Bidding Hiatus

Sadly, sometime next year my tenure as Our-Man-In-Port Plaisance must come to a conclusion as I begin the next phase of my career involving "worldwide availability."

The Foreign Service has a, er, wonderful (yes, THAT's the word!) process by which FSOs find their next job(s). And I'm in the middle of it. And since the lobbying and bidding process itself is somewhat attention intensive, I needs must let things slide a touch in the CAA wing of the manse. Elsewise I may find myself Our-Man-In-A-Yurt (or worse).

So I expect to resume posting here at CAA after the middle of October, sometime.

_____

The average FSO spends, on average, about two-thirds of his/her/its career posted abroad (or "deployed," as it is sometimes appropriately termed) and the other third in a domestic assignment, about 90 percent of which are in the Washington, D.C. metropolitan area.

Some positions are available in various other domestic locations, primarily such things as passport centers (Bureau of Consular Affairs), field and resident offices (Bureau of Diplomatic Security), or in administrative, payroll, or logistic support facilities as in Charleston, S.C., and Miami, Fl.

There are also a number of outside-the-Department training, educational, broadening, or academic fellowship opportunities in places like Capitol Hill, the various DoD colleges and universities, and some civilian universities (Princeton, GWU, &tc.).

So it's not like there aren't jobs out there, although the supply/demand can flex a bit from year to year in terms of the available jobs.

Some plum jobs I'm considering:

PAO in Absurdsvanj*
NIV Unit Chief in Krasnya**
Staff Assistant to the Special Envoy to Harzia
Commercial Officer, Al-Alemand
Consular Chief, St. Nicholas
Political Officer, Franistan
Charge d'Affaires for Equatorial Kundu
Deputy Principal Officer, Grand Fenwick
ACS Unit Chief, Port Royal***
GSO, Loompaland****
Management Officer, Lower Slobbovia
Visa Chief, Macho Grande
Economics Officer, Centralia
Protocol Officer, Ohtar
Deputy Principal Officer, APP Qwghlm*****
Motor Pool Officer, Tijata
Fraud Prevention Chief, Varina
Cultural Affairs Officer, Zamunda
Post Security Officer, Zembala

and

Deputy Chief of Mission, Flyville******

Some domestic possibilities include:

Desk Officer for Berzerkistan
Desk Officer for Ecuarico
Post Management Officer for Kinakuta
Desk Officer for Malaguay
Refugee Affairs Officer for Mypos

_____

Cheers!


_____
* PAO = Public Affairs Officer
** NIV = Non-Immigrant Visa
*** ACS = American Citizens Services
**** GSO = General Services Officer
***** APP = American Presence Post
****** Bonus points for anyone who can correctly identify the source of this name.

re: "Integration, immigration and Islam-related problems: 23 suggestions for laws"

Nicolai Sennels 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") has some legislative suggestions.

Some of them are, in not so few words, already on the books, but enforcement is either spotty or sabotaged.

Others await some distopian scenario such as envisioned in Kratman's Caliphate.

re: "Busy. Oh, But I'm Thinking A Lot About Blogging. State-Blogging, To Be Specific."

Donna at Email From The Embassy ("After three years in Beijing, we're headed to Amman, Jordan. For family and friends who want to follow our adventures, this is it...") posts some commonsensical rules for diplobloggers.

Money quote(s):

"(V)arious factions in State seems to have worked themselves into a swivet over a few of my blogging pals. What gives, State? It might be time to put some specifics in the FAM, so people know what the rules are, sort of the way we know about cost constructing travel to CONUS and applying for special needs allowances. We could use some rules! As Diplopundit pointed out today, the letter writer in this month's FSJ suggested that we all go back to writing in diaries and stuffing them under our pillows (ummm... not recommended in China, I hope!), or apply for jobs with the Huffington Post (wouldn't THAT get people's attention, if all of us State bloggers suddenly picked up that sized audience!). I get it: the writer doesn't like blogs. But to try to pretend he doesn't want to ban them outright, and then offer those flippant suggestions as replacements, is a bit disingenuous."

The aforementioned letter writer in the FSJ is a senior-ish, and well-respected, consular officer. Not yours truly, you understand: more respectable than ichmo.

"We've built this community, and we turn to each other for advice and support and laughter. (Also, pictures of nasty gigantic spiders lurking in bathtubs - you know who you are....). Many of us, myself included, started our blogs as a way to keep far-flung family members in the loop. So not only do these blogs tie us into our communities, but they help us keep our ties to our families back home. We're not going away, even if the Huffington Post does come calling."

There are several broad categories within the U.S. diploblogging "community." One of them encompasses Donna's web log; it's about family and FS life and helps keep our far-flung community a little bit more close-knit than distance used to allow. Yay technology!

Here are Donna's suggested rules:

"First: Don't Bite The Hand That Pays You. We are all of us, employees, spouses and children alike, representing the United States government every time we walk out our doors. I might be "just" a spouse with a spouse job and not much say-so in the Embassy, but when I'm here, to many of my neighbors out in the wide world, I AM the US government. So as a blogger, I am not allowed to criticize the work that the Department of State is doing, in Jordan, in the region, in the world, even. That's not my place. I won't do it at a dinner party, and I certainly won't do it on my blog. Doesn't matter what I think of our position on Palestine: if it differs from the USG-position, I can't put it on my blog. Even if it's the same as the USG-position, I'm likely going to avoid discussing it, anyway. This is a personal blog, after all, not a government-sanctioned one, so those types of discussions really don't belong here."

Some of us don't quite color within the lines on this one; I brush up against them myself quite often. But most often, I'm only reporting on what others have said and commenting thereupon.

"Second: Use the Past Tense. If you're going somewhere tonight, don't tell me about it until tomorrow. It doesn't make sense to advertise your whereabouts to complete strangers, through your blog or any other means. It's like cancelling your newspaper before you go on vacation, so no one realizes you're gone. It's just safer that way."

This is a very good and common sense suggestion that promotes operational security. Don't publish your future movements or schedule. That makes it too easy for those who may chose to do you, or your colleagues and/or loved ones, harm.

"Third: Limit the Details. I might tell you my street is narrow and crowded and full of Land Rovers, but I won't tell you if it is three streets up from the Embassy, right side, next to the Mexican restaurant. That's too much detail. I'll show you pictures of my house (assuming it's presentable), but only from the inside. You won't see the front of my house. You won't see pictures of my alarm system. You won't see any of the measures that keep me safe here at post. And speaking of pictures:"

Again, just helping make it a little more difficult for dangerous amateurs to do you harm.

"Fourth: No Pictures Without Permission. Don't post pictures of non-family members without their permission! If your colleagues don't permit you to post their pictures, don't do it. And don't post their names, either. First names, I think, are generally okay, but again, with permission! If you're not sure if they'd like it, don't put it out there."

This is also good advice for FS Facebook users.

