issue 1 - ten years later

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Domestic - International - Features - Economics - Science & Technology

1

Ten Years Later

Issue

The Horace Mann Review | Vol. XXI2

The Horace Mann Review is a member of the Columbia Scholastic Press Association, the American Scholastic Press Association, and the National Scholastic Press Association. Opinions expressed in articles or illustra-tions are not necessarily those of the Editorial Board or of the Horace Mann School. Please contact The Re-view for information at [email protected].

Andre ManuelMathieu Rolfo

Creative Executive Editor

Alexander DanielEmily Feldstein

Editorial Executive Editor

Harrison ManinSenior Editor - Domestic

Zoe RubinSenior Editor - International

Dorin AzeradSenior Editor - Features

Jordan BermanSenior Editor - Economics

Katherine WyattSenior Editor - Science & Technology

A Journal of Opinion on Current Events, Politics, and Social Issues

Rebecca SegallEditor-in-Chief

FROM THE EDITOR

The 9/11 Decade

ReviewThe Horace Mann

Spencer CohenBenjamin Davidoff

Treshauxn Dennis-BrownDaniel Elkind

Maurice FarberJacob Gladysz-Morawski

Nicholas McCombeStephen PaduanoAlexander Posner

Nathan RaabElizabeth Rosenblatt

Charles ScherrJunior Editor

Philip PerlRyan ThierDavid Zask

Junior Contributor

Seth ArarAndrew Stier

Senior Production Supervisor

Aramael Pena-AlcantaraProduction Consultant

Jessica BernheimSenior Contributor

Gregory DonadioFaculty Advisor

Rebecca SegallEditor-in-ChiefVolume XXI

Max BernsteinHarold ChenVivianna Lin

Samantha RahminAssociate Editor

We are proud to bring you the first issue of The Horace Mann Review, Volume XXI. As the country

recognizes the tenth anniversary of the September 11th, 2001, attacks, we dedi-cate our first issue’s Features topic to ex-ploring the lasting impact of that day.

There is no doubt that the events of 9/11 are among the most transforma-tive of the decade. Review writers ask, “How?” How has 9/11 shaped our sense of security and the growth of our city? How has it changed our perception of America’s place in the world? We ap-proach these questions from a unique perspective. While 9/11 clearly affected the global community , we feel a direct connection to that day and its tragedy, as residents of the New York Metropolitan Area and members of the Horace Mann community. It may take a generation to understand exactly what 9/11 meant to New York City and to the world, but we are ready to analyze the changes we have observed while growing up in the 9/11 decade.

As always, this issue of The Review also explores the significance of other pressing events, globally and domesti-cally. We examine the cultural impact of the death penalty in Texas and the future of America’s space program. We grapple with the implications of debt in Europe and of Palestine’s admission to the United Nations. Our National, Domestic, Eco-nomics, and Science/Technology sections provide an outlet for opinion on any top-ics our writers are interested in, and we are excited to share them with you.

The Review is always welcome to new ideas and opinions, providing a way for writers to delve into current events. This year, we aim to increase student interac-tion with The Review through a Letter to the Editor feature and increased involve-ment in school activities. We hope you find this issue relevant and interesting as we continue to explore current events in our own community and around the world.

Sincerely,

euclid public library

The Horace Mann Review | Issue 1 3

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Science and TechnologyThe Future of War Nathan Tillinghast-Raby

Will It Fly? Will Ellison

4244

Seth ArarAndrew Stier

Senior Production Supervisor

Jessica BernheimSenior Contributor

Max BernsteinHarold ChenVivianna Lin

Samantha RahminAssociate Editor

DomesticNo He Hasn’tThe Tea Party: Then and Now Catherine Engelmann

Max Bernstein 64

8Leading By Example Hannah Davidoff

10A Cry for Execution Adam Resheff

InternationalThe European Response to an Execution Daniel Baudoin

Will a Palestinian Bid for Statehood Be Realized? Laszlo Herwitz

Vivianna LinRevolution in the Arab World121418

The Profile of a Terrorist Mihika Kapoor 20A Fraying Relationship Maurice Farber 22

FeaturesThe Fall of Al-Qaeda? Thomas Meerschwam

Benjamin Greene9/11 Security Measures: Is Less More?

24262830The Aftermath Jacob Zurita

Privacy Post-9/11 Isaiah Newman

“No No No USA” Philip Perl 32Nation of Fear Alexander Posner 34

EconomicsNot Our Problem David Hackel 37Greekonomics Caroline Kuritzkes 38Shared Sacrifice? Edmund Bannister & Treshauxn Dennis-Brown 40

Special Features“And One More Thing...” A Steve Jobs Retrospective 46


Domestic

DomesticDomestic

The Tea Party

On December 16th, 1773, a group of colonists dressed as native Americans board-ed British ships in Boston Harbor. Over the course

of the next three hours, these colonists destroyed 90,000 pounds of tea by throw-ing it into the harbor. This event, though radical at the time, was justified in light

of what the colonists saw as an overbear-ing British government. Now, in 2011, we are witnessing a social reenactment of the Boston Tea Party, which happened over two hundred years ago. Although we may speak fondly of the American dissi-dents during the revolution of 1776, we should not be as proud of the Americans who make up the Tea Party today.

The Tea Party two hundred years ago and the political movement of today are two separate things, but they both caused a strong, not always positive, reaction from the public . Both movements were born out of discontent with the current political situation. The participants of the Boston Tea Party drew a radical conclu-sion that it was necessary to break from

Then and

Nowcatherine engelmann

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britannica


Domestic

Then and

Now

England. The modern-day Tea Party members have a radical solution as well, but not one that benefits the country.

Unfortunately, the Tea Party has be-come more than just a threat; the men and women of Congress who belong to this new movement have blocked plans for the resolution of some of America’s most serious issues As the government deficit has gone overboard since the Bush administration, there is no easy fix. While the Tea Party stands in staunch support of cutting federal spending, it fails to re-alize that such measures will negatively impact the lives of ordinary Americans. This type of thinking is not uncommon among Tea Party activists, many of whom place a greater value on the consistency of their ideology than on the wellbeing of American citizens. One example is Obama’s health care plan, which requires government borrowing to run itself. The plan would improve the lives of ordinary Americans, but would impede on the Tea Party’s ideology that citizens have a right

to pay as little taxes as possible. It would also potentially increase the deficit.

The Tea Party believes that taxation is a violation of individual liberty and must be kept to a minimum, even for billionaires. The Tea Party’s position can be attributed to the triumph of ideology over good sense. Even one of the wealthi-est men in the world, Warren Buffett, is outraged at how little he pays in taxes. He realizes that he pays 17% of his income in taxes, which is a lower rate than every-one else in his office. His proposal was a reasonable one; one that would cut $500 billion of the country’s debt. He proposed that Congress eliminate the Bush-era tax cuts on people earning more than $1 mil-lion a year and on income from capital gains. Moreover, he called for the abro-

gation of laws that exempt hedge fund managers from paying their fair share of taxes. While these measures are by no means the panacea to our ballooning debt, they would make a dent without putting a burden on middle-class citi-zens. The Tea Party, however, is so stead-fast in its ideology that its members will not agree to this.

In addition to the above, the Tea Party tarnishes our global reputation. Under the Obama administration and all previous presidents, we have never come close to defaulting on our loans to other countries. Recently, the Tea Party mem-bers of Congress came close to ending this consistent practice when they re-fused to temporarily raise the debt ceil-ing.

It should be noted that not all Tea Party candidates share the same views. For example, the opinion of the Tea Party is split between those who support an in-terventionist global policy, like the one we have now, and those who believe we

should be less active in parts of the world where we do not have strategic interests, such as Israel.

The major Republican candi-dates in the 2012 election who appeal to the Tea Party, Sarah Palin, Ron Paul, and Michele Bachmann, will make other con-servative candidates such as Mitt Rom-ney and Rick Perry seem liberal in com-parison. Democrats and independents who have not been pleased by Obama’s administration will put their trust in the campaign of tea party candidates who claim to have solutions to his problems. As the number of Tea Party supporters increases, the candidates will shift their positions to the right to please this new outcrop of citizens. HMR

“The Tea Party has become more than just a threat; the Congressmen and women who belong to this new movement have blocked plans for the resolu-

tion of some of America’s most serious issues.”

The Tea Party by the

Numbers

20%

68%

34%

Americans who have a favor-able opinion of the Tea Party

Movement

Tea Party supporters who op-posed raising the debt ceiling

Tea Party supporters who rec-ognize the existence of global

warming

sources: nytimes/cbs, usa today/gallup, associated press/gfK roper

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Domestic

No He Hasn’tmax bernstein

In 2008 I was excited. I was, for the first time in my memory, going to live in a world where a capable person would be entrusted with the most important job in the na-

tion: the presidency. It is now 2011, and as election season has technically started, it feels like an appropriate moment to re-flect on the past three years and the Presi-dent’s performance thus far. If the state of the country has seen any improvement, it

has been modest. We have made essen-tially no progress in addressing the prob-lems that have confronted us since 2008. It would have been impractical to assume we would come out of such a difficult time so quickly, but the President has, in many respects, disappointed his support-ers and the people of America. While the Republicans in Congress undoubtedly deserve as much blame as the president for the nation’s problems, Barack Obama

has failed to execute one of his most fun-damental responsibilities: leading. He has been politically dominated by what started as a vocal minority, but has now become a vocal majority in Congress. It seems that ever since he passed health-care, albeit in quite a disjointed form, his drive to legislate has vanished. Having said that, an important distinction must be made between ineffectiveness as a leg-islator and ineffective policy decisions. Barack Obama’s policy choices are not the reason we are still struggling. We are still dealing with the toll the Bush years took on the country, the scale of which cannot be easily understated. President Obama is responsible for the current state of the na-tion because he has failed to take control and lead our country forward from the Bush Era, not because his policies have necessarily been faulty.

Leading is incredibly difficult. Working through seemingly endless bu-reaucracy, being a mediator between two sides that vehemently oppose one anoth-er, and facing more scrutiny than any oth-er person in the world have made Barack Obama’s job seemingly impossible. Of course, those are only three of the many tasks the president has had to deal with on a daily basis. But before we begin this pity-parade, remember the presidency of the United States is widely known as the world’s most difficult job; it was that way long before President Obama was elected, and it will likely remain that way for the foreseeable future. No one forced Sena-tor Obama to run for the Oval Office in 2007, and we can safely assume the man had some idea of what the job entailed. He put himself in this position. It is un-doubtedly true that President Obama has faced an unusual kind of opposition; a more vocal, aggressive, hard-headed, and useless group of representatives than this country has seen in a long time. How-ever, it is the duty of a president to deal with the situations he is confronted with during his time in office. Whether it be

Whitehouse.gov


Domestica world war, an economic disaster, or some other po-tentially cataclysmic event, a president must stand strong and lead. He must politic, fight, and maneu-ver as well as he possibly can to do his job effectively. Barack Obama has not done his job effectively. As out-side observers, we can only speculate as to what goes on behind closed doors in the West Wing and elsewhere in D.C., but what we can say with reasonable confi-dence is that the President has made some mistakes. On January 22nd, 2009, the brand new President signed an executive order mandat-ing the gradual closure of the prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, delineating the full closure of the jail within a year of the order. More than two and a half years later, Guantana-mo is still open, and no further steps have been taken to shut it down. Of the pleth-ora of available options, this may be the most vivid example of presidential failure during Barack Obama’s term. Political opposition stymied action involving ‘Git-mo’ from the moment the executive order became official. Similarly, that opposition has dictated to President Obama from the time he entered office. The presidency is meant to be a dignified, respected, and powerful leadership position, but when reflecting on the last three years, it is per-tinent to wonder if it has been treated as such. In 2009, during Obama’s first State of the Union Address, Representative Joe Wilson from the state of South Carolina actually yelled “you lie!” in the middle of the President’s speech. The Joint Cham-ber of Congress is not an open forum (although both parties generally jeer and cheer when appropriate throughout State of the Union addresses). It is not a free-for-all debate venue; it is one of the most significant places in the United States, and it should be regarded and treated as such. Certainly Rep. Wilson is respon-sible for his actions, but to some degree, it is a reflection on President Obama. He has not been afforded the same respect as

prior presidents. All indications are that the President has not earned the respect of his peers in Washington, and perhaps it is because he has not commanded that kind of reverence. There is no clear rea-son why that is, but we, the American people, are paying dearly for it. Govern-ment incompetence is democracy’s big-gest flaw, and so we should consider it the greatest homegrown threat to American ideals. President Obama runs what has been, by any measure, a wildly inefficient government. Presidents make democracy and the political process work for them, but under Barack Obama the govern-ment has made a mockery of the Demo-cratic process. Ultimately, the President is responsible for that.

It is not all bad news for Obama supporters. One of the biggest areas of criticism the President faces is the defi-cit. Rhetoric might have the majority (or at least a good portion) of the country convinced that increased spending by the Obama administration is the pri-mary reason why the deficit continues to grow. According to data from the Congressional Budget Office (CBO), a non-partisan federal agency responsible for keeping track of and projecting Con-gressional spending, President Obama’s reforms account for a grand total of 6% of the deficit increase since 2001, whereas

GOP-backed initiatives (including those passed under President Bush) make up 26% of deficit growth over the last de-cade. Furthermore, projections for the next 10 years again indicate that Republi-can backed initiatives will cost the coun-try substantially more than anything the President has supported; in particular, the Bush Tax Cuts, which the GOP es-sentially forced the President to extend, have been, and are projected to continue to be the most costly legislative decision. On a lighter note, the American Jobs Act, which the President recently introduced, is an ambitious and thoughtful plan. The President’s tone has changed since the introduction of this new act; he is en-ergetic, enthusiastic, and ready to fight to pass this bill. Despite his excitement, the chances of this bill, or even portions of this bill, making it through Congress are essentially zero. It may be a little early to say definitively, but it appears a new, more experienced Barack Obama is be-ginning to emerge. He knows the bur-dens of leading and appears determined to get America going again. Having said that, there is a dreary, pessimistic senti-ment hanging over the country, and even President Obama’s most avid support-ers must be wondering, “Can he really?” HMR

lightgalleries.net


Domestic

Leading by Example New York and the Gay Rights MovementHannah Davidoff

The Horace Mann Review | Issue 1 99The Horace Mann Review | Issue 1

Domestic

This past summer, same-sex marriage was finally ap-proved in New York, mak-ing it the largest state to pass such a measure. This was

significant because throughout history same-sex couples have been unfairly de-nied the same rights that straight couples have. This development in New York will hopefully serve as an example for other states. I believe that gay marriage should be adopted across the United States; New York’s approval of same-sex marriage will

likely enable this to happen.New York’s legalizing gay marriage

was a cause of great excitement to gay couples across the state. However, as significant as this event was, it almost did not come to pass. Initially, there was great concern because the Republicans, who tend to be socially conservative, control a majority in the Senate. In or-der to pass the legislature, the bill needed approval from more than half the thirty-nine senators. Luckily, the bill passed with thirty-three votes. Many senators, who had previously been staunch oppo-

nents of gay marriage, like Senator Mark J. Grisanti, changed their opinions when it came down to the vote. Senator Gri-santi even issued a press release stating, “I apologize for those who feel offended. I cannot deny a person, a human being, a taxpayer, a worker, the people of my district and across this state, the State of New York, and those people who make this great state that it is the same rights that I have with my wife.” Soon thereaf-ter, Governor Cuomo, who had declared same-sex marriage to be his top priority

of the year, signed the legislation into law. One month later, same-sex couples officially began getting married.

