Friday, August 29, 2003

[9:27 PM] I wrote here over and over that pre-war Iraq posed no threat to United States for a number of reasons, most of them related to technical capabilities or lack thereof. But Iraq’s apparent ability to pose a regional threat because of its suspected chemical and biological weapons (and dubious nuclear program) made it the concern that eventually led to war. So it’s very striking to me how little attention is being paid to the two countries not only with nuclear weapons ambitions but with robust nuclear programs – Iran and North Korea. The Bush administration is still feeling its way into a North Korea policy and it is not at all clear what it will do about Iran’s burgeoning nuclear program. How ironic it is then that when North Korea proclaims that it may have to test a nuclear weapon to get a little respect, that announcement winds up on page six of the New York Times. These two situations are crucial situations for U.S. security. So naturally we hear very little from the president’s mouth about either situation. Who is setting the page six agenda, the White House or is the White House taking its cue from the media?

# posted 9:31 PM

Wednesday, August 27, 2003

[9:00 AM] With multiparty talks between China, the United States, Japan, South Korea, Russian, and North Korea set to begin today over the DPRK’s nuclear program, it seems there’s no room in the Bush State Department for dissenters (or is that people who keep all options open?).

Jack Pritchard, the special envoy for negotiations with North Korea, is departing at a critical moment, days before six-nation talks begin in China to pressure North Korea to drop its efforts to reprocess spent fuel rods for weapons. He was criticized last week by a senator for being out of sync with the administration's policy.

[…]

But North Korea experts said Mr. Pritchard was known to be uncomfortable with the evolving American policy. A 28-year veteran of the Army, Mr. Pritchard was a driving force behind President Clinton's trip to Vietnam in 2000, and he accompanied Secretary of State Madeleine K. Albright to North Korea for meetings with Kim Jong Il that year.

Wouldn’t want someone like that around would we? That might lead to a breakthrough. Then John Bolton would have to move on to name calling elsewhere.

# posted 9:01 AM

Saturday, August 23, 2003

[3:38 PM] What’s going to happen to Iran and its burgeoning nuclear (weapons) program? Here are three scenarios. I put my money on the secret deal between Iran and the U.S. Don’t discount the same from happening with North Korea as well.

# posted 3:41 PM

Tuesday, August 19, 2003

[2:58 PM] On a day of horrific bombings, I note (because I've been busy and neglecting posts) that I could almost duplicate my previous with respect to the bombing in Israel. Here's the usual line from the WP: "The bombing threatened to derail the U.S.-backed 'road map' peace plan." While the White House offered its usual call on the Palestinian Authority to "dismantle terrorism," it certainly isn't difficult to predict that this scenario will repeat itself again and again so long as the administration can't call on Israel to halt assassinations of Palestinian militants.

# posted 3:09 PM

Wednesday, August 13, 2003

[3:02 PM] “Suicide bombings jolt Mideast peace hopes” the headline reads. It seems like such a predictable headline that one has to ask, When will the approach to finding a settlement of the Israeli-Palestinian situation recognize that this is likely to happen each time progress is made?

Here’s a subjective headline from MSNBC, “Israel restrained after suicide attacks,” after which we learn that “restrained” to MSNBC means razing the house of one of the teenage suicide bomber and leaving 12 people homeless.

# posted 3:03 PM

[2:48 PM] Is George W. Bush ready to re-engage (or is that engage) in Latin America? There will apparently be an emergency Summit of the Americas in October of this year. Mr. Bush is likely to attend according to this article which says that the Americas put on way too many summits.

# posted 2:49 PM

Monday, August 11, 2003

[2:45 PM] So Charles Taylor has stepped down and jetted off to Nigeria. Symbolically, at least for now, U.S. warships moved to within sight of the coast of Liberia. Now the U.S. is serious about peacekeeping there--or so it says. Taylor’s exit was always a condition for Bush to engage in Liberia and help bring peace and eliminate a growing humanitarian disaster. Then shouldn’t the U.S. have helped to force Taylor out with something more than presidential rhetoric?

A leader of the rebel group known as LURD declared that as long as Mr. Taylor left the country as planned, the war would end. "For us in LURD, the war is over," Sekou Fofana of Liberians United for Reconciliation and Democracy told Reuters. "Once he leaves Liberia today we are not going to fight. The suffering of Liberians is over."

Who knows if LURD is serious about ending hostilities; but if this is true then it doesn’t provide any cover or justification for the Bush administration’s sit on its hands approach which it frames as setting up pre-conditions (the right time, atmosphere, etc.) for intervention. Taylor at one point said he wouldn't leave until U.S. peacekeepers arrive. Wouldn't it have been worth finding out if he way lying to save the thousand or so people who died in the interim?

# posted 2:51 PM

Monday, August 04, 2003

[3:15 PM] View some of the images from the now cancelled Policy Analysis Market here. There are few site on the web with these images, but so far in my search no one has reconstructed the entire site, although all the individual files seem to be available.

# posted 3:20 PM

[12:49 PM] This “terrorist” futures network that has recently been cancelled after a public furor is fascinating. I admit I fell into the trap of being a tad bewildered about a futures market set up to predict terrorist attacks. But this story got wildly distorted right off the bat. This was not a plan to bet on terrorist attacks and political assassinations, but rather a market to engage a diverse group of “insiders” on their insights into geopolitical events in the Middle East. Here’s a more accurate, if late description of the project. This article in the NYT laments that the project suffered from bad press and sets the record straight on a lot of the misinformation.

[P]oliticians, reporters and editorial writers mistakenly jumped onto "assassination and terrorist attack futures" as a fundamental part of the market design.

Interestingly, the author doesn’t mention his own paper as being a part of the hysteria. Here’s a selection of NYT headlines (and of course the Times was by no means alone in this respect):

"Stock Prices and the Terror Factor"
"Pentagon Abandons Plan for Futures Market on Terror"
"Poindexter to Resign Following Terrorist Futures Debacle"
"Poindexter Will Be Quitting Over Terrorism Betting Plan"

The NPR radio program “The Connection” featured a great show on this today. It featured among other guests Robin Hanson, one of the co-creators of the project. Hanson several times had to calm the hysterical guest host, who despite Hanson’s patient and multiple explanations could not get it in her head that the market was not designed for predicting terrorist attacks and assassinations. Give it a listen.

# posted 12:54 PM

Sunday, August 03, 2003

[10:39 AM] A bold theory indeed!

There is a bold and entirely plausible theory that may account for the mystery over Iraq's missing weapons of mass destruction.

Saddam Hussein, the theory holds, ordered the destruction of his weapon stocks well before the war to deprive the United States of a rationale to attack his regime and to hasten the eventual lifting of the United Nations sanctions. But the Iraqi dictator retained the scientists and technical capacity to resume the production of chemical and biological weapons and eventually develop nuclear arms.

Mr. Hussein's calculation was that he could restart his weapons programs once the international community lost interest in Iraq and became absorbed with other crises. That would enable him to pursue his dream of making Iraq the dominant power in the Persian Gulf region and make it easier for him to deter enemies at home and abroad.

Fields Report has been pushing this theory for almost a year now. It’s regrettable that it’s gaining favor now only after a war that continues to rage. More to come.

# posted 10:43 AM