By Nathan Tabor
Sunday, December 9, 2007
When the story of the Duke lacrosse case first broke, Jesse Jackson, Al Sharpton, and the NAACP all called for the arrest of the lacrosse players. When the facts came to light (namely, that the students were innocent of rape) neither Sharpton, Jackson, nor the leaders of the NAACP offered an apology or an admission of hasty judgment. Under any circumstances, the rush to wrongfully accuse three students of rape would rightfully be considered slander; when committed by public figures who claim to fight for “racial justice,” it is itself an act of racism.
Unfortunately, this is not an isolated incident; Jesse Jackson, Al Sharpton, and the NAACP have made a practice of using the weapons of racism when it serves their purposes.
In 2000, the NAACP ran attack ads against then-Governor George W. Bush, implying that he bore responsibility for the death of James Byrd, a black man who was dragged to his death by white racists. Bush’s offense? While governor of Texas, he refused to sign a hate crimes bill. Never mind that Byrd’s murderers had convicted and sentenced by a Texas jury.
In 1991, riots erupted in the Crown Heights neighborhood of New York after a Jewish motorist struck a car containing two children, who died from their injuries. Black residents looted and vandalized homes and stores owned by Jewish residents, all the while shouting “Death to the Jews!” After the death of the children, Al Sharpton delivered an inflammatory speech in which he referred to Jewish residents as “diamond merchants” and organized a protest march. During a spike in racially-motivated violence, Sharpton thought nothing of enflaming racial tension as a “leader of the black community.”
More recently, Jesse Jackson has been slamming subprime lenders for “discrimination” against black homeowners. The evidence? Some of the subprime-mortgage holders are minorities. So far, there’s been no word from Jackson on how the shortsightedness of the lenders or the foolishness of the homeowners translates to racism.
The NAACP, Jesse Jackson, and Al Sharpton are known as the leaders of the black community in America. Yet what have they done for their community?
In the book Scam: How the Black Leadership Exploits Black America, Jesse Lee Peterson notes “I don’t recall the entire black race in this country taking a national vote to elect Jesse Jackson, Al Sharpton, Louis Farrakhan, the NAACP…yet they’ve seized the mantle of leadership and claim to speak for all blacks in this nation.”
Though these self-appointed leaders claim to speak for the disenfranchised and profess a desire for “racial justice,” they continually engage in bigotry against their political foes, as well as their own community.
In the minds of Sharpton and Jackson, blacks are noble and put-upon, whites they disagree with (President Bush, the lacrosse students, the police) are cruel and oppressive, and Jews are greedy and conniving. These crude racial stereotypes are an ugly reminder of the Jim Crow era, a time that the overwhelming majority of Americans resolved to put behind themselves.
Despite the fact that institutional racism in America no longer exists, and it is largely taboo to publicly discriminate by race, creed or ethnicity, Sharpton and his ilk remain committed to the politics of division and hate. These demagogues achieved power by appealing to the worst in people; in order to maintain their influence, they must create new divisions even as old fissures heal. These “heirs to the civil rights movement” make a living by piling fresh discriminations atop old ones.
Worst of all, these heinous practices have done the most damage to those that Jackson and the other race hucksters profess to serve; the black community. At a time when nearly seventy percent of black children are born out of wedlock, Sharpton and Jackson are telling blacks that their problems can all be attributed to a racist system. As the next generation enters the education system, these snake oil salesmen can be heard degrading the concept of excellence; those who achieve and excel are merely “acting white.”
A prime example of this is Jackson and Sharpton’s treatment of Barack Obama. Obama, an intelligent and accomplished man, could very well be the first African-American to hold the office of president. One would logically assume that the leaders of the black community would be overjoyed to see one of their own in the Oval Office, yet Sharpton and Jackson have been remarkably cool towards Obama. Despite the fact that he holds similar (liberal) political views, Obama diverges sharply from Jackson and Sharpton on matters of race and entitlement. Thus far, Senator Obama has refused to cast categorical blame on blacks or whites, and embodies the ideals of personal achievement and scholastic excellence.
Despite Senator Obama’s positive example, Al Sharpton, Jesse Jackson, and the leaders of the NAACP continue to shape public opinion through their grandstanding and discriminatory politics. This is not mere demagoguery; for twenty years, these toxic prophets have been damning American children with messages of division and despair. I can only hope that one day, they will be held accountable for stranding the next generation in the ghetto.
Monday, December 10, 2007
Sunday, December 9, 2007
The Gulf States and Iran
America and Israel aren't the only ones worried about the mullahs getting a nuclear bomb.
By Max Boot
Sunday, December 9, 2007 12:01 a.m.
The release of the new National Intelligence Estimate will provide more fodder for those who claim that "neoconservative ideologues" and the "Israel lobby" are overly alarmed about the rise of Iran. In reality, some of those most worried about the mullahs wear flowing headdresses, not yarmulkes, and they have good cause for concern, notwithstanding the sanguine tilt many news accounts put on the NIE.
I recently visited the Persian Gulf region as part of a delegation of American policy wonks organized by the Center for Strategic and International Studies. Throughout our meetings in the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia, the top issue was Iran's ambitions to dominate the region.
Evidence of those imperial designs is not hard to find. The Iranians are aiding extremists who are undermining nascent democracies in Afghanistan, Iraq and Lebanon. The beneficiaries of Tehran's largess include Hamas, Hezbollah and even, the evidence indicates, al Qaeda. (Saudi officials are quietly furious that Tehran has given refuge to some suspects in the 2003 Riyadh attacks.) Iran is building up its military arsenal, and has threatened to shut down the Persian Gulf (or, as Arabs call it, the Arabian Gulf).
What particularly concerns Gulf Arabs is the possibility that Iran could go nuclear--a concern unlikely to be erased by the ambiguous findings of the new NIE. While this NIE claims that Iran stopped its nuclear-weapons program in 2003 (in direct contradiction to an NIE finding issued just two years ago that "Iran currently is determined to develop nuclear weapons"), it concedes that "Iran's civilian uranium enrichment program is continuing." Such a "civilian" program could be converted speedily and stealthily to military use. As the new NIE notes, "Iran has the scientific, technical, and industrial capacity to produce nuclear weapons if it decides to do so."
That thought fills Sunni Arabs with dread. "If we accept Iran as a nuclear power that is like accepting Hitler in 1933-34," warned one senior Arab official, using the kind of analogy that back in Washington would get him dismissed as a neocon warmonger.
On our recent trip to the Persian Gulf, we found no unanimity about how to respond to this threat, but many officials and private citizens alike called for a pre-emptive military strike. King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia reportedly came away from his March summit in Riyadh with Mahmoud Ahmadinejad convinced that the Iranian president is dangerous and unstable. We also learned that many in the governments of Saudi Arabia and UAE privately favor military action to stop Iran's nuclear program. We were assured by numerous interlocutors in both countries that the consequences of such raids, which would probably include Iranian-backed terrorism, would be "manageable."
