Heritage Quote

"The instrument by which it [government] must act are either the AUTHORITY of the laws or FORCE. If the first be destroyed, the last must be substituted; and where this becomes the ordinary instrument of government there is an end to liberty!"

-- Alexander Hamilton (Tully, No. 3, 28 August 1794)

The Supreme Court

Daniel Heninger does an excellent job reporting on the daily deliberations that go on in the U.S. Supreme Court.

It's an interesting peek at the workings of our highest court.

I've reprinted it in the extended entry.

A Day in Court
Scalia floats and Breyer rocks.

BY DANIEL HENNINGER
Friday, April 28, 2006 12:01 a.m. EDT

On Jan. 22, 1973, the Supreme Court of the United States decided Roe v. Wade, creating the right to an abortion. This column is not about abortion. It is about the Supreme Court.

The preceding two sentences would strike some as a contradiction. As proved by the nomination hearings before the Senate Judiciary Committee for John Roberts and Samuel Alito, the Supreme Court resides now in the political mind as all about the right to an abortion, with the rest of the world mere footnotes.

This week offered the last oral arguments in the Court's current term, and on Monday I went to see and hear what the nine Justices do when they are not thinking about abortion. Like a New Yorker who has never been to the Statue of Liberty and a Washingtonian who's never visited the White House, I've managed a career in political journalism without attending an oral argument before the Supreme Court. In a perfect world, all Americans would. Sen. Arlen Specter is proposing to make the Court's corner of the world perfect, but more (well, a little) on him later.

Attending the Supreme Court may be better than going to church insofar as you can't attend the Court in your gym clothes. The Court's hearing chamber may be the last best place to experience authentic decorum anywhere in America. Cell phones? They even forbid reading material. As the moment to begin arrives, a clerk instructs, "Remain absolutely silent." The best yet: "If you find yourself falling asleep, you are free to leave the courtroom." A somnolent 7-year-old in front of me was admonished twice.

The Court is not wholly immune from the compulsions of popular culture. When they entered the chamber, one felt in the presence of celebrities. They sit beneath a large suspended clock, with Roman numerals. Its sweeping second hand is visible to the attorneys who have 30 minutes to make their case. As the 10 a.m. start approached, the room fell from murmurs to whispers to still silence.

---

The Court heard oral arguments for two cases. The first, anyone could understand; the second, no one could understand. Both held the audience rapt.

The question before the Court in Brigham City v. Stuart was whether police in Utah, responding to complaints about a loud party in a house at 3 a.m., and arriving on the sidewalk to see a kitchen fight among four apparently intoxicated individuals, were wrong to enter the house without getting a warrant. Utah's courts ruled against the police.

Before a word of argument, Justice Scalia, his seniority placing him next to Chief Justice Roberts, had rocked backward, his face suffused with skepticism. To his left, Justice Souter had fixed the attorneys with a stiff, slightly scary New Hampshire stare. Justice Breyer, at one end of the bench, appeared grandly bored (he is not, as Michael P. Studebaker, Mr. Stuart's attorney, will learn). Justice Thomas famously asks no questions at oral argument, but he and Justice Breyer appear to be bench buddies, rocking back to smile and chat each other up over some point of shared amusement.

Brigham City is a case designed to amuse, insofar as Mr. Stuart's attorney is arguing that the police should have telephoned a judge for a warrant even as a fistfight was under way. The Fourth Amendment issue is that the states have varying and conflicting standards in such instances.

There is much discussion of warrants, knocks and noise levels.

Justice Souter: "Why knock if it's obviously a futile gesture, if no one will hear?"

Justice Scalia: "Why is the trial court obsessed with knocking?"

Justice Breyer: "The Constitution says 'reasonable.' A policeman isn't a lawyer. . . . A warrant would take half an hour. There would be more drinking, more violence. What's wrong?"

Mr. Studebaker: "It still requires a warrant."

Justice Breyer, appearing to side with the police, and with emphasis: "I'm saying it's not. It's reasonable." Justice Scalia has now sunk so low in his chair that only the top half of his face is visible to the gallery. He looks like he's floating in a Jacuzzi. Justice Stevens brings down the house with the morning's best probable-cause line: "The adults were intoxicated? That's a serious crime in Utah!"

Chief Justice Roberts, peering over his reading glasses, ends it: "The case is submitted."

---

Kircher v. Putnam Funds Trust is from another planet. A class-action securities case raising issues of federal and state jurisdiction (of material interest to the mutual-fund industry), it is impossibly abstruse. Yet the colloquy between the Justices and the two competing lawyers fixates the audience. It is an 11-piece orchestra playing a complex legal concerto, and at the end the impulse is to applaud.

Later, the Justices will discuss the cases in a book-lined conference room around a rectangular table. Each Justice has three stacked pads of paper--small, medium and large. Clerks never sit in. There is no record of the conversation. Unlike the sprawling office edifices of Congress in the nearby streets, the Court occupies one square building. On a tour of its nooks and crannies, one encounters virtually no one. The Court's work is done by nine Justices and some 37 clerks, plus a legal team to help choose among 10,000 submitted cases.

Agreed: The issues that rage around the Court over constitutional interpretation are worth fighting over. But in an op-ed piece this week, Judiciary Chairman Specter raged that the public deserved to have the Court's "power" televised. He is wrong. TV of its nature would surely diminish the Court. Anyone who wishes may listen to past oral arguments at www.oyez.org/oyez/frontpage. That includes, quite eerie to hear, Roe v. Wade.

Institutions matter. The Congress is approaching dysfunction. Perhaps the country can survive that. The American presidency has morphed beyond human scale. But to enter the Supreme Court and encounter the place, the people and its essential purpose is to feel carbon-dated to 1789. Though often maddening, its majesty remains intact.

Mr. Henninger is deputy editor of The Wall Street Journal's editorial page. His column appears Fridays in the Journal and on OpinionJournal.com.

[Used with permission from OpinionJournal.com, a web site from Dow Jones & Company, Inc.]

Petronomics

Economist Thomas Sowell has another column up explaining the economics of oil.

Price movements up or down provide incentives for people to consume less or to consume more -- and to produce more or produce less. From the standpoint of the economy as a whole, the history of any particular batch of oil is irrelevant.

Prices need to ration all oil according to existing supply and demand. At the same time, prices need to provide incentives to produce more oil or less oil, according to the same supply and demand conditions.

"Windfall" profits and windfall losses are all part of the same adjustment process. If politicians seize the windfall profits and leave windfall losses alone, what that means over a cycle of years is that the average rate of return on oil production falls below what is needed to attract the investments that greater oil exploration and production require.

Recommended.

Heritage Quote

"Equal and exact justice to all men, of whatever persuasion, religious or political."

-- Thomas Jefferson (First Inaugural Address, 4 March 1801)

A 1000 Days Plan

Peggy Noonan does a good job of bringing together what she feels (and I agree with her) are the three most important issues that President Bush should focus on during the final 1000 days of his term in office. An analogy she used about border security is priceless:

Congress and the White House right now are like people who live in a big house who have finally noticed the kitchen is on fire. So they all meet in the living room and debate how exactly to rebuild the kitchen, what color to repaint the walls, and how to get the best deal on a new microwave. And while they are holding their discussion they're forgetting to do the most important thing. They're forgetting to put out the fire. You can lose a house this way. Putting out the fire in this case is closing and policing the essentially open border with Mexico--now. Close down illegal immigration, now. Then talk. (A hunch for liberals: Your views will be received with greater generosity once the air of daily crisis is removed.)

Read the whole thing.

(I've reprinted it all in the extended entry.)

The Big Three
Here's what the president should focus on in his last thousand days.

Thursday, April 27, 2006 12:01 a.m. EDT

The meme is out there: "A thousand days." That's how long the Bush administration has in office (or had, to be precise, as of yesterday).

To criticize the White House--if the criticism is serious, well-grounded and well-meant--is helpful, and part of a long and good tradition. But allowing philosophical estrangement to leave you wishing the administration ill is to give in to the destructive spirit of the age. That too has a tradition, but not a good one. Five years ago this September history took a dark turn, and though we can forget it in the day to day, we're all in this together.

In that spirit, a plan for the thousand days.

---

With the appointment of Tony Snow the first round of staff changes seems ended, and the desired effect is achieved: a new start, with new people.

The sense of newness will last for a while because the reporters who tell us the news need a storyline. They need, as they say, a narrative. The narrative they will go with now is: "Staff Changes Being Felt Throughout White House / May Signal Policy Changes."

The next story line will either be "Staff Changes Fail to Stop Listless Drift" or "Shakeups Yielded New Dynamism".

So the story now is change, and the story a few months from now is the change that change wrought.

This is a time of opportunity. White House staffers can work to help create the future headline they want.

As a public face of the White House, Tony Snow will likely get a good start. His remarks to the press yesterday--"Believe it or not, I want very much to work with you"--were gracious, and showed legitimate sympathy for the press corps. They have hard jobs and operate under many pressures, from uncomprehending editors in the bubble back in the newsroom to officials who try to jerk them around to executive producers in New York who don't like their hair. (One of the best White House correspondents I ever knew, a woman of seriousness and sophistication who threw the ball straight down the middle, was removed from her assignment, her career thwarted, because she'd committed the sin of not being considered pretty enough by her boss. Before she was removed she had to spend half her time getting new clothes and haircuts and makeup. This so she could do a serious job with expertise and spirit. TV is absurd.)

Mr. Snow's White House press briefings are going to be nice to watch. The press does not want to appear to be ungracious and oppositional. They have an investment in demonstrating that the tensions each day in Scott McClellan's press briefings, with David Gregory's rants and Helen Thomas's free-form animosities, were the fault of Mr. McClellan, not the press.

So they will start out gracious with Tony. Good. Everyone involved will benefit from turning the page.

---

A plan for the administration? Free advice is worth the price, but here goes:

Narrow--and deepen--the focus. The administration has popped too much the past five years, tried to do too much, and all at the same time. An administration about everything is an administration about nothing.

There are three issues on which the administration can, and should, focus, and only three. Why? Because three big issues in a thousand days is more than enough, and because history itself will hand the White House new problems every day and every week--a hurricane, a scandal, a coup, a famine, an insurrection, a terror incident. It all has to be dealt with. It all will come along and take your attention, for a while, from the big three. Lincoln confessed what all presidents learn: events controlled him more than he controlled events.

Issue 1: Iraq, Afghanistan and the age of terror. On these, stabilize, fortify, succeed. Keep America safe. All this will require ruthless concentration. Back up all action with illustration and explanation. Inform the public--constantly--as to what is happening, and why, and what is being done, and why. We already know liberty is God's gift to man; make statements that are less emotive and more fact-filled, more strategically coherent.

Renew attention to Afghanistan. The American invasion of that country had the support of the world. Don't let anything endanger the stability and health of the endeavor. Public confidence in the administration's management of homeland security went down after Katrina. Talk about what's being done, and how, and why. Find Osama--it is a scandal that the man who started the new era is still free, still taunting the West, still inspiring those who see the world as he does. It was a mistake to think finding him was not as important as a wider war on terror. Finding him is key. It is almost five years since he did what he did. Get him, try him, kill him.

Issue 2: the economy. The Dow Jones Industrial Average is at new post-9/11 highs; there's little unemployment. New home sales are up, productivity up, profits up. This is President Bush's triumph. And yet in polls Americans don't credit him with it. (My hunch: Americans, a deeply savvy lot, never want to tell a politician he's doing well on the economy because their applause may lead him to feel he can shift focus to, say, colonizing Mars. Americans always name prosperity in retrospect. In real time they like to keep the pressure on.)

There are problems, challenges, changes that require thought. The biggest complaint I hear now from people who email me from all parts of the country is that they're being worked to death, longer hours at the office, can't see the kids. Gas prices are up and up, etc. The president should talk about the economy--not in a braying, bragging way but in an instructive, engaged way that discusses the philosophy and actions that allowed the market to do what it wants to do, grow.

Presidents always--all of them--like to say they created 50,000 jobs last month. No president has ever created a job, except in the public sector. But presidents can take steps that keep jobs from being created, and deserve credit when they don't. And they can take steps that are helpful to job creators, and deserve credit when they do.

Did the tax cuts, at the end of the day, help the economy? Why? How? Will a change in the tax structure, or will making permanent the tax cuts, help? What impact does high federal government spending have on the economy? Where should we go on that, and why? Talk about the flow of money in America.

Issue 3: the integrity of America's borders. That is, the right and ability to decide who comes here and when, the right and ability to make judgments based on our nation's needs. This is both an economic issue and a national security issue; it naturally connects to issues 1 and 2.

On this, Washington is talking a lot and doing nothing.

Congress and the White House right now are like people who live in a big house who have finally noticed the kitchen is on fire. So they all meet in the living room and debate how exactly to rebuild the kitchen, what color to repaint the walls, and how to get the best deal on a new microwave. And while they are holding their discussion they're forgetting to do the most important thing. They're forgetting to put out the fire. You can lose a house this way. Putting out the fire in this case is closing and policing the essentially open border with Mexico--now. Close down illegal immigration, now. Then talk. (A hunch for liberals: Your views will be received with greater generosity once the air of daily crisis is removed.)

---

So that's it. Three big issues, plus whatever comes over the transom each day and demands a response. On that, the wisdom of Calvin Coolidge: When 10 problems are walking toward you, don't feel you have to do something right away. Some of the problems will fall to the side and not reach you, some will solve themselves. Face what remains. But focus, to the extent you can, on the big three.

Ms. Noonan is a contributing editor of The Wall Street Journal and author of "John Paul the Great: Remembering a Spiritual Father," (Penguin, 2005), which you can order from the OpinionJournal bookstore. Her column appears Thursdays.

[Used with permission from OpinionJournal.com, a web site from Dow Jones & Company, Inc.]

Petropoliticians and what they have wrought

Thomas Sowell has a good column up that provides us with a basic lesson in supply and demand, and then he gets serious about oily politicians.

Ironically, the people who are making the most noise about the high price of gasoline are the very people who have for years blocked every attempt to increase our own oil supply. They have opposed drilling for oil off the Atlantic coast, off the Pacific coast, or in Alaska. They have prevented the building of any new oil refineries anywhere for decades.

They have fought against the building of hydroelectric dams or nuclear power plants to generate electricity without the use of oil. They love to talk about their own pet "alternative energy sources," without the slightest attention to what these would cost in terms of money, jobs, or our national standard of living.

Even when one of their pet "alternative energy sources" -- windmills -- is proposed to be built near them, suddenly it is not right to spoil their view.

Politicians have indulged these spoiled brats for generations. Now, when the chickens come home to roost, they are screaming about high prices and Big Oil. That is world class chutzpa.

Recommended reading.

The truth comes out

Phoenix expresses some degree of trepidation, and Sadie responds:

I frighten you people, don’t I?

I'm inclined to agree with both ladies.

Heritage Quote

"For the same reason that the members of the State legislatures will be unlikely to attach themselves sufficiently to national objects, the members of the federal legislature will be likely to attach themselves too much to local objects."

-- James Madison (Federalist No. 47, 1 February 1788)

Partly cloudy to clear -- economically speaking

Economist Irwin M. Stelzer warns of a bumpy ride ahead, but ultimately smooth sailing. He summarizes with:

In addition to an effective end to efforts to forge a meaningful free-trade agreement, a likely halt in the Fed's rate-raising programmed, and a softer dollar, we can reasonably guess that the era of high-priced oil and gas will not end any time soon. OPEC is just about at the limit of its near-term ability to pump more oil, and is unwilling to grant access to the Western investment and technology it needs to increase output in the longer term. Iran has every incentive to continue roiling markets by rattling its nuclear saber. Threats to continuity of supply that push prices up by, say, $5 per barrel, increase the mullah's income by over $100 million per week. Not a bad fee for a threatening speech or two.

Of course, all bets are off if we decide to take out Iran's nuclear facilities, or . . . add your own nightmare. Even then, the U.S. economy will snap back, as it did so quickly after the disastrous attack on the nation's financial center on September 11. So if you investors can keep your heads when disaster strikes, you can be rich men, my sons.

Go read the whole thing.

HR 4409, the "Fuel Choices for American Security Act"

Representative Jack Kingston is sponsoring a bill designed to help America achieve energy independence. And he's being quite reasonable about it.

Energy independence is not a partisan idea. Republicans and Democrats pay the same high prices at the pump, liberals and conservatives are both threatened by oil funded terror. There will be plenty of places we can have political disagreement this year, I hope this is not one of them.

It's worth reading and discussing. We've got to get a handle on our dependence on petroleum fuels. This looks like a good start.

For your consideration

Michelle Malkin rebuts President Bush's open borders arguments with some compelling examples of why we do not want unrestricted travel across America's borders.

-- The bludgeoning death of Florida teenager Jesse Howell and the rape and strangulation murder of his fiance, Wendy Von Huben.

-- The bludgeoning death of University of Kentucky student Christopher Maier and the rape and near-murder of his girlfriend, who survived the attack.

-- The murder of Leafie Mason, an elderly Texas woman whom Resendiz hammered to death with a fire iron.

-- The rape, stabbing and bludgeoning death of Baylor College of Medicine researcher Claudia Benton.

-- The sledgehammer bludgeonings of Texas pastor Norman Sirnic and his wife, Karen.

-- The bludgeoning death of Houston teacher Noemi Dominguez.

-- The murder of elderly Texas widow Josephine Konvicka, who was killed with a grubbing hoe.

-- The murders of George Morber, shot in the head, and Carolyn Frederick, clubbed to death.

Recommended.

Double standard

OpinionJournal has an interesting op-ed discussing the disparity in how the mainstream media is treating leaks of classified data -- depending upon the source.

I am so disappointed in our news media nowadays. This editorial does a good job of calling a spade -- a spade.

It's in the extended entry.

Our Rotten IntelligenCIA
To media partisans, some leaks are more equal than others.

Wednesday, April 26, 2006 12:01 a.m. EDT

Fired CIA officer Mary O. McCarthy went on offense Monday, denying through her lawyer that she has done anything wrong. But the agency is standing by its claim that she was dismissed last week because she "knowingly and willfully shared classified intelligence." It has been reported that one of her media contacts was Washington Post reporter Dana Priest, who just won a Pulitzer Prize for her reporting on the so-called "secret" prisons that the CIA allegedly used to house top level al Qaeda detainees in Eastern Europe.

We're as curious as anyone to see how Ms. McCarthy's case unfolds. But this would appear to be only the latest example of the unseemly symbiosis between elements of the press corps and a cabal of partisan bureaucrats at the CIA and elsewhere in the "intelligence community" who have been trying to undermine the Bush Presidency.

---

The existence of this intelligence insurgency first came to light in a major way with former Ambassador Joe Wilson, who wrote a New York Times op-ed in 2003 questioning the veracity of President Bush's "16 words" about Iraq seeking uranium in Africa. Someone close to the White House had the audacity to point out that Mr. Wilson was an anti-Bush partisan whose only claim to authority on the matter was the result of wifely nepotism. Mr. Wilson has since been thoroughly discredited, including in a bipartisan report from the Senate Intelligence Committee. But former Vice Presidential Chief of Staff Scooter Libby is still being prosecuted as the result of a media-instigated investigation into the "leak" of Valerie Plame's not-so-secret CIA identity.

There was also Michael Scheuer, a top counter-terrorism analyst who was allowed by the CIA to publish under "Anonymous" a scathing attack on Mr. Bush's strategy to fight terror. There were the many selective election-year leaks of prewar Iraq intelligence fed to the likes of the Times's James Risen, who also won a Pulitzer this year--for helping expose the National Security Agency's anti-al Qaeda surveillance program. And there were the post-election attacks on then-U.N. Ambassador nominee John Bolton, led by intelligence analysts who had worked with him at the State Department.

The case of Ms. McCarthy appears to be as egregious as it gets as a matter of partisan politics. She played a prominent role in the Clinton national security apparatus and public records show she gave $2,000 to John Kerry's Presidential campaign and even more to the Democratic Party. Such is her right. But rather than salute and help implement policy after her candidate lost, she apparently sought to damage the Bush Administration by canoodling with the press.

