This two-week old piece by Victor Davis Hanson contains more of the same-old arguments to defend the idea that the war is going swimmingly. Not only was it the right war, he believes, but he has evidence proving that it was not fought incorrectly.
Well, let's see.
He has three main arguments:
(1) It is questionable whether many of the alleged mistakes were mistakes.
(2) They are no more severe than our mistakes in previous wars.
(3) They are not serious enough to prevent us from winning.
Hanson's first argument is that some of the mistakes were not necessarily mistakes because there was no clear alternative. This of course brings up the point that if the only way to do somethign was a bad way, maybe we oughtn't to have done it, a point that Matthew Yglesias has often made.
Hanson then proceeds to argue against the case that we should have had more troops in Iraq (pretend, for a moment, that there were another 200,000 troops to be had). Essentially, he questions what more troops would have accomplished, particularly since we were trying to wage a war of liberation, "Iraqify" security, and avoid collateral damage.
Two responses immediately leap to mind:
For one thing, in the early days of the war, more troops could have secured a larger area - for example around the Green Zone - and held the territory, routing the insurgents. More facilities could have been guarded. Yes, there might have been more casualties in the short term, but there would be a lot fewer restrictions and less need to prioritize what areas to hold against infiltration by insurgents.
For another thing, one might argue that this "liberation" B.S. was the whole problem in the first place. We didn't go into this war seriously, with an idea that we would win it. Essentially, the expectation was that the "Iraqi people" would welcome us as liberators and then proceed to set up the country along lines that we ourselvesdesired. "Liberation," "Iraqification," and "Democratization" are all wonderful goals, but they should not be the sine qua non of our war strategy. Any strategy for conquering and then determining the structure of a foreign country that requires getting the people of the country we are invading to support us and to join our effort is an exercise in foolishness.
It's not that "Iraqification" is a bad idea per se, or that we shouldn't have started out with the idea that we would try it. But no pre-invasion plan ought to be predicated on people behaving in such an unnatural way toward an invading force. Iraqification was not an optional extra or a potential bonus, we were counting on it, and we had no fall-back strategy were it not to work out.
Essentially, we wee forbidden to seek victory over the insurgents ourselves because our goal was to hand everything over to the Iraqi people. Hanson's argument takes this strategy as a given.
Then Hanson puts out this gem:
Past history suggests that military efficacy is not so much always a question of the number of troops — but rather of how they are used. Especially large American deployments can foster dependency rather than autonomy on the part of the Iraqi security forces. Each month, fewer Americans are dying in Iraq, while more Iraqis are fighting the terrorists — as it becomes clear to them that some enormous occupation force is not on its own going to save the Iraqis’ democracy for them.
No, it appears, according to Icasualties, that each month, fewer Americans are dying in Iraq, while more Iraqi civilians are being thrown to the wolves.
The civilian fatalities have increased over the last four months, from 344 in December to 591 in January, 688 in February, 901 in March, and this month to 265 in the first 7 days of April (1136 menstrualized).
I do agree with Hanson on the issue of the early post-war looters. Shooting them did not seem to be a good idea at the time, as it would have seemed too heavy-handed a response, and I don't blamethe administration for not figuring this out (still, a larger troop presence right outside the stores might have made things easier).
Trasnitioning into the second argument, Hanson cites errors in previous wars and insists in essence that such errors were simply the inevitable consequnece of human frailty and inability to see the future.
Perhaps. But the knee-capping of General Shinseki by announcing his retirement and the sacking of Larry Lindsey when their assessments of the war were not all rosy indicates that the administration was less concerned with facts than with making certain that what they wanted to be true was what policy assumed. Unfortunately it is behind the subscriber wall, but James Fallows wrote an interesting article in The Atlantic explained how Rumsfeld and company essentially forced an unrealistic model of events to be the basis of our strategy. "How could we have known that there would be an insurgency? You can't blame us for not predicting the future!" is a sniveling, weasely, whiny way of denying the responsbility they bear for making what wereobviously stupid assumptions - not jsut in hindsight, but as noted by many people in the months before the war.
Now, one could aruge, as Lawrence Auster has suggested (see the April 15, 2004 02:28 AM comment), that Rumsfeld knew that the army was too small and not prepared enough to invade Iraq "the right way," but felt that the invasion was so necessary that it had to be done anyway. But if this was the case, he ought to have leveled with the generals about this fact, and the Army ought to have prepared itself to try to fight the war as best it could with a too-small force. Rumsfeld should not have simply assumed that whatever type of war we were able to fight "the right way" would have to be the one that occurred because that was what we were able to do. Wishful thinking is not strategy.
Next he trots out the old canard that we did so have plans, lots of them, but none of them "survived first contact with the enemy" as the saying goes (I'm quoting the saying, not VDH).
It is often said we had no plan to deal with postwar Iraq. Perhaps. But the problem with such a simplistic exegesis is that books and articles now pour forth weekly from disgruntled former constitutional architects and frustrated legal experts who once rushed in to draft Iraqi laws, or angry educationists and bankers whose ideas about school charters or currency regulations were not fully implemented. Somebody apparently had some sort of plan — or the legions that went into the Green Zone in Spring 2003 wouldn’t have been sent there immediately in the first place.
Yes, we had zillions of plans alright — but whether they were sufficient to survive the constant and radically changing cycles of war is another matter, especially in a long-failed state plagued with fundamentalism, tribalism, chaos, insurrection, and Sunni, Shiite, and Baathist militias whose leadership had been routed rather than its military crushed. The best postwar plans do not work as they should when losing enemies feel that they won’t be flattened and a successful attacker feels it can’t really flatten them.
Unfortunately, this isn't exactly the whole truth. The problem with the war is that the Department of Defense did not have a plan for confronting any resistance after Baghdad fell. They simply assumed that there would be no resistance, no insurgency. They assumed that there would be no resentment and that the Iraqis would rally behind us to be remade in our image. Whn asked why there were no plans, Paul Bremer said that it was because our intelligence was only concerned with WMD. This implies (a) that our intelligence services cannot walk and chew gum at the same time, and (b) that they lack all common sense and can't understand the concept that when we invade people, they see us as invaders.
In any case, like most of the "good news from Iraq" crowd, Hanson also focuses on the wrong thing. School charters, currency regulations, new laws, even the Iraqi constitution are not where the lack of planning was a problem. The problem was that we had no plan to set up forces capable of enforcing laws and regulations. We had no plan for defeating an insurgency; or at least for suppressing it enough so that Iraq could be rebuilt.
Obviously, the neocons did have a plan, as explained by Barbara Lerner: Install Ahmad Chalabi and company, and then let them handle the transition to a new government. Despite the talk by some neocons that had we followed this plan, all would be well, and so the DoD and the Chalabiites are faultless for our problems in Iraq, this is not really a serious suggestion (I will get into this in a later post). So attempts to claim that Powell lost the war, or that the CIA did, are lame attempts to excuse the administration's ineptness and the Pentagon's total lack of realistic planning for the post-war.
In any case, Hanson seems to be saying that we couldn't flatten the Iraqis, and so that rather than our post-war planning is why we are/were having a hard time. But then shouldn't that have been taken into account? What Hanson appears to be saying is that when we have to fight (as we supposedly did in Iraq) with one hand tied behind our back, rather than anticipating the problems from that handicap and dealing with them, the proper response is to assume that they will quie fortunately have an arm amputated. This is rather like the joke about the economist who decides to get out of a hole by "assuming a ladder."
On to the third argument: that the mistakes were not fatal. Hanson then insists that we have adapted and are doing much better now. I'll let my readers decide for themselves how seriously they believe that to be true, based on various recent stats I have discussed in this post and elsewhere on my blog.
Next Hanson gives us a bunch of his patented analogies. I think I'll sit back and let Gary Brecher deal with this.
And then Hanson gives us the whole spiel about how democracy will really, really emerge in Iraq Real Soon NowTM. And then a bunch of that ol' crapola about how many terrorists we;ve killed (not pointing out how their actual numbers appear not to be diminshed, almost as if they were being replaced) and more pap about how much better the army is getting (which is presumably why the rate of soldiers and policemen being killed has held constant while the rate of civilian deaths has vasly increased). Again he emphasized how small the group of "Zaraqawi’s Wahhabi jihadists" are, as if they were the whole of the insurgency and as if the insurgency were not still, you know, killing people pretty effecitvely.
Finally, he reminds us of how much progress is being made outside of Iraq in Lebanon, Libya, Pakistan, the Palestinian-controlled territories, etc., all supposedly because of our adventure in Iraq, and dependent on our continued commitment to Iraq. Of course, if we are not winning in Iraq as Hanson claims, then this is a rather ominous dependence.
All in all, it's another typical Hanson flight of fancy, with the same major problem as always: he assumes that will alone is enough to accomplish anything.
Ah, arrogance and stupidity all in the same package. How efficient of him.
That is all.
Saturday, April 08, 2006
The Evil European Union
According to this article in the Brussels Journal, the EU has been putting pressure on Switzerland to socialist up. After all, you can't have socialism if the high taxes vause everyone to flee to more capitalistic countries, can you.
On the bright side, though, if European tax policy winds up killing their economies too much, eventually they will lose the power to force their will on other countries. On the other hand, this will lead to the displacement of the West as the dominant force in the world.
That is all.
On the bright side, though, if European tax policy winds up killing their economies too much, eventually they will lose the power to force their will on other countries. On the other hand, this will lead to the displacement of the West as the dominant force in the world.
That is all.
The Sine Qua Non of Guest-Worker Programs
When a person suggets that what we need is a guest-worker program, I think the proper response is: "Fine. But we need to require that all guest workers get vasectomies (if male) or get their tubes tied (if female)." Any serious guest worker program that aims to avoid massive immigration into this country would require such a step. Anyone who does not support such a measure is not really serious about a real guest-worker program (i.e. one that is not just an indirect path to citizenship). Of course, if they agree to get rid of birthright citizenship first, that would work, too - but the citizenship must be gotten rid of with a constitutional amendment (so the courts cannot overturn it) first.
In any case, the real reason I make this suggestion (or my more blunt suggestion - "Be responsible! spay or neuter your guest workers!") is not because I support forced sterilization as a policy. Rather it is because putting it this way bluntly shows the folly of guest-worker programs as an alternative to citizen-track immigration, at least under current citizenship laws.
Of course, some folks will claim that it is unfair to use the Mexicans for back-breaking labor and then to throw them away when they are no good to us anymore. That it is unfair to let them do the work but not share in the benefits of our country such as taxpayer-funded health care for the indigent, taxpayer-funded education for their children, Social Security benefits, etc.
But the very point is that the assumption that you can do that with Mexican workers is the very reason why it is supposed to be so advantageous to hire them in the first place. Listen, either exploiting Mexicans as expendable, cheap labor without any benefits and practically no rights is right, or it's wrong. It can't be right to exploit them when the discussion is letting them work here, and then wrong when the discussion is over whether or not to give them benefits. If you give them the same rights as other workers, you have to calculate the costs of those rights into the discussion of whether they are a net benefit to the U.S. Unless you are simply a dishonest liberal who wants to get more voters who will support socialist policies.
That is all.
In any case, the real reason I make this suggestion (or my more blunt suggestion - "Be responsible! spay or neuter your guest workers!") is not because I support forced sterilization as a policy. Rather it is because putting it this way bluntly shows the folly of guest-worker programs as an alternative to citizen-track immigration, at least under current citizenship laws.
Of course, some folks will claim that it is unfair to use the Mexicans for back-breaking labor and then to throw them away when they are no good to us anymore. That it is unfair to let them do the work but not share in the benefits of our country such as taxpayer-funded health care for the indigent, taxpayer-funded education for their children, Social Security benefits, etc.
But the very point is that the assumption that you can do that with Mexican workers is the very reason why it is supposed to be so advantageous to hire them in the first place. Listen, either exploiting Mexicans as expendable, cheap labor without any benefits and practically no rights is right, or it's wrong. It can't be right to exploit them when the discussion is letting them work here, and then wrong when the discussion is over whether or not to give them benefits. If you give them the same rights as other workers, you have to calculate the costs of those rights into the discussion of whether they are a net benefit to the U.S. Unless you are simply a dishonest liberal who wants to get more voters who will support socialist policies.
That is all.
Friday, April 07, 2006
Strange Thought on the Duke Rape Case
Anyone else notice that if the race angle were taken away, and the genders reversed, the Duke rape case is a lot like the Law & Order: Special Victims unit episode "Ridicule?" (This is my favorite episode).
That is all.
That is all.
Thursday, April 06, 2006
Update on Mortalities in Iraq and Afghanistan
It appears that both U.S. and total coalition fatalities in Afghanistan are already on track to meet last year's number.
Meanwhile, both hostile and non-hostile coalition fatalities in Iraq are up significantly. Last month at this time (i.e. March 6), there had been 4 hostile and 2 non-hostile fatalities. This month there have already 11 hostile and 6 non-hostile, about 3 times as many. Perhaps my prediction of a lull followed by an increase in casualties starting in March was not so much wrong as it was one month premature.
That is all.
Meanwhile, both hostile and non-hostile coalition fatalities in Iraq are up significantly. Last month at this time (i.e. March 6), there had been 4 hostile and 2 non-hostile fatalities. This month there have already 11 hostile and 6 non-hostile, about 3 times as many. Perhaps my prediction of a lull followed by an increase in casualties starting in March was not so much wrong as it was one month premature.
That is all.
A Conservative Position at Counterpunch
Perhaps Paul Craig Roberts writing for them is rubbing off on them.
Here's an interesting piece on immigration on the Counterpunch webiste that gets down to the nitty-gritty as to why immigration-law enforcement is important, and why we need to distinguish immigration from simple migration.
Here's a sample:
For, have no doubt, a country that cannot enforce its borders is a country no longer. A blind acquiescence of the concept of immigration anytime, anywhere, without suitable forethought, is a far more pernicious threat than the downing of the World Trade Center. Illegal migration is a direct challenge to a nation's sovereignty, pure and simple. To throw epithets like racist, fascist, heartless, etc. at all those who hold this view, is no different than President Bush (representing the mother of all illegal squatting -- the vagrant in the White House) condemning those who protest his warrant less wiretapping felony as soft on terrorism...These basic premises should be form the basis upon which other considerations of pragmatism, personal stories, and compassion, may apply.
A great deal of the article, if not all of it, would be in very good harmony with any number of paleoconservatives or traditionalists.
That is all.
Here's an interesting piece on immigration on the Counterpunch webiste that gets down to the nitty-gritty as to why immigration-law enforcement is important, and why we need to distinguish immigration from simple migration.
Here's a sample:
For, have no doubt, a country that cannot enforce its borders is a country no longer. A blind acquiescence of the concept of immigration anytime, anywhere, without suitable forethought, is a far more pernicious threat than the downing of the World Trade Center. Illegal migration is a direct challenge to a nation's sovereignty, pure and simple. To throw epithets like racist, fascist, heartless, etc. at all those who hold this view, is no different than President Bush (representing the mother of all illegal squatting -- the vagrant in the White House) condemning those who protest his warrant less wiretapping felony as soft on terrorism...These basic premises should be form the basis upon which other considerations of pragmatism, personal stories, and compassion, may apply.
A great deal of the article, if not all of it, would be in very good harmony with any number of paleoconservatives or traditionalists.
