Libby and Rove

Patrick Fitzgerald has spoken: Lewis Libby Jr. will be indicted, but Karl Rove not. Or not yet. Or not at all... Now I wonder if Judith Miller's eventual testimony contributed to that decision.

In the mean time, I must confess that I hope that the political career and the influence of these two is effectively over. Rove and Libby (as well as some other people) stand for everything that I loathe about US politics these days. It is not so much their particular opinions or agendas (though I find these troubling at best), but their attitudes about how the business of politics is conducted. These guys are truly machiavellian (apologies to Niccolo Machiavelli for associating his name with these people): the end justifies any means, including dirty play, fraud, coercion, empty rhetoric and lots of bullshit.

Mind you, there are lots of Democrats who fit that description as well....

Iranian Ire against Israel

President Ahmadinejad of Iran took the opportunity of Al Qudsday (Jerusalem Day), the last Friday of Ramadan, to call for the annihilation of Israel. In many European capitalsIranian ambassadors will have to come and 'explain' this outburst of hatred of their president. Most Arab nations are mum however.
Chris Morris (not to be confused with any of these Chris Morrises) forwarded me an article from Stratfor, some kind of strategic think tank that often have peculiar analyses of world affairs. They seem to base their analyses on local newspapers mostly (which is commendable because it means they actually have people who read those languages -- unless they only consult the English pages of the internet versions of these papers) and "country experts", but perhaps they have more sources.

Anyway, Stratfor seems to think that this is an interesting development and speculates about the presence of Al Quaida members in Iran. Leaving the speculation aside, Thomas Erdbrink, a Dutch reporter in Tehran who is married with an Iranian and has lived in Tehran for quite a while now, tries to downplay the fuzz. According to Erdbrink in today's NRC Handelsblad this is nothing new under the sun. Each week the Friday sermon ends with communal shouting of 'Death to America, death to Israel' (and not just in Iran -- I saw a documentary by Thomas Friedman from Egypt where the Friday prayer in the great Mosque of Cairo ended on a similar high note). Furthermore, this deat to Israel thing seems to be part and parcel of the Iranian myth of state. Ahmadinejad's statements echo those of Khomeiny and others from the beginnings of the current regime in 1979/1980 (is it that long ago already...). Erdbrink also stresses that the Iranian regime see the Palestinian conflict as a conflict between Islam and Judaism and their sympathies clearly lie with the former. (I remember that Erdbrink once wrote about the Jewish community in Iran, which apparently is quite large). So in a nutshell this is just business as usual for this regime and, contra Stratfor, this does not look like a mistake from an inexperienced politician.

Oh and here is the whole Stratfor text as it is by subscription only and I don't suppose many people have such a subscription

Geopolitical Diary: Thursday, Oct. 27, 2005

Iran took a sudden detour off the road to rapprochement with the United States on Wednesday, with two interesting -- though unrelated -- developments.

First, President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad gave a speech in which he repeated the call of revolutionary leader Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini that Israel should be "wiped off the map." That certainly carries implications that are serious enough, especially considering that Iran is seeking the right to exploit nuclear technology and convince the world that it will handle that power responsibly. But making matters worse, German magazine Cicero issued a report on the same day, claiming that 25 senior al Qaeda members are being allowed to roam freely in Tehran by the clerical establishment.

The article, which will be published in Cicero's November issue, cites unidentified Western intelligence sources as claiming that the free-ranging jihadists hail from Egypt, Uzbekistan, Saudi Arabia and Europe. The 25 reportedly include three sons of Osama bin Laden -- Saad, Mohammad and Othman -- along with al Qaeda spokesman Suleiman Abu Ghaith. Reportedly, the al Qaeda members are living in houses owned by the country's elite military unit, the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, which also is providing them with logistical assistance and military training. Cicero quotes one intelligence source as saying, "This is not incarceration or house arrest," because "they can move around as they please."

