This passage jumped out at me from Fareed Zakaria’s most recent Washington Post column:

The president is right: The United States made a series of disastrous decisions after 9/11 for which it is still paying a price. It rushed to build a new bureaucracy for “homeland security” comprising hundreds of thousands of people and two dozen organizations. It expanded executive power dramatically, trampling on individual rights, adding to governmental secrecy and sanctioning what many would describe as torture.

Washington’s military strategy was also flawed from the start. Rather than focusing narrowly on the people who planned and executed 9/11, it adopted a vast and ambitious approach that, in President George W. Bush’s words, made “no distinction” between terrorists and “those who harbor them.” So the country went to war not just against al-Qaeda but also against the Taliban, trying to ensure that the latter would never again rule Afghanistan, a goal that entailed a 20-year war that the United States lost. And, of course, it also went to war against Saddam Hussein in Iraq. Washington’s response to 9/11 — the wars, the bureaucracy and more — has had a price tag, by one estimate, of $8 trillion.

Since I opposed all of those measures, that naturally caught my attention. IIRC President Biden was serving in the Senate in that period and voted in favor of all of those measures. What were Mr. Zakaria’s views at the time?

He continues:

The point of terrorism is to provoke an overreaction. The best response to it is not to lose your head.

Did the U. S. overreact? Or did it misreact? I don’t believe we overreacted to 9/11. We misreacted.

Here’s his advice to President Biden:

In addition to his counsel of caution, Biden should press the Israeli government to provide some political pathway for Palestinian aspirations. For decades, the United States — under both Republican and Democratic administrations — was seen as an effective broker between the two sides. Palestinian officials trusted American diplomats such as Martin Indyk, Dennis Ross and Edward Djerejian because they worked tirelessly to find a negotiated path to a Palestinian state. The United States pressed the PLO to renounce terrorism and recognize Israel, but it also pressed the Israelis to stop building settlements.

All those efforts have petered out as Palestinian leadership proved feckless and Israel has been ruled by a series of right-wing governments that do not believe in a two-state solution, have increased settlements and turned a blind eye to the condition of Palestinians. These are ideal conditions for Hamas, which argues that there is no nonviolent, negotiated solution and that acts of terrorism are the only option.

This is a tall order for American diplomacy. But the alternative is to let this crisis fester, which could easily result in violence that is even worse than what we are seeing now.

to which I can only repeat that the most recent polling information from both Israel and Palestine before Hamas’s attack is that majorities of both believe that the “two state solution” is unworkable. Does Hamas’s attack suggest that majorities now think it’s workable?

I’m going to confess that I was unaware that Marc Andreesen, formerly a software developer and now a venture capitalist, had written a lengthy manifesto until Adam Lashinsky pointed it out in his Washington Post column. I don’t plan on reading Mr. Andreesen’s 5,000 word defense of “techno-optimism”. I have other demands on my time. Having read Mr. Lashinsky’s column I’m somewhat at a loss at his negative reaction. Does he have something personal against Mr. Andreesen? Or is it just that he makes money?

Here’s the kernel of the column:

Andreessen doesn’t share his views for the sheer joy of airing them out, of course. He’s clearly concerned that lawmakers will put guardrails on artificial intelligence (which they should). “We believe any deceleration of AI will cost lives,” he writes, deploying a royal “we” throughout to encompass other techno-enthusiasts who share his point of view. “Deaths that were preventable by the AI that was prevented from existing is a form of murder.” In his view, AI is no danger; it is here to save us from ourselves.

Another agenda is at play here, of course. Not everything Andreessen Horowitz touches turns to gold. The firm has been a major investor in cryptocurrencies and stands to lose millions from that field’s implosion. Its investment in Twitter at a $44 billion valuation will likely never pay off. Andreessen might just need a win. And he isn’t above putting his thumb on the scale to oppose sorely needed regulation.

I suspect my own hobbyhorse is somewhat different from either Mr. Andreesen’s of Mr. Lashinsky’s. I think that wealth, size, and power, an intimately related threesome, all need guardrails and that pertains not just to companies but to individuals, governments, and all organizations.

Focusing on corporations for a moment, my observation has been that they become wealthy, large, and powerful by responding to the environment. They make something or perform a service that is wanted. They expand and retain their wealth, size, and power by manipulating the environment, particularly the legal and political environments.

I don’t really understand Mr. Lashinsky’s view of artificial intelligence. My view is that constraining it is impossible. Once released the jinn cannot be returned to the bottle. He exhibits the viewpoint of those who believe that any ill may be eradicated by passing a law against it which is clearly untrue. That’s why, for example, despite four millennia (at least) of laws against murder, there are still murders.

