re: "SQUIRREL!"

Mike at Cold Fury ("Harshing Your Mellow Since 9/01") might be one of thosepeople who actually know what WMD are.

Money quote(s):

"Hey, remember those Iraqi WMD stockpiles that didn’t exist, that Saddam never ever pursued getting and didn’t use on his own people and in the war with Iran, that Bush lied us into his phony war for oil over?"

These aren't the WMD you're looking for?

"(T)hey’re still not there, and the Brits are not going to be helping out with not destroying them. Because they don’t exist, and never did. So shut up, awright?"

Shut up, he explained.

7/31

re: "Obama's Misplaced Mideast Optimism"

Daniel Pipes at danielpipes.org (" Opine briefly on diverse topics ") provided some thinkery on likely fallout from the Arab Spring.

10/25

re: "The Rebirth of Birthers?"

William Sullivan at American Thinker (" a daily internet publication devoted to the thoughtful exploration of issues of importance to Americans ") considered this news from Arizona.

Money quote(s):

"Two years, three months, and seven days after his inauguration, Barack Obama finally offered evidence to prove his eligibility for the presidency. On the White House website, officials posted an electronic document purported to be a scan of Barack Obama's long-form birth certificate. It was a grand "I told you so" moment for the media and the left, which had worked feverishly to marginalize "birthers" as the radical counterpart of the zany "truther."

Of course, there was never really any parity. Truthers constructed silly conspiracy theories about George W. Bush being an international super-criminal that orchestrated impossibly complex measures to frame al-Qaeda on 9/11. Birthers, on the other hand, merely demanded that the president, who is required by the Constitution to be a natural born American citizen, show proof of his eligibility. And in reality, that is an entirely reasonable expectation, albeit unprecedented." (Bold typeface added for emphasis. - CAA.)

&

"Sherriff Joe Arpaio of Arizona, at the behest of a petition presented by the Surprise, Arizona Tea Party organization, organized a "cold case posse" and completed a six-month examination of the released birth certificate in order to determine its authenticity. The results are in, Joe says, and they point to the document being a fake."

&

"Lord Christopher Monckton, who has experience investigating high-level fraud as a policy adviser under Margaret Thatcher, has given the claim added veracity.

According to World Net Daily, Monckton said that "it appears that the document was cobbled together in layers, pointing to evidence that three date stamps and a registrar's stamp were superimposed on it from another document." If there were a single, original document to verify the president's Hawaiian birth, why "go to all that trouble, he reasoned."

Monckton's conclusion? "My assessment is that they are right to be worried... That document is not genuine." "

CAA's expertise, however limited, in estimating the genuine-ness of vital documents such as birth certificates and travel documents (i.e., passports and visas) does not extend to digital photographs of said documents.

"Anyone calling Obama's birth certificate into question will have to entertain the notion that perhaps the forgery was made because the president does not have legal proof of his American birth. And anyone carrying that message will have the stink of "right-wing birther" on him, and he will be swiftly devoured by the attack dogs in the media and marginalized. So in a way, I don't blame conservative lawmakers and pundits for treading lightly around the issue."

&

"Reasonably, it should never have been incumbent upon Americans to prove that Obama is not a natural born citizen, but rather it should have always been incumbent upon Obama to prove to the American people, verifiably and indisputably, that he was born in the United States."

Anyone with actual proof of someone having committed passport or citizenship fraud should get in touch with the Bureau of Diplomatic Security's Criminal Investigative Division.

4/6

re: "Springtime for Islamists in Libya?"

Neo-Neocon (" slowly but surely leaving the fold and becoming that dread thing: a neocon ") is one of those who possess an Inigo Montoya-like sensibility regarding the meaning of words.

Money quote(s):

"The headline reads “interim [Libyan] ruler unveils more radical than expected plans for Islamic law.”

There’s that word again: expected. But those who thought they knew what to expect in Libya were either arrogant or daft, or both. And one of the many things that was clearly possible there was the ascendance of Islamist elements." (Emphasis in original text. - CAA.)

Wishful thinking, like hope, is not a plan. Nor is it a particularly useful analytical tool.

"David Warren contrasts the irony of the relatively orderly Bush-overseen judicial end of Saddam Hussein with Gaddafi’s extra-judicial lynching under forces promoted by Obama."

CAA has nothing but good things to say about Mr. Warren, one of our neighbors in the Great White North.

"Not unexpected at all. That’s why there is something to be said for what happened in Iraq, where—because we invaded and stuck around, despite the huge cost in blood and treasure—that country has at least a chance of coming out relatively well compared to others in the region."

From her keyboard to God's monitor.

10/24

re: "The Iraq War Did Not End on December 17, 2011–But the Peace May Be Over Soon"

JOEL B. POLLAK at Big Peace considered the endings of wars.

Money quote(s):

"I am disgusted by the media declarations and the presidential proclamations that the war in Iraq has ended with the departure of US troops. It is an erroneous conclusion, designed with political victory in mind--and heedless of the risk of projecting military defeat. "

Involvement by major numbers of U.S. ground troops has ceased.

That doesn't mean that the few remaining troops, or the U.S. civilians still there, are any less attractive targets for those who continue to wage war in Iraq.

