The Conservative Intelligentsia

London

2005-07-07T08:55:00.000-05:00

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

2005-06-28T22:58:00.000-05:00

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

2005-06-28T20:16:00.000-05:00

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

2005-06-16T03:49:00.000-05:00

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.

2005-06-15T08:22:00.000-05:00

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

2005-06-13T07:23:00.000-05:00

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

2005-06-10T10:24:00.000-05:00

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.

2005-06-02T21:43:00.000-05:00

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.

Wesley Clark Opens His Mouth…Again…Two

2005-05-30T10:51:00.000-05:00

I spent this weekend in Ithaca for my Sister’s graduation from Cornell University. She graduated from the Engineering School, specifically Electronic and Computer Engineering, which is one of the hardest disciplines in one of the hardest subjects. So, first: congratulations to my sister.

The speaker this year at Cornell was none other than Wesley Clark. This guy never stops. I’ll pull excepts but the full text for the speech is here, so no whining with his PR secretary trying to get a copy so we can actually figure out what he said.

Today, you walk out into a world that has changed dramatically since people like myself and your parents sat where you are now. Not so long ago, we were in the Cold War. At home, our country's economic dominance was unmatched in the world and if you worked hard and were willing to sacrifice, you could afford college, get a good job, make a decent living, support your family, and count on a secure retirement.

Clark has a very interesting view of history. He seems to view the Cold War as a good thing. Let me remind you that International Communism cost 20 million lives in Russia, and 35 million in China and caused multiple wars. The suffering in states subjected to it, like Poland, Ukraine (et alia, I can’t do this list true justice) is something I haven’t experienced at all and thus cannot comment on. Perhaps some other bloggers can send Wesley Clark a letter informing him of how the Cold War was in Poland. And I wonder how nice the thought was of a secure retirement with the thought of nuclear annihilation never leaving your mind...

Well, this kind of golden (and foolish) nostalgia must be prepping us for something. So, Wesley Clark, what does the end of the Cold War mean?

Abroad, it means that while we no longer face threats from a rival superpower, the new world order has given more power to rogue dictators and terrorists who can plan an attack over email, draw up plans with information from the internet, get on a plane in Saudi Arabia, and sneak into America to cause the most heinous and devastating attack in our history.

Since that moment, we find ourselves embroiled in a vicious conflict in Iraq that has consumed hundreds of American lives and threatens to undermine the strength of our all-volunteer force. We see a terrorist leader who still defies the world and hides from the reach of American justice. We see despotic regimes in Iran and North Korea continue to pursue nuclear weapons. And we see hundreds of millions of people around the world who now profess to distrust our nation and dislike our foreign policy. And we see emerging economic competitors around the world to threaten American jobs.

First for a Retired General, Clark’s understanding of the mechanics of 9/11 is fairly bad: the attack would have been much less devastating if the planes had been arriving from Saudi Arabia (less air fuel to burn). But before I continue any form of fisking…

What on earth is this obvious political shot doing in a Convocation address? You’d think that for one moment, the speaker could leave behind their political garbage, and say something universal enough that everyone could agree with it, and get behind it.

That said back to:

Since that moment, we find ourselves embroiled in a vicious conflict in Iraq that has consumed hundreds of American lives and threatens to undermine the strength of our all-volunteer force. We see a terrorist leader who still defies the world and hides from the reach of American justice. We see despotic regimes in Iran and North Korea continue to pursue nuclear weapons. And we see hundreds of millions of people around the world who now profess to distrust our nation and dislike our foreign policy. And we see emerging economic competitors around the world to threaten American jobs.

It’s all the usual suspects. And it simply doesn’t belong in a Convocation Address were, I can assure at least one Republican was listening. He needs to read the latest good news from Iraq. He also needs to remember that Iran and North Korea pursued nuclear weapons during his time at NATO. As for the ‘hundreds of millions of people around the world who no profess distrust’…I prefer distrust to virulent hate. 9/11 happened first, as Clark does correctly remember. So without this ‘distrust’ the US was still brutally attacked. And then, to cap it off, he raised the specter of “They done took our jobs!”.

Leave the partisan tripe, either set of partisan tripe out of graduation speeches. Let our students graduate in peace.

Headed out

2005-05-26T22:36:00.000-05:00

Sorry for so much disruption so early in my blogging days. Tomorrow I'm headed back up to the blue states for my sister's graduation from Cornell (EE Major). I found this trechery interesting however, and I'm waiting to see this story develop.

