Final Observations

These are delayed, because my parents called to confer the second (and I do mean the second debate was over, so I had to spend some time talking to them first. I would say the overall debate was a draw. Kerry focused too much on the international popularity contest and how we're going it alone. He's living in a dream world if he thinks a) he's going to be able to get either France or Germany's support and/or b) that the most internationalized coalition that we possibly could make in the most multilateral war would look a whole hell of a lot different than the current one. Bush at times sounded a little too cocky to secure swing voters and evaded a little too much on past mistakes. He would have done better to been a tad bit more humble and a tad bit more willing to preface once or twice with, "No, things have not gone perfectly BUT..." As my mom was intent on pointing out, Bush did stutter and pause a bit, but we expect that from Bush. After the pauses and the stutters, Bush delivered a clear message. Kerry's a little quicker, but tends to talk without saying anything meaningful. But this is nothing new. I would say, if one were tuning into this race for the first time today, it was a draw. Both candidates did as well as I would expect them to do. Bush was at ease, but he does have that annoying little smirk on his face all the time. Kerry still has no personality. He actually managed to laugh once or twice which is always good. Again, I call it a draw. No big gaffes by either. No great revelations. Now let me go read what others had to say.

Live Debate Blogging

[a few edits made after the fact for sake of clarity]

9:00 - [Kerry starts out] There you go, lip service to Florida. Yeah right, it's about the hurricane. "I've got a better plan." What plan? Have we heard a plan ever?

9:01 - More Florida...please, if it weren't a swing state would they be mentioning the hurricane?

9:03 - Overconfidence, Mr. Bush. "I don't think it's going to happen." Too cocky.

9:04 - They're fighting so what? Vociferously? How does one fight vociferously?

9:05 - Stop talking about a year ago Mr. Kerry. The war on terror's in Iraq now. Not in Afghanistan. At least you're not talking about 30 years ago, but talk about today. And the 9/11 Commission did not confirm that there were no ties between Al Qaeda and Iraq.

9:07 - Internationalism, allies, blah, blah. THE WAR ON TERROR IS NOT IN AFGHANISTAN ANYMORE. OSAMA BIN LADEN ALONE IS NOT THE WAR ON TERROR.

9:09 - Bush seems really at ease. Kerry seems stiff. "To say that there's only one focus of the War on Terror, does not really understand the War on Terror." "The front on this war is more than just one place." "Of course Iraq is central to the war on terror, that's why Zarqawi is fighting us there." Amen, Mr. Bush

9:11 - "win the peace" x 2 - that's two drinks for me (I'm making up the drinking game as I go along)

9:19 - All right, Kerry is sounding more convincing about Iraq in that last bit.

9:20 - Did Kerry say nipple? Oh, nickel, got it.

9:21 - Bush was wrong, Bush was wrong, Bush was wrong. What are you going to do, Mr. Kerry?

9:23 - "The best way to protect this homeland is to stay on the offense." Yes.

9:25 - Ooh, troops home from Iraq. Big question. Bush talks about Iraqi troop training. Kerry almost can't sound good in the rebuttal here. "Artificial deadlines won't work." Nice. "A free Iraq will..." and a series of excellent reasons.

9:27 - Kerry's gonna have it rough with this rebuttal. "Help is on the way?" Kerry, you're still trying to go back in time. What? The nuclear ministry? But I thought there was no WMD program in Iraq?

9:28 - $87 billion. Nice rebuttal Bush. Kerry, you VOTED AGAINST THE $87 billion. That's not standing up for the troops - and that's not misspeaking.

9:30 - Oh, God, not Vietnam. So, Iraq was a mistake (like Vietnam), but it doesn't have to me a mistake if you're the president? Huh?

9:31 - When did Kofi Annan offer the UN help and Bush turn them down? Halliburton and the spoils of war. Ah. Good, Mr. Kerry. [choking on sarcasm]

9:33 - Excellent rebuttal, Mr. Bush. That's exactly what I said. What will he say to Tony Blair? And others not currently involved - join us for a mistake? Back to Kerry - I seem to remember the UN pulling out shortly after the fall of Baghdad.

9:35 - All right, now Bush is spinning - we're in trouble now because we did too well at first?

9:38 - Mr. Kerry, are you aware of the balance of military power in the world? The most multilateral coalition we could have built would not look too different than the current one does.

9:39 - Kerry is focusing far too much on past mistakes and not nearly enough about the future.

9:40 - Also, Kerry has apparently decided not to follow the WSJ's advice:

"Mr. Kerry will also want to avoid his frequent claim that the U.S. has "borne nearly 90% of the casualties" and is providing 90% of the troops. On the first point, the U.S. has suffered 800 killed in action since the Iraq war began, 1,053 including non-combat deaths. Our uniformed Iraqi allies, however, have already suffered at least 750 combat deaths. And that doesn't include the recruits who've been killed by car bombs as they've waited to enlist in the police or new Iraq army. Even using, er, liberal math, this would put U.S. killed-in-action at about 50% of the total."

9:42 - One position my ass. "The only thing consistent about my opponent's position is that he's been inconsistent." Heh.

9:44 - Bush seems pretty sincerely emotional when he talks about the loss of life of American troops. I'm sure Democrats are going to say he sounds completely fake.

9:45 - Here we go, Vietnam again. Does he learn?

9:48 - Thank you, specifics on Kerry's plan. That's what I'd like to hear. Again, what nuclear facilities? I didn't think there were any WMD programs in Iraq? Close the borders? Oh, that's easy. How many miles of border are there? Oh, please, occupation nonesense. He still hasn't given a plan.

9:51 - Bush is attacking Kerry on all the right things. Kerry's attack on Allawi was completely uncalled for. And he's not even dignifying the occupation crap with a response.

9:55 - God, I hope there's an October surprise. This losing Osama stuff is Kerry's strongest point, and capturing Osama would totally discredit him.

9:57 - Oh, please, 35- 40 countries had greater capability to make weapons? Like Britain? Israel?

9:58 - So we can only fight a preemptive war if the world agrees? You said earlier you wouldn't give other countries a veto on our national security. How many leaders would say today "the word of the President of the United States is good enough for me"? That has shit to do with anything that Bush has done. Oh, I see, this is about global warming, and Bush was the one who turned away from Kyoto? As if it wasn't already dead in the Senate beforehand?

10:01 - Bush: "I'm not going to make decisions that I think are wrong for America." He's right and Kerry has put way too much emphasis on the international popularity contest, which I don't think goes over too well with a lot of Americans.

10:03 - Bush says China has more influence over NK in some ways more than we do? Is there any way in which we have more influence over NK than China?

10:05 - It sounds to me like Kerry's saying we should have acted more unilaterally in NK and Iran. That sounds like an odd message.

10:07 - That's true, haven't we had sanctions Iran for ages?

10:08 - Kerry: A backdoor draft? Huh? Wait...how does Kerry intend to increase the size of the army? An actual draft perhaps?

10:10 - Neither's committing troops to Sudan. Funny when Bush talked about the rainy season in Sudan - sounded far more worldly than one expects Bush to sound.

10:12 - The personal comments from Bush to Kerry were well-placed. We all hate negative campaigning.

10:13 - Mutual laughter good.

10:14 - Kerry makes a good argument about "certainty when you're wrong." But Bush's response was good as well.

10:15 - "I've never wavered in my life...I've always been consistent." HAH!!! You're contradicting what you said just earlier in the debate!

10:16 - Nuclear proliferation. Good answer, Kerry.

10:17 - Kerry: "Russier?" If Bush's pronunciation of "nucular" is fair game, then "Russier" is fair game.

10:18 - Bush: AQ Khan. Good rebuttal. Libya. Also good rebuttal.

10:19 - Personally, I'd say biological and chemical weapons are a bigger threat than nuclear, but I'm splitting hairs.

10:20 - I agree with Bush on the issue of 6 party talks vs. 2 party talks. China is important in this equation.

10:21 - Putin: tough question. Bush nailed the answer. "Vladimir." First name basis. Nice. "Important to establish good personal relationships." So that you can criticize. "Remind him of the benefits of democracy." Lovely answer.

10:23 - Kerry's nailing his answer too. Okay, back to China & NK. I don't understand Kerry's insistence on bilateral talks.

10:25 - "I'm a pretty calm guy." Heh. Bush is so much more likable than Kerry.

10:26 - Kerry: "Saddam Hussein was a threat. The question is what you do about it." That was a good middle ground position, although the specifics were lacking.

10:27 - Closing statements - Kerry: You still have no plan in spite of your insistence Kerry. "Freedom not fear" What does that mean? Bush: Optimistic. Little substance beyond things he's said a hundred times before, but then again, I guess there are some people who are tuning in for the first time to politics tonight.

Reasonable Theory

Jay Tea at Wizbang poses a theory about John Kerry...or the John Kerrys...hmm...worth pondering...let's all watch and see which one's coming to the debate tonight, shall we?

Rebuttal to My Flypaper Theory

I'm sorry that I missed this when it was originally posted, but better late than never. The Maximum Leader offered a rebuttal to my flypaper theory about Iraq, which was originally inspired by a post of his. I have no particular response - as I said in my original post, I have no idea if there's anything to my theory or not, I was just pondering the possibilities. I also do not pretend to be an expert on military strategy. But read his rebuttal because he makes some good points. Intentional or not, I think he and I both agree that if we (we being all coalition and Iraqi forces in Iraq) play this out intelligently, Iraq has the potential to be a huge victory in the broader war on terror.

Adventures in a Different Media

So, about a week ago, I got contacted by a producer from Public Radio International, which I had never heard of before, but apparently it's like NPR, just less well-known. Anyway, as part of their campaign coverage, they're doing a segment on undecided voters. The gist is they have signed up a handful of undecideds and some supporters of all three candidates - regular people, not politicians or professional pundits. The supporters each have a few minutes to give a quick pitch for their candidates, and then they'll interview the undecideds and see if they were convinced by anyone and why. So, in case you hadn't guessed, the producer had seen my site and contacted me to do a pitch for Bush. It's all prerecorded, not a face to face kind of interaction. All of this is pretty cool: I get to try to convince people to vote for Bush, and better still, I'm getting paid for it - not a whole lot, but I'm not working right now, so I'll take what I can get, especially when I spout my opinions here all the time for free.

Anyway, I was going to post about this eventually, but I'm posting about it now to vent a small amount of frustration. I'll have two and a half minutes to give my pitch, which the producer told me amounts to about 300 - 350 words. Now my readers have probably realized that I can be a little long-winded at times, but do you have any idea how few words 300 - 350 actually is? It's absolutely nothing, particularly when the issues in this campaign are so complex. My first try turned out to be about 650 words, and I scrapped that one entirely because I decided it wasn't the best I could do anyway. My most recent try is about 450 words. It doesn't say everything I would like to say, but what it does say I think it says pretty well. But that's still 100 words too long! Advantage of radio: brevity can be more powerful than verbosity. Advantage of blogs: complex issues cannot be dealt with in soundbits. Unlimited space is a wonderful thing.

Audio Linkage

There's nothing new here, but somehow the Kerry flip-flops we all know and love are much more impressive in audio montage form than they are in type. (Hat tip: Resplendent Mango)

I Link, You Decide

Two links, compare and contrast as you will.

Yesterday, Al Gore gave Kerry debate advice.

Today, the Wall Street Journal decides to do the same.

Which advice should Kerry follow?

No Love for the Haters

Great post from Greg Djerejian, dealing with the fact that it seems Kerry has taken to spouting Moorean conspiracy theories vis-a-vis the Great Bush-Saud Alliance. Needless to say the myths are debunked, via a Saudi expert. My favorite bit from Greg himself was his characterization of the Kerry campaign:

Empty talk (I'll get tough on the Saudis!). Chimerical policy options (Bring the Europeans into Iraq!). Panic-stoking (Nuclear nightmare in NoKo--would that we had pursued another Clinton 'deal'!). Intellectual laziness (we'll 'train and equip' better! We'll eradicate poppy better!) Pretension ('I have been to Paris'; I have a secret plan) 20-20 Hindsight (I'd have done almost all of it differently [ed. note: Hell, at least tell us you would have done it all differently!). And, if all else fails, repeat after me: Fallujah, Fallujah, Fallujah...

But returning to this Bush-Saud Alliance, I've said this before, part of the problem with going after Saudi Arabia is that they hold the lion's share of the world's oil and to risk disrupting that oil flow would be catastrophic for the world economy at large. There is no need for grand conspiracy theories to explain why we don't just "get tough on Saudi Arabia". Two advantages of going to Iraq (both, incidentally, ones that Bush just can't come out and announce) are that it puts us in a position to put more pressure on the Saudis militarily and it frees us up in terms of oil by securing the world's second largest oil supply in a friendly country.

On the other hand, the article that Greg links to notes some positive developments that Bush has effected in Saudi Arabia:

But in the arena of U.S.-Saudi relations, the president must be credited with a number of achievements: He pulled U.S. troops out of the kingdom; he forced Riyadh to get serious regarding terrorist financing; and he precipitated a clash between al-Qaeda and the Saudi regime.

But this part stood out to me the most:

But more to the point, for all its problems (and they are many), the Bush solution of reforming the Middle East to combat terrorism is the only serious plan on the table.

That's nice to hear coming from a Mid East expert. Indeed, I wholeheartedly agree. For all the griping and whining and and moaning and doomsaying; for all the endless litany about all the different ways in which the Bush administration has screwed up, lied, misled; for all the accusations that he's living in a dream world: no one, and I do mean no one, has yet proposed another serious solution to the problem of islamism. By serious solution, I mean one that actually addresses the root causes. Not the whiny, "Why do they hate us?" way of addressing root causes. I'm talking about a serious, adult, pro-active solution that will truly consign islamism as an ideology to the trashbin of history once and for all.

Message to John Kerry and the rest of the ABB crowd: You can gripe and complain all you want about the Bush adminstration's handling of things. You can mock him for his subpar speaking abilities and his Texas swagger. You can criticize and second guess and talk about how you would have done things differently. You try to dig up meaningless dirt about a war that happened thirty years ago. You can equivocate and nuance and intellectualize. The one thing you cannot do is put forth a real vision for how to combat the most important issue of our day that is in any way different from Bush's, because Bush's vision of democratizing the Middle East is the only fundamental solution to this problem.

Don't give me any crap about how terrorism is a only law-enforcement issue. No. It isn't. When large numbers of people from one particular region of the world are so deluded as to volunteer to blow themselves up to combat their supposed enemies, that is not a law enforcement issue, that is a structural problem. When someone who makes statements like, "You value life, we value death," can become a cultural icon in that region of the world, we have a serious, fundamental problem that needs to be dealt with. Particularly when we live in a world where these death-lovers could potentially find themselves in possession of some tools that will help them cause a whole hell of a lot of death.

It absolutely infuriates me that so many people refuse to see the extent of the problem here and refuse to see that this is not something that can be dealt with by small, token measures. Bold measures are needed, and Bush has provided the only logical course by which we can proceed. There has been no other serious proposal made because there is no other serious proposal that would work. I would welcome another serious proposal, and I'm sure so would a lot of other Bush supporters. But one has not been made because there is not one to be made.

And as it happens, look at the win-win situation here, really: we pursue our own national interest in eradicating terrorism by aggressively promoting democracy in the Middle East, and as a happy byproduct, the people in the Middle East will one day get to enjoy the fruits of living in a liberal democracy! Isn't it a wonderful thing when our pursuing our interests entails helping other people in the long run? Wouldn't any good liberal look at that situation, look at the possibility for a better life that we, if we succeed, would be helping to provide in the Middle East, and say, "Wow, what a good thing that is we're doing." But no. They can't do that because all they know how to do is criticize. Things aren't going perfectly. Well, no shit things aren't going perfectly, what world do you people live in where difficult things come easily?

Let me emphasize that point a little more: I'm not saying that pursuing the goals in the grand vision that Bush has laid out is going to be easy. It isn't. It isn't going to be easy at all. But things worth doing are rarely easy. Bush's vision is a good one. If anyone can deny that bringing democracy to a region of the world that has largely languished under repressive totalitarian regimes is a good and worthy goal, then those people sure as hell do not deserve the label "liberal." Criticizing the specifics of how Bush has handled it is all well and good. But until you can either propose a new grand strategy or express commitment to the one that Bush has already laid out without all the petulant whining, then I suggest you go to your rooms and let the adults run this country.
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Whew, I didn't intend to write that long of a post when I started. I just started writing about Saudi Arabia and then veered off that track completely and couldn't stop. In any case, that felt good - blogging can be so cathartic. One last thing before I retire for the evening, I leave you with a quote, which everyone has heard before, but it was circulating through my head the entire time I was typing away furiously:

“It is not the critic who counts, not the man who points at how the strong man stumbled, or where the doer of deeds could have done better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by the dust and sweat and blood; who knows the great enthusiasms, the great devotions and spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best, knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who, at worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who know neither victory nor defeat.” -Teddy Roosevelt

Joke for the Day

This had me laughing harder than Kerry as C3PO. Just go, off with you! (Thank you, Llamabutchers for pointing me to that.)

Campaign Slogans on Campus

Saw this sign on campus today: "Does Kerry have the guts to crack this nut?" [picture of George Bush] I took me a minute to figure out if that was supposed to be a pro-Kerry or anti-Kerry slogan - I probably should have stopped and asked the guys who were holding it, but I was on my way to class and didn't have the time. I assume it was supposed to be a pro-Kerry slogan, or I doubt they would have referred to Bush as a nut. But I guess with my anti-Kerry bias, I read the "Does Kerry have the guts..." part and I immediately chuckled and thought to myself, "Kerry doesn't even have the guts to make up his own mind!" and didn't even get to the "nut" part.

But perhaps I should make a sign with the same slogan, but one minor modification, and compete with them next week. My sign would be:

Does Kerry have the guts to crack this nut?

Blogosphere Quote of the Day

Quoth Kevin at Wizbang: "John Kerry is to politics as The Kama Sutra is to sex - an encyclopedia of different positions."

A Ridicule-Free Post

You know, Kerry has gotten so easy to ridicule that it's almost not taking any effort anymore. Really, the jokes almost make themselves these days. So in the interest of variety, I've decided to challenge myself this morning and write a serious, ridicule-free post about Kerry.

The news item of choice for this little adventure is this AP story, which says that Kerry has finally decided to try to explain at least some of the inconsistencies he's shown on the issue of Iraq. Good for him. Asked about his most famously incoherent statement: "I actually did vote for the $87 billion before I voted against it," Kerry said this morning on Good Morning America that it was "one of those inarticulate moments." Fair enough, we all have those.

Kerry explains the reason he voted against the infamous $87 billion (that would be the second vote - damn! that slipped) was:

Kerry ultimately voted against providing $87 billion for military operations and aid in Iraq and Afghanistan. Although he initially supported the appropriation when it was to be funded at least in part by rolling back tax cuts for those with the highest incomes, Kerry said he ended up voting against the final version of the bill in the Senate as a protest over its funding, which included no-bid contracts.
[...]
"It was just a very inarticulate way of saying something and I had one of those inarticulate moments," Kerry said in an interview broadcast Wednesday on "Good Morning America" on ABC. "But it reflects the truth of the position ... I thought that the wealthiest people of America should share in that burden. It was a protest."

Now, that seems like a somewhat defensible position insofar as the flip-flopping is concerned - voting against a bill because the final version wasn't the way you wanted it. But his specific reason for voting against it - a desire for tax hikes - is a really bad reason to vote against military and aid funding. I realize that they do it all the time in Congress, but he's conflating wildly disparate issues there. (This isn't ridicule, this is a serious argument.) Kerry, as a member of the Senate, [joke deleted - I bet you can almost guess what it was though], could introduce a bill to raise taxes anytime he wanted. It wouldn't pass, but then the $87 billion was going to pass without the tax hike business. So why take a stance against an issue you claim to support (the military and aid funding) to make a point about another unrelated issue you're not going to win on?

I was going to write more here, but I deleted it, realizing that it was turning into the most boring post I've ever written. Lesson learned: you cannot write a post about Kerry without jokes and ridicule. He really is that boring. I do not recommend trying this at home.

Some More Sloganator Fun

Since I spent some time making fun of Kerry today, I felt I should compliment that by a good go on the Sloganator.




And (this one's just for Robert):




Ah. Good times.

Kerry Makes A Funny

In yet another flip-flop, the same Kerry who days ago proclaimed, "The American people don't want jokes...from their president," has now apparently realized that a sense of humor in a campaign is a good thing and is trying to take a stab at it. According to the AP:

Not only is the sometimes aloof senator from Massachusetts dropping an occasional laugh-line into his stump speech, his audiences are chuckling. This heartens campaign aides who think his message is extraordinary but worry that the delivery is often ordinary.

