FRIDAY, June 30, 2006

• As we enter the July 4th weekend, it seems that Osama bin Laden gets more positive press than President Bush .  What's wrong with this picture?
• The furor over the relative powers and our Federal and Executive branches of government is nothing new.  At the birth of this nation these questions occupied much of the time of Chief Justice John Marshall.  Since then, every President who wasn't a mediocrity has dealt with the issue.  Recent examples include Teddy Roosevelt at the turn of the 20th century, Franklin Roosevelt in the 1930's, Ronald Reagan in the 1980's...and of course George W. Bush.  Then there were Gerald Ford and Jimmy Carter in the 1970's, after the Watergate - Nixon debacle, who allowed Congress to steal the Executive store.  So, when are the Democrats going to end their hypocracy regarding this perennial matter?
• Two good articles appear on current topics today in The Day: 1) "Amnesty Will Be Part Of Any Iraq Reconciliation", by Charles Krauthammer, Commentary, pA11; 2) "Supreme Court Dishes Up Finance-Reform Muddle", by George Will, ibid.
• Even the world's richest man has been stymied by the Public Education Monopoly.  See "Bill Gates Gets Schooled: As another school year ends, his quest to save American education remains an unfulfilled dream", by Jay Greene and William C. Symonds (Business Week Jund 26, 2006, p64).   That's what comes from just nibbling at the edges of this cancer despite throwing mounds of money at it.  It should be about student responsibility, teacher accountability, and parental choice.  Mr. Gates, I know of several thousand Catholic parochial schools that could make better use of your help...in a heartbeat.

MONDAY through THURSDAY, June 26 through 29, 2006

• In view of the mass of execrable fare on American television and other media, do you wonder why even moderate and sensible foreigners and especially Muslims detest what they are presented as the "American way of life?"  So do I.
• And then there is the matter of diluted standards, loose discipline and low regard for the law and for the leavening effect of that gas-producing yeast called politics.  Today we read about "the practice of tweaking standards to ensure enough students rank sufficiently high on the Connecticut Mastery Test".  ("Tweaking CMT Standards Gets State Board's Attention", by Karin Crompton, The Day today, pA1).  Today we also read that a Coast Guard Academy senior cadet, the first ever to be convicted on felony charges of "extortion, sodomy, indecenht assault, leaving his post and attempting to disobey an order", after acquittal on rape charges, received only a 6 month prison sentence.  And throughout the week we have been hearing about the probably treasonous disclosure - and publication by major newspapers - of secret anti-terror measures designed to interrupt the financial support of our sworn enemies.  Folks, this country is in the grip of a serious illness, treatable only by a common sense electorate voting that common sense in the coming few years.  As for me, I'm very concerned, but also optomistic.

SUNDAY, June 25, 2006

Vacations are great!  Not the ones where you just take a few days off in your usual surroundings...but the ones where you get out of town.  We did just that last week: riding the waves of the Atlantic, playing a little golf, soaking up sun....I came back with nothing to grouse at.  But that was then.  This is now.  "I'm baaack".

Afganistan and all the other ...stans.  To hear the liberal news media tell it, nothing good ever happens: just more bloodshed of ours and our friends.  Well, that's not the way it is.  See David Brooks' article published in The Day a few days ago.  In addition, we should be considering the following:

• Afganistan.  We have 25,000 troops there.  We must not lose there.  The Taliban and their supporters must be crushed, with more troops, summary judgment for enemies, destruction of the entire poppy crop, reimbursement of the farmers for their loss...with a premium, and with public works projects that actually work.  And the only thing that will avenge the torture and mutilation of our two soldiers recently must be the death of bin Laden.   Enough game- playing.
• Iran and Syria, by their active support of the terrorists in Iraq and against the U.S., are engaging in acts of war.  With or without the U.N. or the E.U., we must impose our own sanctions...and they must hurt.  Or are we really just a paper tiger?
• Iraq.   Of course, the Bush administration has to play politics with its decisions until Republicans remain in power in November.  Meanwhile, the Iraq leader is probably on the right track with an offer of some sort of amnesty to bring peace there.  It worked in South Africa...and it is realistic.
• In all of these efforts, we should work with a "coalition of the willing", and consider all the others untrustworthy...especially Russia and China.
• We should articlulate a nuclear non-proliferation policy along the lines of that offered earlier in this section.  That is some of the "real politic" that we should be practicing.
• Immigration policy.  The House Republicans need the education they are going to get during the next several months of public meetings nationwide on the subject.  They also feel that they need the cover for the coming elections.  Then they'll come to their senses.
• Global warming.  It has now become irresponsible, in the face of all the scientific evidence, for this country not to take the lead in reducing greenhouse gases...our own and those generated worldwide.  If President Bush were to embrace this effort, he would guarantee both his own legacy and also the retention of the White House by a Republican in 2008.  Not that the Republicans have all the answers.  It's just that the Democrats have NONE.
• How to lift the Third World out of the depths of poverty?  Not mainly by donated aid and good will: there's not enough of that to go around.  Rather, allow access to their natural resources in return for open markets for their goods and the provision of needed infrastructure.  Some more "real politic".
• North Korea.  If the missile is launched, shoot it down...or at least try to.  Then, "let's talk", even bi-laterally.
• Governor Rell of Connecticut.  If you must be a politician, at least be a good one.  So far, I'm underwhelmed.
• Now that former "Republican" Governor Lowell Weicker has come out of that Democratic closet, with the door always ajar anyway, in favor of Senator Lieberman's opponent,  I'm announcing as a "Republican for Lieberman".  A good man, for many reasons besides the fact that he irritates liberals.
• Let's give Joe Torre a big hand.  The Yankees would be playing sand-lot pick-up ball if it were not for his magic...and the great efforts of those still among the living.  The harder the battle, the sweeter the victory in the Fall.
• Canada has announced that it will be building two new nuclear reactors...the first new ones in North America to be built in the last 30 years.  That's the future, folks.  And only the massive fossil fuel lobby in this country is preventing the U.S. from going in the same direction.  If you want peace...become energy-independent.  Otherwise, prepare for more and much deadlier wars.
• Health Care costs are again in the news.  And again there are the "usual suspects" extolling the virtues of a one-payor Federal system...like that which is doing such a good job with public education (not really local) and with Amtrak.  :Instead, really consider these very old and common sense ideas: require everyone to have at least catastrophic health insurance, subsidized for some; cover preventive care as well as management care adequately; reduce the premium paid for interventional and procedural medicine; have patients pay at least a third of their health insurance costs out of pocket, this acting as an ethical brake to health services utilization; encourage / enforce the use of Health Savings Accounts; develop a method of prioritization / rationing, by medical need and efficacy and not by ability to afford limited resources; require everyone to complete a "living will / advanced health directive", according to his or her own self-determination; require high cost insurance for those who choose to engage in high risk activities, including riding a motorcycle without a proper helmet....Let's call this "INDIVIDUAL RESPONSIBILITY...WITH COMPASSION."     Or, let's call it: LET'S GET REAL."