The key word here is "privately." Those states are afraid to get into a public spat with the Shiite fundamentalists across the Straits of Hormuz. They are even unwilling to impose unilateral economic sanctions that could head off a military confrontation. That's particularly significant in the case of the UAE, which is the leading offshore commercial center for Iran.
The Iranian Business Council estimates that Iranians hold $300 billion in assets in the UAE, that 10,000 Iranian companies have offices in the UAE, and that trade between the two countries was over $11 billion last year. If the UAE were to freeze these operations, it would impose real pain on Tehran. But, unlike the U.S., it refuses to go beyond the weak sanctions approved by the U.N. Security Council, where Russia and China block more significant steps.
As for the possibility of air strikes on Iran, much as the Arabs may applaud such a move by the U.S., they do not contemplate doing so on their own. Yet they easily could. According to the International Institute for Strategic Studies in London, the air forces of the Gulf Cooperation Council (Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the UAE) match up quite favorably with those of the Islamic Republic of Iran.
The GCC states boast 627 combat-capable aircraft vs. only 286 for Iran, and most of the GCC aircraft are much more advanced. The GCC is well-supplied with modern American fighter-bombers--F-15s, F-16s, F-18s--and they are buying more top-of-the-line hardware all the time. Iran, by contrast, is still reliant on F-4s and F-5s acquired by the shah three decades ago, supplemented by a few more modern Russian and Chinese fighters.
Even though Iran has also been acquiring surface-to-air missiles from Russia, either the UAE or Saudi Arabia has, at least on paper, an air force capable of dealing the Iranian nuclear program a devastating blow. Of course a Gulf air armada would take heavier casualties than an American one. Gulf pilots do not have the full panoply of surveillance and electronic warfare systems needed to totally suppress air defenses. Nor do they have the "bunker buster" munitions needed to take out deep-buried facilities.
But the Gulf air forces have had years of training, and their pilots do practice alongside those from the U.S., Britain, France and other nations in the kinds of elaborate air-warfare scenarios pioneered in the "red flag" exercises at Nellis Air Force Base in Nevada. Some of the weaknesses of the Gulf air forces, such as lack of bunker busters, could easily be remedied by purchases from the American arsenal.
The U.S. is making those very kinds of transfers to help the Israeli Air Force develop its long-range strike capacity. We take for granted that Israel, a state of 6.4 million people with a GDP of $140 billion, could successfully attack nuclear sites located 1,200 miles away. Yet we ignore the possibility that the GCC states, with a combined population of 39 million and a GDP of $522 billion, could do at least as good of a job, operating from bases located in some cases less than 100 miles from Iran. (Iran's population is 65 million; its GDP $193 billion.)
This is largely because the GCC states, for all their economic might, have gotten used to thinking of themselves as political and military weaklings. As much as they may resent and criticize us, they feel utterly dependent on us for their defense.
The U.S. has a major stake in defending states with so much oil, and they do provide valuable cooperation in basing and logistics. But these states can and should do more. For a start, they should take steps to integrate their armed forces, so that they can turn the GCC into a NATO-like fighting force. And if President Bush or (more likely) his successor decides to pre-empt Iran, it will be important, as in the 1991 Gulf War, to have participation, if only symbolic, from Arab states, so that the conflict cannot be cast as one pitting "Zionists" and "crusaders" against innocent Muslims.
We need to tell the Gulf Arabs that if they expect the U.S. to stand with them in the future, they need to stand with us publicly, not just privately. At the very least they need to stop kicking us in the shins, as King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia did earlier this year by condemning as "illegitimate" the "foreign occupation" of Iraq (even though he doesn't want us to leave).
The Saudi decision to attend the Annapolis meeting is a nice gesture in favor of the Bush administration's newfound priorities, but it does little to address the most pressing issue confronting the Middle East. A Gulf-wide policy of getting tougher with Iran--diplomatically and economically and, if need be, militarily--would do a lot more good.
By Max Boot
Sunday, December 9, 2007 12:01 a.m.
The release of the new National Intelligence Estimate will provide more fodder for those who claim that "neoconservative ideologues" and the "Israel lobby" are overly alarmed about the rise of Iran. In reality, some of those most worried about the mullahs wear flowing headdresses, not yarmulkes, and they have good cause for concern, notwithstanding the sanguine tilt many news accounts put on the NIE.
I recently visited the Persian Gulf region as part of a delegation of American policy wonks organized by the Center for Strategic and International Studies. Throughout our meetings in the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia, the top issue was Iran's ambitions to dominate the region.
Evidence of those imperial designs is not hard to find. The Iranians are aiding extremists who are undermining nascent democracies in Afghanistan, Iraq and Lebanon. The beneficiaries of Tehran's largess include Hamas, Hezbollah and even, the evidence indicates, al Qaeda. (Saudi officials are quietly furious that Tehran has given refuge to some suspects in the 2003 Riyadh attacks.) Iran is building up its military arsenal, and has threatened to shut down the Persian Gulf (or, as Arabs call it, the Arabian Gulf).
What particularly concerns Gulf Arabs is the possibility that Iran could go nuclear--a concern unlikely to be erased by the ambiguous findings of the new NIE. While this NIE claims that Iran stopped its nuclear-weapons program in 2003 (in direct contradiction to an NIE finding issued just two years ago that "Iran currently is determined to develop nuclear weapons"), it concedes that "Iran's civilian uranium enrichment program is continuing." Such a "civilian" program could be converted speedily and stealthily to military use. As the new NIE notes, "Iran has the scientific, technical, and industrial capacity to produce nuclear weapons if it decides to do so."
That thought fills Sunni Arabs with dread. "If we accept Iran as a nuclear power that is like accepting Hitler in 1933-34," warned one senior Arab official, using the kind of analogy that back in Washington would get him dismissed as a neocon warmonger.
On our recent trip to the Persian Gulf, we found no unanimity about how to respond to this threat, but many officials and private citizens alike called for a pre-emptive military strike. King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia reportedly came away from his March summit in Riyadh with Mahmoud Ahmadinejad convinced that the Iranian president is dangerous and unstable. We also learned that many in the governments of Saudi Arabia and UAE privately favor military action to stop Iran's nuclear program. We were assured by numerous interlocutors in both countries that the consequences of such raids, which would probably include Iranian-backed terrorism, would be "manageable."
The key word here is "privately." Those states are afraid to get into a public spat with the Shiite fundamentalists across the Straits of Hormuz. They are even unwilling to impose unilateral economic sanctions that could head off a military confrontation. That's particularly significant in the case of the UAE, which is the leading offshore commercial center for Iran.
The Iranian Business Council estimates that Iranians hold $300 billion in assets in the UAE, that 10,000 Iranian companies have offices in the UAE, and that trade between the two countries was over $11 billion last year. If the UAE were to freeze these operations, it would impose real pain on Tehran. But, unlike the U.S., it refuses to go beyond the weak sanctions approved by the U.N. Security Council, where Russia and China block more significant steps.
