Monday, January 31, 2005
Perspective
"I hope my vote never means as much as hers. Puts it in perspective, no?"
Thus asks Lileks, referring to the widely circulated photograph of an Iraqi woman holding up her purple finger. Along the way to this brush clearing observation, he has occasion to blast some of the loonier things emanating (or likely to emanate) from the fever swamps. Such as:
Next thing you know [New York artists] will be weaving dish towels that show Iraqi women’s pay disparity increasing after the invasion, if you look very closely at the pattern. Or it could be just some figs.
Or this "winner from the snarky ahistorical nihilist wing":
Yay, we're spreading our form of government to the dark people! Kinda reminds me of how the USSR wanted to spread Communism to free people of capitalist dictatorships.
"Many people strive for that level of incoherence, but few achieve it with such conciseness."
Thus asks Lileks, referring to the widely circulated photograph of an Iraqi woman holding up her purple finger. Along the way to this brush clearing observation, he has occasion to blast some of the loonier things emanating (or likely to emanate) from the fever swamps. Such as:
Next thing you know [New York artists] will be weaving dish towels that show Iraqi women’s pay disparity increasing after the invasion, if you look very closely at the pattern. Or it could be just some figs.
Or this "winner from the snarky ahistorical nihilist wing":
Yay, we're spreading our form of government to the dark people! Kinda reminds me of how the USSR wanted to spread Communism to free people of capitalist dictatorships.
"Many people strive for that level of incoherence, but few achieve it with such conciseness."
Sunday, January 30, 2005
Green Mountain and Warman Lake...
...and Mt. Hood. Could this still be January?
Saturday, January 29, 2005
Monday's Concert
Sam and Becca will be performing their duets, in the mezzanine of the Arlene Schnitzer Performance Hall, before Monday's Oregon Symphony concert. The kids will play from 7:25 pm to 7:55 pm; the Symphony performance begins at 8:00.
And it looks like a great program. Guest conductor, Yakov Kreizberg, is highly regarded and has a big career. Here's the program.
And it looks like a great program. Guest conductor, Yakov Kreizberg, is highly regarded and has a big career. Here's the program.
Friday, January 28, 2005
Grim Tales
Denis Boyles writes a fortnightly piece for the National Review Online. He covers the Euro press, and his reports of the extreme unreality of the major media in Europe would be very depressing indeed, if it weren't for Boyles' diamond sharp scalpel and rapier wit.
Today's headline is:
Grim Tales
Want to get scared? Ignore what you see. Believe only what you read.
Among the many crackling observations is this, about the disconnect, between press reports and reality, that has seemingly always existed:
This was in the '60s, when creating alternative realities was a chemical enterprise that would soon become a journalistic one. These days, disputing what any fool can plainly see is a sacred calling in the global press, but of course the Europeans do it with a special anti-American panache, fueled by the reelection of George W. Bush. The reality of another four years of Dubya has created in the media a demand for a parallel universe unlike any since a generation of shaggy noggins first nodded out to Surrealistic Pillow.
Today's headline is:
Grim Tales
Want to get scared? Ignore what you see. Believe only what you read.
Among the many crackling observations is this, about the disconnect, between press reports and reality, that has seemingly always existed:
This was in the '60s, when creating alternative realities was a chemical enterprise that would soon become a journalistic one. These days, disputing what any fool can plainly see is a sacred calling in the global press, but of course the Europeans do it with a special anti-American panache, fueled by the reelection of George W. Bush. The reality of another four years of Dubya has created in the media a demand for a parallel universe unlike any since a generation of shaggy noggins first nodded out to Surrealistic Pillow.
Cherry Vanilla?
Lileks is just a delight today. He combines a penetrating political observation; a patented Lileks riff on some element of popular culture, complete with a single, devastating photographic response to it; and an hilarious yet touching scene from his home.
We learn that his young daughter Gnat had had a bloody nose in the middle of the night. Here is his discovery of the residue:
I ran upstairs to straighten up before we left. Make the bed, check. Quick dust, check. Straighten towels, check. Align bathmat so its edges are perfectly arranged to match the pattern of the floor tiles: check. Note the huge quantity of blood in Gnat’s bathroom: check. Wait a minute – oh, right. What had she done here? It looked like she’d taped her mouth shut and sneezed six times.
Classic Lileks.
We learn that his young daughter Gnat had had a bloody nose in the middle of the night. Here is his discovery of the residue:
I ran upstairs to straighten up before we left. Make the bed, check. Quick dust, check. Straighten towels, check. Align bathmat so its edges are perfectly arranged to match the pattern of the floor tiles: check. Note the huge quantity of blood in Gnat’s bathroom: check. Wait a minute – oh, right. What had she done here? It looked like she’d taped her mouth shut and sneezed six times.
Classic Lileks.
Thursday, January 27, 2005
Prescription for Melancholy
Eminent historian Paul Johnson, known also for his appreciation of art, gives us a nice antidote to the depressing stream of news about current events. He finds solace in the great art, great literature and great music of the past. Follow his prescription in his current Spectator (UK) piece.
Idealism as the New Realism
I can't take credit for that title. I borrow it from Mark Steyn, who in this week's Spectator (UK) has a brilliant essay on the seriousness of George Bush. I won't even bother to excerpt this piece, it should just be read.
Glory Hogs
The UN tut-tuts that its tsunami relief operations have been "remarkably, perhaps singularly, effective, swift and muscular" and that it "had succeeded in just one month. Normally, such a phase took three or more months . . ."
Diplomad has a summary of Jan "Stingy" Ekelund's credit-grabbing UN reports, one month after the tidal wave.
Diplomad has a summary of Jan "Stingy" Ekelund's credit-grabbing UN reports, one month after the tidal wave.
Manifestos Ignored
In a very interesting piece called "Religous War: East and West", the Belmont Club blog looks into the two prevailing schools of thought on the nature of the conflict we are in. He links to a diplomatic underground blogger who indentifies these schools as the "Muslim Rage School" and the "Clash of Civilizations School." And even though Zarqawi is unequivocally in the second category, and is telegraphing his membership in it, a noisy claque of fantasists in the west ignores his broadcast manifesto and insists on putting him in the first. The risks inherent in indulging the Muslim Rage school, at the expense of the insight provided by the Clash of Civilizations, are huge.
Those who have read Lee Harris' excellent book, Civilization and Its Enemies, will recognize the reference to fantasists and fantasy ideology. Harris' book was derived from his 2002 essay in Policy Review, which is linked in this Belmont piece.
This is another first-rate contribution, with many interesting links, from wretchard at The Belmont Club.
Those who have read Lee Harris' excellent book, Civilization and Its Enemies, will recognize the reference to fantasists and fantasy ideology. Harris' book was derived from his 2002 essay in Policy Review, which is linked in this Belmont piece.
This is another first-rate contribution, with many interesting links, from wretchard at The Belmont Club.
Happy Birthday
January 27, 1756. Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. Or, as he was baptized, Johannes Chrysostomus Wolfgangus Theophilus Mozart.
Wednesday, January 26, 2005
A Coyote Myth
Courtesy of my niece, 6, here is a very good short story. I see some real story-telling ability, not to mention imagination, in this kid. It won't be long before I have to seek permission to post her work, so as not to infringe on copyright!
WHY COYOTE SOUNDS SO SAD
A MYTH as told by
Amelia Weber
Long, long ago, before there were stars, the moon was not enough. It was too bright for the sleeping animals to sleep at night. And it was too dark for the hunting animals to get their hunting done at night.
So the hunting animals and the sleeping animals went to the Creator and said, “The moon is not enough. We need something else.” The Creator thought and thought and thought for days and months and years, and finally the Creator lifted up a bag and inside the bag there were billions of stars. He went to the animals and said, “Tomorrow you can come and get a handful of stars and make a picture in the sky.” The animals went to one another. “Did you hear that?” they gasped.
The next morning Robin said to each animal, “Wake up Bear, wake up Snake, Coyote, wake up.” Coyote said, “Tomorrow, tomorrow, I’m too sleepy now.” “Okay,” said Robin, “if you don’t want to make a picture….” And he flew off. Then they all got in line to get their handful of stars, except for Coyote. Everyone took a handful and they got to go up into the sky and make pictures with their stars.
Then Coyote said sleepily, “I think I’ll get up and make a picture.” And he went to the Creator and said, “Can I have my stars?” and the Creator said “I’m sorry, I gave the stars to everyone else and I made a picture out of yours.” Coyote was furious. So he went up into the sky and took enough stars to make his own picture of a coyote. He put them into a bag. Creator said, “What do you have in the bag, Coyote?” “Nothing” said Coyote as tears ran down his cheeks. “Let me see,” said the Creator. And Coyote took the bag and threw them into the sky, and today it’s called the Milky Way.
And tonight, take your parents out and look into the sky and say, “Mom, Dad, what is that in the sky, is it God or a lobster?” And they’ll tell you. And the next time you hear a coyote howl you will hear that it sounds sad. I will tell you that he is sad because he didn’t get to put any stars into the sky. That’s what that sad, sad, howling song is.
WHY COYOTE SOUNDS SO SAD
A MYTH as told by
Amelia Weber
Long, long ago, before there were stars, the moon was not enough. It was too bright for the sleeping animals to sleep at night. And it was too dark for the hunting animals to get their hunting done at night.
So the hunting animals and the sleeping animals went to the Creator and said, “The moon is not enough. We need something else.” The Creator thought and thought and thought for days and months and years, and finally the Creator lifted up a bag and inside the bag there were billions of stars. He went to the animals and said, “Tomorrow you can come and get a handful of stars and make a picture in the sky.” The animals went to one another. “Did you hear that?” they gasped.
The next morning Robin said to each animal, “Wake up Bear, wake up Snake, Coyote, wake up.” Coyote said, “Tomorrow, tomorrow, I’m too sleepy now.” “Okay,” said Robin, “if you don’t want to make a picture….” And he flew off. Then they all got in line to get their handful of stars, except for Coyote. Everyone took a handful and they got to go up into the sky and make pictures with their stars.
Then Coyote said sleepily, “I think I’ll get up and make a picture.” And he went to the Creator and said, “Can I have my stars?” and the Creator said “I’m sorry, I gave the stars to everyone else and I made a picture out of yours.” Coyote was furious. So he went up into the sky and took enough stars to make his own picture of a coyote. He put them into a bag. Creator said, “What do you have in the bag, Coyote?” “Nothing” said Coyote as tears ran down his cheeks. “Let me see,” said the Creator. And Coyote took the bag and threw them into the sky, and today it’s called the Milky Way.
And tonight, take your parents out and look into the sky and say, “Mom, Dad, what is that in the sky, is it God or a lobster?” And they’ll tell you. And the next time you hear a coyote howl you will hear that it sounds sad. I will tell you that he is sad because he didn’t get to put any stars into the sky. That’s what that sad, sad, howling song is.
Case Closed
In a single sentence, John Podhoretz knocks the legs out from under the argument that without Sunni participation, the Iraqi election will be invalid.
If white South Africans had refused to participate in that nation's first-ever free elections back in 1994, nobody on earth would have argued that their lack of participation invalidated the election results.
If white South Africans had refused to participate in that nation's first-ever free elections back in 1994, nobody on earth would have argued that their lack of participation invalidated the election results.
On the Ground
Tuesday, January 25, 2005
A Haunting Dilemma
Theodore Dalrymple has a fascinating piece over at City Journal. The essay is called "The Specters Haunting Dresden." He begins by observing that the German people of today are in a bind. Due to their recent past, and the stain of Nazism, Germans are permitted neither memory nor amnesia.
An example given by Dalrymple: To mark the site of Hitler's bunker in Berlin would have risked making it a shrine for neo-Nazis; not to mark it would be regarded as an attempt to deny the past. Yet reading the essay I couldn't help think there are scores of similar dilemmas that must be decided every day in Germany - and not just in the context of a piece of real estate.
Collective pride is denied the Germans because, if pride is taken in the achievements of one’s national ancestors, it follows that shame for what they have done must also be accepted. And the shame of German history is greater than any cultural achievement, not because that achievement fails to balance the shame, but because it is more recent than any achievement, and furthermore was committed by a generation either still living or still existent well within living memory.
