Iraq & Germany
I learned that Bush administration indeed has an endgame plan: stay in Iraq forever! In the Washington Post article Endgame, Michael Hirsh wrote what he learned from L. Paul Bremer,
Bremer, a historian by training, then reached over to his desk for a thick briefing book that laid out detailed timelines for the development of each Iraqi ministry. He pointed out a chart that he consulted more than any other: "MILESTONES: Iraq and Germany." It laid out the handover of state institutions during the 1945-52 occupation of Germany, side by side with corresponding plans for Iraq over a more compressed period. That way, Bremer said, he could "keep track of where we are versus Germany."
I think it is foolish to compare Iraq with Germany, or naive to compare
Saddam with
Hitler. They are very different, in terms of culture and religion. In Germany, Christianity is major religious belief, while in Iraq, Islam is major religious belief. No one could simply use full military might and try to implant a very new system in a poles apart society. It amounts to suppress or utterly disown cultural traditions and religious believes. It is unacceptable, especially for extremists. The results are recurring skirmish and incessant violence.
In fact, as we learned from
the article,
But if the administration is rhetorically projecting ahead a generation, its own plans for Iraq do not go beyond the next two years -- and never did.
and
That means, effectively, two options. One is a "little Saddam," a strongman who can consolidate control through non-democratic means. The other is to pursue a democracy largely shaped by anti-American mullahs, hopefully somewhat moderate ones like Sistani. What's not available any longer is the Iraqi equivalent of Konrad Adenauer, the German politician who was jailed by the Nazis and who later, after becoming the first chancellor of West Germany, nurtured good relations with France and the United States. Even Allawi must defer to Sistani. Washington must swallow the likelihood that Iraq will enter some drawn-out Islamic phase before it ever turns into a secular democratic model.
How can no one in the White House ever think about such a possibility before they launch the Iraq war? They are
colorblind and try to transplant so called democracy through zealous utopia thinking. They have prejudicial stamp at bottom of their heart.
Imperialism & Color Deficiency
Charles A. Kupchan reviewed two books. One is written by Arthur M. Schlesinger Jr. with title WAR AND THE AMERICAN PRESIDENCY, the other is written by John B. Judis with title THE FOLLY OF EMPIRE -- What George W. Bush Could Learn From Theodore Roosevelt and Woodrow Wilson.
I have posted some comments on the second book written by John B. Judis. However, I would like to discuss both books with some further thoughts.
Every person has more than one thought schemes. One gets them from one's culture, from one's experience, or from one's learning. They are cumulative and need not be consistent. When a person face a complex situation, more than one scheme may pop up in one's thoughts. The question is whether he should balance all schemes to make a rational and judicious decision, or he could ignore most of schemes and prejudice on a few schemes. When he acted in the later cases, I called the person has inherent color deficiency.
After September 11, Bush was prejudicial on Iraq and ignored many other schemes to make a rational decision on war on terrorism. Bush has inherent color deficiency. In the review, Charles A. Kupchan wrote
The politics of war and patriotism, Mr. Schlesinger contends, has vested the executive branch with more political power than intended by the founding fathers, not for the first time creating an "imperial presidency" insufficiently constrained by constitutional checks and balances. Attorney General John Ashcroft, armed with the Patriot Act, has overstepped his bounds, Mr. Schlesinger argues, imperiling civil liberties in a manner reminiscent of the Alien and Sedition Acts of 1798, the Sedition Act of 1918 and the internment of Japanese-Americans during World War II. In each of these cases, Mr. Schlesinger chides, "we hate ourselves in the morning."
In other words, Bush used patriotism to eliminate others' rational thoughts, who reasoning with multiple schemes, by labeling others unpatriotic.
In addition,
Charles A. Kupchan wroteAfter the relatively easy victory in Afghanistan, he [John B. Judis] writes, President Bush and his advisers "experienced the same rush of national power and the same illusion of omnipotence that the McKinley administration had experienced after the `splendid little war' against Spain." Again misled, he says, by the naive assumption that the country's millennial mission could be achieved through force and occupation — and backed by erroneous assessments of Saddam Hussein's weapons of mass destruction and his links to Al Qaeda — Washington guided the country into a colonial quagmire in Iraq, alienating allies and stirring up widespread anti-American sentiment. "When America goes out alone in search of monsters to destroy," Mr. Judis warns, "it can itself become the monster."
