Looking in the mirror isn't the best way to look inside. It is easier to hide an addiction with make up and trained responses, and hidden behaviors than it is to be transparent ...

As much as I am a free market advocate, it wouldn't take much, to require a MPG on steroids as have huge tax incentives for alternative energy development, including nuclear.

When one considers that the Iraq war is costing us unknown dollars, a BILLION A WEEK OR MORE, energy conservation make more acute sense each day.

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December 1, 2006
Op-Ed Columnist
The Energy Wall

By THOMAS L. FRIEDMAN
The problem of Iraq looks like such a mess that it’s hard to figure out not only where we are but what to do next — if we decide to just leave. Whenever I find myself trying to think through a big problem in the Middle East like this, I start small and refer back to the core Israeli-Palestinian conflict. It can tell you a lot.

I believe the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is to the big “clash of civilizations” now under way between the Muslim world and the West what the Spanish Civil War was to World War II. It’s Off Broadway to Broadway.

The Spanish Civil War, 1936-1939, was the theater where Great European powers tested out many weapons and tactics that were later deployed on a larger scale in World War II. Similarly, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict has been the small theater where many weapons and tactics get tested out first and then go global. So if you study the evolution of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, Off Broadway, you can learn a lot about how the larger war now playing out on Broadway, in Iraq and Afghanistan, might proceed.

For instance, airplane hijacking was perfected in the Israeli-Palestinian context, as a weapon of terrorism, and then was globalized. Suicide bombing was perfected there, and then was globalized. The Oslo peace process, which David Makovsky, of the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, calls an “attempt by Israel to empower a Palestinian partner with whom to negotiate,” was first tried there and then, in a different way, moved to the big stage with the U.S. invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan. These were a U.S. effort to create Arab and Afghan partners to push a progressive, democratic agenda in the Muslim world.

Unfortunately, Oslo failed Off Broadway, and now Iraq and even Afghanistan seem to be failing on Broadway. So what do we do next? Again, start by looking at what happened in the Israeli-Palestinian theater.

Israel decided to just build a wall.

As a result of the Palestinian intifada of 2000-2004. Israel concluded that partnership at that time was impossible with the Palestinians, whose leaders were too divided and dysfunctional to prevent suicide bombing. So Israel erected a wall, unilaterally pulled out of Gaza and basically said to the Palestinians, “We’ll continue to engage you, but only from a position of strength, only after we’re insulated from the daily threat of suicide bombings or the burden of occupying Gaza.”

What would be the equivalent for the West and the Muslim world? Also build a wall? Some people want to do that by vetoing Turkey’s entry into the European Union, which would be a huge, huge mistake. But how do we insulate ourselves from the madness of the Middle East — if Iraq and Afghanistan can’t be made to work — without giving up on reform there, which is still badly needed?

Build a virtual wall. End our oil addiction.

We need to end our dependence on this part of the world for energy, because it is debilitating for us and for them. It is terrible for us, because addicts never tell the truth to their pushers. We are the oil addicts and they are the oil pushers. The only way we can be brutally honest with them is if we undertake the necessary conservation measures, investments in renewable fuels and a gasoline tax hike that could make us energy independent.

I do not want my girls to live a world where the difference between a good day and bad day is whether Moktada al-Sadr lets Iraq’s prime minister, Nuri al-Maliki, meet with the U.S. president or whether certain Arab regimes alter what their textbooks say about non-Muslims. I wish them all well, but I don’t want them impacting my life and I don’t want to be roiling theirs, and the only reason we are so intertwined now is O-I-L.

Not only would ending our oil addiction protect us from the worst in the Arab-Muslim world, it would help us support the best. These regimes will never reform as long as they enjoy windfall oil profits, which allow them to maintain closed societies with archaic education systems and protected industries that can’t compete globally. The small Persian Gulf state of Bahrain just held its second free election, in which women could vote and run. Bahrain is also the first Arab gulf state to start running out of oil. No accident.

Everyone asks what is our “Plan B” for Iraq. Answer: It’s get out as soon as we can, with the least damage possible, just as Israel got out of Gaza. And then build a wall — not a physical wall, but a wall of energy independence that will enable us to continue to engage honestly with the most progressive Arabs and Muslims on a reform agenda, but without being hostage to the most malevolent.