I find myself in the somewhat uncomfortable position of agreeing with Thomas Friedman’s proposal in his New York Times column:

Hamas has not only taken Israelis hostage; it’s taken Gaza’s civilians hostage as well. They did not have a vote in Hamas’s savage kidnapping of Israeli grandmothers and babies. Take a moment and listen to this Center for Peace Communications and Times of Israel series “Whispered in Gaza” from January — interviews with Gazans about what they really think of Hamas’s corrupt and despotic leadership. Israel has to respect and build on their views if it hopes to build anything sustainably positive in Gaza from this war.

But Israel today is in raw survival mode. We Americans can advise, but Israel is going to do what it is going to do.

Where I have a vote — just one — is in America. The president, in his prime-time speech Thursday night, vowed to ask Congress for an additional $14 billion in assistance for Israel to get through this war, along with an immediate injection of $100 million in new funding for humanitarian assistance to Palestinians in Gaza and the Israeli-occupied West Bank.

I’m all for helping Israelis and Palestinian civilians at this time — but not without some very visible strings attached.

If Israel needs weapons to protect itself from Hamas and Hezbollah, by all means ship them. But in terms of broader economic aid for Israel, it should be provided only if Israel agrees not to build even one more settlement in the West Bank — zero, none, no more, not one more brick, not one more nail — outside the settlement blocs and the territory immediately around them, where most Jewish settlers are now clustered and which Israel is expected to retain in any two-state solution with the Palestinians. (Netanyahu’s coalition agreement actually vows to annex the whole of the West Bank.)

Pledging unconditional support for Israel is not just a difference in degree from what Mr. Friedman is suggesting—it is different in kind. Furthermore, putting strings on economic aid is one thing. Being willing to follow through on the restrictions is something else again. I honestly do not believe that President Biden would risk part of his base (not to mention campaign contributions) to follow through on a pledge to stop providing economic aid to Israel unless Israel stops putting new settlements on the West Bank. In an election year?

I would add that Israel continues to fund the existing settlements—they are far from self-supporting. Refraining from building new settlements is a trivial first step and at this point we’re not even willing to advocate that.

One last point. Why does Mr. Friedman think that the Israeli leadership gives a damn about what the U. S. stipulates or does not stipulate? I think that Israel will do what Israel will do as it pursues its national interest regardless of U. S. preferences or support. The present Israeli government clearly sees West Bank settlements as in its national interest, our unconditional support ensures it will continue to do so, and we may not actually have much say in the matter.

There is a shortage of nurses. There is no shortage of nurses. It appears to depend on where you are, who you are, and what you mean by “shortage of nurses”. This article at STAT by Brittany Trang explores the question:

Hospitals are frustrated with a nationwide nursing shortage that’s only gotten worse since the pandemic. In 2022, the American Hospital Association quoted an estimate that half a million nurses would leave the field by the end of that year, bringing the total shortage to 1.1 million.

At the same time, National Nurses United insists there isn’t a nurse shortage at all. There are plenty enough nurses for the country, they say — merely a shortage of nurses who want to work under current conditions.

From the point of view of hospital administrators:

The “nursing shortage is real,” Tenet Healthcare executive chairman Ron Rittenmeyer said in a radio interview in early 2022, blaming it on nurses leaving staff positions for lucrative travel jobs, nurses contracting Covid-19, and not enough support for nursing education.

Even as the pandemic has subsided in the past year, health care systems including Tenet, HCA, Universal Health Services, and Acadia Healthcare have said in financial guidance documents that they’re experiencing staff shortages, as well as turnover and retention problems. The hospitals are competing with each other for staff, which has driven up wages.

An interviewer at the Bank of America Healthcare Conference in May 2023 suggested to Tenet CEO Saum Sutaria that the contract labor problem could be eliminated if wages for in-house staff were raised, which Sutaria dismissed. “You could increase wages incredibly — you can increase them twice the normal rate, and I still don’t think there would be enough staff to come in and take full time,” he said. “There’s still a shortage, in the end of the day, of nurses, and this becomes an execution game of attracting people to your hospitals versus others.”

while from the point of view of nurses:

For nurses, what would attract them to one hospital over another or keep them from leaving the field is having enough other trained nurses and support staff — nurse techs, CNAs, phlebotomists, lab techs — to make their job doable.

Nurses say they are sick of what they call a “manufactured” staffing crisis. “It’s a little bit of an odd thing because they’re all yelling, ‘Nursing shortage, nursing shortage!’” Aiken said. But “[hospitals] have been chronically understaffing by design for several decades, and the same thing in nursing homes and schools.”

