perfidy

David Warren, after a month long absence, is back with a wonderful essay on where we stand in Iraq and the war on terrah. This article does a good job of explaining what the administration seems unable to do - why we are where we are.

It should be obvious to everyone why we are fighting the war on terror. That this is a necessary conflict should be clear to even the most blinkered of liberals. As I stated in the comments to one of Johno's earlier posts, the first steps of the war were the obvious ones. Al Qaida hits us. They are in Afghanistan. We hit Afghanistan. Straightforward.

After Afghanistan, we entered the area where reasonable people might differ on how to prosecute the war on terror. However, most of the opposition was predicated not on the basis of "Iraq is not the right target" but on "No war for oil" and similar idiocies. The protracted argument over the invasion of Iraq was fueled by the administration's lack of clarity and inability to articulate what is to be done, and why.

Part of this muddle was due to the decision to go to the United Nations. This forced the administration to lean its arguments in one direction - WMD - and slight the other arguments for moving on Iraq. This gave further ammunition to those who opposed the war on terror.

Steven den Beste has argued that the administration cannot tell us what the plan is, because revealing the plan would spoil it. This is true on the small scale, but not the large. We should not reveal the exact timetables and plans for an invasion. That is not only stupid but treasonous. But the larger plan, the geopolitical master scheme should be open and above board.

The more I think about this, the more I am convinced that the administration is making a serious error in not taking the larger case to the public here in the US, and to the rest of the world. Various people, including Clueless and Trent Telenko over at Winds of Change have analyzed the minutia of reports from around the world, and concluded that see the signs of the master plan. I agree, and have talked about that plan here.

The American public can be trusted with this information. In fact, it must be. If we reveal that the heart of our strategy in the War on Terror is to remake the Middle East and transform North Korea, to set a real precedent that any nation that supports terror is responsible for it, and will suffer the consequences at the hands of the civilized world, what have we given away? Nothing. If we make the case, clearly and repeatedly that those who support terrorism will be put up against the wall, it will not allow our enemies to resist our actions any better than currently.

There would be benefits for doing this. By clearly stating the our specific aims, and in broad terms our methods, we build support domestically, and co-opt or isolate opponents. The opponents of the war on terror have two choices - argue against specific decisions on grounds of whether or not that action would advance the cause (which could only help the effort, as constructive criticism is always useful) or continue as they are, and make clear that they are against the war on terror in general.

Internationally, we would not have to make the kind of tortured arguments that many have criticized. We would not need to justify an invasion on WMD, or any other single criteria. We need merely fall back on the original justification for the war on terror - and explain how whatever nation is in our crosshairs will serve the cause of peace by ceasing to exist.

The argument for Iraq is much stronger when you add in all the other reasons besides WMD. The coherence offered by stating our strategy would reassure our allies and make clear who are opponents are, while forcing our opponents to be clearer about their motives.

But the best reason for doing so is because we are a republic, and the citizens of this republic have a right to be informed and to participate in the decision making in an informed manner. The columnists and bloggers who are speculating on America's strategy are doing their best to justify the individual decisions in the war on terror, but properly, this isn't their job - it is the job of our leadership.

The Columbia report is justly critical of NASA. Here are some interesting quotes from the report.

"The measure of NASA's success became how much costs were reduced and how efficiently the schedule was met. But the space shuttle is not now, nor has it ever been, an operational vehicle. We cannot explore space on a fixed-cost basis."

NASA's most remarkable achievement is not the moon mission, or the construction of the space station. It is the transformation of something as remarkable and romantic as exploration in space into something as boring as a discovery channel documentary on public transportation. The shuttle was never a space truck. It was not that mature a technology. In aviation terms, it was more like the Wright Flyer. Only when we have actually built, tested and flown regularly many types of advanced reusable launch vehicles will we be in a position to operate in space as we do in the air. The shuttle never was and still isn't more than an awkwardly designed experimental vehicle.

"The organizational causes of this accident are rooted in the space shuttle program's history and culture, including the original compromises that were required to gain approval for the shuttle, subsequent years of resource constraints, fluctuating priorities, schedule pressures, mischaracterization of the shuttle as operational rather than developmental, and lack of agreed national vision for human space flight."

I talked a lot about mission and goals in my last shuttle post. But we should know better than to expect operational efficiency from a government program. (Not that it's impossible... just rare.)

"Perhaps most striking is the fact that management . . . displayed no interest in understanding a problem and its implications.

Sheesh.

"It is tempting to conclude that replacing them will solve NASA's problems... However, solving NASA's problems are not quite so easily achieved. People's actions are influenced by the organizations in which they work, shaping their choices in directions that even they may not realize."