That is all.
Wednesday, April 05, 2006
Logic, Inexorable Logic
As I have said about the abortion debate, things become clear when you lay out the logic of the situation (unless, of course, the one or more sides of a debate bring out the "unprincipled exception" or resort to illogic or dishonesty).
This article on a Dutch politician who wants to penalize stay-at-home mothers who have received government-subsidized educations shows why government subsidies are often a bad idea. If the government pays for something for you, it at some level owns you. It allows itself the foot in the door to begin making personal choices for you in order to recoup its investment. Can you imagine what this might entail in terms of health care in a socialist single-payer health system?
Of course, some liberals would get around this by stipulating a right to a certain standard of living without any concurrent responsibilities (i.e. I have a right to do whatever I want and to make the responsible people pay for it). This reminds me of the old cartoon (I think it was from the Far Side), which showed the epilogue to the story of the ant and the grasshopper: it showed the ant dead, its head smashed in by the grasshopper's fiddle, while the grasshopper made off with the ant's grain. In any case, the reason this won't work is that eventually the responsible people will stop working because they get nothing out of it, and totalitarian control will need to be imposed to keep the whole shebang together.
But either way, government funding implies government control. And that is the lesson of this story, and why government funding is so dangerous.
That is all.
This article on a Dutch politician who wants to penalize stay-at-home mothers who have received government-subsidized educations shows why government subsidies are often a bad idea. If the government pays for something for you, it at some level owns you. It allows itself the foot in the door to begin making personal choices for you in order to recoup its investment. Can you imagine what this might entail in terms of health care in a socialist single-payer health system?
Of course, some liberals would get around this by stipulating a right to a certain standard of living without any concurrent responsibilities (i.e. I have a right to do whatever I want and to make the responsible people pay for it). This reminds me of the old cartoon (I think it was from the Far Side), which showed the epilogue to the story of the ant and the grasshopper: it showed the ant dead, its head smashed in by the grasshopper's fiddle, while the grasshopper made off with the ant's grain. In any case, the reason this won't work is that eventually the responsible people will stop working because they get nothing out of it, and totalitarian control will need to be imposed to keep the whole shebang together.
But either way, government funding implies government control. And that is the lesson of this story, and why government funding is so dangerous.
That is all.
Interesting Talk from K-Lo, and Some Thoughts on "Choice for Men"
In a recent piece on National Review discussing the so-called "Roe for Men" campaign, Kathryn Jean Lopez says:
"Roe v. Wade not only takes the life of the unborn child, but it also tempts the natural father to kill off his instinct to protect and provide for his children," says Kevin Burke, associate director of Rachel's Vineyard, a post-abortion-healing ministry. "Beneath the legal arguments, we have to ask this man, 'regardless of the circumstances of her conception, your daughter now lives, breathes and walks this Earth. How can you still reject her, and withhold your love and support?'"
That's a personal matter, not a legal argument. But it's also a state of mind the culture of Roe has given birth to. "Because of Roe," as Burke puts it, "children are disposable, the gift of their lives is reduced to a 'legal issue' to be debated and decided."
Interestingly enough, that is exactly why I am so interested in the issue. Because it takes some of the ideas to their logical conclusion and shows us where the "personal autonomy above all else" mindset gets us to. Remember, now, many feminists not only want abortion to be legal, they want it to be subsidized by the state and they want their to be no moral judgment against it at all, as if it were no more than operating on a tumor. But once the woman decided she wants to keep the baby, suddenly the man is to be kept on the hook to support it. Logically, of course, if the fetus is no more than apiece of tissue, their is no reason why the man has to be responsible for it; if he disclaims responsibility before it reaches the point where abortion is out of the question, then the woman is the one who chooses to bear it and logically ought to bear all of the responsibility.
Of course, this idea might cause someone with integrity to reconsider whether or not the right to an abortion is such a hot thing. And that, rather than actually helping deadbeat dads off the hook, is why this is usch an important issue to discuss.
Not that this will actually impact many of the feminists, who are shameless in their hypocrisy. A large number of feminists (not the ifeminists, though) want to eat their cake and have it too, so they argue (among other things) that this is wrong because it amounts to putting financial pressure on a woman to have an abortion, thus taking away her "bodily integrity." So, even though men have no right to expect sex from women, women have every right to expect to be supported by men. Saying that a woman is controlling a man if she refuses to have sex with him makes a person part of the rape culture, saying that a man is controlling a woman if he refuses to give her money is common sense.
Likewise there are a lot of arguments over how, after the child is born, there is a child and its rights take precedence. But let us remember that the child was born mainly out of its mother's choice.
And then there are the largely hypocritical arguments that "the man's choice was when he had sex," all of which either dishonestly imply that the man wants to force the woman to have an abortion or which essentially ignore the fact that woman have choice after conception (like Ampersand's saying that certain arguments of "choice for men" only made sense if you assumed that all sex was female-on-male rape, in a thread where it was clear that the issue was post-conception choices). But of course, as Udolpho says, "this idea very neatly divides those who truly find abortion unobjectionable and those who just like it because it gives women whatever they want." The female supremacists at Alas, a Blog clearly fall into the latter category. (And of course, there is the issue of using "child support" as a way to punish men for not being thoughtful enough about making sure that birth control was used, which would make them howl with rage if it were applied to a female).
Nonetheless, for those who are not afflicted either of an irrational hatred for men, or who want as much sexual liberty as possible for women but who make unprincipled exceptions to keep the whole shebang from falling apart, this type of case will at the very least make one reconsider his or her view of abortion. Which is, in my opinion, the most compelling reason to take an interest in the "Roe for men" case.
That is all.
"Roe v. Wade not only takes the life of the unborn child, but it also tempts the natural father to kill off his instinct to protect and provide for his children," says Kevin Burke, associate director of Rachel's Vineyard, a post-abortion-healing ministry. "Beneath the legal arguments, we have to ask this man, 'regardless of the circumstances of her conception, your daughter now lives, breathes and walks this Earth. How can you still reject her, and withhold your love and support?'"
That's a personal matter, not a legal argument. But it's also a state of mind the culture of Roe has given birth to. "Because of Roe," as Burke puts it, "children are disposable, the gift of their lives is reduced to a 'legal issue' to be debated and decided."
Interestingly enough, that is exactly why I am so interested in the issue. Because it takes some of the ideas to their logical conclusion and shows us where the "personal autonomy above all else" mindset gets us to. Remember, now, many feminists not only want abortion to be legal, they want it to be subsidized by the state and they want their to be no moral judgment against it at all, as if it were no more than operating on a tumor. But once the woman decided she wants to keep the baby, suddenly the man is to be kept on the hook to support it. Logically, of course, if the fetus is no more than apiece of tissue, their is no reason why the man has to be responsible for it; if he disclaims responsibility before it reaches the point where abortion is out of the question, then the woman is the one who chooses to bear it and logically ought to bear all of the responsibility.
Of course, this idea might cause someone with integrity to reconsider whether or not the right to an abortion is such a hot thing. And that, rather than actually helping deadbeat dads off the hook, is why this is usch an important issue to discuss.
Not that this will actually impact many of the feminists, who are shameless in their hypocrisy. A large number of feminists (not the ifeminists, though) want to eat their cake and have it too, so they argue (among other things) that this is wrong because it amounts to putting financial pressure on a woman to have an abortion, thus taking away her "bodily integrity." So, even though men have no right to expect sex from women, women have every right to expect to be supported by men. Saying that a woman is controlling a man if she refuses to have sex with him makes a person part of the rape culture, saying that a man is controlling a woman if he refuses to give her money is common sense.
Likewise there are a lot of arguments over how, after the child is born, there is a child and its rights take precedence. But let us remember that the child was born mainly out of its mother's choice.
And then there are the largely hypocritical arguments that "the man's choice was when he had sex," all of which either dishonestly imply that the man wants to force the woman to have an abortion or which essentially ignore the fact that woman have choice after conception (like Ampersand's saying that certain arguments of "choice for men" only made sense if you assumed that all sex was female-on-male rape, in a thread where it was clear that the issue was post-conception choices). But of course, as Udolpho says, "this idea very neatly divides those who truly find abortion unobjectionable and those who just like it because it gives women whatever they want." The female supremacists at Alas, a Blog clearly fall into the latter category. (And of course, there is the issue of using "child support" as a way to punish men for not being thoughtful enough about making sure that birth control was used, which would make them howl with rage if it were applied to a female).
Nonetheless, for those who are not afflicted either of an irrational hatred for men, or who want as much sexual liberty as possible for women but who make unprincipled exceptions to keep the whole shebang from falling apart, this type of case will at the very least make one reconsider his or her view of abortion. Which is, in my opinion, the most compelling reason to take an interest in the "Roe for men" case.
That is all.
Campaign Reform
Via Sixteen Volts, I came across this idea for reforming Congress.
I think that I have two better ideas.
For House seats, the thing to do is to increase the number of seats so that each Congressman will represent a smaller district. This will make it so that there is much less area to cover and many more candidates to donate to, decreasing both the need for and the ability to make large contributions to significant numbers of congressmen.
As for the Senate, the answer is to repeal the seventeenth amendment and end their direct election. They should be chosen by state legislators as the Founders intended. This will alter the very nature of Senatorial campaigns and obviate the need for large contributions.
That is all.
I think that I have two better ideas.
For House seats, the thing to do is to increase the number of seats so that each Congressman will represent a smaller district. This will make it so that there is much less area to cover and many more candidates to donate to, decreasing both the need for and the ability to make large contributions to significant numbers of congressmen.
As for the Senate, the answer is to repeal the seventeenth amendment and end their direct election. They should be chosen by state legislators as the Founders intended. This will alter the very nature of Senatorial campaigns and obviate the need for large contributions.
That is all.
Where Next?
Kevin Drum thinks that there will be air strikes again Iran later this year.
This is something I have also predicted, although I predicted that Israel, not the U.S., would do the strikes.
Thanx and a tip o' the hat to Andrew Sullivan.
That is all.
This is something I have also predicted, although I predicted that Israel, not the U.S., would do the strikes.
Thanx and a tip o' the hat to Andrew Sullivan.
That is all.
Tuesday, April 04, 2006
The Biology Factor
Steve Sailer comments on possible biological reasons for the emergence of modern feminism and on the black migration to the Northern U.S. in the mid-1900s.
That is all.
That is all.
Hack Kelly Strikes Again
My old nemesis, Jack "the Hack" Kelly has an interesting article up in which he discusses why we need to secure our borders. And then at the end, he offers an amnesty to illegal aliens, saying, in essence, "we didn't really mean it," or "we mean it, but if you get in we'll grandfather it for you." (Steve Sailer recently commented on the "this is not an amnesty" LIE, and Ol Lyin' Eyes Ziel pointed out why the penalties and provisions that would be required of illegal aliens before their status would be recognized are essentially toothless). This shows a fundamentally unserious approach to curbing illegal immigration.
Most disturbing, though, was this quote from a woman styling herself as "the Anchoress:"
We have to think long and hard about what it means - and what it will FEEL like - to gather people together at gunpoint and put them on trains to send them to a place they do not want to go. Our intentions could be the purest and most noble in the world…that scenario still still smacks of history we don’t want associated with us. It sets a precedent we dare not embrace. I don’t want to see such pictures in our history books. That is not America. That cannot be America, if she is to survive.
Notice that we have no right to determine whom we let into our country. No, we must worry about where "they want to go." I would respond with the good old bar saying:
"You don't have to go home, but youy can't stay here."
In any case, though, the concept that we are sending them "to a place they do not want to go," as if they had any right to be here, is really quite back-to-front. It's as if you shamed a woman for resisting a rape because she was trying to force the rapist not to have sex with her. The fact of the matter is, if we don't have the legitimate authority to send them back to their home countries (or if they would rather, to a different country that is willing have them), because we are "sending them someplace they don't want to go," then under what authority can we keep them out in the first place? If they "don't want to go" back, then likely a large number of people who are in their home countries right now don't want to stay there. If we cannot send illegal aliens "where they do not want to go," how can we force those who have not yet come to the U.S. to "stay where they do not want to stay?" Logically, her argument either involves making arbitrary distinctions between those who got here and those who didn't, or else inexorably leads one to conclude that we not only have no right to deport illegals, we have no right to restrict anyone who wants to come here from coming here in the first place. So there goes our nationhood.
I would ask the Anchoress this. If a woman is being raped, and is resisting, should she be considered as guilty as the rapist? After all, he is forcing her to have sex with him, but she is attempting to force him not to have sex with her. Of course she isn't guilty; because the two are not equivalent. Similarly, deporting someone who came here without permission is hardly an act of aggression.
Thanx and a tip o' the hat to Lawrence Auster.
That is all.
Most disturbing, though, was this quote from a woman styling herself as "the Anchoress:"
We have to think long and hard about what it means - and what it will FEEL like - to gather people together at gunpoint and put them on trains to send them to a place they do not want to go. Our intentions could be the purest and most noble in the world…that scenario still still smacks of history we don’t want associated with us. It sets a precedent we dare not embrace. I don’t want to see such pictures in our history books. That is not America. That cannot be America, if she is to survive.
Notice that we have no right to determine whom we let into our country. No, we must worry about where "they want to go." I would respond with the good old bar saying:
"You don't have to go home, but youy can't stay here."
In any case, though, the concept that we are sending them "to a place they do not want to go," as if they had any right to be here, is really quite back-to-front. It's as if you shamed a woman for resisting a rape because she was trying to force the rapist not to have sex with her. The fact of the matter is, if we don't have the legitimate authority to send them back to their home countries (or if they would rather, to a different country that is willing have them), because we are "sending them someplace they don't want to go," then under what authority can we keep them out in the first place? If they "don't want to go" back, then likely a large number of people who are in their home countries right now don't want to stay there. If we cannot send illegal aliens "where they do not want to go," how can we force those who have not yet come to the U.S. to "stay where they do not want to stay?" Logically, her argument either involves making arbitrary distinctions between those who got here and those who didn't, or else inexorably leads one to conclude that we not only have no right to deport illegals, we have no right to restrict anyone who wants to come here from coming here in the first place. So there goes our nationhood.
I would ask the Anchoress this. If a woman is being raped, and is resisting, should she be considered as guilty as the rapist? After all, he is forcing her to have sex with him, but she is attempting to force him not to have sex with her. Of course she isn't guilty; because the two are not equivalent. Similarly, deporting someone who came here without permission is hardly an act of aggression.
Thanx and a tip o' the hat to Lawrence Auster.
That is all.
Monday, April 03, 2006
Anti-Catholic Hatred in Europe
(Not that I am pro-Catholic, per se. I'm an evangelical Christian [a Baptist, to be denominational] myself, so I have a lot of problems with the doctrines of Rome).
The one religion the state must defend zealously is Islam, apparently.
Apparently tolerance trumps free speech in Europe. But we already knew that, didn't we? For all their talk, Europeans loathe freedom when it contradicts their great idol Equality. But we already knew that, didn't we?
Disgusting.
That is all.
The one religion the state must defend zealously is Islam, apparently.
Apparently tolerance trumps free speech in Europe. But we already knew that, didn't we? For all their talk, Europeans loathe freedom when it contradicts their great idol Equality. But we already knew that, didn't we?
Disgusting.
That is all.
Sunday, April 02, 2006
Deaths Not Counted
Note: This is a follow-up to this post.
