R.P. Barr

Veterans Day 2009

There are many threads running through this Veterans Day.  One is that the holiday was originally declared to be "a day to be dedicated to the cause of world peace and to be thereafter celebrated and known as 'Armistice Day'."  In 1954 it was altered to be a day of remembrance for all veterans, thus expanded beyond the First World War and narrowed to honoring uniformed service members only.

 The Fort Hood shooting demonstrates how that change has skewed our thinking.  I have been reading some blogs and the comments by readers.  One of the heroes of the shooting was a female federal civilian police sergeant named Kimberly Munley, 34.  She and her partner responded to the shooting.  Sgt. Munley took two bullets, in the hand and in the leg, and took down the assailant with four shots of her own.  Yet, some blog comments complain that she should not be considered a hero because she was only doing what she was paid to do.  She was also a union member, and AFGE was criticized for pointing that out. 

Under the logic of the first argument, we should not give awards to anyone who performs outstandingly well at her or his job.  No medals for soldiers, no Oscars for actors, no bonuses for doing anything.  Pay should be its own reward.

When I lived and worked in New York City, I came in regular contact with the police.  There was a motto among them that “a good cop is never cold or wet.”  I also heard more than one explain that I would never see a cop breaking up a fight.  Why take the risk when the pay was the same for arriving later for clean up?  Which is not to say that there aren’t heroes in the NYPD, but they’re special, like anywhere else.

 The other argument says that no-one should be proud of their association with a hero.  There should not be ticker-tape parades, no-one who sits on the sidelines should cheer on a sports team, even families might want to consider bragging about their kids.

The fact is that some people have already pre-selected their heroes, and a female, civilian cop doesn’t qualify.  How poor we are if our views become so restricted. 

 The other thread I want to discuss is the situation in Afghanistan and what the President should do. 

Too many times, we have sent just enough troops to do the job under optimum circumstances, and then watched it all go wrong.  Somalia is a case in point.  Iraq is another.  Guerrilla wars don’t stop when a conventional army captures the capitol or takes down the leader.  To end a guerrilla war—a people’s war—you have to stomp out all vestiges of the rebellion and replace the old idea with a new, more appealing one.  That takes overwhelming force for the first part and vigorous nation building for the second.

 On the other side of the issue is a barely functioning, corrupt Afghan government that lacks widespread support.  There does not have to be support for the regime in power, only for the institutions of government, together with a reasonable expectation for change.

 As for building up the Afghan army—it takes time.  When I was drafted, I spent 8 weeks in basic training.  Very basic training.  I remember spending more than two hours trying to teach a fellow trainee his left from his right.  He still didn’t get it.  Then, there was another 8 weeks of advanced training—more for the technical jobs like radio operator.  That is just to put a warm body on the field.  You can’t win anything with an army of privates.  It takes years to build a good sergeant or an officer.  Units have to train together to work effectively.

And, if we just go home, al-Qaeda will have a green light to follow us.  Remember that their goal is to show how strong they are in order to gain enough strength to kick the foreigners AND the secular governments out of the Middle East.  The best way to do that is to show that they are not afraid of the most powerful country in the world.  A bomb here and a bomb there is wonderful advertising.

 This is a new world, and a lot more men and women are going to become veterans.  What the rest of us have to remember is that those who serve in the military do not make this a great country.  The country must be made great by the efforts of rest of us to keep it worth their service.  We must work to deserve heroes.

Supporting Those Who Abuse Those Who Serve

 In the modern version of American warfare, there are as many government contractors in the field as there are military personnel.  That wasn’t always true.  When I was drafted back in ’68, I was worried about my chances of survival until I learned that only 1 in 11 military personnel in Vietnam were actually engaged in combat.  The rest were in support positions.  I decided the odds were in my favor.

When the decision was made to go all volunteer, it was also decided to privatize a lot of those support jobs.  The military would need fewer enlistees and those it recruited would not be burdened with KP and other unpopular duties.  And then, look at all those contracts that could be issued to companies who show their appreciation with campaign contributions.  What a windfall for legislators.  End the unpopular draft and create a goldmine.