The moral impossibility of patriotism worries Germans of conservative instinct or temperament. Upon what in their historical tradition can they safely look back as a guide or a help? One young German conservative historian I met took refuge in Anglophilia—his England, of course, being an England of the past. He needed a refuge, because Hitler and Nazism had besmirched everything in his own land. The historiography that sees in German history nothing but a prelude to Hitler and Nazism may be intellectually unjustified, the product of the historian’s bogus authorial omniscience, but it has emotional and psychological force nonetheless, precisely because the willingness to take pride in the past implies a preparedness to accept the shame of it. Thus Bach and Beethoven can be celebrated, but not as Germans; otherwise they would be tainted. The young German historian worked for a publishing house with a history lasting almost four centuries, but its failure to go out of business during the 12 years of the Third Reich cast a shadow both forward and backward, like a spectral presence that haunts a great mansion.
Dalrymple devotes the bulk of the essay to a discussion of the city of Dresden, which was destroyed the night of February 13, 1945 by the RAF, and on the following two days by the US Army. The communists (hideously) rebuilt the city, but utilized its destruction in four decades of propaganda.
Dresden had been all but destroyed once before, by the armies of Frederick the Great (if Frederick was enlightened, give me obscurantism); but at least he replaced the Renaissance city recorded in the canvases of Bellotto by a baroque one, not by a wilderness of totalitarian functionalism whose purpose was to stamp out all sense of individuality and to emphasize the omnipresent might of the state. The bombing of Dresden was a convenient pretext to do what communists (and some others) like to do in any case: the systematization of Bucharest during Ceauşescu’s rule, or the replacement of the medieval city of Ales, 25 miles from my house in France, by mass housing of hideous inhumanity on the orders of the communist city council, being but two cases in point.
While the scenes of the bombed out city give any decent person a shiver, it is only the moral relativists who argue that the bombing was on a level with Nazi atrocities. Dalrymple will have none of it.
Yet the idea sometimes propounded by those who seek to condemn the bombing as an atrocity equal to, and counterbalancing, Nazi atrocities—that Dresden was some kind of city of the innocents, concerned only with the arts and having nothing to do with the war effort, cut off from and morally superior to the rest of Nazi Germany—is clearly absurd. It is in the nature of totalitarian regimes that no such innocence should persist anywhere; and it certainly didn’t in Dresden in 1945. For example, the Zeiss-Ikon optical group alone employed 10,000 workers (and some forced labor), all engaged—of course—in war work. Nor had Dresden’s record been very different from the rest of Germany’s. Its synagogue was burned down during the orchestrated Kristallnacht of November 1938; the Gauleiter of Saxony, who had his seat in Dresden, was the notoriously brutal and corrupt Martin Mutschmann. The bombing saved the life of at least one man, the famous diarist Victor Klemperer, one of the 197 Jews still alive in the city (out of a former population of several thousand). He and the handful of remaining Jews had been marked down for deportation and death two days after the bombing; in the chaos after the bombing, he was able to escape and tear the yellow star from his coat.
To conclude, Dalrymple takes us back to his initial observation, that Germans are between a rock and a hard place.
W. G. Sebald, an expatriate German author who lived in England, where he died in a car crash in 2001, pointed out a curious lacuna in German literature of memoirs or fictional accounts of the bombing and its aftereffects. Millions suffered terribly, yet there is hardly a memoir or a novel to record it. Anything other than silence about what they experienced would have seemed, and still would seem, indecent and highly suspect, an attempt to establish a moral equivalence between the victims and perpetrators of Nazism.
In the last few years, best-selling books have begun to appear in Germany to record the suffering of the Germans during and after the war. Is this dangerous self-pity an implicit national self-exculpation? Or is it a sign of health, that at last Germans can approach their own past unencumbered by the psychological complexes bequeathed to them by their parents and grandparents?
As I walked through Dresden, I lamented the loss of an incomparable city, while thinking how difficult it must be to be a German, for whom neither memory nor amnesia can provide consolation.
An example given by Dalrymple: To mark the site of Hitler's bunker in Berlin would have risked making it a shrine for neo-Nazis; not to mark it would be regarded as an attempt to deny the past. Yet reading the essay I couldn't help think there are scores of similar dilemmas that must be decided every day in Germany - and not just in the context of a piece of real estate.
Collective pride is denied the Germans because, if pride is taken in the achievements of one’s national ancestors, it follows that shame for what they have done must also be accepted. And the shame of German history is greater than any cultural achievement, not because that achievement fails to balance the shame, but because it is more recent than any achievement, and furthermore was committed by a generation either still living or still existent well within living memory.
The moral impossibility of patriotism worries Germans of conservative instinct or temperament. Upon what in their historical tradition can they safely look back as a guide or a help? One young German conservative historian I met took refuge in Anglophilia—his England, of course, being an England of the past. He needed a refuge, because Hitler and Nazism had besmirched everything in his own land. The historiography that sees in German history nothing but a prelude to Hitler and Nazism may be intellectually unjustified, the product of the historian’s bogus authorial omniscience, but it has emotional and psychological force nonetheless, precisely because the willingness to take pride in the past implies a preparedness to accept the shame of it. Thus Bach and Beethoven can be celebrated, but not as Germans; otherwise they would be tainted. The young German historian worked for a publishing house with a history lasting almost four centuries, but its failure to go out of business during the 12 years of the Third Reich cast a shadow both forward and backward, like a spectral presence that haunts a great mansion.
Dalrymple devotes the bulk of the essay to a discussion of the city of Dresden, which was destroyed the night of February 13, 1945 by the RAF, and on the following two days by the US Army. The communists (hideously) rebuilt the city, but utilized its destruction in four decades of propaganda.
Dresden had been all but destroyed once before, by the armies of Frederick the Great (if Frederick was enlightened, give me obscurantism); but at least he replaced the Renaissance city recorded in the canvases of Bellotto by a baroque one, not by a wilderness of totalitarian functionalism whose purpose was to stamp out all sense of individuality and to emphasize the omnipresent might of the state. The bombing of Dresden was a convenient pretext to do what communists (and some others) like to do in any case: the systematization of Bucharest during Ceauşescu’s rule, or the replacement of the medieval city of Ales, 25 miles from my house in France, by mass housing of hideous inhumanity on the orders of the communist city council, being but two cases in point.
While the scenes of the bombed out city give any decent person a shiver, it is only the moral relativists who argue that the bombing was on a level with Nazi atrocities. Dalrymple will have none of it.
Yet the idea sometimes propounded by those who seek to condemn the bombing as an atrocity equal to, and counterbalancing, Nazi atrocities—that Dresden was some kind of city of the innocents, concerned only with the arts and having nothing to do with the war effort, cut off from and morally superior to the rest of Nazi Germany—is clearly absurd. It is in the nature of totalitarian regimes that no such innocence should persist anywhere; and it certainly didn’t in Dresden in 1945. For example, the Zeiss-Ikon optical group alone employed 10,000 workers (and some forced labor), all engaged—of course—in war work. Nor had Dresden’s record been very different from the rest of Germany’s. Its synagogue was burned down during the orchestrated Kristallnacht of November 1938; the Gauleiter of Saxony, who had his seat in Dresden, was the notoriously brutal and corrupt Martin Mutschmann. The bombing saved the life of at least one man, the famous diarist Victor Klemperer, one of the 197 Jews still alive in the city (out of a former population of several thousand). He and the handful of remaining Jews had been marked down for deportation and death two days after the bombing; in the chaos after the bombing, he was able to escape and tear the yellow star from his coat.
To conclude, Dalrymple takes us back to his initial observation, that Germans are between a rock and a hard place.
W. G. Sebald, an expatriate German author who lived in England, where he died in a car crash in 2001, pointed out a curious lacuna in German literature of memoirs or fictional accounts of the bombing and its aftereffects. Millions suffered terribly, yet there is hardly a memoir or a novel to record it. Anything other than silence about what they experienced would have seemed, and still would seem, indecent and highly suspect, an attempt to establish a moral equivalence between the victims and perpetrators of Nazism.
In the last few years, best-selling books have begun to appear in Germany to record the suffering of the Germans during and after the war. Is this dangerous self-pity an implicit national self-exculpation? Or is it a sign of health, that at last Germans can approach their own past unencumbered by the psychological complexes bequeathed to them by their parents and grandparents?
As I walked through Dresden, I lamented the loss of an incomparable city, while thinking how difficult it must be to be a German, for whom neither memory nor amnesia can provide consolation.
Time to Get Out
The USS Abraham Lincoln, which has been providing tsunami relief in Indonesia, needs to be pulled off this duty. Its military readiness is rapidly degrading as its flight crews helo needed supplies to the devastated coastline. While it cruises in Indonesian waters, the host nation won't permit jets to launch and recover; they have to steam to international waters to do so - and that adds to the distance the helicopters must fly to deliver aid.
That's the short version. A longer version is given by an officer aboard the ship, who reports that he and his crewmates have to host a bunch of civilian members of NGOs, who are resourceless themselves and simply sponging off the US Navy. It'll make your hair curl when you read the whole piece. (Hat tip: ConsterNations.)
Here are some highlights:
It has been three weeks since my ship, the USS Abraham Lincoln, arrived off the Sumatran coast to aid the hundreds of thousands of victims of the Dec. 26 tsunami that ravaged their coastline.... [I]t has been a frustrating and needlessly dangerous exercise made even more difficult by the Indonesian government and a traveling circus of so-called aid workers who have invaded our spaces.
What really irritated me was a scene I witnessed in the Lincoln’s wardroom a few days ago.... What I saw was a mob of civilians sitting around like they owned the place. They wore various colored vests with logos on the back including Save The Children, World Health Organization and the dreaded baby blue vest of the United Nations. Mixed in with this crowd were a bunch of reporters, cameramen and Indonesian military officers in uniform. They all carried cameras, sunglasses and fanny packs like tourists on their way to Disneyland.
My warship had been transformed into a floating hotel for a bunch of trifling do-gooders overnight.
As a result of having to host these people, our severely over-tasked SH-60 Seahawk helos, which were carrying tons of food and water every day to the most inaccessible places in and around Banda Aceh, are now used in great part to ferry these “relief workers” from place to place every day and bring them back to their guest bedrooms on the Lincoln at night. Despite their avowed dedication to helping the victims, these relief workers will not spend the night in-country, and have made us their guardians by default.
To add a kick in the face to the USA and the Lincoln, the Indonesian government announced it would not allow us to use their airspace for routine training and flight proficiency operations while we are saving the lives of their people, some of whom are wearing Osama bin Ladin T-shirts as they grab at our food and water. The ship has to steam out into international waters to launch and recover jets, which makes our helos have to fly longer distances and burn more fuel.
What is even worse than trying to help people who totally reject everything we stand for is that our combat readiness has suffered for it.
An aircraft carrier is an instrument of national policy and the big stick she carries is her air wing. An air wing has a set of very demanding skills and they are highly perishable. We train hard every day at sea to conduct actual air strikes, air defense, maritime surveillance, close air support and many other missions – not to mention taking off and landing on a ship at sea.
That's the short version. A longer version is given by an officer aboard the ship, who reports that he and his crewmates have to host a bunch of civilian members of NGOs, who are resourceless themselves and simply sponging off the US Navy. It'll make your hair curl when you read the whole piece. (Hat tip: ConsterNations.)
Here are some highlights:
It has been three weeks since my ship, the USS Abraham Lincoln, arrived off the Sumatran coast to aid the hundreds of thousands of victims of the Dec. 26 tsunami that ravaged their coastline.... [I]t has been a frustrating and needlessly dangerous exercise made even more difficult by the Indonesian government and a traveling circus of so-called aid workers who have invaded our spaces.
What really irritated me was a scene I witnessed in the Lincoln’s wardroom a few days ago.... What I saw was a mob of civilians sitting around like they owned the place. They wore various colored vests with logos on the back including Save The Children, World Health Organization and the dreaded baby blue vest of the United Nations. Mixed in with this crowd were a bunch of reporters, cameramen and Indonesian military officers in uniform. They all carried cameras, sunglasses and fanny packs like tourists on their way to Disneyland.
My warship had been transformed into a floating hotel for a bunch of trifling do-gooders overnight.
As a result of having to host these people, our severely over-tasked SH-60 Seahawk helos, which were carrying tons of food and water every day to the most inaccessible places in and around Banda Aceh, are now used in great part to ferry these “relief workers” from place to place every day and bring them back to their guest bedrooms on the Lincoln at night. Despite their avowed dedication to helping the victims, these relief workers will not spend the night in-country, and have made us their guardians by default.
