Weapons not Coming from Iran
By BrianHull | May 13, 2008
A plan to show some alleged Iranian-supplied explosives to journalists last week in Karbala and then destroy them was canceled after the United States realized none of them was from Iran. A U.S. military spokesman attributed the confusion to a misunderstanding that emerged after an Iraqi Army general in Karbala erroneously reported the items were of Iranian origin.
When U.S. explosives experts went to investigate, they discovered they were not Iranian after all.
So, all this talk about Iran supplying weapons to Iraq to kill U.S. soldiers is all bullshit. Can we not bomb Iran now?
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Topics: Iraq, Iran | Comments Off
Hillary is a liar, it’s that simple….
By BrianHull | April 17, 2008
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Topics: Elections | Comments Off
Republicans Aren’t Doing Well with Fundraising
By BrianHull | April 17, 2008
Several of the GOP’s most highly touted candidates posted mediocre fundraising numbers in this year’s first quarter, raising questions about their ability to seriously compete in races that were once at the top of the Republican radar screen.
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Topics: Elections | Comments Off
Testimony by William E. Odom
By BrianHull | April 4, 2008
TESTIMONY BEFORE THE SENATE FOREIGN RELATIONS COMMITTEE ON IRAQ
By William E. Odom, LT General, USA, Ret.
2 April 2008
Good morning Mr. Chairman and members of the committee. It is an honor to appear before you again. The last occasion was in January 2007, when the topic was the troop surge. Today you are asking if it has worked.
Last year I rejected the claim that it was a new strategy. Rather, I said, it is a new tactic used to achieve the same old strategic aim, political stability. And I foresaw no serious prospects for success. I see no reason to change my judgment now. The surge is prolonging instability, not creating the conditions for unity as the president claims.
Last year, General Petraeus wisely declined to promise a military solution to this political problem, saying that he could lower the level of violence, allowing a limited time for the Iraqi leaders to strike a political deal. Violence has been temporarily reduced but today there is credible evidence that the political situation is far more fragmented. And currently we see violence surge in Baghdad and Basra. In fact, it has also remained sporadic and significant in several other parts of Iraq over the past year, notwithstanding the notable drop in Baghdad and Anbar Province.
More disturbing, Prime Minister Maliki has initiated military action and then dragged in US forces to help his own troops destroy his Shiite competitors. This is a political setback, not a political solution. Such is the result of the surge tactic.
No less disturbing has been the steady violence in the Mosul area, and the tensions in Kirkuk between Kurds, Arabs, and Turkomen. A showdown over control of the oil fields there surely awaits us. And the idea that some kind of a federal solution can cut this Gordian knot strikes me as a wild fantasy, wholly out of touch with Kurdish realities.
Also disturbing is Turkey’s military incursion to destroy Kurdish PKK groups in the border region. That confronted the US government with a choice: either to support its NATO ally, or to make good on its commitment to Kurdish leaders to insure their security. It chose the former, and that makes it clear to the Kurds that the United States will sacrifice their security to its larger interests in Turkey.
Turning to the apparent success in Anbar province and a few other Sunni areas, this is not the positive situation it is purported to be. Certainly violence has declined as local Sunni shieks have begun to cooperate with US forces. But the surge tactic cannot be given full credit. The decline started earlier on Sunni initiative. What are their motives? First, anger at al Qaeda operatives and second, their financial plight.
Their break with al Qaeda should give us little comfort. The Sunnis welcomed anyone who would help them kill Americans, including al Qaeda. The concern we hear the president and his aides express about a residual base left for al Qaeda if we withdraw is utter nonsense. The Sunnis will soon destroy al Qaeda if we leave Iraq.
The Kurds do not allow them in their region, and the Shiites, like the Iranians, detest al Qaeda. To understand why, one need only take note of the al Qaeda public diplomacy campaign over the past year or so on internet blogs. They implore the United States to bomb and invade Iran and destroy this apostate Shiite regime.
As an aside, it gives me pause to learn that our vice president and some members of the Senate are aligned with al Qaeda on spreading the war to Iran.