There have been rumors of an al Qaeda presence in Iran before, but the Cicero report provides perhaps the most detailed descriptions to date. It is the first report to claim that three of bin Laden's sons are sheltering there (rather than just one, Saad), and to name them all. Second, the report makes no mention of Saif al-Adel, the shadowy al Qaeda military chief who, there is reason to believe, has taken refuge in Iran. Nor is there any mention of Ayman al-Zawahiri, who in the past has reported to be present in Iran (though we believe him to be hiding somewhere in Pakistan).

It is interesting to note, however, that in a recent letter to al Qaeda's chieftain in Iraq, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, al-Zawahiri took a soft tone toward Shiite Muslims, saying, "What loss will befall us if we did not attack the Shia? And do the brothers forget that we have more than one hundred prisoners -- many of whom are from the leadership who are wanted in their countries -- in the custody of the Iranians?"

Given the deep ideological differences between Shiite Iran and Wahhabi al Qaeda, Tehran likely is not harboring militant leaders or fighters out of good will, but rather is holding them, to be used at a time appropriate to its own interests. Therefore, the clerical regime could have a number of top al Qaeda operatives in its custody -- and intends to use them as a bargaining chip in any deals it might be pursuing with the United States to shed Iran's pariah status.

On that front, any recent warming between Washington and Tehran likely just took a new chill, with Ahmadinejad's fiery statements about Israel.

On the surface at least, the timing for Iran could hardly be worse: During the past week, both the Iranians and the Americans not only have acknowledged having had contact with each other, but also have stressed the need to create the appropriate atmosphere to conduct direct talks. With his warning that any Muslim leader who recognizes Israel would "face the wrath of their own people" -- and that the global Muslim community "will not allow its historic enemy to live in its heartland" -- Ahmadinejad made that atmosphere harder to bring about.

Given the context of the speech -- Ahmadinejad was addressing 4,000 students at a conference titled "The World Without Zionism" -- it seems quite possible that the president's statements reflect his own personal views, but not necessarily the official position of Iran. In other words, if he shot himself in the foot, it was with his own personal revolver, not a rifle cocked and loaded by the clerical establishment.

It should be remembered that, unlike the two presidents before him, Ahmadinejad is not a cleric. He also is relatively young and unpolished, having soared to the presidency directly from the mayoralty of Tehran, on the strength of Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei's endorsement. It is not unusual for Iranian leaders -- especially those rather right-of-center -- to make provocative statements against the United States and Israel, but they are usually adroitly calculated and less brazen in their rhetoric. Thus, it is quite likely that Ahmadinejad crafted his speech to cater to his own hard-line constituency

It's certainly not the first time Ahmadinejad has created controversy. In an interview published in the Oct. 1 issue of the Dubai-based Khaleej Times, he threatened to withhold the sale of oil if the issue of Iran's nuclear program was referred to the U.N. Security Council. Hours after the interview was publicized, the Office of the President in Tehran issued a fax in which Ahmadinejad denied ever having given an interview, either orally or in writing -- but the Khaleej Times stood by the story.

We also note that a number of Ahmadinejad's key Cabinet appointments have been rejected by the parliament -- controlled by his fellow hardliners -- on grounds that the nominees lacked experience for the portfolios. It appears that Khamenei is keenly aware of the downsides of having a loyal, but young and inexperienced, follower in the executive office -- which would explain why he recently granted significant new powers to former two-term President Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, who was bested by Ahmadinejad in June's presidential election.

The unelected elders may believe they can cultivate Ahmadinejad into a shrewd politician, but the missteps -- especially with Wednesday's speech -- are getting hard to cover over with "spin." The damage to Iran's strategic interests might already be done.

Send questions or comments on this article to analysis@stratfor.com.

Incompetent students?

