Judicious Asininity

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Thu Dec 30, 2004

Iraqi Sunni Muslims should be glad Bush won

Otherwise, they would be in deep trouble

Saddam's main defense against a US attack was not a conventional military response. It wasn't a WMD response either, although that was what he had threatened and US forces had expected, much to their discomfort. Saddam's ultimate strategy was to lie low until the American military had swept through Iraq and then respond using terrorist tactics perfected by Islamic and other terrorist movements over the last half century. That strategy found willing allies in Al Qaeda and the various terrorist organizations linked to it.

America had demonstrated its strategic weakness in Vietnam and across the Muslim world from the 1970s through 9/11, i.e., inflict enough American casualties and American public opinion, shaped by MSM outlets reporting all the bad news and nothing but the bad news, will demand a withdrawal.

But, while Saddam's guerilla war has had MSM pundits and its Democrat allies screaming "quagmire" and "Vietnam again", the reality is that Saddam's forces and allies have already been ground down to a point of no return.

Had Kerry, the ultimate exemplar of a "withdraw no matter what" strategy, won in 2004, then the US would have withdrawn from Iraq as shamefully as it withdrew from South Vietnam. But that would not have helped the Baathists and their Al Qaeda allies. They would then have faced the wrath of the Kurds, the Shiites and the Sunni tribes that suffered under Saddam. The rules of engagement that the US scrupulously observes would have been ignored. Merely belonging to the wrong Sunni tribe would bring retribution.

The result: a short but bloody war that the bad guys and any Sunnis remotely associated with them would not live through.

But Bush is determined to create a civil society in Iraq. Defeating the bad guys, and just the bad guys, while pouring billions of dollars into Iraqi infrastructure will lead to a better outcome for all Iraqis. The average Sunni should be thankful that Bush is in charge.

Unlike South Vietnam, there is no North Vietnam army, backed by the Soviet Union and Communist China, poised to takeover when America bails out. That is the fundamental flaw in Saddam's strategy.

Wed Dec 29, 2004

Spare a thought for Aceh

It suffered the most but the media can't get there to report it

This Guardian report hints at the catastrophe near the epicenter:

Aceh, on the northern tip of Sumatra, was the area most devastated by the tsunami, which struck coastal communities from Somalia to Thailand on Sunday, killing an estimated 70,000 people. Indonesian soldiers and rescue crews have found at least 3,400 bodies in Meulaboh, which is 90 miles from the epicentre of the 9.0 magnitude earthquake.

"Today, so far, 3,400 bodies have been found in Meulaboh. Eighty percent of the buildings are wrecked," the chief security minister, Widodo Adi Sutjipto, told reporters.

Three quarters of the western coastline of Sumatra island has been destroyed, with some towns being totally wiped out in Sunday's disaster, a military official said. "The damage is truly devastating," said Major General Endang Suwarya, the military commander of Aceh province, who toured the coast by helicopter today.

Link from Instapundit in case you missed it.

Tue Dec 28, 2004

Bin Ladin views Iraq as the major batteground in his religious War against the US

Quick, someone tell the MSM

According to Radical Islam's propaganda outlet, Aljazeera:

Usama bin Ladin has called for a boycott of next month's elections in Iraq and endorsed Abu Musab al-Zarqawi as his deputy in the country, according to an audiotape broadcast by Aljazeera.

Airing parts of bin Ladin's speech on Monday, the message condemned the 30 January elections to elect a national assembly that will draft a new constitution.

"In the balance of Islam, this constitution is infidel and therefore everyone who participates in this election will be considered an infidel," he said.

"Beware of henchmen who speak in the name of Islamic parties and groups who urge people to participate" in the election.

He also described al-Zarqawi as the "amir" of al-Qaida in Iraq and called upon Muslims there "to listen to him".

Bin Ladin added his al-Zarqawi announcement was "a great step on the path of unifying all the mujahidin in establishing the state of righteousness and ending the state of injustice".

Bin Ladin knows that transforming Iraq into a working democracy will be a major defeat for the forces of Radical Islam. His strategy is to create enough mayhem there that the US public will demand a withdrawal. The MSM's war against Bush and its consistent reporting of all the bad news and nothing but the bad news from Iraq is making Bin Ladin's much easier.

Thankfully, Bush is standing firm. Nothing demonstrates that more than his support for Rumsfeld.

QandO has more thoughts on Bin Ladin's speech. Desperation comes to mind.

Sun Dec 26, 2004

An observation on the mess hall bombing

Better a tent than a reinforced bunker

The first reports on the attack suggested that it was a rocket and/or mortar attack. This report was typical:

Days before the hardened dining hall was scheduled to be completed, a 122 mm rocket slammed into the tent at Forward Operating Base Marez near Mosul where hundreds of troops were sitting down to lunch.

Twenty-two Americans were killed, including 20 Americans, said Army Capt. Brian Lucas, a spokesman for U.S. military headquarters in Baghdad. The toll included 15 military service members and five civilians, as well as two Iraqi security force members. More than 60 were wounded, including U.S. troops, civilian workers and Iraqi soldiers.

