Austin Bay Blog

This is a story to watch. CAFTA gives its Central American participants a means to evolve economically and politically. The delay in implementation isn’t deadly, but it’s discouraging.

The lede:

“I can confirm we will miss the target date of January 1 for implementation with our CAFTA partners,” said Steve Norton, a spokesman for the U.S. Trade Representative.

“It’s not uncommon for the implementation process to take several months. We want to do this as soon as possible, but we want to make sure it is done the right way.”

The U.S.-Central America Free Trade Pact among the United States, Costa Rica, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua and the Dominican Republic, was narrowly approved by Congress in the summer after a bitter fight.

Labor unions lobbied hard against the pact, known as CAFTA, and most Democrats in the House of Representatives opposed it over what they said were weak labor provisions. They also wanted stronger environmental terms.

The White House had a harder time rounding up votes for CAFTA than for any other recent trade pact, because of the Democratic opposition and concerns of some Republicans in textile and sugar-producing states who feared job losses.

It’s the big story of our time–was the biggest story in 2004, is in 2005, should be the biggest story for the next couple of decades. For the commenters (see previous post) worried about Iran’s bomb, yes, in the short term air strikes may be required, but in the long term a free government in Tehran is the answer.

Here’s the original post. Read the comments.

I just finished writing this week’s Creators Syndicate column and I’ve emailed it to my editor. The subject is “the year’s big story” — but it’s a knuckling curve, so I won’t give the title away.

That noted, what ARE the big stories of 2005? I use the present tense because genuinely “big stories” don’t cram into the frame of a single year.

Call this an anecdotal poll — leave your suggestion as a comment. Remember, thanks to the moderation routine, comments usually take anywhere from two to four hours to appear.

UPDATE: Excellent comments. I’ll link to my column first thing Wednesday morning, either via strategypage or realclearpolitics. Again, the moderation routine (which includes a software program that automatically eliminates most obscenities and common spam words) means it often takes two to four hours for a comment to post. Blame the fellow who committed identity theft in the comments sections earlier this year.

UPDATE 2: Hugh Hewitt emails his big story: ” My nomination: The leaving, and arriving, of a great Pope. HH”

UPDATE 3: We will be doing some work on the site in the next week. If someone feels moved to hit the tip jar, now’s the time to do it. I still owe a couple of “thank you” emails to contributors.

UPDATE 4: See my comments on what I think is the most important story or read it at realclearpolitics.

UPDATE 5: I’ll be off-line 48 hours. Comments may not appear for up to 24 hours.

James Bone’s essay is a must-read (via the Wall St Journal).

Key grafs:

It was with some amusement that I found myself the target of a decidedly undiplomatic tirade by the U.N. chief at a news conference last week. The usually mild Mr. Annan erupted in an ad hominem attack, calling me “cheeky” and belittling me as an “overgrown schoolboy.” Although I have covered the U.N. in minute detail for The Times of London since 1988, and have known Mr. Annan for almost all that time, he suggested I was not a “serious journalist.”

The cause of Mr. Annan’s ire was a question I put to him about a Mercedes car that his son Kojo had imported into Ghana (and which cannot, now, be traced). The facts indicate that Kojo had bought the car in his father’s name, thereby obtaining a diplomatic discount and a tax exemption totaling more than $20,000. The question about the car–to which Mr. Annan again refused to give a satisfactory answer–is part of the wider probe into his role in the U.N.’s Oil for Food scandal…

A memory of 1999 (pre-dating the Oil For Food scandal surfacing, but not pre-dating the Oil For Food program):

It is a time-honored tradition at the U.N. to bury a scandal by conducting an inadequate inquiry and then declaring the matter closed. Mr. Annan did precisely that when news first broke in January 1999 of his son’s involvement with a Swiss firm that won a U.N. contract in Iraq.

Read it and laugh, or weep, or both.

The CBC has a report out, as do the wire services.

The lede:

Police believe a business dispute is behind the release of gas in a St. Petersburg home-repair store Monday that sickened more than 70 people.

Boxes with glass containers attached to wires were found in three other outlets of the same store chain, officials said.

At least 78 people were treated from the effects of the gas. None was assessed as being in life-threatening condition, police said.

Preliminary tests have determined the gas to be methyl mercaptan – used in plastics and pesticides…

“Commercial terrorism” ?

