Previously: All you need to know about Mitt Romney’s views on foreign policy (March 19, 2012)

Molly Ivins, almost nine years ago:

Molly Ivins

What WMD’s?

April 29, 2003

….In the weeks before Gulf War II, the United States told the world Saddam Hussein was hiding mobile chemical laboratories, drones fitted with poison sprays, 15 to 20 Scud missile launchers, 5,000 gallons of anthrax, several tons of VX nerve gas agent and between 100 tons and 500 tons of other toxins, including botulinun, mustard gas, ricin and Sarin. Also, we said he had over 30,000 illegal munitions. So far, we have found bupkes.

The United States, which insisted it could not give United Nations weapons inspectors so much as 10 days more to search, so dangerous were these WMDs, now says it needs months to find them. In the meantime, we are clearly being set up to put the whole issue of WMDs down the memory hole. Here are the lines of argument advanced by the administration so far:

— Saddam did have WMDs, but in a wily plot, he poured them all down a drain right before we invaded, just so he could embarrass Bush.

— The WMDs are still there, but in some remote desert hiding place we may never be able to find. “Just because we haven’t found anything doesn’t mean it wasn’t there,” one Pentagon source told the Los Angeles Times. Right.

— Saddam had WMDs, but he handed them off to the Syrians just before we came in. Or maybe it was to the Iranians.

— Well, maybe Saddam didn’t have huge stores of WMDs, but he had critical blueprints, weapons parts and, most ominously, “precursor chemicals,” so he could have manufactured WMDs.

— Well, maybe he didn’t have WMDs ready to deliver. The Pentagon has already backtracked on the Scud-missile claim.

So far, U.S. “mobile exploitation teams” and other special forces have visited 90 of the top 150 “hot” sites identified by U.S. intelligence. No wonder Hans Blix, head of the U.N. inspection team, says what he got from American intelligence was “garbage.”

I’m sorry, but this does make a difference. The problem is called credibility….

[emphasis added]

Ambassador John Bolton, in June 2010, about the same thing:

….Question: …Now, I notice you’ve been putting down the current administration quite a bit. [crosstalk] I recall…

Ambassador Bolton: Not really, I haven’t even gotten started yet.

Question: Oh, okay, well,[applause, cheers]…

Now, now going back to two thousand three when we went into the Iraq war, if I recall, you and the Bush administration supported the Iraq war quite substantially. Now, what is your justification for going into the war since they had no nuclear weapons and then themselves had no threat to the United States as a whole? [applause, cheers]

Ambassador Bolton: Well, I, I view, I view the regime of Saddam Hussein as a threat to international peace and security. And I felt that, uh, after the first gulf war, uh, there was unfinished business in leaving him in power. Uh, now don’t get me wrong, when President Bush forty-one, uh, stopped the, uh, military action and, uh, when he did and essentially took the steps that allowed Saddam to remain in power, at the time I thought that was the right course of action. Uh, and it was only with the passage of time that I realized that, uh, that had been a mistake. Uh, so I view the decision, uh, in two thousand three to overthrow Saddam, eh, effectively as a continuation of the first Persian Gulf War. Uh, and this is not unusual in history, in Europe they had the Thirty-Years War, uh, things go on for a long period of time. But essentially, removing Saddam Hussein was important to remove a threat, uh, that he posed, he and his regime posed in the region and around the world.

Now, the question of whether the regime possessed weapons of mass destruction, uh, I think is one that has been badly misunderstood. There is simply no question that had Saddam accomplished his objectives of eliminating the, uh, U.N. sanctions, uh, and getting U.N. weapons inspectors out of Iraq, which would have happened as soon as the sanctions regime was lifted entirely, uh, he would have gone back to the pursuit of weapons of mass destruction. During the entire period of time after, uh, the nineteen ninety nineteen ninety-one, uh, war he kept, on his payroll, uh, thousands of nuclear scientists and technicians. He called them his nuclear mujahedeen. And there’s no doubt that once the inspectors were gone he would have gone back to his efforts to, uh, achieve nuclear weapons.

