The Washington Post - 03.03.2020

A22 EZ RE THE WASHINGTON POST.TUESDAy, MARCH 3 , 2020

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Regarding the Feb. 27 Metro article “Harpers Ferry hotel project gets jump-start”: If Harpers Ferry, W.Va., Mayor Wayne Bishop really wanted Hilltop House Hotel redevelopment plans to proceed, he has had innumerable chances to work with the developers to move the project forward. Instead, he has spent years trying to stall the project, spending scarce town funds on legal roadblocks and now threatening to sue the state of West Virginia over legislation that would help pave the way to sensible redevelopment the town desperately needs to shore up its 19th-century infrastructure and provide much-needed employ- ment opportunities. As the owner of two properties in Harpers Ferry,

I can attest that residents’ water and sewer bills have been increasing by double digits and that the streets in this historic town are crumbling. To top it all off, the cordoned-off structure of the collapsing Hilltop House permeates the town with a sense of decay. It’s way past time for the mayor and his few cohorts to acknowledge that thoughtful restoration — with close attention to the town’s history and atmosphere — is necessary for its economic and physical survival. Protecting Harpers Ferry, as Mr. Bishop says he wants to do, means harnessing 21st-century technology and practices to save and renew what’s left of, in the mayor’s words, our national historic treasure. Patricia Weil Coates , Frederick

A chance to save a national historic treasure

A

LMOST THREE years ago, Jim Yong Kim, then president of the World Bank, announced an innovative idea to use capital markets to help poor countries cope with pandemics. The bank launched a specialized pandemic bond and derivatives fund that would pay a handsome interest rate to investors, on the under- standing that investors would lose money if the bonds were needed to fight a spreading disease. The pandemic bonds have yet to pay out. Now is the time. Mr. Kim said in June 2017, at t he time of the launch, “We are moving away from the cycle of panic and neglect that has characterized so much of our approach to pandemics.” It was a noble goal, but the cycle remains. The new coronavirus disease, c ovid-19, is spreading around the world, people are panicking, and many poor countries with weak health systems stand to be hit exceedingly hard. The coronavirus

transmits between humans and has a high mortality rate among the elderly, according to tentative data from China, where t he outbreak began. Low- and middle-income countries are precisely those that the World Bank bonds were designed to help out, and, as Bill Gates pointed out last week, their health-care systems are already “stretched thin.” The World Bank’s Pandemic Emergency Financ- ing Facility grew out of the Ebola pandemic in 2014-2015 that killed 11,314 people in Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone. After-action studies concluded that the world needed a well-funded, rapid- reaction mechanism, a sort of financial firefighting team that could deploy rapidly in a crisis. The PEF has two channels: one an insurance window that would pay out from the bonds and derivatives, designed to help the poorest countries cope with a cross-border, large-scale outbreak of certain diseas- es; the other, a cash window for containment of

illnesses not eligible for the first. The cash window has been used for the Ebola outbreak in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Now it’s t ime to open the PEF insurance window. The fine print specifies that funds will be released when at least 20 people have died in the country where an outbreak began and in at least one other country, as long as both of those countries are eligible for funds from the World Bank. The PEF insurance funds can be released only when an outbreak is growing, and the first possible payout is 84 days after the start of the outbreak. In this case, that means t he first payout date could be March 23. Covid-19 has caused more than 3,000 deaths around the world, and the number is growing. The maximum potential payout from the PEF insurance window is $195.83 million. Investors will suffer, but they knew the risks. The World Bank should open the window as soon as possible.

Cashing in pandemic bonds

With the coronavirus spreading, the World Bank should expedite new aid to struggling countries.

F

ORMER SOUTH BEND, Ind., mayor Pete Buttigieg left the Democratic race Sunday, ending a historic presidential bid that saw an openly gay man win the Iowa caucuses and earn a place in t he top tier of presidential candidates. Mr. Buttigieg impressed the nation with his positive, forward-looking campaign. He was an advocate for reaching out and expanding the coalition in favor of progressive change rather than purity tests and rejection of compromise. Sen. Amy Klobuchar (Minn.), another voice of rea- son in the race, exited the next day. Ms. Klobuchar also won many admirers during her campaign — and also championed the idea that good politics and good policy alike call for reaching out and not preaching only to the converted. Mr. Buttigieg and Ms. Klobuchar concluded that the most constructive thing they could do before Tuesday’s 14 primary contests was suspend their campaigns, freeing their supporters to back another, more viable candidate representing the governing philosophy they espoused. They deserve credit for putting aside their egos in service of their principles. Those principles are bigger than any particular tax plan or health-care proposal, and they are shared by former vice president Joe Biden, whom both former candidates endorsed on Monday. “We need a broad- based agenda that can truly deliver for the American people, not one that gets lost in ideology,” M r. B uttigieg said in his valediction. In an interview with us Friday, Ms. Klobuchar spoke about meeting disaffected Re- publicans on the campaign trail: “I just don’t t hink that being willing to reach out to those people to heal our nation should be viewed as a negative in the Democrat- ic primary,” she said. “I think it should be viewed as what we need to do, not just to win, but to govern.” To win, Democrats must champion change but welcome supporters who may embrace only parts of their platform. To govern, they will need both to

