new set of regulations and laws should “fix” something that can be balanced on its own. First, for every short investor, long investors exist that can counter. The company just needs to ensure that those long investors are informed and ready to participate. Second, the Board of directors controls the company. Shareholders merely react. Thus, the board can either structure transactions that minimize the role of shareholders (through a triangular transaction instead of a merger of equals, for example), or wage a public relations campaign to enlist shareholder support (such as HP’s acquisition of Compaq). Thus, while I see and believe that the potential for this problem to exist, I do not see it as such a threat that the system needs to be changed.

Peggy Noonan has it Right

From this mornings Opinion Journal:

Money is power, more money for the government is more power for the government. More power for the government will allow it to, among many other things, amuse itself by putting its fingers in a million pies, and stop performing its essential functions well, and get dizzily distracted by nonessentials, and muck up everything. Which is more or less where we are.

She goes on to quote the USA Today:

Yesterday USA Today ran a front-page story that seemed almost designed to give every conservative in America a Grand Klong, a fanciful medical condition that has been described as a great onrush of fecal matter to the heart. Not because it was surprising but because it wasn't. The headline: "Federal Aid Programs Expand at Record Rate."

The text:
A USA Today analysis of 25 major government programs found that enrollment increased an average of 17% in the programs from 2000 to 2005. The nation's population grew 5% during that time. It was the largest five year expansion of the federal safety net since the Great Society created programs such as Medicare and Medicaid in the 1960's. Spending on these social programs was $1.3 trillion in 2005, up an inflation-adjusted 22% since 2000 and accounting for more than half of federal spending.

Enrollment growth was responsible for most of the spending increase, with higher benefits accounting for the rest. The paper quoted a liberal think tanker saying the increase in the number of people on programs is due to a rise in the poverty rate. It quoted a conservative congressman countering that entitlement programs should not be growing when unemployment is near record lows.


Thanks, W.

The Democrat's Favorite Republican

Both the Washington Post and LA Times today ran puff pieces on their favorite Republican - John McCain and Predictably set up social conservatives as the bad guys who may keep McCain from getting the GOP nomination.

There's a lot of reasons why Republicans of all stripes don't like McCain:

• He basically gutted the first amendment in the guise of campaign finance "reform."
• He and his allies consistently smeared former FEC chairman Brad Smith for defending the first amendment.
• He's inconsistent on influence peddling.
• He gave Dick Durbin cover fire when the latter made some incredibly stupid comments about Iraq and our troops.
• And most important of all: He seems to have no notion of what the phrase "limited government" means.
• He's flip-flopped on taxes.
• His membership in the Gang of 14.

Clooney Covers up for the American Communists

In a Huffington Post column, George Clooney defiantly proclaims his liberalism and asserts that:

... for me, one of the things we absolutely need to agree on is the idea that we're all allowed to question authority. We have to agree that it's not unpatriotic to hold our leaders accountable and to speak out.

That's one of the things that drew me to making a film about Murrow. When you hear Murrow say, "We mustn't confuse dissent with disloyalty" and "We can't defend freedom abroad by deserting it at home," it's like he's commenting on today's headlines.

Clooney is the latest Hollywood director to make a film in which the truth about American Communism is deliberately falsified. The fact that McCarthy’s witch hunt, however irresponsible in practice, was at least nominally motivated by the existence of actual witches, goes unremarked in Good Night and Good Luck.

As is now widely acknowledged by scholars of the period—and as American intelligence officials knew at the time—the American Communist party was used by the Soviets as an intelligence apparatus through which, starting in the early 30’s, Soviet spies successfully infiltrated the U.S. government. Yet with the exception of one glancing, carefully unspecific reference to Alger Hiss, the script of Good Night, and Good Luck takes no notice whatsoever of this well-known fact. Rather, we are invited to suppose that the activities of Hiss, Julius Rosenberg, and other Soviet agents were nothing more than a paranoid fantasy on the part of McCarthy and his supporters.

Clooney’s unwillingness even to acknowledge such inconvenient facts, much less engage them, makes it impossible to take Good Night, and Good Luck seriously as a historically informed portrayal of McCarthy and his activities.

Clooney echoes the New Left mantra endlessly regurgitated by aging baby boomers longing to assuage their liberal guilt by keeping faith with the never-to-be-questioned commandments of the 60’s. Presumably it has never occurred to him, or to his fellow Hollywood liberals, to question the authority by which the news media offer themselves up as sole purveyors of the truth. Hence his determination to romanticize Murrow—and, by extension, all reporters who dare to “question authority.”