"Fifth: No Gossip. About those colleagues: watch what you say about them. I, for one, have had the privilege of working with some smart, talented, funny people over the years. There are some seriously smart people working on your behalf at most Embassies around the world. (Also some odd ones, but hey: you'll find those strange birds in any profession. Just don't call them out on your blog!) But, really, even if what you want to say about someone is a compliment, you really ought not talk them up without permission. There are loads of people who agree with our FSJ letter writer that blogs are scary things, and you don't want to draw attention to those types of people, or to your blog, by posting details about such colleagues."

There's an "Old Army" rule about all the men being brave and all the ladies virtuous. The internet is tailor-made for spreading gossip, some of it even having a little bit of truth at the core of it. Just don't. Even if you're mad at something, or someone, that seems senseless, that's vexing you at your post, because as often as not you don't have all the facts about it anyways.

It does no one any good to post about who's incompetent or lazy, drinks too much or has an eye for the ladies (or lads). If it rises to the level of a problem, then it's the post's RSO or DCM who needs to be put into the loop, not the entire internet.

"(I)f no one will make the rules for us, maybe we need to make them ourselves. It should be basic common sense, in most cases. But your ability to blog should not and cannot depend upon the kindness of your boss. If you are following the rules, you shouldn't get slammed simply because your new boss doesn't approve of blogging. They cannot tell you that posting a picture of your baby at a doctor's appointment is a violation of your child's medical privacy rights, because that's simply not true (trust me: I asked a lawyer). But they can restrict things you want to say if those things contradict the work of the Department. Of course they can. They do it in the private sector, too."

This new media stuff is still something of a frontier, at least it is for not-new organizations like State. So diplobloggers are a sort of pioneer, which can be a good thing if handled right.

"Don't discuss policy; don't endanger yourself or others by posting details of upcoming events; don't post pictures that show the front of your house, or the school, or the car; don't talk about colleagues; don't post photos of colleagues without permission."

Nice summary and it probably belongs on the sidebar of every diploblog.

re: "Foreign Policy Technique"

Charles Crawford at Blogoir ("This website makes available to the general public interesting episodes and insights from Charles Crawford's eventful diplomatic career, and aims to explain in a open-minded, reasonable way how diplomacy works in practice.") tells you more of what you need to understand about diplomatic realities and engagement.

Money quote(s):

"Over at Commentator is my latest piece on UK engagement with Libya, in which I argue that what happened in recent years was principled, smart and mainly effective."

The following is a short passage from the longer excerpt he provided.

"there are only two basic choices available to democracies when it comes to dealing with odious regimes: Isolation, or Engagement. And that both can have perverse consequences, because it is impossible to deal with perverse regimes without some perverse outcomes"

Pithy, and to the point.

"(T)aking for granted that a 'Western' democratic system with a strong legal system is just 'better' than a cruel torturing dictatorship. What should the democracy do about the dictatorship?

One option is to do nothing. Faraway wicked foreigners oppress each other - what's new?

That option is in fact quite often used, even if there is a busy pretence of 'doing something'. Saudi Arabia is the classic example of a system which in most respects imposes odious unfair apartheid-like restrictions on its citizens, and which we studiously treat as a 'factor of stability'. Communist China used to be far worse, murdering millions. As did the USSR.

In all these cases the hard fact that these systems are powerful, ruthless and/or rich compels a certain caution. But does the fact that we 'tolerate' (say) the Saudi system demolish any claim by us to moral superiority? Double standards, they shriek.

No. Any good policy has to be realistic as well as consistent. If you can't stop all killers, it's right to stop those you can stop. To that extent there is solid intellectual and moral territory between 'double standards' and 'no standards'." (Emphasis in original text. - CAA.)

You can only do what you can do; which doesn't mean you can't do anything, just that you can't do everything.

"The default position of Western democracies these days is that change should be 'peaceful'. The implication of this position (never discussed) is that enslaved people are better off if their slave-drivers reform slavery gradually, rather than get abruptly toppled even at the cost of many human lives. Slave-drivers need dialogue! A lot of dubious moral philosophy lurking behind that proposition.

What if we think that there are possibilities for more or less peaceful change? Egypt in some ways is a good current example. NB South Africa is always presented as a triumph for peaceful change but of course wasn't.

Libya might have been too, had the Gaddafi elite not reverted to stupidity instead of using its new improved relations with Western democracies to negotiate ." (Emphasis in original text. - CAA.)

We tend to forget, at a distance of more than two centuries, just how bloody our own two revolutions (if you count the American Civil War as a second revolution, the one that liberated the rest of us) were. For the British, their bloody revolutions are even more distant, with less dramatic (to us) conclusions.

"In each individual case the options range far and wide, as does the prospect of getting allies and building successful coalitions for change.

Let's not forget too that Western political leaders' main focus is what their voters want. And voters (with rare exceptions) do not put changing the ways of revolting foreign regimes far up their priorities list. Or much taxpayers' money to be spent on the problem."

Some voters. Others are quite willing for their government to very meddlesome, with the treasure and blood coming from their fellow citizens.

"So in the real world of foreign policy it makes no sense to take a stark 'no compromise' position of substance with dictatorships. They exist, they have UN and other votes, they can export trouble, they probably have Ambassadors in London. Your aircraft may need to fly over their territory, or they may agree with you on various international technical issues. It's complicated.

You almost always end up with some form of 'engagement'. But the fact of matter-of-fact exchanges and opportunistically looking for areas to build some common ground is not the same thing as having a policy of Engagement aimed at deliberately using a range of options (openly or otherwise) to bring out reforms." (Emphasis in original text. - CAA.)

In the real world, you make compromises. You make the best ones you can, but they're still compromises. Americans were cautioned early in their history against going abroad in search of dragons needing slaying.

Which doesn't mean you don't ever take fire and branch overseas to put an end to some odious regime which takes the ill-considered trouble of making themselves your enemy, just that you don't go looking for trouble.

(Which doesn't exactly jibe with this new-fangled "responsibility to protect" doctrine begin shopped around currently.)

"My point today is simple. British foreign policy and leadership can make positive changes in unpropitious foreign situations. But simply wanting to make a difference does not get results. Making that happen requires a powerful combination of strong policy determination, operational nimbleness and fine professional technique, an area where the FCO obviously declined under Labour. Plus some money." (Emphasis in original text. - CAA.)

Airbrush out the specifically British elements in that last and you've got some bood advice worthy of wide application by a democracy seeking to use its diplomatic strengths wisely and justly.

re: "No Sh*t? US State Dept. Issues Travel Warning to .... Pakistan"

Rusty Shackleford at The Jawa Report ("Jawas? You know, sandpeople.") re-posted the entire Travel Warning, but asks:

"(W)hat I really think is on all our minds is this question: What kind of idiot takes a vacation to Pakistan, anyway?" (Bold typeface added for emphasis. - CAA.)