Let me emphasize that our new Sunni friends insist on being paid for their loyalty. I have heard, for example, a rough estimate that the cost in one area of about 100 square kilometers is $250,000 per day. And periodically they threaten to defect unless their fees are increased. You might want to find out the total costs for these deals forecasted for the next several years, because they are not small and they do not promise to end. Remember, we do not own these people. We merely rent them. And they can break the lease at any moment. At the same time, this deal protects them to some degree from the government’s troops and police, hardly a sign of political reconciliation.
Now let us consider the implications of the proliferating deals with the Sunni strongmen. They are far from unified among themselves. Some remain with al Qaeda. Many who break and join our forces are beholden to no one. Thus the decline in violence reflects a dispersion of power to dozens of local strong men who distrust the government and occasionally fight among themselves. Thus the basic military situation is far worse because of the proliferation of armed groups under local military chiefs who follow a proliferating number of political bosses.
This can hardly be called greater military stability, much less progress toward political consolidation, and to call it fragility that needs more time to become success is to ignore its implications. At the same time, Prime Minister Maliki’s military actions in Basra and Baghdad, indicate even wider political and military fragmentation. We are witnessing is more accurately described as the road to the Balkanization of Iraq, that is, political fragmentation. We are being asked by the president to believe that this shift of so much power and finance to so many local chieftains is the road to political centralization. He describes the process as building the state from the bottom up.
I challenge you to press the administration’s witnesses this week to explain this absurdity. Ask them to name a single historical case where power has been aggregated successfully from local strong men to a central government except through bloody violence leading to a single winner, most often a dictator. That is the history of feudal Europe’s transformation to the age of absolute monarchy. It is the story of the American colonization of the west and our Civil War. It took England 800 years to subdue clan rule on what is now the English-Scottish border. And it is the source of violence in Bosnia and Kosovo.
How can our leaders celebrate this diffusion of power as effective state building? More accurately described, it has placed the United States astride several civil wars. And it allows all sides to consolidate, rearm, and refill their financial coffers at the US expense.
To sum up, we face a deteriorating political situation with an over extended army. When the administration’s witnesses appear before you, you should make them clarify how long the army and marines can sustain this band-aid strategy.
The only sensible strategy is to withdraw rapidly but in good order. Only that step can break the paralysis now gripping US strategy in the region. The next step is to choose a new aim, regional stability, not a meaningless victory in Iraq. And progress toward that goal requires revising our policy toward Iran. If the president merely renounced his threat of regime change by force, that could prompt Iran to lessen its support to Taliban groups in Afghanistan. Iran detests the Taliban and supports them only because they will kill more Americans in Afghanistan as retaliation in event of a US attack on Iran. Iran’s policy toward Iraq would also have to change radically as we withdraw. It cannot want instability there. Iraqi Shiites are Arabs, and they know that Persians look down on them. Cooperation between them has its limits.
No quick reconciliation between the US and Iran is likely, but US steps to make Iran feel more secure make it far more conceivable than a policy calculated to increase its insecurity. The president’s policy has reinforced Iran’s determination to acquire nuclear weapons, the very thing he purports to be trying to prevent.
Withdrawal from Iraq does not mean withdrawal from the region. It must include a realignment and reassertion of US forces and diplomacy that give us a better chance to achieve our aim.
A number of reasons are given for not withdrawing soon and completely. I have refuted them repeatedly before but they have more lives than a cat. Let try again me explain why they don’t make sense.
First, it is insisted that we must leave behind military training element with no combat forces to secure them. This makes no sense at all. The idea that US military trainers left alone in Iraq can be safe and effective is flatly rejected by several NCOs and junior officers I have heard describe their personal experiences. Moreover, training foreign forces before they have a consolidated political authority to command their loyalty is a windmill tilt. Finally, Iraq is not short on military skills.
Second, it is insisted that chaos will follow our withdrawal. We heard that argument as the “domino theory” in Vietnam. Even so, the path to political stability will be bloody regardless of whether we withdraw or not. The idea that the United States has a moral responsibility to prevent this ignores that reality. We are certainly to blame for it, but we do not have the physical means to prevent it. American leaders who insist that it is in our power to do so are misleading both the public and themselves if they believe it.
