The largest (legal) heist in US history

Not so long ago, Secretary of the Treasury, Henry Paulson, joined by Chairman of the Federal Reserve Ben Bernanke, proposed a strategy to Congress for dealing with the financial crisis.

As I recall, Paulson and Bernanke said the biggest and most immediate problem was liquidity: unless the federal government took action, lending by banks to other banks and to consumers and businesses, which has stopped, would not begin again. In fact, the banks took the money and did not lend it to consumers and businesses, but are purchasing other banks. What an outrage. The largest heist in America's history, only it's legal.

Who has more freedom?

I was truly astonished to read the recent comments of two British experts who, in The New York Times of October 22nd, criticized the United States "for what they described as its overly militaristic approach to fighting terrorism and warned of a further erosion of civil liberties." 

 The two "experts" are Stella Rimington, former director general of Britain's domestic intelligence agency MI5. The other is Ken MacDonald, the top prosecutor for England and Wales who assails what he refers to as the "Guantanamo model, in which the rights of defendants are severely curtailed or eliminated by governments in search of a response to the terrorism threat." According to the Times, Ms. Rimington says "that she hoped the next president would stop using the phrase 'war on terror.' She also said there had been a huge overreaction to the attacks on September 11, 2001, explaining it 'got us off on the wrong foot because it made people think terrorism was something you could deal with by force of arms primarily.'"

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The US must leave Afghanistan

There are those who object to the war in Iraq, but who continue to support our military efforts in Afghanistan. There is now an ongoing effort to move troops from Iraq to Afghanistan. We and NATO currently have 62,000 troops in Afghanistan, 32,000 American and 30,000 coalition.

The Afghan war, which was approved by the United Nations, is going badly. The Taliban is using Pakistan as its base from which to attack American and NATO troops in Afghanistan. When our troops strike back with airpower, either in Afghanistan or Pakistan, they often kill innocent civilians living with the Taliban and we are denounced by the Afghanistan government which depends on American troops to survive, and the Pakistani government.

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The right to abortion

For those interested, I will be making my choice for president public next week.  The candidates, we now know, are Barack Obama and Joe Biden for the Democrats and John McCain and Sarah Palin for the Republicans. My choice will be made next week, so nothing I write here should be perceived as an endorsement of either ticket.

The newly announced vice presidential candidate, Governor Sarah Palin, is at this point the only unknown personality. If McCain wins the election on November 4th, his choice of Palin will be praised as a stroke of genius. However, if he loses, he will be viewed as a dope who shot himself in the foot by selecting Palin and assured his own defeat.

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Leave Afghanistan first

The United Nations resolution authorizing the United States presence in Iraq runs out at the end of this year. The United States and Iraq are now negotiating a new agreement to govern US relations and conduct when the UN agreement expires.

The Prime Minister of Iraq, Nuri Kanal al-Maliki, according to The New York Times, "was leaning toward concluding a short term security pact with the United States instead of a broader agreement that would last for years." The Iraqi people and their government do not want a permanent US presence in their country. John McCain has said that the US may end up with permanent bases in Iraq, agreed to by the Iraqi government. I don't think permanent bases are necessary. We already have bases in Kuwait and Qatar, etc., and a base in Diego Garcia provided by Great Britain, more than enough to serve our needs as the protector of the area and its oil wealth.

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The US and global warming

Al Gore won national recognition because of his effective and ongoing campaign to alert the US and the world to the dangers of global warming. His campaign has garnered him, among other things, an academy award for his documentary, "An Inconvenient Truth" and the Nobel Peace Prize.

I accept the likelihood that global warming has been building as a result of human activity, and in particular, the creation of greenhouse gases - primarily the result of fossil fuel use. However, because the world has been heating up and cooling down for millions of years  without human help, some doubt remains. That's one reason I have not joined the efforts to criticize President Bush because he, along with the US Senate, have declined to support the Kyoto protocols

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Failure of intelligence

A recent National Intelligence Estimate claims that Iran halted its nuclear weapons program in 2003. According to President Bush, the NIE claim is based, on "a great discovery by American intelligence agencies." However, the President would not elaborate.

Current and former American and foreign officials say the new findings are based on intercepted communications and accounts provided by individuals with access to information about Iran's nuclear program.

Has Iran really dropped its nuclear weapons program? We would do well to recall the CIA’s recent track record.

The CIA was wrong when it advised President Bush that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction, referring to chemical and biological weaponry, and that Iraq was developing a nuclear capability that would be available in a short period of time.

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