Personally I am disgusted that so soon after a 'compromise' to avoid the nuclear option, the Democrats would so quickly turn on their word. Even the New York Times isn't giving them a free ride with this one.

To my blue-readers out there...in 2006, GET NEW DEMOCRATS. I know a lot of Democratic voters, and you guys can do better than this batch of simpering twits. I'll be the first to admit the Republicans can do better with some of our Congressmen(and women). However, this kind of obvious backstabbing, only a few days, days! after a 'compromise' on nomination filibusters was reached...

YALBP

2005-05-23T21:16:00.000-05:00

If you were looking for a blog about the filibuster, I would direct you to Powerline for a good look at the deal that has been reached. Personally, I think the deal is wretched.

Moving on, I wanted to talk about this.

The deployment of 36,000 National Guard troops or state militia on the U.S.-Mexico border would stop the illegal flow of foreigners into America, says a congressional report that credits the Minuteman Project with proving that additional manpower could "dramatically reduce if not virtually eliminate" illegal immigration.

All I can say is, “About Time”. Immigration is a good thing. Our country was built on it and it remains necessary for our economic system. However there is a difference between legitimate immigration, controlled by laws and regulated by naturalization, and the uncontrolled boarder with Mexico. The problem is that Mexico has, for years, used the United States as a dumping ground. Russia dumps steel; Mexico dumps people. How do you alleviate the pressure of not having enough to go around because you’ve ruined your own economy?

Send them to the United States. Mexico should no longer be able to use the United States as her own personal economic pressure relief. Congress should deploy the necessary means in order to shut that border even if only to raise the immigration quota so that the same people get through. My issue is not keeping people out, but being able to keep people out. In metaphor, I don’t care if the gate is open, as long as there is a wall around the castle.

I am still here

2005-05-22T12:29:00.000-05:00

I am most sorry for the repeated missing of days. I just finished the year out at college and headed home, and thus, combined with finals, have produced a rather irregular schedule. I hope to be back on a 1 (blog) for 1 (day) or better from this point on.

The BBC published this particular bit of tripe on May the 19^th.

The US could improve its image among Muslims if it listened more, adopted a humbler tone and emphasised its aid programmes, a report says.

The US-based Council of Foreign Relations surveyed college-educated people in Egypt, Morocco and Indonesia.

I found this somewhat odd as that’s precisely what we were doing up to September 11. Still, while the BBC may have a definite and pronounced stance (one that I still feel violates journalistic integrity) they do not resort to outright lies (often).

So I decided to look up the report itself, in it’s 96-page long glory. I have a few notable problems:

Although many Muslims are angry at what they perceive America does, the right efforts to communicate can produce significant shifts in attitudes. Such efforts would involve listening more, speaking in a humbler tone, and focusing on bilateral aid and partnership, while tolerating disagreement on controversial policy issues.

Listening more. Now, I thought that we spent a lot of time listening to Arafat while he (in Arabic) condoned the killing of Israeli civilians. And I know I listened to the Iraqi Minister of Information for the macabre farce that was his telecasts. I find the “bilateral aid and partnership” an odd note. Last I checked, that’s what we were doing in Iraq. Bilateral (Coalition and Iraqis making two, thus bilateral) aid (read Chrenkoff’s good news in Iraq if you don’t believe there’s aiding going on) and partnership (our army is helping their security force, sounds like partnership to me): given that, I’d say we’re already following the prescription. Now, one of the three nations surveyed was, oddly enough, Egypt. As for aid and partnership, I think few nations can claim to have received as much as Egypt: $50 billion over the past two decades. Yet, $50 billion dollars bought us 5,000 dead on September 11. Years of listening to Arafat and his ilk pilled up bodies of both Israeli and Palestinian innocents as the intifada continued a useless war between two people.

What Muslims say they want from America is respect understood as consultation and nonintervention, and development aid in which they, not Americans, define their needs.

What isn’t mentioned is how we gauge the wants and needs of populations that are oppressed. We were fairly sure that the people in Iraq under sanctions would need food, medicine and basic supplies. It’s unfortunate that this did not happen because their dictator robbed them.

September 11^th pronounced in glaring terms for the entire world to see that the old methods: aid, bilateralism, oil-for-food, and being polite had failed. This study says that Muslims feel if we did those things they would be more inclined to feel positively towards us. To that I say: We already did those things. They didn’t work.