"The Iraq War was a victory for the United States, for our allies, and for the Iraqi people. Our forces toppled Saddam Hussein's brutal regime, and defended nascent Iraqi democracy against Iranian-backed terrorists, including Al Qaeda and remnants of Saddam's regime.

Our soldiers maintained the peace of a country many feared would collapse into civil war--and which some, including our current Vice President, suggested should be divided. Against the plans of foreign enemies, and the pessimism of domestic critics, our forces prevailed.

The idea that the war ended today is absurd. If a war is not over until all your troops have withdrawn, then the Second World War is still being fought. If a war is defined by your withdrawal rather than your objective, you will always face defeat. And Iraq was not a defeat. " (Bold typeface added for emphasis. - CAA.)

&

"Victory in Iraq may not have come on May 1, 2003--the day President George W. Bush delivered his "mission accomplished" speech. But it had certainly come by November 11, 2010--the day political parties formed a new government, following Iraq's second democratic election. "

12/17

re: "The Iraq Fiasco"

Hugh Hewitt at HughHewitt.Com conveyed a sense of frustration.

Money quote(s):

"The outlines of the Iraq fiasco are becoming clear this morning even to the MSM"

I'm still not seeing that, but individual mileage may vary.

"So much good was accomplished for the people of Iraq but at such a terrible price that this sudden retreat is stunning to the people like the veterans who called yesterday and Kagan who, with a few others, helped craft the successful surge strategy which President Bush adopted.

What must Generals Petraeus and Odierno think, and with them the vast majority of the men and women who served in this long war?

Imagine if the U.S. and Great Britain had simply left Berlin three years after the Berlin Wall went up in 1961. How long could the city have withstood Soviet pressure, and what chance would there have been of 1989 ever arriving?"

CAA can think of historical examples where even the myth of domestic political betrayal of military sacrifice has lead to no good result. As Dr. Pournelle often puts it: "Beware the fury of the legions."

10/22

re: "Losing a war and a peace"

UNCLE JIMBO at Blackfive ("the paratrooper of love") explained some quite simple concepts.

Money quote(s):

"We are making a deal with the Taliban, a losing one. Our Commander in Chief fundamentally misunderstands the way wars must be fought, and I am not talking about strategy or tactics. I am talking about winning or losing."

There is, for those who haven't been following along at home, quite a difference between the two, and the consequences will echo into eternity.

He goes on to admonish the president:

"You can't end wars Mr. President; They are won or lost. Afghanistan has been lost."

In all fairness, he also notes:

"I am not certain at all that the war in Afghanistan could have been won."

Not as it's been fought; it seems reasonable to question whether the proper action in Afghanistan should have been simply a punitive expedition to schwack a sufficient number of alligators, rather than attempting to drain, and subsequently gentrify, the swamp.

"We will now cede the field of battle, where so much US blood has been shed, to the enemy. And we will sue for something less than peace from the very people who hosted the planning and execution of 9/11."

I suppose the inevitable question, should this proceed as it appears envisioned, is how long before Taliban-sponsored and sheltered embark on their offensive against the U.S.

That and how much money we will pay in tribute, er, development assistance during the interim.

"It has been a long decade of war and we are all tired, none more so than the troops who have marched to the sound of gunfire over and over again. They, with the steadfast support of a real Commander in Chief George W. Bush, won the war in Iraq."

1/5

re: "Credit Where It's Due"

Spook86 at In From the Cold ("MUSINGS ON LIFE, LOVE, POLITICS, MILITARY AFFAIRS, THE MEDIA, THE INTELLIGENCE COMMUNITY AND JUST ABOUT ANYTHING ELSE THAT CAPTURES OUR INTEREST") recognized a good call by our former president.

Money quote(s):

"George W. Bush and his advisers deserve our lasting thanks for deciding to hold terror suspects at Guantanamo Bay, and conducting their trials through military tribunals, instead of a federal courtroom.

The wisdom of this approach was on display yesterday, during the arraignment of Khalid Sheik Mohammed, the mastermind of the 9-11 attacks, and two other senior Al Qaida figures. According to The New York Times (and other media accounts), the proceedings were a study in confusion and obfuscation"

Don't think the confusion, sown liberally by the defendents, wasn't intended. It's part of their playbook, after all.

"Instead of a global stage, KSM and his fellow killers will have to make due with pool coverage from a handful of reporters at Gitmo. Instead of a battery of ACLU lawyers, they have a small defense team which they may (or may not) cooperate with. And instead of a federal judge trying to ride herd over a legal circus, the Al Qaida defendants have a no-nonsense military judge, Colonel James L. Pohl.

Of course, the antics that unfolded yesterday at Gitmo were utterly predictable."

See above. Key word: playbook.

"KSM and the terrorists at Gitmo were nabbed overseas, and with their designation as combatants, military tribunals became the most viable option. The prosecution of Al Qaida terrorists at Gitmo will likely drag on for years, but without the media circus that terrorists crave and in a secure environment. Security costs for a trial in a New York federal court were pegged at $300-500 million a year, with the interruption to normal traffic and commerce costing millions more."

CAA suspects the average (i.e., non-Al Qaeda sympathizer) New Yorker would be perfectly happy to host the public execution of the defendents, so long as the whole process took-up only one business day, but the kind of media and security circus a civilian trial process would entail for them is right out.

