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September 30, 2006
Lyre, Lyre, Pants on Fire!
And the party won't be belated: today is my third son's 6th birthday. Happy birthday, Griffin.
Citing Mother Nature for Polluting the Environment
Does a bear shit in the woods? Why, yes, yes it does. With Mother Nature unable to meet clean water standards, one has to wonder whether the problem might just be with the standards themselves, at this point.
Never fear: Al Gore is protecting us! Or lining his pockets on the backs of hysteria which, coincidentally, happens to work to his political benefit. Either way, he's on the job!
UPDATE: I wish I had seen this first.
September 29, 2006
Target! Tank: 8600 meters. Sabot.
There are five basic classifications of weapons: melee weapons, missile weapons, mines, chemical weapons and nuclear weapons. A melee weapon is a sword, knife, club or similar instrument that does its damage by being bashed against the enemy, pushed into him, or some similar manner of employment. Missile weapons are weapons that throw some object away from the launcher, and do their damage when (if) that object hits its target. For the purposes of what I want to talk about the rest of the types are academic.
Missile weapons themselves can be operated in two distinct modes: direct fire and indirect fire. Direct fire means that you see your target, adjust for distance (a projectile falls due to gravity as it travels from its launcher) and other factors (some modern systems adjust for humidity and reported cross-winds half-way to the target!), and fire a projectile at that target. The principle is the same for bow and arrow, rifle and bullet, or cannon and shell. Today, of course, computers do much of the work for tank guns and artillery, such that a modern American tank can reliably hit targets with one shot at 4000 meters. (Which is why our invasions of Iraq and Kuwait were so seemingly easy: the enemy was destroyed before he could come within his own 2000 or so meter effective range.)
Indirect fire, on the other hand, is a mathematical game. Rather than taking an enemy and putting your gunsight on him, you determine where the enemy is in relation to you, do some math, and fire a shell along a parabolic arc which (hopefully) intersects that point. For that reason, you can shoot at targets 20-50 miles away with artillery (and anywhere in the world with large missiles) with a pretty good chance of hitting the enemy. Modern guided (usually GPS or laser) artillery shells have an excellent chance of hitting the target with one or two shots at 30 or more miles, if there is a person near enough to observe the target.
The primary difference between direct and indirect fire is simply that of seeing the enemy. Because a tanker or infantryman sees the enemy, he can choose his own targets. Because artillerymen cannot see the enemy, their fires have to be directed by observers who can see the target. But the US has just changed the equation in a fundamental way: the US has introduced a tank shell that has scored a kill at 8600 meters!
In other words, US tanks equipped with the MRM can now offer direct fire on targets that it cannot observe directly, giving the benefits of direct fire (pick an enemy and kill him without outside assistance) and indirect fire (range and difficulty, to the enemy, of returning fire or defending themselves) in one platform.
This is as much of an advance over WWII as WWII was over the US Civil War. In other words, once this is in full-scale use, there is not a conventional army in the world, regardless of size that can expect to win against the US Army. Which means we had better get very, very good at counter-guerilla work, because we're going to be seeing a lot more of it in the future, at least until we have an adversary rich enough and sophisticated enough to keep up, should that ever again happen.
September 26, 2006
Clinton's Outburst
I don't have much to say about Clinton's outburst on Fox News. Others have covered in far more detail how many lies and omissions were in Clinton's short interview, as well as the kind of political machinations that Clinton is so prone to. But there is something that I haven't seen: a look at what Clinton's outburst reveals — or rather, how it reinforces what we already know — about his character.
Bill Clinton (and yes, Hillary, too) is what Southerners call "white trash." He is not much more than the trailer park slut who gets pregnant at 15, or the poor guy who beats his wife because he can't ever manage to get ahead (or to care enough to change his own self-destructive behaviors), or the fat old slob bemoaning that the world finds them unattractive. Clinton has managed to cover it well, most of the time, because he is very charismatic and very intelligent. Which just goes to show that you can be intelligent and a great fool. Clinton is a great fool, on many levels. Clinton is also amoral, and a habitual liar. Worse yet, he is the kind of habitual liar who blames all of his failures on the machinations of others, and accepts no responsibility for his own behavior.
Bill Clinton is the only argument that I have ever seen in favor of term limits that have made me think there might be a point to that position, after all. My great fear is that enough people have managed to bury his and Hillary's lack of character in their disused memories, and that that forgetfulness will allow Hillary to become President. The gods forbid such a pestilence on our great nation.
If I sound disgusted, it's because I am.
Posted by jeff at 5:50 PM | Comments (4) | TrackBackSeptember 25, 2006
Wonderful Irony
Something occurred to me tonight: the reason we are so dependent on oil today might very well be because of early Progressives. In the late 1800s and early 1900s, the Progressives were on an anti-trust bender. I've always looked at this as a generally good thing, because it broke up a lot of monopolies, which tend to be very destructive.
But tonight I was thinking in a longer time frame. While the monopolies are very destructive in the short term, in the long term, don't they just spawn unorthodox competition? After all, if you look at Microsoft's rather blatant destruction of any and all competition, its eventual outcome was the open source movement, typified by operating systems like Linux and applications like Apache. Open source is largely immune to Microsoft's bullying tactics, and that has given many other companies (not least of them being Apple) a lot of breathing room that they didn't have before. Now you can compete with Microsoft without being crushed; that was not true in the 1990s.
So might it not also be true that, had Standard Oil not been broken up under anti-trust laws, that some very unexpected opposition would have arisen, giving both new options for those who wished to avoid using Standard Oil's monopoly product, and those wishing to compete with Standard Oil? And might it be that we would have been off of any serious dependency on oil by the end of the 1930s? And if so, aren't Progressives to a large degree responsible for the situation they now so decry, our dependence on oil from the Middle East to maintain our economies?
Well, at the very least, I think it's fair to say that free markets produce better solutions than government regulation, though they are sometimes slower than government regulation.
September 24, 2006
A Weekend of Scouting
I have been recruited into being the assistant cubmaster (and next year the cubmaster) for Cub Scout Pack 69 in Waterford. (With Connor and Aidan in scouts, and Griffin to join next year, it's kind of a natural fit to be involved in my sons' lives.) So today was leadership training: 6 hours. Tomorrow Connor is going to be in a program at a local park that does three Webelos badges in one day: another 6 hours. Then there is the pack meeting on Tuesday, and next weekend is the pack leaders' meeting, and really I think that scouts might very well become my entire social life for the next few years. That's not a complaint: it's a lot of fun.
September 20, 2006
The Song That Never Ends
The amount of blatant fakery in news lately — staged photographs, altered photographs, invented sources, invented documents and the like — has gotten me to the point where now I can not trust the news any more than I can trust random anonymous commenters on the web. I figured I'd keep a catalog of such fakery that I run across, so that when I say things like "the media lies", I'd have a quick place to point people when they say "prove it". Feel free to contribute examples you've found. I'll bump and update as I find new instances.
