The Review
Economic Roundup
Well, the last day of a busy couple of days on the economic calendar has come to an end. And with all the reports in for today, the picture is a bit mixed.
First, the ISM Index came in at a slightly lower than expected 51.8, compared with consensus expectations of 52.0. Still it’s nice jump over last months 49.8, and put the ISM out of recessionary territory for the first time in 4 months. Purchasing is increasing, which means that businesses are expecting a pick-up of consumer orders. (Consumers appear to be doing their part as well, with personal income and personal spending both up 0.3%.)
The Auto Sales numbers were surprisingly strong this morning, both beating expectations, with auto sales coming in at 5.8 million, compared to consensus expectations of 5.6 million. Truck sales were even stronger, with 8.2 million truck sales, which is much better than the consensus forecast of 7.6 million. So, now we know where that extra 0.3% in consumer spending went.
Another stronger than expected number this morning was the Michigan Consumer Sentiment index. The forecast was for a reading of 90.5, but the actual release was 90.9, showing stronger consumer optimism than expected.
Employment, however, is the one number that puts a little damper on the party. I said yesterday that the proof would be in the non-farm payrolls number, and despite consensus predictions of 10K net new jobs, the payrolls show that instead of creating jobs, the economy is still hemorrhaging them away. This month’s non-farm payrolls showed a net loss of 44,000 jobs. The unemployment rate itself dropped to 6.3%, but the attention given to that number hides the real truth, which is that jobs are still being lost.
This has been a tough year for jobs so far, as you can see below:
Month/Jobs
Jan/158
Feb/-121
Mar/-151
Apr/-22
May/-76
Jun/-72
Jul/-44(p)
We can, I think, hope that the second half of the year will change this jobs picture. If the economy does expand as some of the other economic statistics are indicating, then I think we can hope for increases, rather than losses in non-farm payrolls through the last half of the year.
Legitimacy in Iraq
(
Review) Ralph Peters skewers the hypocrisy of World Bank President James Wolfensohn.
In a statement worthy of the French diplomat he apparently aspires to become, World Bank President James Wolfensohn concluded his meeting with the Iraqi Governing Council with the disdainful remark that "a constitution and an elected government would constitute a recognized government, but what do we do in the meantime?"
Whoaaa there, Daddy Warbucks! Hold the sauterne and the foie gras!
I don't recall that Saddam's regime was elected. Or that it governed by a constitution. Yet that terror-state was recognized as legitimate by the world's diplomats and international bankers. Every slithering, interest-bearing one of them.
And now Iraq's interim Governing Council doesn't deserve the level of recognition accorded Saddam Hussein?
It does raise an ionteresting question. The World Bank and the IMF do, after all, deal with any number of unsavory Third World governments without inquiring too closely about their democratic legitimacy.
A Public Display
Review) Charles Krauthammer thinks the objections to displaying the bodies of Usay and Quday is a bit of unwarranted whining.
When the Iraqi monarchy was overthrown in 1958, Prime Minister Nuri Said, fleeing disguised as a woman, was caught, castrated and hacked to pieces by a crowd. When the strongman who took power, Abdul Karim Kassem, was overthrown five years later, he was shot and his body displayed on television. When Najibullah, deposed dictator of Afghanistan, was killed by the Taliban in 1996, he too was castrated, shot and hung, still alive, from a lamppost.
Given the neighborhood, the complaint about the offense to local sensitivities by the American treatment of the bodies of Uday and Qusay Hussein is hard to fathom. Not that the public display of overthrown tyrants is by any means an exclusively Muslim custom. Think back only to 1989, when the Ceausescus' summary execution was videotaped and their bodies shown on Romanian television, or, most famously, to Mussolini being strung upside down by the partisans.
FOr whatever reason, people need to see the bodies to accept that theose guys are really gone, and their not coming back. It may be unpleasant, but it does at least have the virtue of serving as a demonstration
pour encourager les autres.
Economic Roundup
After today, it’ll be hard for Paul Krugman to argue that the economy is still mired in the “Bush recession”. Today’s economic statistics have set fire to the market by indicating an accelerating economy. Indeed, it looks like we are well on our way to reaching the consensus opinion of a 4%-4.5% annualized rate of growth for the second half of 2003.