To add a kick in the face to the USA and the Lincoln, the Indonesian government announced it would not allow us to use their airspace for routine training and flight proficiency operations while we are saving the lives of their people, some of whom are wearing Osama bin Ladin T-shirts as they grab at our food and water. The ship has to steam out into international waters to launch and recover jets, which makes our helos have to fly longer distances and burn more fuel.
What is even worse than trying to help people who totally reject everything we stand for is that our combat readiness has suffered for it.
An aircraft carrier is an instrument of national policy and the big stick she carries is her air wing. An air wing has a set of very demanding skills and they are highly perishable. We train hard every day at sea to conduct actual air strikes, air defense, maritime surveillance, close air support and many other missions – not to mention taking off and landing on a ship at sea.
Cyber Sherpas
Hugh Hewitt made two appearances on Monday morning "news" shows. He was interviewed on Fox and Friends as well as on CNN's morning show. Both interviews concerned his new book, Blog. Here's an excerpt from the transcript from of the CNN appearance:
O'BRIEN: Do people read blogs because they don't want to hear from the mainstream media, or because they want more information, or because they don't trust the mainstream media?
HEWITT: Bloggers are cyber sherpas. We're guides. There's so much information today. Everything is available, everything is free. And we pick and choose. When you go to a "Talking Points Memo" on the left, he'll tell Democrats and lefties what they should be reading. When you come to hughhewitt.com or Powerline, we'll line things up. If you want to know what's going on in Baghdad today, Mudville Gazette is there. He's a soldier blogging from Baghdad. If you want to know about the war on terror, you read The Belmont Club. And there's theology blogs, there's business blogs. We are actually translating too much information into manageable amounts of units. And it's going -- it has already changed business.
O'BRIEN: It's manageable, but is it accurate? Because, at the end of the day, it's someone's personal diary. And who knows who the person is necessarily who's actually blogging, right?
HEWITT: Well, I've been a broadcast journalist for 15 years. I've worked in print and television and radio. And the blogosphere is by far the most accurate and the most objective in terms of accountability. Because the moment you make a mistake, you get jumped on by your colleagues and your adversaries in the blogosphere. Dan Rather got brought down by bloggers.
You can read the entire CNN interview here. The Fox and Friends transcript has not been posted yet.
O'BRIEN: Do people read blogs because they don't want to hear from the mainstream media, or because they want more information, or because they don't trust the mainstream media?
HEWITT: Bloggers are cyber sherpas. We're guides. There's so much information today. Everything is available, everything is free. And we pick and choose. When you go to a "Talking Points Memo" on the left, he'll tell Democrats and lefties what they should be reading. When you come to hughhewitt.com or Powerline, we'll line things up. If you want to know what's going on in Baghdad today, Mudville Gazette is there. He's a soldier blogging from Baghdad. If you want to know about the war on terror, you read The Belmont Club. And there's theology blogs, there's business blogs. We are actually translating too much information into manageable amounts of units. And it's going -- it has already changed business.
O'BRIEN: It's manageable, but is it accurate? Because, at the end of the day, it's someone's personal diary. And who knows who the person is necessarily who's actually blogging, right?
HEWITT: Well, I've been a broadcast journalist for 15 years. I've worked in print and television and radio. And the blogosphere is by far the most accurate and the most objective in terms of accountability. Because the moment you make a mistake, you get jumped on by your colleagues and your adversaries in the blogosphere. Dan Rather got brought down by bloggers.
You can read the entire CNN interview here. The Fox and Friends transcript has not been posted yet.
Illegitimate Election Fraud
Apparently an organization called the Association of Muslim Scholars is urging Sunnis to boycott Iraq's Sunday election. Desperate to delegitamize the election, and therefore Bush, the left and MSM will enlist any argument, no matter how spurious.
Consider what the AMS and its allies are omitting in their pressing for the Sunni boycott of the election:
What they’re forgetting is that while forced exclusion is a credible argument against an election’s legitimacy, self-imposed exclusion is not. Your right to vote doubles as your right not to vote, and opting for the latter doesn’t equal a removal of the former. The ploy is fundamentally a self-fulfilling prophecy that has been embraced by much of the press, willing to sacrifice their craft in exchange for political gamesmanship out of desperate antiwar zeal.
Read the rest (a short piece) at Front Page Magazine, here.
Consider what the AMS and its allies are omitting in their pressing for the Sunni boycott of the election:
What they’re forgetting is that while forced exclusion is a credible argument against an election’s legitimacy, self-imposed exclusion is not. Your right to vote doubles as your right not to vote, and opting for the latter doesn’t equal a removal of the former. The ploy is fundamentally a self-fulfilling prophecy that has been embraced by much of the press, willing to sacrifice their craft in exchange for political gamesmanship out of desperate antiwar zeal.
Read the rest (a short piece) at Front Page Magazine, here.
Monday, January 24, 2005
Smoke 'Em
There are some great "milblogs" (military bloggers) out there. Many of them post from laptops in Iraq, often describing combat as it just happened. For a good narrative of action in Fallujah last fall, check out this running dialog, from a tank platoon. Warning to the young 'uns: language.
Sunday, January 23, 2005
Toward Better Understanding
There's a very good essay appearing over at Strategy Page, which goes a long way toward clearing out the thick underbrush of our misunderstanding about the what's going on, and what's at stake, in Iraq and the greater Middle East right now. I highly recommend reading the entire piece. Here's a sample:
What the Islamic terrorists are really fighting for is a solution to the problems most Islamic nations face. Even with all the oil wealth, the Arab world has made little economic progress versus the infidels in the last half century. Most Moslems feel the problem is inefficient governments, and a society that does not place enough emphasis on the two elements that have fueled economic growth in the rest of the world; education and honest government. Those two items allow people to start new businesses, run them efficiently, and grow economically. Islamic terrorists believe the solution is honest government and scrupulous adherence to Sharia (Islamic law.) Unfortunately, there are no working examples of this, either currently or historically. But when you’re on a Mission From God, you don’t need a working example. God’s Word is enough.
The majority of Moslem scholars and clergy disagree with the Islamic terrorists. But even the scholars and clergy cannot reason with their fanatic foes. It’s in the nature of radicalism, be it political or religious, that the less radical leaders are considered weaker, or even traitors to the Islamic cause. Thus you have a race among the Islamic radical clergy to be “more radical than thou.” This results in Islamic radical clergy in Western nations preaching of the need to turn their new homes into Islamic Republics. That means converting all the infidels, by force is necessary. This makes for great headlines, but it makes most Islamic clergy wince. Worse, speaking out against the Islamic radicals can be dangerous, especially for more mainstream Islamic clergy and scholars. Moderate, mainstream, Moslems have been murdered by Islamic radicals, even in Western nations, for speaking out against the radicals. That's one reason for calling these Islamic radicals, Islamic terrorists.
How does one defeat this Islamic terrorism? The simplest way is to bring good government and education to Moslem nations, and let them prosper. Overthrowing Saddam Hussein, easily the worst of a bad bunch of Moslem despots, and getting a democracy going in Iraq, is the Islamic radicals worst nightmare. It was always thought that Iraq would be one of the last nations to be overthrown by Islamic radicals. That’s because Saddam had built one of the most effective police states in the Moslem world. The problem there now is that the thugs, who made that police state work, are still in business. And just to show you how bizarre this whole business is, a year ago, the Saddam diehards and Islamic radicals joined forces in Iraq to try and prevent a democracy from being established. Both groups are natural enemies, and even if they forced coalition troops to leave, it would eventually have to come to a battle between Saddam’s secular thugs, and the Islamic radicals, to determine who would rule Iraq.
What the Islamic terrorists are really fighting for is a solution to the problems most Islamic nations face. Even with all the oil wealth, the Arab world has made little economic progress versus the infidels in the last half century. Most Moslems feel the problem is inefficient governments, and a society that does not place enough emphasis on the two elements that have fueled economic growth in the rest of the world; education and honest government. Those two items allow people to start new businesses, run them efficiently, and grow economically. Islamic terrorists believe the solution is honest government and scrupulous adherence to Sharia (Islamic law.) Unfortunately, there are no working examples of this, either currently or historically. But when you’re on a Mission From God, you don’t need a working example. God’s Word is enough.
The majority of Moslem scholars and clergy disagree with the Islamic terrorists. But even the scholars and clergy cannot reason with their fanatic foes. It’s in the nature of radicalism, be it political or religious, that the less radical leaders are considered weaker, or even traitors to the Islamic cause. Thus you have a race among the Islamic radical clergy to be “more radical than thou.” This results in Islamic radical clergy in Western nations preaching of the need to turn their new homes into Islamic Republics. That means converting all the infidels, by force is necessary. This makes for great headlines, but it makes most Islamic clergy wince. Worse, speaking out against the Islamic radicals can be dangerous, especially for more mainstream Islamic clergy and scholars. Moderate, mainstream, Moslems have been murdered by Islamic radicals, even in Western nations, for speaking out against the radicals. That's one reason for calling these Islamic radicals, Islamic terrorists.
How does one defeat this Islamic terrorism? The simplest way is to bring good government and education to Moslem nations, and let them prosper. Overthrowing Saddam Hussein, easily the worst of a bad bunch of Moslem despots, and getting a democracy going in Iraq, is the Islamic radicals worst nightmare. It was always thought that Iraq would be one of the last nations to be overthrown by Islamic radicals. That’s because Saddam had built one of the most effective police states in the Moslem world. The problem there now is that the thugs, who made that police state work, are still in business. And just to show you how bizarre this whole business is, a year ago, the Saddam diehards and Islamic radicals joined forces in Iraq to try and prevent a democracy from being established. Both groups are natural enemies, and even if they forced coalition troops to leave, it would eventually have to come to a battle between Saddam’s secular thugs, and the Islamic radicals, to determine who would rule Iraq.
No Exit
Feeling a little down this Sunday? Bush's inaugural overreach got you feeling blue? Mark Steyn has a nice antidote. Start with two jiggers of Steynian satire; mix with context in a tall glass of common sense. Have a sip:
The Democrats' big phrase is "exit strategy." Time and again, their senators demanded that Rice tell 'em what the "exit strategy" for Iraq was. The correct answer is: There isn't one, and there shouldn't be one, and it's a dumb expression. The more polite response came in the president's inaugural address: ''The survival of liberty in our land increasingly depends on the success of liberty in other lands.'' Next week's election in Iraq will go not perfectly but well enough, and in time the number of U.S. troops needed there will be reduced, and in some more time they'll be reduced more dramatically, and one day there'll be none at all, just a small diplomatic presence that functions a bit like the old British ministers did in the Gulf emirates for centuries: They know everyone and everything, and they keep the Iraqi-American relationship running smoothly enough that Baghdad doesn't start looking for other foreign patrons. In other words: no exit.
If you want an example of "exit strategy" thinking, look no further than the southern "border." A century ago, American policy in Mexico was all exit and no strategy. That week's President-for-Life gets out of hand? Go in, whack him, exit, and let the locals figure out who gets to be the new bad guy. If the new guy gets out of hand, go back, whack him and exit again. The result of that stunted policy is that three-quarters of Mexico's population is now living in California and Arizona -- and, as fine upstanding members of the Undocumented-American community, they've got no exit strategy at all.
By contrast, the British went in to India without an "exit strategy," stayed for generations and midwifed the world's most populous democracy and a key U.S. ally in the years ahead. Which looks like the smarter approach now? ''Most Indians Say 'Thumbs Up' To Second Bush Term,'' reported the Christian Science Monitor this week, "and no, that doesn't mean something rude in Indian culture.''
Be sure to drink, er read, the whole thing.
The Democrats' big phrase is "exit strategy." Time and again, their senators demanded that Rice tell 'em what the "exit strategy" for Iraq was. The correct answer is: There isn't one, and there shouldn't be one, and it's a dumb expression. The more polite response came in the president's inaugural address: ''The survival of liberty in our land increasingly depends on the success of liberty in other lands.'' Next week's election in Iraq will go not perfectly but well enough, and in time the number of U.S. troops needed there will be reduced, and in some more time they'll be reduced more dramatically, and one day there'll be none at all, just a small diplomatic presence that functions a bit like the old British ministers did in the Gulf emirates for centuries: They know everyone and everything, and they keep the Iraqi-American relationship running smoothly enough that Baghdad doesn't start looking for other foreign patrons. In other words: no exit.