Contrary to neocon propaganda suggesting that the death count is being exaggerrated, there is evidence that a lot of deaths aren't being counted.
Jim Henley discusses a report that execution-style deaths in Iraq are not being ocunted.
Granted, we do not know yet if this is true, but it is hardly implausible. This is quite consistent with the way that city governments tend to report violence, as I discussed here, and which was also noted during the controversy over the number of rapes in the wake of Hurricane Katrina, as noted here.
In any case, I think that this provides a method by which at least some of the disparities in reports could be explained, and opens the door to the possibilit of other unreported deaths.
While I don't like Mr. Henley's choice of language, the message he infers from this statement in Ellen Knickmeyer's article on the alleged suppression of body counts:
On Sunday, as a Washington Post reporter briefly visited the morgue office, five bodies were brought in from a town just outside Baghdad. All were neatly dressed men, all had their hands bound, and all had been shot in the back of the head. Morgue officials took the bodies to one of the refrigerated trailers. No mention of the five appeared in news reports.
is probably pretty accurate.
Donald Johnson's inference is also right-on, suggesting that Ellen Knickmeyer herself is less concerned about this particular incident and more concerned with pointing our how incomplete our civilian body counts may be, and how little information we have with which to directly figure out the real numbers.
That is all.
Contrary to neocon propaganda suggesting that the death count is being exaggerrated, there is evidence that a lot of deaths aren't being counted.
Jim Henley discusses a report that execution-style deaths in Iraq are not being ocunted.
Granted, we do not know yet if this is true, but it is hardly implausible. This is quite consistent with the way that city governments tend to report violence, as I discussed here, and which was also noted during the controversy over the number of rapes in the wake of Hurricane Katrina, as noted here.
In any case, I think that this provides a method by which at least some of the disparities in reports could be explained, and opens the door to the possibilit of other unreported deaths.
While I don't like Mr. Henley's choice of language, the message he infers from this statement in Ellen Knickmeyer's article on the alleged suppression of body counts:
On Sunday, as a Washington Post reporter briefly visited the morgue office, five bodies were brought in from a town just outside Baghdad. All were neatly dressed men, all had their hands bound, and all had been shot in the back of the head. Morgue officials took the bodies to one of the refrigerated trailers. No mention of the five appeared in news reports.
is probably pretty accurate.
Donald Johnson's inference is also right-on, suggesting that Ellen Knickmeyer herself is less concerned about this particular incident and more concerned with pointing our how incomplete our civilian body counts may be, and how little information we have with which to directly figure out the real numbers.
That is all.
God Gave Us the Perfect Drink
In discussing problems with the "drinking is good for you" hypothesis, Dennis Mangan recently pointed out that many of the supposed health benefits of alcohol may be due to other chemicals in the alcoholic beverage.
Of course, when one discusses whether red wine or grape juice is better for you in terms of antioxidants, it should be pointed out that the best antioxidant drink of all is pomegranate juice.
In other pomegranate news, According to this new report, pomegranate juice can clear clogged arteries.
I have long advocated the consumption of pomegranate juice, although for financial reasons I have not been able to consume a whole lot myself recently.
And since such a post would not be complete without an advertising plug, let me point out that you can order pomegranate juice at Amazon.com
.
That is all.
Of course, when one discusses whether red wine or grape juice is better for you in terms of antioxidants, it should be pointed out that the best antioxidant drink of all is pomegranate juice.
In other pomegranate news, According to this new report, pomegranate juice can clear clogged arteries.
I have long advocated the consumption of pomegranate juice, although for financial reasons I have not been able to consume a whole lot myself recently.
And since such a post would not be complete without an advertising plug, let me point out that you can order pomegranate juice at Amazon.com
. That is all.
Saturday, April 01, 2006
Ahhhh...
It's good to hear a National Review writer take a principled stand even though it might help Democrats. Byron York's recent piece on 527s and campaign finance "reform" (he's against more regulations on political speech) is a good example of this.
That is all.
That is all.
Disingenuous
It strikes me that Penraker's castigation of journalists in Iraq is a tad disingenuous. His claim is essentially that they are slanting their reporting negatively because they are either intimidated into doing so by the insurgents or because they are so intimidarted by the insurgents that they refuse to investigate things themselves and rely instead on Iraqi stringers.
What doesn't seem to be occurring to Penraker is that if the insurgents are able to exert this much influence, it suggests that they are actually really powerful and not on death's door as the pro-warriors would have us believe.
But in reality, I think that Penraker is aware of this. What he really is upset about is not that the reporters in Iraq don't go out and find their own stories and report on them truthfully. What he is upset about is that they use Iraqi stringers to get their news rather than taking it all from military press statements. What he would really like to see is a good docile reporter who dutifully asks the generals what is going on, gets a good, government-approved answer, and equally dutifully reports whatever they tell him.
That is all.
What doesn't seem to be occurring to Penraker is that if the insurgents are able to exert this much influence, it suggests that they are actually really powerful and not on death's door as the pro-warriors would have us believe.
But in reality, I think that Penraker is aware of this. What he really is upset about is not that the reporters in Iraq don't go out and find their own stories and report on them truthfully. What he is upset about is that they use Iraqi stringers to get their news rather than taking it all from military press statements. What he would really like to see is a good docile reporter who dutifully asks the generals what is going on, gets a good, government-approved answer, and equally dutifully reports whatever they tell him.
That is all.
Friday, March 31, 2006
An Important Point on Immigration
I'll try to post a longer post elaborating on this, but I think that in the immigration debate, it is important to note that one reason why there is a procedure for legal immigration, rather than us just letting everyone come here, is to limit the amount of immigration. That is, we (meaning U.S.ers in general) want to be able to limit immigration so that we have a number of immigrants that we can assimilate and that we can integrate into our culture. Moreoever, we want the power to adjust immigration depending on our needs and depending on how the costs and benefits (to the U.S. and its current citizens) change over time.
Illegal immigration short-circuits that by causing our immigration levels to reflect only the desires of the immigrants themselves, and of certain businesses which benefit from the cheap labor.
The reason why this is important to point out is because a very common idea (I don't like the word "meme") that has been circulating in political circles is that the reason why we have so much illegal immigration is because we are just too darn strict in letting in legal immigrants. A lot of people talk about "securing the border" and discuss why immigration is a wonderful thing, so long as it is legal, and say that they don't have anything against immigrants, just against those who "break our laws." The subtext is that we should have a system whereby all of these people could enter legally if they so chose. In other words, immigration ought not be reduced at all, we just need to legalize those who are here.
The fact of the matter is that we need to reduce immigration so that we can assimilate those who are already here. Periodic restrictions in immigration helped us to assimilate immigrants in the past, restricitons now ought to have a similar beneficial effect. Moreover, some immigrants are good for the U.S., and some are bad (I am talking about individual immigrants here, I am not using "some" as codeword for different racial groups), regardless of whether they entered and stayed legally or illegally. The ones who have a net detrimental effect to our country ought not to be let in. For these ones, it's not that they are here illegally and that is why they are a problem. The fact is, they are a problem and that is why we refused to let them in legally.
So the point is, any good immigration reform is going to result in a lot of people who would have otherwise gotten in not getting in. Among those who want to come here, there will be losers. Moreover, the goal is not just decreasing the total amount of immigration; there will be particular people whom we decide that we want to keep out, even if there are empty slots left. So not only will there bw losers, but the U.S. government should be the ones determining who the winners and losers are (that is one of government's legitimate functions). Those who say "we don't mind your being here, just come legally," are either being disingenuous or stupid.
That is all.
Illegal immigration short-circuits that by causing our immigration levels to reflect only the desires of the immigrants themselves, and of certain businesses which benefit from the cheap labor.
The reason why this is important to point out is because a very common idea (I don't like the word "meme") that has been circulating in political circles is that the reason why we have so much illegal immigration is because we are just too darn strict in letting in legal immigrants. A lot of people talk about "securing the border" and discuss why immigration is a wonderful thing, so long as it is legal, and say that they don't have anything against immigrants, just against those who "break our laws." The subtext is that we should have a system whereby all of these people could enter legally if they so chose. In other words, immigration ought not be reduced at all, we just need to legalize those who are here.
The fact of the matter is that we need to reduce immigration so that we can assimilate those who are already here. Periodic restrictions in immigration helped us to assimilate immigrants in the past, restricitons now ought to have a similar beneficial effect. Moreover, some immigrants are good for the U.S., and some are bad (I am talking about individual immigrants here, I am not using "some" as codeword for different racial groups), regardless of whether they entered and stayed legally or illegally. The ones who have a net detrimental effect to our country ought not to be let in. For these ones, it's not that they are here illegally and that is why they are a problem. The fact is, they are a problem and that is why we refused to let them in legally.
So the point is, any good immigration reform is going to result in a lot of people who would have otherwise gotten in not getting in. Among those who want to come here, there will be losers. Moreover, the goal is not just decreasing the total amount of immigration; there will be particular people whom we decide that we want to keep out, even if there are empty slots left. So not only will there bw losers, but the U.S. government should be the ones determining who the winners and losers are (that is one of government's legitimate functions). Those who say "we don't mind your being here, just come legally," are either being disingenuous or stupid.
That is all.
Dick Morris the Broken Clock
Meaning he is right occasionally.
He recently stated (on Hannity & Colmes, I think) that it would be a bad idea to make it a felony to enter this country illegally. I agree. I want immigration reform, but I don't want to make entering this country illegally a felony. (a) Crimes bring in a whole set of legal manuevers that are not available in civil cases (e.g. deportation cases), and (b) I don't want illegal aliens jailed, I want them deported. As soon as possible. They should only be detained in order to keep an eye on them until we return them.
That is all.
He recently stated (on Hannity & Colmes, I think) that it would be a bad idea to make it a felony to enter this country illegally. I agree. I want immigration reform, but I don't want to make entering this country illegally a felony. (a) Crimes bring in a whole set of legal manuevers that are not available in civil cases (e.g. deportation cases), and (b) I don't want illegal aliens jailed, I want them deported. As soon as possible. They should only be detained in order to keep an eye on them until we return them.
That is all.
Thursday, March 30, 2006
De-Bunking Bunkum
To commemorate the third anniversary of the Iraq invasion, Michael Graham offers a list of "facts" that we supposedly know for certain to bolster the case for our war in Iraq.
After running through the more dire predictions of the anti-war side, and then declaring that they all "got it wrong" (more on that later), he proceeds to remind us that he is not convinced that Saddam did not have WMDs at the time of the invasion (which he apparently kept but didn't use, because...?) Oh well, maybe some of Michael Ledeen's friends can help him to find them.
Then he engages in what is a little bit of posturing, indicating that while both sides are spinning the war, there are some facts that need to be considered in analyzing the war. He then takes a little dig at antiwar forces, pretending that facts don't matter to them by remembering Clinton and the definition of "is."
His next paragraph speaks volumes:
I offer them for your consideration. Ignore them or embrace them--either way, they will still be the facts.
This is always a very dangerous assetion to make about anything where our primary information on is deductive or secondhand 9that is, based on other's analyses). It's one thing to say "These are the facts. Disprove them or accept them," in which case you invite your opponent to prove you wrong. But the way he phrases it, he immediately indicates that he is unwilling to hear information contradicting his thesis. This is settled, without recourse.
So, really, how factual are his facts?
"Fact" (1) Invading Iraq and toppling Saddam has SAVED lives, not cost them.
He calculates this by using two assumptions that are likely to be fallacious:
First, he calculates the rate at which people would be killed under Saddam by taking the average over 20 years - 1,000 monthly if we assume 1 million people, perhaps as high as 4,000 if we accept some estimates. This assumes that the number of people killed duyring Saddam's last years would be the same as the average during his reign, which including, lest we forget, the Iran-Iraq War and the first Gulf War. It is quite likely that the death toll over the last few years of his reign, say, 2000-2003, would be somewhat lower than this average.
Granted, though, he does make a good point that if we believe some antiwar claims, as many as 5,000 Iraqi children died every month from the sanctions (that would come to about 720,000 children over twelve years). Again, though, there might be some question as to how these deaths were distributed over the last three years or so of Saddam's reign.
Second, he also makes the unfounded assumption that all Iraqi deaths are reported.
Today, according to the anti-war website IraqBodyCount.net, the maximum Iraqi death toll in these three years was under 40,000 Iraqis. Or the equivalent of eight months of "peaceful" UN sanctions.
No, that is the maximum number of REPORTED deaths. The infamous Lancet study found a 95% confidence level that the net number of lives lost from the invasion was between 8,000 and 194,000 [this is as of October 2004, almost a year and a half ago). That is, there was only a 2.5% chance that fewer than 8,000 extra people died as a result of the invasion. Again, note that this is the net number of deaths, not the gross. So however many lives were saved by the invasion, the same number were killed by the invasion, plus an additional 8,000 to 194,000 [and htis was as of October of 2004). I commented on this extensively here.
This also casts doubt on his earlier claims that U.N. predictions of 500,000 injured Iraqi civilians were wildly off the mark. As for his dismissal of German claims of "millions of [Iraqi] victims of U.S. rockets," while I think that the number is offf by an order of magnitude, it is not unlikely that there are a large number of Iraqis who have been killed or injured by American air raids.
And in any case, if we are discussing the effect of war versus the effect of sanctions, it must be pointed out that we are assuming the sanctions as a given. The possibility that we might have lifted the sanctions without forcing Saddam out of power, or, as Gene Callahan suggests, simply tried to bribe Saddam to hand Iraq over to someone more congenial to us, need also be taken into account. Even if the sanctions cost more lives than the war, the argument would simply be that we were killing fewer with one policy than with another policy we could have decided on to get rid of Saddam. That we could have chosen a third policy is not even considered.
"Fact" (2) The Iraqis are Taking Over, and Increasingly the Iraqi Forces are the Ones Suffering Deaths, not Coalition Troops.
It's possible, if we assume that the number of dead Iraqi police and military are actually higher than the numbers reported, and that they are not proportional to the numbers reported. But going strictly on the reported deaths, Iraqi polic and military have been suffering similar fatality rates since Novmeber, as I explained here. What are increasing are reported civilian deaths, [not counting the ultra-high death count from August 2005, which came mostly as the result of a single incident] not reported police and military fatalities. A cynic might suggest that the lower American and other coalition fatalities are not due to Iraqis taking over for them as much as they are due to us leaving Iraqi civilians in the lurch and at the mercy of the insurgents.
As for reports on how many new army units are being formed, I wonder how many of them are simply glossed-over Shiite and/or Kurdish militias that in their spare time terrorize Sunni Arab civilian populations in retaliation, as mentioned by Seymour Hersh.
An American Army officer who took part in the assault on Tal Afar, in the north of Iraq, earlier this fall, said that an American infantry brigade was placed in the position of providing a cordon of security around the besieged city for Iraqi forces, most of them Shiites, who were “rounding up any Sunnis on the basis of whatever a Shiite said to them.” The officer went on, “They were killing Sunnis on behalf of the Shiites,” with the active participation of a militia unit led by a retired American Special Forces soldier.
I'll try to find more articles dealing with the makeup of the current Iraqi forces, but that would take too much time right now and really I could do a whole post on that, so I think I will. Suffice it to say that it is not yet clear that Iraqi security forces are fighting for a stable, secure, free Iraq, rather than for their own agendas.
