Obama's Press Conference on the Stimulus Was Not Reassuring. By Philip I. Levy
ForeignPolicy.com, Wednesday, February 11, 2009
The most interesting aspect of President Obama's prime time press conference yesterday was not the substance but the style. Without introducing any new plans, the president was making the case for the stimulus bill as best he could. I was disturbed by some of the rhetorical approaches he has adopted.
1. The Straw Man
"[T]he one concern I've got on the stimulus package, in terms of the debate and listening to some of what's been said in Congress is that there seems to be a set of folks who--I don't doubt their sincerity--who just believe that we should do nothing."
It's hard to rule out the possibility that there are such folks, but they are well-hidden. As far as I can see, there's pretty broad agreement that we have a crisis. There's pretty broad agreement that we should at least run a record-setting deficit of over $1.2 trillion this year (before any stimulus package). Then there are arguments over how we should spend trillions on some combination of spending programs, tax cuts, fiscal resuscitation, or housing market revival. Yet at least since his George Mason speech of early January, President Obama has made the argument that those who oppose his version of the stimulus favor inaction.
2. Fear
The President has argued repeatedly that if his plan is not adopted, disaster will ensue. This led to the first question last night, from Jennifer Loven of the Associated Press:
Earlier today in Indiana you said something striking. You said that this nation could end up in a crisis, without action, that we would be unable to reverse. Can you talk about what you know or what you're hearing that would lead you to say that our recession might be permanent when others in our history have not? And do you think that you risk losing some credibility or even talking down the economy by using dire language like that?
Obama backed off a little, but not much. This is a particularly dangerous game. Some of the time, the administration pretends that they are responding to the crisis with scientific precision ("$800 billion... wasn't just some random number that I plucked out of a hat"). Other times, there's a recognition that public sentiment is playing a major role. $800 billion over several years is fairly small relative to the size of the economy; the goal is to lift public spirits. But the cries of impending doom can have the opposite effect. John Taylor argues that such cries from then-Secretary Hank Paulson and Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke, coupled with an inadequate response, helped bring on the worst of the crisis last fall.
The president's message seems to be that we should be so scared that we should not stop and subject the proposal to scrutiny. This was the sort of approach the president's supporters roundly denounced when it emerged in national security debates during the Bush administration.
3. Taxes and the election
Arguing against alternative proposals that rely heavily on tax cuts, the president said:
"What I won't do is return to the failed theories of the last eight years that got us into this fix in the first place, because those theories have been tested and they have failed. And that's part of what the election in November was all about."
My recollection of the November election was somewhat different. I recall promises of a tax cut for 95 percent of the public. I recall large posters on street corners in Northern Virginia that read "Obama-Biden: Lower Taxes." Neither then nor afterward do I recall the argument about how lower taxes brought on the current crisis. One might make that argument with respect to the deductibility of mortgage interest--a large subsidy to housing--but I don't believe the president has done so.
4. Earmarks and waste
"But when [critics] start characterizing this as pork without acknowledging that there are no earmarks in this package--something, again, that was pretty rare over the last eight years--then you get a feeling that maybe we're playing politics instead of actually trying to solve problems for the American people."
Here the president either misunderstands the concerns about wasteful spending or has succumbed to the peculiarities of Capitol Hill thinking in his short time there. He is correct that one can define an earmark as a spending suggestion tucked into a bill by a single lawmaker and not subjected to broad scrutiny. That's a more technical definition. A broader description, one more likely to drive public concern, is wasteful spending. Greg Mankiw cites an example from Milwaukee, which was to receive $88.6 million for new school construction in the stimulus package, even though it had vacant schools and declining enrollment.
That example is small relative to the overall package, but the lack of hearings and planning raise legitimate concerns that bigger ticket items, like approaches to renewable energy, could be equally misguided. The president is sidestepping the substance of the concern by focusing on the procedure: whether it is wasteful or not, it will receive a full Congressional vote and will be monitored to make sure the funds are spent as intended. That's not so reassuring.
5. Four million jobs
The key selling point, to which the president kept returning, was the jobs impact of the stimulus package. As he said ast night: "So my bottom line when it comes to the recovery package is send me a bill that creates or saves 4 million jobs...."
The implication is that White House economists can turn the dials and adjust the levers so as to achieve a particular level of employment in the economy. They cannot. He is basing the jobs estimate on an analysis by Christina Romer and Jared Bernstein. Romer is a highly respected economist and the numbers they provide are a reasonable guess. But they're just that--a guess amidst enormous uncertainty. A little history shows why it is misleading to think we can call up 4 million help wanted ads with a calibrated stimulus plan.
As Ben Bernanke noted in a 2004 speech, the economy in an average year creates 17 million jobs and loses 15 million, for a net gain of 2 million jobs. The President says he wants to "create or save" 4 million jobs, and this will be the key measure of his package's success. Given both normal and extraordinary labor market turmoil, such a change would be very difficult to measure. If the economy revives, 4 million gross jobs will seem small. If the economy does not, one can always argue that it could have been worse.
Last year the economy suffered a net loss of 3.6 million jobs. One of the striking features of that job-loss was that it occurred at a time when the economy was growing by 1.3 percent. This divergence between jobs and growth led to the breakdown of the old rule of thumb: a recession occurs when there are two consecutive quarters of negative growth. Yet it is exactly that broken-down relationship between spending and jobs that underlies the analysis promising the new jobs. The numbers are far more tenuous than the president lets on.
6. Bipartisanship
Throughout the press conference, the president was repeatedly asked about his pledges of bipartisanship. He noted that he had gone to visit Republicans on Capitol Hill and invited them to the White House. Perhaps a better measure of bipartisanship is the willingness to treat an opponent's arguments with respect.
Wednesday, February 11, 2009
How will Obama's liberalism shape America?
How will Obama's liberalism shape America? By Charles R. Kesler
The answer lies in understanding the three waves of liberalism in America's past.
The Christian Science Monitor, February 11, 2009 edition
Claremont, Calif. - Despite all his efforts to transcend partisanship, President Barack Obama is demonstrably a liberal. But what kind of liberal is he? And what does his brand of liberalism augur for America?
Even in the Democratic primaries, he shunned the "liberal" label. (Hillary Clinton did, too, preferring to be called a progressive.) Mr. Obama's favorite tack was to assail the whole argument between left and right as cynical and outdated. In its place he offered a pragmatic, hopeful, allegedly nonideological way forward.
On Election Day, his "working majority for change" turned out for him and the Democratic Party. Since then, Obama has tried to live up to his inaugural pledge to put an end to "the petty grievances and false promises, the recriminations and worn-out dogmas that for too long have strangled our politics." He has emphasized national unity and invoked the Founding Fathers. He met with congressional Republicans, and dined with conservative commentators at George Will's home.
Yet how nonideological can a politician be who was recognized by the National Journal as the most liberal-voting senator in 2007? Almost his first act as president was to issue executive orders repealing the policies of his Republican predecessor. Obama's healthcare and foreign-policy ideas are standard liberal issue.
His stimulus bill, meanwhile, did not get a single Republican vote in the House, and won't get many in the Senate. The problem is that the bill stimulates Democratic constituency groups – government employees, unions, community organizers – more obviously than it does the economy.
Obama's "new politics for a new time" looks increasingly familiar – "pork still, with but a little change of sauce," to quote Alexander Hamilton at the Constitutional Convention. But that doesn't mean that this president's liberalism will not be interesting. Indeed, he has endeavored to do no less than complete and perfect the grand liberal project begun a century ago.
Three waves of liberalism
Modern liberalism came to America in three waves, and it's useful to think of Obama in this light.
The progressives of the early 20th century were the original liberals, developing the essential tenets of liberalism as a political doctrine. Woodrow Wilson and others argued that the Constitution was an 18th-century document, based on 18th-century notions of rights. While suited to its day, they said, it was now painfully inadequate unless interpreted in a vital new spirit.
This spirit was Darwinian and evolutionary, turning Hamilton's "limited Constitution" into a "living Constitution" that must be able to adapt its structure and function to meet the latest social and economic challenges. To guide this evolution, to organize society's march into the future, presidents had to cease being merely constitutional officers and become dynamic leaders of popular opinion.
Obama accepts all the major elements of this evolutionary approach to the Constitution and American government. As he wrote in "The Audacity of Hope," the Constitution "is not a static but rather a living document, and must be read in the context of an ever-changing world."
Likewise, in his inaugural address he declared, "The question we ask today is not whether our government is too big or too small, but whether it works…."
This emphasis on what "works" is his nod to pragmatism, which he implies is almost the opposite of ideological liberalism. In fact, however, such pragmatism is part of liberalism.
What "works," after all, depends on what you think government's purpose is supposed to be. Pragmatism tries to distract us from those ultimate questions, while assuming liberal answers to them. Thus Franklin D. Roosevelt's New Deal promised "bold, persistent experimentation." Obama's domestic agenda betrays the same eagerness.
Liberalism's second stage was economic. In the New Deal, the Great Society, and its sequels, liberals turned to the wholesale minting of new kinds of rights. Citizens were thus entitled to socioeconomic benefits through programs such as Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid. Besides these entitlements, the federal government also extended its regulatory authority to areas previously private or under state and local jurisdiction.
But this wave crested unexpectedly, and for a while, contemporary liberals seemingly lost their enthusiasm for such top-down regulation and the work of transforming privileges into rights.
With the fall of the Soviet Union and the discrediting of socialist economies around the globe, liberals such as Bill Clinton took a second look at the free market. He populated his Treasury department with highfliers from Goldman Sachs and other Wall Street firms. In left-leaning think tanks and even in the academy, capitalism commanded strange new respect. This rehabilitation of the market, though never more than partial, was the greatest change in American liberalism in the past 40 years. Obama absorbed it, as did many members of his new administration.
But the financial crisis and market meltdown have changed things.
It looks like 1932 again, a time for reinvigorated government activism. "Without a watchful eye, the market can spin out of control," Obama said in his inaugural. But does the market merely need watching – or some weightier form of "control"?
The final wave of liberalism crashed over America in the 1960s and '70s. Cultural liberalism erupted in the universities but the counterculture quickly went mainstream, bringing sex, drugs, and rock 'n 'roll, not to mention women's liberation, gay liberation, and abortion, to the masses.
So far, the most innovative aspect of Obama's liberalism is how he has tried to transcend its cultural excesses.
Whereas Bill Clinton sometimes embodied the immaturity and self-indulgence of the '60s, Obama's demeanor and family life – even his suits – bespeak a mature, serious liberalism that sees self-control and adulthood as cool.
Still, Obama's political dealings with cultural liberalism are bound to be complicated. He tries to defuse issues such as abortion and gay marriage by not talking about them, except in front of the relevant audience. But as president, his remarks anywhere will be noticed. Though he claims to believe that gun ownership is an individual right protected by the Second Amendment, his support for sweeping gun-control measures suggests a different perspective.
His landmark speech on race managed to divorce him from the worst of the Rev. Jeremiah Wright's fulminations, without quite repudiating the most pernicious of Mr. Wright's assumptions, namely, that the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution were, at least originally, racist documents.
Obama's religious rhetoric
On such issues Obama's best defense is a good offense, and he will doubtless continue therefore to celebrate the importance of religion in his life and in the country's, and to praise America's founders and heroes.
On Jan. 20, from the Capitol's west steps he proclaimed, "We are a nation of Christians and Muslims, Jews and Hindus – and nonbelievers." But he also invoked God five times and Scripture once. The multicultural reflex cannot be banished, but Obama clearly intends to speak in the name of religion. He does not want to leave a naked public square into which only conservative faiths and believers may stroll.
This determination will make for awkward moments: Are all those faiths equally constitutive of American mores? Whose scripture is being consulted here? (His inaugural cited First Corinthians 13:11.) Nonetheless, he is keen for liberalism to become a firm ally of American religiosity, especially insofar as churches are willing to preach a new social gospel devoted to improving the lives of people in this world and around the globe.
The patriotic theme, so prominent in his inaugural, is Obama's reply to the anti-Americanism of the cultural and academic left, those last redoubts of the radical '60s. If he is persuasive, over time he may well heal the worst of the Democratic Party's self-inflicted wounds and prepare it to be the defender of "our better history," as he put it.
A lasting Democratic majority
His ambitions are clear: The speech was a pastiche of themes adapted from FDR and Ronald Reagan, the last two presidents to pull off major electoral realignments (less enduring in Reagan's case). What Obama hopes for is a similar breakthrough for the forces of liberalism in this generation.
An enduring Democratic majority is not out of the question. The wild scramble to stop the economic and financial downturn may well leave America with a politically controlled economy that would corrupt the relationship between citizens and the federal government – sapping entrepreneurship and encouraging new forms of dependence on the state, as in much of Europe. That would be consistent with the more socialized democracy that liberalism has been striving for ever since the Progressive Era.
Obama likes to emphasize that America is more like the world than we realize, and must become still more like it if the US is to remain the world's leader. Despite his summoning oratory, his sense of American exceptionalism thus is far less lofty, far more constrained, than Reagan's or FDR's. The greatest stumbling block to Obama's ambition is likely to be the inability of this exceptional president to persuade Americans to follow him into so unexceptional a future.
Charles R. Kesler is a senior fellow at The Claremont Institute, editor of the Claremont Review of Books, and a professor of government at Claremont McKenna College.
The answer lies in understanding the three waves of liberalism in America's past.
The Christian Science Monitor, February 11, 2009 edition
Claremont, Calif. - Despite all his efforts to transcend partisanship, President Barack Obama is demonstrably a liberal. But what kind of liberal is he? And what does his brand of liberalism augur for America?
Even in the Democratic primaries, he shunned the "liberal" label. (Hillary Clinton did, too, preferring to be called a progressive.) Mr. Obama's favorite tack was to assail the whole argument between left and right as cynical and outdated. In its place he offered a pragmatic, hopeful, allegedly nonideological way forward.
On Election Day, his "working majority for change" turned out for him and the Democratic Party. Since then, Obama has tried to live up to his inaugural pledge to put an end to "the petty grievances and false promises, the recriminations and worn-out dogmas that for too long have strangled our politics." He has emphasized national unity and invoked the Founding Fathers. He met with congressional Republicans, and dined with conservative commentators at George Will's home.
Yet how nonideological can a politician be who was recognized by the National Journal as the most liberal-voting senator in 2007? Almost his first act as president was to issue executive orders repealing the policies of his Republican predecessor. Obama's healthcare and foreign-policy ideas are standard liberal issue.
His stimulus bill, meanwhile, did not get a single Republican vote in the House, and won't get many in the Senate. The problem is that the bill stimulates Democratic constituency groups – government employees, unions, community organizers – more obviously than it does the economy.
Obama's "new politics for a new time" looks increasingly familiar – "pork still, with but a little change of sauce," to quote Alexander Hamilton at the Constitutional Convention. But that doesn't mean that this president's liberalism will not be interesting. Indeed, he has endeavored to do no less than complete and perfect the grand liberal project begun a century ago.
Three waves of liberalism
Modern liberalism came to America in three waves, and it's useful to think of Obama in this light.
The progressives of the early 20th century were the original liberals, developing the essential tenets of liberalism as a political doctrine. Woodrow Wilson and others argued that the Constitution was an 18th-century document, based on 18th-century notions of rights. While suited to its day, they said, it was now painfully inadequate unless interpreted in a vital new spirit.
This spirit was Darwinian and evolutionary, turning Hamilton's "limited Constitution" into a "living Constitution" that must be able to adapt its structure and function to meet the latest social and economic challenges. To guide this evolution, to organize society's march into the future, presidents had to cease being merely constitutional officers and become dynamic leaders of popular opinion.
Obama accepts all the major elements of this evolutionary approach to the Constitution and American government. As he wrote in "The Audacity of Hope," the Constitution "is not a static but rather a living document, and must be read in the context of an ever-changing world."
Likewise, in his inaugural address he declared, "The question we ask today is not whether our government is too big or too small, but whether it works…."
This emphasis on what "works" is his nod to pragmatism, which he implies is almost the opposite of ideological liberalism. In fact, however, such pragmatism is part of liberalism.
What "works," after all, depends on what you think government's purpose is supposed to be. Pragmatism tries to distract us from those ultimate questions, while assuming liberal answers to them. Thus Franklin D. Roosevelt's New Deal promised "bold, persistent experimentation." Obama's domestic agenda betrays the same eagerness.
Liberalism's second stage was economic. In the New Deal, the Great Society, and its sequels, liberals turned to the wholesale minting of new kinds of rights. Citizens were thus entitled to socioeconomic benefits through programs such as Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid. Besides these entitlements, the federal government also extended its regulatory authority to areas previously private or under state and local jurisdiction.
But this wave crested unexpectedly, and for a while, contemporary liberals seemingly lost their enthusiasm for such top-down regulation and the work of transforming privileges into rights.
With the fall of the Soviet Union and the discrediting of socialist economies around the globe, liberals such as Bill Clinton took a second look at the free market. He populated his Treasury department with highfliers from Goldman Sachs and other Wall Street firms. In left-leaning think tanks and even in the academy, capitalism commanded strange new respect. This rehabilitation of the market, though never more than partial, was the greatest change in American liberalism in the past 40 years. Obama absorbed it, as did many members of his new administration.
