BU Now » Dick Taffe

Karzai aide linked to CIA

Dick Taffe — Thu, 26 Aug 2010 19:47:07 +0000

The New York Times reports that a key aid to Afghan President Hamid Karzai is on the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency payroll and has been for years. The aide, Mohammed Zia Salehi, is the chief of administration for the Afghanistan National Security Council and is at the center of a politically sensitive corruption investigation. International relations Professor Arthur Hulnick, a 35-year veteran of the intelligence profession, mostly with the CIA, says relationships the agency develops overseas inevitably include some people of questionable character.

“But that’s how the agency finds out what’s happening. Too bad that people who understand intelligence — and the New York Times reporters certainly do – -still spin the story to make it appear that the CIA is somehow ‘evil.’ They know better, even while the public is misled.”

Contact Arthur Hulnick, 617-353-8978, ahulnick@bu.edu

Stem-cell ruling hits BU researchers

Dick Taffe — Thu, 26 Aug 2010 14:54:01 +0000

The Obama administration is appealing a federal court ruling that challenged the legality of the president’s rules governing human embryonic stem cell research. Until a decision is made, however, federally funded research around the nation is threatened, including projects at Boston University. In a BU Today interview, School of Medicine hemotology and oncology assistant Professor George Murphy discusses the endangered research under way at BU and researchers’ reaction to the court injunction.

“Regardless of what our personal beliefs are, there’s no place in science for personal beliefs. We’re trying to operate on a higher plane, where everything is the research itself. What’s most upsetting to us as scientists is that courts make decisions they’re not completely informed about. And the public is in the dark.”

Contact George Murphy, 617-638-7520, gjmurphy@bu.edu

Social Security: “Fiscal child abuse”

Dick Taffe — Wed, 25 Aug 2010 21:34:39 +0000

The 2010 election season is under way and, as usual, the fate of the federal Social Security system is part of the political debate. College of Arts and Sciences economics Professor Laurence Kotlikoff, author of “Jimmy Stewart is Dead: Ending the World’s Ongoing Financial Plague with Limited Purpose Banking,” says as the Social Security program marks its 75th anniversary, it’s time to rebuild it into “Personal Security System” retaining the 1930s-vintage system’s best features, scrapping the rest, and covering its costs. Continuing Social Security without change, he writes in a Bloomberg commentary, amounts to “fiscal child abuse.”

“Our nation is in terribly hot water. Business as usual is no answer. The only way to move ahead is to radically reform our retirement, tax, health-care and financial institutions to achieve much more for a lot less. The Personal Security System is a major step in that direction. It meets all the legitimate goals of Social Security without the system’s waste and penchant for robbing the young.”

Contact Laurence Kotlikoff, 617-353-4002, kotlikoff@bu.edu

“Katrina on steroids”

Dick Taffe — Wed, 25 Aug 2010 16:50:04 +0000

With one-fifth of Pakistan under water (greater than the size of England), more than 1,500 dead, and 6 million homeless, torrential rains continue to haunt the southeast Asian nation and threaten both its fragile democracy and its touchy relationship with the United States. In a BU Today interview, Pakistani-born international relations Professor Adil Najam, director of the Pardee Center for the Study of the Longer-Range Future, says Americans should think of the Pakistan floods as “Katrina on steroids” and open their hearts to the victims. He also says it’s an opportunity to improve U.S.-Pakistan relations.

“The U.S.-Pakistan relationship is based on mutual distrust … The way to build that trust is to show real compassion and real humanity. If we do it out of strategic intent only, we will end exactly where we began: at a transactional relationship. If we do it out of real compassion, then maybe, just maybe, we could actually turn this relationship on its head and make it one based on real trust.”

Najam’s blog, “All Things Pakistan,” includes a list of humanitarian agencies where people can donate to the Pakistan relief effort.

Contact Adil Najam, 617-358-4000, anajam@bu.edu

Mortgage industry fees considered

Dick Taffe — Tue, 24 Aug 2010 21:24:15 +0000

A consensus reportedly is emerging within the Obama administration that some type of government guarantee will be needed to keep the struggling mortgage market humming. Even before dealing with the future of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the administration may propose that any federal backing of mortgages be financed by fees charged the lending industry. School of Management finance lecturer Mark Roberts, a former executive vice president at Fleet Bank, says the trick is is figuring what types of loans or mortgage-backed securities should be guaranteed — and how the industry should be charged for government backing.

“I believe we have two issues to deal with here — discovery of the market value of a government guarantee plus discovery of the perceived risk of underlying mortgage debt without guarantees. Until there is a functioning market for unguaranteed mortgage debt, we will not know how to price guarantees.”

