The latest Zogby “poll” purports to show heavy unclarity of mission and support for leaving Iraq during the next year or sooner among our servicepeople in Iraq.

However, Zogby’s poll purposely leaves open too many questions, which combined with the performance and nature of the Zogby polling organization, raises many doubts as to the poll’s reliability.

First, the questions asked are not publicly revealed, nor the preparatory statements to the questions. Results of polls can vary widely depending on how the questions are presented, and prefaced by what information or assertions. Further, the questioner may affect the willingness of the respondent to be questioned, affecting the results, and may select those responding, again affecting the results. Those administering the questionnaire to troops are not revealed.

Second, the survey methodology is not publicly revealed. Without this standard professional transparency and peer review, it is impossible to test reliability.

Third, the specific demographics of the military members in Iraq are not known. Without this benchmark, it is impossible to know whether the sample is representative. Further, as Zogby told the Mystery Pollster:

According to the procedure Zogby described, respondents were intercepted randomly (e.g. they were not self-selected) at multiple locations throughout Iraq (e.g. not just in the so-called “Green Zone”)…Zogby was willing to share the specific geographic locations where they collected data on the condition I nor repeat them. I passed on the offer as my knowledge of Iraq and military operations there is cursory at best, but I have no doubt his offer was genuine.

Thus, aside from generic methodology issues, the ability of this polling expert to evaluate the validity of the poll is weak.

The Mystery Pollster, apparently liberal but quite professional in his judgments, interviewed John Zogby about the methodology of this poll. According to the interview:

Zogby provided Nick Kristof and others reporting on the poll full details about his methodology on an “off-the-record” basis.
Zogby’s response to the question as to “what advice he would offer data consumers who find this all puzzling. In this case, he said, ‘you have to trust me.”

Sorry, that’s not how professional, reputable, reliable polling is done.

Fourth, the organization sponsoring the poll, Le Moyne College Center for Peace and Global Studies is a typical leftist campus creation, and Zogby is frequently criticized for producing the poll results desired by its client. As the liberal American Prospect said of “a closer look at his methods”:

Media coverage of polling results often neglects to mention the self-interestedness of the sponsor, and John Zogby is a leading enabler. Today, Zogby International's polling reputation may be second only to that of the hallowed Gallup Organization, which makes having a Zogby Poll extremely desirable for advocacy groups across the political spectrum…. As Zogby himself acknowledges, the repute he derives from media polling helps him sell his services to more self-interested clients. The lucky groups end up with the Zogby brand name attached to findings that advance their agendas. "Media organizations should have people who absolutely aren't polling for interest groups," observes Robert Blendon, who directs Harvard University's Program on Public Opinion and Health and Social Policy. Blendon notes that most major media polling conglomerates, such as the ABC News/Washington Post Poll, maintain firewalls between their work and outside interests...

Further, it is a mystery where this campus sponsor came up with the big bucks to sponsor such a poll. That's hardly the type of finances that a small liberal arts college department has available.

The Mystery Pollster (link above) reports that:

The Center for Peace and Global Studies paid Zogby to conduct the study but otherwise played no role in conducting interviews or gathering the data.

However, as the American Prospect study of Zogby’s methods says:

Zogby acknowledges that he retains control over question phrasing. Indeed, in the world of interest-group polling, clients often submit proposed questions or concepts, but much of what they are buying is the polling firm's expertise in devising wording that produces results...

Fifth, John Zogby and his brother James, have a long record of pro-Arabist positions. Their own foreign policy predilections add to the suspicion of this poll’s reliability.

... The Christian Science Monitor hosted a breakfast with John Zogby (the pollster) and James Zogby (president of the Arab American Institute). Low and behold, the Zogby poll is described as being run by BOTH of them, not just by the pollster, and the discussion of it on TV has involved both of them - John talking about the poll itself, then a quick tag to James who rails against U.S. foreign policy...

Lastly, not a single visitor to Iraq from any media or political party, including critics of the Iraq war, has reported any such negativity among the troops there. Indeed, overwhelming support for the mission and for finishing the job is reported. Similarly, among the 1,246 military blogs, one would have to search hard and long to find such corroborating negativity.

UPDATE: See update, Expert: Zogby "poll" needs "big 'grains of salt'".

Daniel Glover, at Beltway Blogroll, has a good follow-up to the story of the Left Democrats’ (redundant, I know) campaign to present themselves as guardians of national security, “The Broken Band Of Brothers.”

I’ve previously written first here, then here, about this association of veterans opposed to the U.S. finishing the job in Iraq, and opposed to most other things Republican. This is a repeat of the Democrats' 2004 strategy to mislead the American voter behind a veteran's insulation.

Dan Glover’s analysis of their electoral prospects isn’t optimistic, as most are running against heavy odds both from Republican incumbents and Democrat infighting.

However, as I said in my first piece on this, in a tightly marginal situation, the veteran credential may prove worthwhile. As Glover quotes the “call me for a quote” Larry Sabato, it’s “a solid start” toward the Democrats being “aggressive on a wide range of national security issues” to exploit or create apprehension about President Bush’s foreign policy.

With the Ports issue, as with the daily drumbeat of negativism toward American foreign policy, that’s just what the Democrat’s primary goal is, regardless of harm done or facts.

At least John Kerry said he was “nuanced.” Even that’s been left behind, as the Democrats direct unremitting criticism and opposition to American foreign policy.

Current polls show the Democrats succeeding in denigrating confidence in the Republican national security credential. They have accomplices in the sunshine Republicans who avoid standing up or who quiver in fear themselves.

This question is asked in the London Review of Books by John Lanchester in his review of David Vise's The Google Story. DP's own Bruce Kesler and Trevor Bothwell have engaged in a long-term debate about whether Google's censorship at the behest of the Chinese government should be tolerated by lawmakers. But what of Google's other plans and practices?

Lanchester is most concerned about Google's implications on privacy:

More generally, the biggest single area of worry about Google involves privacy. This has been a long-running subject of concern on the net, but thanks to an op-ed piece in the New York Times in November it has begun to attract some wider attention. The paper pointed out that the prosecution in a recent North Carolina strangulation case drew into evidence the fact that the defendant had made Google searches on the words ‘neck’ and ‘snap’. This brought to wider notice the fact that Google logs all the searches made on it, and stores this information indefinitely; and Google installs a cookie on the computer of everyone who uses it, which helps log that user’s searches, and which isn’t due to expire until 2038. Because every computer has a unique IP address, every visit to every website can be traced back to the computer making it – a fact well known in geek circles but remarkably under-publicised outside them.

But other practices by the company are also disconcerting, like its lack of respect for fundamental protections of intellectual property, while being ferociously protective of its own copyrights and trademarks:

But to publishers, there is something outrageously hypocritical about the contrast between Google’s ferocious protection of its own intellectual property rights and its contempt for everyone else’s. What’s to stop Google giving free online access to the books once they are scanned? It’s probably against the law, sure, but a sufficiently ruthless company which perceived a sufficiently strong demand could find ways around that. Once the texts were scanned and stored, the only thing preventing every writer’s work from being given away free would be a few pieces of computer code on Google’s servers. At the moment Google say they have no intention of providing access to this content; but why should anybody believe them?

Read the whole review, it's not all negative, in fact Lanchester believes Google is on to something much larger than being merely a website:

These are the earliest days in a process of what may turn out to be radical change. The best historical analogy for where Google is today probably comes from the time when the railroads were being built. Everyone knew that trains and railways would change the world, but no one predicted the invention of suburbs. Google, and the increased flow of information on which it rides and from which it benefits, is the railway. I don’t think we’ve yet seen the first suburbs.

Déjà Vu All Over Again? Launching Medicare Versus Launching the Drug Benefit

POPE SAYS TERRORISTS FACE GOD'S WRATH

Respect

COLOMBIA FREE TRADE WINS

The Dark Side of China’s Rise

Poll: Arab Attitudes 2005, More optimistic

The capacity of men to do evil should never be underestimated. That's why our founding fathers when drafting our Constitution were vigilantly concerned about the power of the masses to run over the rights of minorities. In a letter to Thomas Jefferson, James Madison wrote:

Wherever the real power in a Government lies, there is the danger of oppression. In our Governments the real power lies in the majority of the community, and the invasion of private rights is chiefly to be apprehended, not from acts of Government contrary to the sense of its constituents, but from acts in which the Government is the mere instrument of the major number of the Constituents.

There is perhaps no better example of Madison's concern regarding the potential of a "tyranny of the majority" than the most recent election of Hamas as the ruling party of the Palestinian authority. Absent the significant checks and balances instituted by our Founders, elections for elections sake do little to ensure that a nation will respect human freedom, in fact such elections as we have seen, can be used to desecrate such freedom.

The American founding experience is unique because the government they formed protected minority rights and institutionalized that concept through a Bill of Rights, regularly held elections, and a popularly elected chief executive. The electoral process in Middle Eastern countries has no such regularity with elections being the form by which dictators like Saddam Hussein gained power only to never call another election again.

The concern of both Israeli and American leaders should be whether this same practice will hold true for Hamas' government. Is this terrorist-loving party the new long-term rulers of the Palestinian Authority, like Yasser Arafat? Or will there be another scheduled election whereby the Palestinian people may toss out Hamas if they so choose? In my opinion, the systematic protection of minority rights through regularly scheduled elections with due process and a written constitution should be the goal of U.S. foreign policy for all nations in the Middle East. A goal which we should be willing to fight for if the ruling party fails to schedule that next election.

