Funmurphys: the Blog

Dark Watchman Vs. The Architect of Fear

Is this the day? Is this the beginning of the end? There is no time to wonder. No time to ask why is it happening, why is it finally happening. There is time only for fear, for the piercing pain of panic. Do we pray? Or do we merely run now and pray later? Will there be a later? Or is this the day?

This is the opening narration for the original Outer Limits episode "The Architects of Fear" where a group of scientists fake an alien invasion in an attempt to forestall escalating international tensions and a potential nuclear holocaust. We took in the Dark Knight over the weekend and this quote could have opened the third act of the film where the Joker is threatening the Gotham City with widespread destruction.

The Dark Knight is a dark film about a city fighting a terrorist. it's one of the grimmest movies I have seen in a while. It's not as downbeat as "Seconds" but certainly the "Empire Strikes Back" may be the last mass market film to end on so low a note. It's very well done but definitely a movie with adult themes.

Heath Ledger's performance is chilling. His Joker reminded me of Lewis Black on a rant (who they should consider now that this will be Ledger's last role). It becomes clear that the Joker is truly an agent of chaos, his real goal is for the citizens of Gotham City to lose their faith in orderly society ("the hidden conspiracy of goodwill") and descend into anomie. I viewed It as a cautionary tale for any free society fighting terrorism.

"He who fights with monsters should look to it that he himself does not become a monster. And when you gaze long into an abyss, the abyss gazes also into you."
Freidrich Nietzsche Aphorism 146

Batman is challenged to drop his own code of ethics and use whatever means necessary. But in spite of horrific provocation is able to follow his internal compass.

"Sed quis custodiet ipsos custodes?" Juvenal

Which is normally translated as "But who will guard the guardians?" and Alan Moore interpreted as "Who Watches the Watchmen?" (more on that in a moment). To locate the Joker Batman engages in a massive invasion of privacy, but does so in a way that he has no personal control over the information gathered or the mechanism he created, allowing it to be destroyed when it's no longer needed. This is in the face of a villain who is killing any government official who tries to stand against him, and for good measure follows through on his threat to blow up a hospital.

Although I said it was a dark film about adult themes the boys both enjoyed it and we had a long discussion about civil liberty, and the difference between the police, the National Guard, and the Army. And the difference between the way that a free society fights criminals, affording them protection under the law, and enemy combatants who are committed to the destruction of a society.

"The mature man lives quietly, does good privately, takes responsibility for his actions, treats others with friendliness and courtesy, finds mischief boring and avoids it. Without the hidden conspiracy of goodwill, society would not endure an hour."
Kenneth Rexroth in the "Introduction to Tolstoy's The Kingdom of God Is Within You"

Ultimately, when confronted with the challenge to kill complete strangers or be killed themselves, Gotham's citizens--even its criminals--refrain.

The previews included the new Watchmen movie, which looked outstanding. If you haven't read the comic graphic novel, it's an extremely dense and intricately plotted exploration justice, vigilantism, and what it means to be a hero. My personal preference would have been for a 12 episode miniseries, with each episode an hour to 90 minutes long to do Watchmen justice, but that's probably harder to fund and monetize and it's taken more than two decades to bring it to the screen as is. It will probably get redone in 30 years as a hypertext movie to do it justice.

Alan Moore was apparently not aware of the Outer Limits episode "Architects of Fear" when he wrote Watchmen, but became aware of it as he and Dave Gibbons were collaborating on it, inserting a reference to it in the last issue.

We watched the the "Architects of Fear" again tonight, and I was surprised and how scary it was and how poignant the concluding narration remains:

Scarecrows and magic and other fatal fears do not bring people closer together. There is no magic substitute for soft caring and hard work, for self-respect and mutual love. If we can learn this from the mistake these frightened men made, then their mistake will not have been merely grotesque, it would at least have been a lesson. A lesson, at last, to be learned.

Don't Confuse Me With The Facts, My Mind Is Made Up

Here's the post I've been wanting to write all my life, but because of the lack of time, skill, ability, and seriousness I haven't been able to: Partisan Views Interfere with Rational Thinking.

You have to let your thinking be influenced by the best evidence you can find. Unfortunately, most people are unaccustomed to that way of thinking. Because of that, some liberals refuse to let go of the idea that Bush lied about Saddam's WMDs in the run up to the invasion, and some conservatives refuse to let go of the idea that Saddam really did have WMDs. You need to let go of both ideas. It is a truly liberating experience to let the evidence guide your thinking, and I encourage you to give it a try.

It builds from there, to lay bare the central conundrum of the invasion of Iraq - who lied. The conclusion shouldn't surprise you, but for some it will.

IRA vs. Islamicists

I'm not a Nobel prize winning author, and I never will be one, but then I have a certain grasp of facts. So for instance, when a nobel laureate says that the 9/11 attack wasn't as bad as the IRA's multi-decade terror campaign, I have to point out this is an apple, that is an orange. One is a single attack carried out by a terror ogranization, the other is a totality of terror campaign. Why not compare the number killed by al-Qaida world-wide to those killed in a single IRA attack?

A better comparison would be the IRA's multi-decade terror campaign, and al-Qaida's roughly decade long terror campaign. And then you should also compare what the aims of the two groups are, and then I think it becomes pretty clear that in a real comparison, the IRA is/were pikers compared to al-Qaida, and if you throw in the Islamicist movement compared to the IRA, there is simply no comparison in terms of numbers killed, tortured, lives disrupted or ruined, international scope, or total opposition to everything Doris Lessing holds dear as a member of Western society. None.

9/11 + 6

Six years ago America was attacked. It was not the first attack. It has not been the last attack carried out by al Qaida.

Some people just wish that it would all go away. It won't go away on its own.

We have to understand the threat, not our projections, prejudices, or preconceptions.

The war has split open a major, pre-existing fault in not just America, but Western Civilization. The war did not cause the fault, and the end of the war will not eliminate the fault. But with the fault wide open, the full strength of civilization cannot be brought to bear on our enemy.

We are fighting both persons and ideology, but once a person gives up that ideology there is no need to fight them; as long as they hold on to that ideology, however, they must be opposed.

President Bush's New Way Forward Address

I didn't catch the President's address in real time (I was out grocery shopping with the funWife), so I had to read it - which quite frankly I prefer anyway. I'm sick and tired of only getting excerpts from the media on just about everything because then its only about what they think is important. In otherwords, you get a mainstream liberal view, and only that view. So here it is:

Good evening. Tonight in Iraq, the Armed Forces of the United States are engaged in a struggle that will determine the direction of the global war on terror -- and our safety here at home. The new strategy I outline tonight will change America's course in Iraq, and help us succeed in the fight against terror.

When I addressed you just over a year ago, nearly 12 million Iraqis had cast their ballots for a unified and democratic nation. The elections of 2005 were a stunning achievement. We thought that these elections would bring the Iraqis together, and that as we trained Iraqi security forces we could accomplish our mission with fewer American troops.

But in 2006, the opposite happened. The violence in Iraq -- particularly in Baghdad -- overwhelmed the political gains the Iraqis had made. Al Qaeda terrorists and Sunni insurgents recognized the mortal danger that Iraq's elections posed for their cause, and they responded with outrageous acts of murder aimed at innocent Iraqis. They blew up one of the holiest shrines in Shia Islam -- the Golden Mosque of Samarra -- in a calculated effort to provoke Iraq's Shia population to retaliate. Their strategy worked. Radical Shia elements, some supported by Iran, formed death squads. And the result was a vicious cycle of sectarian violence that continues today.

The situation in Iraq is unacceptable to the American people -- and it is unacceptable to me. Our troops in Iraq have fought bravely. They have done everything we have asked them to do. Where mistakes have been made, the responsibility rests with me.

It is clear that we need to change our strategy in Iraq. So my national security team, military commanders, and diplomats conducted a comprehensive review. We consulted members of Congress from both parties, our allies abroad, and distinguished outside experts. We benefitted from the thoughtful recommendations of the Iraq Study Group, a bipartisan panel led by former Secretary of State James Baker and former Congressman Lee Hamilton. In our discussions, we all agreed that there is no magic formula for success in Iraq. And one message came through loud and clear: Failure in Iraq would be a disaster for the United States.

The consequences of failure are clear: Radical Islamic extremists would grow in strength and gain new recruits. They would be in a better position to topple moderate governments, create chaos in the region, and use oil revenues to fund their ambitions. Iran would be emboldened in its pursuit of nuclear weapons. Our enemies would have a safe haven from which to plan and launch attacks on the American people. On September the 11th, 2001, we saw what a refuge for extremists on the other side of the world could bring to the streets of our own cities. For the safety of our people, America must succeed in Iraq.

The most urgent priority for success in Iraq is security, especially in Baghdad. Eighty percent of Iraq's sectarian violence occurs within 30 miles of the capital. This violence is splitting Baghdad into sectarian enclaves, and shaking the confidence of all Iraqis. Only Iraqis can end the sectarian violence and secure their people. And their government has put forward an aggressive plan to do it.

Our past efforts to secure Baghdad failed for two principal reasons: There were not enough Iraqi and American troops to secure neighborhoods that had been cleared of terrorists and insurgents. And there were too many restrictions on the troops we did have. Our military commanders reviewed the new Iraqi plan to ensure that it addressed these mistakes. They report that it does. They also report that this plan can work.

Now let me explain the main elements of this effort: The Iraqi government will appoint a military commander and two deputy commanders for their capital. The Iraqi government will deploy Iraqi Army and National Police brigades across Baghdad's nine districts. When these forces are fully deployed, there will be 18 Iraqi Army and National Police brigades committed to this effort, along with local police. These Iraqi forces will operate from local police stations -- conducting patrols and setting up checkpoints, and going door-to-door to gain the trust of Baghdad residents.

This is a strong commitment. But for it to succeed, our commanders say the Iraqis will need our help. So America will change our strategy to help the Iraqis carry out their campaign to put down sectarian violence and bring security to the people of Baghdad. This will require increasing American force levels. So I've committed more than 20,000 additional American troops to Iraq. The vast majority of them -- five brigades -- will be deployed to Baghdad. These troops will work alongside Iraqi units and be embedded in their formations. Our troops will have a well-defined mission: to help Iraqis clear and secure neighborhoods, to help them protect the local population, and to help ensure that the Iraqi forces left behind are capable of providing the security that Baghdad needs.

Many listening tonight will ask why this effort will succeed when previous operations to secure Baghdad did not. Well, here are the differences: In earlier operations, Iraqi and American forces cleared many neighborhoods of terrorists and insurgents, but when our forces moved on to other targets, the killers returned. This time, we'll have the force levels we need to hold the areas that have been cleared. In earlier operations, political and sectarian interference prevented Iraqi and American forces from going into neighborhoods that are home to those fueling the sectarian violence. This time, Iraqi and American forces will have a green light to enter those neighborhoods -- and Prime Minister Maliki has pledged that political or sectarian interference will not be tolerated.

I've made it clear to the Prime Minister and Iraq's other leaders that America's commitment is not open-ended. If the Iraqi government does not follow through on its promises, it will lose the support of the American people -- and it will lose the support of the Iraqi people. Now is the time to act. The Prime Minister understands this. Here is what he told his people just last week: "The Baghdad security plan will not provide a safe haven for any outlaws, regardless of [their] sectarian or political affiliation."

This new strategy will not yield an immediate end to suicide bombings, assassinations, or IED attacks. Our enemies in Iraq will make every effort to ensure that our television screens are filled with images of death and suffering. Yet over time, we can expect to see Iraqi troops chasing down murderers, fewer brazen acts of terror, and growing trust and cooperation from Baghdad's residents. When this happens, daily life will improve, Iraqis will gain confidence in their leaders, and the government will have the breathing space it needs to make progress in other critical areas. Most of Iraq's Sunni and Shia want to live together in peace -- and reducing the violence in Baghdad will help make reconciliation possible.

A successful strategy for Iraq goes beyond military operations. Ordinary Iraqi citizens must see that military operations are accompanied by visible improvements in their neighborhoods and communities. So America will hold the Iraqi government to the benchmarks it has announced.

To establish its authority, the Iraqi government plans to take responsibility for security in all of Iraq's provinces by November. To give every Iraqi citizen a stake in the country's economy, Iraq will pass legislation to share oil revenues among all Iraqis. To show that it is committed to delivering a better life, the Iraqi government will spend $10 billion of its own money on reconstruction and infrastructure projects that will create new jobs. To empower local leaders, Iraqis plan to hold provincial elections later this year. And to allow more Iraqis to re-enter their nation's political life, the government will reform de-Baathification laws, and establish a fair process for considering amendments to Iraq's constitution.

America will change our approach to help the Iraqi government as it works to meet these benchmarks. In keeping with the recommendations of the Iraq Study Group, we will increase the embedding of American advisers in Iraqi Army units, and partner a coalition brigade with every Iraqi Army division. We will help the Iraqis build a larger and better-equipped army, and we will accelerate the training of Iraqi forces, which remains the essential U.S. security mission in Iraq. We will give our commanders and civilians greater flexibility to spend funds for economic assistance. We will double the number of provincial reconstruction teams. These teams bring together military and civilian experts to help local Iraqi communities pursue reconciliation, strengthen the moderates, and speed the transition to Iraqi self-reliance. And Secretary Rice will soon appoint a reconstruction coordinator in Baghdad to ensure better results for economic assistance being spent in Iraq.

As we make these changes, we will continue to pursue al Qaeda and foreign fighters. Al Qaeda is still active in Iraq. Its home base is Anbar Province. Al Qaeda has helped make Anbar the most violent area of Iraq outside the capital. A captured al Qaeda document describes the terrorists' plan to infiltrate and seize control of the province. This would bring al Qaeda closer to its goals of taking down Iraq's democracy, building a radical Islamic empire, and launching new attacks on the United States at home and abroad.

Our military forces in Anbar are killing and capturing al Qaeda leaders, and they are protecting the local population. Recently, local tribal leaders have begun to show their willingness to take on al Qaeda. And as a result, our commanders believe we have an opportunity to deal a serious blow to the terrorists. So I have given orders to increase American forces in Anbar Province by 4,000 troops. These troops will work with Iraqi and tribal forces to keep up the pressure on the terrorists. America's men and women in uniform took away al Qaeda's safe haven in Afghanistan -- and we will not allow them to re-establish it in Iraq.

Succeeding in Iraq also requires defending its territorial integrity and stabilizing the region in the face of extremist challenges. This begins with addressing Iran and Syria. These two regimes are allowing terrorists and insurgents to use their territory to move in and out of Iraq. Iran is providing material support for attacks on American troops. We will disrupt the attacks on our forces. We'll interrupt the flow of support from Iran and Syria. And we will seek out and destroy the networks providing advanced weaponry and training to our enemies in Iraq.

We're also taking other steps to bolster the security of Iraq and protect American interests in the Middle East. I recently ordered the deployment of an additional carrier strike group to the region. We will expand intelligence-sharing and deploy Patriot air defense systems to reassure our friends and allies. We will work with the governments of Turkey and Iraq to help them resolve problems along their border. And we will work with others to prevent Iran from gaining nuclear weapons and dominating the region.

We will use America's full diplomatic resources to rally support for Iraq from nations throughout the Middle East. Countries like Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Jordan, and the Gulf States need to understand that an American defeat in Iraq would create a new sanctuary for extremists and a strategic threat to their survival. These nations have a stake in a successful Iraq that is at peace with its neighbors, and they must step up their support for Iraq's unity government. We endorse the Iraqi government's call to finalize an International Compact that will bring new economic assistance in exchange for greater economic reform. And on Friday, Secretary Rice will leave for the region, to build support for Iraq and continue the urgent diplomacy required to help bring peace to the Middle East.

The challenge playing out across the broader Middle East is more than a military conflict. It is the decisive ideological struggle of our time. On one side are those who believe in freedom and moderation. On the other side are extremists who kill the innocent, and have declared their intention to destroy our way of life. In the long run, the most realistic way to protect the American people is to provide a hopeful alternative to the hateful ideology of the enemy, by advancing liberty across a troubled region. It is in the interests of the United States to stand with the brave men and women who are risking their lives to claim their freedom, and to help them as they work to raise up just and hopeful societies across the Middle East.

From Afghanistan to Lebanon to the Palestinian Territories, millions of ordinary people are sick of the violence, and want a future of peace and opportunity for their children. And they are looking at Iraq. They want to know: Will America withdraw and yield the future of that country to the extremists, or will we stand with the Iraqis who have made the choice for freedom?

The changes I have outlined tonight are aimed at ensuring the survival of a young democracy that is fighting for its life in a part of the world of enormous importance to American security. Let me be clear: The terrorists and insurgents in Iraq are without conscience, and they will make the year ahead bloody and violent. Even if our new strategy works exactly as planned, deadly acts of violence will continue -- and we must expect more Iraqi and American casualties. The question is whether our new strategy will bring us closer to success. I believe that it will.

Victory will not look like the ones our fathers and grandfathers achieved. There will be no surrender ceremony on the deck of a battleship. But victory in Iraq will bring something new in the Arab world -- a functioning democracy that polices its territory, upholds the rule of law, respects fundamental human liberties, and answers to its people. A democratic Iraq will not be perfect. But it will be a country that fights terrorists instead of harboring them -- and it will help bring a future of peace and security for our children and our grandchildren.

This new approach comes after consultations with Congress about the different courses we could take in Iraq. Many are concerned that the Iraqis are becoming too dependent on the United States, and therefore, our policy should focus on protecting Iraq's borders and hunting down al Qaeda. Their solution is to scale back America's efforts in Baghdad -- or announce the phased withdrawal of our combat forces. We carefully considered these proposals. And we concluded that to step back now would force a collapse of the Iraqi government, tear the country apart, and result in mass killings on an unimaginable scale. Such a scenario would result in our troops being forced to stay in Iraq even longer, and confront an enemy that is even more lethal. If we increase our support at this crucial moment, and help the Iraqis break the current cycle of violence, we can hasten the day our troops begin coming home.

In the days ahead, my national security team will fully brief Congress on our new strategy. If members have improvements that can be made, we will make them. If circumstances change, we will adjust. Honorable people have different views, and they will voice their criticisms. It is fair to hold our views up to scrutiny. And all involved have a responsibility to explain how the path they propose would be more likely to succeed.

Acting on the good advice of Senator Joe Lieberman and other key members of Congress, we will form a new, bipartisan working group that will help us come together across party lines to win the war on terror. This group will meet regularly with me and my administration; it will help strengthen our relationship with Congress. We can begin by working together to increase the size of the active Army and Marine Corps, so that America has the Armed Forces we need for the 21st century. We also need to examine ways to mobilize talented American civilians to deploy overseas, where they can help build democratic institutions in communities and nations recovering from war and tyranny.

In these dangerous times, the United States is blessed to have extraordinary and selfless men and women willing to step forward and defend us. These young Americans understand that our cause in Iraq is noble and necessary -- and that the advance of freedom is the calling of our time. They serve far from their families, who make the quiet sacrifices of lonely holidays and empty chairs at the dinner table. They have watched their comrades give their lives to ensure our liberty. We mourn the loss of every fallen American -- and we owe it to them to build a future worthy of their sacrifice.

Fellow citizens: The year ahead will demand more patience, sacrifice, and resolve. It can be tempting to think that America can put aside the burdens of freedom. Yet times of testing reveal the character of a nation. And throughout our history, Americans have always defied the pessimists and seen our faith in freedom redeemed. Now America is engaged in a new struggle that will set the course for a new century. We can, and we will, prevail.

We go forward with trust that the Author of Liberty will guide us through these trying hours. Thank you and good night.

Its a nice compact address that lays out quite a lot. I think what is outlined is quite good, the question is one of follow through - will all of this actually happen? The road to hell is paved with good intentions, we need more than just plans. Our success will depend on how well we can turn plans into action.

I thought the heart of the speech, and the heart of our strategy on the War on Terror was this part: "In the long run, the most realistic way to protect the American people is to provide a hopeful alternative to the hateful ideology of the enemy, by advancing liberty across a troubled region"

And don't forget the fact sheet to go with it.

Saddam Hussein Executed

Saddam Hussein was executed following a trial for just one of his mass murders (AKA crime against humanity). I call that a good start.

Iraq Vs. Darfur

I'm told on the one had we need to get out of Iraq because it's a civil war and civilians are dying, but on the other we need to get involved in Darfar to save the civilians who are dying in that civil war. So you tell me, what's the difference?

And if the reality of Iraq truly is a civil war, then our presence isn't causing the violence (because they are fighting against each other, and not us), but it may well help end it. Just as it would in Darfur.

Runaway

Hey, I thought everything would be different after the election. Instead, we get a real life version of The Black Knight.

Spot The Quagmire

A look at some statistics you'll never read in your local newspaper or see on your TV. Maybe that's why they don't deliver eyeballs like they used to.

Pope Benedict and Islam

Isn't it amazing? The way mobs across Dar al Islam seem to hang on the Pope's every word, even scrutinizing obscure addresses that get zero press in nominally Christian countries, unless Dar al Islam expresses its displeasure and the Western Press is forced to cover it. Considering what a wonderful address it is, I suppose I should thank them for raising such a stink that I got to read it.

Before we get to the meat of the address, I'm going to tackle the so-called offensive part of the address, which is being labled as a call for inter-faith dialogue. Well, Benedict calls it a cultural dialogue, and from his remarks he's going way beyond churchman from Christianity and Islam having their own hootenanny. It's a call for everybody to dialogue within a framework of reason, and he tells the story that got the the Moslem world so riled up to make this point: "not to act in accordance with reason is contrary to God's nature."

Now, did he have to include

"Show me just what Mohammed brought that was new, and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached"?

Good question, and let me bounce that right back at you, since Mohammed claimed that the Bible was garbled and he was just straightening out Jews and Christians, what did Mohammed bring that was new? What is your opinion of Mohammed's changes?

I'd also like to point out that the press doesn't seem to be able to quote properly, as this article on CNN has trouble:

The pope enraged Muslims in a speech a week ago in Germany quoting 14th century Byzantine Emperor Manuel II Palaeologus, who said everything the Prophet Mohammed brought was evil "such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached."

They seemed to have missed the whole "that was new" part. I suppose I should chalk it up to them having very little understanding of either Christianity or Islam. The emporer's point is that Mohammed didn't add anything to the Bible that wasn't inhuman and evil. A fine distinction you might claim, but an important one since it's saying not that everything Mohammed preached was evil, only those places where he made changes. And even more oddly, isn't that exactly what you would expect a Christian to believe? I do, and if I didn't, I'd be a Muslim, not a Christian.

I'm not Catholic, and I have some theological bones to pick with Catholicism, but I have to say that at least the last two popes have been extraordinary leaders, each in their own way. I'm going to have to start reading the pope more since he's the only guy out there defending Western thought, practice,and culture these days.

I've excerpted the introduction and the conclusion to Pope Benedict's address and urge you to read the whole thing:

It is a moving experience for me to be back again in the university and to be able once again to give a lecture at this podium. I think back to those years when, after a pleasant period at the Freisinger Hochschule, I began teaching at the University of Bonn. That was in 1959, in the days of the old university made up of ordinary professors. The various chairs had neither assistants nor secretaries, but in recompense there was much direct contact with students and in particular among the professors themselves. We would meet before and after lessons in the rooms of the teaching staff. There was a lively exchange with historians, philosophers, philologists and, naturally, between the two theological faculties. Once a semester there was a dies academicus, when professors from every faculty appeared before the students of the entire university, making possible a genuine experience of universitas - something that you too, Magnificent Rector, just mentioned - the experience, in other words, of the fact that despite our specializations which at times make it difficult to communicate with each other, we made up a whole, working in everything on the basis of a single rationality with its various aspects and sharing responsibility for the right use of reason - this reality became a lived experience. The university was also very proud of its two theological faculties. It was clear that, by inquiring about the reasonableness of faith, they too carried out a work which is necessarily part of the "whole" of the universitas scientiarum, even if not everyone could share the faith which theologians seek to correlate with reason as a whole. This profound sense of coherence within the universe of reason was not troubled, even when it was once reported that a colleague had said there was something odd about our university: it had two faculties devoted to something that did not exist: God. That even in the face of such radical scepticism it is still necessary and reasonable to raise the question of God through the use of reason, and to do so in the context of the tradition of the Christian faith: this, within the university as a whole, was accepted without question.
I was reminded of all this recently, when I read the edition by Professor Theodore Khoury (Münster) of part of the dialogue carried on - perhaps in 1391 in the winter barracks near Ankara - by the erudite Byzantine emperor Manuel II Paleologus and an educated Persian on the subject of Christianity and Islam, and the truth of both. It was presumably the emperor himself who set down this dialogue, during the siege of Constantinople between 1394 and 1402; and this would explain why his arguments are given in greater detail than those of his Persian interlocutor. The dialogue ranges widely over the structures of faith contained in the Bible and in the Qur'an, and deals especially with the image of God and of man, while necessarily returning repeatedly to the relationship between - as they were called - three "Laws" or "rules of life": the Old Testament, the New Testament and the Qur'an. It is not my intention to discuss this question in the present lecture; here I would like to discuss only one point - itself rather marginal to the dialogue as a whole - which, in the context of the issue of "faith and reason", I found interesting and which can serve as the starting-point for my reflections on this issue.

