re: "If I Wanted to Attack Iran"

DAVE SCHULER at The Glittering Eye made this perfectly clear.

Money quote(s):

"I have repeatedly pointed out that I do not want the U. S. to bomb or invade Iran. I think it would be illegal, immoral, and futile. It would be worse than a crime; it would be a mistake."

That being said:

"I wouldn’t attack its hardened nuclear development facilities or its population centers or even its military. I would attack its oil fields, its oil refineries, and its fuel depots. I would do it with drones and I would keep it up until the present Iranian regime collapsed."

3/2

re: "When Good Politics Is Bad Policy and Bad Law"

DAVE SCHULER at The Glittering Eye considered the Arizona immigration testimony before the Supreme Court.

Money quote(s):

"The Supreme Court heard oral arguments today in the case Arizona v. United States, the federal challenge to Arizona’s immigration law, considered draconian by its foes and obvious by its defenders. You can’t draw hard and fast conclusions about how the justices will rule based on oral arguments but the day did not go well for the Obama Administration."

It's tough to make strong arguments when your case is so weak.

"To my untutored layman’s eye the federal government’s argument appears to be that it can have its cake and eat it, too. The Congress can pass and the president can sign laws and then, if enforcement or even simple management is too burdensome, it can merely ignore them. That strikes me as a political argument rather than either a policy or a legal one. Congress should either authorize the resources necessary to enforce the laws it passes or limit their scope so that they can be enforced with the resources they’re willing to grant." (Bold typeface added for emphasis. - CAA.)

Mr. Schuler isn't wrong about what Congress should do, but getting Congress to do what it should do is beyond the powers of mortal men.

"On immigation the Congress has chosen the path of political least resistance by in theory having fairly strict immigration law while in practice having very limited immigration law. That doesn’t make any sense either from a policy or legal standpoint.

Just to restate briefly my views on immigration I don’t think we have an immigration problem in this country. I think we have a temporary problem of Mexican immigration in this country, temporary because of Mexican demographics and, indeed, Latin American and Caribbean demographics more generally. I think that we should increase the number of work permits available to Mexicans by at least an order of magnitude, possibly several orders of magnitude, give employers better tools for verifying the status of the workers they hire, and thereafter enforce immigration laws strictly in the workplace, imposing severe penalties on employers who refuse to comply. But, honestly, I’m not worried about the issue because, as I’ve said, it is temporary and the recent stories about immigration from Mexico slowing or even reversing recently fully support my view."

Congress has gotten around much in the way of immigration-related costs by putting the financial burden for legal immigrants firmly on those immigrants themselves, by requiring DHS (and State) to impose fees, making many of these functions pay for themselves.

The costs of dealing with illegal immigrants aren't amenable to such an approach.

4/25

re: "Counterinsurgency is not peeing on people…"

Peter Van Buren at We Meant Well ("How I Helped Lose the Battle for the Hearts and Minds of the Iraqi People") rated this event as unhelpful to the counterinsurgency mission.

Money quote(s):

"The world is awash in urine-soaked statements by various idiots defending the Marines who peed on the bodies of dead Taliban. The defense is either a) the Taliban deserved it because they are our enemies or b) well, the Taliban have done worse things to us."

Just because the two defenses are completely true doesn't make them useful.

"The Taliban aren’t fighting a counterinsurgency war.

We are.

We are the invading foreigners trying to win the support of the people. Pissing on them is not a good way to do that.

This is part of the whole losing proposition of such war– we have to get it right (almost) all the time to have a shot at winning."

And therein lies the rub.

Dave Schuler addresses the root of this problem here. Take a few minutes and give it a look.

(CAA will still be here when you get back.)

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Okay, back yet?

In the corporate world, in any business, you start with the basic question: what business are we in?

Sounds silly, doesn't it?

(It's not.)

It's the reason that lots of corporations (and government entities) have things called "mission statements." They're a good touchstone for determining if something you're considering attempting is something you should be attempting.

In questions of strategy, you face similar questions. What are our goals? What is the end-state we would like to see? What instruments of national power and influence can be brought to bear in support of this mission?

