Bret Stephens writes: Now that Obama will soon to be standing in GW's shoes his pledge about change does not seem to be working in the foreign policy arena when viewed by his appointments. In fact, thinking seems to be about the same. (See 2 below.)
Watching Congressional Hearings involving Fannie and Freddie executives on TV is like watching the corrupt questioned by yhe incompetents. Best Congress money can buy.
No wonder Congress wants to bail out the auto industry. It is simply pay back for much of the inane legislation which forced the industry into the position they are in and the inability of management to restrain labor union demands because the latter had them over a barrel due to anti-trust laws.
Mr. Wagoner inherited GM's legacy mess. The height of hypocrisy is Dodd calling for Wagoner's resignation. Dodd doesn't know his ass from Shinola much less how to manage a complex company.Dodd would make a great poster boy for hypocrisy. (See 3 below.)
The New York Times, often known as the "Gray Lady," has become the faded and jaded lady. The Sulzberger family is now seeking a large loan to survive though not from the government. Mismanagement and turning into prostituting the news, coupled with the Internet's impact on ads and the classified section has brought loyal readership to a new low. Every newspaper has a right to be partisan but the New York Times went out of their way and is now paying the price.
Decline of written news is not a healthy condition in a democracy.
Interesting unreported election statistics. (See 4 below.)
Dick
1) Time to save Islam from jihadists
By Boaz Ganor
The terrorist attacks in Mumbai, which have been dubbed India's 9/11, illustrate the severity of the jihad terrorist threat, the cruelty of terrorists who believe they are fulfilling a divine commandment, and the determination of the jihadists to fight to the bitter end against those they consider infidels - whether Buddhists, Christians, Jews or even Muslims who oppose their extreme, violent version of Islam.
This severe attack targeted the very fabric of life in India, resulting in the death and injury of hundreds of innocent civilians, including local Indians and foreigners.
Azam Amir Kasav, the only terrorist captured in the attack, admitted that he and his friends were inspired by 9/11, which they considered Ginsburg, launched at various locations throughout the city.
The Mumbai terrorists, however, relied on a modus operandia hostage/barricade situation - uncommon to previous global jihad and al Qaeda attacks. It appears that the terrorists attempted to kill two birds with one stone; they wanted both to force the government to negotiate for prisoner release - in the process gaining extensive media coverage - and to execute lethal, indiscriminate attacks aimed at inspiring fear and anxiety among civilians and security personnel.
These attacks should not be considered classic suicide terrorism because their success did not depend on the death of the perpetrators. Yet it is clear that the terrorists were aware of the high likelihood of death and may have wanted to be considered martyrs (shahids) by their friends and families.
The Mumbai attacks not only demonstrate the severity of the jihadi terrorist threat but also highlight the soft belly of open democratic societies: endless potential targets. Modern, developed society cannot function when forced to contend with repeated terrorist campaigns.
To prevent such terrorist attacks, ongoing, precise, timely and reliable intelligence information is crucial. In addition, the Mumbai attacks demonstrate the need for efficient security personnel who can implement effective crisis management policies. It appears that Indian intelligence and security agencies failed in all these respects.
In India , the deadly fusion between local and global jihads was manifested in attacks launched both in the context of a territorial dispute over Kashmir and as part of an ongoing global jihadi campaign against Western tourism and interests.
One concept unites jihadi terrorist attacks around the world: The belief in a divine commandment that justifies jihadists to kill, kidnap, behead, commit arson and extort innocent civilians to express their religious-political grievances.
This is not Islam but a cynical, calculated misuse of Islam. One of the most crucial tasks facing the civilized world lies in understanding the rationale of jihadists: their calculation of costs and benefits. That understanding should serve as the basis of a sophisticated counterterrorism policy that neutralizes the capabilities of jihadist terrorism around the world and limits the motivations that fuel them.
This task will take years, maybe even generations. It will be costly and will demand out-of-the box thinking.
It is also not the responsibility of the United States alone to deal with this global growing threat, but rather the obligation of all of Western society and the civilized world, including - and perhaps primarily - the Muslim world itself, which stands revolted and terrified by the ideas and atrocities perpetrated by the jihadists. It is time for moderate Muslims to save Islam from the jihadists.