Many hope that New York’s legal-ization of same sex marriage will have a positive effect on the rest of the coun-try. In many ways New York is looked upon as leader by other smaller states. The fact that New York has embraced gay marriage has given hope to the idea of spreading same-sex marriage across America. Many speculate that surround-ing states (i.e. New Jersey, Connecticut) will consider changing their original

vote. Another advantage of New York’s large population is that it means larger groups of people will have the ability to get married. Moreover, if larger states allow same-sex marriage, then it is pos-sible that the large number of people giv-en rights will convince the legislators of other states to change their minds.

Beyond the steps that can be taken on the legislative level, today’s media helps influence and change people’s opinions. Popular shows that feature gays portray same-sex relationships in a positive light.

When people watch a show and fall in love with the character, any negative opinions they have toward same-sex re-lationships may change. In this way the media influences public opinion.

I think the fact that the media is changing people’s opinions and that New York, a large state, has legalized same-sex marriage is going to have a positive effect on the gay marriage movements across the country. We can only hope that more people come to realize the value of legal-izing same-sex relationships. HMRLeading by Example

New York and the Gay Rights MovementHannah Davidoff

“The fact that New York has embraced gay marriage has given hope to the idea of spreading same-sex

marriage across America.”

Domestic


DomesticfoxneWs

At the recent GOP Presi-dential debate at the Rea-gan library in California, moderator Brian Williams opened with a question to

Governor Rick Perry with the statistic that 234 death row inmates have been executed in the state of Texas since 2000, and that no other governor has facilitated more executions than Mr. Perry in mod-ern history. The moderator then asked Mr. Perry if he ever struggled with the possibility that an innocent man may have been executed. Mr. Perry said that regardless of any doubt in a case, he had never lost sleep over his decisions be-cause of his confidence in the Texas court system. He said that all those found cul-pable of heinous crimes warranting the death penalty deserve to receive the “ul-timate justice.” It is difficult to decipher which is more alarming - the audience cheering for the statistic that 234 people had been executed in Texas during Mr. Perry’s tenure or the audience cheering

and applauding Mr. Perry’s response to the question.

The issue at hand is not whether or not the death penalty should be allowed, but the attitudes of this group toward the death penalty and their view that en-couragement of the death penalty merits applause. Around the country, the death penalty is widely debated. Each state has varying laws on its legality and its mini-mum age. A state’s decision to allow the death penalty does not always reflect the view of the people. It is important to note that the percentage of people in favor of the death penalty has decreased over the past 15 years from 80% to 60%. Regard-less of this shrinking statistic, the GOP debate exemplifies the wide acceptance of the death penalty. Out of any state, Tex-as is the strongest endorser of the death penalty. Since 1976, Texas has executed 476 death row inmates, more than four times that of the state with the second most executions - Virginia, with 109.

Texans and their politicians have al-ways supported the death penalty. Prior to Rick Perry, George W. Bush held the

position of Texas Governor. President Bush was a supporter of the death pen-alty and like Rick Perry, oversaw many executions. But unlike Mr. Perry, when President Bush was questioned about the death penalty back in 2000, he said, “Some of the hardest moments since I’ve been the governor of the state of Texas have been dealing [sic] with those cases.” When dealing with an issue as sensitive as death, President Bush gave a more appropriate response, understanding the delicacy of the matter and respect-ing the ethical implications. Rick Perry did not show this same consideration when questioned on the same issue. Even though support for the death penalty has decreased in Texas since Bush’s term, the political environment has grown more antagonistic towards cases of probable inaccuracy and questionable ethicality. Rick Perry has faced cases that would seem to merit clemency, such as a man convicted of murder with a clear mental impairment, a man who was involved in a robbery but did not kill the victim, or a man who was a minor when he commit-

adam resheff

A Cry for Execution


DomesticfoxneWs ted murder and received a recommenda-

tion of clemency from the judge. Yet, in all these cases, Mr. Perry ignored pleas from lawyers and recommendations from the Board of Pardons. Mr. Perry did not examine and make his decisions on an individual and meticulous basis. Rath-er, he used these decisions to intimidate criminals and to feed into the blood lust of Texan Republican voters by assuming guilt in all circumstances. Despite their stance on the issue, politicians need to be responsible with the power they hold with regards to the death penalty; if not, they are solely promoting a culture of violence.

The disconcerting applause from the audience during the GOP debate sparks question about the people’s attitude to-wards death. The crowd at the debate was mainly Republican, so their response thus reflects the opinion of some Republican party members. The audience’s reaction may have seemed slightly hypocritical as the self-proclaimed pro-life republicans applauded prearranged death.

Capital punishment is a tool that seeks to uphold justice. No matter what stance a person may have on the validity and effectiveness of capital punishment,

“If you come into our state and you kill one of our children...you will face the ultimate justice in the state of Texas and that is you will be executed... I think Americans under-stand justice.” -Rick Perry

it still warrants a solemn response. To cheer at its mention can only be consid-ered appalling, considering the fact that several of those executed may have been innocent. Often, people’s attitudes are unchangeable and has the ability to influ-ence the politicians that represent them. This can lead to devastating consequenc-es for convicts whose fate relies heavily on these politicians. Rick Perry has the power to grant clemency for death row inmates. In the Republican-dominated state of Texas, Mr. Perry’s hard-stance to abide by court decisions seems to be affected by the voters’ majority support of the death penalty. It would not be as-sumptive to say Mr. Perry’s policies do not reflect his personal views, as he switched in the mid-80s from the Democratic to the Republican Party. It can become dan-

gerous when politicians put such a large emphasis on the people’s desires. The people’s desire for the implementation of the death penalty has led to many deaths, some of which may not have warranted punishments as serious as death.

With Rick Perry currently a front-runner in the GOP election, we must seriously consider what the national at-titude toward capital punishment should be. With Texas already engulfed in a culture of violence, one must wonder whether this mentality will spread with the plausible election of Rick Perry. If this culture does spread, what will it mean for those on death row who still claim their innocence and hope for citizen support. Whether Rick Perry is elected or not, it is necessary for Americans to reconsider their outlook on the death penalty. HMR

Texas engulfed in a culture of violence?

Domestic


International

International

The European Response to an Execution

Many people are convict-ed of murder through-out a calendar year, bringing to mind the question: should the

death penalty be legal? On September 21, 2011, Troy Davis was executed by lethal injection for the murder of Marl Mcphail, an officer of the Savanna Police Department. On August 19th, 1989, Of-ficer Mark McPhail was murdered while on duty as a security guard in front of a Burger King in Savannah Georgia. Offi-cer McPhail saw a man being assaulted near the Burger King and went to stop such actions. Following these events, Troy Davis was apprehended and put on trial in 1991. During the trial, seven wit-nesses testified to seeing Mr. Davis shoot-ing the murdered police officer. While many Americans are in mourning over Mr. Davis’ death, Western Europeans are outraged with the decisions agreed on by the United States judicial system.

The European Union officially ended capital punishment in 2000, but larger countries in the EU such as Ger-many, France, and the United Kingdom abolished the death penalty in 1949, 1969, and 1981. The main reason behind the Union’s extremely strong position against the death penalty is because its abolition is a main part of the human rights policy of the EU. Protests occurred in front of the American Embassies in both London and Paris before the injection was given, not only hoping to change the minds of legislators in America, but also to show their fervid positions against the death penalty. Another underlying reason of why the Europeans were so angry is due to the circumstantial evidence of this par-

ticular case. There was no evidence, such as fingerprints, DNA, or blood spots that pointed directly at Mr. Davis. Also, seven of the nine crucial witnesses recanted their evidence. Witnesses have also ad-dressed the media, saying that they were coerced by the police into stating that Mr. Davis had shot the police officer on that fatal night. Darrel “D.D” Collins was a witness present at the murder of the late officer. At the trial, he testified to having seen Troy Davis shoot at a car the same night of the murder, but then stated that the police had pressured him into say-ing it. Mr. Collins also stated that he was scared the night of Troy Davis’s ex-ecution, and that the police would have charged him as an accessory if he didn’t say what they wanted.

The coercion of the witnesses by the police was completely inappropriate. I believe this played a major role in the case, yet it seems as if the Supreme Court played it off as if it was nothing in their ruling. Apart from bullet casings, no sub-stantial evidence was submitted during the case. Many Europeans have drawn the conclusion that Mr. Davis was inno-cent, giving them strong views against his execution. This has helped to fuel the argument against capital punishment in general.

I agree with the Europeans in that I am furious with the Georgia Board of Pardons and Patrols for denying clem-ency after millions of people signed a petition for clemency and voiced their opinion that capital punishment should be abolished worldwide. In a statement released by the Georgia Board of Patrol and Pardons the day before the execu-tion, the Board decided to deny clem-

ency. As such, the execution followed through. There was no irrefutable evi-dence presented in the case showing Mr. Davis was definitively guilty. Whether or not he was guilty, there was no turning back once Mr. Davis was executed.

In terms of capital punishment, al-most all countries in Europe, along most other of the nations of the world, will agree with me when I say that capital punishment should be entirely abolished. This is why members of the European Union hold a strong stance against the death penalty, and make abolition of cap-ital punishment a prerequisite for entry into the EU.

The most recent issue of The Econo-mist contains an article on the dimin-ishing use of capital punishment. Some interesting statistics found in the Econo-mist are: the number of countries using capital punishment fell from 41 in 1995 to 23 in 2010. In Texas alone, 235 execu-tions have been carried out in the past 11 years, far fewer than in the past. Illinois, Maryland, Connecticut and California have passed legislation in each of their respective states to abolish capital pun-ishment. These three statistics show that the United States is headed in the right direction on this matter, and gives us hope that the death penalty will be en-tirely abolished in the near future. HMR

Photo of Mark McPhail, the police officer Troy Davis was convicted of murdering.

daniel baudoin


International


International

REVOLU

TION

IN THE ARAB WORLD

VIVIANNA LIN

Interna

tional


International

REVOLU

TION

We who live a world away from the sweeping revolution are igno-rant of the true strug-gles the Arab world

has faced; the revolts seem almost like an unfathomable explosion of change, but the repercussions of this battle are great. Over 35,000 have died already, and the war still continues. Some countries, like Tunisia and Egypt, have undergone revo-lution and completely overturned their governments, and others, like Syria and Libya, continue the struggle for freedom and democracy. The catalyst for the re-volts was the self-immolation of a street vendor in Tunisia in December 2010, but years of dissatisfaction with the govern-ment was the ultimate motivation be-hind the revolution. Soon afterwards, the waves of protests spread to neighboring countries, including Libya, Syria, and Ye-men, all with varying degrees of success. Arab Spring has had an irrevocable im-pact on the entire world, and the coun-tries involved are in for a transformation of society as they know it.

The dictator of Tunisia, Ben Ali, was ousted after weeks of demonstrations and revolt. Grievances included lack of freedom of speech, high unemployment, government corruption, and inflation. The people wanted freedom and democ-racy after being oppressed for so long.

However, problems in Tunisia did not go away once Ben Ali had resigned from presidency due to his slipping power; protests continued as a he left a power vacuum in his wake, and the unstable country has numerous challenges ahead. The police force has been greatly weak-ened by desertions, and the judicial sys-tem is weak due to its ties to the ousted regime. Elections that were scheduled for July 24 were pushed to October, since there exist over 60 political parties in Tu-nisia, most of which did not exist before the revolution.

Right now, Tunisia needs most to overhaul its judicial system for the sake of justice. The population of Tunisia still yearns for justice and envies Egypt’s public trial of the former tyrant Mubarak. “Mubarak is up before the court togeth-er with his sons and the symbols of his regime,” a protester, Meriam Nafti, told Reuters. “Why is it that in Tunisia, the source of the revolution, these things don’t work?” None of Ben Ali’s assets have been restored to the Tunisian gov-ernment. Not a single police officer who partook in the murder of nearly 300 pro-testers has been convicted. The interim government still is relying on the tra-ditional judicial system that just won’t provide justice. One such example of this lack of justice is the trial of Ben Ali and his wife. The trial took place on June


International20, and they were sentenced in absen-tia to 35 years in prison and a fine of $66 million. But in the absence of the sentenced and their foreign lawyers, which are supposed to be prohibited in Tunisia, the entire trial was sim-ply a mockery of justice. Clearly, the corruption has not quite disappeared yet in this country so eager to shed its traditions.

On October 23, 2011, the people of Tunisia shall decide whether they want a presidential or a parliamentasystem. The strongest party is shaping up to be Al Nahda, an Islamist party suppressed by the old regime. Al Nahda may have ac-cepted gender equality in the demo-cratic legislature, but the party still believes in the unity of the state and religion and wants to break off com-munications with Israel. In order for Tunisia to move on from its past, the people need a secular, democratic government without the religious prejudices so prevalent in the Mid-dle East. What Tunisia needs is not to become an Islamist country, but to focus on the more pressing social and economic problems. A country with a government so closely tied to one religion certainly will not pro-mote the liberalism the Tunisians fought for.

