Let’s talk with our enemies, Iran and Syria. Let’s talk with terror abettors as if they were good guys — just like us. As if they were just concerned neighbors trying to stop the bloodshed in Iraq … instead of the dons who’ve been commanding it all along… When I grew up in The Bronx, there were street gangs. You mostly stayed away from them, and, if you really had to, you fought with them. But I never remember anyone saying, “Gee, maybe if we just talk with them …” Nor do I remember, in two decades as a prosecutor, anyone saying, “Y’know, maybe if we just talk with these Mafia guys, we could achieve some kind of understanding …”
Andrew C. McCarthy outlines why it makes no sense to “talk to Iran and Syria”. I agree that developing anything similar to what we think of as democracy is a project of generations. But it is not clear that it is a failure as McCarthy describes it. E.g., the Iraq and Lebanon polls have been consistent on the majority desire for a democratic form of government.
Amer Taheri offers free advice for the upcoming Bush-Maliki meet in Jordan. Example…
Mr. Bush should also allow that the disbanding the army of the former regime was a mistake, albeit one done on the advice of the new Iraqi political elite, including Mr. Maliki’s camp. The way to rectify the mistake is to invite all former offices and NCOs, if they wish, to return to service. With stringent screening measures in place, Iraq would be able to keep the undesirable elements out while allowing others a second chance. In the same spirit, parliament must also come up with a more comprehensive amnesty law to cover hundreds of thousands of people whose sole offense was membership in the Baath Party, often forced upon them by circumstances.
Mr. Bush must also emphasize that Mr. Maliki’s government has failed to develop a coherent strategy for dealing with security issues. It needs a coordinator to make sure that the ministries of defense and interior, the army command, the police hierarchy and the dozen or so different armed units attached to different ministries work together to prevent infiltration and rogue actors, including those that pose as Shiite militias. It also needs to root out corruption and nepotism. Mr. Maliki must have heard what they say in Baghdad teahouses about “a government of thieves and their cousins.” Perhaps this is unfair. But corruption could become as much of a threat as the jihadists.
Little wonder, then, that in 2005 more than 20,000 New Zealanders moved to Australia, with our expatriates there reporting average incomes more than a third higher than back home. Multinationals are avoiding us and local companies’ growth prospects are constrained. GDP growth last year was a paltry 1.9%.
Our New Zealand mates are suffering from a Labour government that in the past six years has increased the public service head count some 33%. High personal and corporate tax rates are making it tough for NZ companies to compete…
…Governments around the world have learned the benefit of tax cuts. Between 1990 and 2005, the average OECD company tax rate dropped from 37% to 27%. In Australia, corporate taxes are now 30%, down from 34% in 2000, and personal taxes have been cut progressively over the past five years. The Australian threshold for the top personal income tax rate, for example, has been pushed out — from $46,200 in 2002-03 to $115,800 in the current tax year — while in New Zealand the upper tax threshold has remained at $40,200 ever since the top rate was increased in 1999 to 39%.
Meanwhile, the high tax structure is generating surpluses — $1.24 billion for the Sept 30 quarter. Tax cuts seem the obvious policy, but Labour prefers increasing government spending.
Back when Republicans were winning elections in the 1980s, Tip O’Neill used to say that was because Democratic policies made a lot of people rich enough to vote Republican. Republicans who are saying that the party needs to go back to the principles of 1994 or Ronald Reagan should keep O’Neill’s lesson in mind: Successful public policies render moot the issues that bring parties to power. They won’t keep winning unless they address new issues.
An interesting piece by Michael Barone — including a brief history of public policy successes of the Bush years, concluding with suggested new ideas:
What issues could Republicans raise in 2008? They would do well to look to the states, and especially to Florida, where Jeb Bush has enacted innovative policies on school choice and healthcare. They could look at some Democrats as well, like Tennessee’s Gov. Phil Bredesen, who has been reforming an overly generous Medicaid program. They could highlight the proposal of GOP Rep. John Shadegg of Arizona to allow people to buy health insurance across state lines. They could consider Clinton Treasury Secretary Robert Rubin’s proposal to get lower-income workers to save and invest with tax credits for IRA contributions. Republicans aren’t going to win elections with the new ideas of 1980, 1994, or 2000. They need new ideas for 2008.
The killing’s not going to stop and we’re not going to stop it. In another era we might not have cared, but the lesson from 9/11 which we have forgotten already is that they will carry their magically realistic hatreds to other shores with unimaginable weapons. And remember, it’s always our fault.