This is the song that never ends
Yes, it goes on and on, my friends
Some people started singing it not knowing what it was,
And they'll continue singing it forever just because —
This is the song that never ends
Yes, it goes on and on my friends
Some people started singing it not knowing what it was,
And they'll continue singing it forever just because —
In case they disappear from the web, the story links, in order, are:
Reuters publishes doctored photographs (fauxtographs?) of Israeli actions during the war in Lebanon, 2006.
Staged photographs from Reuters, AP and AFP of alleged child victims of Israeli attack on Qana, Lebanon, 2006.
NBC fakes footage of GM pickup truck with "sidesaddle" fuel tanks exploding. NBC had planted rockets underneath the truck to make it explode. 1993
CBS presents faked memos critical of President Bush's National Guard service, apparently in an effort to influence the upcoming 2004 presidential election.
"Pallywood", a documentary showing how Palestinians staged shots (including fake injuries and fake combat) and their use on CBS' 60 Minutes. Pallywood was made in 2005, but includes footage going back many years prior.
The Guardian cites section of Iraqi penal code as allowing anyone to kill homosexuals as an "honor killing", when the cited section actually is about depriving someone of their rights as a trustee of an estate. There is no apparent part of the Iraqi criminal code that allows killing of homosexuals or honor killings. This is an apparent attempt to make the Iraqi government look bad. 2006
Salon.com attempts to make it appear that President Bush skipped a National Guard physical because he was afraid of testing positive for drugs, quoting a non-existent regulation. 2004
The widely-quoted official from the Nixon and Reagan administrations, George Harleigh, doesn't apparently exist, and all links lead back to one source: Capitol Hill Blue. 2006
A veritable catalog of Reuters fakery — in categories! — from the Lebanon war of 2006, including some of the above-noted incidences as well as staged photographs with a wedding dress, other staged photographs with kids' toys, other staged photographs with people feigning death, and still more staged photos of people in front of various scenes of destruction (including one woman who appears to have spontaneously adopted the same pose on the loss of about six of her houses).
Eason Jordan admits shilling for Saddam Hussein, including just reprinting Iraqi propaganda, in order to maintain their Baghdad bureau. 2003
Jayson Blair exposed as having invented numerous reports for the New York Times. 2003
Journalist, having admitted in 2003 making up a story, lambastes blogs in 2006 for questioning the credibility of the media. In the process, the article that he wrote admitting making up a story is mysteriously edited.
AP story on speech given by SecDef Donald Rumsfeld repeatedly puts words in Rumsfeld's mouth, including words that could not be taken as a wild paraphrase, but which are quoted as if they were said in precisely those words. This is more subtle than most of the incidents of bad reporting that I am showing here, which means that it is also almost certainly more common. Essentially, the speech that is being reported on is not the one that was given, in any meaningful sense. 2006
An AP reporter, according to translated Iraqi documents, spied for Saddam against the inspectors looking for Iraqi WMD programs. 2000
Time's chief correspondent in South Vietnam during the Vietnam war was a Communist spy. His press credentials gave him access to US military bases and background briefings. 1960s and early 1970s
Chavez Who?
Here's the thing about rants like Chavez' UN spew: it's just the squeaking of the impotent, inconsequential and unimportant looking for a little attention. He wants to feel big. It's kind of like my four year old when he's really tired and wants to get his way: he cannot get it by persuasion or moral force, so he lies on the floor kicking and screaming. But of course, Chavez is all grown up, on the outside. Which just takes us back to impotent, inconsequential and unimportant.
UPDATE: And I gotta love the idea of Noam Chomsky "loving" America like an abusive husband "loves" his wife. He had to beat her up: it's for her own good.
September 19, 2006
Beating. Head. Against. Wall.
I need to have an "Idiots" category. Gregg Easterbrook would be a many-times-featured recipient of the "honor." For his latest mind-numbingly dense emission, go here, search down to "bummer edition", and read that section. If you drink into a comatose stupor first, you might avoid blindness or weeping. (thanks??? for the tip to the Jawa Report)
Once you've recovered, marvel that Easterbrook is a reporter, and for that reason alone, many people will take what he says seriously, will not stop to count the number of inaccuracies, will not notice the hyperbole, will not realize that his IQ must be hovering around 80.
Which, now that I think about it, explains why he covers the sports beat.
And as my darling wife notes: "Writing it is one thing; the editor letting it through is another. That's the whole point of editors." Clearly, my wife doesn't watch the news enough to separate theory from reality in journalism.
For reference, because news sites expire their content quickly, here is that section in all its garish, pitiable "glory":
Cosmic Thoughts -- Bummer Edition: Recently, I was creeped out by this supernova. Detected Feb. 18 by Swift, a satellite launched to look for gamma-ray bursts, the exploding star already was the 24th supernova discovered at that early point in 2006. As instruments improve, exploding stars appear more common than cosmologists had expected, and that's not the best news we might have heard. Coded GRB 060218, this star detonation began as a gamma-ray burst that lasted 33 minutes -- absolutely stunning because previous gamma-ray bursts from space have lasted a few seconds at the most. The gamma rays came from 470 million light-years away. That was discomfiting because strong gamma-ray bursts usually emanate from what astronomers call the "deep field," billions of light-years distant and thus billions of years back in the past. A distance of 470 million light-years means the GRB 060218 supernova happened 470 million years ago. That is ancient by human reckoning, but many cosmologists had been assuming the kind of extremely massive detonations thought to cause strong gamma-ray busts occurred only in the misty eons immediately after the Big Bang. The working assumption was that since life appeared on Earth, there had been no stellar mega-explosion. Now we know there has.For several days as the giant dying star GRB 060218 collapsed, this single supernova shined brighter than all 100 billion other suns in its galaxy combined. The detonation was so inexpressibly luminous that, though 470 million light-years distant, it could be seen by telescopes on Earth. And not just fancy telescopes at the tops of mountains: A few days after the Swift satellite detected the gamma-ray surge, an amateur astronomer in the Netherlands sighted the forming supernova through a backyard telescope. The stellar coordinates hit the Web -- it was at RA: 03:21:39.71 Dec: +16:52:02.6 -- and soon amateur astronomers the world over were marveling at the glistening beacon from the cosmic past. This explosion released so much energy that it happened 470 million years ago yet the light could travel for that protracted period, plus pass through the gas and dust of roughly a hundred galaxies along the way, and still illuminate mirrors of backyard telescopes on Earth.Now here's what creeped me out: had GRB 060218 happened in our galaxy, life on Earth would have ended Feb. 18.Gamma rays are a deadly form of radiation. Routine gamma-ray bursts course through the Milky Way, our galaxy, all the time, and the threat from them appears small. Recently Krzysztof Stanek, a professor of astronomy at Ohio State and one of the hot names in astronomy -- reader Jim Yrkoski of Warsaw, Poland, notes I missed one "z" in Stanek's name the last time I cited him -- calculates that a regular supernova causing a routine gamma-ray burst would need to detonate within about 3,000 light-years of Earth to expose our world to enough radiation to cause a calamity. Only a small portion of the Milky