Judicious Asininity

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Thu Nov 29, 2007

Bush has succeeded where his critics failed

History will take note

It is becoming increasingly obvious that the US is succeeding in Iraq. The surest evidence is the security agreement that Iraq wants to replace U.N. Security Council Resolution 1546. It envisages a rapid withdrawal of US forces and a substantial US force left to safeguard Iraq's security, especially vis à vis Iran and Syria.

Bush has many critics with impressive credentials.

President Jimmy Carter has been one of the most vociferous. Yet he failed to protect Iran from the Shi'ite fanatics who took over the country. He failed to secure the release of the US Embassy staff taken hostage by the revolutionaries. He gave the Shi'te wing of radical Islam an oil rich country to use as a bases in their war against the Great Satan. Carter was a complete failure.

Richard Clark was Clinton's chief counter-terrorism adviser on the National Security Council. Bush kept Clark in that role, but without cabinet level access. Clark has been a fierce critic of the Bush administration. Yet, Al Qaeda grew and metastasized under his watch. The Egyption terrorist group Islamic Jihad, linked to the 1993 attack on the WTC, merged with Al Qaeda in 1998 and declared war on the US. Whenever Clark (and Clinton) had a shot at Bin Ladin they failed to act. Their multiple failures led directly to Al Qaeda's success on 9/11. If the man had any honor he'd admit his failures and retire to deserved obscurity.

Michael F. Scheuer was the CIA point man on Bin Ladin yet 9/11 was a complete surprise to him. Like Clark, the man was a complete failure. Instead of admitting his failures, he wrote "Imperial Hubris", a book highly critical of Bush's war on radical Islam. Here's a key quote:

The fundamental flaw in our thinking about Bin Laden is that "Muslims hate and attack us for what we are and think, rather than what we do." Muslims are bothered by our modernity, democracy, and sexuality, but they are rarely spurred to action unless American forces encroach on their lands. It's American foreign policy that enrages Osama and al-Qaeda, not American culture and society.

Global Security provides a little history for Scheuer:

n August of 1996, Bin Ladin announced publicly his war against the U.S. He tried to persuade Muslims worldwide to unite against their common intruder on the Arabian Peninsula, the United States. One month later in September of 1996, the Taliban, a faction in Afghanistan backed by Pakistan, took control of Kabul. At this time, Bin Ladin began to lay the groundwork for a close alliance. Due to their relationship, the Taliban experienced great outside pressure, UN sanctions, and isolation prior to the September 11th attacks. They did have many gains too including hundreds of fighters, supplies and financial support from al Qaeda.

Not only were there physical gains for the battlefield but there was also a number of ideological ties between the two groups that created a close alliance. Both al Qaeda, under Bin Ladin, and the Taliban wanted a pure Islamic state. It is reported that Bin Ladin even swore his allegiance to Mullah Omar, the Taliban leader.

In 1998, Bin Ladin started to create the foundation for a merger between al Qaeda and another terrorist organization, the Egyptian Islamic Jihad. On February 23, 1998 the leaders of the two groups, Bin Ladin and Ayman Zawahiri, published a fatwa that made public a "ruling to kill the Americans and their allies." The fatwa not only instructed individuals to kill innocent civilians and members of the military but also stated that it was their duty to do it whenever and wherever possible.

There seems to be a contradiction between what Scheur claims and what Bin Ladin says. But then, Scheur is a miserable failure, while Bin Ladin has had some notable successes in his campaign to kill Americans.

Retired Lt. Gen. Ricardo Sanchez is the latest failure to go on record criticizing the Bush Administration. CNN reports:

Retired Lt. Gen. Ricardo Sanchez, coalition commander in 2003 and 2004, called the Iraq war "a nightmare with no end in sight," for which he said the Bush administration, the State Department and Congress all share blame.

Sanchez told a group of military reporters in Arlington, Virginia, on Friday that such dereliction of duty by a military officer would mean immediate dismissal or court martial, but the politicians have not been held accountable.

