Roman Holiday

It’s stupid, but perhaps unavoidable, for me to dwell on the last serious job that I had, as the science officer at the American Embassy in Rome.  I am probably thinking about this because my stepson is currently visiting Rome.

First, I had no intention of going to Rome, but was asked to go by the State Department in Washington while I was still assigned to the embassy in Warsaw.  Second, when the day came for me to depart Warsaw for Rome, Newt Gingrich closed down the US Government, and I got a call from Rome telling me not to come.  Third, when I arrived in Rome, I was supposed to have an apartment waiting, either the one that my predecessor had vacated, or another comparable one, but the day before I arrived the embassy gave that apartment to a new DEA officer, leaving me to live in temporary housing for an indefinite period.  Fourth, after my predecessor left and before I arrived, the embassy office suite was redesigned so that anyone coming to see my assistant had to pass through my office, as if I were her receptionist.  Finally, the embassy did not want me; it had tried to have a civil service officer named to replace the departing officer, but the Foreign Service personnel system had tried to keep the job as a Foreign Service position by asking me to fill it.

Before I was assigned to Warsaw, the US had signed a science cooperation agreement with Poland that was to last five years.  Each side would fund the cooperation, which would consist of a number of small projects with at least one American and one Polish scientist working together.  When Newt Gingrich and the Republicans took over Congress about two years into the agreement, they refused to appropriate funding for the remaining years, causing the US to withdraw from the agreement.  Since this was one of my main jobs of the embassy science officer, the Ambassador recommended that I not be replaced when my tour ended.  Around this time, I got the call from Washington asking if I would go to Rome as science officer.  I agreed since the job in Warsaw appeared to be turning into a dead-end.

On the day that I had been scheduled to depart several weeks or months previously, Newt shut the government down.  I got a call from Rome saying not to travel to Rome.  However, all of our clothes, household effects, etc., had already been packed and shipped to Rome.  Our car was in the parking lot packed with suitcases and two dogs, ready to start driving to Rome.  We had nowhere to live.  Although we could have stayed in a hotel, probably at our own expense, I was outraged that the government basically said, “We don’t care what happens to you and your wife.  You can freeze on the streets of Warsaw for all we care.”  I persuaded Rome to let us travel, but I felt that the US had broken faith with me and my family.  When a government sends troops into the field, it should not abandon them, and I felt that America had abandoned us.  I felt that this was a despicable, irresponsible thing to do, particularly in light of my thirty years of government service in the US Army in Vietnam, as an attorney for the Veterans Administration, and as a Foreign Service officer.  The American government acted in a dishonest, low-class, disreputable manner.  I left for Rome as a very unhappy camper.

As result of the combination of this experience and being a Vietnam veteran, I believe that this country does not stand behind those who serve it.  Most elites avoided service in Vietnam.  Some with a family tradition of national service did go to Vietnam: John Kerry, whose father was a Foreign Service officer, Al Gore, whose father was a Senator, John McCain, whose father was an admiral, but most did not: Bill Clinton, Dick Cheney, George W. Bush (who stayed in the US in the National Guard), Mitch McConnell (who was discharged in the middle of basic training), etc.  The leaders who avoided service have some selfish, warped idea of what the relationship should be between the country and those who serve and defend it.  In my experience during my last assignment in Rome, I lost a great deal of respect for this country.  I certainly respect and love what it stands for, the Constitution, the service of great men over many generations, but sadly a lot has changed in the last twenty years.  In this election the only person I see defending my ideas and the values I hold dear is Elizabeth Warren.  Perhaps there are some others who are quieter.  I liked and respected Sen. Sam Nunn, and if his daughter will follow in his footsteps as a senator from Georgia, I would be pleased.  I admire President George H.W. Bush, although I think his son, George W., was a terrible president.  I like President Jimmy Carter, who I think was defeated in large part by the Iranian ayatollahs who captured the American embassy and held the staff hostage until Reagan was elected.  But I digress.

Upon arriving in Rome, I found that the apartment that the embassy had said it was holding for my wife and me had been given to a newly arrived DEA officer the day before I arrived.  This was my first indication that in addition to the government shutdown, something else was wrong at the embassy itself.  In most large embassies the State Department is a relatively small component, often less than 50% of the entire staffing.  There are officers from DEA, FBI, the military, Agriculture, Commerce, Treasury, almost every department of the government and many of the independent agencies, such as the FAA.  However, the State Department is in charge of the administration of the embassy – arranging housing, payroll, etc.  Therefore, the embassy could easily have held the apartment for me, simply saying that it had been assigned.  The fact that it did not and that it gave away my predecessor’s apartment indicated that it was not looking out for me as it normally would for a fellow Foreign Service officer.

Over time, I began to get some inkling of what had happened.  My predecessor had not been a Foreign Service officer.  He had been a Schedule C political appointee, who had come into the State Department as a special assistant to the then-Ambassador Reginald Bartholomew.  I had worked with him and Bartholomew when Bartholomew had been Under Secretary of State for Security Assistance in Washington.  Schedule C employees can usually only stay eight years (a double presidential term), unless they can work out some other way to stay.  Usually they try to convert to Foreign Service or Civil Service.  Apparently my predecessor had tried to do this and had been refused by the State Department personnel system, meaning that he had to leave when his eight years were up.  I gather than the embassy had lobbied hard to get him converted to Foreign Service, and thus was mad with the personnel system when it refused to do so.  When it turned out that he would have to go, the embassy apparently decided that it wanted a civil service officer at State whom they somehow knew.  I don’t know how or why they decided on him, or even who “they” were.  He worked in the office that oversaw the assignment of overseas science officers.  It may be that he helped the embassy lobby to keep my predecessor, and they wanted to reward him for his help, or he may have worked with the Ambassador or another senior embassy officer on some project earlier.  In any case, they had tried to get him assigned to Rome, but the Foreign Service personnel system resisted again, because overseas jobs are supposed to go to Foreign Service officers, not civil service officers.  The personnel system was probably mad that the embassy had twice tried to go around the “system,” first by trying to get my predecessor into the Foreign Service, and when that failed , by trying to get a civil service officer assigned to replace him.  I was the personnel system’s rebuke to the embassy, and I gather that the embassy did not like it, and for that reason, perhaps, did now like me.  Perhaps the embassy had other reasons not to want me, but I had only just arrived, and nobody except for the deputy chief of mission, with whom I had served in Brazil, knew me.

Another minor insult was that my predecessor had been given the diplomatic rank of Counselor, which had also been my rank in Warsaw.  When I arrived in Rome, it turned out that I had been downgraded to the diplomatic rank of First Secretary.  The diplomatic rank does not affect pay, but it does affect benefits, such as housing, entertainment budget, and of course your status with the Italian diplomats with whom you work.  In theory this was just part of the government cut-backs to save money, but combined with everything else, it looked like it was intended as an insult.

I suppose I could have fought the situation.  I had been promoted to my then rank, FO-1, more or less like a colonel or GS-15, only a few years earlier; so, I had lots of time in grade left before I would have to leave if I didn’t get promoted.  However, because I had gotten a number of awards that had increased my pay over the years, I was already at the top step of my pay grade.  I could not make any more money unless I got promoted.  The handwriting was on the wall that I was not going to get a good efficiency report or a promotion in that job in Rome.  It could have been an opportunity to enjoy living in Rome and not care what happened on the job.  However, I didn’t feel like I could do that. Furthermore, a diplomat is in many ways a salesman, sometimes selling US policies to the host government, sometimes actually selling goods, working with the Commerce Department, for example.  I was not in a mood to be a salesman for the US government, given what was happening at the embassy.  But I was too loyal to this country, if not the embassy and the Republican Party, to fail to do my best in my job on behalf of the country.  In addition, life seemed destined to be miserable if I was always going to be at odds with the Ambassador and my immediate boss, the Economic Minister, who wanted to please the Ambassador.  Rome might be nice, but not nice enough to be totally miserable on the job.  So, I retired.

Rich Jew vs. Rich Jew

Two obscenely rich Jews are facing off in the New York Times over Hank Greenberg’s suit to recover millions of dollars for US Government actions regarding AIG during the financial crisis.  Greenberg says he was cheated by the government, although his old AIG insurance company was bankrupt and threatened to destroy the financial system unless it was rescued by the government.  Steven Rattner, who was the “car czar” during the meltdown attacks Greenberg for trying to profit from a situation that his company created by its poor business practices. 

Rattner, whom I really like on “Morning Joe,” is of course right.  I congratulate him for not standing by Greenberg in some kind of Jewish solidarity.  Rattner is correct in his closing statement that “Average Americans [me] already feel distaste for Wall Street and rich people; bringing these rapacious lawsuits can only unnecessarily exacerbate class tensions.” 

The most generous interpretation I can put on Greenberg’s action is that he is embarrassed by the fact that his company was so poorly managed that it made him and the people who worked for him look like incompetent fools.  Winning a lawsuit might bring him a little redemption.  But for now Greenberg remains a very rich, stupid, incompetent fool.  He is proof that you don’t need to be very smart to make lots of money; you just need to be very greedy, unfeeling, and probably somewhat dishonest.  

