SeacoastonlineEric Kelsey and Sarah Marcoux
Editor's note: Eric Kelsey is a doctoral candidate at the University of New Hampshire in natural resources and earth systems science. Sarah Marcoux is a senior at UNH majoring in French studies. Both have been involved in climate change work on campus through UNH PIRG and students for clean energy.
Global warming is a crisis unlike any other in the history of humankind. It poses a serious and universal threat to our environment and the quality of life of our children and future generations.
Following the recent elections of Carol Shea-Porter and Paul Hodes to the U.S. House of Representatives, we write to remind our newly elected officials, our trusted senators and all citizens about the dangers of global warming for our state. We encourage Shea-Porter and Hodes, and Sens. Judd Gregg and John Sununu to support cuts in global warming pollution 20 percent by 2020, and by 80 percent by 2050 -- reductions scientists say are necessary to avoid the worst effects of global warming.
Last year was the warmest year on record globally. The rise of greenhouse gases (e.g., carbon dioxide) in the atmosphere causes the average temperature of the Earth to increase. The most destructive action is burning fossil fuels to power vehicles, heat homes, generating electricity that is delivered to our homes and to run factories. Another major contributor is the cutting of trees and other plants, especially the vast stretches of clear-cutting that occurs when housing developments and huge shopping centers are built. Trees store a large amount of carbon dioxide, and when cut down they release the carbon dioxide into the atmosphere.
Scientists agree that major undesirable changes in ecosystems have begun to occur. Plants and animals unable to adapt to the warmer climate have become extinct. Land-based ice in Antarctica and Greenland is melting faster than predicted, causing sea levels worldwide to rise and driving entire coastal communities to relocate inland. Polar bears could be next. Ice caps are shrinking, forcing them to swim farther to find ice and food. Many have drowned and, even worse, scientists have discovered polar bears eating other females and their cubs.
Here in New England, our nationally renowned brilliant fall foliage will become dull if warming continues, causing fewer tourists, which greatly hurts the local economy. Similarly, less snow for skiing will cripple the multimillion-dollar ski industry. New England's winter temperature has increased by 4.4 degrees already with an average of two weeks less snow on the ground, and effects are being felt already.
The great benefits of reducing your personal impact on global warming are clear: you save money while using less energy and reducing pollution -- a win-win-win! Here are several ways in which you can help reduce your impact on global warming:
Replace incandescent light bulbs with compact florescent light bulbs (CFLs), which use less than a quarter of the energy and cost to use. Buy locally made products and food. Transporting goods from overseas and other parts of the country burns enormous amounts of fuel. Plus, more money stays in New Hampshire's economy, which improves our way of life tremendously. Reduce, reuse, recycle: Reduce the items you buy. Reuse anything that can be fixed before buying a new one. Recycle anything that you have to throw away. Significant amounts of fossil fuels are burned to make and deliver all of the food and products we buy.Most importantly, the effort required is collective. It's not enough to only make these individual choices to buy hybrid cars or turn down the air conditioning, although that will clearly help. Stopping global warming must become a national priority. Urge your local and state representatives to support reducing global-warming pollution nationwide.
As a nation, we can help stave off the biggest environmental threat of the 21st century, break our reliance on fossil fuels, enhance our long-term economic and national security, and once again lead the world as a positive force for environmental change.
Dealing with Iran's bully leader
Editor's note: David Broder is not writing this week.
In life, an obstreperous child requires attention, whether that comes in the form of punishment, constructive engagement or the usually pointless belief that the offensive behavior will correct itself.
On the global stage, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is such a creature. Relatively new to his position, insecure despite his bravado, worried about the fate of the tired revolution that spawned him, mindful of widespread public dissatisfaction in Iran and eager to gain recognition from any direction, he tries one antic after another.
His latest display of ludicrous oddity, the recent conference in Tehran that I will not dignify with its official name, was nothing more than a gathering of Holocaust-deniers who celebrated incivility, irresponsibility and ignorance.
To some critics, Ahmadinejad's shameless bid to assemble such a hate-fest provided yet another reason to shun him and his regime.
To others, it was an opportunity for a much-bigger assembly -- the community of civilized nations -- to set the record straight. Fortunately, many loudly did.
To still others, it was the last straw, a blatant invitation to rid the world of Ahmadinejad and his cronies by any means. I would like nothing better than for him to realize such a fate -- but at the hands of the long-suffering Iranians, not as a result of a foreign military intervention.
It was at best hypocritical for Ahmadinejad to have talked about freedom of expression at the Holocaust-deniers' ball.
Under his rule, Iran has witnessed eroding political and civil liberties. Ahmadinejad's own election stands as a monument to corruption, manipulation and anti-democratic practices.
At present, it is essentially impossible for Iranians to change their government democratically.
Even the prospect of a people-power-driven regime change that appeared so promising a few years ago has diminished. Iranian hard-liners are marching in lockstep today, appearing more fearsome than ever.
Where they fail to intimidate, they stir up nationalistic impulses to strengthen their position, even if that means venturing out on a dangerous, nuclear-weapons-research limb, or resorting to revisionist history.