As for the possibility of air strikes on Iran, much as the Arabs may applaud such a move by the U.S., they do not contemplate doing so on their own. Yet they easily could. According to the International Institute for Strategic Studies in London, the air forces of the Gulf Cooperation Council (Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the UAE) match up quite favorably with those of the Islamic Republic of Iran.
The GCC states boast 627 combat-capable aircraft vs. only 286 for Iran, and most of the GCC aircraft are much more advanced. The GCC is well-supplied with modern American fighter-bombers--F-15s, F-16s, F-18s--and they are buying more top-of-the-line hardware all the time. Iran, by contrast, is still reliant on F-4s and F-5s acquired by the shah three decades ago, supplemented by a few more modern Russian and Chinese fighters.
Even though Iran has also been acquiring surface-to-air missiles from Russia, either the UAE or Saudi Arabia has, at least on paper, an air force capable of dealing the Iranian nuclear program a devastating blow. Of course a Gulf air armada would take heavier casualties than an American one. Gulf pilots do not have the full panoply of surveillance and electronic warfare systems needed to totally suppress air defenses. Nor do they have the "bunker buster" munitions needed to take out deep-buried facilities.
But the Gulf air forces have had years of training, and their pilots do practice alongside those from the U.S., Britain, France and other nations in the kinds of elaborate air-warfare scenarios pioneered in the "red flag" exercises at Nellis Air Force Base in Nevada. Some of the weaknesses of the Gulf air forces, such as lack of bunker busters, could easily be remedied by purchases from the American arsenal.
The U.S. is making those very kinds of transfers to help the Israeli Air Force develop its long-range strike capacity. We take for granted that Israel, a state of 6.4 million people with a GDP of $140 billion, could successfully attack nuclear sites located 1,200 miles away. Yet we ignore the possibility that the GCC states, with a combined population of 39 million and a GDP of $522 billion, could do at least as good of a job, operating from bases located in some cases less than 100 miles from Iran. (Iran's population is 65 million; its GDP $193 billion.)
This is largely because the GCC states, for all their economic might, have gotten used to thinking of themselves as political and military weaklings. As much as they may resent and criticize us, they feel utterly dependent on us for their defense.
The U.S. has a major stake in defending states with so much oil, and they do provide valuable cooperation in basing and logistics. But these states can and should do more. For a start, they should take steps to integrate their armed forces, so that they can turn the GCC into a NATO-like fighting force. And if President Bush or (more likely) his successor decides to pre-empt Iran, it will be important, as in the 1991 Gulf War, to have participation, if only symbolic, from Arab states, so that the conflict cannot be cast as one pitting "Zionists" and "crusaders" against innocent Muslims.
We need to tell the Gulf Arabs that if they expect the U.S. to stand with them in the future, they need to stand with us publicly, not just privately. At the very least they need to stop kicking us in the shins, as King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia did earlier this year by condemning as "illegitimate" the "foreign occupation" of Iraq (even though he doesn't want us to leave).
The Saudi decision to attend the Annapolis meeting is a nice gesture in favor of the Bush administration's newfound priorities, but it does little to address the most pressing issue confronting the Middle East. A Gulf-wide policy of getting tougher with Iran--diplomatically and economically and, if need be, militarily--would do a lot more good.
Calling a censor a censor — censored!
By Paul Jacob
Sunday, December 9, 2007
Canada does not have our First Amendment. It does not have as strong a protection for free speech as we do here in the U. S. of A.
I can say this even as America’s free speech rights have been eroded by McCain-Feingold and other meddling regulations. We’re in bad shape, but Canada’s worse.
So what does that mean, practically?
Canadians are less free to call people they do not like nasty names. That would be a “hate crime,” and that’s against the law.
Now, this is not exactly new. Americans have known about “hate speech” laws for some time. We’ve had our own battles about them. Some people believe that saying nasty things about other people is always wrong. And always worth suppressing.
This is an extreme minority position, though. Even hate-speech law advocates believe in speaking maliciously about people who engage in hate speech. What seems to be the case in all this hate speech regulation is that we are not allowed to hurl horrid phrases at certain people in certain groups.
In America, we’re a little more used to the idea of defending speech we don’t approve of than are Canadians. So Canadians have the hate speech code intact, and Americans have only “flirted” with such codes.
Now, as a matter of what I endorse and condemn, and what my family prohibits, and what my friends excoriate, I am pretty firm. I really do hate hateful speech. But my private condemnations — and my neighbors’ — provide no ground for having our government suppress everything we condemn.
Besides, as an American, the right to say nasty things about people seems part of the whole point of being free. And if that sounds weird, just read the jottings of our Founding Fathers . . . about each other. Mainly about their enemies, but about each other, too. The Federalist/anti-Federalist fight, as it grew into the Federalist/Republican Party debates, often got quite vicious. Very American, very un-Canadian. Downright hateful.
Like our Founding Fathers, I prefer to choose my targets very carefully. Maybe that’s why about the only time I say derogatory things about anyone is when that person is abridging a freedom.
But that’s only half the story. Things get much worse, in Canada.
Canadians who do not like their hate-speech policy, it turns out, are not free to call censors unflattering things.
Let me rephrase. Canadians are not free to call censors “enemies of free speech.” Even if, by the clear meaning of the English language (as well as by American standards) that’s what hate-speech censors are, just because they’re censors: Enemies of free speech.
Take the case of a “particularly nasty piece of work,” Richard Warman. He’s a lawyer — an “award-winning lawyer,” according to Wikipedia — who was employed by the Canadian Human Rights Commission to root out hate speech, particularly on the Web. Oh, I’m sure he’s a pillar of decency. It’s easy to despise the speech of neo-Nazis and other “hate groups.” I know I do. But it’s one thing to hate the hateful. It’s another thing to persecute them, to deny their rights to speak.
What did Warman do? He filed numerous complaints against “hate speech” websites, and the government took many of those sites down.
So, as decent as Warman no doubt is in private life, as fun-loving and above-board, in public life he’s just, well, unjust. His very job with the misnamed “human rights” commission was an ongoing series of injustices.
So you’d expect his work to receive criticism.
And it did. Paul Fromm, a free-speech activist and founder of Canadians Associated for Free Expresssion — a group defending the worst “hate sites,” and thus said to “have links” with them (how deep those ties are I do not know; the matter irrelevant for my purposes, anyway) — has repeatedly called Warman an “enemy of free speech.” And similar things.
And so what did Warman do?
He sued.
For libel.
And won.
And was awarded $30,000.
Why? The judge ruled that a government official working from duly enacted government policy cannot be an enemy of free speech. That’s just unthinkable!
Yes, in Canada you may not speak the truth about free speech to its official enemies. In Canada, the reason why we must defend even the most vile speech and writing becomes clear: because suppression of it eventually leads to the inability to criticize government.
You know you’ve lost your freedom when you cannot call a censor a censor.
But here in the United States, we can. Well, at least for now.
Sunday, December 9, 2007
Canada does not have our First Amendment. It does not have as strong a protection for free speech as we do here in the U. S. of A.