Just to be clear, can you imagine the kerfuffle if State didn't issue a Travel Warning for Pakistan?

re: "The Road to Serfdom View 20110707-1"

Dr. Jerry Pournelle at Chaos Manor ("This is my personal journal and day book. Subjects include civilization and technology, strategy, climate, energy policy, space access, and other issues that interest me.") is always worth reading.

Money quote(s):

"Today’s Wall Street Journal has an op ed essay called “The Road to Serfdom and the Arab Revolt” that ought to be required reading for everyone in the State Department, although I suspect that few in State read WSJ. Fouad Ajami of the Hoover Institution has a good analysis of what is going wrong in the Arab world. He also calls attention to F. A. Hayek’s The Road to Serfdom. Hayek’s 1944 masterpiece is such an essential part of any intelligent citizen’s education that I tend to forget that there are many who have not read it. If you know anyone who hasn’t, rag them until they do. It’s not a long book, and it’s not difficult reading. One key discussion in the book is “Why the worst get on top.” "

Time to buy Hayek's book; I've put it off long enough.

"FALLEN ANGELS is a science fiction adventure novel by Larry Niven, Jerry Pournelle, and Michael Flynn. Much of it is satirical but it has its serious moments. The premise is a world in which The Ice returns: a good part of Canada is under glacial sheet ice, which is moving south. There is Climate Change all right, and human actions affect it."

'Fallen Angels" is an excellent and entertaining read, although it owes just a smidgen too much to inside jokes within the science fiction fan and convention community.

re: "Osama bin Ladin's Courier Had Phone Numbers For Longtime Militant-Group Asset of Pakistani Intelligence"

Ace at Ace of Spades HQ appreciated the gravity of this news.

Money quote(s):

"The bigger the problem gets, the more intractable it gets.

Pakistan is a country of some 130 million people, many of them terrorist maniacs, and not only has nukes, but acts as a nuclear Johnny Appleseed throughout the world."

This problem hasn't gotten any smaller since this was posted in June, as Adm. Mullen's recent remarks made clear.

re: "The ‘First Fruits’ Of Our Support Of The Arab Spring Endeavor In Libya"

John Bernard, 1st Sgt. USMC (ret.), at Big Peace doubts that Libya's Arab Spring will amount to an improvement.

Money quote(s):

"(B)oth the United States and France have reached out to the Libyan National Transitional Council (NTC) and predictably, the NTC turned it’s back on those very same nations that came to their rescue.

The US State Department reached out to our “new friends” in Libya, hoping to retrieve Abdel Basset Ali al-Megrahi, the mastermind behind the 1988 Lockerbie airline bombing and the NTC said no. The no was neither tentative nor was it contingent on some prerequisite understanding or action. They said no with emphasis. The NTC spokesman said; ” [We] will not give any Libyan citizen to the West…”. So much for thanks, the spirit of cooperation, any understanding of right and wrong or any semblance of a common understanding of human rights, just; no."

Followed by a mention of disappointment regarding France's expections about Libyan oil production.

(One begins to suspect that "no blood for oil" doesn't parse well into French.)

"For those who choose to immediately dismiss these as the “growing pains” of a new regime protecting it’s interests, let me say that this continued naïveté toward the Islamic mind and their collective vision of the west and all non-compliant nations, is delusional! These are not the actions of righteous people whose vision includes a belief that all men are created equal. These are the actions of a people who deem all men are either submitted to Allah or they are not; and there are consequences for non compliance.

Naïve or not, the United States and our NATO friends, embarked on a mission to help secure freedom for the Libyan people, as though freedom is a universally understood concept. The US Constitution generally defines freedom as every individual’s God given inalienable right to self determination."

What about the Libyans' definition?

"What the Koran teaches is anathema to any constructive understanding of personal freedom. Rather it teaches submission and it’s adherents, to propagate, by the sword if necessary.

This is not a new revelation, this is an age old truth as defined in the Koran, the Hadith and the very words of the Islamic Scholars. So what continues to give hope to our western minded “leadership” that what these various rebellions are seeking is indeed, freedom? And what gives them the idea that supporting their efforts will in the end support our unilateral interests to defend these shores, and our Constitution?"

Change is not always for the better. And some do not see their interests, even while in national office, as being unilateral.

"Let me be clear; the world will be no worse off with Ghadaffi’s head on a pike but supporting a gaggle of 7th century thugs who would have Al Qaida in their number never mind in a position of leadership, will set us all back two decades."

1st Sgt Bernard is specific in just what kind of U.S. leadership there was two decades ago, and cites an example in U.S.-Libyan relations to make his point.

re: "Preparing for Defense Budget Cuts"

Herschel Smith at The Captain's Journal ("dedicated to the dissemination of conservative views, based on a solidly and consistently conservative world view, on matters political and military") ponders defense spending and America's geo-strategery.

Money quote(s):

"I have always been a proponent of wise defense spending, and cutting where there is no reasonably feasible return on investment"

Congressional pork-barrelling notwithstanding, defense spending really isn't about spending money in everyone's district, or shouldn't have been (but is).

"Defense Secretary Leon Panetta has indeed warned against sweeping defense cuts"

Note the caveats with which Mr. Hershel follows that statement.

"(I)f we fail to stop Iran’s increased hegemony in the Middle East, if we fail to prevent Iran from going nuclear, if our military power and resolve isn’t sufficient to prevent Russia from invading Georgia again, if we relinquish the Pacific to growing Chinese Naval provocations, if we fail to deal a decisive blow to the Taliban and al-Qaeda aligned fighters in the AfPak region, there will be war. Israel cannot allow Iran to develop a nuclear weapon. Eastern Europe is looking to the U.S. for direction, and our abandonment of a missile defense shield was indication that we aren’t serious about their security, much less entry into NATO. Russia is back up to their dirty tricks, and is poised to conduct yet another assault into Ossetia, and the Chinese still want Formosa."

That paragraph is a good a brief statement of America's current strategic challenges as any I have seen and is arguably better than some of the multipage national strategic papers with which the defense and intelligence communities have saddled themselves with.

"America has benefited from the defense doctrine of fighting our battles away from the homeland rather than allowing the threat to land on our own shores before we confront it. Troops are currently deployed in more than 100 countries, and while it may be a tantalizing prospect to withdraw from the entire world and focus inward, we should be careful what we advocate. It will be much more difficult to recreate that military presence and deterrent that it was to dismantle it, regardless of how much money we throw at the problems once they have become obvious.

Cuts are coming. That which cannot continue, won’t. That which cannot be sustained will fall by the wayside. The question is whether America will address the growing entitlement state, however painful, or retreat from the world, also painful, just in a completely different ways, and perhaps permanently."

Writers of speculative fiction such as John Birmingham have already started to make oodles of cash by considering just what a world without America, as a metaphor for American engagement in the world, would be like. Entertaining reading, but quite ghastly in long stretches.

re: "Nuke the News: The Only Thing Obama Stimulated Was… MURDER!"

Frank J. at IMAO ("Unfair. Unbalanced. Unmedicated.") commented on consular notification.