If you want an example of "exit strategy" thinking, look no further than the southern "border." A century ago, American policy in Mexico was all exit and no strategy. That week's President-for-Life gets out of hand? Go in, whack him, exit, and let the locals figure out who gets to be the new bad guy. If the new guy gets out of hand, go back, whack him and exit again. The result of that stunted policy is that three-quarters of Mexico's population is now living in California and Arizona -- and, as fine upstanding members of the Undocumented-American community, they've got no exit strategy at all.
By contrast, the British went in to India without an "exit strategy," stayed for generations and midwifed the world's most populous democracy and a key U.S. ally in the years ahead. Which looks like the smarter approach now? ''Most Indians Say 'Thumbs Up' To Second Bush Term,'' reported the Christian Science Monitor this week, "and no, that doesn't mean something rude in Indian culture.''
Be sure to drink, er read, the whole thing.
Friday, January 21, 2005
The Pitch
Jerry and George, waiting to pitch their idea for a comedy to NBC.
JERRY: (To himself) Salsa, seltzer. Hey, excuse me, you got any salsa? No, not selzer, salsa. (George doesn't react) What's the matter?
GEORGE: (Nervous) Nothing.
JERRY: You sure? You look a little pale.
GEORGE: No, I'm fine. I'm good. I'm very good.
JERRY: What, are you nervous?
GEORGE: No, not nervous. I'm good, very good. (A beat, then he snaps) I can't do this! Can't do this!
JERRY: What?
GEORGE: I can't do this! I can't do it. I have tried. I'm here. It's impossible.
JERRY: This was your idea!
GEORGE: What idea? I just said something. I didn't know you were going to listen to me.
JERRY: Dont' worry about it. They're just TV executives.
GEORGE: They're men with jobs, Jerry! They wear suits and ties. They're married, they have secretaries.
JERRY: I told you not to come.
GEORGE: I need some water. I gotta get some water.
JERRY: They'll give us water in there.
GEORGE: Really? That's pretty good.
RECEPTIONIST: They're ready for you.
GEORGE: Okay, okay. Look, you do all the talking, okay?
JERRY: Relax. Who are they?
GEORGE: Yeah, they're not better than me.
JERRY: Course not.
GEORGE: Who are they?
JERRY: They're nobody.
GEORGE: What about me?
JERRY: What about you?
GEORGE: Why them? Why not me?
JERRY: Why not you?
GEORGE: I'm as good as them.
JERRY: Better.
GEORGE: You really think so?
JERRY: No.
At the coffee shop, after George has blown the whole deal at NBC....
JERRY: I don't even want to talk about it anymore. What were you thinking? What was going on in your mind? Artistic integrity? Where, where did you come up with that? You're not artistic and you have no integrity. You know you really need some help. A regular psychiatrist couldn't even help you. You need to go to like Vienna or something. You know what I mean? You need to get involved at the University level. Like where Freud studied and have all those people looking at you and checking up on you. That's the kind of help you need. Not the once a week for eighty bucks. No. You need a team. A team of psychiatrists working round the clock thinking about you, having conferences, observing you, like the way they did with the Elephant Man. That's what I'm talking about because that's the only way you're going to get better.
GEORGE: . . . I thought the woman was kind of cute.
JERRY: Hold it. I really want to be clear about this. Are you talking about the woman in the meeting? Is that the woman you're talking about?
GEORGE: Yeah, I thought I might give her a call. I, I don't meet that many women. I meet like three women a year. I mean, we've been introduced. She knows my name.
JERRY: IT'S COMPLETELY INAPPROPRIATE!
GEORGE: Why? Maybe she liked me. I, I mean she was looking right at me. You know, I think she was impressed. You know, we had good eye contact the whole meeting.
Courtesy of Seinfeld Scripts.
JERRY: (To himself) Salsa, seltzer. Hey, excuse me, you got any salsa? No, not selzer, salsa. (George doesn't react) What's the matter?
GEORGE: (Nervous) Nothing.
JERRY: You sure? You look a little pale.
GEORGE: No, I'm fine. I'm good. I'm very good.
JERRY: What, are you nervous?
GEORGE: No, not nervous. I'm good, very good. (A beat, then he snaps) I can't do this! Can't do this!
JERRY: What?
GEORGE: I can't do this! I can't do it. I have tried. I'm here. It's impossible.
JERRY: This was your idea!
GEORGE: What idea? I just said something. I didn't know you were going to listen to me.
JERRY: Dont' worry about it. They're just TV executives.
GEORGE: They're men with jobs, Jerry! They wear suits and ties. They're married, they have secretaries.
JERRY: I told you not to come.
GEORGE: I need some water. I gotta get some water.
JERRY: They'll give us water in there.
GEORGE: Really? That's pretty good.
RECEPTIONIST: They're ready for you.
GEORGE: Okay, okay. Look, you do all the talking, okay?
JERRY: Relax. Who are they?
GEORGE: Yeah, they're not better than me.
JERRY: Course not.
GEORGE: Who are they?
JERRY: They're nobody.
GEORGE: What about me?
JERRY: What about you?
GEORGE: Why them? Why not me?
JERRY: Why not you?
GEORGE: I'm as good as them.
JERRY: Better.
GEORGE: You really think so?
JERRY: No.
At the coffee shop, after George has blown the whole deal at NBC....
JERRY: I don't even want to talk about it anymore. What were you thinking? What was going on in your mind? Artistic integrity? Where, where did you come up with that? You're not artistic and you have no integrity. You know you really need some help. A regular psychiatrist couldn't even help you. You need to go to like Vienna or something. You know what I mean? You need to get involved at the University level. Like where Freud studied and have all those people looking at you and checking up on you. That's the kind of help you need. Not the once a week for eighty bucks. No. You need a team. A team of psychiatrists working round the clock thinking about you, having conferences, observing you, like the way they did with the Elephant Man. That's what I'm talking about because that's the only way you're going to get better.
GEORGE: . . . I thought the woman was kind of cute.
JERRY: Hold it. I really want to be clear about this. Are you talking about the woman in the meeting? Is that the woman you're talking about?
GEORGE: Yeah, I thought I might give her a call. I, I don't meet that many women. I meet like three women a year. I mean, we've been introduced. She knows my name.
JERRY: IT'S COMPLETELY INAPPROPRIATE!
GEORGE: Why? Maybe she liked me. I, I mean she was looking right at me. You know, I think she was impressed. You know, we had good eye contact the whole meeting.
Courtesy of Seinfeld Scripts.
House under construction at the top of the street
And its outbuilding.
Google Results
Chrenkoff decided to look into the numbers, to see if our sense that (MSM) news from and about Iraq is overwhelmingly skewed to the bad is borne out. You be the judge.
Essential Reading
The Belmont Club blog is very busing knocking balls out of the park today. In four essays Wretchard considers the upcoming Iraqi election and reaction to it by the left, as well as the President's inaugural speech yesterday. These must be read - take 30 minutes and do it now.
Links to:
-) the piece on Bush's inaugural;
-) Iraq's election and its characterization by the Left as a lost cause (Part 1; Part 2; Part 3).
Links to:
-) the piece on Bush's inaugural;
-) Iraq's election and its characterization by the Left as a lost cause (Part 1; Part 2; Part 3).
Thursday, January 20, 2005
The Red State Trek
I recently posted on the Washington Post columnist, David Von Drehle, who took a 700 mile drive from Nebraska to Texas, to try and understand the red state folks. I mentioned that some bloggers are responding in a reactionary mode, others with wit and satire.
Of the latter, few come better than this. Note the allusion to Conrad's dark continent tale.
It is the same route Von Drehle followed before he went missing: I-80 to Nebraska, then south on highway 77 through Kansas, Oklahoma and Texas. Ironically the Post had sent Von Drehle on his own mysterious mission - to learn why the natives were suddenly agitating against Post subscription offers. He went missing on January 11, emailing his final story draft with a cryptic personal note: "the horror... the horror."
My entree fork toyed with the competently-prepared lamb shank in merlot reduction, as I pondered the even more ironic irony that this ironic mission would take me to regions that were reportedly unfamiliar with irony.
"Is it true what they say?" asked Fleming, the young photographer whom the Post has assigned to accompany me on the journey up-asphalt. "I mean, about the religion, and the cannibalism?"
"No," I repond, managing a half smile. Fleming was visibly nervous, unable to eat his Portobello-duck gnocci. The truth is I had heard the stories too, and didn't really know the answer. I thought it best to reassure Fleming, a green staffer fresh from Columbia Journalism School. He might ultimately prove to be a liability on this mission, but if I was going to be in the middle of Kansas I needed a companion familiar with Maureen Dowd just to stave off the madness.
(Hat tip: Instapundit.)
Of the latter, few come better than this. Note the allusion to Conrad's dark continent tale.
It is the same route Von Drehle followed before he went missing: I-80 to Nebraska, then south on highway 77 through Kansas, Oklahoma and Texas. Ironically the Post had sent Von Drehle on his own mysterious mission - to learn why the natives were suddenly agitating against Post subscription offers. He went missing on January 11, emailing his final story draft with a cryptic personal note: "the horror... the horror."
My entree fork toyed with the competently-prepared lamb shank in merlot reduction, as I pondered the even more ironic irony that this ironic mission would take me to regions that were reportedly unfamiliar with irony.
"Is it true what they say?" asked Fleming, the young photographer whom the Post has assigned to accompany me on the journey up-asphalt. "I mean, about the religion, and the cannibalism?"
"No," I repond, managing a half smile. Fleming was visibly nervous, unable to eat his Portobello-duck gnocci. The truth is I had heard the stories too, and didn't really know the answer. I thought it best to reassure Fleming, a green staffer fresh from Columbia Journalism School. He might ultimately prove to be a liability on this mission, but if I was going to be in the middle of Kansas I needed a companion familiar with Maureen Dowd just to stave off the madness.
(Hat tip: Instapundit.)
Lileks in the MSM
James Lileks is interviewed by the Washington Post, to discuss his new book, "Interior Desecrations." Worth a read.
Wednesday, January 19, 2005
Lying Grandstanders - Updated
Barbara Boxer might want to go back and look at the resolution passed by the U. S. Congress in 2002, authorizing the use of force in Iraq. Hint: it wasn't just WMD.
Whereas after the liberation of Kuwait in 1991, Iraq entered into a United Nations sponsored cease-fire agreement pursuant to which Iraq unequivocally agreed, among other things, to eliminate its nuclear, biological, and chemical weapons programs and the means to deliver and develop them, and to end its support for international terrorism; ...
Whereas Iraq persists in violating resolution of the United Nations Security Council by continuing to engage in brutal repression of its civilian population thereby threatening international peace and security in the region, by refusing to release, repatriate, or account for non-Iraqi citizens wrongfully detained by Iraq, including an American serviceman, and by failing to return property wrongfully seized by Iraq from Kuwait; ...
Whereas the current Iraqi regime has demonstrated its continuing hostility toward, and willingness to attack, the United States, including by attempting in 1993 to assassinate former President Bush and by firing on many thousands of occasions on United States and Coalition Armed Forces engaged in enforcing the resolutions of the United Nations Security Council;
Whereas members of al Qaida, an organization bearing responsibility for attacks on the United States, its citizens, and interests, including the attacks that occurred on September 11, 2001, are known to be in Iraq;
Whereas Iraq continues to aid and harbor other international terrorist organizations, including organizations that threaten the lives and safety of United States citizens; ...
Whereas Congress has taken steps to pursue vigorously the war on terrorism through the provision of authorities and funding requested by the President to take the necessary actions against international terrorists and terrorist organizations, including those nations, organizations, or persons who planned, authorized, committed, or aided the terrorist attacks that occurred on September 11, 2001, or harbored such persons or organizations;
Whereas the President and Congress are determined to continue to take all appropriate actions against international terrorists and terrorist organizations, including those nations, organizations, or persons who planned, authorized, committed, or aided the terrorist attacks that occurred on September 11, 2001, or harbored such persons or organizations;
Whereas the President has authority under the Constitution to take action in order to deter and prevent acts of international terrorism against the United States, as Congress recognized in the joint resolution on Authorization for Use of Military Force (Public Law 107-40); and
Whereas it is in the national security interests of the United States to restore international peace and security to the Persian Gulf region: Now, therefore, be it
Resolved by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled,
SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE.
This joint resolution may be cited as the `Authorization for Use of Military Force Against Iraq Resolution of 2002’.