The real moral question is whether to risk the lives of more Americans. Unlike preventing chaos, we have the physical means to stop sending more troops where many will be killed or wounded. That is the moral responsibility to our country which no American leaders seems willing to assume.
Third, nay sayers insist that our withdrawal will create regional instability. This confuses cause with effect. Our forces in Iraq and our threat to change Iran’s regime are making the region unstable. Those who link instability with a US withdrawal have it exactly backwards. Our ostrich strategy of keeping our heads buried in the sands of Iraq has done nothing but advance our enemies’ interest.
I implore you to reject these fallacious excuses for prolonging the commitment of US forces to war in Iraq.
Thanks for this opportunity to testify today.
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Topics: Iraq | Comments Off
The Best Political Satire Ever…. or is it?
By BrianHull | March 7, 2008
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Topics: Politics, Elections | 1 Comment »
Obama Gets My Vote
By BrianHull | February 10, 2008
As many of you probably know, I was originally supporting Edwards in the 2008 Democratic Primary. I was immediately drawn to the populist message which he carried over from his 2004 campaign as well as his views on the Iraq War, poverty, labor, the environment, and health care. His anti-corporate rhetoric also resonated very strongly with me. I had hopes that his strategy would work, win
You see, I’m not a big fan of Hillary Clinton, and I wasn’t much of a fan of Bill Clinton either. I suppose during the 1990s everything was ok, we were all working and the economy generated enough wealth to make most people happy. But there’s so much more to the story of
Granted, I understand that Hillary Clinton is not Bill Clinton, but she seems just as calculating as her husband and I fear another 8 years of “triangulation.” It seems to me that the
And I’m glad he’s doing so well….
Topics: Elections | 4 Comments »
A Progressive Vision for Rhode Island
By BrianHull | February 7, 2008
Here’s a little something brilliant written by David Segal and Matt Jerzyk. I wish more people on the General Assembly thought this way.
There’s little disagreement that Rhode Island’s budget needs savings, that our property taxes are too high, or that our economy could use a boost. Sadly, the conventional political wisdom offers only untenable answers: Cut taxes, precisely for those who are already doing best; slash public-school funding and block cities from raising these funds on their own; use tax breaks to swipe business from other states; de-fund social services, and so on.
Further, Governor Carcieri has chosen the “you’re with us or you’re against us” mentality that has governed policy-making in the Bush administration. In his world, Democrats, labor unions, immigrants, single mothers and the poor are enemies to be chastised through press releases and on talk radio.
Alternatively, we’d suggest that our problems can be solved by bringing people together and thinking broadly in ways that rely on our state’s strengths, maintain fairness and fill real needs. We write to offer a progressive vision for this legislative year.
Transform public education via a new consolidation and funding formula: By implementing a predictable funding formula for public education and consolidating Rhode Island’s school districts, our schools could be fully funded, our city and town budgets could be based on predictable funding levels, millions of dollars could be saved and property taxes could be reduced.
It’s impossible to justify the state’s refusal to provide additional funding for public schools last year. Rhode Island already ranks among the few states with the highest reliance on property taxes for education funding, and the highest percentage of funding burden placed on cities and towns.
Our standing in both categories certainly got worse last year with level funding of education. Now is the time to take politics out of education funding and create a fair and predictable funding formula that provides equitable funding and reduces property-tax burdens.
While Rhode Island’s tradition of local governance is noble, rote parochialism and xenophobia frequently prevent the state from taking advantage of its small size, and must not be tolerated.
Rhode Island’s 36 school districts represent extraordinary inefficiency: The exploitation of economies of scale and the elimination of redundancies would save untold millions of dollars. Perhaps even more importantly, consolidation would decrease socio-economic disparities between our school systems, and align the interests of wealthy communities with those of poorer ones — increasing the likelihood that people from throughout the state would work together to improve education for all students and to fund it in an equitable fashion.
For the first time in years, there’s serious talk of structural reform of our education system. We hope that this work moves forward swiftly, in a fashion that is respectful of teachers and other school employees, and that allows local communities to maintain local control where appropriate. Public education is intended to be the great equalizer in the United States, giving everybody opportunity for economic success.
