International Comment

China: A View of Our Future Food Supply

2011-09-24T22:59:00.000-04:00

What makes us think that the future global food supply will be any more secure or reliable than China's is today?

I have written previously that national security is not just a matter of armies and borders. Everything that sustains our nation is, ultimately, a matter of national security. A clean, reliable, healthy food supply is one of the very most basic matters, and one which will soon be increasingly difficult and expensive to ensure.

Those who minimize the dangers of unchecked human population growth, or worse - misguidedly celebrate it, would do well to read Barbara Demick's recent Los Angeles Times article on China's secret, parallel food supply system for the elite and powerful, because this is what a food supply looks like when there are too many people to ensure a uniformly adequate quality. While the select few dine on clean, safe, nutritious, and horrendously expensive organic foods, the masses must make do with "foods that are increasingly tainted or less than healthful — meats laced with steroids, fish from ponds spiked with hormones to increase growth, milk containing dangerous additives such as melamine, which allows watered-down milk to pass protein-content tests," writes Demick.

This is not just a matter of the masses being too poor to afford the best foods. The very existence of these food supplies is kept secret, a measure against increasing public anger at privileges reserved for the elite, as well as a series of horrible and deadly scandals involving intentionally tainted foods. And don't think you are immune: recall the tainted pet food scandal of 2007, in which US pets died after eating foods containing imported Chinese wheat gluten and rice protein laced with melamine. You can read the ingredients on pet-food labels, but they will not tell you where those ingredients originated. And guess what? Chinese ingredients are in a lot of your people-food, too. And you can read the labels, but you can't tell where the ingredients come from. Soylent Green, here we come.

Here is a telling excerpt from Demick's article: "In modern-day China, it is the degradation of the environment and a limited supply of healthful food that is fueling the parallel food system for the elite." This environmental degradation comes from more people, more consumption, more industrialization. The human population itself is destroying - has destroyed - much-needed food supplies, and restoring those food supplies, even imperfectly, takes more than a human lifetime of sustained determination and tremendous expense (which is why governments generally don't act until the problem is truly catastrophic). For an example, look to the famously noxious River Thames: it took more than a century of cleanup to see the first fish return. And even after a successful cleanup, some species may be extinct, like the Chinese river dolphin, thanks to overfishing and pollution of the Yangtze River. Other species may take a long time to reach numbers that can be sustainably harvested as food. Meanwhile, the human population continues to grow and that's one less food supply to draw from.

Pay close attention to this excerpt from Demick: "On their organic diet, the cows produce about half the volume of conventional dairy cows, meaning that the supply is never enough, especially since the 2008 scandal in which tainted milk left six Chinese babies dead and sickened 300,000 people.... 'We're not Switzerland. Our population is way too big for everybody to eat organic food,' said Hou Xuejun, general manager of the Green Yard dairy." Here, China's situation reveals the flaw in the argument that human population can expand indefinitely and agricultural science will magically fill the void: while "conventional" dairy cows produce double the volume of milk, even that has been too often tainted and harmful to consumers. Perhaps it is more a matter of unsavory administrators padding their profits, but there is no going back to natural practices; as Hou says, the population is "way too big" for that.

China has long held the position of World's Most Populous Nation. Even with their draconian one-child policy, their growth has continued, albeit more slowly than the global population. In 1970, China's population stood at 790 million. Today, they stand at 1.34 billion - about an 85% increase - and are having great difficulty ensuring a safe food supply. Compare this to the global population: in 1970, we stood at 3.5 billion. Today that has doubled to 7 billion. What makes us think that the future global food supply will be any more secure or reliable than China's?

China is a cautionary tale, a harbinger of the future for all homo sapiens, unless global population growth is checked. Unfortunately, human beings don't have a real great track record when it comes to heeding cautionary tales, and we are quickly running up against this planet's Malthusian limitations. We already see this in such sobering statistics as this: one out of six people on this planet right now has no access at all to potable water and must make do with unsafe water supplies. China's current situation may look like the Land of Milk and Honey compared to what the global population will experience as our numbers continue to climb.

So how can the US help ensure an adequate food supply?

First, do away with religious-based objections to contraception. If there is one thing worth "exporting" to change world cultures, it is education, education, education, and especially empowerment of women worldwide. Time and again it has been proven that women - and men - who are educated and given the option of contraception will choose to limit their family sizes to have healthier children.

Next, do away with big-agriculture monopolies on seed types. I'm not saying we should all go organic; as China's experience shows, that's probably not even possible any more. But there is a dangerous trend toward single-breed crops and herds, which are susceptible to being wiped out by a single disease. Cloned plants and animals are even worse, as they have no diversity at all. Crop diversity enhances overall survivability. It's just good science.

In tandem with promoting crop diversity, we need to promote US farming and cut our dependence on Chinese imported ingredients in particular. Check out the food in your supermarket: I'm seeing canned peaches from Thailand, frozen shrimp from Bangladesh, fresh grapes from Chile. It's great that our global system allows us to get out-of-season foods, but this will become prohibitively expensive in the future because of increased competition for both fuel to transport the food, and the food itself. Locally grown food is cheaper and supply lines are shorter: in a word, it's more secure, and we should do what we can now to promote better local supplies in the future, because more of us will depend on those for survival.

Shoshana Hebshi and our Fourth Amendment Rights: Fear Itself

2011-09-15T13:12:00.001-04:00

"The only thing we have to fear is fear itself - nameless, unreasoning, unjustified terror..."

Franklin Delano Roosevelt's famous words apply perfectly to our present situation, and we would do well to reflect and act on them. People, we are in real danger in this country right now, and it is because we are namelessly, unreasonably, unjustifiably afraid. We are trading away our freedoms and protections for the mere perception of a little temporary security.

Shoshana Hebshi-Holt is an American, a native English-speaker, a young mom from Ohio, flying home after a visit to her sister in California. She remained in her seat on her flight. She tinkered with her phone to entertain herself. And then, after her flight had already landed in Detroit, armed security forces swarmed the plane and handcuffed her, refused to answer her questions, detained her without allowing her to contact anyone, questioned her, fingerprinted her, took all of her personal information including e-mail address, Facebook, and Twitter as well as the usual address and phone number, and strip-searched her. The suspicious activity that precipitated this extreme, invasive, and unconstitutional response? Um... nothing. Nothing.

Ms. Hebshi-Holt had the misfortune, which you may easily have one day, of being randomly seated next to two dark-skinned men whom she had never met. The men engaged in the highly suspicious behavior of going to the bathroom at some point during the flight. Ms. Hebshi-Holt has the additional misfortune of being dark-skinned and dark-haired herself. You may also have this misfortune, but don't congratulate yourself too quickly if you look like a white-bread Anglo-American. You know how it goes: "First they came for the communists, and I didn't speak out..."

I urge you to please read Ms. Hebshi-Holt's original post detailing her experience on 11 September 2011. It is chilling, and it can happen to you. During this frightening, humiliating, scarring experience, the officials she dealt with either told her nothing, or insisted that the whole procedure was for her own protection. Far more chilling than her story - which was bad enough - is that some of the commentators on her original post see nothing wrong with what happened to her. There seems to be a significant number of frightened people in this country, actively throwing away their rights in the name of "safety."

Another chilling thought: the whole way in which these events were set in motion amounts to some unidentified, scared, thoughtless idiot - we may never know who - who essentially screamed the modern-day equivalent of "witch!" and caused an overblown, hysterical reaction, and now we are left with a lot of finger pointing on who said what, and when. Frontier Airlines defended its crew, saying they were responding to passenger concerns, but the airline abdicates all responsibility for what happened next. The TSA and the Wayne County Airport Authority both say that it was the airline crew who notified law enforcement and pointed out the "suspicious" trio.

So here is America: someone yells "Witch!" and the next thing you know, a US citizen who said and did nothing suspicious has her Fourth Amendment rights grossly violated. We can argue over whether the TSA searches are a Fourth Amendment violation (I think they are), but there is no question that Ms. Hebshi-Holt's rights were horribly violated, with no probable cause whatsoever. We cannot allow this! We are one step away from the internment camps of the 1940s, in which American citizens were confined for no other reason than their last names and their appearance, while their sons fought and died for the US.

There are those politicians who rally around the cry to "take back America." Well, I want to take back America, too. The one where we had rights, the one where the citizens were America and not a bunch of suspects, the one where we had common sense and went our ways unafraid and with our heads held high.

One-Sided Battles are the Best Kind

2011-05-05T10:33:00.000-04:00

The New York Times reports on the "one-sided" battle in the raid that killed Osama bin Laden in Abbotabad, Pakistan. "One-sided" is such a charged phrase, as if the battle were somehow a little... dishonorable, or unfair. Hardly! It's the best kind of battle to have.

