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An Interview with Noam Chomsky
by M. Junaid Alam and Noam Chomsky ;
Left Hook ; December 27, 2004
On December 17th Left Hook co-editor M. Junaid Alam met with Professor Noam Chomsky at his MIT office to get his thoughts on the ideological justifications and historical realities behind America's "war on terror." Professor Chomsky spent a half-hour taking apart the framework of "civilization" versus "barbarism," pointing to Western and particularly US state-sponsored atrocities, laying out the grave nature of war crimes committed in Iraq, attacking the intellectual culture which sanctions massive suffering, and explaining the elite's knowledge of the roots of terrorism. The transcript follows below.
[Transcribed by the interviewer (double-hyphen "-"indicates a couple words not picked up)]
Alam: Professor Chomsky, thank you for doing this interview with Left Hook.
In the time we have, I wanted to discuss with you the consequences and implications of America's current war stance, how some of its programs or objectives might be interrelated.
The first thing I wanted to bring up is, it seems that the general ideological picture painted for us by the administration and conservative outlets is that the overall so-called war on terror is about the "civilized" world combating "barbarism," a position Business Week recently voiced. In what ways do you think is - in what ways do you think this is historically or politically inaccurate, in terms of the scale and intensity of the crimes committed by ourselves versus the "barbarians," presumably Islamists and nationalists in Iraq and Palestine?
Chomsky: Well, it doesn't even come close. I mean, the level of destruction and terror and violence carried out by the powerful states far exceeds anything that can imaginably can be done by groups that are called terrorists and subnational groups.
I mean just take, say, Iraq. The best current estimate of deaths after the invasion is 100,000 maybe more, maybe less. Take a long time for Islamic terrorists to kill 100,000 people. Take say, the most extensive terrorist act attributed to Islamic terrorists, 9-11. About 3,000 people killed, which is a pretty horrible atrocity. But as atrocities go, it doesn't rank very high.
Take for example, what south of the Rio Grande is often called the other 9-11. September 11th, 1973, in which the United States was very heavily involved -- that's the bombing of the presidential palace, the military coup, the death of the president, the destruction of the leading democracy, the oldest democracy, in Latin America. The official death toll for that 9-11 is - the official death toll is over 3,000, but that's just the bodies they can actually count. The estimated toll is probably twice that. If you give that number in comparative terms, comparative population terms, that'd be the equivalent of about 50 to 100,000 people killed in the United States. We've just learned recently the detailed numbers of people tortured -- it's 30,000, that's 700,000 in the United States, thousands of cases of rapes and other abuse, and many people just lost, disappeared, who knows what happened to them.
It also set up international terrorist operations, under the rubric of what was called Operation Condor, which brought together similar state terrorist organizations in neighboring countries which the US also had a major role in establishing...The US intelligence compared DINA, the Chilean state terror organization, compared them to the Gestapo and KGB. They didn't fool around, and that's the way they were viewed by the United States while the US was supporting them, and Britain was supporting them enthusiastically, and so on. In fact their international terror activities only stopped when they went one step too far. They murdered a well-known diplomat in Washington DC, and that's not allowed, so they were sort of called off and stayed pretty brutal, but not that bad.
Well that's one event - September 11th, 1973. Happens to be one in which the US was only indirectly involved. If we take those which the US carried out itself, then the scale is…uncountable. I mean, take the one case where the US was indeed condemned for international terrorism and ordered to terminate the crime, namely the attack on Nicaragua, which went to the World Court. The World Court had to take a very narrow case, because the US had excluded itself from all international treaties. So the US cannot be brought to the World Court for major crimes, for example the supreme international crime, invasion, or violation of the UN Charter, or violation of the Genocide Convention, these are things the US is exempt from, because they exempted themselves from being subjected to international treaties in World Court proceedings.
So the World Court had to deal with Nicaragua case on extremely narrow grounds, just bilateral Nicaragua-US treaties, and customary international law. Nevertheless the Court condemned the US for what it called unlawful use of force, gave a pretty broad judgment, well beyond the actual terms of the case, ordered the US to terminate the crimes, pay substantial reparations. The US ignored the ruling, vetoed two Security Council resolutions affirming it, and went on with the war.
The end result was, again in per capita terms, about the equivalent of 2.5 million people being killed in the United States. More than the number of deaths in all wars including the Civil War in US history, destroyed the country, it's now the second poorest country in the hemisphere. After the US took it over again in 1990, it went downhill further -- by now, it's estimated that over half the children under 2 are suffering from severe malnutrition, I mean, probable brain damage.
In the early 80's, when the US started the war, Nicaragua was being praised by international organizations, even international banks, for its substantial progress, won prizes for improvement, UNICEF prizes for - awards for improvement in child health and development. Now it's quite the opposite.
I mean this is a single incident, so it totally outweighs all terrorist activities you can attribute to anyone else, but it's not even worth discussing.
And that's only one, I'm not even talking about the major wars like say, Vietnam, which was straight aggression, can't call it terror, with, who knows, four million people or so killed, and people still dying from the effects of massive chemical warfare started by Kennedy. And that's just the United States. Take a look at other states, they're not as powerful as the US, but their violence is extraordinary - France in Africa, the British in Kenya and elsewhere, just…far beyond the scale of any terrorist activity.
Alam: So, so much for the framework of "civilization" versus "barbarism."
Chomsky: No, it's absurd, I mean look, let's just take - what's the worst atrocity since the Mongol invasions? You know, it's what happened in Germany…in the late 30's - 40's primarily. Germany was the peak of Western civilization. It was the most advanced society in the Western world, in the sciences, in the arts, in literature, the stellar example of Western civilization. In fact up until the first World War, when people turned anti-German, Germany had been described by American political scientists as the model of democracy. That's the peak of Western civilization - yeah, it's the worst barbarism since the Mongol invasion. What kind of correlations can one make?
Alam: It's interesting to note that - you mentioned a little bit the 100,000 casualties - it's interesting to note that while much media attention here is focused on the sensationalistic and gruesome beheadings of perhaps a few dozen foreigners in Iraq, the same media is more or less silent about the Lancet report - Lancet being the British medical journal - that said about 100,000 Iraqi civilians were killed, mostly by US bombing, and also missing in the media is talk about the Iraqi children's malnutrition rates which have apparently doubled.
Chomsky: They're worse than - at the level of Burundi - they're worse than Uganda and Haiti - and that's since the war.
Alam: That actually reminded me of-
Chomsky: In fact the way the media treated this Lancet report is kind of interesting. I mean it was mentioned - it's not that you couldn't find it. But it was either ignored or downplayed. The standard reaction to it was well, that it was just a sample.
Alam: Exactly
Chomsky: How do you know it was accurate, and maybe the number was smaller - and they [Lancet] actually did give a spread, which was 8,000 to 200,000, which is -
Alam: Excluding Fallujah, too.
Chomsky: Well, let's look at how they did it. The highest probability estimate was around 100,000. The immediate reaction has been well, maybe it's much lower. Yeah, maybe it's much lower - maybe it's much higher. In fact they did it very conservatively. They excluded Fallujah because that would have raised the estimate, the extrapolated estimate, they included the Kurdish areas, no fighting there, which would reduce the extrapolated estimate, and in general they did a careful and rather conservative analysis.
But it's either been ignored or the silly claim has been made that, well it's only an estimate, so maybe it's too high - true, it's only an estimate, so maybe it's too low. In fact that's the way every study is done of estimated casualties or health studies and so on. But whatever it is, whether it's 50,000 or 150,000, or whatever the number might be, it's obviously a major atrocity.
And in fact, it's not exactly correct that the media haven't reported the war crimes. They often report them and celebrate them. So take for example the invasion of Fallujah, which is one of the - it's a major war crime, it's very similar to the Russian destruction of Grozny 10 years earlier, a city of approximately the same size, bombed to rubble, people driven out.
Alam: They herded all the males, I think, they didn't let them escape the corridor.
Chomsky: Which incidentally is very much like Srebrenica - which is universally condemned as genocide -- Srebrenica was an enclave, lightly protected by UN forces, which was being used as a base for attacking nearby Serb villages. It was known that there's going to be retaliation. When there was a retaliation, it was vicious. They trucked out all the women and children, they kept the men inside, and apparently slaughtered them. The estimates are thousands of people slaughtered.
Well, with Fallujah, the US didn't truck out the women and children, it bombed them out. There was about a month of bombing, bombed out of the city, if they could get out somehow, a couple hundred thousand people fled, or somehow got out, and as you say men were kept in and we don't know what happened after that, we don't estimate [the casualties for which we are responsible].
But what was dramatic about Fallujah was that it was not kept secret. So you could see on the front page of the New York Times, a big picture of the first major…step in the offensive, namely the capture of the Fallujah general hospital. And there's a picture of people lying on the ground, soldier guarding them, and then there's a story that tells that patients and doctors were taken from - patients were taken from their beds, patients and doctors were forced to lie on the floor and manacled, under guard, and the picture described it.
-- The president of the United States is subject to death penalty under US law for that crime - alone. I mean that's a grave breach of the Geneva Conventions, Geneva Conventions say explicitly and unambiguously that hospitals must be protected, hospitals and medical staff and patients must be protected by all combatants in any conflict. You couldn't have a more grave breach of the Geneva Conventions than that.
There's a War Crimes Act in the United States passed by a Republican Congress in 1996, which says that grave breaches of the Geneva Convention are subject to the death penalty. And that doesn't mean the soldier that committed them, that means the commanders. They weren't thinking about the United States of course, but take it literally, that's what it means.
And then they went onto explain why they carried out this war crime in the general hospital. New York Times explained calmly that it was done because the US command described the Fallujah general hospital as a propaganda outlet for the guerrillas because they were reporting casualties. I -- don't know if the Nazis produced things like that. Of course the Times said it was "inflated" casualties - how do we know it was inflated?
Alam: We don't even count'em.
Chomsky: Well our Dear Leader said it was inflated, so that means that since we're like North Korea, it has to be inflated. But suppose it was. I mean the idea of carrying out a major war crime, explicit, because the hospital was a propaganda weapon by distributing casualty figures, I mean you really have to work to find an analog to that.
And then it went on, destroying the whole city. Finally they end up saying well the Marines are going to face a serious challenge of regaining the confidence of the people of Fallujah after having destroyed their city. Yeah, it's going to be a pretty serious challenge. It's also described how they're going to do it - by instituting a police state.
Alam: Right.
Chomsky: Nobody will be allowed into Fallujah until they undergo retinal scans and fingerprinting and they're going to be marked and identified, do everything except put chips in them, maybe they'll get to that next time, organize them into work gangs, in which they'll be compelled under the order to rebuild what the US has destroyed. Try and find a counterpart to that. And that's just one war crime, one part of the general atrocities.
In fact, you could argue that it's insignificant. By the principles of the Nuremberg Tribunal, which the US initiated and carried out, it concluded that the supreme international crime is invasion, aggression, and that supreme crime includes within it all the evil that follows. So therefore the doubling of malnutrition rates, the maybe 100,000 casualties, the grave war crimes in Fallujah, they're all footnotes, they're footnotes to the supreme international crime.
And that crime is taken pretty seriously. In Nuremberg they did not try soldiers, and they didn't try company commanders, they tried the - the people who were on trial and hanged - were the top command. Like the German Foreign Minister was hanged. Because of participation in the supreme international crime which encompasses all the evil that follows. Do we hear anything about that?
Alam: Right.
Chomsky: But you can't say it's concealed. What I've just talked about is all quoted from the front pages. Which is even more astonishing. Actually, you know, that, however awful it is, it's a big improvement over the past. I mean much worse than this was happening in Vietnam and there wasn't even any concern. It's hard to say the words, but there's been a lot of progress since then. I mean now at least many people find it appalling. It went on in Vietnam at a much higher level for years, literally years, and there was no protest at all. I mean the war in Vietnam started in 1962, was really a war against South Vietnam. Kennedy launched it in 1962, was very brutal from the start. Bombing, chemical warfare, to destroy crops and cover to undercut support for indigenous guerrillas -- driving millions of people into what amounted to concentration camps, or urban slums.
By the time protests developed, 1966 or 67, South Vietnam had virtually been destroyed. I mean the leading and most respected rather hawkish military analyst on Vietnam, [the Indochina] specialist Bernard Fall, by 1966 and 67, was writing he wondered whether Vietnam as a historic and cultural entity would escape extinction, under the heaviest attack that had ever been suffered by an area that size. Well, [for] years there was almost no protest. Bad now, but a lot of improvement in the last 33 years.
Alam: This brings to mind actually, for me anyway, a quote, from Mark Twain's Connecticut Yankee, maybe you could find something in it to comment on, he wrote - of the French Revolution I think he was speaking of :
"There were two 'Reigns of Terror' if we would remember it and consider it; the one wrought in hot passion, the other in heartless cold blood…our shudders are all for the 'horrors' of the minor Terror, the momentary Terror, so to speak, whereas, what is the horror of swift death by the axe compared with lifelong death from hunger, cold, insult, cruelty, and heartbreak? A city cemetery could contain the coffins filled by that brief Terror which we have all been so diligently taught to shiver at and mourn over; but all France could hardly contain the coffins filled by that older and real Terror, that unspeakably bitter and awful Terror, which none of us have been taught to see in its vastness or pity as it deserves."
Do you think one of the functions of the mainstream media in either not really allowing the - allowing for the vastness or the pity of the crimes that are deserved to be seen or really experienced - is that simply reflecting the prejudices and racism of American society, or is it actually creating the prejudices of American society?
Chomsky: The media are, in this respect, just part of the general intellectual culture, which includes all of us, including you and me. I mean, we don't see, we prefer not to see the horrible crimes that are going on all the time, which we could do something about easily. So take say, we just passed the 10th anniversary of the Rwanda massacres, which were pretty horrible, maybe 8,000 people killed a day for a 100 days. Pretty awful massacre. And there's a lot of wringing of hands and lamentations about how we didn't do anything about it, we didn't intervene, we didn't send military forces, and so on, wasn't that terrible. Well yeah, it was pretty terrible, but let's take a look at today.
Right now, about the same number of people, about 8,000 people, about 8,000 children in fact, are dying in southern Africa every day from easily treatable diseases. We add hunger, it's going to go way up, let's keep to easily treatable diseases. That's Rwanda-level killing among children only, in southern Africa, not for 100 days, but every day. There's a very easy way to deal with it, namely bribe pharmaceutical corporations to provide them with drugs and the limited infrastructure that's required. [But almost no one is] talking about it. I mean that's far worse than Rwanda.
Furthermore if we go a step further and ask ourselves - speaking of barbarism - what kind of society do we live in where the only way we can think of preventing Rwanda-level killing among children everyday is by bribing private tyrannies to do something about it. I mean that itself is beyond barbarism.
But we accept that, we don't think about it, we prefer not to think about it. It's not that we worry about small crimes rather than big ones, it's that attention is focused on anything that's done against us. What we do to others just doesn't matter. And it's not specific to the United States, it's quite general. It's an unfortunate part of dominant cultures and powerful societies.
Alam: With all the grandiose rhetoric about "barbarism," it's also interesting to note that the Pentagon's own Defense Science Board, composed of top military commanders and intelligence figures, issued a report about two months ago declaring that resentment in the Islamic world is mainly due to US support for Israel and US support for Arab dictatorships, and not about an inner hatred or hatred of Western values themselves. But if the top people in the Pentagon and the military understand this, then why is there such a large disconnect in what they themselves concede and what they say - I mean what are the strategic imperatives that are so great that they are willing to incur the wrath?
Chomsky: That was an interesting report [interruption, door is opened, background noise continues from here on] - this Pentagon report which was sort of interesting, is virtually a repetition, almost a verbatim repetition of a report by the NSC in 1958 when President Eisenhower raised the question with his staff, why there is a campaign of hatred against us in the Arab world, and not among governments but from the people. That's Eisenhower, 1958, why is there a campaign of hatred against us in the Arab world. An answer was given in an analysis by the National Security Council in 1958: it's because there's a perception in the Arab that the United States supports brutal and repressive regimes and blocks democracy and development, and we do it because we want to get control of oil and resources - their oil. That's 1958. And they went on to say, yes the perception's accurate, and we're going to continue doing it. That's been perfectly well known for years that that was the case.
It's exacerbated further by specific policies. Right after 9-11, as far as I know one newspaper in the United States had the integrity to investigate opinion in the Muslim world, the Wall Street Journal. They kept to the people they cared about, what they called moneyed Muslims, managers of multinational corporations, international lawyers, you know - their type of people - so there's no concern about globalization or anything else, they're part of the US-run system. But they had the same results they had as in 1958, as the Pentagon just reported. They hate and fear bin Laden, who's trying to destroy them, but nevertheless they express understanding for the position that he articulates, and they hate US policy, because it supports brutal and oppressive regimes, blocks democracy and development, because of the support for Israeli aggression and atrocities at that time, because of the Iraq sanctions, which were killing hundreds of thousands of people, devastating society, and caused enormous anger.
The Pentagon report is just repeating what anybody knew who had their eyes open. The fact that it was regarded as a surprise in the United States just shows how much intellectuals prefer to keep their eyes closed. What they said is correct, furthermore you can read it - it's articulated almost the same way in 1958, it's found in every study since. Furthermore you can find it any book on terrorism - any serious book on terrorism, not just anyone ranting and screaming - but someone taking it seriously, say, Jason Burke's study of al-Qaeda, which is the best one around, or just about anyone you pick.