It turns out that the attack was carried out by a suicide bomber. Horrific as the attack was, it would have been worse had it happened in a reinforced bunker. The ceilings and walls of the bunker would have reflected the force of the blast and the shrapnel would have ricocheted, causing further casualties.

The American people can thank the Palestinians for the design of attacker's suicide vest. The technology had been tested on Israeli civilians and has spread to other Muslim terrorist groups. How long before such attacks are launched on American soil?

Thu Dec 23, 2004

Do those dour athiests and agnostics need their own holy day?

Maybe they'd be more relaxed about Christmas if they did

Charles Krauthammer is Jewish, but he appreciates Christmas.

I personally like Christmas because, since it is a day that for me is otherwise ordinary, I get to do nice things, such as covering for as many gentile colleagues as I could when I was a doctor at Massachusetts General Hospital. I will admit that my generosity had its rewards: I collected enough chits on Christmas Day to get reciprocal coverage not just for Yom Kippur but for both days of Rosh Hashana and my other major holiday, Opening Day at Fenway.

His prayers were answered this year and, likely, Hell froze over.

I love Christmas and I'm not religious. For me, it is a time for appreciating the gift of family and friends, and a time to reflect on Christ's message of brotherly love. It celebrates the birth of Christ and the great religion that bears his name. I don't have to believe in his divinity to appreciate that his message has been a force for good in this world.

It so happens that other religions have holy days in the general vicinity of Christmas. But there are no holy days for non-believers. Some of them feel left out and sue if they see any reference to Christianity in a public setting. Maybe they'd all calm down if they had their own holy day. Let's give them Boxing Day. It's a British thing which translates into another day off after Christmas. It's close to Christmas so they can share in the holiday season along with everybody else.

But don't say "Happy Holidays" to them, or they'll sue. Holiday is a contraction of Holy Day and that's obviously religious and should never be used in public. Oops to all those PC types who'd rather we said "Happy Holidays" than "Merry Christmas".

So here's my proposition. We give all the non-believers Boxing Day as their (un)holi-day off. The quid pro quo is they lay off of Christmas and everyone else's holy days.

Wed Dec 22, 2004

Wine stopper technology

Corks are going away

Chateau Cardboard has been around for decades since those cunning Aussies figured out how to put reasonable plonk in plastic bags. But better wine still comes in bottles. Unfortunately, natural corks have a nasty habit of spoiling the wine. Irradiation would kill the moulds that cause the spoilage but consumers have been scared off that technology by greenie scaremongering. That leaves the wine industry with a major problem: up to 10% of bottles are off.

So we are seeing new techniques being used to solve the problem. Screw caps work well, but they still have a down-market image. Think Thunderbird. Plastic corks are another approach. Sometimes they are harder to get out than natural corks. On the other hand, they never break or crumble. There's nothing worse than straining a good wine through a coffee filter because the cork disintegrated.

The latest Aussie innovation is the Zork. It's a reusable plastic stopper held on by an easily removed plastic seal. The stopper is made of a flexible plastic. Pushing it in causes it to flex and seal the bottle. It comes out again with a nice little pop. We found it used on a nice little Aussie Cabernet made by Red Knot.

Best of all, it's not Spanish or French (got to get the political angle in there).

Tue Dec 21, 2004

The War is far from over

Not the War against Radical Islam...

... but the Left's War against President Bush.

It seems the Left is following Saddam's strategy - lose the big war (the election) but fight a rearguard war of attrition to wear down the victor, destroy the morale of his supporters and bend him to your will.

The latest battle zone has been Donald Rumsfeld. The strategy is to force Rumsfeld's resignation and thus undermine the President. When Powell left and Rumsfeld stayed, the Left opened fire on Rumsfeld. Their battle opened with a salvo of columns and editorials deriding Rumsfeld for conducting the wrong war in the wrong way.

The Humvee armor hoax helped sustain the initial attack. Never mind that it was a hoax; the MSM sensed blood and pushed the story as if it was all Rumsfeld's fault. As that story ran out of steam, the Left tried a variant of their previous line of attack -- focus on U.S. casualties and Rumsfeld's role. First it was wanting to photograph the flag draped coffins. Now it's the Autopen controversy. Hindrocket at Power Line deals with that issue by quoting a letter from a military father. Here's a snippet:

Sec Rumsfeld doesn't need to take time from his day to sign a form letter of condolence and he certainly doesn't need to take time to figure out what the LCpl was doing when he was killed or what kind of a man he was. His job is to make sure the LCpl didn't die in vain and that only as few LCpl's as possible will have to die to end this war in a successful manner.

Don't get me wrong, we would appreciate the condolence letter from the SecDef, as well as one from the White House and from our Senator and Representative, from the Mayor and Governor. But none would bring back our son. And they are all form letters, signatures be damned. A letter from his 1stSgt, from the men we know in his unit would be a treasure and a comfort.

