What would happen if you were outed as CIA?

Let's play counterfactual for a paragraph and say that you do in fact work for America's premier intelligence service. What does your job now look like to suspicious outsiders? Could you continue doing what you do? Or would you lose your job? Which of your friends or acquaintances would lose their jobs - or their lives? With whom do you regularly correspond? Can you remember people you met five or ten years ago - who now have to deal with the fact that they shared with you a business meeting, a dinner, a drink, a taxi? Every single person you have ever met in your adult life is now being looked at askance.

I think about my life: my ability to travel over, my international friends and colleagues compromised, all the meetings and training sessions wasted. I think about people I have known who were accused out of spite of working for the CIA and the burden that false witness has laid upon them and their close colleagues. A false accusation of working for the CIA puts people's lives at risk for as long as the story has legs. What happens to all those people when the story is true?

How many lives would be destroyed - literally - if you were outed?

. . .

Juan Cole has a good roundup of the scandal with some moral outrage for good measure.

. . .

UPDATE: Changed a few words for emphasis.

Cleaning out the in-box on my desk of accumlated mail:

" International Humanitarian Law Research Initiative portal offers unique access to academic and policy-oriented research material related to International Humanitarian Law. It provides access to one of the most comprehensive databases of online materials related to IHL. The goal of this project is to share information on IHL and promote an exchange of views and perspectives on the application of IHL among policy makers from all continents, exploring policy options to face new and evolving realities of contemporary conflict situations. "

Looks like some good stuff.

The cable modem was hooked up yesterday. The wireless card was installed in my computer.

Ths morning: blogging from bed.

Welcome to the world of tomorrow . . . today!

I am unsurprised to note the New York Times reporting that "Soft Economy Aids Army Recruiting Effort". After all, in June I predicted that this was, in fact, the plan.

Where the bombing of the UN offices in Baghdad filled me with weary sadness, the bombing of the Ali mosque in Najaf suggests an opportunity. Sometimes an act of terror, rather than perpetuating a spiral of violence, stops everyone and lets them off the wheel.

Many (perhaps most) commenters choose to interpret the rash of recent high profile bombings as demonstrating that security in Iraq is non-existent. However, it is far safer to say merely that the ability of US forces to provide security is what has been called into question. There are militias patrolling some parts of some cities. Again, this is being interpreted as a breakdown in security. It is also possible, and several Iraqis have suggested precisely this, that these efforts are the only thing that can assure security.

The bombers, I think, are making the same mistake that Western analysts are making, which is that the ability of the US to provide security is the only security which matters. Given the rhetoric coming from the Shi'a in Najaf and around Iraq, I would be careful not to ascribe overmuch power to Al Qaeda or Baath forces. They can perhaps pull off a few major bombings, but they cannot operate with complete impunity and they are vastly outnumbered by people who are quite prepared to mete out justice of a sort.

The challenge is not for the US to provide security. The challenge is to find ways to bring the militias into systems where their legitimacy can be assured. Can they be trained? How long will the training take? How many trainers from what countries are needed? Can the allegiance of the militias be shifted to the nascent state and away from the personalities who currently control them? Can the personalities be convinced that this is in their own interest?

All of these are very great challenges. But they rely on Iraqis and their capacities instead of shoving them aside as though they have no role to play in their own country.

. . .

(Billmon in particular disagrees - forcefully - with my thoughts here.)