The fact that there turned out to be very little and ineffective resistance was due to the US maintaining the element of perfect surprise, and moving fast once on the ground. You do not sit around waiting for your enemy to get ready for you. The one-sided battle is a testament to the quality of our intelligence, to the preparation of our Navy Seals, and to the decisions they made on the ground. It is also a testament to some of the best examples of wartime decision-making to come from civilian leadership. For instance: not informing Pakistan of what we were about to do, and not micromanaging the operation.

The result was beautiful. No US casualties, a major terrorist leader eliminated, and a trove of intelligence data to sift through. Who can argue with that?

About the only thing that should have been done differently, in retrospect, is that we should have withheld all details until the White House had a clearer picture of just what had happened. In the interim, the statement could have confirmed bin Laden's death in a raid conducted by US Navy Seals, that we had offered the body to the custody of Saudi Arabia, who refused, and that the body was subsequently buried within 24 hours in accordance with Islamic custom and at sea to avoid establishing any kind of shrine to bin Laden. At that point, no further details should have been offered since we would be in the process of debriefing the team, securing anything of value from the site, and handing off control of the site to the government of Pakistan. But that's 20/20 hindsight. For the critics of the garbled information initially released by Jay Carney, understand that there is enormous pressure to provide details in the immediate wake of such tremendous news.

As for the arguments over releasing the gory death photos of bin Laden, I think President Obama has made the correct call to keep those private. The White House correctly notes that there is a long history of such images being used to make people in to heroes and martyrs, to incite violence, to inspire further attacks. And the photos will not convince anyone who already doubts the fact of bin Laden's death. In gauging world reaction to the news, there is no reasonable doubt of the basic fact: bin Laden is dead.

The Wrong Preparations for a WMD Attack

2011-02-20T11:10:00.000-05:00

It's time for politicians to stop promising 100% protection, and time for the public to stop expecting it.

The FBI’s Assistant Director in charge of the FBI’s Weapons of Mass Destruction Directorate recently said that the chance of a WMD attack against the US is 100%. That should crystallize the fact that any security apparatus, in the end, is only an illusion of safety. While common-sense measures can help deter some attacks, no measures, no matter how extreme, can ever prevent 100% of all attacks.

This calls into question the draconian, even Orwellian, security measures and apparatus that the US has put into place over the past decade. In the wake of 9/11, we have seen our privacy whittled away with the Patriot Act and the Total Information Awareness Database. We have seen the rise of the TSA, with ever more invasive screenings which seem to treat all passengers as criminals, subjecting them to radiation, virtual strip searches, and groping of their most private parts (and even then, these measures are not enough to detect all contraband). We have seen the creation of the Department of Homeland Security, an enormous and unwieldy conglomeration of new and previously existing agencies, at an equally enormous cost to the taxpayer.

All of this inconvenience, expense, and even the sacrifice of some of our freedoms and civil protections, in exchange for... a 100% chance of a WMD attack.

The government has behaved as if the American public demands 100% no-fail protections at any cost, even the cost of our freedoms. There are probably many such individuals, but I will wager that there are many, many more who value their freedom and dignity far more than a zero-risk environment. We cannot even achieve a zero-risk environment in our daily lives. Such an expectation is naive and unreasonable, and the government does the people no favors by coddling them, giving them false reassurances, and generally treating them like children.

What the government owes its people is the truth as far as it is known, and for that, I applaud the FBI. Now it is long overdue for the government to educate the public on what to expect, appropriate responses, and self-protection in the event of a WMD attack, which is 100% certain to occur. Lack of information and lack of preparation - even if it is only the psychological preparation of understanding what is happening - leads to mass panic, and that greatly amplifies the effect of any attack. Attempts to evacuate cities are inevitably chaotic and expose many more people to harm, than learning how to shelter in place.

Terrorism is not special, and it is high time we start thinking of it as any other threat: ordinary crime, hurricanes, blizzards, floods, tornadoes. We are raised from childhood on how to avoid or mitigate these threats. They are terrifying when they occur, and some people die; but most of us know how best to seek protection in those moments, and even inadequate protection greatly enhances survival rates. A WMD attack should be no different in the public mind, or in government policy.

Feb 2011

Obama's Proposal On Spending Cuts: Two Words

2011-01-25T15:44:00.001-05:00

President Obama is expected to use his State of the Union speech to call for a five-year freeze on "non-security discretionary spending" in order to tackle our burgeoning national budget deficit.

The first problem with this is the word "discretionary." In my personal budget, "discretionary" spending is what I get to do for my own increased comfort and satisfaction, if there is anything left over after I have paid my essential bills. Recession-addled consumers know what our government seems not to: in an era of trillion-dollar deficits and God knows how much national debt, there should be no discretionary government spending in any category. Not even "security" as the government seems to define it.

That brings us to the second problem: the word "security." It seems that our government has forgotten that national security is about much, much more than just borders, airplanes, and terrorists. That mindset, coupled with the intent to cut all spending other than this narrow definition of "security," is what leads to a police state. Since 9/11, we have flirted dangerously with just that: with things like the Patriot Act, the Total Information Awareness Database, the Department of Homeland Security (please - does it get any more Orwellian than that?), and now, groping airline passengers and performing "virtual strip searches" in violation - I think - of our Fourth Amendment rights. This creeping Big Brother act has been not only ineffective and invasive, but extremely expensive.

A secure nation is not just one with strong border defenses and a capable military. It is one that also creates an environment where its citizens can have a reasonable expectation not only of physical safety, but also of economic safety, health, and the solid education required to chart a satisfying - or at a minimum, an adequate - course for their own lives.

This means we can't afford to neglect our schools, infrastructure, Medicare, Social Security, or WIC. What we can do is cut some of the insane post-9/11 bureaucratic creations, such as DHS or TSA.

DHS is really only a redundant and suffocating super-structure overlying or duplicating pre-existing agencies which - despite all of the post-9/11 criticisms - were doing their jobs just fine. Their pre-existing flaws, such as failure to share information, have not improved with the creation of DHS. Their great "failure" to attach imminent, screaming importance to reports that might have uncovered the 9/11 scheme was only a failure to pick the one actually significant report out of a tremendous river of other reports, all seemingly of similar importance; it is like trying to choose one grain of sand on the beach, as the grain to pay attention to. How much worse it is now, with newly created, redundant agencies all generating their own reports, and only spotty cooperation among them.

As for TSA: ordinary citizens are subjected to ever greater abuses, the most recent bordering on state-sanctioned sexual assault, and/or introducing passengers to radiation risks that have not been properly evaluated, regulated, or disclosed. I am especially uncomfortable with the thought of children being either groped or irradiated. And then there are the lines: passengers clumped together in long, slow-moving "security" lines are themselves a prime target for attack. And for all of this, what has TSA achieved? Not a lot, other than racking up huge expenses for machines of questionable safety and effectiveness (body cavities remain a serious blind spot, yet the government has no plans to go there), and royally ticking off the American public. Some will point out that other countries, like Israel, for example, have even stricter security measures. Two points on that: first, the Israelis are laughing at our rather juvenile TSA efforts; and secondly, I don't want to live in Israel. I want to live in America. A pre-9/11 America. And yes, I think we can go back again.

Remember, it was ordinary citizens who foiled the shoe bomber, the underwear bomber, and the Times Square bomber. Whenever the government crows that there have been no attacks since 9/11, keep in mind that Uncle Sam cannot claim full responsibility for his success rate: for at least some would-be attacks, John Q. Public was the one who saved the day. Not Uncle Sam.

So save yourself some money, Uncle Sam: let's go back to pre-9/11 America. Reduce the DHS and TSA bureaucracies, consolidate some of your intelligence agencies, reduce redundancy and stovepiping. If what we had before was broken, fix it; it was the wrong response to create more, more, and more government at greater public expense and reduction of public freedom. We are a government of, by, and for the people. If we keep our minds focused on that, we should be able to make the right decisions.

The XM25 Rifle Goes to War

2010-12-03T21:53:00.002-05:00

The future is here. Don't get cocky.

Now here is something that the Infantry will just love: the XM25 Counter Defilade Target Engagement System is on the ground in Afghanistan. This weapon puts smart technology at the Infantry squad level, and should enable the squad to achieve the same effects - or even better - as indirect fire at a fraction of the time, expense, and risk. The essence of the weapon is its ability to laze a target and then fire a smart projectile which can detonate several meters ahead of or behind the target, effectively robbing an enemy of his protective cover. While it's no lightweight at 12 pounds, it's a vast improvement over the heavier, slower mortar.

