Modern Tribalist links to a report about Muslim attitudes toward Western societies and Western attitudes toward Muslims.
The poll found that 63% of all Britons had a favourable opinion of Muslims, down slightly from 67% in 2004, suggesting last year's London bombings did not trigger a significant rise in prejudice. Attitudes in Britain were more positive than in the US, Germany and Spain (where the popularity of Muslims has plummeted to 29%), and about the same as in France.
Less than a third of British non-Muslims said they viewed Muslims as violent, significantly fewer than non-Muslims in Spain (60%), Germany (52%), the US (45%) and France (41%).
By contrast, the poll found that British Muslims represented a "notable exception" in Europe, with far more negative views of westerners than Islamic minorities elsewhere on the continent. A significant majority viewed western populations as selfish, arrogant, greedy and immoral. Just over half said westerners were violent. While the overwhelming majority of European Muslims said westerners were respectful of women, fewer than half British Muslims agreed. Another startling result found that only 32% of Muslims in Britain had a favourable opinion of Jews, compared with 71% of French Muslims.
Across the board, Muslim attitudes in Britain more resembled public opinion in Islamic countries in the Middle East and Asia than elsewhere in Europe. And on the whole, British Muslims were more pessimistic than those in Germany, France and Spain about the feasibility of living in a modern society while remaining devout.
The Pew poll found that British Muslims are far more likely than their European counterparts to harbour conspiracy theories about the September 11 attacks. Only 17% believed that Arabs were involved, compared with 48% in France.
My theory to explain these results: If your society goes out of its way to show Muslims respect and approval then they will interpret this as appeasement by a timid and unconfident majority. They will respond by demanding more and telling each other they have every right to anger at the non-Muslims who are illegitimate as rulers.
By contrast, a society whose elites consider their own culture superior (and the French fit this bill) and who look down on other cultures sends a powerful message to Muslims: You are in a society that sees any demands you make for special treatment as illegitimate. To the extent that a society self confidently asserts the superiority of its values it provides itself some degree of protection from Muslim fundamentalists.
You can read the full Pew report: Islamic Extremism: Common Concern for Muslim and Western Publics.
There's an obvious lesson in the full report for pro-Open Borders Jews: The Muslims hate you. You really should oppose loose immigration laws that let Muslims move into Western countries.
Update: Also see The Great Divide: How Westerners and Muslims View Each Other.
Writing in The American Conservative, former US Army officer Joe W. Guthrie relates his experiences in a training team for the Iraqi Army.
Army doctrine and training have not accounted for a unit in combat having both to fight an insurgency and train indigenous peoples to assist in the fight. I started out as a one-man operation that grew into a cell of 60 people who rotated in for a week to a couple of months at a time. That infusion of manpower would seem to bolster the notion that Iraqi training was a priority. In reality, our leadership sent soldiers with suicidal tendencies, weight problems, and disillusionment. In a year’s time, we received only one visit from the battalion commander, only one visit from our battalion’s operations officer, and only one visit from the battalion executive officer.
This isolation set us up for failure with the Iraqis. Meetings with the Iraqi colonel in our partner Iraqi army battalion were conducted by a master sergeant and me, and almost always a problem arose in these meetings beyond our authority to control. When asked to meet with our Iraqi army colonel, our battalion commander refused.
He relays many examples of fraud in the Iraqi military and society.
The US military does not want the Iraqi military operating on its own.
From October 2004 to June 2005, the prevailing attitude of our battalion—including my own at first—was that the Iraqis were incapable of conducting operations independently. However, after speaking with locals and Iraqi army officers, I reached a different conclusion. The locals asked me why Iraqis were not doing more on missions. Iraqi officers told me that they conducted company-level operations on their own nearly a year prior to our arrival. Did our higher command know and simply not choose to use this information? Or was it a ploy to prolong a state of perpetual war?
I decided to test the theory. In March 2005, I began to send Iraqis out on missions into Mosul, usually unbeknownst to my battalion, and found them capable of conducting missions on their own except when they were hampered by our military values and horrible perception of the local area. When I sent Iraqis out alone, they found evidence and insurgents that we never were able to, though they were none too careful about complying with the Geneva Conventions. Once battalion discovered these missions, they quickly reeled them, and me, in. All Iraqi missions would thereafter be dictated by our U.S. battalion, and I would make sure that the Iraqis performed these missions in the exact manner in which they were dictated.
How can the US military tell the Iraqi military what to do? Simple really: The US military holds the purse strings that fund the Iraqi military.
Each month, along with our cell’s master sergeant, I handed a minimum payment of $100,000 to the Iraqi army battalion. $50,000 covered their monthly operational budget—facilities upgrades, maintenance parts, etc. The other $50,000 went toward the battalion’s subsistence budget, which allowed each soldier $90 a month for food. The problem was that the Iraqis said they had 556 soldiers, and we never counted more than 350 at any given time. Yet we were ordered to pay on the basis of the numbers they declared, with the remainder going directly into the Iraqi leadership’s pockets.
The operational budget proved to be an even worse disaster. Each month we handed over $50,000, yet no money was ever spent on tools for the mechanics, no improvements were made to the buildings, no new vehicles were ever purchased. So why did we continue to give $50,000 each month? The Iraqi army officers would not perform for anything less. We were bribing them to keep up the appearance of a workable fighting force. Our receipts for these transactions were cleared back through the comptrollers who tracked what U.S. battalions were spending. When it was learned that we were spending $100,000 a month, we were told that we were not spending enough and were accused of not supporting the mission. The message was clear: the more money we gave the Iraqis, the greater chance of keeping the Iraqi unit together.
Of course the Iraqi officers are corrupt. Would you expect anything different? But, hey, why not use those cash payments more constructively? Hasn't the US military ever heard of Pay For Performance? Where are the McKinsey management consultants and other business consulting gurus when we need them? How about Management By Objective? What would it cost to pay Iraqi officers to, say, defeat the insurgency in Ramadi? But maybe Bush doesn't want to win on those terms or even to win at all?
$100,000 per batallion per month is chicken feed.Just for equipment the US will spend $17 billion next year.
The annual cost of replacing, repairing and upgrading Army equipment in Iraq and Afghanistan is expected to more than triple next year to more than $17 billion, according to Army documents obtained by the Associated Press.
Imagine offering Iraqi batallions money for achieving various objectives. A few hundred thousand dollars or even a couple million dollars per objective would cost little compared to the over $100 billion the US is now spending on Iraq and Afghanistan this year.
Guthrie suspects the Bush Administration does not want the Iraqi military to become effective and that the real plan is to establish permanent US bases there to control Middle Eastern oil. Could they be that foolish? It seems plausible at least. After all, they have made so many other colossal mistakes in handling Iraq.
For the cost of the Iraq Debacle we could buy every driver in the United States a Prius (really, do the math). We could fund construction of hundreds of nuclear power plants. We could insulate millions of buildings. We could fund large numbers of research labs pursuing breakthroughs in photovoltaics and batteries.
Click through and read the full article. It has lots of insights.
LOS ANGELES, June 26 -- Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger reversed a decade of California policy on Monday, calling for the construction of at least two more prisons and the addition of thousands of beds in existing facilities to deal with what he called "dangerously overcrowded" prisons.
As California's Hispanic population continues to grow California will hit limits in its ability to finance prison expansion. Crime rates will rise as higher crime rate Hispanics grow as a percentage of the population. Races that commit crime at lower rates and that earn more and pay more in taxes will flee the state and California will lose them as tax revenue sources.
California's prisons are overcrowded.
California houses more than 171,000 inmates, including, Schwarzenegger said, 16,300 placed in prison gyms and day rooms, making it the most overcrowded prison system in the nation.
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The governor noted that California's recidivism rate is 70 percent, the highest in the nation.
People who commit crimes again at such high rates should not get released from prisons.