Way, and none of the larger universe beyond, is within 3,000 light-years of our world.This does not rule out "nearby" gamma-ray bursts as causes of past extinctions. About 340,000 years ago, a supernova called Geminga exploded 180 light-years from Earth, which is much too close. Calculations suggest Geminga was bright enough to rival the full moon; our Homo erectus ancestors must have looked up on it in wonder. The Geminga supernova is believed to have blown off much of the ozone layer, exposing Earth to solar and cosmic radiation that killed many mammals, including many of those ancestors. Another supernova, Vela, about 1,500 light-years away, detonated 11,300 years ago. About the same time, several large mammals of North America and Eurasia fell extinct: among them, the woolly mammoth, the giant sloth and the glyptodon, an armadillo larger than a bear. There's a lively archeological debate about whether these extinctions were triggered by climate change or by people armed with new hunting tools such as bow and arrow. Maybe the extinctions were caused by the supernova bathing Earth in gamma rays. At any rate, Vela and Geminga were normal supernovas that caused relatively mild gamma bombardments lasting just seconds. If a 33-minute, incredibly powerful gamma-ray burst similar to the one associated with GRB 060218 happened anywhere in the Milky Way or any nearby galaxy, Earth would be sterilized; any life that might exist on other planets in our galaxy and nearby galaxies also would end. Most likely, the gamma radiation from GRB 060218 ended all life in numerous galaxies near the explosion. After GRB 060218, a team of astronomers led by Andrew Fruchter of the Space Telescope Science Institute calculated that the class of extremely massive blue star that caused this mega-supernova probably is not found in the Milky Way. That's some consolation. But February's ultimate supernova tells us nature has a doomsday weapon -- and that creeps me out.Interstellar bonus: The Swift satellite has a marketing slogan
Posted by jeff at 9:26 PM | Comments (3) | TrackBack
Full of Crap
Hossain Derakshan opines
that Iran should develop nuclear weapons:
[E]ven if Iran becomes the most peaceful, secular and progressive, yet still independent state on the planet, the U.S. would be unable to tolerate it. The U.S. would seek new excuses to topple Iran's government and install their favorite instead.
Quick: name the last secular democracy that the US invaded.
For this reason, I believe Iran needs to produce nuclear weapons as a defensive mechanism, to deter the U.S. today and the ever-expanding and equally energy-hungry China tomorrow.
Here's the thing: if Iran were a secular and progressive country, I would have no objection to them developing nuclear weapons. I don't mind Israel, India or (formerly) South Africa having nuclear weapons. I wouldn't mind Taiwan or Japan or South Korea or Australia or Brazil having nuclear weapons. I only mind Pakistan having nuclear weapons because they are so politically unstable, and I only mind China having nuclear weapons because I am unsure of their insularity. As long as China doesn't attack its neighbors, I have little problem with China having nuclear weapons at all. I only have problems with Russia having nuclear weapons because they don't have a very good nuclear safety record, and I worry that they will lose a few to terrorists who are more concerned with getting the weapons than the Russians are with keeping them from being taken.
I worry about North Korea having nuclear weapons, and would worry more if I were more confident that the North Korean weapons work, or if I didn't feel that we could engineer North Korea's fall (and are trying to) via financial and political pressure. I worry enough about that that I would be willing to declare an embargo against anything coming out of North Korea by land, sea, or air and would be willing to go to war to enforce it, because North Korea is not beyond selling a nuclear weapon to terrorists in the way that Kos is not beyond attacking President Bush for any failing, real or imagined.
But Iran is an expansionist theocracy which has been attacking the US, overtly and covertly, for 27 years, and which is fighting an undeclared low-level war against the US in Iraq as we speak, and which recently fought (undeclared) against Israel alongside Hizb'allah, and which is otherwise acting inimically to US interests immediately, and to my personal interests (to the extent they diverge from US interests) over the long term. So I don't just worry about Iran having nuclear weapons: I find the prospect unacceptable.
(hat tip: Glenn Reynolds)
September 17, 2006
Customer Disservice
The Internet is platform-neutral by design. That means that any application and any computer type that speaks the correct protocol should be able to talk to any other computer type and application using that protocol. For example, my Macintosh running Safari, Internet Explorer or Firefox should be able to talk to XM Radio's account management site running who-cares-what web server. But that is not possible, because some moron who programmed XM's site put in a check for the browser type, and won't let you connect to the site unless you are running a "supported" browser. These include IE, Netscape and AOL. But even IE on the mac (though it fits the version requirement of > 5.01) does not work. So it's apparent that XM's website is looking for the platform along with the browser name and version. I guarantee that I would never hire the person who made that decision to build a website.
This would not be a problem if XM did not charge more for using their phone service.
I know one thing: our investment in hardware for XM is relatively small, and I'll be looking very closely at Sirius the next time I buy a satellite radio.
September 14, 2006
Best One-Question Poll Ever
On which is a better predictor of outcomes, at crosstabs.
Say Again?
What does Keith Olbermann want the President to do, run New York City's Port Authority, too? (hat tip: The Jawa Report)
Ann Richards
Ann Richards, former governor of Texas, has died after a short battle with cancer. Although I would not have voted for her in a national office, I actually did vote for her over George Bush for a second term as Texas governor. Richards was a funny, no-nonsense Texan with an attitude appropriately sized for the state, and most of the time (when she wasn't playing partisan) a class act. Goodbye, Governor, and bright blessings.
September 13, 2006
Seventeen Words
In an offhand comment, in seventeen words, Wretchard managed to say what I've spend perhaps a few thouseand words in a dozen posts, as recently as yesterday, trying to say: "[T]he prospect of asymmetric warfare becoming symmetric that is the principal danger in the war on terror." At the point where we see Westerners adopting the enemy's organization, we will know our governments have failed to protect us. At the point where we see Westerners adopting the enemy's organization, we will know our civilization has failed to balance survival and liberalism.
September 12, 2006
Essentially Perfect
Every once in a while, a blog post comes along where you just have to say "yup" and move along. It's just so well reasoned, so well written, that there's nothing to add.
Posted by jeff at 11:50 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBackWhy I am not a Libertarian
I am not a Libertarian, though I am a libertarian. The primary reason I am not a Libertarian is this mindset.
Consider just this one point: Mueller neglects to consider that one reason that there may not have been attacks in the US on the scale of 9/11 is that we responded in force to 9/11. Indeed, he even notes that "the number of Americans killed within the United States by international terrorists in the five years since 9/11 is the same as the number killed in the five years before: zero" and that "they do not seem to have become more capable generally since 9/11", but fails to attribute this to anything other than al Qaeda supposedly being over-hyped as a threat.
No, also consider a second point. Here is Mueller:
Even if [terrorists] were able to pull off "another 9/11" every three months for the next five years, the chance an individual American would be killed in one of them would still be two one-hundredths of one percent.