I am all for technological advances that give us the edge. But I also feel that a note of caution is in order. Any time there is a quantum leap in battlefield technology, two things will happen: the enemy will develop countermeasures, and military developers everywhere will attempt to copy, steal, or reverse-engineer the technology for their own advantage (all the easier if you have a captured or stolen weapon for this purpose).

It's a little disconcerting to read that the US military appears a bit complacent about the threat of proliferation of the technology, based on the notions that the specialized projectiles and batteries will be hard to obtain, and that the technology will be expensive to copy and produce. Since when have such obstacles stood in the way of, say, China or Russia? And since when have they had any compunction about weapons sales? No, once a genie is out of a bottle, there is little telling where it will end up.

And that brings us to countermeasures. Not only those that the enemy may develop against our use of the weapon, but that we should be working on right now in preparation for the inevitable day when we are not the only ones on the battlefield with these things.

The very first thing I think of with a technically complex system like this is: electromagnetic pulse (EMP). Our growing dependence on computer processing, and our complacency about their reliability, is a nagging concern. I have seen our military electronic equipment shift, over the years, away from nuclear-hardened, specialized models to commercial off-the-shelf (COTS) items. Lighter, cheaper, easier to upgrade and update - that's all great until EMP destroys your computers, radios, navigation and targeting systems in the heat of battle. We are nowhere near capable of carrying out our missions manually any more, not even clumsily or slowly. It is a glaring weak spot, as yet unexploited, but a weapon like the XM25 only encourages the development of an EMP generator as a countermeasure; and that would counter not only the XM25, but all other electronic assets.

The next thing that occurs to me is: jamming. This weapon uses a wireless connection to program each round with distance data as it is fired downrange. What if that signal were disrupted? Will the weapon still fire? Will the projectile still explode? For that matter, can an errant signal misprogram the projectiles? Jamming has been around since radios hit the battlefield. I hope the XM25 has some sort of shielding against this, or our newest technology might be impeded by a very old technique.

The final thing that I think about with technically complex systems is not a countermeasure, but is a concern: malfunctions, especially software glitches. If our cars can get them, so can weapons. Can the XM25 get wet or be submerged? Is it sensitive to dust? We will soon find out, as it writes its own record in Afghanistan.

I am all for bringing the biggest, best, and brightest tech to bear on the enemy, but I also believe in diversification of assets: we will always benefit from having the old rifles, carbines, and mortars on the battlefield as well. Especially if somebody develops a portable EMP.

What to Do About The Wikileaks Threat to National Security

2010-11-29T20:01:00.002-05:00

It's not them. It's us.

Wikileaks' October publication of hundreds of thousands of classified Iraq war documents was followed in November by another massive leak, this time of hundreds of thousands of US diplomatic cables. In the wake of these hemorrhages of sensitive information, the US and its allies are faced with the question: What to do about it?

The first reaction - get tough with Wikileaks - is natural, but not the real solution.

First, there is the difficulty of shutting down anything on the Internet; slaying the Hydra was much easier in Hercules' time. An Internet Hydra such as Wikileaks can not only sprout new heads for each one cut off, it can replicate itself entirely in multiple new locations.

Representative Peter King's inquiry into the possible designation of Wikileaks as a "terrorist organization" may sound like we are doing something, but it is a wrongheaded use of the terrorist label, and for the reasons noted above, will also be ineffective. King's push to have the organization charged with espionage is more appropriate, and given the damage that Wikileaks has done to other countries, those governments may be willing, even eager, to cooperate in shutting down the site and detaining and charging the individuals involved. But still, this will have little effect on the data which has already burst the gates, and does nothing to increase our guard against similar breaches in the future.

The real problem is that the US seems unable to keep its secrets.

Wikileaks and other ill-advised, crusading organizations are not the real problem here. The real problem is the fact that they are able to obtain classified information in the first place. There have always been leaks and spies, but with today's miniature electronic data storage devices and Internet transmissions, the damage can quickly become much more extensive than in the past. Robert Hanssen's espionage for Russia has been described as one of the worst intelligence disasters in US history; but even his misdeeds have been far surpassed by Wikileaks' sources, for two reasons.

First, the sheer volume of the compromised data: Hanssen used the old-fashioned "dead drop" technique to pass bags or packages of paper documents or low-volume computer disks to his handlers, and the damage was inflicted over the course of 22 years. In contrast, someone like PFC Bradley Manning can quickly download tremendous amounts of current data onto USB drives, data cards, CDs, or even an iPod, and walk out of a secure area with them in his pocket.

Second, there is the venue into which the classified information was passed. In past spy cases, the information was usually passed to a foreign government, which also had an interest in keeping it - and their possession of it - secret. As bad as this was for US national security, it was far better than having the documents blasted indiscriminately into the public view of every Internet user on the planet. And once information hits the Internet, it's nearly impossible to remove it.

It is for these reasons that it is more important than ever that we get serious about safeguarding our classified data. Why do I say "get serious?" Aren't we serious already? Well, no, I personally don't think so. Over the 21 years of my Army career, I saw safeguards gradually eroded in favor of convenience and complacency. And in the worst possible development to accompany a decline in safeguards, the post-9/11 world has seen an explosion in the number of agencies handling classified data, the size of the intelligence apparatus within those agencies, and - most frightening - the number and size of private contracting companies engaging in classified activities and accessing classified data. According to The Washington Post, more than 850,000 people have Top Secret (TS) clearances. As many well-publicized spy cases have shown over the years, a clearance is no guarantee that an individual is completely and unquestionably trustworthy; a clearance is only a risk assessment that the government makes in deciding who should have access. The sooner we get back to that mindset, the better.

Reinventing the wheel

As a young officer first exposed to TS data in the late 1980s, I can vouch for the far stricter rules of those days, compared to what we have now. I think this was in part because of a DoD report published in 1985, "Keeping the Nation's Secrets," which included some common-sense recommendations which had been put into practice by the time I started my career, but have since fallen by the wayside. Examples: no one was ever allowed to be alone in our TS facility; there was a "two-man rule" for handling TS materials. Fast-forward to my later years in the Pentagon, and I was surprised to find that by then, it was commonplace for someone to work late - alone - in a TS facility, and lock up by themselves. It was a matter of convenience: why should a second person have to stay just because one of us has to work late? Similarly, our increasing comfort with, dependence on, and complacency about technology has taken a toll in ways that the 1985 report could scarcely foresee. As cell phones made their debut, so did rules that no cell phones were ever allowed in TS facilities. Gradually, as the phones became ubiquitous, the rule shifted to allowing the phones only if the battery was separated from the phone; then they were fine if they were just turned off, despite the fact that this is a known TEMPEST hazard. During my years in the Pentagon, no one ever even checked my phone to see if it was off. Cameras were strictly controlled in TS facilities, too, unless, of course, the camera was integrated with your phone - isn't that just about everyone these days? Employee convenience has trumped security in setting rules and policies.

Training on the handling of classified has declined, too. On more than one occasion during my Pentagon assignments, I stopped young new employees from walking out into the hallways with unprotected, uncovered classified documents in their hands. "But I'm not leaving the building," was a common excuse, with no thought given to the fact that the corridors are not a secure area, because they are filled with uncleared people, and even foreigners! And my favorite, "Oh, this isn't classified. It's only marked 'Confidential'." Here was a young lady who had free access to TS data, but apparently no one had told her about the other levels of classification or the need to protect them.

Steps to take

Right now, every office handling any kind of sensitive information needs to ramp up its physical security. Re-introduce and enforce the two-man rule for access to TS materials. Additionally, we need to return to another recommendation from "Keeping the Nation's Secrets": subjecting employees' belongings to a search upon entry to and exit from secure areas. This is not an insult; it's just good security. Prohibit the presence of any personal electronics of any kind. To achieve both of these ends, I would even go so far as to install employee lockers at facility access points and require all personal possessions to remain outside; you do not need your wallet, your car keys, your iPod, or your cell phone at your workstation. IT administrators should disable all floppy drives, USB drives, card readers, and tape drives on workstation computers and retain those capabilities on only a few, closely monitored stations. Does this make it harder to produce briefings or reports with a mix of classified and unclassified data? Yes. But the alternative to all of this is another PFC Manning crowing about how easily he downloaded reams of classified data while pretending to listen to Lady Gaga.

Right now, comprehensively train every individual who may have access to classified data, and I don't mean just flipping through the thick "read on/read off" binders and then signing a non-disclosure agreement. I mean familiarity with all levels of classification, all types of intelligence data, the use of cover sheets, wrapping, safes, and lock bags, and the inculcation of an absolute certainty that if you sell, give away, or negligently lose classified information, jail time is in your future.