Just spent most of my evening setting up a rough and quick homepage (look under my profile) so as to have a place to dump papers and stuff. Also an opportunity to try out this new Dreamweaver our new Web Person kindly installed on my home computer. (If I would refer to her as Web Mistress all kinds of wrong assumptions would be made). It is an illegal copy and not very stable. In addition, it asks me all kinds of questions I am afraid of answering for fear the Dreamweaver Company might raid my place and throw me in jail. Still, I have clicked, dragged and typed untill finally something legible (never mind intelligible) appeared. This technology is still so new to me... sigh!

Anyway, while clicking etc., I was reminded of several reports in tonight's NRC Handelsblad about the level of knowledge and competency of our high school graduates. It appears that because of all the changes in the high schools over the last 15 years or so, we are turning out graduates who enter university unable to do long division and cannot calculate a logarithm without a cheat sheet. In addition, it appears that more than 30% of journalism students make elementary spelling mistakes. This confirms my impression that students nowadays are really good in finding stuff on the internet, but lack the persistence to actually go to the library and find a paper reference. They are good at quick reading, but terrible at really studying a text in detail. They can tell you the conclusions of an argument, but cannot reconstruct to argument, nor evaluate whether it has any merit. It seems they have all kinds of skills I never had (including building decent website and blogs), but lack the background knowledge and attitude towards studying students used to have.

While part of this complaint is of all times (my supervisor lectured me for hours on the trespasses I committed against the Dutch language in the various drafts of my MA thesis), it now seems more is going on and my impression is not just that of an old fart who is entering the ranks of the grumpy old men (well, I wish...), but has some relation to fact.

But what to do about it? Another high school education reform...?!? Oh no!

Quick follow up on Judith Miller

The questions regarding Miller's ties with the White House have also reached the international press. E.g., the Dutch quality newspaper NRC Handelsblad reports on the case as yet another glitch in the NYT's journalistic record. But also here, here and here.

My main point remains: the boundaries a journalistic privilege not to reveal sources need spelling out. Miller imho clearly overstepped those.

Abuse of the Ethics of Journalism?

Yesterday's (it's after midnight here) New York Times had this interesting piece on one of its reporters, Judith Miller. Judith Miller has just served 85 days in prison for refusing to reveal her source to US prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald (who is praised lavishly and compared with Eliott Ness in another hagiographic piece by NYT).

On July 6, 2005, the judge of the grand jury convicted Judith Miller of contempt of court for her failure to reveal her sources in the White House. About 12 months earlier, journalist Kim Novak revealed that Valerie Plame, the wife of former US ambassador to Niger, Joe Wilson, was a CIA operative. He based this on informed sources within the administration. Rumors were pointing to Karl Rove, one of president Bush' most important advisors. Revealing the identity of a CIA operative is a federal crime. Generally, it is believed that the White House leaked this information to get even with Wilson for his article in the New York Times in which he denied that Iraqi agents had managed to purchase uranium yellow cake (an impure form of uranium used for constructing nuclear weapons) from Niger or anywhere else in Africa.

Judith Miller had good contacts in the White House and is seen by some as one of the New York Times’ journalists who tried very hard to make the threat of WMDs credible. After Kim Novak revealed the information about Ms. Plame, Time reporter Matthew Cooper did the same. Judith Miller, however, never published the above mentioned facts about Plame. Since revealing the identity of a secret agent is a federal crime, a grand jury was asked to investigate the matter and, if possible, bring criminal charges to those involved. The prosecutor subpoenaed Matthew Cooper and Judith Miller (but not Kim Novak!). They refused to reveal the identity of their White House source(s) upon which the judge declared that it was not up to them to decide whether or not they were permitted to withhold such information.

Journalists have an obligation to inform the public as well as they can. They also have an obligation protect their sources. In order to satisfy this latter obligation, they sometimes refuse to name their source. And we all know examples, real of fictitious, about heroic journalists who rather go to prison than reveal their source. Because of this, journalists sometimes claim that they should be excused in such cases and granted the privilege of not revealing their source. It is commendable when journalists are willing to undergo serious difficulties in the cause of this privilege.

