Often, relatively small events serve as a template upon which larger issues are debated and become better understood. Scott McClellan’s book is the latest example.

The larger issue pushed by the left is an opportunity to rehash shopworn claims about Iraq or Valerie Plame that repeated examinations have disproved. The other larger issue is the caliber of staffing of this or any White House and administration.

Here the lines are not as clearly defined by right and left. McClellan is believed to have acted with less integrity and more basely than should be expected of a trusted aide. Terry McAuliffe, as Commentary’s Contentions puts it, "sounds like Rich Lowry (or Bob Dole).” The influence (also here) on McClellan’s expressed recriminations by a longtime leftist operative, funded by George Soros, adds icing to that lopsided cake.

David Frum delves deeper into the source of this seeming character weakness by McClellan, laying the buck-stops-here responsibility at George Bush’s desk. Frum says “George Bush got the team he deserved.”

In these deficiencies, McClellan was not alone. George W. Bush brought most of his White House team with him from Texas. Except for Karl Rove, these Texans were a strikingly inadequate bunch. Harriet Miers, Alberto Gonzalez, Karen Hughes, Al Hawkins, Andy Card (the last not a Texan, but a lifelong Bush family retainer) — they were more like characters from The Office than the sort of people one would expect to find at the supreme height of government in the world’s most powerful nation. McClellan, too, started in Bush’s governor’s office, and if he never belonged to the innermost circle of power, he nonetheless gained closer proximity than would be available to almost anyone who did not first serve in Texas.

That early team was recruited with one paramount consideration in mind: loyalty. Theoretically, it should be possible to combine loyalty with talent. But that did not happen often with the Bush team….

Had Bush been a more active manager, these subordinated personalities might have done him less harm. But after choosing people he could dominate, he then delegated them enormous power. He created a closed loop in which the people entrusted with the most responsibility were precisely those who most dreaded responsibility — Condoleezza Rice being the most important and most damaging example….

The lesson of this story is emphatically not that presidents should seek staffers even more fanatically loyal than Bush’s. The lesson is that weak personalities break under pressure. And since a White House is the world’s highest-pressure environment, a wise president will seek to staff it with strong personalities.

To recruit and hold strong personalities, a president must demand something more than personal loyalty. He must offer a compelling vision and ideal — a cause that people can serve without feeling servile. Otherwise a president will only get … what Bush has now got.

All of Frum’s points may be given some credence. But, ultimately, Frum’s points are both contradicted by other and larger truths.

First, in telling example, the Bush administration’s most important foreign policy posts, State and Defense, had initial appointees of national stature and experience, with decidedly strong views – often at odds with each other – expressed freely and potently within policy councils during the run-up to and execution of Iraq policy. Neither has indulged in public recriminations, getting-evens, or publishing profiteering. Their every decision or ultimate competence may be debated, and won’t be better known until more time, events and actions pass, but they are certainly not of the boondocks or lackey mold that Frum paints.

Second, Frum misses the more central point that leads to a McClellan or to the treatment of his book: that is Washington (and New York) today. The left’s adherents in office and in other positions of influence have developed both an enormous infrastructure and a virulent mode of speech and operation that works assiduously to undermine anything to its right, or center. (One may, with some justification, say much the same of the right, but there’s less cohesion or focus, and the extreme right is not in a comparably powerful influence as the extreme left within its political home Party.)

This organized extremism in Washington, coupled with the growth in size and power of a D.C. political class that is centered on its own enrichment and perpetuation, creates – as in other policy and appropriations areas – a tendency toward careerist incompetence not to shake one’s own nest and its supporters. At the same time, especially as traditional mores of personal integrity have been loosened by a culture of self-aggrandizement, there’s developed a greater need by politicians – including the president – to place higher emphasis on personally developed loyalties, hence the sometimes weaker in other respects minions that Frum lists.

I and others with long experience in corridors of government and private power have experienced men and women of the highest competence and integrity. At the same time, many second-raters and self-servers are known. The first type are the majority, but the second is often unavoidable. What has increased the tendency toward the latter type is their opportunity for the former type for a better regard and reward outside of government or large organizations, freer of the increased intrusion of those hostile to achievement or freedom to innovate due to their pushes for minute regulation and criticism, especially when serving partisan or ideological ends.

There is not a regulatory cure. There is a traditional one. In my words, it’s toward a resurgence of emphasis on individual freedoms. In Ed Morrissey’s words, it’s toward a more limited government. These are two-sides of the same coin: emptying or lowering the level of nuture in D.C.'s petri dish of germs.

Personal recriminations do not further this cure, but add to the mutually defensive – and self-servingly protective – cause.

Blogging at Solomonia, Hillel Stavis recalls the 40th anniversary of the assassination of Bobby Kennedy, which occurred 40 years ago this coming Thursday, June 5. As were the rest of us, Stavis was reminded of this event by Hillary Clinton's most recent effort to appear relevant to the Democratic nomination--an act Daniel Henninger recently explained as part of the reason Hillary goes nuclear.

Below is just a bit of this thoughtful post. Stavis compares our memory of the assassins Lee Harvey Oswald and James Earl Ray with that of Sirhan Sirhan, who has never been the recipient of the degree of vitriol and loathing directed at the other two members of the repugnant trio of '60s killers:

"Palestinianism", in its privileged role as the embodiment and heir to Gramscian Marxism, Fanonism and all the accompanying romantic, fantasy-freighted clichés of the Left, has rendered the murderer of the progressive dream as a faceless, proletarian, third world cipher.

Of course, Sirhan Bashir Sirhan was not faceless or motive-less. He knew precisely why he pulled the trigger. RFK was his enemy and the enemy of his people. Sirhan’s father and presumptive teacher, Bishara, said after the assassination:

"I can say that I do not regret his death as Kennedy the American politician who attempted to gain the presidential election by his aggressive propaganda against the Arab people of Palestine...Kennedy was promising the Zionists to supply them with arms and aircraft…and thus provoked the sensitive feelings of Sirhan who had suffered so much from the Jews…It is not fair to accuse my son without a full examination of Zionist atrocities against the Arabs - those atrocities which received the support and blessings of Robert Kennedy."

Fully aware of the date -- one year to the day -- of the outbreak of the 1967 Arab-Israeli six day war, Sirhan Sirhan planned to kill RFK for his staunch support of Israel, evinced by many of his speeches during the Democratic primary race in California. At the Neveh Shalom Synagogue Kennedy said, "…in Israel -- unlike so many other places in the world -- our commitment is clear and compelling. We are committed to Israel's survival. We are committed to defying any attempt to destroy Israel, whatever the source. And we cannot and must not let that commitment waver."

Police later found news clippings in Sirhan’s pockets documenting Kennedy’s pro-Israel positions. Later, at Sirhan’s trial, a police investigator testified that,

"Sirhan was a self-appointed assassin. He decided that Bobby Kennedy was no good because he was helping the Jews. And he was going to kill him."

Read the rest here.

The real Bush White House is nothing close to what former press secretary Scott McClellan describes in his new book What Happened according to Jaime Sneider in The Weekly Standard. Jaime was Bush's former deputy associate director of White House Communications. Jaime poignantly states:

Despite everyone's best intentions, it became apparent to me that the Bush White House regarded safeguarding its image and communicating a message to the public as low on its list of priorities. This is not entirely to its discredit. After all, the White House is fighting a serious war against a determined enemy. But correcting outright errors in wire stories (including those about the war on terror) took hours, if not days. Any document to be circulated with the press frequently made it into the hands of dozens of staff-members who had to sign off on them. Often this included a list of a dozen senior staffers--Assistants to the President--who had more important things to do and often little expertise on the particular subject.

This stands in stark contrast to McClellan's assertion that the Bush White House was in constant campaign mode.

The American Journalism Review discusses “Whatever Happened to Iraq?” in news coverage. Much ground is covered. But, no where in this lengthy examination is there discussion that the “surge” has worked, militarily and consequently increasingly politically, and that most of the Democrat talking points are no longer valid. No where is there a discussion of how this decline in bad news or disputed views has led to less interest by the media.

The statistics of declining coverage:

During the first 10 weeks of 2007, Iraq accounted for 23 percent of the newshole fornetwork TV news. In 2008, it plummeted to 3 percent during that period. On cable networks it fell from 24 percent to 1 percent, according to a study by the Project for Excellence in Journalism. …

A daily tracking of 65 newspapers by the Associated Press confirms a dip in page-one play throughout the country. In September 2007, the AP found 457 Iraq-related stories (154 by the AP) on front pages, many related to a progress report delivered to Congress by Gen. David Petraeus, the top U.S. commander in Iraq. Over the succeeding months, that number fell to as low as 49. A spike in March 2008 was largely due to a rash of stories keyed to the conflict's fifth anniversary, according to AP Senior Managing Editor Mike Silverman.

The reasoning by those in media:

Why the dramatic drop-off? Gatekeepers offer a variety of reasons, from the enormous danger for journalists on the ground in Iraq (see "Obstructed View," April/May 2007) to plunging newsroom budgets and shrinking news space. Competing megastories on the home front like the presidential primaries and the sagging economy figure into the equation. So does the exorbitant cost of keeping correspondents in Baghdad.

But, another element is also emphasized, that US political debate has dropped off:

Mark Jurkowitz, associate director of the Project for Excellence in Journalism, points to May 24, 2007, as a major turning point in the coverage of U.S. policy toward Iraq. That's the day Congress voted to continue to fund the war without troop withdrawal timetables, giving the White House a major victory in a clash with the Democratic leadership over who would control the purse strings and thus the future of the war. Democrats felt they had a mandate from Americans to bring the troops home. President Bush stuck to a hard line and came out the victor. "The political fight was over," Jurkowitz says. "Iraq no longer was a hot story. The media began looking elsewhere."

The only reason the media may find renewed interest will be if the 2008 election debate reignites their interest:

"When we get in the general election mode, Iraq will be a big issue. The candidates will set the agenda for the discussion and the media will pick it up. This could reinvigorate the debate," Jurkowitz says. "The war will be back in the headlines."

