NYT: Friedman's latest column on where we should go from here

I admit I tend to visit center-right and conservative news and commentary sites. I also visit some libertarian ones. Friedman is one of my few left-center writers I like to visit. I should try to find a few more so I can get a more complete picture of the marketplace of ideas. Click here for his latest. Unfortunately, the NYT eventually moves articles into paid archives. Since it isn't kosher to copy and paste the whole article, the typical blog practice is to excerpt and make comments which is what I'll do here.

Here's what I'd like to see:

We would take all the money the Bush team has wasted on P.R. campaigns directed at the Arab-Muslim world and put it into three programs: a huge expansion of U.S. embassy libraries around the world, which have been cut in recent years (you'd be amazed at how many young people abroad had their first contact with America through an embassy library), a huge expansion of scholarships for foreign students to study in America, and a huge expansion of our immigration service so it can quickly figure out who should get visas to study or work in America and who shouldn't.

I'd have to agree here with TF. The best way to advertise America is for people to meet Americans. Isn't that what people always say about us when we are abroad: we love Americans it is the government we can't stand! And as someone who went to graduate school, I know a lot of people come to the US to study and most go back to their countries having had a real look at our country. In the field of molecular biology, much of the heavy lifting by graduate students and post-docs are done by people from other countries, their best and brightest, so we benefit from them too!

We would adopt a 50-cents-a-gallon gasoline tax...

I'm still thinking about that one. TF being an NYT writer probably lives in New York where he may not need to drive as much and he certainly travels a lot being the international affairs writer so he must ride a lot of taxis overseas. Thus, he may be shielded somewhat from the price of gasoline. Here in Los Angeles, Mrs. Average Mom may have to buy 30 gallons of gasoline a week for her car to take her to work and the kids to school. Let's do the math: 30 gallons/week x $2.40/gallon x 52 weeks/year = $3744. Now tack on the $0.50/gallon tax: $4524. That is $780 more out of her pockets. For someone on Friedman's salary, that isn't a big deal. Thus, if we do a gas tax then I think we need to cut income taxes for the lower wage earners.

We would spearhead efforts in trade talks to reduce U.S., European and Japanese farm subsidies. Nothing would be more helpful to Pakistani, Egyptian and other poor farmers in the Muslim and developing worlds than no longer having to compete with our subsidized produce.

Agree. Libertarian free-traders have been on this soapbox a long time so far to no avail.

We would make a serious effort to diffuse the toxic Arab-Israeli conflict, including using NATO forces to separate the parties.

TF is being a bit too idealistic here. (1) Some NATO nations (as well as non-NATO) have troops in various hotspots including Iraq so there probably aren't a lot left to send anywhere else. (2) In addition, if NATO nations are already nervous about sending troops into Iraq can you imagine how nervous they would be sending them into the midst of the Israel-Palestinian conflict? Do you see the French or Germans sending troops to the Gaza or West Bank? Don't think so.

We would spell out that the war on terrorism is a long-term war on radical Islam and while force is necessary in that effort, it is not sufficient. We have to connect all of the above dots to strengthen Arab-Muslim moderates, because only they can take on their extremists.

Agree. In the end the old USSR fell under its own weight. Hopefully, the time will come soon when the moderate Islamics will realize the radicals are harming their present and destroying their future. As TF is fond of saying, you have to kill the dead enders in the basement but you got to bolt the door so more don't go into that basement and that latter task is partly our responsibility but mostly a job for the moderates.