It should also be pointed out that, as Michael Schwartz points out, the Iraqi forces are largely designed to be under our command, not as independent units fighting for Iraq, making them part of the occupation rather than of a liberation.
"Fact" (3) The vast majority of American soldiers and Marines who go to Iraq come home safely.
Here Mr. Graham plays a little bait-and-switch, talking about our relatively low number of U.S. fatalities, and then mentions that "that total number of casualties over three years (2320 when he wrote the article) equals just one month of the Vietnam War..."
Mr. Graham pulls a little bait-and-switch by conflating casualties with fatalities. In reality, in addition to the 2323 Americans that have been killed (1865 in combat) there are at least 17004 combat-related injuries, and could be as many as 30,000 more injuries, presumably mostly or completely from non-hostile incidents.
But in any case, how relevant is the fact that "the vast majority of soldiers aren't injured?" The number of casualties is nearly 20,000 at a minimum, which still represents a large number of soldiers killed. In most if not all of the wars we have been in, most of our soldiers survived, so that is a weak point.
I'll agree that we have had fairly low fatalities in Iraq so far, though; I will give him that. But I'm not certain whether that will continue and I doubt that it is enough to justify this war in terms of its financial cost to us, its cost in terms of other countries' respect, or in terms of the human toll on the Iraqis.
"Fact" (4) Saddam had Al Qaueda connections.
Other than the sudden trust this guy has in the Clinton administration's honesty ("It was the Clintonistas who feared Osama would 'boogie to Baghdad' in 1999, not the Bushies") one has to be skeptical of his assertions of the "mountains of circumstantial evidence." Moreover, his statement that "Now we have obtained Iraqi intelligence service documents that clearly state 'OBL and The Taliban are in contact with Iraq'" is hardly proof of any operational relationship. As for the claim of additional documents showing that Saddam funded Al Qaeda in the Philippies, I will say that if true, it is troubling.
But let's remember that many of the much-vaunted Al Qaeda connections have wound up being nothing more than meetings that never went anywhere. I remember reading somewhere that the evidence suggests that Saddam was more interested in finding ways to achieve a peace with Al Qaeda so that it wouldn't attack him rather than trying establish a relationship (remember, Osama bin Laden offered to help us to overthrow him in the 1990-1991 Gulf War). This is also why he started making all of those gestures from the mid-1990s on to show that he really was a strong believer in Islam. (If anyone knows what the site is that I am talking about, could you please comment on this post or email me at glaivester -at- yahoo dot com?)
And it also appears that these new documents may not be entirely reliable. They had no official stamps or markers, for one thing.
"Fact" (5) There is no civil war because only 25,000 Iraqis are fighting each other. That's not civil war, that's just murder and terrorism.
This requires (a) that we assume that the 25,000 figure is accurate (b) that we assume that the 25,000 does not include various peshmerga and Shiite militia forces who are fighting the war on the other side [i.e. than the Sunnis], and (c) that a relatively small number of soldiers is contrary to the definition of war.
I don't really think that we know how many people are actively involved in this conflict. We were told back in 2004 that there were only 5000 insurgents, but estimates of the lower bound are now around 20,000. Unless you believe that the vast majority are foreigners who have just come into Iraq (which is prety clearly not the case), then it is almost certain that there is a much larger supply of either inactive insurgents or pre-insurgents, ready to come out and fight when they feel that the time is right. Moreover, there is a good chance that many of those who are not are at least passively involved in it, as Gary Brecher mentioned in relation to the earlier conflict between the Iraqi insurgents and the U.S.:
Arabs are people persons, nosey as Hell. The only thing they like better than cheap cologne is spying on everybody in the neighborhood. So you have to face the fact that everybody in these towns where roadside bombs are hitting our patrols not only knows who planted the bomb but helped them do it.
Seymour Hersh has a pessimistic perspective on whether the Iraqi armed forces and police are really fighting for a unified Iraq, or whether they are just another self-interested side in the civil war:
An American Army officer who took part in the assault on Tal Afar, in the north of Iraq, earlier this fall, said that an American infantry brigade was placed in the position of providing a cordon of security around the besieged city for Iraqi forces, most of them Shiites, who were “rounding up any Sunnis on the basis of whatever a Shiite said to them.” The officer went on, “They were killing Sunnis on behalf of the Shiites,” with the active participation of a militia unit led by a retired American Special Forces soldier.
And the evidence seems to be that the security forces are predominantly Kurdish and Shiite, suggesting that their loyalties, should civil war come, would wind up being to their peoples rather than to preserving the country as a multiethnic state.
And a recent report (thanx and a tip o' the hat to Jim Henley) by Riverbend that it is being broadcast on TV not to comply with the orders of Iraqi securit forces and police during nightly patrols suggests that these institutions may be involved in something less honorable than securing the country.
I'll try to get more evidence of Shiite and/or Kurdish participation in the civil war via the police and military, but later.
As for the belief that 25,000 is not enough enemies to consider the fight a civil war, I ask "What about the war on terrorism?" I mean, 19 men killed 3,000 Americans on September 11, 2001, and we were supposed to accept that as the beginning of a war. Surely, when more than 3000 police and military and almost 8000 civilians are known to be killed in one year, that should count at least as much, particularly in a country one-tenth our size.
If there were 250,000 insurgents in the U.S. looking to overthrow our government, and they managed to kill at least 1,580 soldiers and police and at least 3000 civilians a month, would we deny that that is a civil war? Yet since April of 2005, that is proportionately to is population, what Iraq is facing.
In short, Michael Graham is full of it. He's another pro-war shill distorting the facts to prettify the Iraq fiasco.
That is all.
After running through the more dire predictions of the anti-war side, and then declaring that they all "got it wrong" (more on that later), he proceeds to remind us that he is not convinced that Saddam did not have WMDs at the time of the invasion (which he apparently kept but didn't use, because...?) Oh well, maybe some of Michael Ledeen's friends can help him to find them.
Then he engages in what is a little bit of posturing, indicating that while both sides are spinning the war, there are some facts that need to be considered in analyzing the war. He then takes a little dig at antiwar forces, pretending that facts don't matter to them by remembering Clinton and the definition of "is."
His next paragraph speaks volumes:
I offer them for your consideration. Ignore them or embrace them--either way, they will still be the facts.
This is always a very dangerous assetion to make about anything where our primary information on is deductive or secondhand 9that is, based on other's analyses). It's one thing to say "These are the facts. Disprove them or accept them," in which case you invite your opponent to prove you wrong. But the way he phrases it, he immediately indicates that he is unwilling to hear information contradicting his thesis. This is settled, without recourse.
So, really, how factual are his facts?
"Fact" (1) Invading Iraq and toppling Saddam has SAVED lives, not cost them.
He calculates this by using two assumptions that are likely to be fallacious:
First, he calculates the rate at which people would be killed under Saddam by taking the average over 20 years - 1,000 monthly if we assume 1 million people, perhaps as high as 4,000 if we accept some estimates. This assumes that the number of people killed duyring Saddam's last years would be the same as the average during his reign, which including, lest we forget, the Iran-Iraq War and the first Gulf War. It is quite likely that the death toll over the last few years of his reign, say, 2000-2003, would be somewhat lower than this average.
Granted, though, he does make a good point that if we believe some antiwar claims, as many as 5,000 Iraqi children died every month from the sanctions (that would come to about 720,000 children over twelve years). Again, though, there might be some question as to how these deaths were distributed over the last three years or so of Saddam's reign.
Second, he also makes the unfounded assumption that all Iraqi deaths are reported.
Today, according to the anti-war website IraqBodyCount.net, the maximum Iraqi death toll in these three years was under 40,000 Iraqis. Or the equivalent of eight months of "peaceful" UN sanctions.
No, that is the maximum number of REPORTED deaths. The infamous Lancet study found a 95% confidence level that the net number of lives lost from the invasion was between 8,000 and 194,000 [this is as of October 2004, almost a year and a half ago). That is, there was only a 2.5% chance that fewer than 8,000 extra people died as a result of the invasion. Again, note that this is the net number of deaths, not the gross. So however many lives were saved by the invasion, the same number were killed by the invasion, plus an additional 8,000 to 194,000 [and htis was as of October of 2004). I commented on this extensively here.
This also casts doubt on his earlier claims that U.N. predictions of 500,000 injured Iraqi civilians were wildly off the mark. As for his dismissal of German claims of "millions of [Iraqi] victims of U.S. rockets," while I think that the number is offf by an order of magnitude, it is not unlikely that there are a large number of Iraqis who have been killed or injured by American air raids.
And in any case, if we are discussing the effect of war versus the effect of sanctions, it must be pointed out that we are assuming the sanctions as a given. The possibility that we might have lifted the sanctions without forcing Saddam out of power, or, as Gene Callahan suggests, simply tried to bribe Saddam to hand Iraq over to someone more congenial to us, need also be taken into account. Even if the sanctions cost more lives than the war, the argument would simply be that we were killing fewer with one policy than with another policy we could have decided on to get rid of Saddam. That we could have chosen a third policy is not even considered.
"Fact" (2) The Iraqis are Taking Over, and Increasingly the Iraqi Forces are the Ones Suffering Deaths, not Coalition Troops.
It's possible, if we assume that the number of dead Iraqi police and military are actually higher than the numbers reported, and that they are not proportional to the numbers reported. But going strictly on the reported deaths, Iraqi polic and military have been suffering similar fatality rates since Novmeber, as I explained here. What are increasing are reported civilian deaths, [not counting the ultra-high death count from August 2005, which came mostly as the result of a single incident] not reported police and military fatalities. A cynic might suggest that the lower American and other coalition fatalities are not due to Iraqis taking over for them as much as they are due to us leaving Iraqi civilians in the lurch and at the mercy of the insurgents.
As for reports on how many new army units are being formed, I wonder how many of them are simply glossed-over Shiite and/or Kurdish militias that in their spare time terrorize Sunni Arab civilian populations in retaliation, as mentioned by Seymour Hersh.
An American Army officer who took part in the assault on Tal Afar, in the north of Iraq, earlier this fall, said that an American infantry brigade was placed in the position of providing a cordon of security around the besieged city for Iraqi forces, most of them Shiites, who were “rounding up any Sunnis on the basis of whatever a Shiite said to them.” The officer went on, “They were killing Sunnis on behalf of the Shiites,” with the active participation of a militia unit led by a retired American Special Forces soldier.
I'll try to find more articles dealing with the makeup of the current Iraqi forces, but that would take too much time right now and really I could do a whole post on that, so I think I will. Suffice it to say that it is not yet clear that Iraqi security forces are fighting for a stable, secure, free Iraq, rather than for their own agendas.
It should also be pointed out that, as Michael Schwartz points out, the Iraqi forces are largely designed to be under our command, not as independent units fighting for Iraq, making them part of the occupation rather than of a liberation.
"Fact" (3) The vast majority of American soldiers and Marines who go to Iraq come home safely.
Here Mr. Graham plays a little bait-and-switch, talking about our relatively low number of U.S. fatalities, and then mentions that "that total number of casualties over three years (2320 when he wrote the article) equals just one month of the Vietnam War..."
Mr. Graham pulls a little bait-and-switch by conflating casualties with fatalities. In reality, in addition to the 2323 Americans that have been killed (1865 in combat) there are at least 17004 combat-related injuries, and could be as many as 30,000 more injuries, presumably mostly or completely from non-hostile incidents.
But in any case, how relevant is the fact that "the vast majority of soldiers aren't injured?" The number of casualties is nearly 20,000 at a minimum, which still represents a large number of soldiers killed. In most if not all of the wars we have been in, most of our soldiers survived, so that is a weak point.
I'll agree that we have had fairly low fatalities in Iraq so far, though; I will give him that. But I'm not certain whether that will continue and I doubt that it is enough to justify this war in terms of its financial cost to us, its cost in terms of other countries' respect, or in terms of the human toll on the Iraqis.
"Fact" (4) Saddam had Al Qaueda connections.
Other than the sudden trust this guy has in the Clinton administration's honesty ("It was the Clintonistas who feared Osama would 'boogie to Baghdad' in 1999, not the Bushies") one has to be skeptical of his assertions of the "mountains of circumstantial evidence." Moreover, his statement that "Now we have obtained Iraqi intelligence service documents that clearly state 'OBL and The Taliban are in contact with Iraq'" is hardly proof of any operational relationship. As for the claim of additional documents showing that Saddam funded Al Qaeda in the Philippies, I will say that if true, it is troubling.
But let's remember that many of the much-vaunted Al Qaeda connections have wound up being nothing more than meetings that never went anywhere. I remember reading somewhere that the evidence suggests that Saddam was more interested in finding ways to achieve a peace with Al Qaeda so that it wouldn't attack him rather than trying establish a relationship (remember, Osama bin Laden offered to help us to overthrow him in the 1990-1991 Gulf War). This is also why he started making all of those gestures from the mid-1990s on to show that he really was a strong believer in Islam. (If anyone knows what the site is that I am talking about, could you please comment on this post or email me at glaivester -at- yahoo dot com?)
And it also appears that these new documents may not be entirely reliable. They had no official stamps or markers, for one thing.
"Fact" (5) There is no civil war because only 25,000 Iraqis are fighting each other. That's not civil war, that's just murder and terrorism.
This requires (a) that we assume that the 25,000 figure is accurate (b) that we assume that the 25,000 does not include various peshmerga and Shiite militia forces who are fighting the war on the other side [i.e. than the Sunnis], and (c) that a relatively small number of soldiers is contrary to the definition of war.
I don't really think that we know how many people are actively involved in this conflict. We were told back in 2004 that there were only 5000 insurgents, but estimates of the lower bound are now around 20,000. Unless you believe that the vast majority are foreigners who have just come into Iraq (which is prety clearly not the case), then it is almost certain that there is a much larger supply of either inactive insurgents or pre-insurgents, ready to come out and fight when they feel that the time is right. Moreover, there is a good chance that many of those who are not are at least passively involved in it, as Gary Brecher mentioned in relation to the earlier conflict between the Iraqi insurgents and the U.S.:
Arabs are people persons, nosey as Hell. The only thing they like better than cheap cologne is spying on everybody in the neighborhood. So you have to face the fact that everybody in these towns where roadside bombs are hitting our patrols not only knows who planted the bomb but helped them do it.
Seymour Hersh has a pessimistic perspective on whether the Iraqi armed forces and police are really fighting for a unified Iraq, or whether they are just another self-interested side in the civil war:
An American Army officer who took part in the assault on Tal Afar, in the north of Iraq, earlier this fall, said that an American infantry brigade was placed in the position of providing a cordon of security around the besieged city for Iraqi forces, most of them Shiites, who were “rounding up any Sunnis on the basis of whatever a Shiite said to them.” The officer went on, “They were killing Sunnis on behalf of the Shiites,” with the active participation of a militia unit led by a retired American Special Forces soldier.
And the evidence seems to be that the security forces are predominantly Kurdish and Shiite, suggesting that their loyalties, should civil war come, would wind up being to their peoples rather than to preserving the country as a multiethnic state.
And a recent report (thanx and a tip o' the hat to Jim Henley) by Riverbend that it is being broadcast on TV not to comply with the orders of Iraqi securit forces and police during nightly patrols suggests that these institutions may be involved in something less honorable than securing the country.