Unfortunately, as we've already noted, Kerry lacks the proper programming to make good jokes, so his "jokes" seem to be notably lacking in actual humor. The list compiled by Best of the Web:

• "Kerry said the occupation of Iraq is riddled with problems, 'yet today, President Bush tells us that he would do everything all over again, the same way.' Kerry paused for affect [sic] before asking sarcastically, "How can he possibly be serious?"
• "Kerry used an idiom likely to be heard among teenagers in a shopping mall, but not on the Senate floor. 'You're going to hear all this talk, "Oh, we've turned the corner, we're doing better, blah, blah," ' he said, running on the phrase as his Wisconsin audience erupted in laughter. 'You know, blah and blah and blah.' "
• "He's thrown in a couple of old-fashioned folksy phrases, too. 'Heavens to Betsy,' he said earlier this month when remarking on Republicans' failure to reinstate the assault weapons ban. 'You bet your boots I know what I'm talking about,' Kerry said Monday when promising to be more fiscally responsible than Bush."
• "Kerry was cracking up his partisan crowd by telling Wisconsin voters they shouldn't be wary of changing horses midstream when the horse is drowning. He tied the metaphor to reports that the Bush campaign insisted that podiums in Thursday's debate be set relatively far apart to obscure Kerry's five-inch height advantage. 'May I also suggest that we need a taller horse?' he said. 'You can get through deeper waters that way.' "

Christ. A Kerry presidency really could be a long four years, couldn't it?
(Hat tip: Best of the Web)

UPDATE: Jimmie, however, notes another Kerry attempt at humor and finds Kerry to be absolutely hilarious.

The Next Battle? (UPDATED)

Lawguy points me to a World Tribune report that indicates that the Bush administration is laying plans for "military and economic pressure" against Syria. Actually, the most recent Newsweek is reporting Pentagon plans not just for Syria, but for Iran as well:

Oct. 4 issue - Deep in the Pentagon, admirals and generals are updating plans for possible U.S. military action in Syria and Iran. The Defense Department unit responsible for military planning for the two troublesome countries is "busier than ever," an administration official says.

Both articles seem to lay some stress on the fact that these are "contingency plans," which of course means that we shouldn't expect anything to come of this soon (er, no time before the election at least).

However, contingency plans or not, it's pretty clear that the conventional wisdom is that if there is to be a next battle in the war on terror, the two candidates at the top of the list are Iran and Syria. It's long been common knowledge that the Iranians are actively helping the insurgency in Iraq. Likewise, according to the World Tribune article, the administration has this to say about the Syrians:

Officials said the administration has determined that diplomacy has failed to resolve U.S. concerns that Syria has been working to destabilize the interim government in Iraq.

They said the Assad regime has been harboring senior operatives of Abu Mussib Al Zarqawi, regarded as the most lethal insurgent in Iraq, aides to Saddam Hussein as well as Iraqi nuclear scientists as part of a Syrian policy coordinated with Iran.

Meanwhile, Iran is busy building some nuclear weapons and strengthening its arsenal in other ways, and Syria is possibly testing chemical and perhaps biological weapons in Darfur.

The Newsweek article stresses:

Even hard-liners acknowledge that given the U.S. military commitment in Iraq, a U.S. attack on either country would be an unlikely last resort; covert action of some kind is the favored route for Washington hard-liners who want regime change in Damascus and Tehran.

"Covert action" suggests to me more or less what I was advising the other day with regard to Iran, which was supporting pro-democracy elements there. Indeed, the World Tribune article seems to be suggesting something similar in Syria:

They said the Defense Department has drafted a range of military options meant to put Damascus on the defensive and encourage insurrection within Syria.

I would say that the days (or maybe months, more accurately) are probably numbered for both the Iranian and Syrian regimes. But which first? Iran or Syria?

Thanks again to Lawguy for the tip.

Addendum: I also seem to recall having read a report within the last few days about the Syrians trying to get the Iranians to agree to take in some of the Iraqi nuclear scientists to whom they've given refuge, in an effort to avoid US reprisals. I cannot for the life of me remember where I read this - if anyone else has seen the same report, please tell me where because it seems interesting in the light of current reports.

UPDATE: All right, thank you Joe, we now have the article about a potential Syria-Iran partnership. Actually this article goes into a lot more detail than wherever it was that I originally read this report. This is the basic story:

Syria's President Bashir al-Asad is in secret negotiations with Iran to secure a safe haven for a group of Iraqi nuclear scientists who were sent to Damascus before last year's war to overthrow Saddam Hussein.

Western intelligence officials believe that President Asad is desperate to get the Iraqi scientists out of his country before their presence prompts America to target Syria as part of the war on terrorism.

Clearly. The terms of this proposed deal:

Under the terms of the deal President Asad offered the Iranians, the Iraqi scientists and their families would be transferred to Teheran together with a small amount of essential materials. The Iraqi team would then assist Iranian scientists to develop a nuclear weapon.

Apart from paying the relocation expenses, President Asad also wants the Iranians to agree to share the results of their atomic weapons research with Damascus.

Also worth noting:

American intelligence officials are concerned that Syria is secretly working on a number of WMD programmes.

They have also uncovered evidence that Damascus has acquired a number of gas centrifuges - probably from North Korea - that can be used to enrich uranium for a nuclear bomb.

Hmm. Perhaps I just missed that report, but the Syrians in possession of uranium enrichment equipment was news to me. Anyhow, all of that put together suggests to me that we have a pretty darn good case - hell, not just a case, "case" is a fairly legalistic term - reason, need might fit better here - to do something about both of these countries. Or are we just going to let them collaborate to build nuclear weapons?

Good Night

Light blogging today has been due to the fact that flu season seems to have come to me a bit early and I've felt like crap all day. I didn't sleep well last night (I think the medicine I took kept me awake) so today I invested in some Tylenol flu the nighttime version. I was attempting to write something here before it kicked in, but it appears to be too late and I think if I try to write anything now it is going to be completely incoherent. So I'll spare you of that. Actually, scratch that, you would probably laugh. I'm really myself I'm trying to spare of embarassment tomorrow morning.

From the Campaign Trail

One of the things I like about President Bush (mostly as a person, but as a leader as well) is that he has a sense of humor. He's been known to make jokes at his own expense, but now as we approach the debates, he's making them at Kerry's expense:

"He probably could spend 90 minutes debating himself," Bush said with a chuckle as he addressed supporters inside a cavernous structure typically used for agriculture shows. The president's remarks came just days before the first debate involving the two candidates.

Actually, I would argue that Kerry has spent the last year or so debating himself. In any case, as we already knew, the engineers who programmed Kerry forgot the upload the "sense of humor" software, so rather than responding with a quip of his own, he gets offended:

The Kerry campaign dismissed Bush's comments and the ad, arguing that Bush is refusing to face the violent consequences of his decision to invade Iraq. "The American people don't want jokes and fantasy spin from their president, they want to hear the truth," Kerry said in a statement.

Yes, Mr. Kerry, the truth is important, which means that you might want to acknowledge and explain your ever-changing positions, rather than futilely pretending that you've been consistent. Besides that, while a sense of humor is by no means a qualification for President, voters do like to think they're electing a human being rather than some droid who's been programmed only with "self-promotion" and "power-seeking" software.

Site Maintenance

I'm going to be playing with my template. If things get fucked up, bear with me.

UPDATE: Eh. Never mind. I keep meaning to make some major cosmetic changes, but everytime I plan to do it I quite frankly don't have the patience for it.

More on Iran

This post on Iran's nuclear and other capabilities by Joe Gandelman at Dean Esmay's blog is very worth reading. I still maintain what I said the other day - that the best thing to do about Iran is to provide active encouragement to the democracy movement there, in the form of arms and training and even a few troops, if they're requested. Everything I've read suggests to me that the pro-democracy movement is strong enough to do the leg work itself, and we should actively be engaging those people and encouraging the overthrow of the mullahs. As I said the other day, this happens to be one of those wonderful and rare situations where the right thing to do is also that which will best guarantee the security of ourselves and our allies, Israel in particular. I wouldn't be averse to the tactic that Gandelman's post implies might be in the works - Israel destroying Iran's capabilities itself, similar to the way it destroyed Iraq's years ago - except for the fact that, if the information here is correct, Iran actually has the capability to retaliate with a vengeance. Supporting the democracy movement seems to be the way to go. So why aren't we?

Nothing's Working...

This post is just a test.

Quote of the Week, September 26th

I decided that this line from Bush and Allawi's press conference deserved to be elevated to quote of the week status. It's not especially eloquent, but the truth at its core is indisputable. And the sentiment it expresses is, to me, one of the fundamental differences between Bush and Kerry.

"You can understand it's tough and still be optimistic. You can understand how hard it is, and believe we'll succeed."
-George W. Bush, 23 Sept. 2004

An Uncomfortable Truth

Whew. A lot have linked to David Brooks' damning column in the Times today. It is quite good and worthy of the linkage. There's a lot of truth in it. In fact, everything he says is completely true, and it's an excellent illustration of the problems with the UN as a means of solving international crises.

But there is another truth - not in place of the truths that Brooks elucidates, but in addition to. And it's the same truth that was in play in Rwanda, the Congo, the Balkans and every other crisis that follows the general internationalist protocol that Brooks defines as: "(1) shock and concern (2) gathering resolve (3) fruitless negotiation (4) pathetic inaction (5) shame and humiliation (6) steadfast vows to never let this happen again." This is a truth that we don't like to acknowledge quite so much.

The truth is that the real reason that neither we nor anyone else is doing anything in Sudan right now is that the Darfur crisis doesn't seem to threaten anyone's national interests quite enough to make it worth anyone's while to go do something about it. The real reason that we haven't decided to eschew the international process here isn't because we've decided to be good and play by the rules this time, it's that the problem isn't quite compelling enough in terms of US interests to motivate us to break those rules. We broke them to go into Iraq because we thought we had a compelling national interest to do so. The left says we thought incorrectly, but whether rightly or wrongly is not relevant to the current point. We thought at the time it was in our national interest to go into Iraq, so we did. Compelling national interests will inevitably trump the rules. But here, no one, including us, is threatened quite enough by Sudan, so here the rules apply. It's one of those unfortunate situations that's indefensible from a humanitarian and moral standpoint, but completely defensible from a realist standpoint.

Don't get me wrong - we get more moral credit than the rest for being the ones to call genocide genocide and force it to the UN on those grounds. The countries that are prevaricating on the issue of whether it is or is not genocide, who can't even support sanctions or a stronger wording of the resolution are on much worse moral ground than us. But let's not pretend that the only thing going on here is that we've decided to play by the rules here and, "See? Look what happens when we play by the rules." The rules in a sense are providing us (and everyone else) with an excuse for doing nothing. The real question is, if there were no such thing as the UN or an analogous institution, no rules for us to respect, would we be doing anything then? I'm not so sure. No matter who the president was.

Free Muslim Coalition Against Terrorism

This seems worth taking note of. Art Chrenkoff has a post up about the Free Muslim Coalition Against Terrorism, which is dedicated to doing exactly what the Muslim community should be doing, which is denouncing terrorism and embracing democracy and all its fruits. Worth a gander.

Flies on Flypaper (UPDATED)

The Maximum Leader, in a rather thorough analysis of the possibilities surrounding the aforelinked (yes, that's a new word - what of it?) Bob Novak column, makes the following observation: "The unintended concequence of our Iraq invasion is that Iraq is now a primary front in the war on terror."

I wonder. Was it so unintended? I mean surely, it was not so unpredictable that if we invaded the terrorists would come lend their hand to the fight against the Great Satan. I don't think it's so farfetched to assume that maybe the administration knew quite well that this is precisely what would happen and that one of the fringe benefits to the invasion of Iraq would be concentrate most of the terrorists in one place. Now you could argue that we already had that in Afghanistan, but Afghanistan is not such a great place to fight a war. In fact, if history is a judge, it's one of the worst places to fight a war. Iraq's a bit better. It's a little smaller, and the terrain, while not ideal, is not nearly so treacherous as in Afghanistan. It's also more centrally located within the problem region, perhaps giving more of the jihadi types not specifically allied with a particularly group an opportunity to come lend a hand to the battle.

Much has been made about the fact that we haven't adequately sealed off the borders with Syria and Iran. Could that be intentional? Could it be part of the strategy be to let all the terrorists who want to come come so that we can just kill them all in one place, like flies on flypaper? I'm just engaging in wild speculation here, but I'm not sure it's so farfetched. I don't know if it's a good strategy or not, though there does seem to be some logic to it. While all the doomsayers like to point to the ongoing battles as proof of the adminstration's incompetence, but our troops have proven pretty effective in killing terrorists - there's just a lot of them.

Like I said, I don't know if this is right, or even if it would be smart if it were right. But I wonder...

UPDATE: My theory (not to mention my new word!) seems to have gotten a relatively positive response here. I guess my initial hesitation in proclaiming it a good strategy if it is indeed a strategy was: what if so many people were to flock in that they were more than we could keep up with? I don't have any statistics about how many terrorists we're killing in Iraq on a daily basis and how many are slipping through the borders. Actually, I doubt anyone has statistics on the latter.

But Al does make a good point in the comments: the no-go zones would have the effect of drawing newly arrived jihadis to them - if you were a jihadi, wouldn't you want to be in the place where the coalition troops weren't? Indeed, wouldn't those zones draw in pretty much all the bad guys of whatever variety? From what I've gathered, they're not a coherent enough group to have someone who says, "Hey, we can't all be in the no-go zones. You, you and you, get the hell out of here." They're basically a motley crew of anti-Americans of all varieties from a number of countries. They don't have any kind of overall hierarchical structure to coordinate who stays in the no-go zones and who has to take the risk of being outside them.

So, thinking this through a little further, this seems like it could be a better strategy than I had initially postulated. Just kind of chill out for a few months, letting the no-go zones act as magnets and allowing all the to terrorists slip on in - and then suddenly, without warning, just take those zones out, quickly and surgically. In that case, it wouldn't matter how many terrorists we've been killing on a daily basis versus how many have been coming in, over the course of the past few months. They'd all be in one place. That doesn't seem like such a bad strategy. In fact it seems like quite a good one. Surely if we pajama-clad folks can think of stuff like this, our military may have something similar circulating among its upper ranks?

Allawi and Bush Answer Questions

Via the Sundries Shack, we have a transcript of a joint press conference with Bush and Allawi. There's a lot of really good stuff in here, and people should read this in its entirety before they go leveling accusations at Bush or Allawi. Both sound very in command of and well informed on the entire situation. Really - being informed doesn't necessarily mean one has to be pessimistic!

A few points. First, liberals have been laying the charge at Bush that he doesn't have a plan for Iraq. Allow me to quote extensively:

[Bush]We're making steady progress in implementing our five-step plan toward the goal we all want: completing the mission so that Iraq is stable and self-governing and American troops can come home with the honor they have earned.

The first step was achieved on June 28th, not only on time, but ahead of schedule, when the coalition transferred full sovereignty to a government of Iraqi citizens.

The second step is to help Iraq's new government establish stability and security. Iraq must be able to defend itself and Iraqi security forces are taking increasing responsibility for their country's security.

Nearly 100,000 fully trained and equipped Iraqi soldiers, police officers and other security personnel are working today and that total will rise to 125,000 by the end of this year. The Iraqi government is on track to build a force of over 200,000 security personnel by the end of next year.

With the help of the American military, the training of the Iraqi army is almost halfway complete. And in Najaf and other important areas, Iraqi military forces have performed with skill and success.

In Najaf, Iraqi and coalition forces effectively surrounded, isolated and engaged enemy militias. Prime Minister Allawi and his government reached out to the local population to persuade citizens the path to a better future would be found in political participation and economic progress.

The interim government then negotiated from a position of strength to end the standoff.

Serious problems remain in several cities. Prime Minister Allawi believes this combination of decisive action and outreach to peaceful citizens is the most effective way to defeat terrorists and insurgents and secure the peace of Iraq. And America stands with him.

The third step in our plan is to continue improving Iraq's infrastructure. On television sets around the world we see acts of violence, yet in most of Iraq children are about to go back to school, parents are going More than 2,000 schools have been renovated and millions of new textbooks have been distributed.

There's much more work to be done. We've already spent more than $1 billion on urgent reconstruction projects in areas threatened by the insurgency. In the next several months over $9 billion will be spent on contracts that will help Iraqis rebuild schools, refurbish hospitals and health clinics, repair bridges, upgrade the electricity grid and modernize the communication system.

Prime Minister Allawi and I both agree that the pace of reconstruction should be accelerated. We're working toward that goal.

The fourth step in our plan is to enlist additional international support for Iraq's transition to democracy. The multinational force of some 30 nations continues to help secure a free Iraq. We honor the service men and women of Great Britain, Bulgaria, Denmark, El Salvador, Estonia, Hungary, Italy, Latvia, the Netherlands, Poland, Slovakia, Spain, Thailand and Ukraine who've died, besides Iraqis and Americans, for the cause of freedom and security of the world.

Our coalition is grateful that the United Nations has reestablished its mission in Baghdad. We're grateful to the G-8 countries and the European Union for pledging support to the new Iraqi government. We're grateful to the NATO alliance for helping to train Iraqi forces. We're grateful to many of Iraq's creditors which have agreed to have further reduction of Iraq's debt.

Because all nations have an interest in the success of a free Iraq, I urge all nations to join in this vital cause.

The fifth and most important step in our plan is to help Iraq conduct free, national elections no later than next January. An Iraqi electoral commission is now up and running and has already hired personnel and is making key decisions about election procedures.

Just this week the commission began a public education campaign to inform Iraqis about the process and encourage them to become voters. The United Nations electoral advisers are on the ground in Iraq, though more are needed. Prime Minister Allawi and I have urged the U.N. to send sufficient personnel to help ensure the success of Iraqi elections.

At every stage in this process of establishing self-government, the Iraqi people and leaders have met the schedules they set and have overcome their challenges with confidence. And under this good man's leadership they will continue to do so.

That sure sounds like a plan to me. And allow me to note, Bush sure sounds a whole lot more presidential than Kerry. Note also the portion I bolded - doesn't sound like he's denying there are still problems to me, another favorite charge from the left, even from Kerry himself.

More planning and acknowledgement of present problems, this time from Allawi himself:

We had an excellent meeting today building on the talks we had on Tuesday in New York. We discussed the challenges ahead of us and how to confront them. We discussed the plan to take Iraq through these difficulties and to ensure that democratic elections take place on time next year.

And we discussed the importance of maintaining the strength of the coalition and the support of the international community in helping us to succeed.

As we discussed, the plan focuses on building democracy, defeating the insurgency and improving quality of life for the ordinary Iraqis. Our political plan is to isolate the terrorists from the communities in which they operate. We are working hard to involve as many people as we can in the political process, to cut the ground from under the terrorists' feet.

Of course, we know that terrorism cannot be defeated with political tools alone, but we can weaken it. Ending local support helps us to tackle the enemy head on to identify, isolate and eradicate this cancer.

This one-liner from Bush cracked me up. Full context, for sake of fairness: Bush had previously said that General Abizaid had never requested more troops from him and that if he were to ask, he'd have them. Allawi had said that more American troops were unneeded, that what was needed was more Iraqi troops. Context given, here's the quote:

And I'd like to, if you don't mind, follow on something the prime minister just said. If General Abizaid says he needs more troops and the prime minister says he does not want more troops, who wins?

BUSH: Let me talk to General Abizaid. As I said, he just came in to see me. And I want to make sure -- I'm not suggesting any of the reporters here might be taking something out of context; that would never happen in America.

No, never, ever would American reporters take something out of context. I'm sure it had to have been an intentionally ironic joke, because it's so patently false.

More on not being in denial about the real troubles in Iraq:

QUESTION: Sir, you've been accused on the campaign trail in this election year of painting an overly optimistic portrait of the situation on the ground in Iraq.

Yesterday, in Valley Forge, you said that there was a handful of people who were willing to kill to try to disrupt the process. Isn't that really understating the case, particularly when there are intelligence reports that hundreds, if not thousands of foreign fighters are streaming across the border from Syria to take up the fight of the insurgency?

And do you believe, given the situation on the ground and Fallujah and other northern cities in the Sunni triangle, that elections are possible in four months?

BUSH: I do, because the prime minister told me they are. He's interested in moving this country forward. And you heard his statement. And I believe him.

The first part of the question?

QUESTION: Are you painting...

BUSH: Yes, got it, got it. Yes, yes.

Yesterday -- right. I said -- look, what we're seeing on our TV screens are the acts of suicide bombers.

They're the people that are affecting the nightly news. And they know it's a fact.

I said that the enemy cannot defeat us militarily. What they can do is take acts of violence that try to discourage us and try to discourage the prime minister and the people of Iraq.

Look, I'm fully aware we're fighting former Baathists and Zarqawi network people. But by far the vast majority of people, among 25 million people, want to live in freedom. My point is, is that a few people, relative to the whole, are trying to stop the march of freedom.

It is tough work. Everybody in America knows that. And the fundamental question is: Are we going to allow the tough work to cause us to retreat, to waver?

And my answer to the American people and the Iraqi people and to the enemy is that we will complete our mission. We will do our duty. We will adjust strategies on the ground, depending upon the tactics of the enemy. But we're not going to allow the suiciders to drive us out of Iraq.

ALLAWI: May I please?

BUSH: Yes, please.

ALLAWI: Let me explain something which is very important. I have noticed in the media, it have been neglected and omitted several times, in the Western media.

Iraq is made out of 18 provinces. Out of these 18 provinces, 14 to 15 are completely safe; there are no problems. And I can count them for you, starting from Basra, moving into Iraq Kurdistan.

There are three areas, three provinces where there are pockets of insurgents, pockets of terrorists who are acting there and are moving from there to inflict damage elsewhere in the country.

So really few care to look at Iraq properly and go from Basra to Nasiriyah to Kut (ph) to Diala to Najaf to Karbala to Diwina to Samawa (ph) to Kirkuk to Sulaymaniyah to Dahoo (ph) to Irbil there are no problems. It's safe. It's good.

There are problems in Fallujah. Fallujah is part of a province, the province is called Al Anbar. It's vast, very big. It has many other important towns, such as Anna (ph), such as Rawa (ph), such as Ramadi. There's nothing there. In Anna (ph) and Rawa (ph) indeed there is nothing, no problem, except on a small pocket in Fallujah.

