United States News Digest
Joseph Nye: U.S. 'Ill-Suited for Empire'
Even though the "military victory in Iraq seems to have confirmed a new world order"that of the U.S. as empirenot only does the U.S. have less control over what occurs inside other countries than Britain did in its heyday as a 19th-century imperial power, but American public opinion has never backed imperialism, wrote Joseph Nye in a Washington Post op ed last week. "Those who openly welcome the idea of an American empire, mistake the underlying nature of American public opinion," he writes.
The flaw of the metaphor of the United States as an empire, compared to the reality of the U.S. as having primacy, "is it implies a control from Washington that is unrealistic," he warns, "and reinforces the prevailing strong temptations toward unilateralism."
Moreover, the U.S. now suffers from "imperial under-stretch," he cautions, as the Bush Administration tends to avoid nation-building, and instead "has designed a military that is better suited to kick down the door, beat up a dictator and then go home, rather than stay for the harder work of building a democratic polity."
If the U.S. were to base its occupation of Iraq on a Bosnia-Kosovo scenario, the "neo-conservative strand" of the Bush Administration, he notes ironically, would be forced to compromise with the multilateral realistsand "might find that the world's only superpower is not suited for empire after all."
Nye is Dean of the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University, and served as Assistant Secretary of Defense for International Security Affairs and Chairman of the National Intelligence Council under President Clinton until December 1995.
France Says U.S. Decided on Iraq War in January
"U.S. Decided on Iraq War in January, Says France," is the page-one headline story last week in the Financial Times. The story, which, the authors (Robert Graham in Paris and James Harding in Washington) write, was confirmed by both French Foreign Minister de Villepin and "Bush Administration officials," reports that the decision to go to war to overthrow Saddam was made in the second week in December. The "critical 'internal moment' in the White House came in the second week of December, when the President was briefed on Iraq's weapons declaration. 'It was not even a credible document,' the White House official said."
The authors quote a source close to the NSC who said the anger in the White House to the Iraqi response meant that, from that time, "there was no prospect of a diplomatic solution." The French reached that conclusion following a meeting on Jan. 13, between Chirac's diplomatic adviser, Maurice Gourdault-Montagne, and Administration officials, and it was reaffirmed on Jan. 19, when de Villepin met with Secretary of State Colin Powell in a private meeting in New York. The authors write that the meeting with Powell convinced the French Foreign Minister that the "pressure of the Administration [on Powell] was too strong. Diplomacy was no longer relevant."
The story was the lead-in to a three-part FT investigation, the first part appearing as a full-page article titled, "War in Iraq: How the Die Was Cast Before Transatlantic Diplomacy Failed."
Rumsfeld Hopes To 'Displace' Iran's Government, Cites 1979 Revolution
Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld told the Council on Foreign Relations May 26 that it is now U.S. policy to avoid dealing with Iran's government, either the clerics or what he called the "so-called moderate" President.
"The women and young people are churning in that country and putting pressure on the handful of clerics that dominate and control that regime.... We ... hope that the people of that country will have an opportunity to find ways to displace the leadership of that country."
Alluding to the speed of the 1979 Islamic revolution, Rumsfeld said, "I'm still amazed at how fast it went from the Shah of Iran to the clerics, to the Ayatollah Khomeini. Maybe we'll be favorably surprised some day" by a more democratic government.
Still No Nominee To Replace Shinseki as Army Chief of Staff
Eight days and counting, and Donald Rumsfeld still does not have a nominee for Army Chief of Staff. A bipartisan group of Senators, led by Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman John Warner (R-Va.) and senior Democrat Jack Reed (R.I.), has sent a letter to the Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld expressing concern over his failure to nominate a replacement for Army Chief of Staff Gen. Eric Shinseki, who is retiring on June 11. Shinseki's deputy, Gen. John Keane, who at one time was thought to be Shinseki's heir apparent, retires later this year. General Tommy Franks will also be retiring later this year.
According to the Washington Post, the lack of nominees "heightens concerns within the Army about Rumsfeld, given the level of animosity that exists between Rumsfeld and Shinseki, a 38-year veteran who lost much of one foot, and was awarded two Purple Hearts in Vietnam." The Post notes that Shinseki's estimate of the number of troops that would be required to stabilize Iraq "appears to have been accurate."
