It seems to me that there are three strands of thought concerning the proper partition of the former British Mandate of Israel and the "occupied" territories.

In Israel there seems to be agitation for a two-state solution, with the exact borders undetermined at this point.  This view is held by parties as disparate as Likud and Labor. 

There is also the one-state solution, held by some in Israel, where there is no Palestinian state.  It seems, however, that most have come around to the idea that isolating Palestinian leadership and making them responsible for the success or (likely) failure of their state is the better solution.  It permits Israel to cease propping up a failed state within its own borders.

On the other side, there is another one state solution, wherein Israel does not exist.  There are, no doubt, Palestinians who favor a two state solution, but they are rather "silent", to put it mildly (the Palestinian People's Party, for example, has the Minister of Culture).  The major parties of Palestine's "government" are Fatah and HAMAS, both of whom deny Israel's right to exist.  This makes for a rather untenable negotiating position.

""Israel wants to pursue peace through negotiations toward a two-state solution, but how can we do that with a government that won't renounce terror or even recognize our very right to exist [?]" said [Israeli government spokesperson Miri] Eisin."

The Israel Project has published a guide to the new government.  Of the 25 cabinet members, 12 are HAMAS and six are Fatah, with the remaining seven made up of minor party members (most of whom also don't recognize Israel's right to exist).  It's like a government made up of Abu Abbas, Abu Nidal, al-Zawahri, UBL, ad nauseam.  Does anyone think such a government has anything in mind other than the destruction of Israel? 

Because I'm a Zionist, Neo-con warmonger (or something like that) I periodically receive e-mails from The Israel Project.  I received an e-mail with a link to state investment ties to entities associated with terrorist-sponsoring nations.

From the executive summary (emphasis in original):

""Terrorism Investments of the 50 States” is the first national security-based statistical analysis of the investment patterns of America’s public pension funds. This report proves empirically that this nation’s largest and most prominent public pension systems tend to be heavily invested in global publicly traded companies that have business activities in terrorist-sponsoring states."

It makes for some interesting reading.

A defense of Governor Tim Pawlenty, (R-MN).

Gov. Pawlenty is excoriated by many (conservatives) for raising all manner of taxes and user fees over the course of his administration, now in its second term.

I contend that, while the intention: condemning tax raises, is correct, the target is wrong.

The thing about the cigarette taxes and assorted user fees is that they are taxes on consumption.  One can, theoretically avoid them, either by not using the item in question, or by some other stratagem.  While fees are, no doubt, effectively, taxes, merely calling something a tax does not automatically mean it is inherently evil (bear with me here, I know it's hard).

Taxes on consumption, as opposed to income taxes and other taxes on production, discourage consumption and encourage saving and investment.  Taxes on production penalize hard work and ingenuity, while discouraging saving and investing.  

This is the entire point behind the Fair Tax proposal, which seeks to reform our antiquated income tax system and replace it with something which is not, inherently, destructive to the economy.

If the choice is between raising income taxes and raising user fees, and considering that this is Minnesota, this is a likely dilemma, the choice should always come down on raising user fees.

That said, the best way to balance a budget is to cut spending.  Reforming the tax system to not penalize ingenuity and hard work should also be a goal.  The national tax system will never be reformed until a state tax system is reformed and demonstrated to work (politicians are remarkably dim-witted, for the most part).  Welfare was not reformed until Gov Thompson demonstrated that it could work.  Former Gov Bush's Medicare reforms in Florida are now used to argue for a top-down reform.  Other governors are attempting other ways of dealing with the Medicare explosion.

This is the genius of American federalism: each state can (and, because state politicians oftentimes see themselves as future national politicians, often does) experiment to find solutions.  Granted, a solution that works in California (like any such thing is possible, but for the sake of argument) will not work in North Dakota.  Demographic, economic, legal, cultural, and constitutional differences limit the applicability.  That said, a state solution will provide a basis for a federal solution (which is virtually always getting the he11 out of the way).

In sum, Gov Pawlenty has so many other points at which to attack him from the right (that disease of a over-subsidized Metro, for one), there isn't a need to attack him for raising fees.

Side note: I've seen an AEI study referenced which stated that roughly 65% of revenues collected by the U.S. income tax system are consumed by the operating costs of the regime.  I haven't been able to find the study itself, despite looking for it periodically (bleg, please).  Considering that taxes are collected by employers and filed by citizens, this seems insane, to put it mildly.  Assuming this is accurate, anyone under the impression that the federal government is an ideal "charitable" organization and competent to provide for the poor, elderly, and infirm is clearly smoking something wicked.

A Sunday Telegraph article by Niall Ferguson is rather disconcerting, considering Ferguson's previous writings (see here, for a list).  H/t David Frum.