After the United States was attacked on her own soil, it was time for a different method.

Finding the Black Hat

2005-05-18T05:43:00.000-05:00

Sorry for missing my blog entry yesterday. I took a final, and fell asleep. Woke up this morning. But, without further ado:

Part of the academic blight I see today is an inability or unwillingness to identify the ‘good guys’ in the world today…or for the more nuanced readers, to identify the difference between the not-perfect-guys, and the worse guys. Some People (Michael Moore) rail against the United States as an Imperialistic Tyranny while others attack the president (star wars) for trying to take away our freedoms. Still more attack the United States on principle.

From Cannes Film Festival:

"Manderlay," about a fictional Alabama plantation where people are living in 1933 as if slavery were never abolished, staggered festival-goers with a disturbing portrayal of America that fails, even today, to come to terms with its racist past.

It sounds bad, doesn’t it? American racism is assuredly evil; make no mistake. However, in the United States the argument about racism centers around college applications, income level and hiring practices. That is the white hat. In the other side of the world this is what racism looks like. They can’t even begin to count the bodies in Darfur. Is there evil in American racism? Yes. But it is several orders of magnitude lesser than the evil one can see abroad.

The claim is made that the United States is some sort of tyranny. I have never lived under a tyranny, and most of those who claim that the United States is a land of tyrants have either never seen a tyranny, or are tyrants of other lands themselves. I have never lived in tyranny, but history is full of them. Tyranny does not look like this:.

Tyranny looks like this:

Let that image sink back into your mind, it’s been almost 16 years, and I think many Americans have forgotten what tyranny looks like.

Does the United States have problems? Most certainly it does, but all heroes have flaws that they must overcome (lest they become tragic heroes). The tragic hero, curiously enough, is not one that Americans are fond of, we prefer epic heroes who overcome and succeed to the benefit of all.

The existence of this blight is odd. The idea that America or the West is somehow a worse evil than the tyrants and genocides that occur in the rest of the world is befuddling to me. As a theory it is obviously and demonstratively false. Yet it would not be the first time a disproved theory thrived in the land of academia and the elite (see: Eugenics, Marxism). I have a few theories as to the origins of such foolishness but admittedly no proof. Much of this misplaced ire comes from the cold-war era Marxism/Anti-Americanism that has collapsed on itself with the fall of Russian communism. Those followers may have given up on the Soviet Union, but many have not stopped hating the United States all the same: Ward Churchill is a good example. Others seem to gravitate to the weaker party to cast them as heroes, Michael Moore owes both to the first group and this second one, I think.

And there are those who are only half-serious in casting the United States as the bad guy. People who, to reinforce political arguments, claim Bush is Hitler, for instance. They can’t logically defend that statement nor offer any justification for the point of view, but the shock value of it helps their cause therefore they repeat it when given the chance.

Either way, the claim is madness. Attempting to prove moral equivalency with people like Zarqawi, Saddam, Assad or the regime in Khartoum is foolishness. The United States has problems, yes. But there is a difference: meaning well, having problems and being sorry for them (and attempting to solve them) compared to malignant cruelty and intentional violent oppression. Soldiers of the West should get standard issue ‘White Hats’ to go with their Kevlar because in this fight, they are the heroes.

Because it Bears Repeating

2005-05-16T21:45:00.000-05:00

If you read my humble little blog, chances are you also read Powerline and as such, are aware of the Newsweek fiasco. Powerline has excellent comments here, here, here, and here. If you haven’t read about it, please do. Newsweek has finally issued a retraction of the story (a bit over late). Seventeen people are dead. Newsweek Editor Mark Whitaker wrote “We regret that we got any part of our story wrong, and extend our sympathies to victims of the violence and to the U.S. soldiers caught in its midst.”

If it weren’t so macabre I would have laughed at the article in the NYTimes:

After a drumbeat of criticism from the Bush administration and others, Newsweek magazine yesterday went beyond an apology it issued Sunday and retracted an article published May 1 that stated that American interrogators at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, had tried to rattle Muslim detainees by flushing a Koran down the toilet.

Apparently, not having any real credible sources (as apparently Newsweek now says it did not have) isn’t worth not printing a story. Only having anonymous sources that may or may not know anything about the report, place or actions in question is not worth retracting a story. And Seventeen grieving families is not why Newsweek retracted the story. Oh no, says the NYTimes, it’s because the Bush administration kvetched at them until they did. Given the original tone of the Newsweek response (see above powerline links for a breakdown) I think the NYTimes may actually be right for once.