The rest of the document can be found by searching here. (Hat tip Little Green Footballs.)
UPDATE: It comes to my attention that there is a lot more in Congress' resolution to authorize the use of force in Iraq. Find it here. And as for Barbara Boxer's accusations of Condi Rice, savor this:
BOXER: Well, you should read what we voted on when we voted to support the war, which I did not, but most of my colleagues did. It was WMD, period. That was the reason and the causation for that, you know, particular vote.
Whereas after the liberation of Kuwait in 1991, Iraq entered into a United Nations sponsored cease-fire agreement pursuant to which Iraq unequivocally agreed, among other things, to eliminate its nuclear, biological, and chemical weapons programs and the means to deliver and develop them, and to end its support for international terrorism; ...
Whereas Iraq persists in violating resolution of the United Nations Security Council by continuing to engage in brutal repression of its civilian population thereby threatening international peace and security in the region, by refusing to release, repatriate, or account for non-Iraqi citizens wrongfully detained by Iraq, including an American serviceman, and by failing to return property wrongfully seized by Iraq from Kuwait; ...
Whereas the current Iraqi regime has demonstrated its continuing hostility toward, and willingness to attack, the United States, including by attempting in 1993 to assassinate former President Bush and by firing on many thousands of occasions on United States and Coalition Armed Forces engaged in enforcing the resolutions of the United Nations Security Council;
Whereas members of al Qaida, an organization bearing responsibility for attacks on the United States, its citizens, and interests, including the attacks that occurred on September 11, 2001, are known to be in Iraq;
Whereas Iraq continues to aid and harbor other international terrorist organizations, including organizations that threaten the lives and safety of United States citizens; ...
Whereas Congress has taken steps to pursue vigorously the war on terrorism through the provision of authorities and funding requested by the President to take the necessary actions against international terrorists and terrorist organizations, including those nations, organizations, or persons who planned, authorized, committed, or aided the terrorist attacks that occurred on September 11, 2001, or harbored such persons or organizations;
Whereas the President and Congress are determined to continue to take all appropriate actions against international terrorists and terrorist organizations, including those nations, organizations, or persons who planned, authorized, committed, or aided the terrorist attacks that occurred on September 11, 2001, or harbored such persons or organizations;
Whereas the President has authority under the Constitution to take action in order to deter and prevent acts of international terrorism against the United States, as Congress recognized in the joint resolution on Authorization for Use of Military Force (Public Law 107-40); and
Whereas it is in the national security interests of the United States to restore international peace and security to the Persian Gulf region: Now, therefore, be it
Resolved by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled,
SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE.
This joint resolution may be cited as the `Authorization for Use of Military Force Against Iraq Resolution of 2002’.
The rest of the document can be found by searching here. (Hat tip Little Green Footballs.)
UPDATE: It comes to my attention that there is a lot more in Congress' resolution to authorize the use of force in Iraq. Find it here. And as for Barbara Boxer's accusations of Condi Rice, savor this:
BOXER: Well, you should read what we voted on when we voted to support the war, which I did not, but most of my colleagues did. It was WMD, period. That was the reason and the causation for that, you know, particular vote.
The Bizarro World
Diplomad has a handy top ten list of wrong ideas still held by people around the world. Among them:
2) Foreign Aid Helps Poor People. No. Foreign aid largely helps the High Priest Vulture Elite, airlines, restaurants, hotels, car-rental companies and other service industries that cater to the HPVE. Freedom, trade, capitalism and education help poor people. Plus it also matters that their culture teaches them a work ethic (see number 8 below). The old saw that "foreign aid is when the poor people of a rich country give money to the rich people of a poor country" has more than a kernel of truth. BTW, try to name any country that has been developed by foreign aid.
Have a look at the rest of the list here.
2) Foreign Aid Helps Poor People. No. Foreign aid largely helps the High Priest Vulture Elite, airlines, restaurants, hotels, car-rental companies and other service industries that cater to the HPVE. Freedom, trade, capitalism and education help poor people. Plus it also matters that their culture teaches them a work ethic (see number 8 below). The old saw that "foreign aid is when the poor people of a rich country give money to the rich people of a poor country" has more than a kernel of truth. BTW, try to name any country that has been developed by foreign aid.
Have a look at the rest of the list here.
Tuesday, January 18, 2005
A Question
A reader asks:
Where is the "blogosphere" in re the ritual (Muslim) killing of the family of four Copt Christians in New Jersey??
1- Hands tied behind their backs,
2- Throats slit as prescribed in the Koran for non believers,
3- Coptic tattoos cut from the hands and wrists of at least one of the victims,
4- Stab wound in chest of one of the daughters where her necklace cross was.
Looks like a local case of "Islamic Terrorism" is being indulged for P.C.
The blogosphere is not absent on this matter. See here and here and here (note the 261 reader's comments on this blog post) and here and here and here and here. But for a Katy-bar-the-door blogstorm, we must first see MSM step in the deep doo-doo. As the investigation unfolds, and MSM editorializes - well, then the winds could freshen.
Where is the "blogosphere" in re the ritual (Muslim) killing of the family of four Copt Christians in New Jersey??
1- Hands tied behind their backs,
2- Throats slit as prescribed in the Koran for non believers,
3- Coptic tattoos cut from the hands and wrists of at least one of the victims,
4- Stab wound in chest of one of the daughters where her necklace cross was.
Looks like a local case of "Islamic Terrorism" is being indulged for P.C.
The blogosphere is not absent on this matter. See here and here and here (note the 261 reader's comments on this blog post) and here and here and here and here. But for a Katy-bar-the-door blogstorm, we must first see MSM step in the deep doo-doo. As the investigation unfolds, and MSM editorializes - well, then the winds could freshen.
A Third Bogie-Bacall Movie
I was drawing a blank as I tried to remember other Bogie-Bacall movies, after The Big Sleep and To Have and Have Not. Wouldn't you know it, Lileks to the rescue! (The bit about Dark Passage begins a couple of paragraphs down.)
The Fix-Up
More classic lines from Seinfeld. George is such a loser.
George: Why even try anymore? There's no sense to it. I'm never gonna meet anybody, I should just accept it.
Jerry: Oh, yes you will.
George: No, I won't.
Jerry: Yeah, maybe you won't.
George: I mean it's hard enough to meet a woman you dislike, much less like.
Jerry: Are my nostrils getting bigger?
George: No. Why must it be so difficult? Why is there all this tension and hostility? Why can't I just walk up to a woman on the street and say, "Hi. I'm George. How are you?" Is that so terrible?
......................
George: I mean it's gotten to the point where I'm flirting with operators on the phone. I almost made a date with one.
Jerry: Oh, so there's still hope.
George: I don't want hope. Hope is killing me. My dream is to become hopeless. When you're hopeless, you don't care, and when you don't care, that indifference makes you attractive.
Jerry: Oh, so hopelessness is the key.
George: It's my only hope.
Courtesy of Seinfeld Scripts.
George: Why even try anymore? There's no sense to it. I'm never gonna meet anybody, I should just accept it.
Jerry: Oh, yes you will.
George: No, I won't.
Jerry: Yeah, maybe you won't.
George: I mean it's hard enough to meet a woman you dislike, much less like.
Jerry: Are my nostrils getting bigger?
George: No. Why must it be so difficult? Why is there all this tension and hostility? Why can't I just walk up to a woman on the street and say, "Hi. I'm George. How are you?" Is that so terrible?
......................
George: I mean it's gotten to the point where I'm flirting with operators on the phone. I almost made a date with one.
Jerry: Oh, so there's still hope.
George: I don't want hope. Hope is killing me. My dream is to become hopeless. When you're hopeless, you don't care, and when you don't care, that indifference makes you attractive.
Jerry: Oh, so hopelessness is the key.
George: It's my only hope.
Courtesy of Seinfeld Scripts.
Understanding The Left
David Horowitz has been fighting the good fight for many years. In his blog at Front Page Magazine, he puts very simply what often has us just scratching our heads: namely, how can American (academic) leftists be in such clear opposition to their own country? He and Peter Collier wrote the following a decade ago:
Among academic intellectuals, the leading philosophical doctrines—Marxism(!), structuralism, deconstruc-tionism, etc.—are rooted in intellectual and political traditions that gave rise to Nazism and Communism, the twin scourges of the 20th century. The thrust of these doctrines is to question and deconstruct democratic traditions and values, to instill a sense of moral relativism and moral equivalency, and to question objectivity and truth itself. In this atmosphere of distortion and propaganda, America's tolerance and freedom are indistinguishable from totalitarian force. It is hardly an accident that the university-based intelligentsia has been the center of relentless attacks on America's national security apparatus and its policies for the last 25 years or that it has been the focus of opposition to America's recent effort to lead a multinational coalition against Iraq's aggression in the Persian Gulf.
Among academic intellectuals, the leading philosophical doctrines—Marxism(!), structuralism, deconstruc-tionism, etc.—are rooted in intellectual and political traditions that gave rise to Nazism and Communism, the twin scourges of the 20th century. The thrust of these doctrines is to question and deconstruct democratic traditions and values, to instill a sense of moral relativism and moral equivalency, and to question objectivity and truth itself. In this atmosphere of distortion and propaganda, America's tolerance and freedom are indistinguishable from totalitarian force. It is hardly an accident that the university-based intelligentsia has been the center of relentless attacks on America's national security apparatus and its policies for the last 25 years or that it has been the focus of opposition to America's recent effort to lead a multinational coalition against Iraq's aggression in the Persian Gulf.
Monday, January 17, 2005
Blue and Red
A recent Washington Post piece chronicles a drive made by their columnist, from Kansas to Texas. The purpose was to try and understand just what makes red-staters tick. WaPo readers, overwhelmingly blue, are really trying hard to get a handle on what makes the red red.
A sample paragraph:
One of the first things worth noting about the Red Sea is that people live there because they like it. (Several people proudly pointed out to me that there are no houses on the market in Waco.) This basic fact strikes wonder in some city dwellers, who live in cities because they love cities. They love the bustle, the myriad options, the surprises and the jolts and the competition. It can require a leap of imagination to perceive that there are people who seek precisely the opposite, and not just on weekends and vacations.
Many bloggers are commenting on the piece, and many (at least on the center-right) are taking a reactionary view. But Lileks looks at it a little - surprise - differently.
I love some bustle. I prefer to commute to the bustle, however, not be embustled 24-7. Myriad options are nice, but I suspect that 84% of these options consist of “ethnic food, readily available,” and the other 12% are made up of museums and concerts most urban dwellers rarely have time to attend.
But at least they’re there if you want them! In any case, it’s somehow flattering to know you live in a place where someone, right now, is setting up an art installation that forces us to rethink the way we think about something. Anything. Except the historical failure of art installations to make anyone rethink about anything, ever.
Perhaps the main point is really this: once upon a time the major media at least pretended that the heart & soul of the country was a porch in Kansas with an American flag. Now it’s the outlands, the Strange Beyond. They vote for Bush, they believe in God, they’d have to drive 2 hours for decent Thai. Who are these people?
Maybe what often bothers the Blue staters isn't the ire of the Maroonies; in the end, it's the relative indifference. We think of you, all right - just not as much as you think about yourselves. And probably more than you think about us. Take care; love, Red.
Read the whole thing here.
A sample paragraph:
One of the first things worth noting about the Red Sea is that people live there because they like it. (Several people proudly pointed out to me that there are no houses on the market in Waco.) This basic fact strikes wonder in some city dwellers, who live in cities because they love cities. They love the bustle, the myriad options, the surprises and the jolts and the competition. It can require a leap of imagination to perceive that there are people who seek precisely the opposite, and not just on weekends and vacations.
Many bloggers are commenting on the piece, and many (at least on the center-right) are taking a reactionary view. But Lileks looks at it a little - surprise - differently.
I love some bustle. I prefer to commute to the bustle, however, not be embustled 24-7. Myriad options are nice, but I suspect that 84% of these options consist of “ethnic food, readily available,” and the other 12% are made up of museums and concerts most urban dwellers rarely have time to attend.
But at least they’re there if you want them! In any case, it’s somehow flattering to know you live in a place where someone, right now, is setting up an art installation that forces us to rethink the way we think about something. Anything. Except the historical failure of art installations to make anyone rethink about anything, ever.