The government has yet to figure out how to properly manage contractors.  The official who signs the contracts must be of high rank, but the person who oversees the contractor is not.  Any time the overseer has a dispute with the contractor, he must send his complaint up the chain of command.  That means that a series of managers have to champion the cause of an underling to their superiors with sufficient vigor that each succeeding superior will champion the cause to his boss.  Meanwhile, the contractor goes directly to the top of the chain with his complaints about the lowly overseer.  Who do you think wins?

Aside from the general inefficiency of such a system, it accounts for a series of abuses, including contracts with contractor employees that include a clause prohibiting the employee from suing the contractor for anything.  All disputes are to go to arbitration.

In a union shop, this is not a terrible thing.  The arbitrator must be agreed to by both sides.  And, even though the company pays the arbitrator, he knows that if he leans too much toward the company’s side, the union will never agree to use him again.  In the non-union world, the arbitrator knows that the company will use him again and again, while the hapless employee will not.  No wonder that companies love arbitrators.

That’s why I can’t understand the people who say unions are unnecessary today.  They say that if a worker is wronged he can run to a lawyer and sue.  The big corporations with arbitration clauses encourage this argument.

Of course, we assume that a really dreadful wrong would still be righted in the courts somehow.  Try telling that to Jamie Leigh Jones who was gang raped by her Halliburton/KBR colleagues in Iraq.  The Department of Defense under Bush/Cheney leadership denied that they had jurisdiction to prosecute, although they did.  The Justice Department did not prosecute either.  And, Ms Jones could not even sue for damages because of the arbitration clause in her contract.

Was this a case of one exception slipping through the system?  No, according to a story  last year in The Nation, there have been 742 sexual assaults against military and civilians serving in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Of the cases against civilians, the Department of Justice had prosecuted 4—or maybe 6.  The DOJ spokesperson who testified before Congress wasn’t sure of the exact number.

It is news now because the fledgling Senator from Minnesota, Al Franken--inspired by Ms Jones plight--has proposed his first legislation.  It’s not a whole bill, just an amendment to a Defense spending bill.  His amendment [S.Amdt. 2588 to H.R. 3326 (Department of Defense Appropriations Act, 2010)] reads:

To prohibit the use of funds for any Federal contract with Halliburton Company, KBR, Inc., any of their subsidiaries or affiliates, or any other contracting party if such contractor or a subcontractor at any tier under such contract requires that employees or independent contractors sign mandatory arbitration clauses regarding certain claims.

Of course the amendment passed overwhelmingly with bipartisan support, 68 to 30 with two not voting.

I was interested in the 30 pro-rape Senators who voted against the amendment.  They are all Republicans.  Men who voted to cut off funding to Acorn for counseling pseudo-pimps and prostitutes, which is apparently a worse offense than the sexual assault of women in war zones by their colleagues.

I checked the U.S. Senate web site and found that these are the pro-rape Senators.  I hope their opponents remember this vote the next time they come up for re-election.

From Alabama: both Jeff Sessions and Richard Shelby

From Arizona: both Jon Kyl and John McCain

From Georgia:  both Saxby Chambliss and Johnny Isakson

From Idaho: both Mike Crapo and James Risch

From Kansas: both Sam Brownback and Pat Roberts

From Kentucky: both Jim Bunning and Mitch McConnell

From Louisiana: David Vitter

From Mississippi: both Thad Cochran and Roger Wicker

From Missouri: Christopher Bond

From Nebraska: Mike Johanns

From Nevada: John Ensign

From New Hampshire: Judd Gregg

From North Carolina: Richard Burr

From Oklahoma: both Tom Coburn and James Inhofe

From South Carolina: both Jim DeMint and Lindsey Graham

From South Dakota: John Thune

From Tennessee: both Lamar Alexander and Bob Corker

From Texas: John Cornyn

From Wyoming: both John Barrasso and Michael Enzi

Flashback: Defining the D in D-Day

 During President Obama’s D-Day anniversary visit to Normandy, nobody talked about the havoc wreaked on French civilians by the Allied invasion.  According to the BBC (http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/8084210.stm) some 20,000 French civilians were killed during the 75 days that followed D-Day.  Roughly 3,000 civilians were killed during the invasion itself.  Among other devastating events, the city of Caen--where Obama met the French President--was bombed into oblivion while the Germans who were the intended target were encamped north of the city and went unscathed.