Boaz Ganor is the Koret Distinguished Visiting Fellow at Hoover Institution, Stanford University . He is the founder and executive director of the International Institute for Counter-Terrorism and deputy dean of the Lauder School of Government, Diplomacy and Strategy at the Interdisciplinary Center , Herzliya , Israel .
http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2008/12/05/EDNI14H87A.DTL
This article appeared on page B - 11 of the San Francisco Chronicl
2) Obama's Team of Conformists: A 'team of rivals' is of one foreign-policy mind.
By BRET STEPHENS
Much has been written about the "team of rivals" Barack Obama has assembled to shape his administration's foreign policy. Politically speaking, maybe there's something to this. Policy-wise, the differences are about as clear as those between tap and bottled water.
Here's a blind taste test. "A political dialogue with Iran should not be deferred until such a time as the deep differences over Iranian nuclear ambitions and its invidious involvement with regional conflicts has been resolved."
Was this candidate Obama, urging talks with Tehran without preconditions? Not at all: It is the recommendation of a 2004 Council on Foreign Relations-sponsored task force on Iran, led by Zbigniew Brzezinski and his erstwhile protege, Robert Gates.
This would be the same Robert Gates who spent months as a member of the bipartisan Iraq Study Group, which warned against deploying more troops. In a not-so-small irony of history, Mr. Gates was pulled from the ISG to lead the Defense Department -- and enjoy credit for the surge -- just weeks before the ISG's report became public.
The purpose here isn't to pick on Mr. Gates, who's proved to be a forceful secretary. It's merely to point out that Mr. Gates -- the Republican appointee who supposedly stands furthest politically from the president-elect -- doesn't stand far away at all, at least on two of the most significant issues of the day.
Now for another taste test: "Although we must not shy away from pushing for more democracy and accountability in Russia, we must work with the country in areas of common interest." Is this Mr. Obama's Russia policy, or Mrs. Clinton's? Hard to say, really, since the other candidate is of the identical view that "It is a mistake . . . to see Russia only as a threat. . . . We need to engage Russia selectively on issues of high national importance."
Also a member of Mr. Obama's foreign-policy team is former Marine Commandant James Jones. Not much is publicly known about the incoming national security adviser's views, except that he is said to have authored a paper (reportedly suppressed by the Bush administration) critical of Israel's security measures in the West Bank. Al Hunt of Bloomberg has also reported that Gen. Jones was "never a fan" of the Iraq War and that he advocates a relatively conciliatory line on Russia.
So where are the rivalries? What are the sharp policy disputes Mr. Obama will have to mediate and synthesize, of the kind that divided Colin Powell and Donald Rumsfeld, Paul Wolfowitz and Richard Armitage, John Bolton and Nicholas Burns?
Instead, Mr. Obama has assembled a team of intellectual clones. Not only that, it's one that neatly conforms to the same foreign-policy consensus that typified much of President Bush's second term: revival of the Arab-Israeli "peace process"; a diplomatic approach toward Iran; concessions to North Korea (with no serious expectation of genuine reciprocity); abandonment of what was once called the freedom agenda. As for Iraq, whatever differences there might have been are now moot, thanks to the surge and the passage last week of the status-of-forces agreement.
In this connection, it's somewhat startling to observe that if Ms. Rice had been retained by the new administration she would have fit right in. No doubt there are policy differences between the current secretary and her designated successor (though both of them supported the invasion of Iraq and later opposed the surge). But those differences are mainly of degree, or pace.
Thus, if Ms. Rice was edging closer to direct engagement with Iran with the idea of a U.S. interest section in Tehran, the Obama administration is likely to move quickly toward fuller normalization of ties. If re-engagement with Syria was somewhere on Ms. Rice's to-do list, it will move up a notch or two under Mrs. Clinton. If a third Bush term would have meant withdrawal from Iraq in two or three years, the Obama team will probably bring most of the troops home six months earlier.
Some commentators, including many conservatives, find this kind of continuity reassuring. Yet, surge aside, it's worth recalling what a dreary time the last few years have been for U.S. foreign policy: Lebanon's capitulation to Hezbollah; the failure to slow Iran's nuclear programs; the de facto U.S. acquiescence to Russia's Georgia adventure; the betrayal of democracy activists such as Egypt's Ayman Nour, who has languished in prison for the crime of contesting a presidential election.
