Month: November 2013

Atticas Are Ancient History

Joseph Bernstein investigates the dramatic decline of prison uprisings, despite rising prison populations. He notes, “In 1973, we had 93 riots for every 1 million prisoners; in 2003, we had fewer than three”:

Prison demographics have changed, with a higher percentage of nonviolent offenders serving time now than ever before. Many of the most dangerous inmates are now housed in super-maximum-security prisons. New surveillance tactics and restrictions on prisoner movement have been introduced. And prisons are now managed better, thanks in part to federal-court interventions.

But there is one other factor, almost never discussed, that has contributed greatly to the decline:

the development of elite security squads trained to preempt and put down prison disorder of every kind. Often known as Correctional Emergency Response Teams, they have become ubiquitous in correctional facilities over the past 30 years. …

I watched a Michigan CERT put down a 15-person riot in the recreation pen in the North Yard, contained on all four sides by a chain-link fence. I agreed to film the exercise on my phone for a doughy young officer with a shaved head whose e-mail address contained the compound noun meat-shield. Arriving to quell the riot, Michigan marched into the pen and formed up across from the prisoners, dressed in their inmate motley. Spectators pushed up to the fence on all sides. They stuck their fingers and noses through the links and hooted their approval, giving the exercise the ambience of a competitive game of pickup basketball. Michigan, unlike Alabama, made abundant use of their guns: small black semiautomatic carbines that shot dummy rounds meant to simulate pellets of pepper spray. A clicking sound filled the air as the officers emptied their rifles, and modest clouds of powder erupted here and there as the rounds connected with their targets. Michigan brought the inmates to heel in less than five minutes.

(Video: Footage of the Attica Prison riots, which lasted for four days in September 1971)

Can Congress Derail The Iran Deal?

Rosa Brooks claims that the law isn’t clear:

In fact, it’s an open constitutional question whether Congress can impose mandatory sanctions on a foreign state over the president’s strong objection. Congress has the power to regulate foreign commerce, but the president is vested with executive power and is the sole representative of the United States vis-a-vis foreign states. Just as the congressional power to declare war does not prevent the president from using military force in what he views as emergencies — whether Congress likes it or not — the congressional power to regulate foreign commerce can’t force the president to implement sanctions that would undermine a time-sensitive executive agreement if doing so, in the president’s view, would jeopardize vital national-security interests.

Any congressional efforts to completely eliminate the president’s foreign-affairs discretion could lead to a constitutional showdown, which Congress would almost certainly lose. If Congress passed new sanctions legislation that the president believed would undermine the deal with Iran, he could veto it; if Congress mustered up the two-thirds majority needed to overcome a veto, the president could simply refuse to implement the sanctions. The courts would be unlikely to side with Congress because, traditionally, they have viewed such disputes as “political questions” best resolved through the ballot box.

In other Iran commentary, Fareed argues that the new deal is “not a seismic shift”:

Many imagine that this is the start of a rapprochement between the U.S. and Iran, which would fundamentally change the geopolitical landscape. It could place the U.S. on the side of the Shi’ite powers, Iran and Iraq, in the growing sectarian divide in the region. It could alter the balance of power in the world of oil–Iran’s reserves are second only to Saudi Arabia’s in the region.

Iran’s foes should relax. This is an important agreement, but it is an interim deal on Iran’s nuclear program. It is not even a final deal, which will be much harder to achieve. And it is not the dawn of a historic new alliance. Washington remains staunchly opposed to Iran on many issues, from Tehran’s antagonism toward Israel to its support for Hizballah to its funding of Iraqi militias. The Islamic Republic, for its part, remains devoted to a certain level of anti-Americanism as a founding principle of its existence. The two countries are still fundamentally at odds.

In 1972, Richard Nixon and Mao Zedong, spurred by powerful geopolitical forces, made a massive break with the past and ushered in a new era. The Iran deal does not have that feeling to it. It is more like an arms-control treaty between the U.S. and the Soviet Union, in which two wary adversaries are finding some common ground.