Still, the gimmicks fail to fool most Iranians.
They may be willing to indulge their president's public tantrums for now, but his behavior does not enhance the average person's prospects, economic or otherwise.
I remain convinced that the Iranians eventually will rise against him.
As that possibility marinates, the United States and its allies should proceed with a combination of forcefulness and diplomacy.
Tehran knows that the global community cannot allow it to pursue nuclear-research programs without transparency.
Perhaps Ahmadinejad will push the discussion to the brink, as is his predisposition, then agree to full international inspections.
If not, there will be no choice except to impose the sanctions that Iran decries.
A bit of punishment might nudge the truculent Ahmadinejad toward playing nicer.
How would sanctions resonate in the context of the Iraq Study Group's recommendation to reach out to Iran and others to assist in stabilizing Iraq as part of a comprehensive fix for the Middle East?
At first glance, not at all. But, recalling Ahmadinejad's desire for any kind of attention, he could conceivably separate the nuclear and stabilization discussions and find the latter intriguing.
Although he personally would obtain some short-term benefits, the broader significance for the Iranian people would be that the world wishes to engage them -- despite their president.
There is no point in hoping that Ahmadinejad's disruptive ways will disappear.
But a combination of constructive engagement and appropriate punishment might prove useful in tempering his actions -- at least until Iranians muster the will to end his ugly romp with a permanent time-out.
John C. Bersia, who won a Pulitzer Prize in editorial writing for the Orlando Sentinel in 2000, is also the special assistant to the president for global perspectives and a professor at the University of Central Florida.
'Bring male rape into 21st century"™
Editor's note: Molly Ivins is not writing this week.
"None," the police officer in charge reported to my student.
That was the answer to how many instances of rape of males and boys had been reported in the city (it happened to be Boston, where I was teaching at the time) in the previous year.
My student was incredulous. He knew of more than one. None was simply not a plausible answer.
What was going on?
I have been working in the rape crisis field for more than 20 years. I was one of the first clients of the Boston Area Rape Crisis Center, in its earliest days, more than 30 years ago. This is my passion, or one of them.
And yet, in all these years spent traveling across the country speaking to groups about rape, writing books and law review articles aimed at legal reform and, most recently, training lawyers and other professionals to work with rape victims, I have spent my time almost exclusively in the company of women, helping women. Once, in San Diego, I met a man who worked for the treatment center focusing on male victims, most of whom were afraid to report, afraid they'd be treated like "fags" by the police (even though some were straight), too humiliated even to tell him what had happened. Can you blame them?
We need more men on our team. We need to bring male rape into the 21st century. None was never the true answer. It certainly isn't today. What none means is that serious criminals are getting away with rape, and boys and men are suffering the stigma of shame along with the pain and anguish of brutalization. And they still are.
In Houston, police announced recently that they are working to find the man responsible for the rapes of at least five teenagers since mid-September. I say at least, as did the police, because they believe there may well be more victims who are simply too ashamed to come forward.
The attacker's pattern is eerily familiar. He has been described as a man who appears to be somewhere between 18 and 21. His victims have all been young men in their late teens. "I think he just sees one that he prefers, and then he begins to follow them and gather information, finding out where they live and watching their house," Lt. Richard Whitaker of Baytown speculated. His modus operandi is simple: He attacks at gunpoint, robs them and rapes them, usually in or near their homes. Investigators believe that, notwithstanding the robberies, rape is the motive.
Male rape in the 21st century resembles nothing so much as female rape in the 19th and early- to mid-20th centuries. Men are afraid to come forward for many of the same reasons women were (and some still are) -- fear they would be blamed for their victimization; that their sexuality would be the issue, not the defendant's wrongdoing; that they would never escape the stigma, no matter how blameless they were.
Boys need to be taught that it isn't their fault if a man with a gun (or even without one) rapes you. They need to be taught that it doesn't matter whether you're gay or straight: No one has the right to force sex. This is a crime of violence, not sex. They need men -- in police departments, hospitals and district attorney's offices -- with the training and expertise to deal sensitively with the physical and emotional issues involved in order to win the victim's cooperation, in order to catch and successfully prosecute the perpetrator. They need, in short, all the support structures we have built for women victims, and then some. It is time to take male rape out of the closet and deal with it in the courts.
The man who attacked me used an ice pick instead of a gun. He followed me into my parking lot, stole my wallet and my car. In so many respects, other than my gender, it was just the same as what is happening to boys my age (then) in Houston. It is time we treated it the same.
Susan Estrich is a syndicated columnist.
When you hear the enemy celebrating Christmas
It was the winter of 1944, and a very bad time. That winter was the worst for the Dutch people -- for all the countries occupied by the Germans -- because we had hoped in September that the invasion had come and we would be freed.
But American and British soldiers had been unable to break across the rivers during Operation Market Garden near Arnhem -- the story told in "A Bridge Too Far" -- and the northern provinces of the Netherlands were still occupied.
It was an extremely cold winter in my hometown of Groningen. We no longer had heat and hardly any food.
