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Today I was directed to read an article by Stephanie Mencimer of The Washington Monthly called The Baby Boycott (published in June of 2001).  Her thesis was that the desire of conservative Republicans to make it harder for women to work and raise children has engendered a “Baby Boycott” wherein hard working mothers have chosen to not have families (or delayed them).  While Ms. Mencimer raises some good points about social engineering and the changing culture of the US that sees a decline in the worth of the Mother in general and the Stay-at-Home Mothers in particular she ignores many underlying reasons for the continued decline in birthrates in the US.

Where does Ms Mencimer fail in her arguments?  First off she ignores the continued fall in birthrates in the US since the beginning of the 20th Century.  In short the US birthrate been cut in half since about 100 years ago.  Looking at the chart of birthrates we see a couple of trends from these graphics.

The first trend is that the overall number of births is higher today then it was at the beginning of the century while the rate is only half that of the turn of the twentieth century.  Obviously a much larger population explains that.  Still we see birth rates drop dramatically during the Great Depression and then they rise and stay relatively high just following World War II.  Then they start to drop off in the mid 60s before a small resurgence in the 80s that leads to another dip in the late 90s.

So, why ignore this statistical data?  Ms. Mencimer does at least go back to 1976 (the post WWII low of birthrates and 25 years in the past) to point out the following…

Between 1976 and 1998, the number of women between the ages of 40 and 44 who were childless doubled. Now, 20 percent of baby boomer women are childless and likely to remain so, and demographers predict that as much as a quarter of American women born between 1956 and 1972 will never have children. The numbers go up with education and income levels; fully one-third of women in their late 30’s with graduate degrees have no children. Meanwhile, the number of women with only one child has doubled since 1976, to 18 percent, and the Brady Bunch has gone on the endangered species list. In 1976, a whopping 36 percent of all women had a brood of four or more kids. Today, that number has shrunk to less than 10 percent, according to U.S. Census data.

Disregarding the obvious disparaging tone reserved for the “brood” of four or more, Ms. Mencimer tells us in this passage that the number of women who are childless is rising and get higher with more education and income.  She also tells us that family size is decreasing.  How much of that is, as she would like us to believe, a product of a conservative conspiracy to keep women at home?  It might be one factor, but economic, scientific, and social trends have a great deal more to do with it.

Look at the plummeting birth rate in the 30s during the Great Depression.  In this time birth rates and live births plummeted due to famine, lack of economic opportunity, and lack of good medical care.  Remember also that in 1910 the number of children that lived to adulthood was much lower then it was post WWII.  In the times of prosperity following WWII the birth rate increased as did the number of births until the 60s.  The 60s saw the invention of the pill and suddenly easy, cheap contraception was available to the masses.  The effects of this availability, the passage of Roe v Wade, and the recessions of the 70s, are easy to see in the plunge to births and birth rates in that time frame.  Eventually society adapted to the pill and the birth rate started to climb again.  Then we start to see the gradual (by earlier standards) decline in the birth rates (but not in the live births) in the late 90s.  Is this the dastardly conservatives doing?  Are women now eschewing families because it is too hard to work and raise a family, or is it merely a choice that they are making to delay or avoid having a family.  Ms Mencimer dismisses that theory

But the idea that mass childlessness is the product of a “lifestyle choice” or a political movement defies common sense. We are, after all, highly evolved primates. Reproductive instincts are hard wired in our brains, and historically, only events of serious magnitude—wars, depressions, famine, and seismic shifts in the economic system, such as the industrial revolution—have caused large numbers of women to forgo having children. When resources are scarce, and when they don’t have much help, women will postpone motherhood. And despite the romantic myth of the self-sacrificing mother, if given the option, most women will choose to advance their own position before bearing more children. That’s because in the long run, a woman’s improved status benefits her children. It’s a pattern replicated all over the natural world, and has been for thousands of years.

It is here that Ms Mencimer and I seriously depart ways (well the brood comment was uncalled for as well).  To float the concept that resource scarcity if the reason behind the lack of children being born is idiotic.  You see the US, as a country, is insanely rich in almost every manner.  What we consider poverty is incredible wealth in almost every other country in the world.  What is wrong is our perception of what wealth really is.  Do we all need two cars?  Do we need as many clothes as we currently own?  Do we need to eat as much as we do?  Do we need to eat the type of expensive food that we eat?  Do we need computers, cell phones, broadband, cable, NFL Sunday Ticket, DVR’s, $150 tickets to sporting events, $50 haircuts, male highlights, or any of a number of “essential” items in our consumer driven culture.  That is what makes us think that we are struggling financially when in fact we are extremely wealthy.  Its a matter of perception and the perception that we are poor (created by our culture) is making people think that they need to have fewer children.

dbroussa Uncategorized

This weekend the New York Times published some key findings from the National Intelligence Estimate from April of 2006.  This was a classified document that was leaked to the press and published a story entitled Spy Agencies Say Iraq War Worsens Terrorism Threat (subscription required).

