Max's Politburo

The American casualty of Abu Ghraib?

Spare a few moments to ponder the fate of an all-but forgotten Charles Graner, notorious torturer at Abu Ghraib.  Injustice has many faces, and this one is hard to get to grips with but noteworthy indeed...

The full story is here, courtesy of Salon.com.  An excerpt: 

The detainee held on charges related to the so-called war on terror is clad in an orange jumpsuit. His wrists are shackled to a leather belt cinched tight around his waist. A short chain connects his ankles, so he can only shuffle down the barren hallways of the prison, escorted by a guard at each arm.

[…] You remember [Charles] Graner, the alleged ringleader of abuse at Abu Ghraib who showed up in those harrowing photos back in 2004.

He has spent more than 29 months in solitary confinement over the past four years, allowed out of his narrow cell during some of that period only to stretch his legs, alone, for one hour a day. In solitary, he has almost no contact with other human beings. He is allowed no radio, no TV and, in a disorienting twist, no watch or calendar to mark the brutal grind of passing time.

[…] it is easy to argue that Graner deserves whatever he gets.  Graner is now the only person involved in the Abu Ghraib scandal who is still behind bars.

[…] 
Years of revelations, however, show that the prisoner abuse started at the top, yet nobody who ordered the abuse has ever been tried or convicted of anything. The Army convicted a handful of soldiers from Abu Ghraib in courts-martial focused almost exclusively on acts captured by the soldiers' own digital cameras, not on policy decisions from above. As the nation prepares to change presidents, the administration that sanctioned, encouraged or ordered the abuse of prisoners taken in the war on terror is about to leave office, having long ago decided that no one in a position of authority will be held accountable.

A first-hand look at Palin's work experience

In case you missed Monday's edition of the Daily Show, this expose of Wasilla and -- in particular -- the demanding job of Palin's successor as mayor is disturbing indeed (and of course very funny):

Republicans vote for their hides, against America

If you want to know which Republicans (and which Democrats) were responsible for scuppering the bailout plan, check out Nate Silver's blog here. Basically anyone who was facing a close by-election was likely to vote against the plan.  They'll say they listened to the people of their districts, who emailed their overwhelming opposition to the bailout of the "Wall Street fatcats."  Never mind that it is the legislators' duty to explain to their constituents what the plan really achieves.  And -- if necessary -- it is their duty to vote rationally, in support of the country and their districts, even if that contradicts the wishes of voters who haven't been made aware of the ramifications.  That is why the Founding Fathers created Congress -- so that ordinary folk are represented by educated, experienced lawmakers who can interpret their wishes and act on them.  Now we know they are willing to ignore that mandate to save their own hides, even at extraordinary expense.  It's a sad day.

Disenfranchisement of US voters, Part 2

When I wrote recently about the wholesale disenfranchisement of 6 million US voters, I didn't think this would become a series of posts.  But as it turns out Americans with a criminal record aren't the only ones who struggle to exercise their voting rights.

Girlwithoutawatch wants to vote in this year's presidential election.  Along with about 6 million expat Americans, she qualifies for an absentee ballot.  More than 3 months ago the State of Maryland promised to send her one, but it has not arrived.  As it turns out, this is more than a common occurrence.

In 2004, only 1 million out of 6 million eligible overseas voters managed to send in postal ballots.  Of these less than 1/3 actually counted.  That means only 330,000 votes were cast by 6 million eligible voters!  What the hell??

It's a fine line between incompetence and conspiracy, never more so than with this administration.  But it is a slightly bizarre fact that -- due to a 1986 law -- responsibility for delivering ballots to overseas voters (military and civilian) lies with the US State Department.  And yet, in recent years only 40% of military personnel received any voting information at all, even though federal law requires that they all do.  A federal study showed that in the congressional elections of 2006, some 24% of civilians abroad tried and failed to vote.  While 85% of US-based voters who requested an absentee ballot were able to cast it, only 26% of military personnel who requested one actually cast it.

It seems perverse that America's foot soldiers, whose fate is more dependent on the results of elections than anyone else, should have so little say in their outcome.

Civilian overseas voters must be more than persistent to exercise the most cherished privilege in America.  Even for federal elections, every state has different ballots, deadlines, rules and allowed transmission methods.  A handful of states now allow ballots to be sent in via email, but most require you to use the US Postal Service.  In fact, if you live in Palin country, eg Alaska, your absentee ballot will only be counted if it is witnessed and notarised (!).