In Egypt, meanwhile, the Armed Forces of Egypt has stepped into Mubarak’s shoes in the after-math of the ouster. The Emergency Law, which suspended constitutional rights and legalized censorship, was cancelled. All of the demands of the protesters, which include the dis-solution of the Parliament and the arrest and trial of Mubarak and his sons, have either been met or are on-

going. Protests, however, have con-tinued despite these achievements due to the sluggishness in institut-ing reforms. Thousands of Egyptian Islamists filled Tahrir Square in late July to demand a religiously unified country, demonstrating the deep di-vides polarizing the country. Despite

the success of the revolution, the country is extremely fragile, and ten-sions simmering just below the sur-face can ignite rapidly.

It seems as though there is a clear structural and organization-al problem with the government of Egypt. In order to move forward, di-visions must be overcome to create a unified country. There have been continuing protests in both Tunisia

and Egypt in response to the lack of change. It is understandable that civilians are growing frustrated and impatient as little progress is made in improving the society, but the current government will be more concerned with putting out fires than doing their actual job if the in-

“The term ‘Islamic liberalism’ has been coined to describe the joining of the Islamists and secularists. Both Egypt and Tunisia should adopt this ideology wholeheartedly, for it seeks to create a form of gov-ernment that remembers its Islamic heritage while

adding Western liberalism.”

Protesters in Egyptpicture from http://WWW.veteranstoday.com/2011/09/05/iran-is-a-victim-of-constant-blacK-propaganda/egyptian-revolution-2/


Internationalcreasingly violent protests continue. Egypt cannot live in a constant phase of violence and unrest. With free elections due in the coming months, Egyptians must turn their efforts to creating political parties that can lead the nation forward. Radical reli-gious groups like the Muslim Broth-erhood can turn the country into an extremist Islamic country, and that would possibly divide the country even more. The Islamists have be-gun reaching out to the secularists; Egypt is made up of both parties, and conciliatory gestures will lead them to find a common ground in find-ing a better future for their country. The term “Islamic liberalism” has been coined to describe the joining of the Islamists and secularists. Both Egypt and Tunisia should adopt this ideology wholeheartedly, for it seeks to create a form of government that remembers its Islamic heritage while adding Western liberalism. If such cooperation can occur, then both countries will have already taken great steps forward to creating a bet-ter future.

But despite the lingering traces of the overthrown regimes, Egypt and Tunisia have already been changing into more democratic countries. The country’s dispropor-tionate number of youths has already used the social media as a great fac-tor in the revolutions by using social networking sites like Facebook and Twitter. Social networks can connect countries and provide inspiration in places where protesters still struggle for freedom. These revolutions and uprisings were just the beginning to a great transformation of the Middle East. Now we just need the right kind of governmental change that will provide the people with economic, social, and political freedom they fought for. HMR

picture from http://WWW.veteranstoday.com/2011/09/05/iran-is-a-victim-of-constant-blacK-propaganda/egyptian-revolution-2/

Timeline of the Arab Spring:

December 2010: Begin-

ning of the Revolution

January 2011: Beginning of

the Egyptian Revolution

February 2011: Beginning

of the Libyan Revolution

May 2011: Hosni Mubarak

of Egypt on Trial

August 2011: Libyan rebels

take Tripoli, diminishing

Gadhafi’s power


International

TWill a Palestinian Bid for Statehood Be Realized? laszlo herWitz he opening of the U.N. is a hugely influ-

ential event. This year something new and widely anticipated is occurring at the meeting: the Palestinian bid for state-hood. Palestine needs ‘yes’ votes from 9 members of the Security Council and no vetoes, a power held exclusively by the United States, France, the United King-dom, Russia, and China, in order to be-come the 194th country at the U.N. The U.S. has already declared that it intends to exercise its veto power to block the bid; however, Palestine has another option. It can attempt to get a majority of votes in the U.N. General Assembly, which will give it enhanced observer status. This status will allow Palestine to use the In-ternational Criminal Court to try to force Israel to take down its settlements in the

West Bank. Whether Palestine attempts to gain statehood through the Security Council or General Assembly, the ques-tion will still be unanswered: Will the Palestinians gain their own country?

Palestine is entitled to a state; howev-er, they are not entitled to anything more than the West Bank territory and, under certain circumstances, parts of the Gaza strip. The Palestinian claims to East Jeru-salem are not valid because they are based on pre-1967 borders. Israel captured the territory during the Six Day War and so has no obligation to relinquish it. Fur-thermore, it is unacceptable, and indefen-sible, for Palestine to use military action to take over Eastern Jerusalem.

If Palestine were to become an inde-pendent state with Hamas as its leading


International

Will a Palestinian Bid for Statehood Be Realized? political party, the stability of the Middle East would be greatly threatened. Almost all countries in the UN condemn Hamas’ attacks and attitude towards Israel, and some classify Hamas or one of its branch-es as a terrorist organization. This group of terrorists is condemnable beyond be-lief, yet the Palestine Authority (PA) has negotiated with Hamas and even allowed the political party to lead inside the cur-rent Palestinian territories.

The fate of a Palestinian state lies largely in the hands of the Israelis, be-cause if the Israelis are not happy with the arrangement, the U.S. will be pres-sured to veto the resolution. The veto will only occur under substantial evidence given by the Israelis. Despite this, the PA antagonizes Israel by accepting a terrorist

organization that denies Israel’s right to exist. This is especially disturbing given that if Palestine were to get its statehood then there would be a very good chance that Hamas would be able to become the ruling party there.

As we have seen throughout this spring, the upheaval of a regime can leave a country extremely vulnerable. For ex-ample, the Egyptian people have over-thrown Mubarak; the quality of life in Egypt will improve for some and worsen for others. Such degradation will occur for Israel because, under the Mubarak regime, Israel and Egypt were at peace. Since Mubarak has been overthrown, Is-rael’s relationship with Egypt has become more strained and the peace treaties have been questioned. This is due to the fact that the Muslim Brotherhood is quite likely to take power in Egypt. Egypt has been Israel’s strongest ally in the Middle East, and after the regime change, the question that lingers is whether or not Egypt will honor its peace treaty with Is-rael.

Organizations like Hamas special-ize in political turmoil that destroys na-tions. If Hamas were to rise to power in Palestine, the results would be disastrous. Israel would be on its guard; if a rocket were launched into Jerusalem from Pales-tine—a likely situation if Hamas were to take command of Palestine—the situation would become volatile. This may cause retaliation from Israel, the worst scenario being a full-on invasion into Palestine. This would cause strong international repercussions, with many fingers pointed at Israel due to the overwhelming deaths its superior military force could cause in Palestine. This is the most probable out-come because the relationship between Israel and Palestine would be strained in the early days of Palestine’s statehood. Due to the arguments presented, there is no way Palestine can ever become a country until it agrees not to steal Israel’s land and to expel the killing machine that is Hamas. HMR

“Palestine is entitled to a state however they are not entitled to anything more than the west bank and , under certain cirum-stances, parts of the Gaza strip.”

http://iappleyard.com/articles/united-nations/

http://WWW.rivervision.com/upWp/?p=1654


International

News of two sequential hor-rific terrorist attacks in Norway, which resulted in 76 deaths, blared across news channels all over

the globe on July 22, 2011. Andres Beh-ring Breivik, 32, has been linked to the bomb outside the Prime Minister’s office in Oslo. He is also confirmed as the man who shot 69 people at a summer camp in Utøya, two hours later, disguised as a policeman. Breivik was able to legally acquire deadly weapons and escape no-tice by policemen, due to his seemingly “normal” appearance. The Norwegian government’s ignorance of what is now known to have been a two-year plan lead-ing up to these attacks allowed the events to occur. This case highlights the natural tendency of the regulatory authorities to believe that terrorists are generally men of Middle Eastern origin, to disregard and to not pay enough attention to other suspicious activities. This eye-opening and unprecedented catastrophe indicates that officials ought to not only regulate gun control more closely but also not to assume that threats only come from

someone foreign. Breivik does not appear to fit the conventional image of a terror-ist. His blonde-hair and green eyes kept him under the radar while he schemed his deadly plan. The attacks have uncov-ered an inadequacy in the fight against terrorism. The widespread stereotype of a terrorist as a jihadist from the Middle East no longer holds true. In reality, ter-rorists increasingly seem to look like your average, nondescript person, heightening the world’s vulnerability to terrorism.

Ninety minutes before the bomb blast in Oslo, Breivik emailed a 1518-page document entitled “2083: A Europe-an Declaration of Independence” to 1003 people, under the pseudonym “Andrew Berwick,” describing his preparation for the attacks and the political and religious beliefs that prompted them.

The most astounding revelation mentioned in the document was that Breivik obtained all of his weapons legal-ly. Originally he planned to acquire illicit weapons from Prague, because the Czech Republic reputedly has the least security regarding obtainment of guns. However, Breivik was unable to gain possession of

any firearms in Prague and he declared it was “far from the ideal city to buy guns.” Subsequently, he decided to obtain weap-ons legally, taking possession of a Ruger Mini-14 semi automatic carbine osten-sibly for the purpose of hunting deer, as well as a Glock pistol, obtained after only 15 minutes at a shooting club. The ill use to which Breivik put these firearms sug-gests that the government should regulate and monitor the use of guns more closely. Officials should no longer overlook the fact that weapons are dangerous, regard-less of whose hands they are in.

Furthermore, in March 2011, Breivik bought 100 kg of chemicals from an in-ternet-based company in Poland, which landed him on the Norwegian Intelli-gence watch list. However Norway did not act because they did not deem this relevant information. However, if a Mus-lim ordered these chemicals, the Norwe-gian Intelligence would likely have treat-ed it differently.

Following 9/11, terrorist surveillance underwent a major transformation; in airports particularly, Muslims faced ex-tremely unfair treatment at security and

mihiKa Kapoor

The Profile of a Terroristflag-Wallpapers.com


International

were repeatedly suspected of suspicious activity. They are still constantly stopped in airports, where TSA agents sift through their luggage and pat them down rigor-ously. In the beginning, Muslims often faced delays for up to three hours at secu-rity due to interrogations. There are sev-eral instances of Muslims being deplaned and taken into custody without adequate proof of a terrorist mindset. However, no tightening of security prevented the terrorist attacks in Norway proving that safety measures enacted by governments help prevent only some forms of terror-ism.

Breivik’s manifesto also recounted his religious beliefs, punctuated by extreme-ly Islamophobic as well as anti-Marxist sentiments. This does not fit in with the common current concept of a terrorist. Breivik believes in stopping Muslim im-migration into Europe and quotes pseud-onymous anti-Islam Norwegian blogger, Fjordman, multiple times. Fjordman is active blogger in the “counter-jihad” movement, which suggest that Islam it-self is a threat, not only its extremists. He also copied segments of the Unabomber manifesto, a 35,000-word essay by do-mestic terrorist Ted Kaczynski, replacing the words “leftists” with “cultural Marx-ists” and “black people” with “Muslims.” He announced that his goal with this at-tack was to “save Norway and Western Europe from a Muslim takeover” via a “sharp signal to the people.” He said his goal for the attacks was to discourage any subsequent recruitment to the Labor party; accusing them of “mass imports of Muslims.”

Breivik’s appearance seemed to have helped him in both of his attacks: in one case it helped his escape notice and in the other it helped him attract it. In Regjer-ingskvartalet, downtown Oslo, Breivik placed his bomb in a Volkswagen Crafter, stood by it for nearly two minutes and then walked away, with a gun visibly in his hands. No one noticed Breivik at all, despite the gun, and this leads us to be-lieve that they were looking for someone out of place, namely a Muslim, which

ibtimes.com

Anders Breivik

Breivik certainly was not. This situation further indicates how the authorities rarely suspect white citizens of suspicious activity.

At Utøya, Breivik disguised himself as a policeman with the cover story that he had come for a routine check follow-ing the bombing in Oslo. He waited un-til people gathered around him and then without warning pulled out his weapons and began shooting whomever he could reach. He began by shooting those on the island, went for those who were attempt-ing to swim away and then came back and shot those who were pretending to be dead. Emma, a 16-year-old youth leader at the island recounted the experience: “We could smell gun powder…We hid from the gunman under a cliff. He was about five meters above us.” This trau-matic situation reminds us of the impor-

tance of keeping guard in such situations even when it seems danger has passed.

Unfortunately, stereotypes still per-sist in the world. In February 2010, a white computer engineer, Andrew Joseph Stack III, killed one person by crashing a plane into an IRS building in Austin Texas, leaving a note saying he was un-happy with tax laws and was trying to use violence to achieve what he wanted. FBI officials classified this as a criminal matter, not as a terrorist attack. Overall these attacks go to show that people are constantly conceptualizing false notions as to the definition of a terrorist. It is im-portant that authorities break down these stereotypes in their minds when dealing with terrorism, consider all possibilities and hopefully become more successful in preventing attacks in the future. HMR


International

A Fraying Relationship

Throughout the dynamic cli-mate of Arab Spring over the past 9 months, the people of various Islamic nations have undertaken a series of revo-

lutions to undermine the stability of their current governments, usually long-stand-ing presidential dictatorships defined by the oppression they imposed onto their people. Throughout this exciting period in the Middle East and the recent push for a serious bid of statehood by the Pal-estinian Authority in the United Nations, many have overlooked the heated contin-uation of the breakdown of relations be-tween the State of Israel and the Republic of Turkey. What was once a prosperous and incredibly beneficial relationship for both states has deteriorated into a seem-ingly immature war of words, constituted mainly by Turkish Prime Minister Recep Erdogan’s harsh statements about Israel. Turkey and Israel’s relationship was, and still is, one of the most important rela-tionships in the Middle East both eco-nomically and militarily, and used to be a prime example of how two of the argu-

ably most powerful and significant na-tions in the Middle East could cooperate at an incredibly effective level.