I think part of the problem arises from anonymous sources. For all we know, these people may not exist, the reporters could have just made them up. Their information is completely non-verifiable, yet anonymous sources make front-page news all the time. I understand the need for anonymous sources: without them a government could conceivably silence the media by scaring all possible informants. But the overwhelming reliance on them is folly. If the current MSM continues to wed itself to anonymous sources then they lend themselves to another witch-hunt. That is, a trial where no evidence is necessary nor verifiable sources needed. All you need is someone, who may or may not exist, who may or may not know what they’re talking about, to be an anonymous source in order to claim something.

I’ve got an anonymous source that saw you dancing with the devil Sunday night.

Wesley Clark Opens his Mouth…Again

2005-05-15T21:49:00.000-05:00

He might have been a so-so military commander, and a non-factor in the Democratic Party Primary, but Wesley Clark is at it again (article here):

"We're losing influence abroad when we bring those troops home, and we lose the interaction with America when we create these super bases," Clark said in a speech to the Arkansas Associated Press Managing Editors Association.

If military bases give us influence abroad, then why didn’t Germany join us in Iraq? Clearly the influence created by the overseas military bases was ineffective of insufficient. The military bases in Germany haven’t seemed to gain us any goodwill since the country reunified after the fall of the Soviet Union. As such, it simply doesn’t make sense to maintain what is (in effect) an infusion of U.S. tax dollars into the German economy.

"Small communities lose sight of the armed forces," he said. "I like for the Army and the armed forces to be representative of the people they protect, not an elite organization."

Perhaps Clark should look at precisely who enlists in the Army these days. It isn’t the elites, but instead the people from small communities who enlist in the Army. It's very hard for an organization not to represent the people that it comprises.

I find it odd that the voices that speak out now against the closing of U.S. military bases are the same ones that before complained that we spent too much money on the military. Well, which is it, ladies and gentlemen? The answer is all too obvious: they support whatever Bush doesn’t support.

It’s worth saying that no political party or group that fashions itself as an opposition party has ever won an American election. Elections are won by those who are for something, and lost by those who are against something (or someone).

Operation Matador Concludes

2005-05-14T22:39:00.000-05:00

I noticed an interesting thing today. The BBC has titled its collected Iraq coverage, “The Struggle For Iraq”. As Operation: Matador has now concluded the reported casualty figures seem like anything but a ‘struggle’. Operation Matador resulted in nine American deaths, and roughly 125 insurgent casualties in addition to multiple captives taken (http://www.nytimes.com/2005/05/15/international/middleeast/15iraq.html). Now, that’s a 1 to ~14 ratio by my count and while I don’t want to seem callous towards those nine who did give their lives…that battle wasn’t close. If it were a boxing match, they’d stop it.

It was more difficult to find credible statistics for the war as a whole. Total coalition dead according to the various governments is counted at roughly 1,779 (http://www.cbc.ca/news/background/iraq/casualties.html). Casualties for the enemy (yes, gasp! I called them ‘the enemy’ because they are) are more difficult to come by as are casualties for innocent Iraqi civilians (notably not the enemy). One estimate places Iraqi casualties (insurgent and otherwise) at over 100,000 while others place it as low as 24,000. The problem with these figures is that they don’t include how many of these people were the enemy, and how many were civilians. It also doesn’t include if they died by American or insurgent arms. For example the website: http://www.iraqbodycount.net/ (which, oddly enough, seems to revel in death on either side) intentionally includes both insurgent and civilian casualties in their grand body count. The highball figure of 100,000 was a survey (thus of a small number of people, then multiplied over the whole population), and may or may not be accurate, and again lumps together both enemy and civilian losses.

If anyone has seen more reliable statistics, perhaps ones that differentiate between ‘friends’ and ‘foes’ (always important in war), I’d love to hear about it. Right now, I have to wonder about a media that can get pictures of a killing (http://powerlineblog.com/archives/010066.php , do look at this, it’s worth checking) and brings us human-interest stories like an M249 shoots bullets, but can’t give us statistics of any kind. A thousand telescoped human-interest stories can blind you to the reality of what is really happening, which I imagine, is that the U.S. military and our allies are (as usual) doing their jobs and doing them well.

