A Brief History…

There have been articles published the past year or two pointing out that we are losing our lead in technology. This report offers both sides of the debate. Some of this was bound to happen as we developed the systems and others did not have to reinvent the wheel. Still, there are some concerns about why we may be lagging. One is regulation of information technology. I don’t understand all the provisions of recent regulatory and legislative actions on cable and telephone technology. What’s more, I don’t think anybody else does either. Uncertainty is the enemy of investment. It may bring opportunity to those who find the handle first but, as a rule, legal uncerainty is fatal to innovation. That is why third world economies usually lack a settled system of contract law. Billions of dollars have come to America fleeing the legal climate in other countries. Now, I wonder if the flow might reverse with some of the excesses like the Sarbanes-Oxley law. Some of the problem is with compliance and the costs of audits. Some venture capital companies are trying to change the law with lobbying. If Nancy Pelosi has trouble with foreign policy, at least she understands campaign fund raising. Still, there are warning signs that capital is fleeing.

The second concern I have is with education. The trend is not good. “if current trends continue, by 2010, only four years from now, more than 90 percent of all scientists and engineers in the world will live in Asia.” Our science education curriculum is weak except at the graduate school level. At the high school level, the situation is a crisis. Organizations that should be working on merit pay for high school science teachers, spend their time worrying about evolution. I would not recommend a student for medical school who did not believe in evolution but a computer programmmer could believe in spontaneous generation of life, for all I care. That is not the first priority. I suspect high school science teachers spend more time on global warming and recycling than on math and physics. Some are Optimistic. I don’t know the answer but the question needs to be asked. In 1960, I was an engineer, working for Douglas Aircraft Company. Every engineer in my section was applying for graduate school in medicine, law or business. This is not a new problem. We have muddled through for decades with a culture that does not regard “geeks” as socially desirable. With technology becoming more and more essential, maybe it’s time for a change in our high school education culture. Pay science teachers more than Social Sciences teachers and see what happens.

The Democrats have been accused by some of cowardice because they want to cut and run from Iraq. That depends on the point of view. Today, the New York Times points out that they are stalwart in their demand for surrender. No matter that chaos and a resurgent al Qeada would follow. They demand that we flee from the struggle in Iraq even if we seem on the verge of winning the war. I’m not sure if this is really a result of geopolitical strategy on their part or fear that a victory would validate Bush’s approach to the threat of jihadism. I’m inclined toward the latter theory. How the roles have reversed since 1940 when Roosevelt maneuvered to bring us to the aid of civilization and the Republicans were the isolationists. Even the antisemitism of those days, when Jews were considered to be of divided loyaties, has returned but on the left this time. The Timmerman book has a chapter on the Larry Franklin case. The Democrats and rogue elements in the FBI and CIA were convinced that Israel was directing the Bush foreign policy toward the Midde East. Franklin cooperated when the FBI contacted him and, as a result was an easy target for the anti-Israel warriors in the federal bureaucracy. The recent Walt and Mearsheimer book gives a good picture of this alternate view of history. The term “neocon” has become a synonym for Jew in current Washington journalism. It looks better in print.

This is disturbing. Germany may now be the weak link in Europe. More and more, I am convinced that history will see World War I and II as a European Civil War, similar to the 30 Years War, except that the latter resulted in a triumphant revival and the former may result in extinction.

I’ve read Tom Friedman’s books and used to see him on Meet The Press. He has a lot of information about the Middle East and all, but I usually don’t like his suggestions. Today, he finally has a good idea. If Obama gets elected president, he should keep Dick Cheney on as Vice-President. I doubt Cheney would be interested but, as they say at Hallmark Cards, it’s the thought that counts.