While one might wonder why two such nations had such a strong relation-ship and connection (Israel being pre-dominately Jewish, and Turkey, Muslim), Turkey has had a long history of treating fledgling Israel better than any of Israel’s neighbors have. For starters, Turkey was the first Islamic Republic to officially rec-ognize the legitimacy of the State of Is-rael, doing so a year before Iran in 1949. Turkey’s early backing of Israel gave Israel a greater sense of security, as it had the support of one of the two largest pow-ers in the Middle East, unthreatened by other Islamic nations due to its large and powerful military. In fact, Israel and Tur-key have never engaged in

substantial armed conflict, enjoying a relatively peaceful friendship over the 60 years of Israel’s existence.

Israeli-Turkish relations reached a high point approximately 10 years ago, as the prior decade brought a high level of interaction and cooperation between the

two states. Their boost of friendship start-ed about 12 years ago right after the Izmit earthquake struck Northwestern Turkey in 1999. The earthquake caused 44,000 casualties and left half a million Turkish citizens homeless. Along with prominent Western European nations and the Unit-ed States, Israel sent hundreds of person-nel as part of search and rescue teams to assist a devastated Turkey. Turkey gra-ciously accepted all of the assistance de-livered by Israel. Shortly after, Turkey and Israel entered into an agreement known as the Turkish-Israeli Free Trade Agree-ment, making Turkey the first Muslim majority nation to enter into such an eco-nomic partnership with Israel. In the few years following, trade between Israel and Turkey tripled, topping off at a level of close to $2 billion worth of exchange. In addition to this huge trade of consumer goods, Israel and Turkey had engaged in military collaborations. Since 2003, the Turkish government has almost made it a point to buy a majority of its military equipment through contracts with Israeli weapons-manufacturers. The huge de-fense industry in Israel was responsible for completely modernizing the Turkish Air Force’s fighter jet fleet, modernizing the Turkish Army’s main battle tank pro-gram, and creating a surveillance drone fleet for Turkish intelligence. Military-cooperation goes even farther than trade of weapons; Israeli and Turkish armed forces actively engaged in joint military exercises over much of the last decade, even participating in an annual joint Air Force-Navy training exercise between 2002 and 2009.

As clearly visible, the relationship between Israel and Turkey for the major-ity of the last decade not only benefited both nations directly, but also helped create in part a greater sense of econom-ic normalcy in the region. The United States praised Israeli-Turkish relations and highlighted them as the epitome of Turkey’s Prime Minister, Recep Erdogan

maurice farber

asbarez.org


International

interconnectedness in the Middle East. So why and how were two such seem-ingly different nations able to maintain such a close and impending friendship? It would be silly to assume that this was a case of “opposites attract.” Instead, it is more applicable to recognize that Israel and Turkey have a lot of significant simi-larities that drew them so closely over a decade ago. While Israel is a Jewish state, and Turkey is mostly Muslim, they both display common inherent qualities. Israel is officially a full-fledged democracy akin to the democratic systems of the United States and Western Europe, while Turkey is a parliamentary-representative democ-racy, thus making it the most democratic Islamic nation in the Middle East. De-spite Turkey being mainly Muslim, it is still seen as the most secular nation in the Middle East; Turley is neither bogged down by religious Sharia law nor is in-fluenced by a religion whose people are quite outwardly hostile to Israel. Addi-tionally, both Turkey and Israel’s popula-tions are mainly non-Arab, defining them as outsiders in a Middle East dominated by Arabs. There are also several econom-ic similarities between the two nations. However, perhaps the most piercing is the fact that both nations have managed to build very large and strong modern economies over the last 60 years without having many natural resources, most no-tably the lack of oil reserves.

Israel and Turkey are similar in many different ways, and had arguably the strongest economic and military part-nership in the Middle East. However, the question remains: What happened to break up their relationship and stall their military cooperation? Turkey defines the basis of their breakdown in relations as both Israel’s refusal to apologize and compensate for the killing of nine Turk-ish citizens in the 2010 Gaza Flotilla Raid, and Israel’s treatment of Palestinians in the Gaza Strip. Since the Gaza Flotilla Raid in the spring of 2010, Turkey has virtually cut diplomatic ties with Israel, kicking out Israel’s official ambassadors in Ankara and the Israeli Consulate’s workers in Istanbul. Israel believes that there is no need to apologize or compen-

sate for the deaths of 8 Turkish citizens and 1 American citizen raised in Turkey, all killed in the Flotilla Raid. According to the findings of the United Nations-coordinated Turkel Report, Israel was not violating international law, whereas the activists aboard the flotilla were, especial-ly in attacking Israeli commandos that boarded their ship. Israel maintains that Turkey’s refusal to accept the findings of the Turkel Report is a sign that Turkey is attempting to exert its dominance on the Middle East, and in doing so, attempting to ostracize Israel.

Since the breakdown in their rela-tionship, Israel has received an onslaught of verbal attacks from Turkish Prime Minister Erdogan, who is described as “naïve” and “irresponsible” by members of more secular political groups in Tur-key’s parliament. Despite Erdogan’s dra-matic claims, Israel has done very little to further worsen the situation over the

last year and a half. Israel hasn’t expelled Turkey’s diplomatic representation in the Jewish State, and Israel realizes that it needs a continuation of Turkey’s close friendship and partnership in order to help promote peace and stability in a revolutionary and increasingly volatile region. As a rising superpower among the Islamic world, Turkey is a necessary player that must reconcile with Israel in order to help negotiate among Israelis and Palestinians for a two-state solution. Prime Minister Erdogan must be per-suaded by his parliamentary constituents that his ostracizing of Israel must come to an end so both nations can resume a strong, albeit shaky, relationship. The first steps to repairing relations consists of Prime Minister Erdogan recognizing the legitimacy and reasons for Israel’s actions during the Gaza Strip Flotilla Raid, and discontinue the escalation of Turkey’s de-mands for Israel’s reparations. HMR

Israel’s Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu

netanyahu.org


Features

Features

The Fall of Al-Qaeda?thomas meerschWam

The world will never forget May 11, 2011. It was on this day that the world’s most infamous terrorist leader, Osama Bin Laden, was finally killed. Bin Laden had been the focus and target of multiple United States federal agen-cies ever since his involve-ment in, most notably, the 1998 U.S. embassy bomb-ings and the September 11th attacks in 2001. For Americans, Bin Laden’s name was and still is syn-onymous with the war on terror, and to this nation he is a living manifestation of “terrorism” itself. With his death, many Americans who had lost their loved ones felt a part of their heart

begin to mend. But after a brief sense of relief, a critical and vexing question arose, “Has the death of Bin Laden been an irreplaceable and irreversible blow to Al-Qaeda, or is there someone as evil

and dangerous out there to claim the role of leader of one of the world’s most dangerous and radical organizations?” This question has a complex and con-

troversial answer to say the least. Some say that Bin Laden was irreplaceable; that his charisma, organizational skills, persuasive nature, and intellect cannot be duplicated by anyone. Perhaps this is

reflected in Defense Sec-retary Panetta’s comments during his recent visit to Kabul about the United States’ goal of defeating Al Qaeda: “Obviously we made an important start with that in getting rid of Bin Laden. We’re within

reach of strategically defeating Al Qae-da.” Others however, argue that Al Qae-da is complex and resilient, and will have been prepared for the death of its leader;

“Has the death of Bin Laden been an irreplace-able and irreversible blow to Al-Qaeda, or is there someone as evil and dangerous out there to claim the role of leader of one of the world’s most danger-

ous and radical organizations?”

WiKipedia


Featuresready to choose a new person to lead the Sunni militant group, especially as it has dangerously branched out into Somalia, Yemen and Maghreb. Mr. Michael Leit-ner, Director of the United States Na-tional Counterterrorism Center untill July of this year, defined a “strategic de-feat” as “ending the threat that Al Qaeda and all of its affiliates pose to the United States and its interests around the world” and cautioned that the expectation of such an imminent defeat was neither ac-curate nor precise. It is important to keep in mind that the United States and its allies have captured or killed many high ranking of-ficials in the terrorist group in addition to Bin Laden. It is the death and capture of these men that makes it more difficult for Al Qaeda to function as it would like to. By continuously eliminating the orga-nization’s human infrastructure, the US may be advancing to defeat the organi-

zation for good, that is to say, preventing Al Qaeda from launching any more di-rect attacks on the US homeland and US interest and engaging in terror. The con-tinued targeting and elimination of the leadership makes recruitment more dif-ficult, the process of replacement harder and the execution of terror attacks com-plex for the organization as it is literally “on the run.” Four critical targets have been recently killed, providing signifi-cant victories for the U.S., her allies, and her interests; Abu Hafs al-shahri (chief of operations for Al-Qaeda), Ilyas kash-miri (a high ranking military command-er) Atiyah Abdul Rahman (Al Qaeda’s number two after Ayman-al- Zawahiri) and Anwar Al-Awlaki (according to the US an operational mastermind). It is also both interesting and satisfying to see how the United States’ approach to dealing with al Qaeda has evolved, and how it is becoming more effective and reliable; drone strikes from the air in combination with special forces opera-tions on the ground seem to be yielding, for the moment, significant results, even though legal issues arise with respect to targeted killings, especially as US citi-

zens become the target of attack, as in the case of Anwar Al-Awlaki. Yet, even with the deaths and capture of many of Al Qaeda’s lead-ers, for the moment, the organization is still a threat to the United States and the international community. Al Qa-eda’s branches continue to function in unstable places in the world, such as in Pakistan, Yemen, and Somalia. And even if the central leadership is diminished, some of the local offshoots are attempt-ing to acquire capabilities to launch at-tacks on US soil. Moreover, because of influence by Al Qaeda’s ideals on some US citizens, “home-grown” terrorism re-mains a threat. The United States must be wary and diligent at all times to pre-vent even the slightest possibility of the spread of the perverse ideologies of the organization. One thing is certain; al Qaeda has been weakened, and is not the organization it

once was. New and perhaps equal threats abound, but with the elimination of the icon of terrorism of the past decade, the central Al Qaeda organization has lost some of its pre-eminence in internation-al terrorism. Ten years ago, after the horrific events of 9/11, we thought of Al Qaeda as the biggest threat to our nation; days passed where we would always have that slight fear deep in our hearts that we would be attacked and lose people whom we loved. After that terrible day, we were lucky to not have witnessed a second major attack on our nation. Part of a promise made by our government not to rest until justice was carried out and international terrorism defeated seems to have been kept. Today, we live with the comfort of knowing that some of the world’s most radical religiously driven terrorists, chief among them Osama Bin Laden, have been put down. And while the world has been made a little bit safer we have paid a high price to achieve this . We will never be able to eradicate the threat fully but may have learned how to contain it. HMR

Osama bin Ladin: 5.11.11

Abu Hafs al-Shahri: 9.15.11

Ilyas Kashmiri: 6.3.11

Atiyah Abdul Rahman: 8.22.11

The War on Terror

“Still on balance, one thing is certain; al Qaeda has been weakened,

and is no longer the prime example of a threat to our nation as it once was.”

andy Worthington

Arsbuzz

Telegraph.co.uk

global security.org


Features

September 11th, 2001 was the greatest national tragedy that has occurred in recent memory. It was a saddening day for all Americans, not

just for the families of those killed or in-jured in the attacks. In addition, it was also a wake-up call for our government. 9/11 showed us that there were signifi-cant problems in the country’s airport and homeland security regulations and procedures. The attacks demonstrated the serious need for increased security and protection within the U.S., and that we needed to be better prepared for ter-rorist attacks in the future.

In response to this need, the U.S. government enacted a host of new homeland security measures in the years following 9/11, and created the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) in order to oversee them. Per-haps the most controversial and well-known of these measures was a law enacted shortly after 9/11 in 2011 by Congress, known as the USA PATRIOT Act. Among other things, the PATRI-OT Act gave the federal government and its subsidiary law enforcement/intelligence agencies an abundance of new information gathering tools. The law allowed agencies such as the FBI, CIA, and NSA to, among other things, obtain search warrants for a home or piece of property without notifying its owner, to more easily wiretap a suspect in an investigation, and to obtain any financial or business records from any business/company upon request. None of these measures were in effect before 9/11, but the reality of what had hap-pened provided the necessary catalyst for getting them passed.

There is a good reason, how-ever, that most of the procedures put in place by the PATRIOT Act were not in

effect before 9/11: they’re unconstitu-tional. The PATRIOT Act blatantly vio-lates the 4th amendment, and infringes on every American’s right to privacy. The 4th amendment protects all Amer-icans from unreasonable search and seizure of private property. The gov-ernment must obtain a warrant from an impartial judge or court to search any piece of prop-erty or obtain any informa-tion that is privately held. This protects Americans from being constantly intruded upon by the government, and is essentially the part of our constitu-tion that prevents America from becoming a po-lice state.

When the PATRIOT Act was en-acted in 2001, however, all of that changed in a negative way. The government has the ability to obtain any private records they want simply by petition-ing a company or busi-ness for them, without a single warrant or any ap-proval at all from a judge. The FBI and CIA and can ar-bitrarily wiretap the phone con-versations of any American. Be-fore 2001, this monumental invasion of privacy required a new warrant for each new phone being tapped. The gov-ernment is now allowed to access what once was private information without notifying the person being investigated

isaiah neWman

Privacy Post-9/11: A Violation of our Rights?


Features

in any way, which is a direct rejection of the 4th Amendment.

Through the PATRIOT Act, the government now has the ability to access private information arbitrarily. Intelligence agencies can even access very personal information, such as fi-

nancial and medical records, of vir-tually anyone they want without

any sort of approval. These re-cords often contain informa-

tion that a person might not want shared with

others or with the gov-ernment, for reasons

that likely have noth-ing to do with ter-rorism. This clearly constitutes unrea-sonable search and seizure of private records, and thus violates the 4th Amend-ment.

Wire-tapping under the PATRIOT Act also violates

the constitution. In instances of

wiretapping, the government is “seiz-

ing” records of phone conversations and au-

dio from those conversa-tions. In many cases, they

are not even using any war-rants at all, and are listening in

on private conversations totally unrelated to any criminal or terror-

ism investigations. Many supporters of this leg-

islation justify these abuses of privacy rights by saying that they’re necessary in order to prevent another terrorist attack on the scale of 9/11. However, this is simply untrue. If the government

were required to obtain a warrant for all activities that are condoned by the PATRIOT Act, then no constitutional right would be infringed upon, and Americans’ right to privacy would re-main intact. However, the necessary barriers that prevent the abuse of these laws do not exist, and thus the govern-ment has largely unrestricted access that should be private.

