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July 6, 2010

 If We Wait For the Afghan Forces To Be Ready To Take Over the Security of Their Own country, We Are Waiting For Godot

          The war in Afghanistan goes on with U.S. casualties mounting.  The month of June was the deadliest yet with 102 deaths, the highest since the war began nine years ago.  The war is supported by the Republican leadership, with Senator Lindsey Graham (R-SC) and Senator John McCain (R-AZ) in the lead.  They denounced the Republican National Chairman, Michael Steele, for referring to the war as “not winnable” and a war of “Obama’s choosing.”  President Obama by increasing the number of our troops in Afghanistan and making it clear that we are not committed to withdrawing beginning with July 20111, is deepening our involvement in a war we can’t win.  If the Taliban were to surrender today, President Karzai would welcome them into his cabinet, just as he is doing now while we are losing.

          Dexter Filkins of The New York Times reported on July 5^th, “Almost every phase of the war is going badly.  In June, 102 Americans and NATO troops lost their lives, more than any month since the war began.  The major offensive in Kandahar, the most important city in the Taliban heartland, has been slowed because of worries over the lack of local support.  The Afghan government and army show few signs of being able or even willing to take over.  In the United States, public opinion polls show that a majority of Americans have turned against the war.”

          General Petraeus on assuming command told “Afghan leaders and American and NATO officers at a ceremony here…we are in this to win.”  He also told them, according to The Times, “success here would be likely to take much longer than the July 2011 date set by President Obama to begin a withdrawal of American forces.”

 

          If we wait for the Karzai Afghan army to be ready to take over the security of their own country, we are waiting for Godot, and we will never leave.  Surely, at this point, we have given enough blood, lives and treasure to achieve the unachievable.  Our soldiers have suffered enough for that unattainable goal, which some American military experts have estimated would take 10 to 15 more years of war to achieve.  I believe it cannot be achieved because when we leave, whether now or 15 years from now, Afghanistan with its Shiite majority will become a satellite of Iran which also has a Shiite majority.  When we leave Iraq next year as promised, its Shiite majority will ensure that it, too, will become a satellite of Iran.

 

          The Shiites and Sunnis – divisions of Islam – have been killing one another from time immemorial.  Since we invaded Iraq, hundreds of thousands of Shiite and Sunni civilians have been blown up by one another as a result of their 1,300-year-old religious war.  Are we to sacrifice our young soldiers in a fruitless effort to restrain this religious warfare?  Mr. President, admit error or declare victory and bring our troops home.

          Those Americans who have concluded the war is undermining our security rather than protecting it, raise your voices so Washington hears them.  The antiwar activists should focus their efforts on a march on Washington.  We have sacrificed enough dead, wounded and treasure in a failed cause.  Enough is enough.

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          Elena Kagan, Solicitor General of the United States, acquitted herself superbly before the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee during her confirmation hearings.  What does that mean?  It means she basically told the Senators nothing that would reveal how she will vote.  Of course, we know she will vote as a liberal would and should.  Conservatives, while upset with her liberal orientation, are resigned to her confirmation because she is replacing a liberal – Justice John Paul Stevens – and therefore would not tip the Court in a liberal direction.

          To pacify her questioners, Elena Kagan paid proper lip service to the doctrine of giving great respect to legal precedents.  The New York Times in an editorial this past week pointed out how Justice Sonia Sotomayor in her confirmation hearings had similarly reassured the questioning Senators.  The editorial stated, “Sonia Sotomayor said last year that she understood the individual right to bear arms had been determined by the Supreme Court in 2008, but this week she joined a blistering dissent that said the 2008 decision was wrong.”

          Most gun control supporters – and I am one – are distressed with the huge victories that the National Rifle Association has had before the U.S. Supreme Court and the Congress, on the right to possess guns, particularly hand guns.  Most New Yorkers probably don’t know that it is relatively easy in New York State, except for criminals and the mentally impaired, to obtain a permit to keep a handgun in one’s home or place of business.  New Yorkers don’t have the right to carry that gun outside of their home or business; to do that one needs a special carriage permit which requires in New York City the consent of the New York City Police Commissioner under the Sullivan Law which goes back to 1911.  When Washington, D.C. and Chicago banned all handguns and the Supreme Court ultimately ruled on that issue, it decided that such total bans violated the Second Amendment.  The Court has not ruled on New York State’s law requiring a special permit for carrying a handgun through the streets.  Undoubtedly, such limitations will ultimately come before the Court.  I would be shocked if the Court were to strike that limitation down.  But this is an unpredictable Court that has shown that it is capable of consistently surprising us.

