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FGHIJ Moscow’s mistrust
an independent newspaper EDITORIALS
S O Why Russian spies misunderstand America
OME PROFESSIONALS in the espionage world have taken pleasure in mocking the 20th-century tactics of what the U.S. gov- ernment alleges is a ring of 11 undercover Russian agents arrested this week — the B- movie codes and counter-codes, the brush-past money exchanges and so forth. But there’s a bigger mystery to many Americans: Why would the suc- cessor to the KGB invest so much money and effort “to infiltrate academic, policymaking and government-connected circles,” as The Post de- scribed the mission in its news story Wednesday, when people in those circles are only too happy to talk with anyone who comes calling? To answer that question, you have to understand the steadily widening asymmetry between Russian and American societies. During the past decade, with former KGB officer Vladimir Putin in charge, Russia has become increasingly closed in many
Race to the bottom?
A doubtful bill to save teachers’ jobs threatens school reform.
NLY A SMALL portion of the $100 billion the federal government directed to states in school stimulus spending funds last year was directly tied to reform. But even those
relatively small amounts have had a sizable impact as states rushed to make needed changes to com- pete for Race to the Top dollars. Yet Congress is con- sidering taking precious dollars from this and other reform programs of the Obama administration to fund a suspect effort to preserve education jobs. Rep. David R. Obey (D-Wis.), chairman of the
House Appropriations Committee, wants to take money set aside for reform initiatives to help fund the $10 billion Keep Our Educators Working Act. To help come up with spending offsets to advance the long-stalled bill, Mr. Obey proposed cutting about $500 million from the $4.35 billion Race to the Top fund, $200 million from the Teacher Incentive Fund that supports creation of pay-for-perform- ance programs and $100 million from the Charter Schools Program. The plan, unveiled Tuesday, set off howls of protests from advocates for education reform,who see it as major setback to their efforts. Mr. Obey, though, was unapologetic, telling us that reform is rendered meaningless when massive numbers of teachers are in danger of losing their jobs. We have made no secret of our skepticism about this jobs bill — as opposed, for example, to an exten- sion of unemployment benefits, which Congress should approve without delay. The jobs bill’s stim- ulative effect has been exaggerated, as has been the need for it. When the bill was first advanced, its ad- vocates warned about looming layoffs of some 300,000 teachers. However, school districts across the country are finding other cost-cutting ways — freezing pay, increasing class size, consolidating ad- ministrative functions — to save jobs. Mostly, though, we were suspicious of throwing yet more money into stopgap measures to sustain an educa- tional status quo that is not working. Why, for in-
ways. Historical archives that after the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991 welcomed scholars from all nations have re-shut their doors. Television has fall- en back under government control. International organizations have been pushed out of Russia, and independent nonprofit groups in Russia have been squeezed, harassed and threatened. Russia is essen- tially a one-party state, as it was 20 years ago. The United States by contrast is wide open. Un-
like American organizations in Russia, the Russian government is welcome to hire public relations firms here, put Russian programming on cable tele- vision and distribute its message as it sees fit. Its diplomats are welcome to attend think-tank semi- nars in Washington, and the give-and-take of Amer- ican politics is an open book for them. Many modern Russians understand this perfectly well. But to the conspiratorial KGB mentality, it all seems like a trick. Because the Kremlin determines
which stories appear in state-controlled media in Moscow, it assumes the same must be true in Wash- ington. If think tanks and academics welcome all comers, they must have a hidden motive that only insiders understand. If their reports are publicly available, there must be a secret annex distributed only to those in the know. As with any such scandal, there’s much we don’t know about this alleged ring. Eventually we may learn that some of its agents managed to learn real secrets that the U.S. government wanted to hide. For now, though, what’s sad about the event is the dis- torted mirror Russia’s rulers are holding up — and what that says about Russia itself. Their view of an American society that can be “penetrated” only by secret agents reflects the Russia they are creating: one where civil society is stifled, and fewer and few- er people dare or are permitted to express their true views in the public sphere.
TOM TOLES
THURSDAY, JULY 1, 2010
LETTERS TO THE EDITOR
dletters@washpost.com
Improving maternal health care
Regarding the June 26 news story out of the Group of Eight summit “Reduction in funds for maternal and infant health criticized”: Reduced funding may be a blessing in disguise if it
focuses the minds of all partners in the supply chain on the efficiency of aid funding, rather than the amount. Management of local service delivery institutions is typically the weakest link in that chain, and there is lit- tle doubt that a huge share of funding is wasted. In- deed, management education for health personnel is one of the pillars of the World Health Organization’s Global Health Workforce Alliance. Nairobi Hospital’s turnaround and Hygeia, a major
Nigerian health-care provider, are examples of how modest outlays for management training can improve outcomes. Both organizations used a business ap- proach to improve health delivery with significant re- sults. And a focus on leadership development in Egypt’s Aswan Governorate contributed to a drop in the maternal mortality rate from 85 to 35 per 100,000 births over four years. At a recent Nairobi meeting, nine sub-Saharan Afri- ca management schools joined schools of public health, nongovernmental organizations and donors to form a consortium for health leadership and manage- ment education. Aid agencies, philanthropic groups and corporations should find this consortium a helpful tool in using scarce resources more effectively and view the downturn in aid funding as an opportunity to focus on increasing the effectiveness of health interventions. GUYPFEFFERMANN, Chevy Chase
The writer is chief executive of the nonprofit Global Business School Network.