Since the war liberated France in the end, the official view was that the invasion was a good thing, and the casualties, including the war crimes committed by maurading troops were downplayed.  Wartime correspondents were censored in those days, not least by themselves.  Today, such things would be much more prominent. 

Although the stories of the dark side of this “good war” are beginning to come to light, it is doubtful that the lives saved by Marshal Pétain will now be appreciated.

 Henri Phillippe Benoni Omer Joseph Pétain was the hero who saved France during the First World War, and the old soldier was called back when the Germans invaded again.  Unfortunately, the French military had not modernized in the meantime, and were no match for Hitler’s crack troops. Pétain surrendered France in 1940 (or the northern 3/5ths of it anyway) in order to spare his country the ruin that a hopeless war would bring.  During the balance of his career as head of the Vichy government, he continued to placate the Germans publicly while supporting the underground and Free French Army in secret.

 These new revelations should demonstrate the wisdom of his approach.  Fighting is sometimes the only alternative, but it is often an emotional reaction that disregards the cost.  There is no virtue in destruction. 

There are also no classes of dead. When the vital spark is extinguished there is no longer a difference between hero, villain and victim.

 Hitler needed to be stopped.  He could not be stopped without force.  But, war is always a monster that maims all it touches.  The Allies did not liberate those 30,000 French men, women and children.

 This year, I propose that we permanently retire terms like “ultimate sacrifice.”  Sacrifice implies a voluntary act.  Those young men—on both sides—did not choose to die any more than the civilians did.  That only happened in very rare instances.  Their lives and health were ripped from them while they attempted to do something for the benefit of others.  Often they did very ugly things that haunted the rest of their lives.  That they took the risk at all may be celebrated.  That they were killed or damaged should be a burden of shame for the rest of us.  And a lesson.

When pain is a bad thing

 Once again the use of torture is in the news.  Dick Cheney is claiming that waterboarding enabled intelligence officers to obtain “actionable” information, and that lives were saved.

 If you have seen 24,  you have seen Jack Bauer torture baddies to get vital information.  These were Hollywood moments, to be sure, but every instance had two things in common:  first, Bauer knew that his victims had important information about an impending attack, and second that the information he wanted was extremely time-sensitive (everything had to be completed within 24 hours after all).

 My question, as yet unanswered, is how many of the Guantanamo or Abu Ghraib prisoners fit that profile?  In the absence of hard information, I suspect that much of the enhanced questioning was done on speculation.  The hypothesis was that each subject probably knew something that we would like to know.

Sometimes the questioning paid off, sometimes it didn’t.  Sometimes the information was current, sometimes it was just background, or nice-to-know.

 Since the Second World War and the growth of interrogation science, there have been many techniques developed that are effective, and humane.  The people who would cast aside that science in favor of 12^th Century brutality are non-professionals, whose motivations are political or emotional or both. 

 The Inquisition proved how inefficient and ineffective torture can be—unless, the purpose is to terrorize and not to gather information.  Grab someone from the street and accuse them of witchcraft and secret pacts with the devil.  Inflict sufficient pain for the person to break down and confess.  Then ask who his associates are.  Then repeat the process with the associates.  Swap the word “witchcraft” for any other offence you like and the results are the same.

 I was once involved in a case in which a Louisiana man’s name popped up in the federal computers as an associate of drug dealers.  If that happened to you, how would you clear yourself?  This man had no idea how his name gained that  association.  It turned out that when another individual was arrested with drugs,  promises of a reduced sentence were made to him if he named his druggie business contacts.  So, he provided the investigators with a list of names.  The investigation of the Louisiana man came up negative, but the stigma remained.  And, this was for a reduced sentence.  Imagine if the druggie had been waterboarded!

 A second issue is the safety of apprehending officials, whether law enforcement, military or intel operatives.  I go back to my stint as a store detective for a major retailer in New York City when I picked up a teenager who had taken something.  He had never been in the store before, but on the way up tp the security office, he bragged about his knowledge of our operations.  He described all of our detectives, where they were likely to be stationed, and how they treated the people they apprehended. 

In Abidjan, Cote d’Ivoire, I led a training team to provide classes at the police academy to their customs and police.  On a Thursday, one of my colleagues taught a session in martial arts.  On Saturday, he went for a jog near our hotel on the other side of the city from the academy.  Along the way, three different people called out to him with references to his prowess: a guard at a movie theater, a taxi driver, and someone I’ve forgotten.  The word gets around.

