Iraq and Iran

Arianna Huffington is right in her blog about the Iraq-Iran partnership made in America. The US war in Iraq vastly strengthened Iran's role in the Middle East.  The strengthened Iran already has consequences in today's Middle East because of its support for Syria's President Assad in addition to other trouble-making groups such as Hezbollah.  

Polish Death Camps

Poland has objected to Obama's reference to a "Polish death camp" while honoring a Pole who helped make the world aware of the Holocaust taking place in Nazi death camps in Poland.  The Polish objection shows their sensitivity on this issue, but certainly what Obama meant was that this was a death camp in Poland, not a death camp run by the Polish government.

Nevertheless, when I lived in Poland I was struck by the fact that they almost always referred to atrocities of the the World War II era as having been carried out by the Nazis, not by the Germans.  The Germans are still here and still next door neighbors of Poland, but the Nazi government is long gone.  So, the Poles live up to the standard that they are demanding from Obama.

Memorial Day Rembrance

Just for the record on Memorial Day, I want to remember the two men in my unit, A Battery 2/94th Artillery, who were killed at Firebase Barbara and whose names are on the Vietnam Memorial wall:
Paul Kosanke, and
Willie Austin, Jr.

Congressional Letter re Finance

I sent the following to my two Colorado Senators:

Please support Sen. Sherrod Brown's SAFE Banking Act of 2012 to rein in "too big to fail" banks.  JP Morgan's $2 billion loss announced yesterday shows how seriously out of control our banking industry is, only a few years after the 2008 Lehman debacle.  Although JP Morgan claims that its "hedging" was not in violation of the Volker rule, I think that it likely was.  JP Morgan was just gambling with its depositors' money, trying to make a quick buck, which was almost riskless, because the US taxpayers are still guaranteeing the assets of the "too big to fail" banks.

Simon Johnson of MIT and the IMF has called for Jamie Dimon to resign.


You are just throwing away America's money guaranteeing the foolish bets of fat cats on Wall Street.  I can't tell you how disappointed I am that President Obama threw Elizabeth Warren under the bus after all she did to establish the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.  She was the only one in Washington speaking out for the middle class, and now she is gone.

I don't have much hope.  The US Congress is largely dysfunctional.  We have no fiscal policy.  Ben Bernanke has so far saved us from disaster with monetary policy, but he can't singlehandedly save the world.  You could give him a little help.

Two of the most important additional things the Congress could do are

-- Put the Bowles-Simpson proposals back on the table to address our financial crisis.  They were reasonable; they addressed the most important issue facing the US, and they have been ignored by the Congress.

-- Reinstate the Glass-Steagall Act.  The repeal of Glass-Steagall, led in Congress by Republican Phil Gramm and signed by President Bill Clinton, was responsible for the financial crash of 2008 and the current rogue activities of the big banks.  Banks should be banks, not gambling casinos.  

War Didn't Help

In today's NYT, Paul Krugman talks about how World War II pulled the US out of the Depression, although people back then also said that stimulus would not work.

It reminded me of the difference between World War II and the Iraq and Afghanistan wars.  First Roosevelt in WW II called on all of America to pay for the war, although it still ran up enormous deficits.  Bush said, "Go shopping," to support the Iraq war; you don't need to pay taxes.  If Bush had attempted to pay for the Iraq war, we probably would have had fairer, more equitable taxes, which would have done something to mitigate the perception that the current US tax system is seriously unjust.  We grew up hearing about the merits of the American progressive tax system that taxed the rich more than the poor, and now we find that we have a regressive tax system that taxes the poor more than the rich.  The Republicans argue that the rich still pay the bulk of the taxes, which is true, but only because they earn the bulk of the income.  Also, defenders of the current system seldom bring payroll taxes into the discussion, because if they did, the disparity would be even worse.  It's true that many very poor people don't pay income tax, but many more of them pay payroll taxes for Social Security and Medicare.

The other disparity between the rich and the poor that the war widened is between those who defend America and those who stay home and make money while the soldiers fight.  In the old days, especially when there was a draft, the stay-at-homes were shamed as "war profiteers," but today they are hailed as "entrepreneurs."  In WW II almost everybody who was healthy fought; today almost all soldiers come from the lower classes, and disproportionately from small towns and rural areas, where there is still some feeling of patriotism.  Ironically, the 9/11 attack on the twin towers was directed at America's richest 1%, but the 1% by and large didn't fight back, it hired the 99% to fight and die for them.  Now when those soldiers come home seeking jobs, the 1% that owns everything usually turns its back on them.

The US has regressed so far back toward the old feudal system that we don't need new laws or an updated Constitution, we need a new Magna Carta.  Welcome to the 13th century!

Guantanamo Trials Are Legal Failure

The "trial" of the 9/11 terrorists in Guantanamo signals a significant failure of the American legal system.  The victims of 9/11 deserve better, because no one will believe that justice will have been done.  The prisoners may be guilty, but many victims of lynchings and other mob violence over the years have also been guilty.  The sign of civilization would be a fair trial, but Congress and the Obama administration have balked at allowing a fair rial.  The military lawyers in Guantanamo will do their best, but they have been put in an impossible situation.

25th Anniversary of MTCR

The following is a press release from the US Department of State:

Formed by the (then) G-7 industrialized countries in 1987, the Missile Technology Control Regime (MTCR) is an informal political understanding among states that seek to limit the proliferation of missiles and related technology; it is not a treaty. Since its creation, 27 additional countries have joined the MTCR, and many other countries have adhered unilaterally to the MTCR Guidelines or otherwise control exports of MTCR Annex items.

Originally focused on restricting exports of nuclear-capable ballistic missiles and related technology, the Regime expanded its scope in 1993 to cover unmanned delivery systems capable of carrying all types of weapons of mass destruction (WMD) -- chemical, biological, and nuclear. In 2002, the MTCR Partners (members) made terrorism an explicit focus of the Regime. Both of those steps were in direct support of the WMD nonproliferation objectives of the Biological Weapons Convention, Chemical Weapons Convention, and Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty.

The MTCR seeks to limit the risks of proliferation of WMD by controlling transfers that could make a contribution to delivery systems (other than manned aircraft) for such weapons. More broadly, the MTCR Guidelines (export control policies) and Annex (list of export-controlled items) have become the international standard for responsible missile-related export behavior. The MTCR and its Annex were implicitly endorsed in UN Security Council Resolution (UNSCR) 1540 of 2004, which affirms that the proliferation of WMD delivery means constitutes a threat to international peace and security and requires all UN Member States to establish domestic controls against such proliferation. The MTCR Annex also forms the basis of the list of missile-related items prohibited from being transferred to Iran under UNSCRs 1737 and 1929, and to North Korea under UNSCR 1718.

Over the course of the Regime’s 25-year history, the efforts of MTCR member countries have reduced the number of countries possessing missiles capable of delivering WMD, the global inventory of such missiles, and the number of countries interested in acquiring such missiles. The establishment by MTCR member and adherent countries of missile-related export controls has significantly reduced the availability to proliferators of support from the countries possessing the most and best technology. The export controls, information-sharing, and patterns of cooperation fostered by the MTCR also have resulted in the interdiction of numerous shipments of equipment intended for missile programs of concern. All of these measures have made it more difficult, time-consuming, and costly for proliferators to produce or acquire WMD capable missiles.

As it has done since 1987, the United States will continue to work through the MTCR to reduce the global missile proliferation threat by restraining the missile-related exports of an expanding number of countries and by increasing the pressure on proliferators to abandon their missile programs. The United States continues to encourage all non-member countries to support the MTCR’s efforts and to unilaterally abide by MTCR standards in the interest of international peace and security.

The MTCR currently has 34 members: Argentina, Australia, Austria, Belgium, Brazil, Bulgaria, Canada, the Czech Republic, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Iceland, Italy, Ireland, Japan, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Poland, Portugal, the Republic of Korea, the Russian Federation, South Africa, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Turkey, Ukraine, the United Kingdom, and the United States.

Liberal Education Still Important

With all the talk today about education, no one talks about the importance of a liberal education.  Despite the Conservative hatred of the word liberal, it means "free."  It is the education that free men should have in order to be able to govern themselves.  In the old days, when voting was limited to white men who owned land, they were the only ones who needed a liberal education.  Now that everybody can vote, everybody needs a liberal education.  We were close to that goal in the 1960's with the rise of cheap state universities and community colleges, but as governments have gone bankrupt, that ideal has disappeared.

Instead of seeing education as a resource that should be widely available, it is a commercial enterprise that is expensive, even for no-name colleges and universities.  Thus it has become all about money, not about learning.   All the students and the professors care about are salable skills.  Universities have become trade schools rather than centers of learning.

The Denver Post ran a front page article on higher education Sunday, but it was all about money -- funding for education.  Doing a search of the page, I did not find a single reference to the liberal arts, which was the most important role of a university a few decades ago, and certainly a hundred years ago.  Higher education has changed, and not for the better. The "bottom line" was that it's looking more and more like the State of Colorado will soon quit funding higher education entirely.

