Sacrificing democracy for prosperity

DAVID S. BRODER
THE WASHINGTON POST

October 20, 2005

ST. PETERSBURG, Russia - If Vladimir Putin enjoys a 70 percent job approval rating, as some independent, American-sponsored surveys of Russian public opinion suggest, then his popularity here in his home base is almost literally off the charts.

This imperial capital is enjoying the benefits of being the hometown of the new ruler of Russia - the place where savvy entrepreneurs and investors place their bets on the future of this fascinating and paradoxical country.

The streets swarm with traffic. The local airport concourse is filled with sharply dressed young men carrying attache cases. And everything implies that the old Soviet-styled Leningrad is enjoying its rebirth under the name it was given by the czars.

Indeed, if you look at the names on the marquees along Nevsky Prospekt, you could believe that the vision of Peter the Great has been realized. His capital is - at least commercially - at the center of Europe. All the great names of retailing, from Tiffany to Mercedes-Benz, can be found in the blaze of neon that illuminates the night sky. The streetcars and buses show their age, but the consumer goods in the showrooms they pass are definitely "now."

Throughout Russian history, the wealth and the talent of this vast country have flowed to Moscow and St. Petersburg, as if those two centers of government exerted a magnetic attraction strong enough to reach across the 11 time zones within Russia's borders. Russian literature is filled with stories of young poets and artists hoping, somehow, to reach the exalted atmosphere of one of these cities.

So it is today - not just for the arts but for commerce and industry and finance. And thanks to Putin's patronage, St. Petersburg is perhaps outdoing even its larger rival to the south.

In all these visible respects, St. Petersburg looks to American eyes like a "normal" prosperous city, one whose counterpart could be found anywhere on the Continent or in North America, South America or Japan.

But appearances are misleading. Just below the surface runs an undercurrent of unease that breaks through the censorship Putin has imposed on the Russian-language media. Last Friday's edition of The St. Petersburg Times, an English-language daily relatively free of government control, reported that by next summer, local tourist authorities will have created a special police task force to assist foreign visitors.

The university students recruited for the force will be trained to provide assistance to victims of crime. The trainees will be given special instructions, authorities said, in order to help foreign tourists "rather than scare them."

And then these paragraphs: "The committee's decision comes as the number of tourists visiting St. Petersburg continues to decline, with up to 19 percent fewer tourists traveling to the city this summer than last year.

"One of the root causes of this decline cited by tourism experts is crime in the city, and the city police's inefficiency in helping foreigners that are victims of crime."

Crime, poverty and violence still stalk Russia. The same front page that reported that formation of the tourist protection force headlined the battle in Nalchik in the Caucasus, where 49 people died last week in one of a series of clashes with Islamic militants.

And the World Bank reported that, despite its new oil-inflated wealth, one-third of Russians are barely eking out a living, surviving on less than $4.30 a day. They die young - below age 60 on average, so population is declining.

Add to this the steady centralization of power under Putin and the prospects for Russia becoming a "normal" country, with a vibrant middle class and a functioning democracy, appear remote.

The United States government seems not to care. Ever since President Bush decided, on his first meeting, that he found something reassuring in Putin's soul, the United States has largely stood mute about Putin's crackdown on the media and any nascent political opposition.

But America has a large commercial presence. Juxtaposed next to one of the imperial monuments here is a giant billboard advertising the American Medical Center. Americans doing business in Russia - and there are thousands of them - willy-nilly have to accept the high levels of corruption and kickbacks and bribery that flourish under Putin.

No one knows what will happen when Putin's second (and presumably final) term as president ends in 2008. In St. Petersburg, you get the feeling many are hoping this new ruler will be around a long time, democracy be damned.

Venerable Titan makes a last launch at Vandenberg

ASSOCIATED PRESS

October 20, 2005

VANDENBERG AIR FORCE BASE – The last Titan rocket was launched from California's Central Coast yesterday, signaling the end of an era as the U.S. military converts to cheaper space boosters.

