United States of Europe

The United States of Europe
A Book Review by Daniel G. Jennings
“The United States of Europe: The New Superpower and the End of American Supremacy” by T.R. Reid, 2004 New York, the Penguin Press.
This book is a perfect example of the dangers and misperceptions of modern punditry because its basic premise has been fatally undermined by recent events. The flawed premise is that the European Union is evolving into a United Europe that will be rich and powerful enough to challenge the United States as the world’s only superpower.
Obviously the recent elections in which the French and Dutch people rejected the proposed European Union constitution call the whole experiment of United Europe into question. How Mr. Reid, a journalist, will react to this rejection of his cherished European Union by the people of two European nations I don’t know.
Reid is clearly a Europhile who portrays Europe as a sort of paradise that is superior to the United States in virtually everyway. He lauds Europe’s social programs, healthcare, transportation, legal system, laws, economy, and tax structure. Now obviously, there are many things the Europeans do better than we do, but no place could be as wonderful as the Europe Reid describes.
Part of Reid’s thesis is that Europe is developing a new kind of international power, a soft power based upon cooperation, law, diplomacy and international institutions. Reid theorizes that Europe can dominate the world through such methods and that such power will be more effective than American military might. In particular he states that the EU will set standards through business through regulation and justice through international courts.
This is an attractive vision, but hardly a realistic one. Reid’s European World Order will only work if the rest of the world willingly goes along with it. The United States has largely gone along with the EU and bent to the will of the Eurocrats in its capitol of Brussels, but what about the rest of the world. In particular, will the Chinese and Indians whose civilizations are as old or older than Europe and have long memories of European colonial exploitation go along. I seriously doubt it, both India and China may now exceed Europe in practical military power and China’s industrial capacity will soon outstrip Europe’s if it hasn’t already. Beyond those countries are the rogue nations and the countries of the developing many with long memories of European colonial exploitation. A more likely outcome is that Europe will find itself at the mercy of other nations with large militaries that still believe in force.
Reid writes about Europe’s growing economic power but it is apparent that economic power is hollow. He points to many large European corporations such as the Finnish cell phone giant Nokia but ignores the fact that most of the products sold by those companies are not made in Europe. Most of Nokia’s electronics are made in China and other Asian countries. Reid points to the many American brands and companies owned by Europeans and cites it as a evidence of European economic power. That argument sounds familiar it was made by critics and admirers of Japanese economic power in the 1980s and 1990s. Remember Japanese companies had bought Rockefeller Center, Columbia Pictures and every golf course in Los Angeles and would soon dominate America. Then Japan’s economy collapsed and Japan is still recovering from a terrible recession.
Instead it’s obvious from Reid’s book that virtually all of the EU’s economic clout is based on the ability of Eurocrats in Brussels to regulate the economy. Shades of Japan Inc., one of the arguments of the Japan Bashers and admires was that Japan’s centrally regulated economy run by the Ministry of Trade and Industry was superior to American capitalism. Like the Japanese purchase of American brands, companies and properties this turned out to be an illusion. The Japanese bureaucrats were not able to save their nation from the forces of the market.
Reid also describes the Euro, the new European currency, as a threat to the U.S. Dollar and potentially the new global currency. He states that the Euro will replace the dollar because currency traders seem to prefer it to the dollar. The reason currency traders like the Euro is they can make a lot of money trading it, since the Chinese currency, the yuan, isn’t traded internationally and the Japanese Yen has fallen they have no alternative to the dollars. The traders pump up the Euro in order to profit from it, not because they believe in it. The Euro is the currency equivalent of dotcom stock it is valued because people are willing pay a fortune for it and trade it. When people realize that there is nothing behind the Euro it will collapse, a lot of currency traders will be rich and a lot of investors will find themselves stuck with piles of worthless paper.
The sorry truth is that there is nothing behind the new European economy. The last two global superpowers, the US and Britain, based their power on massive industrial output and technological innovation. Nothing of the kind is happening in Europe, Europe’s industrial output is falling it can only produce high priced luxury goods. The one industrial “success story” of the new Europe, Airbus Industries, was made possible only by massive government subsidies and tax breaks. Airbus’s major “innovation” is the A380, the world’s largest airliner, a plane so big it can’t land at most airports. The A380 isn’t faster or more efficient than other jets nor does it feature any sort of technological innovation it is simply bigger. In reality the A380 is little more than a make work project designed to make Europeans think they are still an industrial power.
The real industrial success story of today’s world is China, a country capable of producing vast quantities of a seemingly infinite variety of goods from textiles to high technology. Don’t believe me look around your house and count the made in China labels then look for made in Europe. When I performed this simple exercise the only European products I found in my home were a couple of bottles of Italian wine but I found hundreds of Chinese products.
Nor does Europe have military power there will be a 60,000 man combined European army run by the EU with a hundred ship navy and a 300 plane air force. Hardly a major military force, Reid points out that there are two million people serving in Europe’s national militaries. He neglects to mention the fact that most of these people are short serving conscripts who are poorly trained and incapable of being deployed overseas. Europe has nothing like the 1.2 million professional military personnel the USA can deploy.