Money quote(s):

"Didn’t really get this whole Humberto Leal thing. If one of our citizens went to another country and raped and murdered someone, could you see America making a big stink about the guy’s rights? I mean, no one is saying the guy is innocent, but we’re supposed to care after what he’s done that he didn’t get to talk to a consulate? What was the consulate going to say to him? I hope it would be, “DON’T RAPE AND MURDER PEOPLE!” And when we see the Mexican government doing all they can to help rapists and murderers, it’s not really great PR for the country. They really want to spend more time highlighting the non-rapists and non-murderers. Still, just before dying from lethal injection, Leal shouted, “Viva Mexico!” So they won over one guy." (Bold typeface added for emphasis. - CAA.)

We have Americans in the jails of every country to which I've been posted as a foreign service officer. And, in every one of them, at least one of them was in jail for murder (if not rape).

We check on them as per the Vienna Convention on Consular Relations and we do so at least quarterly as per our own laws and regulations.

re: "NYT: We Cannot Possibly Withdraw From a War Before It Is Won Or It Might Undermine US Credibility (No Seriously, Stop Laughing)"

Ace at Ace of Spades HQ cherry-picked a great quote.

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: "Stupid Headline of the Day"

Murdoc at Murdoc Online ("This weblog is my hobby and other than income from advertising is not run for profit.") tackles the following stupid headline:

"At Auschwitz, future U.S. military leaders learn what not to do"

Money quote(s):

"Yeah. Because otherwise they would have set up concentration camps and genocided someone."

Believe or disbelieve in American exceptionalism as you like, but it takes years of "higher" education for someone to be so mired in the swamps of moral equivalency that they become this stupid.

re: "National Security Part 3: The Role Of Economics"

The Curmudgeon Emeritus at Eternity Road reviewed the economic basis for military strength.

Money quote(s):

"The last thing any commander wants to do is take his men into an unwinnable war, especially a war unwinnable by reason of inadequate material resources"

Unfortunately, wars aren't always fought by two sides which chose to go to war against each other. It only takes on side to start a war. The enemy gets a vote.

"If a commander dislikes to go to war inadequately provisioned, a national command authority -- in the case of the United States, the president -- should dislike to send him there. Yet it's in the nature of nation-states that, as John Jay said most memorably, they'll go to war whenever there's a good chance of profiting thereby."

This pre-supposes that a commander-in-chief is sufficiently knowledgable, or sufficiently well-advised, that he (or she) knows the difference. Or cares.

(Yes, I'm still pissed about the whole "the army you have" crack.)

"Economic strength is both the precondition for military readiness and the requirement for military endurance. To be considered well defended, a nation must have both.

Analysts disagree on the extent to which a nation can endure various degrees of economic militarization. In the early years of the RAND Corporation, studies were submitted to the Pentagon that proposed that the United States could divert as much as 50% of its GDP to military expenditures, if that were necessary to meet some contingency. Needless to say, there was a wide spread of opinion on whether that was true, and if so, on how long the nation could remain in being under so large a military burden."

Full mobilization is something that the U.S. has never, not really, experienced. Nothing like what various European states, such as Britain, Russia, or Germany, experienced during World War II.

"(A)nnual military expenditures come to about $700 billion: 5% of GDP. Given that the armed forces are one of the seventeen enumerated powers of Congress, that doesn't seem disproportionate, especially considering the broadening of the military's missions and responsibilities in recent years."

Ah, but what about the penumbras!

"It must be said that we spend as much as we do on our military because our "allies" spend so little on theirs. Not only are we committed to their defense; we are all too frequently called in to handle crises they have disdained to address.

Yet despite all that spending and the large, capable military it supports, we are not secure."

There's no such thing as being completley secure, at least this side of the Pearly Gates. The writer discusses some of the ways in which he believes Americans perceive themselves to be insecure, which are worth reading, particularly with regards to the problems causing, and resulting from, illegal immigration.

"(N)ational security is affected by our willingness and ability to maintain mobilization bases: facilities from which we could rapidly develop new or previously rejected military capabilities, or greatly expand the ones we have.

Mobilization bases are important because few major wars begin as "bolts from the blue." There are normally clear indications that conflict is brewing well before the first exchange of fire. That would be so even in our present age, in which the interval between a firm decision and the ballistic nuclear bombardment of any point on the globe is no more than thirty minutes."

A firm decision should be made upon a basis of firm information. More than likely somewhat longer than 30 minutes would be required to assemble, to say nothing of developing, actionable intelligence.

"(S)uch mobilization bases cost money. Worse, it's money spent to remain flexibly poised against notional threats: possibilities that might never materialize. They're the first targets of budget-cutters in a time of austerity. Thus, we cannot be sanguine about building and maintaining such bases without maintaining our economic health and vitality. Even then, it would be necessary to keep unpleasant but yet unrealized possibilities in mind when the budget-cutters come to call."

Good advice for the strategic-minded, but the strategic-minded won't be calling the shots when the knives come out for budget cutting.

"America was not altogether ready for World War II. We had reduced our World War I Army to pre-war levels, and had retreated from most aspects of military production. Fortunately, the psychological response of Americans to the attack on Pearl Harbor left us ready and willing to endure a considerable degree of privation for the sake of the forces and materiel the war would require. Above all, America was rich enough, and free enough, to convert half of its productive sector to the making of weapons of war. It is unclear that we could do that today."

I'm a bit more optimistic about our ability to convert great swaths of our productive sector to war production, but I'm less sanguine about what of our productive sector actually remains within our own borders.

re: "Obama's Afghanistan strategy and the right to be wrong"

Peter Feaver at Shadow Government ("Notes From The Loyal Opposition") considered the U.S. civil-military relationship.


Money quote(s):


"(F)rom the parochial perspective of civil-military relations theory, Obama is within his rights to make the decision in the way that he did, and so far, the senior military have behaved in an exemplary fashion."

That's a good BLUF ("bottom line up front"). Mr. Feaver then ratchets up his granularity a bit.


"(N)ot only will the coalition have fewer forces than the generals believe they require to implement the overall strategy effectively -- probably much fewer, as our allies respond to the dog whistle "retreat" sounding from the president's decision and accelerate their rush to the exits -- but those forces will be facing an enemy that has good reason to believe that time is on its side. The military brass report that the new course just might work, but it will be a very close run thing."

Nobody, least of all our allies, wants to be the last ones on the ground within a shrinking operational footprint. Still, we have the best troops in the world, capable of winning even when resourced to fail.

"Since the military logic of the move is so weak, one naturally looks for some other explanation, such as a political angle. The president's decision to interrupt next summer's fighting season makes no military sense whatsoever; better to let the troops finish the fighting season and come home in the late fall or winter. But that would be after the election. So far as I have been able to determine, that is the only explanation of the timeline that makes sense, but I am open to hearing a convincing counterargument. I am very reluctant to charge a president with elevating domestic political interests over national security ones because I remember how unfairly Democrats made that charge against President George W. Bush -- and that was on a much more flimsy evidentiary basis."