In the seventh conversation (διάλεξις - controversy) edited by Professor Khoury, the emperor touches on the theme of the holy war. The emperor must have known that surah 2, 256 reads: "There is no compulsion in religion". According to the experts, this is one of the suras of the early period, when Mohammed was still powerless and under threat. But naturally the emperor also knew the instructions, developed later and recorded in the Qur'an, concerning holy war. Without descending to details, such as the difference in treatment accorded to those who have the "Book" and the "infidels", he addresses his interlocutor with a startling brusqueness, a brusqueness which leaves us astounded, on the central question about the relationship between religion and violence in general, saying: "Show me just what Mohammed brought that was new, and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached". The emperor, after having expressed himself so forcefully, goes on to explain in detail the reasons why spreading the faith through violence is something unreasonable. Violence is incompatible with the nature of God and the nature of the soul. "God", he says, "is not pleased by blood - and not acting reasonably (σὺν λόγω) is contrary to God's nature. Faith is born of the soul, not the body. Whoever would lead someone to faith needs the ability to speak well and to reason properly, without violence and threats... To convince a reasonable soul, one does not need a strong arm, or weapons of any kind, or any other means of threatening a person with death...".
The decisive statement in this argument against violent conversion is this: not to act in accordance with reason is contrary to God's nature. The editor, Theodore Khoury, observes: For the emperor, as a Byzantine shaped by Greek philosophy, this statement is self-evident. But for Muslim teaching, God is absolutely transcendent. His will is not bound up with any of our categories, even that of rationality. Here Khoury quotes a work of the noted French Islamist R. Arnaldez, who points out that Ibn Hazm went so far as to state that God is not bound even by his own word, and that nothing would oblige him to reveal the truth to us. Were it God's will, we would even have to practise idolatry.

At this point, as far as understanding of God and thus the concrete practice of religion is concerned, we are faced with an unavoidable dilemma. Is the conviction that acting unreasonably contradicts God's nature merely a Greek idea, or is it always and intrinsically true? I believe that here we can see the profound harmony between what is Greek in the best sense of the word and the biblical understanding of faith in God. Modifying the first verse of the Book of Genesis, the first verse of the whole Bible, John began the prologue of his Gospel with the words: "In the beginning was the λόγος". This is the very word used by the emperor: God acts, σὺν λόγω, with logos. Logos means both reason and word - a reason which is creative and capable of self-communication, precisely as reason. John thus spoke the final word on the biblical concept of God, and in this word all the often toilsome and tortuous threads of biblical faith find their culmination and synthesis. In the beginning was the logos, and the logos is God, says the Evangelist. The encounter between the Biblical message and Greek thought did not happen by chance. The vision of Saint Paul, who saw the roads to Asia barred and in a dream saw a Macedonian man plead with him: "Come over to Macedonia and help us!" (cf. Acts 16:6-10) - this vision can be interpreted as a "distillation" of the intrinsic necessity of a rapprochement between Biblical faith and Greek inquiry.

...

And so I come to my conclusion. This attempt, painted with broad strokes, at a critique of modern reason from within has nothing to do with putting the clock back to the time before the Enlightenment and rejecting the insights of the modern age. The positive aspects of modernity are to be acknowledged unreservedly: we are all grateful for the marvellous possibilities that it has opened up for mankind and for the progress in humanity that has been granted to us. The scientific ethos, moreover, is - as you yourself mentioned, Magnificent Rector - the will to be obedient to the truth, and, as such, it embodies an attitude which belongs to the essential decisions of the Christian spirit. The intention here is not one of retrenchment or negative criticism, but of broadening our concept of reason and its application. While we rejoice in the new possibilities open to humanity, we also see the dangers arising from these possibilities and we must ask ourselves how we can overcome them. We will succeed in doing so only if reason and faith come together in a new way, if we overcome the self-imposed limitation of reason to the empirically verifiable, and if we once more disclose its vast horizons. In this sense theology rightly belongs in the university and within the wide-ranging dialogue of sciences, not merely as a historical discipline and one of the human sciences, but precisely as theology, as inquiry into the rationality of faith.

Only thus do we become capable of that genuine dialogue of cultures and religions so urgently needed today. In the Western world it is widely held that only positivistic reason and the forms of philosophy based on it are universally valid. Yet the world's profoundly religious cultures see this exclusion of the divine from the universality of reason as an attack on their most profound convictions. A reason which is deaf to the divine and which relegates religion into the realm of subcultures is incapable of entering into the dialogue of cultures. At the same time, as I have attempted to show, modern scientific reason with its intrinsically Platonic element bears within itself a question which points beyond itself and beyond the possibilities of its methodology. Modern scientific reason quite simply has to accept the rational structure of matter and the correspondence between our spirit and the prevailing rational structures of nature as a given, on which its methodology has to be based. Yet the question why this has to be so is a real question, and one which has to be remanded by the natural sciences to other modes and planes of thought - to philosophy and theology. For philosophy and, albeit in a different way, for theology, listening to the great experiences and insights of the religious traditions of humanity, and those of the Christian faith in particular, is a source of knowledge, and to ignore it would be an unacceptable restriction of our listening and responding. Here I am reminded of something Socrates said to Phaedo. In their earlier conversations, many false philosophical opinions had been raised, and so Socrates says: "It would be easily understandable if someone became so annoyed at all these false notions that for the rest of his life he despised and mocked all talk about being - but in this way he would be deprived of the truth of existence and would suffer a great loss". The West has long been endangered by this aversion to the questions which underlie its rationality, and can only suffer great harm thereby. The courage to engage the whole breadth of reason, and not the denial of its grandeur - this is the programme with which a theology grounded in Biblical faith enters into the debates of our time. "Not to act reasonably, not to act with logos, is contrary to the nature of God", said Manuel II, according to his Christian understanding of God, in response to his Persian interlocutor. It is to this great logos, to this breadth of reason, that we invite our partners in the dialogue of cultures. To rediscover it constantly is the great task of the university.

What more can I say?

Fluid Dynamics Meets Finite Element Modeling

Researchers at Purdue University have created a simulation to study what happens when a airplane crashes into a building for use in studying the 9/11 World Trade Center attack. The researchers had earlier developed a simulation to investigate the 9/11 Pentagon attack.

"As a result of the Pentagon research, we have a better understanding of what happens when a tremendous mass of fluid such as fuel hits a solid object at high velocity," Sozen said. "We believe most of the structural damage from such aircraft collisions is caused by the mass of the fluid on the craft, which includes the fuel.

"Damage resulting solely from the metal fuselage, engines and other aircraft parts is not as great as that resulting from the mass of fluids on board. You could think of the aircraft as a sausage skin. Its mass is tiny compared to the plane's fluid contents."

...

Santiago Pujol, an assistant professor of civil engineering, worked with the researchers to develop experimental data to test the accuracy of the simulation by using an "impact simulator" to shoot 8-ounce beverage cans at high velocity at steel and concrete targets at Purdue's Bowen Laboratory. These data enabled the researchers to fine tune and validate the theoretical model for the simulation.

"We created a mathematical model of the beverage can and its fluid contents the same way we modeled the airplane, and then we tested our assumptions used to formulate the model by comparing the output from the model with that from the experiment," Sozen said.

Who says science can't be fun and relevant? I bet shooting the coke cans into steel and concrete targets was a blast -- the Mythbuster guys are so jealous. Personally, I'd worry about scaling up from 8oz coke cans to a plane weighing over 200,000 lbs, but that's just the engineer in me, but I understand the difficulty in trying to set up a test anywhere close to full scale. Of course, if they used beer cans, I can see that researchers might decide that enough data had been collected before they were all used.

OK, in all seriousness, this is some real science and engineering, and might even help with those people who claim it wasn't planes that brought down the towers or hit the Pentagon.

Islamic Reformation

I still hear people saying Islam needs a reformation (I suppose because they think that the reformation did wonders for the Christian world's politics). Callimachus at Winds of Change wrote a wonderful post on the subject a while back, You Say You Want a Reformation. While I don't disagree with his post, I think there is still more to be covered. First off, the title implies it but Callimachus doesn't follow up that a reformation really is a revolution, and not all, probably not even a majority, turn out well. The French revolution deposed a King and created an Emperor in his place. The Iranian revolution replaced a repressive and unpopular regime with a far more repressive and unpopular regime, and no doubt has made many Iranians understandably nervous about a second one any time soon. Any revolution carries the risk that things will only get worse.

Secondly, the protestant reformation didn't actually do what people who call for an Islamic revolution to do for Islam, namely get religion out of politics or change the nature of the religion. The reformed Catholic church was just as involved in politics afterwards, maybe moreso. Nor did it promote religious tolerance, as for instance the Spanish Inquisition was in part a response to the religous ferment at the start of the reformation. During the middle ages the Catholic church was an important political player for two reasons - it was the only universal institution in the Christian world, and it was a feuditory in the fuedal system - i.e a bishop was just another baron, and the Pope even was like a King in the Papal States. The wars that the reformation started did have the effect of strengthening the central state and ushering out the feudal system.

The Reformation did not fundamentally change the nature of Christianity, just it's organization. We can debate the proper role and balance of faith and works in the Christian life per the various Christian denominations, but they will agree upon what the faith should be in and what the works should be. Certainly the disagreements over theology that loom large within Christianity pale to insignificance as compared to differences with other religions.

Callimachus says that we are looking at an Islamic Reformation right now, and as he observes, not al religions are the same:

For another: There already was an Islamic Reformation. It happened while we were sleeping. The result is Wahhabi dominance, and Islamic Brotherhood, and Bin Laden. This is the Islamic Reformation. We're fighting it now.

...

When Christianity reforms -- when it goes back to its roots -- it tries to foreswear the world. When Islam goes back to its roots, it tries to conquer the world.

OK, I will disagree, Christianity does not foreswear the world. Instead it tries (with mixed success) to love people. Islam at root is a rule based religion, Christianity at root is a relationship based religion. And not only are we facing a current "Islamic Reformation", Islam had a failed but similar reformation at about the same time as the Christian one. From Venice: The Hinge of Europe 1081-1797, by history professor William McNeil:

Economic difficulties at home and the cessation of victory abroad had serious implications for Moslem thought and self-confidence. As long as success had continued to crown Ottoman standards, the Moslems of the empire could and did argue that the favor Allah continued to shower upon Ottoman arms attested the correctness of their faith. When successes ceased, the inference was obvious. Clearly, Allay was displeased; and the reasons were not far to seek. From almost the beginning of Islam, pious and fanatical puritans had taught that all innovation that went beyond the practices attested in the Koran was displeasing to God. This was a doctrine that demanded reformation of existing Ottoman religious practices every bit as radical as anything dreamed of by the Calvinist reform program for Christianity. The two movements coincided closely in time, for in the final decades of the sixteenth century and throughout the first half of the seventeenth, so called faki preachers inflamed popular discontents, already acute for economic reasons, by demanding uncompromising adherence to Koranic models of piety. The faki attacked the official hierarchy of Ottoman Islam for criminal laxity in condoning innovations of all sorts. They attacked the dervish orders no less vigourously for the heterodoxy of their opinions and ritual practices.

Despite their passion and popular following, the faki did not prevail and were never able to seize political power. Their cultural influence was negative, inhibiting all buth the rich and privileged from exploring novelties, whether intellectual or otherwise, for which Koranic sanction was lacking. Even long established rational science -- imported into Moslem learning in Abbasid times -- withered away as subject of instructions in public institutions of higher learning. Symbolic of this transformation was the fact that in 1580 Sheik-ul-Islam ordered the destruction of the sultan's private observatory. This institution had been as well equipped as any in Europe; but when popular preachers interpreted the outbreak of plague in Istanbul as a sign of Allah's displeasure at the sultan's impious efforts to penetrate God's secrets by astrological science, the observatory (which was, in fact, inspired by astrological curiousity) had to go.

The book goes on to say that religiously questionable pursuits, such as medicine, were abandoned to Jews and Christians, and that higher education became the memorization of sacred texts and their commentaries. Sounds similar to the problem we're facing today. And it sounds like that movement sowed the seeds of todays movement as well by setting the Islamic world up for failure in succeeding centuries, causing once again an attempt to return to the glory days of Islam.

Resistance To Change

I picked up a book at the library about Venice -- yes, inspired by my recent trip there (someday, and soon, I will actually get you there in the European Vacation series) -- and I managed to get a good one, Venice: The Hinge of Europe 1081-1797, by history professor William McNeill. Since it was written in 1974, no shadow of current political controversy touches it; yet I can't help but be struck by certain passages and their application to today:

Widely diverse reactions flow from encounters with new and superior cultural traits: successful borrowing or inventive adaptation within the receiving cultural context are relatively rare but of great historical importance because it is in such circumstances that additions to human skills and capacities are most likely to arise. Far more common, but historically less important, are the instances when men draw back, reaffirm their accustomed patterns of life, and reject the attractive novelty because it seems either unattainable or else threatening and dangerous. In such cases it may become necessary to reinforce accustomed ways in order to withstand the seductions inherent in exposure to what appears to be a superior foreign product. Cultural change, sometimes very far reaching, may thus paradoxically result from especially strenuous efforts to maintain the status quo.

I have to applaud the fact that in 1974 a professor could not just mention that one culture could have traits superior to another, but write a book that looked at such cultural flows.

But more importantly, is this what we are seeing in action today on the part of Islamofascist terrorists? An excessive reinforcement of accustomed ways? Is this why poverty has no correlation to becoming an Islamofascist terrorist, but exposure to the West does? Is it possible that the actual agents of 9/11, the Mohammed Attas and Hani Hanjours, as well as the mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed all of whom spent time living in the United States, only had their murderous intent reinforced, possibly created, by such direct exposure to a different culture.

Of course, the actions of al-Qaida et al. aren't directly entirely, or even primarily, at the West. Far more Iraqi's have been killed by al-Qaida operatives than westerners. Are we seeing extra strenuous efforts to maintain a status quo, or at least the illusion of one? While al-Qaida dreams of defeating the west, they also dream of ruling the Islamic world and imposing their brand of Islam on it. And to them, their Islam is the original, pure, untainted by foreigners Islam, the idea being to return to the status quo ante pernicious western influence.

Is then what we are experiencing a fight by a part of the Islamic culture against both the rest of the Islamic culture and the West over how much Islamic culture should be influenced by the West?

Vacation Almost Collides With Terror Plot

I just returned from Europe yesterday, so thank you, Great Britain. We sure picked the right day to return home -- only turbulence to contend with.

The Murphy family spent a couple of weeks there, and we flew through Heathrow on our way over to Switzerland. We flew through Brussels on our way back. Security in Brussels was really tight -- flights to America were from one end of a terminal which was blocked off and had extra security - as I told my daughter, I've had less intrusive medical exams than that security screening. We were split into two groups, with my wife and son go through together, and my daughter and I together. My bottle of Pepto-Bismol (never leave home without it) was in my son's backpack, and boy were they interested in it. Now I know why since the terrorists were planing to use liquid explosives.

Hamdan Vs. Rumsfeld Decision

The Supreme Court has ruled that the United States can't try al-Qaida prisoners with the planned special military tribunals because as constituted certain provisions of those tribunals conflict with the Uniform Code of Military Justice and with treaty provisions of the Geneva Convention.

You can read the full text of the decision here, along with commentary here.

What the decision doesn't mean is that the detainies are about to be released, nor does it mean that they can't be tried - they just can't be tried by the special military tribunals that were set up. As to what effect this has in the overall war on Terror, I guess that depends on how many people this effects. Are there many new prisoners transferred to Gitmo? Will instead they be kept in Iraq and Afganistan instead, and will this cause fewer prisoners to be taken as soldiers wonder "what's the point"?

So at this point the court ruling looks like we can hold these people as ordinary POWs until the end of the war -- which technically will never end since the odds of us ever signing a peace treaty with al-Qaeda are practically nil (from both sides, I might add). So we have the odd outcome that we can impose a sentance of life imprisonment without parole (the highest penalty in may countries) without any trial whatsoever, yet we can't impose any lesser penalty without going through courts neither designed nor equipped to handle their special cases.

Was the case wrongly decided? Well, that all depends, doesn't it. There are times, like these, when law and policy become so intermixed that it's hard to separate one from the other. So let's just examine what we want out of trials: The guilty punished, the innocent freed, both accomplished in the minimum time required. Would that have been accomplished with the special tribunals? Would Federal or Courts Martia do a better or worse job?

So what's the real problem with the ruling? Like all matters of the law, it doesn't take into account reality. The problem is, we are dealing with an enemy like no other in the sense that we are not fighting a war against another nation, another government. It has the organization of a crime syndicate with the aims of a government or national movement. We are fighting against a different kind of organization, but we are trying to apply the rules set up to fight old style enemies. Now I don't think we need to throw everything out the window and start over, because our aims haven't changed, just the circumstances. And so I think the special tribunals represented a good faith effort to deliver justice under new circumstances, circumstances that older courts probably will have a hard time with.

The problem is what standard of proof, what rules of evidence are we going to use. In war time, we empower young men to make snap decisions about life and death with oversight that takes into account the difficult nature of such decisions. We provide them with ROE - Rules of Engagement- that they are to be guided by in making such decisions. Those ROE vary depending on the exact circumstances of any deployment. The ROE that normal courts operate under never vary. And for good reason - which is why it's better to set up something new that can make a change to a new reality, than have existing courts try to deal with cases they are ill equipped to handle.

That Would Be A Good Thing

I suppose it was a fitting end for a mass murderer who used, among other techniques, car bombs and IEDs to kill: blown up by a bomb. A pair of them actually (JDAMs, I assume). Yes, Abu Musab al Zarqawi is dead, killed by a pair of 500 pound bombs dropped by an F-16 in a little town called Hib Hib near Baqubah, Iraq. His death was the result of a tip or tips as Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Malik announced that the 25 million dollar bounty would be paid. Apparently Jordan intellegence was able to provide the rough location and locals provided the exact location.

The Prime Minister also completed his cabinet, as three ministers were approved by parliament and sworn in: ministers of Defense, National Security, and Interior.

Another step in the long road to victory.

A Metric For Victory?

Now that's what I call a provocative headline: Al Qaida Admits Defeat:

Many Moslems still support terrorism, just not in their neighborhood. But after watching what happened in Iraq and Saudi Arabia since 2003, Moslems can no longer be assured that, once unleashed, Islamic terrorism will only be carried out somewhere else. Moreover, years of al Qaeda boasting have failed the reality check. No amount of hot air and spin will change the fact that al Qaeda has accomplished none of its goals, and has gotten lots of Moslems killed in the process.

What Strategy Page is talking about is that the Islamic world as a whole no longer supports terrorism as a solution to their problems, even though some individual Moslems do.

As far as admitting defeat, that doesn't mean the fightings over though. And looking at WWII, the casualties went up as the war went on. Both the US and Japan took far more casualties after Midway than before, but at that point the handwriting was on the wall for the Japanese.

Unity Takes Time

Cori doesn't seem to think that it's right for a columnist at the paper to break news while the reporters sit on their hands. Don't read the St. Louis Post-Dispatch then, where columnists routinely break news that their reporters show little interest or ability to cover.

But what's more important is what's actually reported -- the progress in the talks between the political parties in Iraq to forge a government:

The political agreements are fragile, and they will be blown away if the factions can't form a government soon to put them in practice. Meanwhile, beyond the Green Zone, Iraqis are still being slaughtered every day in the streets. But given where Iraq was six months ago -- when Sunni and Shiite leaders were barely talking -- their agreement on the framework for a unity government is important. These negotiations may not succeed, but they are not a fairy-tale fantasy, as some critics argue.

We Americans are an impatient lot. From my meagre experiences abroad, time takes on a different meaning once you leave the country.

I'm wondering if that chick at the AP will take Mr. Ignatius to task for the "as some critics argue" line. OK, that was a rhetorical device because I'm not wondering at all, since she didn't note that President Bush was following the lead of the reporting about him which is routinely larded up with "some critics claim" constructions without ever naming the critics.

Are All Creeds Created Equal?

You just have to love a title like "Jesus and the Duke", and the post itself doesn't disappoint after such a strong lead. Andrew Klavan looks at creeds, honor killings, and how they relate to Elizabeth Smart. Yes, there is a difference in creeds, and what make the United States a rare country is that it a nation built on a creed and not ethnicity. Mr. Klavan writes:

I couldn’t help reflecting that if Elizabeth had been the child of Islamic hardliners, her welcome home might not have been quite as loving as it was.

Now the Mormons and every other group have their extremists, but they’re not accepted by our society as they are virtually throughout the Muslim world. To the vast majority of Americans, the idea of punishing, let alone murdering, a raped child is so appalling that language fails. And there can be no multicultural dithering about it: our way is better than their way, as civilization is better than savagery, as love is better than hate. But, of course, our superiority isn’t a matter of individuals, it’s a matter of ideas. The Islamofascist’s creed is a bad one; the American creed is not.

Which brings me at last to the films of John Wayne and the ministry of Jesus Christ. I mean, if these are not the twin pillars our nation rests on, man, I don’t know what those pillars would be. Thus my texts for today’s sermon, brothers and sisters, are John 8: 3-11 and John Ford’s The Searchers.

Not just anybody who can weave the Bible and John Wayne together. I might have gone with Romans 12:19 myself.

I wonder what text Mr. Klavan would choose to go with True Grit?

Dude, Where's My End?

The Shield of Achilles posits that the story of the 20th century was the struggle between fascism, communism, and parliamentarianism in a an epochal war that lasted from 1914 to 1990. [Full disclosure - I haven't made it all the way through the book yet, but what I've read so far is quite interesting if overlong.] It was the vanquishing of fascism and communism during this war that led to the famous claim by Francis Fukuyama that we had arrived at "The End of History". And yet, here we are, locked in another war that looks to be both long and epochal with fascists.

And the parliamentarian nations that triumphed have been thoroughly infected by communism - which is why it's perfectly acceptable to proclaim yourself as a communist at almost any university in the Western world (for instance, I was taught Econ 101 by prof Gurley who made no bones about being a communist), but not proclaim yourself a fascist. It is considered rude to mention the fact that communists are as deadly and inimical to individual liberty as fascists (the communists were able to kill more -- 100 million -- in the last century mainly because they lasted longer in power because the fascists attacked the parliamentarians first) in elite circles.

Rather than an end, we got a brief pause before once again the struggle between divergent societal organizational models resumed; but at least by winning the last war, parliamentarianism is in a far stronger position than the last time and can obtain victory mainly by summoning the will to win backed by the confidence in its own rightness. But our elites, wedded to communism, lack that will and confidence and are hurting, not helping, the war effort -- not by taking an active role against, but by sitting out -- pretending that there isn't a war on, or at least not a real one.

The View from Kurdistan

Michael Totten is writing about his trip to Northern Iraq. His first installment covers his arrival in Irbil via a direct flight from Beirut.

Better him than me.

File Under Just Plain Stupid

I know that there are those who think the title sums up this entire blog, but for a change I'm not being self-depreciating. Actually, the title could just have been only the truth can be this bizarre or something similar and been just as accurate.

Michael Yon [full disclosure, I've hit his tip jar once] is a freelance reporter who as ex-special forces actually understands what he's reporting about in a war zone. And he's unabashedly pro-soldier. He took one of the most famous pictures of the war so far, an American soldier cradling a dying Iraqi child following a terrorist attack. You'd think the Army would play nice with him, but you'd be wrong. The trouble is that the Army distributed his photo as if it were theirs, which cost him a chunk of change and respect. When he complained to the army about it and asks for recompense, they told him, I kid you not, that the liability waver he signed in order to be imbedded -- which basically said if anything happened to him, he knew the risks going in and it wasn't the Army's fault -- covered any harm he suffered from the Army distributing his photo, and that furthermore by uploading it to a government server he had an implied license agreement that the Army could do whatever they wanted with it. There's no call to insult the man after you rip him off.

Now if that weren't weird enough, Yon has asked Senator Ted Kennedy to help him with the matter (Yon's current home base is Massachusetts). Talk about the odd couple.

UPDATE: The Army comes to it's senses -- OK, the dispute got the attention of General Brooks (the ultra smooth briefer of CENTCOM in the high tech media center in Qatar back during the invasion phase of OIF) who had a competent lawyer examine the dispute. So now everybody's happy, and Senator Kennedy can leave his pants off for another night of carousing instead of working late on Mr. Yon's complaint. Thanks to Kevin at Pundit Review for the heads up.

You Go George

I've already explained my thoughts on the whole "domestic spying" controversy - it isn't domestic, and why my phone/email communications can't be searched by a US government agent without a warrant while crossing a border yet I and my property can be is beyond me.

But Tom Maguire does his usual treatment of subjects that fascinate him (he's still even posting on the Plame kerfuffle, bless his heart) which means he's thorough (but gentle, as a blogger should be). So we have not just one post, not just two posts, but three whole posts about it. He gives a hypothetical situation on why even the 72 hour retroactive warrent may not be good enough - and frankly why the whole framework of FISA may simply be OBT (Overtaken By Technology) and rendered obsolete. He takes us through the thoughts of the Democrats who were briefed (including the New York Times - you know, the media wing of the Mediacratic party of which the Democrats are the political wing (kind of like the IRA and Sinn Fein, but different because we don't know which side of the media/democrats is calling the shots and we know the IRA is calling the shots (pun not intended and regretted)) and concludes:

Possible unifying answer - Harman, Rockefeller, and the editors of the Times are all dupes. Uh huh. Another possible answer is, they know enough about this program to know that there might still be some secrets there.