"On the issue of trying terror suspects, Mr. Bush was correct in opting for military tribunals, and the wisdom of that approach will be affirmed in the months and years that follow."

5/6

re: "Raymond Ibrahim: The Historical Reality of the Muslim Conquests"

Raymond at Jihad Watch ("dedicated to bringing public attention to the role that jihad theology and ideology plays in the modern world, and to correcting popular misconceptions about the role of jihad and religion in modern-day conflicts") provided some historical context that contrasts with today's bland pronouncements.

Money quote(s):

"Few events of history are so well documented and attested to as are these conquests, which commenced soon after the death of the Muslim prophet Muhammad (632) and tapered off circa 750. Large swathes of the Old World—from the India in the east, to Spain in the west—were conquered and consolidated by the sword of Islam during this time.

By the standards of history, the reality of these conquests is unassailable, for history proper concerns itself with primary sources; and the Islamic conquests are thoroughly documented. More importantly, the overwhelming majority of primary source materials we rely on do not come from non-Muslims, who might be accused of bias. Rather, the foremost historians bequeathing to posterity thousands of pages of source materials documenting the Islamic conquests were not only Muslims themselves; they were—and still are—regarded by today’s Muslims as pious and trustworthy scholars (generically, the ulema)."

&

"It should be noted that contemporary non-Muslim accounts further validate the facts of the conquests. The writings of the Christian bishop of Jerusalem Sophronius (d.638), for instance, or the chronicles of the Byzantine historian Theophanes (d.758), to name a couple, make clear that Muslims conquered much of what is today called the “Muslim world.”

According to the Muslim historical tradition, the majority of non-Muslim peoples of the Old World, not desiring to submit to Islam or its laws (Sharia), fought back, though most were eventually defeated and subsumed."

What is today called the "Muslim world" was once, variously, the Roman- and Byzantine Christian Mediterranean world and the Persian empire.

"The colorful accounts contained in the Muslim tradition are typified by constant warfare, which normally goes as follows: Muslims go to a new region and offer the inhabitants three choices: 1) submit (i.e., convert) to Islam; 2) live as second-class citizens, or “dhimmis,” paying special taxes and accepting several social debilitations; 3) fight to the death.

Centuries later, and partially due to trade, Islam came to be accepted by a few periphery peoples, mostly polytheists and animists, who followed no major religion (e.g., in Indonesia, Somalia), and who currently form the outer fringes of the Islamic world.

Ironically, these exceptions are now portrayed as the rule in America’s classrooms, as many textbooks suggest or at least imply that most people who converted to Islam did so under no duress, but rather through peaceful contacts with merchants and traders; that they eagerly opted to convert to Islam for the religion’s intrinsic appeal, without noting the many debilitations conquered non-Muslims avoided—extra taxes, second-rate social status, enforced humiliation, etc.—by converting to Islam. In fact, in the first century, and due to these debilitations, many conquered peoples sought to convert to Islam only to be rebuffed by the caliphate, which preferred to keep them as subdued—and heavily taxed—subjects, not as Muslim equals."

Pillage, booty, slaves, and taxes. And all to the greater glory, &tc.

"The dissimulation of how Islam was spread in the early centuries contained in Western textbook’s mirrors the way the word jihad, once inextricable to the conquests, has also been recast. Whereas the word jihad has throughout the centuries simply meant armed warfare on behalf of Islam, in recent years, American students have been taught the Sufi interpretation of jihad—Sufis make up perhaps one percent of the Islamic world and are often seen as heretics with aberrant interpretations—which portrays jihad as a “spiritual-struggle” against one’s vices."

And yet "jihad = inner spiritual struggle" is now the textbook answer throughout the military and the IC, and said with a straight fact to boot!

To aid in the disorientation, while Pres. Bush can not be seen by the current administration to have done anything right, ever, his pronouncing that "Islam is a religion of peace" is accepted without a twitch. Weird.

"(T)he Islamic conquests narrated in the Muslim histories often mirror the doctrinal obligations laid out in Islam’s theological texts—the Koran and Hadith. Muslim historians often justify the actions of the early Islamic invaders by juxtaposing the jihad injunctions found in Islamic scriptures."

&

"In closing, the fact of the Muslim conquests, by all standards of history, is indisputable. Accordingly, just as less than impressive aspects of Western and Christian history, such as the Inquisition or conquest of the Americas, are regularly taught in U.S. textbooks, so too should the Muslim conquests be taught, without apology or fear of being politically incorrect. This is especially so because it concerns history—which has a way of repeating itself when ignored, or worse, whitewashed." (Bold typeface added for emphasis. - CAA.)

3/1

re: "The Miserable Failure's War in Libya May Result In Victory"

Ace at Ace of Spades HQ doesn't buy into the whole responsibility-t0-protect schtick, he's a bit more Jacksonian and punitive.

Money quote(s):

"The Bush model of war -- go in heavy, attempt to win the war on the backs of American (and allied) soldiers, attempt to establish a monopoly on the use of violence, and then continue that monopoly on the use of violence by acting as the nation's law enforcement/army for five, six, ten years -- doesn't work, or at least does not work at costs the American public is willing to pay.