Not quite. The chances of someone in Andalusia, Alabama dying in a terrorist attack would be essentially zero, while the chances of someone in New York dying in a terrorist attack would be near certainty. Lying with statistics does not add to Mueller's credibility.
The problem with Libertarians as a party is that they are fanatical purists — mostly ivory-tower academics and drug-fiends who like the "we'll let you smoke anything" plank of the party — and over the long-run can only retain the loyalty of people too out of touch with reality to consider the implications of their proposals. And frankly, that's a shame, because the libertarian ideal could use a good party to champion it. In fact, it could use every party championing it.
Global Warming
James Lovelock, the creator of the Gaia hypothesis, had an interview where he said something that sums up the reasoning for my position on global warming:
The human species has been on the planet for a million years now. We’ve gone through seven major climatic changes that are equivalent to this. The ice ages were shifts in climate comparable with this one that’s coming. And we’ve survived.That series of glaciations and interglacials put the pressures on us to select the kind of human that could adapt. And we’re the progeny of them. And we’re just up against a new and different stress. Maybe we’ll come out better.
But he takes a different position from this than I do. Lovelock's position is that global warming is a very serious problem that is going to essentially leave the tropics uninhabitable, and therefore we need to take immediate action to prevent global warming.
I find it hard to see the overwhelming, unquestionable evidence that keeps being asserted, but never really demonstrated, for global warming being primarily due to man-made causes. I am not yet even convinced that we are in a long-term warming trend. Our knowledge of past climate changes is very incomplete. I find the arrogance of those who claim absolute knowlege on this subject quite unappealing.
As a result of my skepticism, I think we would be better off focusing our attention on technologies and methods of living that would adapt our lives to a warmer climate, rather than spending it all on "solutions" to a problem that we might not be able to solve, and that might not even exist. If the Earth is in fact in a long-term warming trend, and if that trend will result in a significantly warmer climate, then working on adaptive technologies will help us to avoid inconveniences that would cause. (Forget the hype, mankind has, as Lovelock points out, thrived in much warmer climates than currently exist, and we did it with far fewer technological aids.) If the Earth is not in a long-term warming trend, such technology developments will still undoubtedly have benefits; the knowlege gained, for example, could be applicable to space settlement or to adapting to climate cooling if that process happens. (And a new ice age is hardly beyond the realm of the possible.)
In short, we would be far better off learning to adapt to climate change than trying to avoid impacting the climate. That said, more nuclear power would be a good idea, for other reasons.
Armies of Davids
If the Army of Davids thesis is true, and I believe it is, there are some things we should be seeing happen as a natural consequence. In particular, there are two types of NGOs we should be seeing form. The first type is organizations formed around the idea of nourishing Westernization and modernization in the Arab world, and the second type amounts to vigilante groups (operating internally in the West) and private armies (operating externally to the West).
Organizations intending to nourish Westernization and modernization in the Arab world (and probably in Africa and possibly elsewhere) would essentially be a private effort to "shrink the Gap." Such organizations would probably initially consist of providing security for Western firms or local people trying to do things like building a modern economy (banks, factories, and so on) or culture (schools, churches, and so on). They would almost certainly evolve into bringing in additional investments and programs. This would actually cause a huge amount of disruption, because it would bring massive cultural change to areas not noted for their tolerance to cultural change. On the other hand, governments like those of Iran, Iraq, and possibly Jordan would welcome the idea of having stronger economies, and would likely be at least somewhat willing to take the short-term rise in violence for the long-term rise in economic activity.
Organizations built around a more aggressive model of confronting Islam would likely take two forms, and might take a third. One form would essentially be vigilantes, working domestically to uncover jihadis and Islamists, with the intent being anything from pressuring authorities to arrest and charge such people, to trying to drive them out. This type of group would form if people felt endangered by the Muslims in their community, and didn't feel that the police could or would protect them. Something like this,
but with a different objective.
The second type would be private armies, operating abroad to kill or capture enemies where the government could not or would not. This could be something like the Abraham Lincoln Brigade of the Spanish Civil War, with people volunteering in nations at risk, or it could be something more like WWII's USFIP. Such an organization might adopt the structural organization of guerilla (and terrorist) groups: small cells operating independently. It might instead operate more like a brigade, operating as a large unit with detachable parts. Much about its structure would depend on whether it were operating under legal sanction (such as by obtaining a letter of reprisal) or were extra-legal.
The really scary form, that hopefully will not come about, is the organization that adopts the terrorists structure and methods to "terrorize the terrorists". There is some evidence that such a group might be forming in Britain.
I think that seeing organizations like the hospitallers, but non-religious, is a good thing, as it would lead in the long term to a more tolerant society, as well as making business and social changes safer in the interim (though likely with a lot of fighting, but now on both sides instead of only the enemies' side). If vigilante organizations form, it will be because of a lack of confidence in the government's ability or willingness to enforce the law, which would be a bad thing (though the groups themselves would not necessarily be a bad thing). If private armies form to operate in areas where the government can't or won't go, that would be a good thing, as long as they didn't turn into terrorists themselves, in that it would remove sanctuaries the enemy currently enjoys.
The question I have is, which of these groups are already forming, somewhere out of sight?
Political Scorecard
A recent comment annoyed me, and being annoyed, I decided to list out my political positions. Being a geek, I decided to score them. (OK, the comment was recent at the time, but then I forgot to publish the entry. It's still relevant, so here it is.) So here's how this works: I list an issue, my position on that issue, the importance of that issue to me, the positions of various political parties, how well their positions agree with mine, and how they score on that issue.
My importance scale is:
0 — This issue is of no consequence whatsoever in policy terms. Not only will I put out any effort (other than occasional rhetoric) to get my positions passed, but if their antithesis passes instead, I won't much care.
1 — I care about this, at least theoretically, and it would effect my voting and political donation patterns.
2 — I care about this quite a bit, and it would strongly effect my voting and political donation patterns. Alternately, this would be a 3 if the issue were to seriously come up as a policy differentiator, but in reality it's only going to come up around the margins, rather than challenging the core of the issue.
3 — I care about this so deeply that it could be the sole determinant of my vote. In fact, if moves far enough away on enough of these issues, it would be sufficient to push me to emigration or rebellion.
A party's agreement with me is scored as follows:
0 — Their policy position is essentially or actually antithetical to mine. Discussion is meaningless because no compromise position can be reached. A pox on them!
1 — Their policy position is strongly opposed to mine, but there are points for discussion, which could lead to them seeing things my way.
2 — Their policy position matches mine closely enough that I am not unduly concerned about them getting their way.
3 — They agree with me completely, showing their great wisdom and deep understanding of the issue.
A party's score, then, is the product of the importance of the issue to me and their agreement with me on the issue. I couldn't figure out how to put this into a readable table, so I settled instead for a series of tables.