Romney VP Hopefuls Are Fiscal Failures

Two frequently discussed vice presidential hopefuls for presidential candidate Mitt Romney are Rob Portman and Mitch Daniels.  Both were the principle budget strategists for George W. Bush as heads of his Office of Management and Budget (OMB).  Indiana Governor Mitch Daniels was head of OMB from 2001 to 2003; Ohio Senator Portman was OMB director from 2006 to 2007.

Daniels oversaw the post-9/11 invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq without raising taxes.  He publicly estimated the cost of the Iraq war at $50 to $60 billion. A recent Brown University study has estimated the direct cost of the Iraq war at around $750 billion.  Wikipedia says that on Daniels' watch, the US went from a budget surplus of $236 billion to a deficit of $400 billion.  Wikipedia says that on Portman's watch the US public debt increased by $469 billion.

Both of these Republican budget directors follow in the footsteps of David Stockman, Reagan's OMB chief from 1981 to 1985.  Stockman successfully led the fight for Reagan's huge tax cuts, but after cutting revenues, he was unsuccessful in cutting federal expenditures, thus beginning the series of huge budget deficits that persist to this day.  Stockman doubled the national debt from $1 trillion to $2 trillion during his tenure.  The current national debt is about $15.5 trillion.

Jobs Bill and Facebook

I am worried that there is some connection between the recently passed Jobs bill and the Facebook IPO.  Facebook has been the poster child for huge IPOs that give preference to insiders.  Facebook was limited by the old restrictions of privately held companies.  It's not clear whether the new Jobs bill will change its situation. It may be too big, maybe not.  It's already in the situation where the number of shareholders of record is limited, but the actual number of shareholders is much higher.  Goldman Sachs counts as one shareholder, but it can hold shares for its preferred clients, raising the total well beyond 500 or whatever the limit was.  Even if this law does not directly affect Facebook, it will affect new IPOs, and while it may marginally aid new businesses, it will enormously aid rich Wall Street insiders.  At the same time, as the NYT article points out, it may increase the risks of bad investments in questionable companies by small, unsophisticated investors.  I would like to know what Elizabeth Warren thinks about the bill.  Is it good for America?  Is it good for the middle class (or what's left of it)?  Or is it just good for the super rich, especially those who live in Silicon Valley?  Unfortunately I do not trust Obama to do what is best for the middle class (and the country).  He has sold out to the super rich.

Sen. Bill Frist and Denver Hospitals

I have been upset for some time about HCA's takeover of a number of Colorado hospitals.  HCA is owned by the Frist family, whom Sen. Bill Frist represented in the Senate.  Health care is a mess; hospitals are making fortunes, and Bill Frist's is one of them.  Rather than using his expertise on health care to improve it while he was in the Senate, he used it mainly to enrich himself and his family.  Although he was Senate leader, he is remembered mainly for his provide-medical-care-at-any-cost argument to keep Terri Schiavo alive.  Frist is an example of what is wrong with the American health care system, and he was a leader in the Senate.  What is good for his wallet is not necessarily good for the country.

Now, Frist's for-profit HCA plans to take over many of Colorado's not-for-profit hospitals, creating concerns that the hospitals will no longer be run for the public benefit.

On the other hand, a Catholic-conected hospital systsem, SCL, plans to expand in Colorado, raising questions about whether the hospitals taken over will provide for the full range of women's health services that they provide now, since the Catholic church opposes contraception, abortion, etc.

Bernanke Lectures Aimed at Ron Paul

Fed Chairman Bernanke's lectures at George Washington University are aimed at Republican candidate Ron Paul, who represents a significant strain of thought about the Federal Reserve.  Paul believes that the Fed is evil because it interferes with the free functioning the American economy and most often encourages inflation.  Paul would like to see the US return to the gold standard.  Bernanke's first lecture dealt extensively with the issue, in particular recalling William Jennings Bryan's speech about "the cross of gold" on which the rich were crucifying average workers and farmers.

Bernanke correctly asked why the world economies should be restricted by the amount of gold that is mined around the world.  It's clearly better to have a money supply that can be managed to correspond the amount of goods and services being produced that the amount of gold being mined.  On the other hand, Paul is right that an irresponsible Fed can allow or encourage detrimental policies which might well increase inflation (or create deflation).  In an ideal world, however, the US would have a competent Fed which would maintain a proper money supply to facilitate growth and full employment.

One problem these days is that the US has no fiscal policy.  Congress is dysfunctional.  Republicans refuse to raise taxes; Democrats, to cut expenditures.  So, the full burden of trying to manage the American economy falls on the Fed, with some help from the Executive Branch, depending on what it can do by executive order, by the Treasury selling bonds, etc.

But Paul's gold bugs don't trust bureaucrats.  They would rather have the economy controlled by external forces, rather than the government.

I prefer to have Bernanke try to manage the economy rather than leave it hostage to South African gold miners.

Republicans Not Saving Money

In a legitimate debate about health care, Democrats would want single payer system assuring coverage for everybody.  Republicans would want a system that reduced costs.  What actually happened with Obama Care, however, was that the Republican insistence on using private heath insurance companies actually increased costs by increasing the power and profits of  insurance companies without reducing doctors' or hospitals' costs.  A single payer system would have given the government leverage to bring down costs; whether it would have actually done so will never be known.  Congress was quick to restore doctors' Medicare fees to the old, higher level when they were in danger of being reduced by some of the automatic budget reductions.  

Some doctors refuse to accept Medicare patients because Medicare pays less than private insurance.  If Congress had passed "Medicare for everybody," however, doctors would have had less opportunity to earn the high rates they currently do, although for the doctors who treat the richest "one-percent" price is irrelevant.  

In a New York Times report on the richest one percent,they found that after a general category called "managers," physicians made up the next largest portion of the one percent, with those working out of their own offices earning the most. Almost none of these rich doctors work in a world where fees are set by a free market; they are either paid by insurance companies or the government, in both cases with fees set in advance.  A patient who walks in the door of a doctor's office has no bargaining rights.  The doctors make sure up front that they are will paid.

The Republicans did nothing to insert free market principles in the health care law.  If anything, they strengthened the hands of the doctors in negotiating with the insurance companies and the government, assuring that the most expensive health care in the world will become even more expensive.  

Bankers Pay Obama for Dumping Warren

Bloomberg reports that JP Morgan and other banks are among the top donors to Obama's campaign.  Obama has sold out to the bankers.  For me Obama's  most egregious act was throwing Elizabeth Warren under the bus.  Jamie Dimon of JP Morgan led the campaign against her, and now he is paying Obama for dumping her.  It's good for Morgan, good for Obama, bad for America, and bad for the middle class.  Jamie Dimon has said that his bank does not want to do business with anyone who has less than $100,000 in his account.  Obama has sold out the majority of his supporters for Wall Street money, figuring that the middle class has nowhere else to go.  Right now the only thing that would get me to vote for Obama is for the Republicans to nominate Rick Santorum.  America is becoming the Roman Empire.  Nero start fiddling!  Caligula start partying!  Let's run a budget deficit of $5 trillion; who cares?  America ranks 34th in infant mortality according to Wikipedia.  The Republicans are against birth control and abortion because they love to kill babies after they are born.  This is NOT a great country.

Bloomberg has recently posted a story about how many payday lenders are supporting Romney, because he has pledged to overturn Dodd-Frank, which under the leadership of Elizabeth Warren, cracked down on payday lenders and other unscrupulous loan businesses through the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, which Warren created. 

It's interesting that the big banks, like JP Morgan, have responded to the new regulations by supporting Obama for getting rid of Warren, while the little guys, like the payday lenders, have responded by supporting Romney, hoping to get rid of the regulation entirely. 

Sad That Sen. Snowe Is Leaving

It's sad that Sen. Olympia Snowe is leaving the Senate.  She has been a moderate, responsible voice there.  It's worse that she cited the worsening political stalemate as a reason for her leaving.  It's a sign of America's decline as a great nation.  She's leaving uneducated, hateful, unwashed rabble  behind in the Senate, which once used to call itself the world's greatest deliberative body.  Now it's a cesspool.  Poor America!

Obama Tax Cuts

Obama's proposal to cut the corporate income tax rate to 28% is just another present for the richest 1%. It will help more than the 1%, but most of the beneficiaries will be relatively rich, and will probably benefit more than the regular people will from their payroll tax cut. It's arguable that that the corporate rate cut will provide needed stimulus, but the rich are already pretty well stimulated.

One reason interest rates are so low is that rich have plenty of money are are not investing. Thus relatively few people are borrowing to start businesses, etc. The current wisdom is that banks are not lending, but mainly that means not lending to regular people. The rich can get loans; they just don't need or want them.

Obama's going to help them out anyway, because they will give him money if he does. Of course, they will end up making a lot more money than they contribute to his campaign, but he'll get his cut.