Don't Soak the Rich, Let the Poor Help the Poor

The NYT has an interesting op-ed in defense of letting the filthy rich keep their money.  "Don't Soak the Rich" argues that it is not tax collection that fights income inequality, but how government income is spent.  It argues that Germany's regressive income tax structure is better at redistributing income that America's putative preogressive tax structure.  It begs the question of how and where the government is going to raise the money it redistributes without raising taxes on the rich.  It seems to argue that the government can help the poor by taxing them and then giving them their money back.  This is exactly what the Republicans rail against when arguing against tax increases for the rich.   They say you know better what to do with your own money than the government does.  It is arguable that if the government increased taxes on lower incomes significantly that they would be less able to buy beer and cigarettes and the government could use that money to build infrastructure, new roads and airports.  But I don't buy that argument.  If you need to raise money, you need to tax those who have the money, the rich.  Willie Sutton said he robbed banks, "Because that's where the money is."  It's the same thing with taxes.  If as the op-ed says, government redistributions of wealth help level inequality, then you need to raise some money to redistribute, and the rich people have it.

I think most Americans who have an opinion would say that the old days of Eisenhower and Kennedy were better in terms of income equality, when taxes on the rich were much higher than today.  Ronald Reagan cut taxes dramatically, and America has become much worse for it over the years.  In the short term, Reagan's tax cuts did not seem to pierce the soul of America, but in the decades since then, America has ceased to be a shining city on a hill, in large part because Reagan refused to pay the bill to keep the city's lights on.  He destroyed that wonderful, shining city.

History Is History, Patriotic or Not

The WSJ op-ed by Donald Kagan says, "Democracy Requires a Patriotic Education." He cites Thomas Jefferson for support, not thinking that Thomas Jefferson was not a British patriot,  If he had been, the United States would probably not exist.  By his definition, George W. Bush, Dick Cheney, Bill Clinton, and most of the leaders of the late 20th century were not patriots.  They refused to fight for their country (the U.S.) during the Vietnam War.  They rebelled against their government, which wanted to send troops to Vietnam; they didn't go.  They had excuses, but they did not do what the government wanted them to do.  By Kagan's definition, they were (are) not patriots.

Kagan rails against the intellectuals in universities who encouraged their students to examine reasons why the 9/11 terrorists may have done what they did.  He mistakes the conflict of intellectuals versus regular people for the actual conflict between generations.  The baby boomers who avoided war in the 1960s are the professors whom he denigrates as intellectuals.  They are just rationalizing their own refusal to fight for their country years ago.  The new, student generation which does not have the draft to contend with is less concerned about sending some poor rednecks to fight a war for them.  And, yes, some are patriots who will go and fight, just as many young men in the 1960s went and fought in Vietnam.  Fewer go today if you compare the number of individuals who fought in the Vietnam War and the number who have fought in Iraq and Afghanistan.  The proportion of the population that serves today is much smaller that it was during Vietnam.  But the elites did not fight then and will not fight now.

This is relevant in my neighborhood.  The school board of Jefferson County, Colorado, wants to throw out the curriculum for the high school AP history course, because it is not patriotic enough.  The school board wants to remove history about dissent and resistance to the government.  They want to teach history as they wished it had happened, not as it actually happened.  They wish the rebellion against the draft in the 1960s had never happened, along with civil rights protests, prohibition, the Civil War, and many other unpleasant episodes in US history, but they did happen, and if you ignore them, you are not teaching history, but you are just distributing some sort of propaganda.  Welcome to the old Soviet Union!  Will history be taught from little red books like those Mao distributed in China?    

Is Ukraine Putin's Cuban Missile Crisis

To what extent does Putin see the crisis in Ukraine the same way that Kennedy saw the Cuban missile crisis: a foreign military threat to the national security of the country?  It is not clear what NATO is going to do vis-à-vis Ukraine.  Ukraine is not a NATO member; so, NATO has no treaty obligation to defend it, although it does have treaty obligations to Poland and the Baltic states.  Who knows what Putin thought, but it would be reasonable to see Ukraine (and Belarus) as a buffer between Russia and the NATO allies, a kind of a Finland, as many commentators have described it.  He counted on his puppet rulers in Ukraine to keep the lid on yearnings to join the West, but they failed him while he was busy with the Olympics.  While there is a lot of talk about Ukraine never joining NATO, who knows what might happen in ten or twenty years.

On the other hand, it is arguable that NATO is not a threat to Russia,as long as Russia behaves itself and does not engage in aggression.  In the past there was some talk that Russia itself might join NATO.

This may be where the sense of Russian greatness comes in. Russia has always been on the border of Europe, not quite European, but always interacting closely with Europe, whether under attack by Napoleon or Hitler, or engaged in a cold war, or in a trade dispute with the EU.  Russia has historical justification for distrust of Europe.   Now Russia’s first capital city, Kiev, is looking to the West to join the EU rather than to the East as an ally of Russia.

Despite the historical and military consequences for Russia, does Russia have any right to interfere in the self-determination of the Ukraining people?  If the US experience with the Cuban missile crisis is relevant, them the answer might be yes, if there are legitimate national security risks for Russia.  The West says, no, there is no national security risk, because NATO and the West will never be an aggressor against Russia.  For Russia, the question is whether that assurance is one on which it can stake its existence for the foreseeable future.

Another national security issue is the Russian warm water port in Crimea.  This was traditionally Russian territory until Khrushchev transferred it to Ukraine in 1954.  Putin has already taken Crimea back for Russia, but it has no overland connection to Russia.  Contact with Russia must be over Ukrainian territory.  Putin may not find this acceptable, but so far it sounds as if there may be room for negotiation.  If the pro-Russian, eastern provinces of Ukraine were granted lots of autonomy by Ukraine, so that Putin felt he could rely on this for transport to and from Crimea, he might not feel that he has to annex them as part of Russia.  It remains to be seen what assurances Ukraine will give and whether Putin will accept them.  If not, he may feel that he has to take eastern Ukraine militarily. 

Discussing strategic access by Russia to Crimea avoids the issue of whether Russian has a special obligation to Russian speaking, Russia loving populations in surrounding countries.  This is the issue that brings fear to the Baltic republics.  They might prefer to see the Ukrainian issue resolved without getting into the question of what to do about ethnic Russians in countries bordering Russia. 

Network News

After watching most of the network news shows, I think the PBS News Hour and Aljazeera’s John Seigenthaler are the best.  ABC, CBS and NBC are abysmal in covering foreign events.  They have two or three foreign correspondents that they stick on planes to report from some recognizable building near where the event occurred, often not in the same country, but maybe in the same continent, e.g., reporting about Greece from London or about Libya from Lebanon.  Aljazeera actually has some foreign correspondents who report from where the news is happening, e.g., from eastern Ukraine where fighting is going on.  No one can top Margaret Warner of PBS for her foreign reporting, often from dangerous places that the big networks appear afraid send correspondents to, or are unwilling to spend the money to send correspondents there.

Money appears to be a big issue.  ABC, NBC and CBS have clearly decided to cut spending on news coverage.  Scott Pelley, Brian Williams, and Diane Sawyer appear lazy or stupid.  Diane Sawyer has apparently embarrassed herself so badly that she is leaving ABC news to do something easier.  The morning news shows (Today, etc.) have almost no news; they are mainly extended weather reports and stories about celebrities, often just pulled straight off the Internet.  Charlie Rose was supposed to add gravitas to CBS, and he has helped, but the CBS news division appears to be so worthless that he has nothing to work with.

The networks would probably say that their flagship news shows can’t compete with the 24 hour coverage of the cable channels, but the Daily Show and Colbert Report frequently ridicule CNN and FOX for their terrible reporting.  The networks, particularly MSNBC, have decided that it’s a lot cheaper to pay some talking heads to argue about politics and what’s been reported the New York Times than it is to do actual reporting.  Cable news is just nonstop screaming at each other by the same mindless ideologues.  Here, Seigenthaler has again excelled by having some interesting guests who are not on all the other talk shows, including people like Khrushchev’s great-granddaughter.  Whether it is correct or not, she made the interesting point that today, as in World War II and may wars before that, the Russian people are willing to make great sacrifices, including giving their lives, for Russian greatness.  The lesson is: don’t be too optimistic that sanctions on Russia will work.

The other cable news exception is Fareed Zakaria on CNN.  His Sunday morning program is the best news show on television.  It shows what it is possible to do with a talk show.  He has interesting, intelligent guests and he asks them interesting, intelligent questions.  NBC finally realized that Zakaria made David Gregory of “Meet the Press” look uninformed and incurious, and got rid of him.  Brian Stelter of CNN’s Reliable Sources is another exception.  I had enjoyed the show under Howard Kurtz and was disappointed when he left, but the show has gotten even better under Stelter.  Meanwhile Kurtz at Fox has gone completely off the rails.  I tried to watch him for several weeks, but he has apparently swallowed the Fox line completely.  In addition he has the usual blond Fox minders to make sure he hews the party line.  What a disappointment!  I hope Kurtz is getting a lot of money because he has certainly embarrassed himself by becoming a whore for Fox News.

Return of the Neocons

I finally read Bret Stephens’ editorial in the WSJ that drove Joe on "Morning Joe" so crazy this morning --”The Neo-Neocons.”  Stephens says Obama’s decision to attack ISIS is proof that the old neocons -- Wolfowitz, Cheney, Libby and Perle -- were right all along.  Joe said that was a stupid argument and I agree.  ISIS is not Iraq, and Iraq in 2014 is not the Iraq that George W. Bush invaded.  One reason Obama may have to fight ISIS is because the Bush team botched the Iraq war so badly.