I'll try to get more evidence of Shiite and/or Kurdish participation in the civil war via the police and military, but later.
As for the belief that 25,000 is not enough enemies to consider the fight a civil war, I ask "What about the war on terrorism?" I mean, 19 men killed 3,000 Americans on September 11, 2001, and we were supposed to accept that as the beginning of a war. Surely, when more than 3000 police and military and almost 8000 civilians are known to be killed in one year, that should count at least as much, particularly in a country one-tenth our size.
If there were 250,000 insurgents in the U.S. looking to overthrow our government, and they managed to kill at least 1,580 soldiers and police and at least 3000 civilians a month, would we deny that that is a civil war? Yet since April of 2005, that is proportionately to is population, what Iraq is facing.
In short, Michael Graham is full of it. He's another pro-war shill distorting the facts to prettify the Iraq fiasco.
That is all.
Conventional Wisdom is Often (Deliberately) Wrong
Update: There is a new Sixteen Volts piece on this essential issue.
Sixteen Volts recently had a posting about the recent Duke University rape case. He points out the obvious, that to the extent that race plays a role in the coverage, it is the fact that white men allegedly raped a black women that makes it a big story. There would be much less outrage were the races reversed.
This reminds me of an article I read while doing my post "Rape Is About Sex! Duh!"
The article was about lesbians facing sexual assault by other women, but that is tangential to the point of this posting. The important line:
Most of the rapes in the U.S. are committed by white men. Many people in the U.S. wrongly believe that the majority of rapes are committed by men-of-color against white women. The fact is that 90% of rapes occur between people of the same race. However, men-of-Color are disproportionately incarcerated.
This is a textbook example of using half-truths. The implied message is:
"White men are more likely to commit rape than black men. Many people wrongly believe that blacks are more likely to commit rape than whites, but women have much more to fear from white men. However, black men are more likely to be imprisoned for the same offense where a white man would get off.
In reality, there are several flaws in this message.
Flaw 1: They are comparing total numbers of rapes by white men against total numbers of rapes by black men, not considering the fact that there are more than five times as many whites as there are blacks.
Flaw 2: There is a unfounded assertion that many people in the U.S. think that the majority of rapes are black-man-on-white-women. I don't know of anyone who thinks this. And in terms of determining who is more likely to rape, what is important is the race of the rapists, not the race of the victims.
Flaw 3: The fact that most rapes are intraracial rather than interracial is brought up, obviously to make it look like white men are more dangerous than black men. But two things are overlooked: comparing the rate of intraracial black rape to intraracial white rape, and comparing black-on-white rape to white-on-black rape. As Ilkka Kokkarinen (16 volts) pointed out in the aforelinked post, black-on-white rape is much more common.
Flaw 4: There is also the obviously implication that white women have more to fear from other whites than from blacks. This may be true in a broad sense of what white women ought to worry about, but not so true in terms of assessing the danger level of black men vs. white men. Part of the reason why so many rapes are intraracial is because there is a reasonably large amount of segregation. A white woman living in a mostly white community who doesn't meet many lacks is much more likely to come into contact with a white rapist than a black one simply due to the sheer preponderance of white men. This doesn't mean that the white men are more dangerous per capita, or that if she lived in a mostly black neighborhood, where whites did not predominate, that she would be safer.
So what is the message? No, it's not that black men are dangerous, or that most black men are rapists, or any such. The message is that a lot of what we hear as conventional wisdom consists of misrepresentations and half-truths, as well as lies. Particularly on issues of race and gender, the most highly respected experts tend to misrepresent facts in order to maintain their ideology of absolute equality of behavior between races. (I would say the same thing about the Iraq War except that I don't think that those who are trying to push the pro-war view are terribly highly respected as experts by anyone other than hacks.
The larger point is, don't trust what you read until you're certain that you understand what the facts really say, not what the writer is trying to make them say.
That is all.
Sixteen Volts recently had a posting about the recent Duke University rape case. He points out the obvious, that to the extent that race plays a role in the coverage, it is the fact that white men allegedly raped a black women that makes it a big story. There would be much less outrage were the races reversed.
This reminds me of an article I read while doing my post "Rape Is About Sex! Duh!"
The article was about lesbians facing sexual assault by other women, but that is tangential to the point of this posting. The important line:
Most of the rapes in the U.S. are committed by white men. Many people in the U.S. wrongly believe that the majority of rapes are committed by men-of-color against white women. The fact is that 90% of rapes occur between people of the same race. However, men-of-Color are disproportionately incarcerated.
This is a textbook example of using half-truths. The implied message is:
"White men are more likely to commit rape than black men. Many people wrongly believe that blacks are more likely to commit rape than whites, but women have much more to fear from white men. However, black men are more likely to be imprisoned for the same offense where a white man would get off.
In reality, there are several flaws in this message.
Flaw 1: They are comparing total numbers of rapes by white men against total numbers of rapes by black men, not considering the fact that there are more than five times as many whites as there are blacks.
Flaw 2: There is a unfounded assertion that many people in the U.S. think that the majority of rapes are black-man-on-white-women. I don't know of anyone who thinks this. And in terms of determining who is more likely to rape, what is important is the race of the rapists, not the race of the victims.
Flaw 3: The fact that most rapes are intraracial rather than interracial is brought up, obviously to make it look like white men are more dangerous than black men. But two things are overlooked: comparing the rate of intraracial black rape to intraracial white rape, and comparing black-on-white rape to white-on-black rape. As Ilkka Kokkarinen (16 volts) pointed out in the aforelinked post, black-on-white rape is much more common.
Flaw 4: There is also the obviously implication that white women have more to fear from other whites than from blacks. This may be true in a broad sense of what white women ought to worry about, but not so true in terms of assessing the danger level of black men vs. white men. Part of the reason why so many rapes are intraracial is because there is a reasonably large amount of segregation. A white woman living in a mostly white community who doesn't meet many lacks is much more likely to come into contact with a white rapist than a black one simply due to the sheer preponderance of white men. This doesn't mean that the white men are more dangerous per capita, or that if she lived in a mostly black neighborhood, where whites did not predominate, that she would be safer.
So what is the message? No, it's not that black men are dangerous, or that most black men are rapists, or any such. The message is that a lot of what we hear as conventional wisdom consists of misrepresentations and half-truths, as well as lies. Particularly on issues of race and gender, the most highly respected experts tend to misrepresent facts in order to maintain their ideology of absolute equality of behavior between races. (I would say the same thing about the Iraq War except that I don't think that those who are trying to push the pro-war view are terribly highly respected as experts by anyone other than hacks.
The larger point is, don't trust what you read until you're certain that you understand what the facts really say, not what the writer is trying to make them say.
That is all.
Wednesday, March 29, 2006
Tired of Condi
I'm sick and tired of people saying that they want Condoleexa Rice to be the next Republican nominee for President. What has she done, other than be a full-on supporter of Bush?
She is pro-choice, remember. To elect her would be to betray the Christian conservatives who elected her boss.
Let's be honest. There are some Republicans who just want to have a black woman as a nominee. That's a stupid moitvation. We'll have a black nominee or a female nominee when a good one comes around. Condi is not this one.
Listen, folks, if I am going to vote for a black woman to be President of the United States, it's going to be this lady.
That is all.
She is pro-choice, remember. To elect her would be to betray the Christian conservatives who elected her boss.
Let's be honest. There are some Republicans who just want to have a black woman as a nominee. That's a stupid moitvation. We'll have a black nominee or a female nominee when a good one comes around. Condi is not this one.
Listen, folks, if I am going to vote for a black woman to be President of the United States, it's going to be this lady.
That is all.
Tuesday, March 28, 2006
Henley on the Russkies
Jim Henley discusses Russia's talks with Iraq prior to the invasion. He thinks that the Russians may have been helping us.
One of his commentors remembers an attack on a Russian convoy during the war.
That is all.
One of his commentors remembers an attack on a Russian convoy during the war.
That is all.
This Doesn't Look Good...
Some Iraqis think things are now even worse than under Saddam. The problem is, they don't have hte dictator, but they don't have order, either, which is necessary for real freedom.
That is all.
That is all.
Quick Thought
There are a lot of posts coming down the pike here, although it may take a little while before I have the time and am in the mood to get them posted.
Joesph Farah is making the same mistake that I earlier criticized Andrew C. McCarthy for making.
I'll try to post about Ol' Joe later, but for now, one quick thought:
A lot of pundits are looking at the Abdul Rahman case, and asking "why did we even bother going into Afghanistan if they're just going to keep being ruled by tyrants?"
When someone asks you that question, I think that you ought to bear in mind Justin Raimondo's response to a post on The Corner by Kathryn Jean Lopez.
K-Lo asked:
SAY IT AIN'T SO! – Sure, it was International Women's Day in Afghanistan, too on March 8 there, but some women were…wearing burkas. Whatever have we been fighting for?
Raimondo's reply:
Well, you see, Kathy, there were these two really big buildings in downtown Manhattan...
That is all.
Joesph Farah is making the same mistake that I earlier criticized Andrew C. McCarthy for making.
I'll try to post about Ol' Joe later, but for now, one quick thought:
A lot of pundits are looking at the Abdul Rahman case, and asking "why did we even bother going into Afghanistan if they're just going to keep being ruled by tyrants?"
When someone asks you that question, I think that you ought to bear in mind Justin Raimondo's response to a post on The Corner by Kathryn Jean Lopez.
K-Lo asked:
SAY IT AIN'T SO! – Sure, it was International Women's Day in Afghanistan, too on March 8 there, but some women were…wearing burkas. Whatever have we been fighting for?
Raimondo's reply:
Well, you see, Kathy, there were these two really big buildings in downtown Manhattan...
That is all.
Titles
A few ideas that have been floating around in my head:
Some great ideas for album titles:
Anaphrodisiac (the album cover would feature a Terminator endoskeleton in a Grateful Dead pose.)
Sum Esse Fui Futurus (for an album of cover songs tranlated into Latin)
Chiasmata
Signed, Sealed, and Lost in the Mail
Central Dogma
Good ideas for TV episode titles (for a sci-fi series about superheroes invovled in an intergalactic war):
"Butterfly Effector" (or Butterfly Effective) (It would be about a person who has the ability to analyze events so as to have an intuitive ability to know, for example, where to punch a building so it will crumble).
"The Vagina Dentata Syndrome" (about an alien female suffering from something similar to the Vulcan Pon Farr - two rules about the episode: the terms "vagina dentata" and "syndrome" are never used in the ep itself, and the sexuality is done mainly psychologically - no revealing outfits [think T'Pol in the decontamination room on Enterprise], and not even any implied nudity until maybe the end [and the viewer doesn't get to see anything at all]).
"The Kingdom Factor"
"Gestalt"
"Deus Ex Machina"
"The Bunker Hill Gambit"
"Central Dogma"
Good ideas for song titles:
Anaphrodisiac
Chiasmata (I'll give you one guess as to which albums these first two songs would be on)
Magellanic Cloud
Homeostasis
P.S. I Don't Love You Anymore
Learning through Osmosis
Antiseptic Sexuality
Monochrome
That is all.
Some great ideas for album titles:
Anaphrodisiac (the album cover would feature a Terminator endoskeleton in a Grateful Dead pose.)
Sum Esse Fui Futurus (for an album of cover songs tranlated into Latin)
Chiasmata
Signed, Sealed, and Lost in the Mail
Central Dogma
Good ideas for TV episode titles (for a sci-fi series about superheroes invovled in an intergalactic war):
"Butterfly Effector" (or Butterfly Effective) (It would be about a person who has the ability to analyze events so as to have an intuitive ability to know, for example, where to punch a building so it will crumble).
"The Vagina Dentata Syndrome" (about an alien female suffering from something similar to the Vulcan Pon Farr - two rules about the episode: the terms "vagina dentata" and "syndrome" are never used in the ep itself, and the sexuality is done mainly psychologically - no revealing outfits [think T'Pol in the decontamination room on Enterprise], and not even any implied nudity until maybe the end [and the viewer doesn't get to see anything at all]).
"The Kingdom Factor"
"Gestalt"
"Deus Ex Machina"
"The Bunker Hill Gambit"
"Central Dogma"
Good ideas for song titles:
Anaphrodisiac
Chiasmata (I'll give you one guess as to which albums these first two songs would be on)
Magellanic Cloud
Homeostasis
P.S. I Don't Love You Anymore
Learning through Osmosis
Antiseptic Sexuality
Monochrome
That is all.
Monday, March 27, 2006
So Close and Yet So Far
Andrew C. McCarthy takes away a good lesson from the Abdul Rahman scandal, but then he runs in the wrong direciton with it.
He points out the very real fact that democracy is, in and of itself, not a guarantee of liberal (in the classical sense of the word) policy or of the protection of individual freedoms. In a country where the vast majority of the population favors an illiberal belief system, the only way to insure human rights is to suppress the popular will.
He points out quite eloquently that we should have expected something like this:
You reap what you sow. What is happening in Afghanistan (and in Iraq) is precisely what we bought on to when we actively participated in the drafting of constitutions which — in a manner antithetical to the development of true democracy — ignored the imperative to insulate the civil authority from the religious authority, installed Islam as the state religion, made sharia a dominant force in law, and expressly required that judges be trained in Islamic jurisprudence. To have done all those things makes outrage at today’s natural consequences ring hollow.
If the outrage is based on a sense of betrayal of liberal values, then sure, it rings hollow. My own outrage was at the fact that the Afghanis tried to impose a death sentence right under our noses while we were keeping them in power. And my outrage was at the complicity that we would have shown in allowing it to happen under our noses. Fortunately, it appears that Rahman's life will be spared.
We can pull our heads up from the sand now and say, “No, no, no! We’re nice people. We didn’t mean it that way. That’s too uncivilized to contemplate.” But the inescapable truth is: the United States made a calculated decision that it wasn’t worth our while to fight over Islamic law (indeed, we encouraged it as part of the political solution).
In other words, the only way to achieve religious freedom is to supprss the will of the Afghani people and to force them to have a constitution that does not enshrine Islamic Law. Again, so far, so good. Nothing he says is untrue.
As Lawrence Auster puts it:
Assuring an Afghan constitution that protected liberal individual rights would have required that we take over Afganistan and rule it against the will of its people; it would have required that we suppress democracy in the name of individual rights.
Here, though, is where he starts to go in the wrong direction.
People who objected (like moi) were told that we just didn’t grasp the cultural dynamic at work. I beg to differ — we understood it only too well.
Here is where McCarthy begins to go in the wrong direction. Not only is he pointing out the apparent contradcition in our goals, he is now suggesting how the contradiction be solved, and he chooses, i my opinion, the wrong way.
Against from the same Auster post I mentioned previously, there are three ways to deal with Afghanistan:
(1) Allow the Afghanis to have their way while pretending we are building a liberal, human rights-respecing society (the hypocritical option).
(2) Be unhypocritical by allowing the Afghanis to have their way, but not pretending that we are building a liberal country. This is the option that both Auster and I favor.
(3) Be unhypocritical by actually insisting on a liberal government. This is what McCarthy wants, and where his error lies.