The issues of interest the AJR article raises are about uses of Iraqi oil revenues or asserted impacts on the US economy. Again, no where in the AJR article is there concern for the geostrategic outcomes.

The AJR affirms that the media’s focus is upon political exploitation of war weariness, with a decided domestic political outcome in mind, rather than reporting the news or the global and security prices to pay if we fail to see through our commitment.

I wrote that the new leftist J Street anti-AIPAC has “Defining Questions” to answer, concluding:

The founders of J Street think they’re cute, because K Street is the home of so many Washington lobbies, and there is no J Street in Washington. There is no J Street anywhere else either but in the dangerous ambitions of extremists. Some supporters may be of Jewish background, or such, but their serious delusions are not those of more than a few whose confusions they seek to promulgate. The rest of us, the overwhelming majority of Jews and non-Jewish Americans, will not be fooled.

As to my questions, J Street has not responded, and its sole public declaration has been to pick selectively on Rev. Hagee’s fundamentalist support of Israel, with his position not actually straying far from Jewish concerns about how G-d could allow the Holocaust.

The liberal New Republic takes the examination of J Street a step further, looking more closely at its leading lights, questioning their “Street Cred.”

A perusal of J Street's list of supporters further undermines its pretensions to mainstream credibility.

J Street may just be another 2008 elections creation to provide cover for Obama’s associates’ troublesome anti-Israel declarations. For example, see PowerLine’s latest,(and here) and scroll back through PowerLine’s other unearthings of the truth about Obama’s advisors on Israel.

In 2004, although George Bush’s was credited with being the most pro-Israeli president ever, John Kerry’s Israel credentials were reasonably within traditional Democratic Party support, and Bush’s Jewish vote only inched up, maybe 20% at most, other Jewish liberal concerns overwhelming. In 2008, the tangible evidence of Obama’s own associations and the positions of his advisors regarding Israel may, and should, be taken more seriously by Jewish voters, J Street’s transparent absurdities aside.

Memorial Day is about us, where "ourselves" and "them" come together for a solemn purpose.

Last year I emphasized how Memorial Day is about “them”:

Memorial Day is not about us, our own personal aspirations, our courage, our ambivalencies, our agendas. Memorial Day is about humbly and regretfully honoring the loss of the personal aspirations, courage, ambivalencies, agendas of those fallen.

To turn Memorial Day into anything else is to trivialize that loss. To turn Memorial Day into about us instead of them is to place more importance upon ourselves than them.

Those who served or serve never refer to themselves as heroes or martyrs. Those who served or serve made a simple choice, indeed a difficult choice, that serving – with all its sacrifices and mortal conundrums – was for a greater moral purpose than their own comforts.

Those who served or serve recognized priorities above self or personal advantage.

Shouldn’t we?

The year before, I emphasized “ourselves”:

Sadly, Montegna reported that, “There are some in the entertainment industry who cite politics in declining to take part.” [in the annual Memorial Day Concert from Washington, D.C.]

Sinise -- whose Lt. Dan Band tirelessly performs for the troops here and in Iraq -- adds about Memorial Day, “It has been paid for by men and women who have made such sacrifices…and continue to do so. To be able to go out and perform for active-duty service members and their families is a real honor for me.”

This year, as we approach the national election that will seal the fate of hundreds of millions around the world, and decide what we care about, I think it’s fitting to emphasize “us.”

The annual Memorial Day Concert in Washington, D.C. will air Sunday night on PBS from 8-9:30 PM.

Whatever you are doing then, stop and watch, and consider what “us” means.

One of the hosts, Joe Montegna offers a preview, choking up when he reaches his personal “us” moment. (Just click Open and it will quickly download and play.)

Colin Powell adds:

“This kind of (event) touches every family who has someone over there, and those Americans who do not have someone over there are given an opportunity to understand what sacrifice and service are all about.”

The television event will feature a mix of dramatic readings, documentary footage and live musical performances, along with an all-star line-up of dignitaries, actors and musical artists. This includes music legend Gladys Knight, classical crossover soprano and star of the stage Sarah Brightman, Best Actress Tony Award-winner Idina Menzel (Wicked , Rent ), actor and comedian Denis Leary (Rescue Me ), country music star Rodney Atkins, actor and singer John Schneider, actress Gail O'Grady, film and television actress Caitlin Wachs, General Colin L. Powell, USA (Ret.) and Charles Durning, the quintessential character actor and recipient of the 2007 Screen Actors Guild Life Achievement Award. The National Symphony Orchestra will be performing under the direction of top pops conductor Erich Kunzel. The event is broadcast live from the West Lawn of the U.S. Capitol in Washington, DC, before an on-site audience of hundreds of thousands and is viewed by millions more at home. It can also be seen overseas by U.S. military personnel in more than 175 countries and aboard more than 200 U.S. Navy ships at sea on American Forces Radio and Television Network.

The following article by Democracy Project blogger Phil Orenstein appeared yesterday at FrontPage Magazine.

After the lengthy front page tribute in the New York Times treating Deborah Almontaser, founder and former principle of the Khalil Gibran International Academy (KGIA), as the later day Mother Theresa, I thought the public forum she would be addressing later that evening, alongside her embattled sister in solidarity, City University of New York (CUNY) faculty union official Susan O’Malley, would be thronged by numerous admirers and reporters. But there were no such crowds or media. Wandering the endless corridors of the CUNY Graduate Center in Manhattan, I bumped into the panelists Susan O’Malley and Ms. Almontaser, who were just as lost as I was, looking for the classroom where the public forum, “Academic Freedom and the Attack on Diversity at CUNY,” was to be held.

A little more than 20 people including CUNY faculty, students as well as the speakers showed up. The poor attendance may be due to the fact that the CUNY Senate Forum email list received the announcement on Sunday after 10 PM, the day before the event. I was the only person at this “public” forum sponsored by the Middle East Student’s Association (MESO), who attempted to speak up to dispute the cunning agenda and break through the monolithic conformity of the group.

Billed as an important forum to address the issues of Islamophobia at CUNY, the email announcement stated: “Around the country, Islamophobic and Anti-Arab attacks on professors have increased, most notably at Columbia and Barnard. This movement to attack and discredit dissent has been called "the New McCarthyism" – shutting down reasoned debate on important issues….. Ms. Almontaser will appear on this panel along with CUNY Professor Susan O' Malley and others working to expose the attack on academic freedom across the nation…There is some urgency here as these attacks are one tip of a vast ideological iceberg that is also threatening to impact the current election campaign.”

Although the issue of the “anti-Arab attacks” at Columbia and Barnard was not broached in the forum they were most likely referring to the recent public uproar of Columbia and Barnard alumni over the ill-advised tenure decision of Professor Nadia Abu El-Haj granted by virtue of her unimpressive scholarship of one book Facts on the Ground: Archaeological Practice and Territorial Self-Fashioning in Israeli Society based on flimsy evidence and hearsay, which purports that the historical origins of the State of Israel are fictitious.

What I witnessed was a closed forum dedicated to a veiled radical agenda, riddled by hysterical paranoia, name-calling, slanderous accusations against prominent scholars and city officials, and strategies for their ouster, where the panelists professed that “attacks” against Arabs and professors are a coordinated right wing smear campaign launched by Daniel Pipes, CUNY trustee Jeffrey Wiesenfeld and their ilk, which they dubbed the “New McCarthyism.” But Mr. Pipes and company whom they demonized with such venom, have simply exercised their First Amendment rights of critical journalism and free speech, civilly exchanging opinions and information in online magazine articles, speeches, op-eds and blogs, where all sides of the issues were often given a fair hearing in the media.

I was confused as to the reasons for their excessive paranoia. How are Pipes and company threatening their academic freedom? The so-called “New McCarthyites” have been vociferous, no doubt, but they demonstrated nothing resembling the violent student mob attacks at Columbia University on Minuteman founder Jim Gilchrist, because he expressed disagreeable views. Mr. Pipes and a few opinionated bloggers, including myself, are not U.S. Senator Joe McCarthy. What is this “vast ideological iceberg” that is “threatening to impact the current election campaign” of which the so-called attacks on academic freedom are only the tip? Here now are the panelists, their background, some of their words and the answers to these questions.

In my former role as head of the Southern District of Florida's Human Trafficking Task Force I had the pleasure of working with the Coalition of Immokalee Workers in combatting human trafficking. The Coalition has been leading a charge to obtain 1.5 cents more per pound from fast food chains such as Taco Bell, and today they announced another such deal with Miami-based Burger King. The Coalition does a remarkable job working with law enforcement to ensure that farm workers are not exploited into forced labor, and their work investigating such abuses should be commended.

A good friend of Democracy Project has joined the Center for U.S. Global Engagement. Jeffrey Berkowitz has joined the Center as its Communications Director after working as Rudy Guiliani's Research Director and many other fine stints at great shops (including the State Department and the White House). Jeff has been a longtime friend of DPI's and his work in promoting democracy globally is astounding, and continues this work at the Center for U.S. Global Engagement. The Center has started a new series called "The Global Wire," hosted by Frank Sesno, and I encourage you to watch it here.

The merits of the case against Lt Col Jeffrey Chessani have always appeared weak. Yet, the matter of Marine discipline being taken seriously within the Corps’ command, it was proceeding to a court martial, originally set for last April. Settlement of defense motions has delayed the trial. Yesterday it was reported (as usual, most complete news report from Mark Walker at the North County Times) that one of those motions, “unlawful command influence”, may derail or alter the charges.

In military justice, “unlawful command influence” is what might be referred to as “railroading,” or setting a fixed destination to court martial proceedings regardless of the case’s merits or appearing to bias the outcome.

Unlawful Command Influence (UCI) has frequently been called the "mortal enemy of military justice." UCI occurs when senior personnel, wittingly or unwittingly, have acted to influence court members, witnesses, or others participating in military justice cases. Such unlawful influence not only jeopardizes the validity of the judicial process, it undermines the morale of military members, their respect for the chain of command, and public confidence in the military.