Folks who think that the catalog of Atrios's ignorance and the limits of his imagination define the boundaries of human endeavor will remain bemused by his question. For myself, I am convinced that I don't know enough about this program to have any solid idea what security issues might be involved, so I am relying on the good, if unsteady, judgments of elected representatives such as Harman and Rockefeller.

It's clear from the Brit Hume interview with Rep. Harman that Tom links to that she thinks that there are still secrets there:

HUME: You say it's basically foreign. Were you not made aware individuals within the United States' conversations with the suspected terrorists overseas were part of the program?

HARMAN: It's a classified program, so I can't discuss what I was made aware of. But let me say...

HUME: Well, I know, but the...

HARMAN: No.

HUME: ... toothpaste is out of the tube...

HARMAN: ... it was made clear to me -- no...

HUME: ... when it's known that that's the case.

HARMAN: But it was made clear to me that conversations between Americans in America were not part of the program and require -- and I think they do -- a court warrant in order to eavesdrop on them.

And that's been a point of confusion, because some of the press articles allege that this is a so-called, as you said, domestic surveillance program. That's not what I believe it is.

HUME: Well, all right. So in other words, your belief is that this was indeed a case of Americans being picked up, perhaps within the United States, in discussions with people overseas.

HARMAN: Well, let's just leave your comment there. I really don't want to confirm what...

HUME: All right.

No Brit, the toothpaste isn't all out of the tube, and even if it were, the information hasn't been declassified yet. The New York Times may rule the Mediacrats, but they don't have the power to declassify (something that Joe Wilson forgot when he blew the cover off his wife being a covert operative).

And it's nice to know that Rep. Harman and I agree that this isn't domestic surveillance, but foreign and international if need be.

The same papers that demand we search every cargo container entering the US and fault the administration for moving too slowly here are the very ones who are attacking them for listening in on foreign and international calls without a judge's approval. Again, what gives phone calls such privileges? What makes a judge so special? Is a judge more sober than members of Congress?

Frankly, it's nice to know the Bush administration was on the ball with this one. And I hope they catch the SOB who leaked and comprimised an ongoing and effective covert intellegence operation in wartime - a war that is has been and continues to be fought partly on American soil. Sometimes I think some people forget that.

Nobody Here But An NSA Agent

Back in the day when phone companies ruled (you know, when a hip movie like The President's Analyst could cast "The Phone Company" as the ultimate villain) there was a clear division in phone calls - domestic (between two phones in the same United States), and international (between a phone in the US and a phone in a different country). Yet I keep reading in the news about how the NSA is conducting domestic spying on international calls -- you know, between a phone in the US and a phone in a different country. I wonder if they use a TARDIS to accomplish that trick? While I can't read minds, I'm inclined to think such a mischaracterization is a deliberate attempt to sway your opinion.

Now if you're not a legal expert (just like me) there are a lot of competing claims - generally along partisan lines with the left claiming malfeasence and the right claiming prudence. The legal experts have shown more heat than light on the issue, and it seems to me you can pick your answer by picking your legal beagle.

But I'm a scientist masquarading as an Engineer, so I asked my self, what would Albert do? Why, a thought experiment of course! But in place of a phone call between two countries, I place myself, a US citizen, on a trip between two countries. And since I have indeed traveled internationally (before the War on Terror), between a variety of countries, it's a well grounded thought experiment. On the outbound leg, I leave the United States, and the only check is by the airlines to make sure I have a passport and if required in the destination country a valid visa. They do this because if I arrive without such necessities, they have to send me back at their own expense. When I arrive at my destination, however, I am subject to not just questioning, but search of not just my belongings, but my person. Even local military escort, which was able to take us to the head of the line in Pakistan, was unable to circumvent the searching of our luggage. In Europe, I received the most scrutiny in England (because of my name), and the least in Switzerland. The return, however, is different than the departure, as despite the fact I'm a US citizen on US soil, I am once again subject to questions, and to the search, not only of my property, but of my person, at the discression of a US government employee, and without a warrant. I got the most thorough going over upon my returns from Pakistan and the most perfunctory from Canada.

So I'm supposed to get excited because the NSA is listening into international phone calls without a warrant, but there is no excitement over my warrentless search when I physically travel internationally? So why are my phone calls more priveleged than me? Well, we have a pretty good understanding how helpful such border control can be when it comes to the physical, but some people don't seem to see that when it comes to communications.

Look, I'm not happy about such searches (especially when I'm going through them, and I'll never forget the asshole agent in Hawaii) but I understand they occur simply because it's the only way to enforce the law. It's not because of the badness of government, but the badness of people.

Non Verbal Communication

What's the best way to declare you're not an Islamofascist? Wafah Doufar, Osama Bin Laden's American niece thinks that showing a lot of skin says it best. Maybe there is something to that whole protest babe thing after all.

Some Things Will Never Change

Why is the media doing such a bad job in Iraq? Don't take my word for it, don't take our soldier's word for it, take a journalist's word for it:

Think about everything you’ve heard about the conditions in Iraq, the role of U.S. forces, the multi-layered complexities of the war.

Then think again.

I’m a journalist. I read the news everyday, from several sources. I have the luxury of reading stuff newspapers don’t always have room to print. I read every tidbit I could on Iraq and the war before coming.

Everything I thought I knew was wrong.

Maybe not wrong, but certainly different than the picture in my head.

The spirit of Baghdad Bob lives on.

Via Small Dead Animals.

And Don't It Feel Good

Yesterday was another great day for Iraq -- an estimated 70% of registered voters braved long lines and possible violence to vote. One vote (or even increasing participation over three votes as has been seen) isn't the final step of the march to democracy. But it is a significant milestone of that march. The hardest test of all isn't coming out to vote, but the peaceful transfer of power from one faction to another as a result of an election. The United States didn't face this test until 1800 and the election of Thomas Jefferson - 24 years after he wrote the Declaration of Independence.

It is often said that you can't impose democracy by force which seems to me a total misread of the typical situtation. Normally, you have to use force to stop those who seek to suppress democracy - the British in 1776, Hitler & Tojo in 1941, Saddam in 2003. And force can be required to keep a country democratic, from opponents both internal and external. But truly representative government is popular enough that you don't have to impose it by force, even in cases like the United States where people nearly universally are willing to abide by results of elections they don't even bother to vote in. Is anybody forcing the Iraqi's to vote? Or are they voting because they see representative government as a solution to some of their most pressing problems?

I've maintained all along that the war in Iraq will be won or lost (from the American point of view) by the Iraqi's themselves. Our job was to provide enough security, aid, advice, and yes, encouragement so that the people of Iraq could set up their own democratic government and security forces that they could defeat the insurgents themselves. We could not, nor should we try, to obliterate the insurgancy, set up a fully functioning democratic country in Iraq, and then turn all this over to Iraqi's who had had not part up until then. There is no such thing as a turnkey country. If we had, it would have collapsed like a house of cards as soon as we left.

Curse Missed Opportunities

Thank a soldier week is coming next week -- don't miss it.

What's Wrong With This Picture

You're a bloody dictator finally deposed and in the dock for your horrific crimes. So what do you do? Why, you naturally go for the insanity defense: You retain Ramsey Clark as one of your attorneys, you rant and rave in court at every opportunity, and make claims like you won't show up in court because you think the trial is unfair."

Yes its a circus, but at the end of it we have the certainty that Saddam will hang, unlike the circus that surrounds Milosevic.

You Can't Handle The Truth

So, President Bush has finally decided to go after those Democrats who are smearing him by claming he lied or mislead about the intellegence on Iraq in order to drum up support for the war. It will be an uphill battle because not only will he have to contend with the Democrats, but the news media as well. The Democrats aren't that formidable a foe, but the news media is much, much smoother at lies and misrepresentations. Good luck Mr. President, you'll need it.

Slimeball Is More Like It

Last night when my wife and I were watching the news, Larry Connors reported the story I highlighted yesterday of the bombmaker killed in Indonesia. Thankfully he left out the speculation about maybe he was planning more attacks, but Larry did call Bin Husen "the mastermind" of the Bali nightclub attacks. My wife had a similar reaction to Jason's: "Mastermind? What kind of mastermind does it take to put some bombs in a nightclub and blow the place up and kill a bunch of people?"

The Best Darn Talking Points Period

Speaking of policy disputes versus morality plays, Brent Scowcroft criticized Bush administration policy and the Bush administration responded. If you believe Joe Klein, and I don't, the Bush administration responded by sending out "talking points about how to attack Brent Scowcroft" based on a claim by a source who deleted the email before he read it. Well, as Jim Taranto points out: "He [Klein] "reports" that the White House is trying to "destroy" Scowcroft, based on an anonymous source's description of an e-mail that not only Klein but the source himself hasn't read! It's such a hilariously inept bit of journalism..." The sad thing is that as we've seen, this is isn't inept journalism, this is SOP for journalism, and the main reason I don't get excited over claims of malfeasance reported by the media until I can see the primary documents with my own two eyes.

Like a lot of people who have read the talking points, I find them both civil and cogent, and frankly the right way to approach a policy dispute. I reprint them here from Elephants in Academia:

1. Bernard Lewis is perhaps our greatest living historian on the Middle East.

2. Ronald Reagan calling the Soviet Union an "evil empire" was accurate, courageous, and important, as we learned from (among others) Soviet dissidents.

3. The assertion that we have had "fifty years of peace" in the Middle East is an odd one, if you consider (a) America's 1991 war against Iraq (which General Scowcroft favored); (b) the Iraq-Iran war (in which there were a million casualties; (c) the conflict in the early 1970s between Jordan and the Palestinians; (d) the civil war in Lebanon; (e) the four wars between Israel and Arab nations; and (f) the attacks of September 11, 2001 (which was carried out by Islamic radicals who emerged from the broader Middle East).

In some ways this point underscores the enormous difference between the worldview of Mr. Scowcroft and those in the Bush Administration. Mr. Scowcroft seems to believe that the status quo in the Middle East is tolerable, maybe even preferable; we do not. The President believes that if the Middle East remains a place where freedom does not flourish, it will remain a place of stagnation and anger and violence for export. In the words of President Bush, "In the past, [we] have been willing to make a bargain, to tolerate oppression for the sake of stability. Longstanding ties often led us to overlook the faults of local elites. Yet this bargain did not bring stability or make us safe. It merely bought time, while problems festered and ideologies of violence took hold."

4. The "bad guys" -- the most ruthless among us -- do not "always" rise to the top. In fact in many elections - in Spain and Portugal, Nicaragua and El Salvador, the Czech Republic and Romania, South Africa and the Philippines, Indonesia and Ukraine, Afghanistan and Iraq, and many more - we have seen enormous strides toward freedom. For example, the Western Hemisphere has transformed itself over the last two decades from a region dominated by repressive, authoritarian regimes to one in which the overwhelming number of countries there have democratically-elected governments and growing civil societies.

It's also worth bearing in mind that some pretty bad guys (like Saddam Hussein) "win elections" in authoritarian and totalitarian societies. Indeed, non-democracies make it far easier for the "bad guys" to prevail than is the case with democracies. Is it the supposition of Mr. Scowcroft that from a historical point of view dictatorships have a better record than democracies? Or that because democratic elections don't always turn out well they can never turn out well? Or that because democratic elections don't always turn out well we should prefer authoritarian and totalitarian regimes? The habit of mind that sees all the weaknesses in democracy and all the "strengths" in authoritarian and totalitarian regimes is, well, curious.

5. Mr. Scowcroft insists we will not "democratize" Iraq and that "in any reasonable time frame the objective of democratizing the Middle East can be successful." Except that in the last two-and-a-half years Iraq has moved from tyranny, to liberation, to national elections, to the writing of a constitution, to the passage of a constitution. By any standard or precedent of history, Iraq has made incredible political progress. Iraq still faces challenges, including a ruthless insurgency -- but there is no question that the people of Iraq long for democracy and for victory over the insurgency.

The charge that the way we have sought to bring democracy to Iraq is "you invade, you threaten and pressure, you evangelize" is itself deeply misleading. Mr. Scowcroft's invasion was in fact a liberation -- and overthrowing one of the worst tyrannies in modern times and replacing it with free elections is a good start on the pathway to liberty. And of course this year we have also seen political progress -- not perfection, but progress -- in Kuwait, Egypt, and among the Palestinians.

6. The notion that democratic progress in Lebanon is "unrelated" to the war in Iraq is undermined by what the Lebanese themselves have told us. To take just one example, here are the words of Walid Jumblatt, who was once a harsh critic of American policy: "'It's strange for me to say it, but this process of change has started because of the American invasion of Iraq. I was cynical about Iraq. But when I saw the Iraqi people voting three weeks ago, 8 million of them, it was the start of a new Arab world. The Syrian people, the Egyptian people, all say that something is changing. The Berlin Wall has fallen. We can see it."

7. Mr. Scowcroft seems to wish that Syria were still ruling Lebanon with an iron fist. Brutal repression may be;wicked -- but (Scowcroft seems to believe) it does keep a lid on "sectarian emotions."

8. Sometimes when given a chance, we humans don't screw up. Sometimes ;human beings reach for, and (even if imperfectly) attain, nobility and the advancement of freedom and human dignity.Which seems to me to be an argument against cynicism and despair -- to say nothing of repression and tyranny. Let the debate proceed.

I suppose too many people don't know who to have a civil debate, so they have to resort to name calling and lying.

Policy Dispute or Morality Play?

There are two things I find very offensive about the claim that the Bush administration lied about WMD just so that we could go to war - it insults my intellegence as it is so obviously wrong to anyone who has the slightest ability to remember, or absent that, to anyone who takes the slightest time to investigate; and it takes a straightforward policy dispute (whether or not to to to war) and turns it into a morality play (Bush lied and people died!).

And in this fantasy, it's Joe Wilson who exposed the administration. Let's examine the circumstances around Joe Wilson's trip and the claim that, for instance, the administration either made stuff up out of whole cloth or at least leaned on intellegence agencies to provide intel like the White House wanted. The VP and his staff (i.e. Scooter Libby) took a strong interest in intellegence and even visited CIA headquarters a few times. Thus the claims that the VP pressured the CIA to tell him stories he wanted to hear.

Wilson's trip starts, according to the CIA, when Vice President Cheney indicated an interest during his daily CIA brief in more information about a report that Saddam tried to buy Uranium from Niger. So the CIA sends former Ambassador Wilson at the recommendation of his wife to check the story out. He spends some time in Niger talking to old friends, briefs our Ambassador there about his findings, returns home and briefs the CIA about his findings. What did he find in Niger? He found that indeed, the Iraqi's in 1999 had gone to Niger and made overtures that the Nigerians interpreted as a desire to buy uranium, but that the Nigerians didn't sell any, and couldn't anyway because of monitoring. Did the CIA, under pressure from Cheney, immediately alert the Vice President that in fact they had confirmed the Iraqi's tried to buy uranium from Niger? No, the CIA concluded that the report was inconclusive because all Wilson did was talk to contacts who knew he was reporting to the US government (which they knew he did before he left) and handled the report routinely without informing the White House of it's contents. Later on Ambassador Wilson would go on to lie or mislead about almost every aspect of his trip, his findings especially, in a successful attempt to make people believe that the White House lied about WMD, when the only liar was Joe Wilson.

So what does the uncontested part of Wilson's trip tell us? If the CIA felt any pressure to say what the White House wanted, they sure as hell didn't act like it. Here we have the Vice President show an interest in a report about WMD, and the CIA went out of their way to investigate in such a way as to generate a report they could ignore while telling the White House if asked that they had indeed investigated but the results were inconclusive even if, as it happened, they turned up evidence that Iraq did try to obtain uranium from Africa.

Real Journalism

Imagine my surprise to read this article in my paper on Sunday which completely bebunks the stories told by an OIF veteran named Jimmy Massey.

Among his claims:

Marines fired on and killed peaceful Iraqi protesters.

Americans shot a 4-year-old Iraqi girl in the head.

A tractor-trailer was filled with the bodies of civilian men, women and children killed by American artillery.
...
Each of his claims is either demonstrably false or exaggerated - according to his fellow Marines, Massey's own admissions, and the five journalists who were embedded with Massey's unit, including a reporter and photographer from the Post-Dispatch and reporters from The Associated Press and The Wall Street Journal.

Gateway Pundit is all over this and thinks Mr Massey should be behind bars; I think he should be in a mental institution getting the help he obviously needs (along with his partner in madness, Cindy Sheehan.)

And not content with that, Mr. Ron Harris then goes on to ask "Why did the press swallow Massey's stories?" The quotes Mr. Harris presents do not paint a pretty picture of the press:

Media outlets throughout the world have reported Jimmy Massey's claims of war crimes, frequently without ever seeking to verify them.

For instance, no one ever called any of the five journalists who were embedded with Massey's battalion to ask him or her about his claims.

The Associated Press, which serves more than 8,500 newspaper, radio and television stations worldwide, wrote three stories about Massey, including an interview with him in October about his new book.

But none of the AP reporters ever called Ravi Nessman, an Associated Press reporter who was embedded with Massey's unit. Nessman wrote more than 30 stories about the unit from the beginning of the war until April 15, after Baghdad had fallen.

Jack Stokes, a spokesman for the AP, said he didn't know why the reporters didn't talk to Nessman, nor could he explain why the AP ran stories without seeking a response from the Marine Corps. The organization also refused to allow Nessman to be interviewed for this story.

How typical -- stonewall when called on shoddy journalism.

While the story never comes to a conclusion about why didn't the press checkout his stories, I'll give you my answer - in some cases they wanted to believe them, and in other cases they just never bother. I don't know which is worse, but check out more quotes from the story:

David Holwerk, editorial page editor for The Sacramento Bee, said he thought the newspaper handled its story, a question and answer interview with Massey, poorly.
"I feel fairly confident that we did not subject this to the rigorous scrutiny that we should have or to which we would subject it today," he said.

Mr. Holwerk, please don't pee on my leg and tell me its raining. What steps have you specifically taken so this doesn't happen again? Yes, no doubt today, after having been alerted, you wouldn't run Mr. Massey's ravings without the slightest scrutiny like you did the last time, but what about other stories?

Rex Smith, editor of the Albany (N.Y.) Times Union, said he thought the newspaper's story about Massey could have "benefited from some additional reporting." But he didn't necessarily see anything particularly at odds with standard journalism practices.

The paper printed a story in which Massey reportedly told an audience how he and other Marines killed peaceful demonstrators. There was no response from the Marine Corps or any other evidence to back Massey's claims.

Smith said that, unfortunately, that is the nature of the newspaper business.

"You could take any day's newspaper and probably pick out a half dozen or more stories that ought to be subjected to a more rigorous truth test," he said.

"Yes, it would have been much better if we had the other side. But all I'm saying is that this is unfortunately something that happens every day in our newspapers and with practically every story on television."

Mr Smith, I have to credit you with telling it like it is, and in the immortal words of Latigo Smith, "the Truth hurts", but how do you look at yourself in the mirror every morning while willingly and knowingly participating in a gigantic fraud on the American people. Yes, fraud. We pay newspapars to tell us the facts and provide all sides to a story, and here you are telling us that what we get for our money is a collection of fairy tales that on a good day might concievably have some ever so slight basis in fact, but you don't really have any idea.

Michael Parks sees it differently. He is the director of the University of Southern California Annenberg School of Journalism and formerly the editor of the Los Angeles Times. Parks also reviewed stories written about Massey.

"A reporter's obligation is to check the allegation, to seek comment from the organization that's accused," said Parks, a Pulitzer Prize winner who covered the Vietnam War as a reporter for the Baltimore Sun. "They can't let allegations lie on the table, unchecked or unchallenged. When they don't do that, it's a clear disservice to the reader."

Dear Mr. Parks, it isn't a disservice to the reader, its fraud. When the press claims one to fact check but doesn't, it's fraud. And this happens over, and over, and over.

"We're not stenographers, we're journalists," Dixon [former managing editor of The Philadelphia Inquirer and currently chairman of the Howard University Department of Journalism] said. "What separates journalism from other forms of writing is that we practice the craft of verification. By not doing that, that's saying they're abdicating any responsibility from exercising news judgment. ... As a journalist, you want to put accurate information before the public so they can make opinions and decisions based on accurate information. When something like this happens, harm is done, the truth suffers."

Amen Brother Dixon, Amen. Now if you can make that teaching stick with your students, I'll be much obliged to you.

My own theory on why Mr. Harris wrote two such take-no-prisoners articles: His sense of truth was offended by what happened. He was one of the imbedded reporters with the marine unit that Mr. Massey was maligning and as such he was a witness to the truth. And so he wrote two articles, one that looked at the liar, and the other that looked at those who uncritically spread the lies, and he discharged his duty to the truth.

Mr Harris and the Post delivered real journalism, powerfully delivered in two short articles. And Mr. Arnie Robbins, new editor in chief of the Post, that's something that I, and plenty others who also want real journalism, are willing to pay for, whatever the format.

Misplaced Concern

There are times when I read the papers and I think I must be insane. It seems that a lot of people are worried about the fairness of Saddam's trial. Fairness? Is there really some question of his guilt? This is a guy who started out as a leg breaker for the Baathists, graduated to assassin, took over by killing his rivals and associates, and never hesitated to kill, torture, or maim anyone. He stayed in power not through the ballot box, but throught the overwhelming application of terror and death. He's ordered the deaths of hundreds of thousands people, enough I suppose that for some it's no longer a crime but a statistic. Having a trial at all is all the fairness this guy deserves. I guess I've come to expect delusional arabs quoted in the papers, but when Saddam's fellow dictators publish self-serving editorials indistinguishable from an editorial run by what was once considered the top newspaper in the US, you have to wonder about your sanity.

Some people haven't lost it though, as this commentary in al-Adalah shows:

Imagine if justice tried Saddam with the same laws he enacted, such as executing him and asking his family to pay for the bullets, burying him alive in a single or mass grave with a number of his henchmen, cutting off his ear or tongue, throwing him in an acid bath or poisoning him with thallium or poisonous gas. The main lesson of this trial is not a brief show that will end up with the most severe punishment meted out to Saddam. Rather, it will be a trial of a whole black era revealing all the tragedies and disasters perpetrated by the dictatorship.

Exactly, the point of this isn't Saddam's long awaited and richly deserved death, but the exposure, exposition, and condemnation of his and his minions evil.

Some of our elite media, like Ted Koppel, have showed their concern for our fighting men by reading the names of the fallen or showing their flag draped coffins. I wish these same organizations, which were mute when Saddam was fertilizing the soil with Iraqi bodies, would starting reading the names of all the Iraqi's killed by Saddam, and showing their mass graves.

Congratulations Iraq

I have a ballcap I love for two reasons: (1) even though it only cost me five bucks it's a very nice cap -- bought it at Kohls BTW, and (2) the logo is a flag with "established 1776" underneath. The whole "established 1776" works as the simple story, but America (OK, the United States for my international readers) didn't spring fully formed from Washington's head in 1776.

1776 is the date of the Declaration of Independence, which after a stirring introduction is a laundry list of grievances and concludes by declaring that each state is independent and a nation in its own right. And 1776 was a couple of years after the First Continental Congress. So was 1776 the birth of nation? The Articles of Confederation were approved by Congress in 1777, ratified by the states in 1781 and are the original constitution of the United States. Dissatisfaction set in almost immediately however, and so the current US Constitution was created in 1787 over period of almost four months. It wasn't until 1789 that it was ratified by enough states and took effect (with Rhode Island and North Carolina ratifiing after it took effect).

The Bill of Rights, or the first 10 amendments, was the result of the complaints about the Constitution during the ratification process, and were proposed in 1789 almost immediate after it took effect were ratified by 1791. It has been amended 17 more times since, with the 27th amendment originally proposed as part of the Bill of Rights in, yes, 1789, and ratified in 1992. Some people dislike the messy amendment process, where they have to persuade a majority of the American public across the land, so instead now we have the Supreme Court simply amend the constitution on their own say so.

All this is a long preamble to noting that two years after the overthrow of Saddam Hussein, Iraq voted on and may have ratified a new constitution this past weekend. If so, the next rendezvous with history will be the parliamentary elections to be held December 15 this year. The path has not without winding and stones, since a lot of Iraqi's have not had a chance to read the document for themselves, and some issues were kicked down the road to be settled at a later date. Kind of like slavery in the US constitution, but hopefully more like the Bill of Rights, which was added as a result of pressure and politics following the ratification of the constitution. Even if this Iraq constitution was voted down, they are still way ahead of the US, which took 13 years from the Declaration of Independence to ratify our Constitution.

Part of the dissatisfaction with progress in Iraq is historical amnesia - we who live in a time tested democracy under the rule of law simply have forgotten the time required and difficulty in forging a new nation when there wasn't even the need to create a political culture of law and democracy as well as since it was already bequeathed to us by Great Britain. We forget that the early trials and tribulations strengthed our political institutions, not weakened them. And so we Americans demand perfection when we have no right ot expect it nor should we want it.

We can only do so much in Iraq; the rest is up to the Iraqi's. And so far, they are taking ahold of their own future. Congratulations, Iraq, and good luck.

Keep On Keeping On

It's a big day in Iraq today, with the people voting on a new constitution. Pass or fail, it's democracy in action, and I'm hoping that the Iraqi people vote and the terorrists don't disrupt the vote. As has been observed, democracy is a process, not a one time event.