The Truth in Iraq...From someone who's there

I just received this email from a friend who just finished his 2 week leave at home. He's a UCLAW graduate who volunteered with the reserves to go to Iraq for 1 year. Yes, that's right - left his high paying law firm to serve his country.

I admire him greatly. I've left his name off, but if you routinely follow military blogs, you'll see his writings often.

Subject: Back in Baqubah

I made it back to Baqubah on Monday, and spent my first full day at work today. In total, I spent about four weeks away from my team – a week for a division conference and some decompression time at FOB Speicher near Tikrit, then some travel delays, then two weeks of leave, then a couple of days of travel back. Strangely, though, it feels good to be back. I missed my friends in the unit, and was anxious to rejoin them in Baqubah. I think I set a new record coming back from Kuwait; it took me just 26 hours from the time I stepped off the plane in Kuwait City to when I jumped off the Blackhawk in Baqubah. (Most guys take a few days to make their way back after leave, lingering at some of the plusher bases for a day or two in between flights.) As you all know from the news, a lot’s been going on here. I think the press has exaggerated the potential for civil war, but it’s still been a busy time, particularly for my team of police advisers. As much as I enjoyed being home, I really wanted to get back here as quickly as possible to take care of my guys.

Traveling in and out of Iraq was quite an adventure. First we got delayed at the big basecamp near Tikrit for 3 days while we waited for the weather and the Air Force to cooperate (both can be quite intransigent). I spent most of this time corralled in a tent on the FOB Speicher airfield, unable to leave for fear that the C-130 would show up and leave for Kuwait without me. It was incredibly boring. I read two or three books while sitting in the tent, read (and reread) a couple of magazines, and went for a couple of short runs next to the airfield. Fortunately, things moved quicker once we got to Kuwait. The Army put us on a charter ATA flight that stopped in Eastern Europe, Ireland, and Bangor, Maine, before arriving Dallas, where I changed planes to fly to LAX, arriving on the 15th. On the way back from leave, the flight only stopped once, in Shannon, Ireland, and made it to Kuwait in about half the time it took us to fly to the states. But thanks to the Army’s puritanical rules on alcohol, we couldn’t sample the local beer going either direction during our stops in Ireland, which was a total bummer. I understand where the policy comes from. But if we fly through Ireland on our redeployment flight, I might be tempted to look the other way so everyone can drink a pint or two of Guinness.

So… the $64,000 question from everyone has been: “is it really that bad over there?” The answer is, just as to all questions in law school: “it depends.” The bad events are certainly bad; it was bad when the Sunnis blew up the mosque in nearby Samarra, and it was bad when 50 insurgents attacked a refinery in Narwan, an outlying village between here and Baghdad. But while the reports of those incidents have been accurate, I think the reports on just those incidents provide an incomplete picture of life over here. Life goes on in Baqubah for the average Iraqi man or woman. The marketplace still runs; the schools still run; there are still massive queues at the gas stations during the week, and massive traffic jams in the heart of the city. There is not the sense here that the country is on the brink of civil war. Quite the contrary, in fact. Our experiences with violence in the past (which did not boil over into civil war) have taught us that the country can go to the brink and back without devolving into civil war. So that’s where we’re at right now. Iraqi police and army could have done better in responding initially, as could the U.S. military. But things appear to have calmed down. Things are as normal here as they can be given the circumstances.

A lot has changed in the last month for our team. Our commander was removed and sent to a higher headquarters as a staff officer. The colonel who replaced him is really smart, really calm, and there has been a palpable improvement in the command climate as a result of the change. I worry a little that the new colonel is too conventional for our mission, but we’ve got enough unconventional people on the team that I think it’ll work out. Another big change is that we’ve completely moved to a new compound. We now live and work in an annex to the state capital building, about 800m up the street from our old compound at the provincial police headquarters. I moved myself to the new digs before I left, but I had to commute back and forth each day to the old headquarters for work. Living and working in the same place is a lot better, because you don’t have the run the risk of driving on the roads every morning and evening. There’s a small dining facility here, which is nice because we get fresher, more varied food. There’s also a decent gym, so we’ve got a good place to go burn off stress and relax.

It’s still more austere here than the large bases where most Americans live in Iraq, but I prefer to live here, away from the flagpole and all the scrutiny that comes when you’re on a big base. Plus, we’re a lot closer to the Iraqis here, which makes us a lot more effective. Last night, I was able to walk over to meet with some Iraqi colonels who man a planning cell for the security forces in the province. If I lived on a big base, I couldn’t do that; I’d have to mount a combat patrol to drive out to meet them, and it probably wouldn’t happen.

