Category Archives: The World

Why can’t we ride trains?

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My question about the movie theme music was answered promptly, for which I am grateful. Now, let me ask another question that maybe some of y’all can answer: Why don’t we get the option of train travel in this country?

Yeah, I know there’s Amtrak (which I wrote about not long ago), and if I don’t mind going to the station in the wee hours of the morning, I will have the privilege of going one of a number of places along a corridor that runs along the Eastern seaboard. But I’d better want to go one of the few places the train goes, because outside of a few urban areas far to the north of us, there are no connecting locals to take us anywhere else.

In Europe, train travel is fast replacing airlines as the way to go. They even have supersleek, luxury bullet trains that go 200 miles per hour. Companies that provide service (remember when you got service from airlines) find they can make a competitive go of this, according to the piece in today’s Wall Street Journal headlined "Touring Europe at 200 Miles an Hour":

    High-speed rail operators in Europe are ambitiously adding routes and cutting travel times, looking to snatch customers from the short-haul airline market. They are also adding perks, such as DVD and movie rentals and free newspapers. Plush high-speed trains are luring customers weary of the bare-bones service offered on the many discount airlines that have proliferated throughout Europe: Eurostar Group Ltd. trains (which run in the United Kingdom, France and Belgium) have 33 inches of leg room in coach, for example. Discount airline Ryanair has 30 inches of leg room — and the seats don’t recline.
    Spain, which is at the forefront of the rail boom, got high-speed service connecting Madrid and Barcelona last month. The journey was slashed by two hours: Now it takes just two hours, 35 minutes. Switzerland in January saw the opening of a $3.5 billion, 22-mile tunnel that passes through the Alps, cutting travel time by 45 to 75 minutes within the country and between Switzerland and Italy.

I’m still wiped out from the trip I took over the weekend — driving all day Friday to central Pennsylvania in the rain, driving to northern New Jersey Saturday, driving back to central PA Sunday, driving back to Columbia on Monday. On Sunday, I did get to ride trains — from Isalen, NJ, on New Jersey Transit, then zipping around Manhattan on the subway. I dig that so much — just go down some steps, step on a train and find yourself in another world in minutes — that I go places I don’t have to go, just to ride the subway: We’ve got an hour! Let’s zip down to Little Italy and back! I’ll get you a cannoli!

Of course, the NJT and the subway are both ancient — I found myself at one point under New York looking at a off-painted girder and wondering just how long it had been holding up the skyscrapers above — and the scenery through the Newark area is even more grittily decayed looking in real life than it is in the opening credits of The Sopranos. But at least I get where I’m going without having to drive.

Several years ago, I would have flown this trip — the part to PA, at least. Nowadays, air travel can take more time, and more hassle, than driving. Literally.

If luxury train travel can be economically competitive over there, why not over here? Is it the regulatory environment, or what?

Harry then and Harry now

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A news item this week provided an unusually striking opportunity to trace the descent of the King’s (or potential King’s) English:

First, Shakespeare’s Harry:

We few, we happy few, we band of brothers;
For he to-day that sheds his blood with me
Shall be my brother; be he ne’er so vile,
This day shall gentle his condition:

And then, our own latter-day Harry expressing the same sentiment:

    "It’s nice just to be here with all the guys and just mucking in as one of the lads."

Oh, well. The real Henry V might have said it much the same way, the Bard notwithstanding.

Harry

Don’t back down on the 100-year remark!

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My least favorite thing John McCain has said in this campaign was that "no new taxes" nonsense. But one of the best things he’s said was the bit about our being in Iraq 100 years.

It was about time somebody said it. Sure, maybe it was a tad hyperbolic (Why’d you say 100, Luke? I thought it was a nice, round number), but the point needed to be made. This is a long-term commitment. We’re not getting out any time soon. Everybody knows that, including the Democratic candidates (although they have to tiptoe around it much of the time). They say no, we won’t be out in 2013, but fortunately no one asks them about beyond that. McCain, like grumpy old Dad, just told us kids to stop asking if we’re there yet — it’s a long trip, so settle back.

It has always seemed obvious to me, from the moment we went in, that our involvement with Iraq would be long, too long to predict the end, if there is an end. If you want to be mad at Bush for committing us this way, be mad. But there’s no changing the fact — we’re committed. No friend could ever again trust us, and no enemy ever be deterred, if we walked away from that.

I don’t know how long we’ll need to have troops there, and neither does McCain. Saying "100 years" moves us off the absurdity of talking about how fast we can skedaddle, and helps us focus on, "Well, we’re here — so what do we do next?" And, not least among the advantages, we no longer encourage terrorists to think, "Just one more car bomb, and they’ll leave!"

It’s also a gift to the antiwar folks. No longer need they moan vaguely about "unending war." Now, their grievance can be specific: "100 years of war!" It clarifies things for everybody.

So you can imagine how distressed I was to see this headline today: "McCain says 100-year remark distorted." No! I thought — don’t take it back!

But he wasn’t. He was just explaining that he meant what I’d always thought he’d meant — we’d have a presence there over the next century in the same way we’ve been in Korea and Germany for over half a century now. He wasn’t talking about fighting that long. In fact, he said, we "will win the war in Iraq and win it fairly soon."

