November 2005
"My traffic is sheets...
being, as I am...
a snapper-up of unconsidered trifles." – The Winter's Tale, 4.3.
13-28
"On this day, at this hour, it is still within our power to shape the outcome of the battle. So let us find our resolve, and turn events toward victory."
"He is address'd.
Press near and second him."
I know I've been beating the Iraq drum for a while, but you have no idea the level of frustration I have with the false perceptions people have about the state of our war effort.
But if you look, there are many out there who've got it right.
One of them is author James Q. Wilson who that Dubya needs to stand up and give:
A Fitting Address
The speech President Bush should give about Iraq.
BY JAMES Q. WILSON
Sunday, November 27, 2005 12:01 a.m. EST
President Bush and Vice President Cheney are arguing against critics of the Iraq war who are trying to rewrite history. There is some value in this, but it is a fight about the past and not about the future.
What most Americans care about is not who is lying but whether we are winning. I offer this speech that the president might use to tell Americans that we are winning:
My fellow Americans: We are winning, and winning decisively, in Iraq and the Middle East. We defeated Saddam Hussein's army in just a few weeks. None of the disasters that many feared would follow our invasion occurred. Our troops did not have to fight door to door to take Baghdad.
The Iraqi oil fields were not set on fire. There was no civil war between the Sunnis and the Shiites. There was no grave humanitarian crisis.
Saddam Hussein was captured and is awaiting trial. His two murderous sons are dead. Most of the leading members of Saddam's regime have been captured or killed. After our easy military victory, we found ourselves inadequately prepared to defeat the terrorist insurgents, but now we are prevailing.
Iraq has held free elections in which millions of people voted. A new, democratic constitution has been adopted that contains an extensive bill of rights. Discrimination on the basis of sex, religion or politics is banned. Soon the Iraqis will be electing their first parliament.
An independent judiciary exists, almost all public schools are open, every hospital is functioning, and oil sales have increased sharply. In most parts of the country, people move about freely and safely.
According to surveys, Iraqis are overwhelmingly opposed to the use of violence to achieve political ends, and the great majority believe that their lives will improve in the future. The Iraqi economy is growing very rapidly, much more rapidly than the inflation rate.
In some places, the terrorists who lost the war are now fighting back by killing Iraqi civilians. Some brave American soldiers have also been killed, but most of the attacks are directed at decent, honest Iraqis. This is not a civil war; it is terrorism gone mad.
And the terrorists have failed. They could not stop free elections. They could not prevent Iraqi leaders from taking office. They could not close the schools or hospitals. They could not prevent the emergence of a vigorous free press that now involves over 170 newspapers that represent every shade of opinion.
Terrorist leaders such as Zarqawi have lost. Most Sunni leaders, whom Zarqawi was hoping to mobilize, have rejected his call to defeat any constitution. The Muslims in his hometown in Jordan have denounced him. Despite his murderous efforts, candidates representing every legitimate point of view and every ethnic background are competing for office in the new Iraqi government.
The progress of democracy and reconstruction has occurred faster in Iraq than it did in Germany 60 years ago, even though we have far fewer troops in the Middle East than we had in Germany after Hitler was defeated.
We grieve deeply over every lost American and coalition soldier, but we also recognize what those deaths have accomplished. A nation the size of California, with 25 million inhabitants, has been freed from tyranny, equipped with a new democratic constitution, and provided with a growing new infrastructure that will help every Iraqi and not just the privileged members of a brutal regime. For every American soldier who died, 12,000 Iraqi voters were made into effective citizens.
Virtually every American soldier who writes home or comes back to visit his family tells the same story: We have won, Iraqis have won, and life in most of Iraq goes on without violence and with obvious affection between the Iraqi people and our troops. These soldiers have not just restored order in most places, they have built schools, aided businesses, distributed aid and made friends.
To take their places, Iraq has trained, with American and NATO assistance, tens of thousands of new troops and police officers. In the last election, there were more Iraqi soldiers than American ones guarding the polling places.
We know that much remains to be done. Sunni and Shiite leaders must work together more closely. We know that for centuries Sunni leaders, including Saddam, ruled Iraq even though the Sunnis are only a minority of its population: The terrorists began by killing Shiites but now have killed Sunnis as well, all without the slightest moral justification. But we know from America's own experience that when different groups work together constructively, they learn to trust one another.
That must happen, and will happen, in Iraq.
Our success is not confined to Iraq. Libya has renounced its search for nuclear weapons. Syria has pulled out of Lebanon. Afghanistan has produced a democratic government and economic progress for its people. Egypt has had the beginnings of a democratic vote.
In an area once dominated by dictatorships, the few remaining ones are either changing or worrying deeply about those that have changed.
We know now that some of our information about the existence of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq was wrong. But we also know now what we have always believed: That Saddam Hussein, who had already invaded both Iran and Kuwait, had the money, authority and determination to build up his stock of such weapons. When he did, he would have become the colossus of the Middle East, able to overwhelm other countries and rain rockets down on Israel.
We have created a balance of power in the Middle East in which no regime can easily threaten any other. In doing this, we and our allies have followed a long tradition: We worked to prevent Imperial Germany from dominating Europe in 1914, Hitler from doing the same in 1940, and the Soviet Union from doing this in 1945. Now we are doing it in the Middle East.
And we are winning. Soon Iraqi forces will be able to maintain order in the few hot spots that still exist in Iraq. We will stay the course until they are ready. We made no mistake ending Saddam's rule. We have brought not only freedom to Iraq, but progress to most of the Middle East.
America should be proud of what it has accomplished. America will not cut and run until the Iraqis can manage their own security, and that will happen soon.
Mr. Wilson has taught at Harvard, UCLA and Pepperdine, and is the author, among other books, of "The Moral Sense" (Free Press, 1997).
(hat tip: )
Nor--as Captain's Quarters --is this a partisan position: reasonable Dems like Joe Lieberman clearly agree. also has the latest on the rising number of Iraqi battalions.