Reid makes the argument that Europe’s moral influence maybe greater than America’s military power, another dubious claim. He praises the Europeans for giving more foreign aid to developing countries even though there is no evidence such aid actually helps people in those nations. The countries that have received the most foreign aid such as the Congo are poorer than ever, countries like China which receive little aid are experiencing phenomenal rates of economic development.
Of course much of this aid can be seen as little more than a payoff to the corrupt plutocrats who run third world governments. Little of the aid reaches the average people in the mud huts instead it enables the dictator and his cronies to buy European luxury goods. This aid exemplifies one of the moral problems with Europe it’s willingness to do business with tyrants and justify their actions.
Reid reports that the EU has sent delegations to talk to such tyrants as Fidel Castro and Kim Jong Il undermining US foreign policy. Many European leaders opposed America’s war against Iraqi thug Saddam Hussein, Europeans backed Palestinian dictator Yassir Arafat against democratic Israel. Brussels bureaucrats refused to issue a permit enabling the shipment of diesel-powered submarines to Taiwan so that tiny democracy can defend itself against China. What this boils down to is the fact that the EU’s leaders really don’t care about democracy, they care about the many they can make doing business with tyrants. The symbiotic relationship between many dictators and European leaders has been institutionalized by the EU. Remember Jacques Chirac’s cozy business dealings with Saddam?
Yet the EU does promote human rights, European leaders regularly travel to the United States to visit death row prisoners. The EU makes a big deal of its opposition to the death penalty even for monsters like Bin Laden. That is right the civilized Europeans champion the human rights of murderers, rapists, terrorists and child molesters but ignore the rights of hundreds of millions of average people suffering at the hands of vicious dictators.
Reid ignores other problems with the European Union, the organization is top heavy with bureaucracy and regulation. The EU has already created 22,000 regulations and there are now 10,000 lobbyists in Brussels. Companies all over the world now have to conform to EU regulations whether they make sense or not. Naturally all this bureaucracy won’t lead to economic growth, it’ll stifle what little free enterprise Europe has left and damage the economies of other nations. For example the EU has banned foods made from genetically engineered crops not because there is any danger but because the European public fears them based on scare stories in the tabloid press. This means many American farmers can’t take advantage of genetically engineered seeds and other products because they can’t sell their food to Europe.
The situation in developing countries is worse, some of these nations have conformed to EU standards and banned genetically engineered crops. This will mean lower crop yields and less food for local people to eat but higher profits for the owners of plantations (many of whom are Europeans) who export luxury crops to Europe. This of course is the real new European World Order, colonialism on the cheap the vast majority of the world’s people oppressed by local thugs in order to provide cheap labor to put food on the European table. When the poor people of the world realize this there will be hell to pay in Europe.
The ultimate result of this system will be poverty and economic collapse not a prosperous and humane new world order. Europeans will find their freedoms stifled by the Eurocrats and get angry. The result could be revolt and perhaps war between the European elites and the common people who fear the European Union.
One particularly disturbing fact about the EU is this, it’s army or Rapid Reaction Force of 60,000 men isn’t large enough to fight wars in other parts of the world but it is large enough to use against Europe’s people. The same can be said of its’ air force and navy. I have to wonder are the Eurocrats planning to use their military forces against the mobs in the streets of Paris, the farmers of Spain or the students of Italy? Such actions could lead to a new European war and a repeat of the ethnic cleansing and other horrors that occurred in the former Yugoslavia in the nineties. Historically such elitists have regarded the common people as a rabble who deserve to be punished if they don’t bow to the elite’s wishes.
Yet the most disturbing thing about “The United States of Europe” is not the flaws about the European Union, but Reid’s cheerleading for the organization. Like most American intellectuals Reid can’t see anything wrong with Europe. In his mind, Europe is a paradise and Europeans can do no wrong. He longs for a more civilized European dominated world in which the United States will play a lesser role and abandon its military power. The result of this of course won’t be peace, it’ll be an era of global chaos, terrorism and war in which millions will perish and Europe will probably be destroyed. This can be typified by UN peacekeeping efforts such as those organized by Europeans in Yugoslavia and Rwanda in both those conflicts poorly armed peacekeepers were helpless to stop well armed thugs from murdering vast numbers of innocent people. In Yugoslavia, the slaughter only stopped when the US military intervened and the thugs backed down.
So what will become of the European Union? If history is any indication, the organization will degenerate into a hollow and powerless sham like the United Nations or the Medieval Holy Roman Empire. United Europe is nothing new, in Medieval times Europe was supposedly united under the Holy Roman Empire in reality a collection of feuding petty German principalities, one of those princes would proclaim himself Emperor of the Holy Roman Empire even if he was just a petty local prince. The structure of the EU seems much like two medieval regimes the Holy Roman Empire and the Kingdom of Poland, in both nations nobles got together to elect the leader the German Emperor or the Polish King. The EU has no leader it has a powerless parliament and a ruling council composed of European heads of government who elect a leader. Neither nation developed into a united country, the Holy Roman Empire was a collection of poor and weak feudal states that never unified, the Polish Kingdom was so disorganized that it was eventually absorbed by its more powerful neighbors, the Russian and Austrian empires.
My guess is that the United States of Europe will either collapse into a series of increasingly poor and weak states that will continually fight among themselves or be absorbed by some larger power. Perhaps the Greater Chinese Empire or a reorganized Russia. Either way, Mr. Reid’s thesis of the beautiful United States of Europe will be nothing but a nearly laughable anachronism.