The next step is the hardest and will require some tough decision-making and hard cutting, despite the inevitable bureaucratic and corporate resistance. We must drastically reduce the number of billets for top-secret clearances. The world has changed greatly since "Keeping the Nation's Secrets" was authored, but this lesson holds true: "...the far greater challenge is people -- those who create and handle classified information, those who disseminate it, and those who oversee its protection... the current security system fails in limiting the opportunities for errors of omission or commission; in providing the means to identify those who transgress; and in dealing appropriately with the transgressors." President Obama's announcement of "zero tolerance" for those who leak classified data is not new, but his demand that all agencies crack down on their employees' access is a welcome return to a more compartmented age.

Our current billet system - in which TS clearances have to be justified by specific positions - grew out of a recommendation from the 1985 report, and was intended to reduce, control and limit the number of people with access to TS information. Some of the new post-9/11 TS billets make great sense, as in the case of local law enforcement operating on counter-terrorism information. But many of the new billets are just as unnecessary and redundant as the positions they attach to, and with over 850,000 billets now in circulation, we can scarcely call that access "limited" anymore.

Worse, investigative backlogs combined with the pressure to fill all of those positions means that the US has become less selective in determining eligibility. Here are some real examples from my own experience: A young intelligence analyst, American-born, but whose Chinese parents still live in mainland China (do we really put it past the Chinese government to use her parents' well-being against her?); a retired 30-year veteran of the Indian navy, who became a US citizen specifically to be eligible for a TS clearance for his post-retirement US contractor job (are we not the least bit curious about where his loyalty really lies?); a middle-aged contractor who routinely failed to show up for work, and then was caught in lies about his whereabouts (is this really trustworthy enough for access to our highest secrets?). None of these people would have been even remotely eligible for a TS clearance twenty years ago.

Thanks to our post-9/11 atmosphere of counter-terrorism hyperactivity, combined with a political culture which accepts no physical risk, I am not the least bit hopeful that any of our new, redundant, and burgeoning intelligence apparatus will be reduced anytime soon. Too bad, since it would also help us out with our equally burgeoning deficit, another national security risk. But the other measures can be quickly and easily implemented. All we need is the willingness for our intelligence employees to be just as inconvenienced as they were a generation ago.

Pakistan’s Impact on Operation Enduring Freedom in Afghanistan

2009-03-15T18:12:00.001-04:00

Pakistan’s Weak Government Threatens US Operations

It does not take much reflection, after consulting a map of land-locked Afghanistan, to realize just how important Pakistan is for the US prosecution of Operation Enduring Freedom (OEF) in Afghanistan. Pakistan is one of six countries bordering Afghanistan; of those six, Pakistan has been the only one to provide us with nearly continual access since 9/11 to ground lines of communication for the transportation of cargo and supplies to Afghanistan. Up to 75% of materials bound for NATO and US troops in Afghanistan go by these routes, a huge percentage of our support. But critical as they are, these routes have some serious drawbacks. Our supplies must come by way of civilian vessels, enter through the civilian port of Karachi, and travel overland through Pakistan in civilian “jingle trucks” driven by local civilian contractors. Notice the complete lack of any US military presence, which renders our support more vulnerable than usual to ordinary pilferage, strikes and work stoppages by various labor unions. It does not help matters that the supply lines must run through the very provinces that have become Taliban havens following their expulsion from Afghanistan. This vulnerability is not lost on our military – which continually re-evaluates possible alternative routes – or on our enemies, who disrupt our transportation support from time to time with attacks on fuel and cargo trucks. All of these factors combine to give OEF logistical support a very low tolerance for instability in Pakistan.

Unfortunately, Pakistan is perennially saddled with political strife and extremist violence, and the Taliban and other extremists have long had a haven along the country’s porous border with Afghanistan. But the larger concern is that Pakistan is currently saddled with a weak government under Asif Ali Zardari, who was elected in September 2008 following Pervez Musharraf’s resignation a month earlier. Zardari’s track record so far does not bode well for keeping destabilizing forces in check.

Most recently, Pakistan’s internal politics under Zardari are contributing to increased instability in the country. In the news this week we have the latest rounds of mounting protests in response to a Supreme Court decision – viewed by many as engineered by Zardari – barring opposition leader (and former Prime Minister) Nawaz Sharif and his brother from holding office. That decision was followed by a Federal takeover of the provincial Punjab Parliament. The resulting protests and the government’s efforts to stifle them may yet lead to bloodshed, with Nawaz Sharif vowing “a revolution.” The similarities to events which led to Musharraf’s resignation are not lost on ordinary Pakistanis. As for US interests, in a worst-case scenario, an overturn of the government would introduce even more instability and uncertainty into the operating environment that the US depends on for logistical support to OEF. The US, realizing what is at stake, has intensified efforts to encourage a political reconciliation.

Secondly, Zardari’s reactions to extremist demands have been criticized as an appeasement strategy: in mid-February 2009, Zardari noted that the Taliban are a large and growing threat to Pakistan’s security, yet almost simultaneously he made concessions to the demands of a radical cleric in the Swat Valley, allowing Sharia law to replace secular courts in the Northwest Frontier Provinces. Zardari’s move, at the very least, takes some control out of the hands of the central government and cedes it to the tribal leaders in the Provinces. Worse, it effectively solidifies a safe haven for the Taliban in Pakistan. This is one of our most intractable problems in bringing a lasting peace to Afghanistan, as well as one of Pakistan’s most intractable problems in curbing extremist violence. In light of this troubling concession, Zardari’s later insistence that he will not negotiate with the Taliban rings hollow. One might have expected a firmer stand from the widower of Benazir Bhutto, who was assassinated by extremists as she campaigned during December 2007. He knows from bitter experience that to stand against extremists is dangerous; but appeasement only buys time, and such groups use that time to strengthen their own positions. Meanwhile, Zardari is spending his time trying to defuse a self-inflicted political crisis with Pakistan’s opposition leaders.

If President Obama is serious about success in Afghanistan, he will need to pay close attention to Pakistan. Indeed, the administration is currently putting together a long-term plan for Afghanistan which focuses, in part, on increased aid to Pakistan. The New York Times quoted Defense Secretary Robert Gates as saying, “The mission is to prevent the Taliban from retaking power against a democratically elected government in Afghanistan and thus turning Afghanistan, potentially again, into a haven for Al Qaeda and other extremist groups… We need to have goals, at least in the near- to midterm, that are achievable.” Small steps, then. The first of these should give priority to shoring up stability in Pakistan, and eliminating Taliban safe havens along the porous Afghanistan-Pakistan border by encouraging a stronger central government with firm control, rather than a weak government that makes damaging concessions.

Copyright R.N. Phillips, February 2009

Sri Lanka: End in Sight? Probably Not

2009-01-15T09:16:00.002-05:00

The government may be in sight of victory, but don’t expect a lasting peace any time soon.

The Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), led by Velupillai Prabhakaran (or Pirapaharan), is one of the world’s most successful rebel groups, though rarely talked about in Western circles. Originating as a relatively small group of rebels, they eventually managed to seize and hold large swaths of territory at the northern end of Sri Lanka. They receive remittances from a worldwide network of Tamil sympathizers, and have used that income to help build not only their army, but also a naval force capable of sinking military vessels in government-controlled ports and on the open ocean, and even established something of a budding air force. They collected taxes and set up a parallel government in the northern part of the island, complete with Tamil-language schools, post offices, courts and laws, bus service, and many other civil functions. They even have a slick English-language website to promote their views. The group has successfully plied an international trade in weapons and other contraband with their fleet of oceangoing cargo vessels. They crippled the Sri Lankan economy with a spectacular 2001 attack on the international airport in Colombo, destroying or damaging 26 airliners and military aircraft. They also make a respectable showing in conventional battle and are adept at unconventional warfare: they kept the national army and over 50,000 Indian peacekeeping troops at bay, and repaid India for its three-year intervention by fighting them to a stalemate and causing over 1200 casualties among the Indian forces. Then, taking aim against the architects of the Indian intervention, they successfully assassinated India’s former Prime Minister in 1991, as well as Sri Lanka’s sitting President in 1993. They pioneered the use of suicide bombings, and for many years the LTTE alone was responsible for more successful suicide bombings than all Muslim extremist groups combined. There also is some evidence that they at least inspire other terrorist groups with their innovations, while some sources claim that they have actually provided training or other material support to those groups. They are quite prolific. All the foregoing barely scratches the surface of their activities.

Pretty impressive. Lest my glowing description of the LTTE be misconstrued as praise, let me make clear, I mention all of this because it is precisely what makes them so dangerous. We certainly need to take notice for our own interests, which in this case include regional stability, threats to shipping, damage to governments friendly to the US, and illegal activities within the US (mainly support to terrorism).