All of this blends well with Jed Babbin's on how we should pull ourselves out of the media's quagmire of the "Vietnamization of Iraq":
There is only one answer to this: presidential leadership and faster achievement on the battlefield. Americans are entitled to have doubts and uncertainties. The war has, thanks to the media, become a Vietnam-like daily bloodletting. The war's opponents -- even the Dems -- are right in that we cannot continue this way indefinitely. The president needs to do three things. First, he needs to tell Mr.
Rumsfeld and Gen. Pete Pace to deal with terrorism at its sources, wherever they may be, at the greatest speed they can manage. Second -- as I've said over and over -- he needs to be out and about, leading the country and the world by telling us long, hard and continuously what we are doing, where, how and why, and why it's worth the cost in blood and treasure.
He must do this every day from now until he leaves office. It's the burden of a war presidency, and he hasn't shouldered it. It's his job and it's high bloody time he did it.
Amen to that. I really like the p*ssed-off tone that Babbin conveys; that is, I am no Kool Aid drinker when it comes to Iraq--and get very ticked off when opponents reduce my views to that perception--I hold the Administration very much to blame for letting the national debate discourse degenerate to this level.
They are to blame to the extent that:
a.
) They centered the reasons to go to war on WMD rather than on our deeper more vital purpose in the Middle East and the war on terror (which is, , the killing of the parasite of terrorism by depriving it of nation state hosts that feed and encourage its ideologies).
b. They have not, as Babbin states, stood up and unapologetically advocated for our policies in Iraq against all the naysayers and anklebiters who have no alternative solution to Islamofascist terrorism.
Whew! I feel better now!
In case you missed it, I about watching the film noir classic the other day.
And now the inimitable Mark Steyn his recent movie-going experience--lamenting the dilution of screen writing at the hands of political correctness:
Say what you like about those Hollywood writers of the '30s and '40s, but they were serious lefties. Their successors are mostly poseurs loudly trumpeting their courageous ''dissent'' while paralyzed into inanity. This year's Sean Penn thriller, ''The Interpreter,'' was originally about Muslim terrorists blowing up a bus in New York. So, naturally, Hollywood called rewrite. And instead the bus got blown up by African terrorists from the little-known republic of Matobo.
''We didn't want to encumber the film in politics in any way,'' said Kevin Misher, the producer. But being so perversely ''non-political'' is itself a political act. .
.. So ''Stealth'' was a high-tech action thriller about USAF pilots zapping about the skies in which the bad guy is the plane.
This is the pitiful state Hollywood's been reduced to. Safer not to have any bad guys. Let's make the plane the bad guy.
No wonder it's 20th century Britlit -- ''Harry Potter,'' ''Lord of the Rings,'' ''Narnia'' -- keeping those Monday morning numbers up. It's Hollywood's yarn-spinning that's really out of focus, and in the end even home entertainment revenue won't save a storytelling business that no longer knows how to tell any.
For Steyn the effects of political correctness don't stop at the cinema; they've invaded your home video watching as well:
The average multiplex is surely not long for this world. Already, 85 percent of Hollywood's business comes from home entertainment -- DVDs and the like. Suits me. Or so I thought until, on the way home from the hell of Harry Potter, I stopped to buy the third boxed set in the ''Looney Tunes Golden Collection.
'' Loved the first two: Daffy, Bugs, Porky, beautifully restored, tons of special features. But, for some reason, this new set begins with a special announcement by Whoopi Goldberg explaining what it is we're not meant to find funny: ''Unfortunately at that time racial and ethnic differences were caricatured in ways that may have embarrassed and even hurt people of color, women and ethnic groups,'' she tells us sternly. ''These jokes were wrong then and they're wrong today'' -- unlike, say, Whoopi Goldberg's most memorable joke of recent years, the one at that 2004 all-star Democratic Party gala in New York where she compared President Bush to her, um, private parts.
There's a gag for the ages.
I don't know what Whoopi's making such a meal about. It's true you don't see many positive images of people of color on ''Looney Tunes,'' but then the images of people of non-color aren't terribly positive either (Elmer Fudd, Yosemite Sam).
Instead, you see positive images of ducks of color, roadrunners of color and tweety birds of color. How weirdly reductive to be so obsessed about something so peripheral to these cartoons that you stick the same damn Whoopi Goldberg health warning on all four DVDs in the box. And don't think about hitting the "Next" button and skipping to the cartoons: You can't; you gotta sit through it.
A Hollywood that's ashamed of one of its few universally acknowledged genuine artistic achievements is hardly likely to come up with any new artistic achievements. As the instant deflation of that Whoopi cushion reminds us, the movies are now so constrained by political correctness the very act of storytelling is itself endangered.
(
hat tip: )
The (9-2) won seven of their final eight games under first-year coach Charlie Weis, who made a key decision to switch kickers in the fourth quarter then gave his team a major scare when he switched back to starter D.J. Fitzpatrick.
After missing an extra point and a 42-yard field goal attempt earlier in the game, Fitzpatrick missed a 29-yard field goal wide left with 2:15 to play that could have provided a two-score lead.
Stanford took advantage.
The Cardinal, who will miss a postseason trip in coach Walt Harris' first year, went ahead 31-30 with 1:46 left after backup quarterback T.
C. Ostrander's 4-yard touchdown pass to Matt Traverso. Ostrander set up the score with a 76-yard completion to Mark Bradford.
"We went back and forth the whole game," Weis said. "But I think the great thing about this football team is, earlier this year, before I got here, I didn't know if they understood how to win games like this. .
.. I've had a lot of games with this kind of pressure, it's just that they haven't had it.
"
Travis Thomas ran 8 yards for a score with 9:44 left for the , who played in front of three representatives from the Fiesta Bowl and beat Stanford for the fourth straight time - having a much tougher time than they did in a 57-7 rout of the Cardinal here in 2003 in Tyrone Willingham's return to The Farm.
No lie: I was all over the map emotionally as I watched the final minutes of this drama unfold. Stanford deserves a lot of respect, but you must hand it to Quinn and the Irish for keeping a clear head and being so determined.
