Bolton In, McMaster Out
Americans who voted for Donald Trump believing he would be disinclined to start new wars should be puzzled by his decision to tapJohn Bolton as his third national security adviser. The rest of us should be concerned.Bolton has been one of the most reliably hawkish voices in American politics in recent memory. In 2015, he openly called forlaunching a war against Iran. Earlier this year, he argued that the United States shouldinitiate a war against North Korea. His faith in the utility of force, and his general disdain for diplomacy, is legendary – and apparently hasn’t been shaken by the wars of the recent past.Most Ame...
Source: Cato-at-liberty - March 23, 2018 Category: American Health Authors: Christopher A. Preble Source Type: blogs
And the Dander Keeps On Rising
This isn úmero cinco in our series of attempts to shed some of this dander. But it keeps on rising. Here are two recent reports both relating to the life-on-the-ground of North American rank and file physicians, especially as that life increasingly revolves around data entry and digital madness over and above everything else.Are physicians suffering from acute, maybe by now chronic, PTSD? In the 20 March 2018 number of the important Boston Globe-affiliated newsfeedSTAT, Elizabeth M étraux, a prolific staffer and author at the eminentorganization Primary Care Progress, gives us another quite useful take on physician ...
Source: Health Care Renewal - March 22, 2018 Category: Health Management Tags: burnout core values EHR managerialism physicians Source Type: blogs
An Unhappy Anniversary for the Iraq War
On the unhappy 15th anniversary of the start of the Iraq War, the Charles Koch Institute ’s William Ruger and Boston University’s Andrew Bacevich offer important and timely op eds.Writing in theNew York Times, Ruger sees Iraq as “just the worst in a string of failures” of U.S. foreign policy in the past quarter century, a range of missions that have cost nearly 7,000 American troops killed, tens of thousands wounded, and trillions of dollars spent, with precious little to show for it. “Underlying all of these failures ,” Ruger writes, “is the view, endorsed by both parties, that we need an active military pre...
Source: Cato-at-liberty - March 20, 2018 Category: American Health Authors: Christopher A. Preble Source Type: blogs
Atrocity
I just finished readingThe Second World War by Antony Beevor. This was a most unpleasant experience, but one to which you would be well served to subject yourself. Beevor discusses the subject ofwriting about horrific truths here, with reporter Keith Lowe.“One has to try to understand these things,” he says. “Let’s face it, the duty of a historian is to understand, and to try to convey that understanding to others.” In fact, given the brutal nature of war, he feels he has actually been relatively restrained. There are many details that have never made it into his books. In his history of the Soviet attack on Berl...
Source: Stayin' Alive - March 5, 2018 Category: American Health Source Type: blogs
If We Don't Get the Peace Right, Iraq Will Slide Back into the Morass
This week leaders from around the world, including Secretary of State Rex Tillerson and representatives from over 100 U.S. companies, will assemble to plan solutions to Iraq ' s recovery challenges and investments in its economic future. Steps taken now could well determine Iraq ' s future. (Source: The RAND Blog)
Source: The RAND Blog - February 12, 2018 Category: Health Management Authors: Linda Robinson; Shelly Culbertson Source Type: blogs
Trump's Bombast On Iran & North Korea Makes War More Likely
Neatly defining President Trump ’s foreign policy has never been easy, characterized as it is by contradictory impulses, fragmentary ideas, and strains of paradox. However, on the two most arresting national security issues at the top of Trump’s agenda—Iran and North Korea—his approach is plain: aggressive confrontation is good; diplomacy is bad.The problem is that, even if Trump himself is not determined to go to war with either of these countries, he is making it far more likely.Last month, Trump once again waived nuclear-related sanctions on Iran, consistent with our obligations under the Joint Comprehensive Pla...
Source: Cato-at-liberty - February 5, 2018 Category: American Health Authors: John Glaser Source Type: blogs
Family & Diversity Immigrants Are Far Better Educated Than U.S.-Born Americans
In exchange for a deal on young immigrant Dreamers, the White House is demanding that Congressreduce legal immigration by ending the diversity visa lottery and almost all family sponsorship categories. On Fox News last week, Attorney General Jeff Sessionsmade the case for these changes by stating that he wants legal immigrants to “have the education and skill level to prosper in America.” He asked rhetorically, “What good does it do to bring in somebody who is illiterate in their own country, has no skills, and is going to struggle?”But this generalization about diversity and family-sponsored immigrants is wildly i...
Source: Cato-at-liberty - January 25, 2018 Category: American Health Authors: David Bier Source Type: blogs
Does Donald Trump Have Heart Disease?