FRIDAY through SATURDAY, June 23 through 24, 2006

Here's an interesting take on our history in Iraq."

GS

ACFR NewsGroup No. 707, Monday, May 8, 2006

ITEM 3: David Frum: Who Lost Iraq?  It’s Not Who You Think

Who Lost Iraq? It's Not Who You Think
By David Frum
National Post  (Canada)
Publication Date: May 2, 2006

Who messed up Iraq? Donald Rumsfeld is the usual nominee. For conservative hawks, attacks on the U.S. Defence Secretary provide a way to attack the war without attacking the larger administration. And for liberal opponents of the war, attacks on Rumsfeld provide a way to attack the war without attacking the military that planned and executed that war.

Now comes an important new book, Cobra II: The Inside Story of the Invasion and Occupation of Iraq, by New York Times correspondent Michael Gordon and retired Marine Corps Lieutenant General Bernard Trainor. Their story bears hard on Rumsfeld. But it daringly points a finger at a normally blame-proof figure: the general who actually planned and led the Iraq campaign: General Tommy Franks, head of U.S. Central Command during both the Afghan and Iraq wars.

It was General Franks who adamantly refused to engage in post-war planning for Iraq. Long before George W. Bush was elected president, CentCom (then led by Gen. Anthony Zinni--a future opponent of Bush's decision to overthrow Saddam) had drawn up a contingency plan for war with Iraq. This plan was a huge and heavy Colin-Powell-style plan, which contemplated the use of at least 380,000 troops. It deviated in almost every way from the plan actually adopted in 2003--with one exception. To quote Gordon and Trainor: "There was a gaping hole in the occupation annex of the plan. CENTCOM would have the responsibility of general security. But there was no plan for the political administration, restoration of basic services, training of police, or reconstruction of Iraq." The principal author of the Zinni plan: his deputy, Tommy Franks.

As the war plan moved from the realm of the contingency to the realm of the real, Franks continued to refuse to think about what would happen after the shooting ceased. Gordon and Trainor again: "Franks told his commanders that his assumption was that Colin Powell's State Department would have the lead for the rebuilding of Iraq's political institutions and infrastructure."

In October, 2002, however, Franks' assumption was invalidated: At Rumsfeld's insistence, the President agreed that the Department of Defence would assume overall responsibility for the postwar occupation.

Rumsfeld's civilian deputies, Paul Wolfowitz and Doug Feith, welcomed this responsibility as an opportunity to put Iraqis in charge of their country's reconstruction. But there was only one organized group of Iraqis able to serve as a transitional, provisional government: Ahmed Chalabi's Iraqi National Congress (INC). And General Franks fully shared the fierce, almost unreasoning, hatred for the INC that pervaded the State Department and CIA.

The INC, for example, proposed to recruit a brigade of Free Iraqi forces to enter Iraq with the coalition. "Franks remained unenthusiastic, to say the least. After a briefing from [Feith's aide Bill] Luti on his pet project, Franks turned to Feith in a Pentagon corridor, letting him know where he stood: 'I don't have time for this f--king bullshit,' Franks exclaimed."

Franks wanted to race to Baghdad as rapidly as possible. To achieve his plan, he bypassed thousands of Iraqi Fedayeen fighters. These black-garbed guerillas ambushed and killed American soldiers--and then faded into the landscape. The Americans could not chase or identify them because Franks' determination to travel light had sent U.S. forces into battle with few or no interpreters.

In late March, Franks' deputy commander, John Abizaid, discreetly asked the INC for help. Chalabi offered 1,000 men. Gordon and Trainor point out that while Franks had previously disdained Luti's proposal to train a carefully screened Iraqi force, his command now proposed a variant of the plan "conceived in haste to deal with unexpected difficulties."

But by the time the INC men landed in southern Iraq, the emergency had passed, and Franks had reverted to his previous attitude. "The fighters arrived with virtually no provisions and no welcome. They were ushered into a busted-up hangar. . . . For weeks, [the local commander] scrambled to find a way to arm and equip them. . . . They never played a significant military role."