The fact of the matter is, our goal in Afghanistan was to rout the Taliban because they were the direct allies of Al Qaeda. Our only goal in Afghnistan ought to be to make certain that the Taliban not regain power, which can be accomplished now, methinks, simply by establishing an air base in the country and bombing the Taliban whenever we hear that they have gathered or if they start to regain political power. Beyond that, we have no interest in protecting the current government, and in fact, for warlords or politicians whom we do not particularly like, we have no reason to protect them from the Taliban; let them fight them, and if the Taliban remnants kill a warlord and threaten to gain control over his lands, then take the Taliban out. Trying to make certain that whatever replaces the Taliban is
The point is, imposing liberal government in Afghanistan should not be a high priority. Andrew McCarthy apparently has been bitten by the imperialist bug and has become, if not a messianic democratist, in the sense of democracy uber alles, at least a messianic liberalist, in the sense that it is the job of the U.S. to bring liberal democracy throughout the world. Or at least that a major part of the war on terror is forcing liberality down the throats of the Muslim world.
As for not understanding the political dynamic - methinks he doesn't. Those who insisted that we could get a democracy and Islamic Law without Sharia may have been wrong, but those who think that we could have imposed a liberal republic on the Afghanis without facing a mounting religious insurgency like the one that drove the Soviets out are also delusional. True, this time the Afghans would not have a superpower sponsor like they did (namely, us) when fighting the U.S.S.R., but they could have done serious damage unless we just decided to wipe out large portions of the population.
Allowing them their Islamic law was how we maintained some semblance of order. As Auster says:
The alternative pushed by McCarthy was not to be hypocritical about [liberal] democracy but to insist on it. But that would have required us pushing the Afghans against their wishes, and our whole reconstructive effort might have broken down.
Being able to predict the consequences of current policy and to show up those who have unrealistic expectations of it does not make you a realist. If you retain the same essential expectations, but just provide a different way of getting there, you are just as deluded as they. Sometimes the policy was right, it's the expectations that should have been revised.
That is all.
He points out the very real fact that democracy is, in and of itself, not a guarantee of liberal (in the classical sense of the word) policy or of the protection of individual freedoms. In a country where the vast majority of the population favors an illiberal belief system, the only way to insure human rights is to suppress the popular will.
He points out quite eloquently that we should have expected something like this:
You reap what you sow. What is happening in Afghanistan (and in Iraq) is precisely what we bought on to when we actively participated in the drafting of constitutions which — in a manner antithetical to the development of true democracy — ignored the imperative to insulate the civil authority from the religious authority, installed Islam as the state religion, made sharia a dominant force in law, and expressly required that judges be trained in Islamic jurisprudence. To have done all those things makes outrage at today’s natural consequences ring hollow.
If the outrage is based on a sense of betrayal of liberal values, then sure, it rings hollow. My own outrage was at the fact that the Afghanis tried to impose a death sentence right under our noses while we were keeping them in power. And my outrage was at the complicity that we would have shown in allowing it to happen under our noses. Fortunately, it appears that Rahman's life will be spared.
We can pull our heads up from the sand now and say, “No, no, no! We’re nice people. We didn’t mean it that way. That’s too uncivilized to contemplate.” But the inescapable truth is: the United States made a calculated decision that it wasn’t worth our while to fight over Islamic law (indeed, we encouraged it as part of the political solution).
In other words, the only way to achieve religious freedom is to supprss the will of the Afghani people and to force them to have a constitution that does not enshrine Islamic Law. Again, so far, so good. Nothing he says is untrue.
As Lawrence Auster puts it:
Assuring an Afghan constitution that protected liberal individual rights would have required that we take over Afganistan and rule it against the will of its people; it would have required that we suppress democracy in the name of individual rights.
Here, though, is where he starts to go in the wrong direction.
People who objected (like moi) were told that we just didn’t grasp the cultural dynamic at work. I beg to differ — we understood it only too well.
Here is where McCarthy begins to go in the wrong direction. Not only is he pointing out the apparent contradcition in our goals, he is now suggesting how the contradiction be solved, and he chooses, i my opinion, the wrong way.
Against from the same Auster post I mentioned previously, there are three ways to deal with Afghanistan:
(1) Allow the Afghanis to have their way while pretending we are building a liberal, human rights-respecing society (the hypocritical option).
(2) Be unhypocritical by allowing the Afghanis to have their way, but not pretending that we are building a liberal country. This is the option that both Auster and I favor.
(3) Be unhypocritical by actually insisting on a liberal government. This is what McCarthy wants, and where his error lies.
The fact of the matter is, our goal in Afghanistan was to rout the Taliban because they were the direct allies of Al Qaeda. Our only goal in Afghnistan ought to be to make certain that the Taliban not regain power, which can be accomplished now, methinks, simply by establishing an air base in the country and bombing the Taliban whenever we hear that they have gathered or if they start to regain political power. Beyond that, we have no interest in protecting the current government, and in fact, for warlords or politicians whom we do not particularly like, we have no reason to protect them from the Taliban; let them fight them, and if the Taliban remnants kill a warlord and threaten to gain control over his lands, then take the Taliban out. Trying to make certain that whatever replaces the Taliban is
The point is, imposing liberal government in Afghanistan should not be a high priority. Andrew McCarthy apparently has been bitten by the imperialist bug and has become, if not a messianic democratist, in the sense of democracy uber alles, at least a messianic liberalist, in the sense that it is the job of the U.S. to bring liberal democracy throughout the world. Or at least that a major part of the war on terror is forcing liberality down the throats of the Muslim world.
As for not understanding the political dynamic - methinks he doesn't. Those who insisted that we could get a democracy and Islamic Law without Sharia may have been wrong, but those who think that we could have imposed a liberal republic on the Afghanis without facing a mounting religious insurgency like the one that drove the Soviets out are also delusional. True, this time the Afghans would not have a superpower sponsor like they did (namely, us) when fighting the U.S.S.R., but they could have done serious damage unless we just decided to wipe out large portions of the population.
Allowing them their Islamic law was how we maintained some semblance of order. As Auster says:
The alternative pushed by McCarthy was not to be hypocritical about [liberal] democracy but to insist on it. But that would have required us pushing the Afghans against their wishes, and our whole reconstructive effort might have broken down.
Being able to predict the consequences of current policy and to show up those who have unrealistic expectations of it does not make you a realist. If you retain the same essential expectations, but just provide a different way of getting there, you are just as deluded as they. Sometimes the policy was right, it's the expectations that should have been revised.
That is all.
Sunday, March 26, 2006
IF YOU DON'T DEPORT THEM, IT's AMNESTY, YOU BLEEPING BASTARDS!!!
(Note: this is my second post saying essentially this. I thought the first had been lost, and now it suddenly appeared below. But I'll leave both up, so you can read whichever one you please, or both, if you prefer).
Okay, a little primer for you out there.
If you don't deport illegal aliens, you are giving them an AMNESTY.
"Earned citizenship" for those who are here illegally is AMNESTY.
A guest-worker program for those who are here illegally is an AMNESTY.
Letting them pay fines and then buy their way to citizenship is an AMNESTY.
Deport the mor it's AMNESTY.
Anyone who claims not to favor amnesty, but who doesn't want illegal aliens deported, is a LIAR.
That is all.
Okay, a little primer for you out there.
If you don't deport illegal aliens, you are giving them an AMNESTY.
"Earned citizenship" for those who are here illegally is AMNESTY.
A guest-worker program for those who are here illegally is an AMNESTY.
Letting them pay fines and then buy their way to citizenship is an AMNESTY.
Deport the mor it's AMNESTY.
Anyone who claims not to favor amnesty, but who doesn't want illegal aliens deported, is a LIAR.
That is all.
IT IS TOO AMNESTY, YOU BLEEPING BASTARDS!
A very good letter to VDARE.
If illegal aliens aren't deported, it's an amnesty.
Guest-worker program for those who are here illegally = amnesty.
"Earned citizenship" = amnesty.
Anyone who says "It's not an amnesty. Earned citizenship isn't amnesty, because they have to earn it," or "They have to pay fines and taxes, so it's not amnesty," is a LIAR, a MORON, or both.
Deport illegal aliens or it's an amnesty.
I saw "The Beltway Boys" recently where bot hfred Barnes and Morton Kondracke were agreeing that the only problem with our immigration system was that we were not letting in enough people legally, and processing them. This is in tune with the leftist claim that the reason there is so much illegal entry into this country is because our immigration system is too restrictive.
Sorry if I'm ranting, but I'm fed up with a lot of these liars who just want to make certain that they can get lots of dirt-cheap help.
That is all.
If illegal aliens aren't deported, it's an amnesty.
Guest-worker program for those who are here illegally = amnesty.
"Earned citizenship" = amnesty.
Anyone who says "It's not an amnesty. Earned citizenship isn't amnesty, because they have to earn it," or "They have to pay fines and taxes, so it's not amnesty," is a LIAR, a MORON, or both.
Deport illegal aliens or it's an amnesty.
I saw "The Beltway Boys" recently where bot hfred Barnes and Morton Kondracke were agreeing that the only problem with our immigration system was that we were not letting in enough people legally, and processing them. This is in tune with the leftist claim that the reason there is so much illegal entry into this country is because our immigration system is too restrictive.
Sorry if I'm ranting, but I'm fed up with a lot of these liars who just want to make certain that they can get lots of dirt-cheap help.
That is all.
Lawrence Auster Defines Liberalism
In this recent piece, Lawrence Auster explains what all forms of liberalism have in common, and also describes the essence of conservatism that is necessary for non-destructive forms of liberalism to exist.
His explanation of what is necessary for classical liberalism is one that describes one of the most fundamental core tenets of both the traditionalist conservative and paleoconservative philosohpies:
This does not mean that all liberal values must be rejected. Classical liberalism, for example, is a core aspect of our tradition, but it must be understood within the context of an actually existing people and culture, not as a freewheeling dynamic unloosed by globalist corporations and Wall Street Journal ideologues in an agenda of world transformation.
That is all.
His explanation of what is necessary for classical liberalism is one that describes one of the most fundamental core tenets of both the traditionalist conservative and paleoconservative philosohpies:
This does not mean that all liberal values must be rejected. Classical liberalism, for example, is a core aspect of our tradition, but it must be understood within the context of an actually existing people and culture, not as a freewheeling dynamic unloosed by globalist corporations and Wall Street Journal ideologues in an agenda of world transformation.
That is all.
Gulf War Syndrome
Apparently no single cause has been found for "Gulf War Syndrome".
This has caused the Royal Society, Britain's leading science academy, to dismiss it as a recongnizable disease. I don't see why this should cause people to deny its existence, though, as the Times article I linked to does, as there are plenty of diseases or disorders that are exclusionary diagnoses (amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, or Lou Gehrig's disease, and sudden infant death syndrome come to mind).
According to the Royal Society, Gulf War Syndrome has not caused an increase in mortality amongst Gulf War veterans, which is a more important finding in terms of the syndrome's existence than an inability to find a single cause. Moreover, whether Gulf War Syndrome is fatal or not, the Royal Society not appear to deny that there is an increase in illness associated with the Gulf War.
Of course, it should be noted that the Royal Society has been receiving government funding since 1850, so it might be worthwhile to look over their methodology in erms of calculating fatalities to make certain that it wasn't spun so as to minimize the impact of the disease, in order to, you know, keep Mothe Empire with her purse strings happy.
Likewise, "I believe there is little value in conducting further research into the causes," as Professor Simon Wessely, Co-Director of Kings College Centre for Military Health Research, says, could be taken in several ways. Presumably, we are meant to assume that further research would be fruitless because the syndrome is too diffuse (which reminds me, are they looking for a common cause for the entire syndrome, or are they just looking for a common cause for the individual illnesses that make up the syndrome? I would seem more fruitful to look for common cause for common symptoms, but I am assuming they have done that). However, there could also be pressure from above not to investigate, or perhaps they there is little value in conducting further research because they keep hitting "classified information" walls.
Of course, perhaps they are being totally forthright, and there really is no particular illness except for those that are always associated with wars. But the possibility of cover-ups to protect the continued use of depleted uranium or to prevent leaks about government blunders is always in the back of my mind.
Thanx and a tip o' the hat to Scott Horton's The Stress Blog.
That is all.
This has caused the Royal Society, Britain's leading science academy, to dismiss it as a recongnizable disease. I don't see why this should cause people to deny its existence, though, as the Times article I linked to does, as there are plenty of diseases or disorders that are exclusionary diagnoses (amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, or Lou Gehrig's disease, and sudden infant death syndrome come to mind).
According to the Royal Society, Gulf War Syndrome has not caused an increase in mortality amongst Gulf War veterans, which is a more important finding in terms of the syndrome's existence than an inability to find a single cause. Moreover, whether Gulf War Syndrome is fatal or not, the Royal Society not appear to deny that there is an increase in illness associated with the Gulf War.
Of course, it should be noted that the Royal Society has been receiving government funding since 1850, so it might be worthwhile to look over their methodology in erms of calculating fatalities to make certain that it wasn't spun so as to minimize the impact of the disease, in order to, you know, keep Mothe Empire with her purse strings happy.
Likewise, "I believe there is little value in conducting further research into the causes," as Professor Simon Wessely, Co-Director of Kings College Centre for Military Health Research, says, could be taken in several ways. Presumably, we are meant to assume that further research would be fruitless because the syndrome is too diffuse (which reminds me, are they looking for a common cause for the entire syndrome, or are they just looking for a common cause for the individual illnesses that make up the syndrome? I would seem more fruitful to look for common cause for common symptoms, but I am assuming they have done that). However, there could also be pressure from above not to investigate, or perhaps they there is little value in conducting further research because they keep hitting "classified information" walls.
Of course, perhaps they are being totally forthright, and there really is no particular illness except for those that are always associated with wars. But the possibility of cover-ups to protect the continued use of depleted uranium or to prevent leaks about government blunders is always in the back of my mind.
Thanx and a tip o' the hat to Scott Horton's The Stress Blog.
That is all.
Udolpho on Illegal Alienness
Udolpho, who has some good stuff when he's not trashing the eminently superior Mac OSX, has some good commentary on the recent pro-illegal-alien protests.
That is all.
That is all.
The Separation of Money and State
What went wrong with the United States? Empire and the loss of the gold standard (which go hand-in-hand), says Llewellyn Rockwell.
He reviews the book Empire of Debt, by William Bonner and Addison Wiggin. I think the points are well taken.
That is all.
He reviews the book Empire of Debt
, by William Bonner and Addison Wiggin. I think the points are well taken.That is all.
Saturday, March 25, 2006
From Russia, with Ambiguity
Jim Henley discusses the recent scandal involving the Russians giving (inaccurate, as it turns out) intelligence to Saddam Hussein at the beginning of the war.
That is all.
That is all.
Maintaining a Conviction Rate
This article about the reluctance to accept recanted testimony in a sexual abuse case reminds me of Paul Craig Robert's articles about how courts are driven to try to convict innocent people by the prosecutor's desire to have a good conviciton rate. Also see here and here.
Thanx and a tip o' the hat to IFeminists.
That is all.
Thanx and a tip o' the hat to IFeminists.
That is all.
I Haven't Forgotten You, Dear Reader
I've got one or two posts half-written, and another big one that I promised a few months ago (on "Citizenism") started, but it may be a while before I get them up. So here is an interesting article by Professor J. Philippe Rushton on geography and IQ in the meantime.
Before I get some of the major posts out, I may have several minor "link" posts, or even one or two short posts (i.e. 2 or 3 paragraphs) discussing topics that hit my fancy, but rest assured, I've got more major Glaivester analysis coming through the pipe.