Syria Is Another Religious War

The article in today's New York Times and Tom Friedman's column of several days ago make it clear that Syria is yet another religious war between the Sunni and Shiite Muslim sects.  Syrian President Assad's Alawite sect is Shiite, a minority in Syria; most of the protesters are Sunni, who are the (oppressed) majority.  So the Shiite Iranians are going to help Assad, and the neighboring Sunnis are going to help the protesting rebels.  The NYT says that the Iraqi Sunnis, who used to rule Iraq, until they were overthrown by the US invasion, now support their rebelling colleagues in Syria.

In the Iraq war, the US overthrew the Sunni government and set up a Shiite government that is best friends with Iran.  Now, the Republicans, who defeated Iran's worst enemy, Saddam Hussein, want to send in American troops to die overthrowing the Iranian government that was strengthened by the US invasion of Iraq.  I guess the important thing is that the American government wants to foment sectarian warfare in the Middle East.  It may well be coming next in Egypt.

Jews for America

While I've been critical of American Jews who love Israel more than America, there are many who have done great things for America.  First comes to mind the owners of the New York Times, the Sulzbergers, where most of my information comes from.  Then there is the guy, David Rubenstein, who is contributing half of the cost of repairing the Washington Monument.  I thought that I would find that he also gave tons of money to Israel, but if he did, it's not immediately obvious on the Internet.  For some reason, it seems to be the Republican Jews, who you would think are the most patriotic, who actually seem more devoted to Israel. 

For example, The New York Times Magazine highlighted the issue of Israel's invading Iran, which I don't think is entirely favorable to Israel. 

Israel Lovers Buy Newt

Yesterday's New York Times article on Sheldon Adelson's campaign contributions to Newt Gingrich illustrated my concerns in the previous post about American Jews whose first love is Israel.  It appears that Adelson's main reason for supporting Gingrich is that Newt is a 100% supporter of Israel.  Earlier articles said that the main bond between Adelson and Gingrich was Newt's anti-union stance, but that hardly seemed worth $10 million or more.  Newt's support for Israel is a better justification for the campaign contributions. 

The article says that Adelson, who was born in America, did not get the Israel bug until middle age, but once he got it, he really got it.  It's not surprising that Adelson supports Israel, per my earlier post, but I don't know why Newt is such a fervent supporter of Israel.  Why should America base its entire foreign policy on a relatively small country?  I doubt that he subscribes to the evangelical Christian ideas about the importance of Israel for the endtime.  Newt is not Jewish, but I'm guessing that he likes all the financial and political support that the gets from Jews for espousing pro-Israel policies.  Jews have wealth and political influence far exceeding their proportional representation in the American population. 

It sounds as if Newt is willing to send thousands of young American gentiles for fight and die in Iran, because Israel feels threatened by Iran.  This from a man who was a draft dodger during the Vietnam War.  Ironically, Newt's father was apparently in the Army infantry, but Newt had no intention of following in his father's footsteps.  Although there were many reasons for the US invasion of Iraq -- 9/11, Bush II's love/hate relationship with his father, massive intelligence failures -- one was certainly the Israeli/Jewish desire to get rid of Saddam Hussein, who in the first Gulf War had fired Scud missiles into Israel.  There was enormous Jewish pressure to attack Iraq, led by prominent Jews such as Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz.  Israelis were not willing to invade.  In fact, few American Jews enlisted to fight Iraq, but rich Jews paid to have poor, gentile rednecks fight there. 

Of course, now that it has come out how unjust the American income tax system is, it looks like rich Jews did not really pay that much to the rednecks.  They just got Congress to support the war, and the gentile middle class fought and financed Israel's war on Iraq.  Thank you Joe Lieberman, Carl Levin and your many Jewish political colleagues.  Of course, ironically for both Israel and the US, the Iraq War may have ended up strengthening Iran, thus further endangering Israel, rather than protecting it.  Iraq never really posed a threat to the US. 

I'm not sure, but Jews may perceive Mormons as less obsessed with Israel than other Christians, perhaps even as somewhat anti-Semitic.  Therefore there could be a Jewish movement for anybody but Romney, with Newt currently the most feasible not-Romney. 

Jews Support Israel over America

I am concerned that many Jews support Israel over America. I hesitate to say this because Jews are so belligerent and "in-your-face" that they will never admit to it. In addition, it is not true about all Jews. There are no doubt many American Jews whose first love is America, rather than Israel, but because the Israel-lovers are so vocal, it is hard to know whether there is a silent majority of America lovers, and if so, how big it is.

It is understandable that after the Holocaust, the Jews would have special relationship with Israel. Israel is sort of like Jews’ "panic room" if there is ever something else like the Holocaust. However, the world of nation states is not exactly like your own house. It is subject to certain international standards, although you are free to flout those standards if you can withstand the international pressure supporting them, e.g., the United Nations, various international courts, etc. One of the main complaints against Israel, in part because it is intended to be a safe home for Jews, is that it engages in apartheid-like discrimination against non-Jews, particularly Muslim Arabs.

In America, the main support for Israel is funneled through AIPAC, although there are many other pro-Israel organizations and publications in the US. It raises the suspicion in my mind that many Jews see the US primarily as a defender of Israel. They support the US, because the US supports Israel. Hence the huge amount of American government aid to Israel, sponsored by Jewish Congressmen and Senators, as well as by many gentile politicians. In addition to government-to-government aid, American Jews give huge private donations to Israel and Israeli charities.

The difference between Israel and the home countries of other immigrants to the US is that most American Jews did not emigrate from Israel. Many older Jews came from Europe before Israel even existed. Other immigrants, who came from other countries – European, Asian, African, Latin American – left countries that they were unhappy with for some reason, political, economic or social. Some will go back, but most will stay if America will let them. They chose to leave their birthplace. Most Jews, however, did not choose to leave Israel for America. They were born in America, or left some third country for America. Israel and America facilitate this arrangement by allowing all sorts of dual nationality possibilities that would be very unusual for other countries.

And so Jews who have become very economically and politically powerful in the US use their power to benefit Israel. They are happy to see the US embroiled in the Middle East, spending American lives and treasure on wars that mainly benefit Israel. Jews are pushing very strongly to get America to stop Iran’s nuclear program by force if necessary. If the Iraq war had gone as planned, Israel would have been the main beneficiary, but because the US mucked it up so badly, Iran has probably been the main beneficiary, to the chagrin of both Israel and the US.

I think more Jews vote Democratic than Republican, but in general Republicans seem to pride themselves on being stronger defenders of Israel than Democrats. In the Republican primaries, the candidates have delighted in saying that Obama is not a good enough friend to Israel.

I worry that because of the existence of Israel, there is a danger on issues that in any way affect Israel, from wars in the Middle East to banking regulation, there are influential American Jews who will put Israel’s interests ahead of America’s.

New Round of Tariffs

I am coming to believe that we need a new round of tariffs to protect American workers.  The article on Apple's manufacturing practices in Sunday's New York Times makes it sound like American workers don't have a chance to compete with Chinese workers.  Meanwhile an article in Technology Review points out how damaging to workers are the labor practices used by Apple's Chinese suppliers.  The only way American workers could compete is probably to subject themselves to the same miserable conditions that the Chinese workers endure.  In essence Apple is using slave labor.  It's arguable that US workers could compete in some highly mechanized robotic factory, but there is no sign that such a factory is under consideration by anybody, because it is easier and cheaper just to do it with people in China.

The Technology Review article calls for some kind of Fair Trade standard, like that used for coffee.  I think it is unlikely that such a standard would be tough enough to make any meaningful change in the electronics industry.  A tariff would have to be carefully constructed to avoid another Harley-Smoot disaster, but it could be based on protecting the health and welfare of the workers in exporting countries.  The worse the working conditions, the higher the tariff.  There could be verifiable standards, death rates of workers, hours worked per day, etc.

Instead of creating pressure to lower US working conditions to Chinese standards, such tariffs would pressure developing countries to provide better working conditions.  It would help level the playing field for developing and developed countries.  The current system unfairly benefits developing countries such as China.

Another Letter to Congressmen

The Mitt Romney discussion has made me very unhappy with the US tax code and Congress in general. Why should millionaire Mitt Romney pay a 15% tax rate, while poorer working people pay a significantely higher percentage? Paul O'Neill, former Secretary of Treasury, was just on Bloomberg Surveillance Midday, and said that the tax code is "unworthy" of the US.

Why do rich people hate America so much that they refuse to support it? And why does Congress accede to their wishes? Money! It just shows how corrupt the Congress is. Laws are up for sale to the highest bidder.

It's sad that all those graves in Arlington Cemetery were for nothing. America has become unjust and undemocratic. We are becoming the old Soviet Union or Nazi Germany, or something else equally bad. We have a department called "Homeland" Security, which sounds like it is straight out of Nazi Germany. Since when is "homeland" a good American word? The first thing Wikipedia says about "heimat" is that it is a German concept that has no simple English translation, although it is often expressed as "homeland." Wikipedia says, "Heimat is a German concept." I doubt that George Washington or Thomas Jefferson ever used the word "homeland," although I haven't researched it. (Searching the Washington papers in the Library of Congress, it appears to be used once, in a footnote by the editor about a Dutchman whom Washington knew.)

