Around me is an endless expanse of searing white beneath an unmarked blue August sky. In front of me is a roaring, angry river of the richest, brilliant turquoise, churning at 20 knots through a crystal gorge fringed with icicles.

This river runs deep, possibly 13ft. Not a speck of dust, mud, weed or debris pollutes its flawless, azure depths.

Despite being only 100ft across, this mighty channel carries more water than the Thames, and if I fell in I would have about 20 seconds to live.

It’s not the cold that would kill me. Long before I had time to succumb to hypothermia I would disappear into a gaping, hellish maw  -  one of the deadly, awesome plugholes which punctuate the Greenlandic ice sheet.

Incredibly, this vertical shaft  -  called a moulin (French for mill)  -  manages to swallow this entire river into oblivion, the water plunging a third of a mile towards the base of the icecap. It is an astounding sight, one of the most dramatic spectacles on the planet  -  about a quarter of a million gallons-a-second simply vanishing from view.

We are high on the great ice sheet, which covers 90 per cent of this vast Arctic island, and I am accompanying a British science team investigating the dramatic increase in summer melt waters seen in the past decade.

They are here because this may well be Global Warming Ground Zero  -  the sharp end of climate change.

For many people, what I am looking at is the beginning of the end; the first concrete sign that the stability upon which our civilisation depends is about to crumble into an overheated future.

Greenland, they say, is literally cracking up; just last week, while I was on the island, a chunk of ice the size of West London fell off it into the Arctic ocean.

Sceptics, of course, maintain that the scene before me is just the result of the natural fluctuations which affect the world’s weather. Either way, it is utterly beautiful.

I have long been something of a climate-change sceptic, but my views in recent years have shifted. For me, the most convincing evidence that something worrying is going on lies right here in the Arctic.

Because while across most of the world evidence for current climate change is often inconclusive and anecdotal, the huge ice sheet which sits atop this, the largest island in the world, appears to be cracking up before our eyes. And on a timescale of decades rather than the millennia many predicted.

Just five days ago, a ’superberg’, measuring 100sq miles broke off the Petermann Glacier in the north-west of the island and floated into the ocean  -  the largest chunk of ice to break off Greenland for nearly half a century.

‘I used to be a sceptic about Greenland melting,’ says Dr Alun Hubbard, my host and Britain’s leading glaciologist studying Greenland, ‘but now I’m keeping an open mind.’

Dr Hubbard and his team have been working 20-hour days for the past two months in a frantic effort to find out as much about the shifting icecap as possible before the winter deep-freeze sets in. The statistics are mind-boggling and paint a picture of a world changing month-by-month.

The Greenland ice sheet covers an area of 667,000 sq miles  -  seven times the size of Britain, and at its centre it is two miles thick. After Antarctica, this is the greatest single chunk of frozen water on Earth, constituting 10 per cent of all the fresh water on the planet. It has existed for more than a million years, but some say its time may soon be up.

For it is Greenland which has seen perhaps the most extreme temperature rises on Earth in the past few decades. Satellite measurements from space, and fieldwork on the ground, have shown that the Greenlandic ice is melting at a rate 30 per cent higher than 40 years ago.

Since 1970, southern Greenland has warmed by 3C (in Britain we have seen a rather inconclusive quarter to a half of a degree increase in that time).

The changes are becoming evident on the ground; my face is still red from a couple of hours’ sitting in the sun in Kangerlussuaq, the tiny airport hamlet down on the west coast. Temperatures there hit an unheard-of 20C on May day this year. Up on the ice it is colder, but still warm enough, at midday, to walk around in a thin fleece.

All this means that Greenland is losing, net, about 267 billion tons of ice a year. This adds to the volume of the world’s ocean, and melting Greenlandic ice is thought to be contributing about a millimetre of sea level rise every two years.

That is now; if the melt accelerates, as many claim it will, that could become a rise of several millimetres a year. If all of Greenland’s ice were to melt, sea levels would rise by 20ft worldwide, flooding London and Liverpool and turning Cambridge into a coastal city.

The ice sheet here is formed by the accumulation of thousands of years’ snowfall. Every summer, some of the ice on the surface of Greenland’s ice sheet melts to form lakes and channels, mighty torrents of crystal clear water.

The initial focus of the melting is a strange phenomenon called cryoconite. Minute specks of black airborne dust  -  a mixture of desert sand blown thousands of kilometres from the south, soot particles from power stations and microscopic algae and bacteria  -  settle on the ice and, being dark, absorb the sun’s rays, magnifying their heat like a spyglass onto the ice.

This causes holes to form in the ice, in places rendering the surface of the icesheet into an unwalkable maze of serrated ridges. From the cryoconite holes, the surface water drains through a network of much larger sinkholes and crevasses on the ice sheet.

As for the melt lakes that sit on top of the ice caps, when they drain it can be sudden, spectacular and dangerous.

A week before my visit to the scientific centre known as Base 3, a large nearby ice lake about 2.5 miles across, literally had its plug pulled: a crack opened up in the ice at the lake’s deepest point, and with a biblical roar a body of water the size of a London borough drained in just two hours.

The scientists I was with spoke of ‘an extraordinary rumbling, like an atomic bomb going off ‘. Ominous cracks opened up in the ice beneath the camp’s tents as the lake was swallowed by the ice.

These moulins may be the deepest vertical holes on Earth. We flew over one in a helicopter, puffs of what appeared to be grey smoke shooting out of its mouth, enveloping the iceblue water cascading in.

This, I was told, was rock from more than half-a-mile down, pulverised by the falling water and then fired up into the atmosphere at terrifying speeds.

Dr Hubbard’s Aberystwyth University team has spent weeks attaching pressure-sensors to the insides of these moulins  -  a task every bit as dangerous as it sounds  -  measuring how much water there is and where it goes.

The results show that the water is flowing all the way to the bottom of the glacier through a vast internal plumbing system.

It then acts as a lubricant between the ice and the rock underneath  -  jacking up the icesheet, allowing it to slide downhill over the rock into the ocean.

Rising temperatures mean more meltwater, which means more lubrication and a faster-moving glacier.

As well as sparking this faster flow, the warmer temperatures are also causing the glaciers to break up more quickly when they reach the sea  -  hence the iceberg, a fifth the size of Greater London, which broke off last week.

Greenland’s ice sheet is, in fact, evolving as a familiar landscape of rock and rivers would, but with erosion accelerated by a factor of a million.

The big question is: is this a temporary blip, a short- term warming that will correct itself in a few years? Or is something far more sinister and long-term going on?

Well, it is possible that the dramatic melting we are seeing will stabilise, that the Greenland icesheet will shrink a bit, and then stop shrinking as it adjusts to a slightly warmer world.

Certainly, talk of Greenland melting entirely in the near future is nonsense, ‘It’ll take a millennium,’ says Dr Hubbard, and that is assuming the current warming continues. Even so, that is worrying.

The Greenlandic ice forms one of the most dramatic landscapes imaginable. Unlike the Antarctic icecap which is, for the most part, frozen determinedly rigid, Greenland in summer sits poised on the knife-edge between liquid and solid, a world of blues and whites, a landscape which in summer melts into fantastical sculptures which can last no longer than an afternoon.

Greenland is silent, almost. There is no wind, no birds, no insects; apart from the scientists around me the world of Man is far away. But there is sound, which you have to strain your ears to hear.

A gurgling sound, the tinkle-trickle of drains, and a deeper, Hadean roar  -  the noise of an icecap liquefying.

Sceptics will argue that Greenland has always had moulins and meltwater rivers; this is true. But what is new is these used to be confined to the very edge of the icesheet, marginal, ephemeral features that lasted just a few weeks in the height of the summer melting season. Now there are lakes and moulins right on the centre of the cap, and persisting well into August.

Dr Hubbard says we will know for sure what is happening in Greenland soon, certainly within a decade.

On my last day in Greenland, I trudged the half-mile or so from the camp to a nearby meltwater lake, a shimmering slab of pure blue a mile across. Greenland’s lakes, which have been growing in both size and number in the past decade, would undoubtedly be one of the world’s major tourist attractions save for the fact they are almost totally inaccessible.

All around, delicate pinnacles of ice are deliquescing in the intense Arctic sunlight. Ahead is the lake, impossible shades of blue, a Rothko reimagined as a computer graphic.

After the walk, I was hot in my Arctic clobber. I stripped off, gingerly stepped over the ice and plunged into the water. Suddenly the Seychelles atmosphere evaporated; I didn’t last long. A few seconds at most. But still, a dip, of sorts, on the top of the ice.

So has this remarkable week changed my mind? I still believe climate change has probably been exaggerated, but after coming here it is impossible to maintain that nothing is going on.

Not many people have paddled in the fabled ice lakes of Greenland, and if the pessimists are right, in the not so impossibly distant future, no one will do so ever again – because Greenland will just be a lump of bare rock.

