Mittens is looking as stiff as ever. | Photograph courtesy of user roberthuffstutter via Flickr Commons

With Newt Gingrich suspending his campaign last week and Rick Santorum’s presidential effort a distant memory, Mitt Romney is now the presumptive Republican presidential nominee.  Both parties have started acting as though the primary campaign has reached its conclusion, and the only person who seems to remember that Ron Paul is still running a debtless campaign is Ron Paul.

Despite that campaign coverage has now shifted to discussion of a possible running mate for Romney, the Republican Party may have bigger fish to fry.

Mitt Romney appears to have clinched the Republican nomination, and done so with little real competition. According the a New York Times count, Romney has won 847 delegates, with Rick Santorum as his closest competitor with a comparatively insignificant 259 delegates.

Newt Gingrich is expected to officially end it this Wednesday. According to Fox News, Gingrich is considering endorsing Romney, which would make a challenger even less likely. The official nominating convention will not take place until August, but it seems likely that full-scale campaigning will start long before that.

Current Gallup polling shows that President Obama and Romney are essentially in a dead heat. When asked who they would vote for if the election were held today, 47 percent of respondents favored Obama and 46 percent indicated they would vote for Romney.

Of course, as anyone who remembers the 2000 election knows, the percentage of voters who choose each candidate is of little importance. In 2008, Obama won a slim majority of the popular vote, with 51 percent, but he won 67 percent of the electoral votes. What will be important for Romney will not be his ability to convince a majority of Americans to vote for him; it will be convincing a majority the residents of key states to swing his way.

Swing states like Ohio, Colorado, Pennsylvania, Florida, and Michigan (among others) are crucial to presidential campaigns. While it is far too early to say who will win those states – they are often in contention even in the final hours of presidential campaigns – Romney’s primary performance does not inspire confidence. Romney won four of those five states in the Republican primary, losing Colorado to a trending Rick Santorum in February. In the 2008 general election, however, Barack Obama won all five of those swing states. It is unclear if Romney will be able to repeat his primary victories when he faces Obama.

Mitt Romney is easily the most moderate person who ran in this year’s Republican presidential primary. His ability to win swing states over men who hold polarizing views on everything from women’s rights to religion’s role in government is hardly a feat. While he was busy courting moderates, however, Romney has almost totally failed to energize the conservative Republican base. His middling rhetoric and his track record as Governor of perpetually liberal Massachusetts – not to mention his shockingly bland personality and occasional accidental mentions of his massive personal wealth – have alienated him from the religious conservative base that has been crucial to the rise of the Republican party in the 20^th century.

Of the 21 states that went red in 2008 that have held republican primaries in 2012, thirteen have held primaries. Romney has won just four of those states, none of them in the traditional Republican stronghold in the Bible Belt. Without the ability to get voters excited about his campaign, Romney may not be able to hold his own in swing states as an untested, slightly more conservative version of President Obama.

Perhaps more importantly, many swing states are located in the industrial Midwest where social conservatism meets a strong labor presence. Romney has been openly hostile towards unions, and has famously stated (and re-stated) that he believes the American auto industry should have been allowed to go bankrupt rather than allow it to accept government funds. In Michigan, Ohio, and Pennsylvania, manufacturing is still a crucial part of the economy.

The Midwest lost hundreds of thousands of jobs to the prolonged auto crisis, and is unlikely to take kindly to hearing that they should have lost hundreds of thousands more. Obama seems to have caught on to this. He has been touting successes in the manufacturing sector as one of the main victories of his first term since he opened his 2012 State of the Union address with praise for the American auto industry’s apparent turnaround.

Romney may stand more of a chance in Florida, especially if he chooses rising star and Florida senator Marco Rubio as his running mate, but without the industrial swing states and with little momentum behind the conservative base, the 2012 election could be an uphill battle for the Romney campaign.

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Is Nicolas Sarkozy, the president of France since 2007, on his way out? | Photo courtesy of Wikimedia Commons

Monsieur Hollande obviously won the voting on Sunday, but he is not France’s president-elect. Not yet, anyway. France, along with many other countries, uses a two-round voting system, in which, if in the first round no candidate receives the required number of votes (typically an absolute majority or  40-45 percent with a 5-15 percent winning margin), the top two candidates proceed to a second, decisive round of voting. The second round of France’s presidential election will be held Sunday, May 6.

Monsieur Hollande’s narrow round one victory is exactly that, but it could spell disaster for Monsieur Sarkozy, for whom many experts predicted a runoff loss if the first round did not go his way. There is some hope that the supporters of Mme Le Pen, another right-leaning candidate, will line up behind Monsieur Sarkozy in the run-off; the two candidates do share very similar views on immigration, Islam, and crime. Nevertheless, a significant number of Mme Le Pen’s supporters have come out to say that they will not be voting for the current president.

Monsieur Hollande has, by his own admission, ridden a wave of dislike for Monsieur Sarkozy, as well as a commitment to economic prosperity to his first round victory, saying: “This is an election that will weigh on the future of Europe. That’s why many people are watching us. They’re wondering not so much what the winner’s name will be, but essentially what policies follow.” Apathy has indeed permeated French politics of late, with voters opting for the candidate they see as the lesser of two evils. One voter said after casting their ballot for Monsieur Sarkozy that “politics is a nest of vipers.”