 Terrorists and criminals share a small community.  They know what happens to their colleagues who are captured, and then act appropriately when someone comes for them.  If they believe that they will be tortured, they have nothing to lose by fighting to the death.  And, that means that they will take down some of the good guys with them.

 If the detainees are spirited away and held incommunicado, then imaginations take hold.  “Suppose they do this” becomes “did you hear what they did?”

I treated my prisoners with respect, because the next time I went after someone I wanted that person to know that his or her safety was only at risk during the flight-or-fight stage.  I wanted the suspect to know that surrender was much the better choice.

 

3 topics: free speech, war, and Ponzi schemes

During the past few weeks, I have been on hiatus.  What follows are a few the matters I've been thinking about.

CIVIL LIBERTIES

On April 7, 2009, a reporter for public radio station WAMU, David Schultz, attended a forum at the VA hospital in Washington, DC.  The purpose of the forum was for veterans to air their grievances about their treatment and care at the hospital. 

 As a once-upon-a-time employee of the VA, I recognize this as a perennial problem.   Grievances may be real or imagined.  The legitimate complaints may be caused by personnel who don’t care, or by budgetary constraints, or by the general bungling of bureaucracy.  In the case of one the most vocal vets in DC, he was not receiving the care he wanted and had been denied monetary benefits due to racial discrimination.  While most VA employees try to provide good service, the results may fall short in some cases—I’ll give him that.  Discrimination, on the other hand, doesn’t exist.  Individuals may be biased, but the agency has too many employees of all backgrounds to sustain any racial bias.  However, the complainant might still have had a valid claim improperly denied for any number of reasons.  He just doesn’t know what they are.

 Schultz wanted to follow up the vet’s remarks with an interview.  Gloria Hairston, a communications specialist with the Department of Veterans Affairs interceded.  She demanded that Schultz surrender his recording equipment, especially the memory chip that contained the interview.  When Schultz refused, Hairston called over the armed security guards.  Another vet asked to be interviewed, but was turned away by Hairston and told he would have to submit his comments through her.

 These are the kind of censorial tactics that veterans served to defeat.  The VA, or any other employer, has the right to tell employees not to talk to the press, but no business or government entity can restrict the speech of their customers or the public.  Local DC news folks are pursuing VA executives for explanations, but are getting the run-around, mainly because there is no justification for a public relations flack to deny a veteran’s right to speak out. 

WAR

Thomas E. Ricks has written a book that proves the theory I have long held: that getting out of Iraq will be like getting out of a briar patch.  Each step will require careful removal of thorns that hold you, while being simultaneously snaried by others.  Ricks book is called The Gamble, General David Petraeus and the American Military Adventure in Iraq, 2006-2008.  Ricks interviewed top officials involved in Iraq.  They agree that the U.S. will have to maintain a presence in that country for the next 10 to 20 years in order to prevent a slide into chaos that could envelope the region and threaten the global oil supply and security. The last line of the book, is that “the events for which the Iraq war will be remembered by us and by the world have not yet happened.”

The desire for simple and fast solutions in social and international affairs will always leave a mess to be cleaned up.  More than any “-ism,” our lack of patience in an age of instant gratification will be our ruin.

 THE GREATEST PONZI SCHEME

Bernie Madoff stole several billion dollars in a classic Ponzi scheme.  He cheated family, he used his faith to cheat fellow Jews, he cheated concentration camp survivors.  Whatever the courts do to him will not be half of what he deserves. 

 But, we are all involved in an even bigger scheme.  The government created the Social Security system which—like a classic Ponzi—pays current benefits based on current income.  A person pays into the system their entire working life, but at the end there is nothing there because it has all gone to other beneficiaries.  Since the government holds a monopoly and will not let anyone escape from the payments, the scheme works as long as the work force continues to contribute more that the beneficiaries receive.  As we all know, the numbers are no longer favorable and we are headed for a meltdown.

 But, that is not the biggest scam.  For centuries now, the fundamental economic model has been based on a growing population.  Demand next year will exceed demand this year.  The mantra for business is grow or die.   Today, however, we find that population growth is outstripping resources.  The planet can no longer absorb our waste gases, liquids and solids.  