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-1301713/The-crack-roof-world-Yes-global-warming-real–deeply-worrying.html#ixzz0xZOSP95M

Six more Americans were reported killed in fighting in the south — three Thursday and three Friday — pushing the U.S. death toll for July to a record 66 and surpassing June as the deadliest month for U.S. forces in the nearly nine-year war.

U.S. officials confirmed the latest American deaths Friday but gave no further details. Five of the latest reported deaths were a result of hidden bombs — the insurgents’ weapon of choice — and the sixth to an armed attack, NATO said in statements.

U.S. commanders say American casualties are mounting because more troops are fighting — and the Taliban are stiffening resistance as NATO and Afghan forces challenge the insurgents in areas they can’t afford to give up without a fight.

“Recent months in Afghanistan have … seen tough fighting and tough casualties. This was expected,” the top U.S. and NATO commander, Gen. David Petraeus, said at his Senate confirmation hearing last month. “My sense is that the tough fighting will continue; indeed, it may get more intense in the next few months.”

That forecast is proving grimly accurate.

The month has brought a sharp increase in the tragic images of war — medics frantically seeking to stop the bleeding of a soldier who lost his leg in a bombing, fearful comrades huddled around a wounded trooper fighting for his life, the solemn scenes at Dover Air Force Bare in Delaware when shattered relatives come to receive the bodies of their loved ones.

After a dip in American deaths last spring following the February capture of the southern town of Marjah, U.S. fatalities have been rising — from 19 in April to 34 in May to 60 in June. Last month’s deaths for the entire NATO-led force reached a record 104, including the 60 Americans. This month’s coalition death count stands at 89, including the 66 Americans.

Some U.S. military officers speculated that the spring drop in fatalities was due in part to the fact that many Taliban fighters in the south — the main focus of NATO operations — were busy harvesting the annual opium poppy crop, a major source of funding for the insurgents.

As the harvest ended and the pace of battle accelerated, more American troops were streaming into the country as part of President Barack Obama’s decision last December to dispatch 30,000 reinforcements in a bid to turn back a resurgent Taliban.

American troop strength stands at about 95,000, and by the end of August the figure is expected to swell to 100,000 — three times the number in early 2009. Commanders say more boots on the ground inevitably means more casualties.

With the additional troops, U.S. commanders have been stepping up the fight against the insurgents in their longtime strongholds such as the Arghandab Valley, Panjwaii and Zhari — all on the outskirts of Kandahar city, the biggest urban area in the ethnic Pashtun south.

Much of the fighting in those areas involves brief but intense exchanges of fire. NATO and Afghan patrols also must maneuver through fields often littered with homemade bombs, which have become the biggest killer of pro-government forces.

The Islamic holy month of Ramadan, which begins around Aug. 11, may provide some respite in the bloodletting because Taliban fighters and Afghan government forces will be fasting, although some commanders believe the insurgents will keep up the pace in areas where the coalition is trying to step up their own operations.

Fighting around Kandahar is part of a NATO strategy to secure the city, the Taliban’s spiritual birthplace where support for the insurgency runs deep. U.S. commanders have described Kandahar city as the key to controlling the Taliban’s southern heartland because of the city’s symbolic links to the insurgency.

As the U.S. and its allies step up pressure around Kandahar, Taliban resistance has also intensified in Helmand province to the west and in Zabul province to the east. Those three provinces account for roughly 70 percent of the U.S. deaths this month.

“We are going into places that have been significant support bases for the Taliban for the past several years, and they’re going to fight hard for those,” Lt. Gen. David Rodriguez, who directs day-to-day operations, said this month. “And that’s why we expect the casualties to go up.”

The rise in casualties is likely to erode support for the war in Washington and the capitals of the 45 other countries that provide troops — especially if NATO commanders are unable to show progress in curbing the Taliban. The Dutch are due to remove the last of their 1,600-member force at the end of this month, and Canada plans to remove its 2,700 troops next year.

Obama has promised to begin withdrawing U.S. troops in July next year with the pace to be determined by conditions on the ground.

At the same time, there are signs that Afghan patience with the presence of thousands of foreign troops is running thin.

In the capital, Kabul, police fired weapons into the air Friday to disperse a crowd of angry Afghans who shouted “Death to America!”, hurled stones and set fire to two vehicles after an SUV, driven by U.S. contract employees, was involved in a traffic accident that killed four Afghans, according to the capital’s criminal investigations chief, Abdul Ghaafar Sayedzada.

The contractor, DynCorp International, confirmed that its employees, working on a program sponsored by the U.S. Department of State, were involved in an accident on the main road to the Kabul airport. In a statement, DynCorp said that when its employees got out of their vehicle, they and other DynCorp employees, who arrived at the scene to help, were attacked by the crowd, which burned their vehicles.

“Our condolences go out to the families of those who were killed or injured,” DynCorp said. “An investigation is under way.”

People at the scene claimed foreigners fired shots, killing and wounding Afghan civilians. DynCorp said the contractors fired no shots and that Afghan police helped move the contractors to safety away from the crowd. Hospital officials said the deaths and injuries were caused by the traffic accident.
Ahmad Jawid, who also was at the scene, asked: “Are we not Muslims? Are we not from Afghanistan? Infidels are here and they are ruling us. Why?”

The President will fly into town Monday morning.

If you think this will be a time for Democrats running for office to rally around the cheif executive, you probably haven’t been following the campaigns this summer.

Former Governor Roy Barnes will not be available to meet Mr. Obama. The Democratic gubanatorial candidate will be somewhere in Georgia, far from Atlanta.

Campaign Manager Chris Carpenter released a statement:

“Roy has a busy campaign schedule in Middle and South georgia on Monday where he’ll be talking to farmers and local law enforcement. Roy’s priority is to continue traveling across the state, talking to voters about jobs, education, and transportation- his plan to make Georgia work.”

Meanwhile, Georgia Governor Sonny Perdue will greet the President planeside when the Democrat arrives in Georgia. Mr. Perdue’s spokesperson Bert Brantley told WXIA-TV reporter Jeff Hullinger the governor had to juggle his schedule to be able to greet the president.

Avoiding a sitting president is not new in Georgia politics.

In 1996 Democrat Michael Coles was running against Republican Newt Gingrich for the 6th congressional district seat. Mr. Coles avoided President Clinton at rallies in Atlanta and Macon.

Mr. Coles, a legendary atlanta entrepeneur who entertained political aspirations a decade ago spoke to Jeff Hullinger from his home in Montana.

“In 96, I stepped out of the private arena and ran against Newt Gingrich for the house. I ran as a Democrat. I think the difficult thing for anyone in Georgia – if you run as a democrat- is to seperate yourself from not being a national Democrat, because Georgia Democrats like Zell Miller and Sam Nunn are cutout of a different cloth and that’s how I wanted to be seen. I wanted to be sure, if I was going to lose that race- -I wasn’t going to be indentified as a national Democrat.”

One Democratic operative told Hullinger today- – then Governor Zell Miller wanted to be with his friend President Clinton during an Atlanta rally, however, Mr. Clinton was unpopular in Georgia at the time. Instead of the Governor appearing on stage with the President, Governor Miller appeared as a face in the crowd. He was there but couldn’t be seen.

While airline flights have resumed, scientists and laymen alike are look to the nation of fire and ice as Eyjafjallajokull influences lives and businesses across the continent.

The conservative-minded Manning Centre thinks so and a new poll it paid for says the centre of the Canadian political spectrum has shifted rightward.

A survey by Allan Gregg of Harris-Decima and Carleton University’s Professor André Turcotte concludes that while a majority of Canadians identify with the “centre” position on the political ideology scale, this centre is increasingly embracing “traditionally conservative values.”

The poll says a plurality – or 47 per cent – of those respondents who consider themselves political “centrists” voted for the Conservatives in 2008. By comparison, back in 1997, 41 per cent of those self-identified as centrists voted Liberal.

Steve Chase writes in the (Toronto) Globe & Mail on Tuesday, March 16, 2010. Click here for the rest of the story.

It wasn’t until 1905 that Norwegian explorer Roald Amundsen made the first trip from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific by way of Arctic waterways, a feat that took him three years. Since then, fewer than 200 ships have repeated the journey because of the constant threats of ice.

Still, the hope for a Northwest Passage lingers and has become central to a key international debate heating up over the Arctic north. If climate change and global warming are real — and there’s currently little doubt over that-then it stands to reason that the ice covering Arctic waterways will decrease in coming decades, presenting fewer navigational problems for shipping. 
If the ice recedes — and few experts expect it will do so year-round-cargo shipping times and distances could, the thinking goes, be cut: A 12,400-mile voyage from Japan to England by way of the Panama Canal could be shortened to less than 8,700 miles using the Northwest Passage, saving 14 days and costs.

Canada’s claim 

But then whose water is it? Practically all of the navigable Northwest Passage routes, and there are only a few, pass between Canadian islands. Thus, Canada has argued that these portions of the route are domestic waterways, and that ships traversing the area should do so with Canadian permission. 