Through school consolidation and implementation of a funding formula, the reality will inch closer to this theory.
Build the Green Economy:
Not in at least 30 years has there been such public awareness of and passionate support for environmental sustainability. It will be an unconscionable tragedy if we let the moment pass without fundamentally reorienting our energy policies. We need to encourage the production of renewable electricity by both large-scale developers and rank-and-file Rhode Islanders.
So-called “net-metering” is one of the most efficient and cheapest ways to encourage renewable-energy production. Its essence is to allow for proprietors of renewable-energy installations to receive compensation for any electricity they produce but don’t use. In other words, if a family in Warwick uses solar panels to produce more electricity than it needs, the surplus is pumped into the regional electricity grid and distributed to other users, and the family is fairly compensated.
Right now, there are strict limits on net-metering, and it’s time to eliminate them: If people want to pump clean energy into the grid, we should be encouraging them.
Additionally, National Grid needs to be compelled to enter into long-term contracts for the procurement of electricity from renewable sources, facilitating the development of large-scale wind farms and solar installations. Shifting toward renewable sources of electricity would conserve the environment, but also create local jobs and disentangle our energy needs from unpredictable geopolitics and global oil markets.
The Ocean State’s ample wind, and the fact that wind-turbine production relies on similar materials and infrastructure as the local ship- and aircraft-building industries, make Rhode Island a potential clean-energy hotbed — just as we were a key part of the industrial base of America in the 19th and early 20th centuries. While Massachusetts Governor Patrick is receiving plaudits for his billion-dollar biotech program, wouldn’t it be great if our state’s leaders were receiving similar praise, for making Rhode Island the center of the Northeast’s green economy?
If we act now, we can still be a leader in this regard. If we delay for another year or two, we’ll be too late.
Criminal-justice reform:
With a prison population of 2.3 million — and little attempt at rehabilitation or to reduce the underlying causes of crime — our nation is in the midst of a grave humanitarian crisis. Our per-capita prison population is one of the highest on the planet, and about seven times that of the rest of the developed world. Rhode Island is no exception.
With over 4,000 inmates, Rhode Island’s prison population is at an all-time high. Just last year, the budget of the Department of Corrections increased by $20 million — precisely the amount of money needed to raise education spending by the 3 percent that was requested by Rhode Island’s cities and towns.
Our state’s probation laws are a primary reason for our crowded prison. Nonviolent or technical violations of probation are rampant and, since Rhode Island’s probation terms are 60 percent longer than the national average, probationers have plenty of time to slip up (or be accused of doing so).
Common sense and cost-saving solutions are plentiful: Eliminate mandatory minimum sentences; end imprisonment for minor probation violations; reduce the length of probationary sentences; and steer more nonviolent offenders into rehabilitative programs and work-release, rather than stick them behind bars.
* * *
We agree with Governor Carcieri’s assertion in his State of the State address that, “this crisis presents us with an unprecedented opportunity to make fundamental and lasting change.” Indeed, now is the time to fundamentally transform our public-education system, invest in a green economy and reform our criminal-justice system. Rhode Island’s future depends on it.
Topics: Environment, Economy, Education | No Comments »
The Economics of Immigration
By BrianHull | December 20, 2007
Globalization is a difficult theoretical concept to define and to understand. This is due, in large part, to the lack of “consensus about its extent, meaning, and significance” (Kesselman, 1). One can abstractly theorize that globalization deals with the increase in the amount and frequency of flows of capital, information, ideas, and labor over further distances. There is much discussion which focuses on the flows of trade and capital, the destruction of barriers to financial transactions and foreign investment, and the ways in which cultural identities are impacted due to the information and influences of other (predominantly Western) cultures. Equally as interesting is the flow of migrants from one part of the globe to another that is a result of, and contributes to, increases is capital and informational flows. International and transnational workers, seeking employment in other countries, are a direct result of, as well as a large part of, the globalization phenomenon.
