A Tale of Two Cities — the Big Easy and the Huge Messy — Will Define the Bush Legacy

"It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair, we had everything before us, we had nothing before us…"
— Charles Dickens’ “A Tale of Two Cities”

In the immediate aftermath of Katrina – as the world learned that it was largely the poor and the destitute that got left behind in New Orleans – The Washington Post reported, “The poverty rate climbed in 2004 to 12.7 percent, from 12.5 percent in 2003 -- the fourth year in a row that poverty has risen.” After falling throughout the Clinton presidency, from a ten-year high of 15.1% in 1993 to a 27-year low of 11.3% in 2000, the poverty rate resumed its upward march during President George W. Bush’s first term. This climb has been analogous to the hike in the poverty rate through much of his father’s term (1990-92), which had then followed a near identical (to Clinton) slide in the poverty rate during the Reagan “seven fat years (1983-89)”. Coincidentally, Hurricane Andrew, which devastated the southern Florida peninsula and south-central Louisiana in 1992, had been the most expensive natural disaster in United States history prior to Hurricane Katrina. It would seem to me that the Bush Karma, which I wrote about in my recent book, “The Bush Diaries”, continues to dog this presidency.

As the President now simultaneously grapples with the myriad problems of having to manage a war abroad and a crisis of gargantuan proportions at home, he might want to come to terms with the implications of this biblical prophecy:

“Whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap.” – Galatians 6:7

In the light of the Bush Administration’s dismal performance in the wake of Katrina, whose progress had been closely monitored and whose after-effects had been widely anticipated, it’s only logical that a majority of American citizens are expressing “shock and awe” at the gross incompetence of the Bush Administration. It might have taken President Bush seven long minutes to get off his chair in that Florida elementary school after being informed about a second plane hitting the World Trade Center, but this time around it took him closer to 7000 minutes after Katrina had made landfall to finally show up in New Orleans!

It’s quite apparent, from his recent televised address to the nation from the Big Easy, that President Bush has realized that his legacy is going to be determined by the "tale of two cities": Baghdad and New Orleans. By the end of his second term, he will have likely spent upwards of $200 billion each in the reconstruction of Iraq and the U.S. Gulf states. We all know that he, and the indomitable American spirit, will succeed in restoring the Big Easy—because throughout history Man has eventually prevailed over Nature's wrath. The more questionable outcome is going to be in the Huge Messy—will President Bush succeed in rebuilding Iraq and be able to leave it with a functioning government and an orderly society—since recovery from this disaster, one largely of his own making, is highly unpredictable. I suspect that 9/11 and the tale of those two other “Bush Doctrine-bestowing” cities, New York and Washington, will fade into the background as far as the ultimate Bush legacy is concerned—and for this the President has only himself to blame!

Desperate Maladies Require Desperate Remedies

At the outset, I must confess that I have not read Jhumpa Lahiri’s 1999 best seller, “Interpreter of Maladies”. Nonetheless, I have an interpretation for western civilization’s post-9/11 maladies that might not be palatable to its civil libertarians. Following the 7/7 and 7/21 suicide bomber attacks in London, it has become apparent that western civilization is being threatened in a way that demands any proposed remedies to be equally extreme. In the war on terrorism, Europe is fast approaching a point—which we have probably already breached in America—where freedom can no longer be considered a right but a privilege for its troublesome few. In this regard, any political solution would necessarily have to increase its focus on the wayward children of first generation immigrants in western societies.

In support of my desperate remedies reasoning, I recall a Bollywood movie from my days as a youth in India. In the movie an Indian soldier of a minority faith is faced with a classical dilemma when he needs to choose between the apparently conflicting demands of his religion and the pressing needs of his country? I remember billboards around Bombay asking ordinary citizens to vote on the matter prior to the movie’s release. Not surprisingly, the movie producers claimed that over 75% of the citizens chose country over religion! This Bollywood movie exemplifies the predicament faced by some first generation immigrants in western societies today. Given its poor record of assimilating its immigrant population, Western Europe shouldn’t be shocked to find out that a few of its first generation immigrants probably put the demands of their faith before the interests of their adopted country, which could be at cross-purposes at times.

Based on the initial reports from the 7/7 investigations, it seems that Britain’s first generation immigrant parents did not have a clue as to the terrorist proclivities of their progeny. Well, then it is about time Britain tested its “meet the parents” hypothesis. Some British children, of first generation immigrant parents, might not give a hoot about the country adopted by their mothers and fathers. However, if these misguided souls are religious fanatics, they surely must care a lot about the welfare of their diligent parents. After all, their parents did leave their native land to ensure that these ingrates lived a better life in Britain. Thus, my tough love proposal calls on Britain to pass a law that would seek the deportation of first generation parents of these suicide bombers back to their native countries.

The assumption here—while these suicide bombers might place their religion above the adopted country of their parents, they surely cannot love their religion more than their own parents—is a culturally accepted one. It’s high time that these misguided youth were made to realize that their foolish actions will force their parents to "inherit" punitive consequences. No longer will the planned murders of innocent patrons of mass transit systems go unpunished. Henceforth, these selfish and cowardly acts will additionally penalize the parents of these second generation suicide bombers. This will become a case of the sins of the children being visited upon their parents, which amounts to a rather harsh judgment in some cultures. I don’t write this lightly—my wife and I are both first-generation immigrant citizens of the United States, and we constantly pray that we have brought up our children to lead responsible, law-abiding lives in the country that we love and have adopted as our home. I hope that the deportation law that I have proposed will go a long way in stopping the madness—of this random killing of innocents by ungrateful children, who just happen to be citizens of civilized western societies only due to the accident of their birth!

PRESIDENCY AND PUNDITRY UNPLUGGED

THE BUSH DIARIES: A Citizen’s Review of the First Term
Jack Nargundkar

(Germantown, MD, July 21, 2005)— 7/7 has put President Bush’s oft-repeated claim—“We will fight the terrorists abroad so we do not have to face them here at home” —on notice. While announcing the release today of his first book, The Bush Diaries, author Jack Nargundkar echoed a growing American sentiment relating to the efficacy of this policy in stopping homegrown terrorists:

“I suspect that both, a botched implementation of the Bush Doctrine and the media’s pre-Iraq war complacency, are responsible for our current quandary, which keeps us all in a state of perpetual anxiety with respect to our way of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness! This isn’t the way it was supposed to be?”