So really, I call up on the responsible media throughout the world, not only here, to look at the facts as they are in Iraq and to propagate these facts to the international community.

I am not trying to undermine that there are dangers. There are dangers in Iraq. There are problems and we are facing international terrorist onslaught on Iraq. I personally have received every day a threat. In the last four weeks, they found four conspiracies to kill me. And likewise they are killing people. They are killing officials. They are killing innocent people. But the Iraqis are not deterred and we are not going to be deterred.

I went the next day and saw a recruitment center for the police after they killed, massacred 40, 45 people. I found hundreds of people coming to volunteer to the police and to the army.

I had spoke to them. They are all upbeat. They are resolved to beat terrorism and to defeat the insurgents.

These are facts that one really needs to explain it to you and you need to explain it to the people.

Bush goes on to emphasize the point I made at the outset of this post:

BUSH: Let me say one other thing about why I'm optimistic we'll succeed.

By the way, you can understand it's tough and still be optimistic.

You can understand how hard it is, and believe we'll succeed.

I remember when some were talking about the possibility of success in Afghanistan in pretty stark terms. I don't know if you remember that period or not, but there was a period where some were saying it's impossible for democracy to come forward in Afghanistan.

Today, 10 million citizens have registered to vote, 41 percent of whom are women. It's a phenomenal statistic, I think. I think it shows what's possible if you believe -- if you have certain beliefs from which you won't waver.

And I believe I people yearn to be free.

Again, I think if you look at polls -- which sometimes I do, and sometimes I don't admittedly -- that by far the vast majority of Iraqis want to vote. They want to live in freedom.

Unfortunately Mr. President, I think most of your critics do not understand the concept of triumphing over adversity. Either something must be a cakewalk, or it cannot be done at all. The fact that you believe it is possible to understand that a situation is tough and still be optimistic is one of the main reasons you have earned my vote in November.

"Two nations [one under God and one not]...er, indivisible, yes, indivisible"

Eugene Volokh, guest-blogging for Glenn Reynolds over at MSNBC, writes about a law passed by the House that robs the Supreme Court of its jurisdiction over cases about the "Under God" in the Pledge of Allegiance business. Now this is one of those issues that I don't really have that strong an opinion about either way, but Volokh's analysis was interesting. His legal insight on the matter is this:

True, the jurisdiction-stripping would at least confine the "under God" invalidations to those states where the supreme courts rendered such decisions. But my sense is that supporters of "under God" won't be wild about this result, where "under God" is allowed in some states but not in others -- especially since the alternative might be the Supreme Court's upholding "under God" on a nationwide basis.

So basically, this law (if also passed in the Senate, which I gather hasn't happened) could potentially result in people in different states saying the Pledge differently? That hardly seems to have the unifying effect the Pledge is meant to have. Moreover, that's sure as hell going to confuse some kids who move from state to state. If a kid moves from Alabama to Massachusetts, is a Massachusetts teacher going to yell at the kid if he says the "under God"? I can see it happening. That's great, people in some states will be living in a nation "under God" and the others will just be living in a nation. Hey, Edwards' "two Americas" might prove prescient after all.

Oh, How the Mighty Have Fallen

I almost didn't bother with this Victor Davis Hanson column (boredom with Rathergate and all) but I am oh so glad I did. It's not just about Rather. It's about the left's hypocricy and arrogance - in the media, in academia, in politics. Plus, if I hadn't read it, I would have missed this great literary allusion, probably the best that Rathergate has begotten: "The once-revolutionary pigs taking over the manor are now bloated and strutting on two legs as they feast on silver inside the farmhouse." As the man says: heh.

A Post of Shameless Self-Promotion

Hey, this just made my day. I made the Best of the Web Today and I didn't even know it! Many thanks to The Maximum Leader from Naked Villainy for emailing me and alerting me to this or I don't think I would have even known.

It actually wasn't because of anything I posted here, it was a comment I left at a post that I linked to. Hell, I'm just going to post the whole relevant segment from Best of the Web, actually because the whole thing - both the original post and James Taranto's spin on it - is quite hilarious. My comment was but a minor contribution.

'Let the Wookie Win'
A blogger called "bkm" has come forth with one of the most inventive insights of the 2004 campaign: John Kerry may actually be C-3PO, the neurotic, English-sounding metallic droid, who by the way served in the Clone Wars. We weren't about to take the word of some jammie-clad no-name, so we went out and bought the "Star Wars" DVD box set, released just this week (Karl Rove must've had something to do with the timing), watched the first movie, which is now called "Star Wars IV" for obscure reasons, and jotted down a bunch of Threepio quotes:

• "We'll be destroyed for sure! This is madness! We're doomed."
• "Hey! You're not permitted in there! You'll be deactivated for sure! Don't you call me a mindless philosopher, you overweight glob of grease!"
• "Secret mission? What plans? What are you talking about? I'm not getting in there! I'm going to regret this."
• "How did we get into this mess? I really don't know how. We seem to be made to suffer. It's our lot in life."
• "Where do you think you're going? Well, I'm not going that way. It's much too rocky. This way is much easier."
• "What mission? What are you talking about? I've just about had enough of you! Go that way! You'll be malfunctioning within a day, you nearsighted scrap pile! And don't let me catch you following me, begging for help, because you won't get it!"
• "No more adventures! I'm not going that way."
• "That malfunctioning little twerp! This is all his fault! He tricked me into going this way, but he'll do no better."
• "Protocol? Why, it's my primary function, sir. I am well versed in all the customs."
• "No, I don't think he likes you at all. No, I don't like you either."
• "It wasn't my fault, sir! Please don't deactivate me! I told him not to go, but he's faulty, malfunctioning. Kept babbling on about his mission."
• "I suggest a new strategy, R2: Let the wookie win."
• "Help! I think I'm melting! This is all your fault!"

The resemblance to Kerry's foreign policy is uncanny. C-3PO also has a lot of awkward arm movements, just like Kerry when giving a speech. On the other hand, Threepio has a certain lack of self-regard that is quite unlike the narcissistic Kerry. At one point, he tells Luke Skywalker: "I'm only a droid, and not very knowledgeable about such things. Not on this planet anyway. As a matter of fact, I'm not even sure which planet I am on." Apart from the confusion about what planet he's on, this is a decidedly un-Kerrylike comment. You can't imagine this droid ever demanding: "Do you know who I am?"

If Kerry is C-3PO, which "Star Wars" character most closely resembles President Bush? The obvious candidate is Han Solo, whose cocksure attitude is reminiscent of the president's. "Bring 'em on," he actually says at one point, and at another, Princess Leia mocks him as a "flyboy."

On the other hand, some readers of the "bkm" blog see a resemblance to C-3PO's counterpart, R2-D2. As one explains anonymously: "He's not real articulate, and he doesn't say much, but he's resolute, calm in a crisis, and usually solves the problem while other people are arguing about it." Another reader, Nicole Griffin, offers this suggestion:

Perhaps the Kerry as Threepio and Bush as R2D2 thing would work well in the debates. Just picture it: Kerry can blather on and on in his Threepio fashion and Bush can just beep in response--it's not like anything Kerry will say will warrant a real response anyway. The level of discourse might actually be raised by such a tactic!

The thought of Bush beeping calls to mind another analogy from 20th-century popular culture: the Road Runner. One can imagine Wile E. Coyote opening an "Acme Purple Heart Kit" and having it blow up in his face.

I find this whole C3PO thing to be hilarious, and like most hilarious things, it's funny because it's so true.

UPDATE: Brilliant. Robert at Llamabutchers has now combined the two things that have given me so much pleasure in the last 24 hours (well, okay, I'm talking about politics only here - geez, you people have dirty minds) - the Kerry Sloganator and the Kerry/C3PO comparison - gold, I tell you, gold.

A Little Push in Iran

Via Vodkapundit, this great Michael Ledeen column on Iran. The crux:

In Iran today, upwards of 70 percent of the population is openly hostile to the regime, vocally desirous of freedom and democracy, and bravely supportive of the Bush Doctrine to bring democratic revolution to the entire region.

If we could bring down the Soviet Empire by inspiring and supporting a small percentage of the people, surely the chances of successful revolution in Iran are more likely. By orders of magnitude. "No plausible path," my derriere! (as Senateur Kerry might put it). Ask Comrade Gorbachev about the power of democratic revolution before you write off the Iranian people.

I think that Mr. Will got it wrong because he assumes that regime change implies military conquest. But we don't need armies of fighting American men and women to liberate Tehran; the foot soldiers are Iranians, and they are already on the ground, awaiting good leadership with a clear battle plan. The war against the Iranian terror masters will be political, not military. The weapons that will end the dreadful tyranny — so well described by Mr. Will and Mrs. Nafisi — are ideas and passions, not missiles and bullets. To our great shame, we have failed to support the Iranians' battle against their hated regime, but that is a failure of will, not a failure of means.

Beautifully said. There is every reason for optimism on Iran - probably more reason than in Iraq. The people there by and large want democracy and they're vocal about it. They don't support the mullahs. Everyone is rightly worried right now about the possibility of the mullahs going nuclear. The best thing we can possibly do to undermine their efforts at becoming a nuclear state is to support the internal opposition. As Ledeen says: "there is a huge difference between atomic bombs in the hands of fanatical mullahs, and atomic bombs controlled by a pro-Western and democratic country." Exactly right. We need to support the democracy movement in Iran, both for our own interests and because it's quite simply the right thing to do. And isn't it great when those two things actually coincide? The great thing is the Iranian democrats won't even really need much help from us - we won't need to invade, certainly, just maybe provide some arms, a bit of training, maybe a few troops, but above all moral support. I really don't think it will take more than a bit of a push from us to see some very positive change there. Just a little push and we can take another country off the axis of evil list. As Ledeen says: "Faster, please."

Yeah, What He Said

Charles Krauthammer says in his column today more or less the same thing that I said yesterday, albeit a little more coherently. It seems fairly common sense not to insult the people who are actually your friends, but hey, I'm not Kerry.

Using Wizbang's Kerry Sloganator to Vent Frustration

I just had a splendid time with Wizbang's Kerry Sloganator - that thing's great if you're in the right mood for it. I made a bunch of Kerry signs. I'm trying to decide which is my favorite, and I can't decide between these two:








I can't decide, I kind of like both. That was fun though. The Wizbang boys should be commended for creating a great tool for letting off steam.

UPDATED: By the light of day, I think I agree - the "Wallowing in Defeatism" one is better. Although I decided that I do like this one too, even if it's a little less pithy:

Give the Man Some Credit! (UPDATED)

So, the interim Iraqi prime minister gives a lovely and gracious and optimistic speech to our Congress. And what does Kerry do? He tears the poor guy down, basically calling him Bush's puppet and a liar. The thing about Allawi's speech is that he wasn't saying everything is peachy in Iraq - what he was saying is that Iraqis are determined to prevail. And if the Iraqis themselves aren't wallowing in defeatism, then we sure as hell shouldn't be either.

Relatedly, the same guy, the prime minister of an Arab nation, is kissing Joe Lieberman (a Jew, mind you) on the cheeks and Paul Wolfowitz on both cheeks (also a Jew, if I'm not mistaken), the day after he shakes the hand of the Israeli Foreign Minister (drawing the ire of Hezbollah in the process). Can we all just take a moment and reflect on the fact that those are some pretty big symbolic moments? Can Kerry just take a moment and give the man some credit? I would venture to say that Allawi's got the hardest job in the world right now, and he's handling it with considerable grace. Kerry would do well to at least pay lip service to all of that before he calls the man names.

UPDATE: Here's the link to the full text of Kerry's speech (hat tip: Gregory Djerejian). It's actually fairly incoherent. Like here:

KERRY: I think the prime minister is, obviously, contradicting his own statement of a few days ago, where he said the terrorists are pouring into the country. The prime minister and the president are here, obviously, to put their best face on the policy. But the fact is that the CIA estimates, the reporting, the ground operations and the troops all tell a different story. Yesterday I read the report of a deputy director of the Provisional Coalition Authority. He's now returned to the United States. And his report was really pretty devastating. He wrote that we are losing the peace. He wrote that we are not getting the reconstruction aid out, that only 5 percent of the money has been spent. He wrote of the levels of unemployment and of the difficulties of people who are earning money throwing grenades at American soldiers.

Then he told Congress there were 95,000. He didn't tell the truth to the Congress. There were 5,000 -- 5,000. That's a disgrace.

I almost think (I almost hope, for Christ's sake) that the NYT fucked up the full text there, and that there's a disconnect between that first and second paragraph, because otherwise, what the hell is he talking about with this 95,000, 5,000 business? Everything that he talked about in the previous paragraph were things that would be a good thing if the number was actually lower than the stated amount.

Matt Yglesias seems to think that Kerry said the right thing (also hat tip Greg Djerejian.) I really don't see it. Attacking Bush's leadership is one thing - that's fair game - but attacking Allawi was in really poor taste and unnecessary. Allawi does not anywhere in his speech deny that there's trouble in Iraq. He contends that the majority of Iraqis don't support the insurgency - and I see no evidence anywhere to refute that - but he doesn't deny that there is an insurgency and that it is a problem. He gives a some examples about positive things going on in Iraq right now - citing positive developments is not a negation of the fact that bad things are still going on too. But his speech isn't primarily focused on the present. It talks about the past, in order to convey gratitude to the United States for the saving the Iraqis from tyranny, and it talks optimistically about the future. It talks about what he and other Iraqis are trying to do to ensure a positive and democratic future. He expresses hope and solidarity with America. I swear, only people who don't want to see Iraq succeed can have a problem with this guy.

Allawi came up in response to following question from the press:

QUESTION: Prime Minister Allawi told Congress today that democracy was taking hold in Iraq and that the terrorists there were on the defensive. Is he living in the same fantasy land as the president?

The answer Kerry should have given was something more along the lines of:

"I have a great deal of respect for Prime Minister Allawi. He has taken on the enormously difficult task of trying to rebuild his own country, which has been destroyed by years of dictatorship and war. And he has taken on this challenge with admirable optimism and hope for the future. I would be honored, if elected president, to work with this man towards securing a bright future for Iraq. We Americans can only hope that his optimistic outlook is realized. Unfortunately...."

Then he could have launched into his screed about how Bush's tactics are inadequate and how he has a plan to do better, if he felt he must. Like I said, attacking Bush is fair, attacking Allawi is low. Gee, I wonder who Allawi hopes wins our election....

ANOTHER UPDATE: Glenn Reynolds, who has been interpreting just about every Kerry speech lately as a sign of desperation, links to this comment:

"Ok. So you want other nations' leaders to expend political capital and treasure and send their lads to risk their lives . . . . So why don't you act like it? Why aren't you trying to sell the deal?"

That's a good point. Kerry is insistent that we need more nations involved in Iraq, to the point of being disparaging towards those who are already involved, and yet he's also insistent on painting it as a lost cause. Well, at least when he isn't trying to convince us that he has a better plan to win it than Bush, though he never quite gets around to informing us what that plan is. In any case, why should those other countries whose involvement Kerry wants so desperately commit their troops to Iraq, if it is indeed a lost cause? Moreover, what countries does Kerry think he's going to involve that are going to make any difference in the stability situation? What countries aren't involved that can help us now? France? Not going to help regardless of whether the President speaks French, and how many troops could they provide us even if they did? Germany? Ditto. Russia? That's a possibility, even though the idea of Russian troops in Iraq makes me a little nervous. China? Don't make me laugh. We don't want China's help, even if they were to offer it. Really, who's left? That covers every semi-major country in the world who has any capacity to help us and who is not already helping. This internationalization meme is getting really old.

In case you can't tell, Kerry is really starting to piss me off. I think up till today I've generally just regarded him as a useless, self-important politician who was mainly objectionable just because he was so fucking uninteresting and neutral, even when he, as a presidential candidate, should be taking a stance. Before Kerry had given me no reason to vote either for him or against him, whereas Bush had at least given me a few reasons to vote for him and fewer to vote against him. Now Kerry's starting to take that long-awaited stance and the stance is just so inane and defeatist and derogatory toward everyone not explicitly on his side that I'm finally wanting to vote against him, not just for the other guy. He goes on and on about allies and yet he insults our actual friends. This is serious business and all Kerry cares about it winning the election. He tears down Bush and offers no alternative, when as the challenger, the burden is on him to provide his vision for what the next four years should be.

He has no vision. He has nothing except bitter screeds about how Bush lied and how our allies are fraudulent and coerced and the man who should have our every support right now is a Bush lackey. Where will all of this put him if he were acutally in office? Pleading unsuccessfully with the Jacques Chirac to get on board while whimpering to Tony Blair, John Howard, et al., how he didn't really mean those nasty things he said about their countries? Taking over the responsibility of rebuilding Iraq when the Iraqi government is constantly wary that he's going to pull all our troops away at the slightest sign of trouble, thus delivering the members of that government to an almost certain death?

Yes, I'm pissed right now. I'm pissed that in this time when Americans should be banding together in defense of our nation, the Democratic party has managed to produce nothing better than this. Some claim that this is Bush's fault - that he's a polarizing figure. And he is, to an extent, because he epitomizes red America in a way that blue America has a hard time dealing with. But blue America needs to grow up and realize that just because Bush walks and talks like he's from Texas and caters too much to the religious right, we're at war and it's a war that they would be supporting if there had been a Democrat in office these past four years. In 2003, I was more than willing to vote Democrat in 2004 if the Democratic party had put forth someone who took national security seriously. Instead they put forth this bitter partisan whose vision of America has not changed a whit since he publicly denounced our country as evil imperialists thirty years ago. They put forth this cynical, self-aggrandizing career politician who cannot see our future in anything but the most pessimistic of terms. This is not what we need right now.

I would be less mad right now if he would come straight out and say that he wanted troops out of Iraq right now, that it was a mistake and come what may, we were done there. But he won't do that. He has to equivocate and nuance and pretend that he plans to finish what we've started when he's made it very clear that he thinks it was a mistake and that it's unwinnable. He'd keep the troops there, engage in half-hearted efforts to fix things, beg to our faux-allies and apologize to our real allies without changing anything, and then ceremoniously declare three years after his inauguration that there was nothing he could do, that Iraq was a lost cause all along and it was those evil Republicans who got us all into this quagmire, see it's not my fault - elect me again!

Today, for the first time, I don't just want Bush to win, I really want Kerry to lose.

Whew, talk about a screed.

LAST UPDATE, I THINK: On a related note that's more likely to make you laugh, see here.
Also, this is the funniest thing I've read in quite a while.

Why Iraq Was the Right War

Stephen Green needs to ramble late at night after a few too many martinis more often. He inevitably writes some of his best stuff when he does. This time he's chastising Bush for not doing more on Iran whilst explaining why Iraq was the right war. Go read first if you haven't...come back...okay here's what I have to add to his remarks.

His case for why Iraq was the right war is quite similar to mine. I would only add a couple of points. In addition to the virtues of Iraq that Stephen mentions, it has a couple more.

First, though not most importantly, we had a history with Iraq and UN resolutions that gave us pretty solid ground (whether or not the internationalists like to admit it) for action there.

Second, it happens to be strategically located right in the heart of most of the big-problem states, namely Iran, Saudi Arabia and to a slightly lesser extent Syria - in fact it shares borders with all of them. It's also close to Israel, which is a problem in a different way. No other state in the region would have given us such a strategic position. Right now we don't have the military power there to launch an invasion against any of those states - but our troops on the border unquestionably put a little bit of psychological pressure on each of those states, if nothing else. And Stephen's right - we should be exploiting our nearness to help embolden the Iranian democrats, and if we're not, we're dropping the ball.

Third, in order for our democracy building project to have a chance of having its desired effect on the rest of the Middle East, it had to be done in a state that was of considerable significance. I had an extremely liberal (think: Chomskyite) ex-boyfriend argue with me one time that if we wanted to promote democracy in the Middle East, rather than invading Iraq, we should have tried to push along states that are already on the right track, like Jordan or Turkey. The answer to that is that a full-blown beautiful democracy in Jordan wouldn't have had too much impact; Turkey's a little better, but it's also not Arab. The really significant states in the Arab world, I think most would agree are Iraq, Saudi Arabia, and Egypt. Iran's another significant state in the region, but it's not Arab either. Egypt for the reasons Stephen mentions wasn't doable. We also had no cause whatsoever and it lacks Iraq's strategic geographic position. Saudi Arabia I'll get back to in a minute, but it's worth noting right now that one of the few coherent political demands bin Laden has ever made was that he wanted American troops out of Saudi Arabia. Saudi Arabia is the home of most of Islam's most holy sites and our troops' being there at all was the cause of considerable tension; invasion there would have been bad news, and I suspect quite difficult militarily. To sum up this third point, Iraq was the one significant Arab state that we could realistically invade and try to build something better - happily, we also had a pretty good reason to do it.

Fourth, we get to that ugly three letter word - you know where I'm going with this - oil. Another problem with going after Saudi Arabia was that it's the world's largest oil producer. Now don't give me any Moorean nonesense about the Bush family being in the Saudis' pockets or anything - no such conspiracy theory is necessary. The truth is we're all in the Saudis' pockets - every single person in every industrialized nation. We're all dependent on oil. A war in Saudi Arabia - whether internal or one that we launched - would in all likelihood severely disrupt the flow of Saudi oil, and that would most likely be quite devastating for the world economy. Everyone knows that something has to be done about Saudi Arabia - not necessarily an invasion, but something. But we've been compelled for a lot of years to tiptoe around the Saudis because of the oil issue. It's unfortunate but true. The good news is, guess who's got the second largest supply of oil - that's right, Iraq. Assuming that we are successful in Iraq, and we can stop the terrorists from sabotaging attempts to get Iraqi oil flowing again, that will free us up considerably to put more pressure on the Saudis, because we'll be a little bit less dependent on their oil.

