Nuclear Posture Review: A Whole Lot of Nothing

From Charles Krauthamer on the right to Newsweek on the left, everyone seems to be freaked out over the Nuclear Posture Review. President Obama has either given away our safety or made the greatest strides towards world peace since nuclear weapons were invented.

I think the NPR is a bunch of nothing. In the NPR, President Obama commits the United States to not using or threatening to use nuclear weapons any non-nuclear state that uses chemical or biological weapons against us, as long as they are in compliance with the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. Special exceptions are carved out for Iran and North Korea.

Seriously? And, which countries, exactly, are we worried about that 1) don't have nukes, 2) are in compliance with the NPT, and 3) might attack us with chemical or biological weapons? Oh, let's not forget the caveat that we might change our mind.

By my count, we're talking Syria now, Iran in the next few years, and maybe Burma (excuse me, Myanmar). Does anyone seriously think we'd attack Syria with nukes because they attack Israel with chemical weapons? I think Israel might solve that little problem. Iran? Self-solving. They either aren't a threat, or aren't in compliance with NPT. Burma? Same deal. So, the NPR actually says absolutely nothing that couldn't be said by the most right-wing President ever. That also means it's as meaningless as could be--it doesn't change our actual policy one whit. It sounds nice. But, re-read the Bush 2002 National Security Strategy, and ask whether it could have just as easily been written by President Clinton.

Let's not get overly excited, disappointed, or emotional about the NPR. It doesn't really change anything.

Health Care Redux

I'm still pondering what to say about the health care bill that's now law. Plenty of pundits have weighed in, and I'd rather not repeat what they've said. That said, I can't help but note 1) no one cared when Congressman Stupak received threats when he was voting against the bill, 2) if this is such a great idea, why does the majority of the American people oppose it, 3) how on Earth can spending a trillion dollars decrease the deficit? (Unless, of course, we're massively increasing taxes...?)

Democracy in Iraq

This month, Iraqis went to the polls, again. Key word, again. There's an old saying about authoritarian regimes, "One man, one vote, one time." Iraqis have now voted in as many elections as many adult Americans. (Given the 62% voter turnout in this latest election, they've voted in more elections than many Americans. Or Europeans, for that matter.)

It was just a few years ago that the intelligentsia spoke smugly about how silly George W. Bush was to believe that democracy could survive, let alone flourish, in the Middle East. This foolish man simply didn't understand that...well, these people just didn't have a culture that could support democracy. There were plenty of highbrow explanations--decades of living under dictators, the belief among some (radical) Muslims that a government created by Man was questioning God's will, or some other story.

It really came down to one thing: many of these elites didn't think (whisper) Arabs were up to it. The soft bigotry of low expectations doesn't stop at the water's edge, sadly. I was ready to celebrate how obviously wrong they've been proven, until I read the comments posted online following a New York Times article about the Iraqi election. I wasn't sure whether to laugh or cry.

Overwhelmingly, the posters ridiculed the notion of Iraqi democracy. They were apparently still living in 2005, when the Iraqi army and police forces resembled Barney Fife more than competent organizations. Bush Derangement Syndrome was on clear display. (How long has he been gone?) Even after Newsweek acknowledged that victory in Iraq is finally close at hand, the smug, self-proclaimed, smarter-than-you-because-I-read-the-Times were insisting that the US military is still in the lead, it still occupies the entire country, and Maliki is a hand-picked stooge.

Ask any vet who's been to Iraq since the surge, and he or she will tell you the Iraqis have been in the lead for quite a while, the army and police are getting there, and Maliki is nobody's stooge but Maliki's (Basrah, anyone?). Frankly, a lot of them probably wish he was ours, because he causes them a lot of grief (albeit nothing like Afghanistan's Hamid Karzai). Of course, what would they know? They've only been there. They aren't writing comments from Massachusetts or California, so how could they know anything?

The really sad part wasn't the leftover BDS, or the tired claims we went there for the oil. (Wow, that worked out well, didn't it?) The sad part was the continuing, subtle racism on the part of these leftist elites. I say leftist based on the overall context of their comments, and I mean racism. The notion that these people could possibly understand democracy still seems absurd to them. These people are just fools under America's imperialist boot; fools who would reelect Saddam if he hadn't been hanged.

