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.