He said the Iraq war plan from the start was "catastrophically flawed, unrealistically optimistic," and the administration has not provided the resources necessary for victory, which he said the military could never achieve on its own.[my bold]

The problems in Iraq -- the Sunni/Al Qaeda insurgency and the rise of the Mahdi army -- all started when Sanchez was the main charge. It takes massive chutzpa to criticize your leadership because of your failures. General Petraeus has shown what a difference competent leadership makes. If Sanchez had any honor, he'd apologize to the President and to the American people for screwing up so badly in Iraq.

My advise: Before you listen to what Bush's critics say, look at what they've done.

Sun Nov 25, 2007

Australia elects an idiot as Prime Minister

Aussies will realize their mistake in four years

Via Sweetness and Light, quoting Reuters:

Australia’s new prime minister, Kevin Rudd, made climate change his top priority on Sunday, seeking advice on ratifying the Kyoto pact and telling Indonesia he will go to December’s UN climate summit in Bali…

Rudd, 50, presented himself to voters as a new-generation leader by promising to pull troops out of Iraq and ratify the Kyoto Protocol capping greenhouse gas emissions, further isolating Washington on both issues.

But while he intends to immediately overturn Howard’s opposition to the Kyoto pact, Rudd has said he would negotiate a gradual withdrawal of Australian frontline forces from Iraq.

Rudd, a Mandarin-speaking former diplomat, said he discussed Kyoto ratification with his British counterpart Gordon Brown, as well as Indonesia’s President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono…

Rudd is expected to forge closer ties with China and other Asian nations and has said he wants a more independent voice in foreign policy, with past Labor governments more supportive of an energetic United Nations and global organizations…

Rudd also pledged unity at home and an end to controversial offshore detention of illegal immigrants.

Australia is one of the few OECD countries that is a net exporter of energy. According to this report:

Australia is rich in natural resources with significant petroleum, natural gas and coal reserves. Australia’s energy consumption is dominated by coal, which fuels most of the country’s power generation. Petroleum accounts for a large share of energy consumption, but due to declining output, Australia is facing a growing dependence on petroleum imports. Over the past two decades, Australia has steadily consumed increasing amounts of natural gas, which is likely to continue over the medium term.

Australia is one of the few countries belonging to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) that is a significant net energy exporter. Australia is the world’s largest coal exporter and is the fifth largest exporter of liquefied natural gas (LNG). Australia’s prospects for expanding energy exports in the future are promising as Asian demand for both coal and LNG rises. However, Australia can expect increasing export competition from China (coal) and Indonesia (coal and LNG).[my bolds]

If Mr. Rudd is sincere about Kyoto he should close down the Australian coal industry. Of course, he won't. He'll sign the treaty and then wonder why Australia can't meet the unrealistic targets of Kyoto.

So, he wants to pull Australian troops out of Iraq, all 1000 of them. If Iraq becomes Hillary's war, she won't appreciate his lack of support. A GOP president would be even more annoyed at being stabbed in the back by a one-time ally. Has Rudd thought through what would happen to Australia's petroleum imports if the US loses in Iraq? Or Iran goes nuclear and sparks a nuclear arms race with the Arab world? Or the Gulf of Hormuz become a war zone? Probably not. Belmont Club does a brilliant take-down of former defense analysts of Mr. Rudd's party. The Australians seem to think their biggest problem is China:

The principle argument advanced was that China, not any conflict against terrorism in the Middle East, was the key strategic challenge facing Australia. The speakers then went on to catalogue the ominous signs. China was modernizing its military; active in espionage; spreading subversion throughout the Pacific. It was quietly suggested that recent unrest in the Southwest Pacific was caused by the "Chinese corruption and bribery" of politics in certain islands. And one of China's goals -- for which it could not be blamed -- was to improve the terms under which it could buy key minerals from Australia. Visions of Australia being turned into a Chinese sweatshop momentarily dangled before the audience.

And here was Howard, one of the speakers added, with an apparent pang of sincere dismay momentarily crossing his distinguished features, frittering away Australia's efforts on quixotic adventures in the Middle East. What was needed was to turn the focus closer to home. That provided the cue for some other speakers, responding to questions, to advance their other key thesis. China was in the ascent; the US was in relative decline vis-a-vis China in the Pacific; and therefore an enlightened Labor government should recognize the danger of a conflict between these two giant powers before it materialized by providing a moderating influence. By shaping the contours of the impending clash and ensuring conflict was confined to diplomatic and economic competition.