They don't hate our freedom, you know, what they hate is US policies, and for good reason, because those policies have been crushing them for years. So yeah, they hate the policies. Pentagon just discovered - re-discovered - what everybody with eyes open already knew, and these 1958 reports have been declassified for about 15 years, I was writing about them in 1990. Just better not to - it's easier to just stand on a pedestal and scream about Islamic fascism and how it's trying to destroy us. It doesn't require thinking about the policies and doing something about them.
Furthermore that's true of what's called terrorism in general - I mean, it doesn't come out of nowhere. Take say the IRA - which the US was pretty much supporting, it was being funded - IRA terrorism, which was pretty serious - was being funded from the United States including church collections, FBI knew about it, wouldn't do anything about it. It was pretty awful, but it was not without reasons, it did draw on a reservoir of sympathy among the population, who understood the grievances that they were talking about were real...In fact when the British finally responded not by greater violence, but by paying some attention to the grievances, it led to significant improvements. In fact, big improvements. Of course, Belfast is not heaven, but it's enormously improved over what it was ten years ago.
And that's generally the case. And furthermore every serious specialist on terrorism knows it. You take a look at say, Israeli intelligence, I mean the former heads of this Shin Bet have spoken about this - the current ones can't but the former ones have - the former heads of military intelligence, and they all said the same thing: until you treat the Palestinians with respect, until you grant them their elementary rights, you're never going to stop terrorism. That's the way to do it - they have grievances, the grievances are real, we're treating them with contempt and humiliation and destruction, we're stealing their land and resources. [There's something like a] near-universal consensus on this, among people who care about the topic.
[Interruption, another interview beckons]
Alam: Thank you very much Professor, thank you for your time.
M. Junaid Alam, 21, is co-editor of the radical youth journal Left Hook; he can be reached at alam@lefthook.org
Saturday, January 08, 2005
Friday, January 07, 2005
Commentator Paid to Push Policy
A Call To Action
washingtonpost.com
Education Dept. Used Williams to Promote 'No Child' Law
By Howard Kurtz
Washington Post Staff Writer
Saturday, January 8, 2005; Page A01
The Education Department paid commentator Armstrong Williams $241,000 to help promote President Bush's No Child Left Behind law on the air, an arrangement that Williams acknowledged yesterday involved "bad judgment" on his part.
In taking the money, funneled through the Ketchum Inc. public relations firm, Williams produced and aired a commercial on his syndicated television and radio shows featuring Education Secretary Roderick R. Paige, touted Bush's education policy, and urged other programs to interview Paige. He did not disclose the contract when talking about the law during cable television appearances or writing about it in his newspaper column.
Congressional Democrats immediately accused the administration of trying to bribe journalists. Williams's newspaper syndicate, Tribune Media Services, yesterday canceled his column. And one television network dropped his program pending an investigation.
Williams, one of the most prominent black conservatives in the media, said he understands "why some people think it's unethical." Asked if people would be justified in thinking he sold his opinions to the government for cash, he said: "It's fair for someone to make that assessment."
The Education Department contract, first reported yesterday by USA Today, increased criticism of the administration's aggressive approach to news management. The department already has paid Ketchum $700,000 to rate journalists on how positively or negatively they report on No Child Left Behind, and to produce a video release on the law that was used by some television stations as if it were real news. Other government agencies -- including the Census Bureau and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention -- also have distributed such prepackaged videos, a practice that congressional auditors have described as illegal in some cases.
The Williams incident follows a series of other media embarrassments in the past 18 months involving such high-profile outlets as the New York Times, USA Today and CBS News that have further eroded the credibility of the news business.
Rep. George Miller (D-Calif.), the ranking Democrat on the House education committee, said the Williams contract "is propaganda, it's unethical, it's dangerous and it's illegal" and called it "worthy of Pravda." Committee Chairman John A. Boehner (R-Ohio), agreed to join Miller in requesting an inspector general's investigation, a spokesman said.
Miller cited two Government Accountability Office opinions that the administration violated federal law with video news releases. In May, the GAO criticized the Department of Health and Human Services for using the technique to promote Medicare's new prescription drug benefit. This week, it criticized the Office of National Drug Control Policy for distributing similar reports with a contractor posing as a journalist, including a "suggested live intro" for anchors to read.
Miller, joined by House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) and other Democrats, asked Bush in a letter to put an end to "covert propaganda."
In a separate letter, Senate Minority Leader Harry M. Reid (D-Nev.) and Sens. Frank Lautenberg (D-N.J.) and Edward M. Kennedy (D-Mass.) asked the president to recover the money paid to Williams. "We believe that the act of bribing journalists to bias their news in favor of government policies undermines the integrity of our democracy," they wrote.
The Education Department defended the contract, which Paige knew about in advance, as a minority outreach effort through Williams's syndicated program, "The Right Side."
"Our contract was for advertising," said department spokesman John Gibbons. "Our intent was to reach out to minority audiences. Armstrong went out and talked about it -- we didn't have anything to do with that."
But the contract also required Williams to "utilize his long term working relationship" with black producers to "encourage" them to "periodically address the No Child Left Behind Act."
"Our objective was to put out basic information to audiences. . . . We certainly had no intention to do it in an underhanded way," Gibbons added. He said the department stopped putting out video news releases after the first GAO report and has no other contract involving payments to journalists. Ketchum executives declined to comment.
Alex Jones, director of Harvard's Shorenstein media center, said he is "disgusted" by what he called "the worst kind of fakery and flackery" on Williams's part. "It's propaganda masquerading as news, paid by government, truly a recipe from hell," he said. "It would make any thinking person hearing any pundit speak want to say, 'Okay, how much did they pay you to say that?' " Jones said the contract also shows that "the Bush administration neither understands nor respects the idea of an independent media."
Williams, a onetime aide to Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, is the founder and chief executive of the Graham Williams Group, a public relations firm on Capitol Hill, and, according to his Web site, a "multi-media wonder." He frequently discusses politics on CNN and other networks and on his own radio show. "The Right Side," which he both hosts and owns, is carried by the Lynchburg, Va.-based Liberty Channel, which is affiliated with Jerry Falwell; Sky Angel satellite network, a Christian organization; and Sinclair Broadcast Group.
His other show, "On Point" -- on which Williams interviewed Paige last year, as well as Vice President Cheney, Secretary of State Colin L. Powell and national security adviser Condoleezza Rice -- is carried by TV One, a Silver Spring-based network aimed at African Americans. Williams said he had disclosed his contract to TV One, but chief executive Johnathon Rodgers said the network knew nothing about it and has taken the show off the air while it investigates.
"As a former journalist, I'm bothered by things like this -- people being in the pay of various political groups and pressing their messages without a declaration," Rodgers said.
As a longtime supporter of No Child Left Behind, Williams said, he was receptive in the summer of 2003 when Education Department and Ketchum officials approached him about buying an ad on "The Right Side" to promote the law. Although he "agonized" over the first of two six-month contracts, he said, the law "is something I believe in."
Williams said he aired the spot twice on each "Right Side" broadcast and disclosed the contract on that show. He said he successfully urged another black television personality, Steve Harvey, to twice interview Paige.
Williams has written several newspaper columns defending administration education policy. Last January, he wrote that the No Child Left Behind law "has provided more funds to poor children than any other education bill in this country's history." In May, he wrote that the law "holds entire schools accountable."
Chicago-based Tribune Media Services dropped Williams's column yesterday, saying he had violated his contract. "Accepting compensation in any form from an entity that serves as a subject of his weekly newspaper columns creates, at the very least, the appearance of a conflict of interest," prompting readers to ask whether his opinions "have been purchased by a third party," a company statement said.
In October, Williams praised the law on CNN. He "didn't disclose to us that he was a paid spokesman, and we believe he should have," said CNN spokesman Matthew Furman. "We will obviously take that into serious consideration before booking Armstrong in the future."
Williams said he will not accept such government contracts again.
Spokesmen for other federal agencies acknowledged yesterday that they also have distributed prepackaged video news releases. Last March, the Census Bureau sent out a video release to trumpet Women's History Month. "Women are breaking the gender barrier in one field after another," contractor Karen Ryan, who produced and narrated the videos, said, citing a Census Bureau analysis. The story included comments by Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine) and Rep. Louise M. Slaughter (D-N.Y.) and ended with the sign-off: "I'm Karen Ryan reporting."
Census officials said yesterday that they no longer distribute tapes that could be broadcast as complete news stories.
As recently as October, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention shipped a video package on the flu vaccine that mimics a real news report. Spokesman Tom Skinner said he expects broadcasters to use the information as components of their own stories.
Staff writer Ceci Connolly contributed to this report.
© 2005 The Washington Post Company
washingtonpost.com
Education Dept. Used Williams to Promote 'No Child' Law
By Howard Kurtz
Washington Post Staff Writer
Saturday, January 8, 2005; Page A01
The Education Department paid commentator Armstrong Williams $241,000 to help promote President Bush's No Child Left Behind law on the air, an arrangement that Williams acknowledged yesterday involved "bad judgment" on his part.
In taking the money, funneled through the Ketchum Inc. public relations firm, Williams produced and aired a commercial on his syndicated television and radio shows featuring Education Secretary Roderick R. Paige, touted Bush's education policy, and urged other programs to interview Paige. He did not disclose the contract when talking about the law during cable television appearances or writing about it in his newspaper column.
Congressional Democrats immediately accused the administration of trying to bribe journalists. Williams's newspaper syndicate, Tribune Media Services, yesterday canceled his column. And one television network dropped his program pending an investigation.
Williams, one of the most prominent black conservatives in the media, said he understands "why some people think it's unethical." Asked if people would be justified in thinking he sold his opinions to the government for cash, he said: "It's fair for someone to make that assessment."
The Education Department contract, first reported yesterday by USA Today, increased criticism of the administration's aggressive approach to news management. The department already has paid Ketchum $700,000 to rate journalists on how positively or negatively they report on No Child Left Behind, and to produce a video release on the law that was used by some television stations as if it were real news. Other government agencies -- including the Census Bureau and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention -- also have distributed such prepackaged videos, a practice that congressional auditors have described as illegal in some cases.
The Williams incident follows a series of other media embarrassments in the past 18 months involving such high-profile outlets as the New York Times, USA Today and CBS News that have further eroded the credibility of the news business.
Rep. George Miller (D-Calif.), the ranking Democrat on the House education committee, said the Williams contract "is propaganda, it's unethical, it's dangerous and it's illegal" and called it "worthy of Pravda." Committee Chairman John A. Boehner (R-Ohio), agreed to join Miller in requesting an inspector general's investigation, a spokesman said.
Miller cited two Government Accountability Office opinions that the administration violated federal law with video news releases. In May, the GAO criticized the Department of Health and Human Services for using the technique to promote Medicare's new prescription drug benefit. This week, it criticized the Office of National Drug Control Policy for distributing similar reports with a contractor posing as a journalist, including a "suggested live intro" for anchors to read.
Miller, joined by House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) and other Democrats, asked Bush in a letter to put an end to "covert propaganda."
In a separate letter, Senate Minority Leader Harry M. Reid (D-Nev.) and Sens. Frank Lautenberg (D-N.J.) and Edward M. Kennedy (D-Mass.) asked the president to recover the money paid to Williams. "We believe that the act of bribing journalists to bias their news in favor of government policies undermines the integrity of our democracy," they wrote.
The Education Department defended the contract, which Paige knew about in advance, as a minority outreach effort through Williams's syndicated program, "The Right Side."
"Our contract was for advertising," said department spokesman John Gibbons. "Our intent was to reach out to minority audiences. Armstrong went out and talked about it -- we didn't have anything to do with that."
But the contract also required Williams to "utilize his long term working relationship" with black producers to "encourage" them to "periodically address the No Child Left Behind Act."
"Our objective was to put out basic information to audiences. . . . We certainly had no intention to do it in an underhanded way," Gibbons added. He said the department stopped putting out video news releases after the first GAO report and has no other contract involving payments to journalists. Ketchum executives declined to comment.
Alex Jones, director of Harvard's Shorenstein media center, said he is "disgusted" by what he called "the worst kind of fakery and flackery" on Williams's part. "It's propaganda masquerading as news, paid by government, truly a recipe from hell," he said. "It would make any thinking person hearing any pundit speak want to say, 'Okay, how much did they pay you to say that?' " Jones said the contract also shows that "the Bush administration neither understands nor respects the idea of an independent media."
Williams, a onetime aide to Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, is the founder and chief executive of the Graham Williams Group, a public relations firm on Capitol Hill, and, according to his Web site, a "multi-media wonder." He frequently discusses politics on CNN and other networks and on his own radio show. "The Right Side," which he both hosts and owns, is carried by the Lynchburg, Va.-based Liberty Channel, which is affiliated with Jerry Falwell; Sky Angel satellite network, a Christian organization; and Sinclair Broadcast Group.
His other show, "On Point" -- on which Williams interviewed Paige last year, as well as Vice President Cheney, Secretary of State Colin L. Powell and national security adviser Condoleezza Rice -- is carried by TV One, a Silver Spring-based network aimed at African Americans. Williams said he had disclosed his contract to TV One, but chief executive Johnathon Rodgers said the network knew nothing about it and has taken the show off the air while it investigates.
"As a former journalist, I'm bothered by things like this -- people being in the pay of various political groups and pressing their messages without a declaration," Rodgers said.
As a longtime supporter of No Child Left Behind, Williams said, he was receptive in the summer of 2003 when Education Department and Ketchum officials approached him about buying an ad on "The Right Side" to promote the law. Although he "agonized" over the first of two six-month contracts, he said, the law "is something I believe in."
Williams said he aired the spot twice on each "Right Side" broadcast and disclosed the contract on that show. He said he successfully urged another black television personality, Steve Harvey, to twice interview Paige.
Williams has written several newspaper columns defending administration education policy. Last January, he wrote that the No Child Left Behind law "has provided more funds to poor children than any other education bill in this country's history." In May, he wrote that the law "holds entire schools accountable."
Chicago-based Tribune Media Services dropped Williams's column yesterday, saying he had violated his contract. "Accepting compensation in any form from an entity that serves as a subject of his weekly newspaper columns creates, at the very least, the appearance of a conflict of interest," prompting readers to ask whether his opinions "have been purchased by a third party," a company statement said.
In October, Williams praised the law on CNN. He "didn't disclose to us that he was a paid spokesman, and we believe he should have," said CNN spokesman Matthew Furman. "We will obviously take that into serious consideration before booking Armstrong in the future."
Williams said he will not accept such government contracts again.
Spokesmen for other federal agencies acknowledged yesterday that they also have distributed prepackaged video news releases. Last March, the Census Bureau sent out a video release to trumpet Women's History Month. "Women are breaking the gender barrier in one field after another," contractor Karen Ryan, who produced and narrated the videos, said, citing a Census Bureau analysis. The story included comments by Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine) and Rep. Louise M. Slaughter (D-N.Y.) and ended with the sign-off: "I'm Karen Ryan reporting."
Census officials said yesterday that they no longer distribute tapes that could be broadcast as complete news stories.
As recently as October, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention shipped a video package on the flu vaccine that mimics a real news report. Spokesman Tom Skinner said he expects broadcasters to use the information as components of their own stories.
Staff writer Ceci Connolly contributed to this report.
© 2005 The Washington Post Company
Worse Than Fiction
A Call To Action
The New York Times
January 7, 2005
OP-ED COLUMNIST
By PAUL KRUGMAN
I've been thinking of writing a political novel. It will be a bad novel because there won't be any nuance: the villains won't just espouse an ideology I disagree with - they'll be hypocrites, cranks and scoundrels.
In my bad novel, a famous moralist who demanded national outrage over an affair and writes best-selling books about virtue will turn out to be hiding an expensive gambling habit. A talk radio host who advocates harsh penalties for drug violators will turn out to be hiding his own drug addiction.
In my bad novel, crusaders for moral values will be driven by strange obsessions. One senator's diatribe against gay marriage will link it to "man on dog" sex. Another will rant about the dangers of lesbians in high school bathrooms.
In my bad novel, the president will choose as head of homeland security a "good man" who turns out to have been the subject of an arrest warrant, who turned an apartment set aside for rescue workers into his personal love nest and who stalked at least one of his ex-lovers.
In my bad novel, a TV personality who claims to stand up for regular Americans against the elite will pay a large settlement in a sexual harassment case, in which he used his position of power to - on second thought, that story is too embarrassing even for a bad novel.
In my bad novel, apologists for the administration will charge foreign policy critics with anti-Semitism. But they will be silent when a prominent conservative declares that "Hollywood is controlled by secular Jews who hate Christianity in general and Catholicism in particular."
In my bad novel the administration will use the slogan "support the troops" to suppress criticism of its war policy. But it will ignore repeated complaints that the troops lack armor.
The secretary of defense - another "good man," according to the president - won't even bother signing letters to the families of soldiers killed in action.
Last but not least, in my bad novel the president, who portrays himself as the defender of good against evil, will preside over the widespread use of torture.
How did we find ourselves living in a bad novel? It was not ever thus. Hypocrites, cranks and scoundrels have always been with us, on both sides of the aisle. But 9/11 created an environment some liberals summarize with the acronym Iokiyar: it's O.K. if you're a Republican.
The public became unwilling to believe bad things about those who claim to be defending the nation against terrorism. And the hypocrites, cranks and scoundrels of the right, empowered by the public's credulity, have come out in unprecedented force.