" General ideas, general concepts, general principles, interpreted as absolutes rather than approximations, are mere kindling wood for a new conflagration. But of course we must use general ideas and general concepts. General words are necessary and natural - as long as those who use them understand that their generality is a convenience, bringing together certain phenomena for certain purposes, but not a monolith. We must keep a balance, and not allow these to get out of hand and take over. They must be our servants, and not our masters. In fact, as in all our arrangements, we must once again seek a balance. We must learn from experience, yet not believe we can see far into the future. We must take short views, but not too short. We must allow the state a role in social affairs, but not a dominance. We must grant the legitimate claims of nationality, but reject its extreme manifestations. This undogmatic type of approach has been among the essentials of the civic and pluralist culture. ... What does not need to be done needs not to be done - though, of course, there are things that need to be done, and situations so dangerous that quick and major action is required. But it is not enough to show that a situation is bad; it is also necessary to be reasonably certain that the problem has been properly described, fairly certain that the proposed remedy will improve it, and virtually certain that it will not make it worse. This requires thought, common sense, careful judgement, and above all no untested, or ill-tested, all-purpose solutions. All that sounds obvious and indisputable. It has not been the usual practice in the twentieth century. "

Nor, it turns out, has it been usual practice in the twenty-first.

For reading on my recent trip, I took historian Robert Conquest's powerful yet restrained polemic against ideology, Reflections on a Ravaged Century. Publishing this connected series of essays on totalitarian thought, its apologists, and attempts at inoculation in 1999, Conquest reminds us that the peculiar feature of ideologues is simply that they believe their higher purpose. Here he quotes from Norman Cohn¹ :

" As with the chiliastic movements of centuries long past, modern revolutionaries have, as Cohn points out, claimed to be charged with the unique mission of bringing history to its preordained consummation. He notes of the earlier versions:

And what followed then was the formation of a group of a peculiar kind, a true prototype of a modern totalitarian party: a restlessly dynamic and utterly ruthless group which, obsessed by the apocalyptic phantasy and filled with the conviction of its own infallibility, set itself infinitely above the rest of humanity and recognized no claims save that of its own supposed mission.

"

The Soviets, in the case relentlessly and knowledgeably examined by Conquest, actually believed what they said about world revolution and the perfectibility of man through socialism. When reality didn't match the rhetoric, it wasn't the ideology that had to be changed. Rather "reality" was redefined.

Or, in other, plainer, words, ideologues lie.

And not because they themselves happen to believe their lies as such, but because claiming and maintaining the power to mold the perfect society requires that everyone else believe that reality conforms to the ideology. Much of what remains desperately wrong with Russia stems from the poison of three generations of lies, seventy years of being unable to learn from experience. The following is from a letter of mine sent from Bosnia after having spent several weeks in formerly Communist countries and concerns my own observation of this theme:

" I do happen to believe in progress. Not only is it possible that the world get better, we can actively participate in that process. Evil, for me, is any system that takes people out of that adventure and renders them absent from history. The relegation of people to the status of parts in a machine, grinding through the years, no hope for a different life either in the present or in posterity is the particular nastiness of communism. Decades went by and millions of wasted lives fed a dream not of progress, but of perfection. And all attempts at perfection can be measured by the number of corpses piled up behind it. "

Conquest is best known as an anti-Communist historian of the Soviet Union. Despite what might seem like an ideological cast in his personal history, he makes a strong plea for acquiring a deeper historical awareness - especially the ability to wear another set of shoes, to see through another set of glasses, to pick at strange scabs and scratch different itches - as an antidote to ideology.

Conquest reserves most of his current ire for academics who fail to admit evidence into their theories, citing the nearly closed nature of academic hiring and the the love that intellectuals have for ideas in and of and for themselves. He, like so many of us, failed to note the rise of ideological think tanks, which are much more "closed" than any university. Yet every flaw in the academy he analyses, every tendency toward rigid policy prescription, and every bout of party-based paranoia is at least as true of the think tank environment as it is of the university.

I cannot help but think of Paul Krugman's recent reading of Kissinger (as told to Calpundit) and his realization that the Bush Administration means what it says. When the history of the radical left and its steps toward murderous excess causes some of us to look up from our newspapers and computer screens to take a closer look at our world and our leaders, frankly, I begin to shiver. In truth, I am not yet convinced that the Bush Administration is dominated by what Conquest refers to as an "Idea", though some elements within it certainly seem to be. However, a culture of outright lying, saying that which seems to be most expedient at the moment, combined with a persistent misinterpretation of facts in the service of ideological goals and a refusal to entertain even the slightest criticism (with self-criticism equally beyond the pale), is characteristic of a mindset that Conquest has warned us about before. We'd do well to actually learn from history for once.