Other aid groups may “slam the lack of financial as- sistance for a maternal and child-health initiative” at the G-8 summit in Canada, as the online headline of the June 26 news story said, but the Global Health Council, which represents almost 600 global health or- ganizations worldwide, is not one of them. Although we global health advocates will never get
everything we would like, the $7.3 billion, five-year Muskoka Initiative takes us closer to the $30 billion needed to achieve Millennium Development Goals on child and maternal health. We welcome the initiative in the hope that the G-8 will catalyze other pledges and transform them into the collective action needed to save millions of lives. The Post might have heard different, and more posi- tive, reactions to this initiative if the Canadian govern- ment had given more access to civil society representa- tives like myself, who were segregated in an “Alterna- tive Media Center” across the street from the main media center in Toronto.
DAVIDJ. OLSON,Washington
The writer is director of policy communications for the Global Health Council.
Metro’s free-parking blunder Metro is raising fares at the front door and letting
money go out the back door. On Sunday, my husband and I drove to the Shady Grove Metro parking lot to board the Red Line for downtown Gallery Place. We paid the new 18 percent higher fare and six hours later returned and left with- out being charged the $4.75 parking fee. This is usually the case on weekends and late at night. Does this make any sense?
stance, would the federal government want to give additional funds to a system that blindly allows ef- fective teachers to be laid off but keeps those who do poor work but have been on the job longer? Why wouldn’t the federal government insist that any new federal money be conditioned on districts making reforms in how teachers are evaluated or compensated? Instead, Mr. Obey would penalize the precious
few programs that do foster needed change. If his measure is approved, fewer states will get funds to
reward high-performing teachers who work with at-risk students, there will be less money to help ef- fective charter networks like KIPP (Knowledge Is Power Program) and there will be no incentive for states to enact reforms. That Mr. Obey’s proposal would pull back money intended to fund Race to the Top applications that have already been filed can only be seen as undercutting any credibility U.S. Education Secretary Arne Duncan would have in coaxing state officials to make the often-hard po- litical decisions of education reform.
Ms. Kagan speaks Sen. Graham elicits some refreshing candor.
D
URING MUCH OF her confirmation hear- ing this week, Elena Kagan has stuck to the script adopted by post-Robert Bork nominees to the Supreme Court, providing
answers that are so general as to be meaningless. When asked about the Second Amendment, she noted that the Supreme Court had recognized an individual right to keep and bear arms — the same answer given by then-nominee Sonia Sotomayor, who voted this week against such an interpretation of the Constitution. Ms. Kagan asserted the impor- tance of judicial “modesty” and “humility” in re- specting congressional pronouncements — echo- ing the words of nominee John G. Roberts Jr., for whom, as, chief justice, deference has not extended to congressionally mandated campaign finance laws.
But there have been moments of clarity that demonstrated how such hearings could be more useful. It is no coincidence that one such revelatory moment came during a cordial and substantive ex- change with South Carolina Republican Lindsey O.
Graham, who appears to be the only Republican on the Judiciary Committee with an open mind about the nominee. His questions were less about scoring a “gotcha” than they were about eliciting honest answers.
And he got them. Ms. Kagan, who had been pressed by others to categorize her legal approach, acknowledged in response to Mr. Graham that her “political views are generally progressive.” “It would be okay, from your point of view, if a
conservative president picked someone in the mold of a conservative person?” Mr. Graham asked. “I would expect that,” Ms. Kagan answered. “Good,” Mr. Graham replied, who had earlier de- clared that “elections have consequences” and that he would be “shocked if President Obama did not pick someone that shared his general view of the law and life.” This simple and correct assessment paved the
way for an enlightening conversation, much of it focused on national security matters. Ms. Kagan acknowledged that the United States is at war; that
the 2001 Authorization for the Use of Military Force and the Supreme Court have recognized the president’s power to hold a detainee until the end of hostilities; that these authorities may weaken as time wears on; and that the president’s power to hold terrorism suspects without trial would be bol- stered by working with Congress to craft laws to govern these matters. Mr. Graham also asked Ms. Kagan about Miguel
A. Estrada, the talented Bush nominee who was in- excusably filibustered by Democrats for a federal appeals court slot. It’s likely that Mr. Estrada’s sup- port of Ms. Kagan’s nomination did not sit well with many conservatives; Ms. Kagan’s declaration that Mr. Estrada is “qualified to sit” as an appellate judge and as a Supreme Court justice is clearly at odds with the views of many of the Democrats who will soon sit in judgment of her. The conversation between Mr. Graham and Ms. Kagan was refreshing, open and informative and a useful reminder of how confirmation hearings can and should work.
