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If You're Looking for the Passport Posts

you can begin here. We'd be delighted, of course, if you decided to look at the rest of what we have to offer, but, having waited anxiously ourselves for additional passport pages, visas and the rest to arrive, we will understand if you go directly to the passport advice.

Many thanks to Bob Sullivan at MSNBC for the shout-out!

June 12 evening update: AP is reporting that the State Department told Congress last week that those people who have paid for expedited service and did not receive it will get their $60 refunded.

Tuesday Scrophulariaceae Blogging

by CKR

I’ve got a bunch of them blooming in my yard (click to enlarge). They have been for some time now. But this week brings some new ones.

Two years ago, I sowed some seeds from a mixture for the edge of the mountains. I mixed them with some soil, raked the soil in this area, distributed the soil-seed mix, and smoothed the area with the back of the rake. There was some mulchy organic matter in the area, and I pulled that back over the seeded area. Then didn’t do anything else, and this is what I’ve gotten!

It’s been wetter than usual the past year or so, and that helped. But I’m trying to increase the vegetation on my lot to decrease erosion. I have a number of microclimates in my lot, from the partly-shaded edge-of-mountains area here to an almost-Sonora-desert spot where my agave is doing nicely.

What Does the Current Threat Imply for the US Nuclear Stockpile?

by CKR

If the threat of nuclear weapon use against the United States is indeed vanishingly small for the near future, what does this imply for the US nuclear stockpile?

It might seem that matching the stockpile numbers of most other nuclear nations would make sense. Russia, like the United States, is the exception. However, those thousands of nuclear weapons in both countries are left over from the Cold War. The high was a total of about 65,000 weapons in 1987, distributed roughly 25,000 for the United States and 40,000 for the Soviet Union. Today's numbers are about 10,000 and 16,000 respectively. (Click on the graph to enlarge it.)

The Treaty of Moscow provides for further decreases: the United States and Russia have agreed that by 2012, they will limit their "operational deployed strategic" weapons to 1700-2200 each. Note that qualification: operational deployed strategic weapons, weapons on the tips of missiles (still on Cold War alert status almost twenty years on), weapons stored where they are ready to be used, strategic (city-busters) rather than tactical (battlefield). Some weapons will be undergoing maintenance, and a safety margin must be provided with non-deployed weapons. Those reserves amount to as much as twice the deployed number. The limit was stated as a range, 1700-2200, because the US negotiators of the treaty were instructed to do it fast, not necessarily right. The larger number is expected to be the limit observed. Including reserves, that gives a total of 6600 warheads for each country. China and India expect to build up their stockpiles, but they will most likely stay below a thousand warheads total, each.

Ivan Oelrich of the Federation of American Scientists has done a much more detailed analysis than my threat assessment, his of the possible missions for the American nuclear stockpile. He concludes that in today'€™s world, the mission for a stockpile of thousands of nuclear weapons can only be a devastating first strike on Russia. Obviously such a strike would also be effective against the smaller nuclear powers and the non-nuclear-weapons powers. One may surmise a similar motivation on the part of the Russians, an echo of the old Cold War standoff. This is consistent with the continuing alert status of missiles on both sides of that archaic rivalry, probably the greatest current threat of nuclear destruction by accidental launch.

The End Game in Pakistan?

By PLS

I picked this title because it's looking more and more like there’s been a tectonic shift in Pakistani politics. Consider:

General-cum-President Pervez Musharraf moved to dismiss (pre-election) a not entirely compliant Chief Justice, which brought lawyers massively into the streets of Islamabad, Lahore, Karachi and Quetta. That in itself was amazing. Lawyers don’t demonstrate; they litigate. Pretty soon, thanks to Musharraf’s cascading miscalculations, they were joined by journalists and opposition party members. Educated Pakistanis longing for a return to civilian-led politics seemed to be energized as they haven’t been for nearly a decade.

Lawyers in the Street

Caught off guard by this strong reaction to a little bug-squashing, Musharraf tried to mitigate the damage from a jurist who refused to suffer his shaming in silence. There was a mysterious electrical outage which interrupted TV coverage of the "non-functional" CJ’s presentation in Lahore, and in Karachi the General’s partner party of goons (the MQM) was mobilized to clog the streets, so no one could move around, especially the degowned CJ, who was to give a speech that never got given. But the gridlock wasn’t total. Violence ensued, 48 people died and TV cameras recorded the mayhem, which appeared in due course on TV screens. The non-given speech reverberated throughout the country. The government did not look good.

So what did Musharraf decide to do? Why, muzzle the press. It’s what autocrats always do when threatened by popular aversion to unpleasant facts about a regime. The decree contained the usual national security verbiage, but what it really meant was no more damning videography. No more live coverage or live political talk shows.