Summer is already starting to come around, which is a real bummer because the winter weather in Iraq is so mild and enjoyable. We get the worst kind of heat here, because Baqubah sits in a river valley, so it’s both unbearably hot (130-140 degrees) and humid. Lovely. The region is also supposed to have a thriving population of mosquitoes and other critters, so we’re all treating our uniforms with pesticide and preparing a stockage of DEET to lather on when the bugs come. My office and barracks room have air conditioning units, but I’ll be surprised if they last through the summer. And there’s just no way around the heat when you’re out on a mission: wearing body armor and doing a mission in the summer heat will absolutely suck. Oh well.

At least the next couple of weeks look pretty interesting. I’m working with the brigade’s JAG officer to advise and improve the local judiciary and its operations. Our work won’t involve much teaching about the law per se; it’d be pretty arrogant for us to teach Iraqi judges about Iraqi law. Instead, we’re going to focus on making the courts run more smoothly and effectively, kind of like consultants might do for an ailing corporation back in the states. I’m also going out to do some more police station assessments, and to supervise some of the law enforcement training that we’re doing. It’s a very dynamic time here. The command has put a much greater emphasis on building the police and other rule of law institutions (courts, attorneys, jails, etc.) than before, even moreso than when I left on leave, based on the recognition that you can’t win a counterinsurgency fight by simply focusing on the military aspects of the problem. I’m cautiously optimistic because this is what I came here to do. Regardless of the ultimate outcome of this war, I think help these Iraqi institutions develop over the next several months while we’re here.

It was really great to see so many of you back in the United States. I’m sorry that I couldn’t see everyone, because I had only 2 weeks in town. With a little luck though, I’ll be able to see you all when I come back in September or October, especially if I’m able to follow through on my post-deployment plan of taking a long road trip with Peet to relax, unwind and see friends. Now that I’m back in Iraq, I’ll try to send more updates from over here (I left my laptop in Iraq so I could travel lightly, which is why I’ve been largely off the net for the past few weeks). I’ll also send a few more pictures so you can see how we’re living and working, and better visualize some of the more colorful moments that I write about. Talk to you soon.

Iraq "Civil War" a Media Myth

I loathe the MSM. I disdain their not so hidden agenda.

Reports that Iraq has descended into a civil war are not only not true - they're being promulgated by anti-war journalists eager to see U.S. efforts to establish a stable democracy in the country fail.

Famous military analyst and author Ralph Peters, who just spent a week touring Baghdad with the 506th Infantry Regiment, 101st Airborne Division, couldn't find any civil war.

"I'm looking for the civil war that The New York Times declared. And I just can't find it," Peters declared in his New York Post column on Sunday.
Instead, he reports, "I saw children and teenagers in a Shia slum jumping up and down and cheering our troops as they drove by - Cheering our troops."

Everywhere the 506th traveled, Peters said, the reception was warm. "No violence. None. Iraqis went out of their way to tell us we were welcome."
Instead, said Peters, the bombing of the Golden Mosque in Samarra - the alleged catalyst for the so-called civil war - has "caused popular support for the U.S. presence to spike upward."

"In place of the civil war that elements in our media declared, I saw full streets, open shops, traffic jams, donkey carts, Muslim holiday flags - and children everywhere, waving as our Humvees passed," he recalled.

"Even the clouds of dust we stirred up didn't deter them. And the presence of children in the streets is the best possible indicator of a low threat level."

Why aren't more writers and journalists like Peters featured? Simple - they don't adhere to the NYT and MSM "truth".

Is the SEC still Necessary?

First, there are different classes of investors, such as institutional investors, insiders, activists, and the general public individual investor as all forms of investors who have different interests. Perhaps some investors will want the securities exchanges to adopt stringent corporate governance measures, and other will be at best indifferent. Thus, some corporations may choose exchanges with limited governance regimes while others more stringent ones. Thus, my general belief in the free market - the choices that the market offers to investors allows investors to choose not only the companies with which to invest, but to ignore those companies that invest in “poorer” exchanges (from a regulatory standpoint) and the members that list there.

I do not conclude here that the recent (post war) growth of the exchanges as quasi-public regulatory agencies has resulted in SEC obsolescence. That outcome is far too unrealistic as actually to occur. If, however, exchanges fill gaps between state and federal law, and are increasingly being used to effect federal law, then perhaps the exchanges have become sophisticated enough to no longer require the regulatory function of the SEC (allowing for the continuance of the enforcement arm, however). By using governance listing requirements as a means to compete for listings and for the trades that follow those listings, these exchanges can compete with the government agencies at the state or federal level. If the exchanges then can function more effectively (as private agencies usually do), then there is no need for the governmental duplication. Eventually, through mergers and globalization efforts, the American exchanges can then implement their rulemaking functions to create transnational exchanges that cross national boundaries and integrate the capital markets of the global economy more fully than any government agency could.