But the financial crisis and market meltdown have changed things.
It looks like 1932 again, a time for reinvigorated government activism. "Without a watchful eye, the market can spin out of control," Obama said in his inaugural. But does the market merely need watching – or some weightier form of "control"?
The final wave of liberalism crashed over America in the 1960s and '70s. Cultural liberalism erupted in the universities but the counterculture quickly went mainstream, bringing sex, drugs, and rock 'n 'roll, not to mention women's liberation, gay liberation, and abortion, to the masses.
So far, the most innovative aspect of Obama's liberalism is how he has tried to transcend its cultural excesses.
Whereas Bill Clinton sometimes embodied the immaturity and self-indulgence of the '60s, Obama's demeanor and family life – even his suits – bespeak a mature, serious liberalism that sees self-control and adulthood as cool.
Still, Obama's political dealings with cultural liberalism are bound to be complicated. He tries to defuse issues such as abortion and gay marriage by not talking about them, except in front of the relevant audience. But as president, his remarks anywhere will be noticed. Though he claims to believe that gun ownership is an individual right protected by the Second Amendment, his support for sweeping gun-control measures suggests a different perspective.
His landmark speech on race managed to divorce him from the worst of the Rev. Jeremiah Wright's fulminations, without quite repudiating the most pernicious of Mr. Wright's assumptions, namely, that the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution were, at least originally, racist documents.
Obama's religious rhetoric
On such issues Obama's best defense is a good offense, and he will doubtless continue therefore to celebrate the importance of religion in his life and in the country's, and to praise America's founders and heroes.
On Jan. 20, from the Capitol's west steps he proclaimed, "We are a nation of Christians and Muslims, Jews and Hindus – and nonbelievers." But he also invoked God five times and Scripture once. The multicultural reflex cannot be banished, but Obama clearly intends to speak in the name of religion. He does not want to leave a naked public square into which only conservative faiths and believers may stroll.
This determination will make for awkward moments: Are all those faiths equally constitutive of American mores? Whose scripture is being consulted here? (His inaugural cited First Corinthians 13:11.) Nonetheless, he is keen for liberalism to become a firm ally of American religiosity, especially insofar as churches are willing to preach a new social gospel devoted to improving the lives of people in this world and around the globe.
The patriotic theme, so prominent in his inaugural, is Obama's reply to the anti-Americanism of the cultural and academic left, those last redoubts of the radical '60s. If he is persuasive, over time he may well heal the worst of the Democratic Party's self-inflicted wounds and prepare it to be the defender of "our better history," as he put it.
A lasting Democratic majority
His ambitions are clear: The speech was a pastiche of themes adapted from FDR and Ronald Reagan, the last two presidents to pull off major electoral realignments (less enduring in Reagan's case). What Obama hopes for is a similar breakthrough for the forces of liberalism in this generation.
An enduring Democratic majority is not out of the question. The wild scramble to stop the economic and financial downturn may well leave America with a politically controlled economy that would corrupt the relationship between citizens and the federal government – sapping entrepreneurship and encouraging new forms of dependence on the state, as in much of Europe. That would be consistent with the more socialized democracy that liberalism has been striving for ever since the Progressive Era.
Obama likes to emphasize that America is more like the world than we realize, and must become still more like it if the US is to remain the world's leader. Despite his summoning oratory, his sense of American exceptionalism thus is far less lofty, far more constrained, than Reagan's or FDR's. The greatest stumbling block to Obama's ambition is likely to be the inability of this exceptional president to persuade Americans to follow him into so unexceptional a future.
Charles R. Kesler is a senior fellow at The Claremont Institute, editor of the Claremont Review of Books, and a professor of government at Claremont McKenna College.
Why isn't there more consensus among economists?
Why isn't there more consensus among economists? Tyler Cowen
Marginal Revolution, February 10, 2009 at 09:57 AM
Clive Crook asks that question about the fiscal stimulus (by the way, Paul Krugman responds to the part of the column about him). I do think there is more of a consensus than the current debates in the media, and the blogosphere, might imply. I take the general consensus of macroeconomics to be not too far from the position articulated by Alice Rivlin. That means accelerate the truly stimulative parts of the proposal and ponder the rest at greater length, plus emphasize aid to state and local governments. I'm not suggesting that you have to bow down and yield to that view, only that the view makes sense to a large number of macroeconomists.
In part the appearance of so much disagreement is driven by the fact that both MSM and the blogosphere select for opinions which deviate from the mainstream. Many segments of MSM are willing to represent the mainstream opinion, but there is then a sense that some new point of view must be offered, if only to hold the interest of the reader or viewer. And some parts of MSM are openly partisan and thus they skew toward extreme points of view. In the blogosphere libertarians are overrepresented, relative to their numbers in the profession. On the Democratic side, Paul Krugman is the most influential figure, and I would place him to the left of most Democratic economists. Progressives, like libertarians, are overrepresented on the web, relative to their numbers in the economics profession or elsewhere.
It is good that so many different points of view are being reflected, but we need to keep the biases of our filters in mind. Repeating a moderate view, again and again and again, isn't always the best way to attract or keep an audience.
Marginal Revolution, February 10, 2009 at 09:57 AM
Clive Crook asks that question about the fiscal stimulus (by the way, Paul Krugman responds to the part of the column about him). I do think there is more of a consensus than the current debates in the media, and the blogosphere, might imply. I take the general consensus of macroeconomics to be not too far from the position articulated by Alice Rivlin. That means accelerate the truly stimulative parts of the proposal and ponder the rest at greater length, plus emphasize aid to state and local governments. I'm not suggesting that you have to bow down and yield to that view, only that the view makes sense to a large number of macroeconomists.
In part the appearance of so much disagreement is driven by the fact that both MSM and the blogosphere select for opinions which deviate from the mainstream. Many segments of MSM are willing to represent the mainstream opinion, but there is then a sense that some new point of view must be offered, if only to hold the interest of the reader or viewer. And some parts of MSM are openly partisan and thus they skew toward extreme points of view. In the blogosphere libertarians are overrepresented, relative to their numbers in the profession. On the Democratic side, Paul Krugman is the most influential figure, and I would place him to the left of most Democratic economists. Progressives, like libertarians, are overrepresented on the web, relative to their numbers in the economics profession or elsewhere.
It is good that so many different points of view are being reflected, but we need to keep the biases of our filters in mind. Repeating a moderate view, again and again and again, isn't always the best way to attract or keep an audience.
President Prescreens Reporters at Press Conference?
Obama's Press List. WSJ Editorial
Membership shall have its privileges
About half-way through President Obama's press conference Monday night, he had an unscripted question of his own. "All, Chuck Todd," the President said, referring to NBC's White House correspondent. "Where's Chuck?" He had the same strange question about Fox News's Major Garrett: "Where's Major?"
The problem wasn't the lighting in the East Room. The President was running down a list of reporters preselected to ask questions. The White House had decided in advance who would be allowed to question the President and who was left out.
Presidents are free to conduct press conferences however they like, but the decision to preselect questioners is an odd one, especially for a White House famously pledged to openness. We doubt that President Bush, who was notorious for being parsimonious with follow-ups, would have gotten away with prescreening his interlocutors. Mr. Obama can more than handle his own, so our guess is that this is an attempt to discipline reporters who aren't White House favorites.
Few accounts of Monday night's event even mentioned the curious fact that the White House had picked its speakers in advance. We hope that omission wasn't out of fear of being left off the list the next time.
Membership shall have its privileges
About half-way through President Obama's press conference Monday night, he had an unscripted question of his own. "All, Chuck Todd," the President said, referring to NBC's White House correspondent. "Where's Chuck?" He had the same strange question about Fox News's Major Garrett: "Where's Major?"
The problem wasn't the lighting in the East Room. The President was running down a list of reporters preselected to ask questions. The White House had decided in advance who would be allowed to question the President and who was left out.
Presidents are free to conduct press conferences however they like, but the decision to preselect questioners is an odd one, especially for a White House famously pledged to openness. We doubt that President Bush, who was notorious for being parsimonious with follow-ups, would have gotten away with prescreening his interlocutors. Mr. Obama can more than handle his own, so our guess is that this is an attempt to discipline reporters who aren't White House favorites.
Few accounts of Monday night's event even mentioned the curious fact that the White House had picked its speakers in advance. We hope that omission wasn't out of fear of being left off the list the next time.
Conservative views: The U.S. and U.K. Must Oppose French Plans to Weaken NATO
The U.S. and U.K. Must Oppose French Plans to Weaken NATO. By Nile Gardiner, Ph.D., and Sally McNamara
Heritage, Feb 10, 2009
Full article w/references here.
The Obama Administration has announced it will back the full reintegration of France into the NATO command structure, with French officers reportedly in line to take two senior Alliance command positions: Allied Command Transformation (one of NATO's two supreme commands, based in Norfolk, Virginia) and Joint Command Lisbon (one of NATO's three main operations headquarters, which also commands the NATO Rapid Reaction Force).[1]
This is a highly significant development that would put France at the heart of NATO military planning and reform proposals and represents an ill-thought-out and risky concession by Washington to the Sarkozy administration.
In a major speech at the Munich Security Conference on February 7,[2] Vice President Joe Biden welcomed France's decision "to fully participate in NATO structures" and also made it clear that the United States will "support the further strengthening of European defense, an increased role for the European Union in preserving peace and security, [and] a fundamentally stronger NATO-EU partnership." Biden's remarks echoed the views of British Defence Secretary John Hutton, who recklessly backed French plans for a European Union army last October.[3]
Both the United States and Great Britain must take a step back and launch a fundamental, wide-ranging review of the long-term implications of French demands for the future of NATO. The U.S. Congress should hold hearings to assess the new Administration's strategy with regard to French reintegration in order to highlight any dangers posed to U.S. interests.
It would be a huge strategic error of judgment by the new U.S. Administration and the British government to continue supporting French ambitions for restructuring Europe's security architecture. Such acquiescence would hand Paris an extraordinary degree of power and influence within NATO--power and influence well out of proportion to France's actual military role in Alliance operations.
Providing France with such influence would also ultimately weaken the Anglo-American Special Relationship, shifting power away from Washington and London and toward continental Europe while paving the way for the development of a separate European Union defense identity--all of which will undermine NATO.
French Reintegration into NATO
When President Sarkozy first floated the idea of French reintegration into NATO's military command in June 2007, he outlined two preconditions: guaranteed senior command posts for French officers within the Alliance, and American endorsement of an increased EU defense identity (the latter of which he emphasized as the more important of the two).[4] To formally establish the principle of reintegration, Sarkozy commissioned an influential "White Paper on Defense and National Security," which was published in March 2008.
Designed to promote an independent European defense identity, the French White Paper on Defense and National Security clearly states:
The European ambition stands as a priority. Making the European Union a major player in crisis management and international security is one of the central tenets of our security policy. France wants Europe to be equipped with the corresponding military and civilian capability.[5]
The paper endorses several key principles:
In June 2008, President Sarkozy circulated an additional document outlining Paris's policy initiatives for European military integration. It presents the major elements of what an EU defense identity will entail, including:
America Has Little to Gain--and a Lot to Lose
It is likely that the Obama Administration will regard France's reintegration into NATO as a diplomatic masterstroke. The Administration will claim that it has rebuilt the Franco-American relationship in a mutually beneficial way, and Sarkozy will in turn claim that it tangibly demonstrates France's commitment to standing alongside America.
However, the Administration must ask itself what the U.S. actually gains from such a quid pro quo. Such reintegration may extract a few hundred additional French troops for eastern Afghanistan and generate stronger French public support for the Afghan mission. But President Obama will find that he has rescued the furniture only to give away the house. Not only is France already able to commit as many troops as it wishes to NATO missions (as it proved last year when 700 additional French troops were sent to Afghanistan), but 10 years of EU security initiatives have actually seen a decrease in European defense spending.
Washington continues to argue that supporting the European Security and Defense Policy is a means toward improving European defense spending and military capabilities. But after 10 years, such improvement has yet to occur and is not reflected in the projected defense budgets of any major European power. Since the EU and NATO operate in the same areas both militarily and geographically, the competition for resources will become fiercer, and Washington is likely to see its requests for military help increasingly rebuffed as France demands European commitments to EU missions.[7] Once the United States gives its blessing to the creation of a separate European defense structure, it will have no grounds to compel Europe to choose NATO over EU requests in the future.
A Parisian Power Play
Rather than genuinely attempting to increase Europe's contribution to defense on the international stage, France is seeking to expand both Paris's and the EU's power base. Sarkozy's proposal is largely political, not military. In practice, France is already involved with almost all of NATO's structures and operations, including all political bodies and the NATO Response Force. It also partakes in joint training exercises.
French reintegration into NATO command structures offers little additional value to Washington but gives immense momentum to French ambitions for an autonomous EU foreign and defense policy. When French presidents talk about European foreign policy, they more often than not mean French foreign policy. Equally, when Sarkozy talks about increasing European security capabilities, he means decreasing American involvement in Europe.
For instance, in January 2007 the EU established a military operations center in Brussels, which later that year conducted "a nine-day exercise involving the virtual deployment of 2,000 European soldiers to deal with a crisis in the fictional country of Alisia."[8] The operational center is without doubt a fledgling EU military headquarters that duplicates and will eventually compete with the NATO command.
The French proposal for an independent European defense structure will build upon the foundations laid by this new EU military headquarters. If the United States agrees to the French plan, it will represent yet another reversal of the Berlin Plus arrangements and a further erosion of the supremacy of NATO in Europe.
No Quid Pro Quo with France
If the Obama Administration agrees to support an independent EU defense structure as part of the French plan for rejoining NATO's command, such backing would represent a major transformation in U.S. strategic thinking that would have a dramatic, negative impact on the future of the alliance. It would shift the political balance of power within NATO away from Washington and London toward the main centers of power within the European Union: Paris, Berlin, and Brussels. Far from encouraging European countries to spend more on defense, it would foster an even greater dependency culture within continental Europe upon NATO resources. Such a shift would also lead to a duplication of the NATO command structure without a doubling of manpower or materiel.
It is vital that both the U.S. and U.K. reject any French proposal predicated on American and British support for an independent European defense organization. Paris should be welcomed back into NATO's leadership club only on terms that are acceptable to all NATO members, and without the doling out of powerful command positions to a country that is at best a half-hearted member of the alliance.
Simply Unacceptable
It is difficult to see how a greater EU defense capability will actually strengthen the NATO mission or the broader transatlantic alliance. Indeed, encouraging a bigger military role for the EU can only make NATO's task more complicated.
NATO has been the most successful post-war multilateral organization precisely because it is a truly transatlantic defense and security alliance of independent nation-states with a single command. The French proposal to build up a separate EU defense structure--i.e., a competitor to NATO sucking up valuable NATO resources--is simply unacceptable and should be firmly rejected.
Nile Gardiner Ph.D. is the Director of, and Sally McNamara is Senior Policy Analyst in European Affairs in, the Margaret Thatcher Center for Freedom at the Heritage Foundation. Erica Munkwitz assisted with research for this paper.
Heritage, Feb 10, 2009
Full article w/references here.
The Obama Administration has announced it will back the full reintegration of France into the NATO command structure, with French officers reportedly in line to take two senior Alliance command positions: Allied Command Transformation (one of NATO's two supreme commands, based in Norfolk, Virginia) and Joint Command Lisbon (one of NATO's three main operations headquarters, which also commands the NATO Rapid Reaction Force).[1]
This is a highly significant development that would put France at the heart of NATO military planning and reform proposals and represents an ill-thought-out and risky concession by Washington to the Sarkozy administration.
In a major speech at the Munich Security Conference on February 7,[2] Vice President Joe Biden welcomed France's decision "to fully participate in NATO structures" and also made it clear that the United States will "support the further strengthening of European defense, an increased role for the European Union in preserving peace and security, [and] a fundamentally stronger NATO-EU partnership." Biden's remarks echoed the views of British Defence Secretary John Hutton, who recklessly backed French plans for a European Union army last October.[3]
Both the United States and Great Britain must take a step back and launch a fundamental, wide-ranging review of the long-term implications of French demands for the future of NATO. The U.S. Congress should hold hearings to assess the new Administration's strategy with regard to French reintegration in order to highlight any dangers posed to U.S. interests.
It would be a huge strategic error of judgment by the new U.S. Administration and the British government to continue supporting French ambitions for restructuring Europe's security architecture. Such acquiescence would hand Paris an extraordinary degree of power and influence within NATO--power and influence well out of proportion to France's actual military role in Alliance operations.
Providing France with such influence would also ultimately weaken the Anglo-American Special Relationship, shifting power away from Washington and London and toward continental Europe while paving the way for the development of a separate European Union defense identity--all of which will undermine NATO.
French Reintegration into NATO
When President Sarkozy first floated the idea of French reintegration into NATO's military command in June 2007, he outlined two preconditions: guaranteed senior command posts for French officers within the Alliance, and American endorsement of an increased EU defense identity (the latter of which he emphasized as the more important of the two).[4] To formally establish the principle of reintegration, Sarkozy commissioned an influential "White Paper on Defense and National Security," which was published in March 2008.