Last January and February the American and European left’s p[olitical decadence cropped up as afrequent topic. Selling paranoia isn’t unqiue to any political point of view (The John Birch Society, anyone?) but since 1974 or 75 or so (Watergate, anyone?) paranoia has burrowed deep into the Left. Remember, the leftish proclaimed themselves the future. And Reagan was Hitler who would start a nuclear war. Then the Berlin Wall collapsed.

Bill Kristol essays “The Paranoid Style In American Liberalism” (this week’s Weekly Standard).

the so-called NSA scandals provide the news hook.

The lede:

No reasonable American, no decent human being, wants to send up a white flag in the war on terror. But leading spokesmen for American liberalism-hostile beyond reason to the Bush administration, and ready to believe the worst about American public servants-seem to have concluded that the terror threat is mostly imaginary. It is the threat to civil liberties from George W. Bush that is the real danger. These liberals recoil unthinkingly from the obvious fact that our national security requires policies that are a step (but only a careful step) removed from ACLU dogma.

On Monday, December 19, General Michael Hayden, former director of the National Security Agency and now deputy director of national intelligence, briefed journalists. The back–and–forth included this exchange:

Reporter: Have you identified armed enemy combatants, through this program, in the United States?

Gen. Hayden: This program has been successful in detecting and preventing attacks inside the United States.

Reporter: General Hayden, I know you’re not going to talk about specifics about that, and you say it’s been successful. But would it have been as successful-can you unequivocally say that something has been stopped or there was an imminent attack or you got information through this that you could not have gotten through going to the court?

Gen. Hayden: I can say unequivocally, all right, that we have got information through this program that would not otherwise have been available.

Now, General Hayden is by all accounts a serious, experienced, nonpolitical military officer. You would think that a statement like this, by a man

in his position, would at least slow down the glib assertions of politicians, op–ed writers, and journalists that there was no conceivable reason for President Bush to bypass the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) court…

Read his last paragraph–great wind up.

Thomas Bray looks at the rules governing domestic counter-terror spying in Canada, France, and Great Britain. Read it.

Key grafs:

All three countries are cited as moral superiors to the rogue regime in Washington, where the fascist leaders George Bush and Dick Cheney are said to be intent on fastening a reign of terror on the United States. But a brief scan of newspaper websites in those countries – something that the American mainstream media could easily have done before unleashing its own reign of terror on unsuspecting readers — reveals that their governments have in many cases gone far beyond where the Bush-Cheney could ever dream of going.

The Canadian government has broad authority under anti-terrorism laws to intercept communications without court oversight. And, complained a Toronto Star columnist recently, “the [Canadian] government now has significant new authority to stage secret trials. In some instances, the very fact that the courts are even hearing a case may be kept secret.”

A follow-up email from the NCO pulling Christmas duty. I’ve signed him off with his initials:

…Merry Christmas!

…Currently, I’m part of an advisory support team assigned to the Iraqi Training Brigade at Kirkush Military Training Base outside of Kirkush, Iraq. We fall under the Coalition Military Assistance Training Team (CMATT), which is part of the Multi-National Security Transition Team-Iraq (MNSTC-I). Our job is to coach, mentor, and advise the trainers, staff, and officers of the Iraqi Training Brigade (ITB).

We get about 1000 soldiers at a time, and put them through Basic Combat Training. Once done, those soldiers are divided into various MOS schools, approximately half going into the Infantry, and trained in their specialty. ITB also runs an instructor school and our NCO academy has been mentioned in at least one of President Bush’s speeches. We have one battalion here, and another at An Numaniyah Military Training Base. We expect to add another battalion here in the coming weeks. These Iraqi soldiers are trained by Iraqi trainers. Our mission is to focus on the trainers and the people who support them (e.g. S1, S3, and S4). My primary duty is as an advisor to the Infantry School, although I can be spread to other courses to cover personnel shortages.

I’m an Army reservist who came over with one of five detachments from the 80th Division (Institutional Training). We are broken into small teams spread all over Iraq, in positions ranging from staff, logistics, soldier training, officer and NCO education, and the MiTT guys, who actually do combat patrols with Iraqi Army units. All of us coach, mentor, and advise our Iraqi counterparts.

The LTC I mentioned is the OIC of our 17 soldier team; his title is senior advisor. The rest of us are NCOs, and that includes two Australian RSMs, who are the men who are really in charge. It’s a good team, and some of the guys on my team are from my local unit back home.