Uh, now some people have said that the, uh, failure to find, uh, nuclear weapons or chemical weapons, uh, in Iraq was, was either because the administration distorted what his capabilities were, or that it was an intelligence failure and that, uh, what we know today proves that we shouldn’t have gone to war against Iraq. Well, I can tell you it was not an exaggeration, uh, because you can’t do that in Washington and not read about it in the paper the next day. Nor was it an intelligence failure. The fear that we had about Iraq’s, particularly its chemical weapons, came not from intelligence but came from Iraq’s own declarations in nineteen ninety-one as a condition of the ceasefire after the first Persian Gulf War. Iraq claimed that it had enormous quantities of chemical weapons and under, uh, uh, Resolution Six Eighty-Seven, the so called Security Council Ceasefire Resolution, Iraq was required, uh, to, uh, destroy the weapons that it declared, uh, or to prove to the U.N. weapons inspectors that it had destroyed the weapons. So when the weapons inspectors went in and they began to destroy, uh, various aspects of, of Saddam’s nuclear program and his ballistic missile program, uh, the U.N. weapons inspectors said to the Iraqi’s, show us the chemical weapons that you declared so that we can begin destroying them. Uh, and the Iraqi’s said in response, well, that’s okay we’ve already destroyed them all. And the U.N. weapons inspectors said, okay fine, show us the places where you destroyed the chemical weapons, show us the records how the destruction took place, introduce us to the scientists and technicians who carried out the destruction so that we can interview them and verify that in fact you have destroyed these weapons that you declared. That you declared. And the Iraqi’s said, we’re not gonna show you the locations, we’re not gonna show you the documents, we’re not gonna introduce you to the people who accomplished it. Now, I will tell you there was not anybody involved in dealing with Iraq who didn’t believe that, uh, the Iraqis were flat out lying about having destroyed all those weapons. Uh, they, they had declared that they had the weapons and they produced no proof, uh, to support their assertions that they had destroyed the weapons. So, everybody believed, everybody believed that the weapons still existed. Uh, and in fact, that’s why when American and other coalition forces went in to Iraq they took with them chemical weapons protective gear which is incredibly bulky, cumbersome, and in the middle of, uh, the, uh, Iraqi summer, extremely hot. No responsible American general would burden his troops with that chemical weapons protective gear unless they thought that there was a real risk that Saddam would use chemical weapons. Uh, and in fact, many people around the world argued against the American attack precisely on the grounds that it would provoke Saddam to use the chemical weapons that he had declared.

Uh, now, in fact, uh no chemical weapons were used during the second Persian Gulf War and we have not located, uh, anything but little bits and traces of the chemical weapons capability. Now that means one
of several things. First, that somehow or another Saddam had destroyed the chemical weapons. But there is simply no, uh, uh, no evidence anywhere that that’s happened. It’s not something that you just kind of dump into the Tigris and Euphrates River, uh, unless you want to kill everything in it for hundreds of miles. Uh, the, if you look at the way the United States is destroying its own chemical weapons supplies it’s in very tightly controlled  circumstances. This is an extraordinarily hazardous, uh, thing to do, uh, with great risk of, uh, uh, of people getting killed if the process goes wrong. So, to have destroyed the, uh, supplies that Iraq claimed would have, there would have been evidence of it and we’ve found no such evidence. Second possibility is he shipped it out of the country. We just don’t know whether he did or not. Third possibility is that he buried it in the desert somewhere. Now, hard as that is to believe, you ought to go on, uh, the Internet and find the pictures that American troops took of big fighter planes wrapped in burlap buried in the desert sands being uncovered by American bulldozers. It’s like scenes out of Planet of the Apes with wings and tail fins of Migs peering out of the desert sand. Anybody who’s crazy enough to bury Mig fighters in the desert is probably crazy enough to bury chemical weapons. [applause] But we haven’t, we haven’t found that. So, so that, please, don’t go away, I’m not done yet. [laughter] That leaves the possibility that Saddam was lying about his chemical weapons capabilities in nineteen ninety-one when he made the declarations to the United Nations. That, that may be the most likely outcome. That shows how profoundly, uh, deceptive and threatening this regime was. But, but let’s be clear, the decision to remove Saddam Hussein was a plus for the United States and the world, it has, it has removed one of the most dangerous regimes, uh, in the Middle East, it has given the Israeli [sic] people the chance for self government, which they hadn’t had in their entire history, uh, and I think that it will lead, uh, to, to greater peace and security for the United States. [applause, cheers]….

[underline emphasis added]

Oh, I see, you’ve already met.

Yep, credibility. That’s the core of Mitt Romney’s (r) views on foreign policy.

Who do you think is going to run the show? From the campaign:

Mitt Romney Announces Support of Ambassador John Bolton

January 12, 2012

Location

Boston, MA

United States

Mitt Romney announced today the support of Ambassador John R. Bolton.

“I am honored to have John’s support,” said Mitt Romney. “John has been a staunch defender of U.S. interests and values, both while he was in and out of government. John’s wisdom, clarity, and courage are qualities that should typify our foreign policy. I look forward to consulting with him as we campaign to restore America’s standing abroad and ensure that this century is an American Century.”

“Of all the candidates, Mitt Romney possesses the strongest vision for America’s leadership role in the world, and I am proud to endorse him,” Ambassador Bolton said. “President Obama has sapped America’s credibility abroad, weakened our military and failed to lead on issues vital to U.S. national security. President Obama has left America exposed to ever increasing threats. Mitt Romney will restore our military, repair relations with our closest allies, and ensure that no adversary-including Iran-ever questions American resolve.”