Now, the State Department's unwillingness inability to fix the problem (despite $1 million spent on a useless website), has led to a commendable private sector effort: the Overseas Vote Foundation, started by expats in Munich.  The site allows registered voters to receive a Federal Absentee Ballot if their state failed to send them one.  It also partners with FedEx to allow voters to post their ballots at sharply discounted rates.

What is the political impact of this shameful disenfranchisement of Americans overseas?  General voter turnout in 2004 was 57%.  There are about 6 million US citizens of voting age abroad, including about 450,000 military personnel.  Let's assume expat Americans turn out in the same proportions as the general population (though surveys have shown their voting interest to be higher on average).  That's 57% x 6m = 3.4m votes.  Which way would they lean?  Based on a wholly unscientific survey of Americans I know, I would say 75:25 for Obama among civilians, and perhaps 65:35 for McCain among military personnel.  That means there are some 2.5m Obama votes likely to go missing this year, and 1 million McCain votes. 

With an extra margin of 1.5 million votes Obama would take all the swing states like Florida, Pennsylvania and Ohio, and probably a few Republican states as well.

I'm not accusing anyone here, but the current administration sure has a lot of incentives to keep expats from voting...

Sources: IHT, 14 Sept 2008, NPR: Groups Aim To Ease Overseas Voting For Americans, Chattanooga Times 25 July 2008.

Bring my chevy to the Levi...

If you want to see discomfort personified, go to minute 1.25 of this video: Bristol Palin's future husband meets John McCain.  Levi is the one in the grey turtleneck.

How the Russian bear took control of Europe

The single gravest political error committed by European nations in the past 10 years will turn out to be their failure to prevent Russia gaining control over energy supplies.  Now that we are well on our way into Cold War II, this failure will come back to haunt us in two forms: a lack of political leverage to influence Russia, and serious vulnerability to Russian threats, political or economic.

In spite of ample warning signs, significant academic analysis and continuous hectoring from the US on this topic, the EU -- riven by its usual divisions -- failed to enforce a common policy to diversify its energy sources.  And this is in spite of several EU-level resolutions to do just that, resolutions which were promptly contradicted by the actions of individual countries. 

Europe imports over 80% of its oil and and nearly 60% of its natural gas, and both figures are rising.  Half of the natural gas and 30% of the oil are imported from Russia.  Ever since Putin came to power, he has made it his (not explicit but obvious) policy to increase the dependence of Europe on Russian energy supplies.  He has done this in several ways:

• by consolidating Kremlin control over the supply through state behemoths like Gazprom and Lukoil, forcing out foreign investors (see the BP-TNK debacle) in order to take control of joint-ventures;
• by locking in long-term demand through bilateral agreements with European importers, with the added benefit of wrecking EU policy and dividing the continent;
• by extending government influence on downstream refining and distribution outside of Russia ('strategic investments' have been made in Poland, Lithuania, Estonia, Slovakia, Hungary, and Ukraine, as well as attempts to invest directly in Germany);
• by strong-arming neighboring countries (Ukraine, central Asia) into energy supply and transit 'clubs' that ensure their continued dependence on Russian supplies and transit fees;
• by promoting more pipelines that flow direct from Russia to the West, and sabotageing the development of pipeline projects that would avoid Russia (eg, in Georgia).

Yes, in Putin we have a man who can think strategically across a decade or more about how to increase Russia's leverage in the world.  This puts him in a strong position to undermine Europe, which is not capable of long-term strategic policy action.  On top of that, sustained high energy prices have enabled him to accelerate his plans.

France, Germany, Italy and Austria are all guilty of contravening stated EU policy and negotiating new, bilateral supply agreements with Gazprom.  This gives Gazprom long-term price stability and the Kremlin huge political leverage.  Is it any wonder that these countries can't form a united front in the face of Russian agression in Georgia?  Will they be able to stand up if Russia starts to pressure the Ukraine or the Baltics?

In 2007, Gazprom and ENI of Italy signed an MoU to run a gas pipeline (South Stream) from Russia to Italy via the Black Sea.  This directly undermines the only viable pipeline project -- promoted by the EU and the US -- that would reduce European dependence on Russia: the Nabucco pipeline that would have run from the Caspian via Turkey, Bulgaria, Romania, Hungary, and Austria, benefiting EU member countries.   With Russia's continued part-occupation of Georgia, the fate of existing oil and gas pipelines in that country is unclear.

