New Republic, Jan. 16
The cover article addresses the uproar over illegal immigration in Arizona and the steps legislators are taking to stem the tide. In 2004, the state’s voters passed Proposition 200, denying “public benefits” to undocumented workers. Other controversial proposals have been floated, including building a wall along Arizona’s southern border. Notably, concerns about Mexican encroachment—not economic excuses—seem to be at the root of the disquiet.The article portrays residents as worried about Arizona becoming “the next Mexifornia.” … Another article highlights Sen. Hillary Clinton’s seemingly conscious effort to cozy up to the New York Post, in spite of (or, perhaps, because of) the brutal coverage it gave her 2000 Senate campaign. After she voted to authorize the war, the Post called Clinton an “unlikely warrior,” a far cry from its previous characterization of her, the author writes, as a “devious carpetbagger.” The article attributes the paper’schange of heart to the favored access she gives to Post reporters and her occasional pandering to the Post’s agenda.—S.S.
Legal Affairs, January/February 2006
An article suggests some legal approaches to preventing U.S. companies from selling IT equipment and computer software to foreign governments that intend to use those products to violate human rights—for example, to censor the Internet or spy on dissidents. Existing laws deal poorly with “dual-use” products that can be used for either legitimate or repressive purposes, and the result is that much of the “Big Brother” technology used in places like China was provided by U.S. companies such as Cisco. … An essay on Internet security makes the case that the same qualities that have allowed software and networks to develop so quickly also make our computers fundamentally insecure. It argues that we’ve avoided a “September 11 moment”—a virus that simultaneously deletes millions of hard drives worldwide, for example—only by good fortune, and that we need a “21st century international Manhattan Project” to bring governments, academia, and business together to address our vulnerability.—B.W.
Foreign Affairs, January/February 2006
A commentary notes that a surprising number of Russians long for the “good old days” of Uncle Joe Stalin, notes a commentary. According to a study conducted by the authors, almost a quarter of Russians would like to see someone like him leading the country. The authors look at the Stalin memorabilia available all over Moscow and conclude it’s not kitsch but a prophylactic against values that would usher in a true democracy. … Since Sept. 11, madrasahs have been accused of being incubators of terrorism. Despite the bad rap, a study finds that most of al-Qaida’s rank-and-file attended secular schools. Rather than trying to extinguish their existence, the West should exploit the schools’ influence within the Muslim world so that “the Muslim leaders of tomorrow do not see the West as an enemy,” suggests an article.—Z.K.
Economist, Jan. 7
The cover story predicts doom in negotiations between Israelis and Palestinians in light of Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon’s massive stroke. “Mr. Sharon’s new party had seemed poised to make a breakthrough of historical significance, by mobilising the moderate majority in Israel and breaking the stranglehold of the settler movement.” A lack of clear-cut leadership in the Kadima party may mean “hope will darken yet again.” … A special report outlines the proliferation in the United States of “maras” or ultraviolent street gangs with roots in Central America. The gangs boast an estimated 25,000 members in El Salvador and their U.S. ranks are growing fast. They specialize in extortion and drug trafficking, and they punish some enemies by beheading them. “To some observers, their members are as much a threat to America as al-Qaeda.”—M.M.
New York Times Magazine, Jan. 8 Noah Feldman looks at the current debate surrounding presidential powers and finds that the Republican-led Congress is not reining in executive power run amok. He claims we can’t expect the Supreme Court, headed by John Roberts, to take up the cause anytime soon. Feldman concedes that you need a strong executive to combat terrorism, but urges Congress to reassert its obligation to police the president. … An interview with failed presidential candidate Gary Hart reveals that Hart had Condoleezza Rice as his foreign policy adviser for the 1984 bid; that he thinks Hillary’s wrong about Iraq; and that he’s not bitter about his extinguished presidential hopes, but when he gets upset about today’s state of affairs he kicks trees.—Z.K.
The New Yorker, Jan. 9 Elizabeth Kolbert reports on the first quantifiable effects of global warming on animals, visible to scientists studying microevolution and changes in population distribution in various insect and amphibian species. A Costa Rican toad seems to be the first global-warming-related extinction, and if temperatures rise as predicted, as much as 37 percent of all animal species could disappear. … An article chronicles the massive failures of the New Orleans police department during and after Hurricane Katrina. While cops abandoned their posts and top officials despaired over exaggerated reports of looting and violent crime, the author finds that ordinary people did a remarkable job looking after themselves and one another—“Even at the Superdome and the Convention Center peace prevailed.” A portfolio of photographs accompanies the article, and an audio slide show is available online.—B.W.
Time, Newsweek,and U.S. News and World Report, Jan. 9 Iraq and Afghanistan: U.S. News and World Report offers a special report on the future of Iraq. One article reveals that a pullback of U.S. involvement, not a pullout of troops, is favored by U.S. military officers. The military’s strategy to quell the insurgency is based largely on training the Iraqi army to perform such tasks as defending urban areas from attack and protecting oil pipelines from sabotage. In another piece, Julian Barnes follows the U.S. military’s efforts to conduct that training. The lessons include the caveat that American troops do not use torture to draw out information, but the Iraqi forces many not share the same methods. … Newsweek explores the quandary presented by Afghanistan’s opium production. While poppy production hurts the country and, as President Hamid Karzai points out, “could deprive the country of help in the war against the Taliban,” the fact is that “[m]any of the figures under suspicion were useful to the United States in the overthrow of the Taliban and continue to serve as checks against the old regime’s resurgence.”
