Facebook can be dangerous

if you live in Saudi Arabia and happen to be a woman. In the words of a prominent cleric, "Facebook is a door to lust and young women and men are spending more on their mobile phones and the Internet than they are spending on food" .

An Abdication of Responsibility

That's what Andrew Bacevich sees in our country today. And he's not talking only of our leaders, he is talking about us. He arrives at this point by reviewing changes in our military policy over the past 30+ years. Bacevich sees three primary phases in our military policy:

• "Great Divorce" stemming from the abolition of the draft by Nixon. This served to separate citizenship and military service.
  
• "Great Reconstitution" with Reagan's funding of the military. We became spectators to our military's efforts and were like football fans cheering on our team from afar.
  
• "Great Expectations", the phase we are now in and have been in since Bush I, where we think we can save the world.
  

Bacevich closes with these words:

With regard to civil-military relations, the next president will face an especially daunting challenge. What we need appears quite clear: for American citizens to acknowledge their own accountability for what American soldiers are sent to do and for all that occurs as a consequence. To classify Iraq as “Bush’s war” is to perpetrate a fraud. Whether that conflict is moral or immoral, essential or unnecessary, winnable or beyond salvaging, it is very much the nation’s war. Vacuously “supporting the troops” while carrying on for all practical purposes as if the war did not exist amounts to an abdication of basic civic responsibility.

As long as Americans persist in seeing national security as a function that others are contracted to perform, they will persist in this unaccountability. In this regard, the restoration of civic responsibility will require first restoring some connection between citizenship and military service. We need to reinvent the concept of the citizen-soldier. Yet we need to do so in a way that precludes conscription, for which next to no support exists in the Pentagon or in the public at large.

This is a tall order. Yet until we repair our democracy, repairing the defects in our military policy will remain a distant prospect.

How much help do they need?

The industry's income is higher than it has ever been. The average annual income of households in the industry has been higher than that of the average U.S. household since the mid-1990s; last year it was 17% higher. Yet, we will supply a subsidy of $13 billion to these households this year. The industry, of course, is farming.

We're still treating our farmers as though it was the 1930s all over again (I know it may be that way soon, but it's not here yet). But, the farm industry of today is nothing like it was then. Why do we have to spend as much money subsidizing farming as we do on the entire Education Department?

You know the answer. Lobbyists and weak-kneed legislators.

The logic eludes me

Why is it likely that the failure of Obama to defeat Clinton in some big states means that McCain will win those states?

Another view of how well it's going

This is excerpted from Intel Dump by Philip Carter:

It's difficult to see how this ends well. This is some of the nastiest intra-sectarian fighting we've seen in Iraq. Second, it looks pretty clear that Maliki is using the Iraqi security forces to consolidate his own power and eliminate his rivals. Third, I can only imagine the trepidation being felt by Sunni leaders who are watching this and wondering whether they're next on Maliki's hit list. For now, the heavy fighting remains limited to Basra, although skirmishes have erupted throughout the country. If this clash in Basra lasts longer than a week, that's going to be really bad for the Maliki government. If the heavy fighting spreads, that's going to be even worse.

Update I: Abu Muquwama adds some trenchant observations and analysis at his site. He keys in on the same thing I noticed in the press coverage -- "The Basra operation, which senior Iraqi officials had been signaling for weeks, is considered so important by the Iraqi government that Mr. Maliki traveled to the city to direct the fighting, several officials said." Seriously? How is this possibly a good idea? I mean, it ain't like Maliki is an Iraqi version of Dwight Eisenhower or U.S. Grant. He's a 3rd-string kleptocrat whose political skills basically stop at the edge of the Green Zone.

Update II: Oh yeah, and another thing. Every time you think of the "adviser model" for Iraq, you should think of this operation in Basra. Because this is the end result of the U.S. advisory effort to date -- which has focused on creating well-trained and equipped units at the tactical level, but has basically failed at the national, strategic level. The leaders of the Iraqi security forces at the ministry level are as bad as they ever were. And the national government is about as bad. Training and advising Iraqi units at the brigade level and below is well and good. But if you fail to properly shape the national command structure, you're handing those units over to leaders who will misuse them.

Yup, normalcy has returned to Iraq

If Bush said it, it must be true.

Common Sense

James Stewart usually limits his column in the Wall Street Journal to investment opinion and advice. Yesterday, he went a little farther afield and made some good points about the Bear Stearns situation. You may think it surprising for a Journal columnist to advocate that any gains made in this case should accrue to the taxpayer and, to a lesser degree, to JP Morgan. But that's what Stewart says. He also has the courage to castigate James Cayne, former head of Bear Stearns, who was not fiddling while Bear was going down the tubes. Cayne was playing bridge or golf or buying property. On Tuesday he was selling his shares in Bear for a profit of $60,000,000 and more.