Turbulence Over The East China Sea

Yesterday the Pentagon flew two unarmed B-52 bombers across disputed the Senkaku (Diaoyu) Islands, violating new airspace rules that China announced just this weekend:

China on Saturday unveiled an “East China Sea Air Defense Identification Zone” (ADIZ) which requires aircraft flying over the Senkaku – which China calls the Diaoyu – to inform Beijing in advance or risk “defensive measures.” Tokyo reacted angrily to the move, which was aimed at changing the status quo over the islands. The Pentagon said the B-52 flights had been scheduled before the move, but the US refused to comply with the new Chinese zone. Paul Haenle, a former White House China director, says the US was sending “a message to the Chinese that you have taken a very provocative step at a bad time.”

So far the Chinese response to the American flights has been mild:

China’s defense ministry issued a terse statement (Chinese) today acknowledging the US aircraft incursion, which happened Nov. 25, but offering no rebuke. (The ministry said only that ”the Chinese side has the ability to effectively manage and control the relevant airspace.”) Today, two Japanese airlines also disregarded the Chinese flight restrictions.

Mike Yeo notes that the Chinese ADIZ “worryingly” overlaps with some Japanese space:

This could potentially result in interceptors on both sides encountering each other in the tense airspace near the Senkakus, and could lead to an East Asian version of the numerous “mock” dogfights between the Greek and Turkish Air Forces over the Aegean Sea in the late 1990s and early 2000s. Those dogfights resulted in the loss of several fighter jets and crew on both sides due to aggressive maneuvering, mid-air collisions and even actual shoot downs using live missiles.

Fallows sees the US in a tight spot:

The worsening Japan-China struggles are, for the United States, the opposite of the cynical view of the 1980s Iran-Iraq war. Back then, as the wisecrack held, the US wished both sides could lose. This time, the US would prefer that both sides win – or, more precisely, that they not fight. A struggle between the two, especially over the contested tiny islands, puts the US in a lose-lose predicament. Public mood and government policy in each country is increasingly hostile to the other – but we’re deeply connected to both of them, plus we have a treaty obligation to defend Japan against attack. We want this fight to go away, without our being forced to take a side.

Why risk getting involved, plus angering the Chinese, by sending B-52s through the new ADIZ?

I think the Pentagon’s initial explanation is the right one – on the merits, and as a matter of public diplomacy. The United States is not taking sides in this Japan-China island dispute, but it is against either side unilaterally changing the status quo. Also, in continuing “routine training flights” – which is how the B-52 mission was described – it is underscoring the U.S. commitment to existing rules on access to international air space. It was mildly risky to send that flight, but it would have been riskier not to react at all.

Isaac Stone Fish describes the ADIZ as a “provocation” but concedes that it is, “in Chinese eyes at least, in line with international norms of airspace and transparency”:

The United States has a clearly defined ADIZ; the website of the US Federal Aviation Administration warns of “use of force” in the “case of non-compliance.” (Secretary of State John Kerry said in a Nov. 23 statement that the United States “does not apply its ADIZ procedures to foreign aircraft not intending to enter U.S. national airspace.”) On Nov. 25, Yang Yujun, the spokesperson for the Ministry of Defense, responded to a question about the U.S. government “concern” about China’s decision. “Since the 1950s the United States and more than 20 other countries,” including Japan, have set up ADIZs, he said. For the United States to oppose this is “utterly unreasonable.”

Since taking office in November 2012, Xi has instituted a number of policies that demonstrate a solidification of control of the Communist Party and a streamlining of China’s bureaucracy. But, in doing so he’s liberally borrowing from the US government’s institutional hierarchy and best practices, implementing a series of institutional changes that could be called American reform with Chinese characteristics. And for those concerned about a rising China challenging the United States, this is worrisome indeed.

Tai Ming Cheung sees the move as part of a broader Chinese military push:

China’s decision to establish an ADIZ over the East China Sea comes barely one year after Xi Jinping became chairman of the Central Military Commission (C.M.C.) at the 18th Communist Party Congress. The move is a major example of Xi’s emerging doctrine of “preparing for military struggle” that is the centerpiece for his plans to develop a battle-ready P.L.A. [People’s Liberation Army].