Which is why we should kill NASA. The scapegoat is not the managers, but the system. It's like the old joke about the Federal Reserve - if Jesus and the Twelve Apostles were appointed to the Board of the Fed - and not allowed to change the rules - it would still be an abomination.

"We believe another vehicle, whether to complement or replace the shuttle, is very, very high priority. We criticize the U.S. for finding ourselves in the position we are in now where we don't even have a design on the drawing board."

Thanks to indecisive lawmakers and unpredictable funding. And NASA leaders who don't seem to appreciate the need for something to replace the shuttle - which has never been as cheap to fly as promised, let alone as cheap as they claim it is now. Too much ego is invested in the shuttle, "the most sophisticated and complex artifact ever designed by man." Would you fly an airliner that had been described that way?

On these longer term recommendations, the report sounds a sobering note: "Based on NASA's history of ignoring external recommendations, or making improvements that atrophy with time, the Board has no confidence that the Space Shuttle can be safely operated for more than a few years based solely on renewed post-accident vigilance."

And even if the board's recommendations are adopted, we will likely have another catastrophic failure if we continue to use the shuttle for another ten years. Accidents will be more, not less likely as the shuttles age.

Apparently, Canadians must present a grim mien to the world in their passprot photos from now on. Smiling is now verboten. But that does not mean that Canadians have license to scowl, frown, grimmace or glower at that camera. That is forbidden as well. Passport applicants must have a neutral expression when they get their mugs photographed. Of course, we live in a world where everything that is not forbidden is compulsory. And that seems to be more true in Canada.

Everybody seems to be very proud of President Bush for how he handled 9/11/2001 and thereafter.

Let me ask you this: short of Naderite self-flagellation and naval gazing, who would have handled things any differently, or indeed, less well, had they been in his position?

(Please don't take this as an endorsement of the "illegitimate President" meme. I don't know what the hell happened in Florida, and don't care. My tinfoil hat is put away in the coat closet for the time being.)

Virginia Postrel has a well-written and pithy post up about the President and the War on Terra.

Excerpts follow (emphases are mine). I have no comments, except for "(mostly) what she said." (I'm not voting for Bush.)

Listening to President Bush's speech today, I found myself sympathizing with Josh Marshall's post on the problems of a vaguely articulated cause. The problem isn't that Bush is inarticulate, though he's no great speaker. The problem is that the administration deliberately obfuscates about who and why we are fighting. A "war on terror" is like a war on tanks--it's a war on a tactic, not an enemy. If al Qaeda had hit the Pentagon with a missile rather than a civilian airliner, that attack on a military target wouldn't have been an act of terrorism, but it would have been an act of war. And there's no reason to think al Qaeda wouldn't have used a missile if it could have.

Because the administration won't say bluntly who and why we're fighting, it tends either to step on its own strategy or to mislead the public about the reasons for U.S. actions. No, I don't think the Bush administration "lied" about weapons of mass destruction; Occam's Razor suggests that officials were in fact worried abou that threat. But I think the administration overemphasized the importance of WMD, compared to other reasons for intervening, to placate the State Department, the "international community," and the Saudis. Getting rid of Saddam reduces the chances of Islamicist terrorism on American soil, but not merely by ending his WMD programs, whatever their status.

I'm sympathetic to the diplomatic reasons for not spelling out certain goals, such as the pressures a U.S-friendly Iraq puts on the Saudis. But Bush's vagueness is maddening to people who are paying attention and confusing to people who aren't. (Unlike Josh, I'm neither a Wilsonian nor a Bush basher--I voted for him once and expect to do so again--but that doesn't mean we can't agree about this.)

In any sufficiently large group of people, one person will be the spare. To determine who the spare is, imagine that the group is in this situation

You are being chased by brain eating zombies. They are gaining on you. You have a shotgun with one shell.

The spare is the person you shoot in the leg so that the zombies stop to eat, allowing you to escape. Once consensus is reached that you are the spare, there is no appeal. If by chance your group is chased by zombies, and you sacrifice your spare, a new spare must be chosen.

Now, you can watch a simulation of this process here. 
 

Various sources report that the US budget deficit will balloon by hundreds of billions of dollars in coming years, although it is expected to not quite reach the record relative levels of the late Reagan/Bush I era. Remember how awesome the economy was back then?

*Warning: blood sugar currently low. Screed to follow*

So just how much debt is healthy? From what I can tell, the "official" Bush & co. estimates don't take into account the new perscription drug plan, millions and millions of boomer retirees, or the billyuns and billyuns of dollars it will take to build Iraq's infrastructure. In fact, Iraq money isn't even IN next year's budget.

