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Still More Intra-Right Wing NSA Civil War

I've never been a huge Richard Epstein groupie, but this is just awesome:

We do not have a constitution that sets one power against another and requires tipping and balances. We have a constitution that designates specific functions for the various branches of government. In David's view, which reflects an uncritical conventional wisdom, we balance the president's implied "enormous substantive powers" against the explicit congressional powers. But there are no such powers. Nor in this case does the balance change because we know that the president is largely in charge of foreign affairs, in part because "He shall have Power, by and with the Advice and Consent of the Senate, to make Treaties, provided two thirds of the Senators present concur." Note there is a power, and it cannot be limited by Congress which (unlike the Senate) has no power in this context. And remember Congress has, and the president does not, an explicit power "to make the rules governing land and naval forces," which is not written in any "narrow fashion." Third, the president has duties that go along with his powers and other functions. Thus "he shall take care that the Laws be faithfully executed," which hardly speaks of vast discretion to choose which to follow and which to disregard.

A Throwaway Dig on the SOTU

Hmm, evidently "isolationism" is a spectre haunting the nation.  Or haunting the president.  Or something.

Can the pres name three prominent isolationists, or explain what it means to be an isolationist?

Gerecht on Gerechtism

Via Nick Gvosdev, here's Reuel Marc Gerecht on his reaction to the Green Revolution in Palestine:

One, it was to be expected, and two, you should not be discouraged by it.  With Fatah in power, you really have no evolution, you're going to have continuing radicalization of the Palestinian society.  With Hamas now being the principal political party in the Palestinian territories, you're going to actually have a chance for internal evolution.  The issue is not the peace process; the issue is whether Palestinian politics--Palestinian ethics--start to evolve.  I think they will, but I think we have to expect--and I think there are some in the Bush administration who I think were naive about this--as democratization moves forward in the Muslim Middle East, it is going to increase anti-Americanism.  That's fine.  (speaker's emphasis)  It is part of the healing process; it is part of the evolution.  Just imagine Latin America, where anti-Americanism actually grew, I think, with the democratic growth--but triple it.  Quadruple it.  I mean, it's going to be a lot more intense.  But you have to look upon it as sort of the fever working itself out.

The objective here--and this is where I do compliment the president--is that he understood that after 9/11 there was a transcendent issue here.  And that is that you weren't going to get away from this conundrum and this culdesac that created bin Ladenism unless the tyrannies change.  In fact, it is this perverse nexus of tyrannies and Islamic radicalism that gave birth to this ever-more-militant form of Islamic radicalism.

Man, there's a lot there.  First off, it was to be expected?  Who expected it?  Maybe Pat Lang, for one.  For his part, here's what he's predicting now:

The Muslims never gave up on their duty to return Palestine to the Umma. They won’t this time either. Last time it took 190 odd years...

Epistemology:

1-Duck Rule: If it walks like a duck, squawks like a duck and has feathers, it probably is a duck.

2 – Sherlock’s Rule: When considering a problem, remove everything from consideration which seems untrue. What is left is probably the truth.

3-Occam’s Razor: In considering a complex phenomenon with many factors and a variety of explanations, remember that the simplest explanation that accounts for the factors is probably correct.

4- The KISS principal” “Keep it Simple, Stupid.” (Army Rule)

On the basis of the application of these philosophical tools, I judge that Hamas is exactly what it says it is and that Israel will re-occupy the Palestinian Territories after Natanyahu returns to power. It may take him a while but his analysis will resemble mine.

In this context, I'm forced to wonder about Gerecht's remark that "the issue is not the peace process."  If the ascent of Hamas plunges Palestine into chaos/civil war/open aggression against Israel, is the Lang Scenario foreseeable, or not?  Doesn't Israel then get a pass, since they could just say "Look at that place!  Who do you want us to deal with over there?"  You could say this is too cynical were it not for the fact that lots of important and high-ranking folks in this country despise Oslo and would love nothing more than to take anything resembling it off the table.  Palestine in complete turmoil pretty much guarantees that for the foreseeable future.

The other interesting thing is that Gerecht seems to view the terrorism problem as more abstract and more long-term than most of us do.  Most of us seem to think there are people, right now, who are plotting to kill us, right now.  We seek to kill these folks, disrupt their networks, and would like it a lot if they were unpopular in their region and far away from the levers of power.  Gerecht, for his part, seems to believe that plunging the region into massive upheaval with the rise of fanatical Islamists to power is a good thing, which betrays a belief that this transformation is the necessary response to an extremely long-term--generational, at least--problem.

I have to admit that I blanch a bit at the prospect of making things four times worse before they get better.  I think the terror problem is limited, but immediate.  Gerecht seems to think it is massive, but extremely long-term.  I see a mess and I call it a mess.  He sees a mess and calls it progress.

We'll find out.

Latest Conservative Hobby: Breaking the Army

Not that it should be in any way connected with the item below, but here is a rather alarming quote of the day for us, from an LAT article on how anybody with a pulse is getting promoted in the Army as a result of the exodus of junior officers from the Army:

"Basically, if you haven't been court-martialed, you're going to be promoted to major," a high-ranking Army officer at the Pentagon said.

You know how Republicans like to talk about how they're in favor of "Strengthening Our Military" and stuff?  Do the Democrats think it might be wise, given their total lack of credibility on national defense, to maybe start hitting the Republicans on this?  I mean, the numbers don't lie, and defending this position is going to be harder and harder, given the number of three- and four-stars who've endorsed the view that we're putting incredible, irresponsible strains on the military.