The other line of attack is to criticise the treatment of captured terrorists. The Left conveniently forgets that the enemy does everything that the Geneva conventions prohibit. 2slick reprints an important speech by Haim Harari, a theoretical physicist. On the evil of the enemy, Harari asks:

Do you raid a mosque, which serves as a terrorist ammunition storage? Do you return fire, if you are attacked from a hospital? Do you storm a church taken over by terrorists who took the priests hostages? Do you search every ambulance after a few suicide murderers use ambulances to reach their targets? Do you strip every woman because one pretended to be pregnant and carried a suicide bomb on her belly? Do you shoot back at someone trying to kill you, standing deliberately behind a group of children? Do you raid terrorist headquarters, hidden in a mental hospital? Do you shoot an arch-murderer who deliberately moves from one location to another, always surrounded by children?

Islamic terrorists are unlawful combatants under the Geneva conventions. In my view, they forfeit their human rights when they fly civilian aircraft filled with civilians into civilian buildings; when they drive suicide car bombs into crowds of Iraqi school children; when they hack the heads off civilian workers; when they fake surrenders; when they booby-trap bodies; when they sabotage every effort to build a better life for ordinary Iraqis. But the Left would prefer we not dwell on the evil of the enemy but rather focus on the mishaps that can be blamed on Bush and his team.

The usual gang of terrorist sympathizers can always be rounded up to paint all US actions as violations of terrorist's human rights. The lowest of the low are the anonymous leakers feeding the NYT and WPO with every damaging memo that comes their way. If none come their way the more enterprising write their own to leak. Then we have Amnesty International, The International Red Cross, Human Rights Watch, the ACLU and the rest telling the world that the US is a fascist dictatorship because sometimes terrorists are not treated very nicely. Of course, when the US is nice and releases some of them, they go back to their old terrorist ways. It would have been more effective in the calculus of human lives lost to have shot the lot instead.

The Left's war on Bush is having an impact. People who see none of the good news and all of the bad news every night on every news channel and every front page will understandably come to believe it's a losing battle. We humble bloggers have our work cut out for us. Thank God for the Wall Street Journal making blogger Chrenkoff's Good News from Iraq a regular feature.

Sun Dec 19, 2004

How the Left demonizes leading conservatives

An oft repeated lie becomes the "truth"

Edward Lee Pitts of the Chattanooga Times Free Press subverted a question and answer session in Kuwait to plant a question about armoring Humvees that was designed to embarrass Rumsfeld. The MSM ignored everything else from the session and focused on that one question, turning it into a referendum on Rumsfeld's competence. Powerline reports on a DOD briefing that claims virtually all deployed the Humvees had been armored when the question was asked. Despite that, the Democrats still ask for Rumsfeld's resignation. Will the MSM give the DOD briefing the same space as the furore generated by the original question? You already know the answer: when Hell freezes over.

This story is just one of a long line of stories blaming every problem in Iraq and Afghanistan on Rumsfeld. Abu Ghraib generated the most stories along these lines. Clinton W. Taylor writing in NRO puts Abu Ghraid in perspective:

In fact, the connection between the abuse of prisoners and Rumsfeld's leadership is so attenuated as to be farcical. It's like calling for Transportation Secretary Norman Mineta's resignation because the baggage handlers at Denver stole your golf clubs.

Informed observers know that these stories about Rumsfeld's alleged incompetence are nothing more than political propaganda. The MSM knows it, too. But the cumulative effect of these stories is to create an aura of incompetence about Rumsfeld. The MSM knows that, too. That's why they do it.

We've seen the same techniques applied to the Swift Vets (lying Rove operatives), Condoleeza Rice (unsourced criticsm of her competence and racist cartoons), Clarence Thomas (start with Anita Hill and head downhill), Dick Cheney (heart problems and Haliburton) and Bush himself. His verbal ineptitude is taken as proof positive that he is little more than a trained chimpanzee responding to the commands of a neo-conservative cabal.

In a free society, there is no way to stop such demonization. But it can be exposed. Bloggers can do it. Email can do it. Letters to the Editor can do it. Most of all, the victims should respond more aggressively. The Humvee Armor story is a hoax. The DOD should respond to every question vaguely related to that subject by cataloguing the MSM's failure to report the facts. Name names. Say "The New York Times failed to report that at the time the question was asked the unit had 784 of its 804 vehicles armored and the rest were armored the next day on schedule. Before I answer your question, can you confirm that your organization gave equal space to the facts of the case?" That would make for a fun press conference.

Are we at war or what?

The treatment of 656th Transportation Company of Springfield is appalling

This Newsmax Report gives the gist of the story. Like good soldiers throughout history they scrounged the equipment they needed to get the job done.

Members of the 656th Transportation Company, based in Springfield, west of Columbus, said they needed the equipment to deliver fuel that was needed by U.S. forces in Iraq for everything from helicopters to tanks.