That brings us to the semantic question of when a war ends, which is not as simple as it sounds in this post-Clausewitzian world. Conventional warfare ended a few weeks after we invaded in 2003. Although there have been some good-sized ground actions since then, they have not formed a coherent whole, in the sense that there’s no specific, unified enemy out there to surrender to us — which is how a war normally ends. So we get into movable measurements of relative peace. Is the war over when there are this many casualties in a month? No? How about this many?

Does the mere presence of troops on the ground constitute a state of war? Some would probably say "yes," but I certainly would not — and point, once again, to Germany. We kept our troops there as a stabilizing force, long decades after the shooting stopped. It’s worked beautifully. It’s worked, somewhat less easily, in Korea and Bosnia as well.

The thing is, 100 years from now, we will have troops in a lot of places around the globe. There are Bosnias not yet thought of. That’s assuming we’re still the unipolar power. There are reasons to think we won’t be, and plenty of Americans today think that would be fine. We won’t be if the Chinese have their way, and it’s certainly not the vision of the future that Putin’s peddling. This faces us with a question — is the world a better place with its first and greatest liberal democracy still dominant, or with a KGB or Tiananmen Square sort of regime?

Meanwhile, Britannia no longer rules waves

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As long as I’m on a naval-news kick today, this was in the Daily Mail — you know, the paper the "Paperback Writer‘s" character’s son worked for:

    Iran turned up the heat in the propaganda war with the West yesterday by parading a Royal Navy boat through Tehran.

    The boat had been captured in 2004 together with six Royal
Marines and two sailors in the Shatt al Arab waterway that divides Iraq
and Iran.

    To outrage in Britain, Tehran humiliated the servicemen by
parading them blindfolded on TV and forcing two to read out apologies
after alleging they had strayed into its territorial waters – claims
categorically denied by Britain.

    Yesterday Iran sought to embarrass Britain once again, trundling the boat through the capital raised up on the back of a lorry.

In the back of a bleeding lorry, of all things. This being too late for Jack Aubrey to conduct a cutting-out expedition to get it back (sorry, but I’m going to keep trolling until I find somebody who’s read those books), I suppose we and our special-relationship chums will just have to keep a stiff upper lip over it all.

Of course, it’s kind of pathetic that the Iranians are so proud to have captured something so small that a post captain’s coxswain would be mortified to see him riding ashore in it (yes, that was another esoteric stab in the dark). On the other hand, I wouldn’t be surprised were the Admiralty to ask the Cousins for some help in developing an anti-Ahmadinejad missile.

How to drop a satellite

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The Pentagon has sent out a release to ‘splain how it is that we’re confident the Navy can shoot down that satellite:

            Although the chances of an impact in a populated area are small, the potential consequences would be of enough concern to consider mitigating actions. Therefore, theDead_satellite_wart
President has decided to take action to mitigate the risk to human lives by engaging the non-functioning satellite. Because our missile defense system is not designed to engage satellites, extraordinary measures have been taken to temporarily modify three sea-based tactical missiles and three ships to carry out the engagement.
            Based on modeling and analysis, our officials have high confidence that the engagement will be successful. As for when this engagement will occur, we will determine the optimal time, location, and geometry for a successful engagement based on a number of factors. As the satellite’s path continues to decay, there will be a window of opportunity between late February and early March to conduct this engagement. The decision to engage the satellite has to be made before a precise prediction of impact location is available.

Sounds a bit fishy to me. We’re just gonna go out and DO it, based on nothing more than "modeling and analysis?" We’ve never done this before? Yeah, OK. I hope it works. Otherwise, we’re going to have a hydrazine mess on our hands, and I hear that’s not good.

By the way, in the picture above right, Joint Chiefs Vice Chairman Gen. James Cartwright promises that if the Navy’s fancy-schmancy missile doesn’t work, he will personally take out the satellite with a single punch. (Not really, it just looks that way.)

I didn’t know we could do that

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More Tom Clancy stuff. This time it’s like Cardinal of the Kremlin, only set in Beijing:

WASHINGTON (AP) – The Pentagon is planning to shoot down a broken spy satellite expected to hit the Earth in early March, The Associated Press has learned.
   U.S. officials said Thursday that the option preferred by the Bush administration will be to fire a missile from a U.S. Navy cruiser, and shoot down the satellite before it enters Earth’s atmosphere.
   The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because the options will not be publicly discussed until a later Pentagon briefing.
   The disabled satellite is expected to hit the Earth the first week of March. Officials said the Navy would likely shoot it down before then, using a special missile modified for the task.
   Other details about the missile and the targeting were not immediately available. But the decision involves several U.S. agencies, including the National Security Agency, the Department of Homeland Defense and the State Department.
   Shooting down a satellite is particularly sensitive because of the controversy surrounding China’s anti-satellite test last year, when Beijing shot down one of its defunct weather satellites, drawing immediate criticism from the U.S. and other countries.

The recent Chinese development worried me. Why, you ask? Because it meant they could wipe out our economy with a few well-placed missiles. You say they wouldn’t want to do that? Maybe not at this particular moment, no. But I’m almost certain that they’d love to have it as an option.