Four Years Later

Today is the fourth anniversary of 9/11. I cannot think of anything witty, wise, touching, or insightful, in part because as I type one child is practicing the viola and the other is practicing the piano. But I suppose that is a good sign -- instead of apocalypse, there is normalcy at home. When the news came that New Orleans was flooded, I knew it was a natural, not al-Qaida disaster. I don't worry when I watch a ball game that the stadium will go up in a gout of fire; I don't worry during large, symbolic events that disaster lurks in the shadows. The fighting is distant, and the struggle now is chiefly fought by means other than death and destruction. Our hand is reaching out to help far more than it is clenched to strike. Yes, an enemy strikes at our allies, and our soldiers in far off lands, but at home there is a measure of safety for us but denied to our enemies. And we are winning the war by every measure - Islamic fascism is less strong, less popular, is losing ground world wide. The war is not over, and likely to be a generational struggle, but this war is the rarest of wars as it now looks to leave the world better off than when it started. The greatest danger to us is complacently, of stopping or turning our attention away too soon, because our enemy certainly hasn't given up, and could unleash far worse than 4 airplanes.

The Gates Of Delirium

Is this how combat will be covered in the future? I'm speaking of Michael Yon and his coverage of Deuce Four in Mosul -- a freelancer with a paypal button who knows the military. Yes, I've contributed, and if you want expert coverage of the War in Iraq, you should too. It simply amazes me that the best coverage has come from so called amateurs - Steve Mumford and Michael Yon. Sure, there has been some great professional coverage of the war, but it tended not to be sustained, and too much appears to have been lost somewhere between the reporter in the field and the delivery in your paper or TV.

What News Is

I'm not the only person unhappy with the coverage the Western press provides on the war on terror. As Army Capt. Sherman Powell told Today Show host Matt Lauer in in response to his question how troop morale could be so high, given the problems in Iraq:

"If I got my news from the newspapers also, I'd be pretty depressed as well. Those of us who've actually had a chance to get out and go on patrols and meet the Iraqi army and the Iraqi police and go on patrols with them, we are very satisfied with the way things are going here."

What does the coverage consist of? Headlines about how many coalition force or Iraqi civilians were killed today or silence if none were killed, or recently how the effort to forge a new Iraqi constitution is about to unravel if there is kind of heated debate, posturing to make a later deal, or rhetorical point scoring at the sacrifice of progress, or silence if the effort is going smoothly. American operations are only mentioned in the context of (1) the casualties they bring to coalition soldiers and (2) how the enemy is so flexable and always adapting. Listening to news reports provides the inescapable conclusion that the only thing coalition forces are doing in Iraq is dying.

A large part of the problem is the divergent aims of terrorist groups in Iraq and the coalition forces - one is simply out to kill and terrorize and intimidate; the other is out to build a new civil society. The former is much easier to cover and so leads and dominates the coverage. The latter is much harder because it is so much more varied, much more widespread, and considered "normal" and thus not news. How can killing terorrists, finding and destroying arms caches, building infrastructure like power or sewage treatment plants, and holding elections all be a single aim? By and large for the press, if it can't be covered simply, it isn't covered at all.

So this morning my local paper's WOT terror coverage consisted of an article about how 4 US soldiers were killed in Afganistan and how the things are getting worse there. Where is the story about how US and Afgan forces killed 105 terrorists in the same area that the 4 US soldiers were killed -- I guess that somehow wasn't news.

Keep Trucking

I read a thoughtful entry at Crooked Timber yesterday, and lo and behold Armed Liberal provides the answer I didn't have time to. Now that's the kind of discussion we should be having.

Doesn't Speak For Me

Since I get my marching orders from Hugh Hewitt, I have to say Congressman Tancredo's remark that we should retaliate by bombing Mecca if we're attacked by Nukes by Islamic terrorists is wrong and unhelpful, and well, shameful.

Terrorists Attack London

Terrorists attacked London this morning, with four bombs going off in the transportation network, killing at least 33 people, and injuring up to a thousand. As always with breaking news like this, there are a lot of speculation and error being passed off as news. My deepest sympathy to all those affected.

The Mirror has reactions from many world leaders, but I'm going with the mayor of London, Red Ken Livingston:

"I want to say one thing: This was not a terrorist attack against the mighty or the powerful, it is not aimed at presidents or prime ministers, it was aimed at ordinary working-class Londoners, that isn't an ideology, it isn't even a perverted faith, it's mass murder. We know what the objective is. They seek to divide London. Black and white, Muslim and Christian, Hindus and Jews, young and old. It was an indiscriminate attempt to slaughter, irrespective of any considerations for age, class, religion whatever.”

It's Clobbering Time

Jason Van Steenwyk makes an excellent point:

You will never have a perfectly surviveable system. And you cannot turn Humvees into tanks. You will bankrupt the country.
...
The insurgency will not be defeated by putting an extra armor on our vehicles. The insurgency will be defeated by dismounts. Dismounts out there engaging with the Iraqi people and collecting real-time intelligence.

And THAT is the effort the Media should focus on. THAT is the effort that Congress should focus on.

I guess some people never heard the expression that the best defense is a good offense.

My Take

My impressions of the President's speech:

His speech writers are much better at writing a speech than he is at delivering one.

I vacillate on his giving it before a military audience: On the one hand, it smacks of using them as props, on the other, they're the people who are actually being killed and wounded. I would rather he gave the speech direct into the camera and then privately schmoozed the soldiers, but team Bush may have decided he does much better in front of a live audience.

As long as it was a live audience, I'm glad they were under orders not to applaud because I hate how much longer that makes a political speech and how that destroys the pacing.

I was disturbed by that proto-smile on his face during a lot of the speech - but I guess that was his thinking to himself "How many times do I have to explain this to you."

I found the irony rich: the smirky Bushitler having a clear grasp of a winning strategy, both for the war on terror as well as the battle for Iraq, while his oh so much smarter opponents keep mewling about how Saddam didn't have anything to do with 9/11 and whose strategy seems to be if we ignore it, it will just go away striking.

Since I was already persuaded by the arguments advanced, I can't tell if anyone was persuaded for or against by the speech. I do think the strategy and rationale was clearly layed out and I'm dismayed by how many people don't seem to get it.

I did find the end of the speech effective. Yes, choked by emotion can all too easily be overdone, but I do think it was genuine, and came across as such. He could barely get out the "May God Bless You All".

On a side note, who would you rather write about politics, this guy or this guy? I don't know what Mr. Maguire does for a living, but I much prefer to reading his slyly cogent take on matters than Mr. Millbank's snarky superficiality.

Stick It In Your Ear Isn't Refined Enough

Speaking of people I agree with and who write well, Tom Maguire has opened surrender negotiations with the NYTs.

The Miasma All Around

I have to like the title of this article: CIA says Iraq is now a terrorist training ground. Hello, McFly, as opposed to when Saddam was terrorist-in-chief of the place?

The lead sentance grabs your attention: "The CIA believes the Iraq insurgency poses an international threat and may produce better-trained Islamic terrorists than the 1980s Afghanistan war that gave rise to Osama bin Laden and al Qaeda, a U.S. counterterrorism official said on Wednesday."

At least you only have to go to paragraph 3 to see when this international threat will materialize: "Once the insurgency ends, Islamic militants are likely to disperse as highly organized battle-hardened combatants capable of operating throughout the Arab-speaking world and in other regions including Europe."

That's right, after the terrorists get beat in Iraq, then they'll disperse and be an interational threat. Um, so we have the Islamic radicals that went to Afganistan in the 80's and fought for the winning side being less lethal than the Islamic radicals who are going to Iraq and fighting for the losing side? Am I missing something here? There were a lot of Islamic radicals after Afganistan because they were on the winning team; more were attracted following the war there to be Islamic radicals because they were on the winning team, and then they followed it up with successful actions in Chechnya. Losing two wars, in Afganistan and in Iraq, is not a winning strategy for long term success.

I also have trouble with "Iraq has become a magnet for Islamic militants similar to Soviet-occupied Afghanistan two decades ago and Bosnia in the 1990s, U.S. officials say." Again, the difference is that the militants are dying in far greater numbers and proportions in Iraq than they did in Afganistan two decades ago - it's not more than a magnet, it's a mass graveyard for militants.

Once the insurgency ends, the Islamic milititants are most likely dead; it will be much harder to recruit people to be suicide bombers as a mass murderer in the name of Allah will have lost a lot of zest. And let's not forget the flip side to this -- there will be two countries, Afganistan and Iraq, that will have anti-terrorist forces that will be well motivated and working with us to continue to beat forces they've already won victories over. If I had to pick, I'd pick the winners over the losers as allies in this long struggle. But I guess that doesn't make good copy.

A tip of the hat to Take Back The News for the article.

Do Anything To Take Us Out Of This Blue

I'll say one thing for Dick Durbin - at least he didn't claim he was just trying to make joke. But that's the only positive thing I can say about his absurd and damaging claim that:

If I read this to you and did not tell you that it was an FBI agent describing what Americans had done to prisoners in their control, you would most certainly believe this must have been done by Nazis, Soviets in their gulags, or some mad regime--Pol Pot or others--that had no concern for human beings. Sadly, that is not the case. This was the action of Americans in the treatment of their prisoners.

I can only shake my head at such breathtaking ignorance, and his subsequent attempt to shift the blame from himself, where it squarely belongs, to the media and right wingers is pathetic. There are two problems with his remarks: He makes this inflammatory, bound to be used by our enemies, wrong statement; and by doing so he destroys the discussion over the point I hope he was trying to make. Hugh Hewitt takes a long, full look at the Senator's remarks and concludes, well, that would be telling, wouldn't it.

UPDATE:
Senator Durbin has apologized for his remarks. I thought his apology insincere (he waited until Mayor Daley of Chicago let him have it) and the crying was over the top, but apology made, and in the words of Smash: Apology accepted. Show's over, folks. Move along.

The Post Is Like A Box Of ...

The St. Louis Post Dispatch ("stupid is as stupid does") runs a stupid article on the war in Iraq that asks the question "Are we losing because US casualities are increasing?" and unsurprisingly only interviews people who say yes or maybe.

The premise is stupid and if you think but a moment you can figure it for yourself. In the spirit of science, perform this Gedankenexperiment: A war starts and ends. The casualites for one side starts at zero before the war, increases, and then decreases to zero at the end of the war. Does this describe the winner or the loser? It describes both, doesn't it? So when casualties were increasing did this mean one side was losing? You can't tell, can you. And it's not just a thought experiment, but it's the reality of war -- look at US casualty figures from WWII and you'll discover that they increase dramatically year after year until 1945 - and had US soldiers not been saved by the deus ex machina of the A-bomb from invading Japan, they would have been highest of all in 1945. So using one side's casualty figures as a proxy for who's winning is both theoretically and practically an error.

But even if you think the figures indicate who's winning or losing, isn't there something(s) missing from the story? Like shouldn't we use numbers for coalition forces, not just US? And shouldn't we include Iraqi figures as well? Wouldn't that give a more complete picture? And shouldn't we compare the two side's casualty figures? I mean if you think these figures have meaning, shouldn't you be comparing the two sides?

You'd also have to know what kind of stratagies the two sides have picked. Are we fighting a battle (or battles) of attrition, maneuver, position, what? What kind of strategy is the enemy fighting? If their goal is to kill enough Americans to cause war fatigue at home, isn't reporting only American casualties the stupid thing to do? If you run articles that only mention or highlight failure are you really being objective, cynical, or stupid? Is there any mention in this article of the comparitive strategies and what they would mean when looking at casualty figures? This is it:

"While Americans are hoping that the training of Iraqi forces will mean the end of a major U.S. presence, Abenheim says the plan harks back to a failed strategy in America's last major war.

"It does suggest Vietnamization," he said, speaking of the U.S. policy during the Vietnam War to train the South Vietnamese to protect their own country so American soldiers could slide into the background. "

More stupidity. The failed policy in Vietnam was Americanization - the policy persued by Kennedy and especially Johnson along with a strategy of attrition picked by Westmorland. Those were the strategies that failed and in so doing so turned so many people against the war. Vietnamization and positional warfare were successes under Nixon and Abrams. South Vietnam fell because when invaded for a second time after the peace treaty was signed, the US cut off not only all aid, but any purchases of weapons and ammunition as well. The penultimate tragedy of Vietnam was this very real stab in the back of an ally. (The ultimate tragedy is the floodgates of death and misery that were opened on South Vietnam following its occupation by the tyrannical communists of the North).

To further prove the writers don't understand what they're writing about, they back up the assertion that iraqification is a losing strategy with a quote by a wounded guardsmen:

""It doesn't matter how many troops you have there or what they do, you are never going to beat an insurgency like that," said Oversmith, now a police officer in Smithville.

"In their view, they think they are being conquered. If they think they are being conquered, they'll fight for years and years. Look how long the Vietnamese fought."

Gee, you'd think putting in place a democratically elected government commanding Iraqi troops that do the day to day policing and fighting would be the way to eliminate that conquered feeling.

And an earlier quote is also priceless:

"The evidence to date suggests that U.S. military officers don't really understand the sources of the insurgency or how to blunt its effects," he said. "For example, every day we hear stories of suicide bombers killing innocent Iraqis, but we have no detailed insight into the recruiting mechanisms or the training to produce suicide bombers in such large numbers."

But the article doesn't consider the effect of the suicide bombings on the Iraqi people, and how they view war, and how it has soured a lot of onetime supporters and fence sitters on the so called insurgency. Can anyone cite an actual successful suicide bombing campaign? The only suicide bombing that worked was against Spain and it took only one attack; the ones against Russia and Israel have been failures. Oh, it's been successful in capturing media attention and killing innocents, but that's about it.

One of the things I do wonder about, and which isn't covered in the article, is what is taking so long in standing up a viable Iraqi military. We're seeing it now, but what took so long? And then I harken back to WWII (again), and I guess I shouldn't be surprised. In Europe, it was clear that the decisive blow would be an invasion of France and then on to Germany, yet the first step was to secure North Africa where 13 long months after entry the American Army suffered a stinging defeat at Kasserine Pass. After North Africa, the next stepping stone was Sicily, then Italy where Allied forces would be bogged down for the rest of the war. It wasn't for 2 and a half years after the US entered the war that France was invaded and the war was really taken to the Germans (and American casualties really mounted). The new Iraqi army in a little over 2 years has begun the decisive battles for Iraq - not bad by American historical standards.

The most appalling thing about this appalling article is that it is so American centric. I've said it before, and I'll say it again:
Right now, successfully replacing a murdering, terrorist supporting dictator with a half way decent, reasonably representative government in Iraq is critical to the US, but it is with no exaggeration a matter of life and death for Iraqis. For decades, they haven't held their own futures in their own hands. Right now, they do. We can support them to the best of our abilities, but ultimately, what Iraq becomes is up to the Iraqis.

How Times Have Changed

The St. Louis Post-Dispatch ran a story(on the front page no less) for Memorial Day that intigues me, a story of local man in WWII. What caught my attention is this passage:

"On the afternoon of May 8, Oettle's company neared the town of Borgo, near the Austrian border. A German staff car approached with a white flag fluttering on the hood.

"The German officers in the car told us the war had ended," Oettle said.

It was news to Oettle's company. For weeks, they had been traveling so fast and so far ahead of their lines that they were attacked by American fighter planes mistaking them for fleeing Germans. In fact, at 1:41 a.m. May 7, Germany had signed an unconditional surrender. The American troops, part of the 85th Infantry Division, moved cautiously forward. Excitement that the war indeed might be over mingled with dread that the next step could trigger a land mine, or that a mortar could come whistling in. Surrendering German troops were passing in droves, heading for the rear.

And then came shots from a culvert up the road. Oettle's crew buckled up inside their armor. But the infantrymen walking in the field beside them could only hit the dirt. Two officers of the German SS - Hitler's most fanatical soldiers - began picking off the American GIs. Armed with rifles equipped with scopes, the SS officers killed seven men and wounded numerous others before they were captured.

"A second lieutenant marched the SS snipers right in front of our tank destroyer," Oettle said.

"He took their pistols away. We already had their rifles. He stood them in front of a foxhole that the Germans had dug and shot both of them in their bellies. They hollered something and fell back." Oettle recalls the exact time: 4:23 p.m. May 8, 1945. The war had ended more than 37 hours earlier.

Sporadic fighting would continue for a few more days in Austria, Czechoslovakia, Croatia and other regions. Most of it involved German troops trying to force their way through Russian lines to surrender to American forces.

But that wasn't the case in Borgo.

"Those SS troops had no business killing seven of our guys when they knew the war was over. They just wanted to kill as many of us as they could," Oettle said. "That was just disgraceful. Seven men dying a day late."

Think about that. A US soldier deliberately gut shot prisoners of war -- executed in the most painful way he knew how -- and it is repeated without remark in a Memorial Day story on the front page of a left leaning newspaper.

The Oops Heard Round The World

As the L'Affaire Newsweek still reverberates around the world, I do have a few wonderments of my own.

For instance, how do the prisoners in Gitmo have Korans in the first place? They were provided by the US government, right? I wonder, do they provide Bibles, or Bhagavad Gitas, or even copies of Dianetics on request? And then the government issued special rules on the proper handling of said Korans, right? Rules that are purely based upon a religion, right? So where are all the screams of Theocracy at Gitmo from Phil Donohue et al? I mean if my local school district or prison (Q. what's the difference? A. prisoner's get time off for good behavior) started passing out Bibles and issueing guidelines on the proper handling of the Bible based on the idea that it is the one true scripture of God, isn't that how they'd react? I mean Hindus would be pleased with the size of the cow that a certain segment of American society would have over that.

And so what's wrong with flushing a Koran down a toilet? Personally, I'm envious of the plumbing system at Gitmo that allows a 464 page book to be flushed when at Chez funMurph I can't get normal human byproducts to flush reliably. I mean, it's not like it was the prisoner's property in the first place, if the US government can give, can't it take as well? Is there something illegal about flushing a book down a toilet? Yes, I understand that good Muslim's have a special reverence for the actual physicality of it (unlike Christians for the Bible), but as a secular society, we can't attach any special importance to a book, can we? Yes, it's an act of insensitivity, but compared to what's been confirmed about some terrible treatment of prisoners at the hands of American captors, including death, why get worked up about the treatment of a book?

So what's going on in the Muslim world that people don't seem to mind people killing other people as long as no Korans were disrespected? And with Muslims getting all scatological on the symbol of the US (which by the way isn't illegal to do, even in this country), where are those decrying the cycle of scatology? When will all this pottyism end? What are the protestors hoping to accomplish by killing and rioting over the treatment of an object besides convincing the rest of the world they're either bunch of violent loons who deserve no sympathy or that they're a bunch of big crybabies who can dish it out but can't take it.

Petty Is As Petty Does

The Marines have made their countermove to the UAW: We don't need you're stinking parking lot. OK, it was "However, I've made my decision -- either you support the Marines or you don't." -- Lt. Col Joe Rutledge. So they found another parking lot and the UAW is stuck with their really incredibly stupid and petty descision to kick Marines off the lot for driving either a non-US nameplate car (how can you tell a "foreign car" otherwise) or one with a pro-Bush bumpersticker. I could have tolerated the foreign car distinction, but pro-Bush bumperstickers? I have only owned US nameplate cars (although I'm not sure that my Dodge qualifies anymore, especially since it was manufactured in Canada). This makes it harder to keep buying them, even though I know that not all autoworkers, or even the majority, are that boneheaded and petty.

Best Minute of the Superbowl

Anheuser-Busch's ad honoring returning Iraq war veterans. It was part of their Here's to the Heros program that offered free admission to active military personnel (active duty, active reserve, ready reserve service member or National Guardsman) and dependents at a variety of theme parks around the US. It seems we have learned some lessons from the Vietnam War and treatment of veterans.

We Just Disagree

Donald Sensing and Jason Van Steenwyk look at the same Frederick Kagan article on Donald Rumsfeld and the war and have different views on it's correctness. I think Jason presents the better arguments that Rumsfeld isn't as bad as he's made out to be.

Two quick interjections of my own -- I think it's wrong to claim that:
"The secretary of defense simply chose to prioritize preparing America's military for future conventional conflict rather than for the current mission. That position, based on the hope that the current mission would be of short duration and the recognition that the future may arrive at any moment, is understandable. It just turns out to have been wrong."

The simple truth is that transformation of the Army is to fight the current war --the war against Islamofascism -- not some far off war in the future. It's just that it takes time, and is in fact harder to transform while fighting, but it is necessary.

And I for one am getting a little tired of the whole "Shenseki warned us we'd need a lot more troops" for the simple reason that Shenseki's intent wasn't an honest assessment but just another in a long list of deliberately setting the requirements too high for action to occur. The Army doesn't have the manpower to sustain the force levels Shenseki said it would take to take and hold Iraq - it can barely sustain the levels we are using.

He and his Army predecessors always required too much and threw up too many roadblocks throughout the Clinton presidency and so the Army never took action -- it was the Navy and Airforce in successful actions in Bosnia and Kosovo, and the Navy in fruitlless cruise missile strikes in Sudan and Afganistan. In Kosovo, when finally ordered to send in Apaches, the Army fiddled around with force protection and training issues long enough to keep their precious helicopters out of harm's way. When Shenseki told the Bush adminstration his ridiculous estimate of the manpower and time requirements for any action in Afganistan, that was the end of Shenseki's influence and the end to inaction. And if Shenseki was such a brilliant guy, why didn't he push transformation in 1998 instead of WWII redux?

Torture

What is torture? Is it simply inflicting pain? What about discomfort? Is torture, like one judge's definition of obscenity something you recognize when you see it? If we want to discuss torture, don't we have to agree what it is before we can make any sense of the subject? We could take the approach for discussion to describe it as extreme pain inflicted either as punishment , a means of political control, or to elict information, frequently causing injury and possibly death.

If you wanted to write guidelines about what is acceptable and what isn't, you would have to be far more detailed. And as soon as you start the sorting process, you'll be forced to conclude that a particular method isn't quite torture, and then the carping begins that you're in favor of torture or a big meenie who likes inflicting pain etc. Heather McDonald has a pretty complete report on the interrogation of prisoners, which is what most of the current controversy is about, and the effect or our inability to have an honest debate on the uncomfortable subject has. Certainly the official sanction of anything resembling torture comes from the desire for information; there is no doubt an element of punishment (or revenge) in the actual conduct.

Is it always wrong? That's certainly what my heart tells me. But can I leave it to my heart? I suppose you can even define torture as the amount of pain that is wrong to inflict. There are plenty of people who take an absolute stand that it is always wrong, and there are those who think that it isn't. Is there any basis for thinking there might be a time a place for torture?

One of the objections is that it is ineffective - it plain doesn't work. For punishment, for terror, for keeping a tyrant in power, clearly torture works. The historical record clearly shows that repressive regimes fall not when the it performs too much torture, but when it doesn't. Saddam stayed firmly in power, "winning" 100% of the "vote", because he was always willing to do whatever it took to stay in power. Pol Pot wasn't toppled because of Cambodian revulsion at his killing fields, but because Vietnam invaded.

But clearly anyone with a shred of conscience condemns torture as a means of punishment and/or political control. Although a California attorney general didn't seem to mind rape as a punishment, and the American public seems unconcerned over prison rape, with it's probability that more men than women are raped in America. I suppose that indifference goes hand in hand with the policy of having another country do our torture for us - if it's not done by someone actually on the US government payroll, we have no guilt.

But what about interrogation? Is torture better at getting the truth than less painful methods? I doubt there are any scientific studies on the subject, so what we are left with is reasoning and anecdote. The reasoning is that under torture, people will say anything to make it stop, and so will tell the torturer what they think he wants to hear, not the truth. Realistically, I don't think that means that it doesn't work, I think it means that the torturer has to excercise care not to lead the torturee -- a position analagous to how investigators question children these days after it was discovered they too were quite malleable at the expense of numerous daycare workers. On the other hand, it's always easier to tell the truth than to lie, and if the torturee believes the torture will stop if they tell the truth, the torturer may be more likely to get the truth using torture than other methods. Clearly there are some people who won't tell the truth no matter what, but the question is if you get more truth, not if you always get the truth.

Ace of Spades provides an anecdote that torture works: an Sri Lankan intellegence officer loosend the tongues of his remaining two captives but shooting the third dead in front of them and threatening them with the same. Quite frankly, if torture was truly ineffective, we wouldn't even be having this discussion as the practice would have died out long ago.

So we are left with the question: should we forgo a method of some effectiveness because of our moral concerns? I for one have no trouble answering that question Yes in general and in several specific cases - embryonic stem cell research for one. But we need to understand and agree that we are making a tradeoff.

Let's look at some similar tradeoffs. Pat Buchannen of all people put his finger on the main one as recounted by Radley Balko:

How is it, Buchanan asked, that a smart person could support a war that will certainly kill hundreds, probably thousands of innocent Iraqis -- and a good number of Americans -- in the name of preventing another 9/11, but not support torturing a man who has made no bones about his desire to murder as many Americans as possible, if doing so might prevent another 9/11?

In other words, the means of war are morally wrong, we know innocents will die, yet there are times when the purposes of war are right and just. So then, there are times when the purposes of torture for information are right and just. If your choice is between torturing the few and many others living, or not torturing and many others dying, then you torture the few. Of course, you are not the one responsible for killing the many, the terrorists are, while you are responsible for torturing the few.

