Think tanks wrap-up

WASHINGTON, Oct. 17 (UPI) -- The UPI think tank wrap-up is a daily digest covering opinion pieces, reactions to recent news events and position statements released by various think tanks.

Institute for Public Accuracy

(The IPA is a nationwide consortium of policy researchers that seeks to broaden public discourse by gaining media access for experts whose perspectives are often overshadowed by major think tanks and other influential institutions.)

WASHINGTON -- The Planned War on Iraq: A Big Boost to al Qaida? Hypocrisy on Israel and Indonesia?

-- Tamin Ansary, an Afghan-American and the author of "West of Kabul, East of New York."

"Reducing functioning societies to anarchy by destroying their infrastructure and killing great numbers of their citizens is likely to increase whatever legacy of grudge and grievance is already in place. It is also likely to increase the number of dislocated individuals living in furious impotence and stewing in secrecy."

-- Amy Goodman, host of the "Democracy Now!" radio program. Goodman has covered Indonesia for 12 years, winning several awards.

"The Bush administration wants to use the bombing in Bali to restore military support to the Indonesian military. The Indonesian military has actually helped start and support some of these radical Islamic groups. Bush is using the 'war on terrorism' to promote the Indonesian military -- which has actually brutally terrorized the Indonesian people for years."

-- Mark Lance, associate professor of justice and peace at Georgetown University.

"On the very day that President Bush is meeting with Ariel Sharon -- prime minister of the only country in the Middle East which possesses nuclear weapons, a country violating more outstanding United Nations resolutions than any other, a country which has maintained an illegal occupation for 35 years ... -- he reiterates his willingness to invade Iraq on the grounds that it might possess weapons of mass destruction and violates international law. Such hypocrisy will do nothing to strengthen the rule of law ... and much to encourage those who hate the United States."

-- Barbara Lubin, director of the Middle East Children's Alliance. Lubin just returned from visiting Iraq, Israel and the Israeli-occupied territories.

"We are losing sight of what the reality of life is for children in Iraq and in Palestine. In Iraq, children are going to school without pencils; there is no glass in the windows. I met with the head of the World Food Program in Iraq; he said that, contrary to much of what is said in the United States, the Iraqi food distribution program is the best they have been involved in. But any cutoff due to war could be devastating ... We need to understand the devastation that Sharon is putting upon the Palestinians with curfews and demolishing of homes of ordinary Palestinians. There is open discussion in Israel of 'transfer,' the ethnic cleansing of Palestinians by Israelis, should the United States invade Iraq."

The Pacific Research Institute

(PRI promotes individual freedom and personal responsibility as the cornerstones of a civil society, best achieved through a free-market economy, limited government, and private initiative. PRI researches and analyzes critical issues facing California and the nation, and crafts strategies for policy reform.)

By K. Lloyd Billingsley

WINDSOR, Ontario -- Capital Ideas: Borderline Issues

It is the only place where you can look north from Canada into the United States. And here, at one of the most crossed borders in the world, some realities become clear, such as the nature of the traffic headed southward. While American politicians make a great show of bus tours to Canada, Canadians board buses headed south, in search of medical care.

"The Canadian way," as they say here, is to have the government run health care. Part of the package is incessant propaganda, much of it through a complicit media, that Canadians are getting the best health care in the world. And as prime minister Jean Chretien recently noted, if there are problems, it's only because the state hasn't been spending enough. Under Canadian orthodoxy, this process avoids an unjust "two-tiered" system, in which those with more money can purchase what they need. But even in this dominion of the docile, people know better, even columnists.

Writing in the Windsor Star, Claire Hoy notes that there is in fact a two-tiered system, and maybe three or four tiers. Between 1999 and 2002, the province of Ontario alone spent $67.4 million on pre-approved medical treatments in the United States, the place Canada sends people when it can't cope. In 1998, according to Statistics Canada, 17,000 were sent to the United States for treatment unavailable or unacceptably delayed in Canada, where the queue is a national institution. That translates to 166,000 Canadians, almost the population of Windsor, receiving health care in the United States during one year.

As Hoy points out, leviathan health care is not specifically Canadian but was pioneered in Germany by Bismark. This is not a system America should emulate. If we nationalize health care and, in Canadian style, eliminate private alternatives, then Americans would also have to look abroad for care. Perhaps to Guatemala?

There is, however, a lighter side to the Canadian system. During my stay in Windsor a man posed as a "lactation technician" in Toronto hospitals and was only discovered when one of the nursing mothers requested a repeat performance of his services.

Border traffic also moves north, and bristles with ironies. Canada gives asylum to virtually all comers, even those with false passports, but literary and political material gets the heavy treatment. For example, Customs Canada recently held up for 48 hours delivery of a pamphlet, "In Moral Defense of Israel," from an Ayn Rand society in California while officials decided whether or not it was "hate literature."

Some years ago they also slapped a block on the Satanic Verses by Salman Rushdie. In this politically correct world, criticism of an ethnic group can bring penalties. But completely exempt is the strident anti-Americanism that practically defines Canada's chattering classes. Meanwhile, another northward trend is students.

While Windsor, where they build the Chrysler mini-van, is booming, Canada's economy is not robust and its currency is weak. Therefore, more Americans, seeking to stretch their dollar, seek to attend such prestigious universities as McGill and Dalhousie. As a recent headline put it, "Weak Loonie Lures Students to Canada."

That is vivid imagery all right. Actually, the dollar coin here features a loon and is known as the "loonie." But there is a kind of fearful symmetry to it.

(K. Lloyd Billingsley is the editorial director of the Pacific Research Institute.)