Now we'll wait and see who the Irish will be matched with when the BCS pairings are announced on Dec. 3rd.
GO IRISH!
"Married in league, coupled and linked together."
In his typically superior weekly for NRO, VDH tosses this barbed volley:
Despite acrimony at home, the politics of two national elections and a third on the horizon, and the slander of war crimes and incompetence, those on the battlefield of Iraq have almost pulled off the unthinkable — the restructuring of the politics of the Middle East in less than three years.
And he backs it up with some pointed questions for those with feet of clay:
Yet as [the Democrats] hedge — on television praising Congressmen Murtha who advocates withdrawal, but making sure they vote overwhelmingly on the record to reject his advice — they should consider some critical questions. First, are the metrics of this war in the terrorists’ or our favor? Are the Iraqi security forces growing or shrinking? Are elections postponed or on schedule? Are Europe, Jordan, Lebanon, and others more or less sympathetic to a war against Islamic terrorism in Iraq? Are bin Laden, Zawahiri, and Zarqawi more or less popular or secure after we removed Saddam?
Is al Qaeda in a strengthened or weakened position? Is the Arab world more or less receptive to democracy in the Gulf, Egypt, Lebanon, and the West Bank? And is the United States more or less vulnerable to a terrorist attack as we go into our fifth year since September 11?
Also, thanks to for making me aware of as well--(once again) laying out, point by point, the fact that there were ideed ties between Saddam and Al-Qaeda.
One of the most frequent charges is that President Bush hyped a non-existent link between Saddam Hussein and al-Qaida — and that as a result, we diverted our efforts from finishing off the real terrorists to start a new and costly war to replace a secular dictator.
This charge is false for several reasons — and illogical for even more...
The point he makes, and Power Line , is that the facts in the case clearly establish that there was a connection--and therefore the only people pushing a theory are those who claim (wrongly) that there were no ties between Saddam and Bin Laden's group.
They are the ones who bear the burden of proof.
"Quick, quick, I pray thee; draw the curtain straight.
"
The guy in NRO's Corner about Yankee ingenuity in Iraq, former Marine infantryman and paratrooper W. Thomas Smith, Jr., has also recently about the success--that's right, success--of Operation Iron Curtain in the western provinces of Iraq:
But what makes Steel Curtain different from previous actions is that an increasing number of al Qaeda senior leaders are being captured or killed (a sign that the number of insurgent junior leaders and foot soldiers is decreasing), more outlaw towns and villages are being liberated (thanks to human-source intelligence from residents disgusted by what the insurgents are doing to their country), and a greater number of Iraqi soldiers are taking the lead in both scouting operations and offensive actions.
The biggest problem remains the porous borders.
And he has a word or two for the "cut and run crowd":
Of course many  who, again, don't understand the complexities of ground combat  rail against President Bush for not conceding "defeat" and withdrawing U.S. forces from Iraq. But how could we responsibly withdraw from a fight  that terrorists and terror-sponsoring nations fear we will win  when we have the enemy on the ropes? Why should we shut down operations in Al Anbar and elsewhere in Iraq when we continue to glean solid intelligence from captured foreign fighters in that country about terrorist activities, worldwide?
Why should we abandon a new nation and its people who we've made promises to, and they've responded in kind with their own enormous sacrifices and courageous votes? And why should we abandon a growing and remarkably developed military force that we've stood up from scratch in less than three years? And despite what the cut-and-run crowd would have us believe, American troops on the ground are not deceptively recruited pawns in some unfortunate military adventure.
U.S. soldiers and Marines in Al Anbar and elsewhere in Iraq know exactly what they are doing, and why.
They also see the fruits of their labors, which, to their consternation, are rarely reported.
Speaking before a group of U.S.
airmen in South Korea, Saturday, President Bush said, "There are some who say that the sacrifice is too great, and they urged us to set a date for withdrawal before we have completed our mission. Those who are in the fight know better."
Indeed, says Capt.
Kerr, "We have the initiative and we intend to keep driving hard against these guys [insurgents]. Our goal is to stay on the offensive and capitalize on the considerable momentum we have."
Murtha wants the Iraqis to bear more of the responsibility for their own security. But this is already happening. ,
Coalition forces are able to apply simultaneous force against the insurgent strongholds and, more important, to stay in the area because many Iraqi units are now able conduct combat operations with minimal U.S. support. In a Pentagon press briefing on Sept.
30, Gen. George Casey, the U.S.
ground-forces commander in Iraq, pointed out that the number of U.S.-Iraqi or independent Iraqi operations of company-size or greater had increased from about 160 in May to over 1,300 in September, and that US-Iraqi or independent Iraqi operations now constituted some 80 percent of all military operations in Iraq [emphasis added].
The increasing number of capable Iraqi units means that the Iraqi government can begin to extend the writ of the Iraqi government to Al Anbar province, the heart of the Sunni Triangle. For instance, the recently completed Operation River Gate has established a substantial Iraqi government presence in Haditha, Haqlaniyah, and Barwana, three former insurgent strongholds along the Euphrates River.
A pullout now would reverse this very favorable trend.
Finally, it is very clear that Murtha has been moved by the soldiers he has visited who have been wounded in the war and by the plight of those who have lost loved ones in Iraq. But those of us who respect his grasp of military affairs expect him, unlike members of the press, to be able to place casualties in strategic context. He dishonors the sacrifice of these men by treating them as victims rather than the heroes they are.
We owe it to the American soldiers who have been killed or wounded in Iraq and the Iraqis who have fought to create a new state to see this effort through to the end, preventing a replay of the disgraceful episode three decades ago when the U.S. Congress betrayed and abandoned our South Vietnamese allies.
Prior to this passage he has laid-out, at length, a helpful review of the events in Vietnam leading up to the Congressional abandonment of our cause.
I haven't linked to his columns in a while, but Jonah G still remains my hero-- 's yet another reason why:
I've been down on the newer Simpsons for a while, but I caught most of last night's and thought it was pretty good. Best part (and I'm quoting from memory) is when Lisa convinces Homer to run for Mayor. She says "And I'll be your campaign manager!" In response, Homer declares -- as if on an important mission -- ".
