So I wrote this over two years ago but I’m still waiting for an answer: What, exactly, about Rudy Giuliani’s record as major makes him a person with a strong profile on national security issues?
UPDATE: “Record as mayor,” that is.
CBO Study: Phased Withdrawal Would Save Half A Trillion Dollars
In a letter to Senate Budget Committee Chairman Kent Conrad (D-ND), the Congressional Budget Office reports that the war in Iraq has so far cost U.S. taxpayers $351 billion. The total amount, approved and requested, by the Bush administration is $532 billion.
The letter attempts to answer how much more Iraq will cost over the next decade (read it here). To answer that question, the CBO laid out two possible scenarios, and the costs of the respective plans:
First, under a “stay the course” scenario with a gradual drawdown that leaves 75,000 soldiers overseas in 2013 and each year thereafter, the cost would be $919 billion for the next ten years.
The second scenario proposes a faster drawdown, leaving only 30,000 military personnel overseas over the 2010–2017 period, although not necessarily in Iraq and Afghanistan. The cost of that plan would be $472 billion for the next ten years.
In other words, phased withdrawal from Iraq would save $447 billion over the next decade.
The CBO acknowledges a great amount of uncertainty in its calculations. “The President has announced a plan to increase the number of military personnel deployed to Iraq, but it is not clear how many troops will be involved, how long the size of deployed forces will remain elevated, or what the nature of the United States’ long-term military commitment in Iraq and elsewhere will be.”
As the letter makes clear, hundreds of billions of dollars hang in the balance depending on the answers to those questions.
What Jewish Anti-Semitism?
John Judis writing in The New Republic has a judicious take on the American Jewish Committee’s accusations of anti-semitism. I’ll quote from his conclusion, which makes a broader point:
There is a paradox that haunts these charges of anti-Semitism. On the one hand, Rosenfeld, Harris, and others want to deny that American Jews and American Jewish organizations like AIPAC suffer from dual loyalty in trying to influence U.S. foreign policy. It’s anti-Semitic or contributes to anti-Semitism, they say, to make that charge. On the other hand, they want to demand of American Jewish intellectuals a certain loyalty to Israel, Israeli policies, and to Zionism as part of their being Jewish. They make dual loyalty an inescapable part of being Jewish in a world in which a Jewish state exists. And that’s probably the case. Many Jews now suffer from dual loyalty–the same way that Cuban-Americans or Mexican-Americans do. By ignoring this dilemma–and, worse still, by charging those who acknowledge its existence with anti-Semitism–the critics of the new anti-Semitism are engaged in a flight from their own political selves. They are guilty of a certain kind of bad faith.
These controversies over anti-Semitism come, too, at a predictable and particularly unfortunate time in the discussion of U.S. foreign policy. The last time a similar brouhaha arose was in the 1970s, when Jewish peace organizations in the United States challenged Israel’s occupation of Gaza and the West Bank. At the urging of the Israeli government, organizations like Breira were run out of town by their traditional, and more subservient, brethren. Partly as a result, the United States acquiesced in Israeli policies that, in the long run, have benefited neither the United States nor Israel. The same thing could happen again. A debate has already begun over U.S. policy toward Iran in which AIPAC and the Israeli government have expressed interest in the United States stopping at nothing to prevent Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons. Fears of a new Holocaust–made more plausible by the very real anti-Semitism of Iran’s president–have been sounded. What policies are in the interest of the United States? And of Israel? These are difficult questions, but they are not made easier to answer when critics of Israel and of the Israel lobby in the United States are charged with anti-Semitism.
I also have a piece on this subject up on The Guardian‘s Comment Is Free website.
Helicopters
Josh Marshall points out something I hadn’t noticed — there’s been a big uptick in American helicopter crashes recently. It appears, however, that this is a result of better tactics and/or intelligence rather than the acquisition of better weapons.
This brings to mind one of the bitter ironies of the president’s recent allegations that Iran is arming our foes in Iraq. The allegation appears, for one thing, to be significantly overstated, raising one’s concerns that it’s part of a propaganda campaign leading to war. At the same time, however, no matter what proportion of weapons in Iraq come from Iran, it’s fairly clear that until very recently at least neither the Sunni insurgents nor the Mahdi Army nor the Badr Organization was an especially well-armed outfit. Compare any of them to an irregular fighting organization that Iran most definitely does equip like Hezbollah’s military wing and you’ll see that everyone in Iraq is looking rather crude. There’s a lot more the Iranians could be handing out in terms of anti-tank missiles, rockets of various kinds, etc. This helicopter business is bad enough allready, but could easily become much worse if the administration continues its efforts to widen the war.