I’m only slightly reassured that we seem to have a cruiser-based capability in this regard. Or is it that we want the Chinese to think we do? I don’t know; I haven’t kept up with this stuff, so the cruiser bit took me by surprise.

Now I’ll probably hear from the "all countries are morally equal" crowd to the effect of, "why is OK for us to be able to do it and not THEM?" And if you can conceive of that question and ask it without embarrassment, there’s probably not much I can say to persuade you.

For my part, I was no fan of Reagan’s "Star Wars" initiative. And not just because it was a particularly risky, destabilizing gambit in the era of MAD. Also, while it was fine by me to beef up conventional forces (AND diplomatic efforts, and economic ties, and every other way we might engage the rest of the world comprehensively), there seemed to be an isolationist fantasy involved in the notion that we could put up a missile-shield umbrella that enabled us to ignore the rest of the world.

But if somebody’s going to have this technology, I’d infinitely rather it be the world’s first and biggest liberal democracy than the Tiananmen-Square crowd.

Stories that tell why we need single-payer

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We continue to concentrate on the wrong thing — getting the uninsured into the present system — when we talk about health care reform.

Increasingly, those of us who are privileged to be in the system find that we can’t afford health care, either. The whole system is rotten, wasteful, too expensive and too inefficient. We pay more money to be sicker than folks in any other advanced nation.

There are a lot of problems with our system, but the biggest is the basic premise — employer-based health care through for-profit (and we’re talking for HUGE profits) private insurance companies.

If private health care coverage weren’t so expensive for all of us, the 1 in 7 who remain uncovered would be in it. But it is, and will be, expensive by definition. A profit has to be made.

A single-payer system is the logical way to go. It’s time we got logical about this monster that is now consuming 16 percent of our national economy.

I wrote this column — "‘Health care reform?’ Hush! You’ll anger the Insurance Gods!" — back in November because it’s time that people like me — in the top income quintile — started pointing out how unaffordable this wasteful system is for us, which means it’s worse for millions of others who are also in the system. An excerpt from that column:

    … I make more money than most people do here in the wealthiest country in the history of the world, and I live paycheck to paycheck, in large part because of the cost of being an extremely allergic asthmatic, and needing to do what it takes to keep enough oxygen pumping to my brain to enable me to work so I can keep paying my premiums and copays. My premiums in the coming year — we’re going to a new plan — will be $274.42 on every biweekly check, not counting dental or vision care. And I’m lucky to have it. I know that, compared to most, I’ve got a sweet deal!
    I’m in the top income quintile in the U.S. population, and we can’t afford cable TV, we’ve never taken a European vacation or done anything crazy like that, we haven’t bought a new car since 1986, and aside from the 401(k) I can’t touch until I retire (if I can ever afford to retire), we have no savings.
    Yet I will pay my $274.42 gladly, and I will thank the one true God in whom I actually do believe that I have that insurance, and that I am in an upper-income bracket so that I can just barely pay those premiums, and that neither my wife (a cancer survivor) nor I nor either of the two children (out of five) the gods still let me cover is nearly as unhealthy as the people I see whenever I visit a hospital…

On Jan. 6, we ran an op-ed piece from B.J. Welborn that told another middle-class story. An excerpt:

    But the picture is not always rosy. A recent experience made me realize that although I have a comfortable income and a good education, pay taxes and have an insurer pick up most of my health care costs, an overburdened and undermonitored health care system can leave me vulnerable and scared. Here’s my latest scare:
    Last year, an out-of-state company bought my husband’s firm in Columbia. We were forced to change our insurance. This change required baffling paperwork to keep my Gleevec coming, and though we tried valiantly to figure out the process, different people at the insurance company told us different things. The process dragged out; the clock was ticking for me. Soon, three weeks passed without my lifesaving drug. I wondered if anybody cared.
    I checked with my pharmacy and found it couldn’t order Gleevec from its supplier. I searched for Gleevec at other pharmacies. This drug, still in clinical trials, isn’t like a common antibiotic kept on drugstore shelves. I couldn’t find it. And even if I could find Gleevec, how would I pay for it? $3,000 this month, then $3,000 the next month?
    My anxiety mounted. When I washed my face, small blemishes bled, as they do when your blood can’t do its job. I was slipping through the cracks, and I was cracking up…
    The "what if" game is terrible. Millions play it, and one day, you or a
loved one could too. Anyone can get a chronic disease — diabetes, stroke,
mental illness, heart disease or cancer.
    Let’s face it: You, too, could slip through the cracks of our health care
system. So, it is up to you to make our potential leaders aware of what’s
really going on. It’s not just the poor and uninsured who are hurting, it’s
also millions of hard-working, middle-class Americans who foot the bill for
others’ health care…

Then, on Friday, Feb. 1, we had this letter to the editor:

Health coverage could make writer sick
    I am absolutely disgusted by the state of our nation’s health care.
    I am a college-educated woman with a bachelor’s degree, an employee of a prestigious university, but most important, a wife and a mother of young children.
    I live in fear that one of my family members will become seriously ill or simply require regular preventative care that my health insurance does not cover.
    For example, last year, I discovered that the health insurance for S.C. state employees does not cover routine pelvic exams, and without health insurance, that type of procedure can cost almost $200. And other medical procedures aren’t covered until after I meet the $350-per-person deductible.
    With one child in daycare and the costs of my children’s health care and regular childhood illnesses, I simply can’t afford to pay $200 or $350 or $550 for my own care. So I don’t go. And I hope that I don’t get sick.