The Youngest Arms Dealer?

Efraim Diveroli was only 19 when he became president of AEY, Inc., a company to whom we citizens have paid hundreds of millions of dollars since 2004. The company supplies ammunition to Afghan police and military. Mr. Diveroli got his break because the Afghan forces use old Russian weapons for which our government does not supply ammunition. So, Mr. Diveroli went to places where this ammunition was available - Albania and Czechoslovakia. And, he was successful at obtaining ammunition.

The problem was that the ammunition was old, in most cases forty or more years old. Ammunition is like people; it starts failing after a certain age. A good deal of the ammunition was useless. Yet, we continued to pay AEY. Although AEY is suspended from any new contracts, the Army will allow it to fill current orders and will naturally pay for it.

Okay, it's bad enough that the ammunition was useless. But read this article in the NY Times for more weirdness. Here are some examples:

Millions of machine-gun cartridges were made in China, some back in 1966; buying them may have violated U.S. law.
The source of much of this ammunition are stockpiles that NATO has spent lots of money to destroy.
AEY is now being investigated by DOD's IG and ICE.
Mr. Diveroli's industry experience was a short stay with his uncle's company which supplied police and army here.
Mr. Diveroli has problems with women as he has been charged with some form of abuse toward women at least three times.
He was arrested for using a forged driver's license.
What really gets me is that a week after a relative bailed him out of jail for $1,000, Banc (note the 'c', not 'k' as in the real bank) of America Investment Services claimed that the company had over $5,000,000 in an account with them.

How in the Lord's name did this guy get any sort of contract from us for anything? Who was paid off? Oh, that we lived in Japan and someone could fall on his sword.

They are terrorists

That's what the Chinese Ambassador to the US said about the rioting Tibetans. It was the Tibetans who were setting fires and disrupting the peace. China had to restore order.

I guess that some Tibetans agree as they voluntarily reported to the police station.

Would China react differently if the Olympics were not being held there?

The Doctor Will See You Now

Or maybe he won't as there won't be enough doctors to see us in the near future. That's the warning of Benjamin Brewer in today's Wall Street Journal. Over the past eleven years the number of new doctors entering a family practice each year has been cut in half: 2340 in 1997 vs. 1172 in 2008. Should this continue, we'll never have the 140,000 family doctors we need in 2020. This represents an increase of 40,000 over the 100,000 family doctors practicing in this country in 2006.

Of course, the federal government is not helping matters. The FY2009 budget eliminates any grants for primary care physicians. And the issue is largely money. If doctors don't get paid enough for seeing us now, the number of us being seen will certainly decline.

As Brewer argues, universal health care cannot work unless there are enough doctors. That's kind of a basic fact that is seldom covered in all these grandiose solutions to our health situation.

4000 and counting

The NY Times has taken an interesting approach to the horror. Here are photos and stories of a few who died and some statistics.

Who says I don't like dogs?

This dog, Conan, is praying for my soul. And, for just a few dollars, I can convince him to pray for yours.

Words

Regular readers know that I feel rather strongly that the Bush administration has corrupted our vocabulary with a view to mislead us. The current NY Review has an article on the subject which you should read. You know that Bush and company are not breaking ground here as David Bromwich, the author, begins by quoting Tacitus:

To robbery, butchery, and rapine, they give the lying name of "government"; they create a desolation and call it peace.

Some of the Bush terms that Bromwich discusses are

• the birth pangs of a new Middle East
• global war on terrorism
• slight uptick in violence
• contractors
• surge
• professional interrogation techniques
• simulated drowning

He concludes with this

"History begins today" was a saying in the Bush White House on September 12, 2001—repeated with menace by Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage to the director of Pakistani intelligence Mahmoud Ahmad—a statement that on its face exhibits a totalitarian presumption. Yet nothing so much as language supplies our memory of things that came before today; and, to an astounding degree, the Bush and Cheney administration has succeeded in persuading the most powerful and (at one time) the best-informed country in the world that history began on September 12, 2001. The effect has been to tranquilize our self-doubts and externalize all the evils we dare to think of. In this sense, the changes of usage and the corruptions of sense that have followed the global war on terrorism are inseparable from the destructive acts of that war.

Okay, so I'm not an animal lover

But I would think most people would find it offputting to encounter a dog at a public meeting or in church. Yet, that's what occurred here on the Vineyard this past week. A Jack Russell Terrier had the run of the room where the assessors were meeting; several taxpayers were in attendance. Another dog of a breed unknown to me awoke me from my meditations in church today; since it was Easter there was a good crowd in church.

Why do some dog owners believe that everyone must love their animals?

Have you seen this anywhere else?

