Free Frank Warner

Hugo Chavez's friends

We should be limiting Hugo Chavez's anti-democratic impulses to Venezuela. Instead, certain Americans are helping him spread his totalitarian ideology to Colombia and elsewhere.

Why would Democratic members of Congress do this? Same ol' reason: If a Republican president is for something, even if it is good, the Democrats will find some fake reason to oppose it.

(Republicans have played the game, too, but Democrats have taken the cynicism to levels of hatred so counterproductive they risk the liberty of whole nations.)

It's time to pass the Colombia Free Trade Agreement. Those blocking it are threatening the political freedom of Colombia and all of Latin America.

Frank Warner

Barack Obama’€™s fascist friendly endorsers make me nervous

I still like Barack Obama, but I don’t like some of his endorsers. Of course, there is Michael Moore, fascist propagandist. But then there is Tom Hanks, nice guy.

And now there is Boston Globe columnist James Carroll, who a year and half ago was calling for total U.S. withdrawal from Iraq and worse. He was insisting on the defeat of democracy in Iraq. Like Northern Democrats during the American Civil War, Carroll hates a Republican president so much he’€™d rather give up on the idea of freedom than see its success.

Carroll says he’€™s for Obama because Obama will negotiate away every threat and because Obama will surrender America’€™s nuclear weapons before the world’€™s dictatorships surrender theirs.

Major problem. What would Carroll’€™s dream get us? Chains.

Obama had better keep away from Carroll, Moore and the other friends of fascism.

Listen to Tom Hanks.

Frank Warner

‘Fantasic Voyage’: Teeny nanoworms seek out cancer cells

Now this is the kind of technology that shows promise for tracking down cancer cells and killing them without killing the patient: iron oxide nanoworms.

From the University of California at San Diego:

Using nanoworms, doctors should eventually be able to target and reveal the location of developing tumors that are too small to detect by conventional methods. Carrying payloads targeted to specific features on tumors, these microscopic vehicles could also one day provide the means to more effectively deliver toxic anti-cancer drugs to specific tumors, organs and other sites in the body, in high concentrations without negatively impacting other parts of the body.

OK, let’s get to that second step, killing the cancer.

Frank Warner

If winning in Iraq were so terrible, McCain would be a hated man

If the victory of democracy in Iraq were such a bad thing, John McCain would be the most unpopular man in America. But the fact is, the Republican actually has a chance to be elected president.

McCain has made winning the Iraq war the centerpiece of his campaign, and not only has he gained respect for his principled stand, he is educating voters to the unacceptable alternative in Iraq: the triumph of fascism and the likelihood of more wars and genocide.

In North Carolina two days ago:

He also said either Democrat would “surrender” in Iraq, a situation he said would lead to “chaos and genocide.” Both Democrats favor the staged withdrawal of U.S. troops.

McCain acknowledged that the situation there “is tough right now.” But he repeated his support for current policy and criticism of what preceded it.

“There is no doubt that we are succeeding in Iraq,” he said. “There’s no doubt that it was mishandled for nearly four years. Now we have the right strategy. The surge is working.”

Understanding the cost. McCain reaffirms that America supports freedom everywhere, and understands why liberty is essential to securing a real and lasting peace. McCain’s advanced age does weigh against his election. But a free Iraq, as difficult and costly as it is, is something most Americans want to see.

Frank Warner

North Carolina and Indiana total vote: 1.5 million for Obama; 1.3 million for Clinton

In yesterday’s Democratic presidential primaries in North Carolina and Indiana, Barack Obama won 53.8 percent of the total votes.

Obama collected 1,514,017 votes, and Hillary Clinton had 1,299,731 votes. Again, this is both states added together. It looks to me like a pretty big Obama victory overall.

Candidate … North Carolina … Indiana

     Obama … 890,723 …   623,294

     Clinton … 657,997 …   641,734

TOTALS ... 1,514,017 … 1,299,731 … TOGETHER: 2,813,748

So far, Obama has 1,848 delegates (both elected delegates and the unelected party-boss superdelegates). Clinton has 1,693 delegates. To win the Democratic nomination, one candidate needs at least 2,025 delegates.

And so it goes.

Frank Warner

The peace movement is wearing the American uniform in Iraq

I saw the story today, “War protesters frustrated by apathy.”

It occurred to me that, more than five years after the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq, even the heavily Democratic press corps still doesn’t call those who oppose the U.S. military action a “peace movement.”

Reporters do take license to erroneously call the anti-victory crowd “anti-war,” but they can’t bring themselves to say “pro-peace.” That’s because they know better.

Against war? It’s seldom mentioned in front of the “war protesters,” but they aren’t against war. In fact, they favor a longer, bloodier war in Iraq, and more generations of genocide and oppression there. What they are against is U.S. aid to the side of democracy in Iraq.