European Unity is it Dead??

European Unity: a Dead Dream?
By Daniel G. Jennings
The plan for a United States of Europe was dealt a potentially fatal blow in Mid June when the ordinary people of two of the continent’s most important nations, France and the Netherlands, rejected the proposed European Constitution. What does this development mean for the United States, Europe and the world?
Basically, it means that the ordinary people of Europe don’t agree with their leaders’ plans for a grand European Union. It also means that the people of Europe fear both the European Union and the elitists behind it.
Now the bureaucrats in Brussels (the European “capital”) and their apologists will say that the European constitution was rejected by a few ignorant nationalists in France and Holland. The election numbers tell a very different story, the majority of the French and Dutch populations, people of many different political and philosophical views, have rejected the European Constitution. More importantly Europeans of all political persuasions fear that the European Union is a threat to their values, their freedoms and their ways of life.
It’s obvious that the Dutch regard the European Union as a threat to their liberties and lifestyles. The Dutch are obviously afraid that the European Union might interfere with their freedoms, for example European bureaucrats might try to end Holland’s vaunted legalized marijuana use or restrict the gay lifestyle. The Dutch in particular are having second thoughts about unlimited immigration. After all last year one of their most famous citizens, filmmaker Theo von Gogh, was murdered in the streets because he dared try to exercise his rights and make a film critical of Islam and Muslim treatment of women.
In France, the opposition to the European Union is just as strong among labor unionists and socialists who fear that European bureaucrats will try to end that nation’s welfare state and force capitalism upon the French People, as among nationalists. As in the Netherlands the people are unsure about immigration and fearful that Euocrats will interfere with their traditional lifestyle.
The French and Dutch defeats have given the Eurocrats second thoughts, already plans for a vote on the European Constitution in Britain have been put on hold. If the French and Dutch loathe the Euroconstitution, the Brits will hate it.
The whole experiment of European Unity is now in question. Since the people of Europe have rejected the constitution, Europe’s leaders have a few choices.
Choice one would be to find some way to force European Unity upon Europe’s peoples. This would be a prescription for a very destructive war, the extremists of left and right would fight and the military establishments of the European countries would be with them. Since United Europe has no army of its own, the only recourse would be to bring in outside forces probably African mercenaries. Would the European elitists turn soldiers of fortune loose on their own people? It’s hard to say but I doubt they’d take such a course of action unless they had the United States on their side. Since no American politician is going to send a single GI to Europe to fight for the European Union it’s doubtful there will be a war for United Europe.
A more likely outcome is that the European Union will become a hollow and meaningless institution like the United Nations. The Union will have no real power or authority, instead its representatives will gather in Brussels on a regular basis to pass meaningless resolutions as Europe sinks further into decline. All manner of grand designs will be laid out and nothing will come of them. Then after a couple of decades the increasingly impoverished European nations will realize that the whole thing is waste of money and pull the plug on the whole bad joke.
Then perhaps someday in the future when Europe is sufficiently impoverished and weak its leaders will start talking unity again in a desperate attempt to stave off final collapse.

Al Qaeda's Next Move??