Yes, this is President Bush's record. But it is not the neocon record that Mr. Obama and Mrs. Clinton ran against in their presidential campaigns and that supposedly accounts for our current predicaments. On the contrary, it is a product of the very foreign-policy "realism" that Ms. Rice gradually made her own as secretary of state, and that the Obama team now looks set to carry forward, with a few adjustments, into the next term.
So much for change we can believe in. So much, too, for the second coming of the Lincoln administration. Say what you will about Mr. Obama's team, it's conformist and conventional. Except, of course, for Joe Biden, the house Cassandra.
3) Race on to finalize auto deal
By David Shepardson and Gordon Trowbridge
Sen. Levin says backing from Bush, Obama is key to passage; Sen. Dodd calls for Wagoner to quit.
Lawmakers and the White House on Sunday raced to finalize $15 billion in short-term government loans for Detroit's automakers amid signs longer-term aid may require changes in top management, including the possible replacement of General Motors Corp. CEO Rick Wagoner.
The Senate could vote on a bailout bill that could keep GM and Chrysler LLC from imminent collapse as early as Wednesday; the main hurdle seems to be convincing enough Senate Republicans to go along.
Sen. Carl Levin, D-Detroit, said the key to passage will be getting President George W. Bush and President-elect Barack Obama to endorse the bill that could emerge today. "A lot will depend on how strongly they weigh in," Levin told The Detroit News Sunday. "It's really important for the president-elect to take a position when it is finally drafted in the next 24 hours."
Obama said he supported the idea of immediate assistance for automakers, with conditions. "Millions of people, directly or indirectly, are reliant on that industry, and so I don't think it's an option to simply allow it to collapse," Obama told NBC's "Meet the Press" in an interview shown Sunday. "What we have to do is to provide them with assistance, but that assistance is conditioned on them making significant adjustments. They're going to have to restructure, and all their stakeholders are going to have to restructure."
Sen. Debbie Stabenow, D-Lansing, said congressional Democrats had commitments for about half of the 12 Senate GOP votes they need. She said lawmakers were still negotiating the provisions necessary to sway Republicans.
More details emerged Sunday on tough restructuring conditions that would be attached to the money, which is intended to help the struggling automakers survive through March 31, and other as-yet-undisclosed conditions could be added to garner enough votes, Stabenow said.
Democratic aides said late Sunday that changes to a draft bill include banning carmakers who accept government aid from suing states trying to impose their own emissions limits. Detroit's automakers and their foreign rivals have opposed state standards because of the complexity they would add to designing and building vehicles. Some lawmakers suggested the bill only stop automakers from using government funds to sue.
Focus on new management
At the same time, the possibility of top management changes gained steam.
In Chicago Sunday, when asked if the automakers' top executives should resign, Obama said they should if they don't "understand the urgency of the situation" and are "not willing to make the tough choices and adapt to these new circumstances." He spoke after Chris Dodd, D-Conn., chairman of the Senate Banking Committee, said he was hopeful Congress would pass short-term aid for the carmakers, but any longer-term help should require significant restructuring, including Wagoner's ouster. "You've got to consider new leadership," Dodd said on CBS' "Face the Nation." Of Wagoner, he said, "I think he has to move on."
He also said congressional leaders believe Chrysler needs to combine with another automaker. "Chrysler is, I think, basically gone, probably ought to be merged," Dodd said.
GM on Sunday expressed its support for Wagoner, who has been in the job since 2000.
"While we appreciate Senator Dodd's efforts on behalf of the U.S. auto industry, the employees of General Motors, its dealers, its suppliers and its Board of Directors all support Rick Wagoner and are confident he is the person to lead GM through these difficult times," GM spokesman Steve Harris said.
On Friday, GM board member Kathryn Marinello strongly defended Wagoner in an interview with The Detroit News. "He is the only person that can keep the automotive industry alive in America," Marinello said.
Levin said he thought the decision of whether the automakers need new leadership should be left to a government administrator or shareholders, not Congress.
