9/1/10: Assemblywoman Jacobs and The Death of New York

Rhoda Jacobs is a Democratic Assistant Speaker of the New York State Assembly representing a district in Brooklyn. She, like many of her colleagues, puts a premium on constituent service. In fact, that is her calling card and her campaign mantra.

In most respects she employs her position to help those in her neighborhood and does so with understandable campaign goals in mind. For Ms. Jacobs governing and campaigns are indistinguishable, a condition she shares with her Assembly brethren.

What Ms. Jacobs does not fully appreciate is that someone has to pay for the services she is eager to promote. Many of her constituents, love the services, but most are in the dark when it comes to determining actual cost. I would guess that Ms. Jacobs, despite her elevated Assembly position, cannot determine cost either. In fact, I’m confident about this assertion.

A recent letter Ms. Jacobs sent to one of her constituents crossed my desk. It says implicitly that the Assemblywoman doesn’t appreciate the tax burden necessary to sustain the government services she is eager to promote and it says explicitly that she will use her office to extend these services.

Let Ms. Jacobs speak for herself since what follows is from her letter:

“My office can provide you and your family with information and assistance on a wide variety of issues including housing, landlord/tenant disputes, unemployment, employment referrals, consumer advocacy, Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, utility services, food stamps, and food pantry information, voter registration and much more. We can also help you apply for benefits for which you might be entitled.”

As Assemblywoman Jacobs notes “Especially during this blessed month (Ramadan), I extend to you the services of my office to help you to resolve issues and problems that may be causing you hardship.”

However, there is a problem, almost everyone has issues and problems causing hardship. Are all who fall into this category eligible for Ms. Jacobs assistance? And if so, who is going to pay the bill? Think about this for a moment and consider the list of services: healthcare, food, lodging, retirement insurance, employment and “much more.” This is a great country, but it was also once a rich country, a matter very much in doubt because of pols like Ms. Jacobs.

Austerity doesn’t get you elected. It is not surprising that the Assemblywoman’s office offers voter registration information. Do you think the person receiving these benefits will vote for Ms. Jacobs opponent? Will she even have an opponent? And if so, will that person explain the dangers of an expansive government in inexorable combat with the private sector? The more government expands to accommodate Ms. Jacobs constituents, the more capital is driven out of the private economy until you have an economy Lady Thatcher once described as “running out of other people’s money.”

Ms. Jacobs may not realize the fact that New York State is insolvent and it is insolvent because legislators continue to spend and offer services the state cannot afford. But if legislators want to act responsibly and engage in retrenchment, their constituents, now addicted to the state welfare system for their very existence, would turn on them. As a consequence, the state system is self fulfilling: Give constituents what they want and they in turn will keep you in office.

But the jig is up. The state is broke. In New York City one percent of the population pays 55 percent of the taxes and that one percent can flee and is fleeing. Florida without a state tax looks more appealing every day. Of course, Ms. Jacobs doesn’t care, her goals are short term. She votes routinely against any budget cuts. As she would note, “I’m merely looking out for my constituents.” Alas, that’s true. She is also like George Washington Plunkett of yesteryear, a believer in “the greatest good for the greatest number. Starting, of course, with number one.” Yes, she must get elected before she can engage in her “good deeds.” A few more years with Ms. Jacobs and her majority colleagues in the Assembly and their job will be to turn out the lights when the last New Yorker gets on I-95 heading south for Florida.

Herbert London is President of the Hudson Institute and author of the bookDecline and Revival in Higher Education (Transaction). London maintains a website, http://www.herblondon.org/.

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8/25/10: The Cliché As Policy

Several weeks ago I attended and participated in a conference devoted to anti-terrorist strategies. MI5 and FBI officials were in attendance as were former terrorists. The meetings were open and reasonably well attended. Yet when it was over, all I could recall was the reliance on clichés as policy recommendations.

One presumptive expert delivered a paper on the “3Es,” education, engagement, enforcement. While I agreed with his sentiment, there was nothing in his paper to which action could be attached. I kept asking myself what is the nature of this education and how effective can it be in opposing theological arguments? Could the relativism and multicultural views that dominate elite circles in the West be converted into logical or emotional instruments to curb terrorism?

Similarly, what does engagement mean? Interfaith seminars that I have attended are based on the premise that those in the Judeo Christian world have an obligation to understand Islam. While that may be necessary, interfaith dialogue, it seems to me, should be reciprocal. I assume that Muslims would want to develop an appreciation of the Judeo Christian traditions as well as the reverse. Yet that condition rarely prevails. If engagement is a one way street, how can it possibly be successful?

Enforcement is yet another cliché that relies on the obvious, but is activated by obfuscation. If terrorists break the law, if they are intent on murder and mayhem, the full weight of the law should be applied. However, legal technicalities often trump common sense. As a consequence, justice is a matter of circumstance and legal wrangling.

It is also the case that President Obama often conflates cliché and policy. Additional insurance for the unemployed, for example, is described as an essential benefit for the needy. How one pays for this benefit or the net effect on the economy are matters rarely disclosed. Perhaps the president doesn’t know, but the barrenness of the commentary is palpable.

On the foreign policy front there is a continuing refrain that smacks of a hackneyed bromide: “We will not tolerate an Iran with nuclear weapons.” Tolerate or not, the Iranian regime has, according to our own intelligence estimates, enough fissionable material to produce several nuclear weapons even though these bombs may not yet be attached to a missile fleet. Of what possible value is this cliché when it doesn’t speak to actual policy and doesn’t conform to current conditions?

That is precisely the problem associated with clichés: they don’t address real policy concerns. They may offer public reassurance; they may even be comforting. But the actual effect, more often than not, is deception.

During the ecological crisis in the Gulf of Mexico charges between the government and British Petroleum were hurled to and fro. When it appeared as if President Obama was negligent or hesitant to act, he responded by noting “I’ve been on top of this matter (the leak) from the outset.” If one were to parse this statement, it becomes apparent it is yet another reflexive cliché. What does it mean to be “on top of the matter”? If the president was in charge, he was unable to provide guidance on how to deal with the issue; if he was “on top” why was there a sixteen day delay before action was taken? Who was responsible for the deception about the amount of oil escaping into the sea?

Clichés can get you into trouble. They may strike a responsive chord, but that doesn’t obviate the ambiguity. Overused expressions have their place in communication, but rarely in policy discussions. The problem, of course, is that politicians reference them because they are convenient, words with familiarity. That the words may not have any meaning or worthwhile application is often lost in the midst of debate and extemporaneous commentary.

For those who listen carefully, identify the tell-tale signs, those gotcha moments. If enough thoughtful listeners could heed the signs, cliché driven policy statements might be infrequently used. I don’t expect them to disappear. After all, they are as familiar as “go along to get along” or “happy as a lark” or “fool me once…” The list goes on as does the way to conceal the policy steps necessary to address an issue.

Herbert London is President of the Hudson Institute and author of the bookDecline and Revival in Higher Education (Transaction). London maintains a website, http://www.herblondon.org/.

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8/18/10: What We Think And The Arabs Believe

In a recent 2010 Arab Public Opinion Poll conducted by Zogby International and the University of Maryland for the Brookings Institution one can get a glimpse of Arab opinion in the so-called moderate countries of Egypt, Lebanon, Morocco, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates.

Included in the findings are the following points:

• Arab views hopeful about the Obama administration policy in the Middle East declined from 51 to 16 percent between 2009 and 2010, while those discouraged rose from 15 to 63 percent,
• Those thinking Israel is a huge threat is at 88 percent (down slightly from 95 percent in 2008)
• The idea that the United States is the main threat to Arab countries and societies declined from 88 percent under President George W. Bush to 77 percent under President Obama
• The Iranian threat grew from 7 percent in 2008 to 13 percent in 2009 and down to 10 percent in 2010.
• Asked which foreign leader is most admired, almost 70 percent name an Islamist or a supporter of extremist forces. Turkish Prime Minister Recep Erdogan received endorsement from 20 percent, Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez 13 percent, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad 12 percent, Hezballah’s Hassan Naarallah 9 percent, Syrian President Bahar al Assad 7 percent and Osama bin Laden 6 percent.

Herbert London is President of the Hudson Institute and author of the bookDecline and Revival in Higher Education (Transaction). London maintains a website, http://www.herblondon.org/.

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8/11/10: Thought Control At Augusta State University

It often seems as if political correctness hasn’t any boundaries. Recently an Augusta State University counseling student filed a lawsuit against her university claiming it violated her First Amendment rights when she was allegedly told to change her traditional Christian views on homosexuality or leave.

The Alliance Defense Fund (ADF) filed suit on behalf of Jennifer Keaton seeking to prevent the expulsion from her master’s degree program.

According to David French, the ADF attorney representing Keaton, “They (college officials) made a cascading series of presumptions about the kind of a counselor she would be and have consequently… tried to force her to change her beliefs. It’s symbolic of an educational system that has lost its way.”

The suit claims that program officials were upset that Ms. Keaton stated her belief that homosexuality is a lifestyle choice and not a “state of living.” According to the suit, the university wants her to undergo “thought reform” intended to alter her perception. Most significantly, she faces expulsion unless she complies.

To exacerbate matters within the department, Ms. Keaton argued the “conversion therapy” for homosexuals should be entertained, a point of view that departed significantly from accepted norms within the program and according to program officials, from “psychological research.” It is noteworthy that the National Association for Research and Therapy of Homosexuality (NARTH) defends the practice Keaton advocates and notes opponents of conversion therapy are often criticized by politically motivated biases, albeit, in fairness, the reverse accusation might also be made.

The Augusta State University counseling program required Ms. Keaton to attend at least three pro-gay sensitivity training courses, read pro-gay peer reviewed journals and participate in Augusta’s gay pride parade. She was also asked to familiarize herself with the Association of Lesbian Gay Bisexual and Transgender Issues in “Counseling” webpage, which defines homosexual behavior as healthy and an appropriate way of life. In addition, her professors required “a two page reflection” each month on how her participation in pro-gay activities “has influenced her beliefs” and how future clients might benefit from her experience.

Without getting into the merits of the case and the claims in the lawsuit, it seems to me that if even a portion of the allegation is accurate the Augusta counseling program is engaged in a form of thought control that hasn’t any place in the Academy. As I see it, if there are diametrically different positions on the nature – nurture argument regarding homosexuality both points of view – with empirical evidence marshaled for each side – should be entertained and given a fair hearing. It is not as if one position is dispositive, notwithstanding the position taken by the counseling program.

In far too many instances a university orthodoxy is confused with the rational exegesis of an idea. Proponents of the orthodoxy act as if they are the American version of the Red Guard, incapable of even giving a fair hearing to an alternative point of view; in fact, often going to the extreme of requiring a reeducation program.

Here is the rub: university life predicated on the free and open exchange of opinion has often become a filtering mechanism for politically correct ideas. Those who do not share this view are chastised or, in Ms. Keaton’s case, put through a thought control exercise.

It is interesting that Ms. Keaton’s religiously based view of homosexuality is disregarded, even though one could argue her First Amendment rights are being violated. In the way the university is constituted today, some designated groups have more rights than others. You don’t need a program to know which groups fall into that category; the university catalogue is likely to offer that information.

Herbert London is President of the Hudson Institute and author of the bookDecline and Revival in Higher Education (Transaction). London maintains a website, http://www.herblondon.org/.

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8/4/10: The Mosque On Sacred Ground

September 11 lives for downtown residents of New York. The World Trade Center site is a constant reminder of human malevolence. It also speaks to political incompetence, of politicians compromised by double dealing and arrogance.

While the site shows signs of rebirth and a tribute will be built to remind Americans of the 2800 innocent people who lost their lives one crystal clear morning in September, an insult deep and penetrating is being launched two blocks away on Park Place with the building of a mosque that will overlook the World Trade Center site.

Mayor Bloomberg and the Downtown Community Board (by a vote of 29 to 1) approved of this religious center citing freedom of religion arguments. What they overlook, however, is far more persuasive then First Amendment defenses.

Freedom of religion like any freedom is not absolute; freedom is defined by limitations. Indians are not free to use peyote indiscriminately in religious services since drug use violates the law of the land. And religion that promotes hate or is an incitement to violence should be and can be curbed.

In the case of the downtown mosque several questions remain unanswered. If a mosque can be built anywhere, why is it being constructed adjacent to the former World Trade Center? Although denials abound, the title of the mosque, Cordoba House reveals a great deal. In Cordoba, Muslims built a mosque on a Catholic church as a symbol of their triumph in Spain. That symbolism may be evident at the New York site as well.

It is also instructive that the provenance of the $100 million for the project remains unknown. My guess – based on many global examples – is that Saudi petro dollars are behind the underwriting. If true, this mosque is likely to promote Wahhabist beliefs – the most radical brand of Islam.

The promoters of the mosque contend they are Americans who love their country and eschew violence of any kind. Yet they refuse to condemn Hamas and refuse to recognize it as a terrorist organization.

What this episode demonstrates is a form of liberal myopia, an unwillingness to recognize the optics in this situation. For Muslims around the world who deplore the West, specifically the “Great U.S. Demon,” this mosque is the symbol of victory. It shows that America doesn’t have the intestinal fortitude to resist its enemies. It is as if a Shinto temple were to be constructed at the Arizona Memorial or a Nazi cultural center were built at Auschwitz. There are lines to be drawn on the matter of taste, patriotism and appropriateness that transcend reflexive adherence to the First Amendment.

As far as I know, no one is arguing against the construction of mosques albeit when a religion promotes hate against other faiths, believes apostates and other believers are less than human, argues against the separation of church and state, and is eager to undermine the Constitution, an argument can be made that this religion engages in sedition and should be banned or, at least, censured.

At this point, the pols have spoken. The mosque most likely will be built. But for those of us who reside downtown that building will not be an expression of tolerance, but rather a wound on the city and the nation. It will represent despair; it will serve as a permanent insult to those New Yorkers who lost their lives a decade ago.

In the midst of sacred territory there will be a constant reminder that those who despise our way of life and everything this republic stands for can use our hard fought liberties to desecrate this land. No matter what Bloomberg says, this is what New Yorkers will be reminded of whenever they pass the mosque on Park Place. As significantly, this is also what radical Muslims will see whenever television cameras pan to this religious edifice. What a shame; alas, what a disgrace.

Herbert London is President of the Hudson Institute and author of the bookDecline and Revival in Higher Education (Transaction). London maintains a website, http://www.herblondon.org/.

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7/28/10: The Arts In The Obama Age

From the origin of the National Endowment for the Arts during the Johnson administration to the election of President Obama the arts community was united in its opposition to censorship. The argument that prevailed is that the NEA should not use funding to restrict artistic expression or deny support for art that might offend bourgeois sensibility.

When a significant segment of the public was outraged to learn that the NEA provided funding for Andres Serrano’s “Piss Christ,” the arts community rose as one decrying censorship over efforts to cut funding for his “art.” The arts community was equally upset at the suggestion that government policymakers might influence the content of its art work. As the arts’ world sees it, the government should pay, but should remain silent about artistic content.

During the George H.W. Bush administration the NEA required grant recipients to sign an anti-obscenity pledge, which sparked a spate of angry comments from the arts community and a generally hostile stance to President Bush.

Now, however, the worm has turned. The NEA under President Obama has expressed a desire to use the agency as a propaganda instrument to promote the administration positions. And astonishingly, the arts world seems all too amendable to political advocacy as part and parcel of its work.

Patrick Courrielche, a film-maker, exposed an Obama administration attempt to use the NEA to build support for the president’s agenda. At a White House meeting artists were encouraged to promote arts activities that “can be used for a positive change.” That, of course, translates into advocacy for presidential policies in healthcare, environment and energy, education, and community service. As Buffy Wicks, deputy director of the White House Office of Public Engagement, noted, “We’re going to come at you with some specific ‘asks’ here.”