 

          The most recent shock was its decision, as The Times described it, “to allow unlimited corporate spending in elections.”  The Times neglected to mention that the Court’s decision also allowed unlimited spending by unions, as well.

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          During the Hurricane Katrina catastrophe and its aftermath, FEMA purchased and made available 120,000 mobile homes to the homeless.  The Times in an article of June 30^th reported, “The trailers were discovered to have such high levels of formaldehyde that the government banned them from even being used for long-term housing again.”  After the trailers were removed, the government spent $130 million a year to store and maintain them, but then decided to auction them off.  According to The Times, beginning in 2006, the feds unloaded 100,000 of them at public auction. 

 

          Now, apparently, the federal government has sold some trailers to those assisting in the Gulf cleanup who need housing.  The feds tell purchasers not to use them for housing, as though that takes the sellers off the hook. 

 

          Our government’s actions are shameful.  Rather than suing the manufacturers and distributors of the trailers for a refund of the purchase price – some $2.7 billion -- our government is putting more people in harm’s way.  Are those responsible still working for the government?

 

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          A July 4^th New York Times article reported that “[a]ccording to the most recent study by the Congressional Budget Office, released in 2005, capital investments like oil field leases and drilling equipment are taxed at an effective rate of 9 percent, significantly lower than the overall rate of 25 percent for businesses in general and lower than virtually any other industry.”  According to The Times, “[t]he American Petroleum Institute, an industry advocacy group, argues that even with subsidies, oil producers paid or incurred $280 billion in American income taxes from 2006 to 2008, and pay a higher percentage of their earnings in taxes than most other American corporations.”

 

          Wouldn’t it be nice to know the truth?  We know that oil companies are extremely profitable.  According to Fortune magazine, the most profitable company in 2009 was Exxon Mobil with a profit of $45 billion.  We also know, as mentioned in The Times, that “[t]he oil and natural gas industry has spent $340 million on lobbyists since 2008.”

 

          Having served in Congress, I can tell you that the members of oil states were the most effective.  The famed Charlie Wilson, Congressman from Texas and subject of the movie “Charlie Wilson’s War,” was a friend of mine.  I trusted him.  On one occasion, I rushed to the floor to vote – 15 minutes was allotted – and not having been on the committee that debated the bill, I looked to a friendly face – in this case, Charlie Wilson’s – for guidance on how I should vote.  Wilson gave me a thumbs up, so I voted yes with my plastic card.

 

          Fortunately, a fellow New Yorker saw my vote on the flashing board, came over and said, “Wrong vote, Ed,” explaining it was providing subsidies to the oil industry.  Of course, I changed my vote.  I went over to Charlie and said, “Charlie, how could you do that to me?”  He replied, “Ed, you can trust me on anything else but oil.”  Charlie was a great Congressman and I treasured our friendship.  However, I never fully trusted him again, as nice as he was.  Trust once breached is rarely ever fully restored.

 

          The oil industry has taken the U.S. taxpayers to the cleaners.  We should demand of Speaker Nancy Pelosi that an independent, fairly-composed committee of experts be appointed to examine the oil and gas industry and recommend to the Congress what subsidies, if any, should be available to that industry, which tax loopholes should be closed and what taxes should be paid, including, if the committee found it appropriate, an excess profits tax.

 

          Many in Congress, myself included when I was there, favored a tax ranging from a quarter to a dollar per gallon as far back as 1973 when our then Arab allies of Saudi Arabia and the Gulf states imposed their oil embargo.  The same amounts could probably be raised if the oil companies paid their fair share of taxes.  Those monies should be used to identify and implement alternate forms of energy.  China is way ahead of us on creating wind energy and other alternatives.

 

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Ed Koch Commentary

June 22, 2010

Sometimes You Eat the Bear and Sometimes the Bear Eats You

          I have been in politics since 1956 when I volunteered to be a street campaigner and spokesperson for Adlai Stevenson who was running for president against Dwight Eisenhower.  I spent many lunch hours campaigning on the historic steps of the Subtreasury building, located at the corner of Wall and Nassau Streets.  In the summer and fall, hundreds of people who worked at the New York Stock Exchange on Broad Street would sit on the steps between noon and 2:00 p.m. and eat their lunches. 

          That experience started my political career which ultimately embraced 23 years in public service.  My years of public service included two years in the City Council, nine years in the U.S. Congress, and 12 years as mayor of New York City.  I enjoyed serving in each of those capacities.  Every day brought new challenges, sometimes ending in victory and other times in defeat. 