I can say this even as America’s free speech rights have been eroded by McCain-Feingold and other meddling regulations. We’re in bad shape, but Canada’s worse.
So what does that mean, practically?
Canadians are less free to call people they do not like nasty names. That would be a “hate crime,” and that’s against the law.
Now, this is not exactly new. Americans have known about “hate speech” laws for some time. We’ve had our own battles about them. Some people believe that saying nasty things about other people is always wrong. And always worth suppressing.
This is an extreme minority position, though. Even hate-speech law advocates believe in speaking maliciously about people who engage in hate speech. What seems to be the case in all this hate speech regulation is that we are not allowed to hurl horrid phrases at certain people in certain groups.
In America, we’re a little more used to the idea of defending speech we don’t approve of than are Canadians. So Canadians have the hate speech code intact, and Americans have only “flirted” with such codes.
Now, as a matter of what I endorse and condemn, and what my family prohibits, and what my friends excoriate, I am pretty firm. I really do hate hateful speech. But my private condemnations — and my neighbors’ — provide no ground for having our government suppress everything we condemn.
Besides, as an American, the right to say nasty things about people seems part of the whole point of being free. And if that sounds weird, just read the jottings of our Founding Fathers . . . about each other. Mainly about their enemies, but about each other, too. The Federalist/anti-Federalist fight, as it grew into the Federalist/Republican Party debates, often got quite vicious. Very American, very un-Canadian. Downright hateful.
Like our Founding Fathers, I prefer to choose my targets very carefully. Maybe that’s why about the only time I say derogatory things about anyone is when that person is abridging a freedom.
But that’s only half the story. Things get much worse, in Canada.
Canadians who do not like their hate-speech policy, it turns out, are not free to call censors unflattering things.
Let me rephrase. Canadians are not free to call censors “enemies of free speech.” Even if, by the clear meaning of the English language (as well as by American standards) that’s what hate-speech censors are, just because they’re censors: Enemies of free speech.
Take the case of a “particularly nasty piece of work,” Richard Warman. He’s a lawyer — an “award-winning lawyer,” according to Wikipedia — who was employed by the Canadian Human Rights Commission to root out hate speech, particularly on the Web. Oh, I’m sure he’s a pillar of decency. It’s easy to despise the speech of neo-Nazis and other “hate groups.” I know I do. But it’s one thing to hate the hateful. It’s another thing to persecute them, to deny their rights to speak.
What did Warman do? He filed numerous complaints against “hate speech” websites, and the government took many of those sites down.
So, as decent as Warman no doubt is in private life, as fun-loving and above-board, in public life he’s just, well, unjust. His very job with the misnamed “human rights” commission was an ongoing series of injustices.
So you’d expect his work to receive criticism.
And it did. Paul Fromm, a free-speech activist and founder of Canadians Associated for Free Expresssion — a group defending the worst “hate sites,” and thus said to “have links” with them (how deep those ties are I do not know; the matter irrelevant for my purposes, anyway) — has repeatedly called Warman an “enemy of free speech.” And similar things.
And so what did Warman do?
He sued.
For libel.
And won.
And was awarded $30,000.
Why? The judge ruled that a government official working from duly enacted government policy cannot be an enemy of free speech. That’s just unthinkable!
Yes, in Canada you may not speak the truth about free speech to its official enemies. In Canada, the reason why we must defend even the most vile speech and writing becomes clear: because suppression of it eventually leads to the inability to criticize government.
You know you’ve lost your freedom when you cannot call a censor a censor.
But here in the United States, we can. Well, at least for now.
Friday, December 7, 2007
Health Care Improvement Without Federal Government Control
By Paul Weyrich
Thursday, December 6, 2007
Much of the media coverage of the Presidential campaign has focused upon two issues — the war in Iraq and health care. The latter has been particularly prominent in Democratic Presidential debates and upon the campaign trail. The three leading Democratic Presidential candidates – Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-NY), Senator Barack Obama (D-IL) and former Senator John Edwards (D-NC) – have stated they would urge Congress to implement mandatory universal health care run by the Federal Government. The Republicans have been underwhelming on the issue, failing to advocate aggressively and articulately free-market reforms.
Universal health care is synonymous with government-run health care. While candidates praise the virtues of such coverage, the reality is far different. In a government-run system, costs can be controlled but this is done through rationing. For examples of how this works in practice, one need look no further than Canada or Great Britain, where patients must wait months or years to see a physician and receive treatment for basic, non-emergency ailments. Such a system of rationing inevitably takes a toll upon people’s health and life-expectancy.
If universal health care is undesirable from a practical and ideological standpoint, what reforms should be made to improve health care in America?
First, people should be able to choose what services they want covered. Instead of having prepackaged, one-size-fits-all plans, consumers could choose what they can afford and need. The cost of health insurance is exceedingly high in some states because podiatrists, acupuncturists, massage therapists and others must be covered by law, according to Larry Elder in INVESTOR’S BUSINESS DAILY. The average healthy person has no need of such services and potentially would be more willing to purchase a cheaper insurance plan that did not include non-essential benefits.
Second, insurance should be portable. In other words, consumers should be able to purchase insurance wherever they want, from an insurance company incorporated in any state in the Union. Heavy regulations in states like New Jersey and New York have driven the price of health care beyond the reach of many, while states such as Kentucky and Oklahoma have kept costs low. According to Senator Tom Coburn, M.D. (R-OK) in “Competition: A Prescription for Health Care Transformation,” published by the Heritage Foundation, the price of a health insurance policy in New Jersey is seven times that of one in Kentucky.
Third, reduce the administrative overhead with which employers and insurance companies are burdened. Coburn notes that administration and processing currently account for 6% of health care costs, which may seem small until one realizes that 6% is in the range of $125 billion.
Fourth, reform Medicare and Medicaid. Much like the antiquated systems of Canada and Britain, Medicare and Medicaid are directed by government bureaucrats who decide what services and drugs patients can have, when they can have them and how much the government will pay for them. Consequently, access and care are not the same for those dependent upon Medicare and Medicaid as they are for those on private or employer-sponsored health insurance. It is difficult immediately to eradicate entitlements, like Medicare and Medicaid, once a large number of people are dependent upon them. Perhaps the place to begin is to eliminate overlap between the two programs and to streamline those who are on both into one or the other. In spite of the difficulty, these two must be reformed soon. If left unchanged Medicare and Medicaid are projected to consume 16.2% of the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) in the coming years.
The major problem with health care is that Americans have ceded to the Federal Government a role it should not have, particularly because the United States Constitution does not enumerate health care as a power of the Federal Government. True, government has a responsibility to ensure that there are medical standards in place to prevent abuse, malpractice and corruption but this is better left to state governments.
Health care and education are the two most regulated industries in America, and, consequently, two of the most expensive and staid. If the Federal Government would move out of the health industry and deregulate the market prices would fall, insurance companies would become competitive, taxpayers would save money and the industry would be much more consumer-friendly and responsive. As Scott Harrington and Tom Miller note in “Competitive Markets for Individual Health Insurance,” competition creates relentless pressure for accurate pricing. Ideally, Americans will move away from the false promises of universal health care and toward a free-market system in which competition lowers prices, creates more accountability and stimulates innovation.