That has touched off a bit of a row between the US and Canada. Just days before leaving office, President George W. Bush released a sweeping security directive asserting that the Northwest Passage is an “international waterway,” meaning that American ships, or in theory those of any other nation, should be able to sail through the area in the same way they do other international waterways. The directive has been seen as a sharp rebuttal to Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper, who has advocated boosting Canada’s military presence in the area.

Canada has maintained since the 1970s that it views the waters not as “international,” but rather “internal.” On all but three occasions of the 180-odd times that international ships have traversed the passage, Canadian permission and aid was sought, usually in the form of an icebreaking vessel, says Rob Huebert, a professor of political science at the University of Calgary, who specializes in Arctic affairs. That fact also helps buttress Canada’s argument, he says. 

“Canada is the one with the expertise and the familiarity with the conditions,” Huebert says. For years, the US and Canada have quietly agreed to disagree over the matter — until Jan. 9, when Bush issued his Arctic security directive.

It’s partially a military question. Submarines are required under international law to surface before traversing internal waterways but can remain submerged in international waters. And US and Russian submarines have long been active in the area. For Canada, there’s also an enormous environmental motivation. 

“If there’s ever an oil spill, it’s a disaster,” Huebert says. “There’s no technology that can remove heavy [oil] from under the ice. Canada tends to be hypersensitive about that.” But sovereignty over shipping lanes that may or may not open up in the coming decades is only part of the ever-widening strategic game taking place in the Great White North.

Awaiting new technology 

A 2008 report by the US Geological Survey, which took four years of study, estimated that as much as 20 % of the world’s undiscovered oil and natural gas may lie beneath the Arctic sea floor. The region may hold as much as 90 bn barrels of oil — believed to be about 13 % of the world’s undiscovered oil — and some 1.7 tcf of natural gas reserves, roughly equivalent to the gas reserves in Russia, the world’s leading supplier. 

These findings made the question over sovereignty far more strategic — and contentious. Canada, Denmark, Russia, and the US all assert territorial claims in the Arctic. And if oil prices ever rebound to the levels seen during the summer of 2008, topping $ 147 per barrel, less ice could help make fossil fuel recovery more cost-effective, if not exactly easy.

“To get to the exploitation phase, you have to wait for the technology to advance,” says Peter Zeihan, an analyst with Stratfor, a strategic consulting firm in Austin, Texas. But with the ice cap disappearing at a rate of more than 20,000 square miles per year, the technical challenges are expected to dwindle over time. 

And that’s where drawing the map of borders in the Arctic Ocean becomes paramount — and complicated. In August 2007, a Russian submersible descended through a hole in the ice to plant a Russian flag on the sea floor at the North Pole. It was a provocative stunt that caused some hand-wringing around the globe, especially in light of Russia’s increasingly aggressive military stance.

Countries are allowed to consider waters out to 12 miles from their coasts as their own territory. For countries that have signed the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea, which the US has not but may do so soon, waters that go out 200 miles over a country’s continental shelf are considered “exclusive economic zones.” 

But if signatory countries can prove that their continental shelf extends beyond that 200-mile line, they have rights to oil, gas, and minerals beneath the seabed. Thus the scramble over competing claims of sovereignty.

Russia claims its shelf runs some 1,200 miles from Siberia — almost to Ellesmere Island, Canada’s northernmost point — although Russia claims only the portion of the shelf on its side of the North Pole. 

Even so, if there is as much natural gas there as the US Geological Survey thinks, and much of it is concentrated in areas Russia claims for itself, then it could conceivably solidify Russia’s already dominant hold on the world’s natural gas market — and thus raise the stakes in a strategic scramble now heating up at the top of the world.

Source: http://www.kivitv.com

I imagine investors in Geron stock are delighted now as its price soared some 50% with this news, and Geron stock has moved from “hold” to “buy” status. We shall see.

From Geron’s news release:

Geron plans to initiate a Phase I multi-center trial that is designed to establish the safety of GRNOPC1 in patients with “complete” American Spinal Injury Association (ASIA) grade A subacute thoracic spinal cord injuries.

Geron will recruit patients who have “documented evidence of functionally complete spinal cord injury with a neurological level of T3 to T10 and agree to have GRNOPC1 injected into their lesion site 7-14 days after their spinal cord injury.” They hope to begin their study as early as this summer.

While the world watches and waits as Geron begins this clinical trial, let me point out a rather significant statistic that most people don’t know. The majority of Phase 1 clinical trials fail, and they fail pretty miserably. Keeping this in mind, the scientific world should be watching even closer as Geron begins recruiting patients and the actual clinical trial unfolds.

How’s this for a statistic:

“In clinical trials, teams of physicians carry out studies designed to determine if the drug is safe in people and is an effective treatment for the disease in question. Of the 250 compounds that enter preclinical testing, only five will make it this far.”

Sources I spoke with tell me that the Phase 1 failure rate is 60%-90% and even as high as 95% with cancer drugs. So, the majority of new drugs in the Phase 1 trial, where safety is the primary focus, fail. If the drug is deemed safe, then it is permitted to move on to Phase 2 of the trial. With this kind of failure rate, you can quickly understand why the FDA takes safety in human clinical trials so seriously and why it is so very expensive to move a new drug or therapy onto the market.

Historically the biotech-cures-all approach to medicine is full of stops and starts, hype and hope, and disastrous results. Therefore those in the scientific community who have pinned everything on embryonic stem cells being the Holy Grail (the gold standard against which all other research will be measured) and holding the secret of cures (remember, that is what this is all about), will be watching and holding their breath, hoping that Geron doesn’t fail. Art Caplan, director of the University of Pennsylvania’s Bioethics Center, said, “It is going to take years to develop therapies” and we shouldn’t give patients false hope.

So very much is at stake for those of us who oppose embryonic stem cell research. While we hope that the patients who enter into this clinical trial are not further harmed, we also hope that embryonic stem cells don’t work because we object to using nascent human life instrumentally, no matter what good can be achieved. If embryonic stem cells are successful in providing benefit to patients, it will be close to impossible to turn back the clock. This is a watershed moment.

Since Phase 1 trials focus primarily on safety, you can be sure that there will be a very strict and stringent protocol that will need to be followed, and at any given moment the trial could be stopped. This, of course, would be the kind of result that would significantly hinder any future studies using human embryonic stem cells in human subjects. The scientific community has placed so much hope in this area of research. But one wrong move and it all comes to an end. That’s reason to be nervous.

Two examples of safety concerns quickly came to mind when I heard of Geron’s news:

1) The failure of Fetal Tissue Transplantation, which came about right after President Clinton took office in 1993, as the cure-all for Parkinson’s disease.

2) The disastrous gene-therapy news of Jesse Gelsinger in 1993.

For all the hope and hype over fetal tissue transplants, the research has provided mixed results at best, and certainly the 15 years of research has not proved to be beneficial to patients. And the sad story of Jesse Gelsinger set gene therapy back decades. Can you say GM foods and Monsanto or e. coli and spinach?

Jennifer Couzin wrote a good article on this topic in Science, “Celebration and Concern Over U.S. Trial of Embryonic Stem Cells.” One chilling quote comes from John Gearhart, one of the leaders who first isolated embryonic stem cells back in 1998. Gearhart said, “We’re still a long way from really understanding a good deal about these cells and how to use them safely.” So with massively high failure rates in clinical trials, the experts in embryonic stem cell research reminding us how little we still know about these cells and their safety and efficacy, the massive breach of the ethical use of human subjects in research (yes, I do believe the human embryo is a human subject) and progress in iPSC and adult stem cell research, we should all pause at this moment in time and ask ourselves: do we want to set ourselves up for such a huge fall?

*****

Jennifer Lahl is TSR´s Bioethics Contributor.

Briefly, the situation in Gaza prior to Operation Cast Lead was: 

– An economy completely dominated by foreign aid, unconditionally provided by democratic countries, for the most part.

–A not-too-high standard of living, high enough however to sustain a very high birth rate and to prevent the population from having to concentrate on productive work in order to feed themselves.

–A ruling regime bent on destroying Israel, as made clear on multiple occasions.

–An asymmetrical conflict in which rockets were constantly being launched at Israel without this prompting a military response from the IDF.

–A permeable border with Egypt, traversed by multiple tunnels, employed to supply Hamas with weapons and munitions.

But above all, the situation was marked by an obsession with “negotiating” with “Palestinians”, both Hamas and Fatah, in the vain hope that a deal might be achieved and peace finally secured.  

Is peace possible in the Middle East? Of course it is, however the road leading to it does not go through endless negotiations and does not depend on Israel being more generous here or there. Peace in the Middle East will only come when the Palestinians have been defeated. 