""As kinetic energy," he [the fascistically inclined American general in Norman Mailer's Second World War novel The Naked and the Dead] explains to Mailer's doomed hero, "a country is organisation, co-ordinated effort... fascism... The purpose of this war is to translate America's potential into kinetic energy... America is going to absorb that dream, it's in the -business of doing that now." It was precisely that fascist contamination which after the war produced McCarthyism and reinvigorated racism in the South."

A couple concerns here: reinvigorated racism?  and, the second world war produced McCarthyism (a concern to root out Soviet agents in the State Department)?

"Now we can see the process of contamination at work again - though in this case, intriguingly, it is a process of mutual contamination."

(The bit about "mutual contamination" is explained at the end of the article and refers to "force multipliers" used by AQ and related ilk, rather than the outstandingly offensive way the phrase seems to read). 

What has Niall Ferguson taken to smoking?

Ferguson later refers to the bizarre list of targets, including former President Carter, Pope John Paul II, and (then current) President Clinton.  These targets would be bizarre if Ramzi Yousef hadn't attempted to assassinate President Clinton and Pope John Paul II on visits to Manila (cf. Simon Reeve, The New Jackels, or Yousef Bodansky, Bin Ladin: The man who declare war on America).  Has Ferguson been living under a rock?  Or is he just writing out of his depth?  (And am I a fine one to talk...?)

""I know American people are torturing us from Seventies," Mohammed [KSM] later declares. "I know they talking about human rights. And I know it is against American Constitution, against American laws." These words remind us that there is something rotten at the heart of this system of military justice."

KSM is not a prisoner of war.  He is not a legal combatant, but he was captured on the field of battle.  Legally, he's lucky he's given any hearing, let alone one which could send him back to the battlefield, like so many of his released comrades in arms.  (And that bit about "from Seventies" is cute, considering his intellectual predecessors, and present sponsors in Iran were the ones torturing westerners in Beruit and seizing an embassy in Tehran).

"Here we see Mailer's law of the osmosis of war at work: the indiscriminate terrorists who perpetrated 9/11 have elicited from the United States an equally indiscriminate response. The guilty and the innocent are thrown into military prisons. Military retaliation too has been indiscriminate, not least in Iraq."

Obviously "indiscriminate" means something different to Ferguson, than it does to the rest of the world (the rape of the English language is a particular pet peeve of mine).  Indiscriminate means "not marked by careful disctinction", and "haphazard, random".  Despite the claims of many on the left (and pollsters), Iraq was never sold as being connected to 9/11.  Iraq was sold as a nation, which was pursuing WMD, and had connections to terrorists: the nexus of which being too dangerous to continue to permit in a post-9/11 world.  The use of force resolution denotes 23 separate whereas's, none of which claim Iraq co-operated with UBL, or claimed that Iraq posed an imminent threat, or anything of the kind.  Under Townhall's old format I parsed the entire resolution, whereas by whereas, and I'd hate to have to do so again.

The response to 9/11 was never intended or sold as strictly limited to those responsible for 9/11 (otherwise the Taliban would not have been a legitimate target), but was intended to take the fight to the terrorists and their sponsors.  Iraq was merely the most convenient (we already had troops there, we were already engaging in overflights and bombings, and Iraq did not have a sponsor with over one billion citizens).

(This bit kind of builds off of Force and Violence, the preceding post)

I've gotten behind on my dead-tree NR, so forgive me if I reference a Mark Steyn column (Happy Warrior) from a couple issues ago.

 

Dilbert Archive
I find this is an excellent idea when confronting Congress.  Jean Paul Sartre may have been a communist, but his "Hell is other people" comment, when applied to politicians, is spot on. 

The Root of evil begins addressing the theme of Israel being used as an excuse for the political pathologies that exist in many, if not most, Muslim nations.  I had a thought and posted a comment on my own post (sad, yes), but thought I should expand on the theme, if possible.  Possible for me at any rate.  I saw a variation on this at NRO last week.

The political pathologies endemic in the Muslim world are given a scapegoat in the entity of the state of Israel: a small nation of roughly 6million.  These are nations that lack freedom of association and freedom of the press, two natural rights necessary to building up democratic institutions.  These are nations that lack checks on the tyrannies that "govern" them, which incubates corruption, which further discourages the economic freedom necessary to build a stable middle class.  The failure to enable a middle class condemns the nation to a real divide of haves and have-nots, which given the other political pathologies, creates a volatile situation, susceptible to demagoguery.  Witness, for example, the 1979 seizure of the Grand Mosque in Mecca.  Or the Iranian Revolution, for that matter.