The War
| Person | Position | Importance | Agreement | Score |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Me | Fight aggressively at home and abroad: no quarter given, because none will be given us. At the same time, let's not try to kill all 1.2 billion Muslims or do to Islam what Rome did to Carthage. The point is to remove the threats of jihadi terrorism and of nuclear weapons in the hands of unstable regimes. We need to dramatically expand the military, perhaps even back to Cold War levels, because we could be fighting Iran, Syria and potentially Saudi Arabia, and at the same time we will need to maintain the ability to defend Taiwan should China decide to attack. | 3 | ||
| Democrats | "The war is largely a matter of police work and intelligence in the US, combined with cooperation with our allies abroad. By understanding the root causes of terrorism, such as poverty and corruption and inefficient social services, we can work to end terrorism. We should vigorously pursue the terrorists in Afghanistan. We should not attack sovereign countries without the agreement of the UN and involvement by pretty much all of our allies. In particular, we should work with our allies to diplomatically resolve any crises arising from a rogue nation developing nuclear weapons.
If a Democrat is President, though, we'll act just like the Republicans are now. (Witness our bellicosity in 1998.)" | 1 | 3 | |
| Republicans | We should vigorously pursue the war at home and abroad, and should ensure that Americans are not attacked in the US ever again. If that means attacking nations that support terrorism, or are in the process of developing nuclear weapons and are a potential threat to the US, then we should destroy those nations with our allies if possible, and without them if necessary. All Muslims are not the enemy; Islam is not the enemy; the jihadis are the enemy. We believe that the key to eliminating terrorism is eliminating the failure of the Arab/Muslim nations that has caused frustration to boil over into terrorism. | 2 | 6 | |
| Libertarians | We should treat the "war" as a police issue at home, and should not fight abroad. | 0 | 0 |
The Economy
| Person | Position | Importance | Agreement | Score |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Me | The economy is largely the domain of private individuals. Government's role should be limited to the actions of the Federal Reserve in setting money supply and interest rates. By and large, it's a good idea for the government to not interfere, but it is also necessary to recognize that moderate interference in the economy (such as spending more in a recession or using tax policy to encourage some actions and discourage others) can have a salutary effect on increasing prosperity and, in particular, on decreasing immiseration. | 2 | ||
| Democrats | The economy is almost entirely the responsibility of the Federal government, and should be regulated to produce fairness and eliminate poverty, even if that means confiscatory taxation, massive wealth transfer and/or forcing businesses to adopt socially progressive policies. | 1 | 2 | |
| Republicans | The economy is almost entirely the responsibility of the Federal government in cooperation with corporations and small businesses, and should be regulated to reduce income inequalities and poverty, even if that means high taxation, massive wealth transfer and/or forcing businesses to adopt policies convenient to Republicans politically. | 1 | 2 | |
| Libertarians | The economy is entirely the domain of private individuals. Period. Well, OK, the government can mint money, but that's it. | 2 | 4 |
Drugs
| Person | Position | Importance | Agreement | Score |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Me | The government has no business regulating what products or substances people can purchase or use. In attempts to regulate drugs, for example, the Federal government generally strays into tyranny, such as no-knock warrants and long prison terms and regulation of funds transfers abroad. | 1 | ||
| Democrats | Drugs should be legal. But to the extent that they're not, it's important that the issue be manipulated for Democratic political advantage, for example by painting Rush Limbaugh as a hypocritical drug addicted fascist. | 2 | 2 | |
| Republicans | Drugs should be illegal. Anything we have to do to keep them that way is just fine. | 0 | 0 | |
| Libertarians | The government has no business regulating what products or substances people can purchase or use. In attempts to regulate drugs, for example, the Federal government generally strays into tyranny, such as no-knock warrants and long prison terms and regulation of funds transfers abroad. Besides, we really, really want to light up, man. | 3 | 3 |
Taxation
| Person | Position | Importance | Agreement | Score |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Me | Obviously, taxes are necessary to run the government: it's not and should not be a business. Income taxes are particularly a problem, for two reasons: progressive taxation punishes economic advancement, leading to less of it; and the side-requirements to enforce income taxation, such as looking through your bank accounts without a warrant and preventing large money transfers abroad, lead the government to behave tyranically. We would be better off with a flat tax, and even better off with a consumption tax (in either case, with a significant up-front exemption to protect the truly impoverished). | 3 | ||
| Democrats | Taxes are good. Income taxes are especially good, and the more progressive they are the better. The more taxation the better, because the government can then efficiently make decisions about who should have what amount of money, ensuring fairness by reducing the incomes of high earners to raise the incomes of low earners. Besides, we have a lot of special interests to buy off. | 0 | 0 | |
| Republicans | Taxes are good, but they need to be lower than they are now. In fact, it might even be wise to look at things like a flat tax or a consumption task. But don't look too closely, because we have a lot of special interests to buy off. | 1 | 3 | |
| Libertarians | Taxes are evil. If we can't have an anarchy, the government should be restricted to funding itself through user fees and import duties. | 2 | 6 |
Health Care
| Person | Position | Importance | Agreement | Score |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Me | It's none of the government's business. Providing the indigent with free health care, and the poor with subsidized health care, is a good idea for policy reasons, but other than that the government should stay out of it. Giving a tax credit to everyone for health care is OK, but giving a tax credit just to businesses leads to all kinds of problems. | 1 | ||
| Democrats | Nationalized health care is best. If we can't have that, we'll settle for excessive regulation. | 0 | 0 | |
| Republicans | Giving tax credits to businesses is best. And massive, massive wealth transfers is also good, because it buys votes. | 0 | 0 | |
| Libertarians | It's none of the government's business. | 3 | 3 |
Energy Policy
| Person | Position | Importance | Agreement | Score |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Me | We shouldn't have one. It's not the government's job to decide what forms of energy to use, or how to get them: let the market handle that. | 1 | ||
| Democrats | It's the government's job to specify what energy sources we use, who can use them, how much, what they will cost and so on. | 0 | 0 | |
| Republicans | I suppose an energy policy would be a good idea. Absent that, why don't we just drill everywhere for oil and call it an energy policy. | 1 | 1 | |
| Libertarians | We shouldn't have one. | 3 | 3 |
The Environment
| Person | Position | Importance | Agreement | Score |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Me | Don't soil your nest. The government should get involved only in so far as it is necessary to prevent you from soiling my nest. | 2 | ||
| Democrats | It's the government's job to specify how everything will be done that might effect the environment. Including breathing and the allowed percentage of methane in cow farts. | 0 | 0 | |
| Republicans | A clean environment is good. But not at the expense of prosperity. | 2 | 4 | |
| Libertarians | Why is the government at all involved in this, again? | 2 | 4 |
Immigration
| Person | Position | Importance | Agreement | Score |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Me | Legal immigration should be easy. Illegal immigration should be hard. | 2 | ||