Franks flew into Baghdad on April 16 to meet with senior U.S. commanders. He told them they should prepare to pull out within 60 days. "Franks laid down the rule that was to guide the next phase of the operation: The generals should be prepared to take as much risk departing as they had in their push to Baghdad." Franks intended to hand over responsibility to a new Iraqi government. But he himself had guaranteed that no such government was waiting to go.

Franks lived by his own "quick out" principle. He retired from the army in July, 2003, selling his memoirs for a reported $5-million, booked a busy speaking schedule, and joined the board of the Bank of America.

"HAPPY FATHER'S DAY.  Here is some advice that any father can be proud to give to his child or grandchild."

GS

>Bill Gates recently gave a speech at a
>High School about 11 things students did not and will
>not learn in school.  He talks about how feel-good,
>politically correct teachings created a generation
>of kids with no concept of reality and how this
>concept set them up for failure in the real world.
>
>
>Rule 1:  Life is not fair - get used to it!
>
>
>Rule 2:  The world won't care about your
>self-esteem. The world will expect you to
>accomplish something BEFORE you feel good about
>yourself.
>
>
>Rule 3:  You will NOT make $60,000 a
>year right out of high school.  You won't be a
>vice-president with a car phone until you earn both.
>
>
>
>Rule 4:  If you think your teacher is
>tough, wait till you get a boss.
>
>
>
>Rule 5:  Flipping burgers is not beneath
>your dignity.  Your Grandparents had a different word for
>burger flipping: they called it opportunity.
>
>
>
>Rule 6:  If you mess up, it's not your
>parents' fault, so don't whine  about your mistakes,
>learn from them.
>
>
>
>Rule 7: Before you were born, your
>parents weren't as boring as they are now.  They got
>that way from paying your bills, cleaning your
>clothes and listening to you talk about how cool you
>thought you were.  So before you save the rain
>forest from the parasites of your parent's
>generation, try delousing the closet in your own
>room.
>
>
>
>Rule 8:  Your school may have done away
>with winners and losers, but life HAS NOT.  In some
>schools, they have abolished failing grades and
>they'll give you as MANY TIMES as you want to get
>the right answer.  This doesn't bear the slightest
>resemblance to ANYTHING in real life.
>
>
>
>Rule 9:  Life is not divided into
>semesters. You don't get summers off and very few
>employers are interested in helping you FIND
>YOURSELF.   Do that on your own time.
>
>
>
>Rule 10:  Television is NOT real life.
>In real life, people actually
>have to leave the coffee shop and go to
>jobs.
>
>
>Rule 11: Be nice to nerds.  Chances are
>you'll end up working for one.

The Democrats and the Republicans each have a tiger by the tail; and whoever lets go without being eaten will win in November.  The Democrats' tiger is the war in Iraq.  Their position is totally unreasonable given the current facts on the ground there and throughout a dangerous world.  The Republicans' tiger is Immigration Reform.  There the conservative position is totally unreasonable given the relevant facts.  These facts have been addressed on several occasions in this section.  Now comes the article in the WSJ on Wednesday by Holman W. Jenkins entitled "Spitting Into The Wind On Immigration" (Opinion, pA15).  It is relatively short and very lucid on the  topic.  If the Republicans don't get this right, they will lose in November despite the Democrats' efforts to help them.  And they will have earned the loss.

GS

MONDAY through WEDNESDAY, June 12 through 14, 2006

• This is a good week for President Bush and for this administration's policies in the Middle East.  There is no denying that he puts his personal welfare where his mouth is, in the Green Zone and flying over Baghdad in a helicopter if necessary.  It is also clear that the administration has learned from its mistakes during the last three years, mainly revolving around Sec. Rumsfeld's wrong-headed insistence on "doing it on the cheap" with regard to the price for establishing critical security on the ground there.  His policy is clear for all to understand: "when the Iraqii forces stand up, we will stand down".
• And just when the Republicans are looking like dead meat for November, the Democrats are saving them with their mouths.  They continue to demand a specific pull-out plan despite the folly of such an approach at this juncture.  They continue to demand closure of Gitmo without an alternative.  They continue to echo the anti-American sentiments heard in other parts of the world, including in the Middle East.  The American people are rightly concerned.  The Democrats, as usual, think that they're stupid.  Keep it up, folks.  See you in November.

SUNDAY, June 11, 2006

• We are starting to see articles on this subject, addressed months ago in this section; but still no action from our fearless leaders in Congress: "Category 5 Folly: Billions Wasted Rebuilding In Harm's Way", by David Helvarg, The Day today, Perspective, pE1).
• Greg Stone's article in today's The Day, (Perspective, pE1): "Don't Forget Fort Trumbull Impasse Has Two Sides". Great!   That article should be syndicted all over the country to reverse the calumny spread by The Institute for Justice about the city and citizens of New London, Ct.  And they didn't pick the New London case because it was the most egregious of the many cases that they represent nation-wide.  As we've said many times before:"right cause; wrong case".  Rather, they picked New London because they were paid handsomely by a local individual to do so.  In this case, they acted as "The Institute for Injustice".
• "There's trouble in Silver City".  The Taliban is getting stronger as NATO takes over some duties from the U.S. military.  Remember folks, you are a military force, not the effete U.N.
• Suicides at Gitmo.   Should we be surprised?  This is just an extension of what's been going on for years in the Middle East.  However, what's right is right: if these irregulars are being held under the jurisdiction of Military Tribunals, why aren't these tribunals acting on the cases?  Not justice; and certainly not good PR.
• Once again, David Brooks addresses an important and timely subject in the dispassionate and lucid fashion of an anatomist: "The Gender Gap At School", in today's Sunday NYTimes, Op-Ed, Sec. 4, p12.  And as always, the "Education Establishment" stands in the way of diagnosis and of treatment.  Can we afford these people anymore?  How many generations must be lost to their human experimentation and to their avarice?