There is little doubt that the Washington Post story on alleged prisons in Europe has done enormous damage--at a minimum, to our ability to secure future cooperation in the war on terror from countries that don't want their assistance to be exposed. Likewise, the New York Times wiretapping exposé may have ruined one of our most effective anti-al Qaeda surveillance programs. Ms. McCarthy denies being the source of these stories. But somebody inside the intelligence community was.

Leaving partisanship aside, this ought to be deeply troubling to anyone who cares about democratic government. The CIA leakers are arrogating to themselves the right to subvert the policy of a twice-elected Administration. Paul Pillar, another former CIA analyst well known for opposing Mr. Bush while he was at Langley, appears to think this is as it should be. He recently wrote in Foreign Affairs that the intelligence community should be treated like the Federal Reserve and have independent political status. In other words, the intelligence community should be a sort of clerisy accountable to no one.

CIA Director Porter Goss is now facing press criticism for trying to impose some discipline on his agency. But he not only has every right to try to root out insubordination, he has a duty to do so because it undermines the agency's ability to focus on the real enemy. The serious and disturbing question is whether the rot is so deep that it is unfixable, and we ought to start all over and create a new intelligence agency.

The press is also inventing a preposterous double standard that is supposed to help us all distinguish between bad leaks (the Plame name) and virtuous leaks (whatever Ms. McCarthy might have done). Washington Post executive editor Leonard Downie has put himself on record as saying Ms. McCarthy should not "come to harm" for helping citizens hold their government accountable. Of the Plame affair, by contrast, the Post's editorial page said her exposure may have been an "egregious abuse of the public trust."

It would appear that the only relevant difference here is whose political ox is being gored, and whether a liberal or conservative journalist was the beneficiary of the leak. That the press sought to hound Robert Novak out of polite society for the Plame disclosure and then rewards Ms. Priest and Mr. Risen with Pulitzers proves the worst that any critic has ever said about media bias.

---

The deepest damage from these leak frenzies may yet be to the press itself, both in credibility and its ability to do its job. It was the press that unleashed anti-leak search missions aimed at the White House that have seen Judith Miller jailed and may find Ms. Priest and Mr. Risen facing subpoenas. And it was the press that promoted the probe under the rarely used Espionage Act of "neocon" Defense Department employee Lawrence Franklin, only to find that the same law may now be used against its own "whistleblower" sources. Just recently has the press begun to notice that the use of the same Espionage Act to prosecute two pro-Israel lobbyists for repeating classified information isn't much different from prosecuting someone for what the press does every day--except for a far larger audience.

We've been clear all along that we don't like leak prosecutions, especially when they involve harassing reporters who are just trying to do their job. But then that's part of the reason we didn't join Joe Wilson and the New York Times in demanding Karl Rove's head over the Plame disclosure. As for some of our media colleagues, when they stop being honest chroniclers of events and start getting into bed with bureaucrats looking to take down elected political leaders, they shouldn't be surprised if those leaders treat them like the partisans they have become.

[Used with permission from OpinionJournal.com, a web site from Dow Jones & Company, Inc.]

Heritage Quote

"In America, no other distinction between man and man had ever been known but that of persons in office exercising powers by authority of the laws, and private individuals. Among these last, the poorest laborer stood on equal ground with the wealthiest millionaire, and generally on a more favored one whenever their rights seem to jar."

-- Thomas Jefferson (Answers to de Meusnier Questions, 1786)

Reducing Congressional spending

It's very obvious to many Americans that the Republican-controlled government is out of control when it comes to spending. Pete du Pont, former governor of Delaware and current chairman of the National Center for Policy Analysis, presents some suggestions to help Congress control spending excesses in an essay published by OpinionJournal this week.

Though I don't fully agree with all of his suggestions, he has written a thoughful piece that has some very workable solutions to our government's current problem with fiscal incontinence.

I've reprinted the whole article in the extended entry.

Dog the Swag
How Republicans can break the spending habit.

BY PETE DU PONT
Wednesday, April 26, 2006 12:01 a.m. EDT

"What do you suppose [they] are in the Congress for, if it ain't to split up the swag?"--Will Rogers

Splitting up the swag ("booty, money, valuables") seems to be what the congressional Republican Party is about.

The Heritage Foundation reported last week that this sixth year of a Republican Presidency and Congress will see government expenditures of $23,760 per household--$6,500 more than when they came to power in 2001 and the highest inflation-adjusted annual spending since World War II. Excluding homeland security, domestic discretionary spending has increased 7.6% per year. Education spending is up 139%; energy spending has doubled, and the Bush Medicare prescription drug bill will add $33 billion a year to federal expenditures.

A Republican House enacted all this spending, a Republican Senate approved almost all of it (Democrats did control the upper chamber for a little under two years in 2001-02), and a Republican president signed it all. Congress has appropriated a cumulative $350 billion more than the president requested in his annual budgets, but none of that additional spending was disapproved by him--indeed, President Bush is the only president since John Quincy Adams (1825-29) never to use his veto power in a full term in office.

One political truth is that when legislators see elected executives taking no action to control spending, they spend and spend. Sen. Judd Gregg of New Hampshire, the Budget Committee chairman, notes that "emergency spending"--which is not controlled by budget or other spending rules--averaged $22 billion a year in the 1990s and is now up to $100 billion a year. Last year 13,997 earmarks--money for hometown handouts--totaling $27 billion, were approved by Congress. In this year's House budget bill there are 9,963 of them costing $29 billion. The House Appropriations Committee chairman, Rep. Jerry Lewis of California, pulled the bill from a floor vote when conservative Republicans demanded that votes be allowed on each earmark. But it will be back, and likely passed without amendment.

Last week's Specter swag grab--a $7 billion addition to domestic spending through an appropriations subcommittee that Pennsylvania's Sen. Arlen Specter chairs--was an addition that the senator says was "not sort of a gimmick; it is a gimmick." It was supported by every Democrat and a majority of the 55 Republican senators, which led Sen. Specter to conclude that the Republican party of the 21st Century is "now principally moderate, if not liberal."

Mr. Specter is pretty much on the mark about the Washington world, but he's dead wrong about America's Republicans. The national majority are neither moderate nor liberal but believe in conservative economic values: lower tax rates, controlled spending, and a market- as opposed to government-oriented economy. It is not Republicans who are liberal, it is the current Republican government that is fiscally liberal and the biggest budget-busting federal spenders since the 1960s.

---

So how can Republicans get their identity back? The current Congress is unlikely to fix itself from the inside--would a Congressional majority ever want to give up authority to do anything?--so it will be up to the American people to fix it from the outside.

First, the president must be persuaded to reduce congressional spending. He must use his rescission authority to force the Congress to vote on rescinding some $15 billion, about the average of what presidents have requested since the rescission process began in the 1970s. The president has proposed one rescission of $2.3 billion, but he must be far more aggressive.

Second, when Congress enacts legislation exceeding the president's requested budget spending levels, he should veto those spending bills. Legislators need to be forcefully reminded that spending requires executive as well as legislative approval.

Third, the president needs line-item veto authority. Most of the states governors have it and use it to control spending, and so should the President. When President Bush recently suggested a line-item veto, Mr. Lewis said the legislative branch of government had the spending power and to give any veto power to the president "could be a very serious error." But the opposite is the case: the line-item veto is a very serious improvement that the president and Republicans should pursue.

Next, Congress needs to clean up its earmark spending process. As a start it should adopt the proposal from Rep. Jeff Flake (R., Ariz.) that each earmark's sponsor be identified in the text of spending bills, and that a vote be allowed on specific earmark proposals. Congress should also establish term limits for Appropriations Committee members so that the congressional political establishment cannot go on swag-splitting forever.

---

Then comes the hard part--the long-term solution of a constitutional amendment to control the Congressional spending process. Republicans should launch a constitutional balanced budget amendment effort as they did in 1982, when 32 states (two short of the 34 required) petitioned Congress for a constitutional convention to consider one; the U.S. Senate approved an amendment with the required two-thirds majority; and it failed in the House by 46 votes. There are several substantive choices--the Colorado Taxpayers Bill of Rights that limits spending to inflation plus population growth (with any additional revenue being refunded to the taxpayers) is one; another is the Delaware constitutional requirement that there be a three-fifths vote of the Legislature to approve spending more than 98% of revenue. A constitutional amendment requiring a supermajority congressional vote for spending in excess of revenues would be a substantial step forward.

Finally, there are two alternatives other than expenditure control that would change congressional spending habits. The first is the flat tax. Congress uses our current tax code's 66,000-page complexity to reward some constituents with lower rates and higher deductions, and punish others with the opposite. The flat tax would eliminate such political manipulation, raise government revenues, and save taxpayers much of the $150 billion and six million hours it costs Americans to comply with the current tax code.

Then there is the McCain-Feingold campaign spending law, a significant incumbent-protection device. It violates the First Amendment's guarantee of free speech by limiting an individual's right to spend money to elect people he believes in. That makes it much easier for incumbents to get re-elected, no doubt why Congress is so eager to continue expanding its limitations on campaign spending. Repealing it would strengthen freedom of speech, increase congressional turnover, and reduce the seniority monopoly that has enacted the $350 billion in excessive spending.

None of these changes will be easy to accomplish, but a paradigm shift is needed to control spending excesses and restore the economic conservatism that has long been the core of the Republican Party's election victories. The White House has fresh staff leadership this week in Josh Bolten, a good time to begin changing its spending habits. Otherwise the next two elections are going to be the worst of times.

Mr. du Pont, a former governor of Delaware, is chairman of the Dallas-based National Center for Policy Analysis. His column appears once a month.

[Used with permission from OpinionJournal.com, a web site from Dow Jones & Company, Inc.]

Wrong again, Oprah!

Economist Walter Williams watched an Oprah show about people living on minimum wages, and he found grave inaccuracies in the statistics cited during the show.

The show claims that 30 million Americans earn the minimum wage of $5 an hour. Actually, the federal minimum wage is $5.15 an hour, and 17 states mandate a higher minimum wage that approaches $7 an hour. At one point, Oprah did manage to clear up this aspect of the show's errors.

The U.S. Department of Labor reports: "According to Current Population Survey estimates for 2004, some 73.9 million American workers were paid at hourly rates, representing 59.8 percent of all wage and salary workers. Of those paid by the hour, 520,000 were reported as earning exactly $5.15."

Workers earning the minimum wage or less tend to be young, single workers between the ages of 16 and 25. Only about two percent of workers over 25 years of age earn minimum wages.

Before you tune to Oprah for your informational needs, I highly recommend you read Dr. Williams column.

The wall

Jack Kemp has a good column up at Townhall about the importance of the Israeli wall.

I personally traveled into the West Bank in February to get a first hand look at the "security wall" and have come to the conclusion it's absolutely necessary for the physical protection of everyone. . . the barrier was a last-ditch effort to halt the march of Palestinian suicide bombers on Israel's cities that resulted in the killing and maiming of thousands. The fact that the barrier has contributed to a remarkable decline in terrorist attacks - approximately 90 percent - is evidence of its effectiveness. Never mind that without it, thousands more would have lost their lives.

I agree with Mr. Kemp's assessment, and would further suggest that a similar wall along our border with Mexico would reap similar benefits in addition to allowing us to actually control immigration into this country (for the first time in its history, I might add).

Conspiracy

Rich Lowry, over at NRO, has an op-ed up wherein he describes, with tongue firmly planted in cheek, the vast conspiracy by Big Oil to gouge consumers. And he names names, too!

How powerful and resourceful must be the cackling executives? Boundlessly. Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad might strike most observers as deeply irrational, unworried about possibly prompting a nuclear exchange one day in the Middle East. But this interpretation misses the true measure of the man. Oil executives apparently have his ear: Why else would he do them such a huge favor by driving up world crude prices with his nuclear crisis?

"Supply and demand" must be an extremely difficult concept for politicians, because they keep wasting taxpayer's money on investigations into why prices go up when the demand for oil outstrips supply.

Heritage Quote

"The steady character of our countrymen is a rock to which we may safely moor; and notwithstanding the efforts of the papers to disseminate early discontents, I expect that a just, dispassionate and steady conduct, will at length rally to a proper system the great body of our country. Unequivocal in principle, reasonable in manner, we shall be able I hope to do a great deal of good to the cause of freedom & harmony."

-- Thomas Jefferson (letter to Elbridge Gerry, 29 March 1801)

Let's look at alternatives

National Review Online has a good editorial about the emerging energy shortage. So far, with all of the wailing and teeth-gnashing, no one has really addressed the real cause of the shortage -- we have more demand than we do supply.

Those are just the kinds of numbers we don’t want to see if keeping gas prices low is our goal. The only way to put downward pressure on prices over the long term is to make sure supply can match demand — and that means encouraging domestic oil and gas production, not discouraging it. Hastert, Frist & Co. have it exactly backward.

Read the whole thing.

More petrolitics

Bill Murchison, senior columns writer for The Dallas Morning News weighs in with more insightful commentary on petrolitics. Here's an excerpt:

Lacking a Jimmy Carter type to sign anything economically idiotic into law, Congress will likely pass on to other matters after some Category 5 bluster. Oil prices, bloated for now by anxieties over the Middle East and strong worldwide demand, rather than by a '70s-style embargo, will likely abate. But not as far as they might if Congress opened the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to at least delicate exploration, and if California and Florida permitted the expansion of offshore drilling, and if environmental attitudes softened just enough to admit the need for growth in domestic refining capacity to enable the wider provision of what Gov. Schwarzenegger calls "a product that everyone needs" -- gasoline. And so on. And so on.

Recommended reading.

Petrolitics

While politicians are calling for Congressional investigations into price-gouging and profit taking by Big Oil, the discriminating reader need not look any further than our own Congress for the high gas prices and spot shortages that we are experiencing here in the U.S.

Read the whole thing. It's in the extended entry.

Denny Pelosi
Gas prices rise, and Republicans panic.

Tuesday, April 25, 2006 12:01 a.m. EDT

Few things are less becoming in a political party than desperation, as Republicans are now demonstrating as they panic over rising oil and gas prices. If blaming private industry for Congress's own energy mistakes is the best the GOP can do, no wonder its voters may sit out the November election.

Oil prices hit $75 a barrel last week, while gas has reached a national average of about $2.85 a gallon. The Republican response has been to put on Chuck Schumer and Nancy Pelosi fright wigs and shout about corporate greed and market manipulation. House Speaker Denny Hastert and Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist fired off a letter to President Bush yesterday demanding the Federal Trade Commission and Justice Department investigate "price fixing" and "gouging." Senator Arlen Specter wants to go further and impose stricter "antitrust" laws for oil companies, as well as a "windfall profits" tax. Mr. Hastert also delighted the class warriors in the press corps by lambasting recently retired Exxon CEO Lee Raymond's pay "unconscionable."

There's been unconscionable behavior all right, most of it on Capitol Hill. A decent portion of the latest run-up in gas prices--and the entire cause of recent spot shortages--is the direct result of the energy bill Congress passed last summer. That self-serving legislation handed Congress's friends in the ethanol lobby a mandate that forces drivers to use 7.5 billion gallons annually of that oxygenate by 2012.

At the same time, Congress refused to provide liability protection to the makers of MTBE, a rival oxygenate getting hit with lawsuits. So MTBE makers are leaving the market in a rush, while overstretched ethanol producers (despite their promises) are in no way equipped to compensate for the loss of MTBE in the fuel supply. Ethanol is also difficult to ship and store outside of the Midwest, which is causing supply headaches and spot gas shortages along the East Coast and Texas.

These columns warned Republicans this would happen. As recently as last year, ethanol was selling for $1.45 a gallon. By December it had reached $2 and is now going for $2.77. So refiners are now having to buy both oil and ethanol at sky-high prices. In short, the only market manipulation has been by politicians.

---

For the record, the FTC has an entire crew that pores over weekly average gas prices in hundreds of cities, looking for evidence of gouging--to no avail. Perhaps this is because no oil company controls enough of the market to exercise enough power to raise prices. The Hastert-Frist call for an investigation is nothing but short-attention-span political theater.

Beyond the ethanol fiasco, the oil markets are once again providing a tutorial in supply and demand in a global commodity market. Strong economic growth from the U.S. to China is driving up demand, even as political uncertainty in oil-producing countries such as Venezuela and Iran is leading to supply worries and some speculation. The Federal Reserve has also played a role by flooding the market with dollar liquidity that has produced higher prices across all commodity markets.

Congress could help a little in the short term if it asked the Bush Administration to end the 54-cent-a-gallon tariff on imported ethanol. That would especially help drivers in coastal states suffering from spot shortages. Naturally, however, the domestic ethanol industry is threatening retribution against any Member who suggests such a thing; so much for industry gratitude.

The GOP might also refocus its attention on legislation the House passed last year to reduce the number of "boutique fuels" to six from 17. These special gasoline blends are required in different parts of the country in the name of reducing pollution. Their primary effect, however, is to raise gas prices and make it difficult to move gas around the country during shortfalls. The Environmental Protection Agency could also ease environmental rules for those parts of the country suffering shortages.

Meanwhile, we're also hearing more about the country's reliance on "foreign oil." But if Congress wants to ease that dependence, it will have to open more of the U.S. up to oil and gas exploration. Had the Senate opened up the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to exploration when the Bush Administration requested it in 2001, some of this oil might now be joining American supplies. The same goes for natural gas drilling along the Outer Continental Shelf. Yet the very Democrats who deplore foreign supplies and shout about high prices vote again and again to block domestic oil exploration.

The last time the U.S. had a gasoline panic, in the wake of Katrina, some quick Bush Administration action and private ingenuity eased the problem in record time. Gasoline prices that had climbed above $3 a gallon quickly settled back closer to $2. Markets will make the same adjustments today if they are allowed to send price signals without Congress getting in the way. Republicans can blame business all they want for high prices, but sounding like liberal Democrats won't save them in November.

[Used with permission from OpinionJournal.com, a web site from Dow Jones & Company, Inc.]

Heritage Quote

"A constitution founded on these principles introduces knowledge among the people, and inspires them with a conscious dignity becoming freemen; a general emulation takes place, which causes good humor, sociability, good manners, and good morals to be general. That elevation of sentiment inspired by such a government, makes the common people brave and enterprising. That ambition which is inspired by it makes them sober, industrious, and frugal."

-- John Adams (Thoughts on Government, 1776)

Another good question

Michelle Malkin asks "who's assimilating whom?

The Bush Doctrine: A New Hope

Natan Sharansky, Russian dissident and Iraeli statesman, has a thing or two to say about President Bush's democracy agenda.

He calls Bush a dissident, and Mr. Sharansky should know something about dissidents. He spent nine years in a Soviet gulag because of it.

I've reprinted his essay in the extended entry.

Dissident President

George W. Bush has the courage to speak out for freedom.


BY NATAN SHARANSKY

Monday, April 24, 2006 12:01 a.m. EDT

There are two distinct marks of a dissident. First, dissidents are fired by ideas and stay true to them no matter the consequences. Second, they generally believe that betraying those ideas would constitute the greatest of moral failures. Give up, they say to themselves, and evil will triumph. Stand firm, and they can give hope to others and help change the world.

Political leaders make the rarest of dissidents. In a democracy, a leader's lifeline is the electorate's pulse. Failure to be in tune with public sentiment can cripple any administration and undermine any political agenda. Moreover, democratic leaders, for whom compromise is critical to effective governance, hardly ever see any issue in Manichaean terms. In their world, nearly everything is colored in shades of gray.

That is why President George W. Bush is such an exception. He is a man fired by a deep belief in the universal appeal of freedom, its transformative power, and its critical connection to international peace and stability. Even the fiercest critics of these ideas would surely admit that Mr. Bush has championed them both before and after his re-election, both when he was riding high in the polls and now that his popularity has plummeted, when criticism has come from longstanding opponents and from erstwhile supporters.