MARTHA BROWN
Columbia

That letter prompted this one on today’s page:

Health insurance costs leave little for care
    I read the letter “Health care coverage could make writer sick” by Martha Brown with interest.
    While wholly sympathetic to her concerns, I feel, by comparison to many of us, she would be embarrassed by how good she has it.
    As a provider for a healthy and active family of four, I am shackled with a monthly insurance bill in excess of $800. For this, we are provided with a policy that covers only 80 percent after a $1,000 deductible per person. It would appear that our policy was written to provide for the economic health of our insurance company, rather than that of my family.
    Our provider enjoys strong local recognition, and I hope it is competitive with other carriers, but my bill has become a payment for asset protection rather than health care, and I’m not sure how well it provides for that.
    “Health care is expensive” is the most common explanation received when I question our agent, doctors and others about our situation, but price is irrelevant when, after insurance payments, no money is left over for health care.
    Surely, mine and Ms. Brown’s situation is not unique. We live in the greatest society that has yet existed, but our current profit-driven health care system is clearly in direct conflict with what is best for its citizens.

EDGAR PUTNAM
Columbia

More people should come forward with these stories. It’s embarrassing — neither of my two bosses, my employer or my wife, was particularly crazy about me going into such details — but this stuff needs to be available as we debate these issues. And we must debate them — the status quo is not sustainable.

Crazy Ivans

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Tu95_bear_j

And here I thought we’d put the "Hunt for Red October" days behind us. The nouveau-oil-riche Russians are continuing to try to prove that they’ve got big ones, too — bombers, that is:

{Russia says bombers’ flyover of US aircraft carrier part of routine} patrol
{Eds: PMs.}
   MOSCOW (AP) – The Russian military said Tuesday that its bombers’ flyover of a U.S. aircraft carrier in the Pacific was part of a routine patrol conducted in accordance with international rules.
   Russian air force spokesman Alexander Drobyshevsky said in a statement carried by Russian news wires that the Tu-95 bombers didn’t violate any rules of engagement when they flew over the Pacific on Saturday.
   U.S. military officials said that one Tu-95 buzzed the aircraft carrier USS Nimitz twice, at a low altitude of about 2,000 feet, while another bomber circled about 50 nautical miles out. U.S. fighters were scrambled from Nimitz to intercept the bombers.
   Drobyshevsky said the Russian bombers conducted their flight "in strict compliance with the international rules of using airspace rules, over neutral waters and without any violation of other countries’ borders." He said the bombers were fulfilling their "assigned task" when they were escorted by the U.S. carrierborne fighters.
   The Saturday incident came amid heightened tensions between the United States and Russia over U.S. plans for a missile defense system based in Poland and the Czech Republic.
   The U.S. has defended the plan as necessary to protect its European allies from possible attacks by Iran. But the Kremlin has condemned the proposal, saying it would threaten Russia’s security.
   Such Russian encounters with U.S. ships were common during the Cold War, but have been rare since then. Russia’s President Vladimir Putin Russia revived the Soviet-era practice of long-range patrols by strategic bombers over the Atlantic, Pacific and Arctic oceans last August.

Boys and their toys — right, ladies? Combine that facet of the male character with the Russian’s titanic inferiority complex over how the Cold War ended, and you’ve got … well, the New French. I wonder what the term is for Russian deGaullism? Putinism, perhaps? But that describes so many unpleasant things, doesn’t it?

Expect to see more of these incidents. And let’s pray one of them doesn’t turn really, really ugly.

This is why — or rather, this is another reason why, in addition to the war on terror, the rise of China, etc. — that in an era in which so many want to obsess about domestic issues, America’s role in the world is the first thing we ask presidential candidates about. Because that is Job One for the chief executive.

Maybe it’s a good thing Sarko won

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As much as I may have admired la belle Ségolène (Royal, that is), and preferred to see her picture in the news for the next few years, maybe it’s a really good thing that the far less photogenic Nicolas Sarkozy won the French election last year. Get a load of this from the WSJ today, regarding the guy who lost $7.2 billion for that French bank:

PARIS — Société Générale says wayward trader Jérôme Kerviel lost the bank $7.2 billion. ButKerviel
that was last week. He’s now on his way to cult celebrity — and he still hasn’t lost his job.
    Société Générale has stopped paying Mr. Kerviel and told him not to come to the office, but it hasn’t managed to formally fire him. French law stipulates that to do that, the bank must first call him in for a sit-down meeting and explain its dissatisfaction. He has the right to bring along a trade-union official, a lawyer or anyone else he’d like…

They can’t fire him! So, as much as I hate to see Ségolène rebuffed, maybe, just maybe, the Socialists aren’t exactly what’s needed in France at this point in its history.

The Convenient Nativist

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Odd, isn’t it, that this anti-immigrant bit of propaganda — which purports to be about Sen. Lindsey Graham — should emerge at this particular moment:

This offensive nativist screed makes no policy proposal. The thrust here is about people speaking Spanish — as opposed to fine, decent folks with "South Carolina values." Appalling.

