Seymour Hersh's Blockbuster

Good investigatory reporting has an outside chance to make a difference.

It may be too much to say that it can change history; perhaps good and timely journalism has only a shot at nudging history.

Seymour Hersh has done that before with his historic breaking of the My Lai Massacre story in 1969, a Pulitzer Prize winner. His investigatory spotlight also lit up the Abu Ghraib prison story. His critics argue he has been more wrong than right. No one is right all of the time. But Hersh's track record is that some of the time, he has been very, very good in getting his story right. That should motivate us to focus on some of the highlights of his 7,000 word piece in the New Yorker.

• Bush is ready to go to war to save Israel which has not yet been attacked and which can defend itself.
• Bush has a messianic drive to save Iran from itself.
• A preemptive attack on Iran will unify its disparate political elements.
• Proliferation of nuclear weapons to Iran may be only Bush's pretext for regime change.
• We may already be at war with Iran if we have clandestine troops within its borders.
• The use of tactical nuclear weapons for a preemptive war is a thinkable proposition for contemporary civilian war planners in the Pentagon. (Only a very few of my readers will remember how we debated with Herman Kahn in the 1960's the merits of his theory of tactical nuclear war.)
• Ironically, one of the few brakes on this war mongering juggernaut (while Congress remains in GOP control) may come from the ranks of the professional military officer corps in the Pentagon.
• In contemplating an air war to be waged against Iran, there does not seem to be any serious contingency planning for the most obvious repercussions: Iranian ground attacks in Iraq and Afghanistan; Hezbollah revivals on steroids throughout the Middle East; unification of the regional Shiites and Sunnis against us; dispersal of Iran's uranium outside her borders into the hands of whatever terrorists who get lucky.

If it is true that Bush and Cheney need a semi-conscious, semi-alert public and a comatose media in order to work their war-mongering machinations, Sy Hersh's blockbustering reporting might have nudged history a little by waking up both of them.

I submit that even if none of Hersh's nightmares materialize, he will not be discredited: not as long as there is a possibility that preemptive war was deterred or delayed by preemptive journalism.

Crossposted

The No-Good-News-Reported-In-Iraq Paradox

What kind of logic is this?

How can people in one breath complain that there is not enough of the good news being reported in Iraq and say, in the very next breath, that it's just too unsafe for reporters to venture out of the Green Zone to report it?

I just don't get it.

I have forgotten my freshman course in logic. Is this a syllogism? Is it reductio ad absurdum?

Can someone help me out with this?

Iraq - Is the US media telling the truth?

The Perfectly Logical and Symmetrical Baseball League (PLASBL)

Major League Baseball isn't broken. But it's not perfect.

I’m not aspiring to higher office. I’ll just settle for succeeding Bud Selig as commissioner of baseball. This is my nine-point platform and I’m sticking to it.

• Plank #1: Eliminate the designated hitter rule. This is long over due. Going back to sandlot baseball, every one had to take his (or her) turn at shagging balls in order to merit a turn at bat. “DH” baseball is just pseudo-baseball, quasi-baseball, crypto-baseball, proto-baseball, near-baseball, old-man or geriatric baseball. Real baseball means that each starter has an offensive as well as a defensive role to play. In real baseball, if some one gets 400 at bats, you know he has at least minimal skills with glove and arm. Real baseball saves starters' arms, provides more strategic drama to the game, gets more players into the game, and provides a built-in deterrent for the bean ball. Enough ink has already been spilled on this. If you want a platoon sport, settle for football or slo-pitch.


• Plank # 2: Enforce the real strike zone. The strike zone is over the white of the plate, above the knees and below the arm pits, when the batter is in his normal hitting stance. The upper level of the strike zone is not determined by the catcher's head or shoulders. When umpires went to the inside protector, they started depending on the catcher for protection, at the expense of the optimal position. Thus, the zone has evolved into a wider, flattened area in which pitchers get calls on pitches inches off the outside corner. On the other hand they wouldn’t get the pitch above the belt called as a strike. There was no consistency. Pitches so far outside that no batter could reach them would go for strikes. Or, on the other hand, pitches in the legal zone would be called balls and the guy on the mound would be forced to throw one right down the middle. How many games were broken up by the pitcher surrendering to the umpires’ idiosyncrasies by watching his next pitch bang against the outside wall? How many innings were ended by pitches way off the plate which couldn’t be reached by the normal bat? The outside protectors might have been clumsier and maybe they don’t give you the same mobility. But I have had the experience of umping with both protectors, and I can say that with the outside protector you could work the top of the strike zone better and see the entire plate at a higher level. The dullest play in baseball is the unintentional walk, because it is mixed in with strikes. By calling the entire strike zone by the book, you won't see as many 3-and-1 and 3-and-2 counts on batters. Hitters, in other words, will gear themselves to be more aggressive on pitches coming in at chest level. Fewer walks mean more action and shorter games.
  
