London

As you probably already know, London was bombed. Looks like Islamic Terror which is of course highly probable, but at the same time I'd avoid jumping to conclusions. Given the G8 summit and the place of bombing, it could be any of a dozen different groups (although Islamic terror still seems most likely).

On the eve of a summit to help with things like poverty or hunger, another message to the world that the kinds of ideologies of hate that fuel terrorism don't care if you want to be a good person or help people, they just want carnage and death.

Even so removed as I am by the Atlantic pond from the fracas...I feel anger.

Obviously one group of people has no doubt that what we are fighting now is World War III...The terrorist enemy. And that's what it is, from New York and Washington D.C. to London in England and Madrid in Spain and all the way to Afghanistan and Iraq. The same ideologies are even springing up in South-East Asia.

A good rundown available at Chrenkoff

An Open Letter

It seems sometimes, that in the bitterness of politics, we forget who are the good-guys, and we forget those who do the most, and receive less than they deserve. I composed this as an open letter to any and all of the service men and women abroad who are champions for freedom. It was the least I could do. Though directed at the soldiers of America, I would not restrict it to any one nation or service, but instead, to all those to whom it applies.

If you are reading this, I hope you are in good health (and indeed, I hope you are in good health even if you are not reading this.) I do not have the honor of saying that I can know who you are. I do not know where you came from, what you look like or the sound of your voice. Rather, I know what you are. You are the best and brightest that the freedom-loving people of this world have to offer. In a world that needed heroes, when others wavered, you stood up and said, “Here I am, Send me.”

I know people who despair for this age because it lacks the shining armor and bright mail of ages past. Yet we are not at a loss for chivalric knights and selfless paladins. You are our brightest stars, gone now to shine as beacons in a strange and far away land. Your actions, from small acts of kindness to selfless risks to protect others prove this. You are the best face the free world can offer, and we are proud of you.

And for this I thank you.

Now you give hope and security to a distant nation, and in doing so, you are our security and our hope as well. You defend us and our freedom. I have never experienced slavery to any person or any state in my thus-far short life because of you and your valor.

And for this I thank you.

And for doing what few others dare, for rising to the defense of those whose freedom was trampled, even though you did not know them, even though they may not speak your language or live like you do, for that you will live on, I think, in the annals of history as liberators, as heroes, as worthy men and women of the highest caliber.

I pray for your safe and triumphant return: heroes deserve no less.

And heroes you were, heroes you are and heroes you always shall be.

The Latest Bush

President Bush gave a speech tonight, and a rather good one at that. Nothing really new covered in the speech, but a good rebuttal of many of the quagmirists-now-deadlinists. Bush was right, telling the enemy they only need to last until a specific date is abject foolishness and should be avoided.

Given his relatively weak speaking skills, it is somewhat surprising that Dubyah can distinguish himself as a good orator. No glaring mispronunciations, save the word 'Nuclear', and two stumbles, yet the speech was something that many politicians have trouble being: clear, concise and powerful. It wasn't nuanced perhaps, but it was direct. It wasn't coated with flowery language, cute phrasings, or politically correct rubbish (such as Kerry's :"establish a truly inclusive political process").

The great Presidents are marked by powerful and clear rhetoric from those some of us may remember ("December Seventh, Nineteen Forty-One, a date that will live in infamy") to those none of us do ("With malice towards none, and charity towards all...") and even to the relatively recent ("Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall").

All of those Presidents, I think, were liberators. As Lincoln freed black slaves from the whip, so too did F.D.R. (and Truman after him) free many in Europe from a different, and yet all so similar slavery. Being a slave to one's government is no different from being a slave to one's neighbor. And thus, another President delivers a wartime speech.

The terrorists -- both foreign and Iraqi -- failed to stop the transfer of sovereignty. They failed to break our Coalition and force a mass withdrawal by our allies. They failed to incite an Iraqi civil war. They failed to prevent free elections. They failed to stop the formation of a democratic Iraqi government that represents all of Iraq's diverse population. And they failed to stop Iraqis from signing up in large number with the police forces and the army to defend their new democracy. The lesson of this experience is clear: The terrorists can kill the innocent, but they cannot stop the advance of freedom.