California has about 36 million people. So the state prison system incarcerates about 475 people per 100,000. Note that the local prisons probably aren't counted in that number and Californians in federal prisons are also not counted.
More than 10% of California's prisoners are illegal aliens.
In addition to building more prisons, California is considering paying other states to house the thousands of illegal immigrants in its prisons, according to a statement from the governor's office. More than 10 percent of California's prison population is in the United States illegally.
If the United States built a wall on the entire US-Mexico border and started serious internal enforcement of immigration laws in the United States the Californa prison population would shrink and the crime rate would go down. Check out Steve Sailer's color-coded maps on crime rates by race across the United States.
The Euros are going negative on Afghan President Hamid Karzai as donestic discontent grows as well.
As a sense of insecurity spreads, a rift is growing between the president and some of the foreign civilian and military establishments whose money and firepower have helped rebuild and defend the country for nearly five years. While the U.S. commitment to Karzai appears solid, several European governments are expressing serious concerns about his leadership.
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"This is a crucial time, and there is frustration and finger-pointing on all sides," the official said. "President Karzai is the only alternative for this country, but if he attacks us, we can't help him project his vision. And if he goes down, we all go down with him."
My sense of listening to Karzai: he is not ruthless enough or Machiavellian enough to govern a place like Afghanistan. But are Western criticisms of Karzai correct? Maybe he needs to do more things that they find objectionable such as making more deals with leaders of criminal gangs or tribal leaders. The Euros and the US aren't going to provide a non-corrupt foreign police force. Maybe there's no way to give Afghanistan non-corrupt government because so few can resist the pressures of tribal family politics..
The Taliban have grown in power.
Hamida, 32, waited on a bench for alterations. She said she was visiting from Zabol province in the south. "My husband was a school principal, but the Taliban threatened to kill him, so he quit and now he is sitting at home," she said. "We women cannot leave our houses. The police come under attack at night, and we only see foreign soldiers once in a while. There is no one to protect us."
One Afghan political figure says Karzai has to be soft toward powerful people.
It's not clear whether any leader could have lived up to the expectations of Afghans and the world. But the accomplishments in Afghanistan have been considerable. Five years ago the Taliban ruled and al-Qaida leaders had a haven. Now the country has an elected president, an elected parliament, a constitution, a national army.
"It's a necessity to have Hamid Karzai in Afghanistan now," said parliament member Mohammad Mohaqiq, a former warlord who lost to Karzai in the 2004 presidential election. "There is no way except the way Hamid Karzai does things, by being soft toward powerful people. It's not the best way, but there's no other way."
Well, there is another way: Karzai could ruthlessly consolidate power by having rivals killed. Worked for Saddam Hussein.
Karzai is trapped between his need for support from both foreigners and powerful and ruthless natives.
Observers say Karzai has been trapped by bad advice and by the people around him. They complain about some of his allies, especially the man he reportedly backed for speaker of the lower house of parliament, a warlord accused of atrocities. They describe the president as increasingly isolated, master of the palace but not the country.
"Hamid Karzai is a good man," said Hamidullah Tokhi, a parliament member from southern Zabul province. "He doesn't hold grudges. He's kind to all Afghans. But there are some advisers who have circled Karzai and given him bad advice. They have almost taken Hamid Karzai hostage. He cannot do anything independently."
From the very beginning Karzai has been dependent on the support of foreigners and on compromises among Afghans. He still needs foreign troops and foreign-aid dollars. He still needs the support of former warlords.
Karzai's position in Afghanistan is a lot like the US's position in Iraq. He does not have enough resources and power and ability to behave ruthlessly to accomplish anything and so things get worse. Will he flee from Afghanistan before the US withdraws from Iraq?
The US had trouble enough trying to handle Afghanistan while hunting down Bin Laden. The invasion of Iraq shifting resources away from Afghanistan. Special forces and intelligence assets got shifted toward Iraq. Criminal gangs and the Taliban expanded into the power vacuum.
The US Supreme Court has issued a ruling that makes it easier to deport illegal aliens.
The Supreme Court endorsed a tough application of immigration law to certain longtime illegal immigrants, clearing the way for summary deportations of perhaps thousands who have been living in the United States for a decade or more.
By a vote of 8 to 1, the court ruled that the U.S. government properly sent Utah truck driver Humberto Fernandez-Vargas back to Mexico in 2004 because he returned to the U.S. illegally in 1982 after having been previously deported.
A new local court ruling in Arizona also makes immigration law enforcement easier. Maricopa County Arizona (encompasses Phoenix) Superior Court Judge Thomas O'Toole ruled that Maricopa County Attorney Andrew Thomas's practice of prosecuting illegal immigrants for engaging in a conspiracy to violate US immigration laws is constitutional.
PHOENIX -- A judge upheld an Arizona law Friday that created the state crime of immigrant smuggling, rejecting arguments that it was an unconstitutional attempt by the state to regulate immigration.
The ruling was a victory for a prosecutor who has used the 9-month-old law to target not only smugglers but also their customers as conspirators to the crime.
The interpretation led to scores of prosecutions against immigrants in Maricopa County and drew a sharp response from immigrant advocates and the law's author, who said it was intended to apply only to smugglers.
He said state law makes it clear that when two or more people are involved in a plan to break the law, that constitutes a conspiracy.
The judge also said federal immigration laws do not pre-empt states from imposing their own regulations.
That part of the ruling has potential implications beyond the specific questions of the law in question. It also goes to the ongoing fight at the Capitol over whether the state has the power to enact various laws dealing with illegal entrants — and specifically whether it can punish companies that hire undocumented workers.
Following the legal advice of Maricopa County's tough on crime prosecutor Andrew Thomas, Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio began arresting illegal immigrants under the new law and referring them for prosecution. Since the enforcement began, 272 illegal immigrants have been arrested and charged. Twenty-three illegal immigrants and one coyote have pled guilty, and will serve jail-time before being deported. With a felony on their record, they will have a slim chance at ever entering the U.S. legally or obtaining U.S. citizenship.
National and local level enforcement of immigration laws has the potential to send the illegals running back to their countries of origin.
Governor Mitt Romney is seeking an agreement with federal authorities that would allow Massachusetts state troopers to arrest undocumented immigrants for being in the country illegally.
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If the proposal is approved, Massachusetts would join a handful of states and localities that have entered into such pacts since they were first authorized in 1996. That list includes Florida, Alabama, and a few counties in California and North Carolina, where a limited number of officers have been trained to enforce immigration laws.
The US Senate and President are out of step with the rest of the country on immigration.
It is hard to unseat a sitting member of Congress. Congressional representatives rarely lose in reelection attempts and even more rarely lose in primaries. But that might happen in Utah and if it does the public demand for tougher immigration policies will be the cause. If you are in the Utah district of House Representative Chris Cannon you can strike a blow for immigration control by voting for John Jacob and against Cannon in the primary on June 27, 2006.
The survey of 400 likely voters, conducted Monday through Thursday, found Eagle Mountain businessman Jacob and five-term congressman Cannon in a dead heat with 44 percent of voters favoring Cannon to 41 percent for Jacob, leaving enough voters on the fence to throw the race either way.
Among those who insist they are "definite" about turning out Tuesday to vote, Jacob holds a slight edge: 45 percent to 44 percent. And among voters in Utah County, the conservative heart of the district that stretches from Salt Lake County to Beaver County, the lead is even more pronounced, with Jacob at 45 percent to Cannon's 40 percent.
A defeat of Cannon would be a huge victory against George W. Bush's immigration amnesty plans and and stiffen the spines of the House opponents of the Senate's plan to drastically increase immigration.
In mid May 2006 Cannon had a large lead.
In the last poll, two weeks ago, Cannon had a 48-28 lead, but 25% said they are undecided.
Jacob has closed almost all that gap in a short period of time.
John Jacob sees this race as having national significance.
"There's no question (the national attention on immigration) helps me, and for the nation it's a one-issue race," Jacob said. "But for Utahns, there are many issues."