Perhaps the main point is really this: once upon a time the major media at least pretended that the heart & soul of the country was a porch in Kansas with an American flag. Now it’s the outlands, the Strange Beyond. They vote for Bush, they believe in God, they’d have to drive 2 hours for decent Thai. Who are these people?
Maybe what often bothers the Blue staters isn't the ire of the Maroonies; in the end, it's the relative indifference. We think of you, all right - just not as much as you think about yourselves. And probably more than you think about us. Take care; love, Red.
Read the whole thing here.
Sunday, January 16, 2005
The Breeding Ground
Last Thursday two seemingly unrelated news reports achieved a kind of harmony that served to spook a lot of people. These were the release of CIA's National Intelligence Council "2020" report, and the news that 17 congressional Democrats from California had sent a letter to President Bush, urging our departure from Iraq.
MSM managed to distill (read: editorialize) from the NIC report that Iraq has become a "breeding ground" for new terrorists. The direct implication is that if it were not for our efforts there, many fewer terrorists would be in production right now.
The California Democrats, under the leadership of the notoriously liberal Barbara Lee, urged the president to make all haste to extricate America's servicemen and women from Iraq.
But wait just a cotton pickin' minute. Even if Iraq has become a breeding ground for terrorists, where else would we want such a thing to be going on? Is it not to our advantage to have our enemy swarming precisely where we can get to them with our military arsenal? By contrast, and in retrospect, it was extremely dangerous to have terrorists training in Afghanistan, under the protection of the Taliban, for many uninterrupted years in the 1990s.
This point has seemingly been lost in all the hand-wringing over our "stirring up a hornet's nest" in the Middle East. We could hope for no better tactical situation than that our presence in the region has these hornets riled up and swirling around our deadly military. For every terrorist that survives, even if his proficiency is improved, there are dozens of his kind who are merely dead.
Also missing from this one-sided assessment of the situation is the fact that our own military, tested daily in this asymmetrical fight, is improving its operational capability at a very rapid pace. If Iraq has turned into a breeding and training ground for terrorists, our forces are gaining a mighty proficiency in their own right.
No greater folly can be imagined than to pull out of Iraq now. How can these 17 members of Congress, and their fellow travelers in government, media and academia, think that we could avoid the worst possible outcome if we pulled out now? What delays the end state, and escalates the costs of our continued presence in Iraq, is the imposition of limitations on our ability to act decisively against the enemy on the ground. And it is precisely this effect that the sanctimonious seventeen have with their capitulation drivel.
MSM managed to distill (read: editorialize) from the NIC report that Iraq has become a "breeding ground" for new terrorists. The direct implication is that if it were not for our efforts there, many fewer terrorists would be in production right now.
The California Democrats, under the leadership of the notoriously liberal Barbara Lee, urged the president to make all haste to extricate America's servicemen and women from Iraq.
But wait just a cotton pickin' minute. Even if Iraq has become a breeding ground for terrorists, where else would we want such a thing to be going on? Is it not to our advantage to have our enemy swarming precisely where we can get to them with our military arsenal? By contrast, and in retrospect, it was extremely dangerous to have terrorists training in Afghanistan, under the protection of the Taliban, for many uninterrupted years in the 1990s.
This point has seemingly been lost in all the hand-wringing over our "stirring up a hornet's nest" in the Middle East. We could hope for no better tactical situation than that our presence in the region has these hornets riled up and swirling around our deadly military. For every terrorist that survives, even if his proficiency is improved, there are dozens of his kind who are merely dead.
Also missing from this one-sided assessment of the situation is the fact that our own military, tested daily in this asymmetrical fight, is improving its operational capability at a very rapid pace. If Iraq has turned into a breeding and training ground for terrorists, our forces are gaining a mighty proficiency in their own right.
No greater folly can be imagined than to pull out of Iraq now. How can these 17 members of Congress, and their fellow travelers in government, media and academia, think that we could avoid the worst possible outcome if we pulled out now? What delays the end state, and escalates the costs of our continued presence in Iraq, is the imposition of limitations on our ability to act decisively against the enemy on the ground. And it is precisely this effect that the sanctimonious seventeen have with their capitulation drivel.
Free Geneva upgrades to terrorists
Mark Steyn exposes the "progressive"mindset that would have us extending Geneva Convention protections to captured terrorists.
A third of a decade after 9/11, it's hard trying to maintain a war footing against a nebulous enemy. At the Senate confirmation hearings for the new attorney general, Alberto Gonzales, Democrats seem to have decided that the very concept of an "enemy" is dubious, cheerfully cranking up their sanctimonious preening for CNN and berating Judge Gonzales for declining to extend the Geneva Conventions to captured terrorists.
To be covered by Geneva, a combatant has to have (a) a commander who is responsible for his subordinates; (b) formal recognizable military insignia; (c) weapons that are carried openly, and (d) an adherence to the laws and customs of warfare.
Islamist terrorists meet none of these conditions, and extending the protection of the conventions to them would simply announce to the world that, from a legal point of view, there's no downside to embracing terror. Blow up a nightclub or a schoolhouse or a pizza parlor and you'll still get full POW status.
Ah-ha, say the Dems. But, if we don't treat our prisoners with respect, America's brave men and women in uniform will pay the price when they fall into enemy hands.
Hello? Does anyone in the Democratic Party still read the newspapers, other than the fawning editorials of the New York Times?
If an American falls into the hands of the enemy, he's going to be all over the Internet having his head hacked off for a recruitment video or dragged through the streets and strung up on a bridge in Fallujah.
It's depressing that after three years the Democrats seem incapable of any kind of characterization of the enemy that approximates to reality. But it's not surprising. In the landscape of modern progressive pieties, there are no enemies, just friends whose grievances we haven't yet accommodated.
A third of a decade after 9/11, it's hard trying to maintain a war footing against a nebulous enemy. At the Senate confirmation hearings for the new attorney general, Alberto Gonzales, Democrats seem to have decided that the very concept of an "enemy" is dubious, cheerfully cranking up their sanctimonious preening for CNN and berating Judge Gonzales for declining to extend the Geneva Conventions to captured terrorists.
To be covered by Geneva, a combatant has to have (a) a commander who is responsible for his subordinates; (b) formal recognizable military insignia; (c) weapons that are carried openly, and (d) an adherence to the laws and customs of warfare.
Islamist terrorists meet none of these conditions, and extending the protection of the conventions to them would simply announce to the world that, from a legal point of view, there's no downside to embracing terror. Blow up a nightclub or a schoolhouse or a pizza parlor and you'll still get full POW status.
Ah-ha, say the Dems. But, if we don't treat our prisoners with respect, America's brave men and women in uniform will pay the price when they fall into enemy hands.
Hello? Does anyone in the Democratic Party still read the newspapers, other than the fawning editorials of the New York Times?
If an American falls into the hands of the enemy, he's going to be all over the Internet having his head hacked off for a recruitment video or dragged through the streets and strung up on a bridge in Fallujah.
It's depressing that after three years the Democrats seem incapable of any kind of characterization of the enemy that approximates to reality. But it's not surprising. In the landscape of modern progressive pieties, there are no enemies, just friends whose grievances we haven't yet accommodated.
Saturday, January 15, 2005
A nice Bryce Canyon image
Photo gallery expanding
I spent some time last night uploading more Utah picures to my smugmug galleries. Have another look.
Friday, January 14, 2005
Note to self
Follow-up
David Warren decides to follow up his recent essay on the evolution vs. creation debate, which I linked recently.
It [a website called Talk Origins] is after all designed to provide any sceptic of Darwinism with death from a thousand pinpricks. For that is how the argument for "macro-evolution" is conducted (i.e. evolution above the taxonomic level of the species; as distinct from "micro-evolution", which is a snip, for everyone in his right mind knows that creatures adapt to environment at the species level, and can be bred this way and that). There are a thousand facts about life in nature that are not incompatible with "macro-evolution"; each of which could be explained in other ways with wit and patience.
[T]he "God" of evolutionary biology -- incremental change by natural selection -- is not sufficiently inspiring to sustain the immense priesthood that has collected around it.
It [evoution] is an ideology that continues to reach beyond the strict realm of biology, into areas of philosophy and theology with which it has nothing to do. It sells a cosmos that is blind, random, purposeless.
Evolution is, on the other hand, not a "crock" in the way it is presented by non-ideological science writers. E.O. Wilson, for instance (whose co-written book on The Ants was among the most wonderful Christmas presents I ever received), is at the opposite end of the spectrum from Richard Dawkins, who makes a point of throwing evolution in the face of believing Christians. Prof. Wilson is a gentleman; Prof. Dawkins is a pig.
I have to confess that the decision to highlight this issue again was a close run thing - until I got to the part about Richard Dawkins. Then it was a no-brainer. Dawkins, recall, is the S.O.B. who was among the Guardian's letter writers to the voters of Clark County, Ohio prior to our November election, in an effort to persuade "swing" voters to cast their votes for Kerry. Dawkins' letter made the cyber-rounds, and it was disgusting in its condescension - as are most of his writings on evolution. While I haven't read his work directly, I have had my fill: he is cited (and refuted) with frequency in a good book of essays on the problems with Darwinism: "Uncommon Dissent: Intellectuals Who Find Darwinism Unconvincing."
It [a website called Talk Origins] is after all designed to provide any sceptic of Darwinism with death from a thousand pinpricks. For that is how the argument for "macro-evolution" is conducted (i.e. evolution above the taxonomic level of the species; as distinct from "micro-evolution", which is a snip, for everyone in his right mind knows that creatures adapt to environment at the species level, and can be bred this way and that). There are a thousand facts about life in nature that are not incompatible with "macro-evolution"; each of which could be explained in other ways with wit and patience.
[T]he "God" of evolutionary biology -- incremental change by natural selection -- is not sufficiently inspiring to sustain the immense priesthood that has collected around it.
It [evoution] is an ideology that continues to reach beyond the strict realm of biology, into areas of philosophy and theology with which it has nothing to do. It sells a cosmos that is blind, random, purposeless.
Evolution is, on the other hand, not a "crock" in the way it is presented by non-ideological science writers. E.O. Wilson, for instance (whose co-written book on The Ants was among the most wonderful Christmas presents I ever received), is at the opposite end of the spectrum from Richard Dawkins, who makes a point of throwing evolution in the face of believing Christians. Prof. Wilson is a gentleman; Prof. Dawkins is a pig.
I have to confess that the decision to highlight this issue again was a close run thing - until I got to the part about Richard Dawkins. Then it was a no-brainer. Dawkins, recall, is the S.O.B. who was among the Guardian's letter writers to the voters of Clark County, Ohio prior to our November election, in an effort to persuade "swing" voters to cast their votes for Kerry. Dawkins' letter made the cyber-rounds, and it was disgusting in its condescension - as are most of his writings on evolution. While I haven't read his work directly, I have had my fill: he is cited (and refuted) with frequency in a good book of essays on the problems with Darwinism: "Uncommon Dissent: Intellectuals Who Find Darwinism Unconvincing."
The Iraqi election must proceed
Ralph Peters is adamant that we must not allow the January 30 Iraqi election to be pushed back:
Iraq's elections are going to be deadly, disorderly and deeply flawed. And they will still be the most open and authentic elections ever held in the Arab world. Anyone who needs proof of the importance of these polls need only look at the ferocity and duplicity of those intent on delaying or preventing them.
From Islamic terrorists to The New York Times, the enemies of free elections in Iraq have a common goal: They desperately want the American experiment in bringing democracy to the Middle East to fail — the first for reasons of power, the latter to regain its lost prestige.
The terrorists' alarm is understandable. Ditto for the Sunni Arab insurgents. They could never win an election in Iraq, and they know it. The terrorists believe in religious tyranny, while the insurgents believe in secular tyranny. Neither care in the least about the aspirations of the common people.
For its part, the Times believes in the tyranny of the intelligentsia. Blinded by its hatred for the Bush administration, it attempts to portray every development in Iraq as a disaster. Even marginally successful Iraqi elections would prove it wrong yet again.
Shouldn't we raise an eyebrow when we find America's self-proclaimed "newspaper of record" shoulder-to-shoulder with Abu Musab al-Zarqawi and the leftovers of Saddam Hussein's regime? Does the NYT really want the terrorists to win? Is their editorial vanity so great?
The truth is that some Sunni Arabs will show up to vote, at great risk. But even if not one participated, it would still leave us with over 80 percent of Iraqis anxious to go to the polls.
