The drug war in Mexico… is not going very well. If you saw this item: (http://www.townhall.com/news/world/2008/07/25/mexican_military_losing_drug_war_support) in TownHall you must be as concerned as I am. President Felipe Calderón sent 20,000 Mexican Army troops to cities on the U.S. border where the civil authority had broken down and the territory was under the effective control of the narco trafficante gangs.   The dismal news is that the soldiers have gotten bored, frustrated and unhappy with their duty. They are breaking into private homes and conducting warrantless searches. Suspects are being beaten and tortured. All you have to do to get even with that neighbor who plays loud music after 10 is to send in an anonymous “tip” that the guy next door is holding meth. The Army will break down his door, toss his house thoroughly and, if you’re lucky, put a bag over his head, beat him senseless and crush his testicles with pliers.

    All this puts the United States in a sticky position... We are the root of the problem, with our insatiable appetite for drugs. We are the source of the money that gives the narco trafficantes their power. If not for the millions we send down south for drugs, Calderón would not have to fight it out with the narcotics lords for civil control of the border cities.
    Congress has approved $400 million for Mexico’s drug war. It’s the least we can do. At the same time the thought of the Mexican Army imposing a brutal martial law on the border is disquieting, to say the least. One hopes that the Mexican Army will be disciplined enough in the future not to abuse the civilian population.
    It may be a vain hope: For as long as the army is at the border there exists the possibility that the drug gangs can subvert individual soldiers (through bribes and extortion) and even whole units.
    Where are the narco trafficantes getting the military weapons and sometimes military uniforms that have been spotted on our side of the border? A recent shootout in Phoenix, Arizona, between narco gangsters and police is said to have involved at least one Mexican soldier.
    As Americans our souls should be troubled by all this. Because of our demand for illicit drugs, Mexico may lose control of her border states. Right now, and for quite some time in the past, Mexico has been losing the lives of its citizens in this war.
     Every death of an innocent civilian, every honest cop slain, every woman abducted, raped and slain in Juarez; every child caught in the crossfire, was victimized directly by our selfish demand for drugs.
     We have given our wealth to the enemies and assassins of the Mexican people. Our drug habit has brought misery, violence and death to a people already struggling against poverty.
    So much for narcotics abuse being a victimless crime. Who was it who said, “I shudder for my country when I recall that God is just.”

Strategy 101…Barack Obama rates the invasion of Iraq as the “worst strategic blunder” ever made by the United States. When we withdraw from that country, he adds, we need to send our troops to where the real front line of the War on Terror is: Afghanistan (and maybe Pakistan).
     Where do we begin?
     The invasion of Iraq in 2003 was not in retaliation for the 9/11 attacks but because the U.S. Government believed that Saddam Hussein was building an atom bomb and had other weapons of mass destruction (WMDs). Bush’s CIA believed it. Clinton and his CIA believed it. Our NATO allies believed it (even if some didn’t support the invasion). And we knew for certain the Saddam had used poison gas, on his own people, and that he was a murderer and torturer capable of using WMDs if he had them. That’s why we invaded. But Saddam had either dismantled or hid any evidence of WMDs.
     That was bad enough, but inexcusably, the government, especially the departments of Defense and State, had no plans to restore peace and order in the country after the invasion. The way was opened first for lawlessness and then for outright insurrection.
     Five years have passed and we have finally defeated most of our foes in the country, including “Al Qaeda in Iraq.” But Obama still maintains that the war was a strategic blunder, says knowing what he knows now he would still vote against The Surge and that the real center of gravity of this conflict is in Afghanistan.
     Here is why he is wrong: Iraq sits between Iran and the rest of the Middle East, including Israel. Iran has made a satellite out of Syria and Lebanon, but with a free, democratic Iraq sitting between Iran and the Levant, the ability of the Iranians to dominate the region is severely hampered. With a free Iraq, Iranian hegemony in Syria and Lebanon might be broken. Iraq blocks overland aid and reinforcements from Iran going to Syria, Lebanon or to Palestinian terrorists.
     Iraq sits on great underground lakes of oil. Victory in Iraq means that their oil will not become a bargaining chop in an Iranian power play, but will be available to all who can afford to buy it. If Iraq becomes a U.S. ally, we could station troops and air power there to keep an eye on Iran without having to risk carrier task forces in the narrow waters of the Persian Gulf.
     Finally, a free and democratic Iraq will prove to the Muslim world that democracy and its institutions are not incompatible with Islam.
    Afghanistan does have strategic value. It harbors Osama Bin Laden and the remnants of Al Qaeda. Eliminating them would cripple terrorist groups around the world. Defeating the resurgant Taliban will reduce the influence of the Islamist fascists in Pakistan. Obama is right to propose a surge—if you will—in U.S. troop strength in Afghanistan to achieve these goals.
     But when you look at the geographic position of Iraq, its oil and its potential for containing Iranian expansionism, there can be no doubt that Iraq has more strategic value to the United States. Our challenge now is to get the Iraqi government to let us stick around as we have stuck around in Japan and Germany: as a friendly presence insuring that country’s lasting security. 