He listed education, energy, the Second Amendment and fighting pornography as issues that interest 3rd District voters, based on poll results, but illegal immigration led the list — with 25 percent saying it is the most important issue. And Jacob acknowledged the possible national fallout should he upset Cannon in the June 27 primary.
"There's no question this is bigger than Chris Cannon and John Jacob," Jacob said. "This race could go a long way toward determining whether we have illegal immigration and amnesty or whether we'll send (illegal immigrants) back or invite them to go back and secure our borders."
Congress critters who see opposition to border control and opposition to immigration law enforcement as political liabilities are Congress critters who are a lot more likely to listen to demands from constituents.
Joe Guzzardi says the American Immigration Lawyers Association are the big force behind Senate bill S.2611 (which would add 66+ million immigrants in 20 years) and he points to an AILA email claiming that immigration restrictionists overwhelmingly outnumber open borders folks in calls to Congress.
Restrictionists are flooding Congressional phone lines and email inboxes with angry demands that their Senators and Representatives vote against any legislation that provides a path to citizenship for undocumented immigrants. Their calls for an enforcement-only immigration policy are louder and more aggressive than ever and there are 400 of them for every 1 call from us.
The 400 to 1 intensity of the opposition to comprehensive immigration reform is expected to crescendo into the November elections, making it a likely voting issue at the polls. We cannot stop fighting now. We cannot let the restrictionists hijack this national debate by painting the Senate compromise as amnesty. We cannot be silent while they scream.
If that intensity of support for immigration restriction tosses an open borders Republican Congressman out of office in the Utah primary then S.2611 will be dead.
Physician incomes are falling.
WASHINGTON, DC—In sharp contrast to other professionals, physicians' net income from the practice of medicine declined about 7 percent between 1995 and 2003 after adjusting for inflation, according to a national study released today by the Center for Studying Health System Change (HSC).
"The downward trend in real incomes since the mid-1990s likely is an important driver of growing physician unwillingness to provide such pro bono work as charity care and serving on hospital committees," said Paul B. Ginsburg, Ph.D., coauthor of the study and president of HSC, a nonpartisan policy research organization funded principally by The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation.
The decline in physicians' real income stands in sharp contrast to the wage trends for other professionals who saw about a 7 percent increase between 1995 and 2003 after adjusting for inflation, the study found.
Among different types of physicians, primary care physicians fared the worst with a 10.2 percent decline in real income between 1995 and 2003, while surgeons' real income declined by 8.2 percent. But medical specialists' real income essentially remained unchanged.
Actually, the specialists saw a decline of 2.1% according the full report linked below.
Despite the downward trend in real incomes, medicine overall remains one of the most well-paid professions in the United States: At least half of all patient care physicians earned more than $170,000 in 2003, and physician average net income was about $203,000, the study found. Although surgical specialists have lost ground to inflation since the mid-1990s, they remain the highest earning of all physicians, with average incomes of $272,000 in 2003—29 percent higher than medical specialists and 86 percent higher than primary care physicians.
Physicians work long hours. But how many weeks do they take off per year? Or how many hours do they work totally per year? I want to calculate their hourly income. Hard to do without that information.
This result is inconvenient for socialists. Doctors aren't the big beneficiaries of increases in medical spending.
From the body of the report (which, btw, has some neat graphs and tables worth looking at):
Flat or declining fees from both public and private payers appear to be a major factor underlying declining or stagnating real incomes for physicians. Medicare payment rate increases for physician services amounted to 13 percent from 1995 to 2003,4 lagging substantially behind inflation, which totaled 21 percent during this eight-year period.
While Medicare fees have declined in real terms since the mid-1990s, the trend for private insurer payments to physicians has lagged even more: In 1995, commercial fees were 1.43 times Medicare fees on average; by 2003 this fee ratio had fallen to 1.23.5 And Medicaid fees have always been much lower than Medicare fees, so despite the fact that Medicaid payment rates rose relative to Medicare and grew faster than inflation from 1998 to 2003, increased Medicaid fees would not have been enough to produce substantial income gains for most physicians.6 One likely exception would be primary care physicians with substantial Medicaid patient panels, especially those practicing in states—such as New York and South Carolina—that started with low Medicaid fee levels and increased them the most aggressively.
In the report's figure 1 they show "Professional/Technical Workers" gaining 6.9% in income from 1995 to 2003. So the decline in income for physicians is even more dramatic when compared to incomes of other knowledge workers.
Total medical spending in inflation-adjusted dollars is growing quite rapidly. But that money is not going toward higher physician incomes. At the same time, US federal, state, and local governments are shifting the costs of the uninsured onto the backs of the insured. Physicians are less inclined to treat people for free because they have to do more paying treatments to make up for lower payments per treatment.
The medically uninsured portion of the population is rising. The biggest cause of this trend is the importation of large numbers of low skilled Hispanics. Hispanics are medically uninsured at two and a half times the rate of whites. You pay for this in two ways: more in taxes to fund government health care programs and more for medical insuranance to pay for the cost-shifiting that governments force on hospitals.
The New York Times reports that many doctors are trying to make their services more customer friendly - it is a about time!
Professional societies for family doctors and internists are urging their members to break with tradition by making it easier to schedule appointments — or even making appointments unnecessary in the case of walk-in patients who need immediate attention.
"It's a big trend," said Amanda Denning, a spokeswoman for the American Academy of Family Physicians, which has about 94,000 members.
The academy is spending $8 million on consultants who visit doctors nationwide to suggest improvements in patient care. The advice is meant to "keep them from going to an in-store clinic," Ms. Denning said, while also benefiting doctors by making office procedures more efficient.
The rise in co-pay requirements in medical plans has people looking harder for cheap physicians.
According to various polls, cost is a high priority for most patients. "People will change physicians for differentials of $10 or $15 in a co-pay," said Dr. Anne B. Francis, a pediatrician in Rochester and spokeswoman for the American Academy of Pediatrics.
But convenience also ranks high. That is one reason about 20,000 of the 59,000 actively practicing members of the American Academy of Family Physicians now use electronic health records. Being highly computerized can let doctors offer Web-based scheduling that enables patients to book their own appointments.
The decline in physician income does not appear to be due to a drop in demand. A new report by the CDC National Center for Health Statistics finds that in a 10 year period ending in 2004 the frequency of visits to physicians increased by 19% per person.
Americans made more than 1.1 billion visits a year to doctors' offices and hospital emergency and outpatient departments in 2004, up by 31% in the last 10 years. A portion of this increase is due to an 11% rise in population during that period. This was accompanied by a 19% increase in utilization per person. The increase in the visit rate per person among persons 65 years and over (26%) was higher than among persons under age 65 years (16%).
That averages out to 3.8 visits per person.
This article has some neat charts at the bottom. Suggest you click thru and give them a look. Note that visits for diabetes are the biggest increase with 117% more visits. This could be due to more treatment options and an aging population increasing the incidence of type II age-associated insulin resistant diabetes. Also, visits for spinal cord problems are up 94%. How come?
People wait over three quarters of an hour on average in emergency rooms. This is the result of the uninsured going to emergency rooms for care. The wait times amount to rationing by queue line length.
There was no change in the average time a patient spent face-to-face with a physician in office settings (Figure 4). The amount of time a patient waited before seeing a physician in the emergency department increased from 38.0 minutes in 1997 (first year collected) to 47.4 minutes in 2004.
How much of the increase in visits to doctor's offices is due to an aging population? How much is due to rising affluence? How much due to increased numbers of treatments available? Oh, and how much due to more plastic surgery and other treatments that enhance appearances?
INDIANAPOLIS -- Middle-class neighborhoods, long regarded as incubators for the American dream, are losing ground in cities across the country, shrinking at more than twice the rate of the middle class itself.