Apologists for the administration would like us to forget all about the Kerik affair, but Bernard Kerik perfectly symbolizes the times we live in. Like Rudolph Giuliani and, yes, President Bush, he wasn't a hero of 9/11, but he played one on TV. And like Mr. Giuliani, he was quick to cash in, literally, on his undeserved reputation.
Once the New York newspapers began digging, it became clear that Mr. Kerik is, professionally and personally, a real piece of work. But that's not unusual these days among people who successfully pass themselves off as patriots and defenders of moral values. Mr. Kerik must still be wondering why he, unlike so many others, didn't get away with it.
And Alberto Gonzales must be hoping that senators don't bring up the subject.
The principal objection to making Mr. Gonzales attorney general is that doing so will tell the world that America thinks it's acceptable to torture people. But his confirmation will also be a statement about ethics.
As White House counsel, Mr. Gonzales was charged with vetting Mr. Kerik. He must have realized what kind of man he was dealing with - yet he declared Mr. Kerik fit to oversee homeland security.
Did Mr. Gonzales defer to the wishes of a president who wanted Mr. Kerik anyway, or did he decide that his boss wouldn't want to know? (The Nelson Report, a respected newsletter, reports that Mr. Bush has made it clear to his subordinates that he doesn't want to hear bad news about Iraq.)
Either way, when the Senate confirms Mr. Gonzales, it will mean that Iokiyar remains in effect, that the basic rules of ethics don't apply to people aligned with the ruling party. And reality will continue to be worse than any fiction I could write.
E-mail: krugman@nytimes.com
Copyright 2005 The New York Times Company
The New York Times
January 7, 2005
OP-ED COLUMNIST
By PAUL KRUGMAN
I've been thinking of writing a political novel. It will be a bad novel because there won't be any nuance: the villains won't just espouse an ideology I disagree with - they'll be hypocrites, cranks and scoundrels.
In my bad novel, a famous moralist who demanded national outrage over an affair and writes best-selling books about virtue will turn out to be hiding an expensive gambling habit. A talk radio host who advocates harsh penalties for drug violators will turn out to be hiding his own drug addiction.
In my bad novel, crusaders for moral values will be driven by strange obsessions. One senator's diatribe against gay marriage will link it to "man on dog" sex. Another will rant about the dangers of lesbians in high school bathrooms.
In my bad novel, the president will choose as head of homeland security a "good man" who turns out to have been the subject of an arrest warrant, who turned an apartment set aside for rescue workers into his personal love nest and who stalked at least one of his ex-lovers.
In my bad novel, a TV personality who claims to stand up for regular Americans against the elite will pay a large settlement in a sexual harassment case, in which he used his position of power to - on second thought, that story is too embarrassing even for a bad novel.
In my bad novel, apologists for the administration will charge foreign policy critics with anti-Semitism. But they will be silent when a prominent conservative declares that "Hollywood is controlled by secular Jews who hate Christianity in general and Catholicism in particular."
In my bad novel the administration will use the slogan "support the troops" to suppress criticism of its war policy. But it will ignore repeated complaints that the troops lack armor.
The secretary of defense - another "good man," according to the president - won't even bother signing letters to the families of soldiers killed in action.
Last but not least, in my bad novel the president, who portrays himself as the defender of good against evil, will preside over the widespread use of torture.
How did we find ourselves living in a bad novel? It was not ever thus. Hypocrites, cranks and scoundrels have always been with us, on both sides of the aisle. But 9/11 created an environment some liberals summarize with the acronym Iokiyar: it's O.K. if you're a Republican.
The public became unwilling to believe bad things about those who claim to be defending the nation against terrorism. And the hypocrites, cranks and scoundrels of the right, empowered by the public's credulity, have come out in unprecedented force.
Apologists for the administration would like us to forget all about the Kerik affair, but Bernard Kerik perfectly symbolizes the times we live in. Like Rudolph Giuliani and, yes, President Bush, he wasn't a hero of 9/11, but he played one on TV. And like Mr. Giuliani, he was quick to cash in, literally, on his undeserved reputation.
Once the New York newspapers began digging, it became clear that Mr. Kerik is, professionally and personally, a real piece of work. But that's not unusual these days among people who successfully pass themselves off as patriots and defenders of moral values. Mr. Kerik must still be wondering why he, unlike so many others, didn't get away with it.
And Alberto Gonzales must be hoping that senators don't bring up the subject.
The principal objection to making Mr. Gonzales attorney general is that doing so will tell the world that America thinks it's acceptable to torture people. But his confirmation will also be a statement about ethics.
As White House counsel, Mr. Gonzales was charged with vetting Mr. Kerik. He must have realized what kind of man he was dealing with - yet he declared Mr. Kerik fit to oversee homeland security.
Did Mr. Gonzales defer to the wishes of a president who wanted Mr. Kerik anyway, or did he decide that his boss wouldn't want to know? (The Nelson Report, a respected newsletter, reports that Mr. Bush has made it clear to his subordinates that he doesn't want to hear bad news about Iraq.)
Either way, when the Senate confirms Mr. Gonzales, it will mean that Iokiyar remains in effect, that the basic rules of ethics don't apply to people aligned with the ruling party. And reality will continue to be worse than any fiction I could write.
E-mail: krugman@nytimes.com
Copyright 2005 The New York Times Company
Thursday, January 06, 2005
Choose and Lose
A Call To Action
anuary 5, 2005
OP-ED CONTRIBUTOR
By BARRY SCHWARTZ
Swarthmore, Pa.
THERE are three arguments being made in favor of privatizing part of Social Security. First, the Social Security Trust Fund needs money and privatization will, in the long run, increase the amount of money available to retirees. Second, privatization will give people choice, and choice is good. And third, "it's your money," and you ought to be able to do with it as you wish.
Each of these arguments is dubious, or disingenuous, or both.
Though experts differ on the urgency and the severity of the problem, most everyone agrees that the trust fund will eventually run out of money unless we do something. Two obvious and painful things we can do are decrease benefits or increase payroll taxes. Privatization, it is argued, solves the problem without the pain. Equity investments return about twice as much, historically, as Treasury bills. So by allowing people to put some of their payroll taxes into equity investments, we will increase the value of that part of their retirement account so we can then decrease the benefits paid out by the standard Social Security program and still leave retirees better off.
There are several problems with this argument, however. For starters, there is no guarantee that equities will return more than Treasury bills. One of the reasons that equities have a higher rate of return than other types of investments is that investors have to be compensated for taking risks. Perhaps equities will outperform Treasury bills in the long term but that doesn't mean that they will be outperforming Treasury bills at the specific moment you retire.
For example, a person who retired in 2000 after a lifetime of investing half in stocks and half in bonds would have had 50 percent more in his account than a person making the same investments who retired in 2003. A difference like this could mean that the lucky retiree can afford both food and medicine while the unlucky one must choose between them. The risk inherent in equity investments is unavoidable unless you can leave the investment alone indefinitely, which, of course, most retirees can't do.
What's more, the administrative costs of keeping track of these private accounts, according to President Bush's Commission to Strengthen Social Security, will be 10 to 30 times the cost of administering the current system, eating up almost all of the hypothetical gains that equity investments could provide.
Finally, even if we grant the advantages of putting trust fund money into equities, this is something that the government could do without privatizing anything by doing the investing itself. The government as investor can ride out risks better than any individual investor, and administrative costs would be vastly reduced. Only brokerage houses would suffer - from lost commissions. Thus investing in equities, which might be a good idea, is logically independent of privatization, which is a bad one. The Bush administration is deliberately conflating them.
This brings us to the second argument in favor of privatizing Social Security: giving people options makes them better off. There is now accumulating evidence that choice isn't always good. Whether people are choosing jam in a grocery store, essay topics in a college class, or even potential partners in an evening of "speed dating," the more options they have, the less likely they are to make a choice. In other words, increasing options induces people to opt out of choosing altogether, and this comes into play when people decide how to invest their money for retirement.
A study by Sheena Iyengar, a psychologist, and Wei Jiang, an economist, has shown that when employers increase the number of funds available to employees for voluntary 401(k) investments, the rate of participation goes down by 2 percent for every 10 funds offered. And this is true even when participating employees get free money - matching money - from employers.
So whereas there is no denying that choice is sometimes good, a case must be made for the specific benefits of choice in each particular context, rather than just assuming that the more choice people have, the better off they are. The appropriately abysmal early public response to the administration's Medicare prescription drug choice plan provides ample reason to suspect that many people will not regard being able to choose their Social Security investment instruments as a blessing.
This brings me to the final defense of privatization: the payroll taxes you pay are your money, and you ought to be able to do what you like with your money. This, I suspect, is the real justification behind the move to privatize, and it is the worst reason of all. The payroll tax is not "your" money; it's our money. Social Security was created as an insurance scheme, not a pension scheme. It was meant to provide a safety net, to protect the unlucky from immiseration in old age. The benefits we get are not payouts from accounts in which we have accumulated our own private stash. What we get is largely determined by what we earned, but we keep getting it even after we've taken out every penny we put in. And if we happen to die early, someone else reaps the benefits of our contributions.
The Bush administration should be honest with the American people and ask us if we want to do away with Social Security, without pretending that privatization will solve the problem of financing the trust fund without pain. I suspect that the American people would reject this effort to transform their "old-age insurance" into another opportunity to roll the dice in the investment casino.
Barry Schwartz, a professor of psychology at Swarthmore College, is the author of "The Paradox of Choice: Why More Is Less."
Copyright 2005 The New York Times Company
anuary 5, 2005
OP-ED CONTRIBUTOR
By BARRY SCHWARTZ
Swarthmore, Pa.
THERE are three arguments being made in favor of privatizing part of Social Security. First, the Social Security Trust Fund needs money and privatization will, in the long run, increase the amount of money available to retirees. Second, privatization will give people choice, and choice is good. And third, "it's your money," and you ought to be able to do with it as you wish.
Each of these arguments is dubious, or disingenuous, or both.
Though experts differ on the urgency and the severity of the problem, most everyone agrees that the trust fund will eventually run out of money unless we do something. Two obvious and painful things we can do are decrease benefits or increase payroll taxes. Privatization, it is argued, solves the problem without the pain. Equity investments return about twice as much, historically, as Treasury bills. So by allowing people to put some of their payroll taxes into equity investments, we will increase the value of that part of their retirement account so we can then decrease the benefits paid out by the standard Social Security program and still leave retirees better off.
There are several problems with this argument, however. For starters, there is no guarantee that equities will return more than Treasury bills. One of the reasons that equities have a higher rate of return than other types of investments is that investors have to be compensated for taking risks. Perhaps equities will outperform Treasury bills in the long term but that doesn't mean that they will be outperforming Treasury bills at the specific moment you retire.
For example, a person who retired in 2000 after a lifetime of investing half in stocks and half in bonds would have had 50 percent more in his account than a person making the same investments who retired in 2003. A difference like this could mean that the lucky retiree can afford both food and medicine while the unlucky one must choose between them. The risk inherent in equity investments is unavoidable unless you can leave the investment alone indefinitely, which, of course, most retirees can't do.
What's more, the administrative costs of keeping track of these private accounts, according to President Bush's Commission to Strengthen Social Security, will be 10 to 30 times the cost of administering the current system, eating up almost all of the hypothetical gains that equity investments could provide.
Finally, even if we grant the advantages of putting trust fund money into equities, this is something that the government could do without privatizing anything by doing the investing itself. The government as investor can ride out risks better than any individual investor, and administrative costs would be vastly reduced. Only brokerage houses would suffer - from lost commissions. Thus investing in equities, which might be a good idea, is logically independent of privatization, which is a bad one. The Bush administration is deliberately conflating them.
This brings us to the second argument in favor of privatizing Social Security: giving people options makes them better off. There is now accumulating evidence that choice isn't always good. Whether people are choosing jam in a grocery store, essay topics in a college class, or even potential partners in an evening of "speed dating," the more options they have, the less likely they are to make a choice. In other words, increasing options induces people to opt out of choosing altogether, and this comes into play when people decide how to invest their money for retirement.
A study by Sheena Iyengar, a psychologist, and Wei Jiang, an economist, has shown that when employers increase the number of funds available to employees for voluntary 401(k) investments, the rate of participation goes down by 2 percent for every 10 funds offered. And this is true even when participating employees get free money - matching money - from employers.
So whereas there is no denying that choice is sometimes good, a case must be made for the specific benefits of choice in each particular context, rather than just assuming that the more choice people have, the better off they are. The appropriately abysmal early public response to the administration's Medicare prescription drug choice plan provides ample reason to suspect that many people will not regard being able to choose their Social Security investment instruments as a blessing.
This brings me to the final defense of privatization: the payroll taxes you pay are your money, and you ought to be able to do what you like with your money. This, I suspect, is the real justification behind the move to privatize, and it is the worst reason of all. The payroll tax is not "your" money; it's our money. Social Security was created as an insurance scheme, not a pension scheme. It was meant to provide a safety net, to protect the unlucky from immiseration in old age. The benefits we get are not payouts from accounts in which we have accumulated our own private stash. What we get is largely determined by what we earned, but we keep getting it even after we've taken out every penny we put in. And if we happen to die early, someone else reaps the benefits of our contributions.
The Bush administration should be honest with the American people and ask us if we want to do away with Social Security, without pretending that privatization will solve the problem of financing the trust fund without pain. I suspect that the American people would reject this effort to transform their "old-age insurance" into another opportunity to roll the dice in the investment casino.
Barry Schwartz, a professor of psychology at Swarthmore College, is the author of "The Paradox of Choice: Why More Is Less."
Copyright 2005 The New York Times Company
Wednesday, January 05, 2005
Army Reserve fast becoming 'broken' force
A Call To Action
From the Baltimore Sun
General points to Iraq, 'dysfunctional' policies; Memo details readiness concerns; Potential inability to meet other threats, chief warns
By Tom Bowman
Sun National Staff
January 5, 2005
WASHINGTON - The Army Reserve, a force of 200,000 part-time soldiers that provides key support in Iraq and Afghanistan with medics, engineers and truck drivers, "is rapidly degenerating into a 'broken' force," its top general told senior Army leaders.
In a blunt memo, Lt. Gen. James R. "Ron" Helmly, chief of the Army Reserve, noted the demands of overseas commitments and the unwillingness of Army and Pentagon officials to change "dysfunctional" policies that hamper the Reserve on issues such as training, extension of service and the mobilization of his soldiers.
The Dec. 20 memo, which was obtained by The Sun, says "current demands" in Iraq and Afghanistan put his command in "grave danger" of being unable to meet other potential Pentagon missions or help with domestic emergencies, and that the Army Reserve "is rapidly degenerating into a 'broken' force."
"The purpose of this memorandum is to inform you of the Army Reserve's inability ... to meet mission requirements" associated with Iraq and Afghanistan "and to reset and regenerate its forces for follow-on and future missions," Helmly wrote in the eight-page memo sent through channels to the Army chief of staff, Gen. Peter J. Schoomaker.
"I do not wish to sound alarmist," Helmly wrote. "I do wish to send a clear, distinctive signal of deepening concern."
Interviewed yesterday at the Pentagon, Helmly said: "I stand by the memorandum. Is there frustration? Absolutely. Is the frustration beyond control? No."
The memo was designed as a frank exchange with Army leaders in advance of congressional hearings, Helmly said, adding that he plans to press ahead with reforms for the long-term health of the Reserve.
"Loyalty means I share with the chain of command my best professional judgment," he said.
Helmly would not discuss specific officials who declined to support policy changes, but said political pressure from Congress led to a roadblock in one instance.
A senior Army official, who requested anonymity, said yesterday that unexpected troop requirements in Iraq led to the problems Helmly outlined. The active-duty forces needed there grew continually over the past year, requiring more Reserve soldiers to provide support. In May 2003, before the Iraq insurgency sharply intensified, about 8,000 Army Reserve soldiers in Iraq were sent home, only to be recalled three months later.
The 150,000 U.S. troops now in the region include about 30,000 Army Reserve soldiers serving in Iraq and Kuwait.
"We were still able to field the forces we needed" and were reluctant to change policies that would burden soldiers and their families, the senior Army official said. Now, with Iraq expected to tie down a sizable number of U.S. soldiers for several years, some of those policies will have to be changed, the official said.
"I think some will be changed," said the official, who expected Schoomaker and Army Secretary Francis J. Harvey to discuss the issues with Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld. "We have to do something or I predict problems."
'Spread too thin'
Helmly's private and unvarnished assessment echoes the concerns of other officers, defense analysts and some members of Congress, who have predicted that the burdens of overseas missions, particularly in Iraq, could begin to fray the all-volunteer U.S. military. The National Guard and Army Reserve are experiencing a recruiting slump, though the active-duty Army is meeting its goals.
"The general consensus is, the Army's spread too thin," said Charles Moskos, a longtime military sociologist at Northwestern University, who has been to Iraq and heard complaints from reservists that included the lack of adequate training and equipment.
"The Reserve and Guard are not treated equally with the other services," said Moskos, who foresees more problems with recruiting and retention.
Moskos said the problems Helmly outlines must be addressed by some type of commission that is independent of the Pentagon.
An active-duty officer, who has served in Iraq and seen how stretched the Army has become, called Helmly a "true hero" for writing the memo and criticized other senior officers for not stepping forward.
"This is a warning flag that the Army is broken," he said. "We all knew it was going to show up in the Reserve and National Guard first."
Helmly served two tours in Vietnam, one with the 101st Airborne Division, and won a Bronze Star for valor. He earned a reputation as a no-nonsense leader during 2 1/2 years as chief of the Army Reserve. But he has annoyed the Pentagon hierarchy over the past year with pessimistic talk about recruiting and retention as the military leadership has tried to be more upbeat.
