Questions arising from the report on the CIA Enhanced Interrogation program

The recent release of the Senate report on the activities of the CIA in the wake of 9-11 is very disturbing. But I'm disturbed for reasons tangentially related to the document itself - that people will excuse violations of law and human decency in the pursuit of vengeance and political cover.

It's been over 13 years since the Twin Towers and the Pentagon were attacked. Many people were in extreme fear, as mainland America had never suffered a terrorist attack of this scale, nor had it been in the front line of any major wars since 1865. I remember my downstairs neighbor having a sticker on his car announcing "Lake Afghanistan" - as if the way to eliminate our fears was to bomb this country off the face of the earth. Even I was caught up in this fear - and lost sight of what my core values were and should have been.

Shortly after the attacks, the CIA was charged with gathering information which the government could act on. And as the report shows, they were ramping up a mass scale intelligence gathering program without much knowledge of how to do so. In short, they were flying by the seats of their pants.

In most technology fields, we deal with a three legged stool: Cheap, Bug Free, On-Time - pick any two. We have to make trade offs to deliver products with an acceptable balance of these three factors. In intelligence gathering, they have another three legged stool: Quick Information, Large Amounts of Information, and Accurate Information. Torture can produce a lot of information quickly, but the quality leaves much to be desired - as both Israelis and Egyptians would tell you. Skilled interrogation (as used by the Israelis and other governments) produces a lot of accurate information, but it takes time. In short, there is a trade off that has to be made in intelligence gathering.

What I find interesting about the executive summary of the report just published is that we have learned how many records were preserved by the CIA, save the videotapes of the "enhanced interrogations." This is reminiscent of the detailed records kept by a major Central European power in the 1930's and 1940's. The key difference here, is that in the USA, our CIA acted to hide information from both elected branches of government. In fact, one of the documents mention that if Colin Powell (then Secretary of State) hears about this, he'd be livid. Even worse, the CIA kept information from the then President himself!  Only the Senate and House intelligence committees had knowledge of the activities in question.

Ronald Reagan's signing statement on the ratification of the UN Convention on Torture states:

The core provisions of the Convention establish a regime for international cooperation in the criminal prosecution of torturers relying on so-called ‘universal jurisdiction.’ Each State Party is required either to prosecute torturers who are found in its territory or to extradite them to other countries for prosecution.” 

Therefore, waterboarding and other "enhanced interrogation activities" are likely to be considered torture by the treaties we've signed.  Where is the outrage that our House and Senate oversight committees looked the other way while our laws were being violated? Are we a government of law, or that of expediency? This is a very important question.

Shortly after the executive summary of the Senate report was issued, I had a conversation with a gentleman I see regularly. And he parroted the view of the Republican rebuttal, as well as saying that this report should never be made public. He feels that whatever we do to others can be justified in the name of protecting Americans - even if it means breaking laws, then covering up the lawbreaking. I feel that we are a nation of laws, and sometimes it means that we suffer so that the powers of government are kept in check.

The big questions here that bother me very much are: Can we afford to allow a government act illegally, and then cover things up in the name of protecting Americans? Where is the point where allowing a government to act illegally harms Americans more than protects them? I have serious concerns in regard to religious obedience to law, as I know that some problems can not be resolved within the rule of law. On the other hand, how much freedom can we afford to give a government agency which seems to have gone rogue in the performance of its duty? I only wish I had good answers....

Obamacare / ACA

I'm torn between the idea of surrendering more liberties to the central government, and the idea that freeloaders in the healthcare marketplace are responsible for the price distortions that help make healthcare unaffordable to 20% of our population. In many other countries, they see healthcare as a right. (I'm not saying whether it should be a right.) The idea that all citizens deserve high quality healthcare as a matter of right indicates that those countries value social cohesion more than individual freedom compared with the USA. In Canada, it is one area of government which treats both rich and poor the same way - a tool for putting the rich in the same boat as the less privileged.  America may have something to learn from its Northern neighbor - if it is lucky enough to learn some humility.