The reservists took two tractor-trailers and stripped parts from a five-ton truck that had been abandoned in Kuwait by other units that had already moved into Iraq, one of the reservists, Darrell Birt of Columbus, told The Associated Press on Sunday.

Birt, a former chief warrant officer, and the others were charged with theft, destruction of Army property and conspiracy to cover up their crimes. Birt said he and two others pleaded guilty and the other three were convicted. All received six-month sentences.

"Nobody ever reported these trucks stolen. The deal was, when you are moving, if it was going to take more than 30 minutes to fix it, you left it," said Birt, who was released in November. "I'm a Christian man, and I can't ignore what we did, but it was justified to get us in the fight and to sustain the fight."

Compare and contrast with the treatment of soldiers who did not want to do their duty. From the same NewsMax report:

Last week, the military said it would not court-martial any of 23 other Army reservists who refused a mission transporting fuel along a dangerous road in Iraq, complaining that their vehicles in poor condition and did not have armor.

So, the soldiers covered up the fact that they had to scrounge the equipment they needed to fulfill their mission. They only needed to do that because the US military has become such a hidebound bureaucracy that the soldiers knew they'd be in trouble if their resourcefulness was exposed. It seems the Pentagon would rather soldiers disobeyed orders rather than get the job done.

The Pentagon would do well to pin this letter written by the Duke of Wellington to every noticeboard that it commands:

MESSAGE FROM THE DUKE OF WELLINGTON TO THE BRITISH FOREIGN OFFICE IN
LONDON -- written from Central Spain, August 1812

Gentlemen,

Whilst marching from Portugal to a position which commands the approach to Madrid and the French forces, my officers have been diligently complying with your requests which have been sent by H.M. ship from London to Lisbon and thence by dispatch to our headquarters.

We have enumerated our saddles, bridles, tents and tent poles, and all manner of sundry items for which His Majesty's Government holds me accountable. I have dispatched reports on the character, wit, and spleen of every officer. Each item and every farthing has been accounted for, with two regrettable exceptions for which I beg your indulgence.

Unfortunately the sum of one shilling and ninepence remains unaccounted for in one infantry battalion's petty cash and there has been a hideous confusion as the number of jars of raspberry jam issued to one cavalry regiment during a sandstorm in western Spain. This
reprehensible carelessness may be related to the pressure of circumstance, since we are at war with France, a fact which may come as a bit of a surprise to you gentlemen in Whitehall.

This brings me to my present purpose, which is to request elucidation of my instructions from His Majesty's Government so that I may better understand why I am dragging an army over these barren plains. I construe that perforce it must be one of two alternative duties, as given below. I shall pursue either one with the best of my ability, but I cannot do both:

1. To train an army of uniformed British clerks in Spain for the benefit of the accountants and copy-boys in London or perchance,

2. To see to it that the forces of Napoleon are driven out of Spain.

Your most obedient servant

Wellington

We face the same choices: to pursue the war against radical Islam and its state sponsors as vigorously as possible, or hand control of the military to a politically correct bureaucracy more concerned about minutiae than winning. To put it more succinctly, do we want to fight like Rumsfeld or appease like Mineta?

Sat Dec 18, 2004

Immigration Reform

Because It Needs Doing

Mickey Kaus puts the issue into a bit of perspective:

But what's so terrible about being anti-immgration? If you weren't for open borders before the terrorist threat emerged, then there must have been some underlying reason--a reason like boosting low-end wages, assuring assimilation, preserving culture, controlling extremes of income inequality, or preventing a Quebec-like situation. If those are permissable justifications for limiting immigration, it should be equally permissable to say "I think the limits are being reached." And if that's "anti-immigration"--or even "anti-immigrant"--so be it. During the pre-1996 welfare debate, defenders of the welfare system charged that reform advocates wanted to "stigmatize" those on welfare. To which the best response was: "And you're point is ... " That's also the best response to the "anti-iimmigration" charge, it seems to me. ...

Exactly

Thu Dec 16, 2004

The Democrats can no longer be trusted with US secrets

Roosevelt, Truman and Kennedy must be turning in their graves

The Washington Post reports that the leaking of information about a top secret stealth satellite program is being investigated:

The National Reconnaissance Office has asked the Justice Department to consider opening a criminal investigation into recent disclosures about a highly classified satellite program that has prompted criticism in Congress because of escalating costs, two administration officials said yesterday.

The Justice Department and the FBI are reviewing the request to determine whether classified information was leaked and whether there is enough evidence to support a criminal probe, officials said.

The leaked information reveals that the US has a top secret plan to deploy stealth satellites that can't be detected by our enemies. This overcomes the greatest problem with current satellite technology; our enemies know when they are being observed and wait until the satellites are out of range before doing such things as shipping supplies to secret nuclear weapons facilities. Thanks to some Democrat senators, who would rather hurt the President than our enemies, the top secret program is now open knowledge.