Conservatives showered skepticism on former president Woodrow Wilson and his concept of the League of Nations, less for its promotion of democracy than its naivete. Men are not angels, and the governments which keep the order and preserve rights for the majority and minority must reflect that by ensuring that regularly scheduled elections happen, and that parties elected by democratic means do not become dictators.

For some reason, the mysterious software within Movable Type sometimes creates huge white space. Until this is resolved, I will have to leave out the URL's from the Interesting Stuff, but of course they are at the site if you'll click on the link.

The Facts Behind the 'Confessions'

New body armor technology aids athletes

Still Taxed to Death: An Analysis of Taxes and Tariffs on Medicines, Vaccines and Medical Devices (Note: A version of this is behind the Wall Street Journal subscription barrier)

trapped transition

Role of Human Rights in the War on Terror

Think Tank Toolkit

We surf, looking for interesting stuff, and are overwhelmed, frequently missing some. Those with less time, miss more.

Much of the blogosphere is reactive, to current events, each other, or to the themes stressed by the MSM. What are often missed are the many interesting subjects and discussions that are off the daily blogoboviate meter but which are important in themselves or for what they (may) portend.

So, from time to time I will post Interesting Stuff collections. These will be items not widely distributed elsewhere. I am including the URL's, for future reference, as some go offline after a few days. Some sites may require free registration.

I won’t be emailing future issues, so you’ll have to check out Democracy-Project.com from time to time.

This is an experiment, so I very much would appreciate feedback.

Marines Commission Intelligence Probe on Iran
http://inbrief.threatswatch.org/2006/02/marines-commission-intelligenc/

Breaching China's great firewall
http://news.yahoo.com/s/csm/20060224/cm_csm/echinaweb;_ylt=AlMlRe8uTBTW53h7aP2zDvKs0NUE;_ylu=X3oDMTA3YWFzYnA2BHNlYwM3NDI-

President Bush’s Challenge in South Asia
http://www.heritage.org/Research/AsiaandthePacific/bg1917.cfm

Christians under cover
http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1139395473254&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull

As Canada's Slow-Motion Public Health System Falters, Private Medical Care Is Surging
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/02/26/international/americas/26canada.html?_r=1&oref=login

Why Doctors So Often Get It Wrong
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/02/22/business/22leonhardt.html?incamp=article_popular_1

My friend Richard DelVecchio, all call him Del, is in South Vietnam right now and is encountering the common fate of the common soldiers of our ally. Del was a Marine combat photographer during the Vietnam war, and is quite knowledgeable about Vietnam. He is also one of the most caring human beings you could ever hope to meet. I'm so proud of his friendship.

Below is his latest email from Saigon (now officially titled Ho Chi Minh City, but everyone knows it's Saigon).

Read this, and then -- regardless of how you may have felt about the war then -- please send some contribution to helping. The address is: Vietnam Healing Foundation; 5228 Beckwyck Dr.; Fuquay-Varina, NC 27528.
Whether you can afford to contribute, at least something, you can send encouragement to Del at his email: techconsultserv@juno.com

Email from Del:
Today we got up and went visiting. First, since they'd heard I like a
spicy regional dish called bun bo hue, there was a steaming bowl of it
ready for my breakfast. Not exactly the Wheaties and milk start to the day, but since they got it special for me, there was little choice but to smile and suck in the noodles, spicy soup, bits of leafy green herbs, and the various special cuts of the pig (knuckles, internal organs, etc.)that are the centerpoint of the dish. I know my gut has recovered from the jet lag, because I got it down and was pretty much OK.

Then we went on our way, in a taxi, since I begged to not take the
motorbikes while carrying a camera and big lens.

We wound up in what we'd call shantytowns, shelters put together with
bits of corrugated iron and scrap sheets of plastic. Some had been
houses of a sort once, still had some concrete walls, others were real
cobbled-together specials. Dirt streets, lots of garbage, very poor
people.

Stop #1 was a man with one leg, still had the knee, and had made himself an artificial leg so he can get around halfway well. He and his wife and kids ranging from probably 25 to 15 were in a two room shack with a porch. He'd stepped on a mine while diving for cover in a battle back in '71 or so. Has never been able to work much since, is torn by the fact his wife and kids have to work hard to keep the household going, and the shack itself is falling apart. They showed me where it floods to six inches deep when it rains, and how the roof has pulled away from one wall so that the rain soaks their back room. They desperately want to get help just to get the shack fixed up so it's not open to the elements so much. He spoke of the total lack of support from the government, and how his kids would have to pay higher fees to go to school just because of his having fought for the South. (Part of the systematic discrimination
against and penalization of the Southern vets.)

I was upset a little, gave him the gift envelope of money (500,000 VN
dong, about $36) which is only enough help get them through the next
couple of months a little better off. But with 15 gifts to hand out for starters, and other expenses, it's all I can do right now. (Thought I could cash some checks here at American Express, but it turns out that VN is the only major country in the world with no AMEX office, due to the restrictive banking laws here.)

Stop #2 was a smaller guy, totally missing one leg, whose wife is
completely blind. They live in a rented concrete box house, maybe 1.5
times the size of my garden shed. He ekes out a living selling lottery tickets, their rent and utilities are 500,000 dong per month. He was a VN Marine, wounded other times beside when he lost the leg, fought in the big battles of the '72 invasion. Had a special tattoo on his arm, but the words below the symbol had been covered in black ink. They were originally Sat Cong (kill communists) and had to be covered or he'd be even worse off. He has no artificial leg, can't get one, needs a cart to sell his lottery tickets. I gave him the gift envelope and left, much
more upset.

Then came #3. We walked through the worst maze of junk and shacks to get to the edge of the mud flats, where a small shanty on stilts stuck out of the muck. On the center floor of the main room (of two) was an older man, at least 65 or so, with both legs gone almost at the hip joints. And one arm half paralyzed, originally damaged by bullet wounds, but now worsened by his general deterioration. It was difficult for him to talk, so his wife and daughter did much of the speaking for him. He spoke sometimes, but when the question of his life and its problems and his special needs was asked, he could no longer hold himself in, and he shook and wept and tried to turn himself away from me, shuffling on his buttocks.

People talk in similes and metaphors about having their hearts torn.
That is no longer just an expression for me, seeing that brave,
longsuffering, proud old man try to turn away on his scarred and
shattered lower torso was too much, much too much. I wept then, I weep now as I type and see it again in my mind. We asked no more questions of him. His wife told us he wants more than anything just a wheelchair of the type they make here from bicycle parts, so that it can be powered by the hands of the person pulling and pushing a lever. They cost somewhere near $100.

He will have one on Monday.

(He doesn't know it is coming, but it will be there on Monday so help me God.)

It's been a tough day, and I have 12 more people to see. We go to Mass early tomorrow before starting the visits, and I will be praying very hard that I have seen the worst now, because any more like today will push me to my limits. I will be staying the my VN hosts instead of going to a hotel, there will be no tours or souvenirs. Every dime I don't have to spend on anything else will be extremely well spent on these tragic, super-long-term victims. It's not much, but it's what I can do for now.

Del

Haven’t Jews been apologized to enough for the holocaust over 60-years ago? Isn’t holocaust denial just mad mutterings by that guy in Iran, and a nutty author from England, that all knowledgeable people reject?

Apparently not. The anti-American Left in the U.S. and abroad have adopted the anti-Israel anti-Semitism of the Arabs, and have infected our campuses. Products of this propaganda graduate into journalism. They frequently display historical ignorance, moral relativism, and outright slant favoring anti-Israel and anti-Semitic charges without professional balance of facts.

Professor Mitchell Langbert of Brooklyn College, C.U.N.Y., wrote the below post of his email to a leader of the American Association of University Professors to clarify whether it is inviting holocaust deniers to a conference, the AAUP claiming this as a free speech issue. The AAUP did not respond.

As The American Thinker revealed:

The organization is co-sponsoring a meeting at the prestigious Bellagio Conference Center on the banks of Lake Como, to discuss an academic boycott of Israeli universities….
More than a third of the participants publicly support boycotts of Israeli universities out of opposition to the Jewish state, according to the New York Sun….
It seems that AAUP is not eager to have debates on other questions – Intelligent Design, or boycotting the United Nations, for instance. AAUP won’t have a Bellagio meeitings with David Horowitz, or with other critics of Political Correctness on campus. AAUP will never debate the pros and cons of radical feminism.
Those are not real academic questions, you see.
But boycotting Israel is open to debate.
When you agree to debate a question, you legitimize the issue. This is a standard tactic of campus radicals around the US, who hold positions of power in AAUP….
Our universities are bastions of intolerance in a sea of freedom. But AAUP hasn’t done anything to protect free speech on campus. It doesn’t seem eager to try.
Maybe AAUP’s own radicals are just trying to export campus intolerance to the State of Israel.

Just as Mitch’s post came online, I was debating with myself whether to post about some old despicable anti-Semitic history from the 1930’s involving leaders of journalism. My first reaction was, how many apologies do Jews need about the holocaust?

My second reaction, in answer, is that it’s not about apologies to Jews, but rather about educating today about the consequences of intolerance and cowardice, not just for Jews but for all those who are slaughtered across the globe for religious, racial, tribal excuses, and whose fate is sealed in Western avoidance of confrontation with their evil murderers.