Shooting Yourself in the Foot: The Kyoto Protocol

2005-05-13T22:40:00.000-05:00

The NYTimes reported that some 132 Mayors have decided to force actions based on the Kyoto Protocol (http://www.nytimes.com/2005/05/14/national/14kyoto.html). A great many point to the Kyoto Protocol as proof that Bush is against environmental concerns. Perhaps it is my physical location here at Umass that causes me to hear so much acrimony on account of this. Some clarification then is in order.

First: The charge that somehow the American ‘pullout’ of the Kyoto Protocol was somehow illegal or immoral: that the United States ‘went against its word’ by not abiding by the Kyoto agreements. Constitutionality here is on the side of those who oppose the Kyoto Protocol. By the time Vice President Gore signed the Protocol, he was already violating a Senate Resolution (called the ‘Byrd-Hagel Resolution’, or ‘S. Res. 98’). Now, the Constitution requires that the Senate ratify all treaties after being signed. There is a reason for this. The Constitution is full of checks on power and this is an important one. One must remember that the original purpose of the Senate was not to be the voice of the people in general (that job was given to the House of Representatives) but instead to be the voice of the States; Senators were elected by state legislatures and were responsible to them. Since the Constitution took away the power of the states to make foreign policy and gave it to the Federal government, the states were then given the loudest voice in determining the foreign policy. Now the provision serves a different purpose: it prevents one person from having the power to make the most important decisions.

Historically, this has spared the United States from such treaties as the Treaty of Versailles, which became one of the most obvious diplomatic train wrecks in the history of Europe and quite possibly the world. As most High School history students can observe, the foolishness inherent in the Treaty of Versailles gave rise to the very conditions that predicated a second World War, to be fought on the very same ground as the first.

Further compounding the argument that the United States was somehow immoral in ‘pulling out’ (the phrase itself is incorrect as the Senate never ratified the Kyoto Protocol…the United States didn’t ‘pull in’ if it were, so it cannot possibly pull out) is the fact that it was the proponents of the agreement who ignored Constitutional precepts. Instead of submitting the treaty to the Senate (who would not have ratified it) the administration at that time (the Clinton Administration) instead pushed through the principles of the Kyoto Protocol through the Environmental Protection Agency, circumventing the Constitutional ways of performing foreign policy.

In effect, it isn’t illegal that the United States stopped enforcing the Kyoto Protocol; instead the un-Constitutional thing was that the EPA was told to enforce them at all.

The second, and more common charge is that the Kyoto Protocol was a necessary thing for the protection of the environment. When looked at more carefully, the Kyoto Protocol is not entirely about the environment. Counter-intuitive, yes: but entirely true. If the framers of the Kyoto Protocol merely wanted to prevent global warming the question must be asked: Why is China excused from the Protocol? China, the world’s second largest emitter of greenhouse gasses is exempt from the requirements because it classifies as a ‘developing nation’. Precisely how a nation that commands the wealth of Hong Kong and Shanghai and has enough technology to produce her own nuclear weapons classifies as developing is beyond me, however according to the Kyoto Protocol, China is not an ‘Annex I’ country.

The Kyoto Protocol as such would depress the economies of more developed countries (ironically enough it would hurt the economies most likely to produce cleaner methods) while simultaneously requiring them to pay for similar activities in developing countries (that’s Article 11, Paragraph 2 of the Protocol). Apparently it isn’t enough that the United States already doles out billions of dollars in aid every year to ‘less fortunate’ countries, it would also have to pay for developing countries to improve their industry, while simultaneously hamstringing its own. In this sense, the Kyoto Protocol is entirely an economic shell game. It is pretense towards environmental altruism but in reality it stands to hamper the developed economies so that everyone else can catch up. It makes little sense to blind one child so that another born blind will not feel left it: this kind of idea merely hurts everyone.

A brief economic tangent to make clear my reasoning: first, wealth is not a static quantity to be gained, hoarded or stolen. Wealth is produced: wealthier nations are such because they produce more wealth, not because they stole it. The reasoning that wealth was a static (or relatively static) quantity has been dead ever since Adam Smith, and its school of thought (Mercantilism) died with it. The Kyoto Protocol would require considerable expenditures but would also require a large quantity of business to simply stop in order to comply with the regulations. This lost wealth-producing potential (like time) can never be regained, and as such, the amount of wealth produced, worldwide, drops considerably. One estimate I found put the cost already at $35 trillion (http://www.junkscience.com/MSU_Temps/Kyoto_Count_Up.htm, don’t let the name fool you, it’s quite well explained and backed up). This would be in addition to the economic slowdown incurred and without the United State’s full involvement.