Jeff Babbin at The American Spectator has more:

As a result of their revelations to the public and the press, three U.S. Senators -- Sens. Jay Rockefeller (D-W.Va.), who's also the ranking Dem on the Senate Intelligence Committee, Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) and Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) -- are the subject of a "criminal referral" made on Monday for speaking publicly about this satellite. Such referrals are made to the Justice Department by the administration when criminal conduct is suspected. In this case, it's not only suspected, it's evidenced on the front pages of the New York Times and the Washington Post. A highly reliable intelligence community source told me that the referral had been made because senior administration officials were beside themselves that the three had taken the controversy on funding this project to the press.

Babbin is not happy about what these senators have done:

First and foremost, the senators and staffers involved (and, for good measure, Sen. Shelby and any of his people who were included in the earlier criminal referral) should have their security clearances suspended during the period of the investigation. If that leaves a gap on the Senate intel committee, it can be quickly and easily filled by other senators and staff who have clearances at the proper level. Second, a damage assessment should be ordered to determine just how much information was actually revealed, what programs it may affect, and how -- or whether -- the damage can be repaired.

Third, the investigations should be pursued vigorously and with all possible speed. If the senators are found indictable, they should be indicted, tried and judged in accordance with the law. (The so-called "legislative immunity" of the Speech and Debate clause of the Constitution shouldn't be a defense to the crimes here. According to Edward MacMahon, a criminal defense lawyer expert in matters of classified information, "If a senator committed a crime, the Speech and Debate Clause would give no protection.") Charges, trials and removal from the Senate -- if the investigations show the allegations worth trial, and the trials result in conviction -- are events every one of us should demand.

If the laws that require our secrets be kept secret aren't taken seriously by those who hold the public's trust -- such as Shelby and the "Misty Three" -- and if serious violations of these laws are also taken lightly as Sen. Frist seems to be doing now -- our system of government will not be able to function as the Constitution says it must. If Congress cannot be trusted with secrets such as these, it cannot provide the essential checks and balances on the Executive we rely on it to perform in order to protect us from a runaway president. Right now, we apparently have a runaway Senate. The Justice Department, and Sen. Frist's office, should be working day and night until this problem is solved, and cooperate to ensure the leakers are punished to the full extent of the law.

Babbin names Shelby, the Republican senator, who:

blew one of our most important secrets -- that we were bugging Osama bin Laden's cell phone, a fact that could have led to the capture of America's most wanted terrorist -- by bragging about it to a reporter.

Shelby should have been prosecuted, convicted and jailed, to set an appropriate example. His only excuse is stupidity inflated by braggadocio.

But Rockefeller, Durbin and Wyden had darker motives. Leaking to the NYT and WPO is standard operating procedure for the progressive elites that have infested all branches of government. To them. partisanship is all, patriotism be damned. Proof came before the last election. According to CNS News:

Democrats on the [intelligence]committee should "prepare to launch an investigation when it becomes clear we have exhausted the opportunity to usefully collaborate with [Republicans]," according to the memo written at the direction of Sen. Jay Rockefeller (D-W.Va.), the highest-ranking Democrat on the committee. "We can pull the trigger on an independent investigation of the administration's use of intelligence at any time, but we can only do so once.

"The best time would probably be next year," the memo concludes, adding that, "Intelligence issues are clearly secondary to the public's concern regarding the insurgency in Iraq."

Rockefeller should have been thrown off the committee then. He stayed on to do even more damage, as Babbins makes abundantly clear.

In these dangerous times, when despotic regimes can create and deploy nuclear, biological and chemical weapons, it is useful to look back at World War 2 to see how the free world acted to defeat the forces of evil. The fact that British and American Intelligence broke the secret codes used by the Nazis and the Japanese was a tightly held secret. To disclose that information would have been regarded as high treason and dealt with appropriately. That would likely have involved a blindfold, a wall, and a squad of riflemen.

Rockefeller, Durbin, Wyden, Shelby and their MSM allies deserve no less.

Tue Dec 14, 2004

We're looking at another White Christmas

So where is global warming when we need it?

Yesterday it snowed all day. Getting home from work was tough and I commute against the traffic. The people heading out of downtown had it much tougher. Well, I suppose it beats when this region was buried under a mile of ice. I think that's called an ice age and that's the status quo in this part of the world if you take the medium-term view. Poor old Greenland still has its mile-high pile of ice. There's plant material underneath it all so maybe Greenland can be green again. The Vikings thought so during the medieval warm period. Oops, there wasn't any such thing. The scientific consensus is that temperatures have been stable for millennia and suddenly shot up when Americans starting driving gas guzzlers by the millions. Forget about those poor old Greenlanders dying out, and the Thames freezing over, and the lousy growing seasons that plagued Europe for much of the last thousand years.

Now let's think a little about those evil fossil fuels. Where do fossil fuels come from? Through various geological processes, biological material gets buried in the Earth's crust and transformed into coal and oil. These fossil fuels contain carbon in abundance. Where did that carbon come from? At some point it came out of the atmosphere. So, if we think about this logically, we can conclude that a lot of the carbon trapped in fossil fuels was once in the atmosphere. So, until we manage to burn all those reserves of fossil fuels, we will not restore the atmosphere to its former carbon rich glory.