So all that makes my case for why Iraq was the right war. Now of course all this hinges on our success there. We have to stay the course and build something good there. And we have to make use of the strategic position that it gives us to begin to pressure other states in the region, namely Iran, Saudi Arabia and Syria, to reform as well. Then and only then will we really be making headway in the War on Terror.

GOP Operatives?

Jeff Goldstein, true to that fashion that's all his own, delivers probably the best fisking I've ever seen. Seriously, I almost choked on my wine multiple times while reading this. If you haven't read it yet, do that first - what I have to say about this is far less noteworthy.

The little comment that I wanted to make (okay, it's not so little, now that I've actually written a few paragraphs down) about this is about the little phrase at the beginning of the target of the fisking - "Dan Rather is lying on the floor, bloodied by a mistake he has now admitted, flanked on the political right by "we told you so" finger-pointers led by GOP operatives demanding his head." That "it's all a big Republican scheme" paranoia that the author betrays by that little phrase at the outset can be seen throughout by choice words and phrases like "selected bloggers" and "right-wing attack machine."

I think this jumped out at me particularly because I had a political science class tonight, and sort of tangentially, the subject of Iraq and Bush came up and one girl in commenting betrayed her underlying belief that the only people who support the war in Iraq are in some way misinformed or underinformed. Had this been more central to the conversation, I probably would have called her on it, but since it was a bit of a tangent anyway, I didn't bother.

In any case, that exchange, in combination with reading Goldstein's fisking led me to the following observation: liberals as a whole think that all conservatives are either misinformed/underinformed lemmings or nefarious GOP operatives. It really is that simple. It is beyond the conception of most liberals that a person can be well-informed, have no particular stake (by which I mean a financial or power stake) in the GOP, and continue to support Bush.

I think this explains the outrage among liberals - well, about a lot of things, really - but in this particular instance about Rathergate. Deep down, they cannot accept any other explanation than that Rather's credibility has been destroyed, not by intelligent, well-informed "free agents" - but by covert GOP operatives. Really, the GOP must have a CIA all its own - there's no other possible explanation. Since Republicans only come in two flavors - the ignorant lemmings and the partisan lackeys - and clearly the people who revealed Rather's documents as fraudulent possessed some intelligence, they must have been partisan lackeys pretending to be free agents. It's the only thing that makes sense, isn't it?

Well, in fact, no. Quite frankly, these types of opinions can only be held by people who don't read blogs. I started reading blogs about a year ago, and almost immediately the thing I loved about them was the fact that the blogosphere is such a collection of generally well-informed people of just about every political persuasion imaginable. Outside the blogosphere, in general, you find two types. The "privately we're liberal but we're trying to masquerade as impartial" journalists, in the mainstream media. And the wildly, bombastically partisan Republicans on Republican talk radio and Fox News. You can make no such division in the blogosphere, no such easy dichotomy. Individual bloggers can generally be classified, although often not on simple Democrat/Republican, liberal/conservative planes. We tend to employ more creative classifications like libertarian hawks and left- or right-of-center and neocentrists and God-only-knows what else.

So, most individual bloggers can be classified with some imagination, but the blogosphere as a whole defies classification. But the one thing most of us are is well-informed. A few weeks ago, someone left a comment here indicating that they were pleased to have found an intelligent blog. I appreciated the compliment, of course, but in the back of my mind I was thinking, "Dude, check out my blogroll - there are plenty of intelligent blogs out there." I'm sure there is plenty of crap too, but if you look in the right way, the blogosphere can be extraordinarily informative because, by custom, a serious blogger can't really make an assertion without linking to his or her source. The funny thing is, that even with the same sources, even when they're inherently empirical, people can reach very different conclusions. Which means that people who read blogs in general (of course there are exceptions to every rule) tend to at least have some level of recognition of the fact that there are people on the other side who are just as intelligent as them, just as well informed as them, but come to different conclusions. Reasonable minds can indeed differ on more than many of us care to admit.

Anyway, I've digressed egregiously from my point, which is that the people who discredited Rather were not GOP operatives. They were intelligent individuals, with expertise in particular areas or the ingenuity to contact people with that expertise, who happened to think that Rather was full of shit. They weren't conditioned by the GOP. They certainly weren't paid by it. I know this is sort of like dividing by zero - "computer does not compute" - for some liberals, but it's true.

I said before that anyone who believes that this was all a GOP scheme does not understand the blogosphere - I was speaking then on a more intellectual or philosophical level. But they don't understand the blogosphere on a practical level either. The blogosphere is not controlled by anyone. (Nor, unfortunately, does the GOP cut all of us who write in Bush's support a check every month. Hasn't someone been working on that...?) It is an enormous set of autonomous individuals writing their own thoughts. Each individual pursues only the objectives that he or she deems important. Bloggers, if you really dig down deeply into each of our politics (er, if those who make these "GOP operative" accusations actually asked) very rarely support either party's line thoroughly. Indeed, the man who is generally regarded as the grand sultan of the blogosphere, the Republican-voting Glenn Reynolds who is often accused of being a GOP operative, if one actually bothers to dig (or actually, read at all) is actually more far more libertarian (with the little "l") than he is conservative.

Bottom line: bloggers are private individuals with individual opinions that are generally pretty intelligent and well-informed. No GOP intelligence agency, payoffs, or other grand scheme is necessary to compel bloggers to tell the truth as they see it. We do it every day - it's just that some days we get recognized more than others. I realize it's disconcerting to those more comfortable with a centralized, controlled system of opinion. But a centralized, controlled system of opinion ain't - nor should it be - the way the world actually works. Real people have all sorts of opinions on all sorts of topics and we might just be able to reach a new level of public discourse if people could recognize that reasonable minds really do differ on a large range of issues.

Women for Bush!

The New York Times reports that the Democratic party is a little perturbed that it no longer garners the same support among women as it once did. By the numbers:

In a New York Times/CBS News poll conducted last week, women who are registered to vote were more likely to say they would vote for Mr. Bush than for Mr. Kerry, with 48 percent favoring Mr. Bush and 43 percent favoring Mr. Kerry.

In 2000, 54 percent of women voted for Al Gore, the Democratic nominee, while 43 percent voted for Mr. Bush.

The report attributes the shift to the following:

Democratic and Republican pollsters say the reason for the change this year is that an issue Mr. Bush had initially pitched as part of an overall message - which candidate would be best able to protect the United States from terrorists - has become particularly compelling for women. Several said that a confluence of two events - a Republican convention that was loaded with provocative scenes of the Sept. 11 tragedy, and a terrorist attack on children in Russia - had helped recast the electoral dynamic among this critical group in a way that created a new challenge for the Kerry camp.

And also maybe a little bit:

Mr. Bush frequently tells audiences about the newfound freedoms for Afghan women who were liberated when the United States toppled the Taliban.

It also says that the trend is particularly strong among married women, and uses the phrase "security moms":

In the Times/CBS News poll, married women who are registered to vote were far more likely to say they would vote for Mr. Bush (59 percent) than for Mr. Kerry (32 percent).

It doesn't give a comparable statistic for single women.

I certainly think there's something to the notion that a lot of women, particularly moms, are especially worried about national security this election cycle and that they (or rather, we) are voting largely on that concern - witness past blogosphere commentary on security moms and the Resplendent Mango's brainchild, the Eowyn Voters' League.

But I'd also like to comment on another more sociological, less election cycle-dependent phenomenon that I think is at work here. The Democratic party has (rightly or wrongly) the reputation of being a friend of the "oppressed" groups of Americans. Blacks, latinos, women - all of these have been considered Democratic strongholds. People who consider themselves members of a group that is in some way disadvantaged by some structural phenomenon within our society tend to vote as a member of that group - to vote based on the issues of that group - and the party that is seen as more sympathetic to group politics is the Democrats.

Even in 2000, while a majority of female votes went to Gore, it wasn't a huge majority. My observation is that if fewer women are voting Democrat, it means that fewer women are voting based on group politics. To me, that suggests that women no longer feel like we're a disadvantaged group, needing to band together to advance our interests. I think that's true anyway based on my experiences, not just based on voting patterns. Young women today didn't grow up thinking that we were going to be put at a disadvantage in our careers because we were women. True, that glass ceiling's still there; true, women's salaries haven't quite equalized with men's yet. But it's not something I worry about, nor is it something that I think most women today worry about. Full equalization will come and is coming all the time, so the best thing to do is just plow forth confidently as if there's nothing standing in your way. And there's not really, except the fact that full-scale societal turn-arounds come slowly.

So to me, the fact that in this election cycle more women will be voting Republican is symptomatic of the fact that women in general are no longer feeling the need to vote as women, as part of a group. More women are voting just as Americans, based on the full range of issues that affect us all. I'm not saying that means that women will become a Republican stronghold - in fact I'm not saying anything of the sort. What I am saying is that it means is that we've come to a point where women can no longer be thought of as a coherent demographic group. Which strikes me as a good thing.

Baby Food

Whew! I think that Claudia Rosett is fast becoming one of my personal heroes. Her coverage of the UN Oil-for-Food scandal has just been fabulous and unrelenting. Wow. Just, damn, read this.

"Never Again" and Again and Again

Nice William Kristol column in the Post today, outlining all the reasons we need to do something about Sudan. "Seldom has the gulf between diplomatic talk and effective action been as stark as it was this week at the United Nations," he opens. That whole "never again" thing really did turn out to be a pathetic platitude masquerading as a heartfelt pledge, didn't it?

A Campaign of Fear?

The post to which I am responding here is a couple of days old, so forgive me for that, but this is something on which I've been meaning to comment anyway. Marc at Marcland (a new addition to my blogroll) decides to field this question:

Don't you find it in the least insulting...

That people like Cheney and Hassert are trying to scare you into voting for Bush?

Actually, Marc does a damn good job of fielding it himself, but I'd like to give a response as well, as it seems to be a theme of the Kerry campaign that the Bush campaign is one of fear. I don't want to phrase my response as, well, we should be afraid, but indeed that is kind of what it boils down to. I ask Kerry-supporters out there who buy this meme: 9/11 didn't scare you, even the littlest bit? Because there's an extent to which, if you have any rational instinct of self-preservation, it should have. 9/11 to me, and I think to a large number of people who will be voting for Bush in November, was a wake-up call that there are people out there who want to kill us, just because of the nationality listed on our passports. It's really quite that simple for bin Laden et al., and to me that says, oh shit, we should probably do something about this before they get a chance to really make good on that 1998 declaration of war.

The Bush campaign isn't trying to make you afraid, they're assuming that most of us, even as we go about our daily routines pretending as if we're all fine and dandy (and a lot of the time actually being fine and dandy) are deep down a little nervous that there's something worse to come. I've mentioned before here, I live in northern Virginia and every day take a metro train into DC that passes right under the Pentagon. Some days I don't think about it at all. Other days it makes me a bit nervous - what if, you know? My parents live in New Mexico, home of lots of juicy Department of Energy labs and nuclear testing sites - what if, you know? It doesn't keep me up at night, but I do want to know that we're doing something to address the threats that we face.

The Bush campaign isn't trying to make you afraid, they're trying to convince you that if you are afraid, even in the littlest bit, then they, not a potential Kerry administration, are the ones that you should trust to assuage your fears. Now you might disagree with that - that's fine - but I think that for a lot of people, the security issue is a central one of this election. If you don't feel at all afraid, or if you think that whatever insecurity you may feel is acceptable and not worth dealing with, then I guess they're not talking to you. But recognize that most of us are thinking about that in this election and are weighing the two candidates based on which of them will make us safer. This time around, it's not which of them will improve the healthcare system the most or which of them agrees with us on gun control or abortion rights or gay marriage. This time around a large percentage of the voting population wants to know which of the two candidates has a better plan for national security. Cheney is making the case for Bush. If you or Edwards, or Moveon, or Air America, or Michael Moore want to make the case for Kerry, go right ahead, no one's stopping you. But don't condemn Cheney for addressing the central issue in the minds of most voters today.

A Kid's Concept of Politics

You've gotta be kidding me. Paul at Wizbang posts the following story about Kerry taking campaign contributions from a six year-old:

First, he told the story of an 8 year old boy selling buttons for Kerry who made $385 and donated it to the campaign.

Then he told the 'heart-warming' tale of a 6 year old who spent the summer "out in the street" selling bracelets for John Kerry. He supposedly brought Kerry a tupperware container with $685 in it.

Rather than Kerry telling the child to put the money away for his education, like any good liberal, Kerry took the kids' money!

Paul comments:

The real story here is not that 6 years olds know a good candidate when they see one. The story is that these children (if they exist which is doubtful) have freaks for parents.

They're using their children to raise money for John Kerry when a 6 year old doesn't really even know what a President is much less that Kerry might be a good one. Rather than the 6 year old spending his summer playing and enjoying being a kid, he has to sweat "out in the street" for his parents' slavish ideology.

I'm with Paul here. Your average six year-old, or even eight year-old, doesn't know shit about politics. I suppose some kids are especially precocious, but I was by all definitions an above average kid and I didn't have a clue what was going on in the broader world at that age. I have pretty strong recollections of the few things that I do remember, and also pretty strong recollections of not really understanding their significance. I was born in 1981, so when I was seven, eight, nine, ten, there was a lot of big stuff going on the world - the end of the Cold War and all - and I honestly very little recollection of any of it. I have no memory whatsoever of the fall of the Berlin Wall. I remember that we talked about the 1988 presidential elections in my second grade class, and I remember supporting Dukasis - mostly because Bush I was old and not all that aesthetically pleasing - that was the extent of my political analysis capabilities at the time. I remember talking about Desert Storm in fourth grade and I remember the daily count in the local paper of how many days the conflict had lasted. I remember talking about the breakup of the Soviet Union in fifth grade. Mostly my recollection of the end of the Cold War is that I was frustrated because the maps kept changing on me. That is honestly the extent of my memories about politics from elementary school. I didn't understand any of it. I didn't understand its significance. I had vague awareness of the news and that was it. By junior high I remember actually having opinions on stuff and getting frustrated because I would get into arguments with my dad (a pretty hard-core conservative) and I couldn't adequately articulate what I thought. But that was junior high. We were in Clinton years by then. In elementary school I didn't have any idea.

Like I said, I know there are some rare kids who are really precocious, but odds are those two kids don't have a clue, and they just spent their summers and hard-earned money for a political campaign, as Paul says, most likely at their parents' behest. Quite frankly, I'm glad I didn't care about politics when I was that young. Politics is and should be adult stuff. Politics, as much as it can become highly frivolous at times, at its core deals with life and death issues for a lot of people in the world. We're fortunate to live in a country where little kids for the most part don't have to be faced with life and death issues - that's not so in every country. Kids in this country get to grow up feeling safe and secure. I guess that wasn't quite so true a couple decades ago, when kids grew up preparing for the possibility that the Soviets would lob a nuke at us one day - and maybe it's less true now as well, when most kids are going to have the dreadful image of the Twin Towers falling singed permenantly in their memories. But a parent's instinct should be to protect kids from the harsh realities of the world, at least until they start celebrating double-digit birthdays or something. Moore & Co like to condemn Bush for continuing to read to those kids in Florida after he'd heard the news on 9/11. I've always seen it as Bush trying to spare them - to preserve that safe, secure childhood feeling for a little bit longer. No doubt they eventually heard the news and saw the images anyway, and no doubt they'll still remember it all when they're older - but I think he should be commended for the impulse, not condemned for it. Those parents are the ones that should be condemned for forcing adult issues upon kids who are too young to really understand.

Bad Healthcare for All

The Canadian system of healthcare sounds all warm and fuzzy doesn't it? Everybody has healthcare coverage. Great! Except that, as with most systems that purport to treat everybody equally by virtue of the beneficent power of the government, it means in practice that everyone gets treated equally badly. Claims that a Canadian-style system would serve as some sort of panacea for our own healthcare woes abound on the left. Quoth Paul Krugman:

“Does this mean that the American way is wrong and that we should switch to a Canadian-style single payer system?” writes New York Times columnist Paul Krugman (search). “Well, yes.”

Well, no. Read why here.

The Future of Our Iraq Policy

Matt Yglesias asks a question, regarding the Robert Novak column that's been getting a lot of play in the blogosphere today:

Aha. We should vote for George W. Bush because he's only pretending to want to stay the course. At least according to Bob Novak. If I do a column citing "highly placed sources" describing John Kerry's secret plan for marijuana decriminalization and deep cuts in entitlement spending will that get libertarians to vote Democrat?

My answer: why no. Do you think that, based on the supposed word of "highly placed sources" any of the anti-Iraq war types are going to vote for Bush? Didn't think so.

In all seriousness, I don't believe that Bush intends to cut and run. If he does, I share Greg Djerejian's sentiment:

What a massive, breathtaking and morally defunct abdication of American leadership that would be! I would have to hold my head in deep shame for having supported this Administration's Iraq war.

Honestly, (and you can hold me to this): If Bush leaves Iraq early and Iraq subsequently disintegrates into anarchy and chaos, Bush would lose whatever qualified support he's ever had from me. I continue to support Bush based primarily on my belief that he's committed to fighting terror, certainly more than Kerry is at the very least. If we abandon Iraq now or anytime before it is relatively stable, it will almost certainly become the new haven for terrorists, and no one who is serious about fighting terrorism could possibly support such a policy, regardless of what one thought about the Iraq war in the first place. Certainly, the man who waged the war in Iraq could not support its abandonment to the destabilizing forces that have been unleashed there in its wake. Iraq will only be a success by the prolonged presence of American troops. We may hate the "occupation" implications of that, but what we've started, we must finish. Removing and capturing Saddam is not an endgame in itself. People say we've damaged America's credibility by invading Iraq in the first place? Imagine how we will have damaged our credibility if we leave Iraq in chaos. Positive outcomes have this funny tendency of removing doubts about the "justness" of past actions. If we leave behind a significantly better Iraq than we entered, history will not remember the acrimony over our entrance. But if we leave behind a mess, our ability to counter terror will be permanantly crippled. And that is a possibility that no one who supported the war - in fact no one who believes that the war on terror is one that we need to fight - can possibly support. I tend to think that when all is said and done, Bush II will be remembered as a good president - if he cuts and runs, he'll be remembered as one of the worst.

New Stuff on the Sudan/Chemical Weapons Story

This popped up on Google News today, from a group called the Middle East Newsline.

WASHINGTON [MENL] -- The U.S. intelligence community has determined that Syria deployed weapons of mass destruction in Sudan's rebel Darfour province.

U.S. officials said the CIA has obtained what it deemed reliable information that Syria used a range of air bombs and perhaps rockets filled chemical and biological weapons in the war in Darfour. They said the BW and CW were used in Sudanese military attacks against African villagers in Darfour.

"The U.S. intelligence community has clear evidence that Syrian weapons and experts arrived several months ago and tested the operational use of a range of biological and chemical weapons in Darfour," an official said. "The results were devastating.

"The officials said Syrian BW and CW were deployed in fighting in Darfour in June and July. They said hundreds of people were killed in the attacks, which appeared to mostly comprise of bombs being dropped by parachute from Sudanese Air Force An-24 air transports.

Apparently, this isn't the entire story from MENL (I guess you need a subscription for the full story). Hopefully, if the US intelligence community is now confirming this, some other news outlets will pick up on it and tell us more. But from what we have here, I pick up a couple of interesting points. First, note the allegation of deployment of chemical and biological weapons - this is the first time a story has mentioned biological weapons. Second, note that the report describes the Syrians testing "the operational use of a range of biological and chemical weapons." That seems to jive with my speculation the other day, based on the villagers' reports, that they might have been testing out the most effective means of delivery. (It could also explain some incongruities in the reports themselves, if indeed multiple agents were being tested.) Finally, this report says that the aircraft used in the attacks was a "Sudanese Air Force An-24." The Washington Times report describes the planes the villagers were attacked by as "Sudanese air force Antonov plane," which sounds like it could be the same plane (An = Antonov?).

I'll be searching vigorously for more on this. For background, check out California Yankee for the initial stories and links to other bloggers (two posts: here and here) and my previous posts, 1, 2, 3.

UPDATE: For God's sake, someone please cover this story! If two countries that most people would regard as highly untrustworthy in the first place have gone one step further and are testing chemical and biological weapons on civilians, this is a big deal. I'm getting a little frustrated that I'm the only person who seems to care here.

UPDATE 2: Thanks to Mockingbird and Vodkapundit for also covering this story. Good to know I'm not the only one who thinks it's important!

Rather Apologizes...After People Have Already Lost Interest

Personally, I became bored the whole Rathergate scandal about a week ago. The sheer audacity of CBS made it an important story and all, but after it broke and after I had concluded beyond reasonable doubt by my own standards that the documents were indeed forgeries and after it became clear that CBS was not going to behave with anything resembling integrity, I got bored. The whole tracing down of where the documents had come from just didn't capture my interest long term. I've vaguely followed the developments, but with nowhere near the intensity as I was following them at first. And I imagine I'm not the only one who got bored

Which means that Rather's apology comes so late that people who aren't political junkies probably aren't even going to hear about it. Had he substantially apologized at the outset, his apology would have had the effect of damming up the river of criticsm that has followed. As it is, the river has already flowed into the valley, the lake has formed and cattails are already growing along its shores. His apology now is like a stone being thrown into that lake, making but a few ripples before it sinks to the bottom, where it will meet CBS's drowned and dead reputation.