Consider vaccination. We have mandatory vaccination programs in this country even though we know any given vaccine will cause serious adverse reactions, including death, in those vaccinated. We again substitute the suffering death of the few for the suffering of the many. So to answer Calpundit's question via Eve Tushnet:Is it OK for a doctor to torture prisoners if the end result is a medical therapy that could save thousands? No, because we don't know in advance tha the therapy will save millions, but we do vaccinate kids knowing that some will suffer horribly because it will save thousands of others from suffering.

In reality it's a moral calculus problem to which we already know the answer - if we know that suffering we cause clearly outweighs the suffering we prevent and if we minimize the suffering of the innocent. So now torture for information becomes not so much a moral question as a process question -- how can we minimize the suffering of the innocent, and how we make sure the the suffering we cause outweighs the suffering we prevent?

There are other concerns - the "slippery slope" -- will torture become the new ritalin? In other words, if seen as effective, it's use will continue far beyond the bounds of efficacy, and now the the suffering we cause will not be outweighed by the suffering we save. I do think this is a very real danger because we've seen it so many times before in so many ways. And sure, we'll come to realize the problem, but what about all those people who were unneccesarily tortured?

How do you know the person you're torturing has information that can prevent the suffering of others? I think only rarely will you know this -- only in special circumstances. What about the people who conduct the torture? What happens to them?

Clearly, there is a lot to think about. Not that I've got my head completely wrapped around it, but I think in order to make the process right, the use of torture cannot be a policy of the US government, but given the right circumstances an individual or group could use torture to get information and I would agree that they did the right thing. Ultimately, my read on the moral calculus is that only rarely will it work out as a good thing (while acknowledging that clearly it can), and the only way to keep it rare is to make it against policy. Yes, I'm running the risk that many innocents will suffer, but I'm forgoing the risk that many innocents will suffer.

Sadly, that doensn't help the poor person who has to draw the line between torture and non-torture.

What Would You Say?

Margaret Hassan was seized several days ago by Iraq-based terrorists. She is the Iraq director of Care International, an aid organization. According to "The Beeb", she "has dual Iraqi and British citizenship and has lived in Iraq for 30 years.":

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/3946673.stm

Ms. Hassan appeared on a video broadcast by al-Jazeera, urging British Prime Minister Tony Blair to save her life by withdrawing British troops from Iraq. The depressingly familiar pattern in these situations is that the terrorists threaten to cut off the hostage's head if their demands are not met.

I was wondering what I would say on the videotape if I were held in a similar manner. This is a bit more than idle speculation - my group has a project in the United Arab Emirates, and I have volunteered to travel there. A lot of things would have to go wrong at once for me to get snatched, but it's more dangerous than staying home under my bed.

Angelo de la Cruz pleaded for his life, and the Philippine government pulled their troops. I don't think George Bush or John Kerry or Tony Blair would pull thousands of troops from Iraq just to save the life of some budding meteorologist. So what I say doesn't really change what's going to happen to me. A few other hostages have pleaded for their lives, but Italian hostage Fabrizio Quattrocchi was defiant: "I'll show you how an Italian dies!"

So here's the situation: The terrorists are going to cut off your head. But first, they want a videotaped statement. You have no guarantee that they'll actually show it, but maybe they don't understand English well enough to censor anything they don't like. Here are some things I thought of saying (some are more sanctified than others):

1. "Father, forgive them. They don't know what they're doing."
2. "Vote for Bush!"
3. "My family, I love you."
4. "Bomb Fallujah!"
5. Sing "A Mighty Fortress is Our God".
6. "Abu Musab al-Zarqawi is a horse's rump!" (but I wouldn't say 'rump')
7. "Vote for Kerry!"
8. "How do I know you guys are really going to show this thing?"

Bear in mind that your choice of words while sitting comfortably there at your computer might not be the same words you would actually say after getting captured, beaten up, frightened, tortured, and threatened by some very nasty people. The question is what you would intend and aspire to do, if you had the courage and strength at the crucial moment to do it.

What would you say?

My Big Picture

Radical Islam is on the move, not just bloodying its borders, but at times fighting with state Islam. Where once state Islam was the agent, now private Islam is the agent of Jihad, except where radical Islam can take over a country, like Afganistan. Russia is just the most recent target. The impotency of state Islam is the reason it is content to sit on the sidelines and let private Islam do the dirty work, and why the work is so dirty. Assymetrical warfare is not the first choice, but the only choice for radical Islam, and having made a virtue of neccessity radical Islam has embraced terrorism wholeheartedly.

First Armed Liberal posted his thoughts on Beslan and Chechnya and asked a vital question:

"If terrorism is about 'liberation' - about birthing new states, like Chechnya or Palestine, or about 'freeing' states like Iraq - we have to ask ourselves what kind of states will be born or won through that process."

Then Dan Darling provided background on Beslan and Chechnya and notes:

This should in no way be seen as an endorsement of Russian policies in Chechnya, which have been worse than brutal - they're simply ineffective. I'll conclude with a link to a reputable organization that is seeking to raise money for the victims of this tragic act of barbarism.

Allah wants you to realize that Putin is not our friend. And that's true. But it wasn't Putin who was attacked, it was Russia itself. Putin is the current ruler of Russia, and both the enemy of our enemy and a practioner of a realist and ruthless foreign policy.

You can look around the world and see of lots of separate fights between people who happen to be Islamic radicals and people who aren't, including one between Osama Bin Laden and the US, or you can take the holistic approach and see a fight between a particular political/religous philosophy and the rest of the world. If your vision is the former, you will have a disconnected, spasmodic response. If your vision is the latter, then you will seek coordination with all the various targets of radical Islam and ultimately the end of radical Islam. One way you fight each head of the hydra separately; the other way you try to kill the body of the hydra.

So we can be squeemish about our partners, not want to get involved in "their fight", or we can seek coordinated response, one that perhaps can be less brutal and broad brush than the responses that will surely come from fellow combatents
anyway.

Into The Abyss

Lileks and Steyn cover the madness in Beslan better than I can.

Lileks handles the media reaction to the horror:

Cicadas, airplanes, wind in the trees. A peaceful weekend. At least here. There’s a bloody child on the front page of the newspaper. The Strib subhead calls them “Islamic guerrillas” and “fighters” and “militants,” because you know one man’s terrorist is another man’s disciple of God who practices his sharpshooting so he can nail children in the back at 50 paces. This teaser to an inside story made my jaw bruise my sternum: “This week’s bloodbath in Russia shattered the notion that innocents are taboo terror victims.” This is why I despair sometimes. Now we learn that innocents are no longer taboo terror victims.

Steyn covers why sadness isn't enough:

Sorry, it won't do. I remember a couple of days after September 11 writing in some column or other that weepy candlelight vigils were a cop-out: the issue wasn't whether you were sad about the dead people but whether you wanted to do something about it. Three years on, that's still the difference. We can all get upset about dead children, but unless you're giving honest thought to what was responsible for the slaughter your tasteful elegies are no use. Nor are the hyper-rationalist theories about "asymmetrical warfare".

Good stuff about bad stuff.

Despicable

What a sad day -- what an evil day. Who would hold children hostage and not allow them to eat or drink for days? Who would shoot fleeing children in the back or blow them up? Who could do such things?

Who thought we'd be standing shoulder to shoulder with the Russians in a fight against evil 15 years after the Berlin wall came down?

Militarizing a Civilian Asset

Carl Drews sent this in last week when Kevin was on vacation and I was holding down the fort here at Funmurphys. It's a thoughtful and well written piece.

The majestic Parthenon stands on the Acropolis above Athens, a continuing testament to the greatness of classical Greece. This temple to the goddess Athena was built in 447-432 BC by Pericles. It survived relatively intact until 1687. The profile we see today, with the south colonnade and its curious dip of broken columns, is the direct result of a war crime.

This particular war crime is known by the phrase "militarizing a civilian asset". Civilian assets are hospitals, churches, etc. that have no military purpose. They are militarized when they are converted to military use, or when fighters use them as a base of operations. The conversion is deemed a war crime because the formerly civilian structure is now subject to attack and possible destruction by the opposing forces.

In the 1687 the Turks and the Venetians were at war in Athens. The Parthenon had been converted to a mosque long before, and the Turks were now using it as an ammunition dump. Perhaps they figured that the Venetians would never bombard the Parthenon, or maybe they thought that the temple's stout marble walls would withstand an incoming shell. In either case, they were wrong.

On September 26, 1687 a Venetian shell scored a direct hit on the Parthenon. The powder magazine inside the building exploded, destroying in seconds what had stood for 2,119 years. The entire roof was blown off, the interior walls were smashed, and the side colonnades were shattered. The intricately carved statues of the frieze fell to the ground and lay there until Lord Elgin had them collected and transported to the British Museum in 1801.

The Turks had committed a war crime. They had militarized a civilian asset. The Venetians had taken the bait, shelled the greatest temple of antiquity, and tragically illustrated what happens when civilian assets are converted to military use.

I have been to the Acropolis in Athens twice, and have marveled at the still-enduring grace and beauty of the Parthenon. I grieved for its destruction, and I condemned both the Turks and the Venetians for fighting their war on sacred ground. The cause and result of their quarrel is now forgotten, but the destruction remains.

Today we see the militant supporters of renegade Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr in Najaf committing a similar war crime. They are using the Imam Ali mosque in Najaf, and the nearby cemetery, as a base of military operations. In report after news report we read statements like this: "Insurgents fired mortars from the grounds of the mosque, hitting and heavily damaging a police station." (CNN.com) American Marines have found numerous caches of weapons in the cemetery. The al-Sadr militants are militarizing a civilian asset. In doing so, they are dangling the sacred Imam Ali mosque before an unknown fate, and playing a game of dice with its possible destruction. They are committing a war crime.

Muqtada al-Sadr claims that his forces are "protecting the holy sites", but this is complete bunk. One does not protect a building militarily by taking shelter inside it from hostile fire! If his forces really wanted to protect the shrine they would form a cordon around and some distance from the building, not hide inside it. The al-Sadr militants know perfectly well that American forces avoid their mosques; that's why they use mosques to hide their weapons and fighters. No, the Imam Ali shrine is protecting the insurgents, not the other way around.

It appears that the American forces in Najaf will exercise more restraint than the Venetians did centuries ago. Hopefully our Iraqi allies in the police force and Iraqi National Guard will do the same. We all know that the stakes are high, and we will all share the blame if the shrine is damaged. I don't want the Imam Ali shrine destroyed, for a host of historical, political, cultural, and sentimental reasons. Unfortunately, the al-Sadr insurgents will not listen to me when I tell them to "get the heck outta there!"

References are given below. The Geneva Convention doesn't say what you can do when fighters are blasting away at you from the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem. Hmmm . . .

References:
http://www.globalissuesgroup.com/geneva/definitions2.html#placesofworship

Places of Worship
Acts of hostility towards places of worship in international conflicts are prohibited. Places of worship may not be used in support of the military effort, and they cannot be the objects of reprisals. (Protocol I, Art. 53)

These prohibitions also apply in non-international conflicts. (Protocol II, Art. 16)

If there is any doubt as to whether a place of worship is being used to help the military action, then it will be presumed not to be so used. (Protocol I, Art. 52, Sec. 3)

Protocol 1, Article 53 reads in its entirety as follows:
Protection of cultural objects and of places of worship

Without prejudice to the provisions of the Hague Convention for the Protection of Cultural Property in the Event of Armed Conflict of 14 May 1954, and of other relevant international instruments, it is prohibited: (a) to commit any acts of hostility directed against the historic monuments, works of art or places of worship which constitute the cultural or spiritual heritage of peoples; (b) to use such objects in support of the military effort; (c) to make such objects the object of reprisals.

What Is Truth

It used to be that "military intelligence" was the standard cite for an oxymoron. "Journalism ethics" has taken over.

On day 3, a quagmire was declared. Ever since Saddam government's collapsed, the situation has been worsening, the insurgency intensifying. I used to wonder how much worse it can get. I used to think it was slanted reporting by the media. But now I see that only 18% of Iraqis think it can get any worse, while 64% think it can only get better. Well, that's one interpretation of the numbers.

Another Day Dawns

And so it begins. Sovereignty has been turned over to an Iraqi government. There are those who say this is a sham; others think it will bring real change. I think even the prior announcement of a hand over made a difference. To the Iraqi people, the insurgents (I don't like the word but I don't have a better one) are becoming more clearly the enemy, more foreign and less home grown; American soldiers are becoming less occupiers and more temporary order keepers; political progress is becoming less just promises and more concrete. These are all good things. The desired end state for Iraq isn't that we're loved and so then we leave; the desired end state is that a representative, liberal Iraq stands on its own two feet, then we leave, and then (maybe) we're loved. How long did the love last in France and Germany?

Iraq Reprise

Here’s something I wrote way back in November of last year:

The United States will leave Iraq one day; the only question isn't so much when but under what conditions. Our desire is to leave behind a functioning government complete with armed forces that will be able to defeat the insurgents. It would be nice if the insurgents were wiped out before we left, but not necessary. In that sense, US troops are fighting a holding action. The insurgents would like us to leave before that goal is achieved, and then to defeat the government we leave behind. So the insurgents have to do two things to win - demoralize the US, and demoralize a majority of the Iraqi's themselves. Thus they are attacking not just US soldiers, but foreign groups (such as the UN and NGOs) that will help the fledgling Iraqi government, and the Iraqi forces (mostly police) we are constituting for the Iraqi government.

At this point, there are now more Iraqi's under arms fighting with us than there are American troops in Iraq, and the number of Iraqi's under arms grows daily. Soon there will be more Iraqi's under arms for the government than there ever were US soldiers in Iraq. So the attacks against Iraqi police are important to the insurgents to keep that day from coming - not from killing that many police, but from killing enough that too few ordinary Iraqi's become police, or soldiers, or guards. So the insurgents have to attack now before the Iraqi police and military overwhelm them.

I think it still holds up pretty well today. This is why I’m not too worried about all the day to day results. The Iraqis don't have to love us; they just have to be willing to seize their own future and build a nation that is good enough and start the long process of steady improvement. Iraq isn't a disaster now; it was a disaster when Saddam was in charge and it's been getting better ever since he was removed.

And you can't rely on a cursory examination of the press to provide information; they've been wrong and biased on all things Iraq since day three when a sandstorm slowed up our advance. A more balanced view is provided by doing some digging. The press isn't just in the tank, they are the tank.

Legal Authority?

The 9-11 Commission is faulting mainly the FAA -- although no one escapes the finger pointing -- for the inability of the Air Force to shoot down the hijacked aircraft that day. Charles Austin demonstrates his knowledge of government contracting (and sarcasm) by asking about the FAA's failure to have proceedures in place to address a multi-plane suicide bombing hijacking scheme.

What makes me wonder, given the current preoccupation with the Bush administration's accountability on torture or consignment of US citizens to Gitmo without formal trial, is the total lack of comment about the authority the Vice President had to order the destruction of American owned property, let alone the murder of American citizens. Am I the only one who wonders about the disconnect? The Vice President suddenly has the power of life and death in a crisis, but the Bush administration can't determine the status of captured al Qaeda operatives? In that felicitous legal phrase, what was the legal controlling authority that allows Dick Cheney to call up the Air Force and order them to shoot down passenger jets owned and operated by American companies in American airspace that will certainly kill American citizens? I really am curious if there is any legal basis whatsoever for such an order.

Law or War?

Phil Carter does a pretty thorough job of discussing the Padilla case, but I have to agree with JAG Central that the key to the case is whether or not Jose Padilla is an enemy combatant or not.

Since the FBI found Padilla's application to the al Qaeda training camp in a binder that contained 100 other such applications, type-written each with the title at the top, "Mujahideen Identification Form/New Applicant Form," I don't see how you can argue he wasn't an enemy combatant. And if he's an enemy combatant, then the whole panoply of American rights goes out the window. Period. End.

It's important to remember that it was al-Qaida, and not George Bush or the US military that turned our country, along with every other country, into a battlefield. Jose Padilla was an enemy soldier trying to infiltrate our lines to kill civilian non-combatants. Now we can decide that it is better that 99 enemy soldiers go free than a single innocent be wrong classified, but let's be honest about it. We're betting lives on our ability to be near omniscient and omnipotent, and I don't think our track record is that good. If you found an enemy soldier infiltrating your lines, would you prefer to act immediately, or wait until you had enough evidence that you could take to court?

If we adopted the standard that once an al-Qaida operative was in the US, and a US citizen, we had to work through the legal system, what kind of pressure would that place on our defenders? Waiting for a crime of mass murder to be committed while they just watched and waited and hoped they could stop it in time. Wouldn't it be easier (and better) to just make those people disappear with no accountability? Questioned and then killed? Just how badly do we want to tempt ourselves?

A Little History

Today is 64th anniversery of the completion of the evacuation from Dunkirk. 338,226 British soldiers were picked up off the beach in France and returned to England with not much more than the clothes on their backs. I have to wonder - were the appeasers gloating? Were they saying "I told you so?" Were the university professors cheering because this would be the death knell of imperialism, or at least take the greatest empire down a notch? Was Lord Gort, commander of the BEF, reviled because 20% of the men under his command were killed or captured during their defeat in France?

History records that the British considered Dunkirk a victory, and any hopes of knocking England out of the war were ended when Churchill delivered (another) famous speech:

"We shall defend our island whatever the cost may be. We shall fight on the beaches, we shall fight on the landing grounds, we shall fight in the fields and in the streets, we shall fight in the hills. We shall never surrender."

Today is the 62nd anniversary of the start of the Battle of Midway. The battle was the turning point in the war in the Pacific - the destruction of cream of the Japanese navy and with it the end of their running wild. The outcome of the battle it is said heavily depended on luck. And there is some truth to that, but that really isn't the whole story. Without the courage and sacrifice of the men in the torpedo bombers that pressed home attacks despite total loss, there would not have been a chance for the dive bombers to sink four Japanese carriers.

Islamic Reformation

Islamic Reformation is one of those topics that has been floating around awhile. You can find academic treatments, left-of-centerdiscussions, right-of-center thoughts, pundit pieces, and of course blog musings. Despite the implicit or claimed parallel to the Protestant Reformation, what's really being proposed would be nothing like the that. What really being proposed is nothing to do with a return to Koranic principles and behavior, but typically the opposite - the use of interpretation to remake Islam in a way the author likes.

To get a better understanding, let's review a little. First came Judaism. Classical Judaism was a very legalistic religion - the path to rightness with God was through following the Mosaic laws which covered all aspects of life, and as time went on interpretation of these laws was often more severe than the original. This would change with the destruction of the Temple and the diaspora, and Judaism became less legalistic. When Christianity came along, there was a struggle at the very start about whether Christianity would be another sect of Judeism. This was resolved by the first church council, and one presided over by the Apostles, which decided that Christians did not have to follow the Mosaic law. It was over this struggle that Paul penned Galatians, in which it is made clear that in Christianity faith alone is the path to rightness with God. Over time, the Catholic church would develop it's canonical interpretation of the Bible, and this would change to faith plus works. In addition to the interpretations, there were clear abuses, where people within the church hierarchy were not following the teachings of the church. Along came reformers who not only objected to the abuses, but argued that interpretations that had built up over the centuries did not properly reflect God's will as revealed in the Bible. Martin Luther would be the most famous, and start the Protestant Reformation which was a rejection of centuries of interpretation and call to return to original, Biblical, Christianity (sparked by Luther's reading of Galations). The Protestant Reformation was about more than just curbing abuses within Catholicism, it was over fundamental doctrines.

My understanding of Islam is that it is much like classical Judaism -- very legalistic with rules set forth to cover all aspects of life. Oddly enough, most people calling for an Islamic Reformation are not looking for a return to its seventh century roots, but instead want a wholesale build up of non-Koranic interpretation to try to bring it to what is, in their opinion, up to date. The real parallel, unmentionable due to the Jew hatred indemic in the moslem world, is the change in Judeism from the time of the pharasees to its more modern versions like Reformed or Conservative -- or how it went from a legalistic faith with specific rules for every circumstance to a faith that is far less legalistic and adaptable to where and when the believer lives.

The Best and The Worst

Phil Carter has a superb roundup of Marines decorated for valor in Iraq. These are the best of the best.

Phil also has a couple of good posts about the failure of leadership at Abu Ghraib. And while I share the concern that the leadership be held accountable as well, I figure you should always unravel and prosecute from the bottom up. That way, you can go as high as the rot goes, while if you start where you think the top is and go down, you can't go back higher than where you started. And I'd rather have the lower ranked people implicate and testify against higher ranked people; it just wouldn't sit right for a general to get leniency for giving up her captains.

That reminds me - so far I've heard of privates, corporals, and sergeants performing the abuse, and then we jump to General Karpinski -- what about all the officers in between? General Taguba faults the officers from the brigade commander on down -- what happened to the "on down"? Just asking.

Extremely. But Still Dangerous

I'm going to take Andrew Sullivan to task, and not because he can fill his blog with letters that are better than what I write, but because he seems to forget something. Andrew asks "How Dumb Is Al Qaeda" regarding how they released their miserable snuff video without waiting for the furor over Abu Ghraib to die down. And then he goes on to point out that Hitler invaded the Soviet Union as another example of the stupidity of evil.

Well. Let's remember that killing infidels and thus demonstrating the superiosrity of Islam is what Al Qaeda is all about. It's a stupid, vicious, reprehensable program beginning to end. How much strategic sense (or realism) can a movement have that longs for a return of the glories of Andalusia?

And to follow up, Hitler's goal for WWII was to gain living space in the east, especially the Soviet Union. He wrote about it in Mein Kampf, which he wrote in the days when German authorities had the good sense to put him in jail and long before he came to powerl. The real example of stupidity was Hitler's decision to declare war on the US while he was still fighting the USSR and Britain when he had nothing to gain from it.

Both are examples of a person or group staying true to their core values. Al Qaeda will never be anything but an instrument of death and terror. Their only response to any situation is to kill - the only question is one of scale.

Knee-jerk Is Just That

I respect Phil Carter; when he says check out this book", I hit the St. Louis County Library website and reserve it. But he didn't think something through the other day:

McCain grills Rumsfeld: Sen. John McCain's audition for a job in the U.S. Attorney's office went quite well, in my opinion. He asked simple, direct questions like "What is the chain of command from the guards to you, Sec. Rumsfeld?" and "What were the guards' orders?" These questions are critical. Anyone who's been through basic training can tell you that one of the first things you learn is your chain of command, from you to the President. Moreover, every recruit learns the general orders of a sentry, and learns that knowing one's orders is critical to mission success. Yet, Secretary Rumsfeld could not answer either simple question. He tapdanced around the question, but ultimately, never gave Sen. McCain an answer as to the line of command from PV2 Joe Snuffy up to the Secretary of Defense. PV2 Snuffy has to know that; shouldn't the SecDef? That's bad."

Think a minute, Phil, about the claim that Rumsfeld should know the chain of command of every soldier in Iraq. It's one thing for a soldier to know his chain of command because there is only one, but we've got 135,000 soldiers in Iraq, and for Rumsfeld to know the chain of command for every single one of them, well, he'd be superhuman beyond the wildest dreams of the most ardent Rummy-lover. What he needs to know is what his direct reports are responsible for, and who is responsible for what among those who report to his direct reports. That's really all he should know generally about the chain of command below him. Ditto for orders. Anything more than that is micro management.

Upon Further Reflection

As I said in my previous post, the abuse of Iraqi prisoners is sickening, and it only reinforces the notion in the middle east and elsewhere that Americans are a bunch of moral degenerate sex perverts -- i.e. the Great Satan. It's not very helpful in the war. But there are a couple of things I'd like to note.

When my wife was reading the paper yesterday morning, first she got mad at our soldiers who abused the prisoners, and then got mad again when she read the following:

"We are men. It's OK if they beat me. Beating don't hurt us, it's just a blow. But no one would want their manhood to be shattered. They wanted us to feel as though we were women, the way women feel, and this is the worst insult, to feel like a woman."

Then she allowed that after that remark, a lot of her sympathy disappeared. Not completely, but a a lot. He could have left it at having his manhood shattered, but he went on to say that the worst insult is to feel like a woman.

After seeing some of the pictures of the abuse, what struck me (right after "what were they thinking?") is that the content isn't really that much different than what the NEA used to celebrate as "art" by Robert Mapplethorpe (amongst others) -- if RM had added grinning idiots to his pictures that is.

Hey Buddy, Can You Spare A Clue?

The press is worthless in trying to figure out what's going in Iraq (and they are not much better in informing us about developments elsewhere for that matter). What's going on in Fallujah? I can't figure it out. I think even Wretchard is having a hard time, and he's clearly more wired in than I am (OK, I'm not wired in at all).

On the one hand, there was all this talk of a ceasefire, yet the firing didn't cease. And while Centcom kept saying that the Marines were only returning fire, snipers and ambush forces were infiltrating and initiating combat (and I'm not even going to mention AC-130s hosing down parts of town at night -- oops). Now I'm not accusing Centcom of lying, but perhaps their pronouncements were directed more at terrorists watching CNN than Americans.

So are the Marines pulling out of Fallujah? One article says yes, another later one says no.