The intelligence estimate, completed in April, is the first formal appraisal of global terrorism by United States intelligence agencies since the Iraq war began, and represents a consensus view of the 16 disparate spy services inside government. Titled “Trends in Global Terrorism: Implications for the United States,’’ it asserts that Islamic radicalism, rather than being in retreat, has metastasized and spread across the globe.

An opening section of the report, “Indicators of the Spread of the Global Jihadist Movement,” cites the Iraq war as a reason for the diffusion of jihad ideology.

The report “says that the Iraq war has made the overall terrorism problem worse,” said one American intelligence official.

Putting aside the leak of the classified report to the New York Times, the article is fairly plain that the report makes two assumptions.  First that Islamic radicalism is a greater threat now then before (though the before is somewhat vague).  The second is that the war in Iraq is the primary cause of the growth in Islamic radicalism.  Of course without seeing the NIE we have only the word of the reporter and his unnamed sources to go upon.  That is until President Bush directed John Negroponte to declassify the key findings summary of the NIE.

Its only four pages and a quick read.  You can read it at the government site http://www.dni.gov/press_releases/Declassified_NIE…

Just to contrast though with the start of the New York Time article however, here is the opening paragraph of the NIE key findings.

United States-led counterterrorism efforts have seriously damaged the leadership of al-Qa’ida and disrupted its operations; however, we judge that al-Qa’ida will continue to pose the greatest threat to the Homeland and US interests abroad by a single terrorist organization. We also assess that the global jihadist movement—which includes al-Qa’ida, affiliated and independent terrorist groups, and emerging networks and cells—is spreading and adapting to counterterrorism efforts.

That is quite a contrast from what the NYT portrayed the report to state.  Granted that the key findings do state:

We assess that the Iraq jihad is shaping a new generation of terrorist leaders and operatives; perceived jihadist success there would inspire more fighters to continue the struggle elsewhere.

But at the same time it also states the following:

Four underlying factors are fueling the spread of the jihadist movement: (1) Entrenched grievances, such as corruption, injustice, and fear of Western domination, leading to anger, humiliation, and a sense of powerlessness; (2) the Iraq “jihad;” (3) the slow pace of real and sustained economic, social, and political reforms in many Muslim majority nations; and (4) pervasive anti-US sentiment among most Muslims—all of which jihadists exploit.

and then this as well:

If democratic reform efforts in Muslim majority nations progress over the next five years, political participation probably would drive a wedge between intransigent extremists and groups willing to use the political process to achieve their local objectives. Nonetheless, attendant reforms and potentially destabilizing transitions will create new opportunities for jihadists to exploit.

So while the New York Times is telling its readers that the Iraq War is causing jihadists to be created in droves and quotes an anonymous government official saying that the Iraq War has made the overall problem of terrorism worse, it fails to bring forth most of the key findings that undermine their goal.  In short their “news article” is not news but opinion masquerading as news, and in the worst way it is unverifiable because the NIE was classified and only the New York Times reporter had seen a copy.  Thus what they chose to reveal to us was all that we would ever get.  Until the DNI released the full set of key findings we would have thought that the NIE only painted a picture of doom and gloom where it was apparent that had we just not gone into Iraq then the war on global terror might already be won!  Thankfully we see that the report does not do that at all.  Read it for yourself and draw your own conclusions.  Most likely if you supported the war in Iraq before you still will, and if you opposed it you still will.  But at least you will have a fuller picture then what the New York Times was planning for you to have.

dbroussa Uncategorized

When I was a kid I used to listen to Bill Cosby albums.  One of my favorite routines was his one about how history would have been different if we used coin flips at the start of wars.  One example he gave was the start of the Revolutionary War with General Washington and General Cornwallis (yes, I know it wasn’t Cornwallis at the start, but that was who Cosby used) doing the coin toss.  Washington wins and he says that the British have to wear red coats and march in straight lines while his forces would hide behind rocks and trees and shoot at them.

I was reminded of this genuinely hilarious routine when I was reading an article today by Andrew McCarthy about President Bush’s call to Congress to enact legislation to authorize the military tribunals for detainees in the War on Terror.  Currently in the GOP there are three Senators that are slowing down the process of getting this legislation passed.  They are Senator McCain (R-AZ), Senator Graham (R-SC) and Senator Warner (R-VA).  Much is made of Senator McCain’s time spent in the Hanoi Hilton, and he is a great hero for the trials and tribulations that he endured.  His desire to see the US constantly take the high moral ground is also commendable (of course his definition of high moral ground and other is debatable).  But why are these three slowing down the creation of the military tribunals?

In the recent Hamdan v Rumsfeld Supreme Court Decision the majority opinion declared that the current tribunals used by the US government to determine the status of detainees was not allowed by the AUMF that Congress had passed in 2001.  However in a concurring opinion Justice Kennedy noted that if Congress did pass legislation about the tribunals that they would then be authorized. 

