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Congress and the Next President Should Repeal the War Powers Act
Tweet Share on Facebook July 10, 2008 Comment (1)I tend to be cynical about proposals advanced by bipartisan panels of the great and the good. But I'll make an exception for the National War Powers Commission sponsored by the Miller Center of Public Affairs at the University of Virginia. The commission was chaired by former Secretaries of State James Baker and Warren Christopher and included former Democratic members of Congress Lee Hamilton, John Marsh, and Abner Mikva and former Republican Sen. Slade Gorton (Marsh presumably counts as a Republican, since he served in the Ford White House and was secretary of the Army in the Reagan administration). Other members: Republicans Carla Hills, Edwin Meese, and Brent Scowcroft; Democrats Anne-Marie Slaughter and Strobe Talbott; and retired Adm. J. Paul Reason.
In its admirably brief and well-written report, the commission calls for repealing the War Powers Act of 1973 and replacing it with a War Powers Consultation Act that would require the president to consult with a new bipartisan, bicameral Joint Congressional Consultation Committee.
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Colombia's President Uribe and the Clownish Narco-terrorists
Tweet Share on Facebook July 7, 2008 Comment (9)For more heartening coverage of the hostage rescue in Colombia, see this story from Saturday's Wall Street Journal and this opinion article, "Vindication for Colombia's Uribe" from Saturday's Washington Post. Schumacher-Matos usefully takes on Human Rights Watch for overstating Colombia's human rights problems; this organization seems interested only in proving that "right-wing" regimes are terrible and seems entirely willing to overlook the depredations of "left-wing" narco-guerrillas. It seems to be a prisoner of the paradigm of Latin American studies departments—that all conflict in Latin America is between the left-leaning "people" and right-wing oppressive regimes. Believers of this paradigm overlook the fact that President Alvaro Uribe and his government have approval ratings from the people of Colombia far higher than those of almost any other leaders or governments in Latin America (or the United States, now and for most of recent history, for that matter). Schumacher-Matos does criticize Uribe for seeking to change the constitution and seek a third consecutive term. "He should build the legitimacy of the presidency by letting it go to someone else," he concludes, without mentioning the shining example of such renunciation, George Washington. As much as I admire Uribe, I am inclined to think this is good advice.
One of the heartening things about the rescue operation is that the Colombian Army's brilliant performance makes the FARC narco-guerrillas look like such idiots. They were completely bamboozled and fooled. Terrorists want us to live in fear of them. Now we are free to laugh at them. The greatest weapon against terrorism is ridicule. Who will want to enlist in the guerrilla army that can't shoot straight? That everyone in the world is laughing at? That was outsmarted and outmaneuvered and humiliated?
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Obama's Race Test
Tweet Share on Facebook July 7, 2008 Comment (8) -
Iraq Should Have an Oil Trust
Tweet Share on Facebook July 7, 2008 CommentAs faithful readers of the blog know, I have long backed the idea of an oil trust for Iraq, along the lines of the Alaska Permanent Fund, which directs a flow of part of the state's oil profits directly to individuals each year. In this post, Glenn Reynolds notes that the Wall Street Journal editorial page Saturday advocated the same idea. Anyway, it's an occasion to note that my position has been advocated, independently, by Nobel Prize-winning economists Milton Friedman and Vernon Smith, retired Newsday reporter Lou Dolinar, Sen. Hillary Clinton, the New America Foundation's Steven Clemons, and Iraqi leader Ahmed Chalabi. A pretty broad coalition, I think.
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Housing, the Subprime Mortgage Crisis and the Enduring Resilience of the U.S. Economy
Tweet Share on Facebook July 7, 2008 Comment (4)A year ago last month, I attended two international conferences, in Istanbul and Oxfordshire, England, that concentrated on the economy. The consensus was that there was a capital surplus around the world, with people looking desperately for places to invest and not demanding much in the way of a risk premium. There was concern about what would happen when a crisis—a financial breakdown of some sort—might occur. No one, as I recall, mentioned American subprime mortgages.
Well, the crisis came two months later with the collapse of the subprime mortgage market and much else besides. I don't claim to understand all of this, but it has been a fascinating ride, and it is probably far from over. The proximate cause of the subprime mess has seemed to me something that is eminently fixable. The agencies that rate the creditworthiness of packages of securitized mortgages have been paid by the sellers of the packages. In retrospect, it seems obvious that they should be paid by the buyers. And, perhaps, that the number of ratings firms, now strictly limited by the SEC, should be increased. I gather that this will probably be done, sooner or later (a high Treasury official told me last year we should wait till the crisis simmers down), but intuitively it seems far from sufficient to get financial markets fully functioning again.
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Colombia's Commandos Perform Remarkably
Tweet Share on Facebook July 3, 2008 Comment (7)Wonderful news: The Colombian military yesterday rescued a group of 15 hostages held for years by the narcoterrorist FARC organization, including the French-Colombian one-time presidential candidate Ingrid Betancourt, held for six years, and three Americans—Keith Stansell, Thomas Howes and Marc Gonsalves—held for three years. This was a brilliant sting operation: The Colombians evidently infiltrated the FARC at several levels, ordered FARC officials in the name of a top commander to gather hostages from three locations and deliver them to a helicopter manned by operatives of a nongovernmental aid organization. Except that the helicopter was actually operated by the Colombian military. Inside the helicopter, they disarmed and tied up the two FARC operatives they had let aboard, as other army personnel arrested the 15 FARC operatives left on the ground. No shots were fired. Betancourt tells what happened next on the helicopter: "The chief of the operation said, 'We're the national army. You're free.' The helicopter almost fell from the sky because we were jumping up and down, yelling, crying, hugging one another. We couldn't believe it."
On one count, Betancourt went a little too far when she said, "Such a perfect operation is unprecedented." Perhaps, but it reminds me of the Israeli rescue of 105 hostages held at the Entebbe airport in Uganda on July 3-4, 1976, a much more complex operation and one that resulted in several deaths, including that of the head of the rescue team, Jonathan Netanyahu. The Israelis relied on main force, the Colombians on stealth, but both performed brilliantly. I trust the Colombian military will not be insulted if one says that its competence and ingenuity are comparable to that of the Israeli Defense Force.