If Monsieur Hollande is in fact elected, it could cause quite the predicament for the European Union. In the EU, Monsieur Sarkozy has been working closely with German chancellor Angela Merkel to push austerity measures and save the likes of Spain, Italy, Greece and Portugal from defaulting. Monsieur Hollande’s introduction would bring about a sea change to the EU and would see France move apart from Germany. Monsieur Hollande, in stark contrast to Monsieur Sarkozy and Frau Merkel, is hoping to renegotiate a EU treaty that was ratified in December–after much arm twisting from Berlin–that sought to limit budget deficits and national debts. Instead, as the socialist that he is, Monsieur Hollande aims to convince the European Central Bank (ECB) to permit greater inflation as well as promote euro bonds for national debt. In addition, while Monsieur Sarkozy has stuck to his conservative roots by cutting spending, reducing corporate taxes and opening the market, Monsieur Hollande has come out with a plan that includes public spending projects and job creation measures. Critical analyses have varied on the latter’s ideas, with some predicting that they will only exacerbate France, and Europe’s, current economic woes. Said Nicolas Baverez, an economist and author: “The real problem is the preference of public spending. The main candidates continue to believe that it is the state that creates jobs and that will innovate, and this is wrong.”

The next two weeks will see Monsieur Sarkozy attempt to win over the voters of Mme Le Pen or Monsieur Bayrou, while Monsieur Hollande will work to secure the victory many are predicting for him.

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Republicans have been quick to criticize President Obama on high oil prices.

In a recent weekly address, House Speaker John Boehner claimed that the President’s energy plan was responsible for driving up gas prices. Boehner and fellow congressional Republicans have seized the opportunity to to condemn the President’s refusal to green-light the controversial Keystone XL pipeline.

Let’s take a step back and look at what has actually caused the recent spike in gas prices. The price of gas is tied to the global price of oil. Like everything else traded in world markets, the primary drivers of price are global supply and demand. If demand for oil outweighs supply, the price increases. But demand has increased only marginally due to growing use in developing countries such as China and India. In the U.S. demand for oil is actually down 2.3 percent from one year ago.

Oil Refinery in Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada | Photo Courtesy of Flickr User Iguanasan

Instead, what has driven up oil prices this time is price speculation. Investors are purchasing oil in anticipation that there will be disruption in the oil supply that would occur should Israel and/or the United State attack Iran over its nuclear weapon. Increasingly severe sanctions on Iran, who produces five percent of the world’s oil, are also responsible for rising oil prices. Essentially, investors are betting on war with Iran.

Joseph P. Kennedy II, a former Massachusetts Congressman, recently published an Op-Ed in the New York Times blaming pure oil speculators–investors who trade on the speculative price of oil but never actually purchase any–for rising prices. Kennedy argues that pure speculators push the price of oil up for their own personal gain and claims that banning these types of investors would allow the price of oil to decline by up to 40 percent.

Thus, the market is more complex than Republican lawmakers are willing to admit. If the President deserves blame for oil prices, than so do Republicans who have encouraged the President to take an increasingly hawkish stance on Iran.

Despite claims from his opponents that President Obama is doing everything in his power to destroy the oil industry, domestic oil production has expanded on the President’s watch, with U.S. production currently at 5.5 million barrels per day, which is up from 5.18 million in 2008.

Still Republicans are correct that building the Keystone XL pipeline would increase the flow of oil to the United States, allowing refineries to expand the supply of gas. But given the amount of time it will take to complete a project of such magnitude, building the pipeline would not have any impact on the short term price of gas.

In the end none of this may matter. According to a Washington Post/Pew Center Poll, fewer people blame the President for high oil prices. When polled in September 2005, 28 percent of respondents blamed the President for rising oil prices compared with just 18 percent in the February poll.

In the past, high gas prices have indeed sank presidential campaigns. I would argue that one explanation is that voting Americans who have lived through the financial crisis of 2007-2008 and seen the economy begin to recover may have developed a better sense of the complexity and seemingly randomness of global markets. In other words, they’re not as ignorant as the blame-Obama chorus would have you believe.

For a wonkier explanation for oil prices, click here.

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By Evan Caughey

Every week I create a cartoon making fun of something involving politics, world affairs, or something moderately related to something else. In general, they are meant to make the world more bearable by showing that it is a silly place and that there is always something to laugh about. Unfortunately, they are usually serious things, so you will only laugh until you realize it has to do with something like who your next president will be. Anyway, enjoy.

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The goofiest man in politics. | Photo via Flickr courtesy of Rusty Darbonne

The Republican presidential primary is now stretching into its fourth month, and I am not ashamed to say that I have had about enough pandering and word-mincing to last me a lifetime. With the Rick Santorum adventure drawing its final rasping breaths and  seven months of a national campaign looming, I sometimes wish I could close my eyes and open them to a world free of politics and politicians.