Designed to promote an independent European defense identity, the French White Paper on Defense and National Security clearly states:
The European ambition stands as a priority. Making the European Union a major player in crisis management and international security is one of the central tenets of our security policy. France wants Europe to be equipped with the corresponding military and civilian capability.[5]
The paper endorses several key principles:
- Redefinition of responsibility-sharing between America and Europe;
- An explicit rejection of the idea that the EU act as a civilian complement to NATO; and
- A strong preference for buying European defense technologies.
In June 2008, President Sarkozy circulated an additional document outlining Paris's policy initiatives for European military integration. It presents the major elements of what an EU defense identity will entail, including:
- A permanent operation headquarters in Brussels;
- Common EU funding for military operations; and
- European exchange programs for military personnel.[6]
America Has Little to Gain--and a Lot to Lose
It is likely that the Obama Administration will regard France's reintegration into NATO as a diplomatic masterstroke. The Administration will claim that it has rebuilt the Franco-American relationship in a mutually beneficial way, and Sarkozy will in turn claim that it tangibly demonstrates France's commitment to standing alongside America.
However, the Administration must ask itself what the U.S. actually gains from such a quid pro quo. Such reintegration may extract a few hundred additional French troops for eastern Afghanistan and generate stronger French public support for the Afghan mission. But President Obama will find that he has rescued the furniture only to give away the house. Not only is France already able to commit as many troops as it wishes to NATO missions (as it proved last year when 700 additional French troops were sent to Afghanistan), but 10 years of EU security initiatives have actually seen a decrease in European defense spending.
Washington continues to argue that supporting the European Security and Defense Policy is a means toward improving European defense spending and military capabilities. But after 10 years, such improvement has yet to occur and is not reflected in the projected defense budgets of any major European power. Since the EU and NATO operate in the same areas both militarily and geographically, the competition for resources will become fiercer, and Washington is likely to see its requests for military help increasingly rebuffed as France demands European commitments to EU missions.[7] Once the United States gives its blessing to the creation of a separate European defense structure, it will have no grounds to compel Europe to choose NATO over EU requests in the future.
A Parisian Power Play
Rather than genuinely attempting to increase Europe's contribution to defense on the international stage, France is seeking to expand both Paris's and the EU's power base. Sarkozy's proposal is largely political, not military. In practice, France is already involved with almost all of NATO's structures and operations, including all political bodies and the NATO Response Force. It also partakes in joint training exercises.
French reintegration into NATO command structures offers little additional value to Washington but gives immense momentum to French ambitions for an autonomous EU foreign and defense policy. When French presidents talk about European foreign policy, they more often than not mean French foreign policy. Equally, when Sarkozy talks about increasing European security capabilities, he means decreasing American involvement in Europe.
For instance, in January 2007 the EU established a military operations center in Brussels, which later that year conducted "a nine-day exercise involving the virtual deployment of 2,000 European soldiers to deal with a crisis in the fictional country of Alisia."[8] The operational center is without doubt a fledgling EU military headquarters that duplicates and will eventually compete with the NATO command.
The French proposal for an independent European defense structure will build upon the foundations laid by this new EU military headquarters. If the United States agrees to the French plan, it will represent yet another reversal of the Berlin Plus arrangements and a further erosion of the supremacy of NATO in Europe.
No Quid Pro Quo with France
If the Obama Administration agrees to support an independent EU defense structure as part of the French plan for rejoining NATO's command, such backing would represent a major transformation in U.S. strategic thinking that would have a dramatic, negative impact on the future of the alliance. It would shift the political balance of power within NATO away from Washington and London toward the main centers of power within the European Union: Paris, Berlin, and Brussels. Far from encouraging European countries to spend more on defense, it would foster an even greater dependency culture within continental Europe upon NATO resources. Such a shift would also lead to a duplication of the NATO command structure without a doubling of manpower or materiel.
It is vital that both the U.S. and U.K. reject any French proposal predicated on American and British support for an independent European defense organization. Paris should be welcomed back into NATO's leadership club only on terms that are acceptable to all NATO members, and without the doling out of powerful command positions to a country that is at best a half-hearted member of the alliance.
Simply Unacceptable
It is difficult to see how a greater EU defense capability will actually strengthen the NATO mission or the broader transatlantic alliance. Indeed, encouraging a bigger military role for the EU can only make NATO's task more complicated.
NATO has been the most successful post-war multilateral organization precisely because it is a truly transatlantic defense and security alliance of independent nation-states with a single command. The French proposal to build up a separate EU defense structure--i.e., a competitor to NATO sucking up valuable NATO resources--is simply unacceptable and should be firmly rejected.
Nile Gardiner Ph.D. is the Director of, and Sally McNamara is Senior Policy Analyst in European Affairs in, the Margaret Thatcher Center for Freedom at the Heritage Foundation. Erica Munkwitz assisted with research for this paper.
State Sec: The Czech Republic and the United States Share a Strong Commitment to Defense, Development, and Human Rights
The Czech Republic and the United States Share a Strong Commitment to Defense, Development, and Human Rights. By Hillary Rodham Clinton, Secretary of State
Remarks With Czech Republic Foreign Minister Karel Schwarzenberg After Their Meeting
Treaty room, Washington, DC, February 10, 2009
SECRETARY CLINTON: I am delighted today to welcome Foreign Minister Schwarzenberg to the Department of State. The minister and I just had a wide-ranging, good discussion about global, European, and bilateral issues. The Czech Republic is an important ally of the United States and, of course, our two nations share a strong commitment to defense, development, and human rights. And we are dedicated to strengthening our transatlantic alliance.
I also welcomed the foreign minister in his current European Union presidency role. The U.S. and Europe have great responsibilities in the world, especially at this time of global challenges and opportunities. And the United States appreciates Czech leadership on such key issues as Afghanistan, energy security, and the Middle East.
It was also a pleasure for me to particularly thank the Czech Republic for being at the forefront of the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force in Afghanistan, with a commitment of 500 troops and leadership of the Logar Provincial Reconstruction Team. Europe and the United States, the Czech Republic and the United States, we have a big, important agenda before us. And I’m confident, as I told the minister, that our shared values, our common objectives, our commitment to freedom will continue to strengthen and deepen our partnership. So it’s a great personal pleasure for me to welcome the foreign minister here today.
FOREIGN MINISTER SCHWARZENBERG: Well, I would like to say that this is, for me, great honor and pleasure to be one of the first visits to Secretary Clinton. I do think we have a certain luck because it coincides that the new Administration started vigorously its work, and the Czech presidency of the European Union is at its beginning.
And the fact that at one side, the Czech Republic is probably the country that Americans have the most sympathies in all of Europe, and we are staunch allies of the United States on one side, as is American – your Administration changed not only America, but the world. It is an important start – motivation to work together to rejuvenate the process of (inaudible), which, after all – I mean, there are – NATO becomes 60 years old, we all became older, and we sometimes stuck too much to the routine. And now, there’s a change, a chance to make a real change, to rejuvenate the relation, to invigorate it, and to start together to tackle the enormous problems we have in the world. Some were mentioned by Secretary Clinton.
And of one thing – I’m sure that if we stick together, if the cooperation between the United States and the European Union goes with a new attitude (inaudible), we can really achieve something in the world to make it and to change it to the better. Thank you so much.
SECRETARY CLINTON: Thank you, Minister.
QUESTION: Thank you, Madame Secretary, and Mr. Minister, if you want to jump in as well. On the Israeli elections, you’ve said you’re looking forward to working with the new government, but certainly some of the candidates would make it easier to advance some of the goals that you’ve been talking about on a deal with Israeli and Palestinians. Could you talk about what’s at stake at this election, in terms of U.S. and European foreign policy?
And on Iran, there does – there definitely seems to be an interesting dance going on between the U.S. and Iran. Last night, after President Obama’s comments about engaging Iran, President Ahmadinejad said that Iran would hold talks based on mutual respect. Your review notwithstanding, what do you think is going on here, and are you heartened by the Iranian messages that they’ve been trying to send to the U.S.?
Thank you.
SECRETARY CLINTON: Well, as to the Israeli elections, I’m going to wait to find out what the people of Israel have decided.
As to Iran, we have been very clear that, as the Vice President discussed in Munich over the weekend, as the President said again last night, there is an opportunity for the Iranian Government to demonstrate a willingness to unclench their fist and to begin a serious and responsible discussion about a range of matters.
We still persist in our view that Iran should not obtain nuclear weapons, that it would be a very unfortunate course for them to pursue. And we hope that there will be opportunities in the future for us to develop a better understanding of one another and to work out a way of talking that would produce positive results for the people of Iran.
QUESTION: Czech television. Madame Secretary, this is a question about missile defense. Does your Administration have a, kind of like, plan to be presented – a clear plan, including timeframe, to be presented at NATO summit?
And on both of you, is there still an option to abandon this project if there would be a kind of diplomatic agreement with Iran or with Russia?
SECRETARY CLINTON: Well, as the Vice President also said in Munich, we are first and foremost very grateful to the Czech Republic, to the government and the people, for working with us to try to deter the threat from Iran. If we are able to deter that threat, it will be, in some measure, due to the courage of the Czech people in stepping up and being a partner to provide a strong defense in Europe against Iranian aggression that would certainly be present were they to obtain nuclear weapons.
There are technical issues concerning missile defense that you – that you know well. We had a very good discussion about our hopes to work together – the European Union and the United States – in dissuading the Iranians from pursuing nuclear weapons. But if the Iranians continue on this path, certainly one of the options for free countries like the Czech Republic, other Europeans, and the United States, is to defend ourselves. So this is one of those issues that really will rest with the decisions made by the Iranian Government.
QUESTION: Madame Secretary, there is a prospect looming on the Korean Peninsula of possible military clashes between the two Koreas, as a result of some actions that the North has taken in the past couple of weeks. And there are some reports that Chinese fishing boats are being pulled out of the area in case something happens. You’re going to Asia next week.
Can you tell us what can you do to make sure that such a situation doesn’t occur? And more broadly, what is your expectation on that trip? What do you hope to – what message do you hope to convey to not only the government, but the people of Asia?
SECRETARY CLINTON: Well, I am going to Asia to reassert our commitment to our allies and partners in Asia, to work on a range of issues with Japan and South Korea, China, and Indonesia, as well as reaching out to the rest of East Asia.
And clearly, with respect to North Korea, our position remains the same. We intend to pursue the Six-Party Talks. We expect that -- with our partners in those talks to continue a policy that would lead to the denuclearization of North Korea and the end of any proliferating activities by North Korea.
We are hopeful that some of the behavior that we have seen coming from North Korea in the last few weeks is, you know, not a precursor of any action that would up the ante, or threaten the stability and peace and security of the neighbors in the region.
But again, North Korea has to understand that all of the countries in East Asia have made it clear that its behavior is viewed as unacceptable. And there are opportunities for the government and people of North Korea were they to begin, once again, to engage through the Six-Party Talks, through other bilateral and multilateral forums. And we’re hopeful that we’ll see that in the weeks and months ahead. But I know of the continuing concern on the part of the other members of the Six-Party Talks with respect to North Korea’s attitude in the last weeks, and I’ll be talking with our counterparts to determine the most effective way forward. Thank you.
Last question?
QUESTION: Czech daily newspaper. Madame Secretary, do you think that the current financial crisis could anyhow delay the plans for development and deployment of the missile defense systems?
SECRETARY CLINTON: Well, our concerns about missile defense are primarily technical. There may be some economic factors. But we’ve always seen this as primarily a technical challenge. Obviously, we expect any system that we deploy to be able to operate effectively to achieve the goals that are set. And as I have said earlier, our concern, the concern of other nations within the broad geographic area that could be affected by an Iranian missile, you know, are looking for ways to deter and end that behavior.
But you know, we have to be realistic, you know. Our slogan can be “hope for the best, but plan for the worst.” I think that’s a realistic approach that we should be taking, and that’s why I admire the Czech Government. I know that that was a difficult decision. I understand that. But the Czech people won their freedom and do not want to be intimidated by the specter of, you know, nuclear weapons in the hands of unfriendly regimes. So I think that what the Czech Government and the Polish Government did in saying, you know, we want to be prepared in the event that we are unable to persuade, dissuade, deter, the Iranians from pursuing nuclear weapons makes a great deal of sense.
Now, the timing and the, you know, actual deployment, those are largely technical matters. And as the Vice President said, which I underscore, if we are able to see a change in behavior on the part of the Iranians with respect to what we believe to be their pursuit of nuclear weapons, you know, then – you know, we will reconsider where we stand. But we are a long, long way from seeing such evidence of any behavior change.
Mr. Minister, do you want to add anything?
FOREIGN MINISTER SCHWARZENBERG: No. I’d have to agree with what you have said. And I think the most necessary thing is that as with Iran, as to other dangers in this world, we need to stick together and we can rely on each other.
And just I would like to add one thing. It was a special pleasure for me – the meeting today with Secretary Clinton, whom I had the honor and pleasure to meet before already in Prague when she visit my former chief, President Havel. And I already was impressed by her great energy. Now to see her as Secretary of State of the United States is a special pleasure.
SECRETARY CLINTON: Thank you. Thank you all very much. Thank you.
FOREIGN MINISTER SCHWARZENBERG: Thank you so much.
Remarks With Czech Republic Foreign Minister Karel Schwarzenberg After Their Meeting
Treaty room, Washington, DC, February 10, 2009
SECRETARY CLINTON: I am delighted today to welcome Foreign Minister Schwarzenberg to the Department of State. The minister and I just had a wide-ranging, good discussion about global, European, and bilateral issues. The Czech Republic is an important ally of the United States and, of course, our two nations share a strong commitment to defense, development, and human rights. And we are dedicated to strengthening our transatlantic alliance.
I also welcomed the foreign minister in his current European Union presidency role. The U.S. and Europe have great responsibilities in the world, especially at this time of global challenges and opportunities. And the United States appreciates Czech leadership on such key issues as Afghanistan, energy security, and the Middle East.
It was also a pleasure for me to particularly thank the Czech Republic for being at the forefront of the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force in Afghanistan, with a commitment of 500 troops and leadership of the Logar Provincial Reconstruction Team. Europe and the United States, the Czech Republic and the United States, we have a big, important agenda before us. And I’m confident, as I told the minister, that our shared values, our common objectives, our commitment to freedom will continue to strengthen and deepen our partnership. So it’s a great personal pleasure for me to welcome the foreign minister here today.
FOREIGN MINISTER SCHWARZENBERG: Well, I would like to say that this is, for me, great honor and pleasure to be one of the first visits to Secretary Clinton. I do think we have a certain luck because it coincides that the new Administration started vigorously its work, and the Czech presidency of the European Union is at its beginning.
And the fact that at one side, the Czech Republic is probably the country that Americans have the most sympathies in all of Europe, and we are staunch allies of the United States on one side, as is American – your Administration changed not only America, but the world. It is an important start – motivation to work together to rejuvenate the process of (inaudible), which, after all – I mean, there are – NATO becomes 60 years old, we all became older, and we sometimes stuck too much to the routine. And now, there’s a change, a chance to make a real change, to rejuvenate the relation, to invigorate it, and to start together to tackle the enormous problems we have in the world. Some were mentioned by Secretary Clinton.
And of one thing – I’m sure that if we stick together, if the cooperation between the United States and the European Union goes with a new attitude (inaudible), we can really achieve something in the world to make it and to change it to the better. Thank you so much.
SECRETARY CLINTON: Thank you, Minister.
QUESTION: Thank you, Madame Secretary, and Mr. Minister, if you want to jump in as well. On the Israeli elections, you’ve said you’re looking forward to working with the new government, but certainly some of the candidates would make it easier to advance some of the goals that you’ve been talking about on a deal with Israeli and Palestinians. Could you talk about what’s at stake at this election, in terms of U.S. and European foreign policy?
And on Iran, there does – there definitely seems to be an interesting dance going on between the U.S. and Iran. Last night, after President Obama’s comments about engaging Iran, President Ahmadinejad said that Iran would hold talks based on mutual respect. Your review notwithstanding, what do you think is going on here, and are you heartened by the Iranian messages that they’ve been trying to send to the U.S.?
Thank you.
SECRETARY CLINTON: Well, as to the Israeli elections, I’m going to wait to find out what the people of Israel have decided.
As to Iran, we have been very clear that, as the Vice President discussed in Munich over the weekend, as the President said again last night, there is an opportunity for the Iranian Government to demonstrate a willingness to unclench their fist and to begin a serious and responsible discussion about a range of matters.
We still persist in our view that Iran should not obtain nuclear weapons, that it would be a very unfortunate course for them to pursue. And we hope that there will be opportunities in the future for us to develop a better understanding of one another and to work out a way of talking that would produce positive results for the people of Iran.
QUESTION: Czech television. Madame Secretary, this is a question about missile defense. Does your Administration have a, kind of like, plan to be presented – a clear plan, including timeframe, to be presented at NATO summit?
And on both of you, is there still an option to abandon this project if there would be a kind of diplomatic agreement with Iran or with Russia?
SECRETARY CLINTON: Well, as the Vice President also said in Munich, we are first and foremost very grateful to the Czech Republic, to the government and the people, for working with us to try to deter the threat from Iran. If we are able to deter that threat, it will be, in some measure, due to the courage of the Czech people in stepping up and being a partner to provide a strong defense in Europe against Iranian aggression that would certainly be present were they to obtain nuclear weapons.