Judith Miller claimed a similar privilege. However, what she did was nothing short of an abuse of that privilege. Here is why. It seems a crime has been committed: the cover of a CIA operative was deliberately blown, by one or more persons in the administration. The US prosecutor has to show that there was a pattern of leaking to the press in order to establish that this was deliberate. This requires that he find out who have been talking about Valerie Plame to the press. So if members of the press subsequently keep quiet they become accomplices to this attempt to thwart the investigation (another crime).

The question is whether journalists should have this privilege regardless of their actions and intentions. For example, if a journalist by remaining silent about her source, allows corrupt and criminal officials to get off the hook, it seems that the grounds for having the privilege not to reveal one’s sources are not satisfied. This is exactly what was going on in the case of Miller’s refusal to reveal Libby's name to the prosecutor. By remaining silent, she did nothing to advance the public interest. In fact, it looks like her silence did nothing to protect her source (Matthew Cooper and Kim Novak have talked to the prosecutor already), but seriously impedes the case of the prosecutor. He has to prove that this leak was not accidental, but part of a pattern in order to prove his case against Rove and Libby.

So this seems a case where the claimed privilege to remain silent about the identity of one's source constitutes a potential abuse of such a privilege.

That raises the question why the NYT was so proudly rallying behind Miller almost three months ago when she had to go to prison. These facts were known then as well as now. Could it be that the prospect of having a martyr for the cause of the public's right to know on the payroll obscured the vision of Judith Miller's superiors? It seems the NYT is asking itself that question as well...

Hurting but not harming the poor

My good friend Gijs van Donselaar pointed out to me that there is a way in which the rich West is hurting the poor without it being the case that they harm them. What is more, this type of hurting is also morally objectionable, but it is much harder to pin down the nature of the objection.

The idea is the following. Suppose you see a man drowning. You have all the skills to save him and it is not dangerous at all. However, before you enter the water to haul him out you propose a deal to him: I will save you if you give me your wallet, your car and your house. Note that this is a deal to mutual advantage. Both the drowning man and you will be better off as a result of this deal. (I assume that it is better to be alive without money, care and house, than it is to be dead). Furthermore, you haven't harmed the drowning man at all. It is not the case that you first pushed him into the water before making the proposal. Still, you should feel less than fully confident that there is nothing wrong with such a deal. The reason why you should lack such confidence, I believe, is that the deal seems totally disproportionate. The only reason why you can come to an agreement is that you are in a position of almost absolute bargaining power.

Now consider the poor factory workers in Cambodia working in factories that manufacture sneakers. Or consider the child laborers in places like Pakistan, Bangladesh and elsewhere. These people are in the same position as the drowning man: they prefer to work long hours in a crappy and dangerous job and have some salary over starvation. We in the West rely for a lot of the products we consume on cheap labor. It is easiest to get this in places like Cambodia, Pakistan and Bangladesh where there are a lot of desparate poor who are willing to trade their labor for the worst conditions possible and very little pay. Both the poor factory workers, the child laborers as well as we, the customers of the rich entrepreneurs who have exported their manufacture to the poor countries, benefit. So this is a situation of mutual advantage. Some knee-jerk globalists rejoice: 'look, everybody benefits!' And while it is certainly true that the poor Cambodians, Pakistani and Bangladeshi benefit (they would have starved otherwise), it is hard to see how this situation is morally (or otherwise) commendable. So even if it is not the case that the poor in the developing nations are poor because of the West, as Pogge argues (see my earlier post), we should pay decent wages, insist on good working conditions and supply things like schooling, healthcare and other services to the poor workers in those nations. To do anything less would be immoral -- in the same way as it is immoral to ask a drowning man for all his possessions in exchange for saving his life.

Capetti's Crap is open for inspection!

In this blog I will gather stuff. All the stuff that needs sorting out . Here I intend to sort out what is to be trashed, what should be kept and what really is crap. Perhaps you will find it interesting, amusing, perhaps not and perhaps you will think sites like these, well, crap.