Belmont Club explains why the Laborites have it wrong. Here's a snippet from his response:

It should be self-evident that any Chinese efforts to turn the Taiwan Straits into a war zone would have the not inconsiderable side effect of blockading China itself -- and probably Japan and South Korea into the bargain. Until it can find ways to supply itself by overland pipeline from Central Asia, which may never be feasible because much of its industry lies on the coast, any invasion of Taiwan would not only require the protection of an invasion fleet from antishipping weapons as it lay deployed off the Taiwan Coast, but it would require protecting the Chinese ports from minelaying and protecting tanker traffic along the long route from the Persian Gulf.

This really goes to the heart of the for Labor defense minister's fallacious argument that US SSNs will be annihilated underwater dogfighting Chinese diesel subs in the Taiwan Straits. In any Taiwan invasion scenario, the idea will not be to keep the Taiwan Strait open. It will be to keep it closed. Why ever should they be dogfighting the Chinese diesel subs in the Strait? All the USN must do to gain superiority over the Chinese Navy achieve is mine their naval bases or destroy their fueling facilities. The diesel subs will then be on a one-way mission of limited endurance only while the US SSNs can sit out there forever.

Making nice-nice with the Chicoms while stiffing the Yanks might play well on the domestic front. In reality, it will prove to be a colossal blunder.

In line with drinking according to my politics, I'll stop drinking Aussie wine the day Rudd announces that Australian troops will be withdrawn from Iraq. The French stuff is tasting much better these days.

Fri Nov 23, 2007

Has France found its Margaret Thatcher?

The French transport unions are backing down, just like the British coal miners

Good news for France. The NY Sun reports:

Union leaders began to concede defeat yesterday. "We have to face reality. Since yesterday's negotiations, things have changed. The strike is no longer the solution. The strike strategy is no longer winning," a leader of the Sud union representing Paris underground railway workers, Philippe Touzet, said in an interview with Bloomberg News.

The collapse of support for the strike by individual rail workers marks the first success in what Mr. Sarkozy considers the key goal of his presidency, the abandonment of expensive entitlements and special conditions for public sector workers, including generous early retirement and pension benefits for half a million rail workers, which he believes make France uncompetitive.

Thatcher took on the infamous British coal miners unions early in her reign and won. The British economy surged out of its post-war socialist doldrums and left France behind. Perhaps Sarkozy can achieve a similar victory in France. So far, so good.

Tue Nov 20, 2007

Murtha continues his treachery

Yet he is the best the Democrats have to offer?

The Washington Times reports:

House Democrats' point man in the war-funding showdown with the White House today dismissed U.S. military gains in Iraq and vowed to tighten the purse strings until President Bush accepts a pullout plan.

"Look at all the people that have been displaced, all the [lost] oil production, unemployment, all those type of things," said Rep. John P. Murtha, chairman of Appropriations defense subcommittee. "We can't win militarily."

Has the treacherous ex-Marine not been following what's been happening in Iraq? The US is winning politically as well as militarily. The political wins are coming from the bottom-up as Sunni tribal leaders turned against Al Qaeda and Shiites turned against the Madhi Army. But Murtha and his fellow traitors are so invested in defeat, they cannot retreat from their position that, in Harry Reid's immortal words, "this war is lost and the surge is not accomplishing anything as indicated by the extreme violence in Iraq yesterday".

The GOP should be mighty relieved that the Democrats have dug themselves into a hole on Iraq and are determined to keep on digging. Please, nobody tell this gang that even the New York Times has conceded that there are signs of progress in Iraq.

Sat Nov 17, 2007

The Democrats want to "End the War"

They should be called on what that really means

If a boxer leaves the ring before the fight is over, he hasn't ended the fight; he has lost the fight.

If the US leaves Iraq before the war is over, it hasn't ended the war; it has lost the war.

It is that simple, yet the GOP has yet to make that case to the public. You can't end a war. You can win, or you can lose, or you can (rarely) agree to cease hostilities. But you can't end it by throwing in the towel or walking off the battlefield.