Am I imagining this?…Or is Barack Obama just a teensy weensy bit full of himself, taking his victory lap around Europe three and a half months before the election? The Daily Show said Obama visited Bethlehem while in Israel just to have a look at the manger where he was born….

Does anyone here know how to play this game? …Wailed Casey Stengel when he managed the hapless 1961 New York Mets. Senator John McCain might be excused if he were to wail Stengel-like about his campaign team. It’s a fine thing when a guy with all the experience in the world, like McCain, looks like a duffer on the campaign trail while Obama, who not that far removed from his days as a neighborhood activist cuts a fine presidential picture.
    Sic semper Republicans…Thus be it ever with Republicans. They seem to have lost the knack for political campaigning. Campaign staffers have been providing McCain with plenty of gaffes for him to apologize for …while Obama strikes presidential poses at the Wailing Wall, Berlin and etc.
     McCain’s effort has the same lack of fire we saw in George H.W. Bush’s 1992 bid and Bob Dole’s 1996 attempt. What McCain needs is a James Carville-type organizer who gets everyone on message –the SAME message, it should be stressed for this lot—and who is not afraid to get tough with the opposition. We deserve to see a little more fight from McCain, if only to toughen up Obama for the job he is well on course for winning.

“Compassion” Exterminates a Family…More than a little sympathy should be felt for the majority of illegal immigrants who have come to the United States to escape the crushing poverty of their home countries (not just Mexico, but several Central American nations). The recent extermination of a San Francisco family, however, makes the case very plainly for tighter control of our sovereign borders.
    It began with gridlock in a San Francisco intersection. One of the drivers, Edwin Ramos, got sick of waiting for the intersection to clear. He got out of his car, aimed his AK-47 Russian assault rifle at the car and driver he thought responsible for the gridlock and fired. He killed Anthony Bologna, 49, and his son, Michael, 20. The younger Bologna son, Matthew, 16, died from his wounds later.
    Important points to consider: One--Ramos is in the United States illegally. He is a native of El Salvador. He has no documents to indicate he entered this county legally.
    Two—He is a member of the Mara Salvatrucha gang, known as “MS-13,” arguably the largest and most violent criminal organization in the hemisphere. Even if Ramos had tried to enter the country legally, his membership in MS-13 would have disqualified him. Widespread in the U.S. and Central America, the ultra-violent MS-13’s criminal activities in the United States include drug smuggling and dealing, gun running, people smuggling, murder for hire, theft and arson.   
    Three—Ramos was convicted twice before in felony cases (2003 and 2004) but his file was never turned over to ICE because San Francisco considers itself a “Sanctuary City.”
    That means that city police and other officials will not turn over information on an individual’s status as an illegal alien to federal authorities. He was arrested earlier this year when a gun used in a double homicide was discovered in a car Ramos was driving. The D.A. decided not to file charges against Ramos and ICE was not notified.
    Ramos is going to face murder charges for killing the Bologna family, though it is unlikely that his wanton crime will earn him the death penalty; the District Attorney, Kamala Harris, personally opposes capital punishment.
    The crime could have been prevented on three separate occasions: if Ramos had been deported for his 2003 and 2004 felonies, or if he had been reported to ICE after the gun incident this year. Instead three lives were sacrificed so that the “Sanctuary City” could carry on hiding lawbreakers from federal authorities.
    Ramos’s story is no isolated case, but the vast, vast majority of undocumented residents in this country are hard-working people who stay out of trouble. We will have to find some sort of solution for them which will be characterized by our traditional values and our love of liberty and fair play.
    We must seal our borders against illegal entry and deport any undocumented individual, without exception, who is a member of a criminal gang or who has committed a crime. …And we must impose sanctions, including cutoffs of federal money, to the so-called “Sanctuary Cities,” which fail to report violations of federal law.