The 80th Division draws soldiers from all over Virginia, West Virginia, Maryland, Delaware, and Pennsylvania. The LTC and I are both from Virginia, although the LTC is originally from Wisconsin. Some of the soldiers used to augment us were from the 98th Division (Institutional Training), whom we replaced over here, and the 108th Division (Institutional Training). Some were also called up from the IRR. The 80th Division not only had to send 700 soldiers to Iraq, it had to continue to perform it’s training obligations stateside, which meant 60 day Annual Training stints for some soldiers.

Before orders were issued, the 80th asked for volunteers. I was one of over 500 who did. Although I was about to retire, I couldn’t watch soldiers I’d served with–my friends–many of whom I’d known for over 20 years, go to war while I sat at home.

I’ve had family and friends ask me why I volunteered. While the money is good, that’s not the reason. What is it that makes a policeman continue to work a dangerous neighborhood for insufficient pay, while some criminals drive expensive cars and have lots of cash on hand? What makes a farmer continue to hold onto family land, even though he barely breaks even? What is it that makes a volunteer fireman go into a burning house, for no pay, to try to salvage the possessions of a total stranger? It’s faith. It’s faith in your purpose for being on this earth. It’s faith that things will work out the way they are supposed to. It’s faith that what you are doing is right. How can participating in the liberation of millions be wrong? I have faith in this mission and these soldiers. That’s why I’m here.

I’m sorry that this email is so long. I do get carried away sometimes. Christmas has just now passed into the night, and one poor Iraqi Policeman will never forget it, if he survives. An Iraqi Police convoy was ambushed by the bad guys in nearby Balad Ruz, and the poor fellow got shot up pretty bad. They brought him here, and we Medevaced him to Anaconda. He may be a Muslim, but I’ll still say a prayer for him. I’ve met more than one who prays for us.

I should probably end this here.

Merry Christmas,

SSG C. R. S.

I saw this a PajamasMedia. State of Flux compares the M16-series weapons with AKs. Any feedback on this discussion is welcome. Remember, comments on this site take anywhere from two to four hours to post.

Opening graf:

There are those out there who hold the Kalashnikov in high regard, especially in comparison to the US M16/M4. The myth of Kalashnikov superiority is anything but a myth. It is in fact a very crappy weapon – for various reasons that I will discuss later. The belief that the M16/M4 is an expensive but fragile weapon is also an unfound myth. It is true that Kalashnikov (the inventor, not the weapon) was an able weapon designer, but he was not superior to Eugene Stoner (the father of the M16/M4). Kalashnikov designed a weapon for an ill-trained conscripted army. For that purpose, the AK47 was and is a superb weapon. Stoner designed a weapon for a professional army. Any professional soldier would prefer the M16/M4 family over the Kalashnikovs…

NOTE (after reading the first couple of comments): M-16s have to be kept clean– as in particle free. That’s been my experience on the range. I think the comment about keeping M-16s in plastic bags in Iraq is telling. The AK is a direct descendant of the German Sturmgewehr 44. Anyone ever fired one of those? How does it compare to the AK?

I spent my deployed career armed with a .45 or nine millimeter pistol. I prefer the nine millimeter because I could actually hit the target with the nine. Our .45s were of course old and anything but tight. My police and SOF friends prefer the .45 for knockdown capacity. Of course, they are crack shots.

Emailed comment:
“…re comments m16/m4 minh-duc with his worn out national guard m16-could it be that the looser action fit due to wear had made his more reliable in that environment? i do know from 11 years of hipower rifle competition at camp perry that the action needs to be cleaned after each match due to combustion residue in the action. keep up the good work. merry christmas…”

I see Michelle Malkin and several others have linked to my Christmas column. Here’s the rcp version, which the boys in Chicago titled “The Unexpected Gift.” The column touches on very central Christmas themes, peace and joy among others. However, the frame is Iraq, summer heat, desert dust, war. Plus Beethoven.

I read this paragraph and the simple, rich moment almost (but not quite) lives again:

The chapel doors swung open. Two young MPs ambled in, their boots shedding dust picked up on patrol in the city’s tough western outskirts. A contractor, glancing at his watch, quietly placed his submachine gun on the pew as the priest nodded to the pianist.