There is a great fear held by many, if not a majority of, Americans about the number of immigrants flowing into the country, especially those who are classified and demonized as “illegal.” Some argue about the social impacts of immigration: immigrants do not assimilate into American society, they willfully isolate themselves in ethnic enclaves leading to the “invasion and succession” of their cultures in certain areas around the country, and this fractious multiculturalism can threaten America’s security (Hayworth). Others focus on the political consequences which may accompany their growing numbers: they can influence the elected representation of certain cities and states in unprecedented and nontraditional ways.
The scope of this paper, however, will deal primarily with the economic ramifications of immigration, focusing mainly on the low-skilled migrant workers largely coming from Latin America. A simple reason for this focus is that very little animosity is directed towards the Korean doctors, the Pakistani software engineers, or the African economists who have highly valuable skills and who contribute greatly to the economic dynamism of the United States. While their modes of incorporation and the reaction to their movement to the United States is interesting, there is much more frustration with the growing influx of low-skilled “border jumpers” and the perceived reliance they have on America’s generous welfare system. This paper seeks to further enhance the existing body of work related to immigration theory and the impact that migrant workers have on the U.S. economy with the hope of assisting others to gain a deeper understanding of America’s immigrant workers.
Current Immigration Policy
American immigration policy can, at times, appear to be working towards divergent goals simultaneously. This is due, in large part, to the competing interests which the U.S. government must balance. With the total global population estimated at roughly 6.6 billion people (U.S. Census Bureau), governments around the world try to manage who enters their respective countries through their immigration and border control policies to ensure that they know who is within their borders. Most immigrants seeking to live and work “permanently” in the United States must be sponsored by a U.S. citizen(s) or by a potential employer. I am excluding student and travel visas from this analysis, because those persons studying in the U.S. on student visas are excluded from employment opportunities and are thus irrelevant with regard to the scope of this article. Without going into a full analysis of visa options, there are four major visa categories: Familial (including both immediate relatives and family-sponsored applications), Employer-Sponsored (divided into preference categories, each with their own eligibility requirements), Diversity Programs (which make available 50,000 visas annually randomly awarded to those coming from low-immigration countries who meet certain eligibility requirements), and Refugees and Asylees (U.S. Dept. of State).
A numerical breakdown of these four visa types show that a preference of visa admissions is given to family reunification. Of the total number who received legal permanent resident status in 2006 (1.27 million), 819 thousand changed the status of their visas while the net number of newly arrived immigrants totaled only 447 thousand. The total number of visas issued to the immediate family members of U.S. residents was 580 thousand and represents the largest single category. This number combined with the 222 thousand family sponsored visas accounts for a full 63 percent of all approved visa applications for 2006 and is indicative of the family preference quota which was a cornerstone of the 1965 Immigration Act (Hatch, 1). The three other major categories are as follows: the various employment based visas totaled 159 thousand, refugees and asylees accounted for 216 thousand, and diversity visas totaled 44 thousand (Yearbook of Immigration Statistics).
With a virtually endless supply of migrants, governments throughout the world, and the United States specifically, make certain choices about whom to allow entry into their respective countries. The criteria for determining who will gain admittance and who will be excluded are highly changeable, and these decisions are not solely determined quantitatively, but also qualitatively. There is some understanding of the needs of the economy, but the existing social and political realities influence the admission criteria in profound ways. Choosing specific policies requires at least some examination of the goals which the immigration restrictions are supposed to yield. These goals are typically the result of compromises made which seek to balance the demands of the various national actors whose interests are in the forefront of the immigration debate.
The U.S. immigration policy of today has its roots in the social realities of the 1960s. The Immigration Act of 1965 was a radical rejection of the arbitrary restrictionist policies of the 1920s which placed rigid quotas on the amount and type of entrants who were allowed into the United States. The 1921 Emergency Quota Act limited the quantity of immigrants entering the country to 3 percent of the total number currently living in the U.S. (based on the 1910 U.S. Census). Restrictions were intensified with the Immigration Act of 1924 which reduced immigration to only 2 percent of the foreign-born populations already living in the country (based on the 1890 Census). Asians were entirely prohibited from immigrating. These restrictions were a legacy of the isolationist mindset that was pervasive after WWI, and they effectively limited entry to those coming from Northern and Western Europe (Zolberg 2007, 29-31; Zolberg 1999, 74-75).