But, if we believe the consensus of scientists is science, putting a tiny fraction of that carbon back in the atmosphere is going cause catastrophic warming. But, if that is the case, then what was going on when the atmosphere was, relatively speaking, carbon rich? The answer is that it varied between warm, cool and frigid.

I doubt we should be worried about human induced increases in CO₂ emissions too much. Think of CO₂ as plant food in the sky. We should be more concerned about deforestation and atmospheric pollution. Which is worse? A clean internal combustion engine recycling fossil carbon or a peasant's crude wood and/or dung cooking fire destroying biomass? The notorious Asian brown cloud is a bigger threat to the environment than US SUVs.

Mon Dec 13, 2004

Senate Hypocrisy

Let him who is without sin cast the first stone

So, another Cabinet candidate goes down because his background is not squeaky clean. With his record, Kerik had no hope of clearing the Senate hurdle. But how many Senators would pass if they had to go through confirmation hearings?

Starting at the top of the list we'd find:

Teddy Kennedy - left Mary Jo Kopechne to drown when he fled the scene of an accident.
Robert Byrd - former member of the Ku Klux Klan

For more on the records of our esteemed legislators, check out Capitol Hill Blue's series.

Sun Dec 12, 2004

The French are Allies?

Victor Hanson sums up our Allies in one succinct paragragh

In NRO he writes:

Things are no less humiliating — or dangerous — in France. Thousands of unassimilated Muslims mock French society. Yet their fury shapes its foreign policy to the degree that Jacques Chirac sent a government plane to sweep up a dying Arafat. But then what do we expect from a country that enriched Hamas, let Mrs. Arafat spend her husband's embezzled millions under its nose, gave Khomeini the sanctuary needed to destroy Iran, sold a nuclear reactor to Saddam, is at the heart of the Oil-for-Food scandal, and revs up the Muslim world against the United States?

The Bible advises us all "As ye sow, so shall ye reap." The French and old Europe may well find that the truth; what they will reap from uncontrolled Muslim immigration and a pro-Arab/anti-US, anti-Israel foreign policy is the direst threat to European civilization and culture since the Nazis ruled continental Europe. If they are going to solve the problem demographically, they have a lot of sowing to do.

Sat Dec 11, 2004

Christmas is at our throats

And Bill Gates is making it worse with miserably bad software

Every year we merge our Christmas card mailing list with sticky labels using Microsoft Word. As the years roll by and our computers turn over we keep getting later versions of Word. By and large, there is no discernible difference between each version. But Word 2002 has broken the mould. On our machine, it crashes randomly two or three times a day. It hides established features, like stylesheets, in new nooks and crannies. But the piece de resistance is the mail merge wizard. It took five hours for my wife and I to get it to print our old mailing list, the one that had worked with generations of Microsoft Word, on standard Avery labels. Sometimes we'd get a blank sheet. Sometimes we'd get an address on the first label of each page, leaving the rest blank. Sometimes we'd get the first address on every label. Sometimes we'd get into an endless loop of supplying the same information over and over again.

We moved the mailing list from Word to Excel. Slight progress. We gave the columns names. More progress. We ignored the lack of feedback and misleading directions. More progress. Finally, we clicked on all the right buttons in precisely the right sequence and the labels emerged, just as they should have five hours ago.

It's not like we are computer novices. I make my living building software systems using Microsoft and related technologies. My wife is a writer and researcher who uses Microsoft Word to write and footnote research papers.

Bill needs better test dummies than the trial-and-error trained monkeys who user-tested mail merge.

Thu Dec 09, 2004

Why is the White House being nice to Kofi?

They have him over a barrel, so why be nice?

While GOP Senators are calling for Kofi's head, the White House has been supportive of Kofi and offered some support. According to this IHT report:

The Bush administration on Thursday eased the pressure it had been putting on Secretary General Kofi Annan since American calls for his resignation, saying for the first time that it had faith in him and did not want to see him leave office.

"We are expressing confidence in the secretary general and in his continuing in office," United States Ambassador John Danforth said in comments to reporters who had been alerted throughout the day by the United States mission that Danforth would be delivering an important message.

Why support Kofi Annan now?

Kofi is a figurehead of an organization where all the dirty deals are done behind the scenes. Maybe Kofi's family got something from Oil-for-fraud, but it was probably chicken feed compared to the money that flowed to France, Russia and other Security Council Members. So knocking off the weak head of a corrupt organization accomplishes nothing.

It's also very likely that the administration knows a lot more about the corruption in the oil-for-food program than it is letting on. After all, it has first dibs on all the intelligence captured in the war on Saddam.

I'd suggest that the Bush administration is using that information to change attitudes where they count. This news report indicates what can be accomplished when you have valuable information:

Iraq and the United States on Monday hailed an agreement by a group of creditor nations to write off billions of dollars of debt inherited from the former regime of Saddam Hussein as "historic".