The Pros of a Kerry Presidency

Michael Totten makes a pretty decent case for electing Kerry. I hope he's right in his predictions - it won't change my vote, but if I can believe it, it might make me feel more comfortable if Kerry were to win. All his predictions hinge on this closing statement: "Kerry would have to change his mind, to be sure." Kerry changing his mind? Well that sure wouldn't be too difficult. In fact, Kerry changing his mind is almost a certainty, every day of the week. Let's just hope that if he's elected, Kerry changes his mind the way Totten predicts he will, and sticks with it once he gets there. That last part seems a little more dubious.

Another Column I've Been Remiss in Linking To

Also belatedly, I must link to another of my favorite columnists, Robert Kagan, who puts voice quite effectively to my own rather inchoate thoughts on Russia over the past few weeks.

Staying the Course in Iraq

This is a few days late, but this Victor Davis Hanson article is beautiful in every way.

Time for a Change

Via Roger Simon, I learn:

Iran plans to propose President mullah Mohammad Khatami to become the next United Nations Secretary General, IRNA reported.

Chairman of Iran's House of Political Parties Hassan Ghafourifard said he would discuss the issue with Khatami soon, and that a special committee would be formed to follow up due proceedings. He said he had been informed that the next UN secretary general would be elected from Asia at the recent International Conference of Asian Political Parties (ICAPP) in Beijing.

Ghafourifard added that the nomination of Thai Foreign Minister Surakiart Sathirathai for the post had provoked him to lobby for Khatami considering his "creditable cultural and political background" as Iran's president.

Christ, what a farce the UN has become if this even gets considered. I'm not entirely opposed to international organizations in principle but the UN in practice just keeps getting worse and worse. This is hardly an exhaustive list, but the oil-for-food scandal, Sudan's presence on the Human Rights Commission, and now this? It's becoming increasingly difficult for me to understand certain people's and certain countries' dogmatic insistence on seeing the UN as the be-all-end-all of that nebulous concept of "internationalism," the only legitimate arbiter of international disputes.

The UN is that utopian dream that just won't die. It is slowly and painfully experiencing the same death as communism: that of an ideology that sounds lovely in principle but in practice cannot endure the harsh reality of the inherent flaws built into the system itself. One of the most fundamental responsibilities of anyone in political power is to constantly reevaluate the principle and theory upon which ideologies and institutions are based against the reality that those priniciples and theories produce. Anyone in power who continues to cling to the UN as it is now as some heightened moral ideal is failing grievously in that responsibility. The defense of "well, it may be imperfect, but it's the best we have" is insufficient. The UN is more than imperfect, it is highly flawed. And those in power have a responsibility to not just tacitly accept what exists as the way things are, but to try to change it if and when those flaws present themselves.

The flaws of the UN are now apparent to anyone with the courage to look. And I would like to see some statesmen out there with the balls to not only see the UN for what it is (as we know many Republicans in this country do), but to forge a bold vision to replace it. There have been some murmurings about some sort of League of Democracies - but no one has yet embraced the idea and sold it on the grounds of the obsolescence of the UN. Many Republicans now dismiss the UN, but no one has seriously proposed our withdrawal from it, nor has anyone proposed a replacement to it. There is occassionally vague talk about reforming the UN - the Security Council in particular - but no one has really pushed for it. We supply, what is it 24%(?) of the UN's budget when a large contingent (even the majority?) in this country find it relatively useless. Yet no one does anything, because those who continue to embrace the UN embrace it with such fervor, it would be completely taboo for a politician to come out and say: "This isn't working. We either need to take serious and painful steps to fix it or find something else." This cannot continue to be a taboo. Someone needs to have the courage to call the UN what it is - a corrupt clearinghouse for dictators - and to force people to confront the uncomfortable truth about the UN. I don't know what form the subsequent reforms should take; I only know it is more than time for a change.

Quote of the Week, September 19

A note of long-term optimism for Iraq and Afghanistan (the former of which I believe this quote was initially applied to):

“Democracy is a heady wine and causes initial hangovers. But given a chance to become a habit, the exhilarating experience of freedom endures and ennobles people.”
-William Safire, New York Times, 25 Feb 2004

Biden to Kerry: "Start focusing on what's the plan, Stan."

Joe Biden actually gives Kerry some good advice. This page 1 article in today's Post tries to portray Kerry as now taking it to Bush hard over Iraq. But Biden seems to notice the same issue with Kerry's new stance as I did, and that we in the blogosphere have been noting all along - Kerry's all about criticizing what Bush is doing in Iraq, but he seems wholly incapable of coming up with a plan of his own to do better. Indeed, as the Post article itself notes:

He also is punctuating the speeches by accusing Bush of misleading the nation about these problems. "He misled America step after step about what this is about and what is at stake," Kerry said Friday at town hall forum in Aurora, Colo. "We deserve a president who tells America the truth." It is not uncommon for Kerry to use some variation of "dishonesty" more than a dozen times in a 30-minute appearance now. [emphasis mine]

So Kerry's entire campaign now seems to rest on convincing voters of the notion that Bush is a liar, and not just about Iraq. But here's the problem, particularly vis a vis Iraq - even if the president out and out lied about why we went into Iraq, even if he's lying now about the prospects of a positive outcome in Iraq, Kerry still needs to put forth a plan about how he's going to do it better. 44 days to the election, Kerry cannot continue to campaign solely on the premise that Bush is wrong and he is right - he needs to prove to voters that he'll do the job better. So far he's given nothing, besides the promise that he'll get troops out within four years. How? you may ask. We don't know. He doesn't say. And the media seems willing to give him a pass on this.

Further, they seem intent on distorting Bush's message, and rather blatantly at that. Check this out:

Bush used his radio address yesterday to argue that his policies are working and to address concerns about Iraq and Afghanistan, warning that violence is likely to increase in both countries as elections near. "Terrorist enemies are trying to stop the progress of both those countries, and their violent, merciless attacks may increase as elections draw near," he said. [emphasis mine]

Next paragraph:

Bush's effort will come at a moment when there is plenty of dissonance that threatens to undercut his message. A car bomb that exploded Saturday in Kirkuk, killing at least 20 people, was the latest attack to underscore the challenges facing U.S. forces in their effort to stabilize the country. [emphasis mine]

So let me get this straight: Bush comes out and says that there will be violence in Iraq and Afghanistan because the terrorists wish to undermine the democratic process. And the fact that there is indeed violence in Iraq undercuts his message? Huh? Yes, Bush does continue to be optimistic about a positive outcome in Iraq. But the fact that an intelligence report: "revealed last week said a worst-case scenario would have Iraq plunged into civil war," does not equate to Kerry's charge that Bush lives in "a fantasy world of spin."

We all know that things could go badly in Iraq. Anyone who pays attention should have known that from the start. But idly prognosticating doom and calling Bush a liar does nothing to ensure that the situation does not disintegrate into the worst-case outcome. Kerry wants troops out within four years? Does he plan to make sure that Iraq is stable enough to withdraw those troops in four years, or does he plan to just keep them there as a token symbol of the continuing effort without really trying and withdraw the troops no matter what? If he does plan to ensure stability first, how? As Joe Biden said, "what's the plan, Stan?"

Speculation on Chemical Weapons in Sudan

As I mentioned in the comments to my post on the potential use of chemical weapons in Sudan, I did some research into chemical weapons to see if the reports from the villagers matched up to any known agents.

First I had to cull through the reports from the villagers to nail down a description of the attacks. This was a little difficult, because, as Al in the comments noted, the report from the Washington Times was kind of poorly written and it was difficult to nail down an accurate description. But as best I can tell, this is what happened:

The report describes at least two, possibly three separate attacks, in different areas of the village. The means of delivery were different in each case - one describes a powder being sprayed directly from an aircraft, others describe plastic sacks that burst upon impact, containing a white powder, and another describes a bomb that made a crater and spewed powder which made a smoke that covered the whole valley. The delivery means were different, but the description of the agent itself is relatively consistent. (I wonder if they were experimenting with different means of delivery.) All the villagers describe it as a whitish, flourlike powder. I'll add that it must also have been very fine if it could create a smoke cloud that covered a valley.

As far as its effects, it seems to have killed two people and dozens of cattle. The two people were a four-year old boy and a sixty-year old man, which suggests it was only lethal to those with weaker constitutions. Those two died within hours and they were in the immediate vicinity of the attack. It sounds like some of the cattle died relatively quickly, but others continued dying for months afterward after eating in the area of the attacks. As to those people who didn't die, everyone in the area got sick - immediately. The symptoms that they reported included: vomiting, stomachache, headache, weakness, feeling cold (the chills, I would assume) - essentially, flu-like symptoms. Those symptoms persisted for one to two weeks.

In cross-referencing all of this with known agents, I stuck with agents the Sudanese may have had access to based on what we know. For that I relied mainly on this chart. The Sudanese are considered to have a "possible" chemical weapons program of their own, but it's unknown if they've produced any agents, or with what agents they might have been experimenting. The Syrians, on the other hand, have a known program, with possible production of sarin, mustard gas and VX. Also, while this chart classifies ricin as a biological agent, the Chemical Weapons Convention classifies it as chemical (which makes more sense to me, since it's a poison derived from the castor bean, not a pathogen), so I included that as well. For good measure, I also included agents Iraq was known to have weaponized, based on the speculation that some of Saddam's goodies may have been smuggled into Syria. That added tabun and agent 15.

Most of those agents we can toss out pretty quickly. As Al in the comments pointed out, sarin
is a nerve agent and would produce convulsions, paralysis and respiratory failure. It's also a clear liquid. It can evaporate into a gas form, but that's still not a white powder. VX and tabun are virtually identical to sarin and can be tossed out for the same reasons. Mustard gas can also be removed, because as Al points out, and as we all know from WWI movies, it's a yellowish gas (actually, according to the CDC, it can be a clear gas as well, but it's still not a white powder).

Agent 15 it seems is the Iraqi equivalent of something NATO and the Chemical Weapons Convention refer to as BZ. It’s classified as an “incapacitating agent” but effectively it’s a nerve agent as well. It is only lethal at extremely high doses, but at lower doses it causes hypothermia, blindness and tachycardia, but its hallmark seems to be inducing dementia. Again, this one doesn’t seem to fit.

Ricin, however, was far more compelling. Ricin can take the form of a powder, mist or pellet, and can be dissolved in water. In the powder form, it can be aerosolized and suspended in air. It can kill people through inhalation or ingestion. Symptoms from inhalation appear within 8 hours or within 6 in case of ingestion. Inhalation seems to be the relevant case here, so here these are the symptoms the CDC describes:

Within a few hours of inhaling significant amounts of ricin, the likely symptoms would be respiratory distress (difficulty breathing), fever, cough, nausea, and tightness in the chest. Heavy sweating may follow as well as fluid building up in the lungs (pulmonary edema). This would make breathing even more difficult, and the skin might turn blue. Excess fluid in the lungs would be diagnosed by x-ray or by listening to the chest with a stethoscope. Finally, low blood pressure and respiratory failure may occur, leading to death.

Elsewhere, the CDC says, "Death from ricin poisoning could take place within 36 to 72 hours of exposure, depending on the route of exposure (inhalation, ingestion, or injection) and the dose received." Interestingly, however, it also says that no human cases of ricin poisoning by inhalation are known to exist. So how do we know exactly what the symptoms would be in such a case?

In any event, the symptoms described by the CDC don't match perfectly with those described by the villagers, but it's by a long shot the best match we have. The differences in the symptoms aren't that striking to me. What gives me pause is that the two who died were supposed to have died "within hours," while the CDC gives the lower bound for death as 36. It describes the mechanism as: "It works by getting inside the cells of a person's body and preventing the cells from making the proteins they need." This is something I actually do know about, and I have a hard time believing that a poison that works by inhibiting the synthesis of proteins would kill someone within hours. (Basically because your body at any given time has the protein it needs to function for a while without new ones. Your cells probably wouldn't become "protein starved" enough that quickly to kill you within hours.) Regardless of those discrepancies, I think ricin is a distinct possibility, mostly because we don't know how accurate the villagers' reports are.

I also wanted to check out some biological agents, because the report of a "white powder" sounded more biological to me than chemical. (Of course, we all know anthrax is a white powder.) Sudan’s biological weapons program is as unknown as its chemical weapons one; Syria has done known research, possible production of anthrax and botulinum; Iraq adds known weaponization of the same ones as Syria, plus aflatoxin and wheat cover smut.

Botulinum (more commonly, botulism) is unlikely because like sarin, VX and tabun, it's a nerve agent, and its symptoms include things like "double vision, blurred vision, drooping eyelids, slurred speech, difficulty swallowing, dry mouth, and muscle weakness." Also, it's mostly a foodborne illness and I see nothing to suggest it could be made into powder form.

Aflatoxin was a little trickier to find information on. It seems it’s a common enough compound, derived from mold. It’s a known carcinogen, but in small doses, it doesn’t seem to be a big deal – the FDA allows limited amounts in food. The Iraqis are known to have weaponized it, but there’s speculation as to why. In this report from Purdue University, a doctor speculates that either the Iraqis found a new property of aflatoxin to make it a more useful biological weapon, they were using it to induce long-term effects (i.e., cancer) in their victims, or it just happened to be easy to weaponize. In any case, it doesn’t seem like it’s a match.

Wheat cover smut targets wheat, not people, so that’s out too.

Finally, we have anthrax. Anthrax was the first thing that came to mind for me when reading the accounts of a white powder, which we all remember was the form anthrax took in the attacks back in 2001. We also remember that there is a cutaneous form and an inhalation form – the third form is gastrointestinal. The CDC lists the following as symptoms of anthrax:

• Fever (temperature greater than 100 degrees F). The fever may be accompanied by chills or night sweats.
• Flu-like symptoms.
• Cough, usually a non-productive cough, chest discomfort, shortness of breath, fatigue, muscle aches
• Sore throat, followed by difficulty swallowing, enlarged lymph nodes, headache, nausea, loss of appetite, abdominal distress, vomiting, or diarrhea
• A sore, especially on your face, arms or hands, that starts as a raised bump and develops into a painless ulcer with a black area in the center.

Symptoms-wise, this strikes me as a better match than ricin. However, again we have problems with the immediacy of the illness. According to the CDC: "Symptoms can appear within 7 days of coming in contact with the bacterium for all three types of anthrax. For inhalation anthrax, symptoms can appear within a week or can take up to 42 days to appear."

While the symptoms are a better match with anthrax, the delay in the appearance of those symptoms seems to make it highly unlikely. So I conclude, based on my admittedly amateur analysis, that if we take the accounts coming out of Sudan at face value, the most likely agent in use was ricin. Second place: anthrax. Both are considered likely to be in the possession of Syria.

There was no perfect match, but keep in mind I did limit my search to agents known to be in the possession of Sudan (which was none), Syria and Iraq. And that Sudan is thought to have a program of its own, but it is unknown what they've been playing with and if they've produced anything. That could bring some agents into play that I didn't look at. Finally, keep in mind that the characteristics of the agent on which I was basing my analysis came from reports of villagers, which may or may not be accurate in the first place, and that the report was not written with the utmost clarity. So all that boils down to we still don't know anything. Hopefully the media will give us some more information to go on soon.

Someone Call Michael Moore!

To start off, let me say that this is compelling, and deserving of further investigation. However, it is far from conclusive proof that Saddam funneled money to bin Laden.

That said, if the central anti-hero in this little saga were named, say, George Bush, rather than Hayel Saeed, by Michael Moore's standards of evidence, he would have adequate material for whole new film, proving incontrovertibly, that Bush was the pivotal link between Saddam Hussein and Osama bin Laden.

Don't believe me? Okay, making use of the handy-dandy "replace" function in Word, I'll illustrate. I replace "Hayel Saeed" with "George Bush," "Yemen" with "Texas," "HSA" (Hayel Saeed's company) with "GBA," tweak a couple of other words here and there so it makes sense, and abridged so as not to belabor the point, but otherwise, here's the result. I recommend reading the original first.

MIGA had other founders as well. One of them, who does not appear on the U.N. terror list, is George Bush.

Described by an acquaintance as urbane, polite and fluent in English, George Bush was born into one of the United States’ most prominent business clans, owners of a family-held global conglomerate based in the Texan capital of Austin and named for its founding patriarch: the George Bush Anam Group of Companies, or GBA.

From Texas, the GBA group boasts a far-flung business empire, including a Texas-based bank, and a host of business subsidiaries, affiliates and regional trading offices in places ranging from the United Kingdom to Egypt, Morocco, Nigeria, Ethiopia, Malaysia, Indonesia, Russia and China.

George Bush sits on the GBA board of directors, and ranks high in the management — he is currently running GBA's regional office in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia. In MIGA, George Bush holds a prominent spot, as one of four co-founders who back in 1984 delegated power of attorney to the terrorist-linked Nasreddin, giving him authority to run the company.

Swiss registry documents show that George Bush has never resigned from MIGA, nor revoked that power of attorney. Queried about this link to MIGA, neither George Bush nor the GBA Group's chairman of the board, Ali Mohamed Saeed, has made any response.

GBA is unquestionably a company involved in legitimate business. But given the involvement of George Bush, it is striking that between 1996 and 2003, while the United Nations ran its Oil-for-Food relief program in Iraq, the GBA Group — via U.N.-approved Oil-for-Food contracts — sold at least $400 million worth of goods to Saddam.

[…]

In the case of George Bush, MIGA and the GBA Group, there is no public information available about the precise flow of funds, and no proof that Saddam's money made its way to MIGA. But in looking for patterns that beg for further investigation — especially by authorities with access to detailed U.N. records and information on MIGA accounts — some items here stand out.

Most simply, there is the question of why GBA was among those companies favored by Saddam for such a fat slice of business. It is increasingly clear that Saddam did not, on average, choose his contractors either at random, or because they were the most cost-efficient suppliers of relief for the people of Iraq. While some of the deals may have been entirely legitimate, many melded payments for humanitarian goods with illicit kickbacks and payoffs. In such cases, it was a lucrative privilege to be tapped as an Oil-for-Food contractor by Saddam's regime.

The lingering question, for any individual case, becomes: Was there a quid pro quo?

For reasons still unknown, Saddam clearly smiled upon the GBA Group. Not only does GBA account for the bulk of all Saddam's business with Texas, but dozens of deals that appear in the United Nation's generic public records to originate elsewhere were in fact signed with GBA companies in countries such as Egypt, Malaysia and Indonesia.

Within that GBA empire, one company in particular stands out: A trading house called Pacific Interlink, based in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. George Bush also sits on Pacific Interlink's board of directors.

From leaked copies of secret U.N. Oil-for-Food records, it appears that Pacific Interlink alone accounted for more than half the GBA group's sales of relief supplies to Saddam, with contracts for such goods as soap, ghee and construction materials totaling at least $246 million. Pacific Interlink (search) also belonged to the select set of companies chosen by Saddam and approved by the United Nations as authorized to buy Iraqi oil under Oil-for-Food — though whether Pacific Interlink actually got any of Saddam's fat oil contracts is something the United Nations has so far managed to keep secret. FOX News attempted to reach Pacific Interlink for comment, but to date has received no reply.

And though there is no public proof that Pacific Interlink took part in Saddam's kickback scams, there is an intriguing item in a study of Oil-for-Food pricing methods released last year by the U.S. Defense Contract Management Agency (DCMA).

Just after Saddam fell, the DCMA, together with the U.S. Defense Contract Audit Agency, looked at the terms of 759 sample contracts out of the tens of thousands of deals done by Saddam's regime under Oil-for-Food. In that sample, Pacific Interlink pops up as a purveyor of $20 million worth of palm oil to Saddam, via a contract approved by the United Nations under Oil-for-Food in mid-2001. By DCMA estimates, Saddam overpaid Pacific Interlink on that contract, to the tune of about 15 percent above market price, which would work out to some $3 million in funds diverted from relief on that deal alone.

If similar arrangements went on within other Pacific Interlink Oil-for-Food contracts, which totaled close to a quarter of a billion dollars, then even at the more modest rate of what has been widely described as Saddam's typical 10 percent over-pricing scam, that would suggest well over $20 million diverted from relief.

If so, where did it go? The question is vitally important, because much of the money grafted out of Oil-for-Food by Saddam remains unaccounted for.

[…]

According to U.S. officials and the United Nations itself, MIGA is less an "empty box" than a container of Al Qaeda-related mysteries. One of those mysteries appears to be George Bush, with his charter MIGA membership and his prominent part in a Texas conglomerate doing hundreds of millions worth of business with Saddam

Now tell me: does that story not sound completely Moorean?

Harsh Words from the State Department

This struck me as an uncharacteristic remark coming out of the Department of State. In response to Shamil Basayev's claim of reponsibility for Beslan, Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage was quoted as saying that if Basayev is responsible, then he "is not worthy of existence." Those are big words from a diplomat! I mean, I agree with the sentiment completely, I'm just surprised to hear someone from State actually expressing it, since, as previously noted, diplomats tend be a little too cautious in their choice of words.

A Ridiculous and Dangerous Law

Glenn Reynolds links to this great Radley Balko post on underage drinking. I'm with Glenn and Radley on this - the 21-year-old drinking age is ridiculous. It's ridiculous and dangerous first and foremost for all the reasons that Radley mentions. But as I'm a recent college grad myself, my memories of college binge drinking and how badly it sucks to be under 21 are pretty recent, so I have a couple other things to add as to why it's a horrible law.