While some types of influence are unlawful and prohibited by the Uniform Code of Military Justice (UCMJ), other types of influence are lawful, proper, and in certain circumstances a necessary part of leadership. The prohibition against UCI does not mean that a commander may abdicate responsibility for correcting disciplinary problems. Rather, the commander must vigilantly insure that the command action does not encroach upon the independence of the other participants in the military justice system.

That’s the next step to be determined in Lt Col Jeffrey Chessani’s court martial proceedings for alleged failure to adequately investigate the Iraqi deaths at Haditha in 2005.

In brief, Chessani’s defense says that his charges stem from and are contaminated by command influence. Although the prosecution isn’t allowed to comment publicly (which doesn’t mean we won’t hear off-the-record leaks in coming days, as we have before), their likely distinction is that only command responsibility occurred, to understand and monitor what became in the media a major incident treated as detrimental to or undermining our Iraq mission.

The legal hurdle for an allegation of unlawful command influence to be taken seriously is set purposely low, that there merely be “some" appearance of the possibility. In that case, the burden shifts to the prosecution to either prove beyond a reasonable doubt there wasn’t or that it has not affected the case.

That will be the subject of the next hearing.

According to the press release from Chessani’s defense counsel:

Colonel Folsom [the military judge] found that the defense met its burden of presenting “some evidence” of actual and apparent unlawful command influence. His decision was based upon the evidence that the Generals who controlled the disposition of the case were apparently or actually impermissibly influenced by Marine lawyer Colonel John Ewers, who was permitted to attend numerous, closed-session meetings in which LtCol Chessani’s case was discussed.

Colonel Ewers was one of the investigators of the Haditha incident from the beginning. He is a witness that the prosecutors plan to call in its case against LtCol Chessani. Consequently, he should not have been involved in any of the meetings in which the disposition of the Haditha cases was discussed with the Generals who convened the court martial. During the hearing, the defense called Col Ewers as a witness. Col Ewers admitted that he was present during at least 25 meetings in which LtCol Chessani’s case and the other Haditha cases were discussed with the Generals and other legal advisors.

Interestingly, with the judge’s ruling not being released, the defense press release doesn’t refer to its many other allegations of unlawful command influence contained in its motion. That indicates these weren’t granted.

Nonetheless, some of them may emerge in some form during a court martial, as another defense motion had been granted to call former Commandant of the Marine Corps General Michael Hagee to the stand, depending upon what Hagee is allowed or compelled to testify.

For now, as the Chessani defense team says, “The Military Judge also told us and the prosecutors to come prepared to discuss remedies.” That indicates an openness by the judge toward continuing the court martial.

In an earlier hearing, the judge indicated he is hewing to a narrow attitude toward the charges. When the defense asked for a dismissal based on the weaknesses of the case, that Lt Col Chessani couldn’t reasonably be expected to interrupt his widespread responsibilities during ongoing battles over an area the size of South Carolina to investigate what to all appeared a normal if unfortunate combat action, the judge replied, “"Show me the evidence that he ever reported a suspected law of war violation." Testimony is to be heard at the court martial that the Haditha Town Council did ask for an investigation. However, as the defense will point out, the council members were themselves highly suspect or involved with those we were fighting.

The defense wants a new convening authority to reconsider the charges. The prosecution may contend that isn’t necessary as there wasn’t unlawful command influence or it hasn’t affected the case, or may have some other suggestion likely lesser than starting over from scratch.

The defense’s press release calls the ruling a “major speed bump.” It remains to be seen whether it will derail the train.

The Miami Herald's movie critic Rene Rodriguez summarizes reviews of Steven Soderbergh's two-part Che Guevara epic, The Argentine and Guerrilla. One of the reviews Rodriguez mentions is a fine write-up in Variety. Variety recognizes the difficulties with a subject like Che:

It can’t necessarily be said that the film takes its protagonist’s point-of-view or reps an endorsement of his positions -- Soderbergh remains too far outside his subject for that -- but it does give such ample airing to communist ideological thinking -- and presents American and Latin American authorities so exclusively as cardboard mouthpieces of imperialism and abusive dictatorships, respectively -- that some conservative political commentators might work themselves into a lather over it. However, so few people will likely see the picture, at least in its current state, that there’s little chance it will have much cultural impact other than by the fact of its very existence.

Variety points out what Soderbergh left out of the movie -- no doubt so that he would not offend his leftist cronies, nor the cult of personality built-up around Che:

Oddly, “Che” seems more about denial of audience expectations and pleasure than it does about providing the intellectual and historical heft that would serve as a good alternative. Soderbergh withholds much in addition to dramatic modulation, narrative thrust and psychological insight: A feeling of revolutionary zeal, the literal transformation of Ernesto into Che, his marriages and family life, the depiction of the entry into Havana, Che’s oversight of many executions after victory, the Cuban missile crisis and Che’s wish that nuclear missiles be immediately fired at the U.S., his mounting distaste for Russians, his obsessive diary writing, his “lost year” as a failed revolutionary sparkplug in Africa before heading for his fatal misadventure in Bolivia, and even the famous photograph.

From the Variety review, it appears as if Hollywood has missed another opportunity to tell the truth about the life of Che as revolutionary and murderous thug.

Today's Miami Herald reports that President Bush is easing export restrictions to Cuban to allow Americans to send cellular telephones to the island in the hope that it will help expand freedom of expression and better their standard of living.

Last night I had an epiphany, seemingly obvious but telling: I live in a genteel cocoon.

At my son’s Cub Scout Pack meeting, one of the Den leaders, a dentist in his 40’s, came up to me, out of the blue, and said – expecting agreement, perhaps, because we’re two of the only 3 Jews in the 60+ member Pack and almost all Jews are liberals – “I wish Bush were terminal instead of Kennedy,” and then launched into an expletive-loaded diatribe about Bush being a murderer for taking the US into Iraq. I just made a “T” with my hands, time out sign, and walked away.

I’m now 60, and since age 17 have been deeply involved in the most contentious issues. Most often my views align with strands of conservatism, but frequently my views are either quite liberal or out of sync with either camp. Whether in early days on campus in the ‘60’s, where my SDS and DuBois foes were also kids I’d grown up with, or later days in the 2004 veterans revolt against Kerry’s lies and exaggerations, where my foes were those who hadn’t served but didn’t express disdain for the military, to discussions within the Jewish community about what’s best for Israel and America’s interests, where my foes are willing to base others lives on hopes, there was a basic common dialogue that I engaged in with them as concerned Americans trying to address issues and differences with basic civility.

I’d never been personally accosted before as I was last night. That may seem odd, but I think it applies to most Americans. The communities we live and work in contain wide diversities, but communications among all are respectful and even tempered, caring, even usually informed.

Sure, we see gross intemperance in statements and actions carried in the newspapers, on TV or blogs. But, that’s removed from our direct personal interactions, for the overwhelming majority of Americans anyway.

I was angry last night. Angry that such vitriol had touched me, my life, my son’s environment. I’m slow to anger, and quick to forgive – though not forget. Whether in public or private action, I try not to react but to act on principles, including sticking to civil discussion. So, that dentist may take my “T” as my having nothing to say or rebut.

He would be mistaken. As, I believe many like him in 2008 will be shocked as in 1968, 1972, 1980, 2004, that there is a silent majority of Americans who quietly and sanely consider and decide they don’t want to be ruled by vitriol and hate, nor our sacrifices and honor tarred by those who disdain personal integrity and hard works.

That dentist may – hopefully -- hesitate in again so exposing his uncivil self, faced with a simple refusal to engage in political potty talk, as I’m sure he wouldn’t tolerate other potty talk from his son in our Cub Scout Pack.

Friends wonder at my political optimism, regardless of the odds or issue. It’s rooted in faith in the triumph of civility. I confess to living in a genteel cocoon. That cocoon is the American weakness when exploited and strength when attacked by threats to our way of life, that can only thrive with civility.

Of course, issues and differences will be predominant in 2008, but so will character. Neither Clinton nor Obama will fare well in those quiet judgments by Americans compared to McCain’s lifetime adherence to civilility.

A new Reuters/Zogby poll released today shows presumptive Democratic Party nominee Senator Barack Obama with an eight point advantage over presumptive Republican Party nominee Senator John McCain.

Pollster John Zogby said that he believes the poll numbers are the result of:

"attacks on Obama by Bush and McCain, who have been critical of his willingness to talk to leaders of countries like Iran. . .If anything, he said, it reminded voters of McCain's ties to Bush, whose approval rating is still mired at record lows."

"The president is so unpopular. To inject himself into a presidential campaign does not help John McCain, particularly when McCain is tied to Bush," Zogby said.

But Mr. Zogby is that what Bush really did? Did he really inject himself into the presidential campaign? I don't think so. Bush's words were clear:

"Some seem to believe we should negotiate with terrorists and radicals, as if some ingenious argument will persuade them they have been wrong all along," the President said to the country's legislative body, "We have heard this foolish delusion before. As Nazi tanks crossed into Poland in 1939, an American senator declared: 'Lord, if only I could have talked to Hitler, all of this might have been avoided.' We have an obligation to call this what it is –- the false comfort of appeasement, which has been repeatedly discredited by history."

Nowhere in this quote was Barack Obama mentioned, but for some reason Barack identified with this quote. Maybe because he is just like that foolish Senator who believed that if he had only had the chance to talk with Hitler, WWII would have been averted. Barack Obama and George W. Bush have fundamentally different philosophies about human nature. Obama foolishly believes that man is good, and Bush believes that man is fallen. Obama believes that evil doesn't really exist, rather different societies and different peoples have differing and legitimate worldviews and that if we could only "understand" Iran's point of view we could understand why they commit terror and implement policies to help them change. Bush however gets it right. Bush fundamentally understands that Iran and the other terrorists rogues have evil in their hearts and are fundamentally wrong to believe that there is any legitimate excuse to kill 3,000 Americans in New York because you do not like the fact that our Government supports the Saudi regime or any other excuse. This is why Bush has been successful in stopping terrorists these nearly seven years since 9/11, because he understands that evil lurks in their hearts and that we can never negotiate with such persons until they change first (such as Quaddafi or are removed from power).