I see no point agitating for a Full War Model against Iran, for example -- to urge such a thing is futile. I do not believe the American public has the appetite for such an endeavor. (At least-- not unless Iran uses its soon-to-be-built nukes.)

We didn't use to take care of these countries in this fashion. We used to arm and train rebels within those countries (they've all got them), fund them, provide intelligence, spread some bribe money around, and, when necessary, bring in the sort of Word of God that our air and naval forces issue from the air or sea." (Emphasis in original text. - CAA.)

Using auxilliaries is hardly a concept revolutionary in warfare, it's an economy-of-force move that makes sense for a global power concerned (as we should be) unnecessary U.S. casualties and an extended logistics chain.

"Colin Powell's ludicrous statement -- "You break it, you buy it" -- is a formula for nonstop, decades-long nation-building of exactly the same type that George W. Bush campaigned against in 2000, albeit on a much longer and much bloodier scale than we saw in, say, Haiti.
Why do we "buy" it if we break it?

Broken societies reassemble themselves. In fact, they seem to do so more quickly than people expect, even when faced with great devastation.

There is no need for American troops to hand-hold them through this process.

If a country thwarts or threatens the US enough to invite a decapitating military strike, one that takes out the ruling regime and renders the state without any force to impose order -- they broke it themselves." (Emphasis in original text. - CAA.)

And, if necessary, rinse and repeat. Sadly, we may be headed down this road whether we like it or not regarding Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya, Pakistan....

"(W)hat there won't be in the model of warfare I am endorsing is a large body of American troops in the crossfire.

Yes, our troops are the best in the world, and not just the best at destroying the enemy -- they are the best at destroying the enemy while sparing noncombatants' lives. They are the most disciplined and most precise forces the world have ever seen, in addition to being the most lethal.

So yes, the presence of our troops can in fact spare any number of noncombatants in such a bloody civil war.

But... I have to say: Who gives a shit? How many foreign citizens in an country we've gone to war with do I need to save in fair exchange for one American soldier's life?" (Emphasis in original text. - CAA.)

Ace offers his own formulas for weighting that decision. It's a smarter way to evaluate strategic options than applying some sort of body count metric later on.

"These basket-case, broken, violent rogue countries have their own growing up to do. They have to go through their own spasms. They have to shed their own blood, and inflict their own massacres.

Yes, we can spare them some of this; but why should we? Someone is going to die in a war. I nominate foreign nationals.

American troops' heavy engagement is better for all parties in a war, except for the American troops themselves, and while they might be selfless enough to nobly volunteer for such missions, I'm a little too selfish to want to use them for such purposes any longer.

In some cases, we may need to fight a WWII style total war. Fine. In all other cases, we should go back to the 70s/80s model of backing indigenous fighters with the 90s/2000s addition of devastating airstrikes."

If we're not the world's policeman (as we claim not to be), then it might behoove us to be a bit more sparing in the application of our blood and treasure abroad.

"(T)he advantage of this style of warfare is that it is politically possible, which I no longer thing the Bush style is." (Emphasis in original text. - CAA.)

The man has a point.

"We have a strong interest in disarming Iran.

Do we have that strong an interest in rebuilding it and pacifying it? No, I don't think we do."

It's a valid point of discussion, and should be discussed, rather than assuming that Iran is a likely candidate for the Grand Fenwick model.

8/18

re: "After 9/11 anniversary: the return of US diplomacy"

Nicholas Burns at the Christian Science Monitor wrote a great piece on the future of U.S. diplomacy.

Money quote(s):

"During these last 10 years, the US has fought two major land wars simultaneously. It has conducted an aggressive, controversial, and dangerous military campaign against terrorist groups from Iraq to the Afghan/Pakistan border to Somalia and Yemen. And America has transformed the way it defends itself from the terrorist threat at home and overseas.

The US has relied on the military to hit back when attacked or even threatened, to place first priority on building up defenses, and to sometimes shoot first and ask questions later. Much of this made sense in the months immediately following the shocking new threat that appeared with such sudden and terrible force in New York and Washington on September 11, 2001."

Students of strategy, grand or otherwise, already know that both military force and diplomacy are only two of the dimensions in which state (and non-state) actors operate.

DIME, anyone?

"(U)nlike the years following 9/11, the most difficult challenges ahead will require greater reliance on a combination of diplomacy and traditional statecraft and all that comes with it. That includes negotiating with odious regimes, threatening and cajoling them – but more often overcoming them through the strength of our political alliances – to get our way in the world.

This return of diplomacy to center stage in American foreign policy will take many different forms.

First, diplomacy is ascendant in the costly, ill-defined, and inconclusive wars in Iraq and Afghanistan that will end not on the battlefield but at the negotiating table. President Obama’s decision to remove combat forces in Iraq and ask the State Department to lead at the end of this year is sensible and long overdue. The US will also need to negotiate its way out of Afghanistan in the next few years as a conventional military victory there is unattainable."

Note the "conventional" qualifier on "military victory" in that last sentence. Still an arguable proposition, not quite a foregone conclusion, and there's lots of room for discussion as to what "conventional" warfare actually involves.