It is about those in academia and journalism whose Leftist inclinations allow and promote purposeful historical blindness to occur today. When Israel is directly threatened by Iranian nuclear missiles, as is much of Europe, the consequences of allowing this ignorance or political anti-Western activism to stand unchallenged could be a repeat of the 1930’s and 1940’s mass bloodshed and genocide.

Over 70 leading journalists and journalism professors sent a letter to the Newspaper Association of America for the top journalism association to “publicly acknowledge” the profession “was wrong to turn its back on Jewish refugee journalists fleeing Hitler.”

Signatories come from across the political spectrum, from Left to Right, including Marvin Kalb, Martin Peretz, Ben Wattenberg, Jeff Jacoby, Gabriel Schoenfeld, Todd Gitlin, Debbie Schlussel, editors at leading journals like Foreign Affairs, academic journalism leaders at Columbia, Rutgers, Texas, Ohio, Wisconsin, Texas, Indiana, Harvard, Johns Hopkins, and leading journalists at the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Washington Post, and PBS.

The letter and the full list is here. The New York Times coverage is here.

At a panel on “America and the Holocaust: New Research” the author, Laurel Leff, of the book Buried by the Times about the New York Times’ purposeful failure to highlight the holocaust although it was aware, presented additional findings about the failure of American journalism to stand up to Hitler’s depravities even when it involved their own professional colleagues. Laurel Leff is a former Wall Street Journal reporter and currently a professor at Northeastern University.

-- While other university departments and disciplines added Jewish refugees to their faculties to help them escape Hitler, none of America's approximately forty journalism schools and departments took in Jewish refugee journalists, and no major newspaper hired refugee journalists.

-- In 1939, refugee advocates Prof. David Reisman (later a famous Harvard sociologist) and Prof. Carl Friedrich requested ten minutes to speak at the convention of the American Newspaper Publishers Association about the plight of Jewish refugee journalists. Their request was rejected.

-- Refusals to aid Jewish refugee journalists were often laced with antisemitic comments. For example, Lawrence Murphy, dean of the University of Illinois School of Journalism and one of the leading figures in journalism education, opposed aiding the refugees and rationalized it on the grounds that it was for their own good. "The minute that Jews show up in numbers they become a threat to the others ... they would occupy all the jobs there are (and) are quite likely to work together in filling the jobs," Murphy wrote. "We must hurt them to help them. We must keep them from becoming too prominent and assertive..."

Prof. Stephen Norwood, of the University of Oklahoma, said in his remarks at the conference:

-- Despite book-burnings and anti-Jewish violence in Nazi Germany, the leaders of elite American universities such as Harvard, Yale, Columbia, and Johns Hopkins refused to speak out against the Hitler regime during 1933-1937. Columbia president Nicholas Butler expelled a student for leading an anti-Hitler rally on campus. Harvard president James Conant warmly welcomed Ernst Hanfstangl, a Harvard alumnus who was Hitler's foreign press secretary, when he visited the campus in 1934. The Massachusetts Institute of Technology hosted a visit by Nazi Germany's ambassador to the United States, Hans Luther.

-- Even though German universities fired their Jewish professors and adopted a Nazi curriculum, prominent American universities continued to maintain relations with them. They exchanged students with German universities, and sent representatives to a celebration at the University of Heidelberg in 1936 (Williams College was one of the few that refused to participate). Harvard Law School dean Roscoe Pound accepted a honorary degree from the University of Berlin in 1934. Johns Hopkins president Isaiah Bowman, a famed geographer, accepted an honor from a Nazi geographical society.

-- Antisemitic comments that Prof. Norwood found in the private correspondence of some prominent American university officials suggest that bigotry was at least part of the motive for their positions regarding Hitler and German Jewry. Harvard president Conant urged the DuPont Corporation not to hire the famous German Jewish chemist Max Bergmann, because he was "very definitely of the Jewish type." Yale president James Rowland Angell asked his deans to examine whether Jewish students were engaged in cheating and financial wrongdoing. Johns Hopkins president Isaiah Bowman refused to sign a petition against anti- Jewish discrimination in Polish universities in 1937, and claimed the protest was the result of "pressure from Jews in New York."

Unless the history of anti-Semitism is made clear, and its current practitioners in academia and the media exposed today, 6-million Jews and tens of millions of non-Jews died for nothing, and today’s perpetrators of anti-Western hate will be all the more encouraged to proceed with their program of massive violence.

The one-sided and virulent tirades and violence against the West, against local non-Muslims, and against each other from tin-turban MidEast religious and political leaders has woken some in the West, while others continue to rationalize excuses for the inexcusable.

One of the purposes of religion is to remind us and hold us to standards of decent behavior, in order not only to create better hereafters but to create better here-and-nows. If the leaders of a religion don’t emphasize and pursue this prime purpose, its practice – regardless of the nice words in its scripture -- has devolved into some sort of secular faith in or beard for something else, becomes corrupt, oppressive and aggressive, and doesn’t deserve to be respected, and deferred to, as a religion. A political force maybe, but not a religion.

Professor Steve Bainbridge, proud of his Catholicism and catholicity, on February 5 expressed his “disappointment with the Vatican’s tepid response to the violent reaction in the Islamic world to the Danish cartoons." "Moral relativism,” Bainbridge called it. Bainbridge cited the clearer thinking of new Pope Benedict, and a friend of mine with deep experience in the Vatican confirmed that the Vatican bureaucracy was likely following a more entrenched Euro-weenie meme.

Just as our Arabist weenies in the State Department need straightening out from above from time to time, it seems Pope Benedict has clarified where the line is for his bureaucrats.

Reuters Religion Editor headlines his dispatch, “Vatican to Muslims: practice what you preach,” and quotes the stronger line led by the Pope.

Pope Benedict signaled his concern on Monday when he told the new Moroccan ambassador to the Vatican that peace can only be assured by "respect for the religious convictions and practices of others, in a reciprocal way in all societies."…

"If we tell our people they have no right to offend, we have to tell the others they have no right to destroy us," Cardinal Angelo Sodano, the Vatican's Secretary of State (prime minister), told journalists in Rome….

"We must always stress our demand for reciprocity in political contacts with authorities in Islamic countries and, even more, in cultural contacts," Foreign Minister Archbishop Giovanni Lajolo told the daily Corriere della Sera….

"Enough now with this turning the other cheek! It's our duty to protect ourselves," Monsignor Velasio De Paolis, secretary of the Vatican's supreme court, thundered in the daily La Stampa. Jesus told his followers to "turn the other cheek" when struck.
"The West has had relations with the Arab countries for half a century, mostly for oil, and has not been able to get the slightest concession on human rights," he said….

Bishop Rino Fisichella, head of one of the Roman universities that train young priests from around the world, told Corriere della Sera the Vatican should speak out more.
"Let's drop this diplomatic silence," said the rector of the Pontifical Lateran University. "We should put pressure on international organizations to make the societies and states in majority Muslim countries face up to their responsibilities."

BRAVO!

Christians in the Middle East have suffered almost as much as Jews the oppression by Muslim states and street thugs. As Reuters politely sums the effects (the same Reuters that demurs from calling terrorists 'terrorists':

Christians make up only a tiny fraction of the population in most Muslim countries. War and political pressure in recent decades have forced many to emigrate from Middle Eastern communities dating back to just after the time of Jesus.

As yet, however, we haven’t seen a 21-part television special in Egypt called “The Protocols of the Elders of Rome” as they did recently the “of Zion” calumny.

Pope Benedict isn’t waiting. Nor is he waiting for the Nazi-like cartoon images of Jews prevalent in the Middle East press, that the West winks at as just those Arabs at it again.

The Pope has shown religious leadership. Will we see similar from the liberal Protestant denominations in the West, whose distorted and forgotten sense of religious and Western values led them to defend terrorists by disinvestments in Israel?

Due to a combination of a crazy work week and general ignorance over matters of port security, I decided to hold my fire on the UAE port deal until I could spend enough time thinking about the issue and talking to people more experienced with this sort of stuff than I am before making a call. Well, here goes.

Call me crazy, but whenever I hear Hillary Clinton or Chuck Schumer railing against a particular idea, I’m convinced it’s a good one.

Well, until I find out that Jimmy Carter actually endorses it.

Oh boy.

I think this is one of those issues that campaigns are made for, though it seems there’s still much more to this story than any of us really know at this point.

Taking in stride what we've learned from the media so far, those on the left have sounded the usual refrain that Bush has once again demonstrated his incompetence and desire to line his own pockets at the expense of national security, while the right is scratching its collective head wondering how a country that has trouble securing its own ports could be trusted to do so with ours.

Many conservatives like Michelle Malkin, whose work I greatly admire, fiercely oppose the deal on the grounds that the UAE has a spotty record of fighting terrorist plots; though, as Michelle points out in her latest column, it’s a tad ironic that liberals suddenly support profiling.

Well-known conservative supply-sider Larry Kudlow, for whom I also have a great deal of respect, has attributed this dissent by both liberals and conservatives to "Islamophobia." From what I've read so far, Kudlow has correctly dispelled the notion that Dubai Ports World will handle port security -- apparently, the company will only act as a commercial administrator, while the U.S. Coast Guard and Customs officials will secure the ports. However, I’m not sure that it’s altogether accurate to jump to the conclusion that critics of the deal are "Islamophobic" when we’re in the midst of a war with Islamofascists.

I’m also not sure this deal was necessarily "secretive" just because it wasn’t divulged to the New York Times a week before it was closed. This doesn’t mean that business transactions potentially involving issues of national security shouldn’t be disclosed to the public while they're in work, but I couldn’t even wager a guess as to how many undertakings go on at the federal level absent our knowledge and request for consent.