George H.W. Bush fought an excellent war against Iraq and won.  The right wing Republicans were not happy, however, because he did not kill Saddam Hussein.  The Republicans and the American public could not stomach a reasonable, victorious war, and they voted Bush I out of office, the only president since World War II who actually won a war.  Of course, they say it was because of the “No new taxes” pledge, but that’s just spin.  Bush raised taxes for the same reason he won the war: he was an intelligent, honest, honorable man, unlike his successors.  Bush II, Cheney and company could not wait to prove him wrong.  They proved themselves wrong, and did great damage to the country in the bargain.

The Stephens article is primarily an attack on the New Yorker magazine, as a mouthpiece of liberal Democrats.  It disturbs me that to some extent it comes down to Jews versus Jews.  I don’t know if George Packer, the author of the Iraq article that he attacks is Jewish, but David Remnick, the editor of the New Yorker is.  Wikipedia says one of Packer’s parents was Jewish.  Stevens’ old neocons are predominately Jewish.  Wolfowitz, Libby, and Perle are; Cheney is not.  Wikipedia says Bret Stephens is Mexican, but since he used to be the editor of the Jerusalem Post, he must have some Jewish connection.

I just don’t believe that most Jews can be unbiased about the Middle East.  Israel is always uppermost in their thoughts.  For them any debate about the Middle East is at least as much about the security of Israel as it is about the security of the United States.  I am worried that whatever happens regarding ISIS will be significantly influenced by Israeli and Jewish parochial concerns, rather than the US national interest.

American Assassins

I have about had it with the lust of the Republicans and Hillary Clinton for the blood of Arab leaders.  America killed Iraq’s Saddam Hussein and Libya’s Kaddafi.  It didn’t kill Egypt’s Mubarak, at least not yet, but it has gotten him locked up as a political prisoner.  Now they want to kill Syria’s Assad in the worst possible way, but the rise of ISIS has thrown a monkey-wrench into those plans.  Everywhere they depose a leader, they leave a horrendous mess of a political vacuum.  If they succeed in deposing Assad, they will most likely turn Syria over the wild men of ISIS.  We are still in Afghanistan, but the latest reports indicate that there really was significant electoral fraud in the presidential election and that after Karzai’s corrupt rule, Afghanistan will once again sink into feudal tribal warfare in which the Taliban will have the upper hand. 

Everywhere we intervene, it is the kiss of death for civil society.  These are wars led by fools, by idiotic, incompetent jerks.  They have fouled the reputation of the US military and the Foreign Service.  Monkeys in a barrel could do better.  The biggest incompetent jerk was George W. Bush, aided by his devilish buffoon of a sidekick, Dick Cheney.  General Tommy Franks, who failed to catch Osama bin Laden in the Tora Bora mountains of Afghanistan and then utterly botched the “shock and awe” invasion of Iraq certainly takes the prize for being one of the most incompetent generals in American history.  It’s becoming more and more clear that David Petraeus’ surge was not a military victory, but just a victory for American money buying off corrupt Sunni sheiks.  It was a Potemkin village that has now collapsed.  In Syria, we claimed we only wanted to arm the Free Syrian Army to fight Assad, but the Free Syrian Army is too poor an army to win against Assad or ISIS.  What aid we have provided the Syrian rebels has probably had the principle effect of strengthening ISIS, just as we created Osama bin Laden in Afghanistan during its war with the Soviet Union. 

ISIS appears to be a terrible organization.  Let’s kill some of them, but don’t try to do any nation building.  In fact, it appears that Iraq is a lost cause.  The government in Baghdad will not represent all of the Iraqi people.  It’s worthless.  If the peshmerga can lead the fight against ISIS, let’s help them, without trying to get involved in Kurdish politics.  In their hearts, the Kurds still want a Kurdistan nation that would include parts of Iraq, Syria, and Turkey, a NATO ally.  Let’s don’t encourage or arm the Kurds to start fighting Turkey.  Just kill some ISIS guys and get out.  Kill the guy who beheaded the journalist James Foley if you can.  But please don’t do any nation building, which has turned out to be nation destroying.  

Churchill and Zionism

Last week’s NYT review by Geoffrey Wheatcroft of Churchill and Empire gave the impression that the most important aspect of the British Empire to Churchill was the creation of Israel.  I can’t believe that Churchill cared more about Israel than India.  Discussing Churchill’s reaction to the collapse of the Ottoman Empire, the review says, “Although his own sympathies were with the Zionist settlers, he soon realized what a thankless burden this Palestine was, and toyed with the idea of handing it over to the United States, a teasing ‘what if’ of history….”  Later in the article, which devotes about a quarter of its discussion to Churchill’s Zionism, Wheatcroft states:

Churchill’s friend and colleague Lord Moyne, who was assassinated by Zionist extremists in 1944, was not a viscount; and the dinner in London for Chaim Weizmann, the Zionist leader, in June 1937 was at the house of Sir Archibald Sinclair, the Liberal leader, not that of the Labour leader Clement Attlee, as James says.

 That evening was memorably reported by Blanche (Baffy) Dugdale, niece of A. J. Balfour, a former prime minister and the signer of the declaration, who was herself an active gentile Zionist: “Winston in his most brilliant style, but very drunk.” And here’s something James might have made more of. Benjamin Netanyahu keeps a portrait in his office of his hero Churchill, who was certainly a Zionist and supporter of Israel, but Netanyahu should be careful. He is perhaps unaware that Churchill’s commitment to Zionism was based on his belief that the Jews were a “higher grade race” than the Arabs they were supplanting.

We are left with two great paradoxes. The man who, at one extraordinary moment, heroically defied the vilest racial tyranny in history was himself not only an intransigent imperialist but a racist, by the standards of his own age as well as ours.

The reviewer did not like the book.  I didn’t like the review.  Churchill’s greatest concern about the decline of the British Empires was certainly not what would happen to Palestine.

What Is Wrong with American Financial Policy?

Two interesting articles in the NYT point out some ideas that contradict the conventional wisdom about the US economy.  Robert Shiller writes that the stock market looks overvalued according to a stock index that he developed.  The CAPE index is at 25, a level it has reached only three times since 1881, each of those three just before a steep market drop.  Shiller looks for reason to say, “This time is different,” and says the answer could be low interest rates on bonds.  But he doesn’t entirely buy his own explanation.  He thinks the real reason may be psychology and what the common perception of the market is, rather than an economic explanation. 

I think another reason may be the disappearance of traditional company provided retirement plans.  People are under the gun to amass their own nest egg to support them during retirement.  To do this they are almost forced into risker, higher yielding investments.  In the old days, when interest rates were higher, companies would probably have invested in bonds.  Today there is a huge influx of money into the markets to pay for IRAs, 401(k)s, etc.  This new money is going to drive up stock prices.  But as Shiller says, if the psychology changes and people perceive that their stock investments are too risky, they may pull their money out.  You can lose money in the stock market; you won’t lose it if you hide it in your mattress, in government bonds, or some other very safe investment.  That happened to some extend after the 2008 Great Recession. 

The other article with an unconventional twist is AndrewSorkin’s reporting that actual corporate tax rates paid by US companies are not uncompetitive with corporate taxes levied by foreign countries.  Although the maximum tax rate is 35%, almost no company pays that rate.  There are so many loopholes and special tax breaks that the actual tax raid paid is about 12%, which is lower than the maximum rate that companies say are so appealing overseas.  Sorkin says the real reason for tax “inversions” in which companies reincorporate overseas is the piles of cash American companies are holding overseas that which they do not what to repatriate.  In any case, the screams of corporate CEOs about the high corporate tax rates are insincere and not based on facts.  Corporate CEOs love money and don’t care about America.  They are unwilling to pay taxes to support the military troops, the police, the firemen, or pave roads.  They just want their New York City penthouses, their Hamptons beach houses, and their Aspen ski chalets.  

Letter to Sen. Bennet re Social Security

I received your email and signed your petition about Social Security, but it is a sore point for me.

I am retired from the State Department Foreign Service.  I also earned enough quarters working in the private sector to qualify for Social Security.

Because of my Foreign Service retirement, my Social Security is reduced from a normal benefit of over $400 per month to an actual $48 per month that I receive from Social Security.  This amounts to a tax of about 90% on my Social Security benefits because I served my country in the US Foreign Service.

I am willing to sacrifice for my country.  I am also a Vietnam veteran who served in the Army artillery on the DMZ from 1969-1970.  I know that Social Security is underfunded, and am willing to do my part to preserve it.

But it makes me mad that rich people pay only a small part of their income into Social Security.  Contributions are capped at the first $117,000 of earnings.  For many rich people, this means that the Social Security tax is negligible, while for poor people, the Social Security tax is much higher than their income tax.  Meanwhile, for many investors, such as hedge fund managers, even income tax is capped at 20%, which may be a lower rate than the Social Security tax on the working poor.  Wall Street investors would scream bloody murder if they were taxed at 90%, as my Social Security is.

This is an example of extreme income inequality legally established by the United States Government.  I am happy to do my part to help save Social Security, but why should I contribute to government welfare programs for billionaires on Wall Street?

Something is rotten in Washington!