Three weeks ago, Helmly told The Dallas Morning News that Army Reserve recruiting was in "precipitous decline" and that if it did not turn around could spur national debate over the reinstitution of the draft. The general said the Reserve was running about 10 percent short of recruiting goals and that the Pentagon bureaucracy was "much too sluggish" in implementing new bonuses for those who sign up.
The Reserve's retention rate is holding steady at 103 percent of the goal, but Helmly told the newspaper that he fears those numbers could fall in the months ahead.
Policies criticized
In his memo, Helmly noted the Pentagon requirement that the Army Reserve leave much of its equipment in Iraq and Afghanistan for use by other services and contractors. He also criticized policies that delay training of reservists who have returned home from overseas duty, noting them among a number of "peacetime" personnel policies that need to change.
Helmly wrote that he has tried to alter several personnel policies, including one to extend the mandatory retirement dates for Reserve officers. But officials, including Reginald Brown, the assistant secretary of the Army for reserve affairs, have repeatedly rejected such moves, he wrote.
Helmly said in the interview that he was uncertain why Brown rejected his request.
Helmly faulted the Pentagon for not taking greater advantage of its power to require individuals or units to serve. Instead, he said, the military is relying too much on "volunteers" from the Army Reserve. Such demands "threaten to distort the very nature of service," he wrote, and could make it more difficult in the future to call up reserve units.
Helmly said the "most likely" volunteers will be those who "enjoy lesser responsible positions in civilian life." The current policy of paying these volunteers an extra $1,000 per month will create the expectation of such incentives and confuse the term American soldier with "mercenary," he wrote.
All told, these matters are "eroding daily our ability to reconstitute into an effective operational force," the memo said.
Those who serve in the active-duty Army or Army Reserve generally must fulfill an eight-year service requirement. National Guard units, by contrast, are controlled by the governor of their state until called to federal duty.
Those in the Army Reserve can serve in the Selected Reserve, in which they join a unit and train at least one weekend a month, or enter the Individual Ready Reserve, whose soldiers are not part of a unit, do not train and are rarely called to duty. Last summer, about 4,600 soldiers of the Individual Ready Reserve were activated for duty in Iraq and Afghanistan.
The Army Reserve lists as its core competencies civil affairs, medical support, military policing and transportation. Last year, it provided 36 percent of the Army's combat service-support capabilities, according to Army Reserve figures.
"There are in fact, capabilities in the Army Reserve, such as medical support and civil affairs, for which there is no alternative," Helmly wrote. "Failure to address these in a balanced, forward thinking, and responsible manner will further damage the Army and Armed Services capabilities now and in the future."
Helmly expressed concern about the number of troops available to meet the Army Reserve's mission, writing that those numbers always change, "almost always downward." In a section titled "What's Left," Helmly lays out the strain on the Army Reserve, with its overseas deployments and the increasing number of soldiers he is sending to help at Army training bases.
Of the 200,366 soldiers in the Army Reserve, Helmly wrote, only about 37,515 who are available for missions have not been deployed yet.
Helmly details in his memo personnel issues that he sees as particular problems. He noted that regulations that allow the shifting of soldiers from the little-used Individual Ready Reserve to selected reserve units are not being used. Helmly said he shifted about 2,000 before Brown told him to stop.
Helmly said some soldiers in the Ready Reserve complained to members of Congress and that he believes the decision to end the shifts came from senior Defense Department officials.
"I believe there was political pressure brought to bear," he said.
Helmly also wanted to discharge about 16,400 soldiers who are not meeting their Army Reserve obligations and are costing the government at least $46 million per year for health and other benefits. That proposal, too, was rejected. Helmly said he doesn't know why and won't say by whom, only that he sent the request through Army channels.
The senior Army official who commented on Helmly's criticism predicted that top defense officials would be asked to shed those thousands of soldiers. Other personnel policies would be reviewed, he said.
"I think we have to look at that policy if we're going to be in sustained combat," said the official, noting the large number of soldiers in Iraq. "I'm planning on this level of commitment for the next two to three years." Manpower issues
In a memo, Lt. Gen. James R. Helmly, chief of the Army Reserve, lists these recommendations to ease staffing problems:
# Begin using authority to involuntarily reassign soldiers from the Individual Ready Reserve to Army Reserve.
# Call to active duty soldiers called nonparticipants, who fail to meet obligations. Otherwise, discharge such members rather than keep them on the rolls where they paint a false picture of strength.
# Extend mandatory retirement dates for reserve officers.
# Eliminate requirement that Army Reserve officers retire at their 20th year of active service.
# Use volunteer retirees as a first priority to satisfy some staff requirements.
Copyright © 2005, The Baltimore Sun
From the Baltimore Sun
General points to Iraq, 'dysfunctional' policies; Memo details readiness concerns; Potential inability to meet other threats, chief warns
By Tom Bowman
Sun National Staff
January 5, 2005
WASHINGTON - The Army Reserve, a force of 200,000 part-time soldiers that provides key support in Iraq and Afghanistan with medics, engineers and truck drivers, "is rapidly degenerating into a 'broken' force," its top general told senior Army leaders.
In a blunt memo, Lt. Gen. James R. "Ron" Helmly, chief of the Army Reserve, noted the demands of overseas commitments and the unwillingness of Army and Pentagon officials to change "dysfunctional" policies that hamper the Reserve on issues such as training, extension of service and the mobilization of his soldiers.
The Dec. 20 memo, which was obtained by The Sun, says "current demands" in Iraq and Afghanistan put his command in "grave danger" of being unable to meet other potential Pentagon missions or help with domestic emergencies, and that the Army Reserve "is rapidly degenerating into a 'broken' force."
"The purpose of this memorandum is to inform you of the Army Reserve's inability ... to meet mission requirements" associated with Iraq and Afghanistan "and to reset and regenerate its forces for follow-on and future missions," Helmly wrote in the eight-page memo sent through channels to the Army chief of staff, Gen. Peter J. Schoomaker.
"I do not wish to sound alarmist," Helmly wrote. "I do wish to send a clear, distinctive signal of deepening concern."
Interviewed yesterday at the Pentagon, Helmly said: "I stand by the memorandum. Is there frustration? Absolutely. Is the frustration beyond control? No."
The memo was designed as a frank exchange with Army leaders in advance of congressional hearings, Helmly said, adding that he plans to press ahead with reforms for the long-term health of the Reserve.
"Loyalty means I share with the chain of command my best professional judgment," he said.
Helmly would not discuss specific officials who declined to support policy changes, but said political pressure from Congress led to a roadblock in one instance.
A senior Army official, who requested anonymity, said yesterday that unexpected troop requirements in Iraq led to the problems Helmly outlined. The active-duty forces needed there grew continually over the past year, requiring more Reserve soldiers to provide support. In May 2003, before the Iraq insurgency sharply intensified, about 8,000 Army Reserve soldiers in Iraq were sent home, only to be recalled three months later.
The 150,000 U.S. troops now in the region include about 30,000 Army Reserve soldiers serving in Iraq and Kuwait.
"We were still able to field the forces we needed" and were reluctant to change policies that would burden soldiers and their families, the senior Army official said. Now, with Iraq expected to tie down a sizable number of U.S. soldiers for several years, some of those policies will have to be changed, the official said.
"I think some will be changed," said the official, who expected Schoomaker and Army Secretary Francis J. Harvey to discuss the issues with Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld. "We have to do something or I predict problems."
'Spread too thin'
Helmly's private and unvarnished assessment echoes the concerns of other officers, defense analysts and some members of Congress, who have predicted that the burdens of overseas missions, particularly in Iraq, could begin to fray the all-volunteer U.S. military. The National Guard and Army Reserve are experiencing a recruiting slump, though the active-duty Army is meeting its goals.
"The general consensus is, the Army's spread too thin," said Charles Moskos, a longtime military sociologist at Northwestern University, who has been to Iraq and heard complaints from reservists that included the lack of adequate training and equipment.
"The Reserve and Guard are not treated equally with the other services," said Moskos, who foresees more problems with recruiting and retention.
Moskos said the problems Helmly outlines must be addressed by some type of commission that is independent of the Pentagon.
An active-duty officer, who has served in Iraq and seen how stretched the Army has become, called Helmly a "true hero" for writing the memo and criticized other senior officers for not stepping forward.
"This is a warning flag that the Army is broken," he said. "We all knew it was going to show up in the Reserve and National Guard first."
Helmly served two tours in Vietnam, one with the 101st Airborne Division, and won a Bronze Star for valor. He earned a reputation as a no-nonsense leader during 2 1/2 years as chief of the Army Reserve. But he has annoyed the Pentagon hierarchy over the past year with pessimistic talk about recruiting and retention as the military leadership has tried to be more upbeat.
Three weeks ago, Helmly told The Dallas Morning News that Army Reserve recruiting was in "precipitous decline" and that if it did not turn around could spur national debate over the reinstitution of the draft. The general said the Reserve was running about 10 percent short of recruiting goals and that the Pentagon bureaucracy was "much too sluggish" in implementing new bonuses for those who sign up.
The Reserve's retention rate is holding steady at 103 percent of the goal, but Helmly told the newspaper that he fears those numbers could fall in the months ahead.
Policies criticized
In his memo, Helmly noted the Pentagon requirement that the Army Reserve leave much of its equipment in Iraq and Afghanistan for use by other services and contractors. He also criticized policies that delay training of reservists who have returned home from overseas duty, noting them among a number of "peacetime" personnel policies that need to change.
Helmly wrote that he has tried to alter several personnel policies, including one to extend the mandatory retirement dates for Reserve officers. But officials, including Reginald Brown, the assistant secretary of the Army for reserve affairs, have repeatedly rejected such moves, he wrote.
Helmly said in the interview that he was uncertain why Brown rejected his request.
Helmly faulted the Pentagon for not taking greater advantage of its power to require individuals or units to serve. Instead, he said, the military is relying too much on "volunteers" from the Army Reserve. Such demands "threaten to distort the very nature of service," he wrote, and could make it more difficult in the future to call up reserve units.
Helmly said the "most likely" volunteers will be those who "enjoy lesser responsible positions in civilian life." The current policy of paying these volunteers an extra $1,000 per month will create the expectation of such incentives and confuse the term American soldier with "mercenary," he wrote.
All told, these matters are "eroding daily our ability to reconstitute into an effective operational force," the memo said.
Those who serve in the active-duty Army or Army Reserve generally must fulfill an eight-year service requirement. National Guard units, by contrast, are controlled by the governor of their state until called to federal duty.
Those in the Army Reserve can serve in the Selected Reserve, in which they join a unit and train at least one weekend a month, or enter the Individual Ready Reserve, whose soldiers are not part of a unit, do not train and are rarely called to duty. Last summer, about 4,600 soldiers of the Individual Ready Reserve were activated for duty in Iraq and Afghanistan.
The Army Reserve lists as its core competencies civil affairs, medical support, military policing and transportation. Last year, it provided 36 percent of the Army's combat service-support capabilities, according to Army Reserve figures.
"There are in fact, capabilities in the Army Reserve, such as medical support and civil affairs, for which there is no alternative," Helmly wrote. "Failure to address these in a balanced, forward thinking, and responsible manner will further damage the Army and Armed Services capabilities now and in the future."
Helmly expressed concern about the number of troops available to meet the Army Reserve's mission, writing that those numbers always change, "almost always downward." In a section titled "What's Left," Helmly lays out the strain on the Army Reserve, with its overseas deployments and the increasing number of soldiers he is sending to help at Army training bases.
Of the 200,366 soldiers in the Army Reserve, Helmly wrote, only about 37,515 who are available for missions have not been deployed yet.
Helmly details in his memo personnel issues that he sees as particular problems. He noted that regulations that allow the shifting of soldiers from the little-used Individual Ready Reserve to selected reserve units are not being used. Helmly said he shifted about 2,000 before Brown told him to stop.
Helmly said some soldiers in the Ready Reserve complained to members of Congress and that he believes the decision to end the shifts came from senior Defense Department officials.
"I believe there was political pressure brought to bear," he said.
Helmly also wanted to discharge about 16,400 soldiers who are not meeting their Army Reserve obligations and are costing the government at least $46 million per year for health and other benefits. That proposal, too, was rejected. Helmly said he doesn't know why and won't say by whom, only that he sent the request through Army channels.
The senior Army official who commented on Helmly's criticism predicted that top defense officials would be asked to shed those thousands of soldiers. Other personnel policies would be reviewed, he said.
"I think we have to look at that policy if we're going to be in sustained combat," said the official, noting the large number of soldiers in Iraq. "I'm planning on this level of commitment for the next two to three years." Manpower issues
In a memo, Lt. Gen. James R. Helmly, chief of the Army Reserve, lists these recommendations to ease staffing problems:
# Begin using authority to involuntarily reassign soldiers from the Individual Ready Reserve to Army Reserve.
# Call to active duty soldiers called nonparticipants, who fail to meet obligations. Otherwise, discharge such members rather than keep them on the rolls where they paint a false picture of strength.
# Extend mandatory retirement dates for reserve officers.
# Eliminate requirement that Army Reserve officers retire at their 20th year of active service.
# Use volunteer retirees as a first priority to satisfy some staff requirements.
Copyright © 2005, The Baltimore Sun
Fw: [Norton AntiSpam] Take Action: Stop Bush from cutting Social Security benefits
----- Original Message -----
From: "Democratic Party"
To: "Miriam Vieni"
Sent: Wednesday, January 05, 2005 10:32 AM
Subject: [Norton AntiSpam] Take Action: Stop Bush from cutting Social
Security benefits
DNC Action Alert
------------------------------
TAKE ACTION TO PROTECT SOCIAL SECURITY: WRITE A LETTER TO THE EDITOR
Dear Miriam,
Yesterday marked the beginning of the George W. Bush plan to dismantle
Social Security.
The administration floated a proposal to cut benefits to future retirees by
changing the way those benefits are calculated. Instead of fairly matching
Social Security benefits to changing wage levels -- as has been the case for
the past 30 years -- Bush wants to suddenly shift course and tie Social
Security to an inflation index.
Since inflation grows at a much slower rate than wages, this proposal would
significantly cut benefits for all working Americans. And these cuts are
guaranteed -- whether you opt in to the Bush plan or not.
Here's what the Bush plan will mean for your retirement, according to
yesterday's Washington Post:
* If you retire in 2022, Bush will cut your benefits by almost 10 percent.
* If you retire in 2042, Bush will cut your benefits by more than 25
percent.
* In 2075, our children and grandchildren will face a staggering cut of 46
percent to their benefits.
And this is just the first step of the Republican Party's plan to dismantle
the entire Social Security system that has kept generations of America's
seniors out of poverty. Soon Bush will launch a $40 million TV ad blitz to
convince Americans that our grandkids will be left out in the cold if Social
Security is not privatized.
We will not stand by and allow that to happen.
Help us take our first step today by writing a letter to the editor of your
local paper demanding that President Bush abandon his plan to cut benefits
for tomorrow's retirees. Click the link below to write your letter today:
http://www.democrats.org/action/200501050001.html
Sincerely,
Doug, Jesse, Eric, Josh, Nancy, and Morra
The DNC Internet Team
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Land of Penny Pinchers
A Call To Action
The New York Times
January 5, 2005
OP-ED COLUMNIST
By NICHOLAS D. KRISTOF
So is the U.S. "stingy" about helping poor countries?
That accusation by a U.N. official, in veiled form, provoked indignation here. After all, we're the most generous people on earth ... aren't we?
No, alas, we're not. And the tsunami illustrates the problem: When grieving victims intrude onto our TV screens, we dig into our pockets and provide the massive, heartwarming response that we're now displaying in Asia; the rest of the time, we're tightwads who turn away as people die in far greater numbers.
The 150,000 or so fatalities from the tsunami are well within the margin of error for estimates of the number of deaths every year from malaria. Probably two million people die annually of malaria, most of them children and most in Africa, or maybe it's three million - we don't even know.
But the bottom line is that this month and every month, more people will die of malaria (165,000 or more) and AIDS (240,000) than died in the tsunamis, and almost as many will die because of diarrhea ( 140,000).
And that's where we're stingy.
Americans give 15 cents per day per person in official development assistance to poor countries. The average American spends four times that on soft drinks daily.
In 2003, the latest year for which figures are available, we increased such assistance by one-fifth, for President Bush has actually been much better about helping poor countries than President Clinton was. But as a share of our economy, our contribution still left us ranked dead last among 22 top donor countries.
We gave 15 cents for every $100 of national income to poor countries. Denmark gave 84 cents, the Netherlands gave 80 cents, Belgium gave 60 cents, France gave 41 cents, and Greece gave 21 cents (that was the lowest share, beside our own).
It is sometimes said that Americans make up for low official aid with private charitable donations. Nope. By OECD calculations, private donations add 6 cents a day to the official U.S. figure - meaning that we still give only 21 cents a day per person.
One reason for American stinginess, I think, is a sense that foreign aid is money down a rathole. True, plenty has been wasted. But there's also growing evidence of what works and is cost-effective - such as health programs and girls' schooling.
One of the most unforgettable people I've met is Nhem Yen, a Cambodian grandmother whose daughter had just died of malaria, leaving two small children. So Nhem Yen was looking after her four children and two grandchildren, and she could afford only one mosquito net to protect them from malarial mosquitoes. Each night, she had to choose which of the six children would sleep under the net.