So, as a little political therapy, if you will, I present Vice President Joe Biden. Whom I love. The idea of dropping Amtrak Joe from the re-election ticket in favor of current Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has been floated by some in the media and the Democratic Party. But anyone who wants to see this man leave politics is hoping for a sadder and darker world. Biden is famous for making the kind of political gaffes that keep media outlets in business. While some claim that this makes him a liability, I feel comfortable naming him as far and away the best Vice President in recent memory.

For example: it is traditional for the Vice President to host a party for reporters at his residence every summer. When Biden hosted the party last summer, he staged a water gun fight with journalists, their families, and former Obama Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel. Would Dick Cheney have done something that awesome? Of course not. People don’t have water gun fights with Dick Cheney because they are afraid he might actually shoot them.

Biden is also famous for his habit of falling asleep during meetings, looking bored during speeches, and the occasional public nose picking episode. He dropped perhaps the only F-bomb ever heard on C-SPAN when he congratulated the President on the landmark health care reform bill by whispering “this is a big fucking deal, Mr. President,” right into a mic. He is not the most dignified man to have held public office, but he may be the least dignified. And isn’t that better?

Of course, arbitrarily supporting politicians because they are funny is not always the best course of action in national elections. But believe it or not, Obama didn’t pick Biden as a running mate for the laughs. As a Senator, Biden had decades of experience working with foreign policy – experience that Obama was grateful to have added to his ticket in 2008. As Vice President Biden has participated in policy conversations about the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, as well as helping build a strategy for an arms-reduction treaty with Russia.

Proof of his hilarity and a re-hashing of credentials will never convince the naysayers that Joe is a truly fantastic politician. So I leave you with this thought: Dan Quayle couldn’t spell potato. Al Gore thought he invented the internet. Dick Cheney (it bears repeating) shot a man in the face. Sarah Palin was — and I think it’s safe to say this in a public forum now — completely insane. Joe Biden is a goofy man who knows a lot about politics. Let’s keep him around, shall we?

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Ryan is considered an ambitious and deeply intellectual thinker by many of his Republican colleagues. He has consistently advocated for smaller government, critical of what he calls Presidents Obama’s desire to create equal outcomes rather than equal opportunities. In a speech to conservative think tank The Heritage Foundation, Ryan articulated his views on American government, stating that the American Idea is about lowering “the hurdles to upward mobility” rather than acting on ill conceived notions of fairness that justify raising taxes on the rich. Despite obvious ideological disagreements, Ryan remains relatively well respected by the other side of the aisle for his intellectual chops.

Paul Ryan made the leap from rising star to household name with the release of his FY 2012 budget proposal, Path to Prosperity. The budget, despite having never made it to the President’s desk, created a major stir in Washington for its ambition deficit reduction proposals, fueled in part by Medicare reform. Under the current system, the government pays directly for seniors’ medical care. Ryan’s budget would have shifted to a system in which participants are given a credit and invited to shop around for insurance, potentially raising the cost of the program for individuals. While it’s long been acknowledged that with the United States’ aging baby boomer population Medicare costs will become unsustainable, proposing reform has been politically risky because it affects the elderly, a large swath of the population that votes in high numbers. Not surprisingly, Democrats hammered Ryan and Republicans who supported the plan, charging them with wanting to “end Medicare,” a claim that was considered the 2011 Lie of the Year by the non-partisan fact-checking website Politifact. The attacks on the budget helped shift public opinion to oppose the Ryan’s Medicare reforms.

House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan meets with President Obama | Photo Courtesy of White House Photographer Pete Souza via Flickr Commons

Still, Ryan was lauded by many intellectuals and policy elites for taking on such a politically risky issue. Hardly the center for conservative ideas, Time praised Ryan for bringing major issues such as tax reform and changes to entitlements into the public discussion, naming him a “runner up” in the weekly magazine’s annual Person of the Year issue.

Paul Ryan’s pessimistic view of government makes sense given his pulled-himself-up-by-the-bootstraps success story. When Ryan was 16 he found his father dead in bed of a heart attack. Following his father’s death, Ryan went to college then headed to Capitol Hill, working his way up from mail room intern to policy staff while taking a number of side jobs along the way to help pay the bills.

It should also come as no surprise that Ryan is an Ayn Rand enthusiast who allegedly requires his staffers to read Atlas Shrugged, Rand’s most well-known work, in which society’s most productive members refuse to work in response to increasing government control over their economic activities.

Others are unimpressed by the talk of Ryan’s genius. The New Republic named Ryan one of 2011′s most overrated thinkers offering devastating criticism. The article called him “Washington’s idea of a big thinker” and accused him of trying to “impose a radical right-wing agenda” while “his doe-ish eyes and his Midwestern vintage convinced a rapt press corps that he is the ideas man in this age of budgetary woe.”

Paul Ryan’s intellectual capabilities notwithstanding, TNR is not incorrect about his agenda. On Monday at a luncheon hosted by the Associated Press, President Obama ripped the budget proposal as “nothing but thinly veiled social Darwinism.” Ryan’s latest budget disproportionately slashes programs that are used by the poor, with 62 percent of cuts coming from programs designed to help low-income Americans, according to the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities. As Washington Post writer Ezra Klein notes, despite Ryan’s speech to Heritage in October acknowledging government’s role in encouraging social mobility, the cuts this budget would make to the poor–specifically on education, food aid and health care–would seriously undermine their ability to get ahead. Under the guise of deficit reduction, the GOP is seeking to implement the pro-business, small government agenda it has always wanted.