FRIDAY and SATURDAY, June 9 and 10, 2006

More on America's options in the Middle East and vis a vis the Muslim world.  A very good recent book on the subject, informed by extensive personal experience and abundant research, is entitled "Storm From The East: The Struggle Between The Arab World And The Christian West" by Milton Viorst (Modern Library - Random House, New York, 2006).  Proceeding from a sobering history of Islam and Christianity going back to the Seventh Century, the author then puts in context his views regarding everything that this administration has done wrong since 9/11.  His proposed solution, however, seems to seek merely a return to the status quo ante, mediated by the Arab League.

It is my view that the the American world did change with the events of 9/11; that we were right to invade both Afganistan and Iraq, for different reasons; that the responsibility falls to us, as the only remaining superpower, to safeguard access to Middle Eastern oil as the life-blood of the modern world for decades to come; that we must make that strategic decision very clear to all, starting with the American people; that we must be much more the even-handed intermediary than we have been regarding the conflict between Israel and Palestine; and that we should continue to offer moderate Muslims everywhere a choice of self-government other than secular or religious despotism and the continued subjugation of 50% of the Muslim world: their women...a choice that they must implement with their own sweat and blood.  This approach is not only pre-emptive self-defense, and not only an effort to do the right thing by hundreds of millions of people in the world of Islam currently held down by their own "leaders".  It also gives a prospect of breaking the centuries - old chains of Christian - Islamic hostility that otherwise may well lead to a new and nuclear world war.  Much better than the status quo ante.   Fortunately, Congressional Republicans have just thwarted another Democratic siren song effort to hobble our options that would have prevented the U.S. from using war funds to plan for possible permanent bases in Iraq.  They never learn.  Meanwhile, let this debate continue.

GS

THURSDAY, June 8, 2006

Abu Musab al-Zarqawi is dead.  This is a good time to assess our goals and methods with respect to the Middle East and to the entire world of Islam.  Reading the recently published book by Fawaz A. Gerges entitled "Journey of the Jihadist: Inside Muslim Militancy" (Harcourt Inc., 2006), it is clear that we are not dealing with a lunatic fringe, but with two generations of Muslims who have become, and have been made by their ultra-right Wahhabi teachers, staunch believers that the only way out of Islam's poverty, stagnation and humiliation is through the imposition of their brutal brand of religion on the world - and especially on "The Great Satan".

So, we have one non-negotiable position,  and two choices.  The non-negotiable, for decades to come and until we come to our senses regarding energy independence, is access to Middle Eastern oil.  For that, we will go to war with anyone, anytime.  Beyond that, we can take two paths.  One is to retreat within Fortress America, keeping out the foreigners who have for centuries been the yeast for our growth.  Call this "the decline and fall of the American empire".  The other is to re-assert our role in the world as that beacon on the hill representing freedom, hope and possiblities,as we have always been.  This will require decades-long committment of the American people, their treasure and their children, to continuing to promote secular democracy in the sea of Islam that is the Muslim world...a new world fought for by moderate Muslims themselves.  In either case, we Americans will remain open to direct attacks on our homeland; and each of us is a soldier.  There is no other choice.  Now should begin the most important debate among Americans since the founding of our country.  Fortunately, there are some influential people in our public life who see our future in these terms.  (See "America's Oil Well", by Thomas Friedman, in today's The Day, Commentary, pA11).  Will enough Americans have the maturity to engage in this debate and in the necessary decision?  I don't know.

GS

TUESDAY through WEDNESDAY, June 6 through 7, 2006

• More and more, we are being treated to medical facts, factoids and fiction in the lay media.  Beware this stuff; and also beware some of the autocratic pronouncements coming from some academicians who assert that there is no truth but truths coming out of "placebo controlled, double-blind, crossover studies", even those which allege to prove a negative.  Even some of these often end with the disclaimer that "more research is necessary".  Of course we want to practise "evidence-based Medicine".  But evidence also comes out of careful clinical observation and experience.  Some examples of academic omissions and commissions include: the story of aspirin use for heart attack prophylaxis; the elimination of "stock bacterial vaccine" from the market, only to see it justified with the "Hygiene Hypothesis"; the delay in the official treatments for Lyme Disease; the recent flaps over Calcium and Vitamin D and over hormone replacement therapy...and even the "Cox 2 story".  I won't even get into the FDA disappointments of recent years.  Remember that everything is a "risk-to-benefit analysis".  Finally, remember to consult your "learned intermediary", your personal physician, whose duty it is to ferrit all this out for you.
• The Vatican has just published a statement upholding the tenets of Pope John Paul II in his encyclical "Humanae Vitae", relating to issues of sexuality and marriage.  You can find a summary of this in the "Physician-Patient Spirituality" category of this web site.  Nothing new or helpful, especially as regards contraception, which continues to be discussed with the same rigor as abortion.  Where is the Church and a "liberation theology" that would be most helpful in Latin America and other third world countries whose avoidable grinding poverty produces the control of family size?  Even the very troublesome issue of in-vitro fertilization, most often involving the same loving married couples that the Church is trying to support, could be approached with some latitude...as suggested some months ago in this section (ie. on condition that society declared the fertilized ovum a human being, allow the implantation for willing infertile couples of many thousands of human products of these procedures currently being "stored" and wasted in liquid nitrogen.  The Church can be more helpful without abrogating any of its core beliefs.
• Meanwhile, the spirited bashing of the Catholic Church continues.  But the following gives some important facts.  The Bible says that "The Truth Will Make You Free"...but it doesn't say when.
 