When the Democrats say they want to end the war, what they really mean is they want to lose the war. And if we lose the war, as the Democrats want, then Al Qaeda wins the war. There is only one word to describe those who want that to happen: traitor.

Thu Nov 15, 2007

The thing that is missing from the torture debate

The victim has some control over whether they get tortured

The US does not waterboard people for kicks. The US does it to get information that could save thousands of US lives. If the US could get the information without waterboarding , or other unpleasant methods, it would.

If an unlawful combatant is interrogated, he can choose whether or not to give truthful answers. If he chooses to help his interrogators he can avoid any unpleasant consequences. If he chooses to lie, or refuses to talk, then he should expect a little pressure. When the lives of US citizens are at stake then there should be no limits on the pressure that can be applied.

Our lives are worthy. We produce goods and services that improve the lives of our fellow citizens, be it a sermon, a tonsillectomy, a Cadillac, a play, a computer, and so on, through the almost infinite array of goods and services created by Western civilization.

Their lives are worthless. They produce nothing and destroy everything. They need to know that we think they are a blight on humanity that needs to be eliminated.

Tue Nov 13, 2007

I figured out Saddam's WMD ploy in June 2003

My theory has just been confirmed by Saddam's own words

In this post, dated Jun 26, 03, I wrote:

In 1998 Saddam kicked out the UN inspectors and started to ramp up his WMD programs again. When 9/11 happened, and GWB called Iraq a founding member of the Axis of Evil, Saddam knew that having WMD would be very dangerous to his regime. However, he wanted to maintain the ability to reconstitute his WMD programs once the pressure of inspections, sanctions and GWB's war on terror abated. So he buried as much as could, destroyed what he couldn't hide, and threatened his scientists with death if they revealed anything.

Saddam also realized that his military was relatively weak, so he still needed WMD to deter his internal enemies, the Kurds in the North, the Shiite's in the South, as well as Iran and Israel, which both had unfinished business with Iraq. He maintained the threat of WMD by letting his enemies believe he still had them. Perhaps some of the evidence that Powell described, such as radio intercepts, were part of a campaign of deception by Saddam. The US military certainly believed he had chemical weapons at a minimum.

At the same time, the failure of the UN inspectors to find any WMD allowed Saddam to plausibly deny their existence, making it difficult for the US to make its case to the world and assemble a coalition against him. But Saddam was too smart by half.

The Stratasphere links to an NBC interview with Ronald Kessler about George Piro, the FBI agent who interviewed Saddam. The key quote:

the former Iraqi leader had deliberately tried to "fool the U.S." into believing he had weapons of mass destruction because "he wanted Iranian leaders to believe that he had nuclear and biological weapons." The FBI agent, named George Piro, also reported that Saddam Hussein "hoped the post-Gulf War sanctions on Iraq would dissolve, allowing him to pursue a nuclear capability."

Score one for this humble blogger.

Sat Nov 10, 2007

Waterboarding in perspective

From a witness to 9/11

Malone Vandam at New Paltz Journal gives us his take on all the overwrought fuss about waterboarding:

For those unfamiliar with waterboarding, its point is to induce the gag reflex in the person being questioned. If you’ve ever had something set that reflex off in you, you know that it’s not pleasant.

But then having the gag reflex induced is not to have a nail driven through your hand, it isn’t to have your eye gouged out, or to have a bullet fired into your kneecap, or to be beaten until you’re close to death, or to have acid dripped on your forehead.

Note, therefore, the difference between having the gag reflex induced and real acts of torture.

Now, when Khalid Sheik Mohammed, the planner of the 9/11 attacks was captured, it is said that after about a minute of waterboarding he gave up the goods. When he was finished talking he was sent off to his reward at Guantanamo, where a clean cell awaited his murdering bastard self.

No one knocked his teeth out, or pulled them out one by one. No one hooked electrical wires to his genitals and juiced him. No one cut off his digits one by one. Hell, no one even put one of his legs through a plastic shredder, as Saddam Hussein’s boys would have done to him, had they needed to know something he knew.