Mark Green has a similar view:

It is possible that the move was a nationalist play by Chinese President Xi Jinping to consolidate conservative control for economic reform measures after the Third Plenum. But it’s also possible – I would argue probable – that the ADIZ comes out of a playbook developed by China’s Central Military Commission under Xi’s supervision that anticipates and is readying for confrontation with Japan and other maritime states in the East and South China seas. The People’s Liberation Army’s new “Near Sea Doctrine” and Xi’s recent statement that the PLA must be ready to “fight and win wars” need to be looked at in a new and much more serious light. This is not a one-off, but part of a long-term Chinese strategic view toward the offshore island chains in the Pacific that must be recognized as a major challenge in Washington.

But Greg Torode and Adam Rode note that China’s military may not be able to handle the “intensified surveillance and interception” needed to enforce the rules:

Regional military analysts and diplomats said China’s network of air defense radars, surveillance planes and fighter jets would be stretched by extensive patrols across its Air Defense Identification Zone, roughly two-thirds the size of Britain. … While China could field an extensive array of surveillance capabilities, including ship-borne radar, there will still be gaps, added Christian Le Miere, an East Asia military specialist at the independent International Institute of Strategic Studies in London. “It is just not yet clear how they are going to enforce it,” he said. “It may be more a rhetorical position to serve a political end.”

Meanwhile, Jo Floto despairs that “it’s actually difficult to see just how there can be any resolution to the dispute at all”:

The issue of Chinese sovereignty over the islands has in many ways come to define the foreign policy of China’s new leader Xi Jinping – even though this crisis began before he took the top job. Portraying China as newly assertive and unafraid plays well here. Anti-Japanese sentiment in China is widespread. All of which makes it easy to see why Xi’s more muscular, and increasingly militarized stance towards Japan would be popular at home.

But it also leaves him with no room to back down with anything less than a full concession from Tokyo that the islands are indeed Chinese. Over in Tokyo, there is no mood in Shinzo Abe’s nationalist government to be seen to cower in the face of what’s being described as Chinese bullying. Two countries, two governments, one elected, the other not, but both giving themselves very little political room to move.

Demetri Sevastopulo notes that “the last time the US displayed its aerial might in a similar fashion was when it dispatched B-2 stealth bombers and B-52s to the Korean peninsula in March” in response to North Korean saber-rattling.

The End Of DIY DNA Testing? Ctd

A reader writes:

I’m a physician, and I wanted to encourage this to become an ongoing thread, as it’s a fascinating and important topic. Two clarifications, however: first, Bailey claims that the FDA recommends genetic testing prior to warfarin administration. This is incorrect. The FDA neither recommends nor recommends against genetic testing because it is not clear that it is necessary or cost-effective, according to multiple studies. What the FDA does support, in its 2010 statement, is the use of genetic information in dosing if it happens to be available. This is an important difference.

Second, Tabarrok claims that this is a First Amendment issue. This seems clearly wrong, as medical and scientific accuracy determines much of what drug and device manufacturers can and cannot say about their products. Likewise, it’s obvious that physicians have no First Amendment protection for giving out false medical advice in an established doctor-patient relationship.

Another:

Sure, in this country we protect speech. We do, however, restrict the rights of companies to profit from disseminating damaging misinformation. This issue here is not the safety of the testing service, rather the problem is the harm done to vulnerable consumers through the dissemination of misinformation. Here’s a 2010 report issued by the Government Accountability Office addressing this concern. The video [seen above] highlights the harm that can be done if personalized genetic information is sold and interpreted to consumers and by amateurs.

Another reader is bummed about the FDA’s move:

I had my genome sequenced four years ago through 23andme.  The health reports I received indicated that I have the markers for six times greater than average chance of developing macular degeneration (a debilitating eye disease).  Since I have a spot in the center of my vision left over from a meningioma brain tumor the size of a tennis ball (also indicated in my health report) I thought it wise to see my doctor.  I might have been so inclined without the report since my grandmother went blind from the disease and my mother is coping with it now, but the report reinforced my concern and I got checked out.  Fortunately there were no signs of the disease, but the fact that that the FDA is coming down hard on 23andme (and none of the other sequencing companies) seems ridiculous.  They’re providing information, not a diagnosis.  Had I not already had my tumor removed I would have been far better prepared to take the symptoms seriously were they to occur today.  I have nothing but good to say about 23andme.