energize the liberal base and build coalitions that go beyond it. And to begin repairing the damage Presi- dent Trump has inflicted on the nation, Democrats must be committed to respectful, civil discourse; to persuasion, not demonization. T he country has seen the toxic effects of the opposite approach over the past three years. The South Carolina primary Saturday showed that large swaths of the Democratic Party embrace this Buttigieg-Klobuchar philosophy of change and see Mr. Biden as an appealing embodiment of it. On the other side of the party’s philosophical divide are Ver-

mont Sen. Bernie Sanders and Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren. Each makes important points about inequality, the need for wider health-care cover- age and the necessity to root out cronyism, and each is far more decent than Mr. Trump. But they exhibit little patience for those who disagree, and Mr. Sanders’s unrealistic reliance on a “revolution” t o bring about the change he favors is a recipe for continued gridlock, and the deepened disillusion and cynicism that would foster. The uplifting, inclusive message championed by Ms. Klobuchar and Mr. Buttigieg during their campaigns offers a more plausible road to progress.

The Democratic

Party’s future

is on the ballot

The contest between two governing philosophies is narrowing.

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I read with great interest Kathleen Parker’s Feb. 26 op-ed, “Is Bloomberg’s workplace behavior disqualify- ing?,” in which she told us about Ginny Clark, the first female trainee at Salomon Brothers. Having been a third-year medical student on a surgical rotation in 1976, I can relate. Female surgeons were almost un- heard of at that time. My rotation consisted of six residents (at least a couple of whom looked as though they could bench press their own weight) at various levels of surgical training, as well as three of my classmates, all male. Our professors were also male. There was one other female surgical resident in the surgical training program, but she wasn’t on my rotation. Lewd jokes were told, tricks were played (think about surgical gloves filled with water), and extra “scut work” w as assigned to me. With all the silly jokes and tricks, I learned the skills they taught me, and after written exams and oral exams administered by two professors of surgery (males, of course), I wound up earning honors in surgery, one of my proudest accomplishments. The surgical team members who made such frequent com- ments about women not belonging in surgery actually encouraged me to go into surgery. That, too, made me proud. Although I eventually became a gastroenterolo- gist, surgery was my f avorite rotation. Being a woman in surgery then was as rare as being a female trader on Wall Street. Women who chose those careers knew what to expect. I gave as good as I got. Now, there are many female doctors, and in all specialties, surgical as well as nonsurgical. To para- phrase f ormer president Barack Obama: Yes, we could, and yes, we did! Carol Schuffler , Annandale

Overcoming workplace sexism

Fareed Zakaria omitted an important element in his excellent Feb. 28 Friday Opinion column, “Sanders’s Scandinavian fantasy”: defense spending. One over- whelming advantage the Nordic countries have over the United States is that their defense budgets are microscopic compared with that of the United States. For the past several years, the U.S. defense budget has averaged about $650 billion. For about the same time period, the defense budgets of Norway and Sweden have been less than $10 billion and less than $5 billion for Denmark and Finland. This enables these countries to offer greater health care and social support to their populations. Imagine what U.S. spending allocations would b e if Defense Department funding were on p ar with China (about $250 billion). With savings of $400 billion, maybe the United States could provide health care and social services on a par with our Scandinavian counterparts. Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), a candidate for the Democratic nomination for president, might want to take a look at t hat. Joseph Lowry , Arlington

Defense spending sets the U.S. back

In his Feb. 29 op-ed, “Colombia on its own can’t solve Venezuela’s refugee crisis,” Colombian Presi- dent Iván Duque highlighted the burden on Colom- bia of the 1.7 million Venezuelans who have recently immigrated there. He failed to mention that a large proportion of these “Venezuelans” are Colombian nationals who are returning home. About 5 million Colombians fled the country in the 1970s and 1990s to escape daily deadly violence. These 5 million Colombian refugees received all the benefits of Vene- zuelan citizenship, including free health care, educa- tion and subsidized food. Now, with a declining Venezuelan economy, many Colombian refugees are returning home. I f M r. Duque wants to lessen the refugee problem, perhaps he should demand that the United States drop its economic sanctions and trade embargoes, which are worsening the lives of people living in Venezuela. He s hould also stop the p romotion of more draconian measures aimed at Venezuela, which would only cause more people t o leave. Mr. Duque was right in his last sentence: The fate of the Western Hemisphere d epends on the r esolution of the crisis i n Venezuela. Will the region be dominated by the United States? Or will the region be a set of countries standing up to the United States and following their own n ational interests, which is w hat earned Venezu- ela t he wrath of the United States? L eonard Gianessi , Chevy Chase