Of course, the threat remains that instead of achieving these lofty aims, the abolishment of the government’s role in security and corporate governance rulemaking could result in the race to the bottom problem. Thus, a result could be the loss of value in bidding down shares in lax legal regimes. This would confirm the power of the market to make the “correct” choice and reinforce “good” choices as compared to poor corporate governance regimes.

The federal government’s biggest fear over allowing the exchanges to compete freely over governance is their loss of power to harmonize the exchanges. Exchanges will not necessarily begin a race to the bottom, but would freeze in the status quo and not adopt new rules for fear of giving the other exchanges a competitive advantage. Would companies actually move based on new requirements in the exchanges? How would the board and insiders be able to convince shareholders to vote to approve a switch in listing (if that vote is necessary) if the exchanges provide information describing how that change is beneficial to the shareholder? Additionally, allowing exchanges to implement rules on their own and compete for listings through governance rules facilitates the experimental nature of competitive Federalism, as not only states, but companies and exchanges can see which rules work and which do not. Laying a heavy blanket of federal rules on top of this removes the incentive to experiment and develop new, innovative corporate governance regimes.

Regardless of whether the exchanges were ever able to operate without intrusive federal oversight and rulemaking, the present pattern of agency rulemaking seems to be the best that the exchanges could hope. For example, if Congress were to adopt a federal corporate law or provide the SEC with increased power, the exchanges could suffer further regulatory burdens. However, the current limits on SEC power prevent this. The limited (relatively) existing federal statutes and the Business Roundtable decisions limit the agency from overreaching. Of course, the lack of any federal power could always subject the exchanges to fractured state laws, but this is less of a threat as companies are only governed by the laws of their state of incorporation.

Until the time comes that Congress either increases SEC power directly or federalizes corporate law, the use of the exchanges by the SEC will continue. At least the indirect use allows the exchanges to implement the rule in the manner that they see fit, which would (hopefully) limit the impact of additional regulation. Furthermore, the exchanges would be able to implement the rules and regulations through their own expertise and avoid politically based requirements that are overly costly and of limited value, such as the SarbOx implementation.

American Enterprise Institute Exposes Iraq War Myths

bOriginal article here. I couldn't have put it any better myself.


By Frederick W. Kagan
Posted: Friday, February 24, 2006
NATIONAL SECURITY OUTLOOK
AEI Online
Publication Date: February 24, 2006
This essay is available here as an Adobe Acrobat PDF.

March 2006

The debate about American policy and strategy in Iraq has veered off course. A number of myths have crept into the discussion over the past two years that distort understanding and confuse discussion. It is possible and appropriate to question the wisdom of any particular strategy proposed for Iraq, including the Bush administration’s strategy, and there is reason to be both concerned and encouraged by recent events there. But constructive dialogue about how to choose the best way forward is hampered by the distortions caused by certain myths. Until these myths recede from discussions about Iraq strategy, progress in those discussions is extremely unlikely.

Myth 1: The Bush administration intends to keep substantial U.S. forces in Iraq for a long time and must be pressured to bring them home quickly.

Those members of Congress like Rep. John Murtha (D-Pa.) and Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), who have demanded timetables for the rapid withdrawal of American forces from Iraq, implicitly argue that the administration would otherwise desire to keep U.S. troops in Iraq indefinitely. The idea behind these demands is that only external pressure will force the administration to hand Iraq over to the Iraqis and to withdraw American soldiers. In a recent interview, Murtha claimed that his pressure had changed administration policy in this regard, by driving the Pentagon to announce plans for rapid cuts in troop strength in Iraq.[1]

This assertion is false. The American strategy in Iraq from the very beginning of hostilities in March 2003 has been to remove all U.S. forces from the country as rapidly as possible. That was the basis of the “small footprint” idea under which the military fought the war with too few troops to prevent the rise of the insurgency. As the insurgency began, the military consistently underreacted in the deployment of troops and pursued a series of strategies to avoid increasing the number of troops in the country. Since mid-2004, the administration has stuck to a single determined strategy to train a large Iraqi army to wage the counterinsurgency and to withdraw American forces as that army becomes able to take over responsibilities in Iraq.[2]