Middle East Policy Failures

ISIS’ success against the Kurdish Peshmerga highlights the failure of US Middle Eastern policy.  Our actions may have been better than nothing, or in some cases worse than nothing, but in any case they were not worth the cost.  Iraq and Afghanistan, where we fought hot wars, are absolute disasters.  We destroyed Iraq when we killed Saddam Hussein and Paul Bremmer disbanded the Iraqi army and ordered the de-Baathification of the Iraqi government.  In our Congress, Republicans have been screaming to do the same thing to Syria’s Assad.  They want to kill Assad and give military aid to his ISIS enemy which is killing everyone it doesn’t like in Iraq.  The Republicans and Obama worked together with the Europeans to kill Kaddafi and shove Libya into a rapid descent into a chaotic hell, killing an American ambassador in the process.  We didn’t kill Egypt’s Mubarek, but we did get him deposed, putting Egypt through years of turmoil, first under the Muslim Brotherhood and now under al-Sisi.

We didn’t create all of this instability.  Saddam, Mubarek and Kaddafi were all getting old and were going to have to leave in a few years.  We moved up that transition, but in retrospect we did not provide for a good transition; they have all gotten worse rather than better.  If we had left these leaders to their own devices, they might have arranged for a more stable government succession, or maybe not.  But for us, trillions of dollars and thousands of lives have been largely wasted.    The country that has probably gone through its transition better than the others is Tunisia, where we have been the least active.

ISIS’ savage, inhuman conduct in Iraq and Syria illustrate how awful our opponents in the Middle East are, but maybe this is neither the time nor the place for us to intervene in what is a regional conflict.

Of course, while all this is going on, the Israelis and Gazans are still fighting each other.  The Israelis face the same moral dilemma that the US does in trying to deal with this Middle East problem.  The more children and non-combatants Israel kills, the more horrendous it , and Jews in general, appear to the world.  The real anti-Semites are the Israelis; they are besmirching the reputations of all Jews everywhere.  When Jews invoke the Holocaust on behalf of Israel, it is an insult to the Holocaust, and makes Israelis look like foul hypocrites.

Oren WSJ Op-Ed on Zionism

I am not convinced by the WSJ op-ed of former Israeli Ambassador to the US Michael Oren that Zionism is or was a good thing.  He has a lot to say about how wonderful Israel is economically and politically, but he ignores the most important aspect of Zionism, the creation of Israel.  He also glosses over the fact that Israel’s wonderful democracy treats a number of people very badly, starting with the Palestinians in Gaza.  Gaza is not a country, but most Gazans are not Israeli citizens.  This is a “democracy” with a heavy strain of apartheid or at least very poor treatment of second class residents.

The problem goes back to Israel’s founding.  It was one of the first acts of the new United Nations after World War II, but I think it has turned out to be one of the worst UN mistakes.  The Palestinians were living in Palestine, albeit under some kind of British protectorate, rather than as an independent nation.  Nevertheless, the Jews had not lived in Palestine as a nation for at least 1,000 years.  It is as if someone came to your house and said, “My great-grandfather used to live in this house 100 years ago; I’m taking it back.  Get out!”  The Jews claim they have title to the land because God gave it to them 4,000 years ago, but I’m not sure that non-Jews have to take this title at face value.  Jesus, Paul and Peter made the Jewish God available to Christians; so, it’s not clear that the Jews are still the only people chosen by God.  And what about other gods, the Muslim God for example?   I don’t think the Palestinians agree that the Jews are God’s only chosen people, even if the United Nations said they were.

If the Jews are God’s chosen people and the Palestinians (and everybody else) are not, they have God’s approval to slaughter non-Jews occupying the Promised Land, and that’s what they have been doing.  But if this is truly a racial thing, how many Jews today are blood descendants of Abraham?  Do converts also acquire God’s permission to slaughter infidels on the Promised Land?  Is the right to slaughter non-Jews in the Promised Land acquired by race or religion?  Or was it simply granted by the UN’s creation of the state of Israel?

Zionism predates the Holocaust, but Israel is inextricable tied to the Holocaust.  It’s unlikely that the UN would have created Israel if it had not been for the suffering of the Jews in the Holocaust.  To some extent the UN said, “Let the Palestinians make reparations for what Hitler did to the Jews.”  Not surprisingly, the Palestinians were not too happy about being designated to pay Europe’s debt.

The bottom line: I’m not convinced that Zionism is/was a good thing.  Israel may be the most democratic country in the Middle East, but given the Jews history, it should be more  understanding and forgiving of the hardships of the countries surrounding it.  The Jews are criticized (with justification) for meekly walking into the death camps, with some exceptions, such as the Warsaw ghetto uprising.  In Israel they fought to preserve Israel from Arab attacks like they never did to defend themselves in Europe.  But now they begin to become the oppressors, appearing to be getting revenge for being oppressed in Europe.  Thus Zionism begins to look like a way to get revenge, not a way to establish a Jewish nation.  And as the Israeli Jews lose the high moral ground, Zionism loses the high moral ground and becomes just some kind of racist, oppressive regime like those under which the Jews suffered for centuries in Europe.

Putin, Obama, Reagan, Gorbachev and the INF Treaty

The US allegation that Russia is violating the INF Treaty limiting intermediate nuclear forces comes at a worrisome time with the unrest in Ukraine already roiling European waters.  From Russia, intermediate range weapons threaten Europe rather than the US, which can only be reached by longer range, strategic weapons.  It is probably to Putin’s advantage to make Western Europe think twice about whether he is really serious about building a new cruise missile that threatens them, and puts Obama in the position of possibly looking weak if he doesn’t react strongly.

No doubt the Republicans will wax nostalgic for Reagan who negotiated the INF agreement with Gorbachev.  However, in Putin, Obama has a much stronger and wilier opponent than Reagan had in Gorbachev.  Gorbachev was interested in bringing Russia in from the cold and warming up to the West.  He responded when Reagan taunted him with “Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall.”  Would Reagan have gotten the same response if he had said in earlier years, “Mr. Stalin, tear down this wall,” or today, “Mr. Putin, tear down this wall.”  Putin sees Gorbachev as a failed, wimpy leader who gave away Russia’s international position.  He doesn’t want to give away Ukraine, as Gorbachev gave away most Soviet satellite countries.  The losses of Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia are particularly grating to Putin.  If Putin thinks Gorbachev gave away the store, he may be strongly opposed to doing the same thing in Ukraine.

The desire of the majority of Ukrainians, and particularly those of western Ukraine to join the West and the EU is understandable and laudatory.  However, they may be victims of the history of Ukraine and Russia, just as are many Russians who desire stronger ties with the West than Putin does.  It is not irrelevant that the Russian nation was created in Kiev about 1,000 years ago, before the rise of Moscow and St. Petersburg.  While the loss of some former Soviet satellites, particularly some of the “stans” to the south is more like the UK’s loss of its colonies, the loss of Ukraine is more like the UK’s loss of Scotland.  The divorce may come, but not without some wailing and gnashing of teeth, in both cases.  Although a replay of “Braveheart” is unlikely in Scotland, war remains a possibility in Ukraine.  Putin would no doubt like to keep control of Kiev, the birthplace of mother Russia, but if he finds this too challenging, he try for a land corridor to Crimea by annexing some of eastern Ukraine which favors Russian over the West.  On one of the political talk shows this morning, New Yorker editor David Remnick pointed out that there is still a lot of old Soviet heavy industry left in eastern Ukraine, another incentive for Putin to try to hang on to it.  

In any case, Reagan’s “Tear down this wall” speech is largely irrelevant.  It was made to a weaker Russian leader at a time when Russia was in great turmoil.  Russia may have lost ground economically and industrially since Gorbachev’s time, but Putin wants to reverse that trend, and keeping at least part of Ukraine may be important to that objective.  Obama has a much more formidable opponent.

Do Republicans Hate Children?

The hue and cry about the children entering the US from Central America has reinforced my impression that Republicans don’t like children.  It is hard to know what all the motivations are for their coming to the US, but at least part of the motivation is that their lives are threatened if they stay at home.  There is at least some chance that if they stay, they will die, or they will be drafted into drug gangs and be forced to kill other people.  To some extent they are escaping a culture of extreme violence.  The Republicans don’t seem to care about this; they seem perfectly willing to deport these children even if returning them to their homes means certain death.  When Ted Cruz was asked about this he avoided the issue of threats at home by talking about how dangerous the trip to the US is, and how the coyotes who transport them for thousands of dollars take advantage of them sexually and financially, and endanger or desert them on the trip.  He implied that he had no responsibility for what their life was like at home.  Yet, while they may not be political refugees, they appear to be refugees from fighting as much as Syrians, Palestinians, Ukrainians and others around the world.  You are just as dead if you or killed by a drug cartel or a rebel terrorist group.

This example of not caring about children is added to domestic attitudes, where they oppose abortion, forcing mothers to have unwanted children.  Then they cut off or reduce food stamps and other programs that would help the mothers take care of these children after they are born.  It’s almost as if they enjoy the screams of hungry children.  Perhaps it makes the Republicans feel better about their own coddled children who attend private schools and have everything they want.  They profess to be Christian but ignore the injunctions to “Love your neighbor as yourself,” and “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.”  The government may not be the best institution to carry out these Biblical injunctions, they should at least recognize that, and say who or what will help take care of these endangered children, or at least make the case that we (our society) would like to do so, but cannot afford to.

If we cannot take these children into the US, could we at least help set up safe havens for them in their own countries where their lives would not be in danger?  Could we do more to reign in the drug gangs?  Could we do more to stop Americans from strengthening the drug cartels by paying them billions for the drugs?  