Thursday, December 6, 2007
Much of the media coverage of the Presidential campaign has focused upon two issues — the war in Iraq and health care. The latter has been particularly prominent in Democratic Presidential debates and upon the campaign trail. The three leading Democratic Presidential candidates – Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-NY), Senator Barack Obama (D-IL) and former Senator John Edwards (D-NC) – have stated they would urge Congress to implement mandatory universal health care run by the Federal Government. The Republicans have been underwhelming on the issue, failing to advocate aggressively and articulately free-market reforms.
Universal health care is synonymous with government-run health care. While candidates praise the virtues of such coverage, the reality is far different. In a government-run system, costs can be controlled but this is done through rationing. For examples of how this works in practice, one need look no further than Canada or Great Britain, where patients must wait months or years to see a physician and receive treatment for basic, non-emergency ailments. Such a system of rationing inevitably takes a toll upon people’s health and life-expectancy.
If universal health care is undesirable from a practical and ideological standpoint, what reforms should be made to improve health care in America?
First, people should be able to choose what services they want covered. Instead of having prepackaged, one-size-fits-all plans, consumers could choose what they can afford and need. The cost of health insurance is exceedingly high in some states because podiatrists, acupuncturists, massage therapists and others must be covered by law, according to Larry Elder in INVESTOR’S BUSINESS DAILY. The average healthy person has no need of such services and potentially would be more willing to purchase a cheaper insurance plan that did not include non-essential benefits.
Second, insurance should be portable. In other words, consumers should be able to purchase insurance wherever they want, from an insurance company incorporated in any state in the Union. Heavy regulations in states like New Jersey and New York have driven the price of health care beyond the reach of many, while states such as Kentucky and Oklahoma have kept costs low. According to Senator Tom Coburn, M.D. (R-OK) in “Competition: A Prescription for Health Care Transformation,” published by the Heritage Foundation, the price of a health insurance policy in New Jersey is seven times that of one in Kentucky.
Third, reduce the administrative overhead with which employers and insurance companies are burdened. Coburn notes that administration and processing currently account for 6% of health care costs, which may seem small until one realizes that 6% is in the range of $125 billion.
Fourth, reform Medicare and Medicaid. Much like the antiquated systems of Canada and Britain, Medicare and Medicaid are directed by government bureaucrats who decide what services and drugs patients can have, when they can have them and how much the government will pay for them. Consequently, access and care are not the same for those dependent upon Medicare and Medicaid as they are for those on private or employer-sponsored health insurance. It is difficult immediately to eradicate entitlements, like Medicare and Medicaid, once a large number of people are dependent upon them. Perhaps the place to begin is to eliminate overlap between the two programs and to streamline those who are on both into one or the other. In spite of the difficulty, these two must be reformed soon. If left unchanged Medicare and Medicaid are projected to consume 16.2% of the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) in the coming years.
The major problem with health care is that Americans have ceded to the Federal Government a role it should not have, particularly because the United States Constitution does not enumerate health care as a power of the Federal Government. True, government has a responsibility to ensure that there are medical standards in place to prevent abuse, malpractice and corruption but this is better left to state governments.
Health care and education are the two most regulated industries in America, and, consequently, two of the most expensive and staid. If the Federal Government would move out of the health industry and deregulate the market prices would fall, insurance companies would become competitive, taxpayers would save money and the industry would be much more consumer-friendly and responsive. As Scott Harrington and Tom Miller note in “Competitive Markets for Individual Health Insurance,” competition creates relentless pressure for accurate pricing. Ideally, Americans will move away from the false promises of universal health care and toward a free-market system in which competition lowers prices, creates more accountability and stimulates innovation.
Not According to Script
Hollywood gets shown up by pro-war YouTube videos and a didactic antiwar cat.
By Brendan Miniter
Friday, December 7, 2007 12:01 a.m.
The guns of war have fallen silent for Hollywood. Studio executives, who could once count on Americans filling theaters for just about any war movie they produced, are finding this year's war flicks to be a bunch of duds. "Lions for Lambs," Robert Redford's case against the war in Afghanistan, is a flop. It stars Mr. Redford, Meryl Streep and Tom Cruise and may not make back its $35 million price tag. Brian De Palma's "Redacted" played to empty seats. Even "The War," Ken Burns's much-anticipated World War II documentary that aired on PBS in September, met a less-than-explosive reception.
But Americans haven't lost their taste for war footage. They've just found a better place to see the type of war film they actually enjoy watching. Some of the hottest videos on YouTube are of actual battles that have taken place in Afghanistan and Iraq. This is footage that often hasn't made its way onto the nightly news or CNN--although some of it has--but it's largely unadulterated film that shows American soldiers in action, bringing the full weight of American military might to bear against the enemy. And in most of these films, it's clear who the enemy is.
Some of the are amateur productions and others are professionally produced, such as two films that have drawn about 700,000 viewers each: "Insurgent Snipers vs. U.S. Marines," put together by the History Channel, and "Iraq Marine Battle Fallujah." In the latter, U.S. Marines are seen assaulting Fallujah. The film, just 4 1/2 minutes, plays to the tune of Dire Straits' 1985 hit "Brothers in Arms," and is a better tribute to the men who fight the nation's wars that anything Hollywood has put out since John Wayne's 1968 film "The Green Berets."
Another film, this one billing itself as "Iraq War (The Great Footage Ever!)," was posted in February and has already drawn more than 1.3 million viewers. It runs a little less than 10 minutes and features shots of U.S. military attack aircraft and U.S. Marines in Iraq. The Marines, who fill the final half of the film, are shown kicking in doors, burning photographs of Saddam Hussein, and blasting insurgents with seemingly every weapon in the U.S. arsenal. It's raw, upfront military aggression targeted at bad guys, interspersed with lighter moments of kicking soccer balls around with Iraqi children and training Iraqi soldiers. It too is compelling video.
Yet another film winning attention--"Battle on Haifa Street, Baghdad, Iraq"--was posted nine months ago and has been seen by more than 1.8 million viewers. In nearly three minutes of combat footage, viewers can watch a battle scene play out where American and Iraqi soldiers attack and appear to kill insurgents in urban Baghdad. Another short film--"U.S. Marines in Iraq Real Footage Warning Graphic"--plays to American rock music, runs just five minutes. It is an adrenaline rush all the way through and has been seen by some 1.1 million people.
Not every online film is pro-war. One, available here, is a 23-minute discussion of whether the Iraq war is illegal under international law. Narrated by a talking cat, it has been seen by more than 600,000 people. It's anyone's guess how many of them have actually been swayed by the cat's arguments.
