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Sunday, October 12, 2008
Saturday, October 11, 2008
Questions I'd Like To Ask The Presidential Candidates #2
In its May 2008 International Security Monthly Briefing The Oxford Research Group said:
“In its analysis of trends in global security, Oxford Research Group (ORG) has argued that there are four main factors that are likely to determine patterns of insecurity in the coming decades. These are:
· The widening socio-economic divide, leading to the marginalisation of the majority of the world’s people, even in the context of continuing economic growth.
· The impact of climate change, especially in terms of the impact on food production and supply in the tropical and sub-tropical regions.
· Competition over resources, especially energy resources and water.
· Processes of militarisation, especially the tendency to use military force to maintain the status quo rather than address underlying problems.”
The Bush administration’s record on the environment is abysmal.
The Wilderness Society, in their May 2006 report titled “Bush Administration Record on Public Lands: Irresponsible Management of the People's Land” said:
“By and large, the Bush administration has shown less legitimate interest in environmental protection. On issue after issue, the president and his appointees have created new threats to our air, water, land, and wildlife, siding with those special interests eager to make a quick profit. A large percentage of the president's appointees represented those interests before taking office. It is up to the American people and their representatives in Congress to turn back the administration's efforts to undermine environmental protection.”
"I think this administration is not a conservative administration. I think it’s a radical administration. It represents a radical rollback of environmental policy going back to a period many, many years ago. It’s backward."-- Russell Train, head of the Environmental Protection Agency under Richard Nixon
"When scientific knowledge has been found to be in conflict with its political goals, the administration has often manipulated the process through which science enters into its decisions." --- excerpted from a letter signed on February 18, 2004 by more than 60 leading scientists, including Nobel laureates, medical experts, and former federal agency directors, voicing their concern over the misuse of science by the Bush administration.
"Whitman said she thought they would be able to "leave America's air cleaner, its water purer and its land better protected than we had found it. That belief was short-lived."---Richmond Times Dispatch (Virginia), June 12, 2005, regarding Christine Todd Whitman, Former Head of the EPA under Bush. She also called Bush's opposition to Kyoto "an early expression of the go-it-alone attitude that so offended our allies in the lead-up to the Iraq war." (Toledo Blade, April 10, 2005).
The Bush administration, based on its wrong-headed policy of “starving the beast”(meaning cutting off funds to shrink government-most famously FEMA) has systematically gutted agency after agency of our federal government.
According to former U.S. Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Carol Browner "It is not simply a question of benign neglect – rather, it is actual destruction," Browner said. "They are systematically dismantling the system that has brought us progress."
Bush administration ideologically driven short-sightedness has compromised our national security. The U.S. government has recognized the linkage between the state of the global environment and American national security for over a decade. According to the 1996 National Security Science and Technology Strategy from The White House Office of Science & Technology Policy Excerpts from: "Meeting The Challenge of Global Threats"
“In 1996, for the first time, the National Security Strategy recognizes that "a number of transitional problems which once seemed quite distant, like environmental degradation, natural resource depletion, rapid population growth and refugee flows, now pose threats to our prosperity and have security implications for both present and long-term American policy."
Given the urgency of the issue I would ask the presidential candidates:
1. “Please define what ‘national security’ means to you”2. “ Describe the state of the Justice Department, The EPA, OSHA and the Department of Energy.”
3. “What will you do to restore these institutions of our government?”
4. “Will you take the lead in making rapid and meaningful changes to United States environmental policy?”
Questions I’d Like To Ask The Presidential Candidates #1
1. Is Taiwan Worth Going To War Over?
In July/August of 2007 I attended The Stanford Summit, a technology conference presented by an organization called Always On.
On Wednesday afternoon August 1 John McCain held a “Fireside Chat”.
Senator John McCain appeared before thousands of live attendees and webcast viewers Wednesday afternoon at the Stanford Summit. The would-be president laid down a number of promises he would act on immediately if elected. "Specifically on inaugural day, I would say we're going to close Guantanamo and move those prisoners to Ft. Leavenworth. I would say that we are never going to torture another person in American custody, and I would say we're going to be serious about climate change."
McCain also explained what it's like to fight in a failing war (Vietnam), and how Iraq is different. "What the Democrats have lost sight of is that presidents don't lose wars, and political parties don't lose wars; nations lose wars," he said. "I was in the military the last time we lost a war [...] we had huge problems. The military today is overstretched. It's incredible what we're asking of young people, but I'll tell you, it's a lot better than a defeated military." He accepted Interviewer Peter Robinson's characterization as the only candidate with a hunger for victory in Iraq.
Click here to watch McCain's stump speech, the entire interview (with the live, unfiltered chat that was projected on the big screen at the event), and the lively Q&A session that followed.
One of the question asked of Sen. McCain (minute 55 of the video) was “Senator, can you conceive of going to war with China over Taiwan?” Sen. McCain explained that he could not conceive of war between the United States and China under any circumstances due to the economic and social damage that China’s invasion would cause.
A follow up question asked a little later (minute 65:22 of the video) was asked by a Chinese man. He wanted to know (based upon his opinion that in the case of a Taiwanese declaration of independence the Chinese people would demand that the Chinese government take military action) how Sen. McCain would prevent Taiwan from declaring independence. Sen. McCain’s answer showed a frightening lack of understanding of the situation in The Taiwan Strait and of contemporary Chinese attitudes when he stated “when I speak to the leaders of China I find their attitude toward Taiwan “irrational”. As the questioner pressed his point Sen. McCain’s famous temper showed up and a rather animated exchange followed. Clearly Sen. McCain did not understand the strong nationalistic attitudes prevalent in China today.
“It doesn't matter if a cat is black or white, so long as it catches mice.” --- Deng Xiao Ping
While nationalism has long been deeply rooted in Chinese society it has never been stronger than it is today and nationalism has, to a great degree, replaced communism as a grand organizing philosophy as the acceptance of private ownership has replaced the concept of complete collective ownership in China’s modern “socialist market economy”.
With "To Get Rich Is Glorious" Deng Xiao Ping unleashed a wave of entrepreneurship and private enterprise that continues to drive China's economy today. With it the basic organizing philosophy that animates the Chinese people has changed to the quest for private ownership of homes, cars, consumer goods and all the rest of it.
Changes in China have not only been dramatic, they have been rapid. Imagine living in a society that has gone from the horrors of The Cultural Revolution to a rapidly emerging economy that just hosted an Olympics Games costing a reported $80 billion and registered 5 million new cars just last year, all in just some 50 years.
The Taiwan Strait, lying between mainland China and Taiwan is a mere 112 miles wide and is one of the most strategically important places on the planet. Most of Japan’s (one of China’s most bitter enemies) oil must pass through the strait and keeping the strait open and passage through it unfettered is of major strategic importance to Japan and to the United States; the US has pledged to defend not only Taiwan but Japan as well.
Obviously much has changed in a little over one year since McCain responded to those questions. Our military is bogged down in Iraq. Nearly 8 years of tragic and ruinous foreign policy America’s has left our ability to act strategically has greatly diminished.
So I would ask the question again: “Senator McCain, can you conceive of going to war with China over Taiwan?” I would also ask both candidates “Senators, if you were the leader of China wouldn’t you be thinking that this would be a very good time to just go and take Taiwan?”
More Reading:
Arvind Subramanian: A master plan for China to bail out America
Does Financial Crisis Threaten America's Central Role in Global Economy?The financial crisis: China's role - and responsibilities?
Deng's Legacy
Waving Goodbye To Hegemony
Friday, October 10, 2008
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