Israeli Ghettos

It is interesting that Israel has created a hellish ghetto in Gaza.  You would think that Jews would be sensitive about creating and ruling a ghetto after all the time that Jews spent living in ghettos in Europe.  I’m guessing that Gaza today is about as bad as the Warsaw ghetto was during World War II.  Of course it is not like Auschwitz and other death camps, but not that many people were actually killed in the ghetto except during the Warsaw ghetto uprising near the end of the war.  Jews were usually shipped from the ghetto to the death camps, not killed in the ghetto itself, although many were, just as many Palestinians are being killed today in Gaza by Israeli Jews.

Israel is a fairly modern, democratic country compared to most of its neighbors in the Middle East, but that moderate democracy mainly applies to Jews.  Even Arabs, who are citizens of Israel itself, rather than of Gaza or the West Bank, are pretty much second class citizens.  One of Israel’s main worries is that Jews will become a minority in Israel, and thus Israel will lose its identity as a Jewish state, unless Israel does something to reduce the number of Arabs in Israel by stuffing them into ghettos like Gaza, or something worse.  This is a significant concern of Netanyahu, Avigdor Lieberman, and other powerful, politically conservative Jews in the Israeli government.  But in the process, Israel risks losing its reputation as a modern, democratic state.  It more and more becomes a repressive, apartheid state, allied with its repressive neighbors like Egypt.  

Congressional Letter on Middled East

I am coming to believe that America’s whole involvement in the Middle East (Iraq, Afghanistan, Syria, Egypt, Libya, Yemen, etc.) has been a mistake and/or handled very badly.  The most recent examples are President Obama’s decision to recommend $500 million to support “good” Syrian rebels, mainly the Free Syrian Army.  Ironically, Robert Ford just resigned a few weeks ago as US Ambassador to Syria because Obama had refused to do this.  Although I would like to support fellow Foreign Service Officer Ford, I agree with Obama’s previous position of not supporting the rebels.  The Free Syrian Army is caught between President Assad on one side and the terrorist rebels, including ISIS, on the other.  They are in an impossible position.  Obama’s flip-flop was obviously motivated by the ISIS invasion of Iraq, which I think is partially motivated by Assad’s success in defeating ISIS in Syria.  ISIS decided correctly that they could have more success in Iraq than Syria.  If we really wanted to defeat ISIS we should support Assad rather than the Free Syrian Army.  Of course, Assad is a murderous goon, but he’s winning.  Instead in Iraq, we have thrown our lot in with Iran, which is already supporting Assad (and Maliki).  No one seems to care that we have abandoned our long-term Sunni allies -- Saudi Arabia, UAE, etc.  Our interests may be diverging, but it’s hard to walk away and get nothing for the trillions of dollars we spent for Middle Eastern oil over the decades.

I think support for the Syrian rebels is a hopeless effort, illustrated in part by yesterday’s news from Benghazi, Libya, where somebody has murdered one of its leading human rights lawyers, Salwa Bugaighis, who was a leader of the rebellion against Qaddafi.  So far, our intervention in Libya has mainly created instability and violence.  Of course, Qaddafi was violent, but now we have other people doing the same sorts of things.  The recent elections seem unlikely to change that.  I am pleased that we have captured Ahmed Abu Khattala, who apparently led the attack on the US mission in Benghazi that killed Ambassador Stevens.  I commend the President and the military for his capture.

Of course, Egypt is a mess, too.  I am disappointed at Egypt’s decision to imprison three Aljazeera journalists for seven years or longer.  I don’t understand the politics, but apparently Qatar, where Aljazeera is based, supports the Muslim Brotherhood.  Aljazeera Arabic has been outspoken in support to the Muslim Brotherhood, which new Egyptian President Sisi has sworn to destroy.  However, the three imprisoned journalists work for Aljazeera English, which has been evenhanded in its treatment of the Muslim Brotherhood and Egyptian politics.  The US should at least put some serious pressure on Egypt to release them.

Don't Get Involved In Syria

I would like to agree with Amb. Robert Ford's NYT op-ed, "Arm Syria's Opposition," about the need to support the Free Syrian Army in its rebellion against Syria’s Assad, but I don’t think it will work.  Assad and ISIS, which is trying to overthrow Assad, are both bad.  The Free Syrian Army is caught in the middle.  I can’t believe that it is strong enough to win against two enemies, even with US help.  The US has not successfully won long wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.  The Syrian rebels have not won against Assad; in fact, Assad appears to be winning against the Free Syrian Army, ISIS, and random other fighters, including Iranians, al-Qaeda, and other terrorist groups.  We don’t need to join another losing effort, especially if there is no good outcome.  If Assad wins, we are not happy.  If the rebels win, the Free Syrian Army will be a weak competitor for power with the terrorists.  It’s hard, but we should stay out of involvement in Syria.  

Anne-Marie Slaughter on ISIS

Anne-Marie Slaughter’s op-ed in the NYT today strikes me as ridiculous.  She wants to fight ISIS in Syria as well as in Iraq.  I don’t think we should be fighting in either country.  She would have the “good” rebels in Syria fight ISIS on the one hand and Assad on the other.  This puts them in between two enemies, both of which are probably stronger than the “good” Syrian rebels are.  It’s a recipe for destruction of the “good” rebels.

If we had really wanted to destroy ISIS we should have supported Assad, who might have been able to destroy them with our help.  Of course, then you end up keeping Assad in power in Syria.  But you can’t have it both ways.  In Syria you have to choose between Assad and ISIS; choosing the “good” rebels is a recipe for defeat of the good rebels and their American patrons.

In part, the ISIS move into Iraq may be prompted by Assad’s success against them in Syria.  ISIS was losing in Syria, and decided maybe it would have better luck in Iraq.  If it had been more successful in Syria, it might have stayed there and taken over the Syrian government.  Creating a greater Sunni Iraq-Syria is a fallback position.  In Syria ISIS did okay in the Sunni areas, but the Assad government was Alawite allied with the Shiites, making it difficult for ISIS to take over important parts of the country, like Damascus.  They have been so successful in Iraq because they are taking over Sunni areas of the country, where they are to some extent welcomed, more so than America was after its invasion of Iraq.  However, ISIS will probably run into the same problem in Sunni areas of Iraq that it ran into in Syria, making it questionable whether they can take over Baghdad, for example, just as they could not take over Damascus.  As a result they will try to create a Sunni regime of some kind in the conjoined Sunni regions of Syria and Iraq, in the process probably freeing the Iraqi Kurds from Baghdad’s rule.

In any case, the solution to Iraq’s problems does not lie in Syria.  I also do not favor an alliance with Iran against the ISIS Sunnis.  The best thing we have done so far for Iran is kill Saddam Hussein.  Helping them destroy the Sunni insurgency would rank right up there with our earlier mistake.  If two of our enemies are fighting each other, the Sunni terrorists and the Iranian terrorists, let them kill each other; don’t stop them.  If one side ends up about to win a great victory, then we may want to intervene to maintain some kind of balance of power, but we are not there yet.

I want to blame George W. Bush and Republicans for this mess, because of their invasion of Iraq that had nothing to do with 9/11 or weapons of mass destruction.  However, it looks like the Middle East was a powder keg about to go off.  All of these religious and ethnic tensions, not to mention the Israeli-Arab conflict, were already hot, but it was stupid for Bush and company to light the fuse that set off the powder keg.  If it had gone off in some other way, we might have been better able to manage it, or maybe not.  But as it is, virtually every country in the Middle East is in turmoil or on edge.  Although everyone seems to prefer to use the ISIS acronym (Islamic State in Iraq and Syria), the other acronym, ISIL (Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant), more accurately shows the intentions of the terrorist group.  Their ambitions extend overthrowing to Lebanon, Jordan, and Israel.  You can add those countries to the existing list of Egypt, Tunisia, Libya, and others that have already been destabilized.  And ISIS-ISIL has plenty of support, financial and otherwise, from the Sunni petro-states, starting with Saudi Arabia.

Letter to Congress re Benghazi

I hear the House will investigate the Benghazi, Libya, incident in which Ambassador Stevens and several others were killed.  If they do, I hope they will also investigate the Pat Tillman incident in Afghanistan.  I believe the Republicans engaged in more lies and cover-ups about the Pat Tillman scandal than the Obama administration did about Benghazi.

As a Vietnam veteran (Army artillery) and retired Foreign Service officer, I would prefer to let both men rest in peace.  I believe the Benghazi investigation is motivated by partisan politics rather than genuine concern about the death of Amb. Stevens.  If the Republicans are going to spit on the graves of brave Americans who died in the service of their country, they should look at all the deaths whose details were covered up.

I believe Amb. Stevens died in part because of the CIA.  (Of course the main blame lies with the crazy Libyans who killed him.)  The post in Benghazi was not a consulate; it was some kind of special mission set up to cover CIA activities.  The CIA safe house was several blocks away from the mission, and was eventually attacked itself.  I’m not sure, but I would guess that the CIA had some paramilitary types in their safe house who did not immediately come to the aid of the State Department mission, although at some point they did come.  I think at least some of the confusion at Susan Rice’s Sunday show briefings was due to a CIA cover-up, because they did not want to admit that they had such a large operation in Benghazi.

In addition, I believe there was genuine confusion about why the Benghazi mission was attacked, whether it was a terrorist attack or a protest of the anti-Islam video that got out of control.  There is good reason that people talk about “the fog of war.”  I don’t know what happened in the embassy in Tripoli, but it looks to me like neither the CIA station chief, the military attaché, nor the State Department security officer rose to the occasion in terms of helping the Ambassador in Benghazi.  Ambassador Pickering, with whom I worked in State, investigated this issue, and I am sure that he did a thorough, professional job, as he did everything while in the Foreign Service.