Shaheen Pasha also praises the service:

When my results came back, my ancestry composition turned out to be fascinating. But my medical report was even more compelling. My health traits report indicated an elevated risk for autoimmune disorders, including Hashimoto’s disease. That hit home for me. After a 6-year struggle with multiple doctors to figure out what was wrong with me, I received my official diagnosis of Hashimoto’s in August, just weeks before I received my 23andMe results back. Perhaps if I had had a report indicating the possibility of such an illness in my genetic code, I could have been spared the headache of dealing for years with skeptical doctors who thought my ailments were all in my head.

More Dish on the topic here. Update from a reader:

Seems pretty clear from this letter that although the FDA spent a lot of time trying to work with 23andMe (14 meetings, hundreds of emails, etc), 23andMe chose to disregard their multiple warnings.

Storing Your Memories In Someone Else’s Brain

Rebecca Schwarzlose considers it “a major benefit of having long-term relationships”:

There’s too much information in this world to know and remember. Why not store some of it in “the cloud” that is your partner or coworker’s brain or in “the cloud” itself, whatever and wherever that is? The idea of transactive memory came from the innovative psychologist Daniel Wegner, most recently of Harvard, who passed away in July of this year. Wegner proposed the idea in the mid-80s and framed it in terms of the “intimate dyad” – spouses or other close couples who know each other very well over a long period of time. Transactive memory between partners can be a straightforward case of cognitive outsourcing. I remember monthly expenses and you remember family birthdays. But it can also be a subtler and more interactive process. For example, one spouse remembers why you chose to honeymoon at Waikiki and the other remembers which hotel you stayed in. If the partners try to recall their honeymoon together, they can produce a far richer description of the experience than if they were to try separately. …

This fact also underscores just how much you lose when a loved one passes away. When you lose a spouse, a parent, a sibling, you are also losing part of yourself and the shared memory you have with that person. After I lost my father, I noticed this strange additional loss. I caught myself wondering when I’d stopped writing stories on his old typewriter. I realized I’d forgotten parts of the fanciful stories he used to tell me on long drives. I wished I could ask him to fill in the blanks, but of course it was too late.

A Pro-Life And Pro-Animal Alliance?

Charles Camosy, author of For Love of Animals: Christian Ethics, Consistent Action, sees overlap between the pro-life movement and animal welfare activists:

Charles also spoke with K-Lo about this connection:

[O]ne thing which frustrates me to no end is that merely holding my position is often identified with activism and extremism. “Oh, you’re one of those people who blow up clinics and yell at women,” I’m told. Of course, over half of the U.S. identifies as pro-life, so this caricature is unfair and irresponsible. It is nevertheless used to good effect by some pro-choicers to marginalize the views of their opponents in the public square. But something similar happens to those of us who are concerned about the welfare of non-human animals. We are caricatured as “animal-rights activists,” and this conjures up similar images of extremism. But there are many millions of vegetarians in the United States, and many millions more who will only eat meat from animals who were treated well. So, one of several things that pro-lifers and those who are concerned for animals have in common is that our opponents, rather than engage our arguments, will often simply try to paint us as extremists who shouldn’t be taken seriously.

He elaborates on his position:

Animal-rights thinkers like [Peter] Singer sniff hypocrisy from pro-lifers who defend the dignity of prenatal and neonatal children, but then ignore the dignity of animals who seem to be more sophisticated than even the smartest newborn baby. Elephants mourn their dead, dolphins recognize themselves in a mirror, and chimps can teach their children sign language. Pigs can play video games, and even chickens can beat humans at tic-tac-toe. Now, I absolutely insist that all human beings — including those who are prenatal, neonatal, disabled, or injured — are worth more than even the most sophisticated non-human animal. But I can also see how an animal-rights secularist could be confused by self-described pro-lifers who are adamant about nonviolence with respect to human beings, but then ignore and even directly benefit from the horrific violence inflicted on animals.