I’ve been reading Kenneth Timmerman’s book, Shadow Warriors , which describes the resistence to Bush’s policies within the career bureaucracy of the administration. Reagan had a similar problem but was a better communicator than Bush and could go over the heads of the bureaucracy and Congress to the country. Bush has been less successful but has also had a friendly Congress for much of his presidency. Timmerman documents names and places. One of the early sections concerns Ahmed Chalabi, the secular Shiite Iraqi who headed the Iraqi National Congress during the Clinton years. Chalabi has been roundly condemned by the left. That book review from Rolling Stone, for example, describes a man that Timmerman says has since been proven right. There is a lot of talk about an agent named “Curveball” with many allegations that he was part of Chalabi’s organization. That is not true. He was a German source and has since been discredited.

The book has a section on General Jay Garner but I would like to know more. He had been very successful coordinating aid to the Kurdish enclave in Northern Iraq over a ten year period since the US decided to protect them from Saddam. He headed the interim mission right after the battle ended in Baghdad. He was only there a few months before he was replaced by Bremer and the “occupation” began, followed by the insurgency. Timmerman’s theory is that the Bush administration planned to turn the country over to the Iraqi National Council and quickly end the occupation. This is why the plan has been criticized as “no plan.” According to Timmerman, there was a 300 page plan but it did not call for an occupation. Chalabi had assembled a diverse group that was ready to assume responsibility for order. Bremer and the State Department changed all that. Those chapers are alarming when all the missed chances are spelled out. Bremer has since said that the IRC were “outsiders” and “exiles” but the anti-Saddam Iraqis who were not exiles are all dead. Anyway, the present Iraqi government, including President Talbani were members of that IRC group that Bremer refrred to as “exiles.”

He covers the Joe Wilson/Valerie Plame story and proposes a theory that Wilson is actually a French agent (page 111). His service as ambassador to Gabon was during a time when that oil-rich African country was being run by French intelligence. Wilson’s ex-wife was a registered agent for Gabon. The Niger “caper” was planed as false flag operation to humiliate the Bush administration with the alleged forged evidence. That would derail the whole plan to go to war, since France and Russia did not want their relationship with Saddam and Oil-For-Food interrupted.

He even names the man he credits with starting the “Bush Lied” campaign on bumper stickers. His name is C. Edward Bernier and he was a retired USIA officer with ties to Democratic operatives. He was called back for a short mission to Iraq and that experience gave him the credibility to begin his anti-Bush campaign.

Anyway, it is an interesting book and I am less skeptical about it than I was when I began. I will report more later.

Once again, the MSM follows the old theme of the veteran as victim. For a while, the Vietnam vets were derided as “babykillers.” That was the era of the spitting on returning soldiers. In recent years this has been denied and the story attacked as a right wing slander. Still, there are enough descriptions of these incidents to make it clear they were not a myth. The next theme was that Vietnam vets were losers and crazy. This slander got enough traction that BG Burkett wrote a book refuting the lies. He found that even job applications were affected by the myth of the Vietnam vet as damaged goods. He found that most of the stories that made it to the media were phony. The “vets” had either never been in combat, or never been to Vietnam or even never had been in the military at all. Along the way, he exposed a number of fakers. After the first Gulf War, “Gulf War Syndrome” was the current complaint and, of course, it was due to an unknown cause. There were allegations that depleted uranium, used in anti-tank munitions, were the cause. Of course, uranium has been used in fine crystal for a century (Marie Curie obtained radium from tons of uranium ore used for Bavarian glass works in 1895) and there are no reports of illness from crystal congnac snifters. Now we have the Iraq vet suicide story. It has since been debunked. That won’t stop its progress through the left wing media. More evidence that soldiers are children and they are helpless to protect themsleves against the evil BushHitler types.

Apparently, the Army has finally decided to adopt the Nagl/Petraeus reforms and has appointed Petraeus to the promotion board for general officers. This will mean that, finally, the Army will adopt the lessons of Iraq in its doctrine of war fighting. The likelihood of a conventional war with set-piece battles has receded to a minor concern for the forseeable future.

Investor’s Business Daily has a question. Now that every day brings more progress, why is the news media so silent about it ? The Democrats are trying to derail the progress before it becomes too obvious.