  Therefore, MLB should return to the use of outside protectors. Additionally, the use of computerized technology called QuesTec should be installed in all stadiums to grade and rate umpires’ compliance with baseball’s book definition of the strike zone.


• Plank # 3: Restore the level of the pitching mound to 15 inches over the level of home plate. After the 1968 season it was lowered five inches to the detriment of drama of baseball. Now, with batters crowding the plate with all kinds of body armor, the balance of power must be restored with a more unlevel playing field.


• Plank # 4: Adopt the aluminum bat. Somebody has published statistics about the amount of wood that goes into the construction of wooden bats, which is a highly consumable commodity, unique to major league baseball. It's an environmental and economic disaster. Aluminum bats are virtually indestructible.


• Plank #5: Re-engineer the construction of baseballs to deaden them. This is a consequence of the previous innovation. As a matter of safety for pitchers and infielders some changes to the ball will be required to accommodate aluminum bats which are definitely more lively than wood.


• Plank #6: Re-align divisions to emphasize regional rivalries and re-establish symmetry to league schedules. Back when we had two eight-team leagues we had perfect symmetry: during the season each team played every other team in its league 22 times, 11 home game and 11 on the road for a total of 154 games in the season. Perfect. The only negative was the lack of inter-league play. What if we could combine inter-league play, still retain perfect symmetry and build in a higher degree of drama as the season unfolds? Assume the following league alignment:

  • WESTERN LEAGUE: Seattle, Oakland, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Anaheim, San Diego, Denver & Phoenix
    
  • SOUTHERN LEAGUE: Dallas, Houston, St. Louis, Kansas City, Atlanta, Miami, Cincinnati & Tampa Bay
    
  • CENTRAL LEAGUE: Chicago (WS), Chicago (C), Pittsburgh, Cleveland, Milwaukee, Minneapolis, Detroit, & Indianapolis
    
  • EASTERN LEAGUE: New York (Y), New York (M) Montreal, Baltimore, Boston, Philadelphia Toronto & Washington DC

  Two teams have been added to bring each league up to eight teams. Assume the season schedule starts with inter-league play on 1 April. Each team would play every other team outside its league four times, two at home, and two on the road. That would come to 96 games bringing the calendar up to about the second week in July, just in time for mid-season all-star game. I think that works out pretty nicely, leaving details to be ironed out using days off for travel on one side of the equation and inserting a few double headers as necessary. After the All-Star game, assume the season resumes on 14 July (Bastille Day!). From this point on to the end of the season, only intra-league games are played. Each team plays every other team in its own league 10 times, five at home and five on the road. If the schedule ends on 30 September, there will ample time to get 70 intra league games in to make a total of 166 games in the season. Too bad it doesn’t work out to be somewhere between 154 and 162. It does mean the schedule contains more games than ever before in MLB history. But so what, really? Look what we get: after spring training, we get 96 games which certainly count in league standings; starting in mid July we get heightened competition within each league for the league championships. When the second half of the season starts, each team knows what it has to do vis-à-vis the other teams in its league, mano-a-mano. No alibis on extra-league competition. Plus, with my geographical alignments, the competition is regionalized, even localized! Hot!


• Plank #7: Re-establish symmetry to league post-season play-offs. There hasn’t been symmetry since eight team National & American league champions faced off against each other in the World Series. End intra-league divisions. No more wild cards. Establish four leagues with an equal number of teams in each league. The first team to clinch a league championship plays host in a seven game series to the last team to clinch a championship; the second team to clinch its league similarly plays host to the third team to clinch. The winner of each series plays each other in the World Series. Perfect Symmetry!


• Plank #8: No Reinstatement of liars, cheaters, gamblers and scumbags! Pete Rose should be reinstated into baseball, but only posthumously, and then inducted into the Hall of Fame. What he has done between the chalk lines is too big to permanently exclude his record from the Hall of Fame, and it would sure be incomplete without his records. But what he has done to Baseball outside the lines has been so potentially fatal, that he cannot be permitted to enjoy Hall of Fame status in his life time.


• Plank #9: Legislate or dictate (using my “best interests of baseball” powers), over the protests of the Union, a policy of zero-tolerance of performance–enhancing drugs. This 3 strikes & you’re out policy shall not be retroactively enforced.

There you have it: Perfection is only a 9-step program.

REAL SECURITY: The Democratic Plan

A mix of old platitudes and promising nuances.