One might have assumed that the “asks” to the artistic community would lead to public outrage. After all, the fiercely independent artists are being told that promoting the president’s agenda might result in NEA grants. In fact, it appears that tax payer money is being employed to enlist artists in a promotional campaign for the president. It is hard to imagine what kind of journalistic explosion would have occurred if the erstwhile Bush administration tried anything like this.

NEA funding has always been controversial since there are critics – I count myself among them – who believe the government should not be funding the arts at all. To avoid controversy that emerged from Serrano’s work and Robert Mapplethorpe’s homoerotic photography, the NEA allocated funds to state and local arts agencies where there was somewhat less chance controversial decisions world emerge.

But that is changing with the Obama team. The Stimulus Package, for example, includes an additional $50 million for the arts, presumably to maintain employment in this field. The DC Examiner, however, points out that seven of the groups receiving this NEA funding had representatives on the Obama campaign’s Arts Policy Committee.

In what seems like the very distant past, the NEA explained that it could not interfere with the artworks of those who received grants from the agency. Dana Gioia, former NEA chairman, wrote “the NEA does not dictate arts policy to the United States.”

Of course, under President Obama that is precisely what it does. Is a culture czar far fetched, one who assures us that the arts are needed to enhance presidential actions? Is the Obama team setting the stage for its own Leni Reifenshtal? Where are the artists who celebrate their adversarial role?

Oprah Winfrey recently produced a video urging Americans to take a “presidential pledge” by volunteering “to make a difference.” The lead singer of the Red Hot Chili Peppers says, “I pledge to be of service to Barack Obama.”

Where is artistic defiance when you need it? The comments by the arts community are dripping with hypocrisy. Artistic expression in the Obama era appears to be little more than a compliant political instrument. 1984 may be a quarter of a century in the past, but the sentiments in this book indicate it is back to the future as Obama pays artists to propagandize on his behalf. It is hard to believe this is happening in the United States with the willing acceptance of the artistic community, but there you have it. The ghost of Hermann Goring lives in this Obama White House.

Herbert London is President of the Hudson Institute and author of the bookDecline and Revival in Higher Education (Transaction). London maintains a website, http://www.herblondon.org/.

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7/21/10: The Common Man and Common Sense

If there was one overarching goal of the Marxist project, it was refashioning human nature. Whether religion or politics, the Marxists argued that an obsession with God and a belief in national identity had to be challenged and defeated.

An ideology based on the common man ultimately had little confidence in his beliefs. Marxists maintained they were endowed with an understanding others didn’t possess. While Marxism is dead; this distaste for the opinion of the common man persists.

Instead of Marxism, it now takes the form of expert opinion or what I would call the fraternity of experts who are eager to regulate human behavior. These are the new progressives, many of them former Marxists and many who believe that American patriotism should be subordinated to transnational loyalty. Some call these people liberal internationalists who rely on U.N. prerogatives and other international bodies for guidance.

On the home front this fraternity of experts has answers for everything that ails us. If health care is a problem, the experts contend a government engineered system must be put in place, rather than rely on the aggregate intentions of the marketplace.

Similarly, if global warming is a problem – a somewhat contentious point – government regulations should be imposed through a “limited carbon footprint” rather than rely on educated impulses to deliver restraint. The expert always believes public choices are ignorant and therefore decisions must be imposed.

Yet another recent example is the government imposed minimum wage. It is not enough to argue that the market, which is the combined wisdom of the consumer, is sufficient to determine wages. The experts know better; they actually think they can determine the point at which wages meet labor needs.

Of course the United States is not alone in producing members of the expert fraternity. The French are expert at soi disant experts. And the European Union is the exemplar of expert opinion so confident in its assertions that it seeks to regulate everything from truck tonnage to the size of lawn mowers. Moreover, the Union intends to eliminate national loyalty through the imposition of a transnational entity which does not represent the will of the people, but rather the experts (read: bureaucrats) residing in Brussels.

It is instructive that from the ashes of Marxism has emerged a class of elitists not unlike the former members of the Soviet Communist party. They knew what was best for the citizens of Russia and the expert fraternity knows what’s best for us.

Former Democratic candidate for president John Edwards liked to lecture about two Americas, the privileged and the poor. But this quasi-Marxist theme does not describe the real two Americas: one, managed by experts who believe they possess superior knowledge that translates into engineered regulations and the second, the accumulated wisdom of common sense embodied in the common man.

How can elites demonstrate their “superior” wisdom if they are restrained? How can experts flaunt their expertise if their plans for us are rejected?

As I see it, the expert fraternity should be treated with suspicion. The very fact that it distrusts the common man should be cause to distrust it. So when the new big idea emerges from the tombs of government, beware. The expert who wants to regulate distrusts you and your ability to decide anything for yourself. Directly related to the common man is common sense. Although the phrase “common sense” is used reflexively without any real consideration of its etymology, it is the expression of common--generally held-—customs, traditions and manners, the backbone of society.

In this society, common sense refers to conduct grounded in sound judgment, free of emotion and ideological passion. The salutary effects of a thought process rooted in the national patrimony makes “common sense” a basic tenet of American life. To the extent common sense is in short supply, the bonds to the past are being loosened, if not severed.

An attachment to common sense is like belief in common law—the unwritten, customary norms that evolve over centuries—the countervailing force against political and social convulsions, the balance wheel in society.

For most of American history political ideas were evaluated on a common sense barometer. However lofty the ideas, they were invariably tested against the common sense standard. It is, therefore, not surprising that common sense has served as a magnificent bulwark against revolution and until very recently revolutionary zeal of the kind that periodically afflicts France has not been a factor in American politics.

In thinking about the future it is imperative that common sense embodying the national tradition be retained as a guidepost for generations to come. If the cultural continuum is interrupted, society pays dearly in the form of moral confusion. Common sense is an instrument for preserving and promoting the moral principles on which the nation is founded. But it is not a goal in its own right.

Common sense is the north star of social intercourse; it is not however, the constellation of stars that comprise moral sentiment and religious tradition. Common sense is a necessary but not sufficient condition for social order, a point made by George Washington in his Farewell Address.

A danger within our democratic republic is that citizens often believe that freedom of choice can be interpreted as complete freedom of action, that any act not condemned is thereby sanctioned. It is the combination of common sense along with moral beliefs rooted in religion that represents a counter weight to the natural temptation for expansive freedom as license.

Reason is not omniscient. The edifice of social order is built on a foundation of commonly accepted moral principles, Descartes to the contrary notwithstanding.

If one accepts that human nature tends toward evil—what further evidence from history is needed to demonstrate this premise—an emphasis on custom, accepted rules, tradition, and family are the moderating influences that create social equilibrium.

An ability to distinguish between good and evil—the hallmark of education for Thomas Jefferson—assumes an ability to apply common sense and moral judgment. But in a complex world of moral relativism and a natural inclination for ever expanding freedom of expression, there is a social tension between consciousness and conscience. Mankind has the ability to make choices which is both an opportunity for reaching new horizons and a pitfall leading to degradation.

The book of Proverbs maintains “when there is no vision, a people perish,” but that vision must be framed by morality, common sense and traditional norms. National spirit may soar, but it helps if the citizen’s view is planted firmly in the soil of experience, experience that is handed down from parent to child, from teacher to student as common sense.

Existentialists in our midst often fail to appreciate the experience of the past. They search in vain for a tabula rasa on which to imprint utopian goals. For them, history is merely a dream from which they will awaken. Fortunately for the nation, this position is restricted to universities and other warrens of received wisdom.

Common sense is being challenged today, but it is not easily expunged. Like folkways, it exists in stories told to children and the guidance offered by parents.

The United States has the capability and responsibility to preserve and transmit the moral principles that gave this new nation vitality by leading the individual and the public through the thickets of moral confusion and serving as a barrier against descent into the abyss.

This is not easily done, but with a subtle hand, conviction in our legacy and the application of common sense, the past can be a handmaiden of an exalted future vision.

Herbert London is President of the Hudson Institute and a Professor Emeritus at NYU. He is the author of Decade of Denial (Lanham, Maryland: Lexington Books, 2001). London maintains a website, http://www.herblondon.org/.

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7/14/10: Oliver Stone and Hugo Chavez

In what can only be considered the view of a misguided dupe Oliver Stone has released his pro-Hugo Chavez film, “South of the Border.” The Socialist International (SI), not exactly the precinct of Milton Friedman, reports that the oil-rich Chavez is suppressing dissent, interfering with press freedom, mismanaging the economy and destabilizing the region.

One might assume that SI would defend the Venezuelan ruler, but instead this organization argues Chavez is hurting the very poor people he has vowed to represent. Chavez does have his American supporters, e.g. Mark Floyd at the F.C.C., and Mark Weisbrot of the Soros supported Center for Economic and Policy Studies. None, however, are as devoted to Chavez as Stone.

Stone has directed a festschrift that has only a passing relationship to the truth. He relies on the husband of a Chavez government employee who misrepresents many of the facts surrounding the Chavez government. Stone neglects to point out the 30 percent inflation rate, the highest on the continent, or the deepening recession brought about by his incompetent management. Chavez has even abandoned thousands of tons of food in shipping containers despite widespread food scarcity. Most noteworthy is the suppression of dissent and the intimidation of minorities such as the centuries old Jewish community.

Caracas is characterized by a climate of insecurity and fear, conditions that Stone has chosen to ignore. Chavez has subverted democratic procedures while seizing control of the oil industry, electrical production, steel and construction industries, agriculture, telecommunications and banking. He exercises his power through the take-over of private businesses and manipulation of the election laws, unaffected by modulated criticism. On the foreign policy front Chavez is just as confrontational. He has been a leading supporter of FARC, the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia and has signed several pacts for the exchange of military material with Iran. At an event for Syrian president Bashar al Assad, Chavez denounced Israel as a genocidal government that is “a common enemy,” a murderous arm of the Yankee empire. Statements of this kind and continual harassment forced the head of the Jewish community, Rabbi Brenner, to leave Venezuela.

Yet despite the evidence and the arguments of eyewitnesses, Stone and his collaborator Mark Weisbrot, who co-wrote the screenplay, insist the charges against Chavez are “nonsense.” They contend that U.S. media have unfairly depicted Chavez as a dictator; oligarch and friend of terrorists, even through Chavez himself defended ties to FARC and military agreements with Iran.

Asked by the New York Times to explain factual inconsistencies in the film and the failure to acknowledge fair criticism of Chavez’s human rights record, Tariq Ali, another script writer, said, “It’s hardly a secret that we support the other side. It’s an opinionated documentary.” Of course, he could have said it’s a propaganda vehicle designed to sanitize the actions of the dictatorial Chavez regime.

This new Stone feature comes on the heels of Stone’s usual anti-American refrain in film after film. According to Stone Wall Street is filled with amoral, greedy entrepreneurs, the CIA plotted to kill JFK and, the U.S. deserves to be defeated in war. Never mind that Stone has enjoyed wealth beyond the imagination of Croesus, undeserved fame and status for his obsessive conspiracy theories. He is an exemplar of a new breed: the critic who achieves fame and fortune for attacking the government that affords him freedom to attack.

If Stone were ever successful in achieving his goals, he would put himself in the position of irrelevance. It is a good thing for him that America remains resilient. If that weren’t the case, Stone would soon be out of work.

Herbert London is president of the Hudson Institute and the author of the newly published book Decline and Revival in Higher Education.

Herbert London is President of the Hudson Institute and a Professor Emeritus at NYU. He is the author of Decade of Denial (Lanham, Maryland: Lexington Books, 2001). London maintains a website, http://www.herblondon.org/.

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7/7/10: The Wild Turkish Card

The arrival of the USS Harry Truman Strike Group in the Persian Gulf and the Arabian Sea and its war games with France and Israel, as well as reinforcements for American forces in Azerbajan (on the Iran border) could be mere saber rattling or a prelude to an attack on Iran’s nuclear facilities. Whatever the motive, it is also clear that Turkey, as a NATO member, has access to a wide array of American military technology that could reveal our aims to adversaries in the Middle East. With a dramatic shift in its political orientation and increasingly close ties to Hamas, Hezbollah, and Iran, Turkey has the potential to cause great damage to American regional interests and even forestall possible military action.

Yet the Obama administration has shown little interest in the radical reorientation with Turkey and its relationship to NATO according to a JINSA (Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs) report. The recent arrest of past and present military figures who are defenders of secularism should have promoted comment from the White House. Instead, there has been conspicuous silence. Similarly, the Turkish role with the Gaza flotilla and the inflammatory rhetoric that emanated from the Turkish corridors of power received very little attention from the State Department.

Clearly the Obama team does not want to jeopardize its alliance with Turkey, but it is also clear that Turkish intelligence services are working overtime to separate the military from Israel and former western allies. From the U.S. perspective, a key concern is whether these moves lead to the sharing of information with our enemies, information that could undermine any action against Iran, Syria, Hamas, and Hezbollah.

It should be noted that Turkey has the third largest air force in NATO with 230 F-16s. It has several refueling tankers, four AWACs to direct air battles and a navy with diesel submarines, and amphibious capability. Moreover, the United States has not taken any steps to reduce or eliminate the flow of military technology or systems to Turkey. On the contrary, because Turkey has a small contingent in Afghanistan, the U.S. regards this commitment as critical to its counterinsurgency program. But this commitment comes with serious risks. Turkey’s growing closeness to Iran could complicate Afghanistan’s future, particularly if ideological collaboration trumps all other strategic concerns.

That the U.S. appears to be dithering as Turkey moves away from its former friends is alarming to other nations in the region. It also foreshadows a U.S. withdrawal from the Middle East. General McChrystal argued that in his meetings with President Obama, the president seemed disengaged and uninterested. It may be that this too was sign of America’s emotional as well as physical disengagement from the region.

If that is true – and there is little reason to doubt it – it augurs for a dangerous period. A political vacuum is always filled. Iran is the emerging “strong horse” in this neighborhood and everyone from Maliki to Erdogan realize as much.

Can the U.S. recapture its influence after displaying a lack of interest? Will it allow Turkey to use its strategic association with NATO in order to advantage Iran? Will Turkey interfere directly or indirectly to thwart any military operation against Iran’s nuclear facilities? These questions are not answerable at this time, but in the answers rest the fate of the Middle East and perhaps the world. As the French poet Charles Pegury noted: “Everything starts in mystery and ends in politics.”

Herbert London is President of the Hudson Institute and a Professor Emeritus at NYU. He is the author of Decade of Denial (Lanham, Maryland: Lexington Books, 2001). London maintains a website, http://www.herblondon.org/.

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6/30/10: Death of A State

The sound you hear on Wall Street at noon isn’t bells chiming, but rather the death knell for New York State. The once proud Empire State that was the engine for capital investment across the country is gasping for breath. Wall Street, that paid the state’s bills, is a shell of its former self. A combination of the 9/11 attack and a credit meltdown have left Wall Street a different and less vital place. Goodbye Lehman Brothers, Bear Stearns, Merrill Lynch. Yes, this is a different place.

Upstate is no better, perhaps worse. The only economic activity in cities like Elmira can be found in state run hospitals and prisons. The citizens of these towns are ostensibly wards of the state. Taxpayer levies keep these towns afloat since there isn’t any sign of private enterprise.

That is an understandable condition wrought by extortionate taxes and onerous regulation which strangulate wealth creation. I have yet to meet a young entrepreneur who in assessing investment opportunities decides to put his capital in New York. With the capital gains rate near the highest in the country, you cannot afford to invest in New York, live in New York or die in New York.

What you can do is use the political system for personal advantage. Sheldon Silver, leader of the Democratic led Assembly or Al D’Amato, former Senator and registered state lobbyist, have milked the system for personal gain and advantage. If you wish to promote the interest of a municipal union, you see Silver. If you want a state construction contract, you see D’Amato. Both men have become enormously wealthy feeding at the public trough. Of course, they aren’t alone, the nomenklatura in Albany have an array of ties to law firms, accounting organizations, construction companies, consultants, etc.