The issue the critics avoid like a leper's kiss is that any delay would hand the terrorists a victory. Wringing their hands about the level of violence in Iraq, democracy's opponents on the Upper West Side insist that voting requires higher levels of security.
Iraq is more complex than Afghanistan. The election may disappoint us, in its conduct, its results, or both. But you have to start somewhere. You can't play the intellectual's game of endless procrastination, sunk in dreams of impossible perfection. There is no substitute for the courage to act.
But don't listen to the terrorists, the insurgents or The New York Times, all of whom are committed to denying a voice to the majority of Iraqis.
Read the whole thing.
From Islamic terrorists to The New York Times, the enemies of free elections in Iraq have a common goal: They desperately want the American experiment in bringing democracy to the Middle East to fail — the first for reasons of power, the latter to regain its lost prestige.
The terrorists' alarm is understandable. Ditto for the Sunni Arab insurgents. They could never win an election in Iraq, and they know it. The terrorists believe in religious tyranny, while the insurgents believe in secular tyranny. Neither care in the least about the aspirations of the common people.
For its part, the Times believes in the tyranny of the intelligentsia. Blinded by its hatred for the Bush administration, it attempts to portray every development in Iraq as a disaster. Even marginally successful Iraqi elections would prove it wrong yet again.
Shouldn't we raise an eyebrow when we find America's self-proclaimed "newspaper of record" shoulder-to-shoulder with Abu Musab al-Zarqawi and the leftovers of Saddam Hussein's regime? Does the NYT really want the terrorists to win? Is their editorial vanity so great?
The truth is that some Sunni Arabs will show up to vote, at great risk. But even if not one participated, it would still leave us with over 80 percent of Iraqis anxious to go to the polls.
The issue the critics avoid like a leper's kiss is that any delay would hand the terrorists a victory. Wringing their hands about the level of violence in Iraq, democracy's opponents on the Upper West Side insist that voting requires higher levels of security.
Iraq is more complex than Afghanistan. The election may disappoint us, in its conduct, its results, or both. But you have to start somewhere. You can't play the intellectual's game of endless procrastination, sunk in dreams of impossible perfection. There is no substitute for the courage to act.
But don't listen to the terrorists, the insurgents or The New York Times, all of whom are committed to denying a voice to the majority of Iraqis.
Read the whole thing.
Coup de grace
Charles Krauthammer comes down hard on the CBS report and MSM bias. A ton of ink (and cyber-ink) has been spilled on this since the report was released, but Krauthammer gets right down to the nub of the thing:
Now comes the twist: The independent investigation -- clueless, uncomprehending and in its own innocent way disgraceful -- pretends that this fiasco was in no way politically motivated.
To what, then, does the report attribute Mapes's great-white-whale obsession with the story? Her Texas roots. I kid you not. She comes from Texas and likes Texas stories. You believe that and you will believe that a 1972 typewriter can tuck the letter "i" right up against the umbrella of the letter "f" (as can Microsoft Word).
Now comes the National Guard story, the most blindingly partisan bungle in recent journalistic history, and the august investigative panel, CBS News and most of the mainstream media do not have a clue. The bungle is attributed to haste and sloppiness. Haste, yes. To get the story out in time to damage, perhaps fatally, the president's chances of reelection.
I do not attribute this to bad faith. I attribute it to (as Marx would say) false consciousness -- contracted by living in the liberal media cocoons of New York, Washington and Los Angeles, in which any other worldview is simply and truly inconceivable. This myopia was most perfectly captured by Pauline Kael's famous remark after Nixon's 1972 landslide: "I don't know how Richard Nixon could have won. I don't know anybody who voted for him."
Now comes the twist: The independent investigation -- clueless, uncomprehending and in its own innocent way disgraceful -- pretends that this fiasco was in no way politically motivated.
To what, then, does the report attribute Mapes's great-white-whale obsession with the story? Her Texas roots. I kid you not. She comes from Texas and likes Texas stories. You believe that and you will believe that a 1972 typewriter can tuck the letter "i" right up against the umbrella of the letter "f" (as can Microsoft Word).
Now comes the National Guard story, the most blindingly partisan bungle in recent journalistic history, and the august investigative panel, CBS News and most of the mainstream media do not have a clue. The bungle is attributed to haste and sloppiness. Haste, yes. To get the story out in time to damage, perhaps fatally, the president's chances of reelection.
I do not attribute this to bad faith. I attribute it to (as Marx would say) false consciousness -- contracted by living in the liberal media cocoons of New York, Washington and Los Angeles, in which any other worldview is simply and truly inconceivable. This myopia was most perfectly captured by Pauline Kael's famous remark after Nixon's 1972 landslide: "I don't know how Richard Nixon could have won. I don't know anybody who voted for him."
Boots on the ground
I posted recently on the popular criticism of the Pentagon, that it has failed to put enough troops in Iraq. Belmont Club has addressed the issue of troop strength in three recent pieces. These did not command my attention as most Belmont essays do. But when I revisited the current essay ("More Men on the Ground 3"), and found an update to the original post, in particular the citation of a comment from the always interesting Belmont Club comment threads, I am obliged to pick it up again.
Major Mike (who incidentally called in to Hugh Hewitt's radio show last night, and announced he had just formed his own blog) writes that the whole argument over troop strength deflects our attention from what is important in dealing with this insurgency (in Iraq):
All-in-all I think the comparisons of the various occupation force levels, while mathematically interesting, take little of the operational differences of each of the circumstances into account. I won’t belabor the point, but insurgency strength and organization, insurgency weaponeering and available re-supply, leadership capability, popular support, terrain, insurgent tactics, and occupier objectives will all drive the force levels and organization. Generally, the better the weaponeering of the enemy, the more difficult the terrain, the more popular support for the insurgency, the better the tactics of the insurgents; the more forces it will take for the liberators/occupiers to be successful. I think the variables are too great to put a marker down as the “correct” number or ratio.
Casualties will not correspondingly be lowered simply because occupying forces add troop strength. Occupying force casualties will certainly rise if these forces are unable to adapt their force structures and tactics to EFFECTIVELY combat the insurgent group(s) or population. Adding more troops on the ground without developing winning strategies and tactics only increases the target density for the enemy. Highly effective and adaptive tactics could easily have the effect of lowering the overall troop requirements and casualties. Conversely, poor tactics and strategies have always resulted in higher unit casualties, and bear a greater role in overall casualty rates than force strengths. This is true in all operational environments.
Additionally, I cringe a bit with talk of re-organization to “colonial” style forces, or a variation thereof. The post World War I explosion of nationalistic movements throughout the world can be attributed directly to the occupation of nations by colonial forces. Fighting an insurgent nationalistic force would be logarithmically more costly than fighting a disgruntled band of malcontents and outsiders. Our current reliance on our conventional forces necessitates development of efficient and effective tactics to be successful in Iraq. In our current situation, our force limitations are a driving factor for immediate tactical innovation and strategic re-thinking, both key elements in finding a quick, but decisive tactical/strategic combination for exiting Iraq. Developing specific occupation forces would lessen this sense of urgency, re-invigorate grass roots nationalistic movements world wide, and plant the vision of the US as a global conqueror.
The reasons for post-invasion occupation success are as varied as the situations in which they have occurred. Docile and defeated populations, free from outside agitation, have been relatively easy to pacify. Divided nations where the unpopular will of an outside nation is being imposed, have been costly and deadly to occupy. I doubt this will change in the near future, regardless of the amount of strategic analysis that occurs. I submit that our current force structures, with our ability and experience in task organizing, our weaponerring, and our advanced military educational programs, can provide workable solutions long into the future without major force or structural changes. In the end, it will be our mastery of the operational art that will be the difference between success and failure, not mathmatics.
It's worth going back to read the entire Belmont piece again, with the new update appended - and to bookmark Major Mike's blog, where he as a couple of other very good posts.
Major Mike (who incidentally called in to Hugh Hewitt's radio show last night, and announced he had just formed his own blog) writes that the whole argument over troop strength deflects our attention from what is important in dealing with this insurgency (in Iraq):
All-in-all I think the comparisons of the various occupation force levels, while mathematically interesting, take little of the operational differences of each of the circumstances into account. I won’t belabor the point, but insurgency strength and organization, insurgency weaponeering and available re-supply, leadership capability, popular support, terrain, insurgent tactics, and occupier objectives will all drive the force levels and organization. Generally, the better the weaponeering of the enemy, the more difficult the terrain, the more popular support for the insurgency, the better the tactics of the insurgents; the more forces it will take for the liberators/occupiers to be successful. I think the variables are too great to put a marker down as the “correct” number or ratio.
Casualties will not correspondingly be lowered simply because occupying forces add troop strength. Occupying force casualties will certainly rise if these forces are unable to adapt their force structures and tactics to EFFECTIVELY combat the insurgent group(s) or population. Adding more troops on the ground without developing winning strategies and tactics only increases the target density for the enemy. Highly effective and adaptive tactics could easily have the effect of lowering the overall troop requirements and casualties. Conversely, poor tactics and strategies have always resulted in higher unit casualties, and bear a greater role in overall casualty rates than force strengths. This is true in all operational environments.
Additionally, I cringe a bit with talk of re-organization to “colonial” style forces, or a variation thereof. The post World War I explosion of nationalistic movements throughout the world can be attributed directly to the occupation of nations by colonial forces. Fighting an insurgent nationalistic force would be logarithmically more costly than fighting a disgruntled band of malcontents and outsiders. Our current reliance on our conventional forces necessitates development of efficient and effective tactics to be successful in Iraq. In our current situation, our force limitations are a driving factor for immediate tactical innovation and strategic re-thinking, both key elements in finding a quick, but decisive tactical/strategic combination for exiting Iraq. Developing specific occupation forces would lessen this sense of urgency, re-invigorate grass roots nationalistic movements world wide, and plant the vision of the US as a global conqueror.
The reasons for post-invasion occupation success are as varied as the situations in which they have occurred. Docile and defeated populations, free from outside agitation, have been relatively easy to pacify. Divided nations where the unpopular will of an outside nation is being imposed, have been costly and deadly to occupy. I doubt this will change in the near future, regardless of the amount of strategic analysis that occurs. I submit that our current force structures, with our ability and experience in task organizing, our weaponerring, and our advanced military educational programs, can provide workable solutions long into the future without major force or structural changes. In the end, it will be our mastery of the operational art that will be the difference between success and failure, not mathmatics.
It's worth going back to read the entire Belmont piece again, with the new update appended - and to bookmark Major Mike's blog, where he as a couple of other very good posts.
MSM as a political party
Hugh Hewitt devotes a longish post on his blog this morning the ongoing battle over bias in the MSM. He cites a new piece by Howard Fineman, of Newsweek/MSNBC, admitting that MSM is a de facto political party.
Naturally the party faithful were going to object; and Hugh cites a recent rebuttal from Howard Kurtz of the Washington Post. It is to this article that Hugh devotes his attention, and it is a full-scale debunking in the finest tradition. This is a good read; yes, it's great sport to watch this kind of intellectual artillery pounding the opposition, but the piece also serves to define the current battlefield. This is important for those who have not been following this issue (the erosion of MSM) closely.
Recommended!
Naturally the party faithful were going to object; and Hugh cites a recent rebuttal from Howard Kurtz of the Washington Post. It is to this article that Hugh devotes his attention, and it is a full-scale debunking in the finest tradition. This is a good read; yes, it's great sport to watch this kind of intellectual artillery pounding the opposition, but the piece also serves to define the current battlefield. This is important for those who have not been following this issue (the erosion of MSM) closely.
Recommended!
Wednesday, January 12, 2005
More Utah pictures up
How long do you have to give him?
JERRY: Hey, let me ask you something. How long do you have to wait for a guy to come out of a coma before you can ask his ex-girlfriend out?
KRAMER: What, Gina? Why wait? Why not just call Doctor Kavorkian?
JERRY: You know I don’t get that whole suicide machine. There’s no tall buildings where these people live? They can’t wrap their lips around a revolver like a normal person?
KRAMER: So what’s going on between you and Gina?
JERRY: Well, I went with her to the hospital last night.
KRAMER: Uh, uh.
JERRY: So we’re in the room and she’s trying to get me to kiss her right in front of him.
KRAMER: Uh, uh, you see that’s the great thing about Mediterranean women. All right, so what did you do?
JERRY: Nothing.