In their place, poor and rich neighborhoods are both on the rise, as cities and suburbs have become increasingly segregated by income, according to a Brookings Institution study released Thursday. It found that as a share of all urban and suburban neighborhoods, middle-income neighborhoods in the nation's 100 largest metro areas have declined from 58 percent in 1970 to 41 percent in 2000.
We have less and less in common.
The middle is getting smaller as the two ends get bigger.
The analysis attributed the shrinking number of middle-income communities to, among other factors, gentrification of more marginal neighborhoods and a bunching of high-income families in more homogenous surroundings.
"It sounds like it's a function of changing income distribution," said John H. Mollenkopf, director of the Center for Urban Research at the Graduate Center of the City University of New York. "What happened between 1990 and 2000 in metropolitan New York and especially New York City was that the number of really high-income households went up, and low-income went up and the middle shrank."
"What looks like a shrinking middle is partly an upgrading of income," he added.
The hollowing out was most pronounced in Manhattan, where 51 percent of neighborhoods were identified as high-income, 40 percent as low-income and only 8 percent as middle-income. Long Island ranked second only to Scranton with the highest proportion, 65 percent, of middle-income neighborhoods of any metropolitan areas in the nation.
People are more likely to live in homogeneous neighborhoods. All this talk about diversity is just babbling. People are living near people more like themselves.
This sorting of society by class reminds me of The Bell Curve book's observations about cognitive sorting. The Brookings writers observe that neighborhoods are becoming less middle class even more rapidly than the middle class is shrinking. This is a very important observation.
Although middle-income families have declined considerably as a share of the overall family income distribution, it is noteworthy that middle-class neighborhoods have disappeared even faster in metropolitan areas, especially in cities. This trend suggests increased sorting of high- and low-income families into neighborhoods that reflect their own economic profiles, and increased vulnerability of middle-class neighborhoods "tipping" towards higher- or lower-income status. The resulting disparities among neighborhoods create new challenges for policies to enhance household mobility, improve the delivery of key public services, and promote private-sector investment in struggling locales.
The increase on racial heterogeneity of the United States is contributing to the shrinking of the portion that is middle class. Instead of a single bell curve of abilities with a center representing the majority we now have an increasing number of separate bell curves by racial and ethnic groups with each curve for number of people on the y axis peaking at a different point for IQ on the x axis.
Also the differences between the races contributes to a flight into neighborhoods of more economically similar residents as people react to not just cognitive but racial differences between themselves and people of other economic classes. America is becoming less and less like Mayberry RFD.
Update: An article in The Economist about income trends paints a bleak picture. While most Americans still believe that poor people can strike it big the rising tide in productivity growth no longer lifts the salaries of most workers.
Eight out of ten, more than anywhere else, believe that though you may start poor, if you work hard, you can make pots of money. It is a central part of the American Dream.
The political consensus, therefore, has sought to pursue economic growth rather than the redistribution of income, in keeping with John Kennedy's adage that “a rising tide lifts all boats.” The tide has been rising fast recently. Thanks to a jump in productivity growth after 1995, America's economy has outpaced other rich countries' for a decade. Its workers now produce over 30% more each hour they work than ten years ago. In the late 1990s everybody shared in this boom. Though incomes were rising fastest at the top, all workers' wages far outpaced inflation.
But after 2000 something changed. The pace of productivity growth has been rising again, but now it seems to be lifting fewer boats. After you adjust for inflation, the wages of the typical American worker—the one at the very middle of the income distribution—have risen less than 1% since 2000. In the previous five years, they rose over 6%. If you take into account the value of employee benefits, such as health care, the contrast is a little less stark. But, whatever the measure, it seems clear that only the most skilled workers have seen their pay packets swell much in the current economic expansion. The fruits of productivity gains have been skewed towards the highest earners, and towards companies, whose profits have reached record levels as a share of GDP.
Lots of Americans have noticed their stagnant incomes and are not happy about it.
According to the latest Gallup survey, fewer than four out of ten think it is in “excellent” or “good” shape, compared with almost seven out of ten when George Bush took office.
More of wealth comes from paid work as compared to almost a century ago.
In 1916 the richest 1% got only a fifth of their income from paid work, whereas the figure in 2004 was over 60%.
But I wonder how much of this trend is due to CEOs getting paid well by boards of directors who they chose.
The federal minimum wage has been $5.15 an hour since 1997. On a procedural measure Wednesday, senators voted 52 to 46 in favor of raising the wage to $7.25 in three steps, but 60 votes were needed to move the legislation forward.
By historical standards the inflation-adjusted minimum wage is very low.
The federal minimum wage is the lowest it has been in more than 50 years relative to the cost of living, according to a study by the liberal Economic Policy Institute. The average full-time minimum wage worker earns $10,712 a year, about $900 more than the federal poverty level for one person and $2,500 less than the poverty level for a couple.
In inflation-adjusted terms the minimum wage peaked in 1968 at $9.12 per hour in 2005 dollars. Check out the chart at that link. Note that once upon a time the minimum wage trended upward. Then it peaked and incomes for those at the bottom have been trending downward for decades in spite of big advances in labor productivity. A rising tide does not lift all boats.
Most low-paid workers are not teenagers.
But whether the fortunes of these 8 million Americans, earning less than $7.25 an hour, would rise or falter under the first government-ordered wage hike in 10 years is the broader debate spreading from restaurant kitchens on Capitol Hill to the grocery store aisles of Atlanta.
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Some 48 percent, or 3.5 million, are between 25 and 64 years old who, on average, contribute more than half of the income in their households, experts say. Raising the minimum wage is a $18.4 billion proposition that is supported by 83 percent of Americans, according to the Pew Center for the People and the Press.
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Of Americans making less than $7.25 an hour, half are over 24 years old, and about half are primary household earners. Sixty-two percent are white, 16 percent are black, and 17 percent are Hispanic. Nearly twice as many are women than men.
Check out these pie charts on who make the minimum wage. Only 30% of them are teenagers.
An April survey by the Pew Research Center shows 83 percent of the public favors raising the minimum wage by $2. That figure includes 72 percent of Republicans, and 76 percent of people with household incomes of $75,000 or higher.
If we stopped the influx of low skilled Hispanics then salaries would rise at the bottom. Businesses would respond by investing more in labor-saving technologies and the rate of increase in productivity would rise.
Clinton Administration era secretary of defense William Perry and assistant secretary of defense Ashton Carter say attack and destroy North Korea's Taepodong missile which is getting prepped for a test launch.
Should the United States allow a country openly hostile to it and armed with nuclear weapons to perfect an intercontinental ballistic missile capable of delivering nuclear weapons to U.S. soil? We believe not. The Bush administration has unwisely ballyhooed the doctrine of "preemption," which all previous presidents have sustained as an option rather than a dogma. It has applied the doctrine to Iraq, where the intelligence pointed to a threat from weapons of mass destruction that was much smaller than the risk North Korea poses. (The actual threat from Saddam Hussein was, we now know, even smaller than believed at the time of the invasion.) But intervening before mortal threats to U.S. security can develop is surely a prudent policy.
Therefore, if North Korea persists in its launch preparations, the United States should immediately make clear its intention to strike and destroy the North Korean Taepodong missile before it can be launched. This could be accomplished, for example, by a cruise missile launched from a submarine carrying a high-explosive warhead. The blast would be similar to the one that killed terrorist leader Abu Musab al-Zarqawi in Iraq. But the effect on the Taepodong would be devastating. The multi-story, thin-skinned missile filled with high-energy fuel is itself explosive -- the U.S. airstrike would puncture the missile and probably cause it to explode. The carefully engineered test bed for North Korea's nascent nuclear missile force would be destroyed, and its attempt to retrogress to Cold War threats thwarted. There would be no damage to North Korea outside the immediate vicinity of the missile gantry.
I think the case for North Korea as a potential threat to the United States is and was much stronger than the case was for Iraq before the war. But Iraq is much closer to Israel and Saddam was seen by the neocons as an enemy of Israel. My guess is that Iran is at much greater risk of a strike by the Bush Administration than is North Korea.