Perhaps if this unrestricted ac-cess was used correctly and effectively in terrorism investigations, and the government had stayed within its own boundaries, then even the unconstitu-tionality of this legislation would be ac-ceptable. But this is not the case. These security measures are constantly used in cases that barely relate to terrorism at all, and for which the law was not made. These measures are also often used on those who are not related to an intelligence investigation at all, and are not suspected in any crime. Intelligence gathered in this manner often leads to the detention and abuse of rights of in-nocent people, further undermining the credibility of the PATRIOT Act.

There are occasional instances where the actions allowed by the PA-TRIOT Act have helped to stop and convict those who were plotting a ter-rorist attack on the United States. How-ever, the few successes of the PATRIOT Act do not justify the massive abuse of privacy rights. In order for the PA-TRIOT Act to be improved, many more safeguards against the right to privacy violations need to be implemented. It is imperative that Congress and the Presi-dent see that this is done. Although there is no sign that this will happen any time in the near future, hopefully the people on Capital Hill will fix the holes in counter-terrorism legislation. HMR

Privacy Post-9/11: A Violation of our Rights?


Features

28 The Horace Mann Review | Vol. XXI

There used to be a time when lift off from the runway was fun, exhilarating — not something to hold your breath over and nervously

look out the window. There used to be a time when you could go to the very top of New York’s tallest building and sim-ply gaze off into the distance, admiring the city’s skyline—not a place where you would stare into the horizon, anxiously looking for a potential aircraft moving towards you. There used to be a time when you could turn on the TV or read the newspaper to learn about a new sci-entific breakthrough or American feat such as landing on the moon, rather than the daily terrorist plot story that threat-ens the safety of our country. Americans once could live free and fearless, and the

time is now to rekindle those emotions. With the recent anniversary of 9/11 and the credible terrorist plot, a threat that our government received from a highly credible source in the Middle East that extracted Al-Qaeda intelligence, our na-tion’s security amplified in the days lead-ing up to and during the tragic, memorial anniversary in our country’s history. As the commemoration to the 10th anniver-sary of 9/11 took shape, the excessive and intensified security turned many people away from carrying on with their lives either because of the actual physical bar-riers that police set up, making it virtually impossible to take tunnels or bridges out of the city, or because of many peoples’ fears that a terrorist plot was actually go-ing to take place. Although our national security and the well being of this coun-

try and its citizens should be the top pri-ority, there is a way to make it so without diverting our citizens from leading pro-ductive and fulfilling lives. These exces-sive security measures, such as the ones seen in New York City during the anni-versary of 9/11, disrupt and infringe on the lives of all citizens in a way that pro-hibits people from living their own lives to the fullest, thus allowing terrorists to dictate and control our freedom.

New York City was on lockdown during the days leading up to and dur-ing 9/11. Bridges were backed up, tun-nels were stuffed, and every mode of transportation into and out of Manhattan was sure to have given enough time you enough to take a two hour nap in your car before you started moving again. 10 years ago, on 9/11, my cousin passed away in

9/11 Security Measures:Is Less More?

benjamin greene


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9/11 Security Measures:Is Less More?

29The Horace Mann Review | Issue 1

the South Tower of the World Trade Cen-ter. This past 9/11, his mother (my aunt) read his name during the commemora-tion service; an event my grandfather, his uncle, was planning on attending. Unfor-tunately, my grandfather was not able to attend because of the security limits that only allowed immediate family to attend. On a day where he wanted to commemo-rate and remember his nephew and other fallen heroes, he was barred from the hal-lowed grounds because of this credible

terrorist threat. These terrorists should not be empowered with the feeling that they were able to succeed in dictating our lives, and in controlling how we live in our city. While I strongly believe that security measures should be taken, I feel even more strongly that these plans should not infringe on the day-to-day freedom of each person. There will al-ways be terrorist threats against the Unit-ed States of America. There will always be people and groups that want to harm the citizens of the United States of America. Yet what has made us so strong is not the fact that we have been able to prevent all threats, but rather that we are able to become unified and carry on living our lives the American way, the way that our founding fathers wanted us to live them. The way of American life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.

Nowadays, it is not uncommon to hear someone say, “No way am I going on an airplane,” or frantically worrying when in a crowded area with a lot of peo-ple. Psychologically, the fear of terrorism has implanted itself into the brains and minds of many Americans, prohibiting them from enjoying life because of the restraints placed by cruel and inhumane acts of terrorists. One reason that terror-ism has become a prevalent issue and one

of the nation’s biggest fears is that of all of these security measures that are taken on a daily basis. I am not saying that our counterterrorism unit is not important; it is one of the most crucial branches of our government. Nor am I saying that se-curity is the sole reason for the fearsome behavior of many Americans. Rather, it is that we are letting these continuous ter-rorist threats shape and dictate our lives. The security procedures repeatedly plant fear in people, as innocent Americans be-

lieve something will happen. In turn they resist doing what they would usually do on a normal day.

Terry Gorski, an expert on crime and violence, said shortly after 9/11, “One goal of terrorism is to disrupt a society by causing wide spread psychological damage and social disruption.” The psy-chological and emotional effects caused by cautionary procedures often create more damage than the actual threat itself. Clearly, the most important thing is to preserve and maintain the well being of our nation’s people, and also to allow our citizens to lead fulfilling and contribut-ing lives. It’s about time we stay cautious while allowing ourselves to seize each day and live it, and live it to its fullest.

With the amount of technology used, the amount of people employed, and the amount of time consumed, we also have to think about the economic situation and practical effects of these security measures. Now clearly we don’t have the exact numbers, but we can all predict that many of these security schemes not only cost money themselves, but also prohibit people from moving around efficiently and effectively. In New York City, we pride ourselves on the hustle and bustle atmosphere that residents love and tour-ists hate. Basically, time equals money

and these security procedures take time up and not only disrupt people from liv-ing their lives socially, but many times disrupt the economic situation of citi-zens. Travelling in and out of the city, whether for work or transportation of goods, is what keeps our city’s economy alive. This movement was temporarily halted by the security on 9/11 and the days leading up to the memorial. When instilled alongside our hustle and bustle lifestyle, security measures should not

be allowed to disrupt and disallow New Yorkers and other Americans from going to work and supporting their families, or other economic activities for that mat-ter. Our city’s bustling economy and the work of our residents shouldn’t be slowed down because of restraints that excessive security measures have delegated unto us.

Our security and well-being, along with the national counterterrorism unit, is undoubtedly the main priority of this country. Our nation was built on the grounds of preserving and maintain-ing the safety of each and every citizen. However, our nation was also built on the basis of freedom and liberties, not only in the literal sense, but also in the psycho-logical sense. On numerous occasions, excessive security measures actually pre-vent people from carrying on with their lives mentally, thus enabling terrorists to succeed in disrupting and interfering with American society. These enacted security precautions physically block off our citizens, emotionally hinder residents from leading normal lives, and many times cost large sums of money, some-thing that we cannot do in our country’s current economic situation. The time has come to stand up to these terrorists and to stand up to our fears. HMR

“The psychological and emotional effects caused by cautionary procedures often create more damage than the actual threat itself.”


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The Aftermath Looking at the Impact of 9/11 on New York City’s Different Communties

Ten years ago the bewildered eyes of the world watched New York City as the planes cut through the clear blue sky and then into the World

Trade Center. For those who watched the smoldering blazes and wreckage on TV, the memories are vivid, while for the oth-ers who witnessed first hand at the World Trade Center, they can be unsettlingly real. At the core of the pandemonium were paramedics desperately attempting to help, audacious firefighters, and Can-tor Fitzgerald, a global financial firm that operated on the 101st to the 105th floors of the North Tower. Another New York City group directly affected by the disas-ter is the Muslim community; the lives of Muslim New Yorkers also took a dramat-ic change in a new direction.

Howard Lutnick, the chairman and CEO of Cantor Fitzgerald, survived by what some people call “a stroke of

luck.” I discussed the day’s events with Lutnick; when asked for his thoughts about surviving by luck he said, “If luck is defined as losing my best friend, my brother, and colleagues, and I get to live, that it is a very difficult kind of luck.” On that fateful day ten years ago, Howard Lutnick decided to arrive to work late to take his son, Kyle (10), to his first day of kindergarten at the Horace Mann Nurs-ery Division on East 90th street. While dropping Kyle off, Mr. Lutnick received a call telling him the towers were on fire. He urgently rushed into his car and drove down to the World Trade Center. Upon getting there, he stood at the door of the North Tower, frantically asking people, “What floor?” in hopes of finding some-one from the firm. Then there was an “enormous crushing sound,” as the North Tower began to collapse. “I ran to my right immediately. If I had run to the left, I would have been killed because of the falling tower, and when I turned around

there were black tornadoes of smoke chasing me. I dove under a car.” It was at this moment after emerging from the smoke he realized that his colleagues, and friends from work were all gone. During the attacks Cantor Fitzgerald lost 658 em-ployees and Lutnick had lost his brother and his best friend who also worked at the company. The company accounted for a staggering twenty two percent of all the casualties in the September Eleventh At-tacks on the WTC and only 302 employ-ees of the 960 people that worked at Can-tor Fitzgerald survived. No one working on the floors survived. The people who survived were in situations similar to that of Lutnick: running late, getting coffee, or other various reasons for not being at the office.

What made the event even more devastating was Cantor Fitzgerald’s ideol-ogy -- the firm had and still has a policy that they allow family members to work together. “We wanted to work with our

jacob zurita


Featuresfriends, so we encouraged people to hire their friends and family. While most companies would say they don’t want you to work with your friends or family, we had the opposite set of rules,” said How-ard Lutnick. The company had employed 48 sets of brothers and 22 families lost two brothers. Everyone in the company had lost someone close to them.

Following 9/1,1 Cantor Fitzger-ald was presented with a choice. They could close the firm and attempt to attend every one of their 658 friends’ funerals or “We would have to work harder than ever before in order to care for our friends’ families,” emphasized Howard Lutnick. Today, Cantor Fitzgerald employs 1,500 people and is one of the leading global investment firms. The dedication and perseverance of everyone who stayed led the company to its economic success and more significantly the accomplishment of the promise made.

The company, and Mr. Lutnick, had promised healthcare for ten years and 25% percent of the profits of the com-pany go to the families of the victims for five years. Cantor Fitzgerald has main-tained and exceeded their promise that was doubted by so many in 2001. So far, Cantor Fitzgerald has donated over 180 million dollars to the 658 families and 65 million to different charities that support the victims of the September 11th attacks, war veterans, and others, making it a driv-ing force of relief in our New York City community. The loss of workers weighed heavily on Lutnick since he had lost his brother and his best friend. “The loss of my brother allowed me to communicate with the families better, understand bet-ter, they could trust me because I was no one special… We did not work that hard to rebuild the company, we rebuilt the company to care for the families.”

Another group affected by the 9/11 attacks is the American Muslim community; it has come under intense scrutiny in the last decade. Unfortunate-ly, post-9/11 America has seen a dramatic rise in stereotyping Muslim Americans. The discrimination is evident: TSA em-ployees put Muslims under suspicion, some data that suggests Muslims receive lower wages, and a difficulty in obtain-ing jobs after 9/11. Another critical piece of information is that Muslim leaders,

politicians, and scholars condemn the acts of Al Qaeda. General Guide of the Muslim Brothers Mustafa Mashhur, along with 53 other Muslim politicians and leaders, are quoted as saying, “[We], leaders of Islamic movements, are hor-

rified by the events of Tuesday 11 Sep-tember 2001 in the United States which resulted in massive killing, destruction and attack on innocent lives. We express our deepest sympathies and sorrow. We condemn, in the strongest terms, the in-cidents…This is grounded in the Noble Laws of Islam which forbid all forms of attacks on innocents.” Although the Muslim community suffered from the effects of Al Qaeda’s actions, perhaps not

all New York City Muslims understood the impact of 9/11 the New York men-tality. The mosque that was planned to be built only a few blocks from Ground Zero was protested by many Americans. Ibrahim Hooper, the communications director for the Council on American-Islamic Relations, stated that every time

Muslims “raised their heads” to build mosques, different American groups would come after them. In addition, he believed that a large amount of Muslim hate crimes are the by-product of 9/11.

In addition to the Muslim and Cantor Fitzgerald communities being extensively impacted by the September eleventh terrorist attacks, firefighters and paramedics were also greatly affected. They suffered awful health consequences long after the attacks were over. In total, 343 paramedics and firefighters were killed, and many more suffered respira-tory complications from intense dust cloud exposure. It is estimated that four times as many firefighters and twice as many EMS workers had below-normal lung function within only six years after 9/11. Some firefighters and paramedics also suffered from posttraumatic stress disorder because of the gruesome images that were seen at the World Trade Cen-ter. There were a total 19,858 body parts found at the WTC. Numerous valiant firefighters and paramedics died, leaving their families without fathers, or moth-ers.

As we achieve the milestone of the tenth anniversary of 9/11, we remember those we lost along with the bold deeds

of firefighters, paramedics, and commit-ments Cantor Fitzgerald strived to make to help those who suffered. As New York-ers, we feel a direct connection to the communities impacted by the attacks. HMR

“We would have to work harder than ever before in order to care for our friends’ families,” empha-sized Howard Lutnick, CEO of

Cantor Fitzgerald.


Features

philip perl

zoriah

The events of 9/11 led to many changes for America’s image around the world. In the decades before the attacks, America was the world’s pre-

eminent superpower. That America no longer exists today. According to USA Today columnist Chuck Raasch, “our view of our country changed from sole superpower to target superpower.” With national and personal security constantly perceived to be at risk, America looks and feels less powerful than ever. Scarred by a decade of bloody wars and torn by per-petual conflicts between the Right and the Left, America looks more like a sec-ond rate state than a major superpower.