First thing this morning, the Commerce Department released the GDP report for the 2nd Quarter, which showed a 2.4% annualized rate of growth. That is much better than both the 1.4% rate from the 1st quarter or the 1.5% rate that economists were predicting for today’s release. This makes a 4.5% annualized rate of growth in the second half of 2003 a much stronger possibility.
An interesting component of the GDP report was the Chain Deflator, a broad-based gauge of inflation. Consensus estimates were for a 1.4% increase in prices. Briefing.com, however, predicted a much lower deflator of 1%, and they were right on target. Inflation is still quite refrained, and last quarter's 2.4% increase in the chained deflator seems to have been a one time deal.
This low inflation means that the Fed can still be comfortable with keeping interest rates at their extraordinarily low levels, or perhaps even flushing a bit more cash into the system through securities purchases at the discount window. A weak economy with inbcreasing inflation is a nightmare for the Fed, because having to tighten the money supply to combat inflation generally slows the economy. This more restrained than expected inflation number (one which I trust more than the CPI, by the way, but which is much less useful on a day to day basis because it only gets calculated every three months) indicates that the Fed still has a lot of policy leeway in terms of increasing the money supply, although it means that the Fed still has to keep deflationary cautions in mind.
In addition, the Institute for Supply Management (ISM)
1 released a better than expected Chicago Purchasing Manager’s Index today, which rose to 55.9 this month, an increase of 3.4 points over last month. (A reading greater than 50 on the PMI indicates economic expansion, while a reading below 50 indicates a recession.) The consensus estimate for the Chicago PMI was 53.8, so the actual number was a substantial improvement over the estimate.
While this report only concerns the Chicago region, it is generally a reliable snapshot of what the ISM’s national report will look like. The ISM Index will be released tomorrow morning. The ISM report has been coming in closer and closer to 50 since May, so a further increase tomorrow indicates that business purchasing managers are buying more and more raw materials, business products, etc. indicating that manufacturing and sales are on the rise. The consensus estimate is for an ISM Index of 52.0 tomorrow, which would put the ISM Index above 50 for the first time in four months
One of the weak spots in the economy has been the labor picture, with the unemployment rate at 6.4%. Today’s Labor Department release on initial claims for unemployment insurance dropped sharply, to 388,000. When initial claims rise above 400,000, the number is more or less recessionary. Last week we saw the first drop below 400,000 since February, with 386,000 new claims. While today’s claims number is slightly higher, analysts thought last week’s number was due to seasonal factors, and they expected this week’s number to rise above 400,000 again. So, a lower-than-expected number this week is an additional good sign.
The real employment story will become a little clearer tomorrow when we get a look at the non-farm payroll numbers and see if any net new jobs have been created. Consensus estimates are for the number of jobs to remain essentially unchanged, with a negligible increase of 10,000 net new jobs.
I expect the unemployment number to remain fairly high at 6.4%, though, because, even if there is a nice increase in non-farm payrolls, I expect those increases to be overshadowed by the number of people re-entering the workforce to look for jobs, so I think the unemployment number comes out more or less as a wash. The consensus estimate for tomorrow is an unemployment rate of 6.3%.
Overall, though, the picture for future economic expansion looks brighter than it has for some time.
__________
1 Call me old fashioned, but it will always be the NAPM to me.
Time for a vacation
(
Review) John Podhoretz writes that it's a good thing the president's headed back to the Crawford Ranch soon. Based on his testy performance in the press conference yesterday, it looks like he needs a vacation.
Some good lines
(
Review) I think of Ann Coulter as a sarcastic comedienne, rather than a serious political analyst. So, while I don't look to her for credible commentary about...well...anything, I gotta admit she can be pretty darn funny.
Another tape-recorded message from Saddam Hussein surfaced this week, making it the third audiotape he has released in the past month. If we're really serious about finding this guy, maybe we should start searching Iraq's recording studios.
