WhirledView

North Korean Developments

by CKR

The WaPo today reports that the US and North Korea conducted separate bilateral discussions before the six-party talks resume on Tuesday. Apparently the talks amounted only to an hour, but that’s an hour more than previously.

Jim Yardley also covers the story in the NYT.

Douglas Jehl and David Sanger report in today’s NYT that there have been conflicting interpretations of intelligence on North Korea’s actions.

In a classified briefing on April 26, at about the same time Washington was warning its allies, the Central Intelligence Agency told Congress that it was unlikely that North Korea would conduct a nuclear test anytime soon. Moreover, the White House had assessed the probability of a North Korean test this spring as relatively low, officials say. And they say that the claim by some analysts and administration officials of a reviewing stand, which was reported in a front-page article in The New York Times and then by several other news organizations, was apparently based on misinterpretations of inconclusive or incomplete data and should not have been circulated outside the government.

North Korea does a lot of tunneling in their mountains. A rectangular wood structure could be almost anything: a reviewing stand or a packing crate to send a Nodong missile to Pakistan. It matters where this is happening, of course, but given the uncertainties of intelligence on North Korea, do the analysts have a good idea of where they might test a nuclear device?

As time goes on, I am becoming more skeptical that the North Koreans have any nuclear weapons at all. Certainly one report from a defector is not credible for multiple reasons. It’s possible to calculate amounts of plutonium from reactor schedules that add up to something like eight or nine bombs. But additional parts and know-how are required to make those bombs. Although the North Koreans tried to present a convincing story to Sig Hecker, that did not add up to a bomb either. And no test has ensued.

Americans Are Weakening Women's Rights Abroad

By PLS

During the otherwise odious Saddam Hussein regime in Iraq women enjoyed equal rights with men. They had full access to education and professional employment. They could walk safely on the streets in unrestrictive modern clothing, if they so chose. They could count on receiving all available health care services; prudery born of religion did not compromise women’s right to examination, treatment or surgery by competent male as well as female physicians.

Now, two years after the people of Iraq were “liberated” from the dictator, women in Southern Iraq are being hounded by Shiite vice squads modeled after the religious sadists in post-revolution Iran and in Afghanistan under the Taliban. Even medically-indicated x-rays of females have become controversial!

More to be dreaded in the long run are efforts to deny women full equality under the constitution that is being written for a “free” and “democratic” Iraq. The crux for women is defining the role Islam is to be assigned in shaping legislation. Also critical is determining the extent to which women’s personal status will be governed by conservative interpretations of Muslim family law. We’re talking about marriage, divorce, child custody, inheritance here. We’re talking old fashioned, undiluted patriarchy masquerading as piety.

The dirty little secret is that there is no such thing as a single authoritative approach to Muslim family law. It varies from group to group (Shia, Sunni, Ismaili, Wahabi, Bohra, Hanafi, Hanbali, salafi, secularist, etc., etc., depending on how you cut the cake) and even within groups. Americans confronted by the question of what is “Christian” and by the recent debate over the status of the Ten Commandments vis-à-vis American law may begin to appreciate the complexity of the situation.

Does U.S. v. Mellen Give Hope to Backers of Choice?

By PLS

Retiring Associate Justice Sandra Day O’Connor is “somewhat disappointed.” President Bush has not nominated a woman to replace her. I’m disappointed, too.

It's very possible that the next time the Supreme Court considers Roe v. Wade, the decision will be made by eight men and only one woman. O’Connor was considered to be a conservative when she was appointed, but she did not take a doctrinaire, absolutist approach to the abortion issue. As time went on, she won the respect of mainstream Americans and many pro-choice advocates even as she was less and less admired by the Christian Right.

What's more, to fill O’Connor’s position, President Bush has nominated a man who is, according to most accounts, an “observant” Catholic.

Let me hasten to explain something here. I am not happy to have mentioned the Catholic part, but the Church itself has forced me to do so. During the 2004 Presidential election prominent Church leaders inserted themselves directly into the American political process. They asserted that political leaders who failed to work, not only in their personal lives but in their official capacities, to reverse the legality of abortion in the United States could and should be denied the precious sacrament of communion. Then Cardinal Ratzinger, now Pope Benedict XVI, has not indicated that such threats were inappropriate. But why should he? He has never sworn an oath to uphold the Constitution of the United States of America. And it is only fair to say that some Catholic bishops have been more sensitive to the constraints on public office-holding believers of any faith in a country like the United States whose founding principle is the non-establishment of any one religion or sect.

So, depending on which bishop he listens most closely to, an Associate Justice John G. Roberts would have his right to participate in a key rite of his church on the line should he be called upon to make a decision involving Roe v. Wade.

John Roberts's Work as a Lawyer

The common wisdom circulating about John Roberts's briefs for his clients is that the content of those briefs, against abortion rights and the environment among others, is driven by his clients. We are reminded that lawyers are bound to put their clients' best interests forth.

A lawyer friend of mine says that ethics require that a lawyer have some good faith commonality with his clients' interests. So while the briefs may not represent Roberts's beliefs in every detail, they indicate his views in general and are a legitimate basis for Senate questioning.