Background on Ambassador John R. Bolton

John R. Bolton was the U.S. Permanent Representative to the United Nations from August 2005 to December 2006. From 2001 to 2005, he was Under Secretary of State for Arms Control and International Security.  Ambassador Bolton also served in the George H.W. Bush Administration as Assistant Secretary for International Organization Affairs, and in the Reagan Administration as Assistant Attorney General at the Department of Justice and General Counsel at USAID. He is currently a Senior Fellow at the American Enterprise Institute and Of Counsel at the law firm of Kirkland & Ellis.

###

[emphasis added]

For those of you who haven’t been paying attention, this is what they want to do when they return to power:

Previously:

Ambassador John Bolton at Missouri Boys State: photos (June 15, 2010)

Ambassador John Bolton at Missouri Boys State: remarks (June 16, 2010)

Ambassador John Bolton at Missouri Boys State: Q and A, part 1 (June 18, 2010)

Ambassador John Bolton at Missouri Boys State: Q and A, part 2 (June 19, 2010)

Ambassador John Bolton at Missouri Boys State: Q and A, part 3 (June 20, 2010)

….Ambassador John Bolton: Uh, but let’s, let’s follow the North Korean threat back into the Middle East. I mentioned Iran a moment ago. We will find out, I am certain, that that reactor the North Koreans were building in Syria, uh, was actually financed by Iran. And it was probably a three way joint venture, because after all, Iran has the same incentive that North Korea does to hide its nuclear weapons program from, uh, international inspection.  Now Iran is a very different country than North Korea. It has enormous reserves of oil and natural gas. It has an ancient culture. Uh, it has a high degree, uh, of education for its citizens. It’s a very sophisticated country, even under the rule of the Islamic revolution of nineteen seventy-nine.  And Iran, uh, sees itself as a major player, uh, in the Middle East, uh, within the struggle inside of Islam for dominance. And it aspires to be, uh, a global power. That’s one reason why its pursuit of nuclear weapons, in many respects, uh, is even more dangerous than North Korea’s, because Iran is not dependent, uh, on the outside world, in the case of North Korea, dependent on China. Iran could be uh, completely self sufficient and indeed is a major international supplier of oil and natural gas.

But Iran is also in the grip, uh, of a, uh, of its own form of totalitarianism, in this case, religious fanaticism that has over the past several years moved into a kind of military theocracy. The real power in Iran today is held by the Revolutionary Guards which are controlled by, uh, by military officials loyal to, uh, President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. Now, we are almost exactly today, uh, on the fifteenth of June, one year after the election in Iran last year held on June twelfth that was quite obviously stolen by Ahmadinejad. And you’ll remember the pictures of the demonstrators in Tehran and other Iranian cities going out into the streets to protest the fraud that was, uh, was so evident. And, you know, when the, when the, when the people who went out, students, middle class people, uh, all over the country, uh, they didn’t begin their protest by, uh, calling for the overthrow of the regime itself, although the regime is very unpopular. They just thought, uh, that they ought to have a free and fair election. The regime’s response was to bring the Revolutionary Guards and their militia allies, the Basiji, into the streets, uh, resulting in, uh, hundreds and hundreds of deaths of, uh, innocent civilians, students, uh, uh, shop owners, uh, regular people who had probably never demonstrated in their lives. This was the real face of the regime in Iran. It is a dictatorship. It is essentially today a military dictatorship. Uh, and so effective was it in crushing the opposition, uh, that this past weekend on the first anniversary of that fraudulent election, uh, there were almost demonstrations at all. And that reflects the unfortunate reality that the Revolutionary Guard’s power in Iran is even more entrenched then it was before, and reflects also their growing confidence that their pursuit of nuclear weapons is getting closer and closer to success.

What will this mean when Iran gets nuclear weapons? Well, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, the president, has himself, uh, announced that it’s his desire to wipe the State of Israel off the face of earth. Uh, he has held conferences in Iran with names like “The World Without the United States and Israel.” So, he’s made his intentions pretty clear. Uh, but even if Iran doesn’t use nuclear weapons against Israel, simple having nuclear weapons will exert a profound change on the balance of power, uh, in the Middle East. Uh, and if you don’t like the price of gasoline at what it is today, imagine Iran with hegemonic control, not only over its own oil and natural gas supplies, but exerting effective control over the supplies just across the Persian Gulf, in Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Qatar, Bahrain, the United Arab Emirates, and Oman. That kind of power, uh, in the hands of this theocratic dictatorship in Iran could have a profoundly disturbing consequence for the American economy and the economy of Western Europe and, and the world as a whole. Moreover, if Iran gets nuclear weapons, and I think it’s very close to that point, uh, I don’t think we can count on being able to contain and deter Iran as we did the Soviet Union during the cold war. I think the calculus of the Mullahs, the Ayatollahs in Iran, is very different. Say what you want about the Communists, they were atheists, and they thought they only went around once in life. They weren’t about to throw that away too quickly. But if you believe, uh, as the Ayatollahs do, that life in the hereafter is a lot better than life on Earth, it’s pretty hard to deter somebody, uh, with that kind of approach. I like to think the American view, uh, is summed up in the, uh, Kenny Chesn
ey song, uh, “Everybody want to go to Heaven, nobody want to go now.” That’s how deterrence works for us. It doesn’t work that way with the Iranians. But, even if I’m wrong on that, and Iran could be contained and deterred, it doesn’t stop with, uh, their achieving nuclear weapons status.

