On media and politics. . .

Friday, December 31, 2004

Iraqi elections Iraqi elections are due to be held in January.  This is not yet for a permanent government.  There will be an administration which will look much like the present interim government.  The difference is that this one will have been installed as a result of a popular election and will be far less a creature of the U.S.  Additionally there will be a representative concil to create a permanent constitution.  IT is hoped that constitution will be created successfully and lead the way to general elections for the whole government. Many feel these elections are doomed to failure.  I don't agree.  Certainly there will continue to be violence and a strong attempt to intimidate ordinary Iraqis to keep them from voting. But, unless there is a backdown, elections will be held. People will vote. Many will be intimidated, but a total will be accumulated, particularly in Shiite areas. If the Sunnis do not vote, they will have missed out on a process that could have led to inclusion. I am assuming the Kurds will hold their noses and vote. So there will be at least two out of three of the main factions voting. With Sunni frustration, Civil war is possible, but how will the Sunnis do more than they are already doing. There would likely be an escalation of the guerilla activity, but I don't see how they could mount the larger organized civil war everyone seems to be worried about. The Kurds could do it, but I don't see them motivated at this time. They are likely to wait to see what kind of deal they get after a new constitutiion. The real question is, will the resulting government have any legitimacy among Iraqis. We can only speculate. My speculation is there will be a somewhat better response from Iraqis, particularly Shiites. I believe that translates into a somwehat greater degree of ability for Iraqis to defend against the insurgency. This does not easily translate into a win for the U.S. or a lessening of the need for U.S. military participation. It does mean we would be a small fragile step closer to a day that Iraqis successfully defend ther own country. Meanwhile all the vulnerabilities, civil war, general chaos and violence will still exist.   Melvyn Polatchek 9:55:24 AM    comment []

Sunday, December 26, 2004

What will happen to the U.S. if we pull out of Iraq After we admit --those of us to do-- that the war in Iraq has been a botch job from conception to the present, I think it is worth considering what would happen if we pull out. There are many scenarios as to what will happen in Iraq, from civil war to domination by Iran. As an American, I am concerned about what will happen to America. I believe our enemies will be completely convinced that America can be defeated, that we will retreat under duress and can be attacked with impunity. They will understand that while we can win any stand up battle, we don't know how to respond to an attack and run style of warfare. It will be understood that when a certain number of Americans are killed we will give up. Our enemies have been taught this lesson through the examples of the pullouts in Lebanon and Somalia. A pullout in Iraq will convince them even more firmly. Have no doubt. We have real enemies. People and groups who hate us and wish us destroyed. There are many who think we deserve these enemies and the hatred that rains down upon us. Surely we bear responsibility for destuctive policies which have contributed to these attitudes. Still, many of our enemies have an agenda that transcends our foreign policy mistakes. Even though we are a wealthy nation often behaving like a bull in an international china shop, we still have the right to self-defense. We have the right to wish to remain free and alive. If we pull out of Iraq, I believe we will be atacked on a variety of fronts as we have never been before. The outcome is one I am not ready to contemplate. Melvyn Polatchek 4:34:45 PM    comment []

Thursday, December 23, 2004

We still don't know how to win in Iraq   Our military allowed approximately 900 Iraqis into Fallujah today to examine the remains of their homes.  At the same time there was a battle in the southern part of the city.  It is reported that tanks and fighter jets were needed to quell a firefight.  Over 100 insurgents are said to have been killed.  This was not a mere skirmish of holdouts.  This was a full fledged battle.   One wonders about Marine General John Sattler who said "We have broken the back of the insurgency" .  Does he have an explanation for the continuing existance of organized resistance.     In Mosul, a suicide bomber infiltrated a dining tent and killed more than 20 people, wounding more than 60.  It has now been announced that security of dining facilities will be reviewed.   The tragedy is that we have civilian leadership and military commanders who do not know how to successfully fight this war.  I can say that with no fear of insulting the regular and reserve soldiers who have born the brunt of this war and who fight brilliantly.    Rumsfeld said we went to war with the army we have.  Sadly for that army we went to war with the Pentagon we have and they have let down the soldiers and our nation.   Melvyn Polatchek 8:02:05 PM    comment []