KRAMER: Ah, what kind of a man are you? The guy is unconscious in a coma and you don’t have the guts to kiss his girlfriend?
JERRY: I didn’t know what the coma etiquette was.
KRAMER: There is no coma etiquette. You see that’s the beauty of the coma, man. It doesn’t matter what you do around it.
JERRY: So you’re saying, his girl, his car, his clothes, it’s all up for grabs. You can just loot the coma victim.
KRAMER: I’d give him 24 hours to get out of it. They can’t get out of it in 24 hours, it’s a land rush.
JERRY: So if the coma victim wakes up in a month, he’s thrilled, he got out of the coma. He goes home, there’s nothing left?
KRAMER: NOTHING LEFT! That’s why I’m trying to get that vacuum cleaner. Because somebody’s going to grab it.
Courtesy of Seinfeld Scripts; this is from the episode "The Suicide."
KRAMER: What, Gina? Why wait? Why not just call Doctor Kavorkian?
JERRY: You know I don’t get that whole suicide machine. There’s no tall buildings where these people live? They can’t wrap their lips around a revolver like a normal person?
KRAMER: So what’s going on between you and Gina?
JERRY: Well, I went with her to the hospital last night.
KRAMER: Uh, uh.
JERRY: So we’re in the room and she’s trying to get me to kiss her right in front of him.
KRAMER: Uh, uh, you see that’s the great thing about Mediterranean women. All right, so what did you do?
JERRY: Nothing.
KRAMER: Ah, what kind of a man are you? The guy is unconscious in a coma and you don’t have the guts to kiss his girlfriend?
JERRY: I didn’t know what the coma etiquette was.
KRAMER: There is no coma etiquette. You see that’s the beauty of the coma, man. It doesn’t matter what you do around it.
JERRY: So you’re saying, his girl, his car, his clothes, it’s all up for grabs. You can just loot the coma victim.
KRAMER: I’d give him 24 hours to get out of it. They can’t get out of it in 24 hours, it’s a land rush.
JERRY: So if the coma victim wakes up in a month, he’s thrilled, he got out of the coma. He goes home, there’s nothing left?
KRAMER: NOTHING LEFT! That’s why I’m trying to get that vacuum cleaner. Because somebody’s going to grab it.
Courtesy of Seinfeld Scripts; this is from the episode "The Suicide."
A sensible view
David Warren is an essayist and a columnist for a couple of prominent Canadian dailies. His website offers all of his interesting commentary, on a wide range of topics. In a January 5 essay he wades into the snake-infested waters of the evolutionism vs. creationism debate.
In the last few weeks there has been something of a blogstorm on the subject of intelligent design, with many fine writers taking up the issue. As with much that the blogosphere takes up en masse, there is simply too much to read.
But here in Warren's piece, while we don't go near the intelligent design debate, we get some pretty clear thinking.
...I think "evolution" is not a science but an ideology, a quasi-religion, a colossal scientistic put-on; that "evolutionary science" is a cant expression, a pretence unworthy of a scientific researcher. His job is to inquire, not to advance a worldview. The people who study the development of living organisms through the fossil record should be called, unpretentiously, "palaeobiologists".
What I'm saying comes down to this. Science cannot now explain, and probably will never be able to explain, the origin of any species in nature -- least of all man. It can assemble the succession of species in the fossil record; it can catalogue resemblances between species in space and time; it can begin to show the fine adaptations of each to its environment; and the workings of "natural selection" when the environment changes; it can even look into the mechanism by which heritable traits are passed along from individual to individual within a species (thanks, incidentally, to a line of intellectual descent not from Charles Darwin, but from an Augustinian monk named Gregor Mendel). But science cannot even tell you how a species is defined, let alone how life emerged from the lifeless sterility of the "primordial swamp".
"Evolutionism" is the prevailing speculation, that by minute alterations in traits, in continuing response to environmental pressures, an isolated group within a species "evolves" to the point where its members can breed with each other but no longer with others, and -- presto! -- you have a new species. But the "presto" has never been observed in nature, and there is a universal paucity of transitional forms. The speculation may even seem plausible, but remains an act of faith. It isn't science, because it isn't falsifiable: there is no way to test if it might be wrong.
There is one of the keys: that in order to be science something must be falsifiable. But the money lines are here:
[Evolutionism] flourishes because it gives comfort to its believers. It assures them that nature is random. In the words of the late Czeslaw Milosz, which I quoted a few months ago: "A true opium of the people is a belief in nothingness after death -- the huge solace of thinking that for our betrayals, greed, cowardice, murders, we are not going to be judged." Evolution is the guarantee that nothing really matters.
Warren professes to have been an atheist into his twenties, yet is now a Catholic Christian. Therefore he can speak with some credibility, as he does here:
My more intemperate readers accused me of buying into "Biblical creationism" . It does not follow from the fact I am intensely sceptical about "evolutionary science", however, that I would be credulous about "creation science". Both require a kind of po-faced cleverness, to talk a little faster than the phenomena can be presented, but the latter is based on premises that are even sillier than the former. The Bible is not a textbook in cosmology or biology, it is not about nature but about God. To my mind, "evolutionism" and "creationism" are competing "isms". But they reduce finally to the same thing: an attempt to explain how something comes from nothing.
Read the entire essay here.
In the last few weeks there has been something of a blogstorm on the subject of intelligent design, with many fine writers taking up the issue. As with much that the blogosphere takes up en masse, there is simply too much to read.
But here in Warren's piece, while we don't go near the intelligent design debate, we get some pretty clear thinking.
...I think "evolution" is not a science but an ideology, a quasi-religion, a colossal scientistic put-on; that "evolutionary science" is a cant expression, a pretence unworthy of a scientific researcher. His job is to inquire, not to advance a worldview. The people who study the development of living organisms through the fossil record should be called, unpretentiously, "palaeobiologists".
What I'm saying comes down to this. Science cannot now explain, and probably will never be able to explain, the origin of any species in nature -- least of all man. It can assemble the succession of species in the fossil record; it can catalogue resemblances between species in space and time; it can begin to show the fine adaptations of each to its environment; and the workings of "natural selection" when the environment changes; it can even look into the mechanism by which heritable traits are passed along from individual to individual within a species (thanks, incidentally, to a line of intellectual descent not from Charles Darwin, but from an Augustinian monk named Gregor Mendel). But science cannot even tell you how a species is defined, let alone how life emerged from the lifeless sterility of the "primordial swamp".
"Evolutionism" is the prevailing speculation, that by minute alterations in traits, in continuing response to environmental pressures, an isolated group within a species "evolves" to the point where its members can breed with each other but no longer with others, and -- presto! -- you have a new species. But the "presto" has never been observed in nature, and there is a universal paucity of transitional forms. The speculation may even seem plausible, but remains an act of faith. It isn't science, because it isn't falsifiable: there is no way to test if it might be wrong.
There is one of the keys: that in order to be science something must be falsifiable. But the money lines are here:
[Evolutionism] flourishes because it gives comfort to its believers. It assures them that nature is random. In the words of the late Czeslaw Milosz, which I quoted a few months ago: "A true opium of the people is a belief in nothingness after death -- the huge solace of thinking that for our betrayals, greed, cowardice, murders, we are not going to be judged." Evolution is the guarantee that nothing really matters.
Warren professes to have been an atheist into his twenties, yet is now a Catholic Christian. Therefore he can speak with some credibility, as he does here:
My more intemperate readers accused me of buying into "Biblical creationism" . It does not follow from the fact I am intensely sceptical about "evolutionary science", however, that I would be credulous about "creation science". Both require a kind of po-faced cleverness, to talk a little faster than the phenomena can be presented, but the latter is based on premises that are even sillier than the former. The Bible is not a textbook in cosmology or biology, it is not about nature but about God. To my mind, "evolutionism" and "creationism" are competing "isms". But they reduce finally to the same thing: an attempt to explain how something comes from nothing.
Read the entire essay here.
Some January birthdays
Courtesy of Mudville Gazette we have this short list of January birthdays. It seems one of them has a birthday today.
Paul Revere 1/1/1735
Betsy Ross 1/1/1752
J.R.R Tolkien 1/3/1892
Mel Gibson 1/3/1956
Joan of Arc 1/6/1412
Elvis Presley 1/8/1935
Richard Nixon 1/9/1913
Rush Limbaugh 1/12/1951
Dr. Martin Luther King 1/15/1929
Robert E. Lee 1/19/1807
Edgar Allen Poe 1/19/1809
Stonewall Jackson 1/21/1824
Oprah Winfrey 1/29/1954
Franklin D. Roosevelt 1/30/1882
Dick Cheney 1/30/1941
Paul Revere 1/1/1735
Betsy Ross 1/1/1752
J.R.R Tolkien 1/3/1892
Mel Gibson 1/3/1956
Joan of Arc 1/6/1412
Elvis Presley 1/8/1935
Richard Nixon 1/9/1913
Rush Limbaugh 1/12/1951
Dr. Martin Luther King 1/15/1929
Robert E. Lee 1/19/1807
Edgar Allen Poe 1/19/1809
Stonewall Jackson 1/21/1824
Oprah Winfrey 1/29/1954
Franklin D. Roosevelt 1/30/1882
Dick Cheney 1/30/1941
Tuesday, January 11, 2005
A new feature
I've created an on-line photo-gallery, which I'll be updating with new photos as they come in. For now, check out a sample gallery, with images from the Utah trip in September.
Blogging - it's for you
To my dear friend, in Ashland, who should start her own blog..... Note the winner of the photoshopping contest for Hugh's new book, which was hosted at RadioBlogger.com (posted immediately below). Read the poster!
Dance with who you brung
Instapundit excerpts an interesting article from Washington Monthly, which examines the highly trumpeted criticism of the Administration and the Pentagon that we don't have enough troops in Iraq.
Of course, no one seriously suggests that we should strip every last soldier from Europe, North Korea, and our other overseas deployments. Realistically, then, the maximum number of troops available for use in Iraq is probably pretty close to the number we have now: 300,000 rotated annually, for a presence of about 150,000 at any given time.
The only way to appreciably increase this is to raise the Army's end strength by several divisions, and this is exactly what Kagan and Sullivan think Rumsfeld has been too stubborn about opposing. But as they acknowledge, doing this would take a couple of years — and as they don't acknowledge, it would have made the war politically impossible. The invasion of Iraq almost certainly would never have happened if Rumsfeld had told Congress in 2002 that he wanted them to approve three or four (or more) new divisions in preparation for a war in 2004 or 2005.
In other words, when Rumsfeld commented that you go to war "with the army you have," he was exactly right. Kagan and Sullivan both supported the Iraq war, but it never would have happened if Rumsfeld had acknowledged that we needed 100,000 more troops than we had available at the time.
For that reason, conservative critiques of Rumsfeld on these grounds strike me as hypocritical. Would Kagan and Sullivan have supported delaying the Iraq war a couple of years in order to raise the troops they now believe are necessary? If not, isn't it a little late to start complaining now?
Reynolds thinks that
"calling for "more troops" is a way to criticize while not sounding weak, and that it thus has an appeal that overcomes its uncertain factual foundation."
Of course, no one seriously suggests that we should strip every last soldier from Europe, North Korea, and our other overseas deployments. Realistically, then, the maximum number of troops available for use in Iraq is probably pretty close to the number we have now: 300,000 rotated annually, for a presence of about 150,000 at any given time.
The only way to appreciably increase this is to raise the Army's end strength by several divisions, and this is exactly what Kagan and Sullivan think Rumsfeld has been too stubborn about opposing. But as they acknowledge, doing this would take a couple of years — and as they don't acknowledge, it would have made the war politically impossible. The invasion of Iraq almost certainly would never have happened if Rumsfeld had told Congress in 2002 that he wanted them to approve three or four (or more) new divisions in preparation for a war in 2004 or 2005.
In other words, when Rumsfeld commented that you go to war "with the army you have," he was exactly right. Kagan and Sullivan both supported the Iraq war, but it never would have happened if Rumsfeld had acknowledged that we needed 100,000 more troops than we had available at the time.
For that reason, conservative critiques of Rumsfeld on these grounds strike me as hypocritical. Would Kagan and Sullivan have supported delaying the Iraq war a couple of years in order to raise the troops they now believe are necessary? If not, isn't it a little late to start complaining now?
Reynolds thinks that
"calling for "more troops" is a way to criticize while not sounding weak, and that it thus has an appeal that overcomes its uncertain factual foundation."