The senior leaders in the administration, both civil and military, have made it plain from the beginning of the conflict that they believe that the U.S. presence in Iraq is an irritant, that it should be kept as small as possible, and that it should be withdrawn as quickly as possible. At no time has the administration indicated any goal other than withdrawing U.S. forces from Iraq as rapidly as circumstances permit. The only caveat has been that the administration would not withdraw troops if such withdrawals would jeopardize the establishment of a peaceful and stable regime in Iraq.[3]

The insistence on the establishment of arbitrary timetables diverges from administration policy in one respect only: Murtha, Pelosi, and others who advocate this course must accept the possibility that withdrawals on a given timetable may lead to the collapse of the Iraqi state. If they are unwilling to accept that result--if they would want to suspend the withdrawal if the situation began to collapse, for instance--then there is no material difference between their position and the president’s. This so-called debate over timetables, therefore, is a debate over whether the United States should remain committed to trying to succeed in Iraq or whether America should be willing to lose there in order to retreat rapidly.[4]

Myth 2: The presence of U.S. forces in Iraq is the major source of the conflict there.

Peace will return to Iraq as Americans leave.Ironically, this myth was first expounded by the U.S. military, which used it as the basis for arguing that American forces in Iraq must be as small as possible, interact as little as possible with the population, and leave as quickly as they can, consistent with ensuring success. The underlying assumptions are that Iraqis are a proud people unwilling to tolerate “invaders” and that the American presence has galvanized disparate elements of the population to take up arms to repel the invasion.[5]

There is a certain amount of truth here, of course: a significant portion of the Sunni Arab insurgency is devoted to attacking Americans and driving them from Iraq, and a few elements of the Shiite community have joined in such attacks for their own reasons. The logical leap from that fact to the assertion that if only the Americans would leave, the insurgency would die down and peace would ensue, however, is baseless and indefensible.

In the first place, a significant goal of the Sunni Arab insurgency has always been to prevent the establishment of a Shiite government in Baghdad with power over the Sunni lands. For this reason, alongside attacks on American troops, there has always been a steady drumbeat of attacks against Shiites and against Sunni Arabs seen as collaborating with the regime either by taking leadership positions or by volunteering to serve in its police and armed forces. In 2005, a number of insurgent groups decided to prioritize attacking collaborators and members of the Iraqi Security Forces over hitting coalition troops. Insurgent literature regularly distinguishes between “civilians,” who are not to be targeted, and “traitors” or “collaborators,” who are legitimate targets. This differentiation and refocusing of target priorities clearly shows that the presence of coalition forces is by no means the only--or even the main--catalyst driving the insurgency.[6]

It is too easy in this regard to emphasize the current focus of insurgent propaganda without reflecting on its deeper roots, aims, and purposes. The Iraqi insurgents are united to a considerable extent in their desire to expel the United States from Iraq. It does not follow that their success in that goal would lead to peace. On the contrary, it is clear from their writings that the main insurgent groups have been intentionally putting off expositions of their ultimate aims in order to pursue a fragile harmony during the occupation. The withdrawal of coalition troops will remove the need for the insurgent groups to hold back.[7]

The results of such a rapid withdrawal will be primarily negative. Insurgent groups may initially begin to struggle with one another, both arguing and fighting over their future visions of the country. All will almost certainly attack the Iraqi government and security forces with renewed vigor. The absence of coalition forces will embolden some to increase sectarian violence in the hope of igniting a civil war. The likely result will be either chaos or the further weeding-out and merging of insurgent groups into larger organizations capable of posing a significant challenge to a very weak central regime. The prospects for the success of that regime in such a scenario are very dim.

There is considerable evidence, furthermore, that the insurgents are already sensing victory in the repeated statements of the American intention to withdraw rapidly and are biding their time in anticipation of a more propitious moment to strike the regime. The establishment of a timetable for withdrawal will only add momentum, swelling the ranks of the rebels and encouraging more and more serious attacks.[8]

Focusing on the “irritating” presence of coalition forces is therefore extremely shortsighted and reveals a real lack of imagination about how events are likely to unfold once those forces have been removed. It is nearly certain that coalition forces are all that is now standing between Iraq and sectarian civil war, and the premature withdrawal of those forces on some fixed timeline will probably open the floodgates of chaos.

Myth 3: The war in Iraq is a distraction from the war on terrorism.

