Ruminations, May 31, 2009

Obama’s middle ground on defense
Critics and supporters of President Obama have noticed that he often takes the middle ground on controversial issues. Last week he had another controversial issue with two divergent constituencies.

The United States has promised to provide Patriot Missiles to Poland. Defense hawks say this is good. Defense doves say this is provocative and bad. So how could the president take the middle ground in this situation? Was he stymied?

Not at all. Wladyslaw Stasiak of the Polish President’s office revealed, rather angrily, that the missiles will be sent to Poland but without warheads. How’s that for middle ground? Not to worry, though. The warheads will be kept in Germany and, in case of an incoming missile, Obama can have the warheads Fed-exed from Germany to Poland.

Here’s hoping that Fed Ex doesn’t have to route the warheads through their Memphis hub – those incoming can be really fast.

Guantanamo: recruiting tool
Sometimes, you hear a phrase so often and spoken in such a rational tone that you don’t question it. That was the case the other day when a friend said that although Guantanamo may be a first class high-security detention facility, the name served as a recruiting tool for al Qaida. I had heard that statement before and accepted it as an undeniable truth.

Then I started thinking about it and that yielded a question. Imagine yourself as one prone to become a terrorist. Then answer the following multiple choice question:

A.) Guantanamo is a place of torture and disrespect for Islam. Therefore, I’ll become a terrorist.

B.) Guantanamo was so bad that the Americans had to close it down and they now perform the same torture and disrespect for Islam at other locales. Therefore, I’ll become a terrorist.

C.) Both A and B.

D.) Neither A or B.

Which answer would make you more likely to become a terrorist? I’m not one prone to be a terrorist but if I were and had to pick an answer I would select either C or D. In other words, closing Guantanamo won’t make a difference in recruiting terrorists. Am I missing something?

Beware the industrial complex
As he was about to leave office in January, 1961, President Dwight Eisenhower warned Americans to “beware the military industrial complex.” He was saying, in effect, that as the Federal government allocated larger and larger sums of money for military armaments, the private military sector would seek to co-opt that spending to ensure their own profitability not necessarily for defense but for enrichment.

The political left, which tends to be more focused on spending for common welfare than for defense, has frequently cited Eisenhower as a justification for its own priorities. Although there is no question of what Ike was addressing, was his statement taken out of context?

Kind of. In a general sense, Eisenhower was paralleling the line attributed to bank robber Willie Sutton; when asked why he robbed banks, Sutton supposedly said, “Because that’s where the money is.” When the federal government says that they are going to spend billions for defense, that’s where the money is and any industry with even a slight capability of providing for national defense and coupled with a profit motive, will actively pursue that money.

The military industrial complex is not unique; it was just one of the first large scale government/private financial programs. When the government promoted housing through low interest rates, and federally backed loans, a housing industrial complex developed that included mortgage brokers, financial derivative markets, home builders, real estate brokers and others. If there weren’t large sums of money available, the housing market would not have developed as it has.

While we can cite other examples of federal/industrial complexes, it is imperative to note that because a complex of this nature exists, that does not mean it is all bad. A strong military defense has, arguably, kept the United States safe. A strong housing sector has provided for the general welfare of America. And both have provided jobs. Ike’s admonition to be wary should be taken in the context of excesses and to be wary of those who perform Sutton-like actions on the federal treasury.

Coming down the road are new Obama initiatives upon which we should cast a jaundiced eye; huge governmental outlays are proposed for the environment and alternative energies, a new national rail system and a revised health care system are in the works. We should adopt Ike’s vigilance and say beware the green industrial complex, the rail industrial complex and the health care industrial complex.

Nukes or no nukes
Iran and North Korea have nuclear weapons and the United States is in the process of getting a strong U.N. resolution condemning them. No you don’t understand; it’s a really really strong resolution this time. The result of the resolution will be … will be... um.

Let’s take it from the Axis of Evil’s perspective. Why would they give up their nukes? Strong sanctions against them? Yeah; like the strong sanctions against Saddam Hussein really worked.

Should we offer them bribes again? They would likely take the bribes and continue to develop the weapons.

Sanctions, bribes and really really strong resolutions won’t work. The only way we can get rid of North Korea’s and Iran’s nuclear weapons is to take them out; destroy them by an attack. And that assumes that we can take them out with minimum damage – a big assumption. And just taking them out is a temporary solution that will last until they reconstruct nuclear weapons again. So, if we take them out, that means we not only have to take out the nuclear weapons but we have to take out their governments and install new governments in Iran and North Korea – and you know how difficult that would be because, based on our recent experience, we would have little help from other nations in the world.

Maybe the only solution is to let them have nuclear weapons and hope for more rational people to come to power in the Axis of two. Politically, that may not be palatable in the United States. Maybe the only thing we can do, at this point, is to deliver a really really really strong resolution to them.

Quote without comment
Leon Brittan, a key British government official in the 1975 $16 billion bailout of automaker British Leyland, recently commented on the United States bailout of the U.S. auto industry: “I’m not telling the U.S. what to do, but the lesson of the British experience is: don’t throw good money after bad. British Leyland carried on for a few more years [after the bailout], but they’re not there now, are they?”

Robert J. Kulak

West Hartford, Connecticut