Mr. Schuler believes what CAA has long suspected: nation-building (and the related mission of counter-insurgency) in Afghanistan is not what the U.S. should have attempted there.

So while Brother Van Buren's points about the marine micturition incident (MMI) are on-point and well-taken, they may miss the larger targets. Indeed, much of U.S. policy over the past decade-plus may have done so.

1/13

re: "The Golden Days Are Over"

Dave Schuler at The Glittering Eye looks at economic, immigration, and trade policies.

Money quote(s):

"I think that trade and immigration policies must conform to actual needs and realities rather than some ideological view. The reality is that we have millions of unemployed unskilled or semi-skilled people here in the U. S. already and wages for unskilled and semi-skilled workers have been stagnant or falling for decades, a sure sign of flagging demand. Our immigration policy wih respect to Mexico should reflect that reality; sadly, it does not."

The current (our second annual) "recovery summer" is driving this point home to the point where even Congress may catch on to what everyone who isn't Mexican (and petitioning for their under-educated and unskilled relatives) already knows: unlimited (which is the result of lax enforcement) immigration of under-skilled workers does nothing but pull the rug out from under our own (U.S. citizen) labor pool.

"China poses a unique challenge for American economic policy. I trace many of our economic woes to three events, all involving China: China’s 1979 abandoning of its official policy of autarky, China’s pegging of the yuan to the dollar in 1993, and the admission of China to the WTO in 2001. I think that these actions eroded manufacturing jobs in the U. S., increased our imports from China to the detriment of American-made goods, and drove money into housing construction with the results that we see around us today. Our trade policy with respect to China should reflect the unique challenges that China presents; it does not."

Not being an economist, I'm unable to discern the linkage between the three Chinese developments cited and increased U.S. housing construction. Anyone care to spell this out for me?

re: "Rationalizing Immigration Policy"

Dave Schuler at The Glittering Eye has some thoughts about immigration reform.

Money quote(s):

"(O)ur policy on immigration could learn something from Canada’s"

Last time I looked at Canada's immigration policy, what struck me were two things:

First, that it used a "point system" for each potential immigrant which added up to determine who qualified and who didn't. Things like fluency in English and French were given weight, as well as other language skills.

Second, they were rather more up-front (at the time) about their "investor" categories of immigrants. If you had the money (and were not otherwise unqualified to be admitted), you could get a visa.

(This may have changed.)

"What would a rational immigration policy for the U. S. be? First, we need to abandon the priority of family reunification that has guided U. S. policy for nearly the last half century. We could use youngish immigrants with college degrees or better, too—I have some sympathy with the suggestion that every PhD or professional degree awarded in the United States to a foreign national should come with a green card stapled to it.

I think that we should increase the number of work visas available to Mexican nationals substantially on the one hand while enforcing our laws both in the workplace and at the border on the other. However, this shouldn’t be a long-term policy. The stagnant income levels and high unemployment rates of unskilled workers in the U. S. tell the story: we don’t need more unskilled workers in the U. S. and we shouldn’t subsidize business models that depend on a continuous new supply. I don’t find the prospect of a future U. S. that competes with China or Vietnam for who can pay the least to unskilled workers particularly appealing."

I'd be a little less generous about granting permanent residency to any foreigner who earns a professional degree in the U.S. We already have too many lawyers, for instance.

Also, DHS (and its predecessor organization, INS) haven't exactly covered themselves in glory and distinction regarding their policing and screening of educational institutions eligible to participate in the issuance of student visas.

If something more nuanced than a purely blanket approach is used, however, this idea nonetheless has considerable merit.

As for work visas for Mexicans: sadly I haven't got all that much confidence in Mexican travel documents to the point where I'd believe that every participant in this sort of program was actually Mexican. That being said, a big part of the problem with our "undocumented" Mexican illegal population is that they are, for all practical purposes, undocumented and unpoliced. Issue them a tamper-proof ID card similiar to the BCC with their photo, collect biometrics (including DNA) at the time of application, grant a temporary (one year?) work permit along with each (adult's) card. And then take it from there. If they get into sufficient trouble, then the card and status are terminated.

The application fee for the card should be designed to include one-way travel to the applicant's home town. So if they get bounced, they've already paid for the ticket in advance.