And while the Wall Street Journal editorial page has taken a beating from both sides, it is correct to point out that the emirates have been a strategic ally in the war on terror.

Critics also forget, or conveniently ignore, that the UAE government has been among the most helpful Arab countries in the war on terror. It was one of the first countries to join the U.S. container security initiative, which seeks to inspect cargo in foreign ports. The UAE has assisted in training security forces in Iraq, and at home it has worked hard to stem terrorist financing and WMD proliferation. UAE leaders are as much an al Qaeda target as Tony Blair.

As the Free Muslim Coalition, which formed after 9/11 to condemn extremist Islam and its adherents and to encourage moderate Muslims to denounce terrorism, explained in its latest press release, giving the impression that the U.S. will not do business with Arabs because they're Arab would give the extremists exactly what they want: more excuses to conduct terrorist attacks against our troops and our allies.

I’m no expert in foreign policy, but even though war is sometimes an inevitable component, so also are international finance, trade, and public diplomacy. And in the long term, collective prosperity gained as a result of multinational trade and the freedom that accompanies it does far more to account for positive international relations than war usually does. After all, how many Muslims in the United States have wreaked havoc in the name of the Cartoon Jihad? I would guess that most Muslims in America -- at least today -- generally view themselves as Americans first and Muslims second, where Islam may drive their religion, but not necessarily their political viewpoints.

Much of the concern over the port deal is perfectly warranted. But I’m perfectly comfortable admitting I don’t really know whether this move was the right thing to do or not. One thing I would remind everyone, however, is that a lot of the people criticizing the administration seem to have forgotten that the 9/11 terrorists attended flight school here in the U.S.; obtained driver’s licenses here in the U.S.; coordinated and made financial arrangements here in the U.S.; and exploited lax visa policies and walked through all sorts of "secure" locations, right here in the U.S.

The UAE may indeed need to bolster its own border security. But regardless of who wins contracts to perform services in this country, we too still have a lot of work to do ourselves.

Dan Blatt writes an interesting contrast between Verdun and Fallujah:

As we remember the hundred of thousands who were killed or maimed at Verdun, we need to bear in mind how much we have learned from that horrible encounter — and its aftermath. We know the horrors of war and that bloody sacrifice does not necessarily lead to an honorable conclusion. The “war to end all wars” failed to live up to its supposedly defining expression.
There are already signs that we are reaching a more honorable conclusion in Iraq. Just over a year ago, American troops fought one of the bloodiest battles of the Iraq war, clearing the city of Fallujah of the terrorists who had taken over in the aftermath of the defeat of Saddam’s tyranny. In the November 2004 battle for that city, our armed forces suffered 70 dead and 600 wounded. As soon as our troops cleared the terrorists out, they welcomed the people back and have since then been working with them to rebuild the town….
The victors of this war have clearly learned from the failures of the victors of that nearly century-old war. Even so, we need to keep in mind the question that Dave Kane (like Norah Vincent and myself, a graduate of America’s finest small college) asked, whether “the benefits for this improvement are worth the costs in blood and treasure.”
As we remember Verdun in the midst of the current war, let us resolve to achieve a victory so that, unlike the aftermath of that bloody battle, the next generation will not have to sacrifice as this one has.

The aftermath of World War I’s failed Wilsonian ideals bred a pacifism in Europe and the U.S. that had some merit. However, the pacifism that continues in much of Europe and the U.S. today has little merit, following the defeat of the two gravest threats to Western civilization and freedom – Nazi and Communist – and the real liberation of hundreds of millions of the formerly oppressed. Its mutation into or false-beard of virulent anti-Americanism – after decades of selfless sacrifice of our youths and wealth to liberate more and protect Western values -- is even less meritorious, but rather despicable.

Is health care any less directly threatening to our way of life, individually or collectively, than the frolics of depraved dictators?

I can’t think of any subject I write about that gets a smaller response than health care. I have more earned credentials and years of experience in this area than in running the world. So, why the well of silence this subject falls into?

The complexities of medicine or medical economics are not more difficult than war or foreign trade. The personal experience we have with health care, indeed, should make this subject more open to understanding.

The simple answer to my question is that, for the overwhelming majority of Americans and commentators, the health care system we have developed basically works. Almost all are one way or the other cared for, and by the most readily accessible, most advanced, and highest quality health care in the world.

Most criticism comes from three areas: The first is almost a relic of decades ago, when the poorest and eldest among us had difficulties of access. Medicaid, Medicare, required emergency care, pharma’s targeted prescription discounts on those most at risk and unable to pay, have largely made this concern an old chestnut for the American Left right up there with “Workers of the World, Unite!”

The second source of criticism is more pressing. At the rate we’re going, health care spending is increasingly crowding out other priorities from personal and government budgets. Increased access, medical advances, and an ageing population are most of the cause. These expense-drivers are not going away. So, instead, critics from the Left distract with another old chestnut, private health care costs more than a nationalized system, ignoring that what small difference there is comes at the cost of bureaucratic rationing and of free-riding on most of the costs of advancing technology and drug development by the United States.

The third source of criticism comes from the Right, that a serious expense-driver is we use too much health care out of ignorance and buffering from personal responsibility for choices. There’s some truth to this, but it is either exaggerated or rests on tenuous evidence. More important is that overall national expenditures for health care will increase, and that cannot be allowed to deny us more critical public goods that only government can provide or to cripple the job and wealth creating competitiveness of American business.

I usually see individuals and employers choosing health plans with an eye on the premium, but that is only part of a more or less formal analysis of risk-reward between acceptable levels of insurance and outlay. There is a well-developed appreciation, fact-based, that the overwhelming source of medical expense comes from difficult to predict catastrophic illnesses and accidents, not from routine and preventive medicine. There is a well-developed appreciation that routine and preventive medicine is key to avoiding many catastrophic events and costs.

Employer-provided health insurance is blamed for its paternalistic choices or its subsidies removing many from more direct self-responsibility. Yet, I’ve never seen an employee with more knowledge of the choices than the employer who studies alternatives, or the collective decision-making that usually occurs in smaller employers.

With all that said, then, what is President Bush trying to do with his health care initiatives?

He is not entertaining a laissez faire chestnut that all individuals should be solely responsible for their own choices and health care, with government totally out of the equation. That ideological direction, as emotionally appealing as it may be to some, is just not realistic.

Daniel Weintraub presents analogies of self-responsibility for our food, housing and auto choices as compared to either government-run or mandated health care or employer-provided insurance. However, the differences between the catastrophic consequences, costs and levels of standardized information available related to health care choices are of a different kind and dimension from selecting among nutrition, residence or transportation alternatives.

So, Weintraub realizes increased choice not less, with government support where necessary is more in line with health care.

Individual choice. Individual responsibility. Voluntary transactions. And targeted help for the few who cannot afford to buy what they need on the wages they earn, with the burden of financing that assistance falling on all of society, not just on a few.

President Bush is trying to increase our choices and provide us with the information to make better choices. This is, essentially, a rather modest goal, particularly when put aside the alternative of government-run health care with all the proven pitfalls or just continuing down the path of unsustainable employer-provided health care arrangements. These grew out of World War II era schemes to end-run wage-controls and the post-WWII union-led enlargement of those arrangements. As with modernizing Medicare past its 1965-model, it's time to modernize private health care past its World War II and 1950's model.

The only realistic alternative is the shifting of more choice and costs of health care back to individuals, at least those who can afford them and benefit from more useful information. This portion of the population, at least, ought to make choices between their own necessary health care and expensive restaurants, 6000 square foot houses, and luxery cars.

For example, working with the American Medical Association to develop widely disseminated statistics of quality of care by providers will increase the ability of consumers to choose cost-effective care.

As President Bush said the other day:

First of all, we've got to choose between two competing philosophies when it comes to health care. Behind all the rhetoric in Washington, and all the proposals, there's really a philosophical debate. On the one hand, there's some folks who…believe that government ought to be making the decisions for the health care industry. And there are some of us who believe that the health care industry ought to be centered on the consumer.

Greater individual responsibility for choices and costs is preferable to increasing government debts, crowding out education or defense or roads, or to destroying the economic competitiveness of American business.

UPDATE: I’ve got to get those Democrat-meme monkeys in Times Square better trained to let me know when they’re performing. Late Friday night I wrote the below post, “The Mae West Rx.” Sunday, the New York Times prints a lengthy article about what Senator Grassley calls the Democrats’ “strategy of ‘inherent political hypocrisy and opportunism',” to eviscerate the free-market components of the Medicare prescription program to “allow Medicare to negotiate prices directly with drug companies” as a step toward nationalizing pharma and undermining inventiveness, and “impose new regulations on private drug plans,” to create stifling uniformity and undermine adaptiveness.

_____________________________________

“When choosing between two evils, I always like to try the one I’ve never tried before.” -- Mae West

That’s the new Medicare prescription program.

Rather than go the route of the entrenched 1965-model of medical care that is Medicare, rigidly directed by a central bureaucracy, with a virtual one-size-fits-all philosophy, the Medicare Part D prescription program relies upon the adaptivity and experience of private insurers and the self-responsibility of consumers to make choices.

Insurance companies negotiate prices with pharmaceutical companies, administer the benefits, and offer a wide range of designs from which to choose. The result thus far is that the premiums for consumers have been about 1/3rd lower and the budget costs to the taxpayers about 20% lower than the “experts” predicted. See here.