The recent scandal involving a gambling casino in Aqueduct Race Track is merely the tip of the proverbial corruption iceberg. There is scarcely a political figure in the state capital who is unblemished by sub rosa deals. Mr. and Mrs. John Q. Public shake their heads in despair, but there is little they can do about it.

A political force of enormous power has emerged based on municipal employees. Between New York City and New York State there are approximately 625,000 public service employees. Assume that there is at least one other voting member in their families (a conservative estimate) the 1,250,000 means in effect, that this voting bloc controls two-thirds of an election since it is estimated that two million votes are needed for a statewide position. This bloc invariably votes for the party or candidates that will extend public benefits and raise taxes. The reality in New York is that the extension of public expenditures has driven private capital out of the state or out of existence. And while it is assumed the Democratic party is culpable of fiscal irresponsibility, a claim that is clearly justified, the Republicans under Governor George Pataki and the majority in the State Senate have been as irresponsible.

Surely if the next governor decides to take on the municipal unions and the lavish pension system and follows a fiscal program outlined by E.J. McMahon among others, the state may be on track for solvency. But I wouldn’t place a bet on that scenario. Financing the debt accounts for a substantial portion of the annual budget. Reducing state jobs would exacerbate the economic environment in areas already suffering from blight and joblessness. And political reality makes it unlikely anyone outside of New Jersey Governor Christie will attack union benefits.

New York State government has for decades engaged in a seduction of its residents until almost everyone is sucking on the public breast. Medicaid sustains grandma in a nursing home. The state version of the Community Reinvestment Act allows workers with modest assets to buy homes they can ill afford. The State health plan relieved small business owners from the burden of providing healthcare for their employees. Johnny and Mary attend public institutions of higher learning where tuition is a fraction of what it would be at private universities like Columbia or NYU. The list goes on until everyone is touched by the long arm of government even when they don’t realize it.

There is no doubt New York State has extraordinary assets: an educated workforce, potable water, cheap hydro-electric power, magnificent scenery. But these assets have been surpassed by manipulative leadership, profligate spending, and the appeasement of municipal union demands.

As I see it the once magnificent Empire State is now the Vampire State with the Albany government sucking the blood of working men and women who are trying to eke out a living. It is not surprising that the average municipal worker with salary and benefits has an income of $97 thousand dollars and he is being supported by a worker in the private sector with an income at $51 thousand.

This is not a sustainable arrangement which, as I see it, explains, in large part, why the death rattle is heard around the state.

Herbert London is President of the Hudson Institute and a Professor Emeritus at NYU. He is the author of Decade of Denial (Lanham, Maryland: Lexington Books, 2001). London maintains a website, http://www.herblondon.org/.

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6/23/10: The Coming Crisis In The Middle East

The gathering storm in the Middle East is gaining momentum. War clouds are on the horizon and like conditions prior to World War I all it takes for explosive action to commence is a trigger.

Turkey’s provocative flotilla often described in Orwellian terms as a humanitarian mission has set in motion a flurry of diplomatic activity, but if the Iranians send escort vessels for the next round of Turkish ships, it could present a casus belli.

It is also instructive that Syria is playing a dangerous game with both missile deployment and rearming Hezbollah. According to most public accounts Hezbollah is sitting on 40,000 long, medium and short range missiles and Syrian territory has served as a conduit for military material from Iran since the end of the 2006 Lebanon War.

Should Syria move its own scuds to Lebanon or deploy its troops as reinforcement for Hezbollah, a wider regional war with Israel could not be contained.

In the backdrop is an Iran with sufficient fissionable material to produce a couple of nuclear weapons. It will take some time to weaponize missiles, but the road to that goal is synchronized in green lights since neither diplomacy nor diluted sanctions can convince Iran to change course.

Iran is poised to be the hegemon in the Middle East. It is increasingly considered the “strong horse” as American forces incrementally retreat from the region. Even Iraq, ironically, may depend on Iranian ties in order to maintain internal stability. From Qatar to Afghanistan all political eyes are on Iran.

For Sunni nations like Egypt and Saudi Arabia regional strategic vision is a combination of deal making to offset the Iranian Shia advantage and attempting to buy or develop nuclear weapons as a counter weight to Iranian ambition. However, both of these governments are in a precarious state. Should either fall, all bets are off in the Middle East neighborhood. It has long been said that the Sunni “tent” must stand on two legs, if one, falls, the tent collapses.

Should that tent collapse and should Iran take advantage of that calamity, it could incite a Sunni-Shia war. Or feeling its oats and no longer dissuaded by an escalation scenario with nuclear weapons in tow, war against Israel is a distinct possibility. However, implausible it may seem at the moment, the possible annihilation of Israel and the prospect of a second holocaust could lead to a nuclear exchange.

The only wild card that can change this slide into warfare is an active United States’ policy. Yet curiously, the U.S. is engaged in both an emotional and physical retreat from the region. Despite rhetoric which suggests an Iran with nuclear weapons is intolerable, it has done nothing to forestall that eventual outcome. Despite the investment in blood and treasure to allow a stable government to emerge in Iraq, the anticipated withdrawal of U.S. forces has prompted President Maliki to travel to Tehran on a regular basis. And despite historic links to Israel that gave the U.S. leverage in the region and a democratic ally, the Obama administration treats Israel as a national security albatross that must be disposed of as soon as possible.

As a consequence, the U.S. is perceived in the region as the “weak horse,” the one that is dangerous to ride. In every Middle East capital the words “unreliable and United States” are linked. Those seeking a moderate course of action are now in a distinct minority. A political vacuum is emerging, one that is not sustainable and one the Iranian leadership looks to with imperial exhilaration.

It is no longer a question of whether war will occur, but rather when it will occur and where it will break out. There are many triggers to ignite the explosion, but not many scenarios for containment. Could it be a regional war in which Egypt and Saudi Arabia watch from the sidelines, but secretly wish for Israeli victory? Or is this a war in which there aren’t victors, only devastation? Moreover, should war break out, what does the U.S. do?

This is a description far more dire than any in the last century and, even if some believe my view is overly pessimistic, Arab and Jew, Persian and Egyptian, Muslim and Maronite tend to believe in its veracity. That is a truly bad sign.

Herbert London is President of the Hudson Institute and a Professor Emeritus at NYU. He is the author of Decade of Denial (Lanham, Maryland: Lexington Books, 2001). London maintains a website, http://www.herblondon.org/.

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6/9/10: Doctors Who Compromise With Islam

In a policy shift that smacks of appeasement, the American Academy of Pediatrics suggested American doctors should be given permission to perform a ceremonial pinprick on girls from Muslim culture in order to keep their families from imposing full circumcision, cliterdectomies.

The academy’s committee on bioethics justified this stance by noting federal law “makes criminal any nonmedical procedure performed on the genitals” of a girl in the United States, thereby driving some families to take their daughters overseas to undergo mutilation. Presumably the ritual “nick” is a compromise to avoid greater harm.

But whatever the intention, this policy shift vouchsafes legitimacy to a practice that should not be permitted. How much bloodletting will satisfy parents? And at what point do compromises end?

If Muslim countries allow wife beating and slavery do we allow a little of these practices in the United States in order to avoid more extreme examples? Perhaps a punch or two would be acceptable.

The argument that saying the practice is wrong, unacceptable and barbaric indicates “insensitivity” to another culture. But as I see it there are humane considerations which transcend cultural practice and that should be honored everywhere.

Currently 130 million females worldwide have undergone genital mutilation according to the American Congress of Obstetricians and Gynecologists. It is mostly performed on girls under the age of 15. Very often this procedure results in severe complications with pregnancy and sexual dysfunction.

Where are the feminists? It seems to me if there were ever an issue that brings them to the barricades, this is it. Moreover, a compromise that legitimates even the recognition of this monstrous practice should be seen for what it is, the thin edge of the wedge that will allow for other barbaric acts.

On a larger front this decision by pediatricians reveals a sentiment widespread in Europe and now gaining traction in the United States: a desire to avoid conflict through preemptive compromises. Since intimidation is a backstage theme, Western nations prefer conciliation to violence, even if it means undermining the fabric of society. That explains why British and Danish representatives, have discussed acknowledging sharia in legal matters. Of course, reconciliation isn’t possible since sharia is not capable of accommodating common law and Constitutional principles. For Muslims, it is all or nothing and, since they recognize the vulnerability of Western institutions, it is more “all” than “nothing.”

That an intelligent group of doctors do not recognize the implications in their action is truly puzzling. But then again, so many are blinded by fear and hope a “modest” measure of compromise will satisfy the demanding voices. Rarely, of course, does reciprocity enter the equation. What is good for the goose, should be good for the gander. Unfortunately that is not the way Islam is treated in most Western capitals.

This is not the end of this cultural tale; there are and will be further compromises I submit and from many surprising sources. Where this is leading is frighteningly clear: the incremental adjustment in Western standards will lead ultimately to civilizational change, unless a cataclysm awakens Western societies to the imperial reality of extremist Islamic sentiment.

Herbert London is President of the Hudson Institute and a Professor Emeritus at NYU. He is the author of Decade of Denial (Lanham, Maryland: Lexington Books, 2001). London maintains a website, http://www.herblondon.org/.

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6/2/10: The Road To Armageddon

The road map to Armageddon has been established. Recently the Obama administration gave Moscow two concessions that in my judgment could have alarming influence on the course of current history: lifting sanctions against the Russian military complex and agreeing not to ban the sale of advanced anti-aircraft batteries to Iran.

Presumably these concessions were given as “carrots” after Russia agreed to a package of United Nations’ sanctions against Iran. While the U.N. resolution bans weapons sales to Tehran, it would not prohibit Moscow from completing the sale of S-300 anti-aircraft missiles, a contract that was suspended due to pressure from the U.S. and Israel, but not cancelled. This sophisticated defensive system complicates any military option against Iran’s nuclear facilities.

These concessions are the latest moves by President Obama to bolster U.S.-Russian relations and might be considered an adjunct to the Start agreement on nuclear delivery systems. However, administration spokesmen said this understanding was not a quid pro quo for Russian acceptance of sanctions, a denial that seems inconsistent with the timing of the decision.

Most significantly, the concessions are “premature and unwarranted” according to David Kramer, a former State Department official. A Russian transfer of the anti-missile system is far more significant by any standard than the resolution of sanctions. John Bolton, former acting Ambassador to the United Nations, argued that the Russians got the upper hand. They sensed desperation on the Obama team and “extracted all that the traffic would bear.”

If the Russians do deliver the S-300 missiles – now that the U.S. has granted a green light – Israel will be placed in an untenable position. Either Israel attacks before the system is employed or it is obliged to consider logistical complications and more losses than anticipated in any raid. For months Israeli diplomats have been shuttling to Moscow in an effort to prevent deployment. Now the U.S. – its presumptive ally – has undermined, perhaps thwarted, the Israeli military option.

What this U.S. decision suggests is that the U.S. will do whatever is necessary to secure Russian assistance on sanctions even if it means subverting Israeli military options. However, if past history is any guide and if the Turkey – Brazil initiative on Iranian nuclear refinement is taken seriously, sanctions emanating from the Security Council - even with Russian acquiescence – aren’t likely to have any effect. It would appear that U.S. diplomacy on this matter has failed with the concessions to Russia as a kind of “hail Mary” pass into the end zone.

An objective reading of this scenario indicates U.S. weakness on every level. The Iranian aren’t the least bit perturbed by the prospect of sanctions because they know once the Chinese get their hands on the final document, “teeth” will be removed. The Brazilians and Turks aren’t worried about their effort to out-maneuver U.S. diplomacy because the Obama administration has neither the stomach nor the will to punish them.

The only casualty is Israel, an ally the Obama team has consistently repudiated or attempted to weaken. Now the ball is in the Israeli court and while the consequence of war is horrific, the failure of U.S. diplomacy has left Israel without an alternative. Facing an existential threat now exacerbated by the likely deployment of the S-300 system, the timetable for attack has probably been accelerated.

For those who thought the world would be more peaceful after Obama was elected, look again. War clouds are gathering as diplomats dither. Alliances are made with concessions; the other side of these transactions gives very little and gets a lot. And our enemies are bemused by the apparent weakness of the United States and its continued retreat from the realities of global events.

Herbert London is President of the Hudson Institute and a Professor Emeritus at NYU. He is the author of Decade of Denial (Lanham, Maryland: Lexington Books, 2001). London maintains a website, http://www.herblondon.org/.

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5/26/10: Austrian Complacency and The Movement for Sharia

Vienna is a city bursting with history. The sounds of Mozart pulsate in the streets. Tourists abound. Apple strudel and local sausage are unparalled. The Vienna of jack boots and swastikas is a distant memory. Even the Vienna as a sanctuary for escapees from communism is long forgotten. On the surface, the contemporary Vienna is prosperous, peaceful and civilized.

But there is another Vienna percolating beneath the surface, a dark threatening presence that has the potential to undo the tranquility Austrians have come to accept as the norm. This is the Austrian version of banlieus, the areas populated by Muslims, mostly Turkish Muslims. In these areas, crime is on the rise, resentment is palpable and building facades are marred with graffiti.

Most significantly, the average person refuses to recognize the potential problem these communities represent. If one is audacious enough to point out the dangers, the specter of Islamophobia or racism is raised as a chilling censor. It is instructive that defenders of Enlightenment ideas such as individual rights, property rights and the rule of law are castigated as right wing fanatics when they insist on applying these principles to Muslim minorities.

So preoccupied are establishment figures with maintaining the peace or, at least, the Austrian form of tranquility that they prefer to avert their gaze and criticize the democratic debunkers. It is obvious, or should be obvious, that sharia is inconsistent with Enlightenment ideas. But when it comes to peace versus principle, authorities opt for the former, fearful that any other stance will exacerbate public attitudes.

As a consequence, official state numbers suggest the Islamic population in Austria has remained stable at 500,000 over the last decade, even through the birth rate among Muslims is more than twice the replacement level of 2.1. Far better to deceive than alarm the public at large.

The same condition prevails on the crime rate. Since crime statistics aren’t broken down by race or ethnicity, the average person may intuit a disproportiate crime rate among Muslims, but it isn’t part of the public record.

When Elisabeth Sabaditch-Wolf, a Vienna resident spoke out against Muslim practices that threaten democracy, she was labeled a right wing fanatic and is facing prosecution for public incitement. Rather than honor her for defending civilzational principles, she has been marginalized as an extremist by Austrian authorities. These prosecutions – even if unsuccessful – have a chilling influence on free speech and open debate.

It is remarkable that sharia has won a psychological victory since it cannot be challenged without judicial investigation. Yet sharia, in essence, cannot tolerate apostasy. Apostates, according to Koranic principles, must either convert, submit or die. This is a direct contradiction of democratic ideals and a violation of liberal religious practice established over centuries of bloodletting. Now without a shot being fired, the Austrians have seemingly conceded. All it took was the possibly of violence and the osmotic ambience of intimidation.

One gets the impression a nation that has grown to love freedom and prosperity has grown complacent. And with that complacency, Austrians will engage in almost any rationalized arabesque in order to maintain tranquility. Without fully realizing it, this strategy is leading inexorably to the totalitarianism it fought so hard to avoid during the Cold War. Sharia disavows secular prescriptions, but in its political agenda it is intent on transforming Western institutions. Signs of that goal are already evident in Austria today.

Herbert London is President of the Hudson Institute and a Professor Emeritus at NYU. He is the author of Decade of Denial (Lanham, Maryland: Lexington Books, 2001). London maintains a website, http://www.herblondon.org/.

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5/19/10: The EU and Its Likely Breakup

There isn’t any need to say “I told you so” for Euro skeptics. They knew what few would admit about the European Union. The fractures in the union now apparent were there all along merely waiting for one crisis to make them self evident.

With demonstrations over tough austerity measures in Greece, the E.U. is experiencing the first of what could be a host of violent reactions across the continent. In a sense, Greece is the canary in the proverbial mine foreshadowing what might occur in Spain, Portugal, Italy, and Ireland.