Other countries in the region will respond. Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Turkey, and perhaps others will get nuclear weapons. So, in a very short period of time, five to ten years, you could have a multi-polar nuclear Middle East which almost guarantees, uh, because of the instability that’s the consequence of that, uh, display of nuclear weapons, uh, almost guarantees that somebody will decide to strike one of their neighbors before their neighbors decide to strike them. And that level of uncertainty and risk, uh, will no doubt have profound consequences, uh, for the global price of oil and other natural resources.

Moreover, the lesson that others will draw when they see that the United States is not able to stop North Korea’s nuclear program, when they see that Iran, despite U.S. sanctions, despite four, uh, sanction resolutions in the U.N. Security Council, despite sanctions by the European Union and Japan, still Iran is able to achieve nuclear weapons status.  That will prove to every other would be proliferator, uh, that if they’re simply determined enough they too can obtain nuclear weapons.  Uh, and that will inspire the terrorists groups, too, Al Qaeda and Taliban and others. So that the risk that we see here is a world that, despite the end of the cold war, doesn’t become more stable and more peaceful, uh, it becomes at greater risk because the threat of a terrorist with a nuclear weapon or a biological or a chemical weapon is far worse, even than the threat from terrorists, uh, who brought the attacks of nine eleven….

….Question: …Tonight during your discussion you were talking about Iran’s developing nuclear program. I was wondering what the U.N. or the U.S. would do, um, to intervene when the, um, the, Iran’s, um, threatening Israel, um, Israel’s sovereignty? And do you think it would make a difference if Mousavi got elected in the past Iranian, um, election because most of the power lies within the theocracy and, aya, Ayatollah Khamani?

Ambassador Bolton: Well, I, I don’t, I don’t  think the election fundamentally would have changed very much. But I think that the fraud that was, uh, so visible in last year’s election, uh, actually helped demonstrate to a lot of Iranians just how, uh, illegitimate, uh, the Islamic Revolution nineteen seventy-nine has become. I think it’s a very unpopular government in many respects. And I wish the United States, both during the Bush administration and the Obama administration, had done more to supply the opposition with support so that when that fraudulent election had occurred, if we had really given them the resources we might have had an opportunity to see the regime overthrown. Uh, that didn’t happen, we didn’t give them adequate support, either in two thousand nine or in the years preceding that. Uh, and so that opportunity has slipped away and I think it will be quite some time before it comes back. The fact is that, uh, because we have engaged in, uh, now nearly eight years of diplomacy with Iran they have used that time to overcome essentially all of the complex scientific and technological obstacles that stand in the way of a nuclear weapons program. They’re very close to having a weapons capability, it’s really a matter for them when they decide they’re gonna do it. Uh, the diplomacy has failed, the sanctions have failed, uh, so I think today, uh, there are really only, uh, two options facing us with respect to Iran’s nuclear weapons. One is, and this is the most likely option, that indeed they do get nuclear weapons and we’ve got to deal with the consequences of a nuclear Iran. The only thing that will stop that is the second option, which is that some outside power uses preemptive force to strike against the nuclear weapons program, uh, and destroy as much of it as, uh, might be possible, thus setting Iran back, two, three, four, maybe more years. That that is in itself not a complete solution to the problem, but two to four years in, in this business is nearly infinity. I think there’s no chance that the Obama administration will use force. I once thought there was a chance that President Bush would use force. That obviously didn’t happen. I’m not even holding my breath on this administration. Which means that the choice, it’s a very [applause], it’s a very, it’s a very unpleasant choice for Israel, is between seeing Iran get nuclear weapons and taking preemptive action. Uh, military force here is a very unattractive, uh, outcome. It’s very risky, uh, there could be enormous, uh, potential consequences, uh, but in Israel’s case, uh, nuclear weapons in the hands of Iran, uh, could bring, uh, a second Holocaust, this time a, a nuclear holocaust. And, uh, I don’t think that’s something that they want to wait and find out about. When Israel has faced, uh, a potential nuclear threat in the past it has not hesitated to act, uh, preemptively. It destroyed, uh, Saddam Hussein’s Osirak reactor outside of Baghdad in nineteen eighty-one, as I mentioned a few moments ago it destroyed the North Korean reactor in Syria, uh, in September two thousand seven. Uh, so given, given the alternative of a nuclear Iran I think the military option is very much on the table for the Israelis. I don’t know what they’re gonna do but I don’t think they have much time. Both because, uh, that Iran is increasingly close to actually having a nuclear weapons capability and because, uh, at, at some point the Russians may yet deliver the, uh, what we call the S three hundred air defense system, a very sophisticated air defense system that Israel couldn’t penetrate, uh, which would effectively eliminate the Israeli  military option. So, I think we’re very close to a decision by Israel and, uh, and the consequences that will, that will, that will flow from that. [applause]….