Russia is the only developed country that is losing population.  That country could be the basis for a new economic model of prosperity while contracting.  If they can perfect that model, the rest of the world could aggressively seek policies of negative growth.  I have absolutely no hope that Russia will rise to the challenge.  But, someone should design a better model before the population Ponzi scheme collapses on us all. 

An unsatisfactory answer to the riddle

Unless you read BBC on line, you probably missed the little story [“Unstable Politics Plague Israel” 6 February 2009] that explained why there is no peace in Palestine and why it cannot be achieved. What I never realized—mainly because the press prefers playing up the horse race between personalities—is that in Israel, voters do not elect candidates, they vote for parties. The parties then assign whomever they choose to hold seats in the Knesset. Since no party has achieved a majority in the history of the country, minority parties hold the keys to power. The minority parties must be courted in order to form a coalition, and if the minority partner in a coalition takes exception to a given policy, the government falls. This system effectively prevents Israeli moderates from achieving any long range goals, especially peace with Palestinians. 

Reform, meanwhile, is blocked by the same system as single issue minority parties (those representing as little as 2% of the electorate) believe that the larger parties will not pay enough attention to their agendas. Consequently, since the elections are held every year or two as various disputes bring down the coalition du jour, and the same party leaders play musical chairs with government offices--obviating significant change--voter turnout is decreasing. Except for the extremists in whatever causes,  they see their chance for influence increasing. 

For their part, the Palestinians want a government that can successfully negotiate with Israel. Since that is not possible under an Israeli system of government which gives a handful of militant ideologues veto power over mainstream pragmatists, the frustrated Palestinians turn to non-verbal methods of getting the Israelis’ attention. 

And the tragedy continues.

War-go-round

A few months ago, I learned that an artist had been so moved by the stories of Vietnam veterans throwing their medals over the White House fence in protest of the war in which they had participated that he created a tile representation of one of these vets and was sending these tiles to like minded veterans.  The purpose, as I understood it was not merely to make and distribute his art, but to create a community and achieve an understanding of these veterans.  Well, as a veteran myself and former veterans counselor, I was touched by what he was trying to do and wrote a blog entry about it. [“Medals” June 15, 2008]

This past week, Alex Irvine, the artist, send me a tile.  I am honored and appreciative.  [Take a look at http://alexirvineceramics.blogspot.com/]

When I was in basic training, back in the hot summer of 1968, I remember the company being seated in a Fort Jackson classroom.  A drill sergeant stepped in front of us and announced that he was going to surprise us.  “You all want to go to Vietnam.”  There were no shouts or applause.  Vietnam was the last place we wanted to find ourselves.  He continued, “Think about it.  Deep down, you all want to test yourselves, to see how you will react.  You want to know what it is like.”

He hit on a major reason why young men go to war. 

Another is that war is simple.  Consider this passage from John Steinbecks’ The Grapes of Wrath:

            And now the squatting men stood up angrily.

            Grampa took up the land, and he had to kill the In­dians and drive them away.  And Pa was bom here, and he killed weeds and snakes. Then a bad year came and he had to borrow a little money.  An' we was bom here.  There in the door—our children born here.  And Pa had to borrow money. The bank owned the land then, but we stayed and we got a little bit of what we raised.

            We know that—all that. [said the men who drove the bulldozers] It's not us, it's the bank. A bank isn't like a man. Or an owner with fifty thousand acres, he isn't like a man either. That's the monster. 

Sure, cried the tenant men, but it's our land.  We measured it and broke it up.  We were bom on it, and we got killed on it, died on it.  Even if it's no good, its still ours.  That's what makes it ours—being bom on it, working it, dying on it.  That makes ownership, not a paper with numbers on it.                     

            We're sorry.  It’s not us. It’ s the monster.  The bank isn't like a man.

            Yes, but the bank is only made of men.

            No, you're wrong there—quite wrong there.  The bank is something else than men.  It happens that every man in a bank hates what the bank does, and yet the bank does it.  The bank is something more than men, I tell you.  It’s the monster.  Men made it, but they can't control it.

 

War gives a man someone to shoot.  It may not fix any of the ills of the world, but it solves the immediate problem of survival. 