The 16-story, unmanned Titan IV carried a secret payload for the National Reconnaissance Office, which oversees the nation's constellation of spy satellites. Like previous Titan missions, the purpose of the latest launch was classified.

About 3,000 spectators at Vandenberg Air Force Base watched the launch about 11 a.m.

"The Titan has been the backbone of heavy launch for many, many years," said Walt Yager, vice president of the Titan program at Denver-based Lockheed Martin, which developed the rocket. "It's a loss to a lot of people, but everybody recognizes that even good things end sometimes."

The liftoff was the 368th of the Titan rocket. Of those, 200 were launched at Vandenberg.

The Titan was designed as an intercontinental ballistic missile. It evolved to carry a variety of payloads, including astronauts on the Gemini missions.

Titan's retirement will make way for a generation of rockets, including Lockheed Martin's Atlas 5 and Boeing's Delta 4, which are cheaper and designed to be more reliable.

Putting a price tag on war

DAVID WOOD
NEWHOUSE NEWS SERVICE

October 21, 2005

What does it take to fight a war for six months?

Weapons and ammunition, obviously. Trucks, radars, bandages, fuel, rations. Body armor, maps and missiles. Hand tools, computers, spy planes, wound disinfectant, helicopter rotors and bonuses to lure fresh new recruits.

In the weeks ahead, Congress will formally sign over to the Pentagon about $50 billion to run the war in Iraq and Afghanistan through March.

That's only a down payment for anticipated costs. "More funds will be needed by DoD (Department of Defense)," Amy Belasco, senior defense budget analyst for the Congressional Research Service, observed dryly in an Oct. 3 report. How much more, she said, no one knows.

Iraq war costs are averaging about $6 billion a month, with Afghanistan costing another $1 billion. Together, that's more than the annual budget of the entire U.S. Coast Guard and 15 times more than the Homeland Security Department is budgeted to spend this fiscal year on emergency preparedness for floods and other natural disasters.

In truth, however, not even the Pentagon knows precisely where its money will be spent. Its financial books are in such shambles that government accountants say they are unable to audit them.

"Neither DoD nor Congress can reliably know how much the war is costing," Congress' Government Accountability Office said in a Sept. 21 report.

This means the Pentagon has difficulty ensuring that the weapons it buys are delivered on time and perform as promised, the GAO said. The lack of accountability results in "waste of billions of dollars annually."

Under pressure from Congress, the Defense Department has agreed to financial management reforms which it promises will enable the GAO to do a financial audit – by the year 2007.

"The problem isn't that the Pentagon is flunking its financial audits, the problem is it can't be audited at all," said Winslow Wheeler, a retired congressional budget analyst and author of "The Wastrels of Defense," an exposé of flawed defense spending. "The Pentagon actually aspires to reach the level of being able to flunk an audit."

Defense spending numbers are no clearer up on Capitol Hill.

The 12 pages of spending specifications that add up to the $50 billion for six months were put together by the Senate Appropriations Committee, which acknowledged the amounts are "estimates" based on past spending patterns and "detailed discussions" with Pentagon officials.

It's real money nonetheless, and – roughly speaking – here's where some of it will go in the next six months:

Above the peacetime cost of keeping 1.3 million Americans on active military duty, $4 billion will be spent to train, deploy and pay Army troops who rotate in and out of Iraq and Afghanistan. This includes $150 per month per soldier in hazardous duty pay. About $6 million more will extend hazardous duty pay to wounded soldiers evacuated for medical care.

Beyond these regular troops, just over 144,000 National Guard and Reserve soldiers have been mobilized and many will be sent to war. It will cost an estimated $4.8 billion to pay their active duty salaries and hazardous duty pay.

To replace those who are wounded or quit, the Pentagon will pay over half a billion dollars to recruit new troops and to keep the ones they have. Some of that money is earmarked for enlistment bonuses that now reach $20,000. Soldiers' life insurance with a bigger death benefit – the maximum has been raised from $250,000 to $400,000 – will cost $143.5 million.

Military child care and family counseling will consume $40 million.