In The Bush Diaries, Jack Nargundkar recommends that the United States commit to two critical Cs in our foreign relations, especially when it comes to Muslim nations. A foreign policy that reflects our core values and one that is applied consistently; but one that forsakes convenience by refusing to make policy exceptions for allied countries with values that are antithetical to our own.

On the evolving Iran-Iraq relationship, Jack Nargundkar writes in The Bush Diaries,

“I think that Shia hegemony as a counter-balance to Sunni Arab supremacy—if allowed to proceed as a natural evolution of the new realpolitik in the Middle East—could benefit us in the long-term, without the need for another preemptive war in the short-term.”

In The Bush Diaries, Jack Nargundkar kept tabs on what the political pundits—at The Washington Post, The Wall Street Journal, and The New York Times—had to say about the President’s policies and responded to them in real time. Some of his opinions were published by each one of these prestigious newspapers. The key difference between The Bush Diaries and other books on President Bush: Jack Nargundkar comments not only on the performance of the President, but he also critiques the media pundits who evaluate the presidency.

Jack Nargundkar has spent over 20 years as a marketing professional in the global software and telecommunications industries. As a first generation Indian-American, Jack Nargundkar brings a unique perspective to U.S. economic and foreign policy. An Executive Education Fellow at the University of Maryland’s Robert H. Smith School of Business, Jack Nargundkar has a BSEE from Bombay University and an MBA from Columbia Business School in New York City.

THE BUSH DIARIES: A Citizen’s Review of the First Term
290 pp, $19.95
ISBN: 0-595-35898-5
Author: Jack Nargundkar
Publisher: iUniverse
Publication Date: July 2005
Available From: Ingram Book Group, Baker & Taylor, and iUniverse
To order: call 1-800-AUTHORS or go online at any of the following:

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0595358985/qid=1123084435/sr=1-3/ref=sr_1_3/102-5718978-7163300?v=glance&s=books

http://search.barnesandnoble.com/booksearch/isbnInquiry.asp?userid=Xy63I1dBQR&isbn=0595358985&itm=3





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Media Contact:
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Throttling the Supply Side Spin

At the outset, I have to praise The Wall Street Journal editorial page for reproducing a graph that can actually be interpreted in a bipartisan manner. I refer, of course, to their cocky editorial entitled, "Windfall for Washington" in today’s paper. While gloating over this year’s "revenue surge from investment income", they also

"thank heaven for the tax cuts that have helped to spur the economy that is now throwing off higher tax revenues. As the chart shows, those revenues are now rising back to their modern average as a share of GDP, just as supporters of the tax cuts predicted."

Here is the wonderful chart—which exemplifies the meaning of the phrase "a picture is better than a thousand words"—that they refer to:

Now, as far as my eye can see, revenue receipts per this chart have been over the 40-year historical average of 18.2% in only two sustained periods: 1980-82 and 1994-2001. As readers will recall, the Reagan tax cuts first went into effect in 1981 and then again in 1986. This graph clearly shows that revenue receipts, except for minor blips in 1987 and 1989, were below the 40-year historical average not only through the "seven fat years (1983-1989)" of the Reagan presidency, but also through the three lean years (1990-92) of Bush 41. Revenue receipts then began their climb over the 40-year historical average in the "seven fat years (1994-2001)" of the Clinton presidency. After the "trifecta" of 2001—recession, Bush 43’s first tax cuts, and 9/11—hit the U.S. economy, revenue receipts plunged sharply below the 40-year historical average through the remaining three years (2002-2004) of the Bush 43 first term!

These facts are there for the naked eye to see—we have been bitten twice by the supply side bug in the past 25 years, without sustained revenue rebounds. For readers that might be interested, I have presented more empirical data on this subject in my new book, "The Bush Diaries", which is being published by iUniverse next month. Notwithstanding this year’s upward surge in revenues and OMB’s optimistic estimate through 2010, I would wait at least another couple of years before celebrating any "Windfall for Washington".

London - At Sixes and Sevens

Jolly old London gave new meaning to a typical English phrase, “at sixes and sevens”, when a string of bombs went off in the heart of the city the day after it had been selected as the venue for the 2012 Olympics. Brits were truly at sixes and sevens – on the sixth, they were in seventh heaven after London trumped Paris to become the host city for the 2012 Olympics, but the very next day, on the seventh, their euphoria was abruptly deep-sixed by the bombings.

Back home newspaper editorials were spinning this tragedy in line with their respective ideologies. Thus, in my left hand, The New York Times wondered “why the wealthy nations have not done enough about the root causes of terrorism and why Al Qaeda and Osama bin Laden continue to function after almost four years of the so-called war on terrorism.” While, in my right hand, The Wall Street Journal suggested that “retreat from battling the Islamists in the Middle East would only make it easier for them to take the battle to us at home, as they did yesterday in London.”

Nevertheless, it was Tunku Varadarajan, editorial features editor of The Wall Street Journal, who nailed the British character for what it is in an apolitical tribute. In the Weekend Journal’s De Gustibus column entitled, “The Sign Says 'Take Courage' and the Brits Do”, Mr. Varadarajan wrote:

It really is considered unseemly to complain, or to feel sorry for oneself, among Britons: This aversion to self-pity is bad for the terrorists, who thrive on attention and the sowing of chaos. They won’t get much satisfaction in Britain. Londoners will not retreat into their shells, and they are unlikely to do as the Spaniards did and draw out the tragedy with a lot of public recrimination, or to capitulate in any way.

The secret of British composure is that Britons really do feel proud of their civilization. On the whole, they apologize for very little, which is as it should be. Their message to terrorists is always likely to be straight and robust: “How dare you! I'm British!”

So I suspect that the sixes and sevens are not going to last for very long and our dear friends across the pond will collectively pick themselves up, dust off their jacket, stick their chest out, put their chin up, and show those damn cowards how civilized people behave. As for me, the next time I am in London, I am going to use the Underground as usual – but to the first gent that I bump into on the tube, I will proffer, “Mr. Livingstone, I presume.”