On 29 March, Democratic leaders across the country joined House and Senate Democrats and unveiled a comprehensive plan for providing the American people with real security.
The Democratic plan, entitled "Real Security: The Democratic Plan to Protect America and Restore Our Leadership in the World, is supposed to outline a 'bold vision' for how Democrats will lead on National Security.

It's not too great on specifics, and there are some platitudes; but it does offer fresh thinking on the big issues facing Americans. These are my clips on the five general issues:

• REAL SECURITY: The Democratic Plan to Protect and Restore Our Leadership in the World: ....To protect the American people, we will immediately implement the recommendations of the independent bipartisan 9/11 Commission and finally protect our ports and airports, our borders, mass transit systems, our chemical and nuclear power plants, and our food and water supplies from terrorist attack....After September 11, all Americans trusted President Bush to take the steps necessary to keep our country safe. Since then, inadequate planning and incompetent policies have failed to make Americans as safe as we should be.
  After September 11, all Americans trusted President Bush to take the steps necessary to keep our country safe. Since then, inadequate planning and incompetent policies have failed to make Americans as safe as we should be....
  Under President Bush and the Republican majority in Congress, the war in Iraq began with manipulated intelligence and no plan for success; our ports and other critical infrastructure remain vulnerable, while both soldiers in the field and first responders at home lack the basic equipment and resources they were promised. Both in the Persian Gulf and our own Gulf Coast, lucrative no-bid contracts have gone to companies such as Halliburton, Kellogg, Brown and Root, and others with friends in high places and records of cheating taxpayers...
• 21st CENTURY MILITARY: To Ensure Unparalleled Military Strength and Honor our Troops, we will:
  ....Guarantee that our troops have the protective gear, equipment, and training they need and are never sent to war without accurate intelligence and a strategy for success.
  Enact a GI Bill of Rights for the 21st Century that guarantees our troops -- active, reserve, and retired -- our veterans, and their families receive the pay, health care, mental health services, and other benefits they have earned and deserve.
  Strengthen the National Guard, in partnership with the nation's Governors, to ensure it is fully manned, equipped and available to meet missions at home...
• WAR ON TERROR: To Defeat Terrorists and Stop the Spread of Weapons of Mass Destruction, we will:
  Eliminate Osama Bin Laden, destroy terrorist networks like al Qaeda, finish the job in Afghanistan, and end the threat posed by the Taliban.
  Double the size of our Special Forces, increase our human intelligence capabilities, and ensure our intelligence is free from political pressure.
• HOMELAND SECURITY: To Protect America from Terrorism and Natural Disasters, we will: Immediately implement the recommendations of the independent, bipartisan 9/11 Commission including securing national borders, ports, airports and mass transit systems.
  Screen 100 percent of containers and cargo bound for the U.S. in ships or airplanes at the point of origin and safeguard America's nuclear and chemical plants, and food and water supplies.
  Prevent outsourcing of critical components of our national security infrastructure -- such as ports, airports and mass transit -- to foreign interests that put America at risk.
• IRAQ - To Honor the Sacrifice of Our Troops, we will:
  .... Hold the Bush Administration accountable for its manipulated pre-war intelligence, poor planning and contracting abuses that have placed our troops at greater risk and wasted billions of taxpayer dollars.
• ENERGY INDEPENDENCE: To Free America from Dependence on Foreign Oil, we will: (offer platitudes?)

This statement is what it is. It's a step toward finding a position on the anti-terrorsim and national security issues upon which all Democrats, excepting Joe Lieberman, can agree.
Its best feature is that paints Osama Bin Laden (about whom Bush rarely thinks anymore) back in the center of the bullseye and Afghanistan as the center ring. The primary issue should be the capture of the 9-11 mastermind, and the rebuilding of the nation-state which his Taliban hosts ruined.

Also on the top tier is the fundamental issue of homeland security: border, ports, airports, containers, and mass transit systems; repairing and securing our national infrastructure. That sort of things - all those which Bush has not been able to fund because of his ruinous war of choice in Iraq.

Although not in so many words the statement brand Bush's vanity war as an un-provoked, unnecessary, unplanned, under-funded and largely unilateral invasion and occupation of Iraq (UUUULUIOI). This document squarely promises to make clear that this war to be the defining element in Bush's legacy:

Hold the Bush Administration accountable for its manipulated pre-war intelligence, poor planning and contracting abuses that have placed our troops at greater risk and wasted billions of taxpayer dollars.

Other issues such as the GI Bill of Rights for the 21st Century anti-nuclear proliferation and energy diversification are platitudes; but these are useful because they highlight other Bush promises which have not been implemented by his one-party government in six years.

All in all, a good start.

Open Thread

April Fools has passed, so....

Couldn't start anything on April 1st, could I?