"The historic agreement that we have reached with our Paris Club creditors demonstrates the international community's recognition of the urgent need for Iraq to pursue its massive reconstruction program," Iraq's interim finance minister Adel Abdel Mahdi told AFP.

"Most of the Saddam era claims need to be cancelled before the economic reconstruction programme can proceed and reconstruction, in turn, is an essential condition for stability to return to Iraq," he added.

The Paris Club of 19 creditor countries including the US, Japan, Russia and EU nations on Sunday said its members had agreed to wipe out 80% of the money it is owed by Iraq over three years.

Iraq owes the Paris Club nations some US$40bn, which is about a third of the country's total foreign debt.

It's a helluva lot easier to get France to forgive debt when you have the goods on them. In America that's called blackmail. In Foreign Affairs, it's called diplomacy.

Imagine

But...but...We'll Do it Different Next Time

Imagine:

Imagine if U.S. troops were accused of sexually exploiting children in impoverished nations. Imagine if a U.S. Cabinet secretary were accused of groping a female subordinate, whose complaint was then swatted aside by the president. Imagine if the head of a U.S. government agency and the president's own offspring stood accused of complicity in the biggest embezzlement racket in history.

Yeah, imagine. To top it off, those who seem to feel that the U.N. is the world's salvation are doing their dream a disservice:

The U.N.'s friends are doing their favorite international institution no favors with this knee-jerk defense. Until it cleans up its act, the U.N. can never be as influential as its boosters would like. Even Annan recognizes this. In fact, he seems to specialize in critiques of his own organization.

Despite numerous reports, panels, recommendations, and a dismal record, the inmates continue to run the asylum and the U.N. remains just as should be expected, a corrupt, mob ruled, institution that gives power to people who simply are guaranteed to abuse it. Just like so many other failed ideas of the left the unwavering supporters of the U.N. continue to rely on their favorite excuse: We'll do it different next time. Yeah, right.

Wed Dec 08, 2004

It's John Kerry time again

Accuse your fellow soldiers of war crimes

According to Canada.Com, Jimmy Massey made these claims in a Canadian hearing that is considering Jeremy Hinzman's asylum application:

"If you have no enemy or you do not know who the enemy is, what are you doing there?"

On several occasions, his soldiers pumped hundreds of bullets into cars that failed to stop at U.S. military checkpoints, killing all occupants - who were later found to be unarmed, Massey said.

On another occasion, marines reacted to a stray bullet by killing a small group of unarmed protesters and bystanders, said Massey, who said he suffers from nightmares and post-traumatic stress disorder.

"I was deeply concerned about the civilian casualties," he said.

"What they were doing was committing murder."

Massey's statements echoed earlier testimony from Hinzman, who says he fled the U.S. military because he believed the invasion of Iraq was illegal, and any violent acts he committed there would be unconscionable.

Hinzman is a marine who deserted just before deployment to Iraq. Massey is a former staff sergeant who served in Iraq.

The MSM is repeating these claims verbatim as if they were the truth. The fact of the matter is that any US military personnel who have killed or injured Iraqis in doubtful circumstances are thoroughly investigated. In an environment where the car bomb is the missile of choice for the enemy, it is little wonder that soldiers and marines would fire on vehicles that fail to stop at a checkpoint. In some cases, terrorists have forced civilians to drive through checkpoints, with the tragic consequences that the terrorists wanted. That's a real war crime.

These claims echo the false claims that Kerry made in his testimony to Congress and in The New Soldier, the anti-Vietnam war book that he wrote with Mark Lane.

How academia disciminates in hiring

Nothing overt but the results are the same

Betsy's Page links to a description by Stephen Bainbridge of the process for hiring law school professors:

In most cases, a candidate's best chance of surviving the winnowing process is for someone on the committee to become the candidate's champion. The champion will pull the candidate's resume out of the slush pile and make sure it gets flagged for close review. Because most law schools lack a critical mass of libertarian and conservative faculty members, however, there is nobody predisposed to pulling conservative candidates' AALS forms out of the slush pile (and a fair number of folks inclined, whether consciously or subconsciously, to bury them). Applicants with conservative lines on their resume -- an Olin fellowship, Federalist Society membership, or, heaven help you, a Scalia clerkship -- thus tend to be passed over no matter how sterling the rest of their credentials may be.

The process reminds me of the song "When you're good to Mama" from Chicago:

Got a little motto
Always sees me through
When you're good to Mama
Mama's good to you.

There's a lot of favors
I'm prepared to do
You do one for Mama
She'll do one for you.

And that about sums up how academic hiring works.