No, Khalid Sheik Mohammed was waterboarded. Had the living shit scared out of him by the induced gag reflex. Then he gave up his terror network. And we haven’t been attacked, like we were on September 11, since September 11. I’ll take that trade, without any remorse whatsoever.

I'll add my two cents. Many leftists claim torture doesn't work; that the subjects will say anything to get their agony to stop. But that ignores the ability of the torturer to verify the information. Suppose the bad guy is being asked to give up the name and address of a suicide bomber before the bomber kills dozens of innocent civilians. The bad guy can't just give the torturer the name and address of just anybody; he (or she) needs to provide the name and address of someone who is a suicide bomber. So, the argument that torture doesn't work is bogus. Apparently, waterboarding works as well as actual torture. It has the advantage that the bad guy isn't actually harmed in the process, so he is less likely to go into shock or expire, than would be the case if, by way of comparison, his kneecaps were being drilled with your standard Black and Decker home handyman's electric drill. In WW2, British agents working behind enemy lines were routinely issued cyanide pills to use if they were captured by the Nazis. The Brits wouldn't have done that if they believed torture didn't work. That's one cent.

Let's now turn to the Geneva conventions. The President could say that we will treat all prisoners according to the Geneva conventions, provided the prisoners were fighting for a country that was a signatory, and adhered to them. That would rule out doing much more than asking for name, rank and serial number.

Terrorists operate outside the framework of the Geneva conventions. Islamic terrorists do not even consider such infidel agreements applicable; Allah did not sign off on them. I haven't noticed any Muslim clerics issuing Fatwas instructing Muslims to abide by the Geneva conventions. To do so would rule out such Islamic terrorist specialties as attacking pizza parlors with suicide bombers, cutting the throats of journalists and civilian contractors, blowing up school children with car bombs, bombing buses, nightclubs and trains, and flying civilian aircraft into skyscrapers.

The President could say that those of our enemies that do not obey the laws of civilized warfare will be treated as unlawful combatants and treated with utmost disrespect; such disrespect to start with whatever interrogation methods yield useful information and end with summary execution. Our enemies could easily forestall that by signing the Geneva conventions and adhereing to them. Of course, doing so would mean that they could no longer commit terrorist acts. Fat chance. That's my second cent.

Thu Nov 08, 2007

Nice seeing interfaith progres in Iraq

I'm waiting for the ICLU to emerge

Every righty blogger has highlighted Michael Yon's beautiful photograph of a cross being erected in Iraq. I'm waiting for the ICLU (Iraqi Civil Liberties Union) of to open up their office. When they do, I'll know we've won.

Any society that can allow a radical organization, such as the ACLU, to exist, is a free society.

Wed Nov 07, 2007

The death of classical music and the culture that supported it

Mark Steyn understands what popular culture has cost us

Steyn writes:

Paul Simon and I once had a longish conversation about this and eventually he conceded that even the best rockers had nevertheless been unable to develop beyond a very basic harmonic language: There isn’t enough there to teach in a “music” course. But what else is left? The old middle-brow middle-class couples who subscribed to the symphony every season and dutifully sat there through Beethoven, Bartók, Brahms, and Bernstein are all but extinct, and pitied for their inability to cut loose and boogie in the same way we feel sorry for those trapped in a loveless marriage. What a difference it would make if grade-schoolers could know just enough of a smattering of Beethoven’s Pastoral Symphony to recognize the excellent joke “The Simpsons” makes of it. What an achievement it would be if every high-school could acquire a classical catalogue as rich as that used in Looney Tunes when Elmer Fudd goes hunting Daffy Duck or Bugs Bunny. Carl Stalling, who scored those cartoons, often fell back on formula: If someone was in a cave, the orchestra would play “Fingal’s Cave.” But you can’t even do that any more, because no-one gets the joke.

I listen to WCLV, Cleveland's classical music station. It moved to a lower powered station a while ago, so I put up with a bit of static to hear music on the way to work. I also hear their ads. Hospice of the Western Reserve. Hanson Services (care for the elderly). Benjamin Rose Institute (caring for Cleveland's Older Adults since 1908), Kendall At Home (for people who want to live out their lives at home), Judson Manor (a retirement home), Catholic Cemeteries and more. The advertisers tell you who the target audience is. It's the tail end of the greatest generation and the remnants of the early baby boomers who absorbed their parent's musical sophistication.