But we still had our Christmas Eve service in our church.
I was walking home -- I had to rush because you had to be in at 7 o'clock at night -- and I had to pass the house where the German officers were quartered with their wives.
It was one of the city's beautiful old historic buildings.
But I had to stop -- first because of the smells of food. I followed my nose, and it took me to the windows of that building, and I stood there smelling and trying to figure out what it was.
There was chicken, somehow, a very good smell. And so I could not really leave that spot. I had to stay there, inhale it.
And then they started to sing "Silent Night, Holy Night" and I thought: "What is this? This is my God and my Jesus that was born, not theirs. I mean, they took our men. They killed everybody; they ruined our country; they took away our freedom; they have food."
And then a man started telling the Christmas story, and I thought, "This is too much."
I went on home extremely angry because I had always felt that even during the worst of times, at least we had God -- that God was on our side. I had felt very comforted by our church service.
Almost everybody I knew was hungry. It was cold, and we still had a war. But God was with us.
And then to come on that house and smell the food and hear the Christmas story made me very upset. I fell asleep crying bitter tears of anger. I knew that God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, but I didn't want to think that through.
"He's our God, and at least we have that," I thought. "They have their food. They have everything."
I didn't want to share God's love with the Germans. And I fell asleep cold and hungry and very upset.
Then freedom came in the spring of 1945.
I had often talked to my uncle, who was the minister of the Baptist church, and told him how angry I had felt.
"I can understand, but God is the God of everyone," he told me. "He might not like their deeds, but he is God of everyone."
So Christmas came around, and it was so much better in 1945. We had CARE packages, and we were free, and we looked forward to Christmas. And I was really happy.
Then, about two weeks before Christmas, my uncle called and said: "Margaret, I would like for you to come on Christmas Eve with me to a meeting and recite a poem."
So I asked, "What kind of meeting is it?" And he said, "Well, we have a camp for all the people who collaborated with the Germans."
Well, they were worse than the Germans as far as I was concerned, because if your own fellow countryman betrayed you. ...
I said: "Oh, no. I don't want to go. Why are you going to do that, Uncle?"
He said, "We're going to give them a Christmas Eve service."
And I said, "Just don't count on me."
"Well," he said, "I really think it would be good to do it because it's a very good poem that you should recite."
He said he would send it to me. It was a dialogue between Christ and Man.
Man asks Christ: "Why did you come to this Earth?"
And Christ said: "I came even if it is only one I can save, one, then I have not come in vain."
So this was indeed a very good poem for everybody to hear.
That was a time and age when you never said "no" to your superiors. But I hesitated a little bit, and my uncle said he had a surprise for me.
"You don't have to come on the bicycle," he said. "You will go by car."
I hadn't been in a car for years and years and years. And so we drove out there to that camp.
I never will never forget them, all those people. Their heads were shaved, and they had striped suits on -- men and women. They all came in, and our church had come to give them that Christmas Eve service.
No one dared to look up. They were extremely uneasy. This was the first time that they would meet fellow countrymen other than family members.
They all came into the room with their heads bowed down.
I started to feel really badly because I had been sitting in judgment, and I felt a little guilty when I saw them.
The room was not decorated, but there was a huge Christmas tree with big white candles -- real candles. We did light the candles. We sang "Silent Night, Holy Night," and then there was the Christmas story and there was "For God so loved the world."
And then I said my poem.
It ended with Christ saying: "Maybe you are the one who needs help. I am happy to give it to you."
It was very special, and after the meeting was over, there was hope again in the eyes of the people. There had been a message of hope and forgiveness for everyone.
And I felt I also needed forgiveness.
I think my uncle had a good idea to let me do that poem. I needed to forgive. I needed to get over that. But it had taken a long time for me to realize that God is the God also of the enemy.
Margaret Kiwiet of Fort Worth first came to the United States in 1962. She wrote this for the Fort Worth Star-Telegram.
Enforcing Clean Air Act lies in its hands
PHOENIX -- President Bush has often criticized "activist judges" for allegedly shaping the law to fit their own policy preferences instead of enforcing it as written.
Now, Bush's own appointees to the Supreme Court have an opportunity to show that they will enforce a law that Congress enacted more than 30 years ago, rather than bending that law out of shape to avoid a result that they would rather not reach.
The law involved is the Clean Air Act, enacted in 1970, and still very relevant today. Although the Clean Air Act is long and complicated, at least one of its requirements is clear and simple: It requires the administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency to issue standards limiting automobile emissions of any air pollutant "which in his judgment causes, or contributes to, air pollution (that) may reasonably be anticipated to endanger public health or welfare."
This provision is mandatory. If a pollutant "may reasonably be anticipated to endanger public health or welfare," then EPA must act.
In 1999, a group of parties petitioned EPA to issue emission standards for carbon dioxide, methane and other "greenhouse gases" emitted from auto tailpipes that contribute to global warming.