"This renewed commitment to diplomacy is critical for America’s national strategy. It is the most practical and effective way to coalesce with allies and friends as well as to confront foes in the decade ahead. That is why leaders in Washington should make the same commitment to rebuild the State Department as they did with the Pentagon, CIA, and Homeland Security in the years following 9/11. Congress fully funded those three pillars of national security but starved the fourth and equally important pillar – diplomats and USAID professionals."

Strangely, the fourth pillar tends to be the least expensive of them all; which is ironically one reason it's so politically easy to call for cuts in diplomacy and (because they're not actually the same thing) foreign aid budgets.

Let me walk you through that thought: not only are the dollar amounts smaller, but since they tend not to be spent in any congressmen's districts, employing more than a handful of their constituents, there's no immediate political price to be paid by any individual congress person.

It's not that U.S. diplomats and USAID staff don't vote, even when assigned overseas, but they're so relatively few, so difusely dispersed throughout the U.S., that no single politician has more than a handful in their district.

Not only that, but those deployed abroad have to cast absentee ballots, which (along with military overseas ballots) tend to get tossed out on technicalities or only counted long after the election results are actually announced.

"After 9/11, President Bush essentially put the military on the front lines of America’s international engagement all over the world, with the diplomats in reserve. The military became in the minds of politicians and in the public imagination the default choice for dealing with international problems."

And Pres. Bush was, fairly obviously, correct to have done so, disagree though you may with how he prioritized those military campaigns or implemented them.

Of course, even with the military in the forefront, there was action in most of the other dimensions of national policy, if only in support of those military efforts.

"America will face in the next few years the most dangerous and complex set of international challenges in recent memory. As it returns to diplomacy, political leaders at home must also resist the pernicious allure of isolationism so evident on the extreme right and left of the political spectrum. Americans must instead renew their global leadership role as the country moves further away from the tragedy of 9/11 and encounters the more complex times ahead."

Isolationism is a sucker's game, even for relatively insular Americans, and the voters know it. The real question is to what degree U.S. will be engaged internationally and in what arenas.

_____

Who is the writer?

"Nicholas Burns is professor of the practice of diplomacy and international politics, and director of the Future of Diplomacy Project at the Harvard Kennedy School’s Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs. He served as under secretary of State for political affairs from 2005 to 2008. Previously, he was US ambassador to NATO."

Also:

"Burns served in the United States Foreign Service for twenty-seven years until his retirement in April 2008. He was Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs from 2005 to 2008; the State Department’s third-ranking official when he led negotiations on the U.S. – India Civil Nuclear Agreement; a long-term military assistance agreement with Israel; and was the lead U.S. negotiator on Iran’s nuclear program. He was U.S. Ambassador to NATO (2001–2005) and to Greece (1997–2001) and State Department Spokesman (1995–1997). He worked for five years (1990–1995) on the National Security Council at the White House where he was Senior Director for Russia, Ukraine and Eurasia Affairs and Special Assistant to President Clinton and Director for Soviet Affairs in the Administration of President George H.W. Bush. Burns also served in the American Consulate General in Jerusalem (1985–1987) where he coordinated U.S. economic assistance to the Palestinian people in the West Bank and before that, at the American embassies in Egypt and Mauritania.

Professor Burns has received twelve honorary degrees, the Secretary of State’s Distinguished Service Award, the Woodrow Wilson Award for Public Service from the Johns Hopkins University, and the Boston College Alumni Achievement Award. He has a BA in History from Boston College (1978), an MA in International Relations from the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies (1980), and earned the Certificat Pratique de Langue Francaise at the University of Paris-Sorbonne (1977). He was a visiting Scholar at the Woodrow Wilson Center for International Scholars in summer 2008."

_____

As the Foglio's might say, he's a "schmat" guy.

9/9

re: "Simply Evil. A decade after 9/11, it remains the best description and most essential fact about al-Qaida."

Christopher Hitchens at Slate has it about right.

Money quote(s):

"The proper task of the "public intellectual" might be conceived as the responsibility to introduce complexity into the argument: the reminder that things are very infrequently as simple as they can be made to seem. But what I learned in a highly indelible manner from the events and arguments of September 2001 was this: Never, ever ignore the obvious either. To the government and most of the people of the United States, it seemed that the country on 9/11 had been attacked in a particularly odious way (air piracy used to maximize civilian casualties) by a particularly odious group (a secretive and homicidal gang: part multinational corporation, part crime family) that was sworn to a medieval cult of death, a racist hatred of Jews, a religious frenzy against Hindus, Christians, Shia Muslims, and "unbelievers," and the restoration of a long-vanished and despotic empire."

Great opening paragraph.

"That this was an assault upon our society, whatever its ostensible capitalist and militarist "targets," was again thought too obvious a point for a clever person to make. It became increasingly obvious, though, with every successive nihilistic attack on London, Madrid, Istanbul, Baghdad, and Bali. There was always some "intellectual," however, to argue in each case that the policy of Tony Blair, or George Bush, or the Spanish government, was the "root cause" of the broad-daylight slaughter of civilians. Responsibility, somehow, never lay squarely with the perpetrators."

And yet they were responsible. Making that intellectual point was, apparently, insufficiently nuanced for our "public intellectuals" to bother about considering.