What is Al Qaeda’s Next Move?
By Daniel G. Jennings
As the fourth summer of the War on Terror begins many of us are asking what will the next move of America’s principal enemy: the organization called Al Qaeda be? Or more precisely when and where will Al Qaeda attack next and what weapons and tactics will it use?
To answer this question we must look at where Al Qaeda stands today and what its options are. Al Qaeda is an organization that has achieved some of its goals but seen its basic strategy fail. Al Qaeda achieved two of its’ goals on Sept. 11, it succeeded in attacking the USA and killing large numbers of Americans on US soil. The organization also succeeded in its goal of provoking a major American military offensive against the Islamic world. The strategy behind these attacks to ignite a general war between Islam and the Middle East that would destroy existing governments paving the way for Bin Laden and his followers to form a new Islamic government or Caliphate that would organize a new Islamic empire. Al Qaeda would gain credibility by engaging the United States in a long and bloody guerrilla war that would sap western strength similar to the war Russia waged in Afghanistan. In particular, Al Qaeda wanted to fight a major guerrilla war against the US in the remote mountains of Afghanistan and Pakistan where guerrilla fighters would have the advantage.
This strategy has backfired, the US was able to overrun Afghanistan and Al Qaeda’s principal base by turning Al Qaeda’s allies against it. The US wisely chose not to go into Pakistan which could have to led to war with Pakistan’s crack army and drawn in India. There was no prolonged guerrilla campaign in the mountains and thousands of American deaths. Nor was Al Qaeda able to mount any more attacks on the US. Instead the US has been able to increase its influence in the Arab world by invading Iraq. There is a major guerrilla war being waged in Iraq but the terrain of Iraq gives America the advantage because the US can bring all of its weapons and firepower to bear in that country.
Al Qaeda has achieved some successes, its’ principal leaders have managed to escape and the organization has been able to launch new attacks in Afghanistan and in Europe. More importantly, Al Qaeda has been able to inject itself into the Iraq war and stage attacks on US forces in that nation.
The question is what does Al Qaeda do now? Obviously I can’t read Bin Laden’s mind but I can use my imagination to postulate some of the terror mastermind’s possible moves. These moves will be limited by Al Qaeda’s resources which appear to be limited and by the effectiveness of the United States and other countries. Our intelligence agencies and military haven’t been able to bag Bin Laden but they have thwarted his plans and will continue to do so.
If I were Bin Laden my priority would be to expand the guerrilla war now raging in Iraq as widely as possible. Suicide bombers, kidnappings, public executions, mass killings and improvised explosive devices have proven potent weapons in Iraq. So Al Qaeda’s next move should be to try and utilize these successful tactics elsewhere.
Al Qaeda already appears to be doing this in Afghanistan. Where bombs have killed a number of American soldiers. If I were Bin Laden I’d launch a series of suicide attacks and bombings aimed at American and allied forces in Afghanistan and their support bases in Central Asia. In particular I’d take advantage of the recent unrest in Uzbekistan by launching a major attack or series of attacks on American bases in that country.
Next, I’d launch a major new offensive in Pakistan and Pakistan’s neighbor, India. The principal target would be Pakistan’s government which is nominally pro American. The goal here would be to get a Pakistani Civil War going a war that would split the nation’s security forces and military and end their effectiveness as a lid on Al Qaeda. Exploiting Pakistan’s major ethnic divisions would heat up this situation. It might give Al Qaeda access to thousands of highly trained Pakistani soldiers and Pakistan’s large arsenal of modern weapons which includes some nuclear bombs.
The long term goal of this strategy would be to force the United States to conduct major military operations in Pakistan. This would inflame Islamic public opinion because it would appear as another American invasion of a Muslim country. It’d be a public relations nightmare, the USA turning on one of its few Islamic allies.
Diverting troops to Pakistan would put a strain on America’s already overextended military. Since the military operations would be conducted in mountainous terrain Al Qaeda would have an advantage because many high tech weapons would be useless there. This would weaken American forces in Iraq because many of America’s best soldiers such as the Green Berets, Rangers, Navy SEALS and Delta Force and the British SAS and Commandos would be diverted to Pakistan. If Al Qaeda could kill large numbers of these soldiers who are expensive to train, equip and deploy they could do serious damage to our war effort. These soldiers and their supplies would have to be moved in by helicopters which are vulnerable to shoulder mounted missiles. The mountainous train of northern Pakistan would limit the use of tanks and artillery and the effectiveness of air support leaving the soldiers to fight hand to hand.
Battles in Pakistan could also split the antiterrorist alliance European nations like Germany and France have been willing to aid the US war on Afghan tribesmen. These countries could easily balk at fighting highly trained Pakistani soldiers with modern weaponry.
To force America into Pakistan Bin Laden would have to galvanize American opinion on behalf of such an offensive. The best way to do this would be another major terror attack on the United States that’d kill a lot of Americans.
What would such an attack look like? Probably a major bombing or series of bombings involving conventional explosives like the train bombings in Madrid. Al Qaeda operatives in the country would buy or steal explosives then set them off in public places like train stations, subways, an amusement park or mall. This would kill and injure large numbers of people and inflame American public opinion in favor of the war. Remember Al Qaeda wants the US war against extreme Islam to continue because it justifies Al Qaeda’s existence and serves as a rallying cry.
A secondary tactic might be to use explosive or incendiary liquid or gas such as propane or gasoline both of which are moved in tank trucks to create a massive firestorm in the middle of a major city. There is also a possibility of repeating Sept. 11, by hijacking or stealing airplanes and flying them into a city. Since hijacking passenger liners would be impossible Al Qaeda would have to find another way onto the planes. Possibly by stealing one from an airport. One disturbing possibility presents itself here what if Al Qaeda were to steal military aircraft, say a helicopter gunship, fighter plane or fighter bomber and use it to attack an American city? Then finish up by ramming the aircraft into a building?
Despite all the hype about it, an attack with weapons of mass destruction is unlikely. History has proven that gas and germs aren’t very effective weapons. The gas attack in the Tokyo subway only resulted in a few casualties, the anthrax attacks in a handful of deaths. A nuclear bomb would do incredible damage but it’s unlikely that Al Qaeda can lay its’ hands upon a nuke. As for a dirty bomb well it would take vast amounts of money and resources to smuggle radioactive material in the US. The same money and resources could be used to procure explosives or inflammable materials that right here in America that would do far more damage.
In addition to the US, Al Qaeda must carry out more attacks in Europe, particularly in countries closely allied with the US. Britain is particularly vulnerable the nation’s leadership is behind America but the British people have their doubts about the war. A large scale terrorist attack on London that would kill a lot of Britons could push Britain out of the war. In Eastern Europe terror attacks could undermine the close relationship between the US and the emerging democracies there. In Italy where popular support for the war is weak, terror attacks could drive Prime Minister Berlusconi to abandon his support for the US.
Beyond Europe it would be in Al Qaeda’s advantage to stage new terror attacks in other Middle Eastern Countries such as Egypt. This would weaken local governments and could generate unrest in those countries.
A wise move on Al Qaeda’s part would be to launch a major offensive against the oil facilities in the Middle East. To bomb the pipelines, refineries, tanker ports, oil rigs and oil fields and to start killing large numbers of oil workers Westerners in particular, especially in Saudi Arabia. This would drive up the price of oil and force the United States to deploy military forces to protect the oil fields, this would inflame Islamic opinion against the US. It might be a wise move for Al Qaeda to redeploy most of its fighters in Iraq to other Middle Eastern Countries particularly oil rich ones. Driving up the price of oil would hurt the US economy and increase demands for an American pull out.
In conjunction with an offensive against the oil fields would be a major attack upon the State of Israel. This would give Al Qaeda legitimacy in the Islamic world and among Anti-Semites, leftists and the media. It might also provoke Israeli attacks on other countries that would increase support for Al Qaeda.
The major thing in our advantage here is AL Qaeda’s resources in manpower, money and technology which appear to be limited. These limited resources have kept Al Qaeda from launching a widespread offensive that could turn the War on Terror into an all out conflict. The danger is that Al Qaeda might have somehow procured those resources in the years since Sept. 11.
Even if Al Qaeda doesn’t have these resources it will have to make such audacious moves in order to retain its reputation as a major terrorist organization. So the question will not be will Al Qaeda make such moves but what the extent of those moves will be.