..and I will find out what a mayor does!
" He then grabs a bottle of Duff beer from a six pack and snaps at the bottle: "Expand my brain, Thinking Juice." My wife -- who is horribly addicted to that Soduko game -- laughed and looked up from the page to say "I can't believe you've never used that line."
I had to explain this wasn't a rerun.
"Ah," she replied, confident that "Expand my brain, thinking juice!" will be accompanying the sound of beer being opened in the Goldberg house for many years to come.
What a Mensch!
LOL. My girlfriend rolled her eyes when I shared this--I can't imagine why! Mind you, I also admire he can field-dress an opponent in seconds:
Aside from the moral twaddle, one wonders who Matthews thinks is to blame for the lack of a robust discussion. Since 9/11 Matthews has been ominpresent on TV. For a while there he was hosting the news, doing shows back to back and a couple years ago he got that show on broadcast NBC. He's a major player in the editorial decisions at MSNBC as well.
So if we lacked a robust discussion -- which isn't how I remember it by the way -- who could possibly be more to blame than Matthews himself?
Also, if you read the piece Rich links to, Matthews cites only three factors which lead to war. The "father-son relatioship with the Bushes," "the oil thing" and our relationship with Israel.
That's it? Daddy complex, Israel and oil. In other words Matthews can't even muster the will to offer a single explanation that doesn't cast Bush in a bad light.
Shabby stuff.
Speaking of Matthews, Michelle Malkin nails him .
"Post I in this design."
This story that the Vatican has come out and criticized Intelligent Design theory
would seem at first blush to make a point that I have made here regarding the Catholic Church's position viz a viz Faith Reason. Namely, it refutes monolithic notions of Christianity as fundamentally opposed to the light of Reason--at least as far as the Roman Church is concerned.
VATICAN CITY (AP) — The Vatican's chief astronomer said Friday that "intelligent design" isn't science and doesn't belong in science classrooms, the latest high-ranking Roman Catholic official to enter the evolution debate in the United States.
The Rev. George Coyne, the Jesuit director of the Vatican Observatory, said placing intelligent design theory alongside that of evolution in school programs was "wrong" and was akin to mixing apples with oranges.
But, at the same time, I think you should read this story carefully and with a bit of scepticism about the media's oversimplified template (note: I'm not making an accusation of malice here so much as oversimplification/ignorance). For instance, this is a lower-grade Church official (to say that he's a "Vatican" official is a bit misleading in its overdetermination) offering his opinion--it's not official Church teaching.
To keep this posting short, I'll simply put it this way: the Church is going to let the scientific/academic communities debate this issue and come to some closure before it weighs-in in any official capacity.
It will leave science to the experts.
Until that time, however, it will clarify its broader philosophical/theological stance on faith and reason to the effect that Mother Church neither advocates a fundamentalist interpretation of Scripture that would demand scientific theories be subservient to literal readings of the biblical text, nor does she endorse any theory (Darwinist, Marxist, etc.) that reduces human beings to souless, materially-determined animals enslaved to the contingencies of evolution.
The Church will, as always, take a via media, or "middle way".
Though admittedly on the defensive against what he perceives as media bias against ID, I think Bruce Chapman of the is fair and accurate in his account :
Let me be clear. The scientific issues surrounding Darwin's theory, and alternative theories such as intelligent design, are not inherently religious, and religious authorities, even the Pope, can't dictate specific scientific doctrines, and Pope Benedict is not attempting to do so. The Pope, like Cardinal Schönborn, plainly is making a point about the PHILOSOPHY that underlies any scientific proposition, as, for example positivism and materialism undergird most of what is described as neo-Darwinism.
. .
. But, the reason this all matters to this blog and blogger, is that Darwinists--and their credulous followers in the mainstream media--seem intent on misrepresenting the Catholic Church in order to isolate and stigmatize the opponents of neo-Darwinism--including ID proponents--and to brand them as "extremists" and "fundamentalists." As Prof.
Lawrence Krauss made clear on NPR recently, the purpose of invoking official Catholic backing for neo-Darwinist orthodoxy--even if that backing doesn't exist--is to lull an unparalleled billion believers worldwide. It is a propaganda stunt.
The Pope did not endorse specific intelligent design theories, nor did he say that evolution in all senses is wrong (neither does Discovery Institute, by the way).
He did express a traditional Catholic orthodox PHILOSOPHY that should guide science--and plainly does not guide neo-Darwinism. He did speak up for design in nature.
Many in the media may not like that, but it is time to be honest about it.
Opponents of ID would quibble with some of this--particularly that first sentence, but I understand what he means. I guess I'm just grateful to see somebody not knee-jerk
perceived notions of Catholic teaching on faith science!
"Reputation is an idle and most false imposition: oft got without merit, and lost without deserving."
When I read to against the Iraq War ( irresponsible cheap shot at the VP), I was filled with disgust. I thought I would respond to Dreher's panic, but took the words right out of my mouth.
(Funny stuff!)
Please don't tell me that I must give more credibility to this guy and take him seriously simply because he's not a liberal democrat--I DON'T.
Why?
Because the veracity of his words is not reducible to his credentials! In other words, if I don't find the substance of his statement (I won't even call it an argument) to be tenable, then I'm not going buy what he has to say. Period.
I don't care about his credentials. Besides, though the media plays this up, he's been on this rant . Nor do I buy the media trying to paint him as a "hawk.
" Pllleease. Anybody who's been saying these kind of things for so long, who has Howard Dean's chairmanship of the DNC, and been in bed (as it were) is no hawk.
His statement is unsubstantiated, historically uninformed, and boardering on a rant.
Why should I respect what he has to say? is not to be missed. And as notes (with a wonderful dose of irony):
Extra Murtha classy points for doing this with the Prez out of country, and arranging for lots of press coverage–nice of you to be so loud about your lack of spine, there, mister.
It is painful to learn that soldiers have died; it is painful . But that does not remove my obligation, as a citizen, to set emotion aside and thoughtful consider the situation. And to my mind, no one has yet refuted the
arguments put forward by Victor Davis Hanson.