With a dogged determination that any dissident can appreciate, Mr. Bush, faced with overwhelming opposition, stands his ideological ground, motivated in large measure by what appears to be a refusal to countenance moral failure.

I myself have not been uncritical of Mr. Bush. Like my teacher, Andrei Sakharov, I agree with the president that promoting democracy is critical for international security. But I believe that too much focus has been placed on holding quick elections, while too little attention has been paid to help build free societies by protecting those freedoms--of conscience, speech, press, religion, etc.--that lie at democracy's core.

I believe that such a mistaken approach is one of the reasons why a terrorist organization such as Hamas could come to power through ostensibly democratic means in a Palestinian society long ruled by fear and intimidation.

I also believe that not enough effort has been made to turn the policy of promoting democracy into a bipartisan effort. The enemies of freedom must know that the commitment of the world's lone superpower to help expand freedom beyond its borders will not depend on the results of the next election.

---

Just as success in winning past global conflicts depended on forging a broad coalition that stretched across party and ideological lines, success in using the advance of democracy to win the war on terror will depend on building and maintaining a wide consensus of support.

Yet despite these criticisms, I recognize that I have the luxury of criticizing Mr. Bush's democracy agenda only because there is a democracy agenda in the first place. A policy that for years had been nothing more than the esoteric subject of occasional academic debate is now the focal point of American statecraft.

For decades, a "realism" based on a myopic perception of international stability prevailed in the policy-making debate. For a brief period during the Cold War, the realist policy of accommodating Soviet tyranny was replaced with a policy that confronted that tyranny and made democracy and human rights inside the Soviet Union a litmus test for superpower relations.

The enormous success of such a policy in bringing the Cold War to a peaceful end did not stop most policy makers from continuing to advocate an approach to international stability that was based on coddling "friendly" dictators and refusing to support the aspirations of oppressed peoples to be free.

Then came Sept. 11, 2001. It seemed as though that horrific day had made it clear that the price for supporting "friendly" dictators throughout the Middle East was the creation of the world's largest breeding ground of terrorism. A new political course had to be charted.

Today, we are in the midst of a great struggle between the forces of terror and the forces of freedom. The greatest weapon that the free world possesses in this struggle is the awesome power of its ideas.

The Bush Doctrine, based on a recognition of the dangers posed by non-democratic regimes and on committing the United States to support the advance of democracy, offers hope to many dissident voices struggling to bring democracy to their own countries. The democratic earthquake it has helped unleash, even with all the dangers its tremors entail, offers the promise of a more peaceful world.

---

Yet with each passing day, new voices are added to the chorus of that doctrine's opponents, and the circle of its supporters grows ever smaller.

Critics rail against every step on the new and difficult road on which the United States has embarked. Yet in pointing out the many pitfalls which have not been avoided and those which still can be, those critics would be wise to remember that the alternative road leads to the continued oppression of hundreds of millions of people and the continued festering of the pathologies that led to 9/11.

Now that President Bush is increasingly alone in pushing for freedom, I can only hope that his dissident spirit will continue to persevere. For should that spirit break, evil will indeed triumph, and the consequences for our world would be disastrous.

Mr. Sharansky spent nine years as a political prisoner in the Soviet Gulag. A former deputy prime minister of Israel and currently a member of the Knesset, he is co-author, with Ron Dermer, of "The Case For Democracy: The Power of Freedom to Overcome Tyranny and Terror" (PublicAffairs, 2004). You can buy "The Case For Democracy" at the OpinionJournal bookstore here.

[Used with permission from OpinionJournal.com, a web site from Dow Jones & Company, Inc.]

Heritage Quote

"The fundamental source of all your errors, sophisms and false reasonings is a total ignorance of the natural rights of mankind. Were you once to become acquainted with these, you could never entertain a thought, that all men are not, by nature, entitled to a parity of privileges. You would be convinced, that natural liberty is a gift of the beneficent Creator to the whole human race, and that civil liberty is founded in that; and cannot be wrested from any people, without the most manifest violation of justice."

-- Alexander Hamilton (The Farmer Refuted, 23 February 1775)

Showdown with Iran

Mark Steyn has a very interesting essay on facing down Iran. And it'll make you stop and think.

If you divide the world into geographical regions, then, Iran's neither here nor there. But if you divide it ideologically, the mullahs are ideally positioned at the center of the various provinces of Islam--the Arabs, the Turks, the Stans, and the south Asians. Who better to unite the Muslim world under one inspiring, courageous leadership? If there's going to be an Islamic superpower, Tehran would seem to be the obvious candidate.

Recommended.

Aero-mechanized maneuver

Major General Robert H. Scales (ret), a former commander of the Army War College, has a column up in the Washington Times about a military strategy called aero-mechanized maneuver. Here's how he begins:

The soldier I most admire is Huba Wass de Czega, who was born in Hungary, graduated from West Point and retired as a brigadier general. In the early 1990s, he postulated a revolutionary new method for fighting post-Cold War battles. He realized then that soldiers who fought on foot stood a 10 times greater probability of dying than those who fought from inside vehicles.

He also knew that Cold War armored vehicles were so large and ungainly that they could only drive, not fly, to the battlefield. The general's theory, aero-mechanized maneuver, sought to solve this age-old problem by combining the protection afforded by armored vehicles with the speed of air transport.

I recommend it.

Heritage Quote

"The scheme, my dear Marqs. which you propose as a precedent, to encourage the emancipation of the black people of this Country from that state of Bondage in wch. they are held, is a striking evidence of the benevolence of your Heart. I shall be happy to join you in so laudable a work."

-- George Washington (letter to Marquis de Lafayette, 5 April 1785)

Civil war: Iraq

Michael Yon is on his way to Afghanistan, and has this dispatch to share with us about the Iraqi civil war. Mr. Yon is careful to be as neutral and accurate as possible in his reporting -- efforts that I really appreciate.

We are not getting the truth through our media, or our civilian leadership. Yes, Iraq is in civil war, but there is no doubt in my mind, not the slightest doubt, that the new Iraqi security forces are becoming stronger all the time. It's not certain if they are strong enough to hold back the enemy on their own or if we need to increase the efforts of our military in a coordinated measure. But the fact that an American general recently invited me to see that progress is an indicator that our top military leaders are confident. An Army general would not have invited me back to Iraq to see a fiasco, and the mere fact of his invitation is a ray of hope.

This dispatch is a long one, and has many photos. It is also a very good summary of the situation in Iraq as he sees it. And is probably one of the most accurate assessments available to us.

Highly recommended.

Heritage Quote

"We are either a United people, or we are not. If the former, let us, in all maters of general concern act as a nation, which have national objects to promote, and a national character to support. If we are not, let us no longer act a farce by pretending to it."

-- George Washington (letter to James Madison, 30 November 1785)

Observation

Judging from some recent comments I've received, I think people who like to visit Salon.com don't care for my site. Nor, it seems, do they care for any factual information that does not support their viewpoint.

AMT - A Monstrous Tax

Terence Jeffrey tells the reader about how the Alternate Minimum Tax is getting ready to body slam middle income families.

A prodigal GOP may have already spent middle-class American families into a tax increase.

It will come in the form of the Alternative Minimum Tax.

This is not good.

Heritage Quote

"Experience is the oracle of truth; and where its responses are unequivocal, they ought to be conclusive and sacred."

-- Alexander Hamilton and James Madison (Federalist No. 20, 11 December 1787)

Houston and Katrina

Nicole Gelinas has an excellent article in City Journal about how Houston opened its arms to the Katrina refugees and is doing well at dealing with all of the subsequent challenges that have resulted from the unexpected influx of 240,000 people.

Houston isn’t just showing its guests some Texas hospitality; it’s showing displaced New Orleanians what a difference it makes to live in a city that strives, if imperfectly, to operate upon sound urban-governance precepts—leadership in a crisis, competent policing, a functioning judicial system, accountable urban schools, and a culture of private-sector entrepreneurship.

This is a really good read. Especially if, like myself, you hail from Houston originally.

Oil and terror

Cal Thomas has an interesting op-ed in which he describes how some of the money we spend to fill our gas tanks is being used to fund terrorists.

One of many excellent books on the subject is "Terror, Incorporated: Tracing the Dollars Behind the Terror Networks" by economist Loretta Napoleoni. Napoleoni follows the money earned from the sale of oil and shows how it ends up funding terrorism and terrorist centers. Recipients of some of the money include mosques and Islamic schools in America, at least some of which are now, or can be expected to teach, incite, train and equip jihadists to again do unto us what they did on 9/11, and what they carry out regularly in Israel and Iraq.

He then goes on to make a good argument for this country to achieve energy independence.

I can't think of a better reason.

Recommended.

Pertinent question

Thomas Sowell asks a very good question:

Whatever the decision as to how many and what kind of immigrants should be let into the United States, why should that decision be made by people in Mexico, instead of being made here by Americans?

He actually asks several good questions. I recommend you read the whole thing.

Heritage Quote

"The rights of neutrality will only be respected when they are defended by an adequate power. A nation, despicable by its weakness, forfeits even the privilege of being neutral."

-- Alexander Hamilton (Federalist No. 11, 1787)

Seven factors of failure

Ralph Peters provides us with seven signs of non-competitive states.

The Seven Factors

These key "failure factors" are:

• Restrictions on the free flow of information.
• The subjugation of women.
• Inability to accept responsibility for individual or collective failure.
  
• The extended family or clan as the basic unit of social organization.
  
• Domination by a restrictive religion.
• A low valuation of education.
• Low prestige assigned to work.

Go read his accompanying analysis.

American betrayal

Gerard Van Der Leun, over at American Digest has posted an excellent essay refuting the National Geographic spin about the "gospel" of Judas. In it, Gerard provides the reader with an astute analysis of our present culture.

It's a fact of our self-centered contemporary existence that betrayal has become one of the common forces that shape our lives. For when our own desires ride us like a drunken demon lodged on our shoulders, betrayal is the first order of the day when others seek to thwart our desires, or even when others become a mere inconvenience to our wants and whims.

I also think the essay is a warning of things to come if we, as individual members of this culture, continue down the slippery slope of "it's all about me".

Please don't tarry, but go and read the whole thing. It's a thinker.

Tragedy at Iraq the Model

Mohammed's family has been struck by the violence of criminals in Baghdad, and has lost a family member as a result.

Last week our little and peaceful family was struck by the tragic loss of one of its members in a savage criminal act of assassination. The member we lost was my sister's husband who lived with their two little children in our house.

Mohammed and his family have been courageously and diligently working toward a free, democratic, and safe Iraq since Saddam was removed from power three years ago. Please hold his family in prayer, and leave him a word of gratitude and comfort in his blog comments.

Heritage Quote

"A dying man can do nothing easy."

-- Benjamin Franklin (after his daughter asked him to move, 17 April 1790)

Army re-enlistment is up (again)

Unfortunately, this news does not square with the mainstream viewpoint, therefore it is under-reported.

It's in the extended entry.

April 14, 2006: In the last six months, the U.S. Army is seeing 15 percent more soldiers re-enlist than expected. This continues a trend that began in 2001. Every year since then, the rate at which existing soldiers have re-enlisted has increased. This despite the fact that 69 percent of the troops killed in Iraq have been from the army. New recruits continue to exceed join up at higher rates as well.

All this is extremely important, especially when there is a war going on. Experience saves lives in combat, and more of the most experienced troops are staying in. This means that, a decade from now, the army will have a large and experienced corps of senior NCOs. That, in turn, means the younger troops are likely to well trained and led.

The army makes a big thing, internally, about the number of troops re-enlisting, especially within combat units that are in Iraq or Afghanistan. Pictures of mass re-enlistments are published in military media, but the civilian media has generally ignored this phenomena. Also ignored, except by some local media interviewing locals who are in the army, is the positive attitude of the troops, especially those in combat units. The large number of re-enlistments occur because the troops believe they are making a difference, and winning. This is especially true for soldiers who have come back to Iraq on a second tour, and noted the improvements since the first tour.

The large re-enlistment bonuses, paid to some specialists, does get some media attention, as do those who did not re-enlist, as do the wounded and the families of the dead. But the attitudes of the troops themselves, the people closest to the war, are generally ignored by the mass media. If these attitudes are noted at all, they are dismissed as misguided, because the troops are too close to what is going on.

"General"-izing

OpinionJournal has published an interesting editorial and they do NOT call for Rumsfeld's head. A decidedly counter-culture approach, I know.

I reprinted it in the extended entry.

The Generals War
What's behind the attacks against Rumsfeld.

Monday, April 17, 2006 12:01 a.m. EDT

So when did Generals cease to be responsible for outcomes in war? We ask that question amid the latest calls by certain retired senior military officers for Donald Rumsfeld to resign over U.S. difficulties in Iraq.

Major General Charles H. Swannack Jr., for one, was quoted last week as saying the Defense Secretary's "absolute failures in managing the war against Saddam in Iraq" mean he is not "the right person" to continue leading the Pentagon. Mr. Swannack, who commanded the 82nd Airborne in Iraq, joins other ex-uniformed Iraq War critics such as former Centcom Commander Anthony Zinni and retired Army Major General John Batiste. But there's far more behind this firefight than Mr. Rumsfeld's performance.

Mr. Zinni in particular neither fought the Iraq War nor supported it in the first place. He is a longtime advocate of "realism" in the Middle East, which is fancy-speak for leaving Arab dictators alone in the name of "stability." What Mr. Zinni really opposes is President Bush's "forward strategy of freedom," not the means by which the Administration has waged the Iraq campaign.

---

As for those who've raised the issue of competence, we'd be more persuaded if they weren't so impossibly vague. If their critique is that Mr. Rumsfeld underestimated the Sunni insurgency, well, so did the CIA and military intelligence. Retired General Tommy Franks, who led and planned the campaign that toppled Saddam Hussein, took a victory lap after the invasion even as the insurgency gathered strength.

If their complaint is that Mr. Rumsfeld has since fought the insurgents with too few troops, well, what about current Centcom Commander John Abizaid? He is by far the most forceful advocate of the "small footprint" strategy--the idea that fewer U.S. troops mean less Iraqi resentment of occupation.

Our point here isn't to join the generals, real or armchair, in pointing fingers of blame for what has gone wrong in Iraq. Mistakes are made in every war; there's a reason the word "snafu" began as a military acronym whose meaning we can't reprint in a family newspaper. But if we're going to start assigning blame, then the generals themselves are going to have to assume much of it.

A recent article by former Army Colonel Douglas Macgregor for the Center for Defense Information details how the U.S. advance on Baghdad in March and April 2003 was slowed against Mr. Rumsfeld's wishes by overcautious commanders on the scene. That may have allowed Saddam and many of his supporters to escape to fight the insurgency. General Abizaid also resisted the first assault on Fallujah, in April 2004, which sent a signal of U.S. political weakness. We don't agree with all of Mr. Macgregor's points, but it is likely that these Rumsfeld critics are trying to write their own first, rough draft of historic blame shifting.

Our own view is that the worst mistakes in Iraq have been more political than military, especially in not establishing a provisional Iraqi government from the very start. Instead, the U.S. allowed itself to be portrayed as occupiers, a fact that the insurgency exploited. But the blame for that goes well beyond Mr. Rumsfeld--and would extend to then-National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice and to Mr. Bush himself.

Mr. Rumsfeld's largest mistake may have been giving L. Paul Bremer too free a hand to govern like a viceroy in 2003 and 2004 when a more rapid turnover of political power to Iraqis, and more rapid training of Iraqi forces, might have made a big difference. More than anything else, that unnecessary delay in Iraq's political and self-defense evolution has contributed to the current instability.

But that is for the historians to sort out. What matters now is doing what it takes to prevail in Iraq, setting up a new government and defeating the terrorists. How firing Mr. Rumsfeld will help in any of this, none of the critics say. They certainly aren't offering any better military strategy for victory.

More than likely, Mr. Rumsfeld's departure would create new problems, starting with a crisis of confidence in Iraq about American staying power. What do Mr. Rumsfeld's critics imagine Iraqis think as they watch former commanders assigning blame? And how would a Rumsfeld resignation contribute to the credible threat of force necessary to meet America's next major security challenge, which is Iran's attempt to build a nuclear bomb? Sacking the Defense Secretary mid-conflict would only reinforce the Iranian mullahs' belief that they have nothing to worry about because Americans have no stomach for a prolonged engagement in their part of the world.

---

The anti-Rumsfeld generals have a right to their opinion. But there's a reason the Founders provided for civilian control of the military, and a danger in military men using their presumed authority to push elected Administrations around. As for Democrats and their media allies, we can only admire their sudden new deference to the senior U.S. officer corps, which follows their strange new respect for the "intelligence community" they also once despised. U.S. military recruiters might not be welcome on Ivy League campuses, but they're heroes when they trash the Bush Administration.

Mr. Rumsfeld's departure has been loudly demanded in various quarters for a couple of years now, without much success, and on Friday Mr. Bush said he still has his every confidence. We suspect the President understands that most of those calling for Mr. Rumsfeld's head are really longing for his.

[Used with permission from OpinionJournal.com, a web site from Dow Jones & Company, Inc.]

Mixed news from Baghdad

Bill Roggio provides a view of the current situation in Baghdad.

The political process remains a major front in the war in Iraq as the disparate political parties struggle to form a unity government. Omar at Iraq the Model fears the current political haggling and possible appointment of two Dawa Party candidates for Prime Minister would delay the formation even longer, as they are even less desirable than Jaafari. Omar warns of the deterioration of the security situation in Baghdad, and explains 'neighborhood watches' are forming at the neighborhood level. But it is the politicians who are now seen as the problem . . .

Go read the whole thing.

Good news from Iraq

Another installment of good news from Iraq by Bill Crawford over at National Review Online.

Heritage Quote

"We have seen the mere distinction of color made in the most enlightened period of time, a ground of the most oppressive dominion ever exercised by man over man."

-- James Madison (speech at the Constitutional Convention, 6 June 1787)

Peace vs. pieces

AskMom has another excellent post up contrasting two religions. Here's an excerpt:

Regardless of what the diversity police say, rational people know there is a real difference between the religion of peace and the religion of pieces. Only one can be the dominant religion of the world and determine the future of mankind. The struggle is already on, the casualties are mounting, the fight will come to your hometown soon as it already has to London, Madrid, Paris, New York.

Will it be the religion of pieces, the religion of the delete key: Delete dignity and equal rights for women. Delete tolerance and respect. Delete mercy and compassion. Delete science and technology. Delete protected childhoods. Delete free markets. Delete unbelievers by whatever and every means available.

Or will we choose the religion of the reboot key: Get over yourself and reboot the whole program to God. Reboot your self-respect. Reboot your courage and commitment to the good and right. Reboot your innocence and virtue. Reboot your connection to your fellow man. Reboot your family, community and country. Reboot the future.

Go read the rest.

The pope's got it

Quoted in this article.

Attention has rightly been drawn to the danger of a clash of civilizations," said Benedict. "The danger is made more acute by organized terrorism, which has already spread over the whole planet. Its causes are many and complex, not least those to do with political ideology, combined with aberrant religious ideas. Terrorism does not hesitate to strike defenseless people, without discrimination, or to impose inhuman blackmail, causing panic among entire populations, in order to force political leaders to support the designs of the terrorists. No situation can justify such criminal activity, which covers the perpetrators with infamy, and it is all the more deplorable when it hides behind religion, thereby bringing the pure truth of God down to the level of the terrorists' own blindness and moral perversion.

-- Pope Benedict XVI

I wonder when those responsible for the security of Europe will get it, too?

A wind of change

Chresten Anderson, of The Brussels Journal, has published a report about a letter that 60 accredited experts in climate and related scientific disciplines wrote to the Canadian Prime Minister.

They wrote to propose that balanced, comprehensive public-consultation sessions be held so as to examine the scientific foundation of the […] government’s climate-change plans.

Why do they urge more scrutiny of the science used for the Kyoto accord?

“. . . observational evidence does not support today’s computer climate models, so there is little reason to trust model predictions of the future. Yet this is precisely what the United Nations did in creating and promoting Kyoto and still does in the alarmist forecasts on which Canada’s” as well as all of Europe’s “climate policies are based.”

