U.S. Gives $9.3 Million to Help Displaced Pakistanis
Bureau of Public Affairs, Office of the Spokesman
Washington, DC, April 2, 2009
The United States government is pleased to announce a new contribution of $9.3 million to help Pakistanis displaced by conflict in their country. The money will support emergency operations in Pakistan managed by the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) and the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC). With this contribution, the U.S. government has contributed $14.6 million to relief efforts for displaced Pakistanis since October 1, 2008.
Counter-insurgency operations by the Pakistani armed forces and ongoing extremist violence in Pakistan's Northwest Frontier Province and Federally Administered Tribal Areas have resulted in the displacement of approximately 550,000 persons since August 2008, with the continued displacement of an estimated 100 additional families per day. An additional 20,000 Pakistanis have sought refuge in Afghanistan.
UNHCR will use the U.S. contribution to house refugees and internally displaced persons (IDPs) with host families, to establish and manage IDP camps, and to take care of the most vulnerable displaced people (women, children, the disabled, and the elderly). The contribution to ICRC will provide clean water, medical care and housing for the displaced. The Pakistan Red Crescent will receive money to expand its programs to train doctors and nurses, and to rehabilitate disabled veterans.
The United States encourages other donors to respond to the United Nations and the ICRC’s emergency appeals with substantial contributions of their own.
PRN: 2009/284
Thursday, April 2, 2009
Conservative about Dahlia Lithwick on Harold Koh
More on Dahlia Lithwick on Harold Koh. By Ed Whelan
Bench Memos/NRO, Thursday, April 02, 2009
A follow-up to my post agreeing with Dahlia Lithwick that those of us who are alarmed by State Department nominee Harold Koh should not base our case against Koh on a remark that Koh allegedly made about the possible application of sharia law in cases in U.S. courts:
Let me briefly discuss just a couple of the many things that Lithwick gets wrong in her essay. (I’ll leave aside Lithwick’s ongoing effort, which Jonathan Adler has aptly remarked on before, to reposition herself from her previous role as a perpetrator of the “vicious slash-and-burn character attack” to her new role as a hypersensitive bemoaner of any criticism of nominees.)
Lithwick contends:
The underlying legal charge from the right is that Koh is a "transnationalist" who seeks to subjugate all of America to elite international courts. We've heard these claims from conservative critics before. They amount to just this: The mere acknowledgment that a body of law exists outside the United States is tantamount to claiming that America is enslaved to that law. The recognition that international law even exists somehow transforms the U.S. Supreme Court into a sort of intermediate court of appeals that must answer to the Dreaded Court of Elitist European Preferences.
Set aside Lithwick’s apparent insinuation that “transnationalist” is an epithet invented by conservatives to stigmatize folks like Koh, when in fact Koh himself, as author of articles like “Transnational Public Law Litigation” and “Why Transnational Law Matters,” has championed the label. As she often does, Lithwick, rather than accurately presenting and engaging opposing arguments, proceeds with argument by wild distortion. The italicized passages are an absurd misrepresentation of conservative critiques of Koh. (See, for example, my post here and John Fonte’s post. And for conservative critiques of transnationalism generally, see the article by John Fonte linked to in his post and John Bolton’s recent Commentary essay, “The Coming War on Sovereignty.”)
Lithwick also asserts:
Harold Koh is not a radical legal figure. He has served with distinction in both Democratic and Republican administrations (under Presidents Clinton and Reagan), and in that capacity he sued both Democratic and Republic [sic] administrations.* He was confirmed unanimously 11 years ago, and yet this time around, he is a threat to American sovereignty.
Here Lithwick resorts to insipid makeshift arguments that she herself would not apply to others. So what that Koh was a junior career lawyer in OLC during the Reagan Administration? Is that evidence that he is not now a radical legal figure? Well, then, I guess that Lithwick has never attacked, and would never attack, Samuel Alito as extreme, since Alito served with distinction as a career prosecutor in the Carter Administration. And how does Koh’s confirmation 11 years ago foreclose examination of what we have learned about him, and about the transnationalist threat, in the meantime? Again, would Lithwick maintain that because, say, Justice Scalia was confirmed unanimously, she couldn’t and wouldn’t oppose his elevation to Chief Justice? Ridiculous.
* I have no idea what the second half of this sentence is supposed to mean. I’ll presume an editing glitch.
Bench Memos/NRO, Thursday, April 02, 2009
A follow-up to my post agreeing with Dahlia Lithwick that those of us who are alarmed by State Department nominee Harold Koh should not base our case against Koh on a remark that Koh allegedly made about the possible application of sharia law in cases in U.S. courts:
Let me briefly discuss just a couple of the many things that Lithwick gets wrong in her essay. (I’ll leave aside Lithwick’s ongoing effort, which Jonathan Adler has aptly remarked on before, to reposition herself from her previous role as a perpetrator of the “vicious slash-and-burn character attack” to her new role as a hypersensitive bemoaner of any criticism of nominees.)
Lithwick contends:
The underlying legal charge from the right is that Koh is a "transnationalist" who seeks to subjugate all of America to elite international courts. We've heard these claims from conservative critics before. They amount to just this: The mere acknowledgment that a body of law exists outside the United States is tantamount to claiming that America is enslaved to that law. The recognition that international law even exists somehow transforms the U.S. Supreme Court into a sort of intermediate court of appeals that must answer to the Dreaded Court of Elitist European Preferences.
Set aside Lithwick’s apparent insinuation that “transnationalist” is an epithet invented by conservatives to stigmatize folks like Koh, when in fact Koh himself, as author of articles like “Transnational Public Law Litigation” and “Why Transnational Law Matters,” has championed the label. As she often does, Lithwick, rather than accurately presenting and engaging opposing arguments, proceeds with argument by wild distortion. The italicized passages are an absurd misrepresentation of conservative critiques of Koh. (See, for example, my post here and John Fonte’s post. And for conservative critiques of transnationalism generally, see the article by John Fonte linked to in his post and John Bolton’s recent Commentary essay, “The Coming War on Sovereignty.”)
Lithwick also asserts:
Harold Koh is not a radical legal figure. He has served with distinction in both Democratic and Republican administrations (under Presidents Clinton and Reagan), and in that capacity he sued both Democratic and Republic [sic] administrations.* He was confirmed unanimously 11 years ago, and yet this time around, he is a threat to American sovereignty.
Here Lithwick resorts to insipid makeshift arguments that she herself would not apply to others. So what that Koh was a junior career lawyer in OLC during the Reagan Administration? Is that evidence that he is not now a radical legal figure? Well, then, I guess that Lithwick has never attacked, and would never attack, Samuel Alito as extreme, since Alito served with distinction as a career prosecutor in the Carter Administration. And how does Koh’s confirmation 11 years ago foreclose examination of what we have learned about him, and about the transnationalist threat, in the meantime? Again, would Lithwick maintain that because, say, Justice Scalia was confirmed unanimously, she couldn’t and wouldn’t oppose his elevation to Chief Justice? Ridiculous.
* I have no idea what the second half of this sentence is supposed to mean. I’ll presume an editing glitch.
Existential Crisis at the G20 Summit
Existential Crisis at the G20 Summit. By Ruth Conniff
The Progressive, April 2, 2009
The global financial crisis has created an existential problem for American capitalism. The theory that deregulation, free markets, and policies that serve the interests of big banks and multinational corporations are best for all of us has never looked so weak. Protesters at the G-20 summit in London are driving home this point.
As the activist group G20 Meltdown puts it: "While two million are now out of work in Britain alone, the G20 ministers still resist nationalizing the banks, instead continuing to pour trillions into the black hole of bankers' bad gambling debts." Various groups, from Save the Children to the Stop Climate Chaos Coalition are pushing to expose the global trade club as the insider group for the wealthy that it is. And they are insisting on democratic policy changes that put needs of people--especially the poor and vulnerable-- ahead of the needs of hedge fund managers and corporations.
Talking openly about class is not as taboo in the rest of the world as it is here in the United States. Americans have been living for decades with what European Marxists like to call "class transference": the idea that the interests of multimillionaire bankers and businessmen are exactly the same as the interests of line workers and school teachers. After all, we all plan to be millionaires one day, right? This mentality allows us to accept the idea that a CEO who presides over the collapse of a major corporation should be "punished” by being pushed out with a $35 million golden parachute, but family-supporting wages and benefits are "fat" that needs to be trimmed so companies can become more competitive and profitable.
Favoring Wall Street at the expense of Main Street is nowhere more obvious than in our government's very different treatment of the banks and GM. Why is it that we see the need to spend tax money to protect bondholders from losing money on risky bets, but massive job loss from the collapse of the auto industry is an acceptable price to pay for GM's poor management?
Why is AIG "too big to fail," but the entire American auto industry is not?
Don't get me wrong. There is no greater example of American hubris than the story of GM. It reads like Shakespearian tragedy--the rise and fall of this giant company that once bragged, "What's good for General Motors is good for America." That our country was still building giant showrooms for Hummers and consumers were blithely trading in 10-mile-per-gallon SUVs for newer models even as war raged in Iraq is incredible. At some point we were going to start paying for this monumental shortsightedness. It turns out that point is now.
But there is a lot that government can do to decide who will suffer the most from the excesses and hubris of unsustainable business practices. Businesses can be counted on to look out for their own interests: to seek higher profits and to push and lobby federal and international government for the best possible deal. But it is government's job to look out for the taxpayers, homeowners, line workers, and school children who are going to bear the brunt of the financial crisis. The more we recognize that our interests as human beings are not the same as the interests of the big companies that want to maximize their profits, the more effective we can be as citizens pushing our government to change its ways.
The Obama Administration needs to be held to account.
As mutual fund manager John Hussman puts it: "Make no mistake - we are selling off our future and the future of our children to prevent the bondholders of U.S. financial corporations from taking losses. We are using public funds to protect the bondholders of some of the most mismanaged companies in the history of capitalism, instead of allowing them to take losses that should have been their own. All our policy makers have done to date has been to squander public funds to protect the full interests of corporate bondholders. Even Bear Stearns' bondholders can expect to get 100% of their money back, thanks to the generosity of Bernanke, Geithner and other bureaucrats eager to hand out the money of ordinary Americans."
Meanwhile, by threatening GM with bankruptcy, the Obama Administration is toying with massive job loss throughout the industrial Midwest. With hundreds of billions already pledged to save the banks, there is neither political nor economic capital left for a massive bailout of the bloated auto industry. Still, human needs--and protecting the homes, health care, retirement funds, and childrens' future of the auto industry's workforce--must come ahead of a toxic asset plan that protects investors against feeling the downside of their risky bets.
The Progressive, April 2, 2009
The global financial crisis has created an existential problem for American capitalism. The theory that deregulation, free markets, and policies that serve the interests of big banks and multinational corporations are best for all of us has never looked so weak. Protesters at the G-20 summit in London are driving home this point.
As the activist group G20 Meltdown puts it: "While two million are now out of work in Britain alone, the G20 ministers still resist nationalizing the banks, instead continuing to pour trillions into the black hole of bankers' bad gambling debts." Various groups, from Save the Children to the Stop Climate Chaos Coalition are pushing to expose the global trade club as the insider group for the wealthy that it is. And they are insisting on democratic policy changes that put needs of people--especially the poor and vulnerable-- ahead of the needs of hedge fund managers and corporations.
Talking openly about class is not as taboo in the rest of the world as it is here in the United States. Americans have been living for decades with what European Marxists like to call "class transference": the idea that the interests of multimillionaire bankers and businessmen are exactly the same as the interests of line workers and school teachers. After all, we all plan to be millionaires one day, right? This mentality allows us to accept the idea that a CEO who presides over the collapse of a major corporation should be "punished” by being pushed out with a $35 million golden parachute, but family-supporting wages and benefits are "fat" that needs to be trimmed so companies can become more competitive and profitable.
Favoring Wall Street at the expense of Main Street is nowhere more obvious than in our government's very different treatment of the banks and GM. Why is it that we see the need to spend tax money to protect bondholders from losing money on risky bets, but massive job loss from the collapse of the auto industry is an acceptable price to pay for GM's poor management?
Why is AIG "too big to fail," but the entire American auto industry is not?
Don't get me wrong. There is no greater example of American hubris than the story of GM. It reads like Shakespearian tragedy--the rise and fall of this giant company that once bragged, "What's good for General Motors is good for America." That our country was still building giant showrooms for Hummers and consumers were blithely trading in 10-mile-per-gallon SUVs for newer models even as war raged in Iraq is incredible. At some point we were going to start paying for this monumental shortsightedness. It turns out that point is now.
But there is a lot that government can do to decide who will suffer the most from the excesses and hubris of unsustainable business practices. Businesses can be counted on to look out for their own interests: to seek higher profits and to push and lobby federal and international government for the best possible deal. But it is government's job to look out for the taxpayers, homeowners, line workers, and school children who are going to bear the brunt of the financial crisis. The more we recognize that our interests as human beings are not the same as the interests of the big companies that want to maximize their profits, the more effective we can be as citizens pushing our government to change its ways.
The Obama Administration needs to be held to account.
As mutual fund manager John Hussman puts it: "Make no mistake - we are selling off our future and the future of our children to prevent the bondholders of U.S. financial corporations from taking losses. We are using public funds to protect the bondholders of some of the most mismanaged companies in the history of capitalism, instead of allowing them to take losses that should have been their own. All our policy makers have done to date has been to squander public funds to protect the full interests of corporate bondholders. Even Bear Stearns' bondholders can expect to get 100% of their money back, thanks to the generosity of Bernanke, Geithner and other bureaucrats eager to hand out the money of ordinary Americans."
Meanwhile, by threatening GM with bankruptcy, the Obama Administration is toying with massive job loss throughout the industrial Midwest. With hundreds of billions already pledged to save the banks, there is neither political nor economic capital left for a massive bailout of the bloated auto industry. Still, human needs--and protecting the homes, health care, retirement funds, and childrens' future of the auto industry's workforce--must come ahead of a toxic asset plan that protects investors against feeling the downside of their risky bets.
Drug Decriminalization in Portugal: Lessons for Creating Fair and Successful Drug Policies
Drug Decriminalization in Portugal: Lessons for Creating Fair and Successful Drug Policies. By Glenn Greenwald
Cato, Apr 2, 2009
On July 1, 2001, a nationwide law in Portugal took effect that decriminalized all drugs, including cocaine and heroin. Under the new legal framework, all drugs were "decriminalized," not "legalized." Thus, drug possession for personal use and drug usage itself are still legally prohibited, but violations of those prohibitions are deemed to be exclusively administrative violations and are removed completely from the criminal realm. Drug trafficking continues to be prosecuted as a criminal offense.
While other states in the European Union have developed various forms of de facto decriminalization — whereby substances perceived to be less serious (such as cannabis) rarely lead to criminal prosecution — Portugal remains the only EU member state with a law explicitly declaring drugs to be "decriminalized." Because more than seven years have now elapsed since enactment of Portugal's decriminalization system, there are ample data enabling its effects to be assessed.
Notably, decriminalization has become increasingly popular in Portugal since 2001. Except for some far-right politicians, very few domestic political factions are agitating for a repeal of the 2001 law. And while there is a widespread perception that bureaucratic changes need to be made to Portugal's decriminalization framework to make it more efficient and effective, there is no real debate about whether drugs should once again be criminalized. More significantly, none of the nightmare scenarios touted by preenactment decriminalization opponents — from rampant increases in drug usage among the young to the transformation of Lisbon into a haven for "drug tourists" — has occurred.
The political consensus in favor of decriminalization is unsurprising in light of the relevant empirical data. Those data indicate that decriminalization has had no adverse effect on drug usage rates in Portugal, which, in numerous categories, are now among the lowest in the EU, particularly when compared with states with stringent criminalization regimes. Although postdecriminalization usage rates have remained roughly the same or even decreased slightly when compared with other EU states, drug-related pathologies — such as sexually transmitted diseases and deaths due to drug usage — have decreased dramatically. Drug policy experts attribute those positive trends to the enhanced ability of the Portuguese government to offer treatment programs to its citizens — enhancements made possible, for numerous reasons, by decriminalization.
This report will begin with an examination of the Portuguese decriminalization framework as set forth in law and in terms of how it functions in practice. Also examined is the political climate in Portugal both pre- and postdecriminalization with regard to drug policy, and the impetus that led that nation to adopt decriminalization.
The report then assesses Portuguese drug policy in the context of the EU's approach to drugs. The varying legal frameworks, as well as the overall trend toward liberalization, are examined to enable a meaningful comparative assessment between Portuguese data and data from other EU states.
The report also sets forth the data concerning drug-related trends in Portugal both pre- and postdecriminalization. The effects of decriminalization in Portugal are examined both in absolute terms and in comparisons with other states that continue to criminalize drugs, particularly within the EU.
The data show that, judged by virtually every metric, the Portuguese decriminalization framework has been a resounding success. Within this success lie self-evident lessons that should guide drug policy debates around the world.
Download the PDF (4 MB)
Glenn Greenwald is a constitutional lawyer and a contributing writer at Salon. He has authored several books, including A Tragic Legacy (2007) and How Would a Patriot Act? (2006).