SCANDAL IN THE CHURCH: FOUR YEARS LATER
In June 2002, U.S. bishops assembled in Dallas for their biannual meeting. It
was not a happy time: the sexual abuse scandal dominated the news about
the Catholic Church. Next week, the bishops will meet in Los Angeles, only
this time few in the media are focusing on the scandal. That’s too bad
because this time the news is quite different.

In March, the third annual report on priestly sexual abuse of minors was
released; a supplementary report was also issued by John Jay College of
Criminal Justice. Here’s what was found:
 

• The vast majority of sexual abuse cases occurred between the mid1960s and the mid-1980s
• In 2005, 783 credible accusations against 532 priests were made, 87 percent of which involved abuse that occurred before the 1990s
• 81 percent of the victims were male, and most were not little kids--they were postpubescent (the identical figure was reported in cases found between 1950 and 2002)
• There were 21 allegations made for acts that took place in 2005: five were found to be credible; two were still under investigation; and insufficient information was found in two instances
• Adding the above figures yields a total of nine. Nine out of a total of 42,000 priests means that .02 percent of priests had a credible accusation made against him last year


It is highly unlikely that there are many institutions or demographic groups with
a better record than this (e.g., it is estimated that the rate of sexual abuse of
public school students is more than 100 times the abuse by priests).
Obviously, one victim is too many. But when 99.98 percent of priests today
are not under suspicion—and indeed most are good men—it is outrageous
that they continue to be subjected to vile depictions in the media, sneering
remarks by educators and inequitable treatment by lawmakers.

Stereotypes do not die easily, but it is high time our cultural elite began to treat
priests with the degree of respect they’ve earned. Sweeping condemnations
of any group is rightly regarded as bigotry. Including Catholic priests.

William A. Donohue
President, Catholic League for Religious and Civil Rights

MONDAY, June 5, 2006

It looks like there really is nothing new under the sun.  "Past is Prologue".

GS

About the time   our original 13 states adopted their new constitution, in 1787, Alexander   Tyler, a Scottish history professor at the University of Edinburgh, had this to say about the fall of the Athenian Republic some 2,000 years prior:

"A democracy is always temporary in nature; it simply cannot   exist as a permanent form of government. A democracy will continue to exist up until the time that voters discover that they can vote themselves   generous
gifts from the public treasury. From that moment on, the majority   always votes for the candidates who promise the most benefits from the   public
treasury, with the result that every democracy will finally collapse   due to loose fiscal policy, which is always followed by a dictatorship."

"The average age of the worlds greatest civilizations   from the beginning of history, has been about 200 years. During those 200   years, these nations always progressed through the following sequence:

1. From bondage to spiritual faith;
2. From spiritual   faith to great courage;
3. From courage to liberty;
4. From liberty to abundance;
5. From abundance to complacency;
6. From complacency to apathy;
7. From apathy to dependence;
8. From dependence back into bondage ."

Professor Joseph Olson of Hamline University School of Law, St. Paul, Minnesota, points out some interesting facts concerning the 2000 Presidential election:

Population of counties won by:
Gore: 127 million; Bush: 143 million

Square miles of land won by:
Gore: 580,000; Bush: 2,427,000

States won by:
Gore: 19; Bush: 29

Murder rate per 100,000 residents in counties won by:
Gore: 13.2; Bush: 2.1

Professor Olson adds: "In   aggregate, the map of the territory Bush won
was mostly the land owned by   the tax-paying citizens of this great country.  Gore's territory mostly   encompassed those citizens living in government-owned tenements and living   off government welfare..."

Olson believes the United States is now   somewhere between the "complacency<BR>and apathy" phase of Professor Tyler's   definition of democracy, with some 40 percent of the nation's population already having reached the "governmental dependency" phase.

Author Unknown

• Having spent years crafting a $140 billion fund that would be used to take the asbestos drama out of the courts and to resolution, some in the Senate are playing crass politics by adding, at the last minute, provisions that would include all persons exposed during 9/11 and Katrina, not restricted to occupationally related exposures.  The Democrats are trying to curry favor, as they always do; the trial lawyers are injecting thereby a poison pill to scuttle the effort; and the Republicans are being outflanked, as they often are these days.  Meanwhile, hundreds of occupationally related asbestosis victims are dying off daily.  Is that the end game?
• Lyme Disease is always in the news, or just off camera, especially at this time of year.  It is  potentially a very serious disease, another "great imitator" like Syphilis and AIDS; and it too carries the heavy baggage of popular misconceptions, hyperbole and religious-like fervor.  It must be diagnosed promptly, treated aggressively and followed over a prolonged period...especially in persons who have contracted it one or more times beforehand.  For it seems that some persons keep getting it...and some never get it.
• In a similar vein, we read today that one more result of global warming is a potentiation of toxic flora like poison ivy and of disease-carrying mosquetos and ticks.  (See "Climate Change: The View From The Patio", by Henry Fountain, NYTtimes, today, Wk p16).  So, when are scientific facts and the evidence increasingly before our eyes going to replace expediency at all levels?
• American policy in the Mid-East and in the Far East: is it flux, "creative ambiguity" or just "Brownian Movement".  The Afgan Army, a success story for our efforts, is now in danger of losing Pentagon support.  The Taiwanese people are at risk of losing our heretofore clear committment to defend their independence because of a ham-handed and soiled-handed current leader.  Iran and its European allies (not counting Russia and China) are playing us for chumps.  Turkey and the Kurds have us in pin-ball machinations.  And Iraq.  What can I say that I have not been saying for nearly three years in this section?  Now let me leave it to some more informed commentators.  (See below).  To all this I add the sobering reportage of Fawaz A. Gerges in his new book entitled "Journey of the Jihadist" (Harcourt, Inc., 2006).  So, what's the proper game plan, to be pursued with bulldog tenacity and by ourselves and just a "coalition of the willing", if any?  Not fighting for democracy and human rights, although that may well be ultimately a by-product; but simply enlightened self-interest.  That's all the world suspects of us, anyway.
• Items #7, #8, and #9 of this always valuable resource should be read carefully as an informative and up-to-date primer on the status of the Middle East.