Nurses say hospitals maintain such low numbers of staff that there’s not enough time in the day to do everything required, much less do it well. The unmanageable workload leads nurses to question whether they want to stay in that environment and face the repercussions of making a mistake, said Leo Perez, a nurse at Pomona Valley Hospital Medical Center in California and president of the SEIU 121RN union. “I mean, you heard about what happened [to RaDonda Vaught],” the Tennessee nurse who was charged with negligent homicide for injecting a patient with the wrong medication, he said.

The conditions make it hard to hold on to nurses, contributing to the idea that there is indeed a shortage.

This all looks terribly familiar, hearkening back to what major IT firms have done for decades. They’ve been largely successful, chaffering down wages in IT by importing large numbers H1-B workers and outsourcing. Offshore outsourcing isn’t a strategy open to nursing but importing nurses certainly is.
Since 2011 nurses’ wages have risen about 20%. By comparison physicians’ wages have risen about 50%. Household incomes, generally. have risen by about 50%. It sounds to me like the nurses have a legitimate gripe.

Daniel Davis, who has been a persistent skeptic of Ukraine’s chances in its war against Russian aggression, noting that Ukraine’s counteroffensive did not accomplish much in a piece at Responsible Statecraft:

If Ukraine was unable to break the Russian defensive lines after four full months of effort, after six full months of preparation, after receiving over $46 billion in military backing, and considerable training and intelligence support, by what logic can supporters of additional aid argue that giving another multi-billion dollar package will succeed where all previous efforts have failed? There is none.

There is no likely path to a Ukrainian military victory, regardless of how much money Congress allocates, how many tanks we provide, or how many artillery shells we produce. It is time to acknowledge this obvious on-the-ground truth and seek out other pathways forward.

I continue to believe that the U. S. should provide material support to Ukraine but not to achieve a military victory. On that I am in agreement with Lt. Col. Davis. I believe we should continue to support Ukraine to avert a humanitarian crisis, prevent Russia from winning outright, and use whatever influence our aid provides us to encourage Ukraine to seek a settlement less than the total victory they have promoted as their objective.

I also think we need to have civilians auditing Ukraine’s use of the support we’re providing but that’s a different subject.

Let’s imagine that you are a country that has been attacked by a terrorist enemy embedded in a civilian population. You recognize that if you do not respond the likelihood you will be attacked again is high. You get blamed if there is an incident in which civilians are killed for which you are responsible. You get blamed if there is an incident in which civilians are killed for which you are not responsible.

What is the best course of action?

Extra credit:

You are a wealthy country very concerned about civilians in a territory controlled by terrorists. Is it possible for you to provide aid to the civilians and be confident that aid will actually go to help civilians rather than be used by the terrorists controlling the territory?

The editors of the Washington Post call for the United States to send humanitarian aid to Gaza:

Though there are few good options for the people of Gaza, some are better than others. Hopes that Egypt might accept substantial numbers of Palestinian refugees are misplaced. Gazans themselves have little interest in living under an Egyptian regime that they rightly see as responsible for enforcing the blockade. Nor does Egypt have any interest in giving Palestinians refuge. Doing so would implicate Egyptian President Abdel Fatah El-Sisi in a repeat of the Palestinian experience during Israel’s war of independence, when about 700,000 Palestinians fled or were expelled by Israeli forces. This central event in Palestinian memory — called the Nakba, or catastrophe — guides how Palestinians are likely to view resettlement outside Gaza.

Therefore, the priority for the United States, the European Union and Arab states is to move emergency supplies in. This will require Israel to keep its promise of safe passage for civilians to the east and south of Gaza — as well as its commitment to allow aid agencies to operate unimpeded. The E.U.’s announcement of a humanitarian air corridor into Gaza is a step in the right direction. U.S. discussions with Israeli officials on setting up “safe zones” for civilians also hold promise.

I think the editors are engaged in wishful thinking. Like it or not Hamas is the government of Gaza. Any aid provided to the Gazans would inevitably be sidelined by Hamas. There have already been reports of such things happening. There is no practical way to prevent that as long as Hamas remains in control of Gaza.

Nowhere in the editors’ remarks is there a call for Hamas to lay down its arms. That’s the best way to help the Gazan people. Hamas is not popular in Gaza (see my previous post). Hamas’s failure to conduct an election in 17 years, its intransigence, its failure to provide the basics for Gazans, and its unpopularity all call into question any legitimacy that Hamas might have had.

Some points worthy of consideration:

• Hamas was elected to be the government of Gaza in 2006
• There hasn’t been an election since
• Hamas is basically an offshoot of the Muslim Brotherhood
• Since coming into power in Gaza Hamas has gone to war with Israel, Egypt, and Fatah
• Hamas’s unwillingness to recognize Israel’s right to exist has been the primary impediment to Palestinian statehood

Hama is not popular even in Gaza. The most recent polling data suggest that the overwhelming majority of Gazans would like the Palestinian Authority (basically Fatah) to assume the leadership of Gaza.