The 1978 melodramatic propaganda film “Coming Home” reached into widespread opposition to the Vietnam War to portray injured American veterans as betrayed by lack of caring by those who sent them and being ill-used for a wrong war. The star was Jane Fonda.

This was three years after IndoChina’s fall to communists who quickly proceeded to murder millions, force more millions into brutal concentration camps, and send more millions fleeing into seas and jungles where an untold hundreds of thousands died. Among those most brutally and murderously persecuted, to this day, are the Montagnards of Vietnam and Hmong of Laos. To this day, Jane Fonda, and her allies who abused our purpose and veterans, stands by support of the North Vietnamese and their minions who perpetrated this ongoing bloodbath.

Their story, their betrayal, has not evoked similar concern from Hollywood. With little exception, they’ve been shunted to the recesses of memories. The exceptions are the very few who continue to pay attention to the Montagnard and Hmong’s continued suffering today, 33-years later, and by those who served with them.

As our Memorial Day approaches, a little reported (this small newspaper chain in Wisconsin) memorial service took place at Arlington National Cemetery. (It’s not that the event wasn’t sent to the nation’s media. It wasn’t seen as worthy of their coverage.)

Dedicated to the U.S. secret army in the Kingdom of Laos 1961-1973
In memory of the Hmong and Lao combat veterans and their American advisors who served freedom's cause in Southeast Asia. Their patriotic valor and loyalty in the defense of liberty and democracy will never be forgotten.
Lao Veterans of America
May 15, 1997

The official Arlington National Cemetery site’s description of the memorial is here. This poem is at the site:

As the fallen leaves of Autumn
in unregimented ranks,
Countless unrembered soldiers
rest…eternally.
Let us now praise forgotten men…
and some there be,
Which have no memorial;
Who have perished, as though
They had never been.
But they served, they died;
for cause and by happenstance…
Expended in the hopes for Southeast Asia,
and will forever be remembered,
Mourned for their sacrifice.
If by weeping I could change
the course of events,
My tears would pour down ceaselessly
for a thousand Autumns.
Thursday, May 15, 1997
Salute to Lao/Hmong Patriots
& their American Advisors
Arlington National Cemetery

The Wisconsin newspaper reports:

A small band of former Hmong soldiers and their American advisers gathered at Arlington National Cemetery on Friday to remember comrades killed in the U.S. covert war in Laos.

For the occasion, Chang Ger Xiong of Milwaukee wore a camouflage uniform and medals on his chest from past battles. He exchanged salutes and handshakes with others at the gathering.

Xiong was 22 in 1964 when he decided to side with the United States and fight communist insurgents trying to take the Hmong homeland in the mountains of Laos, a neighbor of Vietnam. The U.S. recruited the Hmong throughout the Eisenhower, Kennedy and Johnson administrations.

Xiong said he cast his lot with the Americans to protect his homeland. His father and a 1-year-old daughter were shot as the family fled across the Mekong River trying to escape the country. Still Xiong was one of the luckier Hmong because he got out of Laos after the communists captured it.

The victors began tracking down the Hmong, a minority ethnic group, who had fought against them. Human rights advocates say the practice continues today.

About 200,000 Hmong live in the United States. Wisconsin is home to the largest population of Hmong in the country.

Now 65 and the owner of a supermarket in Milwaukee, Xiong said he made trip east "to remember our fallen soldiers."

Under skies that alternated between cloudy and partly sunny, Xiong and nearly 30 people marked the 11th year since they had a blue Atlas cedar and a memorial tablet placed in the cemetery to honor Hmong and Laotian fighters as well as the Special Forces soldiers and Central Intelligence Agency agents they worked with. A military color guard carried the U.S. flag, a soldier placed a wreath of white roses and lilies near the Hmong memorial and a bugler played taps.

Speakers included Colonel Wangyee Vang, National President of the Lao Veterans of America ( LVA ) in Fresno, California; Dr. Jane Hamilton-Merritt, Laos and Hmong Scholar; Philip Smith, Executive Director, Center for Public Policy Analysis ( CPPA ) and Washington Director, Lao Veterans of America, Inc.; The Honorable John Barnum, Esq. Former Deputy Secretary of Transportation and Attorney at McGuire Woods Law Offices; Attorney B. Jenkins Middleton, Former Vice President, Export-Import Bank; Ambassador James Lilley, Former Ambassador to the Peoples Republic of China ( PRC ); Mike Benge, Former POW and Montagnard human rights advocate; Grant McClure, Counterparts Veterans Association; Schuyler Merritt, Research Director, CPPA, and Hugh Tovar, former CIA Station Chief in Laos during key years of the Vietnam War.

Some of what these brave Hmong contributed:

"A measure of the heroism and effectiveness of the Hmong struggle can be seen in the fact that the North Vietnamese forces arrayed against them increased over the years from the original 7,000 to 70,000, including several of North Vietnam's best divisions. The battle became increasingly conventional."
-- Ambassador William Colby, former CIA Director, Congressional Testimony before the House Subcommittee on Asia and The Pacific, April 26, 1994.

The most conservative estimated number that during the United States' involvement in the Vietnam War, 35,000 to 40,000 young brave Hmong were killed in combat; 50,000 to 58,000 were wounded; and 2,500 to 3,000 were missing in action. When the United States withdrew from Southeast Asia, genocide followed the Hmong--thousands of Hmong were murdered by the communists when they tried to flee to neighboring Thailand.

"Everyone of them that died (Hmong), that was an American back home that didn't die, or one that was injured that wasn't injured. Somebody in nearly every Hmong family was either fighting or died from fighting... They became refugees because we (United States Government)... encouraged them to fight for us. I promised them myself: "Have no fear, we will take care of you"."
-- Edgar Buell, senior U.S.AID/CIA official working with the Hmong "Secret Army" During the war years, quoted on 60 minutes, March 4, 1979.

Hmong write:
Some source said: There was about 100,000 North Vietnamese soldiers fought in Laos: 70,000 of this number including several of North Vietnam's best divisions fought directly against the Hmong soldiers, and about 30,000 were fighting with the U.S. SOF and Hmong soldiers along the Ho Chi Minh Trail.

About April 1975, the United States withdrew its troops from Indochina. During May 12-14, 1975, the CIA/Air America evacuated about 2,500 Hmong officers and their families from the secret base at Long Cheng in Laos (Headquarters of General Vang Pao--the combined base for the Hmong, CIA, Air America, and U.S. Air Force "Ravens"). They were evacuated to the U.S. former air base in Namphong, Khonekene, Thailand. The rest of the Secret Army (Special Guerrilla Units {SGU} and other special units) who were left behind began to walk to the Mekong River and attempted to cross into Thailand. The Communists killed thousands of these soldiers and their families. During the evacuation, and in subsequent years, thousands of Hmong and Lao veterans and their families were killed by communists North Vietnamese and Pathet Lao security forces. Thousand died of starvation as they fled toward the security and freedom on the other shore of the Mekong River. Thousands drowned in the river before reaching the Thai border. Even today, despite official denials at senior levels of the Pathet Lao government, the communist regime in Laos continues to persecute and discriminate against Hmong because of their role in the U.S. Secret Army.

The Vietnam War ended in 1975, genocide and persecution of the Hmong followed. This Stalinist regime arrested King, Queen, Crown Prince, members of the Royal Lao Family, and its high ranking officials in the Royal Lao government about 46,000 to put in the re-education camps, and also used chemical warfare "Yellow Rain" to eliminate members of the U.S. Secret Army and their families. From the period of 1975 to 1980, the Stalinist regime in Laos killed about 30,000 Hmong men, women, and children in the former 2nd Military Region of Laos where the major of the CIA operations took place, especially, around the foothills of Phou Bia Mountain. This is the Lao People's Democratic Republic's (LPDR) "ethnic cleansing" policy against the Hmong people. Today, LPDR government still continues systematically to persecute the Hmong people in that part of the world.

In addition to a devastating loss of life, the war resulted in a loss of our homeland, and we had to become countryless people and political refugees in a third country such America, Argentina, Australia, Canada, China, France, Japan, and Newzeland.
Later in 1975, the Hmong and Lao soldiers and families began to take refuges in the United States. Their exodus continues to the present period. Many of those are still separated from their families and are finding reunification difficult. This, they have organized "Lao Veterans of America" as a Non-Profit organization. Its home office is in Fresno, California where it will be a central communication to all Lao veterans, which scattered through out the world.

To learn more about how those Hmong in America have fared, see this Pluralism Project site at Harvard University.

Meanwhile, for those festering in Thai refugee camps, Reuters reports on Human Rights Watch’s March 2008 report:

"The Thai government's claim that these were 'volunteers' who wanted to return to Laos is highly dubious," said Bill Frelick, refugee policy director at Human Rights Watch. "Volunteers don't need police dogs to coax them onto trucks."

This forced repatriation was just the latest in a series of joint actions by Laotian and Thai military authorities in violation of international standards for the protection of asylum seekers fleeing persecution. Under customary international law, the principle of non-refoulement protects people from being sent back to countries where their lives or liberty would be threatened.

In May 2007, the Thai government denied the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) permission to conduct refugee status determinations in Thailand, insisting that it would screen asylum seekers itself.

"Without a fair and transparent procedure to screen refugees, Human Rights Watch considers Thailand's forcible return of these 11 Hmong to Laos as refoulement, a violation of its international law obligations," Frelick said. Since the 1970s, the Laotian authorities have targeted ethnic Hmong in Laos and subjected them to arbitrary arrest and detention, torture, sexual violence, and extrajudicial killings….