At the moment, I am inclined to support no candidate from a major party, Democratic or Republican, because I believe both parties are corrupt. One of the few politicians I support at the moment is Elizabeth Warren. Obama and the Democrats lost my vote when he threw her under the bus after she had worked tirelessly for the consumer protection bureau. Jamie Dimon, his fellow bank CEOs, their lawyers, their lobbyists, and their money, blocked her appointment.

This is a sad state of affairs, and you are part of it.

I hope that I won't go to jail under PIPA or SOPA for quoting from Wikipedia. Although maybe today is like the day back in 1846 when Henry Thoreau went to jail for refusing to pay his poll tax, leading to his seminal work on "Civil Disobedience." It's better to be in jail than to support a corrupt government.

Note: I am a Vietnam veteran (Army artillery) and a retired Foreign Service officer. My grandfather, a veteran of World War I, is buried in Arlington Cemetery. My father was a veteran of World War II and the Korean War. 

We need a country that is more concerned about honor than money. 

How Do We Stop the Iranian Bomb?

The Republican candidates, except for Ron Paul, are all hot and bothered about stopping Iran from getting the atomic bomb.  But they never mention Israel's bomb.  And they pretty much ignore Pakistan's bomb, and India's bomb.  And they never mention America's bombs, Russia's bombs, China's bombs, Britain's bombs, etc.  The responsible way to stop Iran would be to have a genuine, functioning non-proliferation regime, not one full of loopholes for any country determined to stay outside the regime. 

The main impetus behind Iran's drive to build a bomb is Israel's bomb.  It's not clear that the Iranians actually have a dedicated bomb development program, but it is clear that they want a nuclear infrastructure that would allow them to build a bomb in a relatively short time, if they decided that they needed one.  And why would they need one, probably because they felt threatened by Israel.  Of course, Israel feels threatened by Iran.  But the cold war was basically about mutual threats between the US and Russia, and we both survived, so far. 

If we were serious, about getting Iran to back off of its nuclear program, we all have to get serious about nuclear arms.  The US and Russia both have to seriously disarm.  Israel, Pakistan, and the rest have to give up their nuclear programs.  George Bush actually increased cooperation with India's civil nuclear program, despite is military nuclear program, a step undermining non-proliferation globally, although it may have made sense bilaterally. 

If the US were to invade Iran to shut down its nuclear program, by rights it should also invade Israel, Pakistan, North Korea, India, and other problem countries.  Arguably, the older nuclear powers, the US and Russia, are grandfathered under the regime, although they are theoretically obligated to disarm, too. 

Newt Gave Up on America

Newt Gingrich gave up on America when he shut down the government in 1995.  A great country would not give up and quit.  I'm still mad because it affected me directly.  First, while I was assigned to the American Embassy in Warsaw to run the Maria Sklodowska Curie fund, named in honor Nobel Prize winner Marie Curie, the Republicans stopped funding it after two or three years, although we had signed a agreement with Poland to fund it for five years.  A great country would honor its promises.  So, don't count on the Republicans, especially Newt, to honor any promises, whether to pay interest on the national debt, make Social Security payments, or pay soldiers' salaries. 

I was in the process of transferring from Poland to Italy at the State Department's request when Newt shut the government down.  The US Embassy in Rome furloughed me, along with most employees, but it left me with no place to live.  All my worldly possessions were in storage or in my car getting ready to leave Warsaw for Rome in one hour when they called and said, "Don't leave."  But my wife and I had no place to stay in Warsaw.  It worked out, but no thanks to Newt.  The government should not send people to foreign countries and then abandon them.  Newt is totally irresponsible.  The idea that he might be President is deeply disturbing. 

Romney and Jobs

Most of the debate about whether Romney created jobs at Bain Capital misses the point.  Of course, businesses succeed and fail.  Some jobs will be created, some eliminated.  The questions is whether Romney cared about jobs, or just about maximizing profits.  For example, if it cost Bain $1,000 to keep a job that paid $25,000 to some long-term employee, would Romney do it?  That question has not been asked, but I think the answer is no.  That is a legitimate position, a purely Darwinian capitalist view.  But do you want the government to approach the jobs issue the same way?  I don't think so.  The government should take a more humanitarian approach to jobs.  And businesses could, too. 

In some cases, businesses fail because the men who started them don't have the heart to fire people who have been with them for years, although the company's hard times require it.  The Mitt Romneys of the world can come in and do it because they are heartless.  And they end up preserving some jobs, just not all of them. 

But what is Romneys view of the importance of jobs versus profits?  We don't know, and probably never will, because Romney seems to have no permanent views on anything. 

I think Romney's income taxes may be revealing, if he releases them.  He probably benefitted from all the tax breaks for rich people, particularly those in investment activities, that the lobbyists have gotten passed over the years, thanks to huge donations from rich people.  They can afford huge payments to lobbyists and campaign contributions to politicians, because the resulting tax breaks save them obscene amounts of money.  I'm guessing Mitt benefited enormously.  It will be even worse if it turns out that he is hiding income by putting assets in the Cayman Islands, or some other tax haven. 

Obama Abandons Democratic Party

Obama's proposal to break up the Commerce Department is just another example of his kowtowing to the Republicans and abandoning Democratic party ideals.  Government needs reorganization, but breaking up a long existing cabinet department is not the way to start.  The Republicans probably want him to eliminate EPA or Education, and he thinks it is smart to hit Commerce instead, but it's still a recipe for disaster.  The Department of Homeland Security has been a disaster.  The country is no safer than when the agencies in Homeland Security were under different cabinet departments, but it has been a great financial boon for private contractors, most of whom have Congress under their thumb through their lobbyists and campaign contributions.  It's government welfare for rich contractors. 

Obama is a worthless coward.  People make a big deal of his approving the raid on Osama bin Laden and continued drone strikes, but in both cases he was just saying yes to hardliners in the military and intelligence communities.  Closing Guantanamo would take guts, and he won't do it, because he doesn't have the guts.  Elizabeth Warren makes him look like a little crybaby.  It's no wonder he didn't want her anywhere near him; the comparison is devastating. 

Republican Primary as Reality Show

The Republican primaries are basically a reality show.  The candidates are more like the housewives of Orange County than commanders in chief.  That’s why somebody who was just promoting a book, Herman Cain, came to be one of the leading contenders, if only for a few weeks  The debates and campaign speeches have been in general uneducated and banal, except for Ron Paul and Jon Huntsman, who have espoused reasonable positions, although I may not agree with them.  I think Ron Paul is wrong in his opposition to the Fed, but he is right that we are in serious economic trouble.  I think Huntsman is right on most important issues -- economic and foreign policy -- but too conservative on social issues like abortion and gun rights.  But Romney is campaigning as if he were a California housewife.  He may be the most intelligent housewife, but just a housewife nevertheless.  The others -- Santorum, Gingrich, Perry -- are good at puffery, but just full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.  Republican voters are not voting for a commander in chief but just on who is going to be voted off the island.

USAA and the Decline of the American Military

I’m a big fan of USAA insurance, but I think it’s significant that USAA now needs to advertise, when previously it tried to limit policyholders rather than attracting them.  In the old days USAA insurance was only available to military officers.  Because of patriotism and the draft, a lot of excellent people became military officers.  Many of them did not become career officers, but left after their initial period of service to return to civilian life, where they often became successful businessmen, lawyers, doctors, and other prosperous members of society.

 Vietnam destroyed respect for the American military, but because of the draft during the first part of the war, there were still a lot of good people who became officers.  With the end of the draft and rising disrespect of the military, particularly by “good” families, fewer and fewer people who were destined to become community leaders served as officers.   As a result USAA’s pool of excellent customers has been shrinking.  Now, instead of having a favorable opinion of former officers, Americans tend to have an unfavorable opinion, making it more difficult for former officers to rise to prominence in the civilian community.

As an example, look at recent Presidential elections.  The last military officer to serve as  President was George H. W. Bush.  He was defeated for his second term by Clinton, who avoided service in Vietnam.  Clinton defeated Bob Dole, a World War II hero, to win his second term.  Al Gore, Clinton’s Vice President, served in Vietnam, probably because as the son of a senator, he inherited a now antiquated family tradition of national service.  When he ran for President, however, he was defeated by George W. Bush, who did not inherit his father’s tradition of national service, and who avoided service in Vietnam by joining the Alabama National Guard, where he seldom did anything, even in Alabama.  For his next term Bush ran against Sen. John Kerry, who served in Vietnam and was awarded a Purple Heart medal.  The Republican Swift Boat veterans ridiculed Kerry’s service, in what to me was the most egregious attack on veterans by a major political party.  In order to win Bush a second term, the Republicans defamed all veterans by attacking Kerry for being a veteran.  In a turnaround, the Republicans nominated a veteran, war hero John McCain, in the next election.  McCain was defeated by Obama, who is not a veteran but is too young to have been influenced by Vietnam and the draft.  Although he did not serve in Vietnam, Bush II was probably eligible for USAA insurance under their old rules, although none of the other Presidents would have been.