Congressional Letter - Net Neutrality

I am concerned that the FCC is destroying the Internet in America by ending net neutrality.  The Internet should be tightly regulated as a common carrier, as AT&T (“Ma Bell”) was 50 years ago.  The telephone system then only carried voice; the Internet is much more important since it carries data, music, and video as well as voice.  Nobody watches television broadcast over the airwaves anymore, but the broadcast spectrum is regulated as if it were much more important than the Internet.

Michael Powell decided that the Internet should not be regulated as a common carried when he was the chair of the FCC.  He later went on to reap his financial payoff by becoming president of the National Cable and Telecommunications Association, where he has continued to argue against regulating the internet as a public utility.

Currently the FCC is proposing an Internet “fast lane” for companies like Netflix, while arguing that this does not violate “net neutrality” because it does not create a “slow lane,” but if there is a fast lane, everybody else is in the slow lane.

Congress can remedy this situation and overrule the FCC by passing legislation strictly regulating the Internet as a public utility or common carrier.  I hope that you will do so.  The recent proposed mergers of Comcast and Time Warner cable and of AT&T and DirecTV show that this field is becoming a monopoly.  Government regulation becomes more important as competition decreases.

Already many countries outrank the US in Internet availability and speed.  I hope that you will take action to prevent American monopolies from destroying this important resource.

Congressional Letter - Keep Shinseki

I am writing to defend General Shinseki from charges that he should resign as Secretary of the Department of Veterans Affairs because of delays in treating veterans in Phoenix, Fort Collins, and other locations.

While I was at Firebase Barbara in Vietnam, in 1970, a few miles away, the US Special Forces base at Mai Loc was overrun by the North Vietnamese.  Then Army Captain Eric Shinseki went to relieve the base.  Although I don’t know him at all, I feel a bond with General Shinseki as an Army veteran who cares about the people who served with him.  The VA faces an overwhelming task; things have improved under Shinseki although they still have a long way to go.

I have heard no one on the news explain well why the veterans in Phoenix died while waiting for care.  Except for veterans wounded or otherwise injured during their service, the VA is a caregiver of last resort.  The fact that these people died in Phoenix means that they had no military Tricare, no private healthcare insurance, no Obama Care, no Medicare, no Medicaid, and their local emergency rooms apparently refused to treat them when their condition became urgent.  It is an indictment of the whole American healthcare system, as well as an indictment of VA care.

One problem with firing Shinseki is replacing him.  Healthcare costs in America have skyrocketed.  To replace Shinseki, you would ideally get a senior administrator of a large, private hospital system, but almost every person in one of these positions makes millions of dollars per year.  They would have to make a significant financial sacrifice to take the VA job.  One example is former Senator Frist; the Frist family in Tennessee is fantastically wealthy because of its hospital chain which was taken over by HCA, in which the Frists remain involved.  If you look at other well-known hospital systems, the Cleveland Clinic or the Mayo Clinic for example, the senior personnel are extremely well paid.

Although all aspects of the VA could be improved, I think the current scandal mainly involves old veterans like myself.  For veterans who come home wounded in combat, my understanding is that the VA is doing a better job, and once a person is in the VA system, the VA health data (as opposed to service data) is probably automated better than any private hospital’s.  I have looked into somehow getting on the VA’s roles, and frankly have been put off, but I did not make an issue of it because I have private insurance and Medicare.  The VA replied to my letters by saying that because I had these other coverages, I did not qualify for VA care.  I belong to the American Legion mainly because I hope that if something catastrophic happened to me not covered by insurance, the American Legion would help my wife get some kind of VA care for me.  I understand that the VA cannot be the primary healthcare provider to everyone who ever served in the American military.  It is more important that the VA take care of wounded veterans rather than old guys with chronic diseases, although admittedly I might change my tune on this someday.

Meanwhile, I think Shinseki is doing a better job than almost anyone who would replace him.

Veterans Affairs

I am sure the Department of Veterans Affairs needs improving, but I am not sure the latest scandal sheds much light on what needs to be done.  The fact that the scandal occurred in Phoenix, although similar cases have been found in other cities, indicates to me that his is a problem affecting older veterans.  Nice people don’t serve in the military very often these days.  Most volunteers come from rural or inner city areas where jobs are scarce.  American elites talk about being patriotic, but they don’t often do anything about it.  Therefore, I don’t think the people in Phoenix who died waiting for a call from the VA were veterans of Iraq or Afghanistan.  There are a lot of old people in Phoenix; these veterans were most likely from an earlier war or peacetime service.  

This raises the question of what services the VA is supposed to provide.  In many cases, it is the caregiver of last resort for veterans.  It has been criticized for falling down on this job, for example, failing to care for homeless veterans.   Retired career military have a program called Tricare.  If these Phoenix veterans died waiting for VA medical care, it means they had no Tricare, no private health insurance, no Obama Care, no Medicare, no Medicaid, and no local hospital would admit them to the hospital’s emergency room.  That is a sad state of affairs for the veterans, and for the US health care system.  

The VA has an enormous number of programs, covering young vets who have been badly wounded in combat, old wounded vets, young vets who are failing to adapt to civilian life after leaving the military, and old vets who are down on their luck, broke and sick.  I am guessing the Phoenix scandal involves the last category, but the talking heads on TV don’t shed any light on the issue.  They talk as if the VA is your mother, and once you leave the military, the VA will take care of you for the rest of your life, no matter what.  I’m not sure that what the law says.  

Lots of people want Secretary Shinseki to go, but nobody talks about who should replace him.  He is a combat veteran (who served in I Corps in Vietnam while I was there), who cares about the men and women.  As a cabinet secretary, Shinseki makes about $200,000 per year.  Both the head of the Cleveland Clinic and the head of the Mayo clinic make over $2 million per year.  Most heads of hospital systems earn over $1 million, and those systems are all smaller than the VA system.  Most doctors running university medical schools earn well over $500,000.  For almost anyone in the private sector, taking a senior government job means a substantial cut in salary.  So the VA can probably rule out getting a first rate medical administrator.  I would not expect much improvement if Shinseki gets replaced by some political hack, although the people shouting, “Off with his head,” would be appeased for a while.  

Jewish Takeover

I have become increasingly concerned about a Jewish takeover of the United States, in which the United States would become the guarantor of Israel’s security, while Israel increasingly becomes an undesirable, immoral country.  Secretary of State Kerry’s characterization of Israel as an “apartheid” country is only the most recent evidence of Israel’s downfall.

I think the main problem is Israel, not Jews in general.  There are many American Jews who are loyal, patriotic Americans.  Ironically, I had more friendships and interactions with Jews, blacks, and other minorities growing up in Alabama than I have had in Colorado, where the most visible minority is Hispanic.  Growing up, the family next door was Jewish, and I never thought of them as anything but American.  The main difference was that we seldom shared meals because they kept kosher.  However, today I am worried by people like Sheldon Adelson, Haim Saban, even Senator Charles Schumer, as well as organizations like AIPAC, and Israelis like Bibi Netanyahu and Avigdor Lieberman.  How would they come down if they had to choose between Israel and America?

Israel is in a difficult position.  It wants to be a racially pure country, the “Jewish state” that Netanyahu wants the Palestinians to recognize, which unfortunately echoes Hitler’s attempt to make Germany racially pure.  More and more, Israel is a country of Ashkenazi Jews; even Sephardic Jews are second rate citizens, much less other ethnicities.  On the other hand, if Israel does not remain an ethnically pure Jewish state, the Palestinians will in a few years become the majority population of Israel, ending Jewish dominance of the government.

White men, mainly Anglo-Saxons of British ancestry, took North America from the Indians; so, it would be just another page for the history books for the Jews to take North America from the Anglo-Saxons

Of course it is not just the Jews, Asians, including the Indians from South Asia, are also on the ascendant, but they so far are not acquiring the financial and political power that the Jews have.  They are not united in supporting one country outside of the US.  Many of them, except for a few Indian financiers, seem content to remain millionaires, not become billionaires.  They also don’t have the political power that Jews do.  There are relatively few in Congress, compared to the huge caucus of Jews, who make up a much larger percentage of the political elite in Washington, than their proportion of the population at large.  There is also a different attitude toward the country they came from.  Asians left their own country, India, China or Vietnam for example, because they wanted to go somewhere else.  As a result I don’t feel that America is nearly as threatened by Asians as it is by Jews.

Most Jews immigrated to the U.S. before Israel was created.  They never left their “homeland” for political or other reasons.  They left Germany or Russia because things were bad there, but they didn’t leave Israel because things were bad there.  Many Jews slip back and forth between the US and Israel, often having dual citizenship.  Rahm Emanuel, the mayor of Chicago, chose to serve as a volunteer in the Israeli military rather than the American military.  He apparently served in the IDF in Israel during the first Gulf War in 1991.  It’s possible that he might not have qualified for the American military because he is missing part of a finger.  Also his father emigrated from Israel to the US, not from Europe.  Nevertheless, it is odd to have someone who held one of the most influential positions in the US Government, President Obama’s chief of staff, who served in a foreign army while remaining an American citizen.