On the tape, Hussein acknowledged the death of his sons Uday and Qusay Hussein and called their deaths "good news" – which is more than the Democrats have said. He thanked God for his sons' "martyrdom." Indeed, Hussein said that even if he had 100 other children, he "would offer them the same path." Apparently the alluring path of martyrdom is not one Saddam is choosing for himself.
Hussein praised his sons for putting up a brave fight, noting that U.S. forces had surrounded their compound with advanced weaponry, ground troops and warplanes. In case that didn't work, U.S. forces were prepared to tell Janet Reno that a small Cuban boy was inside the house.
In other terror news, the government issued a warning to the airlines this week about terrorist attacks on commercial aircraft being planned before the end of the summer. Al-Qaida has apparently sized up the new security measures put into place by Transportation Secretary Norman Mineta and has discovered some areas of vulnerability. Among the weaknesses the terrorists hope to exploit is the fact that airlines are prohibited from looking for Arab terrorists.
Say what you want about her, she's got a pretty sharp line of patter. The Reno line is just a perfect little comedy gem.
Maybe they know more than they're saying...
(
Review) Joel Mowbray writes that the Administration may know a lot more about Iraq's former WMD programs than they're willing to tell us at the moment.
Dr. David Kay—the 63-year-old former U.N. weapons inspector now heading up the American WMD team—recently remarked that the United States will be “starting to reveal” WMD evidence in six months.
Though he was circumspect at best, Dr. Kay’s comments could indicate that U.S. investigators know quite a bit more than they have revealed thus far.
Buzz inside the beltway has been intensifying in recent days that the administration may have significantly more evidence than it has publicly released, and Dr. Kay’s comments have triggered even more chatter. Some of it may be wishful thinking, but considering that some of the people doing the talking are administration officials, declarations that there are no WMDs may be premature.
If this is true, and we're keeping quiet about WMDs until we have a large, coherent, and incontrovertible body of evidence, then a lot of Democratic Presidential candidates are going to look like fools.
But of course, that would be redundant.
California's Defecting Dems
(
Review) OK. The deal with the California recall election for Governor Gray Davis was supposed to work like this: No Democrat would run against Davis, so his name would be the only Democratic Party name on the ballot. But, as John Fund writes, a lot of serious Democrats think that, with Davis' popularity running at 23%, such a plan is a good recipe for political suicide. So, despite any number of pious declarations that the whole Democratic Party machine was firmly behind Davis, it's beginning to look like the rats are abandoning his sinking ship.
That early sign of mutiny was followed on Wednesday by a San Francisco Chronicle headline: "Democratic Unity on Recall Shatters." The paper reported that Rep. Cal Dooley, a leading moderate Democrat from California's Central Valley, had issued a statement that said: "I seriously doubt that Davis can survive the recall effort. . . . It's a very high-risk strategy to place all your chips on a bet to defeat the recall, and . . . to rely on a slash-and-burn campaign that will further poison the political environment in California." He said that even if Mr. Davis survived the recall, "he would emerge as a wounded leader." He urged Sen. Feinstein to run "in the interests of the state [and] in the interests of the party."
If that wasn't ominous enough, Rep. Loretta Sanchez, an Orange County Democrat, echoed Mr. Dooley's comments and said "we need to have a strong Democrat on the ballot." If Ms. Feinstein or a similarly well-known candidate doesn't run, Ms. Sanchez said, "I'll have to." Ms. Sanchez was careful to couch her remarks as being supportive of Mr. Davis ("we all stand behind Gray"), but she said "there are people who believe we need to have insurance" if the recall succeeds. In the language of politics that basically translates into: We think you're a goner, but haven't yet figured out how to tell you.
Slightly more than a week remains for candidates to file for their spot on the recall ballot. I think that once the first Democrats breaks ranks and files her candidacy, there will be a veritable flood of Democrats looking for a place on the ballot to replace Davis.
And if that happens, Davis will be dead politically.
In the meantime, Davis is pulling out his usual pack of campaign lies. Davis polling indicates that voters begin to be upset about the recall if they are told it will cost $60 million. (Below that amount, they are willing to pay the money to get rid of him.) So, now Davis' political hacks--and Davis himself--are starting to hammer on the "sixty million dollars" that the recall will cost.