Opponents of the war in Iraq have argued from the beginning that because Saddam Hussein was not directly tied to the 9/11 attacks or al Qaeda, as the administration at times has claimed, the war in Iraq is a distraction from the war on terror. They have argued that the diversion of resources from Afghanistan to Iraq has allowed Osama bin Laden to remain at liberty and has prevented the United States from following up on its successes during Operation Enduring Freedom to finish off al Qaeda.[9]

Claims of Saddam’s prewar involvement with al Qaeda certainly seem to have been exaggerated--although it is known that Abu Musab al-Zarqawi trained soldiers under the aegis of the Taliban alongside al Qaeda fighters and then moved into Iraq before the U.S. attack.[10]

This question, however, is no longer relevant to the problem of determining U.S. strategy in the war on terror. Al Qaeda’s “second-in-command,” Ayman al-Zawahiri, has repeatedly said that he now sees Iraq as the central front in the struggle with the West.[11]

Zarqawi has linked his ideological program with that of Zawahiri and bin Laden to make plain that he has no intention of stopping with success in Iraq, should he attain it. Above all, the key question is: will chaos in Iraq help or hinder al Qaeda and other terrorist organizations in their struggle with the United States and the West? The answer is, of course, that it will help them.

The Bush administration’s strategy in Iraq may or may not succeed. Certainly it has received a great deal of criticism from all sides. But those who argue for an immediate (or rapid) withdrawal of American forces to “refocus” them on the war on terror have the burden of showing that such a withdrawal will not lead to the sort of chaos in which terrorist organizations thrive. There can be no question of the inability now and for some time of the Iraqi government to control its territory fully. Nor is there any question of the resources potentially available to terrorists in Iraq--as they were not readily available in impoverished and war-torn Afghanistan. Those resources include not only money and weapons, but access to military specialists, technology, and scientists who had been working on Saddam’s WMD programs. This is a recipe for catastrophe on a greater scale than September 11, and there is every reason to believe that a premature withdrawal of American forces would precipitate such a catastrophe. Whatever the relevance of Iraq in the war on terror in 2003, it is a critical front in that war today.

Nor is it at all clear how withdrawing from Iraq would help reallocate resources to the sort of struggle most people have in mind when they think of the fight against al Qaeda. The conventional forces in Iraq would certainly be of little use in chasing bin Laden and his colleagues around the Pakistani mountains. More Special Forces troops might help, but even so, the United States can hardly flood the Pakistani tribal areas where most of the al Qaeda leadership seems to be hiding with thousands of Special Forces warriors. Deploying more U.S. soldiers to Afghanistan is a good idea and essential to maintaining that state’s fragile progress toward stability, but, again, the main al Qaeda bases are no longer in Afghanistan. It is simply very hard to see how withdrawing from Iraq would directly support better resourcing of the war on terror, even if success in Iraq were not so vital to success in the larger struggle.

Myth 4: The wisdom of invading Iraq in 2003 should be an important part of the discussion about what to do in Iraq today.

When John Kerry made criticism of Bush’s decision to go to war--rather than of current administration strategy in Iraq--the centerpiece of his campaign, he helped ensure that future debates over policy there would be fruitless. From the standpoint of American policy today, it simply does not matter whether attacking Saddam in 2003 was the right decision or not. The question must be: where do we go from here?

From the standpoint of American domestic politics, criticizing the decision to go to war is, of course, perfectly valid and may even have been essential. The American public was certainly entitled to make up its mind whether or not Bush had made a mistake and to fire him if it felt that he had done so. The electorate chose not to do so, implicitly accepting either the administration’s rationale for invading or the irrelevance of the discussion to the matter at hand. Either way, the wisdom of the invasion is now purely a matter for historians.

In May 1950, Korea was an irrelevant peninsula not many people could locate on a map. Truman administration officials did not find it necessary to include Korea among the list of places in Asia that the United States would have to defend. Yet on June 25, 1950, Korea became a central battlefield in the Cold War. The United States committed hundreds of thousands of troops to its defense, and the war has affected the American military, U.S. national security policy, and U.S. domestic politics ever since. It is impossible to say in advance whether a specific region is or is not going to be vital to a particular struggle. The centrality of a battle in a larger conflict arises from its circumstances and the likely consequences of success or failure. As it was in Korea--and, in a more negative sense, another “irrelevant” struggle fought in a “meaningless” backwater, Vietnam--so it is in Iraq. It does not matter now why we went into Iraq, only what will happen if we do not succeed there.

Myth 5: Most Iraqis “want us out,” and we have lost the battle for “hearts and minds.” Therefore, we cannot succeed.[12]

Human beings are peculiarly constructed so that each believes that he is the center of the universe. It is too easy to allow this belief to invade the realm of practical policy. Success in Iraq does not rest on Iraqi attitudes toward the United States. It rests on attitudes toward the Iraqi government. The Iraqi people can dislike America and resent the invasion, but still support their government and make the transition to democracy and stability. It is easy to imagine circumstances in which hatred of the United States diminishes and democracy perishes. For example, if coalition forces withdraw prematurely, civil war breaks out, and Shia army, police, and militia begin massacring Sunni Arabs, the victims may well come to think that the U.S. presence was really a good thing and that their demands for the coalition’s departure were unwise. Such thoughts may come too late, however, to avoid widespread conflict and killing and the collapse of the Iraqi state.

