Eric Umansky

Housing Bubble Watch

As somebody who woulda, coulda,  shouda bought years ago, I celebrate the coming crash.   OK, it's not a sure thing. But tell that to the chief economist of the Mortgage Bankers Assn, who's bailing out himself:

"I'm going to rent for a while," said [chief econ] Douglas Duncan, who expects "significant reversals" in regions that have enjoyed strong home price appreciation, including Washington, D.C., Florida and California. He plans to sell his suburban Washington home, which has tripled in value since he bought it a dozen years ago, and move into an apartment.

http://www.latimes.com/news/printedition/la-fi-bubble29may29,1,3150593.story?coll=la-home-headlines

Koran abuse response: the U.S.'s missed opportunity

Though the Pentagon's press conference on Koran abuse glided over some details--or more precisely, the general giving the briefing refused to give some details. But he still gave the most complete picture yet of what happened: There were about a half dozen cases of confirmed  (but still vague) Koran abuse, none involving a toilet.

I wouldn't be surprise me if that's the extent of the abuse (which is to say there wasn't that much of it). If you actually look at the ACLU documents,  most (not all, but most) of the detainees acknowledge that they didn't see the Koran dissed, they just heard about it. It was largely a  game of Gitmo telephone.

Next, let’s turn to what former Gitmo translator Erik Saar has said. Saar wrote Inside the Wire and has been deeply critical of the practices at the prison. Here’s what he told Mother Jones recently:

MJ: Was it a well-run facility?

ES: It was a horribly run facility. There were so many grey areas as to what was right and what was wrong. The MPs and guards didn't even know whether they were allowed to handle the Koran when they were inspecting it, or if they were supposed to call a Muslim linguist to come and do that.

But he also said desecration wasn’t policy:

MJ: Do you think there was a general disrespect of Islam at
Guantanamo?

ES: No. I can't say that in general. There were pockets of
Guantanamo Bay that I would say disrespected the religion.

Next, recall that that in 2003 the Red Cross told the military about complaints from prisoners. In response, the military wrote up a policy mandating respect for the Koran and how to do it. After that, complaints stopped. As a Red Cross spokesman put it: "The U.S. government took corrective measures and those allegations have not resurfaced.”

OK, so here’s the picture that’s come into view (at least so far): It was not policy to diss the Koran. But nor were soldiers given instructions to respect it or given cultural training in how to properly handle (or not handle) the holy book. In response, a few guards and interrogators appear to have freelanced. Once the military received complaints about that via the Red Cross, it did promulgate a policy detailing proper Koran treatment, and the complaints stopped.

Now that’s not an ideal way for the military to have acted. Why wasn’t there a Koran policy at the start? And presumably detainees complained directly to officers about Koran treatment. Why did the military only act after the Red Cross complained?

But overall it’s looks to me that was happened was that the military not perfectly, but honorably. And that in a way is what gets me. Instead of me sitting here and trying to put it all together, why can’t the Pentagon try a little transparency? It would actually be to the military’s benefit to just come out with the details and say what happened. Instead we get reflexive dissembling and ass-covering, such as Pentagon spokesman Larry DiRita insisting last week, “We’ve not seen specific, credible allegations.” That was a lie, and a counter-productive one. Hide the truth and--as in this case--people end up envisioning something worse than it. 

P.S. Let’s be fair to Larry: No bureaucrat is going to come out and take a chance with honesty. DiRita was just doing his job. If the military is going to try transparency, that’s a policy decision and it’s going to come from the top. Or not at all.

 

Pakistan FBI torture allegations

I just spoke to Human Right Watch's Brad Adams, head of the org's Asia division.  "We get a lot  people telling us stuff a lot" he said. "We often don’t  put them out. But  we think these very credible."  Then I asked Brad about the fact that the only response from the U.S. government mentioned in the press release comes in the form of a two-month-old statement from the consulate in Karachi, which said:

“We are aware of the reports indicating two American citizens are missing, or ‘disappeared’ in Pakistan, and we are looking into them. Due to Privacy Act considerations, we are unable to provide additional information on these two individuals. The safety and security of Americans overseas is of paramount importance to us, and we continue to work both here and abroad to provide all possible assistance to our citizens. I refer you to the FBI for any information on their involvement.” 