To me, he has both the credentials and substantive, well-supported points. Consider this item from a --place it alongside Murtha's statement and you tell me who's more credible--more persuasive!
Hanson: We need to know what our objectives are and where we wish to be when the fighting stops, and, as the failed peace during the Peloponnesian War reminds us, that it will stop only with the defeat of one side and the victory of another. After all, there is no living with a fascist jihad; in its own words, it promises to destroy all a liberal West holds dear.
Otherwise, we have a classic bellum interruptum of the Middle East or Cypriot kind, and should not ask our precious young people to die for a war we do not intend to win and perhaps should go back to the Clintonian strategy of appeasement with cruise missiles and tolerance for the occasional harvesting of diplomats and soldiers abroad. But if we wish to stop all that and to go to war, then we must be determined to win and know how to do so.
So it seems to me we must articulate our goals: the creation of a stable democratic Afghanistan and Iraq; a global coalition of Europe, India, Russia and China that establishes that Pakistan can no longer harbor terrorists, that Syria cannot promote terrorism, that Saudi Arabia cannot use its petrodollars to promote jihad; and that Iran cannot become nuclear in its pursuit of hyper-terror. We have had success and are really down to these four countries whose behavior must radically change.
We must establish a culture of ostracism for radical Islam.
We are seeing that now inside Holland, Great Britain, and now apparently France as well. By that I mean we wish to create a landscape similar to what a Nazi felt in 1946 or a Stalinist saw in 1989: that the ideology is bankrupt and no one will tolerate it anymore, and praising suicide bombing in Haifa or celebrating IEDs in Iraq is the moral equivalent of calling for Waffen SS victories in WWII or praise for the Baatan Death March, which earns a person deportation from the West and social exile abroad. There is no reason, after Iran's boast to wipe out Israel, that such a country belongs in the U.
N., or that any civilized country would have diplomatic personnel in Teheran. It should be seen as Nazi Germany circa 1939.
We are not there yet in establishing such a moral reawakening, but these should be our ultimate military and political goals; defeat and kill terrorists in the field; pressure and isolate their national sponsors; and discredit their ideology. Do that and we win; fail and we endure the present sort of global Lebanization of seeing schoolgirls beheaded in Indonesia, or schoolchildren shot in Beslan, or schoolteachers assassinated in Iraq, beside the sick carnage from New York to New Dehli and the spectre of escalation to the nuclear level in Iran.
UPDATE (11/18/05, 12:35pm): John McCain clearly , thus making Murtha's creds even more irrelevant (i.
e. I see your war vet and raise you a POW). And, sadly, has to once again spell-out the Iraq-to-Al Qaeda connection ( NO, nobody's saying Saddam planned 9/11!
).
I know I'm bombarding you with links, but don't forget to check out Iraq the Model's to Murtha.
"To stir a mutiny in the mildest thoughts."
Fellow submariners will recognize this situation: it's late in a midwatch and (just when you think it will be another uneventful night of staring at dials and logbooks) someone in Maneuvering asks a question out of left field that starts a long, enthusiastic conversation--often with someone chiming-in that "
that would make a great novel!"
Well, one former USS Kentucky (SSBN 737) officer had precisely that experience-- !
Hindinger was passing time by talking with others during a mid-watch in the 1990s aboard USS Kentucky (SSBN 737). He then found himself kicking around the question, how, if a Sailor lost his marbles, could he steal a submarine? The question made for some good fodder during the watch for his shipmates, but Hindinger took the question further and wrote a book based around the discussion.
Now, a decade and 20 re-writes later, John Hindinger has a novel out: . As a matter of fact, he's already (in two months) finished the sequel to this book!
And how many submariners can relate to this as well:
Following his time on USS Kentucky, Hindinger set about the process of writing the book and initially used it as a way to kill time.
''Writing helped relieve boredom while I was on shore duty,'' said Hindinger. ''I started out writing science fiction and started this book in 1996.''
Good for him!
Way to act on those inclinations, work hard, and see a dream come true.
"A mad tale he told to-day at dinner.
"
Any fans of Dean Koontz, masterful writer of fiction in the horror genre? Well, it seems for some "racist" comments that he made. Would someone please tell me why this anecdote is racist!
Here's the story:
Best-selling thriller writer Dean Koontz had told the anecdote dozens of times before: The author wanted his name removed from a film version of one of his books, so he sent a series of letters to the head of the Japanese company that owned the movie studio mentioning World War II, the Bataan Death March and Godzilla.
For years, people would laugh at the story.
But after Koontz retold the anecdote on Saturday to a group of mystery writers and fans in Irvine, Calif. — during which he referred to the studio executive as “Mr. Teriyaki” — a group of mystery writers are speaking out against what they perceive as Koontz’s blatant racism, and a widespread debate has emerged on Southern California literary blogs about where humor ends and racism begins.
“I was astonished that people were laughing when they should have shunned him with silence,” author Lee Goldberg, who was present at the event, wrote on his blog.
Others disagreed. “My writing peers need to spend more time writing and less time defending the free world from the menace of Dean Koontz,” J.
A. Konrath wrote in an e-mail to the Los Angeles Times.
Koontz blames the brouhaha on “some sort of an agenda,” and writers who attended the speech were divided over whether the comments constituted racism.
He was unaware of any concerns, Koontz said, because many in the audience laughed and applauded during his speech. Bloggers started posting opinions on Sunday, and Koontz says that he and his publisher, Bantam Dell, began receiving feedback “from people who weren’t even there, people who were calling me names.”
Koontz phoned Goldberg and other writers, but was dissatisfied with the conversations.
“I was a poor kid with a Jewish grandmother and a great grandmother who was black,” Koontz said. “I grew up in a dirt-poor family. I’m used to the abuse that you take.
I don’t dish it out, I never have, and this is just appalling to me. I guess I’ll be smeared with this for the rest of my life. I’m not outraged, I’m not spooked, it’s just — my sadness is so deep.