Which, of course, is the point--these people are religious (doesn't matter which one); these people are obviously right-wingers (Saddam and W were both dictators, right?); these people don't understand they aren't smart enough to govern themselves, and should be living obediently under their masters like the rest of the Middle East. Yet, some of the smuggest writers couldn't even keep straight which sect of Islam is the majority in Iraq (Shia, for the record) and which one Saddam belonged to (that would be Sunni).

Fortunately for the Middle East, and the world, these people don't listen to the naysayers. Last I checked, they had a civilization 5000 years ago. Iraqi democracy may or may not survive, but I seem to recall some European countries that have had similar problems. I think the Iraqis will do just fine.

Note to GOP: Stay on Message

If the Republicans in Congress have any sense, they’ve taken this week’s blizzard in Washington, DC, as an opportunity to hole up in a conference room somewhere and really think through what they’re going to say at their "bipartisan" health care meeting with the President.

The President has already telegraphed that he intends to call them obstructionists with no ideas, and then argue that we’re way too far down the track with the current bills to even consider starting over. If they’re going to counter him, Republicans will have to be a lot more agile than they have been. They’ll have to know their message and stay on it, which will mean figuring out who is quick enough on their feet to be the talking head. It might be better if they used some bench strength and left the CEO-lookalikes in the cloakroom.

First issue: that they have no ideas. They have to slap that one down, hard, fast, and relentlessly. If the President says it, the President must be mocked—politely, but mocked. They were successful in their last meeting with this technique. “The President says we have no ideas, and then reads from our plan to explain why it's wrong? Didn’t his staff tell him he was reading from our plan? ” Keep it light, but stay on that talking point until the interviewer acknowledges it. Better yet, replace, ‘his staff’ with ‘Rahm Emmanuel’ or ‘David Axelrod’—not likeable figures, but not targeting the President. 'Rules for Radicals' works both ways.

Second: that the train left last year. The American people pulled the emergency cord on that train. They don’t like it; they like it less every day, and Republicans aren’t about to help the Democrats pass something the American people don’t want. Democrats didn’t fail to pass their bill because of Republicans—they had all the votes they needed. Democrats failed to pass their bill because even their own members didn’t like it. Why would anyone with sense sign on to that? That’s like the captain of the Titanic complaining Republicans won’t help him rearrange the deck chairs!

Third: Republican ideas. Pithy, clear, and specific, but it’s also time to be a policy wonk. The ideas have to be completely spelled out, in advance, in legislative language, or it’s a return to issue #1. They can’t be a hodgepodge of “ideas.” They have to be a complete package, one that addresses or refutes every aspect of the Democrats' argument. No weaseling; no deliberate ambiguity; no assuming the American people are idiots. Pound ‘em with substance. To wit:

Cost versus price. Democrats argue they want to keep costs down. A: No, Democrats are trying to control price. That’s not the same thing. Price controls lead to rationing. Everybody knows that. (Don’t forget the “everybody knows that” part.) The solution is really to control costs. Cut costs, and competition will drive down prices. So, the goal needs to be to drive down costs.

Cutting costs. A) Malpractice reform. (Stop calling it tort reform. I took civil law and still think it sounds like we’re talking pastry.) Get some doctors to work through the “But what about…” arguments, or just accept that tough cases make bad law. For that matter, go after the lawyers—argue we should cap their fees. Why does John Edwards deserve $28 million for winning a case? Any case? B) Let insurance companies compete across state lines. How can Democrats oppose that? Their bill requires everyone to buy insurance from those companies, so why wouldn’t they want everyone to get the best deal possible? No weaseling here—defend the insurance companies? Yes. “Folks, the President want you to think the insurance companies are evil. He’s been demonizing them and their profits. We recognize they may drive you nuts, but the reality is their profit margin is about 2%. 2%. If you make them completely non-profit, that isn’t going to save you any money. They aren't the problem, but they can be part of the solution.” C) Time for “the vision thing.” Here goes—

Vision. Health care ‘costs’ are climbing, with no end in sight. Democrats’ solution is to cap prices, and guarantee rationing. Even the President has acknowledged that we might have to cut back on end-of-life care. (“Maybe your grandmother should just take the pain pill.”) No, no, no. Republicans absolutely do not, will not, must not ever agree that the solution is for government to ration care, or for government to suggest that doctors ration care. Wrong approach. Dangerously slippery slope. Immoral. But…what about cost?