This is not a case, then, where the Executive can assert some unilateral authority to fill a void left by congressional inaction. It is a case where Congress, in the proper exercise of its powers as an independent branch of government, and as part of along tradition of legislative involvement in matters of military justice, has considered the subject of military tribunals and set limits on the President’s authority. (Hamdan v Rumsfeld p 83)

Thus President Bush has recently asked Congress for this legislation and it is stalled (mostly due to the actions of the Democrats, but partially due to the actions of the three Senators mentioned above).  In looking over the way the commissions would work the detainees would get a good amount of rights in the trial phase, but the President’s legislation lays out some crucial points.  First it requests that the Congress define in explicit terms what the vague terms of Common Article 3 of the Geneva Conventions requires.  This is needed mostly to delineate what would be considered cruel treatment, outrages upon personal dignity, and humiliating or degrading treatment.  It seems that this would be easy to define, but in reality it is not.  What is an outrage on personal dignity for instance?  Does it make sense then for Congress to make sure that there are some decent guidelines that define those terms?  In the past, the Executive Branch would have interpreted how those would be implemented and that would have been the end of it.  Then again the Executive Branch looked at Common Article 3 and said that the phrase

In the case of armed conflict not of an international character occurring in the territory of one of the High Contracting Parties, each Party to the conflict shall be bound to apply, as a minimum, the following provisions: (emphasis added)

should not apply to Al Qaeda terrorists because the conflict was definitely of an international nature (the purpose of Common Article 3 was the protection of forces in a civil war or other internal conflict).  However the Supreme Court in a case that they arguable should not have heard at all made one of the most blatantly political decisions of the Robert’s court and applied Common Article 3 to the people we have captured in the War on Terror.

So, with the Supreme Court’s creative interpretation of the law as a guide…President Bush has requested that Congress be much more explicit with the authorization of courts to try the detainees and to ensure that the members of the CIA and the military that are charged with interrogating and incarcerating these men are not tried either in the US or in a Foreign court for violations of Common Article 3.  Part of this language is the provision that the individuals who have been holding and questioning the detainees not be prosecuted in the future for actions that they were told were legal (and which were reasonably thought to be legal).

So, why do these three Senators oppose this legislation?  I heard Senator Graham on the radio a few days ago and his reasons were weak at best.  He first said that by adhering to higher ethical standards we protect our troops from reprisals.  This is a mistaken assumption.  One can point first to World War II where a Geneva Convention signatory (Japan) treated out soldiers with contempt and derision leading to the death of many of them in captivity.  Another Geneva Convention signatory (Germany) treated our soldiers with respect, but used Soviet prisoners as slave labor (leading to the death of 97% of the Soviet POWs) in clear violations of the Geneva Conventions.  One can also look at more recent history of two of our soldiers who were captured in Iraq and tortured to death to see that our adherence to the Geneva Conventions does not serve to protect us from reprisals or poor treatment.  This incidentally does not mean that we should not adhere to the Conventions.  We should because it is the right thing to do.  We should because we can afford to do so.  And lastly we should because we are the shining example of how to do things for the rest of the world.

Next Senator Graham said that in future wars our situation would be jeopardized if we chose to ignore the Conventions here.  This is also a poor reason.  If we fight another war against a GC signatory nation then we would expect them to adhere to the standards of conduct of a signatory nation and we would do the same.  Our treatment of illegal combatants in this conflict would have no bearing on our treatment of prisoners in a future conflict.  The best example of this would be our treatment of POWs from the Iraqi invasion.  They were legal combatants and thus were accorded the full respect of POWs by our forces and treated as such.  The legal status of the insurgents who fight us now in Iraq should fall under Common Article 3 as they are combatants in a non-international conflict (though a counter to this is their lack of uniforms and disregard for civilians which could cause them to fall into the illegal combatants category).

Lastly Senator Graham said that this is a complex issue that deserves much consideration and reflection to get it right.  That is utter crap.  Since SCOTUS has decided that these individuals are entitled to CA3 protections, then they will have to afforded them (unless SCOTUS reverses itself).  If they are entitled to the protections, then Congress has a duty to clearly delineate what an outrage on personal dignity really is.  They also have a duty to re-authorize the commissions to try the detainees quickly.  What exactly is Senator Graham balking at codifying?  Is it the definitions?  Is if the commissions?  Is it the legislation that protects the interrogators and jailers from future prosecution?  What is complex about the issue?  From my view the only complex issue is that Senator’s Graham and McCain can get a lot more face time in front of the media and appear to oppose the President on an issue that few American’s really understand.  The sound bites of opposition to torture make great news…but are far from the reality.

So, we march along in our lines of red while our enemies hide behind rocks and tress and shoot at us.  It didn’t work for England in 1776, and it won’t work for us now either.

dbroussa Uncategorized