Again from the McClatchy newspapers:

President Bush contended that Iran has "declared they want a nuclear weapon to destroy people" and that the Islamic Republic could be hiding a secret program.

Iran, however, has never publicly proclaimed a desire for nuclear weapons and has repeatedly insisted that the uranium enrichment program it's operating in defiance of U.N. Security Council resolutions is for civilian power plants, not warheads.

Would that similar articles were written 5+ years ago.

"People are angry at both sides"

When I first saw the headline "Radical Islamists No Longer Welcome in Pakistani Tribal Areas", I thought that this article in the McClatchy papers would show how much better things have gotten in Pakistan. I was wrong.

These people in the tribal areas bordering Pakistan are really getting hurt by both sides. Although they rebuffed the Islamists in the recent election, the locals are still getting killed and maimed by them and by the battles between the Islamists and the government.

Islamists have forbidden girls to attend school. To make their point they cut off the head of a female teacher. The government seems to condone this behavior as long as the government is not criticized.

On the other side of the coin you have a tribal leader saying, "If you have a friend like the United States, then you have no need for an enemy". His comments are driven by the actions of our forces trying to kill the Taliban stationed in Pakistan; in most cases, civilians rather than Taliban are killed.

Taking it outside China

A group of Tibetan protesters were able to get into the Chinese embassy in India. Only five made it in, but this did not endear them to the ambassador.

Meanwhile, back in China, some protesters have made it to a "Most Wanted List" and things are boiling in many parts of the country.

The Man on the Street

The BBC has a series of interviews with five Iraqis: a 14-year-old music student, the man who helped topple Hussein's statue, a reporter, a mailman and someone who volunteered at the morgue. Two of the five think things are better now. See for yourself.

Looking for a job?

This ad appeared in this week's Martha's Vineyard Times:

GIRAFFE TRAINER NEEDED

Must have innate ability to communicate with giraffes. This is NOT a paid position; rewarding giraffe relationships should be enough. E-mail danielle@mvtimes.com.

I doubt that it's serious but this is the Vineyard and there are some unique people here.

One Man's View of the Surge

From Joseph Galloway of the McClatchy chain

The surge was intended as a short-term escalation of troop strength to buy a bubble of better security so the Iraqi government and parliament could make progress toward reconciliation among its own warring, revenge-minded communities.

They got their improvements in the Baghdad security environment thanks in part to the surge, but also thanks to the completion of ethnic cleansing in some of the worst neighborhoods in the capital and tactical decisions taken by Sunni tribal insurgents and Shiite cleric Moktada al Sadr and his murderous Mahdi militia.

The weak central government of Prime Minister Nour al Maliki has achieved little or nothing in reassuring the Sunni minority — newly and temporarily aligned with the American forces they once attacked and killed — that they will have a future and a fair shake in the new Iraq.

For the Shiite majority and their various factions running the government it’s been business as usual, siphoning off billions of dollars of domestic oil earnings and American aid intended to pay for rebuilding basic services like clean water and electricity for more than a few hours each day.

In the Shiite south of the country, with its vital oilfields and oil shipment facilities, an internecine struggle for control quietly rages and agents of the Iranian ayatollahs expand their influence and capacity for making real trouble.

In the north, where the country’s other oilfields and refinery are located, Kurds maneuver for control of the city of Mosul and those oil facilities while keeping a nervous eye on neighboring Turkey which recently mounted large cross-border raids against Kurdish guerrillas.

Meantime, some in our military worry that the Iraqi insurgents may use Gen. Petraeus’ high profile visit to Washington next month to launch coordinated attacks timed for maximum damage, maximum embarrassment and maximum impact on the American election campaign.

Some may find cause for celebration in the partial successes achieved in Iraq but I have a nervous feeling that those celebrating are the same people who are comforted by the knowledge that President Bush and his appointees are working overtime to contain the damage done by that little setback in our economy.

Facing Reality

You can't solve a problem if you don't recognize or admit it. This country apparently has a problem in that we really don't know how many kids drop out of high school. When we report to the federal government under the No Child Left Behind (NCLB) act, we report one number. When we report to the state government, we report a different - lower - number. For example, California tells the Feds 83% of their students graduate from high school, on its web site it says 67% have graduated.

Although the governors of all 50 states have agreed to standardize on a calculation, there is not yet a uniform method of calculating a dropout rate. New Mexico's rate is the number of seniors who graduate, ignoring the number of students who started school four years earlier. And, once more, NCLB is blamed because it did not set a goal for a graduation rate.

The good news is that some states have agreed that they have a problem and are starting to do something about it. North Carolina has adopted the governors' calculations and was shocked to realize that their graduation rate under the governors formula was 68%, under the old formula it was 95%.

Numbers and Photos

Foreign Policy has a number of charts documenting the past five years in Iraq as well as series of photos making the years..