The real anti-war movement in Iraq, the peace movement, is those U.S. forces taking risks everyday to secure that nation’s first democracy. History shows and everyone knows that democracy is the best chance for a lasting peace.

There is no peace without freedom. The “war protesters” still can’t figure that out.

Frank Warner

Obama leads in N.C., but Clinton seems to have Indiana

Barack Obama really can't lose the Democratic nomination for president. It has to be stolen from him by Hillary Clinton.

So today will be another inconclusive "test" of whether Obama can win big states. And after he wins North Carolina, Clinton will still be running, claiming she won those disqualified primaries in Michigan and Florida.

But who will win the Indiana primary today? If Obama wins there, Clinton won't have much left to say. She claims to have it locked up.

Frank Warner

Michael Yon sees ‘a storm before the calm’ in Iraq

Michael Yon tries to put into perspective the Iraq battles of April that gave the U.S. its highest casualties in seven months. He says those sacrifices, terrible as they were, were not in vain.

Al Qaida has been placed in check, Yon says, but we’re finally facing the force we inevitably had to tame: the Shiite militias.

We are taking more casualties now, just as we did in the first part of 2007, because we have taken up the next crucial challenge of this war: confronting the Shia militias. …

In every one of the first eight months of 2007, we lost more soldiers than we had the previous year. Only as the campaign bore fruit -- in the form of Iraqi citizens working with American soldiers on a daily basis, helping uncover terrorist hideouts together -- did the casualty numbers begin to improve.

Now we are helping the Iraqis deal with a much different problem: the Shia militias, the most well-known of which is “Jaysh al-Mahdi,” known as JAM, largely controlled by Moqtada al-Sadr.

The JAM difference. Yon says al Qaida wants to destroy Iraq, but it’s losing. On the other hand, he says, Sadr’s Mahdi militia, JAM, doesn’t want to destroy Iraq. JAM wants to rule Iraq, but so far it’s been seeking power the wrong, undemocratic way.

The militias, unlike Al Qaeda, are not insane; we can negotiate with them. But we and the Iraqi government can only capitalize on the shifting sentiments of the Shia neighborhoods if we first demonstrate that we and the government - not the gangs - control the streets.

That means, for the next few months, expect more blood, casualties and grim images of war. This may lead to a shift in the political debate inside the United States and more calls for rapid withdrawal. But on the ground in Iraq, it's a sign of progress.

Let’s hope.

Frank Warner

This economy: Call it a ‘Krugman’ – not dead, but very slow

The New York Times had some fun yesterday with the words President Bush uses for the current economic slowdown, which can’t be called a “recession” because the economy still is expanding.

The article was headlined “Rough’ ‘Tough’ Times, but Still No ‘Recession.’” You can guess everything in the story.

But if The Times is unhappy with words like “slowdown” and “very difficult times,” perhaps it should call this economic environment a Krugman.

Chronic pessimist. Paul Krugman, a Times columnist and Princeton economics professor, has been predicting recessions that don’t show up since 2002. Recessions are common every eight years or so, so it’s remarkable that a man who teaches economics could make the wrong call six years in a row. Could his chronic pessimism have been colored by his hatred of Bush? Oh, come on! That would be childish.

Like Krugman, I’d be happy to raise taxes to soak the rich, and particularly the super-rich. But where I disagree with Krugman is that, even during a Republican administration, I believe it would be good to have an expanding economy to make more rich people subject to those higher taxes.

In January, when the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office was predicting a better-than-even chance of no recession, and advising Congress that its $150 billion “stimulus package” is unnecessary, Krugman said:

“The signs point increasingly to an imminent, or perhaps already begun, recession.”

A trying record. Again, he was trying to cover the recession bet, but again, he was wrong. The economy expanded by 0.6 percent in the first quarter of this year, after expanding the same degree in the last quarter of 2007.

Yet Krugman is bound to be right about the economy someday, and he tries so hard with his forecasts. Why not give him something for his effort?

Let’s name any two-quarter period of economic expansion of under 1 pecent per quarter for Krugman. It would be a fitting legacy for the champion of difficult times.

Let’s proclaim loud and clear this economy is in a Krugman -- not dead, but very slow.

Frank Warner

Update on Scott Ritter

In the run-up to the Iraq invasion, former U.N. arms inspector Scott Ritter was an intriguing character. I even took him semi-seriously, though his sudden change of tone (from Saddam a threat to Saddam no threat) in 2002 was inexplicable.

Of course, being a liberal, I was focused on liberating 25 million Iraqis from totalitarianism. Ritter, being a something else, was focused on weapons of mass destruction.

Saddam’s WMDs always were secondary to any real liberal. Saddam’s repression was the obvious problem. Under his fascist repression, Saddam had killed many hundreds of thousands more people with conventional weapons than with WMDs. All these facts ultimately made Ritter look like a sell-out in his defense of Saddam.

But for more perspective, here’s an update on Ritter.

Frank Warner