And as we all know, there’s a lot more at stake with an emotional play like this than a quixotic slap at a secure incumbent senator.

This time, a quick consensus

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By BRAD WARTHEN
Editorial Page Editor
THIS TIME eight years ago, The State’s editorial board faced a choice in the S.C. Republican primary between a visionary, “maverick” lawmaker with an inspiring resume and a governor who said he’d take the CEO approach, delegating the vision to the team he would build. We chose the self-described executive type, much to our later regret.
    This time, we’re going with the hero.
    Our board — Publisher Henry Haitz; Associate Editors Warren Bolton, Cindi Scoppe and Mike Fitts; and I — sat down Friday morning and deliberated for about 90 minutes before emerging with a clear and unequivocal consensus: We like former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee a lot, but we have no doubt that Sen. John McCain is better-prepared to be our commander in chief.
    As our lead editor on national affairs, Mike framed the discussion, speaking at length about each of the Republicans. As others joined in, it quickly became apparent that each of us had reached very similar conclusions.
    You may not think that’s remarkable, but it is. Ours is a diverse group, and we struggled through remarkably grueling disagreements over presidential primary endorsements in the Republican and Democratic contests in 2000 and 2004, respectively. Those debates led to outcomes that some of us were never happy with. This time was very different.
    Mike spoke for everyone when he said Ron Paul was running in the wrong party; he had been a far better fit as the Libertarian nominee in 1988.
    Fred Thompson’s campaign peaked before it actually began, and never had much appeal. His candidacy still seems to lack a reason for being, although Warren suggested one: In the Myrtle Beach debate Thursday night, Mr. Thompson seemed to be “carrying water” for his friend John McCain, with his unrelenting attacks on Mr. Huckabee.
    While Rudy Giuliani makes the case that being “out of line culturally” with S.C. Republicans should not be a deal killer, he’s not so convincing that he’s the guy to lead the country in a dangerous and volatile time. Beyond his constant refrain of “9/11,” he doesn’t articulate what he would offer that the others would not. Mike, who is much troubled by the Bush record on civil liberties, worried that the former prosecutor would actually be worse.
    Mike was sorry Mitt Romney never came in for an interview, because he had “heard so many different things about him.” Of course, the “different things” came from the candidate himself, who has reinvented himself on issue after issue in his effort to find a stance that sells. So how can he be trusted to lead? Cindi observed, and I strongly agreed, that Mr. Romney’s great mistake was not running on his solid record as governor, particularly health care reform. He ran from it instead, suggesting contempt both for GOP voters and for the people who had elected him governor.
    Mike Huckabee made a very good impression in his meeting with us, back when almost no one thought he had a chance. We particularly liked his lack of fear of the more virulent government-hating element in the GOP — he had been unashamed to govern in Arkansas. He has the best grasp of the nation’s health crisis among the Republicans, and the greatest ability to communicate. We don’t like his “flat tax” or his vague protectionist notions, and he’s very weak on national security. That last point is his biggest drawback. His “gates of hell” bluster about the Iranian gunboats Thursday struck a jarringly false note, and it’s not what we’d want a president to say.
    John McCain has no such need to prove his toughness, so he’s comfortable speaking more reasonably. His understanding of America’s role in the world greatly exceeds that of his rivals (and of the current administration). He will always fight for what he believes in, but will not dismiss those who disagree. He’s never been an executive (in civilian life), but he’s a leader, which is better. Henry, the only businessman in the group, said the economy and health care are important, “But Iraq and foreign affairs are still the top concern,” and no one is better suited to address them.
    Warren demurred, especially with regard to Iraq: “I don’t think we ought to be there.” But while he disagrees with the senator (and me) on that, he respects and appreciates his military record, his willingness to work across party lines and his integrity.
    Henry’s one concern about Sen. McCain was his age. The rest of us were less worried — he seems unfazed by the strain of campaigning. But we agreed that should be a consideration in his choice of a running mate.
    Before we broke up, we agreed that the two leading (in the polls, and in our estimation) Republican candidates were preferable to either party’s nominee in 2004. Americans deserve a choice, at long last, between “good” and “better,” rather than being forced to settle for “sad” or “worse.”
    In a few days, our board will convene again to decide whom to endorse in the Democratic primary. I don’t know where we’ll end up on that; we have yet to meet with the major candidates.
    But however that comes out, we feel very good about the growing likelihood that one of the candidates on the ballot in November will be John McCain.

To read our endorsement, click here. To see video about the endorsement, click here.

Belated, inadequate thoughts on Bhutto

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Pakistan_bhutto_kille_wart

I was actively avoiding posting last week, trying to have a real vacation for once and saving my strength for the home stretch heading up to the S.C. primaries. Not to mention the Legislature coming back next week.

So I didn’t say anything about Benazir Bhutto’s assassination. But I will now share what I was thinking at the time. It was basically two simple thoughts:

  1. This should provide a good gut check for all those people running for president — do they really want this job? Do they really think they know how to react in a situation such as this? Are people like Mike Huckabee, who has so many fine domestic sensibilities but NO foreign policy experience, thinking "Hey, wait a minute…"?
  2. Does an event like this reverse the process that David Brook wrote of last month. I thought his explanation of why Iowa voters were turning to Mr. Huckabee and Barack Obama was on-point: The success of the surge had made foreign affairs sink to the background in the public’s mind, and made them feel free to look around for a "postwar" president.