America’s condition immedi-ately after the attacks led to a wave of sympathy and support from many na-tions around the world, including some that have not been so sympathetic in the past. Perceived as the victim of ter-rorism, America received “unlimited solidarity” from Former German Chan-cellor Gerhard Schroeder, while the for-mer Palestinian Liberation Organization leader Yasser Arafat donated blood for the victims. Even the French embraced the American cause when Le Monde, a Left-wing French newspaper, published the headline “We Are All Americans.”

was an immoral policy of revenge that re-sulted in unnecessary wars that brought more rather than less terror around the world. For other Bush critics, the policy violated America’s most valued principles

and turned them into an ideological war dividing nations based on ideological and Islamaphobic grounds. Threatening rhetoric by President Bush wasn’t merely divisive; it actually damaged the country’s image. According to George Shambaugh, a Government and International Affairs scholar in the School of Foreign Service at Georgetown University, our credibility was at its lowest during the Iraq conflict

Unfortunately, it did not take long for global perception of America to change from victim to perpetrator of ter-ror. Many blame President Bush’s War on Terror policies for damaging America’s

credibility and reputation around the world. According to Gregor Peter Schmitz from Der Spiegel, good will and unity began to dissipate when President Bush “sought to find a pretext - any pretext - to invade Iraq and Afghanistan.” Instead of cultivating public support to isolate the terrorists from the rest of the world, we managed to isolate ourselves. For some Bush critics, America’s “War on Terror”

“Instead of focusing on protecting Americans and bringing 9/11 perpetra-tors to justice, America became entan-gled in wars that could not be won, in endless debates on security versus lib-erty, and perpetual conflicts on consti-tutional versus moral rights to torture terror suspects.”


Features

when “WMDs turned out to be a pure fabrication.”

Instead of focusing on protect-ing Americans and bringing 9/11 per-petrators to justice, America became en-tangled in wars that could not be won, in endless debates on security versus liberty, and perpetual conflicts on constitutional versus moral rights to torture terror sus-pects. The United States’ image abroad is not the only thing that changed since 9/11. Our view of our own government also changed drastically. Worried about our national and personal security, we be-came complacent, accepting government claims at face value instead of question-ing its assault on constitutional liberties or its foreign policy of “regime change” in Iraq, Afghanistan, and elsewhere. What we did not realize is that terror cannot be sim-ply bombed out of existence. Terror has to stop from within just like democracy has to evolve from within. No nation can single-handedly put an end to terrorism, induce democracy, or preserve its liber-ties through continuous warfare. Howev-

er, but diplomatic negotiations can achieve both with-out compromis-ing people’s rights. Perhaps terror might have been eradicated and our liberties preserved if the Bush Admin-istration chose di-plomacy over war-fare. Since President Obama became Commander-in-Chief, many coun-tries have only seen the change in our demeanor, rhetoric, and tone. How-ever, we cannot afford to send conflicting or threatening messages to the world be-cause countries will continue to perceive us as distrustful, fearful, and defensive. And for that not to happen, our foreign policy must change to the pre-Bush Ad-ministration policy – one that promoted

goodwill peaceful cooperation around the world. According to Charles Bar-ron, a New York City Councilman from Brooklyn, “The best Homeland Security America can develop is a more even-handed foreign policy that promotes, hu-man rights, economic development, and world peace.” HMR

http://nonsuperpoWerusa.blogspot.com/

http://WWW.timesherald.com/articles/2009/03/21/neWs/doc49c478632d6bf164767380.txt


Features

NATION OF FEAR

Ten years ago, al Qaeda hijack-ers took control of four com-mercial planes and sent them hurtling towards the earth. In a matter of hours, the twin

towers had collapsed and a wing of the Pentagon was in flames. In what was by far the most devastating attack ever on the United States, more than 3000 inno-cent people were killed and more than 10,000 more people were injured. The long-term effects of these brutal attacks have been profound, and the emotional toll has been very heavy. However, mil-lions more fell prey to a more pervasive long-term threat. On September 11th, Americans became the victims of fear.

Less than a month after the 9/11 attacks, on October 7th, 200 the US launched Operating Enduring Freedom in Afghanistan, a military operation aimed at rooting out al Qaeda fighters and their Taliban. After three weeks of heavy assault from a coalition of nations led by US and British Special Forces, the Tali-ban regime collapsed; in its place stood an interim government under the control of Hamid Karzai. The Bush Administra-tion justified the invasion on the grounds of self-defense: the U.S. homeland had been attacked, warranting military action in Afghanistan to root out the terrorist threat. After all, it was the Taliban who had provided refuge to Al Qaeda and al-lowed it to thrive.

Whether this initial military re-sponse was justified or not, most Ameri-cans assumed that the US and its colla-tion forces would invest the necessary military forces to disable al Qaeda and the Taliban and create a more stable Af-ghanistan that would cease to be a safe haven for terrorists. And the assumption was that we could do this in a reasonable amount of time.

But that did not happen. Instead the Bush administration turned its attention to what it saw as the next threat: Sad-

dam Hussein’s Iraq. As President Bush explained in his 2003 State of the Union Address, “our war on terror begins with Al Qaeda, but it does not end there. It will not end until every terrorist group of global reach has been found, stopped, and defeated.” To make the case for this second theater of war, the Bush adminis-tration asserted that Saddam Hussein was holding “weapons of mass destruction” and that there was a direct link between Hussein’s government and al Qaeda. As we would later come to realize, neither of these assertions was true.

Based on these mistaken assump-tions, the Bush administration argued that it needed to act preemptively to counter this threat. By launching an-other military operation in Iraq, the ad-ministration acted without UN or other international support. The problem with President Bush’s reasoning lies in its pre-emptively mentality. Attempting to ab-

rogate every potential terrorist threat on the face of the earth is like trying to stop every crime before it happens; it simply cannot be done. The mere possibility of a threat is not justification for major mili-tary action.

More broadly, because of the horror of the 9/11 attacks, we have never had a fact-based debate on the actual risks posed by potential future terrorist attacks in this country. According to the Cato Institute “The total number of people worldwide who die at the hands of inter-national terrorists anywhere in the world is not much more than the number who drown in bathtubs in the United States.” Does this mean we are going to spend billions of dollars more protecting people from their bathtubs? Of course not. Such a policy would be foolish and irrational. So then why is the threat of terrorism so different?

In general, many aspects of our lives

“After the chaos and carnage of September 11th, it is not enough to serve our enemies with legal papers.” -Former President George W. Bush

alexander posner


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NATION OF FEAR

are inherently risky. However, when we surrender to the fear of those risks we of-ten act irrationally. Unfortunately, after 9/11, that’s just what happened. In our greatest moment of darkness, we let our-selves become paralyzed by the chance of another attack and assigned dispropor-tionate attention to taking protective ac-tions. We united around the goal of pre-venting terrorism because of its potential for destruction, but never gave adequate attention to the feasibility of how best to effectively deter potential attacks or to study the real costs associated with such efforts.

According to a 2011 report from Brown University, the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan have cost between 2.3 and 2.6 trillion dollars in federal funding. The long-term cost is even greater. Ac-cording to the Brown study “Including the amounts that the U.S. is obligated to spend for veterans, and the likely costs of

future fighting as well as the social costs that the veterans and their families will pay, we calculate that the wars will cost between $3.7 and 4.4 trillion dollars.” This extra-ordinary sum of money could have been better spent. From increases in health care spending and investments in jobs to a reduction of the federal defi-cit and cutting taxes virtually every eco-nomic policy option under consideration today would be dramatically different if we had not committed such substantial resources to fighting these two wars, the longest military operations in US histo-ry. Take health care as an example. Ac-cording to a study published by Harvard Medical School in 2009, nearly 45,000 Americans die every year from a lack of adequate health care. When the goal of US military operations in Iraq and Af-ghanistan has been to protect and save US lives, how can we justify the expendi-ture of such massive amounts of money

to finance these two military operations when these funds could have been spent so much more effectively elsewhere?

The costs in terms of lives in fight-ing these wars is also significant. 4,477 American service members have died in Iraq since the start of the war in 2003, and an additional 1,798 U.S. troops have died in Afghanistan since 2001. Proponents of the security measured enacted after 9/11 claim these losses pale in comparison to the number of lives that could have been lost in terror attacks. However, the facts don’t back up this assertion. According to the Heritage Foundation, the average terror attacks kills two people and injures six. If we do a cost-benefit analysis, the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan have been unwise and counterproductive. It is sim-ply a matter of math.

10 years, $4 trillion, and 6,576 lives later, there begs one question: was it worth it?

Al Qaeda’s physical attack on the U.S. took a mere 3 hours; however, the true assault has yet ceased. In our greatest moment of darkness, we let the gloom of a national disaster distort our decision-making. We succumbed to our fear and become servants of its control. In our pursuit of tranquility, we became a dan-ger to ourselves. When we became the terrorized, we succumbed to the politics of fear.

In his first inaugural address in 1933 President Franklin Roosevelt faced a na-tion traumatized by the Great Depres-sion and economic hardship. Addressing an anxious country he proclaimed, “The only thing we have to fear is fear itself—nameless, unreasoning, unjustified terror which paralyzes needed efforts to con-vert retreat into advance.” The veracity of FDR’s words is unquestionable. 10 years after September 11th, we need his wis-dom more than ever. HMR

ecohustler


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the start of the war in 2003, and an additional 1,798 U.S. troops have died in Afghanistan since 2001), untold Iraqi lives have been lost (some estimates are in the hundreds of thousands). Propo-nents of the security measures enacted after 9/11 claim these losses pale in com-parison to the number of lives that could have been lost in terror attacks. How-ever, the facts don’t back up this asser-tion. According to the Heritage Founda-tion, the average terror attacks kills two

people and injures six. From the per-spective of saving lives, the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan have been unwise and counterproductive.

10 years, $4 trillion, and thousands of lost lives later, there begs one ques-tion: was it worth it?

Al Qaeda’s physical attack on the U.S. took a mere 3 hours; however, the true assault has never ceased. In our greatest moment of darkness, we let the gloom of a national disaster distort our decision-making. In our pursuit of tran-quility, we became a danger to ourselves. When we became the terrorized, we suc-cumbed to the politics of fear.

In his first inaugural address in 1933 President Franklin Roosevelt faced a na-tion traumatized by the Great Depres-sion and economic hardship. Address-ing an anxious country he proclaimed, “The only thing we have to fear is fear it-

self—nameless, unreasoning, unjustified terror which paralyzes needed efforts to convert retreat into advance.” The verac-ity of FDR’s words is unquestionable. 10 years after September 11th, we need his wisdom more than ever. HMR

Al Qaeda’s physical attack on the U.S. took a mere 3 hours; however, the true as-

sault yet to cease.

WiKipedia

The Horace Mann Review | Issue 1 3737The Horace Mann Review | Issue 9

david hacKel

Not Our Problem

Think about what would hap-pen if you didn’t pay your taxes. Imagine going through a tollbooth on a highway or over a bridge and not bother-

ing to take out your wallet to pay or put up your EZ pass. With the money you supply to the government, you expect govern-ment programs like healthcare. Where is the money coming from? Many Greeks, unfortunately, don’t seem to know the

answer. For many years, the Greek gov-ernment pursued a borrow-and-spend economic policy; now, its chickens have come home to roost. Current two-year Greek debt bonds are yielding 70%, and Greek economic growth, or in reality lack thereof, is at -5.4 percent. Essentially, this means that there is a 90% chance that Greece will default on its €353 billion debt. Fifty years ago Greece’s problem would have been its own, but now, in an interconnected global economy, one dis-tant nation’s issues are a concern for ev-ery nation. There is, in my opinion, only one solution to this crisis.

After the 2008 financial crisis, Greece was stuck in a hole. Similarly to many other countries, its economy receded, but unlike other countries, Greece did not

enforce payment of taxes. In fact, six in ten Greeks did not pay taxes. The New York Times reported that the Greek gov-ernment “may be losing as much as $30 billion a year to tax evasion.” So, with the lethal combination of negative economic growth and citizens who failed and re-fused to pay taxes, Greece was trapped. How did the Greeks manage as long as they did? Some speculate that Greece worked with financial institutions such

as Goldman Sachs to hide their actual debt. This deception enabled Greece to continue borrowing in secrecy, until their problem exploded.

Many compare a Greek default to the 2008 default of Lehman Brothers. The U.S. government let Lehman fail, and when it did, the stock market plum-meted into uncertainty for the future. Many think if Greece were to default, the Euro would crash. However, I propose giving Greece one year to restructure its debt, giving the country minimal aid, and making sure the citizens abide by newly-reformed tax laws. If in one year Greece is still in as much trouble—which is likely--I recommend that Greece be kicked out of the Eurozone, which is the Economic and Monetary Union of the

European Union. This would indeed cre-ate problems in the short-term. However, these would be specific to Europe would most likely not affect the global markets. Russia defaulted in 1998 and Argentina in 2003. The defaults of both nations had similar outcomes: a rough year after the default, but a quick recovery leading to strong economies. Other governments truly cannot continue lending Greece money. Supporting Greece through bail-outs and lending will cause not only the financial demise of Greece, but also the financial demise stronger countries that are doing the lending right now. This domino effect will bring down Greece and all the banks that own government bonds—taking down the entire financial system! This would cause the worlds ma-jor banks to fail—creating an economic depression worse than The Great De-pression. The banks are already taking in a 21% net loss on their Greek bonds and the EU wants to push it up to 41% all in hope of an aversion of Greek default. Such actions will just put the banks and other countries who own Greek debt in trouble as well.

The plan is simple: give Greece one year to try to restructure their debt and make sure their citizens abide by the new rules. If Greece fails to do these things, force them out of the Eurozone—giving them one year of chaos, but a quick re-covery like Argentina and Russia, rather than a world of depression. HMR

Supporting Greece through bailouts and lending will cause not only the financial demise of Greece, but also the financial demise stronger countries that are doing the lending right now.

Economics


Economics

GR KONOMICSPicture an elderly Greek

couple sitting at the kitchen table, their stress and anxi-ety mounting as they calcu-late the income tax they owe

the Greek government. The husband is one of 20,000 state workers to be laid off; his wife has cancer and retired six months ago, too sick to work. With the state freezing pensions left and right, the couple has no source of income, no abil-ity to pay taxes, and nowhere left to turn.