You and what Army?…To secure our borders will require a vastly expanded Border Patrol and military backup. An area command of the Army should be created with bases along our southern border. The battalions assigned to this command should be selected from the state National Guards and also be rotated in from the regular Army. They should establish strong points and patrols along the known and suspected routes of entry into the country, with larger bases for reserve troops, light armor and tactical helicopter support further back from the border area.
    Congress should empower the soldiers in the “Border Command” area to detain suspects to be turned over to civilian law enforcement, and to respond with force when force is applied against our Border Patrol or troops on our own soil.
    There have already been gunfights on our side of the border. Smugglers bringing in drugs and illegal immigrants have included men who at least wore the uniform of the Mexican Army and who carried military weapons.
    Meanwhile, on the Mexican side of the border, courageous President Felipe Calderón is directing his army in a desperate war against the powerful and violent narcotics gangs. It is an uphill battle. Nuevo Laredo is in the hands of the narco trafficantes. The Mexican government and the narco terrorists are fighting for control of Ciudad Juarez, where more than 400 persons have been murdered this year. Tijuana is also at risk.
     If Calderón fails to regain control of the border cities, we better be ready for the violence to spill over onto our side of the border.

What would have been the right thing to do if the Allies truly understood the purpose, scale and extent of the Nazi death camp system (and some historians believe we were aware…)? The only solution in our power in 1943 and 1944 was to bomb the rail lines leading to places like Auschwitz and Treblinka and to bomb the gas chambers and crematoria.
     This solution would have slowed the genocide a little, but not diverted Hitler from his purpose. No amount of intimidation could do that. In the end we had to destroy Germany, defeat her armed forces and occupy the country to bring the genocide to a full stop.    
     What do we have to do to stop the genocide in Darfur of the Fur, Zaghawa, and Masaalit black African ethnic groups?     Campus rallies, donations to relief funds, letters to U.S. and European Union leaders, days of outrage, days of conscience, divestment campaigns, letters to Congress and angry blog entries (like this one) are not going to stop the Janjaweed militias from riding into black African villages, raping all the women older than 5 or 6, and killing the men and dumping their dismembered bodies into the water supply.
     The Janjaweed enjoy their work. They cannot be shamed. Neither can Sudanese government officials like the ones who, when at a recent General Assembly meeting at the U.N., were told to their faces by George Bush that Sudan was carrying on genocide. Two of the three Sudanese listed without expression. The other smirked.
     Legal action is ineffective. The International Criminal Court charged the President of Sudan, Omar al-Beshir, with masterminding genocide in Darfur. The world court prosecutor has sought an arrest warrant for al Beshir. This has not made a pariah out of al Beshir. Arab League chief Amr Mussa flew to Khartoum this weekend with a plan aimed at stalling legal action against the Sudanese president.          If al-Beshir had any respect for law and decency in the first place, he would not send his Janjaweed militias to rape schoolchildren as a tactic of war.
     Since al-Bashir has no regard for law, those who oppose his policy of genocide must resort to force.     In the 1990’s NATO, including the United States, stepped in to end the ethnic cleaning in the Balkans. Serbia, which intended to eliminate the Muslim population of Kosovo province, was prevented from doing so, but it took armed force. Bombs were dropped. Blood was spilled before the Serbs got the message that we were not going to allow Kosovo to be “ethnically cleansed.”
     Of course the Muslims in Kosovo were lucky. They were white Europeans.
     Europe and the United States have not been as quick to step into African crises. We did nothing 14 years ago to stop the genocide in Rwanda.
     Perhaps our sojourn in Mogadishu (the “Black Hawk Down” incident) has made us gun-shy when it comes to getting involved in African affairs. Perhaps we are afraid of offending the Chinese, who are special friends of the Sudan government. Perhaps the scraps and tidbits of information on al-Qaeda that we get from Sudan’s intelligence service are worth selling our souls for.
     Can we not include Sudan in the Axis of Evil? Isn’t genocide essentially a terrorist activity? Given the genocide in Darfur, how can anyone deny that Sudan is a terrorist state?
     The Janjaweed are way overdue for a visit from the United States Marines. It is time, way past time, that al-Bashir was given a practical demonstration of the capabilities of Naval Aviation and the United States Air Force.
     This is what being the world’s sole remaining superpower is all about. No one else will even try to stop al Bashir’s genocide. If we are not a power for good, then what are we? Saving helpless civilians from genocidal maniacs is what we do best. Maybe people need to be reminded of that. Maybe we need to be reminded.