As for other candidates to replace Shinseki, the Post moots Lt. Gen. John Abizaid, who was Franks' deputy in the Iraq war, but because he is an Arab-American who speaks Arabic, is more likely to replace Franks as Central Command chief. Other names that have been bruited are Lt. Gen. Doug Brown, vice commander of Special Operations Command, and retired Gen. Peter Schomaker, a former chief of Special Operations Command. In any case, the Army is now likely to be without a chief for some period of time; once President Bush sends to Capitol Hill a replacement, that person will still have to be confirmed by the Senate.
U.S. Crude Death Rates from Infectious Diseases Rose in '80s
According to the National Institute of Medicine, U.S. crude deaths from infectious diseases (ID) rose between 1980 and 1989, from 40 to 60 deaths per 100,000 persons per yearand that's excluding HIV/AIDS. Thus, the 80-year downward trend in mortality from ID has reversed. So says the lead-off graph in the 400-page report issued in March by the Institute of Medicine, entitled Microbial Threats to HealthEmergency, Detection, and Response.
In 1900, the United States death rate from infectious diseases was around 790 per 100,000, and one-third of that came from tuberculosis, pneumonia, and diarrheal sickness. With sanitation, mid-century antibiotics, anti-vector campaigns against mosquitoes, vermin, etc., the death rate from ID went steadily down, to the point of about 37 per 100,000, then started to climb back up again. The causes are what one would expectnew and resurgent old diseases, deteriorating medical care, more poverty, lack of sanitation and infrastructure, etc.
New York Times: Rift Between Bush and Governors Over Medicaid Caps
According to a frontpage lead story in the May 25 Sunday New York Times, a bipartisan group of governorsincluding Jeb Bushis battling against President George W. Bush's attempt to impose an absolute cap on Federal funding of state Medicaid programs for the next decade. At stake in the battle is the health care of 50 million Americans, who are on Medicaid today. The Times revealed that there have been two months of secret negotiations between the Bush Administration and a team of Democratic and Republican governors, working through the National Governors Association (NGA).
Among the leading opponents of a decade-long cap on federal payments to Medicaid are Florida Republican Jeb Bush, New Mexico Governor and former Clinton Cabinet secretary Bill Richardson, and John Rowland, Connecticut's Republican Governor. The governors have emphasized that a non-negotiable cap on the Federal share of Medicaid costs would leave a state without assistance, in the event of a major disease outbreak; a terrorist attack like Sept. 11, which cost New York State billions of dollars in health care costs; or a large-scale natural disaster. The talks were aimed at reaching a final accord that would be accepted by the NGA by May 15, but there is no sign of a resolution, the Times reported.
Free Gifts Can't Induce People To Rent Office Space in Greater Washington
The landlord-owners of vacant office buildings in metropolitan Washington, D.C.which includes the adjacent counties in Maryland and the Northern Virginia counties across the Potomacare now offering luxury cars, weekend getaways, vacations in Bermuda, catered meals of raspberry chicken, and higher broker commissions to real estate brokers, merely to come and look at their vacant office buildings, according to the May 26 Washington Post. The landlord-owners hope that the brokers will then sell or lease the buildings to new tenants.
Behind these desperation giveaways, is the fact that the landlord-owners cannot get companies to rent them. This has been growing for three years now, beginning when the New Economy bubble burst, just as Lyndon LaRouche had forecast. John Germano, executive vice president of Insignia/ESG real estate company, based in Tysons Corner, Virginia stated, "It's gotten a lot worse than anyone thought when the market burst.... The reality is there's no demand for the available space."
There are two types of unoccupied commercial real estate properties: a) vacant, in which a property has been neither leased nor bought; and b) sublease, in which tenant has contracted to occupy a property, but either wants to leave, or already has left the premises, and is unable to sublet the property.
Recall, that at the end of 2000, at the height of the New Economy boom, the commercial real estate vacancy rate in Northern Virginia was but 2.8%.
Yet Another Energy Emergency Declared in California
Even before the really hot temperatures hit, California is already reeling from another energy emergency. California's Central Valley was hit last week by 100-degree temperatures, some five to seven degrees hotter than usual. The increased use-demand of air conditioners and other devices caused electricity reserves to dip below the 7% level, necessitating state electricity grid operators to declare a Stage One emergency. "This emergency reinforces the need to put a long-term plan in place that creates stability," said State Sen. Debra Bowen (D), who is chair of the Senate's energy committee and author of a bill to end deregulation.
As everyone remembers, in 2000-01, the California energy crisis practically brought the state to its knees.
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