Again, the '
rush' and '
naive assumption' suppressed other schemes. As a result, it provoked and introduced religious extremists to American GI, and caused more than one thousand casualties. I would not like to see inherent color deficiency for another four years.
Inherent color deficiency
It is fascinating to read a book review written by David M. Kennedy. The reviewed book is written by Cass R. Sunstein with title The Second Bill of Rights: FDR'S Unfinished Revolution and Why We Need It More than Ever.
In the review, Kennedy asked whether we need a 'New New Deal' as prescribed by Sunstein? On the one hand, Isaiah Berlin wrote that
To offer political rights, or safeguards against intervention by the state, to men who are half-naked, illiterate, underfed and diseased is to mock their condition. . . . What is freedom to those who cannot make use of it? Without adequate conditions for the use of freedom, what is the value of freedom?
On the other hand,
Friedrich Hayek has
loudly denounced the exercise of state power for those ends.
It might be a logic conclusion that political rights means nothing without minimum welfare, as claimed by Sunstein. Yet, from my point of view, more welfare could not automatically extend either political rights or democracy. Instead, it may only provide a perfect argument for libertarian, like Hayek.
Getting a victory through democracy is a very complicated. Only small group of people in any society could (fully) comprehend the intricacy of issues involved. Others are followers and have
inherent color deficiency. The most they could understand are issues in simplified and high contrast colors, like black and white. Giving these group of people full welfare would be a futile effort to enhance democracy. (The inherent color deficiency could not be cured by any measure. There will always be a gap between ultimate complexity and improved understanding, no matter how welfare or other means granted.)
Nevertheless, I do worry that Bush would benefit from this kind of inherent color deficiency. He belongs to the color deficiency group and could not understand most of complicated issues. But, he and his fellow suporters mighy gain most by painting complicated issues with only two contrast colors. They would muddle up rational thinking of ordinary people. We may face dark days if Bush get reelected.
Reboot Windows & etc.
In a newly released European study (in French), a high failure rate has been found in Windows operating system. A failure means that you need to reboot your computer in order to continue your work. The distribution of percentage are: 4% for Windows 2000, 3% for Windows NT, and 12% for Windows XP. The study was conducted in seven European countries and involved more than 1.2 million PC. The study should bear no bias, since it was backed by Microsoft.
Like many Windows users, I was fed up with redundancy software packages and constantly reboot or reinstall requirement. I switched to Macintosh four years ago with the introduction of Mac OS X. I didn't experience single reboot since then. However, on occasion, I DO have my Safari quit on me suddenly. On my estimation, it's only about 0.2% chance that I need to restart Safari.
Due to discriminatory, certain web sites refuse to accommodate Safari. When I try to access my Gmail account (if anyone would like to have a Gmail account, please let me know, you may get it on a first arrive first serve base.) using Safari, I always get the message
Gmail does not currently support your browser. See browser requirements for Gmail or sign in anyway.
It forces me to use either Firefox or Mozilla. However, due to reasons I listed in
my other post, my only choice is Mozilla. Comparing to Safari, it crashes more often. I would clock the failure rate for Mozilla between 1% to 3%. It is definitely a better choice than IE for Macintosh, which I used occasionally with an estimated hangup around 5%. I'd recommend Macintosh and Safari for everyone. I hope every web site would add code to handle Safari as a legitimated alternative browser.
Bush & Trade Deficit
Do we have have a better look on unemployment, or economy overall in
the election year? From my reading, I cannot say yes. There're many
question marks regarding the unemployment and the economy.
First, under Bush's watch, we have lost 913,000 jobs. The forecast is not good either. According to Stephen Taub of CFO.com,
• Electronic Data Systems Corp. announced that it may cut
15,000 to 20,000 jobs. If it follows through, EDS will lop off nearly
one-sixth of its workforce over the next two years.