Reader Response: When you say we have to go down a level to meet and destroy evil are you saying waterboarding is not torture? Christopher Hitchins got waterboarded and said if that is not torture, then there is no torture.
     What I am saying is that stopping Hitler --or the genocide in Darfur--  requires armed force and the will to use it --which means killing people. That is what I refer to when I say we have to get down into the gutter ourselves. War, after all is evil. Even a "just" war entails the taking of human lives.
     I agree with Obama and McCain that waterboarding and other forms of torture are not permissible for Americans. But if the matter were left up to you, personally, and you could absolutely prevent the planes crashing into the World Trade Center by waterboarding a terrorist, would you do it? If you didn't do it, and the planes crash, what would you say to the families of the victims? Would the 3,000 dead be on your conscience? Let’s make the dilemma even more onerous. You have in your custody 100 suspected terrorists. One of them, you don’t know who, may have information on a WMD attack on an American city. Do you waterboard them all? Do you waterboard none of them?
     Moral choices become agonizingly complicated when you fight evil. If the only way to bring down the Nazis is to kill them, do we do it? What if some of the killing is long, drawn-out and painful, involving lots of innocent civilians? Do we do it anyway or do we let Hitler continue to ship Jews to Auschwitz?  If the only way to stop the Janjaweed from raping 7-year-old girls in Darfur is to drop napalm on them, do we do it? Or do we let the girls get raped?
    And if we do use deadly force, do we lower ourselves to the level of the enemy? Can we do that as long as our motives are “pure?”

My Reader Retorts: Seems your questions are only answerable with 20/20 hindsight, which does not exist. McCain gave the Green Bay Packers offensive line as member of his squadron when tortured in North Vietnam. Seems your questions are only answerable with 20/20 hindsight, which does not exist. McCain gave the names of the Green Bay Packers offensive line as members of his squadron when tortured in North Vietnam. So the reliability of the information is in question when torture is used. When we violate the premise of our country (and even the Attorney General won’t say if waterboarding is torture) I believe the country sinks into a murky area that will be difficult to extricate it from. There must be a high road and someone needs to walk it or we look as bad as the bad guys.
     If I were about to be tortured I would be screaming –for a stenographer. But I would tell the bad guys anything they wanted to hear, true or not. Torture has proven over the centuries to be an unreliable way of getting at the truth. And for the record, waterboarding is torture.
    I still believe that deadly force is the only thing that can deter genocide in Darfur. What I’m saying is that if we have to engage in the evil of war to rescue the suffering black Africans of the region, we just have to be careful that we don’t lower ourselves so far into hatred and brutality that we squander our souls in the process. 

Defying logic…Barack Obama has gotten an eyeful in Iraq. He has met Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki who said he thinks the Coalition troops could be withdrawn over 16 months as Obama proposes. There is a reason the Iraq government believes this. The war has been won. The government is meeting the political and social goals set by the Coalition, banished armed resistance from the cities and is backed up by a reliable army that grows stronger every day.
     For that they can thank General David Petraeus’ brilliant counter-insurgency strategy and The Surge. The Surge put enough additional American troops on the ground to allow the establishment of neighborhood strong points in Baghdad and to train and support the Iraqi army as it developed into a respectable fighting force.
    So, given the success of The Surge, why did Barack Obama say this to ABC’s Terry Moran when asked if, knowing what he does now, would he still have opposed The Surge: “These kinds of hypotheticals are very difficult….Hindsight is 20/20. But I think that what I am absolutely convinced of is, at that time, we had to change the political debate because the view of the Bush administration at that time was one that I just disagreed with, and one that I continue to disagree with -- is to look narrowly at Iraq and not focus on these broader issues [Afghanistan and Pakistan]." Huh?    
     In other words, even if he knew The Surge would be successful, Obama would still have opposed it. This says volumes about his capacity to be commander-in-chief.