"The Bush Diaries" — Unmasking the President’s Performance

If you enjoy reading the posts on this blog, you are going to love the revelations in my new book entitled, “The Bush Diaries: A Citizen’s Review of the First Term”, which is due to be released later this summer. The Bush Diaries tracks the performance of President George W. Bush and attendant media pundits throughout his tumultuous first term.

In the past couple of years, I kept tabs on what the political pundits — at The Washington Post, The Wall Street Journal, and The New York Times — had to say about the President’s policies and responded to them in real time. Some of my opinions even got published by each one of these prestigious newspapers. The key difference between my book and others that you might have read on President Bush: I comment not only on the performance of the President, but I also critique the media pundits who evaluate the presidency. In fact, The Bush Diaries has a few “Great Moments in Punditry” that would make aficionados of “The Daily Show with Jon Stewart” proud. However, my only caveat being there is nothing fake about the news in my book.

The Bush Diaries is a compendium of various letters — to the editors of the aforementioned newspapers — that I wrote during the second half of Bush’s first term. Other contemporaneous articles that I had written earlier on the President’s economic and foreign policies cover the first half of his term. In developing the book, I organized my articles and letters in a chronological order and then inserted a current preface to each one of them, so that the entire narrative reads like a running commentary on the Bush presidency.

It is important to keep the Bush Administration’s “past actions” in mind (for example, their machinations prior to the Iraq War), while contemplating support for likely “future events” (e.g. dealing with the crises in Iran and North Korea). I took the liberty of offering suggestions and making recommendations on a number of economic and foreign policy issues, which I believe will impact the President’s second term.

The Bush Diaries offers a simple foreign policy message to the President — stick with those comfortable Cs in dealing with other countries, especially in the Muslim world — our foreign policy should reflect our core values, it should be applied consistently, and the President should forsake convenience by refusing to make policy exceptions for allied countries with values that are antithetical to ours.

On the domestic policy front, I recommend that the President needs to seriously work on his Ds and Es, and drop those polarizing Gs. Thus, the President has to first and foremost deal with the troublesome Ds — by reducing the massive budget and trade deficits, and by boosting the value of the dollar. He simultaneously needs to work with both parties in Congress to reach a consensus on the critical Es — education, the environment, and energy policy. Finally, the President must stop politicizing those infamous Gs — god, guns, and gays — the election is over, he won, and it’s time to show some grace!

The Bush Diaries is being published by iUniverse and will be available online at www.amazon.com just in time to round off this great summer.

Without Mark Felt "our long national nightmare" would be still going on!

Watergate was a criminal conspiracy, exposed in large part by The Washington Post, which brought down a Republican president. Whitewater was a shady deal, conflated to some extent by the editorial pages of The Wall Street Journal, which unfairly tormented a Democratic president. So when the WSJ editorial page compares the two in “Deep Throat's Legacy”, the only commonality that I see is the “water” part. While the Watergate investigation opened the floodgates to expose real corruption, the Whitewater probe closed the dikes due to a drought of valid information. The WSJ editors conclude that “the Fourth Estate's first duty is to report the facts” — advice that they should have followed back in the 1990s when they were obsessing over Whitewater. By continuously churning Whitewater, they managed to create a lot of turbulence and no dirt really settled. Per the old adage, they should have known that “still waters run deep”.

Speaking of deep, Washington has been agog in the past couple of days with the outing of “Deep Throat” after 33 years under cover. This is a truly remarkable story in a number of ways, since it highlights:

* The irony of Woodward and Bernstein preserving a secret for three decades in a town that they seduced for gobs of information over three tumultuous years (1972-74) to unravel a corrupt presidency. Undoubtedly, along with Ben Bradlee, they have helped restore some integrity to journalism, which has taken a pounding in the past few years with the problems at The New York Times and USA Today.

* The dilemma for conservatives now vilifying W. Mark Felt, since he was pardoned by their hero, Ronald Reagan — albeit in a separate case. Nevertheless, President Reagan’s statement, while granting a pardon in 1981 to FBI agents Mark Felt and Edward Miller, praised “their good-faith belief that their actions were necessary to preserve the security interests of our country” and also said that they were “two men who acted on high principle”.

* The indispensable value of one’s conscience in prodding one to do the right thing, irrespective of one’s personal motives, as long as one determines that there are tangible benefits to organization, society, government, etc. in the long run.

Finally, one has to wonder, without Deep Throat how would “our long national nightmare” have ended? Here’s one scenario – Nixon would have completed his second term, Ford would have then probably beaten Carter in 1976, but Ford would have then lost to Mondale in 1980, Reagan would have been too old to run in 1984, so Mondale would have won a second term by beating Bush Sr. instead, Clinton would have defeated Dole in 1988 (instead of 1996), but Clinton would have lost a second term to Perot in 1992 – both, Republicans and Democrats, must agree that without W. Mark Felt "our long national nightmare" would be still going on!

Intelligent Design of our very own "madrassas"

It would seem to me that the proponents of intelligent design (ID) would likely concur with the literal meaning of the title of Thomas L. Friedman’s new book, “The World Is Flat”. After all, there is the popular myth that Christians in the Middle Ages believed that the earth was flat. The even greater myth associated with that era concerns Galileo, who is believed to have committed heresy by suggesting that the earth was round? As a matter of fact, however, Galileo actually suggested much to the chagrin of the Church that the sun, and not the earth, was the center of the universe. For this sacrilegious proposition, Galileo was condemned by the Church in a 1633 trial to lifelong imprisonment. In 1992, over 350 years after Galileo’s death, the best redemption that Pope John Paul II could offer Galileo was admitting

“that errors had been made by the theological advisors in the case of Galileo. He declared the Galileo case closed, but he did not admit that the Church was wrong to convict Galileo on a charge of heresy because of his belief that the Earth rotates round the sun.”