Has the administration seen fit to release any more information or make a higher level comment? "No," says Adams. "The administration has  made a considered decision to leave it at that level."  Good to know they're so concerned about privacy. And just for the record, U.S. consulates are required to look into allegations of mistreatment against citizens.

Two U.S. citizens tortured in Pakistan; FBI complicit?

So says Human Rights Watch. The allegations are based on interviews with the two men as well as apparent confirmation from (anonymous) diplomats and Pakistani government  sources:

(New York, May 24, 2005) -- U.S. FBI agents operating in Pakistan repeatedly interrogated and threatened two U.S. citizens of Pakistani origin who were unlawfully detained and subjected to torture by the Pakistani security services, Human Rights Watch said today. The brothers Zain Afzal and Kashan Afzal were abducted from their home in Karachi at about 2 a.m. on August 13, 2004. They were released on April 22, 2005 without having been charged.

During eight months of illegal detention, Zain Afzal and Kashan Afzal were routinely tortured by Pakistani authorities to extract confessions of involvement in terrorist activities. During this period, FBI agents questioned the brothers on at least six occasions. The FBI agents did not intervene to end the torture, insist that the Pakistani government comply with a court order to produce the men in court, or provide consular facilities normally offered to detained U.S. citizens. Instead, they threatened the men with being sent to the U.S. detention facility at Guantanamo Bay if they did not confess to involvement in terrorism.

One brother testified:

I would be beaten regularly during this time and when I was ill with fever, they refused to give me any medicine. There were other prisoners there but I could not talk to them, but I heard people call for water. Occasionally, they would say “you will go to Cuba” or “we will hand you over to the FBI.” Often I would be beaten for asking for water or food or medicine.   

I told the FBI that I was illegally detained and had been tortured. They said they would try to help but that all decisions were to be taken by Pakistani authorities and Pakistan was beyond their jurisdiction.

[...]

Our last interrogation took place about 10 days before our release and for the first time my brother and I were called together. They said "Your case is almost over" and "You will be released soon. ... But we will only release you on condition that you will never speak to the press or media or speak against us. Your well-being lies in silence otherwise you and your family will be in big trouble." Then they made us write a statement that said that we had not been held by any government or semi-government agency and were writing this statement of our own free will.

The administration's response so far hasn't exactly been reassuring. "We are aware of the reports indicating two American citizens are missing, or 'disappeared' in Pakistan," said the U.S. consulate in Karachi. "And we are looking into them."

 

Feel good moment in Iraq

Seriously. Courtesy of a happy Brit soldiers. (Best moment is at the 2:50 minute mark.)

(HT: Andrew)

Stats and Trends in Iraq (Courtesy of Cordesman)

Anthony Cordesman has always struck me as one of the most thoughtful, hard-headed analysts on the counter-insurgency in Iraq. He never gets too heated, and seems to put a premium on these things called facts.

Anyway, Cordesman came out with a new report last week. A few things that caught my eye:

Water:

Sabotage and theft helped cripple many of the country’s 229 operating water plants by the spring of 2005, and some 90% of the municipalities in the country lacked working sewage processing plants, contaminating the main sources of water as they drained into the Tigris and Euphrates. The Iraqi Municipalities and Public Works Ministry calculated in April 2005 that it provide water to some 17 million Iraqis (70% of the population), and supplies were so bad that some 30% of the 17 million did not have access to drinkable water. Many projects had to be cancelled and $1billion of the $3.65 billion allocated in US aid had to be diverted to security needs. There were a total of 15 water project starts in 2004, but none were planned for 2005.

Insurgency infiltration of the government:

Like Vietnam, Iraq is a warning that hostile HUMINT sources are often pushed into providing data because of family ties, a fear of being on the losing side, direct and indirect threats, etc. In Iraq’s case, it seems likely that family, clan, and ethnic loyalties have made many supposedly loyal Iraqis become at least part time sources, and that US vetting will often be little more than either a review of past ties or checks on the validity of data being provided [...] US and other military operations. Dual loyalty and HUMINT penetration of Iraqi security and military forces may be the rule, rather than the exception.

 

How the counter-insurgency can be like the War on Drugs...

US and Iraqi efforts to thwart insurgent attacks – while tireless – are also sometimes hollow victories. As one US Marine specializing in counterinsurgency in Iraq recently noted, “Seizing the components of suicide bombs (or IED making material) is like making drug seizures, comforting, but ultimately pointless. There will always be more. Both sides are still escalating to nowhere.”