There are technical issues concerning missile defense that you – that you know well. We had a very good discussion about our hopes to work together – the European Union and the United States – in dissuading the Iranians from pursuing nuclear weapons. But if the Iranians continue on this path, certainly one of the options for free countries like the Czech Republic, other Europeans, and the United States, is to defend ourselves. So this is one of those issues that really will rest with the decisions made by the Iranian Government.
QUESTION: Madame Secretary, there is a prospect looming on the Korean Peninsula of possible military clashes between the two Koreas, as a result of some actions that the North has taken in the past couple of weeks. And there are some reports that Chinese fishing boats are being pulled out of the area in case something happens. You’re going to Asia next week.
Can you tell us what can you do to make sure that such a situation doesn’t occur? And more broadly, what is your expectation on that trip? What do you hope to – what message do you hope to convey to not only the government, but the people of Asia?
SECRETARY CLINTON: Well, I am going to Asia to reassert our commitment to our allies and partners in Asia, to work on a range of issues with Japan and South Korea, China, and Indonesia, as well as reaching out to the rest of East Asia.
And clearly, with respect to North Korea, our position remains the same. We intend to pursue the Six-Party Talks. We expect that -- with our partners in those talks to continue a policy that would lead to the denuclearization of North Korea and the end of any proliferating activities by North Korea.
We are hopeful that some of the behavior that we have seen coming from North Korea in the last few weeks is, you know, not a precursor of any action that would up the ante, or threaten the stability and peace and security of the neighbors in the region.
But again, North Korea has to understand that all of the countries in East Asia have made it clear that its behavior is viewed as unacceptable. And there are opportunities for the government and people of North Korea were they to begin, once again, to engage through the Six-Party Talks, through other bilateral and multilateral forums. And we’re hopeful that we’ll see that in the weeks and months ahead. But I know of the continuing concern on the part of the other members of the Six-Party Talks with respect to North Korea’s attitude in the last weeks, and I’ll be talking with our counterparts to determine the most effective way forward. Thank you.
Last question?
QUESTION: Czech daily newspaper. Madame Secretary, do you think that the current financial crisis could anyhow delay the plans for development and deployment of the missile defense systems?
SECRETARY CLINTON: Well, our concerns about missile defense are primarily technical. There may be some economic factors. But we’ve always seen this as primarily a technical challenge. Obviously, we expect any system that we deploy to be able to operate effectively to achieve the goals that are set. And as I have said earlier, our concern, the concern of other nations within the broad geographic area that could be affected by an Iranian missile, you know, are looking for ways to deter and end that behavior.
But you know, we have to be realistic, you know. Our slogan can be “hope for the best, but plan for the worst.” I think that’s a realistic approach that we should be taking, and that’s why I admire the Czech Government. I know that that was a difficult decision. I understand that. But the Czech people won their freedom and do not want to be intimidated by the specter of, you know, nuclear weapons in the hands of unfriendly regimes. So I think that what the Czech Government and the Polish Government did in saying, you know, we want to be prepared in the event that we are unable to persuade, dissuade, deter, the Iranians from pursuing nuclear weapons makes a great deal of sense.
Now, the timing and the, you know, actual deployment, those are largely technical matters. And as the Vice President said, which I underscore, if we are able to see a change in behavior on the part of the Iranians with respect to what we believe to be their pursuit of nuclear weapons, you know, then – you know, we will reconsider where we stand. But we are a long, long way from seeing such evidence of any behavior change.
Mr. Minister, do you want to add anything?
FOREIGN MINISTER SCHWARZENBERG: No. I’d have to agree with what you have said. And I think the most necessary thing is that as with Iran, as to other dangers in this world, we need to stick together and we can rely on each other.
And just I would like to add one thing. It was a special pleasure for me – the meeting today with Secretary Clinton, whom I had the honor and pleasure to meet before already in Prague when she visit my former chief, President Havel. And I already was impressed by her great energy. Now to see her as Secretary of State of the United States is a special pleasure.
SECRETARY CLINTON: Thank you. Thank you all very much. Thank you.
FOREIGN MINISTER SCHWARZENBERG: Thank you so much.
Czech views: Russia Shouldn't Have a Veto on Missile Defense
Russia Shouldn't Have a Veto on Missile Defense, by Milan Vodicka
European leaders relied on U.S. commitments.
WSJ, Feb 11, 2009
Prague
If the United States builds a radar system in the Czech Republic as part of the missile defense program developed by the Bush administration, it's likely that the Russians will target the Czech Republic with their tactical nuclear missiles. But many Czechs are fearful of an even greater danger than Russia: The possibility that the U.S. may decide not to deploy the defense system. Unfortunately, Vice President Joseph Biden suggested this prospect last week in Munich when he said, "We will wait for what the experts say and then we will see."
Czech politicians and their Polish counterparts have invested a lot of political capital in the missile defense project. If the Obama administration doesn't follow through, supporters of the missile shield would feel abandoned by the U.S.
What's worse, Czech and Polish leaders would lose credibility among their opponents and, most importantly, Russia. Moscow would see the failure to build the radar system as proof of its influence over Central Europe, and as recognition of its veto power over European security policy.
Mr. Biden doesn't seem to appreciate that the missile defense project isn't just about American interests. It's about the Czechs and the Poles, too.
The Americans wanted the radar and the interceptors, and they wanted them within the borders of our countries. Our leaders went to great lengths to meet Washington's requests. They stood firm in the face of passionate protests at home and intimidation from Russia. Recently, Moscow backed down from its threat to deploy Iskander missiles in Kaliningrad, but it stands ready to follow through if missile defense becomes a reality.
It's beginning to look as though the Americans were taking us for a ride. Now that there's a new driver in the White House, they think they can just drop us off at the curb.
Even if the Obama administration wants to backtrack on missile defense, doing so won't return relations with Russia to the status quo ante. This is because Russia has transformed the issue of the missile defense system in the Czech Republic and Poland into evidence of its growing influence. Russia has turned this into a question of its power beyond its borders.
If it weren't for Russia, there would be little difficulty in Washington's change of heart. Yet Russia's involvement makes the game a different one entirely. While several interceptors in Poland can stop individual missiles, they can't prevent a massive strike by a nuclear power like Russia. This is because the system is aimed at Iran, not Russia.
Moscow's rigid position has hardened the resolve of Prague and Warsaw, which fear that the Kremlin is attempting to dictate the limits of Czech and Polish sovereignty and foreign policy. We have experienced this before.
This, at least, is how the situation appears from the Czech point of view. I can already anticipate the Obama administration's conclusion: that missile defense is an expensive diversion with uncertain benefits and unpleasant side effects. Such an outcome is all the more likely given the global economic crisis and the difficult fiscal situation in the U.S.
There's no doubt that Russia would profit from a scenario in which the U.S. put the missile defense project on hold. Just consider the situation in Georgia last summer.
During the conflict in South Ossetia, it was alarming how many observers in the U.S. press implied that NATO enlargement was a mistake. The tone of these articles strongly suggested that expansion of the Atlantic alliance only caused the U.S. more trouble with Russia. They also implied that the U.S. and other Western powers were less than fully committed to their new eastern partners.
In this light, it's clear that American retreat on the missile defense program would hand Moscow a huge victory. Washington can't afford to leave the Czechs out in the cold.
Mr. Vodicka is senior writer for the Czech newspaper Mladá Fronta Dnes.
European leaders relied on U.S. commitments.
WSJ, Feb 11, 2009
Prague
If the United States builds a radar system in the Czech Republic as part of the missile defense program developed by the Bush administration, it's likely that the Russians will target the Czech Republic with their tactical nuclear missiles. But many Czechs are fearful of an even greater danger than Russia: The possibility that the U.S. may decide not to deploy the defense system. Unfortunately, Vice President Joseph Biden suggested this prospect last week in Munich when he said, "We will wait for what the experts say and then we will see."
Czech politicians and their Polish counterparts have invested a lot of political capital in the missile defense project. If the Obama administration doesn't follow through, supporters of the missile shield would feel abandoned by the U.S.
What's worse, Czech and Polish leaders would lose credibility among their opponents and, most importantly, Russia. Moscow would see the failure to build the radar system as proof of its influence over Central Europe, and as recognition of its veto power over European security policy.
Mr. Biden doesn't seem to appreciate that the missile defense project isn't just about American interests. It's about the Czechs and the Poles, too.
The Americans wanted the radar and the interceptors, and they wanted them within the borders of our countries. Our leaders went to great lengths to meet Washington's requests. They stood firm in the face of passionate protests at home and intimidation from Russia. Recently, Moscow backed down from its threat to deploy Iskander missiles in Kaliningrad, but it stands ready to follow through if missile defense becomes a reality.
It's beginning to look as though the Americans were taking us for a ride. Now that there's a new driver in the White House, they think they can just drop us off at the curb.
Even if the Obama administration wants to backtrack on missile defense, doing so won't return relations with Russia to the status quo ante. This is because Russia has transformed the issue of the missile defense system in the Czech Republic and Poland into evidence of its growing influence. Russia has turned this into a question of its power beyond its borders.
If it weren't for Russia, there would be little difficulty in Washington's change of heart. Yet Russia's involvement makes the game a different one entirely. While several interceptors in Poland can stop individual missiles, they can't prevent a massive strike by a nuclear power like Russia. This is because the system is aimed at Iran, not Russia.
Moscow's rigid position has hardened the resolve of Prague and Warsaw, which fear that the Kremlin is attempting to dictate the limits of Czech and Polish sovereignty and foreign policy. We have experienced this before.
This, at least, is how the situation appears from the Czech point of view. I can already anticipate the Obama administration's conclusion: that missile defense is an expensive diversion with uncertain benefits and unpleasant side effects. Such an outcome is all the more likely given the global economic crisis and the difficult fiscal situation in the U.S.
There's no doubt that Russia would profit from a scenario in which the U.S. put the missile defense project on hold. Just consider the situation in Georgia last summer.
During the conflict in South Ossetia, it was alarming how many observers in the U.S. press implied that NATO enlargement was a mistake. The tone of these articles strongly suggested that expansion of the Atlantic alliance only caused the U.S. more trouble with Russia. They also implied that the U.S. and other Western powers were less than fully committed to their new eastern partners.
In this light, it's clear that American retreat on the missile defense program would hand Moscow a huge victory. Washington can't afford to leave the Czechs out in the cold.
Mr. Vodicka is senior writer for the Czech newspaper Mladá Fronta Dnes.
Tuesday, February 10, 2009
Michelle Obama at Mary's Center for Maternal and Child Care
Do the right thing
White House, Tuesday, February 10th, 2009 at 9:25 pm
"No matter what you do, you can't pass a law that makes somebody do the right thing, right?"
That was First Lady Michelle Obama's message to a group of young people she met with on a visit to Mary's Center for Maternal and Child Care, a Washington, D.C. nonprofit that provides a range of social services.
Instead, she said, it's the responsibility of every individual, family, and community to do the right thing. But where you come from shouldn't be a barrier to success."
I didn't come into this position with a lot of wealth, with a lot of resources," she said. "There is no magic dust that was sprinkled on my head or on Barack's head. You know, we were kids much like you who figured out one day that our fate was in our own hands, you know, and we made decisions to listen to our parents and to work hard and to work even harder when somebody doubted us."
See photos from the event below, or read the full transcript of the First Lady's meeting at the center.
White House, Tuesday, February 10th, 2009 at 9:25 pm
"No matter what you do, you can't pass a law that makes somebody do the right thing, right?"
That was First Lady Michelle Obama's message to a group of young people she met with on a visit to Mary's Center for Maternal and Child Care, a Washington, D.C. nonprofit that provides a range of social services.
Instead, she said, it's the responsibility of every individual, family, and community to do the right thing. But where you come from shouldn't be a barrier to success."
I didn't come into this position with a lot of wealth, with a lot of resources," she said. "There is no magic dust that was sprinkled on my head or on Barack's head. You know, we were kids much like you who figured out one day that our fate was in our own hands, you know, and we made decisions to listen to our parents and to work hard and to work even harder when somebody doubted us."
See photos from the event below, or read the full transcript of the First Lady's meeting at the center.
In the End, People Are Still the Problem
In the End, People Are Still the Problem, by Chris Horner
Planet Gore/NRO, Feb 10, 2009
The New York Times’s Andy Revkin wonders if the worst thing we could do would be to give humans abundant, cheap, clean energy . . .
A solar-powered city, Masdar, is being built in Abu Dhabi. If super-cheap solar power is achieved, will humanity grow too much?
One aim of this blog is to explore efforts to expand the menu of cheap, non-polluting, renewable energy options. That’s a pretty clearcut need given the risks attending the unfettered use of fossil fuels and the reality that 2 billion people today cook on guttering fires using fuelwood or dung harvested mainly by girls who are not going to school as a result.
But I had a dream about energy one fitful night not long ago and it left me a little cold. I pondered what kind of world might result if Nate Lewis at Caltech or Dan Nocera at M.I.T. or Shi Zhengrong at Suntech Power Systems in China had a breakthrough that made solar panels as cheap as paint?
We could synthesize food, even meat, in solar-powered factories. We could render water from the sea or briny aquifers drinkable in endless amounts (as is being done with wind power in sere parts of Australia even now).
And we could, in essence, vastly increase the carrying capacity of the planet. Fossil fuels were a bit part of the growth spurt from 1 billion to nearly 7 billion people in two short centuries. On a finite planet, where would limitless energy, combined with humanity’s infinite aspirations, take us? This leads to a question that’s been touched on here periodically. Does a shift in values and aspirations have to accompany the technological leaps that will assuredly be made in the coming decades? . . .
There is, of course, nothing new to this view:
Planet Gore/NRO, Feb 10, 2009
The New York Times’s Andy Revkin wonders if the worst thing we could do would be to give humans abundant, cheap, clean energy . . .
A solar-powered city, Masdar, is being built in Abu Dhabi. If super-cheap solar power is achieved, will humanity grow too much?
One aim of this blog is to explore efforts to expand the menu of cheap, non-polluting, renewable energy options. That’s a pretty clearcut need given the risks attending the unfettered use of fossil fuels and the reality that 2 billion people today cook on guttering fires using fuelwood or dung harvested mainly by girls who are not going to school as a result.
But I had a dream about energy one fitful night not long ago and it left me a little cold. I pondered what kind of world might result if Nate Lewis at Caltech or Dan Nocera at M.I.T. or Shi Zhengrong at Suntech Power Systems in China had a breakthrough that made solar panels as cheap as paint?
We could synthesize food, even meat, in solar-powered factories. We could render water from the sea or briny aquifers drinkable in endless amounts (as is being done with wind power in sere parts of Australia even now).
And we could, in essence, vastly increase the carrying capacity of the planet. Fossil fuels were a bit part of the growth spurt from 1 billion to nearly 7 billion people in two short centuries. On a finite planet, where would limitless energy, combined with humanity’s infinite aspirations, take us? This leads to a question that’s been touched on here periodically. Does a shift in values and aspirations have to accompany the technological leaps that will assuredly be made in the coming decades? . . .
There is, of course, nothing new to this view:
If you ask me, it'd be a little short of disastrous for us to discover a source
of clean, cheap, abundant energy because of what we would do with it. We ought
to be looking for energy sources that are adequate for our needs, but that won't
give us the excesses of concentrated energy with which we could do mischief to
the earth or to each other.— Amory Lovins in The Mother Earth—Plowboy Interview, Nov/Dec 1977, p. 22
Giving society cheap, abundant energy . . . would be the equivalent of
giving an idiot child a machine gun. — Paul Ehrlich, “An Ecologist's Perspective
on Nuclear Power,” May/June 1978 issue of Federation of American Scientists
Public Issue Report
FDA, foodborne illness outbreaks and inspections
FDA Must Shift Priorities. By Scott Gottlieb, M.D.
AEI, Tuesday, February 10, 2009
The Food and Drug Administration spent about 10 years to set a standard for how many peanuts needed to be in peanut butter before food companies could call the spread by that name, last amending that "peanut butter rule" in the 1990s.
More recently, a Georgia peanut plant was able to knowingly ship dangerously tainted peanut butter in one of the largest food contamination scares in the nation's history.
How can an agency that spends a decade carefully defining what's meant by the words "peanut butter" allow tons of the stuff to become contaminated with a deadly bacterium and evade detection, even though the foodmaker itself was aware of the dangerous adulteration?
Already, more than 1,550 products--from Little Debbie peanut butter crackers to Wal-Mart bakery peanut butter cookies--have been recalled after eight people died and more than 500 people (half of them children) were sickened. Salmonella had seeped into huge vats of raw peanut butter produced by a single manufacturer, the Peanut Corp. of America, investigators say.
FDA's approach to these two regulatory endeavors--setting the ingredient list for "peanut butter" and ensuring its safety--shows how the agency's priorities are out of proportion.
FDA has an entire office dedicated to debating what claims firms can make on food product labels. For example, when can products with fish oil carry claims that they reduce heart risks, or what defines the "standards of identity" that dictate when crushed tomatoes can be called "ketchup."
These regulatory tasks provide clarity for consumers--and rules of competition for manufacturers. The regulation itself is not without some merit. But what does it matter what percentage of peanuts makes up a spread when you can't even guarantee that it's free from deadly contaminants?