Cato, Apr 2, 2009
On July 1, 2001, a nationwide law in Portugal took effect that decriminalized all drugs, including cocaine and heroin. Under the new legal framework, all drugs were "decriminalized," not "legalized." Thus, drug possession for personal use and drug usage itself are still legally prohibited, but violations of those prohibitions are deemed to be exclusively administrative violations and are removed completely from the criminal realm. Drug trafficking continues to be prosecuted as a criminal offense.
While other states in the European Union have developed various forms of de facto decriminalization — whereby substances perceived to be less serious (such as cannabis) rarely lead to criminal prosecution — Portugal remains the only EU member state with a law explicitly declaring drugs to be "decriminalized." Because more than seven years have now elapsed since enactment of Portugal's decriminalization system, there are ample data enabling its effects to be assessed.
Notably, decriminalization has become increasingly popular in Portugal since 2001. Except for some far-right politicians, very few domestic political factions are agitating for a repeal of the 2001 law. And while there is a widespread perception that bureaucratic changes need to be made to Portugal's decriminalization framework to make it more efficient and effective, there is no real debate about whether drugs should once again be criminalized. More significantly, none of the nightmare scenarios touted by preenactment decriminalization opponents — from rampant increases in drug usage among the young to the transformation of Lisbon into a haven for "drug tourists" — has occurred.
The political consensus in favor of decriminalization is unsurprising in light of the relevant empirical data. Those data indicate that decriminalization has had no adverse effect on drug usage rates in Portugal, which, in numerous categories, are now among the lowest in the EU, particularly when compared with states with stringent criminalization regimes. Although postdecriminalization usage rates have remained roughly the same or even decreased slightly when compared with other EU states, drug-related pathologies — such as sexually transmitted diseases and deaths due to drug usage — have decreased dramatically. Drug policy experts attribute those positive trends to the enhanced ability of the Portuguese government to offer treatment programs to its citizens — enhancements made possible, for numerous reasons, by decriminalization.
This report will begin with an examination of the Portuguese decriminalization framework as set forth in law and in terms of how it functions in practice. Also examined is the political climate in Portugal both pre- and postdecriminalization with regard to drug policy, and the impetus that led that nation to adopt decriminalization.
The report then assesses Portuguese drug policy in the context of the EU's approach to drugs. The varying legal frameworks, as well as the overall trend toward liberalization, are examined to enable a meaningful comparative assessment between Portuguese data and data from other EU states.
The report also sets forth the data concerning drug-related trends in Portugal both pre- and postdecriminalization. The effects of decriminalization in Portugal are examined both in absolute terms and in comparisons with other states that continue to criminalize drugs, particularly within the EU.
The data show that, judged by virtually every metric, the Portuguese decriminalization framework has been a resounding success. Within this success lie self-evident lessons that should guide drug policy debates around the world.
Download the PDF (4 MB)
Glenn Greenwald is a constitutional lawyer and a contributing writer at Salon. He has authored several books, including A Tragic Legacy (2007) and How Would a Patriot Act? (2006).
Afghanistan Is Not Iraq - Propagating the myth of the "moderate Taliban" is a leap backward in American understanding
Afghanistan Is Not Iraq. By Stephen Schwartz
Propagating the myth of the "moderate Taliban" is a leap backward in American understanding.
The Weekly Standard, Apr 01, 2009
Many of the initiatives by President Obama in the Middle East and Muslim countries rest on unrealistic expectations--desert mirages, one might say--surrounding the motives of terrorists and other enemies of freedom. The most obvious example has been Obama's flattery toward the Iranian dictatorship, expressed in his address to the authorities of the "Islamic Republic" on March 20, in which he offers friendship to the Iranian clerical tyrants while they torture dissenting intellectuals, and repress protesting students and spiritual Sufis.
On its face, this immoral option resembles the old "realism" toward China--and, lately, Putinite Russia--that puts "stability" in relations with authoritarians and mass murderers ahead of democratic principles. Let the Tibetans and Uighurs be subjected to cultural genocide, Falun Gong be brutally persecuted, and individual Chinese dissidents--some of the bravest of the brave--be tormented in horrific ways, the argument seems to go, as long as Washington can claim a "breakthrough" in relations. But other, and much more dangerous tendencies, are also evident in recent U.S. outreach to the Muslim world. To flirtation with Tehran, the attempted installation of Chas Freeman, a prime apologist for Saudi Wahhabism, as head of the National Intelligence Council, and the hallucinated concept of a "unity" government comprising the Palestinian Authority and Hamas, critical observers of American official initiatives toward Muslim countries may add a new gimmick: the search for "the moderate Taliban."
This latest delusion is often promoted by the State Department's Richard Holbrooke. Afghanistan, we are told, may become the scene of a "civilian surge" comparable to the strategy that diminished terrorism in Iraq. The "moderate Taliban" could furnish the Afghan equivalent of the Sunni Awakening, which provided allies for the U.S.-led coalition and the Baghdad government in fighting the so-called Iraqi insurgency.
But the differences between the Iraqi death squads that eventually split and produced partners for the battle against brutalization, and the Taliban, are unarguable.
* The Iraqi malcontents comprised an assortment of the disaffected--secular Baathists, Sunnis suddenly deprived of long-held privilege and power, simple religious bigots (rather than committed doctrinal fanatics, and there is a difference), and, to be honest, Iraqis who merely resented the 2003 intervention. Notwithstanding Beltway blather denying its existence--some emitted by now vice-president Biden--an Iraqi national identity, however limited, exists.
* The Sunni Awakening was encouraged when the Iraqis found their alleged "resistance" increasingly dominated by Saudi Wahhabis who had come over the long Saudi-Iraqi border in the "second Iraq intervention," as detailed here, here, and here. When "Al Qaeda in Iraq" manifested its Taliban characteristics--executing women caught without covered faces, possessors of music CDs, Sufis, and others they deemed apostates--the anti-coalition combatants perceived that the United States and Baghdad authorities were a preferable alternative to governance by lynching.
Wide as the horizons of their global ambition doubtless were, and dedicated as they were to using Iraq as a platform for reinforcement of Wahhabism in their own country, the Saudi radicals who streamed north were primarily interested in striking at the coalition, to stimulate new support for their perverse cause, and did not aim at immediate expansion into Jordan or Kuwait.
By contrast, the Taliban is not a mélange. They include no secular types comparable to the Baathists and few "Afghan patriots." Afghan national identity is much weaker than that found even in Iraq. The Pashtun base of the Taliban is tribal, but they have a lesser presence in local history than the Iraqi Sunnis that usurped power in Mesopotamia. The Taliban embody monolithic radicalism in the Wahhabi style, rooted in the Deobandi school of fundamentalism, and consider all Muslims who fail to share their ideology to be unbelievers deserving liquidation. The Iraqi Arab Sunnis, even at the height of their influence under Saddam, could not wipe out the Iraqi Shias or the Kurds, but the Taliban massacred the indigenous Hazara Shias in Afghanistan, effecting a nearly-successful genocide.
Further, the Taliban have demonstrated that their current goal, rather than mere power in Afghanistan, is the "Talibanization" of Pakistan, a nuclear-armed failing state. This would provide the running dogs of al Qaeda with unconcealed weapons of mass destruction as well as millions of fresh foot-soldiers in an environment that, along with its large and problematical diaspora in Britain, has become the main breeding ground of Islamist extremism worldwide.
Where, then, are the "moderate" Taliban? The Taliban themselves, and their Pakistani promoters, scorned news reports about the Obama conception of a "civil surge," in Urdu and Pashto comments translated and posted by the Middle East Media Research Institute. History affirms that there were moderate Italian fascists but no moderate German Nazis; moderate socialist labor radicals but no moderate Stalinists. Moderate Taliban, like "moderate Nazis" or "moderate Stalinists," are a fantasy. The only and unavoidable response to such extremists is to defeat them.
The Obama administration seems to have fallen back into American thinking about the Muslim world before the atrocities of September 11, 2001. Like Bill Clinton and his cohort, they see Islamist violence as an expression of protest against Western policies rather than as a manifestation of a very real and threatening phenomenon called radical Islam. To the new president, neither Ahmadinejad, nor Hamas, nor the Taliban represent an ideological movement capable of wholesale bloodshed and long-term atrocities. This misapprehension defies the knowledge shared by every ordinary Muslim in the world. Rather than a step toward a new and more benevolent relationship, propagating the myth of the "moderate Taliban" is a leap backward in American understanding. But the American way has always put freedom before peace, and Afghanistan should offer no exception to this rule.
The Afghan war cannot be won by trying to factionalize an ideological hard core or, as President Obama has lately suggested, by recruiting malcontents and deserters. Victory must be clear and be seen to be clear.
Stephen Schwartz is a frequent contributor to The Weekly Standard.
Propagating the myth of the "moderate Taliban" is a leap backward in American understanding.
The Weekly Standard, Apr 01, 2009
Many of the initiatives by President Obama in the Middle East and Muslim countries rest on unrealistic expectations--desert mirages, one might say--surrounding the motives of terrorists and other enemies of freedom. The most obvious example has been Obama's flattery toward the Iranian dictatorship, expressed in his address to the authorities of the "Islamic Republic" on March 20, in which he offers friendship to the Iranian clerical tyrants while they torture dissenting intellectuals, and repress protesting students and spiritual Sufis.
On its face, this immoral option resembles the old "realism" toward China--and, lately, Putinite Russia--that puts "stability" in relations with authoritarians and mass murderers ahead of democratic principles. Let the Tibetans and Uighurs be subjected to cultural genocide, Falun Gong be brutally persecuted, and individual Chinese dissidents--some of the bravest of the brave--be tormented in horrific ways, the argument seems to go, as long as Washington can claim a "breakthrough" in relations. But other, and much more dangerous tendencies, are also evident in recent U.S. outreach to the Muslim world. To flirtation with Tehran, the attempted installation of Chas Freeman, a prime apologist for Saudi Wahhabism, as head of the National Intelligence Council, and the hallucinated concept of a "unity" government comprising the Palestinian Authority and Hamas, critical observers of American official initiatives toward Muslim countries may add a new gimmick: the search for "the moderate Taliban."
This latest delusion is often promoted by the State Department's Richard Holbrooke. Afghanistan, we are told, may become the scene of a "civilian surge" comparable to the strategy that diminished terrorism in Iraq. The "moderate Taliban" could furnish the Afghan equivalent of the Sunni Awakening, which provided allies for the U.S.-led coalition and the Baghdad government in fighting the so-called Iraqi insurgency.
But the differences between the Iraqi death squads that eventually split and produced partners for the battle against brutalization, and the Taliban, are unarguable.
* The Iraqi malcontents comprised an assortment of the disaffected--secular Baathists, Sunnis suddenly deprived of long-held privilege and power, simple religious bigots (rather than committed doctrinal fanatics, and there is a difference), and, to be honest, Iraqis who merely resented the 2003 intervention. Notwithstanding Beltway blather denying its existence--some emitted by now vice-president Biden--an Iraqi national identity, however limited, exists.
* The Sunni Awakening was encouraged when the Iraqis found their alleged "resistance" increasingly dominated by Saudi Wahhabis who had come over the long Saudi-Iraqi border in the "second Iraq intervention," as detailed here, here, and here. When "Al Qaeda in Iraq" manifested its Taliban characteristics--executing women caught without covered faces, possessors of music CDs, Sufis, and others they deemed apostates--the anti-coalition combatants perceived that the United States and Baghdad authorities were a preferable alternative to governance by lynching.
Wide as the horizons of their global ambition doubtless were, and dedicated as they were to using Iraq as a platform for reinforcement of Wahhabism in their own country, the Saudi radicals who streamed north were primarily interested in striking at the coalition, to stimulate new support for their perverse cause, and did not aim at immediate expansion into Jordan or Kuwait.
By contrast, the Taliban is not a mélange. They include no secular types comparable to the Baathists and few "Afghan patriots." Afghan national identity is much weaker than that found even in Iraq. The Pashtun base of the Taliban is tribal, but they have a lesser presence in local history than the Iraqi Sunnis that usurped power in Mesopotamia. The Taliban embody monolithic radicalism in the Wahhabi style, rooted in the Deobandi school of fundamentalism, and consider all Muslims who fail to share their ideology to be unbelievers deserving liquidation. The Iraqi Arab Sunnis, even at the height of their influence under Saddam, could not wipe out the Iraqi Shias or the Kurds, but the Taliban massacred the indigenous Hazara Shias in Afghanistan, effecting a nearly-successful genocide.
Further, the Taliban have demonstrated that their current goal, rather than mere power in Afghanistan, is the "Talibanization" of Pakistan, a nuclear-armed failing state. This would provide the running dogs of al Qaeda with unconcealed weapons of mass destruction as well as millions of fresh foot-soldiers in an environment that, along with its large and problematical diaspora in Britain, has become the main breeding ground of Islamist extremism worldwide.
Where, then, are the "moderate" Taliban? The Taliban themselves, and their Pakistani promoters, scorned news reports about the Obama conception of a "civil surge," in Urdu and Pashto comments translated and posted by the Middle East Media Research Institute. History affirms that there were moderate Italian fascists but no moderate German Nazis; moderate socialist labor radicals but no moderate Stalinists. Moderate Taliban, like "moderate Nazis" or "moderate Stalinists," are a fantasy. The only and unavoidable response to such extremists is to defeat them.
The Obama administration seems to have fallen back into American thinking about the Muslim world before the atrocities of September 11, 2001. Like Bill Clinton and his cohort, they see Islamist violence as an expression of protest against Western policies rather than as a manifestation of a very real and threatening phenomenon called radical Islam. To the new president, neither Ahmadinejad, nor Hamas, nor the Taliban represent an ideological movement capable of wholesale bloodshed and long-term atrocities. This misapprehension defies the knowledge shared by every ordinary Muslim in the world. Rather than a step toward a new and more benevolent relationship, propagating the myth of the "moderate Taliban" is a leap backward in American understanding. But the American way has always put freedom before peace, and Afghanistan should offer no exception to this rule.
The Afghan war cannot be won by trying to factionalize an ideological hard core or, as President Obama has lately suggested, by recruiting malcontents and deserters. Victory must be clear and be seen to be clear.
Stephen Schwartz is a frequent contributor to The Weekly Standard.
Estate tax: Spend It in Vegas or Die Paying Taxes
Spend It in Vegas or Die Paying Taxes. By Arthur B Laffer
A 0% tax on carousing, but 55% on thrift.
WSJ, Apr 02, 2009
In most cases, people who inherit wealth are lucky by an accident of birth and really don't "deserve" their inheritance any more than people who don't inherit wealth. After all, few of us get to choose our parents. It's also arguable that inherited wealth sometimes induces slothfulness and overindulgence. But the facts that beneficiaries of inheritances are just lucky and that the actual inheritance may make beneficiaries less productive don't justify having an estate tax. Chad Crowe
These same observations about serendipitous birth can be made for intelligence, education, attractiveness, health, size, gender, disposition, race, etc. And yet no one would suggest that the government should remove any portion of these attributes from people simply because they came from their parents. Surely we have not moved into Kurt Vonnegut's world of Harrison Bergeron.
President Barack Obama has proposed prolonging the federal estate tax rather than ending it in 2010, as is scheduled under current law. The president's plan would extend this year's $3.5 million exemption level and the 45% top rate. But will this really help America recover from recession and reduce our growing deficits? In order to assess the pros and cons of the estate tax, we should focus on its impact on those who bequeath wealth, not on those who receive wealth.
Advocates of the estate tax argue that such a tax will reduce the concentrations of wealth in a few families, but there is little evidence to suggest that the estate tax has much, if any, impact on the distribution of wealth. To see the silliness of using the estate tax as a tool to redistribute wealth, realize that those who die and leave estates would be taxed just as much if they bequeathed their money to poor people as they would if they left their money to rich people. If the objective were to redistribute, surely, an inheritance tax (a tax on the recipients) would make far more sense than an estate tax.
Indeed, from a societal standpoint, inheritance is an unmitigated good. Passing on to successive generations greater health, wealth and wisdom is what society in general, and America specifically, is all about. Imagine what America would look like today if our forefathers had been selfish and had left us nothing. We have all benefited greatly from a history of intergenerational American generosity. But just being an American is as much an accident of birth as being the child of wealthy parents. If you are an American, it's likely because ancestors of yours chose to become Americans and also chose to have children.
In its most basic form, it's about as silly an idea as can be imagined that America in the aggregate can increase the standards of living of future generations by taxing individual Americans for passing on higher standards of living to future generations of Americans of their choice. Clearly, taxing estates at death will induce people who wish to leave estates to future generations to leave smaller estates and to find ways to avoid estate taxes. On a conceptual level, it makes no sense to tax estates at death.
Study after study finds that the estate tax significantly reduces the size of estates and, as an added consequence, reduces the nation's capital stock and income. This common sense finding is documented ad nauseam in the 2006 U.S. Joint Economic Committee Report on the Costs and Consequences of the Federal Estate Tax. The Joint Economic Committee estimates that the estate tax has reduced the capital stock by approximately $850 billion because it reduces incentives to save and invest, has excessively high compliance costs, and results in significant economic inefficiencies.