Another question for me is Stanley Fischer, the new vice chairman of the Federal Reserve, a job he took after being governor of the Bank of Israel from 2005 to 2013.  He was born in Rhodesia, studied in Israel as a teenager, got undergraduate degrees in England, and got a Ph.D. at MIT, where he also taught.  He became an American citizen in 1976.  Apparently Israel made him take Israeli citizenship to be governor of their central bank, but Israel did not force him to give up his American citizenship; so, he is now a dual national.  I guess I should be happy that he was an American citizen before he was an Israeli citizen and that he didn’t renounce his American citizenship.  Also, at the Fed, Israel’s interests are unlikely to conflict with America’s, but if they do, can he be trusted, especially since his boss, Janet Yellen, is also Jewish, and of course most bankers, especially in New York City are Jewish.  When America was founded, almost everybody in the American government was of British birth or ancestry, but they also fought several wars (the Revolution and 1812) against Britain.  

I am not well connected to any immigrant community, but got some glimpses when I served in the American embassies in Warsaw and Rome. The embassy in Warsaw had a big contingent of Polish-Americans, and the embassy in Rome had a huge contingent of Italian-Americans.  Italian-Americans had a very close, loving relationship with Italy. It was a little different in Warsaw because Warsaw was just coming out of 50 years under Communist rule.  The Polish-Americans had never lived under Communism; in some ways they wanted to do more to help their former countrymen than the Italians did, but in some ways, they were a little more distant, trying to figure out how to handle the remaining Communist influences in Poland.

So, what do American Jews think about Israel being such a racist country?  Clearly some are worried about it, the Jews who support J-Street, for example, but most seem to say, “Israel right or wrong, I love it.”  There are a lot of bad countries in the world that violate human rights more than Israel does, but the United States is not their sugar daddy.  When it wants to, Israel acts like it is a 51st state, insatiably taking, taking, taking all that its Jewish Congressmen and Senators will give it, aided by their born-again, fundamentalist Christian colleagues who also support Israel strongly in Congress.  Israel is the biggest recipient of US assistance, except Afghanistan because of the war, despite the fact that Israel is much richer and more developed than any other recipient of such aid.

Jews curse America for refusing to take in more Jews before and during World War II; yet, Israel declares itself a Jewish state, accepting only Jews.  Why couldn’t America have done like Israel and declared itself a Christian state in the 1940s, refusing to take in any Jews at all?

The New York Times recently reported that Abraham Foxman of the Anti-Defamation League conducted a poll that found that 26% of the world population was anti-Semitic.  It turns out that most of those anti-Semites are Arabs and Muslims, especially Palestinians.  However, the article says, “The most widely held stereotype, the survey showed, was an affirmative answer to this statement: “Jews are more loyal to Israel than to this country/the countries they live in.”  I’m sorry Mr. Foxman, but I worry that this statement is true.  While you may think this says something bad about me, I think it shows that many Jews need to do more to show that they are loyal and patriotic citizens of the United States.

Go Slow on Ukraine

This Politico article is one of the most cynical I have read about the West's morals.  While it mainly indicts the Europeans, it also applies to the US, since the US and EU banks are competitors for Russian investments.  Russian oligarchs own US sports teams as well as European sports teams.  American banks are a little more distanced and a little more restricted by American laws and regulations, but not much.   

I tend to agree with Stephen Cohen and Mearsheimer that Russia has important strategic and historical interests in the Ukraine that are unmatched in the West, which is mainly concerned about preserving international law in general, rather than any specific threats to American or Western European security.  Poland, Moldova and perhaps the Baltic republics have some genuine security concerns, but those are not immediate.  Poland might end up being more secure if Ukraine remains a buffer state within the Soviet sphere of influence than if Ukraine appears to be a festering threat to Russian national security.  That might make Russia more likely to threaten nearby states like Poland than if it feels secure behind a friendly Ukraine.  Russia sees the encroachment of NATO as a threat; Poland's membership in NATO is a protection for it that is unlikely to be challenged by Russia.  

Here are some of the comments by Cohen and Mearsheimer that I think are more valid than a lot of the commentators (and Republicans) who fret about Obama's weakness and the need to punch Putin in the nose.  I think Kissinger may also incline toward the Cohen and Mearsheimer view based on his interview with Charlie Rose.  

Cohen in The Nation magazine:

http://www.thenation.com/article/178344/distorting-russia

Cohen on PBS NewsHour

http://video.pbs.org/video/2365191559/

Mearsheimer on PBS

http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/next-steps-u-s-ukraine-crisis

Kissinger on Charlie Rose

http://www.businessweek.com/videos/2014-03-06/dr-dot-henry-kissinger-charlie-rose-03-06

Russia's Interests in Crimea

Russia has genuine strategic interests in Crimea, mainly the naval base which gives it access to southern oceans.  Otherwise, its ports are on the Baltic sea or Northern Pacific, a long way from the Mediterranean and Syria, for example.  Meanwhile, the US and Western Europe are mainly interested in the abstract principle of preventing the change in national boundaries by military force.  That is an admirable principle, but the US has dishonored it by acquiescing for decades in Israel's annexation of territory conquered by its military.  For Jewish money, the US has been glad to disregard international law as it applies to Israel.  Will it do the same for Russian money?  Politico says, "Yes," in one of the most cynical, damning articles that I have read about the loss in integrity in the west, "Why Russia No Longer Fears the West."  It says that Western Europe is so greedy to get money from the Russian oligarchs that it will not challenge Putin.  Although the article cites the Magnitsky Act as evidence of greater courageousness in the US, it's not much.  American banks are just as anxious to get Russian billions as European banks, despite the Dodd-Frank bill, which would put a few more restrictions on American banks, if it ever comes into full force.    

My guess is that Ukraine will end up being partitioned in some way, preserving Russian influence at least in Crimea, if not in all of Ukraine.  Putin would prefer to keep all of Ukraine in the Russian orbit, but may be willing to compromise to avoid a wider war or draconian sanctions on Russia.  I would guess that he wants Kiev more than western Ukraine, since it was the ancestral capital of Russia, predating Moscow.  The Polish Ukrainian border has moved east and west over the centuries, and part of what is now Ukraine used to be part of Poland and part of the Austro-Hungarian empire, but a Ukraine that did not include Kiev would not be much of a country.  So, I would guess that Putin's first choice will be to keep all of Ukraine in the Soviet sphere of influence.  Perhaps the West can negotiate some sort of compromise, but when Yugoslavia disintegrated, the West facilitated its partition along ethnic lines.

Howard Kurtz Sells Out

I am disappointed at Howard Kurtz for moving to Fox without maintaining his journalistic integrity.  On Fox's "MediaBuzz" he slants his reporting to the Fox line, and just in case he doesn't, he has his pretty, blond minder along side to keep him in line, just like the North Koreans and old Soviets assigned a minder to watch visitors and make sure they didn't see or say anything that the government didn't want them to say.  Pravda's editorial policies are alive and well at Fox, and Howie is towing the line.  He was better at CNN's "Reliable Sources" than the new guy at CNN, but the new CNN guy, Brian Stelter, has more journalistic integrity now than Kurtz has at Fox; so, his show is better than Kurtz's.  I hope that Kurtz is getting paid lots of Fox money to disgrace himself.

Now it looks like Maria Bartiromo is going to follow Kurtz down the Fox media hole for money.

Russian Empire

Yesterday on Fox, George Will said that Russia had to learn to accept its loss of empire -- Ukraine -- as the British did.  But I think it he looking at the wrong countries that left the empire.  Ukraine is not like India or the Burma, but to Russia it is more like Scotland or Ireland.  Scotland is still part of the UK despite a long-running effort to separate, and there was a bitter terrorist war in Northern Ireland over the empire's control which might not be entirely extinguished today.

Not only is Kiev in many ways the first capital and heart of Russia, but the Crimea on the Black Sea is one of Russia's most important naval bases.  It is unlikely that Russia and Putin will quietly walk away from these ties, although they may eventually have to give them up.  I doubt they will go quietly, whether it means actual fighting or not.

However, I thought during the breakup of the old Soviet Union that the independence of the Baltic countries -- Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia -- was a step too far that would be resisted by Russia.  I was wrong; they have been some of the most successful of the old Soviet satellites.  But I am guessing that Putin regrets what happened with the Soviet Union disintegrated, and will not let Ukraine go quietly into the night.

We'll see.

One issue that seems to cut both ways for me is the Russian economy. It's not in good shape, and is unlikely to get better as fracking reduces natural gas prices and oil prices along with them.  Oil is Russia's main source of foreign exchange.  This Russia will be weakened in whatever it does to retain Ukraine, but on the other hand, because of economic pressures, it will be loath to lose an important partner and ally.

Comcast To Buy Time Warner Cable

This Comcast-Time Warner deal is clearly an agreement in restraint of trade that should be blocked by antitrust laws, but probably will not be.  These huge deals creating a few dominant companies in almost all sectors of the economy are bad for America in the long run.  Google-Yahoo, JP Morgan-Goldman Sachs, Comcast-DirecTV, GM-Ford, United-Delta Airlines, all of these, and more, oligarchies dominate their markets.  They can largely ignore their customers, because their customers have little or no choice.  If you want this service, you have to work with two or three companies; that's it.

Obama is a Democratic President who should be concerned about this, but he and his attorney general, Eric Holder, are too concerned about gay marriage and killing American citizens with drones to worry about antitrust issues.  We might as well have George W. Bush as President.

Bernanke's Scorecard

The WSJ had  fairly balanced editorial on Bernanke's tenure at the Fed.  He probably saved us from a second depression, but the long term effects of the rest of his term remain to be seen.  I have been a fan of Bernanke, but as the years pass, I have more doubts.