Go where danger lurks
What the FDA needs most of all is a risk-based regulatory mind-set. Resources, and focus, must be apportioned based on a top-down view of where the greatest consumer dangers lurk. That means riskless endeavors, such as defining what constitutes peanut butter, can be handled by private or academic entities working with FDA. There's precedent for this sort of collaboration.
This doesn't mean FDA already has all the resources and tools it needs to do the high-risk stuff--far from it. According to news reports, the actions of the Georgia peanut plant appear so deliberate that it's easy to say no amount of regulation could have prevented that harm. But greater authorities would have tightened the regulatory net around this and other bad actors.
More than a year ago, the FDA issued a "Food Protection Plan," asking Congress to give it authority to demand access to records that food producers keep. The plan has gone largely ignored. In the case of something like a peanut butter plant, if the producer manufactures on three lines and one is found to be contaminated, FDA can't demand that the firm divulge results of tests on its other two lines, even though there's a reasonable chance similar problems exist.
Firms with "positive" test results also aren't required to report those to FDA, even for deadly pathogens. They should be. But right now, even if the findings went back to FDA they would be fed into an outdated information system that makes it hard for the agency to sort through the reports. That computer system needs updating so that it flags the highest risk findings.
The lack of information tools also means that FDA can't easily trace the source of contamination. So every time there's a food scare, everything gets recalled even though only a fraction of products are actually contaminated. Industry could help with the creation of a better "trace back" system.
FDA also needs more direct control over food plant inspections. As a piece of political pork, Congress gives a lot of the money for inspections to states, which conduct the assessments (sometimes poorly) on FDA's behalf. The Georgia peanut plant was inspected by state, not FDA, regulators.
Better tests, better tools
Finally, FDA also needs money for developing better scientific tools to isolate contaminants. During the pepper recall last summer, the diagnostic test used by FDA to detect the contaminating bacteria took two weeks to read out a result. The FDA's food center can acquire all these new resources without being split off into a separate food agency, as some in Congress are advocating.
But an equally large part of FDA's problems doesn't relate to inadequate resources per se, but to the disparate and far flung nature of the agency's various functions itself, and the FDA's lack of perspective on how to focus on the most important from among those responsibilities. Regulators aren't marshalling resources in support of the things that matter most to ensuring consumer safety.
Congress exacerbates FDA's strain by foisting on it new responsibilities every time a consumer cause célèbre crops up. Now, many lawmakers want FDA regulation of the entire cigarette industry. Whatever the merits, this new responsibility would divert from more pressing FDA tasks such as, say, ensuring the safety of the nation's blood supply. Nor does a cigarette center fit FDA's historical mission of health protection and promotion.
Longstanding preoccupations, and mission creep, divert too much of FDA's attention from pressing tasks. FDA needs to more tightly focus itself on the areas that pose the biggest risks to consumers.
Scott Gottlieb, M.D., is a resident fellow at AEI.
AEI, Tuesday, February 10, 2009
The Food and Drug Administration spent about 10 years to set a standard for how many peanuts needed to be in peanut butter before food companies could call the spread by that name, last amending that "peanut butter rule" in the 1990s.
More recently, a Georgia peanut plant was able to knowingly ship dangerously tainted peanut butter in one of the largest food contamination scares in the nation's history.
How can an agency that spends a decade carefully defining what's meant by the words "peanut butter" allow tons of the stuff to become contaminated with a deadly bacterium and evade detection, even though the foodmaker itself was aware of the dangerous adulteration?
Already, more than 1,550 products--from Little Debbie peanut butter crackers to Wal-Mart bakery peanut butter cookies--have been recalled after eight people died and more than 500 people (half of them children) were sickened. Salmonella had seeped into huge vats of raw peanut butter produced by a single manufacturer, the Peanut Corp. of America, investigators say.
FDA's approach to these two regulatory endeavors--setting the ingredient list for "peanut butter" and ensuring its safety--shows how the agency's priorities are out of proportion.
FDA has an entire office dedicated to debating what claims firms can make on food product labels. For example, when can products with fish oil carry claims that they reduce heart risks, or what defines the "standards of identity" that dictate when crushed tomatoes can be called "ketchup."
These regulatory tasks provide clarity for consumers--and rules of competition for manufacturers. The regulation itself is not without some merit. But what does it matter what percentage of peanuts makes up a spread when you can't even guarantee that it's free from deadly contaminants?
Go where danger lurks
What the FDA needs most of all is a risk-based regulatory mind-set. Resources, and focus, must be apportioned based on a top-down view of where the greatest consumer dangers lurk. That means riskless endeavors, such as defining what constitutes peanut butter, can be handled by private or academic entities working with FDA. There's precedent for this sort of collaboration.
This doesn't mean FDA already has all the resources and tools it needs to do the high-risk stuff--far from it. According to news reports, the actions of the Georgia peanut plant appear so deliberate that it's easy to say no amount of regulation could have prevented that harm. But greater authorities would have tightened the regulatory net around this and other bad actors.
More than a year ago, the FDA issued a "Food Protection Plan," asking Congress to give it authority to demand access to records that food producers keep. The plan has gone largely ignored. In the case of something like a peanut butter plant, if the producer manufactures on three lines and one is found to be contaminated, FDA can't demand that the firm divulge results of tests on its other two lines, even though there's a reasonable chance similar problems exist.
Firms with "positive" test results also aren't required to report those to FDA, even for deadly pathogens. They should be. But right now, even if the findings went back to FDA they would be fed into an outdated information system that makes it hard for the agency to sort through the reports. That computer system needs updating so that it flags the highest risk findings.
The lack of information tools also means that FDA can't easily trace the source of contamination. So every time there's a food scare, everything gets recalled even though only a fraction of products are actually contaminated. Industry could help with the creation of a better "trace back" system.
FDA also needs more direct control over food plant inspections. As a piece of political pork, Congress gives a lot of the money for inspections to states, which conduct the assessments (sometimes poorly) on FDA's behalf. The Georgia peanut plant was inspected by state, not FDA, regulators.
Better tests, better tools
Finally, FDA also needs money for developing better scientific tools to isolate contaminants. During the pepper recall last summer, the diagnostic test used by FDA to detect the contaminating bacteria took two weeks to read out a result. The FDA's food center can acquire all these new resources without being split off into a separate food agency, as some in Congress are advocating.
But an equally large part of FDA's problems doesn't relate to inadequate resources per se, but to the disparate and far flung nature of the agency's various functions itself, and the FDA's lack of perspective on how to focus on the most important from among those responsibilities. Regulators aren't marshalling resources in support of the things that matter most to ensuring consumer safety.
Congress exacerbates FDA's strain by foisting on it new responsibilities every time a consumer cause célèbre crops up. Now, many lawmakers want FDA regulation of the entire cigarette industry. Whatever the merits, this new responsibility would divert from more pressing FDA tasks such as, say, ensuring the safety of the nation's blood supply. Nor does a cigarette center fit FDA's historical mission of health protection and promotion.
Longstanding preoccupations, and mission creep, divert too much of FDA's attention from pressing tasks. FDA needs to more tightly focus itself on the areas that pose the biggest risks to consumers.
Scott Gottlieb, M.D., is a resident fellow at AEI.
Obama: Hoping for Action
Obama: Hoping for Action. By Jennifer Donahue
Huffington Post, February 10, 2009 12:32 PM (EST)
"I believe in hope, but I also believe in action," President Obama said today in Florida.
This guy can deliver a soundbite, and he knows it. Last week, the question was, how could Obama let the Republicans hijack the Economic Stimulus plan, "screw up" on Daschle, and allow negative stories to define the week?
This week, the ever-disciplined Obama is hitting back. He knows where he needed to take this: to the majority of Americans who elected him. To the growing number of unemployed Americans. To those whose mortgages are more than the value of their homes.
Obama may not be used to the ways of Washington yet, but he certainly knows how to deliver his message to the American people. His style, his delivery, his tone, his words: all still sharp from a campaign that ended only months ago.
Even on the details, he is getting it right this week. An 8pm news conference instead of 9pm. More eyeballs, more age groups, more Americans reached. Daytime campaign events orchestrated better than Hollywood could.
Republicans thougth they had a slam-dunk last week, but this week, they are facing the music. I'm not a betting person, but I would bet on this: calls into House and Senate offices will tell lawmakers this: listen to your President.
Huffington Post, February 10, 2009 12:32 PM (EST)
"I believe in hope, but I also believe in action," President Obama said today in Florida.
This guy can deliver a soundbite, and he knows it. Last week, the question was, how could Obama let the Republicans hijack the Economic Stimulus plan, "screw up" on Daschle, and allow negative stories to define the week?
This week, the ever-disciplined Obama is hitting back. He knows where he needed to take this: to the majority of Americans who elected him. To the growing number of unemployed Americans. To those whose mortgages are more than the value of their homes.
Obama may not be used to the ways of Washington yet, but he certainly knows how to deliver his message to the American people. His style, his delivery, his tone, his words: all still sharp from a campaign that ended only months ago.
Even on the details, he is getting it right this week. An 8pm news conference instead of 9pm. More eyeballs, more age groups, more Americans reached. Daytime campaign events orchestrated better than Hollywood could.
Republicans thougth they had a slam-dunk last week, but this week, they are facing the music. I'm not a betting person, but I would bet on this: calls into House and Senate offices will tell lawmakers this: listen to your President.
In Cato: It's a Recession, Not a 'Catastrophe'
It's a Recession Not a 'Catastrophe'. By Alan Reynolds
Cato, February 9, 2009
President Obama, writing in the Washington Post, said, "By now, it's clear to everyone that we have inherited an economic crisis as deep and dire as any since the days of the Great Depression." But how would we know if and when this crisis is really more "deep and dire" than others?
Many may believe we're in the worst recession since the Great Depression, if only because politicians and the press keep repeating that claim. But we need to compare some facts to discern whether this recession is (or will be) "worse" in some sense than those of 1973-75 or 1981-82.
Congressional Budget Office Director Douglas Elmendorf told the House Budget Committee that if the economy is still contracting by mid-year, then this recession will be longer than the 1981-82 and 1973-75 downturns, each of which lasted 16 months. Yet this recession was quite mild until last September. And the severity and human discomfort of downturns can't be measured by their duration.
A wise adviser to President John Kennedy, Arthur Okun of Yale, devised the "misery index" to gauge the pain of economic crisis - a measure that simply adds together the unemployment rate and the inflation rate. It hit 22 percent in June 1980, during an inflationary recession that preceded the Fed's disinflationary squeeze of 1981-82. The misery index was nearly as bad in January 1975, at 19.9 percent.
Assuming inflation was close to zero this January, the misery index would have been roughly the same as the unemployment rate, or 7.6 percent. By this standard, we have a very long way to go before the economy feels nearly as miserable as it did in 1975 or 1980.
There are several other ways to measure economic distress, however, some of which are shown in the nearby table. The first two columns show the total change in real GDP and industrial production from the economy's peak to its trough for that cycle.
[graph in the original article]
Current data show only what happened so far, of course. But that gives us some idea of how much further the economy would have to fall to end up as "deep and dire" as the recessions of 1973-75 or 1981-82.
An average of 55 forecasters in the Jan. 15 Wall Street Journal survey expect real GDP to fall by another percentage point (a 2.1 percent drop in total) before recovering in the third quarter. If they're right, this would be just the third deepest postwar recession by that broad measure.
Measured by unemployment, on the other hand, this might well be the second deepest recession. The current unemployment rate of 7.6 percent is quite unlikely to reach the postwar record of 10.8 percent. But the Journal forecasters expect the jobless rate to top out at 8.9 percent after the recession is technically over - making this very close to becoming the second worst recession in terms of job loss.
In a 1999 Business Week column, Harvard economist Robert Barro suggested we should also improve the misery index by adding a long-term interest rate (and GDP). The table shows 30-year mortgage rates. By that measure, there's no way we'll come close to matching the sort of misery of past recessions - notably, the 18.45 percent mortgage rate of October 1981.
With one exception - the steep 45 percent drop in the S&P 500 stock index since October 2007 - few other indicators of economic distress could support this being the worst postwar recession. Thanks to low inflation, for example, real disposable income rose every month during the fourth quarter - at an annual rate above 6 percent.
The president needs to be a calming voice right now, a source of strength. It's not helpful for him to be warning of a "catastrophe" and making vague, untenable allusions to the Great Depression.
Recessions have almost always ended within a year or so, long before there was a Federal Reserve or Keynesian theory. Debts have to be worked down and excess inventories sold off so that profits, and therefore stock prices and wealth, can revive.
Such curative processes do not take years, as the president suggests - unless the government does too much foolish tinkering. But recovery will require more perspective and patience than we've been seeing from the White House lately, because time really does heal many economic wounds.
Alan Reynolds is a senior fellow with the Cato Institute and the author of Income and Wealth.
Cato, February 9, 2009
President Obama, writing in the Washington Post, said, "By now, it's clear to everyone that we have inherited an economic crisis as deep and dire as any since the days of the Great Depression." But how would we know if and when this crisis is really more "deep and dire" than others?
Many may believe we're in the worst recession since the Great Depression, if only because politicians and the press keep repeating that claim. But we need to compare some facts to discern whether this recession is (or will be) "worse" in some sense than those of 1973-75 or 1981-82.
Congressional Budget Office Director Douglas Elmendorf told the House Budget Committee that if the economy is still contracting by mid-year, then this recession will be longer than the 1981-82 and 1973-75 downturns, each of which lasted 16 months. Yet this recession was quite mild until last September. And the severity and human discomfort of downturns can't be measured by their duration.
A wise adviser to President John Kennedy, Arthur Okun of Yale, devised the "misery index" to gauge the pain of economic crisis - a measure that simply adds together the unemployment rate and the inflation rate. It hit 22 percent in June 1980, during an inflationary recession that preceded the Fed's disinflationary squeeze of 1981-82. The misery index was nearly as bad in January 1975, at 19.9 percent.
Assuming inflation was close to zero this January, the misery index would have been roughly the same as the unemployment rate, or 7.6 percent. By this standard, we have a very long way to go before the economy feels nearly as miserable as it did in 1975 or 1980.
There are several other ways to measure economic distress, however, some of which are shown in the nearby table. The first two columns show the total change in real GDP and industrial production from the economy's peak to its trough for that cycle.
[graph in the original article]
Current data show only what happened so far, of course. But that gives us some idea of how much further the economy would have to fall to end up as "deep and dire" as the recessions of 1973-75 or 1981-82.
An average of 55 forecasters in the Jan. 15 Wall Street Journal survey expect real GDP to fall by another percentage point (a 2.1 percent drop in total) before recovering in the third quarter. If they're right, this would be just the third deepest postwar recession by that broad measure.
Measured by unemployment, on the other hand, this might well be the second deepest recession. The current unemployment rate of 7.6 percent is quite unlikely to reach the postwar record of 10.8 percent. But the Journal forecasters expect the jobless rate to top out at 8.9 percent after the recession is technically over - making this very close to becoming the second worst recession in terms of job loss.
In a 1999 Business Week column, Harvard economist Robert Barro suggested we should also improve the misery index by adding a long-term interest rate (and GDP). The table shows 30-year mortgage rates. By that measure, there's no way we'll come close to matching the sort of misery of past recessions - notably, the 18.45 percent mortgage rate of October 1981.
With one exception - the steep 45 percent drop in the S&P 500 stock index since October 2007 - few other indicators of economic distress could support this being the worst postwar recession. Thanks to low inflation, for example, real disposable income rose every month during the fourth quarter - at an annual rate above 6 percent.
The president needs to be a calming voice right now, a source of strength. It's not helpful for him to be warning of a "catastrophe" and making vague, untenable allusions to the Great Depression.
Recessions have almost always ended within a year or so, long before there was a Federal Reserve or Keynesian theory. Debts have to be worked down and excess inventories sold off so that profits, and therefore stock prices and wealth, can revive.
Such curative processes do not take years, as the president suggests - unless the government does too much foolish tinkering. But recovery will require more perspective and patience than we've been seeing from the White House lately, because time really does heal many economic wounds.
Alan Reynolds is a senior fellow with the Cato Institute and the author of Income and Wealth.
WaPo on granting early release to nonviolent offenders
Inmates Who Should Walk. WaPo Editorial
A Virginia proposal would free tax dollars by granting early release to nonviolent offenders
WaPo, Tuesday, February 10, 2009; Page A16
A BIPARTISAN group of Virginia state senators, led by Janet D. Howell (D-Fairfax) and Kenneth W. Stolle (R-Virginia Beach), have drawn up a plan to save taxpayers millions of dollars by allowing some nonviolent offenders to be released early from prison. The proposal would let prison officials use their discretion to release low-risk offenders up to 90 days before the end of their sentences. Officials already have the power to shorten sentences by 30 days.
Those convicted of drug possession would be given an opportunity for even greater leniency. The plan would mandate that such inmates have access to treatment programs at the beginning of their incarceration; currently, inmates are offered treatment toward the end of their terms. A judge, in consultation with prison officials, would have discretion to order the early release of an inmate who successfully completed extensive drug rehabilitation. The proposal also calls for some nonviolent offenders to be placed in community-based programs rather than jail and for others to be monitored electronically instead of being locked up.