That is all.
Before I get some of the major posts out, I may have several minor "link" posts, or even one or two short posts (i.e. 2 or 3 paragraphs) discussing topics that hit my fancy, but rest assured, I've got more major Glaivester analysis coming through the pipe.
That is all.
Friday, March 24, 2006
Thoughts
The continuing decrease in coalition fatalities over the past three months (which invalidates one of my predictions at the beginning of 2006), along with the increase in Iraqi fatalities, has led many neoconservatives to suggest that we are succeeding in the strategy of transferring the responsibility of fighting the war to the Iraqis. Charles Krauthammer suggests this in a recent article (I'll add more links as I find them).
The general attitude is reflected by Krauthammer's statement:
Does not everyone who wishes us well support the strategy of standing up the Iraqis so we can stand down? And does that not mean getting the Iraqis to fight the civil war themselves?
Hence the gradual transfer of war-making responsibility. Hence the decline of American casualties. Hence the rise of Iraqi casualties.
Well, just one little problem here. If you look at the Iraqi deaths during the war, you will find that monthly police/military fatalities peaked in July of 2005, and then went down steadily until they stabilized at just below 200/month in November (actual numbers, low of 158, high of 193). The recent increase in Iraqi fatalities [compared to the last three months of 2005) is almost entirely due to an increase in civilian fatalities (or at least in reported civilian fatalities). This suggests that what is happeing might be more of a slight abandonement of Iraqi civilians rather than the Iraqi police and military taking over effectively.
Another issue is that coalition casualties are not necessarily down as much, only coalition fatalities are. Although the final numbers for February have not been tabulated yet at ICasualties (and no numbers at all for March), coalition casualties have apparently increased recently, but they are of the non-fatal kind including woundings serious enough that the wounded soldiers cannot return to duty.
In any case, while my prediction has not come to pass per se (unless of course we have a huge number of fatalities over the next week), I still think that this lull in fatalities is a temporary one. That is, unless the coalition is willing to let Iraq go completely to pieces while staying behind in the bunkers.
So I wouldn't count on the ability of the new Iraqi forces to replace coalition forces just yet.
That is all.
The general attitude is reflected by Krauthammer's statement:
Does not everyone who wishes us well support the strategy of standing up the Iraqis so we can stand down? And does that not mean getting the Iraqis to fight the civil war themselves?
Hence the gradual transfer of war-making responsibility. Hence the decline of American casualties. Hence the rise of Iraqi casualties.
Well, just one little problem here. If you look at the Iraqi deaths during the war, you will find that monthly police/military fatalities peaked in July of 2005, and then went down steadily until they stabilized at just below 200/month in November (actual numbers, low of 158, high of 193). The recent increase in Iraqi fatalities [compared to the last three months of 2005) is almost entirely due to an increase in civilian fatalities (or at least in reported civilian fatalities). This suggests that what is happeing might be more of a slight abandonement of Iraqi civilians rather than the Iraqi police and military taking over effectively.
Another issue is that coalition casualties are not necessarily down as much, only coalition fatalities are. Although the final numbers for February have not been tabulated yet at ICasualties (and no numbers at all for March), coalition casualties have apparently increased recently, but they are of the non-fatal kind including woundings serious enough that the wounded soldiers cannot return to duty.
In any case, while my prediction has not come to pass per se (unless of course we have a huge number of fatalities over the next week), I still think that this lull in fatalities is a temporary one. That is, unless the coalition is willing to let Iraq go completely to pieces while staying behind in the bunkers.
So I wouldn't count on the ability of the new Iraqi forces to replace coalition forces just yet.
That is all.
Thursday, March 23, 2006
Thoughts on Victory
A quick perusal of the internet has not shown me anything I can link to, but I remember a few days ago seeing Michael Barone on a talk show, discussing what Bush needs to do to regain support for his presidency, in particular for his war in Iraq.
After some people suggested timetables , Barone's oh-so-helpful resposne was that Bus hought not to set any timetables (I don't recall if similar statements about benchmarks were brought up or not). But what Barone suggested Bush ought to do struck me as quite meaningless; although I suppose it might help Bush's poll numbers if we assume that large numbers of the American public are not particularly intelligent (which is probably accurate).
What Barone suggested is that Bush give regular (presumably weekly or monthly or somewhere in-between) progress reports on Iraq, mostly what we had accomplished since the last report, and, I suppose, some list of goals to be accomplished by the next one.
The problem with this, of course, is that in terms of revealing progress news like this is worthless without context; that is, it is not particularly useful to find out what has been accomplished unless we have an idea as to the parameters of the war and as to how this will bring us closer to the point at which we can reduce our military presence to a minimum without the country falling apart (which appears to be what victory means at this point - create an Iraq stable enough so that it can survive without the coalition providing active security - a small number of troops (<50,000) may be based in Iraq, but they ought not to be part of day-to-day domestic security).
That is why Arthur Chrenkoff's late, great, "Good News from Iraq" was so worthless. All it did was piece together a bunch of stories that showed isolated positive developments. It didn't show us what we wanted to know, which was, "how much longer? Are we any closer to Iraq being able to maintain its own security?"
That's why no one except the propagandists care about new schools being built or painted, why no one except the propagandists care about how many Iraqi newspapers open. That's why so many people don't really care about how many elections Iraq has. It doesn't tell us that the insurgency is dying, which is what we need to hear.
And talking about how many insurgents are being killed is not helpful unless you can show that the insurgents are not being regenerated from the ranks of disgruntled Sunnis and whatnot.
I don't watch episodes of South Park, but occasionally I linger a few seconds while flipping channels. I recall one episode where there were some gnomes who were stealing underwear as part of a three-part strategy:
1. Steal underwear
3. Profit
What step 2 was apparently eluded the gnomes. Likewise, the goal in Iraq is:
1. Hold elections
2. Uh...
3. Win
The "good news" that we keep being told that the media won't report amounts more or less to continually reiterating how well we are doing at step one of the plan. How that will be parlayed into victory (by which I mean the withdrawal of all coalition troops from active security without Iraq collapsing) has yet to be explained in any but the broadest terms (e.g. "as they stand up, we'll stand down).
That is all.
After some people suggested timetables , Barone's oh-so-helpful resposne was that Bus hought not to set any timetables (I don't recall if similar statements about benchmarks were brought up or not). But what Barone suggested Bush ought to do struck me as quite meaningless; although I suppose it might help Bush's poll numbers if we assume that large numbers of the American public are not particularly intelligent (which is probably accurate).
What Barone suggested is that Bush give regular (presumably weekly or monthly or somewhere in-between) progress reports on Iraq, mostly what we had accomplished since the last report, and, I suppose, some list of goals to be accomplished by the next one.
The problem with this, of course, is that in terms of revealing progress news like this is worthless without context; that is, it is not particularly useful to find out what has been accomplished unless we have an idea as to the parameters of the war and as to how this will bring us closer to the point at which we can reduce our military presence to a minimum without the country falling apart (which appears to be what victory means at this point - create an Iraq stable enough so that it can survive without the coalition providing active security - a small number of troops (<50,000) may be based in Iraq, but they ought not to be part of day-to-day domestic security).
That is why Arthur Chrenkoff's late, great, "Good News from Iraq" was so worthless. All it did was piece together a bunch of stories that showed isolated positive developments. It didn't show us what we wanted to know, which was, "how much longer? Are we any closer to Iraq being able to maintain its own security?"
That's why no one except the propagandists care about new schools being built or painted, why no one except the propagandists care about how many Iraqi newspapers open. That's why so many people don't really care about how many elections Iraq has. It doesn't tell us that the insurgency is dying, which is what we need to hear.
And talking about how many insurgents are being killed is not helpful unless you can show that the insurgents are not being regenerated from the ranks of disgruntled Sunnis and whatnot.
I don't watch episodes of South Park, but occasionally I linger a few seconds while flipping channels. I recall one episode where there were some gnomes who were stealing underwear as part of a three-part strategy:
1. Steal underwear
3. Profit
What step 2 was apparently eluded the gnomes. Likewise, the goal in Iraq is:
1. Hold elections
2. Uh...
3. Win
The "good news" that we keep being told that the media won't report amounts more or less to continually reiterating how well we are doing at step one of the plan. How that will be parlayed into victory (by which I mean the withdrawal of all coalition troops from active security without Iraq collapsing) has yet to be explained in any but the broadest terms (e.g. "as they stand up, we'll stand down).
That is all.
About the Balkans
More of that Steve Sailer good stuff.
(The middle link contains stuff about the Balkans, even if that is not primarily what it is about).
That is all.
(The middle link contains stuff about the Balkans, even if that is not primarily what it is about).
That is all.
Omega-3, the Magic Fat
Omega-3 fatty acids, found in fish such as herring (sardines), mackerel, and salmon, may help slow the spread of prostate cancer.
Which is why I am glad that I try to take cod liver oil at least once every few days. No word on whether Omega-3's from flax seed have the same effect, but I see no reason why not, provided the flax seed is properly broken down.
That is all.
Which is why I am glad that I try to take cod liver oil
at least once every few days. No word on whether Omega-3's from flax seed have the same effect, but I see no reason why not, provided the flax seed is properly broken down.That is all.
World War II May Have Been Necessary, but It Didn't Help the Economy
David Henderson addresses a particularly popular misconception amongst conservatives.
This is probably as common a fallacy as the alternative fallacy - believed by Democrats - that the New Deal is what got us out of the Depression.
That is all.
This is probably as common a fallacy as the alternative fallacy - believed by Democrats - that the New Deal is what got us out of the Depression.
That is all.
It's All Terrorism
This recent National Review piece about the ETA "permanent" ceasefire with Spain makes some interesting points, but I think that there is an important issue that is being overlooked, not only here but in all discussions of "appeasement" and "not giving terrorists what they want."
The subtitle of the article states that "There’s no such thing as a trustworthy terrorist." The problem with this statement, of course, is twofold: First, by "untrustworthy," what he really means is not that the terrorists can't be trusted to keep their word, but that they can't be trusted to agree to whatever terms we wish to set down for them; that is, we can't cajole them into abandoning their goals. A conditional cease-fire is a conditional cease-fire. In this context, "permanent" merely means that the terms of the deal will not be changed and that the ETA won't make the first move to breach the treaty; if Spain agrees to the terms and keeps its words, there will be peace. What Rafael L. Bardajà wants is for the ETA to agree to peace without any concessions from Spain, or else with concessions, but with the understanding that should Spain violate the treaty, they have no recourse but to sit and take it.
Second, there is the automatic assumption that there is something special about being a non-state actor, or an officially labled "terrorist" group that makes one untrustworthy. That states also can lie, cheat, give false impressions, and refuse to give up using violence to solve a particular situation does not occur to him, or at least not as a bad thing. That states expect to be appeased, and that they often use appeasement as a pretext to demand more concessions (think: the U.S.'s attitude toward Iraq in the 1990s) does not occur to him.
So now a point-by-point response.
This is not the first time ETA has declared a cease-fire. Each previous time, they eventually returned to their bombs and bullets. As it is, this current guarantee, this “permanent cease-fire,” is only a conditional one. ETA is exchanging peace for independence. The length of this cease-fire will depend on how eager the current socialist government in Madrid is to have it be permanent.
Well, yes, but let's be honest. This same rule applies to any conflict involving those who use violence, including states.
ETA has made this declaration because it believes it can best obtain its aims by leaving its weapons silenced for the time being. The terrorists have left violence aside, but not their weapons — nothing has been said about handing those over. There is no process of disarmament in sight because the government in Madrid is the side expected to be making the concessions, not the terrorists. The weapons will serve as a tool during the talks, and, if there is no final agreement, they will be put back to use.
Does anyone deny this? And ultimately, how is this significantly different from the what states do when they sign treaties, with the not-so-veiled threat that if the other country doesn't play along, they get bombed?
ETA is not a nihilist organization that seeks terror for its own sake. It has a political agenda, and its violent activities are always politically motivated.
What distinguishes it in the end from governments which do the same things?
The only way the current cease-fire will become permanent is if major concessions are granted by the Madrid government, and ETA is convinced that Basque independence is irreversible and near. ETA will win, and Spain will [sic] loose. And if the political talks fail, ETA will go back to its traditional policy of using car-bombs and other means of intimidation. For the terrorists, this is a win-win game.
Well, then, the question is whether losing the Basque provinces is worth it to stop the ETA. No different from a territorial dispute between states, really. Unless you believe that the ETA has grander plans than Basque separatism.
Talking with terrorists risks too much and gains little, if anything. Zapatero, the accidental prime minister of Spain, has given up the only important thing for dealing with terror: the position that terrorists will not gain anything from their actions and threats, and that their violent efforts are futile.
Saddam Hussein might say the same thing about talking with the U.S., which dishonestly pretending it was focusing on elimintaing Iraq's WMDs during the 1990s, when in reality the only thing that we were interested in was forcing a change in regime to one more congenial to our interests. And yet, we are supposed to find Saddam wicked and deceitful for supposedly not appeasing us.
Zapatero is willing to sell Spain for a temporary peace, when he should be striving to totally disband ETA. That is the way to bring peace; there is no terror when the terrorist organization no longer exists — not when the terrorists say so.
The issue is whether ETA's demands are reasonable. If not, then the only thing to do is to either (a) destroy them, or (b) find a compromise that you are willing to enforce with the threat of destruction. But I don't see why this makes the ETA any worse than nation-states at war who cannot yet come to a compromise. In any war, ceasefires and peace talks are only successful when each side finds an agreement it can live with; if they can't the war continues until either one side is totally destoryed or until the devastation of war brings one or the other side to reevaluate what is willing to give up on.
That is all.
The subtitle of the article states that "There’s no such thing as a trustworthy terrorist." The problem with this statement, of course, is twofold: First, by "untrustworthy," what he really means is not that the terrorists can't be trusted to keep their word, but that they can't be trusted to agree to whatever terms we wish to set down for them; that is, we can't cajole them into abandoning their goals. A conditional cease-fire is a conditional cease-fire. In this context, "permanent" merely means that the terms of the deal will not be changed and that the ETA won't make the first move to breach the treaty; if Spain agrees to the terms and keeps its words, there will be peace. What Rafael L. Bardajà wants is for the ETA to agree to peace without any concessions from Spain, or else with concessions, but with the understanding that should Spain violate the treaty, they have no recourse but to sit and take it.
Second, there is the automatic assumption that there is something special about being a non-state actor, or an officially labled "terrorist" group that makes one untrustworthy. That states also can lie, cheat, give false impressions, and refuse to give up using violence to solve a particular situation does not occur to him, or at least not as a bad thing. That states expect to be appeased, and that they often use appeasement as a pretext to demand more concessions (think: the U.S.'s attitude toward Iraq in the 1990s) does not occur to him.
So now a point-by-point response.
This is not the first time ETA has declared a cease-fire. Each previous time, they eventually returned to their bombs and bullets. As it is, this current guarantee, this “permanent cease-fire,” is only a conditional one. ETA is exchanging peace for independence. The length of this cease-fire will depend on how eager the current socialist government in Madrid is to have it be permanent.
Well, yes, but let's be honest. This same rule applies to any conflict involving those who use violence, including states.