More than a Superhero Movie...Moviegoers are participating in a mass seminar on the nature of evil. The Dark Knight, a film in the Batman franchise by director Christopher Nolan, features a character of pure evil: The Joker, as played brilliantly by the late Heath Ledger. The Joker bears some study in this film, which explores the nature of evil and what men and women must do to combat it.
     First, we have to come to understand the nature of The Joker’s evil. He is not made evil by greed, or by the lust for power. Evil, for its own sake, the drug The Joker is hooked on. Picture Hitler without the trappings of state power. As Bruce Wayne’s butler Alfred observes, “Some men just like to watch the world burn.”
     Second, we discover that The Joker’s evil has a kind of twisted integrity. As one National Review columnist put it, he cannot be reasoned with, bought off, bullied or intimidated. That makes him incredibly frightening and dangerous. Like the serial killer Ted Bundy, The Joker is a master manipulator on a mission to prove that while he can be purely evil, the men who oppose him cannot remain purely good.
    The Joker has a valid point. Hitler, who was purely evil, was not brought down by sweet reason and acts of kindness. He could not be reasoned with, appeased, bargained with, bullied or intimidated. He wanted, from the very beginning, to start a war that would immolate millions upon millions of human beings, and he got his wish. To stop him from burning down the entire world we had to lower ourselves to his level, and to all the dirty work that war entails. We destroyed Hitler, but we came away with unclean hands.
     That is the lesson of the movie; that to destroy evil one must make hard decisions and carry them through, even if it means descending into the gutter to catch and kill the adversary. This is quite a message for a superhero movie to deliver, but The Dark Knight is no ordinary adaptation of a comic book. It is a harrowing demonstration of how fast things can fall apart if evil is given the slightest chance to succeed.

The Butcher of Darfur...Pure evil backed by the power of the state is, thankfully, a rare commodity in this world. The difference between a Ted Bundy and an Adolf Hitler is not in the degree of evil, but in their access to power. Give pure evil the power and you get Pol Pot, or Joseph Stalin, or Omar Hassan Al Bashir.
     Al-Bashir’s continued existence is a blot on the honor of world civilization. The president of Sudan, it is al-Bashir who planned, initiated and is ordering the massacre of black Africans in Darfur.
     In the London Sunday Times yesterday a doctor –Halima Bashir-- serving the refugees in Darfur told a horrifying story of the depredations of the Janjaweed, the mounted murder squads that have claimed over 400,000 lives of black Sudanese and displaced 2.5 million others so far.
    The doctor was discussing supplies she needed for the village clinic when she noticed a commotion outside. A wailing crowd approached and they carried in their arms the girls from the local school. Their dresses were dirty and bloodied. The people in the crowd screamed that the Janjaweed had attacked the school and raped all the schoolgirls. The youngest was seven, the oldest 13. They had all been gang raped. Their legs and privates were lacerated and bruised. In all Dr. Bashir treated 40 victims.
    A teacher from the school, who was also raped, described the scene to Dr. Halima:

 “It was like a band of wild animals just jumping on us and forcing us to the floor. All around me girls were being raped, regardless of their age. The Janjaweed carried guns, knives, heavy sticks — the ones they use to beat their horses. If any girl tried to resist, they beat her. They were shouting and screaming at us. You know what they were saying? ‘We have come here to kill you! To finish you all! You are black slaves! You are worse than dogs! Either we kill you or we give you Arab children. Then there will be no more black slaves in this country.’ The worst was that they were laughing and yelping with joy as they did those terrible things…. They said, ‘We will let you live so you can tell your mothers and fathers and brothers what we did to you. Tell them from us: if you stay, the same and worse will happen to you all. Next time, we will show no mercy. Leave this land. Sudan is for the Arabs. It is not for black dogs and slaves’.”

     Dr. Halima passed the story on to U.N. representatives. Not long after she was abducted by Janjaweed troops, bound and gagged, severely beaten, then gang raped. She was released and fled to her native village --which was attacked and destroyed by Sudanese helicopters and Janjaweed riders. Her father was killed in the attack.
     This is just one story among thousands of tales of atrocity and murder. The International Criminal Court last week charged al-Bashir with genocide, but it is going to take military action to put an end to the holocaust of black Africans in Darfur. The problem is that no one seems willing to do the job. The logical candidates are the United States Britain and France. Perhaps, with a new administration, the Allies will take action. Or perhaps not.