There can be little doubt that such gases "may reasonably be anticipated to endanger public health or welfare" within the meaning of the Clean Air Act, because the act defines endangerment of public welfare to include harmful effects on the Earth's climate. Since global warming is likely to, among other things, raise sea level by melting the polar ice caps, thereby inundating hundreds of square miles of valuable and heavily populated coastal areas, it is certainly a threat to public welfare.
EPA denied the petition. Interestingly, however, EPA did not deny that automobile emissions contribute to global warming or that global warming endangers public welfare. Instead, EPA offered two justifications for its refusal to act. First, EPA claimed that greenhouse gases are not air pollutants within the meaning of the Clean Air Act. This denial, however, is simply not credible. The act defines "air pollutant" to include "any substance or matter (that) is emitted into or otherwise enters the ambient air." Since greenhouse gases are substances, and they enter the air, they are air pollutants.
EPA's second reason for denying the petition was subtler, but equally arrogant. EPA argued that, as a matter of policy, automobile emission standards are not a good approach to solving the problem of global warming. Claiming such standards would not be "effective or appropriate," EPA declared that it "disagrees" with their use to combat global warming.
In early December, the Supreme Court heard arguments in a lawsuit brought by 12 states that have asked the courts to overturn EPA's decision. EPA's lawyers urged the court to affirm EPA's refusal to act on the grounds that EPA's decision was "reasonable."
The problem with EPA's defense is that it asks the court to second-guess a judgment that Congress made more than 30 years ago when it created the Clean Air Act. It is not up to EPA, or the courts, to decide whether automobile emission standards are a wise, reasonable or economical way to control air pollution. Congress decided that automobile emission standards are a good idea, and instructed EPA to issue them for any air pollutant that endangers the public's health or welfare.
If Bush's EPA doesn't agree with the Clean Air Act, it can ask Congress to change it. Until then, to paraphrase Donald Rumsfeld, EPA should implement the law that Congress wrote, not the one that it wishes Congress had written. And if EPA refuses to follow the law, then the courts should order it to do so. After all, that's their job.
Joseph M. Feller is a professor of law at Arizona State University and a member scholar of the Center for Progressive Reform (www.progressivereform.org), a network of university scholars seeking creative and workable policy solutions that protect the global environment.
Any limits must be imposed by Congress
CLEVELAND -- A number of states and environmentalist groups are asking the Supreme Court to force the Environmental Protection Agency to impose regulations on greenhouse gas emissions -- the most ubiquitous byproducts of modern industrial society. Yet Congress has never given the EPA such authority. In other words, these petitioners are seeking to obtain in court what they have not been able to achieve through the political process.
A basic principle of our governmental structure is that all legislative powers of the federal government are vested in the legislature. As a consequence, federal agencies, including the EPA, possess only those powers given to them by Congress. Controlling greenhouse gases would be the greatest regulatory undertaking ever contemplated in environmental law. As such, it is simply implausible that Congress would have delegated such authority to the EPA without saying so, yet nowhere does the Clean Air Act explicitly delegate authority to adopt such rules.
The petitioners are claiming that the EPA has ample authority to regulate greenhouse gases under the act, and that it would be arbitrary for the EPA to fail to regulate such emissions. A careful reading the Clean Air Act, however, makes clear that Congress never sought to regulate carbon dioxide or other greenhouse gases under the act. Under the act, the term "air pollutant" is defined to include "any physical, chemical (or) biological ... substance or matter which is emitted into or otherwise enters the ambient air."
It says the EPA "shall" issue regulations governing new vehicle emissions of pollutants that may be "reasonably anticipated" to harm public health or welfare.
The clear intent of the act when first enacted in 1967, and as subsequently amended in 1970, 1977 and 1990, is to control local and regional air pollution, such as soot and smog. Every time Congress has sought to address a broader environmental concern, such as ozone depletion or acid rain, it has explicitly authorized EPA to act. Moreover, if carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases are pollutants for the purposes of Section 202, they are almost certainly air pollutants for the Clean Air Act's "non-attainment" provisions as well, as the language is virtually identical.
Yet the regulatory measures that are required by these provisions -- the creation and enforcement of national ambient air-quality standards -- are fundamentally incompatible with the regulation of greenhouse gases as such. There is also a question whether the petitioning states and environmentalist groups should even be able to bring their case.
Under Article III of the Constitution, plaintiffs must have "standing" before a federal court can hear their claims. "Standing" requires that a plaintiff show that he or she has suffered an actual or imminent, concrete injury that is particular to him or her.
This is easy to do when pollution harms a specific property or environmental resource, but much more difficult in the context of nationwide emissions anticipated to have global effects over many decades.
The fact that climate change is a global concern that affects us all is yet one more reason to leave the question to elected legislators and treaty negotiators, rather than to force it on the judiciary. Current claims of injury from global warming are quintessential generalized grievances that courts are not competent to address.
However serious or urgent the threat of climate change may be, such concerns are best resolved through the political process. To thrust them upon the courts, absent the direction -- let alone acquiescence -- of the political branches undermines both the separation of powers and the democratic legitimacy of climate change policy.
Global warming is a serious concern, but this does not mean that courts should -- or even have -- the authority to consider legal claims that seek to direct U.S. policy on the subject.