Dirty Dick Durbin

Dirty Dick Durbin: the Shame of Congress
By Daniel G. Jennings
Anyone who wants to know why Americans have such a dim view of Congress and politicians in general should examine the antics of one Richard J. Durbin, the second ranking Democrat in the US Senate.
Earlier this week Dick Durbin gave a short speech about the US military prison camp at Guantanamo Bay Cuba in which he compared the actions of American intelligence operatives and military personnel at the facility to Nazis, Soviets (the word Communist not being in the modern liberal vocabulary) and Pol Pot the psychotic Cambodian dictator whose followers murdered three million innocent people. Durbin has refused to apologize for his disgusting remarks or retract them despite a fire storm of controversy.
Ordinary people who view this incident ask themselves why is Dick Durbin behaving this way? Does Durbin actually believe that Guantanamo Bay is a hell hole like the Nazi Concentration camps or the Stalinist Gulag or that US military personnel are operating like Nazis or Communists? Of course not Durbin knows good and well that there is little or no truth in his moronic statements.
So why is Durbin saying such things? Two reasons; publicity and money, the only things that seem to matter to the New Class now in control in Washington. Durbin knows that he’ll attract a lot of attention by making such statements, the TV cameras will start following him around. The executives at the TV networks will invite him on the interview shows and his name will fill the headlines. Until this debate, I had never heard of Durbin now his face is almost as ubiquitous as Michael Jackson’s. Durbin has become a major national figure by making these horrible statements.
Durbin also stands to make a lot of money out of this nonsense. He’ll undoubtedly get a major book deal worth millions of dollars from a major publisher because of this stupidity. Dirty Dick will get a lot more campaign contributors, rich lefties like Billionaire George Soros and the Hollywood contingent will undoubtedly get out their checkbooks for Durbin because of these disgusting antics.
The most disturbing and disgusting aspect of this sorry tragicomedy is that Durbin’s behavior could put national security at risk, provoke terrorist attacks and make it easier for military and intelligence operators to engage in the kind of behavior he is decrying. If our intelligence and military personnel think that they’ll be branded Nazis for using questionable or extreme methods they may not go far enough next time they have a major terrorist in the bag. Our troops and agents in the field might not get the intelligence they need and terrorists could be free to attack us.
Durbin’s statements will give America’s enemies yet another propaganda tool to attack us. These words will be used to incite and justify further terrorist attacks and used as an excuse by those at home and abroad who don’t want to take part in the terror war. It could be harder for Americans to wage war on terror and easier for terrorists to get away. Real people in the real world could die because of Durbin’s words.
Finally, if Durbin and company keep going around exaggerating the wrongdoing at Guantanamo Bay and elsewhere they’ll end up like the boy who cried wolf. Sooner or later the media and public will believe every report of wrongdoing at US detention facilities is a fraud. Then when a credible report of real abuse comes down the pike nobody will believe it and what few rights the prisoners have will be gone for good.
Durbin’s statements are the most disgusting display of irresponsible behavior on the part of a US Senator since the days of Joseph McCarthy. Remember McCarthy? He falsely accused innocent people of being Communist spies making it harder for Cold War spy hunters to do their job at a time when Communist espionage was widespread. Like McCarthy, Durbin is using the Senate to make false or exaggerated charges, besmirch the reputations of the innocent and undermine national security in the name of self promotion. In a way, Durbin is worse than McCarthy, Tail Gunner Joe didn’t try to sabotage America’s war effort for personal gain which is what Dirty Dick appears to be doing. We haven’t seen such disgusting behavior on the part of a member of Congress since the Civil War.
If Congress wants to regain its credibility it has only recourse. Do to Dick Durbin what it did to Joe McCarthy, censure Dirty Dick as soon as possible. If Congress doesn’t do so there will be hell to pay.
Unfortunately, the Senate won’t take action against Durbin because the Republicans want Durbin free to act in such a reprehensible manner. Durbin’s antics make the Democrats look bad and increase the chances of Republican victory in 2006 and 2008. Durbin will be left free to undermine our war effort with his reprehensible antics, so the GOP can get a few more votes.
Is it any wonder that Americans have such a dim view of Congress? The behavior of Dick Durbin demonstrates that our self-proclaimed leaders don’t care about National Security, the reputation of our country, the reputations of our military personnel, the truth or the safety of the Americans, foreigners and US military personnel who could be hurt or killed by the terrorists inflamed by Durbin’s remarks. The real question we have to ask is how long are the American people going to put up with such behavior on the part of our politicians?

