John's Recommended Articles

"Freedom House in New York yesterday released its annual report on how many people live in free societies. The news was once again good, with 27 countries and one territory showing gains and only nine showing setbacks. 'The past year was one of the most successful for freedom since Freedom House began measuring world freedom in 1972,' the report said.

Arch Puddington, the organization's director of research, found it 'impressive' that freedom could thrive despite 'terrorist violence, ethnic cleansing, civil conflict, catastrophic natural disasters and geopolitical polarization.' But it did. Nearly 3 billion souls (46% of the world's population) now live in countries that have 'open political competition, a climate of respect for civil liberties, significant independent civil life and independent media.' A further 1.2 billion are 'partly free,' meaning that they have limited rights that are tainted by such defects as rampant corruption or entrenched one-party rule.

The remaining 2.3 billion (35%) are denied basic civil liberties and political rights. China accounts for half the 'not free' numbers, and Russia seems be relapsing into a repeat of the Soviet past. Both rate better, however, than the eight worst hellholes: North Korea, Cuba, Burma, Libya, Syria, Sudan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan.

The spread of electoral democracy feeds the trend. Today, 122 countries, 65% of the world total, have democratic elections -- three more than last year. Obviously, this is refl"

The U.S. military tells Iraqis the truth, and some call it a "scandal." : "The U.S. can and will win in Iraq, but only if we win the larger-scale media war. Correcting misperceptions--in Baghdad and Washington, New York and Tikrit--is not somebody else's job; it is the job of the U.S. military. For unless the truth is widely known and shared, no military victory in the 21st century can ever be complete."

When people ask why I recently left The Wall Street Journal to join the Marines, I usually have a short answer. It felt like the time had come to stop reporting events and get more directly involved. But that's not the whole answer, and how I got to this point wasn't a straight line.

It's a cliché that you appreciate your own country more when you live abroad, but it happens to be true. Living in China for the last seven years, I've seen that country take a giant leap from a struggling Third World country into a true world power. For many people it still comes as a surprise to learn that China is chasing Japan as the second-largest economy on the globe and could soon own a trillion dollars of American debt.

But living in China also shows you what a nondemocratic country can do to its citizens. I've seen protesters tackled and beaten by plainclothes police in Tiananmen Square, and I've been videotaped by government agents while I was talking to a source. I've been arrested and forced to flush my notes down a toilet to keep the police from getting them, and I've been punched in the face in a Beijing Starbucks by a government goon who was trying to keep me from investigating a Chinese company's sale of nuclear fuel to other countries.

When you live abroad long enough, you come to understand that governments that behave this way are not the exception, but the rule. They feel alien to us, but from the viewpoint of the world's population, we are the aliens, not them. That makes you think about protecting your country no matter who you are or what you're doing. What impresses you most, when you don't have them day to day, are the institutions that distinguish the U.S.: the separation of powers, a free press, the right to vote, and a culture that values civic duty and service, to name but a few.

I'm not an uncritical, rah-rah American. Living abroad has sharpened my view of what's wrong with my country, too. It's obvious that we need to reinvent ourselves in various ways, but we should also be allowed to do it from within, not according to someone else's dictates.
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In a way, I see the Marines as a microcosm of America at its best. Their focus isn't on weapons and tactics, but on leadership. That's the whole point of the Marines. They care about each other in good times and bad, they've always had to fight for their existence -- even Harry Truman saw them as nothing more than the "Navy's police force" -- and they have the strength of their traditions. Their future, like the country's, is worth fighting for. I hope to be part of the effort.

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Mr. Pottinger, until recently a Journal correspondent in China, is scheduled to be commissioned a second lieutenant tomorrow.

"It's Joe Lieberman, the Democrat from Connecticut and 2000 running mate of Al Gore, who has dared to suggest we must and will win the war.

'I have just returned from my fourth trip to Iraq in the past 17 months and can report real progress there,' Senator Lieberman wrote on these pages November 29. 'What a colossal mistake it would be for America's bipartisan political leadership to choose this moment in history to lose its will [in Iraq].'

When that policy substance was ignored in Washington, the Senator repeated his case last week in the political language the Beltway press corps could finally comprehend: 'It is time for Democrats who distrust President Bush to acknowledge that he will be Commander in Chief for three more critical years, and that in matters of war we undermine Presidential credibility at our nation's peril.' The media, and his fellow Democrats, seemed agog."

So has Alan Greenspan become a tax-raiser in the autumn of his chairmanship of the Federal Reserve? That's what much of the coverage of his speech Friday would have you believe. But actually reading the speech leaves a very different impression.

Mr. Greenspan did focus on government deficits in his remarks to the Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia Policy Forum. But it was not the current $300 billion budget deficit he was mostly concerned about. It is the much larger problem of entitlements, specifically benefits promised under Social Security and Medicare. And that deficit is huge -- more than $30 trillion over the next 75 years.

The pain will start as soon as six years from now, when the first wave of Baby Boomers will become eligible to start collecting Social Security checks at 62. Although retirees can get higher benefits by waiting longer, about half currently choose to start collecting as soon as they can. You may recall from the debates earlier this year that the Social Security Trust Fund is projected to run a surplus through 2018 or so. But that surplus is given to Congress, which -- surprise! -- spends it and writes the Social Security fund an IOU.

In other words, money that could be saved to pay for future retirement benefits is instead spent today, creating a debt that one part of the government owes to another. That money will have to be paid back when the trust fund goes into deficit. As Mr. Greenspan noted Friday, that means either raising taxes (a lot) or cutting spending (a lot).

"However," he added, "tax increases of sufficient dimension to deal with our looming fiscal problems arguably pose significant risks to economic growth and the revenue base." Those risks are great enough "to warrant aiming, if at all possible, to close the fiscal gap primarily, if not wholly, from the outlay side." Translated from the Greenspan-ese: Cut spending.

Social Security, in his view, was the easier problem. According to the trustees, it is the smaller one too. But as Mr. Greenspan pointed out, advances in medical technology could very quickly drive up the costs of Medicare both by prolonging life and adding expensive new treatments to available medical options. That "risk" is very hard to quantify simply because we do not know what will be available to doctors and patients in two or three decades.

Mr. Greenspan was short on policy recommendations to fix the problems, properly saying this was something to be worked out by politicians. But he did note that Social Security is not now a "savings" program at all, and he suggested that maybe it would be better if it were. That means, as he pointed out, that the rest of government would have to cut spending or find other sources for the funds it currently "borrows" from Social Security. And he argued that changes in Social Security and Medicare were better made as soon as possible because, "We owe future retirees as much time as possible to adjust their plans for work, saving, and retirement spending."

In closing Mr. Greenspan added that "In the end, the consequences for the U.S. economy of doing nothing could be severe." This year, that was precisely the choice Congress made about Social Security reform, just as the Medicare prescription-drug benefit program was ultimately passed with much of the original Medicare reform stripped out.

Mr. Greenspan's language was typically measured, but his point was perfectly clear: Our government has made promises it cannot meet. Without changes in Congressional spending or entitlement reform -- or both -- those promises will eventually be broken. It's a vital point, if only the media had covered it.