In the past, at least, it has been impossible to match lists like this to what the Pentagon actually spends. Sifting through last year's bills, the GAO found this summer that the Pentagon couldn't track $7.1 billion; it was unclear whether the money had been spent at all.

GAO investigators came across an instance in which the Army overspent one account by $4.3 billion. In another case, they discovered that Navy and Marine Corps accountants inadvertently double-counted $1.8 billion worth of costs.

The congressional side isn't much better, its sharpest critics say.

The $50 billion figure is "made out of whole cloth," Sen. Robert Byrd, D-W.Va., charged on the Senate floor this month.

Neither the White House nor the Pentagon has submitted to Congress a detailed cost estimate for the war in fiscal year 2006, which began Oct. 1.

The Congressional Budget Office attempted an estimate last February. Assuming the war would be winding down in 2006, it thought $85 billion would suffice.

In June, the House estimated it would take $45.3 billion to run the war for six months. In September, the Senate guessed $50 billion. The two chambers are in the process of trying to settle on the final figure.

Neither sum is "backed up by any number-crunching, careful analysis or budgetary data," Byrd complained. "Congress just picked a number out of thin air."

What kind of conservative is Bush?

JONAH GOLDBERG
NATIONAL REVIEW

October 21, 2005

The bile accumulating on the right toward the White House has reached China Syndrome proportions and is starting to melt through the floor.

Suddenly, conservatives are starting to question whether George W. Bush is even one of them at all. One of my heroes, Robert Bork, recently wrote in The Wall Street Journal that "George W. Bush has not governed as a conservative. This George Bush, like his father, is showing himself to be indifferent, if not actively hostile, to conservative values." Conservative columnist Bruce Bartlett opines: "The truth that is now dawning on many movement conservatives is that George W. Bush is not one of them and never has been." Even at National Review Online – where I hang my hat most of the time – several of our contributors have echoed these concerns.

I think this goes too far. Two factors contribute to this misdiagnosis: confusion and disappointment.

Let's start with confusion. Contrary to most stereotypes, conservatism is a much less dogmatic ideology than modern liberalism. The reason liberals don't seem dogmatic and conservatives do is that liberals have settled their dogma, so it has become invisible to them. No liberal disputes in a serious philosophical way that the government should do good things where it can and when it can. Their debates aren't about ideology, they're about tactics. Indeed, the chief disagreement between leftists and liberals over the role of the state is almost entirely pragmatic. Moderate liberals think it's not practical – either economically or politically – to push for a dramatic expansion of the role of the state. Leftists think it would be a good idea politically and, despite all the evidence to the contrary, think it would work economically.

Within conservatism, however, there are enormous philosophical arguments about the proper role of the state. This debate isn't merely between libertarians and social conservatives. It's also between conservatives who are "anti-left" versus those who are "anti-state." Neoconservatives, for example, are famously comfortable with an energetic, interventionist government as long as that government isn't run by secular, atheistic radicals and socialists (I exaggerate a little for the sake of clarity).

Think of it this way. One line of conservative thought says that public schools are bad because they are run by inefficient government bureaucrats who drain resources. Moreover, they might say, running schools is simply not the proper function of the government. Another line of conservative thought says that public schools are fine (and they're not going anywhere anyway). But they shouldn't be teaching crazy left-wing stuff about how America, traditional religion and capitalism are the unholy trinity of the world's problems. Don't get rid of public schools, they say, just make sure they get their values and priorities in order.

Now, no conservative can be a full-blown statist, and very few conservatives subscribe to one of these lines of thought to the exclusion of the other. Some libertarians probably don't mind government funding of museums but take offense at the idea of taxpayer-funded pornographic blasphemy. And, there are certainly many social conservatives who'd love to privatize the U.S. Postal Service. But the relevant point is that Bush is definitely more of an anti-left guy than an anti-state guy (his valiant efforts at Social Security reform notwithstanding). He's comfortable with a conservative welfare state, hence his expansion of Medicare. Recall that he famously declared that "when someone hurts, government has to move."

Libertarians spontaneously burst into flames when they say things like that.