In our era, wars between insurgents and regular armies tend to end in one of two ways. The one we are most familiar with is the way the Vietnam War ended in 1975, with a Russian-made tank crashing the gate of the presidential palace in Saigon. In other words, they end with an unmistakable event. The last chopper out of Saigon...Castro entering Havana…the Khmer Rouge taking Phnom Penh.
     In the wars that the insurgents lose, the ending is much like the beginning. Such wars begin with scattered acts of violence or terrorism and gradually escalate on both sides. When the insurgents lose the violence gradually ebbs. Perhaps it never ends completely, but life goes back to something approximating normal.
     This may be what’s happening in Iraq. Quietly, under the radar of the mass media, our side may have won the war.
     Al Qaeda in Iraq, two years ago, numbered somewhere around 12,000 fighters, mostly foreign with some indigenous Sunni Iraqis. Their last urban stronghold, Mosul, fell to the Iraqi army two weeks ago, and it is estimated there are only about 1,200 AQI fighters left.
    The Sunni insurgency, which four years ago occupied and re-occupied Fallujah and other centers in Al Anbar province, is virtually extinguished. AQI attempted to impose a Taliban-style rule of terror on the province and the Sunnis bridled. The clan chiefs who are the real local government in Al Anbar allowed the Americans to buy them off and now the Sunni chiefs are our good allies who give us excellent information on enemy movements and activity.
    With two thirds of the threat removed, Coalition and Iraq forces are now concentrating on keeping the Shite militias, especially the Sadrists, off balance. The militia leaders are in exile in Iran, including Muqtada al-Sadr. Sadr City, the Baghdad suburb that was a stronghold of enemy militias, is now occupied by Iraqi troops.
     The entire city of Baghdad is much quieter than two years ago as General David Petraeus’ strategy of setting up neighborhood strongpoints manned by U.S. and Iraq soldiers has paid off with a much quieter city. The people are coming to Coalition and Iraqi soldiers with tips and information that keeps the enemy on the defensive.
     As for the sectarian “civil war” between the Sunni and Shites, the numbers killed in that conflict in May and June were zero.
     Fifteen of the eighteen political and social benchmarks set by the President and Congress as our war goals have been met. Every day Iraq police and military forces become stronger, better trained, more confident and more trusted by the people. Now Iraq and the United States are tentatively exploring the subject of U.S. withdrawal and the return of full sovereignty to the Iraq Government. That government may yet turn out to be the only truly democratic government in the Arab world, a buffer between the rest of the Middle East and expansionist Iran.
   No one is going to say the war is over because, like all insurgencies, acts of violence big and small will continue to take place for years to come. But the intensity and frequency of the violence has tapered off and will continue to decline. The war might not be over, but we’ve already won it.
    All of which may make anything that John McCain or Barack Obama might have to say about it moot. That’s probably a good thing.

     The General Speaks…What if it isn’t a moot point? General Petraeus was asked the other day about Obama’s 16-month withdrawal plan. Diplomatically and devastatingly he said, “It depends on the conditions; depends on the mission set.  It depends on the enemy.  The enemy does get a vote and is sometimes an independent variable.”  No kidding. Even the best laid peace plans of mice and men oft go astray.

     A Footnote to History… I believe it was last week that a cargo of uranium yellow cake was received in Canada for disposal (Edmonton Sun,  July 6, 2008). It was reportedly left over from Saddam Hussein’s nuclear weapons program. Whether we were right or wrong to invade Iraq is going to be debated long after you and I are gone, but in ousting Saddam Hussein we just might have done the right thing.