Millions of other Greeks found them-selves in similar situations on Wednes-day, September 21 when the Greek gov-ernment announced the implementation of fifteen new austerity measures, includ-ing the freezing of health spending, the cutting salaries and pensions, and the increase of value added taxes by over ten percent. In an even bigger blow for Greek workers, the government is lay-ing off 20,000 state workers and putting 30,000 more civil servants on a “labor reserve program,” where their wages will be cut for a twelve month period. On the whole, these austerity measures are slashing social welfare benefits for mil-lions, causing immeasurable systemic problems in the Greek economy by forc-ing Greeks into poverty and bankruptcy. So why would the Greek government is-sue these measures in the first place?

The reason is that Greece is in a seri-ous debt crisis, with its debt to GDP ratio at a soaring 150%. The country is current-ly facing default: a state where the Greek government will sink so far in debt that it will not be able to pay back bonds to foreign and institutional investors, Greek banks, and some Greek individuals. As a so-called “solution” to the crisis, a troika of the European Commission, the Euro-pean Central Bank, and the Internation-al Monetary Fund has required that the Greek government attempt to put off de-faulting for as long as possible. Towards that end, the troika has demanded that the Greek government lay off its workers

and cut salaries and pensions to try and reduce government spending and create a budget surplus, which would assure Greek bondholders that there is a low long-term risk of Greece de-faulting on its debt. In return, the troika will lend $11 bil-lion to Greece as part of a bailout package. How-ever, many economists are debating a crucial question: are the con-sequences of Greece defaulting worse than the effects of the troika’s manda-tory austerity mea-sures?

The answer is that Greece’s austerity mea-sures provide worse effects for Greece’s economy, government, and individuals than de-fault. Defaulting is Greece’s best solution to its financial crisis for two reasons:

First, decreasing government spending will send the Greek government even further in debt, rather than creating a budget surplus. If the Greek government contin-ues to reduce spending and cut sala-ries, Greek citizens will not have enough money to pay taxes to the government. Without enough tax revenue, the gov-ernment will lose even more money, as opposed to gaining it like the troika envisioned. As a result, the government will be obligated to cut spending again to compensate for its major losses in tax revenue, causing more of a reduction in the ability of Greek citizens to pay taxes. Ironically, the troika demands austerity measures that will lead to a shrinking

(rath-er than growing) Greek economy. The austerity measures will produce a vicious cycle of a decrease in government spending and an increase in government debt. Therefore, the aus-terity measures are the wrong solution

caroline KuritzKes


Economics

to Greece’s debt crisis.

Sec-ond, citizens

with slashed or fro-zen pensions and salaries will not

be able to afford to spend money; thus, consumer spending under austerity will be too low to create economic recovery. Moreover, the austerity measures hurt

disadvantaged Greeks by reducing their social welfare benefits. This has led to in-creasing frustration, directed at the Greek government, over the new austerity mea-sures, and tensions are rising by the day:

already, riots and protests have broken out in Athens, most recently on Oc-

tober 5 and more are scheduled. The austerity measures, then,

are not only disastrous for Greece’s economy but have

proven to create an atmo-sphere of dislike and dis-

trust between the Greek government and the

people of Greece. Since the auster-

ity measures are not the right procedure for solving Greece’s debt crisis, Greece needs to default and eventually, to the best of its ability, restruc-ture its debt. But what path should Greece take after it defaults? How can it maintain the

confidence of bor-rowers? How can it

remain fiscally sol-vent? And what can

the rest of the Eurozone do to help?

Economists have pro-posed two main roads for

Greece to travel after default. The first possibility is for Greece

to go back to using its original cur-rency, the drachma. One thing is for

sure: if Greece were still using the drach-ma, the country would have been able to handle the recent debt crisis on its own. If Greece had problems paying its debt and was using its own currency, for example, the value of the drachma would fall, re-sulting in cheaper Greek exports. In turn, cheaper goods would attract more for-eign trade, thus increasing competition and stimulating Greece’s economy. The fact that Greece would be able to print

more drachmas, in essence inflating its way out of some of its debt, wouldn’t hurt its ability to resolve the current debt crisis either - although there is certainly a limit to how much inflation an economy can take.

However, going back to the drachma is not the right approach for Greece to take after it defaults. Greece should in-stead take the advice of most economists and continue using the euro because go-ing back to the drachma would damage Greece’s economy and its relations with other Eurozone countries. Leaving the euro would essentially mean leaving the Eurozone, and thus also leaving behind the low tariffs and favorable trade condi-tions that the European Union provides to its members. No other country has left the Eurozone before, so it is at least in Greece’s best political interests to con-tinue using the Euro and stay in the Eu-ropean Union.

On the contrary, Greece’s best road after defaulting is to rely on the rest of Europe to bail it out of debt. A plan called the European Financial Stability Facility, a 600 billion dollar rescue project to bail out countries in debt by granting emer-gency loans, is already being discussed by leaders across Europe. Many econo-mists are now concerned that Greece’s economic crisis could lead to contagion, a condition that would infect other Eu-ropean countries and further constrain Europe’s economy on the whole: funda-mentally, Europe’s economy is dependent on Greece’s economy. However, the Eu-ropean Financial Stability Facility could potentially prevent contagion by bailing out Greece and thus, getting Greece’s economy back on track. As a result, Eu-rope should bail out Greece because this plan (or a plan like it) would benefit both Greece and Europe.

Ultimately, Greece’s best strategy is defaulting and being bailed out by the Eu-rozone. Not only will this solution improve Greece’s economy but it will also ben-efit Europe in the long run. But prospects for Greece are dim: no matter what path Greece takes, the consequences are some-what unknown and unpredictable. HMR

Economics


Economics

Raising taxes on the wealthi-est Americans is fundamen-tally harmful to the U.S. economy and all American citizens. The common ar-

gument for taxing the rich in the United States is based on what some perceive as fairness - that the rich can afford to pay higher taxes and therefore should. While this argument seems rational at first, ana-lyzing the economics behind it shows that such a belief is fundamentally flawed. Of course the rich can afford to pay rela-tively higher taxes - they’re rich! It is the middle class and those below the poverty line that will suffer. We know so because a widely accepted economic trend - known as the trickle down effect - tells us that economic growth comes from the job creators and entrepreneurs, often wealthy Americans, who invest their money in the competitive enterprises that make America great.

The wealthiest 2% of Americans must be able to hold on to their money to be able to spend it in the private sec-tor and invest it in the economy; econo-mists agree that these two types of private spending keep the economy moving. Consumer spending on food, clothes, houses, and electronics keeps money flowing through the economy and creates the revenue to pay lower-income work-ers. Investing in companies allows new industries to grow, expands the economy, and hires new workers of middle and low incomes. Without wealthy Americans, this process fails to work properly.

The wealthy are invaluable when it comes to keeping consumer spending and employment up, especially in the worst of times. Naturally, the wealthy are

far more confident about their financial situation than the middle and lower in-come class: in November 2008, according to a Gallup poll, 65% of higher income Americans were confident about the economy, whereas 46% of lower income Americans were very concerned about it. As a result, during bad economic times like today’s, the wealthy will spend far more of their income than the poor will and prop the economy up. But when the government raises taxes on the wealthy, the wealthy are not as willing to spend their money. The economy then suffers, and companies, due to the slowdown in consumer spending, fire middle and low-er class workers.

Affluent Americans are also critical to the health and expansion of the econ-omy, which is needed to create jobs and increase wages. Since they wealthy have more confidence than middle and lower income Americans, they are more likely to invest their money aggressively in new companies and projects. Due to these new investments, new companies are born and old ones grow, providing jobs for new, previously unemployed workers from the middle and lower income class. If taxes on the rich are raised they will not invest their money aggressively, the economy will not expand, and the unem-ployed will stay unemployed.

On top of all this lies the fact that

the wealthy already have high taxes com-pared to middle and lower income Amer-icans. The current federal income tax rate for individuals making over 200,000 a year is at 33%. The tax rate for the “super rich”, classified as earning above $375,000 a year, is at 35% or above. This compares to a 10-15% income tax and a 25-28% in-come tax respectively for low and middle income Americans. With state and local taxes many wealthy people get almost half of their money taken by the government. This already high tax rate should not be raised any further - it is simply unethical to tax away half of what someone earns.

Taxing the rich is neither an effective nor responsible way to tackle govern-ment debt. The current U.S. government deficit is $14.7 trillion. Allow the Bush Tax Cuts for the wealthy to expire would only save $700 billion over 10 years. It would only eliminate 4.7% of the current national deficit, which will almost cer-tainly grow significantly over time. Is this really worth the damage it would do to the economy and the livelihoods of regu-lar Americans? The answer, as proven by widely accepted statistics and econo-mists, is no.

Raising taxes on the wealthy would cause irreparable damage to the economy of the United States and would put the jobs and livelihoods of regular Ameri-cans in jeopardy. This debate pits smart economics versus convenient politics. Remember, it may sound good when pol-iticians say, “Tax the wealthy!” but it goes against economics, math, common sense, and the well being of the United States. HMR

edmund bannister

“Affluent Americans are criti-cal to the health and expan-

sion of the economy, and thus are key for economic growth.”

Punishing the Wealthy Hurts Everyone

Shared


Economics

The Rich Should Pay Their Fair Sharetreshauxn dennis-broWn

A potted plant lies on any giv-en patio. In times of drought or lack of rain, our plant needs water to complete its day-to-day functions - as

a result, we water the plant. Yet unless we take great care to water the roots of the plant, the roots will stay dry. Such an image is indicative of the American economic policy: in our struggling econ-omy, questions arise as to how the United States will pay its debt. Some misin-formed persons see the answer in trickle down economics, the idea that wealth at the top of economic plant will eventu-ally ‘trickle down’ to its roots. But trickle down economics is not the solution to our economic woes.

Trickle down economics was born in the 1890s under the term “horse and sparrow” economics: as derisively ex-plained by economist John Kenneth Galbraith, “if you feed the horse enough oats, some will pass through to the road for the sparrows.” Galbraith insists that “horse and sparrow economics” was proven to be misguided by the Panic of 1896. A more recent incarnation of trick-le-down is dubbed “Reaganomics,” allud-ing to President Ronald Reagan, whose economic policy embraced trickle down. During the course of his administration, our country gazed on as Reagan took the idea to new heights, authorizing income tax cuts for the rich from 70%, to 50%, then to 28%. Though not as simple as “action a equals result b”, these policies eventually resulted in inflation and un-employment falling faster under Reagan than they did immediately before or after his presidency.

Despite the possibility that trickle

Sacrifice?down could work, there are independent statistics that are simply not accounted for. Americans naturally protect their money in the face of economic adversi-ty; it is no surprise that in the face of the 2007 economic downturn, Americans of all classes simply began to stash and save their money. The personal saving rate, which measures how much people save out of disposable income, was 1.3% in the July-September quarter of 2007. Al-though that is considerably low in com-parison to most countries, it is significant to note that this percentage was more than double the rate the year before. This percentage is expected to reach 8% five years from now. With Americans refus-ing to spend money when they can save it instead, how will the economy grow? If we reduce the taxes of the wealthy, it is not unreasonable to assume that in a troubled economy, we’re not taking away money they would have otherwise in-vested.

Aside from the practicalities, trickle down isn’t sound from an ethical stand-point either. Though the Reagan ad-ministration is credited with the second longest peacetime economic expansion in U.S. history, his policies succeeded by throwing the lower classes under the economic bus. The number of Americans below the poverty level increased from 29 million in 1980 to 31 million in 1988: and that shouldn’t be a surprise, as his tax sys-tem shifted the tax burden from the rich-est .5% to all the poor Americans. Nor is it astonishing as wages for all but the top 1% of earners fell under the Reagan ad-ministration. Warren Buffet, the second richest man in the US today, would cer-tainly agree.

In an Op-Ed published in the NY

Times, Buffet displays his chagrin when he relates the disproportionate ratios of income taxes between him and the workers of his office. Buffet’s piece, called “Stop Coddling the Super Rich,” states that Buffet paid only 17% income tax last year, while the his office workers on average paid 36%. Embodying the Civil War-era phrase “Rich man’s war, poor man’s fight,” Buffet emphasizes that the lower and middle classes are already pay-ing by their tours in Iraq and Afghani-stan. Therefore, he says, it is time for our current billionaire-friendly Congress to get serious about “shared sacrifice”. For those making more than $1 million a year (236,883 households in 2009), Buffet pro-poses a raise in rates on taxable income, including, in contrast to current practice, dividends and capital gains. For the uber-rich, those making more than $10 million a year (8,274 such households in 2009), he proposes an additional increase in rate.

It seems there is only one constant when trickle down policies are successful. With a tinge of irony I call it “trickle-up economics”. When the economy falters, the lowest classes bear the devastating initial blow of jobs layoffs. Then, depend-ing on the length of the downturn, the job losses trickle upwards. Very rarely does the upper class experience any life-style change at all. Later, as the economy recovers, relief staggers down to the sur-vivors at the bottom. There may be Re-publicans who might seek to throw a large swath of the American public un-der the theoretical bus in the interests of their rich constituents and friends, but we should let them know that the ends do not justify the means when it comes to livelihoods. HMR


Science & Tech.

Science & Tech.Science & Tech

THE FUTURE OF WAR

Tanks, infantry, machine guns, and fighter jets all have some-thing in common, besides being used in war. They’re all becoming increasingly irrel-

evant. It seems more and more probable every day that the future lies in drones. A few years ago, there were less than a hun-dred. There are now around seven thou-sand in the United States’ military arse-nal, with $5 billion being budgeted for drones this year. The technology is now being adapted for espionage, and drones are being seriously considered for patrol-ling the European border to prevent ille-gal immigration, due to the drone’s abil-ity to monitor an area 24/7. Drones can hit a target with a 95% accuracy rate and make sure that more and more of our sol-diers come home at the end of the day. Compared to the old fighter jets, they’re incredibly cheap: an old F-22 Raptor

Fighter Jet costs an enormous $150 mil-lion dollars, while a Predator drone costs a mere $4.5 million. There are also recon-naissance drones for use in the field that cost only $56 thousand per unit. Training fighter pilots used to consume millions. Now, the process has become much sim-pler and cheaper.

