You should all take some time to read this article.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20091017/us_nm/us_washington_summit_economy_geithner

The basic premise, inter alia, is that future deficits are too high and the government has to, “live within its means” after the recession.  A couple of things to ask here initially:
1)      If future deficits are too high then why is the administration pushing for increased domestic programs like health care, stimulus, and green energy projects?
2)      If future deficits are too high and the administration is focused on raising domestic spending then how can they accomplish cutting the deficit without excessive taxation?

Before conservatives brandish their torches, pitchforks, and, now officially constitutionally protected, firearms they should acknowledge that Geithner is right; the government does need to live within its means after the recession.  But how the government gets there is where conservatives and liberals disagree.  Deficits are going to rise because of three

or four entitlement programs (the fourth would be the healthcare bill floating around in the senate), the interest on the national debt, and the increasing, read bloated, baseline that is discretionary domestic spending.  This graph by Centrists.org provides a conservative estimate of the increased burden of the three largest mandatory entitlement programs such as social security, Medicare, Medicaid, and the interest paid on the increasing national debt.  It is conservative because these programs could cost much more.  In fact the CBO has estimated that social security, Medicare, and Medicaid alone could total 20% or higher of US GDP by the 2030’s (higher estimates, provided by the CBO, hover around 28% of US GDP).  Add the defense budget, the interest on the national debt, every other federal government program, and then all the state and municipal government expenditures to the mandatory triumvirate and all of a sudden the US is France (Government 50% or higher as % of GDP) – Oh mon dieu!

Clearly Geithner’s rhetoric is out of kilter with the current and future situation unless 1) Geithner and the administration plan to cut net government spending (the evidence is clear that they do not), and/or 2) Geithner and the administration plan to raise taxes substantially (the evidence is clear that they do), and/or 3) Geithner and the administration conceive that tax revenues will naturally rise and spending will naturally fall or plateau.  There is some evidence of 3, but even in a best case scenario that evidence would still result in a much larger government and immense yearly deficits.