Holdouts remain
Automakers are seeking $34 billion in emergency loans and lines of credit. GM says it needs $4 billion by the end of the month to survive through Jan. 31, while Chrysler needs $4 billion to survive through March 31. GM says it needs $10 billion to $15 billion in total to survive through March 31. Ford Motor Co. has said it does not need immediate aid but wants access to a $9 billion line of credit to tap if the economy worsens.
Opposition remains to any kind of aid. Levin appeared on Fox News Sunday with Sen. Richard Shelby, R-Ala., the top Republican on the Senate Banking Committee and a leading critic of any federal bailout of the car companies.
"This is a bridge loan to nowhere," said Shelby, who blames the Detroit automakers for their woes. "This is a down payment on many billions to come. They've got to compete. They can't compete."
A breakthrough in winning the aid came Friday when House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., dropped her insistence that the money come from the $700 billion Wall Street rescue fund. She instead agreed with the White House and congressional Republicans to tap a Department of Energy loan program intended to help automakers retool to develop more fuel efficient vehicles.
Her reversal came as the nation shed 533,000 jobs in November -- the highest monthly decline since 1974 -- raising fears that the unemployment situation would only worsen if an automaker failed.
Environmentalists are angry the aid would come from the retooling program, though Pelosi has vowed to replenish it next year. "Walking away from a commitment to greater fuel efficiency isn't in America's or Detroit's larger, longer-term interests," said Phyllis Cuttino, director of the U.S. Global Warming Campaign for the Pew Environment Group.
Aid to come with strings
Any government aid will come with significant conditions.
The White House on Friday proposed the creation of a "Financial Viability Advisor" who could award emergency loans to automakers and have legal authority to ensure the companies take significant restructuring steps.
Stabenow said that person -- or a "trustee" -- will likely be the Treasury secretary or his designee. "It's the quickest way to get financial support" to automakers, Stabenow said. Levin said the administrator could also be housed in the Commerce Department.
Democrats wanted input on who would be named as a "car czar" but appear to be dropping that; Obama takes over in 43 days. They are also weighing the creation of an oversight board for the automakers that accept aid; the board would include four or five Cabinet secretaries.
Automakers also would have to agree to strict limits on executive compensation and bonuses and a ban on the use of loans to pay dividends, Stabenow said, and they would have to give the government stock warrants in exchange for loans. The government would be a "first-tier lien holder" in the event automakers can't repay loans.
Restructuring moves likely to be tied to federal help also include winning concessions from shareholders, debtholders and the United Auto Workers, which is owed about $35 billion by automakers starting next year to fund a trust to be managed by the union to pay for hourly retiree health care. GM owes about $21 billion, including a $7 billion payment next year.
UAW President Ron Gettelfinger said Sunday on ABC's "This Week" the union agreed to delay the timing of payments into the trust and has been making repeated concessions since 2005. But many in Congress want the UAW to take less or accept some of those payments in stock, concessions the union hasn't been willing to make.
Even with aid, automakers will face difficult decisions and sharply declining auto sales, which fell 37 percent in November; Wagoner said last week that demand could fall so far in January the automaker may have to cut production 50 percent over 2008 levels.
In a restructuring plan GM submitted to Congress last week, the carmaker said it plans to cut another 21,000 to 31,000 jobs and close 9 plants by 2012, cut labor costs, shrink or sell four brands, and renegotiate and reduce its total debt by $35.6billion.
4) NTERESTING FACTS: Some unreported stats about the 2008 election
Professor Joseph Olson of Hemline, University School of Law, St. Paul, Minnesota, points out some interesting facts concerning the 2008 Presidential election:
Number of states won by: Democrats: 20; Republicans: 30
Square miles of land won by: Democrats: 580,000; Republicans: 427,000
Population of counties won by: Democrats: 127 million; Republicans: 43 million
Murder rate per 100,000 residents in counties won by: Democrats: 13, Republicans: 2.1
Professor Olson adds: "In aggregate, the map of the territory Republicans won was mostly the land owned by the taxpaying citizens. Democrat territory mostly encompassed those citizens living in rented or government-owned tenements and living off various forms of government welfare..." Olson believes the United States is now somewhere between the "complacency and apathy" phase of ProfessorTyler's definition of democracy, with some forty percent of the nation's population already having reached the 'governmental dependency' phase."
The original posting with this information is in Newsweek article at this link: http://www.newsweek.com/id/163337
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