Today in America you can take your after-tax income and go to Las Vegas and carouse, gamble, drink and smoke, and as far as our government is concerned that's just fine. But if you take that same after-tax income and leave it to your children and grandchildren, the government will tax that after-tax income one additional time at rates up to 55%. I especially like an oft-quoted line from Joseph Stiglitz and David L. Bevan, who wrote in the Greek Economic Review, "Of course, prohibitively high inheritance tax rates generate no revenue; they simply force the individual to consume his income during his lifetime." Hurray for Vegas.
If you're rich enough, however, you can hire professionals who can, for a price, show you how to avoid estate taxes. Many of the very largest estates are so tax-sheltered that the inheritances go to their beneficiaries having paid little or no taxes at all. And all the costs associated with these tax shelters and tax avoidance schemes are pure wastes for the country as a whole and exist solely to circumvent the estate tax. The estate tax in and of itself causes people to waste resources.
Again, a number of studies suggest that the costs of sheltering estates from the tax man actually are about as high as the total tax revenues collected from the estate tax. And these estimates don't even take into account lost output, employment and production resulting from perverse incentives. This makes the estate tax one of the least efficient taxes. And yet for all the hardship and expense associated with the estate tax, the total monies collected in any one year account for only about 1% of federal tax receipts.
It is important to realize that less than half of the estates that must go through the burden of complying with the paperwork and reporting requirements of the tax actually pay even a nickel of the tax. And the largest estates that actually do pay taxes generally pay lower marginal tax rates than smaller estates because of tax shelters. The inmates really are running the asylum.
In 1982, Californians overwhelmingly voted to eliminate the state's estate tax. It seems that even in the highest taxed state in the nation there are some taxes voters cannot abide. It shouldn't surprise anyone that ultra-wealthy liberal Sen. Howard Metzenbaum, supporter of the estate tax and lifetime resident of Ohio, where there is a state estate tax, chose to die as a resident of Florida, where there is no state estate tax. Differential state estate-tax rates incentivize people to move from state to state. Global estate tax rates do the same thing, only the moves are from country to country. In 2005 the U.S., at a 47% marginal tax rate, had the third highest estate tax rate of the 50 countries covered in a 2005 report by Price Waterhouse Coopers, LLP. A full 26 countries had no "Inheritance/Death" tax rate at all.
In the summary of its 2006 report, the Joint Economic Committee wrote, "The detrimental effects of the estate tax are grossly disproportionate to the modest amount federal revenues it raises (if it raises any net revenue at all)." Even economists in favor of the estate tax concede that its current structure does not work. Henry Aaron and Alicia Munnell concluded, "In short, the estate and gift taxes in the United States have failed to achieve their intended purposes. They raise little revenue. They impose large excess burdens. They are unfair."
For all of these reasons, the estate tax needs to go, along with the step-up basis at death of capital gains (which values an asset not at the purchase price but at the price at the buyer's death). On purely a static basis, the Joint Tax Committee estimates that over the period 2011 through 2015, the static revenue losses from eliminating the estate tax would be $281 billion, while the additional capital gains tax receipts from repeal of the step-up basis would be $293 billion.
To counter the fact that economists such as I obsess about the deleterious effects of the estate tax, advocates of the estate tax note with some pride that 98% of Americans will never pay this tax. Let's make it 100%, and I'll get off my soapbox.
Mr. Laffer is the chairman of Laffer Associates and co-author of "The End of Prosperity: How Higher Taxes Will Doom the Economy -- If We Let It Happen" (Threshold, 2008).
A 0% tax on carousing, but 55% on thrift.
WSJ, Apr 02, 2009
In most cases, people who inherit wealth are lucky by an accident of birth and really don't "deserve" their inheritance any more than people who don't inherit wealth. After all, few of us get to choose our parents. It's also arguable that inherited wealth sometimes induces slothfulness and overindulgence. But the facts that beneficiaries of inheritances are just lucky and that the actual inheritance may make beneficiaries less productive don't justify having an estate tax. Chad Crowe
These same observations about serendipitous birth can be made for intelligence, education, attractiveness, health, size, gender, disposition, race, etc. And yet no one would suggest that the government should remove any portion of these attributes from people simply because they came from their parents. Surely we have not moved into Kurt Vonnegut's world of Harrison Bergeron.
President Barack Obama has proposed prolonging the federal estate tax rather than ending it in 2010, as is scheduled under current law. The president's plan would extend this year's $3.5 million exemption level and the 45% top rate. But will this really help America recover from recession and reduce our growing deficits? In order to assess the pros and cons of the estate tax, we should focus on its impact on those who bequeath wealth, not on those who receive wealth.
Advocates of the estate tax argue that such a tax will reduce the concentrations of wealth in a few families, but there is little evidence to suggest that the estate tax has much, if any, impact on the distribution of wealth. To see the silliness of using the estate tax as a tool to redistribute wealth, realize that those who die and leave estates would be taxed just as much if they bequeathed their money to poor people as they would if they left their money to rich people. If the objective were to redistribute, surely, an inheritance tax (a tax on the recipients) would make far more sense than an estate tax.
Indeed, from a societal standpoint, inheritance is an unmitigated good. Passing on to successive generations greater health, wealth and wisdom is what society in general, and America specifically, is all about. Imagine what America would look like today if our forefathers had been selfish and had left us nothing. We have all benefited greatly from a history of intergenerational American generosity. But just being an American is as much an accident of birth as being the child of wealthy parents. If you are an American, it's likely because ancestors of yours chose to become Americans and also chose to have children.
In its most basic form, it's about as silly an idea as can be imagined that America in the aggregate can increase the standards of living of future generations by taxing individual Americans for passing on higher standards of living to future generations of Americans of their choice. Clearly, taxing estates at death will induce people who wish to leave estates to future generations to leave smaller estates and to find ways to avoid estate taxes. On a conceptual level, it makes no sense to tax estates at death.
Study after study finds that the estate tax significantly reduces the size of estates and, as an added consequence, reduces the nation's capital stock and income. This common sense finding is documented ad nauseam in the 2006 U.S. Joint Economic Committee Report on the Costs and Consequences of the Federal Estate Tax. The Joint Economic Committee estimates that the estate tax has reduced the capital stock by approximately $850 billion because it reduces incentives to save and invest, has excessively high compliance costs, and results in significant economic inefficiencies.
Today in America you can take your after-tax income and go to Las Vegas and carouse, gamble, drink and smoke, and as far as our government is concerned that's just fine. But if you take that same after-tax income and leave it to your children and grandchildren, the government will tax that after-tax income one additional time at rates up to 55%. I especially like an oft-quoted line from Joseph Stiglitz and David L. Bevan, who wrote in the Greek Economic Review, "Of course, prohibitively high inheritance tax rates generate no revenue; they simply force the individual to consume his income during his lifetime." Hurray for Vegas.
If you're rich enough, however, you can hire professionals who can, for a price, show you how to avoid estate taxes. Many of the very largest estates are so tax-sheltered that the inheritances go to their beneficiaries having paid little or no taxes at all. And all the costs associated with these tax shelters and tax avoidance schemes are pure wastes for the country as a whole and exist solely to circumvent the estate tax. The estate tax in and of itself causes people to waste resources.
Again, a number of studies suggest that the costs of sheltering estates from the tax man actually are about as high as the total tax revenues collected from the estate tax. And these estimates don't even take into account lost output, employment and production resulting from perverse incentives. This makes the estate tax one of the least efficient taxes. And yet for all the hardship and expense associated with the estate tax, the total monies collected in any one year account for only about 1% of federal tax receipts.
It is important to realize that less than half of the estates that must go through the burden of complying with the paperwork and reporting requirements of the tax actually pay even a nickel of the tax. And the largest estates that actually do pay taxes generally pay lower marginal tax rates than smaller estates because of tax shelters. The inmates really are running the asylum.
In 1982, Californians overwhelmingly voted to eliminate the state's estate tax. It seems that even in the highest taxed state in the nation there are some taxes voters cannot abide. It shouldn't surprise anyone that ultra-wealthy liberal Sen. Howard Metzenbaum, supporter of the estate tax and lifetime resident of Ohio, where there is a state estate tax, chose to die as a resident of Florida, where there is no state estate tax. Differential state estate-tax rates incentivize people to move from state to state. Global estate tax rates do the same thing, only the moves are from country to country. In 2005 the U.S., at a 47% marginal tax rate, had the third highest estate tax rate of the 50 countries covered in a 2005 report by Price Waterhouse Coopers, LLP. A full 26 countries had no "Inheritance/Death" tax rate at all.
In the summary of its 2006 report, the Joint Economic Committee wrote, "The detrimental effects of the estate tax are grossly disproportionate to the modest amount federal revenues it raises (if it raises any net revenue at all)." Even economists in favor of the estate tax concede that its current structure does not work. Henry Aaron and Alicia Munnell concluded, "In short, the estate and gift taxes in the United States have failed to achieve their intended purposes. They raise little revenue. They impose large excess burdens. They are unfair."
For all of these reasons, the estate tax needs to go, along with the step-up basis at death of capital gains (which values an asset not at the purchase price but at the price at the buyer's death). On purely a static basis, the Joint Tax Committee estimates that over the period 2011 through 2015, the static revenue losses from eliminating the estate tax would be $281 billion, while the additional capital gains tax receipts from repeal of the step-up basis would be $293 billion.
To counter the fact that economists such as I obsess about the deleterious effects of the estate tax, advocates of the estate tax note with some pride that 98% of Americans will never pay this tax. Let's make it 100%, and I'll get off my soapbox.
Mr. Laffer is the chairman of Laffer Associates and co-author of "The End of Prosperity: How Higher Taxes Will Doom the Economy -- If We Let It Happen" (Threshold, 2008).
Obama Administration to Release Bin Laden Associate from Gitmo
Obama Administration to Release Bin Laden Associate from Gitmo. By Thomas Joscelyn
The Weekly Standard blog, March 31, 2009 01:30 PM
The U.S. Justice Department has decided to release another detainee from Guantanamo, a Yemeni named Ayman Saeed Abdullah Batarfi. It is not entirely clear why Batarfi has been cleared for release. But we can be reasonably sure, based on Batarfi’s own freely given testimony, that he was no innocent swept up in the post-9/11 chaos of Afghanistan, as his lawyers claim.
Batarfi first traveled to Afghanistan in 1988 to fight the Soviets. The government claims he was trained at the Khalden camp, which graduated hundreds of al Qaeda members, but Batarfi denies this. Batarfi has admitted to participating in at least one nighttime raid against Soviet forces. This is important because it shows that he was willing to participate in hostilities from a young age--and was not merely a humanitarian adventure seeker in Afghanistan.
Batarfi then went to Pakistan, where he became an orthopedic surgeon. From there, things get really interesting.
There are at least three aspects of Batarfi’s testimony given before his administrative review board hearings at Gitmo that are noteworthy. Keep in mind that these hearings were not interrogations, and the detainees had the option of not participating, or simply issuing blanket denials, as some detainees did.
First, Batarfi admitted that he was an employee of al Wafa, a charity that has been designated a terrorist organization. Al Wafa is discussed in brief in the 9/11 Commission’s report as an al Qaeda front. The unclassified documents released from Guantanamo are littered with references to the organization. It is clear that al Wafa actively supported al Qaeda and the Taliban in a variety of ways--from transporting jihadists to Afghanistan (often through Iran) to purchasing sophisticated weaponry. Al Wafa was not a real charity--it was a terrorist front group, and Batarfi admitted to working for the group for several months in 2001. He says he left the organization after it was designated as a terror-supporter, but this was most likely just Batarfi’s way of trying to explain away his al Wafa ties. As we will see below, he was at Tora Bora after the designation on al Wafa came down.
Second, Batarfi admitted that he met with a “Malaysian microbiologist” and authorized the purchase of medical equipment for this individual. As I have written previously, this microbiologist is most certainly Yazid Sufaat. Batarfi denies knowing that Sufaat was working on anthrax when they met in 2001. Over and over again, Batarfi claimed that he just happened to run into and consort with terrorists without knowing who they were.
Third, the best example of this last point is Batarfi’s admitted ties to Osama bin Laden. Batarfi admitted that he met with bin Laden in the Tora Bora Mountains in November 2001. But he claimed that he sent a letter to someone (he does not say whom) asking to meet with the “head of the mountain” and, somewhat magically, he just happened to get a face-to-face sit down with the world’s most wanted terrorist…at Tora Bora…in November of 2001…you know, when the whole world was looking for him. This was the second time Batarfi claims to have accidentally met bin Laden. The first time came at a funeral in Kabul when, again, bin Laden just happened upon the scene.
Batarfi and his attorneys have apparently been able to sell this story to the DOJ. On its face, it does not make any sense. And there is much more to Batarfi’s story and the unclassified files on him. He admitted he purchased cyanide, but claims it was for dental fillings. He admitted he stayed at various al Qaeda and Taliban guesthouses, but says he didn’t realize they were facilities associated with Osama bin Laden at the time. Batarfi met the Taliban’s health minister in 2001 because, well, that’s just the sort of thing an al Wafa employee would do.
Remember, all of the above comes from his hearings at Guantanamo, not his interrogations. He could have just said, “I deny everything.” But he didn’t. He came up with not-so creative excuses instead. (For an analysis of excerpts from his hearings, go here.)
Batarfi has been cleared for release even though the Obama administration is not sure where to send him. They are still looking for a host country. This is eerily similar to the president’s ordering Guantanamo shuttered by January of 2010 before his administration had even reviewed any of the detainees’ files. That is, the president and his staff were not even sure who is down at Guantanamo when the president ordered the facility closed.
Batarfi’s case was reportedly reviewed by a DOJ board that is going through all of those files. I think it is safe to say the board is off to an inauspicious start.
The Weekly Standard blog, March 31, 2009 01:30 PM
The U.S. Justice Department has decided to release another detainee from Guantanamo, a Yemeni named Ayman Saeed Abdullah Batarfi. It is not entirely clear why Batarfi has been cleared for release. But we can be reasonably sure, based on Batarfi’s own freely given testimony, that he was no innocent swept up in the post-9/11 chaos of Afghanistan, as his lawyers claim.
Batarfi first traveled to Afghanistan in 1988 to fight the Soviets. The government claims he was trained at the Khalden camp, which graduated hundreds of al Qaeda members, but Batarfi denies this. Batarfi has admitted to participating in at least one nighttime raid against Soviet forces. This is important because it shows that he was willing to participate in hostilities from a young age--and was not merely a humanitarian adventure seeker in Afghanistan.
Batarfi then went to Pakistan, where he became an orthopedic surgeon. From there, things get really interesting.
There are at least three aspects of Batarfi’s testimony given before his administrative review board hearings at Gitmo that are noteworthy. Keep in mind that these hearings were not interrogations, and the detainees had the option of not participating, or simply issuing blanket denials, as some detainees did.
First, Batarfi admitted that he was an employee of al Wafa, a charity that has been designated a terrorist organization. Al Wafa is discussed in brief in the 9/11 Commission’s report as an al Qaeda front. The unclassified documents released from Guantanamo are littered with references to the organization. It is clear that al Wafa actively supported al Qaeda and the Taliban in a variety of ways--from transporting jihadists to Afghanistan (often through Iran) to purchasing sophisticated weaponry. Al Wafa was not a real charity--it was a terrorist front group, and Batarfi admitted to working for the group for several months in 2001. He says he left the organization after it was designated as a terror-supporter, but this was most likely just Batarfi’s way of trying to explain away his al Wafa ties. As we will see below, he was at Tora Bora after the designation on al Wafa came down.
Second, Batarfi admitted that he met with a “Malaysian microbiologist” and authorized the purchase of medical equipment for this individual. As I have written previously, this microbiologist is most certainly Yazid Sufaat. Batarfi denies knowing that Sufaat was working on anthrax when they met in 2001. Over and over again, Batarfi claimed that he just happened to run into and consort with terrorists without knowing who they were.
Third, the best example of this last point is Batarfi’s admitted ties to Osama bin Laden. Batarfi admitted that he met with bin Laden in the Tora Bora Mountains in November 2001. But he claimed that he sent a letter to someone (he does not say whom) asking to meet with the “head of the mountain” and, somewhat magically, he just happened to get a face-to-face sit down with the world’s most wanted terrorist…at Tora Bora…in November of 2001…you know, when the whole world was looking for him. This was the second time Batarfi claims to have accidentally met bin Laden. The first time came at a funeral in Kabul when, again, bin Laden just happened upon the scene.
Batarfi and his attorneys have apparently been able to sell this story to the DOJ. On its face, it does not make any sense. And there is much more to Batarfi’s story and the unclassified files on him. He admitted he purchased cyanide, but claims it was for dental fillings. He admitted he stayed at various al Qaeda and Taliban guesthouses, but says he didn’t realize they were facilities associated with Osama bin Laden at the time. Batarfi met the Taliban’s health minister in 2001 because, well, that’s just the sort of thing an al Wafa employee would do.
Remember, all of the above comes from his hearings at Guantanamo, not his interrogations. He could have just said, “I deny everything.” But he didn’t. He came up with not-so creative excuses instead. (For an analysis of excerpts from his hearings, go here.)
Batarfi has been cleared for release even though the Obama administration is not sure where to send him. They are still looking for a host country. This is eerily similar to the president’s ordering Guantanamo shuttered by January of 2010 before his administration had even reviewed any of the detainees’ files. That is, the president and his staff were not even sure who is down at Guantanamo when the president ordered the facility closed.
