Syzygeist

Signal Amid the Noise

As the Attorney General confirmation process continues, Democrats in Congress pushed the nominee to say whether he believes "waterboarding," a relatively old torture dating back to the Spanish Inquisition, is illegal under the Constitution. Described as a "very exquisite torture" by Senator John McCain, who was himself tortured as a POW in Vietnam, it has been used by the US government on suspected Al Qaeda members, (and the Japanese were prosecuted after WWII for using it against Americans). The nominee, federal judge Michael Mukasey, professed not to know what waterboarding is and was quoted saying, "I don't know what's involved in the technique," adding, "If waterboarding is torture, torture is not constitutional."
Anyone conversant with the controversy - should agents of the US be allowed to torture suspects? - should know by now that waterboarding is simulated drowning, quite well represented in one of the recent Bourne movie dramas, as well as in the history of intelligence techniques. A White House spokesman suggested Judge Mukasey would not know what the technique was until he could read classified documents, which would not be possible until he was confirmed.
Is anyone hearing a signal in the noise here, about the kind of government the US is developing? The nominee does not know what we are talking about? Perhaps he would need to experience it himself to understand it well enough to form an opinion. His evasive response is a disturbing signal about the nature of transparency we might expect under his authority were he to be confirmed. 

Rule of Law

I did not arouse the national protest I imagined when I called for a citizen demonstration at noon on Columbus Day. This did not surprise me, for two reasons. Blogs are far less read and effective than bloggers like to believe, and I was asking for something rather large - for people who abhor torture and believe in the democratic rule of law to go outside and bang on a pot with a spoon or otherwise make noise to signal a call for the resignation of the Bush Administration.

Why? Because of disclosure that the administration and its Attorney General believed they had authority outside the law to torture terrorists as they see fit, contrary to law, the Geneva convention and Congressional rule.

Now Yale University Professor Jed Rubenfeld has eloquently pointed out why Judge Michael Mukasey, newly nominated by President Bush to be the next AG, and who just testified in Congress, should not be confirmed. Judge Mukasey testified that he believes the President can act outside of federal law "to defend the country."

Profesor Rubenfeld says Mukasey should either retract this statement or be denied the position by Congress.

I agree, and so would now like to invite those who believe, as Prof. Rubenfeld does, that the rule of law applying to everyone, including the President, lies at the very heart of the Constitution. The president has no supreme authority to do anything outside the law. For those of us who witnessed the decine and fall of President Richard Nixon, for abuse of executive privilege and flagrant disregard of federal law, this is an obvious point, and one the Congress must assert and defend.

Never mind the pot and pan this time. Just make your convictions felt. Is that so much to ask of a fellow citizen? Your Congressperson is just an email away.

The "Attack Iran?" Scenario

The page 1 photo in today's New York Times, showing the proximate profiles of Russia's Vladimir Putin and Iran's Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, is a bit chilling for what it may portend. They mutually declared that "any use of force" in the Caspian Sea region is unacceptable, which is reasonable enough, but consider the following context: Intelligence sources we rely on note growing evidence that "Ahmadinejad is making a grave miscalculation about the Bush administration's willingness to act militarily in its final year in office." These sources suggest that the recent Israeli bombing of nuclear facilities in Syria  "is indicative that the US/Israel are preparing for a military showdown with Iran in the coming months."
The NYT photo showing Putin and the Iranian president shoulder-to-shoulder may symbolize how a military exchange in the region might escalate beyond expected boundaries. Secretary of State Condaleeza Rice, who has favored diplomatic measures to deal with Iran, is now leaning toward Vice President Cheney, who with his Middle East adviser David Wurmser has been contemplating strategies to provoke a military showdown with Iran. War plans actually carried out are riddled with perverse unintended consequences, history shows. It is hard to come up with an exhaustive list of possibilities in this case, although $180-a-barrel oil is readily suggested in some analysis, with a global recession soon to follow, and maybe cells of terrorists released to do their damnedest.
Suffice to say that anyone who is not seriously thinking through the "Iran attacked" scenario is probably unprepared for what could well develop before the end of 2008.

Risk

Someone asked me recently, “How do you think about risk?”

Risk appetite and risk-taking are key elements in anyone's self-realization, or a company’s capacity to realize plans and objectives.   As in the case of an individual who may not know the extent of his or her own fear, the same is true of the enterprise.   It (the enterprise) may not know what it's afraid of.  Or it may not know that it's actually acting in fear.

I have seen this in corporations where someone took an initiative or made an investment that failed, was punished, and that knowledge cowed the future behavior of the enterprise because the story became known and people were afraid to suffer a similar fate. This has a high cost because the unwillingness to take risk is, in another form, the inability to learn.

When asked the question: How should I think about the future?  Well, ask something about intention.  What is it you want to accomplish?  Where do you think you are going? What's the destination - whether near, medium or far - and which of these should govern?  What's at risk?  How much personal or professional risk are you willing to take?  What are you willing to put “at risk?” Reputation? Status? Income? What resources can you bring to bear? 

You might also want to ask, what's the weather likely to be?  That's a scenario question at heart, part of informing the intuition where the future cannot be fully known or predicted.  That's not all of it. There are also the questions of what will the markets let you do?  What will your board let you do? 

In terms of The Captain’s Challenge, you have to know what you are willing to do with your ship, not just in terms of your intention but its capacities, human and otherwise. But the admiralty may have a view. And the ocean may be unkind, in all its indifference to your preferred outcome.

There's a lot of talk these days of “risk-adjusted returns,” which implies that people know enough to define returns in “risk-adjusted” terms.   If you chase that argument far enough up-stream, I think you find yourself with a model that claims to provide “the answer.” I am skeptical that models can “know” some of these answers, because I question whether they exist. Somebody with a proprietary trading model might be able to tell me that under certain circumstances, an outcome is predictable.  I think Nassim Taleb (author of The Black Swan) might say, "Yeah, it works until it doesn't."

ENOUGH!!

I am filled with outrage today over disclosure that the Bush administration through his Attorney General Gonzalez - forced out for political misbehavior - secretly approved the harshest torture techniques that could be conceived despite constitutional prohibitions and Supreme Court and Congressional disapproval.

I implore every conscientious person in the US (and the world) who disapproves of torture and believes in the Democratic rule of law to go outside in a public place at noon EST on Monday - Columbus Day - and make loud noises of protest. I personally favor a large kitchen pan and a metal spoon - or banging a powerful drum - but a car horn or an air horn would also do. Shouting "Bush should resign" is another option.

I believe Bush should have been impeached some time ago for so damaging the US stature in the world and flagrantly disrespecting the spirit and letter of the Constitution. I have not been  surprised by his behavior, having known him personally in a Phillips Academy dormitory we shared when he was 17. He was then a contemptuous, arrogant, mean-spirited and insecure teenager of limited gifts who took pleasure in the discomfort of others. And the man does not grow so far from the boy. That he grew

up to be US president was a source of astonishment to me but that he has become the worst president in US history is no surprise at all.

A widespread public demonstration calling for his resignation - and that of his officers and cabinet - would signal to the world that the US has neither lost its heart nor its mind. Bang the drum, not slowly, but loudly.

Enough is more than enough.