I wish I had been wrong

but here's a letter to the editor I wrote on February 27, 2003:

Let me see if I have my facts straight.

1. Our government wants to attack Iraq in order to prevent a possible use of nuclear, biological and chemical weapons in the future.

But, Iraq does not now have nuclear weapons. North Korea, one of the axes of evil, does. Why don’t we attack them? It’s possible that Pakistan and India may go to war and use nuclear weapons. Shouldn’t we make a preemptive strike on them as the nuclear cloud may reach the United States? And, what about all those nuclear, biological and chemical weapons in the former Soviet Union? Might they not also be used against us some day in the future? Shouldn’t we eliminate that possibility now?

2. On September 11, 2001, we declared war on terrorism.

Will not a war with Iraq increase exponentially the number of potential recruits to Al Qaeda? We’ve been told that the war on terrorism is global. Will waging war against Iraq mainly on our own make it more or less likely that we will continue to receive cooperation from countries around the world, cooperation that is so vital in the battle against terrorism?

3. The estimates of waging this war approach $100 billion.

How much more will a protracted stay in Iraq after the war cost us? Yet, there has been no talk of the havoc this may wreak on our still fragile economy. Lyndon Johnson promised us guns and butter in his crusade in Vietnam. What did that do to our economy?

Add up the facts and only in George Orwell’s “1984” (where “War is Peace”) do they say this war makes sense.

I grew up in a day when Russia was supposed to attack us “very soon”. Our policy of containment eventually led to the elimination of this “very strong likelihood”. What is wrong with using such a policy against Iraq today?

Is it over for Bear Stearns?

The Wall Street Journal reports that J.P. Morgan will buy Bear Stearns in the next few hours. The price? $2 a share. Bear Stearns was as $150 per share a year ago. It's a fast moving world, this 21st century.

And one more

A third Tibetan city, Aba, has seen an uprising of its citizens.

21st Century Underground Railroad

Today there are many people fleeing from the country of their birth. Here are some Tibetans fleeing to Nepal. McClatchy claims thousands of them flee every winter.

A Little Background

Gretchen Morgenson does not think highly of Bear Stearns. Basically, she thinks they've not always operated on the high road. Some examples she gives:

• Clearing dubious stock trades for 'bucket-shop' brokerage firms in the 1990s
• Providing a lot of credit to aggressive subprime lenders
• Having very lax lending standards
• Refusing to help in the bailout of Long Term Capital Management.

Yet, she does not disagree with the bailout by the Fed. It's part and parcel of the times where the failure of Bear Stearns would very likely trigger failures of other major financial firms.

The times are bad but we've put ourselves here. Consider that household debt has doubled in eight years; at the end of last year it was $13.8 trillion. Consider that the current account deficit (the difference between what we import and export) went from 3.6% of GDP in 1999 to 6.8% in 2005; I doubt it's improved since then. Consider the euro was worth 80 cents in 2002 and closed yesterday at $1.56. Consider that in thirty-one of the last thirty-five years the federal government has spent more money that it has taken in. Consider that we have a negative savings rate. Consider that, although Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid accounted for 40% of the federal budget in 2006, we are doing nothing about the flood of baby boomers entering the world of retirement. Consider we are making the world safe for democracy by helping to bankrupt our kids with a $3 trillion war bill. Consider the declining scores of our kids when they take the same tests as kids from other countries. Consider studies showing our health care system is not as effective as we think it is. Consider the unbelievable disparity between the compensation of workers and that of Fortune 500 CEOs. Consider the decline of the working middle class.

I could go on. But I'll stop now except to ask what are Hillary, Barack and John saying about these things?

Things Are Escalating in Tibet.

China is cracking down on Lhasa, the capital. A number of Tibetans have been killed, estimates range between 30 and 100. Considerably more have been jailed. Foreign reporters are barred. Tibetans from the suburbs are blocked from entering the center. A curfew is in effect. Parts of the city are blocked off by the military. Rioting continues in Xiahe.

It's interesting that these demonstrations started on the anniversary of Tibet's 1959 revolt against Chinese rule.

Another convert?

Has Nasir Abbas renounced violence? He says he has and has been trying to convince his former students and terrorists of the error of their ways in promoting violence. Abbas is an Indonesian weapons expert who says he has trained many of the terrorists who are now in jail. He visits them in jail and tries to convert them to a less violent point of view.

He has been doing it for five years with the support of the police, who provide financial and other aid to the families of those imprisoned but who see the light.

Is the world of the terrorist changing?

It's as though Paul had changed his mind.

Foreign Policy has a review of what is likely an amazing book, "Document to Rationalizing Jihadi Action in Egypt and the World". It was written by Sayyed Imam al-Sharif, who has written two previous works which have become almost like a book of the bible for many in the jihadi world. However, in November he published the book under review. In this latest work, he changes his mind big time.