Sunday, December 19, 2004

Social Security Reform   I have been delving into the labyrinth of articles, opinions and statistics on social security, the predicted shortfall and the movement toward privatization.  There is an opinion and a statistic to bolster every ideological view.  I don't wish to rehash it all here, but just to give my own radical idea.   When I was in high school a representative of the Social Scurity administration came to speak to our class. He explained that social security was intended as a baseline of financial comfort for retirees, that it was a very bare minimum and that everyone should plan to supplement social security with additional savings and investment. I thought it was all very agreeable.  Then he told us that current workers were paying in, not for their own benefits, but for those of current retirees.  I thought that was wrong then and I think it is even more wrong now.    My children are paying a substantial portion of their earnings to social security in the form of payroll taxes.  None of this money is for them.  At the same time, they are told,  Social Security benefits are likely to be severely compromised when it comes time for them to collect their own benefits. I can't think of another way to put it.  This particular generation of workers is being victimized.  Their earnings are literally being stolen.  They seem a politically passive generation, but when they awaken their anger will be palpable.  Resentment of their elders can't be far behind.   In the early 1980's Social Security looked like to was in jeopardy of failing eventually to meet its obligations, especially with the baby boom generation looking forward to retirement.  The solution was to raise the payroll tax enough to create a surplus to be placed in a trust fund which would be available to pay out benefits when the time came.   Unfortunately, instead of simply holding the money, it is invested in treasury bonds.  The treasury bonds can be and have been spent by the government.  Social security holds paper that is worthless unless congress decides to redeem it.  Since the money is already spent the only way they can redeem it is to raise general taxes.   With a conservative government that fights taxes tooth and nail-- not necessarily a bad thing--it is unlikely that social security benefits will be paid from taxes.  The resulting conundrum is that either payroll taxes will have to be increased or benefits cut.  Either way the burden will fall upon the current generation of workers.   The President says that a partial privatization will be a solution.  This is because with a better return on each account and the account actually owned by the individual, benefits will rise regardless of payroll taxes.  Given long term market performance, it is likely, though not surely, true that the portion of savings devoted to private accounts will appreciate better than standard social security.  However, since that portion of payroll taxes will not be available for current benefits their will be a shortfall unless further borrowing takes place.  Who will service that debt?  The current workers, of course.   In the long term, I do believe it would be far more equitable for each worker to be saving money for his/her own retirement.  First because, it means the future is in his or her own hands and not at the whim of the ideology of the moment.  Second, because population shifts will no longer affect the well being of the system.  I believe it should be financed over three generations.  Current retirees-myself included- should take a small cut.  Current workers should have a small tax increase earmarked specifically and inviolably for the transition and finally the generation of their children should finish paying the debt.   Senator Patrick Moynihan had been co-chairman of the President Bush's (the first) social security commission which recommended the so called trust fund for Social Security.  Before he died,  he spoke in the most critical language of the use by congress of the social security trust fund to mask the annual budgetary deficits. (I could not find the quote, but I remember it).  He even proposed raising general taxes to repay it, but was literally shouted down in the press and congress.  I know my solution is not currently on the table, but only a complete transition can stop congress from continuing to use the payroll tax for purposes other than social security benefits.   Melvyn Polatchek                 1:23:07 PM    comment []