Despite calls for him to enter the GOP presidential primary earlier this year, Paul Ryan declined, citing the lack of ambition. Recently, Ryan was mentioned as a potential VP choice. Though Ryan would certainly fire up the conservative base, many would like to see him stay and rise in the House of Representatives.

Ryan’s dream is to become the chairman on the prestigious House Ways & Means Committee. Ways & Means is considered the most powerful committee in Congress because it has jurisdiction over any bill that involves adjustments to revenue, giving it a voice on any significant piece of legislation: Medicare, Social Security, tax reform, ObamaCare, you name it. At the helm of Ways & Means, Ryan would have immediate access to the most important pieces of policy and a major say in how Congress seeks to address this nation’s budgetary challenges. Whatever the six-term Congressman chooses to do, he will continue to be a vocal and influential conservative voice in government.

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Can Obama win a second term with his shaky leadership style? | Photo courtesy of art_es_anna via Flickr Commons

Four years ago when Barack Obama was running for president, he promised to lead with a radically different philosophy than former President George W. Bush. Obama gave speeches in Europe and the Middle East pledging a new approach to foreign policy. His campaign events in the United States drew huge crowds and inspired a movement of young people who were looking for a change after eight years of the Bush administration.

Obama vowed to close the prison at Guantanamo Bay, ease relations with Cuba, and overhaul the nation’s health care and education systems. In 2009, the President was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize, a move inspired by his perceived power to direct America and the world towards a more peaceful future. Above all, he promised a more bipartisan political climate and a focus on reasoned debate as a policy-making tool. Obama has certainly fulfilled some of these goals and expectations, but in other areas he has changed gears completely.

One of Obama’s first moves upon taking office was to start the process that would eventually close the controversial detention center at Guantanamo Bay. However, the move met with resistance from members of Congress. Despite relocating dozens of detainees in only a few months, the administration quietly backed away from its stance on Guantanamo. In August 2010, only months after Obama took office, military trials resumed for the detainees there. In early 2011, Obama gave up plans to prosecute Khalid Sheik Mohamed in a federal court– “a decision that would mark the effective abandonment of the president’s promise to close” Gitmo, according to the Washington Post.

Some say the administration let its Guantanamo agenda slide in favor of health care reform. And despite the fact that the President eventually managed to push that reform through, it was at the cost of a large amount of political capital. The debate over the bill pitted Republicans and Democrats against each other and gave Republicans the momentum they needed to retake the House in 2010. Passing the health care bill is one of the President’s biggest achievements, but it may not stand the test of time. Last month, the Supreme Court heard arguments on the constitutionality of the bill. Several justices–even moderates like Anthony Kennedy–seemed very skeptical of the law.

Those struggles, along with Obama’s endeavor in 2009 to make decisions regarding the Afghan war and the maddening budget debate last summer, have painted a picture of a president unwilling to take a firm stance, even when it means sacrificing his political agenda.

Perhaps in an effort to live up to his promise of fostering bipartisan cooperation, Obama has avoided using a strong executive role in his dealings with Congress. Far from actually encouraging bipartisan cooperation, however, this has made the President appear weak and indecisive. While Republican politicians have taken the 2010 election results as a mandate to fight the White House’s agenda on every front, the White House itself has at times seemed uncertain of how to accomplish its own goals.

Obama has recently taken some steps to combat this image. When changes to President Bush’s unpopular No Child Left Behind program were too slow in coming for the administration’s liking, Obama announced last week that the government would no longer enforce certain portions of the law. Going forward, schools will be able to create their own “accountability and improvement systems,” according to The New York Times.

Another striking difference between the Obama for which many people thought they were voting and the Obama in office today is his relationship with defense. The war in Afghanistan rolled past the decade mark in October, but despite a troop drawdown following a surge, the war seems no closer to ending. Obama and the State Department are currently playing a game of chicken with Iran over that state’s nuclear ambitions. Obama has recently said that he would accept a program in Iran that would allow nuclear power but not weapons. Though it seems unlikely, there is still some concern that the United States could become involved in yet another land war in Asia. Even if the outcome of this confrontation is peaceful, it is hard to imagine the Nobel committee is happy with the outcome of their 2009 choice.

With an election year looming and a less than exuberant four years behind him, it is not hard to imagine that Obama is rethinking the strategies that led him through his first term. The tendency to sit back and allow decisions to be made slowly by others is certainly a change from George “The Decider” Bush, but it is not necessarily an improvement. If Obama wants to win a second term, he needs to make good on the leadership style that was advertised to voters in 2008. Using his charisma and intelligence to run the executive branch while reaching for a more rational, less reactionary foreign policy agenda would reassure voters and–as a bonus–might even make the country stronger.

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Say it with me: Mitt Romney, the nominee-to-be. Catchy, isn't it? | Photo courtesy of Wikimedia Commons

It’s not likely that he will lose, though. Mr. Romney’s three wins Tuesday now mean he has won 25 of the 37 primary contests held to this point. His victories this week gave him 76 more delegates – pushing him well past the halfway mark for the required total of 1,144. As it currently stands, Mr. Romney has a whopping 655 delegates, nearly 2.5 times the number of his nearest competitor, Rick Santorum, who has just 278. Former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich and Congressman Ron Paul have provided little resistance, with 135 and 51 delegates, respectively. (Yes, Mr. Romney won more delegates on Tuesday than Mr. Paul has won throughout the entire process.)