. . .

¹ Norman Cohn's Pursuit of the Millennium, about the rise of apocalyptic cults in medieval and Reformation Europe, is masterful, erudite, profound, and relevant. And so fascinating that you can hardly put the book down (or maybe that's just me?). All history should be written with this much thought and care.

Home safely in the bosom of my family.

Having missed the first two weeks of the football season, I am content today to lounge on my couch with the NFL, some hot dogs, and good American beer.

I was out of the country for September 11^th this year. As the day approached, I wondered what people would say and how I would respond. Would I get knee-jerk anti-Americanism? Condolences? A hug? An argument?

I got something I did not expect: nothing. No one said a word to me about 9/11, the only terror we discussed was Nepal based (both Maoist and security forces human rights abuses came up). I had felt the world's goodwill, so much in evidence throughout the first year following, slipping away as my government's insistence on our way or the highway rubbed others raw, but I hadn't expected that at a personal level people would choose to ignore the day. As a story, America's continuing public grief led the news and CNN spent a fair amount of time on the days leading up to the anniversary on reminding us what had happened. No one here could claim to be unaware. And they didn't care. They've got their own problems which Bush doesn't care much about, so they left me alone.

Pico Iyer had an essay in last week's issue of Time (Asian edition) on America's grief and what we might learn from nations in Asia. It is really good.

Time (Asia edition) published an overwrought story on Nepal and the Maoist insurgency there in last week's issue. Much of it, in fact, seems like outright fantasy to me.

" Squads of armed police and Royal Nepalese Army soldiers in armored cars and mine-clearing vehicles now guard every street corner in the capital. Gatherings of more than five people...have been outlawed, and the city grinds to a halt every few days as armed police cordon off downtown blocks and break up protests against the crackdown. On the outskirts, the army raids house after house, making hundreds of arrests every day. "

Given that I was running a training of trainers in Kathmandu for the previous two weeks with twelve other people (and attending a larger session with sixty people for three of the days) and nobody commented on the fact that we were more than five, I'd have to say that even if there is a policy in place, it isn't being enforced. I could count the number of soldiers I saw on two hands and they certainly weren't on every street corner I passed. And the city grinds to halt every day anyway because of the atrocious traffic; I'm not sure how anybody could tell whether it was protests or just the daily commute.

The whole paragraph suggests a level of violence and tension that is wildly overstated. The journalist needed a spicy frame to get a byline, so he peddled some fear. I'm not a fan.

That said, people are tense. They don't know what is going to happen next and the conflict seems to moved into a new and more dangerous phase. People have no faith that the current government can solve anything, much less the current crisis. They are pretty sure that the political parties who are demonstrating for a return to democracy (they aren't actually demonstrating against the crackdown in and of itself) wouldn't do any better than the king's hand-picked men. They are convinced that the security forces have in fact exacerbated the Maoist insurgency through their ham handedness. They know that the security forces are committing human rights abuses and statements to the contrary by government officials only serve to decrease the already shaky legitimacy of the government.

It isn't a good situation by any means, but it isn't quite as bad as Time would have you believe.

I cannot say, however, that I have much faith that the situation will get better soon. There is an incredible lack of creative thinking toward solutions on the part of the leadership of all the politically involved groups. The civil society actors feel quite marginalized. The people have no voice and the feeling of lawlessness is increasing.

On my way home after two weeks of training trainers in Nepal.

Internet service in Nepal was spotty and when the hotel did have access, it was bitterly contested by the guests. As I was rather busy in any case, I forwent what few opportunities there were and let others surf.

The hotel in Bangkok, where I have to spend a night before continuing the trip (still another 22 hours on airplanes to go), by contrast has broadband in the rooms.

Thus...this.

It was a struggle, but I finally decided to put up a silly bio like so many others. Link on the right and subject to change without notice.