As President Bush said the other day:

First of all, we've got to choose between two competing philosophies when it comes to health care. Behind all the rhetoric in Washington, and all the proposals, there's really a philosophical debate. On the one hand, there's some folks who…believe that government ought to be making the decisions for the health care industry. And there are some of us who believe that the health care industry ought to be centered on the consumer.

A recent survey supports the President, Americans preferring not to have a nationalized health care system. See here.

As Reuters reports:

Glitches in the new Medicare prescription drug benefit plan have affected about 3 percent to 5 percent of the millions of seniors and disabled people enrolled, U.S. Health and Human Services Secretary Mike Leavitt said on Monday....
Most people affected by the early problems were those who had been covered the Medicaid state-federal program for the poor but were supposed to be automatically switched to Medicare, federal officials have said.

Stop and think for a moment. Have you read in the MSM about the 95-97% of the 42-million Medicare recipients who are being adequately served by the new prescription benefit, or about the 3-5% who are having difficulties? Have you heard about the composition of the 3-5% having difficulties being largely those poorly educated, and even poorly motivated to control their own lives rather than being wards?

What’s at stake here is the left’s drive to settle for nothing less than a centrally controlled government-dictated health care system for America.

We’ve been going down that road since 1965. It’s time to follow Mae West. It’ll also be more fun.

The U.S. Congress is facing more than issues of the Internet in China. It is facing the very core of whether the U.S. is serious about its values, including its commercial values. Further, the same technology and business practices at issue with China are directly complicit in the counter-attacks against decency and democracy from MidEast satrapies using these technologies to filter what their state-incited “street” hears and sees.

Don’t make a mistake: U.S.-based multinationals value profits above decency or democracy, or the free values under which they prosper. And, tragically, as history will write, many Congressmen may also.

Are we believers in free capitalism, or its subversion into being enablers of repression, or just hypocrites?

CNET reports that the draft legislation to support American values in our trade with repressive regimes “could face opposition from a broader alliance of U.S. companies because it is written so broadly.”

A China-blog comments:

Unfortunately, the sad fact is that adhering to an American code of ethics and doing business in China is like trying to mix oil and water. You simply have to bite the bullet and pay the bribes and deal with the corruption and facilitate the censorship if you plan to set up shop there.

Rebecca MacKinnon hopes:

I would like to see detailed analysis from all potentially affected U.S. technology companies as to whether they think this legislation would enable them to continue doing business in China, but more ethically. Several companies have said they would welcome legislation that would hold U.S. companies to common ethical standards. So now I hope that American corporations will engage with lawmakers to craft the most effective legislation that enables them to do good while still doing business. I agree, it is better for them to be engaged with China and doing business there rather than not. The issue is with the specifics of their businesses and business conduct.

Yesterday, I pointed at the first sign of capitulation in Congress:

South Florida Republican Congresswoman Illena Ros-Lehtinen is introducing similar legislation, but watered down for ideologic "free-traders" and for those whose bread is buttered by hi-tech. She is a member of the House International Relations committee, who is vying with Congressman Smith for the future Chair of the Committee, by -- in effect -- trying to steal his thunder that Smith has worked so hard to accomplish for the spread of democracy abroad and international human rights. If conservative Republicans line up behind Rep. Ros-Lehtinen, they will be deserting the rest of the Party and weakening its principles and appeal. Republicans should not be doing Bill Gates favors. Republican House leaders, hear this, please.

The U.S. Trade Representative points at the one-way street that trade with China has taken, and China’s resistance at living up to the pledges it made in being allowed to join the World Trade Organization:

China's continued intransigence over free trade issues, including intellectual property rights, dictates a "readjustment" in American policy, U.S. Trade Representative (USTR) Rob Portman said today.
In a USTR report released to Congress, Portman said that the 25-year-old U.S. policy of economic engagement with Beijing is in danger in the absence of "tangible evidence" of Chinese reform.
"As a mature trading partner, China should be held accountable for its actions and required to live up to its responsibilities, including opening markets and enforcing intellectual property rights," Portman said at a Washington press conference. "We will use all options available to meet this challenge."
In particular, the report states, China's focus on export growth and developing domestic industries is not being matched by a comparable focus on fulfilling market-opening commitments and on the protection of intellectual property and internationally recognized labor rights.
"Despite three consecutive years of growing U.S. exports to China, our bilateral trade relationship with China today lacks equity, durability and balance in the opportunities it provides," said Portman. "The time has come to readjust our trade policy with respect to China."

UPDATE:
Broader issues than the Internet or China are involved. See Judith Klinghoffer, "State Owned Companies Must Be Treated Differently," at History News Network. Unfettered pursuit of profits, or national security? That's the issue. What happens abroad, comes home.

The blog Email Battles, a work of love by computer security geeks, takes down the puny excuses of the U.S. hi-tech giants for collaboration in China’s and MidEast repression of freedom:

Rather than bravely standing by those who have lost jobs, been jailed and/or died to defend freedom of information for centuries, the New Age search community seems to have chosen another well-worn path: Collaboration.

After all, this is a money deal. Supporters of this psuedo-Realpolitik view say it's not the tech firms' fault they do Bad Things. It's the Bush administration's. They need to make more laws.

Interestingly, after decades of somnambulance, the State Department is stirring under the selfsame Bush administration's prodding. And the House of Representatives is right behind them….

Google's right about one thing... "Don't be evil" isn't "arrogant, or naive, or both." It's self-serving and hypocritical.

While the Cisco, Yahoo, and Microsoft comments weren't as disgusting on paper, they can be summed up with, "We want the US government to yammer this thing to death. The longer they talk, the more we make. Just don't pass any laws that keep us from collaborating with jackboots to keep their citizens in bondage."

Or at least, that's what it sounds like to us.

More evidence was produced today.

The other day the State Department rushed to announce a new task force to first study the freedom aspects of the Internet, awoken from their fog by the rising protests at U.S. companies eagerly selling the means to enslave minds that U.S. foreign policy needs to be free. The State spokeswoman spoke in words that I called a “word salad” of obfuscation. After, I was informed that the word salad maker was formerly an editor at the Washington Times. Apparently, foggyitis is contagious.

Today, Hiawatha Bray, technology reporter for the Boston Globe, exposes the real nonagenda behind the word salad. Ambassador Gross, the State Department’s coordinator for international communications and information policy, says:

“The task force will not attempt to set policy for US internet firms in China. ‘We allow, as we always do, American companies to make their own best choices.,’ Gross said.”

That leaves the ball in Congress’ court, the perpetrators and the State Department copping out of self-responsibility for decency or U.S. foreign policy.

Congressman Chris Smith’s draft legislation is summarized below by former CNN correspondent Rebecca MacKinnon (including a link to the pdf file of the full text).

Highlights of the Global Online Freedom Act of 2006:

1. Promotion of Global Internet Freedom
The Act states that it is the policy of the United States to promote glogal free speech on the internet and global free flow of information, which includes “to prohibit any United States businesses from cooperating with officials of Internet-restricting countries in effecting the political censorship of online content.” The following measures would be taken:
· Commissioning of Annual Country Reports on Human Rights Practices
· Establishment of the Office of Global Internet Freedom
· An annual report designating Internet-restricting countries
2. Minimum Corporate Standards for Online Freedom
· Protection of search engines and content services: search engines should not be located in “internet restricting” countries, and search engines can’t alter or filter the results of their searches at the behest of governments and officials from an “internet restricting country”
· Integrity of search engines: search engine companies would have to inform the Office of Global Internet Freedom of all the “terms and parameters” provided to them by internet-restricting governments.
· Transparency regarding search engine filtering: Companies must provide the OGIF with block lists given to them by internet-restricting governments.
· Protection of U.S.-supported online content: U.S. businesses can’t block US-government supported websites and content.
· Transparency regarding Internet censorship: Any U.S. business with content-hosting services must report to the OGIF with all copies of data and content that they’ve removed, blocked or restricted from their services at the behest of an internet-restricting government
· Integrity of user identifying information: U.S. businesses with internet content hosting services can’t provide personally identifying user information to officials in internet-restricting countries “except for legitimate foreign law enforcement purposes as determined by the Department of Justice.” What’s more, “Any person aggreived by a violation of this section” can sue a U.S. company in U.S. court “without regard to the citizenship of the parties.”
· Penalties. Fines for violations.
The final third section is very short, calling for export controls and a report describing actions taken.

UPDATE: INSIDE BELTWAY SHENANIGAN

South Florida Republican Congresswoman Illena Ros-Lehtinen is introducing similar legislation, but watered down for ideologic "free-traders" and for those whose bread is buttered by hi-tech. She is a member of the House International Relations committee, who is vying with Congressman Smith for the future Chair of the Committee, by -- in effect -- trying to steal his thunder that Smith has worked so hard to accomplish for the spread of democracy abroad and international human rights. If conservative Republicans line up behind Rep. Ros-Lehtinen, they will be deserting the rest of the Party and weakening its principles and appeal. Republicans should not be doing Bill Gates favors. Republican House leaders, hear this, please.

Thanks from Chinese and Americans who care about freedom and democracy is amply due to Congressman Chris Smith, Chair of the House International Relations Subcommittee, Africa, Global Human Rights and international Operations.

Similar thanks are also due to Rebecca MacKinnon, whose live-blog posts today are an exemplar of reporting skills. CNN’s loss of this correspondent is the Internet’s gain.