"(I)t is quite probable that those who accept the conventional "narrative" are, at least globally, in a minority. It is not only in the Muslim world that it is commonplace to hear that the events of 9/11 were part of a Jewish or U.S. government plot. And it is not only on the demented fringe that such fantasies circulate in "the West." "

Oddly, while the Zionist-controlled CIA actually is supposed to have been the perpetrator, UBL and the 19 hijackers are somehow, at the same time, to be celebrated as heroes. Odd, that.

(New! Improved! Without that pesky cognitive dissonance!)

"I found myself for the first time in my life sharing the outlook of soldiers and cops, or at least of those soldiers and cops who had not (like George Tenet and most of the CIA) left us defenseless under open skies while well-known "no fly" names were allowed to pay cash for one-way tickets after having done perfunctory training at flight schools. My sympathies were wholeheartedly and unironically (and, I claim, rationally) with the forces of law and order. Second, I became heavily involved in defending my adopted country from an amazing campaign of defamation, in which large numbers of the intellectual class seemed determined at least to minimize the gravity of what had occurred, or to translate it into innocuous terms (poverty is the cause of political violence) that would leave their worldview undisturbed. "

Welcome aboard, for as long as your intellectualism permits you to stay among those more, shall we say, grounded that those who inhabit the lofty reaches of ivory towers.

"I was and remain unreconciled to the stupid, wasteful, oppressive collective punishment of Americans who try to use our civil aviation, or who want to be able to get into their own offices without showing ID to a guard who has no database against which to check it. But I had also seen Abu Ghraib shortly after it was first broken open in 2003, and could have no truck with the moral defectives who talked glibly as if that mini-Auschwitz and mass grave was no worse. When Amnesty International described Guantanamo as "the Gulag of our time," I felt a collapse of seriousness that I have felt many times since."

Not just seriousness, but credibility. Moral equivalency run amok, which is to say, taken to its unserious but logical extreme. Too busy trying to buy credibility among opposing sides, where its currency doesn't, in any case, run. It's not that AI (and other NGOs) haven't done a lot of good, or that they've stopped. It's just that they've forfeited any claim at rationality, at a sense of proportion. Which makes present and future moral claims hard to credit.

"Al-Qaida demands the impossible—worldwide application of the most fanatical interpretation of sharia—and to forward the demand employs the most hysterically irrational means. (This combination, by the way, would make a reasonable definition of "terrorism.") It follows that the resort to panicky or degrading tactics in order to combat terrorism is, as well as immoral, self-defeating.

Ten years ago I wrote to a despairing friend that a time would come when al-Qaida had been penetrated, when its own paranoia would devour it, when it had tried every tactic and failed to repeat its 9/11 coup, when it would fall victim to its own deluded worldview and—because it has no means of generating self-criticism—would begin to implode."

Implosion is the model used to explain the collapse of the USSR, so it's a handy metaphor for intellectuals to use when they want to wish away something unpleasant so that there's no need to get ones hands dirty or to put skin in the game.

"I take this as a part vindication of the superiority of "our" civilization, which is at least so constituted as to be able to learn from past mistakes, rather than remain a prisoner of "faith." "

Nailed that one. This is why I remain confident that revelation-based "faiths" like man-made global warming will be just a passing fad in the West. They too shall pass.

"(A)gainst the tendencies of euphemism and evasion, some stout simplicities deservedly remain. Among them: Holocaust denial is in fact a surreptitious form of Holocaust affirmation."

He continues:

"The regimes of Saddam Hussein and Kim Jong Il and Mahmoud Ahmadinejad fully deserve to be called "evil." And, 10 years ago in Manhattan and Washington and Shanksville, Pa., there was a direct confrontation with the totalitarian idea, expressed in its most vicious and unvarnished form. Let this and other struggles temper and strengthen us for future battles where it will be necessary to repudiate the big lie."

Remember that in Shanksville, the American ethos of doing for oneself, not waiting around for a handout, and being unwilling to go as sheep to the slaughter, ended Al-Qaeda's new secret weapon of converting our own passenger jetliners into cruise missiles. None of TSA's intrusive (and unConstitutional) searches or scans, none of the long lines or insistence on smaller-sized shampoo bottles; none of that holds a candle to the simple fact that American passengers will not permit themselves to be used in this matter. And so, since 9/11, they have not.

re: "Hussein strikes out"

Uncle Jimbo at Blackfive ("the paratrooper of love") rakes Pres. Obama over the coals.

Money quote(s) of a non-ad hominem nature:

"just how much clout the NY Times and MSNBC have in the Arab world"

Just about none. Don't believe me? Check overall literacy rates in the Arab world (litaracy in any languages, even their own), look into how often (for instance) Al Jazeera cites MSNBC, and do the math.

"because the vast majority of the Muslims.... live in tribal and honor cultures and they only respect the strong horse"

Nice placement of a UBL "strong horse" reference there.

"the hated cowboy W because say what you want about him, he would kick your ass if you crossed him"

I believe it was the Kennedy administration which followed the adage "Don't get mad, get even." Words to govern by.

re: "There never was an anti-war movement"

The Phibian at Cdr Salamander ("Proactively “From the Sea”; leveraging the littoral best practices for a paradigm breaking six-sigma best business case in the global commons, rightsizing the core values supporting our mission statement via the 5-vector model through cultural diversity.") notes the dog that fails to bark.

