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.

As the number of young entering the European labor forces shrinks, the number of seniors and aged grows. And thanks to advances in medicine, these retirees live lengthening lives. Thus the burden of pensions and health care grows steadily and the need for higher taxes and larger worker contributions increases.

Then there is globalization. In Europe, wages and taxes are high, regulations heavy, unions strong, and lawyers ubiquitous. Manufacturers, to cut costs, have been outsourcing production to where the labor is cheap and abundant, the unions are nonexistent or weak, and health, safety and environmental regulations are lax. Welcome to China.

Greece is the first European nation to hit the wall. As an EU member state, she is obligated to keep her deficit to 3 percent of GDP. But this year’s is 12.7 percent, and Athens needs to issue $75 billion in bonds alone to finance the deficit and roll over debt.

The markets, however, are rating Greek bonds as risky bonds. To borrow, Athens must pay more than twice the interest rate Germany pays. Faced with strikes by public employees and students, Athens appears to lack the political will to make the cuts necessary to bring the budget back toward balance.

As Portugal, Ireland and Spain gaze on, Greece approaches a moment of truth. Should she default, their bonds, too, will plunge in value out of fear of a copycat default, and the interest rate they pay would also rise. They, too, might then take the Argentine road.

The EU’s crisis would then be like a crisis in the United States should California default on its state bonds and interest rates on other municipal bonds surged to double digits.

Is there a way out?

One option is for the EU to bail out Greece with a huge loan. But if Greece cannot meet her debt obligations now, how could she pay back the loan? And if the EU cannot compel Greece to make deep budget cuts today, what leverage would the EU have after bailing out Athens and removing today’s pressure on the government?

A second option is to call in the International Monetary Fund, which imposes tough conditions on nations receiving IMF loans — the Third World therapy. But problems would arise here, too.

First, it would be an admission that the EU cannot manage its own household. Second, the largest contributor to the IMF is Uncle Sam.

Why should America bail out Greece, when the EU is larger and richer and did not help bail out California in 2009? The stimulus bill did that in 2009, to which Europe contributed nothing.

Where Greece is at today, however, we shall all arrive tomorrow.

In every Western nation, government is growing beyond the capacity of taxpayers to bear. Deficits and debt are surging. Not enough children are being born to replace parents. The immigrant poor who consume more than they contribute are coming to take the empty places. Seniors and elderly are growing as a share of the population. Companies are saying goodbye to the West and moving offshore to low-wage lands.

The West begins to look like yesterday, while the East begins to look like tomorrow.

The West is approaching a crisis of solvency and of democracy. We shall see if democracy, which grew popular lavishing benefits upon all, is strong enough to start clawing them away. Or will democracy try to keep piling the burden on the producers until they rebel or depart?

Patrick Buchanan is the author of the new book Churchill, Hitler, and ‘The Unnecessary War,’ now available in paperback.

Since I have a memory longer than, say, a goldfish, I don’t miss George W. Bush. I also remember when right-wingers practically worshiped Bush. John Hindraker said of the former president, after the infamous carrier landing, “Yeah, we’ve had better leaders. Their names were Washington and Lincoln.”

I am still looking for evidence that right-wingers have owned up to their role as cheerleaders for the disastrous Bush years, but haven’t seen it yet.

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.

It strikes me as odd that anyone would let what they choose to read be determined by the policies of the publisher as opposed to the content of the book. When the new book by Andrew Bacevich(published by Metropolitan Books, a Macmillan imprint) comes out in a few months, I plan to obtain a copy and no other title will serve as a substitute. But I am a book lover, and the content is more important to me than reading it on some sort of gadget, which doesn’t appear to be the case for some Kindlephiles.

I wouldn’t be interested in paying much money for an e-book that I don’t really own and can’t sell or loan out; but I am perplexed as to why people will shell out $259 dollars for an item and then refuse to spend money to load books into it. If the books are worth so little, then why spend so much to read them?

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.

Should the president declare he has gone the last mile for a negotiated end to Iran’s nuclear program and impose the “crippling” sanctions he promised in 2008, America would be on an escalator to confrontation that could lead straight to war.

And should war come, that would be the end of GOP dreams of adding three-dozen seats in the House and half a dozen in the Senate.

Harry Reid is surely aware a U.S. clash with Iran, with him at the president’s side, could assure his re-election. Last week, Reid whistled through the Senate, by voice vote, a bill to put us on that escalator.

Senate bill 2799 would punish any company exporting gasoline to Iran. Though swimming in oil, Iran has a limited refining capacity and must import 40 percent of the gas to operate its cars and trucks and heat its homes.

And cutting off a country’s oil or gas is a proven path to war.

In 1941, the United States froze Japan’s assets, denying her the funds to pay for the U.S. oil on which she relied, forcing Tokyo either to retreat from her empire or seize the only oil in reach, in the Dutch East Indies.

The only force able to interfere with a Japanese drive into the East Indies? The U.S. Pacific fleet at Pearl Harbor.

Egypt’s Gamel Abdel Nasser in 1967 threatened to close the Straits of Tiran between the Red Sea and Gulf of Aqaba to ships going to the Israeli port of Elath. That would have cut off 95 percent of Israel’s oil.

Israel response: a pre-emptive war that destroyed Egypt’s air force and put Israeli troops at Sharm el-Sheikh on the Straits of Tiran.

Were Reid and colleagues seeking to strengthen Obama’s negotiating hand?