Saddam's forces filled mass graves with children
by Paul SchemmThu Nov 30, 8:11 AM ET
Iraqi troops have gunned down mothers cradling infants and slaughtered scores of Kurdish children before bulldozing them into mass graves, a forensic expert told Saddam Hussein's genocide trial.

In harrowing testimony, American expert Michael Trimble explained how three mass graves discovered since the March 2003 US invasion of Iraq were filled mainly with the bullet-riddled corpses of very young children.

Of 301 corpses in the graves, 183 were Kurdish children killed during Saddam's Anfal campaign in 1988, said Trimble, who is the head of the mass graves investigation unit at the Iraqi High Tribunal

"The captives were often bound and blindfolded. The captives were led into the grave and then executed with pistols or automatic assault rifle fire. The graves were then covered by those directing the execution," Trimble said.

"In all these graves, 90 percent of the children are less than 13 years of age," he said, adding that one was a child of six to 12 months, "shot in the back of his head as his mother held him in her arms."

Describing the evidence found at one of the graves in Al-Muthanna in southern Iraq Trimble said: "It was a highly organised programme of execution."

Trimble showed slides of a child of five to six years whose legs were cut in half by a bullet. She had been dressed in little green boots embossed with the image of a small cat.

Another child of eight to 10 years had wounds on the front and back.

"It is very clear these people were twisting as they were getting shot at. There is a terror that takes over as people try to get out of the way. It's a very common human response," Trimble said.

Another girl of nine to 16 years was carrying some tea and a little glass vial of perfume when she was shot.

A pregnant woman aged between 35 to 40 years was killed by a single round which passed through her womb and killed her unborn child, he said.

Describing a gruesome death of a child of three to nine years from the Muthanna grave, Trimble said: "There is no gunshot trauma on this child, this child's ribs were broken on the right side as you can see."

"We cannot document it because we don't have the flesh, but this child probably smothered to death in his mother's arms because a broken rib would not have killed him," he said.

Trimble stressed that all the victims were Kurds.

"In all this clothing, it's very distinct of Kurdish people. I might say that all the clothes in all the graves we tested was Kurdish."

Trimble said that the average number of times children were shot was four and adults nine and that "that's a huge number."

Most of the dead were shot either standing or kneeling next to the graves.

From the 123 bodies found in one of the two Nineveh graves, Trimble said "all these individuals were executed by gunshot. There were no adult males."

"There were 25 adult females, and I would call your attention to the fact there were 98 children."

Saddam dismissed the Trimble's testimony, saying that an American could not be unbiased.

"Let me suggest to the court to put into consideration only what is mentioned by American expert but call a new trial expert that has nothing to do with the enemy or the army of the enemy," he said.

"Let him come and examine the mass graves, or other mass graves, because I know there are more mass graves, and let him start neutrally," he added.

Co-defendant and the former deputy of operations for Iraq's armed forces Hussein Rashid said that the Anfal campaign was "conducted to kick the Iranians out of the north part of Iraq."

"We are not responsible for mass graves, we never issued any orders to kill anyone or make mass graves. We do not accept this," he insisted, before the trail was adjourned until Monday.

Iraqi prosecutors are attempting to build an overwhelming body of evidence of the deliberate mass slaughter of Kurdish civilians by Iraqi forces.

Saddam and six co-defendants are accused of killing 182,000 Kurds in 1988, when government troops swept through Kurdistan, burning and bombing thousands of villages, sometimes with poison gas.

The former regime says the Anfal campaign was a legitimate counterinsurgency operation against Kurdish separatists at a time when the country was locked in war with neighbouring Iran.

Saddam has already been handed a death sentence in a previous trial.

November 30, 2006
Op-Ed Columnist
Waiting to Be Wooed

By DAVID BROOKS
I’ve never been a swing voter before. For most of my adult life I’ve felt the Republicans tended to have the best approaches to expand economic opportunity, meet foreign threats and restore a culture of personal responsibility. But over the past few years I’ve grown estranged from many Republicans, especially the ones leading the House. I’m one of those suburbanites who thought the G.O.P. deserved to lose the last election, and now I find myself floating out there in independent-land, not a Democrat, just looking for something new.

It’s like being the belle of the ball, because the Republicans really need to woo back people like me. I hope they won’t mind if I offer a little advice on how to do it.