The continuing Iraq Debacle is a distraction from the battle against Islamic terrorists. It is also a distraction from efforts to prevent nuclear proliferation.
Chris Cillizza of the Washington Post goes over a recent Pew poll on George W. Bush approval ratings and finds interesting facts about the decline of approval among elements of the Republican base.
The president's job-approval rating has dropped in every region of the country, level of income, education level, and age group, but the slippage is particularly pronounced among self-identified moderate Republicans. Eighty-one percent of this group gave the president positive marks in December, while just 56 percent did the same in May -- a precipitous 25-point decline that outpaced the 20-point drop (89 percent in December '04, 69 percent now) among Republicans overall.
The numbers are less stark when it comes to President Bush's conservative base, but perhaps even more worrisome for Republicans hoping to hold the House and Senate in the fall. The president's job approval among self-identifying conservatives has slipped from 93 percent in December 2004 to 78 percent in May. But Courtney Kennedy and Michael Dimock, authors of Pew's own analysis, pointed out that the smaller dropoff is somewhat misleading.
"There are far more conservatives than moderates in the GOP; as many as two-thirds of Republicans identify themselves as conservatives," the duo wrote. "Translated into real numbers, just as many conservative Republicans as moderate and liberal Republicans have grown frustrated with the president's leadership over the past year and a half."
As evidence of the erosion in what has long been considered Bush's base, take a look at his job-approval numbers among white evangelical protestants. In December 2004, 77 percent of this voting bloc approved of how the president was handling his job; the numbers was down to just 55 percent in May. Among Southern voters, Bush's job approval has dropped twenty points (56 percent in December 2004, 36 percent in May 2006); among those who attend church weekly or more often it has slipped 17 (58 percent to 41 percent.)
The drop in approval among white evangelical protestants has been greater than the drop among self-identified conservatives. I suspect a substantial portion of the latter support Bush because the liberals are highly critical of Bush.
Bush's approval has bounced back a bit since May 2006.
President George W. Bush's job approval rating is at 37 percent, up 1 percentage point, in a NBC News and the Wall Street Journal poll taken after the death of terrorist Abu Musab al-Zarqawi and the formation of a new government in Iraq.
The new government in Iraq might be able to bribe some Sunnis into switching into an alliance with the government. It all might depend on how much oil money Ahmad Chalabi makes available for bribery of Sunni tribes. Perhaps Bush ought to send some of Chalabi's old neocon friends to Iraq to try to find ways to get Chalabi to funnel oil money toward bribing Sunnis.
But the president last week decided to keep Iraq on the front pages by convening a meeting of his senior intelligence and military advisers at Camp David and then sneaking out of the presidential retreat for a secret trip to Baghdad. To make sure the press stayed on Iraq, he invited reporters to the Rose Garden to fire questions at him -- all but a few were on the war.
The gambit paid off. A USA Today-Gallup poll taken from June 9 to 11 found that 48 percent of Americans think the U.S. will probably or definitely win the Iraq war, up from 39 percent in April. The poll showed Mr. Bush's approval rating at 38 percent, up from 31 percent in May.
I do not see how his bounce from the Zarqawi killing can last. Where in Iraq can the US military achieve some goal that would provide opportunity for Bush's people to spin it as a great success? Here's a long shot: The Bush White House could build up the images of some other insurgency leaders as the new bad guys. Then those leaders could be hunted down and killed with a benefit in the sphere of domestic US public approval.
A successful terrorist attack in the United States is the only scenario I can see that would substantially reverse Bush's approval ratings. People rally around their leaders when they feel threatened. So Bush would get a really big bounce from a terrorist attack.
The news from Iraq will remain bad overall. If you want to understand what is really happening in Iraq then the transcript of a recent US embassy cable from Baghdad is a great place to start. Also see my post John Tierney On Cousin Marriage As Reform Obstacle In Iraq. Given that Iraq's insurgency can't be subdued with a small military force the continuing bad news will eventually make the Zarqawi killing fade in the public's memory (along with Saddam's capture and the killings of Saddam's sons) and the bad news will drive down Bush's approval ratings once again.
Nothing like a common object of hatred to bring people together.
Over the last two years, Iraqi political values have become more secular and nationalistic, even though attitudes toward Americans have deteriorated, according to surveys of nationally representative samples of the population conducted in November 2004 and April 2006.
The Iraqi surveys, part of the ongoing World Values Surveys, are a collaborative project between the University of Michigan Institute for Social Research and Eastern Michigan University.
The percentage of Iraqis who said they would not want to have Americans as neighbors rose from 87 percent in 2004 to 90 percent in 2006. When asked what they thought were the three main reasons why the United States invaded Iraq, 76 percent gave "to control Iraqi oil" as their first choice.
They do not like us. So why should our soldiers die for them?
Support for separation of religion and government has risen. But in elections Iraqis overwhelmingly vote for religious parties.
But at the same time, significantly more Iraqis support democratic values, including the separation of religion and politics.
In 2004, 27 percent of the 2,325 Iraqi adults surveyed strongly agreed that Iraq would be a better place if religion and politics were separated. In 2006, 41 percent of 2,701 adults surveyed strongly agreed.
The increase in those who see themselves as Muslims rather than Sunnis or Shias still leaves only a small percentage who see themselves that way.
In one indication of a possible lessening of sectarian conflict, the proportion of Iraqis who identified themselves as Muslim Arabs rather than as Shi'a or Sunni Arabs increased from 6 percent in 2004 to 14 percent in 2006.
The percentage of those surveyed who agreed with the statement "I am an Iraqi above all" rose from 23 percent in 2004 to 28 percent in 2006 in the country as a whole, from 23 percent to 33 percent in urban areas, and from 30 percent to 62 percent among Baghdad residents.
Maybe the Kurds and Sunnis will form an alliance against the majority Shiites and the Shia death squads will increase the perception among Sunni Arabs that they need to make common cause with the Kurds for mutual protection and better leverage.
Despite increased political violence between the Shi'as and the Sunnis, the researchers found no significant change in the overall level of inter-ethnic trust among Iraqis. While trust between the Shi'as and the Sunnis declined, trust between the Sunnis and the Kurds increased between 2004 and 2006.
Along with an increase in xenophobia, the survey found a growing sense of powerlessness, pessimism about the future and insecurity. Among Iraqis as a whole, 59 percent of those surveyed in 2006 strongly agreed with the following statement: "In Iraq these days life is unpredictable and dangerous." That compares to 46 percent who strongly agreed in 2004.
"This change varied among ethnic groups, with the biggest change among Kurds," Moaddel said. "Only 17 percent strongly agreed that life was unpredictable and dangerous in 2004, but 54 percent strongly agreed in 2006."
This change was from 41 percent to 48 percent among Shi'as, 77 percent to 84 percent among Sunnis and 67 percent to 79 percent among Muslims.
My guess is that if the United States pulled out then the Shia and Sunni Arabs would shift more toward seeing themselves primarily as Shias and Sunnis.
Update: We should ask the Iraqi government to hold a referendum on whether our troops should stay. Then we could leave in responses to the popular will of the democracy lovers of Iraq.
Japan is pulling out its small military contingent from Iraq.
Japan will withdraw its 600 troops from Iraq because they have succeeded in their mission, Junichiro Koizumi, Japan's prime minister, has announced.
...
The mission, which helped reconstruct the relatively peaceful area around the southern city of Samawa, is the first of its kind since the end of Second World War, when America forced Japan to renounce war.
The number of countries contributing troops to Iraq keeps dropping.
The Japanese troops were stationed in a relatively safe location and did not suffer any casualties.
Japan deployed about 600 troops to Iraq in January 2004, but because of the country's pacifist constitution they were prevented from taking a combat role. As a result, the contingent was stationed in an isolated camp on the outskirts of the southern city of Samawah where, protected first by Dutch and then Australian troops, they rebuilt roads and schools.