Any questions?

The new product:

New York Times

EDITORIAL DESK  September 14, 2002, Saturday

Never Forget What?

By FRANK RICH (NYT) 1538 words

Late Edition – Final, Section A, Page 15, Column 1

“….Candor is so little prized in Washington that you want to shake the hand of anyone who dares commit it. So cheers to Andrew Card, the president’s chief of staff, for telling The Times’s Elisabeth Bumiller the real reason that his boss withheld his full-frontal move on Saddam Hussein until September: ‘From a marketing point of view, you don’t introduce new products in August.’ Mr. Card has taken some heat for talking about a war in which many may die as if it were the rollout of a new S.U.V. But he wasn’t lying, and history has already proved him right. This campaign has been so well timed and executed that the new product already owns the market. The unofficial motto of the 9/11 anniversary may have been ‘Never forget,’ but by 9/12, if not before, the war on Al Qaeda was already fading from memory as the world was invited to test-drive the war on Iraq….”

March 20, 2003

[….] and I left Warrensburg at 4:30 p.m. and made it to the J.C. Nichols fountain at 47th and Main in Kansas City by 5:30 p.m. The organizers had planned for some time to have a 6:00 p.m. protest on the Plaza if hostilities broke out. I had been ambivalent about attending given the ugly rhetoric which is now being directed at those who dissent by the purveyors of right wing talk radio, cable television, and “yellow journalism”.  We had to do something positive and affirming rather than sit at home watching the crap on television which passes for real journalism these days, so we were finally resolved to attend.  As we drove up to the fountain we saw that people were already on the picket line and the TV trucks and cameras were in abundance.  At its peak we had 400 to 500 people.

It was overcast, cold and windy – temperature in the 40s.  We took our place on the line. We had decided earlier to only bring our pacifist signs. “Peace on Earth”, “In the Name of God, Stop Killing, In the Name of God”, and my graphic peace sign – it’s getting tattered from so much use…

Somewhat subdued, we quietly spoke on the line.  My favorite new sign: “War is so 20th century”. The response from passing traffic was overwhelmingly positive – a lot of honking and peace signs.  One well pickled Republican matron rolled down her car window and asked, “Don’t you people know the war has already started?”  This kind of cluelessness shouldn’t surprise me anymore.  There were occasional pro-war shouts and one “bird”, though I was surprised that they were not as ugly and aggressive as they were last Sunday – I suppose they’re sated because they are getting their crappy little war.

We stood next to a veteran (there were many there tonight).  We were joined by an old friend and several colleagues.  After a while the organizers called us to the fountain.  Some folk singers sang a witty and satirical “12 days of war” song.  We had brought candles (and plastic cups as wind shields), so we lit them and stood listening to the music.  The singers had us all join in singing “Peace, Shalom, Salaam”.  There were several speakers.  In the most peaceful moment of the day for me, as we stood there with our candles, we were barely aware that a photographer from the Kansas City Star took our pictures (when he finished he asked for our names and where we were from, writing the information down).  After the announcements were finished, the host marched through the Plaza shopping district.

The marchers stayed on the sidewalk, chanting in a call and response “Tell me what democracy looks like. This is what democracy looks like” and “What do we want? Peace! When do we want it? Now!”  As we marched into the Plaza we passed the glassed in front of one of those upscale dining establishments.  Lo and behold, two older women were standing watching us and flashed us peace signs!  We looped back around and passed several clothing establishments.  Some people shopping in the stores or watching us from the doorways flashed peace signs.

After we made it back to the fountain we walked to our car for the hour long drive home.

We haven’t forgotten.