Sure, there are still 19 primaries to go, including those in the more socially conservative states of Nebraska, Arkansas, Kentucky, and Texas, states in which Mr. Santorum and Mr. Paul stand a good chance to stage an upset. In the mix, however, are Connecticut, New York, Delaware, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Oregon, New Jersey, and California. Truth be told, I don’t see Mr. Romney losing any of the latter. Even if the first list goes entirely against him, sweeping the second list would result in 481 more delegates, pushing Mr. Romney’s total to 1,136, more or less clinching the nomination. In addition, as some states award delegates based on proportions – while others award all delegates to the winner – narrow second place finishes do not in any way hurt the former Massachusetts governor’s chances.

In Wisconsin, where Mr. Romney won by nearly 5 points over Mr. Santorum, 8 out of 10 voters surveyed in exit polls said the former would be the eventual nominee. So strong is this belief that nearly two-thirds of those who voted for Mr. Santorum agreed! Confidence in Mr. Romney was reflected in Maryland, where he won with an astounding 70.2% of the vote. D.C. followed a similar storyline, with the former Bain CEO winning with an impressive 71%.

Over this seemingly-endless campaign season, Mr. Romney has seen his likely nomination at times blocked my flavor-of-the-month candidates like Michelle Bachmann, Rick Perry, Herman Cain, and even Newt Gingrich. Where are they now? Save for Mr. Gingrich, who may as well throw in the towel, the others’ campaigns ended before the new year. Even Mr. Romney’s most consistent competitor, Mr. Santorum, does not stand a realistic chance – in the national Gallup poll, the Mr. Romney is ahead by a huge 15 point margin.

The GOP head honchos are lining up their support for Mr. Romney. In recent weeks, endorsements have come in from Jeb Bush, Marco Rubio, and Jim DeMint. Even the Obama campaign team are proclaiming Mr. Romney as their November opponent. This is the first week that the president’s campaign directly criticized Mr. Romney by name in an ad, specifically for his apparent connection with Paul Ryan’s most recent awful budget proposal.

The writing on the wall is clear: Mitt Romney will be challenging President Obama in November. The Republican top dogs can read it, and even the president can read it. When will Mr. Santorum, Mr. Gingrich, and Mr. Paul call off their futile efforts and open their eyes?

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News reports have mentioned the fact that he was on his fourth deployment since joining the Army after 9/11, that his family home was in disrepair due to financial difficulties, and that the day before Bales’ alleged crimes, one of his friends was gravely injured during combat. However, since the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan began, the stress of repeated deployments, financial difficulty, and loss of life and limb are unfortunately commonplace. Why did this man, out of the thousands of soldiers dealing with similar problems, react to the stress of combat with violence directed at innocent people?

American Soldiers in Afghanistan. | Photo courtesy of Duffman via Wikimedia Commons.

It is unlikely that incidents like this can be wholly explained by accrediting their perpetrators with a “violent nature.” Besides the fact that up to this point, Staff Sgt. Bales was a well- respected soldier and citizen, there is evidence that extreme violence in the context of war does not come naturally to humans. Throughout human history, across cultures, there have been different rites and initiation ceremonies to prepare soldiers for war. In old Scandinavian cultures, soldiers worked themselves into a berserk state, leaving their humanity behind before heading into warfare. In a similar vein, Tahitian warriors were beaten with sticks and told to imitate the ferociousness of wild dogs. Alcohol and sex are also time-honored ways of blunting the stresses of combat; Yanomamo Indians, for example, ingest hallucinogens before battle.

In 1947, S.L.A. Marshall wrote a book entitled Men Against Fire in which he claimed that during World War II, in a squad of 10 men, only 3 men would fire when called upon to do so. He conducted similar research during the Vietnam War and concluded that close to 100% of soldiers were now firing their weapons. His results were questioned as later generations looked over his results, but the basic contention—that a significant percentage of soldiers do not fire when called upon—remained.

This is not surprising, as people within the American culture are taught that hurting another person is wrong, and that killing another is the worst crime of all. It would be bizarre if a lifetime of training could be overcome by even a few years of military training. The mental trauma caused by war has gone by several names over the years, including soldier’s heart and shell shock. Now, “adverse reactions” that soldiers experience due to combat are grouped together under the term Combat and Operational Stress Reaction, or COSR. These range from coping mechanisms to “misconduct stress behaviors” like Bales’ crimes.

Are events like this preventable? Needless to say, the military has a vested interest in treating the injuries of their soldiers, mental injuries or otherwise. Soldiers experience screenings and mental health training before deployment as well as after, and the Department of Veteran’s Affairs (DVA) has extensive mental health and suicide prevention programs. And although the military has sponsored medical marvels, the treatment of mental injuries is just now beginning to catch up.