The Thai government denies nearly all requests by representatives of foreign governments, UN agencies, journalists, and nongovernmental organizations for entrance into the fenced-off facility in Petchabun province where roughly 8,000 Hmong are currently restricted. The authorities denied a Human Rights Watch visit to the camp in mid-2007. UNHCR personnel are also barred from the camp. The only organization that is allowed into the facility, Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF), currently provides all services for the Hmong living there.

This letter from a refugee, at the Hmong International Human Rights Watch site, speaks to their plight, and abandonment:

LAOS DENIES HMONG PERSECUTIONS, March 14, 2008 PDF

With due respect to the Lao PDR Government’s policies, regulations, rules and laws, the Lao Government should treat the Hmongs in the jungle as citizens of Laos and stop killing women and children as claimed by the Hmongs from the jungle.

The Lao PDR Government denies the persecutions, but the Hmongs claim that they have been hunted and shot at for the last 33 years by the Lao PDR Military forces. Even though the Lao PDR Government denies there is any fighting in Laos, the Hmongs continue to hide in the jungles due to fear of persecution.

I escaped from the jungles of Laos to Thailand when I was just a little girl. I can understand how much they have suffered. I am Hmong and speak the language. I went back to Thailand to pre-screen more then 1400 people who claimed to have escaped from the jungles of Laos. I personally talked to them and screened them. I have first hand information on how they were treated by the Lao PDR Government in the past 30 years. They gave me their written statements and provided live testimonies on film. I believe the people I screened have legitimate claims and are telling the truth. Evidently, women and children as well as men are injured with bullet wounds all over their bodies.

They told me that they have witnessed the Lao PDR military troops kill their parents and relatives. Due to these kinds of military attacks, the children had to hide for their lives.

As you can see, the group of 438 who surrendered on October 12, 2006 to Meaung Meh, Vang Vieng, Laos, 80% of are children and more than half of the remaining 20% are women. Furthermore, the group of 1000 currently in the jungle and was filmed by Aljazeera’s journalist a few weeks ago, are mostly women and children.

The refugees in Thailand have told me that they have wanted to surrender to the Lao PDR Government, but feared persecution. Either they escape to Thailand seeking asylum protection, or stay in the jungle and hope for rescue. I believe there was fighting going on in closed doors in the past 33 years, which the international communities do not know about.

Recently, the leaders from the Jungle have contacted me and stated that they will not surrender to the Lao PDR Government because they don’t trust the Government. They request that the UN bring them out of the jungle peacefully.

In order to resolve this conflict, the Lao PDR government should allow the leaders and their families to leave Laos - under an ODP (Orderly Departure Program). If they must be relocated within Laos for safety reason, a monitoring system must be provided to assure they receive adequate treatment.

Due to the lack of trust between the Lao PDR Government and the Hmongs in the Jungle, thousand of Hmong have escaped to Thailand seeking asylum protection.

Any question or comment about this broadcast, please contact Laura Lo Xiong at lauraxiong@cox.net

In 2001, Congress passed a resolution honoring the Hmong’s contributions during the Vietnam War. In 2007, Senator Leahy introduced a measure to ease entry to the U.S. by Montagnards or Hmong, previously erroneously grouped in current terrorist legislation and barred entry for actions before 1975. It was included in the State Department appropriations signed into law. Otherwise, there’s little effort on our government’s part to ease their suffering, or welcome the remnants languishing in Thai camps or the Lao jungle.

Laos has “two faces”, as Mike Benge puts it, one for tourists and the other “intent on annihilating an ethnic group of people -- the Hmong….While news of the genocide in Dafur is a daily dish for the major news media, and a favorite pastime for some rich and famous in Hollywood, the genocide in Laos has by and large gone unreported….” Benge describes the methods by which the Hmong are hunted, starved and murdered. “Estimates as high as 20,000 Hmong veterans and their families are thought to still be hiding in the jungle, mostly in Northern Laos; however, the actual number will never be known.” Benge wonders: “Thailand has been threatening to send 8,000 Hmong refugees back to Laos to face further repression, gulags, or death from the communist Pathet Lao; however, some think this threat was a gambit by high-ranking Thai military officers to pressure the State Department to ease up on their travel ban to the U.S. put in place as a result of the recent coup d'état.” Benge concludes:

Some legislative leaders on Capitol Hill have written letters to the Secretary of State and to the King of Thailand pleading the case of the Hmong. But the real question is, will the US and other Western governments continue to acquiesce to the rampant brutality of the communist Lao government and their genocide against the Hmong (just “business as usual” and human rights be damned); or will the US accept the moral responsibility that it bears for its former Hmong allies and intervene in their behalf to plead their plight and expose this genocide before the United Nations.

As it seems to be becoming more frequent with the United States’ indigenous allies, the thanks the Hmong receive for their trust and loyalty is abandonment by a government with a sound bite mentality and even a smaller dose of honor.

The Center for Public Policy Analysis reports in May 2008 that 7000 Hmong in a Thai refugee camp “have gone on hunger strike to protest their threatened forced repatriation back to the communist regime in Laos.”

Hmong Americans across the U.S. have relatives trapped in this Thai camp. These American citizens continue to demand that the U.S. Congress take action to save their family members from forced repatriation to Laos where tens of thousands of Hmong have been killed by the current government of Laos.

On our Memorial Day, we must add R.I.P. to elemental decency by the U.S. toward our brave former allies. This must be corrected before more thousands of our brave allies are allowed to be exterminated.

Der Spiegel reports that its elite special forces in northern Afghanistan searched for and found a Taliban commander.

The Taliban commander is regarded as a brutal extremist with excellent connections to terror cells across the border in Pakistan. Security officials consider him to be one of the most dangerous players in the region, which is under German command as part of NATO's International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) mission in Afghanistan. The military accuses him of laying roadside bombs and of sheltering suicide attackers prior to their bloody missions.

He is also thought to be behind one of the deadliest attacks in Afghanistan's history, the Nov. 6, 2007 attack on a sugar factory in the northwest province of Baghlan. The attack killed 79 people, including dozens of children and many parliamentarians and other politicians, as they celebrated the factory's reopening.

However,

Wearing black and equipped with night-vision goggles, the team came within just a few hundred meters of their target before they were discovered by Taliban forces.

The dangerous terrorist escaped. It would, however, have been possible for the Germans to kill him -- but the KSK were not authorized to do so.

Why?

Nonetheless, even in a time of growing threats in Afghanistan, Berlin is sticking to its "principle of proportionality," stressed one high-ranking official in the Defense Ministry. A fugitive like the Baghlan bomber is not an aggressor and should not be shot unless necessary, the official explains….

The German government considers its allies' approach as "not being in conformity with international law."

The result:

Critics accuse the Germans of achieving precisely the opposite effect of what they claim to be aiming for. "The Krauts are allowing the most dangerous people to get away and are in the process increasing the danger for the Afghans and for all foreign forces here," says an incredulous British officer at ISAF headquarters on Great Massoud Road in Kabul….

From a military point of view, the so-called targeting has been a success. Close to one-third of the Taliban leaders, about 150 commanders, have since been "neutralized," meaning they are either dead or captured. Most of the capture-or-kill missions, as the operations are called in military jargon, are undertaken by British or American special forces.

But so far the Germans haven't wanted to take part. And that causes problems, because the insurgents are increasingly gaining influence [“The attacks against aid workers have been merciless."] in the nine provinces under German command

The British Daily Mail carries this additional comment:

One British Special Forces source said: 'This is very embarrassing, particularly for the soldiers on the ground who are very professional and dedicated men, but they know they must obey the orders of their government. The blame here lies with the politicians, not the men on the ground.'

Strategy Page’s latest analysis of conditions in Afghanistan carries this good news:

Afghan and security forces waited, and waited, for the Taliban Spring Offensive, but it never came. Gun battles with the Taliban were down 50 percent so far, compared to last year. Roadside bomb attacks were about the same. But Taliban casualties were up, as more Afghan and NATO forces went looking for them. Last year, 8,000 people died in Taliban violence. So far this year, the death toll is 1,200, indicating casualties for the year will be about half what they were last year. This year, a higher proportion of the dead are Taliban and al Qaeda, and a lower proportion civilians. While some Taliban commanders have tried to develop new tactics to reduce casualties (smaller units of Taliban, and avoiding contact with police and troops), nothing has worked. The Afghan army is larger (76,000 troops) and better trained than last year, and there are more foreign troops. Worst of all, more tribal leaders have sided with the government this year, meaning tribal militias are also ready to fight Taliban moving through previously pro-Taliban territory.

Less thanks to Germany’s feckless invention of a non-existent “international law”, for which Afghanis avoidably die at the hands of Taliban and Al Quaeda, than US, British and Canadian adherence to the rules of war, including the mission to protect allies and the innocent from terrorist depravities.

MORRIS, Ill. (AP) -- Police say a trailer loaded with 14 tons of double-stuffed Oreos has overturned, spilling the cookies still in their plastic sleeves into the median and roadway.

Yesterday I wrote about the need for conservatives and loyalist Republicans to emphasize and act upon the unifying and appealing principle of individual freedoms.

But, that won’t do us much good in time for November’s expected walloping in the Congress. According to able and caring observer Mark Tapscott, neither will Karl Rove’s prescription for talk about “contrasts.” As Tapscott says:

[T]he GOP can talk till they are blue in the face between now and November about "contrasts" with the Democrats BUT NOBODY BELIEVES THEM ANYMORE. The day is long gone when Republicans can talk their way back into the majority.

Tapscott recommends a drastic pledge in order for Republicans to have any credibility in time for November. That congressional Republicans will take the pledge is likely incredible, which just demonstrates how deep the hole in to which they’ve dug themselves, and us who depended upon them.

The only thing that can save the GOP are concrete actions that may persuade sufficient numbers of voters that this time, the Republicans will actually do what they say they will do if they are returned to the majority in Congress. The GOP "brand" is so damaged that there is no guarantee that doing these things will get Republicans back in control of the levers of congressional power.