One might be tempted to believe they have, and of course they have gone from defeat to defeat in the battlefield, but it is not such battles that define who wins and who loses a war. After all the Viet Cong suffered horrendous losses in their ill-fated Tet offensive … and went on to win the war.  

Defeat is the loss of the will to fight on, once it has been made clear that further belligerence will only result in meaningless loss of life and bring one not an inch nearer one’s objectives. According to this definition, the Palestinians have not been defeated. 

They have not been defeated because they still believe that by prolonging their half-a-century campaign against Israel, a democratic state which has never allowed its military a free hand in dealing with its enemies, they will destroy its will to resist and end up succumbing to a second Holocaust. They have not been defeated because they still think that Israel’s friends, the community of democratic nations, will desert it in order to appease Jihadists and hope to be eaten last by the crocodile.  And they have not been defeated because they are being fed by a wide assortment of NGOs, international agencies, and governments, who have turned Gaza into a large-scale welfare state experiment.  

Welfare destroys the human soul and the work ethic, which set apart free men from slaves. Welfare allows families to send their sons into battle, knowing that they won’t miss the fruit of their labor. Welfare lets young men spend all their days plotting the destruction of their democratic neighbor. 

Has Israel’s foray into Gaza changed any of this? Unfortunately not. Of course, some hundreds of terrorists have been killed, which is a cause for celebration, but governments, international organizations, and NGOs are already queuing up to “reconstruct” Gaza. There is nothing which leads us to believe that Hamas will suddenly decide to recognize Israel’s right to exist. 

When a country decides to go to war, the gloves must be taken off. Otherwise the ensuing stalemate will only result in prolonged indecision and the need to, after a short period of time, take once again the same steps.  It is precisely this which has taken place in Gaza, where Israelis have not played to win. 

It is therefore time to start looking at other options.

********

Alex Calvo is TSR´s International Security and Defense Editor.

A law graduate of London’s School of Oriental and African Studies, Alex spent some time travelling in Asia before embarking on a career in banking. His duties gradually shifted to international law, while his strong interest in international relations made him spend an increasing amount of time studying the subject and following current events. Three years ago, he finally decided to start working for himself as legal consultant an embark on a PhD in strategic studies. A professor at European University’s Barcelona campus, he is spending a semester at the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe’s Academy in Bishkek (Kyrgyzstan), and holds a commission as reserve officer.

Alex’s main area of interest is Asia, including Central, South, and East-Asia. He is also a keen student of military history and doctrine, with an emphasis on counter-insurgency operations.

I took a trip to Elkhart, Indiana today. Elkhart is a place that has lost jobs faster than anywhere else in America. In one year, the unemployment rate went from 4.7% to 15.3%. Companies that have sustained this community for years are shedding jobs at an alarming speed, and the people who’ve lost them have no idea what to do or who to turn to. They can’t pay their bills and they’ve stopped spending money. And because they’ve stopped spending money, more businesses have been forced to lay off more workers. Local TV stations have started running public service announcements that tell people where to find food banks, even as the food banks don’t have enough to meet the demand.

As we speak, similar scenes are playing out in cities and towns across the country. Last Monday, more than 1,000 men and women stood in line for 35 firefighter jobs in Miami. Last month, our economy lost 598,000 jobs, which is nearly the equivalent of losing every single job in the state of Maine. And if there’s anyone out there who still doesn’t believe this constitutes a full-blown crisis, I suggest speaking to one of the millions of Americans whose lives have been turned upside down because they don’t know where their next paycheck is coming from.

That is why the single most important part of this Economic Recovery and Reinvestment Plan is the fact that it will save or create up to 4 million jobs. Because that is what America needs most right now.

It is absolutely true that we cannot depend on government alone to create jobs or economic growth. That is and must be the role of the private sector. But at this particular moment, with the private sector so weakened by this recession, the federal government is the only entity left with the resources to jolt our economy back to life. It is only government that can break the vicious cycle where lost jobs lead to people spending less money which leads to even more layoffs. And breaking that cycle is exactly what the plan that’s moving through Congress is designed to do.

When passed, this plan will ensure that Americans who have lost their jobs through no fault of their own can receive greater unemployment benefits and continue their health care coverage. We will also provide a $2,500 tax credit to folks who are struggling to pay the cost of their college tuition, and $1000 worth of badly-needed tax relief to working and middle-class families. These steps will put more money in the pockets of those Americans who are most likely to spend it, and that will help break the cycle and get our economy moving.

But as we learned very clearly and conclusively over the last eight years, tax cuts alone cannot solve all our economic problems – especially tax cuts that are targeted to the wealthiest few Americans. We have tried that strategy time and time again, and it has only helped lead us to the crisis we face right now.

That is why we have come together around a plan that combines hundreds of billions in tax cuts for the middle-class with direct investments in areas like health care, energy, education, and infrastructure – investments that will save jobs, create new jobs and new businesses, and help our economy grow again – now and in the future.

More than 90% of the jobs created by this plan will be in the private sector. These will not be make-work jobs, but jobs doing the work that America desperately needs done. Jobs rebuilding our crumbling roads and bridges, and repairing our dangerously deficient dams and levees so that we don’t face another Katrina. They will be jobs building the wind turbines and solar panels and fuel-efficient cars that will lower our dependence on foreign oil, and modernizing a costly health care system that will save us billions of dollars and countless lives. They’ll be jobs creating 21st century classrooms, libraries, and labs for millions of children across America. And they’ll be the jobs of firefighters, teachers, and police officers that would otherwise be eliminated if we do not provide states with some relief.

Photo: U.S. President Barack Obama addresses his first prime time news conference in the East Room of the White House in Washington, D.C., Feb. 9, 2009. Obama said his economic recovery plan must be put in motion "as soon as possible." (JIM WATSON/AFP/Getty Images)

After many weeks of debate and discussion, the plan that ultimately emerges from Congress must be big enough and bold enough to meet the size of the economic challenge we face right now. It is a plan that is already supported by businesses representing almost every industry in America; by both the Chamber of Commerce and the AFL-CIO. It contains input, ideas, and compromises from both Democrats and Republicans. It also contains an unprecedented level of transparency and accountability, so that every American will be able to go online and see where and how we’re spending every dime. What it does not contain, however, is a single pet project, and it has been stripped of the projects members of both parties found most objectionable.

Despite all of this, the plan is not perfect. No plan is. I can’t tell you for sure that everything in this plan will work exactly as we hope, but I can tell you with complete confidence that a failure to act will only deepen this crisis as well as the pain felt by millions of Americans. My administration inherited a deficit of over $1 trillion, but because we also inherited the most profound economic emergency since the Great Depression, doing too little or nothing at all will result in an even greater deficit of jobs, incomes; and confidence. That is a deficit that could turn a crisis into a catastrophe. And I refuse to let that happen. As long as I hold this office, I will do whatever it takes to put this country back to work.

I want to thank the members of Congress who’ve worked so hard to move this plan forward, but I also want to urge all members of Congress to act without delay in the coming week to resolve their differences and pass this plan.

We find ourselves in a rare moment where the citizens of our country and all countries are watching and waiting for us to lead. It is a responsibility that this generation did not ask for, but one that we must accept for the sake of our future and our children’s. The strongest democracies flourish from frequent and lively debate, but they endure when people of every background and belief find a way to set aside smaller differences in service of a greater purpose. That is the test facing the United States of America in this winter of our hardship, and it is our duty as leaders and citizens to stay true to that purpose in the weeks and months ahead. After a day of speaking with and listening to the fundamentally decent men and women who call this nation home, I have full faith and confidence that we can. And with that, I’ll take your questions.

And let me go to Jennifer Loven at [The Associated Press]. There you go.

Question: Thank you, Mr. President. Earlier today in Indiana, you said something striking. You said that this nation could end up in a crisis without action that we would be unable to reverse.

Can you talk about what you know or what you’re hearing that would lead you to say that our recession might be permanent when others in our history have not? And do you think that you risk losing some credibility or even talking down the economy by using dire language like that?

Obama: No, no, no, no. I think that what I’ve said is what other economists have said across the political spectrum, which is that, if you delay acting on an economy of this severity, then you potentially create a negative spiral that becomes much more difficult for us to get out of.

We saw this happen in Japan in the 1990s, where they did not act boldly and swiftly enough and, as a consequence, they suffered what was called the lost decade, where essentially, for the entire ’90s, they did not see any significant economic growth.

So what I’m trying to underscore is what the people in Elkhart already understand, that this is not your ordinary, run-of-the-mill recession. We are going through the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression.

We’ve lost now 3.6 million jobs, but what’s perhaps even more disturbing is that almost half of that job loss has taken place over the last three months, which means that the problems are accelerating instead of getting better.

Now, what I said in Elkhart today is what I repeat this evening, which is, I’m absolutely confident that we can solve this problem, but it’s going to require us to take some significant, important steps.