The real issue about the popularity of American forces is the degree to which their presence fuels the fighting or contains sectarian conflict. As we have already seen, the evidence that the U.S. presence is the key driving force in the insurgency is thin, and the evidence that that presence is an essential precondition for avoiding civil war is strong. Iraqi attitudes about that presence only really matter if they change this calculation in some important way. These attitudes are therefore worth monitoring, but should not be allowed to drive coalition strategy by themselves.

Above all, it is essential to keep in mind that it is not the United States that has the task of winning the “hearts and minds” of the Iraqis, but the Iraqi government. The current Iraqi government has by no means yet succeeded in that task, and it may fail to do so. But we can judge the progress of the counterinsurgency only on the basis of the Iraqi government’s success or failure in this regard, not our own.

Myth 6: Setting a timetable for withdrawal will “incentivize” the Iraqis to take responsibility for their own country.

This is an idea frequently promoted by Murtha and others who advocate an immediate or rapid withdrawal.[13] It rests on two assumptions: that the Iraqis are or shortly will be capable of taking responsibility for their country, and that they are not doing so now because they do not feel the need. If coalition forces withdraw, so the argument goes, then the Iraqis will have to sink or swim and, implicitly, they will probably swim.

Both of these assumptions are contradicted by the facts on the ground. The Iraqi government is demonstrably unable to control its state, and the Iraqi Security Forces and, still more, the Iraqi police are inadequate to fight the insurgency. Recent estimates suggest that as many as 60,000 Iraqi Security Forces troops may be fit to undertake operations entirely on their own.[14]Counter-insurgency operations to date have required between 130,000 and 160,000 American troops in addition to those 60,000 Iraqis to maintain the current unacceptably low level of security and stability in the country. Training soldiers takes time. Gaining experience in combat and in command takes time. However hard we push, the Iraqis can only go so fast. It is unlikely in the extreme that 2006 will see the deployment of enough Iraqi troops to relieve all of the coalition forces and maintain security even at the current level. The Iraqi police are, by all accounts, lagging even further behind.

Telling the Iraqis to “sink or swim” soon, therefore, is tantamount to telling them to drown. Nor have the Iraqis shown any unwillingness to fight for their country. On the contrary, hundreds of thousands of Iraqis have volunteered for the most dangerous duty in their land, fighting insurgents with inadequate training and equipment. Those volunteers have frequently come under attack at recruiting stations and in their barracks, yet their numbers have not flagged. Iraqi units no longer shirk combat or run from battle. They have fought toe-to-toe with insurgents on many occasions, have been badly bloodied, and have returned for duty the next day. Iraqi government officials have persevered despite improvised explosive devices (IEDs), mortar and rocket attacks, kidnappings, and assassination attempts. It is difficult to see how it might be necessary to “incentivize” people fighting bravely in the face of greater danger to themselves and their families than Americans have faced since the Civil War.

Toward a More Reasoned DebateThere is much to criticize in the administration’s strategy in the counterinsurgency struggle in Iraq, and debate over the best course for that strategy is healthy. Honest debate about the value of continuing to try to win in Iraq is also an important part of the American democratic system and should not be shut down or attacked. But this debate can only help the formulation of sound policies if it is based on reality and focuses on the issues at hand.

The deep polarization of American politics, particularly over this issue, has distorted the discussion, however. U.S. policy in Iraq is too important to allow such distortions to persist. It is time to put away the ideological and rhetorical cudgels and begin to reason again about the best course to choose. The reestablishment of such an objective and rational discourse is the only hope of avoiding disaster.

Frederick W. Kagan is a resident scholar at AEI. AEI research assistant Melissa Wisner and AEI editor Scott R. Palmer worked with the author to edit and produce this National Security Outlook.

Notes

1. Representative John Murtha, interview by Diane Rehm, Diane Rehm Show, WAMU Radio, February 13, 2006.

2. See Frederick W. Kagan, “Blueprint for Victory,” The Weekly Standard, October 31, 2005; Frederick W. Kagan, “Fighting to Win: With the Proper Strategy, Victory in Iraq Is Far More Likely Than People Think,” The Weekly Standard, December 19, 2005; Frederick W. Kagan, “Risky Business: The Biggest Danger in Iraq Now Is Drawing Down Too Quickly,” The Weekly Standard, January 23, 2006.

