Like us, you're probably preoccupied with the War and the ominous news of Turkish and Iranian involvement. While all this is happening, though, our Congress is hard at work. The House passed the President's tax cuts. The Senate debated the measure today. It looks as though ANWR drilling is out, to the relief of Democrats. A coalition of moderate Republicans and Democrats seeking to scale the tax cuts back from $726 billion to $350 billion was led by Senator John Breaux (D-LA), of all people. They failed, and it looks as though the Bush Administration will get most of what they wanted, except for $100 billion which Senator Russ Feingold (D-WI) rescued for a special war reserve.
Iraq in Mexico
SKY news is reporting that the CIA is hunting six Iraqi agents in Mexico. Voice of America isn't so sure. 200 Iraqis in New York were rounded up by the FBI. Germany is holding five suspects. French police found ricin in the Metro, but it's apparently non-letal. Well, thank god for that. The French say that it may have instead been destined for Chechnya. Wha?
What is Red Alert?
Orange alert hasn't really changed how you live. There are more police, maybe. You have to show your ID to get into a government building, maybe. Red alert, which appears likely when the attack on Iraq begins, is another thing altogether.
The Homeland Security Department describes it this way:
- Increasing or redirecting personnel to address critical emergency needs;
- Assigning emergency response personnel and pre-positioning and mobilizing specially trained teams or resources;
- Monitoring, redirecting, or constraining transportation systems; and
- Closing public and government facilities.
Individual state and county agencies are given a great deal of leeway in how they interpret these alerts. Sid Caspersen, the Director of the New Jersey Office of Counter-Terrorism, is pretty specific:
"Red means all noncritical functions cease... Noncritical would be almost all businesses, except health-related....well, a little different.
"The state police and the emergency management people would take control over the highways...
"You literally are staying home, is what happens, unless you are required to be out. No different than if you had a state of emergency with a snowstorm."
Update: Sun Mar 23 15:08:01 EST 2003
The ACLU is making themselves pretty clear on the NJ policy.
A Message to the Opposition
We're deluged with email from MoveOn and other activist groups encouraging us to rally when the war starts. It's hard to imagine a bigger waste of time. Any war protest right now is a waste of good human captial. A much more pressing issue, one worth protesting, is how Iraq will be treated after the United States takes stewardship of the country. It will be a long process, and we have never been very good at projects like these. The media gets bored, and our attention will inevitably turn back to domestic issues. Remember Afghanistan? They just finished a round of fundraising for their government, which is just over a year old. They shouldn't have to beg after the pledges and support they received from the West. Not the case, of course. They're desperate for US$234 million, about half the budget for the entire country. Without it, they're bankrupt. On top of that, they need US$1.7 billion in aid for reconstruction. Unless they receive immediate aid, they say, Afghanistan will return to being the largest exporter of heroin in the world -- how else will farmers pay the bills? The U.S. has pledged $820 million. This seems like a good thing, but you can't build roads with a pledge and the Bush Administration forgot to include Afghan reconstruction in the last budget, sneaking $300 million into the appropriations at the last minute. Needless to say, this can't happen in Iraq. The stakes are far too high.
"As our coalition takes away their power, we will deliver the food and medicine you need. We will tear down the apparatus of terror and we will help you to build a new Iraq that is prosperous and free."The anti-war camp could continue tilting at windmills, but their time is much better spent ensuring that President Bush honor his promise.
Bush To Demand Saddam Leaves
CNN is reporting that Bush will give an address at 8pm tonight, demanding that Saddam Hussein abdicate to avoid a war. Put that alongside this Kuwaiti press report, via talkingpointsmemo.com, that Saddam has named his son Qusay to succeed him, and arrested those who wouldn't swear allegiance. So President Hussein steps down, and his son succeeds him. Is that progress? Isn't that exactly the kind of sneaky thing Hussein would do to prolong this un-war? Why would the Administration give him this opportunity? Update Mon Mar 17 20:32:30 EST 2003 Less of an issue now that he's included Hussein's two sons in the ultimatum. Surely this is a concern: all three leave town, and install some puppet. If I were an incorrigible despot, I'd be giving that some thought.
SARS Spreads
It's being called Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome, and it's spreading. The Beeb has provided a map of confirmed infections. They've also provided a handy FAQ. It's being transmitted by air travel, of course. The experts interviewed are not very concerned. Pay attention to how many new cases have been found since we last mentioned this, and keep in mind that there's a two-day incubation period before symptoms arrive. According to this CDC press call, cases may have appeared in Georgia and New York. At the time of this writing, Reuters is reporting Britain's first case. OnePeople is also delighted to see that the BBC has also picked up on the Spanish Flu meme, advanced in these pages, and also by New Zealand Prime Minister Helen Clark. The Beeb jauntily claims that it's not as bad as the Spanish Flu epidemic of 1918, since it isn't a flu, and hasn't yet killed 40 million. A cold comfort. For the real alarmists: everyone has issued travel warnings, and they're sanitizing airplanes. Says one expert: "There's no much you can do to avoid this, unless you go and live as a hermit."
First Run in NYT
After a week of interviews, you'd think there would be fewer factual errors, but I can't look a gift horse in the mouth. There's a story in this Sunday's New York Times City section on my own beloved dog run.
Domino Democracy Doomed
"Trust me, Jenny. Democracies love you."
If Saddam Hussein is removed, the U.S. has pledged to encourage an Iraqi democracy that will be a model for democratic government in the Middle East. The hope is that the Arab Street is secretly hoping for democracy, and that new democracies in the Middle East would be naturally more sympathetic to the United States.
The State Department popped that balloon with a report to top-level government officials which casts serious doubt on the ability of an Iraqi democracy to encourage democracy elsewhere. "Iraq, the Middle East and Change: No Dominoes" asserts that democracies are unlikely to develop before more pressing social and economic issues are resolved. Even if new democracies develop, the report warns that anti-American sentiment is likely to create more Islamic governments hostile to the United States.
This flies in the face of the "Democracy Domino" camp, led by Deputy Defense Secretary Paul D. Wolfowitz. The idea that an Iraqi democracy will encourage the development of democracy elsewhere in the Middle East is central to the Bush Administration's case for regime change. Thanks to the L.A. Times, we know that even Bush's own State Department doesn't believe him.
Feds Seize AP Correspondence
Two reporters are working on a terrorism story. One sends the other an envelope. The Customs Service seizes the FedEx package, and gives the package to the FBI. What's worse? The content of the correspondence was a document unclassified eight years ago, they had no warrant, and did not notify either reporter or the AP. The Customs Service says that the inspection was part of their random inspections. The FBI says the material, which covered the items seized from Ramsey Yousef's apartment in the Phillipines, was sensitive. You'll remember Yousef as the fellow behind the 1993 World Trade Center bombing, and a planner in the Pacific airline plot. These same documents were entered into evidence into two seperate trials, so the FBI claim fails spectacularly. Let's recap:
- Customs Service seizes mail (well afield of its jurisdiction)
- FBI decides unclassified material (in the public record!) is classified again.
- The government took personal correspondence without warrant or notification.
- FedEx violated its own policies by not referring AP to the Customs Service, and instead paid $100 to compensate for the missing parcel.
- The AP only discovered the seizure after a receiving an anonymous tip
World War I, Again
Today is Irrational Alarmist Day at OnePeople: the leader of Serbia was assassinated. The nations of the world are integrated through treaties and trade like never before. A major world power is starting to act more and more beligerent. It's smelling like WWI. What's missing? A worldwide flu epidemic... until now.
a technology job is no excuse 