Clearly the correct strategy is to kill or capture all the insurgents in Fallujah; all this talk of ceasefire and pullback is dishearening. So are we screwing up? Or are we trying to create tactical confusion and trying to soothe those calling for restraint like Kofi Annan? Only time will tell.

How Do You Measure Progress?

How do you measure how well things are going in Iraq? The press (and others) seem to be measuring progress by the inverse of the body count -- if coalition deaths are down, the situation is improving, and if coalition deaths are up, the situation is deteriorating. But is that a good way to measure progress?

In WW2, American casualties increased every year of the war, and had we not dropped a couple of A-bombs on the Japenese, they would have been higher in 1946 than in 1945. Yet clearly the darkest time for us was 1942 and by 1945 it was pretty clear we were going to win. Using KIA as a proxy for progress would have provided an opposite view to reality. In Kosovo, not one US service person was KIA (at the cost of about 1000 civilian KIAs), yet the situation is as bad there as ever, and peacekeepers will be occupying Kosovo after the coalition leaves a rebuilt Iraq.

There seems to be a feeling that progress needs to monotonically increase all the time. The reality in war is that the other guy is trying his best too, and so you have set backs, you have fits and starts, you win some and you lose some. You have to understand that and maintain some perspective. Generally, you have a much better grasp of your own problems, shortcomings, and failures than you do of the enemies, and so a natural pessimism can develop.

There is a myth that Americans won't tolerate casualites. This is false. What Americans won't tolerate is casualties without purpose. What casualties measure is the cost, not the progress. And while the cost is very tangible in a situation like Iraq, the progess is far more nebulous, and far more difficult to determine. Yet for an citizenry to make informed decisions about whether a war is worth it, they have to have a reasonable idea of both costs and the progress. And in Iraq, the press has let us down. The consistent message from non-press in Iraq is that progress is being made.

There are several possibilities why the press doesn't report on the progress -- the bias that only news is bad news, the bias towards immediacy and short time horizons which means that the press does a wonderful job on telling us about the events of the day but can't tell us the events that take a week or a month to play out, the bias of the press itself against the war, and the perception that the job of the press is to challange the "official" story and the corresponding desire not to be a "cheerleader". I have a feeling that all of these play their own parts in shaping the reporting from Iraq.

Can't Get There From Here

How bad is it in Iraq? I don't know. The only God's eye view exists in, well, God's eyes. I have to struggle with the trickle that has multiple filters, mainly through people who wish America ill in Iraq. The clear aversion of the press to report anything other than casualties and battles also distorts any perception of the big picture. So does this memo really tell us how bad it is? Maybe.

Here's my problem - the memo isn't actually presented, just a collage of excerpts by someone who could well be using it to confirm his own biases. I don't have the context of how, why, and by whom the memo was written. Having said that it, it doesn't paint the prettiest of pictures. On the other hand, many of the problems raised seem to be either endemic to the culture (such as the rampant corruption) or about to be corrected (such as problems with the Governing Council). I've seen the same corruption, fatalism, and sloth first hand working in Pakistan for three months. Frankly, other than issues over security, what's left seems to be more about minor details than major substance.

But stepping back, I've wondered about the effectiveness of the CPA from a system perspective. I'm a child of the 60's, so for me "it's the system" really does mean something. So you have an organization that has no past and no future, which isn't a good thing in my opinion. Having no past means that there are no systems already in place to do what the organization wants to do and the people involved don't know each other. It also means everybody has to be recruited from somewhere else, and as the CPA has no future, who do you get to leave their homes, live in a troubled country, and who most likely won't be able to translate success in the CPA to career advancement elsewhere.

I think these factors are in part why the military has done a better job at reconstruction than the CPA - they have a past and future -- and the other part is that they don't seem to be bound by the same contracting rules as the CPA. If you've ever dealt with government contracting, you know what I'm talking about. At their best, they are slow, cumbersome, and self-defeating. Couple that with trying to deal with a significantly different culture on the far side of the world, and The CPA would seem to be doomed to being lesser than its personell; the structural defects mean that a CPA filled with first rate people would still be a second rate organization. But short of having a permanent office of occupation and reconstruction that follows their own rules, what else can you do?

For me, the bottom line is, and has been, that ultimately what Iraq turns into is the responsibility of the people of Iraq. All America can do is what we are doing - give them the chance. We cut their problems down to a managable (but clearly not non-existant) size. Whether or not they can overcome them is up to them.

And given how absolutely lousy the other states in the region are, it won't take much for Iraq to be a shining beacon in comparison.

UPDATE: Village Voice has posted the memo on the internet. My take of the memo is that conditions while conditions are improving, problems remain and a cloud of uncertainty overhangs the country. Only with a lot more detail:

"I want to emphasize: As great as the problems we face, and the criticisms back home, and mindful of the sacrifice that almost 600 Americans have made, what we have accomplished in Iraq is worth it. While Iraqis joke, “Americans go home — and take us with you,” the gratitude which they express is sincere and unsolicited, and not limited to a single political class. The political bickering back in the United States has worried Iraqis, who fear that a Kerry victory will mean an American withdrawal, short-term civil war, and long-term empowerment of the most radical elements of society throughout the Islamic world. Nevertheless, several Iraqi political movements have begun reaching out to Senate Democrats to keep their bases covered. I have conflicting impressions of where Iraq is going. It is easy to see progress in Baghdad."
...
"Despite the progress evident in the streets of Baghdad, much of which happens despite us rather than because of us, Baghdadis have an uneasy sense that they are heading toward civil war."
...
"We have made the most progress in Baghdad; the south may be calm, but it seems the calm before the storm. Iranian money is pouring in. British policy is to not rock the boat, and so they do nothing that may result in confrontation. This is a mistake. We are faced with an Iranian challenge. Whether Iranian activities are sanctioned or not by the Iranian actors with which the State Department likes to do business should be moot, since those Iranians who offer engagement lack the power to deliver on their promises. In Bosnia and Afghanistan, we were likewise challenged by the Iranians. In both cases, the Iranians promised their intentions were benign. In Bosnia, we rolled up the Qods Force anyway, and Bosnia has remained pro-Western in its orientation. In Afghanistan, we wrung our hands and did little, worried that the Iranians might respond to confrontation if we did anything to enforce our word. This projected weakness. Today, Iran holds as much influence over Western Afghanistan than at any time since after the Anglo-Persian War of 1857. That said, I do not think that a deliberate bombing such as we saw in Karbala or Khadimiya will be the trigger for a civil war. Rather, I worry about deeper conflicts that revolve around patronage and absolutism. Bremer has encouraged re- centralization in Iraq because it is easier to control a Governing Council less than a kilometer away from the Palace rather than 18 different provincial councils who would otherwise have budgetary authority. The net affect, however, has been desperation to dominate Baghdad, and an absolutism borne of regional isolation. The interim constitution moves things in the right direction, but the constitution is meaningless if we are not prepared to confront challenges."
...
"The interim constitution has been quite a success. I can be quite cynical about most Iraqi politicians, but I do think that it’s hard to not give Ahmed Chalabi credit for getting the deal we got. When I see the results of his maneuvering and coalition building, I wonder how much farther we could have gotten if so many in the U.S. government had not sought to undermine him at every possible opportunity. Of course we could have gotten a better deal had we come in and used our momentum, but the importance of momentum in international relations is something neither the interagency process, nor the CPA, nor the Pentagon fully grasps. If they did, we would not waste time changing “happy” to “glad” oblivious to the fact that Iraq does not operate on Washington time."

I Blame Me

Conrad over at The Gweilo Diaries has cut back on the cheesecake posts and focused on what's going on in the rest of the world this week to our benefit. Cheesecake is plentiful on the net; hard headed analysis is in short supply. His 9/11 Blame Game is a masterpiece all by itself, and captures my thinking (minus the swearing) perfectly.

The only thing I have to add is a look at the infamous August 6 PDB "Bin Laden determined to strike in US." A couple of things strike me - the most obvious being how old the data in the PDB -- all the threats are from the 1990s. But the very first one, at the top of the PDB, is:

Clandestine, foreign government, and media reports indicate bin Laden since 1997 has wanted to conduct terrorist attacks in the US. Bin Laden implied in U.S. television interviews in 1997 and 1998 that his followers would follow the example of World Trade Center bomber Ramzi Yousef and "bring the fighting to America."

Did you catch that - in 1997 and 1998 Bin Laden was on our TV screens telling us that he would bring the fighting to America. So like Conrad says, if you want to see who was responsible for our lax response to al Qaida, go look in the mirror.

Byline By Dan Darling

A couple of interesting and under-reported items:

Islamic terrorists are much further along in planning chemical attacks in Europe than anticipated. Found on Regnum Crucis where Dan Darling also provides some great commentary to the article.

Iraqi special forces are fighting alongside the Marines in Fallujah. And their fellow Iraqi's are happy to see them. Found at Winds of Change and Dan Darling again.

Logical Conclusion

While Jeff Danziger isn't my favorite political cartoonist, he did have an interesting one the other day -- it showed Radical Islam as a hydra with Al Sadr as one of the heads. I suppose it's supposed to be Rumsfeld astride the beast saying, "Don't worry, as soon as we get Al Sadr, everything will be fine." I can't recall anybody in the Bush administration or in the military saying anything like that - here for instance Rumsfeld does not single out Al Sadr.

But the conception of Islamic Terrorism as a hydra is an interesting one - if you'll recall, the hydra was a mythological beast that when you cut off one head, two would grow back in its place. So we're faced with a difficult choice in how to fight such a beast.

We can decide resistance is futile, and thus condemn ourselves to a period of terror, death and ultimately our own destruction - but at least we didn't make the bad guys any angrier. This is the course those few who didn't want us to topple the Taliban advised.

Or we can stamp out a particular group such as al Qaida, and have two groups take it's place. This is the course the many who didn't want us to topple Saddam advised. In the cartoon, simply replace Al Sadr's head with Bin Laden, and the anti-Iraq war people are now the ones saying "Don't worry, as soon as we get Bin Laden, everything will be fine." Oddly enough, Danziger was firmly opposed to going after Saddam.

Or we can try to kill the hydra - all the heads and the body too. This means kill each head and cauterize the wound in mythological terms, or in real terms it means destroy all the different islamic terrorist groups and reform the nations they sprang from.

The first choice leads to our own destruction; the second choice leads to war without end (or a different choice); the third choice leads to our enemies destruction. Realistically, I don't think we have a choice.

Are We Any Better Off Now?

I caught a few minutes of Dr. Rice's testimony this morning (you can catch the blog version at Powerline thanks to Hindrocket). I thought the best part was when the camera gave us her view - the commision members on their ridiculously raised dais (I guess they don't realize it makes them look like a whole row of Mr. Potters) and packed at the foot of the wood panneling the mob of photographers with their own ridiculously enormous camera lenses all pointed at her.

I'm disappointed with the commision so far - rather than focus on policies and processes, they've focused on personalities and people. I don't want blame assigned -- we already know the terrorists are the ones to blame -- I want ways and means on how to make us safer based upon the careful study of the 9-11 attack. The idea that we should always be able to successfully thwart attacks against us is flat wrong. Sadly, the hearings have become worse than a waste of time - they've become a diversion from the job at hand and a divisive partisan wrangle. Another illustration that a good idea can be ruined by lousy implementation.

The Big Picture

Donald Sensing reminds us why it's the war on terror, not the war on al-Qaeda.

One of the problems if you think President Bush is a smirking chimp, or a moron is that you may miss what's going on because you can't credit the president for having the vision to wage a war of transformation. Now there are arguments to be made against such a war, but if you can't see the nature of the war, you can't make them.

That Settles It

Yesterday's terrible terrorist attack in Spain is a clear indication the war on terrorism continues -- whoever did it. And I hope it makes clear that we're all in this together.

I'd love to live in a world without terrorism or terrorists - but wishing won't make it so.

Back To Iraq

Here's another soldier's account of his experience in Iraq:

"I don’t mean to paint too rosy a picture by implying it’s all about challenging and engaging humanitarian work. We still fight. Early on, there was the incident that would have changed everything were it not for a faulty stretch of detonation cord that failed to set off four 155mm rounds (the big ones) buried on the side of the road. It was funny back then. We had a great laugh during dinner when our silence was broken by, “If I didn’t know any better, I’d say someone was trying to kill us.” We ate hamburgers that night, a rare treat, and laughed with mouths wide open.

The fighting is much less funny now, but we are not the perpetual victims my month-old newspapers seem to imply. Sometimes the enemy decides when and where to fight and sometimes we do. When the fighting happens at all, however, it feels like failure. When I spend my time worrying about school contractors and the business plans of artists, it feels like success."

Once again, an eyewitness says the media just doesn't get the story right. And I believe this guy - anybody who made it through the Physics 60 series at Stanford (like yours truly and sometime visitor Carl Drews) has instant credibility with me. On a side note, the editor's introduction is pretty good too:

"Some Americans admire and respect U.S. soldiers but would rather not use them. Others admire and respect U.S. soldiers, especially when we use them. Still others claim to admire and respect U.S. soldiers, but privately would admit they so abhor the notion of sanctioned killing they can’t stomach the uniform."

Good stuff, Maynard.

Telling It Like It Is

Israel comes out swinging on Yassir Arafat's lawsuit over Israel's safety fence:

Could anything be more shameful than recruiting, inciting, and paying the murderer of 8 children - students, parents, the brother-in-law of Israel's commercial attache here in the Hague? Could anything be more shameful than that?

And the answer is yes, there is something more shameful: To do all this and then come to the city of The Hague, to ask the United Nation's Court of Justice to censure the victims of terror for trying to defend themselves. To come to the 'Palace of Peace', to the 'Court of Justice', on the very morning that the victims are being buried and mourned, murdered by Arafat's own henchman, to attack Israel for building a fence which might have saved their lives.

And that's just the throat clearing.

If we are in a war on terrorism, why isn't Arafat et al on the target list? I hope it's just a matter of timing.

Via Shark Blog

A Grownup Speaks

At the Midwest Blogbash n, Charles Austin mentioned that he is tiring of the sameness of political arguments. How many posts about gun control (pro or con) can you read (or write) before they all sound the same and your eyes glaze over? I think if you get caught up in the partisanship, you can continue to make the same arguments over and over and not care that nothing changes - which is why partisans tend to carry on most of the arguments. Partisan politics kind of resembles a food fight between kids - its fun for some, but it turns a lot of people off and the grownups have to clean up afterward. Speaking of grownups cleaning up after the kids, (yes, this is the longest intro to a topic yet), you should check out Ken Pollack's interview with The Atlantic (link via Jon Henke at Q and O) about WMDs and Iraq. You certainly don't have to agree with Mr. Pollack's conclusions, but he advances your understanding without partisan rancor. Since I dislike it when the press takes remarks out of context to drive their own agenda, I won't excerpt him so go read the whole thing. It's worth it.

The Third Commandment

Jason Van Steenwyk at Iraq Now has a great post up about how the army works told in the historical language of the region. Warning though - profanity at the end.

Everything is New Again

When the Marines head back to Iraq, they will be adopting "new" tactics according to the Washington Post. What are these new tactics? More interaction with Iraqis, respect for peaceable civilians and religious and cultural etiquette, and Marine platoons scattered throughout the region living among the people in towns and villages to facilitate training of the Iraqi police and civil defense forces. For Iraq, these may be new tactics, but they really come pretty much straight out of the Marines Small Wars Manual (available here for download, which was written in 1940 and summarized the counter insurgency experience of the Marine Corps in such places as the Phillipines, Cuba, Haiti, the Dominican Republic, and Nicaragua. An excellent account of the experience can be had by reading Max Boot's The Savage Wars of Peace, as well as the use and applicability specifically to Vietnam alluded to in the WaPo article in Lewis Sorley's A Better War.

Both books are excellent reading and well worth your time, and if I had any, I'd write and post reviews of them over on Blogcritics

Government Contracting

If you haven't seen federal government contracting in operation, it's hard to appreciate how slow and cumbersome it is. It suffers from the pressing need for politicians "to do something" coupled with the mentality that says that the solution to any problem is more rules and regulations. We saw that mentality in operation when the response to a couple of kids breaking a bunch of laws and shooting up Columbine H.S. was the call for a whole bunch more laws.

Thus there are rules on top of rules, multiple forms to be filled out, and above all, the presumption that everyone involved, on both the government and contractor side, is out to screw the government in some way, shape or form. This is why the U.S. government spends more money auditing its employee's travel than it does on the actual travel itself. This is why certain companies specialize in government procurement and/or services while most won't touch it with a ten foot pole.

I think this is why it is proving hard for the CPA to spend money in Iraq, and why most of it goes to American companies. Who else can comply with our blizzard of contracting requirements? And this is why the captured money spent by the Army at a unit commander's discretion was so valuable - they spent it like you or I would -- to get the job done for the best value. The Army set up its own checks and balances, and the most important thing is that the program is new enough not to build up too many rules and regulations.

That's Some Mom

After women could be Marines, the joke was that the recruiting slogan would be changed to "Looking for a few good men -- and a couple of tough broads."

Well, this lady could have qualified. Frances Meeker promised her daughter Holly that no matter where the military sent her, she would be able to come visit. And she has kept her promise, even visited her in Baghdad. Great story via Instapundit.

When I'm 75, I want to be in the shape she is. You've got to watch out for those religion reporters.

Internationalize This

Tom McGuire looks at the complaint that President Bush hasn't done enought to "internationalize" our intervention in Iraq and isn't impressed based on our experience in Afganistan.

Distancing or Confirmation?

In responding to a post by Joshua Clayborne about the leaked DOD memo on Iraq al-Qaida ties, I wrote a lengthy reply. So I thought I'd polish it up for my own site.

The Weekly Standard broke the story under the title Case Closed. The DOD responded with a Press Relase that in my opinion confirms rather than denies while taking the form of a denial - kind of like a back-handed compliment.

From the Press Release:

"These reports dealt with the relationship between Iraq and al-Qaida.

The letter to the committee included a classified annex containing a list and description of the requested reports, so that the Committee could obtain the reports from the relevant members of the Intelligence Community.

The items listed in the classified annex were either raw reports or products of the CIA, the NSA, or, in one case, the DIA."

Here we have the DOD confirm that they did prepare a classified memo, that it contained a description of both raw intelligence data and various reports from various agencies, and the subject matter was the connection between Iraq and al-Qaida. Rather than distancing, the DOD said yeah, we put it together with the consent of the Intelligence Community.

As far as distancing from news reports claiming the DOD confirmed new information - well, I suppose it all depends on the meaning of distance, confirm and new. The News Release makes that the DOD had nothing to do with the reports and raw intel - all it did was supply a list to the Senate of non-DOD reports and raw intel. So I suppose you could say that the DOD distanced itself from what was contained in the reports ("hey, it ain't our work, its the Intellegence Community's work), and since this all happened back in July, why, nothing new here.

In fairness to Mr. Hayes, when he speaks of "new information", he's referring to intel gathered after the invasion of Iraq and new to those outside the intel community (he also points out that pleny of it is old intel - including from Clinton was President. I think most people would agree that that is a reasonable definition for a news report on this subject. And Mr. Hayes never claims that his conclusion that Iraq and al Qaida were cooperating is the official conclusion of any government agency or entity.

It's interesting to note that the DOD press release focuses on the annex to the letter Under Secretary Feith sent - while Mr. Hayes consistantly refers to "the memo". Does Mr. Hayes have the whole thing? Maybe there are conclusions in that part?

So you have Under Secretary Feith testifying before Congress in July, and the Senate asks him for the reports to back up his testimony -- so he must have discussed ties between Iraq and al-Qaida. I think it's a reasonable inference to draw that he was claiming there were ties between the two (why else say "hey, back those claims up"). I don't know this, but I think that's the way the evidence available points.

So I think the DOD press release doesn't represent a distancing, but dare I say a confirmation of the news reports.

More Soldiers?

Do we need more soldiers in Iraq, and do we need a larger military?

As for Iraq, I'd say the answer is generally no, but only because the number of Iraqi soldiers and police is steadily increasing. Ultimately, Iraqis will have to choose their future, and really all the US can do is to keep it from being stolen by armed force.

But I do think we need a larger military. Part of the problem is the political decision made post-Vietnam to structure the Armed Forces to require reserves to be called up to fight any significant foe. I think we're currently seeing the shortcoming of that restructuring. So I think we need to reverse that, and replicate a lot of the non-combat capability that is currently in the reserves in the standing army while keeping the reserves; a lot of the civil affairs, military police, and engineer type units. I think we have plenty of traditional combat power as is - in large measure because our advanced technology weapons provide a huge force multiplier in open combat. But that technology of destruction doesn't do us much good in the non-combat or low intensity combat areas.

In addition to the increase above, we need an additional army division that would be a brand spanking new type: the urban division, specifically trained and equipped for combat and peace keeping operations in cities. To do it right, we need to start small and try out different tactics and equipment that are better suited to urban combat before we create the whole division. I find it interesting that almost all the elite, or at least non-traditional military units are essentially light infantry: special forces, the 10th mountain division, the 82nd airborne division, and the 101st air assault division. The urban division would be mostly light infantry, although it would need tanks, IFVs and artillery.

0th Generation Warfare

The insurgents (or whatever you want to call them) have clearly stepped up their attacks in Iraq. So the question becomes, why now. They are confronted with the choice of either attacking, or laying low. If they make attacks, they expose themselves to counter attack and exposure, while if they lay low, they can go unnoticed but they may lose recruits and their own fighters. Now such thoughts may not enter into their calculations, they may be attacking more simply because the have more men, more material, and more hope. Or it could be they have decided that it is better to attack now rather than later.

I know the tactics have been dubbed asymmetrical warfare or 4th generation warfare, but there is nothing new under the sun and I'd call it classic weak versus strong or 0th generation warfare. The goal is to harass the enemy, kill him when and where possible, and hope he goes away because it isn't worth his while anymore. Morale, or even better, the will to continue, is what is being fought over in this type of warfare. And in Iraq, we need to realize that it isn't just the morale or will of the US that matters.

The United States will leave Iraq one day; the only question isn't so much when but under what conditions. Our desire is to leave behind a functioning government complete with armed forces that will be able to defeat the insurgents. It would be nice if the insurgents were wiped out before we left, but not necessary. In that sense, US troops are fighting a holding action. The insurgents would like us to leave before that goal is achieved, and then to defeat the government we leave behind. So the insurgents have to do two things to win - demoralize the US, and demoralize a majority of the Iraqi's themselves. Thus they are attacking not just US soldiers, but foreign groups (such as the UN and NGOs) that will help the fledgling Iraqi government, and the Iraqi forces (mostly police) we are constituting for the Iraqi government.

At this point, there are now more Iraqi's under arms fighting with us than there are American troops in Iraq, and the number of Iraqi's under arms grows daily. Soon there will be more Iraqi's under arms for the government than there ever were US soldiers in Iraq. So the attacks against Iraqi police are important to the insurgents to keep that day from coming - not from killing that many police, but from killing enough that too few ordinary Iraqi's become police, or soldiers, or guards. So the insurgents have to attack now before the Iraqi police and military overwhelm them.

Not Slow, Not Fast, but Half Fast

What is the American organization that has performed the least well in Iraq? Overall, the UN has to win hands down for its unwavering opposition to any safety measures; the CPA (Coalition provisional Authority) has to be the least effective on the US side. The military seems to be doing the best job all around, not just security but interacting with the Iraqis and in rebuilding efforts. I suppose it should be remembered that the post World War II occupations of Japan and Germany were both military with generals in charge, but that isn't the case in Iraq.

I think a lot of the criticism of the Pentagon's handling has been reflexive rather than insightful. Yes, I understand there are areas in Iraq where unrest continues, and the Baathist remnants and possibly Al Queda terrorists are able to kill American soldiers. But it isn't militarily significant. Could the military do a better job - sure, you can always do a better job, but I think they are doing a good job, certainly more than adequate enough to fulfill their responsibilities. And I think if the civilian side of the occupation was doing its job, the military side would be much easier.

When we turn to the CPA, we discover a systematic failure in their responsibilities -- most notably in getting a constitution written and in getting the coalition side of the story out to the Iraqi people. Part of the problem may be that they are making do with a revolving door of short term civilian workers; part may be that it is the effort that the State Department is most heavily involved in; and part purely organizational: it was formed just this year, the people don't know each other, and it has no tradition, training, or experience in getting the job done in the face of adversity. Its head, Paul Bremer, has just returned to the US for discussions at the White House; I assume he's going to be motivated to get the job done. Whether or not he and the organization or up for it is another matter. It seems to be the one most caught up with bureaucracy, poor contracting, excessive reliance on American and non-Iraqi contractors, and a seeming lack of urgency in carrying out its responsibilities.

PATRIOT (cue the shreaking)

Juan Non-Volokh points out that John Edwards was inaccurate in his criticism of the PATRIOT act, and then expands his point in response to reader criticism. I think a couple of things are going on here. One is that the argument over PATRIOT is in part over what has been done versus what could be done. The second is that there are certain hot button issues (e.g. abortion) where thinking and listening go out the window for many people, and PATRIOT (along with John Ashcroft) has reached, somehow, that status (mainly for its opponents though). The idea that the police can subpeona my library records in the course of an investigation simply doesn't fill me with dread, yet that is metioned over and over by opponents as the most sinister aspect of the law. And if Ashcroft is for it, well, need we say more? Yes, you do. And just because it's named PATRIOT, and we're in a war, doesn't mean that any criticism of it is treasonous. There are few if any laws that can't be improved upon (sometimes by their outright repeal) and honest, thoughtful criticism is the only way to improve them.