The Presidential elections illustrate how Americans have turned against those who serve in their country’s military.  The result has been a significant downgrading of the USAA customer base, from leaders of American communities to those relegated to a lower social and economic status because of their service in the military.

Predictable Iowa

There was nothing interesting about the Iowa caucuses.  Mitt Romney got more or less his expected 25%.  Rick Santorum was the not-Romney candidate of the moment, and got about the same vote.  Ron Paul got the votes he was expected to get, high for a non-mainstream candidate, but not enough to make him mainstream.  If the vote had been held 10 days earlier, the not-Romney vote would have gone to Newt Gingrich.  If it had been 20 days earlier, the non-Romney vote would have gone to Herman Cain. 

Mitt was smart to move the non-Mitt vote to Santorum instead of Gingrich, because Santorum will be a weaker challenger.  But none of the non-Mitts really had much support of their own. 

What a waste of time, energy, and money!  And how discouraging to think that this is how Americans elect a President. 

Iowa Caucuses

Based on the results I have heard, a tie between Romney and Santorum, the Iowa caucuses appear to be an enormous waste of time.  If they contribute anything to the Presidential election, it just shows how broken our electoral system is.  Part of the problem is due to the Supreme Court's Citizens United decision, basically making it legal for rich people to buy an election.  And part of the problem appears to be that the Republican Party is dysfunctional, offering such lousy candidates, and that Republicans in Iowa are idiots, turning out to vote for such incompetents. Poor America!

Obama's Failure on Consumer Protection

After failing to nominate Elizabeth Warren to head the new consumer protection agency, Obama proposed Cordry. See this Vanity Fair article on Warrren. However, when the Senate blocked Cordry with some filibuster trick, Obama just accepted it. He has obviously been bought by the big banks and other financial interests. Obama should at least have made a stink. He's been quiet as a mouse, hoping the public will forget and the Wall Street money will keep rolling in. The average person has no one to stand up for him, except Elizabeth Warren, whom Obama has thrown to the wolves.

Jews Need to Clean Up Their Act

In Boomerang, Michael Lewis points out the absence of Jews in the German financial community.  We all know why this is so.  But the problem now is that the American financial community is largely led by Jews, and it turns out to be corrupt, while the gentile German banking community turns out to be largely honest, if gullible.  Not all Jews are dishonest, but events like this tend to reinforce unfavorable stereotypes of Jews. If Jews want to overcome these "Shylock" stereotypes, they need to clean up their act.   Unfortunately they are dragging America down into the gutter with themselves. 

Women Leaders

At this moment in the financial crisis, the only people I trust are women:
Elizabeth Warren,
Christine Legarde, and
Angela Merkel.

When Barney Frank was discussing his legacy on PBS yesterday, one the things he emphasized was the consumer protection provisions of the Dodd-Frank law.  Elizabeth Warren was largely responsible for that, and then when push came to shove, Obama abandoned her, clearly as a result of pressure from the crooks on Wall Street, led by Jamie Dimon of Chase Bank. 

Christine Legarde did a good job as French Finance Minister and is currently sorely missed as France tries to deal with the European financial crisis.  However, she will be able to help as head of the IMF.  I trust her to do the right thing more than I did her disgraced predecessor, Dominique Strauss-Kahn. 

Angela Merkel gets a lot of bad press from financial journalists and commentators, in part because they see her Germanic honesty as a rebuke to American dishonesty.  People seldom mention that she is from the old East Germany, and grew up in conditions far different from the prosperous unified Germany that she now leads.  She, more than others, remembers the trials and sacrifices that West Germany undertook to unify with East Germany.  When they look at the sacrifices they are being called on to make for Greece, et al, the Germans can say, "Been there; done that."  However, before the sacrifices were for fellow Germans; now the sacrifices are for countries and peoples with whom the Germans share much less.  Although Europe needs to be saved, Merkel is right not to have Germany commit suicide to save its poorer partners.

Germany More Moral Than America

I just finished reading Michael Lewis' chapter in Boomerang about Germany.  His theme for Germany is "clean on the outside, dirty on the inside."  But much of what turns out to be dirty on the inside is America's subprime mortgage debt, which was sold by unscrupulous American bankers to honest, trusting German bankers.  In many ways it is the most damning portrait of the American banking system that I have read of the books I have read about the economic crisis.  According to Lewis, the Germans were honest; the Americans were dishonest.  It makes be less forgiving toward American bankers.  I am now more inclined to believe that the crisis was not something that just happened, but it was caused by Americans who knew that they were doing bad things.  I now think that somebody needs to go to jail, along the lines of the "Daily Show" last night, complaining that Martha Stewart went to jail for something that was absolutely nothing compared to what the big shots on Wall Street did, none of whom has gone to jail.  It illustrates that America has become a third rate country where you can buy your way out of jail by bribing the President and members of Congress with political contributions.

More Welfare for Millionaires

The Denver Post has had an excellent series on tax breaks for corporations.  These breaks were supposed to encourage businesses to move into poor areas called enterprise zones, but eventually enterprise zones covered most of the state and just constituted another tax break for almost any corporation doing business in Colorado, in some cases giving tax breaks to corporations that eliminated jobs, rather than creating them.

This is also an example of the "beggar thy neighbor" policies pursued by many government jurisdictions, from nations to cities.  One of the big Republican arguments for lower business taxes is that other nations have lower taxes; if we don't match their low rates, all companies will leave the US, they say.  Within the US, companies move to the states with the lowest business taxes.  Most big companies incorporate in Delaware because it has the most lenient laws governing corporations.  In the Denver area, the Aurora suburb is bidding to take the annual stock show away from Denver proper by offering all kinds of tax advantages to it and the Gaylord hotel chain which would build a new hotel near the stock show grounds. 

All of this takes money away from basic activities that governments perform, from defense to education to building and maintaining roads.  Colorado just voted down a small increase in taxes for education, but it has millions to subsidize big corporations in "enterprise zones," or to get the stock show to move ten miles out of town. 

Rich Doctors Are America's Problem

This op-ed by David Brooks says that the largest proportion of the richest 1% of Americans are doctors.  He says 16% of the wealthiest are doctors, compared with 8% being lawyers, for example.  That's why health care costs are going through the roof, why Medicare is out of control, etc. 

He doesn't break down the doctors' incomes, but it's pretty well known that the richest doctors are the specialists, the heart guys, the bone guys, etc.  Many of them getting rich on Medicare because old people have heart attacks, broken hips, etc.  The general practitioners, who keep people healthy, rather than repairing them after they are sick, don't make nearly as much. 

It's a system where the rewards are misallocated, and that threatens to destroy the whole American economy.

Another Congressional Letter

I hope that you saw "Morning Joe" this morning on MSNBC. In case you did not, here is a link:


http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/3036789/#44886865

They discussed Warren Buffett's release of his income tax. It shows he is correct that rich people who make most of their money from investments pay a lower percentage of their income in taxes than much poorer working people do. This country clearly hates people who work for a living, just like it claims to love veterans, but then won't give them a job when they come home from Iraq or Afghanistan. As a Vietnam veteran, I know that anybody who fights for this country for any but the most patriotic reasons is a fool. This country will kiss you on the lips while the TV cameras are on, and then stab you in the back when they go off. No one representing me in Congress is a veteran. When Senator John Kerry ran for President, George W. Bush's huge political apparatus "Swift Boat Veterans" reviled him (and every other Vietnam veteran) because Kerry was a veteran, Bush was not a real veteran. He spent the war getting drunk and becoming an alcoholic in the Alabama National Guard. Then after 9/11 he sent many National Guard troops to Iraq and Afghanistan, despite the fact that the National Guard has been his refuge from combat.

The best part of the "Morning Joe" clip above is the presentation by former Obama automotive czar Steve Rattner, which shows how badly income in the US has skewed toward the rich in the last few years. This is a corrupt government. Democrats and Republicans have betrayed the American people, by selling themselves to the wealthiest one percent. I have not joined the Occupy Wall Street protesters, but I am mad, too. This is a failed government run by cowardly, incompetent or evil people. The corrupt characters in HBO's "Boardwalk Empire" would be right at home in today's Washington.

On veterans again, I am very disappointed that the Army's Walter Reed Hospital has been closed and wounded Army soldiers transferred to Bethesda Naval Hospital. People like you don't understand that the Army and Navy are different. Or you probably don't care. But the Army and Navy have different cultures and traditions. It is truly insensitive to take someone who has spent five or ten years in the Army, and then when he gets badly wounded, to add to his problems by putting him in a Navy environment. No wonder so many of our troops have mental problems. But you don't care; you saved some millionaire ten dollars on his taxes.