Do we really think that paying $5 for a mosquito net to keep Nhem Yen's children alive would be money down a rathole?
When I contracted the most lethal form of malaria, in Congo, I was easily cured because I could afford the best medicines. But to save money, African children are given medicines that cost only 5 cents a dose but aren't very effective; the medicine that would actually save their lives is unaffordable, at $1 a dose. Do we really think $1 a dose for medicine to save a child is money down a rathole?
Jeffrey Sachs, the Columbia University economist, estimates that spending $2 billion to $3 billion on malaria might save more than one million lives a year. "This is probably the best bargain on the planet," he said.
The outpouring of U.S. aid, private and public, for tsunami victims is wonderful. But, frankly, the affected nations will get all the money they can absorb for the moment, and Thailand, Indonesia and Sri Lanka are far from the worst off in the world.
"The really big money can be better and more usefully absorbed by developing good health and education programs in the poorest countries," noted Nancy Birdsall, president of the Center for Global Development. "But that's not as visible or heroic."
With America's image tarnished around the world, one of the most effective steps Mr. Bush could take to revive it would be to lead a global effort to confront an ongoing challenge like malaria. That would also give Mr. Bush more credibility by suggesting that the "culture of life" he talks about embraces not just fetuses, but also African children crying from hunger.
The best response to accusations of stinginess is not to be defensive, but to be generous. And the measure of generosity is not what you offer when the spotlight is upon you, but what you do when the spotlight moves on.
Copyright 2005 The New York Times Company
The New York Times
January 5, 2005
OP-ED COLUMNIST
By NICHOLAS D. KRISTOF
So is the U.S. "stingy" about helping poor countries?
That accusation by a U.N. official, in veiled form, provoked indignation here. After all, we're the most generous people on earth ... aren't we?
No, alas, we're not. And the tsunami illustrates the problem: When grieving victims intrude onto our TV screens, we dig into our pockets and provide the massive, heartwarming response that we're now displaying in Asia; the rest of the time, we're tightwads who turn away as people die in far greater numbers.
The 150,000 or so fatalities from the tsunami are well within the margin of error for estimates of the number of deaths every year from malaria. Probably two million people die annually of malaria, most of them children and most in Africa, or maybe it's three million - we don't even know.
But the bottom line is that this month and every month, more people will die of malaria (165,000 or more) and AIDS (240,000) than died in the tsunamis, and almost as many will die because of diarrhea ( 140,000).
And that's where we're stingy.
Americans give 15 cents per day per person in official development assistance to poor countries. The average American spends four times that on soft drinks daily.
In 2003, the latest year for which figures are available, we increased such assistance by one-fifth, for President Bush has actually been much better about helping poor countries than President Clinton was. But as a share of our economy, our contribution still left us ranked dead last among 22 top donor countries.
We gave 15 cents for every $100 of national income to poor countries. Denmark gave 84 cents, the Netherlands gave 80 cents, Belgium gave 60 cents, France gave 41 cents, and Greece gave 21 cents (that was the lowest share, beside our own).
It is sometimes said that Americans make up for low official aid with private charitable donations. Nope. By OECD calculations, private donations add 6 cents a day to the official U.S. figure - meaning that we still give only 21 cents a day per person.
One reason for American stinginess, I think, is a sense that foreign aid is money down a rathole. True, plenty has been wasted. But there's also growing evidence of what works and is cost-effective - such as health programs and girls' schooling.
One of the most unforgettable people I've met is Nhem Yen, a Cambodian grandmother whose daughter had just died of malaria, leaving two small children. So Nhem Yen was looking after her four children and two grandchildren, and she could afford only one mosquito net to protect them from malarial mosquitoes. Each night, she had to choose which of the six children would sleep under the net.
Do we really think that paying $5 for a mosquito net to keep Nhem Yen's children alive would be money down a rathole?
When I contracted the most lethal form of malaria, in Congo, I was easily cured because I could afford the best medicines. But to save money, African children are given medicines that cost only 5 cents a dose but aren't very effective; the medicine that would actually save their lives is unaffordable, at $1 a dose. Do we really think $1 a dose for medicine to save a child is money down a rathole?
Jeffrey Sachs, the Columbia University economist, estimates that spending $2 billion to $3 billion on malaria might save more than one million lives a year. "This is probably the best bargain on the planet," he said.
The outpouring of U.S. aid, private and public, for tsunami victims is wonderful. But, frankly, the affected nations will get all the money they can absorb for the moment, and Thailand, Indonesia and Sri Lanka are far from the worst off in the world.
"The really big money can be better and more usefully absorbed by developing good health and education programs in the poorest countries," noted Nancy Birdsall, president of the Center for Global Development. "But that's not as visible or heroic."
With America's image tarnished around the world, one of the most effective steps Mr. Bush could take to revive it would be to lead a global effort to confront an ongoing challenge like malaria. That would also give Mr. Bush more credibility by suggesting that the "culture of life" he talks about embraces not just fetuses, but also African children crying from hunger.
The best response to accusations of stinginess is not to be defensive, but to be generous. And the measure of generosity is not what you offer when the spotlight is upon you, but what you do when the spotlight moves on.
Copyright 2005 The New York Times Company
Tuesday, January 04, 2005
Congress expects $100 billion war request
A Call To Action
By Peronet Despeignes, USA TODAY
WASHINGTON — Congress expects the White House to request as much as $100 billion this year for war and related costs in Iraq and Afghanistan, congressional officials say.
It would be the third and largest Iraq-related budget request from the White House yet, and it could push the war's costs over $200 billion — far above initial White House estimates of $50 billion-$60 billion. So far, the Iraq war has cost about $130 billion, according to the White House's Office of Management and Budget.
War costs complicate President Bush's plans for initiatives such as overhauling Social Security. They also threaten his pledge to halve the record $413 billion federal budget deficit.
Jim Dyer, chief of staff of the House Appropriations Committee, traditionally the first stop in Congress for any official request for money, said he expects a funding proposal from the Bush administration by Easter that "could be around $100 billion," the vast majority of it for Iraq.
In the Senate, Bill Hoagland, the top budget aide to Majority Leader Bill Frist of Tennessee, agreed: "Based on current spending profiles, it would not surprise me if ... (a bill) approaching $100 billion is requested early this year." That would be equal to almost one-quarter of the Pentagon's $417.5 billion 2005 budget.
Both expect the proposal to come as a "supplemental" spending request, a move that would keep it out of the budget Bush will submit in February.
The White House budget office declined to comment on the number. "It's too early to say what our needs will be," spokesman Chad Kolton said. He said the Iraq request is being kept out of the budget to provide time to get a more accurate cost estimate and to make it easier to reduce funding when U.S. troops are eventually withdrawn.
Members of Congress expect a big price tag for Iraq this year.
"I hope they ask for something big," said Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., a member of the Senate Armed Services Committee. "Look, this is a test of wills. We need to show our enemies that we are not going to do this on the cheap. "
But there is growing annoyance with the White House for refusing to treat the cost of the military operations in Iraq — roughly $5 billion a month, according to the House Appropriations Committee — as part of the annual budget.
"There is a feeling among a lot of members that ... this war has become enough of a routine that they should be able to build it into their annual budgeting and not have to come back to us for supplemental funding of that size," said Rep. Jim Kolbe, R-Ariz., head of the House Appropriations panel that oversees spending on foreign operations.
"The annual budget proposal we've been given by the White House falsely portrays the bottom line," said Rep. John Spratt, D-S.C., senior Democrat on the House Budget Committee.
By Peronet Despeignes, USA TODAY
WASHINGTON — Congress expects the White House to request as much as $100 billion this year for war and related costs in Iraq and Afghanistan, congressional officials say.
It would be the third and largest Iraq-related budget request from the White House yet, and it could push the war's costs over $200 billion — far above initial White House estimates of $50 billion-$60 billion. So far, the Iraq war has cost about $130 billion, according to the White House's Office of Management and Budget.
War costs complicate President Bush's plans for initiatives such as overhauling Social Security. They also threaten his pledge to halve the record $413 billion federal budget deficit.
Jim Dyer, chief of staff of the House Appropriations Committee, traditionally the first stop in Congress for any official request for money, said he expects a funding proposal from the Bush administration by Easter that "could be around $100 billion," the vast majority of it for Iraq.
In the Senate, Bill Hoagland, the top budget aide to Majority Leader Bill Frist of Tennessee, agreed: "Based on current spending profiles, it would not surprise me if ... (a bill) approaching $100 billion is requested early this year." That would be equal to almost one-quarter of the Pentagon's $417.5 billion 2005 budget.
Both expect the proposal to come as a "supplemental" spending request, a move that would keep it out of the budget Bush will submit in February.
The White House budget office declined to comment on the number. "It's too early to say what our needs will be," spokesman Chad Kolton said. He said the Iraq request is being kept out of the budget to provide time to get a more accurate cost estimate and to make it easier to reduce funding when U.S. troops are eventually withdrawn.
Members of Congress expect a big price tag for Iraq this year.
"I hope they ask for something big," said Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., a member of the Senate Armed Services Committee. "Look, this is a test of wills. We need to show our enemies that we are not going to do this on the cheap. "
But there is growing annoyance with the White House for refusing to treat the cost of the military operations in Iraq — roughly $5 billion a month, according to the House Appropriations Committee — as part of the annual budget.
"There is a feeling among a lot of members that ... this war has become enough of a routine that they should be able to build it into their annual budgeting and not have to come back to us for supplemental funding of that size," said Rep. Jim Kolbe, R-Ariz., head of the House Appropriations panel that oversees spending on foreign operations.
"The annual budget proposal we've been given by the White House falsely portrays the bottom line," said Rep. John Spratt, D-S.C., senior Democrat on the House Budget Committee.
Fw: No More Ohios!
----- Original Message -----
From: "TrueMajority"
To: "Miriam Vieni"
Sent: Tuesday, January 04, 2005 2:30 PM
Subject: No More Ohios!
America Needs Honest Elections
Congress This Week Can Make It Clear
Dear Miriam,
The whole world now knows what went on in Ohio and other states on Election
Day, and we simply can't let it happen anymore.
We know that many Americans in inner cities were prevented from voting by
eight-hour lines. We know that local officials changed the rules on which
votes they counted. We know that technicians from computerized voting
companies were allowed to tamper with balloting machines unsupervised.
Elections with those sorts of problems are not honest.
The winners of these tainted elections assert that their outcomes didn't
depend on the fraud. But in sports, referees don't wait until the outcome
of the game is in jeopardy before calling penalties and enforcing the rules.
Nowhere in the Constitution does it describe some acceptable level of
denying Americans their votes. When Congress meets this Thursday, January
6, we'll have a good opportunity to make it clear that Americans want every
vote counted, period.
That same Constitution also directs Congress to ratify the result of the
presidential election in order to make it official. This Thursday,
Representative John Conyers (D-Michigan) plans to challenge the voting tally
from his state, and if even one senator joins him, Congress will be
compelled to debate the widespread problems that have been exposed. This
Congress isn't going to overturn the election, but it would be forced into a
debate that would serve as a national teach-in on voting rights, computer
voting that can't be audited and the continued suppression of minority
votes. In short - Honest Elections or not?
If you received this email as a member of TrueMajority, you can simply click
"Reply" and "Send" in your email program to send the message below to your
senators. If you wish to edit the message, or if this email was forwarded
to you from someone else, click here to send a message to your senators ,
asking that they join Rep. Conyers in forcing this important debate toward
Honest Elections.
After you've sent your message, forward this email to everyone you know who
supports the idea of honest elections.
Toward true democracy,
Matt Holland
Honest Elections Coordinator
Here's the message we'll deliver to your senators:
Dear [Senator's name]:
I am disturbed by the widespread reports of irregularities in this past
election-not enough voting machines in inner-city precincts, causing
hours-long lines; computerized ballot machines that can't be audited;
corporate technicians monkeying around with the public's machines; local
officials making up rules on the fly about which votes to actually count.
The key to elections is that all, especially the losers, agree that the
elections were fair and honest. America doesn't have that now, and it's got
to change.
Rep. John Conyers will use the occasion of the ratification of the election
results to challenge this system; I ask that you do the same. I understand
that the results won't be overturned, but the debate resulting from this
challenge would expose these irregularities and get America on the path to
truly Honest Elections.
Please tell me that you will join Mr. Conyers in sparking this important
debate.
Sincerely,
[your name]
To unsubscribe from this mailing, please click here
To modify your profile and subscription preferences, please click here
Fw: Pass it on: Say No to Torture
----- Original Message -----
From: "MoveOn.org"
To:
Sent: Tuesday, January 04, 2005 1:55 PM
Subject: Pass it on: Say No to Torture
Dear friend,
Thanks for asking Gonzales and Senators to reject torture. Please take a
moment to invite your friends and colleagues to sign -- it's important that
we deliver as many messages as possible to the Senate by Thursday. You can
just forward the sample letter below.
Spreading the word is critical, but please only pass this message along to
those who know you, of course -- spam hurts our campaign.
Thanks, for all you do.
Sincerely,
--The MoveOn.org Team
_____________________
Subject: Say No to Torture
Dear friend,
I hate to start the New Year with bad news, but the Senate is about to
consider Alberto Gonzales' nomination to become Attorney General, replacing
John Ashcroft. Gonzales is the White House counsel notorious for opening the
door to torture at Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo Bay prisons. Senators should
view the Gonzales nomination very skeptically, given this radical history.
As part of the upcoming hearings, we can call on Senators to ask Gonzales to
unequivocally renounce torture as an instrument of American policy.
Join me in asking Gonzales and Senators to prohibit torture by clicking
here:
http://www.moveon.org/gonzales/
Thanks.
_____________________
If you've received this email in error, please correct your campaign
subscription information at:
http://www.moveon.org/s?i=-3285954-MjMRSxuPTqs2MToWEWtEKw
_____________________
Sunday, January 02, 2005
Labor Board's Critics See a Bias Against Workers
By STEVEN GREENHOUSE
The rulings of the National Labor Relations Board have poured out one after
another in recent months, with many decisions tilting in favor of employers.
The Republican-dominated board has made it more difficult for temporary
workers to unionize and for unions to obtain financial information from
companies
during contract talks. It has ruled that graduate students working as
teaching assistants do not have the right to unionize at private
universities, and
it has given companies greater flexibility to use a powerful antiunion
weapon - locking out workers - in labor disputes.
And in a decision that will affect 87 percent of American workers, the board
has denied nonunion employees the right to have a co-worker present when
managers
call them in for investigative or disciplinary meetings.
The party-line decisions have been applauded by the Republican Party's
business base, which sees them as bringing balance after rulings that
favored labor
during the Clinton administration. But some academic experts on labor
relations say the recent rulings are so hostile to unions and to collective
bargaining
that they run counter to the goals of the National Labor Relations Act, the
1935 law that gave Americans the right to form unions.
"These decisions come close to or even match the Reagan board in their
intensity and vigor in promoting employer powers," said James A. Gross, a
professor
at Cornell University who has written several books about the board. "They
are pressing the outer limits of what could be a reasonable or legitimate
interpretation
of the balance between employer prerogatives and worker rights. In my mind,
this is fundamentally inconsistent with the purpose of the National Labor
Relations
Act, which is to encourage the practice and procedures of collective
bargaining."
Robert J. Battista, the labor board's chairman, denied that the panel was
stretching the law to help corporations.
"All the cases that we've decided have been well reasoned," Mr. Battista
said. "They're certainly consistent with the act. I wouldn't characterize
them
as pro-business or pro-union. I'd like to say they're pro-employee."
The board's defenders say it is merely continuing a long tradition of
swinging back and forth: toward management when a Republican is in the White
House
and toward labor during Democratic presidencies.
"After eight years of a liberal Clinton board and an extremely liberal
general counsel, there is of course going to be some turning back toward a
conservative
agenda," said Randel Johnson, vice president for labor, immigration and
employee benefits at the United States Chamber of Commerce. "The board has
turned
a corner here, but it's not a wholesale reversal of the case law in favor of
the business community."
Several recent board decisions, Mr. Johnson pointed out, have reversed
Clinton-era rulings that overturned precedents set by Republican boards. In
a case
involving I.B.M., the board voted 3 to 2 to overturn a Clinton board ruling
that gave nonunion workers the right to have a colleague accompany them to
investigative or disciplinary meetings with supervisors. The Clinton-era
ruling was a reversal of a 1980's decision.
In a case involving Brown University, the board reversed a Clinton-era
ruling involving New York University - a reversal of a 1970's decision -
that gave
graduate student teaching assistants the right to unionize.
Mr. Battista said, "What we did restores the precedent that has been
time-honored and had never been overturned by a court or by Congressional
action."
Labor unions say the reversals will make it much harder to organize workers
at a time when the percentage of Americans belonging to unions is declining.
Jonathan Hiatt, the general counsel for the A.F.L.-C.I.O., said, "The notion
that in 15 or 20 recent cases the Republican majority has changed board law
in ways that take away worker rights, deny workers protection in organizing
and collective bargaining, and give employers more latitude, that is really
striking and very political."
The labor board has five seats, and the president appoints members to
five-year terms. For much of 2004, Republicans had a 3-to-2 majority, but
two members
stepped down in December, resulting in a 2-to-1 Republican majority until
the seats are filled.
Unions are alarmed by the board's decision to hear several cases that
question the legitimacy of card checks, one of labor's most successful
tactics in
adding members recently. In the procedure, companies agree to grant union
recognition after a majority of workers sign cards saying they want a union.