First, as Radley points out, it certainly doesn't stop under-21s from drinking - I would add, it not only doesn't stop it, it actually encourages it. All the dangerous drinking practices metioned in Radley's post - keg stands, beer funnels, binge drinking and the like - it's all encouraged by the fact that, hey, you don't always know when the next time you'll get an opportunity to drink again, so best drink as much as you possibly can while that keg is there. Further, the illegality just makes it all that much more enticing.

Second, it just encourages college students to engage in a bigger crime, that crime being getting a fake ID. The production and sale of fake drivers' licenses is a big underground business in any college town. That qualifies as fraud and a felony - a much bigger crime than the underage drinking itself. And having a fake ID isn't just about being allowed to drink. If you're under 21, it's not just that you're not allowed to drink, but you can't even go out to bars and clubs, even if you don't drink while you're there. Especially if you've got friends who are over 21, not being able to go to bars and clubs completely excludes you from what your friends are doing. Social life is a big part of college, so that exclusion basically sucks a big one. And so those pressures lead otherwise law abiding, good people - we're not talking just the slackers here, we're talking everyone up to your honors students - to engage in a felony and get a fake ID. Now, at least where I went to school, people rarely get busted for having a fake ID - if you get caught, usually the bouncer just takes it away from you and tells you to get lost - but, whether or not someone gets caught, it's still encouraging a much higher level of criminality among young people. That's not an excuse for the people who do get fake IDs (personally, I'm taking the 5th on this one) - it's just a statement of fact.

"Double Agents" and Their Significance

Bill at INDC Journal jokingly refers to Michelle Malkin as a "double agent" between the mainstream media (apparently now it's trendy to call it the "MSM") and the blogosphere, in response to this column where Michelle very much gives the MSM (see, I'm trendy, too) a harsh beating for their failure to change with the times. This got me thinking. I can think of a few such double agents. Michelle, of course, and also Andrew Sullivan, Tim Blair, James Lileks, and Hugh Hewitt, off the top of my head - I'm sure I'm missing people. All of them, to the best of my knowledge (I don't read all the above on a daily basis) have been taking it to their journalist colleagues pretty hard over Rathergate and the underlying institutional weaknesses it has revealed. But when you think about it, really, why aren't there more double agents? Doesn't the transition from journalism to blogging seem a pretty natural one?

If bloggers have one thing in common, it's that we all enjoy writing and want people to read what we write. Not all people who fit that description become journalists, but I would think that all journalists also fit that description. And blogging is a chance to write and have people read it without all the fuss of editors and deadlines. You write for yourself, for your readers, and you cut out the middleman. Sure, blogging has headaches of its own, but I would think a lot more journalists would welcome the opportunity to do something they enjoy in a new and dynamic way - to explore. So why don't they?

Best answer I can come up with: hubris, something we've certainly seen plenty of from CBS this week. As the criticisms coming out of CBS these days have made clear, big time journalists see blogging as below them. It's a tool of the masses, not of the overly hairsprayed, stuffy elite.

So returning to the double agents, why are they significant? I would say they are the forerunners of the future of journalism. They are the journalists who've had the sense and the insight to see what a tool blogs can be. Blogs won't replace journalism as a profession, but they can definitely enhance it. As Rathergate has shown, blogs can be corrective when the MSM screws up; they can bring into the limelight potentially important stories that, whether due to bias or simple oversight, the Big Media is missing; and I would imagine, for a journalist, they would serve as a constant source of new information, new viewpoints, new avenues to pursue.

It's evolve or die. Now the MSM as a whole is not going to die, but indivduals and even networks within it certainly can (I mean "die" in the figurative sense, not the literal one). The double agents are those who've already evolved. The rest are going to have to follow suit, or find themselves out of jobs in favor of dynamic newcomers who are in tune with the times. In ten years, no one will even remember this whole Old Media/New Media dichotomy - it will all just be part of one big mutually-enhancing continuum, without all this mutual animosity. Everyone and no one will be double agents. The double agents are the media of the future.

A Moment of Decision in N. Ireland

Interestingly, I landed on this story just as the Cranberries' "Zombie" came up in the randomization on my Windows Media Player. Tony Blair has said that this is the moment of decision for Northern Ireland: either the IRA must commit to disarmament (not just the cease-fire) and disband now or Sinn Fein loses the opportunity for a power-sharing agreement. The IRA arrived at a new round of talks with demands, but Blair has demands of his own for the IRA:

Blair said the IRA must perform "acts of completion," meaning they disarm fully and cease a list of specific threatening activities that police say continue. These include breaking the legs of criminal opponents, recruiting and training members, and gathering intelligence on potential targets in preparation for a possible collapse of the IRA's 1997 cease-fire.

Of course Sinn Fein (or the IRA - is there really a difference?) has a history of stonewalling the continuance of the process by being, well, Irish and therefore stubborn (I've got the Irish stubborn streak myself, so I can say that), but it seems the other side is engaging in some underhanded tactics of its own:

As he arrived to negotiate, Sinn Fein leader Gerry Adams accused Britain of hypocrisy and displayed a sophisticated electronic bug discovered inside Sinn Fein's Belfast headquarters.

"We think it's the height of hypocrisy and bad faith at any time, but especially when we are talking to the British government, that its agents should be tapping our conversations," said Adams, who has been a reputed IRA commander since the early 1970s.

Well, I question if this is really the last last chance or if that's just British rhetoric to enhance the importance of this round of talks, but in any case, let's hope they get somewhere. The situation there has come a long way in recent decades, so it'd be nice to see a successful and non-violent resolution (or at least continued progress toward a resolution) of an age-old conflict.

Annan Struggles To Reassert His Relevance Become Relevant

Oh, this gave me a great laugh for the day:

The US decision to go to war in Iraq without the approval of the United Nations Security Council was illegal, UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan declared yesterday.

“I hope we do not see another Iraq-type operation for a long time - without UN approval and much broader support from the international community,” Mr Annan told the BBC World Service.

That's neat. Hmm, let me formulate the proper response...don't care! It's a little pathetic actually - that much self-importance in a man who is so totally unimportant.

Was the intervention in the Balkans a legal war, Mr. Annan? It too was undertaken outside the auspices of the UN. No one seemed to care much about that. What's the difference between a standing international coalition (i.e., NATO, which intervened in the Balkans) and an ad hoc one? Neither is the UN. I'm quite perplexed by this.

One last bit of amusement came from something pointed out in the Command Post comments:

“if the United States and others…were to take unilateral action…”

Yup, it seems someone needs to inform Mr. Annan of the actual meaning of "unilateral."

Update on Chemical Weapons in Darfur (UPDATED)

California Yankee has the scoop. (Original post here).

UPDATE: Searching for more information on this, I came across this from the Sudan Tribune, which is supposedly a WSJ article (I don't have a WSJ subscription so I can't confirm this and I don't know how reliable the Sudan Tribune is). Mostly rehashing what we already know, but I found this tidbit interesting:

This news follows an Aug. 17 dispatch in the Washington Times citing Sudanese villagers as claiming to have seen bombs dropped that produced poisonous smoke that sickened people and killed livestock.

That's the first I've heard about reports of "poisonous smoke." Digging deeper I found the relevant Washington Times article:

SHEGEK KARO, Sudan — Inhabitants of this picturesque village in the Darfur region of western Sudan said the Sudanese air force sprayed them with a strange powder in an attack in May that killed two villagers and dozens of cattle.

Another bomb, dropped by a jet fighter on the same day, produced a poisonous smoke that injured about 50 villagers on the other side of the village, the villagers said.

A Sudanese air force Antonov plane dropped several rectangular plastic sacks containing a white, flourlike powder on a wadi — a dry riverbed — in the lower part of the village, they said.

Skipping down:

Suleiman Jamous, humanitarian coordinator with the Sudanese Liberation Movement, the political arm of the anti-government Sudanese Liberation Army, said the May incident followed other reports of strange substances that kill livestock.
"Almost every village in this area has been affected," Mr. Jamous said. "Animals die every day because they eat something that leaked out of bombs dropped by the Sudanese army."

But Georgette Gagnon, deputy director of the African division of Human Rights Watch, yesterday denied Mr. Jamous' assertion that her group had been given samples of the suspected chemical for analysis.

"We cannot verify or disprove at the moment any assertions of a chemical attack," she said, adding that a Human Rights Watch team deployed in Darfur will return to the United States next week.

And villagers' accounts of the attacks:

Diro Chupui, a 33-year-old shepherd, said he was tending his flock on the mountainside opposite the wadi when he heard the plane approach.

"It was a big white plane with its bottom painted black," Mr. Chupui said. "We call them 'Black Antonovs.' "

Muhammad Abdullah,13, said he was at the hand-pump wells in the wadi when he heard a loud noise.

"We lay on the ground because we knew that the Antonov was coming," he said.

The village had been bombed for several months and everyone knew that bombs would be falling again soon, he said.

But instead of the usual load of bombs, the Antonov, a Russian-made transport plane converted into a bomber, dropped plastic sacks that burst on impact and spilled a flourlike substance, the boy said.

Mukhtar Muhammad, a 30-year-old shopkeeper at the nearby market, said he counted eight sacks.

"They were like parcels," Mr. Muhammad said. "They contained something that looked like fine ash and smelled of gunpowder. It made people sick immediately."

Muhammad, the boy at the well, said everyone there got sick, too.

"We were vomiting and it hurt in the stomach a lot," he said. "I was sick for a week."

A 60-year-old man and a 4-year-old boy who were close to one of the sacks died within hours. The villagers identified the victims as Salim Diar and Muhammad Ibrahim, and pointed out Mr. Diar's grave under a tree near where he died.

"All the animals that were near the powder or ate it dropped dead," Mr. Muhammad said, pointing to about two dozen rotten carcasses strewn on the floor of the wadi. It was impossible to verify whether the animals had died of the powder or other causes.

On the other side of the village, a government jet dropped another unusual bomb, said Ismail Haggar, the village teacher.

"It wasn't an iron bomb," Mr. Haggar said, pointing to the bomb's relatively shallow crater in the ground. "It didn't produce a loud explosion, but there was a lot of smoke coming out of the crater."

The smoke covered almost the entire valley, but the wind blew it away from the village, Mr. Haggar said. Still, about 50 people in nearby huts fell violently ill, he said.

"They had strong headaches," Mr. Haggar said, poking the bottom of the crater with a long branch to reveal a white powdery substance under the sand.

"They were vomiting, feeling very weak and very cold. Some people were sick for two weeks. If the winds were blowing their way, they would all be dead."

When asked whether he could show the place where the villagers buried the sacks, Mr. Haggar said they were washed away by the water that filled the wadi during the rainy season.

Villagers said five sacks were blown away by the wind.

Obviously these reports are still sketchy and unconfirmed. But it does seem to be some independent corroboration of the German media's reports. The timelines seem to match up. I don't know much about the effects that chemical weapons produce - anyone know if the symptoms described by the villagers match up to any known agents?

ANOTHER UPDATE: Dan Spencer from California Yankee responds to an email I sent him and confirms that the above linked article from the Sudan Tribune did indeed appear in the WSJ. Apparently he's got a WSJ subscription! Thanks Dan!

FINAL UPDATE: This thing has piqued my interest, so I did some research into chemical weapons agents to see if the villagers' reports match up to anything. My rather exhaustive analysis is above.

Unfair Criticism

Now I realize that campaigns are scarcely "fair," but to me Kerry's criticisms of Bush's economic record are exceptionally unfair. (And for the record, this comes from someone who is no great defender of Bush's economic policies.) Leaving aside the fact that anyone who knows anything about economics knows that the president has pretty minimal control over the economy in the best or worst of times, here's Kerry's fundamental argument here:

Mr. Bush has "created more excuses" than jobs, Mr. Kerry said in remarks prepared for delivery to the Detroit Economic Club."

His is the excuse presidency: never wrong, never responsible, never to blame," Mr. Kerry said. "President Bush's desk isn't where the buck stops — it's where the blame begins."

Point A: Does the president really create jobs ever, besides when he adds new positions to his staff? In the economic chain of cause-effect relationships, jobs are way down from anything the president has any control over. There's no magic wand a president can wave, no button he can push and wa-la! jobs appear. He has a few tools he can play with - fiscal policy for example - but the effects of fiscal policy on any particular economic indicator (jobs, for example) are remote and indirect. The only way a president could exercise direct control over jobs would be to, like, supsend that whole free market thing, and order businesses to start hiring, but that hardly seems like an American thing to do.

Point B: Now I'm no big fan of making excuses for one's failures, but cut the man some slack! By any standard, he inherited a whole load of crap, economic and otherwise. The stock market bubble burst during the tail end of Clinton's term, and then eight months in 9/11 happens, which had a devastating effect on our economy. Not even taking into account the real economic damage the attacks themselves caused, 9/11 had probably the most devastating impact on confidence: that of consumers and that of those making the hiring decisions. Unless you're a wacky conspiracy theorist of the "Bush/Israel were really responsible for 9/11" variety, the man is not responsible for our economic woes. All things considered, we've come back pretty nicely, and if jobs haven't fully followed yet, they will - I'm not an economist, but if I'm not mistaken, jobs fall into the category of what economists call "lagging indicators."

Now I said I'm not a huge fan of Bush's economic policy. I like the idea of tax cuts well enough, but I'm of the breed that would prefer them to be accompanied by fiscal responsibility, (i.e., decreased spending.) I could deal with increased spending due to defense and homeland security, but Bush has been expanding all sorts of domestic programs as well, which drives me up the wall. (I've also been bitter about his lukewarm stance on free-trade, but that's only distantly related to what we're discussing here.) So no, Bush's economics have not thrilled me. But Kerry... listen to this nonesense:

"To the small businesses and manufacturers who decide to add more employees to the payroll, we will provide a new jobs tax credit for every person you hire. And to those small business owners who want to hire more employees but cannot afford to insure them, we will give you up to a 50 percent tax cut on your health care contributions when you cover your workers."

What? As to the first part, all right, such an incentive might tip the scales a little bit for employers who were considering hiring another employee but weren't quite sure if they could afford one. But the bottom line with hiring or any other economic decision is that if it is profitable for an employer to hire a new employee, they will; if it's not, they won't. If they need a new employee, they'll hire one; if not, they won't. This proposal shifts that line of profitability slightly but I imagine, not dramatically. As to the second part, I can't say I even fully understand what he's proposing. A 50 percent tax cut on your health care contributions? I assume he means that employers could write-off health care contributions, but I would think (digging back to all that accounting I had to take as a finance major) that health care contributions would already be written off in the form of expenses long before the IRS gets their cut. So huh? But, even leaving out that issue (maybe he's saying they'll get an additional cut beyond just the write-off), is he saying that cut would apply just to new employees, newly insured employees, or all insured employees? Unclear, but no matter - once again, tax breaks just shift the line of profitability, so no matter what he's actually proposing, this may inspire a limited amount of new hiring, and a limited amount of new health care coverage, but I highly doubt it would make a dramatic difference. More to the point, I think small business owners would prefer the straight-up tax cuts that Bush gave them to more confusing tax laws that they'll just have to pay their accountants more to navigate.

But it gets even better! According to the NYT, "Mr. Kerry's was notable for the details of the steps he would take if elected president. [sic] Here's what the NYT thought was so notable:

"First, we will create good-paying, middle-class jobs right here in America. Today, if a company is torn between creating jobs in Michigan or Malaysia, we now have a tax code that encourages you to go overseas. George Bush thinks that's right. I believe it s wrong. And as president, I will end it.

"I will close the tax loopholes that reward companies for shipping jobs overseas. Instead, we're going to use that revenue to reward companies that create and keep good jobs here in the United States of America. Under my plan, we'll cut the corporate tax rate by 5 percent, giving 99 percent of businesses a tax break."

So he's found that aforementioned magic button or wand that doesn't exist, has he? Let's be honest here: tax cut or no, it's way cheaper to hire someone in Malaysia than in Michigan. If a company wants to offshore a job, they're going to do it regardless of the tax code. Hell, I'm a proponent of a flat tax, so I don't think the tax code should "encourage" either, but the tax code's not going to make a bit of difference in that decision.

Then, in what the NYT describes as "a striking comparison between the wealthy and the ordinary worker," Kerry says:

"Our opponents see an America where power and wealth stay in the hands of a few at the top, while everyone else is left to fend for themselves. We believe in an America where we widen the circle of opportunity for every American. An America where anyone with a good idea who's willing to work hard and take a risk can start a business and build success."

Please. First, this is a complete mischaracterization of the Republican position. Republicans have faith in capitalism. Capitalism, almost by definition, is a system in which everyone, rich or poor, has to fend for himself or herself. Meaning that one is rewarded for hard work and doing one's job well, whether that someone is at the top or the bottom of the ladder. It is a system that allows anyone to become rich with adequate ingenuity and willingness to take risk. And yes, it allows those who are successful to keep what they have and pass it along to their children. But on the whole, Republican's vision of America is far more similar to the last two sentences of that quote than the first one. The difference between Republicans and Democrats is not that Republicans think that the wealth should be concentrated in the hands of a few and that the Democrats think that everyone should have opportunities; it is that the Democrats are only on the side of the lower and middle classes as long as they stay middle or lower class - as soon as someone becomes successful, Democrats will demonize him or her. Republicans, on the other hand, regard those who have become successful with respect for having succeeded. Democrats like to help those at the bottom of the ladder; Republicans like to let them prove themselves. But to say that Republicans want those at the top to stay at the top and those at the bottom to stay at the bottom is completely false and misrepresenting.

"To pay for all this, we make sure that 98 percent of all Americans get a tax cut, while rolling back only the tax cuts for those who make more than $200,000 a year. Those Americans will go back to paying the same taxes you paid when Bill Clinton was president. And the rest of America will get a tax cut."

See, punish those who are succesful, that's the Democratic mantra. But since he mentioned the applicable threshhold for wealthy, doesn't Kerry realize that many small-business owners he claims to champion fall well above the $200,000/year threshhold? I don't have the economic statistics on this, but I imagine a lot of small-business owners fall into this category. I realize that's the accepted threshhold for "upper-class" but come on - in major metropolitan areas, $200,000/year isn't really that much, especially if you've got a family. It's certainly not bad (Lord, how I long for the day when I make anywhere near that much) but $200,000/year is hardly rolling in dough.

But anyway, to finish up:

As part of his theme that the economy has been hurt by policies that have sent jobs overseas, Mr. Kerry went on: "Right now, another factory worker just suffered the indignity of having lifelong loyalty rewarded with a pink slip and a final paycheck that won t cover his family s rent.

"Right now, another young woman is watching her friends begin the college year without her because she couldn't afford to go. Right now, another boarded-up business is leaving for China, and leaving a community of devastated families behind."

And Kerry hasn't proposed a thing that's really going to help those people out. He may feel for those people (though really, can he possibly, Mister I Married an Heiress?) but he isn't going to help them out a whit by anything he proposed so far. I am by no means insensible to the problems of the working class - believe me, my family is far more familiar with them than Kerry ever will be - but what the Democratic party refuses to accept is that, while there are winners and losers within the capitalist system and while in the short run it can and does leave people in dire straights, in the long run most of us benefit by just letting the system run. And the system runs largely independently of any branch of the government, including the executive branch.

For God's sake - many people may be unhappy with Bush's economic policies, but Kerry really hasn't got a clue.

Chemical Weapons in Darfur?

Well this is an interesting development, if it's true. The Command Post has two posts reporting that the German media is reporting that Syria tested chemical weapons in Darfur sometime around May or June. It seeems German intelligence refuses to comment, but that Washington will probably repsond sometime today.

If this proves true, I'll be interested to see how this new information tips the scales for Syria and Sudan, since they're both pretty high on everyone's shit lists already. Also food for thought: one has to wonder if the weapons Syria is testing might be some of Saddam's that slipped through that famously porous border? Not necessarily -according to this chart, Syria has a known chemical weapons program of its own - but it's certainly possible.

Russia Continues Its Creep Back Toward Totalitarianism

Well this comes as no particular surprise, but it's unwelcome news nonetheless:

MOSCOW, Sept. 13 - President Vladimir V. Putin ordered a stunning overhaul of Russia's political system on Monday in what he called an effort to unite the country against terrorism. If enacted, as expected, the proposals would strengthen his already pervasive control over the legislative branch and regional governments.

Mr. Putin, meeting in special session with cabinet ministers and regional government leaders, outlined what would be the most sweeping political overhaul - and his most striking single step to consolidate power - in Russia in more than a decade. Critics immediately said it would violate the Constitution and stifle what political opposition remains.

Just as an instructional point for those for whom "Bushitler" is a part of the everyday political lexicon, this is what it actually looks like when a president exploits terrorist atrocities for political self-aggrandizement:

Under Mr. Putin's proposals, which he said required only legislative approval and not constitutional amendments, the governors or leaders of the country's 89 regions would no longer be elected by popular vote but rather by local legislatures - and only after the president's nomination. Seats in the lower house of the federal Parliament, or Duma, would be elected entirely on national party slates, eliminating district races across the country that now decide half of Parliament's composition. In elections last December, those races accounted for all of the independents and liberals now serving in the Duma.

After the school siege in Beslan, the downing of two airliners and other terrorist attacks that have shaken the country, Mr. Putin argued once again that Russia was ill-prepared to fight terrorism and said that the country needed a more unified political system. His proposals on Monday, however, made it clear that for him, unity meant a consolidation of power in the executive branch.

