Yes, Alberto Gonzales Was Out of the Loop

Marty Lederman:

Balkinization: this was a White House -- not a DOJ -- initiative, and its function was to remove U.S. Attorneys who were not acceptable to the President and his advisers. It makes sense, in that light, that Kyle Sampson would work closely with the White House on the process, and that the Attorney General would be inclined to go along with the White House's final decisions if he were satsified that there was a solid basis for them. So far, so good -- and it wouldn't be terribly out of the ordinary, either, except that it's increasingly clear that this was part of a much more extensive Rovian White House operation to use the mechanisms of government to skew elections to Republicans.

Just What Has Paul Wolfowitz's Lover Shaha Riza Been Doing at the State Department?

Steve Clemons writes:

The Washington Note: America Spent $35 million on Foundation for the Future Where Wolfowitz Lover Worked -- but State Department Does Not Know Where the Office is Located: Beyond the question of what Shaha Riza's compensation was and how she got it -- is what she has been doing and for whom. She was reportedly seconded to the multi-nationally supported "Foundation for the Future," which was really a part of America's public diplomacy game plan.

For those interested, this is a pdf of the "Chair's Summary" from the "Third Forum for the Future" held November 30-December 1, 2006 at Dead Sea, Jordan. The roster of donors to the Foundation for the Future, launched with $56 million, included a seed grant from the U.S. for $35 million: United States: $35 million European Commission: 1 million euros Spain: $1 million United Kingdom: $1 million Switzerland: $1 million Denmark :$2 million Netherlands: $1 million Greece: $1.5 million Turkey: $500,000 Italy: TBD Hungary: In kind Jordan: $1 million Qatar: $10 million Bahrain: TBD

But strangely, few seem to know much about the Foundation for the Future at the State Department. To be fair, maybe some do -- but in this interesting exchange between a journalist and State Department Deputy Press Spokesman Tom Casey, it is clear that the Foundation for the Future is not a high priority at State.

Here is the interesting exchange highlighting that no one seems to know how to make a call to the Foundation for the Future -- (does Shaha Riza have an office or phone extension wherever this office may be?):

QUESTION: I wanted to ask you something kind of on the margins of the whole World Bank Shaha Riza matter, and that is that, as you remember, Secretary Rice announced the formation or at least the launch of this Foundation for the Future in, I think, November of 2005.

And at least as far as -- well, it's very hard to find this foundation. You go to their website. They have a website but there's no phone numbers, there's no address. They appear to have not given out any grants.

They haven't set up office, that at least one can find. And considering it was launched with some fanfare at the time, I'm just curious if you could bring us up to speed a little bit as to what this foundation consists of and where you -- where it seems to be going. I don't even -- it's hard to see how much money it is that the U.S. has put into this, for one.

MR. CASEY: Neil, I actually haven't, unfortunately, briefed myself on the latest activities from the Foundation. Look, as you know, this was something that has emerged out of the Forum for the Future process. It has an international board of directors representing -- with representatives from most of the participating regional countries there as well as an executive directorate. In terms of the amount of money involved at this point and some of the specific grant programs, I'll have to look into it for you. I just don't have that at my fingertips. Sorry.

QUESTION: Are you taking the question?

MR. CASEY: Yes, I'm taking the question.

QUESTION: But is Ms. Shaha a consultant or a fulltime employee of the board? What is her status?

MR. CASEY: My understanding is she is an individual seconded by the World Bank as an advisor to the board of directors of the Foundation for the Future.

QUESTION: But she's not on the board?

MR. CASEY: No.

QUESTION: So her official title is advisor or consultant?

MR. CASEY: My best understanding is advisor to the board, yeah.

QUESTION: So what does she do as the advisor? I mean, does she help advise on grants, or do you know what her job is?

MR. CASEY: I do not have a job description for her, no. Again, I think that's a question you could ask some of the board members.

QUESTION: Do you know where the office is?

MR. CASEY: No, but I don't know where the office is for a number of parts of the State Department offhand, Matt. So I will get you -- I will get you guys more information.

QUESTION: Isn't there an agreement for the office to be based in Beirut?

MR. CASEY: I'd have to check. I honestly don't know the details on the specifics of the foundation.