Batarfi’s case was reportedly reviewed by a DOJ board that is going through all of those files. I think it is safe to say the board is off to an inauspicious start.
Libertarian: FDA Regulation Threatens Cigarette Alternatives
FDA Regulation Threatens Cigarette Alternatives. By Jacob Sullum
Reason, April 1, 2009, 1:14pm
This evening the House of Representatives is expected to approve a bill authored by Rep. Henry Waxman (D-Calif.) that would let the Food and Drug Administration regulate tobacco products. The bill, which is supported by Philip Morris but opposed by its smaller competitors, is also supported by the leading anti-smoking groups but opposed by some of their smaller competitors. Recently the dissenters in the anti-smoking movement have been highlighting one of the bill's major flaws: It would grandfather in all current cigarettes (except for those with politically incorrect flavors) while making it virtually impossible to introduce and promote safer alternatives.
One of those alternatives is snus, Swedish-style oral snuff, the health risks of which are negligible compared to those of cigarettes. The Waxman bill would not ban snus, but it would prohibit manufacturers from informing consumers about oral snuff's dramatic safety advantages. Another cigarette alternative, one that probably would be kept off the market altogether under the bill's regulatory standards, is electronic cigarettes, battery-powered devices that deliver odorless nicotine vapor instead of smoke, avoiding all the hazards associated with tobacco combustion products. Sen. Frank Lautenberg (D-N.J.) wants the FDA to take electronic cigarettes off the market "until they are proven safe." Even if the FDA does not ban e-cigarettes under its existing drug authority, their manufacturers probably would not be able to meet the test established by the Waxman bill for products that compete with cigarettes.
One anti-smoking group that supports snus, e-cigarettes, and other harm-reducing alternatives to standard cigarettes is the American Association of Public Health Physicians (AAPHP), which says (PDF):
A variety of non-pharmaceutical alternative nicotine delivery products are already on the market or in various stages of development and market testing. These include sticks, strips, orbs, lozenges and e-cigarettes. The information available suggests risk and benefit profiles similar to widely accepted pharmaceutical nicotine replacement products.
Holding the snus and alternative nicotine delivery to the research standards of pharmaceutical products would cost the manufacturers millions of dollars per product and would deny current smokers the benefits of these products for a decade or more. Furthermore, such studies probably could not be conducted at current American academic centers because Institutional Review Board (IRB) guidelines would likely prohibit case/control studies on products with no therapeutic benefit. Thus, the seemingly reasonable research standards in the Waxman bill would likely result in a de-facto ban on all such products. AAPHP therefore favors the research guidelines from the Buyer bill [alternative legislation introduced by Rep. Steve Buyer (R-Ind.)].
Since both the Waxman and the Buyer bills would approve currently marketed cigarettes, the most hazardous of all tobacco products, the standard for lower risk products for use by current smokers should be the hazard posed by cigarettes, not a pharmaceutical safety standard.
Bill Godshall of Smokefree Pennsylvania (who alerted me to the AAPHP statement), tobacco policy blogger Michael Siegel (who clued me in to the e-cigarette controversy), and the American Council on Science and Health also worry that FDA regulation could stifle the market for cigarette alternatives. I explain why the Waxman bill is bad for smokers here, here, and here. I discuss snus here, here, and here.
Reason, April 1, 2009, 1:14pm
This evening the House of Representatives is expected to approve a bill authored by Rep. Henry Waxman (D-Calif.) that would let the Food and Drug Administration regulate tobacco products. The bill, which is supported by Philip Morris but opposed by its smaller competitors, is also supported by the leading anti-smoking groups but opposed by some of their smaller competitors. Recently the dissenters in the anti-smoking movement have been highlighting one of the bill's major flaws: It would grandfather in all current cigarettes (except for those with politically incorrect flavors) while making it virtually impossible to introduce and promote safer alternatives.
One of those alternatives is snus, Swedish-style oral snuff, the health risks of which are negligible compared to those of cigarettes. The Waxman bill would not ban snus, but it would prohibit manufacturers from informing consumers about oral snuff's dramatic safety advantages. Another cigarette alternative, one that probably would be kept off the market altogether under the bill's regulatory standards, is electronic cigarettes, battery-powered devices that deliver odorless nicotine vapor instead of smoke, avoiding all the hazards associated with tobacco combustion products. Sen. Frank Lautenberg (D-N.J.) wants the FDA to take electronic cigarettes off the market "until they are proven safe." Even if the FDA does not ban e-cigarettes under its existing drug authority, their manufacturers probably would not be able to meet the test established by the Waxman bill for products that compete with cigarettes.
One anti-smoking group that supports snus, e-cigarettes, and other harm-reducing alternatives to standard cigarettes is the American Association of Public Health Physicians (AAPHP), which says (PDF):
A variety of non-pharmaceutical alternative nicotine delivery products are already on the market or in various stages of development and market testing. These include sticks, strips, orbs, lozenges and e-cigarettes. The information available suggests risk and benefit profiles similar to widely accepted pharmaceutical nicotine replacement products.
Holding the snus and alternative nicotine delivery to the research standards of pharmaceutical products would cost the manufacturers millions of dollars per product and would deny current smokers the benefits of these products for a decade or more. Furthermore, such studies probably could not be conducted at current American academic centers because Institutional Review Board (IRB) guidelines would likely prohibit case/control studies on products with no therapeutic benefit. Thus, the seemingly reasonable research standards in the Waxman bill would likely result in a de-facto ban on all such products. AAPHP therefore favors the research guidelines from the Buyer bill [alternative legislation introduced by Rep. Steve Buyer (R-Ind.)].
Since both the Waxman and the Buyer bills would approve currently marketed cigarettes, the most hazardous of all tobacco products, the standard for lower risk products for use by current smokers should be the hazard posed by cigarettes, not a pharmaceutical safety standard.
Bill Godshall of Smokefree Pennsylvania (who alerted me to the AAPHP statement), tobacco policy blogger Michael Siegel (who clued me in to the e-cigarette controversy), and the American Council on Science and Health also worry that FDA regulation could stifle the market for cigarette alternatives. I explain why the Waxman bill is bad for smokers here, here, and here. I discuss snus here, here, and here.
Injecting New Dynamism in US-Australia Ties
Injecting New Dynamism in US-Australia Ties. By Rajaram Panda and Pranamita Baruah
Institute for Defence Studies and Analyses, April 1, 2009
Labour Party Prime Minister of Australia, Kevin Rudd, has been in office for nearly one and a half years after his unexpected victory over John Howard in late 2007. For almost three decades after World War II, Australia systematically repudiated the idea of being identified as an Asian country, until the resource boom in the early 1970s that catapulted Australia as one of the major resource exporters to resource-importing countries such as Japan and now China. Since then, Australia’s external orientation has undergone a profound change. Though various political parties have remained at the helm at different periods, the fundamental approach to foreign and foreign economic policies has remained unchanged.
How is Rudd different from his predecessors? Rudd has brought a unique style of governance by either floating new ideas and concepts or re-looking at Australia’s priorities in foreign relations. Not long after he came to office, he floated a new concept for evolving a new kind of security architecture for the Asia-Pacific without spelling out clearly its purpose, aims, structure and objectives. He even sent his marketing manager, Richard Woolcott, the man who mid-wifed the birth of APEC in 1989, to sound out member countries of the region envisaged to be members in Rudd’s proposed architecture. The vagueness of the idea might render it to remain buried for ever and can only be resurrected in the unlikely event of changes of attitude and policies in many of the Asia-Pacific countries in the future.
Rudd is known for his soft attitude towards China. After assuming office, he made his first major overseas visit to China, much to the annoyance of the Japanese, who felt that their bilateral relationship was undermined by Rudd’s preference for China. A Mandarin-speaking former diplomat, Rudd made his open preference for China over Japan known when he, during his meeting with President Barack Obama on March 23, 2009, said that the US and Australia should work together to integrate China into global governance and called the Asian power a “huge opportunity”. He also said that China should feel it has a stake in world politics, most notably the International Monetary Fund where its voting power is now minimal. Rudd was probably exploiting the Obama administration’s vow to pursue common goals with China such as reviving the global economy despite longstanding concerns on human rights and other issues. Rudd seems not worried about China’s pursuit of sophisticated weaponry, which is altering Asia’s military balance.
While Australia and the United States are longstanding allies, Rudd had a visibly uneasy relationship with former President George W. Bush. However, Rudd 51, and Obama, 47, both come from humble backgrounds and lived for years overseas. Politically, each changed his country’s course upon taking office by ordering troops out of Iraq and vowing action on climate change. According to Alan Dupont, Director of the Centre for International Security Studies at the University of Sydney, both are “ideological soul mates” and that both will be able to “connect intellectually”. Indeed, two months into office, Obama has extended only select invitations to foreign leaders to come and see him in Washington. Before Rudd, Obama has met at the White House only with the leaders of Japan, Britain, Brazil and Ireland, along with China’s foreign minister and UN Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon. Obama also flew to Canada to see Prime Minister Stephen Harper.
On his part, Rudd has made efforts to cushion the economy against the global credit crisis to bolster Australia’s financial system. While praising Obama’s plan to finance as much as $1 trillion in purchases of illiquid real-estate assets, besides the plan to establish a fund to lend directly to companies should foreign banks fail to roll over as much as $75 billion of maturing debt, Rudd said that these would not work unless it is globally coordinated. Rudd also rejected the idea of a global reserve currency since the dollar’s position remains unchallenged. The global economic crisis dominated discussions and both leaders agreed on what needed to be done. Obama envisaged a world-wide job boom in clean energy technology as one way to restore employment and the economy once the crisis was sorted out. Obama said all nations would be challenged “in finding new areas of economic growth” that are going to be necessary to “replace some of the financial shenanigans that have taken place over the past couple of years.” Clean coal technology is one area of job creation in which both Obama and Rudd found common ground to work on.
Viewed broadly, Rudd has two aims in shaping Australia’s relationship with the US under the Obama administration. The first is to maintain the robustness of the Australia-America alliance and wants to leverage closeness to Obama for promoting Australia’s middle-power diplomacy. The other aim is to demonstrate Australia’s commitment to join Obama in the war on terror, especially in Afghanistan and Pakistan.
Notwithstanding dwindling public support at home for sending more troops to Afghanistan Rudd’s boldness in joining the US in its campaign against terrorism has endeared him to the US. At present, Australia has 1100 troops in Afghanistan and the US is expected to ask Australia to increase that number. At the personal level, Rudd is still haunted by the September 11 attacks on the United States and the Bali bombings. The Newspoll published in The Australian just before Rudd left for Washington found 65 per cent of respondents against increasing Australia’s commitment. Both the US and Australia, however, do not want Afghanistan to become a haven for terrorists. If Australia sends extra help only to concentrate on training Afghanistan’s security forces, Rudd probably can sell the idea positively to the Australian public. Australia’s commitment in Afghanistan is, however, not a blank cheque, Rudd explained.
Rudd is aware that the alliance is fundamental for Australia’s national security. His international profile has been to work closely with Australia’s old “great and powerful friends” and to make new friends. That explains his fondness for China, an emerging Asian power, projected to play a decisive role in global politics in the coming decades and his focus on strengthening the economic ties with that country. Similarly, from the early days of the global financial crisis, Rudd liaised closely with Britain’s Gordon Brown. We can expect a great deal of similarity in focus between Rudd and Brown and Rudd and Obama in this week’s G-20 meeting in London and a conference on climate change in Copenhagen later this year. The Copenhagen meeting is designed to establish new global standards for emission reduction after the expiry of the Kyoto protocol in 2012. Rudd warned that the G-20 leaders must act jointly to clean up the banking sector, improve financial regulation, stimulate the economy and fight protectionism. He warns that a meeting in London in 1933 designed to find a consensus on ending the Great Depression failed because individual nations were not prepared to put aside their own interests in favour of global economic stability. In 1933, every nation put its own interests first. World leaders today are challenged not to repeat the mistakes made three-quarters of a century ago.
Indeed, the world faces a 1930s-style recession unless world leaders put their agenda for a common program that will help address this burning issue that plague the world at present. The economic turmoil has increased the “challenge of statecraft and diplomacy” and reduction of carbon emission is one such problem that demands early action. After more than a year of planning and consultation with industry, Rudd plans to introduce an emission trading scheme from July 2010. However, the mining industry already shedding jobs and world trade collapsing under recession, the Opposition, parts of the business sector and some Labor right-wingers want the plan shelved. However, the cost of not acting on climate change is seen to be greater than the cost of acting soon.
Traditionally, US Presidents go out of their way to ensure that the first encounter with Australian Prime Ministers is positive because of their close and solid partnership. Therefore, analysts would tend to compare the relationships between John Howard and George Bush and whatever develops between Obama and Rudd. The only starting point for that comparison is that Howard and Bush became close only after they faced a crisis – 9/11 terror attacks. Rudd and Obama have now come together during another crisis. This one is global recession. It would be interesting to see in the coming years what kind of bond both leaders develop that can sustain their common interests bilaterally and globally.
Dr. Rajaram Panda is Senior Fellow, and Pranamita Baruah is Research Assistant at the Institute for Defence Studies and Analyses, New Delhi.
Institute for Defence Studies and Analyses, April 1, 2009
Labour Party Prime Minister of Australia, Kevin Rudd, has been in office for nearly one and a half years after his unexpected victory over John Howard in late 2007. For almost three decades after World War II, Australia systematically repudiated the idea of being identified as an Asian country, until the resource boom in the early 1970s that catapulted Australia as one of the major resource exporters to resource-importing countries such as Japan and now China. Since then, Australia’s external orientation has undergone a profound change. Though various political parties have remained at the helm at different periods, the fundamental approach to foreign and foreign economic policies has remained unchanged.
How is Rudd different from his predecessors? Rudd has brought a unique style of governance by either floating new ideas and concepts or re-looking at Australia’s priorities in foreign relations. Not long after he came to office, he floated a new concept for evolving a new kind of security architecture for the Asia-Pacific without spelling out clearly its purpose, aims, structure and objectives. He even sent his marketing manager, Richard Woolcott, the man who mid-wifed the birth of APEC in 1989, to sound out member countries of the region envisaged to be members in Rudd’s proposed architecture. The vagueness of the idea might render it to remain buried for ever and can only be resurrected in the unlikely event of changes of attitude and policies in many of the Asia-Pacific countries in the future.
Rudd is known for his soft attitude towards China. After assuming office, he made his first major overseas visit to China, much to the annoyance of the Japanese, who felt that their bilateral relationship was undermined by Rudd’s preference for China. A Mandarin-speaking former diplomat, Rudd made his open preference for China over Japan known when he, during his meeting with President Barack Obama on March 23, 2009, said that the US and Australia should work together to integrate China into global governance and called the Asian power a “huge opportunity”. He also said that China should feel it has a stake in world politics, most notably the International Monetary Fund where its voting power is now minimal. Rudd was probably exploiting the Obama administration’s vow to pursue common goals with China such as reviving the global economy despite longstanding concerns on human rights and other issues. Rudd seems not worried about China’s pursuit of sophisticated weaponry, which is altering Asia’s military balance.
While Australia and the United States are longstanding allies, Rudd had a visibly uneasy relationship with former President George W. Bush. However, Rudd 51, and Obama, 47, both come from humble backgrounds and lived for years overseas. Politically, each changed his country’s course upon taking office by ordering troops out of Iraq and vowing action on climate change. According to Alan Dupont, Director of the Centre for International Security Studies at the University of Sydney, both are “ideological soul mates” and that both will be able to “connect intellectually”. Indeed, two months into office, Obama has extended only select invitations to foreign leaders to come and see him in Washington. Before Rudd, Obama has met at the White House only with the leaders of Japan, Britain, Brazil and Ireland, along with China’s foreign minister and UN Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon. Obama also flew to Canada to see Prime Minister Stephen Harper.
On his part, Rudd has made efforts to cushion the economy against the global credit crisis to bolster Australia’s financial system. While praising Obama’s plan to finance as much as $1 trillion in purchases of illiquid real-estate assets, besides the plan to establish a fund to lend directly to companies should foreign banks fail to roll over as much as $75 billion of maturing debt, Rudd said that these would not work unless it is globally coordinated. Rudd also rejected the idea of a global reserve currency since the dollar’s position remains unchallenged. The global economic crisis dominated discussions and both leaders agreed on what needed to be done. Obama envisaged a world-wide job boom in clean energy technology as one way to restore employment and the economy once the crisis was sorted out. Obama said all nations would be challenged “in finding new areas of economic growth” that are going to be necessary to “replace some of the financial shenanigans that have taken place over the past couple of years.” Clean coal technology is one area of job creation in which both Obama and Rudd found common ground to work on.
Viewed broadly, Rudd has two aims in shaping Australia’s relationship with the US under the Obama administration. The first is to maintain the robustness of the Australia-America alliance and wants to leverage closeness to Obama for promoting Australia’s middle-power diplomacy. The other aim is to demonstrate Australia’s commitment to join Obama in the war on terror, especially in Afghanistan and Pakistan.