A report released in 2007 by a Department of Defense (DOD) Task Force found the services offered by the military to fall behind the demonstrated need, due first and foremost to lack of funding and trained personnel. It recommended reducing the stigma attached to mental health problems, as well as increasing the breadth and depth of resources so that more soldiers could take advantage of care. A report released in 2011 by a Joint Mental Health Advisory Team found that the acute stress rates of soldiers in Afghanistan were higher than in 2009, but that rates of “suicide ideation” and troop morale levels were unchanged. The risk factors mentioned included exposure to combat and multiple deployments. They concluded that the stigma associated with Behavioral Health had not changed significantly since 2009, but that training adequacy for suicide and stress was significantly higher than in 2009.

The actions of Staff Sgt. Bales are a tragedy, not only for the families that must now recover from the brutal murder of their loved ones, but also for his family and for the soldiers currently serving in the American military. Atrocities like this crucially undermine the mission of Americans serving in Afghanistan. Clearly, mental trauma can be ruinous to a soldier’s own life, the lives of his fellow soldiers, and the lives of the people around him, not to mention the overarching mission. The argument can be made that atrocities are indivisible from war–that some are inevitable. But it is the duty of the military and the civilian sector to make the treatment of mental trauma as much of a priority as the treatment of physical injury. Until then, soldiers with trauma will continue to slip through the cracks, and the door will remain open for atrocities such as this to occur.

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Unesco is a UN agency that supports education, science, and culture. | Logo courtesy of Madden via Wikimedia Commons.

In October, the United States, Israel, and Canada all elected to pull funding from the United Nations Education, Science, and Cultural Organization – UNESCO – after the organization voted to allow Palestine to become a member of the group. The issue was back in the news this week after The Daily Show featured a lengthy exposé on the topic, raising questions about the priorities of American lawmakers and diplomats.

UNESCO is a UN organization that, according to its manifesto, “works to create the conditions for dialogue among civilizations, cultures, and peoples.” It does this largely by promoting education and gender equality, especially in Africa and the Middle East. UNESCO is also noted for maintaining “world heritage sites”, which are deemed to be of special cultural significance. After the vote to include Palestine, the organization has 195 full members that can benefit from funding and programs provided by UNESCO.

UNESCO funds education and training for people of all ages in the countries in which it operates. One of its goals is to ensure that women are granted access to education. It aims to make clean water more accessible and sustainable. Of particular interest to the United States are UNESCO programs in Iraq and Afghanistan, which may face cuts in the wake of loss of funding. In Iraq, programs seek to increase access to fresh water sources. In Afghanistan, UNESCO is involved in literacy training with special programs directed at Afghani police forces.

Until late 2011, almost a quarter of UNESCO’s funding came from the United States. The U.S. contributed $70 million to the effort annually. A further three percent of the organization’s budget was provided by Israel, though Israel has also cut funding in the wake of Palestinian membership. Canada stood by the U.S. and cut its $10 million dollar contribution to UNESCO. UNESCO is working to replace the loss of those funds, but it is likely that offices will be closed and staff will be cut in the wake of the cutoff. These cutbacks are likely to have serious consequences for those who depend on UNESCO funding for education and other services.

Though the UNESCO vote to include Palestine was decisive – 107 in favor, 14 against, 52 abstentions – the United States was firmly against the inclusion of Palestine, asserting that including Palestine in the organization could threaten Israel and harm peace talks between the two nations. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton made the United States’ position clear from the outset, suggesting that UNESCO “think again” before allowing Palestine to join. Clinton has said that including Palestine in UN organizations before it is granted full membership in the UN itself would be unwise.  By voting to include Palestine, Unesco triggered a reaction rooted in U.S. law that, according to the New York Times “mandates a full cutoff of American financing to any United Nations agency that accepts Palestine as a full member.”

The funding cuts were supported by politicians on both sides of the aisle in the United States, and the laws that forced the funding cut have been in place since the early 1990s. The United States has pushed back against Palestine’s efforts to be included in the United Nations, and some have claimed that Palestine being involved in UN organizations could prove a threat to Israel and to peace efforts in the region. The United States’ strong commitment to Israel has played a large part in its reaction to Palestine’s involvement in the UN.

The US has long made it clear that its relationship with Israel is a top priority, but cutting funding to a UN program is an overreaction. By contributing such a large portion of UNESCO’s budget, the United States was signaling that it approved of the organization’s goals of education and gender equality. The fact that UNESCO would be promoting those ends in Palestine does not make them any less honorable or less crucial.

The idea that allowing Palestine to participate in UN programs would harm Israel takes a narrow view of diplomacy. It is hard to imagine peace talks being more difficult to accomplish where there is greater investment in education, science, and culture. And even if Palestine’s UNESCO membership does not close the gap towards peace in the Middle East, the immense loss of funding that UNESCO programs have suffered since October could have serious detrimental effects. When the United States prioritizes Israel’s desires over the education funding for an entire region, those priorities need to be reevaluated.

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A bizarrely weak field certainly bears some responsibility for the current state of things. Another important factor is the role that the landmark Supreme Court case Citizens United (2008) played this election cycle. Citizens United gave way to Super PACs, which allow people to donate unlimited amounts of money under the protection of the First Amendment, meaning some very wealthy people have had an enormous amount of influence this campaign cycle.