          My good friend and political mentor, David Garth, summed up these experiences common to all who serve in government by saying, “Sometimes you eat the bear and sometimes the bear eats you.”

          President Barack Obama illustrates the accuracy of that description.  Currently, his approval ratings are falling, and the bear is eating him for lunch.  However, we all should remember the halcyon days of not so long ago when he could do no wrong.  The press, pundits, and the Sunday morning talking heads are a fickle lot.  One week they are for you and the next week the entire press cadre, like marionettes on a string, move in an opposite direction.  Suddenly he is seen as incompetent, unfeeling or, even worse, a villain of the story occupying their attention, which is now the gulf oil spill.  Petroleum gushing from the ocean floor is shown daily on television.  Now when the President plays golf for recreation, it is seen as an insult to the people suffering the effects of the BP oil spill.  How ridiculous.  Today he can do no right.

          George W. Bush was our hero when he arrived at Ground Zero to view the World Trade Center site after 9/11.  I was on the West Side Highway when he addressed a crowd of hundreds who had been invited to greet him.  Those assembled included public officials, people who worked in the area, volunteers helping in various ways, and the clergy led by Edward Cardinal Egan.  I will never forget how the crowd reacted when President Bush appeared, jumped up on a pile of debris, was held steady by a retired firefighter, and began to address us.  Everyone, including the Cardinal, began to chant, “USA, USA.”  It was thrilling.  What it meant without a doubt was that we were united.  No one cared whether Bush was a Republican or a Democrat. 

          We wanted our president to know that we were willing to do whatever it would take to protect the greatest country in the world.  It reminded me of our nation’s reaction to the 1941 Pearl Harbor attack.  We vowed to remember that sneak attack, pick ourselves up from the floor and kick the butt of the Japanese empire, regardless of how long it might take.  And we did.  

          Then came Hurricane Katrina, Bush’s ridiculous flyover of New Orleans, and his later comment, “Brownie, you’re doing a heck of a job.”  And the bear voraciously ate President Bush.

          Similarly, President Obama’s solid victory over Senator John McCain and his inspirational speeches before and after his election, fed our desires for a new beginning that would embrace racial reconciliation and a change in government direction that would show far greater concern for the needs of the middle class and the poor.  President Obama’s poll numbers were very high at the time.  Indeed, despite a year of adversity, they still are sound, ranging from a low of 45 to a high of 50. 

          And then came British Petroleum (BP) and the gulf oil debacle.  Once again, the bear has arrived.  He is still tearing up the terrain, and his appetite is enormous.  

          But I have good news for President Obama.  I have been out of office for 20 years, since December 31, 1989.  Immediately upon leaving office, I decided to stay in touch with deputy mayors, commissioners, and their deputies who served during the 12 years of my mayoralty.  About 200 or so get together every December for a reunion.  I also have lunch with those same individuals, inviting about a half-dozen of them to join me every six weeks or so.  Those lunches have been ongoing now for the last two decades.   

          While discussing political issues at the most recent lunch about two weeks ago, everyone indicated that they were disappointed to some extent with the President’s performance to date.  Being Democrats, they had all voted for him in the last election.  When I asked, “If the election were held tomorrow, who would vote for President Obama,” every one of them raised their hand to convey they would vote for him again. 

          In closing, let me impart some age-old advice:  Illegitimi non carborundum (Don’t let the bastards grind you down.)  Also, continue to be yourself.  Nobody, except screen or stage actors, is ever sufficiently convincing when attempting to be someone else.  The people always know when a public official is trying to con them.

          I’d like to close with the phrase that we should all be shouting in the presence of every president, “USA, USA.”  He belongs to all of us.  God bless President Barack Obama, and may God bless America.

          It was announced this morning that General Stanley McChrystal, the commander of U.S. and NATO forces in Afghanistan, had insulted President Obama, National Security Adviser Jim Jones, and Special Representative to Afghanistan Richard Holbrooke.  McChrystal’s remarks were made during a Rolling Stone interview.  My advice:  Do what President Lincoln did in a similar situation.  He fired Major General George McClellan.  And do what President Truman did.  He fired General Douglas MacArthur.   In the USA, the military serves the civilian government, not the other way. 

What Distinguishes the United States Is Our Pluralism and Tolerance

We are at war with radical Islam, and that war will go on for many years.

For me, the question is this:  will the secular Western civilization shared by America and Europe, which allows us to enjoy life and its creature comforts, still be standing at the end of that war?  Or will radical Islam, with an aggressive culture that treasures martyrdom and death over life, prevail?