I'm sure there is plenty of uncomfortable wriggling of bums in European parliaments now, but it is largely too late to undo this huge strategic error.  Russian President Medvedev has made repeated noises in the past 2 weeks about military retaliation against Poland if a US missile shield is installed there, and is likely to play very aggressive politics against Ukraine's accession to NATO.  (By the way, 95% of European gas imports from Russia go through Ukraine.) 

What is our leverage on Russia?  Delay Russia's entry into the WTO?  Kick them out of the G8?  Stop joint military exercises?  Block ministers' foreign bank accounts?  Whoop-dee-doo.  If we find a point of leverage that hurts or upsets Putin, he may just turn off the spigot for a week to see what happens...

[Good background material on this issue here, here and here.]

The Saakashvili delusion and the New World Order

Mikhail Saakashvili was always going to be a risky friend to keep.  But the combination of his delusions of grandeur with Bush's over-the-top support over the years has created a major liability for everyone.

First, for Georgians: if Saakashvili really thought he could prevail in a pre-emptive strike to reclaim territory occupied by people who don't want him he was sorely mistaken.  Instead of a waffling Russian government divided between President and Prime Minister he got the worst possible combination: Medvedev with no military credentials and desperate to prove himself strong plus Putin -- architect of the demolition of Chechnya -- still smarting the loss of Kosovo and seething about NATO's gradual encroachment on Russia.

Second, for the US and Europe: it was only a matter of time before the impulsive, arrogant and provocative Saakashvili caused a major incident.  By lavishing him with praise and turning a blind eye to his faults, Bush emboldened him to the point of delusion.  Here is a description of Bush's 2005 visit to the country, when 150,000 turned out to see him speak:

President Bush, under the influence of Georgian food, music and high-concept schmoozing, stayed up celebrating hours past his bedtime. "I learned firsthand what it means to be fed by a Georgian," said Bush right before hitting the dance floor. Georgians were so impressed that they renamed the road to the airport George W. Bush Highway.

Iraq proved to be the tipping point in Georgia's commitment to the West.  First, the US helped rewrite Georgian military doctrine and sent advisers to restructure its chain of command and train its officers. Then, Saakashvili eagerly sent a contingent of 2000 troops (the third-largest, after Britain) to Iraq.  What better way to obtain live-field training for his forces, without the provocation of American-run military exercises on the Russian border?  How stupid did he think the Russians were?

No one knows the byzantine politics of ethnicity and tribal conflict in the Caucasus better than Vladimir Putin, who personally engineered the first and second wars on neighboring Chechnya with a vengeance.  As soon as that region returned to an uneasy, brutalised calm in recent years, Russian troops were being repositioned for action er... peacekeeping in Georgia's renegade provinces.  At the same time Russia gave national passports to nearly all residents of Abkhazia, providing the requisite cover of 'protecting our citizens' if an excuse for intervention were ever needed.

Meanwhile, former New York lawyer Saakashvili showed the world that he is a Democrat (sort of), a free trader, that he wants to join NATO and the EU, that he is protecting an alternative oil pipeline to the West, and that he is willing to fight our wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.  It's easy to see why he thought the West owed him something.  Easy, but delusional.

Georgia's move to reclaim the lost provinces was a gross miscalculation.  No one will intervene on his behalf.  In fact, even if Russia had decided to cross the Mtkvari River and occupy Tbilisi, no one would come to save him.  The West has little political leverage, Russian coffers are bursting with hard currency reserves ($600bn and rising), Europe is divided, Bush is a lame-duck president, and the US is militarily and politically overextended in the world.

Luckily for ordinary Georgians Putin is too wily to get bogged down trying to occupy the fearsomely independent Georgians.  He will settle for his pragmatic war aims: the effective annexation of Abkhazia and South Ossetia, and the toppling of this man he despises: Saakashvili. 

In doing so, he has accelerated the establishment of the New World Order According to Putin, and halted NATO's Eastern expansion in its tracks.  This may seem aggressive, but it is consistent, predictable and -- from the Russian perspective -- eminently reasonable.  For NATO, what remains is an opportunity to consolidate its gains in Eastern Europe and the Baltics, with the de facto acceptance that other ex-Soviet states will remain Russian zones of influence.