Today cameras are ubiquitous and production software is easy enough to use that nearly any American with an interest in doing so can put together a film and post it online for public viewing. That many of the videos showing up on the Internet are just as or even more compelling to watch than what Tinsel Town throws up on the silver screen is both an indictment of Hollywood as well as an opportunity. It's of little mystery now what kind of war films consumers want to see. Most of them involve the good guys winning.
By Brendan Miniter
Friday, December 7, 2007 12:01 a.m.
The guns of war have fallen silent for Hollywood. Studio executives, who could once count on Americans filling theaters for just about any war movie they produced, are finding this year's war flicks to be a bunch of duds. "Lions for Lambs," Robert Redford's case against the war in Afghanistan, is a flop. It stars Mr. Redford, Meryl Streep and Tom Cruise and may not make back its $35 million price tag. Brian De Palma's "Redacted" played to empty seats. Even "The War," Ken Burns's much-anticipated World War II documentary that aired on PBS in September, met a less-than-explosive reception.
But Americans haven't lost their taste for war footage. They've just found a better place to see the type of war film they actually enjoy watching. Some of the hottest videos on YouTube are of actual battles that have taken place in Afghanistan and Iraq. This is footage that often hasn't made its way onto the nightly news or CNN--although some of it has--but it's largely unadulterated film that shows American soldiers in action, bringing the full weight of American military might to bear against the enemy. And in most of these films, it's clear who the enemy is.
Some of the are amateur productions and others are professionally produced, such as two films that have drawn about 700,000 viewers each: "Insurgent Snipers vs. U.S. Marines," put together by the History Channel, and "Iraq Marine Battle Fallujah." In the latter, U.S. Marines are seen assaulting Fallujah. The film, just 4 1/2 minutes, plays to the tune of Dire Straits' 1985 hit "Brothers in Arms," and is a better tribute to the men who fight the nation's wars that anything Hollywood has put out since John Wayne's 1968 film "The Green Berets."
Another film, this one billing itself as "Iraq War (The Great Footage Ever!)," was posted in February and has already drawn more than 1.3 million viewers. It runs a little less than 10 minutes and features shots of U.S. military attack aircraft and U.S. Marines in Iraq. The Marines, who fill the final half of the film, are shown kicking in doors, burning photographs of Saddam Hussein, and blasting insurgents with seemingly every weapon in the U.S. arsenal. It's raw, upfront military aggression targeted at bad guys, interspersed with lighter moments of kicking soccer balls around with Iraqi children and training Iraqi soldiers. It too is compelling video.
Yet another film winning attention--"Battle on Haifa Street, Baghdad, Iraq"--was posted nine months ago and has been seen by more than 1.8 million viewers. In nearly three minutes of combat footage, viewers can watch a battle scene play out where American and Iraqi soldiers attack and appear to kill insurgents in urban Baghdad. Another short film--"U.S. Marines in Iraq Real Footage Warning Graphic"--plays to American rock music, runs just five minutes. It is an adrenaline rush all the way through and has been seen by some 1.1 million people.
Not every online film is pro-war. One, available here, is a 23-minute discussion of whether the Iraq war is illegal under international law. Narrated by a talking cat, it has been seen by more than 600,000 people. It's anyone's guess how many of them have actually been swayed by the cat's arguments.
Today cameras are ubiquitous and production software is easy enough to use that nearly any American with an interest in doing so can put together a film and post it online for public viewing. That many of the videos showing up on the Internet are just as or even more compelling to watch than what Tinsel Town throws up on the silver screen is both an indictment of Hollywood as well as an opportunity. It's of little mystery now what kind of war films consumers want to see. Most of them involve the good guys winning.
A Challenge to the Press
By Mona Charen
Friday, December 7, 2007
I still remember where I was when I heard that the student who committed the Virginia Tech massacre had released a press packet including a video, a manifesto and photos of himself holding various weapons. I was just leaving a TV studio (having spoken about something else). Bursting with anger, I asked one of the producers if I could use his computer and posted on the web an urgent plea to NBC News (the organization that had first received the packet): "Don't publish it!"
They did, of course. And so did every other news outlet. The killer's picture, his disordered thoughts and his resentments were aired for days and weeks.
The same dangerous pattern has been repeated again and again. The disturbed man who took hostages at Sen. Clinton's headquarters in New Hampshire told loved ones to "watch the news tonight." The shooter who terrorized an Omaha shopping mall by mowing down total strangers has achieved his goal (and I will not add to the problem by publishing his name). He left a suicide note in which he predicted "at least now I'll be famous." His picture is featured in every newspaper and is flashed on television hourly. His miseries are being dissected and analyzed. An unhappy and rejected young man is finally getting, posthumously, the attention he clearly sought but could not secure in life. And other disturbed people are watching and taking note.
No one can be sure what motivates the borderline people in our society to take guns to schools, shopping malls and office buildings and blow away innocent people. The shortage of mental health treatment is perhaps part of the story. The celebration of violence, particularly gun violence, in entertainment may play a role. The disintegration of the family may be a causal factor. We should certainly be cautious about assuming that we fully understand the phenomenon. Other countries have equally violent entertainment, but nothing like our rate of shootings. And other nations have even more family breakdown yet lower levels of violence.
Still, there does seem to be one factor at work in most of the cases that make headlines. From the Columbine killers to the Virginia Tech slayer, from the Finnish murderer to Delaware State, all of the destroyers seem to have one thing in common. All seek fame. They may know they are going to die. They may plan to kill themselves at the end of a murderous spree or hope to be gunned down by police. But they also know that their names, their faces and in some cases (like the Unabomber and the Virginia Tech killer) their causes will become world famous.
Americans worship fame as some ancient cultures once worshipped idols. People will do and say nearly anything to get on television. Whole genres of TV programming -- the misnamed "reality TV" shows -- are based on this lust for fame among otherwise sane Americans. And the distinction between fame and infamy becomes more eroded with each passing day. For disturbed and mentally unstable people, fame must seem to be success. They cannot achieve anything else, but they can be famous.
What can be done? This is not a job for the state. This is a matter for the press. What is desperately needed is just a modicum of public spiritedness by television, radio and print journalists. In Washington, D.C., radio talk show host Chris Core has publicly pleaded with broadcasters to simply refrain from using the names or faces of killers. He is so right.
Would it be that difficult? There is no law currently forbidding newspapers and television stations from publishing the identities of alleged rape victims. This is a journalistic convention, nothing more. (And by the way, it might be a good idea to withhold the identities of accused rapists as well until after a verdict of guilty.) If there is a shooting at a school or whatever, by all means report it. Simply omit the name of the alleged killer, omit the interviews with his neighbors ("he seemed quiet, kept to himself"), and by all means leave his philosophy, religious ideas, Goth clothing style and all other personal details on the cutting room floor.
Perhaps then we will deny oxygen to this terrible fire.
Friday, December 7, 2007
I still remember where I was when I heard that the student who committed the Virginia Tech massacre had released a press packet including a video, a manifesto and photos of himself holding various weapons. I was just leaving a TV studio (having spoken about something else). Bursting with anger, I asked one of the producers if I could use his computer and posted on the web an urgent plea to NBC News (the organization that had first received the packet): "Don't publish it!"
