g m g D e s i g n . c o m

Good article by WP’s Ignatius entitled September 10th in Waziristan. Excerpt:

Crumpton argues that the United States must take preventive action, but that it should do so carefully, through proxies wherever possible. The right model for a Waziristan campaign is the CIA-led operation in Afghanistan, not the U.S. military invasion of Iraq. Teams of CIA officers and Special Forces soldiers are best suited to work with tribal leaders, providing them weapons and money to fight an al-Qaeda network that has implanted itself brutally in Waziristan through the assassination of more than 100 tribal leaders during the past 6 years.

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The United States can begin to take action now against al-Qaeda’s new safe haven. Or we can wait, and hope that we don’t get hit again. The biggest danger of waiting is that if retaliation proves necessary later, it could be ill-planned and heavy-handed — precisely what got us in trouble in Iraq.

So, bottom line is that we fight smarter & bring the fight to the bad guys. Again, we need to do this intelligently and proactively. The nihilist group that attacked us on 9/11 won’t be satisified until they achieve their twisted vision of civilizational apartheid, so those who say “who are we to intefere with their culture?” are fooling themselves. Bin Laden & friends invited us into a war on Sept 11. We just need to fight that war more effectively.

Great article by strategist Thomas Barnett regarding the global war on terrorism. His analogy is this: killing weeds, while necessary, is insufficient; we must also plant grass. I.e., killing terrorists is fine (& necessary), but our long-term vision should be removing the conditions and the operating domain from which terrorist groups flourish. 

My point is this: In security terms, it’s always going to feel like we’re losing this war or — at best — achieving an operational stalemate. The real victory won’t come on any battlefield but rather in boardrooms.

In the end, we can’t kill bad guys faster than our enemies can grow them. Instead, we must offer them a more attractive recruitment package.

Bottom line: globalization’s creeping advance provides jobs to the most disconnected parts of the world, obviating the otherwise seductive influence of the extremists in those areas.

Great article on airport security that was linked from Bruce Schneier’s blog site. Bottom line: airport security is still sub-par, as bureaucrats dream up unrealistic non-solutions and avoid common-sense steps. Read the entire article if you’re interested (contains some useful specifics and some scary statistics). Here’s the concluding para:

In the end, we should be starting with defending the smallest spaces — the cockpits and cargo compartments, and working outward to the limits of our resources; instead of starting with the airport perimeter and working inward, ignoring the actual defense of those spaces that are actually the terrorist targets. And we should be using the resources already in place to the greatest extent possible, instead of trying to bring new, untried methods into play, then waiting to find out they don’t work nearly as well in reality as they do on paper.

American.com has a good article on reform in France under Sarkozy. Excerpts:

… [French president] Nicolas Sarkozy, the new President of France, may be different. So far, all indications are that at least one key component of his promises—a significant package of tax cuts—will be passed into law. Other measures, particularly proposals designed to crack down on massive strikes—the favored pressure tool by unions to stop reforms—are in store as well. 

But not everyone is happy. (Bold font added by me, below.)

Needless to say, this package of reforms has angered the left, in and outside of Parliament. Unions have already announced a protest day, July 31^st, to express their anger at the reforms, with an alphabet soup of major national unions all participating. Their anger doesn’t mean that the right to strike has been fatally wounded; to the contrary, it would emerge unscathed. The change concerns what effect those strikes can have: implicitly, Sarkozy’s cabinet and his Parliamentary majority want to remove the de facto veto that unions currently hold over decisions taken by democratically elected legislators. The right to strike is one thing, but bringing the country—including those who are not striking—to a standstill is quite another. 

Globalization includes many aspects, but most notably is economic. It begins with the trading of goods and currency; the buying and selling of international assets; the hiring and firing of workers, here and abroad. But while driven by free-market capitalism, it does not stop there. In addition to trading assets, workers, goods and services, globalization also trades ideas. It is the trading of ideas, including ideas that challenge old and established mores, that provides the strongest incentive for globalization’s expansion.