Civility. Accusing a sitting president of playing politics with U.S. soldier's lives is serious business. Sadly, better presidents than this one have done it before.

"(T)here is one aspect of the decision that is legitimate and one that may even warrant praise. The legitimate aspect is that, notwithstanding a torrent of leaks, the decision-making process seems to have conformed more or less to democratic civil-military norms. The military presented a range of options, including options that it did not want to execute; it would have been inappropriate of Gen. David Petraeus to tie Obama's hands by only providing a narrow range of options, minor variants of the military's preferred plan. He didn't do so; instead, he and the rest of the military leadership have saluted and are obeying, and such professionalism is very definitely worthy of praise. To be sure, the military gave its best personal judgment as to the risks inherent in those plans. Obama was fully aware of the military's judgment, and the public, through Congress, is also aware of that judgment. But it is the president's job to balance the risks of battlefield failure against other risks. The military gets to say this is a high-risk plan. The president gets to say that he will accept this risk and impose it on them.

Accept it and impose it he did. That has important political consequences. Before, one could say that he merely chose General Stanley McChrystal and General Petraeus's strategy. Now it is unmistakably President Obama's strategy. It is his war. But he will be ordering others to fight his war, which brings me to one bit of unfinished civil-military business."

So there's ownership of the outcome here, however it turns out. And we should all wish our commander-in-chief's plan every success in the world.

"I have been thinking of the troops that will remain. They are locked in the fight of their lives, and they (or at least their commanders) probably paid more attention to the president's speech than did most other Americans. Did the president give them a convincing rationale for continuing to risk their lives? Did he convince them that the stakes were worth it, that the prospects for lasting success good enough? Do they believe that their commander in chief is as committed to the war effort as he is asking them to be? Only when those answers are answered satisfactorily will Obama have fulfilled the dictates of democratic civil-military theory."

That's a real question asked by real troops on the ground. I know I asked it myself and, during the previous administration, I often found various civilian and military officials to be, shall we say, insufficiently serious about their commitment.

"From a civil-military perspective, the president has the right to be wrong. He might well be wrong this time, and if so, that may be evident to all by next fall. In that case, democratic theory points to the duty of others: the voters."

In the democratic model of civil-military relations, the voters get the final word on a commander-in-chief's fitness to lead the nation, to say nothing of the military. However it should never be forgotten that in other lands, at other times, a commander-in-chief's errors have been so serious as to take the civil-military relationship right out of the democratic context. The history or literary-minded will recall "It Can't Happen Here" was a warning, not a promise.

re: "We should stand up for what we believe"

Lemuel Calhoon at Hillbilly White Trash ("Commenting about politics, religion, firearms, food, Celtic music, beer, science fiction and the Asheville Vortex. Home of the Hillbilly Ecosystem.") joins others in proposing to ignore Art. VI, Sec. 3, of the U.S. Constitution.

Money quote(s):

"I think that answering those questions from a conservative perspective would help rather than hurt a candidate."

Maybe. Perhaps CAA is still hearing echoes of R.A. Heinlein's warnings against theocratic tendencies in America, a la Nehemiah Scudder. Still, the American (and Western) blindspot about religions is being exploited as a vulnerability by our enemies, both within and without. Like other Constitutional freedoms, there must be limitations (i.e., no sacrificing virgins to the volcano god, &tc.); it's can't be absolute.

"The left is attempting not so much to drive God from the public square (they don't believe in God so as far as they are concerned He isn't there to begin with) but to drive people of faith from participation in the public life of the nation. It is time that religious people fought back by openly and unapologetically acknowledging their faith."

Governmental acquiescence of kind of institutional atheism is not turning out to be any sort of improvement, since it leaves the door open for those who are willing, able, and adept at manipulating that vacuity with a stunningly ingenuous duplicity.

"Leftist elites who show their contempt for America's religious heritage are also showing their contempt for ordinary Americans. A candidate who calls the elites on that contempt will find themselves backed by a substantial majority of the American people."

Fair enough. Elitist contempt, and the counter-reacting Tea and Pirate parties here and in Europe, will contest (and settle) this divide politically.

re: "Trying to beat Palestine on a technicality"

Joshua Keating at PASSPORT ("A Blog By The Editors Of Foreign Policy") makes a crucial distinction that, in our overly legalistic and litigious society, is lost on many.

Money quote(s):

"(T)he impending U.N. General Assembly vote recognizing the Palestinian state will be illegitimate, as Palestine doesn't meet international law's minimum standards for nationhood"

That's not Mr. Keating's position, by the way; he's just re-stating another's argument.

"I don't think this is a particularly strong case for supporters of Israel to make. Montevideo is a rather quaint set of criteria with little actual relevance in the Calvinball world of contemporary sovereignty disputes. This is doubly true when it comes to U.N. recognition."

Calvinball? Rather fizbin.

"U.N. member states come into being not because they meet an objective standard for nationhood. As I've written before, if that were true, the Palestinian state would probably have been admitted long before South Sudan. Countries become member states after two-thirds of the General Assembly votes for them and the Security Council approves. It's a political process, not a legal one, and wishing it away with a technicality is unlikely to be effective." (Bold typeface added for emphasis. - CAA.)

Bear in mind also that, UN membership aside, what makes a nation-state is being a nation-state; nothing more, nothing less. Recognition by others, even the UN, is nice and all, but only dispositive if you thing the UN is some sort of world authority or something.

re: "Supreme Court Denies Stay for Mexican Convict In Texas"

TSB at The Skeptical Bureaucrat ("Giving my fellow Americans the view from my cubicle") covered some consular notification news.

Money quote(s):

"The U.S. Supreme Court tonight denied a stay of execution for that Mexican citizen who had been sitting on death row in Texas for 16 years. The court's vote was 5-4 (the usual suspects) and the majority opinion is full of strong statements"

SCOTUS, like consular officers, deals with the laws as they're written, not as they'd like them to be written. Except, of course, when they don't. But consular officers have considerably less, er, interpretive discretion.

"Nothing in the record shows that Leal ever asked for consular access, or even told the police that he was a Mexican citizen (he had lived in the U.S. - illegally - since he was two years old and represented himself as a U.S. citizen). And in any case, he made his incriminating admissions to the police before they arrested him, and therefore before they had any obligation to inform him of his right to consular assistance.

Even if Leal had had the benefit of Mexican consular access before his trial, that would not have changed the fact that he had incriminated himself, nor change any of the other evidence against him. The lack of consular access, then, was not relevant to his conviction and death sentence." (Emphasis in original text. - CAA.)

The facts as cited above make me wonder how/why this case ever made it to the SCOTUS. Who/what was pushing it upwards through the court system and to what end?