Here’s a Christmas comment from a fellow soldier in Iraq currently on duty. He’s pulling all-day Christmas duty (I’ve done it, its no fun), but he has a little help. Note he thanks KBR . :

Christmas in Iraq has been interesting to say the least. I drew 24 hour BOC duty,
so I’m going to be up all day and all night. The fellow that was supposed to pull
duty with me is stranded in Balad, so our commander, a Lieutenant Colonel, volunteered
to pull the duty with me. Talk about Christmas spirit!

The Iraqis have been wishing us Merry Christmas all day (notice I didn’t say Happy
Holidays) and one even said “congratulations” on the birth of Jesus. These folks
know the real reason for the season.

I wanted to extend a word of thanks to the folks at KBR. They’ve gone out of their way
to make Christmas special for us, from food to Christmas greetings at the gate. When
I see KBR, I don’t see a multinational corporation. I see hard working folks trying
to make our life easier under the most trying of circumstances.

The LA Times ran a column comparing the treatment of War on Terror vets with Vietnam vets. It’s headlined “From Heckles to Halos.” The American public does treat our troops amd their families with the respect they deserve (though I know of a few hideous incidents to the contrary).

The column adds this thought, echoing a concern I expresse din Fall 2001 and a worry I essayed in 2003. This is the truth, and it’s a double-edged truth, with fortunate and unfortunate facets:

This is not a nation at war so much as it is an army at war. Service members and their families mostly bear the weight of the Iraq and Afghanistan missions alone — family separations, career dislocation and danger. Many soldiers are serving third tours, and there is no clear end in sight.

For civilians, the chance to directly touch a military member or family can be irresistible, so much so that people break the comfortable anonymity of public places — airports, hotels, supermarkets — to walk up and pat a soldier on the back.

“For probably the first time in American history, civilians are asked to make no sacrifices in a time of war. We don’t have a draft. There is no gas rationing the way there was in World War II. There is no increase in taxes; we get tax cuts instead,” said Charles Moskos, a leading military sociologist at Northwestern University. “These acts are small ways of showing some recognition, because we’re not doing it any other way.”

UPDATE: See the second email from the NCO pulling Christmas duty posted here.

Instapundit’s already linked to this post, but it’s too “rich” to pass up.

Hint: The Christmas present will be complete when Kos sees the big picture– the policies that create the high Bay area real estate prices he now finds “frustrating.”

I’m listening to SecDef Rumssfeld’s speech in Mosul. Looks like he’s talking with troops from 3rd Armored Cavalry Regiment. Here’s a line stating his central theme: “The greatest leap for human history is for freedom, and we’re on the side of freedom.” Rumsfeld is stating the historical case for the war on terror– and it’s the strategic case as well. Free states have a track record of policing terror, not promoting it. (See this column where former Sen Bob Kerrey and I discuss Iraq in twenty years.)

Rumsfeld’s speech was emotiona and passionate.. Rumsfeld said the greatest thing he had done in his life was work with American troops. When I see a transcript I’ll link.

Rumsfeld has been serving Christmas dinner, wearing food service whites. Dinner consisted of steak and lobster.

The Wall St Journal writes about holidays in wartime– and it’s a great article. Greg Jaffe often has a hand in fine WSJ articles on the military.

Key grafs:

For soldiers and Marines in Iraq and Afghanistan, Dec. 25 will mostly be just another workday, full of patrols, guard duty, raids and the distribution of aid to the local population.

It won’t entirely be routine, however. Most soldiers, like their civilian counterparts working for the American Embassy and private contractors in Iraq, will call home over scratchy satellite-telephone connections. Others will catch glimpses of their loved ones via small webcams.

Read the notes from the troops.

That’s another line of gab Kofi Annan could have tried– to explain his son’s auto scam.

Claudia Rosett has the goods, via NRO.

Key grafs:

That discovery raised the question of whether Kofi Annan himself had been complicit in the alleged misuse of his own name and U.N. privileges. According to Volcker, Kofi Annan when asked about the deal claimed ignorance, saying “he did not know that Kojo Annan was buying a Mercedes-Benz in his name.” Volcker reported that he had found no evidence to contradict Annan. And there Volcker’s inquiry abandoned the trail, leaving the fate of the Mercedes itself a mystery.