Step number one: We have to pass an economic recovery and reinvestment plan. And we’ve made progress. There was a vote this evening that moved the process forward in the Senate. We already have a House bill that’s passed. I’m hoping, over the next several days, that the House and the Senate can reconcile their differences and get that bill on my desk.

There have been criticisms from a bunch of different directions about this bill, so let me just address a few of them.

Some of the criticisms really are with the basic idea that government should intervene at all in this moment of crisis. Now, you have some people, very sincere, who philosophically just think the government has no business interfering in the marketplace. And, in fact, there are several who’ve suggested that FDR was wrong to interfere back in the New Deal. They’re fighting battles that I thought were resolved a pretty long time ago.

Most economists almost unanimously recognize that, even if philosophically you’re — you’re wary of government intervening in the economy, when you have the kind of problem we have right now — what started on Wall Street, goes to Main Street, suddenly businesses can’t get credit, they start paring back their investment, they start laying off workers, workers start pulling back in terms of spending — that, when you have that situation, that government is an important element of introducing some additional demand into the economy.

We stand to lose about $1 trillion worth of demand this year and another trillion next year. And what that means is you’ve got this gaping hole in the economy.

That’s why the figure that we initially came up with of approximately $800 billion was put forward. That wasn’t just some random number that I plucked out of — out of a hat. That was Republican and Democratic, conservative and liberal economists that I spoke to who indicated that, given the magnitude of the crisis and the fact that it’s happening worldwide, it’s important for us to have a bill of sufficient size and scope that we can save or create 4 million jobs.

That still means that you’re going to have some net job loss, but at least we can start slowing the trend and moving it in the right direction.

Now, the recovery and reinvestment package is not the only thing we have to do. It’s one leg of the stool. We are still going to have to make sure that we are attracting private capital, get the credit markets flowing again, because that’s the lifeblood of the economy.

And so tomorrow my treasury secretary, Tim Geithner, will be announcing some very clear and specific plans for how we are going to start loosening up credit once again.

And that means having some transparency and oversight in the system. It means that we correct some of the mistakes with TARP that were made earlier, the lack of consistency, the lack of clarity, in terms of how the program was going to move forward.

It means that we condition taxpayer dollars that are being provided to banks on them showing some restraint when it comes to executive compensation, not using the money to charter corporate jets when they’re not necessary.

It means that we focus on housing and how are we going to help homeowners that are suffering foreclosure or homeowners who are still making their mortgage payments, but are seeing their property values decline.

So there are going to be a whole range of approaches that we have to take for dealing with the economy. My bottom line is to make sure that we are saving or creating 4 million jobs, we are making sure that the financial system is working again, that homeowners are getting some relief.

And I’m happy to get good ideas from across the political spectrum, from Democrats and Republicans. What I won’t do is return to the failed theories of the last eight years that got us into this fix in the first place, because those theories have been tested, and they have failed. And that’s what part of the election in November was all about.

OK. Karen Boeing (ph) of Reuters?

Question: Thank you, Mr. President. I’d like to shift gears to foreign policy. What is your strategy for engaging Iran? And when will you start to implement it? Will your timetable be affected at all by the Iranian elections? And are you getting any indications that Iran is interested in a dialogue with the United States?

Obama: I said during the campaign that Iran is a country that has extraordinary people, extraordinary history and traditions, but that its actions over many years now have been unhelpful when it comes to promoting peace and prosperity both in the region and around the world, that their attacks — or their — their financing of terrorist organizations like Hezbollah and Hamas, the bellicose language that they’ve used towards Israel, their development of a nuclear weapon or their pursuit of a nuclear weapon, that all those things create the possibility of destabilizing the region and are not only contrary to our interests, but I think are contrary to the interests of international peace.

What I’ve also said is that we should take an approach with Iran that employs all of the resources at the United States’ disposal, and that includes diplomacy.

And so my national security team is currently reviewing our existing Iran policy, looking at areas where we can have constructive dialogue, where we can directly engage with them.

And my expectation is, in the coming months, we will be looking for openings that can be created where we can start sitting across the table, face-to-face diplomatic overtures, that will allow us to move our policy in a new direction.

There’s been a lot of mistrust built up over the years, so it’s not going to happen overnight. And it’s important that, even as we engage in this direct diplomacy, we are very clear about certain deep concerns that we have as a country, that Iran understands that we find the funding of terrorist organizations unacceptable, that we’re clear about the fact that a nuclear Iran could set off a nuclear arms race in the region that would be profoundly destabilizing.

So there are going to be a set of objectives that we have in these conversations, but I think that there’s the possibility at least of a relationship of mutual respect and progress.

And I think that, if you look at how we’ve approached the Middle East, my designation of George Mitchell as a special envoy to help deal with the Arab-Israeli situation, some of the interviews that I’ve given, it indicates the degree to which we want to do things differently in the region.

Now it’s time for Iran to send some signals that it wants to act differently, as well, and recognize that, even as it has some rights as a member of the international community, with those rights come responsibilities.

OK. Chip Reid?

Question: Thank you, Mr. President. You have often said that bipartisanship is extraordinarily important, overall and in this stimulus package, but now, when we ask your advisers about the lack of bipartisanship so far — zero votes in the House, three in the Senate — they say, “Well, it’s not the number of votes that matters; it’s the number of jobs that will be created.”

Is that a sign that you are moving away — your White House is moving away from this emphasis on bipartisanship?

And what went wrong? Did you underestimate how hard it would be to change the way Washington works?

Obama: Well, I don’t think — I don’t think I underestimated it. I don’t think the — the American people underestimated it. They understand that there have been a lot of bad habits built up here in Washington, and it’s going to take time to break down some of those bad habits.

You know, when I made a series of overtures to the Republicans, going over to meet with both Republican caucuses, you know, putting three Republicans in my cabinet — something that is unprecedented — making sure that they were invited here to the White House to talk about the economic recovery plan, all those were not designed simply to get some short-term votes. They were designed to try to build up some trust over time.

And I think that, as I continue to make these overtures, over time, hopefully that will be reciprocated.

But understand the bottom line that I’ve got right now, which is what’s happening to the people of Elkhart and what’s happening across the country. I can’t afford to see Congress play the usual political games. What we have to do right now is deliver for the American people.

So my bottom line when it comes to the recovery package is: Send me a bill that creates or saves 4 million jobs. Because everybody has to be possessed with a sense of urgency about putting people back to work, making sure that folks are staying in their homes, that they can send their kids to college.

That doesn’t negate the continuing efforts that I’m going to make to listen and engage with my Republican colleagues. And hopefully the tone that I’ve taken, which has been consistently civil and respectful, will pay some dividends over the long term. There are going to be areas where we disagree, and there are going to be areas where we agree.

As I said, the one concern I’ve got on the stimulus package, in terms of the debate and listening to some of what’s been said in Congress, is that there seems to be a set of folks who — I don’t doubt their sincerity — who just believe that we should do nothing.

Now, if that’s their opening position or their closing position in negotiations, then we’re probably not going to make much progress, because I don’t think that’s economically sound and I don’t think what — that’s what the American people expect, is for us to stand by and do nothing.

There are others who recognize that we’ve got to do a significant recovery package, but they’re concerned about the mix of what’s in there. And if they’re sincere about it, then I’m happy to have conversations about this tax cut versus that — that tax cut or this infrastructure project versus that infrastructure project.

But what I’ve — what I’ve been concerned about is some of the language that’s been used suggesting that this is full of pork and this is wasteful government spending, so on and so forth.

First of all, when I hear that from folks who presided over a doubling of the national debt, then, you know, I just want them to not engage in some revisionist history. I inherited the deficit that we have right now and the economic crisis that we have right now.

Number two is that, although there are some programs in there that I think are good policy, some of them aren’t job-creators. I think it’s perfectly legitimate to say that those programs should be out of this particular recovery package and we can deal with them later.

But when they start characterizing this as pork, without acknowledging that there are no earmarks in this package — something, again, that was pretty rare over the last eight years — then you get a feeling that maybe we’re playing politics instead of actually trying to solve problems for the American people.

So I’m going to keep on engaging. I hope that, as we get the Senate and the House bills together, that everybody is willing to give a little bit. I suspect that the package that emerges is not going to be 100 percent of what I want.

But my bottom line is, are we creating 4 million jobs? And are we laying the foundation for long-term economic growth?

This is another concern that I’ve had in some of the arguments that I’m hearing. When people suggest that, “What a waste of money to make federal buildings more energy-efficient.” Why would that be a waste of money?

We’re creating jobs immediately by retrofitting these buildings or weatherizing 2 million Americans’ homes, as was called for in the package, so that right there creates economic stimulus.

And we are saving taxpayers when it comes to federal buildings potentially $2 billion. In the case of homeowners, they will see more money in their pockets. And we’re reducing our dependence on foreign oil in the Middle East. Why wouldn’t we want to make that kind of investment?