"The matter of reciprocity or Mexican retaliation against U.S. citizens is a real concern, but it is much less important than the interest Texas has in carrying out its state laws and punishing murder. The U.S. Supreme Court ruled two years ago that when adherence to a treaty such as the Vienna Convention on Consular Relations is contrary to a state statute, the President cannot override the statute unilaterally, but legislation is required. And as the Supreme Court noted tonight, Congress has not provided that legislation. The Vienna Convention, therefore, has no bearing on the case of Humberto Leal, and Texas was completely free to execute him."

Federalism rears its ugly head. Again. Federal laws don't trump state laws unless Congress specifically authorizes them to do so. So Congress has such power, but must definitely and discretely exercise it in each instance of legislation.

Good to know.

As for reciprocity, the suggestion of official Mexican retaliation against U.S. citizens is a real concern, but pre-supposes that the Mexican government actually does, or will continue to in the future, have some control over events and activities within its borders.

re: "The President Is No Churchill"

Rand Simberg at Transterrestrial Musings ("Biting Commentary about Infinity…and Beyond!") noted some language deficiencies.

Money quote(s):

"Democrats are like the French in The Simpsons, for whom “victory” isn’t in their vocabulary, unless it applies to their domestic enemies."

Exiting (i.e., "retreating") as in "exit strategy" is not "winning."

As Chas. Sheen might add: DUH!

"To these people, wars are for “ending,” not “winning.” It was something that I and others noticed in the debates in 2008, but not enough others noticed. The funny thing is, I suspect that they even realize that we notice, but they just can’t bring themselves to use the word."

This speech defect is much older than merely 2008 vintage. I believe it was Sec. Rumsfeld who had a mini-tantrum where he spelled out that what was in fact appropriate was a "victory strategy."

9/11 Memory

Ten years ago today, I was in Washington, D.C., taking a course at the Foreign Service Institute; something I had done many times prior to, and subsequently since, that day.

But on that Tuesday morning, something very different occurred. One of the FSI instructors came into the classroom and announced that a plane had hit one of the World Trade Center towers.

Being a suspicious sort, and due to the nature of the specific course I was taking, I wondered whether this was some sort of training scenario that was being run on us. I kept this thought to myself.

Sometime later, an instructer came in to the classroom to announce that a second plane had hit the World Trade Center.

At the end of that particular class component, we were given a break. One of the things about working for the State Department is that your employer actively enables those of its employees who are news junkies. That enabling tendancy manifests itself, in this instance, by the phenomenon that there are televisions mounted in various public spaces within FSI where people congregate between classes or during lunch breaks.

So it quickly became clear that this was not a training scenario.

By training and inclination, I holds to the dictum that “once is accident or happenstance, twice is coincidence, but three times is enemy action.”

My professional history with State had, up to that fateful day, made me very familiar with the those who sought to attack U.S. diplomats overseas and how the Department works to made that more difficult. I’d studied the nature of our attackers, how they’d attacked us in the past, and what the gruesome consequences of those attacks had been. I knew, for instance, that while the single greatest cause of injury in explosive attacks on office buildings was due to flying glass, the greatest killer was catestrophic structural collapse. So it was with a sinking feeling that, as the towers collapsed upon themselves one after another and I looked around at my colleagues at FSI, I thought “Welcome to my world.”

While many lives were ended or altered that day, and the course of United States’ history changed, the world itself didn’t change, only the awareness of Americans themselves. And even that awareness has proven impermanent, as I feared it would nearly from the day of 9/11 itself.

Over a million U.S. service members have, in the decade since 9/11, deployed to combat zones around the world as part of the America’s response, the inelegantly named Global War on Terror. Thousands of them have died as a result of that combat and tens of thousands wounded. Barrels of ink and trainloads of paper have been expended in efforts to make sense of what often seems senseless. Whole academic and media careers have been launched and wrecked in a rolling series of intellectual fads that have their genesis in 9/11.

This past week, this past month, readers of national security media have seen many articles where some very good questions have been asked. Where were you on that day? Are you safer today? Who is winning this war?

While I’ve answered the first of those questions and I’d have to say that the second two questions remain open to debate. Osama Bin Laden is dead. Saddam Hussein no longer rules Iraq and its security services no longer provide support to terrorist organizations. The Taliban’s rule was overthrown and Al-Qaeda denied Afghanistan as a base of operations.

Other developments may prove to be harbingers of progress or setback. The “Arab Spring” threatens or has overthrown longterm dictatorships in Tunesia, Egypt, Libya, and Syria, while their successor regimes may prove to be even more problematic for civilization. South Sudan gained its independence from the vicious wannabe “Arab” Khartoum government, but the fate of non-Arabs in Darfur, Abyei, and Nubia remains in doubt. Iran’s carnival show of nuclear proliferation continues and Israel’s neighbors carry out a pantomime of peaceful intentions while enabling terrorist attacks on civilian targets.

So forgive me if I don’t think anything is over or won or lost. Not yet. The outcomes of all these trends and struggles remains very much in doubt, not least of which those which directly involve the United States.

The war on the United States is not yet over, but all we have to do is not lose. Really. It’s that simple. Our enemies lose if we don’t. And as others have said, the important thing is that we not lose our nerve. Don’t go wobbly. Keep focused on what’s important and what we’re about. That’s not to say that we shouldn’t be smart about how and where we spend our money. The arsenal of democracy’s shelves will become bare and empty awfully fast if those who beat plowshares into swords aren’t paid on time and in cash. Oh, and we still need plowshares.

So take today and remember our dead, from 9/11 and the battles ever since. Remember why they died and who killed them. Remember who celebrated those deaths and who still takes comfort and joy from our sorrow. Rededicate yourself to the battles not yet fought. Never forget. Never forgive.

re: "CAYMAN ISLANDS UPDATE"

Glenn Reynolds at Instapundit ("the intersection between advanced technologies and individual liberty") reports on the spillover of Jamaican criminality into the Caymans.

Money quote(s):

"(T)here’s no question that crime — once almost nonexistent — is worse. The Islands’ strict gun-control policy doesn’t seem to be keeping guns out of the hands of the criminal element, either, which should come as no surprise, of course. . . ."

Last I'd heard, people didn't even have locks on the doors of their homes on Grand Cayman. So even a slight increase in violent crime is going cause a more severe ripple effect there than it would elsewhere.

Prior to independence, the Caymans and Jamaica were a single colonial entity. The Caymans somehow managed to be retained as a British overseas territory (or whatever they call it) and Jamaica went right into decades of non-aligned socialist independence and decline.

re: "The ICTY Manhunt Ends"

Charles Crawford at Blogoir ("interesting episodes and insights from Charles Crawford's eventful diplomatic career, and aims to explain in a open-minded, reasonable way how diplomacy works in practice") takes us from the general to the middling specific.

Money quote(s):

"In most if not all situations there is a spectrum of policy outcome options, ranging from Utterly Awful to Deliriously Wonderful. Politicians and officials know that they really don't want the former and are unlikely to get the latter, so they settle for a range of options somewhere in the middle.