Money quote(s):

"(M)ost of us knew that anyway. It was an anti-Bush movement. War had nothing to do with it - it was all about the Left finding a way to regain power."

It's as if the whole circus of protests, sit-ins, demonstrations, &tc., was nothing but theater.

As someone who did not favor invading Iraq (but who followed his commander-in-chief's orders anyways), I find this particularly offensive.

(Off with their heads!)

re: "The right to be wrong, but not the right to lie"

Peter Feaver at Shadow Government ("Notes From The Loyal Opposition") walks us through the action.

Money quote(s):

"At issue is the extent to which the senior commanders endorsed the option that President Obama selected: truncating the surge and rushing the withdrawal in a fashion that interrupts the 2012 fighting season (but dove-tails with the 2012 presidential campaign season)."

The president is the commander-in-chief. He gets to decide these things and, within the legal and Constitutional limits of their oaths of office, the generals and admirals have to salute smartly and carry out his instructions.

"(T)he White House sought to depict the president's decision as one well within a range of options developed by the military."

Quite possible, depending upon the meaning of the word "within."

"(T)he option Obama picked was not on the menu. Obama's plan -- presumably the arbitrary summer 2012 deadline and perhaps also the numbers involved -- was apparently devised elsewhere, perhaps by White House advisors."

So. Perhaps "within" means something like dates-and-figures-not-matching-anything-on-the-menu-but-somewhere-inside-the-outlying-dates-and-figures.

"Hayes emphasizes that President Obama over-ruled Petraeus's advice, which is true but, as I have argued, he was well within his rights as commander-in-chief. On this, I point to no less an authority than General Petraeus himself. From a civil-military point of view, it is important to know whether or not the military refused to even present this as an option: it would have been inappropriate if they had tried to tie the hands of the president in that fashion. But if they did in fact present a range of options that included ones they thought too risky, and then President Obama chose yet another still-riskier option, that would not constitute a civil-military foul by either side. It is worth knowing whether the military endorsed the option, but that should not be viewed as the dispositive factor.

To me, the most important part of the Hayes story is that, if accurate and complete, it means the White House did not tell the truth about the military advice it received. Rather than admit that the president listened carefully to his generals and then chose something that they did not recommend, someone at the White House tried to pretend that the president simply chose among a range of options endorsed by the military. This is a subtle difference, but in civil-military terms it is a profound one. Civilians do not owe the military prerogatives over policy choices; they do owe the military a decision-making process in which the military voice can be heard and in which military views will be faithfully described to those authorized to hold the president accountable on these decisions, namely us.

If the president wants to elicit from the military an option and an endorsement of an option that the military does not initially prefer, as President Bush did with his Iraq surge, then he must engage in the lengthy back-and-forth that President Bush engaged in, cajoling the military into something resembling a consensus. The president does not have to do that -- he can simply decide, as President Obama did -- but he owes the military (and the voter) to tell the truth about what he did."

Dealing with policy-level decision-makers is touchy business, exacerbated by the tyranny of PowerPoint (TM), which can force briefers into limiting the range of options to that which can be displayed (and explained) on a single briefing slide.

I'm not actually suggesting this is what happened, but the phenomenon extends well beyond actual PowerPoint (TM) briefings as it seems to have measurably reduced the capacity for those being briefed to hold onto things like facts and figures.

"(T)he White House has just replicated the Johnson-McNamara error that was at the heart of H.R. McMaster's influential Dereliction of Duty account of the Vietnam War. Although many read McMaster's book as accusing the senior generals of dereliction for going along with Johnson's decision to escalate the war more gradually than they thought prudent, in fact McMaster's primary point was that the generals were derelict in going along with Johnson and McNamara's willful misrepresentation to Congress and the American people about the content of the military advice. What McMaster wanted the generals to do was simply tell Congress what their advice had been, correcting the record that Johnson and McNamara had muddied by pretending that their Vietnam decisions were consonant with military counsel."

Read the whole thing here.

re: "Last Men Out"

Lex at Neptunus Lex ("The unbearable lightness of Lex.") notes the difficulties of a withdrawal under fire.

Money quote(s):

"The Status of Forces agreement George Bush negotiated with the government of Iraq expires in December, in anticipation of a withdrawal of US troops. The USG has dropped heavy hints over the last six months that the Department of Defense was amenable to leaving behind some significant military forces in Iraq to safeguard the country’s borders and continue the training and logistical support of the Iraqi Army."

That's not going to be politically possible, in either the U.S. or Iraq, even if there was a will to do it in Washington. Is there?

"$120K per “friendly” tribal chief per year may be cheap against the cost of a $400K MRAP, not to mention the human cost.

But .50 cal ammunition is pretty cheap too."

_____

It seems very unlikely that a U.S. military member will be the United States' "last man out" of Iraq.

Why?

Stay tuned.

re: "President Sued For War Crime"

DMartyr at The Jawa Report ("you know, sand people") has some breaking news.

Money quote(s):

"No, the loony democrats are not suing George W. Bush for going into Iraq to kill Islamic terrorists (at least, not yet). Republican Bipartisan lawmakers are suing President Obama for illegally going to war against Libya"

I suppose they've got standing, after all, given what the Constitution actually says. It'll be quite interesting to see how this plays out in the courts.

re: "Bin there, Killed That..... "

Thanks to No Double Standards at Muttering Behind the Hardline ("Aut insanit homo, aut versus facit") for the mention.