Now he believes that the battles in which the jihadi groups are engaged violate the Islamic concept of jihad and have harmed Islam and its followers. He specifically inveighs against murder based on nationality, religious belief or skin color. He also weighs in against the destruction of property. al-Sharif urges Muslims to obey the laws of the countries in which they live or visit and forbids violence against Muslim rulers. Jihad, in al-Sharif's view, is a defensive rather than an offensive concept.

In my limited knowledge this represents a significant step toward a more peaceful world. Let's hope this latest book is as revered as al-Sharif's earlier works.

We have nothing to fear

Our government is on the job. The FBI is doing a fine job ferreting out we terrorists. They are doing so even though the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court has said no in many cases where the agency has asked to issue national security letters because "the 'facts' were too thin" and the "request implicated the target's First Amendment rights." But, thank God, the FBI's general counsel, Valerie Caproni, is wiser than the court and issued national security letters despite the court's prohibition. The Justice Department Inspector General has found hundreds of cases where the FBI violated our laws or their internal guidelines, but, hey, we're much safer because of it.

And, of course, our biggest protector, our President, is also doing his bit. He has emasculated one of the last groups which has the requisite independence and the power to oversee our intelligence activities, Intelligence Oversight Board. The article is by Charlie Savage of the Boston Globe; he won a Pulitzer Prize last year for his work on our leader's signing statements' strategy. Mr. Savage can't resist pointing out other things Mr. Bush has done to protect us. I felt a lot safer after reading this article.

Who's next?

Carlyle Capital on Wednesday. Bear Stearns today. Who will it be tomorrow? And will we, in the person of the Fed, bail them out?

You have to wonder how the guy who lost his house feels about this bail out.

The sad part of all this is that it's not over yet. There will be more blood.

The Monks Are At It Again

This time it's in Tibet. The protest is against China.

When will priests, ministers, imams and rabbis take to the streets to protest the carnage taking place today?

Ontario, California - 2008

It must have been a very interesting article

I have trouble believing this - a 35-year-old woman lived in her bathroom for two years. She stayed on the toilet so long that her skin grew to such a degree that the toilet seat was attached to her when they took her to the hospital. But, today is not April Fool's Day, the article made the LA Times and somewhere there must be a photo of the toilet seat affixed to her rear.

No Torture, No Exceptions

The Washington Monthly covers the issue of torture in their current edition, which includes brief essays by a variety of people - "a former president, the speaker of the House, two former White House chiefs of staff, current and former senators, generals, admirals, intelligence officials, interrogators, and religious leaders. Some are Republicans, others are Democrats, and still others are neither. What they all agree on, however, is this: It was a profound moral and strategic mistake for the United States to abandon longstanding policies of humane treatment of enemy captives. We should return to the rule of law and cease all forms of torture, with no exceptions for any agency. And we should expect our presidential nominees to commit to this idea."

Want to know what's happening in China?

As you have probably gathered, I read the FP Passport blog often. Now they have decided to summarize news from China every Wednesday. The first issue covers government reforms, the economy and more. Read it.

Watch Your Own Behavior

Okay, I'll join the mob and talk about Eliot Spitzer. Of course, what he did - seek sexual pleasure - did not cause other leading politicians to call it a day. Think Larry Craig, David Vitter, Bill Clinton.

Why would Spitzer resign? I suspect that it was because he had no or very little political support, which, when you consider he was elected Attorney General and Governor, seems bizarre. But, I think it's reality. The opposition was weak. He raised enough money. He was in the press.

He certainly rocked the boat as AG, but he had many problems adjusting to the role of Governor, where he had to negotiate with those who considered themselves to be his equals and, as long as they did not violate the law, could not be coerced by threats of jail, fines or publicity.

Realizing the difficulties ahead and the damage he had done to himself, his wife and kids, he took the right path and committed political suicide.

The Torch Is Being Passed

It's the torch of technological innovation I'm talking about. A recent study by the Center for American Progress documents our growing trade deficit in high technology products. Sure, part of it is due to offshoring. But, more is due to our being beaten in the marketplace because we have been ignoring the innovation culture that made us the world leader in high tech for decades.

Where China spends 10% of their GDP on research and development, we spend 3%, less than that spent by our competitors in Europe and Asia. On international tests of math skills, we rank in the lower half of countries.

We need to recognize the problem and start solving it. What have Hillary, Barack and John said about this issue?