I tried to be a pacifist back in my pre-draft youth.  I could not understand killing somebody half a world away whose only interest in killing me was because I was in his country uninvited.  After much soul searching, I failed the test for pacifism.  I don’t believe in killing strangers, and that’s not enough.  If someone tries to do violence in my presence, that makes it personal and its enough of an introduction for me do whatever harm it takes to stop him.  I just don’t believe in seeking out these opportunities.

Even in the days when my profession was pursuing bad guys, there was risk, but deadly force situations did not come up.  Life is more complex.

I remember being an MP at an anti-war demonstration when a Vietnam vet, still in the service, looked out at the hundreds of demonstrators and moaned that “We killed women and children in Vietnam, why can’t we do it here?  Just shoot ‘em down.”  The tear in his voice told me that he didn’t want to kill anyone, but coming home had made his life much more complicated.

This past week, figures were released that show the number of suicides by active duty troops is at another record high. 

Coincidentally, I just saw a documentary on the disaster at Chernobyl in 1986.  Soviet soldiers, miners and firemen were sent to bury the radioactive mass.  They had no protective suits and some 20,000 are estimated to have died.  But they saved millions.

The last time that American servicemen and women defended the United States was in 1945.  If we had let North Korea overrun the south, would it have threatened anyone here?  What about Vietnam, Panama, Grenada, Somalia, Kosovo…?  I am not passing judgements on any of the post-WWII conflicts, but they were extentions of U.S. foreign policy, not defence of our freedom or our lives.  Yet, the toll on the fighter is no less.  They battle fear and fatigue, bear the agony of their comrades falling, the helplessness of being separated from family crises, while the rest of us watch the Superbowl and complain about the economy.

Once upon a time, a handful of Vietnam vets returned the medals they earned in combat.  Their gesture may not have changed anything, but at least they tried.

A foreign affairs agenda for the new administration

At the top of the Obama’s foreign affairs to-do list should be 1) the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan; 2) Israel and the Palestinians; 3) the rise of totalitarianism in Russia; 4) corruption and the Mexican drug wars. 

From Iraq to a hard place 

Iraq is or should be winding down. The Iraqi military is attaining adequacy. I don’t have a great deal of faith in the Baghdad government’s prospects for long term survival, but they may hold it together long enough for us to draw down our forces. 

Afghanistan, on the other hand, has defeated the best armies in the world, from Alexander the Great, to the British at the height of their powers, to the Soviet Union. It is true that we are there in support of the Karzai government, but there are Afghans (especially the Taliban), who do not recognize that regime. To date, the technology of modern warfare has not tipped the scales in our favor. I was impressed by a program that teamed a U.S. Marine Corps officer with a State Department official to provide cows to widows in Fallujah [NPR January 4, 2009]. Programs like that in Afghanistan, properly funded, may accomplish something that guns and bombs cannot. There are some projects there already, such as a soap factory in Kandahar that buys materials from local farmers, but more of these need visible military partners to improve the image of our forces. We also need to stop bombing weddings, etc. 

Another initiative would be to buy up opium from farmers and pay more than the Taliban-linked traffickers do. This would choke off a major source of Taliban and al-Qaeda income as well as give the Afghan farmers a more favorable view of the U.S. Once we have achieved our objectives in Afghanistan, we could offer alternatives to the farmers and wean them away from opium poppies. Meanwhile, we will have reduced the amount of heroin in the world more than any destination-country enforcement has done. 

Lessons from the ghetto 

Meanwhile, we have to tell the Israelis that they are behaving like Nazis. Of course, since they equate Nazism with extermination camps, they would object. However, they have seized property from Palestinians with no compensation, relegated Palestinians to perptual limbo in refugee camps, denied them the right of free travel and commerce, and periodically raided and terrorized Palestinians in their homes actions similar to what were once called “pogroms.” The totality resembles Nazi Germany in the years before their “final solution” was initiated. 

On CNN a week or so ago, an anchorperson asked a Palestinian spokeswoman for her take on the recent Gaza incursion. Among her charges was one that I regard as key. The Israelis did not support moderate Palestinians by allowing them to achieve anything in negotiations, thereby pushing Palestinian public opinion in favor of radicals like Hamas. When the anchorperson turned to an Israeli diplomat for his response, he said that Israel allowed protests over the incursion which made them a more moral regime than Hamas. He did not address the underlying problem of denying concessions in peaceful negotiations. 