Here’s where it comes full circle, and Republicans haven’t yet answered the mail. Yes, end of life care is the most expensive, so pretending there isn’t a cost issue suggests this is all just cynical political positioning (or naiveté). And the answer is…Capitalism. With a capital C.

The solution to making end-of-life care more affordable is to make all care more affordable. To encourage research and development into new, cheaper drugs; new, cheaper treatments. To allow patients to pick insurance plans that only cover what they need. To figure out whether there are real things government can do to help out—say, by encouraging new medical research reactors to bring down the cost of radiopharmaceuticals. (You think radioisotopes grow on trees? Why do you think Iran claims it wants one?) Or, by allowing hospitals to depreciate new equipment faster. Or (gasp!) by making all hospitals tax-exempt. There's more, but this is getting long enough already.

On that last idea—cutting business taxes on hospitals—here’s the real trick. When Democrats argue, “But how will we pay for that?” do not accept the premise of the argument. This discussion is not about keeping tax dollars rolling into the Treasury. It’s about getting medical costs down. “How will we pay for that?” is a deliberate distraction.

Stay on message.

Democrats: The Party of "No"

No sooner had Scott Brown won the special election in Massachusetts, pundits began rerunning their schtick that the Republican party was, "The Party of No."

Actually, they have that backwards.

Brown's election means that the Democrats no longer have 60 seats in the Senate. Since 60 votes are required to cut off debate and call a vote, they must now get at least one Republican to agree with any legislation they intend to pass.

One Republican seems a pretty small requirement. When the Republicans controlled the Senate in a 50-50 tie, they needed 10 Democrats to invoke "cloture," and the people's business still got done.

The difference was that the Republicans listened to the Democrats' cries about the "rights of the minority." They had to, even if they thought those cries were disingenuous. But, Democrat Senators have gotten in the habit of saying, "No," every time the Republicans wanted that legislative body to perhaps consider something that some of them could support.

Democrats didn't need Republicans over the last year, so their answer was, "No. No, we won't consider your ideas; no we won't reach a compromise the American people might prefer; no, we won't even acknowledge that you have ideas." They ran with that last comment to every journalist they could find, pretending that the other side didn't even offer ideas. Sadly, too many journalists let them get away with it.

So, when your opposition won't listen to you, about all you have left is to say, "No. No, we don't agree with where you're going, and, no, we can't stop it, but, no you can't make us vote for it, either."

Republicans have had ideas all along, and have been offering them. Whether they're the best ideas ever, or utterly foolish, isn't the point. Democrats will now, at least, have to stop saying, "No."

Time to Reconsider the World View

Although I have some rather substantial policy disagreements with President Obama, I don't doubt that he's an intelligent person. Furthermore, I think he's spent a lot of time thinking about his world view--how he sees the world; how he sees others; what he thinks others think of him and, by extension, what they think of the United States.

Unfortunately, I don't think he's subjected that world view to a lot of criticism. My sense is that he is surrounded by people who either aren't his intellectual equal or simply don't think carefully about what their world view is. As a result, the President seems lost when others act in ways he doesn't expect.

I saw this pretty clearly when he tried to rethink his Afghanistan strategy--it took 100+ days to come up with a strategy that didn't seem particularly coherent, and that wasn't sold particularly well. It's almost as if his advisors can't communicate with a military that they think is still living in 1985. In fact, the military leadership today probably understands nuanced diplomacy better than the State Department.