Jonathan H. Adler is a professor and director of the Center for Business Law & Regulation at the Case Western Reserve University School of Law.
Will Americans sacrifice for future posterity?
Americans can adapt, one supposes, to an Alaska without polar bears, a New Hampshire without fall colors, and a Florida without its bottom third. But most would probably like to save these things for their descendants. A recent Time/ABC poll found that 88 percent of Americans think global warming threatens future generations.
President Bush was never one to lose sleep over future generations -- just look at his budget deficits. Add in another matter he's supremely indifferent to, the environment, and we have the Bush policy on global warming. That is, do zero to cut U.S. emissions of carbon dioxide and other heat-trapping gases.
Actually, do less than zero. His early doubting that humans even play a role in climate change demoralized those trying to grapple with the problem.
The glad tidings are that the Bush administration no longer matters much. Even if its lawyers succeed in denying states the right to sue the Environmental Protection Agency for not regulating greenhouse gases -- the case is now before the U.S. Supreme Court -- it won't make much difference.
The Bush administration will be gone in two years, and the environmental grown-ups are already taking over.
For one thing, Democrat Barbara Boxer is replacing Republican James Inhofe as chairman of the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee. Inhofe famously called human-made global warming "the greatest hoax ever perpetrated on the American people."
Boxer talks a bit differently. She says: "This is a potential crisis of a magnitude we've never seen," and, "Any kind of weakening of environmental laws or secrecy or changes in the dead of night is over."
For this attitudinal change, we can thank the Democrats' new majority, however slim, in the Senate. It's another reason to pray for the speedy recovery of South Dakota's Tim Johnson -- and for all Senate Democrats to look both ways when they cross the street.
The 2008 election, meanwhile, will produce a new president, who could not possibly be as environmentally negligent as the current one. All likely Democratic candidates and the leading Republican, John McCain, have identified global warming as a serious problem to which they would apply themselves.
In the Supreme Court case, Massachusetts and 11 other states are demanding that the federal Environmental Protection Agency regulate greenhouse gas emissions from vehicles.
The arguments so far have largely centered on whether states have the right to sue the EPA: States must prove that they've been injured by EPA policy.
One harm, explained the lawyer from Massachusetts, is the prospect of losing "sovereign territory" to rising oceans -- in his state, 200 miles of coastline.
The EPA argues that the Clean Air Act covers only pollutants that are dangerous to breathe. Global warming is caused by the accumulation of otherwise harmless gases found in nature.
The agency further contends that with the economies of China and India growing like mad, any cuts we make in greenhouse gases will be swamped by increases in theirs. Of course, the United States now produces 25 percent of these gases, so if we do nothing, why would anyone else?
It may be too late to save the snows of Kilimanjaro -- they're going -- but the snows of Greenland are still hanging on. If Greenland's massive ice sheet melts in earnest, an event that could start in this century, then coastal civilizations from London to Los Angeles might disappear under the waves.
There's no way to replace the dead Bush years of inaction. But we may have a last chance to deal with global warming. Will today's Americans sacrifice for a posterity they will never see?
This is about family values put to the acid test.
Froma Harrop is a syndicated columnist.
A troop surge in Iraq would be a perilous path
White House officials are aggressively promoting the idea of sending more U.S. troops to Iraq over the unanimous objections of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, according to news reports.
This is the right idea at the wrong time -- put forward for unclear reasons.
The White House has yet to answer the pointed questions of Colin Powell on CBS' "Face the Nation": "What mission is it these troops are supposed to accomplish? ... Is it something that is really accomplishable? ... Do we have enough troops to accomplish it?"
Or, is this one last White House effort to look tough, whether or not it helps Iraq?
Iraq's current chaos traces directly to Donald Rumsfeld's deluded decision to send too few troops to Iraq to stabilize the country. Rumsfeld just departed with highest honors, as Dick Cheney proclaimed him "the finest secretary of defense" the nation has known.
The number of U.S. troops is indeed an issue. The White House plan to turn security over to Iraqis is failing. Iraq's government is weak, and its security forces are divided by sect and penetrated by sectarian militias. These forces are often part of the problem, taking part in ethnic cleansing.
In theory, more U.S. troops could improve the situation by helping to stabilize the Sunni areas of Baghdad and Anbar province. These areas remain the core of the security problem. They are often controlled by former senior Baathists and Sunni religious extremists who have sought to provoke civil war by killing Shiite civilians. After three years of restraint, Shiite militias now seek revenge against Sunnis, deepening the civil strife.
Those Sunni moderates who don't want to be ruled by extremists are too frightened to stand against them. Sunni tribal leaders and politicians who participate in the government are being assassinated and now face the additional threat of Shiite militias.
Serious scholars who support a surge, like Fred Kagan of the American Enterprise Institute, argue that an increase in U.S. troops could bring security to Sunni and mixed areas of Baghdad by clearing out the insurgents. U.S. troops could then stay on in partnership with Iraqis.