First, don’t listen to your consultants. Over the next few months, pollsters are going to pick out the key demographic groups (left-handed Catholic orthopedists) and offer advice on how to kiss up to those people. Majorities are never built that way. You end up proposing inconsequential micropolicies and selling your soul.

Don’t focus on groups, focus on problems. If you have persuasive proposals to address big problems, the majority coalition will build itself.

Second, be policy-centric, not philosophy-centric. American conservatism grew up out of power and has always placed great emphasis on doctrine. Today, in the wake of this month’s defeat, Republicans are firing up the old debate among social conservatives, free-market conservatives and others about the proper role of the state. This stale, abstract debate will never lead anywhere and only inhibits creative thinking.

The Republican weakness is not a lack of grand principles, it’s a lack of concrete policies commensurate with the size of 21st-century problems. If they would shelve the doctrinal debate for a second, Republicans — while not doing violence to their belief in the market, traditional values or anything else — could find plenty of policy ideas to deal with China and India, the entitlement crisis and so on.

Third, create a Republican Leadership Council. In the realm of ideas, Democrats own the center. Moderate Democrats have the Democratic Leadership Council, the Third Way and various cells within the Brookings Institution, such as the Hamilton Project. Republican moderates are intellectual weaklings. They have no independent identity, so it’s no wonder centrist voters prefer Democrats on one domestic issue after another.

Fourth, support stem cell research. This has become a symbolic issue denoting fundamental attitudes about science and progress. Moderates can understand why somebody is anti-abortion. But opposing stem cell work seems to close off research that could alleviate human suffering for the sake of a theoretical abstraction.

Fifth, support free trade, while responding to the downside of globalization. When the industrial age kicked in, many European nations built an elaborate welfare state, but didn’t aggressively expand educational opportunity. Americans didn’t build as big a welfare system, but, as the blogger Reihan Salam pointed out recently, we spent a lot on schools to foster social mobility.

The American way is to help people compete, not shield them from competition. Today that means nurturing stable families in which children can develop the social and cultural capital they need to thrive. (A significant expansion of the child tax credit would ease the burden on young parents.) It means publicly funded, though not necessarily publicly run, preschool programs in which children from disorganized homes can learn how to learn. It means radical school reform: performance pay for teachers, an end to the stupid certification rules, urban boarding schools where educators can set up local cultures of achievement, locally run neighborhood child centers to service an array of health and day-care needs.

Sixth, spread assets. Every citizen, from birth, should have an I.R.A.-type savings account. The tax code should encourage personal and employer contributions. These accounts would enhance savings and encourage an investor mentality, and once Americans became comfortable with them, they could be used as tools to reform Social Security and health care funding.

Seventh, raise taxes on carbon emissions and use the revenue to make the tax cuts on capital gains and dividends permanent. This would spur energy innovation and encourage investment more generally.

Over the past few years, the G.O.P. has become like a company with a great mission statement, but no domestic policy products to sell. Now’s the time to get granular. And the thing to remember is, we disaffected voters are easy. We want to go home with you if you’ll give us a reason.

Why the Baker-Hamilton Commission Ought to Visit Mount Vernon
By Newt Gingrich
Posted: Tuesday, November 28, 2006

ARTICLES
Daily Standard
Publication Date: November 28, 2006

The Sunday before Thanksgiving Callista and I took some friends to Mount Vernon to see the new education center. It is an amazing tribute to George Washington and the creation of America.


Senior Fellow Newt Gingrich

We watched a movie about George Washington crossing the Delaware on Christmas Eve and surprising the Hessians (German mercenaries) on Christmas Day in Trenton. As I watched, I was struck by the amazing difference between the attitude of the father of our country and the current attitudes in the city that bears his name.

General Washington had had a long and painful summer and autumn of defeat in 1776. His American Army had been defeated across New York--in Brooklyn, in Manhattan, and in White Plains--and then driven across New Jersey and forced to flee across the Delaware River into Pennsylvania.

Washington's Night Crossing: "Victory or Death"

Washington's forces had dwindled until he had only about 4,000 effective soldiers left. There were another 6,000 men present but they were so sick they were unable to go into battle.

Faced with declining morale, rising desertions, the collapse of political will in the country at large, and a sense of despair, Washington decided to gamble everything on a surprise attack. It would require a night crossing of an icy river against a formidable professional opponent.

But the most telling sign of Washington's mood as he embarked on the mission was his choice of a password. His men said "victory or death" to identify themselves.