Now, after 25 years, the Sri Lankan government is apparently closing in. One might be tempted to give a cheer and draw the conclusion that strength, resolve, and unflinching aggression are just the ticket for wiping out terrorist insurgencies. But wait – not so fast. For one thing, Prabhakaran isn’t captured or dead just yet, and he has proven quite resourceful over the years. Keep in mind, he’s been at this for his entire adult life. For another, removing him from the LTTE leadership probably won’t result in the immediate breakdown of the organization; the LTTE is one of the most disciplined forces in the world. But for the sake of argument, let’s suppose that the Sri Lankan government succeeds in disbanding the LTTE at the conclusion of this offensive. That still does not mean that their troubles are over. The ethnic divide and all of its attendant injustices, which precipitated the last 25 years of conflict, remains firmly in place. And unless the Sri Lankan government intends genocide, the end of hostilities will still leave a large, aggrieved minority – heavily populated with former LTTE members – on one side of that divide, and the controlling majority on the other.

Prabhakaran came from a modest background, with a modest education, and started his rebel career with a modest group of people, yet he has built a major nonstate organization and a force to be reckoned with. Even if he is captured or killed, his accomplishments are a lesson taken more to heart by the likely losers – the Tamils – than the likely victors in this ethnic conflict. Unless the root grievances are fully addressed, they will continue to simmer, with or without Prabhakaran, with the risk of surging back to a full-blown conflict for the same reasons that all of the previous cease-fires and negotiations failed between the LTTE and the Sri Lankan government.

The first rule of negotiations is, find the common ground and work from there. In this case, there is precious little to start with, and the end states that the two warring parties have in mind are completely incompatible. The LTTE will only settle for an independent homeland (one can argue the finer points of de facto vs. actual), while the Sri Lankan government will not brook any loss of territory, nor completely cede its authority.

The only way forward is for one party to give, and the only way that will happen is through a fundamental social shift between the ethnic groups – not impossible, but always hard to achieve. In this case, I would say the burden falls disproportionately on the Sinhalese majority to work toward a true reconciliation, for two reasons. First, while the Tamils are not blameless, it was Sinhalese majority abuses and discrimination which came to the forefront immediately after independence from Britain. And second, if the majority-Sinhalese government succeeds in crushing the LTTE, it is up to them to make a sincere, Lincolnesque gesture of healing. It is the victor on whom that responsibility falls, if for no other reason than the general rule that one can afford to negotiate from a position of strength. The task is made much more difficult for Sri Lanka, however, as they have no true period of unity to hark back to as their example. Given the intractable nature of ethnic strife, the bitter history of transgressions on both sides, and the still-festering divide between the minority Tamils and the majority Sinhalese, we can expect a generation or more of good-faith efforts, false starts, and relapses before any lasting peace is achieved.

Copyright R.N. Phillips, January 2009

A Dangerous Addiction to Computers

2009-01-07T14:54:00.003-05:00

We need alternate operational methods in both government and business – and need to use them.

Addiction: “the state of being enslaved to a habit or practice or to something that is psychologically or physically habit-forming… to such an extent that its cessation causes severe trauma.”

It has probably happened to everyone once or twice. You are in a store someplace when the computers crash and the registers stop working. Suddenly business grinds to a halt, clerks stand idle, and customers abandon the store as managers scurry to fix the computers. In large franchises, I have yet to see the employees simply shift to a backup method of doing business, such as carbon-paper receipts and battery-operated calculators. While we stand slack-jawed waiting for the computers to come back online, millions of merchants in the less-developed world continue to do brisk business simply by opening their cash boxes and making change, something we have lost the ability to do.

No, no, I am not advocating a return to dusty outdoor markets and unrefrigerated meat. I am generally in favor of technological advances. Computers have definitely changed our lives for the better. But what worries me is a twofold situation: computers have become ubiquitous in practically every aspect of our inter-linked critical infrastructure; and we have reached a point of utter helplessness in the face of technological failure. “Backup” means to shift to another automated system. We can scarcely imagine any alternate way of doing things, despite the fact that we were doing them in some alternate way not so long ago.

I am feeling my age these days. As a Signal officer in 1988, I was taught to calculate radio shots manually, accounting for the terrain, the curvature of the earth, the frequencies used, and even the presence of trees. Some years later, computer programs were perfected for this purpose, and we were pleased and impressed with the speed and ease that automation brought to a rather tedious task. But as my career progressed in step with technology, I sometimes worried that we were becoming far too dependent on the convenience of such programs and equipment, and were losing skills that were previously basic to the performance of our jobs. In my later years in the Army, I never met a young lieutenant who could manually profile a radio shot. The necessary forms and instructions were equally scarce. What would happen if those computers didn’t work? Could we even put a network together? Does anyone remember how to do this the “old-fashioned way”?

Where critical infrastructure is concerned, some organizations have better backup plans than others, but all are limited by their dependence on electronic technology. I am less concerned about ordinary equipment and data failures than about intentional attacks; and I am less concerned about ordinary hacker attacks than about those sponsored by a foreign government or nonstate actors, which could conceivably coordinate a broad simultaneous attack on the many and various systems that manage our overall critical infrastructure.

This is not so far-fetched. We are too often complacent concerning the “routine” threat of viruses which are used to collect information, control remote systems, and destroy functionality. This applies equally to government, military, and civilian systems. Think classified systems are safe because they are separate from the Internet? Think again. It is rare, but they do get infected with viruses, entirely due to human error. And unclassified government and business systems are breached on a regular basis. Anywhere you have a system that must communicate as part of its function, you have significant vulnerability. Firewalls and anti-virus software are helpful, but they only go so far. Real system protection requires an army of skilled technicians always on the alert for any intrusion, and even then, breaches will occur. Inside jobs are also a real concern that should not be downplayed, given the potential for damage.

As for the civilian systems, what constitutes critical infrastrucure? There are the obvious ones: hospitals, police stations, air traffic control, emergency call centers, power and water treatment plants, the financial sector, and so on. But some things are equally critical, yet so humble and ordinary as to go unrecognized: for instance, the grocery store. Disrupting the food supply is always a good way to precipitate chaos in any society, and unfortunately, disrupting their computer systems would be an easy way to do it. With a little imagination and minimal effort, a cyberattacker could come up with other targets to promote confusion and economic damage: loss of function at gas stations, cell phone networks, even cable TV, would just barely scrape the surface of possibility.

Back to my opening scenario, I find it interesting that the few places I have seen clerks simply pull out carbon paper and continue to march in the face of computer failure is in the small Mom-and-Pop businesses. The larger and more “networked” a franchise is, the more helpless they are at these moments; and certainly, major private infrastructure and government organizations are very large, and very networked. There is much to be said in favor of the autonomy of the small businessman; for these businesses, the computers were a useful tool used on a daily basis, but the clerks could instantly turn away from them and use the time-honored method of pencil and paper. No addictions there. Our large businesses and government organizations at all levels should take their cue from this, putting alternate operational methods in place and regularly training their employees to use them. That would go far toward breaking our addiction to computers.

I love technology. I just don’t like being dependent on it.

Copyright January 2009, R.N. Phillips

Medical Conscience Rule Has Much Wider Implications Than Reproductive Health Care

2008-12-19T18:37:00.001-05:00

The rule could make basic access to health care unpredictable, especially for the poor.

A strong, healthy citizenry is essential to a nation’s economic and physical security, and health care is one of the key services by which a country’s quality of life is measured. It is already alarming that in 2000, the World Health Organization ranked the US health care system 37th in the world, and in 2007 the Commonwealth Fund found that the US health care system, despite being the most costly in the world, consistently underperformed in many critical areas. One can argue the details of these studies, what criteria were used, and how the criteria were defined. One can argue that tax laws, malpractice lawsuits, and insurance companies are major contributors to the problems in the US system. But one cannot argue away the fact that our health-care system has become ever more expensive year after year, while access and quality have diminished for many citizens. And now, as a parting gift to the American people, the Bush administration has passed the Medical Conscience Rule, a well-intentioned but poorly conceived effort which will likely serve – in unexpected ways – to worsen access to health care for those very patients most in need, with a disproportionate impact on the poor.

The rule prohibits federally-funded organizations from discriminating against health care workers who, because of their religious or moral convictions, refuse to participate in medical procedures. The rule has been both hailed and reviled as an escape for those health care providers who do not want to assist in abortions, and there has been much heated discussion on the rule’s impact on reproductive health issues. However, the draft rule is broad enough to cover any religious belief or moral conviction concerning any procedure, and that is really the larger problem.