With that being said, one of the signs of a good law is that people on both sides of the aisle are unhappy with the law. In the case of ACA/Obamacare, the left said we didn't go far enough towards a single payer system. Where the right said we went way too far in telling individuals that they must participate in a specific market place. Using this criteria, ACA/Obamacare has the potential of being considered a great move forward if it survives the test of time. So, what do we make of Thursday's decision? If we ignore the rhetoric from both sides, we can see the ideas behind the law from a historical perspective. Most of the ideas behind ACA/Obamacare were developed by the GOP from the days of Richard Nixon. Romney implemented the model for ACA/Obamacare in Massachusetts when he was governor. Most people in that state are very glad the law exists. The odds are, that as people become familiar with the benefits of ACA/Obamacare, they will grow to like it. But if they don't, they will be free to throw it out - especially with a GOP in ascendency across the nation. 

Before the ruling, I was telling people NOT to make any assumptions in regard to how SCOTUS would rule. This ruling neither legitimizes nor delegitimizes the authority of the court. It simply is an exercise of the power of that court as a co-equal branch of government. I had a feeling that a conservative court would be very hard pressed to overturn a president's major legislative effort when both sides of the argument said that government had the power to pass ACA/Obamacare into law based on the government's taxation powers. That ended up being the salient point that Justice Roberts focused on, and his way of saying that he will evaluate cases first based on his interpretation of the merits of a case (with the bias of a conservative justice), and not the politics behind it.

I'm still wondering if the GOP wins, whether they will fulfill their promises to repeal Obamacare / ACA.  If they do, they'd better have something better with which to replace this law, or we'll be in trouble.  This would be the first time that the political system not just cuts off its nose to spite its face, but it will show the political system as not caring one bit about the American pledge to help people in need....  We're starting to see America's social cohesion decay.  And once we lost it, we'll be no better than most other countries on this globe....

Lies, Damn Lies, and Statistics

It's a damned shame that reason doesn't play a bigger part of political life.

As much as I call myself a centrist, I've gotten disgusted at the GOP. America has long needed a means to provide adequate healthcare access for the 20% of our citizens who do not get subsidized access from either the corporate world or the government. And when the Federal government has used a model enacted by a Republican governor, that same (now) ex-governor is repudiating support of what should be his greatest achievement. When asked about how the (not by choice) uninsured would get health insurance, he issued a polemic about being responsible.....

A big problem with America's health care "system" is that the uninsured are guaranteed treatment regardless of ability to pay once they reach most hospitals. This does not jive well with a supposedly market based system advocated by the GOP, because of the cost shifting that inevitably takes place. One either has to turn away people who can't pay for care, or recognize that health care is too important an issue to be left to market based solutions. Some might say - there's enough charity care to go around. That's not the case. Hospitals also negotiate deals with insurance companies which call for the lowest possible rates being charged to their covered beneficiaries. If 80-90% of the public is covered by HMOs or other insurance structures, that leaves the remaining 10% or people to cover the uninsured via excessive rates for services provided by a hospital. This is not right....

When people are polled - do they support "Obamacare"? most say NO. But, when you ask the same people about the individual provisions of the same law (without mentioning it is "Obamacare"), the same people support most of the individual provisions. So what does this mean? To me, these people are siding with their "tribe", accepting the lies being told by cynical leaders. Yet, there is some truth to the criticisms of the law - the most important being that this is only the second law in American history which compels a person to participate in the purchase of a good. (The first was enacted in early American Constitutional times, requiring all citizens to purchase a firearm and ammunition for purposed of establishing a well regulated militia. This is a law I could support even now, with some minor exceptions.) Do we want to require people to buy a good they don't want?

Sadly, what existed before 2010 was worse than nothing. When one has hundreds of people waiting on line for free health care (provided pro bono) at health care clinics because they can't afford it otherwise, we have serious problems. This is not a third world country. But we're treating a growing segment of our population as if we were in the third world. Obama's law does not socialize medicine, as many in the GOP claim. In fact, one of my friends keeps spouting the GOP party line that we'll lose our right to choose our own doctors if this law is allowed to continue. Has anyone experienced this? I haven't so far..... But I'm afraid that if the law is repealed by the courts, that some future administration will force in single payer insurance and truly socialize healthcare in this country - a very possible situation which may be forced by a desperate public.

In short, there is an underlying tension between individual rights, society's rights to insure that there are no freeloaders for social benefits, and our basic human nature to help people in need. How should we best answer this challenge? Should we let politics continue to get in the way of finding an optimal solution which reflects the medical and social needs of America?