ITEM 7: Tom Friedman: Insurgency Out, Anarchy In

New York Times
June 2, 2006

Insurgency Out, Anarchy In
By Thomas L. Friedman

President Bush has told us that the question of whether to withdraw from Iraq is one that his successor will have to deal with — not him. I don't think so. Mr. Bush is not going to have that luxury of passing Iraq along. You see, the insurgency in Iraq is in its "last throes" — just like Dick Cheney said. Unfortunately, it's being replaced by anarchy in many neighborhoods — not democracy. And I don't believe the American people will put up with two and half more years of babysitting anarchy instead of midwifing democracy.

The report that U.S. marines were involved in a massacre of Iraqis in Haditha — which the Pentagon needs to clarify fast — is a tragic reminder that a foreign occupation by U.S. forces can't go on for years. Most U.S. soldiers in Iraq have done heroic work, but occupations that drag on inevitably lead to Hadithas.

Right now we are paying for all the Bush team's missteps in Iraq: allowing looting after the fall of Baghdad, disbanding the Iraqi Army without an alternative security force or enough U.S. troops in place, fostering a culture of torture at Abu Ghraib and then letting the politics in Iraq drift for months without any outcome.(Note: I disagree with Freidman on this—mistakes were made, but they were not decisive in determining the direction and/or success of the insurgency, which likely would have occurred even if we and the coalition did everything right that Monday morning quarterbacking permits. Ty)

All of this created a security vacuum that has allowed a rogue's gallery of sectarian militias, death squads, gangs and Al Qaeda operatives to mushroom in Basra, Baghdad and the Sunni Triangle. The end result: while the mainstream Iraqi Sunnis have now joined the government, in a major way, this has not brought more stability. Because between the sectarian militias now murdering each other's civilians, tit for tat, and Al Qaeda just blowing up Iraqi civilians randomly, the new government can't get going. Too many Iraqis are paralyzed by fear.

Indeed, there has been a subtle but important change in the violence in Iraq. The main enemy in many places is no longer the Sunni insurgency. It is anarchy. Mini-wars of all against all. As the BBC reported Wednesday from Basra: Prime Minister Nuri Maliki "has declared a monthlong state of emergency in Basra, which has been plagued by sectarian clashes, anarchy and factional rivalry." That's what happens in a security vacuum.

Once this kind of militia madness takes root, it's very hard to uproot. U.S. troops can't do it, because it would require searching homes, neighborhood by neighborhood. Only a cohesive Iraqi national army could do that. And that can only be the product of a real national unity government, in which all parties feel they have a fair share of the pie and are committed to investing in an Iraqi army — not their own militia.

And such a national unity government can only be the product of Iraq's leaders deciding whether they love their kids more than they hate each other. That is the most important question Iraqis must answer. It can't be avoided any longer. That being the case, it is time for America to starting talking "deadlines." Too many Iraqi factions think they can just keep wrestling each other for small advantage while the country burns, but the U.S. Army provides a floor of security that prevents total chaos. The Iraqi parties need to know that we are not going to be played this way forever. Only an Iraq that can come together and make a fist can crush this militia culture.

Salvaging Iraq is still hugely important — for itself and for the region, which is facing two big trends. One is a population explosion, producing millions of young people looking for work. And the other is a huge explosion of windfall oil profits. Today, many autocratic Arab regimes are using these oil profits just to buy off their population explosions — in the form of government jobs and subsidized food and fuel — not to educate and empower their youth for the 21st century. But when the price of oil falls, and it will eventually, and these populations continue to rise, we will see destabilizing social explosions throughout the Arab world. It would be very helpful to have a different model in place in Iraq before that happens.

But the hour is late and the enemy is unique. We are not losing Iraq to the Iraqi Vietcong — traditional nationalists. Iraq has a freely elected nationalist government. No, we are losing in Iraq to sectarian theocrats, Islamo-fascists and local and regional tyrants, who have only one thing in common: the belief that America and its Iraqi allies must fail, that neither modernity nor democracy must be allowed to take root in Iraq.

It will be a global tragedy if they succeed, but it is hard to fight an enemy whose only concern is that you lose, not what happens after. It is impossible, though, without Iraqi leaders who can make a fist. We can't keep asking Americans to sacrifice their children for people who hate each other more than they love their own children.

ITEM 8: Edward Luttwak: Will Civil War Bring Lasting Peace to Iraq?