We have had our own taste of the “religion vs. science” debate with the 1925 Scopes Monkey Trial, where the teaching of evolution in state-funded classrooms was deemed unlawful. In the decades since that infamous ruling, however, the United States has always been a nation on the leading edge of science and technology. Unfortunately, some educators in the country now seem determined to take actions that would put our youth at a disadvantage. In a May 17 editorial entitled “The Evolution of Creationism”, The New York Times laments that ID proponents in Kansas seek

“to change the definition of science in a way that appears to leave room for supernatural explanations of the origin and evolution of life”.

Meanwhile, the rest of the world is picking up on cutting-edge scientific discoveries that encroach into the boundaries of what ID proponents call “creationism”. So we will fall behind, not only due to the flattening of our world, but also due to the flatulence of our “creative” Luddites. Maybe this limerick might help shock them back to the infallibility of science:

Conservatives from the plains of Kansas
Are creating doubts about the sciences
Evolution they say is not fully refined
So with one small step for intelligent design
They take a giant leap to our very own “madrassas”

Or maybe rapid developments in science will do the trick, anyway? In an editorial today entitled “A Surprising Leap on Cloning”, The New York Times bemoans the fact

“that leadership in ‘therapeutic cloning’ has shifted abroad while American scientists, hamstrung by political and religious opposition, make do with private or state funds in the absence of federal support”.

The Times reported yesterday that President Bush further exacerbated the problem by promptly threatening to deploy the first veto of his presidency “over the thorny issue of embryonic stem cell research”. So we have a President — although beset with serious foreign policy crises in Iraq, Iran, and North Korea and facing gargantuan domestic policy issues such as social security and budget deficits — choosing instead to expend his political capital over the Terri Schiavo case, the “nuclear option” on judicial appointments, and stem cell research! If the President and his Republican cohorts in Congress don’t get their act together real soon, these moral and social values — which they claim got them elected with improved majorities in 2004 — will surely come back to haunt them in 2006. At least that's what all the recent polls — scientific polls, I might add — are indicating?

Colonial Imprints and Perceived Proselytizing in the Muslim World

The Wall Street Journal ran, what I thought was, a self-serving editorial entitled “Journalists and the Military” on May 17. In it they sanctimoniously chastised Newsweek for its explanation of what they called a “dubious Koran desecration story”. So I wrote them the following letter in response:

Why is it that conservative media outlets, such as yours, exhibit a “holier than thou” attitude when writing about the media in general? The “basic media mistrust of the military that goes back to Vietnam and has shown itself with a vengeance during the Iraq conflict and the war on terror” is a figment of your imagination. The reality is that the larger media is still smarting from being “led by the nose”, by the Bush Administration and its conservative media backers (you, again), during the build up to the Iraq war. I am inclined to believe that the larger media does not mistrust the military – it mistrusts those that led us into this war on false pretenses!

Needless to say, my contrarian viewpoint was not included among the seven largely supportive (of their editorial) letters that got published in today’s edition of the Journal under the headline, “Newsweek and the Story That Never Was”. Notwithstanding their rejection, I was placated by David Brooks’ column entitled “Bashing Newsweek” in today’s New York Times. By seeing the forest for the trees, this conservative columnist offered a rational analysis of the entire incident, including the subsequent hysteria that it generated.

Now, Anne Applebaum had also made some good points on the Newsweek story in her column entitled “Blaming the Messenger” in yesterday’s Washington Post. However, she had concluded her piece with the following statement:

And, yes, people whose military and diplomatic priorities include the defeat of Islamic fanaticism and the spread of democratic values in the Muslim world need to be very, very careful, not only about what they say but about what they do to the Muslims they hold in captivity.

In my mind, there is an inherent contradiction embedded in this statement and it is captured in the phrase “Islamic fanaticism”. When the western media qualifies the fanatical behavior of terrorists by associating it with the Islamic faith – that in of itself is a problem! Even if this association were true in the eyes of the western media, the war on terrorism can never be won until such a derogatory association between fanaticism and Islam is severed. If we are to win over the hearts and minds of the larger Muslim populace, the western world – which happens to be a largely Judeo-Christian world – has to “cease and desist” from linking terrorism with Islam. As long as the insurgents in Iraq are viewed as defenders of their faith by the larger Muslim populace, it will be almost impossible for us to rid Iraq of the insurgency. Similarly, Osama Bin Laden can never be captured as long as we continue to represent him as an “Islamic fundamentalist”. In fact, I have repeatedly made this point in my forthcoming book, “The Bush Diaries”, as illustrated in the sample below:

History has proven time and again that wars, which are based on religious differences, last for the longest time. Neither side is ever willing to concede that they are the “children of a lesser God”. The western world’s consistent references to “Islamic fundamentalism” only fuel the anger of the Muslim world. If the war on terrorism is ever to be won it has to be divested of its religious inferences.

This might sound simplistic, but it is the truth. Newsweek happened to touch a raw nerve, which had long been exposed by the serial bungling – as characterized by Ms. Applebaum in her column – of the Bush Administration in its prosecution of the war on terrorism. If we are to win this war, the western world’s policies must be consistent – not only “walking the walk” without any colonial imprints, but also “talking the talk” without any perceived proselytizing – throughout the Muslim world.

GOP's Feeding Tube of Faith

In a recent appearance on “The Daily Show” to promote his new book entitled, “The World Is Flat”, New York Times columnist Thomas L. Friedman, talked about how the global economy is leveling the playing field between the United States and the developing world. Mr. Friedman expressed genuine concern about the diminishing interest among our youth to pursue science and engineering careers. Without making light of Mr. Friedman’s apprehension, I would point to a sense of misplaced priorities within the Bush Administration that have exacerbated not only this problem but several other more pressing issues of the day.

From the under-funded “No Child Left Behind” program to the over-hyped “Clear Skies” initiative, the Bush Administration has paid more lip service to the domestic economy than the facts bear out. President Bush has gone around the country for the past sixty days touting a fix to the Social Security system that might go bankrupt in 2041, while he continues to ignore a soaring half-trillion dollar budget deficit and a seven and one-half trillion dollar national debt, which are both here and now. Ironically, the President signed a Bankruptcy Bill last Wednesday – this is tantamount to the Bush Administration telling us that if we live beyond your means, we will no longer be able to escape the consequences – which is fine. But then, the Bush Administration continues to spend our money like there is no tomorrow – with no repercussions to worry about. That's the beauty of "political capital" - it's the President’s to spend now and for someone else to clean up later!