Memorial Day

Ok - it's been forever since I last blogged, but I have been very busy as of late. Working in Lower Manhattan takes much of the energy out of me, and by the time I get home, all I want to do is veg out and do something mindless. And with this being said, I feel that it is close to a miracle that I may finally be completing my Masters degree program....

No matter how long I stay with my firm, I'll always feel that the Sword of Damocles is hanging over my head. Ten years ago, I was in a situation where my career almost ended prematurely. After dealing with that situation, we sold off a line of business which resulted in a good number of my coworkers being laid off. Surviving that round of layoffs, we were then told that we were merging with another firm - and the risk of layoffs opened again. About a year and a half later, my whole area was told it was being laid off. And I was one of six survivors of that purge - due to a little bit of luck, and the general need of the business. So now, when there is a vendor looking to obsolete the system I maintain (with two others), I start saying - "Not Again! I'm tired of living with this threat...."

Somewhere, I read that the ratio of working Americans to the overall population is at an all time low. I wonder how long this trend can last before society collapses. Businesses will survive by moving jobs to new markets and then by serving new markets. But what happens to those left behind? If seeing the abandoned factory sites in much of America is any indication, we'll likely have quite a few people unable to pull themselves up by the bootstraps, and have many former middle class people on breadlines....

How can we stop this decline? First, we as individuals, as communities, and as a nation must figure out how to live within our diminished means very quickly - or there will be nothing left for our children and grandchildren. The big question is - are we ready to deal honestly with this reality?

The new year and a resumption of blogging

I've been very busy as of late. In September, I moved to a new work location and had less time to do the things I enjoy. So, it's back to blogging - and I hope I find the time for this while dealing with both a long commute and the resumption of classes....

Lately, I've been thinking of the perceived tension between social cohesion and economic efficiency. Most people have seen this as an issue of distribution of wealth - 10% of the population has 90% of its wealth. They look at this issue and ask - how do we more rationally distribute wealth in society -or- how do we maximize the creation of wealth? I look at this issue differently. I see situations where we can have complete economic equality but no economic growth, and situations where we've maximized growth but have few people holding an extreme amount of wealth - recreating the feudal system of the middle ages. No one is talking about a "Sweet Spot" where the balance between economic efficiency and social cohesion maximizes the common wealth in society.

After WW2, America had 50% of the world's manufacturing capacity - a state which was not able to be maintained for the long term. But we had a flawed economic view - we expected businesses to take care of social welfare, while government did little to regulate the economy. As the economy became global, businesses had less incentive to invest in the American worker, yet our laws and regulations assumed that business could continue to follow the implied social contract of 1950. This was a recipe for disaster.

In the early 1960's, the failure of the Studebaker corporation showed us how risky company pensions were when companies went bankrupt. So we changed our laws to make sure that pensions were guaranteed by the federal government. However, we didn't change who held the investment risk for those pensions. As a result, more companies either disbanded the pension plans, or changed them into 401k plans with corporate contributions. Sadly, these realities never were reflected in the plans offered to public workers. These plans still gave their participants defined benefits for a given number of service years - leaving communities to shoulder investment risks. And when yields are low, as they are now, this forces many communities to make a hard choice - pay retirees, or pay for new employees to keep services running.

So, where does this leave us? Recently, I've been advocating that states go into prepackaged bankruptcies, so that they can renegotiate all of their union contracts and pay off all of their bonds 100 cents on the dollar. Pension liabilities would go to the federal government's Pension Fund Guarantee Board, where a maximum of $43k/year could be paid to any recipient. Yes, many retirees who get exorbitant retirement benefits would get hurt - but it might just save the states' ability to provide needed services (such as education, police, fire, etc.)for current and future generations. However, if this is done, we need to repeal the 11th amendment to the US constitution, so that people can sue the states in federal court - as we need some federal oversight in the process for when states break their contracts with the unions, and when the states break federal laws that are means to protect the rights of US citizens....

In short, to solve an important problem, we need to eliminate the idea of State Sovereignty. No longer can the sovereign be immune from court action. This is a major change in legal principle - but it is one which is long over due.