Again, what the flipping hell? Bush isn't much of a conservative, that's for sure, and once again I begin to suspect that the eventual fiscal mess created by runaway deficit spending and even more gubmit bloat will be left for the next generation (e.g. me) to clean up. From the point of view of a dyspeptic Wednesday morning, Chim-Chim the Stunt Monkey seems like a better prospect in '04 than the current folks.

Also, in a real heartening development, economists are calling for a continuation of our "jobless recovery." Now, I'm just a stupid hick from Ohio, but please explain to me how this is particularly encouraging. A "recovery," taken empirically, means an improvement in the economy-- growth in production and revenues, etc. Obviously such a condition is positive. But the"jobless" modifier means that the job market will remain very tight despite the rising prosperity, meaning that labor will carry less value as competition for positions drives down the cost of wages. Consequently, that large class of marginal workers who live paycheck to paycheck will find it more difficult to get by. As previously noted, the minumum wage, and by extension, the poverty line, in the US is set insultingly low with respect to what it actually costs to live like an American

So the recovery benefits whom, exactly? Industry and the already economically comfortable? Those with portfolios large, diverse, and well-managed enough to take early advantage of the recovery without needing to dip savings and investments to pay the bills? Well, great. And don't give me that trickle down crap. That only applies if there's jobs around.

As for the tax cut, new research from the NBER suggests that tax cuts don't necessarily stimulate spending. Instead, extra cash in the hands of taxpayers tends to go to paying down debt and into savings rather than being spent on consumer items. At least that's what happened last time: the paper deals with the tax rebate of 2001, which was a lump sum tax advance, rather than the marginal periodic increases that the new round supposedly creates, but my Ohio Hick intuition suggests that similar principles apply now. Of course, I'm one of the Lucky Duckies who apparently didn't need a tax cut this time, so from a first-person point of view, the question is moot anyway.

Again, I'm just a stupid hick who tends to view the world in a me-me-me sort of way, but I'm hardly willing to deem the economy "recovered" until all boats rise with the tide, and hardly willing to deem Iraq "recovered" until it resembles, say, Turkey or India more than Detroit or Anacostia.

But I'm just a hick, so what do I know?

[update] Irony alert: Since consumers used their "Gub'mint play money" from 2001 to pay down debt and increase savings, they were really acting responsibly according to the conventional wisdom of home financial advisors. But this runs counter to the instructions we recieved at the time from the President, which was to "spend! spend! spend!" So which is it? Should we act for the long-term good of ourselves, and therefore ostensibly the good of the country, or for the short-term good of manufacturers and retailers, and therefore ostensibly the good of the country? I know what I did, though it was just a drop in the wide seas of my personal debt load. Thank you, music industry! I gave you three years of my life, and you gave me a net negative personal income!

The Washington Post is reporting that the Pentagon's "black" budget for next year (that's "double-secret" to us Deltas) is a near-record $23.2 billion dollars.

Observations that spring eagerly to mind like Labrador pups called to the feedbowl:

• Wow. At any price, that's a lot of hammers!
• So is that all for Total Information Awareness, or is some of that for field trips, too?
• What does this administration hope to gain from such opacity? Bush & co. have already squandered a lot of goodwill by keeping unnecessary secrets.
• Star Wars, anyone?
   

Despite the condemnation of the institutional culture at NASA, the commission nevertheless said that the shuttle could be kept in operation for ten or more years. While I wouldn't rule out the possibility altogether, this seems a bit on the optimistic side.

The commission recommended a series of changes necessary for the shuttle to resume flights in the near term. Many of these changes involve serious changes in how the agency operates. NASA will, as the commission predicts, resist these changes. It is in the nature of bureaucracy to resist changes.

I think we need to kill NASA. We do not need a space agency. We need a space program. Once these two things were the same - during the Apollo days, but not now. A space program, to my mind, is a plan that results in achievements in space. We do not have anything remotely resembling that now.

Look at the spread of activities that NASA is engaged in now. There is much research conducted at the various NASA research centers. We have the shuttle. We have the ISS. We have a number of deep space probes. But does this add up to anything? Not that I can see.

It has been more than thirty years since the last time we walked on the moon. We have a space station that is much less useful for basic research than originally promised. At the moment, we have no capability to put a man in orbit. Our two new disposable launch vehicles are lineal descendants of ICBMs designed in the fifties. Every program that might have led to a new manned launch vehicle has been cancelled. There has been talk of Mars missions, but no timetable has been established, no vehicles built. We are not doing anything in space. Unless research on how bean sprouts grow in zero-g counts as something.