Camosy’s previous videos can be found here. Our full Ask Anything archive is here.

How The Saudis See The World

F. Gregory Gause explains what the Saudis have against America’s agreement with Iran:

This was not simply a geopolitical setback for Riyadh. The Saudi leadership believes that increased Iranian power will lead to political mobilization by Shia inside the Sunni-ruled Gulf states. The Saudis and their allies in the Gulf remain certain that Iran meddles directly in their domestic affairs, but they are also convinced that Iran’s heightened regional role will inevitably inspire Shia discontent, which makes Iran’s ascendance an indirect threat to the stability of the Gulf monarchies.

It was through this lens that the Saudis viewed the sustained and peaceful demonstrations in 2011 against the Sunni monarchy in Shia-majority Bahrain, even though there was no objective evidence of an Iranian role in the protests. The Arab Spring also brought down Riyadh’s most important Arab ally, Hosni Mubarak’s regime in Egypt. But there was one bright spot for the Saudis amid the regional upheaval. The uprising against Assad in Syria, Iran’s closest ally in the Arab world, represented the best chance in a decade for Riyadh to roll back Iranian power.

For the Saudis, therefore, Obama’s refusal to take action against Assad was seen as another example of Washington’s inability to appreciate both the dangers and the opportunities of the Arab Spring.

Reliving The Iraq War, Ctd

Readers are starting to get more specific with their feedback on the e-book (available to subscribers here):

I’ve finished reading through I Was Wrong. First of all, thanks for giving us subscribers this long-form content. It’s greatly appreciated. The entire collection is worth reading, but I think that andrew-sullivan-i-was-wrong-covermuch can be summarized and learned from your very first post written during 9/11, in particular, “When our shock recedes, our rage must be steady and resolute and unforgiving.”

If there is one lesson I think that is vital to learn, it’s that rage is never a good response to an attack. Rage feels righteous and it moves us to do things that we would never otherwise consider. Perhaps the most chilling and ironically prophetic sentence in that first post was that “[t]he response must be disproportionate to the crimes.” It certainly was, and now we can see the cost of disproportionate revenge. We can see that anger and a desire for revenge can lead us to lashing out blindly and, worse, stupidly at those we fear and hate, turning us into awful parodies of that very hatred. It’s no wonder that the Bush administration was able to sell us on going to war against Saddam. We needed someone to punch. Bush and Cheney just gave us a target to plant our fists in.

What worries me is that I don’t know that we’ve really learned our lesson. In the aftermath of the Boston bombing, I saw and heard much of that same righteous anger looking for a target. I worry that if and when another truly large attack occurs, we’ll be perfectly content to follow the next call to war without pausing to consider whether it’s even the right war.

Another:

I read your e-book last night. It was riveting. I read most if not all these posts at the time and the book took me back to that time in a visceral way. The history came alive for me. It also gave me a glimpse into another person’s psyche in a new and vivid way. It’s like seeing pieces of glass laid down every day, then all the sudden stepping back and discovering a broad mosaic. I don’t know that I’ve ever experienced history in such a vivid way.

If you read the e-book and want to discuss particular parts of that history, our in-tray is open. Another reader:

The entire first part of I Was Wrong is post after post of invective against “appeasers” and “decadent liberals” – your words, not mine – for offering even the slightest objections to rushing headlong into Iraq. Then, in the heat of the 2002 midterms (while, let’s not forget, the entire GOP party apparatus dealt the “Vote Democratic and 9/11 will happen again” card from the bottom of the deck), you accused the Democrats of not even participating in debate over the war – while at the same time criticizing anyone who entered the debate on the side opposing yours.

Everyone against the war, according to Sullivan-circa-2003, was an America-hater, a French person, or an editor of the New York Times. And even the members of the military who express doubts about the workability of an invasion are just cowardly “doves.” Oh, and Colin Powell’s bullshit-ridden presentation to the UN Security Council got you excited. All this after you admitted (and this is a very Christian sentiment) that you were hoping for war. Seriously? I’m at March of 2003, and if I read the phrase “Fifth-Columnist” – which you of all people would know is a code-word for “traitor” – my iPad is in serious jeopardy of being thrown out the window.