Dan Wasserman's View

The Mysterious 45% Trigger

Hidden amongst the Medicare Modernization Act of 2002 which brought us the prescription drug 'benefit' was a provision that seeks to put a cap on financing of Medicare. Although other federal spending, such as that for defense, education or housing, comes from general federal revenues, Medicare spending from general federal revenues is restricted to 45% of the total Medicare spending. So, if in two consecutive years there are projections that this 45% cap will be exceeded for the next six years, alternative funding sources (i.e., payroll taxes or Medicare premiums) must be sought. That situation has occurred and Bush has introduced legislation to 'correct' the funding gap.

Why Medicare has been selected as being limited in the use of general revenues is a question that may lead one to postulate that there is a move underway to attempt to privatize it. Medicare Advantage is clearly a move in that direction even though it costs between 13% and 19% more to provide benefits to patients than regular Medicare.

This I Believe

I was amazed reading "America the Resilient" in this issue of Foreign Affairs. Stephen E. Flynn, the author, echoes many of my thoughts and feelings about this country in the 21st century. Here are some quotes:

The United States is becoming a brittle nation. An increasingly urbanized and suburbanized population has embraced just-in-time lifestyles tethered to ATM machines and 24-hour stores that provide instant access to cash, food, and gas. When the power goes out and these modern conveniences fail, Americans are incapacitated. Meanwhile, two decades of taxpayer rebellion have stripped away the means necessary for government workers to provide help during emergencies.

The United States' aging infrastructure compounds the risk of destruction and disruption. One of the rationales for building the interstate highway system was to support the evacuation of major cities if the Cold War turned hot; in 2006, the year the system turned 50, Americans spent a total of 3.5 billion hours stuck in traffic. Public works departments construct "temporary" patches for dams, leaving Americans who live downstream one major storm away from having water pouring into their living rooms. Bridges are outfitted with the civil engineering equivalent of diapers. Like the occupants of a grand old mansion who elect not to do any upkeep, Americans have been neglecting the infrastructure that supports a modern society.

Since September 11, 2001, the White House has failed to draw on the legacy of American grit, volunteerism, and ingenuity in the face of adversity. Instead, it has sent a mixed message, touting terrorism as a clear and present danger while telling Americans to just go about their daily lives. Unlike during World War II, when the entire U.S. population was mobilized, much of official Washington today treats citizens as helpless targets or potential victims. This discounting of the public can be traced to the culture of secrecy and paternalism that now pervades the national defense and federal law enforcement communities.

Flynn touts the actions of the passengers on United 93 who stymied the attempt on the White House on September 11, 2001. "Americans should celebrate -- and ponder -- the reality that the legislative and executive centers of the U.S. federal government, whose constitutional duty is to "provide for the common defense," were themselves defended that day by one thing alone: an alert and heroic citizenry." He goes on to raise the issue of government secrecy in that we had intelligence that terrorists had expressed interest in using airplanes as weapons, but we kept it secret. What would have happened on 9/11 if the people knew of the possibility?

Flynn believes that we are willing and eager to serve this country, but we need leadership.

"For more then six years, however, Washington has been sounding the alarm about apocalyptic terrorist groups while providing the American people with no meaningful guidance on how to deal with the threats they pose or the consequences of a successful attack. This toxic mix of fear and helplessness jeopardizes U.S. security by increasing the risk that the U.S. government will overreact to another terrorist attack.

What Washington should do instead is arm Americans with greater confidence in their ability to prepare for and recover from terrorist strikes and disasters of all types. Confidence in their resilience would cap their fear and in turn undermine much of the incentives terrorists have for incurring the costs and risks of targeting the U.S. homeland.

The United States needs the kind of resilience that the British displayed during World War II when V-1 bombs were raining down on London. Volunteers put the fires out, rescued the wounded from the rubble, and then went on with their lives until the air-raid warnings were sounded again. More than a half century later, the United Kingdom showed its resilience once more after suicide bombers attacked the London Underground with the intent of crippling the city's public transportation system. That objective was foiled when resolute commuters showed up to board the trains the next morning."

"Increasing the resilience of the American people will require presidential leadership. For years, the fear of terrorism has been stoked and the federal government's ability to defeat radical jihadists has been exaggerated. This has created a passive citizenry that oscillates between fretfulness and cynicism. In his or her inaugural address, the next president will need to call on Americans to recapture their spirit of endurance and optimism. During the new administration's first hundred days, it must work with Congress to put in place programs that help Americans build robustness, achieve resourcefulness, enhance their ability to recover swiftly, and revise designs and protocols based on lessons learned from crises. Given the American tradition of self-reliance and volunteerism, the effort will strike a strong bipartisan chord."

Another view of experience

Here's Tom Daschle on Meet The Press. I know he is co-chair of Obama's campaign, but that doesn't negate the value of his comments about Clinton's experience:

"I know what a good First Lady she was, but it would be hard for me to draw some degree of connection between being a First Lady and having experience to be the Commander in Chief. She served in the Senate, she's been on the Armed Services Committee and I give her credit for that, but in terms of numbers of years of elected office, the number of years served, Barack Obama has more years served than Hillary Clinton."