The reports goes on to add:

The 60 experts, many of whom are European, go on to say that “even if the climate models were realistic, the environmental impact of Canada delaying implementation of Kyoto or other greenhouse-gas reduction schemes, pending completion of consultations, would be insignificant. Directing your government to convene balanced, open hearings as soon as possible would be a most prudent and responsible course of action.”

It sounds to me like we need to start looking very closely at the scientific basis for the Kyoto agreement.

I recommend you read the whole thing.

Good nukes

Patrick Moore, co-founder of Greenpeace, has changed his mind about nuclear power. Here's an excerpt:

Look at it this way: More than 600 coal-fired electric plants in the United States produce 36 percent of U.S. emissions -- or nearly 10 percent of global emissions -- of CO2, the primary greenhouse gas responsible for climate change. Nuclear energy is the only large-scale, cost-effective energy source that can reduce these emissions while continuing to satisfy a growing demand for power. And these days it can do so safely.

Go read the rest, he makes some good points.

Heritage Quote

"Another not unimportant consideration is, that the powers of the general government will be, and indeed must be, principally employed upon external objects, such as war, peace, negotiations with foreign powers, and foreign commerce. In its internal operations it can touch but few objects, except to introduce regulations beneficial to the commerce, intercourse, and other relations, between the states, and to lay taxes for the common good. The powers of the states, on the other hand, extend to all objects, which, in the ordinary course of affairs, concern the lives, and liberties, and property of the people, and the internal order, improvement, and prosperity of the state."

-- Joseph Story (Commentaries on the Constitution, 1833)

Common sense

Naomi Schaefer Riley does a good job in illustrating why it is smart for women to use common sense to avoid situations that could result in an assault.

I've reprinted it in the extended entry.

Ladies, You Should Know Better
How feminism wages war on common sense.

BY NAOMI SCHAEFER RILEY
Friday, April 14, 2006 12:01 a.m. EDT

Word came out this week that Darryl Littlejohn, the New York bouncer charged in the Feb. 25 rape and murder of graduate student Imette St. Guillen, has been linked by a DNA match to an October sexual assault on another woman. This latest revelation will no doubt (and rightly) lead to more angry cries about the failure of Mr. Littlejohn's parole officer to keep track of his violent charge and about the negligence of bar owners who do not check the backgrounds of their employees. But it should also serve to remind women, yet again, that it would be a good idea to use a little more common sense.

A police investigation has confirmed that on the night of her murder, Ms. St. Guillen was last seen in a bar, alone and drinking at 3 a.m. on the Lower East Side of Manhattan. It does not diminish Mr. Littlejohn's guilt or the tragedy of Ms. St. Guillen's death to note what more than a few of us have been thinking--that a 24-year-old woman should know better. Yet there are forces in our culture (writing letters to this newspaper even now) that find this suggestion offensive.

---

If you have attended college any time in the past 20 years, you will have heard that if a woman is forced against her will to have sex, it is "not her fault" and that women always have the right to "control their own bodies." Nothing could be truer. But the administrators who utter these sentiments and the feminists who inspire them rarely note which situations are conducive to keeping that control and which threaten it. They rarely discuss what to do to reduce the likelihood of a rape. Short of re-educating men, that is.

But just as sociopaths exist on the Lower East Side, they exist on college campuses. One or two might even be playing lacrosse for Duke University. The past few weeks have brought much hand-wringing about the alleged rape of a stripper at a team party in Durham, N.C. Understandably so: An email from one team member, just after the party, suggested that he was aroused by the idea of skinning a woman and killing her. Though the investigation is still under way, commentators have already blamed the event on everything from racism (the stripper was black, the accused players white) to the lack of moral instruction in colleges today.

Which explanation is most credible? Perhaps it doesn't matter. Whatever the problem is, it won't be fixed this year or possibly ever, even with best sorts of attitude adjustment. Perhaps the law of averages says that, with 14 million men in U.S. colleges today, a few of them will be rapists. What to do? For starters: Be wary of drunken house parties.

Now, readers may well assume that this advice is obvious and that no Duke coed would ever do what the stripper, by her own account, did: Upon finding 40 men at the party instead of the four for whom she agreed to "dance," she stayed and performed anyway. When the partygoers began shouting what she described as racial epithets and violent threats, she left but returned after an apology from a team member. A stripper with street smarts is apparently a Hollywood myth.

But smart women at top schools are engaging in behavior that is equally moronic. In another recent incident, a cadet at the Coast Guard Academy in New London, Conn., apparently got so drunk on two liters of wine and a couple of glasses of beer that she didn't know that she had had sex with a Naval Academy midshipman until he told a friend of hers the next day to get her the morning-after pill.

In a survey conducted two years ago by the Harvard School of Public Health, one in every 20 women reported having been raped in college during the previous seven months. Rape statistics are notoriously unreliable, but the kicker rings true: "Nearly three-quarters of those rapes happened when the victims were so intoxicated they were unable to consent or refuse." And those are just the ones who admitted it.

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The odd thing is that feminism may be partly to blame. Time magazine reporter Barrett Seaman explains that many of the college women he interviewed for his book "Binge" (2005) "saw drinking as a gender equity issue; they have as much right as the next guy to belly up to the bar." Leaving biology aside--most women's bodies can't take as much alcohol as men's--the fact of the matter is that men simply are not, to use the phrase of another generation, "taken advantage of" in the way women are.

Radical feminists used to warn that men are evil and dangerous. Andrea Dworkin made a career of it. But that message did not seem reconcilable with another core feminist notion--that women should be liberated from social constraints, especially those that require them to behave differently from men. So the first message was dropped and the second took over.

The radical-feminist message was of course wrongheaded--most men are harmless, even those who play lacrosse--but it could be useful as a worst-case scenario for young women today. There is an alternative, but to paraphrase Miss Manners: People who need to be told to use their common sense probably didn't have much to begin with.

Ms. Riley is The Wall Street Journal's deputy Taste page editor and the author of "God on the Quad."

[Used with permission from OpinionJournal.com, a web site from Dow Jones & Company, Inc.]

Posted by USAdave at 06:45 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Think about it

AskMom has a wonderful essay on God's Creations.

Having an all-American job isn't all bad. Mine gives me health coverage and routinely forces me out of my fleece blogging bathrobe, for instance. Sometimes I even learn something, although as with most jobs, the lessons seldom if ever have much to do with work.

Recently, questions about a string of small operational discrepancies brought this response from the boss: "no policies have been changed."

Whoa. Exactly what I thought a few days later as a friend and I meandered our way up the spectacular Columbia River Gorge. The three driving processes of life on earth, geologic churning, rain, and photosynthesis, were abundantly on display. The Pacific Coast is being pushed up from the earth's crust, creating more land. For millions of years, the sun has pulled water out of the Pacific Ocean, driven it on the western winds to these "new" hills, and dumped it down to run back where it came from.

In the process the water erodes the rock, making dirt which provides the chance for plants to grow. And grow they do, a lush and restful carpet of life in the spring mists. This interlocking system carries on relentlessly. Beautiful and cruel, powerful, elegant in its simplicity, the life of the earth goes on.

And that, of course, is God's whole point. The details change but the policies never do. The sun will rise and set, and in between it will evaporate water, create winds, and power the growth of plants, which feed and sustain the animals, including us.

As far as we know, plants have no cognitive life. They drive down their roots, reach their branches to the sky, make sugar from the sun without thought or choice. They make their seeds or shoots and die, having fulfilled their purpose innocently and unaware.

But people do have the power to reason and to choose. How sad that we so often use this power to fight among ourselves and against the very wisdom that created us. Perhaps some day we'll learn to be happy inside the policies that never change. We'll give praise to the One who made us, show respect for our earthly home, deliver care and loyalty to our tribe, seek to magnify the good and resist the evil in ourselves.

Mom told us. Moses brought the word down from the mountain. Sages in every age attempt to beat the obvious into our oblivious selfish heads. Even our bosses at work, younger than our children though they may be, have the power to enlighten. There is a program here and your personal whims and fancies are not it. You can be giddy for the moment, or discipline yourself for a contented lifetime.

Read the manual, because no policies have been changed.

[Hat tip to Gerard Van der Leun at American Digest.]

Easter message

Mark Townsend has an excellent essay on the Resurrection and liberty.

It's a good read, and quite appropriate for this particular day.

Have a blessed Easter

As Christ conquered death on that first Easter over 2000 years ago, he provided all of humanity with the way to make our lives new through Him.

On this most holy of days in the Christian faith, I would like to wish you and your family a most blessed Easter.

Heritage Quote

"May the father of all mercies scatter light, and not darkness, upon our paths, and make us in all our several vocations useful here, and in His own due time and way everlastingly happy. "

-- George Washington (letter to the Hebrew Congregation in Newport, August 1790)

Good neighbors

It seems that the threat of civil war in Iraq has motivated some of its neighbors into trying to help avert one.

April 13, 2006: The rising threat of a sectarian civil war appears to be helping to avert one. Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, and some other nations bordering Iraq are increasing measures to curb extremist support in Iraq, and are curbing assistance to groups responsible for actions that are feeding sectarian tensions. Apparently leaders in these countries have decided that an Iraqi civil war along sectarian lines will inevitably spill over onto their soil, as large numbers of refugees flee the fighting, while their own citizens become radicalized in support of co-religionists in Iraq, both events possibly fueling internal disorders. There are a lot of Shia Arabs in places like Saudi Arabia, Syria and Kuwait. Most of these Shia Arabs live near the Saudi and Kuwaiti oil fields. It has always been, at least since the oil was discovered, the policy of both nations, to keep their Shia happy, or at least quiet.

Meanwhile, Iraq is also serving as an experiment on how to create an Arab economy that will flourish. Since World War II, the Arab world has lagged the rest of the planet in economic growth. For example, 300 million Arabs, and all that oil, generate less economic activity than Spain, and its population of 40 million. The main problem has been bad government. Too many dictators, and too much government restrictions on the economy. Too much corruption and waste. Even higher oil prices don't help, as it simply provides more money to be wasted on consumption, rather than business investment.

One of the things that has been changed in Iraq is the way the economy is regulated. Since Saddam was tossed out in 2003, the economy has been governed by Western rules. As a result, GDP per capita doubled by the end of 2005, and the GDP is expected to grow another 49 percent by 2008. All this despite continued attacks by Sunni Arab rebels on oil facilities and other economic targets. It's much easier to start a business in Iraq now, even though there's still a lot of corruption. The big change is that now the corruption is illegal, and there is even progress in prosecuting the government officials who take bribes or try to shake down businessmen. Lebanon is the only other Arab state to run its economy in a Western fashion, and they have thrived. However, Lebanon also interrupted their success story with a fifteen year (1975-90) civil war. Iraqis are well aware of that, and have no illusions about what happens if everyone does not get along. Another thing haunting Iraqis is the most successful economy in the region; Israel. This is also the country most like the economically successful Western states. Iraqis can't really talk about it openly, but the "Israeli Model" is discussed. A real democracy, peace at home, a flourishing economy, a powerful military, and nuclear weapons. Well, no one said it was a perfect model for Iraq.

[Hat tip to Glenn Reynolds at Instapundit.]

News from Afghanistan

John Tammes has picked up the torch and is assembling links on news from Afghanistan.

In light of the Taliban offensive going on in Pakistan and Afghanistan, this provides an additional source of news about the region that may provide more insight into those events.

The immigration equation

Darleen, ovr at Darleen's Place does a good job of discussing the immigration problem that we find ourselves in. She has some pertinent experiences that color her thinking (the right color, I think):

I can't necessarily blame even these illegals for coming here. An almost hopelessly corrupt and arrogant Mexican government has practically driven them over the border in order to have an ever increasing cash flow back into their pockets. This is where I hold American employers of illegals much more culpable in the equation.

I will confess that some of my passion on this subject is driven by what I have grown up with and what I witness working within the judicial system. Add to that what my daughter in emergency medical services in an area with a large percentage of illegals shares with me.

Highly recommended.

Heritage Quote

"A free people [claim] their rights as derived from the laws of nature, and not as the gift of their chief magistrate."

-- Thomas Jefferson (Rights of British America, 1774)

Economic future is bright

Jack Kemp has an op-ed up at Townhall wherein he advocates extending the tax cuts. Forever, I think. Here's an excerpt:

Reminder to the Republicans in Congress and to the White House speech writers, as well: Stop worrying about a so-called post-DeLay vacuum, stop worrying about '06 or '08 elections. Just get back to a pro-growth, pro-trade liberalization, pro-ownership society in which every child and family in America can own a share of the American dream and a stake in America's future.

I truly think that he is pointing toward the right path. It is up to us, and our elected representatives in Washington, to march down that path.

I'm willing . . . how about you?

Tribute to a hero

Mark Alexander writes a fond farewell to one of our WW2 heros who has recently passed on. The tribute starts with:

Last week marked the passing of yet another friend, neighbor and Patriot from the Greatest Generation.

Desmond T. Doss was reared in a religious tradition that forbade him from taking up arms. When WWII began, he declined a religious exemption that would have allowed him to continue working in a Virginia shipyard and became an Army medic. He was classified as a "conscientious objector," though he preferred the term "conscientious cooperator" because he never refused to serve his country.

"I felt like it was an honor to serve God and country," said Desmond. "I didn't want to be known as a draft dodger, but I sure didn't know what I was getting into." He never picked up a rifle, though he found himself in the heat of combat in places like Leyte and Guam after being sent to the Pacific. But it was his actions in May of 1945, near Urasoe on Okinawa, that really distinguish this small, lean and singular man.

Bravo Zulu, Mr. Doss. And thank you.

Bad news from Pakistan

Liberal civilization, favoring individual rights and democracy, is being threatened in many parts of the world. Bill Roggio, over at The Fourth Rail has a post up about the latest bombing in Karachi, Pakistan. And he discusses other aspects of the situation in that nation -- and they are quite unsettling:

Pakistan's dysfunctional state of affairs only worsens. Various agencies in the North West Frontier Province have fallen to the Taliban. The Taliban is basically offering the Pakistani Army a truce in North Waziristan. Pakistan has been inclined to accept such offers in the past. The banned Sipah-e-Sahaba Pakistan (SSP) recently held a 5,000 man strong rally calling for the establishment of "a global caliphate, beginning with Pakistan," and according the the Daily Times, a leader of the SSP was quoted as saying "The concept of nation state is an obstacle in the way of the establishment of Khilafat (Caliphate). We will start the establishment of Khilafat in Pakistan and then will do so across the world." And the Pakistani government recently declared the Baluchistan Liberation Army a "terrorist entity," foreshadowing another bloody confrontation in the large natural resource-rich province in the southwest corner of the country.

Unbelief

Cal Thomas has an excellent op-ed up about how Christian beliefs are continually being challenged -- especially during Christmas and Easter. Here's how he starts:

It happens twice a year, at Christmas and Easter.

The newsweeklies sometimes carry cover stories. The newspapers print items calling the reason for these seasons into question.

This Easter is no exception, but the intensity level seems to have increased.

It boils down to faith. I strongly recommend you read the rest of his editorial -- regardless of your faith.

Heritage Quote

"The passions, therefore, not the reason, of the public would sit in judgment. But it is the reason, alone, of the public, that ought to control and regulate the government. The passions ought to be controlled and regulated by the government."

-- James Madison (Federalist No. 49, 5 February 1788)

Genocide in the Sudan

And a call to action by a man who knows what genocide really looks like.

It's in the extended entry -- and it's not a pleasant subject, either.

Darfur
In Sudan, the world ignores Rwanda's lessons.

BY PAUL RUSESABAGINA
Sunday, April 9, 2006 12:01 a.m. EDT

History shows us that genocides can happen only if four important conditions are in place. There must be the cover of a war. Ethnic grievances must be manipulated and exaggerated. Ordinary citizens must be deputized by their government to become executioners. And the rest of the world must be persuaded to look away and do nothing. This last is the most shameful of all, especially so because genocide is happening again right now in the Darfur region of Sudan, and the world community has done precious little to stop the killings.

What is happening in Darfur is exactly what happened in my home country of Rwanda, which was left to choke on its own blood from April to July of 1994.

The United Nations took virtually no action during the genocide. A detachment of well-equipped peacekeepers, made up of less than one-twentieth of the American troops now stationed in Iraq, could have easily stopped the killings without risk and sent the powerful message that the world would no longer tolerate mass murders of civilians, a real expression of the phrase "Never Again." But this simple act was deemed, then and now, to be somehow beyond the power of the United Nations, the United States, NATO, the European community and everybody else with the real power to stop another holocaust.

---

There are now about 7,000 soldiers from the African Union stationed in Sudan, which is mostly an exercise in public relations. They lack helicopters, jeeps and firepower. More importantly, they lack a sense of purpose. There are no clear rules of engagement and many of the soldiers appear more interested in collecting their per diem payments than inserting themselves between the government-backed Janjaweed militia and their victims in the farming villages. The African Union recently said it will stay into September, and a handover to the United Nations may take place at that point. By that time, the genocide will have lasted for three years with a likely half-million dead, or more.

To be sure, part of the debate involves the fear of an Iraqi-style campaign of insurgence against any humanitarian or peacekeeping force deemed "too Western" by the Sudanese government and the Janjaweed thugs. But we should not let ourselves be cowed by these threats. Will we allow murderers to intimidate us away from doing the right thing and saving lives?

Historically, I am sorry to say, the answer has been "yes." When modern genocide has loomed, the United Nations has shown more concern for not offending the sovereignty of one of its member nations, even as monstrosities take place within its borders. Yet "national sovereignty" is often a euphemism for the pride of dictators. Darfur is just such a case. The world cannot afford this kind of appeasement any longer.

---

The real lesson here is that the United Nations is in need of not only reform but also a basic rethinking of its peacekeeping philosophy. World governments must agree that the extinction of a race is a crime worth stopping at any cost, and back up this sentiment with action. And the U.N. Security Council must create a tool that it has lacked for far too long--a small multinational "rapid response" force which can quickly airlift tanks, jeeps, helicopters and troops to spots where the evidence of genocide is overwhelming.

Such a force would not require endless dickering, delicacy and will-testing; it should be made up of no more than 10,000 troops and deployed only in extreme situations, because its real power is not in its gun barrels--it is in the message to genocidal regimes that the world will refuse to overlook atrocities. This would have stopped the Rwanda tragedy from happening, probably without a shot being fired. It could now stop Darfur from getting worse, with similar ease.

History offers us another lesson about genocides: The apologies, recriminations and resolutions of Never Again usually begin after the genocide is safely finished and it becomes safe once more to mourn the lack of action. That should not happen this time. The proposed extinction of an entire race should now be considered an override clause to the rule of national sovereignty. Rwanda is over and everybody mourns it comfortably. We ought not to wait until Darfur is over to start saying Never Again yet again.

Mr. Rusesabagina is the author, with Tom Zoellner, of "An Ordinary Man," published this week by Viking. The film "Hotel Rwanda," was based on his personal story as a hotel manager who saved the lives of numerous Tutsis by offering them refuge in the Hotel Milles Collines in Kigali, Rwanda. A recipient of the National Civil Rights Museum's 2005 Freedom Award, he lives in Brussels.

[Used with permission from OpinionJournal.com, a web site from Dow Jones & Company, Inc.]

Climate change

Global warming seemingly is an agreed-upon fact -- many contend that mankind has pumped loads of CO₂ into the atmosphere and things are beginning to warm up as a result.

I have read several papers by climatologists who refute some of the underpinning "facts" that global warming alarmists have been pointing to, and I have posted links to some of them over the last year, or so.

Richard Lindzen is Alfred P. Sloan Professor of Atmospheric Science at MIT, and he has published a commentary at OpinionJournal wherein he describes a climate of fear and intimidation that is suppressing dissenting views concerning the "global warming paradigm". Here's an excerpt:

Scientists who dissent from the alarmism have seen their grant funds disappear, their work derided, and themselves libeled as industry stooges, scientific hacks or worse. Consequently, lies about climate change gain credence even when they fly in the face of the science that supposedly is their basis.