This "clear, hold and build" strategy could, again in theory, permit the return of normal life and services to Sunni areas. If insurgents were reined in, Sunni moderates would feel less fearful about joining the new system. And, crucially, if the number of Sunni attacks on Shiites dropped, the Shiite-led government could rein in Shiite militias, slowing down the civil strife.
"Clear, hold and build" worked in two of the few success stories in predominantly Sunni areas, the cities of Mosul and Tal Afar. The U.S. ground commanders in those cases understood -- even though the Pentagon did not -- that their first priority was to provide security and services for the local population.
Just this past week, the Army and Marine Corps released a new counterinsurgency manual, the first in 20 years, that distills the principles for such operations. Would that the manual had been available years earlier.
But -- here's the key -- when U.S. troops were cut by two-thirds in Mosul after one year, insurgents returned and the city dissolved into chaos. Tal Afar deteriorated for similar reasons.
"Clear, hold and build" is a long-term strategy, requiring a large number of troops to stay for years. Their numbers must be sufficient to blanket troubled areas and prevent insurgents from escaping to the next village.
Yet news reports say the White House is considering sending 15,000 to 30,000 more troops to Baghdad for six to eight months. That's not enough time to "hold and build," nor for the Iraqi government to get its act in order. So it's unclear what would be the troops' purpose, or what they could achieve.
Any boost in numbers would depend on retaining units now in Iraq for a longer time and accelerating the arrival of others. Powell said such a surge "cannot be sustained." Even if Congress were to expand the size of the Marines and Army, that increase would not come in time to enable an extended surge.
The Joint Chiefs oppose sending more troops because they feel the military has been broken by Rumsfeld. One Army officer sent me this e-mail, which reflects a much wider feeling in the military: "The idea of adding 20,000 is criminal. It's not enough to do any good, but it's more than enough to bring an already staggering Army to its knees."
If the White House wants to increase troop levels, it must answer Powell's questions: What indeed is their mission? What can be accomplished by a brief surge at this late date? And how does the president plan to man and fund the mission?
This would require President Bush to explain why insufficient troops were sent to begin with, and why he failed to supply the military with the resources it needed to do the job right.
Without such frankness, a skeptical country won't support him, nor would a surge make sense.
Trudy Rubin is a columnist and editorial-board member for the Philadelphia Inquirer.
Bush stresses: He won't be swayed by public censure
You've got to say this for President Bush: He's willing to risk further decline in his popularity to pursue the course he thinks is right in Iraq. He may even be willing to do so in the face of opposition by some of his military commanders.
And he seems unconcerned over how this will ultimately affect his place in history, even as some historians are already rendering sharply critical judgments.
The president made clear again Wednesday that he won't be deterred by growing public disenchantment with the war, the anti-Republican tide in the elections, or by setbacks in Iraq itself.
"We're not succeeding nearly as fast as I wanted," Bush conceded at his end-of-the-year news conference. But he reiterated: "We're going to succeed" in the struggle with terrorism that he deemed "the calling of our generation."
To do so, he said, "is going to require a sustained commitment from the American people and our military," a commitment that has come under question by both.
Polls show that public confidence continues to drop, and some top military men inside and outside government have expressed doubt that the war can be won militarily.
But when Bush was asked if he was willing to persist in Iraq even if meant going against the will of the American people, he replied, "I am willing to follow a path that leads to victory."
And he sidestepped a question about whether he will, if necessary, overrule military commanders who are skeptical about sending more troops, calling them "bright, capable, smart people whose opinion matters to me a lot."
He refused to say whether, as has been widely reported, his current effort to devise "a new way forward that can succeed in Iraq" will lead to an increase in U.S. forces. But Bush made clear that beginning to withdraw U.S. troops, as the bipartisan Iraq Study Group recommended, is about the farthest thing from his mind.
"I want the enemy to understand that this is a tough task, but they can't run us out of the Middle East," he said. "They think it's just a matter of time before America grows weary and leaves, abandons the people of Iraq, for example, and that's not going to happen."
In a sense, the end of the election campaign and the replacement of Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld with Robert Gates have given Bush some breathing space to revise course in Iraq.
Though pressures for withdrawal -- from the polls, the Iraq Study Group and the new Democratic majorities in Congress -- have isolated Bush politically, it's unlikely his critics can keep him from implementing policies that include an increase in troops.
Many lawmakers in both parties favor increasing the size of the Army and the Marine Corps. And even during the Vietnam War, members of Congress were slow to restrict the use of funds to fight it.
Besides, it's nearly two years until the next election.
And though optimism about Iraq is minimal these days, it's always possible that changes in U.S. policy could produce a more positive result than analysts expect.
If that happens, Bush and his Republican Party could reap the political benefit, especially Sen. John McCain, who has urged sending more troops. Critics would be put on the defensive.
On the other hand, if the proposal Bush plans to formally unveil next month fails to improve a situation he now admits has not gone well, he could put fellow Republicans in a 2008 bind.
As long as most Republicans support the war, potential GOP presidential candidates will be reluctant to stray from that stance. But they could face severe problems in a general election because so many Democrats and independents want to end it. Even then, Bush's persistence may delay a definite end to the struggle and withdrawal of most U.S. troops until his successor's presidency.