By agreeing to card checks, companies waive the right to hold a secret
ballot to determine whether workers favor organizing.
With pro-business groups saying union organizers sometimes intimidate
workers, Mr. Battista said, it was time to take a critical look at card
checks.
But the board's Democratic members vigorously objected. "The issues raised
by the petitioners were settled 40 years ago," they wrote. "To revisit it
serves
no purpose but to undermine a principle that has been endorsed time and
again by the board and the courts."
Many unions say unionization elections are less fair than card checks
because they involve expensive and bitter campaigns in which companies often
fire
and intimidate union supporters and warn that plants may close if they
become unionized.
Charles Craver, a professor of labor law at George Washington University,
said the board's conservative tilt would hurt unions, but less so than the
conservative
tilt of the federal judiciary, which he said was increasingly unfriendly to
labor.
"I think we have a labor board as conservative as any time since the Reagan
board," Professor Craver said. "It really troubles me because we're
revisiting
a lot of cases that have been fairly well settled."
In October, the board upheld a company's decision to fire a worker who had
asked a colleague to testify before a state agency to support her claim of
sexual
harassment by a manager. The National Labor Relations Act prohibits
employers from retaliating against workers who engage in concerted activity
for mutual
protection, but the board found that the fired woman was acting only in her
interests and not for mutual protection to safeguard other workers from
harassment.
"Taken one by one, I do not think these are the kinds of decisions that make
one sit back and say, 'This is outrageous,' " said Theodore St. Antoine, an
emeritus professor of labor law and former dean of the University of
Michigan Law School. "At the same time, I have to concede that once more
we're in
the nibbling process. While none of them consist of a great big bite, the
cumulative effect is to decrease the capability of unions to organize."
In September, in a case involving a trucking company that said it was "in
distress" and "fighting to stay alive," the board ruled that such claims did
not
trigger an obligation for management to furnish financial information to the
union. Traditionally, when companies in contract talks say they cannot
afford
what the unions are seeking, they are required to provide information
detailing their financial condition.
The same month, the board ruled that disabled janitors could not join a
union with able-bodied janitors, on the grounds that the disabled workers'
relationship
with their employer was "primarily rehabilitative" and not a traditional
employee-employer relationship.
"We haven't got a particular agenda," Mr. Battista said. "Nor are we
attempting to press the outer limits of management rights. We're trying to
strike a
balance between union rights, management rights and employees' rights."
Copyright 2005
The New York Times Company |
Washington's New Year War Cry: Party On!
A Call To Action
The New York Times
January 2, 2005
FRANK RICH
By FRANK RICH
ON the fourth day 'til Christmas, the day that news of the slaughter at the mess tent in Mosul slammed into the evening news, CBS had scheduled a special treat. That evening brought the annual broadcast of "The Kennedy Center Honors," the carefree variety show in which Washington's top dogs mingle with visitors from that mysterious land known as the Arts and do a passing (if fashion-challenged) imitation of revelers at the Oscars. This year, like any other, the show was handing out medals to those representing "the very best in American culture," as exemplified by honorees like Australia's Dame Joan Sutherland and Britain's Sir Elton John. Festive bipartisanship reigned. Though Sir Elton had said just three weeks earlier that "Bush and this administration are the worst thing that has ever happened to America," he and his boyfriend joined the president and Mrs. Bush in their box. John Kerry held forth in an orchestra seat below.
"The Kennedy Center Honors" is no ratings powerhouse; this year more adults under 50 elected to watch "The Real Gilligan's Island" on cable instead. But I tuned in, curious to see how this gathering of the capital's finest might be affected by the war. The honors had actually been staged and taped earlier in the month, on Dec. 5. That day the morning newspapers told of more deadly strikes by suicide bombers in Mosul and Baghdad, killing at least 26 Iraqi security officers, including 8 in a police station near the capital's protected Green Zone. There were also reports of at least four American casualties in other firefights.
But if anyone at the Kennedy Center so much as acknowledged this reality unfolding beyond the opera house, it was not to be found in the show presented on television. The only wars evoked were those scored by another honoree, John Williams, whose soundtrack music for "Saving Private Ryan" and "Star Wars" was merrily belted out by a military band. (Our delicate sensibilities were spared the sight of an actual "Private Ryan" battle scene, however, lest the broadcast risk being shut down for "indecency.") The razzle-dazzle Hollywood martial music, the what-me-worry Washington establishment, the glow of money and red plush: everything about the tableau reeked of the disconnect between the war in Iraq and the comfort of all of us at home, starting with those in government who had conceived, planned, rubber-stamped and managed our excellent adventure in spreading democracy.
Ordinary people beyond Washington, red and blue Americans alike, are feeling that disconnect more and more. On the same day that CBS broadcast the Kennedy Center special, an ABC News/Washington Post poll found that 70 percent of Americans believed that any gains in Iraq had come at the cost of "unacceptable" losses in casualties and that 56 percent believed the war wasn't "worth fighting" - up 8 percent since the summer. In other words, most Americans believe that our troops are dying for no good reason, even as a similar majority (58 percent) believes, contradictorily enough, that we should keep them in Iraq.
So the soldiers soldier on, and we party on. As James Dao wrote in The New York Times, "support our troops" became a verbal touchstone in 2004, yet "only for a minuscule portion of the populace, mainly those with loved ones overseas, does it have anything to do with sacrifice." Quite the contrary: we have our tax cuts, and a president who promises to make them permanent. Such is the disconnect between the country and the war that there is no national outrage when the president awards the Medal of Freedom to the clowns who undermined the troops by bungling intelligence (George Tenet) and Iraqi support (Paul Bremer). Such is the disconnect that Washington and the news media react with slack-jawed shock when one of those good soldiers we support so much speaks up at a town hall meeting in Kuwait and asks the secretary of defense why vehicles that take him and his brothers into battle lack proper armor.
Much has been made of this incident, yet it hardly constituted big news. It's no secret to anyone, including Donald Rumsfeld, that the troops have often been undersupplied. Dana Priest of The Washington Post heard soldiers asking the defense secretary "similar questions about their body armor" when traveling with him a year ago. In October, 23 members of an Army Reserve unit disobeyed a direct order to deliver fuel, partly because they decided that the vulnerability of their trucks made the journey tantamount to a suicide mission. As far back as last spring, Stars and Stripes was reporting that desperate troops were using sandbags as makeshift vehicle armor. Even now, reports The Los Angeles Times, National Guard soldiers are saying they have been shipped to war from Fort Bliss with "chronic illnesses, broken guns and trucks with blown transmissions."
When Mr. Rumsfeld told Specialist Thomas Wilson in Kuwait that the only reason the troops lacked armor was "a matter of production and capability," he was lying. The manufacturers that supply the armor were quick to respond that they had been telling the Pentagon for months that they could increase production, in the case of one company (ArmorWorks in Arizona) by as much as 100 percent. But that news was quickly drowned out by cable and talk radio arguments over whether Mr. Wilson should or should not have consulted with an embedded reporter about the phrasing of his question. Soon Mr. Rumsfeld was off to Iraq for a P.R. tour (message: I care) in which he used troops as photo-op accessories and thanked a soldier for asking a softball question "not planted by the media." Washington could go back to worrying about more pressing domestic problems, like how to cook the books so that Social Security can be fixed cost-free.
The truth is that for all the lip service paid to supporting the troops, out of sight is often out of mind. Even the minority that remains gung-ho about the war in Iraq is quick to blame the grunts for anything that goes wrong. Specialist Wilson, Rush Limbaugh said, was guilty of "near insubordination" for his question in Kuwait; the poor defense secretary "was set up," whined The New York Post. The same crowd tells us that a few low-level guards are solely responsible for the criminal abuse of prisoners at Abu Ghraib and in Guantánamo Bay, not any policy-setting higher-ups who may be sitting in that audience at Kennedy Center. President Bush even tried to pass the buck for his premature aircraft carrier victory jig to the troops, telling the press months later that "the 'Mission Accomplished' sign, of course, was put up by the members of the U.S.S. Abraham Lincoln, saying that their mission was accomplished." Of course.
Back then, the Pentagon projected that our military occupation of Iraq would end in December 2004. But two days after appearing in the box at the Kennedy Center Opera House, the president donned a snappy muted green "commander in chief" jacket - a casual Friday version of the full "Top Gun" costume he'd worn on the Lincoln - to address marines at Camp Pendleton in California who were going to war, not coming home. (Slate reported this week that "nearly one-quarter of U.S. combat dead in 2004 were stationed in Camp Pendleton.") It was the anniversary of Pearl Harbor, and Mr. Bush drew the expected analogy: "Just as we defeated the threats of fascism and imperial communism in the 20th century, we will defeat the threat of global terrorism." But three years into it, can we win a war that most of the country senses has gone astray in Iraq and that the party in power regards as a lower priority than lower taxes?
The ethos could hardly have been more different during the World War II so frequently invoked by Mr. Bush. As David Brinkley recounted in his 1988 history, "Washington Goes to War," the Roosevelt administration's first big push "was a tremendous voluntary program to reduce the deficit, encourage saving, trim spending and thus curb inflation - the sale of war bonds." Though bonds would not in the end pay for the war - that would require the sacrifice of paying taxes - F.D.R. believed that his campaign "would give the public a sense of involvement in a war being fought thousands of miles away, a war so distant many Americans had difficulty at times remembering it was there at all." Gen. George Marshall, the Army's chief of staff, took it on himself to write notes by hand to the family of each man killed in battle until the volume forced the use of Western Union telegrams.
Well, Mr. Rumsfeld has sworn he'll stop delegating condolence letters to his Autopen. But otherwise the contrast between the Washington that won World War II and the Washington fighting a war in Iraq is so striking it can even be found in the cultural lineage of the Kennedy Center show. That show's producer, as it happens, is George Stevens Jr., the son of the great Hollywood filmmaker George Stevens. In his day, the elder Stevens created his own wartime Washington entertainment: a glorious 1943 romantic comedy, "The More the Merrier" (just out on DVD), set in the newly mobilized capital, that, though fiction, is in itself a striking document of the difference between then and now. While it portrays a patriotic Washington as frivolously beset by party animals, bureaucrats and lobbyists as today's, there's an underlying ethos of shared sacrifice, literally down to the living arrangements necessitated by a housing shortage. It might as well be a different civilization.
Washington's next celebration will be the inauguration. Roosevelt decreed that the usual gaiety be set aside at his wartime inaugural in January 1945. There will be no such restraint in the $40 million, four-day extravaganza planned this time, with its top ticket package priced at $250,000. The official theme of the show is "Celebrating Freedom, Honoring Service." That's no guarantee that the troops in Iraq will get armor, but Washington will, at least, give home-front military personnel free admission to one of the nine inaugural balls and let them eat cake.
Copyright 2004 The New York Times Company
The New York Times
January 2, 2005
FRANK RICH
By FRANK RICH
ON the fourth day 'til Christmas, the day that news of the slaughter at the mess tent in Mosul slammed into the evening news, CBS had scheduled a special treat. That evening brought the annual broadcast of "The Kennedy Center Honors," the carefree variety show in which Washington's top dogs mingle with visitors from that mysterious land known as the Arts and do a passing (if fashion-challenged) imitation of revelers at the Oscars. This year, like any other, the show was handing out medals to those representing "the very best in American culture," as exemplified by honorees like Australia's Dame Joan Sutherland and Britain's Sir Elton John. Festive bipartisanship reigned. Though Sir Elton had said just three weeks earlier that "Bush and this administration are the worst thing that has ever happened to America," he and his boyfriend joined the president and Mrs. Bush in their box. John Kerry held forth in an orchestra seat below.
"The Kennedy Center Honors" is no ratings powerhouse; this year more adults under 50 elected to watch "The Real Gilligan's Island" on cable instead. But I tuned in, curious to see how this gathering of the capital's finest might be affected by the war. The honors had actually been staged and taped earlier in the month, on Dec. 5. That day the morning newspapers told of more deadly strikes by suicide bombers in Mosul and Baghdad, killing at least 26 Iraqi security officers, including 8 in a police station near the capital's protected Green Zone. There were also reports of at least four American casualties in other firefights.
But if anyone at the Kennedy Center so much as acknowledged this reality unfolding beyond the opera house, it was not to be found in the show presented on television. The only wars evoked were those scored by another honoree, John Williams, whose soundtrack music for "Saving Private Ryan" and "Star Wars" was merrily belted out by a military band. (Our delicate sensibilities were spared the sight of an actual "Private Ryan" battle scene, however, lest the broadcast risk being shut down for "indecency.") The razzle-dazzle Hollywood martial music, the what-me-worry Washington establishment, the glow of money and red plush: everything about the tableau reeked of the disconnect between the war in Iraq and the comfort of all of us at home, starting with those in government who had conceived, planned, rubber-stamped and managed our excellent adventure in spreading democracy.
Ordinary people beyond Washington, red and blue Americans alike, are feeling that disconnect more and more. On the same day that CBS broadcast the Kennedy Center special, an ABC News/Washington Post poll found that 70 percent of Americans believed that any gains in Iraq had come at the cost of "unacceptable" losses in casualties and that 56 percent believed the war wasn't "worth fighting" - up 8 percent since the summer. In other words, most Americans believe that our troops are dying for no good reason, even as a similar majority (58 percent) believes, contradictorily enough, that we should keep them in Iraq.
So the soldiers soldier on, and we party on. As James Dao wrote in The New York Times, "support our troops" became a verbal touchstone in 2004, yet "only for a minuscule portion of the populace, mainly those with loved ones overseas, does it have anything to do with sacrifice." Quite the contrary: we have our tax cuts, and a president who promises to make them permanent. Such is the disconnect between the country and the war that there is no national outrage when the president awards the Medal of Freedom to the clowns who undermined the troops by bungling intelligence (George Tenet) and Iraqi support (Paul Bremer). Such is the disconnect that Washington and the news media react with slack-jawed shock when one of those good soldiers we support so much speaks up at a town hall meeting in Kuwait and asks the secretary of defense why vehicles that take him and his brothers into battle lack proper armor.
Much has been made of this incident, yet it hardly constituted big news. It's no secret to anyone, including Donald Rumsfeld, that the troops have often been undersupplied. Dana Priest of The Washington Post heard soldiers asking the defense secretary "similar questions about their body armor" when traveling with him a year ago. In October, 23 members of an Army Reserve unit disobeyed a direct order to deliver fuel, partly because they decided that the vulnerability of their trucks made the journey tantamount to a suicide mission. As far back as last spring, Stars and Stripes was reporting that desperate troops were using sandbags as makeshift vehicle armor. Even now, reports The Los Angeles Times, National Guard soldiers are saying they have been shipped to war from Fort Bliss with "chronic illnesses, broken guns and trucks with blown transmissions."
When Mr. Rumsfeld told Specialist Thomas Wilson in Kuwait that the only reason the troops lacked armor was "a matter of production and capability," he was lying. The manufacturers that supply the armor were quick to respond that they had been telling the Pentagon for months that they could increase production, in the case of one company (ArmorWorks in Arizona) by as much as 100 percent. But that news was quickly drowned out by cable and talk radio arguments over whether Mr. Wilson should or should not have consulted with an embedded reporter about the phrasing of his question. Soon Mr. Rumsfeld was off to Iraq for a P.R. tour (message: I care) in which he used troops as photo-op accessories and thanked a soldier for asking a softball question "not planted by the media." Washington could go back to worrying about more pressing domestic problems, like how to cook the books so that Social Security can be fixed cost-free.
The truth is that for all the lip service paid to supporting the troops, out of sight is often out of mind. Even the minority that remains gung-ho about the war in Iraq is quick to blame the grunts for anything that goes wrong. Specialist Wilson, Rush Limbaugh said, was guilty of "near insubordination" for his question in Kuwait; the poor defense secretary "was set up," whined The New York Post. The same crowd tells us that a few low-level guards are solely responsible for the criminal abuse of prisoners at Abu Ghraib and in Guantánamo Bay, not any policy-setting higher-ups who may be sitting in that audience at Kennedy Center. President Bush even tried to pass the buck for his premature aircraft carrier victory jig to the troops, telling the press months later that "the 'Mission Accomplished' sign, of course, was put up by the members of the U.S.S. Abraham Lincoln, saying that their mission was accomplished." Of course.
Back then, the Pentagon projected that our military occupation of Iraq would end in December 2004. But two days after appearing in the box at the Kennedy Center Opera House, the president donned a snappy muted green "commander in chief" jacket - a casual Friday version of the full "Top Gun" costume he'd worn on the Lincoln - to address marines at Camp Pendleton in California who were going to war, not coming home. (Slate reported this week that "nearly one-quarter of U.S. combat dead in 2004 were stationed in Camp Pendleton.") It was the anniversary of Pearl Harbor, and Mr. Bush drew the expected analogy: "Just as we defeated the threats of fascism and imperial communism in the 20th century, we will defeat the threat of global terrorism." But three years into it, can we win a war that most of the country senses has gone astray in Iraq and that the party in power regards as a lower priority than lower taxes?
The ethos could hardly have been more different during the World War II so frequently invoked by Mr. Bush. As David Brinkley recounted in his 1988 history, "Washington Goes to War," the Roosevelt administration's first big push "was a tremendous voluntary program to reduce the deficit, encourage saving, trim spending and thus curb inflation - the sale of war bonds." Though bonds would not in the end pay for the war - that would require the sacrifice of paying taxes - F.D.R. believed that his campaign "would give the public a sense of involvement in a war being fought thousands of miles away, a war so distant many Americans had difficulty at times remembering it was there at all." Gen. George Marshall, the Army's chief of staff, took it on himself to write notes by hand to the family of each man killed in battle until the volume forced the use of Western Union telegrams.