The Japanese probably weren't keen on having their soldiers go under the protection of Iraqis.
The prime minister, Junichiro Koizumi, said Japanese troops would end their humanitarian mission in Samawa, southern Iraq, as soon as British and Australian troops in the area handed over responsibility for security to Iraqi forces.
If the Iraqis do not want to fight their own insurgents why should we?
WASHINGTON -- In a move that could sound the death knell for immigration-reform legislation in Congress this year, House Republican leaders said Tuesday they plan to hold numerous hearings on the issue this summer and only then start talks with the Senate that might lead to a final bill.
The delay raises the likelihood that Congress will end the year without passing major immigration legislation that President Bush has supported. That would be a signal defeat for the president, who has urged Congress to approve comprehensive legislation along the lines of the Senate-passed bill, which included a path to citizenship for many of the estimated 12 million undocumented immigrants already in the U.S. and the creation of a guest-worker program.
A defeat for Bush on immigration would be a great victory for the American people.
House leaders insisted Tuesday that they still hope to negotiate with the Senate. But the schedule for the hearings, set for July and August, make it unlikely that the two chambers can reach a final agreement before the November elections. When Congress reconvenes in September, most lawmakers will be preoccupied with their campaigns; traditionally, little important business is done at that point.
Failure to produce a bill would be a huge setback for Bush, who has prodded lawmakers to pass immigration legislation that -- like the Senate legislation -- would toughen border enforcement but also create a guest worker program and offer millions of illegal immigrants a way to gain legal status.
Democrats on Tuesday interpreted the House decision to hold town-hall style meetings as an effort to stop the Senate legislation altogether.
"The Republican House wants to defeat the immigration bill," said Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev. "This is a stall."
House Republicans want to barnstorm the country to pick apart the moderate Senate plan that Bush supports.
Letting in 66+ million people in just 20 years, substantially increasing welfare costs, and radically altering the political make-up of the United States is moderate? The mainstream media does not hesitate to lie repeatedly about immigration.
Not only does immigration increase the welfare state it also makes the welfare state even less beneficial per dollar spent. The amount of money spent on benefits for non-citizen elderly is growing rapidly. Why should Americans pay retirement benefits for foreigners?
The House wants to hash out the implications of the Senate bill in hearings with the public.
ouse leaders and senior staff members said the hearings will be aimed specifically at eliciting public reaction to the Senate bill, which emerged from legislation originally proposed by Sens. John McCain, R-Ariz., and Sen. Edward Kennedy, D-Mass. Committee chairmen will also use the forums to reinforce House Republicans' call for strong border security, said Bonjean.
``We want to have a very clear idea of what is in the Senate bill and what people think of some of the provisions in the Senate bill,'' said House Majority Leader John Boehner, R-Ohio. Asked if he realistically believes that Congress can pass a bill before the November elections, Boehner replied, ``Maybe.''
The vast bulk of calls to Congress critters are against an increase in immigration and against the current high levels of legal and illegal immigration. So if Congress members go around holding hearings they are going to hear great anger at Congress's failure to crack down. Taking the time to shine a lot of light on the Senate S.2611 CIRA bill will work against the provisions in that bill. The public will oppose amnesty and a large increase in legal immigration combined with an increase in illegal immigration as well.
To understand why a so-called "guest" worker program will not decrease illegal immigration see my post Thinking About Bush's Less Than Half-Baked Worker Permit Proposal.
Writing for the Washington Post Anthony Shahid finds increased Jihadist sentiments in Lebanon.
Men like Shaaban, of the Islamic Unity Movement, praise the insurgency in Iraq but deny any hand in subversion. At the same time, the growing reach of their groups in the poor neighborhoods of Tripoli -- through newspapers, radio stations, mosques and social welfare, the bread and butter of Islamic groups -- has gone far in transforming a predominantly Sunni city that was traditionally home to a vibrant mix of Arab nationalism and leftist and Islamic politics.
Even longtime residents are struck by the shift in social mores over the past few years: the proliferation of women's veils and men's beards, the flourishing of religion classes and the number of youths joining groups such as Shaaban's. On balconies, interspersed among flags for residents' favorite World Cup soccer teams, are black banners with religious inscriptions usually associated with holy war. In squares of Tripoli, particularly its most religious neighborhoods such as Abu Samra, civic art is often a stark representation of God's name.
It is worth noting that the 9/11 attacks also fed the growth of militant Jihadist Islam. Many Muslims feel emboldened when some of their own hit their enemies hard.
Grievances against the United States are nothing new in a city like Tripoli. For a generation, activists across the spectrum have bitterly criticized U.S. policy. What has shifted in the aftermath of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks and the U.S. invasion of Iraq is the perception of that policy. The critique is no longer about perceived double standards -- of excessive support for Israel, of backing Arab dictatorships. Today, it is more generalized, universal and uncompromising. Popular sentiment here and elsewhere holds that U.S. policy amounts to a war on Islam, and in the language of Abu Haritha and others, the conflict is framed as one between the faithful and infidels, justice and injustice.
"The targeting of Iraq can be considered the first step in targeting the entire Middle East to impose a new order in the region," said Fathi Yakan, a founder of the Islamic Association and head of an umbrella group known as the Islamic Action Forces.
What is the biggest downside of the US invasion of Iraq? Probably that we seem inefficacious against the Muslim insurgents and this emboldens Muslims to support Jihad and terrorism.
Fighters like Abu Haritha and activists like Shaaban and Yakan speak in almost mythical tones about what they call the resistance in Iraq. In nearly every conversation, they make the assertion that the United States has, at this point, lost the war.
"We already consider it a success. It has already led to the failure of the American project in Iraq," Yakan said with a shrug that suggested the obvious. "I think the Americans realize that, and they are looking for an exit to wash their hands of it."
If the US is going to use force somewhere it really should be overwhelming. It hurts us to use force incompetently as Jorge W. Bush has done.
The irony here is that the Bush Administration might by accident accomplish something that some Arabs see as a clever Machiavellian design: to increase sectarian conflict and hatred between Shias and Sunnis in order to pit Muslims against each other and weaken Musliims politically.
Some see an American hand in Iraq's entropy; in their analysis, the United States and Israel are fanning the flames of sectarianism as a way to further divide the Arab world and create a region even more balkanized than today's. Others see a more deep-seated hostility in U.S. actions, a scorched-earth campaign to hasten an apocalyptic battle or, in Salih's words, the "politics of chaos."
"America is with the Shiites in Iraq and against the Shiites in Lebanon, with the Sunnis in Lebanon and against the Sunnis in Iraq and Palestine. It is against the Shiites in Iran. Where is America?" Shaaban asked. "It needs Einstein to resolve it."
My guess is the increase in hostilty toward the United States due to the Iraq invasion outweighs the increase in hostility between Shias and Sunnis. But if the US pursued a break-up of Iraq into Kurdish, Sunni Arab, and Shia Arab nations the US might be able to exit Iraq in a way that will cause the Jihadis to see the US intervention as a success for the US.
The Washington Post got hold of a cable sent by US ambassador to Iraq Zalmay Khalilzad to Washington describing how bad things are getting in Baghdad. It is a PDF image file which I've partially (now fully) transcribed below:
This cable, marked "sensitive" and obtained by The Washington Post, outlines in spare prose the daily-worsening conditions for those who live outside the heavily guarded international zone: harassment, threats and the employees' constant fears that their neighbors will discover they work for the U.S. government.
Oops. We aren't supposed to know what our government knows. Our rulers know what is best for us. Show proper deference and your faith and refrain from reading the forbidden knowledge.