A reader remarks…

     What about the argument that the oil companies are not drilling on leased areas as it is and the deregulation of futures speculation (Enron loophole) that has also contributed to driving up the price of oil? Why wont US oil companies get oil from South America or Canada? Why does most of the oil have to be bought from OPEC?
     Seems there's more to it than the offshore drilling solution… Not that I am against it, because I am for it. But that is only part of the solution on Middle East oil dependence.
     Actually, we need a mix of traditional and new energy sources (natural gas, solar, wind, geothermal, hydroelectric as well as coal and oil) to gain our independence from foreign oil. Germany is leading the way in this area, with legal mandates and tax incentives for the adoption of wind, hydroelectric, geothermal and solar heat. Google the city of Freiburg and you’ll find a town that makes so much of it’s own energy that it has a surplus the citizens sell at a profit to the national grid. They have homes that lose so little heat they can be warmed comfortably in the dead of winter using 30 lit candles and the trapped heat the occupants give off. So yes, there is more to the solution than drilling.
    But when President Bush lifted the executive ban on offshore drilling yesterday the price of oil futures dropped by $9 a barrel, finally stabilizing at a net reduction of $7.33 by the end of trading. Supply and Demand. What do you think would happen to the price of oil if Congress followed suit?
    Right now there are oil fields off California that, if opened back up for drilling, would produce oil in one year. Other areas will take much longer to develop, but we are looking at the possibility of almost immediate relief.
    If there is oil to be had on the leased land I think the oil companies would be drilling for it right now, given the price per barrel. I suspect most of that leased land is not as promising to yield oil as the outer continental shelf, our western oil shale and the ANWR deposits.
    I’ve heard that speculation adds from 40 to 80 cents a gallon to the price of gasoline. This may well be. On the other hand –and hear me out on this— the speculators, oil futures buyers, provide a valuable service. There is competition among nations to buy oil. India wants it and so does China. The futures buyers secure a reliable supply for U.S. end users. In other words, they make sure that when we turn the car on, there’s gas in the tank. The $4.50 a gallon is the price of buying the gas in a competitive world market. Once again, supply and demand.
    If you look into whom the futures buyers are, you won’t find a crew of buccaneers like Enron. You will find pension funds and public employee unions.
     We do, in fact get oil from Canada, which has the biggest deposit of tar sand in the world. The oil is processed out of that material, which is mined. Our South American supplier is Venezuela, which is run by our adversary Hugo Chavez, who is every bit as obnoxious as any Arab oil sheik ever thought of being.
    So I’m with you. Let’s drill and let’s diversify our energy portfolio. That is a solution that is truly pragmatic and truly progressive.

Burning food in a hungry world…

     Count me out when it comes to ethanol, however. In a world where starving children bloat up and are too week to brush the flies off their own faces, it is a grotesquely selfish and ultimately obscene act to take edible corn and turn it into fuel for SUVs. By 2015 as much as half of the U.S. corn crop could be going into ethanol production. What will this do to the price of animal feed? Meat and milk prices are already rising, what about the thousand-and-one other food products made directly or indirectly from corn?
     We Americans can afford a bigger food bill. What about the less fortunate peoples of the world? What are they to do when food is either too expensive or unavailable at any price? It is something to think about as we crank up the air conditioning in our SUVs this summer.    

Mr. Obama goes to Washington…by way of Baghdad

     Barack Obama is going to Iraq. The only question is …why? The answer is far from obvious because Obama went to some pains yesterday to say that the war in Iraq was a strategic mistake and it’s the war in Afghanistan that we absolutely, positively must win.
    There was no hint that Obama planned to modify or refine his position on the war for any reason. That’s because his net roots are being especially vigilant in examining anything he says about the conflict for signs of a shift to the center.
     This puts Obama –ahem!— between Iraq and a hard place because while the Democratic primary candidates bickered earlier this year about who would get us out of Iraq the fastest, the Surge worked and we more or less won the war. The terrorists have not been completely eliminated, but they hold no cities, Al Qaida in Iraq has been reduced by about 90 percent and the Iraq army is taking on more and more responsibility in the conflict.
    This calls for at least for a more nuanced approach to withdrawal by the Democratic standard-bearer. But with a civil war brewing on his own website over his shifts to the center on faith-based programs, gun rights and immunity for the telecoms who helped the government wiretap terrorists, Obama cannot move to the center on the war. He cannot cross the Netroots on the signature issue of the campaign.
    So if going to Iraq is not going to change his mind on policy, what’s the point? Frequent flyer miles? Or the excellent roast lamb they serve in Baghdad?