Notwithstanding dwindling public support at home for sending more troops to Afghanistan Rudd’s boldness in joining the US in its campaign against terrorism has endeared him to the US. At present, Australia has 1100 troops in Afghanistan and the US is expected to ask Australia to increase that number. At the personal level, Rudd is still haunted by the September 11 attacks on the United States and the Bali bombings. The Newspoll published in The Australian just before Rudd left for Washington found 65 per cent of respondents against increasing Australia’s commitment. Both the US and Australia, however, do not want Afghanistan to become a haven for terrorists. If Australia sends extra help only to concentrate on training Afghanistan’s security forces, Rudd probably can sell the idea positively to the Australian public. Australia’s commitment in Afghanistan is, however, not a blank cheque, Rudd explained.
Rudd is aware that the alliance is fundamental for Australia’s national security. His international profile has been to work closely with Australia’s old “great and powerful friends” and to make new friends. That explains his fondness for China, an emerging Asian power, projected to play a decisive role in global politics in the coming decades and his focus on strengthening the economic ties with that country. Similarly, from the early days of the global financial crisis, Rudd liaised closely with Britain’s Gordon Brown. We can expect a great deal of similarity in focus between Rudd and Brown and Rudd and Obama in this week’s G-20 meeting in London and a conference on climate change in Copenhagen later this year. The Copenhagen meeting is designed to establish new global standards for emission reduction after the expiry of the Kyoto protocol in 2012. Rudd warned that the G-20 leaders must act jointly to clean up the banking sector, improve financial regulation, stimulate the economy and fight protectionism. He warns that a meeting in London in 1933 designed to find a consensus on ending the Great Depression failed because individual nations were not prepared to put aside their own interests in favour of global economic stability. In 1933, every nation put its own interests first. World leaders today are challenged not to repeat the mistakes made three-quarters of a century ago.
Indeed, the world faces a 1930s-style recession unless world leaders put their agenda for a common program that will help address this burning issue that plague the world at present. The economic turmoil has increased the “challenge of statecraft and diplomacy” and reduction of carbon emission is one such problem that demands early action. After more than a year of planning and consultation with industry, Rudd plans to introduce an emission trading scheme from July 2010. However, the mining industry already shedding jobs and world trade collapsing under recession, the Opposition, parts of the business sector and some Labor right-wingers want the plan shelved. However, the cost of not acting on climate change is seen to be greater than the cost of acting soon.
Traditionally, US Presidents go out of their way to ensure that the first encounter with Australian Prime Ministers is positive because of their close and solid partnership. Therefore, analysts would tend to compare the relationships between John Howard and George Bush and whatever develops between Obama and Rudd. The only starting point for that comparison is that Howard and Bush became close only after they faced a crisis – 9/11 terror attacks. Rudd and Obama have now come together during another crisis. This one is global recession. It would be interesting to see in the coming years what kind of bond both leaders develop that can sustain their common interests bilaterally and globally.
Dr. Rajaram Panda is Senior Fellow, and Pranamita Baruah is Research Assistant at the Institute for Defence Studies and Analyses, New Delhi.
Not one, but two hagiographies of Edward Kennedy in The Boston Globe
Camelost, by Philip Terzian
Not one, but two hagiographies of Edward Kennedy.
The Weekly Standard, Mar 30, 2009, Volume 014, Issue 27
Last Lion
The Fall and Rise of Ted Kennedy, by the Boston Globe
edited by Peter S. Canellos
Simon & Schuster, 480 pp., $28
Ted Kennedy
Scenes from an Epic Life, by the Boston Globe
Simon & Schuster, 208 pp., $28
It is, perhaps, fitting that, as metropolitan newspapers fade from the scene, the Boston Globe should remind us why this is happening by producing not one but two hagiographies of Edward Kennedy. The 77-year-old Kennedy is mortally ill, and certainly entitled to the victory lap he is taking in the political culture; but these two portentous volumes--the dimensions of the second, Ted Kennedy: Scenes from an Epic Life, are ideal for coffee tables--tell us considerably more about the Globe than about Senator Kennedy.
First, there is the "last lion" business. Kennedy has long since grown accustomed to being referred to in the press as the "liberal lion" of the Senate--fair enough--but now that his days in office are numbered, the cliché machine has anointed him the "last lion," the last of a vanishing breed, the last giant to stalk the corridors of the Senate, we shall not see his like again, and so on.
Oh, please. The last time this phrase was employed in a book title, by the late William Manchester, the subject was Winston Churchill. Surely the Globe isn't drawing a comparison? More to the point, when Leverett Saltonstall, a far more distinguished representative of Massachusetts, retired from office in 1967 after 30 years' service as governor and senator, and at the same age as Kennedy, the Globe failed to serve up a worshipful account of his career. Of course, Saltonstall was a Republican.
Moreover, since the dawn of the republic, the Senate has been routinely populated with "last lions," many of whom--Daniel Webster, Henry Clay, John C. Calhoun, John Sherman, Robert La Follette, Henry Cabot Lodge, George Norris, Richard Russell, Hubert Humphrey, et al.--left a far more significant mark on the politics of their times than Edward Kennedy. In statesmanship, as in life, there is a qualitative difference between longevity and distinction, and Edward Kennedy's primary distinction--apart from his ex officio fame as a Kennedy--has been his election, and subsequent multiple reelections, by the voters of Massachusetts.
Then there is the fundamental dishonesty of the Globe's approach. Ted Kennedy is what used to be called a lip-reader's book--lots of pictures and informative captions, separated by easy-to-read blocks of anodyne text--and certainly slick by the standards of the trade. But Last Lion purports to be a serious account of Kennedy's career, and his impact on American history. This would have been easier to accomplish if the Globe writers had undertaken an objective assessment of their subject, but that is not the intent here. The point of Last Lion is to transform Kennedy's undistinguished tenure in the Senate, and his thwarted ambition in national politics, into a kind of virtual triumph. To be sure, to pull it off would require the narrative skills of a gymnast--to twist the facts to shape the thesis--and the Globe writers are only newspapermen.
Edward Kennedy was the youngest of the nine children of Joseph and Rose Fitzgerald Kennedy, and lost in the family shuffle, below the radar of his father's maniacal ambition. He was famously expelled from Harvard for hiring a substitute to take a Spanish exam; but unlike his elder brothers, he held his own on the football team. In 1962, having barely reached the constitutional age to serve, he was elected to his brother John's Senate seat, which had been kept warm during the intervening two years by a faithful family retainer. In the general election he defeated the estimable George Lodge, a victory for the Irish mafia over Brahmin Boston; but it was in the bitter Democratic primary that his rival, Edward McCormack, pronounced the words that would haunt Kennedy ever afterwards: "If your name were Edward Moore instead of Edward Moore Kennedy, your candidacy would be a farce."
The great fulcrum of Kennedy's career, of course, is Chappaquiddick. Before 1969 he was a plausible Democratic aspirant for the presidency, and was climbing the greasy pole of Senate influence. After 1969 he was demoted in the Senate hierarchy by, of all people, Robert Byrd; and his 1980 campaign against a sitting Democratic president remains a classic in the annals of political egotism and self-destruction.
Here is where the Globe's ingenuity is put to the test. Instead of recognizing that Kennedy's political future perished with Mary Jo Kopechne, and that's that, Last Lion argues that the death of his presidential ambitions "liberated" Kennedy to dominate the Senate--and by inference, his times.
This is complete nonsense. Kennedy's rear-guard warfare against a resurgent conservatism in the 1980s and '90s--most notably his personal assault on Judge Robert Bork--was purely reactionary. There is no major legislation, certainly nothing resembling a political philosophy, associated with Kennedy's name. And for all his passion in repeating Theodore Sorensen's sonorous prose, his most famous pronouncement is his incoherent response to Roger Mudd's innocuous question, "Why do you want to be president?"
Philip Terzian is the literary editor of The Weekly Standard.
Not one, but two hagiographies of Edward Kennedy.
The Weekly Standard, Mar 30, 2009, Volume 014, Issue 27
Last Lion
The Fall and Rise of Ted Kennedy, by the Boston Globe
edited by Peter S. Canellos
Simon & Schuster, 480 pp., $28
Ted Kennedy
Scenes from an Epic Life, by the Boston Globe
Simon & Schuster, 208 pp., $28
It is, perhaps, fitting that, as metropolitan newspapers fade from the scene, the Boston Globe should remind us why this is happening by producing not one but two hagiographies of Edward Kennedy. The 77-year-old Kennedy is mortally ill, and certainly entitled to the victory lap he is taking in the political culture; but these two portentous volumes--the dimensions of the second, Ted Kennedy: Scenes from an Epic Life, are ideal for coffee tables--tell us considerably more about the Globe than about Senator Kennedy.
First, there is the "last lion" business. Kennedy has long since grown accustomed to being referred to in the press as the "liberal lion" of the Senate--fair enough--but now that his days in office are numbered, the cliché machine has anointed him the "last lion," the last of a vanishing breed, the last giant to stalk the corridors of the Senate, we shall not see his like again, and so on.
Oh, please. The last time this phrase was employed in a book title, by the late William Manchester, the subject was Winston Churchill. Surely the Globe isn't drawing a comparison? More to the point, when Leverett Saltonstall, a far more distinguished representative of Massachusetts, retired from office in 1967 after 30 years' service as governor and senator, and at the same age as Kennedy, the Globe failed to serve up a worshipful account of his career. Of course, Saltonstall was a Republican.
Moreover, since the dawn of the republic, the Senate has been routinely populated with "last lions," many of whom--Daniel Webster, Henry Clay, John C. Calhoun, John Sherman, Robert La Follette, Henry Cabot Lodge, George Norris, Richard Russell, Hubert Humphrey, et al.--left a far more significant mark on the politics of their times than Edward Kennedy. In statesmanship, as in life, there is a qualitative difference between longevity and distinction, and Edward Kennedy's primary distinction--apart from his ex officio fame as a Kennedy--has been his election, and subsequent multiple reelections, by the voters of Massachusetts.
Then there is the fundamental dishonesty of the Globe's approach. Ted Kennedy is what used to be called a lip-reader's book--lots of pictures and informative captions, separated by easy-to-read blocks of anodyne text--and certainly slick by the standards of the trade. But Last Lion purports to be a serious account of Kennedy's career, and his impact on American history. This would have been easier to accomplish if the Globe writers had undertaken an objective assessment of their subject, but that is not the intent here. The point of Last Lion is to transform Kennedy's undistinguished tenure in the Senate, and his thwarted ambition in national politics, into a kind of virtual triumph. To be sure, to pull it off would require the narrative skills of a gymnast--to twist the facts to shape the thesis--and the Globe writers are only newspapermen.
Edward Kennedy was the youngest of the nine children of Joseph and Rose Fitzgerald Kennedy, and lost in the family shuffle, below the radar of his father's maniacal ambition. He was famously expelled from Harvard for hiring a substitute to take a Spanish exam; but unlike his elder brothers, he held his own on the football team. In 1962, having barely reached the constitutional age to serve, he was elected to his brother John's Senate seat, which had been kept warm during the intervening two years by a faithful family retainer. In the general election he defeated the estimable George Lodge, a victory for the Irish mafia over Brahmin Boston; but it was in the bitter Democratic primary that his rival, Edward McCormack, pronounced the words that would haunt Kennedy ever afterwards: "If your name were Edward Moore instead of Edward Moore Kennedy, your candidacy would be a farce."
The great fulcrum of Kennedy's career, of course, is Chappaquiddick. Before 1969 he was a plausible Democratic aspirant for the presidency, and was climbing the greasy pole of Senate influence. After 1969 he was demoted in the Senate hierarchy by, of all people, Robert Byrd; and his 1980 campaign against a sitting Democratic president remains a classic in the annals of political egotism and self-destruction.
Here is where the Globe's ingenuity is put to the test. Instead of recognizing that Kennedy's political future perished with Mary Jo Kopechne, and that's that, Last Lion argues that the death of his presidential ambitions "liberated" Kennedy to dominate the Senate--and by inference, his times.
This is complete nonsense. Kennedy's rear-guard warfare against a resurgent conservatism in the 1980s and '90s--most notably his personal assault on Judge Robert Bork--was purely reactionary. There is no major legislation, certainly nothing resembling a political philosophy, associated with Kennedy's name. And for all his passion in repeating Theodore Sorensen's sonorous prose, his most famous pronouncement is his incoherent response to Roger Mudd's innocuous question, "Why do you want to be president?"
Philip Terzian is the literary editor of The Weekly Standard.
Will renewables become cost-competitive anytime soon?
Will renewables become cost-competitive anytime soon?
The Siren Song of Wind and Solar Energy
IER, April 1, 2009
Despite advocates’ claims to the contrary, wind and solar continue to be the most expensive sources of electricity. The New York Times recently reported that “wind power is currently more than 50 percent more expensive than power generated from a traditional coal plant.” [1] Energy Secretary Stephen Chu told the New York Times that solar technology would have to get five times better to be competitive in today’s energy market.[2] In spite of these reports and admissions, the public relations campaign for wind and solar powered electricity marches on.
For decades, representatives and advocates of wind and solar have claimed that their technology was near a competitive tipping point—but just needed a bit more subsidies, set-asides, and government aid to succeed. But even after 30 years of massive subsidies, wind and solar continue to be more expensive and contribute only a small amount of electricity. In 2008, wind produced 1.3% of the electrical generation in America and solar produced a meager 0.02%.[3]
The quotations below highlight the errant predictions of near-term viability (with the predictions bolded for emphasis). These are just some of the examples of over 30 years of claims that wind and solar will soon be cost competitive.
Overly Optimistic Wind/Solar Claims
In 1983, Booz, Allen & Hamilton did a study for the Solar Energy Industries Association, American Wind Energy Association, and Renewable Energy Institute. It stated: “The private sector can be expected to develop improved solar and wind technologies which will begin to become competitive and self-supporting on a national level by the end of the decade [i.e. by 1990] if assisted by tax credits and augmented by federally sponsored R&D.”[4]
In 1986, Amory Lovins of the Rocky Mountain Institute lamented the untimely scale-back of tax breaks for renewable energy, since the competitive viability of wind and solar technologies was “one to three years away.”[5]
In 1990, two energy analysts at the Worldwatch Institute predicted an almost complete displacement of fossil fuels in the electric generation market within a couple decades [i.e. 2010]:
Within a few decades, a geographically diverse country such as the United States might get 30 percent of its electricity from sunshine, 20 percent from hydropower, 20 percent from wind power, 10 percent from biomass, 10 percent from geothermal energy, and 10 percent from natural-gas-fired cogeneration.[6]
Overly Optimistic Wind Power Claims
In 1986, a representative of the American Wind Energy Association testified:
The U.S. wind industry has … demonstrated reliability and performance levels that make them very competitive. It has come to the point that the California Energy Commission has predicted windpower will be that State’s lowest cost source of energy in the 1990s, beating out even large-scale hydro.
…
We are not quite there. We have hopes.[7]
Christopher Flavin of the Worldwatch Institute has been predicting competitive viability since the 1980s. In 1984 he wrote:
Tax credits have been essential to the economic viability of wind farms so far, but will not be needed within a few years.[8]
In 1985, he wrote:
Although wind farms still depend on tax credits, they are likely to be economical without this support within a few years.[9]
In 1986, he wrote:
Early evidence indicates that wind power will soon take its place as a decentralized power source that is economical in many areas…. Utility-sponsored studies show that the better windfarms can produce power at a cost of about 7¢ per kilowatt-hour, which is competitive with conventional power sources in the United States.[10]
Overly Optimistic Solar Power Claims
In 1976, solar advocate Barry Commoner stated:
Mixed solar/conventional installations could become the most economical alternative in most parts of the United States within the next few years.[11]
In 1987 the head of the Solar Energy Industries Association stated:
I think frankly, the—the consensus as far as I can see is after the year 2000, somewhere between 10 and 20 percent of our energy could come from solar technologies, quite easily.[12]
In 1988, Cynthia Shea of the Worldwatch Institute wrote:
In future decades, [photovoltaic technologies] may become standard equipment on new buildings, using the sunlight streaming through windows to generate electricity.[13]
Conclusion
Wind and solar should not be thought of as “infant industries” but as government-dependent industries that penalize consumers and/or taxpayers. “Buyer beware” should also apply to the purveyors of political energy. Self-interested consumer decisions in the energy marketplace should be respected—and false promises about inferior energies exposed—for good public policy outcomes.
The Siren Song of Wind and Solar Energy
IER, April 1, 2009
Despite advocates’ claims to the contrary, wind and solar continue to be the most expensive sources of electricity. The New York Times recently reported that “wind power is currently more than 50 percent more expensive than power generated from a traditional coal plant.” [1] Energy Secretary Stephen Chu told the New York Times that solar technology would have to get five times better to be competitive in today’s energy market.[2] In spite of these reports and admissions, the public relations campaign for wind and solar powered electricity marches on.
For decades, representatives and advocates of wind and solar have claimed that their technology was near a competitive tipping point—but just needed a bit more subsidies, set-asides, and government aid to succeed. But even after 30 years of massive subsidies, wind and solar continue to be more expensive and contribute only a small amount of electricity. In 2008, wind produced 1.3% of the electrical generation in America and solar produced a meager 0.02%.[3]
The quotations below highlight the errant predictions of near-term viability (with the predictions bolded for emphasis). These are just some of the examples of over 30 years of claims that wind and solar will soon be cost competitive.