Speaking of cleaning up and “Clear Skies”, it seems even Mother Nature expressed its displeasure at the Bush Administration’s environmental policy on Earth Day last Friday. The Washington Post reported that the weather refused to cooperate with the President’s plan to celebrate Earth Day in the Great Smoky Mountains National Park. One wouldn’t normally have associated any sort of divine justice in this weather-related intervention, if it weren’t for the deliberate choice of the Republican leadership to play up the “faith factor” at every possible opportunity since the last election. In what seems to be an audacious power play, Senator Majority Leader Bill Frist will just not let the GOP’s feeding tube of faith be unplugged from the nation’s consciousness. New York Times columnist, Frank Rich, warns us about “A High-Tech Lynching in Prime Time” about to take place tonight. With his unabashed participation in “Justice Sunday”, Senator Frist only confirms that the GOP has moved so far to the right that – if the world were really flat – most of the GOP leadership would be falling off a cliff in the next galaxy!

But this is hardly the “Revenge of the Sith” and would that we all were so lucky? The Republican leadership is turning the GOP into that awful relative – one that you cannot live with, and yet one that you cannot get rid off. Just as you begin to think that it’s only our domestic policies that are screwed up, because the Bush Administration really has the foreign policy under control, along comes this bombshell. In a report yesterday entitled, “U.S. eliminates annual terrorism report”, The Seattle Times tells us that

“The State Department decided to stop publishing an annual report on international terrorism after the government's top terrorism center concluded that there were more terrorist attacks in 2004 than in any year since 1985”.

Holy cow! I thought we were winning this thing, and with freedom and democracy sprouting all over the world, we were all going to live as one big happy family? Talk about a leap of faith!

Imagine – no more 9/11s – it’s easy if you try!

My first reaction while reading Senator John Kyl’s “Unready For This Attack” in today’s Washington Post was that the senator has been watching Fox’s primetime TV hit “24” this season. Earlier this year, “24” featured an episode wherein a section of downtown Los Angeles is brought down by “an electromagnetic pulse (EMP) attack” by terrorists. But then Senator Kyl concluded his article with the following warning:

The Sept. 11 commission report stated that our biggest failure was one of "imagination." No one imagined that terrorists would do what they did on Sept. 11. Today few Americans can conceive of the possibility that terrorists could bring our society to its knees by destroying everything we rely on that runs on electricity. But this time we've been warned, and we'd better be prepared to respond.

Well, Senator you don’t know Jack! Now, I mean that quite literally – while you probably recognize Jack Bauer, the hero of “24”, you surely have not heard of yours truly – Jack Nargundkar of Germantown, Maryland? On the eve of the new Millennium (December 31, 1999), almost two years prior to 9/11, I had written an article entitled, “Musings for the New Millennium”, which is still posted on my web site. In it I had dreamed up this rather fatalistic scenario:

Finally there has been a whole lot written about the best “this” of the century and the best “that” of the millennium. In my opinion, the single most seminal discovery, since the beginning of time, is undoubtedly the invention of electricity! Mankind’s dependence on this fundamental phenomenon of nature as a source of energy is so basic to our existence – from the simple light bulb to sophisticated electronic appliances, from computers to communications, from transportation to manufacturing, from health care to agriculture, from the outer reaches of space to the inner depths of sub-molecular matter, etc. – we would be back in the Stone Ages if the concept of electricity failed! Our transition from the mechanical age to the Industrial Age, and on to the Information Age has been possible because of our dependence on this basic resource. We have tried to harness electric power through various means using drivers like water, the wind, the sun, and even nuclear reactions. Y2K bugs don’t scare me even a fraction of what would happen if those electrons suddenly stopped moving? It gives new meaning to the saying “Power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely”!

So I’d like to say, Senator, people do have vivid imaginations – but most of us, unlike the terrorists, don’t use our minds for destructive purposes. I would like to add that I personally believe that it will be very difficult for terrorists to carry out another 9/11-type attack on the United States. The terrorists possessed the “operational expertise” to execute a 9/11. However, unless they recruit – an interconnected network of people with the necessary talent and skills –within our borders, I suspect that they are going to find it almost impossible to carry out any more attacks on our homeland that require the kind of sophisticated intellectual expertise, which Senator Kyl worries about. Having said that, I wouldn’t suggest for a second that we not remain vigilant – it has become the eternal price to maintain our way of life. I would like to end by mentioning that my “Musings for the New Millennium” article was more prescient in another respect – I had actually called the historic 2000 presidential election almost a year in advance with this fantastic, or so it seemed at the time, outcome:

In fact, this could turn out to be a squeaker, where the losing candidate gets a slightly higher percentage (possibly within a 1 percent margin of the winning candidate) of the popular vote, but the winning candidate scores a majority of the Electoral College delegates. You read it here first!

Imagine, Senator, it’s easy if you try, as John Lennon once did:

You may say I’m a dreamer,
but I’m not the only one,
I hope some day you'll join us,
and the world will live as one

Third World Power Play

When China and India “hook up”, it’s more like a third of the world in play – because the power is in their sheer numbers. John Lancaster’s report entitled “India, China Hoping to 'Reshape the World Order' Together” in today’s Washington Post makes me want to say “I told you so”. In any event, the highlights of Mr. Lancaster’s report are as follows:

* “India-China relations have now acquired a global and strategic character” per a joint statement by the two nations
* China also announced its support for India's bid for a permanent seat on the U.N. Security Council
* China and India signed agreements on trade, economic cooperation, technology sharing, civil aviation and other matters
* India and China pledged to boost their trade to $20 billion by 2008 (the same level as US-India trade in 2004)

Well, nearly two years ago, in response to a George Melloan article[1], I had written a letter to The Wall Street Journal on June 24, 2003. Although it was never published, I would like to reproduce the following excerpt from that letter, which I have also included in my book, “The Bush Diaries”:

Coincidentally, only a day earlier, the leader of the world’s most populous country, Prime Minister Wen Jiabao of China welcomed the leader of the world’s largest democracy, Prime Minister Vajpayee of India. If President Bush were following a truly principled foreign policy, which actually saw the forest for the trees, he would recognize that our long-term interests are not being served by sacrificing our democratic ideals at the expense of our security needs? Pushing India, a close ally of Russia, into the arms of China – creates a triumvirate with far-reaching influence across the globe! How long before Germany and France jump on that bandwagon?