The primary responsibility for the election lies with the California Secretary of State's office. Their estimate is that the recall will cost $25-$35 million.
An extraordinarily stupid law
(
Review) Illinois has just enacted a foolish law.
A new rape law in Illinois attempts to clarify the issue of consent by emphasizing that people can change their mind while having sex. Under the law, if someone says "no" at any time the other person must stop or it becomes rape.
This law trivializes rape, under the guise of protecting women. It makes any unwanted sex into rape, even sex to which the woman initially consented. This is, I think, a vile insult to women who were actually raped by force.
It's also interesting to note that feminists, who contantly carp about how men and women are perfectly equal in all ways, are the same people who are arguing that this law is necessary to protect the delicate flower of femininity from the brutal men who fail to withdraw quickly enough when asked. Equally interesting, one notes that this law requires women to take no responsibility for their own initial decision to consent to have sex, if upon reflection, they find that decision to have been inappropriate.
Men, of course, being the brutes that they are by nature, receive--and indeed,
deserve--no slack if they don't withdraw with all deliberate speed.
Any takers on a bet that, within a decade, it will become law in the United States that if a woman gives consent to sex, then regrets it within the next 24 hours, the man can be charged with rape?
Finally, it's funny how that, if men are emotionally hurt, they just have to suck it up. If women get emotionally hurt, they get laws to help ease the pain.
Those darn Saudis
(
Review) Michael mandelbaum suggests that if the Saudis can't be convinced to reform their regime and reduce the power of the Wahabbist clerics that infest it, the world may decide that Something Must Be Done.
If the world cannot live without Saudi oil but concludes that it also cannot live with the current Saudi regime, it may decide to separate the two, putting the Saudi oil fields under some sort of international control. They might be administered by the United Nations, with the proceeds going to the world's poorest countries rather than to the Saudi ruling family. This would cut off the funding for terrorism that, until now, has emanated from Saudi Arabia. It would represent a sharp departure from existing international rules and procedures. But if Saudi-funded terror continues, proposals of this kind will rise to the top of the international agenda.
Of course, that would require the President of the US to decide to stop cozying up to the House of Saud, something this president seems loathe to do.
And I thought W had an ambitious foreign policy...
(
Review) Claudia Rosett suggests that, since we already happen to be in Iraq, a nation with the world's second largest oil reserves, we should try to use our leverage to destroy OPEC.
For a rough sense of where oil prices might head in a world without OPEC-led collusion, a Department of Energy analyst suggests recalling what happened in 1998, in the wake of the Asian economic crisis. For a while, OPEC lost control, and oil prices plunged to about $10 a barrel. As for the notion that OPEC's club of dictators is the best guarantor of "stability" in the world oil market--in this era of global markets and sophisticated financial instruments, with all the accompanying opportunities to trade, hedge and diversify risk, are we really supposed to buy OPEC's club of thugs as the best answer?
Unfortunately, high prices are only part of OPEC's cost to the world. The deeper damage is political. It consists of OPEC's reinforcement of state oil monopolies--OPEC itself being basically a club of despots who wield highly undemocratic control over their respective countries' oil wealth. That provides a degree of centralized power that makes OPEC quotas easier to enforce, certainly easier than trying to curb the production of private companies. At the extremes, this setup helps support such terrorist-breeding regimes as those of Saudi Arabia, Iran, Libya and preliberation Iraq. OPEC, in turn, confers unearned dignity and respect on its select bunch of oil despots by way of being a rich, established institution, with a regular place on the calendar of world events, and an address in Vienna.
It's not a bad idea at all.
OPEC is a cartel, rather than a monopoly, but the evils of cartel are much the same: Reduction in output in order to increase consumer prices. But, eliminating OPEC would not only reduce world energy prices, which is an attractive economic benefit, it would also deprive terror-incubating states of large amounts of cash which are currently being used for rather nefarious purposes.
Making odds on a recovery
(
Review) Mort Zuckerman suggests that further economic weakness may be in the cards.