In conversations in Austria the typical response is “why should we bail out the Greeks for their profligacy?” Alas, this is the typical German response as well. The Germans were willing to be an underwriter of the Greek bail-out, as long as the IMF is a major partner. But there are limits. Borrowing costs for Europe’s most vulnerable countries are soaring and the euro’s value is plummeting. E.U. officials warn of “high uncertainty” surrounding the region’s economic recovery. Despite a $141 billion rescue package offered the Greek government, it is not clear this sum will cauterize the problem or stop its spread elsewhere.

It is instructive that pensioners took to the Athenian streets in protest against financial retrenchment. In news interviews, the point was often made that these aging citizens saved for retirement and counted on a pension during retirement. Now they find themselves in a financial quagmire they did not create.

Should Spain, with an economy considerably larger than Greece, face similar economic pressure – a condition that seems inevitable – Europe could face an unprecedented banking crisis. While the bailout could help Greece and might be needed for Spain, it is already widening the divide between Europe’s southern area where the financial problems are concentrated and the northern tier, which contains most of the industrial exporters best positioned to take advantage of a weak euro.

Some European economists contend that devaluation will serve as a spur for exports, growth and a return to balance of payments equilibrium. But this scenario overlooks the fact that 27 euro-zone countries are inextricably linked to the euro which militates against individual trade strategies. What might be desirable for Sweden could be undesirable for Spain. This is the E.U. dilemma in a nutshell.

Bailouts come with prescriptions, specifically deep austerity cuts to compensate for generous government hand-outs. However, this measure has and probably will spark social anger wherever it is applied. While Greece has been in the forefront in this financial crisis, the IMF has raised the possibility Spain could be next on the road to insolvency. It is estimated that a bailout for Spain could cost five times the sum allocated for Greece. According to Mark Kirk, a U.S. congressman on the committee that oversees financing for the IMF, “that amount of money is far more than is available to lend.”

One Vienna merchant described the crisis personally and poignantly “I do not feel any responsibility to assist a welfare recipient in Barcelona or Lisbon.” Whether he feels responsibility or not, the E.U. locks him into a confederation that imposes a level of responsibility. That union cannot continue if the taxes in industrious areas rise to assist nations that are or soon may be insolvent. The complication of regional multiplication is that it penalizes the strong members of the union so that they can assist weak members. By any political calculation this is an unsustainable arrangement.

When the E.U. falls victim to these centrifugal forces is difficult to say, but in my judgment it will happen, and with it, the euro will be a casualty as well, returning Western Europe to its traditional status as a continent with individual states, languages, histories and economic conditions.

Herbert London is President of the Hudson Institute and a Professor Emeritus at NYU. He is the author of Decade of Denial (Lanham, Maryland: Lexington Books, 2001). London maintains a website, http://www.herblondon.org/.

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5/12/10: ACT Reviews Edcuation In America

To cite a cliché, the more things change the more they remain the same. This applies to many areas of life, but arguably it is the essence of educational reform.

Recently the ACT, an independent organization that provides assessment, research and program management in broad areas of education, issued a statement on the “essentials for college and career readiness.”

What it found is precisely what evaluators of education in the United States have been saying for decades. Despite an enormous per capita national expenditure for education, exceeded only by Switzerland, “high school learning standards are still not sufficiently aligned with postsecondary expectations.”

Across the curriculum, college instructors and high school teachers differ on the level of preparation for college assignments with many more high school teachers than college instructors reporting that graduates are prepared. At the same time, while college math and science instructors agree that reading is one of the most important skills needed for success in this century, “overwhelming majorities of them report spending little or no time teaching reading strategies in their courses.”

Apparently findings indicate that students are shortchanged in high school and post secondary courses, despite the fact many high school teachers believe their students are adequately prepared for higher education study. There is simply a huge disparity between skill level and performance expectations.

To address this concern the ACT contends high school standards should focus on fewer – but essential – college and career readiness conditions and a rigorous core curriculum should be mandated for all high school graduates. These are sensible recommendations that have been advocated for at least half a century. The key question is why haven’t these recommendations been put into practice if everyone – or almost everyone – knows what should be done.

There are several factors that account for this state of affairs. One, student readiness is not related to faculty compensation. In fact, merit pay, which could be related to readiness, is consistently opposed by the teachers’ union. Second, relatively little time is spent on “hard subjects” such as math and science. The curriculum is, to some degree, a mirror on national social conditions. If there are fatalities on our highways, driver education is encouraged. When rates of illegitimacy rise, sex education is emphasized. As rates of drug abuse assail us, drug education is introduced. And, of course, political correctness is a time consuming theme that crosses all disciplines, even the sciences.

There are, in most high schools, pep rallies prior to the Friday night football game. There are announcements of various kinds during the school day and, of course, the required weekly assembly program.

In addition, distractions prevail. Texting is the nemesis of concentration. There are video games, e-mails, Facebook, sororities, fraternities, parties, television programs that trump serious study. It is also the case that high school teachers are among the most marginal students in their college classes. Although there are superb teachers, the profession lacks the status and prestige that accompany other professions.

Last, perhaps most noteworthy, is the nation’s dysfunctional social life. Divorce, illegitimacy and various forms of social deviancy have disrupted home life so that mom at the kitchen table with cookies and milk at 3 pm is as rare as two dollar bills. Mom is probably working; no one is there to guide Johnny and Mary when they return from school except Oprah Winfrey. Homework is for autodidacts and, most teachers do not count on homework assignments, a bygone vestige of education in another era.

The “Leave It To Beaver” family is interred and with it have gone attention to student performance. Parents may retain expectations for their children, but the conditions necessary to achieve these goals are lacking. Now schools do not concentrate on subjects that matter, distractions make learning a chore and the mediating social structures that aided educational attainment are in trouble.

Clearly the ACT should be commended for pointing out what should be done to improve educational performance, but I’ve heard all the claims before. Until there is recognition of what ails us, there will be many more reports in our future, but little progress in student attainment.

Herbert London is President of the Hudson Institute and a Professor Emeritus at NYU. He is the author of Decade of Denial (Lanham, Maryland: Lexington Books, 2001). London maintains a website, http://www.herblondon.org/.

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4/28/10: Darwinism and The American Future

In Darwin’s Origin of The Species the theory of evolution through natural selection is made to appear simple and inevitable. Certain biological variants argued Darwin, are more robust than others, i.e. better suited to survive and thrive in the environment in which they find themselves. Over time the robust variants supplant the less robust varieties. In a world of limited resources, the better adapted versions stand a better chance of survival. Darwin assumed that natural selection could transform one species into another and eradicate some species, leaving the field to its tougher competitors.

While social Darwinism attempted to take Darwin’s theory and apply it to social settings (“Root, hog or die”), the lack of compassion and the imposition of human needs sent the social version of Darwinism into the political interstices. However, since evolution ultimately deals with success and failure, survival and disappearance, it may be appropriate to resuscitate Darwinism to explain global conditions of the moment.

Needless to say, there is a logical danger in pushing the analogy too far, but on some level the Darwinian model offers insight, even if the conclusions are not dispositive.

In an effort to appease or comfort America’s foes, the Obama administration is attempting to redefine, perhaps transform, our system of government, law and basic economic assumptions. Presumably Obama adherents would contend that this adaptation is necessary for survival in an evolving global stage. However, the question that emerges is whether this conscious transformation enhances survivability. Is America more robust or less robust as a consequence of the change? Can this nation transform other national variants or will other nations transform the United States?

It is evident in the global war for survival the U.S. government refuses to see jihadism, or violent efforts against it, as a function of Islam. It is also evident that the government is intent on treating enemy combatants as “criminals” with the attendant Constitutional privileges vouchsafed to U.S. citizens.

The system for rooting out those intent on imposing violence against Americans is saddled with bureaucratic weariness and inefficiency. A Nigerian with a history of radical Islamic sympathies and someone identified by his father as a potential threat was still granted a visa to enter the United States. Moreover, Janet Napolitano, the Secretary of Homeland Security, noted after the aborted attempt to blow up an airplane, that “the system is working.”

A government that is seemingly incapable of dealing effectively with national security questions has nonetheless undertaken to manage the complex American economy. In one year Washington D.C. has replaced New York as the center of economic transactions. Astonishingly the government is now directly involved in the insurance, banking, credit card, automobile and healthcare industries. While socialism has failed wherever it has been undertaken, the Obama administration is intent on proving its version can defy historical precedent.

The last year has also seen the American military star in eclipse. Signs of withdrawal from international commitments have led former allies to scramble in an effort to secure new alliances, an alternative to the American nuclear umbrella and security pacts. The so-called schism between Shia and Sunni Muslims has been trumped by the emerging correlation of international forces, particularly the prospect of an Iran with nuclear weapons.

If the Darwinian analogy holds, perhaps it is time for readaptation, a return to a time when American exceptionalism was understood here and abroad. How can a seemingly weak America eager for isolation be sufficiently robust to compete against a fanatical strain of Islam? How can allies count on an American commitment when we often pull the rug out from under our friends (vide: abrogating the anti-missile treaty with Czech republic and Poland)? In what sense is the United States a nation, indeed an idea, to be emulated?

Natural selection has its obvious points and logical gaps, but as a model for prediction on the international scene, it has advantages and lessons to be learned. Unfortunately unless the public rises and stops this historic movement for change, there will be an inevitability about the current state of affairs that would convert an American Darwinian into a Cassandra.

Herbert London is President of the Hudson Institute and a Professor Emeritus at NYU. He is the author of Decade of Denial (Lanham, Maryland: Lexington Books, 2001). London maintains a website, http://www.herblondon.org/.

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4/21/10: Brzezinski, Obama and Foreign Policy Reconceptualization

In the January/February issue of Foreign Affairs Zbigniew Brzezinski outlines the ambitious efforts of the Obama administration to redefine the foreign policy of the United States and, as he puts it, “reconnect the United States with the emerging historical context of the twenty-first century.” According to Mr. Brzezinski, President Obama has done this remarkably well reconceptiualizing foreign policy in several areas which he outlines:

• Islam is not an enemy, and the “global war on terror” does not define the United States’ current role in the world;
• The United States will be a fair-minded and assertive mediator when it comes to attaining lasting peace between Israel and Palestine;
• The United States ought to pursue serious negotiations with Iran over its nuclear program, as well as other issues;
• The counterinsurgency campaign in the Taliban-controlled parts of Afghanistan should be part of a larger political undertaking, rather than a predominantly military one;
• The United States should respect Latin America’s cultural and historical sensitivities and expand its contacts with Cuba;
• The United States ought to energize its commitment to significantly reducing its nuclear arsenal and embrace the eventual goal of a world free of nuclear weapons;
• In coping with global problems, China should be treated not only as an economic partner but also as a geopolitical one;
• Improving U.S.-Russian relations is in the obvious interest of both sides, although this must be done in a manner that accepts, rather than seeks to undo, post-Cold War geopolitical realities;
• A truly collegial transatlantic partnership should be given deeper meaning, particularly in order to heal the rifts caused by the destructive controversies of the past few years.”

Herbert London is President of the Hudson Institute and a Professor Emeritus at NYU. He is the author of Decade of Denial (Lanham, Maryland: Lexington Books, 2001). London maintains a website, http://www.herblondon.org/.

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4/14/10: Start Up May Be A Start Down

“Aquarius,” the show, is in revival on Broadway and in revival in the Obama administration. The utopian idea of “the zero option,” of eliminating nuclear weapons, of an apollonian globe where lions and lambs live in harmony, is alive and well and evident in the new Start treaty.

Of course it would be wonderful if we had a world without nuclear weapons, but the genie is out of the bottle and weapons of mass destruction offer influence, prestige and power even for nations that cannot adequately feed their people.

While the Start treaty reduces delivery capacity of Russian and the U.S. missiles, planes and submarines using arcane accounting methods, the real issue, as I see it, is that Russia reserves the right to withdraw from the treaty if it deems missile defense deployment in Eastern Europe threatening.

The obvious question is why should the United States Senate ratify a “conditional” arrangement? If the treaty is ratified (a likely prospect) the United States is committing itself to unilateral compliance. In other words, Russia determines on its own whether the treaty remains in effect. This is a truly unprecedented matter, one that may indeed violate national security interests.

Moreover, in an effort to convince other nuclear powers that they should embrace our disarming impulse the president has circumscribed “no first use policy” to only those adversaries employing nuclear weapons and has announced that the U.S. will not develop a new generation of nuclear weapons. I’m sure that this heartfelt gesture has resonated appropriately with Kim Jung Il and Ahmadinejad. It would take a leap of illogical proportions to assume that if the U.S. does not modernize, China, Iran, North Korea and Pakistan will follow suit.

This treaty also means in effect that President Obama will not upgrade U.S. missile defenses. If he were to do so, the Russians would pull out of the treaty. The one major bargaining chip former President Reagan had in his negotiations with the Soviet Union was Star Wars or missile defense. Now the Obama team is willing to give it away and receive nothing in return. The only way to describe this negotiating strategy is political ambition wrapped in the cellophane of naiveté.

One gets the impression that the president operates from a view of what he would like the world to be, not what the world is. Unfortunately the globe is an unwieldy place where national interests invariably trump international equilibrium. There is no way to eliminate nuclear weapons so long as rogue nations cheat, the non-proliferation treaty is ignored without penalty and nuclear weapons offer nations political clout. Who would care about a backward nation like North Korea if it did not possess nuclear weapons?

The fear for those of us who believe in “peace through strength” is this Start agreement is merely the beginning of a unilateral disarmament campaign following Obama’s life long adolescent vision for a world without military tocsin in the air. It is already rumored that the president will attempt to join the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty and limit defense deployment in space. What can allies like Taiwan, Japan, Canada, to cite a few examples, be thinking when the U.S. nuclear umbrella that affords deterrence is now laden with holes?

The voluntary abandonment of U.S. superiority in space technology and nuclear weapons could haunt our people and our allies. It is as if the U.S. is suffering from leadership fatigue and wants to halt the course of history. However, historical forces march to their own drumbeat. What we may want – whatever utopia we may envision – is often undermined by the constraints of reality. As I see it, President Obama hasn’t learned that lesson. I can only hope our enemies aren’t looking and listening too closeby.

There is a Russian tale that takes place in a zoo where a lion and a lamb reside together in the same cage. Onlookers are astonished to see this unlikely union. At one point, a sightseer asks the zoo keeper how this happens. “Oh,” he notes it isn’t difficult, “we put a new lamb in the cage each morning.” If only President Obama knew this Russian tale.

Herbert London is President of the Hudson Institute and a Professor Emeritus at NYU. He is the author of Decade of Denial (Lanham, Maryland: Lexington Books, 2001). London maintains a website, http://www.herblondon.org/.

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4/7/10: The College Basketball Fraud

Now that the college basketball season is in full swing this former jock, who played at Columbia in the late ‘50’s, is fixated on the game. In fact, March Madness is built into my annual schedule.

But as I watch extraordinary athletes hit three point shots and fly to the hoop, I realize that hypocrisy is very much on display. These players are described as “student athletes,” a designation that jolts my credibility quotient.

During a recent Kentucky–Louisville game several players were interviewed. Almost every one described his major as “communications,” yet remarkably none could communicate effectively. Most sentences began with the phrase “me and the guys” or “we gonna win it all.”

It has been apparent for some time that the NCAA winks at this condition. The truly gifted players understand that college basketball is the minor league for the NBA. They use college as a showcase. As some athletes have noted it is “one and done” or “two and through,” in other words they will play college ball for a year or two and then enter the draft.

One might hope that in that year or two a spark is lit in the classroom. And in some cases, e.g. Duke University, that may happen. Unfortunately for most Division I teams the student is so subordinate to the athlete that there is only a vague and distant relationship to the classroom.