I've reprinted the article in the extended entry. You'll find it eye-opening.

Climate of Fear
Global-warming alarmists intimidate dissenting scientists into silence.

BY RICHARD LINDZEN
Wednesday, April 12, 2006 12:01 a.m. EDT

There have been repeated claims that this past year's hurricane activity was another sign of human-induced climate change. Everything from the heat wave in Paris to heavy snows in Buffalo has been blamed on people burning gasoline to fuel their cars, and coal and natural gas to heat, cool and electrify their homes. Yet how can a barely discernible, one-degree increase in the recorded global mean temperature since the late 19th century possibly gain public acceptance as the source of recent weather catastrophes? And how can it translate into unlikely claims about future catastrophes?

The answer has much to do with misunderstanding the science of climate, plus a willingness to debase climate science into a triangle of alarmism. Ambiguous scientific statements about climate are hyped by those with a vested interest in alarm, thus raising the political stakes for policy makers who provide funds for more science research to feed more alarm to increase the political stakes. After all, who puts money into science--whether for AIDS, or space, or climate--where there is nothing really alarming? Indeed, the success of climate alarmism can be counted in the increased federal spending on climate research from a few hundred million dollars pre-1990 to $1.7 billion today. It can also be seen in heightened spending on solar, wind, hydrogen, ethanol and clean coal technologies, as well as on other energy-investment decisions.

But there is a more sinister side to this feeding frenzy. Scientists who dissent from the alarmism have seen their grant funds disappear, their work derided, and themselves libeled as industry stooges, scientific hacks or worse. Consequently, lies about climate change gain credence even when they fly in the face of the science that supposedly is their basis.

---

To understand the misconceptions perpetuated about climate science and the climate of intimidation, one needs to grasp some of the complex underlying scientific issues. First, let's start where there is agreement. The public, press and policy makers have been repeatedly told that three claims have widespread scientific support: Global temperature has risen about a degree since the late 19th century; levels of CO2 in the atmosphere have increased by about 30% over the same period; and CO2 should contribute to future warming. These claims are true. However, what the public fails to grasp is that the claims neither constitute support for alarm nor establish man's responsibility for the small amount of warming that has occurred. In fact, those who make the most outlandish claims of alarm are actually demonstrating skepticism of the very science they say supports them. It isn't just that the alarmists are trumpeting model results that we know must be wrong. It is that they are trumpeting catastrophes that couldn't happen even if the models were right as justifying costly policies to try to prevent global warming.

If the models are correct, global warming reduces the temperature differences between the poles and the equator. When you have less difference in temperature, you have less excitation of extratropical storms, not more. And, in fact, model runs support this conclusion. Alarmists have drawn some support for increased claims of tropical storminess from a casual claim by Sir John Houghton of the U.N.'s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) that a warmer world would have more evaporation, with latent heat providing more energy for disturbances. The problem with this is that the ability of evaporation to drive tropical storms relies not only on temperature but humidity as well, and calls for drier, less humid air. Claims for starkly higher temperatures are based upon there being more humidity, not less--hardly a case for more storminess with global warming.

So how is it that we don't have more scientists speaking up about this junk science? It's my belief that many scientists have been cowed not merely by money but by fear. An example: Earlier this year, Texas Rep. Joe Barton issued letters to paleoclimatologist Michael Mann and some of his co-authors seeking the details behind a taxpayer-funded analysis that claimed the 1990s were likely the warmest decade and 1998 the warmest year in the last millennium. Mr. Barton's concern was based on the fact that the IPCC had singled out Mr. Mann's work as a means to encourage policy makers to take action. And they did so before his work could be replicated and tested--a task made difficult because Mr. Mann, a key IPCC author, had refused to release the details for analysis. The scientific community's defense of Mr. Mann was, nonetheless, immediate and harsh. The president of the National Academy of Sciences--as well as the American Meteorological Society and the American Geophysical Union--formally protested, saying that Rep. Barton's singling out of a scientist's work smacked of intimidation.

All of which starkly contrasts to the silence of the scientific community when anti-alarmists were in the crosshairs of then-Sen. Al Gore. In 1992, he ran two congressional hearings during which he tried to bully dissenting scientists, including myself, into changing our views and supporting his climate alarmism. Nor did the scientific community complain when Mr. Gore, as vice president, tried to enlist Ted Koppel in a witch hunt to discredit anti-alarmist scientists--a request that Mr. Koppel deemed publicly inappropriate. And they were mum when subsequent articles and books by Ross Gelbspan libelously labeled scientists who differed with Mr. Gore as stooges of the fossil-fuel industry.

Sadly, this is only the tip of a non-melting iceberg. In Europe, Henk Tennekes was dismissed as research director of the Royal Dutch Meteorological Society after questioning the scientific underpinnings of global warming. Aksel Winn-Nielsen, former director of the U.N.'s World Meteorological Organization, was tarred by Bert Bolin, first head of the IPCC, as a tool of the coal industry for questioning climate alarmism. Respected Italian professors Alfonso Sutera and Antonio Speranza disappeared from the debate in 1991, apparently losing climate-research funding for raising questions.

And then there are the peculiar standards in place in scientific journals for articles submitted by those who raise questions about accepted climate wisdom. At Science and Nature, such papers are commonly refused without review as being without interest. However, even when such papers are published, standards shift. When I, with some colleagues at NASA, attempted to determine how clouds behave under varying temperatures, we discovered what we called an "Iris Effect," wherein upper-level cirrus clouds contracted with increased temperature, providing a very strong negative climate feedback sufficient to greatly reduce the response to increasing CO2. Normally, criticism of papers appears in the form of letters to the journal to which the original authors can respond immediately. However, in this case (and others) a flurry of hastily prepared papers appeared, claiming errors in our study, with our responses delayed months and longer. The delay permitted our paper to be commonly referred to as "discredited." Indeed, there is a strange reluctance to actually find out how climate really behaves. In 2003, when the draft of the U.S. National Climate Plan urged a high priority for improving our knowledge of climate sensitivity, the National Research Council instead urged support to look at the impacts of the warming--not whether it would actually happen.

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Alarm rather than genuine scientific curiosity, it appears, is essential to maintaining funding. And only the most senior scientists today can stand up against this alarmist gale, and defy the iron triangle of climate scientists, advocates and policymakers.

M. Lindzen is Alfred P. Sloan Professor of Atmospheric Science at MIT.

[Used with permission from OpinionJournal.com, a web site from Dow Jones & Company, Inc.]

Welfare state

Michael Barone has a good op-ed at Townhall in which he discusses the slippery slope of entitlements in America. Here's how he starts:

"This much is certain: The welfare state as we know it cannot survive." So Charles Murray writes in The Wall Street Journal in an article on his new book, "In Our Hands."

"No serious student of entitlements thinks that we can let federal spending on Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid rise from its current 9 percent of gross domestic product to the 28 percent of GDP that it will consume in 2050 if past growth rates continue."

Scary? It is to me. Now go read the rest. We have got to do something about entitlements in this country -- or we'll end up like France.

Iraqi economic news

. . . is guardedly optimistic.

I've reprinted the article (originally published at The American Spectator, and re-published at OpinionJournal) in the extended entry.

Bullish on Baghdad
The Iraqi economy shows signs of strength.

BY ROBERT T. MCLEAN
Tuesday, April 11, 2006 12:01 a.m. EDT

A key to success in Iraq will be the ability of the Iraqi people and coalition members to transform the country's economy from a state of ruin to a model for prosperity in the Middle East. Iraqis with jobs and opportunities are less likely to join or sympathize with terrorist and insurgent efforts, focusing more of their energies on improving their individual situation than on political developments that could be interpreted as a danger to their sect. This outcome parallels one of the Bush administration's original goals of the invasion in establishing a bridgehead for reform in the Middle East, while reducing the potential of a drawn out and costly American presence in Iraq. Thus, while the vast majority of attention has been placed on the political violence plaguing Iraq, the economic development of the country deserves additional scrutiny and provides reason for guarded optimism.

As the Iraq campaign continues to be labeled a disaster by political opponents of the Bush administration at home, by those suspicious of the United States abroad, and increasingly by conservatives who call themselves realists yet have no realistic plan for Iraq, positive indicators about the Iraqi economy are not too hard to find. Though the economy expanded by an unimpressive 2.6% in real terms in 2005, that figure is scheduled to reach over 10% this year, as reported by the International Monetary Fund. Dawn Liberi, director of the U.S. Agency for International Development in Iraq, noted in February that per capita income has increased from $500 at the time of the invasion in 2003 to $1,500 today.

Despite the charge by Anthony Cordesman of the Center for Strategic and International Studies that American efforts to improve the devastated Iraqi economy "have largely been a wasteful, and highly ideological and bureaucratic failure," more than 30,000 new businesses have been registered with USAID in the past seven months alone. While the bureaucracy undoubtedly has been responsible for waste and inefficiency--not something uncommon with these types of establishments--ideological efforts to introduce conservative principles into the Iraqi economy seem as little cause for alarm.

In 2004 a modest 5% national tariff rate was imposed to help fund reconstruction costs. A flat corporate tax rate of 15% was applied by the Coalition Provisional Authority and foreign investment restrictions were extremely limited, with the exclusion of national resources such as the country's oil fields. After years of sanctions and isolation--with the exception of Saddam Hussein's corrupt enterprises--the above noted efforts have been relatively successful in opening up the nation's economy.

As Niall Ferguson persuasively advanced in his work "Colossus: The Price of America's Empire": "It has been convincingly shown that one of the principal reasons for widening international inequality in the 1970s and 1980s was in fact protectionism in less developed countries." Citing a 1995 publication by the Brookings Institution, Mr. Ferguson supports the claim by illustrating that when the per capita GDPs of developing countries were contrasted, it was discovered that "closed" economies grew at an annual rate of only 0.7% while "open" countries expanded by a healthy 4.5%. The Bush administration, therefore, has not merely steered the Iraqi economy in a direction of a liberal market economy based on ideology, but has done so under a historical precedent of success.

Historical precedents are also relevant in examining how to establish long-term stability and productivity. An influential piece by Stanley Kurtz titled "Democratic Imperialism: A Blueprint" that appeared in Policy Review in April 2003 predicted a protracted but ultimately beneficial occupation of Iraq. The paradigm, according to Mr. Kurtz, was to follow the lessons of the British imperial experience in India. Of principle importance to establishing a peaceful, democratic, and prosperous nation is the development of a sound education system.

Although coming well short of suggesting a similar dawdling reform process, Mr. Kurtz professes that "the educational policies set up by liberal British administrators 100 years before independence had laid the foundation for democratic self-rule in India." Whereas the British sought to hold on to their colonial possession throughout much of their rule of India, the United States wants nothing more than to return home. Thus, the success in the construction of schools, the training of more than 36,000 teachers, and the provision of nearly nine million textbooks should prove to be a valuable investment for the political and economic future of Iraq.

---

Of the most disingenuous, or simply ignorant, charges that were leveled prior to, during and following the spring 2003 invasion of Iraq was that the war was conceived to rob the Iraqis of their oil reserves. This imprudent accusation has largely disappeared because few have the audaciousness to carry on this conspiratorial paranoia. However, the administration's reluctance to become thoroughly engaged in the Iraqi oil industry--a result of domestic and foreign critics--has made things unnecessarily difficult for the Washington and Baghdad alike. Put simply, the Bush administration needs to focus more on Iraq's oil.

One of the first actions taken by the United States following the ouster of Saddam Hussein was the nearly immediate transfer of sovereignty of Iraq's oil industry back to the people of Iraq. Even after handing the key to nation's wealth back to Iraqis, the United States has sought little influence in oil policy-making decisions. When asked by the Baghdad based daily Al-Adalah about American and British interference in the Iraqi oil industry, former oil minister Dr. Thamir al-Ghadban responded:

No doubt the U.S., British and other forces are here in Iraq. This is an accomplished fact and known to everybody. But throughout my experience after the fall of the regime until I left the ministry I can affirm that no person or side tried to influence on the approach that we adopted in the oil policy. Where is the influence?

Attacks on oil pipelines have made deliveries north to Turkey virtually unattainable, limiting Iraq's near-term export potential. Additionally, the lack of investment from Saddam Hussein's regime left the technology and infrastructure of the country's oil industry in desperate need of modernization. The goal articulated by the Bureau of International Information Programs of the U.S. State Department is for Iraqis to expand production to more than five million barrels a day from the 2.1 million that is currently extracted from the country's vast reserves. A dedicated commitment through investment and technological assistance from the United States is necessary to help the Iraqi government generate revenue and decrease dependence on American assistance. This is entirely achievable, and as attacks on pipelines decrease, the oil industry will become a boon to an increasingly diverse Iraqi economy.

As with the oil industry, other significant problems needlessly obstruct potential economic growth. As noted by Rashid Ashraf of the Financial Times: "More than half of the families in Iraq still receive a monthly food parcel of basic supplies. This legacy of the oil-for-food programme in the long years of sanctions is expensive, and distorts the market." Socialist prescriptions such as these were necessary under the sanctions regime to keep millions of Iraqis from starving, but are no longer appropriate. As the economy continues to advance, free market principles will rightfully continue to be encouraged by the United States as a means to facilitate those gains.

The new Iraqi dinar, the official currency introduced in July 2003, has become a stable and unifying presence in the economy of Iraq. The banking sector is emerging as a powerful economic staple now that the Baathists no longer corrupt and distort the system. A similar development has occurred with the 2004 introduction of the Iraq Stock Exchange, as it too is free from the corruption that beleaguered the Hussein-era Baghdad Stock Exchange. About 90 stocks are listed, and market capitalization grew from $1.15 billion at the end of 2004 to $2.14 billion at the same time last year. However, fear of foreign domination of the market has kept it closed to international investors. An Iraqi investor noted to Agence France-Presse late last February that the best way to increase the capital flowing into the Iraq Stock Exchange is to "open the market to foreign investors and get money into the market." This will happen over time.

Some foreigners, however, are already bullish on Iraq. In fact, United States and other coalition forces serving in Iraq are betting on an economically successful future for Baghdad. Many American troops are putting their money into purchasing the new national currency in hopes that a secure and prosperous Iraq will emerge. The fact that they are already not paid enough for the work that they do and that they are using their hard-earned paychecks and intimate knowledge of the Iraqi environment to purchase a share of Iraq's future speaks volumes about the potential for a forthcoming significant economic expansion in Iraq. Perhaps the not-too-distant future will teach the impatient that, with time, large returns can come from a substantial investment.

Mr. McLean is a research associate at the Center for Security Policy in Washington. This article appeared on the Web site of The American Spectator.

Heritage Quote

"I am principled against this kind of traffic in the human species...and to disperse the families I have an aversion."

-- George Washington (letter to Robert Lewis, 18 August 1799)

Health care reform

Mitt Romney, Governor of Massachusetts, has a column up at OpinionJournal about Massachusetts new approach to health care. Here's how it starts:

Only weeks after I was elected governor, Tom Stemberg, the founder and former CEO of Staples, stopped by my office. He told me, "If you really want to help people, find a way to get everyone health insurance." I replied that would mean raising taxes and a Clinton-style government takeover of health care. He insisted: "You can find a way."

I believe that we have. Every uninsured citizen in Massachusetts will soon have affordable health insurance and the costs of health care will be reduced. And we will need no new taxes, no employer mandate and no government takeover to make this happen.

It sounds intriguing, to say the least. And it can be adapted to meet other states' needs, as well.

I've reprinted the article in the extended entry.

Health Care for Everyone?
We've found a way.

BY MITT ROMNEY
Tuesday, April 11, 2006 12:01 a.m. EDT

BOSTON--Only weeks after I was elected governor, Tom Stemberg, the founder and former CEO of Staples, stopped by my office. He told me, "If you really want to help people, find a way to get everyone health insurance." I replied that would mean raising taxes and a Clinton-style government takeover of health care. He insisted: "You can find a way."

I believe that we have. Every uninsured citizen in Massachusetts will soon have affordable health insurance and the costs of health care will be reduced. And we will need no new taxes, no employer mandate and no government takeover to make this happen.

---

When I took up Tom's challenge, I assembled a team from business, academia and government and asked them first to find out who was uninsured, and why. What they found was surprising. Some 20% of the state's uninsured population qualified for Medicaid but had never signed up. So we built and installed an Internet portal for our hospitals and clinics: When uninsured individuals show up for treatment, we enter their data online. If they qualify for Medicaid, they're enrolled.

Another 40% of the uninsured were earning enough to buy insurance but had chosen not to do so. Why? Because it is expensive, and because they know that if they become seriously ill, they will get free or subsidized treatment at the hospital. By law, emergency care cannot be withheld. Why pay for something you can get free?

Of course, while it may be free for them, everyone else ends up paying the bill, either in higher insurance premiums or taxes. The solution we came up with was to make private health insurance much more affordable. Insurance reforms now permit policies with higher deductibles, higher copayments, coinsurance, provider networks and fewer mandated benefits like in vitro fertilization--and our insurers have committed to offer products nearly 50% less expensive. With private insurance finally affordable, I proposed that everyone must either purchase a product of their choice or demonstrate that they can pay for their own health care. It's a personal responsibility principle.

Some of my libertarian friends balk at what looks like an individual mandate. But remember, someone has to pay for the health care that must, by law, be provided: Either the individual pays or the taxpayers pay. A free ride on government is not libertarian.

Another group of uninsured citizens in Massachusetts consisted of working people who make too much to qualify for Medicaid, but not enough to afford health-care insurance. Here the answer is to provide a subsidy so they can purchase a private policy. The premium is based on ability to pay: One pays a higher amount, along a sliding scale, as one's income is higher. The big question we faced, however, was where the money for the subsidy would come from. We didn't want higher taxes; but we did have about $1 billion already in the system through a long-established uninsured-care fund that partially reimburses hospitals for free care. The fund is raised through an annual assessment on insurance providers and hospitals, plus contributions from the state and federal governments.

To determine if the $1 billion would be enough, Jonathan Gruber of MIT built an econometric model of the population, and with input from insurers, my in-house team crunched the numbers. Again, the result surprised us: We needed far less than the $1 billion for the subsidies. One reason is that this population is healthier than we had imagined. Instead of single parents, most were young single males, educated and in good health. And again, because health insurance will now be affordable and subsidized, we insist that everyone purchase health insurance from one of our private insurance companies.

And so, all Massachusetts citizens will have health insurance. It's a goal Democrats and Republicans share, and it has been achieved by a bipartisan effort, through market reforms.

We have received some helpful enhancements. The Heritage Foundation helped craft a mechanism, a "connector," allowing citizens to purchase health insurance with pretax dollars, even if their employer makes no contribution. The connector enables pretax payments, simplifies payroll deduction, permits prorated employer contributions for part-time employees, reduces insurer marketing costs, and makes it efficient for policies to be entirely portable. Because small businesses may use the connector, it gives them even greater bargaining power than large companies. Finally, health insurance is on a level playing field.

Two other features of the plan reduce the rate of health-care inflation. Medical transparency provisions will allow consumers to compare the quality, track record and cost of hospitals and providers; given deductibles and coinsurance, these consumers will have the incentive and the information for market forces to influence behavior. Also, electronic health records are in the works, which will reduce medical errors and lower costs.

---

My Democratic counterparts have added an annual $295 per-person fee charged to employers that do not contribute toward insurance premiums for any of their employees. The fee is unnecessary and probably counterproductive, and so I will take corrective action.

How much of our health-care plan applies to other states? A lot. Instead of thinking that the best way to cover the uninsured is by expanding Medicaid, they can instead reform insurance.

Will it work? I'm optimistic, but time will tell. A great deal will depend on the people who implement the program. Legislative adjustments will surely be needed along the way. One great thing about federalism is that states can innovate, demonstrate and incorporate ideas from one another. Other states will learn from our experience and improve on what we've done. That's the way we'll make health care work for everyone.