Or not.
Economic Turnaround?
(
Review) Being a good economist, Robert Samuelson predicts that we are on the verge of an economic recovery.
Or not.
2004: Down and Dirty
(
Review) Christopher Caldwell writes that the the 2004 campaign, espcially if Howard Dean is the standard-bearer for the Democrats, may be the dirtiest presidential race in history.
But Dean has one overriding strength, and that strength is always in the news. The key to Dean's electoral hopes is George W. Bush. New Republic journalist Jonathan Cohn is one of the few to have stated as much with an appropriate baldness. "If Dean isn't really so liberal," Cohn asked in a recent article, "why do so many liberals love him? A big reason is that he seems as angry as they are." Dean has convinced Democratic voters that he is simply madder at the president than his rivals are--and less capable of doing business with the forces Bush represents. That is the real nature of his extremism. Some Democrats worry--Cohn's New Republic colleague Jonathan Chait, for instance--that Dean will paint himself into a corner by automatically taking the position diametrically opposed to the president's. That may indeed limit Dean's flexibility and cause him trouble in the general election. But the Democratic nominee will be chosen by a base that demands nothing less.
As for the general election, Republicans seem unaware of how riled up Democratic activists remain, even three years after the 2000 elections. A substantial segment of the party's base has been radicalized to the point where it does not recognize the legitimacy of the Bush presidency. This is a very different thing than mere dislike of a president. It means that Democrats are prepared to fight this election as if they were struggling to overthrow a tyrant. One fears that 2004 could wind up--in its rhetoric and its electoral ethics--as the dirtiest general election campaign in living memory. It is not a condemnation of Dean to say that his rise provides another piece of evidence that this fear is well founded.
It looks like the Democrats have convenced themselves that what the American people really want is a more Leftish Democratic Party candidate.
They thought that in 1972, too.
Anti-Religious Bias
(
Review) Denver's Catholic Archbishop, Charles Caput, has penned an article blasting Senator Richard Durbin (D-IL) for his opposition to fellow catholic William Pryor's nomination to the Federal bench.
But the committee debate on Pryor was ugly, and the vote to advance his nomination split exactly along party lines. Why? Because Mr. Pryor believes that Catholic teaching about the sanctity of life is true; that the 1973 Supreme Court Roe v. Wade decision was a poorly reasoned mistake; and that abortion is wrong in all cases, even rape and incest. As a result, Americans were treated to the bizarre spectacle of non-Catholic Senators Orrin Hatch and Jeff Sessions defending Mr. Pryor's constitutionally protected religious rights to Mr. Pryor's critics, including Senator Richard Durbin, an "abortion-rights" Catholic.
According to Senator Durbin (as reported by EWTN), "Many Catholics who oppose abortion personally do not believe the laws of the land should prohibit abortion for all others in extreme cases involving rape, incest and the life and the health of the mother." This kind of propaganda makes the abortion lobby proud, but it should humiliate any serious Catholic. At a minimum, Catholic members of Congress like Senator Durbin should actually read and pray over the "Catechism of the Catholic Church" and the encyclical "Evangelium Vitae" before they explain the Catholic faith to anyone.
They might even try doing something about their "personal opposition" to abortion by supporting competent pro-life judicial appointments. Otherwise, they simply prove what many people already believe -- that a new kind of religious discrimination is very welcome at the Capitol, even among elected officials who claim to be Catholic.
I expect that Sen. Durbin will be both shocked and angered to read this article.
Now, abortion isn't my issue. I think first-trimester abortions should be legal, in fact.
To the extent that I'm religious at all--and I'm not--I would probably be classified as an agnostic deist. I wasn't raised in the Catholic Church either. I was however, raised in a fundamentalist Pentecostal denomination. My father, 1 uncle, 1 Aunt, both grandfathers, one grandmother, and three great-grandfathers were all ordained ministers in the Assemblies of God church. I essentially grew up in churches pastored by my father, my uncle, or one of my grandfathers. I went to a private religious school for junior high and high school. So, I think I know just a little bit about the Religious Right, although I'm no longer part of it. As a small-L libertarian, I don't think I could properly even be called a man of the right, except insofar as I am an absolute hawk when it comes to the defense of the United States.