NSA: All three newsweeklies address the debate surrounding President Bush’s decision to allow the National Security Agency to bypass obtaining warrants to conduct surveillance on terror suspects. Time points out that the Bush administration’s interpretation of executive power is being challenged in other areas, including the use of torture and secret prisons to fight the war on terror. U.S. News reports that some in Congress are concerned that unchecked intelligence-gathering went too far, citing Rep. Robert Wexler’s, R-Fla., demand that an agency of the Department of Defense hand over documents about groups that it may have tracked. On the other side of the coin, Newsweek quotes Richard Nixon’s remark that post-Watergate intelligence reform “cut the balls off the CIA.”
Martin Luther King: A Time excerpt from Taylor Branch’s upcoming book about the last days of Martin Luther King’s life reveals a leader troubled by colleagues who opposed his philosophy of nonviolence, citizens who resented his anti-Vietnam War stance, and personal worries that dogged him during his last year. “In this portrait of King as a man under siege, his passion and his rhetoric reach new levels of grace.” A commentary by Newsweek’s Jonathan Alter says the book “shows us King not as a plaster saint but an intuitive, conflicted and harried human being—running late to everything, refereeing among squabbling lieutenants, straying from his wife to the end, even slipping out to catch what one of his traveling aides said was his favorite movie, ‘The Sound of Music.’ “—M.M.
Reason, December 2005 An article examines some of the more outlandish stories reported in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, including rescue helicopters being fired upon, murders at the Superdome, and the rape of babies and young children. Turns out, all were urban legends passed on by shaken survivors and gobbled up by reporters that tarnished New Orleans’ image. “New Orleanians have been kind of cheated, because now everybody thinks that they just turned to animals and that there was complete lawlessness and utter abandon,” says one National Guard official who was there. … The magazine runs an edited transcript of a speech by former Federal Election Commission Chairman Bradley A. Smith in which he called out John McCain for the senator’s campaign-finance-reform legislation. Smith accuses McCain of using the legislation to silence critics, marginalizing the voice of individuals, and using the Reform Institute—founded after his failed presidential campaign—to further his presidential aspirations.—Z.K.
New York Times Magazine, Jan. 1 A profile of Yulia Tymoshenko shows that a political divorce can be just as messy a marital divorce. Hailed as the “two pillars” of Ukraine’s Orange Revolution, Viktor Yushchenko became the country’s president and named Tymoshenko prime minister. In September she was ousted from her position when Yushchenko dissolved the government, but an article suggests her supporters, many of whom view her as a Joan of Arc or Evita Per ó n, should not despair. Pundits predict she’ll even the score in the near future, either by reclaiming her position in the spring parliamentary election, or in 2009 when she stands a shot at ousting her former ally. … An essay comments on the popularity of vaginal plastic surgery. The quest for that Playboy-perfect vagina now “leaves the one part of the female body formerly not available to harsh scrutiny glaringly on display,” sighs the author.— Z.K.
New York Review of Books, Jan. 12 John Gray criticizes Robert Kaplan’s Imperial Grunts and Michael Mandelbaum’s The Case for Goliath, two enthusiastic books about America’s monopoly on superpower and its strategic use of military and economic might. Gray doesn’t believe in an American empire: Unlike the British or the Romans, we are unwilling and unable to commit to running foreign countries. But he also argues that U.S. power is waning as Asia’s increases. “In these circumstances,” he writes, “a revival of realist thinking is overdue. Global security is not served by launching messianic campaigns to export democracy.”… Jamey Gambrell reviews “Russia!”, a massive exhibition spanning 900 years of artworks, currently at the Guggenheim Museum in New York. There is much worth seeing, Gambrell writes, though she is skeptical of the motives behind the exhibition. Is the whole Putin-sponsored affair, she asks, “a big advertising campaign … designed to establish the bona fides of the new Russian patrons of the new Guggenheim global museum?”… Also inside: a poem by Slate’s Meghan O’Rourke.—B.W.
Weekly Standard, Jan. 2 and Jan. 9 The cover story claims that the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, created to curtail “indiscriminant snooping” by the executive branch, impedes counterterrorism efforts. The article questions FISA’s place in the system of checks and balances and asserts that the act horns in on the separation of powers. The conclusion: “[W]e should have a serious debate about abolishing FISA and restoring the president’s inherent constitutional authority to conduct warrantless searches for foreign intelligence purposes.” A related editorial by William Kristol dismisses as liberal alarmism the uproar over revelations that President Bush may have overstepped the bounds of executive power in the war against terror. … An article details Vice President Dick Cheney’s visit to Iraq and Afghanistan this month and sees it as a sign that the administration’s campaign to shore up support for the war and retreat from its “defensive crouch” will continue.—M.M.
