Nemtsov and Maidan

If Putin is behind the murder of Boris Nemtsov, it may be because he does not want a repeat of the Ukrainian Maidan Square protests in Russia.  Putin appears to have been blindsided by the speed with which the Maidan protests ousted Ukrainian Premier Yanukovych, leading to the low grade war going on now.  Putin does not want to see something similar happen to him in Russia.  By killing Nemtsov, he made sure that the Russian protests would not get out of hand. 

I don’t know whether Putin order Nemtsov’s murder, but I doubt that he was disappointed by it.  It is unlikely that it would have happened if Putin has been strongly opposed to it, or even highly concerned about Nemtsov’s safety.  Putin could have provided security for him that would have made his assassination impossible. 

The fact that Putin is so closely linked to the murder raises serious human rights issues for Russia, and security concerns for many Russians unhappy with Putin.  It will make it more difficult for the US to do business with him, in particular getting Russian cooperation on Iran nuclear matters.  There is an outside chance that Putin might be more cooperative on Iran to ease some of the pressure resulting from the Nemtsov murder.  

Curse You for Your Service

David Brooks’ column from the NYT ten days ago has been bothering me ever since.  He purports to be concerned about the PTSD that soldiers are subject to after combat.  Generally people think that soldiers suffer from PTSD because horrible things were done to them in war – they were shot, they saw their friends shot, etc.  Brooks seems to think that they suffer from PTSD because they have done horrible things in war; they return from war overwhelmed by the horrible, immoral things that they have done.  Brooks believes that America would be a better place if we just shot each veteran in the head as war criminals when they get off the plane from Iraq or Afghanistan.  Brooks’ column is based on the book, “The Evil Hours,” and therefore may not exactly represent Brooks’ personal thoughts on the subject. 

Brooks says, “[W]ar … is always a crime….  It involves … tainted situations where every choice is murderously wrong.”  He goes on, “The self-condemnation can be crippling.”  Veterans “often feel morally tainted by their experiences, unable to recover confidence in their own goodness.”   People don’t suffer from PTSD after natural disasters, but only after “moral atrocities.”  

Brooks apparently believes that self-defense is immoral.  If ISIS wants to murder his children, he should let them.  To kill the ISIS terrorist would be immoral and would subject him to the same self-hating PTSD that soldiers returning from the Middle East face.  But Brooks confounds two issues, a soldier’s individual, moral choices, and a nation’s moral choice to go to war or not.  If immoral acts were committed in the Middle East, it was because the United States waged an immoral war on rag-headed Arabs and Muslims just because they were Arabs and Muslims, not because they were a threat to the US that our soldiers needed to stop.  In Brooks’ opinion, everyone who volunteers to serve in the military is a war criminal, because war against anyone is immoral. 

I think Brooks is dead wrong.  I have felt for years that Republicans are unpatriotic cowards, and Brooks is firmly in that camp.  It was brought home to me personally when Newt Gingrich shut down the government on the day I was being transferred as a Foreign Service officer from Warsaw to Rome.  The shutdown left my wife and me homeless in Warsaw.  Fortunately a friend in Rome worked out a deal under which we were allowed to travel to the embassy in Rome, although the Republicans had technically made it illegal to travel during the shutdown, which would have left us on the streets of Warsaw, or more likely in a hotel in Warsaw at our own expense.  I was serving the US government, and the government walked away and said in essence, “We don’t care if you die.”  I care, and I will never forgive this government for abandoning those it sent out to do its work, whether military or diplomatic.  Brooks is firmly in the Newt camp abandoning those who defend this country, and denigrating their serve.  Brooks doesn’t say, “Thank you for your service.”  He says, “Curse you for your service.”    

Reagan'sDebt

I think that President Ronald Reagan was one of the most irresponsible spendthrifts in the history of our country.  According to Wikipeida:

Spending during Reagan's two terms (FY 1981–88) averaged 22.4% GDP, well above the 20.6% GDP average from 1971 to 2009. In addition, the public debt rose from 26% GDP in 1980 to 41% GDP by 1988. In dollar terms, the public debt rose from $712 billion in 1980 to $2.052 trillion in 1988, a roughly three-fold increase.

This of course was while there was no war to fund, or even any serious economic threat.  Reagan’s Republicans hated poor people and welfare programs.  The Republicans under Reagan drastically cut taxes led by OMB chief David Stockman.  But then, Reagan turned out to be such a nice guy that he couldn’t make the cuts that the Republican budget cutters had planned on.  As a result, budget deficits ballooned; Reagan’s irresponsibility plunged the nation into a swamp of debt, from which we still have not recovered.

Obama’s deficit spending will probably be worse than Reagan’s but mainly because Republican President George W. Bush left him with a massive financial meltdown, requiring more spending to avoid a second great depression.  Obama has actually been paying Bush’s GOP debts.  

The following is a chart from the Washington Post showing the huge increase in the debt under Reagan: 

Bad News

Last week pointed out the terrible state into which American news reporting has fallen.  Brian Williams got suspended for not telling the truth about an experience in Iraq or Afghanistan, but the real problem was that the network news has deteriorated into worthless fluff.  The lead story is almost always the weather, because it is so easy to report -- no need for overseas bureaus, correspondents, language ability, etc. -- just put someone outside in the rain, the wind or the snow with a microphone in their hand, and you can fill up many minutes of time that is supposed to be devoted to the news.  The thing is, if the weather story if relevant to you, you can look outside and see what you need to know, or get a much more detailed local forecast, and if the weather doesn't affect you, why do you care enough to watch it for five or ten minutes.  As Carl Bernstein said on "Reliable Sources," it's really entertainment, not news.

The PBS Newshour does a good job of reporting the news, and now so does Aljazeera.  Aljazeera makes the US network news shows look entertainment for idiots.  ABC has even developed its own way of speaking, eliminating most verbs, and replacing them with gerunds.  Instead of saying, "Obama was peaking to the press," ABC says, "Obama, speaking to the press."  And they are very prone to saying things like "right here," or "right now."  ABC seems to be trying to speak like newspaper headlines aimed at people with a sixth grade education.  ABC believes it is speaking to an audience with no knowledge of English grammar or geography, or anything else previously taught in high school.  They clearly believe the American education system is an abysmal failure.  ABC illustrates that today a college dropout like Scott Walker has a good chance of becoming President.

It's amazing that the Muslim/Arab network Aljazeera has a higher opinion of the American public than Walt Disney (which owns ABC) does.

Bill Maher had a great editorial on "New Rules" about how bad the network news has become.  We have learned that the executives of the networks have contempt for the American people and the future of the United States.