Unhelpful Puppets

“Hmmmm. Not a symptom of self-confidence,” observers responded. This reaction cut embarrassingly close to the bone, so Musharraf set the decree in abeyance, temporarily anyway, thus doing himself even more harm. Reversals like this make a regime look shaky. What’s more Musharraf was reduced to whining that an indolent Parliament dominated by his own puppet party had forced him to issue his own ukase. The legislators, he declared, should have enacted the necessary.

This was the funniest bit of all. Puppets don’t act. They are activated. Musharraf has evidently become so befuddled by events that he’s lost touch with the reality of his own one-man rule. If he wants his puppets to act, he needs to tell them exactly what to do. He needs to give them the script. He needs to pull the strings.

Keeping the Country Safe

by CKR

One of the most irritating parts of flying is getting my bag off the carousel, noting that the plastic zipper tie is gone (sometimes the zippers not even zipped up), and finding that little TSA note when I unpack. I don’t recall exactly what it says; I discard it without allowing the bureaucratic words to enter my brain. But I know that it says something like the response I got when I still talked to the inspectors, when the idea that everyone who wants to fly is a potential terrorist was still new: This is for your own safety.

Aside from the nannyish tone, that statement is patently false. I packed my own bags; I don’t accept mysterious packages from strangers, as the litany once went. I probably have a far better idea of what is dangerous baggage and why than those TSA inspectors, and I’ve always been as conscious of safety in flying as I was in supervising front-end loaders and semi trucks hauling hazardous waste. The time wasted on mucking through my dirty underwear or wanding me is time that might be spent looking for terrorists.

There is some marginal deterrent effect from the fact of random inspection, true, but what is it about my bags that they are inspected almost every time? I’ll gladly change it: is it the “Sureté” sticker from Paris or the one in Cyrillic from Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky? That I somehow pack things more densely than most travelers? Or does the audacity of keeping those zippers closed with a plastic tie irritate the inspectors?

The immigration problem is very much like that: do we want the Border Patrol running down gardeners and nannies (and forcing them to cross the border at the profit of the unscrupulous and danger to their lives), or do we want the Border Patrol to be attending to drug smuggling and worse?

Far too much of the commentary and, apparently, the reasoning in voting for or against the current immigration bill (and in the construction of the bill itself) is based on the same sort of broad fears and politicking that regards all air travelers as potential bombers and makes about as much sense.

The reason why 12 million Latin Americans have come to the United States, and why others will continue to come, is that their home countries can’t offer them the same work opportunities that they find here. There are many ways to deal with that problem: development of those countries’ economies and improved trade policies for two.

But the punitive approach comes easily and seems to be popular among US voters. So the emphasis falls on “the rule of law,” which must be upheld in this case by stringent action against the undocumented. It seems to be some of the same folks who want to uphold this rule of law, though, who are shouting for a pardon of Scooter Libby.

It’s the rule of fear that we’re seeing in this desire for criminalization of the innocent. That fear and the vengeance it engenders are distracting from the real problems. Too bad our legislators are following their focus groups so slavishly they can’t see that.

PTSD affects more than the military

Media reports over the past year have highlighted the US military’s lack of attention to soldiers who have returned from Iraq suffering from PTSD (Post Traumatic Stress Disorder). Estimates I’ve read suggest 15 percent of any military force that has experienced a war zone is affected mentally thereafter by the psychologically crippling after-effects of battle. As a result of the increased media interest, however, soldiers are getting help they need – or at least I think and hope so - although some would argue not nearly enough and others would argue that the percentage of those afflicted is far higher than the 15 percent figure while a small minority would argue it’s all “in their heads.”

But what about the civilians who also serve in war zones – under battle or in near combat conditions? Is it also only “all in their heads?” Are some of them also perhaps afflicted by PTSD? And if so, are they getting the help they need?

What have you read about them?

Probably very little - because there are fewer of them and they have not become a major media story.

If you’ve read anything it would have most likely been two May USA Today articles by Barbara Slavin that have subsequently been making their way around the Internet. The first was her interview of Rachel Schneller, a 33 year old State Department economics officer, and one of very few diplomats to have served in Iraq and gone public because of the experience’s psychologically crushing after effects and the State Department’s refusal to help her deal with them.

The second was Slavin’s follow-up article reporting that the State Department had finally agreed to survey the 1,400 US diplomats who have served in Iraq over the past four years to see whether the PTSD problem Rachel reported is, in fact, more widespread – and to provide voluntary support groups for those and other State Department employees suffering from the same syndrome.

Only after concerted pressure by the American Foreign Service Association, the Foreign Service’s professional and labor organization, did State even agree to study the PTSD problem in Iraq. Slavin’s reports probably did not hurt either.

Prior to this, the Department of State had done nothing to think about helping staff cope psychologically with proximity to the battlefield. It is still doing little, if anything – as far as I know - to help people deal with the bunker mentality that pervades our missions in Iraq, Afghanistan and elsewhere. It needs to add this to its employee personnel health agenda as well. And pronto.