So we need a space program. But we don't need a rebirth of the Cold War space program. We need a program that establishes goals, and incentives for achieving them, and then gets the hell out of the way.

The first step, and a statement of seriousness, should be the destruction of NASA. NASA, for all its past glory, is the single greatest obstacle to real space development. The NIMBY syndrome is alive and well at NASA, and NASA has actively opposed private space development on several occasions.

But we shouldn't just fire everyone. The NASA research centers should be renamed National Laboratories, like Livermore or Brookhaven. They should continue at their current funding. Hell, give 'em more money. But they should be out of the reach of NASA administrators. NASA programs currently run by the centers would become their sole responsibility.

The space launch functions of NASA would be dissolved. The shuttles would be sold outright to private industry. Licenses for manufacture of shuttle components would be offered as well, so that cargo versions of the STS could be built and launched. Anytime that any civilian government agency wished to launch a satellite, they would be required to use a private launch company. The ISS would be privatised as much as possible given the constraints of obligations to the other nations involved in the project.

The deep space exploration functions of NASA should be formed into a new, scaled down agency. Its mandate would be exploration of space beyond the Moon's orbit. It would have two goals: 1) put a team of American astronauts on Mars, and 2) to send long duration orbiters and landers to every body in the solar system. (This agency would also operate currently existing observatory satellites like COBE and Hubble, and could launch more if it so desired.) Written into the charter of this agency should be a requirement that all Earth to orbit transport be contracted to private launch companies.

For the second goal, the new agency should be granted sufficient funding to design, build, launch and operate deep space probes, and to operate a network of ground stations and mission control centers to run the missions. This funding should stay constant, and separate from funding for the manned programs, so that these missions would not be affected by fluctuations in spending for Mars or other missions.

For the Mars mission, the mini-NASA would be allowed to retain an astronaut corps and training facilities. A plan would be developed for developing the capabilities necessary for long term space missions. For each requirement, NASA should publish general specifications, and accept bids from private industry. NASA should not be doing all the research. Any solution that meets the specifications should be acceptable, regardless of whether it was designed by NASA. The manned spaceflight division have only one goal - Mars. They should not be concerned with how they get themselves or their equipment into orbit.

Once NASA is off the scene, the way would be open for private development of space transportation technologies. There are several things that the government could do to speed the process, and help the private sector develop new space vehicles.

First and most important would be to change the laws to reduce or eliminate the current obstacles to space development. New laws could require the FAA to streamline the certification process for space vehicles, and so on. Lack of bureaucratic obstructionism and a clear commitment to space development would encourage both designers and investors.

The second would be to offer to the first company that successfully tests a working Single Stage to Orbit launch vehicle that fulfills a basic set of requirements (cargo capacity, passengers, reliability, etc.) a contract to buy ten vehicles. (The military could find some use for them, I'm sure.) Once there is a guaranteed market for space vehicles, conventional finance is far more likely to support investment in space technology. In the early days of aviation, airmail contracts had a similar positive effect on airplane development.

And third, aerospace research conducted at the former NASA research centers should be made available to the public, so that they can use it to develop innovative new launch platforms. NASA's predecessor, NACA, did something similar back in the 30s. Aviation companies could go to investors and point at NACA research and say, "See, it's possible!" This smoothed the way to planes like the DC3 and the era of large scale air transport.

If our new space agency were freed from the requirement to operate its own launch system, more resources would be available for the real goal. NASA does not need to run the shipping companies that deliver materials, or the car manufacturers that allow its employees to drive to work. These functions can be better left to private industry.

If we have many solutions, our space transportation system will be far more robust - if there is a problem with Mack trucks, the entire shipping industry does not grind to a sudden halt. If private space companies are assured of a market, they will build launchers - and likely they will become more specialized, and more efficient than the one size fits all (poorly) space shuttle. Cost per pound to orbit will drop which will allow the space agency to get more Mars mission for its taxpayer dollar.

We don't need a soviet style, top down, every problem has the same solution space program. Let us take advantage of the inventiveness of our free market system. Let a hundred systems bloom.

Independent investigators have released their report assessing the causes of the crash of the shuttle Columbia earlier this year. First among the findings is that NASA's own culture led to laziness, non-redundancy, bloat, and system breakdowns which ultimately resulted in the conditions that killed seven astronauts.

The Boston Globe coverage is pretty good; I suggest you read it.

Finally, I would like to point out a key phrase that I hope becomes very, very important within NASA in the next few months: "Given the current design of the orbiter, there was no possibility for the crew to survive." Now, what's the best way to fix THAT problem, one wonders?