”
“I’ll stand by the letters” to the Japanese CEO, he said. “They’re George Carlin-esque. There’s some political incorrectness in it, but nothing mean.
”
At the event, Koontz began reciting each letter with the now-controversial salutation, “Dear Mr. Teriyaki.”
“My letter of 10 November has not been answered,” one read.
“As I am certain you are an honorable and courteous man, I would assume your silence results from the mistaken belief that World War II is still in progress and that the citizens of your country and mine are forbidden to communicate. Enclosed is a copy of the front page of The New York Times from 1945, with the headline, JAPAN SURRENDERS.”
Koontz’s publisher stands by the author, as does the organizer of the event.
Lighten up, people.
"He calls for the tortures: what will you say without 'em?
"
Wretchard over at the Belmont Club regarding Senator McCain's bill banning torture (btw, the quote he uses is from a 1940 speech by Winston Churchill):
I'm going to make a personal prediction. The number of incidents involving the torture of terrorist suspects will increase after the McCain Amendment, or something like it, is passed. There will be a fall in the number of interrogation incidents in US custody. It may even become zero. However, there will be a corresponding increase in torture incidents involving agencies of other governments, including European governments, all of whom will fully subscribe to every piece of human rights legislation which can be imagined, but who in practice will simply do what they want.
What the McCain Amendment will do is change the bean-counting rules.
It will not create a framework in which real torture can be limited and stopped. That would require accepting moral responsibility for affirming practices which may be proscribed under the Geneva Conventions but fall short of real torture. That would mean explaining to the public that we are correspondingly determined to outlaw real, barbaric torture, even when by foreswearing it, public losses must be endured.
Instead politicians will want to have it both ways and promise the public that they will neither soil their hands nor let the sleeping populace come to harm. No one who desires re-election can promise the voters only "blood, sweat and tears". The time is long since past when politicians could say to a nation at war "death and sorrow will be the companion of our journey; hardship our garment; constancy and valor our only shield.
" That's too much of a drag. Today even our conflicts, like our food, must be untouched by human hands.
It will effectively rule out the use of drugs, sleep deprivation and threat, which arguably should not be classed as torture and make these methods unavailable for interrogation.
When taken together with the public clamor to provide nearly 100% protection against terrorist attack, it will create a heightened demand for information which cannot be met, even partially, by practices which fall short of real torture but which exceed the restrictions of international conventions. That need will be filled instead by a black market for coercion organized by a variety of non-American entities for whom the rules do not apply, nor were ever expected to apply, for "we are better than our enemies"; and one might add, better than our friends.
In practice terrorist suspects captured anywhere in the world won't be taken to Guantanamo, Abu Ghraib, or any "hell-hole" under US control.
Nor will they be handled for an instant by US nationals or taken in raids involving a single American. No, that would be too dangerous -- to the health of the captives, though thankfully for the politicians, not to the legal health of the Americans. They will be captured and retained by countries beyond the circle of attention.
On the day the Amendment is passed there will be light everywhere except in the places of our soul where we don't want to look.
"Ay, let [him] rot, and perish, and be damned to-night.
"
More from Iraq:
November 13, 2005 -- The mastermind behind the Iraqi insurgency and the No. 2 figure in Saddam Hussein's ousted regime is dead — and his passing is a blow to terrorists' efforts to damage Iraq's new government and oust U.S. forces. Izzat Ibrahim al-Douri, who with Saddam brought the Ba'ath Party to power in Iraq in a 1968 coup, died Friday, according to a statement on a Web site that carries news from Ba'ath supporters.
Al-Arabiya television also reported the death of al-Douri, who had been suffering from cancer but still kept his grip on the insurgency — even while being treated in Syria.
Did ya catch where he was being treated? mmm-hmm.
"And strike you home without a messenger."
All I can say is.
.. !
"While it is perfectly legitimate to criticize my decision or the conduct of the war, it is deeply irresponsible to rewrite the history of how that war began. Some Democrats and anti-war critics are now claiming we manipulated the intelligence and misled the American people about why we went to war. These critics are fully aware that a bipartisan Senate investigation found no evidence of political pressure to change the intelligence community's judgments related to Iraq's weapons programs. They also know that intelligence agencies from around the world agreed with our assessment of Saddam Hussein. They know the United Nations passed more than a dozen resolutions citing his
development and possession of weapons of mass destruction. Many of these critics supported my opponent during the last election, who explained his
position to support the resolution in the Congress this way: 'When I vote to give the President of the United States the authority to use force, if necessary, to disarm Saddam Hussein, it is because I believe that a deadly arsenal of weapons of mass destruction in his hands is a threat, and a grave threat, to our security.
' That's why more than 100 Democrats in the House and the Senate, who had access to the same intelligence voted to support removing Saddam Hussein from power.
"The stakes in the global War on Terror are too high, and the national interest is too important, for politicians to throw out false charges. These baseless attacks send the wrong signal to our troops and to an enemy that is questioning America's will.
As our troops fight a ruthless enemy determined to destroy our way of life, they deserve to know that their elected leaders who send them to war continue to stand behind them. Our troops deserve to know that this support will remain firm when the going gets tough. And our troops deserve to know that whatever our differences in Washington, our will is strong, our Nation is united, and we will settle for nothing less than victory.
"
"Your old smock brings forth a new petticoat."
Victor Davis Hanson has been writing frequently, it seems, and this "extra" (i.
e. outside his weekly NRO column that appears on Fridays) column the widely-held belief that we're in a new, "fourth generation" phase of warfare. Bunkum, says Hanson.
Cast of the superfical lendings, and the fundamental characteristics of war remain the same (btw, let's see who can pick-out the Shakespearean allusion in that previous sentence).
Indeed, almost every horror we have experienced since Sept. 11 had a like counterpart centuries earlier in the Peloponnesian War, despite the relative poverty and backwardness of that distant pre-industrial age.
Limb-lopping? The Athenians ordered the right hands of captured Spartan seamen cut off both to terrify their enemies and prevent their prisoners from ever rowing again.
Terrorism?