The 50-Cent Gulag

The Washington Times reported today that Senator Durbin (D) of Illinois continues the claim that Gitmo is like “Nazis, Soviets in their gulags, or some mad regime -- Pol Pot or others -- that had no concern for human beings”. That the charge is on its face ridiculous doesn’t matter. He references a letter made by an unnamed and unknown (inexistent? Would it be the first time a politician (either side) has lied?) FBI agent.

“The agent complained to higher-ups that one al Qaeda suspect was chained to the floor, kept in an extremely cold air-conditioned cell and forced to hear loud rap music. The Justice Department is investigating.”

So, the detainee is a lot like a homeless person, forced to sleep in a box outside a record store. Except that the homeless person deserves pity and charity since chances are fairly good he didn’t try to kill anyone. As the Times article points out:

About 9 million persons, including 6 million Jews, died in Hitler's death camps, 2.7 million persons died in Stalin's gulags and 1.7 million Cambodians died in Pol Pot's scourge of his country.
No prisoners have died at Guantanamo, and the Pentagon has acknowledged five instances of abuse or irreverent handling of the Koran, the holy book of Muslims.

Given the descriptions of their conditions, I wonder if they might be worse off in Attica. Then again, I know people kept in cold rooms, forced not to move for hours, listening to loud rap music. They’re high-school kids, sitting at their desk, palming a headphone with 50-cent during winter.

Perhaps I am ignorant of the scale and magnitude of the situation at gitmo. But then again, probably not.

Sometimes, a columnist says something so tremendously ignorant, I have to mention it. Today’s (willful?) ignorance award goes to Thomas Friedman for this gem:

Yes, yes, I know we are training Iraqi soldiers by the battalions, but I don't think this is the key. Who is training the insurgent-fascists? Nobody. And yet they are doing daily damage to U.S. and Iraqi forces. Training is overrated, in my book. Where you have motivated officers and soldiers, you have an army punching above its weight. Where you don't have motivated officers and soldiers, you have an army punching a clock.

First: “Who is training the insurgent-fascists?” Syria. Multiple observes noted at the conclusion of Operation: Matador that the newer insurgent elements seem better trained, probably by a national government. That they happened to be on the boarder of Syria, a nation we can safely claim as an enemy was not coincidence, I think. If Syria is not outright supporting the insurgency, they are certainly subsidizing it.

But the real gem here is: Training is overrated, in my book. Well, then your book must have absolutely nothing to do with war. In terms of troop quality, the single most important factor, always, is experience. And training is the only way to produce an experienced force without exposing them to danger and attrition. Compare untrained and lightly trained insurgent forces to heavily trained American forces in Operation: Matador, the result was 14:1 kill: death ratio. Fourteen to one.

Training is the number one reason why professional armies have almost invariable defeated non-professional forces. From the Roman Empire’s professional legions to the large professional European Armies in the 17^th century, to the present day superiority of American soldiers, professionals have consistently outperformed amateurs on the battlefield.

Training improves soldier’s skills, but it also improves battlefield morale (quite possibly the most important commodity in a war) by creating soldiers who are less likely to panic.

Still, the paragraph continues. Friedman warns of low morale while all indications in Iraq show an U.S. and coalition military with high morale. And given the dangers an Iraqi faces when he voluntarily signs up for military service (bombings at the recruiters, bombings at training, reprisals against your family, battlefield dangers) I have to imagine that they are an incredibly dedicated group of fighters.

Friedman also wants “the new Iraqi government, the U.S. and the U.N. teaming up to widen the political arena in Iraq”. Having looked at the absolute mess the U.N. made in Darfur, and their apathy towards the slow-motion genocide in Zimbabwe, I don’t want them anywhere near Iraq. I’m sure the Iraqi government already has its share of corruption without the U.N.’s help.

The whole of Friedman’s article seems poorly researched at best: “the weakness of the economy, the shortages of gas and electricity…flows from not having gone into Iraq with the Powell Doctrine of overwhelming force.” No, those two particular problems flow from the three decades of neglect to Iraq’s infrastructure. To quote Iraq’s prime minister, “You can't fix in six months what it took 35 years to destroy.” As for overwhelming force, given the time it took for conventional resistance to melt away, I think overwhelming force was achieved. As for Colin Powell, as I recall, he wasn’t so much up on “overwhelming force” as “U.N. approval”.