They did, of course. And so did every other news outlet. The killer's picture, his disordered thoughts and his resentments were aired for days and weeks.
The same dangerous pattern has been repeated again and again. The disturbed man who took hostages at Sen. Clinton's headquarters in New Hampshire told loved ones to "watch the news tonight." The shooter who terrorized an Omaha shopping mall by mowing down total strangers has achieved his goal (and I will not add to the problem by publishing his name). He left a suicide note in which he predicted "at least now I'll be famous." His picture is featured in every newspaper and is flashed on television hourly. His miseries are being dissected and analyzed. An unhappy and rejected young man is finally getting, posthumously, the attention he clearly sought but could not secure in life. And other disturbed people are watching and taking note.
No one can be sure what motivates the borderline people in our society to take guns to schools, shopping malls and office buildings and blow away innocent people. The shortage of mental health treatment is perhaps part of the story. The celebration of violence, particularly gun violence, in entertainment may play a role. The disintegration of the family may be a causal factor. We should certainly be cautious about assuming that we fully understand the phenomenon. Other countries have equally violent entertainment, but nothing like our rate of shootings. And other nations have even more family breakdown yet lower levels of violence.
Still, there does seem to be one factor at work in most of the cases that make headlines. From the Columbine killers to the Virginia Tech slayer, from the Finnish murderer to Delaware State, all of the destroyers seem to have one thing in common. All seek fame. They may know they are going to die. They may plan to kill themselves at the end of a murderous spree or hope to be gunned down by police. But they also know that their names, their faces and in some cases (like the Unabomber and the Virginia Tech killer) their causes will become world famous.
Americans worship fame as some ancient cultures once worshipped idols. People will do and say nearly anything to get on television. Whole genres of TV programming -- the misnamed "reality TV" shows -- are based on this lust for fame among otherwise sane Americans. And the distinction between fame and infamy becomes more eroded with each passing day. For disturbed and mentally unstable people, fame must seem to be success. They cannot achieve anything else, but they can be famous.
What can be done? This is not a job for the state. This is a matter for the press. What is desperately needed is just a modicum of public spiritedness by television, radio and print journalists. In Washington, D.C., radio talk show host Chris Core has publicly pleaded with broadcasters to simply refrain from using the names or faces of killers. He is so right.
Would it be that difficult? There is no law currently forbidding newspapers and television stations from publishing the identities of alleged rape victims. This is a journalistic convention, nothing more. (And by the way, it might be a good idea to withhold the identities of accused rapists as well until after a verdict of guilty.) If there is a shooting at a school or whatever, by all means report it. Simply omit the name of the alleged killer, omit the interviews with his neighbors ("he seemed quiet, kept to himself"), and by all means leave his philosophy, religious ideas, Goth clothing style and all other personal details on the cutting room floor.
Perhaps then we will deny oxygen to this terrible fire.
Thursday, December 6, 2007
Still a Dangerous World
Democrats imply the U.S. can talk its way out of global threats.
By Daniel Henninger
Thursday, December 6, 2007 12:01 a.m.
The most disturbing thing about the National Intelligence Estimate on Iran wasn't the news itself, but how the episode displayed the wild and manic swings that now characterize American politics. A regular watcher of our politics could be forgiven for feeling that one isn't watching a serious country but a place that conducts its internal affairs like a Saturday morning cartoon show. Thunk! Boooinng!
For some time, the conventional storyboard drawn for the Bush presidency has been that the U.S. is led by a bumbling Elmer Fudd, who outlandishly overestimates the danger from such imagined threats as Saddam Hussein, Syria or Iran's mysterious-looking mullahs. Prominent political figures here design their comments on world events to fit inside cartoon dialogue balloons. John Edwards, after the NIE story broke, denounced the Bush-Cheney "rush to war with Iran." Sen. Harry Reid demanded a "diplomatic surge."
These wide, all-or-nothing swings may serve the melodramatic needs of politics and the press, but they don't much help an electorate that will vote a year from now to send a new U.S. president out into the world. With or without the NIE's opinion of Iran's nuclear program, that world is still a dangerous place.
Let's assume for argument's sake that Iran did stop its nuke program in 2003. Why, then, in 2006 was Iran performing test flights of the Shabab-2 and Shabab-3 ballistic missiles, the latter with a range of some 1,200 miles? Commenting at the time, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said the Iranians "are not unaware that the security environment is one in which if they actually were to do something, Iran would suffer greatly." But as of this week, they might not.
Indeed last week, just as the U.S. intelligence professionals were preparing to tell the world it could forget about Iran (as yesterday's news reports made clear the world is about to do), the Iranian defense ministry announced it has built a new 1,200-mile missile, the Ashura. In September, it put on display the 1,100-mile-range Ghadr-1 missile. If this is all an inconsequential feint, it's a remarkably big one.
North Korea in July 2006 tested the long-range Taepodong-2, a nuclear payload-capable ballistic missile. North Korea has exported its missile technology to Iran and Pakistan. And of course Hezbollah, in the same month North Korea was testing the Taepodong-2, fired thousands of Katyusha rockets at Israel, re-establishing the operational viability of short-range bombardment.
China is developing three strategic, long-range missiles--the JL-1, and the DF-31 and DF-31A; the latter two are mobile ICBMs. This technology did not go away with the Cold War.
In January, after much effort to do so, China successfully used a kinetic-kill vehicle launched from a ballistic missile to destroy a satellite orbiting at 500 miles altitude.
The Bush administration's effort to place a missile-defense system in Eastern Europe as counterweight to Iran's missiles was conventionally mocked by elite opinion as a rerun of Ronald Reagan's "Star Wars scheme." In fact, Japan, Australia, Germany, Italy, Israel and Denmark are all attempting to develop antimissile technology. France is building a short-range ballistic missile defense system, the SAMP/T. What are they all afraid of?
Saudi Arabia, Turkey, Egypt, Jordan, the United Arab Emirates, indeed virtually all the nations of the Middle East are seeking nuclear-power capability. Possibly it's all just to keep the lights on in the tourist hotels, but nuclear-energy production is still a dual-use technology. It is now believed that Israel bombed Syria in September to destroy a nuclear-bomb facility built in part by North Korea.
This is a more complex and hair-trigger world than the Cold War years between the U.S. and Soviet Union. The idea that George Bush's handling of all these volatile moving pieces has been "incompetent" and has "isolated" the U.S. is a dangerous caricature, though that caricature is the way our Roller-Derby politics has chosen to talk about the world. The NIE/Iran drama this week is a case study--reduced in press reports to another Bush intelligence "flip-flop," as though the president wrote this stuff himself in the Oval Office.
Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton, John Edwards, Rudy Giuliani, Mitt Romney, John McCain and even Mike Huckabee want us to entrust them with managing the world's flourishing threats. Has any offered sufficient reason why we should? In other political systems, a candidate's strategic policies tend to flow from his party. Here we mostly get whatever these hyper-ambitious individuals choose to reveal during a campaign--and the foreign-policy views of their party in Congress.