When those of us who consider ourselves conservative were winning, I didn’t feel the urge to blog. I was perfectly happy writing my magazine pieces on World War II and writing the occasional book.
     Now we conservatives are losing, thanks to a well-meaning but inept administration. Now that we are the underdogs I think it could be fun to look at the world and especially our country while the other side is busy ruining it.
    The main difference between those of us who call ourselves “conservatives” and self-proclaimed “progressives” (the preferred term to replace “liberal”) is that we conservatives tend to be more pragmatic than the left. Idea that work appeal to us, while progressive prefer ideas that make them feel good, whether or not they work. We look for results while they strive for fairness.
    There are other differences. For example, if you spend any time reading a major market newspapers, you will find that the progressives consider themselves to be much more intelligent than conservatives.  Favoring unlimited abortion rights, rejecting religion, and solving problems by expanding government makes you smart, apparently. If they are right then I shall wear my stupidity as a badge of honor.
    Our current energy crisis reveals yet another major difference between our two sides. The progressives feel the cure for $4.75 gasoline is to tax the oil companies, to forbid drilling for domestic oil in the icy, featureless wilderness of ANWR, to get people who have never conserved fuel in their lives to start conserving and to punish the people who buy and sell oil futures. Supply and demand? Please don’t try to confuse them with economic doubletalk. It’s about fairness and someone –not the progressive—taking the blame.
     Of course our side wants to assign blame too, but first we want to start drilling for domestic oil. Since that would mean a future expansion of supply, it will lower demand --which means oil futures and fuel prices will drop. That takes us to about page 11 of your Economics 101 textbook...

 Charles Schumer, the Democratic senator from New York, is one of the classic publicity hounds of the United States Congress. I first noticed him years ago when he was a congressman, throwing a picturesque tantrum over gun control legislation that was blocked by the Republicans.
    After that I seemed to see him every time I turned on the television or opened a newspaper. They say in Washington that you take your life in your hands if you stand between Chuck Schumer and a live microphone. But this week I discovered that the pen –or more accurately, the word processor—is mightier than the microphone.
    Sen. Schumer sent a letter on June 26 to the Office of Thrift Supervision (OTS) and the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) in which he doubted the liquidity of the IndyMac Bank. It was a valid observation about a bank in some difficulty…But…Schumer being Schumer, he also released the letter to the press --scaring IndyMac's depositors witless. That caused a good old-fashioned, 1930’s style run on the bank, which lost $1.3 billion in deposits in the following eleven days. The Feds had to take over the bank on Friday, setting the seal on the second largest bank failure in U.S. history.
    Called on his behavior, Schumer said it is like being blamed for calling 911 to report a fire. The Wall Street Journal said Schumer’s action was more like pouring gasoline on a fire.
    Why did Schumer do it?  Why did he publicize that letter, causing a run on the bank? In some quarters it is noted that the progressives have accused IndyMac in the recent past of unfair lending practices (Center for Responsible Lending, June 20) Six days later, Schumer broadcasts his letter to the world. Coincidence?
   Probably not. I am not sensing conspiracy so much as I am sensing classic Schumer Showboating. The man loves a headline and I think he simply wanted to grab a little ink.
   And so, people with uninsured assets in IndyMac (the FDIC only insures up to $100,000 in deposits) are ruined. But Schumer got his ink --red ink because the American taxpayer will have to come up with $4 to $8 billion to cover IndyMac’s losses. I hope Schumer thinks it was worth it.

     President Bush has lifted the ban on drilling for oil on the outer continental shelf. It’s a largely symbolic gesture because the Congress also has to give its permission –and there is no sign that the Democratic majority will allow the drilling.  Harry Reid, the Senate majority leader, said the people want a more “meaningful” solution to the problem of fuel prices. There’s that progressive yearning again for a feel-good solution.
    I hope that Reid and the Democrats stick to their guns. After all, about 60 percent of the public now supports drilling. The longer the Democrats stick to their increasingly unpopular principles, the better it will be for our side when the November elections take place.
   OR, we could put our country first and hope that the Democrats wake up to their error and authorize the deep ocean drilling.

    Whenever someone suggests drilling in America for energy independence you hear the argument, “But it will take seven years (or ten years) for the oil to actually get to market! And the new oil will only replace depleted supplies…”
    Gee. Hadn’t we better hurry up then? Sounds like we’re going to really need that oil by 2018.
The “It’s going to take seven years” argument may not hold water (or oil) by the way. Some oil experts say that it might only be two or three years before the oil gets to market. Whenever it does, it will be just as much in demand then as it is now.  So let’s get drilling!