But make no mistake. Dealing with ungodly messes such as this is the main, chief, most essential part of the job description. The rest is mostly window-dressing by comparison. We need a wartime consigliere. Maybe it should be Obama or Huckabee. But if people are turning to them because they think "Happy Christmas/War is Over," they should think again.

I resisted writing the above during my vacation because … well, because I hate the way so many commentators change the subject from an important, knotty policy problem to electoral politics. They do it because they know electoral politics, or think they do, so that makes things easier.

But the truth is, it’s what I was thinking. And the further truth is, the biggest effect that you and I can have on the course of events in Pakistan and the next, yet-unidentified powder keg is to choose a president who’s a lot better qualified to choose a course of action than I am. Personally, looking at the chaos that Mrs. Bhutto’s death created, I would have no idea what to do or say next — if I were the one who had to do the saying and doing. I was truly at a loss.

The brass come out for McCain

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Mccainadm

This morning, I turned out for a campaign announcement by John McCain, and realized when I got to the State Museum that I should have dressed better — or at least shaved. He was there with four admirals, representative of the 110 admirals and generals who are endorsing his campaign.

It wasn’t just the brass; there were some impressive people from the ranks as well. Command Sergeant Major James "Boo" Alford, formerly of the U.S. Army Special Forces and veteran of Korea and Vietnam, was among them. That’s him pictured below with Tut Underwood, P.R. guy for the museum.

Here’s video from the event:

And here’s an excerpt from the release (which you can read in its entirety here):

Today over 100 retired admirals and generals endorsed John McCain for President of the United States at a press conference in Columbia, South Carolina. These distinguished leaders supporting John McCain come from all branches of the armed services and include former POWs, Medal of Honor recipients and former members of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

John McCain was joined today in Columbia by five distinguished military veterans: Admiral Leighton "Snuffy" Smith, USN (Ret.); Vice Admiral Mike Bowman, USN (Ret.); Rear Admiral Tom Lynch, USN (Ret.); Rear Admiral Bob Shumaker, USN (Ret.); and Major General Stan Spears, USA, Adjutant General of South Carolina.

"This nation is at war and we’d better damn well understand that fact," said Admiral Leighton "Snuffy" Smith, USN (Ret.). "John McCain understands it, and he is the only candidate that has not wavered one bit in his position regarding the importance of victory in the war against Islamic extremism or in his commitment to the troops who are doing the fighting. He has consistently demonstrated the kind and style of leadership that we believe is essential in our next Commander in Chief. Our nation faces a growing array of serious foreign policy challenges. John McCain is the ONE candidate who, in our view, truly understands the strategic landscape and is fully prepared to deal decisively and effectively with those who wish to be our friends and, importantly, those who wish us harm."

RobertadamsThe event was held on the museum’s fourth floor. Sen. McCain and the admirals stood behind a twisted
steel beam from the World Trade Center — what you might call a way of focusing civilians’ minds on what’s important. (Inset, at right, you see Green Diamond opponent and McCain supporter Robert Adams and his kids by the beam.)

Anyway, when the event was over, I paused only to grab a quick coffee before going straightaway to get a nice short, regulation haircut. Next time, I’ll be ready.

Alford

The case for John McCain: The Economist reminds us of what should be obvious

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As I believe I mentioned in the last few days (I forget where), I like to read British observers of American politics from time to time, because their perspective enables them to go straight to things that should be obvious, but which we forget over here amid the trees of day-to-day nonsense.

Therefore I read with particular appreciation this column from the most recent edition of The Economist, headlined "The case for John McCain." An excerpt:

    Mr McCain’s qualifications extend beyond character. Take experience. His range of interests as a senator has been remarkable, extending from immigration to business regulation. He knows as much about foreign affairs and military issues as anybody in public life. Or take judgment. True, he has a reputation as a hothead. But he’s a hothead who cools down. He does not nurse grudges or agonise about vast conspiracies like some of his colleagues in the Senate. He has also been right about some big issues. He was the first senior Republican to criticise George Bush for invading Iraq with too few troops, and the first to call for Donald Rumsfeld’s sacking. He is one of the few Republicans to propose sensible policies on immigration and global warming.
    Mr McCain’s qualities are particularly striking if you contrast him with his leading rivals. His willingness to stick to his guns on divisive subjects such as immigration stands in sharp contrast to Mr Romney’s oily pandering. Mr Romney likes to claim that his views on topics such as gay rights and abortion have “evolved”. But they have evolved in a direction that is strikingly convenient—perhaps through intelligent design. Can a party that mocked John Kerry really march into battle behind their very own Massachusetts flip-flopper?

Over here, many are quick to dismiss him as having no chance — to which I say, if John McCain has no chance, America has no chance. Besides, Republicans are in a hunt for something better than their "front-runners," which has most recently led them to Mike Huckabee, about whom Lexington wrote:

    The weakness of the two front-runners is persuading many Republicans to turn to Mr Huckabee. Mr Huckabee is indeed an attractive candidate—a good debater and a charming fellow. But he is woefully lacking in experience. He knows next to nothing about foreign and military affairs, and his tax plans are otherworldly. A presidential debate between Mr Huckabee and Hillary Clinton would be a rout.