Contact Mark Roberts, 617-353-4403, robertsm@bu.edu

Carter to free American in N.Korea

Dick Taffe — Tue, 24 Aug 2010 19:57:17 +0000

Former President Jimmy Carter is on another humanitarian mission, this time to free an American — 30-year-old Bostonian Aijalon Mahli Gomes (r.) – arrested in North Korea in January for illegally entering the communist nation and sentenced to eight years in prison. International relations Professor William Keylor, author of “A world of Nations: The International Order since 1945,” says the release seems to be all about North Korean domestic politics.

“There is obviously a furious struggle within North Korea over the succession to Kim Jong-il, and this latest gesture may represent a bid by the faction favoring better relations with the outside world to promote a resumption of the stalled six-party talks.”

Contact William Keylor, 617-358-0197, wrkeylor@bu.edu

U.S. urges Mideast peace talks

Dick Taffe — Fri, 20 Aug 2010 19:49:19 +0000

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has asked the Israeli prime minister and Palestinian president to resume peace talks which have been on hold for two years. She said direct negotiations will begin in Washington on Sept. 2. Journalism Professor Bob Zelnick, former ABC News foreign correspondent and author of “Israeli Unilateralism: Beyond Gaza,” says in a Politico commentary that after a recent extended fact-finding visit he found the Palestinians ready to deal.

“While maintaining no stated goal of ‘liberating’ Gaza, the new Palestinian leadership believes that a deal with Israel which establishes an independent Palestinian state will be hard for Hamas to oppose. Do I believe that a deal will be reached within the one-year time-limit the parties have set for themselves? Yes.”

Contact Bob Zelnick, 617-353-5007, bzelnick@bu.edu

U.S. combate troops leave Iraq

Dick Taffe — Thu, 19 Aug 2010 18:54:29 +0000

Aiming at a September 1st goal of leaving only 50,000 troops in the country, the last U.S. combat brigade has left Iraq — leaving some 56,000 U.S. non-combat troops still there. International relations Professor Augustus Richard Norton, a Middle-East specialist and an advisor to the Baker-Hamilton Iraq Study Group, says much focus has been on whether the Iraqi government’s police forces – trained by the U.S. — will be able to provide security for its citizens. But an equally important question, he says, is about the impact the drawdown will have on U.S. political influence in Iraq. He feels U.S. leverage will decrease, playing into the hands of Prime Minister Maliki.

“The problem is that the prime minister’s quest for power may well foster more instability and violence. Therefore, even as Washington contemplates a qualified exit in 2011, it is in the enlightened interest of the U.S. to play a keener, more active role in fostering a collaborative political solution in Iraq, one which might nudge Maliki out of the driver’s seat.”

Contact Augustus Richard Norton, 617-353-7808, arn@bu.edu

“Ground-Zero mosque” debate

Dick Taffe — Wed, 18 Aug 2010 21:01:43 +0000

President Obama says he has no regrets about insisting that any religious group has the right to build a house of worship wherever it is legally approved, like the Islamic center planned for a site two blocks from where the World Trade Center towers once stood. But conservative bloggers have been pushing the so-called “Ground-Zero mosque” story as a political wedge between Obama and Congressional democrats around the country facing re-election battles. Political science Professor Graham Wilson, author of “Only in America? American Politics in Comparative Perspective,” says it’s a classic case of public opinion swayed from Constitutional principles by xenophobic cries, these hostile to all of Islam not just the radicals responsible for 9/11.

“It would be great to see all the living ex-presidents issue a joint declaration that religious tolerance is core American value and that toleration includes Islam. The American public needs to be reminded what the Constitution says, and both our friends and foes in the Islamic world need to hear us saying that loud and clear. Let’s be clear: ‘Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.’”

Contact GrahamWilson, 617-353-2540, gkwilson@bu.edu

Pakistan floods continue devastation

Dick Taffe — Wed, 18 Aug 2010 19:00:44 +0000

Two weeks into the crisis, slow-moving floods continue to devastate vast swaths of Pakistan. Yet the floods – which already haveclaimed some 1,500 lives – has failed to yield the global aid response of previous natural disasters such as Hurricane Katrina. International relations Professor Adil Najam, a Pakistani who is director of the Pardee Center for the Study of the Longer Range Future, warns in an International Herald Tribune opinion piece and a WBUR interview that officials in Pakistan should heed the lessons of history – Cyclone Bhola in 1970 was the tipping point that led to the break-up of the country and the creation of the nation of Bangladesh.

“There is a reason why disasters require national solidarity. Without it, they can become even more disastrous. Deeply buried fissures in the social fabric can burst forth in volcanic anger. As we look around at the political, policy and citizen response to the current floods, one sees too many who wish to turn disaster into a political opportunity. Those who do would be well advised to remember Bhola.”

Contact Adil Najam, 617-353-4002, anajam@bu.edu