Now, maybe philosophically you just don’t think that the federal government should be involved in energy policy. I happen to disagree with that; I think that’s the reason why we find ourselves importing more foreign oil now than we did back in the early ’70s when OPEC first formed.

And we can have a respectful debate about whether or not we should be involved in energy policymaking, but don’t suggest that somehow that’s wasteful spending. That’s exactly what this country needs.

The same applies when it comes to information technologies in health care. We know that health care is crippling businesses and making us less competitive, as well as breaking the banks of families all across America. And part of the reason is, we’ve got the most inefficient health care system imaginable.

We’re still using paper. We’re still filing things in triplicate. Nurses can’t read the prescriptions that doctors — that doctors have written out. Why wouldn’t we want to put that on — put that on an electronic medical record that will reduce error rates, reduce our long-term costs of health care, and create jobs right now?

Education, yet another example. The suggestion is, why should the federal government be involved in school construction?

Well, I visited a school down in South Carolina that was built in the 1850s. Kids are still learning in that school, as best they can, when the — when the railroad — when the — it’s right next to a railroad. And when the train runs by, the whole building shakes and the teacher has to stop teaching for a while. The — the auditorium is completely broken down; they can’t use it.

So why wouldn’t we want to build state-of-the-art schools with science labs that are teaching our kids the skills they need for the 21st century, that will enhance our economy, and, by the way, right now, will create jobs?

So, you know, we — we can differ on some of the particulars, but, again, the question I think the American people are asking is, do you just want government to do nothing, or do you want it to do something? If you want it to do something, then we can have a conversation. But doing nothing, that’s not an option from my perspective.

All right, Chuck Todd. Where’s Chuck?

Question: Thank you, Mr. President. In your opening remarks, you talked about that, if your plan works the way you want it to work, it’s going to increase consumer spending. But isn’t consumer spending, or overspending, how we got into this mess? And if people get money back into their pockets, do you not want them saving it or paying down debt first before they start spending money into the economy?

Obama: Well, first of all, I don’t think it’s accurate to say that consumer spending got us into this mess. What got us into this mess initially were banks taking exorbitant, wild risks with other people’s monies based on shaky assets and because of the enormous leverage, where they had one dollar’s worth of assets and they were betting thirty dollars on that one dollar, what we had was a crisis in the financial system.

That led to a contraction of credit, which, in turn, meant businesses couldn’t make payroll or make inventories, which meant that everybody became uncertain about the future of the economy, so people started making decisions accordingly, reducing investment, initiating layoffs, which, in turn, made things worse.

Now, you are making a legitimate point, Chuck, about the fact that our savings rate has declined and this economy has been driven by consumer spending for a very long time. And that’s not going to be sustainable.

You know, if — if all we’re doing is spending and we’re not making things, then over time other countries are going to get tired of lending us money and eventually the party’s going to be over. Well, in fact, the party now is over.

And so the — the sequence of how we’re approaching this is as follows. Our immediate job is to stop the downward spiral, and that means putting money into consumer’s pockets. It means loosening up credit.

It means putting forward investments that not only employ people immediately, but also lay the groundwork for long-term economic growth.

And — and that, by the way, is important, even if you’re a fiscal conservative, because the biggest problem we’re going to have with our federal budget is if we continue a situation in which there are no tax revenues because economic growth is plummeting at the same time as we’ve got more demands for unemployment insurance, we’ve got more demands for people who have lost their health care, more demand for food stamps. That will put enormous strains on the federal budget, as well as the state budget.

So the most important thing we can do for our budget crisis right now is to make sure that the economy doesn’t continue to tank. And that’s why passing the economic recovery plan is the right thing to do, even though I recognize that it’s expensive.

Look, I — I would love not to have to spend money right now. I’d love — you know, this notion that somehow I came in here just ginned up to spend $800 billion, you know, I mean, that wasn’t — that wasn’t — that wasn’t how I envisioned my presidency beginning. But we have to adapt to existing circumstances.

Now, what we are going to also have to do is to make sure that, as soon as the economy stabilizes, investment begins again, we’re no longer contracting but we’re growing, that our mid-term and long-term budget is dealt with, and I think the same is true for individual consumers.

Right now, they’re — they’re just trying to figure out, how do I make sure that, if I lose my job, you know, I’m still going to be able to make my mortgage payments? Or they’re worried about, how am I going to pay next month’s bills? So they’re not engaging in a lot of long-term financial planning.

Once the economy stabilizes and people are less fearful, then I do think that we’re going to have to start thinking about, how do we operate more prudently? Because there’s no such thing as a free lunch.

So if — if you want to get — if you want to buy a house, then putting zero down and buying a house that is probably not affordable for you in case something goes wrong, that’s something that has to be reconsidered. So we’re going to have to change our — our bad habits.

But right now, the key is making sure that we pull ourselves out of the economic slump that we’re in.

All right, Julianna Goldman, Bloomberg?

Question: Thank you, Mr. President. Many experts, from Nouriel Roubini to Sen. [Chuck] Schumer, have said that it will cost the government more than $1 trillion to really fix the financial system. During the campaign, you promised the American people that you won’t just tell them what they want to hear, but what they need to hear.

Won’t the government need far more than the $350 billion that’s remaining in the financial rescue funds to really solve the credit crisis?

Obama: Well, the credit crisis is real, and it’s not over. We averted catastrophe by passing the TARP legislation. But, as I said before, because of a lack of clarity and consistency in how it was applied, a lack of oversight in — in how the money went out, we didn’t get as big of a bang for the buck as we should have.

My immediate task is making sure that the second half of that money, $350 billion, is spent properly. That’s my first job. Before I even think about what else I’ve got to do, my first task is to make sure that my secretary of the treasury, Tim Geithner, working with Larry Summers, my national economic adviser, and others are coming up with the best possible plan to use this money wisely in a way that’s transparent, in a way that provides clear oversight, that we are conditioning any money that we give to banks on them reducing executive compensation to reasonable levels and to make sure that they’re not wasting that money.

We are going to have to work with the banks in an effective way to clean up their balance sheets so that some trust is restored within the marketplace, because right now part of the problem is that nobody really knows what’s on the bank’s books. Any given bank, they’re not sure what kinds of losses are there. We’ve got to open things up and restore some trust.

We also have to deal with the housing issue in a clear and consistent way.

I don’t want to pre-empt my secretary of the treasury. He’s going to be laying out these principles in great detail tomorrow.

But my instruction to him has been: Let’s get this right. Let’s create a template in which we’re restoring market confidence.

And the reason that’s so important is because we don’t know yet whether we’re going to need additional money or how much additional money we’ll need until we’ve seen how successful we are at restoring a sense of confidence in the marketplace that the federal government and the Federal Reserve Bank and the FDIC, working in concert, know what they’re doing.

That can make a big difference in terms of whether or not we attract private capital back into the marketplace. And ultimately the government cannot substitute for all the private capital that has been withdrawn from the system. We’ve got to restore confidence so that private capital goes back in.

OK. Jake?

Question: Thank you, Mr. President. My question follows Julianna’s in — in content. The American people have seen hundreds of billions of dollars spent already, and still the economy continues to freefall.

Beyond avoiding the national catastrophe that you’ve warned about, once all the legs of your stool are in place…

Obama: Right. 

Question: … how can the American people gauge whether or not your programs are working? Can they — should they be looking at the metric of the stock market, home foreclosures, unemployment? What metric should they use when and how will they know if it’s working or whether or not we need to go to a Plan B?

Obama: I think my initial measure of success is creating or saving 4 million jobs. That’s bottom line number one, because, if people are working, then they’ve got enough confidence to make purchases, to make investments. Businesses start seeing that consumers are out there with a little more confidence, and they start making investments, which means they start hiring workers. So step number one: job creation.

Step number two: Are we seeing the credit markets operate effectively? You know, I can’t tell you how many businesses that I talk to that are successful businesses but just can’t get credit.

Part of the problem in Elkhart that I heard about today was the fact that — this is the R.V. capital of America. You’ve got a bunch of R.V. companies that have customers who want to purchase R.V.s, but even though their credit is good, they can’t get the loan.

Now, the businesses also can’t get loans to make payments to their suppliers. But when they have consumers, consumers can’t get the loans that they need. So normalizing the credit markets is, I think, step number two.

Step number three is going to be housing. Have we stabilized the housing market? Now, you know, the federal government doesn’t have complete control over that, but if our plan is effective, working with the Federal Reserve Bank, working with the FDIC, I think what we can do is stem the rate of foreclosure and we can start stabilizing housing values over time.

And the most — the — the biggest measure of success is whether we stop contracting and shedding jobs and we start growing again.

Now, you know, I don’t have a crystal ball. And as I said, this is an unprecedented crisis. But my hope is that after a difficult year — and this year is going to be a difficult year — that businesses start investing again, they start making decisions that, you know, in fact, there’s money to be made out there, customers or consumers start feeling that their jobs are stable and safe, and they start making purchases again, and, if we get things right, then, starting next year, we can start seeing significant improvement.