I hadn’t really thought about that, possibly because I don’t think like a Republican — I don’t sit up nights worrying about how to stop a certain person (a decreasingly relevant worry). It has occurred to me, and I don’t think I’ve noted it here, that she would beat Rudy Giuliani fairly handily, which makes it ironic that some throw away their principles because they think Rudy would win that match-up. (Think about it. Remember when he dropped out of the Senate race against her? Nothing’s changed about either candidate since then.)

But now that I think about it, I suspect Mrs. Clinton would tear up Gov. Huckabee without breaking a sweat.

Urgent calls lead to action on Darfur (I hope)

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This morning, I received a copy of this e-mail:

Hi SC folks,
Today, as the Sudan Accountability and Divestment Act was only one away from passing the Senate unanimously, Senator DeMint blocked the legislation from passage.

We are asking people in SC to make phone calls into his office to ask that he remove his hold. See below for a more details from Zahara Heckscher, our Divestment Campaign Manager.

Thanks,
Coby

Dear South Carolina Darfur Advocates,
As you probably know, Sudan Accountability and Divestment Act is a vital bill that protects the right of states such as South Carolina to divest public funds from companies that help fund the genocide in Darfur.

Senator DeMint of South Carolina is now the only Senator blocking passage of
this critical bill.

Please take two minutes to call his office right now.

Charleston
Phone: 843-727-4525

If that number is busy, or if you have time for more than one, you can call DC or any of the Senator’s offices where you have a contact.

Washington, D.C.
Phone: 202-224-6121

Message:

"I’m calling from __________(say your town and South Carolina so he knows you are a constituent)  to request that Senator DeMint remove his hold from Sudan Accountability and Divestment Act . This bill is a critical bipartisan bill that puts pressure on the government of Sudan to end the genocide. We want to protect our state’s right not to invest in companies that help fund genocide."

Please shoot me a quick email after you call.  If you learn anything interesting during your call, or if you know staff in his office, please let me know.

Please forward this message to others in SC
Thank you for all you do to help the people of Darfur.

Best,
Zahara Heckscher
Divest For Darfur Campaign Manager
Save Darfur Coalition

But before I’d even had chance to read that e-mail, our correspondent Rusty DePass had gotten on the horn to straighten things out:

I have talked with DeMint’s office (not with DeMint himself) and been
assured as I expected that he is completely in favor of this bill.  He
does have some concerns, however, about the way Sen. Dodd wrote the bill
that may have prevented their respective staffs (not the two Senators)
from working out the problems.  Jim has now been satisfied that those
concerns will be addressed as it moves forward and he has removed his
hold on the bill.  What is happening in Sudan is truly a latter day
Holocaust.

So maybe now we’ll see some proper action.

Brits say our spooks did their sums wrong

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This last post reminds me of something that was brought to my attention this morning: The Mossad aren’t the only intelligence source saying our latest NIE on Iran got it wrong (at least, the headline part that everyone seems to be talking about, anyway). This was in The Daily Telegraph today:

Iran ‘hoodwinked’ CIA over nuclear plans
    British spy chiefs have grave doubts that Iran has mothballed its nuclear weapons programme, as a US intelligence report claimed last week, and believe the CIA has been hoodwinked by Teheran.   
    The timing of the CIA report has also provoked fury in the British Government, where officials believe it has undermined efforts to impose tough new sanctions on Iran and made an Israeli attack on its nuclear facilities more likely.
    The security services in London want concrete evidence to allay concerns that the Islamic state has fed disinformation to the CIA…

‘Abandonment of the Jews:’ Two views of the NIE from Jerusalem

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A certain regular correspondent whose first name is Samuel brought to my attention this piece from The Jerusalem Post. It’s by Caroline Glick, a writer with whom I am unfamiliar (maybe y’all will have time to read her past columns; I can’t do that on a Friday), and it’s headlined, "The Abandonment of the Jews." An excerpt:

    The US National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) on
Iran’s nuclear intentions is the political version of a tactical
nuclear strike on efforts to prevent Iran from acquiring nuclear bombs.
    The
NIE begins with the sensationalist opening line: "We judge with high
confidence that in fall 2003, Teheran halted its nuclear weapons
program." But the rest of the report contradicts the lead sentence. For
instance, the second line says, "We also assess with moderate-to-high
confidence that Teheran at a minimum is keeping open the option to
develop nuclear weapons."
    Indeed, contrary to that earth-shattering opening, the NIE
acknowledges that the Iranians have an active nuclear program and that
they are between two and five years away from nuclear capabilities.