Mr. Romney is governor of Massachusetts.

[Used with permission from OpinionJournal.com, a web site from Dow Jones & Company, Inc.]

Rumsfeld on Iraq

Donald Rumsfeld has an essay up about what we've gained in three years in Iraq. Here's an excerpt:

Though there are those who will never be convinced that the cause in Iraq is worth the costs, anyone looking realistically at the world today -- at the terrorist threat we face -- can come to only one conclusion: Now is the time for resolve, not retreat.

Read the rest.

U.S. economy

Jason, over at TexasRainmaker has an excellent summative post on America's thriving economy.

1. Real GDP increased 3.5 percent in 2005. The economy has been growing for 17 straight quarters, and the composite index of leading indicators has risen the past 6 months, indicating continued growth.

2. Consumer Confidence rose to 107.2 in March - the highest level in nearly four years.

3. Inflation remains contained.

4. Over the past year, employment has increased in 48 states.

5. Real disposable incomes have risen 2.2 percent over the past 12 months.

6. Real household net worth is at an all-time high of $52.1 trillion, and the median net worth of American households rose 1.5 percent between 2001 and 2004.

7. Real consumer spending has increased 3.2 percent over the past year, and nominal retail sales are up 6.7 percent over the past 12 months.

8. College Graduates face the best job market in five years.

9. Manufacturing activity grew for the 34th consecutive month in March.

10. Non-manufacturing business activity grew for the 36th consecutive month in March.

All this has been happening amongst predictions of gloom, doom, and dire consequences from the political Left. I'm just grateful that Bush and the Republicans in Congress didn't listen to the naysayers . . .

I recommend you read the rest of Jason's post.

Heritage Quote

"Now is the seedtime of continental union, faith and honor. The least fracture now, will be like a name engraved with the point of a pin on the tender rind of a young oak; the wound would enlarge with the tree, and posterity read in it full grown characters."

-- Thomas Paine (Common Sense, 1776)

Families United

Families United is dedicated to supporting our troops and their families. It is a worthwhile endeavor and I encourage you to support it.

They are asking for your help:

This Week is Iraqi Liberation Week.

Families United Mission is sending a letter to the media, reminding them of our fallen heroes and our troops' accomplishments in the War on Terror.

We want the media to give Iraqi Liberation Week the coverage it deserves.

Click here to add your name to our letter

Proof positive

Captain Ed provides us proof that Saddam Hussein was actively recruiting terrorists to attack American targets.

And he observes:

Interesting that no one in the media, or really all that much in the blogosphere, seems to be picking this one up ....

Interesting indeed.

Global warming cooling

Professor Bob Carter, a geologist at James Cook University, Queensland, who is engaged in paleoclimate research has published an article in the Opinion Telegraph that discusses the problem with global warming -- there isn't one.

For many years now, human-caused climate change has been viewed as a large and urgent problem. In truth, however, the biggest part of the problem is neither environmental nor scientific, but a self-created political fiasco. Consider the simple fact, drawn from the official temperature records of the Climate Research Unit at the University of East Anglia, that for the years 1998-2005 global average temperature did not increase (there was actually a slight decrease, though not at a rate that differs significantly from zero).

Yes, you did read that right. And also, yes, this eight-year period of temperature stasis did coincide with society's continued power station and SUV-inspired pumping of yet more carbon dioxide into the atmosphere.

Recommended reading regardless of whether you weigh in on the hysterical side of the argument, or the more conservative side. These two posts illustrate that there is no real consensus on global climate trends.

Sunrise

BBC News has published an article in which scientists BBC News | Sci/Tech | attribute global warming to an increase in the energy output of our sun.

Climate changes such as global warming may be due to changes in the sun rather than to the release of greenhouse gases on Earth.

Climatologists and astronomers speaking at the American Association for the Advancement of Science meeting in Philadelphia say the present warming may be unusual - but a mini ice age could soon follow.

The sun provides all the energy that drives our climate, but it is not the constant star it might seem.

It makes for some interesting reading.

Heritage Quote

"Freedom had been hunted round the globe; reason was considered as rebellion; and the slavery of fear had made men afraid to think. But such is the irresistible nature of truth, that all it asks, and all it wants, is the liberty of appearing."

-- Thomas Paine (Rights of Man, 1791)

Immigration done right

Charles Krauthammer has an op-ed up at washingtonpost.com that outlines a good two-step approach to immigration reform.

This is no time for mushy compromise. A solution requires two acts of national will: the ugly act of putting up a fence and the supremely generous act of absorbing as ultimately full citizens those who broke our laws to come to America.

It's really very simple, so why can't our representatives in Washington get it right?

Heritage Quote

"The most sacred of the duties of a government [is] to do equal and impartial justice to all citizens."

-- Thomas Jefferson (Note in Destutt de Tracy, 1816)

What I fear will happen

Americans don't like long wars. I fear our war on terror will fail for precisely that reason.

The United States cannot lose the war on terror militarily. Our soldiers are too good, too well-equipped, and too ferocious. But we can still lose the war, if the American people--antsy and staring at our calendars, the wrong lesson of our military history heavy upon us--order them home.

Hopefully not.

More on immigration

Alan Reynolds, senior fellow at the Cato Institute, makes some good points in this op-ed about the need for understanding the facts concerning immigration reform.

It is almost impossible for foreigners without close relatives here to work here if they are not refugees or asylum-seekers, unless they marry a U.S. citizen or win the diversity lottery. The English, Irish, Scots and Canadians needn't bother with the lottery -- their language is insufficiently diverse. Immigration reform will never be reform until such capricious criteria are replaced by employability, English language testing by U.S. schools and serious immigration fees (to separate sincere applicants from the frivolous).

Recommended.

A case for federalism

David Gelernter has an essay up at the Weekly Standard that makes a good case for a return to federalism in America.

Federalism has been losing ground ever since FDR hugely expanded the scope and power of the central government in the 1930s and '40s, and segregationists used states' rights as a weapon against integration in the 1950s and '60s. Modern conservatives are likely to complain about court-ordered damage to democracy, not to federalism. And of course it's true that, when unelected judges override elected legislatures, democracy loses.

Good points are raised. Recommended reading.

Heritage Quote

"If, then, the control of the people over the organs of their government be the measure of its republicanism, and I confess I know no other measure, it must be agreed that our governments have much less of republicanism than ought to have been expected; in other words, that the people have less regular control over their agents, than their rights and their interests require."

-- Thomas Jefferson (letter to John Taylor, 28 May 1816)

Somehow, I'm not surprised

Hamas is having financial problems -- actually they're broke.

The new Hamas-led government is broke and failed to pay tens of thousands of Palestinian public workers on Saturday, Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh said Wednesday.

It was the first time the radical Islamic group had admitted that it would have difficulty running the West Bank and Gaza Strip without massive foreign aid.

A country that can only remain solvent because of $1 billion worth of handouts every year should look very closely at how it should climb out of that hole (hint -- stop digging), or perhaps, more to the point, how it can justify its own existence.

On media propensities

Michael Barone has a good article in the Washington Times that points out some glaring double-standards in media reporting.

And why would that be?

Surveys galore have shown that somewhere around 90 percent of the writers, editors and other personnel in the news media are Democrats and only about 10 percent are Republicans. We depend on the news media for information about government and politics, foreign affairs and war, public policy and demographic trends -- for a picture of the world around us. But the news comes from people 90 percent of whom are on one side of the political divide. Doesn't sound like an ideal situation.

Is there a connection? You be the judge.

Saddam's court strategy

Ed Morrissey, who blogs at Captain's Quarters, has an op-ed at the Weekly Standard about Saddam Hussein's attempts to manipulate his trial. And how the American media seems to be fervently cooperating:

Saddam has played his hand well, but he has one advantage that Goering never had--an American media so poorly managed that it easily lends itself to this kind of manipulation. The trial has shown detailed evidence and produced compelling testimony to support the charges against Saddam--Saddam even admitted that he had ordered the executions of 148 residents of Dujail, though only ABC thought this worthy of complete coverage. That confession received only eighteen seconds of coverage at CBS, though that still managed to more than double NBC's paltry 7 seconds.

Eye-opening reading, for sure. Recommended.

3 religions: Christianity, Islam, and Science

Gerard Van der Leun has an excellent essay posted about science, Christianity, Islam, and Christ walking on ice. He pauses in his discussion to get personal:

My very small puppy in this fight says that there is a lot in Science that lets all of us live longer and better lives while there is a lot in Christianity that lets us live deeper and more meaningful lives. I don't look to Christianity to bring me the weather reports for tomorrow. At the same time I don't look to Science to ever, in its widest dreams, reveal the core of the miracle and mystery of being a conscious entity who has been granted the gift of being able, in my better moments, to witness -- even for an inch of time -- the wonder of Creation.

The man has a way with words. Go read 'em. It's worth it.

More good news from Iraq

Bill Crawford, over at NRO has published his column of good news from Iraq.

Recommended.

Texas education reform

Bill Murchison, senior columns writer for The Dallas Morning News has an op-ed up at Townhall.com that is rather pessimistic about the prospects of real education reform in Texas this year.

Because government social policy requires every student to succeed, government practically forbids you not to procure a high school degree. That's if you stay in school -- something huge numbers of students don't do. Likewise, government education policy forbids even the most awful schools to fail absolutely. The teacher unions wouldn't like it if dues-paying members lost their jobs.

As a remedy, government-funded vouchers for students who transfer to private schools make absolute sense. As a political expedient, no way. The education unions won't allow in public education the sort of accountability the free market enforces in commercial situations: i.e., succeed -- or go out of business.

I'm a bit pessimistic, as well. Real reform needs to happen. Government-run accountability is not working very well. I think we need to introduce some free-market processes into public education in order to truly reform it. In fact, it is my belief that they would revolutionize public education and forge our education system into the best on Earth.

There . . . I've said it.

My lovely wife has been a teacher in public schools for over 20 years. She does not embrace free-market solutions like I do, but she does acknowledge that the current system has many, many problems.

Ross Perot was on the right track 20 years ago . . . only he didn't go far enough.

Recommended.

Heritage Quote

"The operations of the federal government will be most extensive and important in times of war and danger; those of the State governments, in times of peace and security."

-- James Madison (Federalist No. 45, 1788)

An honest peek inside Iraq

US CENTCOM has a story up at their website about an interview with the Deputy Commander of reconstruction efforts in Iraq. Here's an excerpt:

In nearing the close, [Army Corps of Engineers Deputy Commander for Reconstruction in Iraq Kathye] Johnson said, “Freedom of the press and the opportunity to debate are wonderful democratic institutions. But in like manner so should be open and balanced discussion. All too often only the negative stories are being told by the ‘popular press’.” The two seemed to concur that the US and world public have the right to hear and learn – in the words of Paul Harvey - “the rest of the story.”

The whole story is in the extended entry.

[Hat tip to Betsy Newmark at Betsy's Page.]

Laura Ingraham Supportive of Hard Work in Iraq

By Tom Clarkson
Gulf Region Division
U.S. Army Corps of Engineers

“According to MSNBC “Hardball” commentator Chris Mathews, reconstruction in Iraq is a non-story.”

With that somewhat startling opening, by well known, national talk show host Laura Ingraham, commenced a lively, half hour, telephonic, on-air, discussion with US Army Corps of Engineers, Gulf Region Division (USACE-GRD) Deputy Commander for Reconstruction Kathye Johnson.

“Firstly, I’m wholly dumbfounded by such a statement,” said Johnson. “Maybe we should go back to basics here. Let me try to explain the three major pillars of the work being done by coalition forces in striving to help Iraq recover from three decades of infrastructure denigration and capacity degradation. These ‘gotta’ haves’ are: security, economic development and effective self governance.”

As regards the first, she went on to describe, “We obviously continue to assist the Iraqis what with the ongoing insurgency and criminal activities. However, every day we’re seeing more and more ‘capacity development’ in action. As a result, we are able to, increasingly, turn over these responsibilities to Iraqi Security and police forces as they become properly trained. But we must work with them in this transition and not allow forced and fast timetables, expecting too much too fast, to be forced upon this effort.”

In the economic development arena there are many international participants in the building of Iraq. Johnson pointed out the importance of remembering that while $21 billion of coalition and Iraqi dollars have been, or are being, effectively used, that this is only a “jump start.” She reminded her host and her listenership of the fact that the World Bank had stated that it would take over $70 billion to “help this country crawl for the morass it had fallen into under Saddam’s despotic dictatorship.”

“Governance, of course, is now fully in the hands of Iraqis,” she pointed out emphasizing that “they’re working hard and fast to create an effective, efficient one. This is no easy chore. Look at our own and how long it’s taken to get where we are today!”

The fast paced dialog of two women of similar decisive, dynamic temperament and intellect evolved to global stability about which Johnson stated the obvious, “We don’t live in an isolated world anymore.” With that comment she went on to describe how a functioning economy is being stabilized, in part, through the employment of 150,000 Iraqis who, as she stated, “Well understand the frightening alternative having lived under such for nearly thirty oppressive years.”

“In fact,” she observed, “very few anywhere in the world had any idea how terribly deteriorated the entire infrastructure of this country had become under Saddam. For example, the country’s oil refinery equipment, for the most part, is over thirty years old. Refineries are working at barely 30% efficiency as a result of such old, worn out equipment.

Both women expressed keen awareness of the fact that, by and large, the preponderance of the Iraqis are extremely supportive and appreciative of our country’s efforts. During their respective tours to project sites, each had regularly observed and experienced the beaming smiles, thumbs up gestures and sincere handshakes from scores of Iraqis of all ages thanking the US for all that is being done in our partnering with them.

In nearing the close, Johnson said, “Freedom of the press and the opportunity to debate are wonderful democratic institutions. But in like manner so should be open and balanced discussion. All too often only the negative stories are being told by the ‘popular press’.” The two seemed to concur that the US and world public have the right to hear and learn – in the words of Paul Harvey - “the rest of the story.”

In her final remarks, Ingraham shared some of her emotion evoking experiences during her recent visit to Iraq and concurred with the earlier comments regarding the “main stream media” covering primarily only that which is negative.

On behalf of all of the Military and Civilians who serve with USACE-GRD, Johnson thanked Ingraham for taking time to visit several of the Iraq Reconstruction projects and invited her to return whenever she was able.

Liberal vs. Conservative

Dennis Prager, over at Townhall has an op-ed piece out discussing his views on who hates the other more - liberals or conservatives? Here's an excerpt:

As Howard Dean, chairman of the Democratic Party, said on national TV, "Our moral values, in contradiction to the Republicans', is we don't think kids ought to go to bed hungry at night." Republicans don't care about starving children. Liberals deem conservatives to be racist, homophobic, war mongering, money worshipping and sexist. It makes perfect sense to hate such people. I would, too.

The converse is not true. Conservatives tend to view liberals as immature and foolish. But childish adults and fools don't merit the hatred that racists do.

I'm not sure he is 100% on target, but he makes some compelling observations. Food for thought.

My thoughts exactly

Phoenix on Katie Couric's job change.

Just the facts -- please!

Thomas Sowell has an excellent commentary over at Townhall about the shortage of factual information in our media and our classrooms. Here's how he begins:

What is more frightening than any particular policy or ideology is the widespread habit of disregarding facts. Former House Majority Leader Dick Armey put it this way: "Demagoguery beats data."

People who urge us to rely on the United Nations, instead of acting "unilaterally," or who urge us to follow other countries in creating a government-run medical care system, often show not the slightest interest in getting facts about the actual track record of either the UN or government-run medical systems.

Highly recommended.

Discrimination dance

Bob Weir, a former detective sergeant in the NYPD, and currently the executive editor of The News Connection in Highland Village, Texas, writes about Congresswoman Cynthia McKinney's shameful behavior. And he's taking no prisoners:

This ill-tempered, bigoted woman has already been given preferential treatment based on her sex, her color and her title – a title that she never misses an opportunity to abuse. A few years ago McKinney complained about being questioned by “white people” when she tried to force her way into the White House without being stopped.

Mr. Weir makes some good points. Go read the rest.

Iraqi resolve

Reuel Gerecht, of the American Enterprise Institute raises some questions about the ability of Iraq to forge a successful democracy. Though I do not agree with everything he says, and I would dispute some of what he presents as facts, he raises some interesting points.

I've reprinted the article in the extended entry.

Can the Shiite Center Hold?
The unanticipated consequences of "Iraqification."

BY REUEL MARC GERECHT
Monday, April 3, 2006 12:01 a.m. EDT

The Shiites of Iraq who want representative government, and who look to the resolutely moderate Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani for religious and political guidance, have endured Baathists, Sunni supremacists and holy warriors. They have seen the shrine of Samarra--the most purely Shiite shrine in the country, which has been for ages the responsibility of Sunnis to protect--horribly scarred. If the Shiite center collapses--if radicals like Muqtada al Sadr and some within the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq (Sciri) and the Dawa Party can depict themselves as more effective guardians of the faithful--then massive internecine violence, Kurdish secession and a Shiite dictatorship seem likely.

Contrary to what so many in the Bush administration hoped, Iraq's salvation still rides with the two forces that few had foreseen: the religious Shiites, who recognize Ayatollah Sistani as moral guide, not the secularists in whom U.S. officials placed such store; and the U.S. military, which remains the only effective counterinsurgency force capable of diminishing sectarian strife and staunching Sunni-led violence. Together, they can corner the militants in their midst; if either falters, Iraq will probably descend into hell.

Contrary to what the former U.S.-appointed Prime Minister Ayad Allawi recently asserted, Iraq isn't yet in a civil war if one uses that term to describe an irreversibly cataclysmic struggle. Just make a comparison to Algeria in the early 1990s, where failed, arid, brutal secularism and savage Islamic radicalism ripped the country apart, leaving entire neighborhoods and villages slaughtered. It shouldn't be too hard to see that things in Iraq--the only country in the Middle East whose violent past can rival Algeria's--could become much worse. After the bombing at Samarra, the U.S. military and the Iraqi army, which didn't fall apart, practically shut down the country to ensure raw emotions didn't flash into massive bloodletting. In Algeria, during its most violent civil-war years, the military, using indescribably brutal tactics, wasn't able to bring comparable quiet to the land. Nevertheless the attack in Samarra and Shiite counterattacks against Sunni mosques, social and political organizations, and clerics have significantly embittered politics and faith. Though the Bush administration hates to admit it, daily life in Baghdad has become worse. For those politically active, life is more dangerous now than ever. It is irrelevant whether small businesses, imports, and school and hospital construction are doing better if Iraq's political and intellectual classes (not to mention foreigners who are trying to help them) cannot walk out of their homes unguarded.

If Baghdad remains a killing zone, where Iraq's leaders can safely gather only under U.S. protection, then the prognosis for the Iraqi national identity, which has always had Baghdad at its center, is poor. Lasting political compromises will probably be impossible if the increasingly vicious sectarian strife in Baghdad and its environs intensifies. Within a year, at most two, Iraq could become Algeria.

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Though declining, the odds remain decent that Iraqis will do their part to stop the descent. On the Shiite side--and the Shiites will either make or break the Iraqi democratic experiment--no party, not even the firebrand Muqtada al Sadr, has advanced a nondemocratic political ideal. Though one can certainly find Iraqi Shiites who admire an Iranian-style theocracy, they have been philosophically crippled in their own country since no prominent Iraqi cleric has come forward to challenge Ayatollah Sistani and the other senior ulema, who have rejected clerical rule in favor of democracy. Though Washington and the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad are awash with those who fear the nefarious hand of Tehran in Iraq--and Iran's clerical elite and their fervid praetorians, like President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, certainly intend us great harm--Tehran has relatively few loud political defenders among the Arabs of Mesopotamia. Prominent Shiite Iraqi exiles who've become political players in Baghdad do owe Iran their lives--Tehran saved thousands from certain death under Saddam--and many more are now surely benefiting from the Iran's clandestine largesse. Regions of southern Iraq appear to be increasingly under the sway of Tehran. Iran will try to prevent the birth of functioning democracy backed by senior Iraqi clerics who don't recognize the legitimacy of theocracy.