The plan, rooted in the state's growing fiscal crisis, is aimed at advancing the effort by Gov. Timothy M. Kaine (D) to save roughly $50 million by closing two prisons. The success of a program in the state of Washington that is similar to the one being mulled in Virginia suggests the risks are reasonable and the potential savings substantial.
In 2003, Washington state legislators allowed for sentence reductions of up to 50 percent for nonviolent offenders. Excluded from this program are those who have been convicted of a violent crime or sexual offense, as well as those guilty of selling drugs to a minor or any other crime against a person. Eligible inmates earn early release credits each month by staying out of trouble and completing work, education and treatment programs. Inmates can lose credits because of bad behavior or become ineligible for release if they commit a serious infraction behind bars.
The Washington State Institute for Public Policy, the research arm of the state's legislature, followed roughly 2,600 inmates released early from 2003 to 2007. The institute compared this group to roughly 4,800 similar inmates who had served their full sentences and were released before the inception of the 2003 program. In a report released in November, the institute concluded that the program saved taxpayers an average of $10,000 per prisoner. The recidivism rate for those released early was about 3 percent lower than for the control group.
Releasing offenders early always carries political and real-life risks. But Washington's example shows that carefully screening inmates for eligibility and strictly limiting early release to well-behaved, nonviolent offenders can save tax dollars, preserve public safety and result in a more rational penal system.
A Virginia proposal would free tax dollars by granting early release to nonviolent offenders
WaPo, Tuesday, February 10, 2009; Page A16
A BIPARTISAN group of Virginia state senators, led by Janet D. Howell (D-Fairfax) and Kenneth W. Stolle (R-Virginia Beach), have drawn up a plan to save taxpayers millions of dollars by allowing some nonviolent offenders to be released early from prison. The proposal would let prison officials use their discretion to release low-risk offenders up to 90 days before the end of their sentences. Officials already have the power to shorten sentences by 30 days.
Those convicted of drug possession would be given an opportunity for even greater leniency. The plan would mandate that such inmates have access to treatment programs at the beginning of their incarceration; currently, inmates are offered treatment toward the end of their terms. A judge, in consultation with prison officials, would have discretion to order the early release of an inmate who successfully completed extensive drug rehabilitation. The proposal also calls for some nonviolent offenders to be placed in community-based programs rather than jail and for others to be monitored electronically instead of being locked up.
The plan, rooted in the state's growing fiscal crisis, is aimed at advancing the effort by Gov. Timothy M. Kaine (D) to save roughly $50 million by closing two prisons. The success of a program in the state of Washington that is similar to the one being mulled in Virginia suggests the risks are reasonable and the potential savings substantial.
In 2003, Washington state legislators allowed for sentence reductions of up to 50 percent for nonviolent offenders. Excluded from this program are those who have been convicted of a violent crime or sexual offense, as well as those guilty of selling drugs to a minor or any other crime against a person. Eligible inmates earn early release credits each month by staying out of trouble and completing work, education and treatment programs. Inmates can lose credits because of bad behavior or become ineligible for release if they commit a serious infraction behind bars.
The Washington State Institute for Public Policy, the research arm of the state's legislature, followed roughly 2,600 inmates released early from 2003 to 2007. The institute compared this group to roughly 4,800 similar inmates who had served their full sentences and were released before the inception of the 2003 program. In a report released in November, the institute concluded that the program saved taxpayers an average of $10,000 per prisoner. The recidivism rate for those released early was about 3 percent lower than for the control group.
Releasing offenders early always carries political and real-life risks. But Washington's example shows that carefully screening inmates for eligibility and strictly limiting early release to well-behaved, nonviolent offenders can save tax dollars, preserve public safety and result in a more rational penal system.
U.S.–India Homeland Security Cooperation: Moving Forward
U.S.–India Homeland Security Cooperation: Moving Forward, by Lisa Curtis and Jena Baker McNeill
Heritage, February 9, 2009
Full text w/references here.
On December 31, 2008, the Indian government passed legislation that would strengthen its ability to investigate, prosecute, and--most importantly--prevent acts of terrorism. Much like the effects of 9/11 on the U.S., the Mumbai attacks have catalyzed Indian efforts to adopt a more integrated and structured approach to homeland security. The U.S. and India alike should recognize the value of their shared experiences in the war on terrorism. Drawing on these experiences, India and the U.S. should pursue a robust dialogue through which to share counterterrorism strategies, thereby improving the security of both nations.
Countering Terrorism at its Source
One of the most important aspects of terrorism prevention is undercutting the terrorists' support base while denying terrorists access to money, training, and weapons. Additionally, counterterrorism measures must disrupt terrorists' ability to propagate their message, recruit new members, and network with cohorts and other supporters. Therefore, the most important measures that can be taken to prevent another Mumbai-like attack anywhere in the world is for Pakistan to punish those involved in the inspiration, planning, training, and equipping of the terrorists while proactively undercutting the extremist propaganda that led to the Mumbai massacre.
Pakistan has allowed the Lashkar-e-Tayyiba (LT)--the terrorist organization responsible for the Mumbai attacks--to operate openly in the country since the early 1990s. However, since the Mumbai massacre, Islamabad has raided key LT training facilities, shut down several LT offices throughout the country, arrested and detained key LT members, and pledged to turn over administration of the LT headquarters outside of Lahore, Pakistan, to government authorities. These are positive, albeit much belated, steps. But Islamabad must go further: It must prosecute individuals found to be involved in the Mumbai attacks and shut down LT's ability to sustain itself as a terrorist organization.
Mumbai Attacks Prompt Changes in Indian Anti-Terrorism Policies
The Mumbai attacks were a wake-up call for India regarding the urgent need to address its homeland security shortfalls and to institute a more effective nationwide approach to countering terrorism. As a result of the attacks, India passed legislation establishing a National Investigation Agency (NIA), much like America's FBI, to investigate threats or acts of terrorism. Senior NIA officers will have unique authority to pursue and investigate terrorism cases throughout the country, thereby addressing the challenge of separate jurisdictions between Indian states.
Furthermore, the Indian parliament acted to strengthen existing anti-terror laws by expanding definitions of terrorist attacks and instituting legal reforms and other judicial modifications, including establishing special courts for speedy trials and revising burdens of proof and search and seizure standards.[1]
During a gathering of India's state chief ministers in early January, Home Minister Chidambaram defined two broad goals to improve India's counterterrorism efforts: first, to raise national preparedness to meet an increasingly sophisticated terrorist threat, and second, to enhance the speed and decisiveness of the nation's response to a terrorist threat or attack.
To meet these objectives, India has begun to modernize police weaponry as well as the way in which police departments operate. The Indian Home Minister also issued an executive order to start the functioning of the Multi-Agency Center (MAC) as an interagency counterterrorism center similar to the CIA's National Counterterrorism Center. The MAC was created several years ago to analyze intelligence flowing in from different organizations and to coordinate follow-up actions, but its work had been inhibited by lack of staffing and resources.[2] The government also intends to set up subsidiary MACs at the state level to streamline local intelligence gathering.On several occasions, Indian terrorism analysts have cited lack of coordination among the various Indian investigative and intelligence organizations operating across the country as a major impediment to improving terrorism prevention.
The U.S. Experience Following 9/11
Like India, the U.S. experience with the 9/11 attacks was a catalyst for widespread change in the American security model. In the aftermath of 9/11, the U.S. began to reevaluate its terrorism policies, homeland security efforts, and disaster response structure. Several of the priorities the U.S. identified included:
There is much room to expand U.S.-India cooperation on matters of intelligence and homeland security. Since 90 percent of counterterrorism concerns intelligence, Washington and New Delhi should focus on breaking down barriers to sharing intelligence. Indeed, the Mumbai attacks have already spurred greater U.S.-India counterterrorism cooperation.
New Delhi and Washington should also increase official diplomatic and non-governmental exchanges on improving counterterrorism cooperation. The level and frequency of the U.S.-Indian Counterterrorism Joint Working Group (CTJWG) meetings should be raised. These meetings should include talks on ways to organize and streamline operations of various intelligence-gathering and investigative institutions as well as a free exchange of ideas on how to address the ideological foundations of terrorism. India's experience in addressing new terrorism threats that involve both homegrown and international elements should be a focal point of these discussions. To help introduce new ideas on the latest counterterrorism technology and research, the CTJWG talks should also incorporate private sector entities and think tanks specializing in counterterrorism.
Finally, the United States should position itself to be a resource to India, finding means of sharing the lessons it learned after 9/11. For instance, the U.S. could improve its international counterterrorism assistance programs by allocating more funding and authority to the DHS to lead those programs that are consistent with its mission sets. Currently, most of America's counterterrorism assistance programs are controlled by the Department of Defense and the State Department. While these government agencies should remain at the forefront of U.S. international counterterrorism assistance, DHS can take the lead, for example, in programs that help other countries improve their disaster response efforts and aviation and maritime security policies.
Increased Cooperation Is Critical
As the U.S. and India both continue to look for strategies that can effectively protect their citizens from terrorism, each country stands to gain considerably by sharing experiences and best practices and increasing their overall intelligence cooperation against global and regional terrorist threats.
Lisa Curtis is Senior Research Fellow for South Asia in the Asian Studies Center, and Jena Baker McNeill is Policy Analyst for Homeland Security in the Douglas and Sarah Allison Center for Foreign Policy Studies, a division of the Kathryn and Shelby Cullom Davis Institute for International Studies, at The Heritage Foundation.
Heritage, February 9, 2009
Full text w/references here.
On December 31, 2008, the Indian government passed legislation that would strengthen its ability to investigate, prosecute, and--most importantly--prevent acts of terrorism. Much like the effects of 9/11 on the U.S., the Mumbai attacks have catalyzed Indian efforts to adopt a more integrated and structured approach to homeland security. The U.S. and India alike should recognize the value of their shared experiences in the war on terrorism. Drawing on these experiences, India and the U.S. should pursue a robust dialogue through which to share counterterrorism strategies, thereby improving the security of both nations.
Countering Terrorism at its Source
One of the most important aspects of terrorism prevention is undercutting the terrorists' support base while denying terrorists access to money, training, and weapons. Additionally, counterterrorism measures must disrupt terrorists' ability to propagate their message, recruit new members, and network with cohorts and other supporters. Therefore, the most important measures that can be taken to prevent another Mumbai-like attack anywhere in the world is for Pakistan to punish those involved in the inspiration, planning, training, and equipping of the terrorists while proactively undercutting the extremist propaganda that led to the Mumbai massacre.
Pakistan has allowed the Lashkar-e-Tayyiba (LT)--the terrorist organization responsible for the Mumbai attacks--to operate openly in the country since the early 1990s. However, since the Mumbai massacre, Islamabad has raided key LT training facilities, shut down several LT offices throughout the country, arrested and detained key LT members, and pledged to turn over administration of the LT headquarters outside of Lahore, Pakistan, to government authorities. These are positive, albeit much belated, steps. But Islamabad must go further: It must prosecute individuals found to be involved in the Mumbai attacks and shut down LT's ability to sustain itself as a terrorist organization.
Mumbai Attacks Prompt Changes in Indian Anti-Terrorism Policies
The Mumbai attacks were a wake-up call for India regarding the urgent need to address its homeland security shortfalls and to institute a more effective nationwide approach to countering terrorism. As a result of the attacks, India passed legislation establishing a National Investigation Agency (NIA), much like America's FBI, to investigate threats or acts of terrorism. Senior NIA officers will have unique authority to pursue and investigate terrorism cases throughout the country, thereby addressing the challenge of separate jurisdictions between Indian states.
Furthermore, the Indian parliament acted to strengthen existing anti-terror laws by expanding definitions of terrorist attacks and instituting legal reforms and other judicial modifications, including establishing special courts for speedy trials and revising burdens of proof and search and seizure standards.[1]
During a gathering of India's state chief ministers in early January, Home Minister Chidambaram defined two broad goals to improve India's counterterrorism efforts: first, to raise national preparedness to meet an increasingly sophisticated terrorist threat, and second, to enhance the speed and decisiveness of the nation's response to a terrorist threat or attack.
To meet these objectives, India has begun to modernize police weaponry as well as the way in which police departments operate. The Indian Home Minister also issued an executive order to start the functioning of the Multi-Agency Center (MAC) as an interagency counterterrorism center similar to the CIA's National Counterterrorism Center. The MAC was created several years ago to analyze intelligence flowing in from different organizations and to coordinate follow-up actions, but its work had been inhibited by lack of staffing and resources.[2] The government also intends to set up subsidiary MACs at the state level to streamline local intelligence gathering.On several occasions, Indian terrorism analysts have cited lack of coordination among the various Indian investigative and intelligence organizations operating across the country as a major impediment to improving terrorism prevention.
The U.S. Experience Following 9/11
Like India, the U.S. experience with the 9/11 attacks was a catalyst for widespread change in the American security model. In the aftermath of 9/11, the U.S. began to reevaluate its terrorism policies, homeland security efforts, and disaster response structure. Several of the priorities the U.S. identified included:
- Integration. The 9/11 attacks demonstrated that stovepipes of authority only led to a lack of information and confusion in the wake of disaster. As a result, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) was created, bringing together 22 different agencies, each with their own role to play in the homeland security enterprise. Along with the creation of DHS, the birth of the Homeland Security Council provided momentum for more robust national disaster planning. And Homeland Security Presidential Directive 8 established new requirements for national disaster readiness, which included a major role for DHS.
- Resiliency. Resiliency is the capacity to carry on in the wake of disaster. After 9/11, the U.S. realized that it was important to protect people from terrorism, but it was equally important to ensure that the nation can persevere in the case of disaster, natural or otherwise. For example, the U.S. developed a Target Capabilities List, which cut across 15 scenarios and examined what resources and responses were needed to protect against, prevent, respond to, or recover from a terrorist attack or natural disaster.
- International Cooperation. The U.S. learned that the transnational nature of contemporary terrorist threats, the interdependence of modern societies resulting from globalization, and the concept of using layered defense to thwart attack from conception to execution all demonstrated the need for multinational homeland security partnerships.
There is much room to expand U.S.-India cooperation on matters of intelligence and homeland security. Since 90 percent of counterterrorism concerns intelligence, Washington and New Delhi should focus on breaking down barriers to sharing intelligence. Indeed, the Mumbai attacks have already spurred greater U.S.-India counterterrorism cooperation.
New Delhi and Washington should also increase official diplomatic and non-governmental exchanges on improving counterterrorism cooperation. The level and frequency of the U.S.-Indian Counterterrorism Joint Working Group (CTJWG) meetings should be raised. These meetings should include talks on ways to organize and streamline operations of various intelligence-gathering and investigative institutions as well as a free exchange of ideas on how to address the ideological foundations of terrorism. India's experience in addressing new terrorism threats that involve both homegrown and international elements should be a focal point of these discussions. To help introduce new ideas on the latest counterterrorism technology and research, the CTJWG talks should also incorporate private sector entities and think tanks specializing in counterterrorism.
Finally, the United States should position itself to be a resource to India, finding means of sharing the lessons it learned after 9/11. For instance, the U.S. could improve its international counterterrorism assistance programs by allocating more funding and authority to the DHS to lead those programs that are consistent with its mission sets. Currently, most of America's counterterrorism assistance programs are controlled by the Department of Defense and the State Department. While these government agencies should remain at the forefront of U.S. international counterterrorism assistance, DHS can take the lead, for example, in programs that help other countries improve their disaster response efforts and aviation and maritime security policies.
Increased Cooperation Is Critical
As the U.S. and India both continue to look for strategies that can effectively protect their citizens from terrorism, each country stands to gain considerably by sharing experiences and best practices and increasing their overall intelligence cooperation against global and regional terrorist threats.
Lisa Curtis is Senior Research Fellow for South Asia in the Asian Studies Center, and Jena Baker McNeill is Policy Analyst for Homeland Security in the Douglas and Sarah Allison Center for Foreign Policy Studies, a division of the Kathryn and Shelby Cullom Davis Institute for International Studies, at The Heritage Foundation.
Monday, February 9, 2009
Reducing oil consumption will hurt our friends and us more than the Middle East
Reducing oil consumption will hurt our friends and us more than the Middle East, by Indur Goklany
Master Resource, February 9, 2009
Many people believe that national security would be advanced if we reduce our petroleum usage, because, goes this theory, we would be funneling less money to the Middle East which then would reduce, if not eliminate, funding for terrorists who wish to harm the U.S. (more on this in the future). Ex-CIA Director, James Woolsey, for instance, is reported to have said that we need “destroy the strategic power” of petroleum by making us not less dependent on foreign oil, but less dependent on oil, period. See, also, here.
But if we reduce our oil demand — whether by subsidizing or mandating renewables, tightening CAFE, or hiking gasoline taxes — the first barrel of oil that would be withheld from production will most likely be the barrel with the highest marginal cost of production, and the last barrel of oil that would be displaced would be the one that has the lowest marginal cost of production. This means that the first barrel of oil that wouldn’t be produced is probably oil from the Tar Sands of Alberta and deep/ultra-deep waters in (or near) the United States, and, possibly, Brazil, Angola, and Nigeria. The last barrel to stop production will probably be from Saudi Arabia. In other words, subsidies for alternatives to petroleum will probably do more harm to our friends and ourselves, before they hurt the people from whom we are trying to gain “energy independence”.