Bush was asked if his legacy would extend beyond Iraq. He declined to speculate, noting he's been reading books about George Washington and adding, "My attitude is if they're still analyzing No. 1, 43 ought not to worry about it and just do what he thinks is right."
And he observed that "most short-term historians," some of whom have already called him a failure, usually have political views and aren't "exactly objective.'"
Still, the success or failure of the war in Iraq is likely to be central in judgments of the George W. Bush presidency.
Carl P. Leubsdorf is Washington bureau chief of the Dallas Morning News.
Military input casts doubt on any Iraqi 'victory'
WASHINGTON -- Perhaps one of the most valid criticisms of the Iraq Study Group has been that no one among the 10 bipartisan members who called for a draw-down of American troops came from the nation's uniformed military leadership, past or present.
The panel did include former Secretary of Defense William Perry, who served under President Bill Clinton from 1994-97. But he came from the civilian leadership of the Pentagon, with a concentration on building and maintaining the force structure of the armed services.
Still, President Bush since the issuance of the Study Group's report has not lacked from input from the uniformed military community. A lot of what he has heard has hardly been supportive of his continued emphasis, for all his search for "a new way forward" on a military "victory" in Iraq.
The latest evaluation from the Pentagon on the U.S. efforts to achieve security on the ground there -- mandated notably by Congress, not the White House -- portrays a grim picture of failure to deter the plunge into civil war.
At a Pentagon briefing this past Monday, the Joint Chiefs of Staff's director for strategic plans and policy, Marine Lt. Gen. John Sattler, said, "The violence has escalated at an unbelievably rapid pace" and breaking it "is the premier challenge facing us now."
The report stopped short of labeling the situation a civil war, but said "conditions that could lead to civil war do exist." It did not, however, weigh in on the advocacy of Sen. John McCain and others for 30,000 or more additional American troops into Iraq to stem the violence.
But, according to The Washington Post, the president has encountered unanimous opposition from the Joint Chiefs on grounds a new influx would only provide more American targets and incentives to violence.
Another doubting military voice was heard on CBS News' "Face the Nation" last Sunday, when Gen. Colin L. Powell, former Joint Chiefs of Staff chairman, questioned whether such a "surge" would succeed without a clear and "accomplishable" mission. He said there weren't enough available troops in what he called an "about broken" active Army that needs a buildup.
The ranking Democrat on the House Armed Services Committee, Rep. Ike Skelton, who is soon to become chairman, said the same about the proposed surge.
Skelton said once the administration decides on its new approach in Iraq, he will call the new secretary of defense, Robert Gates, and the chairman of the Joint Chiefs, Marine Gen. Peter Pace, before the Armed Services Committee for their evaluation. "I expect to be shown that any decision on future troop levels (in Iraq) is based on a realistic assessment of the situation on the ground and sound strategy," Skelton said, "not political assumptions and wishful thinking."
That last remark suggests that he shares with Powell a concern that Bush, for all his apparent search for a new direction, will come down for more of the same in a misguided reach for a "victory" in Iraq that is no longer realistically in the cards.
Gates, on being sworn in at the Pentagon this past week, said "as the president has made clear, we simply cannot afford to fail in the Middle East." At the same time, he pledged to listen to "the clear-eyed advice" he will get from the military leaders serving under him. It may be that the administration's definition of "failure" as well as of "victory" may have to be accommodated.
Jules Witcover's memoir, "The Making of an Ink-Stained Wretch," has just been published by Johns Hopkins University Press.
Have a little faith in us
As this holy season of consummate consumerism gives way to the hopefulness of a new year, beware of Newts bearing pious pronouncements.
At the risk of giving attention where it isn't due, I have to warn that the former U.S. House speaker, who was pushed out the Capitol doors not a moment too soon, is trying to worm his way back into the public consciousness with yet another dubious "Contract With America."
The third plank in the platform promoted by potential presidential wannabe Newt Gingrich reads: "Recenter on the Creator from Whom all our liberties come. We will insist on a judiciary that understands the centrality of God in American history and reasserts the legitimacy of recognizing the Creator in public life."
Call me cynical and paranoid, but I read into that Ten Commandments displays in every public courtroom. The Lord's Prayer recited in unison in every public school classroom. Inquisitions into judicial nominees' personal creeds to guarantee hostility toward abortion and gay marriage. More pointless fights over the essentiality of uttering "under God" to the very survival of the Republic.
And none of that will bring us any closer to liberty and justice for all.
Reducing God to a blatant political tool €" which would be the effect of Gingrich's proposal €" substitutes form for substance. And it distorts reality about religious freedom in this country.
When did it become illegitimate to recognize the Creator in public life?
President Bush has no fear of praising God and calling for his blessings on the United States. Neither did Bush's father or Bill Clinton (even if he didn't always act as though the omnipresent one was watching).
What isn't tolerable is, say, a government executive favoring employees who attend the daily Bible study sessions in the office or a military official espousing personal beliefs as though they were policy.