Gimme That Old Style Religion

I know President Bush is a big fan of the Bible, as I am, and he quotes from the book of Isaiah quite frequently. So I'd like to say to him, and the nation of as a whole, that we shouldn't commit the sin of Onan (Genesis 38) and pull out too soon, before the job is done. We have a responsibility to Iraq and to ourselves.

Love Is the Plan, The Plan Is Death

"Failure to plan is planning to fail" goes the aphorism, and I'm hearing a lot that the Bush administration doesn't have a plan for Iraq. Well. I can remember sitting in on a review for a proposal where the manager told us, "we had a plan for [another program - name excised to protect the guilty], we executed the plan, the plan was [a four letter word for excrement - name excised to protect my sensibilities]. This time, we want to make sure we have a good plan, and that's why we want you guys to review it for us."

The administration had a plan, and still has a plan. The basic structure is so obvious that it apparently hides in plain sight for some people. The plan is to build a new Iraq - a new government, new police, and new armed forces. Because once we have those, we can pull out, although I think we should keep a major base so that we can continue to exert influence in the region. Realistically, the government only has to be reasonably representative, the police reasonably non-repressive, and the armed forces reasonably effective. Everything else is how to get there. All the physical rebuilding is just the means to the end of the political rebuilding.

There was a lot of contingency planning for various disasters -- oil fields set on fire, mass migrations, mass starvation and the like -- that didn't occur. Whether mass looting was planned on, I don't know. It could be that it wasn't; it could be that it was hard to shift from war fighting to order keeping and the looting occured before the switch was complete; it could be that the plan for the looting was to simply let it happen. There is nothing that says the plan has to be the right one in hindsight to be a plan. There are reports that a lot of military supply dumps full of weapons have been left unguarded, and if true, that seems to be a huge failure and somehow you think it should have been and should be now in "the plan". There were earlier reports that the nuclear site at Tuwaitha was left unguarded when in fact wasn't. What I know of the military tells me that if anything, we had plans for everything. They might not have been any good, but we had them.

I think we can have a good discussion as to whether our efforts in Iraq are adequate, what can we be doing better, how has planning changed with time as the facts on the ground have modified it, has the State Department / Department of Defense rivalry been harmful or helpful, were the assumptions of the planning too optimistic, and whether the big plan is the right one or not, etc.; but the position that somehow the Bush administration didn't have any plans at all for post-war Iraq is simply wrong, and in the words of Donald Rumsfeld, unhelpful.

Baghdad Journal

Mark at Kaedrin links to the continuing reports from artist Steve Mumford in Baghdad. The amazing thing is that it is the best eyewitness reporting coming out of Iraq right now, and it isn't coming from the press but from an internet art magazine.

Just in case you haven't been following:

Installment 1

Installment 2

Installment 3

Installment 4

Installment 5

Panetta Speaks

The Sophorist links to a report that Leon Panetta stated on C-Span that Presidents Clinton and Bush received the same intellgence on Iraq WMD (i.e. that there was a danger). So Bush didn't lie, President Clinton wasn't wrong to at least bomb in 1998, and all those Democratic politicians weren't wrong to speak out about the dangers of Iraq and support action against Iraq by both Presidents based on the intellegence at the time. What is wrong is for them to act like they never did such things in the past and the intellegence info was different under Bush.

First Tacitus, Now the MullMeister

Another blogger who is helping all Americans out by serving his country: Rich Galen at Mullings is going to Iraq to help the Department of Defense get the word out of Iraq. Good Luck.

Thoughts on Rumsfeld's Memo

An invitation from Donald Rumsfeld to a high level strategy session was leaked yesterday. There were different opinions about it around the blogosphere. The spinning has reached frenzied yet utterly predicatable proportions. If you support the war, it's a clear headed assessment. If you are against the war, it's an admission of failure. No surprise then that I'm in the clear headed assessment camp.

One thing I haven't seen picked up yet is the structure of the memo. It's an invitation to a meeting to discuss what Rumsfeld learned from combat commanders about the following items: Are we winning or losing the Global War on Terror? Is DoD changing fast enough to deal with the new 21st century security environment? Can a big institution change fast enough? Is the USG changing fast enough? He goes on to lay out the status quo, and then challanges his senior guys to figure out how they can do better. He's consulted with the field commanders, and know he's trying to get top leadership to address their concerns. So my reaction is good for Rumsfeld -- he's doing his job.

The press, however, isn't doing theirs. Yesterday, this was all over the web. This morning when I opened my local newspaper, there was this lousy piece, which wasn't much different than the original USA Today article. What I dislike about them is quite simple - they take a memo that flows and reduce it to a collection of sound bites. Why not just reprint the memo itself, and then they can include the reactions? Yeah, I know its on the web, and that's how I know just how bad a job newspapers do. When I can read the darn memo myself, and then their reporting, you realize just how terrible their reporting is. I pity the poor fool who has to rely on the newsmedia to pre-digest the information they need.

What I Want To Say, Only Better

Danielle Pletka had an op ed in the NYT the other day that argues that problems in Iraq (currently overblown in the media, but still real) aren't caused by a lack of US troops, but a lack of Iraqi troops:

"The problem American commanders in the field face is not too few troops, but too little intelligence to act upon. And that problem is getting better as well. In the months since the deaths of Uday and Qusay Hussein, more Iraqis have been stepping forward with information — leading United States forces to Baathist fugitives and arms caches.

This is the kind of work United States forces need to be doing. The time has come to get American troops back to this core mission, and take them out of the night watchman game. But even if we weren't winning on the ground, the answer would not be to call up more reservists, but to train more Iraqis to do this kind of work. Indeed, virtually every task that could be done by additional American forces would be better assigned to Iraqis. Iraqis are directly plugged into intelligence. They speak the language, know the local population and are more sensitive to anomalies in behavior, dress and speech that give away bad actors. They are also perfectly capable of painting schools and directing traffic. Most important, a better Iraq will come about only if Iraqis themselves feel a sense of ownership."

Right now, successfully replacing a murdering, terrorist supporting dictator with a half way decent, reasonably representative government in Iraq is critical to the US, but it is with no exaggeration a matter of life and death for Iraqis. For decades, they haven't held their own futures in their own hands. Right now, they do. We can support them to the best of our abilities, but ultimately, what Iraq becomes is up to the Iraqis.

Link via Andrew Sullivan

More On Iraq Museum Looting

The Wall Street Journal ran a condensed versionof a briefing by the officer in charge of investigating the looting of the Iraq National Museum (long version complete with slides used is available at DefenseLINK). Roughly 13,500 items were stolen; about 3,500 of those have been recovered. While that sounds like a lot, most of the items were small - over 10,000 were taken from a single basement storage area and could fit in a single, large backpack. Some of the items were huge - one statue weighed over 300 pounds. Numbers alone don't tell the story.

There were random looters who grabbed what they could, professionals who knew what was worth stealing, and one group that knew the museum and where to find keys to the basement storage vaults. Fortunately, they dropped the keys, lost them in the extensive litter, and then had to flee from the smoke of the fire they started looking for the keys. They recovered fingerprints off of these guys which didn't match any of the staff who have returned (or US soldiers). And yes, the museum was used as a fighting position during the war.

A lot of items (over 1,700) were turned in by ordinary Iraqi's - most of whom wanted to be clear that they were turning them into the American's soldiers for safekeeping until a new government came to power because the old museum staff was too closely identified with the Baath Party. Interesting stuff. Oh yeah, the person arrested most recently over this was a journalist entering the US with 3 of the cylinder seals that were stolen.

B or D? Foxbat, that is.

Instapundit linked to a post of Chris Regan's at Junkyard Blog that picked up a NewsMax story that said the planes may be equiped with Russian and French made electronics that were sold in violation of the post Gulf War embargo. Chris goes on to state that the planes is a Foxbat "D", and possibly the latest D variant, the RBSh. Well, I looked at the photos, and I don't think so. So I commented, and Chris agrees with me. I could have gone over to Tacitus who has a very large Power Point presentation of pictures from the excavation where the plane is labeled as a Foxbat B.

So I think it's settled that it's a Foxbat B model (which referes to the airframe), which is a pre-embargo model. But from the pictures you can’t tell what the electronics are. They could be standard issue Russian stuff (RBT or RBF), or they could be something special for the Iraqi’s. A friend of mine once worked on a radar upgrade for Egyptian MiG-21’s; maybe the Russians, or a possibility according to the reporting, the French put something together just for the Iraqi’s (or maybe the French and Russians have been working together on upgrades), or even less likely but still possible, the Iraqi’s put together something for themselves (they did develop their own extended range SCUDs). Only the intel guys know and they aren’t talking (yet).

While it isn't settled that anybody violated the embargo, it does point up the difficulty in finding WMD or any other contraband in Iraq. Bury it in the desert, kill the people who buried it (Saddam started out as a leg breaker who graduated to assassin for the Baath Party) and viola, WMD all gone (I know I read that idea someplace else first, but I can't find where - sorry).

I'm So Confused

When somebody in this country stands up and goes against the consensus, a certain segment automatically applauds this as "brave dissent". Accolades for not going along with the crowd but being your own person, fearlessly speaking truth to power, being the lone voice in the wilderness are given. Yet if the United States decides to stand up and go against the international consensus, that same segment instead of applauding it for such brave dissent rather berates it for refusal to do what everybody else thinks is right. Shut up and go along (how can the US possibly think it's right when so many other countries think it's wrong) is the refrain from the otherwise pro-dissent.

A few months ago, some people said that to intervene in Iraq would be wrong - we had no right to impose ourselves on the Iraqi people, but now those same people are urging our involvement in Liberia. And the idea that any Iraqi's would be happy to have the tyrannical regime of Hussein removed was just neo-colonistic wish fulfillment, yet now the idea that Liberians want the US - why, everybody there says so (well of course not Charles Taylor and his thugs, but then they don't count). The massive violation of human rights in Iraq were insufficient grounds for intervention there, while the massive violation of human rights in Liberia is ample grounds for intervention. The people who are now demanding the UN be brought into Iraq claim that only the US can successfully intervene in Liberia. And while Iraq was going to be a distraction from Afghanistan and Al-Qaeda, adding Liberia won't be. Those people who pointed to Afghanistan and said that mess had to be cleaned up before we got bogged down in Iraq, and who now claim we are bogged down in Iraq and Afghanistan, now advocate taking on a third country.

I know a foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of small minds, but this is ridiculous.

I Link, You Decide

The DOD has its own website devoted to the War on Terror: Defend America. You get the Pentagon's view of the war; how accurate that is, I can't say. Probably more accurate than some guy sitting on his butt in St. Louis getting most of his info from news organizations that can't get basic facts right on stories in their own country.

Iraq and Guerrilla Warfare

There's a lot of ominous talk in certain circles about Iraq being a new Vietnam quagmire because of the outbreak of Guerrilla Warfare. Well, I admit to being an optimist by nature. But I do think there are a few things to keep in mind.

First, it isn't clear that the attacks in Iraq are being carried out by new organizations or remnants of Hussein's regime. To me, the former is far more troubling than the latter, because it indicates a new opposition to America among the Iraqi people and not just the continuing resistance of a defunct and discredited regime.

Second, the guerrillas in Vietnam (the Viet Cong) were destroyed by 1968 as a meaningful force. It was the regular forces of North Vietnam that fought the US for the final five years of our involvement and eventually overcame the South. Guerrilla warfare shouldn't hold any special terror for the United States, although it does tend to frustrate our desire for quick solutions.

Third, Vietnam was a quagmire because of the quality and leadership of the US Armed Forces, most importantly in the earlier stages of the war when opinion turned against it and became set. General Westmoreland picked a strategy of attrition, and tried to fight large battles. The experience of Vietnam sparked a host of reforms that have become ingrained and have led to the current outstanding quality of our Armed Forces and current leadership. Consequently, the US hasn't fought battles of attrition since, and understands that small actions can be as important as large ones. There is always room for improvement, and that is something that is understood throughout the ranks.

Wars can always be lost. While I feel that the United States is a special place, that doesn't mean that we always do the right thing, or that we can't be beaten. Iraq still hangs in the balance, and will for some time. There are many troubling reports, and there are many reassuring reports, and the situation is confusing. Certainty comes more from people's prior views than anything that is happening in Iraq. But as I said, I'm an optimist by nature, and while failure in Iraq would be bad for us, it would be far worse for the Iraqi's.

Good News From Iraq

U.S forces in Iraq just captured the fourth most wanted Iraqi criminal. When you consider that the three above him are all named Hussein, as in Saddam and his two sons, you realize he's a big catch. And they didn't just find him - they found millions in various currencies, and millions in gems and jewels. The 4th ID bagged him as part of their raids around Tikrit. Maybe the ambushes against U.S forces aren't spontaineous guerrilla warfare, but the last gasp of a dead regime.

Some Questions Answered, Some Questions Remain

The DOD had a press conference yesterday about the return of the IAEA to inspect the Iraqi Tuwaitha nuclear facility. One of the interesting nuggets is that the storage facility there has been under continuous American control since April 7.

"And Site Charlie, where radiological materials, principally yellow cake were stored, consists of three buildings, and they're surrounded by a fence and a wall of concrete barriers about 12 feet tall on three sides. According to reports from civilians in the area, on or about the 10th of March, Iraqi army forces who were guarding the site reportedly left their weapons -- some of their weapons with the local civilians -- and abandoned the site. We also believe, from talking to the local civilians, that on or about 20 March, the 20th of March, the civilians guarding the site abandoned it also. And, of course, we were conducting our attack across the Kuwaiti border on the 21st. On the 7th of April, U.S. Marines from our land component first arrived at Tuwaitha Site Charlie and assumed the security, and remained there until the 20th of April, when they turned over control of the facility to U.S. Army soldiers from another unit. And Tuwaitha Site Charlie has been secured and under the positive control of U.S. forces since the 7th of April. When the U.S. forces first arrived, they found the Tuwaitha site facility, Tuwaitha Charlie facility, in disarray. The front gate was open and unsecured, and the fence line and barrier wall on the back side of the facility had been breached. And the troops reported that there were no seals on the exterior doors of the buildings. But since taking control of Tuwaitha Site Charlie, no thieves or looters have been allowed inside the facility."

There have been some reports in the press suggesting that the Marines showed up, bumbled around, and then left. According to the DOD, not true. However, the entire facility covers 23,000 acres, and security has been continously provided only at the storage site. What's odd about the time line is that the Iraqi soldiers abandoned the site 11 days before the coalition attack on Iraq. Another odd thing: apparently we found more material there than we thought should be there, which is the point of having the IAEA, who actually have the records, inspect. Hopefully the IAEA inspection will help us figure out if any nuclear material was stolen (or moved there from elsewhere) before the Marines arrived.

[Via Phil Carter]

Another Feel Good Story

Okay, I can't help myself. Here's another story about getting things right in Iraq [via Virginia Postrel]:

"Lt. Gen. William S. Wallace, commander of V Corps, in charge of Army operations in Iraq, wanted to make an immediate difference in the lives of the people in Baghdad’s poorest neighborhoods. Long neglected or actively repressed by Saddam’s regime, they now were despairing because their trash was gathering uncollected in the streets, their police force had vanished, or was powerless to protect them from crime, drains were backing up, pure water was impossible to find and many other things were just going wrong while the governing occupation authorities promised much, but delivered little improvement. Wallace’s assignment was for Martin, as the corp's engineer, to apply the Army’s engineering capabilities to help solve some of the people's problems."

...

"Spec. Jessica Schmitz, a mechanic with 561st Medical Co., 30th Medical Brigade, says she came to provide security for her unit’s dental clinic at the soccer stadium project. "I just wanted to come down and see this," she says. "I think it gives purpose to what we’re doing."

The story is so well written and flows so well, it's hard to excerpt it in a meaningful way, so go read it.

Some People Never Learn

First it was the quagmire in Afganistan (not really, but since I'm writing this, I can start the count where I want). Then it was the hundred thousand civilians we were going to kill in Iraq. Then it was the quagmire in Iraq. Now it's the lack of WMD in Iraq. When is the anti-Bush crowd going to realize they need to shut up and let events play out before they make their complaints? Did they ever stop to think maybe the administration might take their sweet time checking things out before making an announcement, and then they would once again look like idiots? Just a thought.

Saddam Hussein The Terrorist

Saddam Hussein was a terrorist, and a very successful one. If a terrorist is someone who seeks political ends through violence and terror or the threat of violence and terror against civilians, then Saddam fits the definition to a T. Saddam didn't just imprison political prisoners but tortured them; he didn't just execute political prisoners but made their deaths as ghastly as possible to deter any dissent. Yet somehow we don't seem to consider Saddam and those like him as terrorists because they achieved their aims. Instead, we seem to only consider failed terrorists as real terrorists. The successful ones, like Saddam, or Castro, or Khadafy, or Lenin, or even Mugabe or Marcos aren't considered terrorists once they seize power and achieve the objective of their terror - namely power. No, its failed movements like the IRA, or Basque separatists (ETA), Shining Path in Peru, or lone wackos like Timothy McVeigh and Ted Kaczynski (the Unabomber) that we label as terrorists. Yet their motives and methods are the same -- only the scale and success differ.

We may talk of state sponsored terrorism when once country uses terrorism against another, like Pakistan does in Kashmir or Syria (and previously Iraq) against Israel, but we never mention that some states are simply ruled by terrorist organizations that have taken over the country. What is the difference between Saddam Hussein and Abu Nidal, or between Fidel Castro and Abu Abbas? One has achieved his goal, and the other one didn't. That's it. Is Yasser Arafat a terrorist or the head of state? He's both, and at the very same time. He and his government probably kill about as many (same order of magnitude) Palestinians it claims to represent as it does Israeli's it wages war against.

I suppose it's too unsettling to consider that governments can be the cause of misery rather than the promoting the general welfare. I suppose the understanding that too many countries are ruled by terrorists would shame us for our indifference to the plight of our fellow man forced to live in those countries. We don't have the ability to topple every terrorist organization masquerading as a government; it's easier to ignore our limitations than to recognize them.

We also like to think that violence never settles anything. Yet far from being ineffective, violence is far too effective. And even worse, the person who ups the ante on the violence tends to be the winner. Its usually the dictator who manifested a scruple who is overthrown than the one who is willing to do anything to stay in power. Thus the real problem isn't that it is ineffective, but that the outcome is usually not the one we want or deem fair or right. Might doesn't make right, but it usually makes the victor.

War Status Week 3

I think we've reached the beginning of the end of the Iraq campaign. At this point, it sure looks to go down as another smashing US victory. Whatever lingering doubts I had were cleared up by the recent reports of a warehouse full of cardboard boxes with human remains and detailed records of how victims of Saddam were executed; the terrible details of torture in Iraqi prisons, and the revelation of a children's prison. I know the end doesn't justify the means, but after the fanatical attacks on coalition forces during the war, it seems to me this government would never have been removed by any means short of war, nor would anything but a worldwide united front have achieved disarmament -- and I have my doubts that even that would have succeeded.

Is Saddam dead? I don't know. But last time we thought we got him, the regime continued to function, although in a strangely passive manner. This time, in less than 24 hours the regime seems to no longer exist -- even the police and media minders have dropped from sight. If we did get him this time, it would provide a small amount of personal satisfaction as reportedly he was killed by four BLU-109 JDAM variants (I think that's what they mean when they say bunker busting GBU-31's, which can be either Mark 84s or BLU-109s with the JDAM kit) as I happened to have helped out on the aerodynamics on that particular variant.

Do They Love Us or Hate Us?

Donald Sensing at One Hand Clapping points out that hating Saddam isn't the same as loving America. The question of the moment isn't whether the Iraqi's love us or hate us (or fear us), the question is will they tolerate us and help us. And certainly no feeling will be universal; some will hate us and some will love us. All we need is most to work with us.

War Assessment

The news media seems to think the war in Iraq is going badly. I can just see these guys write a post-mortem of the 1972 Miami Dolphins: Despite Coach Shula's claims of a perfect season, we can report that opponents completed passes, gained yards, first downs, and even scored on the Dolphins while the Dolphin offense struggled at times, failing to put points on the board with every possession. As far as I can tell, the campaign against Iraq is going very well. Coalition ground forces have seemingly advanced at will, stopped only by the weather; what's described as fierce opposition has managed to inflict few casualties and is best described as a nuisance. Some seem surprised that vehicles still need gas, guns still need bullets, and soldiers still need to sleep now and then. Despite fears before hand, the war has neither widened -- no rising of the Arab street, no terrorist attacks, not even a tape from Osama -- nor has Iraq used WMD yet. Yes, the coalition has made mistakes, mistakes that have cost lives, mistakes that will prolong the campaign, but then this too should not be surprising.

Part of the problem is that since neither we nor the media know what the plan is/was, we cannot accurately asses how we are doing relative to the plan. Some seem to think the plan was to drive to Baghdad and be welcomed as heros. Somehow, I doubt that was the plan. It looks to me that the plan was to get to Baghdad by fighting as little as possible in the south and have the decisive battle occur there. As an Iraqi in Nasiriya, scene of heavy fighting, said, "You want to overthrow Saddam Hussein’s regime? Go to Baghdad. What are you doing here?"

So I think the coalition needs to press ahead to Baghdad. Waiting around for reinforcements and getting bogged down taking every town in the south are diversions. Strike the Republican Guard units while they are still outside Baghdad. Infiltrate the 101 into Baghdad before Iraqi units retreat into it. Keep the pressure on; keep the initiative, adjust to Saddam's countermoves but don't lose sight of the overall picture and objective. Knock his TV and radio broadcasts from the airwaves and replace them with our own. Attack every aspect of Saddam's regime that you can while you advance to destroy him.

Scuds Revealed

Apparently, Centcom isn't naming the ballistic missiles fired into Kuwait, leading to confusion about whether they are Scuds are not. In response to a question asking if Iraq was launching Scuds, the briefer responded that they had fired 10 (OK, I don't remember the exact number) ballistic missiles into Kuwait, some of which had travelled more than 150 km. He then moved on to the next question. It is left for the media to understand that 150 km represents the limit on allowable range for Iraqi ballistic missiles; IOW, it doesn't matter what you call them, Iraq had and used missiles in violation of UN limits. I hope that clears it up.

A Couple Of Know Nothings

Derek Low at Lagniappe has a pretty good description about the overall picture of the Iraq campaign: the signal to noise is pretty low, and nobody (that's talking, anyway) has any idea of what's going on. But that doesn't stop him (or me) from checking the news all day.

Liberation Theology, The Vatican, and Iraq

Jeff Jarvis over on Buzzmachine picks up a thread from a Spanish blog about liberation theology and the Vatican's stance on the Iraq campaign. Seamus Murphy SJ argues that liberation theology would be in favor of the Iraq campaign. Food for thought.

Basra Uprising

It appears that Iraqi troops in Basra are fighting with civilians in the town. The British have already used their artillery to take out Iraqi mortars used against civilians, and are talking about heading into the city to help. Good I say, and the sooner the better. I understand they don't want to rush pell mell into the city, but want to take the time needed to gather intellegence and plan the mission. In 1991 we stood by when this happened; we shouldn't make that same mistake again.

Campaign Status

The biggest question is: are we winning? In my opinion, our offensive has been nothing short of amazing. A look at a map showing the ground covered so far compared to Kuwait, which was the operational theater in Desert Storm reveals how much bolder and how much faster this advance has been. So far, only 3 reinforced divisions (3rd Infantry, 1st Marine, 1st Armored (UK) ) plus unknown number of special forces have been committed to the attack. The 101st is apparently zooming along getting into position but not in the fight, the 82nd is mostly in Kuwait but transfering to the north to open a new front, and the 4th Infantry is back in the states waiting for its equipment to make it to Kuwait -- originally it was to open a northern front via turkey. And in, what, five days those forces have driven through Iraq to the gates of Baghdad, and only today have they been slowed down by a sandstorm.

Have the Iraqi's not been surrenduring? This is hard to tell, but the number in our custody (3,000 is what I last heard) is misleading. We don't want POWs. Kuwait won't admit them, so we'd be stuck handling them. So as our forces move north, not only have they bypassed enemy units not occupying strategic locations, they've also left Iraqi soldiers waving white flags along side the road. We'd rather they deserted, which they have apparently been doing in large numbers. Not that many Iraqi units have fought, and seemingly most of those have been either Republican Guard units or irregulars. By and large, most of the regular Iraqi army has decided to sit this one out. So what we have has been a few engagements in the south, and the start of the attack on the Republican Guard units around Baghdad.

Hasn't all the news been discouraging? Actually, I think it's been very encouraging. Our forces have gone farther faster than any other army ever has, and casualties have been light -- on both sides. There have been no terrorist attacks in the US (yet). There have been no WMD attacks against forces in theater (yet). The Arab street has demonstrated, but not "risen". The Iraqi forces have been very passive - no significant counterattacks, and the "ambush" on the supply convoy was a blocking force - they weren't out hunting along the supply route. We've lost more aircraft to accidents and malfunctions than enemy fire, and it looks to me that that Apache helicopter was not shot down: there wasn't a scratch on it -- the Iraqi camerman certainly would have highlighted any battle damage to show how they shot it down -- and all its weapons were unexpended. And even now its not clear that Saddam is alive and well; Centcom is apparently claiming that he was seriously wounded in the bunker attack, and his taped performances haven't done much to contradict.