Another brilliant essay from Richard Fernandez, regarding this week’s posturing by King Abdullah of Jordan:
…When a “regional peace process” works Abdullah will be the first to know. The kindest and fairest thing to say about the Middle East is that everybody’s got a beef. And the Jew and more latterly the US provides the inestimable service of being the convenient reason for problems which are at least partly rooted in the warring parties themselves. So Abdullah’s strange declaration makes sense in, with apologies to Chester, a “magical realism” kind of way. Viewed from that perspective, it really is America’s or Jew’s fault that folks are fixing to kill each other in Iraq, Lebanon, Gaza and the West Bank. Now some people are inevitably going to ask why, if the Sunnis and Shi’as are dead set on killing each other across the Middle East because of some disturbance caused by the presence of America or Israel (remember this makes sense in some way), the reason this shouldn’t be cold-bloodedly regarded as the greatest act of strategic genius since Alexander beat the Persian Empire. A variety of objections come to mind, chiefly to do with morality and the oil security, the preferred order depending on whether you are an idealist or a “realist”. I will add a third…
Don’t miss Richard’s modest review of the actual history of Jordan and the Palestinians. Actual history is often inconvenient…
…they report that the loss of ocean populations and species has been accompanied by plummeting catches of wild fish, declines in water quality, and other costly losses. They even project that all commercial fish and seafood species will collapse by 2048.
Dr. Sean Chamberlin of UC Santa Barbara has published a summary of the 3 November, 2006 paper “Global Loss of Biodiversity Harming Ocean Bounty” [you must be a Science subscriber to access the full text].
Worm and his colleagues call for the creation of new marine reserves, sustainable management of fishing, and tighter control of pollution. Those are well-worn recommendations, but Worm says the team’s analysis of the consequences of not taking action, especially the loss of wild fisheries, gives them greater weight. “If you can see the bottom of the barrel, that changes things.”
The national press has played up the Science article — the disaster prediction makes for good headlines. But marine scientists won’t find any new concepts here — biodiversity is well understood to be a necessary condition to healthy fisheries. Unfortunately fish don’t vote, while the fishing lobbies have a lot of $$ to spread around… So the headlines are a good thing — it’s probably not yet too late for at least some of the fisheries.
According to scientists, the current amount of catches is over three times the level that would provide optimum return in a sustainable way. Fleet overcapacity and lack of proper enforcement have been identified as the main factors… The raft of measures — proposed by the EU, Algeria, Croatia, Libya, Morocco, Tunisia and Turkey — also strengthens control measures, including the setting up of an international inspection scheme on the high seas.
We don’t know accurately what the annual harvest actually is — in any of the world’s fisheries. We do know that fishing technology, fleet sizes, and illegal fishing [plainly: piracy] have vastly outstripped sustainable catch levels.
It costs a LOT of money just to gather the population data. It costs even more money to police the pirates, especially in the remote areas of the Pacific. So we’re not at all optimistic that the magnitude of required action will be taken in time to avoid crashes similar to the Atlantic cod fishery experience.
In its July report on the illegal fishing of bluefin tuna in the Mediterranean, the environmental group WWF said that actual catches were more than 50 percent higher than the legal annual quota of 32,000 tons, set by the ICCAT.
That said, this ICCAT agreement is clearly a positive step — particularly the enforcement component of the deal:
- a global control system which covers every step of the process, from the catch to the market through to landing, transhipping and caging operations.
This post has links to the November 3, 2006 Science article that’s been making headlines.
In their forthcoming paper in Epidemiology and Infection, Cannell and colleagues from Harvard University, the National Institutes of Health and Boston University propose that Hope-Simpson’s seasonal stimulus could be vitamin D.
This is definitely not established fact, nor have we read the paper yet - it is due out in December. Interesting nevertheless. I noted that Dr. Cannell says he takes 5,000 IU of vitamin D during the winter months
…For more than a century, physicians have recognized that influenza sweeps the Northern Hemisphere during the winter months, typically peaking here between late December and March.
Over the years they’ve floated numerous theories to explain the seasonal flu spike - blaming everything from the flood of frigid air to the wintertime tendency of people to huddle indoors.
Yet these explanations “remain astonishingly superficial and full of inconsistencies,” says Dr. Scott Dowell, director of the Global Disease Protection Program at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta.
Now Dowell and other researchers are focusing on a provocative new hypothesis that blames annual flu epidemics on something most people don’t get enough of this time of year: sunshine.
In a paper scheduled for publication next month in the journal Epidemiology and Infection, a Harvard University-led team proposes that a vitamin D deficiency caused by inadequate winter sun exposure may predispose people to infection.