If the world’s aggregate wealth is reduced then so also is the portion of the wealth received by everyone, even those who do not live in Annex 1 nations. In Effect, the Kyoto Protocol then, economically, slows everyone down so that the runners at the back can catch up to those in the front. The Protocol essential picks the pocket of everyone surmising (correctly) that the rich will lose more, thus evening out the amount in everyone’s pockets relative to each other. Of course, this does not change the fact that everyone is still poorer (or in truth, getting more wealthy slower).

However, while the Kyoto Protocol’s effect on economics is very real the environmental effect of the Protocol is fleeting at best. Real effects of the Protocol over several (4.5) decades are predicted to be less than a tenth of a degree Celsius. The Leipzig Declaration denounced the Protocol. As the Declaration pointed out, “there does not exist today a general scientific consensus about the importance of greenhouse warming from rising levels of carbon dioxide” and blasted the Kyoto Protocol as “is dangerously simplistic, quite ineffective, and economically destructive to jobs and standards-of-living” (http://www.sepp.org/leipzig.html). Over a hundred academics and scientists compiled the Leipzig Declaration.

To shoot yourself in the foot because you can see a bee sitting there about to sting you is stupid. To shoot yourself in the foot because you other foot is lame and you want both feet to be equally lame is moronic. To shoot yourself in the foot because you think there may be a bee there, but you are not and cannot be sure is absolutely mad.

And regardless of how it is viewed, the Kyoto Protocol is just that: shooting yourself in the foot

Closing Time

2005-05-13T15:21:00.000-05:00

The New York Times (henceforth NYTimes) reports that in addition to closing some of our overseas military bases, it looks like some of the bases on this side of the pond are going to be closed too. The reaction from senators who are soon to lose record amounts of military-issue political pork was, to say the least, animated:

“Senator Joseph I. Lieberman, Democrat of Connecticut, called the recommendation to close the New London base, which would cost several thousands jobs, "irrational and irresponsible."

"Senator Joseph I. Lieberman, Democrat of Connecticut, called the recommendation to close the New London base, which would cost several thousands jobs, "irrational and irresponsible.
It insults our history and endangers our future," he told The Associated Press.

I am curious to know precisely how closing a military base the Pentagon doesn’t believe it needs “insults our history and endangers out future”. Now I remember not to long ago I heard chanting in front of the Student Union here at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst for the government to reduce their defense spending. Apparently they listened. I think we can all agree the real reason for the venomous opposition of the closure of military bases is the fact that those bases are not military expenditures for protecting our national security so much as pork expenditures for protecting senator’s job security.

"The Pentagon is flat wrong in failing to recognize Ellsworth's importance to our nation and state," Senator John Thune, a Republican, said of the 63-year-old installation. His Democratic colleague, Tim Johnson, agreed. "We're not throwing in the towel at all," he told The A.P.

Sadly, it wasn’t just the Democrats who were incensed. Now, I am merely a dilettante when it comes to military history but as I recall it is usually best to let the military decide what it needs and then act accordingly. This is the first example I’ve ever seen where the government wants (apparently) to give the military MORE than it wants. I am reminded of Sun Tzu:

“There are three ways in which a sovereign can bring misfortune upon his army…by attempting to govern an army in the same way as he administers a kingdom, being ignorant of the conditions that obtain in an army” (translated by Lionel Giles)

Opening Volley

2005-05-12T23:59:00.000-05:00

Hello.

I am the muse on this little patch of web space. Perhaps I should open with who I am. I have effectively no credentials. This might bother me more if I cared for credentials, but I don’t. I find facts far more useful. That’s really all that’s pertinent, isn’t it?

I’m hoping I’ll be able to update this at least once a day. This blog is a space for diatribes and commentaries. I imagine I’ll be referencing news stories often, but I make no promises. In all likelihood this will be a rant-blog, if you will.

As for my title, the ‘Conservative’ I am referring to is the modern American neo-conservative school of thought. As for those unfamiliar with the word ‘intelligentsia’, it means “The intellectual elite of a society” (http://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=intelligentsia)

I don’t presume to say that this tiny patch of text constitutes a gathering of conservative intellectuals, much less all of them. As far as I know, I am the only intellectual here, and that may merely be ego on my part (I have an abundance of ego). It’s more of wishful thinking.

All of that said: Welcome to my blog.