This scapegoat is a relative of modern leftist thought, in which one is not responsible for one's own actions because one is driven to them by outside forces. It is akin to denying free-will, but under a different guise.  The appeal to the existence of Israel as the source of ills in the Muslim world enables the leaders of these nations to shift the sight of those under the boot of those tyrants.  It gives them someone else to hate...someone who is not the person who is brutally oppressing the people.

This inability to accept responsibility for the failures of their autocracies manifests itself in these nations' irresponsible foreign policy: exporting terrorism; apologizing for tyrants; WMD proliferation; and the like.  Not only do these nations create powderkegs in their own countries, but they also export the means of destabilizing the rest of the region.  They need a relief valve to get rid of their unemployed, educated youth: send them to Afghanistan to fight the Soviets.  Once the Soviets have left, those mujahideen need a new war.  Chechnya.  Bosnia.  Kosovo.  Iraq.  Somalia.  Sudan.   Et cetera.  The need for the relief valve still exists, and those previously trained still need wars to fight.

The scapegoating of Israel is a symptom of the pathologies that already exist.

And this is good news.

" ...[Iran] planned to modify its Shahab-3 missile, which Iran says has a range of about 2,000 km (1,250 miles), to launch satellites."

I'm sure that's the only possible use for a 2000km range rocket.

Poltical oppresion, lack of religious freedom, lack of a free press or free speech, endemic corruption, and stagnant economies.  What do these things have in common?

Israel.

A meeting in Mecca between the foreign ministers of seven Muslim nations and the Secretary General of the Oganization of the Islamic Conference  has concluded that a solution to the problems of the Near East lies in solving the "Palestinian Issue".

"Durable peace in the Middle East demands an honorable solution of the Palestinian issue based on justice, equity, and realism, which must be in accordance with the wishes and aspirations of the Palestinian people," [Pakistan Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz] said.

If the Palestinian kleptocracy was interested in co-existing with a strong nation of Israel, then I might be convinced.  HAMAS, however, is dedicated to the destruction of Israel and is dedicated to using terrorist tactics.  Fatah is also dedicated to the destruction of Israel, but only in a phased manner, and Fatah also uses terrorist tactics.

Until Arab nations stop using Israel as an excuse for the problems of their own countries, they'll never be able to confront their own problems.

Then again, that's the point.

Incumbant president Wade believes that he can win in the first round.  Against 14 challengers.

It's like a primary 18 months early (before Vilsack and the like drop out).  The opposition feels that a first round victory is not possible without fraud.

I cannot imagine corruption in the third world.

That said, Wade's victory in 2000 ended four decades of socialist rule. 

A rundown of several of the leading contenders is found here.  Aside from Abdoulaye Wade, the leading contenders are Ousmane Tanor Dieng, a diplomat by training, Moustapha Niasse, also a diplomat, and Idrissa Seck, a former protege of Wade.  In a tactic typical of corrupt third world countries, Seck has previously spent six months in jail for threatening state security, after his break with Wade.

 
This is funny.  Apparently it's likely a send-up, but it's still funny.  H/t the Corner (from the Weekly Standard).

The one on the right is the Israel Defense Minister, Amir Peretz.

It is U.S. assertiveness that threatens those who fear America.

It is analogous to individual self-defense. Individuals give up the right to pursue their own justice by being members of society, but they retain the natural right to defend themselves or others from harm. Much of the internationalist left views the world as a society of nations and each nation forfeits the right to seek its own justice outside that society of nations. If there were an international police force this might work, but there is not an international police force. It also ignores the basic right of self-defense that a nation, like an individual, possesses.

Nations which refuse to recognize the imaginary and illusory "international law", or, rather, do not substitute “international law” for their own interests are dangerous to the fiction of international order. If there is such an order, considering the nations that gain condemnation and those that do not, I’ve no desire to be a party to it.

Without the ability to use coercive force, no international body is capable of being that “policeman”. All nations are free to disregard international dicta and suffer nothing but “disapproval”, at worst. Hussein gained defenders for his disregard for the “will” of the Security Council. Mr. Kim has successfully extorted more aid for the nation he has impoverished (and he’ll likely behave the same way he did after the 1994 agreement). Ahmadinejad has nothing to fear: the PRC and Russia will support him, being more concerned with short-term considerations, than they are with the export of the Iranian Revolution, i.e. in Chechnya and the Turkic former Soviet Republics.

In the end, a nation that acts as a nation-state, and pursues its own interests, regardless of “international” opinion, gives the lie to the pleasant fiction of “international order”.  This threatens the worldview of the "internationalist left", who see supra-national organizations as the last, best hope for mankind.  Err, sorry.  Humankind.

To this end, the will of each nation-state must be subverted in favor of the will of our very own philosopher-kings, who know what is best for us. See, for example, global warming…check that, global climate change, to witness the religion that our philosopher-kings feed us.