One of my fellow lieutenants at my first assignment in Panama was a Christian Scientist. In keeping with her faith, she sought (and received) permission to forego the vaccinations which the Army normally requires for tropical assignments. Whether she would become ill or not, whether she would recover or not, and whether she might incur long-term damage or not, she left firmly in God’s hands. That is all well and good for an adult’s free and informed choice, and at any rate, I suspect you are unlikely to encounter a practicing Christian Scientist in the conventional health care system. But her case illustrates the point that there are many religious and moral convictions that revolve around the care of the physical body, which range far beyond reproductive health issues. Which ones will you encounter, and from whom?

Who, in light of this rule, can deny the moral grounds of a cancer specialist who refuses to treat smoking-related lung cancer, or the organ transplant surgeon who refuses a new liver to a dying alcoholic, saying that they have a moral obligation to use scarce resources for those whose diseases were not self-inflicted? For that matter, many people believe in bodily resurrection on Judgment Day, and therefore oppose body-altering procedures such as organ transplants; should such an individual be allowed to stand in the way of harvesting organs in accordance with a donor’s last wishes? Perhaps an emergency-room doctor has moral qualms about treating a drug-overdose victim who has been to the same hospital multiple times.

The possibilities are endless, and because this “conscience rule” is so highly flexible and individual in nature, there are major consequences that could impact availability of care. Moral objections concerning a patient’s situation carry the same weight as religious doctrine, and as a result, prospective patients will have no idea what to expect. The health care workers all look alike in their scrubs and clogs, but who among them will help the patient, and who among them will judge that the patient is somehow unworthy, or that the necessary procedure is somehow wrong?

All citizens have a right to basic, safe health care and should know what to expect from their providers. The US already is having some difficulty in providing basic access for all. This rule only introduces an additional element of uncertainty to the process, and further weakens the overall system.

The patients who will be most heavily impacted by this rule will be the users of the major federal programs: Medicaid (the poor), Medicare (mainly the over-65 crowd), and Tricare (the military, where many providers are actually civilians). Yet, many private facilities depend on some government funding, so this rule will affect virtually everyone to some degree. Even if you laud the protections the rule offers pro-life health care providers, the wider (much wider) implications should give pause.

Copyright R.N. Phillips, December 2008

Preventive Detention Law is Not the Answer for Guantanamo Detainees

2008-11-22T14:31:00.006-05:00

It would effectively trade habeas corpus for an illusion of security.

With the incoming Obama administration promising to close the prison at Guantanamo, the fate of the roughly 225 remaining detainees must be addressed, and soon. In his excellent New York Times article of 14 November 2008, William Glaberson outlines the currently raging debate over the concept of establishing a new legal doctrine of “preventive detention” to justify continuing their indefinite incarceration, even if the venue must be changed. Be warned: any such “preventive detention” doctrine would be an assault on the concept of habeas corpus, one of the most basic rights underlying our legal system and even our Western concepts of personal and political freedom. The US is not based on race, ethnicity, religion, or even on territory; it is based on concepts and ideas, codified in the Constitution, which unify us beyond the trappings of our individual origins. If we abandon those ideas in favor of an illusion of security, then we risk abandoning our own rights and freedoms.

The Guantanamo detainees should, in my opinion, be handled according to the Third or Fourth Geneva Conventions, and the First Protocol of 1977. They were captured in a war zone under suspicion of activities against our forces deployed there, and they remain under the control of the US military. But since the Bush administration insists that they should not be subject to the Geneva Conventions, that only leaves the justice system to handle their cases. There is no middle ground, no special limbo-inducing category. That is a violation of international humanitarian laws to which we are a signatory. All this talk of establishing a “preventive detention” law only reflects the bizarre status we have accorded to the Guantanamo detainees, and our resistance to handling their cases according to existing – and perfectly suitable – international treaty or national law.

It is deeply disturbing that many quite thoughtful and educated people seem to believe that “preventive detention” is necessary to protect the US from terrorism, and even express fear at what may happen in the absence of such Draconian measures. Glaberson quotes Benjamin Wittes, a fellow at the Brookings Institution, as saying, “I’m afraid of people getting released in the name of human rights and doing terrible things.” And that is just the problem. We must not let fear drive our notions of security and justice.

A “preventive detention” law to protect against terrorism would be difficult to frame, and would risk ensnaring our own citizens on the one hand, and ineffectiveness against bona fide terrorists on the other. Would such a law apply only to foreigners? What about US citizens who are suspected terrorists? What is the legal definition of terrorism? Can we charge people as terrorists for suspicion of murder, kidnapping, sabotage, fabrication of explosives, or destruction of property? What makes any of these crimes “terrorism” as opposed to plain old crimes? What makes a “terrorist” anything more than just an organized criminal?

I would postulate that what makes any of these otherwise ordinary crimes “terrorism” is the political motivation behind them. I would also postulate that this motivation does not change the planning, execution, or aftermath of these crimes one iota, and that – within US jurisdiction – they should be handled as the crimes that they are by law enforcement, using the plentiful and well-defined laws that we already have on the books. That also means that the criminals are entitled to all the rights and privileges that our justice system confers. Making exceptions for some cases – and keep in mind that they differ from other cases only in their motivation, which can be difficult or impossible to determine – opens the door to abuse.

Certainly, handling the Guantanamo cases purely according to US law and the justice system would result in some of the detainees going free. Yes, there is a risk that a former detainee could commit some future crime and harm some of our citizens. But our legal system takes that same risk every day with countless suspects and convicted criminals. What is right and fair is supposed to prevail. The William Ayers case, which was rehashed during the 2008 campaign, is instructive. What was not often mentioned in the press is the fact that federal charges against Ayers were dropped in 1973 due to prosecutorial misconduct, so he was never tried for his crimes and never convicted. Such is our system, and it is sometimes infuriating, but we consciously choose to err in favor of defendants and not the government. We punish prosecutorial misconduct by allowing defendants to go free because we recognize that this is a lesser threat to our society than allowing such misconduct to rage unchecked. We should not be quick to surrender that protection on the basis of irrational fear.

Wittes recently published Law and the Long War: The Future of Justice in the Age of Terror. He writes that his purpose is to shake the confidence of those who are firm opponents of abusive interrogation and “legally dicey wartime practices,” as well as those who are firm believers in the same. He goes on to say, “In the fight against global terrorism, the powers of presidential preemption will not remain vital without support from outside the executive branch.” I agree with that statement, if not with his point. Thank the Founders for our system of checks and balances!

As the pendulum begins to swing back in that system of checks and balances, the US courts have weighed in against the Bush administration detainee doctrine. In June, the Supreme Court ruled that Guantanamo detainees retain the right of habeas corpus. In October, federal judge Ricardo Urbina ordered the release of 17 Uighurs against whom there are no charges, although that ruling is under appeal by the government; and on 20 November, another federal judge, Richard J. Leon, ordered the release of five Algerians from Guantanamo, on the basis of insufficient evidence, although this decision is also expected to be appealed. If this trend continues, we can expect that “preventive detention” would fare poorly in the courts.

Freedom is a fragile thing, and it comes with a price. The price is often portrayed as a young soldier fighting to defend his country, but the often unappreciated price is the risk that every member of the public takes every day in return for having a free and open society. We think little on the statistically small risk of attack as we go about our daily lives, until something happens. The true moment of greatest danger comes in the immediate aftermath of an attack such as 9/11. It is then that we must decide: do we insist on preserving our freedoms and rights, and thus our way of life, although we now are much more aware of the dangers that we really face every day? Or do we eagerly, in our moment of fear, trade away our freedoms and our rights in exchange for the illusion of security?

Copyright R.N. Phillips, November 2008

Education and the Credit Crisis

2008-10-19T23:10:00.003-04:00

Educated consumers would be a strong first line of defense in preventing a repeat of the current global financial crisis.

In the latest insult adding to the injuries assailing the housing market, stock market, credit market and all things financial, the default rates are rising on consumer credit card debt, prompting banks to cling even more tightly to their cash reserves. Well, we knew this was coming. Given rising unemployment rates and home foreclosures, and falling retail spending, it was obvious that the consumer was in trouble. As I wrote in a previous article, economic security is solidly linked to our overall national security, and indeed, the Treasury and Federal Reserve are intensively involved with the question of how to control the damage in the near term as the crisis spreads across the globe. My question is, how can we prevent this from happening in the future? I think educated consumers would be a strong first line of defense.

Two of the factors blamed for the current economic mess are really two sides of the same coin: predatory or careless lending practices on the part of creditors, and profligate spending on the part of consumers.