A Proper Rebuttal

Bob Herbert wrote this article in the Op-Ed section of the NY Times. I except extensively, but if you feel I have misquoted him, the full article is here. And without further delay I present to you, myopic foolishness…I mean, Mr. Herbert’s opening paragraph:

George W. Bush is in no danger of being ranked among the nation's pre-eminent commanders in chief. Not only has he been unable thus far to win the war in Iraq, but on his watch significant sectors of the proud U.S. military have been rapidly deteriorating.

It took Abraham Lincoln four years to put the nation back together, its taken George W. thus far, two years to weld into existence a nation that hitherto had not existed. Lincoln saw 360,000 Union soldiers die on his watch, and is still considered one of our greatest presidents, whereas Iraq casualties are still less than 2,000 American soldiers killed.

If George W. Bush had aimed to conquer, instead of democratize; he would have increased the size of the United States by 11% in terms of total land area and her population by 18% between Iraq and Afghanistan both. As it is, he has chosen what most would consider being a more difficult task: setting up stable democracies in an unstable and undemocratic region.

To expect that this kind of massive effort would be completed without cost to the nation and duress upon the military is foolish, and the President never intimated he thought it would be easy; if anyone was unaware this would be difficult, it was their own fault for willfully deceiving themselves.

The Army reported on Friday that it had fallen short of its recruitment goals for a fourth consecutive month. The Marines managed to meet their recruitment target for May, but that was their first successful month this year.

Scrambling to fill its ranks, the Army is signing up more high school dropouts and lower-scoring applicants.

Just maybe they’re recruiting the lower-scoring applicants, because the higher scoring applicants are alive and well, and serving in Iraq. The Army is not undergoing strategically important attrition in Iraq. The caede atque incidiis of war is not rapidly thinning the ranks of the American military. That people are less willing to join an army when they believe they might fight is nothing new, but this would only be a problem if the army we already had was destroyed yet it is not destroyed.

With the war in Iraq going badly and allegations of abuse by military personnel widespread, young men and women are increasingly deciding that there's no upside to a career choice in which the most important skills might be ducking bullets and dodging roadside bombs.

Allegations of abuse are widespread, while proof…not so much. Abu Ghraib seems the only proven incident. Again, he says “the war in Iraq going badly” but if the 14:1 kills:deaths ratio for Operation Matador is ‘badly’, then Napoleon was a horrible commander and Robert E. Lee a blithering idiot. Curiously enough, military morale remains high, if the war truly were going badly, wouldn’t those closest to it be the most disheartened?

The primary reason the U.S. went to an all-volunteer military in 1973 was to ensure that those who did not want to fight wouldn't have to. That option is now being overwhelmingly exercised, discretion being the clear choice over valor. Young people and their parents alike are turning their backs on the military in droves.

To so simply the changes the United States military has undergone since Vietnam to this shows either contempt for one’s audience or outright ignorance of one’s subject. The United States military has undergone a transition not only from draft to volunteer, but from an army raised on need to a crack professional fighting force where our average soldier is better than the elites in many countries. Since the conception of the American military, a commitment to an Army largely raised when needed and disbanded afterwards has put the United States at a disadvantage, against battle hardened Germans in the trenches and the bulge or veteran Vietnamese in the jungle. In attempting to explain the military, Mr. Herbert, you have fundamentally displayed that you no longer understand it.

The Army is so desperate for even lukewarm bodies that it is reluctant to release even problem soldiers, troops who are seriously out of shape, or pregnant, or abusing alcohol or drugs. And it is lowering standards for admission to the junior officer ranks. For example, minor criminal offenses that previously would have been prohibitive can now be overlooked.

Any proof would be nice. Any proof at all. What? You don’t have any proof? I would ask if anyone in my audience does have proof of this particular claim?

Recruiters with the gift of gab go into the schools with a glamorous pitch, bags full of goodies for the kids (T-shirts, donuts, key chains) and a litany of promises they often can't keep. The kids don't hear much about their chances of being maimed or killed, or the trauma that often results from killing someone else.

(A soldier's job is to kill. I can still hear the drill sergeants in basic training screaming at us decades ago: "What are you? What are you?" And we'd scream back: "Killers! Killers!" And the sergeants would say, "What is your purpose?" And we would shout: "To kill! To kill!")