| Democrats | Illegal immigration should be easy. Legal immigration should be heavily bureaucratic and time-consuming. | 2 | 4 | |
| Republicans | Legal immigration should be hard. Illegal immigration should be hard, but we're really not going to put any effort into it. | 2 | 4 | |
| Libertarians | Immigration should be pretty much completely uncontrolled. | 1 | 2 |
Freedom of and From Religion
| Person | Position | Importance | Agreement | Score |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Me | Both. | 3 | ||
| Democrats | From, certainly. | 2 | 6 | |
| Republicans | Of, certainly. | 2 | 6 | |
| Libertarians | Both. | 3 | 9 |
Freedom of Expression
| Person | Position | Importance | Agreement | Score |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Me | Yes. | 3 | ||
| Democrats | Mostly. | 2 | 6 | |
| Republicans | Mostly. | 2 | 6 | |
| Libertarians | Yes. | 3 | 9 |
Freedom of Peacable Assembly and of Association
| Person | Position | Importance | Agreement | Score |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Me | Yes | 3 | ||
| Democrats | Yes, for individuals. No, for groups or businesses; the government has to regulate membership and customer practices to protect minorities. | 2 | 6 | |
| Republicans | Yes | 3 | 9 | |
| Libertarians | Yes | 3 | 9 |
Right to Keep and Bear Arms
| Person | Position | Importance | Agreement | Score |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Me | Yes. Except for area weapons (nuclear, chemical, biological, perhaps FAEs or cluster bombs). | 3 | ||
| Democrats | Not so much, no. | 0 | 0 | |
| Republicans | Personal arms, yes, but not crew-served weapons or vessels or aircraft or armored vehicles with weapons. | 2 | 6 | |
| Libertarians | Yes. | 3 | 9 |
Freedom From Unreasonable Searches and Seizures
| Person | Position | Importance | Agreement | Score |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Me | Yes | 3 | ||
| Democrats | Yes, if the Republicans are in office. | 1 | 3 | |
| Republicans | Yes, if the Democrats are in office. | 1 | 3 | |
| Libertarians | Yes | 3 | 9 |
Eminent Domain
| Person | Position | Importance | Agreement | Score |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Me | The government has no business taking private property. For practical reasons, like the ability to have roads, there will from time to time need to be exceptions, but these should meet stringent tests of need and be accompanied by excessive compensation, because you're not just taking someone's property, you're forcing them to change their lives in the process. | 3 | ||
| Democrats | Not so much, no. | 0 | 0 | |
| Republicans | Mostly. | 2 | 6 | |
| Libertarians | Eminent domain is an abomination. Better to have no roads at all. | 2 | 6 |
Law Enforcement
| Person | Position | Importance | Agreement | Score |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Me | It's important to have a small number of well-defined laws, and enforce them vigorously (particularly criminal law). The rights of defendants must be protected completely, while also ensuring that justice is served, rather than technicalities (like whether two pages are stapled or paper-clipped together). | 3 | ||
| Democrats | The law should more or less be enforced, particularly those laws that disproportionately target Republicans. | 1 | 3 | |
| Republicans | The law should more or less be enforced, particularly criminal and drug laws. White collar crimes, not so much. Defendants currently get way too many protections, though. | 1 | 3 | |
| Libertarians | What very few laws should exist should be vigorously enforced, preferably by private citizens. | 3 | 9 |
Torture
| Person | Position | Importance | Agreement | Score |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Me | We should not torture people. However, harsh, even humiliating, treatment of captured enemies is not the same thing as torture. | 2 | ||
| Democrats | We should not torture people. "Torture" includes anything from playing loud music or making people cold on up. Unless Democrats are in office. | 1 | 2 | |
| Republicans | We should not torture people. "Torture" and "people" are up for definitional debate. Unless Republicans are in office. | 2 | 4 | |
| Libertarians | We should not torture people. | 3 | 6 |
Federalism
| Person | Position | Importance | Agreement | Score |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Me | I'm for it. | 3 | ||
| Democrats | We're against it. | 0 | 0 | |
| Republicans | We're against it. | 0 | 0 | |
| Libertarians | We're for it. | 3 | 9 |
Gay Marriage
| Person | Position | Importance | Agreement | Score |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Me | Fine, if you want to. | 0 | ||
| Democrats | Yes, and we'll do anything we can to make it stick. | 2 | 0 | |
| Republicans | We're against it. | 0 | 0 | |
| Libertarians | Fine, if you want to. | 3 | 0 |
Abortion
| Person | Position | Importance | Agreement | Score |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Me | Bad idea. Getting the government involved would be a worse idea. | 0 | ||
| Democrats | Abortion is good for womyn and children. No, really! | 0 | 0 | |
| Republicans | We're against it. You should be against it, too. By law. | 0 | 0 | |
| Libertarians | Why is this a political issue again? | 3 | 0 |
Now, I picked those issues because they are important to me, or because they were on my mind. If you want me to address other issues, or if you disagree with my characterizations (not my ratings: that's not your place), let me know, and I'll be glad to update. This is kind of fun, actually.
OK, and here are the results:
Of a maximum possible 123 points, given my importance ranking, the Democrats get 37 (about 30%), the Republicans 63 (about 51%), and the Libertarians get 100 (about 81%). So, if I agree so much with the Libertarians, why am I ruling them out? Well, as long as we're at war, the government is not our most dangerous enemy, so the Libertarians are out of the running, because they flunk on the war and do best on issues that, if we lose the war, they will have little chance of implementing anyway. (If the Libertarians would change their position on the war, I'd start voting for them again: I don't vote "strategically", which is little more than accepting second best in voting.)
This is pretty skewed by the choice of issues, because I put the basic freedom issues in there, where the Libertarians pretty much clean up from my point of view. A longer list of issues would moderate the list somewhat, and change the percentages. In particular, most of the issues where I would disagree with the Libertarians aren't in this list; on the other hand, they aren't there because they aren't a big deal to me (or because I didn't think about them), rather than because I'm trying to inflate Libertarian numbers. For an example of how this changes nothing, see the last two issues (abortion and gay marriage).
Also, some of the issues are really big, like the economy, while others (like energy policy) are really small. Some way of chunking up the issues better would probably be a good idea. But then I'd have to think, and it's late already.
How do you Achieve Something?
When I read posts like this (also found here, with more intelligent comments), I wonder how people who could write such a thing ever achieve any goal they set. In my world, you set a goal, along with a cost you are willing to pay to attain that goal; formulate a strategy to attain the goal, complete with some set of observable metrics that tell you whether you are progressing towards attaining the goal; design a plan to implement the strategy, complete with alternatives and options that would be invoked based on the situation as it changes; and set about performing the tasks called for by the plan. Mike Reynolds' ('sideways') world does not appear to work that way, and some of the comments on the Donklephant post indicate that there are some whose worlds are even more divergent from mine.
Let's take the specific incident that Reynolds writes about: Pakistan's recent agreement to withdraw from tribal areas. Reynolds, like Roggio (the link in the last sentence), has a very pessimistic take on this, most prominently indicated by his title: "Did We Just Lose?" (I am cautiously hopeful.) Another indicator of deep pessimism is this:
Our goal was to deny Al Qaeda a safe haven in the near east. If this deal is what it looks like, we appear to have failed.If this deal is what it looks like, we aren’t even back at square one: we’re wishing we could get back to square one.