Saturday, December 18, 2004

The World At War As a child of WWII I grew up with the idea, that America with its allies had saved the world for democracy and that we had a real chance for world peace.  It was a great disappointment that the cold war with the communist world reversed all that.  It was only a few years after the end of WWII that Winston Churchill made his famous "Iron curtain" speech to the U.S. Congress.  We then lived through more than four decades of conflict which included Korea, Vietnam, Afghanistan and numerous smaller interventions all in the context of the cold war.    When finally the cold war ended, symbolized by the removal of the Berlin wall in 1989, I again thought we had a chance for world peace and world democracy.  As with the end of WWII, it was only a few years before we learned that the world was not going to remain at peace.  Saddam Hussein invaded Kuwait in 1990.  many Americans did not understand why it was our business to intervene.  It was an aggression of one country against another for territory.  The United Nations charter specifically requires the security council to oppose this blatant kind of aggression.  Further, the oil supplies of the west were threatened.  Many thought the idea of fighting for oil reprehensible.  Oil does not merely represent wealth and the ability of Americans to drive SUVs.  It is one of the fundamentals of the economies of the industrialized world.  With a severely diminished oil supply, the collapse of those economies would surely follow. With economic collapse would come governmental collapse and violence that cannot be imagined.   Because of the loss of international discipline enforced in Eastern Europe by the Soviet Union the Balkans went insane, with local dictators and warlords attempting to expand there power though ethnic cleansing and genocide.  There was a genocide in Rwanda, Africa and now another one in Darfur, the Sudan.    India and Pakistan two bitter enemies have nuclear weapons and frequently threaten each other. No one thinks a nuclear exchange between these two would leave others in peace.  Pakistan has aggressively sold nuclear technology on international markets. North Korea and Iran are or about to be nuclear powers and they do not wish us well.  We cannot expect them to be peaceful partners in the nuclear club. North Korea, in particular is an unstable criminal enterprise.   I have deliberately not yet mentioned the world of Islam.  We cannot prove that it is inevitable that we are at war with all of Islam.  We certainly hope not.  We certainly know that we have many sworn fanatical enemies among and within the Arab nations.   I have gone through this litany not to frighten or upset people.  I want to dispel wishful thinking.  We all wish it was a better world.  We all wish human beings as individuals, groups and nations were capable of settling differences with reason.  We wish we were all capable of far more tolerance. We are not.   I can't think of a single time in history when sworn enemies decided that a gentler way was the key to their salvation.  In history we have war or we have containment through the threat of overwhelming force.    We must not conduct ourselves on the basis of the world we wish we had, but on the world that exists.  It is our only glimmer of hope for a slightly better world in the future.  Conduct based on wishful thinking is a recipe for disaster and a new dark age.   Melvyn Polatchek 10:47:28 AM    comment []

Thursday, December 16, 2004

Presidential Medal of Failure I remember an interview with George Will. When asked how often he writes his column he replied, " the government irritates me twice a week". The government and the media irritate me on a regular basis, but recently I have not been able to translate that into words I cared to publish. I was probably more disappointed by the election than I realized and the thought of writing seemed futile. I have never had any illusions about my powers to effect change through my writing, but I do want to be a voice in the discussion. This week the government managed to irritate me enough to burst through the doldrums. The President, who clearly lives in a world about which I have no understanding, this week presented Tommy Franks, George Tenet and Paul Bremer with the Presidential Medal of freedom. These are three of the most colossal failures of public office in this new century. After 9/11, I waited for something to happen with the CIA. This agency was charged with gathering intelligence about the behavior of our enemies. The CIA, the lead agency charged with the task of gathering information about the plans of our enemies was completely defeated. Nearly 3000 lives were lost. I waited for the president to fire the head of the agency. Instead of firing George Tenet the President allowed him to be the architect of the Afghanistan strategy. The Taliban were driven out and the country has made some stride toward democracy.  On the negative we are left with a country ruled in the center by the U.S. supported Karzai and on the country by the old warlords who are growing rich producing heroin. What does one have to do to get fired by George Bush? Tommy Franks originally proposed a quarter of a million troops for the invasion of Iraq. Donald Rumsfeld demanded that he reduce the number. Franks’s failure came in not standing up to the civilian leadership. He collaborated with Rumsfeld in creating an environment, the lack of troops, that allowed the insurgency to flourish.  He managed to get out in time to avoid having his boots soiled by the mud from Abu Grahaib. Paul Bremer also failed to stand up to the administration. He has stated that he always felt they did not have enough troops on the ground to manage the occupation. If the WMD were ever there, they disappeared because none was around to protect potential sites. G. Paul Bremer disbanded the entire Iraqi military and got rid of anyone who had ever been in the Baathist party. We did not even do this with Nazi Germany! Presumably he had something to do with the lackluster early performance of newly trained Iraqi security forces. Richard Cohen today in the NYTimes wrote a tongue in cheek article suggesting that we should give the medal of freedom to Bernard Kerik. This would spare us the actual devastation of failure and still allow the President to take care of his buddies. I grieve for all the earlier winners of the medal.  The recognition of their great contributions to America has  been diminished by the issuance of the medal to these three colossal failures. Melvyn Polatchek     4:20:34 PM    comment []