Overly Optimistic Wind/Solar Claims
In 1983, Booz, Allen & Hamilton did a study for the Solar Energy Industries Association, American Wind Energy Association, and Renewable Energy Institute. It stated: “The private sector can be expected to develop improved solar and wind technologies which will begin to become competitive and self-supporting on a national level by the end of the decade [i.e. by 1990] if assisted by tax credits and augmented by federally sponsored R&D.”[4]
In 1986, Amory Lovins of the Rocky Mountain Institute lamented the untimely scale-back of tax breaks for renewable energy, since the competitive viability of wind and solar technologies was “one to three years away.”[5]
In 1990, two energy analysts at the Worldwatch Institute predicted an almost complete displacement of fossil fuels in the electric generation market within a couple decades [i.e. 2010]:
Within a few decades, a geographically diverse country such as the United States might get 30 percent of its electricity from sunshine, 20 percent from hydropower, 20 percent from wind power, 10 percent from biomass, 10 percent from geothermal energy, and 10 percent from natural-gas-fired cogeneration.[6]
Overly Optimistic Wind Power Claims
In 1986, a representative of the American Wind Energy Association testified:
The U.S. wind industry has … demonstrated reliability and performance levels that make them very competitive. It has come to the point that the California Energy Commission has predicted windpower will be that State’s lowest cost source of energy in the 1990s, beating out even large-scale hydro.
…
We are not quite there. We have hopes.[7]
Christopher Flavin of the Worldwatch Institute has been predicting competitive viability since the 1980s. In 1984 he wrote:
Tax credits have been essential to the economic viability of wind farms so far, but will not be needed within a few years.[8]
In 1985, he wrote:
Although wind farms still depend on tax credits, they are likely to be economical without this support within a few years.[9]
In 1986, he wrote:
Early evidence indicates that wind power will soon take its place as a decentralized power source that is economical in many areas…. Utility-sponsored studies show that the better windfarms can produce power at a cost of about 7¢ per kilowatt-hour, which is competitive with conventional power sources in the United States.[10]
Overly Optimistic Solar Power Claims
In 1976, solar advocate Barry Commoner stated:
Mixed solar/conventional installations could become the most economical alternative in most parts of the United States within the next few years.[11]
In 1987 the head of the Solar Energy Industries Association stated:
I think frankly, the—the consensus as far as I can see is after the year 2000, somewhere between 10 and 20 percent of our energy could come from solar technologies, quite easily.[12]
In 1988, Cynthia Shea of the Worldwatch Institute wrote:
In future decades, [photovoltaic technologies] may become standard equipment on new buildings, using the sunlight streaming through windows to generate electricity.[13]
Conclusion
Wind and solar should not be thought of as “infant industries” but as government-dependent industries that penalize consumers and/or taxpayers. “Buyer beware” should also apply to the purveyors of political energy. Self-interested consumer decisions in the energy marketplace should be respected—and false promises about inferior energies exposed—for good public policy outcomes.
Wednesday, April 1, 2009
Would the Health Reform Prescriptions Offered by President Obama and Congressional Leaders Help Patients?
Would the Health Reform Prescriptions Offered by President Obama and Congressional Leaders Help Patients? By Thomas P. Miller, Scott Gottlieb, M.D., Robert B. Helms, Joseph Antos, Doug Badger, Robert A. Book, James C. Capretta, Greg D'Angelo, Stephen J. Entin, John C. Goodman, Linda Gorman, John R. Graham, Paul Guppy, John S. Hoff, Merrill Matthews, Amy Menefee, Robert E. Moffit, Nina Owcharenko, Sally Pipes, Peter Pitts, Roy Ramthun, Grace-Marie Turner.
Health Policy Consensus Group Statement
AEI, Wednesday, April 1, 2009
The Health Policy Consensus Group warns that health care reform should not include a new government health insurance plan; an employer "play-or-pay" mandate, a uniform; government-defined package of benefits; a mandate that individuals must purchase insurance; a National Health Insurance Exchange extending federal regulatory powers over private insurance; or federal interference in the practice of medicine through a federal health board, comparative effectiveness review, and other government intrusions into medical decision-making. These elements are present in proposals by President Obama and congressional leaders but would ultimately reduce patient well-being.
Click here to view this statement as an Adobe Acrobat PDF with full notes
President Obama repeatedly has reassured the American people, "If you've got health care already, and probably the majority of you do, then you can keep your plan if you are satisfied with it. You can keep your choice of doctor."[1] Research shows 82 percent of Americans rate the health care they receive as good to excellent.[2]
At the same time, there are serious problems of cost, value, and access throughout our health sector. It is vital to address these problems. But any health reform proposal to change what needs fixing also must preserve the freedom, innovation, and quality of American medical care that people value. We believe a better functioning, more competitive, and transparent marketplace would cover more people and deliver the higher-value care we seek.
We are gravely concerned that several of the proposals offered by the President and the Congressional leadership would make matters worse, not better. These flawed prescriptions for radical change should not be accepted as part of any serious and sustainable health reform proposal:
A New Government Health Insurance Plan: A new national health plan, to be operated by the federal government, is being proposed with the claim that it would give Americans a choice between public or private health plans. While there may be initial assurances that the plans would operate on a level playing field, the government inevitably will use its regulatory, pricing, and taxing authority to favor its plan. Congress would give the government plan the power to dictate prices so it can artificially under-price private plans and drive them out of this one-sided "marketplace."
Many people then would be left with little or no choice, as employers would drop their current coverage and send their workers into the public plan. Research by The Lewin Group[3] shows that as many as 118.5 million Americans would lose or be switched out of private health coverage. This massive crowding out of private health insurance would undermine the employment-based coverage that most Americans under age 65 have today.
Once private plans have been driven out of the market, people will realize that the government plan will not be able to sustain the quality and quantity of benefits they were promised. Government instead will begin to ration care and services, driving out innovation, competition, and patient-centered quality.
A "Play-or-Pay" Mandate That Employers Must Provide or Pay for Health Coverage for Their Workers: Employers would be required to pay an unspecified "meaningful contribution" toward their workers' health insurance or pay a new tax to fund the government plan. If they are not "playing" in the new system by directly providing health insurance, then they will be "paying" to fund the government plan. It is a political certainty that the option to "pay" this new health insurance tax will be set lower than the current levels at which employers now "play" by providing their own coverage, enticing many of them to transfer their employees' insurance coverage to the mercies of the new government plan.
Whether they choose to pay or to play, small employers will be hit especially hard by a new mandate to finance all or part of the health insurance premiums for their employees, directly or through new taxes. Any initial subsidies to them will quickly be overtaken by higher mandated costs. As they absorb new tax burdens they cannot control, the result will be more lost jobs and lower wages for workers.
A Uniform, Government-Defined Package of Benefits: Decades of experience in the states confirm that whenever benefit packages are determined politically rather than by the marketplace, legislators find it very difficult to say no to anyone asking that their services and products be included. People would have a "choice" of only the expensive one-size-fits-all plan mandated by government, significantly increasing the cost of health coverage. Workers would pay for this more expensive coverage through lower wages, lost jobs, higher taxes, and lower-value health care.
A Mandate That Individuals Must Purchase Insurance: If the federal government requires everyone to purchase health insurance, it must define what qualifies as insurance. All signals indicate this would be a very expensive benefits package, designed as one-size-fits-all in theory but delivered as one-size-fits-none in practice. Sweeping government mandates create a conflict between escalating costs, limited resources, and the false guarantee of rich coverage – triggering price and supply controls.
Many individuals will need subsidies to receive coverage that otherwise would be unaffordable to them, but taxpayers will resist filling an abyss. As a result, political leaders will try to cover rising costs indirectly and invisibly – through general revenue subsidies, tax increases, deficit spending, and escalating fees, fines, and taxes imposed on employers. And to make the mandate work, the government also must establish and enforce binding penalties for individuals who do not comply.
A National Health Insurance Exchange Extending Vast Federal Regulatory Powers over Private Insurance: A new National Health Insurance Exchange is being proposed to "streamline the purchase of health insurance." It actually would steamroll over private choice and patient preferences by providing a vehicle to extend sweeping federal regulation into virtually every corner of our health sector. This would reduce choice for patients and discourage or prohibit innovation and flexibility in health insurance offerings that today are helping many companies and families balance their health costs with other needs.
Federal Interference in the Practice of Medicine through a Federal Health Board, Comparative Effectiveness Review, and Other Government Intrusions into Medical Decision-Making: Congress appropriated $1.1 billion in taxpayer funding for comparative effectiveness research in the economic stimulus bill, establishing the Federal Coordinating Council for Comparative Effectiveness Research, which will assess medical treatments available to Americans. This provides an irresistible temptation for politicians to go beyond providing better information and start restricting the treatment choices available to patients. House Appropriations Chairman David Obey (D-Wis.) said the intent was that drugs and treatments "that are found to be less effective and in some cases, more expensive, will no longer be prescribed."
The clear and present danger is that any centralized health board will use the cover of comparative effectiveness findings to meet budgetary bottom lines, at the expense of patients' medical needs and personal preferences. This is a particular danger to the health of people who suffer from rare conditions or who need access to specific medicines and treatments but who may lack the political power to influence the reviewers' decisions.
---
There are many problems that need to be addressed in the health sector, and the signatories to this statement have written extensively about our ideas for reform.[4] Because the reform agenda is moving rapidly through Congress, we believe the American public should be aware of the likely impact of the policies described in this statement which are under active consideration by elected leaders.
We believe that the proposals put forth by the Administration and Congressional leaders would harm, not help, patients and would not fulfill the goals and promises made to the American people.
The Health Policy Consensus Group is an affiliation of the policy experts from the major market-oriented think tanks and others who work together to advance patient-centered ideas for health reform. Joseph Antos* is the Wilson H. Taylor Scholar in Health Care and Retirement Policy at AEI. Doug Badger is a senior fellow at the Center for Medicine in the Public Interest. Robert A. Book is a senior research fellow at the Heritage Foundation. James C. Capretta* is a fellow at the Etics and Public Policy Center. Greg D'Angelo is a policy analyst at the Heritage Foundation. Stephen J. Entin is the president of the Institute for Research on the Economics of Taxation. John C. Goodman is the president of the National Center for Policy Analysis. Linda Gorman is a senior fellow at the Independence Institute. Scott Gottlieb, M.D., is a resident fellow at AEI. John R. Graham is the director of health care studies at the Pacific Research Institute. Paul Guppy is the vice president for research at the Washington Policy Center. Robert B. Helms* is a resident scholar at AEI. John S. Hoff is a trustee of the Galen Institute. Merrill Matthews is the director of the Council for Affordable Health Insurance. Amy Menefee* is the director of communications at the Galen Institute. Thomas P. Miller* is a resident fellow at AEI. Robert E. Moffit* is the director of the center for Health Policy Studies at the Heritage Foundation. Nina Owcharenko* is a senior policy analyst at the Heritage Foundation. Sally Pipes is the president of the Pacific Research Institute. Peter Pitts is the director of the Center for Medicine in the Public Interest. Roy Ramthun is the president of HSA Consulting Services. Grace-Marie Turner* is the president of the Galen Institute. Affiliations of those signing this statement are listed for identification purposes only. The views in this statement do not necessarily reflect those of their organizations. The health policy experts whose names are followed by an asterisk served on the drafting committee for this statement.
Click here to view this statement as an Adobe Acrobat PDF with full notes
Health Policy Consensus Group Statement
AEI, Wednesday, April 1, 2009
The Health Policy Consensus Group warns that health care reform should not include a new government health insurance plan; an employer "play-or-pay" mandate, a uniform; government-defined package of benefits; a mandate that individuals must purchase insurance; a National Health Insurance Exchange extending federal regulatory powers over private insurance; or federal interference in the practice of medicine through a federal health board, comparative effectiveness review, and other government intrusions into medical decision-making. These elements are present in proposals by President Obama and congressional leaders but would ultimately reduce patient well-being.
Click here to view this statement as an Adobe Acrobat PDF with full notes
President Obama repeatedly has reassured the American people, "If you've got health care already, and probably the majority of you do, then you can keep your plan if you are satisfied with it. You can keep your choice of doctor."[1] Research shows 82 percent of Americans rate the health care they receive as good to excellent.[2]
At the same time, there are serious problems of cost, value, and access throughout our health sector. It is vital to address these problems. But any health reform proposal to change what needs fixing also must preserve the freedom, innovation, and quality of American medical care that people value. We believe a better functioning, more competitive, and transparent marketplace would cover more people and deliver the higher-value care we seek.
We are gravely concerned that several of the proposals offered by the President and the Congressional leadership would make matters worse, not better. These flawed prescriptions for radical change should not be accepted as part of any serious and sustainable health reform proposal:
- A new government health insurance plan
- An employer "play-or-pay" mandate
- A uniform, government-defined package of benefits
- A mandate that individuals must purchase insurance
- A National Health Insurance Exchange extending federal regulatory powers over private insurance
- Federal interference in the practice of medicine through a federal health board, comparative effectiveness review, and other government intrusions into medical decision-making
A New Government Health Insurance Plan: A new national health plan, to be operated by the federal government, is being proposed with the claim that it would give Americans a choice between public or private health plans. While there may be initial assurances that the plans would operate on a level playing field, the government inevitably will use its regulatory, pricing, and taxing authority to favor its plan. Congress would give the government plan the power to dictate prices so it can artificially under-price private plans and drive them out of this one-sided "marketplace."
Many people then would be left with little or no choice, as employers would drop their current coverage and send their workers into the public plan. Research by The Lewin Group[3] shows that as many as 118.5 million Americans would lose or be switched out of private health coverage. This massive crowding out of private health insurance would undermine the employment-based coverage that most Americans under age 65 have today.
Once private plans have been driven out of the market, people will realize that the government plan will not be able to sustain the quality and quantity of benefits they were promised. Government instead will begin to ration care and services, driving out innovation, competition, and patient-centered quality.
A "Play-or-Pay" Mandate That Employers Must Provide or Pay for Health Coverage for Their Workers: Employers would be required to pay an unspecified "meaningful contribution" toward their workers' health insurance or pay a new tax to fund the government plan. If they are not "playing" in the new system by directly providing health insurance, then they will be "paying" to fund the government plan. It is a political certainty that the option to "pay" this new health insurance tax will be set lower than the current levels at which employers now "play" by providing their own coverage, enticing many of them to transfer their employees' insurance coverage to the mercies of the new government plan.
Whether they choose to pay or to play, small employers will be hit especially hard by a new mandate to finance all or part of the health insurance premiums for their employees, directly or through new taxes. Any initial subsidies to them will quickly be overtaken by higher mandated costs. As they absorb new tax burdens they cannot control, the result will be more lost jobs and lower wages for workers.
A Uniform, Government-Defined Package of Benefits: Decades of experience in the states confirm that whenever benefit packages are determined politically rather than by the marketplace, legislators find it very difficult to say no to anyone asking that their services and products be included. People would have a "choice" of only the expensive one-size-fits-all plan mandated by government, significantly increasing the cost of health coverage. Workers would pay for this more expensive coverage through lower wages, lost jobs, higher taxes, and lower-value health care.
A Mandate That Individuals Must Purchase Insurance: If the federal government requires everyone to purchase health insurance, it must define what qualifies as insurance. All signals indicate this would be a very expensive benefits package, designed as one-size-fits-all in theory but delivered as one-size-fits-none in practice. Sweeping government mandates create a conflict between escalating costs, limited resources, and the false guarantee of rich coverage – triggering price and supply controls.
Many individuals will need subsidies to receive coverage that otherwise would be unaffordable to them, but taxpayers will resist filling an abyss. As a result, political leaders will try to cover rising costs indirectly and invisibly – through general revenue subsidies, tax increases, deficit spending, and escalating fees, fines, and taxes imposed on employers. And to make the mandate work, the government also must establish and enforce binding penalties for individuals who do not comply.
A National Health Insurance Exchange Extending Vast Federal Regulatory Powers over Private Insurance: A new National Health Insurance Exchange is being proposed to "streamline the purchase of health insurance." It actually would steamroll over private choice and patient preferences by providing a vehicle to extend sweeping federal regulation into virtually every corner of our health sector. This would reduce choice for patients and discourage or prohibit innovation and flexibility in health insurance offerings that today are helping many companies and families balance their health costs with other needs.
Federal Interference in the Practice of Medicine through a Federal Health Board, Comparative Effectiveness Review, and Other Government Intrusions into Medical Decision-Making: Congress appropriated $1.1 billion in taxpayer funding for comparative effectiveness research in the economic stimulus bill, establishing the Federal Coordinating Council for Comparative Effectiveness Research, which will assess medical treatments available to Americans. This provides an irresistible temptation for politicians to go beyond providing better information and start restricting the treatment choices available to patients. House Appropriations Chairman David Obey (D-Wis.) said the intent was that drugs and treatments "that are found to be less effective and in some cases, more expensive, will no longer be prescribed."
The clear and present danger is that any centralized health board will use the cover of comparative effectiveness findings to meet budgetary bottom lines, at the expense of patients' medical needs and personal preferences. This is a particular danger to the health of people who suffer from rare conditions or who need access to specific medicines and treatments but who may lack the political power to influence the reviewers' decisions.