It gets better. Another:

I read I Was Wrong in one sitting and listened to your conversation with Mikey Piro shortly afterward. I have to be honest, there were points when I was astonished at what I was reading.

There were even points when I questioned whether I should re-subscribe. What lead me to that questioning was not, as one of your readers said, the fact that you were wrong. I do not look towards you to be an oracle. Mainly I was almost scared by what I read. Your talk of exterminating the enemy, your desire to go to war with the entire Middle East to root out and destroy terrorism in all corners of the globe, your denunciation of the anti-war crowd without appreciation … this was not the Andrew I felt I had gotten to know over the past couple years.

Where was Oakeshott? Where was Saint Francis? Where were the tempered, multi-faceted reflections on the world that linked specific events to broader intellectual themes? Where were the analyses that drew upon a variety of sources and influences? Instead, there was simply a Manichean view of the world filtered through deep anger and hurt. This was frightening to me. I felt that one of my mentors (yes, despite the fact that we have never met, although I saw you riding your bike in Ptown once and had a mini-freakout, your writing has had a mentoring effect on me) had been sullied, that I had been betrayed.

Having been in elementary school when you were writing about Iraq, I thought I had no understanding or contact with the early Dish. My initial reaction to I Was Wrong only confirmed this thought. But then I realized, as Abu Ghraib and torture began to weigh more heavily on your writing and view of the war itself, that I have been deeply in contact with the early Dish. How? Because I got the overwhelming feeling that the Dish since the war is a reaction to the Dish before the war.

Even more than that, the Dish since Iraq is atonement. It is attempting to atone for the person who wrote the infamous “fifth column” paragraph and many others that were equally vehement. The diverse riches of the Dish today are an atonement for the single-mindedness of your writing on Iraq. Is it the sole driving force? Maybe not. But I think that every time you post theological writing, or post reader responses, or cultivate a dynamic and often wrenching reader thread, and definitely when you write about conservatism, there is an element of atonement.

I feel like you don’t feel as if your apologies are enough, that writing I Was Wrong is enough. The only way to truly atone for what happened is to make sure it never happens again and your way of ensuring that is through creating a tapestry of essays, criticism, responses, and discourse that, when taken as a whole, demonstrate that the only way forward is a reflective and informed skepticism. It shows the readers of this blog that the vagaries of life can only be endured through a disposition towards the world that appreciates its nuance, confusing contradictions, subtlety, and complex interiority. Leveling critiques will not do. Single-mindedness will not do. A lack of familiarity with the arguments against your position will not do. That is the only way that the stain of Iraq can be faced.

Thank you for teaching me this and much more.

I cannot undo the ugly, but the open Dish model, and what I now do every day, is my attempt at atonement.

Update from a reader:

I haven’t read the ebook yet – may do so over the holiday.  Not sure I can take it a second time. But reading the readers’ reactions you’re posting, I’m fascinated by the people who feel angered or shocked by the Andrew.9-11 version of the Dish. I am now a subscriber and have been a daily reader (well, maybe hourly) since the run up to the Iraq War. What brought me to the Dish was a search for a conservative, pro-war voice that would be a reasonable, educated counter-balance to my own views and all the anti-war stuff I was reading at the time. I couldn’t make any sense out of what we were doing (even from a cold, hard, Machiavellian perspective – it seemed insane to me), and I was hopeful that you would at least provide some perspective into that worldview.  I came for the perspective, but stayed for the evolution.

But, as I’ve seen you grapple with all of this, and other issues (I think I’ve even noticed a bit of softening in your white-hot hatred of the Clintons, but thankfully no movement on Sarah Palin), I have to say that I miss having someone as smart and articulate as you are to turn to for the opposing view.  I’m sure some of this is the influence you have had on some of my viewpoints (I have a much broader view of the Catholic Church because of you, for instance), but it has been amazing to watch and read and be a part of all of this.  Thanks for sharing yourself so transparently.  Glad to pay for the privilege.