The thing to understand is that within that range of options (which usually is all about balancing risks and short-term v longer-term likely upsides/downsides of different choices) reasonable people might disagree on where the 'right' choice is, but also agree that another point in that range is in itself a reasonable choice, all things considered." (Emphasis in original text. - CAA.)

Politics, it is said, is the art of the possible. I first remember reading that in Heinlein's "Podkayne of Mars." The definition goes double for diplomacy.

"Anyway, all ICTY indictees have been taken to The Hague to face justice. The whole process has been staggeringly expensive and in many ways deeply unsatisfactory.

Yet through ICTY the facts of the former Yugoslavia conflict have been aired and argued about in stunning detail. If anything the unfairness of the process lies in the fact that it was too narrow: many senior Bosniacs and Croats with a case to answer - including Izetbegovic and Tudjman themselves - were never called upon to explain themselves and answer serious accusations against them.

Still. Rough justice better than no justice?"

Yes. Still, another Briton (than the good Amb. Crawford) once said: "Justice delayed, is justice denied."

re: "SCOTUS to POTUS: You're Not Very Good At This Whole Law Thing, Are You?"

Gabriel Malor at Ace of Spades HQ commented on a consular notification case.

Money quote(s):

"A child rapist/murderer and the President teamed up last week to ask the Supreme Court to stay the rapist/murderer's execution in Texas so that Congress could have time to consider legislation that would invalidate the murderer's conviction. (As if that would ever pass Congress.) They believe that international law was violated because the criminal was not advised of his right to contact the Mexican consulate when he was arrested. You see, the criminal is an alien."

Nice summary of the facts in order of their importance.

It's also difficult to notify the consulate of someone, and illegal alien for instance, who doesn't tell you (or denies) that they're not a U.S. citizen.

"(L)ast year, in a separate case, the Supreme Court ruled that, while international law is violated when an alien isn't advised of this treaty right to contact his consulate, domestic law is just honkey-dory with it because Congress never implemented the treaty. So that guy was executed. Since then, Congress has done nothing to implement the treaty."

Three. Co-Equal. Branches. Of. Government.

Got that part? None of the three branches possesses the divine right of kingship. They each have their roles and missions.

re: "Hillary Clinton Questions Congress’s Patriotism Over Libya"

Jeff Emanuel at Redstate didn't think much of the secstate's question either.

Money quote(s):

"As the two houses of Congress debate resolutions that run the gamut from authorizing and limiting President Obama’s Libya action to defunding the Libya war altogether, and as the NATO begins to complement its ineffectiveness with internal discord, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton is questioning her former legislative colleagues’ patriotism.

“Who’s side are you on?” she demanded today, lashing out at Congress while on an official visit to Jamaica"

Read the whole thing here.

re: "CHANGE: It's getting much more difficult to join, or stay in, the U.S. Army."

Glenn Reynolds at Instapundit ("the intersection between advanced technologies and individual liberty") notes an unsurprising development.

The U.S. military is an "up or out" hierarchy. Has been for decades. The "Qualitative Retention Program" (i.e., how we decide who gets kicked out) has been on the books forever. It's how often that it actually gets exercised that varies.

re: "House Human Rights Committee Considers Christian Genocide in Sudan"

George McGraw at Big Peace gives a clear picture of ethnic cleansing.

Money quote(s):

"The Nuba people of Sudan’s Southern Kardofan region are being systematically exterminated in the midst of a developing genocide described as “the world’s next Rwanda.” "

These are the people from whom the region gets its traditional name of Nubia. Their culture predates that of the arabicized Sudanese muslims who dominate Sudan.

"Sudanese military forces under the command of President Omar Al Bashir are targeting civilians – particularly women and children – with both ground and air assaults in an effort to eradicate the Christian and ethnic Nuba populations. The move also aims to diminish capacity and support for the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement (SPLM), which has taken up arms in opposition to the violence."

Nothing surprising in any of that. It's how they roll. The SAF and Pres. Bashir can be relied upon, always, to oppress, massacre, or marginalize any of their fellow citizens who won't pretend they're Arabs.

"On June 5th Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) began the aerial bombardment of civilian targets followed by the house-to-house mass extermination of Christians, Nubans and SPLM by Sudan’s Popular Defense Force (PDF) – described by some as the “Al Qaeda of Sudan.” "

The SPLM (a.k.a. the SPLA or even SPLM/A) now has its own country, South Sudan. However there are plenty of its supporters north of the (mostly undefined) border in Sudan. Pres. Bashir clearly aims to change the facts on the ground to make that no longer the case.

"Egyptian peacekeepers stationed outside of the state capital (Kadugli) allowed government forces to enter the their base and separate Nubans and SPLM supporters from other civilians seeking shelter there. Sudanese forces then murdered them outside of the mission’s gates."

Anybody reading the news out of Cairo these days? Anybody going to be surprised at this behavior. Why wouldn't the Egyptian army allow their Sudanese brethren access to the UN compound and the civilians there?

"(T)he escalation in violence is directly linked to the disputed gubernatorial appointment of Ahmed Haroun, who like Bashir, is wanted for war crimes in Darfur by the International Criminal Court. In a recent open letter to the UN, Bishop Elnail recently declared that, “once again, we are facing the nightmare of genocide of our people in a final attempt to erase our culture and society from the face of the earth.” For his part, Mr. Phillips estimated that one half of the Nuban population has been exterminated by Northern military leaders since the 1980s."

The good bishop has this exactly right. This is genocide aimed at ethnic cleansing of what remains of Sudan. If you don't match Pres. Bashir's template of constitutes one of his true countrymen, then your life and livelihood is forfeit.

"As strafing and high-altitude bombing drive civilians into nearby caves, important agricultural plots have been left untended. Widespread food shortage and infrastructural destruction, coupled with mass internal displacement, are expected to contribute to a humanitarian emergency that Mr. Phillips characterized as “slow motion genocide by design.” "

It's a good plan, if ethnic cleansing is your goal. As things get worse, some will become refugees headed to South Sudan (a state without much in the way of resources themselves) to either die en route or become a burden to their neighbors.

"If nothing is done, violence in Southern Kardofan threatens to destabilize recent political independence in neighboring Southern Sudan, drawing it back into a state of active conflict with the North."

Unfortunately, this place is just so remote and there is so little U.S. interest (since U.S. oil companies pulled out decades ago) there that it's a miracle that the U.S. (and others) were able to get South Sudan pulled out of Sudan to begin with. There are going to be borders, and central governments dominated by ethno-religious politics are going to pursue policies of ethno-religious cleansing. And unless the "international community" is willing to "cowboy up" and do something about it, it's going to happen without much being done about it other than providing aid to the survivors.

Frankly, sometimes all that can be done is to bear witness. Not necessarily in silence, but take note nonetheless. And recall the Kennedy administration's admonition to "don't get mad, get even."