One question beyond the Wolfowitz-Riza Scandal is how many "consultants" does the Department of State (or other Departments like DoD, DoE, and others) have along these lines?

Remember the odd case of Matthew Freedman working under then Under Secretary of State John Bolton's office? Few knew what he did or what his responsibilities were justifying his six figure consultant's salary -- which he maintained while consulting private firms that had business with the government.

How much of this is happening throughout the government?

-- Steve Clemons

Hilzoy: War Is Not The Instrument He Thought It Was

Hilzoy: War Is Not The Instrument He Thought It Was

Ezra Klein: "War Is Not The Instrument He Thought It Was": Hilzoy has a long and beautiful post on why using war to set up democracy in other countries is so difficult. There are lots of reasons for this, but the reason she discusses hadn't really occurred to me before:

we should never forget how astonishing it is that people vying for power are willing to concede even when they believe that the rules have been broken, out of respect for the rule of law and for courts they believe to be profoundly in error.

In many countries, there are no established procedures for resolving conflicts, and certainly none that command the kind of allegiance that would lead people to yield even when they believe that they deserve to have won. In those countries it will always be tempting to think: well, this election was stolen from us, and this year-old Constitution is unfair; why not fight for a better one? Wouldn't our opponents do the same?

This is especially likely in a country in which the price of losing a political struggle has always been not just being in the minority party in Congress, but death or subjugation. And it takes a long time to learn to trust that losing power will not cost you your life or your freedom, when all your experience to date has taught you the opposite.

When you use force to liberate a country, like Kuwait, that has only been occupied for a short time, you can hope that its people will accept their previous government, and that whatever made that government function in the past will have survived. But when you liberate a country like Iraq, a country whose people have been brutalized, you risk loosing Hobbes' "war of all against all" on its people. You remove the sovereign who has kept that war in check, without thereby creating any of the political virtues that allow alternate forms of government, like democracy, to function.

Belle Waring: And a Pony!

Belle Waring: And a Pony!

John & Belle Have A Blog: If Wishes Were Horses, Beggars Would Ride -- A Pony!: You see, wishes are totally free. It's like when you can't decide whether to daydream about being a famous Hollywood star or having amazing magical powers. Why not -- be a famous Hollywood star with amazing magical powers! Along these lines, John has developed an infallible way to improve any public policy wishes. You just wish for the thing, plus, wish that everyone would have their own pony! So, in Chafetz' case, he should not only wish that Bush would say a lot of good things about democracy-building and fighting terrorism in a speech written for him by a smart person, he should also wish that Bush should actually mean the things he says and enact policies which reflect this, and he should wish that everyone gets a pony. See?...

Kieran Healy: Ye Ladies of Easy Leisure

Kieran Healy: Ye Ladies of Easy Leisure

Crooked Timber: Now that’s more like it. The end of bastardy! The rise of female contraception! Divorce! Sex education! Cars! Maggie Gallagher could learn a thing or two from Leon Kass. If you think society is being dragged to perdition by a bunch of car-owning, pill-popping, body-piercing, career-oriented, degree-granted, sexually confident, frequent-flyer, atheistic sluts then just come out and say it. And the best part is, Leon is just warming up.

He continues:

The change most immediately devastating for wooing is probably the sexual revolution. For why would a man court a woman for marriage when she may be sexually enjoyed, and regularly, without it?

Well, it’s not as if I’m going to make my own pot roast, now is it?

Many, perhaps even most, men in earlier times avidly sought sexual pleasure prior to and outside of marriage. But they usually distinguished, as did the culture generally, between women one fooled around with and women one married, between a woman of easy virtue and a woman of virtue simply. Only respectable women were respected; one no more wanted a loose woman for one’s partner than for one’s mother.

Those were the days. Men could be men, and women could be modest—except for the ladies of easy leisure, who were available for extramarital sex, backalley abortions, syphilis, etc.

The supreme virtue of the virtuous woman was modesty, a form of sexual self-control, manifested not only in chastity but in decorous dress and manner, speech and deed, and in reticence in the display of her well- banked affections. A virtue, as it were, made for courtship, it served simultaneously as a source of attraction and a spur to manly ardor, a guard against a woman’s own desires, as well as a defense against unworthy suitors. A fine woman understood that giving her body (in earlier times, even her kiss) meant giving her heart, which was too precious to be bestowed on anyone who would not prove himself worthy, at the very least by pledging himself in marriage to be her defender and lover forever.