At a time when the nation was debating equality, freedom, and democracy during the Civil Rights Movement, the means by which the United States determined who could and could not enter the country was seen as an unjust and racist embarrassment for the country. The 1965 Immigration Act, signed by Lyndon Johnson, removed the quotas and focused on two specific criteria: reuniting families by giving preferences to relatives of immigrants already living in the country, and expanding the economy by giving preferences to workers with skills that were in limited supply among U.S. workers.
While there is much disagreement about the effectiveness and fairness of immigration policy, the U.S. government does seek to balance the needs of employers, the demands of naturalized citizens desiring family reunification, and the structural changes in the economy when analyzing immigrant applications and developing immigration policy. Some argue that the long-standing emphasis on family reunification is actually detrimental to the economic well-being of the country. By preferring family reunification, so goes the argument, the country is neglecting the requirements of the dynamic U.S. economy. They argue that the predictions given by experts in the 1960s were woefully inaccurate and based on ignorance; immigration policy needs to be revisited. They may be right and the following seeks to address their argument.
Immigrants in the United States
There are currently about 37-38 million immigrants (Camarota 2007, 2), including about 12 million undocumented (Passel, 1), living in the United States. The foreign-born population amounts to about 12.6 percent, or one in eight, of the total. While the total represents the largest absolute number of immigrants ever to be residing in the United States, the immigrant population today is a smaller proportion than it was in 1910 when they accounted for roughly 14.7 percent (Camarota 2005, 2). The previously discussed changes in American immigration law in 1965 allowed for the sustained and rapid growth of newly arriving immigrants. While the total numbers in the past have fluctuated from year to year, the Population Division of the United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs estimates that the United States will continue to receive an average of approximately 1.1 million migrants annually through 2050 (United Nations, 13).
Latin American countries (Mexico, Central and South America, and the Caribbean) currently send the largest share of immigrants to the United States, and immigrants from those countries amount to 54.6 percent of the total immigrant population living in the United States. Mexico itself accounts for 31.3 percent of the foreign-born. This is followed by East and Southeast Asia (17.6%), Europe (12.5%), South Asia (5.5%), the Middle East (3.5%), Sub-Saharan Africa (2.8%), and Canada (1.9%) (Camarota 2007, 10). America today receives a much more culturally diverse accumulation of immigrants than it ever has in the past. At the same time, one could also argue that immigration diversity is slowing as an increasing share of newly arriving immigrants is coming from Latin American countries. This trend will persist for quite some time. This transition away from the traditional European immigrant-sending countries accounts for much of the current opposition to immigrant-induced diversity. Likewise, the difference in national identities also determines the various modes of adaptation and incorporation into the American society which each group confronts (Portes and Rumbaut, 13). While some groups are embraced with open arms, others deal with innumerable economic, social, and political obstacles upon entry.
As the birth rate of the native-born population continues to decline, immigration and the children of immigrants will increasingly account for a greater and greater share of population growth. Additionally, with native-born domestic migration away from several of America’s urban areas, sustained immigration has been the only component contributing to population growth within them. The metropolitan areas on San Francisco, New York City, Denver, Philadelphia, and Washington were reliant on immigration to offset the net native-born population declines resulting from their low birth rates and/or movement to other areas of the country (American Immigration Law Foundation 2002; Paral). In the United States, 37 percent of the total population growth between 2000 and 2007 was a direct result of immigration. And when the children of immigrants are included, “the total impact of immigration is equal to about three-fourths of total U.S. population growth” (Camarota 2007, 5). This figure is due in no small part to the difference in birth rates among immigrants relative to the native-born (immigrant birth rates are much higher). Some see this immigrant population growth, which is expected to continue for the foreseeable future, as incredibly distressing, other do not.
Why They Come
There are several reasons why immigrant workers choose to travel to the United States for employment, but it is important to clarify some misconceptions about immigration before addressing the reasons for migration. First, immigrants do not overwhelmingly travel to the United States from poor countries. The abject poverty most of the international poor face on a daily basis prevents them from amassing the suffici