Friedman Rebut

Folks,

Kind students often recommend I improve myself with wider readings, and
recently I was asked to enjoy a book by Thomas Freidman, a New York Times
Foreign Editor. I recalled the name, and before I bought the book I thought
I would reacquaint myself with his work. Well, I went to the NYT website and
picked a recent column relating to Int'l commerce and instantly got in a
fight with his views. His column starts and my comments are the ***xxx***
interspersed with his column. To wit:

You can think about the tug of war between the Republicans and President
Clinton over the State Department's budget in a lot of ways. I prefer to
think about it like this: Out of every dollar spent by the U.S. government
each year, about one penny goes to pay for our embassies and diplomats
abroad, democracy support programs, denuclearizing Russia, foreign loans and
foreign aid. One penny. The Republicans now want to take that penny and cut
it back more.


***Sigh...the difference between the reps and dems is so small as to be
negligible...but anyway, nobody is disputing whether money should be used
supporting our diplomats, just supporting programs overseas, like population
control, which is deeply offensive in Moslem and Hindu worlds. Anyway, if
these costs were cut, an American paying 20,000 in taxes would get $200 back,
which would build America rather that be wasted overseas.***


One might have understood this if the U.S. economy were doing poorly or if
the U.S. were not the keystone of the whole international system.


***We became the keystone when we were trustworthy because we did not involve
ourselves in in other countries affairs...we are now hated because we meddle
and pick sides. It was not always thus. And the US economy is NOT doing
well...it is gripped by a mania brought on by cheap credit, one for which
like Japan and Asia, we will be paying for sorely.****


And one might have understood this if the Republicans were acting out of some
coherent global strategy. But they aren't. Rather, the Republicans' drive to
cut the foreign operations budget by 15 percent, or $2 billion, below what
Mr. Clinton is seeking (he vetoed their budget Monday) is all part of a cheap
gimmick led by the House majority whip, Tom DeLay, and his merry band of
right-wing nuts, whose only guiding principle in world affairs is: "Dumb as
we wanna be."


***There is no information here, just an ad hominen attack.****


Think about it for a second. What possible foreign policy strategy would
prompt a Republican lawmaker to want to reduce by some $300 million the
amount of money the U.S. spends on its Expanded Threat Reduction Initiative,
which pays for taking apart Russian nukes and chemical weapons and employing
Russian nuclear scientists in commercial fields so they won't go to work for
Iran or Iraq?


***Because not a cent of that money gets to its intended purpose. The
scientists are working for the Iraqis anyway. And Iraqis want to kill
Americans because Americans kill Iraqis. Iraqis are quite upset April
Glaspie told Hussein himself we had no interest in Iraq's dispute with
Kuwait. When Kuwait, assured of USA support, continued to drill for oil under
Iraq, and Hussein settled their hash, Bush reversed course and attacked,
killing countless Iraqis. Of course they want to kill us. We turn on our
friends.***


What possible foreign policy strategy would prompt him to want to reduce by
37 percent the funds the U.S. deposits in the global development banks, which
are promoting capitalism in Africa and Latin America by lending to small
businesses so they become America's customers?


****These programs are proven counter-productive. Why continue them? If we
give people money to buy from us, they are hardly "customers". If we make
things they want to and can buy, then they are customers. I am not a
customer of Ferrari because I cannot offord that luxury., Should the Italian
taxpayers change that by sending me money to buy a Ferrari?****


What possible foreign policy strategy would say, "Let's help Israelis and
Palestinians reach an agreement at Wye, but then not give them the money we
promised to help them institute it -- even though we know, as Mr. Clinton
said, that the cheapest Mideast war would cost us far more than the most
expensive peace"?


****Within Israel, one strong view is Israel never quite achieves peace
because Israel can always count on USA to back any Israeli terror in the
middle east. Therefore, some Israelis argue, all USA aid to Israel needs to
be cut off, and they will learn to get along. This makes sense to me.****


It's no wonder that pro-Israel lobbies on Capitol Hill are deeply distraught
about where the Republican Party is heading today, since the G.O.P. seems
determined to shrink the foreign operations budget. The Republican strategy
is to silence the Jews by giving Israel its full foreign aid allotment (but
not the Wye supplement) and cutting everyone else. But Jewish groups
understand that this will only isolate Israel and eventually imperil its aid
too.


***"pro-Israeli....silence the Jews...turn that around: "It's no wonder that
Jews on Capitol Hill are deeply distraught about where the Republican Party
is heading today, since the G.O.P. seems determined to shrink the foreign
operations budget. The Republican strategy is to silence the pro-Israel lobby
by giving Israel its ..." His is dishonest rhetoric, but now let's look at
the substance...Yassir Arafat Has sold out to USA handouts...if that is cut,
Israel is in trouble...therefore, if we support Israel, we have to support
the other side too. Back to an earlier point...cut them both off.****


The fact is, DeLay & Co. have no adult supervision anymore. Republican
internationalists like Bob Dole and Newt Gingrich are gone; Trent Lott and
Dennis Hastert together don't add up to zero; George W. is still learning
basic geography; and Ronald Reagan, who built up our foreign affairs budget
because he knew how critical it was, is now a fading memory. The G.O.P. is
led by people with no sense of how important America is to the world, both as
an example and as a stabilizer. Bill Clinton has made the Republicans crazy.


***Since when does Friedman Like Gingrich and Reagan? But this is another ad
hominem attack. No substance or analysis.***


So to embarrass Mr. Clinton, the Republicans have decided to pit the State
Department budget against Social Security and to say that if you are for
giving money to Ghana you are for taking it away from Grandma. The foreign
operations budget, says Mr. DeLay, "will come straight out of the pockets of
American seniors." Hogwash. There is no more direct connection between Social
Security and foreign aid than there is between Social Security and the Marine
Band.


***Well, yes there is...it all comes from taxpayers pockets.****



But who cares? As Representative Sonny Callahan said during the House debate,
back home in Alabama "when I say, 'Folks, I voted against increasing foreign
aid,' they seem to like that."


***What is his point? Alabamans are renown morons? They cannot think?
Their are not entitled to their opinions?****


Yes sir, I bet they do. But when the next Alabama exporter shows up in some
country and needs help from the embassy commercial officer but the job has
been cut;


***No exporter worth a hoot depends on a commercial officer***


when the next U.S. embassy gets blown up because the world despises an
America that tells everyone what to do but won't pay its U.N. dues;


***American embassies are blown up because USA wont pay UN dues?, or is it
because USA military shoots down moslem passenger airliners, bombs moslem
aspirin factories, starves moslem children in economic boycotts, and so on?
If we really care to know why we are hated, we could either ask or read their
newspapers. I do.***


when a Russian-designed nuke shows up in Iran; when an environmental disaster
in Mexico washes up on Alabama's shores, we'll see how much the people of
Alabama like that.


***This is not an adult writing.***


They might just say: "You mean we could have prevented this with just one
penny out of every budget dollar, and we cut the penny? Who was the idiot who
did that?"


***We spent the penny and caused untold suffering distorting markets
worldwide...just one penny of our tax dollar is a huge distortion when it
shows up in the economy of the countries targeted, such as Ghana or Somalia.
We wont see justice and peace until we stop sending those pennies.***


John Spiers

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