Are the Iraqi's friendly or unfriendly? No doubt there is a mixture of both. But there are already reports that people in Basra are rebelling and the British 1st division is going to their aid. The real question is will the people cooperate, and so far the jury is still out.

Aren't Generals warning about heavy casualties and risky battle plans? Yes, the plan has risks, but battle is risky. History shows that safe plans usually kill far more people and achieve far less in the long run than audacious ones. Yes, many generals wanted more troops. But that means more demands on supply; a more inviting target as they massed in Kuwait; and an irresistable urge to fight more battle, which would result in more dead. Yes, the coalition supply line is exposed, but so far the Iraqi's haven't made move to cut it off. And perhaps we're hoping that Iraqi units expose themselves to do just that. Units in the open are far more easily attacked than those hunkered down in civilian areas. The point of the plan seems to be to get to Baghdad as quickly as possible and fight the decisive battle of the war there.

Scuds, Anyone?

Has Iraq fired scuds? Have coalition troops found scuds? The problem is that at the lower eschelons (and perhaps the higher ones, too), scud refers to any ballistic missile. Scuds are banned but Frogs, another ballistic missile, aren't. And at the start of the war, there were reports that Iraq was shooting anti-ship missiles into Kuwait. I'm just going to wait for the report at the end of the war to figure this one out.

Clausewitz On War

The events of the weekend are a clear demonstration of Clausewitz's concept of friction: helicopters crash due to mechanical failure, a British Tornado is shot down by mistake, a supply convoy makes wrong turn is cut to pieces and American soldiers captured by Iraqi forces in place.

"A general in time of war is constantly bombarded by reports both true and false; by errors arising from fear or negligence or hastiness; by disobedience born of right or wrong interpretations, of ill will, of a proper or mistaken sense of duty, of laziness, or of exhaustion; and by accidents that nobody could have foreseen. In short, he is exposed to countless impressions, most of them disturbing, few of them encouraging."

What was the proper response in Clausewitz's view?

"Perseverance in the chosen course is the essential counter-weight, provided that no compelling reasons intervene to the contrary. Moreover, there is hardly a worthwhile enterprise in war whose execution does not call for infinite effort, trouble, and privation; and as man under pressure tends to give in to physical and intellectual weakness, only great strength of will can lead to the objective. It is steadfastness that will earn the admiration of the world and of posterity."

Keep the pressure on; the enemy suffers from friction too.

With modern media, it's not just the general who suffers from countelss disturbing, discouraging impressions. We at home will suffer even more, as we have neither the experience or as reliable source of information as our generals. We don't see the whole picture, nor do we even know what our battle plans are.

And in the Iraqi case, it may well be worse because the Iraqi leaders (and people) may well have an even more distored view of the battle. One could dismiss Iraqi claims of victories as propaganda, but they may accurately reflect the view from the top because fearful subordinates provide a rosy picture to higher ups to save their skin in the short term. Consequently, orders will be out of synch with reality and rather than coordinated action, a series of disorganized responses more easily dealt with will occur.

Friends In The News

I talked with a high school buddy about putting in a patio in my back yard Saturday night. Somehow, our talk turned to the war. In his youth, he was pretty liberal. On the phone, he was pretty conservative. I mentioned a planned peace protest outside the JDAM plant the next day. He wanted to go to a pro-war rally. I said I didn't know of any. So in today's paper, imagine my surprise when he's interviewed at a pro-war rally:

Among those who took part in the rally downtown were Dan and Besty O'Halloran of Rock Hill and their two small children. They had planned to take a family hike but came upon the rally downtown and decided to take part.

Dan O'Halloran, 43, said he wanted his children to see their parents "doing the right thing."

"I just felt very disgusted with seeing all the anti-Bush and anti-American demonstrations," he said. "The war is hard enough to explain (to children). That there are people who have such deep feelings against their country is even harder to explain."

Mesoptamian Campaign Strategy

The strategy behind this war is much different than our strategy in Desert Storm. In some ways, Desert Storm is analogous to the German offensive of 1914: Long prepared, carefully timed and orchestrated it was a sweeping right hook designed to cutoff opposing forces from their home base. This time, our strategy is much different, although I'm going to surprisingly use the same war for my analogy; this time the tactics of the German Stormtroopers of 1918 are writ large as our strategy. The Stormtroopers liked to attack at night with short but fierce artillery preparation, made maximum use of infiltration, bypassed enemy strongpoints and tried to move as quickly as possible into the enemies rear to decisively defeat and destroy his command and control.

The German blitzkreig of WWII was result the adoption of technology to provide greater mobility and firepower to these same tactics in order to break out from static defenses and force the enemy to retreat or be destroyed. In place of a WWI three trench system, Iraq is one huge defense in depth. Our strategy here seems to be to bypass strongpoints in the Iraqi south so that the decisive battle is fought in the Iraqi rear (around Bagdad) with the goal of destroying the Iraqi regime's hold over the country. Once that is accomplished, the rest of the country can be dealt with piecemeal. Capture what you have to, leave the rest to follow on forces.

American planners could have opted for a slow grinding offensive with its main thrust north between the Tigris and Euphrates, with extensive aerial preparation, clearly delineated lines, and maximum use of firepower. But that would have meant that not only would most of the Iraqi army have been engaged, a great deal of the populated part of Iraq would have been devastated in the fighting, and a long war. While the plan adopted has its risks, it also has its rewards.

War Roundup

The guy on the tape is Saddam, according to the CIA.

The Agonist is blogging up a storm on the war.

The Washington Post has all their embedded journalist stories in one spot.

Based on reactions around the blogosphere, Shock and Awe is living up to its name. Let's hope it has the desired effect on the Iraqi military.

Will there be a response from Saddam to today's events? I hope not.

Sun Tzu, Anyone?

It seems that all the news dispatches talk about are the Marines in Kuwait. The Marines are firing arty into Iraq. The Marines are taking incoming scuds. The Marines are entering Iraq. What about the mechanized and armored units over there? How about the 101 Airmobile? I have the feeling that while the Marines are knocking on the front door, everybody else is going around to the back door. Or in terms of Sun Tzu, the Marines are the ordinary force, and everybody else is the extraordinary force.

If you're interested in this sort of thing, the Navy maintains a site full of info on their systems: Navy Fact File.

The Airforce calls their info Fact Sheets.

Really, those are the best sources of info; the independents grab their info from those sources plus paste and cut from DOD and contractor press releases.

Well Begun Is Half Done

The campaign against Saddam started with a direct attack on him. A broadcast of somebody claiming to be Saddam (who knows, maybe he even was Saddam, although he looked more like his half-brother) got on Iraqi TV to reassure his people that he had survived. Time will tell.

I hope the campaign is over quickly - the sooner it is over, the fewer casualties all around (Iraqi soldiers and civilians, American soldiers and possibly civilians). My daughter mentioned I didn't look happy this morning. While I fully support the campaign, I'm not happy about war. Oh, I'll be elated when it's over, and happy for all of us, but not now.

The news media is in overdrive. I happened to hit a couple of big media web sites, and headed to their descriptions of weapons. Given all the time leading up to the war, you'd think they'd do a better job. CNN's descriptions were extremely brief. CBS had a great picture but unidentified picture of SLAM ER and no description; while their descriptions were lengthy they seemed to be cut and paste jobs of numerous press releases giving rise to problems of verb tense and out of date information. ABC did a better job and even managed to describe SLAM ER.

The guys on Fox's morning show assured us that the people operating that camera providing a view of Baghdad were perfectly safe - I think he has more faith in the precision of our armament than even our armed forces do.

There are lots of rumors swirling around; my favorite was yesterday's claim that Tariq Azziz had either been killed or defected. It soon went the way of the report on 911 that a bomb had blown up at the State Department. That's what I love about the media - always insisting they are accurate and don't put anything on until it's verified, yet unable to ever separate the wheat from the chaff on a breaking story, and rarely bothering to correct their old mistakes more than once. If you make the mistake of not watching/listening, the only way to tell what was accurate and what wasn't is that they eventually stop repeating the inaccurate. Unfortunately, there is a lag while you try to figure out if the information is no longer operable, or they just haven't gotten around to repeating it yet.

The Song Remains The Same

WARNING: HINDSIGHT WILL BE APPLIED

We are on the verge of war - it's coming, the only question is it tomorrow or the day after. How did we get here? Well, certainly mistakes have been made. But let's go all the way back to the end of the Gulf War. At the time, I supported Bush I decision to narrowly interpret the UN mandate and sign a ceasefire with Saddam. Even with hindsight, that may have been the best decision, but it certainly could have been the wrong decision. But where Bush I really failed was that while the war was well planned and carried out, the ceasefire wasn't given much thought. And the real problem started when we demanded that Saddam disarm, but did nothing when he didn't, and encouraged revolt against him, but did nothing when it occured. IMHO, that was where we made our biggest mistake. We should have declared Saddam in violation of the ceasefire, and helped the rebels. But we were fearful of what came next, the possible breakup of Iraq, and the possibility of neighboring countries taking advantage of civil war in Iraq. But at that point, a minimal investment of force would have paid huge dividends.

Having survived the Mother of All Battles, Saddam began to try to rearm and end UN sanctions. And so began the endless patrols of the no fly zones, the inspection process, the salami tactics. Richard Hottelet wrote a great summation in the Christian Science Monitor in 1998:

"So far, Saddam Hussein is ahead on points. It is possible, increasingly even likely, that he will win this round. He has stood up to American saber rattling because, it would appear, he does not believe it.

Now Saddam has some things going for him. The US does not want to attack, but to get the inspectors of UNSCOM, the UN Special Commission, back to work through diplomatic means. Washington's supporters feel the same way, while Russia, France, China, and most Arab states oppose the use of force altogether.

The US is legally entitled to go it alone and might still do so, but it will not get UN Security Council endorsement unless Saddam wildly overplays his hand. Last November, the council voted to bring him into line by imposing new travel restrictions. But those have been quietly forgotten. And today the talk is not capitulation but compromise.

Another of Saddam's trump cards is the knowledge that even his enemies need him. This was clear in 1990, after Iraq invaded Kuwait, and in 1991 during and after Desert Storm. In successive resolutions, the Security Council affirmed Iraq's sovereignty and territorial integrity. While Saddam's demise or removal was devoutly wished, nothing was done. No one interfered when his troops crushed an uprising in the southern provinces.

Saddam has the advantage of winning if he does not lose; the US loses if it does not win. But what is winning? Thus far, Saddam has had the initiative. The US has "won" a number of confrontations since 1991, sending missiles into Baghdad, bombing radar sites, and rushing warships, planes, troops, and equipment to the Gulf. All of it at enormous expense.

Each time, Saddam has backed down, as he wants to appear to do now, but never entirely. Over the years he never stopped testing his limits. His international support and room for maneuver have grown. The man who invaded Kuwait and burned its oil fields, and whose biological and chemical weapons are meant at least to terrorize his Arab neighbors, now enjoys Arab backing. Meanwhile, the US is accused of a double standard: punishing Saddam for violating his obligation to disarm while making common cause with Israel, which ignores UN resolutions on southern Lebanon, the Golan Heights, and land for peace.

The picture is full of paradox. Economic sanctions intended to confine Saddam are a leaky sieve. He has smuggled out billions of dollars worth of oil to buy luxury goods and forbidden technology while building himself and his cronies palaces. Most of the Iraqi people have been reduced to such piteous poverty that the UN is now more than doubling its humanitarian aid.

Once again, Saddam appears to be calling the tune. He could end the crisis in a moment by acknowledging UNSCOM's right to inspect any sites it deems suspicious. But clearly he has something else in mind.

His ultimate purpose is to end sanctions, sell his oil, and regain a free hand. To do this, he must move in stages. First, he may head off the possible crunch by enveloping it in a fog of diplomacy, partial offers, human intercessions, and obfuscation. Salami tactics would slice away UNSCOM's legitimacy and authority. The US could veto any proposal in the Security Council to terminate restrictions or call off the monitoring and verification UNSCOM is empowered to conduct.

But, over time, Saddam's money could crumble sanctions, and the US would hardly fill the Gulf with carrier battle groups every time he tweaked Washington's nose. There comes a time when attack is politically out.

The prospect is not bright. Sweden's Rolf Ekeus, former head of UNSCOM, had it right five years ago: "With the cash, the suppliers, and the skills," he said, " [Iraq] will be able to reestablish all the weapons. It may grow up like mushrooms after the rain."

Bill Clinton and Tom Dashcle understood this in 1998, which is why Tom voted for a use of force resolution (which he voted against in 1990 and 2002) and Bill bombed in 1998. I don't know that the country would have supported Clinton invading Iraq in 1998 - 9/11 truly caused a state change in this country. So Clinton did what Bush I did -- bloodied Saddam's nose and hoped that the sharks would be attracted by the blood -- with equal success. So now Bush II has decided that a change in policy will result in a change in outcome, and the US stands on the brink of invasion in an attempt to address the root cause of our problems with Iraq, namely Saddam Hussein himself.

The suprising thing isn't that France, China, and Russia don't support the use of force - they haven't since the end of the Gulf War, and were very reluctant even then -- but that they voted for resolution 1441. But we see now that that was a tactical maneuver, and not a strategic change. Nope, they voted for it for one reason - delay. By agreeing to it while having no intention of ever seeing it enforced, they trapped the United States into following their timetable, their interminable delays, strung along by the merest hints of cooperation by Saddam.

War is an ugly thing. But there comes a time when diplomacy is uglier, and we have reached that point. Saddam will never cooperate. If he wanted to, he would have sometime during the past 12 years. Perhaps a credible threat of force would have worked, but the French, Russians and Chinese have seen to it that the threat of force could be gotten around through non-concession concessions. At this point, we have become the parent scolding the child - if you do that again, you'll be sorry - but never taking action. So either we agree to a policy that we know won't work, has no hope of working and continue the charade of inspection, and will only embolden every other tyrant to acquire weapons of mass destruction, which will embolden every terrorist to strike the impotent America, and will consign the Iraqi people to ever more torture, rape, and death; or we invade Iraq and depose Saddam, killing innocents along with way, and worrying other nations about our power. So President Bush has chosen the lesser of two evils, and war will come to Iraq.

Go Ahead, Make My Day

The UN asked Iraq to disarm, but Iraq did nothing. So the United States put a gun to Iraq's head and said "disarm punk". Iraq made the minimun concessions to keep the trigger from being pulled. And when the US said not good enough, France via the UN said we won't let you pull the trigger. So the US has now put the gun to the UN's head and said "If that's the way you want to play it, you first, then Iraq."

Waiting Is The Hardest Part

I think most of us are anxious as war appears imminent. The whole constellation of awful possibilities is enough to give anyone pause. The fact that in a way we're all on the front lines (some of are more frontal than others, of course) is something new. Assymetrical warfare is the fancy term for attacking the soft underbelly rather than the armor plate of an enemy, and for those of in the United States, that means that while we are truly grateful to our fighting men and women who will be directly in harms way, we have to worry about attacks on us as we go about our daily lives. If Saddam decides to take out the JDAM factory, I may go with it. Anthrax and small pox are no respecters of person. Even people who live in East Podunk feel a threat, if not to themselves, then loved ones or fellow Americans. Even those of us who expect a quick and painless military operation with little if any terrorist counter-attacks still worry about the possibilities.

The fear, uncertainty, and doubt of the immediate aftermath of Sept. 11 have returned, and while only a shadow of its former selve, it is still potent. But I remember back to my birthday in October 2001, which my wife and I celebrated with a visit to a local winery. The weather was outstanding, the fall colors were beautiful, the company was convivial: the day was a perfect antidote to the worry. So I plan to ignore the counsel of my fears, and to continue to boldly go and do those things that make life worth living.

Wild Thinking Department

War with Iraq is inevitable at this point. Hussein isn't going to disarm, and Bush isn't going to back down. There are lots of people out there who think we're going after the wrong country, and no I don't mean North Korea. Most of the people who bring up North Korea do so to discredit an attack on Iraq, and aren't seriously suggesting an attack on North Korea. No, I'm refering to Saudi Arabia. The Saudi's supplied the money and people, and the Egyptians supplied the brains for 9/11 in their view.

There's a big problem in attacking Saudi directly - they hold Mecca. If you're worried about the Islamic street, infidels in Mecca is the biggest possible provocation of the street. So America directly attacking and occupying Saudi Arabia might cause far more unrest than Iraq. As I've said before, Iraq holds the central position in the Middle East - hold Iraq and you border Syria, Iran, Kuwait, Jordan, and Saudi Arabia. There is no better place to lean on the bad boys (and support what passes for good boys in those parts) of the area than Iraq. And if America needs to change regime's in Saudi Arabia, bases in Iraq, and Iraqi (or Jordanian) troops to occupy Mecca would come in very handy. Now I'm not saying that's a plan, but I have to think it's occured to the Pentagon and the Saudi equivalent that a US backed post-Saddam Iraqi invasion of Saudi Arabia is sufficiently doable that you'd never actually have to do it.

Too Much Information?

I'm glad they caught the Al Qaeda mastermind in Pakistan. What I don't get is all the information the press is reporting about it -- and I assume the info is being provided by our own government. If you honestly think this guy knows who, what, and where, wouldn't you like to keep his capture quiet until you can pick up the people he knows about? You have to figure the publicity is going to be like turning the lights on cockroaches - there's a whole lot of scurrying going on right now. And by letting on that computers and documents were also seized, every Al Qaeda operative has to figure they've been compromised - they can't rely on Mr. Mohammed's not talking. I suppose it could be that the disruption, uncertainty, and fear caused by the announcement outweighed the possibility of capturing more operatives; it could be that our intellegance agencies figured Al Qaeda knew and could inform it's people anyway even if there were no public report; and maybe it was felt that a public report would cause a burst in bottom up message traffic as operatives checked in with higher ups that would be more enlightning than a burst of top down if the higher ups were informing the troops. And of course, we can't be told why the info was released or it would defeat the purpose of releasing it.

American Consulate in Karachi Attacked (Again)

The Pakistani News Service is reporting that motorcyclists shot up a security checkpoint at the American consulate in Karachi.

The above is a picture I took in 1986 when I spent a few months there. The Hotel Metropole mentioned in the linked news article is a fine old hotel, located just down the street. The Luftansa aircrew stayed there at that time - the SAS and SwissAir aircrew stayed in the Holiday in where I stayed. There wasn't a pool at the Metropole, so the Luftansa stewardesses came up and used the Holiday Inn pool.

You can read my photo essay of my Pakistani trip here

Iraq, The Middle East's Center of Gravity

Congress voted to give President Bush the authority to use force against Iraq. One of the arguments against this was that Iraq isn't the worst or only bad country around. And there is some truth to that. Let's face it, most of the governments in the middle east outside Israel are dysfunctional. Four governments stand out - Syria, Iraq, Iran, and Saudi Arabia as terrorist supporters and exporters.

Look at a map and you'll see why taking on Iraq first makes sense - it holds the central position of those countries. We've beaten Iraq in war recently, the terrain is ideal for our Armed Forces, and occupying Iraq puts US troops on the borders of all the bad apples of the Middle East. The toughest nut to crack militarily is Iran, but it's also the government that is least secure from internal revolt, so it doesn't make sense to attack them militarily first. An attack on Syria would likely cause them attack Israel to try to bring all the Arabs in on their side and its worth noting they have the best terrorist connections. Saudi Arabia is still nominally our ally, thus hardest to move against politically.

This isn't an argument for attacking Iraq in and of itself. This is an argument for attacking Iraq IF you plan on taking military action to deal with Arab terrorism.

The Law Professors Statement on Iraq

I sometimes think I’m the only person who has a memory. I don’t just mean how some people borrow money from you and then act like it never happened. And I don’t mean how some people tell you on the eve of every war how it’s going to be a quagmire, and they act like they haven’t been wrong for the last, oh, five or six wars. Nope, what really bugs me is when people who consider themselves really smart tell me something that if I have any memory at all I’ll know makes them hypocrites. Consider if you will, the law professors statement on Iraq. In it, they make the rather grandiose statement that “A US War Against Iraq Will Violate US and International Law and Set a Dangerous Precedent For Violence That Will Endanger the American People.” Just how will this violate international law? Well, again I quote, “But the President ignores the fact that a US war, unleashed without the approval of the UN Security Council, against a country that has not attacked the United States, would itself be an unlawful act, in defiance of America’s treaty obligations, and a violation of US and international law.” Okay, I’m no lawyer, but last time I checked, we attacked Yugoslavia (Serbia) without UN approval, without congressional approval -- Clinton didn’t bother putting it to a vote, he just said NATO voted to attack, so bombs away -- and without Yugoslavia threatening the United States in any shape, way or form. Where were these concerned law professors then? Where were they for Panama, Grenada, and Haiti. I think they only protest when it’s a Republican president, but are silent when Democrats attack other countries without UN mandate, congressional mandate, or a threat to the security of the United States As far as setting a dangerous precedent -- too late.

You in the back are raising your hand in objection (or confusion) to my inclusion of Haiti - I’m talking about Clinton’s invasion, not anybody else’s. Maybe you forgot, but the 82nd airborne had actually taken off on their way to invade when the ruling junta took the money and ran -- reportedly because their spies told them it was coming. So Clinton was trying to invade but his credible threat of force coupled with a large pile of cash rendered the invasion moot. There’s a perfect example of the willingness to use force achieving something; it’s too bad that as it turned out new boss same as the old boss.

Another point cries out for rebuttal:”Lawless international violence only breeds more killing of innocent people. The massive civilian deaths, the scarred and maimed children, the ruined and starving peoples, whose suffering is inseparable from warfare, can only spawn new generations of embittered peoples, new hate-filled leaders, new enraged individuals, determined to answer violence with violence.” This view of war is so last century, but inaccurate even then. Stalemates lead to further violence as the two sides try again to win; big victories end the violence as the losers accommodate themselves to the once unaccommodatable. For instance, the Germans felt that WWI ended in a draw militarily, so they tried again in WWII. If you want to talk massive civilian deaths, ruined and starving people, that’s the Germans immediately following WWII. If you believed the professors, they should have gone a couple more rounds with the Democracies; instead, they haven’t gone to war since, and they want to sit the Iraq war out, too.

Would these professors have protested our response to Pearl Harbor? According to them, a military response would have only provoked the Japanese even more. They’re like the guy in the Life of Brian who tells the blasphemer to stop blaspheming as he is about to get stoned because he’s only going to make it worse for himself. “How can I make it any worse, you’re going to kill me!” the blasphemer replies.

There are valid reasons not to go to war against Iraq. But this is just grasping at straws; worse for the professors, what if the UN and Congress do authorize force against Iraq?

A Rose Is A rose by Any Other Name, But

I have to add my voice to the chorus of those who don't like the word "homeland" in homeland defense. I'm, well, a little creeped out by it, as it reminds me of fatherland and motherland, the preferred formulations of fascists and communists. A quick diversion - I believe it was Jude Wanniski who originally described the Democrats as the mommy party and the Republicans as the daddy party based upon the characterisitics of mothers and fathers; does the use of father vs. mother with land indicate if the political group is a mommy group or a daddy group? End of diversion. But I think, creepiness aside, that it doesn't work too well for Americans because either we are recent enough Americans to still consider our "homeland" to be another country where our ancestors (or ourselves) were from, or we've been here so long we've forgotten all about the concept of homeland. America has always defined itself by ideas and opportunity, and not so much by territory, which isn't surprising given how often our geography has changed since the original thirteen colonies.

As long as I'm on the subject, let me just say that no matter what you call it, the real question is will a reorganization help or hurt efforts at homeland (ugh!) defense, and I for one don't think it will help. The turf battles will overwhelm any reform efforts, and we'll still be stuck with an enormous government bureaucracy. Better to find ten tigers to run the disparate parts than to lump it all together under Tom Ridge.

An Anti-War Protest

The anti-war crowd had a protest the other day. Their flyers said they planned on blocking the delivery of 500 million dollars worth of JDAMs and ALCMs. It was of course symbolic, for even if they had blocked the delivery that day, deliveries would have simply taken place the next. The flyer said that participants could simply be present in a non-violent sort of way, and that you could also get arrested, if you so desired. At the bottom was the time and date of the non-violence class protesters should attend.

The really weird thing (I have to respect people who want to peaceably assemble to make a political statement) is how choreographed the whole thing was. Boeing Security new days in advance when and where the demonstration would be, there were riot police (with two kinds of shields but just one kind of helmet), mounted police, K-9 police, so many police they needed 3 portapotties and hundreds of bottles of water. There were paddy wagons, school buses, squad cars, an ambulance, a wrecker, and a fire truck. The police were ready for anything. What they got was a small crowd making speeches, and then blocking the road when people wanted to get in or out. The protesters started late (1 PM was the start time), but the police came early and stayed late.

Last Friday, I took part in the Light the Night Walk for Leukemia. It raised $225,000 for the Leukemia and Lymphoma society, and it too was a well behaved but far larger crowd. The police also were present, but just to block off the route of the walk, and no riot gear was in sight. My cub pack helped clean up afterward, but there wasn't much to do as there was practically no litter. I bring this up just because this is America, and the two events were different expressions of civic mindedness American style, part of the warp and woof of community. In different ways, they are why I love this country.