In fact, if this deal is what it looks like, we just lost a war.
Um, OK, let's take it from the top. The President set the national goal for the war on September 20, 2001:
Our war on terror begins with al Qaeda, but it does not end there. It will not end until every terrorist group of global reach has been found, stopped and defeated. ... [T]he only way to defeat terrorism as a threat to our way of life is to stop it, eliminate it, and destroy it where it grows.
In the same speech, the President began to lay out the strategy he would follow:
We will direct every resource at our command -- every means of diplomacy, every tool of intelligence, every instrument of law enforcement, every financial influence, and every necessary weapon of war -- to the disruption and to the defeat of the global terror network.This war will not be like the war against Iraq a decade ago, with a decisive liberation of territory and a swift conclusion. It will not look like the air war above Kosovo two years ago, where no ground troops were used and not a single American was lost in combat.
Our response involves far more than instant retaliation and isolated strikes. Americans should not expect one battle, but a lengthy campaign, unlike any other we have ever seen. It may include dramatic strikes, visible on TV, and covert operations, secret even in success. We will starve terrorists of funding, turn them one against another, drive them from place to place, until there is no refuge or no rest. And we will pursue nations that provide aid or safe haven to terrorism. Every nation, in every region, now has a decision to make. Either you are with us, or you are with the terrorists. From this day forward, any nation that continues to harbor or support terrorism will be regarded by the United States as a hostile regime.
[snip]
We will come together to improve air safety, to dramatically expand the number of air marshals on domestic flights, and take new measures to prevent hijacking. We will come together to promote stability and keep our airlines flying, with direct assistance during this emergency.
We will come together to give law enforcement the additional tools it needs to track down terror here at home. We will come together to strengthen our intelligence capabilities to know the plans of terrorists before they act, and find them before they strike.
We will come together to take active steps that strengthen America's economy, and put our people back to work.
The strategy was made very explicit in 2002. Obviously, two parts of the plan were to eliminate the enemy's safe haven in Afghanistan, and to eliminate a major sponsor of terrorism in Iraq. Both of these have been done.
So if Reynolds' and Roggio's most profound fears are true, and the enemy acquires a new sanctuary, a more difficult sanctuary for us to attack than was Afghanistan (and now would be the time to remind everyone that most people who knew anything about Afghanistan thought that the enemy's Afghan sanctuary was more or less immune to serious attack), does this mean that we have lost the war, that our goals are unattainable? Hardly. Indeed, such an outcome, while a setback, would not even mean that our strategy was obviously wrong. It might merely indicate that Michael Ledeen's constant refrain, "faster please," should get more attention than it has heretofore. It might indicate that our strategy needs to be compressed in time, or that we need to modify or even completely rethink our strategy. It does not mean that we have lost.
But there is another side to this as well. What if this development opens the way for US troops to go into Waziristan and fight the enemy directly, with the enemy having no border as easy to hide behind as they do between Afghanistan and Pakistan? What if this development means that the tribal leaders are going to stop their cross-border raids and kick out the terrorists? What if this development is a way for Musharraf, knowing the agreement will be violated, to develop a domestic political consensus to commit real force to the area for the first time? Would this then even be a setback, in retrospect?
Unfortunately, we have developed a serious analysis problem. Our communications are so fast that we get almost instant news of what happens in even the remotest corners of the globe. But we only get that news, generally, if it is in the interest of mainstream journalists to provide it, and when they do, they often get the whole point so completely wrong that the information that is communicated is more false than true. This leads to bad, but rapid, analysis; to incorrect, but rapid, responses. We need to learn to sit back and let events unfold without feeling we have to respond immediately to each and every one. And we need to think through all the possible consequences, not just the most facile rationales or the most immediately horrifying or gratifying possibilities. First reports from the field, goes the military dictum, are generally wrong. We need to remember that.
But more importantly even than that, we need to remember that some goals are important to achieve. We need to remember that goals often have costs that need to be paid, and in this case, while the ashes were still settling over Manhattan, we put a very high price indeed on this particular goal. The world situation has not so changed as to make the goal unreasonable, or unnecessary to achieve. So we must attain our goal.
And we must remember that strategies sometimes are not quite right, but that it is better to do something that makes incremental gains than to do nothing, or worse still to pretend to be doing something while really just hoping the problem goes away. Worst of all is to pretend to be doing something useful while actually doing something guaranteed to make it harder, even impossible, to obtain our goals. If our strategies aren't quite right, we need to adjust them. We do not need to scrap them. If going to the store to get something turns out to be a bad idea, because that store doesn't carry that particular item, it doesn't mean you go to the park instead; it means you find the store that has the item you need.
Further we must remember that any plan we make will be flawed, and even if nearly perfect, will require many changes of direction as contingencies change the situation we are responding to. Worse, we could have to rethink the plan if it is not working. You don't throw up your hands if the store is sold out of the item you want; you get an alternate brand, or you go elsewhere, or you wait for the store to restock. Finally, the enemy gets a say in the situation, too. Imagine trying to get milk from the store while being shot at, and you are closer to the problem the military has.
It's possible, of course, to just throw up your hands at the slightest impediment and throw a screaming fit. Most two year olds do it. I've know forty year olds to do it. But those are people who don't get what they want, and who alienate everyone around them along the way. This war is important; this goal must be achieved, if we are to have a hope of leaving a peaceful, free, and prosperous life. And for that reason, we must not throw up our hands at every setback, must not throw a fit when things are imperfect (I'm picturing Andrew Sullivan right now). Instead, we must get the job done, and where we are making mistakes, we must fix them.
Reynolds' approach, though, to declare defeat when something happens that might be bad, or might not, is hardly a way to set about that process. At least, not if we care to win.
