US Skating around MTCR

As one of the creators of the MTCR (the Missile Technology Control Regime), I am a little disappointed to see the US try to skate around it by supplying unmanned drones to Pakistan, as this Reuters article reports. Of course, when we created the MTCR, it did not cover aircraft, only ballistic missiles. It was the rabid arms controllers who wanted to cover cruise missiles, too, but as cruise missiles have become more capable, there is more justification for doing so, although skating around the cruise missile coverage is not as bad as skating around the ballistic missile coverage. Nevertheless,I believe the US weakened the nuclear non-proliferation regime by making an exception for India under the Bush administration. Now it will weaken the missile non-proliferation regime by making an exception for Pakistan. Maybe we are trying to be evenhanded in the India-Pakistan dispute.

Health Care Not for Everybody

The pundits spend a lot of time talking about the low percentage of Americans who view the new health care legislation favorably. That is probably because the main beneficiaries are only about 10% of the population. Apparently of the approximately 300 million Americans, about 45 million have no health care insurance, or about 15% of the population. The new bill will cover about 30 million of them, or about 10% of the population. I suspect that they are very happy with the new legislation, but the 85% of Americans who have health care insurance may not be pleased with having this 10% added on, who will probably not carry their weight in terms of paying for their benefits. So, it's really only some altruistic motive that would make the 85% with insurance support the new bill. The 85% do get some things, like coverage of pre-existing conditions, perhaps access to more insurers, etc., but these advantages are small compared to what the uninsured get. Even some of the uninsured may be unhappy. Some of them will be healthy young people who have chosen not to buy health insurance because they don't want it. They will actually be a welcome addition to the insurance base, and will pay their own way. The unwelcome additions will be older people, not yet eligible for Medicare, who have serious health problems. To take care of them, there will be costs that must be covered somehow, currently by anticipated taxes on higher, investor incomes, on "Cadillac" health plans and by cuts to Medicare payments, among some other things.

The Tea Party demonstrators object to most of these taxes, which is understandable, but looked at another way, they are saying, "I am willing for my neighbor to die, so that I can have my current level of health care." In addition, most of the Tea Party types are white middle class, while the "neighbor" is likely to be black or Hispanic. But if they were as Christian as they claim to be, they should be willing to help their neighbors, especially since the costs are relatively low.

Financial Times Has It Right on Israel

A March 27 opinion piece by Max Hastings in the Financial Times has an excellent analysis of Israel's situation, entitled "A Deaf and Defiant Israel Is Gambling with Its Future." The picked out blurb says, "The claim upon East Jerusalem is rooted in a sense of moral entitlement, which the world increasingly rejects." He cites a book by Esther Barbarossa called "Suffering as Identity" that says Jews must cease to define their world view in terms of the Holocaust, ruthlessly politicised since the 1950s. Hastings says, "Some day Americans will awaken to the heavy strategic price their own nation pays for indulging Israeli excesses."

More on the Death of Foreign Reporting

The Washington Post has a story on the decline of foreign correspondents and the rise of Global Post to fill in the gap. The story shows how CBS got caught short when the Chilean earthquake hit, how Global Post filled in, but also some of the shortcomings. It's ironic that the Internet is decreasing the quality of foreign reporting. But by killing off traditional newspapers, it's decreasing the quality of news in general. TV news is increasingly becoming celebrity and salacious, sensational news, the same junk that tabloids have long reported.