"So it's a specious argument. The fact is, both of them are qualified. They're good candidates. They both would make great leaders. I do believe that Barack offers a lot more in the capacity of leadership, but Idon't think anyone can look at her experience as First Lady and say, for some reason, that qualifies her to run for President of the United States."

From Saturday Night Live

It will never stop.

Israel will build more houses in the West Bank. And they'll build more than a few - 750 is the plan. How does this advance the 'peace process', or whatever name is given to the bullshit that is going on there?

Worth Trying

In the current issue of the NY Review a couple of ex-ambassadors, Thomas Pickering and William Luers, along with Jim Walsh of MIT have proposed a change in our strategy re Iran. Their idea is rather straightforward - Iran's efforts to produce enriched uranium and other related nuclear activities be conducted on a multi-lateral basis. That is, a consortium of nations - perhaps, France, Germany, United States and Iran - be formed to jointly manage and operate a nuclear program in Iran.

As time moves on, sanctions against Iran are becoming less effective since fewer nations are willing to implement them. The talks between Iran and the U.S. vis-a-vis Iraq seem to have reduced Iran's activities in Iraq, showing that negotiations with Iran are possible. This may be the right time to try to implement a changed strategy. If we don't, the chances of Iran producing nuclear weapons and of our allies deserting us increase.

Such a proposal would put us back in the driver's seat with regard to actually having a position of leadership with regards to this problem. Instead of wishing for the impossible, we should seek the doable.

Granted there are a number of risks and coming to a final agreement will not be easy nor will it be fast. But it is a realistic alternative to the current impasse.

Making Wise Invetsments

Bjorn Lomborg and Todd Sandler argue that investments in homeland security do not earn a good return. Although we have really boosted the amount of money spent on protection, more people have been killed by terrorists each year. The authors estimate that you get thirty cents back for every dollar spent, seventy cents goes down the drain.

Terrorism would be damaged more by our doing a better job of stopping the financing of terrorism. That can only be effectively accomplished with greater international cooperation.

The only thing we have to fear...

You thought I'd be saying "is fear itself", didn't you? Well, in the 21st century we have to fear terrorists to such a degree that we can use just about any form of torture on them. That's what our peerless, but obviously not fearless, leader believes.

What have we become?

Clearly I am not with it

I think it's true that most of us in my generation - and very likely in all generations - had no idea of what was involved in being a parent. But, even in those days one could always telephone your parents, older siblings or friends or read Dr. Spock. And, presumably one had a degree of intelligence and understanding that gave one the courage to try to solve a problem your child was experiencing. Further, while it was not one's preference, you realized that a baby would require you to work at parenthood as well as your livelihood. True, most of the women did not hold full-time jobs, but some did.

I'm just amazed at how much parenthood has changed in the past thirty or so years. Take for example, potty training. There are now consultants who for $250 will train your child to go to the toilet. Don't want to get up when your child cries in the night? Hire a sleep trainer at $800 per night. Don't know how to rub your baby? There's a massage consultant.

Couple this divorcing of parent and child with the overemphasis of raising a professional athlete and you have a very different view of children and parents, a view which contributes to our growing isolation and lack of community spirit.

It's time for the GAO again

Regular readers know that I have a special fondness for the GAO (General Accountability Office). It is truly a fiscal watchdog over the activities of our federal government. But, it is a watchdog without teeth as, in most cases, all it can do is speak from the bully pulpit. Howsomever, every so often people do listen and a step for the better is taken.

Let me start out today by talking about the difficulties our government has in paying vendors the amount they are owed. Sometimes we - our government - pay when we don't have to, other times we pay more than we should. In FY2007 these 'improper payments' amounted to $55 billion, an increase of $14 billion over the improper payments made in FY2006. One example which shocked me - the National School Lunch Program made $1.4 billion in improper payments in one year.

These amounts do not reflect the full story as a number of agencies do not comply with the law which says that they need to conduct risk assessments of all their programs and activities to determine whether any payments are being made improperly. Much of the problem can be attributed to poor internal controls.

Some day I'm going to review the postings I've made about the GAO and add up all the money that has been wasted. It has to be in the trillions.

How many more have to speak up

Most of us have a positive opinion of Amnesty, CARE, Oxfam and Save the Children. So, we are probably inclined to believe the conclusions of their joint report on Gaza. The situation is terrible there. In fact, it's the worst since 1967. 80% of the population depends on food aid, last year it was 63%. The water and sewage system is on the verge of collapse. And, in the eyes of these humanitarian organizations, security of Israelis is not improved.

0 for 5

If a baseball player had gone 0 for 5, one would assume that he had not played well that day. The opposition did a good job in holding him hitless.