Then in January of this year, I made this further observation in my yet to be published “The Bush Diaries”:

But I see two headstrong democracies, the oldest and the largest, butting heads over foreign policy differences, much along the lines that I have written throughout this book. Now that India’s economy has opened up, I can see the United States and India getting closer as economic partners – in the long run, probably developing stronger economic ties than we have with China? Whether we can make India a true political and military ally anytime soon is highly doubtful? Our post-9/11 tilt towards Pakistan, despite its links to the Taliban government in Afghanistan, did not sit well with the larger Indian population. Also, the recent rewarding of “major non-NATO ally” status to Pakistan, while Osama Bin Laden is still on the loose inside Pakistan, was a slap in the face to India. If the U.S. pushes for making India a permanent member of the Security Council, as it should be, then “Old Europe could make some headway for New Delhi”. Although I do believe that we do not need to sacrifice Old Europe, in order to make new friends. Nevertheless, it is a strategic imperative for the United States to quickly re-align itself to the new realities in the Asia-Pacific region.

When Thom Shanker and Joel Brinkley's report entitled, "U.S. Is Set to Sell Jets to Pakistan; India Is Critical" appeared recently in The New York Times, I notched up another unpublished letter (dated March 26, 2005) that provided this blunt admonition:

In the post-Cold War era, U.S. foreign policy can no longer be based on equating its traditional ally, Pakistan, with India. This is tantamount to equating Taiwan with China - which continues to be under a Western nations arms embargo that the Bush Administration is pressuring the European Union from lifting. The overall effect of this Bush policy is going to bring, not only China and India closer, but also rekindle Russia as a potential arms supplier to both nations. From an economic standpoint, OPEC countries such as Iran and Venezuela have already announced as key suppliers of their energy needs. It isn't unrealistic to expect a new Shiite power (Iran-Iraq) to emerge as a counter to the reigning Sunni (Saudi Arabia-Kuwait-U.A.E) sway in OPEC.

As the new triumvirate of China-India-Russia becomes increasingly powerful, its influence will start drawing other nations such as Afghanistan, Brazil, Canada, France, Germany, Indonesia, Malaysia, and eventually the new Iraq further away from the U.S. fold. If we do not play our foreign policy cards right, we could witness a structural realignment in the next decade, whose impact on the western world could be worse than that of the Cold War. To be forewarned is to be forearmed.

In the light of today’s Post report, this power play - by two nations that represent a third of humanity - is the first big move towards aforementioned structural realignment. I trust that the foreign policy visionaries in the Bush Administration are looking beyond “freedom and democracy” in the Middle East. For there is a political tsunami brewing further east and it has the potential to wash up far beyond its shores!

[1] George Melloan writes the “Global View” column for The Wall Street Journal. This particular article entitled “Bush Wades Into Some of The World's Worst Messes” appeared in his column on June 24, 2003.

Jack Nargundkar vs. James Taranto in “Best of the Web Today”

Who would have thought that my letter published in The New York Times on Friday, April 1, 2005 would create such a buzz? The letter pointed out several lessons learned from the Terri Schiavo case. But this one point in the letter seemed to have especially galled conservatives:

The most critical conclusion to be drawn from the [Schiavo] case is that with the injection of religion into our politics and our governance, it has become increasingly difficult to differentiate between the demands of "evangelism" in a Western democracy and "fundamentalism" in a Middle Eastern theocracy.

So James Taranto, Editor of the OpinionJournal, offered me some help in his “Best of the Web Today” column yesterday. In offering me that unsolicited advice, I felt that Mr. Taranto had missed the crux of my argument. I therefore e-mailed him a clarification this morning. Sure enough, Mr. Taranto published only the first part of my response in his column today. Here’s the second part, which he did not publish, and which is critical to my line of reasoning:

James, in my letter to the The New York Times, I had also said, "If we really want to promote a 'culture of life', then human life ought to be precious in every situation, and not only under political circumstances." Politicians (Congress and the President) tried to force the courts to act in a certain way (i.e., reinsert Terri Schiavo's feeding tube, in order to save her life). The courts, per their interpretation of the law, consistently refused to act in the way intended by these politicians. If we are to convince other nations, including fledgling democracies and Middle Eastern theocracies that we are a nation of laws, albeit, secular laws - then, evangelists in this country need to accept that fact as gospel! With your distinguishing remark, "If someone is demanding that a life be spared, he's probably an evangelist in a Western democracy. If he's demanding the infidels be murdered, chances are he's a fundamentalist in a Middle Eastern theocracy", you confirm my other observation in my letter to the Times - conservatives have let emotions override their better judgment on this issue!

In drawing “attention to sloppy thinking” in today's column, Mr. Taranto makes a conclusion, which I never did:

“But equating them to fundamentalist terrorists is a cheap shot, and an intellectually indefensible one.”

I never inferred that evangelical Christians, trying to save the life of a woman on life support, were the equivalent of fundamentalist terrorists. My larger point was simply this - if we let our religious beliefs dictate against the established law of the land, we are not only violating our constitution but also allowing ourselves to become like them. Mr. Taranto's refers to Martin Luther King as one:

"who made no effort to separate his belief in racial equality from its roots in Christianity".

But Mr. King equally drew from "The Declaration of Independence" in demanding this equality:

"We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness."

It is OK to use one’s faith as a personal guide to govern, but it is unconstitutional to use one’s religion as an instrument of government – that’s what theocracies do. By honoring the principle of “separation of powers”, we should all want them to become more like us - that was my key message in my letter to the Times!