The Israeli government has never seriously addressed the return of Palestinians to their ancestral homes or compensation to them for their property as Germany finally did for the Jews who were expelled by the Nazis. Although the settlements in Gaza were dismantled—unilaterally, not in response to negotiations—the settlements in the West Bank have increased. I propose that Israel simply tell the West Bank settlers that Israel is withdrawing all support in two weeks. The settlers can remain by pledging allegiance to the Palestinian state or they can come back to Israel. Of course Israel is going to do no such thing, because the ultimate goal is to insert so many settlers into the West Bank that becomes a de facto Israeli province. Since the state of Israel is the premiere example of successful illegal immigration, hard line planners see the ultimate ejection of Palestinians as do-able. 

Meanwhile, if negotiation and moderate Palestinians are able to show results, then Hamas and other extremists will lose support, and ultimately be reduced to a nuisance status. Indeed the rise of a moderate Palestinian government supported by free trade will transform the extremists into a Palestinian police problem. 

Neo-Stalinism 

Did you see where Russian television held a poll to name the most popular historic figures? Josef Stalin came in third. That was after they redrew the rules and urged voters to consider literary and scientific luminaries. Did you happen to note in December that the Dumas passed new legislation that makes any demonstration against the government treason? Passing any information of any sort to any non-governmental orgainzation that has offices outside of Russia is also treason. Charges of treason no longer qualify for a jury trial either. Add to that the use of gas supplies to bludgeon Russia’s neighbors, plus the invasion of Georgia in order to seize the enclaves of South Ossetia and Abkhazia, and the rise of a new totalitarianism is hard to escape. 

We need to help both Western and Eastern Europe find alternatives to Russian gas, or we will be sucked into a greater confrontation in the near future. 

Mexican refugees 

During 2008, the casualties of the drug wars in Mexico exceeded U. S. casualties in Iraq and Afghanistan. The cities just below our border have the highest murder rates in the world. The Mexican government has not demonstrated an ability to control the criminality and corruption. If the U.S. does not provide real help, we will see a flood of refugees on top of the current illegal immigration flow. And we will be stuck with people who legitimately fear for their lives if they are returned home. 

Some people say that we should slam the door in the faces of Mexican refugees and insist that they manage their own affairs. The United States has not taken that position with any other nation on earth and we cannot do it with one of our two nearest neighbors. Besides that, the violence has already spilled over into cities on this side of the border. 

One move that could improve the situation would be to examine all exports and visitors to Mexico with the intensity that we examine imports and incoming visitors. Why? Where do you think Mexican gangs get their guns? Most are purchased here and then smuggled into Mexico. The Mexican government can’t control the influx of illegal weapons, and it is in our best interests to see it controlled. 

Let’s see how the new administration deals with these four hot points. The ones that Obama misses are sure to come round and bite him on the ass.

Predictions past and future

Last January, I made some predictions.  I would like to present a scorecard to show how well I did, but most of what I said is untrackable.

 

I said that the economy would not improve before Halloween.  It didn’t.  It also didn’t improve after Halloween, and it’s not looking much better for next Halloween either.  However, the problem seems to be that institutions with money are not lending that money.  I predict that when that situation changes, it is going to change in a hurry.  Wall Streeters have always displayed a herd instinct.  The money is piling up and it is burning holes in corporate pockets.  When the accumulation reaches a tipping point, the next favorable sign to come along will trigger a deluge of lending, and the regulators will be hard pressed to stave off inflation.  It could happen this year or next.  Even at that, it will take some time to trickle down to the rest of us, but it will come.

 Calling what any idiot could have forecast, I was also right that the Democrats would dodge tax issues and the Republicans would call for more cuts.  Nobody is proposing an improved tax scheme (except me in “A Tax on the System” October 24, 2007). 

As expected, there have been no proposals to deal with the troubling trend of rising populations in coastal areas and declining populations in the center of the country.

 I predicted more Muslim-on-Muslim violence in the world and, sadly, that continues.  Violence in the horn of Africa has also increased.  Arabs and others in the Islamic world will not know any great success until they learn not to hate each other.