I trust that we can all see the difference? Good.

Nude-Blogging Sells!

As I retire for the evening, after what is probably my most entertaining blogging day ever, I would just like to comment that today has been a record-breaking day for hits. In fact, the records aren't just broken, but they've been smashed into such tiny little plastic pieces that it would take a microscope to identify the fact that they were once part of a record. I actually don't want to reveal my paltry hit figures, but suffice it to say that this site's lifetime hits more than doubled today. Hopefully some of you will come back in the future...whether because you decided you liked my site while you were here or because it gives you a cheap thrill - hell, I'm not gonna ask.

The New Conundrum

This TCS article by Max Borders from a couple of days ago got me thinking a bit. His subject is "libertarian hawks": why are there so few of them and, of the ones that do exist, what is the philosophy behind their stance? His points aren't too bad. But I'd phrase it a little differently.

Personally, I'm not much for labels, but were I to adopt one to describe myself, "libertarian hawk" suits me pretty well. I'm quite libertarian on domestic issues. I support a small government, a relatively laissez-faire environment for businesses, free trade, I oppose the government getting involved in people's personal lives, and I'm big on human rights. That in a nutshell is my stance on domestic issues, all of which sounds pretty darn libertarian. But a quick scroll through my archives would tell you pretty quickly that I'm a hawk as well and defend Bush's foreign policy pretty vigorously. And because national security is to me the biggest issue of the day, that's what I write about most often.

So what's my "libertarian hawk" philosophy? Not exactly what Borders describes, although I found his arguments interesting. One of the tenets of libertarianism that I call my own can be summed up pretty well in an Ayn Rand quote (who was not herself a libertarian but who is pretty much universally embraced by libertarians, myself included). She said:

“The proper functions of a government fall into three broad categories, all of them involving the issues of physical force and the protection of men’s rights: the police, to protect men from criminals – the armed services, to protect men from foreign invaders – the law courts, to settle disputes among men according to objective law.” (“The Nature of Government,” 1963)

Now as it happens, Ayn Rand was also rather dovish and I believe opposed the US involvement in WWII (correct me if I'm wrong on that). And indeed I think a lot of libertarians would say that, yes, defense is an important role of government, but we shouldn't go looking for wars abroad - we should only fight wars in the event that another country poses a direct threat to us. No humanitarian wars, no going to the aid of allies (indeed, no "entangling alliances" in the first place) - let others deal with their own business and we'll deal with ours. After all, isn't that what libertarianism is all about? Each man (and by extension, each country) responsible for himself, accountable only to himself? True enough. I used to more or less agree with that sentiment as it applies to foreign policy.

But here's what changed, at least for me. Just over three years ago, the problems of other people from half a world away came to our doorstep and three buildings that were symbols of our nation's strength were destroyed. Nearly 3000 of my countrymen died. The problem with the you-deal-with-your-problems-we'll-deal-with-ours approach is quite simply that it's outdated. In this world of technological interconnectedness, the problems of another people in another country can come to visit us very easily and become our problems. And visit us they did. And our problems they now are.

We live in a different world today. Because the virtues of free trade have been more or less allowed to reign supreme, our economy is now inextricably intertwined with the rest of the world's. Because of technology - the products of the ingenuity that only comes from within a capitalist system that rewards people for their success by allowing them to keep the profits of that ingenuity - all the corners of the earth are reachable within about a day by plane, and within an instant by the internet, email, or telephone. All of that's ultimately good, as any good libertarian would say. But it means we are now deprived of the luxury of resting comfortably, an ocean on either side, and letting the rest of the world deal with its own problems. Their problems can become ours in a heartbeat.

And there are people out there who hate us so much because of what we are, what we represent - not because of anything we did, besides just being ourselves. They hate us so much that they want to kill us. They want to kill us more than they want to live themselves. And today's world also has the potential to provide those people with very dangerous toys with which they could inflict unthinkable damage. They could, if left unchecked, destroy our world as we know it.

So how to deal with this new conundrum? Appeasement doesn't work. How do you appease someone who just hates you for who you are? Bin Laden has never given us a list of demands. He makes a few cogent political demands here and there, but on the whole he's never presented us with a straight-forward, "Here is what I want. You give it to me and my jihad will be over." And in this day and age, we can't just "get out of his face" - sure we could withdraw our troops from all over the world, but that wouldn't solve the root problem, which is that our economy and our culture - in the forms of McDonalds, Microsoft, movies, and a myriad more (sorry, got a little carried away with the alliteration there) - are out there and far more overtly in the faces of the rest of the world than our troops have ever been or ever will be. Free trade in goods and in culture and in values have made it so. There's no going back and certainly no libertarian would want it to. Hunkering down in Fortress America is an option that no libertarian should find appealing.

Absent appeasement, all sorts of opinions are out there on how best to deal with the threat that terror poses to us. As for me, I've come to the conclusion that the only way to put an end to the threat that terrorism poses in this day of dangerous toys is to go on the offense. Aggressively pursue al-Qaeda and its ideological brethren, killing and capturing them wherever they are. Bully, if necessary, other countries to contain the spread of weapons of mass destruction. And try to transform the very sick regions of the world that have given birth to terrorism by promoting democracy, human rights, pluralism, etc. - indeed, libertarian values - in those regions. As Bush, Blair, their supporters have said many times in many ways since all this began: those who have hope for the future don't strap bombs to themselves and blow themselves up. Further, those focused on building a better future for themselves and their children don't have time to harbor murderous hatred for those whom they perceive - rightly or wrongly - to be the cause of their problems.

"Forcing" others to adopt our system of values does in some ways seem contrary to the spirt of libertarianism, and I acknowledge that. But at the same time, the people in the countries we're trying to transform haven't ever had a chance to choose the system under which they've been living - it's been chosen for them, by largely inept and cruel rulers. For me it boils down to this quote, this one from a non-libertarian:

"If tolerance is not made universal, then coexistence is impossible." (Thomas Friedman, New York Times, 30 Oct 2001)

With the stakes as high as they are today, we simply cannot afford to leave the rest of the world alone. We put our own security too much at risk. So, rather than simply nuking the Middle East into oblivion (now that would be mighty unlibertarian, not to mention unAmerican), we can take the moral high ground and try to promote positive change. Now some will argue that you can't promote positive change by waging war, that diplomatic and other "soft power" means are the only way to do that. I reply, I'm unconvinced that good cannot be built on the ruins of war and that sometimes a dramatic shock is needed to a system in order to make it change - in any case, we're in for a long struggle, whether our tool is soft or hard power, but the soft power approach would be far longer, and probably too long.

We didn't start this fight, but we must now win it; our very survival is at stake, and I find nothing unlibertarian in putting the safety of my own country first. And by the fighting the battle by the means of promoting positive change, as a happy biproduct, perhaps others will get to enjoy the fruits of libertarian values in their own countries.

RELATED AFTERTHOUGHT: I wrote a pretty lengthy post previously on Thomas Jefferson (another libertarian hero) and what he would think of the world today. It was a little too lengthy to excerpt and fit into my argument here, but it's certainly related and can be found here.

I'll See Your Pajamas.... (UPDATED)

The blogosphere's gotten a good laugh out of the "pajamas" comment made by a CBS defender. Bloggers have admitted to blogging in their pajamas. I've certainly blogged in my pajamas. But I can one-up you all. Not only do I sometimes blog in my pajamas, I've also been known to blog naked. So there. I'll see your pajamas, and I'll raise you butt-ass naked. Any takers?

UPDATE: My goodness. Apparently I need to be risqué on these pages more often, my hits have gone through the roof! Thanks for the link, Stephen. To all newcomers, welcome.

Koreans to Brits: "Don't worry guys, we just blew up a mountain is all."

Later in the conversation, the North Korean minister Paek Nam-sun expressed confusion at the uproar in the world community since a mushroom cloud was seen in the Yanggang Province last Thursday. "What's the big deal? We only blew up a mountain. Very routine, I assure you, very routine."

"But..." stammered the UK's Foreign Office minister, Bill Rammell, "Did you blow up the mountain on purpose?"

"Yes, yes, of course. Part of a hydroelectric project as I told you before. Don't you blow up mountains all the time in England?"

"Well," replied Mr. Rammell, "Actually, we don't have an awful lot of mountains in England..."

"Ah, I see. Well I suppose that explains your confusion then. We in North Korea - we have lots of mountains. Sometimes a mountain simply needs to be blown up, very routine, I assure you, very routine."

"...But...but in Scotland and in Wales - they have more mountains there, and I'm pretty sure they don't..."

[underlying story here]

In Nuclear News

Lots going on these days. It seems the mushroom cloud in North Korea from September 9 was likely not a nuclear explosion.

SEOUL, Sept. 12 -- South Korean officials said on Sunday that a massive explosion generating a huge cloud of smoke on North Korea's northern border with China on Sept. 9 was an unspecified accident and apparently not a much-feared nuclear test.
...
Details of the blast, which came as concerns were mounting in U.S. intelligence circles in recent weeks that North Korea was about to conduct a nuclear test, remained sketchy. But South Korean officials said they recorded none of the seismic activity that likely would have accompanied a nuclear test.

Secretary of State Colin L. Powell, echoing that assessment, said the explosion Thursday was not a nuclear test but that it was not known yet what caused it.

Meanwhile, the IAEA considers ramping up pressure against the Iranians, who experts think are likely cooperating with the aforementioned North Koreans.

VIENNA (Reuters) - The U.N. nuclear watchdog begins a meeting on Monday to consider a European draft resolution on Iran's atomic program, after diplomats and intelligence officials said Tehran was already working to build an atom bomb.

The European Union's "big three" states -- France, Britain and Germany -- have circulated a draft resolution ahead of the meeting of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) on Iran's nuclear program that falls short of reporting Tehran to the U.N. Security Council, as Washington would have liked.

<>It seems the pressure is likely to be of the European variety (i.e., not really so much pressure after all) rather than the American variety.

Also of concern (not necessarily news, persay, but a concern worth revisiting from time to time) is the lack of security of Russia's nuclear arsenal, which they have made some feeble attempts to guard more securely since Beslan:

This month's hostage tragedy in Russia is a stark reminder of the potent terrorist threat that country still faces -- a threat that could result in a nuclear Sept. 11 if terrorists manage to gain access to Russia's nuclear stockpiles.

Unfortunately, the recent claim by Russian Defense Minister Sergei Ivanov that inadequately secured nuclear stockpiles in Russia are only a "myth" is far from the truth. There has been a decade of improvements in Russia, but the work remains dangerously incomplete and the threat to nuclear facilities is terrifyingly high. While many of the best-known thefts of nuclear material occurred a decade ago, it was only last year that the chief of Russia's nuclear agency testified that nuclear security was underfunded by hundreds of millions of dollars. At nearly every site U.S. experts visit, they reach quick agreement with Russian experts on the need for substantial security upgrades. Russia's decision to send additional troops to guard nuclear facilities in the wake of the most recent terrorist attacks belies the notion that these facilities were adequately secured before. Moreover, that heightened troop presence is not likely to last and will do little to reduce the danger of theft by insiders.

Meanwhile, terrorists are zeroing in on these nuclear stockpiles. Top Russian officials have confirmed at least two cases in 2001 of terrorists carrying out reconnaissance at Russian nuclear warhead storage sites. The 41 heavily armed, suicidal terrorists who seized hundreds of hostages at a Moscow theater in 2002 reportedly considered seizing the Kurchatov Institute instead -- a site with enough highly enriched uranium (HEU) for dozens of nuclear weapons. In 2003 proceedings in a Russian criminal case revealed that a Russian businessman had been offering $750,000 for stolen weapon-grade plutonium for sale to a foreign client.

Further proof of what dangerous times we live in.

Quote of the Week, Sept 12

As promised, a second September 11th quote for today. I love this quote:

“For bin Laden, the Twin Towers were a symbol of a godless, corrupt, materialistic society – a society that got rich and powerful precisely because it had no values. Of course, what bin Laden never understood was that the truth was exactly the opposite: We are rich and powerful because of our values – freedom of thought, respect for the individual, the rule of law, entrepreneurship, women’s equality, philanthropy, social mobility, self-criticism, experimentation, religious pluralism – not despite them.”

-Thomas Friedman, Longitudes and Attitudes: Exploring the World Before and After September 11, 2003

(Note: I bought this book in Europe. Apparently in the States, it has a slightly different title: Longitudes and Attitudes: The World in the Age of Terrorism. Pretty sure it's the same book though.)

Rare Praise for Kerry

As 9/11 addresses go, I actually liked Kerry's better than Bush's. Maybe because Kerry's was surprisingly apolitical - it was more of a tribute to that day and the strength we as a nation found its aftermath. Bush's focused much more on what we've done in response, which is good and important, but as a remembrance of the day itself, I preferred Kerry's style to Bush's.

9/11 Fortune Cookie Wisdom

I ordered Chinese food tonight. Quoth my fortune cookie: "God will help you overcome any hardship." I thought that was appropriate fortune cookie wisdom for this day.

Three Years Later

Three years later. Three years after a great chasm was formed in the heart of our greatest city - an another in our own hearts - and yet another among us. It seems almost irresponsible or heartless not to go back on the anniversary of that day and not try to recapture the grief we felt on that day. The anger. The incredulity.

Three years later. If you had told me that day that we would still not have suffered another major terrorist attack on our soil, I wouldn't have believed you. Nor, I think would most others. For that, if for absolutely nothing else, I think the Bush administration deserves credit from all of us and gratitude. I don't mean to politicize the day - I'm not saying he deserves our gratitude in the form of a November vote, if that is not how you are inclined. I merely mean that for that one thing, all of us, of all political persuasions, should take a quick moment and thank him that as yet another great tragedy has not been visited upon us.

To be honest a part of me expected to wake up this morning, turn on my computer and read that we'd suffered another attack. Or even to be awakened early by the sound of it, only a few miles from my apartment. From my vantage point, I can see the Capitol building and the Washington monument fairly clearly. I can see the planes take off and land from Reagan National Airport. Somewhere out there, obscured by trees and other buildings, but there nonetheless, are the White House, the Pentagon - all the juicy DC targets the terrorists would probably love to hit. If DC were attacked, no doubt I'd see the smoke and probably the flames from here. So far that hasn't happened. But a part of me expects it to, if not today, then sometime.

I just dug into my box of stuff - old pictures, my graduation gown, various other things I've saved from college. But what I was looking for was the things I'd saved from 9/11. Magazines and newspaper articles from that day and the days and weeks that followed. People, September 24, 2001: "SEPT. 11, 2001. The day that shook America." A grainy photo of smoke billowing from the first tower and the second plane approaching on its lethal course. East Valley Tribune (a lesser Phoenix paper), Tuesday, September 11, 2001, Extra: "America attacked." A photo of a plume of smoke erupting from the second tower, the first one already burping smoke. My school newspaper, The State Press, Wednesday, September 12, 2001: "Terrorists attack U.S." More or less the same photo as the East Valley Tribune's, just from more of a ground angle. Time: no title - just the date: "September 11, 2001." And the photo.

And here, here is what I was really looking for in the box. It's a note, written on a little piece of paper, from my eighty-some year old great aunt, who lives in Newark, NJ. One of the most fiery eighty somethings you'll ever meet. This note came enclosed in my birthday card that year - my birthday is September 13. It's written in blue pen and her handwriting is shaky, uneven and a little frantic. It reads:

Sept 11, 2001

Dear Nicole:

Happy 20th Birthday and hope you have a good day. I'm writing this note and watching TV. The collapse and bombing of the World Trade Center in N.Y. It's so close to us and I can see the smoke from the bombing from my back yard. It is so terrible and I'm all upset that such a thing to happen so close. All bridges, tunnel and transportation. I could always see the World Trade Center from the highway coming home from Richard and Billy's home. I'm all right but just shaking.

Have a Happy 20th Birthday.

Love
Aunt Marie.

I always think of that note when I think of 9/11. I didn't lose anyone I knew that day. Most of my extended family lives in New Jersey, a couple in New York, so there was some fear that a distant relative might have been there, but no such misfortune. One cousin of my dad's works in the city and had to walk out that day. So I suppose it got closer to me than to a lot of Americans. But that note was somehow the closest it got to me personally. Whenever I think of that note, I just see my great aunt, shaking with fear and watching the smoke from her back yard, but still remembering that she needed to send me a birthday card. I'm sure it must have come late, but I don't really remember.

I guess that's kind of how it was. I didn't dig out that note with the intention of making a symbol out of it - I just wanted to revisit the emotions of that day. But it struck me as I was writing that it is kind of symbolic of how quickly we all moved on. A hole was just carved in the ground miles from my great aunt's house. Thousands died. The fires were still a long way from out. But birthday cards still had to be written to a great nieces. Life had to go on. And it did.

And so while most of us are still on some level waiting for the other shoe to drop, waiting for the next big attack, life goes on. We remember, we pick sides in the political wars that have ensued (or not even that, for some), but on the whole we just keep on living our lives. And that is how it should be.

In closing, from American Daughter (hat tip: the Command Post) comes the following picture and associated message:

[picture temporarily removed - it was screwing up my site. I'll shrink it down and readd it later]

The proud warriors of Baker Company wanted to do something to pay tribute to our fallen comrades. So since we are part of the only Marine Infantry Battalion left in Iraq the one way that we could think of doing that is by taking a picture of Baker Company saying the way we feel. It would be awesome if you could find a way to share this with our fellow countrymen.

I was wondering if there was any way to get this into your papers to let the world know that "WE HAVE NOT FORGOTTEN" and are proud to serve our country." Semper Fi
1stSgt Dave Jobe

My Brief Two Cents

I have yet to comment on this whole CBS controversy. To be honest, I don't feel much of a need to. First, as far as the presidential election is concerned, I don't really care much about the outcome of the analysis of the "underlying story" which Rather seems so intent on defending (see my previous declarations of indifference on all Vietnam related issues here, here, and here). Second, the blogosphere as a whole is doing such a superb job of covering it and I know nothing about the associated technical analysis and as such have nothing to add. On the whole, I'm content to sit back, munch on some popcorn and watch reputations fall and new media triumph in its investigative capacity.

Basically, the entire point of this post is just to say that I am highly amused by the whole thing, and somewhat in awe of the capacity of the blogosphere to bring CBS to its knees. It's a really American thing, you know? Sure, we have our entrenched elites just like any other society, but the ability of the motivated and ingenious little guys to prevail over them when the time is right is a nice little showing of the American spirit.

Highly Recommended Reading

This is really moving. You can almost imagine it as a news montage, showing the clips of all the terror attacks over the last thirty years with the soundbits of the quotes he's interspersed being read over top the footage. If you ever need a historical perspective on all of this - well, let me just say it leaves little doubt as to who is on the right side and who is on the wrong side of history. Highly recommended reading.

Wow, Are They Scared

Jesus Christ is the NYT editorial board scared of a Bush victory. This is almost going to look like a fisking, but it's not really, more of a point-by-point showing of incredulity.

Nobody gets angrier about Senator John Kerry's complicated position on Iraq than his own supporters. [implied comment: like us. You mean, "like us," so why don't you just be forthright and say that?] The Democratic base would love to see him lashing out at President Bush over the war. But for all of his current tough talk about Mr. Bush's "wrong choices," Mr. Kerry has blurred his message, particularly with his recent statement that he would have voted for the Senate's war resolution even if he had known that Saddam Hussein had no significant cache of weapons of mass destruction. Mr. Kerry also basically agrees with the president that it is now necessary to stay the course - something that will require a continued American military presence in Iraq for years.

So basically your point is that hard-core Democrats (ie., the NYT editorial board) would like to see Kerry run as the anti-war candidate, and you're all peeved that Kerry and the rest of the Democratic party has concluded that that's the path to an embarrassing defeat? Why didn't you all just nominate Dean then? It would have made all of this far simpler, the rest of us would have been quite clear on where the other side stood rather than having to muddle through cryptic, conflicting, and down-right nonsensical statements. At least Dean had a consistent opinion.

Despite our own grave misgivings about the chances of a happy outcome in Iraq, this page has also argued that as long as there is even a modest hope of making things work, the United States and its allies should continue to provide economic support and security. So it's hard for us to criticize Mr. Kerry for his similar stance, especially since this is not his war. People who are unhappy with the way Iraq is going may be frustrated by Mr. Kerry, but they should direct their real anger at Mr. Bush.

You're all just bloody pessimists is the thing. You don't want to see the possibility of a happy outcome is all - perhaps if you were more willing to report on the positive things going on in Iraq, in addition to all that's negative, you might not feel so certain of defeat. Just a thought.

Still, voters need a much clearer sense of what Mr. Kerry would do differently.

No argument here.

His advisers provide a to-do list that is not exactly full of dramatic new ideas. Much of the Democrats' counterpolicy for Iraq involves the conviction that as president, Mr. Kerry could still get the broad international support that Mr. Bush failed to rally before the invasion. They also argue that if the administration were willing to offer allies a broader share in reconstruction contracts, the allies would be more willing to help with things like providing financial aid, training security forces and guarding Iraq's borders.

Basically, here they seem to be upset that all Kerry (running as the I'm-anti-Bush-but-I-can't-really-depart-from-his-foreign-policy-too-dramatically-so-where-exactly-does-that-put-me? candidate) can't put forth any ideas that aren't different from what the Bush administration is already doing or planning on doing. Because what the Bush administration is doing or planning on doing is the sensible thing to do at this point in time. Right. Doesn't give Kerry much to work with, does it?