On the creditors’ side of the coin, there should be little sympathy for institutions that do not perform due diligence in making their loans, nor for banks which put an unacceptably large percentage of their capital into risky investments. These are business people who presumably come to the world of finance armed with specialized education and training. Assuming they should have known what they were doing, it is appropriate to call for a return to more stringent regulation after years of deregulated excess. But if deregulation has happened once, it can happen again, and our corporations have soundly demonstrated that in a deregulated capitalist system, ethics and caution can be thrown to the winds wherever there is a buck to be made. We need more durable protection than just regulations. And that brings us to the consumer’s side of the coin.

One might argue that the consumer, saddled now with his subprime mortgage (or his foreclosure notice), his SUV which is worth less than he owes on it, and unmanageable credit-card debt, is also at fault for failure to perform due diligence on his own behalf. But realize this: generally he enters the world of finance completely unprepared to think in terms of a basic personal budget, much less things like compounding interest, fixed or adjustable interest rates, amortization of loans, hidden fees, depreciation, and all that other stuff in the fine print. Add to this the dismal performance of our education system in imparting basic math skills, and it’s easy to see how the consumer can quickly be led down a road which he would have avoided, had he only known what he was getting into. Knowledge is power, the saying goes. We would do well as a nation to empower the consumer through the education system.

Currently most American children receive no formal education on even the most basic financial matters; if they receive any training at all, it most likely comes from their parents. But too many parents either don’t pass on their wisdom to their children, or are enmeshed in serious financial problems of their own. That may be starting to change, but by and large, our nation’s youth hasn’t a clue until they leave home for college or their first apartment, and then they quickly get into trouble.

As an Army officer, I frequently became aware of the financial problems of young troops who were away from their parents and managing their own finances for the first time. It was a frighteningly common mistake to think that “as long as you have checks there is still money in the bank.” No, it was not a joke; that same misconception cropped up a few times over the years. The thought that there might be actual math involved seemed not to occur to first-time bank account holders. Credit cards were even more insidious, with their high interest rates and hidden fees. When I asked one soldier if he would take out a loan with a 14% interest rate, he replied, “No way! That would be stupid, how would I repay that?” When I pointed out that was exactly what he was doing every month that he did not pay off his credit card in full, I could see a light go on in his expression. But it wasn’t a happy revelation.

Keep in mind that these were some pretty bright young people. Every single one of them had at least a high school diploma. Not a GED – an actual diploma. Yet they were woefully unprepared to navigate the most basic financial functions once they were on their own, and that is pretty typical. Happily, the Department of Defense has long been a leader in recognizing this problem and providing training and assistance as well as a comprehensive strategy to alleviate it. Come to think of it, a lot of government entities have financial education programs, including the Federal Reserve, the Federal Trade Commission, and the US Financial Literacy and Education Commission, to name just a few.

Yet even with all this information freely available, few people think about finances until they are adults and perhaps already in over their heads. The current administration recognizes the problem, if belatedly. Back at the beginning of 2007, when the housing markets were noticeably cooling and the storm clouds could be seen gathering, the President signed an Executive Order establishing the President’s Advisory Council on Financial Literacy. It reads in part: “To help keep America competitive and assist the American people in understanding and addressing financial matters, it is the policy of the Federal Government to encourage financial literacy among the American people.” Somewhere in the middle of the Order, there is a directive for the Council to provide advice on the means to “improve financial education efforts for youth in school and for adults in the workplace.” I’m all for that!

If high school is about preparation to perform and compete in the real world, then personal finances should absolutely be included as a standardized federal requirement on curricula everywhere – after all, this is real home economics! Materials for such courses already exist, thanks to a number of government agencies and private groups, for example the US Treasury and Junior Achievement, but these programs are nowhere near universal, and much of the effort depends on volunteers. Some teachers incorporate personal financial planning into their math or economics curricula, but this, too, is by no means universal.

All consumers must be financially enlightened before embarking on their adult lives. Advance knowledge would enable the average consumer to avoid predatory lenders, and help create more public pressure to keep credit practices fair and reasonable, which in turn would help avoid defaults and keep our institutions sound. I would advocate, at a minimum, a yearlong course – you can call it math or home economics – in which students would work with a notional family budget, realistic recurring expenses, and unexpected emergency expenses; learn how to manage a bank account, a credit account, and loans such as car notes or mortgages; and learn about how to earn money through basic investment vehicles such as certificates of deposit, bonds, mutual funds and retirement accounts. Not least, they need to be able to recognize the tipping point between a healthy cash flow and destructive debt.

We have known for years that our economy was riding an expanding bubble of credit, fueled by too many consumers carrying too much of that destructive debt. Much of this debt was never real money; it consisted of interest and fees and penalties that the creditors assumed they could collect, and the debtors assumed they could pay, until it all fell apart. As is the way of bubbles, it is now collapsing to reveal that there is nothing inside, with national and even global implications.

Copyright R.N. Phillips, October 2008

Complication, Obfuscation - Voter Confidence and Technology

2008-10-10T09:29:00.009-04:00

While technological innovation vastly improves our quality of life, the more complex any system is, the more chance there is for something to go wrong.

Just 30 years ago, we did not even have a microwave oven in our house, and couldn’t even conceive of ever owning a computer. Just 20 years ago, the offices I worked in had only two computers and we marveled at the massive 20 megabytes of space they had on the hard drives. Now, riding the crest of an explosive wave of technology, I have an MP3 player with more than 1000 times the capacity of those office computers. Cell phones, electronic organizers, GPS and web surfing on mobile devices are commonplace. Even more recently, such science-fiction staples as robotic prosthetic limbs are edging into reality. All of this represents a vast improvement in our quality of life; however, the more complex any system is, the more opportunity there is for something to go wrong with it. I still have a manual typewriter, which can operate in blackouts and can survive being dropped or even getting rained on. It’s not fussy. And I have never met a pencil with dead batteries or a virus. Thus, for any process where the results are of great importance and high technology is not absolutely required, we are probably better off using the old stubby-pencil method – keep it simple! One of those instances is in the voting booth.

Following the disastrous 2000 Presidential elections, with Florida’s notoriously confusing “butterfly ballots” and election workers puzzling interminably over whether to count “hanging chads” or “pregnant chads,” Congress mercifully passed the 2002 Help America Vote Act. HAVA was intended to simplify the voting process and make it accessible to all eligible citizens. Unfortunately, many jurisdictions actually complicated the process even further by opting for electronic voting devices.

Electronic data is highly ephemeral in nature and easily corrupted or lost through malfunctions. Worse, it can be just as easily manipulated with trace evidence which is technically difficult to notice, much less identify, analyze and prove. Further, the otherwise desirable ability to store vast amounts of data on a small device has the undesirable consequence that a vast amount of data can be lost forever with a misplaced laptop or damaged hard drive.

The performance record of the voting machines thus far should give us pause as we approach the Presidential election. At the very least, every precinct should be required to maintain a paper trail and conduct exit polling and a paper audit of some percentage of the electronic votes. If there are discrepancies, the machines must be examined.

Across the country, there have been cases of faulty machines, including one recent example in the Washington, DC City Council elections, in which a memory cartridge was blamed for tallying thousands of nonexistent write-in votes. In New York State, some 50% of new voting machines have been found to be faulty. In Ohio local elections in 2007, the servers in Cuyahoga County crashed several times, and up to 20% of the printouts were lost due to printer jams, compromising the paper trail. And in the 2000 elections in Florida, a computer programmer, Clint Curtis, wrote a prototype hack for the existing touch-screen machines to steal the Congressional election (any number of YouTube videos demonstrate the ease of hacking electronic voting machines). He testified later on the technical aspects during an investigation into fraud allegations in the 2004 Ohio elections. The biggest take-away election officials should get from his testimony is that election officials “will never see” such tampering. The only ways to know, he said, are to examine the machines’ source code, or to examine the paper trail and compare it to the electronic vote. Another indicator which should raise suspicion would be if exit polling percentages were significantly different from the electronic vote.

The 2006 race for Florida’s 13th Congressional district demonstrates the absolute need for a solid paper trail. Some 18,000 votes were apparently lost with no way to determine what went wrong. After investigating, the Government Accountability Office concluded that it was not even possible to determine whether the machines actually malfunctioned. And so Sarasota County, Florida was left with an inexplicable 18,000-vote anomaly. Florida is now moving to machines that leave a paper trail.

Some election officials insist that the machines are secure and any errors are more likely due to voter confusion than to machine error or tampering. Even if that were the only problem, it is an indication that the system is just plain too complicated. Whether the machines confuse the voter, have ordinary errors, or are tampered with, the effect is the same: votes denied. The 2002 HAVA needs to be supplemented with a requirement for paper ballots and permanent markers everywhere. It would be preferable to have to hire more election workers and wait longer for the election results than to question whether our votes really mean anything.