In some cases, the highly sought after basketball player is so coddled that his emotional development is arrested. This may explain why a disproportionate number of college basketball players are in trouble with the law. Coaches, who in some instances earn millions each year, concern themselves primarily with victories. They too understand that the truly good players are with them for a short time.

Most television analysts ignore the unsavory elements of the game concentrating solely on X’s and O’s and the evident talent of the players. But there is a story line beneath the surface that should be told. Only a tiny proportion of good college basketball players will make the pros. For those who thought college was a playground and a virtual slam dunk for the next level of play, disappointment can be devastating.

Sonny Dove was a terrific basketball player at St. Johns. He led his team to several very successful seasons and was named to All American teams. But Sonny could not make it in the pros, despite opportunities that were provided. He ended up driving a cab in New York City, despondent over his failure to make it with a pro team and lacking the education to do anything but drive a cab.

Now I don’t have anything against cab drivers, but most either do not have an education or drive a cab in order to obtain an education. Sonny was different; he drove a cab out of despair.

In my opinion, college basketball produces many Sonny Doves, players who luxuriated in the college limelight, but fell on their faces afterward. Clearly the choice is theirs. But coaches and college administrators have an obligation – it seems to me – to give these athletes a chance to succeed in a venue other than a basketball court. If the phrase student –athlete is to have any meaning, introducing study into the equation might be a reasonable way to proceed.

Instead of winking at this state of affairs, the NCAA might be engaged in thinking about how to assist college players who aren’t successful at the next level. I love to watch the games and the gifted athletes, but there is a part of me that laments the manner in which so many of these young men are being used. Perhaps it’s time to translate some of the March Madness income into a fund to promote genuine education for college basketball players.

Herbert London is President of the Hudson Institute and a Professor Emeritus at NYU. He is the author of Decade of Denial (Lanham, Maryland: Lexington Books, 2001). London maintains a website, http://www.herblondon.org/.

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3/31/10: Western Civ. On The Precipice

British Islamist Anjem Choudary argues that freedom and democracy are idols that must be destroyed and replaced with obedience to Allah. And to a remarkable degree this totalistic impulse is being implemented in the West.

On February 1, 2010 a group of students at York University, with the permission of university officials, set up a table on campus to discuss with other students the status of Hezbollah kidnapped Israeli soldier, Gilad Shalit. However, outspoken Palestinian students and sympathizers were unwilling to have these sentiments aired. They surrounded the table, made menacing gestures and spewed anti-Semitic and anti-Israeli slurs at the Jewish students.

This was not the first time such an incident occurred. In fact, a year earlier the police had to be called to usher Jewish students to safety after they were forced to barricade themselves inside the university’s Hillel offices because of physical and verbal threats from radical student groups.

The York Federation of Students Against Israel Apartheid has demonstrated time and again that intellectual debate on campus is little more than an ideologically driven “shout down.” Thuggery is something of a tradition with this student group. When Natan Sharansky was invited to speak in April of 2008 he was jeered at and ultimately prevented from speaking.

This is not Pakistan or Saudi Arabia, but Canada where free speech was once considered sacrosanct. Even in the United States open discourse is imperiled by radical students pumped up with self righteous indignation. At the University of California (Irvine) Israeli Ambassador Michael Oren, was greeted recently with shouts and uncivil behavior when he tried to speak.

Arguably the most serious blow to free speech in the West is the trial of Dutch politician Geert Wilders. Wilders is on trial for “intentionally offending a group of people, i.e. Muslims, based on their religion” through his film “Fitna” which links terrorists acts to passages in the Koran. This claim of incitement is, on its face, quite absurd since Islamists themselves justify willful acts of violence with reference to the Koran. Since cities like Rotterdam are or will soon be at a Muslim majority, the trial is in some sense a way to establish order. But, of course, order, in this case, means the abandonment of free speech in order to mollify one sub-group in the Netherlands prone to violent acts. One might describe the action of the Dutch court as preemptive capitulation since the authorities seem to be far more interested in preventing possible violence than protecting an essential Dutch freedom.

Wilders contends that the Amsterdam Court isn’t even interested in pursuing the truth since fifteen of his eighteen witnesses have not been permitted to testify. One of those witnesses Wilders was not permitted to call is Mohammed Bouyeri, the man who murdered Theo Van Gogh in revenge for his film “Submission” which portrays the oppression of Muslim women. Bouyeri noted at his own trial that the murder was inspired by the Koran. As he said, “Kill them, and Allah will help you and guide your hand.”

Here is the quintessential madness associated with radical Islam. Death is to be preferred to life and any criticism of Islam cannot be tolerated. If ever there was a threat to freedom, this is it. If a politician cannot criticize an ideology, western civilization itself is in jeopardy.

Violence or the threat of violence must now be put into the freedom equation. From university settings to parliamentary houses, radicals have left their noxious stamp on the principle of free and open discussion. Of course officials invariably proclaim a defense of free inquiry. But when the pressure is on, these proclamations become empty exhortations.

The Voltaires in the West are rarely vocal. Voices of determination have become diffident, fearful that they will be the target of violent expression. Each day that passes without resistance to these religious fanatics is a victory for intolerance and totalitarianism. Yet appeasement is in the air we breathe. Many in the West prefer to avert their gaze rather than confront the problem. A dark cloud is about to envelope the West and in the background I can hear contemporary storm troopers shouting, “Hey ho, Western Civ has got to go.” Alas, it appears to be going of its own volition.

Herbert London is President of the Hudson Institute and a Professor Emeritus at NYU. He is the author of Decade of Denial (Lanham, Maryland: Lexington Books, 2001). London maintains a website, http://www.herblondon.org/.

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3/24/10: American Tyranny?

The beginning of Spring 2010 marks an historic moment in American history: A nation organized as a republic is being transformed into a tyranny. The healthcare bill that has been bruited over for weeks will be law of the land giving Washington DC control of one-seventh of the national economy.

More significantly, this act violates the Constitution in several critical ways. All Americans will have to obtain healthcare insurance whether they want it or not. The act also forbids repeal even if the Republicans recapture control of one of the houses of Congress in the next election.

By any measure this is a coup d’ etat with the president employing a combination of threats and blandishments to achieve his revolutionary goals.

Supporters will argue, of course, that this act universalizes healthcare and that detractors are exaggerating its effect. But it should be noted that the cost will be at least a trillion dollars and perhaps twice that sum if CBO estimates are relied on. These costs are on top of the accumulated debt that has reached unparalleled proportions in the last year.

Moreover, this bill is being imposed on the American people who oppose the legislation by margins between sixty and seventy percent. It would seem that proponents are driven by an ideological fervor that is resistant to public opinion. If the Tea Partiers have any traction it is largely because of the president’s overreaching. The public seemingly understands what many in the Congress do not. Personal freedom – the ability to choose a physician and select appropriate treatment if it is needed – will be imperiled. A bureaucrat will have the latitude to determine your fate which means rationing is the inevitable outcome.

Charles Eliot Norton, nineteenth century author, sounded the clarion call for our own time when he wrote in True Patriotism, “The voice of protest, of warning, of appeal is never more needed than when the clamor of fife and drum, echoed by the press and too often by the pulpit, is bidding all men fall in and keep step and obey in silence the tyrannous word of command. Then, more than ever, it is the duty of the good citizen not to be silent.”

Should Americans awaken from their slumber they will realize – I believe – that their most valuable possession, the liberty the Founders conferred, has been taken away from them in a coercive effort to make citizens slaves of the state or, at the very least, dependent on the state. This is the time to shout from the rooftops “we won’t take it anymore.”

As I see it, the very fabric of society is being shattered with legislation that materially changes the way we live. Walt Whitman wrote: “…if the people lose their roughness and spirit of defiance – Tyranny may always enter – there is no charm, no bar against it – the only bar against it is a large resolute breed of men.” I would add that a state so expansive it cannot recognize its natural and Constitutional limits ultimately transforms freedom into tyranny even if this is not the initial intent. That explains why the Founders constructed a limited government based on the recognized fallibility of human nature. They realized that the tyranny they opposed and fought against can emerge from within through an emboldened government that believes only it knows what is best for the governed.

It would appear that President Obama does not appreciate the fact that unlimited power invariably corrupts the mind of those who possess it. This is the place where the rule of law succumbs to the pressure of despotism. And whether recognized by all or not, healthcare is the wedge that is altering America.

In 1776 Thomas Paine wrote, “These are the times that try men’s souls.” Alas, 2010 is a time, not unlike the American Revolution, when our national soul is on trial and the very liberty we were enjoined to defend is slipping away from our grasp. President Obama argues healthcare is a calamity, a crisis of unusual depth, but as history notes “necessity” is usually the justification for every infringement of liberty. Necessity is the argument of tyrants; the creed of the despondent.

How the nation responds to this government overreaching remains to be seen. But it is not an exaggeration to suggest the future of the republic may depend on that response.

Herbert London is President of the Hudson Institute and a Professor Emeritus at NYU. He is the author of Decade of Denial (Lanham, Maryland: Lexington Books, 2001). London maintains a website, http://www.herblondon.org/.

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3/17/10: The Mabhouh Assassination And The Incrimination of Israel

For weeks newspapers across Europe and the Middle East have been obsessed with the January 19 assassination of Hamas terror chief Mahmoud al-Mabhouh. Although he was a man whose hands were dripping with the blood of innocent victims including infants, the press corps was far more critical of what was described as an Israeli assassination team of 26 that used foreign passports to conceal their identities and commit the murder.

Dubai police officials accused Mossad of the act even though there was little direct evidence for this assertion. British newspapers blamed Israel unreservedly for Mabhouh’s death, even though there was some evidence Egyptian and Jordanian secret police were on his trail for some time.

The Sunday Telegraph claimed that British immigrants to Israel had their passports removed and copied at passport control in Tel Aviv airport, a practice that never occurred.

The Sunday Times argued the paper had evidence Prime Minister Netanyahu personally ordered the hit, but the evidence wasn’t produced.

Even the New York Times joined the chorus by insisting Dubai assassinations by Israel operatives occurred routinely.

And the French Prime Minister Francois Fillon, in a state of high dungeon, said, “we are against this form of assassination; whoever orders them should be punished. Like the British and the Germans we have asked Israeli authorities to explain themselves.” Of course he neglected to point out the many times French Foreign Legion personnel engaged in assassination.

It is instructive that the Dubai authorities have not provided forensic evidence that points the finger of guilt at Israel, despite the widespread belief it was a Mossad operation. A few spokesmen, notably Alan Dershowitz and Douglas Murray, maintained that if Israel killed Mabhoub, it had every right to do so since he was a combatant in the war against the Jewish state.

What this entire incident suggests is that the reportage was not merely about the Mabhoub assassination, but about the incrimination of Israel.

Let me point out the truth of this claim.

In April 2009 the New York Times reported that Sulim Yamadayev, a former general in Chechnya and a foe of the Kremlin backed president was killed in Dubai on March 30, 2009 in what appeared to be an assassination. The killer fired three bullets from a gold plated gun at the victim’s chest as Yamadayev exited his private car. According to the account this was the “fifth person murdered in recent months” all of whom were opponents of Ramzan Kadyrov, the Kremlin appointed president of Chechnya.

Yet remarkably there weren’t any political repercussions, no calls for sanctions, no press conferences, no talk about how the killer(s) entered Dubai with fake passports.

In fact, the New York Times had one story and then dropped the issue. The British press scarcely mentioned the matter. French diplomats did not issue any accusatory comments. German officials were conspicuously silent. It was if the assassination didn’t occur.

Moreover, the Dubai police officials – the same ones who were so quick to accuse Israel of the recent assassination – argued there was insufficient evidence to even investigate the crime. In fact, as far as anyone can tell, there wasn’t any police activity after the incident occurred even though the same cameras that incriminated Israeli agents were available last year.

It is interesting to note that the hideously biased Goldstone report suggests Israel should protect itself from unlawful attacks by proportionate means such as “targeted killing of terrorists.” Presumably there isn’t a better example of targeted killing than the assassination of Mabhouh. Yet Goldstone hasn’t issued a statement indicating the appropriateness of the act, assuming Israel was involved. Those who have been whining about “passport fraud” ignore the fact that Mabhouh was illegally smuggling missiles from Iran to Hamas, and had an open invitation to use Dubai as his sanctuary.

So why are there so many scandalized by the Dubai assassination? Could it be that there is a double standard, one that applies to Israel and another that applies to the rest of the world? Why should so many resist the obvious need for a sovereign state to protect itself against terrorism? And to what degree is the reflexive condemnation of Israel little more than an increasingly acceptable form of anti-semitism?

The answers are apparent. Israel is the world’s scapegoat and the incrimination launched against this nation for the Mabhouh assassination is merely the latest episode in an ongoing battle against Jews.

Herbert London is President of the Hudson Institute and a Professor Emeritus at NYU. He is the author of Decade of Denial (Lanham, Maryland: Lexington Books, 2001). London maintains a website, http://www.herblondon.org/.

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3/10/10: Examining Declinism

Writing from his perch at the New York Times (2/8/10) Paul Krugman notes “We’ve always known that America’s reign as the world’s greatest nation would eventually end. But most of us imagined that our downfall, when it came, would be something grand and tragic.”

It isn’t clear who the “we” is in this paragraph, nor is “downfall” as obvious as Mr. Krugman infers. But the position is part of a declinist stance that has insinuated itself into elitist positions. And there is some justification for it.

After all, the Obama administration acts as if the U.S. should engage in withdrawal from all international obligations except those channeled through the United Nations or other international organizations.

With Obama’s 2010 budget, 42 cents of every dollar the federal government spends will have to be borrowed. In the last decade, foreign investors wound up lending the U.S. about half of the federal debt – with China and Japan providing about 50 percent of that sum through the purchase of U.S. Treasury securities. In fact, China is the largest holder of U.S. dollars in the world, a position that might compromise U.S. foreign policy decisions in the Pacific and elsewhere.

It is also evident that U.S. educational institutions have failed to keep American students competitive with foreign rivals in science, engineering and technology – the drivers in the global economy. With the exception of one or two nations, the U.S. students score near the bottom on international math and science tests.

These conditions are wrapped into a culture of debasement as American “bread and circuses” become a national preoccupation. Most young people are more likely to know the name of the “American Idol” winner than the name of the Secretary of Defense.

Clearly these arguments are salient, but what they overlook is just as salient. Americans are conspicuously resilient. The liberties built into the national founding may be dormant for a time, but they have not evanesced.

President Obama may act as if the U.S. must engage in preemptive conciliation. So too did President Jimmy Carter, but his successor, Ronald Reagan, saw the world differently and restored U.S. power and prestige. My guess it could happen again.

The financial obligations we have with China are worrisome. However, China is as dependent on the U.S. as we on it. Americans buy Chinese imports and help to stir China’s remarkable growth. China’s trade policy is dependent on keeping the American consumer buying its products in Wal-Mart stores.

While American students score unfavorably on international tests, the best and brightest can take advantage of the nation’s openness to start new businesses and engage in technical breakthroughs. America’s advantage in relatively free and open markets has not been duplicated by any of our economic rivals.

It might appear that the nation is amusing itself to death with debased television programming like “Jersey Shore,” but the United States remains a complex nation with evidence of a resurgence in historical matters and even signs of resistance to the insidious influence of political correctness.

It wasn’t so long ago when former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger reportedly told Admiral Elmo Zumwalt that “The day of the United States is past and today is the day of the Soviet Union. My job as Secretary of State is to negotiate the most acceptable second – best position available.”

We now know that President Reagan contended that claims of America’s second best position were greatly exaggerated.

There was a time in the 1980’s when it was widely believed by many economists that the Japanese economy would bypass the United States as the world’s leading economic force. I doubt anyone would make that argument today.

Needless to say, there are areas of concern in the national culture, political system and the economy. But, as I see it, decline is a choice elitists like Paul Krugman have chosen to adopt. Most Americans would prefer to fight rather than decline and it would be a grave mistake to underestimate their strength and determination.