Los Angeles Times
June 2, 2006
Will Civil War Bring Lasting Peace To Iraq?
History shows civil wars must be fought without foreign interference before stability prevails.
By Edward N. Luttwak

CIVIL WARS can be especially atrocious as neighbors kill each other at close range, but they also have a purpose. They can bring lasting peace by destroying the will to fight and by removing the motives and opportunities for further violence.

England's civil war in the mid-17th century ensured the subsequent centuries of political stability under Parliament and a limited monarchy. But first there had to be a war with pitched battles and killing, including the decapitation of King Charles I, who had claimed absolute power by divine right.

The United States had its civil war two centuries later, which established the rule that states cannot leave the union — and abolished slavery in the process. The destruction was vast and the casualties immense as compared with all subsequent American wars, given the size of the population. But without the decisive victory of the Union, two separate and quarrelsome republics might still endure, periodically at war with each other.

Even Switzerland had a civil war — in 1847 — out of which came the limited but sturdy unity of its confederation. Close proximity, overlapping languages and centuries of common history were not enough to resolve differences between the cantons. They had to fight briefly, with 86 killed, to strike a balance of strength between them.

And so it must be with Iraq, the most haphazard of states, hurriedly created by the British after World War I with scant regard for its rival nationalities and sects. The sectarian hatred — erupting during the Saddam Hussein era and at full boil since his ouster — is now inflicting a heavy toll in casualties.

Attempts by U.S. and British forces to stop the killings are feeble; it would take many times as many troops as remain in Iraq to make any difference. Nor can the fundamental factors that are causing the violence be reversed at this point, certainly not by fielding more Iraqi army and police units.

Sure, it would be nice to think that all the parties could just sit down and partition the country peaceably. But the Shiites can't even agree among themselves, so what hope is there of them talking to the Sunnis? There is no hatred as strong as theological hatred. So it is time for outsiders to step aside and let the Iraqis fight it out among themselves, ending with each controlling its own region.

Of the conflicts, the Kurdish-Arab one is the least volatile. Decades of bloody fighting over Arab rule appear to be ending, and there's no longer any question that the Kurds will separate. The only question is whether they'll remain part of a loose Iraqi confederation or become an independent state.

As to the Shiites and Sunnis, however, there's no end in sight. The Shiite majority among the Arabs of Iraq had been ruled by Sunnis for centuries. But Hussein's vigorous attempt to modernize Iraq in a secular direction infuriated Shiite prelates. That in turn triggered brutal repression by the regime, which most Shiites inevitably viewed as yet another bout of Sunni oppression. The spread of Salafist fundamentalism among the Sunnis mandates violence against the Shiites.

And, while today's theocratic Iran is not necessarily viewed as a model, it demonstrates to Iraq's Shiites that they need not always be ruled by Sunnis. That in turn provokes the ire of the many Sunni Arabs who firmly believe that Iraq belongs to them regardless of their numbers.

And so the massacres continue on both sides.

Physical separation is therefore the only way to limit the carnage. That process has begun, to some extent, because the violence is driving out the members of one sect or the other from the many mixed villages, towns and city districts. This is a painful and very costly way of interrupting the cycle of attacks and reprisals, but that is how civil war achieves its purpose of eventually bringing peace.

Back in the 17th century, if the kings of continental Europe could have prevented England's civil war, it would have been at the price of perpetuating strife by blocking progress toward stable parliamentary government.

If the British and other European great powers had sent expeditionary armies to stop the enormous casualties and vast destruction of the American civil war, they could have prevented the eventual emergence of a peacefully united republic, perpetuating North-South hostility.

That is the mistake that the U.S. and its allies are now making by interfering with Iraq's civil war. They should disengage their troops from populated areas as much as possible, give up the intrusive checkpoints and patrols that are failing to contain the violence anyway and abandon the futile effort to build up military and police forces that are national only in name.

Some U.S. and allied forces still will be needed in remote desert bases to safeguard Iraq from foreign invasion, with some left to hold the Baghdad Green Zone. But for the rest, strict noninterference should be the rule. The sooner the Kurds, Sunni, Shiites, Turkmen and smaller minorities can define their own natural and stable boundaries within which they feel safe, the sooner the violence will come to an end.

Iraq's civil war is no different from the British, Swiss or American internal wars. It too should be allowed to bring peace.

EDWARD N. LUTTWAK is a senior advisor at the Center for Strategic and International Studies.

ITEM 9: Jim Hoagland: Bush’s Gamble on Iran

Bush's Gamble On Iran
By Jim Hoagland
Washington Post
Sunday, June 4, 2006; Page B07

President Bush handed Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and German Chancellor Angela Merkel a significant foreign policy victory and put new distance between himself and Vice President Cheney with last week's decision to dangle the carrot of U.S. participation in talks with Iran. But it is a victory of process rather than of substance and could still come undone.

Cheney has been outflanked by the diplomats of Foggy Bottom before, most notably in the summer of 2002, when Bush agreed to let Colin Powell take the case for a preventive strike against Iraq to the United Nations. But we know now that Bush had accepted the substance of Cheney's argument for war even as he let the diplomats ply their trade in New York.

So we are not out of the woods yet in this multifaceted crisis with Iran. At the same time, however, there are important differences between today and 2002. They suggest that this time the president has genuinely not yet made up his mind about acting militarily, if necessary, to halt or delay Iran from covertly developing nuclear weapons. That decision is probably a year away.