But some people are adversely affected by globalization, esp in the short term. That doesn’t mean that political leaders should stop globalization in its tracks. Doing so would require a roll back of economic and personal freedoms, not to mention the aggregate negative impact on the economy and on this nation’s (and other nation’s) capacity to produce jobs (note the US’s record low unemployment rate). Still, it is political reality and necessity to provide a means for the economically disenfranchised to recover and bounce back into the work force, lest the political tidal wave against globalization win against the powerful and rational arguments in favor of it. Hence, it is most likely a good thing that Congress is expanding aid for workers laid off due to globalization’s impact. Bottom line: economic globalization and free-market capitalism–good thing. Sustainable and politically viable economic globalization and free-market capitalism–even better.

Stossel continues to impress me. I wouldn’t put him in the “visionary” category, but I would put him in the no-nonsense category for speaking the truth with whit and accuracy. In this piece, he interviews Michael Moore. Note: I haven’t watched “Sicko” and, thus, I won’t presume its content. But Stossel’s piece strikes me as dead-on wrt breaking down the socialist left’s bizarre logic. Quick excerpt:

Moore followed up with a religious lesson. “What the nuns told me is true: We will be judged by how we treat the least among us. And that in order to be accepted into heaven, we’re gonna be asked a series of questions. When I was hungry, did you feed me? When I was homeless, did you give me shelter? And when I was sick, did you take care of me?”

I’m not a theologian, but I do know that when people are ordered by the government to be charitable, it’s not virtuous; it’s compelled. Why would anyone get into heaven because he pays taxes under threat of imprisonment? Moral action is freely chosen action.

July 18th – Follow-up article by Stossel on why Moore is wrong (his words). Excerpt:

Moore told me, “Government can do things right. … My dad gets his Social Security check every month. Comes not only every month, it comes on the same day through the so-called ‘dilapidated’ U.S. mail. … [A]sk your grandparents what they think of Medicare. Although it has its flaws, although it may be underfunded, it’s a much better program than the HMO that somebody has.”

Underfunded? Medicare has a 75-year $34 trillion unfunded liability! Its costs are growing faster than inflation. Social Security has a 75-year $5 trillion unfunded liability. These are Ponzi schemes that will be bankrupt before Moore reaches retirement age. The U.S. mail manages to deliver his dad’s checks, but compare its performance to FedEx or UPS. The Post Office said it wasn’t possible to deliver packages overnight.

Linked from Thomas Barnett’s blog site is an exceptional article on Africa and their need to not receive foreign aid. Entitled Africans to Bono: ‘For God’s sake please stop!’, the title pretty much says it all. The idea is this. Bleeding-heart, feel-good liberalism isn’t going to solve Africa’s problems. In fact, aid to Africa is probably making things worse. Some choice excerpts:

These speakers were selected to support a thesis, painfully obvious but somehow radical in this age: Africa won’t be “saved” by aid, but by the ingenuity and determination of its own people.

Andrew Mwenda, an outspoken Ugandan journalist who was jailed last year for criticizing President Museveni, lambasted the Western world’s “international cocktail of good intentions” for robbing Africa of its future. After all, what country has ever gotten rich from aid? What Africa needs is investment.

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Kenyan economist James Shikwati, who in advance of the 2005 G8 summit in Gleneagles famously asked rich nations, “for God’s sake, please just stop” giving Africa aid, thinks even misery is an opportunity.

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We can continue the endless cycle of need and dependency [that is encouraged by foreign aid], or you can create jobs, develop indigenous capacity, and build a sustainable future.

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Aid can alleviate immediate misery and that is why we love it. Charity is a profoundly human response to all those images that pull on our heartstrings. But all evidence points to the maddening conclusion that, in the long run, aid not only has no positive effect on economic growth, it may even undermine it.

You get the idea. Article also mentions China’s involvement in Africa. Chinese businesses (and gov) are trying to make a buck. What’s interesting about that is that’s probably more helpful (on balance) than all of the bleeding heart liberalism and aid freebies combined (not a hard claim to make since foreign aid so often corrupts and leads to dependence, meaning it’s an on-balance detriment to Africa). Bottom line: aid bad, investment good.