Moreover, I think the idea that "Abortion=Murder" as held by many on the religious right to be wrong on a scriptural basis. In the Bible, the killing of the unborn is addressed specifically only in one portion of the book of Exodus, in which God commands that if an unborn baby is killed the killer must pay a fine, but if the mother is killed, the killer must be executed. So, even in the Old Testament, the killing of the unborn was a sin, but not murder, as in the case of the mother's death, which requires that the killer be executed.
Having said all that, let me now say that I think the Archbishop is perfectly correct in his analysis of anti-religious bias. Indeed, Abortion Rights have essentially become
the religious doctrine of the Democratic Party. Democrats like Dennis Kucinich (D-OH), who have always been very pro-life, find their opinions suddenly turning pro-choice when they must campaign nationally on a Democratic ticket. It has become an item of faith with Democrats
never to approve any judicial nominee who doesn't toe the line on ROE v. WADE.
Which is too bad, because I believe ROE is a puerile and contradictory bit of "reasoning". Indeed, I don't think that there is a right to "privacy" enshrined into the Constitution at all, so I wouldn't mind going back and taking another look at GRISWOLD either. The business of the Court is not to define new rights based on "penumbras" or "emanations" from the Constitution. In ROE, the court at least gave lip service to this idea by declaring that it shouldn't create a new right, such as abortion, unless the right was implicit in the very idea of ordered liberty, or was an integral part of the traditions and history of the American people.
Of course, after making this pious pronouncement, the court went ahead and created a new abortion right anyway. And I think it’s clear that around half the people in this country think the Court was wrong to do so. (Indeed, recent polling indicates that slightly more than half of the people of this country oppose unrestricted abortion) So here's a little clue, if half the people oppose abortion thirty years after ROE, I think it's pretty fair to say that abortion "rights" are neither implicit in the concept of ordered liberty, nor an integral part of the traditions and history of our people.
But it is an inflexible part of the Democratic Party's platform, and if you have religious objections to abortion, the Democrats will do everything in their power to "Bork" you, should you be nominated for a judicial post. This is damaging both to our political system and to the judiciary as well. I think ROE
should be overturned. It is bad constitutional law, and it has contributed dangerously to the politicization of the judiciary.
Overturning ROE would not mean that abortion would automatically become illegal. It would merely return the issue of abortion to the political arena, where the legislatures in each state would craft abortion laws that more closely express the will of the people in those states. Yes, I'm sure some states would outlaw abortions, with probable exceptions for rape and incest. Some states, like mine here in California, would craft laws that would allow a fairly liberal abortion regime. But it would, at the very least, no longer force us to pretend that our forefathers enshrined a right into the Constitution that they and their descendants were unaware of for 197 years.
And to Senator Durbin, I would suggest that if abortion rights are more important to you than the teaching of your church, then the next time you pass a planned parenthood clinic, you should bow down and worship it. Because it has become your real god.
Who Are We to Decide Liberia's Civil War?
(
Review) James Pinkerton asks why we are being asked to involve ourselves in Liberia's civil war. I've already asked and answered the questions. We shouldn't get involved.
It's funny how keen some people are to see American troops fight and die in conflicts that have absolutely nothing to do with US security, but the second we start to act in our own interests, those same people--i.e., the left wing (and is there any other?) of the Democratic party--want our troops back home immediately.
Africa is a morass of disease, dictatorship, and despair. Indeed, whether you make you judgement on Africa's conditions based on medical, social, or economic bases, Africa is in nearly every way worse than it was in 1960, the last year of colonialization. It is not the fault of colonization, but rather the incompetence and rapacity of African leaders that have made Africa the sinkhole it is today.
And even if colonization is to be blamed for the parlous state of the continent, it is certainly not our responsibility to fix it, seeing as how Africa's colonization was a European project, not an American one.