What kind of concrete actions? Here are five, for starters. Note that each requires every Republican Member to do something tangible that is clearly contrary to the norm for people who put their self-interest ahead of the national interest. Add five more similarly concrete measures and we've got a new Contract with America that people will take seriously:

TERMINATE EARMARKS
First, every Republican Member of Congress - Senate and House - must agree to withdraw all standing earmark requests and to seek no more earmarks for any reason in the future. As proof of the GOP's seriousness, both GOP congressional campaign committees and the Republican National Committee withdraw all financial and other re-election support for any incumbent GOPer who refuses to sign and abide by this pledge and the following three as well.

SEEK TERM LIMITS
Second, every Republican Member in Congress must co-sponsor a constitutional amendment providing term limits for Congress - three House terms and two senate terms - which is to be introduced as soon as possible AND agree to abide by the terms of the amendment and campaign for its adoption by their home state legislatures.

START ENTITLEMENT REFORM
Third, every Republican Member must co-sponsor legislation canceling the special congressional provisions of the federal retirement program for all active incumbents and replacing it for each Member with Social Security benefits calculated on the basis of the national median individual income.

NO MORE TAXES
Fourth, every Republican Member must co-sponsor legislation making the Bush tax cuts of 2001 and 2003 permanent, abolishing the AMT and proposing a constitutional amendment requiring that federal spending not exceed federal revenues in any single year unless approved by super-majorities of the Senate and House, exept in times of congressionally declared war.

STOP THE SPENDING
Having withdrawn all standing earmarks requests, all Republican Members will vote against any spending bill brought to a floor vote that contains a spending increase greater than the cost of living or earmarks.

ENFORCEMENT OF THESE PLEDGES:
In addition to the party committee sanctions noted in the first pledge, all Republican Members will promise to resign if the party regains the majority but fails to fulfill all five pledges within two years. And for good measure concerning GOP Members who decline to sign and work for all four pledges, the party committees offer at least $250,000 to a credible primary challenger who will sign and abide by these pledges.

EVEN the more conservative and thoughtful Republicans in Congress can only come up with a shadow of Tapscott's contract, and their caucus leadership demurs.

Conservatives and Republican loyalists bemoan failing to find sufficient traction among voters to retain three formerly safe seats in Congress. There’s a real split between their reasons. Conservatives say it’s a lack of conservatism among Republicans. Republican loyalists say it is a lack of conservative cooperation with the necessities of governing a split electorate.

Both are correct, and wrong.

The failure, on both their parts, is a lack of ideas – indeed of a basic principle -- that both unify and appeal outside of their tight circles. The principle, from which both have strayed, is freedom. Not just political rights, but basic individual freedom. Political rights emerge from and reflect individual freedom, not the other way around.

This was the strength of formerly understood practices, from the Constitution onward, that today are gainsaid both by those seeking statist approaches to governance as well as those seeking partial rollbacks of programs that are viewed by many as representing minimal government responsibilities to those in need.

With the majority of Americans paying little or no income tax, and the majority receiving payments and subsidies from government, one may easily see the constituency for continuing on the same course that both conservatives and Republicans fail to address. While Democrats’ “change” is just more of the same, its hollow promises aren’t seen to threaten individuals who benefit from government programs.

Conservatives and Republicans are amazed that someone as shallow and extreme as Barack Obama is on his way to the Democrat nomination for president. They shouldn’t be. The Republican nominee, and conservative default, John McCain, is in his own way as shallow – often taking public positions on major domestic issues that stem from emotion and crumble under facts and experience. His opponents will stress these during the election, and those in the Republican camp have little with which to defend his record. His sole strong credential – pro-American foreign and defense policies – is insufficient in itself, and is now also under attack by those who try to undermine it because it is based on a military upbringing or not being a foot soldier. These are absurd, but they offer a convenient excuse to those who want to ignore McCain’s purposefulness on foreign policy issues. Although the military is held in the highest esteem among all our institutions, that does not translate to widespread endorsement of specific policies in confronting foreign threats.

Those who look back to Barry Goldwater or Ronald Reagan as the golden age of conservatism often have a convenient memory. Their inconsistencies with what are viewed as conservative positions, and their compromises with liberals, are usually overlooked.

What Goldwater and Reagan, however, were consistent about – at least in speech, and often in signal stands – was individual freedom, whether at home or abroad. This principle cannot be either ignored or made secondary in its appeal to Americans as our unifying and basic principle.

Today the parties argue over how much programs cost or who is benefited more. But, with rare exception, there is no discussion of how programs deprive us of our freedoms, or which programs enhance our freedoms, or of how our freedoms are interconnected at home and with those abroad.

In part, we’ve come to take our freedoms for granted. Moreso, we’ve come to focus, in majority, and across parties, to view the primacy of self-benefit even at the cost of others.

Pork, although a minor portion of government budgets, is the canary, and both parties’ refusal to deal with it is telling. Taxation and immigration, and so on, are similarly debated, without resolution, because they are treated as who benefits issues between roughly divided constituencies, rather than argued on grounds of taking away our basic freedoms to be ourselves, uniquely American, in furtherance of a common culture of advancement on merit and work rather than redistribution of our productivity or our patrimony.

One of the most impacting breaks that conservatives and Republicans can make, if we are to be and be seen as representing “change” will be from corporate America, our largest multinationals. It has become a rent-seeker of the rankest order as any, its loyalty and contributions are to itself, and it is not well-serving freedom at home or abroad. Its international competitiveness is, further, undermined by protectionist policies of collusion with unions, to not rock the boat of well-compensated executives, and of collusion with legislators to block imports or new technologies. Whether tax-loopholes or subsidies, or trade with enemies of ourselves and their own peoples, corporate America is not serving individual freedoms. We all, across the political spectrum, know it.

At the same time, in keeping with a new crusade against the freedom corrupting “biggies,” conservatives and Republicans should closely link this with fundamental reform of union and non-profits’ funding and spending. Both are huge factors in spending to enlarge government, while grossly benefiting from tax-exemptions that are abused while spending relatively insignificant portions on their supposedly primary missions. Their leaders are as well-compensated as any corporate bigwig, and with as little economic correlation with performance.

In foreign policy, this same unifying principle, individual freedoms, requires strong measures to decouple our economy from foreign “biggies”: MidEast satraps, as well as others in Venezuela or Russia, whose dominance of oil beggars us and the rest of the world while weakening our principled stand with those they seek to control or eradicate. Alternative energy and use of all our resources are essential to individual freedoms here and abroad.

All these strands are there, for the taking, by conservatives, Republicans, John McCain. As long as they are just treated as disconnected strands, or we pick and choose among them based on personal profit, and fail to bring them together as one unifying principle that is emphasized, conservatives, Republicans, and Americans will fail.

Our government employees used to be called civil servants. Heard that term lately? Today, they’ve become a privileged class, and taxpayers are expected to be their servants.

Those are strong words from someone whose parents were, and proud of the term, civil servants. They chose civil service in return for reasonable compensation and benefits: though lower than available in the private sector they were more secure even in the days before mass private sector layoffs.

Today, as USA Today reports from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the approximately 15% of the workforce in state and local government earn on average 50% more than the average in the private sector, benefits being a major contributor to the gap that is widening as the private sector shows competitively necessary fiscal restraint and the public sector doesn’t. Indeed, even during current economic troubles, public hiring rises while the private payroll doesn’t.

One can point at three primary reasons for this growing imbalance:

First, with the majority of Americans either paying no or little income taxes while receiving government funneled benefits, there is little incentive or competitive pressure on most’s incomes to demand government restraint.

Second, public employee unions comprise over 35% of government workers, compared to about 7% unionized in the private sector. The political power of these public employee unions is massive, spending hundreds of millions each year to elect friendly politicians and defeat ballot measures for restraint.

Third, the methods by which government benefits are measured are “cooked books.” As the Washington Post’s analysis points out, “Public pensions have broad leeway in their accounting methods because, unlike their counterparts in the private sector, they have no federal oversight.”

An illustration in today’s New York Times:

Lawmakers have cited Mr. Schwartz’s analysis on hundreds of bills in recent years, with billions of dollars worth of potential costs. His projections were used to fulfill a legal requirement that every piece of legislation be accompanied by a “fiscal note” that examines its impact on spending. Mr. Schwartz’s consultant work for the unions was discovered during a review of Department of Labor documents by The New York Times this week.

Mr. Schwartz, a former city actuary, said that he routinely skewed his projections to favor the unions — he called his job “a step above voodoo” — and admitted that he had knowingly overreached on the pension bill by claiming that it cost nothing, either now or in future years. “I got a little bit carried away in my formulation,” he explained.

Even with stretched assumptions, there’s still an over $1-trillion deficit in the ability to fund the retirement benefits promised to state and local government workers. As the number of retirees grows, in many cases, more is budgeted for retirees than for current workers.

Consequently, with tens of billions of dollars in states’ budget deficits, as Pew’s Stateline project says, “That means if tax revenues fall short of what a state had projected, then it either has to cut programs or find other sources of revenue.”

The politicians’ ritual is to threaten cuts in the most liked programs, then in the face of public opposition to say there is no alternative but more taxes and more borrowing to indebt future generations for today’s spending.

Either way, today and tomorrow’s taxpayers are the ones on the hook for unaffordable government workers’ high compensation.

Current and future taxpayers have become the servants to government workers reaping uncivil largesse.

President George W. Bush spoke today before Israel's Knesset in celebration of Israel's 60th Anniversary and had strong words for those leaders that believe words are enough to fight terrorists:

"Some seem to believe we should negotiate with terrorists and radicals, as if some ingenious argument will persuade them they have been wrong all along," the President said to the country's legislative body, "We have heard this foolish delusion before. As Nazi tanks crossed into Poland in 1939, an American senator declared: 'Lord, if only I could have talked to Hitler, all of this might have been avoided.' We have an obligation to call this what it is –- the false comfort of appeasement, which has been repeatedly discredited by history."