LOCAL OPINIONS 3Join the debate at
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Why Stalin mattered in the success of D-Day The June 26 editorial “Stalin, hero of D-
Day?,” about the new Stalin bust at the Nation- al D-Day Memorial in Bedford, Va., betrayed either historical ignorance or ideological blindness. Joseph Stalin was an unsavory character. But unlike Poland, France, the Low Countries and others, the Soviet Union did not throw in the towel to Hitler — in part because of Stalin’s ruthlessness. James Dunnigan, au- thor of “Dirty Little Secrets of World War II,” reveals that seven-eighths of all months in combat by German divisions in World War II were expended on the Russian front. Charles Winchester, in “Ostfront,” informs
us that in August 1944, 38 Allied divisions de- feated 20 German divisions in France; further east, 172 Soviet divisions overwhelmed 67 Ger-
man divisions. These data suggest that had it not been for the Soviet Union — and the deci- sions of its leadership, however odious — the Western Allies on D-Day would have met a fate similar to their abortive landing at Dieppe in 1942. World War II was a good war in the most im-
portant sense: Just ask the intended victims of the New Order who managed to survive. But it was also deeply ambiguous and tragic: With allies like Stalin, Mao Zedong, Tito and Ho Chi Minh, how could it not be? Unfortunately, the editorial offered a cartoon caricature of events that did justice neither to the veterans of D- Day, who were part of a much larger struggle, nor to the historical record. MIKE LOFGREN, Alexandria
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Could it be that Metro does not want to hire person- nel to staff the parking lots? Come on. In this techno- logical world, they aren’t really needed. The present signage is clear: You need a SmarTrip card to exit the parking lot. If this is really a problem for those without SmarTrip cards, put in a credit card machine. It would pay for itself in time. I don’t relish paying $4.75 if I don’t have to, but look
at the big picture:When Metro is raising rates because of budget deficits and a safety record that worries many riders, I wonder why management ever lets peo- ple park for free. Metro management needs to look be- yond fares as the answer to budget deficits. JULIE A. TRUEMAN, Germantown
Not ready for free trade with Korea
The June 28 editorial “Smart trade,” in support of the proposed free-trade agreement between the United States and South Korea, said that such a deal will result in “opening the trillion-dollar Korean economy to a wide range of U.S. products and ser- vices.” This, the editorial claimed, “will go a long way toward helping Mr. Obama meet his goal of doubling U.S. exports over the next half-decade.” The same argument has been used over the past 20 years to promote agreements expanding trade with China, Mexico and a dozen other countries. Exports have risen. But imports and the offshoring of produc- tion have risen much faster, adding to our massive trade deficit and foreign debt and undercutting both American wages and overall economic growth. The reality is that the U.S. economy — as opposed
to U.S.-headquartered multinationals — is not inter- nationally competitive. We are running chronic trade deficits in traditional and high-tech industries. Before any more agreements are signed, we need a serious, large-scale commitment to upgrading our infrastructure, skills and industrial technology for domestic production. Otherwise, the Korea trade pact will just dig us deeper into our financial hole. JEFF FAUX,Washington
The writer is a fellow at the Economic Policy Institute. Lifting up our own through education
The June 28 front-page article “A newly un- hindered China invests billions for a scientific edge,” said: “Ever since the United States opened the door to Chinese students in the 1970s, hundreds of thou- sands have flocked to America. Most have studied science or engineering and have been welcomed in research institutions across the land. But with China becoming a competitor, U.S. experts have begun to question that practice.” Where would U.S. science be if American policy had instead focused the past 30 years on providing equal educational opportunity to hundred of thou- sands of its deprived citizens of color? How many po- tential scientists and engineers of color have been lost to drug addiction, prison and violence because America devalued them and made quality education an impossible goal? Asecondary headline on the article said, “U.S. wor- ried about competition from the scientists it helped train.” America bought and paid for the threat. Until America invests in its own and views all of its citizens with equal importance and deserving of quality edu- cation and opportunity, it increasingly will face the consequences of its deeply seated racial policies. JOSEPHINEGIRON,Washington
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