 I said that Bush’s policies for protecting the United States from terrorism were not effective. Both Pentagon and intelligence officials have announced that our risks are increasing.  As always, those with the will to attack us lack the means, and those with the means don’t want to.  Should that change, we will be hit.  Our defence is electronic snooping and plotters who talk too much.  Should terrorists learn to communicate in person only, and to keep their plans tightly controlled, then we will be hit.

 My predictions of an increase in the crime rate have come to pass.  Overall crime rates have dropped, but the murder rate among African-American young men has shot up, and New York City recently had five bank robberies in one day—the first time that has happened in memory.  Watch for more property crimes including shoplifting and more domestic violence.

 My prediction for health crises have been bourne out, but only on a low level, so I can’t count that in the win column.

 Finally, I predicted that Barak Obama would be elected president.  (Actually, I said that we would have either our first black or female president, which gave me considerable wiggle room.  But why not claim credit when the chance comes?  There are always plenty of opportunities to take the blame for getting things wrong.)

 I was heartened to see that Obama adopted my stand on abortion (“Abortion Kills Reason” January 6, 2008).  It is possible that he came up with the idea on his own.  I certainly don’t think that he is one of my readers.  But, someone who is a reader may know someone who knows someone, etc. and may well have passed my discussion along.  Obama came very close to quoting the blog.

 In 2009, we will see Joe Biden’s prediction come true.  The new president will be tried by the world’s bad actors.  They would test any new president—look at Bush and 9-11—but Obama seems like such a nice guy, they’re going to want to find out how nice. 

Israel jumped into Gaza because they weren’t sure how much support they would get from the new president.  Obama might (gasp) be even handed in the Palestinian issues.  –I will take this occasion to reiterate my mantra:  The ones who have the power to make peace are the ones who have the power.

 On NPR today, I heard about a Marine officer who is assigned to a cows-for-widows program in Afghanistan.  That sort of iniative will be of more value in the long run than bombs.

Russia has cut off the natural gas to Ukraine.  Russia wants to raise prices on the gas they buy from Turkmenistan and other former Soviet states at blackmail prices.  Russia also does not want Ukraine to raise the prices it charges for use of Ukraine's pipeline to the west, and it wants the lease on the Crimean naval base extended in perpetuity, which Ukraine does not want to do.  Look for more Russian aggression in 2009.  Hopefully, it won't be military.

 With the Republicans leaving office, we will be learning about more executive branch misdeeds.  We will also see the kind of rabid dog attacks that we saw the right wing employ against the Clintons.  The difference is that Obama is being careful—so far--not to give them any ammunition.

 All in all, 2009 is shaping up to be another interesting year.

When shoes fly

Although I try not to comment on subjects that get a lot of attention in the press anyway, I have to say that I am glad that Iraqi journalist Muntadhar al-Zaidi threw his shoes at President Bush.  Saddam Hussein was an evil man, but even he did not kill a million Iraqis, and he did not start a war with the U.S.  The shoe throwing was an appropriate symbolic act.  That said, I am also glad that Bush dodged the shoes.  If he had been hit, the emphasis would have shifted from the insult to the injury.

It's good that the Secret Service wrestled the thrower to the ground before he could get his socks off.  The incident could have gotten ugly—or smelly.

Do you wonder, like me, what sort of shoes he threw?  When one throws shoes at the head of the most powerful nation in the world, one should not throw discount store shoes.  The shoes in the back of your closet are for maybe a police chief or school principal.  A president deserves designer shoes.  Not new necessarily--I think shoes that are broken in would possess more ballistic  accuracy.  A wild throw shows disrespect.

Has anyone commented on the thrower’s arm?  Both tosses were dead on.  If Bush had not ducked, he would have been beaned for sure.  Did the thrower practice to get that good?  What did he tell his neighbors when they saw him practicing in the backyard?

“Hey, Muntadhar, why are you throwing your shoes at bottles on my fence?” 

“A thousand pardons for disturbing you, but I have to go to a press conference tomorrow and it is so hard to get the American president’s attention.” 

“But, won’t the president regard your shoes as an insult?” 

“He is an American.  They hold shoes in high regard.  That’s why they drive everywhere, to avoid even using their shoes.”

“Truly a very strange people, Allah be praised for His mysteries.”