The Real Enemy

Complacency and Kooky Thinking: The Real Enemies in the Terror War
By Daniel G. Jennings
When the Terror War began on Sept. 11, 2001, I predicted that America’s mettle would be tested a few years into the war when the American people would become complacent and fuzzy thinking would make surrender or defeat possible.
That is now happening, even though the Terror War is still on and Al Qaeda and its allies are still out there plotting to attack and kill us we are arguing about how suspected terrorists held by our military are being treated. Instead of wondering why our military and intelligence agencies and their allies haven’t been able to capture or kill Bin Laden and other terrorist leaders we are having a political debate about the food at Guantanamo Bay. Instead of having a debate about our military campaign in Iraq and its effectiveness we are focusing upon pictures of naked Iraqi prisoners at Abu Ghraib.
The further we get from Sept. 11, the easier it is to forget about terrorism and get back to our complacent way of life. The media has gone back to covering nonsense like the missing girl in Aruba and the Michael Jackson case. Politicians are back to arguing about nothing or next to nothing. National security has once become a footnote in our political debates and media coverage.
To make matters worse the kooks and conspiracy theorists are starting to crawl out of the woodwork and tell us there is no terror threat. Nuts who tell us that Al Qaeda couldn’t have been behind Sept. 11 abound and they’re beginning to attract attention. Those who don’t want to fight a long and bloody war on terror are listening to them.
The latest is Morgan Reynolds former chief economist for the Department of Labor. Reynolds, an economist not an engineer or a military expert, is telling the media that there’s no way the jets could have brought down the World Trade Center and an adjacent building. Instead, Reynolds said it has to have been demolition explosives. In other words Reynolds is claiming that Sept. 11 was staged. Reynolds doesn’t say who did this merely that somebody did.
Two or three years ago such lunacy would have been unthinkable Reynolds would have been drummed out of the spotlight for making such statements. Today we shrug and yawn and ignore him. Unfortunately there are those who will listen to Reynolds, the nuts, the America haters, the peace at any price crowd, and the others who don’t want to face the ugly reality of war.
The danger is that people like Reynolds and those who will listen to them will try to call a halt to the war effort. Or worse we’ll ignore the terrorist threat and stop taking action against it until another catastrophic attack on the scale of Sept. 11 occurs.
Such a climate of complacency, conspiracy theories and refusal to deal with the ugly reality of terrorism will leave us unprepared to fight the war or deal with upcoming attacks. You might ask how do we break this cycle of complacency and stupidity?
Sadly, enough the only thing that might break this terrible cycle would be another massive terrorist attack that would kill large numbers of America. Hopefully, some other answer will be found before we have to live through a second Sept. 11.