Killing American Citizens

The US should only kill an American citizen when he poses an immediate threat of deadly harm and there is no other way to stop him.  I am not sure that these conditions were met in the recent assassinations of American citizens Anwar al-Awlaki and Samir Khan.

According to the press, Awlaki encouraged other Americans to kill their fellow citizens and to oppose the US government, but it's not clear that he personally killed any Americans, or anybody else, for that matter.  He was more an accessory to murder than a murderer.  Secondly, its not clear that there was no other way to stop him than to kill him by remote control drone.  That may have been the easiest way to kill him, but not the only way.

I think there should at least have been an effort to take him prisoner and return him to the US.  I also think we should have tried to capture and return Osama bin Laden.  The problem is that the US legal system is unable to deal with terrorists, because Americans are so afraid of them.  Guantanamo should have been closed years ago, but Americans are afraid of the men there.  There was some talk of a terrorist trial in Kentucky, and Sen. Mitch McConnell almost had a fit he was so scared.  This is a man who refused to fight in Vietnam, and got his patron, Sen. John Sherman Cooper, to help get him out of military service during the war, although officially he got a medical discharge.

These legal niceties are what our troops are supposed to be fighting to protect, but we are afraid to apply them.  In many ways Osama bin Laden won,  because people like Barak Obama and Mitch McConnell are afraid to stand up for them.  Of course, the real cowards were George W. Bush, who spent the Vietnam War becoming a drunkard in the Alabama National Guard, and Dick Cheney, who avoided service by churning out babies.    These are men who liked running the country, but had no concept of what it was to serve the country.  They were missing in action on 9/11.  Bush flew away to Nebraska or somewhere, and Cheney retreated to a spider hole under the White House.

State Slouches Toward Failure in Iraq

Recent articles in the NYT and WP paint a pretty discouraging picture of the State Department's future role in Iraq.  A serving Foreign Service officer has written a book about what a failure State's past activities have been, "We Meant Well: How I Helped Lose the Battle for the Hearts and Minds of the Iraqi People."  He also published an op-ed in the NYT, which says, "Iraq is still plagued by corruption, sectarianism and violence. And ... I don’t have much faith that the department can turn things around." 

Meanwhile, the WP reported on the huge undertaking that the State Department is committing itself to by taking over in Iraq where the military is leaving off.  After downsizing from hundreds of thousands of US military troops, about 50,000 remain in Iraq.  Their functions will supposedly soon be taken on by the State Department Foreign Service.  According to Wikipedia, there are about 15,000 Foreign Service officers total, staffing over 200 American embassies and consulates, as well as the State Department in Washington.  Thus, the only way the State Department can even hope to cope with this mess is by hiring tens of thousands of contractors.  The idea that State can manage tens of thousands of contractors, when according to the book mentioned above, it can't even manage the small scale programs it was running with its own officers , is ludicrous.  Hillary Clinton is being the good soldier by taking on the mess left behind by the military, but it is bound to impact negatively on what in other countries is the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.  State's expertise is political and economic analysis, not program management.  The military managed not to lose in Iraq (at least not yet), but it is leaving a mess.  The op-ed above says:

When my team tried to give away fruit tree seedlings to replant ruined orchards, a farmer spat on the ground and said, “You killed my son and now you are giving me a tree?”       

and

One Iraqi I met observed that the United States had sponsored expensive art shows in his neighborhood three years in a row, but did nothing about the lack of functioning sewers, electricity and running water. “It is like I am standing naked in a room with a big hat on my head,” he told me. “Everyone comes in and puts ribbons on my hat, but no one seems to notice that I am naked.”      

The WP compares the Iraq undertaking to the Marshall Plan, but after World War II, the US had clearly won.  There was little danger of Americans being assassinated in Paris.  The French and other Western Europeans still had competent bureaucrats to administer the American aid.  Before the war, Western Europe had been more or less on a par with the US politically and economically.  They shared similar cultures.  None of that is true in Iraq. 

It's possible that nobody really expects this to work.  Maybe it's just a cover for the US to pull its military out of Iraq.  But State will be left with egg on its face.  And Iraq will still be a mess. 

I don't think the US is serious about helping Iraq, especially when I look back at my experience in Poland after the fall of Communism.  Newt Gingrich and the Republicans, with the cooperation of Bill Clinton and company, basically told the Poles, "You're on your own, unless there is some money-making deal we can line up an American company to get in on."  Poland came out okay, but I think it's because the EU became Poland's Marshall Plan.  America basically dumped Poland, but Western Europe came through.  Maybe Turkey or China (or Iran) will come through for the Iraqis. 

Why I Left the Foreign Service V

North Korean Nuclear Proliferation Issues.  One of my responsibilities in Rome was maintaining a dialogue with Italy and the EU on North Korean nuclear issues, in particular the Korean Peninsula Energy Development Organization (KEDO).  During the six months more or less that I was in Rome, Italy held the presidency of the European Union, so that our dialogue was on sort of a double basis, one dialogue as the US to Italy, and the other as US to EU.  At that time the US was part of KEDO and had promised funding for proliferation resistant light water reactors for North Korea, and in the interim, funding for fuel oil to North Korea to generate electricity by conventional power plants.  As part of the Gingrich/Republican budget cuts, the US did not appropriate funding for its part of the fuel oil.  Therefore to prevent the US from breaching its agreement with North and South Korea and Japan, part of my job was to go hat in hand to the Italians and ask them bilaterally, or as the head of the EU, to help make up the difference between what the US had appropriated and what it owed under the agreement. 

I had just gone through a similar situation in Warsaw when the US cut off funding for our joint science cooperation program years before the agreement was to expire.  Once again, I was in the position of saying that the US would not fulfill its international agreements.  I always did what I was told, but I was not a happy camper.  I did not like representing an America that was a deadbeat dad, that made promises and then didn't fulfill them.  I don't remember where I left this matter.  The Italians were somewhat horrified that the US might default, and thus legally entitle North Korea to resume its proliferating ways.  But I don't recall that they said definitely that they would help.  I think we were only asking for about $2 million. 

But I didn't like it.  If I had wanted to do this kind of thing, I could have become a criminal lawyer or a bankruptcy lawyer.  I wanted to be a diplomat for the greatest nation on earth; I didn't want to be like Hitler's German diplomats negotiating the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact.  The American government was too corrupt and dishonest for me, and so I left. 

Helms-Burton and Children's Visas.  Another nail in coffin of my career came late in my stay in Rome.  I was at a reception for a satellite launching, celebrating a satellite that the US was going to launch for Italy.  The launch did not take place as scheduled, but that wasn't the issue.  At the reception I struck up a conversation with a man who worked on communications satellites for the Italian phone company.  He said something like, "You must really hate me to deny a visa to Disney World to my daughter, just because I work for the Italian phone company."  I was taken aback and asked him what had happened.  He said his daughter had been denied a US visa under the Helms-Burton Act because the Italian phone company had some tenuous connection to Cuba through its cooperation with the Mexican phone company.  Later I went and talked to the head of the consular section in Rome, and it sounded like this was indeed the case. 

Unfortunately it reminded me of some books I had read when I first joined the Foreign Service.  One of my friends from law school had been reading them, and said they had quite a lot about the Foreign Service.  They were "The Winds of War," and "War and Remembrance" by Herman Wouk.  They are a fictional account of several families, some American military officers and diplomats, and one a Jewish family living in Europe.  A Jewish mother and child are trying to get out of Europe and go to Palestine, soon to become Israel, but she can't leave without a visa (shades of "Casablanca").  The German embassy in Rome is willing to give the mother a visa, but not her child.  It was just too close to what America was doing to this Italian engineer.  Punishing children for the crimes of their fathers is not something I am enthusiastic about, especially when the father's  crime is just working for a company that has some weak connection to Cuba.  I think by the time this happened, I had already decided to retire, but this made me glad that I had. 

This was not Ronald Reagan's "shining city on a hill." 

Why I Left the Foreign Service IV

Unwelcoming Reception in Rome.  When I agreed to go from Warsaw to Rome, Embassy Rome said that they had an apartment for me.  They said that I could not have my predecessor's apartment, which frankly I found a little odd, but I thought, "Okay, they say they have a nice apartment, and it's Rome."  When we arrived, however, after our contretemps with the government shutdown leaving Warsaw, it turned out that the embassy had given the apartment that they had promised to me to a DEA agent.  I was a little ticked, because I thought that the State Department, which ran the administration for the embassy, should have given a little break to one of its own officers, and told the DEA agent that this apartment was allocated and that he would have to wait for the next apartment.  That was my first clue that something was amiss in Rome.  It took months for the embassy to find us an apartment.  Meanwhile we camped out in temporary housing in an apartment house that the embassy had for people assigned temporarily to Rome to do short-term jobs. 