What if There Had Been a Baker-Hamilton Commission Advising General Washington?

That night crossing, immortalized in paintings of Washington standing in the boat as Marblehead Fishermen rowed him across the ice strewn river, led to an amazing victory on Christmas Day. That victory led to a surge in American morale and a doubling in the size of the American forces under Washington within two weeks. And that gave Washington the strength to win a second surprise victory at Princeton.

Within two weeks, Washington had gone from defeated, hopeless bungler to victorious American hero and personification of the American cause.

Imagine there had been a Baker-Hamilton commission--the group charged with assessing our options in Iraq--advising Washington that cold Christmas Eve. What "practical, realistic," advice would they have given him?

Eleven Key Tests for the Baker-Hamilton Report

Will the Baker-Hamilton Commission make a real contribution in helping us win the war against the fanatic wing of Islam? Or will it be simply one more establishment effort to hide defeat so the American political system can resume its comfortable insider games without having to solve real problems in the larger world? Here are some key things to look for in its report:

(1) Does the commission have a vision for success in the larger war against the dictatorships and fanatics who want to destroy us?

If Iraq were only a one-step process, the answer would be to leave. But the reality is that Iraq is a single campaign within a much bigger war and within a power struggle both over the evolution of Islam and over the rise of dictatorships seeking nuclear and biological weapons to enable them to destroy America and her allies. If the Baker-Hamilton commission does not take this into account, it is a dangerously misleading report.

(2) Does the commission recognize that the second campaign in Iraq has been a failure?

This is the hardest thing for Washington-centric bureaucracies to accept. There was a very successful 23-day campaign to drive Saddam out of power. It used America's strengths and it worked. The second campaign has been an abject failure. We and our Iraqi allies do not have control of Iraq. We cannot guarantee security. There is not enough economic activity to keep young males employed. If the Baker-Hamilton commission cannot bring itself to recognize a defeat as a defeat, then it cannot recommend the scale of change needed to develop a potentially successful third campaign.

(3) Does the commission recognize the scale of change we will need to be effective in a world of enemies willing to kill themselves in order to kill us?

We need fundamental change in our military doctrine, training, and structures, our intelligence capabilities, and our integration of civilian and military activities. The instruments of American power simply do not work at the speed and detail needed to defeat the kind of enemies we are encountering. The American bureaucracies would rather claim the problem is too hard and leave because being forced to change this deeply will be very painful and very controversial. Yet we have to learn to win. Learning to win requires much more than changes in the military. It requires changes in how our intelligence, diplomatic, information, and economic institutions work. It requires the development of an integrated approach in which all the aspects of American power can be brought to bear to achieve victory. Furthermore this strategy for victory has to be doubly powerful because for three years we have failed to build an effective Iraqi government and we now have a shattered local system with many players using violence in desperate bids to maximize their positions. The plan has to be powerful enough to succeed despite Iraqi weaknesses and not by relying on a clearly uncertain and unstable Iraqi political system.

(4) Does the commission describe the consequences of defeat in Iraq?

What would the withdrawal of U.S. troops in Iraq look like? Frederick Kagan of the American Enterprise Institute recently offered this chilling picture: "The pullback of U.S. forces to their bases will not reduce the sectarian conflict, which their presence did not generate--it will increase it. Death squads on both sides will become more active. Large-scale ethnic and sectarian cleansing will begin as each side attempts to establish homogeneous enclaves where there are now mixed communities. Atrocities will mount, as they always do in ethnic cleansing operations. Iraqis who have cooperated with the Americans will be targeted by radicals on both sides. Some of them will try to flee with the American units. American troops will watch helplessly as death squads execute women and children. Pictures of this will play constantly on Al Jazeera. Prominent 'collaborators,' with whom our soldiers and leaders worked, will be publicly executed. Crowds of refugees could overwhelm not merely Iraq's neighbors but also the [Forward Operating Bases] themselves. Soldiers will have to hold off fearful, tearful, and dangerous mobs."

(5) Does the commission understand the importance of victory? Winning is key. We are in a power struggle on a worldwide basis with dictators who want to defeat us (Iran, Syria, Venezuela, Cuba, North Korea) and with fanatic organizations that want to kill us (al Qaeda, Hezbollah, Hamas, etc.). In a struggle like this, the goal has to be to win. Anything less than victory is very dangerous because it allows our enemies to gather more capabilities and prepare for more dangerous campaigns. Time is not on our side. Time is on the side of those seeking nuclear and biological weapons to use against the civilized world.

