They are called the PIGS — Portugal, Ireland, Greece, Spain. What they have in common is that all are facing deficits and debts that could bring on national defaults and break up the European Union.

What brought the PIGS to the edge of the abyss?

All are neo-socialist states that provide welfare for poor people, generous unemployment, universal health care, early retirement and comfortable pensions. Most consume 40 percent to 50 percent of their gross domestic product annually, a crushing burden on the private sector.

Dying populations is a second cause. After two world wars, the Europeans lost their faith and embraced hedonism and materialism, la dolce vita. Large families fell out of favor. Women put off marriage and babies, and went to work. Birth control and abortion were made readily available in every country and, if not, just across the border.

For 30 years, the fertility rate of Europe has been below the 2.1 children per woman necessary to replace a population. In Russia and Ukraine, a million people disappear yearly. In Western Europe, the passing of the native-born goes on quietly, as Third World peoples come to fill the empty spaces left by the aborted and unconceived.

Turks are in Germany. Pakistanis, Indians, Arabs and Caribbean peoples are in Britain. Algerians, Tunisians and Moroccans occupy the southern coast of France and the banlieues around Paris.

These newcomers have neither the education nor skills of the Europeans. Hence, they earn less and contribute less in taxes, but consume more per capita in social benefits. Read more…

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What to make of Sarah Palin’s remarks yesterday on “Fox News Sunday”? Here she is sharing her wisdom about what it might take for Obama to get re-elected:

Say he played, and I got this from Buchanan, reading one of his columns the other day. Say he played the war card. Say he decided to declare war on Iran, or decided to really come out and do whatever he could to support Israel, which I would like him to do. But that changes the dynamics in what we can assume is going to happen between now and three years. Because I think if the election were today, I do not think Obama would be re-elected.

… if he decided to toughen up and do all that he can to secure our nation and our allies. I think people would perhaps shift their thinking a little bit and decide, well, maybe he’s tougher than we think he is today. And there wouldn’t be as much passion to make sure that he doesn’t serve another four years –

She’s read Pat Buchanan’s column on Obama playing the war card, which is great — she’s cribbing her commentary from the best. But when she adds her own spin, it’s to hope that Obama would “do whatever he could do to support Israel” — meaning what exactly? In the context, it sounds like she thinks starting more wars in the Middle East, or taking measures that are likely to lead to more wars, is good for Israel and therefore ought to be American policy. I don’t think for her “do whatever he could do to support Israel” means hosting  talks at Camp David.

Palin wants to be, simultaneously, Pitchfork Sarah and Bill Kristol’s very own Eliza Doolittle. But she’s much more the latter than the former. There’s no room for doubt here: Sarah Palin means war.

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I can’t understand why Harry Reid is still the Senate Majority Leader when he is so weak and he allows things like this to continue:

Sen. Richard Shelby’s (R-AL) office has confirmed to TPMDC the reports that Shelby has placed a hold on President Obama’s nominees over a pair of government programs set to be based in Alabama. He did not confirm that Shelby has taken the rare step of blocking all of Obama’s nominees, as was reported yesterday.

“Sen. Shelby has placed holds on several pending nominees due to unaddressed national security concerns,” Shelby spokesperson Jonathan Graffeo said in a statement. “Among his concerns” are the progress on multi-billion dollar defense contract that would see planes built in Mobile, AL and Obama’s decision to scrap a $45 million FBI improvised explosive device lab Shelby secured an earmark for in 2008. (emphasis added)

At the very least, Reid should make Sen. Shelby get up and actually filibuster like they used to in the old days.

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I would have thought that yesterday’s House Intelligence Committee comments by Director of National Intelligence Dennis Blair would have provided an “I can’t believe it” moment, but apparently not.  The ACLU might be preparing a position paper, but so far not a bleat out of anyone.  Blair said  that US citizens abroad might be killed by CIA or the Defense Department if they are “taking action that threatens Americans.”  He added that in so doing the government would “follow a set of defined policy and legal procedures that are very carefully observed” and described the policy as designed to “protect most of the country.” 

Well, I guess it’s tough luck if you’re not one of the “most” and I will definitely sleep better knowing that there is a “defined policy” being overseen by some dude at CIA or the Pentagon whose promotion prospects depend on killing terrorists.

I must admit to having a problem with extrajudicial killing unless someone is absolutely caught in flagrante because, as a former intelligence officer, I know full well how bad intelligence can be.  Would we be killing someone without any due process just because someone else bearing a grudge manages to plant some false info, as has occurred all too often in Afghanistan?  If it is true that something like 19 civilians die in drone strikes for every bad guy we manage to get, there is something seriously wrong with the intelligence and about the system in general.  And who makes the judgment of what constitutes something that ”threatens Americans”?  Blair went on to explain that being targeted might be based on being “involved in a group that is trying to attack us.”  Involved?  What does that mean?

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TAC associate publisher Jon Basil Utley has an interesting take applying the wisdom of Sun Tzu to America’s current foreign policy mess. Here’s a taste of his Antiwar.com essay:

America’s way of war is, actually, not so new under the sun. Centuries ago, China’s Sun Tzu would have recognized some of our ways and errors. Indeed he would be rolling over in his grave at seeing how his famous dictums for successful wars are ignored and violated by America: a trillion-dollar war in Iraq, losing our allies, creating more and more fanatical enemies willing to do suicide missions against us, borrowing from foreigners to finance our wars. In fairness, part of our failure is the simple determinant that democracies can’t run empires and most armies hate occupation duty. Our military still trains to re-fight World War II, not for unending wars of occupation and trans-national terrorism. So now we fear and isolate ourselves from most Muslims, nearly a quarter of the world’s population, and are nearly bankrupted. However, bin Laden’s campaign followed Sun Tzu’s teachings to a “T.” (See “How Bin Laden Bankrupted America.” For why we can’t win our wars, see Andrew Bacevich’s “When Was the Last Time We Won A War?“)

Following are some of Sun Tzu’s main maxims from The Art of War and how and why America breaks them:

“The best victory is to win without actually fighting. Supreme excellence consists in breaking the enemy’s resistance without fighting.”

Americans instead want to start the fighting; there is little interest in winning without war. Witness Iraq, where recent British government hearings on the war repeatedly cite how Washington wanted to get the war started as quickly as possible. Former Defense Secretary Rumsfeld was even reported as saying that Afghanistan, unlike Iraq, didn’t have enough targets that go “boom” for Washington’s intimidation strategy of “shock and awe.” There was little awareness of the warnings, such as stated by Israel’s murdered former president, Yitzhak Rabin, who opposed the first Iraq War in 1991, that no nation knows when it starts a war, where it will lead, nor what will be its final consequences. Above all, Sun Tzu warned, are the costs of wars, something almost irrelevant to the regimes in Washington.

There are several reasons for this. Many Washington interests benefit from wars (see below). It’s usually easy to sell the American public on going to war. War makes for exciting TV. Most Americans like to see video of fighter planes, missiles, tanks charging through the desert, and our brave fighting men (and women). War represents no fear of devastating consequences or costs to most Americans, or at least we used to think so.

Read the rest here.

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