Yet no Iraqi Shiite can expect to have a political future--indeed, expect to stay alive--with the rallying cry of "Shiites Unite! Join the Persians!" Saddam Hussein was not the only thing driving Iraqi Shiites to kill Iranian Shiites in the 1980-88 Iran-Iraq war. Iraqi nationalism and an organic, nonideological Arabism is alive among them and will provide stiff resistance to any Iranian effort to direct its Shiite "allies" in Iraq. Hence, in part, Muqtada al Sadr's criticism of Sciri's recent efforts to facilitate U.S.-Iranian talks about Iraq. Sadr and his men, who often deride Ayatollah Sistani's Iranian birth, can be ferocious Arab Iraqi nationalists and diehard Islamic militants. That the Bush administration would welcome Sciri-backed Iranian-U.S. talks in Baghdad is bizarre: We should want to underscore and oppose all of Sciri's Iranian flirtations.

We can certainly expect to see Iraqi Shiites cut short-term deals with Iran--the crushing poverty in many Shiite regions of Iraq will guarantee the cash-laden Iranians influence. But it is fear of the Sunni insurgency and holy warriors that gives Iran real traction in Iraqi society. If the insurgency abates, the Iraqi army becomes more powerful, or Iraqi Shiite militias become bolder (and they certainly appear to be more effective in striking Sunnis even in well-armed, solidly Sunni neighborhoods), Iran's influence will wane. Though definitely weakened by the constant savage Sunni attacks against the Shiites, which make Shiite clerics counseling forbearance look somewhat unworldly, Ayatollah Sistani still holds sufficient sway to guarantee that negotiations among the Shiites, Sunnis and Kurds continue. Abd al-Aziz al-Hakim, the leader of Sciri, the dominant Shiite political party, is well aware that if Ayatollah Sistani were publicly to signal dismay with his actions, his political power would shrink considerably, probably even jeopardizing Sciri's existence. It is Sciri's clerical connections--the Hakim family is among the most prominent, and in the holy city of Najaf, among the most moderate, of Iraq's influential clerical families--that give it real strength.

Washington currently has no Shiite "partner" in Iraq. In all probability, it will not find one. Stained by reports of corruption in his interim government, Ayad Allawi may well be finished as a significant political player. And his antireligious, "pro-Sunni" secular disposition doomed him long ago among most Shiites. Though still seen as the brightest politician, Deputy Prime Minister Ahmad Chalabi was annihilated in the parliamentary elections. The current prime minister, Ibrahim Jaafari, a leader of the Dawa Party, is too politically inept and his party's alliance with Sadr is likely to grow stronger. (On a grassroots level, Dawa is easily as radical as Sadr's Mahdi Army.) Which leaves Adil Abd al-Mahdi of Sciri, probably the only major player in Sciri with whom the Americans culturally feel comfortable. (Though sincerely religious, Mahdi is highly Westernized and lay, free of the evasive speech of Shiite clerics.) But Mahdi isn't Sciri.

Shiite-U.S. relations will likely get worse. The Iraqi conspiratorial reflex--powerfully on display in the recent "mosque shooting" of Sadr's followers (U.S. soldiers supposedly oversaw the execution of Shiite worshippers in a Baghdad mosque)--is now aggressively working against the U.S. American efforts to incorporate Sunnis into a "national unity" government often appear to Shiites as antidemocratic coercion to reward Sunnis who have rarely condemned the insurgency. Yet for most Shiites, Americans are still seen as indispensable, even if it is difficult for them, and especially their religious leaders, to associate with Americans in a publicly grateful and cooperative way.

Americans aside, the attack in Samarra didn't blow apart the democratic Shiite consensus led by Ayatollah Sistani. The various, often mutually hostile, Shiite parties, are likely to plow ahead, however fitfully, to some political deal with the Sunnis and the Kurds, who both now know that the Shiites will no longer passively watch their women and children slaughtered and their holy sites desecrated. Sunni and Kurdish fear of Shiite power--a fickle but growing alliance between Sunni Arabs and Kurds was inevitable--is politically overdue and healthy for all concerned. This is a tightrope act, but the Sunni Arabs must internalize the fact that they cannot leverage the insurgency into power. If they continue to try, they will only convert Shiite "sheep" (the traditional Arab Sunni view of Arab Shiites) into rampant "lions," unstoppable by even the most revered, peace-promoting divines.

And what is most likely to curtail the violence is the U.S. military--not political dialogue among the Sunni and Shiite Arabs and Kurds. Dialogue is important--the all-critical, viscerally anti-U.S. and seriously anti-Shiite Sunni Clerics Association is slowly moving toward reconciliation with a Shiite-led Iraq. But only the U.S. military has the capacity, as recently shown in Tal Afar and brilliantly reported by The New Republic's Lawrence Kaplan, to secure territory against insurgents and holy warriors. The successful operation in Tal Afar is a blatant negation of Gen. John Abizaid's "light footprint" strategy that views large numbers of U.S. soldiers as part of the problem, not the overwhelming part of a counterinsurgency solution. The current approach to counterinsurgency--transfer responsibility to the Iraqis as quickly as possible--will seriously stress Iraq's ethnic and religious divisions, perhaps to the breaking point. Do we really want Shiite and Kurdish soldiers taking the lead in killing Sunnis? Unless heavily monitored by Americans for the foreseeable future, these soldiers could well utilize Algerian-style tactics against the Sunni Arabs. It is astonishing that Shiites have not unleashed more vengeance against their former Sunni Baathist masters and current Sunni tormentors.

It is no coincidence that Shiite militias have grown more powerful and more aggressive as U.S. forces have increasingly adopted an Iraqi-centered strategy. Such an approach will not, anytime soon, curtail Sunni attacks. Counterinsurgency warfare is the last thing you'd expect a newly minted army to undertake. Shiite militias, incorporated within the government and outside it, will not be inclined to stand down: They will react even more harshly to continuing attacks on their community. The Iraqification program has actually started to fuel the very violence that Iraqification in theory was supposed to stop. This gradual, perhaps rapid, U.S. withdrawal could well unhinge the Shiite community, giving victory to the militant minority.

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We are now in the unenviable position of having to confront radicalized, murderous Shiite militias, who have gained broader Shiite support because of the Sunni-led violence and the lameness of U.S. counterinsurgency operations. The Bush administration would be wise not to postpone any longer what it should have already undertaken--securing Baghdad. This will be an enormously difficult task: Both Sunnis and Shiites will have to be confronted, but Sunni insurgents and brigands must be dealt with first to ensure America doesn't lose the Shiite majority and the government doesn't completely fall apart. Pacifying Baghdad will be politically convulsive and provide horrific film footage and skyrocketing body counts. But Iraq cannot heal itself so long as Baghdad remains a deadly place. And the U.S. media will never write many optimistic stories about Iraq if journalists fear going outside. To punt this undertaking down the road when the political dynamics might be better, and when the number of American soldiers in Iraq will surely be less, perhaps a lot less, is to invite disaster.

The Iraqis and the Americans will either save or damn Iraq in the coming months. Quite contrary to the purblind charges of Michigan's Democratic Sen. Carl Levin, the Iraqis really are doing their part--better than what anyone historically could have expected. The real question is, will Gen. Abizaid and Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld do theirs?

Mr. Gerecht is a resident fellow at the American Enterprise Institute.

[Used with permission from OpinionJournal.com, a web site from Dow Jones & Company, Inc.]

Heritage Quote

"We ought to consider what is the end of government before we determine which is the best form. Upon this point all speculative politicians will agree that the happiness of society is the end of government, as all divines and moral philosophers will agree that the happiness of the individual is the end of man....All sober inquirers after truth, ancient and modern, pagan and Christian, have declared that the happiness of man, as well as his dignity, consists in virtue."

-- John Adams (Thoughts on Government, 1776)

Counterpoint

Peter Wehner, deputy assistant to the president and director of the White House's Office of Strategic Initiatives has published an op-ed at OpinionJournal that refutes several conservative columnists' claims that Iraq is a failure.

Frankly, I just think George Will, Bill Buckley, and Francis Fukuyama have lost their resolve. I'm very disappointed that they are now parroting the disingenuous arguments of long-time opponents of the war.

The whole article is in the extended entry.

The Wrong Time to Lose Our Nerve
A response to Messrs. Buckley, Will and Fukuyama.

BY PETER WEHNER
Tuesday, April 4, 2006 12:01 a.m. EDT

A small group of current and former conservatives--including George Will, William F. Buckley Jr. and Francis Fukuyama--have become harsh critics of the Iraq war. They have declared, or clearly implied, that it is a failure and the president's effort to promote liberty in the Middle East is dead--and dead for a perfectly predictable reason: Iraq, like the Arab Middle East more broadly, lacks the democratic culture that is necessary for freedom to take root. And so for cultural reasons, this effort was flawed from the outset. Or so the argument goes.

Let me address each of these charges in turn.

The war is lost. "Our mission has failed," Mr. Buckley wrote earlier this year. "It seems very unlikely that history will judge either the intervention itself or the ideas animating it kindly," saith the man (Mr. Fukuyama) who once declared "the end of history" and in 1998 signed a letter to congressional leaders stating, "U.S. policy should have as its explicit goal removing Saddam Hussein's regime from power and establishing a peaceful and democratic Iraq in its place."

These critics of the war are demonstrating a peculiar eagerness to declare certain matters settled. We certainly face difficulties in Iraq--but we have seen significant progress as well. In 2005, Iraq's economy continued to recover and grow. Access to clean water and sewage-treatment facilities has increased. The Sunnis are now invested in the political process, which was not previously the case. The Iraqi security forces are far stronger than they were. Our counterinsurgency strategy is more effective than in the past. Cities like Tal Afar, which insurgents once controlled, are now back in the hands of free Iraqis. Al Qaeda's grip has been broken in Mosul and disrupted in Baghdad. We now see fissures between Iraqis and foreign terrorists. And in the aftermath of the mosque bombing in Samarra, we saw the political and religious leadership in Iraq call for an end to violence instead of stoking civil war--and on the whole, the Iraqi security forces performed well. These achievements are authentic grounds for encouragement. And to ignore or dismiss all signs of progress in Iraq, to portray things in what Norman Podhoretz has called "the blackest possible light," disfigures reality.

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One might hope our own democratic development--which included the Articles of Confederation and a "fiery trial" that cost more than 600,000 American lives--would remind critics that we must sometimes be patient with others. We are engaged in an enterprise of enormous importance: helping a traumatized Arab nation become stable, free and self-governing. Success isn't foreordained--and neither is failure. Justice Holmes said the mode in which the inevitable comes to pass is through effort.

The freedom agenda is dead. The president's freedom agenda is now "a casualty of the war that began three years ago," according to Mr. Will. The Bush Doctrine is in "shambles," Mr. Fukuyama insists. We cannot "impose" democracy on "a country that doesn't want it," he says.

Why is Mr. Fukuyama so sure people in Iraq and elsewhere don't long for democracy? Just last year, on three separate occasions, Iraqis braved bombs and bullets to turn out and vote in greater numbers (percentage-wise) than do American voters, who merely have to brave lines. Does Mr. Fukuyama believe Iraqis prefer subjugation to freedom? Does he think they, unlike he, relish life in a gulag, or the lash of the whip, or the midnight knock of the secret police? Who among us wants a jackboot forever stomping on his face? It is a mistake of a large order to argue that democracy is unwanted in Iraq simply because (a) violence exists three years after the country's liberation--and after more than three decades of almost unimaginable cruelty and terror; and (b) Iraq is not Switzerland.

Beyond that, the critics of the Iraq war have chosen an odd time to criticize the appeal and power of democracy. After all, we are witnessing the swiftest advance of freedom in history. According to Freedom House's director of research, Arch Puddington, "The global picture . . . suggests that 2005 was one of the most successful years for freedom since Freedom House began measuring world freedom in 1972. . . . The 'Freedom in the World 2006' ratings for the Middle East represent the region's best performance in the history of the survey."

Mr. Will says it is time to "de-emphasize talk about Iraq's becoming a democracy that ignites emulative transformation in the Middle East." Saad Eddin Ibrahim, a democracy activist from Egypt, says different. Mr. Ibrahim, who originally opposed the war to liberate Iraq, said it "has unfrozen the Middle East, just as Napoleon's 1798 expedition did. Elections in Iraq force the theocrats and autocrats to put democracy on the agenda, even if only to fight against us."

Cultural determinism. The problem with Iraq, Mr. Will said in a Manhattan Institute lecture, is that it "lacks a Washington, a Madison, a [John] Marshall--and it lacks the astonishingly rich social and cultural soil from which such people sprout." There is no "existing democratic culture" that will allow liberty to succeed, he argues. And he scoffs at the assertion by President Bush that it is "cultural condescension" to claim that some peoples, cultures or religions are destined to despotism and unsuited for self-government. The most obvious rebuttal to Mr. Will's first point is that only one nation in history had at its creation a Washington, Madison and Marshall--yet there are 122 democracies in the world right now. So clearly founders of the quality of Washington and Madison are not the necessary condition for freedom to succeed.

A mark of serious conservatism is a regard for the concreteness of human experience. If cultures are as intractable as Mr. Will asserts, and if an existing democratic culture was as indispensable as he insists, we would not have seen democracy take root in Japan after World War II, Southern Europe in the 1970s, Latin America and East Asia in the '80s, and South Africa in the '90s. It was believed by many that these nations' and regions' traditions and cultures--including by turns Confucianism, Catholicism, dictatorships, authoritarianism, apartheid, military juntas and oligarchies--made them incompatible with self-government.

This is not to say that culture is unimportant. It matters a great deal. But so do incentives and creeds and the power of ideas, which can profoundly shape culture. Culture is not mechanically deterministic--and to believe that what is will always be is a mistake of both history and philosophy.

Americans have debated matters of creed and culture before. John C. Calhoun believed slavery was a cultural given that could not be undone in the South. Lincoln knew slavery had deep roots--but he believed that could, and must, change. He set about to do just that. Lincoln believed slavery could be overcome because he believed human beings were constituted in a particular way. In the "enlightened belief" of the Founders, he said, "nothing stamped with the Divine image and likeness was sent into the world to be trodden on, and degraded, and imbruted by its fellows." Lincoln believed as well that the self-evident truths in the Declaration were the Founders' "majestic interpretation of the economy of the Universe. This was their lofty, and wise, and noble understanding of the justice of the Creator to His creatures. Yes, gentlemen, to all His creatures, to the whole great family of man."

What has plagued the Arab Middle East is not simply, or even primarily, culture; it is antidemocratic ideologies and oppressive institutions. And the way to counteract pernicious ideologies and oppressive institutions is with better ones. Liberty, and the institutions that support liberty, is a pathway to human flourishing.

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Critics of the Iraq war have offered no serious strategic alternative to the president's freedom agenda, which is anchored in the belief that democracy and liberal institutions are the best antidote to the pathologies plaguing the Middle East. The region has generated deep resentments and lethal anti-Americanism. In the past, Western nations tolerated oppression for the sake of "stability." But this policy created its own unintended consequences, including attacks that hit America with deadly fury on Sept. 11. President Bush struck back, both militarily and by promoting liberty.

In Iraq, we are witnessing advancements and some heartening achievements. We are also experiencing the hardships and setbacks that accompany epic transitions. There will be others. But there is no other way to fundamentally change the Arab Middle East. Democracy and the accompanying rise of political and civic institutions are the only route to a better world--and because the work is difficult doesn't mean it can be ignored. The cycle has to be broken. The process of democratic reform has begun, and now would be precisely the wrong time to lose our nerve and turn our back on the freedom agenda. It would be a geopolitical disaster and a moral calamity--and President Bush, like President Reagan before him, will persist in his efforts to shape a more hopeful world.

Mr. Wehner is deputy assistant to the president and director of the White House's Office of Strategic Initiatives.

[Used with permission from OpinionJournal.com, a web site from Dow Jones & Company, Inc.]

A workable alternative

to Kyoto, is called the Asia-Pacific Partnership for Clean Development and Climate Change (AP6).

The AP6 was announced last summer and includes China, India, South Korea, Japan, Australia, and the United States. The goal of the AP6 is to address climate change by focusing on creating and deploying technologies that emit less greenhouse gas such as carbon dioxide.

How?

. . . the AP6 members aim to use technological innovation and cooperation to improve their energy security, reduce air pollution, and address climate change.

What an innovative approach, eh? Go read the rest.

Our immigration problem

Herbert E. Meyer has a thought-provoking article up at The American Thinker about why Washington is not addressing the immigration problem that the rest of America perceives. Here's how he starts:

One of the most striking features of the immigration debate now raging in Washington is that none of the Democratic or Republican proposals seem to hold any appeal for ordinary Americans -- which is why this debate is generating so much frustration among voters that no matter which proposal Congress adopts, the issue itself threatens to shatter both parties' bases and dominate the November elections.

Simply put, the debate in Washington isn't about "immigration" at all -- and that's the problem.

I recommend it.

Saddam's terror ties

With the release of pre-liberation Iraqi documents, more and more evidence is turning up that Saddam was nurturing relationships with terrorists and dabbling in WMDs. Author Laurie Mylroie published a summative article about some initial documentation indicative of this activity on OpinionJournal this past Sunday.

I've reprinted the entire article in the extended entry below. Recommended reading.

The Paper Trail
Newly released documents provide more evidence of Saddam's terror ties.

BY LAURIE MYLROIE
Sunday, April 2, 2006 12:01 a.m. EST

After substantial prodding--including from The Wall Street Journal--the U.S. government has finally begun to release its captured Iraqi documents and is posting them at the Web site of the Army's Foreign Military Studies Office. This material will take considerable time to absorb and analyze, but it may yet contribute significantly to our understanding of the nature of the threat Saddam Hussein posed.

Most dramatically, an Iraqi intelligence report, apparently written in early 1997, describes Iraqi efforts to establish ties with various elements in the Saudi opposition, including Osama bin Laden. Until 1996, the Saudi renegade was based in Sudan, then ruled by Hassan Turabi's National Islamic Front. One of Iraq's few allies, Sudan served as an intermediary between Baghdad and bin Laden, as well as other Islamic radicals. On Feb. 19, 1995, an Iraqi intelligence agent met with bin Laden in Khartoum. Bin Laden asked for two things: to carry out joint operations against foreign forces in Saudi Arabia and to broadcast the speeches of a radical Saudi cleric. Iraq agreed to the latter, but apparently not the former, at least as far as the author of this report knew. Notably, the report also states, "We are working at the present time to activate this relationship through new channels."

This one report hints at the extensive international presence that the Iraqi Intelligence Service maintained. Iraq's ambassadors to Sudan and Yemen were intelligence agents, suggesting that those two countries were major centers of IIS activity. The report also mentions IIS stations in Islamabad, New Delhi and New York.

Another newly released document bears the name of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi. It is a flier from the "Committee for Arab Liaison with the Islamic Emirate" (i.e., Afghanistan) for recruiting volunteers in Iraq to fight in Afghanistan. It explains that the "Arab brothers" who wish to go there should send a written proposal "so that we can know him and his needs." Zarqawi is among six people listed as individuals to contact.

How close were relations between Iraq and the Taliban, a regime officially recognized by only three countries? The answer is necessary for understanding the nature of any ties Iraq may have had with al Qaeda or other Afghan-based Islamic groups. Hopefully, other documents will emerge to shed light on this question.

The formal cease-fire to the 1991 Gulf War required Iraq to recognize Kuwait and release the Kuwaiti hostages it had seized. Iraq did neither. On Marc  4, 2003, with war looming, Saddam's son Qusay ordered 448 Kuwaiti prisoners taken to sites the United States would likely attack. Nothing of their fate has been reported, and they might well have died. Iraq formally recognized Kuwait in 1994, but the official stationery of the Fedayeen Saddam in 2001 shows a map of Iraq that includes the state.