In addition, between by predecessor's departure and my arrival, the embassy had redesigned the science office suite.  The way they had set it up, all of my assistant's visitors had to pass through my office to get to her office.  The doors should have been arranged so that her visitors could enter her office directly from the reception area.  I don't know what the suite had looked like before, but by the time I got there, the construction was completed. 

Most importantly, the embassy did not want me.  I had not realized that my assignment by the State Department was the result of a fight between the Embassy and the State Department headquarters in Washington.  The previous Science Counselor had been a friend of the Ambassador's.  He had been a political appointee in Ambassador Bartholomew's office, when Bartholomew had been an Under Secretary of State, and had traveled to Rome, when Bartholomew as assigned to Rome.  However, the time he could serve as a political appointee, a Schedule C employee, ran out, and the State Department would not let him stay longer.  I presume there was a big fight between the Embassy and Washington to try to get permission for him to stay.  When that failed, the Embassy apparently decided that it wanted a particular Civil Service employee in Washington to replace him.  The Foreign Service tries to look after its own, and apparently tried to block a Civil Service employee from taking a plum Foreign Service position in Rome.  Thus, the call out of the blue to me in Warsaw asking if I would be willing to go to Rome.  But after I arrived, it became clear that the Embassy had not given up and still wanted to get rid of me and get the Civil Service employee.  Making my life difficult by not finding housing, for example, was part of that strategy.  The Ambassador succeeded.  I retired, and I think the State Department relented and approved the Civil Service employee as my replacement. 

I guess I sound pretty weak in this description, not fighting the Embassy harder, but in my defense, ever since I didn't fight the draft and agreed to go into the Army and off to Vietnam, my desire was to serve my country, not to have my country serve me.  I was willing to put up with hardships that were imposed by external forces, like the North Vietnamese Army, or living and working at an embassy in a poor country with few amenities.  But I was not willing to accept hardships or mistreatment that were imposed by the American Government itself, in the government shutdown, or by the unwelcoming reception in Rome.  It was not the government that I volunteered to serve.

I should add that in contrast to the unwelcoming official reception in Rome, several of the officers there were personally very welcoming, from the Deputy Chief of Mission (the #2 in the Embassy) to my assistant, who got furloughed when I got un-furloughed in order to travel from Warsaw to Rome during the shutdown. 

Why I left the Foreign Service III

Rome: Tethered Satellite. Firing of space agency chief.

One of the best parts of my job as Science Officer in various embassies was that I was the representative of NASA, and everyone loved NASA.  In addition to being glamorous, NASA had stuff to give away, like observation time on the space telescope, rides on the Shuttle, etc.  The local space agency always wanted to stay on my good side.  When I came to Rome, I inherited an agreement under which the Shuttle would carry a tethered satellite for the Italian Space Agency.  This satellite would be reusable.  It would ride in the Shuttle cargo bay, and when the Shuttle was in orbit, it would be released on a long tether to collect data away from the pollution of the Shuttle. Then, when the Shuttle was getting ready to return to earth, the satellite would be reeled in, much like a fishing line would be reeled in.  The satellite would be stored in the cargo bay and returned to earth until it was flown on another mission.  It promised huge savings because satellites are so expensive to build, impossible to repair in space, etc. 

On its first flight, however, the reel jammed, the tether broke, and the expensive satellite drifted off into space beyond the reach of the Shuttle.  For a change, being the NASA representative was not so great.  The crew of that Shuttle visited Rome, and while it was not billed as an apology tour for losing the satellite, that's basically what it was.  Meanwhile, the head of the Italian Space Agency was in political trouble.  While his problems were not directly linked to the failed satellite, losing the satellite did not help his position.  I was unhappy, because I was feeling snake bit.  I had had little to do with the mission, which had been planned long before I arrived in Rome, but I was there when it happened.  It turned out that because I was retiring, the head of the Italian Space Agency and I left Rome about the same time.  He was going to take some time off before moving on to his next venture.  While my only fault was being in the wrong place at the wrong time, it added to the dissatisfaction I was feeling about the job.  If the best part of my job, working with NASA, turned sour, there was not much left. 

Why I Left the Foreign Service II

Rome: Fisheries.  Constitutional responsibilities and Ambassador's letter. 

When I arrived in Rome, the State Department was in the process of being sued by four environmental organizations because the State Department, and the Embassy Rome Science Office in particular, had failed to enforce the driftnet fishing regulations of the United Nations.  My assistant was deeply involved in this issue and got daily updates from the trial in New York.  As usual for the government, the State Department lawyers could not try the case in court; Justice Department lawyers represented the US in court supported by State Department lawyers.  The reports always were that the US was winning, but when the verdict came in, the US lost.  The US was ordered to make the Italians enforce the UN regulations with regard to driftnets, and the Federal District Judge in New York would ensure that it did.  This meant that my office's dealings with the Italians on fisheries issues were all subject to review by the judge.  The main thrust of the regulations was to limit the length of the driftnets used by Italian fishermen who were fishing for swordfish.  They said Italians used driftnets that were too long and therefore caught too many swordfish, thus depleting the swordfish population.  

I thought first of all that this decision was an infringement on the executive branch's authority to conduct foreign relations, although I guess it is arguable that the UN resolution was a treaty, over which the courts have authority like domestic laws.  But this meant that my office's actions on fishery matters in Rome were under the constant review of a court in New York.  Anyway we had a big meeting, with a huge delegation from Washington meeting with an even larger Italian delegation, which agreed on guidelines drawn up in large part by my assistant and her counterpart, who was a young staffer for the head of the Italian Agriculture Ministry division of fisheries.  The linchpin of this arrangement turned out to be an Italian Greenpeace member who focused on the swordfish issue.  Whenever there was an issue, it would go to the Federal Court, the court would refer it to the environmental organizations that had won the case; they in turn would ask the opinion of the Greenpeace representative in Italy.  If he approved, the environmental groups would approve, and the court would approve.  

Just a day or two before I was scheduled to leave Rome for retirement, the Agriculture Minister summoned the Ambassador to discuss the swordfish issue.  I went along with the Ambassador because my assistant who was the expert and had negotiated the agreement was sick.  The Minister said that the agreement negotiated by the delegations was not workable because it was too tough on Italian fishery enforcement personnel.  It required them to do frequent, thorough inspections of driftnets, catches, etc.  The majority of swordfish fishermen were based in Sicily, and they were upset at the inspections.  Thus, they turned to the Mafia to get the inspectors off their backs, and the government inspectors found themselves under constant death threats from the Mafia.  The Minister said it was too much to put his men in such danger; we needed to give them more leeway.  He wanted to ease the terms in the agreement regarding inspections somewhat.  The changes were fairly minor and the Ambassador was willing go along, but I reminded him that he didn't have authority to agree on the spot with the Minister, because any change had to be approved by the District Court, which essentially meant getting the approval of Greenpeace.  The Ambassador was not happy to find his authority limited, which I must admit I stressed, because I didn't like it either.  I thought the State Department (and the Ambassador) had been unfairly, perhaps unconstitutionally, placed under the authority of the judge.  We got the changes approved on my last day in Rome, but the Ambassador and I parted on unfriendly terms.  On my last day of active duty in the Foreign Service, he sent me a short, bitter letter criticizing my work on the driftnet matter, the only such letter I received during my career.  Since I was retiring, it didn't matter to me.  But to me the whole mess was another example of the fact that the government did not work correctly.  I found it entirely inappropriate that Greenpeace Italy should control the American government's policy on fisheries issues, rather than my office, the Ambassador, and the fisheries officials in the State Department.  In Italy, Greenpeace could not get the Italian Government to do what it wanted; so, through its American branch it sued and got US courts to order the State Department to order the Italian Government to do what Greenpeace thought it should do.  I guess Greenpeace gets kudos for originality and persistence, but I don't think it says much good about the way our government works.  This was an issue that Greenpeace should have worked out within the Italian Government, or between the Italian Government and the UN, without US intervention. 

Rome: Tethered Satellite.  Firing of space agency chief. 

Rome: Help on North Korean Nuclear Proliferation. 

Rome: Denial of Visas to Children.  Helms-Burton and "Winds of War." 

MTCR and Skawina in Poland

Before I move on to Rome, there were some other disappointing events in Poland.

MTCR.  Before the fall of Communism, there had been some security failure at the embassy in Poland, so that even after the fall, there was a lot of concern about security of classified material.  As a result, there were a limited number of paper copies of classified cables, with few distributed to anybody except the office that had "action," i.e., that had to act on or respond to the cable from the Department of State.  In other embassies, more people might have gotten "info" copies, so that they would know more of what was going on in the embassy.