This week saw the release of Vince Flynn’s latest Mitch Rapp novel, Pursuit of Honor. Already number 2 at Amazon.com, ahead of Dan Brown’s latest book, it proves to be the best of all of the Rapp books. A great page turner. I could not put the book down. I could not turn away from it because it is just that good.
It is very rare these days that a character can capture a reader’s imagination and Flynn has created such a character in Mitch Rapp. In the latest book, Rapp continues where he left off in the previous book, Extreme Measures, After a series of terrorist attacks have left Washington DC devestated and a colleague questioning their work, the CIA again is front and center getting the blame for what occured in DC by politicians looking to make their names bigger. The CIA is also suffering from a catestrophic leak of information which is contributing to the blame game played out in the Senate Select Intelligence Committee. Rapp has to juggle the man-hunt, tie up the loose threads of the information leak and contend with a Senator whose greatest wish is to see the CIA gone.
The plot takes the reader into the minds of both the terrorist hunters and the terrorists themselves. There is a wonderful juxtaposition between Rapp and his stressed colleague and the two main terrorists. The conversations echo each other but you see the huge difference between Rapp and his co-worker and the two Saudi born terrorists. There is a line that is not crossed with the two Americans but the line is not merely crossed between the Saudi’s it is pole vaulted. This is not merely an example of the differences between the characters it is an example of the difference between cultures. The debate between the two Saudis is also a debate raging within Islam itself.
We also have the issue of politics at play in the world of Counter Terrorism and intelligence gathering. The problems arose in Extreme Measures when Rapp had gotten tough with a Taliban captive and was threatened with prosecution for it. The issues arise again for much the same reason. But there is more than just the debate of “torture” or using extreme interrogation techniques there is also the question that has come up in the real world many times, information leaks that are used as weapons for political reasons and even personal reasons.
Rapp handles both the politics surrounding the use of extreme interrogations and leaks of classified information with his usual clarity of action. He does not apologize nor does he slow down. He does not need to rationalize himself and what his mission is in either case because he is quite comfortable with what he believes in and what actions are needed. In Rapp’s world there is little time for snotty arrogant Senators with their political agendas at stake or the personal problems of a sad incompetant CIA bureacrat. While they attempt to stab him in the back he fights back in one way and takes care of the other problem another way. Probably Rapp’s greatest virtue is the faith he has in himself and his cohorts and the scenes where he takes on a Senator and takes on a petty Agency desk jockey he shows that faith. A man who has faith is a dangerous man to those who have no faith. Rapp is that dangerous man.
The issues that are discussed are profound and they are issues we are arguing over right now in our national conversation. The fact that this book is a thriller only makes it easier I believe to understand both sides because the debate takes place in work of fiction. Sometimes fiction can tell us more about what we should do than a debate on the House floor or a Presidential speech or a group of so called experts on a news program. In a work of fiction the author can be honest about the issue. The honesty Flynn shows here with Rapp and many antagonists he faces is brutal but sometimes we need to see that kind of honesty.
We have in Pursuit of Honor one side that is logical the other side overly emotional. The logical side is Rapp’s side, his boss Irene Kennedy’s side. It is the side that is reality based. We have X as a problem, and A is a solution. A is based on who the enemy is, what they have done or about to do and what can be done about them. A is rather messy but X will be solved if A is implemented. B is not a solution that carrys any water because B is not based in any acknowlegement of the enemy. B sounds nice. B is about talking to the enemy, about pulling our guard down, about not offending anyone. B says it embraces our constitution without the honest assessment that the terrorists are not American citizens and they are therefore outside our Constitutional law. B uses the Constitution to beat down the men that are designated with the duty to defend our country and stop these murderers before they can act. What is also explicit in the novel but unsaid is the fact that the terrorists understand our country enough to know that their “Civil Libertarian” defenders will use the Constutution that the terrorists hate to defend those terrorists.
One of the biggest questions this book raises is the quesiton of treason. In this day and age people who have committed treason by leaking classified documents are called heroes and feted from New York partys to Hollywood celebrations. However, the reality of what treason is and its aftermath is shown in Pursuit of Honor and the outcome is bad for the leaker. There should be a punishment. Rapp is that punisher. There is no recourse for the person who commits treason but in the real world the CIA has been politicized and is often the whipping boy for politicians trying to make a name for themselves. We have seen it when Joe Wilson of Niger Yellow Cake fame was feted by Vanity Fair, and Nancy Pelosi’s lies about her knowledge of interrogations techniques. The very fact that politics are put ahead of intelligence gathering and National Securuty should scare us all.
The reality is politics takes precendence over National Security. National Security becomes the poor ignored step child in the ever lasting dance between Republican and Democrat, Leftist v, Conservative. Leon Panetta’s defense of the CIA should wake all of us up to the out and out stupidity of what Pelosi and the cabal of screamers on the left and libertarians on the right have done. We are now as vulnerable to attack as we were before 9-11 because of their unwillingness to drop politics when it comes to defending the nation. Vince Flynn takes these people to task for their silliness and the danger they pose to all of us.
Rapp’s personal issues stem from his past. If you are a reader of the books you know his back story. He has in previous books really descended into the pit of hell and now in this book seems to be climbing slowly out. The thing about Mitch Rapp is that he accepts what is. His past is dark and ugly and he understands that part of himself. The scenes where he is with people not directly connected to his job are moments where you see him redeeming himself. If you are a fan, you have hope. The heroe’s journey is a lonely one at times, as it has been for others all through history and Rapp is no different. But you know eventually in a few chapters that the hero will find himself coming back home.
What I find interesting in the novel, as in the others Flynn has written is the fact that a man such as Rapp would be so intimidating to so many of their contemporaries. A character such as Rapp at times shows the flaws of others in stark white light. He has his flaws but his acceptance of himself makes him far more powerful than those he finds himself pitted against because they are so inconsistent and unaccepting of themselves. Where he is direct and uncompromising they are sneaky and sniveling. But they run into trouble when they realize their opponent and his collieagues cannot be bought. This is the virtue of Rapp and the books. There is right and there is wrong in this world and there is nothing in between. Moral equivalency is shown to be the sin against the American body politic that it is.
Pursuit of Honor, makes you think but it is also a glorious ride. It makes you pause and cheer. It also gives people who are looking for their version of America and her virtues a reflection of those virtues. I highly recommend this book

America had put a lot of faith in Hamid Karzai to be a leader Afghans could be proud of. Since the Bush Administration, there was hope that he would be the leader the beleagered country needed to function again (my preference, personally, would have been to reinstall the king who was exiled in the early 1970s, as he was truly a figurehead for all Afghans, but I digress). So far, Karzai has proven to be little more than a mayor of Kabul, having no influence outside of the capital. I want to give my support to Abdullah Abdullah, who Americans saw as a very engaging spokesman for the country at the beginning of the war, but who has drifted steadily into the Iranian sphere of influence. The West is right to pressure Karzai into making sure the presidential polls are honestly run, but it would to the West wel to keep an eye on who is backing Abdullah, too.

Cross-posted at RudyCarrera.com.

It is shameful for Pakistan to have allied themselves with useful idiots like the Taliban who ended up biting the hands that fed them. They knew the risks, and now they’re paying the price. It is to their credit, then, that they are beginning to deal harshly with their cancer, and are apparently prepared to do so for the next two months.

The BBC has more here.

Cross-posted at RudyCarrera.com.