On The Gaza Casualty Numbers

One of the more interesting statistics that I've heard tossed around in the aftermath of the recent Israeli incursion into the Gaza Strip is the comparison of total casualties on both sides. As you might expect, the Palestinians, as in the past, had significantly more casualties in this war than the Israelis did. (Sorry, I don't know the exact numbers of the top of my head, so you'll have to google it yourself.) The argument, as I've heard it, essentially amounts to a knock on Israel for being excessively brutal or using, in what has become the new favorite catchphrase of UN policy wonks, 'disproportionate force.' In other words, Israel must be more of a bad guy because they're killing so many more Palestinians than the Palestinians are killing Israelis. Yet, simple as this logic may sound, I feel it has a couple of important flaws.

The first problem is that arguing casualty numbers in this way fails to take into account the nature of the Gaza Strip itself; namely, that it's rather small and really crowded. That combination, no matter who's shooting or what they're shooting, is going to result in higher casualty numbers for the Palestinians in Gaza because more people in less space makes the likelihood of collateral damage increase exponentially even in the most precise and well-planned attacks. This fact, in my book, can't really be blamed on either side, as it's just a reality.

Another obvious thing that should be noted about the discrepancy in casualty numbers is that they likely stem directly from the drastic differences in firepower. Simply put, the Israelis have bigger and better guns. No matter how accurate, a Hamas rocket will never be able to do as much damage as Merkava Tank. Moreover, this fact doesn't make the IDF the 'bad guys' - it just makes them the more technologically advanced military in this particular war. Indeed, I'd be willing to venture that, if given the opportunity, Hamas would happily kill many more Israelis; just because, at this point in time, they can't doesn't make them morally superior.

Nevertheless, I do think that, when looking at a war, it's important to try and distinguish, even at a rudimentary level, between good and evil. However, it's war, so people are going to be killing each other - that's just part of it (some would say the point of it...), so we can't distinguished based just on the act or its success rate. In order to truly gain a moral perspective on war, we have to look at what surrounds the killing, and that's why I think that, particularly in this case, intent matters a great deal. Afterall, it's one thing to kill civilians while targeting the enemy's soldiers; it's an entirely different thing to aim exclusively at the civilians from the get-go.

And I suppose this is why the statistical difference in casualty numbers does not increase my sympathy for the Palestinians; because, when I look at the "why" behind the actions of the Gazans' elected representatives, Hamas, I don't exactly see morally superior motives.

All You Need To Know...

...about the stimulus, you could probably learn from this chart, right here:


Based on my reading of that chart, I get:

Reagan - more-or-less budget neutral: 0% change
H.W. Bush - same as Reagan: 0%/-0.5% change
Clinton - slightly budget positive: +4% change
W. Bush - slightly budget negative: -4% change
Obama without stimulus - slightly budget negative: -5% change
Obama with stimulus: significantly budget negative: -10% change

Either with or without the stimulus, President Obama has already negatively affected the budget deficit, as it relates to GDP (what Democrats bragged about during the Clinton years), to a greater degree than any of the last 5 Presidents.

To be fair, of course, President Obama hasn't had a full term yet, and both Reagan and H.W. Bush started out increasing these deficits but finished by decreasing them. However, in their worst years, Reagan and Bush, Sr. increased the budget deficit by 2% and 1%, respectively; Barack is not only working on between 5% and 10%, but is well on his way to creating the biggest one-year increase in the budget deficit over the last 30 years.

These new heights of deficit spending come, naturally, at the same time that the long term deficit is also reaching new heights (depths, really...), and the future costs of programs like Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security are beginning to increase exponentially.

Now, I'm no economist, but I am a young, budding taxpayer - and I'm pretty sure all this means that I'm about to get screwed.

Happy Birthday, Ronnie

The Gipper would have been 98.

He won the Cold War and vanquished the "Evil Empire" without firing a shot, revived a stagnant U.S Economy and lead it into the modern age, restructured our tax code for the better, and made the United States, once again, the Greatest and most Free Nation on Earth.

He was the Greatest President of the 20th Century.

One can only imagine what he would have thought of the horrific "stimulus" packages the current President and Congress are trying to pass. And while those folks continue to try and hash out the final details of how, exactly, to spend the next few generations of American taxpayers' dollars, all for the stated goal of helping us "Ordinary Americans" in this time of recession, I think it appropriate to remember some of the wisdom of Ronald Reagan:

"The 9 most terrifying words in the English language are: I'm from the Government, and I'm here to help."

"The Government's view of the economy can be summed up in a few short phrases: If it moves; tax it. If it keeps moving; regulate it. And if it stops moving, subsidize it."

"Government doesn't solve problems - it subsidizes them."

Indeed.

We miss you, Mr. President - and we sure could use some of your principled leadership these days.