What has so confused liberals, meanwhile, is that they are still talking about Bush like he's primarily an anti-state guy, a la Reagan or Gingrich, even as he has spent lavishly on education, labor and regulation.

Then there's disappointment. I don't think it violates my moratorium on writing about Miers if I say that her nomination was a letdown for many conservatives. And, while I don't think it's true of Bork himself, I do think many conservatives are using their legitimate anger about Miers and Bush's overspending as an excuse to jump ship from a lame duck presidency at its low point. If Iraq were a huge success right now and if Bush had picked a conservative stalwart for the bench, how many conservatives would be suggesting Bush isn't one of us?

I have been critical of Bush's big-government conservatism for years. So I'm not entirely displeased by the venom being unleashed at that aspect of his presidency. However, Bush ran as a big-government conservative. And it's not fair to call our own buyer's remorse a betrayal by the seller.

Illegal immigrants are criminals

RUBEN NAVARRETTE JR.
THE UNION-TRIBUNE

October 23, 2005

I get accused of always defending Latinos. But sometimes what they really need is a good scolding.

Like on those occasions when Latino activists go into left field and start advocating totally impractical policies that add nothing to the national discourse on important and controversial issues.

I got an earful of that recently when I was asked to join in a town hall meeting in Dallas organized by Hispanic CREO, a Washington-based educational reform group dedicated to giving Latino parents more choices regarding their children's education.

My fellow panelists and I were expected to talk about education and how Latinos could demand and receive more from public schools that are doing future generations a disservice with a mixture of neglect, excuses and low expectations.

My own solution to the educational crisis is all about self-help. Latinos can't sit around waiting for teachers and principals to suddenly develop higher expectations for them. Rather, Latino parents need to understand the power they have to pressure those students to take tougher classes, work harder and get grades that are so good no one can keep them down.

The same principle applies to the subject that the audience really wanted to talk about above all others: illegal immigration. And it was during that discussion that reality went out the window.

It started when a woman who identified herself as a teacher asked what she was supposed to tell parents (who were illegal immigrants) about why their children (who were also here illegally) couldn't go to college or apply for financial aid, even after they had worked hard and earned good grades.

You see, typically, the pursuit of higher education requires a valid Social Security number, which illegal immigrants don't have. Some states also require that undocumented immigrant students pay exorbitantly high out-of-state tuition rates, even if they and their families have lived in that particular state and paid taxes for years.

My answer to the question shocked some in the mostly Latino audience: Tell the parents they made a terrible mistake when they came into the country illegally, and that they compounded that mistake every day that they stayed here without legal documentation. Explain to them that our actions have consequences and that one consequence of their decision to trespass across the border into the United States is that they and their children were destined to live lives that may never realize their full potential. Make them understand that, while they may be splendid parents in every other way, they did their children a great disservice by leaving them to wander in the shadows.

Whether they can go to college is the least of their worries. I don't care if the children are honor students, they can be picked up and deported at any time. And now, unless there are substantial legislative changes – like the enactment of the federal Dream Act championed by Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, which would allow illegal immigrant students to attend college – there is not much any of us can do for these children.

The good news is that there is still quite a bit that parents can do for their children. They can contact an immigration lawyer or a low-cost legal clinic and ask how it is that one begins the long and often expensive process for obtaining legal residency.

I told the crowd that I knew of one person who spent 12 years and more than $12,000 to convert her status, and that of her son, from "illegal" to "legal." That brought gasps. Apparently, that sounded like a lot of money. It isn't, I told them. It's $1,000 per year, or about $80 a month.

I know immigrants who spend that on their monthly cell phone bill, and this is much more important. If these illegal immigrant parents don't want to do it for themselves, then they should do it for their children.

I received scattered applause, but it was nothing compared to the rousing response that went to another panelist – Raul Yzaguirre, former president of the National Council of La Raza – when he said that he didn't like the term "illegal immigrant" because he didn't think that people who came to this country to feed their families should be considered criminals.

What else would we call them? They broke the law. We can be sympathetic to their plight without condoning their actions. In order for Latinos to make real progress, first they have to stay in the real world.