---
There are many problems that need to be addressed in the health sector, and the signatories to this statement have written extensively about our ideas for reform.[4] Because the reform agenda is moving rapidly through Congress, we believe the American public should be aware of the likely impact of the policies described in this statement which are under active consideration by elected leaders.
We believe that the proposals put forth by the Administration and Congressional leaders would harm, not help, patients and would not fulfill the goals and promises made to the American people.
The Health Policy Consensus Group is an affiliation of the policy experts from the major market-oriented think tanks and others who work together to advance patient-centered ideas for health reform. Joseph Antos* is the Wilson H. Taylor Scholar in Health Care and Retirement Policy at AEI. Doug Badger is a senior fellow at the Center for Medicine in the Public Interest. Robert A. Book is a senior research fellow at the Heritage Foundation. James C. Capretta* is a fellow at the Etics and Public Policy Center. Greg D'Angelo is a policy analyst at the Heritage Foundation. Stephen J. Entin is the president of the Institute for Research on the Economics of Taxation. John C. Goodman is the president of the National Center for Policy Analysis. Linda Gorman is a senior fellow at the Independence Institute. Scott Gottlieb, M.D., is a resident fellow at AEI. John R. Graham is the director of health care studies at the Pacific Research Institute. Paul Guppy is the vice president for research at the Washington Policy Center. Robert B. Helms* is a resident scholar at AEI. John S. Hoff is a trustee of the Galen Institute. Merrill Matthews is the director of the Council for Affordable Health Insurance. Amy Menefee* is the director of communications at the Galen Institute. Thomas P. Miller* is a resident fellow at AEI. Robert E. Moffit* is the director of the center for Health Policy Studies at the Heritage Foundation. Nina Owcharenko* is a senior policy analyst at the Heritage Foundation. Sally Pipes is the president of the Pacific Research Institute. Peter Pitts is the director of the Center for Medicine in the Public Interest. Roy Ramthun is the president of HSA Consulting Services. Grace-Marie Turner* is the president of the Galen Institute. Affiliations of those signing this statement are listed for identification purposes only. The views in this statement do not necessarily reflect those of their organizations. The health policy experts whose names are followed by an asterisk served on the drafting committee for this statement.
Click here to view this statement as an Adobe Acrobat PDF with full notes
Statement On Bilateral Meeting With President Hu Of China
Statement On Bilateral Meeting With President Hu Of China
White House, Apr 01, 2009
THE WHITE HOUSE
Office of the Press Secretary
____________________________________________________________________________________
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE April 1, 2009
STATEMENT ON BILATERAL MEETING WITH PRESIDENT HU OF CHINA
On 1 April 2009, President Barack Obama of the United States and President Hu Jintao of China met on the sidelines of the G20 Financial Summit in London, the United Kingdom. The two heads of state had an extensive exchange of views on U.S.-China relations and global issues of common interest, and reached the following points of agreement:
I. Toward Enhanced U.S.-China Relations
The two sides agreed to work together to build a positive, cooperative, and comprehensive U.S.-China relationship for the 21st century and to maintain and strengthen exchanges at all levels. President Hu Jintao invited President Obama to visit China in the second half of this year, and President Obama accepted the invitation with pleasure.
The two sides decided to establish the "U.S.-China Strategic and Economic Dialogue." U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Chinese State Councilor Dai Bingguo will chair the "Strategic Track" and U.S. Secretary of the Treasury Timothy Geithner and Chinese Vice Premier Wang Qishan will chair the "Economic Track" of the Dialogue, each as special representatives of their respective presidents. The two sides will hold the first round of the dialogue in Washington DC this summer. The two sides stated that they will continue to advance mutually beneficial cooperation in economics and trade through the mechanism of the high-level Joint Commission on Commerce and Trade.
The two sides agreed to further deepen mutually beneficial cooperation in a wide range of areas, including economy and trade, counterterrorism, law enforcement, science and technology, education, culture and health. They also agreed to resume and expand consultations on non-proliferation and other international security topics. They welcomed further exchanges between the national legislatures, local authorities, academics, young people and other sectors. The two sides agreed to resume the human rights dialogue as soon as possible.
Both sides share a commitment to military-to-military relations and will work for their continued improvement and development. The two sides agreed that Admiral Gary Roughead, U.S Chief of Naval Operations, will visit China upon invitation in April to attend events marking the 60th anniversary of the founding of the Navy of the Chinese People's Liberation Army. The U.S. looks forward to visits by senior Chinese military leaders this year.
The two sides agreed to maintain close communication and coordination and to work together for the settlement of conflicts and reduction of tensions that contribute to global and regional instability, including the denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula, the Iranian nuclear issue, Sudan humanitarian issues, and the situation in South Asia.
The two sides agreed to intensify policy dialogue and practical cooperation in energy, the environment and climate change building on the China-US Ten Year Energy and Environment Cooperation Framework, carry out active cooperation in energy efficiency, renewable energy, and clean energy technologies and work with other parties concerned for positive results at the Copenhagen conference.
II. Strengthening Economic and Financial Cooperation
The two presidents discussed challenges facing the global economy and financial system. They pledged that, as two major economies, the U.S. and China will work together, as well as with other countries, to help the world economy return to strong growth and to strengthen the international financial system so a crisis of this magnitude never happens again.
The two presidents welcomed the fiscal stimulus measures taken by the other, and agreed that these measures were already playing a stabilizing role for the global economy. They also agreed that strong financial systems were essential for restoring growth, and they welcomed the commitment of both countries to address issues in this area. President Obama underlined the commitment of the United States to implement the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act and the Financial Stability Plan. He underscored that once recovery is firmly established, the United States will act to cut the U.S. fiscal deficit in half and bring the deficit down to a level that is sustainable. President Hu emphasized China’s commitment to strengthen and improve macroeconomic control and expand domestic demand, particularly consumer demand, to ensure sustainable growth, and ensure steady and relatively fast economic development.
The two presidents agreed the international financial institutions should have more resources to help emerging market and developing nations withstand the shortfall in capital, and the two countries will take actions toward this goal. China and the United States agreed to work together to resolutely support global trade and investment flows that benefit all. To that end, they are committed to resist protectionism and ensure sound and stable U.S.-China trade relations.
President Hu and President Obama discussed regulatory and supervisory changes needed to reform and strengthen the global financial system, including regulatory standards. President Hu welcomed the recent U.S. announcement of a comprehensive financial regulatory reform agenda. President Obama welcomed the commitment of China to continue the development and reform of its financial system.
The Presidents agreed on the need for sweeping changes in the governance structure of international financial institutions. President Obama underscored that such changes were needed so that these organizations better reflect the growing weight of dynamic emerging market economies in the global system
President Hu and President Obama concluded that continued close cooperation between the United States and China was critical at this time to maintain the health of the world economy and would remain so in the future. They both recognized that as major economies, the United States and China have a need to work together, as well as with other countries, to promote the smooth functioning of the international financial system and the steady growth of the world economy. To this end, the two sides will exchange views and intensify coordination and cooperation on global economic and financial issues, climate change and energy, and other important issues through the Strategic and Economic Dialogue that the two countries have decided to establish.
##
White House, Apr 01, 2009
THE WHITE HOUSE
Office of the Press Secretary
____________________________________________________________________________________
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE April 1, 2009
STATEMENT ON BILATERAL MEETING WITH PRESIDENT HU OF CHINA
On 1 April 2009, President Barack Obama of the United States and President Hu Jintao of China met on the sidelines of the G20 Financial Summit in London, the United Kingdom. The two heads of state had an extensive exchange of views on U.S.-China relations and global issues of common interest, and reached the following points of agreement:
I. Toward Enhanced U.S.-China Relations
The two sides agreed to work together to build a positive, cooperative, and comprehensive U.S.-China relationship for the 21st century and to maintain and strengthen exchanges at all levels. President Hu Jintao invited President Obama to visit China in the second half of this year, and President Obama accepted the invitation with pleasure.
The two sides decided to establish the "U.S.-China Strategic and Economic Dialogue." U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Chinese State Councilor Dai Bingguo will chair the "Strategic Track" and U.S. Secretary of the Treasury Timothy Geithner and Chinese Vice Premier Wang Qishan will chair the "Economic Track" of the Dialogue, each as special representatives of their respective presidents. The two sides will hold the first round of the dialogue in Washington DC this summer. The two sides stated that they will continue to advance mutually beneficial cooperation in economics and trade through the mechanism of the high-level Joint Commission on Commerce and Trade.
The two sides agreed to further deepen mutually beneficial cooperation in a wide range of areas, including economy and trade, counterterrorism, law enforcement, science and technology, education, culture and health. They also agreed to resume and expand consultations on non-proliferation and other international security topics. They welcomed further exchanges between the national legislatures, local authorities, academics, young people and other sectors. The two sides agreed to resume the human rights dialogue as soon as possible.
Both sides share a commitment to military-to-military relations and will work for their continued improvement and development. The two sides agreed that Admiral Gary Roughead, U.S Chief of Naval Operations, will visit China upon invitation in April to attend events marking the 60th anniversary of the founding of the Navy of the Chinese People's Liberation Army. The U.S. looks forward to visits by senior Chinese military leaders this year.
The two sides agreed to maintain close communication and coordination and to work together for the settlement of conflicts and reduction of tensions that contribute to global and regional instability, including the denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula, the Iranian nuclear issue, Sudan humanitarian issues, and the situation in South Asia.
The two sides agreed to intensify policy dialogue and practical cooperation in energy, the environment and climate change building on the China-US Ten Year Energy and Environment Cooperation Framework, carry out active cooperation in energy efficiency, renewable energy, and clean energy technologies and work with other parties concerned for positive results at the Copenhagen conference.
II. Strengthening Economic and Financial Cooperation
The two presidents discussed challenges facing the global economy and financial system. They pledged that, as two major economies, the U.S. and China will work together, as well as with other countries, to help the world economy return to strong growth and to strengthen the international financial system so a crisis of this magnitude never happens again.
The two presidents welcomed the fiscal stimulus measures taken by the other, and agreed that these measures were already playing a stabilizing role for the global economy. They also agreed that strong financial systems were essential for restoring growth, and they welcomed the commitment of both countries to address issues in this area. President Obama underlined the commitment of the United States to implement the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act and the Financial Stability Plan. He underscored that once recovery is firmly established, the United States will act to cut the U.S. fiscal deficit in half and bring the deficit down to a level that is sustainable. President Hu emphasized China’s commitment to strengthen and improve macroeconomic control and expand domestic demand, particularly consumer demand, to ensure sustainable growth, and ensure steady and relatively fast economic development.
The two presidents agreed the international financial institutions should have more resources to help emerging market and developing nations withstand the shortfall in capital, and the two countries will take actions toward this goal. China and the United States agreed to work together to resolutely support global trade and investment flows that benefit all. To that end, they are committed to resist protectionism and ensure sound and stable U.S.-China trade relations.
President Hu and President Obama discussed regulatory and supervisory changes needed to reform and strengthen the global financial system, including regulatory standards. President Hu welcomed the recent U.S. announcement of a comprehensive financial regulatory reform agenda. President Obama welcomed the commitment of China to continue the development and reform of its financial system.
The Presidents agreed on the need for sweeping changes in the governance structure of international financial institutions. President Obama underscored that such changes were needed so that these organizations better reflect the growing weight of dynamic emerging market economies in the global system
President Hu and President Obama concluded that continued close cooperation between the United States and China was critical at this time to maintain the health of the world economy and would remain so in the future. They both recognized that as major economies, the United States and China have a need to work together, as well as with other countries, to promote the smooth functioning of the international financial system and the steady growth of the world economy. To this end, the two sides will exchange views and intensify coordination and cooperation on global economic and financial issues, climate change and energy, and other important issues through the Strategic and Economic Dialogue that the two countries have decided to establish.
##
Conservatives, Public Schools, and Pedagogy
Conservatives, Public Schools, and Pedagogy. By Andrew J. Coulson
Cato at Liberty, Apr 01, 2009
I’ve received a fair bit of e-mail in response to my commentary yesterday on the recent defunding of the Bush administration’s Reading First program. Several people questioned my assertion that the program failed to yield a significant nationwide improvement in literacy. I cited a 2008 federal government report in support of that assertion, but questions were raised as to the validity of that study and other research seeming to contradict it was presented.
Taking the latter point first, it was pointed out that an EDS study of California found a positive impact to the program, as did an NWREL study of 5 other Western states. Note that there is not necessarily any contradiction between the federal study and the California and Western states studies. It’s possible that, nationwide, Reading First was associated with academic improvements in some schools, no effect in others, and lower performance in still others, resulting in the overall lack of impact reported by the federal government study. If so, it could be that schools in which Reading First proved effective are unevenly distributed around the country, and happen to be concentrated in the West.
Another possibility is that the federal study was so flawed that it failed to find a significant positive effect to Reading First when there actually was one. For the sake of argument, let’s say that this is true and that Reading First is actually working, overall, at improving student literacy nationwide. If so, what confidence should we have that it would continue to be effectively implemented in the long term, and not displaced by something else, or altered so as to become ineffective?
The answer is: not much. As I’ve noted in the case of the Follow Through experiment of the 60s and 70s, which is typical, even when a proven method is adopted in public school classrooms and yields great success it tends to be discarded for one reason or another. Since nothing fundamental has changed in the incentive structure of public schooling since the 1970s, there is no reason to believe that Reading First would buck the trend and somehow survive in perpetutity.
But all of this is of course academic, because Congress has already defunded the program. Democrats were not interested in continuing to evaluate the program to make absolutely sure of its impact. They killed it almost immediately because it is a traditionalist pedgaogical program that appeals to conservatives rather than “progressives.”
And that was the second point of my commentary: even when effective methods are implemented in public schools they remain subject to the inconstant winds of politics. If you want to find fields where better methods roiutinely displace worse ones rather than vice versa, you have to look to the free enterprise sector of the economy. Without the freedoms and incentives of the marketplace, stagnation and declining productivity are the norm. Education is no different in this regard from any other field.
And just to be clear, I am convinced by the earlier research that the pedagogical ideas behind Reading First are sound, and that when properly implemented its systematic use of phonics is superior to most of what it would have displaced. I’m simply pointing out that there was never good reason to expect a government-protected monopoly consistently implement it effecitvely, and that even if it did for some period of time Reading First would eventually have fallen victim to shifting political winds. While some may choose to disagree on the first point, the second has already come to pass.
If we want schools around the country to continually adopt and refine the best methods available, we must create the freedoms and incentives that will cause that to happen… or get used to disappointment.
Cato at Liberty, Apr 01, 2009
I’ve received a fair bit of e-mail in response to my commentary yesterday on the recent defunding of the Bush administration’s Reading First program. Several people questioned my assertion that the program failed to yield a significant nationwide improvement in literacy. I cited a 2008 federal government report in support of that assertion, but questions were raised as to the validity of that study and other research seeming to contradict it was presented.
Taking the latter point first, it was pointed out that an EDS study of California found a positive impact to the program, as did an NWREL study of 5 other Western states. Note that there is not necessarily any contradiction between the federal study and the California and Western states studies. It’s possible that, nationwide, Reading First was associated with academic improvements in some schools, no effect in others, and lower performance in still others, resulting in the overall lack of impact reported by the federal government study. If so, it could be that schools in which Reading First proved effective are unevenly distributed around the country, and happen to be concentrated in the West.
Another possibility is that the federal study was so flawed that it failed to find a significant positive effect to Reading First when there actually was one. For the sake of argument, let’s say that this is true and that Reading First is actually working, overall, at improving student literacy nationwide. If so, what confidence should we have that it would continue to be effectively implemented in the long term, and not displaced by something else, or altered so as to become ineffective?
The answer is: not much. As I’ve noted in the case of the Follow Through experiment of the 60s and 70s, which is typical, even when a proven method is adopted in public school classrooms and yields great success it tends to be discarded for one reason or another. Since nothing fundamental has changed in the incentive structure of public schooling since the 1970s, there is no reason to believe that Reading First would buck the trend and somehow survive in perpetutity.
But all of this is of course academic, because Congress has already defunded the program. Democrats were not interested in continuing to evaluate the program to make absolutely sure of its impact. They killed it almost immediately because it is a traditionalist pedgaogical program that appeals to conservatives rather than “progressives.”
And that was the second point of my commentary: even when effective methods are implemented in public schools they remain subject to the inconstant winds of politics. If you want to find fields where better methods roiutinely displace worse ones rather than vice versa, you have to look to the free enterprise sector of the economy. Without the freedoms and incentives of the marketplace, stagnation and declining productivity are the norm. Education is no different in this regard from any other field.
And just to be clear, I am convinced by the earlier research that the pedagogical ideas behind Reading First are sound, and that when properly implemented its systematic use of phonics is superior to most of what it would have displaced. I’m simply pointing out that there was never good reason to expect a government-protected monopoly consistently implement it effecitvely, and that even if it did for some period of time Reading First would eventually have fallen victim to shifting political winds. While some may choose to disagree on the first point, the second has already come to pass.
If we want schools around the country to continually adopt and refine the best methods available, we must create the freedoms and incentives that will cause that to happen… or get used to disappointment.