When the static gets too bad, I switch to 91.5, which features

legendary artists from the 20’s, 30’s, 40’s, and 50's.

They play the popular music the greatest generation grew up with. Luckily they don't take advertisements. But their announcers grew up listening to the great artists they play.

Can these two radio stations survive? In their own ways they represent the fruits of a musical culture going back to the renaissance. But, when their audiences, myself included, die off, who will carry on?

Living in the present tense, without a grounding in our past, leaves us unrooted. Those unrooted are easily toppled.

We can give our Islamic enemies some credit. They know every victory and loss the Ummah has witnessed since the time of Muhammad. They don't have much music, literature, art or science to remember, but they do know how to nurse and nurture all their old grievances. They know Spain was once Muslim territory and thus belongs to them. They know that Christians resisted them a millennium ago and they still refer to American forces as "crusaders". They mean it literally, not as a name one might give a football team.

I think classical music will survive. Asians and Jews will keep it alive. Westerners, beyond a few elites, will forget it. To them, it will be movie mood music. Which, though they will never know it, is the whole point. Classical music has the power to express the full range of human emotion. Popular music lacks the requisite complexity.

What has happened to music has happened to literature, history and religion. The greatest civilization in the history of the Earth has thrown away most of its cultural heritage in the short span of half a century. If we forget our heritage, we forget what is worth fighting for.

Our Muslim enemies understand and exploit that. "Crusader" is now a derogatory epithet amongst us as well as them. The Communists did pretty well in converting "Capitalist" into a derogatory epithet in the West, but our Muslim friends have done better with crusader. Even to say the word conjures up images of:

They told the stories at times they had personally raped, cut off ears, cut off heads, taped wires from portable telephones to human genitals and turned up the power, cut off limbs, blown up bodies, randomly shot at civilians, razed villages in fashion reminiscent of Genghis Khan, shot cattle and dogs for fun, poisoned food stocks, and generally ravaged the countryside of South Vietnam in addition to the normal ravage of war, and the normal and very particular ravaging which is done by the applied bombing power of this country.

Well, that was John Kerry talking about US troops in Vietnam but he may as well have been talking about Crusaders.

Mon Nov 05, 2007

India versus Pakistan

What a contrast

The British Raj ruled over an India that included Pakistan and Bangladesh. When Britain gave independence to India in 1949, the country split into muslim Pakistan and secular India. That split cost hundreds of thousands of lives as people crossed the borders between the two countries.

India chose a socialist path to the future, which was not wise. They eventually figured out that they couldn't compete with communists who had transformed themselves into free enterprise fascists. Over the the last two decades, India has opened up its economy and reaped the benefits. Rather than focusing n manufacturing, as China has, India invested in service industries and information technology. They leveraged the biggest asset that the British had left them, the English language, and used to their advantage.

India does have some major problems. The muslims who stayed behind have been acting up. The largely muslim state of Kashmir has become a battleground between India and Pakistan sponsored terrorists. The two countries even fought a war over Kashmir.

But India has a bright future in the 21st century. Socialism is dead, capitalism rules and India can use technology to compete for service industry jobs across the globe.

Pakistan substituted a succession of military dictatorships and corrupt politicians for democracy. It became the Argentina of the Indian subcontinent, but worse. It has no modern industry except exporting bootleg nuclear weapons technology. It has allowed muslim extremists to take control of much of its territory. It supported the Taliban and Al Qaeda, unleashing monsters it could not control. It did manage to get the US and China to compete for its "friendship", which consisted of too much military aid and not much else.

Unfortunately, the country stands on the precipice. It is in danger of falling to radical muslims and it has nuclear weapons. That doesn't leave the US many good policy choices. Asking Musharraf to call free elections seems like the least useful response to the current crisis. I seem to recall that free elections ended rather badly in the Palestinian territories and not so well in Iraq. Pakistan has never been a functional democracy and calling for free elections now, in the face of a major Islamist threat, is knee-jerk idiocy. Unfortunately, we have come to expect that from Rice's State Department.