A few weeks ago in an edition of the New York Times’ The Conversation, a weekly feature in which Times columnists David Brooks and Gail Collins discuss relevant issues, Collins mentioned that one thing she has learned from this primary is how many “loopy billionaires” this country has. As Collins points out, ”How could somebody who had enough judgment to make more than $20 billion come to feel that what this country really needs is President Newt Gingrich?”

Although there is no way to grasp fully the motivations of campaign mega-donors, its worth looking at some of top “loopy billionaires” supporting presidential candidate-affiliated Super PACs.

Supporting Newt Gingrich’s run is Sheldon Adelson, the CEO of Sands Corp Casinos, ranked by Forbes as the world 14th wealthiest man with a net worth of nearly $25 billion. Adelson and his wife donated $11 million to Gingrich’s Super PAC, Winning Our Future, and threatened to donate $100 million more. Adelson is also an ardent supporter of Israel, having donated $100 million to Birthright, the organization that takes young Jews on free trips to Israel, and $25 million to Yad Vashem, the Jerusalem Holocaust Museum. When asked why he was supporting Gingrich and opposing Obama, the international casino mogul replied that he was worried “of the socialist-style economy we’ve been experiencing for almost four years.”

Things haven’t been too bad for Adelson, who made more money than any other American during Barack Obama’s presidency–more than Mark Zuckerberg or Bill Gates.

Another notable donor this election is Foster Friess, a Bible-thumping Wisconsin investor and top Rick Santorum supporter who likes to say, “God is the chairman of my board.” Friess is credited with keeping the Santorum campaign alive through a $331,000 donation to the Santorum-aligned Super PAC, the Red, White and Blue Fund.

Foster Friess became a public relations nightmare for the Santorum campaign in February after commenting on President Obama’s conflict with religious groups over the administration’s contraception mandate. Speaking with MSNBC’s Andrea Mitchell, Friess stated, “Back in my days, they used Bayer Aspirin for contraception. The gals put it between their knees and it wasn’t that costly.” After considerable backlash Friess later apologized, and Rick Santorum condemned the comment as a ”bad off-color joke.”

The Santorum campaign was so horrified by Friess’ comments that it accepted a $600,000 donation just days later.

Mitt Romney’s proximity to wealth as a founder at Bain Capital is surely the reason why his campaign collects far more donations from billionaires than any other presidential candidate’s. The Romney-affiliated Super PAC, Restore Our Future, received donations from 16 billionaires and 12 donations of $1 million dollars or more. Louis Bacon, a hedge fund manager and founder of Moore Capital Management, proved influential, as have employees and executives at Bain Capital. Bacon donated $500,000 to Restore Our Future and Bain Capital has donated a total of $2,726,500.

William Koch of the infamous Koch brothers, Tea Party financiers, has donated a total $1 million to the organization. So far the remaining Koch brothers have not lined up support behind one candidate.

Peter Thiel, an ardent libertarian and PayPal Founder worth $1.5 billion has thrown his support behind Representative Ron Paul. Thiel has so far donated $2.6 million dollars to the pro-Paul Endorse Liberty Super PAC. Theil, along with fellow PayPal founders, is responsible for Endorse Liberty’s strong presence on the web.

Not wanting to be outmatched, President Obama recently reneged on a promise not to affiliate himself with Super PACs and began courting donations to affiliated organizations. Since then, a number of prominent people in entertainment have lined up to donate. Bill Maher of HBO’s Real Time with Bill Maher recently donated $1 million dollars to Priorities USA, the pro-Obama Super PAC, despite denying party affiliation throughout his career.

Jefferey Katzenberg, CEO of DreamWorks Animation, wins the Obama donation contest with a $2 million contribution to the campaign last May. Students may recognize the name from the Marilyn and Jeffrey Katzenberg Center. The couple donated the study lounge to the College of General Studies building in 2006 because they claim that the CGS program gave their children “a love of education.”

If that’s not “loopy,” I don’t know what is.

CBS News List of Top Super PAC Donors: Link

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Illustration by Evan Caughey

As Iran continues development on its nuclear program, denouncing nuclear weapons at the highest levels of government while continuing to enrich uranium and barring International Atomic Energy Agency inspectors from conducting a fully transparent inspection, Israel and the United States are working to address how they will continue to go about preventing a nuclear Iran.

The IAEA report issued last November strongly condemned the Iranian nuclear program. Despite Iran’s insistence that its program is for peaceful purposes, the report accused the country of activities relevant to making a nuclear weapon, activities like testing explosives, performing experiments on detonating a nuclear weapon, and drawing models for missiles with nuclear capability.

President Obama and Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu met last Monday at the White House to discuss the growing threat faced by Iran’s nuclear ambitions.

The Israeli government is viewed to be pushing for a military strike sooner rather than later, whereas the United States has continually urged that more time be given to let the current economic sanctions take effect. Recently, with thousands of pro-Israel supporters descending on Washington last week for the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) conference and election day approaching amidst criticisms that he has been weak on Israel, President Obama has sharpened his rhetoric towards the Islamic Republic. He vowed that the U.S.’ policy is not containment of a nuclear Iran but prevention of Iran’s ability to acquire a nuclear weapon.

