Mix drought with politics and we all suffer
Driving across the Midwest a few days ago, I was heartsick to see what the worst drought in half a century has done to once-gorgeous corn fields. In county after county, crops are withered, stunted and pathetic. The ramifications for a nation struggling to avoid falling back into recession will be d... Read more
Economic disillusionment marks young voters' views
My oldest granddaughters can vote for president for the first time --one as a 21-year-old who wasn't 18 in 2008 and the other who is 19. They belong to a group of young Americans who worry less these days about politics and more about their post-college futures -- futures filled with the need to pay... Read more
Syria threatens to use chemical weapons
Even though it has been an open secret for 40 years, Syria has always been studiously ambiguous about whether it has chemical weapons. But this week, the Syrian government said it would deploy chemical weapons against any foreign -- presumably Western -- intervention in its civil war. The U.S. De... Read more
Pakistani doctor should be honored, not jailed
A 48-year-old Pakistani surgeon, Dr. Shakil Afridi, has been sentenced to 33 years in prison for treason -- specifically, for aiding the United States in the hunt for Osama bin Laden. His real crime was being guilty of a sin that Islamabad finds unforgivable: He hugely embarrassed -- "humiliated" m... Read more
Obama finally 'evolves' on same-sex marriage
So, President Barack Obama has finally endorsed same-sex marriage, a position he held in 1996 and later reversed for his campaigns for U.S. Senate and the White House. By 2010 his position was, he said, "evolving," and it continued evolving as late as Monday if his beleaguered and bobbing and weavin... Read more
Norway's gentle justice for a mass murderer
If you're a lunatic mass murderer, you couldn't pick a much better venue for the crime than Norway. That's the lesson from the trial that began Monday in Oslo of Anders Breivik, who has admitted to killing eight people in a bomb blast in the capital's downtown and, later that same day, 69 youngsters... Read more
When your car is smarter than you are
Traffic and highway-safety experts are perhaps too polite to say so, but the key to safer motoring and less congestion is to take the driver out of the equation. These experts see the day 10 to 20 years off -- sooner if the federal government mandates the devices -- when cars will be able to "talk" ... Read more
What do you mean you don't want a driver's license?
Since the beginning of the Republic, the nation has been afflicted with a breed of scholars, social critics and think tankers who take indecent relish in predicting the decline, even the imminent demise, of the United States. I've always thought this a harmless kind of nuttery, akin to the doom... Read more
Smartphone anti-theft plan seems, um, smart
Cellphones readily lend themselves to theft. People strolling along city streets chatting away on cells are not paying attention to their surroundings -- you can see it in that faraway look when they talk -- and are easy prey for snatch-and-run robbers. When cellphones became smartphones, they beca... Read more
The unintended unmaking of Afghan hearts and minds
A decade of war and American sacrifice half a world away has come down to this: Afghanistan's mountains, valleys, plateaus, cities and farmlands are reverberating with the sounds of hearts and minds shattering. Among them are hearts and minds that once seemed securely won. Young boys, military-aged... Read more
Hu and Wen are leaving. China asks: What next?
Once every 10 years, the inner circle of China's ruling Communist Party retreats behind closed doors and quickly re-emerges to inform the Chinese people, and the world, who the new leaders will be. The hierarchy is very likely horrified by the messy primary, caucus and convention process by which t... Read more
Obama will get credit or blame for gas prices
There are many reasons for high gasoline prices. Some of them: surging demand in newly emerging industrial powers like China and India; Japan's shift from nuclear to oil for power generation following the tsunami; unrest in oil producers Sudan and Yemen; Libya still recovering from its civil war; u... Read more
Stop beating the drums for war with Iran.
Out of the blue, an old buddy this week sent me some photos of us as soldiers in Vietnam back when we were young and stupid. That lamentable war seemed a good idea at the time, and for my part I remain proud that I served, but over the years I have come to think that the statesmen who sent us were t... Read more
Don't tie U.S. debt reduction to future 'kids'
Fiscal conservatives unwittingly sabotage themselves by invoking "the children" when explaining the dangers of America's ballooning national debt. They should spend lots more time discussing how federal red ink harms adults today. Tying debt reduction to parenting causes two problems:First, if Amer... Read more
Middle East Requires New Mode of Thinking
As the crisis with Iran continues to simmer, Albert Einstein's often-cited remark, in its own way as profound as his theory of relativity, comes to mind: "The unleashed power of the atom has changed everything save our modes of thinking, and thus we drift toward unparalleled catastrophe." This rema... Read more
Problematic voter rolls undermine confidence
Reports of dead voters are greatly understated. While Democrats dismiss voter fraud as a collective Republican hallucination, a study released Tuesday by the Pew Center on the States confirms the GOP's concerns. The ghosts in America's voting machines may be the least of our worries. Pew has discov... Read more
The blood-stained reign of Bashar al-Assad
The bloody slaughter of civilians in Syria was playing in cable-news snippets on television sets throughout the White House West Wing and State Department on Tuesday, as the man who expects to become China's new leader this year met with President Barack Obama and Vice President Joe Biden and was fe... Read more
Prisons must cope with surge in elderly inmates
In the mid-1990s, there was a mini-wave of "granny dumping." Elderly people, abandoned by families, showed up at hospitals and Salvation Army facilities, often with a note to the effect: "Please take care of her. We no longer can." That cold-hearted solution is not available to a U.S. prison system... Read more
U.S. NATO to depart Afghanistan early
President Barack Obama's military advisers plan on the U.S. and its NATO allies ending combat operations in Afghanistan perhaps as soon as mid-2013, a year and a half early. That lays the groundwork for the coalition leaving well before the announced 2014 deadline. The accelerated withdrawal still ... Read more
With Iran, are sanctions working?
