Greetings loyal minions. Your Maximum Leader has been busy directing cleaning crews around the Villainous Compound in the aftermath of Hurricane Isabel. Also, I have noticed some wierdness with Blogger. These two factors have contributed to my not blogging much. But I felt I needed to throw out some ideas before I lost them…

First thought, your Maximum Leader is not sure why so many Democrats are so excited about Wesley Clark. Is it the uniform? I didn’t think Democrats were excited by a man in uniform. I could be wrong. Clark indicated today that he would roll-back some of the tax cuts and use the money to set up accounts for national security, boosting the economy, and otherwise paying for things that the Government (he thinks) ought to pay for. I agree with national security spending, but I am a not pleased with many of the social programs that other Dems would like to create/expand/grow.

Regardless, all these Democrats (Clark apparently included) are now saying that they were against the war. Or they now don’t like the war. Or that we need to rally the world behind us. The question in your Maximum Leader’s mind is “What are you going to to aout Iraq now?” Who cares what they thought about going to war? I don’t. Last time I checked, that issue was moot. The war was (is?) fought. We are now in Iraq. If they are elected what will they do? If we don’t garner international support (or UN approval or whatever they incessantly whine about) are they in favour of us leaving? They keep asking to what end the $87 billion will be spent? Hummm… Let me think about that. How about paying our soliders, keeping equipment running, financing combat/policing/humanitarian operations, and trying to rebuild Iraq’s infrastructure so that Iraq can become more stable and prosperous. Do they want a line-item breakdown? (Could they give a line item breakdown of where their favourite social program monies went? Do they care?)

So as your Maximum Leader contemplates the Democratic message on Iraq. (At least the message from Clark and Dean.) If we can’t get UN support for our being there, and our “allies” will not contribute more men and money; the US shouldn’t go it alone. If we aren’t going to go it alone that means we are going to leave. Right? Really, what alternative is there? And if we leave, what does that do to Iraq? Think about that one for a moment. If you think Iraq will (without our intervention) become a model state and not fall into the dictatorial anti-western mold of its neighbours, I would ask you to let me know what you’re on so I can give it out in tremedous quantities in the early days of the MWO. Because whatever it is, it is affecting your brain. Badly.

The second and final item of this short blog is prescription drug prices. Many people on both sides of the asile complain that prescription drugs cost too much. Your Maximum Leader has observed that immediately after someone complains about the cost of prescription drugs there is inevitably a reference to how Canada, or Britain, or France controls drug prices to make them affordable. Your Maximum Leader will provide a quick analysis of what is really being said in these statements. Here it is: Because the health care industry in the USA is not a branch of the government, it is driven by market forces. These market forces have helped to make US health care the envy of the world. So much so that all the other nations of the world come to our drug companies and want them to sell their drugs in other countries. But in those other countries the prices are controlled by the government so the US drug companies cannot charge a realistic price for the drug to help them fully recoup the costs of producing the self-same drugs that are in such demand. Thus, the US drug consumer is subsidizing the foreign drug market.

Allow me to state for the record, your Maximum Leader is a believer in free trade. But this item forces me to reconsider this position. Why should we allow foreign governments to set the price for our drug companies products? Why don’t we start to set prices on products from other countries? A little trade war now and then might be what is needed to break down some of the barriers to economic development in other nations and growing the US economy as well.

I know the World Trade Organization is ostensibly set up to deal with issues like this. But what good is the WTO really? Isn’t just a little economic clique of anti-American countries like the UN? I think so. Ultimately Americans must look after American interests. Often what is good for the USA is good for others as well. But in the end, we have to defend our interests - and international organizations based on building consenus among all nations has not been shown to advance US interests. I think we should re-think our role in many international organizations - or try to redefine the role those organizations’ missions to limit them to clearly defined tasks.

Anyway, in light of Blogger’s recent technical problems that will be all for now. More later.

Carry on.