If Michael Chertoff
had been a member of the Japanese cabinet before World War II,
and had performed his job as poorly as he did during Hurricane
Katrina, someone would have handed him a short sword with which
to commit hari-kari.
Yet, last
weekend -- despite his failure as the head of the Office of Homeland
Security -- Chertoff appeared on major television networks to
defend and explain what had went wrong in New Orleans. But he
utterly failed to persuade me that he is unfairly being lynched
by the media for malfeasance or nonfeasance. When asked if he
had offered his resignation, he declined to reply directly, relying
instead on the statement, “I serve at the pleasure of the
President.”
Chertoff's
record shows that he can be a first-rate public servant. But by
relying on others, in particular Michael Brown, director of FEMA,
an outrageously incompetent political appointee of President Bush,
he failed in his own responsibility to rush federal aid to New
Orleans. Such aid was key, since Mayor Ray Nagin and Louisiana
governor Kathleen Babineaux Blanco clearly failed in their duties
because of their gross incompetence.
I do not
believe Chertoff can ever recover from this fiasco. He should
resign and again be nominated for a federal court judgeship. He
was an excellent judge before he left the bench to take his present
job at the request of the President.
***********************************************
President
Putin's Russia used to have my sympathy when it was a victim of
Chechen terrorism, but no longer. Putin has now announced that
he has invited to Moscow Hamas, the terrorist organization that
won the recent election in the West Bank and Gaza and that supports
the total destruction of the State of Israel. The peace quartet
made up of the U.S., European Union, Russia and the UN should
now be dissolved. Russia is once again an outlaw state.
If Russia is willing
to recognize Hamas, a terrorist organization as a legitimate government,
why should anyone support Russia against the Chechens, who are
seeking to establish a country with a status similar to Georgia
in the same Caucus region. Those supporting terrorism anywhere
should not expect support from others when it pops up at home.
***********************************************
Why are Google,
Microsoft, Yahoo and Cisco Systems being so abused by members
of the U.S. House of Representatives and the national media? They
are accused, reports The New York Times, of “what
a subcommittee chairman called a ‘sickening collaboration’
with the Chinese government that was ‘decapitating the voice
of the dissidents’ there.” The Times quoted
Congressman Tom Lantos of California, who said, “I do not
understand how your corporate leadership sleeps at night.”
These search engines
are conforming to the demands by the Chinese government, e.g.,
shutting down dissenters’ websites. A comparable government
action in this country might be a telephone company or public
library providing records to the U.S. government pursuing an alleged
terrorist under the Patriot Act. The law requires the telephone
company or search engines to comply with the subpoena served.
If the U.S. does not want these and other companies to do business
in China, the U.S. government has the power to pass such a law
as it has done respecting Cuba. Otherwise it is outrageous to
pillory these legitimate businesses for engaging in business in
China and following the laws of that country. It is far more reprehensible
in my judgment that the President and Congress have placed us
in a position by treaty in which China pays automobile workers
$1.50 an hour with no medical benefits, no environmental protections,
and is planning on selling to the world Cadillacs and other cars
in competition with the U.S., free of tariffs, while American
companies pay workers $26 per hour and provide medical benefits
costing more than the steel in every car frame. Let’s get
our priorities straight.
***********************************************
More reasons
surface every day on why we should get out of Iraq now, unless
our NATO and regional allies forthwith agree to share the casualties
and other costs of the war. According to a poll cited by Nicholas
Kristof in The New York Times, “70 percent [of
Iraqis] called for a full U.S. withdrawal within two years.”
Iraq now has an army exceeding 200,000 soldiers as well as police.
The new Iraqi permanent
government has elected Ibrahim al-Jaafari as its prime minister
with the assistance of Moktada al-Sadr who is violently opposed
to the U.S. and engages in killing Sunnis with his vigilante army,
a militia known as the Mahdi. He wants the U.S. out of Iraq now
and seeks an Iraq governed by Sharia -- religious law with stoning
and the chopping off of hands.
Al-Sadr
supported al-Jaafari because the latter’s views are much
closer to his than those of any other candidate. Why should these
fanatics decide when we will leave and under what terms? We should
make that decision and do it now.
According
to The New York Times, over the weekend, our Ambassador
in Iraq, Zalmay Khalilzad, announced that “The United States
is investing billions of dollars in Iraq’s police and army…We
are not going to invest the resources of the American people to
build forces run by people who are sectarian.” But they
clearly are.
The civil war among
Sunnis and Shiites is ongoing. The lunatics are running the asylum.
Our young men and women should no longer be put at risk, unless
our allies, NATO and regional, agree to bear the casualties and
costs with us. With few exceptions, they have refused to do so.
Let’s get out now.
***********************************************
The threats to world
peace are numerous. However, in the opinion of many experts, the
single greatest threat the world currently faces is Islamic militancy,
particularly the version espoused by Iran. Our military presence
in Iraq is compromising our ability to respond to Iran’s
threats. Some have suggested, and I agree, that the strength shown
by Jack Kennedy during the Cuban missile crisis should be the
template used by the Bush administration. Iran should be advised
by every private and public mode available that the U.S. will
not tolerate Iran securing the nuclear bomb. While the administration
has made statements, none are as unambiguous as that of Senator
John McCain, who has stated on a number of occasions, “There
is only one thing worse than military action, that is a nuclear-armed
Iran." I agree.
Ed
Koch is the former Mayor of New York City.
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