Liberals like to point out the ways that conservatives ignore reality in favor of ideology. The educational reform promised Missourians by their Republican legislature offers one more instance where that belief holds true. The Missouri GOP packed all their best ideas into one big education bill that is, because it is an omnibus bill crammed with the good, the bad and the ugly, very likely to fail. Which is probably a very good thing, given that the bad and the ugly tend to predominate in its provisions – of which some, to be fair, are supported by Democrats. The bill is heavy on ways to:

— Gut teacher protections such as tenure and enact punitive efforts to beat teachers into “good” performance, such as merit pay tied to test scores, etc. while doing little to address teacher training, credentialing, or potentially more effective incentives than merit pay. This approach fails to recognize that teachers are only part of a very complex equation.

— Continue adherence to a data-driven evaluative process that emphases standardized testing as the sole measure of student, teacher and individual school success. Not only are such tests an imperfect measure, but when they become too consequential, they invite fraud. For example, the seeming success of Washington D.C.’s former Chancellor Michelle Rhee’s tenure as measured by such tests has been marred by allegations of cheating which have also surfaced in the St. Louis school system.

— Expand charter schools, although the evidence that is now filtering in suggests that charters perform no better and often perform at a lower level than well-funded public counterparts. The fact that many inner city liberals also pin their hopes on charter schools is not only testimony to their desperation, but to the current prevalence of magical thinking in the field of educational reform.

— Transfer public funds to private and religious schools – seems like the recent brouhaha about the nature of insurance coverage that publicly funded Catholic nonprofits must provide their employees doesn’t suggest to any of our august pols that keeping religion and publicly funded education separate is a really good idea for a diverse society like ours.

In spite of the fact that they are offered as new and radical approaches to our educational dilemma, there’s nothing in the list above that conservatives haven’t been yammering about for the past thirty years – the only difference is that the noise level is much higher, and many despairing liberals, faced with a seemingly intractable situation, have thrown in their cards for new ones much like those the anti-public education right-wing have been waving in their faces all these years.

Instead of grasping at stale ideas that have not proved out, why aren’t our legislators, right and left, looking at successful foreign educational models. Finland, for instance, which in the 1970s was faililng badly at educating its children, has since built one of the most effective educational systems in the world; it consistently ranks at the top of all international measures. In the process Finland realized one of the main goals of the No Child Left Behind Act: Finnish schools significantly reduced the gap between rich and low achieving, poor students – and they did it by rejecting everyone of the solutions outlined above.

A new book, Finnish Lessions: What Can the World Learn from Educational Change in Finland? by Pasi Sahlberg, describes the educational system that produces these results. Follow me over the break for a summary of the details:

1. First and foremost is the emphasis on teacher training. Finnish teacher training programs are very selective – only 15% of applicants are accepted, although once accepted, tuition is free. As Dianne Ravitch summarizes it in the New York Review of Books,* the program requires that:

Future teachers have a strong academic education for three years, then enter a two-year master’s degree program. Subject-matter teachers earn their master’s degree from the university’s academic departments, not-in contrast to the US-the department of teacher education, or in special schools for teacher education. Every candidate prepares to teach all kinds of students, including students with disabilities and other special needs. Every teacher must complete an undergraduate degree and a master’s degree in education.

2. Teacher autonomy:  In return, for completing this rigorous program, teachers with more than fifteen years experience can expect to earn somewhat more than similarly experienced American teachers. The real motivators, apart from the prestige that successful graduates of the highly selective system enjoy, is the autonomy and respect that they are granted in the classrooms and the infrastructure that is in place to support and insure their continued success. There is little or no centralized meddling in individual classrooms.

3. Teacher Support: Various specialists, tutors, and counselors are available to assist teachers. Almost 50% of Finnish students work with one of these affiliated educational professionals at some point. Teachers themselves spend at least half their time in continuing education classes or in cooperative activities with their colleagues.

4. Infrastructure: The Finnish government has invested the necessary funds to insure that the architectural and physical environment supports the educational mission.

5. Educational specialization: Students follow a common path until the ninth grade when they will choose to pursue an academic or a vocational path. Both courses are well-supported.

6. Student support: he Finnish government realizes that children can only do their best in school when their more basic needs have been addressed. As Ravitch notes:

The children of Finland enjoy certain important advantages over our own children. The nation has a strong social welfare safety net, for which it pays with high taxes. More than 20 percent of our children live in poverty, while fewer than 4 percent of Finnish children do. Many children in the United States do not have access to regular medical care, but all Finnish children receive comprehensive health services and a free lunch every day. Higher education is tuition-free.

7. Measures of success. Testing is used as a tool, not a mechanism to determine success or failure of teachers or schools. Comprehensive tests are administered at the end of each child’s schooling. Success is measured individually by teachers working cooperatively with other teachers and specialists.

Is this model applicable to the U.S.? Many claim that the Finnish model won’t work here because we are “too diverse” and too many. However, it seems to me that the issue of diversity actually boils down to one of haves and have-nots – something that the Finnish government realizes must be addressed outside the schools if schools are to be successful. I would suggest that this issue will have to be addressed extra-scholastically in the U.S. as well if we are ever to achieve equality of results in our system.