Masking Mediocrity

Ah, the joys of "free" healthcare:

"A former soldier pulled his own teeth out with a pair of pliers because he could not find a dentist to take on NHS patients...

He said: 'I've tried to get in at 30 dentists over the last eight years but have never been able to find one to take on NHS patients.' "

Lovely, huh?

The great thing about this story is that it's a perfect example of why the type of "Universal Health Care" system desired by President Obama, other liberals, and even some 'Conservatives' (hello, Mitt Romney...) here in the U.S won't, ultimately, work.

Many a time during the campaign, when asked to defend himself against charges that his Healthcare plan was a thinly veiled attempt at socialized medicine, President Obama responded by saying that, since those who so desired would be able to opt out and get private health insurance, his plan couldn't be dubbed socialized medicine. Indeed, the point of the "universal" part of his plan, he argued, was simply to ensure that those millions of uninsured Americans would never have to go without, thanks to the government sponsored insurance he would be offering.

Well, guess what? In the U.K, people with the financial resources do have the option of getting private healthcare; and furthermore, in a manner that would seem to dovetail nicely with President Obama's plan, those who can't afford such a luxury are given all the health coverage they need via the NHS. Nevertheless, despite being fully provided for by their government, the British folks who were supposed to have been saved from the pain of being uninsured by the almighty hand of a government health care program still aren't getting the health care that they need.

Indeed, despite having a truly "Universal" system of health coverage at his disposal, Ian Boynton was unable to do something as simple as find a dentist to examine his toothache.

What this particular story illustrates so well is a point, which I have made on many an occasion before, that neither socialized medicine nor Universal Health Care (not that the difference is all that substantial...) will solve the current Health Care problems in the United States. This is due the fact that, like all big-government programs, they are inherently flawed solutions because they fail to address the real problem facing the system. In this case, both in the U.K and U.S, the real problem is that Health Care is to expensive. What Socialized Medicine and Universal Health Care both do to address this problem is to offer you either "free" or insanely cheap Health Insurance to make sure that you have enough money to cover this high cost. In other words, instead of directly addressing the problem of expensive health care, and trying to bring down these high costs, these programs are designed to simply mask it through government welfare.

Of course, the problem with masking crises instead of confronting them is that they tend to fester and come back - usually with a much greater degree of monetary pain than they hit you with on the first go-round.

That's why, if we want to try to offer real health care reforms here in the United States, we can't fall into the trap of simply offering up ideas that don't address the real problem. If we want to make Health Care in the U.S better, we need to look at solutions that will actually reduce the costs of health care and thus make it affordable to an even greater number of Americans - without us having to give them a welfare check, first. Two quick and easy ideas to jumpstart such a change would be to allow insurance companies to compete across State lines and to reduce our Doctors' operating costs through Medical Malpractice reform.

Just anything but Big Government, please. Because, afterall, I can already pull my own teeth out with pliers for free - and I don't even have to bankrupt my country's future in the process.

Score One For W

But, but, but....I thought that George W. Bush was turning American attention away from hunting down Al-Qaeda because he was so maniacally focused on avenging his Daddy in Iraq??

Alas, to the deep disappointment of Bush-haters everywhere, our former President did not forget who attacked us on 9/11, and he never stopped hunting them

"CIA-directed airstrikes against al-Qaida leaders and facilities in Pakistan over the past six to nine months have been so successful, according to senior U.S. officials, that it is now possible to foresee a "complete al-Qaida defeat" in the mountainous region along the border with Afghanistan...

The CIA has been using drone aircraft to carry out attacks on suspected al-Qaida and Taliban targets in Pakistan for several years, but such attacks were significantly expanded last summer under orders from President George W. Bush."

The way that 4th Generation Warfare is fought ensured that the destruction and incapacitation of al-Qaeda would be neither a quick nor easy process; however, with a strong resolve and continued dedication, it was always possible. Moreover, like nearly everyone in the United States after 9/11, from top-to-bottom in the U.S Military and across the political spectrum, President Bush had some things to learn about the evolution of war over the last 60 years; but, now that he's safely stashed away in Texas, we continue to hear more and more about just how well he and his top advisors came to understand the delicate and difficult nature of the tasks they were facing in Afghanistan, Iraq, and the rest of the Middle East. Given the orientation of the U.S Military in 1999, and the general uselessness of Donald Rumsfeld, the fact that we have evolved our tactical and strategic capabilities to the point of being able to bring al-Qaeda to the brink of collapse is no small feat.

Finally, and this is for you President Obama, please note that while George W. Bush had no problem actually ordering military strikes within Pakistan, he never felt the need to talk about them on national TV or announce them to the world (and, by extension, our enemies). On the other hand, during his campaign, President Obama always talked about how he would send troops/drones across the border into Pakistan - apparently forgetting that one of the most important elements in any war is secrecy. So, for future reference Mr. President, be more like George W. Bush: do what you have to do to win, but try and keep the plans out of the news.