Category Archives: Politics: International

Beautiful Horizons is where I go to find the Latin American stories that the local newspapers miss. Today's is a doozy: Cuba and Bioweapons. The jist of it is simple: the Adminstration is accusing Cuba of being Up To Something with bioweapons…but it has no evidence of anything. That's what's so suspicious, explains an Administration source: “It's a question more of them exciting suspicions by not being open. I don't know of any tangible stuff that shows yes, they are making anthrax [or anything else]. There is stuff we don't know about.” Yes, Castro is not inviting us in to see everything he's got! He's up to no good!

If it sounds like you've heard something like this before about some other country…you probably have.

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So I'm thinking about the Republican Veepstakes, and trying to see how many members of the Bush cabinet I can name without a cheat sheet, and I remember this old line of President Nixon's, “every Cabinet should include a future president”. Which thorough the magic of google brought me to this paragraph from a (rather too complimentary?) Nixon obituary reprinted from the Washington Post

The man who said that “every Cabinet should include a future president” deserves large credit for the sumptuousness of so many of his appointments. This was not a leader unnerved to have commanding personalities working for him. Like perhaps none since the New Deal, the Nixon administration brought to prominence dozens of figures who became national fixtures. Mentioning Henry Kissinger, George Shultz, William Simon, Dick Cheney, George Bush, Bob Dole (as Republican national chairman), William Safire, Pat Buchanan and Alexander Haig only scratches the surface.

Nobody is ever going to say that about George W. Bush. How many members of the Bush cabinet can you even name without help? And, now that you've peeked, how many of them (or other top Bush people) look like a future President? I make it about one—Colin Powell, and, while he certainly hasn't trashed it fatally, he hasn't done his reputation much good by his service in this Administration. As for the rest of them, …

On the whole it's a pretty sad lot.

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I had a very pleasant dinner this evening with a group that included David Carlson and Jeanne Schroeder, two professors from Cardozo law school, who were in Miami this week to give talks to the law school. The stimulating papers are unpublished, and I forgot to ask if they were ok to blog, so I won't. Profs. Carlson and Schroeder are, like Caroline and me, members of the rare group of married law faculty members who teach at the same school as their spouse.

Dinner conversation included a discussion of the Administration's $87 billion supplemental budget request for Iraq. David and I wanted to figure out how much this was per Iraqi, and how it compared to Iraq's pre-war GDP. But we realized we didn't know some basic facts about Iraq, so I promised to look them up when I got home. According to the CIA Factbook, Iraq today has an estimated population of just over 24,683,000, and (in 2002) had a GDP estimated at US$58 billion in purchasing power parity, giving it an estimated GDP per capita of about $2,400. (David's guess as to GDP was much better than mine, but I had a better guess as to the population.)

The Administration seeks $87 billion, but not all of it is for Iraq. According to the New York Times, “Of the $87 billion, military operations in Iraq would account for $50.5 billion. Military operations in Afghanistan would take up $11 billion, Iraqi reconstruction $20.3 billion, and Afghanistan reconstruction $800 million.”

Counting just the reconstruction grant, that makes a subsidy about equal to 40% of Iraq's former GDP, and about $960 for every Iraqi. Throw in what we are spending to occupy the country, and it's more than last year's Iraqi GDP, and about $3,230 per Iraqi.

Having seen these numbers, I've now cooked up a modest proposal for a US exit strategy from Iraq. Bring all the troops home. Give each Iraqi $3000 a year for the next year or two, and count on the free market to conduct the reconstruction for us at much greater efficiency than we would otherwise achieve.

Ok, I'm kidding. I think I'm kidding. Yes, I'm kidding. Definitely kidding. We can't do that until shortly before the election….