Neither sum is "backed up by any number-crunching, careful analysis or budgetary data," Byrd complained. "Congress just picked a number out of thin air."

Surprise, surprise. If the CBO, OMB, Congress, and the President had to certify their accounting and budget numbers, like they decided that CEOs must do with Sarbanes-Oxley, ALL of them would go to jail for criminal fraud.

Neither sum is "backed up by any number-crunching, careful analysis or budgetary data," Byrd complained. "Congress just picked a number out of thin air."

Surprise, surprise. If the CBO, OMB, Congress, and the President had to certify their accounting and budget numbers, like they decided that CEOs must do with Sarbanes-Oxley, ALL of them would go to jail for criminal fraud.

Byrd is a Democrat, no?

Neither sum is "backed up by any number-crunching, careful analysis or budgetary data," Byrd complained. "Congress just picked a number out of thin air."

Surprise, surprise. If the CBO, OMB, Congress, and the President had to certify their accounting and budget numbers, like they decided that CEOs must do with Sarbanes-Oxley, ALL of them would go to jail for criminal fraud.

Byrd is a Democrat, no?

...and you are a self-proclaimed Bush apologist......

neither of which alters or gives less weight to the truth behind Senator Byrd's statement.... interjecting that Byrd is a democrat is just a thinly disguised attempt to deflect attention from, and lessen the impact of, the truth behind Senator Byrd's statement.... typical of those who don't wish evident reality to intrude on their ideological desires..... it's typical of the kind of deceptive tactics taken to steer the political conversation away from the shedding of any light on what problems and issues should be addressed no matter what anyone's partisan leanings might be.

McCarthyism type propoganda may have worked in the past when no one could check for lies..... but the technology of today enable one to instantly refute the notion that hypocrisy is not the stock and trade of those who would attempt to maintain power through such deception.....

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I'm not a Bush apologist.

neither of which alters or gives less weight to the truth behind Senator Byrd's statement.

No, but it demonstrates his hypocrisy, regardless of his party. It also demonstrates that he will put partisan rhetoric above any real discussion.

... it's typical of the kind of deceptive tactics taken to steer the political conversation away from the shedding of any light on what problems and issues should be addressed no matter what anyone's partisan leanings might be.

But my point was more specific. As I said above: for those of you that agree with using gov't force to force others to do/pay for stuff you agree with, well, then you can understand why other people want to use gov't force to you to do/pay for crap you don't agree with.

Sometimes that gets you Medicare, unemployment insurance, Social Security, and the rest of it.

Other times that gets you new-gen nukes, the Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation, the CIA, corporate welfare, and war in Iraq. Are you happy?

You support the system, you just disagree on what to spend the takin's on.

Neither sum is "backed up by any number-crunching, careful analysis or budgetary data," Byrd complained. "Congress just picked a number out of thin air."

Surprise, surprise. If the CBO, OMB, Congress, and the President had to certify their accounting and budget numbers, like they decided that CEOs must do with Sarbanes-Oxley, ALL of them would go to jail for criminal fraud.

Byrd is a Democrat, no?

...and you are a self-proclaimed Bush apologist......

neither of which alters or gives less weight to the truth behind Senator Byrd's statement.... interjecting that Byrd is a democrat is just a thinly disguised attempt to deflect attention from, and lessen the impact of, the truth behind Senator Byrd's statement.... typical of those who don't wish evident reality to intrude on their ideological desires..... it's typical of the kind of deceptive tactics taken to steer the political conversation away from the shedding of any light on what problems and issues should be addressed no matter what anyone's partisan leanings might be.

McCarthyism type propoganda may have worked in the past when no one could check for lies..... but the technology of today enable one to instantly refute the notion that hypocrisy is not the stock and trade of those who would attempt to maintain power through such deception.....

My point was merely that Byrd, as a Democrat with long experience in D.C., can be expected to oppose any Republican proposal with just such rhetoric.