We could hurt ourselves in a variety of ways. First, mandating renewables would increase our energy bill. Second, subsidizing petroleum alternatives would reduce our take home pay because the government would have to pay for the subsidies, and guess who will have to pay for that!. Third, we may have to shut production down in deep and ultra deep waters in the vicinity of the U.S.
Talk about cutting one’s nose to spite another’s face.
Master Resource, February 9, 2009
Many people believe that national security would be advanced if we reduce our petroleum usage, because, goes this theory, we would be funneling less money to the Middle East which then would reduce, if not eliminate, funding for terrorists who wish to harm the U.S. (more on this in the future). Ex-CIA Director, James Woolsey, for instance, is reported to have said that we need “destroy the strategic power” of petroleum by making us not less dependent on foreign oil, but less dependent on oil, period. See, also, here.
But if we reduce our oil demand — whether by subsidizing or mandating renewables, tightening CAFE, or hiking gasoline taxes — the first barrel of oil that would be withheld from production will most likely be the barrel with the highest marginal cost of production, and the last barrel of oil that would be displaced would be the one that has the lowest marginal cost of production. This means that the first barrel of oil that wouldn’t be produced is probably oil from the Tar Sands of Alberta and deep/ultra-deep waters in (or near) the United States, and, possibly, Brazil, Angola, and Nigeria. The last barrel to stop production will probably be from Saudi Arabia. In other words, subsidies for alternatives to petroleum will probably do more harm to our friends and ourselves, before they hurt the people from whom we are trying to gain “energy independence”.
We could hurt ourselves in a variety of ways. First, mandating renewables would increase our energy bill. Second, subsidizing petroleum alternatives would reduce our take home pay because the government would have to pay for the subsidies, and guess who will have to pay for that!. Third, we may have to shut production down in deep and ultra deep waters in the vicinity of the U.S.
Talk about cutting one’s nose to spite another’s face.
David Petraeus' Remarks at the Munich Security Conference
David Petraeus' Remarks at the Munich Security Conference
February 8, 2009
Thank you very much Chairman, and it’s great to be with you all and if I could start off by just applauding as a soldier what I just heard the minister of defence of the UK tell us, I thought that was a terrific message.
It’s great to be on the stage with my diplomatic partner, Ambassador Richard Holbrooke. You know it’s every commander’s dream to have as his ambassadorial wingman someone journalists describe with nicknames like the bulldozer.
In all seriousness I want to publically salute this gifted diplomat for taking on his new position, an appointment that conveys how significant the focus is in the United States on Afghanistan and Pakistan and the south and central Asian regions more broadly
Secretary of Defense Gates recently described Afghanistan to the US congress as posing our greatest military challenge right now.
As he noted, our fundamental objective in Afghanistan is to ensure that transnational terrorists are not able to reestablish the sanctuaries they enjoyed prior to 9/11.
It was to eliminate such sanctuaries that we took action in Afghanistan in 2001 and preventing their reestablishment remains an imperative today, noting to be sure that achievement of that objective inevitably requires accomplishment of other interrelated tasks as well.
As has been explained, President Obama has directed a strategy review that sharpen the clarity of these tasks.
Afghanistan has been a very tough endeavor. Certainly there have been important achievements there over the past seven years as Minister Young and President Karzai noted in the earlier session. Many important ones.
But in recent years the resurgence of the Taliban and Al Qaeda has led to an increase in violence, especially in the southern and eastern parts of the country.
Numerous other challenges have emerged as well, difficulties in the development of governmental institutions that achieve legitimacy in the eyes of the Afghan people; corruption, expansion of poppy production and the illegal narcotics industry, though that was reversed last year, and difficulties in the establishment of the Afghan police.
In fact there has been nothing easy about Afghanistan. And as Senator Lieberman observed recently in a speech to the Brookings Institution, reversing Afghanistan’s slide into insecurity will not come quickly, easily or cheaply. Similarly Secretary Gates told Congress this will undoubtedly be a long and difficult fight. I agree.
In fact I think it’s important to be clear-eyed about the challenges that lie ahead while also remembering the importance of our objectives in Afghanistan and the importance of the opportunity that exists as we all intensify our efforts and work together to achieve those objectives.
Many observers have noted that there are no purely military solutions in Afghanistan and that is correct. Nonetheless military action while not sufficient by itself is absolutely necessary, for security provides the essential foundation for the achievement of progress in all the other so-called lines of operation. Recognizing of course that progress in other areas made possible by security improvements typically contributes to further progress in the security arena creating an upward spiral in which improvements in one area reinforce progress in another.
Arresting and then reversing the downward spiral in security in Afghanistan thus will require not just additional military forces as we have been reminded again today but also more civilian contributions, greater unity of effort between civilian and military elements and with our Afghan partners, and a comprehensive approach as well as sustained commitment and a strategy that addresses the situations in neighboring countries.
This morning I’d like to describe briefly and in general terms the resource requirements under discussion in Washington and various other national capitols.
Then I’ll describe a few of the ideas that helped us in Iraq and that properly adapted for Afghanistan can help General McKiernan and ISAF.
In recent months our president and many others have highlighted the need for additional forces in Afghanistan to reverse the downward spiral in security, help Afghan forces provide security for the elections on August 20th, and enable progress in the tasks essential to achieving our objectives.
As has been announced in recent months more US forces are entering operations as part of ISAF and Afghanistan. Now more have been ordered to deploy and the deployment of others is under consideration.
Beyond that the number of Afghan soldiers to be trained and equipped has been increased. And many of the other troop contributing nations will deploy additional forces as well, with a number of commitments under discussion, and I would be remiss if I did not ask individual countries to examine very closely what forces and other contributions they can provide as ISAF intensifies its efforts in preparation for the elections in August.
It is of course not just additional combat forces that are required. ISAF also needs more so called “enablers” to support the effort in Afghanistan: More intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance platforms. More military police, engineers and logistics elements, additional special operations forces and civil affairs units. More lift and attack helicopters and fixed wing aircraft, additional air medivac assets, increases in information operations capabilities and so on.
Also required are more embedded training teams, operational mentoring and liaison teams and police mentoring teams, all elements that are essential to building the all important capability of the Afghan national security forces and I applaud the German defense minister’s announcement of additional police and army trainers this morning. As with combat forces, some additional enabler elements are already flowing to Afghanistan, commitments have been made to provide others and again others are under discussion. As Senator Lieberman also highlighted in his Brookings speech, a surge in civilian capacity is needed to match the increase in military forces in order to field adequate numbers of provincial reconstruction teams and other civilian elements.
These teams and other personnel are essential to help our afghan partners expand their capabilities in key governmental areas, to support basic economic development, and to assist in development of various important aspects of the rule of law.
It is also essential of course that sufficient financial resources be provided for the effort in Afghanistan. It’s hugely important that nations deliver on their pledges of economic development assistance, that the Afghan National Army and law and order trust funds be fully financed, that support be maintained for the afghan reconstruction trust fund, and that resources continue to be provided for the projects conducted by our military units and PRTs at local levels, and again I applaud the German defense minister’s announcement of additional development aid this morning as well.
Of course just more troops, civilians, dollars, and even Euros won’t be enough.
As students of history we are keenly aware that Afghanistan has over the years been known as the graveyard of empires. It is after all a country that has never taken kindly to outsiders bent on conquering it. We cannot take that history lightly. And our awareness of it should caution us to recognize that while additional forces are essential, their effectiveness will depend on how they are employed, as that in turn will determine how they are seen by the Afghan population. And what I’d like to discuss next then are some of the concepts that our commanders have in mind as plans are refined to employ additional forces.
I base this on discussions with General McKiernan and others who have served in Afghanistan as well as on lessons learned in recent years. I do so with awareness that a number of the elements on the ground are operating along the lines of these ideas, and that their ability to do so will be enhanced by the increased density on the ground of ISAF and Afghan forces as additional elements deploy to the most challenging areas. Counterinsurgency operations are, after all, troop intensive. Finally I want to underscore the fact that commanders on the ground will as always operationalize the so called “big ideas” I talk about in ways that are appropriate to their specific situations on the ground.
So here are some of those ideas.
First and foremost our forces and those of our Afghan partners have to strive to secure and serve the population. We have to recognize that the Afghan people are the decisive terrain. And together with our Afghan partners we have to work to provide the people security, to give them respect, to gain their support and to facilitate the provision of basic services, the development of the Afghan security forces in the area, the promotion of local economic development, and the establishment of government that includes links to the traditional leaders in society and is viewed as legitimate in the eyes of the people.
Securing and serving the people requires that our forces be good neighbors. While it may be less culturally acceptable to live among the people in certain parts of Afghanistan than it was in Iraq, it is necessary to locate Afghan and ISAF forces where they can establish a persistent security presence
You can’t commute to work in the conduct of counterinsurgency operations. Positioning outposts and control bases then requires careful thought, consultation with local leaders, and the establishment of good local relationships, to be effective.
Positioning near those we and our Afghan partners are helping to secure also enables us to understand the neighborhood. A nuanced appreciation of local situations is essential. Leaders and troopers have to understand the tribal structures, the power brokers, the good guys and the bad guys, local cultures and history and how systems are supposed to work and how they do work.
This requires listening, and being respectful of local elders and mullahs, of farmers and shopkeepers, and it also requires of course, many cups of tea.
It is also essential that we achieve unity of effort. That we coordinate and synchronize the actions of all ISAF and Afghan forces and those of our Pakistani partners across the border, and that we do the same with the actions of our embassy and international partners, our afghan counterparts, local governmental leaders, and international and nongovernmental organizations.
Working to a common purpose is essential in the conduct of counterinsurgency operations. We also, in support of and in coordination with our Afghan partners, need to help promote local reconciliation, although this has to be done very carefully, and in accordance with the established principles in the Afghan constitution.
In concert with and in support of our Afghan partners we need to identify and separate the irreconcilables from the reconcilables, striving to create the conditions that can make the reconcilables part of the solution, instead of a continuing part of the problem, even as we kill, capture or run off the irreconcilables.
In fact, programs already exist in this area and careful application of them will be essential in the effort to fracture and break off elements of the insurgency, in order to get various groups to put down their weapons and support the legitimate government and constitution of Afghanistan.
Having said that, we must pursue the enemy tenaciously. True irreconcibles again must be killed captured or driven out of the area, And we cannot shrink from that any more than we can shrink from being willing to support Afghan reconciliation with those elements that show a willingness to reject the insurgents and help Afghan and ISAF forces.
To ensure that the gains achieved can endure, ISAF and Afghan forces have to hold areas that have been cleared. Once we fight to clear and secure an area, we must ensure that it is retained.
The people and local security forces need to know that we will not abandon them. Additionally we should look for ways to give local citizens a stake in the success of the local security effort, and in the success of the new Afghanistan more broadly as well.
To this end a reformed, capable Afghan national police force, with the necessary support from the international community and the alliance is imperative to ensuring the ability to protect the population.
And the new Afghan population protection program announced by Minister of Interior Atmar holds considerable promise and deserves our support as well.
On a related note, to help increase the legitimacy of the Afghan government, we need to help our Afghan partners give the people a reason to support the government and their local authorities.
This includes helping to enable Afghan solutions to Afghan problems.
And on a related note, given the importance of Afghan solutions and governance being viewed as legitimate by the people, and in view of allegations of corruption, such efforts likely should feature support for what might be called an Afghan accountability offensive as well. That will be an important effort.
In all that we do as we perform various missions, we need to live our values. While our forces should not hesitate to engage and destroy an enemy, our troopers must also stay true to the values we hold dear.
This is, after all , an important element that distinguishes us from the enemy. And it manifests itself in many ways, including making determined efforts to reduce to the absolute minimum civilian casualties, an effort furthered significantly by the recent tactical direction and partnering initiatives developed by General McKiernan with our Afghan counterparts.
We must also strive to be first with the truth. We need to beat the insurgents and extremists to the headlines and to preempt rumors. We can only do that by getting accurate information to the chain of command, to our Afghan partners and to the press as soon as is possible. Integrity is critical to this fight.
Thus when situations are bad we should freely acknowledge that fact and avoid temptations to spin. Rather we should describe the setbacks and failures we suffer and then state what we’ve learned from them and how we’ll adjust to reduce the chances of similar events in the future.
Finally, we must always strive to learn and adapt. The situation in Afghanistan has changed significantly in the past several years and it continues to evolve. This makes it incumbent on us to assess the situation continually and to adjust our plans, operations, and tactics as required. We should share ideas and best practices but we should also never forget that what works in one area today may not work there tomorrow, and that what works in an area may not work in another area either.
In conclusion allow me to reiterate the key points I have sought to make. We have a hugely important interest in ensuring that Afghanistan does not once again become a sanctuary for transnational extremists. Achieving that core objective in turn requires the accomplishment of several other significant tasks.
Although there have been impressive achievements in Afghanistan since 2001, the security situation has deteriorated markedly in certain areas in the past two years.
Reversing that trend is necessary to improve security for the population, to permit the conduct of free and fair elections in August, and to enable progress in other important areas.
Achieving security improvements will require more ISAF and Afghan security forces of all types. Combat, combat support, logistics trainers and advisers, special operations and so on.
Some additional forces are already deploying, further increases have been ordered or pledged, and more are under discussion. To be effective the additional military forces will need to be employed in accordance with counterinsurgency concepts applied by leaders who have a nuanced understanding of their areas of operation.
And to complement and capitalize on the increased military resources, more civilian assets, adequate financial resources, close civil-military cooperation, and a comprehensive approach that encompasses regional states will be necessary.
None of this will be easy. Indeed, as Vice President Biden observed recently after a trip to Afghanistan, Afghanistan likely will get harder before it gets easier, and sustained progress will require sustained commitment.
But our objectives are of enormous importance. A significant opportunity is at hand and we all need to summon the will and the resources necessary to make the most of it.
Thank you.
February 8, 2009
Thank you very much Chairman, and it’s great to be with you all and if I could start off by just applauding as a soldier what I just heard the minister of defence of the UK tell us, I thought that was a terrific message.
It’s great to be on the stage with my diplomatic partner, Ambassador Richard Holbrooke. You know it’s every commander’s dream to have as his ambassadorial wingman someone journalists describe with nicknames like the bulldozer.
In all seriousness I want to publically salute this gifted diplomat for taking on his new position, an appointment that conveys how significant the focus is in the United States on Afghanistan and Pakistan and the south and central Asian regions more broadly
Secretary of Defense Gates recently described Afghanistan to the US congress as posing our greatest military challenge right now.
As he noted, our fundamental objective in Afghanistan is to ensure that transnational terrorists are not able to reestablish the sanctuaries they enjoyed prior to 9/11.
It was to eliminate such sanctuaries that we took action in Afghanistan in 2001 and preventing their reestablishment remains an imperative today, noting to be sure that achievement of that objective inevitably requires accomplishment of other interrelated tasks as well.
As has been explained, President Obama has directed a strategy review that sharpen the clarity of these tasks.
Afghanistan has been a very tough endeavor. Certainly there have been important achievements there over the past seven years as Minister Young and President Karzai noted in the earlier session. Many important ones.
But in recent years the resurgence of the Taliban and Al Qaeda has led to an increase in violence, especially in the southern and eastern parts of the country.
Numerous other challenges have emerged as well, difficulties in the development of governmental institutions that achieve legitimacy in the eyes of the Afghan people; corruption, expansion of poppy production and the illegal narcotics industry, though that was reversed last year, and difficulties in the establishment of the Afghan police.
In fact there has been nothing easy about Afghanistan. And as Senator Lieberman observed recently in a speech to the Brookings Institution, reversing Afghanistan’s slide into insecurity will not come quickly, easily or cheaply. Similarly Secretary Gates told Congress this will undoubtedly be a long and difficult fight. I agree.
In fact I think it’s important to be clear-eyed about the challenges that lie ahead while also remembering the importance of our objectives in Afghanistan and the importance of the opportunity that exists as we all intensify our efforts and work together to achieve those objectives.
Many observers have noted that there are no purely military solutions in Afghanistan and that is correct. Nonetheless military action while not sufficient by itself is absolutely necessary, for security provides the essential foundation for the achievement of progress in all the other so-called lines of operation. Recognizing of course that progress in other areas made possible by security improvements typically contributes to further progress in the security arena creating an upward spiral in which improvements in one area reinforce progress in another.
Arresting and then reversing the downward spiral in security in Afghanistan thus will require not just additional military forces as we have been reminded again today but also more civilian contributions, greater unity of effort between civilian and military elements and with our Afghan partners, and a comprehensive approach as well as sustained commitment and a strategy that addresses the situations in neighboring countries.
This morning I’d like to describe briefly and in general terms the resource requirements under discussion in Washington and various other national capitols.
Then I’ll describe a few of the ideas that helped us in Iraq and that properly adapted for Afghanistan can help General McKiernan and ISAF.
In recent months our president and many others have highlighted the need for additional forces in Afghanistan to reverse the downward spiral in security, help Afghan forces provide security for the elections on August 20th, and enable progress in the tasks essential to achieving our objectives.
As has been announced in recent months more US forces are entering operations as part of ISAF and Afghanistan. Now more have been ordered to deploy and the deployment of others is under consideration.
