Friday’s lead stories in The Washington Post and The Wall Street Journal dealt with what both viewed as a national affront and outrage. Egyptian soldiers, said the Post, “stormed the offices” of three U.S. “democracy-building organizations … in a dramatic escalation of a crackdown by the military-led government that could imperil its relations with … Read more
The first round of Egyptian parliamentary elections has taken place, and the winners were two Islamist parties. The Islamists themselves are split between more extreme and more moderate factions, but it is clear that the secularists who dominated the demonstrations and who were the focus of the Arab Spring narrative made a poor showing. Of the three … Read more
Have you heard any good news lately? Bad news abounds. It’s been another tough year. Economic woes continue. Greece and Italy are on the verge of bankruptcy. Unemployment is still high in the United States (around 8.6 percent), and the stock market has taken a beating. With approximately $108 billion in insured catastrophic losses, 2011 … Read more
Republicans and Democrats, liberals as well as conservatives, have bought into anti-Chinese trade demagoguery. Former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi suggested that tariffs against China are a “key part of our ‘Make It in America’ agenda.” During his 2010 campaign, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., called his tea party-backed Republican challenger, Sharron Angle, “a … Read more
SAN ANTONIO, Texas, DEC. 12, 2011. A letter to migrants dated Dec. 12, the feast of Our Lady of Guadalupe, was signed by 33 Hispanic Catholic bishops in the United States. In it they expressed their solidarity with the many illegal immigrants living in the country. “We recognize that every human being, authorized or … Read more
As active U.S. military involvement in Iraq draws to a close, what does the moral scorecard on this adventure look like from an American point of view? Granted that a comprehensive weighing of results will only be possible some years from now, at the moment the picture is something like this. In a perverse way, … Read more
Now that Newt Gingrich has become the latest in a series of Republican front-runners, he is getting the kinds of scrutiny and attacks that have done in other front-runners. One of the issues that have aroused concern among conservative Republicans is that of amnesty for illegal immigrants, especially after Gingrich said that it would … Read more
The election of Barack Obama, we were told, would bring new respect and friendship for America in the world. No longer would we be led by a Texas cowboy ignorant of and indifferent to world opinion. Instead, we would have a visionary leader sympathetic to the governments and peoples of the world. But Obama’s best … Read more
Once again, tensions between Iran and the international community are on the rise as the United Nations’ nuclear watchdog, the International Atomic Energy Agency, released a new report that warns of concealed attempts by Iran to produce an atomic bomb. How should one respond? The 19th-century Prussian general and philosopher Carl von Clausewitz, the … Read more
The Holy See is the oldest continuing international organization in the world. Its Secretary of State office was established in 1486, and that is also when its first permanent representatives were established in Venice, Spain, the Holy Roman Empire, and France. Today, the Holy See maintains diplomatic relations with 176 states. It is also the … Read more
A recent Sunday was designated by the bishops of the United States as “Respect Life Sunday.” As we pray and work for an end to abortion, it is well to remember that there is a profound connection between the prominent use of birth control in a nation and the legalization of abortion: As Pope Paul … Read more
First, the context: Modern political science — which readily understands imperialism, resistance, and clash of competing interests– does not similarly understand “the wasting away of nations.” That, says David Goldman, author of How Civilizations Die: (and why Islam is dying too), is because political scientists tend to assume that people will follow their rational … Read more
Next month, the Joint Select Committee on Deficit Reduction, a 12-member subset of Congress that Congress created to make the hard fiscal choices Congress itself has failed to make, is expected to propose $1.2 trillion in cuts from projected spending during the next decade. This week, Rep. Ron Paul, R-Texas, who is seeking the Republican … Read more
They say “all politics is local.” But economic decisions impact the whole economy and reverberate internationally. That is why politicians’ meddling with the economy creates so many disasters. The time horizon of politics seldom reaches beyond the next election. But, in economics, when an oil company invests in oil explorations today, the oil they eventually … Read more
As Barack Obama huffs and puffs about his tax plan, which is unlikely to pass in the Democratic-majority Senate much less the Republican-controlled House, Robert Zoellick, president of the World Bank, has provided a much broader view of where the United States stands amid great changes in the world and some useful guidance on what … Read more
With unemployment rising and a U.S. debt-crisis looming, Americans haven’t had much good news lately. But there is one bright spot on the policy front: Illegal immigration from Mexico has virtually stopped. Less than a decade ago, a half-million Mexicans were coming to the U.S. illegally every year, accounting for 60 percent of all illegal … Read more
The United States is a country that has been peopled largely by vast surges of migration — from the British Isles in the 18th century, from Ireland and Germany in the 19th century, from Eastern and Southern Europe in the early 20th century, and from Latin America and Asia in the last three decades. Going … Read more
A recent Superman comic book has the hero saying, “I am renouncing my U.S. citizenship” because “truth, justice, and the American way — it’s not enough anymore.” Though not addressing Superman’s statement, Stanford University professor and Hoover Institution senior fellow William Damon explains how such a vision could emerge today but not yesteryear. The explanation … Read more
When Donald Rumsfeld was Secretary of Defense, he coined some phrases about knowledge that apply far beyond military matters. Secretary Rumsfeld pointed out that there are some things that we know that we know. He called those “known knowns.” We may, for example, know how many aircraft carriers some other country has. We may also … Read more
In a recent article, Yale professor David Gelernter noted that modern America had “two extraordinary accomplishments: victory in the Cold War and the all-but-eradication of race prejudice in a single generation.” The back story of the latter is worth pondering around Independence Day. When I was growing up in Baltimore in the 1950s, everything and … Read more