(6) Does the commission define what it means to win or simply find a face-saving way to lose?

Winning is very definable. Can we protect our friends and hurt our enemies? Are they more afraid of us or are we more afraid of them? The recent Syrian assassination of a Lebanese Christian leader who was pro-Western is a signal that they are not afraid of us. The North Korean decision to launch seven missiles on our Independence Day and to set off a nuclear weapon were signs they have contempt for our warnings. The statements of Ahmadinejad and Hugo Chavez indicate how confident they are. Today the enemy thinks they are winning and our elites seem to be seeking face-saving cover behind which to accept defeat. Does the Baker-Hamilton commission have a proposal for victory or a proposal for accepting defeat gracefully? Will it offer a diplomatic deal allowing us to pretend we are okay while our enemies gather strength?

(7) Does the commission acknowledge that winning requires thinking regionally and even globally?

In Afghanistan we are engaged in an Afghanistan-Waziristan war in which our enemies retreat into Waziristan in northwest Pakistan and rearm, reequip, retrain, and rest before coming back into Afghanistan. We will never win that war by engaging only in Afghanistan. In Iraq, the problems may require much more direct confrontation with Iran and Syria. In Lebanon, it is impossible to create a stable democratic government and disarm Hezbollah as long as Syria and Iran are deeply involved in killing Lebanese leaders and supplying Hezbollah.

(8) Any proposal to ask Iran and Syria to help is a sign of defeat. Does the commission suggest this?

Iran and Syria are the wolves in the region. They are the primary troublemakers. You don't invite wolves into the kitchen to help with dinner or you become dinner. The State Department Report on Terrorism in April 2006 said: "Iran and Syria routinely provide unique safe haven, substantial resources and guidance to terrorist organizations." It went on to say, "Iran remained the most active state sponsor of terrorism." It noted that in Iraq the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (an arm of the Iranian dictatorship) "was increasingly involved in supplying lethal assistance to Iraqi militant groups which destabilize Iraq." How can the Baker-Hamilton commission seriously suggest that two dictatorships described like this are going to be "helpers" in achieving American goals in the Middle East?

(9) Does the commission believe we can "do a deal" with Iran?

The clear effort by the Iranians to acquire nuclear weapons, and Ahmadinejad's assertion that it is easy to imagine a time in the near future when the United States and Israel have both disappeared, should be adequate proof that the Iranian dictatorship is the active enemy of America. Couple that with the fact that the Iranians lied to the International Atomic Energy Agency for 18 years while trying to develop a nuclear weapon. Either this is a dangerous regime we need to fundamentally change, or it is a reasonable regime with which we can deal. Presidential speeches and State Department documents clearly indicate it is a dangerous regime yet, there is a permanent Washington establishment desire to avoid conflict and confrontation by "doing a deal." In the 1930s, that model was called appeasement, not realism, and it led to a disaster. We need a Churchill not a Chamberlain policy for the Middle East.

(10) Does the commission believe we are more clever than our enemies?

The al-Assad family has run Syria since 1971. Hafiz Assad arranged for his son Bashar to succeed him. This family and its Alawite supporters represent a small minority of the Syrian people, but they maintain a relentlessly tough internal dictatorship which keeps power in their hands. In some ways, there are parallels between Bashar Assad and Kim Jong Il--they both maintain family dictatorships with the support of a key system of internal controls. After 35 years of defying the United States, there is no reason to believe our diplomats are more clever than their ruthlessly survivor-oriented systems. Negotiating with them is an invitation to be taken to the cleaners and to extend the power and prestige and influence of our mortal enemies in the region. Recent talk of reaching out to Syria has been met by the assassination of a Lebanese minister and the intensifying of the Hezbollah blackmail tactics in Lebanon. Weakness from America leads to greater aggression from our enemies. The Baker-Hamilton commission should focus on how to contain or defeat Syria not on how to rely on them for help.

(11) Does the commission recognize the importance of working with the Democratic majorities on a strategy for victory?