Watergate

Deep Throat, Watergate & Their Effect on the Nation
By Daniel G. Jennings
The mysterious figure known as Deep Throat has finally stepped out of the shadows and into the national spotlight to receive the accolades of the media elite and reap the rewards of a lucrative book and movie deal. Many people are wondering what this means and how it affects America thirty years after the political drama known as Watergate ended.
Obviously it gives the media a lot of excuses not to report on the real stories of our age such as the energy shortage, the war in Iraq, the terror war and the looming transportation and healthcare crises. A lot of younger Americans, myself included are yawning and wondering why this nonsense isn’t left on the History Channel where it belongs. For Americans under 40 Watergate is about as relevant to our lives as Teapot Dome. Deep Throat, and his possibly his friends Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein, is as much an anachronism as those World War II Japanese soldiers who are supposedly still hiding in the jungles of the Philippines.
Those of my generation can afford to view Watergate through the extremely clear lens of history. Viewed from a historical standpoint, Watergate doesn’t seem to be that big of deal. Yes, crimes were committed and the White House seemed to be involved but nobody was actually hurt or killed by the Watergate conspirators. Their major crime was to break into a Democratic Party office at the Watergate Hotel in Washington, hence the term “Watergate” and the moronic habit of naming every scandal “gate.” The burglars were apparently looking for information about Richard Nixon’s opponent in the 1972 presidential election George McGovern. When Henry Kissinger calls Watergate a second rate burglary he’s absolutely right.
The investigation of this burglary by two young staffers at The Washington Post, Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein, uncovered a wide variety of illegal activities carried out by operatives working for the White House. This led in turn to political pressure on President Nixon and congressional investigations that eventually forced the president to resign. In their investigation, Woodward and Bernstein were aided by a shadowy figure called Deep Throat, (Deep Throat was a popular porno movie in the early 1970s) this source who provided them with a great deal of information that helped bring down the president.
For three decades Woodward and Bernstein refused to reveal Deep Throat’s identity. Then on May 31, 2005, Vanity Fair magazine revealed that Deep Throat was W. Mark Felt, former Deputy Director of the FBI. Woodward, now a national celebrity and best selling author because of his Watergate fame, soon confirmed this. This reopened the debate on Watergate and laid bare some serious ethical issues and historical questions.
First and foremost was Watergate and the resulting fall of Richard Nixon worth it? From a historical perspective the answer would probably be no. Nixon wasn’t trying to establish a dictatorship, he wasn’t building concentration camps or organizing a death squad to liquidate his critics. The dirty tricks his administration engaged in spying on foes, stealing information, etc. were no worse than what earlier presidents including Harry Truman, John Kennedy and FDR had engaged in. President Woodrow Wilson even had Socialist presidential candidate Eugene Debbs imprisoned for making speeches criticizing America’s involvement in World War I. Compared to some of those guys Richard Nixon was a Boy Scout.
If there had been no Watergate, Nixon would have served out his term and retired to write books and give speeches, which was what happened anyway. Who would have replaced him I don’t know, maybe Jimmy Carter or possibly Ronald Reagan. The only real victor in Watergate was Ronald Reagan who with Nixon’s fall emerged as the leader of the Republican Party. In other words, history wouldn’t have turned out that differently if there had been no Watergate, Watergate simply wasn’t an earth shattering event like the Civil War or the Vietnam War. A few decades from now it’ll probably warrant less space in the history books than Teapot Dome.
Yet Watergate had some negative effects. It certainly increased distrust both of government and the media. The public came away from Watergate believing Nixon had done something really wrong and had gotten away with it. They learned to distrust government or more precisely had their worst fears confirmed.
Watergate bred distrust of the media as well, the public suspected probably correctly that the media had gone after Nixon because the reporters and editors didn’t like his politics. The public began suspecting if the media was telling the truth or worse if the news was being manipulated by sinister unseen forces represented by the shadowy Deep Throat. Many Americans were angry that the President they had voted for had been forced from office by a couple of arrogant reporters.
Watergate also gave wise to a new kind of politicized journalism and a nasty new variety of politics both of which are still dividing Americans. After Watergate Washington journalists were no longer reporters they were insiders who played an important role in the political process. After Watergate journalists felt free to manipulate public opinion, and launch deliberate efforts to destroy specific political figures. The reporters became crusaders and politicians themselves. This bred a kind of dishonest journalism in which reporters with a political agenda slanted every story to justify their world view while claiming to be impartial observers of events.
Watergate also marked the beginning of the vicious and nasty warfare that has become the norm in American politics. Richard Nixon’s dirty tricks prompted the Democrats to reply in kind and to use the nuclear options of Congressional investigation and threatened impeachment. Since the days of Nixon politicians have compiled enemy’s lists and political debate has deteriorated into an exercise in organized character assassination.
To make matters worse, both parties used Congress to investigate and destroy political figures including presidents. The Democratic Congress tried to destroy Reagan with the idiocy known as Iran-Contra, two Speakers of the House of Representatives were forced out by Congressional witch hunts, and the Republican Congress tried to impeach Bill Clinton on charges that made Watergate seem sane. Now we see a similar witch hunt directed against Tom De Lay. Since Watergate politicians have spent their time trying to destroy each other ran than dealing with the nation’s problems.
Watergate marked the outbreak of open political warfare that has been tearing America up ever since. Woodward and Bernstein were certainly motivated by politics, and W. Mark “Deep Throat” Felt had a political agenda of his own. Felt was mad because he hadn’t been named director of the FBI when the legendary J. Edgar Hoover died a few weeks before Watergate.
The question we should concern ourselves with then is not the identity of Deep Throat but how we can repair the damage to our nation’s political life since then. Or more precisely how we can replace the politics of destruction that started with Watergate with constructive leadership.

Robots

Automation, Immigration & Protectionism
By Daniel G. Jennings
Sooner or later the United States is going to have to learn to get along without the massive amounts of cheap imports and huge numbers of illegal immigrants that our economy is so dependent upon. Surprisingly, the best solution for this dilemma maybe technology, in particular robotics and automation.
Public opinion against both immigration and free trade has grown to such a level that politicians will have to address it if they want to keep their jobs. Average people feel that free trade and illegal immigration have hurt the country and are demanding a halt. On a more practical level American society and economy can’t continue to function with huge numbers of immigrants pouring in while jobs pour out.
Yet, we do face a labor shortage, there simply aren’t enough people in the US to produce all the goods and services the public demands or do all the jobs. There are also many jobs, particularly dangerous and menial jobs that average Americans won’t do. The immigration proponents are right on this point US citizens aren’t rushing to pick crops, mop floors, flip burgers, change bedpans, swing hammers or do stoop labor.
As the baby boomers get older this problem will get worse because there will be a greater demand for labor and fewer people to do it. Something will have to be done, and allowing unlimited immigration is not the answer. Nor is outsourcing a solution, you can’t send a dirty floor to India to get cleaned.
One partial solution will be provided by technology that is automation and robotics. A lot of the labor now being done by immigrants, legal and illegal can be done by machines. Take car washes, lots of Americans take their vehicles to hand car washes even though automatic car washes can do the job. Or washing the windows of sky scrapers and tall buildings, this can be done by an automatic machine lowered by rope yet many skyscrapers are cleaned by men dangling from ropes. A great many agricultural tasks many of which are now done by immigrants can also be performed by machines.
It is already possible to build robots that clean floors, mow lawns, dig ditches and perform other menial tasks. If we can build robots that roll around on Mars and machine gun terrorists leaders from the air we should be able to build robots that do things like plant and pick crops, dig ditches, trim bushes, stock shelves and do virtually any other kind of labor. Right now you and I can buy robots that vacuum floors and mow lawns why can’t business take advantage of this technology?
This isn’t Star Wars fantasy, Toyota has built robots that walk like people and have hands shaped like human hands. The Japanese auto giant expects to introduce robots capable of doing household labor to the market by 2010. NASA is also working on robots with human shaped hands that can perform basic labor.
Many of you are undoubtedly asking why aren’t we turning to machines to do more of our work? Largely because it’s cheaper for big business to rely upon immigrants and foreign labor. Why spend hundreds of thousands of dollars to build an automatic car wash, when you can buy a couple of hoses, some buckets and a few wash cloths and hire a few illegal immigrants to do the work? Why buy an expensive machine to pick crops when you can hire a few dozen immigrants to do the work for a few hours and pay them nothing? Why automate your factory when you can ship it over to China and have poor Chinese do the work for a pittance?
This reliance upon cheap labor slows or even halts progress. There is no incentive to develop new technologies to do the work. No incentive to develop machines to mop floors, clean cars, mow lawns or pick crops. No incentive to automate our factories so we can produce the goods we need without relying upon cheap foreign labor.
Our technology and industry are being set back decades by this reliance on manual labor both in foreign factories and on our shores. Notice that Toyota, a company based in a country with tight restrictions on immigration, Japan, is developing robots. America will find itself shut out of what will surely be a vast new industry in the 21st industry because of the greed of our business leaders and politicians.
American business is more than capable of automating when it needs to or wants to. There are now automated check out lines in libraries and grocery stores and automated gas pumps. This is happening because it is just too expensive to hire cashiers and have them on duty all the time.
If we were to say no to illegal immigration and cheap foreign labor we would force industry to increase its use of existing automation and robotics technologies and develop new robots and machines to do the work. This would make our industry more modern and efficient and give America a vast technological edge on its global competitors. More importantly it might lead to something unprecedented in human history, a civilization not based upon the exploitation of the labor of the less fortunate.