Sun Nov 04, 2007

The folly of a Palestinian state

Why would the Bush Administration push for such a thing?

Powerline blogs:

And, finally, the ultimate folly:

"The establishment of a Palestinian state is what will guarantee the security and stability of the whole region," he[Abbas spokesman Nabil Abu Rudeina] added.

This is sheer insanity. Why on earth would establishing a "Palestinian state," assuming that would be materially different from the currently disgraceful condition of the Palestinians, "guarantee the security and stability of the whole region?" What possible effect would a Palestinian state have on Iran's regional and global ambitions; on the conflicts that beset Iraq; on Syria's nuclear ambitions or its desire to control Lebanon; on al Qaeda's campaign to drive "infidels," a category that includes pretty much everyone, from the Middle East and ultimately from the planet; on Turkey's concerns about its Kurdish minority; or on any of the other conflicts that make the Middle East a perilous region? The answer is, no effect whatsoever. This is, really, the defining fantasy of our time: the idea that giving the Palestinians a "state" will magically cure the dysfunctional and dangerous condition into which the Arab world, and much of the Muslim world, has fallen.

I can think of one good reason why a Palestinian state would be a good thing. That is because Palestinian terrorist acts against Israel would be acts of war and Israel would have much more latitude in retaliating against such acts.

Statehood brings responsibilities. A state that sponsors terrorism is a much easier target than an occupied territory that sponsors terrorism.

Thu Nov 01, 2007

If it's good enough for our military

It's good enough for our diplomats

Our diplomats don't want to serve in Iraq:

angry diplomats raised deep concern about the "potential death sentence" of being ordered to work in Iraq, the State Department said.

They're scared they might get shot at or blown up. They might have a point if the current Democrat attacks on Blackwater actually result in Blackwater being blackballed in Iraq. Be that as it may, the diplomats signed up to serve their country, so they need to be prepared to take what is served up to them in the course of doing their duty.

Secretary Rice might give some thought as to why she panders to terrorists like Abbas, Arafat's bag man. If I was a State Department employee, I'd be really disappointed that the US is giving money to the PLO. We already know that Arafat's terrorist organization was responsible for the cold-blooded murder of State Department employee George Curtis Moore, the American charge d'affaires at the United States Embassy in Khartoum, and State Department employee Cleo Noel, Jr., the United States ambassador to Sudan.

I've got an idea. Let's post all our Middle East diplomats to Israel. This would have two benefits.

1. Arab diplomats would have to come to an advanced democracy in order to meet with US diplomats.

2. It might concentrate the minds of our diplomats to know they are living in Iran's primary target for its first nuclear strike.

In the meantime, it would be kinda nice if our diplomats acted like Americans and stopped whining. It would be even nicer if the US exacted terrible vengeance for the cold blooded murder of any of our citizens, including our diplomats.

Senator Edward Kennedy condemns waterboarding

He'd know, wouldn't he?

In a press release, Kennedy says:

Today’s New York Times story tells us that this disgraceful episode did not end when the torture memo was withdrawn. At the same time that the Justice Department was publicly claiming that it had put things right, the Office of Legal Counsel was secretly issuing two new opinions.

The first opinion authorized harsh interrogation techniques together, in “combination,” to ireate a more extreme overall effect. For instance, interrogators could withhold food at the same time that they subjected detainees to freezing temperatures.

The second opinion declared that none of the CIA’s interrogation methods violated the ban on “cruel, inhuman, and degrading” treatment that Congress was getting ready to pass. This was at a time when the CIA was using “waterboarding” and other abhorrent techniques copied from the Soviets and other brutal regimes.

Apparently, simulating drowning is too harsh on terrorists. But he left Mary Jo Kopechne to drown, after he drove off a bridge. She suffered an actual drowning because of his action and subsequent inaction. Any man (I use the word loosely) who calls his lawyer before the cops, after the death of a young woman riding in his car, is a scumbag. It takes one to know one. Maybe that's why Kennedy is so protective of scumbags' rights.

Of course, he doesn't care if waterboarding is effective in obtaining information from scumbags; information that could save American lives. We've already seen he is more concerned about his political future than the life of an innocent American.

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