Sure, there are those who would strip "In God we trust" from our money. I don't support that, but would it have much practical effect on anyone besides counterfeiters?
Making God's name even more ubiquitous in the public lexicon than it already is would generate additional references with all the religious significance of "God save the United States and this honorable court."
Slate.com writer Dahlia Lithwick has described such instances of "ceremonial deism" as invoking the "God of the Hallmark cards." Symbolically significant to someone, somewhere, maybe, but spiritually bereft.
And what of this notion about "the centrality of God in American history"? The Founding Fathers recognized the influence of religion on society €" and were justly opposed to government's embracing it.
Where is the moral accountability, the sense of humbling guilt, among the administration officials who instigated the inferno that has squandered lives, damaged bodies and minds, fractured families and wreaked havoc that greatly overshadows whatever good our troops and enormously expensive rebuilding efforts have accomplished for Iraq and its people?
Actually, I do believe that powerful spiritual forces are at work in this country €" and they derive from our reverence for religious liberty, not from dictates of Congress, the White House or the courts.
They're evident in the work of lawyers who donate their services to desperate people so that they can pull their lives together.
In the efforts of teachers who put in time, money and whatever else it takes to push and pull struggling students to success.
In the labors of volunteers who build homes to give families a decent place to live.
In the inspiration of ordinary people living responsible lives.
In the gestures large and small of those who implement God's message without needing their government to trumpet it.
What we need are honesty, integrity and policies that are fair and sensible, and that make it possible for even the least among us to live with dignity. Because that's the right thing to do.
Linda P. Campbell is a columnist and editorial writer for the Fort Worth Star-Telegram.
A U.S. president named Hussein
During the 2004 Illinois Senate campaign, I asked a friend of mine in Chicago if he'd host a reception for a fellow talk show host who was running in the primary. When he told me he was already supporting another candidate, I laughed out loud.
"Are you serious?" I wanted to know. "Barack Obama? Nobody could ever get elected with that name. Especially not after Sept. 11."
Needless to say, I was wrong then. As are those naysayers who insist today that Barack Obama could never be elected president because his middle name is "Hussein." President Barack Hussein Obama? Why not? I'd trust him more than George Walker Bush.
Even though Obama was greeted by 170 reporters on his maiden voyage to New Hampshire -- a reception not even John McCain enjoyed in 2000 -- the Illinois senator still faces an uphill battle. On his way to the Democratic nomination, his middle name is the least of the hurdles he must overcome.
Inexperience is number one. How can he be taken seriously, critics ask, when he's only served in the Senate for two years? Actually, they've got it backwards. Running for president, the less time served in the Senate the better. Not only has no incumbent senator been elected president since John F. Kennedy in 1960, but -- as we learned with John Kerry -- the longer you're in the Senate, the more votes you have to defend or explain. My advice to Obama: Get out of the Senate as fast as you can.
Second big hurdle: Hillary Rodham Clinton. She's clearly the front-runner in this race and, I believe, invincible. But if anyone can derail her, it's Barack Obama. His candidacy is largely fueled, in fact, by Democrats who don't believe Sen. Clinton can win the general election. I think they're wrong. But as an alternative to Hillary, Obama has emerged as everybody's second, if not first, choice. And with good reason.
Obama's a rock star. He's young (only 45), articulate, handsome and, unlike most politicians, comfortable in his skin. In many ways, he's the American success story. Son of an African father and American mother, he graduated from Harvard Law School and was the first African-American to head the Harvard Law Review. He served eight years in the Illinois state Senate. He's authored two best-selling books. And, more than any elected official today, he can electrify a crowd -- as he demonstrated at the Democratic National Convention in 2004.
Seeking to end the political ugliness that has torn us apart, Obama told delegates and the nation: "The pundits like to slice and dice our country into red states and blue states; red states for Republicans, blue states for Democrats. But I've got news for them, too. We worship an awesome God in the blue states, and we don't like federal agents poking around in our libraries in the red states. We coach Little League in the blue states and, yes, we've got some gay friends in the red states. There are patriots who opposed the war in Iraq and patriots who supported the war in Iraq. We are one people, all of us pledging allegiance to the stars and stripes, all of us defending the United States of America."
For those who say Barack Obama doesn't stand for anything, I say: Read that paragraph again. National unity, bringing Americans of all stripes back together in common cause, love of God and country. Hard to beat that for a political platform. And, after the divisive politics of Bush, Cheney and Rove, nothing America needs more.
But, of course, Obama has one other obstacle in his path. Did I mention that he's black? After the recent experience of Harold Ford Jr. in Tennessee, it's very much an open question whether Americans are ready to elect our first African-American president.
I believe we are. Americans may, in fact, be more ready to vote for a black president than a female president. But, in the end, the success of Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama will depend not so much on their gender or skin color as on the kind of campaigns they run and the stands they take on the issues, especially the war in Iraq.
Things may change. But if the election were held today, the next president of the United States would be either the first woman, or the first African-American, in history. How exciting is that?
Bill Press is host of a nationally syndicated radio show and author of a new book, "How the Republicans Stole Religion."