I wanted to pass along Audrey Kurth Cronin’s advice in Foreign Affairs for consideration. First, she observes:

All terrorist groups adopt at least one (and sometimes two) of the following strategies: compellence, polarization, provocation, and mobilization. A superficial reading of the October 7 assault might suggest that Hamas sought to compel Israel to alter its behavior by inflicting pain—as Hezbollah did in 1983 with its attacks on American and French personnel and civilians in Beirut, which led Washington and Paris to withdraw their forces from Lebanon. But compellence does not fit the context of today’s Israeli-Palestinian conflict: Israel withdrew its forces from Gaza in 2005, and no Israeli policy change could advance Hamas’s long-term goal. What is more, if all Hamas wanted to do was kill Israelis, its fighters would not have filmed their operations or taken hostages, actions that reflect the fact that the attack on Israel was aimed at audiences beyond the Israelis and was thus advancing a strategy other than compellence.

Terrorist groups often attempt to polarize the polities they target, carrying out attacks that will pit one part of society against another and hoping that the state will rot from within. Examples of this include the Armed Islamic Group’s atrocities in the late 1990s against entire Algerian villages full of civilians who rejected their extremist principles, and suicide attacks that al Qaeda in Iraq launched in Shiite strongholds and against moderate Sunnis from 2004 to 2006. But Israeli society was already deeply divided politically before the Hamas attack—which, if anything, has at least partially unified Israel. Hamas did not need to polarize Israeli society; in recent years, the Israelis have accomplished that feat themselves.

What Hamas was trying to do, instead, was to provoke and mobilize. Terrorists often try to provoke states into counterproductive overreactions.

and

Mobilization strategies, meanwhile, seek to grab attention, draw recruits, and gather allies for a terrorist group’s cause. The Islamic State, known as ISIS, did that in 2014, carrying out some basic functions of government in the parts of Iraq and Syria it conquered to create the appearance of order, and also carrying out gruesome videotaped beheadings of hostages to create an image of uncompromising, fearsome severity. Seeming to take a page from the ISIS playbook, Hamas has threatened to kill a hostage each time Israel targets “people who are safe in their homes without prior warning,” in the words of Abu Obeida, a spokesperson for the Hamas military wing, the al-Qassam Brigades. Obeida also suggested that the group would broadcast the executions, probably on social media. Hamas leaders may be calculating that such ultraviolent spectacles would bring further attention to their cause and mobilize support—not only among Palestinians but also among sympathizers and anti-Semitic extremists throughout the region and around the world. In the long run, preying on humanity’s basest instincts through spectacles of dominance and vengeance will cause a global backlash and destroy Hamas. But like ISIS before it, the group may believe that such tactics will buttress it in the short term.

Then she recommends:

Overwhelming military oppression in Gaza would backfire, stirring support for resistance and aligning Israel’s adversaries against it. A more nuanced political strategy would divide them. Israeli leaders must make clear that their enemies are the 30,000 Hamas fighters in Gaza, especially the Qassam Brigades, and not the two million other residents of Gaza. To legitimize its barbarity, Hamas has claimed that every Israeli is a combatant, just as al Qaeda and ISIS did in their campaigns in the West and in the Middle East. Israel must avoid doing the same thing and make clear that it is specifically targeting Hamas.

A successful Israeli military response would use discriminate force, making it clear through both statements and actions that Israel’s enemy is Hamas, not the Palestinian people. The Israeli government should help fleeing Gazans find somewhere to go, by either creating safe zones, helping the Egyptians to do so, or permitting regional or international actors to create a humanitarian corridor, and then allowing aid organizations to supply food and water to trapped civilians. Even in the north, they must avoid targeting Gazan hospitals from which the injured cannot be moved. Hamas will use those people as human shields—and when they do, such barbarity toward their own people will sap the group’s ability to mobilize wider support. The Israel Defense Forces will be fighting street to street; Hamas will not hold them off for long regardless.

I found the entire piece very puzzling and sadly reminiscent of commentary following the 9/11 attacks on the U. S. What would “overreaction” by Israel consist of? Would Israel pay a higher price for overreaction or underreaction? And what in Israel’s past reactions to attack would lead her to believe that any of the advice she offers would be heeded?

One last remark. I think that U. S. deployment of naval forces in the eastern Mediterranean is creating a more risky situation than Americans seem to recognize. Are we prepared for a direct confrontation with Turkey?