At the meeting between the two heads of state on Monday, Prime Minister Netanyahu told reporters, “Israel remains master of its fate.” According to analysis of the meeting by the New York Times, this rhetoric implies that Netanyahu believes that U.S. will not try to block Israel from taking military action on Iran.

The question still remains whether the United States should participate in a strike on Iran. As Israel’s closest ally, the United States has consistently vowed to protect Israel’s security and its right to exist.

Despite the constant stream of inflammatory rhetoric from the Islamic Republic on the U.S. and Israel, there is a disagreement on the true danger of a nuclear Iran. Prime Minister Netanyahu seems to view Iran as an existential threat, likening the regime to Nazi Germany. Other top officials, including Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak and U.S. Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Martin Dempsey, do not. The premise of Barak, Dempsey and others’ argument is based on the rational actor model–that Iranian leaders are rational, and, like other rational leaders, want to preserve their own power. The argument continues that Tehran understands that an unprovoked strike on Israel would bring international condemnation, the wrath of Israeli and American military might, and the downfall of the Islamic Republic’s ruling regime.

Whatever the case may be, an Iranian bomb would have an incredible impact on U.S. interests in the region. Iran could pass on weapons or nuclear secrets to its far less rational proxies, Hezbollah in Lebanon and Hamas in Gaza, or to jihadist groups in Iraq and Afghanistan creating an undeniably existential threat for Israel. An Iranian bomb would likely spark a nuclear arms race beginning with the Persian country’s Arab rival, Saudi Arabia. These outcomes would bring an unprecedented level of instability to the world’s most unstable region.

President Obama and Prime Minister Netanyahu meet in the White House | Photo by Pete Souza via Wikimedia Commons

Council of Foreign Relations Fellow Matthew Kroenig, in his essay in Foreign Affairs encouraging a military strike on Iran, discusses at length the costs of a nuclear Iran. Kroenig argues that an Iranian regime armed by nuclear weapons immediately requires the United States to think twice about its actions in the region. Consider in 2001 when the United States sent troops to Afghanistan to drive out the Taliban and rid the country of al-Qaeda. Had Iran had nuclear weapons at that point, the U.S. would have been required to comply with Iranian conditions if it had threatened nuclear war. With U.S. troop levels dying down in Iraq and Afghanistan, a nuclear Iran would wield exponentially more influence in the volatile countries and necessitate that the U.S. sends additional troops back to the Middle East as a balance.

Israel has successfully conducted unilateral air raids on Middle Eastern countries’ nuclear programs twice before, once on the Osirak reactor in Iraq in 1981 and another attack on a Syrian Nuclear Project in 2007. Neither Iraq or Syria restarted their nuclear programs again.

However, experts agree that an attack on Iran’s nuclear program would be far more difficult. Having learned from the Israeli strikes on Iraq and Syria, Iran has spread its nuclear facilities throughout the country with a number of them buried deep underground. As a result, most experts believe that an air strike would only delay Iran’s ability to develop nuclear weapons rather than stop the program altogether, especially one from Israel which lacks the United States’ capacity to carry out a significant attack.

This has led skeptics to argue that the risks associated with an attack on Iran are not worth the reward.

The risks are indeed profound and numerous. According to an article in the New York Times, retaliatory strikes on Israeli and American targets are nearly certain. Iran would also likely encourage Hamas and Hezbollah to rain rockets on Israeli cities and resort to other forms of terrorism throughout the region. U.S. military bases and oil operations in the region could be targeted. A full scale retaliation on western targets could bring the U.S. into a protracted conflict in the Middle East, regardless of whether it participates in bombing raids.

The economic risks are great as well. Iran has threatened to close the straits of Hormuz, through which 20 percent of the world’s oil passes, raising oil prices and providing a blow to the U.S.’ recovering, but fragile economy and throwing a wrench into Europe’s fiscal crisis.

Opponents of a military strike argue that an attack would also provide the current Iranian government justification for pursuing nuclear weapons while allowing the regime to consolidate power just as devastating sanctions are causing a growing number of Iranian citizens to doubt the government’s legitimacy.

Still, many question the effectiveness of the sanctions on Iran, which have been enforced on the country since 1979, when the U.S. supported Shah was thrown from power and the Islamic Republic established itself as the ruling government. As Israeli newspaper Jerusalem Post points out, despite the recent addition of sanctions on Iran’s central bank and EU embargo of Iranian oil, as long as China, India and Russia continue purchasing Iranian oil, the Islamic Republic’s economy can stay afloat.

This issue is undoubtedly a complex one. As the left-leaning Israeli newspaper Haaretz illustrates in its analysis of the Netanyahu and Obama’s meeting, the Prime Minister is still unsure of how he wants to proceed. There may still be hope that this conflict does not escalate into war. Iran has yet to begin developing weapons, and this week western leaders agreed to resume discussions with Iran over its nuclear program. American and Israeli officials understand the risks involved and while few believe that an attack on Iran’s nuclear facilities is a desirable approach, ultimately if Israel feels like the window to prevent Iran from obtaining nuclear weapons is closing, it will attack. The role of the United States, the Iranian reaction and the regional fallout will remain to be seen.

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