The Democratic victory in the 2006 election should not be used as an excuse to do the wrong thing. The Democrats are now confronting the responsibility and burden of power. Given the right information about Iran, Syria, and Iraq there is every reason to believe a bipartisan majority can be formed in both the House and Senate for a rational strategy for victory. Opposition to continuing the failed second campaign should not be translated into opposition to an American victory. The Bush administration should reach out to moderate Democrats and forge a bipartisan agenda for victory and by March 2007 pass a bipartisan resolution for victory in Iraq and for stopping Iranian efforts to get nuclear weapons. That will then set the basis for appropriations to continue the effort. The passage of a solid bipartisan bill in March would send a signal to the world that Americans are overwhelmingly in favor of defeating terrorism and defending America. That will dramatically lower the morale and confidence of our enemies.

These 11 steps would be a powerful basis on which to move forward in Iraq and in the world. What's more, they reflect the spirit of General Washington when he chose "victory or death" as the motto of the campaign which led to the founding of America despite overwhelming odds.

Newt Gingrich is a senior fellow at AEI.

THE GREATER THE CONNECTIVITY THE LESS THE RISK OF WAR....

November 30, 2006
For $150, Third-World Laptop Stirs a Big Debate

By JOHN MARKOFF
CAMBRIDGE, Mass. — When computer industry executives heard about a plan to build a $100 laptop for the developing world’s children, they generally ridiculed the idea. How could you build such a computer, they asked, when screens alone cost about $100?

Mary Lou Jepsen, the chief technologist for the project, likes to refer to the insight that transformed the machine from utopian dream to working prototype as “a really wacky idea.”

Ms. Jepsen, a former Intel chip designer, found a way to modify conventional laptop displays, cutting the screen’s manufacturing cost to $40 while reducing its power consumption by more than 80 percent. As a bonus, the display is clearly visible in sunlight.

That advance and others have allowed the nonprofit project, One Laptop Per Child, to win over many skeptics over the last two and a half years. Five countries — Argentina, Brazil, Libya, Nigeria and Thailand — have made tentative commitments to put the computers into the hands of millions of students, with production in Taiwan expected to begin by mid-2007.

The laptop does not come with a Microsoft Windows operating system or even a hard drive, and the screen is small. And the cost is now closer to $150 than $100. But the price tag, even compared with low-end $500 laptops now widely available, transforms the economic equation for developing countries.

That has not prevented the effort, conceived by Nicholas Negroponte, a prominent computer researcher, from becoming the focal point of a debate over the value of computers to both learning and economic development.

The detractors include two computer industry giants, Intel and Microsoft, pushing alternative approaches. Intel has developed a $400 laptop aimed at schools as well as an education program that focuses on teachers instead of students. And Bill Gates, Microsoft’s chairman and a leading philanthropist for the third world, has questioned whether the concept is “just taking what we do in the rich world” and assuming that that is something good for the developing world, too.

Mr. Negroponte, the founding director of the M.I.T. Media Laboratory, said he was amused by the attention his little machine was getting. It is not the first time he has been challenged for proclaiming technology’s promise.

“It’s as if people spent all of their attention focusing on Columbus’s boat and not on where he was going,” he said in an interview here. “You have to remember that what this is about is education.”

Seymour Papert, a computer scientist and educator who is an adviser to the project, has argued that if young people are given computers and allowed to explore, they will “learn how to learn.” That, Mr. Papert argues, is a more valuable skill than traditional teaching strategies that focus on memorization and testing.

The idea is also that children can take on much of the responsibility for maintaining the systems, rather than relying on or creating bureaucracies to do so.

“We believe you have to leverage the kids themselves,” Ms. Jepsen said. “They’re learning machines.” As an example, she pointed to the backlight used by the laptop. Although it is designed to last five years, if it fails it can be replaced as simply as batteries are replaced in a flashlight. It is something a child can do, she said.

That philosophy, at the heart of the project’s world view, has stirred criticism for its focus on getting equipment to students rather than issues like teacher training and curriculum.

“I think it’s wonderful that the machines can be put in the hands of children and parents, and it will have an impact on their lives if they have access to electricity,” Larry Cuban, a Stanford University education professor, said in an interview. “However, if part of their rationale is that it will revolutionize education in various countries, I don’t think it will happen, and they are naïve and innocent about the reality of formal schooling.”

The debate is certain to enter a new phase when the machines go into full-scale production by Taiwan-based Quanta Computer, the world’s second-largest laptop maker. (The manufacturer, unlike the project itself, will make a profit.) Overnight, even though it will not be available to consumers, the laptop could become the best-selling portable computer in the world.