September 11, 2006
23:30
Before going to sleep, President Bush writes in his diary, “The Pearl Harbor of the 21st century took place today. ... We think it’s Osama bin Laden.” [Washington Post, 1/27/2002]
22:49
It is reported that Attorney General Ashcroft has told members of Congress that there were three to five hijackers on each plane armed only with knives. [CNN, 9/12/2001]
21:00
President Bush meets with his full National Security Council in the PEOC beneath the White House for about 30 minutes. He then meets with a smaller group of key advisers. Bush and his advisers have already decided bin Laden is behind the attacks. CIA Director Tenet says that al-Qaeda and the Taliban in Afghanistan are essentially one and the same. Bush says, “Tell the Taliban We’re finished with them.” [Washington Post, 1/27/2002] He goes on to say, “I want you all to understand that we are at war and we will stay at war until this is done. Nothing else matters. Everything is available for the pursuit of this war. Any barriers in your way, they’re gone. Any money you need, you have it. This is our only agenda.” When Rumsfeld points out that international law only allows force to prevent future attacks and not for retribution, Bush yells, “No. I don’t care what the international lawyers say, we are going to kick some ass.” [Clarke, 2004, pp. 23-24]
20:30
President Bush addresses the nation on live television. [CNN, 9/12/2001] In what will later be called the Bush Doctrine, he states, “We will make no distinction between the terrorists who committed these acts and those who harbor them.” [Washington Post, 1/27/2002]
19:00
Secretary of State Powell returns to Washington from Lima, Peru. He is finally able to speak to President Bush for the first time since the 9/11 attacks began when they both arrive at the White House at about the same time. Powell later says of his flight, “And the worst part of it, is that because of the communications problems that existed during that day, I couldn’t talk to anybody in Washington.” [ABC News, 9/11/2002] The Daily Telegraph later theorizes, “Why so long? In the weeks before September 11, Washington was full of rumors that Powell was out of favor and had been quietly relegated to the sidelines...” [Daily Telegraph, 12/16/2001]
18:54
President Bush arrives at the White House, after exiting Air Force One at 6:42 p.m. and flying across Washington in a helicopter. [ABC News, 9/11/2002; Salon, 9/12/2001; Washington Times, 10/8/2002; CNN, 9/12/2001; Daily Telegraph, 12/16/2001; Associated Press, 8/19/2002]
18:42
As Air Force One is approaching Andrews Air Force Base, just outside Washington, with the president on board, the FAA reports an aircraft racing towards it. Fighters quickly intercept the aircraft, which turns out to be a Lear business jet, “in the wrong place at the wrong time.” [Filson, 2004, pp. 88]
17:20
Building 7 of the WTC complex, a 47-story tower, collapses. No one is killed. [MSNBC, 9/22/2001; CNN, 9/12/2001; Washington Post, 9/12/2001; Associated Press, 8/19/2002] Many questions will arise over the cause of this collapse in the coming weeks and months. Building 7, which was not hit by an airplane, is the first modern, steel-reinforced high-rise to collapse because of fire. [Chicago Tribune, 11/29/2001; Stanford Report, 12/5/2001; New York Times, 3/2/2002] Some later suggest that the diesel fuel stored in several tanks on the premises may have contributed to the building’s collapse. The building contained a 6,000-gallon tank between its first and second floors and another four tanks, holding as much as 36,000 gallons, below ground level. There were also three smaller tanks on higher floors. [Chicago Tribune, 11/29/2001; New York Times, 3/2/2002; New York Observer, 3/25/2002; Federal Emergency Management Agency, 5/1/2002] However, the cause of the collapse is uncertain. A 2002 government report concludes: “The specifics of the fires in WTC 7 and how they caused the building to collapse remain unknown at this time. Although the total diesel fuel on the premises contained massive potential energy, the best hypothesis has only a low probability of occurrence.” [Federal Emergency Management Agency, 5/1/2002] Some reports indicate that the building may have been deliberately destroyed. Shortly after the collapse, CBS News anchor Dan Rather comments that the collapse is “reminiscent of ... when a building was deliberately destroyed by well-placed dynamite to knock it down.” [CBS News, 9/11/2001]
16:33
President Bush leaves Offutt Air Force Base in Nebraska for Washington. [MSNBC, 9/22/2001; CNN, 9/12/2001; Daily Telegraph, 12/16/2001; Washington Times, 10/8/2002]
16:30
The area around WTC Building 7 is evacuated at this time. [Kansas City Star, 3/28/2004] New York fire department chief officers, who have surveyed the building, have determined it is in danger of collapsing. Several senior firefighters have described this decision-making process. According to fire chief Daniel Nigro, “The biggest decision we had to make was to clear the area and create a collapse zone around the severely damaged [WTC Building 7]. A number of fire officers and companies assessed the damage to the building. The appraisals indicated that the building’s integrity was in serious doubt.” [Fire Engineering, 9/2002]
16:15
After President Bush leaves his video conference, other top leaders continue to discuss what steps to take. Counterterrorism “tsar” Richard Clarke asks what to do about al-Qaeda, assuming they are behind the attacks. Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage states, “Look, we told the Taliban in no uncertain terms that if this happened, it’s their ass. No difference between the Taliban and al-Qaeda now. They both go down.” Regarding Pakistan, the Taliban’s patrons, Armitage says, “Tell them to get out of the way. We have to eliminate the sanctuary.” [Clarke, 2004, pp. 22-23]
16:10
World Trade Center Building 7 is reported to be on fire. [CNN, 9/12/2001]
16:00
CNN reports US officials say there are “good indications” that bin Laden is involved in the attacks, based on “new and specific” information developed since the attacks. [CNN, 9/12/2001]
President Bush has just told his advisers that he is returning to Washington as soon as the plane is fueled— “No discussion.” [Clarke, 2004, pp. 21-22] Yet, Bush adviser Karl Rove later says that at this time President Bush is hesitant to return to Washington because, “they’ve accounted for all four [hijacked] planes, but they’ve got another, I think, three or four or five planes still outstanding.” [New Yorker, 9/25/2001] However, the FAA points out there are no such reports and that Bush had been quickly informed when domestic US skies were completely cleared at 12:16 p.m. [Wall Street Journal, 3/22/2004]
15:55
White House adviser Karen Hughes briefly speaks to the media and says President Bush is at an undisclosed location, taking part in a video conference. This is possibly the only in-person media appearance by any Bush administration official since the attacks and until a news conference by Defense Secretary Rumsfeld at 6:40 p.m. [CNN, 9/12/2001]
15:00
President Bush begins a video conference call from a bunker beneath Offutt Air Force Base. He and Chief of Staff Andrew Card visually communicate directly with Vice President Cheney, National Security Adviser Rice, Defense Secretary Rumsfeld, Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage, CIA Director Tenet, Transportation Secretary Norman Mineta, counterterrorism “tsar” Richard Clarke, and others. [Daily Telegraph, 12/16/2001; Washington Times, 10/8/2002; ABC News, 9/11/2002] According to Clarke, Bush begins the meeting by saying, “I’m coming back to the White House as soon as the plane is fueled. No discussion.” Clarke leads a quick review of what has already occurred, and issues that need to be quickly addressed. CIA Director Tenet states that al-Qaeda is clearly behind the 9/11 attacks. Defense Secretary Rumsfeld states that about 120 fighters are now above US cities. [Clarke, 2004, pp. 21-22] The meeting ends at 4:15 P.M. [Daily Telegraph, 12/16/2001; Washington Times, 10/8/2002]
14:50
Having left Barksdale Air Force Base, Louisiana at around 1:30 p.m. (see (1:30 p.m.)), Air Force One lands at Offutt Air Force Base near Omaha, Nebraska. President Bush stays on the plane for about ten minutes before entering the United States Strategic Command bunker at 3:06 p.m. [Daily Telegraph, 12/16/2001; Salon, 9/12/2001] Offutt Air Force Base appears to be the headquarters of the US Strategic Command (Stratcom) exercise Global Guardian that was “in full swing” at the time the attacks began (see 8:30 a.m.). While there, the president spends time in the underground Command Center from where Global Guardian was earlier being directed, being brought up to date on the attacks and their aftermath. [Daily Telegraph, 12/16/2001; Omaha World-Herald, 2/27/2002; Washington Times, 10/8/2002]
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