Fighting an insurgency is a balancing act. The goal is to neutralize as many fighters as possible--whether by killing,  arresting,  or dissuading them--while limiting the impact of that fight on non-combatants. After all, piss-off non-combatants and some portion will sign up to fight against you.  (As I argued in the LAT last week, the Army hasn't focused sufficiently on the later part of that equation.) Anyway, Cordesman puts it's all in perspective. I'll leave him with the closing thought:

As similar US errors at the Abu Ghraib prison compound demonstrated all too clearly, Excessive force and interrogation methods quickly become counterproductive and self-defeating even if they produce short-term results. The political dimension and impact of military, security, and police operations is not one that either Coalition or Iraqi commanders and forces can afford to ignore, even in the heat of battle. The primary purpose of Iraqi operations is to reforge a nation; not defeat an enemy.

Cuba Clarified

Last week, Cuban dissidents held a public meeting  in Havana. That caught a lot of peoples' attention because Fidel and Co. never let that happen. But as Randy Paul noted, one of the more curious things about the confab was that top democratic dissident Oswaldo Payá skipped it:

"[The organizers ] don't represent the majority of the opposition, or even the most important groups,'' said Payá, lead organizer of the Varela Project democracy effort. "It's a smoke screen.''

So what was Payá's beef? Marc Cooper explains and in the process takes a solid swing at the U.S.'s Cuba policy and the left's often lame response to it:

U.S. diplomatic representatives did attend the meeting and the delegates listened to a tape-recorded greeting from that renown Freedom Fighter, G.W. Bush.  This, of course, is the kiss of death in Cuba. And not just among Fidelistas. Some of the more prominent dissident leaders, indeed, boycotted the weekend meeting precisely because they felt it was too closely aligned with the U.S. and with the more frothy exiles in Miami.

Ignored (when not scorned) by both the Right and the Left, there is a tenuous current of democratic dissidents in both Miami and Havana who want no part of either Castro or Bush. These folks should be the key players in Cuba’s inevitable post-Castro transition.

I have argued for some years now that the longer Fidel clings to power, and the longer the democratic dissidents are snubbed, the farther and harder to the right Cuba will fall after Castro. The best way to guarantee that the next Cuban regime will be a mafia-dominated dictatorship is to continue the current paradigm—the absolutely stupid polarization of Cuba’s future as either pro or anti-Castro.

That the Neanderthal Right should promote this thinking is perfectly logical. It’s in their favor. But why the continuing silence of most of the American Left on Castro? Why is it left only to Nat Hentoff to speak out?  What does it tell us that a great civil liberties lion like Nat is left to publish his op-ed piece in the Washington Times? Why isn’t it on the front page of some other magazines that I could think of?

Gitmo Tribunal Transcripts

In response to a FOIA, the AP got about 2,000 pages worth of them. The ensuing story doesn't really go into depth and there's no real headline-making material. Still, it's quite a glimpse:

Most of the detainees proclaim their innocence, including one older prisoner who tells the tribunal he's too crippled to have been an enemy combatant.

"How could I be an enemy combatant if I was not able to stand up?" he asks, describing how he hasn't been able to walk for more than 15 years. A witness testifies that the man had a stroke years ago and barely left his house except to visit the doctor.

The United States accused him of being a member of the Hizb-I-Islamic group that authorities said were planning rocket attacks against U.S. forces. Troops also allegedly found weapons.

The prisoner admits there was an AK-47, a BB gun and an antique rifle that didn't fire, but he says it's common for villagers to have weapons for protection.

One nomad says he was looking for his lost goats when he and his brother were captured. U.S. officials say they were captured near an explosive device. Much of Afghanistan is heavily mined.

"How do you move from place to place?" asked the tribunal member. "What do you use for transport? Do you have a vehicle?"

"A camel," the prisoner says. "I am not against America."

Oy

From AP:

White House deputy press secretary Trent Duffy said the work in South Korea amounted to human cloning for the sole purpose of scientific research. "The president is opposed to that," Duffy said. "That represents exactly what we're opposed to."

I gotta say, I can imagine worse things than the GOP becoming the anti-science party.  Everybody gets sicks some time.

Google Deskbar

I just came across it.  It allows you to search without opening a browser. And I give it a thumbs-up.