Here is the first quarter of the document:
R 121430Z 06
FM AMEMBASSY BAGHDAD
TO SECSTATE WASHDC 5042
INFO IRAQ COLLECTIVEUNCLAS BAGHDAD 001992
E.O. 122956: N/A
TAGS: PHUM, PREL, ASEC, AMGT, IZ
SUBJECT: Snapshots from the Office: Public
Affairs Staff Show Strains of Social DiscordSENSITIVE
1. (SBU) Beginning in March, and picking up in mid-May, Iraqi staff in the Public Affairs section have complained that Islamist and/or militia groups have been negatively affecting their daily routine. Harassment over proper dress and habits has been increasingly pervasive. They also report that power cuts and fuel prices have diminished their quality of life. Conditions vary by neighborhood, but even upscale neighborhoods such as Mansur have visibly deteriorated.
Women's Rights
------------------------2. (SBU) The Public Affairs Office has 9 local Iraqi employees. Two of our female employees report stepped up harassment beginning in mid-May. One, a Shiite who favors Western clothing, was advised by an unknown woman in her upscale Shiite/Christian Baghdad neighborhood to wear a veil and not to drive her own car. Indeed, she said, some groups are pushing women to cover even their faces, a step not taken in Iran even at its most conservative.
3. (SBU) Another, a Sunni, said that people in her middle-class neighborhood are harassing women and telling them to cover up and stop using cell phones (suspected channel to licentious relationships with men). She said that the taxi driver who brings her every day to the green zone checkpoint has told her he cannot let her ride unless she wears a headcover. A female in the PAS cultural section is now wearing a full abaya after receiving direct threats in May. She says her neighborhood, Adhamiya, is no longer permissive if she is not clad so modestly.
4. (SBU) These women say they cannot identify the groups that are pressuring them; many times, the cautions come from other women, sometimes from men who they say could be Sunni or Shiite, but appear conservative.They also tell us that some ministries, notably the Sadrist controlled Ministry of Transportation, have been forcing females to wear the hijab at work.
Dress Code for All?
----------------------------5. (SBU) Staff members have reported that it is now dangerous for men to wear shorts in public; they no longer allow their children to play outside in shorts. People who wear jeans in public have come under attack from what staff members describe as Wahabis and Sadrists.
By noon Sunday I will transcribe the rest of this document image and do updates to this post with the rest of it.
Thanks to Greg Cochran for the heads-up.
Update: This first update takes us through the second third of the document.
Evictions
-------------6. (SBU) One colleague beseeched us to weigh in to help a neighbor who was uprooted in May from her home of 30 years, on the pretense of application of some long-disused law that allows owners to evict tenants after 14 years. The woman, who is a Fayli Kurd, says she has nowhere to go, no other home, but the courts give them no recourse to this assertion of power. Such uprootings may be a response by new Shiite government authorities to similar actions against Arabs by Kurds in other parts of Iraq. (NOTE: An Arab newspaper editor told us he is preparing an extensive survey of ethnic cleansing, which he said is taking place in almost every Iraqi province, as political parties and their militias are seemingly engaged in tit-for-tat reprisals all over Iraq. One editor told us that the KDP is now planning to set up tent cities in Irbil, to house Kurds being evicted from Baghdad.)
Power Cuts and Fuel Shortages
a Drain on Society
----------------------------------------------7. Temperatures in Baghdad have already reached 115 degrees. Employees all confirm that by the last week of May, they were getting one hour of power for every six hours without. That was only about four hours of power a day for the city. By early June, the situation had improved slightly. In Hai al Shaab, power has recently improved from one in six to one in three hours. Other staff report similar variances. Central Baghdad neighborhood Bab al Mu'atham has had no city power for over a month. Areas near hospitals, political party headquarters, and the green zone have the best supply, in some cases reaching 24 hours. One staff member reported that a friend lives in a building that houses a new minister; within 24 hours of his appointment, her building had city power 24 hours a day.
8. (SBU) All employees supplement city power with service contracted with neighborhood generator hookups that they pay for monthly. One employee pays 6500 ID per ampere to get 10 amperes per month (75,000 ID = USD 50/month). For this, her family gets 6 hours power per day, with service ending at 2 am. Another employee pays 9000 ID per ampere to get 10 amperes per month (90,000 = USD 60). For this, his family gets 8 hours per day, with service running until 5 am.
9. (SBU) Fuel lines have also taxed our staff. One employee told us May 29 that he had spent 12 hours on his day off (Saturday) waiting to get gas. Another staff member confirmed that shortages were so dire, prices on the black market in much of Baghdad were now above 1,000 Iraqi dinars per liter (the official, subsidized price is 250 ID).
Kidnappings, and Threats of Worse
-------------------------------------------------10. (SBU) One employee informed us in March that his brother in law had been kidnapped. The man was eventually released, but this caused enormous emotional distress to the entire family. One employee, a Sunni Kurd, received an indirect threat to her life in April. She took extended leave, and by May, relocated abroad with her family.
Security Forces Mistrusted
----------------------------------------11. (SBU) In April, employees began reporting a change in demeanor of guards at the green zone checkpoints. They seemed to be more militia-like, in some cases seemingly taunting. One employee asked us to explore getting her press credentials because guards had held her embassy badge up and proclaimed loudly to nearby passers-by "Embassy" as she entered. Such information is a death sentence if overheard by the wrong people.
Supervising a Staff At High Risk
----------------------------------------12. (SBU) Employees all share a common tale of their lives: of nine employees in March, only four had family members who knew they worked at the embassy. That makes it difficult for them, and for us. Iraqi colleagues called after hours often speak Arabic as an indication they cannot speak openly in English.
13. (SBU) We cannot call employees in on weekends or holidays without blowing their "cover." Likewise, they have been unavailable during multiple security closures imposed by the government since February. A Sunni Arab female employee tells us that family pressures and the inability to share details of her employment is very tough; she told her family she was in Jordan when we sent her on training to the U.S. in February. Mounting criticisms of the U.S. at home among family members also makes her life difficult. She told us in mid-June that most of her family believes the U.S. -- which is widely perceived as fully controlling the country and tolerating the malaise -- is punishing populations as Saddam did (but with Sunnis and very poor Shiites now at the bottom of the list). Otherwise, she says, the allocation of power and security would not be so arbitrary.
14. (SBU) Some of our staff do not take home their American cell phones, as this makes them a target. Planning for their own possible abduction, they use code names for friends and colleagues and contacts entered into Iraq cell phones. For at least six months, we have not been able to use any local staff members for translation at on-camera press events.
15. (SBU) More recently, we have begun shredding documents printed out that show local staff surnames. In March, a few staff members approached us to ask what provisions would we make for them if we evacuate.
Sectarian Tensions Within Families
---------------------------------------------------16. Ethnic and sectarian faultlines are also becoming part of the daily media fare in the country. One Shiite employee told us in late May that she can no longer watch TV news with her mother, who is a Sunni, because her mother blamed all government failings on the fact that Shiites are in charge. Many of the employee's immediate family members, including her father, one sister, and a brother, left Iraq years ago. This month, another sister is departing for Egypt, as she imagines the future here is too bleak.
The US invasion of Iraq is a total debacle. The happy talk blogs would have you believe that the good news is being ignored by liberal main stream media. Well, here's a diplomatic cable from the US embassy that confirms all the worst problems I've been posting about. Ethnic cleansing is happening throughout Iraq. People are fleeing the country. Militias rule and the central government has no presence in whole neighborhoods. People live in fear.
Update II: Here is the rest of the cable.
Many Baghdad neighborhoods have self-selected local governments centered around militias that control the people in each neighborhood. People do not trust their neighbors. They do not know the identity of many of the people who are enforcing codes of conduct and dress.
Frayed Nerves and Mistrust in the Office
-------------------------------------------------------------------17. (SBU) Against this backdrop of frayed social networks, tension and moodiness have risen. One Shiite made disparaging comments about the Sunni caliph Othman which angered a Kurd. A Sunni Arab female apparently insulted a Shiite female colleague by criticizing her overly liberal dress. One colleague told us he feels "defeated" by circumstances, citing the example of being unable to help his two year old son who has asthma and cannot sleep in the stifling heat.