First things first: I'm hoping all my old and not so old friends and associates from Sozadee CA will accompany me into this new venue and resume the same Vigil we began more than two years ago.

Secondly, I want to discuss, perhaps on this thread, my reasons for making this particular change at this particular time. I don't have those thoughts together right at this moment. But, if I don't get to that in a few days, prompt me.

As it is appropriate that you prompt me and others, on a whole lot of things in here.

Where I Am Coming From....

Undergoing re-write.....

I find the subject of one's memories extremely puzzling. As one grows older, it's like sustaining a fire in your library. One entire shelf will be lost, and the one above and the one below it will survive intact.

Toward A Progressive Position on Immigration

Fence First, Amnesty Second!
At last an economist who states my position on immigration control clearly: Build a Fence -- And Amnesty by Robert J. Samuelson.

My excerpts and enthusiasm, emphasized below:

It's time to build a real fence or a wall along every foot of the 1,989 miles of the U.S.-Mexican border.

There can be only two arguments against this approach to keeping out illegal immigrants: (1) it won't work -- possible, but we won't know unless we try; or (2) we don't want it to work -- then, we should say so and open our borders to anyone but criminals and terrorists. Either way, we need more candor in our immigration debates. Now is the time, because Congress is considering its first major immigration legislation in years.

In 2005 the Border Patrol stopped 1.19 million people trying to enter the United States illegally; 98.5 percent of them were caught along the southern border. Of those who got through and stayed (crude estimate: some 500,000 annually), about two-thirds lack a high school education. Even a country as accepting of newcomers as the United States cannot effortlessly absorb infinite numbers of poor and unskilled workers. Legal immigration totals 750,000 to 1 million people annually, many of them also unskilled.

I do not like advocating a fence. It looks and feels bad. It's easily stigmatized as racist. It would antagonize Mexico. The imagery is appalling, but it beats the alternative: a growing underclass and social tensions. Moreover, a genuine fence would probably work. The construction of about 10 miles of steel and concrete barriers up to 15 feet high in San Diego has reduced illegal crossings in that sector by about 95 percent since 1992, reports Rep. Duncan Hunter, a supporter of a U.S.-Mexico fence. Sure, there will be tunnels and ladders. But getting in will be harder. Policing will be easier.

.... If there are "shortages" of unskilled American workers, the obvious remedy is to raise their wages. A Texas roofing contractor testified to Congress that he couldn't get enough roofers at $9 an hour. Okay, increase it to $10 or $12. Higher wages will bring forth more workers. Perish the thought. Business groups, led by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, clamor for more guest workers. That's a euphemism for cheap labor. These business groups seem unperturbed by extravagant increases in chief executives' pay. But they're horrified by anything that might raise the wages of maids, waitresses, laborers or gardeners.

As for assimilation, it's true that millions of Hispanic families are moving into -- and reshaping -- the American mainstream. But average trends look less encouraging. Since 1990 about 90 percent of the increase in people living below the government's poverty lines has come among Hispanics. That has to be mainly immigrants and their U.S.-born children. In a report, the Pew Hispanic Center notes:

• Residential segregation is increasing. In 2000, 43 percent of Hispanics lived in neighborhoods with Hispanic majorities, up from 39 percent in 1990.
• The median net worth of Hispanic households is about 9 percent of that of non-Hispanic whites (net worth is what people own minus what they owe).
• Only about a quarter of Hispanic college students graduate compared with about half for non-Hispanic whites.

Assimilation takes time. The big difference between today's Hispanic inflows and past immigration waves is that those stopped. History or restrictive laws intervened. There was time for newcomers to adapt. Left alone, there's no obvious reason why the present Hispanic immigration should even pause. Today's unskilled arrivals make it harder for yesterday's to get ahead. The two compete. In 2004 the already-low median wages for foreign-born Hispanics dropped 1.6 percent, reports Rakesh Kochhar of the Pew Center.

There's a paradox. To make immigration succeed, we need to curb some immigration. That's why it's vital to control our border. It also explains why it's important not to "solve" that problem merely by legalizing these huge inflows. Unfortunately, the legislation being considered by the Senate Judiciary Committee would do precisely that. Among other things, it would create a virtually open-ended guest worker program.

If we control new inflows, we should legalize the illegal immigrants already here. Many have American-born children, who are U.S. citizens. It is not desirable or ethical to force most illegal immigrants to leave. Yes, they broke the law, but we were complicit by making the law so easy to break. Their present shadowy status deprives them of rights and exposes them to exploitation. We should want the melting pot to work -- and fear that it might come to a boil.

Here I have to add a common sense caveat: it's not necessary to fence the entire southern border in order to get the desired effect. And it's an added unnecessary cost to do so.

But this is an unassailable position on immigration, and Progressives ought to seize upon it!