Me on a very good day

After only a few hours, I got this blog to work!

I managed to get two comments already which is great. They turned out to be spam from some guys urging me to abuse this beautiful place as a vehicle for advertisements for their wares but I am too happy to let that ruin the day. The picture shows how satisfied and pleased I am. I feel so competent now...

No comments please!

Harming the Poor

Thomas Pogge's 2002 book World Poverty and Human Rights is an interesting book. However, I do think that there is a mistake in the central claim of the book. I intend to investigate this in more detail and put it in an article. The basic thought is simple...

According to Thomas Pogge in his 2002 book and lots of publications before and after then, we, rich inhabitants of the developed nations are harming the poor by our acquiescence and (indirect) support of national and international institutions. Those institutions rig the terms under which the poor participate in national and international (market-)interactions. From export subsidies to trade tariffs and several aspects of international law: we are harming the poor. Since even the most right-wing conservative libertarians (an oxymoron, I admit, but you know who I mean) believe in the harm principle, it seems that we all are under a strict duty to stop harming the poor and compensate them. This means that we should radically reform international institutions and increase the level of development aid (as well as the terms under which aid is given).

While I agree with Pogge's conclusion (I believe that the US and the the EU are screwing the poor nations in Africa and elsewhere) I doubt that a well-thinking libertarian would be convinced by Pogge's argument. Consider why: in order for there to be harm, as Pogge claims, you need to prove a couple of things. First, you have to demonstrate that there is a relevant and robust causal chain between your actions and the effects on your victim. For example, it could be that by clapping my hands now, I set up a pattern in the weather over sub-saharan Africa causing all kinds of natural disasters over there. That could not count as harm. However, actively burning crops in those countries clearly is. Secondly, you need to show that the alledged victims are worse off than they would have been. This is really tricky in the cases that Pogge describes, for it is unclear what the relevant basis of comparison should be. I will discuss only two suggestions (there are lots more).

It could be the case that you should compare the actual situation with the case where the West never colonized Africa and never would have had any interactions? However, then it is unclear whether the Africans are really worse off. Suppose you opt for the following alternative: compare the actual situation to the situation where the West interacted with Africa under decent terms and with open markets. Then it is clear the the Africans are worse off, except you now beg the question as to whether the developed nations are violating the rights of the African poor. How this is the case will become clear if we look at the third condition.

Third, you need to show that the causal effect that had a worsening influence involved a rights violation of sorts. Compare the following case: suppose I open a restaurant in the same street as you. As a result, you no longer attract the same number of customer's that you had before. It is clear that you are worse off as a (reliable and robust causal) result of my actions. You are worse of than you would have been in my absence. However, I doubt anybody will claim that I am harming you. Why? Because I am not violating any rights on your part.

This latter condition is important. One of its implications is that it blocks any argument of the following sort:

• Since my action of opening the restaurant result in a worse situation for me, I have harmed you.
• Therefore, I have violated your rights and I owe you compensation and I ought to make sure that it will never happen again.

The conclusion does not follow: you cannot conclude from a worsening effect that your rights have been violated.

A similar mistake seems to be going on when Pogge claims we are harming the poor. From the fact that were the international institutions different, the poor would be better off, one cannot conclude that these institutions are violating a rights of the poor. Only if you have accepted a background of certain rights, can you determine whether or not a specific causal worsening effect is harmful and therefore forbidden. I suspect that those pre-accepted background rights will be so strong that not many libertarians are eager to accept them. For example, such a right as the right to sufficient food, shelter, etc., is not a right that a libertarian will endorse. As a result, I do not think that Pogge's argument shows that we, in the rich countries, are harming the poor.

A better and much more honest way to criticise the West is to argue that we have a positive imperfect obligation to alleviate the suffering in the world. And since it is so damn cheap to do so (as Pogge and others show us), we have to satisfy this obligation at much, much higher levels than we are doing now.