The project now has tentative commitments for three million computers and will begin large-scale manufacturing when it reaches five million with separate commitments from at least one country each in Africa, Latin America and Asia. Based on current negotiations, Mr. Negroponte says he expects that goal to be reached by mid-2007.

It got a significant boost on Nov. 15 when the Inter-American Development Bank signed an agreement to supply both loans and grants to buy the machines.

“Several years ago, I thought it was an illusion or a utopian idea,” said Juan José Daboub, managing director of the World Bank and an independent economic-development expert. “But this is now real and encouraging.”

Mr. Negroponte said the manufacturing cost was now below $150 and that it would fall below $100 by the end of 2008.

One factor setting the project apart from earlier efforts to create inexpensive computers for education is the inclusion of a wireless network capability in each machine.

The project leaders say they will employ a variety of methods for connecting to the Internet, depending on local conditions. In some countries, like Libya, satellite downlinks will be used. In others, like Nigeria, the existing cellular data network will provide connections, and in some places specially designed long-range Wi-Fi antennas will extend the wireless Internet to rural areas.

When students take their computers home after school, each machine will stay connected wirelessly to its neighbors in a self-assembling “mesh” at ranges up to a third of a mile. In the process each computer can potentially become an Internet repeater, allowing the Internet to flow out into communities that have not previously had access to it.

“The soldiers inside this Trojan horse are children with laptops,” said Walter Bender, a computer researcher who served as director of the Media Laboratory after Mr. Negroponte and now heads software development for the laptop project.

Each machine will come with a simple mechanism for recharging itself when a standard power outlet is not available. The designers experimented with a crank, but eventually discarded that idea because it seemed too fragile. Now they have settled on several alternatives, including a foot pedal as well as a hand-pulled device that works like a salad spinner.

Ms. Jepsen’s display, which removes most of the color filters but can operate in either color or monochrome modes, has made it possible to build a computer that consumes just 2 watts of power, compared with the 25 to 45 watts consumed by a conventional laptop. The ultra-low-power operation is possible because of the lack of a hard drive (the laptop uses solid-state memory, which has no moving parts and has fallen sharply in cost) and because the Advanced Micro Devices microprocessor shuts down whenever the computer is not processing information.

The designers have also gambled in designing the laptop’s software, which is based on the freely available Linux operating system, a rival to Microsoft’s Windows. Dispensing with a traditional desktop display, the software substitutes an iconic interface intended to give students a simpler view of their programs and documents and a maplike view of other connected users nearby.

A video-camera lens sits just to the right of the display, for use in videoconferencing and taking digital still photos of reasonable quality. The computer comes with a stripped-down Web browser, a simple word processor and a number of learning programs. For e-mail, the designers intend to use Google’s Web-based Gmail service.

Only one program at a time can be viewed on the laptop because of its small 7.5-inch display.

Mr. Negroponte has been a globetrotting salesman for the project, winning Libya’s participation when he was summoned by Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi to a meeting in a desert tent on a sweltering August night. But there have also been setbacks. The Indian Education Ministry rejected a proposal to order a million computers, noting that the money could be better spent on primary and secondary education.

Mr. Negroponte said he had been re-energized by the recent arrival of the first 1,000 working prototypes. The prototypes, he said, will give him new ammunition to convince government leaders that his tiny machines can be a positive force for social development. [On a visit to Brazil on Nov. 24, Mr. Negroponte presented one of the prototypes to President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva.]

He said a program would be created to enable those in the developed world to underwrite a laptop for a child in a designated country and to correspond with the recipient by e-mail as a sort of “glorified pen-pal program.” But however attractive the idea of a $100 or $150 laptop, he said there were no plans to make it generally available to consumers.

“They should buy Dell’s $499 laptop for now,” he said. “Ours is really designed for developing nations — dusty, dirty, no or unreliable power and so on.”

In his two decades as director of the Media Laboratory, Mr. Negroponte often faced criticism because the institution’s impressive demonstrations of technology only occasionally led to commercial applications.

“He has spent his whole career being accused of being all icing and no cake,” said Michael Hawley, a computer scientist and one of Mr. Negroponte’s former students. To that kind of scoffing, he said, the laptop’s success would be Mr. Negroponte’s best retort.

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