Money quote(s):

"Consul Leslie Slote over at Consul at Arms II followed up with a "money quote" (as he calls them) that I'm pissed I never thought of myself:

Violence never settles anything except for those things that only violence will settle.

How hard does that line rock?" (Emphasis in original text. - CAA.)

"Let's get to it: let's not kid ourselves; the Mutterer is a man of principle. I've argued as loudly as anyone that we should not reciprocate the bad behavior of our enemies by compromising our core principles. But I was pretty steamed at the self-flagellating response of the Left to the glee average Americans expressed at Bin Laden's killing."

Thusly does NDS neatly encapsulate civilized modern man's dilemma: how to respond to and deter violence and aggression from barbarians without becoming one. It's a topic worthy of discussion and one, I should note, that serves as something of a self-diagnostic: if you're still asking the question, than you're not a barbarian yet.

"You have got to be kidding me. Mike Hayes over at "Googling God" actually believes that there's some sort of moral equivalency between Afghans dancing on the streets at the news of 9/11 and Americans' rejoicing at the death of Bin Laden.

Let's get something straight: there hasn't been a single misfortune that has befallen the United States that Bin Laden and his ilk didn't celebrate. Why it is I am supposed to show him some sort of deference simply by virtue of having died is beyond me."

Too right. Either UBL was an anomoly, someone who had so twisted the peaceful teachings of Mohammed that he was no longer truly Islamic, or he was a martyr to the cause, a holy man worthy of memorials and emulation. Answers to this question should be chosen carefully.

"Bin Laden and his ilk hate us for who we are, regardless of what we do. And they'll always concoct some conspiracy to explain it all away.

The mistake that the Bushies made was concluding that all Arabs view us this way.

And that is decidely not true, as the absence of a significant Islamic influence in the ongoing "Arab Spring" attests.

Good riddance, Osama Bin Laden. It may very well be that you were unarmed, that you begged for mercy, and that my countryman put a bullet in your eye, anyway.

Tough shit.

You had it coming."

I rather thought Bush (and his ilk, the "Bushies") went to considerable trouble to make it clear that they were not acting as if all Arabs viewed us with hate, that this was not a Clash of Civilizations, and that if we'd responded as if it was that would have given UBL exactly what he wanted.

But yes: UBL had it coming.

re: "An Overfilled Heart: Usages And Abusages"

Francis W. Porretto at Eternity Road is laudatory towards Mark Steyn and assesses politicians and policies.

Money quote(s):

"They who go into politics are generally persons of weak conscience. Two centuries of the demotic incentive -- the need to please 50%-plus-one to gain or retain power -- have produced a sub-race of Mankind almost completely free of moral qualms. All that matters to them in any situation that requires a decision is the utterly pragmatic determination of the currently relevant constituency: just who those 50%-plus-one are to be "this time." " (Emphasis in original. - CAA)

"It has been clear since 732 Anno Domini that the Western world, once better described as Christendom, is at war with Islam. Clear, that is, to anyone with adequate knowledge of the dictates of Islam whose intellect isn't fettered to an irrational desire to appear "tolerant" and "inclusive." "

Mr. Porretto has this precisely reversed. Islam has been at war with Christendom, indeed with all its neighbors, since its inception. (It's hardwired into the programming, after all.)

"Denunciations of the assertion that Barack Hussein Obama is a Muslim have been widespread. Suffice it to say that we'd rather not believe that 53% of American voters did such a stupid thing. And perhaps, in the sense of having disclaimed the Shahada and accepted Christian baptism, Obama is at least formally not a Muslim. However, his behavior since his inauguration to the presidency speaks otherwise. At the very least, in any clash between Muslim and non-Muslim interests or sensibilities, he prefers to take their side against ours. He's even said so, publicly."

If you're of the opinion that having a Muslim father suffices to make one a Muslim (as many do believe), then that's going to be your opinion. If you're of a more Christian mindset, you believe (as I do) that an individual's professions of faith are what matters.

(Think of it as an extension of our Constitutional principle forbidding "corruption of blood.")

He concludes:

"Ugly language can be abused -- and abusive. However, as I've written before, there are times when nothing else will suffice. If we're not at such a point today, we're awfully damned close to one.

But at the ultimate cusp, the "WTF macro" will not suffice. Present trends in mealy-mouthed, insincere international diplomacy continuing, we'll soon reach a nexus at which the options will be two: to surrender to Islam, root and branch; or to "cowboy the fuck up!" and acknowledge the true dimensions of this war. At that point, no amount of profanity, however employed, will adequately describe the horrors before us. More, the longer we take to get to that nexus, the worse the sequel will be, no matter which course we choose to follow." (Emphasis in original. - CAA)

This is indeed the quandary. Was Pres. Bush (#43) correct in directing us to painstakingly avoid the very Clash of Civilizations that UBL wished to incite? Or is such a global conflagration inevitable, with delay only increasing the bloodshed, body count, and likelihood of victory.

These are the sorts of questions that serious people should be thinking and talking about, not this ridiculous "Wiener-gate" nonsense.