Rebecca was not able to stay through the entire proceedings due to a prior commitment, so I will just fill in from the prepared statements those she missed. For Chair Smith’s and Rep. Lantos’ opening comments, go here.

Lantos’ comments deserve repetition: “Your abhorrent activities in China are a disgrace. I simply do not understand how your corporate leadership sleeps at night…. These companies tell us that they will change China. But China has already changed them.”

For Google’s defense, go here.

For Yahoo’s defense, go here.

MacKinnon’s comment, “Passing the buck?? Sounds like it to me...” seems apropos to all the tech testifiers.

For Microsoft’s defense, go here.

For Cisco’s defense, go here.

As the New York Times reported: “the statements alone provided some of the most extensive and candid airing of the companies' positions on the China issue since concerns began mounting among critics well over a year ago.”

The NYT’s report continues:

And as questions were raised after each new revelation, companies like Yahoo, Google, Microsoft and Cisco Systems invariably offered a variation on a common chorus.
"Just like any other global company," as Mary Osako, a Yahoo spokeswoman, put it in September, "Yahoo must ensure that its local country sites operate within the laws, regulations and customs of the country in which they are based."
The subcommittee's chairman, Representative Christopher H. Smith, plans to introduce legislation by week's end that would restrict an Internet company's ability to censor or filter basic political or religious terms — even if that puts the company at odds with local laws in the countries where it now operates.

MacKinnon summarizes the draft legislation here.

It appears restrained and reasonable. Let’s hope it is not too diluted by other legislators, and if any try they are awarded Royal Order of the Bootlicker.

Now, on to highlights from the testimony of various human rights leaders. All these statement deserve complete reading.

Xiao Quiang, Director, China Internet Project, Graduate School of Journalism, University of California at Berkeley:

“In the last century, we witnessed numerous atrocities and destruction, but also the prevailing tide of human solidarity in the struggle for freedom….Today, a similar struggle is unfolding over the Internet, including in countries such as my homeland, China…American corporations have an opportunity to be on the right side of history.”

Sharon Hom, Executive Director, Human Rights in China:

“Vague, abstract, inaccurate reference to ‘Chinese law’ and compliance with domestic law is an indefensible justification for undermining human rights. The obligations of companies need to be viewed in light of a coherent framework of the legal and ethical obligations of IT companies that includes the laws of the home country, the host foreign country, and the larger framework of international human rights responsibilities of transnational companies.”

Yom offers the example of China’s negotiated agreement to World Trade Organization requirements. Yom, also, wonders what will happen to the security technology sold to China for hosting the 2008 Olympics. Good question. Needs answers.

Harry Wu, Publisher, China Information Center:

“The PRC’s Ministry of Public Security has been continually upgrading and expanding its $800 million ‘Golden Shield’ project…China has also used the ‘Golden Shield’ as a way of monitoring Chinese civilians. The project will help prolong Communist rule…The ‘Golden Shield Project’ would not have been possible without the technology and equipment from these companies….nearly all of China has been employing Cisco’s surveillance technology…[which] guarantees speech recognition, automated surveillance of telephone conversations, integration of biometric data, wireless Internet access to track individual users, video surveillance data from remote cameras…, etc.”

Libby Liu, President, Radio Free Asia:

“More complete information, and greater exposure to competing political viewpoints, help ensure that populations in closed societies are more likely to approach the outside world, including the United states, with an open mind….When Chinese readers go online, they do so under surveillance and often at great risk to themselves and their families."

Lucie Morillon, Washington Representative, Reporters Without Borders:

“China ranks 159th out of the 167 countries in the World Press Freedom index…Chinese authorities have managed to gradually shut down this ‘open window’ [the Internet] to the world….[U.S. tech companies] By collaborating with repressive regimes’ censorship policies, they are helping to create country-specific access to multiple versions of the Internet. They are putting borders on this universal arena of communication that the Internet was intended to be….Internet censorship in China subverts US diplomacy efforts to promote democracy in the world….Aside from Google, all of the companies we approached refused to enter into a dialog on this subject….Thanks to the media and Congressional attention to these issues, some of these companies are starting to consider the consequences of their activities in repressive regimes.”

Congressman James Leach, Chair of the House Subcommittee on Asia & the Pacific, joined Congressman Smith.

“It is difficult to see how altering one’s search engine to exclude politically sensitive materials is anything other than voluntary cooperation in censorship by Chinese authorities….To the extent that a company facilitates efforts by Chinese authorities to restrict such websites, that company undercuts our government’s efforts to promote freedom of information….It is presently impossible to gauge the leverage that American companies possess inside China because many of the limitations they observe are self-imposed…Citizens of China are willing to risk jail for freedom of expression when certain American companies are unwilling to risk profits for the same principle.”

Commentators have already noted the most recent hypocritical behavior of the "need to know" American media, which have collectively whined this week about the Bush administration's delay in revealing news of Cheney's shooting accident while nearly all of them still refuse to publish any of the Danish cartoons.

The Washington Post, which won't publish the cartoons depicting caricatured Muslims due to a commitment to "general good taste," apparently finds nothing wrong with publishing exclusive new video of Abu Ghraib abuse, which depicts, of course, actual Muslims.

Blinded by its apparent desire to discredit America and the Bush administration, the Post trudges ahead, content to refrain from publishing cartoons that could focus Islamist rage upon itself while it eagerly distributes footage that will at minimum emblazon a bullseye on the back of every American serviceman currently confronting the biggest threat of our time.

Classy.

Those who put free-trade ideology above freedom itself, or who hide behind such words to protect their purse, tell the unwitting that allowing China to have unfettered access to Western technology – even though used for repression – is necessary for China’s economic development, and that by the mysterious hand will bring political freedom.

The Chinese authorities see it the other way around: they will allow as much economic development as will entrench their rule, but no more. And, control is more important than development.

Ambassador David A. Gross, U.S. Coordinator for International Communications and Information Policy gave the 2006 Grafstein Lecture in Communications , University of Toronto, Faculty of Law on February 7,2006. [HT: R.J. Rummel at his Democratic Peace blog]

Along these lines, let me mention China again concerning a critical issue that is currently in the news: censorship. As we know, China has made great strides in its economic development, but the Chinese leadership has drawn a line in an attempt to separate economic reform from political debates. That line is an illusion. Interfering with the free-flow of ideas over the Internet does not break the resolve of political dissidents. Instead, it limits China's economic potential at a time when, as the PRC claims, it wants to foster indigenous innovation fueled by increased foreign investment.

China's information control practices undermine human innovation, limiting the sharing of ideas, and violate fundamental human rights. They hamper research and development and entrepreneurship because the best minds work best when they are free to express themselves on the subjects they choose.

A Congressman, enthralled with free-trade ideology , yesterday wrote his colleagues (I obtained a private copy) to not restrict repressive technology to China. “Eventually our ideals…may well be advanced by giving the people of China a medium in which these ideals can flourish.” Not if the ideas are not allowed to flourish, and U.S. hi-tech firms provide the tools of censorship. Such "eventually's" are just red-herrings for don't let human rights or political freedom interfere with our profits.

Yahoo’s general counsel says, “We always reserve the right to get better.” Yahoo, Google, Microsoft and Cisco better get at it, and stop obfuscating, and stop trying to pass their moral responsibilities on to others. As Congressman Smith, Chair of the House International Relations Subcommittee grilling them today says, “The bottom line is no one is being compelled to sell to China.”

UPDATE: Congressman Smith replies:

“In contrast to these companies' promotions, it's not inevitable that democracy will take hold,” Smith said. “And how many victims are you willing to sacrifice with that vague hope that's based on nothing?”

Read the whole article from the San Diego Union-Tribune, "Hitting Wall in China", for an excellent summary update on the issues.

How to put cracks in the Wall of China? It's not by kissing the stones, but by hammering them.

The uproar among those who care more for freedom than for pelf, and the expected tongue-lashing at tomorrow’s Congressional hearing, is heard in Beijing. The prostrate profiteering by U.S. hi-tech companies is heard as boot-licking "slurps".

“In Rare Briefing, China Defends Internet Controls” headlines the New York Times’ (commendation due) point-by-point rebuttal of Liu Zhengrong, who supervises Internet affairs for the information office of the Chinese State Council, or cabinet.

Why else but the U.S. uproar would the Chinese be on the defensive offensive? The pressure must be kept up.

Meanwhile, other Chinese, a group of former senior Communist party officials in China “launched a scathing attack on the country’s handling of the media and information,” their courage again belying the U.S. hi-tech executives who say they can't help but slobber after profits.

“History demonstrates that only a totalitarian system needs news censorship, out of the delusion that it can keep the public locked in ignorance.”

Rebecca MacKinnon comments about one of the letter-writers:

It's interesting to note that Li Rui, the former Mao aide, has been outspoken on many issues over the past decade, including on the Three Gorges Dam ( I actually interviewed him once). The government ignored him and made sure his voice was not heard in the media. So it's unclear whether this letter will have much political traction inside China or not…

Chinese authorities’ repression of news and information doesn’t portend much “political traction.”

Congressman Smith’s hearing does.

UPDATE:
The first ever live-blogging of a Congressional hearing tomorrow will include Rebecca MacKinnon, whose RConversation blog is invaluable to following this issue. Keep an eye on her blog tomorrow. (I was invited, but - aside from not having a financial sponsor - I would rather stay in San Diego's 80 degree sun than D.C.'s
chill and snow.)