3. The Bush administration’s publicly released strategy for Iraq declares: “Coalition troop levels, for example, will increase where necessary to defeat the enemy or provide additional security for key events like the referendum and elections. But troop levels will decrease over time, as Iraqis continue to take on more of the security and civilian responsibilities themselves”; and “As Iraqis take on more responsibility for security, Coalition forces will increasingly move to supporting roles in most areas. The mission of our forces will change--from conducting operations and keeping the peace, to more specialized operations targeted at the most vicious terrorists and leadership networks. As security conditions improve and as Iraqi Security Forces become increasingly capable of securing their own country, our forces will increasingly move out of the cities, reduce the number of bases from which we operate, and conduct fewer patrols and convoy missions.” President George W. Bush, National Strategy for Victory in Iraq (National Security Council, Washington, D.C., 2005), emphasis added. President Bush has repeatedly declared that “as the Iraqis stand up, we’ll stand down.” See, for example, Office of the White House Press Secretary, “Bush Media Availability with Donald Rumsfeld and Lieutenant General David Petraeus,” news release, October 5, 2005.

4. For example: “The United States will immediately redeploy--immediately redeploy. No schedule which can be changed, nothing that’s controlled by the Iraqis, this is an immediate redeployment of our American forces because they have become the target.” See John Murtha “Murtha Calls for a ‘Change in Direction’,” New York Times, November 17, 2005.

5. See Frederick W. Kagan, “Blueprint for Victory,” and “Fighting to Win,” for discussion and analysis of the military’s attitude toward this issue. Murtha repeated this line of argument in “Murtha Calls for a ‘Change in Direction’.”

6. See the excellent recent report on the nature of the insurgency: “In Their Own Words: Reading the Iraqi Insurgency,” in Middle East Report no. 50 (Washington, D.C.: International Crisis Group, 2006); and Michael Eisenstadt and Jeffrey White, “Assessing Iraq’s Sunni Arab Insurgency,” Policy Focus (Washington, D.C.: Washington Institute for Near East Policy, 2005).

7. “In Their Own Words: Reading the Iraqi Insurgency.”

8. According to “In Their Own Words”: “The insurgents’ perspective has undergone a remarkable evolution. Initially, they perceived and presented the U.S. presence as an enduring one that would be extremely difficult to dislodge; they saw their struggle as a long-term, open-ended jihad, whose success was measured by the very fact that it was taking place. That no longer is the case. Today, the prospect of an outright victory and a swift withdrawal of foreign forces has crystallised, bolstered by the U.S.’s perceived loss of legitimacy and apparent vacillation, its periodic announcements of troop redeployments, the precipitous decline in domestic support for the war and heightened calls by prominent politicians for a rapid withdrawal. When the U.S. leaves, the insurgents do not doubt that Iraq’s security forces and institutions would quickly collapse.”

9. See, for example, Senator Robert C. Byrd, “America the Peacemaker Becomes America the Warmonger,” (remarks, U.S. Senate, Washington, D.C., March 11, 2003

10. Nimrod Raphaeli, “‘The Sheikh of the Slaughterers: Abu Mus’ab Al-Zarqawi and the Al-Qa’ida Connection,” in Inquiry and Analysis Series no. 231 (Washington, D.C.: Middle East Media Research Institute, July 1, 2005).

11. “I want to be the first to congratulate you for what God has blessed you with in terms of fighting battle in the heart of the Islamic world, which was formerly the field for major battles in Islam’s history, and what is now the place for the greatest battle of Islam in this era,” quoted in Office of the Director of National Intelligence, “Letter from Ayman al-Zawahiri to Abu Mus’ab al-Zarqawi,” news release no. 2-05, October 11, 2005.

12. This has been the mainstay of arguments by Murtha, Kerry, Joseph Biden, and others for rapid withdrawal. John Murtha, “Murtha Calls for a ‘Change in Direction’” ; John Kerry, “Senator John Kerry Lays out Path Forward in Iraq: If Administration Acts Responsibly, We Can Stabilize Iraq and Reduce Combat Forces,” (speech, Georgetown University, Washington, D.C., October 26, 2005); Joseph R. Biden, “Time for An Iraq Timetable,” Washington Post, November 26, 2005.

13. John Murtha, “Murtha Calls for a ‘Change in Direction’” and interview on the Diane Rehm Show.14. Kenneth M. Pollack, “A Switch in Time: A New Strategy for America in Iraq,” (analysis paper no. 7, Saban Center for Middle East Policy, Brookings Institution, Washington, D.C., 2006).