But, we saw a similar incoherence this week, in the wake of the failed Northwest airline attack. The President stayed on vacation--that makes sense; you don't want to encourage the enemy by making this larger than it already is. But, his advisors seemed to stay on vacation, too. It took 3 days for Secretary Napolitano to admit security had failed--seriously? Now a group is claiming credit. Are they involved? We have the terrorist in custody--what does he say? If the group did it, we should've been blaming them first, to send a strategic message that we know. If the terrorist acted alone, we should already be ridiculing the Al Qaeda group's claim. But, we're not doing either. We're letting the other side set the communications agenda.

No one in the administration seems to have thought about what the world is really like, and the fact that the administration is expected to have answers for everything, all the time. That's not fair, and it isn't even reasonable, but it comes with the office. They aren't just a domestic administration; they have to deal with foreign policy, too. And that means more than platitudes about how everyone loves us now that George W. Bush is no longer President. It seems like there are a lot of people who hated us under Clinton, and it seems that they still exist.

Love him or hate him, Bush had a clear world view, that he intended to make "Islamo-fascism" simply unacceptable to civilized peoples everywhere. Pretty heady; maybe arrogant. But, at least he knew what he wanted the world to look like when we were done. Any military planner will tell you that's the first step in outlining a strategy--define the end state.

Time for the Obama administration to start thinking a little more about what they want the world to look like, or some very unpleasant "others" are going to offer their version, instead.

Climate Shame

So, thousands of emails between climate scientists are either hacked or released by a whistleblower. What to make of this?

First off, a caveat--I'm not going to offer my opinion on climate change, since by remaining anonymous, my opinion is no more or less authoritative than any other layman's. But, I will say this--I was taught the scientific method in school, and I read. A lot.

A couple weeks ago, Paul Krugman assured us on ABC's "This Week" that this was just the normal course of academic discussion--that we need to understand academics get fired up when they are arguing their case internally. I'm not clear why an economist's opinion is any more valid than mine on climate change, but I'll take that for what it's worth.

Which is not much.

Sorry, Mr. Krugman, I've read the emails. Not all of them; I have a day job. But to claim this is just the normal course of scientific research is to damn all science. Saying you will delete data before releasing it isn't hyperbole; it's misconduct. Refusing to honor Freedom of Information Act requests because you believe you're just being harassed? I can't speak for the UK's version, but in the United States, the whole point of FOIA is that the holder of the data doesn't get to decide whether you're worth the bother. They want it, you've got it, hand it over. Period. That's the law. Or, to put it a bit more indelicately, it's NOT YOUR DATA. Unless you personally funded your research out of your own pocket, IT ISN'T YOURS. It isn't yours to withold, and it isn't your position to pass judgement on anyone asking for it--whether they have a Nobel Prize or are a kook in the basement.

Since we're talking about scientists, not lawyers, I could perhaps excuse their lack of understanding. What I can't excuse is the very idea that a scientist would find it acceptable to pressure others to boycott opposition, suppress research, or hide behind anything in a quest to keep data hidden. The whole point of scientific research is that it has to be repeatable. Once is a fluke, and if data doesn't fit the theory, then the theory has to be reworked. Perhaps the underlying hypothesis is still correct, but your desire on the matter is irrelevant. If you want to prove the doubters wrong, you'll have to give them your data, publish their research, and then demolish it. Anything else simply encourages conspiracy theorists.

So, forgive me if I don't just relax, now that the Associated Press has read all the emails, sent them to "experts," and concluded that these scientists were "overly generous" in their interpretations, but that we shouldn't conclude they were wrong about climate change.

It doesn't work that way. They have demonstrated a lack of ethics. As a result, I can't believe any of their conclusions anymore--all the more so because I'm not a climate scientist, so I can't personally verify their data, methods, and conclusions. Neither can these "experts" in the course of a couple weeks--so they are simply siding with colleagues, whether they know them or not. Until all the research is meticulously, laboriously reviewed--decades worth, by experts from both sides, in open forums, which will cost billions--then we are simply taking it on faith that the underlying science must still be sound. After all, there's consensus on this, right?

Just like there was a scientific consensus, for about a thousand years, that the Sun went around the Earth. Until someone took another look at the data.