 The vast majority of Muslims, of course, are peace-loving.  The fanaticism found among the Wahhabists of Saudi Arabia is not found in many of the countries where a billion, 400 million Muslims live. Nevertheless, we know that radical Islamists want to convert us to their faith, either voluntarily or, if necessary, by force.  Among the Islamist radicals there is a special hatred of Jews and Hindus and, to a lesser extent, of Christians. The hatred of Jews is such that some of the leaders of radical groups have called for the killing of Jewish civilians all over the world. For some, the Muslim rule is to permit Jews and Christians – as monotheists – to practice their religions, provided that they accept the supremacy of Islam and pay a poll tax – so described by Bernard Lewis, America’s foremost scholar on Islam.

 Mr. Lewis states “This tolerance is limited to monotheists and recipients of what Islam recognizes as a revelation. It does not apply in any circumstance to those who are seen as polytheists and idolaters. For them the rule was indeed conversion or death, though the latter was rarely enforced and in the past was often commuted to enslavement. The Wahhabi demand, as far as I know, is not that Christians and Jews convert to Islam, but that they accept the supremacy of Islam and the rule of the Muslim state. On that condition, they may continue in the practice of their religion.”

 All this is by way of preface to a current controversy here in New York City concerning the construction of a mosque two blocks from Ground Zero at the World Trade Center site where near 3,000 people lost their lives in acts of terror perpetrated by 19 Muslim hijackers, 15 of whom were from Saudi Arabia, who deliberately flew two planes into the twin towers.

 Understandably, but nevertheless wrong, there are those who object to the construction of this mosque, believing its presence would insult the memory of the victims of the terror. In my opinion, and I believe the opinion of many others, including the local community planning board and the local elected political leaders, it would sully the good name of the United States and New York City were the members of the mosque which is permissible under existing zoning laws, prohibited from constructing it. While no one can be sure what activities will take place there, that is true of any religious institution. It also follows that none may violate the law with impunity.

 What distinguishes the United States is our pluralism and tolerance for minority groups, religions of every persuasion and acceptance of the rights of those with policies and philosophies different than the prevailing views of the majority, provided they are non-violent and observe the law.

Having said that, and believing in our tolerance for others, I believe we must be willing to defend our people and country against all attacks that are violent – tantamount to war – as well as those attacks that are unfair and intended to humble and denigrate our nation. It is infuriating to see Turkey, an actual NATO ally, and Brazil, a neighbor and trade partner here in the Western hemisphere, collude with Iran which has said through its president that it wants the U.S. to disappear and makes clear every day its enmity and threats directed at us and our ally, Israel. It is infuriating that North Korea threatens the world with its nuclear and missile arsenal and sinks a South Korean destroyer with a torpedo that an examining commission found to have North Korean markings, and no immediate military retaliatory action is taken, out of fear of consequences.  If Franklin Delano Roosevelt and the U.S. Congress had failed to assist in the defense of Great Britain in its war with Germany, and Great Britain had gone down to defeat because early on we refused to become Great Britain’s supplier of naval ships and other war materials out of fear of the consequences, we here in the U.S. might be speaking German today instead of English. We would certainly no longer be the great and sovereign nation we are.

 Have we lost the will to stand up to the bullies of the world? The administration points with pride to the fact that it is proceeding with sanctions against Iran at the Security Council and that it succeeded in bringing Russia and China to the point where they too have agreed to vote for sanctions. To do that, the U.S. had to agree to Russia’s delivering arms to Iran, e.g., an anti-aircraft system that would be used to shoot down U.S. and Israeli planes that might in the future seek to eliminate Iran’s nuclear facilities. With respect to China and getting its consent to vote with us, we dropped sanction measures that would have crippled Iran’s banking and financial institutions and prohibited the sale of gasoline to Iran which has no conversion facilities, which would have devastated its economy.

Some will say that pointing out these failures of will is jingoistic. I believe these failures to stand up for allies and most importantly to stand up for ourselves is why we are taken less seriously by nations throughout the world than should be the case. When others fully respected us, we were able to keep the world at peace. We are losing that ability with each passing day, as we demonstrate our unwillingness to teach the bullies of the world the lessons they deserve.

  Speak softly and carry a big stick, Teddy Roosevelt said.  President Obama speaks apologetically and carries no stick at all.  No wonder North Korea torpedoed that South Korean warship, something they would not have done in all probability  if China had not quietly approved.  No wonder Brazil and Turkey thumb their noses at us.  We have become a laughingstock.