Well, Mr. Rumsfeld has sworn he'll stop delegating condolence letters to his Autopen. But otherwise the contrast between the Washington that won World War II and the Washington fighting a war in Iraq is so striking it can even be found in the cultural lineage of the Kennedy Center show. That show's producer, as it happens, is George Stevens Jr., the son of the great Hollywood filmmaker George Stevens. In his day, the elder Stevens created his own wartime Washington entertainment: a glorious 1943 romantic comedy, "The More the Merrier" (just out on DVD), set in the newly mobilized capital, that, though fiction, is in itself a striking document of the difference between then and now. While it portrays a patriotic Washington as frivolously beset by party animals, bureaucrats and lobbyists as today's, there's an underlying ethos of shared sacrifice, literally down to the living arrangements necessitated by a housing shortage. It might as well be a different civilization.
Washington's next celebration will be the inauguration. Roosevelt decreed that the usual gaiety be set aside at his wartime inaugural in January 1945. There will be no such restraint in the $40 million, four-day extravaganza planned this time, with its top ticket package priced at $250,000. The official theme of the show is "Celebrating Freedom, Honoring Service." That's no guarantee that the troops in Iraq will get armor, but Washington will, at least, give home-front military personnel free admission to one of the nine inaugural balls and let them eat cake.
Copyright 2004 The New York Times Company
Saturday, January 01, 2005
The Ends of the World as We Know Them
A Call To Action
The New York Times
January 1, 2005
OP-ED CONTRIBUTOR
By JARED DIAMOND
Los Angeles — NEW Year's weekend traditionally is a time for us to reflect, and to make resolutions based on our reflections. In this fresh year, with the United States seemingly at the height of its power and at the start of a new presidential term, Americans are increasingly concerned and divided about where we are going. How long can America remain ascendant? Where will we stand 10 years from now, or even next year?
Such questions seem especially appropriate this year. History warns us that when once-powerful societies collapse, they tend to do so quickly and unexpectedly. That shouldn't come as much of a surprise: peak power usually means peak population, peak needs, and hence peak vulnerability. What can be learned from history that could help us avoid joining the ranks of those who declined swiftly? We must expect the answers to be complex, because historical reality is complex: while some societies did indeed collapse spectacularly, others have managed to thrive for thousands of years without major reversal.
When it comes to historical collapses, five groups of interacting factors have been especially important: the damage that people have inflicted on their environment; climate change; enemies; changes in friendly trading partners; and the society's political, economic and social responses to these shifts. That's not to say that all five causes play a role in every case. Instead, think of this as a useful checklist of factors that should be examined, but whose relative importance varies from case to case.
For instance, in the collapse of the Polynesian society on Easter Island three centuries ago, environmental problems were dominant, and climate change, enemies and trade were insignificant; however, the latter three factors played big roles in the disappearance of the medieval Norse colonies on Greenland. Let's consider two examples of declines stemming from different mixes of causes: the falls of classic Maya civilization and of Polynesian settlements on the Pitcairn Islands.
Maya Native Americans of the Yucatan Peninsula and adjacent parts of Central America developed the New World's most advanced civilization before Columbus. They were innovators in writing, astronomy, architecture and art. From local origins around 2,500 years ago, Maya societies rose especially after the year A.D. 250, reaching peaks of population and sophistication in the late 8th century.
Thereafter, societies in the most densely populated areas of the southern Yucatan underwent a steep political and cultural collapse: between 760 and 910, kings were overthrown, large areas were abandoned, and at least 90 percent of the population disappeared, leaving cities to become overgrown by jungle. The last known date recorded on a Maya monument by their so-called Long Count calendar corresponds to the year 909. What happened?
A major factor was environmental degradation by people: deforestation, soil erosion and water management problems, all of which resulted in less food. Those problems were exacerbated by droughts, which may have been partly caused by humans themselves through deforestation. Chronic warfare made matters worse, as more and more people fought over less and less land and resources.
Why weren't these problems obvious to the Maya kings, who could surely see their forests vanishing and their hills becoming eroded? Part of the reason was that the kings were able to insulate themselves from problems afflicting the rest of society. By extracting wealth from commoners, they could remain well fed while everyone else was slowly starving.
What's more, the kings were preoccupied with their own power struggles. They had to concentrate on fighting one another and keeping up their images through ostentatious displays of wealth. By insulating themselves in the short run from the problems of society, the elite merely bought themselves the privilege of being among the last to starve.
Whereas Maya societies were undone by problems of their own making, Polynesian societies on Pitcairn and Henderson Islands in the tropical Pacific Ocean were undone largely by other people's mistakes. Pitcairn, the uninhabited island settled in 1790 by the H.M.S. Bounty mutineers, had actually been populated by Polynesians 800 years earlier. That society, which left behind temple platforms, stone and shell tools and huge garbage piles of fish and bird and turtle bones as evidence of its existence, survived for several centuries and then vanished. Why?
In many respects, Pitcairn and Henderson are tropical paradises, rich in some food sources and essential raw materials. Pitcairn is home to Southeast Polynesia's largest quarry of stone suited for making adzes, while Henderson has the region's largest breeding seabird colony and its only nesting beach for sea turtles. Yet the islanders depended on imports from Mangareva Island, hundreds of miles away, for canoes, crops, livestock and oyster shells for making tools.
Unfortunately for the inhabitants of Pitcairn and Henderson, their Mangarevan trading partner collapsed for reasons similar to those underlying the Maya decline: deforestation, erosion and warfare. Deprived of essential imports in a Polynesian equivalent of the 1973 oil crisis, the Pitcairn and Henderson societies declined until everybody had died or fled.
The Maya and the Henderson and Pitcairn Islanders are not alone, of course. Over the centuries, many other societies have declined, collapsed or died out. Famous victims include the Anasazi in the American Southwest, who abandoned their cities in the 12th century because of environmental problems and climate change, and the Greenland Norse, who disappeared in the 15th century because of all five interacting factors on the checklist. There were also the ancient Fertile Crescent societies, the Khmer at Angkor Wat, the Moche society of Peru - the list goes on.
But before we let ourselves get depressed, we should also remember that there is another long list of cultures that have managed to prosper for lengthy periods of time. Societies in Japan, Tonga, Tikopia, the New Guinea Highlands and Central and Northwest Europe, for example, have all found ways to sustain themselves. What separates the lost cultures from those that survived? Why did the Maya fail and the shogun succeed?
Half of the answer involves environmental differences: geography deals worse cards to some societies than to others. Many of the societies that collapsed had the misfortune to occupy dry, cold or otherwise fragile environments, while many of the long-term survivors enjoyed more robust and fertile surroundings. But it's not the case that a congenial environment guarantees success: some societies (like the Maya) managed to ruin lush environments, while other societies - like the Incas, the Inuit, Icelanders and desert Australian Aborigines - have managed to carry on in some of the earth's most daunting environments.
The other half of the answer involves differences in a society's responses to problems. Ninth-century New Guinea Highland villagers, 16th-century German landowners, and the Tokugawa shoguns of 17th-century Japan all recognized the deforestation spreading around them and solved the problem, either by developing scientific reforestation (Japan and Germany) or by transplanting tree seedlings (New Guinea). Conversely, the Maya, Mangarevans and Easter Islanders failed to address their forestry problems and so collapsed.
Consider Japan. In the 1600's, the country faced its own crisis of deforestation, paradoxically brought on by the peace and prosperity following the Tokugawa shoguns' military triumph that ended 150 years of civil war. The subsequent explosion of Japan's population and economy set off rampant logging for construction of palaces and cities, and for fuel and fertilizer.
The shoguns responded with both negative and positive measures. They reduced wood consumption by turning to light-timbered construction, to fuel-efficient stoves and heaters, and to coal as a source of energy. At the same time, they increased wood production by developing and carefully managing plantation forests. Both the shoguns and the Japanese peasants took a long-term view: the former expected to pass on their power to their children, and the latter expected to pass on their land. In addition, Japan's isolation at the time made it obvious that the country would have to depend on its own resources and couldn't meet its needs by pillaging other countries. Today, despite having the highest human population density of any large developed country, Japan is more than 70 percent forested.
There is a similar story from Iceland. When the island was first settled by the Norse around 870, its light volcanic soils presented colonists with unfamiliar challenges. They proceeded to cut down trees and stock sheep as if they were still in Norway, with its robust soils. Significant erosion ensued, carrying half of Iceland's topsoil into the ocean within a century or two. Icelanders became the poorest people in Europe. But they gradually learned from their mistakes, over time instituting stocking limits on sheep and other strict controls, and establishing an entire government department charged with landscape management. Today, Iceland boasts the sixth-highest per-capita income in the world.
What lessons can we draw from history? The most straightforward: take environmental problems seriously. They destroyed societies in the past, and they are even more likely to do so now. If 6,000 Polynesians with stone tools were able to destroy Mangareva Island, consider what six billion people with metal tools and bulldozers are doing today. Moreover, while the Maya collapse affected just a few neighboring societies in Central America, globalization now means that any society's problems have the potential to affect anyone else. Just think how crises in Somalia, Afghanistan and Iraq have shaped the United States today.
Other lessons involve failures of group decision-making. There are many reasons why past societies made bad decisions, and thereby failed to solve or even to perceive the problems that would eventually destroy them. One reason involves conflicts of interest, whereby one group within a society (for instance, the pig farmers who caused the worst erosion in medieval Greenland and Iceland) can profit by engaging in practices that damage the rest of society. Another is the pursuit of short-term gains at the expense of long-term survival, as when fishermen overfish the stocks on which their livelihoods ultimately depend.
History also teaches us two deeper lessons about what separates successful societies from those heading toward failure. A society contains a built-in blueprint for failure if the elite insulates itself from the consequences of its actions. That's why Maya kings, Norse Greenlanders and Easter Island chiefs made choices that eventually undermined their societies. They themselves did not begin to feel deprived until they had irreversibly destroyed their landscape.
Could this happen in the United States? It's a thought that often occurs to me here in Los Angeles, when I drive by gated communities, guarded by private security patrols, and filled with people who drink bottled water, depend on private pensions, and send their children to private schools. By doing these things, they lose the motivation to support the police force, the municipal water supply, Social Security and public schools. If conditions deteriorate too much for poorer people, gates will not keep the rioters out. Rioters eventually burned the palaces of Maya kings and tore down the statues of Easter Island chiefs; they have also already threatened wealthy districts in Los Angeles twice in recent decades.
In contrast, the elite in 17th-century Japan, as in modern Scandinavia and the Netherlands, could not ignore or insulate themselves from broad societal problems. For instance, the Dutch upper class for hundreds of years has been unable to insulate itself from the Netherlands' water management problems for a simple reason: the rich live in the same drained lands below sea level as the poor. If the dikes and pumps keeping out the sea fail, the well-off Dutch know that they will drown along with everybody else, which is precisely what happened during the floods of 1953.
The other deep lesson involves a willingness to re-examine long-held core values, when conditions change and those values no longer make sense. The medieval Greenland Norse lacked such a willingness: they continued to view themselves as transplanted Norwegian pastoralists, and to despise the Inuit as pagan hunters, even after Norway stopped sending trading ships and the climate had grown too cold for a pastoral existence. They died off as a result, leaving Greenland to the Inuit. On the other hand, the British in the 1950's faced up to the need for a painful reappraisal of their former status as rulers of a world empire set apart from Europe. They are now finding a different avenue to wealth and power, as part of a united Europe.
In this New Year, we Americans have our own painful reappraisals to face. Historically, we viewed the United States as a land of unlimited plenty, and so we practiced unrestrained consumerism, but that's no longer viable in a world of finite resources. We can't continue to deplete our own resources as well as those of much of the rest of the world.
Historically, oceans protected us from external threats; we stepped back from our isolationism only temporarily during the crises of two world wars. Now, technology and global interconnectedness have robbed us of our protection. In recent years, we have responded to foreign threats largely by seeking short-term military solutions at the last minute.
But how long can we keep this up? Though we are the richest nation on earth, there's simply no way we can afford (or muster the troops) to intervene in the dozens of countries where emerging threats lurk - particularly when each intervention these days can cost more than $100 billion and require more than 100,000 troops.
A genuine reappraisal would require us to recognize that it will be far less expensive and far more effective to address the underlying problems of public health, population and environment that ultimately cause threats to us to emerge in poor countries. In the past, we have regarded foreign aid as either charity or as buying support; now, it's an act of self-interest to preserve our own economy and protect American lives.
Do we have cause for hope? Many of my friends are pessimistic when they contemplate the world's growing population and human demands colliding with shrinking resources. But I draw hope from the knowledge that humanity's biggest problems today are ones entirely of our own making. Asteroids hurtling at us beyond our control don't figure high on our list of imminent dangers. To save ourselves, we don't need new technology: we just need the political will to face up to our problems of population and the environment.
I also draw hope from a unique advantage that we enjoy. Unlike any previous society in history, our global society today is the first with the opportunity to learn from the mistakes of societies remote from us in space and in time. When the Maya and Mangarevans were cutting down their trees, there were no historians or archaeologists, no newspapers or television, to warn them of the consequences of their actions. We, on the other hand, have a detailed chronicle of human successes and failures at our disposal. Will we choose to use it?
Jared Diamond, who won the 1998 Pulitzer Prize in general nonfiction for "Guns, Germs and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies," is the author of the forthcoming "Collapse: How Societies Choose or Fail to Succeed."
Copyright 2005 The New York Times Company
The New York Times
January 1, 2005
OP-ED CONTRIBUTOR
By JARED DIAMOND
Los Angeles — NEW Year's weekend traditionally is a time for us to reflect, and to make resolutions based on our reflections. In this fresh year, with the United States seemingly at the height of its power and at the start of a new presidential term, Americans are increasingly concerned and divided about where we are going. How long can America remain ascendant? Where will we stand 10 years from now, or even next year?
Such questions seem especially appropriate this year. History warns us that when once-powerful societies collapse, they tend to do so quickly and unexpectedly. That shouldn't come as much of a surprise: peak power usually means peak population, peak needs, and hence peak vulnerability. What can be learned from history that could help us avoid joining the ranks of those who declined swiftly? We must expect the answers to be complex, because historical reality is complex: while some societies did indeed collapse spectacularly, others have managed to thrive for thousands of years without major reversal.
When it comes to historical collapses, five groups of interacting factors have been especially important: the damage that people have inflicted on their environment; climate change; enemies; changes in friendly trading partners; and the society's political, economic and social responses to these shifts. That's not to say that all five causes play a role in every case. Instead, think of this as a useful checklist of factors that should be examined, but whose relative importance varies from case to case.
For instance, in the collapse of the Polynesian society on Easter Island three centuries ago, environmental problems were dominant, and climate change, enemies and trade were insignificant; however, the latter three factors played big roles in the disappearance of the medieval Norse colonies on Greenland. Let's consider two examples of declines stemming from different mixes of causes: the falls of classic Maya civilization and of Polynesian settlements on the Pitcairn Islands.
Maya Native Americans of the Yucatan Peninsula and adjacent parts of Central America developed the New World's most advanced civilization before Columbus. They were innovators in writing, astronomy, architecture and art. From local origins around 2,500 years ago, Maya societies rose especially after the year A.D. 250, reaching peaks of population and sophistication in the late 8th century.
Thereafter, societies in the most densely populated areas of the southern Yucatan underwent a steep political and cultural collapse: between 760 and 910, kings were overthrown, large areas were abandoned, and at least 90 percent of the population disappeared, leaving cities to become overgrown by jungle. The last known date recorded on a Maya monument by their so-called Long Count calendar corresponds to the year 909. What happened?
A major factor was environmental degradation by people: deforestation, soil erosion and water management problems, all of which resulted in less food. Those problems were exacerbated by droughts, which may have been partly caused by humans themselves through deforestation. Chronic warfare made matters worse, as more and more people fought over less and less land and resources.
Why weren't these problems obvious to the Maya kings, who could surely see their forests vanishing and their hills becoming eroded? Part of the reason was that the kings were able to insulate themselves from problems afflicting the rest of society. By extracting wealth from commoners, they could remain well fed while everyone else was slowly starving.
What's more, the kings were preoccupied with their own power struggles. They had to concentrate on fighting one another and keeping up their images through ostentatious displays of wealth. By insulating themselves in the short run from the problems of society, the elite merely bought themselves the privilege of being among the last to starve.
Whereas Maya societies were undone by problems of their own making, Polynesian societies on Pitcairn and Henderson Islands in the tropical Pacific Ocean were undone largely by other people's mistakes. Pitcairn, the uninhabited island settled in 1790 by the H.M.S. Bounty mutineers, had actually been populated by Polynesians 800 years earlier. That society, which left behind temple platforms, stone and shell tools and huge garbage piles of fish and bird and turtle bones as evidence of its existence, survived for several centuries and then vanished. Why?
In many respects, Pitcairn and Henderson are tropical paradises, rich in some food sources and essential raw materials. Pitcairn is home to Southeast Polynesia's largest quarry of stone suited for making adzes, while Henderson has the region's largest breeding seabird colony and its only nesting beach for sea turtles. Yet the islanders depended on imports from Mangareva Island, hundreds of miles away, for canoes, crops, livestock and oyster shells for making tools.