On the island of Corcyra, factions burned innocents alive and executed civilians by running them through a gauntlet.
Collateral damage? In the town of Plataea, women and children joined in the hostilities, pelting marauding enemies with roof tiles from their balconies to save themselves from extinction.
The specter of biological attack? The Athenians lost a quarter to a third of their population to a mysterious plague — and blamed the outbreak on the Spartans. Nothing in the entire war, Thucydides wrote, so weakened the Athenian ranks.
Hostage-taking? The Athenians captured crack Spartan infantrymen on the island of Sphacteria. They immediately took them back to Athens and threatened to kill them all if the Spartans ever set foot in Attica again.
(The tactics worked: The famously tough Spartans caved in to the blackmail.)
Kidnapped diplomats? The Athenians captured Spartan envoys on the way to Persia, ignored their diplomatic immunity, killed them and cast their corpses in a pit.
Spreading freedom by force? The Athenian Empire was based on the precept that most Greeks in the Aegean Sea embraced the principle of equality — but needed someone like the paternalistic Athenians to foster and sustain democracy through the power of their navy.
"The effects he writes of succeed unhappily."
In , John Podhoretz explains why the Dem. spin on yesterday's elections doesn't hold up under historically-informed scrutiny:
You're going to be hearing that the elections last night were a stunning victory for the Democrats and a stunning repudiation of George W. Bush. That's a major stretch, and I'm not saying that because I'm a conservative rooting for the Republicans. I mean, I am — but I'd be honest enough to acknowledge a major sign of American party realignment if there had been one.
. . .
. .
To sum up: Incumbent party victories in two states and one city. A Republican state rejected Democratic initiatives. A Democratic state rejected Republican initiatives.
Don't let the Democratic spin doctors fool you.
Election Day 2005 has nothing to tell us about where the electorate is going in the wake of Bush's terrible year.
"I have letters sent me that set him high in fame.
"
Let every American read from
Capt. Jeffrey P. Toczylowski, a Special Forces commander originally from the Philadelphia area who recently died defending his country in Iraq:
This is an e-mail that Special Forces Capt. Jeffrey P. Toczylowski, 30, prepared in the event of his death. Toczylowski died during a combat mission in Iraq on Nov.
3. His father, Philip M. Toczylowski, shared the e-mail.
He and his wife, Margaret, live in Ambler.
Dear friends and family,
If you are getting this email, it means that I have passed away. No, it's not a sick Toz joke, but a letter I wanted to write in case this happened.
Please don't be sad for me. It was an honor to serve my country, and I wouldn't change a thing. It was just my time.
Don't ever think that you are defending me by slamming the Global War on Terrorism or the US goals in that war. As far as I am concerned, we can send guys like me to go after them or we can wait for them to come back to us again. I died doing something I believed in and have no regrets except that I couldn't do more.
This will probably be the longest email most of you have ever received from me. More that one of you complained on multiple occasions about my brief emails.
I have requested to be buried in Arlington National Cemetery and would like you to attend, but I understand if you can't make it.
There will also be a party in Vegas with a 100k to help pay for travel, room, and a party. I want you to be happy for the time we had, not the future we won't.
Never regret not calling, writing enough, keeping in touch, or visiting.
I was always away and thought of you all as much, if not more, than you thought of me. Time keeps rolling and so should my family and friends. The only thing I ask is that you toast me every so often, because you know I'll be watching and wanting to be with you.
Don't spend any time crying for me, because I'll bet you I am having a ball right now wherever I am.
I will look in on all of you and help whenever I can. I love you all!
"Honour and policy, like unsever'd friends, i' the war do grow together."
Check out this well-written and flat-out fascinating of Winston Churchill's WWI era frustrations with American isolationism.
It's written by the great Churchill biographer Martin Gilbert who has a new book out entitled .
Another blow to Churchill's faith in American goodwill came in the immediate aftermath of the First World War. Then, the United States Senate had voted down President Woodrow Wilson's vision of a League of Nations that would create a collective security system to prevent the aggression of any rogue nation.
Churchill feared that if America did not participate in building up a system of effective deterrence, Germany and France would draw Europe into another bloodbath.
In 1937, as war clouds loomed, Churchill wrote to an American friend: "How you must regret, how we all regret, that Wilson's dream was not carried through, for I have no doubt it would have made the difference between a safe, happy and prosperous world and the present hideous panorama."
Words, no doubt, that we still need to take to heart in our present crises.
The young Marine's death was a centerpiece in the Times' coverage of America's 2,000th combat death in Iraq.
The newspaper's overview of the war is no secret: To hear the Times tell it, Americans are being slaughtered for no reason in an unjust war.
To bolster its argument, the Times last week publicly slandered the memory of a genuine American hero — Cpl. Starr.
"That capability and godlike reason."
Sure he that made us with such large discourse,
Looking before and after, gave us not
That capability and godlike reason
To fust in us unus'd. --Hamlet ( )
Regular readers of this blog that yesterday caught my eye.
A Vatican cardinal said Thursday the faithful should listen to what secular modern science has to offer, warning that religion risks turning into "fundamentalism" if it ignores scientific reason.
I was glad to see that this received some coverage, and yet what does it say about people's ignorance about the Roman Catholic Church's position on the cooperation of Faith Reason?
Not surprisingly, the article recites oversimplied cliches about the Galileo trial, and misses the opportunity to note the most extraordinary fact that in 1998, John Paul II published a papal encyclical entitled (or "Faith Reason") that effectively refutes perceptions and stereotypes about the Catholic Church's supposed opposition to the lights of Science--the letter was the Galileo trial in reverse!
!! It urges present-day thinkers to overcome tendencies toward postmodern scepticism and take stock of the virtues of human Reason.
I quote from JP2's introduction which notes the that the Church has nothing to fear from Science and highlights her long history as a proponent of this discipline:
Therefore, following upon similar initiatives by my Predecessors, I wish to reflect upon this special activity of human reason. I judge it necessary to do so because, at the present time in particular, the search for ultimate truth seems often to be neglected. Modern philosophy clearly has the great merit of focusing attention upon man. From this starting-point, human reason with its many questions has developed further its yearning to know more and to know it ever more deeply. Complex systems of thought have thus been built, yielding results in the different fields of knowledge and fostering the development of culture and history. Anthropology, logic, the natural sciences, history, linguistics and so forth—the whole universe of knowledge has been involved in one way or another.
