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20 February 2007

Chicken or Egg in Opium Wars?

In her OpEd article in the 20 February 2007 Wall Street Journal, Ms. Vanda Felbab-Brown restricts NATO to its military capacity, which would obviously be most effective in Afghanistan as a security force. However, NATO is a growing and changing organization that represents the common interests of the nations of North America and Europe. Their common interest here is to avoid falling into the trap laid by the Taliban that claims Afghan farmers have no viable alternative to growing opium. That trap works as long as NATO resists financing the recovery of Afghanistan’s rural economy and relies on the drug habit of American and European heroin and crack addicts to provide a livelihood to Afghan farmers.

If NATO’s role in counternarcotics is limited to fighting insurgents, the only beneficiary will be the Taliban, whose main competitors in opium trafficking are the warlords. The wealthy members of NATO must fund the rebirth of a vibrant Afghan agricultural sector.

Which came first—eradication or substitution? Poppy eradication prevents rural families from feeding themselves even as suppressing the Taliban deprives them of the only alternative to warlordism that seems ever to have worked. NATO may best achieve its goal of order and peace in Afghanistan by making it possible for the Taliban to manage the resurgence of legitimate agriculture in Afghanistan.

Direct Democracy

Our founding fathers created a political system that allowed the government to make policy decisions in a way that represented, as best it could at the time, the will of the people. The device they chose, that was invented several millennia earlier, was democratic election of delegates to a Congress.

Now, technology has superceded that device. It enables a government to operate efficaciously based on direct decision-making by the governed.

Of course, there is still the need for an assertive executive to carry out the policy decisions of the governed, and for a bureaucracy efficiently to elaborate and implement those executive directives. Moreover, adjudication of the people’s rights and privileges should still be in the hands of a trusted coterie of wise men and women. However, elected representation is no longer needed. It is even counterproductive, delaying the discharge of the people’s will, and acting to prevent direct democracy in order to protect its own future.

We are all intelligent and informed enough to govern ourselves. The world has become yesteryear’s village because of communications technology. Publius, the authors of the Federalist, defended their proposed republican system of government as the best alternative to the democracy that was only practicable in small communities. Nevertheless, they also defended innovation in the way people govern themselves.

We no longer need the intervention of what has become an entrenched class of influence peddlers in Washington. Those elected representatives would be more effective if they were forced to earn their value daily by having to offer their advice to citizens of a direct democracy for use in coming to policy decisions directly. That advice would then be evaluated for its correctness and their services kept for hire only as needed.

18 February 2007

A New Coalition for Iraq

On the assumption that winning the war in Iraq is essential to quell international terrorism, as Bush claims, then two mistakes were made:

a) It was wrong to believe the Iraq war would pay for itself. There is a cost – we have to pay dearly for imposing U.S. power in order to create an orderly, non-threatening society.
b) It was wrong to remove the brutal dictatorship of Saddam who, after all, was imposing the power necessary to maintain order in that unruly society.

Since the U.S. made a mistake in the first place, we are left with the need to find a workable plan – and the resources – to turn Iraq into an orderly political system. That is what the Bush administration claims is needed to prevent its becoming a haven for Islamic terrorism. What we have learned is that we cannot afford the ambition of Bush and the neoconservatives to rule the world as the lonely superpower. Indeed, the U.S. must create a new coalition, and sacrifice dreams of going it alone, in order to achieve peace in Mesopotamia. That common effort by relatively orderly states will have to include a new Kurdistan as well as Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Syria, Great Britain (which originally created the monster called Iraq), and Iran.

Unfortunately, because of the lack of enthusiasm and patience shown by Bush and his cronies, that will be the diplomatic challenge facing the next U.S. administration.

10 February 2007

Friedman's Iraq Plan
Thomas Friedman showed his ability for clear thinking in his OpEd article that appeared in syndication on 10 February 2007 when he described a two-part strategy for ending the U.S. involvement in Iraq. Yes, it has been self-defeating for America to insert itself into the sectarian cauldron of Iraq in pursuit of an imperialist destiny as the imposer of "democratic values" around the world. Without laying blame for that silly, and costly, error, it is long past time to end our military intervention there in the absence of actual risk to our security. Let the factions in that part of the world fight it out among themselves; even let the Turks intervene if and when their security is threatened; and the Iranians, too. But remain vigilant and ready to intervene again if a center of terrorist training grows in a weakened Iraqi state, or in its progeny.

Yes, permanently raising the price of oil to a replacement level, like $3.50 a gallon (or $80.00 a barrel) would allow us to structure an energy source-neutral economy, even though it would be a bitter pill to swallow. A price has to be paid for insulation from both terrorist and economic extortion. But we should be smart about it and not place lives needlessly in danger nor abdicate control of our economic future to an international cartel.

01 February 2007

“President Clinton”

In his OpEd essay in the February 1, 2007 Wall Street Journal, Fred Barnes lamented what he characterized as Hillary Clinton’s surrender to the political left. But there is no inconsistency between her positions on the war in Iraq in 2002 and now. Remaining resolute doesn’t require sticking to a mistaken decision like authorizing the invasion despite subsequent evidence. Principles such as respecting national sovereignty live on even when actions taken in their defense are withdrawn because it is discovered they were based on incorrect information.

We do not execute a convict whose DNA shows him to be innocent. Likewise, we can’t ask our fighting men and women to sacrifice life and limb in defending our security where it is not challenged.

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