Herbert London is President of the Hudson Institute and a Professor Emeritus at NYU. He is the author of Decade of Denial (Lanham, Maryland: Lexington Books, 2001). London maintains a website, http://www.herblondon.org/.

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3/3/10: Free Speech as a Casualty of Intimidation

Jake Witzenfeld, president of Cambridge University’s Israel Society cancelled a talk by Benny Morris, a distinguished Israeli historian, for fear the Israel Society would be portrayed as a mouthpiece for Islamophobia.

The trial of Geert Wilders, in Holland, has received almost no attention from the media panjandrums in the West for fear the issue might lead to Muslim incitement, particularly in cities like Rotterdam where the Islamic population is near a majority.

Yale University Press refused to publish cartoons about the Prophet Mohammed in a book about the cartoons and the aftermath of the original publication, for fear of a possible violent response from Islamic adherents.

Yes, these craven responses all appear with the word “fear” since that word has trampled the meaning of freedom in nations that have fought for its defense over centuries. In one moment, intimidation has trumped free speech and cowardice has subordinated any display of courage.

I find it astonishing that a heralded center of learning, a major university press and a nation that once fought against totalitarian impulses could so easily justify their actions. Whatever happened to a belief in freedom of speech and a faith in the power of debate to reveal the truth that counters censorship?

It is instructive that the fear someone might claim you are racist or Islamophic – even if you know you aren’t and if you know the speaker isn’t – may justify a refusal to hear someone’s point of view. Following this precedent, any serious discussion of Middle East politics, or Muslim inspired terrorism of religion itself should be banned since there are invariably those who will portray opinions they don’t like as hateful and, yes, racist.

What these three illustrations demonstrate is that slander can be converted into an effective weapon to stifle expression. When Muslims are concerned about opinions that don’t fit with their worldview, they can raise the specter of retaliation and attack a speaker with epithets, such as Islamophia, and mirabile dictu speech is silenced.

It is hard to know exactly when this form of preemptive capitulation began. However, when the United Kingdom refused to admit Geert Wilders for a public presentation fearing his speech might be a source of incitement, this nation that carried the banner of free speech from the Magna Carta to the defense of liberty in World War II seems to have lost its way. Apparently the most basic right, the one generations had taken for granted, is now in jeopardy in the very venues liberty once found a congenial home.

From Voltaire to Jefferson warnings about the way free speech can be imperiled filled the pages of various broadsides. It is remarkable that the canon on free speech can be so easily overturned by the masters of political correctness. Alas, if free speech can be denied to Geert Wilders or leading intellectuals, it can be denied to anyone. Would I be permitted to speak at Cambridge University if I did not comply with the prevailing intellectual orthodoxy? Could I publish a book that points to the imperial goals in Islam? Would it be possible to invite an Israeli scholar who defends his nation’s policies to a forum at a Middle East Studies program anywhere in the West?

After all, a few sentences twisted into an incendiary comment by a concerned listener can result in violent repercussions. Or, claims about the speaker – true or not – may result in the withdrawal of an invitation. Universities are so skittish at the moment that even the appearance of potential controversy is conspicuously avoided.

Tolstoy once noted that “The opinion of a revered writer or thinker can have a deep influence on society; it can also be a big obstacle to understanding the truth.” Indeed that is the case with many venerated thinkers. But it is also true that the biggest obstacle in pursuit of the truth, is the systematic interference of free speech, an interference that becomes particularly lamentable when it is done voluntarily, when the invocation of fear is sufficient to drown out expression.

Herbert London is President of the Hudson Institute and a Professor Emeritus at NYU. He is the author of Decade of Denial (Lanham, Maryland: Lexington Books, 2001). London maintains a website, http://www.herblondon.org/.

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2/23/10: Remembering Liberty

There is a shift occurring in the United States, a tectonic shift that is imposing statism in a land predicated on limited government.

In the past, the not very distant past, mediating structures served as a barrier against managerial despotism. But these structures have been under assault for decades and are showing signs of weakness and decay.

The family has been undermined by divorce and illegitimacy. Schools have eroded rigor and standards. Churches resemble social institutions more than religious centers. And associations like Rotary and Lions are suffering from insufficient enrollment and a lack of interest.

The America Tocqueville described in mid-nineteenth century is largely gone, a testament to the past when national identity was being refined. The New Hampshire slogan “Live free or die” is great for license plates, but not for contemporary politics.

Some would argue that big government is a natural consequence of living in a bigger and more complex nation that was the case a hundred years ago. Needless to say, this is obvious. But what is not so obvious is that incrementally the government has assumed the position of granting rights to citizens instead of having citizens grant rights to the government. During this onset of the recession it was believed by members of both parties that extending government power was essential in dealing with the economic vicissitudes of the moment. In doing so, however, the politics of grievants has emerged. If the government uses its largesse to address social woe how are rights determined and who allocates the benefits? A government insistent on hand-outs will be a government that encourages grievance.

Let me not overstate the case. Despite an inclination to support limited government as the nation’s founders did, my issue with the Obama administration, to cite one example, is that it is weak where it should be strong and strong where it should be weak.

For example, the president has put his prestige and influence behind a health care proposal that a majority of Americans oppose and that willy nilly will shift health care to the public sector. By contrast, Iran has violated the non-proliferation agreement, has abused its citizens for contesting electoral manipulation, and has been the leading state sponsor of terrorism. Yet the president who should recognize and resist these challenges seems weak and unresponsive.

The road to serfdom is paved with rights and benefits. People want more of whatever someone else will pay for. The casualty in this assessment is personal responsibility and liberty.

We are not yet an authoritarian state and my hope is that America never will be one, but it is imperative we guard against that eventuality recognizing that the rights we invent come with a corresponding withering away of freedom. Big government may not be a problem if it exercises power judiciously and in ways that promote American interests. Yet it is also true that government has a stake in perpetuating itself. It may not always be the problem, but it is rarely the solution and all the programs that the American people covet may in the end alter the America they once loved and admired.

Now let me comment on the other side of the coin. Despite a breakdown in personal responsibility, a dumbing down of the population and defining cultural deviancy down, the U.S. with all its flaws and imperfections, is, in my judgment the exceptional nation. A common misperception is that the U.S. is in decline. In fact, there is a “declinist” school of historical analysis comprised of Dean Koh, Ann Marie Slaughter, Geoffrey Hodgson, Amy Guttman, Richard Sennett, Andrew Bacevich, Farid Zakaria among others who believe in historical inevitability, a Marxist view that the forces of historical determinism are not on our side. But, like Charles Krauthammer, I think declinism is a choice. Americans are the most resourceful and resilient people on the globe. We don’t shrink from challenges. The biggest mistake any politician can make is to underestimate the people of this great land. I realize things often look bleak and indeed are bleak, but it is important to realize the U.S. is the land of miracles. We turn detritus into energy; failure into success and we do it routinely.

I’m reminded, at this moment, of verses from Lee Greenwood’s “I’m Proud To Be An American.”

“I’m proud to be an American where at least I know I’m free and I won’t forget the men who died who gave that right to me.

And I gladly stand up next to you and defend her still today for there ain’t no doubt I love this land, God bless the U.S.A.”

Herbert London is President of the Hudson Institute and a Professor Emeritus at NYU. He is the author of Decade of Denial (Lanham, Maryland: Lexington Books, 2001). London maintains a website, http://www.herblondon.org/.

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2/17/10: The Spiritual Dimensions of Nationhood

I’ve said this before but no matter how many times it is said, it bears repeating: the threats that the United States face from a fanatical Islamic foe are made possible by our devotion to positions that undermine our heritage, accomplishments and founding.

It is not coincidental that I’m reminded of this condition by the passing of Howard Zinn, author of A People’s History of The United States. This bestselling book, memorialized by the pseudo intellectual rants of the actor, Matt Damon is among the most influential textbooks ever published. Bob Herbert of the New York Times wrote a saccharine eulogy which suggested Zinn was a “national treasure.” If so, it was a treasure of fool’s gold.

Zinn was not a historian in any real sense, but an ideologue who would envision only the blemishes in America’s past. For him, the American experiment was predicated on colonialism, imperial aims, exploitation and enslavement. But the curious matter is that Zinn’s brand of contemptuous nihilism, his anti-American posture and hatred of capitalism, have caught on among American elites.

Is it any wonder that a multi-cultural stance that denigrates our national experience and superordinates the goals of other nations is now the prevailing orthodoxy in our schools and colleges? If the United States is the world’s exploiter, the despoiler of the environment and the hegemon that restrains the impulse for liberation, why should it be admired? Alas, in many universities, the United States is the enemy. This condition cannot be laid at the doorstep of Mr. Zinn solely, albeit he is a central contributor.

However, the drumbeat of criticism has taken its toll. Students very often can tell you that Jefferson was a slaveholder, but know nothing about his framing of the Virginia Constitution. According to many, Columbus came to the New World in order to dominate and exploit the indigenous population.

That the United States has been the beacon of hope for mankind, that it has afforded its citizens an unprecedented degree of liberty and that its openness has yielded technical breakthroughs that have enhanced people across the globe, are conditions that students of an earlier time imbibed as if mother’s milk.

That has changed. The pseudo sophisticated cynics have come to dominate the academy. American history has been put through the cauldron of political correctness. At best, the U.S. is merely one of 192 nations with its own history that is neither special nor exceptional; it is simply unique. At worst, American history is a steamy tale of conflict: workers versus bosses, plantation owners and slaves, guardians of the status quo and change agents.

Invariably many of those who are force fed these arguments ask logically, “why should I defend this nation?” If the United States is an outlier whose history infers struggle, the spirit necessary to sustain the nation may not be evident.

I often observe this spiritual enervation; this belief that our time, our glory has passed. In my judgment that explains, at least in some part, why radical Islamic ideas have gained traction in this nation. How do those who have lost confidence in the national heritage defend against a fanatical faith that has precise goals and direction?

The relentless critics of the nation may not have anticipated this result, but our homegrown radicals invariably express despair with what America stands for, or should I say, what they think America stands for.

Of course, not every American shares this anti-American sentiment, but I am confident a large segment of elitist opinion embraces it. The manifest form it takes varies. There are the cultural warriors who see America as depraved. There are the academics who win plaudits for nihilistic expression (vide: Howard Zinn). There are the radicals ready to leap into anarchy. And there are jihadists – homegrown jihadists – who have been radicalized by a faith that preaches triumphalism and a justification for violent behavior.

Our vulnerability does not stem from a lack of resources or even inept leadership, but rather from a void that emanates from not knowing what we believe. Our real enemy is a lack of confidence, of not believing in our own national achievements. Arnold Toyabee argued that civilizations die as a result of suicide, not murder. I am not yet willing to concede death, but there isn’t any doubt that America is at risk because of a loss of self confidence. What ails us internally is at least as threatening as the forces found externally.

Herbert London is President of the Hudson Institute and a Professor Emeritus at NYU. He is the author of Decade of Denial (Lanham, Maryland: Lexington Books, 2001). London maintains a website, http://www.herblondon.org/.

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2/10/10: Iranian Influence In Iraq

In an ironic twist of fate the future of Iraq may be dependent on the good will of Iran. A Shiite-led government commission in Iraq is currently examining which Sunni politicians are eligible to participate in upcoming elections. This is disconcerting because the last time Sunnis were restricted, using a debaathification policy to do so, the Sunnis launched an insurgency drive for political influence. A potential Shia-Sunni split represents an opportunity for Iran to assist its Shiite brothers with political, intelligence and military assets, including, of course, the prospect of nuclear weapons.

For Iran, history appears to be moving in its direction. The desire to influence, indeed to dominate, Iraqi politics has long been a strategic goal going back to the Iran-Iraq War several decades ago. One might even contend that the nuclear weapons program is linked to its ambitions in Iraq.

In the days leading to Iraqi elections, Iran’s influence in this neighboring nation is palpable. The Iranian seizure of the al Fakkah oil well in southern Iraq was a poignant example of encroaching dominance, an event that received almost no attention in the United States and one in which Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al Maliki averted his gaze. In fact, to demonstrate that Iraq’s government and Iran were dancing to the same tune, a government spokesman said any U.S. attempts to save a place at the government table for the Sunnis would “not achieve anything.” Our State Department may not read the signals and the Obama administration seems mired in domestic program concerns, but the message being delivered loud and clear is that Tehran, not Washington, has the upper hand in Iraq.

Based on its influence in Iraq, Iran is using this development as a bargaining chip with the U.S. in nuclear negotiations. Since the Obama administration has made it clear it wants to disengage from Iraq, Iran holds the key to regional stability and must be considered a negotiating partner in any future arrangement. A potential Sunni insurgency could upset U.S. withdrawal plans. Hence Iran has the ability to assist or thwart U.S. goals, a position that complicates negotiations over Iran’s nuclear program and puts the U.S. in the position of seeking assistance on the one hand and chastisement on the other.

This leverage gives Iran an enormous negotiating edge. If the U.S. wants to avoid an eruption in Iraq that is tantamount to a civil war, then according to Iranian leaders, Washington will have to meet Tehran’s terms on the nuclear weapons issue and forestall any military option by the U.S. or Israel. As Iran sees it at the moment, it is holding all the cards. Arguably the ace in the deck is the apparent cooperation between Prime Minister Maliki and the Iranian mullahs. Since Maliki understands he cannot rely on U.S. forces to maintain stability – with withdrawal the overarching goal – he has thrown in his lot with the Iranians.

It is apparent the Obama administration has not considered the law of unintended consequences. The announced plan for withdrawal has set in motion actions American military commitments were designed to prevent. It is ironic that the United States is dependent on Iran to bail it out of a dicey situation at the same time it claims to oppose Iranian nuclear ambitions.

As I see it, the die is cast. The United States’ government will allow Iran to develop nuclear weapons, notwithstanding rhetoric to the contrary. Furthermore, it will seek to obtain Iranian influence as a regional stabilizer even if it means the mullahs will insinuate themselves into Iraqi politics.

Clearly the spin doctors in Washington will attempt to put the best possible gloss on this situation, but as I see it, this is a loss-loss for American diplomacy and a significant blow to U.S. policy in the Middle East.

Herbert London is President of the Hudson Institute and a Professor Emeritus at NYU. He is the author of Decade of Denial (Lanham, Maryland: Lexington Books, 2001). London maintains a website, http://www.herblondon.org/.

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2/3/10: Words Can Mean Whatever You Choose

The contemporary spokesmen for government, business and the academy have taken a page out of Alice in Wonderland: Words mean whatever you choose to have them mean. At some point, words had meanings detached from the user. They were ideas incarnate that stood on their own buttressed by Webster’s Dictionary. Now, of course, they are unmoored, set adrift by sophists who employ words for advantage or even to change meaning. The Orwellian reversal of language, e.g. “war is peace,” has been taken to a new level of manipulation.

Let me cite examples.

President Obama no longer refers to enemy combatants; they are now “isolated radicals.” This is a blinkered attempt to suggest that it isn’t jihadists we are opposed to, but the most radical elements within this category. Similarly, we are not in a war against terrorists; we are rather in overseas operations.

On the homefront the word “stimulus” has been exhumed from public usage since it doesn’t stimulate and is now effectively “spending.” “No new taxes” – a campaign pledge – has been converted into “new taxes,” albeit all for a good purpose. “Transparency,” as in all government action will be transparent and visible on C-Span, has been transmogrified into secrecy as in this Healthcare bill of 2000 pages that will not be made available for public review.

The redistribution of wealth – a clear government objective – is well understood as taking from Peter to give to Paul, a condition with which Paul rarely objects. Bonuses, even if built into iron clad contracts, are little more than manifestations of “exploitation.” This is an argument often made by community organizers who, if there were truth in advertising, would be called “radical adherents.”