I was very encouraged to see in the latest press release from Congressman Smith’s office that his House International Relations Subcommittee hearing tomorrow will be the first ever live-blogged. (Beltway Blogroll picked it up here.)

I was very encouraged to see that one of Congressman Smith’s goals, that the administration pay more attention to this issue, is accomplished in advance of the hearing by, as Rebecca MacKinnon posts: “The State Department has announced the formation of a new task force that will examine the foreign policy aspects of internet freedom.”

Then, I read the rest of Rebecca’s post for the Q&A at the State Department. Josette Shiner, Undersecretary of State for Economic, Business and Agricultural Affairs, said:

We feel that this is a top priority to look at the new policy challenges here. So we're not ready today to make any declarations on particular kinds of solutions or particular kinds of challenges. We know that we've had some affect and been able successfully see the Internet now virtually, globally rooted around the world, but we have current challenges that are pretty challenging, and those are the kinds of things that we'll be discussing in the task force.

State Department word-salad. "New policy challenge"? Where have they been at foggy-bottom? The first day of state-incited Muslim riots about the Danish cartoons, State is licking MidEast boots. Years of Chinese exploitation of repressive dual-use technology eagerly sold to them by U.S. hi-tech firms is only now to be studied!

Congressman Smith, press on.

UPDATE: Judith Klinghoffer informs us that, after President Bush expressed true American values, the State Dept. just woke up. State's man for European Affairs, Daniel Fried, today called on "other international leaders to speak up for values such as 'tolerance, respect, sensitivity, freedom, including freedom of expression and justice."

“Captain” Ed Morrissey headlines his post, “Dems Push Hackett Under A Bus”, concluding, “Hackett found out a little late that Democrats only pay lip service to veterans.”

Abel Rabinowitz at the CentristCoalition blog calls Hackett “another embittered casualty of a system more concerned with control than service.”

The New York Times reports, “[T]he decision to steer him away from the Senate race [in Ohio] has surprised thise who see him as a symbol for Democrats who oppose the war but want to appear strong on national security.”

I wrote about “The Democrats’ ’06 replay of veterans gambit” several weeks ago that, “The Democrats are now attempting to replay their veterans gambit of 2004. Again, lazy and camp-following mainstream journalists are tagging along with furthering the party line.”

I wrote to “Captain” Ed this morning, “What will be the MSM take on this? If Hackett were a Republican veteran edged aside by a non-veteran, the uproar would be front page.”

Leading Democrats and their Kos-core have been following a cynical ploy to present themselves as strong on national security by mounting a campaign to highlight any veteran they can find to join their new deceptive Band of Brothers and run for Congress. Their Values statement: “The Band of Brothers 2006 campaign will focus on exposing neo-conservative agendas and policies that are in conflict with great American traditions.” The Band of Brothers executive director is quoted by today’s NYT’s story as Hackett’s axing “sends a chill through the rest of the 56 or so veterans that we’ve worked to run for Congress.”

As well it should. How many will wake up to how they’re being used by a Party that has repeatedly demonstrated it could care less about the sacrifice and bravery of their brethren in arms, or the security of the United States?

Mort Kondracke writes, “Judging by where things are headed, the 2006 election shapes up as a nasty, negative contest” in which “Dems have no ideas.” The idea that Dems can deceive the American voter that they care a real whit about national security is bound to fail.

Uncover your heads, lift your hearts on high,

The Queen in silence is driving by.

----Ella Wilcox

A truly great and wonderful lady, Anne O'Neill, yesterday peacefully passed on, looking forward to meeting her Maker. Anne is the wife of my dear friend and comrade John O'Neill.

You may remember John from he bravely and with dignity leading the Swiftee campaign for truth in the 2004 election, which provided the margin to save us from John Kerry. I remember John from our first coming together in 1971, a couple of skinny recent Vietnam veterans.

Several months ago, Anne, John and I spent a wonderful evening together reminiscing, the photo above. I showed Anne several photos of my young sons, which she was so thrilled with she tried to slip them into her purse, so she could enjoy new life the more. That's the Anne all loved and admired.

Anne was the woman behind John's strength and decency. As John said to me tonight, "Anne thought people can be whatever they want to be, not just whatever happens to them." Anne suffered from Wegener's Disease for several decades, an immunological disease, when others would have succombed in several years. Her glorious spirit sustained her and all around her. Her death was two years to the day since John contributed his kidney to her and, then with her support and comfort, John rose up to lead us.

Anne was very proud that she had the chance to work with the best people she said she ever met in G-d's plan during the 2004 campaign. At the end she was surrounded by family, friends, and hospital workers all loving her strength and spirit. Anne's farewell: "I haven't been defeated. All I've done is move forward."

The graveside service on Wednesday will include the Naval Hymn, "Eternal Father," and "Scotland the Brave."

A mind at peace with all below,

A heart whose love is innocent.

----Lord Byron

Rest in peace Anne O’Neill

I’ve participated in the “Buy Danish” campaign. And, I’ve stressed the connection between Internet freedom of speech and complicity in its repression in China and the Middle East by U.S. hi-tech companies undermining Western values, which makes easier anti-democratic states rousing their purposely ignorant “street” to attack the West.

Yet, I’ve agonized over whether to participate in the “Publish the Cartoons” campaign (led in the blogosphere by Judith Klinghoffer, Charles Johnson and Michelle Malkin, and most recently by Glenn Reynolds delectable taking CNN to the woodshed).

Being proudly Politically Correct, seeking to avoid offending any religious or ethnic sensitivity when another choice of words can do just as well, I tended initially to very uneasily side with most American newspapers’ choice to not show the relatively innocuous in themselves 12-cartoons. I’d rather stress positive Western values by “Buy Danish” solidarity with those attacked by street and state thugs.

That tendency is now certainly outweighed by the requirement that the American media allow its customers to fully know what the uproar in the Muslim world is about. It has been elevated to that import by the Muslim states-sponsored and incited riots and threats and violence against and in Western countries.

The Washington Post’s ombudsman, Deborah Howell, is not to be singled out as particularly worse, but representing one of America’s leading newspapers her mental and journalistic confusion is an epitome. “Why not publish the cartoons?” she asks today. Lost in anecdotes of publishing this and not that, she sides with Post editorial judgment to not publish the cartoons as too insensitive. She glides past the Post’s news judgment that publishing some Abu Ghreib photos or of the burned bodies of American contractors, however, was justified by “high news value.” She has the unashamed effrontery to conclude that she is “a First Amendment freak”!!

The Sacramento Bee’s ombudsman, Armando Acuna, whose paper also chose not to publish any of the cartoons, at least has the First Amendment and journalistic integrity to say,

I just don’t agree with them. It seems to me that once the cartoons evolved from their origin as provocation and into an international news story, the paper had an obligation to show its readers what all the fuss was about….We do it because it’s news; that’s our business.”

As so often, my insight is heightened by my 5-year old son. As I drove him to Sunday school at our Temple, we listened to Kermit the Frog sing the “It’s Not Easy Being Green” song.

Instead of railing against those who discriminate against those green, Kermit affirms its positive aspects (“green’s the color of spring”) and concludes, “And I think it’s what I want to be.”

What does the West want to be? Do we in the West want to just rail against the worse injustices in the Muslim states, or do we want to stress affirming our values.

The West, governments and media, must unite in demanding that Muslim states cease publishing anti-Semitic cartoons. This is not trivial tit-for-tat. The state-sponsored twisting of youth’s and the otherwise immature minds of its citizens is a major impediment to any real hopefulness to create peace or tolerance in the Middle East. If the West is serious about that, and about its own values, this must be the unified Western position.

My thoughts travelled – as they have many times during the “cartoon intifada” – to the common refrain among Jews, “It’s not easy to be a Jew.” This usually refers to the many, many rules for the observant, the trying nuances of Talmudic interpretations of morality, and the persecutions and discriminations we’ve suffered and do suffer. Civilized Western thinkers, commonly, wrestle with delicate questions of morality and worthwhile actions to further it.

The American Jewish response to anti-Semitism has been to simultaneously expose its stupidity, including by re-publishing the virulent anti-Semitic cartoons prevalent throughout the Middle East, while successfully working energetically across religious and ethnic boundaries to build tolerance. (See the worthwhile Jews Against Prejudice: American Jews and the Fight for Civil Liberties by Stuart Svonkin, Columbia University Press, 1997, for the post-World War II to 1960’s efforts of Jewish organizations.)

The response to anti-Semitism in Europe has differed in governments, particularly Germany, making publication of anti-Semitic tracts and cartoons illegal. Why the difference from America? Simple. When a state itself has actually been so corrupted by such hate, to the slaughter of 6-million and the deaths of tens of millions in a terrible world war, it is deemed necessary to stamp out such infections and wholesale re-educate one’s people. Germany, uniquely in the world, has largely succeeded in creating a new person, a new German. My German-born wife, converted to Judaism, and her decent German family are its product.

The Middle East’s virulence of hatred must be eradicated. Nothing less can any longer be winked at by the West.

Saudi Sheik Abdul Rahman al-Seedes, the iman of the Grand Mosque in Mecca, represents the one-sided Muslim point of view, in the AP story headlined, “U.S. must ‘pay’ over cartoons, Iran says”:

”Is there only freedom of expression when it involves insults to Muslims?”