By SAURABH JHA
According to the WHO definition of health, which is “a state of complete physical, mental, and social well-being, and not merely the absence of disease and infirmity,” several million Americans became unhealthy on Tuesday November 8th, 2016 as Florida folded to Trump. As Hillary’s prospects became bleaker many more millions, particularly those on Twitter, lost their health. The WHO sets a high bar for health. It is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than for a person on social media to be in “complete mental and social well-being.”
Whilst WHO has set a high bar for health, moder...
Source: The Health Care Blog - January 24, 2018 Category: Consumer Health News Authors: at RogueRad Tags: Uncategorized Source Type: blogs
Freedom, Not Protectionism, Is America's Greatest Achievement
Well, that was fast. Only a dayafter I said that we are likely to see increasing calls for protectionism citing alleged national security concerns, Scott N. Paul took to thepages ofThe New York Times to urge the imposition of new restrictions on steel imports based on this same justification. Long on attempted tugs at emotional and patriotic heartstrings, the piece is strikingly short on data suggesting U.S. national security has been imperiled by foreign imports. Indeed, to the extent Paul, who serves as president of the Alliance for American Manufacturing, even attempts to make this case it is through the following:Even ...
Source: Cato-at-liberty - January 19, 2018 Category: American Health Authors: Colin Grabow Source Type: blogs
The Trump Administration Is Poised to Expand the U.S. War in Syria Without a Public Debate
In early September 2013, Americans rose up in opposition to the suggestion that the United States might undertake a limited military operationto punish Syrian President Bashar al Assad for using chemical weapons in the civil war there.Even though Secretary of State John Kerry gave assurances that the punitive strikes would be “unbelievably small, ” and were unlikely to draw the United States deeper into yet another Middle Eastern war, the mere possibility that they might do so was too great a risk for many Americans who had grown weary of inconclusive conflicts that didn’t serve U.S. vital security interests. They bo...
Source: Cato-at-liberty - January 18, 2018 Category: American Health Authors: Christopher A. Preble Source Type: blogs
What Life Under ISIS Looked Like from Space
Satellite images show how ISIS attempted to govern in Iraq and Syria, the economic damage the group left behind, and what it will take to rebuild. (Source: The RAND Blog)
Source: The RAND Blog - January 9, 2018 Category: Health Management Authors: RAND Corporation Source Type: blogs
Where Is Assad Getting His Fighters from? (It's Not Just Lebanon and Iraq)
The Assad regime ' s defense against insurgents in Syria ' s ongoing civil war is being provided by forces imported from Afghanistan and Pakistan as well as Lebanon and Iraq. Most of these fighters are being trained and equipped by Iran. Could this network of foreign fighters help Iran establish a greater presence beyond the Middle East? (Source: The RAND Blog)
Source: The RAND Blog - January 4, 2018 Category: Health Management Authors: Colin P. Clarke; Phillip Smyth Source Type: blogs
Counterinsurgency Math Revisited
When does 32,200 – 60,000 = 109,000? That seemingly inaccurate equation represents theestimated number of Islamist-inspiredterrorists when the war on terror began, how many the U.S.has killed since 2015, and the number thatfight today. And it begs the question of just how can the terror ranks grow so fast when they ’re being depleted so rapidly.As early as 2003, then-Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld hinted at the potential mathematical problem when he asked, “Are we capturing, killing, or deterring and dissuading more terrorists every day than the madrassas and the radical clerics are recruiting, training and dep...
Source: Cato-at-liberty - January 2, 2018 Category: American Health Authors: A. Trevor Thrall, Erik Goepner Source Type: blogs
FISA " Reform " : The Surveillance Fear Mongering Campaign Ramps Up
The House GOP leadership must be at least somewhat worried about the prospects for passage of their Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Amendments Act (FAA) Sec. 702 bill,HR 4478, which the House Rules Committee will consider later today in an “emergency” session.I say this because this morning, the House GOP leadership circulated a wanted poster-styleflyer of a dead man: Haji Iman, the alleged ISIS deputy finance minister and second in command to ISIS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, who was killed in eastern Syria on March 25, 2016. The flyer puts the phrase “ISIS” in a huge font, just in case the reader wasn’t getti...
Source: Cato-at-liberty - December 20, 2017 Category: American Health Authors: Patrick G. Eddington Source Type: blogs
Trump's New National Security: Literally and Seriously Awful
National security strategies are strange beasts. Their glittering generalities and kitchen sink approach to detailing threats, interests, and priorities can make it difficult to know how literally, or seriously, to take them. All strategies reflect on the importance of American leadership and bask in the warmth of American values. And thanks to the growing bipartisan consensus around primacy since the end of the Cold War all strategies have more or less looked the same. Each one promises a stronger and safer America with help from our trusted allies. Given this, most Americans would be hard pressed to tell one national sec...
Source: Cato-at-liberty - December 19, 2017 Category: American Health Authors: A. Trevor Thrall Source Type: blogs