But unless the Mercedes simply vaporized — lock, stock and documentation — upon arrival in Ghana, there is presumably more to the story — quite possibly involving paperwork with a U.N. stamp. So, for months, Bone and a number of other reporters, myself included, have been asking Annan’s aides what became of the Mercedes — and getting no answer except that Annan’s office does not consider this a U.N. matter.

Right, Kofi. Abuse of personal power for monetary gain isn’t a UN matter. Smuggling–under the cover of UN operations– isn’t a UN matter. Why, of course. Tsk.

Pajamas as the low-down.

And this Pajamas story as well. A citizens’ media center?

Iraq’s largest Shia party says it wants to talk to Sunnis about a coalition government. Iraq’s leader know a fractured Iraq will fail in pieces– the best chance is working out a federal accomodation.

The AP’s lede:

Iraq’s leading Shiite religious bloc said Friday it is ready to discuss Sunni Arab participation in a coalition government, while thousands of Sunnis and some secular Shiites demonstrated in the streets claiming election fraud.

Reacting to growing protests over the Dec. 15 ballot for a new parliament, Shiite Prime Minister Ibrahim al-Jaafari urged Iraqis to have faith in the electoral process. He made the call after meeting with Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld, who announced the first of a possible series of U.S. combat troop reductions next year.

Churchill said jaw jaw beats war war, but he also knew it takes a war to deal with Hitlers, Saddams, and their like. If jaw jaw emerges –and even better, a democracy– then the pain, suffering, and loss led to something.

More on the dicey maneuvering from Iraq the Model.

The Age looks at the slow pace of recovery from last year’s “Boxing Day” tsunami.

Over the next two weeks we’ll see many similar reports.

My wife and I went through the New York City transit strike of 1980. Everyday my wife walked almost three miles to work, through the man-made canyons of Manhattan. One Monday (around noon) I put on my back pack and walked four miles to the New York Army National Guard armory on 14th Street. I put in two hours of work to get a drill credit, then walked back to our apartment on the Upper West Side. I got home about ten pm. (I spent a year in the NY National Guard.) In developing countries which lack transportation infrastructure, getting from place to place means traveling on foot. Thanks to the strike, New York is getting a taste of the 17th century.

As for the strike: This transit strike isn’t about worker rights, it’s about greed and power. A corporation gets a union because it deserves a union– disgruntled workers form a union to fight bad or negligent management. Public unions, however, have morphed into something else. The Christmas strike is utterly selfish. The transit union deserves to be broken, but New York politicos lack the political courage.

Stanley Crouch has an excellent column on the subject, in today’s NY Daily News.

Key points:

The striking members of the TWU are not being overworked, and when it comes to money, they have one of the sweetest deals in the entire United States. They pay only 2% of their salaries toward their pensions and cry as though they are having skin peeled from their backs because the MTA wants future workers to pay 6% - still better than the deal given to 95% of the workers in this nation.

As for pay, some transit workers, such as bus maintenance workers and train operators, make more money than many cops and teachers. If one has graduated from high school and can read, there are no barriers to competing for a transit job, whereas cops need a minimum of two years of college and teachers a full degree.

UPDATE: Looks like the union leaders may have figured out they blew it with the Christmas strike.

I find this article curious. Tamiflu denies the virus the chance to replicate. BUt the AP says a strain of avaian flu may be resistant. Red the whole thing.

Here are the manufacturer’s production goals. Roche manufactures Tamiflu:

Roche expects to manufacture enough Tamiflu to treat 150 million people in 2006 and 300 million people in 2007.

“The current supply of oseltamivir [Tamiflu] is inadequate to meet the demand that would arise in the event of an avian influenza pandemic. Moreover, personal stockpiling of oseltamivir [Tamiflu] depletes the supply available for patients who could benefit from the drug during the usual human influenza season: A person who is assertive enough to ask for a prescription does not necessarily need the drug more than unassertive people do,” wrote Drs. Allan Brett and Abigail Zuger.

From the Daily Telegraph.

Drum roll and cymbals, please: The Archbishop of Canterbury defends Christmas.

StrategyPage has a report and analysis. Scroll down to the December 20, 2005 report.

Here’s the lede:

The government of Chad said that its military forces had “pursued” rebels into western Sudan. The Chadian forces claimed they destroyed “several” base camps inside Sudan used by the Rally for Defense of Democracy (RDL) a Chad rebel organization…