Expectations of successful talks with the Iranians are low at the White House. The true immediate significance of Rice's dramatic announcement was that it shows Bush is now fighting to save his battered presidency by allowing change in a White House where Cheney's influence has been paramount.

Bush's move to bring Wall Street heavyweight Henry Paulson in as his Treasury secretary was another case in point. The decision was made, senior aides told reporters, without participation by Cheney or political adviser Karl Rove. Whatever the accuracy of those anonymous comments, the fact that Bush aides made them without fear of retribution is a startling measure of the vice president's lessened standing.

Cheney still has strong allies in the administration, particularly Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld. But the Pentagon is increasingly seen as the source of problems rather than solutions for this administration as Iraq goes from bad to worse, with the military, financial and moral costs of the American effort mounting toward unbearable levels.

The failure of a new "national unity" Iraqi cabinet to make much headway in stemming violence in Baghdad or providing services to the people -- after U.S. officials loudly proclaimed its formation as a "breakthrough" -- underlines the need for a sense of change to extend to Iraq if Bush is to save his presidency. But on Iraq there is still no sign of a winning strategy taking hold or of visible daylight between Bush and Cheney.

As insurgency and corruption have grown more intractable in Iraq, Cheney, Rice and the main U.S. allies in Europe have focused more on Iran, as if to leapfrog the problems of Iraq by concentrating on a new crisis, although from different directions.

The vice president has made no secret of his distrust of the Iranian regime and his desire to change it. The secretary of state and the Europeans, led by Chancellor Merkel, have convinced Bush that he must exhaust every peaceful avenue before asking for economic sanctions or other punitive measures against Tehran. British Prime Minister Tony Blair reportedly made the same points to Bush in their private talks here last month.

"The administration is going to great lengths to keep the international community on board as Bush tries to get on his feet again at home," a European ambassador said after hearing the State Department's top Middle Eastern expert, C. David Welch, insist that Bush had resisted endorsing Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert's unilateral "realignment" plan for the West Bank during Olmert's visit here last month. "Otherwise, why emphasize so much something that did not happen?"

By the summer of 2007, Bush will be looking at two converging timelines: the end of his presidency and the fate of the diplomatic effort to talk the Iranians into a verifiable peaceful nuclear program. If the diplomats have not made significant headway, Bush will confront the terrible choice of acting militarily on his own before the end of his term or of leaving behind this nightmarish problem for his successor to deal with at the outset of his or her presidency.

Bush is more open to a diplomatic outcome for the Iranian crisis than he was on Iraq. He knows he can muster no significant international support for intervention in Iran. But the Iranians have the capacity to bring about the return of Dick Cheney to policy dominance if they continue to overplay their hand.

GS

THURSDAY and FRIDAY, June 1 and 2, 2006

This is another one of those "pot pourri" sessions.

• One of the most important and least covered stories is "Will Your Vote Count In 2006?", by Steven Levy, in this week's Newsweek, The Technologist, p14.  Referring to the trustworthiness of electronic touchscreen ballot machines which will be in wide use this Fall, the technical experts maintain that a paperless voting system affords no security at all, either from loss of data, or from actual manipulation through re-programming.  Meanwhile, Diebold Election Systems representatives' responses to such concerns can be summarized thus: "So what?"  If you didn't care for the hanging chads of the year 2000, you really won't like 2006, if Congress does not intervene.
• The USSC and "whistle-blowers".  At first blush, news about the decision seemed a bit strange.  But on reflection, should the U.S. Constitution really be the Swiss army knife of all America's problems?  To have internal communications subject to internal rules and to collective bargaining seems reasonable to me.
• The story of the Marines in Haditha.  We don't yet know what happened.  Forensic evidence from the bodies will have to be exhumed.  Whatever the reflexive propensity of those involved and their commanders to hide the facts, they will now come out.  Let's wait for that.  That should especially pertain to Iraq's new President.
• Things get "curiouser and curiouser" out there.  In the Bookshelf column by Toby Young featured in Tuesday's WSJ, the author reports about a 1980 English literary competition for "the most unlikely soulnding book title.  The winner, as every British literary journalist knows, was "My Struggle", by Martin Amis."  Say what??  I remember a book published in the 1920's by an obscure German named Adolph Hitler entitled "Mein Kampf".  Or don't the British admit to knowing any German words any more?
• Things may be looking up for those of us who value decency in the public sphere.  David Brooks is writing a series of articles in the NYTimes on what really counts in the development of young citizens.  So far his review of the research has produced the following core issues: love and effective parenting; the ability to tolerate delayed gratification; and perseverence.  In addition, A WSJ article reports that "Wireless Carriers Set Strict Decency Standards For Content" (by Amol Sharma, WSJ Thursday, April 27, 2006, Marketplace, pB1).  And the U.S. House of Representatives is about to accept a strict Senate bill regarding violations of the FCC codes of conduct.  Turning the tide of fetid effluent drowning our air waves is possible.  But we must be as committed to the task as the other side is committed to producing it.
• After the collapse of the USSR, I found myself wondering...for about a month...whether the world was entering a prolonged "Pax Americana".  Not quite.  Announcing World War III.  If you are not prepared to face that fact, please read the new book by Fawaz A. Gerges entitled "Journey of the Jihadist: Inside Muslim Militancy" (Harcourt Inc., 2006).  And we could lose this one, if we continue our ignorance regarding our enemy, an enemy even more committed to our destruction than any that we have faced in the past.  Remember that when you are treated to siren songs of "peace in our day" or of old fashioned isolationism.  It's real, folks.