There's pain and then there's pain. Getting stung by a bee hurts. Having a Doberman sink his teeth into your thigh is a more intense experience. By the same token, there are sanctions and then there are sanctions. For years, the sanctions imposed on Iran were an irritation, a not-entirely-convinci... Read more
Economic freedom declines in U.S.
Good news! On economic freedom, America is in the global Top 10. Bad news: America is No. 10 -- one blond hair ahead of Denmark. According to the 18th annual Index of Economic Freedom, released Thursday by the Heritage Foundation and the Wall Street Journal, Hong Kong enjoys Earth's freest economy.... Read more
A public appeal to stop privatization
Will the political genius who invented privatization please step forward so those of us who know what a flop it is can haul out our rotten tomatoes and dispose of them accordingly? Thank you! Privatization is a movement now virtually overtaking cash-strapped city, county and state governments. Supp... Read more
Election year brings promises, promises
Newt Gingrich promises that by the end of his second term as president, the United States will have established a permanent "American" colony on the moon. As campaign promises go, this is real pie in the sky. Supposedly, Floridians will be so excited by the prospect of the return of their old NAS... Read more
A formula for war against Iran
Try to imagine our next war. Pardon the fatalism inherent in this suggestion, but nearly all of the 20th century and the first decade of the 21st were dominated by war, and one looks in vain for the slightest sign in our future of no war or even less war. Since nearly all wars are connected to disp... Read more
Trusting Russians on missiles an awful idea
Were there an award for the worst idea produced in Washington in recent days, there would be many worthy competitors, but I think I'd put my money on this one: Granting Russians the power to tell Americans whether we can or cannot shoot down missiles flying toward their intended victims.
Who would even consider such an idea? The Obama Administration -- or so it appears. In response, last week, 39 Republican Senators sent the President a strongly worded letter requesting his assurance, in writing, that he will not give Russia such "red-button" rights. The letter asks for reassurance, as well, that the Administration will not give Russia American missile defense information "including early warning, detection, tracking, targeting, and telemetry data, sensors or common operational picture data, or American hit-to-kill missile defense technology."
Here's how this came about: In recent months, the Obama administration, as part of its policy to "re-set" U.S. relations with Russia, has offered to integrate the Kremlin into both the American and NATO ballistic missile defense systems. Last month, Undersecretary of State for Arms Control and International Security Ellen Tauscher said the Administration is "eager to begin a joint analysis, joint exercises, and sharing of early warning data that could form the basis for a cooperative missile defense system."
This month, Russia's Deputy Prime Minister, Sergei Ivanov, said his government was inclined to favor such cooperation but would "insist on only one thing ... a red button push to start an anti-missile..."
In their letter, the Republican senators, led by Senator Mark Kirk, R-Ill., make this larger point: "No American President should ever allow a foreign nation to dictate when or how the United States defends our country and our allies. In our view, any agreement that would allow Russia to influence the defense of the United States or our allies, to say nothing of a 'red button' or veto, would constitute a failure of leadership."
Kirk also drafted a memo providing "context" for what he fears is the Administration's willingness to reveal to the Kremlin "some of our country's most sensitive technology, collection assets and real-time intelligence."
"Admitting the Russians into the most important and time-sensitive parts of our nation's defense," the memo argues, "is extremely risky and could present a fatal vulnerability. ... Providing Russia any access to US sensitive data would undermine the national security of the United States."
Kirk lists a dozen recent cases of Russian espionage targeting the U.S. and about the same number of instances of Russian collaboration with Iran's efforts to develop ballistic missiles. In addition, as "part of its assistance to Iran in building the Bushehr nuclear reactor, Russia has trained some 1,500 Iranian nuclear engineers..."
So to be clear: Russia is helping Iran develop nuclear weapons and the missiles to deliver them to its enemies -- America, the "Great Satan" tops that list -- while simultaneously "insisting" the U.S. give Russian officials the power to decide whether Americans can defend themselves and their allies from Iranian attacks.
If President Obama sees such ideas as ludicrous, if this is not where he's heading, he should say so. A brief letter would do. At least 39 Senators will be anxiously checking their mailboxes.
One addendum: In 1995, Lowell Wood, a respected astrophysicist involved with the Strategic Defense Initiation and affiliated with the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, proposed a rather different model of international cooperation: "A world-wide missile defense based on space-based interceptors in which each of the sponsoring nations could independently elect to cause the system to block a missile launch coming from anywhere and headed to anywhere, but no nation could defeat or delay operation of the system if another nation had authorized it."
In other words, all the participating nations would have the right to defend themselves -- none would have their finger on a "red button" that would leave a target defenseless. This good idea -- a global anti-missile umbrella -- won no awards at the time. Memo to the President: Why not revive it?
Clifford D. May is president of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, a policy institute focusing on terrorism