While I was there, I also glanced over this piece by David Horovitz, headlined "Bushwhacked." An excerpt:

    But beyond the headlines, a close reading of the
material released from the National Intelligence Estimate offers little
legitimate reason for any sense of relief. Quite the opposite. Along
with the opening judgment that Iran halted its nuclear weapons program
in 2003 comes the immediate caveat that "Teheran at a minimum is
keeping open the option to develop nuclear weapons." And then, just a
few paragraphs later, comes an undermining of the original,
headline-making assessment. The authors acknowledge that "because of
intelligence gaps" they can "assess with only moderate confidence that
the halt to these activities represents a halt to Iran’s entire nuclear
weapons program."
    After that, the reservations and flat-out terrifying
assessments in this supposedly sanguine estimate flow thick and fast.
The authors state in their opening paragraphs alone: "We do not know
whether [Iran] currently intends to develop nuclear weapons." "We
cannot rule out that Iran has acquired from abroad – or will acquire in
the future – a nuclear weapon or enough fissile material for a weapon."
"We assess centrifuge enrichment is how Iran probably could first
produce enough fissile material for a weapon, if it decides to do so.
Iran resumed its declared centrifuge enrichment activities in January
2006 … [and] made significant progress in 2007 installing centrifuges
at Natanz."

It occurs to me that when your very survival depends on sound intelligence, you tend to look at these things a little harder, and more critically, than Americans do. Ms. Glick sums up the stakes for Israel in this passage:

    Many commentators applauded the Annapolis
conference, claiming that its real aim was to cement a US-led coalition
including Israel and the Arabs against Iran. These voices argued that
it made sense for Israel to agree to negotiate on bad terms in exchange
for such a coalition. But the NIE shows that the US double-crossed
Israel. By placing the bait of a hypothetical coalition against Iran,
the US extracted massive Israeli concessions to the Palestinians and
then turned around and abandoned Israel on Iran as well. What this
means is that not only has the US cut Israel off as an ally, it is
actively working against the Jewish state.

 

 

Hang in there, Hillary

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At the otherwise civilized NPR debate, some of her rivals gave Hillary Clinton grief for doing exactly what she should have done — vote for the resolution aimed at isolating Iran’s Revolutionary Guard.

This, of course, is in keeping with the fad of the last couple of days, in which everyone projects what they wish the facts to be upon the rather mixed National Intelligence Estimate — you know, the one that said Iran stopped working toward a nuke over here, but over there it kept busy enriching uranium, putting it on track to have enough for a Bomb sometime between 2010 and 2015. (The Israelis, meanwhile, are more pessimistic than their friends over here.)

I’m still waiting for a reason why we should stop doing what we’ve been doing — working with France to keep the pressure on Iran to get it to abandon its nuclear ambitions — but I haven’t heard one yet.

This issue illustrates the flip side of the contradictory role that Mrs. Clinton plays in this election. She’s the embodiment of the hopes of people who want to continue the bloody partisan wars of the past 15 years, and Barack Obama offers the hopeful alternative to that.

Meanwhile, when it comes to actual policy — particularly foreign policy, which is the biggie when you’re talking chief executive in our system — she comes closer than Obama to the kind of Third Way approach once exemplified by her husband, Joe Lieberman, Tony Blair and others. (Example: The way she infuriated some in the base by her refusal to say she regrets her Iraq vote — that is the proper response for someone who is serious about occupying the White House.)

Anyway, when it comes to her Iran vote: You go, Hillary. Pay no attention to those boys.

The Palestinian view, home-consumption version

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Just FYI:

    Just a day after Israeli and Palestinian leaders at the Annapolis peace
conference pledged to negotiate a peace treaty by the end of 2008,
Mahmoud Abbas’s Palestinian Authority continues to paint a picture for
its people of a world without Israel.

Find the report at the Web site of an organization called Palestinian Media Watch.

How is Israel supposed to negotiate, in any rational sense of the word, with a party whose dream for the future is a world in which Israel does not exist?

I mean, I sincerely hope Annapolis leads to progress — we’ve got to do something. But what sort of concessions can you hope for from the genocidally insane? Of course, maybe the handshakes were for real, and PMW is engaging in propagandistic fantasy. Unfortunately, I doubt it.

Loonie prices

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Bookprice

Just yesterday, the exchange rate between the U.S. and Canadian dollars came up in conversation, and I wondered aloud whether a book could now be purchased for fewer loonies.

Think about it: Where do you usually see the greenback and the loonie compared? Right — on the cover of books in the bookstore. For instance, the copy of Stephen Ambrose’s D-Day I just plucked off my shelf as an example retailed for $16 U.S., but $21.50 Canadian — in monetary terms, as far apart as Juno and Utah beaches.

Within an hour or so after wondering about that, lo and behold, The Economist explained the situation in just those terms. Seems folks in the Great White North are pretty ticked off now if they can’t get a book at a south-of-the-border price:

CHRIS SMITH, co-owner of a small bookshop in Ottawa called Collected Works, assumed his customers would remain loyal even as the rapid appreciation of the Canadian dollar against its American counterpart made a mockery of the gap between the twin prices printed on the covers of American books. But when Mr Smith asked a few regulars, he was shocked to find that they were going online to buy American books from retailers south of the border. In an effort to keep his existing trade, he now uses the much lower American figure as the Canadian price, even though this means selling American books at a loss. (In the case of Alan Greenspan’s book “The Age of Turbulence”, for example, the prices on the jacket are $35 and C$43.95.)

I sympathize with those shoppers. I’ve always felt a little bad for Canadians whenever I perused book prices: If you’re an American it costs this much, but if your a Canadian, you pay this much. It always seemed a little unfair, even when it wasn’t. Now that it is unfair, I don’t blame Canadian shoppers a bit for griping if they don’t get the lower price.