As for the differences in population, Ravitch points out that in at least thirty states in the U.S., the population is similar to that of Finland. Last time I looked the states are still the main educational administrative unit in the U.S. and there would be nothing stopping a state like Missouri from taking up, for instance, issues of teacher training and provisions for school support specialists.

Nothing that is, apart from the aversion to a fair tax system that our conservative legislature exhi
bits. Certainly, our legislators would have to stop giving huge tax breaks to corporate cronies and address ways to generate revenue in order to insure adequate educational funding. Because the approach now under consideration in Missouri – and elsewhere – is certainly not going to address the issues that have dogged many of our schools over the past decades, but will, instead, only make the situation worse. Finnland, on the other hand, shows us what can be done by people who are able to recognize reality.

* The New York Review of Books, March 8, 2012.  “Schools We can Envy,” by Diane Ravitch. Available online by subscription only.      

Teresa Hensley (D) filed for the 4th Congressional District on Wednesday. The retail campaigning will go nonstop until November.

You can bet on it.

Teresa Hensley (D) campaigning at yesterday’s Belton, Missouri St. Patrick’s Day Parade.

Filing for office last Wednesday.

There’s no unified results to the March 17th portion of the Missouri caucuses. In some counties, Romney-Paul delegates were slated. In some, Santorum delegates were slated. In St. Charles County, the police were called and the caucuses were cancelled without a vote. So I suspect that caucuses will not replace primaries for the nomination of party candidates in Missouri any time soon.

Perhaps they should have just moved the primary to March last fall when they had a chance. Instead of having the House and Senate refuse to do anything, holding a sparsely attended primary, and now holding a series of caucuses with more twists, Calvinball-esque rules, and nuances than you would expect from people calling themselves conservative.

By the way, we still have 2 caucuses left, Jackson County (where they’ll hold it in one place) and the city of St. Louis (where it could be held in a restaurant without any problems).

The Missouri caucus delegate leaderboard is

Chaos 167

Santorum 100

Romney 94

Rom-Paul 91

Ron Paul 87

Unity Republicans Who Aren’t Ron Paul 85

People United Against Recording Devices 71

Mass Hysteria 56

Newt Gingrich 12

How many times will these ignoramouses (ingorami?) embarrass Missouri? Let me count the national blogs that found the level of ignorance – or contempt – displayed by these sterling representatives of the Grand Old (tea)Party of interest (and the roundup below reflects only those I encountered while casually browsing):

Laura Clawson at Daily Kos lays it out in her lead:

Missouri’s Republican Senate candidates may not know what the minimum wage is, but they’re in agreement on one thing: It shouldn’t be raised …

Greg Sargent at the Plum Line offers the money quote:

Apparently one good way to remain competitive in some GOP primaries is to urinate on the minimum wage, by casting it either as a case of Big Government run amok or as a key cause of our economic woes. …

Amanda Terkel at the Huffington Post was amused by the general level of ignorance, but also noted that Todd Akin’s failure to grasp the essentials was particularly egregious since, he:

… as a congressman, is currently responsible for helping to set federal policy.

Think Progress sees Terkel and raises her one:

The federal minimum wage (and Missouri’s minimum wage) is $7.25 per hour. Certainly all three should know the wage level at which four million American workers are at or below. Akin, especially, should know, since in 2007 he voted against raising the minimum wage from $5.15 to $7.25.

But the really perceptive observation in the Think Progress piece is the observation that:

Perhaps explaining their ignorance of the current minimum wage is the fact that none of the three candidates personally live anywhere near it. Akin owns two homes and receives an annual congressional salary of $174,000. Steelman has donated upwards of $400,000 to her own Senate campaign. Brunner tops them all, sporting a net worth of approximately $100 million.

Talking Poings Memo seemed especially struck with the ideological rigidity of Todd Akin who ignores pragmatics pragmatic considerations in order to offer up a particularly inept version of the party line – TPM also reproduces his typically addled syntax verbatim:

… We have a government that whenever any government says we have to spend this much for this product or that product or you’ve got to pay this wage or whatever, that’s basically government control of the marketplace. It always its destructive and disruptive.

Politico’s David Catenese bluntly declares:

The three Republicans vying for a shot at Missouri Sen. Claire McCaskill went 0-for-3 in being able to name the federal minimum wage during a St. Louis radio debate Friday.

The fact that a senatorial primary debate in Missouri generates so much noise and has so much reach is significant.  To return to Greg Sargent, who aptly sums up the implications of the gaffe:

In the Missouri Senate race, which is going to be a tough one for McCaskill, the GOP candidates’ declarations on the minimum wage today could become a major issue. Dems will cast the statements as the latest example of Republicans being beholden to corporate benefactors, and skapegoating [sic] people on the lowest rungs of the income ladder for our continued economic suffering. Given that the issue will likely be key in other campaigns and even in the presiential [sic] race, how this argument fares in a red-leaning state will be a key test case worth watching.