Of course, it's no surprise that someone nominated by President Bush would be a conservative. As in a marriage, however, we shouldn't commit to something in the hope that the other party will change.

Congress Investigates Climate Change

by CKR

Representative Joe Barton (R-Texas) has sent letters to Michael E. Mann (University of Virginia), Raymond S. Bradley (University of Massachusetts at Amherst), and Malcolm K. Hughes (University of Arizona) demanding large volumes of information about their climate-change studies and other scientific work. Their work on global climate change has been some of the most visible in that field.

The information demanded goes beyond what might be needed to educate the Congress on this issue. It seems, rather, to be designed to disrupt their work and send a message to others; in short, to intimidate those whose conclusions are unacceptable to Representative Barton and the energy company interests that have funded him. According to the Center for Responsive Politics, the oil and gas and electrical industries were the top contributors to his 2004 campaign, with a total of almost a half-million dollars. The oil and gas industry is anticipating his 2006 campaign, continuing as the largest contributor with over $47,000.

Although Barton justifies his demand by the fact that the scientists are federally funded, the historical bargain has been that Congress allows federal funding of science to be directed by scientists appointed by the agencies sponsoring the research in a form of peer review. The purpose, of course, is to keep politics from driving scientific conclusions.

If Barton is concerned that there is something wrong with they way these three men are doing their science, the appropriate route to take would be to ask one of the agencies or the National Academy of Sciences to conduct a review. Since their climate change work has been accepted by numerous review bodies and reproduced by other scientists, Barton could well expect that convening another review body would once again validate their approach and findings. Hence this extraordinary demand.

The scientists have responded strongly. The ball is now in Congressman Barton’s court.

Deflection or Deception?

By PHK

For about a day, the Bush Administration succeeded – it seemed – to deflect the White House Press Corps’s attention away from Karl Rove’s imbroglio in Plamegate and onto John Roberts, Bush's newly minted nomination for Supreme Court Justice. The Roberts story knocked Rove and the continuing Plame/Wilson revelations off the front pages of major newspapers – for a 24 hour news cycle. But this morning, the Washington Post’s Walter Pincus and Jim VandeHei broke the news in a front page story that a “classified State Department memorandum central to a federal leak investigation contained information about CIA Officer Valerie Plame in a paragraph marked “(S)” for secret, a clear indication that any Bush administration official who read it should have been aware the information was classified, according to current and former government officials.”

But why else as ABC’s The Note, Washington Post blogger Dan Froomkin, and others have pointed out, would Bush and Company suddenly announce Roberts nomination now, in the dead of summer when he, the President, had so recently indicated that he planned to take his time to interview candidates and consult with Senators about their suitability. This is one of the most abrupt about-faces I’ve seen in recent years – except those performed by marching bands or precision drill teams trained to execute razor-sharp 180 degree turns at a whistle's blow.

Clearly, the pressure was building in the White House press room and elsewhere about Rove, Lewis “Scooter” Libby, and at least one – if not more - yet unidentified White House conspirator. And, of course, far more incriminating facts have been dribbling out through sources other than the closed-mouth, toe-the-party-line press spokesman Scott McClellan whose marching orders are now to say nothing because of the ongoing investigation. (See Froomkin for McClellan’s non-responses to Rove and Plamegate in yesterday’s White House Press Briefing.)

The gaggle that orchestrates the White House’s public image clearly must have decided that Bush needed to change his rhetoric from "taking appropriate action against anyone on his staff" for leaking classified information to firing anyone on his staff convicted of a crime. This change of wording is a vital difference.

Sandbagging the Media on the Supreme Court Nomination?

by CKR

Kevin Drum expands on a suspicion from Atrios that's been growing independently in my mind. The internet information about the two Ediths was so far off the actual nomination.

By now, it's no secret that the Bush administration is willing to manipulate the news. I'll reference Jeff Gannon and the "consultant fees" paid to commentators. You can probably think of more.

So the MSM and blogs are 'way off in their anticipations, and maybe poor "Pinata Scott" McClellan can strike back with a sarcastic comment about their getting it wrong...

Update (7/22): Howard Kurtz summarizes the commentary.

Terrorism: Too Many Dots for Simple Solutions

By PLS

London was still in shock when I was discussing the bombings with an apparently well connected Pakistani journalist last week.

I confess that I was feeling badly outmatched during the early part of the conversation. Evidently he’s been to Wazirastan on the Afghan border, where he managed to talk with practically everyone but Bin Laden himself, who’s up there, somewhere, he insists. He’s in with Pakistan’s ISI intelligence service and the regular Pakistani military, too, or so he says.

I’ve got some background in the area. I’ve lived and worked and Pakistan, traveled in pre-Taliban Afghanistan, etc. But not recently. These days all I know is what I read. So I was feeling cowed early on, though I did my best to hold my own by asking reasonably well-informed and intelligent-sounding (I hoped) questions and nodding sagely and saying, “Hmmmm,” from time to time.

His theory about the London bombings centered on Iraq. “The insurgency is going to win by striking at the enemy’s heartland,” he said. “It worked with Spain,” he pointed out.

“It’s not that simple,” I replied.