Boeing, its workers and their politicians have raised a stink about Boeing losing the competition to build the next tanker for the Air Force. It turns out that the EADS/Northrop-Grumman team beat Boeing on all five criteria. Now Boeing is complaining that the Air Force steered them down the wrong path; as a result, they bid a smaller plane than one which met the Air Force's need.

Why should we taxpayers buy an inferior product just because the loser is American? By the way, tanker revenue for Boeing amounts to 1% of their revenue. Losing this contract should not be the end of the world for them. We've got to learn how to compete in a much tougher world. Boeing has learned how to do so in the commercial arena. I'm sure they can do so in the military arena.

What is growing faster? Social Security or Defense?

The Center on Budget and Policy Priorities has an interesting analysis of the growth in federal spending since 2001. The analysis considers both inflation and population growth, but excludes interest costs. You might quarrel with the elimination of interest, but, doing so, does not nullify the Center's conclusions, one of which is that defense spending not related to the wars has grown at a much faster rate than the growth rate of so-called 'entitlements' and domestic discretionary programs. Also, the analysis shows that defense spending has increased from 3.6% to 5.6 % of GDP in just seven years; estimates are that it would take over twenty years for Social Security expenditures to jump two points.

Experts?

You have to wonder why you are not a pundit. You could make a few dollars and see yourself on television or your words in print. Did you think that Obama had the nomination sewn up on Sunday? Do you think Clinton has it sewn up today? Many talking heads have answered 'yes' to both questions.

Frankly, all this media crap bores me. The media spends more time dissecting the Clinton rip-off of Johnson's ad re Goldwater and the bomb than they do analyzing her claim of superior experience. How the super-delegates will vote is more important than what the candidates propose we should do to remain a major force in the world. The tactics McCain will use to counter his opponent are analyzed much more tightly than the candidates' plans to extricate us from the disasters Bush has created.

Welcoming Guests

Jon Stewart contrasts the visits to Iraq of Bush and Ahmadinejad.

Is Iraq really one country?

It appears as though a fair number of the Sunnis who have played a major role in our "surge" are getting increasingly frustrated. That is, if you believe this article in the Washington Post.

Some are leaving their posts. Some accuse the U.S. of attacking them. Some claim they are not paid on time. Some feel that the Shi'a are keeping them out of the army and police forces. Complainers are found in every organization, I know. But we have depended on these complainers to help in the "surge". And help they certainly have. It is likely that without the Sunni forces the number of war casualties would not have decreased as much as they have.

It is also true that the formerly powerful are more likely to complain when they are no longer in charge. To quote one of the sheiks, "The Sunnis were always the leaders of the country. Is it reasonable that they are turned into service workers and garbage collectors? We had not anticipated this from the American forces. Of course we will not accept that." Unfortunately, we need them.

Equally obviously, you can understand why the Shi'a are keeping the Sunnis, the minority group that was in power for decades, out. Being in charge after being underfoot for so long does not make one eager to embrace the people who ruled you.

Then, one throws in the Kurds and the pot boils even more.

It was only in the 20th century that there was an Iraq. But it is a dramatically different world from the days when a Western nation could draw the boundaries for countries thousands of miles away.

It's time to accept reality. A federated Iraq is better than no Iraq.

Fire! Fire!

Let's hope that there is not a fire at the new embassy in Baghdad. The alarm system does not work. At least one pump is out of commission. Some kitchens are, in fact, fire hazards. And, since we declared the building ready in December, the wonderful contractor, First Kuwaiti, is now being paid $4,500,000 to maintain it.

Talk about a boondoggle!

Will it ever be finished?

"It" is the Big Dig, a road/tunnel/bridge system that was supposed to be done years ago. It's not. In fact, there are at least 2,000 maintenance items to fix. I assume that by the time the 2,000 get fixed there will be more. If you want to review some of the history, click here.

Tough Times?

Although it's the off-season, the number of unsold houses continues to increase monthly. So times here are getting tough. Based on the economic numbers published by the government things are already tough in many parts of the country. But, you would think we were in a boom if you had gone to the Natick Mall on Sunday. Finding a parking spot was not easy. Traffic was bad enough to have a couple of policemen directing cars to parking garages. The stores were full. I wish I knew why. Have we adopted a fin-de-siecle attitude?

I guess I'm just cynical

But the number of Iraqi civilians killed in February (633) was almost 40% higher the January number (460). However, in February 2007 1645 Iraqi civilians were killed. So, I guess this is an improvement.

Another Cost of the Olympics

China is spending billions to divert water supplies to its north, including Beijing where more water is apparently needed to help the Olympics be a success. However, in the process of diverting the water many areas in the south will suffer. Apparently, some expect things to be so bad that a leader of the party has already started speaking out against the diversion.