ETA has made this declaration because it believes it can best obtain its aims by leaving its weapons silenced for the time being. The terrorists have left violence aside, but not their weapons — nothing has been said about handing those over. There is no process of disarmament in sight because the government in Madrid is the side expected to be making the concessions, not the terrorists. The weapons will serve as a tool during the talks, and, if there is no final agreement, they will be put back to use.
Does anyone deny this? And ultimately, how is this significantly different from the what states do when they sign treaties, with the not-so-veiled threat that if the other country doesn't play along, they get bombed?
ETA is not a nihilist organization that seeks terror for its own sake. It has a political agenda, and its violent activities are always politically motivated.
What distinguishes it in the end from governments which do the same things?
The only way the current cease-fire will become permanent is if major concessions are granted by the Madrid government, and ETA is convinced that Basque independence is irreversible and near. ETA will win, and Spain will [sic] loose. And if the political talks fail, ETA will go back to its traditional policy of using car-bombs and other means of intimidation. For the terrorists, this is a win-win game.
Well, then, the question is whether losing the Basque provinces is worth it to stop the ETA. No different from a territorial dispute between states, really. Unless you believe that the ETA has grander plans than Basque separatism.
Talking with terrorists risks too much and gains little, if anything. Zapatero, the accidental prime minister of Spain, has given up the only important thing for dealing with terror: the position that terrorists will not gain anything from their actions and threats, and that their violent efforts are futile.
Saddam Hussein might say the same thing about talking with the U.S., which dishonestly pretending it was focusing on elimintaing Iraq's WMDs during the 1990s, when in reality the only thing that we were interested in was forcing a change in regime to one more congenial to our interests. And yet, we are supposed to find Saddam wicked and deceitful for supposedly not appeasing us.
Zapatero is willing to sell Spain for a temporary peace, when he should be striving to totally disband ETA. That is the way to bring peace; there is no terror when the terrorist organization no longer exists — not when the terrorists say so.
The issue is whether ETA's demands are reasonable. If not, then the only thing to do is to either (a) destroy them, or (b) find a compromise that you are willing to enforce with the threat of destruction. But I don't see why this makes the ETA any worse than nation-states at war who cannot yet come to a compromise. In any war, ceasefires and peace talks are only successful when each side finds an agreement it can live with; if they can't the war continues until either one side is totally destoryed or until the devastation of war brings one or the other side to reevaluate what is willing to give up on.
That is all.
Wednesday, March 22, 2006
Addding to My Blogroll
Sixteen Volts is now on my blogroll. It is the blog of Ilkka Kokkarinen. I'm not certain that I can say anything definite about the blo's theme, other than that it is usually very interesting.
That is all.
That is all.
How to Have Secure Computers
Don't send computer viruses.
If you have an idea for a fun Trojan horse, don't send it.
If you have an idea for a virus, don't send it.
If you have a great idea for a worm, don't send it.
If you think you have a way to get someone's information by using spyware, don't do it.
Don't tell people to get anti-virus software.
Don't tell people not to open suspicious emails.
Don't tell people to install security updates.
Don't suggest that it is your responsibility to protect yourself from computer viruses.
Don't perpetuate a "hacker culture" by telling people that anyone except those who write computer viruses have any responsibility for stopping them.
Consider these ideas for a moment, then read this (note: link is dead - 09/16/09).
That is all.
If you have an idea for a fun Trojan horse, don't send it.
If you have an idea for a virus, don't send it.
If you have a great idea for a worm, don't send it.
If you think you have a way to get someone's information by using spyware, don't do it.
Don't tell people to get anti-virus software.
Don't tell people not to open suspicious emails.
Don't tell people to install security updates.
Don't suggest that it is your responsibility to protect yourself from computer viruses.
Don't perpetuate a "hacker culture" by telling people that anyone except those who write computer viruses have any responsibility for stopping them.
Consider these ideas for a moment, then read this (note: link is dead - 09/16/09).
That is all.
Be Careful What You Wish For
James Robbins wonders why the administration isn't doing more to publish/publicize the documents it captured when conquering (sorry, liberating) Iraq. I notice that one possibility that he doesn't mention is that perhaps the documents do not prove what he wants them to prove.
In fact, Jim Henley has indicated that he suspects that the documents, properly analyzed, will reveal that weapons inspections were intended to help bring about covert regime change, and that Iraq's WMDs were merely a pretext. If some of the documents would indicate that, then perhaps he would be happier if they didn't come to light.
That is all.
In fact, Jim Henley has indicated that he suspects that the documents, properly analyzed, will reveal that weapons inspections were intended to help bring about covert regime change, and that Iraq's WMDs were merely a pretext. If some of the documents would indicate that, then perhaps he would be happier if they didn't come to light.
That is all.
Tuesday, March 21, 2006
So We Brought Freedom to Afghanistan, Did We?
So a man is on death row for being a Christian? I thought we were supposed to have made Afghanistan a freer country?
Granted, I'm glad we went in and taught the Taliban a lesson about supporting Al Qaeda (or if the Taliban were Al Qaeda's creature, then we effectively attacked Usama directly - nothing wrong with that). But if this doesn't put paid to the idea that Afghanistan is a model of successful nation-building that can be applied to Iraq, at least it creates grave doubts, or should do so, if we aren't brainless morons.
The man in question is named Abdul Rahman, and is being tried for his life on the charge of "attacking Islam." I say we put the people in power who decreed this. We should find the people who can get him off, and politely tell them that he gets off, or they die.
“The Attorney-General is emphasising he should be hung,” Judge Alhaj Ansarullah Mawlawy Zada, who will be trying his case, told The Times. “It is a crime to convert to Christianity from Islam. He is teasing and insulting his family by converting. In your country (Britain) two women can marry; that is very strange. In this country we have the perfect constitution, it is Islamic law and it is illegal to be a Christian and it should be punished.”
I think we ought to ask Judge Zada what he thinks about using lit sticks of TNT as suppositories. Same goes for the Attorney-General. Not that I support interference in other countries' policies per se, but we're there, we put them in power, we're somewhat responsible for their being there, and they owe us. So it's not a bad idea to give them a reminder of that fact.
Better yet, we ought to consider pulling out and letting the wogs take care of their own security. I have no problem with seeing how well they do against the Taliban without their help. If the Taliban can conquer them, let them. We have no interest in keeping the current brood of kleptocrats in power. Our only interest is in preventing the Taliban from staying in power. So if they do take over, we bomb them again.
I don't care who is in power, as lopng as (a) it's not the Taliban, and (b) we are not actively supporting them if they are behaving evilly. As I doubt that there are non-evil groups in Afghanistan that are likely to come innto power, our best bet is to avoid supporting any side and simply to destroy the ones that threaten us, letting the current government and/or whatever governments may replace it fend for themselves.
That is all.
Granted, I'm glad we went in and taught the Taliban a lesson about supporting Al Qaeda (or if the Taliban were Al Qaeda's creature, then we effectively attacked Usama directly - nothing wrong with that). But if this doesn't put paid to the idea that Afghanistan is a model of successful nation-building that can be applied to Iraq, at least it creates grave doubts, or should do so, if we aren't brainless morons.
The man in question is named Abdul Rahman, and is being tried for his life on the charge of "attacking Islam." I say we put the people in power who decreed this. We should find the people who can get him off, and politely tell them that he gets off, or they die.
“The Attorney-General is emphasising he should be hung,” Judge Alhaj Ansarullah Mawlawy Zada, who will be trying his case, told The Times. “It is a crime to convert to Christianity from Islam. He is teasing and insulting his family by converting. In your country (Britain) two women can marry; that is very strange. In this country we have the perfect constitution, it is Islamic law and it is illegal to be a Christian and it should be punished.”
I think we ought to ask Judge Zada what he thinks about using lit sticks of TNT as suppositories. Same goes for the Attorney-General. Not that I support interference in other countries' policies per se, but we're there, we put them in power, we're somewhat responsible for their being there, and they owe us. So it's not a bad idea to give them a reminder of that fact.
Better yet, we ought to consider pulling out and letting the wogs take care of their own security. I have no problem with seeing how well they do against the Taliban without their help. If the Taliban can conquer them, let them. We have no interest in keeping the current brood of kleptocrats in power. Our only interest is in preventing the Taliban from staying in power. So if they do take over, we bomb them again.
I don't care who is in power, as lopng as (a) it's not the Taliban, and (b) we are not actively supporting them if they are behaving evilly. As I doubt that there are non-evil groups in Afghanistan that are likely to come innto power, our best bet is to avoid supporting any side and simply to destroy the ones that threaten us, letting the current government and/or whatever governments may replace it fend for themselves.
That is all.
To-Hell-With-Them
John Derbyshire explains an interesting theory of war, that I to some extent concur with. I am not as eager and willing to threaten other countries and to "bomb them back into the stone age" in order to get our way, but I think it a more prudent policy than what I refer to as "messianic democratism," the current strategy.
The one problem I have with the article is that Mr. Derbyshire repeats what I consider to be a common canard regarding the comparisons of Germany/Japan after World War II and Iraq:
I don’t find any of these historical analogies persuasive. Postwar Germany and Japan were wrecked societies to which we had applied the “Bomb Them Back To The Stone Age” doctrine (hereinafter BTBTTSA) that Rich sneers at elsewhere in his article.
In other words, the major reason why Japan and Germany are different is in what we did to them, not in who they were. To be fair, I don't think this is exactly what Derbyshire believes, but it is what he is indirectly (and perhaps unintentionally) saying. Taken literally, this would imply that were we to bomb Iraq a little more and be a little more callous in regards to the loss of Iraqi life (or perhaps even go so far as to embrace it), we could pull of what we did in Germany and Japan.
The fact of the matter is, of course, that Germany and Japan were totally different societies from Iraq, or indeed the entire Middle East, and regardless of how we defeat them, that fact will no change. Germany and Japan were highly industrialized countries with lots of high IQ people and cultures that promoted devotion to teh country as or more importantly than devotion to one's clan. Iraqis may well be incapable of democracy on their own, at least incapable of it under the current culture and their current multiethnic makeup.
So the idea that the major obstacle to democratizing Iraq is U.S. unwillingness to be sufficiently vicious is a rather naive one, in my opinion, as well as one that tend s to gloss over the actual differences of different peoples. Seeing as Derbyshire believes in the differences of different peoples (he mentions so in his piece) I can only imagine that he neglected to point out the cultural differences between the Midle East and the Axis as being relevant to democratization because he was concerned with other issues.
That is all.
The one problem I have with the article is that Mr. Derbyshire repeats what I consider to be a common canard regarding the comparisons of Germany/Japan after World War II and Iraq:
I don’t find any of these historical analogies persuasive. Postwar Germany and Japan were wrecked societies to which we had applied the “Bomb Them Back To The Stone Age” doctrine (hereinafter BTBTTSA) that Rich sneers at elsewhere in his article.
In other words, the major reason why Japan and Germany are different is in what we did to them, not in who they were. To be fair, I don't think this is exactly what Derbyshire believes, but it is what he is indirectly (and perhaps unintentionally) saying. Taken literally, this would imply that were we to bomb Iraq a little more and be a little more callous in regards to the loss of Iraqi life (or perhaps even go so far as to embrace it), we could pull of what we did in Germany and Japan.
The fact of the matter is, of course, that Germany and Japan were totally different societies from Iraq, or indeed the entire Middle East, and regardless of how we defeat them, that fact will no change. Germany and Japan were highly industrialized countries with lots of high IQ people and cultures that promoted devotion to teh country as or more importantly than devotion to one's clan. Iraqis may well be incapable of democracy on their own, at least incapable of it under the current culture and their current multiethnic makeup.
So the idea that the major obstacle to democratizing Iraq is U.S. unwillingness to be sufficiently vicious is a rather naive one, in my opinion, as well as one that tend s to gloss over the actual differences of different peoples. Seeing as Derbyshire believes in the differences of different peoples (he mentions so in his piece) I can only imagine that he neglected to point out the cultural differences between the Midle East and the Axis as being relevant to democratization because he was concerned with other issues.
That is all.
Female-on-Male Statutory Rape
Charges against ephebophilic* teacher Deb LaFave were dropped today. I'll have to try to write something up on the general issue of female-on-male statutory rape. In the meantime, here is a previous post on the topic.
That is all.
*Ephebophilic - describes an adult who is attracted to underage adolescents.
That is all.
*Ephebophilic - describes an adult who is attracted to underage adolescents.
Sully is Nearly Right
Sully posts something Bruce Bartlett said about Bush and loyalty over at his blog.
One thing he says though, that may be based more on myth than fact:
"Part of this may be due to the fact that Bush is personally a nice guy. Many people like him too much to tell him what a shambles his presidency has become to his face."
Well, look at this quote from a Steve Sailer reader after Bush's nasty performance on the first debate:
"I definitely agree with the reader who said that Bush takes after his mother. Barbara Bush definitely has a reputation behind the scenes as a pretty nasty and unforgiving person. I think that her fairly good reputation with the public is based on a) Nancy Regan was so reviled in many quarters that her successor was bound to be positively contrasted with her, whether accurately or not and b) She wrote a book and said her dog wrote it, which was regarded as cute."
That is all.
One thing he says though, that may be based more on myth than fact:
"Part of this may be due to the fact that Bush is personally a nice guy. Many people like him too much to tell him what a shambles his presidency has become to his face."
Well, look at this quote from a Steve Sailer reader after Bush's nasty performance on the first debate:
"I definitely agree with the reader who said that Bush takes after his mother. Barbara Bush definitely has a reputation behind the scenes as a pretty nasty and unforgiving person. I think that her fairly good reputation with the public is based on a) Nancy Regan was so reviled in many quarters that her successor was bound to be positively contrasted with her, whether accurately or not and b) She wrote a book and said her dog wrote it, which was regarded as cute."
That is all.
Monday, March 20, 2006
Charlie's Dad and the Toothpaste Factory
I recently watched Charlie and the Chocolate Factory (i.e., the updated movie) on video. I couldn't help but notice a very interesting, pro-capitalistic element in the movie. There be spoilers ahead.
Toward the beginning of the movie, Charlie's family appears to be all but ruined when a new machine is added to the toothpaste factory, making Mr. Bucket's (Charlie's dad's) job obsolete, and resulting in his being laid off.
After Charlie wins the prize, and rejects it becuse Willy Wonka would force him to forsake his family, we learn that Charlie's dad now has managed to get a new, better job at the factory, repairing and maintaining the machine that replaced him.
Which is, in the final analysis, the way things ought to be.
That is all.
(i.e., the updated movie) on video. I couldn't help but notice a very interesting, pro-capitalistic element in the movie. There be spoilers ahead.Toward the beginning of the movie, Charlie's family appears to be all but ruined when a new machine is added to the toothpaste factory, making Mr. Bucket's (Charlie's dad's) job obsolete, and resulting in his being laid off.
After Charlie wins the prize, and rejects it becuse Willy Wonka would force him to forsake his family, we learn that Charlie's dad now has managed to get a new, better job at the factory, repairing and maintaining the machine that replaced him.
Which is, in the final analysis, the way things ought to be.
That is all.
Thoughts on Brokeback
Perhaps my fellow evangelicals and I have been too hard on Brokeback Mountain. Let's remember, these are shepherds we're talking about. Maybe rather than being upset at the pro-gay story, we should be relieved that there wasn't a love triangle subplot involving the boys and one of their sheep.
That is all.
That is all.
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