The Neo Con Job

The question has been asked so many times since 9/11 that asking it one more time might seem redundant – why do they hate us? However, one of the answers to this perennial quandary can be found in a report in today’s Washington Post by Dafna Linzer entitled, “Past Arguments Don't Square With Current Iran Policy”. It begins with this devastating exposé:

Lacking direct evidence, Bush administration officials argue that Iran's nuclear program must be a cover for bomb-making. Vice President Cheney recently said, “They're already sitting on an awful lot of oil and gas. Nobody can figure why they need nuclear as well to generate energy.” Yet Cheney, Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld and outgoing Deputy Secretary Paul Wolfowitz held key national security posts when the Ford administration made the opposite argument 30 years ago. Ford's team endorsed Iranian plans to build a massive nuclear energy industry, but also worked hard to complete a multibillion-dollar deal that would have given Tehran control of large quantities of plutonium and enriched uranium -- the two pathways to a nuclear bomb.

Talk about a 180 – this incredible report further reveals the following:

“It is absolutely incredible that the very same players who made those statements then are making completely the opposite ones now,” said Joseph Cirincione, a nonproliferation expert at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. “Do they remember that they said this? Because the Iranians sure remember that they said it,” said Cirincione, who just returned from a nuclear conference in Tehran -- a rare trip for U.S. citizens now. In what Cirincione described as “the worst idea imaginable,” the Ford administration at one point suggested joint Pakistani-Iranian reprocessing as a way of promoting “nonproliferation in the region,” because it would cut down on the need for additional reprocessing facilities.

After the Iranian revolution toppled the Shah of Iran in 1979, it caused a dramatic reversal in U.S. foreign policy in the region. In fact, the Reagan Administration went on to support Iraq through much of the Iran-Iraq war in the eighties. Hence, we should not be too surprised in the near future, if “newly declassified documents” from that era go on to establish that Reagan Administration officials had sanctioned the supply of the chemical and biological ingredients for Saddam Hussein’s fledgling WMD programs? After all, there is that infamous video from December 20, 1983 showing Donald Rumsfeld, as President Reagan’s special envoy, meeting with Saddam Hussein in Baghdad. It’s no wonder comedian Mark Russell had quipped prior to the start of the current war with Iraq, “We know he’s got those weapons of mass destruction… We’ve got the receipts!”

Any wonder why they hate us?

The Unwritten Amendment

In a 10-2 decision, the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals reaffirmed what a three-judge panel from the same court had decided earlier today, which was what U.S. District Judge James D. Whittemore had ruled yesterday – Congress will make no law that makes a mockery of our system of justice – I call it the unwritten amendment to the Constitution. But seriously, the judicial branch firmly rejected President Bush and Congress's nocturnal attempt at subverting states rights over this past weekend. In a brilliant editorial on Tuesday entitled, "A Blow to the Rule of Law", The New York Times lambastes this blatantly political effort by the ruling troika (Bush, Frist, and Delay) –

“The new law tramples on the principle that this is ‘a nation of laws, not of men,’ and it guts the power of the states. When the commotion over this one tragic woman is over, Congress and the president will have done real damage to the founders' careful plan for American democracy.”

It would be ironical if this case finally lands up in the Supreme Court, whose questionable intervention in that other famous Florida court case (Bush v. Gore) in 2000 epitomized the dilution of states rights. After their infamous 5-4 ruling handed the presidency to George W. Bush, the popular joke back then was that we were not a banana republic, we only had banana Republicans – but the real life GOP of the past weekend surely imitated the art! The Times editorial concludes with this dire warning –

“President Bush and his Congressional allies have begun to enunciate a new principle: the rules of government are worth respecting only if they produce the result we want. It may be a formula for short-term political success, but it is no way to preserve and protect a great republic.”

The original George W. – father of our nation – must surely be turning in his grave.

The Age of Truth

When both, The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal, run op-eds that come down on the same side of the same issue on the very same day – it feels like you have died and gone to heaven! I experienced this state of nirvana today, which is ironically the traditional day for the vernal equinox or the start of spring. But I am getting ahead of myself…

Robert D. Blackwill, who was the U.S. ambassador to India from 2001-2003, and deputy national security adviser for strategic planning in 2003-2004, wrote an op-ed entitled, “A New Deal for New Delhi” in the March 21, 2005 edition of The Wall Street Journal. Larry Pressler, who is a former Republican senator from South Dakota, wrote an op-ed entitled, “Dissing Democracy in Asia” in the March 21, 2005 edition of The New York Times.

Both these editorials basically say what every Indian-American has been pining for the past decade or more – and, pardon me for using a worn-out cliché one more time - it’s about time that the world’s oldest democracy and the world’s largest democracy “hooked up” in a more meaningful relationship. The Bush Doctrine, which in its second term incarnation – is more sensible and appealing – puts liberty and democracy in the forefront of U.S. foreign policy. Mr. Pressler calls for “a fundamental policy shift for the subcontinent” that “should enthusiastically improve our treatment of India”, “favor India in all major regional disputes”, “help India match China's arms buildup”, and “work toward a modified free-trade agreement with India”. Mr. Blackwill wants to “integrate India into the evolving global nonproliferation regime as a friendly nuclear weapons state”, “sell India civil nuclear reactors”, “enter into a vigorous long-term program of space cooperation with India”, “sell advanced weaponry to India”, “support India as a permanent member of the Security Council”, and “initiate an intense and secret discussion with India regarding the future of Pakistan”.

As a Hindu, I am inclined to believe that in the Vedic cycle of life, “Satya Yuga” or the “Age of Truth” has finally returned. If this were a dream, I wouldn’t want anybody to wake me up!

From the Gulag to the Gitmo

Today's Washington Post editorial "More Excuses" reminded me of that memorable scene from the Jack Nicholson movie, “A Few Good Men”. In this instance, however, I envisioned Vice Adm. Albert T. Church III roaring at his recent Senate Armed Services Committee panel hearing, “You can’t handle the truth!”

When President Bush looked into Vladimir Putin’s eyes and got a sense of his soul, he must have also realized why the Soviet Union thought that the gulags were indispensable during the Cold War? They believed that the security of the state was paramount, and it had no constitutional provisions for individual liberties. In the post-9/11 era, the Bush Administration has perpetrated the likes of Gitmo, Abu Ghraib, and an incredible phenomenon called “rendition” in trying to ensure the security of the United States. Putin must surely be thinking, "What used to be good for the goose (i.e., the Soviet Union), has become even better for the gander (i.e., the U.S.A)? So why does this Jim Hoagland[1] guy think I have a "siege mentality" and a "defiant demeanor"? Reassess this, comrade!" Note to Bush: in the long run, the gulags did not guarantee the security of the "evil empire".