Pauly-poo, your attempt to make me look like a raving partisan didn't work very well. Calling me names, comparing my simple five-word statement to "McCarthyism" and propaganda is more an indication of your own rabid, unthinking adherence to political positions that have been soundly discredited. Except, perhaps as applied to you in Alaska, the welfare state is not particularly viable; free-love and flower power have been long forgotten; and you are a political fossil, not to be taken seriously. Your attack on me is particularly ironic, as it is much more in line with classic propaganda tactics than anything I have done.

Neither sum is "backed up by any number-crunching, careful analysis or budgetary data," Byrd complained. "Congress just picked a number out of thin air."

Surprise, surprise. If the CBO, OMB, Congress, and the President had to certify their accounting and budget numbers, like they decided that CEOs must do with Sarbanes-Oxley, ALL of them would go to jail for criminal fraud.

From elsewhere in the article where I first saw Senator Byrd's comment:

Under pressure from Congress, the Defense Department has agreed to financial management reforms which it promises will enable the GAO to do a financial audit -- by the year 2007.

"The problem isn't that the Pentagon is flunking its financial audits, the problem is it can't be audited at all," said Winslow Wheeler, a retired congressional budget analyst and author of "The Wastrels of Defense," an expose of flawed defense spending. "The Pentagon actually aspires to reach the level of being able to flunk an audit."

The military has a difficult time maintaining an inventory count on anything except fissionable material, and inventory is but one aspect of the financial statements that the Pentagon can't seem to get right.

This is not a new problem, but if the functionaries within the current administration can get the books straight, it would be either a major victory for government accountability, or an empty political gesture, depending on the party affiliation of whom you ask.

(edit: linked to a copy of the article)

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No animals were harmed in the making of the above post... much.

This is not a new problem, but if the functionaries within the current administration can get the books straight, it would be either a major victory for government accountability, or an empty political gesture, depending on the party affiliation of whom you ask.

You are right, it isn't a new problem. The gov't doesn't have the political will to adhere to GAAP, and actually account for its spending, let alone impose silly crap like Sarbanes-Oxley on themselves.

the welfare state is not particularly viable; free-love and flower power have been long forgotten; and you are a political fossil, not to be taken seriously. Your attack on me is particularly ironic, as it is much more in line with classic propaganda tactics than anything I have done.

Your non-sequiturs are showing....


and tom, ..what works, or what doesn't work, will be determined independantly of your personal assessment of the situation.....

Nothing I could post can compare to the partisan revelations you foment all by yourself.....

.......it doesn't take a post from me for people to see whether your adherance to party line 'talking points' drives your 'arguments' or not..... you generate the attestation of that particular point all by yourself....

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CNN.com - Civil rights icon Rosa Parks dies at 92 - Oct 25, 2005

God bless your soul.

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"I'm trying to maintain a shred of dignity in this world." - Me

the welfare state is not particularly viable; free-love and flower power have been long forgotten; and you are a political fossil, not to be taken seriously. Your attack on me is particularly ironic, as it is much more in line with classic propaganda tactics than anything I have done.

Your non-sequiturs are showing....

and tom, ..what works, or what doesn't work, will be determined independantly of your personal assessment of the situation.....

Nothing I could post can compare to the partisan revelations you foment all by yourself.....

.......it doesn't take a post from me for people to see whether your adherance to party line 'talking points' drives your 'arguments' or not..... you generate the attestation of that particular point all by yourself....

Oh, Pauly-poo,
I think you need a dictionary. I don't know what you think you are saying, but there were no non sequiturs in my post. Look it up.

What was partisan about the comment you quoted? Or anything else in my post? Merely mentioning that Byrd is a Democrat and can be expected to oppose Republicans is hardly partisan. Look that word up too.

Do you have any idea what a "talking point" is? What "talking points" did you see in my post? And what the heck does "you generate the attestation of that particular point all by yourself" mean?

It's hard to respond to you since you use the English language so poorly. You can easily respond to anything I might say by claiming to have meant . . . anything! Perhaps you intended that your words did not make sense. Did you have Carl help you with this? I often have difficulty understanding Carl, too.

Tom, why do you bother to feed the troll?

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"I'm trying to maintain a shred of dignity in this world." - Me