In an effort to appear conciliatory almost every spokesmen refers to Islam as a “religion of peace,” even though it is a “religion of submission.” Moreover, it is also known, but rarely stated that not every Muslim is a terrorist, but almost every terrorist is a Muslim. In the same vain, jihad can be a source of spiritual fulfillment or an act of killing apostates in the name of Allah.

To put the best possible cast on any government action the words “previous administration” are now a code for “its Bush’s fault.” If the president says “we’ve run out of money,” he really means “we’ve run out of money for things I do not want to fund.” On the education front, the administration is keen on “a race to the top,” but if one were to consider results, it is really “a race to the middle” with the “best” student category shrinking and the lowest scoring students improving slightly leading to a compression at the mean.

It is also instructive that the word “rights” is employed at least ten times more frequently than “duties.” Rights have become what others give or confer; duties, by contrast, have entered the realm of desuetude. A related word is “privilege, “which based on K Street influence, is something you “buy,” comparable to the Middle age practice of buying Indulgencies to assure salvation.

There has also been a brouhaha over the Attorney General’s desire for civilian trials for those accused of terrorist activity. Whether one agrees with this stance or not – and I am in the “not” category – this decision means, in effect, the people all around the globe, in every circumstance, are protected by provisions of our Constitution. The Founding Fathers must be turning in their graves on this one.

I suspect that they may also be distressed to learn that “elections” are not the expressed will of the people, but instead represent the will of some people after Census manipulation and the intervention of ACORN operatives. Democracy is, therefore, not the will of the majority, but the will of a minority that knows how to hold on to power. For pragmatists who maintain “realpoilitc,” democracy itself is a casualty since the goal is the status quo at any price.

For the cynic, any time a politician says I believe in “honoring my commitments,” he really means “dishonoring commitments.” But then again you really don’t have to be a cynic to smile at the former and believe in the latter.

Herbert London is President of the Hudson Institute and a Professor Emeritus at NYU. He is the author of Decade of Denial (Lanham, Maryland: Lexington Books, 2001). London maintains a website, http://www.herblondon.org/.

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1/27/10: Presidential Denial

Denial is a powerful influence in public life. It is obviously a major influence in the Obama administration, which may explain why a Republican party and conservatism which were declared dead institutions and philosophies have risen as a phoenix with life and vitality.

In response to Scott Brown’s remarkable Senate victory in Massachusetts, President Obama said, “The same thing that swept Scott Brown into office swept me into office. People are angry, and they’re frustrated. Not just because of what’s happened in the last year or two years, but what’s happened over the last eight years.”

Here is the blame George W. Bush gambit yet again, even though Scott Brown is a Republican who ran against Obama’s policies in a state that is overwhelmingly Democratic.

To make matters even more risible, the president went on to say, “If there’s one thing that I regret this year, is that we were so busy just getting stuff done and dealing with the immediate crisis that were in front of us, that I think we lost some of the sense of speaking directly to the American people about what their core values are and why we have to make sure those institutions are matching up with those values.”

Well, the question remains, what precisely did he get done. He did get a stimulus bill through the Congress that has done nothing to stimulate national employment, even though that was the promise. For a man busy with getting stuff done – a curious rhetorical position – he had the time to deliver 411 speeches, 52 on health care alone, which by presidential standards is unprecedented. Moreover, the president, who often speaks of core values, ignores the obvious fact that so many Americans repudiate his healthcare bill because it imperils the core value of personal freedom to select a physician and treatment they prefer.

Instead of facing questions directly, the president invariably engages in scapegoating. If there weren’t a George W. Bush to rely on, he would have to invent one. Moreover, there is a barely veiled effort to suggest the public is angry, a kind of generalized anger unrelated to policy concerns. What Obama cannot admit is that much of this anger is directed at him and his policies. Instead of a psychological response, he needs a mirror.

President Obama seems to believe that the personality cult he created during the campaign will carry over to his government. He is so busy doing good stuff that he lost focus. Does that include vacationing in Hawaii, dates with Michele in New York, frequent appearances on the golf course, and basketball games in the White House gym? The president doesn’t have a communications problem, he has a credibility problem. The issue with this White House is competence. Is this president competent to govern, is the question that has emerged in recent campaigns in Virginia, New Jersey and Massachusetts. That is something the president either doesn’t understand or, as I see it, chooses to deny.

Comments that ignore the obvious political reality only make White House denials seem petty and foolish. Perhaps the president actually took seriously the fatuous New York Times editorial that the Scott Brown victory was not an indictment of the Obama administration. Democratic Senator Jim Webb certainly sees things differently. He called the Massachusetts race “a referendum not only on health care reform, but also on openness and integrity.”

At this point, the president desperately needs a large dose of humility. It is discomforting to have a president so reluctant to listen to what Americans are saying. Instead of being obliged to consider his positions based on the Brown victory, President Obama seems to be feeling sorry for himself since the public doesn’t appreciate the “good stuff” with which he is preoccupied. As I see it, humility is a good way to attempt to resuscitate this presidency along with a sustained reality check.

Herbert London is President of the Hudson Institute and a Professor Emeritus at NYU. He is the author of Decade of Denial (Lanham, Maryland: Lexington Books, 2001). London maintains a website, http://www.herblondon.org/.

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1/20/10: Terrorism's Victory

As George Orwell noted the first duty of intelligent people is “the restatement of the obvious.” It is obvious or should be obvious that the goal of terrorists is terrorism. What that means precisely is not clear based on recent news accounts.

According to reports the United States escaped an enormous tragedy when a Nigerian, Umar Abdulmutallab, was apprehended when he attempted to blow up a KLM flight from Africa to America via Amsterdam. Alas, that is accurate as far as it goes. Overlooked in this calculus is that a terrorist who gains access to a commercial flight has already achieved his goal, i.e. promote the fear of terrorism.

When Richard Reid attempted to blow up a Boeing 767 between Paris and Miami by detonating his sneakers, he too was restrained by fellow passengers, but in the process he promoted fear. The risks of air travel may be miniscule – if one relies on the comments of F.A.A. officials – but for the average person Reid and Abdulmutallab have had a profound effect. The notion that any passenger can be a human time bomb has entered the consciousness of the public.

Moreover, it hardly establishes confidence when Ms. Napolitano, Secretary of Homeland Security, assures the public “the system worked.” Clearly a risk free air flight doesn’t exist, but newly instituted measures like magnetic resonance scans and banning blankets and bathroom visits during the last hour of a flight are not likely to mitigate anxiety about flying.

To compound the fear, the Obama administration has been briefed about the bombing technique attempted on flight 253 and about the Nigerian carrying the explosives. Since 2001, there have been a reported 28 failed terrorist attacks against the United States. It is obvious, that despite administration claims to the contrary, this was not an isolated incident of “human error.” It is a failure up and down the proverbial food chain, from the White House to the clerk who issued a visa.

The president, as commander and chief, has the responsibility for national security, but the issue at hand is not only protecting lives; it involves the maintenance of psychological equilibrium. With each airborne thuggery, timidity sets in. This is the victory terrorists seek. When ordinary people are afraid to leave their homes, terrorism is gaining traction.

I cannot tally the number of trips not taken or the business ventures cancelled because of flight fear. But I am sure, based on anecdotal evidence, that the numbers are substantial. One may fly through the sky, but flying friendly skies as the commercial suggests is not as likely as it once was.

Terrorism has altered our way of travel and our way of life. And in a sense has forced almost every traveler to ask, “is this flight safe?” Well, yes, most flights are safe, yet trepidation about terrorism has entered the equation and it is not going to disappear in the short term.

Being on an airplane may lead to uneasiness, but terrorism has led to a special concern. As I see it, that special concern is terrorism’s victory. All the effort to thwart a full scale attack is obviously necessary. However, the very fact that a known terrorist, whose father warned U.S. authorities about his son’s radical views, can gain access to a commercial flight has escalated the risk factor and the fear of flying.

Every time I enter an aircraft I look suspiciously at the other passengers. Are there terrorists on board? How would I know? What are the tell-tale signs? The very fact that I ask these questions indicates terrorism has gained entry into my mind set. That is the price we pay for conciliation and political correctness, a price that undermines the freedom we once enjoyed.

Herbert London is President of the Hudson Institute and a Professor Emeritus at NYU. He is the author of Decade of Denial (Lanham, Maryland: Lexington Books, 2001). London maintains a website, http://www.herblondon.org/.

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1/6/10: The Arts In The Obama Age

From the origin of the National Endowment for the Arts during the Johnson administration to the election of President Obama the arts community was united in its opposition to censorship. The argument that prevailed is that the NEA should not use funding to restrict artistic expression or deny support for art that might offend bourgeois sensibility.

When a significant segment of the public was outraged to learn that the NEA provided funding for Andres Serrano’s “Piss Christ,” the arts community rose as one decrying censorship over efforts to cut funding for his “art.” The arts community was equally upset at the suggestion that government policymakers might influence the content of its art work. As the arts’ world sees it, the government should pay, but should remain silent about artistic content.

During the George H.W. Bush administration the NEA required grant recipients to sign an anti-obscenity pledge, which sparked a spate of angry comments from the arts community and a generally hostile stance to President Bush.

Now, however, the worm has turned. The NEA under President Obama has expressed a desire to use the agency as a propaganda instrument to promote the administration positions. And astonishingly, the arts world seems all too amendable to political advocacy as part and parcel of its work.

Patrick Courrielche, a film-maker, exposed an Obama administration attempt to use the NEA to build support for the president’s agenda. At a White House meeting artists were encouraged to promote arts activities that “can be used for a positive change.” That, of course, translates into advocacy for presidential policies in healthcare, environment and energy, education, and community service. As Buffy Wicks, deputy director of the White House Office of Public Engagement, noted, “We’re going to come at you with some specific ‘asks’ here.”

One might have assumed that the “asks” to the artistic community would lead to public outrage. After all, the fiercely independent artists are being told that promoting the president’s agenda might result in NEA grants. In fact, it appears that tax payer money is being employed to enlist artists in a promotional campaign for the president. It is hard to imagine what kind of journalistic explosion would have occurred if the erstwhile Bush administration tried anything like this.

NEA funding has always been controversial since there are critics – I count myself among them – who believe the government should not be funding the arts at all. To avoid controversy that emerged from Serrano’s work and Robert Mapplethorpe’s homoerotic photography, the NEA allocated funds to state and local arts agencies where there was somewhat less chance controversial decisions world emerge.

But that is changing with the Obama team. The Stimulus Package, for example, includes an additional $50 million for the arts, presumably to maintain employment in this field. The DC Examiner, however, points out that seven of the groups receiving this NEA funding had representatives on the Obama campaign’s Arts Policy Committee.

In what seems like the very distant past, the NEA explained that it could not interfere with the artworks of those who received grants from the agency. Dana Gioia, former NEA chairman, wrote “the NEA does not dictate arts policy to the United States.”

Of course, under President Obama that is precisely what it does. Is a culture czar far fetched, one who assures us that the arts are needed to enhance presidential actions? Is the Obama team setting the stage for its own Leni Reifenshtal? Where are the artists who celebrate their adversarial role?

Oprah Winfrey recently produced a video urging Americans to take a “presidential pledge” by volunteering “to make a difference.” The lead singer of the Red Hot Chili Peppers says, “I pledge to be of service to Barack Obama.”

Where is artistic defiance when you need it? The comments by the arts community are dripping with hypocrisy. Artistic expression in the Obama era appears to be little more than a compliant political instrument. 1984 may be a quarter of a century in the past, but the sentiments in this book indicate it is back to the future as Obama pays artists to propagandize on his behalf. It is hard to believe this is happening in the United States with the willing acceptance of the artistic community, but there you have it. The ghost of Hermann Goering lives in this Obama White House.

Herbert London is President of the Hudson Institute and a Professor Emeritus at NYU. He is the author of Decade of Denial (Lanham, Maryland: Lexington Books, 2001). London maintains a website, http://www.herblondon.org/.

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12/30/09: Tightening The Noose On Foreign Policy

As the plans for American foreign policy are being debated in the White House and the corridors of Congress, it is increasingly apparent that the options are limited.

It is not that options are limited by the lack of imagination, albeit that is a factor. The overarching concern is that foreign policy options are limited by the lack of resources.

The Obama initiatives to stimulate the economy and insinuate the government into the banking, financial services, automobile, insurance and health care industries are tied inextricably to the decisions on the foreign policy front.

It would appear that intentionally or inadvertently domestic decisions are driving national security and foreign policy goals. How can you build a 300 ship navy when you require resources for universal health care? And how can you pay for sustained military deployments when the deficit is ten percent of g.d.p.?

It may be convenient for this administration to have an aggressive domestic stance, one that devours the bulk of the budget so that the president can pursue his desire for the incremental withdrawal of forces abroad and the cessation of new military hardware. Why even consider the F22, for example, when there are insufficient funds for the construction of this aircraft?

This is the pursuit of a global strategy using capital limitation as its justification. Just as it was fashionable in the 1990’s to discuss overreach – the worldwide deployment of troops that drained our resources – it is now appropriate to describe present policy as underreach – the belief that any deployment is beyond our present resource capability.

Where this strategy leads is obvious. The United States is on the highway to Great Britain of 1990, a once great power that ruled the seas, but is relegated to marginal military status in the present. Should the U.S. pursue this goal to its logical conclusion, there will no longer be a global hegemon capable of shaping world affairs; there will only be regional powers and international instability.

Of course it should be noted that all foreign policy decisions are constrained by available capital. A nation incapable of generating wealth can only be a military power if it impoverishes its people. For democracies this tactic is unacceptable. If we have guns, we insist on butter as well. Hence an Obama plan that promises a lot of butter, limits and eliminates guns.

What differentiates President Obama from his predecessors is that domestic spending drives his agenda and offers a rationale for international timidity and conciliation. He embraces a view of U.S. imperial impulses that must be subdued, and he seeks to do so by spending on the domestic front, thereby forcing decisions on the international stage.

As the president has noted “we have run out of money.” But we have only run out of money for defense preparations. The domestic agenda proceeds in an unrelenting fashion, oblivious to asymptotes. One Obama aide noted the only limit to our spending is in our imagination. Presumably that imagination has the dollar printing presses working overtime.

This condition has alarmed our putative allies and given comfort to our enemies. The president may appear as a sensible man doing only what the budget dictates. But in truth, the budget is a political instrument that can be used to drive policy decisions. The nexus between domestic and foreign spending is palpable. In the Obama age only the former counts; it is the manifestation of his philosophical underpinnings and the rationale for his foreign policy decisions.

Herbert London is President of the Hudson Institute and a Professor Emeritus at NYU. He is the author of Decade of Denial (Lanham, Maryland: Lexington Books, 2001). London maintains a website, http://www.herblondon.org/.

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12/23/09: The Triumph of Hope Over Reality

President Obama went to Copenhagen with proclamations about reduction in greenhouse gas emissions, the first time in more than a decade that an American administration has offered even a tentative proposal to reduce production of so-called climate-altering gases, the spin meisters in the White House have announced.

But what do these proclamations mean? Five major nations, India, China, South Africa, Brazil and the United States, forged a climate deal that doesn’t legally commit any of the nations to gas emission targets. The deal asks the parties involved to list how they will cap emissions with set amounts, among other general and vague goals. Friends of the Earth tore into the arrangement as “a sham agreement with no real requirements.” Moreover, the conference also turned into a bash capitalism festival. The biggest applause line came when Chavez among others said capitalism accounts for global warming and socialism is the cure.

In effect, the Copenhagen meeting has been transmogrified into a giant extortion racket with the poor nations demanding a pay-off for the profligacy of the West, a profligacy that accounts, in their febrile minds, for the problem. The president of the Sudan had the audacity to suggest that the $140 billion the U.S. offered to deal with global warming in the developing world was “not enough.” In addition, such stalwart leaders as Mugabe and Chavez have demanded funding to deal with the reduction of carbon dioxide emissions in their respective nations, nations that have wantonly exploited environmental integrity.