The main reason for the increase in drones has been the war on terror. Previously, America had to have mili-tary personal on the ground in order to fight terrorists in the vast mountains of the Middle East. With drones becom-ing a much more effective means of at-tacking al-Qaeda than infantry troops, this need has reduced significantly. The recent death of Ilyas Kashmiri, a senior al-Qaeda leader killed in a drone bomb-ing in June, has been a huge victory for drone supporters. Drone strikes are now being extended to Yemen, where the US

uses drones to bomb AQAP, the Yemeni branch of al-Qaeda which the United States government has deemed more dangerous than that of Pakistan. But the most recent and perhaps most telling use of drones has been in the Libyan cam-paign. Drone attacks by NATO reduced Colonel Gaddafi’s air force to scrap metal and prevented the use of his heavier mili-tary units against the rebels. The cam-paign in Libya may prove to have paved the path for more successful peacekeep-ing campaigns in the future, now that such a cost-effective and casualty-free method has been found for fighting in re-mote countries.

Despite all this, the use of drones has also provided unexpected diplomatic and political trouble between America and the Middle East, and has opened up America to criticism from other na-tions. Citizens of Pakistan and others in

nathan tillinghast-raby

droneWarsuK.files.Wordpress.com


Science & Tech.the tribal belt area despise the drones. A poll by the New America Foundation says that only 16% of the people in the tribal areas believe that the drone strikes are accurate. The tribal areas are not the only ones to have been affected by the drone strikes. Pakistanis believe that the strikes violate their sovereignty, alienat-ing them from the US even further. Even though the Pakistani government sanc-tions strikes by the military, it publically denounces them due to the sheer num-ber of strikes and the civilian deaths. Al-though drones have a high accuracy rate, the optics transmitted from them are of-ten inconclusive, partly because drones have to be very high up in order not to be seen. As a result, 957 Pakistanis have died in 2010 drone strikes. Unfortunately, that number only includes the accidental deaths from publically acknowledged drone strikes done by America. The ac-tual number is much higher, due to the sheer number of CIA strikes, which are unauthorized by the Pakistani govern-ment.

That the CIA conducts drone strikes not sanctioned by the Pakistani government is just one of the common complaints brought against the use of drones. The volume of the CIA strikes is unknown because the CIA does not ac-tually report to any authority concern-ing its use of drones. Because there are no overseers, the family members of the civilian victims do not get compensation for their losses, and military victims only rarely get paid. However, it is estimated that between 1,400 and 2,300 deaths have

occurred in unauthorized attacks by the CIA. Currently, 19 analysts are needed to go over the data from one drone. The Gorgon Stare, a newer way of observing the ground from drones, is capable of scanning entire cities, and will require two thousand analysts to look over the data coming from a single drone, making it very expensive. Another serious issue, raised by Mary Ellen O’Connell of Notre Dame University, is that America, which is already a very militaristic superpower, will become even more so. Her belief is that a drones’ cheap cost and nonexistent

domestic casualty rate will isolate Ameri-ca from the downsides of war. The fear is that with fewer downsides to war, Ameri-ca will join in more of them, which will be a massive drain on our economy. Drone attacks are viewed as assassinations in certain areas, opening America up fur-ther to international criticism. There are also supply and testing problems, in that there are never enough drones to go around in the field, so there is high competition for them, and because of the stress to produce drones faster, they are often poorly tested, causing the downing of drones due to mechanical failure.

Although the benefits of drones (their low cost and ability to carry out strikes without US casualties) make them an increasingly attractive weapon, America must address the criticisms di-rected at drones and how they are used. First, the CIA and the military must have an independent authority set up to regulate the use of drones and make sure that there is probable cause for a drone strike, and in the event of a civilian death, make sure that compensation is paid to the families. This will help allay the an-tagonistic feeling towards drones in the Middle East. Currently all US drones are made by one company, General Atom-ics. The United States should contract out to other military firms, as this will help increase supply and therefore maintain testing standards, as well as increase tech advances and reduce costs. Hopefully the new technological advances caused by the increased competition will lead to in-creased optics that will allow drone pilots can distinguish between a civilian and an enemy more easily. To prevent unneces-sary wars, the United States should have an independent firm analyze the costs/benefits of the war in terms of the effect on the economy. Since the economy is always a first and foremost priority, this will eliminate unnecessary wars. Finally, to reduce the international criticisms, the US should just wait and watch while oth-er countries start mass producing drones as well, and then see the criticism quietly go away. Drones are the future of war. America should make sure that it gets the most out of them. HMR

Drones are the future of war. America should make sure that it gets the most out of them.

The use of drones by the United States has been widely protested across Pakistan, as a result of civilian deaths and the widespread opinion that drone strikes are inaccurate.

http://WWW.indyneWsisrael.com WWW.armytimes.com


Science & Tech.

On September 14, 2011, NASA (National Aeronau-tics Space Administra-tion) revealed plans for an enormous rocket

called the Space Launch System (SLS) that would serve as the prin-ciple element of its human space flight program for decades; this rocket is designed to press even farther into our solar system - to the moon and then beyond to asteroids by 2025 and even to Mars. NASA Administrator and former astronaut, Major Gen-eral Charles F. Bolden Jr. stated, “We’re investing in technolo-gies to live and work in space, and it sets the stage for visiting asteroids and Mars.”

There are significant questions as to whether this particular rocket, at this par-ticular time, is the best way to achieve the important goals of American space exploration, scientific research, national se-curity, and spirit. Of particular focus are: spending and bud-get constraints; the politicized nature of the project; the ne-

cessity for this particu-lar type of rocket;

and the ten-dency to

terminate

NASA projects abruptly. There are serious concerns that the project may not survive and that the Space Launch System may never actually fly, reflecting that the SLS may be more of a political instrument than a tool of scientific exploration.

The current difficult economic situation makes the SLS very vulnerable to the efforts of budget cutters who hope to cut substantially into NASA’s spend-ing. Even though the SLS will suppos-edly create many well-paying American

jobs, the rocket will initially cost the huge sum of 18 billion dollars. An old and common concern is

that big projects are big targets when it is time to cut back on spending. An example that il-lustrates this trend is the James Webb Space Telescope, a multi-billion dollar observatory that was meant to suc-ceed and improve the Hubble Space Telescope. It has still not been fully developed after about 10 years, as NASA has not yet obtained Con-gressional approv-al for the project. Another example is the Constel-lation program, part of President

George W. Bush’s

2004 space plan. The Constellation project was going to include a new crew vehicle and a pair of rockets, to take astronauts to the moon again and also reach Mars, with a target launch date of 2020. However, with the country in a recession and the hardware development behind schedule, the Obama administration eliminated the program after more than 10 billion dollars was spent.

Another major concern regard-ing the Space Launch System is that it was created not only on the drafting tables of NASA engineers but also in the halls of Congress. In fact, due to its politi-cal nature, some critics call it the “Senate Launch System.” While President Obama wanted to give NASA until 2015 to de-sign a new rocket, in the NASA Autho-rization Act of 2010, Congress required NASA to begin immediate work on the SLS, mandating a 2016 deadline for ini-tial readiness. The lawmakers even went so far as to tell NASA scientists the neces-sary performance metrics for the rocket and indicated on what space shuttles and rockets the SLS should be based. It is im-portant for significant scientific projects to be based on the hope of new discov-eries through exploration and developed by professional engineers who know what works, rather than by members of Con-gress.

The extent of Congressional in-volvement in the SLS can be seen in the statement by NASA’s Bolden announcing the project. He said, “This launch system will create good-paying American jobs, ensure continued U.S. leadership in space, and inspire millions around the world.” This reveals that members of Congress, first seeking to create American jobs, and only secondarily concerned with space exploration, have heavily encouraged this NASA project. It is also telling that the announcement was made on Capitol Hill, not in NASA headquarters. While an-nouncing the SLS, Bolden was accompa-nied by senators Kay Bailey Hutchinson of Texas and Bill Nelson of Florida, lawmak-

Will It Fly?Will ellison

apod.nasa.gov


Science & Tech.ers from two states that have benefited im-mensely from U.S. space programs due to NASA’s large bases and factories in those states. Initially, when the Obama admin-istration opposed the SLS, the states that would have suffered most in terms of lost jobs would have been Texas and Florida, and Hutchinson and Nelson claimed that the Obama administration was trying to “undermine America’s manned space pro-gram.” Lawmakers in Texas and Florida had also strongly objected to Obama’s cancellation of Bush’s Constellation pro-gram. Furthermore, if NASA had chosen to use new rocket technology as the main basis for the SLS rather than borrow-ing old technology, companies that have done well during NASA’s human space flight program would have suffered. For example, ATK Aerospace in Utah makes the solid rocket boosters that have been utilized by NASA for a while, and these boosters will again be used in launching the SLS. Not coincidentally, many of the backers of the SLS are Utah lawmak-ers. As the 2012 elections approach, the Obama administration now supports the Congress’ SLS. There appears to be a lot of

behind the scenes political push and pull behind the SLS.

A third concern with building the rocket is that there are doubts as to whether this type of rocket is currently necessary. The final version of the SLS would be the strongest rocket ever to pass through earth’s gravitational bonds. The rocket is expected to at first be able to lift 70 metric tons; the largest unmanned rocket currently online can lift about 1/3 as much. Eventually, NASA scientists hope to develop a rocket that could lift up to 130 tons. The first unmanned test flight of the lighter prototype is sched-uled for 2017. NASA’s Bolden has said that “NASA does not need a 130-metric ton vehicle probably before the next de-cade,” and that NASA will “continue to negotiate and discuss with the Congress why that is not necessary.” Members of Congress supporting the SLS for vari-

ous self-serving reasons are not heeding NASA’s concerns that the rocket may not be practical or even necessary. Addition-ally, the main goals of the SLS, which have been announced as providing a NASA-owned option for reaching the Interna-tional Space Station and exploring deep space, may not be good reasons to build the multi-billion dollar SLS, according to

various experts. The smaller 70-ton version of the SLS is more than large enough for a NASA rocket that can transport astro-nauts to the International Space Station. And, since the exact plans for building the SLS have not been announced yet, there isn’t even evidence that the rocket will ef-fectively allow humans to explore deep space.

A final significant concern with constructing the SLS is the tendency, for the last forty years, for numerous adminis-trations and NASA to start, partially build and then stall or terminate projects. This waste of tens of billions of dollars is under-standably upsetting. In 1973, the NASA rocket known as Saturn V was stalled af-ter accomplishing so much. This powerful rocket was thirty-six stories high, pro-duced 7.5 million pounds of thrusts, could carry 120 tons, launched 24 astronauts to the moon and established America’s first space station in orbit. Since the end of the Apollo program in 1972, America’s space program has been plagued with start-stop projects that waste huge amounts of time, money and effort. Spacecraft are partially designed and partially constructed, and then, as new presidents and congresses take power, and political and economic situations on national and international levels change, the projects suddenly come to a standstill. To worsen the situation, the Obama administration has to worry about American debt and deficit problems, which makes it more difficult to come up with the money to thoroughly design and build the SLS, and makes it more risky to do so as well, because even if there are funds to start the project, there may not be funds to complete it.

Since the SLS combines cur-rent and new technology, perhaps it has a greater chance of success because not all of its major components have to be newly developed. One major way in which the SLS differs from previous American space rockets, is that it heavily relies on liquid propellants in order to launch. Solid pro-pellants, which were previously used, are cheaper but at the same time normally have less energy content. Furthermore, solid propellants cannot be stopped once lit, which can be very problematic, dan-gerous and even life threatening. The main stage of the SLS will use five of the RS-25D/E main engines that were used before to launch space shuttles powered by liquid hydrogen and liquid oxygen. The second, or upper stage of the SLS will be powered by a J2X engine, which a more advanced and updated version of the second stage engine of the Saturn V rocket used in the Apollo missions. The J2X also uses liquid hydrogen and liquid oxygen, and is cur-rently under development. When the SLS initially lifts off, it will fire the RS-25D/E engines, complemented by booster rockets strapped on the outside; however, NASA plans to use these booster rockets in initial tests only and to later update these boost-er rockets to newer, either solid or liquid utilizing boosters that use more advanced technology than their predecessors. When the rocket reaches higher altitudes and there is less atmospheric pressure, the up-per stage engines will fire.

NASA officials believe that if they plan carefully and effectively they will have enough funds to complete the project. “The costs are pretty much under control…We’ve put this together to make sure we can accommodate small budget changes over the years,” says NASA’s as-sociate administrator for space operation, who is also in charge of human explora-tion, William Gerstenmaier. He also says that the technology being used has as low a technical and developmental risk as pos-sible, signifying that there shouldn’t be many delays or problems with the project. Hopefully, the 70-ton SLS will fly in 2017, and the earliest that the 130-ton SLS will fly is 2025 under ideal conditions. How-ever, NASA is confident that the project will be a success. Hopefully, this optimism is genuine, but the odds that the rocket will actually fly may be low. HMR

NASA officials believe that if they plan carefully and effective-ly they will have enough funds to

complete the project.

The final version of the SLS would be the strongest rocket

ever to pass through earth’s gravitational bonds.


Science & Tech.

apple.com

“And One More Thing...”

Special Features

Steve Jobs, co-founder of Apple, Inc. and Pixar Animation Studios, died at age 56 after a prolonged battle with pan-creatic cancer. Beyond building one of the most successful product lines in the world, Jobs changed the way we think about communication and technology. Apple set the in-

dustry standard for creating user-friendly products with simplicity and accessability in mind. As the iPhone 4S hits the ground running this month, Jobs’ legacy lives on in the revolutionary and continu-ously progressive Apple world.

“Picasso had a saying: ‘Good artists copy, great artists steal.’ We have always been shameless about stealing great ideas...I think part of what made the Macintosh great was that the people work-ing on it were musicians, poets, artists, zoologists and historians who also happened to be the best computer scientists in the world.”

“My model for business is The Beatles. They were four guys who kept each other’s kind of negative tendencies in check. They balanced each other and the total was greater than the sum of the parts. That’s how I see business: great things in busi-ness are never done by one person, they’re done by a team of people.”

“That’s what a computer is to me: the computer is the most remarkable tool that we’ve ever come up with. It’s the equivalent of a bicycle for our minds.”


Science & Tech.

The Horace Mann Review | Issue 1

Special Features

Steve Jobs1955-2011

issue 1 - ten years later

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horace mann community

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