Tue Dec 07, 2004

Driver's Licenses are America's National ID Card

Al Qaeda and Illegal immigrants know it; Congress doesn't

From Chuck Muth:

AMERICA’S INTERNAL PASSPORT

One of the first things the Sept. 11 terrorists did when they arrived in the United States was to get driver's licenses. They went to extraordinary lengths to obtain them. The 19 terrorists traveled all around the country, to states that granted licenses to virtually anyone, and acquired 63 of them, begging the question ‘Why?’ Why did al Qaeda go to the trouble of getting 63 driver's licenses when planning its attacks? The answer is simple: Because it needed them. It had to have licenses to operate here unnoticed. It knew that the driver's license is America's de facto national identification card, our internal passport that opens doors to everything, everywhere in this country...

“Make no mistake about it. That wallet-sized document is one of the most powerful tools available to terrorists behind our lines. Al Qaeda knew it. The September 11 commission learned it. And now many in Congress want to ignore it.

- Columnist Amanda Bowman

Sun Dec 05, 2004

Enron vs. Oil for Fraud

How much space did the NYT devote to each?

I've no idea of the actual numbers but it's fair to speculate that the ratio would be similar to that for Abu Ghraib compared to Saddam's atrocities.

Oil for Fraud is a far bigger scandal yet the NYT pretends it isn't really very important. But the UN's paymaster, to the tune of 22% of its budget, wants a full accounting. That accounting is going to be so much fun and the NYT is going to miss out on too much of it.

The Wall Street Journal and the redoubtable Claudia Rosette have made mincemeat of the doddering old gray lady on Oil for Fraud.

Update:

Dale Franks at QandO makes the same point while making mincemeat of the NYT editorial defending Kofi Annan.

But, the Times feels that it is a compelling enough explanation to let Mr. Annan off the hook, at least for now. Which is funny, because that’s a lot like writing an article about Enron, and demanding that people lay off of Ken Lay because, after all, he had nothing at all to do with the financial shenanigans at WorldCom, and all that Martha Stewart insider trading stuff was completely outside of Enron’s purview. I mean, OK, true enough, but...so what? Nobody’s calling on Mr. Annan to resign because the Clinton Administration allowed Turkey to trade with Iraq. They’re calling on him to resign because the UN appears to be corrupt and bloated with pelf.

Not that the Times is willing to acknowledge that fact.

Why we love the UN

Mr. Instapundit has it all

Opinion Journal, which seems to have a higher opinion of bloggers than some MSM, has a piece by Glenn Reynolds that tells us why we so admire the UN:

Things are going badly for Kofi Annan. The Oil for Food scandal has revealed U.N. behavior regarding Saddam Hussein's Iraq that ranges from criminally inept to outright corrupt. Rape and pedophilia by U.N. peacekeepers haven't gotten the kind of attention they'd get if American troops were involved, but the scandals have begun to take their toll. And the U.N.'s ability to serve its crowning purpose--the "never again" treatment of genocide that was vowed after the Holocaust, and re-vowed after Cambodia and Rwanda--is looking less and less credible in the wake of its response to ongoing genocide in Darfur. And finally, the U.N. has so far played no significant role in defusing the Ukrainian crisis.

When will the world realize that the promise of the U.N. is as utopian as the promise of Communism? And the results are just as tragic.

Fri Dec 03, 2004

Bush hasn't gone wobbly

Look at the cabinet changes

Rumsfeld stays. Rice goes to Foggy Bottom. Her deputy becomes national security advisor. Kerik takes over homeland security. Powell goes. Europe weeps.

How to earn a Silver Star

Fight your way into an ambush and rescue your comrades

simonson says has one account. I liked this snippet:

"As he moved out of the way, I just crashed through that door. I remember barreling through the door with my left shoulder, and I just knocked the door right off the hinges," said Riling, who weighs 198 pounds.

As a result, the insurgent hiding behind the door was mortally wounded and died.
Kill insurgent with door. Check.

Go read it all.

American forces are equipped with the best equipment and are extremely well trained but they have still had to fight the way soldiers have always had to fight in an urban enironment: house to house, man to man. That takes true courage.

Thu Dec 02, 2004

The Dems U.N. Problem

Getting More and More Difficult to Dodge

As reality supercedes liberal fantasy, Democrats are finding themselves in a bit of a quandary:

Republican pollster Jim McLaughlin puts it this way: "Kofi Annan has run the U.N. like Tony Soprano — and when voters realize it, they're going to be really angry."

He contends some news outlets, like CBS and The New York Times, have downplayed the scandal because they are reflexively pro-U.N., just like most reporters. But even they are starting to have to cover it — and congressional probers of both parties say what's out so far is only the tip of the iceberg.

It couldn't happen to a nicer bunch of people. :-)~

Wed Dec 01, 2004

So much for stereotypical Republican voters

I just had dinner with two wonderful women

OK, I'm married to one and the other is her niece, but that doesn't change the subhead. The talk turned to politics. Both voted straight Republican tickets but against the amendment banning gay marriage. The two issues driving their votes were foreign policy and tort reform. Kerry lost them both on the first issue and Edwards lost my wife on the second.

I'm passing on this NYT link to my niece to share with her tearful liberal friends. She was not aware of Edwards' role in putting OBYGNs out of business.

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