(There are some minor concrete things that should, quietly, be happening behind the scenes. Like making note of who the Egyptian peacekeepers, and their commanders, are, and making sure that none of them ever get a dime of U.S. military aid or training again, to say nothing of U.S. visas.. Blacklisting them from participation in future UN peacekeeping activities would seem too obvious to mention, but probably has to be. Having them court-martialed and hanged would be too much to hope for, I fear.)

re: "Whittaker Chambers, Communism, and Islam (Edited & Updated)"

Andrew at Andrew Bostom ("Uncreated, Uncreative Words") had a great essay you should read.

re: "Hillary Clinton to Libya skeptics: ‘Whose side are you on?’"

Bryan Preston at The PJ Tatler ("To pull off the disguises of cunning, vanity, and affectation.") has some criticism of our secstate.


Money quote(s):


"(T)he Secretary of State is asking Congress, which is mostly just trying to remind the administration that it doesn’t have imperial powers to go to war whenever and wherever it feels like and no matter the cost or implications to national security, “Whose side are you on?” Way to bring people together, top diplomat!"

Politics ain't bean-bag. And this is/was politics.

_____

Hat tip to Glenn Reynolds at Instapundit ("the intersection between advanced technologies and individual liberty").

re: "Ambassadors for Atlantis"

Andrew Stuttaford at The Corner ("a web-leading source of real-time conservative opinion") relays a story that all diplomats should become familiar with.

What were the "Ambassadors for Atlantis":

"That’s the evocative term used in this post by Edward Lucas on the Economist’s Eastern Approaches blog to describe those exiled Baltic diplomats who flew the flag for their countries’ independendence throughout the long Soviet occupation"

Money quote:

"Sometimes, justice prevails."

From about 1933 until the end of the Cold War, there are some shining exemplars of diplomats and consuls who should be held as role models and heroes for the rest of us latecomers. The surviving diplomatic corps of the Baltic states provided a significant slice of them.

re: "Aircraft Carrier: Chinese Territory In Any Sea"

Michael Mandaville at Big Peace explains why this is important.

Money quote(s):

"The socialist People’s Republic of China is expanding its influence by refurbishing the Varyag, a Soviet era aircraft carrier, renaming it the Shi Lang. The carrier is expected to start sea trials later this year. An aircraft carrier is a strategy to project power far from the homeland. The mere presence of an aircraft carrier has far-reaching effects in the realpolitik between nations. To defend Taiwan, the United States sent aircraft carriers between the island nation and Communist China to warn against aggression. When finished, the Shi Lang is expected to be a formidable presence, especially when combined with other combatants into an anticipated Carrier Battle Group."

Wait a minute! Isn't the Varyag supposed to be converted into a casino? Wasn't that what the end-user certificate said? How in the world were we ever fooled like this by our strategic partners, the Chinese?

"The carrier’s loaded displacement (weight) of 67,000 tons will enable it to host as many as 50 aircraft.

The Chinese Navy has a roughly 75 surface combatants, 60 submarines, more than 50 medium and large amphibious ships, 70 or more missile boats and several hundred patrol craft. The surface combatant contingent primarily consists of Destroyers and Frigates. Most are the Chinese produced Luda or Luhai class with four Russian Sovremmony class destroyers. The frigates, which are smaller but capable ships, are the Jiangwhei and the Jianghu class. These ships are not as advanced as the American Aegis class cruisers but they are stepping stones to more far reaching naval ambitions."

As our navy shrinks, to the point where we have more admirals that ships, the People's Liberation Army (PLA) Navy grows, ship by ship and capability by capability.

"In 2006, a Chinese submarine stalked an American Carrier. The Chinese Song-class diesel-powered attack submarine trailed the Kitty Hawk battle group which has cruisers, submarines and helicopter anti-submarine detection capability. Undetected, the Song class surfaced within five miles of the carrier – well within the firing range of their Russian wake-homing torpedoes and their anti-ship cruise missiles. The incident proved a keen embarrassment for Admiral Fallon who heads U.S. Forces in the Pacific and has aggressively engaged the Chinese military with exchanges and even invitations to sensitive U.S. military bases. The Chinese have not reciprocated with similar invitations to their military bases, perhaps proving that an American open hand offered in friendship merely shows its Communist adversaries that it holds no weapon. The Song class captain would not have shadowed and embarrassed the U.S. Carrier Battle Group without permission from China’s masters. They did so to prove American vulnerabilities – and perhaps the mettle of their own submarine fleet against the vaunted U.S. Navy. Moments like this allow the PLAN’s leaders to request bigger budgets and prestige within the Communist hierarchy. Now it is they who are confronting the Americans in ‘their’ Pacific ocean."

Can't find fault with that analysis. Keep reading:

"The Chinese have been visiting ports far and wide, including the Gulf of Aden, the Phillipines and even battling Somali pirates on patrol. They are upgrading the carrier for ‘research and training’ purposes according to an article in the Washington Times. The Chinese have been struggling to create a navy beyond their coastal force over the last few decades."

China has been more than a regional naval power in the past, but you have to go back some few centuries to see it. In living memory it just hasn't happened.

This time around they're the new guys on the global block and have something of a learning curve ahead to master all the interolocking and moving pieces that come together to generate naval force projectiong. But they've gotten started.

"I discovered the demographics intertwined with economics driving the Chinese goal. With a burgeoning population and more than 100 million unemployed, the Communist Party must keep the economy pumping. If not, then social unrest results. For the last four or five years, this social unrest has been percolating and popping across China. The corrupt Communist party officials have routinely ignored the people and the people’s democracy. The PRC has routinely used its security forces to slam down hard on political and economic grievances."

Demographics and economics are the corpses at the banquet for China. China must keep its economy growing even as its population ages and tens of millions of young Chinese males grow to an adulthood where there are no young Chinese women for them to marry. In the short run this means ensuring access to overseas resources (i.e., open sea lanes) no subject to any other nation's interference. In the long run there may be no easy answers.

"Riots and bombings, more common in the rural area, have moved into the cities. These acts don’t directly threaten the Socialist Dictatorship, but they do alarm the Communist hierarchy which uses ’social management’ like internet censorship and police presence to neutralize any threats. And these are not just a few incidents. When China does something, the word ‘big’ almost always enters the picture."

So they're like Texas that way.

"To keep their economy going, China needs resources and oil. This strategy is in line with their overall quest to extend Chinese PLAN (People’s Liberation Army Navy) influence well beyond their traditional coastal defense imperative. Oil lies in the disputed islands of the South China Sea and vast natural gas reserves lie under the Senkaku Islands controlled by Japan but disputed by Chinese nationalists encouraged by Beijing. Influence. Energy. Territory. The only direction for them to go is outward. And the next logical step is the 4.5 sovereign acres of national territory that can move anywhere. An Aircraft Carrier."

An aircraft carrier battle group is the platform for sea-based force projection centered from anywhere you're able to sail it. It's like having your own fortified, nuclear-capable mobile island.