The chance of being killed or maimed right now is lower than one would expect, given that there’s a war on. Again, casualties have been low. I think, Mr. Herbert here shows the real root of this foolishness: an outdated understanding of the military. He cites training methods that are, as he admits, decades old, and as I could note, the military has undergone radical change in the past few decades. That a soldier’s primary job is to fight has not changed. But the emphasis on honor and the ‘warrior ethos’ are something I would imagine Mr. Herbert is quite unfamiliar with. Let us remember that those who would sacrifice their lives are the best of us, not the worst.

A Washington Post-ABC News poll last week found that nearly three-quarters of Americans believe the number of casualties in Iraq is unacceptable, and 60 percent believe the war was not worth fighting.

Self-fulfilling prophecies are fun, aren’t they Bob? First the media says Iraq will fail, then they cover it like a failure, and surprise, their audience thinks its failed. More soldiers died in twenty minutes in a single battle in one day in the civil war then have died in the entire War in Iraq. Was the Civil War a Union failure? More soldiers died on individual tiny specks of land with the presumption to call themselves island in World War II then have died through this entire operation ten times over (through two years). Was World War II a failure?

Yet, every time another runner comes up from Marathon, to say “Rejoice, we Conquer!” you ignore it and pretend that the tide of Darius has swept away our Hoplites.

Something you should read

I might have something more substansive later. In the meantime, this bears reading:

You can thank Robert Mugabe, too, because it was his campaign to starve his political/tribal opponents and Pol-Pot style "ruralization" effort (200,000 left homeless recently in a population of 12.6 million) that finally convinced me. Here's the crux, the argument before which all other arguments pale into insignificance:

The Right to Bear Arms is the only reliable way to prevent genocide in the modern world.

Read the whole thing.

Someone DOES Target Journalists...And it's not U.S.

My apologies for sparse blogging

We’ve all head the allegations that the forces of the West are targeting journalists. Eason Jordan may have said it first. The Italians weren’t far behind, and even Linda Foley of the Newspaper Guild joined the ruckus. Thus far the only thing missing from this grand cacophony of blame is (yup, you guessed it) anything resembling solid evidence or proof.

Perhaps the most curious part of this phenomenon is that the allegations are raised against such a curious style of military. The U.S. Army is not the Roman militaris by a mile. The Roman legiones and Auxliae were allowed to stew and incubate themselves culturally apart from the larger Roman society. Cultish groups (like Mithras and Quirinus) flourished, and loyalty was not so much to the S.P.Q.R. but to the defied spirit of Romulus. In short, the Roman armies that eventually turned on Rome itself had been allowed to become their own culture, loyal to themselves and their generals and not to the state, much less the people under the state.

Compare an American military. We have no mystery cults, no religion of an apotheosized George Washington. Indeed most American soldiers share the same religion as the majority of the populace (Christian) and I would forward the likely proposition that the overwhelming majority of them support freedom of religion and speech…otherwise, why join a volunteer army? My point is this: A Roman soldier carried a different code of moral conduct and loyalties than the average Roman citizen (much less denizen). The average American Soldier does not exist in a separate culture from the average American citizen. So, if you would posit that American soldiers would deliberately target American journalists (or any other kind of journalists) I must wonder what kind of horribly dismal view you have of Americans in general, that we must slaughter our right-minded journalists in the streets. I’m kidding of course…about the right-minded part. I wonder at the ease with which journalists disassociate American soldiers in uniform (ready to accuse them of horrible crimes with or without evidence) from the plain old Americans they are.

Still, there may be some credence to the claim of journalist targeting, though not likely from the sources that Eason Jordan and Linda Foley might expect. It seems that someone has targeted journalists. But it’s not American soldiers. Right now, I’d say all signs point to Syria, except that if I said that, the next car I got into might explode.

Again, I point to a fundamental inability on the part of those blinded by idealism to distinguish between ‘friend’ and ‘foe’. I don’t think any problem manifests itself on the left that does not appear on the right, I just wonder why the left has trumpeted its problem children so loudly. So for the last time: Americans by and large, are the good guys. People who blow up the cars of journalists in premeditated attacks, are bad guys.