Beyond that the number of Afghan soldiers to be trained and equipped has been increased. And many of the other troop contributing nations will deploy additional forces as well, with a number of commitments under discussion, and I would be remiss if I did not ask individual countries to examine very closely what forces and other contributions they can provide as ISAF intensifies its efforts in preparation for the elections in August.
It is of course not just additional combat forces that are required. ISAF also needs more so called “enablers” to support the effort in Afghanistan: More intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance platforms. More military police, engineers and logistics elements, additional special operations forces and civil affairs units. More lift and attack helicopters and fixed wing aircraft, additional air medivac assets, increases in information operations capabilities and so on.
Also required are more embedded training teams, operational mentoring and liaison teams and police mentoring teams, all elements that are essential to building the all important capability of the Afghan national security forces and I applaud the German defense minister’s announcement of additional police and army trainers this morning. As with combat forces, some additional enabler elements are already flowing to Afghanistan, commitments have been made to provide others and again others are under discussion. As Senator Lieberman also highlighted in his Brookings speech, a surge in civilian capacity is needed to match the increase in military forces in order to field adequate numbers of provincial reconstruction teams and other civilian elements.
These teams and other personnel are essential to help our afghan partners expand their capabilities in key governmental areas, to support basic economic development, and to assist in development of various important aspects of the rule of law.
It is also essential of course that sufficient financial resources be provided for the effort in Afghanistan. It’s hugely important that nations deliver on their pledges of economic development assistance, that the Afghan National Army and law and order trust funds be fully financed, that support be maintained for the afghan reconstruction trust fund, and that resources continue to be provided for the projects conducted by our military units and PRTs at local levels, and again I applaud the German defense minister’s announcement of additional development aid this morning as well.
Of course just more troops, civilians, dollars, and even Euros won’t be enough.
As students of history we are keenly aware that Afghanistan has over the years been known as the graveyard of empires. It is after all a country that has never taken kindly to outsiders bent on conquering it. We cannot take that history lightly. And our awareness of it should caution us to recognize that while additional forces are essential, their effectiveness will depend on how they are employed, as that in turn will determine how they are seen by the Afghan population. And what I’d like to discuss next then are some of the concepts that our commanders have in mind as plans are refined to employ additional forces.
I base this on discussions with General McKiernan and others who have served in Afghanistan as well as on lessons learned in recent years. I do so with awareness that a number of the elements on the ground are operating along the lines of these ideas, and that their ability to do so will be enhanced by the increased density on the ground of ISAF and Afghan forces as additional elements deploy to the most challenging areas. Counterinsurgency operations are, after all, troop intensive. Finally I want to underscore the fact that commanders on the ground will as always operationalize the so called “big ideas” I talk about in ways that are appropriate to their specific situations on the ground.
So here are some of those ideas.
First and foremost our forces and those of our Afghan partners have to strive to secure and serve the population. We have to recognize that the Afghan people are the decisive terrain. And together with our Afghan partners we have to work to provide the people security, to give them respect, to gain their support and to facilitate the provision of basic services, the development of the Afghan security forces in the area, the promotion of local economic development, and the establishment of government that includes links to the traditional leaders in society and is viewed as legitimate in the eyes of the people.
Securing and serving the people requires that our forces be good neighbors. While it may be less culturally acceptable to live among the people in certain parts of Afghanistan than it was in Iraq, it is necessary to locate Afghan and ISAF forces where they can establish a persistent security presence
You can’t commute to work in the conduct of counterinsurgency operations. Positioning outposts and control bases then requires careful thought, consultation with local leaders, and the establishment of good local relationships, to be effective.
Positioning near those we and our Afghan partners are helping to secure also enables us to understand the neighborhood. A nuanced appreciation of local situations is essential. Leaders and troopers have to understand the tribal structures, the power brokers, the good guys and the bad guys, local cultures and history and how systems are supposed to work and how they do work.
This requires listening, and being respectful of local elders and mullahs, of farmers and shopkeepers, and it also requires of course, many cups of tea.
It is also essential that we achieve unity of effort. That we coordinate and synchronize the actions of all ISAF and Afghan forces and those of our Pakistani partners across the border, and that we do the same with the actions of our embassy and international partners, our afghan counterparts, local governmental leaders, and international and nongovernmental organizations.
Working to a common purpose is essential in the conduct of counterinsurgency operations. We also, in support of and in coordination with our Afghan partners, need to help promote local reconciliation, although this has to be done very carefully, and in accordance with the established principles in the Afghan constitution.
In concert with and in support of our Afghan partners we need to identify and separate the irreconcilables from the reconcilables, striving to create the conditions that can make the reconcilables part of the solution, instead of a continuing part of the problem, even as we kill, capture or run off the irreconcilables.
In fact, programs already exist in this area and careful application of them will be essential in the effort to fracture and break off elements of the insurgency, in order to get various groups to put down their weapons and support the legitimate government and constitution of Afghanistan.
Having said that, we must pursue the enemy tenaciously. True irreconcibles again must be killed captured or driven out of the area, And we cannot shrink from that any more than we can shrink from being willing to support Afghan reconciliation with those elements that show a willingness to reject the insurgents and help Afghan and ISAF forces.
To ensure that the gains achieved can endure, ISAF and Afghan forces have to hold areas that have been cleared. Once we fight to clear and secure an area, we must ensure that it is retained.
The people and local security forces need to know that we will not abandon them. Additionally we should look for ways to give local citizens a stake in the success of the local security effort, and in the success of the new Afghanistan more broadly as well.
To this end a reformed, capable Afghan national police force, with the necessary support from the international community and the alliance is imperative to ensuring the ability to protect the population.
And the new Afghan population protection program announced by Minister of Interior Atmar holds considerable promise and deserves our support as well.
On a related note, to help increase the legitimacy of the Afghan government, we need to help our Afghan partners give the people a reason to support the government and their local authorities.
This includes helping to enable Afghan solutions to Afghan problems.
And on a related note, given the importance of Afghan solutions and governance being viewed as legitimate by the people, and in view of allegations of corruption, such efforts likely should feature support for what might be called an Afghan accountability offensive as well. That will be an important effort.
In all that we do as we perform various missions, we need to live our values. While our forces should not hesitate to engage and destroy an enemy, our troopers must also stay true to the values we hold dear.
This is, after all , an important element that distinguishes us from the enemy. And it manifests itself in many ways, including making determined efforts to reduce to the absolute minimum civilian casualties, an effort furthered significantly by the recent tactical direction and partnering initiatives developed by General McKiernan with our Afghan counterparts.
We must also strive to be first with the truth. We need to beat the insurgents and extremists to the headlines and to preempt rumors. We can only do that by getting accurate information to the chain of command, to our Afghan partners and to the press as soon as is possible. Integrity is critical to this fight.
Thus when situations are bad we should freely acknowledge that fact and avoid temptations to spin. Rather we should describe the setbacks and failures we suffer and then state what we’ve learned from them and how we’ll adjust to reduce the chances of similar events in the future.
Finally, we must always strive to learn and adapt. The situation in Afghanistan has changed significantly in the past several years and it continues to evolve. This makes it incumbent on us to assess the situation continually and to adjust our plans, operations, and tactics as required. We should share ideas and best practices but we should also never forget that what works in one area today may not work there tomorrow, and that what works in an area may not work in another area either.
In conclusion allow me to reiterate the key points I have sought to make. We have a hugely important interest in ensuring that Afghanistan does not once again become a sanctuary for transnational extremists. Achieving that core objective in turn requires the accomplishment of several other significant tasks.
Although there have been impressive achievements in Afghanistan since 2001, the security situation has deteriorated markedly in certain areas in the past two years.
Reversing that trend is necessary to improve security for the population, to permit the conduct of free and fair elections in August, and to enable progress in other important areas.
Achieving security improvements will require more ISAF and Afghan security forces of all types. Combat, combat support, logistics trainers and advisers, special operations and so on.
Some additional forces are already deploying, further increases have been ordered or pledged, and more are under discussion. To be effective the additional military forces will need to be employed in accordance with counterinsurgency concepts applied by leaders who have a nuanced understanding of their areas of operation.
And to complement and capitalize on the increased military resources, more civilian assets, adequate financial resources, close civil-military cooperation, and a comprehensive approach that encompasses regional states will be necessary.
None of this will be easy. Indeed, as Vice President Biden observed recently after a trip to Afghanistan, Afghanistan likely will get harder before it gets easier, and sustained progress will require sustained commitment.
But our objectives are of enormous importance. A significant opportunity is at hand and we all need to summon the will and the resources necessary to make the most of it.
Thank you.
Your Health With the Obama Stimulus Plan
Ruin Your Health With the Obama Stimulus Plan, by Betsy McCaughey
Bloomberg
Feb. 9 -- Republican Senators are questioning whether President Barack Obama’s stimulus bill contains the right mix of tax breaks and cash infusions to jump-start the economy.
Tragically, no one from either party is objecting to the health provisions slipped in without discussion. These provisions reflect the handiwork of Tom Daschle, until recently the nominee to head the Health and Human Services Department.
Senators should read these provisions and vote against them because they are dangerous to your health. (Page numbers refer to H.R. 1 EH, pdf version).
The bill’s health rules will affect “every individual in the United States” (445, 454, 479). Your medical treatments will be tracked electronically by a federal system. Having electronic medical records at your fingertips, easily transferred to a hospital, is beneficial. It will help avoid duplicate tests and errors.
But the bill goes further. One new bureaucracy, the National Coordinator of Health Information Technology, will monitor treatments to make sure your doctor is doing what the federal government deems appropriate and cost effective. The goal is to reduce costs and “guide” your doctor’s decisions (442, 446). These provisions in the stimulus bill are virtually identical to what Daschle prescribed in his 2008 book, “Critical: What We Can Do About the Health-Care Crisis.” According to Daschle, doctors have to give up autonomy and “learn to operate less like solo practitioners.”
Keeping doctors informed of the newest medical findings is important, but enforcing uniformity goes too far.
New Penalties
Hospitals and doctors that are not “meaningful users” of the new system will face penalties. “Meaningful user” isn’t defined in the bill. That will be left to the HHS secretary, who will be empowered to impose “more stringent measures of meaningful use over time” (511, 518, 540-541)
What penalties will deter your doctor from going beyond the electronically delivered protocols when your condition is atypical or you need an experimental treatment? The vagueness is intentional. In his book, Daschle proposed an appointed body with vast powers to make the “tough” decisions elected politicians won’t make.
The stimulus bill does that, and calls it the Federal Coordinating Council for Comparative Effectiveness Research (190-192). The goal, Daschle’s book explained, is to slow the development and use of new medications and technologies because they are driving up costs. He praises Europeans for being more willing to accept “hopeless diagnoses” and “forgo experimental treatments,” and he chastises Americans for expecting too much from the health-care system.
Elderly Hardest Hit
Daschle says health-care reform “will not be pain free.” Seniors should be more accepting of the conditions that come with age instead of treating them. That means the elderly will bear the brunt.
Medicare now pays for treatments deemed safe and effective. The stimulus bill would change that and apply a cost- effectiveness standard set by the Federal Council (464).
The Federal Council is modeled after a U.K. board discussed in Daschle’s book. This board approves or rejects treatments using a formula that divides the cost of the treatment by the number of years the patient is likely to benefit. Treatments for younger patients are more often approved than treatments for diseases that affect the elderly, such as osteoporosis.
In 2006, a U.K. health board decreed that elderly patients with macular degeneration had to wait until they went blind in one eye before they could get a costly new drug to save the other eye. It took almost three years of public protests before the board reversed its decision.
Hidden Provisions
If the Obama administration’s economic stimulus bill passes the Senate in its current form, seniors in the U.S. will face similar rationing. Defenders of the system say that individuals benefit in younger years and sacrifice later.
The stimulus bill will affect every part of health care, from medical and nursing education, to how patients are treated and how much hospitals get paid. The bill allocates more funding for this bureaucracy than for the Army, Navy, Marines, and Air Force combined (90-92, 174-177, 181).
Hiding health legislation in a stimulus bill is intentional. Daschle supported the Clinton administration’s health-care overhaul in 1994, and attributed its failure to debate and delay. A year ago, Daschle wrote that the next president should act quickly before critics mount an opposition. “If that means attaching a health-care plan to the federal budget, so be it,” he said. “The issue is too important to be stalled by Senate protocol.”
More Scrutiny Needed
On Friday, President Obama called it “inexcusable and irresponsible” for senators to delay passing the stimulus bill. In truth, this bill needs more scrutiny.
The health-care industry is the largest employer in the U.S. It produces almost 17 percent of the nation’s gross domestic product. Yet the bill treats health care the way European governments do: as a cost problem instead of a growth industry. Imagine limiting growth and innovation in the electronics or auto industry during this downturn. This stimulus is dangerous to your health and the economy.
(Betsy McCaughey is former lieutenant governor of New York and is an adjunct senior fellow at the Hudson Institute. The opinions expressed are her own.)
Bloomberg
Feb. 9 -- Republican Senators are questioning whether President Barack Obama’s stimulus bill contains the right mix of tax breaks and cash infusions to jump-start the economy.
Tragically, no one from either party is objecting to the health provisions slipped in without discussion. These provisions reflect the handiwork of Tom Daschle, until recently the nominee to head the Health and Human Services Department.
Senators should read these provisions and vote against them because they are dangerous to your health. (Page numbers refer to H.R. 1 EH, pdf version).
The bill’s health rules will affect “every individual in the United States” (445, 454, 479). Your medical treatments will be tracked electronically by a federal system. Having electronic medical records at your fingertips, easily transferred to a hospital, is beneficial. It will help avoid duplicate tests and errors.
But the bill goes further. One new bureaucracy, the National Coordinator of Health Information Technology, will monitor treatments to make sure your doctor is doing what the federal government deems appropriate and cost effective. The goal is to reduce costs and “guide” your doctor’s decisions (442, 446). These provisions in the stimulus bill are virtually identical to what Daschle prescribed in his 2008 book, “Critical: What We Can Do About the Health-Care Crisis.” According to Daschle, doctors have to give up autonomy and “learn to operate less like solo practitioners.”
Keeping doctors informed of the newest medical findings is important, but enforcing uniformity goes too far.
New Penalties
Hospitals and doctors that are not “meaningful users” of the new system will face penalties. “Meaningful user” isn’t defined in the bill. That will be left to the HHS secretary, who will be empowered to impose “more stringent measures of meaningful use over time” (511, 518, 540-541)
What penalties will deter your doctor from going beyond the electronically delivered protocols when your condition is atypical or you need an experimental treatment? The vagueness is intentional. In his book, Daschle proposed an appointed body with vast powers to make the “tough” decisions elected politicians won’t make.
The stimulus bill does that, and calls it the Federal Coordinating Council for Comparative Effectiveness Research (190-192). The goal, Daschle’s book explained, is to slow the development and use of new medications and technologies because they are driving up costs. He praises Europeans for being more willing to accept “hopeless diagnoses” and “forgo experimental treatments,” and he chastises Americans for expecting too much from the health-care system.
Elderly Hardest Hit
Daschle says health-care reform “will not be pain free.” Seniors should be more accepting of the conditions that come with age instead of treating them. That means the elderly will bear the brunt.
Medicare now pays for treatments deemed safe and effective. The stimulus bill would change that and apply a cost- effectiveness standard set by the Federal Council (464).
The Federal Council is modeled after a U.K. board discussed in Daschle’s book. This board approves or rejects treatments using a formula that divides the cost of the treatment by the number of years the patient is likely to benefit. Treatments for younger patients are more often approved than treatments for diseases that affect the elderly, such as osteoporosis.
In 2006, a U.K. health board decreed that elderly patients with macular degeneration had to wait until they went blind in one eye before they could get a costly new drug to save the other eye. It took almost three years of public protests before the board reversed its decision.
Hidden Provisions
If the Obama administration’s economic stimulus bill passes the Senate in its current form, seniors in the U.S. will face similar rationing. Defenders of the system say that individuals benefit in younger years and sacrifice later.
The stimulus bill will affect every part of health care, from medical and nursing education, to how patients are treated and how much hospitals get paid. The bill allocates more funding for this bureaucracy than for the Army, Navy, Marines, and Air Force combined (90-92, 174-177, 181).
Hiding health legislation in a stimulus bill is intentional. Daschle supported the Clinton administration’s health-care overhaul in 1994, and attributed its failure to debate and delay. A year ago, Daschle wrote that the next president should act quickly before critics mount an opposition. “If that means attaching a health-care plan to the federal budget, so be it,” he said. “The issue is too important to be stalled by Senate protocol.”
More Scrutiny Needed
On Friday, President Obama called it “inexcusable and irresponsible” for senators to delay passing the stimulus bill. In truth, this bill needs more scrutiny.
The health-care industry is the largest employer in the U.S. It produces almost 17 percent of the nation’s gross domestic product. Yet the bill treats health care the way European governments do: as a cost problem instead of a growth industry. Imagine limiting growth and innovation in the electronics or auto industry during this downturn. This stimulus is dangerous to your health and the economy.
(Betsy McCaughey is former lieutenant governor of New York and is an adjunct senior fellow at the Hudson Institute. The opinions expressed are her own.)
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