None of that would address the need for more international combat troops. That train has left the station, and nations with the capacity to help will be unlikely to sign on for what looks like a very unpromising enterprise, no matter who is in the White House. Still, Mr. Kerry's proposal is a sensible one.

It is a sensible one, isn't it? Good thing that the Bush administration is trying to get more international combat troops on board all the time, but France and Germany (which we all know is what Democrats really mean when they say "international" whatever) aren't getting to get on board no matter who is president. Just as the NYT itself said. So this isn't really so much of a "proposal" on Kerry's part as it is wishful thinking. Which is in no way constructive or useful. It's just a meaningless soundbit the Democrats have been using for months to try to differentiate themselves from Bush without departing dramatically from his policies. And for God's sake can we all be honest: the most "internationalized" coalition we could possibly make in the most "multi-lateral" war would not look all that different, in terms of the US troops:other troops ratio, than the current one does.

Many of Mr. Kerry's other ideas on Iraq are similar to the current administration's, but he says he'd do a much better job of providing more security for the United Nations workers who are attempting to organize the coming elections, of fixing Iraq's infrastructure and, above all, of training more Iraqi soldiers and security guards, doing it faster and more effectively.

He says all that, does he? No doubt the Bush administration thought it could do all that faster and more effectively too. Thus is the gap between our expectations and reality when actually faced with the prospect of doing. Who is the Kerry administration going to hire/appoint who would have better expertise in these things so that he would be able to accomplish this? What magic secret does he possess that would keep terrorists from attacking the infrastructure as we endeavor to rebuild it? Again, wishful thinking.

Those are important points, underscored by two bits of very bad news this week: the Marines have largely abandoned the Sunni triangle, and the toll of American dead has now passed 1,000, with many times that number grievously wounded. If the mission in Iraq is doable, the Bush administration can certainly be faulted for failing to do it well.

Ah, again, it is the incompetence of the Bush administration. Not to diminish the death of any one soldier in any way, but 1000 troops dead in a year and a half in Iraq? That's actually astoundingly low. Which is probably more a credit to the sophistication of our military than it is to the Bush administration itself, to be fair. All around, it seems to me the critics of the Bush administration compare it, not against the job that any other job that, you know, human beings could have accomplished, but against some hypothetical perfect world which of course does not exist in reality. I have seen no indication (particularly given Kerry's seeming inability to control even his own campaign) that it would exist in a Kerry administration.

But Mr. Kerry has to make his arguments with urgency. Simply promising that things will turn around under a new administration isn't enough.

What arguments? Have we examined any real arguments yet? As to the latter sentence, agreed.

If there is a moment for turning Iraq around, it will have passed by the time the next president is inaugurated in January. National elections are scheduled in Iraq by the end of that month. If things continue as they seem to be going now, Kurds in the north and Shiites in the south will be able to vote, while large chunks of the Sunni community will be unable to participate because of the violence in the middle of the country.

That is a recipe to splinter Iraq in just the way the first President George Bush feared in 1991, when he decided not to attempt to march on Baghdad. The world would be left with two new nation-states, one in the south, probably dominated by Iran, and one in the north, in constant tension with Turkey. The middle of the country would be an angry no man's land, without financial resources or a stable government, that would be a haven for terrorists and a perpetual grievance for the Sunni-dominated Arab world.

<>
This is surely a fear, but it again seems unduly pessimistic to me. Let's give things a chance to work before we pronounce them doomed, shall we?

Mr. Kerry's advisers say it is critical to provide security for elections in the Sunni region - without saying that their candidate would go any farther than Mr. Bush in attempting to subdue rebellious towns like Falluja. The Democrats do not want to go on record as supporting military actions that would kill more Americans - particularly since the Bush administration was right in not pursuing a strategy that would lead to house-to-house battles in an area filled with civilians.

Wait, so now are we saying that the Bush administration should be more aggressive? Good God, can you imagine the outcry, on these editorial pages in particular, if the Bush administration decided to get more aggressive, risking more deaths, either civilian or military (likely both)? What exactly would the Democrats recommend doing then, really? Back off and let the regions descend into anarchy (thus seeing the fears already described above materialize) or get more aggressive and see more soldiers and civilians die (when they're already appalled by the 1000 American soldiers dead)? This is a question that needs to be answered, and now would be good.

One thing Mr. Kerry should certainly be stressing is the way Iraq has drained the nation's attention away from imperative antiterrorism missions. It is outrageous to hear Mr. Bush and Mr. Cheney boasting about American successes in Afghanistan at a time when the Taliban is gaining a new foothold in the country, the warlords are in the ascendant and supporters of international terrorism are playing important parts in the American-supported government in Kabul.

This is exactly the same situation as in Iraq. True enough, perhaps the Bush administration has probably been patting its own back a little too soon. But at the same time the Democrats bear responsibility for demanding results in impossibly short time frames. Anyone who thought that going into either Afghanistan or Iraq would produce nice, harmonious, democratic societies within an election cycle was kidding himself, and yet the Democrats seem to want such results within a year. That doesn't excuse the Bush administration, persay, for claiming credit perhaps a little too early, but it must also be recognized that the Democrats have created themselves a win-win political situation by holding the administration to impossible standards.

Mr. Kerry should also be pressing the Bush administration to get back into the game when it comes to pushing the Israelis and Palestinians to restart the peace process - a move he is unfortunately reluctant to make, given his anxieties about the Jewish vote in states like Florida.

Oh right, Florida. The name of that state has just come to reek of political conspiracy theories, hasn't it? Actually, the Bush administration has made its position on Israel/Palestine pretty clear, putting the burden on the Palestinians to stop with the terror before negotiations can begin.

<>Although Mr. Kerry's agenda for change in Iraq lacks drama, if he truly believes that many of the problems there are caused by ineptitude in the training of local security forces, he should say so forcefully every day, while there is still a little time to improve the situation before voting begins in January. If he sincerely believes that other nations can be brought into the effort there, he should be much more forthright in explaining how he could do it.

Given the political corner Mr. Kerry has painted himself into, it's not surprising that his advisers are urging him to start concentrating on the economy. But Iraq is still the great crisis confronting the United States. While the temptation to dodge it at this point is natural, Mr. Kerry should resist.

Say so forcefully, eh? How 'bout saying so with an associated plan? I like how for liberals if you just say something forcefully enough, it's almost a substitute for action. Other than that we more or less agree on this last section - I'd love to hear a real plan from Kerry. He's highly unlikely to change my mind at this point. If he'd come up with a real message and stuck to it, say, six months ago, he might have been able to do that, but this close to the election and still with the dizzying back-and-forths, I've long since concluded that I can't trust a word the guy says. But if he were actually to find a plan and stick with it until the election, I'd be thrilled because in the event that he were to win, I might almost be willing to give him the benefit of the doubt (having no other choice, but still) and think he'd finally found something to stand for, for a couple of years at least.

Seriously though, back to the NYT, they sound absolutely panicked to me. Trying to conceal it with sober analysis, but panicked, nonetheless. It's like they're desperate to make Kerry into a candidate worth supporting - they're practically begging him to come up with something, anything - but he's just a train wreck in slow motion. He can't come up with a message, and any plausible message he does occassionally happen to land on sounds either not-too-different from Bush or well, not actually plausible when you dig a little deeper. Honestly, I don't foresee this changing by November. It's become a farce, really, it would truly be laughable if the stakes weren't so serious. The Democrats are in for an excrucating seven more weeks, hanging their hopes on this guy.

The Perils of Diplomacy

You know, this is why I could never be a diplomat. From the NY Times:

WASHINGTON, Sept. 9 — Secretary of State Colin L. Powell, seeking to raise pressure on Sudan to stop the atrocities in Darfur, declared today for the first time that the killings, rapes and destruction that have forced 1.5 million people from their homes amounted to genocide and should be treated as such by the United Nations. [emphasis mine]

Are you kidding me? Powell is just now saying for the first time that what is going on in Sudan is genocide? That has been obvious to even the most casual of observers for literally months now. It seems:

The Bush administration has repeatedly condemned the actions of the Sudan government in the western region without using the word, in part because it was waiting for the State Department report to be completed, and in part because of concern that its use would merely enflame the situation and antagonize the Sudan government.

For Christ's sake. I realize that "genocide" is a serious word and, just like other serious words it should be used sparingly and only when truly appropriate. But at the same time, sometimes even those who choose to be cautious with serious words need to be able to call a spade a spade.

And while we're on the subject of Sudan, I feel I must reiterate a previous comment. As we know:

Some critics of the Bush administration, including Senator John Kerry, the Democratic presidential candidate, have called on the United States to take a more aggressive role in ending the conflict in Sudan.

Wait now, hasn't Kerry said (yes, I'm quite sure he has) that the United States should not engage in wars of choice, only wars of necessity? Oh, I know, that was a Kerry of more than a month ago, but really, who can keep up? The point is, I still don't understand the moral difference between Sudan and Iraq. In both places, I see a regime of death. There are differences, yes, but it boils down to that. Maybe those Bush opponents don't literally mean that we should militarily go into Sudan (but then again, those people tend not to like sanctions much either, and those are really the only "aggressive" options available in situations such as this) but why so much pressure to do something in Sudan and why so much resistance against doing anything in Iraq? I truly don't get it. It almost seems as though "critics of the Bush administration" just take the opposite stance of Bush no matter what. But that can't be it can it?

Music to Our Ears

Well, it's about damn time. The one thing that has been sorely lacking in the post-9/11 world has been strong criticisms from within the Muslim world of the horrific actions of fellow Muslims done in the name of Islam. Well, if this NY Times article is right, perhaps it's finally coming. This article is almost impossible to excerpt because it's simply a rundown of one Arab commentator after another vociferously condemning the actions of jihadists. But just to whet your whistle:

BEIRUT, Lebanon, Sept. 8 - The brutal school siege in Russia, with hundreds of children dead and wounded, has touched off an unusual round of self-criticism and introspection in the Muslim and Arab world.

"It is a certain fact that not all Muslims are terrorists, but it is equally certain, and exceptionally painful, that almost all terrorists are Muslims," Abdel Rahman al-Rashed, the general manager of the widely watched satellite television station Al Arabiya said in one of the most striking of these commentaries.

Writing in the pan-Arab newspaper Al Sharq al Awsat, Mr. Rashed said it was "shameful and degrading" that not only were the Beslan hijackers Muslims, but so were the killers of Nepalese workers in Iraq; the attackers of residential towers in Riyadh and Khobar, Saudi Arabia; the women believed to have blown up two Russian airplanes last week; and Osama bin Laden himself.

"The majority of those who manned the suicide bombings against buses, vehicles, schools, houses and buildings, all over the world, were Muslim," he wrote. "What a pathetic record. What an abominable 'achievement.' Does this tell us anything about ourselves, our societies and our culture?"

But read the whole thing. It's rather heartening. Let's all hope it's the beginning of something more.

And In Some Even More Important Scientific Research...

Muppets win popularity contest for screen scientists
Beaker and Honeydew defeat Dr. Evil

Beaker and Dr. Bunsen Honeydew are known for the wacky experiments they conduct on "The Muppet Show." The duo won top honors in a popularity poll for on-screen scientists.

EXETER, England - Two Muppet experimenters, Dr. Bunsen Honeydew and his assistant Beaker, defeated Dr. Strangelove, Dana Scully of "X Files" fame and Mr. Spock from "Star Trek" to be voted Britain's favorite screen scientists on Monday.

They beat their closest rival by a margin of 2 to 1 and won 33 percent of the 43,000 votes cast in an Internet poll.

I don't think any comment is necessary here.

Is It The Day After Tomorrow?

This hurricane season is proving brutal for residents of Florida. Is global warming to blame? Probably not, at least according to this piece on MSNBC today:

"These are natural things," Gray stressed. "Greenland ice-core data show that North Atlantic temperatures swing back and forth on these 30- to 40-year time scales. The people who say humans are causing this hurricane activity — typically they're the ones who don't know anything about tropical cyclones."

Gray counted up how often major hurricanes — that is, a Category 3 storm or above — made landfall in Florida. "In the 40 years from 1926 to 1965 there were 14 major landfalling storms that hit," he said. "In the 38 years since then, there was only one: Andrew."

Most researchers agree with Gray that hurricane activity rises and falls over the course of decades. Thus, the hurricane pattern could merely be going back to the active phase experienced during the mid-20th century.

Interesting. This is a field of science I don't know an awful lot about, but it seems to make sense to me.

In Virginia News...

Aw, damn! I guess this means I can't vote for Nader then:

Independent Ralph Nader will not appear on Virginia’s presidential ballot, the State Board of Elections said Tuesday.

Nader fell short of the required 10,000 certified signatures on his qualifying petitions, said Jean Jensen, secretary of the board. “He needed 10,000 and we were able to verify 7,342,” Jensen said.

Paging Those Who Still Don't Get It

I know I shouldn't laugh at this, but I find some sadistic humor in how the French are twisting themselves into "why are they targeting us?" knots over the journalists taken hostage in Iraq:

PARIS -- As France awaits word on two journalists being held hostage in Iraq, officials have made it clear that they expect to benefit from their stand against the U.S.-led invasion and occupation. "France has always pleaded for the sovereignty of this country and supported its people," Foreign Minister Michel Barnier said last week as the crisis unfolded.

The safe return of the journalists, Georges Malbrunot and Christian Chesnot, would not only end a crisis that has gripped the country but would also ratify the value of French opposition to the Bush administration's Iraq policy, political observers said.

In lobbying for the captives' freedom, the observers said, France had gained support from governments in the Middle East, Muslim religious leaders and even the Hezbollah guerrilla group, which has used kidnappings in its fight against Israel's occupation of southern Lebanon.

Somewhere in a cave along the Afghani/Pakistani border, Osama bin Laden is rubbing his hands together and chuckling satanically. Bonne chance in your "diplomacy" with terrorists, mon ami.

Kerry's Problem

Much has been made of the recent poll results showing Bush with a lead that ranges from moderate to pretty commanding depending on whom you ask. Kerry's campaign, as many have noted, seems to be in panic mode. What can Kerry do to regain traction, you ask? Some writers have their theories.

But here's Kerry's problem, in my humble opinion. This election is about foreign policy and national security. The Democrats have (rightly) decided that running as the anti-war party is a loser, and so ever since the DNC, and somewhat before, the Kerry campaign has tried to portray itself as tough on national security. Indeed, with the exception of the vague promise for "greater internationalization" that has been the cornerstone of the Democrats' position all along, there is now little difference between what the Kerry says he will and would do in fighting the war on terror and what the Bush administration says it will do and has already done. The Kerry campaign has obviously decided that radically departing from Bush's strategy in national security matters is not going to win them votes. Herein lies their problem: in the minds of any undecided voters still out there, the question then becomes, "Why buy an imitation product when for the same price, I can buy the real thing?" There is no winning position for Kerry to take on national security which means that the only way for Kerry to win this is to make this election about something other than national security, and that's an endeavor at which he will fail.

Putin Succinctly Sums Up the Argument Against Appeasement

This made me laugh:

He [Putin] again rejected Western calls for negotiations with Chechen rebel representatives, Britain's Guardian and Independent newspapers reported.

"Why don't you meet Osama bin Laden, invite him to Brussels or to the White House and engage in talks, ask him what he wants and give it to him so he leaves you in peace?" the Guardian quoted Putin as saying sarcastically.

Well put, Mr. Putin.

More On Russia (UPDATED)

This is by far the most informative piece I've read about the situation in the Caucasus. I highly recommend reading it, if, like me, you've found this situation puzzling at times. (Via Roger Simon.)

UPDATE: Gregory Djerejian also has a good analysis of Putin's speech, the far-reaching consequences of Beslan, and what to do about it all.

Quote of the Week, September 5

Well, this week ends with the third anniversary of September 11th. I've been unable to decide whether to put up my September 11th quote today or next Sunday, so I decided, what the hell, I'll do two of them. This one actually segways nicely, because it comes to us from Bush's speech to the RNC:

"My fellow Americans, for as long as our country stands, people will look to the resurrection of New York City and they will say: Here buildings fell, and here a nation rose."
- George W. Bush, 2 Sept. 2004

I'll put up another one next Sunday too.

Going Out on a Limb

People seem rather reluctant to claim that the attacks in Beslan were the work of Al-Qaeda (thought inspired by this bet-hedging post from Roger Simon, though it's not just him) but I'm going out on a limb here and sticking by my initial response (here and here). There were three, count 'em, three terror attacks on Russia over the course of a week, the first (plane hijackings) and last (school hostages) being pretty major endeavors. I'm sorry, but local separatist terror groups rarely have that kind of sophistication, funding, or coordination. There seems to be some confusion over whether there were or were not Arabs actually among the hostage-takers, but regardless of the outcome of that debate, I still see Al-Qaeda's fingerprints all over this.

More Kid-Killers

Little noticed amongst the news of the massacre in Russia was the fact that Taliban remnants also attacked a school this week in rural Afghanistan, killing nine children. From today's Washington Post.

Do We Have Bin Laden in Our Sights?

Well, here's some good news if it happens to be true:

The Associated Press reports that Joseph Cofer Black, the U.S. State Department coordinator for counterterrorism said in a television interview that the United States and its allies have moved closer to capturing Osama bin Laden in the last two months.

The conversation below focuses on why we would be so stupid as to let bin Laden know we're close. As I commented, I'm not sure it makes much of a difference from bin Laden's perspective if we announce it or not. If this is true, it'll obviously be a huge boon for Bush come November. And to all Democrats who grumble about it on those grounds - hello, it's a huge boon for all of us - (channelling McCain at the Convention) we are all Americans. Anyway, this is also not the first time we've heard this, so I'm not going to hold my breath, but I may just say a quick prayer.

Random Thoughts

1. Wow. I've finally gotten sick of pizza. Isn't there a Chinese place around here that delivers? If so, they need to send me a menu. Lean Cuisines it is.

2. Usually, I can put back your average 750 mL bottle of wine, no problem. Tonight, one glass, and I'm already at this point? I obviously haven't eaten enough today.

3. There isn't a 3. I'm waiting till I eat this Lean Cuisine before I write anything else, lest I embarass myself.

Tragedy in Russia

I've been following this story closely since it started (thanks to the Command Post, which has done a superb job of keeping on top of the news), and I'm pleased that the standoff has finally ended, but grieved that it ended so tragically. I titled my first post about this "Know Thy Enemy" but didn't really elaborate on that title - it's just the phrase that popped into my head, and always does, whenever Islamic terrorists do something truly atrocious. But here, I would have to say, they've hit a new low. Michele says at the Command Post:

Kids. Shot in the back.

Yup. I know. Sickening, isn't it? There's absolutely no way to spin this one, and anyone who tries has lost all sense of human decency. This is yet another reminder of the depravity we are fighting. There is no justification for this. There is no attempting to understand. This was an act that can only be described as thoroughly, utterly, and completely amoral. The anti-war types always love to call soldiers and the leaders who send them into battle as "baby-killers," because it is an unfortunate fact that even in the most just fight, in spite of all precautions to ensure no civilian casualties, sometimes the most innocent among us pay the price of a battle they had nothing to do with. What the anti-war types usually fail to understand is that this is a fact that grieves us pro-war types at least as much as it does them.

But the Islamists have outdone themselves this time, and given us the most striking and horrifying illustration of the differences between us and them: while we, in the course of pursuing our objectives, do occassionally and most unfortunately kill a child, these people sought out children to kill. They went into a school building armed and took hostage children. Children. The fact that children died cannot be written off in any way with that horribly callous term "collateral damage." Killing children was their goal. They got what they wanted. And now we see, if we did not already, who and what we are dealing with. And what they are is something so monstrous that I struggle to come up with strong enough words for it. I'm not sure they exist.

Ostensibly, this appears to be a regional conflict, but we know better. I've read many times before of the Chechen separatists' involvement with Al Qaeda. And here, it seems that some of the terrorists were not Chechens but Arabs and 1 "Afro-American." And this post gives more detail about the potential involvement of Al-Qaeda. When I implied Wednesday that these guys might have outside help, this is what I was talking about. This was a big and bold and probably ultimately stupid move. Classic Al-Qaeda. Attacking weaker nations, Spain for example, might have been moderately intelligent. But this is right up there with September 11th in the "awakening sleeping giants" department. As I said Wednesday, the Russians aren't going to put up with this shit. Neither do the Russians have the same, er, scruples as we do in dealing with problems put before them. I expect that the fury with which they respond is going to be striking. And, I expect, ultimately good for us, though we may not entirely condone their tactics.

If Al-Qaeda wants to provoke a war of civilizations, they're doing a good job. And it's a war they're not going to win, particularly when their actions result in our standing shoulder-to-shoulder with the Russians, who are only our allies on the occassion we face a common threat. We face a common threat now. And we should pledge our every assistance to the Russians in assuring that the real child-killers of the world are punished, crippled and destroyed.

Testing

There's something weird going on with my permalinks. I'm playing. Don't mind me.

Know Thy Enemy

Wow. The Russians are really getting slammed. First the two hijackings, then the bomb blast yesterday, now the school hostage situation, which sounds awful. The Chechens are launching a serious offensive, one might wonder if they're getting outside support? Really, it's revealing (of something that some of us already knew, but many prefer to ignore) what kind of sickos we're all really dealing with - a school full of children? That's about as low as it gets. Of course, all our hearts should be with the Russians right now, hoping for a not-too-tragic resolution of this situation. Meanwhile, from a more strategic perspective, we should hope that this will solidify Russian support in the WOT. I have less faith in the French, but the Russians - they're not going to put up with shit like this.