Friedman Almost Makes Sense on Afghanistan, 95 Year Old Woman Forced by TSA to Remove Adult Diaper, China Ready to Lend to Eurozone, and Children on Medicaid Waiting Longer

Once in a blue moon, I find myself in (partial) agreement with Thomas Friedman.  His New York Times column today outlines the lessening influence the U.S. is having in the Middle East and the continuing fruitless endeavor we are waging on nation building:

When did the Middle East make us happiest in the last few decades? That’s easy: 1) when Anwar el-Sadat made his breakthrough visit to Jerusalem; 2) when the Sunni uprising in Iraq against the pro-Al Qaeda forces turned the tide there; 3) when the Taliban regime in Afghanistan was routed in 2001 by Afghan rebels, backed only by U.S. air power and a few hundred U.S. special forces; 4) when Israelis and Palestinians drafted a secret peace accord in Oslo; 5) when the Green Revolution happened in Iran; 6) when the Cedar Revolution erupted in Lebanon; 7) when the democracy uprisings in Tunisia, Libya, Yemen, Syria and Egypt emerged; 8) when Israel unilaterally withdrew from South Lebanon and Gaza.

And what do they all have in common? America had nothing to do with almost all of them. They were self-propelled by the people themselves; we did not see them coming; and most of them didn’t cost us a dime.

As for how the cold war ended, that’s easy. It ended when the two governments — the Soviet Union and Maoist China, which provided the funding and ideology propelling our enemies — collapsed. China had a peaceful internal transformation from Maoist Communism to capitalism, and the Soviet Union had a messy move from Marxism to capitalism. End of cold war.
Since then, we have increasingly found ourselves at war with another global movement: radical jihadist Islam. It is fed by money and ideology coming out of Saudi Arabia, Pakistan and Iran. The attack of 9/11 was basically a joint operation by Saudi and Pakistani nationals. The Marine and American Embassy bombings in Lebanon were believed to have been the work of Iranian agents. Yet we invaded Afghanistan and Iraq, because Saudi Arabia had oil, Pakistan had nukes and Iran was too big. We hoped that this war-by-bank-shot would lead to changes in all three countries. So far, it has not.

Friedman still advocates for partial intervention to direct the Middle East to a society he agrees with, but its great to see him pointing out all the mistakes we have made so far on conducting the War on Terror.

Well it was only a matter of time before everyone's favorite crotch grabbers (the TSA) moved on from 9 years olds to 90 year olds:

A woman has filed a complaint with federal authorities over how her elderly mother was treated at Northwest Florida Regional Airport last weekend.

Jean Weber of Destin filed a complaint with the Department of Homeland Security after her 95-year-old mother was detained and extensively searched last Saturday while trying to board a plane to fly to Michigan to be with family members during the final stages of her battle with leukemia.

Her mother, who was in a wheelchair, was asked to remove an adult diaper in order to complete a pat-down search.

Either searches are really starting to go overboard or one TSA guard gets his rocks off on old women.  I sure hope the TSA has a good background checking procedure.  And yet some wonder why airlines continue to see slagging demand.

So now China has been brought into the idiocy know as lending to the EuroZone:

Jun 26 (Reuters) - Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao said on Sunday he had no intention of pursuing a trade surplus and that he wanted balanced, sustainable trade growth for his country.
He was speaking during a tour of MG Motor's Longbridge factory in Birmingham, central England, during a three-day trade and political mission to Britain.
"China has no intention to pursue a trade surplus. What we want is to have balanced and sustainable growth of trade," he told the BBC through an interpreter.
He also said China would lend European countries experiencing trouble borrowing, just as it announced it would do for Hungary earlier this week.

It's hard to see what China's motivation for doing this is.  I suppose they wanna continue financing EuroZone debt so that they can continue selling cheap goods to those countries much like they have done to the U.S. for the past few decades.

For all the Paul Krugmans out there who continue to call for universal health care and deny the unintended consequence of increased wait time and shortages that develop in countries that have adopted said health care, see this from NYT:

Children with Medicaid are far more likely than those with private insurance to be turned away by medical specialists or be made to wait more than a month for an appointment, even for serious medical problems, a new study finds.

Lower payments by Medicaid, delays in paying and red tape are largely to blame, researchers say.
The study, with findings that match anecdotal reports from other parts of the country, is one of only a few efforts to measure access to health care among people with Medicaid. Nationwide, those patients are caught between states’ threats to cut Medicaid payments and the Obama administration’s plans to use the program to cover more and more people as part of its health care law.

Even though Ron Paul continues to stay strong in the presidential race by beating his fundraising goal of $3 million by the end of June, the mainstream media continues to disregard him and have already crowned Michelle Bachmann and Rick Perry as potential Tea Party favorites while Mitt Romney continues to flash those empty, Wall Street backed smiles.  But get this, Neo-Con Queen Bachmann might actually understand economics:

During an interview on CBS’s “Face the Nation” Bachmann said she is considering elimination of the minimum wage.

Maybe she really does read Mises on the beach.