18. (SBU) Another employee tells us that life outside the Green Zone has become "emotionally draining." He lives in a mostly Shiite area and claims to attend a funeral "every evening." He, like other local employees, is financially responsible for his immediate and extended families. He revealed that "the burden of responsibility; new stress coming from social circles who increasingl disapprove of the coalition presence, and everyday threats weigh very heavily." This employee became extremely agitated in late May at website reports of an abduction of an Iraqi working with MNFI, whose expired Embassy and MNFI badges were posted on the website.
Staying Straight with Neighborhood
Governments and the 'Alasa'
---------------------------------------------------19. (SBU) Staff members say they daily assess how to move safely in public. Often, if they must travel outside their own neighborhoods, they adopt the clothing, language, and traits of the area. In Jadriya, for example, one needs to conform to the SCIRI/Badr ethic; in Yusufiya, a strict Sunni conservative dress code has taken hold. Adhamiya and Salihiya, controlled by the secular Ministry of Defense, are not conservative. Moving inconspicuously in Sadr City requires Shiite conservative dress and a particular lingo. Once-upscale Mansur district, near the Green Zone, according to one employee, by early June was an "unrecognizable ghost town."
20. (SBU) Since Samarra, Baghdadis have honed these survival skills. Vocabulary has shifted to reflect new behavior. Our staff -- and our contacts -- have become adept in modifying behavior to avoid "Alasas," informants who keep an eye out for "outsiders" in neighborhoods. The Alasa mentality is becoming entrenched as Iraqi security forces fail to gain public confidence.
21. (SBU) Our staff report that security and services are being rerouted through "local providers" whose affiliations are vague. As noted above, those who are admonishing citizens on their dress are not known to the residents. Neighborhood power providers are not well known either, nor is it clear how they avoid robbery or targeting. Personal safety depends on good relations with the "neighborhood" governments, who barricade streets and ward off outsiders. The central government, our staff says, is not relevant; even local mukhtars have been displaced or coopted by militias. People no longer trust most neighbors.
22. (SBU) A resident of upscale Shiite/Christian Karrada district told us that "outsiders" have moved in and now control the local mukhtars, one of whom now has cows and goats grazing in the streets. When she expressed her concern at the dereliction, he told her to butt out.
Comment
--------------23. (SBU) Although our staff retain a professional demeanor, strains are apparent. We see that their personal fears are reinforcing divisive sectarian or ethnic channels, despite talk of reconciliation by officials. Employees are apprehensive enough that we fear they may exaggerate developments or steer us towards news that comports with their own worldview. Objectivity, civility, and logic that make for a functional workplace may falter if social pressures outside the Green Zone don't abate.
KHALILZAD
NNNN
Will the ethnic cleansing eventually lead to a decrease in the extent of the inter-ethnic killings as the groups become more separated from each other? Will another mosque bombing like Samarra lead to much higher scale warfare? How is this going to play out?
Short of upping and leaving does the United States have any real cards to play in Iraq aside from just keeping on fighting with an inadequately sized force? My guess is that since we obviously aren't going to rule with the brutality of an Arab dictator we can't rule the place. At the same time our very presence motivates a substantial portion of the insurgency to fight.
Update III: Read the New York Times editorial "A Long Road Ahead in Iraq".
Take the police. It is meaningless to talk about Iraq's taking charge of its own security when the police forces that patrol its cities and run its prisons are rife with sectarian militias and death squads that would sooner wage a civil war than prevent one. While Mr. Bush holds out visions of Iraqi security forces standing up so that Americans can stand down, Iraq's deputy justice minister more candidly told The Washington Post last week that "we cannot control the prisons; it's as simple as that." He added that "our jails are infiltrated by the militias from top to bottom, from Basra to Baghdad."
I do not find it worth my time to read or listen to speeches about Iraq by major figures in the Bush Administration. They are in their own reality distortion zone. Meanwhile reality plays out tragically in Iraq.
The Times editors point to indicators that show things getting worse, not better.
Consider also the level of sectarian violence, a clear indicator of whether Iraq is moving toward national unity or sectarian conflict. In May 2003, there were five recorded incidents of sectarian violence. In May 2004, there were 10. In May 2005, there were 20. Last month there were 250. This is a very discouraging trend, as is the predictable response: thousands of families fleeing their homes.
The Times says that for the last couple of years electric power production has stayed flat and, as outlined in the diplomatic cable above, most of the time people do not have electric power. On Iraq the Times rejects solipsism.
Pretending things are better than they are will not make them so.
The Times says we face a number of questions on Iraq including whether to take on the death squads or try to cut down on the ethnic cleansing.
Should the United States resign itself to slow-motion "ethnic cleansing" in some mixed areas or try to stop it by pouring more American troops into zones around Baghdad and Basra where the threat seems most acute?
First off, unless the Times wants to start editorializing for a draft I do not see where the troops would come from to fight death squads or prevent ethnic cleansing. We need 4 times more troops to properly occupy Iraq. That isn't going to happen.
We are trying to swim upstream against the current in Iraq. I'd prefer we just pull out and let them sort it out. But Bush insists we stay and even many liberals shrink from the idea of pulling out and letting the Iraqis duke it out on their own. Well, there's a solution to the sectarian violence under these circumstances: Accelerate the ethnic cleansing by helping minorities in each neighborhood and region to move places where they are majorities. Protect their movement. Provide some money to help them move. Build tent cities. Bring in prefabricated homes.
At each step of the way the Bush Administration and the war supporters have refused to admit how much less can be accomplished in Iraq. At each step the amount we can accomplish goes down even further. The best case outcome gets even worse. Unless we admit how lousy the best case has become we will not take the steps necessary to accomplish even those very low objectives. We need to admit we can't stop the ethnic cleansing and find ways to make it happen with far fewer killed and less animosity between the major groups in Iraq.
The "Other Than Mexicans" who are caught on one section of the US border with Mexico are all held, prosecuted for breaking the law, and then deported.
But this year, a 190-mile stretch of riverbank that includes the small border cities of Eagle Pass and Del Rio became a "zero-tolerance zone." If apprehended by the U.S. Border Patrol, illegal immigrants are prosecuted by federal authorities for a misdemeanor, sent to jail for 15 to 180 days and then deported. If they are caught illegally entering the country a second time, they are eligible for a felony charge of illegal entry and as much as two years in federal prison.
"Catch and release" -- in which Mexican citizens are returned promptly to Mexico, but citizens of other countries are given a notice to appear in immigration court at a later date, set free and never tracked down by authorities -- would end here, said Department of Homeland Security officials at a Washington news conference this year. "Catch and remove" would start. And, officials predicted, as this tough policy became known, immigrants would be discouraged from crossing through this slice of southwest Texas.
This is the way it should work on the entire border.
The Border Patrol agents have so much extra time that they are catching many more drug smugglers.
As of June 5, apprehensions of illegal immigrants in Eagle Pass, where Operation Streamline II began Dec. 6, were down 51 percent, and they were down 32 percent in Del Rio, compared with the same period a year ago. Apprehensions of drug smugglers increased substantially between Dec. 6 and June 5, because agents were no longer tied up processing illegal immigrants, Clark said. Since the program began, the value of narcotics seizures has increased 309 percent to $13 million in Eagle Pass and by 176 percent to almost $40 million in Del Rio, he said.
Some of the crossers have shifted to other sections of the border. But this same program could be implemented along the entire border. At first the prisons along the border would be flooded with people. But as word got out the news would deter a substantial fraction of potential illegal crossers.
Border enforcement is possible. We just need the political will to do it.
Iraq has reversed a worldwide trend toward lower numbers of refugees.
"The increase is largely due to 650,000 more Iraqi refugees who have fled to Jordan and Syria," said USCRI's president, Lavinia Limon. "Although some Iraqis may be fleeing generalised violence, individuals and groups are targeted on the basis of political affiliatio