Ed Henry. Where’s Ed? CNN, there he is.

Question: Thank you, Mr. President. You’ve promised to send more troops to Afghanistan. And since you’ve been very clear about a timetable to withdraw combat troops from Iraq within 16 months, I wonder, what’s your timetable to withdraw troops eventually from Afghanistan?

And related to that, there’s a Pentagon policy that bans media coverage of the flag-draped coffins from coming in to Dover Air Force Base. And back in 2004, then-Senator Joe Biden said that it was shameful for dead soldiers to be, quote, “snuck back into the country under the cover of night.”

You’ve promised unprecedented transparency, openness in your government. Will you overturn that policy so the American people can see the full human cost of war?

Obama: Your question is timely. We got reports that four American service members have been killed in Iraq today. And, you know, obviously, our thoughts and prayers go out to the families.

I’ve said before that — you know, people have asked me, when did it hit you that you are now president? And what I told them was the most sobering moment is signing letters to the families of our fallen heroes. It reminds you of the responsibilities that you carry in this office and — and the consequences of the decisions that you make.

Now, with respect to the policy of opening up media to loved ones being brought back home, we are in the process of reviewing those policies in conversations with the Department of Defense, so I don’t want to give you an answer now before I’ve evaluated that review and understand all the implications involved.

With respect to Afghanistan, this is going to be a big challenge. I think, because of the extraordinary work done by our troops and some very good diplomatic work done by Ambassador Crocker in Iraq, we just saw an election in Iraq that went relatively peacefully and you get a sense that the political system is now functioning in a meaningful way.

You do not see that yet in Afghanistan. They’ve got elections coming up, but effectively the national government seems very detached from what’s going on in the surrounding community.

In addition, you’ve got the Taliban and Al Qaeda operating in the FATA and these border regions between Afghanistan and Pakistan. And what we haven’t seen is the kind of concerted effort to root out those safe havens that would ultimately make our mission successful.

So we are undergoing a thorough going review. Not only is General Petraeus — now the head of CENTCOM — conducting his own review; he’s now working in concert with the special envoy that I’ve sent over, Richard Holbrooke, one of our top diplomats, to evaluate a regional approach.

We are going to need more effective coordination of our military efforts, with diplomatic efforts, with development efforts, with more effective coordination with our allies in order for us to be successful.

The bottom line though — and I just want to remember the American people, because this is going to be difficult — is this is a situation in which a region served as the base to launch an attack that killed 3,000 Americans.

And this past week, I met with families of those who were lost in 9/11, a reminder of the costs of allowing those safe havens to exist.

My bottom line is that we cannot allow Al Qaeda to operate. We cannot have those safe havens in that region. And we’re going to have to work both smartly and effectively, but with consistency in order to make sure that those safe havens don’t exist.

I do not have yet a timetable for how long that’s going to take. What I know is I’m not going to make — I’m not going to allow Al Qaeda or bin Laden to operate with impunity, planning attacks on the U.S. homeland.

All right. Helene Cooper. Where’s Helene? There you are.

Question: Thank you, sir. I wanted to ask you, on the next bank bailout, are you going to impose a requirement that the financial institutions use this money to loosen up credit and make new lending? And if not, how do you make the case to the American people that this bailout will work when the last one didn’t?

Obama: Again, Helene — and I’m trying to avoid pre-empting my secretary of the treasury. I want all of you to show up at his press conference, as well. He’s going to be terrific.

But this relates to Jake’s earlier question. One of my bottom lines is whether or not credit is flowing to the people who need it. Is it flowing to banks — excuse me. Is it flowing to businesses, large and small? Is it flowing to consumers? Are they able to operate in ways that translate into jobs and economic growth on Main Street?

And the package that we’ve put together is designed to help do that. And beyond that, I’m going to make sure that Tim gets his moment in the sun tomorrow.

All right. Major Garrett, where’s Major?

Question: Mr. President, at a speech Friday that many of us covered, Vice President Biden said the following thing about a conversation the two of you had in the Oval Office about a subject he didn’t disclose.

“If we do everything right, if we do it with absolute certainty, if we stand up there and we really make the tough decisions, there’s still a 30 percent chance we’re going to get it wrong.”

Since the vice president brought it up, can you tell the American people, sir, what you were talking about? And if not, can you at least reassure them it wasn’t the stimulus bill or the bank rescue plan and if, in general, you agree with that ratio of success, 30 percent failure, 70 percent success?

Obama: You know, I don’t remember exactly what Joe was referring to…

(LAUGHTER)

… not surprisingly. But let me try this out. I think what Joe may have been suggesting — although I wouldn’t put numerical — I wouldn’t ascribe any numerical percentage to any of this — is that, given the magnitude of the challenges that we have, any single thing that we do is going to be part of the solution, not all of the solution.

And as I said in my introductory remarks, not everything we do is going to work out exactly as we intended it to work out. You know, this is an unprecedented problem.

And, you know, when you talk to economists, there’s some general sense of how we’re going to move forward. There’s some strong consensus about the need for a recovery package of a certain magnitude. There’s a strong consensus that you shouldn’t put all your eggs in one basket, all tax cuts or all investment, but that there should be a range of approaches.

But even if we do everything right on that, we’ve still got to deal with what we just talked about, the financial system, and making sure that banks are lending again. We’re still going to have to deal with housing. We’re still going to have to make sure that we’ve got a regulatory structure, a regulatory architecture for the financial system that prevents crises like this from occurring again.

Now, those are big, complicated tasks. So I don’t know whether Joe was referring to that, but I used that as a launching point to make a general point about these issues.

Question: (off mic)

Obama: I have no idea. I really don’t.

Michael Fletcher from the Washington Post?

Question: Yes, thank you, sir. What is your reaction to Alex Rodriguez’s admission that he used steroids as a member of the Texas Rangers?

Obama: You know, I think it’s depressing news on top of what’s been a flurry of depressing items when it comes to Major League Baseball. And if you’re a fan of Major League Baseball, I think it — it tarnishes an entire era, to some degree. And it’s unfortunate, because I think there are a lot of ballplayers who played it straight.

And, you know, the thing I’m probably most concerned about is the message it sends to our kids. What I’m pleased about is Major League Baseball seems to finally be taking this seriously, to recognize how big a problem this is for the sport, and that our kids hopefully are watching and saying, “You know what? There are no short cuts, that when you try to take short cuts, you may end up tarnishing your entire career, and that your integrity’s not worth it.” That’s the message I hope is communicated.

All right. Helen? This is my inaugural moment here.

(LAUGHTER)

I’m really excited.

Question: Mr. President, do you think that Pakistan and — are maintaining the safe havens in Afghanistan for these so-called terrorists? And, also, do you know of any country in the Middle East that has nuclear weapons?

Obama: Well, I think that Pakistan — there is no doubt that, in the FATA region of Pakistan, in the mountainous regions along the border of Afghanistan, that there are safe havens where terrorists are operating.

And one of the goals of Ambassador Holbrooke, as he is traveling throughout the region, is to deliver a message to Pakistan that they are endangered as much as we are by the continuation of those operations and that we’ve got to work in a regional fashion to root out those safe havens.

It’s not acceptable for Pakistan or for us to have folks who, with impunity, will kill innocent men, women and children. And, you know, I — I believe that the new government of Pakistan and — and Mr. Zardari cares deeply about getting control of the situation. We want to be effective partners with them on that issue.

Question: (off mic)

Obama: Well, Mr. Holbrooke is there, and that’s exactly why he’s being sent there, because I think that we have to make sure that Pakistan is a stalwart ally with us in battling this terrorist threat.

With respect to nuclear weapons, you know, I don’t want to speculate. What I know is this: that if we see a nuclear arms race in a region as volatile as the Middle East, everybody will be in danger.

And one of my goals is to prevent nuclear proliferation generally. I think that it’s important for the United States, in concert with Russia, to lead the way on this.

And, you know, I’ve mentioned this in conversations with the Russian president, Mr. Medvedev, to let him know that it is important for us to restart the — the conversations about how we can start reducing our nuclear arsenals in an effective way so that…

(CROSSTALK)

Obama: … so that we then have the standing to go to other countries and start stitching back together the nonproliferation treaties that, frankly, have been weakened over the last several years. OK.

Question: Why do you have to speculate on who has…

(CROSSTALK)

Obama: All right.

Sam Stein, Huffington Post. Where’s Sam? Here. Go ahead.

Question: Thank you, Mr. President. Today, Senator Patrick Leahy announced that he wants to set up a truth and reconciliation committee to investigate the misdeeds of the Bush administration. He said that, before you turn the page, you have to read the page first.

Do you agree with such a proposal? And are you willing to rule out right here and now any prosecution of Bush administration officials?

Obama: I haven’t seen the proposals, so I don’t want to express an opinion on something that I haven’t seen.