• Financially troubled Delta Air Lines Inc. announced that it would
eliminate 6,000 to 7,000 jobs, or about 10 percent of its work force,
over the next 18 months and scrap its Dallas hub.
• US Airways, which employs 28,000 people, filed for bankruptcy earlier
this week; you can be sure some layoffs will follow.
• A regional, Alaska Airlines, will cut nearly 900 jobs and close its
Oakland maintenance facility.
• In another industry indicating a major slowdown in business,
Mitsubishi Motors Corp. announced that it will end second-shift
production at its only U.S. auto plant and lay off about 1,200 workers.
• Dishware maker Oneida Ltd. will eliminate about 500 jobs.
• Goodyear Tire & Rubber Co. will cut 340 jobs in its engineered
products and chemical businesses.
He also indicates that these job cut would be carried out in an
extended period.
These "delayoffs" freeze spending not only by individuals who ultimately lose their jobs, but also by many of their co-workers who believe their jobs are endangered, even though they eventually survive the cuts.
Even though
unemployment forecast based on certain model (see figure) do look good for
the long run. However, please bear in your mind that
forecast is based on many assumptions.
One or more variables change may give us totally different outlook. We should not remind us how fast
$122.7 billion budget surplus in 2000 had gone after Bush took office.
On the other hand, our current account deficit increased (see figure, compiled by
The New York Times), and the statistics does not look good for future period. The deficit
in the last quarter has reached $166.2 billion. Claude E. Barfield of
American Enterprise Institute said that
he was not one of the analysts "who think the sky is falling" because of the increasing deficit, and his long-term solution
was for Americans to save more aggressively and for the United States to stop consuming so much beyond its means. It's ridiculous to think that American would heed his advice and change their spending pattern to save. This is especially true when the interest rate is not so high, coupled with retailers and banking institutions push for credit card use.
To interpreter the deficit,
The Bush administration interpreted the current account deficit as a sign that other countries were lagging behind the United States and needed to pump up their economies. Robert Nichols, assistant secretary of the treasury for public affairs, said that the deficit actually made the country more attractive to foreign investors.
The imbalance "is largely a result of the global growth deficit," Mr. Nichols said. "It's important that the rest of the world grow more, which will expand our ability to export and aid our manufacturing industry."
I understand that letting
the rest of the world grow more means that Bush administration will continue to tolerate outsourcing and sacrifice American's interest in the short run. Yet, no one knows for sure what would happen in the long haul. One possibility is that we may lost our market share and economic power forever. It's a very unsettling picture right now.
Bush and Silly Hat
Commenting on THE FOLLY OF EMPIRE written by John B. Judis, James Chace asked question: whether a crusade to create democracy in the Middle East and elsewhere is beyond America's capability?
I don't think a country can export ideology to other countries ever. However, it appears that there's more discussions behind the book. The book tried to link Theodore Roosevelt and Woodrow Wilson to G. W. Bush on foreign intervention policy. Roosevelt tried the intervention policy in Philippines, Wilson tried the same policy in Mexico. Both of them failed.
Now it's Bush's turn. We learned that he tried to sell the same policy hard with the 9.11 tragic decoration. He let us believe that Saddam may have WMD, and Saddam may planned and launched what Al Qaeda did on 9.11. Now, we know that he hide may and lied to us on both account. He tucked democracy under WMD. He watches our sacrifice grow without a clueles. And it's over 1,000 and adding daily. We will know how his experiment failed in some minutes.
A country just like a sovereign person. He enjoy certain freedom with accumulated historical asset. One cannot simply remove the historical asset as a silly hat and toss away. He has psychological tie with his belongings as he treasure his hat. A forceful external trauma would cause violent resistance. It sure would united all his minor foes to fend off major intrusion. Bush should respectfully disagree how neat the hat is, and let the person learn.
Bush's legs
Franklin D. Roosevelt wrote
A conservative is a man with two perfectly good legs who, however, has never learned to walk forward.
Certainly, Bush, as an extreme conservative, has no good legs. In his tenure, we heard
many accident reports. He could not coordinate his hands, his legs, his eyes, and his brain. He acts like a puppet under
Karl Rove. He sure didn't learn how to walk, forward or backward.