Russia has been making noises recently about re-establishing its 'special ties' with Cuba, suggesting it might establish a military base there.  Provocative?  You bet.  Perhaps they were trying to highlight the parallels with Georgia.  Fair enough.  Sorry Georgia -- your aspirations are noble and admirable, but on that road to real independence your leaders drove too fast and recklessly crashed the car.

The incredible shrinking story

And just like that....

             

             

             

.... before you know it....

             

             

             

.... phhhht....

             

             

             

.... he's gone.

Mugabe has done it again, with a little help from his friends... Mbeki, China, Russia.  By the time you read this the press coverage of Zimbabwe will be back to virtually nothing, and the world will start its not-very-long process of forgetting.

Based on a quick tally of the newswires this morning, there were 38 mentions of Zimbabwe in the global English-language press yesterday versus 300 to 500 at the time of the recent election.  See below for a very non-scientific graph showing the rise and fall of moral outrage in today's world:

America's missing 6 million voters

Here is a feature of American democracy we don't here much about: in a country where -- in a good election year -- 120 million people vote for President, nearly 6 million people are not allowed to vote at all.  Who are they?

Convicted felons, that's who.  Over the past 30 years a series of election laws have been passed in the US to disenfranchise anyone convicted of a felony.  In some states, the voting ban only applies to convicts who are in prison or on parole, in others the ban is permanent.  Only two states -- Vermont and Maine -- allow state prisoners to vote.  Federal convicts are barred in any case by the National Voter Registration Act of 1993.

5.3 million people were not allowed to vote in the 2004 presidential election!  That's about 2% of all eligible voters and 4% of the voting turnout in that close contest.  It gets better: the highest rate of disenfranchisment occurred in Florida with 9% of the voting-age population, followed by 8% in Delaware, and 7% in Alabama, Mississippi, and Virginia.  Imagine how that election might have turned out if only a handful of these voters had been allowed to cast ballots!

  It is no surprise that the figures get more disturbing if you look at the racial impact: 1.4 million black men, or 13% of all black men are disenfranchised, that is 7 times the national average.  The figures have been analysed in some detail here by The Sentencing Project, a reform advocacy group.

Is it fair to deprive criminals of the vote?  The argument in favour is that voting is a privilege and the criminal forfeits that privilege along with numerous other freedoms.  How do other countries do it?  In fact, virtually no other democracy withdraws the right to vote from ex-convicts.  In fact, most Western nations allow prisoners to vote (unless they have committed electoral crimes), and in some countries, eg Germany, prisoners are proactively encouraged to exercise their right to vote. 

One exception remains the UK, where a 135-year old law strips prisoners of their voting rights (but restores them post-parole).  In 2005, a European Court of Justice ruling required the UK to amend its laws.  The UK government launched a years-long public consultation which has stalled while the issue has been overshadowed by the debate on terrorist detention laws. 

Or perhaps the question should be a different one: what does disenfranchisement achieve?  Is it punishment?  A deterrent?  When was the last time you think someone thought twice about robbing a store because they might lose their right to vote if they got caught?

With the world's largest prison population (topping 7 million at the end of 2006), the US undeniably faces an incarceration crisis.  I think we can safely assume that overcrowding and prison conditions are at an all-time nadir.  But where would momentum for reform of the criminal justice or the prisons system come from?  The prisoners themselves don't vote, and the population at large tends to vote hard-on-crime, so no politician is incentivised to propose prison reform.  Ever.

OK, so no individual politician is going to tackle this, even out of self-interest.  What about the Party's interest?  How does the prison population break out in terms of voting preference?   According to a study reviewed in the New York Review of Books, 70-80% of these votes would go to the Democratic Party.  That's enought to permanently change the electoral landscape of the US.  So I guess we won't be seeing any Republican reform initiatives on this issue.

But it is a perfect topic to approach purely from a constitutional law perspective.  What would the Founding Fathers have made of this?  I can think of just the right guy to approach it in this way...

Betancourt rescued

Well, this is big news.  And oddly perfect timing too, just as Uribe is angling to change the constitution once again to enable him to run for a third term.  With approval ratings of 80% before Betancourt's release, this now seems almost a certainty.

Incredible and worrying how -- the past 10 years -- constitution-tampering seems to have become a worldwide political sport.