I think he has aided a stock market bubble, which has been good for many, but not for all.  His main justification for Quantitative Easing, the main force behind the bubble, is the Fed's legislated mission to reduce unemployment. I don't think the Fed can do this anymore.  It's main basis in a trickle down theory that if business booms, then it will hire more people and unemployment will go down.  But today, businesses don't need to hire people to expand.  Between outsourcing and automation businesses need fewer and cheaper employees to produce more and more products or services.  This is one reason that many businesses have huge piles of money sitting in banks (mostly overseas so they don't pay taxes) that they are not investing.  The Fed continues to throw free money at them; they take it, but they don't hire new employees; so, it has little or no effect on employment.  It turns out mainly to benefit the capitalists who use it to buy machines that are much cheaper and more efficient than people.

The zero interests rates have also been hard on honest people.  Some people on Wall Street are honest, but many are not.  Even the ones that are honest have been using the free money to gamble with, trading stocks rather than investing in businesses, with a few exceptions like Warren Buffett.  The bulk of honest people tend to live in cities and towns outside of New York.  People that have jobs would usually like to save money in a simple, safe way.  This used to be by putting money in bonds or savings accounts, but today these pay nothing.  So everyone is forced to make riskier investments, often through 401(k)s invested in the stock market.  This has been great off and on -- great last year, not so great in 2008.

So Bernanke has been great for his questionably honest, slick Jew buddies on Wall Street, and not so good the the average working people around the country who would like a decent return on their savings without huge risk.  This used to be case twenty or thirty years ago.  But the current situation is probably better than the high inflation we had at times back then, which ate up the savings of those same, honest risk-averse people who are losing again today.

It's not comforting that as Bernanke leaves and QE begins to taper off in 2014, the stock market is heading down.  The Fed says QE is ending because the economy can now support itself, but it appears that Wall Street does not believe that.  Wall Street appears to believe that America is failing, that its best days are behind it.  Unless the Fed is giving away free money, America is a losing proposition.  Right now, America is somewhat better off than some of its main competitors, Europe and Japan, for example.  China is probably in better shape, but people keep noticing signs of trouble there, too.  But there are signs of trouble in America, starting with its labor force, but including its biggest financial institutions, which have not really changed that much since 2008.  Nobody has gone to jail, and many of the changes are cosmetic.  Too big to fail is still a problem, and banks continue to produce exotic financial instruments that are probably too complicated for anybody to understand, especially what their long term impact may be.

I am generally pleased with Bernanke, but now I would only give him a "B", whereas a few years ago I would have given him an "A".  But a "B" is better than a "D", which is probably what Greenspan ended up with.

Let Amb. Stevens Rest in Peace

I am tired of having the Republicans make a political issue out of Amb. Stevens’ death in Benghazi.  Let him rest in peace.  He gave his life for his country; that should be an honorable thing, respected by his country.  When Secretary Robert Gates talks about supporting and respecting the troops; that should also apply to Foreign Service officers who are killed serving their country.  Why do McCain, Graham, and Issa have to make him into a political football?  If they hate the State Department, let them use some other weapon than a dead man’s body to whip it.  They want to blame Obama and Hillary Clinton for Amb. Stevens’ death and refuse to accept any explanation that does not arrive at that conclusion.  They say it is a matter of facts, but they have to hypothesize that al Qaeda is a powerful, worldwide terrorist organization that threatens the US at home and abroad, including in Libya.  Because of their all-consuming fear of al Qaeda, they would have had Hillary station a Marine battalion in Benghazi to protect the small mission there, which was not even a consulate.  They are probably right that Stevens was partly responsible for his own death..  He was a small scale Lawrence of Arabia; he was Lawrence of Libya.  He loved the Libyan people and wanted to work with them closely.  He didn’t want to be surrounded by a phalanx of security guards, which would have prevented him from doing his job.

McCain and Graham don’t want to believe the truth, and it is a fact that the truth is hard to come by in Libya; however, the New York Times report rings truer than McCain’s version of the truth.  I believe that as the NYT says, there are numerous militia groups roaming around in Libya, some of which hate the US, although some do not.  The leader of the group which attacked the US mission in Benghazi sounds like something of an idiot.  For some reason he attracted a group of followers who attacked the mission when the Ambassador happened to be there.  It is unlikely that anybody in the al Qaeda group formerly led by Osama bin Laden knew the attack was taking place.  The majority of the Libyan people who knew anything about the Ambassador liked him and would have protected him rather than killed him.

The crux of McCain’s argument is that the Benghazi groups Ansar al-Sharia, Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb, and the Muhammad Jamal Network are all groups created by, and formerly controlled by, Osama bin Laden.  I don’t believe they are.  It’s like saying the Boy Scouts are part of the US Marine Corps because they both wear uniforms and are loyal to the United States.

This is why the US Congress has a 10% approval level.  These people are not entirely stupid, although many are, but they are almost all corrupt, willing to bend the truth to fit their personal goals and ambitions.  I am sorry about McCain; he used to be a good guy, but he has lost his way, probably when he was running for President.  It’s hard to stand up in front of everybody and be rejected by the American people.  While it’s understandable, he still ain’t what he used to be.  And Hillary Clinton did not kill Ambassador Stevens.  

Fischer at Fed

I am not happy about Obama's nominating Stanley Fischer to be vice chairman of the Fed.  Fischer, a dual national, has just completed a term as chairman of Israel's central bank. He has a distinguished record at MIT and the IMF, but I would prefer a Fed governor who does not have divided loyalties.  He can be a dual national or a senior US official, but I don't think he should be both.  If he wants to be Fed vice chairman,he should renounce his Israeli citizenship.  That may be impossible since all Jews have a right of return to Israel,but somehow he should demonstrate that if US and Israeli interests conflict, he will represent the US.

In addition, Paul Volcker, Alan Greenspan, Ben Bernanke, and Janet Yellen are all Jewish.  It looks like Jews control the banking system in the US.  Now we will have as the second-ranking Fed official a man who is not only Jewish; he is Israeli.  Anglos and Christians need not apply. Jews control most of the banking system in the US.  Even if you have a bank CEO who is not Jewish, like Jamie Dimon at JP Morgan Chase, I'm sure he has lots of senior Jews just beneath him.

I am not worried about Jews per se; they are not a monolithic group; they are Republicans and Democrats.  But I worry that .some Jews represent the tiny Israeli tiny tail that often wags the US dog, not only regarding financial and economic policy, but in foreign affairs and military policy as well.  I think Volcker and Bernanke were excellent Fed chairs, but what if we have conflicting interests with Israel, over exchange rates for example.  I would prefer that senior US officials be 100% American.

Israelis from Texas and Alabama Attack Kerry

I just happened to flip on to C-SPAN's coverage of Secretary of State Kerry's testimony before the House on the nuclear agreement with Iran.  I was appalled at the questioning by Congressman Ted Poe from Texas' 2nd District and Congressman Mo Brooks from Alabama's 5th District.  They appeared to be representing Israel rather than America.  They appeared to be hired agents of a foreign power, not loyal Americans.  Texas 2nd District is famous as the seat of Charlie Wilson, of "Charlie Wilson's War" book and movie fame.  In the movie, Tom Hanks says as Charlie Wilson that he is supported by lots of Jewish money from New York; all he has to do is support Israel and make sure his constituents can keep their guns.  It looks to me like these congressmen have sold out to Jew money, like Judas did when he betrayed Jesus.  Israel may be a fine country, but it is not the United States of America.  These guys should be loyal to America and love this country. They should put America first.

Aparthied in Israel

The passing of Nelson Mandela reminds us of his fight against apartheid in South Africa.  Apartheid still exists in places around the world, one of which is Israel.  Israel legally imposes strict bias against non-Jewish people who live in or near Israel.  The most obvious, of course, is the Palestinian population that lives in Israel, but there are other affected populations.  How many blacks live in Israel?  There are groups of blacks who claim to be descended from Jews for hundreds or thousands of years, but they are not particularly welcome in Israel.  In general there is a huge Israeli bias against people who are not Jews.  There may be reasons for this, going back to the Holocaust or discrimination against Jews by gentiles for thousands of years, but that does not erase the fact that discrimination by Israelis exists.

There are many countries that engage in worse racial discrimination than Israel, but Israel claims to belong to the advanced group of civilized countries who were united in their opposition to South African apartheid.  Israel developed its nuclear bomb program in cooperation with the old, white, pre-Mandela South African government, with which it maintained close ties throughout its existence.  There is a legacy of discrimination that Israel needs to overcome.

Israel needs its own Nelson Mandela.

Income Inequality Forever

I am disappointed that the new budget deal did nothing about income taxes.  The budget deal a year ago carried over most of the Bush tax cuts.  One group said that it carried over 82% of the tax cuts.  These low taxes guarantee that income inequality will continue indefinitely.  While some rates went up a little a year ago, income taxes are still extremely low by historical standards.  That is certainly a major contributor income inequality.  There are a lot of other factors, including outsourcing and the displacement of human workers by computers, but the easiest way to rectify income inequality would be by implementing a more progressive tax structure which would tax higher incomes at a higher rate.  This would not affect many of the underlying issues favoring capital over labor in the financial market, as described in the book Race Against the Machine, but it would ameliorate the rate of destruction of the middle and lower classes in the US, ideally giving us time to address the more fundamental structural issues.