Colombian President Iván Duque’s op-ed, and his subsequent meeting with President Trump, fo- cused on calling on the international community to support efforts to alleviate the Venezuelan migration crisis. But the international community must also take note of a pressing issue conveniently not men- tioned by Mr. Duque: the systematic killing of social activists and h uman rights defenders i n Colombia. More than 40 social activist leaders have been killed in Colombia this year, adding to the hundreds killed since the signing of the 2016 peace accords. These individuals are often the only people working to implement peace in the regions of the country where t he conflict was most violent. Mr. Duque’s administration has failed to address threats against social leaders, identify the intellectual authors o f these killings and implement k ey p oints o f the Colombia peace accords. The impact of these failures has been felt acutely in Afro-Colombian and indigenous communities, which have experienced rising insecurity and f orced internal displacement. The Venezuelan migration crisis deserves attention and resources. But in providing that assistance, the international community must recognize that it simultaneously n eeds t o pressure Mr. Duque’s a dmin- istration to protect social leaders. After all, if Mr. Duque’s government can’t commit to protecting the very people it needs to sustain Colombia’s long- sought-after peace, how will it fare in providing for the s ecurity o f Venezuelans in vulnerable situations? Gimena Sánchez-Garzoli , Washington The writer i s an a dvocate for human rights in C olombia.

Helping Venezuela’s refugees

Regarding the Feb. 27 Local Living article “A self-checkout lane how-to: Expedite your next shop- ping trip”: When you check yourself out, you are doing a checkout clerk and bagger’s work, helping to take away a t least one more job from someone who needs it. And on a low-traffic day, self-checkout can even take longer than a traditional line. I have seen people standing in a self-checkout line of three or four when at least one bagger was free. Kay Johnson , Silver Spring

The fastest way to take away a job

I

T TOOK only five days for President Trump’s nomination of Rep. John Ratcliffe as director of national intelligence to implode last summer. The Republican congressman, best known for his rabid defenses of the president, was widely described as the least qualified person ever to be proposed for t he p owerful p osition overseeing 17 government agencies. In an attempt to bolster his credentials, Mr. Ratcliffe made false claims about his record as a prosecutor in Te xas, heighten- ing bipartisan resistance to him in the Senate. When he scrapped the appointment, Mr. Trump conceded that the congressman had not been vetted for the job. Now Mr. Ratcliffe is back. Mr. Trump announced Friday that he was putting Mr. Ratcliffe forward again for the DNI job, offering the patently dishon- est explanation that Mr. Ratcliffe’s nomination was delayed to await an inspector general’s report about the FBI’s Russia investigation. The real motivation is probably far more cynical: Mr. Trump believes he can now force the Senate to swallow his choice, because the alternative is to retain the even more objectionable acting director he appointed just

under two weeks ago. Richard Grenell, the ambassador to Germany whom Mr. Trump installed as acting DNI, has even less intelligence experience than Mr. Ratcliffe, a junior member of the House Intelligence Commit- tee. Like Mr. Ratcliffe, he is known mainly for his combative advocacy for the president on television and social media. A law governing Cabinet vacancies would have forced Mr. Grenell to step aside on March 11 if there were no permanent nominee. Mr. Ratcliffe’s nomination exploits a loophole in the law: If the congressman is not confirmed by the Senate, Mr. Grenell can remain in the post for seven more months. Mr. Trump would force the Senate to choose between the two. One thing they have in common is skepticism about the findings of the intelligence agencies, which they would oversee, that Russia intervened in the 2016 election to aid Mr. Trump. Mr. Ratcliffe has floated the conspiracy theory that the investigation into the meddling was the result of “a secret society of folks within the Department of Justice and the FBI” trying to prevent Mr. Trump’s election. During the recent House impeachment hearings, his shil-

ling for the White House included demands for the investigation of a whistleblower who filed a com- plaint with the intelligence community’s inspector general about Mr. Trump’s attempts to extort political favors from Ukraine. As DNI, Mr. Ratcliffe might order such a probe himself. More importantly, either Mr. Ratcliffe or Mr. Grenell could be expected to squash further reporting by the intelligence community about Russian interference in this year’s election. Mr. Trump fired the previous acting director, Joseph Maguire, after a member of his staff briefed the House Intelligence Committee that Russia had “developed a preference” for M r. Trump in 2020. The absence of such reporting in the coming months would, no doubt, make it easier for Moscow to advance Mr. Trump’s cause. It would be astonishing for Republican senators to countenance such blatant political m a nipu l a tion of the intelligence community — if they had not already ratified multiple previous abuses by Mr. Trump. Those who wish to preserve their integrity — a nd that of agencies vital to U.S. national security — will reject both Mr. Ratcliffe and Mr. Grenell and insist on a qualified DNI nominee.

Back by underwhelming demand

Mr. Trump’s choice for intelligence chief is no more qualified now than he was last summer.

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The Washington Post - 03.03.2020

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