Coming Soon to a Neighborhood Near You: Guantanamo Detainees

2008-10-09T12:29:00.019-04:00

Former detainees may eventually be released into the US for lack of anywhere else to go.

In June of 2008, the US Supreme Court ruled that detainees at Guantanamo have the right to challenge their detentions in federal court. In the first such challenge, on 7 October 2008, Federal Judge Ricardo Urbina ordered the release of 17 detainees from Guantanamo, where they have been incarcerated since 2002. A federal appeals court has temporarily blocked the order, but you may yet see former Guantanamo detainees coming soon to a neighborhood near you. If the ruling is carried out, it will mark the first time that Guantanamo detainees are released into the United States – but don’t expect it to be the last.

The 17 detainees in this instance are Uighurs, and they are a special case. An oppressed Turkic Muslim minority native to western China, they say that they were in Afghanistan as political refugees. Now they are unable to return to their native China for fear of persecution, and with no third-party country willing to accept them, they have nowhere to go. Despite the fact that the Bush administration is no longer trying to prove that they are enemy combatants, they oppose the Uighurs’ release into the United States. Thus the Uighurs are effectively sentenced to unending limbo at Guantanamo, and that is the crux of Judge Urbina’s ruling: it is a Constitutional violation to detain anyone indefinitely without charges.

The Uighurs’ release into the US would probably be fairly innocuous, despite the consternation of the Bush administration. The administration’s main fear, as pronounced by White House Press Secretary Dana Perino, is that Urbina’s ruling “could be used as precedent for other detainees held at Guantanamo Bay, including sworn enemies of the United States suspected of planning the attacks of 9/11, who may also seek release into our country.”

And therein lies the problem. While the Uighurs are a special case, they are not unique. There are other detainees who also will have nowhere to go upon release. Even among those who are found guilty of activities against the US, ultimately many will have served out any sentences (see the case of Osama bin Laden’s chauffeur, Salim Hamdan), and then may find themselves in a limbo similar to that of the Uighurs, with no remaining charges against them, yet unwelcome in their home countries or in any third-party country. The Bush doctrine on detainees also maintains that any individuals may be held indefinitely, even after completing their sentences, as unlawful enemy combatants. But given the impatience the Supreme Court and Federal courts have shown with this unconstitutional doctrine, and given both Presidential candidates’ vows to close Guantanamo, it is entirely possible that we will eventually have to resettle actual former enemy combatants in the US.

The Bush administration argues that the security risk of allowing former detainees into the US is too great to bear. The courts are ruling – repeatedly – that indefinite detentions without charges are illegal. Who is right?

I would argue that the US is a nation of laws, and to erode the law – especially Consitutional law and those laws protecting our freedoms – poses a far greater national security risk than any criminal, any bomb, or any would-be terrorist. US history is studded with incidents of domestic terrorism. We have had our McNamara Brothers, our Sam Melvilles, our George Meteskys, our Ted Kacinzskis, our Timothy McVeighs and many others, who have faced justice for their crimes. We have experienced such unsolved attacks as the 1916 Preparedness Day Bombing, the 1920 Wall Street Bombing, the 1970 bombing of the Portland, Oregon, City Hall, the 1975 bombing of LaGuardia Airport, and others. Whether the numerous acts of domestic terrorism in our history have been punished or remained unsolved, we have gone on as a nation of laws. We did not allow those domestic attacks to stifle our freedoms, nor should we allow attacks by foreign extremists – or the fear of such attacks – to do the same.

In the end, the idea of resettling former Guantanamo detainees into the US – while counterintuitive – should not be regarded as an unacceptable security risk. The US must continue to rely on the rule of law. Former detainees would be supervised by the courts, as Judge Urbina ruled in the case of the Uighurs. If these individuals perform criminal acts in the US, then law enforcement, the courts, and the US prison system will be our line of defense just as they are against any other criminals. We are a nation of laws. Let’s go forward.

Copyright R.N. Phillips, October 2008

In What Does National Security Consist?

2008-08-28T18:24:00.017-04:00

It's more than you think.

Since 9/11, national security has figured prominently in the national psyche, the media, and our stated government policies. But it is not always obvious what “national security” really means. Unfortunately, the greatly intensified focus in the last seven years has almost exclusively involved trying to protect our territory from foreign threats by – for example – implementing more stringent border controls, increasing the government’s powers of surveillance, strengthening security at airports, and launching a “pre-emptive” war in a stated attempt to take the fight to the terrorists abroad. Leaving aside any discussion on whether these measures are good or effective, one consequence of this intense security focus on foreign threats is that it has detracted greatly – in terms of attention and resources – from domestic policy, to the detriment of the public good. It seems that sometimes we forget that our domestic health, too, is a matter of national security.

In what does national security consist? Ten years ago I had the great fortune to study under Professor Frank Teti at the Naval Postgraduate School. He impressed upon his students the concept that effective national security requires far more than simply securing a nation’s borders, and the instruments of national security consist of far more than simply the State Department, intelligence agencies, military, Border Patrol and law enforcement. Those are important, but what if, he challenged us, your own population is not healthy? Not educated? Not economically secure? What if your infrastructure is unsound? These things, too, are a threat to the well-being of the nation, and even its future – in short, its security. Even if a country could succeed in insulating itself from all foreign threats, it still would have a plethora of domestic threats to manage. It is a mistake to limit our definition of “domestic threats” to the Ted Kaczynskis or Timothy McVeighs of the world, or even more damaging threats like insurgencies.

A big part of responsible government is to promote an environment in which the maximum possible proportion of its citizens can secure their own futures in terms of housing, education, health care, and financial solvency. A secure citizenry will in turn tend to secure the nation through a strong economy, high levels of employment which create a strong tax base, a healthy pool of young people capable of serving in the Armed Forces, and a well-educated populace capable of thinking critically, solving problems, creating jobs, establishing businesses, and discovering and producing advanced technologies and bringing them to market. These are some of the basic ingredients that make a nation strong and that a government can draw upon to establish and implement sound national policies in both the domestic and international arenas.

Unfortunately, we have significant room for improvement. Third-world nations regularly outshine ours in mathematics, engineering and science. Our lending and investment practices have led to huge credit “bubbles” which are now bursting and sending the housing market and the economy into a decline. Our dependence on fossil fuels – mostly imported – is eating into citizens’ incomes, effectively exporting our wealth to oil-producing states, and contributing further to the economic decline. Many of our top scientists in critical facilities like Los Alamos are foreign-born, and many of our military, financial, and business systems depend on automation components made in China. While globalization has its advantages, we have reached a point of dangerous dependence on the very countries which are our fiercest competitors. Do they depend on us as well? Yes, they do, but that is no guarantee of a balance and only one factor for consideration in our own security. We cannot rely on a comfortable perception of any international partnership to guarantee our future. That is complacency.

I would argue that there is another key ingredient to national security, and that is a sense of civic duty among the general public. A sense of duty is especially important for us, because unlike authoritarian states, we cannot simply order our citizens to move here or there, to study particular topics, or to work in particular jobs. Free nations must rely on their citizens to make right choices which maintain that freedom through strength, and that requires strong leadership by word and action. Unfortunately, the trends of selfishness and blatant materialism in the popular culture have diminished our competence and contributed to our dependency on foreign suppliers of energy, critical technical components, and brainpower. We need to quickly return to a national culture of conservation, hard work, contribution to the national good, and respect for labor and education. If rebuilding our infrastructure and military and getting off of fossil fuels are tactics in a security policy, then rebuilding our citizenry is the overarching enabling strategy.

Thomas L. Friedman of the New York Times recently observed a marked difference between the way that the US has spent the last seven years in responding to a terrorist act, and the way that China has used the last seven years in preparing for the Olympics (“A Biblical Seven Years,” New York Times, 26 August 2008). One can argue that he is to some extent comparing apples and oranges, but the important takeaway is this: state-of-the-art in China’s modern cities is now more advanced than state-of-the-art in the wealthiest parts of the US. Friedman attributes this to “the culmination of seven years of national investment, planning, concentrated state power, national mobilization and hard work… they did not get all this by discovering oil. They got it by digging inside themselves.” It is worth noting here that China is one of our biggest foreign creditors, one of our biggest trading partners, and one of our biggest competitors for oil.

It’s time now for our citizens to dig inside themselves, and that will require strong leadership from our next President. We are long overdue for another leader to inspire the public and instill a sense of duty with the words: “Ask what you can do for your country.”

Copyright R. N. Phillips, 28 August 2008