This Wednesday, after the NIE's release, the Democratic candidates had a fresh opportunity at an Iowa debate to describe how their presidencies would address Iran and the world. John Edwards chose to attack Sen. Clinton for voting in September to label Iran's Revolutionary Guards as terrorists. She and Sen. Obama, along with Democrats in Congress, said the new Iran intelligence estimate now mandates diplomacy only. Sen. Obama: "They should have stopped the saber rattling, should have never started it. And they need, now, to aggressively move on the diplomatic front."
But in a July essay for Foreign Affairs, Sen. Obama said nuclear weapons "in the hands of a radical theocracy" is "too dangerous." While he favored "tough-minded" diplomacy with Iran, "we must not rule out using military force."
Which version is one supposed to believe? The candidates seeking votes from their party's pacifists, or the person who wants to represent his country's interests in a hostile world?
One would like more on this than we're getting from the candidates in both parties. But the Democrats especially have tied themselves to the word "diplomacy," giving the impression that the U.S. can literally talk its way out of any bad outcomes that Iran, Syria, North Korea or free-agent terrorists have planned for us.
Put it this way: Would they, like Israel, have bombed that factory in Syria without pre-discussing it with Bashar Assad or Kim Jong-Il? No candidate's answer to that will make everyone happy. But the more than 100 million Americans who'll vote next year need a better idea than they've got of how the next president plans to deal with the world. Not the cartoon world, but the real world.
By Daniel Henninger
Thursday, December 6, 2007 12:01 a.m.
The most disturbing thing about the National Intelligence Estimate on Iran wasn't the news itself, but how the episode displayed the wild and manic swings that now characterize American politics. A regular watcher of our politics could be forgiven for feeling that one isn't watching a serious country but a place that conducts its internal affairs like a Saturday morning cartoon show. Thunk! Boooinng!
For some time, the conventional storyboard drawn for the Bush presidency has been that the U.S. is led by a bumbling Elmer Fudd, who outlandishly overestimates the danger from such imagined threats as Saddam Hussein, Syria or Iran's mysterious-looking mullahs. Prominent political figures here design their comments on world events to fit inside cartoon dialogue balloons. John Edwards, after the NIE story broke, denounced the Bush-Cheney "rush to war with Iran." Sen. Harry Reid demanded a "diplomatic surge."
These wide, all-or-nothing swings may serve the melodramatic needs of politics and the press, but they don't much help an electorate that will vote a year from now to send a new U.S. president out into the world. With or without the NIE's opinion of Iran's nuclear program, that world is still a dangerous place.
Let's assume for argument's sake that Iran did stop its nuke program in 2003. Why, then, in 2006 was Iran performing test flights of the Shabab-2 and Shabab-3 ballistic missiles, the latter with a range of some 1,200 miles? Commenting at the time, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said the Iranians "are not unaware that the security environment is one in which if they actually were to do something, Iran would suffer greatly." But as of this week, they might not.
Indeed last week, just as the U.S. intelligence professionals were preparing to tell the world it could forget about Iran (as yesterday's news reports made clear the world is about to do), the Iranian defense ministry announced it has built a new 1,200-mile missile, the Ashura. In September, it put on display the 1,100-mile-range Ghadr-1 missile. If this is all an inconsequential feint, it's a remarkably big one.
North Korea in July 2006 tested the long-range Taepodong-2, a nuclear payload-capable ballistic missile. North Korea has exported its missile technology to Iran and Pakistan. And of course Hezbollah, in the same month North Korea was testing the Taepodong-2, fired thousands of Katyusha rockets at Israel, re-establishing the operational viability of short-range bombardment.
China is developing three strategic, long-range missiles--the JL-1, and the DF-31 and DF-31A; the latter two are mobile ICBMs. This technology did not go away with the Cold War.
In January, after much effort to do so, China successfully used a kinetic-kill vehicle launched from a ballistic missile to destroy a satellite orbiting at 500 miles altitude.
The Bush administration's effort to place a missile-defense system in Eastern Europe as counterweight to Iran's missiles was conventionally mocked by elite opinion as a rerun of Ronald Reagan's "Star Wars scheme." In fact, Japan, Australia, Germany, Italy, Israel and Denmark are all attempting to develop antimissile technology. France is building a short-range ballistic missile defense system, the SAMP/T. What are they all afraid of?
Saudi Arabia, Turkey, Egypt, Jordan, the United Arab Emirates, indeed virtually all the nations of the Middle East are seeking nuclear-power capability. Possibly it's all just to keep the lights on in the tourist hotels, but nuclear-energy production is still a dual-use technology. It is now believed that Israel bombed Syria in September to destroy a nuclear-bomb facility built in part by North Korea.
This is a more complex and hair-trigger world than the Cold War years between the U.S. and Soviet Union. The idea that George Bush's handling of all these volatile moving pieces has been "incompetent" and has "isolated" the U.S. is a dangerous caricature, though that caricature is the way our Roller-Derby politics has chosen to talk about the world. The NIE/Iran drama this week is a case study--reduced in press reports to another Bush intelligence "flip-flop," as though the president wrote this stuff himself in the Oval Office.
Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton, John Edwards, Rudy Giuliani, Mitt Romney, John McCain and even Mike Huckabee want us to entrust them with managing the world's flourishing threats. Has any offered sufficient reason why we should? In other political systems, a candidate's strategic policies tend to flow from his party. Here we mostly get whatever these hyper-ambitious individuals choose to reveal during a campaign--and the foreign-policy views of their party in Congress.
This Wednesday, after the NIE's release, the Democratic candidates had a fresh opportunity at an Iowa debate to describe how their presidencies would address Iran and the world. John Edwards chose to attack Sen. Clinton for voting in September to label Iran's Revolutionary Guards as terrorists. She and Sen. Obama, along with Democrats in Congress, said the new Iran intelligence estimate now mandates diplomacy only. Sen. Obama: "They should have stopped the saber rattling, should have never started it. And they need, now, to aggressively move on the diplomatic front."
But in a July essay for Foreign Affairs, Sen. Obama said nuclear weapons "in the hands of a radical theocracy" is "too dangerous." While he favored "tough-minded" diplomacy with Iran, "we must not rule out using military force."
Which version is one supposed to believe? The candidates seeking votes from their party's pacifists, or the person who wants to represent his country's interests in a hostile world?
One would like more on this than we're getting from the candidates in both parties. But the Democrats especially have tied themselves to the word "diplomacy," giving the impression that the U.S. can literally talk its way out of any bad outcomes that Iran, Syria, North Korea or free-agent terrorists have planned for us.
Put it this way: Would they, like Israel, have bombed that factory in Syria without pre-discussing it with Bashar Assad or Kim Jong-Il? No candidate's answer to that will make everyone happy. But the more than 100 million Americans who'll vote next year need a better idea than they've got of how the next president plans to deal with the world. Not the cartoon world, but the real world.
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