Random Thoughts

OK - It's been a month since I last blogged, and I'm bothered by what I am seeing in America. No, I'm not going to talk about issues such as abortion, "gay marriage", or the war in the Mideast. But I will discuss something important to me - America's lack of seriousness about preparing for its future.

Years ago, we had an elite that practiced a form of chivalry. Couple this with "the Protestant Work Ethic", and America had a recipe for success. The elite considered itself fortunate to be in its position, and didn't try to extract the last penny of wealth from the less fortunate. Today, many in our elite feel that they have no responsibility to those less fortunate than themselves - they extract every penny of wealth and expect that the golden goose will keep laying eggs.

America has made a big mistake. We have pursued the mantra that cheaper is better. So we cut costs by using cheaper labor - and quality suffers. Over time, we no longer have the money to buy slightly lesser cost goods with lower quality, as workers can not amortize the expense of a good education. Does this make sense? Trying to remove all the slack from the system has made us all poorer in one way or another.

We are moving into an age where knowledge workers won't just be those who manipulate abstract ideas. But it will include those workers who know how to design physical processes, and the products that result from those processes. And yet, we do an extremely poor job of educating those future workers because we assume that we can fix our schools in isolation from the rest of society's ills.

Take a disadvantaged family (either from a rural area or an urban area) and you'll find people who often have poor communications skills, poor education, poor social skills and behavior, and are barely one step ahead of the creditors (if they are that lucky). How can we expect to educate the children from these communities if we don't take care of the problems affecting the family?

Should government be the employer of last resort? Progressives will answer YES, while conservatives answer NO. But, when businesses ask the government for help, shouldn't that help come with strings attached? Why should we have bailed out the banks, unless they could find work for a given number of unemployed people?

What about health care? If we want to get the government out of mandating health care insurance, shouldn't we relieve the hospitals of the responsibility of providing emergency care to the indigent? This would provide the market force check and balance to hospital prices that conservatives claim they want. If we consider health care as a right, shouldn't we make this a government function - and go further than Obamacare has done? Let's have an honest discussion of these issues, and stop shouting partisan rhetoric which drowns out serious talk.

Of course, we have an extreme debt problem in both state and federal governments. I expect to see the states (most of them) go bankrupt in all but name, and be bailed out by Uncle Sam. But will the federal government take to the printing press? I hope not. But when the public is polled, they refuse to allow defense or social welfare (including social security and medicare) to be cut. Does it make sense to cut grandpa's blood pressure medication to allow your daughter to live life without paying the debts of two or three generations of deadbeats? Does it make sense to cut G.I. Joe's ammunition ration, and have him come home in a body bag? Of course not! But what do we do? Again, we need honest communication which is not happening.

So it's no wonder why the Tea Party movement is gaining in popularity. But they do not have enough focus to get things to change. They need real solutions, not rhetoric. Give me examples of social spending changes and defense budget changes they propose before we take them seriously. Yet, the Tea Party movement is valuable simply because it upsets the apple cart of politics. The thought of them winning brings an old Wile E. Cyote/Roadrunner cartton to mind - where Wile E. catches the Roadrunner. Below the scene (where Wile E. is holding the Roadrunner's leg) is the statement: "You've always wanted this. Now, what do we do?????"

Mosques

It's been about a month, and not much is going on - save a tempest in a teapot.

I'm concerned about how people are willing to sacrifice the 1st Amendment to the constitution at the altar of propriety. Do Muslims have the same rights as Christians and Jews to worship as they please? Our constitution says YES. But people are associating Islam with the attacks of 9/11. Is this right? NO. Yet it is happening anyway.

I'll admit to a prejudice against Arab culture. But that bias has been shared among many great Americans - George S. Patton for one. This allows us to separate our feelings about Arabs from the religion most practice. Americans often do not realize that a sizable number of Muslims are not Arab and do not see the world as severely as Arabs. Yet, we're tainting these peaceful Muslims who want to build a Mosque in Lower Manhattan with the same stain that we are using against Arabs. This is not right - people should always be judged as individuals - even if they belong to groups with whom we are not at ease....

So what do we do? I choose to live by the principle of our law - even if I am not happy with one of the results of that law. And I hope that more people choose to do so. I'd prefer that the mosque be built elsewhere - but there are many other problems with which I am more concerned....