Besides overseeing the science cooperation, which was cancelled, I also had responsibility for environmental issues and some nuclear related matters, one of which was export control  matters such as the Zangger List, which controlled exports of items which might be used for nuclear proliferation.  In that capacity, I often dealt with a Polish diplomat at the Foreign Ministry,. Ambassador Strulak, who worked on a variety of proliferation issues.  One day while I was talking to him, he asked me if I could find out why the US had blackballed Poland's membership in the Missile Technology Control Regime (MTCR).  This came as a shock to me, because I had worked on MTCR issues for years in the Department of State, and I had seen nothing about the MTCR in the embassy cable traffic.  It turned out that the "action" on MTCR cables went to the political section, and I did not get a copy in the science section, although after years of working on the issue, I had to be one of the experts on the MTCR.  In fact that is why Amb. Strulak had asked me about it.  On one of his visits to Washington, he was asking around in the State Department about why Poland had been blackballed, and someone had told him to ask me in Warsaw, because I was an expert.  Until then Amb. Strulak never knew that I had worked on missile proliferation as well as nuclear proliferation.

By then, however, I had been out of the loop for several years, working on other issues.  However, I called back to my old office and talked to the man then running it, Vann Van Diepen.  I had known Vann since he was in intern and I was an analyst in the State Department Bureau of Intelligence and Research.  However, Vann told me there was nothing I could do, because President Clinton had personally decided to blackball Poland.  It's not unusual for an issue that can't be agreed between agencies to go to the White House for decision.  I also knew what the problem was: The MTCR was unwieldy because it basically operated on consensus.  The US wanted to get a more controllable management structure before it got too big, and adding Poland would have made it bigger.  On the other hand, the Poles wanted to cooperate so badly that they would not have been a problem in reaching consensus.

Anyway, I was disappointed that no one thought it worthwhile to consult me or even to inform me that this matter was on-going, when I had been the main working level person handling this issue a few years earlier in Washington.  It was as if they didn't think the science office could handle a policy issue.

Skawina.  Although they didn't think I should be involved in political matters, it was pretty much accepted that I handled environmental issues.  This main mainly meant working with the Polish environment ministry, and supporting an organization called the Ekofundusz (or Eco-fund).  The Ekofundusz was a non-governmental group funded by forgiven US debt.  Instead of being repaid, the US authorized the Ekofundusz to finance environmental projects in Poland that it found worthwhile.  I don't remember its budget, but most of the projects were relatively small, maybe in the tens of thousands of dollars.

For me one of the best things about the Ekofundusz was that it provided a refuge for liberal environmentalists who had supported the overthrow of Communism.  In the mid-1990s when I was there, the old former Commies were back in power in many places, including the environment ministry.  The Ekofundusz was like a Brookings Institution or Heritage Foundation, it gave the anti-communist environmentalists an office and a little salary until they had a chance to get back into government.  This is the same kind of thing that the Maria Skladowska Curie Fund could have done for anti-Communist scientists and engineers, but by cutting off the funding, the Republicans cut them off at the knees.  Fortunately, because of the vagaries of the law, the environmentalists' funds were not cut off.

In addition, USAID had a much larger environmental program as part of its agenda.  One of its projects was to build a scrubber for an old electric power plant near Krakow, called Skawina.  I frankly didn't pay much attention to it, although AID was better than the political section about keeping me informed.  So, I knew we were building this scrubber, and we turned it over to the Poles.  After a while, I began to hear from my Polish contacts that the scrubber didn't work.  Basically, it blew exhaust from the power plant through a process in which lime stone was supposed to remove most of the sulfur from the gas.  When I began to look into it, it turned out that it didn't work.  The chemical properties of Polish limestone were not suitable for the process.  It was somewhat galling, because the main Poles complaining were old Communist apparatchiks who were happy to see the US fail, but they were right that the system did not work.  One took me to a much bigger power plant with working scrubbers; they were built by the Dutch, but were based on General Electric designs.  I think that when I left Warsaw for Rome, Skiwina was still not working.

Why I Left the Foreign Service I

As I complain about how things are going in the US, I think that I could have stayed in the State Department Foreign Service, but instead I retired almost 15 years ago.  Could I have made a positive difference if I had stayed in?  Or would I have continually been implementing policies that I disagreed with?  I came down on the latter side.  I thought I would write down why I did so, and consider whether, about 15 years later, it was the right or wrong thing. 

Brazil Space Program.  One of the first serious things that went wrong was years before I retired, while I was serving as the science officer in Brasilia in the 1980s.  NASA was a great asset for the US in relations with other courntries.  Because I was the embassy's representative for NASA, I had good relations with the Brazilian space agency, INPE.  INPE wanted to build some satellites and ground stations to monitor them with, to survey the Amazon.  The US bidder on the ground stations, Scientific Atlanta, for some reason failed to get its bid in on time and lost to a Japanese company.  I persuaded INPE to reopen the bidding, and as a result, Scientific Atlanta won.  Then the Defense Department, I think the office of Steve Hadley (who went on to be NSC chief), denied the export license for the ground stations.  My friends at INPE were livid and my good relationship ended.  I think Hadley was a Richard Perle acolyte in the Pentagon, and Perle hated Brazil. 

Polish Science Fund.  In the 1990s I went to Poland as embassy Science Counselor, where my main job was to oversee science cooperation beteen the US and Poland under a joint fund called the Maria Sklodowska Curie Fund which was to continue for five years.  After about two years, the Republicans under Newt Gingrich were elected, and cut off funding for the cooperation under a clause in the agreement allowing either side not to fund it if funding was impossible.  This was clearly inserted into the agreement for Poland, which faced many financial challenges as it emerged from Communism, but the US used the clause instead.  For the rest of my tour, I was periodically called into the Polish Foreign Minsitry by a senior official and berated for the US not fulfilling its commitment.  Meanwhile, Polish scientsts who had lost most of the government funding also lost what would have been an American lifeline, a sort of anti-Marshall Plan.  As an added insult, the Ambassador eliminated my science office in the embassy, because there was no more joint program to oversee. 

Government Shutdown.  Meanwhile, the State Department asked me if I would like to go to Rome, because the Science Counselor there had been fired for some other budgetary reason. I agreed, but on the day I was leaving Warsaw with the car packed, Embassy Rome called and said don't leave because the government shutdown meant there was no money for travel.  However, my wife and I then had no place to live.  The house the embassy had rented for us was empty and was being returned to the owner.  The idea that the US government would put us out on the streets of Warsaw was so abhorrent to me that it was pretty much the straw that broke the camel's back, as far as continuing to work for the US.  I was usually the good soldier, doing as I was ordered, but this time I was so mad that I called Rome to see if I could get their order reversed.  I did, and we started driving to Rome, but for me the damage was done.  The US government had said, "Hey, you're expendible.  You and your wife can die freezing on the streets of Warsaw.  We don't care." 

Vietnam War.  It reminded me of the day I arrived in Vietnam, and the Army assigned me to Dong Ha on the DMZ, so close to North Vietnam that the dot on the map for Dong Ha projected into North Vietnam.  I went where the Army told me to go, but for the State Department to do that to me and my wife was, I thought, beyond the pale.  There have been a lot of Foreign Service officers assigned to Iraq and Afghanistan (without spouses), but hopefully, the State Department didn't drop them off in some God forsaken village and say, "Hey, we can't afford to come back for you.  You will have to walk back.  Try to avoid the Taliban."  When I was at an artillery firebase near the Laotian border, Firebase Barbara, we had no American infantry support because we were turning over the war to the Vietnamese.  We had two American "dusters" assigned to protect us, old anti-aircraft guns that fired 40 mm rounds with every round a tracer, firepower that tended to inspire some awe in the North Vietnamese.  One night when there was a alert that we might be attacked because of activity spotted by an intelligence fly-over, our battalion headquarters said, "Don't give any gasoline to the dusters.  Their supply people are lazy and incompetent.  We don't want to help them out."  Of course the alternative was to have the dusters not shoot to protect us.  We gave the dusters the gas they needed.  They blew away several square kilometers at the base of the mountain, and we were not attacked.  Did the penny pinchers in Washington really want us to die?  Probably not, but did they really care?  Probably not.  Did they really care about us in Warsaw?  Probably not. 

When we got to Rome, things did not get any better for me from a policy perspective.  More on this later,  Some topics: 

Rome: Fisheries.  Constitutional responsibilities and Ambassador's letter. 

Rome: Tethered Satellite.  Firing of space agency chief. 

Rome: Help on North Korean Nuclear Proliferation. 

Rome: Denial of Visas to Children.  Helms-Burton and "Winds of War." 

Republicans want America to fail

Today on CNBC in an interview with Maria Bartaromo, Nuriel Roubini said that it made no difference what economic proposals Obama made because the Republicans would oppose anything. He said they want the economy to be as bad as possible because that helps their election chances next year. So Roubini thinks the Republicans want America to fail. How terrible!

It is not unlike what Paul Krugman says in his NYT column. He said Bernanke is less likely to move aggressively to support the US economy if Rick Perry is going to call him a traitor for doing so.

The upshot is that the Republicans are willing to propose actions to push the US into a depression, or block Democratic actions to avert a depression, just so they can defeat Obama in the 2012 election. How disloyal to this country can you get! And how insensitive to the suffering of their jobless fellow citizens!