Social Security Is Running a Surplus…Oops
Social Security Is Running a Surplus…Oops. Michael D. Tanner
Cato at Liberty, April 1, 2009 @ 9:02 am
For years, opponents of Social Security reform have told us that there is no need to rush into changing the program because, after all, Social Security is running a surplus today. Well, according to a new report by the Congressional Budget Office, not so much.
CBO reports that the Social Security surplus, originally expected to be $80-90 billion this year and next will shrink to $16 billion this year and just $3 billion next year (essentially a rounding error) as a result of the recession and rising unemployment. And those estimates may be far too optimistic. In February of this year, for example, Social Security actually ran a deficit—spending more than it took in through taxes and interest combined.
And, while CBO expects a return to modest surpluses after 2010, as the recession ends and unemployment falls, that is betting on the success of the unproven Obama economic program. If unemployment stays at current levels, Social Security will begin running permanent cash flow deficits in 2011 (eight years earlier than previously predicted).
Opponents of personal accounts have pointed out recent declines in the stock market as a reason why private investment should no longer be considered an option for Social Security reform. The evidence suggests that, even with recent market declines, private investment would still produce higher returns than Social Security. The new surplus numbers provide yet another lesson: if the economy is in such a mess that it hurts private investment, traditional Social Security isn’t going to be in any better shape.
The case for personal accounts remains as strong as ever.
Cato at Liberty, April 1, 2009 @ 9:02 am
For years, opponents of Social Security reform have told us that there is no need to rush into changing the program because, after all, Social Security is running a surplus today. Well, according to a new report by the Congressional Budget Office, not so much.
CBO reports that the Social Security surplus, originally expected to be $80-90 billion this year and next will shrink to $16 billion this year and just $3 billion next year (essentially a rounding error) as a result of the recession and rising unemployment. And those estimates may be far too optimistic. In February of this year, for example, Social Security actually ran a deficit—spending more than it took in through taxes and interest combined.
And, while CBO expects a return to modest surpluses after 2010, as the recession ends and unemployment falls, that is betting on the success of the unproven Obama economic program. If unemployment stays at current levels, Social Security will begin running permanent cash flow deficits in 2011 (eight years earlier than previously predicted).
Opponents of personal accounts have pointed out recent declines in the stock market as a reason why private investment should no longer be considered an option for Social Security reform. The evidence suggests that, even with recent market declines, private investment would still produce higher returns than Social Security. The new surplus numbers provide yet another lesson: if the economy is in such a mess that it hurts private investment, traditional Social Security isn’t going to be in any better shape.
The case for personal accounts remains as strong as ever.
Making sense of the “killer meat” study
Making sense of the “killer meat” study. By Rebecca Goldin Ph.D and Trevor Butterworth
Modest risk suggests meat in moderation, but cancer researchers warn that too much is being made of the link between diet and cancer at the expense of smoking and obesity.
stats.org, March 30, 2009
Hundreds of news stories last week warned people that eating red meat raised their risk for cancer and death. The headline in the Los Angeles Times health section was succinct: “Killer meat,” and the opening graph warned:
“Before you dig into another hamburger, consider this: Americans who ate the most red meat boosted their overall risk of death by 30% during a 10-year period compared to those who ate the least, according to a new study. And before you switch to cold cuts instead, keep in mind that people who consumed the most processed meat raised their overall risk of death by at least 16%.”
Actually, the study didn’t quite say this. While this large prospective study did find a modest association between dying and eating meat, the risks cited were not due to one hamburger. “Meat Intake and Mortality: A Prospective Study of Over Half a Million People” which was published in the Archives of Internal Medicine didn’t, as many other studies on diet have done, pool numerous, smaller studies to achieve a high number of participants. The study tracked over half a million Americans aged 50 – 71 from eight states over ten years and started with a common baseline evaluation of diet, which was then tracked through questionnaires. Naturally, self-reporting always raises questions as to whether the participants are capable of complete fidelity and recall, but the researchers appear to have conducted spot checks, as well as adjust for confounders like smoking.
The researchers compared high levels of red and processed meat consumption (meaning those people in the top 20 percent for meat consumption as a proportion of their calories) to those eating low levels of red and processed meat (i.e. those in the bottom 20 percent consumption level). To give a sense of the difference among the two groups, people with the highest red meat consumption ate almost seven times as much meat as those in the lowest group. For a man, that amounted to 68.1g/1000kcal of meat per day, which is almost a 1/3 lb burger a day (based on the 2116 calorie diet these men typically ate). Those in the lowest quintile of meat consumption ate on average 9.3g/1000, which comes out to approximately the same burger once a week. So before you panic, consider how your red meat intake compares to the people in the study.
On the other hand, there was some good news for meat lovers as well: high levels of white meat consumption seem to lower your chance of death. For those in the highest quintile of white meat consumption (which includes poultry and fish), the risk of death was associated with an approximately eight percent lower chance of death in the ten years of the study, for both men and women. But a curious feature that might temper the benefits of white meat to nonsmokers is that high levels of white meat consumption seems to raise rather significantly their risk of cardiovascular disease. You’re in luck if you’re a smoker, however; for this group, white meat intake seemed to have no relationship to cardiovascular disease.
These were the results driving the interest in the study, although weirdly, the strangest association was between high red meat consumption in men versus low red meat consumption and mortality due to “injuries and sudden death.“
That result – a hazard ratio of 26 percent (meaning 26 percent more likely) – was buried by the media. The category included death from unintentional injury, adverse effects, suicide, self-inflicted injury, homicide, and legal intervention. The authors note that the number of deaths was low, but the mechanism is not clear. The finding is a reminder that mining epidemiological data can produce strange relationships. In particular, since it seems difficult to argue for causality, it suggests that red meat consumption may be linked to other behaviors that were not controlled for by the study. Are male red meat eaters likelier to take risks? Are suicidal old men more likely to eat red meat?
While the study has rather convincingly linked high levels or red meat to increased mortality, the purported risk increase is much lower than it is, for example, between smoking or obesity and cancer. Inevitably, this means that the causal link is weaker. As with any observational study, there are some limitations to drawing a causal line between red meat and cancer mortality. The study attempted to control for these factors, but it is impossible to control for everything. There is also no way to discern from this study whether eating less meat would provide the direct benefit of the magnitude of the study. One can only assume that the people who reported high levels of meat consumption had been eating that amount of meat for their entire lives.
Wider problems in nutrition research
The other, wider problem is that while red meat has provided figurative red meat for nutrition researchers, there has been increased criticism of the dramatic claims being made for the nutritional basis of cancer from actual cancer researchers. Many of the news stories said the study supported the claims by the World Cancer Research Fund linking red meat and cancer. For example, Forbes noted:
“Though nutrition experts frequently recommend eating less meat, Mozaffarian says research linking red and processed meat consumption and mortality weren't consistent. But last year, when the World Cancer Research Fund International reviewed the scientific literature on red meat intake and cancer, researchers determined a link between the two.”
Reuters quoted Ian Olver, Chief Executive Officer of Cancer Council Australia, saying that:
“This large study provides further evidence to support the recommendations by groups such as the World Cancer Research Fund in demonstrating an association between a high consumption of red and processed meats and a increase risk of death from cancer.”
But as STATS previously noted, the World Cancer Research Fund only managed to do achieve this link by excluding the largest ever study examining the association, whose publication had been delayed for three years after the results were initially made known. Those results did not show a link between cancer and meat consumption. The Harvard Pooling Project, which conducted that meta-analysis, and other recent research have thrown a wrench into the conventional scientific wisdom about nutrition and health, and the exclusion of some of its key studies from the World Cancer Research Fund has left some cancer researchers troubled.
A recent editorial in the Journal of Oncology written by the director of the International Agency for Research on Cancer (Boyle et al, Oct 2008) warned that smoking and obesity as significant causes for cancer were being minimized in the face of weak evidence for diet.
"In presenting its summary and recommendations, the [World Cancer Research Fund] report implicitly downplays the key importance of tobacco smoking in cancer causation. Contrary to that stated in the press release (the best advice for cancer prevention is to avoid weight gain), avoiding tobacco smoking and use of tobacco in other forms is the single best advice to reducing cancer risk as one-third of cancer deaths in high-income countries is attributable to tobacco use. Failure to include ‘stop smoking’ and ‘avoid exposure and exposing others to second-hand smoke’ among the 10 key recommendations undermines the most important message in cancer control. The ‘best advice’ also fails to mention the importance of a variety of established cancer risk factors including sun behaviour, occupational exposures, chronic infections and use of exogenous hormones."
At the same time, the evidence presented by the WCRF for diet’s role in cancer had gotten weaker:
"‘We think we know’ or, more accurately, ‘we thought we knew’ that a high-fat diet and low consumption of fruits, vegetables and fibres were associated with increased risks of common cancers. However, faith in the cancer prevention properties of fruits and vegetables began to crack when all the available evidence was critically reviewed by an International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) Working Group. Subsequently, it has crumbled as major analyses of prospective studies have continued to demonstrate consistently a lack of association between intake of fruits and vegetables and risk of several cancers. This major change in classification of one the few agents classified by WCRF in the category of strongest evidence in 1997 casts doubt on the rationale to classify ‘convincing’ to the evidence linking high meat intake to colorectal cancer risk in the current report. This also raises questions about the evaluation process and about the robustness of the classification system."
But the IARC noted
"The substantial review of the evidence in the WCRF report demonstrates that there is no discernible association between many forms of cancer and specific dietary practices. There are still some very interesting hypotheses to pursue, such as the value of an approach on the basis of the food patterns (e.g. the Mediterranean diet score) rather than individual foods and nutrients, but the cupboard is remarkably bare."
The failure of science to come up with robust conclusions about diet and cancer is one of the emerging "inconvenient truths" in public health (the other is that diets don't really work), and both are at odds with giving the public clear, comprehensible guidelines for diet. This new study has been hailed for building on existing evidence that red meat consumption is linked to cancer, but good reporting would include the naysayers as well as the yaysayers; scientific consensus is never built with one study alone.
Modest risk suggests meat in moderation, but cancer researchers warn that too much is being made of the link between diet and cancer at the expense of smoking and obesity.
stats.org, March 30, 2009
Hundreds of news stories last week warned people that eating red meat raised their risk for cancer and death. The headline in the Los Angeles Times health section was succinct: “Killer meat,” and the opening graph warned:
“Before you dig into another hamburger, consider this: Americans who ate the most red meat boosted their overall risk of death by 30% during a 10-year period compared to those who ate the least, according to a new study. And before you switch to cold cuts instead, keep in mind that people who consumed the most processed meat raised their overall risk of death by at least 16%.”
Actually, the study didn’t quite say this. While this large prospective study did find a modest association between dying and eating meat, the risks cited were not due to one hamburger. “Meat Intake and Mortality: A Prospective Study of Over Half a Million People” which was published in the Archives of Internal Medicine didn’t, as many other studies on diet have done, pool numerous, smaller studies to achieve a high number of participants. The study tracked over half a million Americans aged 50 – 71 from eight states over ten years and started with a common baseline evaluation of diet, which was then tracked through questionnaires. Naturally, self-reporting always raises questions as to whether the participants are capable of complete fidelity and recall, but the researchers appear to have conducted spot checks, as well as adjust for confounders like smoking.
The researchers compared high levels of red and processed meat consumption (meaning those people in the top 20 percent for meat consumption as a proportion of their calories) to those eating low levels of red and processed meat (i.e. those in the bottom 20 percent consumption level). To give a sense of the difference among the two groups, people with the highest red meat consumption ate almost seven times as much meat as those in the lowest group. For a man, that amounted to 68.1g/1000kcal of meat per day, which is almost a 1/3 lb burger a day (based on the 2116 calorie diet these men typically ate). Those in the lowest quintile of meat consumption ate on average 9.3g/1000, which comes out to approximately the same burger once a week. So before you panic, consider how your red meat intake compares to the people in the study.
On the other hand, there was some good news for meat lovers as well: high levels of white meat consumption seem to lower your chance of death. For those in the highest quintile of white meat consumption (which includes poultry and fish), the risk of death was associated with an approximately eight percent lower chance of death in the ten years of the study, for both men and women. But a curious feature that might temper the benefits of white meat to nonsmokers is that high levels of white meat consumption seems to raise rather significantly their risk of cardiovascular disease. You’re in luck if you’re a smoker, however; for this group, white meat intake seemed to have no relationship to cardiovascular disease.
These were the results driving the interest in the study, although weirdly, the strangest association was between high red meat consumption in men versus low red meat consumption and mortality due to “injuries and sudden death.“
That result – a hazard ratio of 26 percent (meaning 26 percent more likely) – was buried by the media. The category included death from unintentional injury, adverse effects, suicide, self-inflicted injury, homicide, and legal intervention. The authors note that the number of deaths was low, but the mechanism is not clear. The finding is a reminder that mining epidemiological data can produce strange relationships. In particular, since it seems difficult to argue for causality, it suggests that red meat consumption may be linked to other behaviors that were not controlled for by the study. Are male red meat eaters likelier to take risks? Are suicidal old men more likely to eat red meat?
While the study has rather convincingly linked high levels or red meat to increased mortality, the purported risk increase is much lower than it is, for example, between smoking or obesity and cancer. Inevitably, this means that the causal link is weaker. As with any observational study, there are some limitations to drawing a causal line between red meat and cancer mortality. The study attempted to control for these factors, but it is impossible to control for everything. There is also no way to discern from this study whether eating less meat would provide the direct benefit of the magnitude of the study. One can only assume that the people who reported high levels of meat consumption had been eating that amount of meat for their entire lives.
Wider problems in nutrition research
The other, wider problem is that while red meat has provided figurative red meat for nutrition researchers, there has been increased criticism of the dramatic claims being made for the nutritional basis of cancer from actual cancer researchers. Many of the news stories said the study supported the claims by the World Cancer Research Fund linking red meat and cancer. For example, Forbes noted:
“Though nutrition experts frequently recommend eating less meat, Mozaffarian says research linking red and processed meat consumption and mortality weren't consistent. But last year, when the World Cancer Research Fund International reviewed the scientific literature on red meat intake and cancer, researchers determined a link between the two.”
Reuters quoted Ian Olver, Chief Executive Officer of Cancer Council Australia, saying that:
“This large study provides further evidence to support the recommendations by groups such as the World Cancer Research Fund in demonstrating an association between a high consumption of red and processed meats and a increase risk of death from cancer.”
But as STATS previously noted, the World Cancer Research Fund only managed to do achieve this link by excluding the largest ever study examining the association, whose publication had been delayed for three years after the results were initially made known. Those results did not show a link between cancer and meat consumption. The Harvard Pooling Project, which conducted that meta-analysis, and other recent research have thrown a wrench into the conventional scientific wisdom about nutrition and health, and the exclusion of some of its key studies from the World Cancer Research Fund has left some cancer researchers troubled.
A recent editorial in the Journal of Oncology written by the director of the International Agency for Research on Cancer (Boyle et al, Oct 2008) warned that smoking and obesity as significant causes for cancer were being minimized in the face of weak evidence for diet.
"In presenting its summary and recommendations, the [World Cancer Research Fund] report implicitly downplays the key importance of tobacco smoking in cancer causation. Contrary to that stated in the press release (the best advice for cancer prevention is to avoid weight gain), avoiding tobacco smoking and use of tobacco in other forms is the single best advice to reducing cancer risk as one-third of cancer deaths in high-income countries is attributable to tobacco use. Failure to include ‘stop smoking’ and ‘avoid exposure and exposing others to second-hand smoke’ among the 10 key recommendations undermines the most important message in cancer control. The ‘best advice’ also fails to mention the importance of a variety of established cancer risk factors including sun behaviour, occupational exposures, chronic infections and use of exogenous hormones."
At the same time, the evidence presented by the WCRF for diet’s role in cancer had gotten weaker:
"‘We think we know’ or, more accurately, ‘we thought we knew’ that a high-fat diet and low consumption of fruits, vegetables and fibres were associated with increased risks of common cancers. However, faith in the cancer prevention properties of fruits and vegetables began to crack when all the available evidence was critically reviewed by an International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) Working Group. Subsequently, it has crumbled as major analyses of prospective studies have continued to demonstrate consistently a lack of association between intake of fruits and vegetables and risk of several cancers. This major change in classification of one the few agents classified by WCRF in the category of strongest evidence in 1997 casts doubt on the rationale to classify ‘convincing’ to the evidence linking high meat intake to colorectal cancer risk in the current report. This also raises questions about the evaluation process and about the robustness of the classification system."
But the IARC noted
"The substantial review of the evidence in the WCRF report demonstrates that there is no discernible association between many forms of cancer and specific dietary practices. There are still some very interesting hypotheses to pursue, such as the value of an approach on the basis of the food patterns (e.g. the Mediterranean diet score) rather than individual foods and nutrients, but the cupboard is remarkably bare."
The failure of science to come up with robust conclusions about diet and cancer is one of the emerging "inconvenient truths" in public health (the other is that diets don't really work), and both are at odds with giving the public clear, comprehensible guidelines for diet. This new study has been hailed for building on existing evidence that red meat consumption is linked to cancer, but good reporting would include the naysayers as well as the yaysayers; scientific consensus is never built with one study alone.
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