To maintain any sense of credibility, as he goes about promoting democracy and freedom around the world, President Bush needs to use the constitution of the United States of America as a guide, and The Declaration of Independence as a moral compass. The endowments of Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness are absolute - they cannot be traded for stability or convenience. If President Bush hopes to see, what Thomas Friedman[2] calls, a Baghdad spring "blossom into sustainable democracy" across the Middle East, he needs to practice what he preaches. Charity, per the old idiom, begins at home!

[1] The reference is to The Washington Post op-ed columnist, Jim Hoagland, whose article entitled, “Reassessing Putin” appears in today’s edition of the Post.
[2] The reference is to The New York Times op-ed columnist, Thomas Friedman, whose article entitled, “New Signs on the Arab Street” appears in today’s edition of the Times.

Democracy and the D-word

The Sunday talk shows were abuzz about the possibility of Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton being the Democratic nominee for President in 2008. Tim Russert, the host of NBC’s Meet The Press, asked Mike Allen of The Washington Post about it, “One of the senators that you cover, Hillary Rodham Clinton of New York--let me show you the latest Gallup poll in terms of the presidential race for 2008. Hillary Clinton, 40; John Kerry, 25; John Edwards, 17. What is going on?”

If you ask me, the world’s oldest democracy has finally succumbed to the lure of dynasty much like the world’s largest democracy. India was ruled by a democratically elected Nehru-Gandhi dynasty for 37 of its first 42 years since independence! If Senator Clinton is elected President of the United States in 2008 and completes even a single term in office, the Bush-Clinton dynasty will have been in power for 24 continuous years! Of course, there is no blood relation between Bush and Clinton, like there was between Nehru and Gandhi.

Nevertheless, for two families to head the government of a mature democracy like the United States for a contiguous two decades is simply remarkable. If Hillary wins in 2008 and is reelected in 2012, then we are talking “institutional duopoly” begging for a constitutional amendment that would bar any other Bush or Clinton from running for President for the rest of the 21st century! Hey, how else are we going to convince the House of Saud, the Assads of Syria, and the Mubaraks of Egypt that democracy is really not a family monopoly?

The Bush Doctrine gets a makeover

My son, Jay, was the first one to call me around midnight from his college dorm shortly after I made my foray into this “fools paradise”, a.k.a. blogdom. Jay made this really original suggestion, “Dad, why don’t you write something new? Who wants to read about Bush’s first term, anymore?” I refrained from quoting Santayana, “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it”, but thanked him for his suggestion nonetheless. While we still have Bush to “kick around” for four more years, if we did not analyze his past mistakes, he is more than likely to repeat them (as us liberals fear) or make history (as his conservative base expects). In any event, nobody but nobody wants a war with Iran – even if, as President Bush declared at a news conference in Brussels recently, “all options are on the table”.

So I am reading Charles Krauthammer in this morning’s Washington Post and I am surprised to learn that his “Road to Damascus” goes through Beirut, but makes no stop in Tehran! In fact, Mr. Krauthammer’s only hint of Iran appears in this pregnant statement, “the entire region from the Mediterranean Sea to the Iranian border would be on a path to democratization”. It seems to me like there is at least one neocon who seems to have taken the Iranian option off the table? So will democracy stop at the water’s edge; will liberty be unable to cross the Persian Gulf? The answer lies in Iraq and the subsequent makeover of the Bush Doctrine by all manner of conservatives. They have decided that if the real world outcomes do not match the objectives of the Bush Doctrine, they will somehow make the Bush Doctrine match the real world outcomes.

The rai·son d'être for the Bush Doctrine was 9/11. Its core argument was based on President Bush’s notion that the U.S. would "make no distinction between the terrorists who committed these acts and those who harbor them". It further postulated the right of the U.S. to preemptively wage war against terrorist cells and rogue states that were engaged in the production of, or in the possession of, weapons of mass destruction (WMD), which were deemed to be a threat to the U.S. and its allies. While President Bush promised to opt for multilateral solutions, he did not rule out unilateral action, if necessary. In its original incarnation, the Bush Doctrine did not clearly enunciate the need for liberty and democracy in all regions of the world. Such a requirement at the time would have plainly been an embarrassment to a number of our allies such as Egypt, Pakistan, and Saudi Arabia. So when did the Bush Doctrine incorporate President Kennedy's liberal inaugural vision, as in, “Let every nation know, whether it wishes us well or ill, that we shall pay any price, bear any burden, meet any hardship, support any friend, oppose any foe, in order to assure the survival and the success of liberty.”

I would suggest that the creationists turned evolutionary after the collapse of the original justification for the Iraq War – which was Saddam Hussein’s possession of WMD that were deemed to be an imminent threat (remember Condi “mushroom cloud” Rice) to the U.S. and its allies – when no WMD were found. Per Colin Powell’s “Pottery Barn” rule, we pretty much own a broken Iraq that requires serious fixing. After his reelection, President Bush decided to outdo Kennedy at his second inaugural. Thus Iraq became a beacon for freedom and democracy in the region and around the world. In fact, after a successful Iraqi election on January 30th, the Bush Doctrine is no longer as much about our security as it is about freedom and democracy around the globe. Amazingly, the editorial pages of The Wall Street Journal have already started touting a 21st century version of President Eisenhower's “domino theory”. In the post Cold War era, I am tempted to remind them that Vietnam remains one of the world’s few communist countries, along with that “Bay of Pigs” paradise, Cuba! Meanwhile, the original “evil empire” struggles with democracy but gets only a wink and a nod from our “soul penetrating” President. And, don’t even get me started on China, which in President Bush’s 2000 election campaign was supposed to be his top priority because he considered it a “strategic competitor” unlike then President Clinton, who he claimed treated China like a “strategic partner”? But then, we do have four more years of foreign policy evolution to live through, so “fasten your seat belts, it’s going to be a bumpy ride”.