Economic Illusions

Economic Illusions and Real Estate Bubbles
By Daniel G. Jennings
The ongoing Real Estate Bubble exposes a very disturbing truth about America: all across our great nation real economies based upon the production of goods and services have been replaced by economic illusions rooted in hype, hysteria and speculation.
The Real Estate Bubble proves this more than anything else. Property values are skyrocketing in cities like New York (home of $1 million dollar one bedroom apartments) and San Francisco at a time when real jobs and industries have all but disappeared from those places. The factories in New York and San Francisco have closed and been converted into loft apartments. The loft apartments are being sold to people like writers, investment bankers, artists, journalists, stock brokers, real estate agents, literary agents, software writers, salesmen, investment analysts and so on, in other words people whose job is hyping up something so it can be sold to someone else at a higher price. At the same time that vast amounts of questionable real estate is being sold to people whose wealth exists almost entirely on paper in these new cities average people struggle to survive. The factory jobs of the old economy at least gave the average worker enough money to buy a house and a car and provided workers and their families with health insurance, a decent pension and some savings. All the “new economy” generates are service jobs like running a cash register at Starbucks with minimal salaries and no benefits. Often the only people willing to fill these jobs are desperate immigrants.
Out in the hinterlands the economic picture is even more depressing, the fastest growing economy in the nation is in Las Vegas. A city based upon gambling and the proposition that the American people will always have unlimited amounts of disposable income to dump into slot machines. Another booming new city Orlando is based on the fantasy that every American family will always have $5,000 a year to blow on an annual trip to the them park.
Here in my hometown of Denver small rundown old houses are selling for $300,000 and one bedroom condominium apartments for $100,000 at a time when landlords are struggling to rent $400 and $500 a month apartments. Lots of new houses, new stores and new apartment houses are being built in Denver even though we have no new industries of any sort.
The whole thing appears to be based on hype and speculation just like the tech bubble of the 1990s remember that. Actually it’s worse than the tech bubble at least the new technology promised us a better future the real estate boom just overvalues property.
The situation is even worse in the rural areas as a recent Denver Post article* indicates. On June 2, 2005, Post reporter Dana Coffield profiled developments in the poor and remote Colorado town of La Veta. La Veta, a dying ranch town in the South Central part of the state is enjoying a sort of boom based on real estate hype and art. No new industry has moved to La Veta and no new jobs have been generated. Instead the town of 900 now boasts around 30 realtors and such questionable new businesses as a quilting retreat center (I’m not kidding), the Bicycle Barn which rents sports equipment and sells espresso, an arts school, art galleries, antique stores and La Veta Palooza Music Festival.
As someone who’s lived in such an economy in Fairplay, Colorado, a very similar town I can testify that this economy is nothing but hype. No real jobs are created making it impossible for average people to earn a living in the community. The average people move out and most of the galleries and art businesses go bankrupt. Eventually the only businesses in town are a real estate offices, bars and maybe a convenient store. When the bottom falls out of the real estate market the town dies.
The horrendous thing is that what’s happening in La Veta is happening all over the United States. The economic boom is based upon rising real estate prices and nothing else. Related to this boom are all manner of questionable businesses ranging from big box stores to art galleries. Businesses that exist to sell overpriced luxuries to the paper millionaires. When the real estate market collapses these enterprises will be brought down with them because the paper will be worthless.
We can only hope that something real will replace this hyped up real estate boom and give America a real economy that can really support our nation. For an economy has to run on something more than absurd fantasies of wealth based upon hype and speculation.

* “Corralling Creativity” By Dana Coffield Denver Post Scene section June 2, 2005.