According to the private Foreign Affairs Council's June 2007 Task Force Report on the management of State under Condi, the Department now has 750 “unaccompanied” positions overseas. Slavin tells us this is an increase from 200 before 9/11. These positions are classified as “unaccompanied” because they are in places considered too dangerous for employees to bring their families. This means staff is restricted and often kept separate from the local populations and facilities. Living conditions are difficult and life is often downright physically treacherous, medical care and other support inadequate.

To date, the Iraq veterans represent more than 1/5th of the U.S. Foreign Service. Civil servants and Foreign Service retirees have also served in Iraq over the past four years. All have served as volunteers: they receive danger pay and usually one year assignments. Three have been killed while serving there. True three does not equal the 3,500 plus US military who have been killed there thus far – but in terms of percentage of the over all number, it may be higher. The realization of a vague promise of a cushy onward assignment and a promotion to a higher grade has happened for some Foreign Service Iraq vets, but not all.

Please remember, none signed up for the military, for the “thrill and danger” of life in a war zone and none received combat training.

Now maybe combat training was not needed at the early stages of the invasion when the country was relatively subdued and when the “Green Zone” – where most US diplomats served and serve -- had not become the target of opportunity for militias of various stripes as happened this past spring.

Yo, Vova!

by CKR

Returning to one of my pet peeves...

"Vladimir--I call him Vladimir--" has been invited now, by President Bush, to visit the Bush family compound at Kennebunkport and to send his generals to examine the US missile defense system, maybe even buy one themselves from the US contractors that are currently taking in only nine billion dollars a year on that scam. Maybe they could do the same for the Russians...?

The protocol, until this guy with the cowboy hat showed up, has been to refer to foreign leaders by their titles. So in a press conference, a president of the United States would refer to Prime Minister Blair or Chancellor Merkel or President Putin. A head of state speaking as head of state about other heads of state owes them a bit of respect; at least that's how I see it.

With Mr. Putin (or any Russian) the lack of protocol is compounded by President Bush's lack of understanding of how Russians use names. "Vladimir Vladimirovich" might have sounded less bizarre in the above context, although it's still a bit too cozy for my understanding of protocol. First name plus patronymic (the -ovich name) is an everyday usage by Russians. If Mr. Bush is truly close to Mr. Putin, a diminutive like Vova (childish, I'm told, although I know an adult Vova) or Volodya or Vlad would be what he would call him or the way he would refer to him among close friends.

It could be that by referring to world leaders by their first names, Mr. Bush is trying to show us his closeness to those leaders. Or it could be a manifestation of his reported bullying, or a mindless submission to the false intimacy that causes call-center operators to ask me if they can call me Cheryl. Speculation about these subtexts is the reason for the protocol: when a head of state speaks, none of this should be included in the message. Avoiding error is useful in these situations. Mr. Bush's usage is striking enough that both the Washington Post and the Guardian have quoted it two days in a row.

In a tense situation such as that occasioned by the Bush administration's usual lack of consultation, it's better to avoid the needlessly annoying. If Mr. Bush were truly friendly with Mr. Putin, he would learn how Mr. Putin prefers his name used in public. Even the call center operators have the courtesy to ask for their false intimacy.

Picture credits
Bush driving
Putin driving

Tuesday Horicon Blogging

by CKR

This weekend, I took one of my trips to central Wisconsin. The weather was off-and-on thunderstorms the whole time. As I drove back to the Milwaukee airport yesterday, there was a thunderstorm in Fond du Lac, and a river rushed over the road at one underpass. One car had already stalled out in the foot and more of water, and another had a bumper ripped off. An ambulance carefully made its way along the shoulder, although I couldn't see that anyone was injured. I was too busy thinking out my strategy for getting through all that water.

Rental car. Limited time to my flight. All I needed was for the car to stall in the middle of the torrent. There were many police cars and the ambulance, but no tow truck. Also no way to turn back. So I chose a speed to keep me going through the current with minimum splash. My heart was pounding as the car and I emerged from the flood.

We flew over mighty clouds covering the Sangre de Cristos, obviously rain underneath there too, and a storm that apparently had produced horizontal rain from the north. My front door was entirely wet, and it's under a portal, as we say here, a little roof that usually keeps the rain off. But we're always happy to see the ground wet in Santa Fe.

While I was in Wisconsin, I visited Horicon National Wildlife Refuge. I left my hotel early, with threatening clouds that made good on their threat just as I arrived at the refuge (above). The inevitable Canada goose families were ready to meet me, the adults making threatening gestures and hissing as I drove slowly past on the automobile loop. The rain wasn't much good for taking pictures; the blur on the goose photo is from raindrops on the windows, which I didn't dare open at the time.