Except for understandable lapses—see above re: women of easy virtue.

Once female modesty became a first casualty of the sexual revolution, even women eager for marriage lost their greatest power to hold and to discipline their prospective mates.

Because of course being subordinated in this manner, and having all of the negative consequences of sexual activity fall entirely upon you, and living under an all-pervasive double standard is of course the greatest kind of power that anyone can have. It’s like, Inter-Continental Ballistic Modesty! Men wish they had that kind of power. But, alas, we are weak beings:

For it is a woman’s refusal of sexual importunings, coupled with hints or promises of later gratification, that is generally a necessary condition of transforming a man’s lust into love.

In fact, we are so weak that even our self-control is entirely your responsibility.

Women also lost the capacity to discover their own genuine longings and best interests.

See above re: pot roast. Also Valium.

Apparently this is the first of a three-part series. You know, the sad thing about this sort of thing is that the entry of women into college and the workforce since 1945, the sexual revolution, and the increase of geographical mobility really are huge social changes. They really have had tremendous consequences of all kinds for individuals, families and whole societies. Entire branches of social science are given over to trying to understand them. Leon Kass’s horror at the way the world has turned out is unsurprising. His desire to return to some kind of Victorian nightmare is just about understandable. But it’s bad sociology and it’s appalling moral philosophy as well.

Jim Henley speaks into the night

[T]he US and its Iraqi allies chose to try Saddam on one of his relatively minor crimes because if they did so they could get him safely hung before they had to try him for the major ones, the gas attacks and massacres that happened during The Years of Playing Footsie with the United States. The Dujail reprisals were a war crime, no doubt about it, a bigger sham of justice than Saddam’s own trial, by two orders of magnitude. They were also the sort of war crime that people like Ralph Peters and a hundred other pundits and parapundits think the United States should be committing. Every time you read a complaint about “politically correct rules of engagement” you are reading someone who would applaud a Dujail-level slaughter if only we were to perpetrate it. Those are the people who are happiest of all about tonight’s execution. Smells like—victory! It’s the pomander they don against the stench.

Matthew Yglesias: Ronald Reagan, Donald Rumsfeld, and Saddam Hussein

Saddam Hussein is a monster who the world will be well rid of.... [But,] as Spencer notes in its zeal to avoid an international tribunal (Bush hates international law), we organized a total farce of a trial and wound up creating a kangaroo court to try a guilty man. When you think "Saddam Hussein and crimes against humanity" your thoughts naturally turn to Halabja/Anfal. Prosecuting that case, however, raised awkward questions about Don Rumsfeld's meet-and-greet with Saddam Hussein.... The purpose of said visit, as people might recall were the American press not to have its head in the sand, was largely to reassure Saddam that the Reagan administration's public condemnation of Iraqi chemical weapons use against the Iranian military and Kurdish insurgents was not something Baghdad should take especially seriously. [George Shulz's] State Department would condemn, but special envoy Rumsfeld was around to cut deals. At any rate, as a result of Saddam's pending execution, prosecutions for further crimes, including matters related to Anfal, are now deemed unnecessary.... Saddam is being executed for the specific charge of killing 148 men and boys from the town of Dujail in retaliation for a July 8, 1982 assassination attempt against Saddam. Saddam's legal team argued that given the state of war existing at the time between Iraq and Iran this fell under the purview of sound counterinsurgency strategy and said argument was rejected. Fair enough, but compare this to, say, Fallujah. Thirteen civilians were killed when American soldiers opened fire on protesters. This led, in turn, to the murder and mutilation of four contractors employed by the US military. This led to a retaliatory military strike on the town by US and Iraqi government forces that local doctors claimed killed over 600 people. The Iraqi health ministry disputes that, arguing that "only" 271 civilians died in the attack, during which "more than half" of the city's homes were destroyed. The exact same as what happened at Dujail? No. A completely different sort of thing? Also no. But if Dujail is worth a death sentence, then what's Fallujah worth? Five years? Ten? I don't really know. How about the people tortured to death after the Bush administration's decision to ignore international and domestic law regarding detentions and interrogations?