The opposite is true. The Senate is trying to force Obama’s hand, box him in, restrict his freedom of action, by making him impose sanctions that would cut off the negotiating track and put us on a track to war — a war to deny Iran weapons that the U.S. Intelligence community said in December 2007 Iran gave up trying to acquire in 2003.

Sound familiar?

Republican leader Mitch McConnell has made clear the Senate is seizing control of the Iran portfolio. “If the Obama administration will not take action against this regime, then Congress must.”

U.S. interests would seem to dictate supporting those elements in Iran who wish to be rid of the regime and re-engage the West. But if that is our goal, the Senate bill, and a House version that passed 412 to 12, seem almost diabolically perverse.

For a cutoff in gas would hammer Iran’s middle class. The Revolutionary Guard and Basij militia on their motorbikes would get all they need. Thus the leaders of the Green Movement who have stood up to Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and the Ayatollah oppose sanctions that inflict suffering on their own people.

Cutting off gas to Iran would cause many deaths. And the families of the sick, the old, the weak, the women and the children who die are unlikely to feel gratitude toward those who killed them.

And despite the hysteria about Iran’s imminent testing of a bomb, the U.S. intelligence community still has not changed its finding that Tehran is not seeking a bomb.

The low-enriched uranium at Natanz, enough for one test, has neither been moved nor enriched to weapons grade. Ahmadinejad this week offered to take the West’s deal and trade it for fuel for its reactor. Iran’s known nuclear facilities are under U.N. watch. The number of centrifuges operating at Natanz has fallen below 4,000. There is speculation they are breaking down or have been sabotaged.

And if Iran is hell-bent on a bomb, why has Director of National Intelligence Dennis Blair not revised the 2007 finding and given us the hard evidence?

U.S. anti-missile ships are moving into the Gulf. Anti-missile batteries are being deployed on the Arab shore. Yet, Gen. David Petraeus warned yesterday that a strike on Iran could stir nationalist sentiment behind the regime.

Nevertheless, the war drums have again begun to beat.

Richard Daniel Pipes in a National Review Online piece featured by the Jerusalem Post — “How to Save the Obama Presidency: Bomb Iran” — urges Obama to make a “dramatic gesture to change the public perception of him as a lightweight, bumbling ideologue” by ordering the U.S. military to attack Iran’s nuclear facilities.

Citing six polls, Pipes says Americans support an attack today and will “presumably rally around the flag” when the bombs fall.

Will Obama cynically yield to temptation, play the war card and make “conservatives swoon,” in Pipes’ phrase, to save himself and his party? We shall see.

Patrick Buchanan is the author of the new book Churchill, Hitler, and ‘The Unnecessary War,’ now available in paperback.

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?

The Iraq War as Told Through Magazine Covers from Utne Reader on Vimeo.

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.

First is the process of using budget reconciliation to pass either the entire health care reform bill or piecemeal changes to be added to the Senate version in the House (if the House were to bite the bullet and pass the Senate bill as is). The Hill notes that Senator Kent Conrad (D-N.D.) has publicly endorsed the idea of using reconciliation when previously — before Republican Scott Brown’s win in Massachusetts — he had opposed the use of the procedure. Senator Arlen Spector (R D-P.A.) has urged a similar course, urging the House to pass the Senate bill to be coupled with a set of changes passed by reconciliation in the Senate. With several powerful Democrats in the Senate toying with the idea of reconciliation, the parliamentary tool could gain traction as a real possibility, and successfully resuscitate the languid health care bill.

The use of budget reconciliation, however, would be a procedural disaster and ruinous in terms of setting new and heated partisan precedent — not to mention destroying any integrity the Senate has left. The Republicans should know very well about this, as should the Democrats. Reconciliation procedure was warped once before, by the Republican controlled Senate in 1996, opening the reconciliation procedure to more than just budgetary deficit reduction. Reconciliation was opened to any provision impacting a budgetary issue. The rule change by Republicans in 1996 has allowed for Democrats to have the ability to even consider this option today.

So Democrats, take heed. The use of reconciliation to pass the more controversial measures of health care reform could have long and lasting repercussions. This process could be used by a Republican majority in the future to pass equally controversial provisions, all under the guise of being budgetary issues.

On the Republican side of reconciliation there is perhaps the opportunity to set a very powerful and reasonable precedent. According to The Hill:

Republicans say they have found a loophole in the budget reconciliation process that could allow them to offer an indefinite number of amendments.

Though it has never been done, Sen. Jim DeMint (R-S.C.) says he’s prepared to test the Senate’s stamina to block the Democrats from using the process to expedite changes to the healthcare bill.
Experts on Senate procedural rules, from both parties, note that such a filibuster is possible. While reconciliation rules limit debate to 20 hours, senators lack similar constraints on amendments and could conceivably continue offering them until 60 members agree to cut the process off.

This action, if used, could set a long term precedent to be used by Senators seeking fiscal sanity. Lavish budgetary measures could be quashed if 41 Senators could be mustered to resist them. There is one pitfall, however, in that a minority of Senators could use the “amendment filibuster” to essentially hold hostage actual deficit reducing measures in order to force the funding of programs that might otherwise be cut.

When it comes to precedent, we can never be too careful. Long term repercussions can be hard to see, especially when one looks so short term as Republicans did in 1996 and as Democrats are now. Despite the need for caution and prudence, when the chance to set precedent that would allow for greater scrutiny and prudence to be used in the budget process, I say jump at the opportunity.