Noted researcher of editorial cartoons Dan Pattir summed up the Muslim world’s gross hypocrisy in “Graphic Anti-Semitism”:

Indeed, reviewing many Arabic-language publications over the years, one cannot escape the conclusion that caricatures have always been perceived by Arab regimes - which own or control the media outlets of their countries - as a legitimate tool that need not and should not be restrained or refined in the no-holds-barred fight against Israel….

These cartoons are always rude and brutal, with a bloodthirsty punch. All of the cartoonists and their editors seem to treat the subject in the same way: through denial of the Holocaust; the Jew as a repulsive stereotype; Israel as a Nazi-like entity; and the Jews as a whole as the greatest existing threat to mankind. …

WHAT IS most amazing is the lack of any positive cartoons related to Israel - even at the height of peaceful negotiations (such as Camp David, Oslo agreements, the Jordanian-Israeli peace treaty or Israel's disengagement from Gaza). None. Not even in the Gulf states that are regarded as having higher journalistic standards, being more open-minded politically and less antagonistic toward Israel.
There are no signs of restraint when it comes to anti-Semitic images…

This is a practice which can inflame dangerous passions in countries where many illiterate youth are fed distorted visual impressions of Jews and of Judaism.

The result of such unrelenting anti-Semitic onslaughts is that an entire generation of Egyptians, that has come of age since the 1979 Egyptian-Israeli peace treaty, is constituting a major setback in the normalization process with Israel. It also contradicts the peace treaties between Israel and its immediate neighbors, which call for "prevention of incitement and hostile propaganda as specified in the Interim Agreement" (the Hebron Protocol of 1997), and in the 1998 Wye River Memorandum stating that "the Palestinian side will issue a decree prohibiting all forms of incitement to violence or terror."

So far, not only have the above not been eradicated, but they are being perpetuated.

According to a French government spokesman:

"The most qualified migrants, the most dynamic and competent ones head to the American continent, while immigrants with little or no skills come to Europe."

French officials unveiled legislation to toughen admission standards for unskilled, low-income immigrants but easing it for highly qualified foreigners.

But unskilled migrants from outside the European Union would find it harder to enter France -- even if they already have close relatives in the nation.

Maybe the French have something there.

The bulk of costs of illegal immigration into the U.S. comes from the unskilled. We can devote huge resources to skills training for illegal immigrants by getting serious about employer penalties -- with the fines going into skills training accounts for illegal immigrants back in their home country. They would, then, have incentive to inform U.S. immigration authorities about law-breaking U.S. employers, and contribute to a stronger economy at home that would keep others there.

For U.S. hi-tech companies, China’s market potential may just be about a new Opium War for profits regardless of the sad impacts on the Chinese. As investment house Bear Stearns says, China will “likely be the largest e-commerce market in the world." On the other hand, such predictions have been false harbingers before.

China just issued a new ruling to further dampen the ability of the Chinese to know what’s going on within China, “to stop publishing political reports from certain Chinese newspapers which are included in a blacklist” that includes most of the major local newspapers in China….By republishing stories on the internet a report published in a regional newspaper can receive national attention.”

Asiapundit, who along with Rachel MacKinnon, has been central to following media repression in China, says: “A vibrant domestic press is more important than an unfiltered Google, or Microsoft, or Yahoo, although that would be welcome.”

Asiapundit’s and MacKinnon’s latest posts linked above deal with the latest turning of the screws on the Chinese Internet. For those who argue that U.S. hi-tech companies are building future profits, however, the resentment they are building among the Chinese may lead to their future ouster from China as the Opium Wars embittered generations of Chinese toward the West. MacKinnon says:

What will Microsoft do now? Do nothing and hope that angry Chinese bloggers who now hate msn will be outnumbered by happy Chinese cat-bloggers?

From the bipartisan founding of Freedom House in 1941, by Wendell Wilkie and Eleanor Roosevelt, to the present, Freedom House has been the fount of reliable information about the state of freedom in the world, and threats to freedom.

Freedom House just published a 12-page report by China media expert Ashley Esarey, “Speak No Evil: Mass Media Control in Contemporary China.”

If you want to make sense of the news about Internet censorship in China, you must read this Freedom House report. As the press release highlights: “It reveals how a system of control that originated under classic totalitarian conditions is being adjusted, refined and modernized to meet the current needs of the Chinese Communist Party's (CCP) leadership.”

"Beijing's control of the Internet has been in the news lately, but it represents just one facet of an intricate system of restrictions on the free circulation of ideas in China," said Jennifer Windsor, executive director of Freedom House. "The Chinese government is hoping to enjoy the benefits of the global economy without jeopardizing its political control."

The report concludes with a consideration of “potential sources of future change” that could open China to more freedom:
· More private media, but today’s tightening of controls over what may be published and that “the CCP is unlikely to legalize private ownership of the media” rule that out;
· “Growing market competition in China’s media industry, driving media to engage in journalism of interest to consumers…[however] Current regulations restrict most local media from competing in the national media market”;
· “[G]reater availability of information from abroad that is not subject to the elaborate system of state control.”

It is this last that is most undermined by Google, Yahoo!, Microsoft and Cisco eagerly selling the tools to the Chinese censors.

Please see my earlier posts:
The "Captain" Is Aboard: Yahoo!'s Shame
Is Bush Administration Complicit in China Censorship?
Professor Bainbridge Replies
Corporate Responsibility?: Discussion With Professor Bainbridge
Yahoo! Caught Again!
Surprise To U.S. Commerce Dept.: We Do Have Export Controls
Google Kowtow Not Deep Enough For China?
Funnies Are Serious Business...As Is Freedom
Connect The Dots...China, Internet, Cartoons, Middle East
Hi-Tech Warning
Geek Goombah Mouthpiece Tries To Cop Plea
US Tech Firms Show Contempt For Congress Regarding China Repression
US Firms Also Linked To Iranian Internet Censors
Lipscomb: It Didn't Begin With Google
Google Gags Tiananmen Square Massacre
No "Right" Of Unrestricted International Trade
Congress Vs. China's Censorship Abetters
Cool Tools For Tyrants
Gates, The Geek Goombah

I'm always intrigued by politicians who understand so very little about trade, debt, and investment, but who can't seem to stop acting like they know everything.

Cafe Hayek's Don Boudreaux offers a fine primer on the topic today at TCS Daily, and explains the actual way trade deficits turn into debt.

[HT Jihad Watch]

“Captain” Ed Morrissey at his leading Captainsquarters blog has come aboard this morning with an excellent post about the complicity of U.S. hi-tech companies in China’s repression, “Freedom’s Just Another Word At Yahoo!”

What, besides the temptation of the cash, causes American ventures to cave to Chinese demands in curtailing free speech and free expression? These companies made their billions here taking advantage of the capitalist system of free enterprise, and their success should be applauded. However, now that they have cornered the Western markets on their slices of the Internet, they've turned themselves into tools -- in every sense of the word -- for dictators to enforce the antitheses of the freedoms that allowed them to exist in the first place.

Have these corporate managers no shame at all?…

Janis Joplin once sang, "Freedom's just another word for nothing left to lose." It appears that attitude has infected the Internet giants, who value the blood money they get from helping to oppress the Chinese people than the freedom that gave them the opportunity to exist. Shame, shame, shame.

Remember, the Congressional hearings “The Internet in China: A Tool for Freedom or Suppression?” are February 15. I'm told there will be live-blogging. Interest across the blogosphere is growing.

An email of support for reasonable export controls to the Chairman of the House Subcommittee, Rep. Chris Smith, would be appreciated.

For those who need a refresher on this issue, below is a list of links to my posts on it over the past weeks:

Is Bush Administration Complicit in China Censorship?
Professor Bainbridge Replies
Corporate Responsibility?: Discussion With Professor Bainbridge
Yahoo! Caught Again!
Surprise To U.S. Commerce Dept.: We Do Have Export Controls
Google Kowtow Not Deep Enough For China?
Funnies Are Serious Business...As Is Freedom
Connect The Dots...China, Internet, Cartoons, Middle East
Hi-Tech Warning
Geek Goombah Mouthpiece Tries To Cop Plea
US Tech Firms Show Contempt For Congress Regarding China Repression
US Firms Also Linked To Iranian Internet Censors
Lipscomb: It Didn't Begin With Google
Google Gags Tiananmen Square Massacre
No "Right" Of Unrestricted International Trade
Congress Vs. China's Censorship Abetters
Cool Tools For Tyrants
Gates, The Geek Goombah

I’ve asked several informed people why the Bush administration has not been more energetic in leading the debate over U.S. hi-tech companies exporting dual-use technology to China and the MidEast that is used to repress free speech, a necessary contributor to the development of democratic states, which is a major U.S. foreign policy goal.

The answers I’ve received have mostly pointed at “unconsciousness” of the importance of the issue and its links to our foreign policy, or to free trade “ideology” overwhelming the practical problems of such a purist stance. Few have pointed to campaign contributions, or the like, as involved, given the generally apolitical or even Democratic leanings among much of the hi-tech elite.

The Institute for Science and International Security (ISIS) issued a comprehensive study in 2003 of “Roadmap to Responsible Export Controls: Learning From The Past.”

In the study, focusing on exports of WMD dual-use technology, “Key Elements of an Effective Export Control System,” the ISIS stressed,

Without the government’s support and positive reinforcement, individual companies might not take the initiative to proactively limit sensitive trade on their own.

The ISIS study concludes with a consideration of “The Psychology of Illegal Exports:”

Based on interviews conducted by ISIS staff, one particular trait of many businessmen or experts involved in illegal sales was their ability to rationaliz