For preceding discussion see Multi-polarity (or just scroll down the page.  It's up to you).

For now, I'm just going to recommend an editorial that appeared the the Australian publication, The Age, 17 Feb 2007.

Three sample paragraphs:

On a superficial level it is easy to argue that Iraq could become another Vietnam. Here was a war created by the invasion of another country and a conflict that produced huge numbers of casualties, many of them civilians. Here, too, was the sight of a superpower being humbled. But there the comparisons end.

The North Vietnamese People's Army was not a ragtag and bobtail outfit but a well trained and organised army with a reliable command structure backed by a committed Marxist philosophy. Against it, the US forces suffered casualties that make the losses suffered in Iraq pale in comparison. By the time of the Tet offensive in 1968, US casualties (killed, wounded and missing) had reached 80,000 and there was no sign of the war being won.

Even so, Tet was not decisive. Although the North Vietnamese caught the US on the hop, the offensive was eventually brought under control and the situation was restored.

Trevor Royle, the author of the piece, cogently and dispassionately examines the issues. It is an all-together well-written and argued piece--the sort of thing I usually see in the National Review.

Italian PM Prodi resigned after losing a vote on foreign policy.

The coalition which placed Prodi in the office of Prime Minister is a combination of center-left and far left, with elements who consider even the battle in Afghanistan as an American war that Italy should not be a part of.

Berlusconi hasn't signaled whether or not he would join the race should an early election be called.

Germany, which currently has a grand coalitional government, is largely hamstrung by the nature of its government makeup.  Italy's fragile coalition is hindering its foreign policy formation.  Granted, Italy has not had a history of stable governments, so this isn't a surprise.  France is headed for an interesting election this spring, with Sarkozy facing Royal.  Blair, in England, has drawn fire for years, with Gordon Brown waiting in the wings to replace Blair.

It's interesting how one of the major fault lines in all these countries is the United States, either pro- or con-.  It's not, however, so much the U.S., but rather what the U.S. represents as an assertive, responsible, nation-state willing to act in its own interests. 

Would the U.S. behave the same way if the U.S. were not the sole super-power?  Rather, would the U.S. be willing to act on its own to defend its interests in a multi-polar world?

We may find out sooner than we'd like, with the PRC continuing to grow and modernize its economy, while doing the same for its military.  Chavez seeks to build a coalition of third world dictatorships to counter the U.S.  Such a coalition could not challenge the U.S. conventionally, but ties to terrorism would serve as a force multiplier. 

The EU, led by France and Germany (and likely any England not led by Blair), also moves to act as a counterbalance to U.S. power.  The EU, however, lacks the necessary military might to act as a counter-balance in a meaningful sense.  Add to this the notion that democracies tend to not go to war, but rather settle differences diplomatically, and it seems unlikely the EU would actually act as a counter-balance, but the EU could serve as another pole in a multi-polar world.

What is hastening this multi-polar world is the fact that the appearance of the U.S. does not match reality.  The EU sees the U.S. as a war-mongering threat to the world.  The PRC views the U.S. as a nation that can be bullied and scammed, as evidenced by the PRC's actions concerning the U.S. observation plane in 2001, and the PRC's playing both ends against the middle on the Korean peninsula.  Chavez sees the U.S. as a nation intent on forcing its will on the rest of the world.  Ahmadinejad and his ilk see the U.S. as a paper tiger/weak horse, who speaks loudly and carries a toothpick, and can be ignored with impunity. 

The UN...the UN General Assembly is a haven of dictators, tramps, and thieves which couldn't agree on the color of shite.  The only things the UN Gen'l Assy can agree on is that Israel is a pox on the world and the U.S. is a warmongering disease that should give money to everyone and apologize for existing.  These are not helpful resolutions.  The Security Council is made up of members who cannot get along, thereby guaranteeing that real action cannot be taken.

So, would the U.S. be willing to act in its interests if the U.S. were not the sole superpower?  I'd imagine so.  The U.S. does not appear to believe that it is the world's sole superpower.  Witness the U.S.'s deference to the EU on Iran, the U.S.'s deference to the PRC on North Korea, or the U.S.'s deference to the UN and the African Union on Darfur and East Africa.  Is this the behavior of a nation which believes itself to be the sole superpower?

The U.S. is a bogeyman to some, an ideal (tarnished or not) to others, and the birthplace of Constitutional democracy.  So long as the U.S. is committed to remaining a nation-state, the U.S. will be disliked by some, and feared by others.  The key is to make sure that we are disliked by the right people: Mugabe, Ahmadinejad, Kim, Nasrallah, Chavez, Castro, et cetera.