This one has been polluting my tee-vee set of late:

Announcer: Here’s Claire McCaskill, using special interest cash….

Think about that for a second. Crossroads GPS accusing anybody else of using special interest money?:

….Crossroads GPS was formed as a 501(c)(4), a nonprofit that does not have to disclose its donors.

Now that’s real chutzpah.

They really do think Missouri voters are that stoopid.

Previously:

Sen. Claire McCaskill (D): and you shall know her by her political enemies (June 22, 2011)

Sen. Claire McCaskill (D): and you shall know her by her political enemies, part 2 (July 8, 2011)

Sen. Claire McCaskill (D): and you shall know her by her political enemies, part 3 (November 10, 2011)

From the U.S. Department of Labor, Wage and Hour Division:

….Under the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA), the federal minimum wage for covered nonexempt employees is $7.25 per hour effective July 24, 2009….

….A minimum wage of $4.25 per hour applies to young workers under the age of 20 during their first 90 consecutive calendar days of employment with an employer, as long as their work does not displace other workers….

….The minimum wage law (the FLSA) applies to employees of enterprises that have annual gross volume of sales or business done of at least $500,000. It also applies to employees of smaller firms if the employees are engaged in interstate commerce or in the production of goods for commerce, such as employees who work in transportation or communications or who regularly use the mails or telephones for interstate communications….

At the Missouri Department of Labor & Industrial Relations:

October 21, 2011: The Department announces that the state minimum wage for 2012 will remain at its 2011 rate of $7.25/hr.

Employers engaged in retail or service businesses whose annual gross income is less than $500,000 are not required to pay the state minimum wage rate. Employers not subject to the minimum wage law can pay employees wages of their choosing.

The republican U.S. Senate candidates don’t know:

….John Brunner (r): ….Well, the, the issue of the Federal minimum wage has always been an issue for small businesses. And the smaller the business the more difficult, uh, problem that you have….

Announcer: Okay, do, do you know what the minimum wage is?

John Brunner (r): No, sir.

Announcer: Okay, how ’bout you, Sarah Steelman?

Sarah Steelman: Uh, seven dollars and fifty cents an hour.

Announcer: Are, are you in favor of increasing it or decreasing it?

Sarah Steelman: I, I, uh….

Announcer: Or, are you, are you in favor of increasing it.

Sarah Steelman (r): No, I’m not in favor of increasing it at this time….

….Todd Akin (r): …In this particular case the minimum wage can be destructive because if you’ve got a kid that’s never held a job before, wants to just simply sweep a floor and learn how to be, uh, an employee and maybe they’re worth six dollars an hour and yet the government says you have to pay seven something, you don’t hire ’em. And that’s a big mistake….      

….Announcer: Do you know what the minimum wage is?

Todd Akin (r): Uh, my guess is it’s somewhere in that six or seven, but I don’t know the exact number now….

Apparently Sarah Steelman (r) thinks it’s too low. And Todd Akin (r), a member of Congress, is clueless about exemptions and doesn’t know the minimum wage.

Senator Claire McCaskill (D) should be thanking the gods of politics. Hourly.

I wonder if the people cheering Ron Paul in Columbia understand that, when he says he wants to get rid of “entitlements,” he means all the social safety net programs that many in his audience need to survive. Rep. Paul is a strong believer in “free market” economics which means every man for himself and don’t ask your fellow citizens for help.  Maybe his supporters agree with him and would give up Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, Pell Grants, farm subsidies, and disaster aid (as Gov. Kasich of Ohio did recently.)

Here is what President Dwight Eisenhower said about such things in a letter to his brother, Edgar, in 1954:   “Should any political party attempt to abolish social security, unemployment insurance and eliminate labor laws and farm programs, you would not hear of that party again in our political history.  There is a tiny splinter group, of course, that believes you can do these things.  Among them are H.L. Hunt (you probably know his background,) a few other Texas oil millionaires and an occasional politician or business man from other areas.  Their number is negligible and they are stupid.”

Today’s Republican leaders and presidential hopefuls have perverted  the kind of  common sense conservatism that I championed as a loyal Republican until 1980.  I knew President Reagan’s  free market folks would begin dismantling all parts of the social safety net.  I could see the ship of state was headed for dangerous waters and the life boats were being jettisoned to cut costs and raise profits.    

Now corporations control our government at all levels, and we need to look no further than our own Missouri state legislature for proof.  For someone who wore an “I like Ike” button as a teenager, this is all very sad.  The “G” in GOP no longer stands for “Grand.”  It stands for “Greedy.”