It seems that Barack Obama thought Bush was speaking about him, as if the world revolved around Obama:

"It is sad that President Bush would use a speech to the Knesset on the 60th anniversary of Israel's independence to launch a false political attack," Obama said in the statement his aides distributed. "George Bush knows that I have never supported engagement with terrorists, and the president's extraordinary politicization of foreign policy and the politics of fear do nothing to secure the American people or our stalwart ally Israel."

If Obama is elected the leader of the free world one would hope that he'll soon learn there are more important concerns on the President's horizon than whether he is being attacked politically. . .such as whether Iran's President Ahmadinejhad is building nuclear weapons or getting ready to lob one at "our stalwart ally Israel."

Instead Obama's kneejerk reaction to Bush's speech reveals something considerably more disconcerting: an inability by Barack to take matters of foreign policy seriously outside the realm of his own personal well-being, and more importantly an inability to be concerned about affairs of state that don't concern himself.

Experience in Massachusetts with health care points at a remarkable outcome: the ability to afford grand expansions of health care access may result in rethinking many other formerly sacrosanct government programs.

While Democrats and liberal media focus on raising taxes on our most productive citizens and economic sectors, to continue to fund bloated government, relatively little attention is paid to two areas where there’s much to be obtained: rich benefits programs for government workers and the tax-exemption of non-profits offering insufficient benefits to the public.

The issue of health care reforms offers the telling illustration.

The benefit-rich Massachusetts program resulted in budget-busting figures, already costing more than a third above forecasts. Proposed expansions add another third to costs.

No wonder 67% in a recent Field poll of Californians – also a predominantly liberal state – believe the cost forecasts of universal health care to be understated.

Democrats in Massachusetts’ legislature propose taxing the now tax-exempt endowments of its major universities, to add $1.4 billion, 5%, to the state’s revenues.

Although the powerful universities are expected to prevail, arguing their other economic benefits to the state, the Boston Globe reports the surprise that, “the issue had gained momentum.”

This coincides with the efforts of the US Senator, Chuck Grassley, to restrict tax abuses by tax-free non-profits, including that endowment-rich universities should spend at least the common 5% of assets and more on financial-aid to students.

State and local governments are hard-pressed to meet the financial obligations of their employee and retirement health care programs, leading to reductions or restrictions of basic services and voter-liked programs and to calls for voter-disliked taxes.

Public employee unions, the most powerful in America, closely allied with Democrats, push for more government programs and taxes. The only segment of our workforce that is expanding in this trying economy is public employees. These unions spent over $100 million to scuttle Governor Schwarzenegger’s reforms and are planning to spend over $500-million to get their way in the 2008 elections. The California city of Vallejo just declared bankruptcy in the face of public employee costs. California’s budget deficit is projected at up to $20-billion, most spent on public employees and Medicaid, and other similarly liberal states like New York are expecting proportional deficits.

The federal deficit for Medicare spending is expected in a generation to exceed the entire current federal budget.

Democrat proposals to reform US health care stress increased access, with hazy promises to control costs through administrative efficiencies. Those worthy efforts are already in motion but haven’t produced significant savings. Indeed, the investment in them requires increased costs, particularly by health care providers.

The Republican approach is to shift the tax benefit of employer-provided insurance to individual tax credits, and reduce state benefit mandates to increase fitting and affordable choices for individuals. The purpose is to provide added incentive to shop and self-control, reducing cost inflation via competition among providers and insurers. This approach is limited by lack of transparency about costs of procedures, inability to make informed decisions, and the highest costs coming from end-of-life treatments when accounting is less able or a priority.

No knowledgeable analyst expects either approach to significantly reduce the increase in health care expenditures, which are primarily driven by technological advances and secondarily by high utilization, aging population, and defensive medicine.

The best, and worst, of both sets of proposals are incorporated in the bipartisan plan by US Senators Wyden and Bennett. Employer tax-deductions for providing insurance would be eliminated, and employers additionally taxed. Individuals earning below what in most of our urban areas is a middle-class income would be subsidized through tax credits for individual insurance. The benefits would be set and regulated by the federal government. Insurance would be mandated, and premiums would be collected by the IRS. The primary cost control to the government would be that its subsidies would lag medical cost inflation, thus over time shifting even more costs to taxpayers and those covered.

This major, radical transformation of the US health care system, according to the Congressional Budget Office’s self-admitted not “formal” estimate, may be revenue neutral but “actual experience—and the results of a formal cost estimate—could differ substantially in either direction.” The Heritage Foundation’s analysis stresses the Medicare-like stifling of innovative coverage and treatments by a government-controlled health care system, and the lack of fit of benefits to individuals’ needs. Physicians stress the increasing shortage of primary care doctors as the work and compensation disincentives grow.

Although polls show consumer fears about the affordability of future health care, the Gallup survey shows 83% satisfaction with the quality of their care and 57% satisfied with their costs. Votes and polls demonstrate an unwillingness to surrender current insurance arrangements or to pay more than a minimal amount to extend coverage to the uninsured. The National Institute for Health Care Management’s latest report analyzes the uninsured: most are illegal immigrants, already eligible for government programs or able to afford coverage. Schemes to increase access through government programs to those above poverty level result in up to 60% coming from existing medical insurance, not benefiting those uninsured.

The real choice that is evident to voters, but not yet to enough legislators, is that more government is not the answer, and current trends may require sacrifices among liberal bulwarks, like non-profits and government workers, to avoid drastic cutbacks in preferred programs, quality of health care, and individual freedoms.

Last March, I wrote about the challenge to Linda Foley’s presidency of the Newspaper Guild, the first challenge since 1995. Her repeated and reaffirmed comments accusing the US military of targeting journalists – without proof and despite proof to the contrary -- played some role, as her challenger demurred from following Foley into this calumny. My post has received heavy traffic since going up, so there have apparently been many readers among Newspaper Guild readers.

E&P reports that Foley lost the election, by about 57-43%.

Coincidentally, Spain just decided that Foley’s charge lacked weight. For more, see Jules Crittendon, a witness.

The new president of the Newspaper Guild has his work cut out for him, in a rapidly declining industry. But, at least, he seems focused on dealing with the issues at home rather than being a tool of our enemies abroad.

To now, the Executive and Congressional branches have had exclusive authority to set US foreign policy, and trade policy. Today, the Supreme Court failed to hear a case, due to the stock holdings of several Justices causing the absence of a majority, allowing a two-century old law to be tested for whether it allows a tort suit against major US corporations for “aiding and abetting” the former South Africa’s apartheid.

News summaries of the matter can be read at Associated Press, Bloomberg, SCOTUS blog, and best of the four at Christian Science Monitor.

The amicus brief filed by major US trade organizations lays out well the confused state of the law and precedents. Carter Wood summarizes the issues, from the standpoint of critics of the suit.

Their primary point, aside from interference in foreign policy, is that the matter needs to be settled in order to engage in foreign trade at all. Otherwise, US companies will be subject to huge suits after the fact, and based on changing mores.

I’ve written critically about IBM and General Motors’ critical “aiding and abetting” Hitler’s regime. I’ve written critically of US technology leaders “aiding and abetting” China, Vietnam, and Middle East satraps’ repression. (There are so many, use the Search at the left margin.) I would consider myself uncompromising in my condemnation.

Yet, my criticism has been against the lack of restraint, or decency, by US multinationals, and against the Executive and Congress for not specifying proper limits -- within their constitutional jurisdiction -- on “aiding and abetting.” There is considerable, from what I’ve read overwhelming, doubt whether either the two-century old law or current precedents extend the jurisdiction of US courts to “aiding and abetting.”

There is tenuous evidence, at best, that trade with oppressive regimes serves to “liberalize” them. On the other hand, their entrenchment is furthered, but other trading countries are more than willing to aid and abet, so US companies miss out on the profits.

The key point is that the US owes both itself and its international standing to lead in not aiding and abetting nefarious regimes.

But, that is not a matter to be decided by international ambulance chasers, or those seeking to turn US law into a tail on international law theories – most often used to defend evildoers or hamstring their meeting justice at US hands. Further, it is not a matter to be extended to another tool to attack allies.

It is a matter to be determined by the Executive operating with the Congress to quickly bring modern specificity to trade law, and enforce it. Otherwise, they irresponsibly leave the matter to quirks of SCOTUS Justices’ stockholdings or lower courts’ frequent penchant for creating laws out of theories not of whole cloth.

The New York Times’ leadership on many MSM memes is dependent on others’ agreement and interest. However, when the New Yprk Times presents an important report that doesn’t fit the wider themes of the Left, they are largely ignored. Indeed, unless fitting some current theme of the Right, they are largely ignored in its alternative media as well.

An example, before proceeding to this Sunday New York Times magazine feature about US treatment of the Hmong.

In August 2006, the NYT’s reported on the “authoritative” report from the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) deflating the theme that’s haunted Vietnam vets’ reputations for a generation, that PTSD was widespread and long debilitating. Aside from some papers picking up the report via NYT’s wireservice, it was largely ignored. The theme of PTSD becoming a new scourge upon our forces in Iraq continued to dominate.

I wrote about the report here. I, also, had a column about it at Military.com, which elicited many emails attacking me for daring to question those receiving compensation, although the column made clear that the AAAS study found little exaggeration in compensation claims from Vietnam veterans. I haven’t had a column at Military.com since.

The New York Times report of a new study of PTSD, the NYT’s summary remarking the new study is “viewed by experts as authoritative,” knocks the air out of the Vietnam war and Vietnam veteran punching bags that stress disorders among our combatants was especially severe, long-lasting, and extraordinary. This canard is currently used to similarly undermine the U.S. war effort in Iraq, a war similarly often without clear-cut fronts and enemy….