Incidentally, when I zipped over to the GOP website, the "Catholic Team" page curiously didn't highlight the GOP's position on wars of aggression.  Interesting.

White Feather Alert

It's a shame the Army isn't having recruiting difficulties or anything.  If they were, there would be something more that these patriots could do to help the country:

On the eve of President Bush's sixth State of the Union speech Tuesday, hundreds of College Republicans around the country plan to rally in support of his stay-the-course strategy in Iraq.

Several hundred students are expected to gather Monday night in Washington, D.C., where Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist will address the first "Finish the Job, Support the Troops" rally.

More than 100 local chapters of the College Republican National Committee (CRNC) will also host "watch parties" Tuesday night so students can watch and discuss the speech.

Gosh, if only there was something more they could do.  Maybe they could put Rick Santorum stickers on their cars and support the troops that way...

The NSA Program

Sam Rosenfeld is exactly right here:

George W. Bush answers every question on the matter by asserting that the NSA program is absolutely legal -- and then explains why he needed to violate the FISA statute to implement it. Forget for a minute that the administration refused to revise FISA when legislative action was proposed; instead, just consider his explanation (elaborated by Al Gonzales) on its own terms. There simply isn't an actual dispute between the administration and its critics about the legality of the spying program. The president himself says, in so many words, that FISA was inadequate to the task at hand, so they broke that law. To be sure, he then hammers the podium and yells out a meaningless "This program is legal!" But the substance of what he's saying doesn't even dispute that the program is, in fact, technically illegal. It's a bit odd. The only possible way to construe the logic of the administration's argument for the legality of the NSA program is to interpret it as an argument that the original FISA statute, still on the books, is simply unconstitutional. Either FISA is illegal or the NSA program is.

In the continuing Bush-as-Nixon saga, one supposes you could say that "if the president does it, that means it is not illegal."

The Green Revolution

Boy, it sure is a rough day to be a neocon, no?  First, the Green Revolution in Palestine delivers a landslide victory to Hamas.  (This despite US interference to attempt to tip the balance in Fatah's favor.  I wonder how the news that Fatah was in bed with the US played in the streets of Ramallah.  I bet Hamas members were telling everybody they saw.  Maybe we should have taken Pat Lang's advice after the US Congress threw its rhetorical chip on the Fatah square: "Abbas should postpone the election again and hope that people shut up over here.")

But how will the democracy rhetoric play now?  Ariel Sharon told Natan Sharansky that his theories "have no place in the Middle East," and Shimon Peres has pointed out that "democracy begins the day after the elections."  Will the administration go the Reuel Marc Gerecht route, arguing that taking control of a government tends to have a moderating effect on radicals?  (Gerecht is fond of the quip "You don't get Thomas Jefferson without Martin Luther."  Is Hamas to play Martin Luther in Palestine?)

And just to make things more absurd, David Frum endorses Jacques Chirac's plan to murder hundreds of thousands of innocent people in response to a potential terrorist attack.

Can somebody explain to me again why anybody still takes these folks seriously?

NATO Expansion--Where Is the Line?

Ted's and my piece on NATO expansion and Russia is available here.

"The Long War"

As long as George the Second is going to claim he can do whatever he damn well pleases during this war, it might be good to attempt as best as possible to get a handle on just how long he thinks this (undeclared and undefined) war on terrorism is going to last.

Helpfully, Army Lt. Gen. Raymond Odierno, the assistant to the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, has provided the closest thing to an answer that we have yet:

"Our estimate is that for at least the next 20 years, part of our focus will be on how do we deal with the extremist networks that will continue to threaten the United States and its allies."

So that's twenty years--at least--of unfettered executive power, being built up right now by precedent that right wingers are standing up.  I never thought I'd say this, but I can't wait until Hillary Clinton gets elected president, just for the joy of watching right wingers run for cover.

Is the winter really that cold in Canada?

"Can I Get a Do-Over?"

Andrew Krepinevich has issued this assessment of the strain on the Army from his perch at the CSBA:

the Army cannot sustain the pace of troop deployments to Iraq long enough to break the back of the insurgency. He also suggested that the Pentagon's decision, announced in December, to begin reducing the force in Iraq this year was driven in part by a realization that the Army was overextended.

As evidence, Krepinevich points to the Army's 2005 recruiting slump — missing its recruiting goal for the first time since 1999 — and its decision to offer much bigger enlistment bonuses and other incentives.

"You really begin to wonder just how much stress and strain there is on the Army, how much longer it can continue," he said in an interview. He added that the Army is still a highly effective fighting force and is implementing a plan that will expand the number of combat brigades available for rotations to Iraq and Afghanistan.

[...]

Illustrating his level of concern about strain on the Army, Krepinevich titled one of his report's chapters, "The Thin Green Line."

He wrote that the Army is "in a race against time" to adjust to the demands of war "or risk `breaking' the force in the form of a catastrophic decline" in recruitment and re-enlistment.

The snarkier among you may remember that Krepinevich's widely heralded "oil spot strategy" for Iraq was contingent on "a protracted commitment of U.S. resources, a willingness to risk more casualties in the short term, and an enduring U.S. presence in Iraq."  Further, "Even if successful, this strategy will require at least a decade of commitment and hundreds of billions of dollars and will result in longer U.S. casualty rolls."

So I guess he'll be recanting on that one, now that he's had a look at the books?