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Other documents from this database were leaked some time ago. Perhaps because their provenance was not understood, these 30 pages did not receive the attention they merited. Particularly notable is an order issued by Saddam on Jan. 18, 1993: "Hunt Americans on Arab territory, particularly in Somalia."

Most of these documents deal with terrorism and date from January to May 1993. They suggest that in early 1993, Saddam began to move actively to revive terrorist programs that had been established three years before, following Iraq's invasion of Kuwait. Responding to a request from Saddam, Iraqi intelligence produced a six-page report, listing the names and nationalities of 100 Arab "martyrs" whom it had trained in the fall of 1990.

Another report explains that the IIS had reached an agreement with the deputy head of Sudan's ruling National Islamic Front "to use the Islamic Arab elements that had been fighting in Afghanistan and now have no place to go and who are physically present in Sudan, Somalia and Egypt." The IIS also agreed with Khartoum to renew its relationship with Egyptian Islamic Jihad--headed by Ayman al-Zawahiri, familiar as al Qaeda's most prominent contemporary spokesman.

Still another report describes Iraq's earlier agreement with Islamic Jihad, concluded on Dec. 24, 1990, as the start of the Gulf War loomed. Iraq was to provide training, financing and supplies to the organization "to execute martyr operations" against the members of the U.S.-led coalition, of which Egypt was a key Arab member. However, as this document explains, those operations stopped immediately after the cease-fire.

In 1993, Iraq was cautious about backing Egyptian terrorists, more so than the Sudanese. When Khartoum informed Baghdad that it was sending an Islamic Jihad leader, who had been based in Afghanistan and then lived in Sudan, to Iraq on a Sudanese plane carrying meat (this exemption from the general ban on flights to Iraq was granted by the U.N. Security Council), the IIS asked that the visit be postponed. Sudan insisted, and the IIS approved on condition the visit be kept secret. Subsequently, the IIS recommended that assistance to the Egyptian group be limited to financial support.

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Two documents relate to Iraq's proscribed WMD programs. One is a table, providing details of a Sept. 6, 2000, contract for the production of "the malignant pustule"--the Pentagon official who leaked these documents believed it referred to anthrax--along with earlier contracts for sterilization and decontamination equipment. Another table describes an Aug. 21, 2000, contract for the production of mustard gas and earlier contracts for protective equipment. Small amounts of material are mentioned: three ampules of "the malignant pustule" (an ampule is a small, sealed glass vial) and five kilograms of mustard gas. These contracts could have represented test runs, or, as a former U.N. weapons inspector suggested to me, the material could have been intended for terrorism.

Many more documents are to be released in the coming months. Quite possibly, they will vindicate the decision to undertake the Iraq war; help maintain public support for fighting it; and radically change our understanding of Saddam's role in international terrorism.

Ms. Mylroie is an adjunct fellow at the American Enterprise Institute and author of "Study of Revenge: The First World Trade Center Attack and Saddam Hussein's War Against America" (AEI, 2001).

[Used with permission from OpinionJournal.com, a web site from Dow Jones & Company, Inc.]

Trends vs. headlines

Also known as reality vs. histrionics.

I've reprinted it in the extended entry, below.

April 2, 2006: What you see in the Iraq news, is not what you get. The news business demands startling headlines, to attract eyeballs. It's business, as the eyeballs are rented to advertisers to pay for it all. But the reality of the news is less startling, and consists of trends. These are the current trends in Iraq.

After three years, the Sunni Arabs, who long dominated Iraq, most recently under the leadership of Saddam Hussein, are giving up. It took so long because of a quirk in Arab culture, one that encourages the support of lost causes. The term "cut your losses and move on" is not as popular in the Arab world as it is in the West. But even the slow learners in the Sunni Arab community had to finally confront some unfavorable trends. Chief among these was;

The Kurds and Shia Arabs have formed a national police force and army that is far more powerful than anything the Sunni Arab community can muster. Over the last year, Sunni Arabs realized that the police and army were in control of more and more Sunni Arab towns. This was a trend that could not be ignored. Added to that was the number of Kurds and Shia Arabs who had lost kin to Sunni Arab terror over the last three decades. Many of these people want revenge, and they all have guns. Many, especially those that belong to the police, or militias, are taking their revenge. The Sunni Arabs want protection, for they cannot muster enough guns to defend themselves. Now the Sunni Arabs want the Americans to stay, at least until there's some assurance that the Kurd and Shia Arab vengeance attacks have died down.

The alliance with al Qaeda was a disaster. These Islamic terrorists were obsessed with causing a civil war in Iraq, and they insisted on doing this by killing lots of Shia Arabs. The Sunni Arabs didn't want to kill lots of Shia Arabs, they wanted to rule them all once more. But that raised another contentious issue. While some Sunni Arabs were in favor of an Islam Republic, which al Qaeda insisted on, most Sunni Arabs wanted a more secular Sunni Arab dominated government. This dispute was never resolved, as the split between al Qaeda and the Sunni Arab community widened. At the moment, al Qaeda is not welcome in most Sunni Arab areas. That's "come near this place and we'll kill you" not welcome. This after al Qaeda tried to terrorize the Sunni Arab tribal leaders into compliance. Killing Sunni Arab tribal chiefs didn't work.

You can't kill enough Americans to scare them into leaving. Saddam, and most Iraqis, were convinced that, because of Vietnam (where 55,000 American died) and Somalia (where 18 died in 1993), the United States would withdraw if you killed enough of them. While that is sometimes true, it's good to remember that over a million Vietnamese died during the 1960s, and that 1993 battle in Mogadishu left over 500 Somalis dead as well. Moreover, this, "the Americans have no stomach for a fight" is nothing new. It's why Japan attacked in 1941, believing that if they beat up the Americans bad enough, the faint hearted Yankees would just go away. Hitler also believed the Americans would not fight. After three years, the Iraqi Sunni Arabs have discovered that the Americans can certainly fight, and the Yankees have also found ways to do it that involve extraordinarily low American casualties. This story has not really gotten the attention it deserves, but the Sunni Arabs have noticed. They have noticed that if you attack the Americans, chances are you will die, and the Americans will just keep on keeping on. It used to be that the Sunni Arabs could take heart from the occasional attack where they killed a few Americans. But no longer. Everyone knows the trend, and doesn't want to be another victim of it. Last month 32 Americans were killed in combat. The last time it was that low was in February 2004. Back then, the Sunni Arab tribes and al Qaeda had joined forces. Both of them had plenty of weapons, money and volunteers. Two years of bad trends have changed everything. The trend was that the Americans were much better at killing Sunni Arabs than Sunni Arabs were at killing Americans.

The economy continues to improve, except for those Sunni Arab areas where terrorists and gangsters are still out of control. Here's where it's all about money. Before Saddam fell, the Sunni Arabs had most of it. Since then, they have much, much less. The Sunni Arabs have been obsessed with getting their "fair share" of the oil money. When Saddam was in charge, the Sunni Arabs (who are 20 percent of the population), got over 80 percent of the oil money. Now they see themselves lucky to get 20 percent. Worse, all the oil is in areas dominated by Kurds and Shia Arabs. In response to this, the Sunni Arabs have continually attacked the pipelines that cross Sunni Arab territory. When paid to help guard the pipelines, some of the Sunni Arab chiefs just stole the money, and let the pipelines get attacked. The Sunni Arab attitude is one of, "if we can't have it, no one can." But now the Sunni Arabs have noted that much of the country is getting wealthier even without the oil. The Sunni Arabs have been living off oil for so long that they forgot there are other ways to make a living. The economic trends have been noted by the Sunni Arabs, and there is more willingness to do what needs to be done to bring some prosperity to the Sunni Arab areas.

Finally, there's the most important trend of all. How successful have Iraqis been in creating a civil society. This doesn't get much media play either, yet it is the ultimate goal in Iraq. A civil society is one that can run its own affairs without the constant threat of civil war or dictatorship. We take civil society for granted in the West, but in the rest of the world, it is more notable by its absence. American and British diplomats have been hammering away at the Iraqis for three years about how important honest government it. Many Iraqis agree. Yet the corruption continues, and three months after national elections, the various parties cannot agree on who will get what, and there is no government. That's because the lack of a civil society has the various ethnic, religious and tribal factions warily haggling over who gets what. There is not much trust, and the stealing goes on. Iraq's fate will ultimately be decided by how many honest politicians it has, not how many cops are on the street or what Iraq's neighbors think or do.

-- StrategyPage

Quite a bit different than the headlines, eh?

Heritage Quote

"Measures which serve to abridge the free competition of foreign Articles, have a tendency to occasion an enhancement of prices."

-- Alexander Hamilton (Report on Manufactures, 5 December 1791)

Lessons learned

John Noonan, at The Officer's Club has a good post up about what we can learn about the kidnapping and release of journalist Jill Carroll. Here's how he starts:

The question of whether or not Jill Carroll would survive captivity was answered this weekend with favorable results. Now the question that begs asking is: "what does the Carroll captivity teach us about our enemies?"

In short, quite a bit.

Read the whole thing.

Important message

A message that bears repeating.

Entertainer Bill Cosby urged New Orleans' black population on Saturday to cleanse itself of a culture of crime as it rebuilds from the devastation caused by Hurricane Katrina last year.

Let's stop fooling ourselves and just speak the truth about this issue. We need to respect America's poor people's dignity and worth (regardless of color) by not giving them handouts -- rather we should just give them a hand up toward self-sufficiency. It is how almost all of our ancestors got their start in this great nation.

History repeats

A post on the Photon Courier blog is very pertinent to current events.

[Hat tip to Little Miss Attila.]

Heritage Quote

"[I]f you speak of solid information and sound judgement, Colonel Washington is, unquestionably the greatest man on that floor."

-- Patrick Henry (on George Washington, October 1775)

What are our priorities?

From Wednesday's Miami Herald: Unsecure ports of entry

While Congress was engaged in the hysterical debate over foreign ownership of U.S. ports, something much more dangerous was taking place in America's vulnerable ports of entry. As disclosed yesterday at a congressional hearing, federal investigators were able to smuggle enough radioactive material into the United States last year to make two dirty bombs.

Go read the rest.

Black America

Shelby Steele talks about how blacks in America, in general, got to the unpleasant place they are in now and how they have to stand up and take responsibility.

I'm old enough to remember segregation. Where I grew up, whites had no shame about being racist. They used to come up to me and explain that racism and segregation were God's will. And they were perfectly comfortable with it. Today, there's no white person that could do that. Among whites, things have changed. No one wants white supremacists around. Sure, there are some, but America's transformation is just amazing. It's just amazing.

Now it's time for blacks to make a similar transformation, to grow up, and take responsibility for their own future. If they don't do it, they're not going to have prospects that amount to very much. If they do do it, they'll be able to succeed. We've come to a place in our history where the real onus for change is on black Americans.

He also covers other aspects of the issue. I recommend you read it.

Agrarian heritage quote

"Finally, there seem to be but three Ways for a Nation to acquire Wealth. The first is by War as the Romans did in plundering their conquered Neighbours. This is Robbery. The second by Commerce which is generally Cheating. The third by Agriculture the only honest Way; wherein Man receives a real Increase of the Seed thrown into the Ground, in a kind of continual Miracle wrought by the Hand of God in his favour, as a Reward for his innocent Life, and virtuous Industry."

-- Benjamin Franklin (Positions to be Examined, 4 April 1769)

Heritage Quote

"Knowledge is, in every country, the surest basis of public happiness."

-- George Washington (First Annual Message, 8 January 1790)

Pointed questions

Investors.com has a good op-ed up that asks pointed questions of Islamic followers and their apologists.

In the wake of the cartoon jihad and mosque-on-mosque violence in Iraq, most Americans now think Islam has more violent believers than any other faith. Yet many still view it as a "peaceful religion."

Psychologists might call this cognitive dissonance -- a state of mind where rational people essentially lie to themselves. But in this case, it's understandable. In our politically correct culture, criticizing any religion, even one that plots our destruction, is still taboo. And no one wants to suggest the terrorists are driven by their holy text.

Food for thought.

Heritage Quote

"There is not a more important and fundamental principle in legislation, than that the ways and means ought always to face the public engagements; that our appropriations should ever go hand in hand with our promises. To say that the United States should be answerable for twenty-five millions of dollars without knowing whether the ways and means can be provided, and without knowing whether those who are to succeed us will think with us on the subject, would be rash and unjustifiable. Sir, in my opinion, it would be hazarding the public faith in a manner contrary to every idea of prudence."

-- James Madison (Speech in Congress, 22 April 1790)

SFC Paul Ray Smith

He received the first (and only, so far) Medal of Honor awarded in the Iraq War. Here is his story. It is the story of a hero.

I've reprinted it in the extended entry.

Common Name, Uncommon Valor
The story of Paul Smith, the Iraq War's only Medal of Honor recipient so far.

BY RALPH KINNEY BENNETT
Wednesday, March 29, 2006 12:01 a.m. EST

Since his days growing up in Tampa, Fla., the lanky kid with the slightly mischievous smile had wanted to be a soldier. By this bright morning, April 4, 2003, Sgt. First Class Paul Ray Smith had more than fulfilled his dream. He had served 15 of his 33 years in the U.S. Army, including three tours of duty in harm's way--in the Persian Gulf, Bosnia and Kosovo.

Now all his training, all his experience, all the instincts that had made him a model soldier, were about to be put to the test. With 16 men from his First Platoon, B Company, 11th Engineer Battalion, Sgt. Smith was under attack by about 100 troops of the Iraqi Republican Guard.

"We're in a world of hurt," he muttered.

That "world" was a dusty, triangular walled compound about half the size of a football field, near the Saddam Hussein International Airport, 11 miles from Baghdad. Sgt. Smith's engineers, or "sappers," had broken through the 10-foot-high concrete-block southern wall with a military bulldozer and begun turning the compound into a temporary "pen" for Iraqi prisoners as U.S. forces pressed their attack on the airport.

While they were working, guards posted at a small aluminum gate in the north corner of the triangle had spotted the large Iraqi force approaching the compound from the north and west. Sgt. Smith had just run up to join the guards when all hell broke loose. They came under furious fire from machine guns, rocket-propelled grenades and mortars.

---

The lightly armed work detail needed fire support. Sgt. Smith called for a Bradley fighting vehicle. Within minutes the tank-like Bradley roared through the breached wall and broke through the aluminum gate, taking a position just beyond it and opening up on the attackers with its rapid-fire 25mm Bushmaster cannon.

Sgt. Smith's men took positions around the Bradley. He could see Iraqi soldiers north, east and west of him, streaming out along his flanks. He called for a nearby M-133 armored personnel carrier, to give additional fire support with its M2 .50-caliber heavy machine gun.

As the APC passed through the breached wall, its commander, Sgt. Louis Berwald, realized that flanking Iraqi troops had occupied a roofed guard tower to his left, just outside the southwest corner of the compound, and were firing from it. He raked the tower with his M2, then moved on through the compound to a point just outside the north gate behind the Bradley.

By now the Iraqis were concentrating their fire against Sgt. Smith's small force by the gate. An RPG round hit the Bradley, and at almost the same moment a mortar round hit the APC, wounding its three occupants.

Several additional RPG rounds hit the Bradley, which by now had run low on ammunition. The Bradley retreated through the compound, exiting south through the breached wall. With one armored vehicle gone and the other out of action, Sgt. Smith's men had lost any firepower advantage they might have had.

---

Sgt. Smith could have withdrawn as well, back south through the compound. But beyond it was a lightly defended aid station crowded with 100 combat casualties and medical personnel. To protect it from being overrun, Sgt. Smith chose to fight no matter what the odds.

Under intense fire, Sgt. Smith's men heroically extracted all three wounded crewmen from the APC. Sgt. Smith then entered the vehicle, ordering Spc. Michael Seaman to join him as driver and "keep me loaded" with ammo belts. Sgt. Smith popped up out of the turret hatch and grabbed the grips of the .50-caliber machine gun mounted on top.

The Iraqis were practically on top of him. Coolly grasping the situation, Sgt. Smith ordered Spc. Seaman to back the APC south into the compound to a position half way down the eastern wall. There he could arc the big machine gun back and forth, from the gate entrance to the north, all along the western wall of the triangle, to the Iraqi occupied tower in the southwest corner to his left.

To fire the machine gun, Sgt. Smith had to stand in the APC's main hatch, his body exposed from the waist up to a withering fire coming at him from three directions. On the ground through the blur of combat, Sgt. Matthew Keller saw Sgt. Smith grimly firing measured bursts from atop the APC even as a hail of bullets hit around him.

Sgt. Keller yelled at him to get out. Sgt. Smith looked back at him and with a slight shake of his head, made a cutting motion across his throat with his right hand. Sgt. Keller would always remember the look in his eyes. "There was no fear in him whatsoever."

As Spc. Seaman, crouching in the adjoining hatch, fed him ammunition belts, Sgt. Smith directed an expert and murderous fire with the long-barreled M2, hitting Iraqis who tried to enter the compound through the gate or over the wall. He tried also to suppress renewed fire coming from the Iraqis in the guard tower to his left.

Finally, one of his fellow sappers, First Sgt. Timothy Campbell, led a small fire team which stole up to the tower and killed all Iraqis inside. But by this time, Sgt. Smith's machine gun had fallen silent. The attack had been broken. Nearly 50 Iraqi dead lay all over the area. Others were in retreat. But Sgt. Smith was now slumped in the turret hatch, blood soaking the front of his uniform.

Spc. Seaman jumped out of the vehicle in tears. "I told him we should just leave," he said. Pvt. Gary Evans drove the APC out of the compound at high speed to the nearby aid station.

---

But it was too late. When Medic Michelle Chavez tried to remove Sgt. Smith's helmet, she realized that it was holding his head together. A bullet--one of the last fired from the tower--had entered through Sgt. Smith's neck and traveled up into his brain, shattering his skull from the inside. There were 13 bullet holes peppered over his armored vest--the impact from any one of them enough to knock a man down. The vest's ceramic armor inserts, back and front, had been cracked in numerous places.

"Sapper Seven," the wiry, hollow-cheeked guy who had been so hard on his men in training, so exacting, so insistent on "doing it right"; the guy who had led them into battle on the first day of the war with a rock-'n'-roll tape blaring from his Humvee; the guy who had personally got down on his knees in front of their convoy to patiently, carefully extract the deadly mines when they ran into a minefield near the Karbala Gap, was dead.

A chaplain and a sergeant in dress uniforms came to Birgit Smith's home near Fort Stewart, Ga., late on the night of April 4 to break the terrible news. Mrs. Smith, the German girl Paul had met and married during his tour of duty in Western Europe in 1992, listened numbly to her visitors. She fought the growing dread and pain by grasping at a desperate hope:

"Our name is so common," she said, tears welling up in her eyes. "Maybe it's a mistake."

There was no mistake. Paul Ray Smith had given his life protecting his men and his position. He had almost single-handedly blunted an overwhelming attack which might well have overrun the nearby aid station.

"There are two ways to come home, stepping off the plane and being carried off the plane," Sgt. Smith had written in an unsent email to his parents. "It doesn't matter how I come home, because I am prepared to give all that I am to insure that all my boys make it home." He had been the only American killed in the courtyard fight.

---

On April 4, 2005, exactly two years after his selfless action, his wife and their children David and Jessica stood in the White House as President Bush presented them the nation's highest decoration for bravery, the Medal of Honor.

It was the first awarded in the Iraq War. Paul Ray Smith had indelibly marked his "common name" on history's small bright roll of those forever remembered for their uncommon valor.

Mr. Bennett writes the "American Heroes" series for the American Security Council.

Immigration reform

Arnold Schwarzenegger, governor of California, has some things to say about what is now needed for immigration reform. Here's a taste:

. . . immigration is about our values. Too often the debate centers on what immigrants owe us. Too seldom do we ask what we owe them. Above all, we owe it to our country and our immigrants to share our values. We should talk about our history, our institutions and our beliefs. We should assimilate immigrants into the mainstream. We want immigrants to not just live in America but to live as Americans.

He knows a thing or two about immigration. Recommended.