Contrary to the widely reported figure of a third of Vietnam veterans having developed PTSD, post traumatic stress disorder, this more careful study reports a, nonetheless serious, occurrence of 18.7% having temporary symptoms and 9.1% having lasting symptoms 10+ years after the end of the war. At the same time, the study points out “the majority of the veterans with high and very high MHM [military historical measure: “probable severity of exposure to war-zone stressors"] did not develop war related PTSD.”…

Another notable result in the study itself is that:
T]he trajectory for most veterans with war-related PTSD that causes substantial impairment is toward amelioration or complete remission. This tendency toward improvement is present even for ~10% [approximately 10%] of veterans who still had impairing current PTSD at follow-up; the impairment most of them showed by this time [10+ years after the end of the Vietnam war] was not severe. The functioning of the veterans who had developed war-related PTSD but who no longer met criteria for the disorder at follow-up differed little from that of veterans who did not develop war-related PTSD.

In April 2006, I had a column in Editor & Publisher (E&P archives not available, so see here) about American media “covering Iraq on the cheap.” Some elements were edited out that raised questions about Iraqi stringers, but most of my draft appeared.

When even the conservative alternative media wasn’t interested in the NYT’s report on PTSD, I wrote a follow-up questioning the “strange silence in the blogosphere.” E&P’s editor Greg Mitchell, ever vigilant to critique the US in Iraq but less interested in debunking the PTSD meme, strung me along for weeks. So, I published it here at Democracy-Project.

It wasn’t until the NYT’s featured the first of its despicably undocumented 4-part series on our “War Torn” Iraq/Afghan war veterans that the blogosphere exploded in indignation, although I think I’m the only one to closely examine all four parts in my posts. (here, here, here, and here)

When the NYT’s could be attacked, the conservative blogosphere did so. Earlier, when the New York Times published good science, it was ignored. This is a pattern that does not reflect to the credit of the conservative side of the blogosphere.

Now, on to this Sunday’s New York Times.

The magazine has a 5088 word recounting of the abandonment and cruel plight of our Vietnam war allies in Laos, the Hmong, and of the weakness of the case against Hmong leader Vang Pao for involvement in a plot for violence against the current Lao government.

There’s a paragraph paralleling the weakness of the case against the Sears Tower plotters. It is gratuitous, and may have been inserted by an editor or the reporter to fit NYT’s anti-Iraq war memes. But, it is irrelevant to the strong factual reporting in the other thousands of words.

The NYT’s, in December 2007, published another strong front-page feature about the plight of the Hmong, hunted like animals by the Laotian government, aided by the Vietnamese. I wrote about it here. The week before, the Washington Post carried an op-ed about their persecution. The Huffington Post has carried several excellent reports by Rebecca Sommer. My posts on the extermination policies and programs against the Hmong in Laos and Montagnards in Vietnam are too many to list, so go to the Search in the left margin and input Hmong and then Montagnard. I even praised Senator Patrick Leahy for taking an interest. Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International have, also, been forthright in their condemnation of the Hmong’s treatment.

One would think that those on the Right, many of whom served in Vietnam, who are quick to point out the US’s moral obligation to Iraqis who have stood with us and for themselves against our common foes, would be more interested in the US abandonment and lackadaisical treatment of our former Hmong and Montagnard allies. There is no subject I write about more ignored among other conservative blogs. It is quite rare indeed when any notice is taken of these abandoned allies.

Why? Is it because others in media and NGO’s who are usually attacked have taken some interest? Is it because it doesn’t fit a current meme or brouhaha of the day? Is it because the Right blogosphere has lagged in creating original reporting of its own? Is it simple lack of interest?

Regardless, it does not reflect well on the Right side of the blogosphere.

P.S.: I emailed Glenn Reynolds that I couldn't find any posts at Instapundit that contained the word "Montagnard" or "Hmong." Glenn promptly replied with this good post from 2002. (Nothing since then.)

THE WAR CRITICS, as I've noted before, learned nothing since Vietnam. The U.S. military, as Jim Dunnigan notes learned a lot:

During the Vietnam War, U.S. Army Special Forces used the same techniques they applied in Afghanistan. It was in Vietnam that the Special Forces actually developed the tactics that worked so well in Afghanistan. The Vietnam experience was even more dramatic. For most of the 1960s SOG (Studies and Observation Group) Special Forces LRRPs (Long-Range Reconnaissance Patrols) operated in Laos. The Special Forces (and CIA) had organized a 10,000-man army from among the local Hmong tribes in Laos. The LRRPs went in (about 23,000 times) to find North Vietnamese troops and installations, whereupon devastating air strikes were called in. Another 50,000 tribesmen in the central highlands of Vietnam were organized into military units.

Some of these fought in Laos as well. However, the North Vietnamese (and Laotian communist Pathet Lao) troops were more numerous and determined than the Taliban, so the "American Tactics" didn't work out as well in Laos. The technique did work better in Vietnam. The North Vietnamese were not able to capture the Central Highlands until the Special Forces and American air power left. And, OK, they didn't have as many smart bombs in the 1960s, but they didn't need them to do the deed.

Posted 3/26/2002 03:54:30 PM by Glenn Reynolds

On May 7, Senator John McCain delivered the following remarks at Oakland University in Rochester, MI:

Thank you. Last year the world celebrated the 200th anniversary of the abolition of the British and American slave trade in 1807. Nearly fifty-six years would pass before Abraham Lincoln signed the Emancipation Proclamation, signaling the end of slavery in the United States. But the achievement of both countries in terminating the international slave trade and setting into motion the titanic and bloody struggle to close a shameful chapter in the history of our country should be remembered as a turning point in mankind's long and fitful progress toward a more just world. William Wilberforce had struggled for years in the British parliament to strike the lethal blow against the abominable institution that had scarred Western civilization for centuries. He was a humble Christian man, powerfully motivated by his faith, whose example instructs every person born in freedom that we have a moral obligation not to turn a blind eye to assaults on the collective dignity of humanity wherever they occur.

There is a tendency in our age to accede to the spurious excuse of moral relativism and turn away from the harshest examples of man's inhumanity to man; to ignore the darker side of human nature that encroaches upon our decency by subtle degree. There are many reasons for this. Blessed with opportunity, and intent on the challenges of work and family, our own lives often seem too full and hectic to take notice of offenses that seem distant from our own reality. There is also the threat in a society passionate about its liberty that we can become desensitized to the dehumanizing effect of the obscenity and hostility that pervades much of popular culture. It is in our nature as Americans to see the good in things; to face even serious adversity with hope and optimism. And yet, with so much good in the world, for all the progress of humanity, in which our nation has played such an admirable and important role, evil still exists in the world. It preys upon human dignity, assaults the innocence of children, debases our self-respect and the respect we are morally obliged to pay each other, and assails the great, animating truths we believe to be self-evident that all people have a right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness -- by subjecting countless human beings to abuse, persecution and even slavery.

Confronting evil has never been easy in our age or any other. But the failure to do so affects even those who are complacent with our own blessings and secure in our human rights. Accepting the degradation of values we believe are universal is to relinquish some of our own humanity. America was founded on the belief in the inherent dignity of all human life and that this dignity can only be preserved through shared respect and shared responsibility. We can retain our own freedom when others are robbed of theirs, but not the sense of virtue that made our revolution a moral as well as political crusade, and which recognizes that personal happiness is so much more than pleasure, and requires us to serve causes greater than self-interest.

There is no right more fundamental to a free society than the free practice of religion. Behind walls of prisons and persecuted before our very eyes in places like China, Iran, Burma, Sudan, North Korea and Saudi Arabia are tens-of-thousands of people whose only crime is to worship God in their own way. No society that denies religious freedom can ever rightly claim to be good in some other way. And no person can ever be true to any faith that believes in the dignity of all human life if they do not act out of concern for those whose dignity is assailed because of their faith. As President, I intend to make religious freedom a subject of great importance for the United States in our relations with other nations. I will work in close concert with democratic allies to raise the prominence of religious freedom in every available forum. Whether in bilateral negotiations, or in various multi-national organizations to which America belongs, I will make respect for the basic principle of religious freedom a priority in international relations.

There is another form of human oppression that persists in the world today that demands our urgent attention and should sting the conscience of every good person. Inexcusably, it is a crime that, while prevalent elsewhere, exists within our own borders as well. Human trafficking slavery, by another name exists not just in places like Thailand, Kuwait and Venezuela. It is a serious problem here in the United States. It is a tragic reality that, two hundred years after Wilberforce won his battle to end the slave trade between Britain and the United States, and nearly 150 years after our nation ended the institution here, the practice still thrives in the dark corners of our society. Most of the victims of human trafficking in the United States and in most other places in the world are the most vulnerable among us, destitute women and children who are sold into bondage as sex slaves. A 2004 State Department report concludes that of the estimated 600,000 to 800,000 men, women, and children transported across international borders each year, approximately 80 percent are women and girls, and up to 50 percent are minors. The State Department estimates that between 15,000 and 18,000 human slaves are brought into the United States, many of whom are forced into the sex trade every year.

While the past few years have seen increased efforts on the part of the State and Justice Departments and the FBI to combat the human slave trade, we must do more. As President, I'll increase cooperation and communication between all agencies of the federal government by establishing an Inter-Agency Task Force on Human Trafficking, whose purpose will be to focus exclusively on the prosecution of human traffickers and the rescue of their victims. The Task Force will strengthen cooperation between federal officials, state and local law enforcement and prosecutors to ensure that jurisdictional issues are not a barrier to success, and that we have a coordinated international response to this scourge. I will require the Task Force agencies to report directly to me on the status of the problem and the progress we are making to defeat this stain on the reputation and character of the United States. And we will take care to show compassion for victims of this despicable crime against humanity by making sure shelter, counseling and legal assistance is available and accessible to them.

We must also do more to ensure governments that tolerate human trafficking crack down on this modern form of slavery. We can support efforts to change the economic incentives and do more to aid the victims. But we must view this evil form of twenty-first century slavery every bit as important as drug trafficking. All too often the same criminal networks that trade in fourteen-year-old girls also trade in narcotics--and even in materials that can be used by terrorists. Identifying and destroying criminal networks that evade national boundaries is also a matter of our national security.

It is also the appropriate concern of a nation conceived in liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all people are equal, to encourage and coax other cultures into abandoning practices that afflict the
happiness and health of women and children, whether they be practices that mutilate their bodies or impose on them ma