If this theory proves correct, it would not only solve a long-standing mystery, but could also have major public health consequences.
Technorati Tags: Flu
It has been a continuing puzzle why big media never discusses the central terrorist strategy — intimidation. Richard Fernandez gets it exactly right:
Redressing the asymmetry of fear is one of key problems whose solution is required to win the War on Terror. It’s often forgotten that the principle goal of a terrorist war is not simply to kill, but to do so in the most horrible possible way. It is the “terror” in terrorism that gives that mode of warfare its power. Fallujah provides a pointed contrast between an American approach that would release a man found with a bagful of washing machine timers because explosives are not present to prove he is an insurgent, with the ruthless campaign of murder and assassination waged against anyone who remotely cooperates with Americans. But the problem is not limited to Iraq. Withdrawing from Fallujah or Iraq won’t mean an escape from the necessity to solve the problem of the asymmetry of fear. It only means changing the time and place when it must finally be faced.
Syria has recently rolled back much of the Cedar Revolution in Lebanon by killing its opponents in the most public possible way. With huge car bombs or entire clips of armor-piercing bullets fired through the window of a car. Across the world, Reuters reported that Philippine security forces seized improvised bombs hidden in thermos and lunch boxes in a hideout abandoned by Muslim militants on southwestern island of Jolo. One of the thermos jugs was stuffed with dynamite sticks, nitric acid and rigged with 4-inch nails while some lunch boxes were found with similar explosives and ball bearings. The bombs were electronically triggered and powered by two 9-volt batteries. As artifacts the lunch box bombs are the perfect embodiment of terrorism. They are constructed of ordinary, wholesome things. Batteries. Child’s lunchboxes. And they are intended for the most horrible purposes; not simply to kill but to intentionally kill children. Not to kill them cleanly, but with the maximum of degradation: what better way to transform children than with acid and 4-inch nails. And one of the ironies of the age is that often the media culture which prides itself in sensitivity cannot help but gasp in admiration at the strength of a culture which so carelessly transgresses the boundaries of Good and Evil.
…It is at heart a struggle between good and evil; and must begin with an understanding of what is good. Many liberal commentators mistakenly argue that “catch and release”, and strict adherence to the letter of the Geneva Convention and international rules of evidence are necessary to attain the Moral High Ground; and thereby overawe the world with an admiration for America’s shining moral superiority. But no one is impressed, not our friends nor our enemies. Because those pretensions to superiority based on legalisms are undermined at every turn by actual betrayals. The liberals have identified the wrong moral high ground, because a more convincing demonstration of moral superiority lies not in ostentatious adherence to often incomprehensible Western ceremonies but a sincere commitment to stand with and protect anyone who stands for good against evil.. In the Third World especially, America’s moral quality will be judged more by its willingness to keep its word of honor than in any self-absorbed liturgy to the gods of political correctness. Moral superiority must first of all begin with a determination not to sacrifice men who have decided to fight on the American side; because without the ability to stand by those who have risked their lives for us, no sweet words, no fastidiousness references to law will adequately substitute. Against fear we must set not Moral Superiority, but love. Fear is the lunchbox bomb; yet our love is that we should lay our lives for our friends until the lunchbox bomb is no more. Down that road of love the road to winning over terrorism lies; down that path and not the path of Judas.
I wish I had written that.
The Jerusalem Post confirms Tony Badran’s analysis:
According to these officials, Baker represents a school of thought that believes the US should engage both Syria and Iran, and that it may be possible to get the Syrians to play a more constructive role both in Iraq and in Lebanon.
“Of course it comes at a price, and I’m not sure the Americans are willing to pay the price,” one Israeli official said. He said that the price was not the Golan, but rather to get the international tribunal investigating the assassination of former Lebanese prime Minister Rafiq Hariri called off, and to allow Syrian influence and involvement - although maybe not troops - in Lebanon.
“The Syrians are terrified by the prospect of the tribunal,” the official said, “and they want it called off. That is their top priority, and as a by-product they want to keep a hold on Lebanon.”
The Golan was “in no way” the top agenda item for Assad, he said, who was concerned that the tribunal could actually threaten his regime.
“Assad’s regime is a small Alawite clique, with some Sunni allies,” the official explained. “If some of the cornerstones of this very small and tight clique are taken out to be tried, judged and convicted, then the whole building may collapse and this is what Assad is worried about.”
The official said Assad knew who would be implicated and tried, and that - if not Assad himself - it was people “very, very close to him, the top officials of the regime.”
Technorati Tags: Syria
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