You see, I've been raised all the way up to about fifty hits a week, some of which are even coming from people who've never been here before. Cool.

And if anyone wants to do a case study on how not to market a blog, I'm available. If you can find me.

There's a specter haunting Missouri - and linking to De Spectaculis. If you're tired, oh so tired, of those college bloggers trying so hard to be reasonable about everything in the world when they should - at least occasionally - be reminding us old fogies how to be passionate about what is right in front of our eyes, then try Authoritative Abuse.

I am often invited to places as something of a courtesy (hey, there's a nice, momentary cease-fire in Afghanistan; wanna go?), but with no real plan - or money - behind the invitation. My organization functions for the very large part on grants for specific projects, so we can't just pick up whenever and head off wherever. Most of our time is already spoken for, so if we want to do something additional, someone has to pay for it. Which means that I don't usually like to talk about "invitations" until they're funded - and I have a plane ticket in hand.

However, sometimes I can't keep my big mouth shut: we've been invited to Iraq. Project proposals have flown back and forth. Everyone involved seems to be on the same page. If security is good enough, then I'll be going there sometime this fall.

I can't wait.

. . .

And that is just another way of leading up to the end of this week, when I'll be going to Nepal. I will be back on the 21^st and, while I will blog something tomorrow and Thursday, I probably won't be able to update De Spectaculis until I return.

The Boston Phoenix this week explains the phenomenon of "America's Test Kitchen" (I should add, haughtily, that if you're not reading Cook's Illustrated, then you don't really care about cooking).

But what strikes me from this article is the description of method. If you want to know what I really do, you could do worse than the below:

Take, for instance, the question of properly dressing a cobb salad, a subject ... [taken] up in a recent issue of Cook’s: "Cobb salad’s classic vinaigrette dressing is both the tie that binds the dish together and its biggest problem. Unifying the disparate elements of this salad is a lot to ask of any dressing," which "more often than not" ends up overpowering some ingredients while leaving others "high and unhappily dry." To solve the problem, the cooks experiment with one variable at a time, engaging in repeated processes of elimination — in this case, rethinking the dressing ingredient by ingredient, then choosing the best method for applying the new and improved dressing to the salad itself (simply add and toss? coat each ingredient separately?) — until the final step is reached with no stone unturned.

But Cook’s cooks don’t stop there. "Once you’ve written the recipe, you’ve ironed out the problems — decided on the best equipment for the job, the correct temperature of the oven, and so on — then you farm it out to a freelance tester, or to people in the office who aren’t cooks," Collins says. "They’ll come back and tell you what worked or didn’t work for them — things that might never have occurred to you — saying, ‘Well, I don’t have this pan,’ which you thought was a totally obvious piece of equipment." So much, then, for too many cooks spoiling the broth; rather, for Kimball, Collin, and colleagues, a good recipe is a joint effort, democracy at work.

... "What we’re presenting is the best recipe [for any given dish] we’ve ever tasted, and we’ve tasted a lot. But the idea is that we try to make it so that anyone can make it. We try to show the bad food with the good — to make the same mistakes we all make and then show how to fix them. No one’s exempt from cooking failures, but we can explain them, at least [...] " Such a thoroughgoing, deliberate approach is the only escape route from what Kimball regards as the Scylla and Charybdis of America’s cooking trends, not to mention values: convenience at quality’s expense on the one hand, and conspicuous consumption on the other. The former, Kimball says, has dulled our collective taste buds: "As Julia Child has said, people don’t know how things are supposed to taste anymore. They’ve never tasted what real maple syrup’s like, so they keep going back to Mrs. Butterworth." The latter, meanwhile, encourages a cavalier stove-side exhibitionism that’s likely to backfire: "There is a right way and a wrong way to cook. There are things to know. So get rid of all the nonsense and figure out what’s really going on, because your natural tendencies in the kitchen to improvise are usually wrong — a lot of things that are right are counterintuitive." [Emphasis mine.]