Unfortunately for the inhabitants of Pitcairn and Henderson, their Mangarevan trading partner collapsed for reasons similar to those underlying the Maya decline: deforestation, erosion and warfare. Deprived of essential imports in a Polynesian equivalent of the 1973 oil crisis, the Pitcairn and Henderson societies declined until everybody had died or fled.
The Maya and the Henderson and Pitcairn Islanders are not alone, of course. Over the centuries, many other societies have declined, collapsed or died out. Famous victims include the Anasazi in the American Southwest, who abandoned their cities in the 12th century because of environmental problems and climate change, and the Greenland Norse, who disappeared in the 15th century because of all five interacting factors on the checklist. There were also the ancient Fertile Crescent societies, the Khmer at Angkor Wat, the Moche society of Peru - the list goes on.
But before we let ourselves get depressed, we should also remember that there is another long list of cultures that have managed to prosper for lengthy periods of time. Societies in Japan, Tonga, Tikopia, the New Guinea Highlands and Central and Northwest Europe, for example, have all found ways to sustain themselves. What separates the lost cultures from those that survived? Why did the Maya fail and the shogun succeed?
Half of the answer involves environmental differences: geography deals worse cards to some societies than to others. Many of the societies that collapsed had the misfortune to occupy dry, cold or otherwise fragile environments, while many of the long-term survivors enjoyed more robust and fertile surroundings. But it's not the case that a congenial environment guarantees success: some societies (like the Maya) managed to ruin lush environments, while other societies - like the Incas, the Inuit, Icelanders and desert Australian Aborigines - have managed to carry on in some of the earth's most daunting environments.
The other half of the answer involves differences in a society's responses to problems. Ninth-century New Guinea Highland villagers, 16th-century German landowners, and the Tokugawa shoguns of 17th-century Japan all recognized the deforestation spreading around them and solved the problem, either by developing scientific reforestation (Japan and Germany) or by transplanting tree seedlings (New Guinea). Conversely, the Maya, Mangarevans and Easter Islanders failed to address their forestry problems and so collapsed.
Consider Japan. In the 1600's, the country faced its own crisis of deforestation, paradoxically brought on by the peace and prosperity following the Tokugawa shoguns' military triumph that ended 150 years of civil war. The subsequent explosion of Japan's population and economy set off rampant logging for construction of palaces and cities, and for fuel and fertilizer.
The shoguns responded with both negative and positive measures. They reduced wood consumption by turning to light-timbered construction, to fuel-efficient stoves and heaters, and to coal as a source of energy. At the same time, they increased wood production by developing and carefully managing plantation forests. Both the shoguns and the Japanese peasants took a long-term view: the former expected to pass on their power to their children, and the latter expected to pass on their land. In addition, Japan's isolation at the time made it obvious that the country would have to depend on its own resources and couldn't meet its needs by pillaging other countries. Today, despite having the highest human population density of any large developed country, Japan is more than 70 percent forested.
There is a similar story from Iceland. When the island was first settled by the Norse around 870, its light volcanic soils presented colonists with unfamiliar challenges. They proceeded to cut down trees and stock sheep as if they were still in Norway, with its robust soils. Significant erosion ensued, carrying half of Iceland's topsoil into the ocean within a century or two. Icelanders became the poorest people in Europe. But they gradually learned from their mistakes, over time instituting stocking limits on sheep and other strict controls, and establishing an entire government department charged with landscape management. Today, Iceland boasts the sixth-highest per-capita income in the world.
What lessons can we draw from history? The most straightforward: take environmental problems seriously. They destroyed societies in the past, and they are even more likely to do so now. If 6,000 Polynesians with stone tools were able to destroy Mangareva Island, consider what six billion people with metal tools and bulldozers are doing today. Moreover, while the Maya collapse affected just a few neighboring societies in Central America, globalization now means that any society's problems have the potential to affect anyone else. Just think how crises in Somalia, Afghanistan and Iraq have shaped the United States today.
Other lessons involve failures of group decision-making. There are many reasons why past societies made bad decisions, and thereby failed to solve or even to perceive the problems that would eventually destroy them. One reason involves conflicts of interest, whereby one group within a society (for instance, the pig farmers who caused the worst erosion in medieval Greenland and Iceland) can profit by engaging in practices that damage the rest of society. Another is the pursuit of short-term gains at the expense of long-term survival, as when fishermen overfish the stocks on which their livelihoods ultimately depend.
History also teaches us two deeper lessons about what separates successful societies from those heading toward failure. A society contains a built-in blueprint for failure if the elite insulates itself from the consequences of its actions. That's why Maya kings, Norse Greenlanders and Easter Island chiefs made choices that eventually undermined their societies. They themselves did not begin to feel deprived until they had irreversibly destroyed their landscape.
Could this happen in the United States? It's a thought that often occurs to me here in Los Angeles, when I drive by gated communities, guarded by private security patrols, and filled with people who drink bottled water, depend on private pensions, and send their children to private schools. By doing these things, they lose the motivation to support the police force, the municipal water supply, Social Security and public schools. If conditions deteriorate too much for poorer people, gates will not keep the rioters out. Rioters eventually burned the palaces of Maya kings and tore down the statues of Easter Island chiefs; they have also already threatened wealthy districts in Los Angeles twice in recent decades.
In contrast, the elite in 17th-century Japan, as in modern Scandinavia and the Netherlands, could not ignore or insulate themselves from broad societal problems. For instance, the Dutch upper class for hundreds of years has been unable to insulate itself from the Netherlands' water management problems for a simple reason: the rich live in the same drained lands below sea level as the poor. If the dikes and pumps keeping out the sea fail, the well-off Dutch know that they will drown along with everybody else, which is precisely what happened during the floods of 1953.
The other deep lesson involves a willingness to re-examine long-held core values, when conditions change and those values no longer make sense. The medieval Greenland Norse lacked such a willingness: they continued to view themselves as transplanted Norwegian pastoralists, and to despise the Inuit as pagan hunters, even after Norway stopped sending trading ships and the climate had grown too cold for a pastoral existence. They died off as a result, leaving Greenland to the Inuit. On the other hand, the British in the 1950's faced up to the need for a painful reappraisal of their former status as rulers of a world empire set apart from Europe. They are now finding a different avenue to wealth and power, as part of a united Europe.
In this New Year, we Americans have our own painful reappraisals to face. Historically, we viewed the United States as a land of unlimited plenty, and so we practiced unrestrained consumerism, but that's no longer viable in a world of finite resources. We can't continue to deplete our own resources as well as those of much of the rest of the world.
Historically, oceans protected us from external threats; we stepped back from our isolationism only temporarily during the crises of two world wars. Now, technology and global interconnectedness have robbed us of our protection. In recent years, we have responded to foreign threats largely by seeking short-term military solutions at the last minute.
But how long can we keep this up? Though we are the richest nation on earth, there's simply no way we can afford (or muster the troops) to intervene in the dozens of countries where emerging threats lurk - particularly when each intervention these days can cost more than $100 billion and require more than 100,000 troops.
A genuine reappraisal would require us to recognize that it will be far less expensive and far more effective to address the underlying problems of public health, population and environment that ultimately cause threats to us to emerge in poor countries. In the past, we have regarded foreign aid as either charity or as buying support; now, it's an act of self-interest to preserve our own economy and protect American lives.
Do we have cause for hope? Many of my friends are pessimistic when they contemplate the world's growing population and human demands colliding with shrinking resources. But I draw hope from the knowledge that humanity's biggest problems today are ones entirely of our own making. Asteroids hurtling at us beyond our control don't figure high on our list of imminent dangers. To save ourselves, we don't need new technology: we just need the political will to face up to our problems of population and the environment.
I also draw hope from a unique advantage that we enjoy. Unlike any previous society in history, our global society today is the first with the opportunity to learn from the mistakes of societies remote from us in space and in time. When the Maya and Mangarevans were cutting down their trees, there were no historians or archaeologists, no newspapers or television, to warn them of the consequences of their actions. We, on the other hand, have a detailed chronicle of human successes and failures at our disposal. Will we choose to use it?
Jared Diamond, who won the 1998 Pulitzer Prize in general nonfiction for "Guns, Germs and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies," is the author of the forthcoming "Collapse: How Societies Choose or Fail to Succeed."
Copyright 2005 The New York Times Company
Evangelical Leader Threatens to Use His Political Muscle Against Some Democrats
A Call To Action
The New York Times
January 1, 2005
By DAVID D. KIRKPATRICK
COLORADO SPRINGS - James C. Dobson, the nation's most influential evangelical leader, is threatening to put six potentially vulnerable Democratic senators "in the 'bull's-eye' " if they block conservative appointments to the Supreme Court.
In a letter his aides say is being sent to more than one million of his supporters, Dr. Dobson, the child psychologist and founder of the evangelical organization Focus on the Family, promises "a battle of enormous proportions from sea to shining sea" if President Bush fails to appoint "strict constructionist" jurists or if Democrats filibuster to block conservative nominees.
Dr. Dobson recalled the conservative efforts that helped in the November defeat of Senator Tom Daschle of South Dakota, the Senate minority leader who led Democrats in using the filibuster to block 10 of Mr. Bush's judicial nominees.
"Let his colleagues beware," Dr. Dobson warned, "especially those representing 'red' states. Many of them will be in the 'bull's-eye' the next time they seek re-election."
He singled out Ben Nelson of Nebraska, Mark Dayton of Minnesota, Robert C. Byrd of West Virginia, Kent Conrad of North Dakota, Jeff Bingaman of New Mexico and Bill Nelson of Florida. All six are up for re-election in 2006.
James Manley, a spokesman for Senator Harry Reid of Nevada, the new Democratic leader, said Democrats had allowed 204 judicial appointments to move forward in Mr. Bush's first term.
"James Dobson needs to take a moment to focus on the facts," Mr. Manley said. He called Dr. Dobson a "front for the White House."
Ralph G. Neas, president of the liberal group People for the American Way, which has often opposed conservative court nominees, said, "Mr. Dobson's arrogance knows no limits." He added: "This is the kind of tactic that ultimately backfires. These senators have served their constituents well and have courageously voted their consciences. I don't think they will take kindly to threats from Mr. Dobson, and I don't think the voters will either."
Dr. Dobson's activities represent a new level of direct partisan engagement on his part. Unlike other conservative Christian leaders, Dr. Dobson owes his grass-roots following primarily to his partly clinical, partly biblical advice on matters like marriage and child-rearing. Before supporting Mr. Bush, he had never endorsed a presidential candidate.
In the aftermath of the election, some of Dr. Dobson's allies are warning their fellow evangelicals not to be seduced by political deal-making. In "an open letter to the Christian church" last month, Charles W. Colson, the born-again Nixon aide and another influential Christian conservative, warned against listing demands of the president or other elected officials.
"To think that way demeans the Christian movement," Mr. Colson wrote with his associate Mark Earley. "We are not anybody's special interest group."
In an interview in his office in Colorado Springs, Dr. Dobson acknowledged that his plunge into partisan politics had irrevocably changed his public image. "I can't go back, nor do I want to," he said. "I will probably endorse more candidates. This is a new day. I just feel a real need to make use of this visibility."
He said that despite initial concerns, his political activities did not appear to have diverted donations from Focus on the Family. He created a sister lobbying organization during the last election, and the two organizations' combined budgets grew to a projected $146 million in 2004, from about $130 million in 2003, with a target of $170 million for 2005.
Dr. Dobson said he was prepared for some disappointments from Mr. Bush. For example, he said, when the president says the country is not ready to overturn the Supreme Court precedents supporting abortion rights, "it bothers me a lot." But Dr. Dobson said he was confident that the president would appoint socially conservative nominees for the courts.
He said of Mr. Bush, "He does not take the bully pulpit and use it effectively." He added, "But when the chips are down, he does the right thing."
Dr. Dobson said he was concentrating his political activities mainly on the court. "The next battle will be over the replacement for Rehnquist," he said, referring to Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist, who is being treated for thyroid cancer. "That is not something we can just yawn about."
He said he was hoping that Mr. Daschle's defeat would scare other Democrats. Dr. Dobson said he had been working for Mr. Daschle's defeat since August 2003, when he attended a rally to support Roy S. Moore, then chief justice of the Alabama Supreme Court, in his unsuccessful legal battle to keep a monument to the Ten Commandments in his courthouse. The crowd's reaction demonstrated the depth of popular resentment of liberal court decisions, Dr. Dobson said.
Spokesmen for all but one of the senators Dr. Dobson mentioned declined to comment or did not return phone calls.
David DiMartino, a spokesman for Mr. Nelson of Nebraska, said the senator was already an opponent of abortion rights and had never supported a filibuster of one of Mr. Bush's appellate nominees.
"Dr. Dobson knows that," Mr. DiMartino said. "The senator and Dr. Dobson have discussed it before. The fact that the media has the letter before the targeted senators indicates his intention has more to do with the media than with persuading anybody in the Senate."
Copyright 2004 The New York Times Company
The New York Times
January 1, 2005
By DAVID D. KIRKPATRICK
COLORADO SPRINGS - James C. Dobson, the nation's most influential evangelical leader, is threatening to put six potentially vulnerable Democratic senators "in the 'bull's-eye' " if they block conservative appointments to the Supreme Court.
In a letter his aides say is being sent to more than one million of his supporters, Dr. Dobson, the child psychologist and founder of the evangelical organization Focus on the Family, promises "a battle of enormous proportions from sea to shining sea" if President Bush fails to appoint "strict constructionist" jurists or if Democrats filibuster to block conservative nominees.
Dr. Dobson recalled the conservative efforts that helped in the November defeat of Senator Tom Daschle of South Dakota, the Senate minority leader who led Democrats in using the filibuster to block 10 of Mr. Bush's judicial nominees.
"Let his colleagues beware," Dr. Dobson warned, "especially those representing 'red' states. Many of them will be in the 'bull's-eye' the next time they seek re-election."
He singled out Ben Nelson of Nebraska, Mark Dayton of Minnesota, Robert C. Byrd of West Virginia, Kent Conrad of North Dakota, Jeff Bingaman of New Mexico and Bill Nelson of Florida. All six are up for re-election in 2006.
James Manley, a spokesman for Senator Harry Reid of Nevada, the new Democratic leader, said Democrats had allowed 204 judicial appointments to move forward in Mr. Bush's first term.
"James Dobson needs to take a moment to focus on the facts," Mr. Manley said. He called Dr. Dobson a "front for the White House."
Ralph G. Neas, president of the liberal group People for the American Way, which has often opposed conservative court nominees, said, "Mr. Dobson's arrogance knows no limits." He added: "This is the kind of tactic that ultimately backfires. These senators have served their constituents well and have courageously voted their consciences. I don't think they will take kindly to threats from Mr. Dobson, and I don't think the voters will either."
Dr. Dobson's activities represent a new level of direct partisan engagement on his part. Unlike other conservative Christian leaders, Dr. Dobson owes his grass-roots following primarily to his partly clinical, partly biblical advice on matters like marriage and child-rearing. Before supporting Mr. Bush, he had never endorsed a presidential candidate.
In the aftermath of the election, some of Dr. Dobson's allies are warning their fellow evangelicals not to be seduced by political deal-making. In "an open letter to the Christian church" last month, Charles W. Colson, the born-again Nixon aide and another influential Christian conservative, warned against listing demands of the president or other elected officials.
"To think that way demeans the Christian movement," Mr. Colson wrote with his associate Mark Earley. "We are not anybody's special interest group."
In an interview in his office in Colorado Springs, Dr. Dobson acknowledged that his plunge into partisan politics had irrevocably changed his public image. "I can't go back, nor do I want to," he said. "I will probably endorse more candidates. This is a new day. I just feel a real need to make use of this visibility."
He said that despite initial concerns, his political activities did not appear to have diverted donations from Focus on the Family. He created a sister lobbying organization during the last election, and the two organizations' combined budgets grew to a projected $146 million in 2004, from about $130 million in 2003, with a target of $170 million for 2005.
Dr. Dobson said he was prepared for some disappointments from Mr. Bush. For example, he said, when the president says the country is not ready to overturn the Supreme Court precedents supporting abortion rights, "it bothers me a lot." But Dr. Dobson said he was confident that the president would appoint socially conservative nominees for the courts.
He said of Mr. Bush, "He does not take the bully pulpit and use it effectively." He added, "But when the chips are down, he does the right thing."
Dr. Dobson said he was concentrating his political activities mainly on the court. "The next battle will be over the replacement for Rehnquist," he said, referring to Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist, who is being treated for thyroid cancer. "That is not something we can just yawn about."
He said he was hoping that Mr. Daschle's defeat would scare other Democrats. Dr. Dobson said he had been working for Mr. Daschle's defeat since August 2003, when he attended a rally to support Roy S. Moore, then chief justice of the Alabama Supreme Court, in his unsuccessful legal battle to keep a monument to the Ten Commandments in his courthouse. The crowd's reaction demonstrated the depth of popular resentment of liberal court decisions, Dr. Dobson said.
Spokesmen for all but one of the senators Dr. Dobson mentioned declined to comment or did not return phone calls.
David DiMartino, a spokesman for Mr. Nelson of Nebraska, said the senator was already an opponent of abortion rights and had never supported a filibuster of one of Mr. Bush's appellate nominees.
"Dr. Dobson knows that," Mr. DiMartino said. "The senator and Dr. Dobson have discussed it before. The fact that the media has the letter before the targeted senators indicates his intention has more to do with the media than with persuading anybody in the Senate."
Copyright 2004 The New York Times Company
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