What I have said is that my administration is going to operate in a way that leaves no doubt that we do not torture, that we abide by the Geneva Conventions, and that we observe our traditions of rule of law and due process, as we are vigorously going after terrorists that can do us harm. And I don’t think those are contradictory; I think they are potentially complementary.

My view is also that nobody’s above the law and, if there are clear instances of wrongdoing, that people should be prosecuted just like any ordinary citizen.

But that, generally speaking, I’m more interested in looking forward than I am in looking backwards. I want to pull everybody together, including, by the way, the — all the members of the intelligence community who have done things the right way and have been working hard to protect America and I think sometimes are painted with a broad brush without adequate information.

So I will take a look at Senator Leahy’s proposal, but my general orientation is to say let’s get it right moving forward.

Mara Liasson?

Question: Thank you, Mr. President. If it’s this hard to get more than a handful of Republican votes on what is relatively easy — spending tons of money and cutting people’s taxes — when you look down the road at health care, and entitlement reform, and energy reform, those are really tough choices. You’re going to be asking some people to get less and some people to pay more.
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What do you think you’re going to have to do to get more bipartisanship? Are you going to need a new legislative model, bringing in Republicans from the very beginning, getting more involved in the details yourself from the beginning, or using bipartisan commissions? What has this experience with the stimulus led you to think about when you think about these future challenges?

Obama: Well, as I said before, Mara, I think that old habits are hard to break. And we’re coming off an election, and I think people want to sort of test the limits of — of what they can get.

Trade between the United States and its two closest neighbors has accelerated under NAFTA. But there are still some rough patches to work out between the three countries.

By Adrienne Selko, IndustryWeek 

Feb. 1, 2009 — Given President Obama’s well publicized ambivalence toward the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) during the presidential campaign, it’s a good time to ask: Is NAFTA working? From a U.S. export market perspective, NAFTA has indeed delivered the goods. Specifically, U.S. goods exported to Canada and Mexico have more than doubled between 1993 and 2007 — from $141.9 billion to nearly $385 billion. NAFTA accounts for fully a third (33%) of the U.S. trade total. 

Merchandise trade between the United States and its NAFTA partners as a share of U.S. GDP has grown from 4.4% in 1993 to 6.6% in 2007. From a regional perspective total trilateral merchandise trade (both imports and exports) rose more than threefold since 1993, now exceeding $900 billion annually. 

OK, that’s fine for the economists, but what has NAFTA meant for U.S. manufacturers? Looking at the period from January to June 2008, U.S. manufactured exports to Canada amounted to $109.5 billion, while $56.4 billion worth of U.S. goods were exported to Mexico. That represents a $17.5 billion surplus with Canada and a $20 billion deficit with Mexico.

“The overall picture of U.S.-NAFTA trade in manufacturing is highly positive. The trade is roughly in balance with a positive trend which is helping to reduce the global deficit,” explains Ernie Preeg, an economist and senior fellow in trade and productivity at the Manufacturers Alliance/MAPI.

What especially pleases Preeg is the nature of the products that the U.S. is exporting. Automotive, machinery and high-tech products top the list of exports to Canada and Mexico. “These export products are at the heart of high-skilled, higher-paying manufacturing jobs,” explains Preeg. For example, with Canada the United States shows a trade surplus in the areas of both electric and nonelectric machinery and parts, as well as power generating machinery and equipment. Surpluses are also found in specialized machinery, iron and steel and scientific equipment. In Mexico, the United States enjoys trade surpluses in plastics, organic chemicals and miscellaneous manufactured products.

Much of NAFTA commerce is concentrated in automobiles, auto parts and energy. Together these three sectors account for a third of regional trade.

The National Association of Manufacturers (NAM) also views NAFTA in a positive light.

“Free trade is the solution to our trade deficit and not the problem,” says Frank Vargo, NAM’s vice president for international economic affairs. “U.S. free-trade agreement partners continue to be the shining part of the U.S. trade picture, with a rapidly growing surplus.” Supporting that perspective is the fact that NAFTA is the largest export market for 42 states.

Thinking Globally

The 10 NAFTA Priorities

Deloitte surveyed 321 executives of leading North American manufacturing enterprises across product sectors to obtain their perspectives on their current and expected future competitiveness. Of those surveyed, 45% are from the United States, 36% from Canada and 17% from Mexico. Among the companies represented in this survey, 23% had revenues over $1 billion; 15% had revenues between 200 million to $1 billion; and 62%, below $200 million in revenues.

“NAFTA gave companies the opportunity to enter new markets and think globally,” explains Craig Giffi, Deloitte’s vice chairman and U.S. leader for consumer and industrial products. “Executives told us that trade agreements enable companies to improve top-line growth across new markets. The result is that companies that focus on global trade, and thus new customers, outperform their counterparts.” More than two-thirds of the companies surveyed for the report showed revenue growth and bottom-line profit levels that were 5% higher over the last three years.                          

Mexico’s Full Potential Yet to be Reached

As a trading partner Mexico has grown in importance, Giffi points out. “It wasn’t top of mind for key drivers prior to 1992,” he says. But improvements in Mexico through economies of scale and more efficient retail distribution and lower prices have created a strong market for manufacturers.The labor advantage continues to be a strong factor for growth in Mexico. “In addition to considerable wage rate differentials, the workforce is young, hungry and eager,” says Giffi.

And this workforce is very educated, according to George Haley, director of the Center for International Industry Competitiveness at the University of New Haven. “Workers are generally both highly trained and trainable. The education system turns out highly effective managers who also graduate with extensive business networks.”

NAFTA was the driving force behind the increase in transparency in Mexico. The country now has its own version of the Administrative Procedures Act, which allows the public to comment on proposed rules. Aside from helping U.S. and Canadian companies do business in Mexico, the Act has also helped Mexican entrepreneurs.

What is clearly not a competitive advantage for Mexico is the issue of security. “There is a problem doing business with Mexico and that is violence,” explains Haley. This past year in particular has seen a large increase in violent crime.

In fact crime is one of the key factors inhibiting Mexico’s potential. “Mexican growth has been a disappointment: 2.9%, well below its potential,” says Gary Hufbauer, senior fellow at the Peterson Institute for International Economics. “Mexico should grow at 6% a year. However, the Mexican political system has not delivered the tax and energy reforms necessary to fund investments in physical infrastructure, social services and education. Mexico has neither rousted the drug lords nor eradicated the corruption mentality.”

Growth is on its way, though, says Giffi. “Manufacturing is a global chess game. Companies are now rethinking their supply chains and are bringing factories back to North America. This should bring back jobs as well,” explains Giffi.

Bringing back jobs is a sore spot whenever NAFTA is mentioned. “A realistic estimate is that around 60,000 jobs are lost a year because of increased trade with Canada and Mexico, while U.S. exports to NAFTA partners support 70,000 new jobs a year,” says Hufbauer. “Annually the dynamic U.S. economy displaces approximately 17.5 million jobs and creates about 18.3 million new jobs. NAFTA accounts for a small fraction (under 1%) of annual job churn,” he claims.

Automating Trade Compliance

While Mexico is underperforming, the Canadian economy has performed well during the NAFTA era, growing by 3.1%, according to Hufbauer. Canada sends 80% of its exports to its NAFTA partners. Total merchandise trade between Canada and the United States more than doubled between 1993 and 2007. Trade between Canada and Mexico has almost quadrupled over the same period. In 2007, Canada’s merchandise trade with its NAFTA partners reached $598.4 billion. Exports to the United States grew at an annual rate of 6.6% from 1993 to 2007. Canada’s bilateral trade with Mexico reached $22 billion in 2007.

To bolster further the impact of NAFTA, manufacturing companies are automating trade compliance. ” “Global commerce is increasingly shaped by preferential trade agreements to promote trade among countries.  Depending on how the agreements are written – the specific rules of origin – goods can be sourced duty free,” ” explains Nathan Pieri, senior vice president of marketing and product management with Management Dynamics, a provider of global trade management solutions. Pieri says his clients, which include Steelcase, General Electric, Honeywell and Procter & Gamble, are choosing to automate the NAFTA qualification process. For example, Haworth, a $1.4 billion office furniture and interiors manufacturer, was able to realize $1.2 million in duties and taxes by automating the NAFTA qualification process as well as generating trade documentation to maintain export compliance.

Mexico is becoming an increasing popular location for Pieri’s clients as supply chain management and quality issues continue to raise concerns about outsourcing production to China. Pieri sees his clients looking at near-sourcing opportunities and moving back to North America, especially Mexico. “Being able to coordinate the order cycle and ship goods from the same time zone in Mexico is often more cost-effective than trying to do that overseas given the logistic difficulties.”??Indeed, as noted in the “Made in North America” study (see above), manufacturers would strongly prefer North America as a hub for their manufacturing operations “in an ever-expanding global economy if proper investments (both public and private) are made and if government policies focus more on reducing or eliminating competitive barriers.”