Mar 6, 2004 | Dollars & Crosses
Longtime Haiti watcher Raymond Joseph lays the blame with President Clinton:
Reading the lead editorial of the New York Times yesterday, one is left with the impression that Mr. Bush is to blame for the mess in Haiti and for "whisking its democratically elected president" off to Africa.... "After intervening to restore Mr. Aristide, the first democratically elected president in Haitian history, to office in 1994," wrote the Times, "Washington failed to do enough to help develop strong institutions, like an independent police force and judiciary, to sustain democratic rule."
I have the distinct impression that it was President Clinton, egged on by the Black Congressional Caucus, who deployed some 23,000 troops in September 1994 to prepare the way for the return of Mr. Aristide on October 15. For the next six years, Mr. Clinton coddled Mr. Aristide....
It is disingenuous for the Times to pin the failure of the Haitian "democratic experiment" on Mr. Bush. In our editorials in the Haiti-Observateur, we warned Mr. Clinton about the awful signals he was sending to freedom-loving Haitians who became targets of harassment, intimidation, and even assassination by the "restored democrat" Aristide. [NYSun]
Mar 6, 2004 | Dollars & Crosses
Here's how dead the actual ideology of Communism is in China:
Communist China is changing its constitution to embrace the most basic tenet of capitalism, protecting private property rights for the first time since the 1949 revolution....It signals a kind of a victory for people who believe that the state should give more respect to private property. Legally speaking, I don't think it'll change much," said Donald C. Clarke, a professor at the University of Washington's School of Law in Seattle. [Yahoo News]
Mar 5, 2004 | Dollars & Crosses
Will the Israelis be the ones to save us from another nuclear program in the Middle East? David Twersky reports:
Tensions with Israel are rising, as Iran fears an Israeli preemptive strike against the facilities it may be hiding from International Atomic Energy Agency inspection. That fear was based not only on the historical record--Israel took out Iraq's reactor at Osirak in 1984--but on a statement by Defense Minister Shaul Mofaz. (The Israeli minister said that in preparing an attack on Iranian nuclear facilities, "steps will be taken so that Iranian citizens will not be harmed.") Mr. Mofaz's tough talk followed a public sermon last December in Tehran by the still-powerful former president, Ayatollah Ali Akbar Hashemi-Rafsanjani.
"If a day comes when the world of Islam is duly equipped with the arms Israel has in possession," Mr. Rafsanjani said, "the strategy of colonialism would face a stalemate because application of an atomic bomb would not leave any thing in Israel but the same thing would just produce damages in the Muslim world." In other words, in Iranian eyes, the purpose of an Islamic bomb is to eliminate the deterrent effect of the Israeli bombs. One big Islamic bomb would destroy Israel, while many Israeli bombs, while hurtful, would only put a dent in the Islamic world. No wonder Mr. Mofaz suggests that an attack is being planned.
Mar 5, 2004 | Dollars & Crosses
From David Holcberg of the Ayn Rand Institute:
The United States should demand that the new Iraqi constitution include an explicit separation of state and Islam. The threat posed by a new regime in which Islamic fundamentalism has political power is unacceptable. It makes no sense to have gone to war to overthrow a secular tyranny only to replace it with a religious one that is potentially far more dangerous to America. But to make such a demand would require the current administration to identify Islamic fundamentalism as our ideological enemy and to recognize that the separation of state and religion is a crucial requirement of freedom not only in Iraq, but here in America as well.
Mar 2, 2004 | Dollars & Crosses
Writes economist Richard Salsman in a letter to the Wall Street Journal:
"You continue to complain about specific, case-by-case injustices inflicted by trustbusters without recognizing that antitrust law is inherently unjust ('Who Defines a Market?' Review & Outlook, Feb. 23). The law is arbitrary and vague but has one clear effect: It penalizes the most successful firms for the (alleged) benefit of laggards and losers.
Nearly every firm trust-busted in the past century has boosted output, improved quality and lowered prices-- the opposite of 'monopolistic' behavior. For these achievements great firms and executives have been litigated, fined, jailed and vivisected. We need to recognize that producers have a right to their property--of which their 'market share' consists--and that they owe not a single, unpaid duty or scintilla of property to consumers or rivals.
Antitrust law does not 'preserve competition'; it shackles, sabotages and expropriates the winners of competitions. It is anti- competitive. Instead of chronicling case-by-case injustices, for once you might consider examining the case for abolishing antitrust entirely."
Mar 1, 2004 | Dollars & Crosses
A report in the Daily Telegraph describes at length how the regime in Zimbabwe trains its "youth militia." Here's a former official of the regime explaining the government's thinking:
"You are moulding somebody to listen to you, so if it means rapes have to take place in order for that person to take instructions from you, then it's OK," he said. He was so horrified that he left his job with the ministry in disgust. [Daily Telegraph]
Meanwhile, "Robert Mugabe's regime admitted for the first time yesterday that the 80-year-old leader is suffering serious health problems as chest pains forced him to cancel an appointment."