Yet the positive results achieved must not obscure the fact that reason, in its one-sided concern to investigate human subjectivity, seems to have forgotten that men and women are always called to direct their steps towards a truth which transcends them. Sundered from that truth, individuals are at the mercy of caprice, and their state as person ends up being judged by pragmatic criteria based essentially upon experimental data, in the mistaken belief that technology must dominate all. It has happened therefore that reason, rather than voicing the human orientation towards truth, has wilted under the weight of so much knowledge and little by little has lost the capacity to lift its gaze to the heights, not daring to rise to the truth of being.
Abandoning the investigation of being, modern philosophical research has concentrated instead upon human knowing. Rather than make use of the human capacity to know the truth, modern philosophy has preferred to accentuate the ways in which this capacity is limited and conditioned.
This has given rise to different forms of agnosticism and relativism which have led philosophical research to lose its way in the shifting sands of widespread scepticism.
Recent times have seen the rise to prominence of various doctrines which tend to devalue even the truths which had been judged certain. A legitimate plurality of positions has yielded to an undifferentiated pluralism, based upon the assumption that all positions are equally valid, which is one of today's most widespread symptoms of the lack of confidence in truth. Even certain conceptions of life coming from the East betray this lack of confidence, denying truth its exclusive character and assuming that truth reveals itself equally in different doctrines, even if they contradict one another.
On this understanding, everything is reduced to opinion; and there is a sense of being adrift. While, on the one hand, philosophical thinking has succeeded in coming closer to the reality of human life and its forms of expression, it has also tended to pursue issues—existential, hermeneutical or linguistic—which ignore the radical question of the truth about personal existence, about being and about God. Hence we see among the men and women of our time, and not just in some philosophers, attitudes of widespread distrust of the human being's great capacity for knowledge.
With a false modesty, people rest content with partial and provisional truths, no longer seeking to ask radical questions about the meaning and ultimate foundation of human, personal and social existence. In short, the hope that philosophy might be able to provide definitive answers to these questions has dwindled.
Sure of her competence as the bearer of the Revelation of Jesus Christ, the Church reaffirms the need to reflect upon truth.
This is why I have decided to address you, my venerable Brother Bishops, with whom I share the mission of “proclaiming the truth openly” (2 Cor 4:2), as also theologians and philosophers whose duty it is to explore the different aspects of truth, and all those who are searching; and I do so in order to offer some reflections on the path which leads to true wisdom, so that those who love truth may take the sure path leading to it and so find rest from their labours and joy for their spirit.
"And curst be he that moves my bones.
"
Good friend, for Jesus sake forebear
To dig the dust enclosed here.
Blest be the man that spares these stones
And curst be he that moves my bones.
--Epitaph on William Shakespeare's Grave
Now, granted, such epitaphs were quite common in Shakespeare's time, but I quote it because it lends a certain irony to these stories and .
Controversial plans to dig up William Shakespeare's grave, to find out whether he was murdered by his son-in-law, have been revealed by American scientists.
The US experts, who are convinced the Bard's death was anything but natural, are hoping to be granted permission by his descendants to exhume his body.
They are convinced scientific advances including DNA testing will end years of speculation about Shakespeare being murdered.
Professor James Starrs, of George Washington University in the US, said: " Shakespeare has made it clear that there is no justification for removing his bones. However, there is some consideration of foul play and the possibility that we could positively identify his body, so permission for this project becomes easier to find."
Chairman of the Shakespeare Birthplace Trust Professor Stanley Wells said: "There is not the slightest reason to suppose that Shakespeare was murdered by his son-in-law, or that opening the grave would produce any evidence relating to the authorship of the plays, which is beyond all doubt.
"On the other hand, if exhumation of whatever remains may have survived would put a stop to rumour and speculation, I should not object to it.
"I think it could be very useful to clear the air and some Shakespeare DNA would be incredibly useful.
"There is a lot we do not know about Shakespeare's death.
"
Other famous exhumations include the bodies of Johann Sebastian Bach and JFK's assassin Lee Harvey Oswald.
I'm of two minds about this: on the one hand, I think it would be beneficial to have Shakespeare's DNA -- at the very least to perhaps help put the kibash on all of the silly authorship conspiracies (though I'm unsure as to how exactly that would help). On the other hand, I'm very suspicious of these scientists from George Washington U.
What better way to get your name in the history books than to be the guys who defied the "Curse of Shakespeare"?!
And that stuff about Shakespeare being murdered is an absolute canard.
COACH WEIS: This will take a few minutes. I have a number of things to talk about.
Tennessee is a team that notoriously has been a dominating force, especially in the month of November. As a matter of fact, over the last 20 years in the month of November, their record is 75 5. You're talking about a team that's got a .
938 winning percentage in the month of November because they usually close out the season very strong. Everyone wants to talk about their 3-4 record. I'd like to talk a little bit about it myself before I get going into particulars, especially about their four losses.
In their four losses, their defense has given up a total of five touchdowns, 86 yards rushing in a game and a little over 200 yards passing per game. I think I had it down to 294 total yards a game they're giving up on defense.
Let's talk about their four losses one by one.
They lose to Florida 16 - 7. In that game, they had three miscues on special teams. They muffed a punt, which set up a field goal.
They tried a fake punt that was unsuccessful that set up a field goal. Then they had an eight yard punt that ended up leading to another field goal. There's nine points of the 16 points they give up in the game to lose 16 - 7.
Georgia, they lose 27 - 14. Let's talk about the turning point in that game. They had three turnovers in that game, two fumbles and an interception.
Keywords: Middle East, Saddam Hussein, President Bush, Intelligent Design, Catholic Church, Al Qaeda, United States, Dean Koontz, Al Anbar, Uss Kentucky
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