The Saudis are not our friends
(
Review) What is it about the Bush family that makes them feel it necessary to snuggle up to the Saudis? Why, for example, did the Bush Administration redact 28 pages from the Congress' 911 report to protect them? I mean, if we are such good buddies and all, you'd think that there wouldn't be much need for such protection. Bill Kristol is asking the same questions, and feels it's time for us to stop being so stupidly loyal to what is at best a neutral regime in the war on terror, and at worst, an active financial supporter of our enemies.
The Bush administration claims the Saudis have been much more cooperative in the war on terror since the May 2003 bombing in Riyadh. But whether or not that's the case, and whether or not the administration's policy toward Saudi Arabia is now tough enough, there's simply no excuse for averting our eyes to the pre-9/11 situation. (In an unclassified part of the report, one government official is said to have told the committee that "it was clear from about 1996 that the Saudi government would not cooperate with the United States on matters related to Osama bin Laden.") The administration's censorship simply invites further questions about the extent to which we turned a blind eye to that failure to cooperate, or, for example, about why the bin Laden extended family was allowed suddenly to depart to Saudi Arabia shortly after September 11. There's no reason for the Bush administration now to be covering up the bipartisan disgrace of pre-9/11 U.S.-Saudi policy. Doing so simply gives fresh ammunition to its critics when the administration should be going on the offensive in making the (strong) case for its foreign policy.
As far as I can tell, the Saudis are doing the absolute minimum necessary to assist us, and that assistance comes to a shrieking halt any time we start doing anything to offend their exquisite sensibilities. I am, frankly, entirely unconcerned about their sensibilities at this point.
It's a pity the Bush Administration isn't.
Empire Lite
(
Review) Charles Krauthammer analyzes how 911 changed the military strategy of the US military, and how we are finally moving into post-Cold War deployments.
Iceland is a perfectly nice place, and Icelanders are perfectly nice people. But what exactly are the U.S. Air Force jets stationed there protecting the Icelanders from? (The Pentagon is in talks to finally remove them.) And what is the point of our huge investments in air bases in Saudi Arabia and Turkey? We were forbidden to fly combat missions out of them at the most critical of times, during a war against an Iraqi tyrant who threatened the entire neighborhood. The war in Iraq also made plain that our 68,000 troops in Germany are totally out of place, far from the action. They were unable to get to Iraq by land because Austria, with classic old Europe self-righteousness, refused to allow our troops to cross its territory to join the fight.
We are in the midst of a revolution, and it has two parts. The first is leaving places where we are not wanted. America is moving out of old Europe, which sees its liberty as coming with the air it breathes, and being welcomed in the new Europe of Poland, Hungary, Bulgaria and Romania, which have a living memory of tyranny and a deep understanding of America's role in winning their liberty. South Koreans regularly demonstrate against the U.S. presence in their country. Since the reason for that presence is for Americans to die in defense of Seoul, one has to ask oneself at what point strategic altruism becomes strategic masochism.
The second part is leaving places that mark the battle lines of a long-dead war. The great threat today is not Soviet attack but radical Arab-Islamic terrorism and instability in that part of the world. Hence the redeployment of American forces from the plains of Europe, Korea, perhaps next Japan, to the battleground of today: the Horn of Africa, Central Asia, the Persian Gulf.
It's a move that's about 10 years overdue, but we are finally making it.
Take off your shoes and stay a while
(
Review) Paul Gigot reports from Iraq that the primary worry among Iraqis isn't that we are there to steal their country away from them. They're worried that we'll cut and run.
Most reporting from Iraq suggests that the U.S. "occupation" isn't welcome here. But following Mr. Wolfowitz around the country I found precisely the opposite to be true. The majority aren't worried that we'll stay too long; they're petrified we'll leave too soon. Traumatized by 35 years of Saddam's terror, they fear we'll lose our nerve as casualties mount and leave them once again to the Baath Party's merciless revenge.
The interesting question that Mr. Gigot raises, and it's one that has been raised by Mark Steyn and others, is why we keep hearing in reports from Big Media about how eager the Iraqis are for us to leave.
Mandatory Libertarianism
(
Review) Arnold Kling's attendance on a debate about school vouchers has prompted him to wish that opponents could get a mandatory course in libertarianism.