The absurdity of the posturing in Copenhagen demonstrates a great deal about the hubris in the developing world, the naiveté of President Obama and this administration and an inability to distinguish between hope and reality. It has often been said that one of the great lies of our time is “I’m from the government and I’m here to help you.” I guess there may have been times when the government has helped. The problem, of course, is that most issues are local and Washington is far away in distance and emotion, and Copenhagen is now a center for political rhetoric, not for addressing issues.

Just as William Buckley once said “I’d rather be ruled by the first one hundred names in the Boston telephone directory rather than the Harvard faculty,” it is also the case that Harvard faculty, metaphorically of course, ends up in Washington and does make judgments for the country. And as one might guess, hope invariably trumps reality.

The entire healthcare bill is also predicated on hope: hope that the expense can be absorbed without rationing; hope that adding the uninsured to the hospital rolls will not lead to an additional expense and hope that the elderly who need care will still be able to receive it after Medicare is cut by $455 billion. Congressional Budget Office estimates provide a reality check which suggests none of these hopes can be realized.

The government promised the American people that a $787 billion stimulus bill would create or save 3 million jobs, a number that gets smaller in size each week. Yet the unemployment rate has gone from 8 percent when the bill was enacted to over 10 percent at the moment. There were, of course, many detractors who argued that this stimulus is little more than pork barrel legislation that cannot possibly influence the unemployment rate. It seems these people were right. But does the government care? It operates on hope and continues to contend the stimulus is working.

Perhaps President Obama thinks his decision moves us closer to a solution for the dubious proposition of global warming. I’m sure he believes his actions will do so. But first the problem should be well understood. Exaggerated claims must be addressed. And most significantly, the president should say that extortion is something Americans don’t countenance. We should not transfer $140 billion dollars to satisfy feelings of guilt or to justify the manifestations of capitalism. Our economic engine benefitted the entire world. That is nothing for which we should apologize, nor is it a condition that warrants an extortion payment.

One of the first rules of public policy should be don’t let hope trump reality. I only wish this administration in its legislative overreach and the crowd in Copenhagen had taken this advice seriously.

Herbert London is President of the Hudson Institute and a Professor Emeritus at NYU. He is the author of Decade of Denial (Lanham, Maryland: Lexington Books, 2001). London maintains a website, http://www.herblondon.org/.

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12/16/09: "Race To The Top" Merely Another Education Gimmick

In the 11/25/09 issue of the Wall Street Journal three eminences of public education, Harold Ford Jr., Louis Gerstner Jr. and Eli Broad reflect on ways to improve public education, “Race to the Top in Education.” Alas, over the last several decades there has been a lot of racing, significant funding and abysmal achievement. “Now, however,” they note, “President Obama has launched ‘Race to the Top,’ a competition that is parceling out $4.35 billion in new education funding to states that are committed to real (my italics) reform.” This package note the authors augurs well for meaningful change.

I beg to differ. Despite the emphasis on so called “performance standards and competition,” clearly goals that are needed, my guess is this initiative will fail as all of its predecessors have.

As I see it there are three principal reasons for failure: democracy, unions and the culture.

Several years ago I was an advisor on educational matters for a midwestern state that had competency exams for 3rd, 5th, 8th and 12th graders. I reviewed the exams which had reasonable requirements, although hardly excessive by Korean standards. In the first year this program was instituted less than a third of the students in the aggregate passed. Parents were outraged. “My Johnny is very bright; the exam is a foolish exercise,” wrote one parent; letters of a similar variety came pouring into the governor’s office like a gusher.

A governor, like every elected official, wants to be reelected. As you might guess, he asked to have the exams “modified,” (read: made easier). Alas, this was done, not once but twice, until the reading and math passing scores exceeded 80 percent. Like those in Lake Woebegone everyone must be above average. It’s good for politicians and a conclusion that satisfies parents. Unfortunately Johnny doesn’t read, write and compute as well as mom and dad think.

Then we have the unions whose leadership is concerned with their constituencies solely. As Al Shenker of the A.F.T once noted “when students start paying dues I’ll be as interested in them as my teachers.” Hence competition of any kind among teachers, such as merit pay, is anathema. Unless the NEA’s grip on public education is broken, competition, genuine competition, cannot be implemented. Moreover, how can this administration, already beholden to the teachers’ union for financial support, challenge the NEA?

Last, it should be noted that even the most dedicated and effective teachers cannot compete with the osmotic effect of the culture. Television, computer games, Facebook, sports, texting, diversions of every variety the mind can conjure vie for attention with scholarship. And if the general level of cultural ignorance is any measure, guess which side is winning?

Although it is unfair to generalize from a sample of one, I viewed a Jay Leno program in which he asked a teenager the country Christopher Columbus was from. His response, “Ohio.” Well at least he knew Columbus is in Ohio. Admittedly my experience is anecdotal, but as I visit American universities I find students are more familiar with the words to the latest rap music – if you can call it music – than a Robert Lowell poem or the Constitution and Declaration of Independence. As Thorstein Veblen noted “students are being trained in incapacity.” In large part, this is the case because the culture forces deviancy down. This is America’s accelerated dream of egalitarianism in which the bottom quartile moves slightly upward and the top quartile moves down creating a compression at the mean.

The gang of three, Ford, Gerstner, Broad, mean well. They are sincere in their desire to improve public education. But “Race to the Top” is no different from “No Child Left Behind” and dozens of predecessors. Until the real issues are addressed – if they can be addressed – don’t count on any more success in education than we’ve encountered before.

Herbert London is President of the Hudson Institute and a Professor Emeritus at NYU. He is the author of Decade of Denial (Lanham, Maryland: Lexington Books, 2001). London maintains a website, http://www.herblondon.org/.

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12/9/09: Fighting Jihadism At Home

The Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI) recently revealed that the Ansar Al-Mujahideen jihadist forum issued a statement in praise of the Fort Hood shooter, Nidal Hassan. This statement was aimed at Muslim associations in the United States that condemned his murderous acts.

The statement reads: “…We issue this statement in support of the actions of brother Nidal Malik Hassan, as a congratulations for his brave and heroic deed, as well as the jealousness (i.e. zeal) he displayed for the pains suffered by the Muslim Ummah as a result of the modern Zionist-Christian Crusades against it. May Allah reward you brother Nidal. We ask Allah to accept this great feat of yours and make you an example for others to follow.”

As this statement goes on to note, Hassan’s actions are not contrary to the religion of Islam, but are encouraged by it. Furthermore, there is the call for Muslims in the United States Army to repent for their apostasy and think of Hassan as a role model, instilling fear in the enemies of Allah and taking them by surprise wherever they may be.

What is one to make of this statement? It is obvious that Islam, or a branch of it, is at war with the United States and will use any method to threaten or destroy American assets and interests. Surely this situation cannot be tolerated. If the allegation that Saudi money has persuaded Muslims to join the Army as a quisling force aiding and abetting our enemies, Pentagon action is certainly warranted, albeit evidence for this allegation has not yet been uncovered. However, the complacent response of the FBI to incendiary emails sent by Colonel Hassan represents an intolerable “what me, worry” attitude.

There is little doubt we must be vigilant in ferreting out enemies ensconced in our military services. If this violates General Casey’s dedication to diversity, so be it. It is inconceivable that American soldiers should be put in harm’s way in their own barracks.

If one accepts the febrile mental state of the jihadist, any act against the Zionist-Christian Crusade is acceptable. Presumably, it doesn’t have to involve a crusade since the Koran specifically cites antipathy to apostates, i.e. nonbelievers of Islam. Once you are defined as less than human, any act is permissible. Here is the moral perversity of Holocaust logic all over again.

In a curious way American tolerance is the enemy when it cannot draw lines of acceptable behavior. There isn’t any excuse or rationalization for Nidal Hassan’s murders. If his religion compelled him to act, then we must reject that form of religion from the precincts of protected faith. The First Amendment should not tolerate murder.

That there are jihadists who value killing is evident from any reading of a daily newspaper. But we cannot allow this bloodthirsty sensibility to insinuate itself into our lives or institutions. Those who contend we can talk these people out of their fanatical beliefs, do not understand our enemy. The best we can do is defeat these people on the global battlefield and separate ourselves from their potentially dangerous actions at home. To do any less plays directly into their hands, hands already covered with the blood of innocent American soldiers.

Herbert London is President of the Hudson Institute and a Professor Emeritus at NYU. He is the author of Decade of Denial (Lanham, Maryland: Lexington Books, 2001). London maintains a website, http://www.herblondon.org/.

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11/18/09: Organized Protests Over Healthcare

Playing hardball has become the calling card of the Obama administration. When it doesn’t get what it wants, threats emerge, what some now call the Rahm Emmanuel method. But it isn’t only the formal apparatus of government that is used in a coercive way. The Obama team has apparently unleashed its informal allies, i.e. union organizers, ACORN and its alliances.

On October 28 protestors organized for the third time in front of the New Jersey Blue Cross. On this occasion protestors were intent on creating a sit-in in the building’s lobby. There were eight arrests and pandemonium broke out when the police arrived. The building was shut down for most of the workday, but what is most interesting is the coordination of these protests in twenty locations around the country.

At several locations in New Jersey, Newark, Trenton and Camden, so-called “trick or treat” bags are being distributed in which a case is made for a single payer medical plan for the country and an argument is laid out against private insurance companies. The trick is the hateful practices of insurance companies and the treat is the introduction of a government operated system.

As a believer in “sunlight as the best disinfectant” I’m persuaded free speech on public issues is not only necessary, but a condition to be encouraged. However, there is a difference between educating, persuading and convincing and sit-ins, protests and intimidation.

I have now seen the latter used as an approach to the healthcare issue and I find it reprehensible. Buses filled with angry protestors have been transported to healthcare debates in an effort to intimidate those opposed to government sponsored programs. Who is responsible for hiring these buses and from where do these protestors come?

There isn’t any way of knowing whether the government has been actively promoting this activity, countenancing it or simply averting its gaze. But it is ugly and it appears to be planned and systematic.

Recognizing the positive role of a minority to foment change Samuel Adams said, “It does not take a majority to prevail…but rather an irate, tireless minority, keen on setting brushfires of freedom in the minds of men.”

It is also true that there is an obverse observation: A tireless and irate minority can foment revolution and destroy freedom by setting brushfires in the minds of men. Those committed to undoing an existing system can do so based on the level of commitment and risk tolerance. The Bolsheviks called themselves “the majority,” but they were a tiny minority willing to put lives on the line to destroy the Russian monarchy. What they put in its place may have been even more monstrous, but it affirms the view a minority can prevail.

The danger with the contemporary protestor is he doesn’t have to assume much risk in a system that is tolerance crazy. You might think after two disturbances in New Jersey, the third wouldn’t be tolerated at all, but you would be wrong.

As a consequence, minorities can dictate to majorities that are acquiescent or complacent. In my judgment that explains why one is somewhat suspicious about these organized protests, particularly when there isn’t transparency about the sponsors.

Samuel Adams may have been speaking about the American Revolution, but at the moment there are malevolent influences applying the same method. It is a matter about which we should take heed.

Herbert London is President of the Hudson Institute and a Professor Emeritus at NYU. He is the author of Decade of Denial (Lanham, Maryland: Lexington Books, 2001). London maintains a website, http://www.herblondon.org/.

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11/4/09: Taiwan and China's Buildup

Despite “the era of good feeling” that has emerged between Taiwan and China, tensions in the Taiwan Straits have not disappeared. There are 1500 missiles aimed at Taiwan. It is also the case that Beijing’s military posture toward Taiwan has hindered efforts to create a thaw in the relationship. China has not given up the notion of using force against Taiwan.

In the latest edition of its biennial military review, the Taiwan Ministry of Defense released a metaphorical bombshell. It noted that with China’s continuing and unrelenting military buildup, “it can now deter foreign militaries from assisting Taiwan.” This, of course, is a euphemism for deterring the United States. Since the U.S. deployed an aircraft carrier in the Straits a decade ago when conditions heated on both sides of the divide, China has vowed to thwart any American military assistance for Taiwan. And if the report is accurate, that moment may have arrived.

Taiwan and China have been ruled as separate nations over the last 60 years, but Beijing claims the island must eventually unify with the mainland. The only question that remains is what is meant by “eventually.” Whenever the word independence has been used by Taiwanese politicians, China ratchets up the threat level.

Since the election of President Ma Ying-jeou, who is noticeably cautious in reference to independence, Taiwan relations with China have improved. The two nations now have regular commercial flights and are negotiating a possible free trade deal. What has not received much publicity is the fact that Taiwanese business investments in China have led to the employment of millions of Chinese mainlanders. However, these developments exist against a backdrop of China’s insistence Taiwan is part of “one China.”

Holding China at bay is Taiwan’s most important international ally, the United States. According to the 1979 Taiwan Relations Act the U.S. government has noted it will provide defensive weapons and would intercede if China attacked the island. This report by the Taiwan Ministry, however, indicates that vows of intercession are meaningless gestures now that China’s military strength is sufficient to deter U.S. involvement.

It is also the case that Obama administration impulses to withdraw from foreign commitments make it extremely unlikely the U.S. would respond militarily to Chinese adventurism. For all practical purposes Taiwan is a literal and figurative island at the mercy of Chinese leadership.

This is not to suggest that China is prepared to attack Taiwan. Such an event would poison Chinese ties to the West and its position in the World Trade Organization. What it does mean, however, is that China can apply pressure on a vulnerable Taiwan thereby accelerating the goal of unification and forcing Taiwanese leaders to make concessions of various kinds.

Presumably Taiwan can seek military alliances in Asia with Japan, South Korea and India in an effort to thwart Chinese ambitions. But, with the exception of India, most nations in Asia recognize putative Chinese regional leadership in the face of America’s evanescing Asian presence. The new Japanese, government, for example, is already making overtures to Beijing in an effort to forestall Chinese inroads into the Sea of Japan.

It is instructive that a world with a less powerful United States leads to political instability in many parts of the globe. The Taiwanese are a resilient and remarkable people who have taken a once largely barren island and converted it into one of the most vigorous economies on the globe. Yet this development could not have occurred without the protective shield of the United States and one can only wonder how it can be sustained without active American assistance.

To learn that the Taiwanese now recognize checkmate in the Straits of Taiwan is upsetting for any of us who admire the fierce determination of the island’s people. A new day is dawning and from the perspective of democracy and prosperity, it is a very gray day indeed.

Herbert London is President of the Hudson Institute and a Professor Emeritus at NYU. He is the author of Decade of Denial (Lanham, Maryland: Lexington Books, 2001). London maintains a website, http://www.herblondon.org/.

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Herbert London is President of the Hudson Institute and a Professor Emeritus at NYU. He is the author of Decade of Denial (Lanham, Maryland: Lexington Books, 2001). London maintains a website, http://www.herblondon.org/.

Back to the Top

Herbert London is President of the Hudson Institute and a Professor Emeritus at NYU. He is the author of Decade of Denial (Lanham, Maryland: Lexington Books, 2001). London maintains a website, http://www.herblondon.org/.

Back to the Top

Herbert London is President of the Hudson Institute and a Professor Emeritus at NYU. He is the author of Decade of Denial (Lanham, Maryland: Lexington Books, 2001). London maintains a website, http://www.herblondon.org/.

Back to the Top

Herbert London is President of the Hudson Institute and a Professor Emeritus at NYU. He is the author of Decade of Denial (Lanham, Maryland: Lexington Books, 2001). London maintains a website, http://www.herblondon.org/.

Back to the Top

Herbert London is President of the Hudson Institute and a Professor Emeritus at NYU. He is the author of Decade of Denial (Lanham, Maryland: Lexington Books, 2001). London maintains a website, http://www.herblondon.org/.

Back to the Top

Herbert London is President of the Hudson Institute and a Professor Emeritus at NYU. He is the author of Decade of Denial (Lanham, Maryland: Lexington Books, 2001). London maintains a website, http://www.herblondon.org/.

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